Linux has more flavors than (Mountain Dew + Gatorade)*Baskin Robbins. Of course, some of those distributions are far more valuable than others. But besides the Ubuntus, Fedoras, Linux Mints, PCLinuxOSes, and OpenSuSEs, which versions are actually worth your time? Believe it or not, worthy Linux distributions are not limited to the big guns. There are plenty of obscure distributions worth looking at. Here are a few lesser-known Linux distributions that could have a positive effect on your life in one way or another.
Note: This article is also available as a PDF download.
1: Damn Vulnerable Linux
Damn Vulnerable Linux is exactly what it sounds like. According to the Web site, “Damn Vulnerable Linux (DVL) is everything a good Linux distribution isn’t. Its developers have spent hours stuffing it with broken, ill-configured, outdated, and exploitable software that makes it vulnerable to attacks.” What value would such a distribution hold? Training. The idea behind this distribution is to train Linux admins. And what better way to train someone than to hand them a broken distribution to fix? With older/broken versions of Apache, MySQL, PHP, FTP, and SSH, your admins in training will have their hands full.
2: CAINE Linux
CAINE Linux might be one of the niftiest of the niche Linux distributions. CAINE stands for Computer Aided INvestigative Environment. Basically, it’s CIS Linux designed for digital forensics. CAINE includes TheSleuthKit, Autopsy Forensic Browser, steganography tools, and plenty of tools for wiping hard drives. This distribution also includes a semi-automated tool for the compilation of the final report on a digital forensics investigation.
3: Zeroshell
Zeroshell is an interesting Linux distribution aimed at embedded systems — specifically, networking hardware. It’s administrated through a Web interface and can provide all networking services required for a LAN. With Zeroshell, you can set up Failover, RADIUS, Captive Portal, Quality of Service management, HTTP Proxy, Wireless Access Point, Host-to-LAN VPN, LAN-to-LAN VPN, Routing with Static or Dynamic IP Addressing, and much more.
4: Parted Magic
Parted Magic is similar to the Gparted Live CD, only it adds a few more tools (such as Clonezille, TestDisk, Partimage, Trucrypt, G4L, SuperGrubDisk, and ddrescue). This type of tool is ideal for managing partitions as well as troubleshooting drives and various issues. This particular Linux distribution works on x86 hardware and requires 256MB of RAM to operate in. Parted Magic can work with the following partition types: ext2, ext3, ext4, fat16, fat32, hfs, hfs+, jfs, linux-swap, ntfs, reiserfs, reiser4, and xfs.
5: Tiny Core
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