There's definitely something of a season of madness going on in the Linux distro world right now, though it hasn't dented the distros' quality in the least. ArchBang, for instance, spent part of last year calling itself GreenBang, because its developer feared attracting unwanted attention from Arch Linux IP holders, before reverting to its original name. Then, an apparent April Fool's announcement about abandoning systemd and moving to an Alpine Linux base turned into a genuine (if short-lived) GreenBang side project. Finally, its experimental MangoWM-powered Wayland spin, FruitBang, was folded back into the main distro and rebranded as ArchBang in time for its latest release.

Then there's Galactic Mandate Linux, which one might think comes straight from the manifesto of the UK's latest up-and-coming politician Count Binface [1]. Galactic Mandate Linux is a gloriously unhinged Ubuntu and Budgie remix built almost entirely as an elaborate marketing vehicle for a self-published sci-fi novel series by M. R. Richardson, complete with HUDs, red alert modes, and the inevitable Buy the Book button. Still, this distro is in no danger of unseating the most stupendous and ludicrous of them all: Hannah Montana Linux, which has been resurrected after 17 years, affording me an opportunity to insert as many Hannah/Miley song references into the review as possible (see if you can spot them all.)

Readers could be forgiven for thinking that the Linux ecosystem is coming apart at the seams, but it's in more robust health than it's been in years. Powerful and well made, if chaotic and occasionally ridiculous, this season's crop of distros proves you can have it all.

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