[wasting_time]

NixOS and Guix are fairly established in this regard.

macOS is certified Unix, and necessarily implements the "legacy" cruft.

[Imustaskforhelp]

I had written a similar comment here asking for people's opinion but I would like to add something that I know about which I didn't see in your list

Tinycorelinux

I know that it doesn't follow the best user practices etc. but I did find its tcz package format fascinating because they kind of work similar to mountable drives and I am not exactly sure but I am fairly certain that a modern package management system where two or more packages with conflicts etc. can run on the same system.

I really enjoyed the idea of gobolinux as well. I haven't played with that but it would be good if some more mainstream os could also implement it. Nix and Guix are more mainstream but they also require to learn a new language and I think that we might need something in the middle like gobo but perhaps more mainstream or adding more ideas / additions perhaps? I would love it if someone can tell me about some projects we are missing to talk about and what they add on the table etc.

I haven't tried Gobo though so I am not sure but I really wish more distros could add features like gobo, perhaps even having a gobofied debian/fedora eh?

[chuckadams]

Tinycore's package format sounds a lot like containers, except I imagine containers can do a whole lot more, what with namespaces and all. Can't say for sure, but it sounds like snap and flatpak are its spiritual successors.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

I liked Tinycorelinux once upon a time but isn't it unmaintained now?

[behnamoh]

at some point we gotta let go of legacy stuff tho, and Apple has shown in the past that they're not afraid of doing that.