Windows XP was a decent OS. You could start with a golden ISO (remove a whole lot of crap) and then tweak the registry to your hearts content. Max out RAM, then when you add an SSD, it felt sublime.

Its not Linux, but all hardware worked on Windows XP. Nerds were familiar with tweaking the registry, doing all kinds of hacks and helping all their friends and family. Of course, cleaning out the thousands of viruses from friends computers wasn't fun ..

Then Microsoft released Windows Vista, yuck!