So a quick look through the github repo, it appears that Node OS is :
1.) New Init Process
2.) New Shell
3.) NPM as a package manager
Not really an "OS" in the traditional terms, but not just a distro. It uses glibc like most other distros. I would consider it half way between a traditional debian derivative and android in the sense that the environment could be completely different from traditional linux.
That said, there is a reason Debian and Fedora (and most other linux distros) look like they do, and thats to be comparable with software.
If this was to stay under active development it could be interesting, however I would seriously be questioning if they are able to package, patch and support the literally hundreds of packages needed to make an effective Linux OS.
Looking back on the great cambrian explosion of linux distributions of the early 2000s, its really not surprising today to find most distros are based on either debian/ubuntu, SLES, Fedora/RedHat, Gentoo or Slackware. The effort to maintain such a number of packages saps such resources that its almost worth delaying using a different package manager until you have dealt with everything else.
Even now I would think the sanest way to do this project would be to build a abstraction layer and use .rpm or .deb packages until you could completely replace it.
Haiku actually seems to be trying to be something very different.
The BeFS filesystem's use of metadata / extended attributes for one, very multi-threaded core libraries and GUI for others. The kernel is also different giving the OS a very different feel.
The goals for Haiku have always seemed around desktop performance unlike most *nix derivatives which either balance other workloads or focus on servers.
NodeOS could offer something different, but what they have mentioned so far doesn't seem that interesting (then again I am not a Node or javascript developer).
I think this would be cloud ready as it seems supremely easy to scale a node webapp within the OS. I prefer express-apps currently, thought I'm looking for something a bit more minimal, e.g. follows the UNIX philosophy - do one thing, and do it well. Would love to use Go for this.
I'm digging the trend of pushing things out of the way and using packaging to solve the big OS hairball .. Just today I booted a small Linux image straight to lua-jit. A delightful platform!
Not really an "OS" in the traditional terms, but not just a distro. It uses glibc like most other distros. I would consider it half way between a traditional debian derivative and android in the sense that the environment could be completely different from traditional linux.
That said, there is a reason Debian and Fedora (and most other linux distros) look like they do, and thats to be comparable with software.
If this was to stay under active development it could be interesting, however I would seriously be questioning if they are able to package, patch and support the literally hundreds of packages needed to make an effective Linux OS.
Looking back on the great cambrian explosion of linux distributions of the early 2000s, its really not surprising today to find most distros are based on either debian/ubuntu, SLES, Fedora/RedHat, Gentoo or Slackware. The effort to maintain such a number of packages saps such resources that its almost worth delaying using a different package manager until you have dealt with everything else.
Even now I would think the sanest way to do this project would be to build a abstraction layer and use .rpm or .deb packages until you could completely replace it.