Want to Create Your Own Linux Distro? There’s a Game for That

Where operating systems are concerned, it could be argued that Linux offers more “choice” than any other. There exist so many different distributions, that the challenge is finding the one perfectly suited for you. I will go out on a limb, though, and say that if there’s anything more complicated than finding the right distro, it’s building the right distro. But how would you know that if you have no reference point? Enter Linux Tycoon.

A creation of Linux advocate Brian Lunduke, Linux Tycoon places you in the role of project lead, allowing you to build a distro from the ground up. You’ll be able to choose which packages make it in, and then tell volunteers or paid staff where to spend their time. The ultimate goal? To become the #1 distro on the planet, of course. You’ll have to beat out “Ooboontoo” (the proper pronounciation of Ubuntu, rougly), though.

The game is being sold for $4, and is currently in its beta stage. Despite being Linux-focused, the source code is not being provided. Nonetheless, the game emulates quite well what it’s like to manage a distro, though things are made much, much simpler. You can assign people to fix bugs, but don’t have to prioritize them or even see what the bugs are. It’d be cool to have that sort of feature added down the road, however.

The selection of packages to include in your distro is also limited, and all of the names are fake. Instead, much like the distro names in the “DistroRank” charts, all of them are either made up or derived from a real name (eg: Ooboontoo, Plebian, ChakaLaka, et cetera). The entire time you play, there is a date up at the top-right corner that continues to chug along at a rate of about one day per second. In between your major releases, you can work to fix bugs, edit your packages, and so forth. The better you manage things, the quicker you will reach the top of the charts.

Being a beta, there are of course bugs. One of the most noticeable to me is that even if your bug counts are low, and your distro seems fine, it might receive poor reviews. There were even occasions where I’d receive a good and bad review from the same publication for the same version – obviously a little nonsensical. The most noticeable problem at the moment is the lack of a save feature… a problem that will hopefully be rectified soon (the developer promises to update the game regularly during its beta period). 

There’s major potential in this game, however. If a little more complexity is added, this could actually be quite a deep game. If you want to support an indie dev and see this game get better, $4 is not a hard price to stomach. If management games are not your bag, you might just want to stand aside.