I still remember the disappointment I felt when, as a kid, tried Linux for the first time ever thanks to a magazine-attached live CD.

After years of hearing about this "alternative" OS, I was horrified to discover a UI that's very close to that of Windows. It felt boring and not as thrilling as I expected.

Today, I still appreciate the courage of those who go off the beaten roads of OS Land; even those that aren't as fun as templeOS.

I feel that back in the 80s QNX had already accomplished what Hurd had set out to do (https://blackberry.qnx.com/en/products/qnx-everywhere). Blackberry bought QNX decades after its creation but the core architecture - microkernel-based, modular, and real-time - was already mature and production-ready long before Hurd left the lab. Moreover, I've never known another OS to implement synchronous thread message passing the way QNX does.