Here are some independent distros I think need more respect/recognition:

• CRUX - It's proper old school, been around for ages, still does things the old school ways, gets you perhaps more knowledge of your system than even archlinux, slackware, gentoo...
• KISS (and/or Carbs) - Similarly keeps you hands-on tight to your system.
• Exherbo - Takes commitment, to go from 0 to 10, users as developers. Godly, if you can.
• SliTaZ - Still as small as the old small DamnSmallLinux, and more pleasant (comparable to SLAX and Puppy).
• Gobo - Always needs honorary mention. Unique file system layout ... ~ Would be cool if that were simply something we could toggle on any distro... Surely that's just someone taking an afternoon with an LLM making XDG configurations... no? Okay, probably more complicated than I know. ~ But I digress...
• GuixSD - Manage your system with guile.
• PCLinuxOS - Convenient, catering to desktop users. Nice community spins. Oddly uses RPM package format, but with apt interface.
• BedrockLinux - What I've used for about 14 years as my daily driver. It's cheating. ;) Linux's best kept secret.

Big fan of each of these.

Also peripherally aware of...

• venom
• adelie
• milis
• side (uses PiSi package manager)
• ToaruOS (idk, just saw it for the first time now... showing there's always more to explore...)