> As a user being able to install packages without root and start my own services and mount network drives without root would make my life a lot easier.

... but that's not a problem of linux, that's a problem of your company rules. They would put similar rules whatever the OS.

Locked down was probably not the right word, I'm just a normal user with no root access. It is a linux problem because the admins are trying to do something pretty sensible, not let a single user screw up the machine for everyone and restricting users is how linux achieves this, HURD took a different approach.

> As a user being able to install packages without root and start my own services

The future is today:) Nix is a package manager that can run without root. Gentoo prefix installs are an option. Or if you want something more traditional, proot can run a decent number of distros. Maybe also fakeroot? Haven't tried that personally.

No idea if there's a FUSE module for NFS/CIFS, though sshfs is a thing.

There are ways to prevent users to run any kind of executable from $HOME.

Oh, you have a policy problem rather than a technical problem. In that case, I'm not sure how it would help to have a system where user control was normal, since invariably it would be locked down in exactly the same way. I don't think HURD will prevent mounting /home with noexec.

I am not the OP, and by the way, mounting /home with noexec isn't the only way to prevent execution. :)

Polkit already allows regular users to manage services [1]. Of course that would require the admins responsible for the system to set it up in such a way.

[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Polkit#Allow_management...