The ISO images are compressed with RAR. What a bizarre choice.
I didn't even know RAR was still around/used.
It's pretty popular in more casual circles. I'm pretty sure it's still the chosen format for videogame mods and the like
Linux Distributions Archives
11–20 of 29 posts
Re: Linux Distributions Archives
#12That brings back some memories. I'm disappointed they don't seem to have any Yggdrasil archives, as I remember liking that and can't find any of my old disks.
Re: Linux Distributions Archives
#13Wow, I remember the days of the late 90s early 2000s checking out every distro I could get my hands on. I ordered so many from Cheapbytes and Linux Central. (I feel like there may have been a Linux Mall in there somewhere too). I just couldn't believe that these complete distros were free to install and use! RedHat 6.0, Debian Slink. NetBSD 1.4, Slackware.... Getting these things set up and then installing something…
I miss this as well - I had totally forgotten about ordering distro CD's online. I would also get them from the book store - a book about RedHat would include a copy in the back, for example.
Re: Linux Distributions Archives
#14Redat 3.0.3 was my first linux distro back in 96. It came on a set of 6 CDs from Walnut Creek. Together with Slackware & something else i dont remember.
Yeah I had that CD set as well. I think there was Debian on there as well, but I believe the installer was broken at that point so it was difficult or impossible to get a booting Debian system.
Re: Linux Distributions Archives
#15Wow, I remember the days of the late 90s early 2000s checking out every distro I could get my hands on. I ordered so many from Cheapbytes and Linux Central. (I feel like there may have been a Linux Mall in there somewhere too). I just couldn't believe that these complete distros were free to install and use! RedHat 6.0, Debian Slink. NetBSD 1.4, Slackware.... Getting these things set up and then installing something…
I used to buy Linux magazines that contained a CD. TurboLinux, Storm Linux...
Re: Linux Distributions Archives
#16Re: Linux Distributions Archives
#17My first Linux distro was SLS Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softlanding_Linux_System
I first installed it in late 1993, back in the kernel 0.99.10 days, eventually moving on to Slackware...
Re: Linux Distributions Archives
#18> Metro-X Server I have never heard of this! I have always used XFree86 (later forked to Xorg) as far back as I can remember. From what I can find, this was a commercial/closed source server that shipped for $99. There doesn't seem to be much info it.
I remember Metro-X. It supported several video cards Xfree86 didn't support back then so if you wanted to use newer video cards you had to "acquire" a copy of Metro-X. What's weird it wasn't the only proprietary software commonly used back then. Before drivers for Sound Blaster 16 cards were mainlined in the 2.x kernel we had to use Open Sound System which was commercial software made by this company called 4Front that had a free version.
Re: Linux Distributions Archives
#19> Metro-X Server I have never heard of this! I have always used XFree86 (later forked to Xorg) as far back as I can remember. From what I can find, this was a commercial/closed source server that shipped for $99. There doesn't seem to be much info it.
https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2299 http://ictbanking.com/LJ/035/1374.html Actually Metro-X server sounds quite cool for its time. Multi-display support, X-based GUI for configuration (anyone remember xf86config stuff?)... I actually bought the Red Hat Linux 3.0.3 (and used it and its successors Until Red Hat 7) but the Metro-X didn't support my video card so I was stuck with the XFree86. Does anyone know if th…
> anyone remember xf86config stuff?
Wow, yeah. I also remember the YaST X configuration tool that shipped with SuSE.
Re: Linux Distributions Archives
#20The ISO images are compressed with RAR. What a bizarre choice.
Certainly bizarre. Among other things, almost none of the archived distros can read the RAR format.
It's weird, come to think of it, that RAR has existed for a quarter of a century, and yet the format has never been documented or reverse-engineered and no FOSS implementations exist. The only way to make a RAR file is the official program, which is binary-only shareware; there is public source code for extracting RARs but under a license that explicitly forbids using it to reverse-engineer the format.
But I guess the overlap between people who care about all that and people interested in the kind of stuff RAR is used for is next to minimal.