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The Linux Distributions of 1992

lunduke.substack.com

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Re: The Linux Distributions of 1992

#101

Post by guenthert »

"Of the systems created in 1992, SLS (Softlanding Linux System) had what I would consider to be the biggest impact."

Wasn't the impact not also due to the cunning marketing trick calling it SLS 1.0, when people were eagerly awaiting Linux 1.0 for months?

Re: The Linux Distributions of 1992

#102

Post by rufus_foreman »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #95
nobleach wrote: post #5

I recall being in a B. Dalton Bookstore in the mid-90's. I picked up a book that had "Linux" on the cover. In the cover it had a floppy disk or two. Something felt very wrong to me. You can't give away an entire operation system! Perhaps this was just some "free for educational purposes" thing? I went home and fired up WebCrawler on AOL and came across Yggdrasil. I had experienced Unix on an SGI system. And I was ver…

I knew about Linux before trying it, so the free part was no surprise. My uncanny valley was being able to recompile the kernel with any options I wanted to; that felt both cool and unnatural, like "why aren't protecting their source code?".

Building from source was the fun part when I first got into Linux. Trying to get the modules down to the smallest subset possible that would run on my machine just to see how fast I could get it to boot.

Tricky part was it was a dual boot Windows installation on a single hard drive, I was always worried I would screw something up that I couldn't recover from since I needed the computer for school. Somehow I didn't mess up anything I couldn't recover from.

Re: The Linux Distributions of 1992

#103

Post by amelius »

_xy8h wrote: post #99
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this trend continues in the Linux Desktop community. It seems it never outgrew its teenager mindset.

I think most of the teenager mindset moved towards the Apple camp. Apple has been far more restrictive and anticompetitive than Microsoft ever was at its worst. Mention something like how Safari being the only allowed web engine on iOS and get downvoted, don't agree that Google is the ultimate evil and point out they're open sourcing Android, Chromium and etc... get downvoted. The embrace of Apple on tech sites is so…

Also compare the immense output of Microsoft Research versus the almost non-existent research output of Apple.

Re: The Linux Distributions of 1992

#104

Post by int_19h »

smoldesu wrote: post #92
int_19h wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaming is still a major sticking point when it comes to Windows alternatives. But for Linux specifically, another one is web streaming: some popular services will outright refuse to stream on Linux, presumably due to DRM concerns.

I have no problem with either one of those. I watch Netflix, YouTube, DailyMotion and Vimeo without issue, and game performance is quite good under modern Proton. If those were your two big sticking points, it's probably time to try Linux again.

Hulu was outright refusing to play anything a couple of months ago, for example.

Re: The Linux Distributions of 1992

#105

Post by solmich »

anezch wrote: post #52
terrywang wrote: post #12

Grew up in China, the first Linux distro, in fact non-Windows OS was Red Bar Linux 6.3 (I form of CDs sold in those pirated software shops, never saw Linux on floppy), no one else around me use anything other than Windows (99.99% pirated). It opened up a door for me, later on I bought Mandrake Linux 8.1 (with Chinese input method and fonts - displaying CJK was pain back then). Fedora Core 1 was my main desktop and th…

I live in Indonesia and have a very similar experience and situation (99.99% pirated Windows) with you. From Mandrake 8 to Fedora to Ubuntu 6. I remembered the time when I got my Ubuntu and Kubuntu CDs posted. The experience of using apt to download and update packages were a mindblowing experience at that time. That and the simplicity of Ubuntu was the main reason that I managed to persuade the management in the com…

I got Mandrake 8 from InfoLinux magazine during their roadshows among universities in early 2000s, along with Rusmanto and Onno Purbo. Good old days.

Re: The Linux Distributions of 1992

#106

Post by throwawayboise »

13of40 wrote: post #79
nobleach wrote: post #5

I recall being in a B. Dalton Bookstore in the mid-90's. I picked up a book that had "Linux" on the cover. In the cover it had a floppy disk or two. Something felt very wrong to me. You can't give away an entire operation system! Perhaps this was just some "free for educational purposes" thing? I went home and fired up WebCrawler on AOL and came across Yggdrasil. I had experienced Unix on an SGI system. And I was ver…

I used Linux for the first time around 1993, and had it installed on a 386SX(?) with a satisfying amber monochrome screen, both of which I got for less than $100 total, IIRC. Anyway, I had a friend whose mother ran a small data processing business, and it was known in our circle of nerd friends that she was in possession of a "real Unix machine". And what a machine it was - a beige box the size of a small car, with i…

I didn't use Linux proper until 2000. I had used Minix in around 1988/89 for an operating systems class. Never struck me as odd to be running a unix on my 8088 PC with 1 floppy drive. At the time it just seemed like a more powerful DOS.

Re: The Linux Distributions of 1992

#107

Post by martin1975 »

minitoar wrote: post #78

Bit off topic, but Lunduke is a racism denier. It's hard for me take anything he says seriously when he just completely denies the existence of systemic racism.

Systemic - to me at least - means it's a matter of law, thus it affects everyone. I prefer to think of today's instances of racism as an individual/collective (by collective, I don't mean LARGE numbers necessarily) occurrences, rather than systemic. Assuming you aren't looking for perfection - which means no racist thought/word/deed in anyone in the USA - including non-whites who can also be very racist, fyi - then I'd say racism is on the whole pretty rare.

On the other hand, I do believe mental slavery is more prevalent than individual/collective racism :).

Re: The Linux Distributions of 1992

#108

Post by incompatible »

richard_todd wrote: post #30

I was at TAMU from 1995 to 1999, and ran either RedHat or Slackware. In the CS department where I worked part time it was all Solaris. Never heard of this TAMU distribution, but I would have been interested in helping to revive it if I had. Oh well!

I had TAMU as my first system, in 1993 I think. I didn't have a very effective internet connection but managed to get a copy on a pile of floppies. After that, I maintained it for years by hand by updating from individual source packages (I remember the upgrade to ELF being quite painful).

Re: The Linux Distributions of 1992

#109

Post by cmrdporcupine »

I used hjlu first, then mcc and then sls. I think. Never encountered TAMU, didn't try Yggdrasil. I think I ended using SLS longest. Most of this downloaded first with a 1200 baud and then 9600 baud modem. Vague recollection anyways. 486/50, 8MB RAM, 200MB drive. Memories.
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