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A Trip Down Distro Memory Lane
M-Saunders writes "What did the Linux world look like back in 2000? TuxRadar has republished a distro roundup from Linux Format issue 1, May 2000. Many distros such as SUSE, Mandrake and Red Hat are still around in various incarnations, but a few such as Corel and Definite have fallen by the wayside."
...until Novell bought them out. When it became apparent that Novell wasn't going to uphold the SuSE quality, I switched over to Ubuntu. Haven't looked back since.
You say it, in 2000 I set up a Gentoo system on one of those early Pentium III Notebooks. Yes, sure, it took me a couple of hours. But guess what, I still use it every day, exclusively. Just copied it from box to box over the years. So I'd say that time was quite a good investment ;)
Really? One of the huge original selling points for me was that Linux made (nearly) all the drivers open source and distributed as part of the kernel. This idea is really important because it means that once a driver for something is made it sticks around forever (sans growing pains every once in a while). Personally, I think this issue is why Linux will win in the long run and why Windows Vista was such a huge catastrophe - Linux will always update drivers for even the most obscure hardware where MS has to convince external entities to do the updates. Since these entities are not always amenable to this plan, and sometimes no-longer exist, the "Linux plan" has huge long-term advantages.
... how much gnome sucked (was it ver 1.4?) and kde ruled. KDE was under an evil license back then, though.
Gnome was about to "take over the world" with their ingenious CORBA based "Bonobo", which is still around (though very little noise is made of it these days, c.f. Mono).
Now that I look at these pics in retrospect, I can recall the huge UI discrepancy Linux had with windows. Windows these days does not look much better than back in 2000, but boy, has Linux caught up.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
I built a Slackware system and had it dual-booting on my 486-33 at my new job. I was using it (with X11 and Motif) as an Xterminal off our UNIX system to do schematic capture, after I got fed up with Win3.1 and QEMM (which was what I was supposed to be using).
That the same hardware could perform so much better running Linux (versus Win3.1) was a real eye-opener .
Have not thought a Microsoft OS was worth paying for since.
The biggest difference from Linux of 2000 and Linux of 2009, is that you didn't have go buy a new video card just to run the latest desktop.
In my mind this scenario is not full of exceptions, these exceptions exist on a local time scale. I see it is a matter of "when" rather than "if" - eventually a fully functional driver will get included, and when that day comes it will work forever thereafter (it is very incredibly rare for drivers to be removed).
...I cannot figure out exactly what pulse audio is really for, but I "fixed" my fedora 10 system sounds by totally removing PA, going to sound prefs and checking alsa everything, rebooting, going to terminal and doing alsaunmute. Bam, all my sound works fine now. And I fixed my vid by downloading system-config-display and using that. Why they don't include that in the default install like they used to I do not know.
I wish there was something along the lines of a more stable RH/RPM desktop system between bleeding edge and always something broken fedora and expensive "enterprise" redhat.* I'd actually pay RH for a consumer desktop system that would do all media and etc even if it was only 99% "pure if they made one with long term support, just not what they are asking for some business model server hybrid "workstation" system. They used to charge 60 bucks, then dumped that for free broken or expensive mostly not broken, I want a sweet spot in the middle there someplace. Twice a year fedora releases is too much, by the time you have everything all tweaked and running smooth, its back to broken stuff, and on dialup, forget it, about impossible to stay updated. I understand and that's fine for devs and tinkerers, but not for just a user who isn't a dev (that would be me and I bet a few million other people).
*The CentOS guys are adamant they are enterprise/server and don't care too much for the desktop, I've checked them out and don't like that attitude on their forums too much, and I don't run servers anyway, just want a bit more of a better and longer running desktop. I think the market is there especially if they (they being redhat) did an apple and sold hardware with it preinstalled so everything "just worked", a desktop system, a lappie, and a netbook.. And not the Dell example either, they play act at support for ubuntu (top of Dell's linux pages they recommend vista-that's play acting at support IMO)
Many of us did, back before they were evil. It was way ahead of the others at the time.
For collection sake, i kept my copy of both workstation and server. About the same time i bought a license for Staroffice.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I am shocked on how little it has moved sense then. The only thing is better hardware detection... But that was because hardware manufacutres got REALLY REALLY STUPID and focuses stricly on Windows Only hardware. They made a D2A and a A2D converter and hooked it up to a telephone socket and Called it a Win Modem. The took out the Logic board in a printer and called it a Win Printer. There was a slew of really bad hardware that was all driver driven making it hard for Linux to do anything. They have seem to gotten a little better from then. But still Compared to Windows or Mac it is second par in Hardware detection. But at least you have more options. But besided hardware detection and installing little has changed from my Slackware Distribution in 1994.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I beg your pardon. You're referring to dependency management. Slackware has had "real" package management for YEARS.
For real people... stop the FUD!
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
You should not have been modded troll, but a zealot must have stung you. I would agree with how you feel about the fonts, but more so that Linux works and looks like something you'd grab from the software bin at the Salvation Army or Goodwill Store.
"When you see a unixer brainwashed beyond saving, kick him out of the door." - Xah Lee