Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

A Trip Down Distro Memory Lane

Posted by timothy on from the early-nostalgia-is-the-best-kind dept.

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."

12 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. Slackware rules! by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In 2000 I was a seasoned Slackware user, and had been so for several years. I did my Master's thesis in LaTeX on a Pentium 233MMX box (which I still have), complete with diagrams done in xfig.

    I did a lot of course work on that box: Viterbi decoding, polyspectral analysis, lots more.

    ...laura

    1. Re:Slackware rules! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Slack was and still is a nice distro for folks that know what they're doing, want a solid, stable system and don't care much about fit and polish or having the latest goodies. I was Slack user and proponent myself for a couple of years.

      The main thing I don't like about Slack is that lack of real package management. I like the power and convenience that tools like Synaptic and apt-get provide -- a lot. And the fit and polish that desktop-oriented distros like Ubuntu offer is a guilty pleasure for me and an absolute necessity for my techno-angst-ridden wife.

      --
      My blog
    2. Re:Slackware rules! by GreatDrok · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I started out with Slackware in late 1994 on a 486DX33 with 8MB of RAM. It was amazing. 40 floppies to install it since I had no CDROM drive. I bought a 14.4 modem and had access to my university e-mail (pine FTW). X11, gcc, Netscape, FTP, the lot. All on a machine with 200MB of disc. I reckon I could function quite happily on that machine even today apart from Netscape which would have to be replaced with Lynx I guess.

      By 2000, a Linux distro was incredibly easy to install by comparison. Today it is even easier. You barely even need to worry about compatibility.

      --
      "I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
    3. Re:Slackware rules! by dbcad7 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Slackware is what I started on.. I remember getting the Cds, making a root and boot disk and installing.. It was during the time of modem internet and I specifically bought a modem that would work (non win-modem).. getting that baby to work was a challenge but always satisfying once the puzzles were solved. I kept that modem through several upgrades and new systems.

      I think the order of discovery for me, was.. Slackware, Redhat, Mandrake, Debian .. once I got a taste of Debian, it's been Debian based distro's ever since.

      Things sure have come a long way.. but I don't regret the hours I spent solving problems way back then.. as I said there was a certain satisfaction to getting something to work.

      --
      waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
    4. Re:Slackware rules! by arelas · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Impressive, 8MB ram in 94...I think I only had 4 and that cost me dearly.

    5. Re:Slackware rules! by GreatDrok · · Score: 3, Interesting

      arelas said: "Impressive, 8MB ram in 94...I think I only had 4 and that cost me dearly."

      I was able to upgrade it a few years later to 20MB as I found four 4MB memory sticks. 1MB sticks were pretty easy to come by but the 4MB ones were pretty rare. Linux would run fairly well in 4MB but 8 was definitely better and with 20MB it flew. I had a 386 laptop which only had 2MB and I was able to get a very bare install of Slackware onto it just for shits and giggles of course. Using PLIP I was able to network it to my 486 and use it as a terminal. X was too much for it to manage mind you but it was cool just for command line stuff. I even had a VT100 emulator on my Psion 3a. Since the 486 had the 14.4 modem, I was able to share my internet connection from it to my growing selection of rescued machines. By 1996 I was running a SUN SPARCStation 1 with OpenBSD as my main work machine. I managed to get 64MB of RAM for it, a 19" monitor and it was a very nice environment to write my PhD thesis up using LaTeX. I really miss the Type 4 SUN Keyboard and optical mouse.

      --
      "I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
  2. Re:SuSE Ruled... by Shuntros · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'd be interested if you could give a full breakdown of what SuSE's shortcomings are since Novell took them over. I've used SuSE since the late 90s. It was never foolproof, no distro is, but despite trying a number of other distros I still find it preferable to all of them, including Ubuntu.

  3. It was a nightmare for regular users in 2000... by WiiVault · · Score: 4, Interesting

    and look how far it has come. Seriously, despite some remaining imperfections Linux has turned into a really pleasant desktop experience. I remember when installing Linux was a nightmare, with dozens of configurations, tons of unsupported hardware, and the need for highly advanced skills just to make it usable. Now it is rare to have to mess with the details- for the most part it just works. I'm primarily a Mac user, but I do a lot of stuff on my Ubuntu install as well, I am just shocked at how far Linux has come and quite interested in what is to come.

    1. Re:It was a nightmare for regular users in 2000... by Vlobulle · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well, in 2009 the audio system is still a complete mess and the screen configuration (setting the resolution and multiscreen settings) not far behind.

  4. Sad To Remember by hduff · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You'll find my name in the contributors for documentation in Mandrake 7.0, and it was an excellent distro in 2000 and remains so today. They would likely be a more significant distro today had they not experienced near-fatal management problems (mostly a re-focus of resources on computer-aided learning). Corporate bankruptcy did not help even though they emerged from it, a rare occurrence in France. But their biggest failure was to develop admin tools for their Red Hat-clone in Perl rather than what Red Hat used, Python, probably the combination of developer preference and a desire to be "NOT" Red Hat. They also introduced a number of incompatibilities just because they thought their way was better (and it may have been). Their style/icon/theme choices were not the best either (plain and cartoon-ish) and failed to appeal to younger Linux enthusiasts. They had a good concept with "Red Hat done better" and should have stuck with that. It is still my distro of choice, even with my familiarity of Red Hat (I've been a Red Hat Fedora Unleashed co-author). But it's sad to remember the opportunities squandered at Mandrake/Mandriva. I would suggest that anybody give it a try, especially if you have not yet selected a favorite distro. It now does have a nice feel and polish and "just works".

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
  5. Re:A 'get off my lawn' moment by Peter+Simpson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have in my hand, a CDROM marked "December 1993" from Infomagic, I also have Infomagic's 2-CD Linux Developer's Resource from June 1994, with (it says here):

    - complete snapshots of TSX-11.MIT.EDU and sunsite.unc.edu Linux archives

    - SLS 1.05 with kernel 1.0

    - Debian 0.91 beta

    - Preliminary versions of the WINE code

    and a "complete live filesystem!" ...and lots more. Wow. Hard to believe, huh?

    (now, get off my lawn...and here, take this Ubuntu disk and try it out at home)

  6. 2000 = late by CarpetShark · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It may have been a wonderous time, but it's also the time when Windows was starting to offer a stable platform that competed in some respects. Back in '94 or so... now THAT was a good time. A full 32-bit, fully multitasking OS, with server apps, programming tools, music players, virtual desktops, decent package management, good internet, tried and tested security, choice of window system and widgets (not just X and KDE or GNOME, but Openlook, MGR, etc.) all while Windows was still deciding whether to include a browser by default.