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OpenSource.com Test-Drives Linux Distros From 1993 To 2003 (opensource.com)
An anonymous reader quotes OpenSource.com:
A unique trait of open source is that it's never truly EOL (End of Life). The disc images mostly remain online, and their licenses don't expire, so going back and installing an old version of Linux in a virtual machine and getting a precise picture of what progress Linux has made over the years is relatively simple... Whether you're new to Linux, or whether you're such an old hand that most of these screenshots have been more biographical than historical, it's good to be able to look back at how one of the largest open source projects in the world has developed. More importantly, it's exciting to think of where Linux is headed and how we can all be a part of that, starting now, and for years to come.
The article looks at seven distros -- Slackware 1.01 (1993), Debian 0.91 (1994), Jurix/S.u.S.E. (1996), SUSE 5.1 (1998), Red Hat 6.0 (1999), Mandrake 8.0 (2001), and Fedora 1 (2003). Click through for some of the highlights.
The article looks at seven distros -- Slackware 1.01 (1993), Debian 0.91 (1994), Jurix/S.u.S.E. (1996), SUSE 5.1 (1998), Red Hat 6.0 (1999), Mandrake 8.0 (2001), and Fedora 1 (2003). Click through for some of the highlights.
- Slackware 1.01 (1993). "The best part about trying Slackware 1.01 is that there's a pre-made image in Qemu's 2014 series of free images, so you don't have to perform the install manually... In more ways than I'd expected, the system feels surprisingly modern. What's missing is any notion of package management. All installs and uninstalls are entirely manual, with no tracking."
- Debian 0.91 (1994). "To try Debian 0.91, I used the floppy disk images available on the Ibiblio digital archive... The install process is surprisingly smooth... The dpkg command exists, but it's an interactive menu-based system... Even so, you can sense the convenience factor in the design concept... I sincerely see why Debian made a splash."
- Jurix/S.u.S.E. (1996). "Because I wasn't specifically looking for the earliest instance, Jurix was the first Linux distribution I found that really 'felt' like it intended the user to use a GUI environment. XFree86 is installed by default, so if you didn't intend to use it, you had to opt out."
- SUSE 5.1 (1998). "I installed SUSE 5.1 from a InfoMagic CD-ROM purchased from a software store in Maryland in 1998. The install process was convoluted compared to those that came before... Included desktops were fvwm, fvwm2, and ctwm. I used fvwm, and it worked as expected. I even discovered tkDesk, a dock and file manager combo pack that is surprisingly similar to Ubuntu's Unity launcher bar."
- Red Hat 6.0 (1999). "The disc I used was purchased in June 1999. The installation was fully guided and remarkably fast... The desktop bundled with Red Hat 6 was, as it still is, GNOME, but the window manager was an early Enlightenment, which also provided the main sound daemon... Unlike later implementations of GNOME, this early version featured a panel at the bottom of the screen, with an application menu and launcher icons and virtual desktop control in a central location."
- Mandrake 8.0 (2001). "Mandrake 8.0 was released in 2001, so it would have been compared to, for instance, Apple OS 9.2 and Windows ME... I'd thought the Red Hat installation process had been nice, but Mandrake's was amazing. It was friendly, it gave the user a chance to test configurations before continuing, it was easy and fast, and it worked almost like magic..."
- Fedora 1 (2003). "The Fedora Core experience is largely indistinguishable from Red Hat 6 or 7. The GNOME desktop is polished, there are all the signature configuration helper applications, and the presentation is clean and professional... A red hat icon marks the applications menu, and the lower GNOME panel holds all the latest Linux application launchers, including the OpenOffice office suite and the Mozilla browser."
Bought the 4 disc Mandrake 8.0 in 2001. It came with an excellent book explaining the basics. Had been running Red Hat 6.1 for about a year and the Mandrake felt much more polished. As I recall at the time I had a Pentium II with 32 mb of RAM and it would run KDE, but worked much better with Fluxbox. A big deal at that time was to play a DVD, which it did with some help of packages from the Penguin Liberation Front. Got me on the internet as well, setting up PPPOE was stressful. Doesn't seem like 16 years ago. Have been running Linux as my main desktop ever since, no complaints.
This wasn't until a few years after 2003, but after trying to install Mandrake Whatever and Red Hat 9.0, I remember installing Debian Sarge. It wasn't magic, but I remember thinking, "So this is what an easy install feel like." No crashes or anything, it just installed easily, 1 step at a time.
The authors were concerned about SCO's zombie lawyers, rising up from the grave like Solomon Grundy, if they were to even touch a disc containing the SCO install media.
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It's really sad that Ximian Gnome, circa 2001-2002, seems more user friendly than the 2017 version of Gnome.
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Worked on ASIC development for F-22 back in the 90's. Management had stupid idea of putting us all in a big room where we had to share Sun IPX's to work on ASIC design. I got permission to build linux PCs so we could work from our desks. I used slackware for X windows terminals. In true defense contractor fashion the PC people bought us the SVGA graphics cards I asked for, but VGA monitors. Luckily I was able to return them and get state of the art 17" 1024x768 ones :)
That was my first Linux install, soon to be followed by Slackware, then Mandrake. At that time Mandrake (and SuSE) had the absolute BEST interfaces going, though - in true Linux/UNIX fashion - they were entirely incompatible. :-) Think AIX's SMIT vs SCO's or Sun's UI experience.
It gives me the opposite nostalgia -- I miss the many bells and whistles of the Gnome 1.x + Enlightenment combo that I started on in Red Hat 6.
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