Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Linux during the mid to late 90s (Windows 95 and 98 era) (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by Tekkip20@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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For those veteran linux people, what was it like back in 90s? I did see and hear of Unix systems being available for use but I did not see much apart from old versions of Debian in use.

Were they prominent in education like universities? Was it mainly a hobbyist thing at the time compared to the business needs of 98, 95 and classic mac?

I ask this because I found out that some PC games I owned were apparently also on Linux even in CD format from a firm named Loki.

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[–] HarriPotero@lemmy.world 23 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (17 children)

Slackware and Red Hat were the two distros in use in the mid 90s.

My local city used proper UNIX, and my university had ~~IRIXworkstations~~ SPARCstations and SunOS servers. We used Linux at my ISP to handle modem pools and web/mail/news servers. In the early 2000s we had Linux labs, and Linux clusters to work on.

Linux on the desktop was a bit painful. There were no modules. Kernels had to fit into main memory. So you'd roll your own kernel with just the drivers you needed. XFree86 was tricky to configure with timings for your CRT monitors. If done wrong, you could break your monitor.

I used FVWM2 and Enlightenment for many years. I miss Enlightenment.

[–] andrewth09@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

If done wrong, you could break your monitor.

You mean your graphic drivers, right? not your actual hardware?

(edit: oh no)

[–] truls46@mastodon.social 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

@andrewth09 I bricked a monitor when I tried to fiddle with the graphics settings in Linux back in the late 90s (tried to get it to run on 1280*1024 - which was considered "hi resolution" back then). I had to buy a new monitor. Then installed Windows and only returned to Linux a long time after that.

[–] Entropywins@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

The lessons we learn...

[–] mkwt@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Oh yeah. I remember all the warnings plastered all over the X11 config file about how dangerous the settings were if you got them wrong.

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