this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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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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I had slackware on my 386DX 40. 4mb ram. It was kinda short-lived. I never got my modem working. I got a book, paged thought it. Learning shit was hard in the 90's Internet.
I got my modem working in Slackware in 1997 - but the PPP driver (equivalent of WinSock - which worked in Windows quite well at the time) would only work during the first boot of the system. After a reboot, PPP would never return, and the best I got out of the internet about it at the time (mostly using my Windows PC) was "real men connect to the internet through ethernet."
Between that an the useless (unless you enjoy frustration) sound drivers, I declared Linux "not ready for prime time," and left it to others until starting back in via Cygwin in 2003, then Gentoo (for 64 bit access you couldn't get any other way) in 2005.
Yeah I did another couple of false starts over the next couple of years. This time at different jobs. I finally made friends with Redhat on a laptop with Enlightenment WM. I managed to stay Linux in the desktop for the next 14 years. KDE, Gnome , switch to Ubuntu when Red hat decided to go and split out the door, went back to Fedora when Cannocial had their bad boy phase. OSX lured me away and 2015 I think it was. Super disappointed with the level of control I had over the OS, I went back to Windows for WSL. Christian on that until Debian got their shit back together (nonfree). Eventually slid into NixOS, I don't know if it's as painful as slack where I was but it certainly feels like it, and I kind of missed that.
I did OS-X for my MacBookPro daily driver 2006-2008 (said premium laptop dying because of mis-applied thermal paste by the factory) - and started using a bit of Debian and RedHat at the time... my observation was, and still is: they all suck, but in different ways. If you value stability and control, there's no comparison to the open source model. Windows used to have the edge for hardware support, but that has eroded to the point that we had selected a WiFi card for our Linux system this year, but we're having to change now that we're moving to Win11 - no Windows drivers for that M.2 WiFi/BT card.
Similar story but I just installed slackware on one of the University PCs (they just had a handful of PCs in the general computer room for the students and nobody actually watched over us) since I did not have a PC yet (only had a ZX Spectrum at the timback then).
Trying to get X-Windows to work in Slackware was interesting, to say the least: back then you had to manually create your own video timings configuration file to get the graphics to work - which means defining the video mode at the very low level, such as configuring the number of video clock cycles between end-of-line-drawing and horizontal-retrace - and fortunatelly I didn't actually blow up any monitor (which was possible if you did the configuration wrong).
At least we had some access to the Internet (most things were blocked but we had Usenet and e-email and one could use FTPmail gateways to download stuff from remote servers) via Ethernet, so that part was easy.
Anyways, my first reaction looking at the OP's post was like: yeah, if they're running X it's probably a too powerfull machine.
My favorite part of the first configuration of x back then, you screw with the conf for ages, manage to get a viable video mode set, startx for the billionth time... gray screen, mouse cursor... Overflowingly happy... Wait, now what? No program manager, no apps, no terminal, No exit, no shutdown. What's a window manager? The least apparent thing in the world being to switch consoles , export a display variable, and start an xtern in the video console.
We worked so hard for every little thing.
Yeah, but at least we knew how to switch consoles.
I bet that most Linux users nowadays don't event know the CTRL+ALT+Fx shortcuts to switch console.
Can't say that the old days were really "good" compared to what we had now, but there was definitelly a lot of satisfaction in step by step getting the system to work.
Oh God no, You're 100% correct on all that. We were living through endorphins and we now have something in between nostalgia and Stockholm syndrome for the old days.