this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 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.