this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2021
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Linux
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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 started off using Slackware 2.0 back in 1996 or so. I can't believe that younger me not only managed to get Linux installed (all text based, had to partition the hard drive yourself, no automated recommendations, etc) but got it to connect to the internet over dialup modem. I used X11 with really old school window managers such as Fluxbox and Enlightenment. IRC over the terminal, mplayer for watching realmedia videos downloaded off the internet, adding your own user to the cdrom group and having to mount and unmount the cdrom system manually each time. I remember the videocard I was using didn't get proper Linux drivers until a year and a half after I bought it and by then I'd moved on to the next card because PCs were making major leaps every year back then.
When I discovered Debian and apt-get and how awesome that was at the time, it was pretty miraculous.
Looking back it was pretty neat but modern distributions are 1000% better.