I tired Linux a few times in the past, but didn’t really start using seriously until 2019. I love poking around old OSs and distros, and I want to spin a few up in some VMs my next free evening.
Any suggestions? Open to any distro (or let’s be honest, DE). Any versions that holds a special place in your heart or that’s exceptionally novel? Really interested to see what’s out there!
The old Ubuntu pre snap and Amazon era.
Anyone else get free Ubuntu CDs shipped to their house? I think I had 7.10 (Gusty Gibbon) shipped to my house back in 2007.
Otherwise, Mandrake Linux was my first “good” distro. I first tried one called Lycoris which claimed to be an beginner’s distro with it’s own DE, and it was impressive how well it handled setting up a dual boot installation and at the time it was a revelation that I could use a computer without Windows. I didn’t begin preferring linux until I tried Mandrake with KDE 3, though.
The distro used by the one laptop per child project. Fascinating GUI
My first distribution was Slackware 7.1 when I was in high school. It took a week to download the .iso on dialup, and I had to use a download manager (GetRight) so that I could resume the partial download any time the connection dropped (usually because someone had to use the phone).
I’m old o_o
I still vividly remember not being able to figure out how to install new packages, or knowing how to compile from source.
I still fondly remember sitting in the Sun Lab at University downloading SLS disk by disk.
SLS 1.0.x still had Linux kernel 0.9x on it.
Just getting X at all on your own PC was like a magic trick.
The number of hours I put into figuring out what X was, the difference between XFree86 and X.ORG , fixing resolution and DPI issues, installing video card drivers (mostly nVidia)… I think all that tinkering prepared me for my career as a systems admin.
I think Slackware came with KDE, which is probably why I leaned toward it for so long. I’ve been using XFCE for many years, now.
Slackware 2.x, on two floppies. A boot and a root disk, downloaded from a BBS using a dial-up connection (I think it was a 57.6 modem). No X, but I still loved it, so much better than DOS.
Oh I remember those disks :D I think I had to either pull them off the ISO, or download them separately so that I could boot the system to the point where A: the install could occur at all and B: it had enough drivers to use the CD-ROM drive XD
Red Hat used to be a really solid choice for desktop back in the 90s and early 2000s. Some milestone releases:
- 6.2 was the first version to put up ISO images for install. This is the one to get if you really want a blast from the past (early version of anaconda installer, ext2, LILO bootloader, Linux 2.2, Gnome 1 etc.)
- 7.3 was the last version to come with the Netscape browser.
- 9.0 was the last version before they split into Fedora and RHEL. It’s the last and most mature desktop release of that era, included the “Bluecurve” unified look and feel introduced in 8.0 but had bugfixed versions of KDE and Gnome.
Yes. I think around Red Hat 6 was the first time I compiled the kernel to make sure some hardware worked. Good times
What do you mean 6.2 was the first version to put up ISO images for install? I installed 5.2 from ISO not long ago. I have installed 4.2 in the past.
I think it was 4.2 that came with the “awesome” window manager.
Before 6.2 you had to get them on actual CDs which wasn’t an option in many places. Starting with 6.2 they put them online on FTP.
I may be remembering wrong but I am sure I got CD images off FTP for earlier versions as well.
I have been downloading Linux since grabbing floppy images of SLS, used Red Hat for years, and do not remember having more than one version on actual CD that I did not burn myself ( for sure never DVD ).
I’ll probably be alone on this one, but there was this Brazilian distro, fully translated to portuguese named Kurumin, an indigenous word for “boy,” that was my first distro. The distro where I learned how to program in Python ages ago.
As a trivia, this distro main maintainer gave up on tech and was living as a monk or something far from any internet connection.
Early Knoppix live CDs have a special place in my heart
I wonder whatever happened to Knoppix. All I’ve been able to find online is speculation and questions.
Hanna Montana Linux, just for giggles
AmogOS too
Gonna recommend this to all my co workers.
It is not vulnerable to Windows viruses.
:-)
Although not my first distro, I feel a lot of nostalgia for SimplyMepis
Me: how many applications have you got installed? SimplyMepis: Yes.
I’m still nostalgic for CrunchBang, and I continue to use OpenBox with any distro I try… Keep your DEs, I’m good 😄
Arco, Mabox, and Bunsenlabs are my current vm favorites.
I respect Bunsenlabs for lacking the chaotic instability that I loved to hate about Crunchbang in high school, and which I hate to wish I could love as a busy adult requiring a stable system…
CrunchBang was my jam in late high school. I couldn’t believe how much more lightweight it was compared to Lubuntu, which had been my main for years due to having a potato laptop
Right? Those terrible low-spec, off-the-shelf laptops can really cook with Openbox on a Linux distro.
Mandrake 6.0 was my first distro in '98-'99. Mandrake hasn’t existed for a long time now; I have no idea if you can still find an old iso of it. It used KDE 1.1.1 as it’s DE, and to this day, KDE has remained my preferred DE.
There is an active fork https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenMandriva_Lx
Early versions of Ubuntu,
Red Hat before RHEL,
Mandrake/Mandriva.I’ve been meaning to fiddle with OpenIndiana and Illumos for a while, which both trace their roots back to Sun Microsystem’s Solaris. It’d be really cool to poke around in a system that didn’t grow off of BSD or Linux.
Slackware 7
Kubuntu 8.04.
It was the last release with KDE 3 and very polished for its time. Many applications from back then have vanished by now. Kopete was Magic, supporting all IM protocols (Including Yahoo video calls!), Amarok was so reliable and sleek.
Of course most things have improved since then, but I remember it fondly.
