I really wish that I was born early so I’ve could witness the early years of Linux. What was it like being there when a kernel was released that would power multiple OSes and, best of all, for free?
I want know about everything: software, hardware, games, early community, etc.
Well, I was an Amiga user. That was already unix-like, preemptive multitasking, etc. It was fading fast in the early nineties, and while i was already working in I.T., I was not interrsted in using Windows 3.11 and 95, so I began playing with Slackware Linux. I figured it was a good way to get comfortable with “real” I.T…
I learned Bash and had to compile most of the software i wanted to try. Since, like all programmers, I’m lazy, I wrote some simple scripts to build the code and make them into packages (tgz) for Slackware. This took tedium out of the work, and i could use the packkage manager to install and remove them.
Those were rough days for desktop users, though. I really had to use windows when i needed to pass output to “normies”. I tried several window manager and desktops, and eventually landed on Ubuntu.
Based. But on a serious note, what machine did you have/use? Could you install Linux on the classic Amiga machines? I’ve always thought about buying an Amiga 1200.
I had the 500 and 3000. I finally got rid of the 3000 3 years ago. I saw no reason to install linux at the time because it was already almost the same from my perspective, except the Amiga also had sterio sound 4096 color output, and pull-down screens. The console commands were substantially similar and several enthusiasts ported linux comands to AmigaOS.
Plus, we now can run more modern versions of AmigaOS on Linux though I have never done it myself.
Amiga still exists as a reasonably modern OS and hardware as of a few years ago. It was bought by small businesses and updated a few times.
A stock Amiga 1200 wouldn’t allow you to run Linux, because the CPU doesn’t have an MMU (memory management unit). With a turbo card installed with at least a 68030 and enough RAM you could run Linux on a 1200 though.
https://www.debian.org/ports/m68k/ has a nice little intro and the key requirements.
MMU and HD space were the biggest issues. One of those has pretty much gone away with time.