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.
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.