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!
Hanna Montana Linux, just for giggles
AmogOS too
Gonna recommend this to all my co workers.
It is not vulnerable to Windows viruses.
:-)
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.
Yes, I remember these days. I had a few Ubuntu CDs from back then.
YESS!!
Slackware like 7-12.
Basically until they pulled fortunemod.
Early versions of Ubuntu,
Red Hat before RHEL,
Mandrake/Mandriva.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
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
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.
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
The old Ubuntu pre snap and Amazon era.
Great distro! I ran Lunar Linux so Source Mages sister from the fork of Sorcerer Linux. Lunar I know is still going and updating. Need to drop into their IRC channel for support and what not. Wonder if Source Mage is still kicking. Amazing how great the bash scripts were to run it all. I feel like if they added binary support they would get a lot more traction
Yes SMGL is still active. You can try joining one of their channels. There are still people looking for source based distros, not sure while Gentoo is the only thing that pops up for them. I used it for some time, and it’s fantastic. Sadly having to build stuff takes too much time, particularly on old, and not performance oriented HW. They had support for binaries, and actually include a binaries grimoire, so you could install binaries that used to take too much time, like Firefox for example. Still it takes too much to keep a source based distro. And if you go all the way, then when changing parts of the building toolchain, like gcc, the recommendation was to build everything so that everything would be built with the more up to date toolchain, that was cool, since SMGL has tools for it, but those fancy stuff take as well a lot of time. There I learned 1st about ccache, hahaha.
Sooo fun, :)
I think the LARP elements of this distro put me off trying it back in the day. Calling the package manager a “Grimoire” and having to “cast” packages to install them was just too much for me.
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.
Corel Linux
Just for curiosity, where do you get these old distributions?
I might try the Ubuntu version which got me into Linux one of these days😇
https://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/
At least Ubuntu makes it easy to roam through their archives. Have fun :)
Thanks I’ll check it out👍
Although not my first distro, I feel a lot of nostalgia for SimplyMepis
Me: how many applications have you got installed? SimplyMepis: Yes.
Get a CD with RedHatLinux, SUSE or Debian 1 or something and try to install that
Gentus Linux comes to mind, obscure distro based on Red Hat (not RHEL mind You) released by now forgotten ABIT, a motherboard manufacturer. I was daily driving it as teenager back in 2001 for couple of weeks until I learned by trial and error how to get windows 98 installed back. Another one would be Mandrake Linux which I was dual booting couple years later.
