Linux Video Tutorials From 1995

An anonymous reader writes "Given that this year marks the 20th Anniversary of the Linux kernel, it is hardly surprising that anyone digging into their media collection might pull out something interesting, such as video tutorials on how to install early version of now popular distributions, like Slackware or Red Hat"

1997

[BigBadBus]

A little bit later than the video, but I tried RedHat (5.1 or 5.2? I can't remember) in the summer of 1997. From my Uni days, I had the impression that Linux was hard to install, but although it was simple enough, getting XFree86 to install and run was a nightmare. I decided to try Redhat since we were promised xxx number of days of support. What they didn't tell you was that it would take a couple of weeks for them to get back in touch with you and then it was simply to go over what you'd done. I think I managed about 3 support tickets before my time was up. I abandoned Redhat and it was a couple of years before I tried Linux again. I was a SuSE distro and it was a doddle to install. SInce then I've moved onto Mandriva and then Ubuntu and have been using this ever since.

I've never used Redhat since and don't feel the need to ever go back to it after the shoddy aftercare service I got.

Re:.. And that's why I never installed Linux

[ajo_arctus]

And it's exactly the reason I did try Linux!

My first exposure to Linux was Slackware on a PC Pro cover disk in 1995. The magazine just bundled all of these disk images and packages on the CD, and in the magazine contents had a tiny entry for it that simply said "Slackware Linux version x.y." Then, in capital letters: "We recommend you do not install this. You will probably break your PC!". Well, of course, what could I do? With a warning like that I had to install it!

I re-partitioned the drive (600MB Windows, 200MB Linux) and spent a huge amount of time trying to figure out how to not permanently kill my monitor with the settings in xf86config (another dire warning message) and getting my modem to dial out by editing the networking config files.

The annoying thing is, once I did get it all working, I had nothing to do with it. All the packaged software was academic -- no word processors or any of the stuff I liked doing on computers back then (drawing, music, etc). I played reversi I think, used pine or elm of whatever, compiled a really simple c programme, and went back to Windows. I could see it was awesome, but as a 16 year old with no Linux using friends I couldn'y really make use of it back then. Looking back, I wish I'd learned C at that time. Learning C on Windows was impossible for me because compilers were too expensive. Ah well.

It has been really interesting to watch Linux grow and evolve over the years. I use it today mostly for serving Rails and Python apps.