Linux Distros are So Much Better Than They Were 30 Years Ago (techrepublic.com) 217
With the 30th birthday of Linux coming up, TechRepublic's Jack Wallen argues that its distros "are so much better today."
I remember like it was yesterday. The very first time I booted into the Linux desktop. The distribution in question was Caldera Open Linux 1.0, which installed with kernel 2.0 and the desktop was Fvwm95... It was just unsightly. The colors were decidedly too Microsoftian, and it was all so ... clinical....
The Linux desktop has morphed from an ugly, awkward, and less-than-productive state, to an almost avant-garde work of art, into an elegant, productive and professional environment. All the while, it offered more choices than most users had time to consider. Even today, I could go back to Enlightenment, or opt for the likes of Pantheon, Budgie, KDE, Openbox, Fluxbox, i3, Gala, Windowmaker or numerous other takes on the desktop...
If I were to go back in time and look over the shoulder at a younger me, I would probably see someone who loved the desktop he was using, but wished it could be a bit more productive. I would then whisper into his ear and say, "Give it time."
The Linux desktop has morphed from an ugly, awkward, and less-than-productive state, to an almost avant-garde work of art, into an elegant, productive and professional environment. All the while, it offered more choices than most users had time to consider. Even today, I could go back to Enlightenment, or opt for the likes of Pantheon, Budgie, KDE, Openbox, Fluxbox, i3, Gala, Windowmaker or numerous other takes on the desktop...
If I were to go back in time and look over the shoulder at a younger me, I would probably see someone who loved the desktop he was using, but wished it could be a bit more productive. I would then whisper into his ear and say, "Give it time."
The olden days were brutal (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I remember downloading something like 35 floppy disk images, then loading them in one by one. Configuring X11 was a challenge too -- editing the config file with all the hardware specs. It's like a day at the beach now.
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Blew up more than one monitor getting modelines wrong. Learned my lesson by the time the 2.1.x kernels rolled around and I started reverse engineering graphics cards to write framebuffer drivers - switched to a scope instead.
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You had it easy! I had to install it using 600,000 punch cards on an IBM 1401.
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I had to bang rocks together to get ones and zeroes.
And then start all over again when I realised the concept of zero handn't been invented yet.
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Yeah, I remember downloading something like 35 floppy disk images, then loading them in one by one.
Shows how far Linux was behind Windows 95 back then - W95 only required 25 floppies!
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Hmm... looks like it actually came on 21 standard 1.44MB floppies, but there was also a DMF (distribution media format) release that only required 13 of the proprietary 1.68MB disks.
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I remember, way back in the day, when some game developers used various floppy formatting tricks for copy protection. This meant that 1) you couldn't back up your purchased games; and 2) it was a crapshoot whether those games would work on any particular computer.
Of course (going even further afield) I also remember some of the early games that relied on the processor speed for pacing. I had a shareware lunar lander game I enjoyed playing on my original 4.77MHz 8086 computer... but later, when I upgraded to
Actually there was one good distro back then (Score:5, Funny)
... Configuring X11 was a challenge too -- editing the config file with all the hardware specs ...
Sadly for desktop Linux's popularity. However there was a good distro back then. Yggdrasil Plug and Play Linux, it really was plug and play. It recognized and configured my video card and sound card and network card and just left me with a working system as expected. None of the silly stuff you refer to.
Of course the distro died off and we had the BS you describe for a ridiculously long time, and the end of any hope of the year of the linux desktop being anything more than a joke.
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Ah yes, came with the worlds most boring installation video on VHS.
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Why did it die off? Why didn't the other distros take the same open source codes inside their own to make them PnP?
Re:The olden days were brutal (Score:5, Funny)
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Sounds like an SLS Fan. [soylentnews.org]
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>"Yeah, I remember downloading something like 35 floppy disk images, then loading them in one by one. Configuring X11 was a challenge too -- editing the config file with all the hardware specs. It's like a day at the beach now."
Absolutely. But it was better with Linux than before that. I was using Coherent Unix and had to go to the lab at school to get to a connection to download a tape of X11 sources to take home so I could compile it and eventually get X working. Many hours trying to get that damn m
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I remember downloading something like 35 floppy disk images, then loading them in one by one.
... and hitting a bad sector on disk 34, 2 1/2 hours into the process.
Windows NT was particularly good at this, I think they had special batches of dodgy disks made so the install could crap out at 95% completion.
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Erh... 30 years ago, provided you had internet at all, do you REALLY want to pump BSD through a 9600 baud modem?
I mean, it's up to you, but I had plans with my life.
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You had 9600, wow.
Mine seemed rather modern at 2400!
Re: The olden days were brutal (Score:5, Funny)
Re: The olden days were brutal (Score:4, Funny)
You had ones?
Re: The olden days were brutal (Score:3)
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It was like magic.
All you had to do was live next door to one of the developers to find out about it in the first place, and then buy exactly the same PC they had for hardware compatibility.
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>"X still sucks in terms of what it should do compared to other systems. Many people give up on Linux because it can't do something as necessary as display properly with multiple monitors of different native resolutions."
Sounds like you are stuck in 20 years ago or something. For countless years I have used Linux/X with a wide assortment of different types and resolutions of monitors. Long before it was even feasible under MS-Windows it was pretty normal with Linux.
And for as long as I can remember now
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As usual, windows/mac users have to create issues so they have something bad to say about it. I have 2x1080p to work and a 4K that goes to my room when I want to play something, never had to touch a config file since.. 5 years I think? Before I had a 1600x1024 and a 1080p (both dvi) for the same purpose, zero configuration too. Last time I really had to fiddle with Xorg configuration was like 2005 or something.
You forgot to add that it's time to own the libs, amirite?
I use Mac, Windows and Linux. I've had virtually no problems getting Linux to work with any monitors, multiple sizes at the same time. Only thing to remember was the different way Linux scales the monitors. First time I did it I created a huge number of pixels the computer was trying to run, and the video card couldn't keep up.
But that was my own ignorance, not a Linux issue.
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"I don't know about them, therefore they don't exist."
Trust me, nobody cares you didn't hear about them, whoever the fuck you are.
Re:The olden days were brutal (Score:4, Insightful)
>People still do not use Linux anywhere outside of Google for a Desktop,
Which people? Why is 'desktop' the goal? I use whatever desktop is in front of me and ssh into a machine with my stuff on it. Sometimes (most of the time now we have covid and work from home) the machine in front of me is running Linux, but I still ssh into the machine with my stuff on it (with lots of cores and memory for my bloated algorithms). There is a generation of older developers that grew up with Unix and stuck with the Unix/BSD/Linux thing all their lives, desktop and all and I'm sure most of us don't work for Google. At any conference (back when we had conferences) I can see some significant percentage of people using Linux natively and directly on their desktop.
Your assertion that only Google uses Linux for a desktop is simply wrong.
Not a fair comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
This is like saying cars have gotten so much better since the Model T...
It's the trivial statement of trivial statements.
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This is like saying cars have gotten so much better since the Model T... It's the trivial statement of trivial statements.
Except it wasn't a linear progression of improvement for Linux. Linux had a good distro early on, Yggdrasil plug and play. Then Yggdrasil died off, we had a great decline in quality of the installer which basically turned off so many curious users and set the mold for the belief that Linux is not for regular users. Then an insufferable period of stagnation with respect to this usability, then we got on a good trajectory. Which is the point at which the Model T analogy could fit, not with 30 years ago or eve
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It's the trivial statement of trivial statements.
You say that, but in modern times of rose coloured 20/20 vision it actually bares repeating. There's a steady stream of people who are deluding themselves that the past was always better because they are focused on one specific thing they can remember and are completely ignoring using a computer in general. Slashdot is full of such statements.
It seems the more specific someone's use case, the more angry they get when a system caters for people other than themselves, and they see capability as being worse.
Could be worse (Score:2)
The first Unix distributions I used, you had to build the OS yourself, hand compiling in, or out different options. I built a bunch of DNS servers, FTP servers, SMTP servers... sync sync reboot
The first Linux I think I used was some version of Red Hat. Used it for a while until they dropped support. I moved to Debian and then Ubuntu, since it "just worked".
I currently have 2 laptops, and a small Ebook server all running Ubuntu pretty much with no issues. Most of my requirements are the lowest possible elec
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> The first Unix distributions I used, you had to build the OS yourself, hand compiling in, or out different options. I built a bunch of DNS servers, FTP servers, SMTP servers... sync sync reboot
The first unix distributions, back at Bell Labs, were tapes that you booted. These tapes had programs to initialize the disk, copy files from the tape that were disk images to the disk and/or restore other partitions from tar or its predecessors. These date back to V1 on the system which had you set the system co
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Someone had the invent the CD first and make it common. Thanks Myst!
Wow, this is dumb. (Score:2)
Of course, they are much better in 2021 ... so are Windows and Mac.
DISCLAIMER: Does not apply to user treatment (Score:2)
ala UI/spyware/Wall gardening/rent seeking
Notice I didn't use the word customer.
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Of course, they are much better in 2021 ... so are Windows and Mac.
As someone who's been using Windows since 3.0, with a detour into OS/2 from about 1993 to 2000, I'd say the UI improved a lot over the decades but started getting in the way again when they started trying to tablet-i-fy it around the Win8 era.
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For users who don't want to deal with the control menu, which is 95% of the population, tablet style interfaces are much better. There's a balance in interface design between the needs of installed software, the experts, your typical power users, and casual users. Older Windows put at lot of controls within interfaces that required power users like the typical Slashdotter to understand. Microsoft's focus should be on security and usability for those 95% of casual users who just need something that works wit
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Windows peaked on 7, and then started to decline quite hard
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Even 7 was already rather a step down than up from XP when it comes to usability and accessability.
Re:Wow, this is dumb. (Score:4, Insightful)
They’re essentially the same except for being able to hit the Win key and search the menu.
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Microsoft doesn't know how to search (Score:2)
how bad search was pre-Windows Vista
Search WAS bad ? You seem to inhabit a very different reality than I.
Latest (updated last week by the corporate IT, not sure of the version) Windows 10. WinSCP has been installed for over a year. Searching the windows "Start" menu for "scp" says nothing found. I need to type "win", Microsoft is too dumb to search a substring.
Search for emails in Outlook, sorting the search results by date. Nope. Search makes the sort go wonky - 16 Aug comes before 12 Aug. Only in Microsoft land.
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More of a step sideways. Taskbar pinning and window stacking improved usability, but they did mess up the entire arrangement of the control panel.
Interestingly, standard Windows 10 now seems to come with SSH and SCP clients installed by default (no Linux subsystem or anything). But pointing this out feels like digging 1 kernel of sweet corn out of a turd.
Re: Wow, this is dumb. (Score:2)
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How MS continues to dominate the OS sphere baffles me.
It's called inertia.
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Is Windows 10 better than Win3.11? Yes.
Is it better than XP? That's a different question.
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I take it you didn't use any Windows after 7, right?
Lots has changed since the SLS days... (Score:2)
Around this time in 1991, the Linux kernel's userland was pretty much Minix stuff, be it the filesystem (ext didn't come around until April of 1992, much less ext2, so xiafs was what one wound up using), or whatever utilities.
Real distributions, be it SLS, MCC, Yggdrasil, and others took about 1-2 years before coming around, with Slackware superseding SLS, and then Debian and Red Hat carrying the Linux flag from there in the mid 1990s.
Yes, desktop distributions have matured, mainly because the deskt
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Slackware is still going strong and 15.0 will be released soon. The original author Patrick Volkerding hasn’t stopped development. Last year he reported that the merchandise store had ripped him off and he was having financial problems. There is an official Patreon that I give $1 to every month.
Re:Lots has changed since the SLS days... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, desktop distributions have matured, mainly because the desktop is something well hammered out, and there have been no real revolutionary advances in DEs for some time now, other than UI/UX tweaks to make life easier, or allow some new features to work.
We're past that point now with Linux. We're in a period where desktop environments are in regression, and an endless stream of unnecessary and unasked-for UI/UX tweaks makes life harder. Configurability, usability, and user customization are anathema to today's Linux DE developers, who echo Henry Ford with their attitude of "you can have it any way you like, as long as it's OUR way".
I am not so sure.... (Score:2)
My first distro was the April 94 Suse. It came with several CDs and, more importantly, a Manual that really explained everything Linux. As a WM I used fvwm, and I still use fvwm with basically the config from back the today. Suse has gone downhill since then. Red Hat never was as good. Debian has decidedly taken a turn for the worse in the last 5 years or so.
Have to agree (Score:5, Insightful)
I tried Slackware I don't know how many years ago (a decade plus?) and it was not fun. Recently I installed Linux Mint and it was a breeze. Aside from a few things I had to do to get my machine to boot properly and recognize the boot loader, the install went flawlessly.
That said, the two things the Linux community needs to work on is good, proper documentation and easier installation of software. To the first, telling someone to sudo apt-get whatever is not documentation. You missed the six steps leading up to that point. When writing documentation you have to assume the person reading it has no knowledge of what you're describing. You need to hold their hand and give them clear, consise, step-by-step instructions. You know how some of you whine not everyone learns the same way so why should they be forced to sit in classes? Yeah, it's like that. Not everyone immediately groks how to do something they've never done before just by reading some nebulous words. Some need the hand holding so they can grasp the concepts.
For the second, I had to upgrade to a lower version of Firefox than what came with Mint because neither uMatrix or Ublock Origin worked correctly. Neither showed in the menu bar so I couldn't make whatever changes I needed. I easily downloaded the tar file to install and was able to uninstall the current version through the menu system, but after that it was the wild west. I know I had the installer on the desktop, but trying to get it installed took multiple tries since the documentation I looked at was sparse (see above). I did manage to finally get it installed (I'm using it now), but I have no idea where the files are physically installed. If I have to uninstall, I can only imagine how much fun I'll have.
If the community can get those two items worked on, you will definitely see more people convert to Linux.
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Documentation is what I loved about IBM systems, the documentation was impeccable.
Re:Have to agree (Score:5, Funny)
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If Linux users paid what IBMers paid for their systems, they'd have great documentation too.
We need beginners to help with this (Score:2)
> you have to assume the person reading it has no knowledge of what you're describing. You need to hold their hand and give them clear, consise, step-by-step instructions. Not everyone immediately groks how to do something they've never done before just by reading some nebulous words. Some need the hand holding so they can grasp the concepts.
The problem is, the person who has spent three years designing, implementing, testing, redesigning reimplementing, and retesting generally CAN'T stop knowing anythi
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> easier installation of software.
It's one of the risks of the Bazaar, vs. the Cathedral. Every "stall" of the bazaar provides its own installer, convinced that it is the factor that will solve their issues and make their product unique in the marketplace. The resulting fragmentation is one of the issues of Linux based operating systems.
I'd agree that many free software and software authors believe that documentation should not exist. "The code is the documentation" is a popular refrain. Others believe
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I easily downloaded the tar file to install and was able to uninstall the current version through the menu system, but after that it was the wild west.
You actually touch on another interesting thing. In Linux there are so many variations, so many distributions, and above all so many ways of achieving something that it's actually easy to lose sight of what is the "best" or even in some cases the most appropriate way of achieving a goal.
You downloaded a tar file of an older version as a solution to your problem, and you battled your way into creating something non-standard that may now have implications going forward. Ideally when trying to figure out via d
A younger you ... (Score:2)
I Use Fedora Everyday (Score:2)
What's wrong with that picture (30 yrs. vs. "2.0") (Score:2)
"Caldera Open Linux 1.0, which installed with kernel 2.0 and the desktop was Fvwm95."
30 Years Ago -> 2021 - 30 = 1991
1.) Ok, First it should be something like Kernel-2.0.0 because back in the day the triple digit version numbering scheme was used.
2.) "Caldera Open Linux 1.0"
"Caldera OpenLinux Lite/Base/Standard(/Deluxe) 1.0 (1997) with Linux kernel 2.0.25"
- ok the Kernel number was right.
- the date wasn't
1.0 -> 5. Februar 1996
1.1 -> 4. Mai 1997
So it was roughly 24-25 yrs. ago and in terms of usabil
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30 years ago was Slackware with kernel 0.96, which was where I started. I made it fun for myself with a triple booting machine with Dos/Win3.11, OS/2, and Linux.
I spend entire weeks installing all that crap over and over again until it all worked perfectly.
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No, 30 years ago was kernel 0.01. 17 Sep 1991. https://linuxreviews.org/Notes... [linuxreviews.org]
My first was Slackware 2.0 (Score:2)
I ran a Caldera Linux for a while, it was Caldera Network Desktop and it came with motif. But I preferred to use fvwm, which by default looked just like Motif but had virtual desktops, and which was endlessly configurable. But my first Linux was Slackware 2.0, where I also used fvwm
You are in luck ... (Score:2)
The very next headline on slash-dot is:
"Slackware 15.0 RC1 Released"
Objectively (Score:2)
distros, distros everywhere (Score:2)
Um, yes? (Score:2)
Isn't almost anything better than it was 30 years ago?
Very much fond of Linux Mint. Easy to install, very useful, and the only futzing I had to do was locate and install the proprietary network driver. I would switch from Windows to Mint in a heartbeat if my apps ran on Linux. There's really not much of anything keeping me on Windows these days except a few proprietary apps.
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Back then a decent car had just the right amount of technology. A good ECU to run the engine, switches and knobs for everything else.
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30 years ago cars were much better for their owners. I'll grant safety has improved
Also reliability... and fuel efficiency. And lower emissions. (but... other than that, what have the Romans ever done for us?)
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Reliability is indeed much better. I remember my dad needing to work on our cars in the 90s. And I don't remember when is the last time I had to spend more than 2 hours at the garage. People love to complain that "you can fix your car yourself anymore", though you mostly don't need to.
And cars are cheaper today. Compared for similar models, cars are MUCH cheaper today than mid 90s. The average price of new car sold has gone up because people are moving from compacts and sedans to SUV and pickups.
The only th
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While the average car has gotten better, Japanese cars have actually gotten less reliable since the early 90's, and they still lead the pack. It;s the same thing with emissions. Once cars got ECUs and closed loop fuel trims raw emissions have flatlined. You can't do better than stoichiometric for efficiency. Cars have better catalytic converters and moved them closer to the engine to get them up to temperature more quickly to reduce cold start emissions but that's about it. Modern low-tensi
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90's music was better.
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90's music was better.
60's music was better.
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> > 90's music was better.
> 60's music was better.
80's music was best. I mean 1780's
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart)
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Ok point taken. There appears to be some things we've lost the will or technology to do anymore.
But the year of the Linux desktop will never come. (Score:2)
Distributions 30 years ago (Score:2)
I won't have to run shit under Wine anymore? (Score:2)
Should really try Linux out again myself... (Score:2)
I used to keep a Linux system around all the time, but few out of the habit quite a number of years ago... I should really give it another shot.
I'm curious to see how the window managers have evolved. I still fondly remember CTWM (though I can't remember why I remember it fondly), I'm sure that is ultra-primitive compared to what is around now. Not sure what the last window manager I used was, though I remember it being substantially more advanced already than CTWM...
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>"I'm curious to see how the window managers have evolved. I still fondly remember CTWM (though I can't remember why I remember it fondly), I'm sure that is ultra-primitive compared to what is around now."
You should check out KDE/Plasma now. Pretty impressive stuff. Very polished and so many layers of configurability/customization. Stay away from Gnome unless you want to bash your hand through your monitor (at least, that is how I feel).
Linux still worked, even back then (Score:2)
I had a pretty unique PC in 1993. SMP 486DX/50, 16MB RAM, 4MB ET4000 graphics, some SCSI2 drives.
But I'd put it together to run OS/2, which I thought was going to be the big thing. OS/2 was definitely cool. I'd tried Windows NT that was a complete bomb. There was just NO software for it. And I couldn't do my homework on either of the above. My school had everybody on SunOS. So I tried FreeBSD, where I could at least run BSD and a C compiler, but at the time FreeBSD didn't have SMP support, and this other th
some changes good, some not (Score:2)
30? How about 20 or 15? It's getting better too. (Score:2)
Installs are nearly effortless and live USB installers run so well you can and I have used flash drives while awaiting a replacement hdd. Driver support is vastly better too. Today I can use my Android (Linux-based) phone to run Linux in a UserLAnd container, write live flash drives and more. When I get a proper Linux (not fucking Android thank you very much) phone I'll have a versatile capable robust Linux ecosystem.
I can run the same distro or any distro on everything from my ancient but gloriously well b
... apart from the bloat... (Score:2)
Personally, I preferred the Linux distro from about 17 years ago, when it would fit easily on a CD-ROM.
There were a few distro's that spanned multiple CD's - I think SuSe was one - but for the most part, you could be certain that Slack or Debian or the fledgling Ubuntu would easily fit.
Yes, you can still find "minimal" distros, but the more popular ones seem to weigh in at over 2gb.
Sure, if we roll back 17 years, it was indeed a challenging time - but it was almost entirely to do with drivers.
Whilst distros
They are also so much stupider. (Score:2)
Catering to stupid people is ruining the very point of Linux: To be powerful, flexible, adaptable, and do whatever the fuck you say without being your nanny. And to enable you to perfectly find out what's wrong if something is wrong.
Ubuntu/systemd is the antithesis of everything that is Linux. It is not Linux. It's a separate consumer OS. Like Android, with the same kernel.
SOME distros are, others not (Score:2)
There is a distro for every use, and the distros other people choose have little effect on your personal options. For some, distros are like cars, to be driven not worked on. For others highly configurable minimalist options with granular control are more useful. You have more options than ever before, more drivers and more applications. You can opt out of systemd. Ubuntu denies you nothing if you never install it. You can roll your own distro more easily than ever.
Is there any choice you want but do NOT h
Have to give it a look then, (Score:4, Interesting)
Ready for takeoff (Score:2)
Now that Windows 10 and 11 are becoming spyware and rent-to-own I believe it's time for the floodgates to open and people to start moving to desktop Linux. How long before Microsoft starts adding CSAM scanning, profiling and more intrusive advertising to its d
Re: Redhat 3.0.3 was the last decent distro (Score:3)
Re:Redhat 3.0.3 was the last decent distro (Score:5, Insightful)
This take is silly. There are plenty of distros that meet the criteria you're looking for. Gentoo is specifically made for people looking for exactly what you describe. You're in control of everything and there is no systemd.
Of you could just use a BSD. Or package your own distro (if you want that much control, I assume you have the capability).
Operating systems are more complex than they used to be but they also do much more and do it much more efficiently. By that very nature, the user has to cede some control because it eventually just becomes too time consuming to wield complete control. Just like cars. I have complete control over a Model T. In fact, with a machine shop, I could probably make 90% of the parts for a Model T (battery, headlights, seats, and some others would be more tricky, but given the time and resources, I could do it all). I can't say the same thing about any of the cars I actually own. In fact, the parts are so specialized there are very few I could rig together and expect to work. I can still wrench on my cars, but that pretty much means swapping out parts that were produced elsewhere. But it goes so much faster, so much smoother, and so much more efficiently than a Model T.
It's the same with the OS. Sure, Linux and the software on top of it are open source. Theoretically, you could tinker with any component. Sometimes you will. Hell, people do it all the time. But at the end of the day, 99.999% of the code is made somewhere else and you're just installing it. You don't lack control because the system is compromised—you lack control because the system is mature, complicated, and granular control is unnecessary and inefficient. Cars are made to be driven, not worked on. The same applies to OSes.
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If you wanted control then why are you using a distribution in the first place? The single point of a distribution is that you cede control to someone else to do your hard work for you.
If you want control then put in the damn effort: https://www.linuxfromscratch.o... [linuxfromscratch.org]
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But... but... but... my neckbeard gets caught in my zipper every time my legacy SysV scripts... still run!
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It wasn't a toddler, it was a f***ing NEWBORN. Linus didn't release Kernel 0.01 until September 1991. There was no such thing as a distro.
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Agreed. Disappointing how much Miguel has damaged Linux.
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Gah, I meant Lennart. Miguel damaged different things.
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But at first it really wasn't aimed at the desktop, the desktop was a bonus. It wasn't competing against Windows for desktop.
Windows for the desktop? In 1991? Technically it existed: microsoft had released Windows 3.0 and it kinda worked but a ton of software was DOS based back then.