History of Linux (developers)

[Jason]

Linux recently had its 32nd birthday. Wow! PLUG started about 25 years ago (not sure exactly, maybe Bill remembers). I began using Linux in 1996 with a excited albeit nervous Debian install. But I moved to the more friendly Redhat and then the really friendly Linux Mandrake soon after.

When and how did you get your start in Linux?

Here's a retrospective story of the beginning of Linux and how far it's come.

https://www.xda-developers.com/on-this-day-in-1991-linus-torvalds-announced-linux/?utm_source=pocket_mylist

[buster]

" When and how did you get your start in Linux? "

Didn't do anything with computers until I was 54 or 55 years old. In 1994 or '95 I started to acquire used parts from my son, along with operating systems. The first system I built was Windows before it had a GUI. Never bought a computer until 8 years later, and that was the only one I bought for I guess a decade, not counting a whole system, monitor and all, that I got from a floundering business for $100.  The purchased one in 2002 lasted for probably another decade. Still using the case.

On one of my original builds, say '95 or '96 installed Win95 and magically I had a GUI. And a clerk at a nearby computer store had a copy of RedHat which he let me borrow, and now I had my first dual boot computer. Those who remember realize how exciting this was.

The next wonderful event was done by Bill, who put a notice in Peterborbough This Week inviting people to a meeting of what was ultimately named Plugintolinux. Of all places it was at the Zoo in a building with no access to the Internet. I remember Bill, Jason, Clint, but not any others. And for those who missed this era, in my opinion you missed the most exciting part of the club. Discoveries occurred every day.

Most of us started I think with RedHat, but when Mandrake came along, it became a favourite. Jason took the screen shots and edited a review of a release of Mandrake that I wrote and sent to Distrowatch. What a big surprise when it was put on the front page and the hits almost took our server down. Heady days.

Mandriva was never up to the same standards I don't think, so some of us, my self included, drifted into
Suse. Mepis came along with it's innovations and that was my go to for a long time. (It still exists in MX Linux, with the same principle of 'it just works')

So I dabbled in PCLinuxOS, Lite and Kubuntu, but generally have settled into Mint.

But I really do miss those early years, but it could be just that I miss being younger.

[Jason]

Interesting story. I had forgotten about PCLinuxOS. I seem to recall that it was a derivate of Linux Mandrake that went far beyond it. It's still popular in some corners for its stellar hardware detection apparently.

Thank you for the reminder of your article making it do Distrowatch. I remember the guy that runs the site saying that they don't normally publish articles like that but did anyway. I seem to recall the article was entitled, "Mandrake the Music Man" or something similar. I still have the article although I'm not sure the graphics are there. I keep an archive of the two newsletters that we did one of which contained that article. In any case, it definitely brought a lot of people to the site.

One little correction, though. The group was never called Plugintolinux. That was just the website domain I came up with "PLUG into Linux" to help people find and remember it. More like a motto, than a group name. It may have announced the site by saying "Welcome to PlugIntoLinux, again, because of the domain. But if you prefer your version of the story, go for it. Before that PLUG was a SIG (special interest group), kind of like a sub-club of the Kawartha Computer Club.

I was going to say that Windows always had a GUI but I think there were two releases of Windows, 1.0 and 2.0 that had windows but they weren't graphical, more just coloured text. But I didn't know anybody that used that. I worked at a computer store in 1991 and we never sold it. But computers were sold with DOS a lot and Windows (3.x) was becoming more popular. It definitely had a GUI and crashed a LOT. It was Windows before it had a Start button.

I miss those early days, too. Probably for the same reason you expressed at the end of your post. Although, it was fun learning Linux when it wasn't so easy. We're spoiled today.

[buster]

You're correct. It was DOS.

[Jason]

You're correct. It was DOS.

Could you say that again, but louder?