• muusemuuse@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    Dude I remember when live booting knoppix was impressive. Hell my intro to Linux was mandrake. We have so many great distros and documentation available now it’s crazy.

    • Siegfried@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      I ended up learning by memory the US keyboard layout because i got tired of having to change it whenever i booted knoppix up.

      Now i have all my keyboards set to US international. Best layout for programing.

  • The Menemen!@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Hm. I started using Linux (Ubuntu) somewhat around 2007. And I was quite fascinated how flashy it was with all those desktop effects compared to the rather boring XP. Only problem I had back in the day was wifi, but I didn’t play a lot of games at that time.

    But yeah, once I solved that wifi problem I had internet, so there was a difference.

  • Die Martin Die@sh.itjust.works
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    7 days ago

    My first Linux distro was Puppy Linux, on a computer with no internet. I downloaded it on an internet cafe to replace Windows XP Fenix Edition.

    My PC was too weak to run any flavor of the major distros, and I wanted to give it a go.

    Best computer-related decision of my life to ditch Windows and use Linux as my daily driver.

  • werty@sh.itjust.works
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    7 days ago

    I used xp for 15 years and i miss it. Fuck this ribbon nonsense too. Where is the desktop cloud? My precious is lost… i’m lost…i have no fucking idea where that file i just saved went… i built a pc in 2002 and progranned a vcr as well. Now i’m toast.

  • Railison@aussie.zone
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    7 days ago

    I remember back then it was easier installing the OS than installing third party software 🫣

  • tommy_chillfiger@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Lmao I did this exact thing. Installed Ubuntu on the home desktop. Immediately occurred to me that I couldn’t connnect to the internet to look up how to do anything else. Scrambled so hard to find that XP disc and atone for my reckless folly.

  • psion1369@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    My Linux journey was pre XP, I was still in 98Se edition and my Linux disk didn’t have a working GUI on it.

  • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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    8 days ago

    I remember finding an early ubuntu CD just lying in the street. Took it home, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t turn my ailing laptop right around. Got 5 more years out of that thing.

  • Stupidmanager@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    I remember getting a copy of linux from my friends at a local LAN party (though it was tokenring party for us) around ‘96. 2 floppy disks. I’m 99% sure it was slackware.

    • pageflight@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      Hah, yeah I got a Debian floppy and then tried to install packages over DSL. Somehow it didn’t immediately kill my interest in Linux, eventually ran OpenBSD as my server for a while.

    • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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      8 days ago

      I started with floppies too, when I bought my copy of Conectiva Linux 3.0. It came with a hefty manual that was instrumental for a newbie like me.

      • Stupidmanager@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Token Ring is a network protocol where a token—a small data packet—circulates around a ring topology, allowing only the device holding the token to transmit data, thus avoiding collisions. We played Doom and Quake.

        • gibmiser@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          I know what it is, and I played both those on lan, but my older bro set it up so I guess I just don’t remember. Fucking crazy that shit could work fast enough.

          I don’t remember, what was the lag like for token ring? Lan just feels like it should be 100 ping or less

          • Colloidal@programming.dev
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            6 days ago

            Not really. It was a local network, and sure the latency increased linearly with the number of nodes, but for a small LAN party it would be quite serviceable.

          • Stupidmanager@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            Yeah, sorry. Nerded out there for a sec on description. I don’t remember the lag that much, doom was ok. I think we all upgraded to 10Base-T ethernet (you remember the bnc stuff) after playing quake and host tended to have the gaming advantage. A few of us worked at a pc repair shop, so we could source (aka borrow) the parts if we couldn’t afford to buy them.

            A few laters Quake world came out, someone finally popped for a hub and we all had 100mbit cards installed. But around then, we got @HOME in my neighborhood and gamespy was my new friend. I hated hauling my whole setup once a month after a year or so.

          • lime!@feddit.nu
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            8 days ago

            doom’s netcode is weird as well, all the clients run in perfect lock-step. seems like it would be weird on non-duplex networks.

  • pedz@lemmy.ca
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    8 days ago

    It forced me to learn. It took me weeks to get X configured and working correctly. I had an internet subscription and a modem but it also took weeks to get it to work on Linux. My distribution came on a CD from a magazine but some dependencies were not included, so I had to reboot under Windows to download a missing package, reboot on Linux and try again, then need to get the next dependency. We came a long long way from having to specify the vertical refresh rate of the monitor in xf86config.

    Starting with a French version of Slackware was brutal but I had nothing else.

    • myrak@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Be 12 in 1998

      Literally just ecstatic that I could wiggle around a little X on a blank screen after giving up trying to load a window manager.

      Pop in a BeOS live CD to feel like I did something cool

      • RaccoonBall@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        Exact same experience. What district did you install for the cursor wiggle? Mine was slackware

        Later mandrake was noob friendly enough for me to get a real start

    • highball@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Started on Slackware too. I remember building my own kernel and having to make sure it fit on a 1.44MB floppy.

      make menuconfig

  • Sebbe@lemmy.sebbem.se
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    8 days ago

    Okay, I finished installing Debian. Why am I only seeing an X formed cursor flying around in nothing? What the hell is a Xorg?!