[SGVLUG] Memories of SLS Linux

Sun Mar 15 23:27:03 PDT 2015

> My first attempt at installing Linux was Red Hat 7.x

LOL, does my first install of the closed-source XENIX in 1983 on an IBM AT
count?

"Microsoft, which expected that Unix would be its operating system of the
future when personal computers became powerful enough,[4]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix#cite_note-letwin19950817-4> purchased a
license for Version 7 Unix <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Version_7_Unix>
from AT&T in 1978,[5] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix#cite_note-5> and
announced on August 25, 1980 that it would make it available for the 16-bit
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16-bit> microcomputer market.[6]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix#cite_note-6>"

Wow, history lends an interesting perspective...

Here's another interesting read for those who were around in the early days
of personal computing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer

I got into larger Unix systems in the mid '80s and ran on Dec and IBM
hardware through the early 90s and then SGIs into the 2000s.  I didn't
crack the covers on an open source OS until I ran into Linux in 2002.  In
2004 I jumped onto Fedora 2 and adopted it as my main OS.  It was a private
personal favorite until they really stabilized the desktop somewhere around
F11.  I was stoked, now I could recommend Linux to less technical users.
Unfortunately immediately thereafter they went into what seemed an identity
crisis which resulted in several less stable releases and I had to move
friends and customers off to other distros.

Now with Fedora 20 I have finally moved my father-in-law onto Linux.  He's
not getting it:

Tom:  Why can't I download Flash Player?
Matt:  Because every time you download and install software to watch cats
playing piano you get a virus.  We moved you to Linux so I could lock you
out of your own hardware.
Tom:  Ah, yeah, I remember now...

Does this sound like anyone you know?

Matt

On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 2:54 PM, Lan Dang <l.dang at ymail.com> wrote:

> Braddock,
>
> Did you take notes? I seem to recall that one of the ideas for the LUG
> 20th anniversary is to showcase old Linux installs, so we can see how Linux
> has changed over the years.
>
> My first attempt at installing Linux was Red Hat 7.x. this was probably in
> 2002 or 2003. I might'very gone for a dual-boot system. I was unable to
> connect to the Internet. I suspect that it was an Ethernet driver issue as
> I usually connected via Ethernet in those days. That was the day I
> acknowledged myself that computer without network connectivity is basically
> a paperweight to me.
>
> *Lan*
>
>  ------------------------------
> * From: * Braddock Gaskill <braddock at braddock.com>;
> * To: * Sgvlug <sgvlug at sgvlug.net>;
> * Subject: * Re: [SGVLUG] Memories of SLS Linux
> * Sent: * Sun, Mar 15, 2015 4:12:04 AM
>
>   I got SLS Linux 1.05 circa April 1994 installed and running in qemu.
> It was neat to go through the old process - actually easier than I thought.
>
>
> I (eventually) followed a very good guide here:
> http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/node/2097
>
> This is probably the oldest Linux distribution available.  There is an
> earlier SLS 1.03 on biblio, but it appears to be incomplete and fails on
> installation.  I tried VMWare before qemu without success.
>
> It would be an interesting project try to get networking support.  You'd
> either have to SLIP over the emulated serial port, or recompile a very old
> version of the kernel if the emulated network hardware was by chance
> supported in 1994 (which I doubt).
>
> Another interesting project would be getting X windows to work.  startx
> failed out of the box, as I expected.  I recall getting X windows running
> at the time as a very difficult and frustrating process.
>
> But I probably won't go further into this.
>
> -braddock
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 10:35 PM, Braddock Gaskill <braddock at braddock.com>
> wrote:
>
>> James was talking tonight about installing an "old" linux distribution
>> for fun.  It brought me back to my first encounter with Linux, which I
>> thought I'd share.  Maybe others can share their experiences.
>>
>> The fall of 1993 was the start of my freshman year at college.  I spent
>> all the money I'd earned at my first programming job the prior summer on a
>> new 486DX2, even though I had been raised on an Amiga.
>>
>> MSDOS on the 486 was a bore compared to the Amiga.  The DEC Unix
>> workstations in the lab were far more interesting.
>>
>> My dorm-mate Mark had received a big box of used floppy disks from his
>> mother's work.  We went to the computer lab and started downloading SLS
>> Linux from MIT's ftp server.  Slowly.  One floppy at a time.  To speed
>> things up we commandeered half a dozen lab computers at once, looking over
>> our shoulder in case the campus IT department got mad at our flagrant abuse
>> of machines and precious bandwidth.  We were sure we'd get in trouble.
>>
>> One by one we downloaded all 50 floppy disks of SLS.  I still remember
>> the prompt coming up on my freshly installed 486 and thinking I finally had
>> a real machine.  Linux was at version 0.99.  There was no ethernet in the
>> dorm, we had to run SLIP over a serial line.
>>
>> I only had 4MB of RAM, which wasn't really enough to run X - although
>> Mark hacked on my computer all night to get the modelines correct to at
>> least start it up.  The rule of thumb was you could open one window per
>> megabyte of RAM over 4MB.  The next summer I upgraded to 8MB and could even
>> run Mosaic - I recall fondly feeling like I had a real workstation.
>>
>> I haven't stopped running Linux since.  I see there is a vintage copy of
>> SLS on ibiblio, so maybe I'll give it another try.
>>
>> -braddock
>>
>
>
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