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Nostalgic Distros? (lemmy.world)

I tired Linux a few times in the past, but didn’t really start using seriously until 2019. I love poking around old OSs and distros, and I want to spin a few up in some VMs my next free evening.

Any suggestions? Open to any distro (or let’s be honest, DE). Any versions that holds a special place in your heart or that’s exceptionally novel? Really interested to see what’s out there!

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[-] aport@programming.dev 26 points 4 months ago

Early Knoppix live CDs have a special place in my heart

[-] ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 months ago

I wonder whatever happened to Knoppix. All I've been able to find online is speculation and questions.

[-] ace_garp@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Yeah, Knoppix was kind of a 'Tucows vibe' distro. Pretty approachable.

Zen Linux was another short-lived 2005 liveDistro, which had a nice feel and Art.

Also, installing all https://trisquel.info/ versions side-by-side and doing a 17 year fast-forward would be cool.

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[-] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 23 points 4 months ago

Hanna Montana Linux, just for giggles

[-] swab148@startrek.website 7 points 4 months ago
[-] BOFH666@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Gonna recommend this to all my co workers.

It is not vulnerable to Windows viruses.

:-)

[-] bilb@lem.monster 17 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Anyone else get free Ubuntu CDs shipped to their house? I think I had 7.10 (Gusty Gibbon) shipped to my house back in 2007.

Otherwise, Mandrake Linux was my first "good" distro. I first tried one called Lycoris which claimed to be an beginner's distro with it's own DE, and it was impressive how well it handled setting up a dual boot installation and at the time it was a revelation that I could use a computer without Windows. I didn't begin preferring linux until I tried Mandrake with KDE 3, though.

[-] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 months ago

Yes, I remember these days. I had a few Ubuntu CDs from back then.

[-] TCB13@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago
[-] bloodfart@lemmy.ml 14 points 4 months ago

Slackware like 7-12.

Basically until they pulled fortunemod.

[-] lnxtx@feddit.nl 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Early versions of Ubuntu,
Red Hat before RHEL,
Mandrake/Mandriva.

[-] MessyEh@lemmy.ca 10 points 4 months ago

Mandrake 6.0 was my first distro in '98-'99. Mandrake hasn't existed for a long time now; I have no idea if you can still find an old iso of it. It used KDE 1.1.1 as it's DE, and to this day, KDE has remained my preferred DE.

[-] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 9 points 4 months ago

Red Hat used to be a really solid choice for desktop back in the 90s and early 2000s. Some milestone releases:

  • 6.2 was the first version to put up ISO images for install. This is the one to get if you really want a blast from the past (early version of anaconda installer, ext2, LILO bootloader, Linux 2.2, Gnome 1 etc.)
  • 7.3 was the last version to come with the Netscape browser.
  • 9.0 was the last version before they split into Fedora and RHEL. It's the last and most mature desktop release of that era, included the "Bluecurve" unified look and feel introduced in 8.0 but had bugfixed versions of KDE and Gnome.
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My first distribution was Slackware 7.1 when I was in high school. It took a week to download the .iso on dialup, and I had to use a download manager (GetRight) so that I could resume the partial download any time the connection dropped (usually because someone had to use the phone).

I'm old o_o

I still vividly remember not being able to figure out how to install new packages, or knowing how to compile from source.

[-] UpperBroccoli@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 months ago

Slackware 2.x, on two floppies. A boot and a root disk, downloaded from a BBS using a dial-up connection (I think it was a 57.6 modem). No X, but I still loved it, so much better than DOS.

Oh I remember those disks :D I think I had to either pull them off the ISO, or download them separately so that I could boot the system to the point where A: the install could occur at all and B: it had enough drivers to use the CD-ROM drive XD

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[-] dallen@programming.dev 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Crunchbang (#!) linux breathed live into some very wimpy hardware I’ve had in the past.

Loved the minimalism.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 6 points 4 months ago

The old Ubuntu pre snap and Amazon era.

[-] kixik@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 months ago
[-] Pacmanlives@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Great distro! I ran Lunar Linux so Source Mages sister from the fork of Sorcerer Linux. Lunar I know is still going and updating. Need to drop into their IRC channel for support and what not. Wonder if Source Mage is still kicking. Amazing how great the bash scripts were to run it all. I feel like if they added binary support they would get a lot more traction

[-] kixik@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 months ago

Yes SMGL is still active. You can try joining one of their channels. There are still people looking for source based distros, not sure while Gentoo is the only thing that pops up for them. I used it for some time, and it's fantastic. Sadly having to build stuff takes too much time, particularly on old, and not performance oriented HW. They had support for binaries, and actually include a binaries grimoire, so you could install binaries that used to take too much time, like Firefox for example. Still it takes too much to keep a source based distro. And if you go all the way, then when changing parts of the building toolchain, like gcc, the recommendation was to build everything so that everything would be built with the more up to date toolchain, that was cool, since SMGL has tools for it, but those fancy stuff take as well a lot of time. There I learned 1st about ccache, hahaha.

Sooo fun, :)

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[-] halm@leminal.space 5 points 4 months ago

I'm still nostalgic for CrunchBang, and I continue to use OpenBox with any distro I try... Keep your DEs, I'm good 😄

[-] CuttingBoard@sopuli.xyz 2 points 4 months ago

Arco, Mabox, and Bunsenlabs are my current vm favorites.

[-] janus2@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 months ago

I respect Bunsenlabs for lacking the chaotic instability that I loved to hate about Crunchbang in high school, and which I hate to wish I could love as a busy adult requiring a stable system...

[-] janus2@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 months ago

CrunchBang was my jam in late high school. I couldn't believe how much more lightweight it was compared to Lubuntu, which had been my main for years due to having a potato laptop

[-] halm@leminal.space 3 points 4 months ago

Right? Those terrible low-spec, off-the-shelf laptops can really cook with Openbox on a Linux distro.

[-] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 months ago

Just for curiosity, where do you get these old distributions?

I might try the Ubuntu version which got me into Linux one of these days😇

[-] knolord@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

https://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/

At least Ubuntu makes it easy to roam through their archives. Have fun :)

[-] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago

Thanks I’ll check it out👍

[-] MyNameIsRichard@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 months ago

Although not my first distro, I feel a lot of nostalgia for SimplyMepis

[-] Railison@aussie.zone 2 points 4 months ago

Me: how many applications have you got installed? SimplyMepis: Yes.

[-] kalpol@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago
[-] LeFantome@programming.dev 2 points 4 months ago

Uninstalled this recently as well. It is surprisingly slick for the time and way more modern feeling than you would expect.

Linux was just not corporate enough for it at the time.

In a different timeline….

[-] jjlinux@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 months ago

Wao, Mandriva and DamnSmallLinux 🤣🤣🤣

[-] shiroininja@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

I’m nostalgic for Ubuntu when it still had Unity as default, and Linux mint around 2014. That’s when I began coding, and that’s the time I liked the look of them more than the current modern offerings. Plus there was more ease of customization it felt like

[-] Sinirlan@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Gentus Linux comes to mind, obscure distro based on Red Hat (not RHEL mind You) released by now forgotten ABIT, a motherboard manufacturer. I was daily driving it as teenager back in 2001 for couple of weeks until I learned by trial and error how to get windows 98 installed back. Another one would be Mandrake Linux which I was dual booting couple years later.

[-] 0x0@programming.dev 3 points 4 months ago

I read gentoo instead of gentus, found it awkward that someone would call gentoo obscure, did a websearch, came back to the post with gentus as a reply, re-read the post.

[-] hobbsc@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 4 months ago

RedHat 5.3 with fvwm (or fvwm95) is very nostalgic for me because it was one of the few walnut creek CDs I managed to get working. Mandrake and early SuSe were cute as well.

[-] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 3 points 4 months ago

Get a CD with RedHatLinux, SUSE or Debian 1 or something and try to install that

[-] penquin@lemm.ee 3 points 4 months ago

I just started using Linux back in 2018. There is no nostalgia for me, as all the distro I used back then are still working now.

[-] azimir@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 months ago

Tom's Root Boot.

One floppy disk, one Linux machine!

[-] makeasnek@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 months ago

The distro used by the one laptop per child project. Fascinating GUI

[-] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 2 points 4 months ago

Conectiva Linux in late nineties came with Window Maker as default. That’s old school as they come.

[-] iAmNotorious@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

I booted a VM with BeOS for nostalgia a couple months ago. Remember booting that as a kid and drooling over how fast it was.

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[-] bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

I've been meaning to fiddle with OpenIndiana and Illumos for a while, which both trace their roots back to Sun Microsystem's Solaris. It'd be really cool to poke around in a system that didn't grow off of BSD or Linux.

[-] sbrb@programming.dev 2 points 4 months ago

Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger, oh my god the color scheme, all the earthy tones. 😊

[-] dmnknf@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

I'll probably be alone on this one, but there was this Brazilian distro, fully translated to portuguese named Kurumin, an indigenous word for "boy," that was my first distro. The distro where I learned how to program in Python ages ago.

As a trivia, this distro main maintainer gave up on tech and was living as a monk or something far from any internet connection.

[-] Murdoc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago

First distro I got to work was LibraNet. Easy to set up and use, ran by a father-son team. Died when the father passed away. 😥

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this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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