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Installing Debian Linux 2.1 From 1999 Was A Painful Experience ... (youtube video)

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FreewheelinFrank
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Re: Installing Debian Linux 2.1 From 1999 Was A Painful Experience ... (youtube video)

#2 Post by FreewheelinFrank »

I always wondered why Debian had a reputation for being difficult to install. I'm a noob - first install 2009.

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Re: Installing Debian Linux 2.1 From 1999 Was A Painful Experience ... (youtube video)

#3 Post by Fossy »

FreewheelinFrank wrote: 2021-10-22 08:15 I always wondered why Debian had a reputation for being difficult to install. I'm a noob - first install 2009.
You must be joking ? ... :wink:
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Re: Installing Debian Linux 2.1 From 1999 Was A Painful Experience ... (youtube video)

#4 Post by ticojohn »

Debian has come a long way baby.
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Re: Installing Debian Linux 2.1 From 1999 Was A Painful Experience ... (youtube video)

#5 Post by steve_v »

Debian in '99 (or anything pre-woody really) was indeed a bit of a pig. I wouldn't call it especially painful though, that's just what many distros were like at the time.

OTOH, If you want a GNU/Linux distro from '99 that actually isn't a dog, you install Slackware. I did that again recently, on pretty much the same hardware I was running in '99, and It was about as hard as falling off a log. All the requisite documentation is on the CD too. :)
Getting acceleration working on my Cirrus Logic video card was a bit more interesting, but that sort of thing is for after the install phase. Who all remembers setting up Xfree86 by hand and using SDD from DOS to get the linear framebuffer address?

Pro tip: Don't screw around with loadlin and FIPS, they'll only cause you pain. Back up you DOS install, make your empty partitions ahead of time with your tool of choice (I like Ranish), then either write a proper boot disk or use a boot manager (e.g. PLOP) that can boot a CDROM.
FreewheelinFrank wrote: 2021-10-22 08:15I'm a noob - first install 2009.
'99 for me, but I'm still a noob too :P
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Re: Installing Debian Linux 2.1 From 1999 Was A Painful Experience ... (youtube video)

#6 Post by maxb »

steve_v wrote: 2021-10-22 16:16 '99 for me, but I'm still a noob too :P
I installed my first Linux at home around that time, I think. I was also using IRIX and Solaris at school a bit.

My first distro was Mandrake, an Ubuntu of its day. They ripped off another distro and made it easier to install. I remember they imploded later (some security screw-up that turned everyone off or something, Wikipedia doesn't mention it)

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Re: Installing Debian Linux 2.1 From 1999 Was A Painful Experience ... (youtube video)

#7 Post by trinidad »

https://archive.org/details/SuSE6.3-full

First Suse with YaST2. Easy installation and configuration. November 1999. Full release came with 2 manuals for Desktop and server and 7 CDs. Ran this for four years on a home built overclocked 433Pentium on an Asus mobo, Voodoo grfx card, 20G hdd and 2 x 500Mb memory. Versatile OS with great documentation and installation tools. First Linux I ever configured for a broadband connection. Had to register it with the ISP as an Apple machine.

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Re: Installing Debian Linux 2.1 From 1999 Was A Painful Experience ... (youtube video)

#8 Post by cynwulf »

maxb wrote: 2021-10-22 17:54My first distro was Mandrake, an Ubuntu of its day. They ripped off another distro and made it easier to install. I remember they imploded later (some security screw-up that turned everyone off or something, Wikipedia doesn't mention it)
Mandrake, later Mandriva, was Red Hat based.

I have not heard of that "security screw-up". As I understand it, Mandriva went down the tubes financially, over a period of a dew years following the Connectiva merger and later attempts to monetise their offering and move into the enterprise server market. Prior to that, their business model was based on the outdated paradigm of selling branded optical media. OpenMandriva and Mageia are the surviving forks.

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Re: Installing Debian Linux 2.1 From 1999 Was A Painful Experience ... (youtube video)

#9 Post by maxb »

@cynwulf I seem to recall them having a bad rep for security, but maybe the public anger was unrelated: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/02/03/ ... gers-users

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