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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Linux during the mid to late 90s (Windows 95 and 98 era) (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

109 comments fedilink hide all child comments

For those veteran linux people, what was it like back in 90s? I did see and hear of Unix systems being available for use but I did not see much apart from old versions of Debian in use.

Were they prominent in education like universities? Was it mainly a hobbyist thing at the time compared to the business needs of 98, 95 and classic mac?

I ask this because I found out that some PC games I owned were apparently also on Linux even in CD format from a firm named Loki.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Modems were easy. Stick the serial cable in. Done.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Is was those crappy winmodems that caused all the problems. They cheaped out on hardware, so you basically got a sound card. All of the work had to be done by the driver, which also put a lot of load on your CPU. Serial modems just worked since everything was done in hardware.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Ah, right I'd forgotten about those. Of course they weren't actually modems. So there's also that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I had erased that information from my memory. Also it took a long time for Linux to gain USB support, then a long time to get WIFI (also because of the cheap vendors that used windows drivers to do the heavy lifting). Yeah, it was a very uphill struggle, with Microsoft actively pushing against Linux (remember the 'Linux is a virus' narrative?) I'm amazed we made it this far.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Well, only "real" modems... Those amazing piece of crap that offloaded hardware to the windows driver where... Questionable.

And they started appearing around windows 95/98.