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Slackware wasn't the first Linux distro, but it's the oldest still alive and kicking
(www.theregister.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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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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I mean the BSDs have been around since what? The late 80s? With the more "mainstream" distros (Free and Net) since the early 90s... The 80s if you count NextSTEP and SunOS!
But I get what you mean, there's a reason Bell was forced to relinquish it's code with anti-trust laws!
I think it was around '99 that I got into this. The internet was quickly building momentum, I finally had DSL available, and I happened to run across a reference to linux. I had been searching for an alternative to Windows for awhile already (I still have a CD with OS2/Warp on it) so the idea that not only could I replace my desktop, but I could also run free servers??? My mind was blown. It took me another six years to get my desktop to where I could truly ditch Windows completely but I've never looked back.
I was a mac guy in the 90s, which was rather unpopular. I started just experimenting with stuff to expand my horizons. In ~97 I started playing with BeOS, and NetBSD. The latter was pretty much the only thing that had a native boot loader for the OpenFirmware. Played a bit with Yellow Dog Linux and MKLinux after that, but NetBSD remained my go to. I almost fully switched in the early 00s but OSX came out and being Unix system I stuck around. By the mid 00s I was using a mix of NetBSD and Debian/Ubuntu for servers, and a couple years later fully switched to Debian to have one single OS that I could use everywhere.
Never looked back!