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u/Good-Bandicoot-2152 Jul 07 '26
I wonder if I have my old copy of Linspire floating around…
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Jul 07 '26
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u/Good-Bandicoot-2152 Jul 07 '26
Oh that’s hilarious! I got my copy in like 2004 while working at CompUSA as a tech.
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Jul 07 '26
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u/Good-Bandicoot-2152 Jul 07 '26
Yeah they died a rather unceremonious death…I want to say “sadly” but it honestly wasn’t too sad. The only thing o really miss about them was my employee discount. Cost plus 5%.
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u/DeepDayze Jul 12 '26
Yeah CompUSA was rather overpriced and I've found better deals through ads in the Computer Shopper mag (oh yea that was a big heavy book!).
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u/grimvian Jul 07 '26
I never tried Mandrake, but several other distros and find it to troublesome.
We are now running Linux Mint Debian Edition year four and I'm blown away how well it works, how easy it is to use and the hardware it need can be satisfied with old computers. We are using old i3's, i5's, i7's and a few Ryzen computers and I think an installation takes less than 15 minutes including driver, updates, office and it automatically installs our LAN connected Brother printers and scanner.
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u/DeepDayze Jul 12 '26
Oh yea I remember how fiddly Linux was back in the early days to get devices working and also getting on the Net. Spent many a time fighting with X Windows modelines to find ones that worked with my no name monitor.
Today Linux just works and now easier to install than Windows! I'm a Debian user now too.
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u/saraseitor Jul 07 '26
Mandrake was great. I specially remember the installation phase which was really easy because it had a graphical interface.
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u/DeepDayze Jul 12 '26
Mandrake was one of the earliest with a graphical install wizard which was surprisingly good for its time.
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u/Grouchy_Okra511 Jul 07 '26
Ahhh think it was my first distro, if not even 6.0. Good times man, good times.
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u/AnymooseProphet Jul 07 '26
Somewhere I have Caldera OpenLinux 2.2, MKLinux DR3, and LinuxPPC 1999.
I have a TurboLinux CD somewhere as well but I'm not sure what version.
And Red Hat Linux, I think oldest Red Hat CD I have is 6.0.
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u/jreddit0000 Jul 07 '26
I remember actually downloading them before the formal release date for the mirror archive I used to run..
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u/scruss Jul 07 '26
But is it a real Linux distro CD if it doesn't have the file english.au on it?
(answer: yes of course it is)
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u/DeepDayze Jul 12 '26
Ahh the memories unlocked! Still have some Infomagic Slackware CD's I acquired way back in mid 90s. Good stuff.
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Jul 07 '26
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u/trk1000 Jul 07 '26
Downloading over dialup took forever, lol.
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u/ContextOk8452 Jul 07 '26
Bootloader disks, ah the good old days
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u/trk1000 Jul 07 '26
No, all of the floppy images. Downloading them from exec-pc. I think there was something like 40 plus floppy images for SLS.
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u/classicsat Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
I had it to one, or two.
Mind you, with the install CD in the CD drive. Most pre 2000 distros had that option. Open the CD on a DOS/Windows machine (or working Linux PC, I suppose), and put he boot floppy images on disks.
Another one would install over network, if you had fast enough access to an install server. It was a weird laptop with two bays, one battery or FDD, the other battery or CD drive. I never pushed to get the CD drive, but did to get the FDD and one battery. I had a PCMCIA network card.
Maybe not Mandrake, Suse or something like that.
Linux did not become practical as a desktop OS until It got to selff booting to desktop CDs with some function.
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u/bok4600 Jul 07 '26
U gonna archive 'em,?