Debian Celebrates 30 years!

Gecko@lemmy.world to Linux@lemmy.ml – 254 points –
Debian Celebrates 30 years!
bits.debian.org
19

You are viewing a single comment

I remember, I was 23yo and in a BSc Computer Science. At the time our teachers were more BSD, SVR4, Minix, and of course HP-UX, SunOS, AIX, IRIX, etc. They didn't like Linux, but us, students, would download kernel and gnu utilities on like 8 floppies, to install on 486, and then the 10 floppies for X11, what a nightmare it was, like Arch today :)

My first kernel install was v0.99. What a time :) I used Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, and now MX (still based on Debian) for a long time.

what a nightmare it was, like Arch today

Disagree. Arch is smooth sailing in comparison. More like installing DOS in the early 90s.

I don't know, I installed Arch from the base archlinux-x86_64.iso followed the wiki and after boot I had a simple text login, I needed to configure ethernet network/systemd etc then install X and Xfce and all kind of stuff, like in the 90s :)

I installed DOS dozens of time, in the beginning it was two 5"1/4 floppies and super easy to install, but there was no GUI nor network

still, there's a lot less ./configure;make;make install involved than it was on mid-90s linux :D

You also had to manually cut your partitions, then to manually setup everything after install - himem, mouse, sound... It was mostly loading drivers and in Arch it's installing and configuring packages. Sure, it's more complex due to vastly more possibilities but the actual doing is pretty similar. And there was no wiki back then. ;)