Re: [tlug] Linux 7 year ago? [was Re: [OT] job posting]

[Henri Servomaa <r_muffin@example.com>]

On Dec 21, 2009, at 2:01 PM, Patrick Bernier wrote:
> 
> My "other" system was running ESIX, but it wasn't really mine. My real
> other system was still an Apple ][+ clone ;->


Wow, at the time I was using green and amber university ttys connected to, among other things, a SUN3/60.

Later on, the campus got wired with ethernet in all rooms and I thought about getting online with something.

I had a working 286 system for playing and heard about a Linux installfest and was interested so I went.
The demoer had used SLS previously but said this new Slackware was much easier.
So we installed Slackware from ~20floppies  on a machine and talked and ooh-aah-ed.  
I was shocked to learn you needed a 32 bit system for running Linux... 
But not to worry, I knew that through the local news system (running on above mentioned SUN) I could practically find and buy almost anything I wanted for cheap. So eventually I got a 386sx board and promptly sold the 286 as an upgrade to my uncle :-) 

The next problem was floppies. They were darn expensive at that time. 
I think I asked my dad to buy me a pack through his school supply system and the other pack I bought from the cheapest dealer in some dark suburb of Helsinki.  I  downloaded and wrote the floppies using the pathetic msdos commandline under windows 3.1. By miracle, none of the  20 floppies had bad sectors so my Slack install was complete. You could have installed with less disks, but at the time, completing the install from online packages  seemed to require extremely advanced skills...

And anyway, I couldn't afford an ethernet card at the time... but because I knew the campus sysadmin, I learned from him you could just wire the room ethernet to be a serial line to the building concentrator/router thing. So he did it for me and told me I would need a serial cable and connect via SLIP.

So, I went and installed Slackware from floppies, fdisking the disk and getting X to run. I think I did spend a couple of days before getting SLIP to run.
But now I was online with 57400 bauds of pure speed bliss!! My terminals were scrolling much faster than those green ones!

That changed my life, but that's another story....

--
Henri