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Interesting story, thanks for sharing! I too started off with Linux back in the day - I'd been on minix-list for a few weeks after just getting a 386 and wanti

by mmjaa 9y ago

Interesting story, thanks for sharing! I too started off with Linux back in the day - I'd been on minix-list for a few weeks after just getting a 386 and wanting something decent to run on it, replacing the Desqview configuration I'd been using previously. So I was quite happy to download Linus' little kernel and see what it could do .. one floppy at a time from funet.fi, lol. What a great impression it made - a real unix on a 386! Of course, the fact that it took a week to compile X/Windows wasn't that big a deal. :) Then I moved on from building everything from scratch - a great learning experience back in the day - to Yggdrasil, which was simply a great distro for the time. Ah, good ol' days .. I really wonder what I'd do different if I had a time machine and could go back and tell myself all the things Linux would be used for in the decades ahead, it would have really blown my mind .. Still does!

doubleplusgood 9y ago
I still have fond memories of building a kernel in winter on a P4. No heater needed. Make menuconfig, because the TCL part was too heavy...
- mmjaa 9y ago
  Its kind of balls that those moments are so far away, yet so near. I mean, we could if we wanted to, 'make menuconfig', I'm quite sure, even still. But .. nah. ;)
  - Yetanfou 9y ago
    `make menuconfig` still works fine, I use it to configure kernels for use on Android. Since I build those on a server somewhere on the 'net - actually it sits under the stairs but for all intents and purposes it could have been on the other side of the world - it is handy to be able to use a console-based method. I do prefer `menuconfig` (combined with `oldconfig`) in any case, possibly out of habit but also because this type of text-based user interface often is much faster to use than its graphical equivalent.
  - anoother 9y ago
    You mean there's something fancier than `menuconfig`??
    - mmjaa 9y ago
      Not really. I just don't bother building my own kernel any more - the distro I use (Ubuntu Studio) comes with one that works great out of the box. Nice to know I still could, though .. ;)

by mmjaa 9y ago

doubleplusgood 9y ago

I still have fond memories of building a kernel in winter on a P4. No heater needed. Make menuconfig, because the TCL part was too heavy...

mmjaa 9y ago
Its kind of balls that those moments are so far away, yet so near. I mean, we could if we wanted to, 'make menuconfig', I'm quite sure, even still. But .. nah. ;)
- Yetanfou 9y ago
  `make menuconfig` still works fine, I use it to configure kernels for use on Android. Since I build those on a server somewhere on the 'net - actually it sits under the stairs but for all intents and purposes it could have been on the other side of the world - it is handy to be able to use a console-based method. I do prefer `menuconfig` (combined with `oldconfig`) in any case, possibly out of habit but also because this type of text-based user interface often is much faster to use than its graphical equivalent.
- anoother 9y ago
  You mean there's something fancier than `menuconfig`??
  - mmjaa 9y ago
    Not really. I just don't bother building my own kernel any more - the distro I use (Ubuntu Studio) comes with one that works great out of the box. Nice to know I still could, though .. ;)