4 ms·

>Most of these versions can no longer be found anywhere on the Internet. If you did not have the foresight to save them, you no longer have access to them. As f

>Most of these versions can no longer be found anywhere on the Internet. If you did not have the foresight to save them, you no longer have access to them. As far as you are concerned, they are gone forever. I don't particularly care about ancient Linux ISOs, but I bet they're some of the best archived files on the internet. For a start, larger distros do maintain archives. Here's Debian's and Arch's https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/ https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/ https://archive.archlinux.org/iso/ https://archive.archlinux.org/iso/ And beyond that, the hobbyist archivists are on top of that. Many people act on the joke that their torrents are all Linux isos, and the other hoarders are going to save things they use like a Linux iso. Hell, I'd bet every one listed is on the internet archive. And if not, the author could quickly fix the issue.

weinzierl 3y ago
There are plenty of sites with old distros. I would like to point out oldlinux.org, because of the easy to remember domain and a smallish, but nice collection. Not a least it has Slackware 1.1.2, which will always have a special place in my heart.
shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
Yea, for sure. These old linux isos are heavily mirrored, and many also has bittorrent mirrors. Here's another one, funded by Swedish government, run by Stockholm University): https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/ https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/
mathiasgredal 3y ago
Sure, but how useful is that when you can’t install any packages, since the package repositories only host packages for supported versions. When a distro goes EOL, the package repositories typically move to the next supported version and delete all of the old packages.
- dsr_ 3y ago
  Debian has all of the packages in archives. https://www.debian.org/distrib/archive https://www.debian.org/distrib/archive
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    Even Arch has five years worth of kernel releases in their archives, with older versions offloaded to the internet archive.
    - mathiasgredal 3y ago
      Yeah, but regular package binaries get nuked pretty quickly to make space for new ones, especially on mirrors.
      - boomboomsubban 3y ago
        This went from "these ISOs are impossible to find" to "ok, but the packages are impossible to find" to "yeah, but they're not in the regular repos anymore." If you want to do something unusual, you should expect to jump through a few hoops.
- seba_dos1 3y ago
  Perhaps if you're running some obscure niche distros. For all the major ones, this is just plain false.
voytec 3y ago
Not Linux but I checked out of curiosity and FreeBSD has an archive[0] with ISOs as ancient as 1.0 (released in 1993). [0] http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/ http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-relea...

weinzierl 3y ago

There are plenty of sites with old distros. I would like to point out oldlinux.org, because of the easy to remember domain and a smallish, but nice collection. Not a least it has Slackware 1.1.2, which will always have a special place in my heart.

shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago

Yea, for sure. These old linux isos are heavily mirrored, and many also has bittorrent mirrors. Here's another one, funded by Swedish government, run by Stockholm University): https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/ https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/

mathiasgredal 3y ago

Sure, but how useful is that when you can’t install any packages, since the package repositories only host packages for supported versions. When a distro goes EOL, the package repositories typically move to the next supported version and delete all of the old packages.

dsr_ 3y ago
Debian has all of the packages in archives. https://www.debian.org/distrib/archive https://www.debian.org/distrib/archive
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  Even Arch has five years worth of kernel releases in their archives, with older versions offloaded to the internet archive.
  - mathiasgredal 3y ago
    Yeah, but regular package binaries get nuked pretty quickly to make space for new ones, especially on mirrors.
    - boomboomsubban 3y ago
      This went from "these ISOs are impossible to find" to "ok, but the packages are impossible to find" to "yeah, but they're not in the regular repos anymore." If you want to do something unusual, you should expect to jump through a few hoops.
seba_dos1 3y ago
Perhaps if you're running some obscure niche distros. For all the major ones, this is just plain false.

voytec 3y ago

Not Linux but I checked out of curiosity and FreeBSD has an archive[0] with ISOs as ancient as 1.0 (released in 1993). [0] http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/ http://ftp-archive.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD-Archive/old-relea...