6 ms·

I strongly favored Linux in the nineties because the elitism of the BSD world was infuriating back then. There were no device drivers for IDE CD-ROM drives beca

by rahen 3y ago

I strongly favored Linux in the nineties because the elitism of the BSD world was infuriating back then. There were no device drivers for IDE CD-ROM drives because "real men" were supposed to use SCSI. There were no binary packages, yet ports were constantly broken. Sound support was non-existent by default. Not to mention the early BSDs were extremely buggy, let alone the train wreck that was 386BSD. Linux 0.9 was already more stable, performant, and usable. A true hacker paradize. Then Linux started transitioning from a patchwork of loosely coupled replaceable components to integrated stacks in the mid-2000s, becoming ironically more and more of a corporate commodity rather than a playground for software freedom. You would need to define "the dark ages", as I understand casual users may prefer this trend, but for me, NetBSD is where the spirit remains. This is an entirely dependable, simple, hackable, grokable system and that's the way I want it to stay.

lproven 3y ago
[Article author/submitter here] > the elitism of the BSD world was infuriating back then. You do have a point there. I found it very difficult to try to get FreeBSD up and running well even ~20 years ago, and yes, up to around the Ubuntu era, the BSDs were just a bit too hardcore for me. Linux was hard enough, but one got the feeling that most of them were trying to help, trying to make stuff work and make it easier. (All right, except Debian. There was a strong attitude of elitism in that community, too, and while traces are still there, Ubuntu has taken Debian more mainstream than any other derivative ever did. Stormix, Corel LinuxOS, Lindows, Libranet... all tried but none quite cut it. Ubuntu made Debian easy, and Debian has benefitted a lot from that, IMHO.)
- rahen 3y ago
  By the way, thank you for taking the time to review this great OS. This was nice to read.
  - lproven 3y ago
    Oh, thank you very much for that! :-)
- microtonal 3y ago
  Libranet It's nice to hear that people still remember Libranet, it was a two to three person shop.
  - lproven 3y ago
    `adminmenu` FTW. :-)
lizknope 3y ago
I installed Linux in fall 1994. I looked at Free/NetBSD but when I went on some of the Usenet BSD forums they basically insulted me saying that my brand new $3,500 PC wasn't good enough. The main thing was this IDE interface that had a bug. Linux got a workaround within days or weeks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMD640 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMD640 The BSD people told me that I should buy a SCSI card, SCSI hard drive, SCSI CD-ROM. I was a sophomore in college and I saved every penny to spend $2K on that PC and my parents paid the rest. I didn't have any money for that. The sound card as you mentioned was another issue. I remember software based "WinModems" but Linux had drivers for some of these. Same for software based "Win Printers" When I finally did graduate and had money for SCSI stuff I tried FreeBSD around 1998 and it just seemed like another Unix. I used Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Ultrix, IRIX. FreeBSD was perfectly fine but it didn't do anything I needed that Linux didn't already do.
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago
  Sound support is a nightmare on Linux in 2024. I think I learned to get it work maybe twice in the dozen of attempts over the years. In MS Windows it just works. I also started with Linux in 1994 and wrote some tiny pieces of the kernel (no modules yet). I routinely use Linux on my servers since then. But getting a noise from my headless Rpi is a nightmare.
logicprog 3y ago
> Then Linux started transitioning from a patchwork of loosely coupled replaceable components to integrated stacks in the mid-2000s I cannot imagine a better sales pitch for Linux as an operating system for people who actually want to use a working, reliable, well integrated, featureful, coherently designed, modern operating system to actually get really cool things done as opposed to people that want to endlessly tinker with a giant pile of glued-together parts. I had a phase when I wanted to use minimal Linux distros and cobble together the individual components of my system of myself, with only what I needed and nothing more and making sure I understood how everything fit together, but I quickly realized that that's just not the way to produce a system that's actually nice to use and useful. > ironically more and more of a corporate commodity rather than a playground for software freedom Having an actually integrated set of system components and software stacks may make the system less modular, and so less free in some sense, but I don't think it takes away software freedom in a way that really substantially matters. FLOSS software can be tightly integrated and remain free. Especially when there is still so much modularity, and the trade-off is a much better system, which is worth it in my opinion. Also, I don't see why integrated software stocks are inherently corporate, although it is true that Linux is getting a lot of corporate funding. > This is an entirely dependable, simple, hackable, grokable system and that's the way I want it to stay. This desire to be able to understand absolutely everything on your system seems kind of absurd to me. It is the primitivism, the going to live in a log cabin in the woods completely off grid using 1800s technology, of the software world — both in that the impulse to give up the benefits of the division of labor and modern society and economies, the ability to have people specialize in understanding and building things that you don't have the time to specialize in or build yourself, is just patently absurd and essentially reactionary, born out of a fear of the unknown, and because even such people find themselves inevitably depending on things that they don't fully understand or didn't fully do themselves. I guarantee you that you wouldn't be able to understand the full intricacies of all of the components on your system, including the compilers and the entirety of the kernel and all of the drivers and everything else, and that's not to mention your processor architecture or whatever. And if your argument is that you understand the high level components and how they fit together, that is precisely as true for a system with larger components. My point is that any system beyond Forth running on bare metal is probably beyond the ability of any single person to actually understand fully and if you are okay with a certain level of abstraction that I don't see the difference.
mrighele 3y ago
"Sound support was non-existent by default." I don't know what years you are talking about, but in the early 00s I found audio in FreeBSD with OSS to just work (if you had supported hw), especially compared to the mess that was Alsa, and the ever bigger mess that was Pulseaudio. It took years for audio in linux to become decent.
- hulitu 3y ago
  In linux with OSS also worked. Then came Alsa with its pieces and Pulseaudio with breakage. Today it is a mess.

by rahen 3y ago

lproven 3y ago

[Article author/submitter here] > the elitism of the BSD world was infuriating back then. You do have a point there. I found it very difficult to try to get FreeBSD up and running well even ~20 years ago, and yes, up to around the Ubuntu era, the BSDs were just a bit too hardcore for me. Linux was hard enough, but one got the feeling that most of them were trying to help, trying to make stuff work and make it easier. (All right, except Debian. There was a strong attitude of elitism in that community, too, and while traces are still there, Ubuntu has taken Debian more mainstream than any other derivative ever did. Stormix, Corel LinuxOS, Lindows, Libranet... all tried but none quite cut it. Ubuntu made Debian easy, and Debian has benefitted a lot from that, IMHO.)

rahen 3y ago
By the way, thank you for taking the time to review this great OS. This was nice to read.
- lproven 3y ago
  Oh, thank you very much for that! :-)
microtonal 3y ago
Libranet It's nice to hear that people still remember Libranet, it was a two to three person shop.
- lproven 3y ago
  `adminmenu` FTW. :-)

lizknope 3y ago

I installed Linux in fall 1994. I looked at Free/NetBSD but when I went on some of the Usenet BSD forums they basically insulted me saying that my brand new $3,500 PC wasn't good enough. The main thing was this IDE interface that had a bug. Linux got a workaround within days or weeks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMD640 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMD640 The BSD people told me that I should buy a SCSI card, SCSI hard drive, SCSI CD-ROM. I was a sophomore in college and I saved every penny to spend $2K on that PC and my parents paid the rest. I didn't have any money for that. The sound card as you mentioned was another issue. I remember software based "WinModems" but Linux had drivers for some of these. Same for software based "Win Printers" When I finally did graduate and had money for SCSI stuff I tried FreeBSD around 1998 and it just seemed like another Unix. I used Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Ultrix, IRIX. FreeBSD was perfectly fine but it didn't do anything I needed that Linux didn't already do.

BrandoElFollito 3y ago
Sound support is a nightmare on Linux in 2024. I think I learned to get it work maybe twice in the dozen of attempts over the years. In MS Windows it just works. I also started with Linux in 1994 and wrote some tiny pieces of the kernel (no modules yet). I routinely use Linux on my servers since then. But getting a noise from my headless Rpi is a nightmare.

logicprog 3y ago

> Then Linux started transitioning from a patchwork of loosely coupled replaceable components to integrated stacks in the mid-2000s I cannot imagine a better sales pitch for Linux as an operating system for people who actually want to use a working, reliable, well integrated, featureful, coherently designed, modern operating system to actually get really cool things done as opposed to people that want to endlessly tinker with a giant pile of glued-together parts. I had a phase when I wanted to use minimal Linux distros and cobble together the individual components of my system of myself, with only what I needed and nothing more and making sure I understood how everything fit together, but I quickly realized that that's just not the way to produce a system that's actually nice to use and useful. > ironically more and more of a corporate commodity rather than a playground for software freedom Having an actually integrated set of system components and software stacks may make the system less modular, and so less free in some sense, but I don't think it takes away software freedom in a way that really substantially matters. FLOSS software can be tightly integrated and remain free. Especially when there is still so much modularity, and the trade-off is a much better system, which is worth it in my opinion. Also, I don't see why integrated software stocks are inherently corporate, although it is true that Linux is getting a lot of corporate funding. > This is an entirely dependable, simple, hackable, grokable system and that's the way I want it to stay. This desire to be able to understand absolutely everything on your system seems kind of absurd to me. It is the primitivism, the going to live in a log cabin in the woods completely off grid using 1800s technology, of the software world — both in that the impulse to give up the benefits of the division of labor and modern society and economies, the ability to have people specialize in understanding and building things that you don't have the time to specialize in or build yourself, is just patently absurd and essentially reactionary, born out of a fear of the unknown, and because even such people find themselves inevitably depending on things that they don't fully understand or didn't fully do themselves. I guarantee you that you wouldn't be able to understand the full intricacies of all of the components on your system, including the compilers and the entirety of the kernel and all of the drivers and everything else, and that's not to mention your processor architecture or whatever. And if your argument is that you understand the high level components and how they fit together, that is precisely as true for a system with larger components. My point is that any system beyond Forth running on bare metal is probably beyond the ability of any single person to actually understand fully and if you are okay with a certain level of abstraction that I don't see the difference.

mrighele 3y ago

"Sound support was non-existent by default." I don't know what years you are talking about, but in the early 00s I found audio in FreeBSD with OSS to just work (if you had supported hw), especially compared to the mess that was Alsa, and the ever bigger mess that was Pulseaudio. It took years for audio in linux to become decent.

hulitu 3y ago
In linux with OSS also worked. Then came Alsa with its pieces and Pulseaudio with breakage. Today it is a mess.