I really wish that I was born early so I’ve could witness the early years of Linux. What was it like being there when a kernel was released that would power multiple OSes and, best of all, for free?

I want know about everything: software, hardware, games, early community, etc.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    Clumsy. Manual. No multimedia support really. Compiling everything on 486 machines took hours.

    Can’t say I look back fondly on it.

    BeOS community was fucking awesome though. That felt like the cutting edge at the time.

    • randomcruft@lemmy.sdf.org
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      9 hours ago

      I’m sure most are aware of this but, just incase anyone passing through is not… Haiku OS

      Works great in a VM… fun to play with, have not tried bare metal / daily driving it though.

      • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        Yeah, I’ve tried it out. It’s just years behind any Linux desktop right now though. The entire point of BeOS was to be a multimedia powerhouse, and it was. Everything else has surpassed it at this point though.

    • sramder@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      I desperately wanted one of those first BeBoxes or whatever they were called. And one of those little SGI toasters… I even tried to compile SGI’s 3D file manager (demo) from Jurassic Park.

      Herp derp… where can I download an OpenGL from… it keeps saying I can’t build it without one 🤤

    • Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      15 hours ago

      I can’t remember much about it now, but I remember really wanting BeOS. I managed to get it installed once, but couldn’t get the internet working, so ended up uninstalling it.