Interesting. Was MCC strictly command-line?

Ha! I bought one of those Linspire machines from Fry's. It was the first commercial Linux OS offering that actually worked for me, not that I've tried very many pre-installed systems. Linspire was just very limited in aps, repo-wise, and it had its own funky package manager, which was part pay-to-play, IIRC.

I did nuke and repave it with some other Linux OS--probably Fedora, but it could have been one of many that I used at that time.

My top 3 software programs wouldn't work with Linspire or any other Linux back in 2005.

Linspire at least worked since it came preinstalled. My previous attempt to install Red Hat I couldn't get the modem to work.

Fortunately things are much different now and I haven't needed Micr$sof$ for several years.

I had bought a Tome 'Linux' or some such. It had a Redhat 5.1 CD in it. This was 93 or 94. The part I most remember was having to compile most of the software that you wanted to run. You really couldn't just download a binary and have it work.

Had to be earlier version, I bought Redhat 5.0 in 98 or 99 which was the current version at the time. I got it after the Win 98SE made my SB AWE64 Gold only capable of playing a MIDI file. It makes me think it was 99 I got it with the second edition of the 98, the Redhat worked perfectly for playing sounds, it was the last time I used Windows on a daily basis. Did a quick search as well it was not even released until 95 you must be thing of something else or the time is wrong..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Linux

I started using Linux in 2009, but my first experience with compiling my own software was with Slackware a few years ago. Compiling from source took more work and time, but it turned out to be more satisfying than simply installing a pre-compiled binary. And I imagine that the process of compiling software on Slackware must be easier than compiling software on other distros many years ago since Slackware has all the dependencies are listed and there's straightforward instructions about what needs to be done.

I remember it being Redhat 9 "Shrike" which came in an instructional book on Linux that I picked up at Barnes and Noble. The installation process worked, but the lack of kernel modules which would support my display left me with a hopelessly garbled mess.

Ah... the video cards, drivers and settings are still not 100% easy to deal with. But we know the hardware makers make it difficult for GNU/Linux, cause they don't give clues, let alone open the drivers, so that this amazing OS could run flawlessly. And so other hardware makers are still seduced by the m$0ft mermaid and don't help at all the Linux ecosystem (hello printers' makers and others!!).

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My first installation was Slackware in about the year 2000 (when I've finished high school). There was no driver for my graphic card (1024x768) and I think I've had only 800x600 or 640x320 resolution with some default drivers, it was not usable. But later get RedHat and was able to actually use it.

my first install was SLS on a few 3.5 inch floppies (i was going high-tech instead of 5.25 inch floppies). there was something like 13 floppies. i can't remember how i downloaded them. i managed to have dual-boot on a 170 MB (yes, MB) hard drive. MS-DOS had 40 MB of it. later, i switched to Slackware.

I was an MS-DOS user, and I regretted the bloating of MS-Windows, as I had to buy a new computer every time there is a new version, as it required higher specs. Bakckward compatibility did not exist and even MS-DOS was archived - a stripped down MS-DOS 7.0 was still there - so even, the things that I could do, were not available any more. I decided, I cannot continue this way. I started reading about Linux on linux.org and it was appealing to me.

My first installation was Mandrake 9.2. It was the most popular distro at that time. I guess it was just after Red Hat went enterprise. It was late 2003, early 2004 I was using Microsoft products at that time. I decided to go for dual booting. It was on a desktop, so I had a friend over the phone to help. I remember my worries about partitioning, SWAP etc. It took easily more than an hour and a half trying to understand what to do. When it installed it had no support for my fax modem (so no internet) and no sound as it did not support my sound card. It was a frustrating experience. I had to learn how to manage the dependencies hell. I had to get my head round the concept of root, and user(s), partitioning, libraries and dependencies.

The terminal was something a cherished, as commands made sense, and I could use them even when I am not on the GUI. I enjoyed the ability to change the DE or WM so, I explored a lot. Eventually, I got my fax modem and sound card to work. The fax modem free library worked at a snail speed, and the sound card crashed with programmes like Timidity++.

Yet, I persevered. The local LUG was helpful and supportive, internet and friends, helped me understand a lot. I reordered the OSes on the bootloader, which got other family members 'unhappy'. I accidentally destroyed the MS-Windows partition. when I was trying to resize a partition, at a point I had to rely solely on Linux, which I learned most at that time.

I went on to my distro-hopping phase so, on a virtual box, and LiveCDs, LiveDVDs I tried Mandrive, Fedora, Knoppix, SuSE, later Ubuntu and later Mint. I tried Linpus linux which came pre-installed on my in-laws laptop. I have also tried miniature linux: mini-linux, and at work, I installed Cygwin and used microlinux, and minilinux on work's computer.

I have win95 and a random hacker to thank for introducing me to linux. I think it was the first redhat magazine to come out, aug '98 or so. 5.1 maybe. Had to do a custom install on a 386dx with 16 mg ram and a 256 mg hard drive cause the minimal install was too big. NO idea what I was doing so just started ticking random boxes for the next three weeks until I got a system that would start up and be usable. Was super stoked to get it up and running. Must have installed/reinstalled easy 30 times. Then spent ages fooling around in my spare time till I was able to work out how ppp connected to the internet. Then I learnt to fine tune and compile the kernel, cause I needed ALL the free memory I could get. I'd make my selections, start the build, go and make a coffee, watch a movie, go back and check (still going),make another coffee, watch another movie and maybe in ten or fifteen minutes it would finish. I went through this many times also, but didn't really care because the alternative was win95, and I was ready to bounce that **** off the floor. Tried many distro's since, but went back to Slackware, and have used it for nearly 20 years now. Finally upgraded yesterday to 15!

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My first install was redhat. I think it was 3. something or other. Any way it all worked Great. Video and audio. no problems. If I recall correctly, the audio listed all ways and one selected that which was attached under the sound software.

Copying files to those 30some floppies, getting it all installed and then compiling a kernel to support my video and nic following printed out instructions and then thinking "now what" as there was very little software available at the time.

duplicate.