After long use of LQ as a guest, I'm finally a registered user on LQ.

I've been working with various distros of Linux since 1983, my first version was Slackware Linux downloaded (at 300 baud dialup) from the UNC repository (http://sunsite.unc.edu) onto 40-45 floppy disks. Yes, I am a seasoned professional (my son says I'm OLD).

Today, I'm a Kali Linux aficionado and geek, putting it to use in a multiple VM environment for testing, demonstration, and self-education in vulnerability testing and assessments.

Thanks for keeping this excellent site up and running, and thanks for all of you who volunteer your knowledge and expertise to the rest of us!

Sam

Welcome to the LQ forum Sam. Hope your Kali Linux journey is going well.

Greetings, Sam, and welcome to LQ!

1983? But GNU/Linux has only been around since 1991.

Welcome to LQ!

Unix or Unix-like?

linustalman,

I was working with commercial and private distributions of Unix/Linux back to 1983, the earliest being USC-Berkeley distribution (BSD) and very early Unix-like systems running on Sperry/Unisys hardware. I purchased my own copy of BSD (with a 10,000 seat license!) in the mid-80s, which was folded into some of the first Free BSD distributions in the late 80s or early 90s. After leaving the commercial Unix world, I moved into Linux using slackware from sunsite.unc.edu and have stayed with Linux since.

Today, I'm semi-retired and using mostly Debian Linux, especially heavily modified Kali Linux. Still enjoy the $ and # prompts and that good ol' Unix command line!

Hope this helps!

Sam

Thanks, greencedar!

Gad,

Both, actually. And a few that aren't either!

Although over the last decade or two, it's been Linux rather than the original Unix software (in my case, mostly BSD variants). But I can get around in either type, so long as there is a command line available.

Sam

Makes sense

Looks like we have another time traveler here!

SammyC,

Linux isn't Unix, it's Unix-like as it resembles Unix to a large degree, but isn't directly based on it.

Hi Sam. GNU/Linux did not exist in 1983.

No, not a time traveler, just one who worked with BSD-style UNIX in the early days and picked up Unix-like Linux in later years.

Chill, please... geeze. Perhaps I should have enumerated which versions of which Unix and Unix-like OSes I worked with by year? The table would have been ugly and not 100% accurate, but it might have avoided nitpicking.

So yes, my experience with Unix (BSD) goes back to 1983, while my Linux relationship began somewhere shortly after Linus Torvalds released his newly developed OS to GNU in the 1991-1994 timeframe. Although Linus didn't hand me a set of disks, my team and I were early adopters with my first downloaded distribution coming from UNC, downloaded via dialup at a blazing speed of 300 baud.

That better?

Chill? Sam, I think you're being childish here. You said in your original post, "I've been working with various distros of Linux since 1983". That was a blatant error and instead of acknowledging it, you get all defensive.