GNOME and Red Hat Linux eleven years ago (2009)
63 comments
·June 15, 2025liendolucas
ddingus
Great skill building times!
I bought Redhawks 5.2 or .3 in the big box, bought the Linux Bible and went to town.
Was running Sgi IRIX full time back then. When Linux booted, I had two thoughts!
(Glances at spiffy Sgi Indigo Magic Desktop)
1) Hoo Boy, we have a long way to go
, and
2) YES, a lot is possible today!
Good times.
bombcar
> ./configure; make && make install
This was what eventually lead me to Gentoo, if I'm going to have to compile some things why not all the things?
And being able to install mpg123 without installing X, that was nice.
ok_dad
I wish I spent that time compiling Gentoo a decade and a half ago farming bitcoins instead. What a waste of time!
antod
I had the opposite, lots of that lead me to Debian instead. It wasn't so much the pain of compiling something once, but the ongoing pain of updating.
null
29athrowaway
The Red Hat CDs had HOWTOs in them, you could use them to get many things done step by step.
If there was a packaged version you would prefer that, but not a lot of stuff was packaged in RPMs at the time.
When Ubuntu came out and they started sending CDs for free worldwide (kudos to Mark Shuttleworth), that's when the Ubuntu/Debian started dominating.
codr7
My Linux life started even earlier, with a borrowed Red Hat 4 CD around 1995/6.
But it took quite a few years before it ran well enough for me to consider using it full time.
I remember the first versions of GNOME being buggy as hell.
Then I spent a couple of years compiling Gentoo, can't remember actually using it much.
eadmund
That brings back memories! As does running the desktop from one’s .xinitrc:
panel &
background-properties --init &
keyboard-properties --init &
mouse-properties --init &
fvwm2 -f .fvwm2rc.gnome
floren
I do it this way even today, although I don't mess with gnome bits, just stumpwm and xmodmap, xbindkeys, etc
anonzzzies
I still do this. And no systemd. I like simple things that I understand and can do from first principles.
_0xdd
Good times. My first Linux distribution was a copy of RH 6.1 that my parents bought me from OfficeMax. They weren’t too thrilled when I nuked the MBR on our family’s Windows 98 box, but they’ve subsequently benefitted from nearly 30 years of free tech support haha. Took me another year or so before I finally got X working on our Dell laptop, because I had to install a patched X server to work with its Rage Mobility graphics card. I remember thinking that my keyboard was broken because `su` didn’t echo my password back out to the console. We all have to start somewhere, and the manuals that came with that install were priceless to me.
plaidwombat
People still don't believe me when I say this was a real thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_VxrcNgUlM (Red Hat Linux Once Featured A REDNECK Translation)
mnutt
We tried this out a middle schoolers at an installfest in Alabama in the 90s, but something was broken with the resulting install and had to wipe it and start over. Funny that 25+ years later I learn that the problem could have been that the locale was set to en_RN…
saratogacx
Pirate and Swedish Chief too if I remember correctly.
ottod
First Linux I bought was Walnut Creek Linux CD-ROM. Second was Redhat. I would still be on Redhat if it were not for IBM and their bad faith source-available interpretation of the GPL. Then I bought Mandrake and used it as long as it was Mandrake and not the thing that became Conectiva. Then I heard about Ubuntu which would mail free CDs anywhere in the world. I was in education back then and my students would ask Ubuntu for CDs for a class I was teaching, and Canonical sent them a cardboard display, flyers, stickers, and about 50 CDs. They watched in class Revolution OS and contacted many of the people on it, which were kind enough to answer them. Those were the times; I'm old, yet still looking for a job because I love the industry.
saltcured
Hah, I downloaded floppy disk images from Walnut Creek CD-ROM's amazing FTP mirror site, wrote them to actual floppies in my university computer lab, and carried those home to try out SLS and later Slackware.
Starting with Linux in 1993, I was already using it productively for years before things like SSH and VMware existed!
dfc
I can't remember the name of the Linux CD set I would buy. It had a red background and a picture of the globe. The cds contained slackware/sunsite/gnu etc. I think it started with an "I"...
EDIT:
Found it, wild nostalgia! It was infomagic. This was my first Linux install: https://archive.org/details/ldr_0895_4cd
jasonb05
Great times. Slackware then redhat in the late 90s was how/when I got started with linux and built solid cmdline skills.
cyberge99
I love those old project codenames. They were all connected to each other, but different. Manthattan -> Apollo (both were “Projects”). Apollo to Hedwig (both were characters), etc.
_0xdd
Cartman and Zoot!
ofalkaed
First time I installed linux was around 98, something went wrong and I could not boot and once able to boot could not get on the net. Went through all the information I had printed out and the books I had to no avail, called everyone I could think of. For the next week I had daily bus rides to the library where I would get on IRC to ask any question I could think of, download anything which might help, take lots of notes, make a new boot disk or two and then back home to spend the night trying to sort things out.
First thing I did when I got everything working was sign on to a couple local BBS's so I could play LORD, had to catch up on all that lost time. Felt pretty great to play LORD from console.
freedomben
Wish I'd been that successful. I tried to install Red Hat in '98 with absolutely no support or help. Got the disks from a friend of mine whose dad was a SWE. I ended up (figuratively) crawling on my belly back to the computer shop where I bought the hardware to reinstall Windows. Not my proudest moment!
But in hindsight very expected. When I switched to Linux full time around 2010 I started realizing how disadvantaged I was at the time and forgave myself :-)
ofalkaed
I don't think I can say that I was successful, various people on IRC were the ones who were successful and I was just lucky they were willing to compile kernels and make disk images for me since the library computers lacked the required software to do all that stuff.
antod
I also first tried Linux (with zero unix knowledge) about 98 or 99 with RH5.1 which I think was the 2.0.3x kernel.
Frankly I'm amazed I got as far as I did despite it was mostly uninformed blundering about and bashing my head against the wall. I managed to figure out the specific AT codes to make my modem connect, and even managed to download and compile KDE 1.1 (the default UI was so ugly and clunky). KDE took about a day to compile from memory.
walterbell
For more Linux history, see the "Free Software Business" mailing list, https://web.archive.org/web/20001219073400/http://www.crynwr...
In 1999, RedHat acquired Cygnus for $674M, https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/press-cygnusa...
neilv
If you had to integrate it into an existing office network, you might do things like this:
I remember this era. It was Slackware, Caldera, TurboLinux, Mandrake and lots of hours with `./configure; make && make install` executions, reading Linux magazines and big fat books on getting it up and running (losing "precious" data in the process as well). Seeing scary fsck messages when booting up a PC that wasn't properly shutdown. I also remember that there was WinLinux 2000 for those who where scared having a real linux installed. I can't recall the real reason nor how I heard about Linux at the time, but I'm immensely grateful that I did and with time switched permanently to the open source side.