Am I incorrect in thinking that most of the OS is actually GNU?
you’re absolutely correct
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!
I know a guy who loved unix in the 80s. I saved everything he had to buy a SunOS machine at home, since he already had one as a workstation at his dayjob. As soon as Linux was semi-“usable” (we’re talking about the early 90s), he migrated to it.
I know how lucky I am to be a 2000s Linux users. But sometimes, I’m kinda envious of this early generation. For example, with this guy I know, his knowledge of legacy unix APIs is insane…
Early Linux was painful. Hardware compatibility was sketchy. X11 graphics were especially suspect. These are days of CRT monitors, and it was a regular practice you’d have to craft your X Window config files by hand even inputting the refresh rates and specific resolutions your display would support.
Packages and package managers didn’t exist yet. I’d downloaded the (at the time) recent version of Slackware but had trouble getting the compiler working and nearly EVERYTHING required compiling from source. Easy accessible public version controlled source code repos weren’t a thing yet either. You had to go to an FTP site (or BBS) and hope the maintainer labeled the directory structure properly for the code and version you wanted.
I picked up my first commercially purchased copy of Linux (SUSE release 5) because it had 4 CDs of programs/utilities, had YaST, and I found a newsgroup posting detailing part of what I was trying to accomplish at the time, a dual analog modem bonded proxy (Squid!) to provide 128kps dial up internet for my employer (with a 6.8kps download time to users).
Lots of us weren’t running full IP networks at the time. At another employer I ran IPX (file and print for Netware services), Netbeui for Windows peer-to-peer connections, and finally TCP/IP for internet operations (full public IPs on each workstation with no firewall!!!)
but sometimes, I’m kinda envious of this early generation. For example, with this guy I know, his knowledge of legacy unix APIs is insane…
For the dozen things you’ve seen him pull out of his hat that look like magic to you there are a thousand things he knows about long dead technologies and techniques that were simply a requirement of getting through the day back then.
16 years old me had sweaty palms writing those XFree86 config files at first in the early 2000s. I remember all the warnings saying if you screw up this file say goodbye to your monitor, Luckily never happened.
I started with CDs on magazines, my first ones were mandrake 7.2 and suse (can’t remember the version), and later moved to my university’s Linux Users Groups’ Install Fests for CD burning.
I remember a little later still having dial up on my student apartment, I would download the repo data and then make a download script and use uni broadband to download updates, that was in Mandrake 9.
Later on, you could sign up with Ubuntu to get the CDs shipped for free. The package came with 5 CDs and a bunch of stickers, in a paper/bubble wrapp envelope.
What a fugging cheapo.
learns under legend who thinks micro kernels are the hot shit
is too cheap for Unix
writes monolithic kernel
kernel becomes one of the most successful ones ever
“When I Left You, I Was But The Learner. Now, I Am The Maintainer.”
