• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Lineage of Linux and all the distros

Thatdad

Android Expert
Jun 4, 2013
1,322
324
31
South Georgia
So for those of you who don't know linux 's colorful history, here's a link, if I had wrote it all it would take way to much time. Lol

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux

And one for the distros history..

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_distribution

What distros have all of you used? (For me this would be Ubuntu and another that looked like windows xp)

Also, for the older members, who remembers back when Linux first started?

Please share your experiences with us! Experienced Linux users and even the newbies. :)

Tell me if the links were posted please and thank you.
 
What distros have all of you used?
A lot! Among them: Caldera, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Kubuntu (my favorite), Lubuntu, Lindows (which had to change its name due to M$ crap; it became Linspire; I had this so I could provide support to my father-in-law in Florida; I'd switched him from window$ to Linux :)), Knoppix, Bodhi (very lightweight--this has resurrected my older laptop), Fedora, Puppy, Mandriva, Slackware, openSUSE. (And THANK GOODNESS for this list of Linux distros, because I truly couldn't remember them all until I saw their names. I'm still not sure I got them all, though.)

Also, for the older members, who remembers back when Linux first started?
Me, me!! :D It was very exciting in 1991 when Linus announced his new project. At the time I was using Coherent at home; it was a low-cost ($99 if I remember correctly) UNIX clone. Word of a free, community based *nix variant was very exciting.

I don't want anyone carving this in stone, okay? I THINK I started with version 0.11 in late 1991. But I really don't remember for sure. I do still have the diskette I downloaded it on, but it's out in the garage in still-unopened boxes from when I moved back here in 2006. And since I no longer have diskette drives...unless I wrote the version on the label I can't be sure.
 
Upvote 0
Its really cool to hear from members who have been using Linux since it first began. :)

I also forgot to mention another distro I used. Xubuntu. This revived my ancient desktop. (2004 Dell windows xp, mere 400 Mb of RAM) needless to say it really breathed life into it! :D

I'm happy Linux was created, I'm a firm believer that if Linux had not been created, our tech wouldn't be as advanced as it is now.
 
Upvote 0
I'm happy Linux was created, I'm a firm believer that if Linux had not been created, our tech wouldn't be as advanced as it is now.
Well, look at it like this: Android, the Internet, DVRs, and MANY other things wouldn't exist as we know them. Of course all of those things may have proceeded using UNIX as their base, but we'll never know.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Thatdad
Upvote 0
The first Linux I looked at was Corel Linux that came with a PC mag. That seems to have been released in 1999. It wasn't for me at that time. The next time I had a look, I had Mandrake Linux. I was dual booting with Windows and I wound up using the latter most of the while so it wasn't really successful for me.

My final change came at a time when I was more determined to make it work as I really did not want to move to XP and I felt the days of me using Win 2K pro were coming to an end. A friend gave me copies of Debian, SuSe 9.1 and one other (Fedora?) to try. Of these, I found SuSe with a KDE desktop suited me nicely.

I've tried several distributions since including all the *buntu ones, Mint, Fedora and CentoOS at various times but nothing has persuaded me away from the OpenSuse/ KDE combination. I've always felt it's KDE integration very strong and I'm a fan of Yast as a configuration tool.

The only exceptions to this I have at the moment are a Raspberry PI running Raspbian and a copy of Knoppix on a pen drive.
 
Upvote 0
I started with Caldera Linux around 1999 or so. Then I tried an early version Red Hat but didn't like it & Gnome as much as KDE. Then I tried a few of the so called easy distros but ketp having issues, so I started trying Debian & Slackware, which to my surpirse would install and run without issues. I stuck with those for awhile before getting tired of tinkering so I started using Mandrake/Mandriva up until recently. Now I run Mageia Linux & Salix OS. One is forked from Mandriva and Salix is based on Slackware.

Over the years I've tried a bunch and I do mean a bunch but the one's i've listed above always stayed installed at one time or another.
 
Upvote 0
I started with Caldera Linux around 1999 or so. Then I tried an early version Red Hat but didn't like it & Gnome as much as KDE. Then I tried a few of the so called easy distros but ketp having issues, so I started trying Debian & Slackware, which to my surpirse would install and run without issues. I stuck with those for awhile before getting tired of tinkering so I started using Mandrake/Mandriva up until recently. Now I run Mageia Linux & Salix OS. One is forked from Mandriva and Salix is based on Slackware.

Over the years I've tried a bunch and I do mean a bunch but the one's i've listed above always stayed installed at one time or another.

Have you ever tried Mint?
 
Upvote 0
Well, I ran Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) for a few months before removing it. I was satisfied using it but I just wanted to try it out. I haven't ran the pure Mint edition though.

I was considering Mint but Ubuntu won out.

I think the amount of users and the sidebar/dashboard reeled me in lol.

That Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin was freaking awesome! :)
 
Upvote 0
Why not add it to the one you have?

It's a tiny netbook, I tried Dual Booting but it wound up lagging it out for some reason. I have to have Windows for some of the stuff that my college wants me to have..

I haven't started yet, but I went ahead and took Ubuntu and put windows on this one since its a cheapo one.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rxpert83
Upvote 0
So I have heard. I'm going to buy another laptop when I get the extra money and put Mint on it.

Hi! You won't regret it! I have used pure Mint and it is great! I am most likely going back,too! But Mints not the only great distro out there! Have you ever heard on Manjaro Linux? I think you would really enjoy it and there XFCE is really nice. Elementary Os, Debian Zeven Neptune Os, Solydxk, Calcualte Linux(To learn about gentoo) Siduction Debian, CrunchBang,Archbang etc are other that I have used. Might want to look at Crunchbang if you have an older computer.
Right now my main is Manjaro Linux XFCE.

Also if you really want to try Mint just make a new Partition and put it on!
 
Upvote 0
Hi! You won't regret it! I have used pure Mint and it is great! I am most likely going back,too! But Mints not the only great distro out there! Have you ever heard on Manjaro Linux? I think you would really enjoy it and there XFCE is really nice. Elementary Os, Debian Zeven Neptune Os, Solydxk, Calcualte Linux(To learn about gentoo) Siduction Debian, CrunchBang,Archbang etc are other that I have used. Might want to look at Crunchbang if you have an older computer.
Right now my main is Manjaro Linux XFCE.

Also if you really want to try Mint just make a new Partition and put it on!

I would but whenever I do it lags it out pretty bad.. I have wait to get my flashdrives also since I'm moving and its all put up for now.

Probably will wind up dual booting to see if it lags out again.
 
Upvote 0
It's a tiny netbook, I tried Dual Booting but it wound up lagging it out for some reason. I have to have Windows for some of the stuff that my college wants me to have..

I haven't started yet, but I went ahead and took Ubuntu and put windows on this one since its a cheapo one.
I ran Winxp and Mandriva Linux as a dual boot setup on my '09 Acer Aspire One and didn't see any lag. I gave it away in Dec. '11...It only had 1gb of memory but Mandriva was faster then XP.

@JumpinJupiter, I ran FreeBSD for awhile years ago and it was great. I think my hard drive died and I never reinstalled it, it doesn't hold your hand as much as alot of linux distros. But it does have great documentation. It gives you a more Unix experience.
 
Upvote 0
I've never used it personally, but I've heard it's pretty good. Go ahead and give it a try, who knows, you might wind up loving it! :)
Thanks i will. Although I really wish the maker of ArchBSD made it in 32bit also so I could pratice installing it in a VBox oh well. I always get nervous with text based installers! one wrong code in partitioning while trying to shrink partitions and grow them could really ruin my day lol which is why I will do that in good old Gparted and just point it to the correct partiton name. Hack mine as well just install it on this zombie Pc as it doesn't have an Os on it at all and supports 64bit! I could also try the "best filesystem in the world" ZFS!

Also why is freeBSD such a big download(2GB while ArchBSD is at a timid 232MB)? I though it was more of a source distro.
 
Upvote 0
Also another recommendation to the OP how about LiveDVD GentooInstall LiveDVD 12.1 to hard disk drive - Gentoo-en Looks farily easy and comes with alot of binary applications that would take a while to compile. Once again just to make things easier set up partitions in Gparted.( with my set up it takes a calculator and a little thinking so i do not have to format anything other than swap)
 
Upvote 0
Thanks i will. Although I really wish the maker of ArchBSD made it in 32bit also so I could pratice installing it in a VBox oh well. I always get nervous with text based installers! one wrong code in partitioning while trying to shrink partitions and grow them could really ruin my day lol which is why I will do that in good old Gparted and just point it to the correct partiton name. Hack mine as well just install it on this zombie Pc as it doesn't have an Os on it at all and supports 64bit! I could also try the "best filesystem in the world" ZFS!

Also why is freeBSD such a big download(2GB while ArchBSD is at a timid 232MB)? I though it was more of a source distro.

So I'm assuming your running x86? What is your RAM?
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones