this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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For those veteran linux people, what was it like back in 90s? I did see and hear of Unix systems being available for use but I did not see much apart from old versions of Debian in use.

Were they prominent in education like universities? Was it mainly a hobbyist thing at the time compared to the business needs of 98, 95 and classic mac?

I ask this because I found out that some PC games I owned were apparently also on Linux even in CD format from a firm named Loki.

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[–] mortalic@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago (3 children)

This was me, you're talking about me. 😂 In the 90's Linux was barely getting started but slackware was probably the main distro everyone was focused on. That was the first one I ran across. This was probably late 90's, I don't remember when slack first came about though.

By the time the 2000's came around, it was basically a normal thing for people in college to have used or at least tried. Linux was in the vernacular, text books had references to it, and the famous lawsuit from SCO v IBM was in full swing. There were distro choices for days, including Gentoo which I spent literally a week getting everything compiled on an old Pentium only for it to not support some of the hardware and refuse to boot.

There was a company I believe called VA Linux that declared that year to be the year of the Linux desktop. My memory might be faulty on this one.

Loki gaming was a company that specialized in porting games to Linux, and they did a good job at it but couldn't make money. I remember being super excited about them and did buy a few games. I was broke too so that was a real splurge for me. I feel like they launched in the 90's (late) and crashed in the early 2000's.

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 3 points 3 months ago

I still have Loki's port of Rune around somewhere.

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