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Re: Older Hardware Still Works

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On 2025-08-27 11:33, Nuno Silva wrote:
> On 2025-08-27, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, 26 Aug 2025 19:02:29 +1000, Peter 'Shaggy' Haywood wrote:
>>
>>> Groovy hepcat Lawrence D’Oliveiro was jivin' in comp.os.linux.misc on
>>> Wed, 20 Aug 2025 01:56 pm. It's a cool scene! Dig it.
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 19 Aug 2025 17:21:04 +1000, Peter 'Shaggy' Haywood wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> After hearing about Ubuntu Netbook Remix, I decided that would be a
>>>>> better option. Unfortunately the UI that came with that also sucked!
>>>>
>>>>      sudo apt-get kubuntu-desktop
>>>
>>>    Yeah, I know. But at the time I only had crappy dial-up internet, and
>>> there weren't any free wi-fi spots near me. Downloading software was
>>> difficult at best, and maxed out before it's finished. So doing that was
>>> not really an option then.
>>
>> Surely downloading a whole new distro would have been even more bandwidth-
>> hungry.
> 
> In some countries, PC magazines(*) coming with linux distros on CDs
> might have been a thing, as well as books.
> 
> (*) Portugal may have had at least a couple issues of some magazines
> doing this; Brasil had at least one publication that seemed to have a
> different distro with every issue, which was also available in Portugal.
> 
> At one point in the first decade of the century - no idea if it's still
> the case - Canonical would provide (as in by post) CDs free of charge
> for at least some of these Ubuntus.
> 
> But yes, I can understand the problem. At that point I might have had a
> MinGW wget windows binary in a pendrive or something, so that I could
> not only download the files required for the linux installs without
> network connectivity using e.g. library windows PCs, but also do so
> taking advantage of wget's features (most notably input list and
> resuming partial downloads).
> 
> This was with Fedora (which was less easy, but it's quite possible I
> overlooked some option or tool that'd have made this much easier) and
> with Gentoo (that at least back then made this piece of cake or nearly
> that, as you'd get the list with emerge -pf; nowadays I still have to
> file a bug (and see if one already exists first, of course) because it
> seems the new mirror directory tree scheme makes it so that it won't
> work out of the box).

Around 1998 computer magazines in Spain did indeed include CDs with some 
Linux distribution. There was no way I could download a distro on my 
modem. Even if I paid the phone charges, my room mates would roast me alive.

So I think I got a CD of Red Had and installed that. I finally booted 
and got a shell prompt, but I had no idea what to do with that.

So another magazine posted a comparison of several distros, and said 
that SuSE was the easiest. Weeks later that or another magazine included 
a double CD of S.u.S.E. Linux 5.3 (I still have it) and I installed that 
one. Yes, it worked and I could do things with it. It contained help 
like "susehelp", a database of known problems. Eventually, I bough maybe 
6.2 or 6.3. It came with books in the box. That was fantastic!

-- 
Cheers, Carlos.

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Re: Older Hardware Still Works Peter 'Shaggy' Haywood <phaywood@alphalink.com.au> - 2025-08-26 19:02 +1000
  Re: Older Hardware Still Works Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-08-27 00:39 +0000
    Re: Older Hardware Still Works Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2025-08-27 10:33 +0100
      Re: Older Hardware Still Works "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2025-08-27 12:04 +0200
        Re: Older Hardware Still Works Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2025-08-27 14:36 -0700
          Re: Older Hardware Still Works rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-08-28 03:38 +0000
      Re: Older Hardware Still Works rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-08-27 21:55 +0000
      Re: Older Hardware Still Works c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2025-08-27 22:51 -0400
    Re: Older Hardware Still Works Peter 'Shaggy' Haywood <phaywood@alphalink.com.au> - 2025-08-28 18:37 +1000
      Re: Older Hardware Still Works rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-08-28 19:09 +0000
        Re: Older Hardware Still Works c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2025-08-29 01:27 -0400
      Re: Older Hardware Still Works Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-08-29 00:55 +0000
        Re: Older Hardware Still Works rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-08-29 04:04 +0000
          Re: Older Hardware Still Works Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2025-08-28 23:20 -0700
            Re: Older Hardware Still Works c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2025-08-29 04:42 -0400

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