[HN Gopher] GNOME and Red Hat Linux eleven years ago (2009)
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GNOME and Red Hat Linux eleven years ago (2009)
Author : marcodiego
Score : 103 points
Date : 2025-06-15 16:08 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (linuxgazette.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (linuxgazette.net)
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Red Hat Linux on the family PC in the 90's changed the course of
| my life.
| mattl wrote:
| Same. Finally had my own computer that could run a modern OS. I
| used to read manuals back then.
| innerHTML wrote:
| can I ask how it has changed the course of your life?
|
| I've deen daily driving Ubuntu with KDE for about 2 years now.
| it's been great and I've had a lot of fun exploring things and
| learning the GNU tools in particular. I've been interested in
| contributing to some projects but that hasn't been very
| accessible so far.
| natebc wrote:
| Not sure about the person you're directly asking but I have a
| similar sentiment for Red Hat Linux of the era.
|
| I've been a Linux sysadmin since 1999. Every dollar I've paid
| for food and shelter since has been a direct result of what I
| learned getting Linux up and running on a PC and dialed up
| (later connected via Ethernet/Cable Modem) to the internet.
|
| I have no clue what I would have done otherwise. I'd probably
| be working in Public Health or recently unemployed from the
| EPA by the Trumps Doge Squad.
| mattl wrote:
| I got my PC in 1996, replacing my 1990 Amstrad CPC. I was
| contributing to free software projects a little over a year
| or so later, working full time customizing free software in
| house by 2001, made a short film about GNU in 2007 and a
| consultant at the FSF by 2008.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Introduced me to Linux. Nobody on the school playground had
| even heard of it. Helped fuel my lifelong interest in
| computers. The Linux and tech experience contributed to my
| current role.
| ghaff wrote:
| Probably try to find something that hasn't been around
| forever and seems solid but doesn't have a huge contributor
| base.
| ylee wrote:
| I have never been paid to write code, and my formal CS
| education is limited to AP Computer Science, and a one-credit
| Java class in college. But like 2OEH8eoCRo0, I can say that
| Red Hat Linux changed my life. Experience running Linux from
| kernel 1.2.13/Red Hat Linux 2.1 onward at home, and
| contributing small bits of code to a project or two (and RPMs
| to community repos), got me into a career at Wall Street
| after college, covering hardware and software companies
| (including RHAT) as an equity analyst during and after the
| dotcom bubble.
| eadmund wrote:
| 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
|
| Honestly, I think that there was a lot to love about that
| straightforward, discoverable way of doing things.
| floren wrote:
| I do it this way even today, although I don't mess with gnome
| bits, just stumpwm and xmodmap, xbindkeys, etc
| anonzzzies wrote:
| I still do this. And no systemd. I like simple things that I
| understand and can do from first principles.
| cyberge99 wrote:
| 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.
| sillywalk wrote:
| I don't anything will top Fedora's 'Beefy Miracle'.
| noinsight wrote:
| RIP Beefy Miracle...
|
| https://beefymiracle.org/
| _0xdd wrote:
| Cartman and Zoot!
| pyman wrote:
| This belongs in a museum!
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Why does this Gnome beta preview have TWM windowing? Was the
| Gnome kind not available yet?
| fredoralive wrote:
| The article notes Gnome didn't have it's own window manager
| yet.
|
| I'm slightly surprised it's using TWM, rather than something
| like FVWM95, I'm sure I used an ancient version of Red Hat that
| used that, but it might be the author's preference.
|
| (Edit: another poster says FVWM95 was the release after
| this...)
| giantrobot wrote:
| IIRC on this version of Red Hat TWM was the default window
| manager installed. FVWM, WindowMaker, and _maybe_ Enlightenment
| shipped on the disc. Again IIRC the next version (5.2) used
| FVWM95 by default. Maybe 6.0 shipped with FVWM95 by default. It
| 's been a minute.
| joey486DX4 wrote:
| 5.2 had FVWM95 as the default. There were menu options to
| restart in AfterStep and something else, probably twm. That
| was my first Linux. I also compiled qvwm, mlvwm, IceWM from
| scratch. And ultimately settled on Blackbox.
| anthk wrote:
| Gnome used to run with E and Sawfish.
| liendolucas wrote:
| 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.
| ddingus wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > ./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 wrote:
| I wish I spent that time compiling Gentoo a decade and a half
| ago farming bitcoins instead. What a waste of time!
| antod wrote:
| 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.
| anthk wrote:
| From that era I love the wmicons package (it's under OpenBSD's
| ports and maybe Debian too).
| ottod wrote:
| 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.
| dfc wrote:
| 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
| saltcured wrote:
| 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!
| lvl155 wrote:
| Can't recall if it was this exact one but I got one of these for
| my Dell. And I am gonna be honest and say it was not a good
| experience for me.
| boredemployee wrote:
| There was a game from that Red Hat era that I loved so much, I
| *think* it was in Red Hat in that same period. It was a really
| simple adventure game in 2d, you could play in a window after
| typing/entering startx. But can't remember the name, I was 12 and
| it seems today like I dreamt about the game lol.
|
| Would appreciate if anyone remembers it!
| qznc wrote:
| I would suspect something on ScummVM. That is a lot of games
| though:
| https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php?title=Category:Supported_...
| boredemployee wrote:
| There was a game from that Red Hat era that I loved so much, I
| **think** it was in Red Hat in that same period. It was a really
| simple adventure game in 2d, you could play in a window after
| typing/entering startx. But can't remember the name, I was 12 and
| it seems today like I dreamt about the game lol.
|
| Would appreciate if anyone remembers it!
| marcodiego wrote:
| Sure! How about a description?
| boredemployee wrote:
| It looks like Lode Runner, but even more simple as I
| remember. Not sure if it came together with KDE. So long ago.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Any more information than that? Abuse?
| CodeArtisan wrote:
| maybe this
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocks%27n%27Diamonds
| indigodaddy wrote:
| https://apps.kde.org/kgoldrunner/
| whitehexagon wrote:
| I seem to recall my first RH install/live demo, was a cover disc
| from one of the comp mags at the time. I guess these days the
| disc would just have an unlock code for a vast download, followed
| by another vast download to update.
|
| >From switching on, I can get to the 1998 GNOME desktop in two to
| three seconds, whereas with a recent kernel and KDE it takes
| thirty
|
| This is what I miss. I remember installing my first SSD and
| thinking thank goodness I am back down to 6s boot times, but it
| didnt last long. Although Asahi on my M1 is feels just about fast
| enough that I do a complete shutdown after each use.
| matt3210 wrote:
| Motif is peak UI
| ddingus wrote:
| It is showcased in the SGI Indigo Magic Desktop.
|
| You can build similar GUI apps with FLTK today
| anthk wrote:
| Or just the same OpenMotif as it was libre since a while ago.
| marcusb wrote:
| The API was horrible, though.
| neilv wrote:
| If you had to integrate it into an existing office network, you
| might do things like this:
|
| https://www.neilvandyke.org/lab-linux-1999/
| _0xdd wrote:
| 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.
| ok123456 wrote:
| If you go through the trouble of trying one of these ancient
| distributions, use a mode line calculator (e.g.,
| https://arachnoid.com/modelines/index.html ) for your
| XFree86.config. With that, it's straightforward to get it working
| on a 16:9, 16:10, or any other resolution.
| plaidwombat wrote:
| 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)
| saratogacx wrote:
| Pirate and Swedish Chief too if I remember correctly.
| mnutt wrote:
| 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...
| comprev wrote:
| RH 8.0 was my introduction to Linux and fighting with winmodems.
| After a few months I found an external US Robotics 56k modem
| which made exploring the web much easier. My whole career in tech
| can be traced back to that time.
| walterbell wrote:
| 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...
| ofalkaed wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 :-)
| antod wrote:
| 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.
| ofalkaed wrote:
| 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.
| opentokix wrote:
| Gnome was indeed garbage then
| HideousKojima wrote:
| "I used to be garbage. I still am, but I used to be, to."
|
| -Gnome
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