From the archives: the best distros of 2000 (TuxRadar) [LWN.net]

TuxRadar has an amusing walk down memory lane for anyone who has been using Linux since 2000 (or before). It is re-running an article from from the first issue of Linux Format magazine that reviewed the top distributions of 2000. "Remember that nine years is a long time in the computing world -- and even more so for Linux. [...] Corel Linux is long dead, despite a high-profile entrance into the distro scene, while Caldera Linux occupied a healthy position (before the SCO shenanigans busted it up). SUSE, Mandrake, Red Hat and Mandriva are still alive in various flavours, while the British Definite distro bought the farm and WinLinux only made it to a 2003 release."

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Classic Debian

Posted Feb 9, 2009 21:35 UTC (Mon) by endecotp (guest, #36428) [Link] (3 responses)

This article is well worth a look if you want a giggle. Both for how things have changed so much - the desktops look so angular, for example - but also for how some things just never change like the kernel versions:

Corel 2.2.12
Definite 2.2.12
WinLinux 2.2.13
Red Hat 2.2.12
Debian 2.0.38 <<<<<<========
Mandrake 2.2.14
Caldera OpenLinux 2.2.10
SuSE Linux 2.2.13

It's not very P.C. but I can't beat one of the commenters at the end of the article:

"Oh, and Debian, with the 2.0.38 kernel, seems like they were striving to attend the special olympics."

Classic Debian

Posted Feb 9, 2009 22:41 UTC (Mon) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link] (2 responses)

Yes, I was very glad not to be pushed to use early kernels 2.2.x which were not very good until x>=16 or so.

Classic Debian

Posted Feb 10, 2009 4:22 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (1 responses)

Most of us were pushed, in those days, to use bleeding edge kernels (including 2.1.x) because older kernels lacked the needed hardware support. This was less of a problem on servers, but for many it ruled out use of Debian stable releases.

Classic Debian

Posted Feb 10, 2009 5:20 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

that's for sure. I remember loading 2.1.166 on a system one evening and then boxed it up and shipped it across the country (out of my control for 4+ years) because it had the fix for the 3com NIC (which would shut itself down under high load) and not only wasn't the fix in the 2.0 kernels, there was no intention to ever backport it. (and this was before 2.2.0 was released, the core kernel devs were telling people to run the 2.1 kernels as they wouldn't even bother to try finding a problem on the 2.0 kernels)

the people who complain so bitterly about regressions and the 'constantly unstable' development model in use today never had the 'pleasure' of living through the other approach.

Caldera... Yuck.

Posted Feb 10, 2009 1:44 UTC (Tue) by cmc (guest, #16767) [Link] (2 responses)

I remember Caldera, as it was the first Linux distro I ran (back in 1994?). They were pushing its innovative "Looking Glass" desktop, which was awful. Still, it had the advantage of coming on a CD and thus being installable without a real Internet connection. The NetWare integration sounded good, but I don't think I ever got it working. And a little later I installed Red Hat (2?) from O'Reilly's Running Linux Companion and never looked back.

Caldera... Yuck.

Posted Feb 10, 2009 17:15 UTC (Tue) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link] (1 responses)

For all of the bad things that Caldera has done, I still have fond memories of OpenLinux 1.3. It was one of the first distributions that shipped with KDE 1.0, which was a big improvement over the Looking Glass based desktop. It was the first distribution that I booted more often than Windows.

Caldera... Yuck.

Posted Feb 11, 2009 0:15 UTC (Wed) by barbara (guest, #3014) [Link]

But... they had some great, high-quality t-shirts with lovely designs. I
still have one which I use for my workouts at the Y (and have been asked
where they can be purchased!).

From the archives: the best distros of 2000 (TuxRadar)

Posted Feb 11, 2009 10:44 UTC (Wed) by dps (guest, #5725) [Link]

This just shows how long I been using linux... when I started the kernel was 0.99pl13 and SLS 1.03 was a current distribution. Red hat and almost all the distributions covered did not exist.

If you wanted everything you needed only 19 3,5" floppies, so everyone bought 20 and used the spare as a backup boot disc. A high spec system was a 486DX2/50 with 8Mb of memory, although those with unlimited money could get a 486DX2/66 and a PCI bus. Hard disc capacities were a few 100 Mb.

You could get a kernel image and some tools on a single floppy. Installing a current distribution on a 486DX2/50 with 8Mb of RAM would be a challenge. In these days of 200 Mb+ gcc processes actually doing much on that spec sheet would be difficult,

My OOo process is 851Mb of which 85Mb is resident. I can see that 486 box having a problem...

Mandriva??

Posted Feb 12, 2009 3:09 UTC (Thu) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link]

Since they have mentioned Mandrake just before that, presumably that should have been Conectiva, the home of apt-rpm and WindowMaker (still kind of sad that WindowMaker/GNUstep did not, or at least has not, take(n) off).