
Linux Distributions Archives - Gwxz
https://www.linux-distros.com
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nobleach
Wow, I remember the days of the late 90s early 2000s checking out every distro
I could get my hands on. I ordered so many from Cheapbytes and Linux Central.
(I feel like there may have been a Linux Mall in there somewhere too). I just
couldn't believe that these complete distros were free to install and use!
RedHat 6.0, Debian Slink. NetBSD 1.4, Slackware.... Getting these things set
up and then installing something like Enlightenment with some gorgeous
theme.... only to tear it all down days later and try something else. What an
incredible time.

~~~
bluedino
I used to buy Linux magazines that contained a CD. TurboLinux, Storm Linux...

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nobleach
YES! TurboLinux from Utah! I loved that one. And I still have my Storm Linux
CD in the garage. Nice packaging. (Florescent green I think)

Yup, went and dug it out of the garage:
[https://ibb.co/PM4GTkt](https://ibb.co/PM4GTkt)

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pampa
Redat 3.0.3 was my first linux distro back in 96. It came on a set of 6 CDs
from Walnut Creek. Together with Slackware & something else i dont remember.

~~~
nineteen999
Yeah I had that CD set as well. I think there was Debian on there as well, but
I believe the installer was broken at that point so it was difficult or
impossible to get a booting Debian system.

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djsumdog
> Metro-X Server

I have never heard of this! I have always used XFree86 (later forked to Xorg)
as far back as I can remember. From what I can find, this was a
commercial/closed source server that shipped for $99. There doesn't seem to be
much info it.

~~~
trm42
[https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2299](https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2299)

[http://ictbanking.com/LJ/035/1374.html](http://ictbanking.com/LJ/035/1374.html)

Actually Metro-X server sounds quite cool for its time. Multi-display support,
X-based GUI for configuration (anyone remember xf86config stuff?)...

I actually bought the Red Hat Linux 3.0.3 (and used it and its successors
Until Red Hat 7) but the Metro-X didn't support my video card so I was stuck
with the XFree86.

Does anyone know if the later Redhat versions (than 3.0.3) offered Metro-X?
Probably not in the free, downloadable ISOs but was it bundled in the sold CDs
or was this one time thing only?

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jchw
> anyone remember xf86config stuff?

Wow, yeah. I also remember the YaST X configuration tool that shipped with
SuSE.

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jwilk
The ISO images are compressed with RAR. What a bizarre choice.

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asveikau
It is weird, in part because iso has directory entries, and so does rar.
Iso.gz or iso.xz seems like it would make more sense, eg. a block compressor.

But something like OS install media I would expect to already have compression
applied to payload. Eg. Rpm and deb files probably use gzip. That wouldn't
compress too well. So maybe just .iso would be fine.

Rar itself seems to be pretty common in certain enthusiast communities where
people tend to use windows. For example I still see it when people are passing
Android ROMs and unlocking tools around on web forums. And very few other
places.

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linuxuser001
I'm curious because I'm trying to convince people to switch from .rar to
.tar.gz at work, wonder if you know the benefits, what does it mean that one
is a block compressor?

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chungy
Generally speaking, there's two large categories of archivers in competition
with one another:

1\. Efficient random-access storage. If compression is supported, it is done
on a per-member database.

2\. Efficient all-at-once compression (block/solid compression). This is
either handled explicitly by file format (RAR and 7z, for example), or the
archive doesn't support compression (tar) and itself is processed through an
external compressor.

On the first category, I would argue Zip has clear superiority over most other
file formats. It supports all metadata fields for both DOS/Windows and Unix
operating systems, and has very wide support amongst everything. Zip does not
support the second category of archival formats.

In the second category, 7z (I don't know about RAR, but I suspect it holds
true) only supports DOS attributes and modified dates, making it totally
insufficient for backing up a lot of kinds of Unix file trees. tar is
generally the de facto standard for Unix and naturally supports all metadata.
I would argue gzip is long obsolete; zstd is much faster (it can nearly
compete with xz too for file size).

tar files don't really support random access for individual members, lacking a
central directory, though uncompressed files can be seeked rather rapidly
anyway as the tar program just skips over members (each member encodes its
length). Compressed tar files make this worse, since the entire archive must
be uncompressed in memory just to find anything. This is a large reason that
tar is mostly restricted to being used when extracting individual members is
not a generally useful operation. If that is a useful operation in your
datasets, go for Zip.

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genpfault
RAR also has built-in forward error correction, something I sorely miss with
7z :(

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icedchai
My first Linux distro was SLS Linux:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softlanding_Linux_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softlanding_Linux_System)

I first installed it in late 1993, back in the kernel 0.99.10 days, eventually
moving on to Slackware...

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hoistbypetard
That brings back some memories. I'm disappointed they don't seem to have any
Yggdrasil archives, as I remember liking that and can't find any of my old
disks.

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adjagu
Found this with a search. Is this close to what you are/were looking for?

[https://archiveos.org/yggdrasil/](https://archiveos.org/yggdrasil/)

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hoistbypetard
Yes. Thanks! I'm going to fire up a VM for some nostalgia.

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adjagu
Awesome! Glad to help, have fun :)

