Do you guys remember Zipslack?

[christopheModerator]

Back about 15 years ago, I was playing around with an old Windows 95 laptop. At the time, I had casually been playing with Linux, and Zipslack in particular, since I could use UMSDOS file system (no repartitioning the hard disk). Somehow I got the PCMCIA Wifi card working with it. I thought it was incredibly cool to browse the web in text mode on an 8 MB laptop computer.

So today, I’m playing with virtualbox and thought, “Why not try it on a DOS VM, booting from DOS to Linux via Zipslack?” (I was a bit doubtful, since a while back I tried the same on DOSBox, but the window popped like a balloon — killed it instantly trying to boot Linux.)

But in Virtualbox, it worked.

This time, of course, the virtualbox VM network passed through so I was already connected to the internet — no fussing with configuring anything like long ago. I fired up links and browsed online for a bit.

I wouldn’t want to compute like that daily, but it was fun for a while to “visit an old friend,” as it were. 😉

antiX on everything, since 2017

[Brian MasinickModerator]

I’ve been exchanging quite a few messages lately with seaken64 and he’s been kidding me about getting rid of my last two 32-bit laptops. I had no particular “need” for them, especially since the number of 32-bit OS systems still maintained is dwindling and our “favorite” distributions support 64-bit computing.

Still, your note and his do resonate to the days of our early computing. I’d already been using computers for about twenty years when I got my hands on my first version of Slackware. The version was a bit older because I picked up the CD out of a book. Back then you couldn’t even boot Slackware directly from CD; you had to create two 3 1/2″ FD images – one called boot and the other called root. From there, you’d bootstrap the system by using the boot disk, then the root disk, and from there, it would locate the CD driver, load it, and then you could load the rest of Slackware from CD to disk.

The first version of Slackware I ran was on a Micron M100 (100 MHz) PC. I dual booted Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and an early release of Slackware.
AT first, all it could support was 800×600 8-bit color graphics until I used another 3 1/2″ disk, pulled a more effective driver off the network and installed it; I didn’t have high speed Internet with either WiFi or Ethernet for a few more years, so I used my UNIX workstation, which fortunately had a 3 1/2″ drive, so I used it to grab the software. Once that was installed, Slackware was a joy to use. Back then I had fvwm and fvwm-crystal and they provided very crisp response, even on that old box with minimal resources by today’s standards.

Like you said though, those days were “fun” and this was the first PC I ever bought; previously I used expensive servers and workstations in the office.

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Brian Masinick
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[Brian MasinickModerator]

Yeah, I had a few ZipSlack CDs or DVDs over the years. The most recent Slackware derivative, one I have now that’s based off Slackware-CURRENT, is Zenwalk 15.

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[seaken64Member]

I cut my Linux teeth on Slackware and Vector Linux. I remember those Boot and Root disks, in fact I just found these copies I still have in storage.

Never used ZipSlack though.

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[christopheModerator]

I do remmeber the boot & root floppies!

• This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by christophe.

antiX on everything, since 2017

[Brian MasinickModerator]

The installation program in Slackware LOOKS like the one from way back then but it is actually worlds better than the first one and even though it looks plain, it works quite well.

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[christopheModerator]

Still looks like an ms-dos program? That’s ok, so long as it works well, I say.

antiX on everything, since 2017

[fatmacMember]

I think that was my first experience of Linux, Zipslack 8, just the command line, no internet back then, not even a modem, so not a lot I could do with it, but it got me interested. My first installations were RedHat 4.2 & Debian 2.1 – Debian won, been with it in various forms ever since, mainly #! (Crunchbang), then AntiX, when #! demised. 🙂

I’ve tried a few other distros along the way, especially when I started back in 1999, but the ease of apt-get kept me with a Debian based distro.

Linux (& BSD) since 1999
Ultra Small Form Factor & thin client computers

[Brian MasinickModerator]

fatmac wrote:

I think that was my first experience of Linux, Zipslack 8, … Debian won, been with it in various forms ever since, mainly #! (Crunchbang), then AntiX, when #! demised. ????

I’ve tried a few other distros along the way, especially when I started back in 1999, but the ease of apt-get kept me with a Debian based distro.

I didn’t do much with Debian for the first five years or so that I used Linux. At first I didn’t have a high speed network. I got high speed in 1999 and started graduate school (WAY after undergraduate degree). So I didn’t start with Debian until 2001. A friend named Ralph Glanz got me a copy of Libranet (Debian) and that got me going because it was better configured than the stock Debian of that time.

Once I learned how to do it I could get any Debian distribution set up any way I wanted.

I found Kanotix and Xandros, and also Corel Linux to also provide helpful Debian features. Sidux was also a great Debian Sid variation.

In 2003 Warren Woodford started to work on MEPIS. The first one was similar to what antiX is today. A year later he came out with Simply MEPIS with the lightest, cleanest KDE implementation I have ever seen.

A few years later Paul, a.k.a. anticapitalista, asked Warren if he could distribute antiX as a child of MEPIS. The rest is history. antiX is the basis for both antiX and MX Linux, the successor of MEPIS.

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[seaken64Member]

fatmac wrote:

I’ve tried a few other distros along the way, especially when I started back in 1999, but the ease of apt-get kept me with a Debian based distro.

Same here. I just find the apt system easier. I try Slackbuilds every once in a while when I get confident. I fail every time. I know it’s simple but so far I just can’t get it. I don’t have those problems with apt. I guess I am better suited to binaries than compiling from source. At least for now.

Seaken64

[Brian MasinickModerator]

Like Debian, I believe that the .tgz (or other package) scheme used in Slackware has either binary or source equivalents.

Debian has deb-src and deb packages, and they, respectively, are source and binary packages.
I believe that Gentoo Linux and Linux From Scratch are two of the distributions that are primarily or exclusively source-based.
Arch also has source-based packages.

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[Brian MasinickModerator]

FYI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZipSlack

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