Posted: . At: 3:10 PM. This was 13 years ago. Post ID: 1207
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20 years of Linux. It has been a good ride.

http://www.walkernews.net/2007/06/22/download-official-redhat-linux-iso-image/.

Gyroscopically stabilized Chicken.

The link above is to the Redhat 6.2 Linux distribution, the first version of Linux I used. It ran very well on a Celeron 600 with 64MB of RAM and integrated graphics. Linux has come so far since it was first released, the desktop has gotten even easier to use and with the release of Ubuntu, the Linux desktop has become a reality for more and more users all over the world. Some schools are even installing Ubuntu instead of Windows. I am downloading a CD ISO of Redhat Linux 6.2 and I will be posting screen shots of the distribution running in Virtualbox very soon. That will be very interesting taking a look back at the older Linux distributions and how far we have come in all this time. I will actually make a Youtube video of Redhat 6,2 running and show off the very cool software that came with it. There were good games for Linux back in the day, but now we have Doom, Quake, Unreal Tournament original and UT 2003,2004 and Quake 3 and 4.

There is a huge list of games for Linux and they are very good games, you can play the original Quake in the Darkplaces source port with greatly improved graphical quality and support for high-resolution graphics. Quake 4 has a native Linux client and a graphical installer. Linux is free of the malware and viruses that plague Windows systems and is almost as secure as the legendary OpenBSD UNIX operating system. There are HOWTOs that tell you how to write viruses for a Linux system infecting the ELF executable format used by Linux, I am not sure how many people actually have used that though, that is why you have NOVELL AppArmor or NSA Selinux installed to combat these sorts of viruses.

But Windows is a target for malware and virus writers because it is so popular and has more security holes like Internet Explorer 6.0 which is still being used sadly. Even Internet Explorer 7.0 has a few bugs regarding CSS. Internet Explorer 9.0 is much, much better and supports just about all CSS and HTML 5.0. In the video I am linking to I am showing Internet Explorer running the ACID tests 1, 2 and 3 and it does very well, much better than IE 6 ever could. Getting back to Linux, there is also Wine, which I have used to run Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun perfectly well, and it can also run World of Warcraft although the setup is rather arcane and complex, but if you could run that game on a more secure and stable operating system then it would be worth all of the effort. It is disappointing that Unreal Tournament 2007 is not available on Linux, we will have to try running it in wine or contenting ourselves with the 2004 release, which is very good mind you, the 2004 version included drivable vehicles in the assault mode and flying craft you could man, which is very cool indeed.

And as I said, it is a very good game for Linux along with Quake4. The first ever Linux distribution was MCC Interim Linux in 1992. The files of the distribution are still available and it was the first Linux distribution that was capable of being installed on a computer.

I have included this video explaining the origins of the Linux operating system as spoken my Linus Torvalds himself. He wanted a free version of the commercial UNIX and so he coded the free Linux kernel and created the free open-source operating system we have today. I hate to think of what the world would be like without a free operating system that is free of viruses and free of the annoying Malware and Adware that plagues the Windows systems of the world. Windows 7 when used with a limited user account is very secure and stable, but Linux will always be more secure than the closed source counterpart. Despite the bully boy tactics of Microsoft that had the machines in the OLPC project running Windows instead of Linux, it has been decided that Linux is best for the job and with improvements to power management code it is perfectly suited for the task of running on a cheap and relatively low specification machine.

FreeBSD is also good for running on a laptop, but they decided on Linux and that is fine by me as developing countries need all of the help they can get and a free and open operating system instead of a closed and unreliable Windows installation is what they deserve. Microsoft only care about their bottom line and not the consumer anyway, Windows 7 is not too bad at all, but Windows XP is practically abandon-ware by now and should not be used these days unless your machine is very old, and then you would be better off with Xubuntu. Nowadays there is ulitelinux that is a very minimal installation of Ubuntu that can run on older machines and give them a new lease of life. If you are using a ethernet modem to access the Internet like I am then you would not need to run Gnome in Linux and you could run Fluxbox or Lxde or even Blackbox and then you would hardly use any memory running such a sleek and fast desktop.

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