[eamonnsullivan]

Great read. The first distribution I used was TAMU (https://archiveos.org/tamu/) in 1992, when Linux wasn't yet at 1.0. I had to download dozens of floppy disk images. In those days, getting X to run involved real risk. Get some of the parameters wrong and you could destroy your monitor. My five kids (all in their 20s and 30s now) grew up running Linux. It's still the OS I choose when the option is available.

[sillystuff]

> X to run involved real risk. Get some of the parameters wrong and you could destroy your monitor.

The flexibility also allowed you to accomplish neat things.

I was spoiled by high res 21" workstation monitors at school, so my laptop with a 640 x 480 screen was very limiting. But, telling X that the LCD was a multiscan monitor made every other scan line go to /dev/null-- the effect was a pseudo-resolution of 640x960 with scrunched up, but very readable fonts. Ran that setup for years.

[MilStdJunkie]

That was still a thing in 1998, when I got saddled with supporting the Slack boxes. Perspiration!

[incanus77]

Same here for RH 5.1 in ‘98. I spent most of a summer messing around with trying to get the proper video modes working on my graphics card and learning the ins and outs of X configuration. Then came the sound card…