Ubuntu Linux Killed The Commercial Desktop Distro

[@rhekman]

I still have a box copy of Redhat Linux 5.2 from 1998. Can't believe I paid that much for an Operating System as an 18 yr old kid, but downloading a whole CD's worth of software on a 33.6k modem wasn't really feasible either.

[@unknowndummy9387]

How much was it back then?

[@rhekman]

@@unknowndummy9387 Retail price was $49.95 ($97 in 2024 dollars).

[@tkenben]

Yep. I bought one of those. I was in school at the time, but I was also working in IT, so I could afford it. Loved the fact that graphics worked out of the box for the installer without configuration. Came with StarOffice iirc.

[@unknowndummy9387]

@@tkenben wait so was redhat an actual competitor in the commercial distro space back then? I use fedora now but I feel like most people are just on mac/windows

[@n5ifi]

That was my first Linux Distro

[@user-df8sh8js9y]

I bought a copy of SuSE Linux 7.2 Professional on literal September 11th, 2001. College classes had been cancelled and I was at a loss for what else to do with myself. 💀

[@TradieTrev]

Ouch! Had a similar experience and decided f-this and become an electrician lol

[@n5ifi]

I always said that Suse was the best distro at that time. They really had together.

[@denizkendirci]

Same. it was SuSE Linux 7.1 for me.

[@Tinfoiltomcat]

This was my first exposure to linux!

[@lePoMo]

was missing a mention of Suse in the video. Sometime between late 1998 and early 2023, likely 2000/2001, a big Suse box (with manual and multiple cds, iirc) showed up in the pc programs/games section of a consumer electronics shop we (young adolsecents) used to frequent during lunch break. Of course two friends 1-uped each other into buying it, but neither ended up doing anything with it other than trying it out.

[@erikreider]

I'd actually pay for Fedora if they shipped codecs and such by default, just for the convenience :)

[@vaisakh_km]

Fair enough... that's why people go for nobara

[@fabricio4794]

​@@vaisakh_km Nobara is The Fedora should be by Default.

[@Rerum02]

Yah, thats One of the reasons why I go for Bazzite

[@nh2seven]

It's not even that hard to install them tho?

[@MarcoPersy]

@@nh2seven it's not hard, it's tedious

[@yvesquadros]

I once requested a CD from Ubuntu, sometime around 2004, 2005. I received something like 100 cds in a big package. I remember they were really nice quality. I was 13 maybe 14 years old at the time and I thought i had done something really wrong and felt guilty for months afterwards waiting for some kind of payment request from canonical.

[@balsalmalberto8086]

"Want to try my operating mixtape. this ish is fire yo."

[@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece]

Why did you order 100 cds? If you indeed did order 100 that was morally dubious.

[@yvesquadros]

@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece i didn't.

[@fhunter1test]

@@fgregerfeaxcwfeffece full distro for debian was around 10 or 12 CDs (not sure if it was with sources or not).

[@boccobadz]

​@@fhunter1testI remember mine was like 8 cds in the early 2000s.

[@mattelder1971]

I bought a copy of Yggdrasil when I was in the Navy in Japan, sometime around 1993 or 1994. It was my first experience with Linux.

[@mojojomo6750]

I payed £35 for Suse Linux back in the 90's which I've still got kicking about somewhere. First taste of Linux, thought at the time that the application fonts were fairly primitive.

[@mojojomo6750]

...Use Linux.

[@mojojomo6750]

This shit keeps respelling S_u_s_e Linux to Use. Grrrrr.

[@_xX_me_Xx_]

@@mojojomo6750 you can edit comments

[@muizzsiddique]

@@mojojomo6750 You use iPhone?

[@HTRAD-sc9dm]

Daaaaamn that much!!!​@@mojojomo6750

[@bearwolffish]

What if I told you there was a time when you could download red hat for free but that dial up was like 14.4kbs and so instead you would enter your (parents) credit card details into some random geo cities site and give your address to some stranger that would burn off the cd's and send them to you in the post.

[@hamobu]

Cheapbytes website

[@Lambda_Ovine]

holly shit lol, that sounds like scenario where stuff could go very very wrong

[@onceagain77]

My Amazon order history shows that I paid $62.97 for Xandros Desktop Home Edition Premium V4 in 2007.

[@EmanueleC_BR]

Mandrake Linux and Suse were worth paying for. Well documented, polished. Suse came with basically a book!

[@Lemurion287]

I bought both of them back in the day: my Mandrake came with 3 Books.

[@EmanueleC_BR]

​@@Lemurion287maybe mine did too and I forget 😅

[@LarixusSnydes]

@@Lemurion287 SuSE 7.0 Professional as well. They were really good manuals, including instructions how to set up a development system and some introduction to C and even writing Drivers for Linux. Good Times :-). One book consisted of manpages of the most used cli programs printed out on paper. I paid a little over Fl.70,- (Dutch Guilders) for the entire package.

[@ihlan1]

Yep, bought Mandra 7.2 at a newstand somewhere around 2004 ? (probably) I was so happy :-)

[@piekay7285]

The voluntary donation also was a thing on Ubuntu for some time. I remember that you had to enter 0$ when downloading Ubuntu in the mid-2010s

[@bertnijhof5413]

I did find a magazine with Ubuntu 5.04 on their CD. I installed it on a Pentium II and I was impressed. In 2008 I bought a Dell laptop with Windows Vista and remembered Ubuntu, so I dual booted Ubuntu and Vista. In 2009 I started using VirtualBox and in 2010 I installed Ubuntu 10.04 as Host OS and Windows XP with the programs I needed in a VirtualBox VM. Now I use Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and I still use that same Windows XP VM and 5 other VMs.

[@xxHANNONxx]

That's basically the same thing I was doing back in 08. Now I'm running 24 LTS, but no longer use any VMs, due to any proprietary software I use being on iOS and or Android. Things sure have changed a lot since then, but sadly a viable Linux phone hasn't become a thing yet.

[@bertnijhof5413]

@@xxHANNONxx I try to avoid phones, at least Android is a security problem. I run VMs for security reasons, I have one VM for email and social media messaging, because these messages are known for distributing malware. I once received an email with a compromised file from an old colleague, who had been hacked. Worse case I can delete the VM and step back to a 22.04 LTS VM or better restore 24.04 LTS from a snapshot (OpenZFS) from before the hack. I have another encrypted VM, that I use exclusively for banking.

[@failedjokes5469]

This video brings back so many memories. Caldera OpenLinux was my first Linux installation. It used KDE probably version 2 IIRC. All those distro hopping and tinkering have shaped me to who I am today.

[@mjdxp5688]

I'd argue the Internet actually killed commercial desktop Linux. The reason Linux was sold in stores was more because people's download speeds were too slow to download an entire operating system, so it was the only option. The CDs included in the box would typically contain the system, the source code, and lots of software packages you could install from the CD instead of the Internet. You were typically paying for the accessibility more than the software itself, since it was all FOSS. I suppose Ubuntu did have the Ship It program that let you request an Ubuntu CD for free, but I don't think that's what killed commercial desktop Linux. It's more that around the same time, download speeds got faster and there wasn't really a reason to go down to the store to buy a boxed Linux distro.

[@mjdxp5688]

It was also fairly common to find CD-ROMs in books and magazines which would teach you what Linux is, then have you try out the CD-ROM image, which was typically a live system you could try out and eventually install on your computer. My college library has a ton of old books like that, I even checked a few out and played with a few of them in VMs myself in the modern day.

[@LordTrashcanRulez]

Pretty much this. OS download sizes haven't kept up with the internet speed at all. Today, even a user in a developing country could download Ubuntu (which is one of, if not the biggest Linux distro) faster than going out to buy a CD.

[@connormatthews9674]

I was 10 years old in 2008 when I first learned about ShipIt. I tried both Ubuntu & Kubuntu that way by requesting CDs. I remember telling my dad about it and him telling me nothing in life was free then him being shocked when the discs turned up 🤣🤣

[@ManaurysSuazo]

I ordered one CD back in 2006 and got it delivered to my small town in the Dominican republic it was the best thing ever

[@guss77]

Nitpicking: Corel Linux shipped with CDE, which - unlike what the Wikipedia article says - is not a variant of KDE and is actually a project older than Windows 95: it was developed by HP under "The Open Group" (the guys that made X) based on the Motif toolkit that was first released in 1989. The first Linux version of CDE was made by RedHat in 1997 - after the original maker abandoned the project...

[@justinhall3243]

My memory is that Coral Linux shipped wtih KDE but human memory is failable so I could be wrong.

[@cameronbosch1213]

@justinhall3243 It did. Corel Linux shipped with KDE but with a different file manager (not kfm, which was the KDE file manager at the time).

[@teknixstuff]

@@justinhall3243 Coral != Corel

[@AtoManPL]

Corel Linux did indeed ship with "Corel Desktop Environment" which was a fork of KDE, not the Common Desktop Enviroment.

[@knghtbrd]

A VARIANT OF KDE‽ What kind of ChatGPT bullshit is that wikipedia smoking? Good grief. If any DE anyone's ever heard of today has any relation whatsoever to CDE, it's XFCE and that's a pretty freakin' remote connection seeing as XFCE has basically been rewritten twice since its early incarnation as "CDE, but for the free Athena widget set." 🤦

[@stevensawolkin3873]

An enjoyable trip down memory lane (I began linux in the mid nineties). I might have hoped you'd drop an honourable mention to Caldera Linux, Pacific Linux, and/or Corel Linux.

[@jamesschmames6416]

I bought a box of Mandrake Linux off the shelf in 1997. Don't recall how much I paid for it. I think of it more as a convenience for not having to download CD (yeah, not sure if DVD was even a thing back then) than it was a "paid" distribution. When Ubuntu came out it was a breath of fresh air. Their motto was getting things to "just work" and their first few releases focused on "papercut" issues. Then Gnome3 > Unity and it all went to hell. Beloved up until then though. Transition to pulseaudio (2006?) was a bit painful too.

[@brightglow]

I think the one company that COULD pull off selling a commercial distro is Valve The same exact OS the super well optimized steamdeck working on a desktop? They could EASILY charge for steamOS and people will buy

[@GSBarlev]

The thing is that Valve, moreso than even Canonical, benefit the most from widescale adoption-every copy of Steam running on a system is a built-in revenue stream, even from people like me who mostly plays flatpak games on his Steam Deck-and minimizing their dependence on Microsol's stack is a *huge* mitigation of an existential risk.

[@rayko12345]

Their business model relies on people buying games via Steam, so if they make it expensive to get on Steam, then this is like buying an OS based on PS5... They will start competing against other giants.

[@charautreal]

I guess it would fit more for manufacturers, because bazzite is a thing, that and you would be buying an os from the same store you buy games from

[@nervaproject]

@@GSBarlev Do you think Valve wants ordinary PC gamers to move to desktop Linux even if they aren't running SteamOS and don't buy Steam Decks?

[@GSBarlev]

@@nervaproject They'd *prefer* it. SteamOS doesn't make them any more money than Steam-on-Ubuntu does. And it's not like you can't use other game stores on the Steam Deck.

[@TruckFarmer]

I remember buying Red Hat Linux, Mandrake Linux, SuSE Linux and there might have been another one back in late 90's and early 2000's. I remember getting them at Best Buy or a local store called Hastings. Fond memories!

[@Fenrasulfr]

I use free distributions and donate when I can. If I were in a situation where my livelyhood depended on the software, I would get the commercial distribution, so I get access to a professional support team.

[@GSBarlev]

I'm actually one of those people who pays for elementaryOS. I run it on three machines-including my work laptop-and I just wish I could donate my time to help with development as well. Brodie's point at the end of his Playtron video about FOSS not being free is a really good one.

[@marioprawirosudiro7301]

@@GSBarlev Really appreciate this. I'm no longer a eOS user, but as a (admittedly) freeloader, I'm thankful for people like you who chips in. eOS is a good distro, but it definitely needs more support.

[@ContraVsGigi]

I am one of the ones who tried Corel Linux, it came with a Chip magazine CD, if I remember it right. I don't remeber exactly all the details, but I think that some pieces of hardware were not working, so it was a short experiment. Nowadays, depending on the price, I would pay for some service that brings a very good life improvement and/or security: let's say some mixture of desktop feature set (cloud back-up (at least settings, list of apps that could be reinstalled automatically on a newly installed system etc.) with something like Proton Mail and maybe a VPN.

[@Ruzgfpegk]

Yeah, I got SuSE 6.3 as a commercial distro, sold in a bookstore in France. I remember seeing it in the store and convincing my grandfather to buy it for me, saying shit like "it's the future of computers!", and I was like 12 at the time. He even let me set it up as dual-boot on his computer, so during vacations I'd tinker with the distro and apps, trying to know most of them. Inside the box with the CDs, the most interesting thing was the book explaining users how to setup everything, like OSS for sound (it was before ALSA), the XF86Config file (because the keyboard and mouse were managed there) or the network drivers. So I think distros could still be sold that way, with a guide/manual for users who don't even know what to search for online. During these times where people want to leave Windows because 11 is complete dogshit, having a nice offline reference for all users (from boomers to new geeks) would really be helpful.

[@rickardstrom9305]

I started at 7.10, Gutsy Gibbon, and got hooked with 8.04, Hardy Heron. Have been using Ubuntu privately ever since. It just works and most of the time the terminal isn't needed.

[@MSThalamus-gj9oi]

First Linux I ever used was Slackware 2.0. Back then I had a dial up connection at 14.4K, so I had a physical copy mailed to me-- I still have the CDs. I don't remember exactly how much it cost-- this was nearly thirty years ago-- but it didn't seem outlandish given that the box, manuals, CD case, insert, and CDs themselves weren't exactly cheap to produce in the mid 90s. It really was the only option for most people back in the day. Now, of course, between package managers and broadband connections, the idea of *having* to pay for Linux may even seem absurd, but the world has a way of changing in bursts. We may be surprised by what comes next.

[@bartolomeothesatyr]

Punctuated equilibrium is a helluva thing.

[@oappi4686]

I would honestly be willing to pay for distro that has strong gaming focus. I know that there are tons of instructions that you can get it done to any distro or you could pick nobara, but afaik that is maintained by one person. Maybe it is just me, but I would value my time more than paying something like ~$100 one time payment for 5 years (minimal) support & updates & new version for something like nobara but with actual support and more people than one so that whole project wont die when that one guy decides he had enough.

[@GSBarlev]

I'm curious what you mean by "strong gaming focus." Do you just mean, "comes pre-configured with Steam, ProtonGE, Lutris, Bottles, MangoHud, Gamescope, etc." do you mean, like, has an optimized kernel, or do you mean is essentially a FOSS console like SteamOS or Batocera?

[@mikesoto890]

​@@GSBarlevall of them, a paid nobara-like distro with actual game support would be wonderful

[@softwarelivre2389]

CrossOver/CodeWeavers is basically that, including support.

[@AhmedNasser-tj2fb]

There's a free one with these criteria already. Bazzite.

[@bulletflight]

I'd pay the same price for a Windows 11 license for 24/7 skilled and close to immediate technical support for something like Nobara/Bazzite. Or even a monthly subscription, as long as I got to use the OS without the payment. Paid technical support is what I want.

[@thingsiplay]

In mid 2000s I purchased SUSE Linux 9.2 on multiple discs and with a big book in a store in Germany. And it was just like 20 Euros or like that, with two ways of installing: 6 CDs and 2 DVDs in one box, depending on if your drive could read DVD. It's the first distribution I had installed locally. That was a long time before openSUSE.

[@samshort365]

I used to buy my distros at local computer stores for about $10 for the CD or get them on the cover of magazines. That was fair enough because it took me 9 hours to download a demo version of SPSS. The box sets usually contained a beautiful printed manual and we're probably worth a purchase for that alone, but not necessarily worth the price.

[@daveamies5031]

Yggdrasil was my first Linux distro, I bought the book and the whole auto detect your hardware is a bit of a stretch (it was harder to install and get running than any other OS I'd encountered at the time), after that I switched to Redhat and then Mandriva, but I tried Ubuntu and the ship-it CD was my first experience with Ubuntu, and what a great experience it was, Ubuntu 5.04 was the first Linux I used as my main desktop and the first I actually felt was ready to replace Windows on the desktop.

[@RubixCubed3]

I’m perfectly fine with LMDE. It’s got everything I need personally. Or atleast I’m able get what I need on it. And it’s not backed by a corporation that prioritizes profits over quality.

[@ArchLars]

Debian Edition, chad!

[@RubixCubed3]

@@ArchLars real giga chads use window managers. I tried but couldn’t get use to them. I use the Debian edition over regular Linux mint cuz it’s community supported and not based on Ubuntu where a company currently supports it and could possibly drop it tomorrow. Debian isn’t going anywhere.

[@CaptZenPetabyte]

I can remember paying for a Redhat Distro in the day and it cost me $29.95 from a computer shop, it was terrible but it got me started back in the late 90s

[@CristianMolina]

Infomagic box with several CDs was the closest thing to real magic I could get on 90s. So much knowledge in distros and OSS! ❤😊

[@Gummibri]

I paid for my first Linux distro in 1999. A cd from Macmillan called Linux For Windows which installed Mandrake 6.1 on your windows 98SE / ME file systems and you could dual boot. It was amazing and the game Clan Bomber was on it which is still one of my favorite pc games. Yes, I paid for Linux my first time.

[@kocokan]

Ubuntu 5.10 CD shipped to SEA country for free, it was magical

[@KomradeMikhail]

I bought a retail boxed copy of Slackware back in 1995 from a CompUSA... I think it cost $24.99, but I could be wrong. Bought it because it came on CD's, with bundled extras, while other distro's were still doing floppies at the time.

[@UnderEu]

Somewhere I still have my 8.04, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10 and 10.04 CDs for both Ubuntu and Kubuntu, also some OpenSolaris copies - those were the times

[@liorean]

I got Red Hat Linux 5.0 and 5.1 from magazines (not even linux magazines, just generic technology magazines, the kinds that later would shift BeOS and the like), Red Hat Linux 5.2 from a really thick linux book. Back then I would probably have paid some amount similar to a high end game at most. The reason I never stayed on those for long was the fact I couldn't run my games, and I was a teenager with a dialup. I had a friend who bought SlackWare though. At this time in my life, I feel like I'd be prepared to pay for a distro as long as it's a nonprofit organisation that clearly advertises where it's expenditures go and what it's funds go to - not in a financial report, it should literally be something you know from hitting their main page by the time you reach the buy/donate/download button, whether that is on the same page or a separate one.

[@cyberturkey77]

A lot of people hate Ubuntu but its literally one of the pioneer distros.

[@mjdxp5688]

A lot of people hate modern Ubuntu. I'd say before around when GNOME 3 was released, Ubuntu was actually a great system. It was basically like Linux Mint is today. Unfortunately, Canonical has gotten greedy and made bad choices which lead to Ubuntu becoming the mess it is today.

[@TradieTrev]

@@mjdxp5688 Got mixed thoughts on that, the Gnome people wrecked their own UI as far as I'm concerned; It's a heap of junk marketed to get ricers interested into linux lol

[@fabricio4794]

Without Ubuntu my Linux Mint never Happened!

[@purpasmart_4831]

*Modern Ubuntu

[@samnwakefield2032]

Never mind what haters say...ubuntu is the most stable linux distro ever period.

[@baardkopperud]

I did buy the boxed and shrink-wrapped version of both Mandrake and SuSE - both with a manual or two. I think I would still seriously consider buying an "extended" version of a distro - especially if it came with manual(s), and maybe license for some exclusive software (like RedHat books that came with RH-Linux and WordPerfect for Linux).

[@MyouKyuubi]

for a new distro to be successful, it needs crowdfunding, i think. It's gonna be real hard to secure crowdfunding, unless your distro does something unique... Like for instance, be ENTIRELY coded in Rust or some shiz.

[@TheUnclepecos]

I remember this!! It was the first way I got to use Kubuntu in 2009. Until then, I only managed to get an old copy of Fedora my dad brought home from work.

[@АлексейГриднев-и7р]

There is Zorin OS for which there is a version that you do have to pay for. It adds some bells and whistles to the user interface but, I guess, people still see it as a way to support the project rather that to actually get access to those bells and whistles.

[@ADB-zf5zr]

I wondered when Corel Linux would come up. I remember being given a shortish presentation and then demonstration of it, and a free copy (which I tried and couldn't figure out at all as I had zero knowledge of Linux except that lots of servers run it), I do hope I have the original CD still........

[@jonathanbuzzard1376]

I would argue strongly that high speed internet (aka not dialup) is what killed commercial Linux desktop distributions. There was a business model where buying the CD/DVD was a better experience than downloading. Then along came ADSL and then VDSL and now buying a CD/DVD was a worse experience than just downloading. Today you can get a minimal boot USB key and install directly from the internet just as fast if not faster than the USB key.

[@RowiDankelsaft]

I was one of the people who requested a ton of CDs. I was excited and tried to share Linux with everyone. In hindsight I dunno if it was a good idea, I was young at the time. I still have one copy left of Kubuntu 6.06, that I'm keeping as a memento from that era. Its worth saying i did *not* have the bandwitch at the time, and i just wanted to share it and stick it to "the big corporations". Good times.

[@DasIllu]

SuSE 7.0 survivor here. Having everything you need in that box was actually nice. Unlike today, back then it seemed software was less often updated so your box would stay relevant for longer. And later in the early 2000s SuSE, Debian, Dead Rat and Arch where pretty much the only choices you had if you wanted to do more than just staring at a blinking cursor. Funny enough, even back than, red hat had a reputation for being a little shady, riddled with bad decisions and wasn't popular at all in my peer group. Imagine trying to pack Arch on 7 DVDs and include a manual. There aren't enough therapists in the world to save the individual who tries that 😀

[@Lampe2020]

6:45 I first used Linux on my RasPi, but my first PC Linux experience and the reason I finally understood why I couldn't get at my files on my RasPi using my dads's computer (running Win7 at the time) was from an "Ubuntu 20.04 LTS" disk that had Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on it. That was just a few days before the "pandemic" started causing chaos in Germany.

[@lancestu]

I got Caldera working on a cable modem around 2002. It was amazing. Storm Linux, Suse, Redhat, Mandrake were great but Ubuntu changed everthing. A fully capable polished desktop that I did alot of professional writing on.

[@guitarbuddha74]

I remember buying Mandrake Linux in a computer store packaged and with CDs. It was one of the few distros that worked pretty well with my hardware at the time without having to recompile the kernel.

[@sergeykish]

In 2006 I've got Linux ISO from LAN. Internet was expensive, LAN covered thousands of users, files shared with DC. We've browsed web with pictures turned off. Just a few years later even mobile internet was cheap enough to download distributions.

[@123Daktary]

I remember Adobe sending copies of their software free of charge, if requested. They were the full installers but with a trial period, after which you had to enter your serial. If I remember correctly, they were shipping 2 DVDs at a time where your averge user may have had some form of dial-up or a WAP hotspot from some facy Ericsson or Siemens mobile phone.

[@thegreatboto]

I still have my boxed copy of Mandrake 7.2 that I'd bought at Hastings. Forget how much for, but it was cheaper than a copy of Windows and came with a pretty sizable book. I had a cheap eMachine and dial-up at the time. The little soft modem wasn't detected/didn't work under Linux, so that kept me from sticking with it, but it was my first exposure to actually trying out Linux on my own.

[@thelakeman2538]

I do think the bigger non-paid distros can still use paid boxed copies as a distro merch for people who want to support the distro. But yeah aside from selling support which most home users don't care about, I cannot see anything that can be commercially sold, unless you wanna just sell the convenience of having some particular packages or configuration pre-installed.

[@shirro5]

There was no commercial dialup internet available in Adelaide when I first downloaded a Linux disk set. Even the academic internet was very slow by todays standards. My first PC didn't have a CDROM but when I finally got one physical media was a lot more convenient than dialup. The commercial desktop OSs were always a tiny niche and their PR made them appear more than they were in media. Most people used slackware or debian but they weren't providing computer magazines with stories. Ubuntu Warty Warthog arrived in 2004 and it was revolutionary for a lot of reasons but broadband had been growing rapidly at the same time and that is what really changed linux software distribution. Fast Internet killed a lot of old business models including the music industry, magazines and video stores.

[@pranaypallavtripathi2460]

I like how he has "BLAME UBUNTU AGAIN" written on his whiteboard in the background while describing achievements of Ubuntu. 😊

[@jmdennis1967]

My first computer I had for home was a Mac and that was in the dial up days when Sears was selling Macs. When I had a more powerful mac that was used I loaded Yellow Dog Linux on it which still runs on PowerPC but they run on embeded systems now. I also played around with PCBSD and DesktopBSD as well. Loved them but neither are even supported anymore.

[@bluephreakr]

It would be interesting to see someone ship a Linux which uses Zsh instead of Bash for all shell ops and try to commercialise that. For anything Zsh is lacking or needs conversion because it would otherwise be too inconvenient to edit dependent software, inspiration can be had from the doas-sudo-shim project to create a similar software for Zsh-to-Bash.

[@boyscout399]

I remember working at Staples in the US around 2003ish and we sold Red Hat Linux for $49.99 in a box.

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

Me: "Brodie, why this ${Linux-issue} went south? Brodie: "Well, Ubuntu..." Also me: "Ah, I got it..."

[@di0__0ib]

I've purchased many versions of Linux in physical form back in the 90s. Suse and RedHat come to mind.

[@TradieTrev]

Got an old copy of ubuntu floating somewhere and got it off that website back in the day. I thank ubuntu for my based knowledge of debian.

[@fordonmekochgalenskaper5665]

Bought my first Slackware Linux on CD 1994, found it on an tech/computer show. Paid around $5

[@NFvidoJagg2]

The only reason i could see for paying for a distro, would be if it was coming with a peice of software you were going to have to buy anyway. most likely for a dedicated machine install. Or i could also see if someone offered TSaaS to home users.

[@DonaldWyman]

In 2006-2007 when Windows vista came out, and I started looking into operating systems that were not windows that's when I learned about Linux and the magazines/CD thing was the cheapest way to get a Linux distro, but there were also Red Hat CDs in stores if you didn't have good internet. I do also remember sites that sold CDs as well, though.

[@tohur]

I paid for Mandrivia back in the day I loved that distro. think when I first got into it there was a free standard version but after using it for a while I decided to support them. Honestly I think alot of distros would benefit from a model like that. My current distro I would pay for it if it had a premium version because I love it that much

[@starlitsnake]

IIRC Canonical initially recommended getting discs by the box since it was more economical than shipping one disc at a time. I remember ordering a box, keeping one, and giving the rest out like candy.

[@knghtbrd]

Our LUG definitely did get a box of them. We basically handed them out to anyone who was curious. More than a few Linux users got their start that way.

[@nezu_cc]

Tell that to the other guy in the comment section who got a box by accident and felt bad for it.

[@rjawiygvozd]

I actually remember a long time ago my friend got a CD from somewhere that had some old linux distro on it, but I could never actually install it because installer required a cd-key that was missing

[@maxserver3985]

I bought a retail Mandriva at a bookstore back in 1998. Burned a lot a time on that.

[@justinhall3243]

Coral and later Xandros shipped with KDE my friend. I remember them well. Yggdrasil was the one that shipped with CDE. Er... fact checked myself on this one. While this is what I remember I cannot locate any documentation to confirm it and human memory is crap when it comes to reliability.

[@dakka76]

Had a conversation the other day with someone who still has Win7. He wanted to know what options he had, the premise, he is non-technical and needed something he could just install and upgrade his existing system. He had no idea how to backup or save his data. He wanted his email, bookmarks and files to remain. He would have tried Linux if he was able to upgrade to it from Win7. Obviously as far as I know you can't do that, but for a normal user I would think if there was an upgrade path from Windows to Linux that kept all your data that would be a seller. People are sick of Windows or hate it but feel like they have limited options for upgrading.

[@mathsDOTearth]

My first Linux was a commercial distro called Lasermoon Linux FT 1.2 - it claimed to be the first POSIX certified Linux.

[@sevenredundent7256]

I've paid for Proxmox before . . . so probably, bout to do it again once the Epyc heat sink comes in.

[@AM-yk5yd]

>there were no restrictions one one cd per person or one cd per certain amount of time you could just keep requesting cds True that. They literally had a field like "how many many CDs do you want?" and I had a feeling they prioritized requests with more CDs: I used the service at least twice(for different distros). One time for me and friends, other just for me. The time I requested 4 CDs, they arrived several weeks much faster. Though it may be just a logistic and there were more requests when I asked for 1 CD.

[@autohmae]

Magazines with free CDs, both were pretty much killed by the Internet.

[@Suboxi]

Remember buying redhat and then have my mind blown just mailing some random person on the internet and getting an Ubuntu cd schipped for free. But at that same time mailing microsoft as a kid in europe telling them you wanted to do a school presentation (which i did) i got windows whistler, xp, longhorn, vista all shipped to me for free with for xp and vista keys that never expiered. *Edit omg free ubuntu was years after free windows i got (with cd). I was playing before ubuntu mostly with mandrake by then i think

[@TheHangarHobbit]

Linspire who bought out Xandros still sells their distro, its $29.99 for a no support license and $60 for a 12 month support license.

[@Trainguyrom]

In the early 00s I saw my dad struggle to download a...I think it was single digit SuSe Linux release? and after a few days of trying and the download repeatedly failing overnight he gave up and we drove to CompUSA to buy a disc So many parts of that story just aren't a thing anymore

[@the1trancedemon]

I still remember that Ubuntu startup tribal sound and the 500mb iso.

[@opensourcedev22]

I paid for a box set of Suse many, many, many years ago. It came in a beautiful green box and it's probably only valuable as a memorable keepsake now.

[@apoclypse]

When I built my PC in 2004 I bought a copy of Mandrake. I used to work near a mall where there was a Staples and you used find. Suse, Mandrake and Red Hat on the shelves to buy. They were usually in a box with multiple CDs in them. Ubuntu was different because it gave you everything you needed and fit on one 650MB disc which was easy to download.

[@MasticinaAkicta]

I remember early Linux Distros. "fun" wasn't the word. Even if you got the basics running, because you know hardware issues. The time it came to use your scanner... and you find out that brands drivers were not yet yet. These days things are much better now they have a lot more standards. And basic core drivers are part of the modern Linux experience. At least now you install it, set things up, and get to work.

[@act.13.41]

I bought SuSE 9.0 and the book was really great. There was no way I could download this, so the install DVD was the only option at the time.

[@Barnstormerhenhouse]

Early Ubuntu was cool. OpenSUSE was cool too.

[@toxithot]

old enough to have used ship-it, you also could get stickers through it! had ubuntu stickers on so much stuff.

[@hotshot2472010]

I think the only way anyone can charge for it is if very came out with their own thing, like set of packages, features, or whatever that no one else has and instead of basing it on debian, arch, red hat etc, come out with their own thing as well

[@weiSane]

Guys what’s stopping Linux distros that are geared towards the normies/general public from using highly polished modern desktop environments similar to cute fish or deepin desktops? I think finances is a major factor since someone has to pay the designers and developers to commit to the extra time and effort such a design language may entail.

[@reiniermoreno1653]

Not being shipped with the computers. Normal people just care about aesthetics, some kind of stability and snappiness, If you tune a Linux distro to look like Windows 7 up to the core and install Office 2016 you can fool a lot of people in the third world. They don't update anything, they don't care about privacy, godamn they don't even try to troubleshoot their shit when Windows get crazy they just take it to some "IT" guy that search for tutorials on KZbin to fix the problem, they just want something that runs MS Office and that can open KZbin or any social network

[@mgord9518]

The market. For normies to use your OS, it has to come pre-installed on what they buy and the software they use has to support it. This is a lot easier nowadays because of how popular web apps are becoming, but stuff like Photoshop still prevent many people from using Linux. Also, good luck getting a Linux computer into Walmart or Bestbuy, you're competing with massive companies like Microsoft who would love to set up a deal with retailers to kick you out if you ever caught any traction. And finally, on top of that, normies are terrified of change. Look at how hated ChromeOS is. This hypothetical Linux distro would have to run every obscure piece of Windows software around without issue or people would flip shit

[@whentheyD]

Zorin OS literally exists and is paid.

[@obsoletepowercorrupts]

There might be some ups and downs in popularity but the Linux-Distro _(or other OS for that matter, like say MorphOS)_ isn't over yet such as with things like Suse because people like physical media including CDROM or DVD, especially with some small paper manual or start-guide-pamphlet in a box or some sort of case. The PC game player still opts for these things too. There can be changes in what people expect such as if it is a HTPC distro or whatever, and having a could OAuthLogon with Electronic-Mail and security support is the sort of thing people sometimes buy without a distro anyway. It could be argued that eventually people would more more and more to a smartphone preinstalled with something like UBports Ubuntu as a form of physical media (the phone itself) so they need not worry about how to configure hardware to software what with it thereby being a known-quantity for being an all-in-one package. However, for those who want to continue using a desktop, especially a MITX, MATX or ATX, so expansion cards can go into it and more RAM, there is still a logic to shopping for a CDROM/DVD _(even if a USB-Mass-Storage-Device comes with it for a different booting-and-install method)_ and people clearly go spend out on an SBC which comes with an OS which again, at the size of a SNES cartridge, is a way of spending out on both the distro and the hardware in a bundle. Not everybody opts for an SBC and they want to be able to upgrade RAM or tinker to make an HTPC or office PC with their own preferred HBA for more drives akin to a NAS or backup-redundancy-archiving and so on, even if that means having a bog-standard home-office desktop PC running something like Suse but with a few extra hard-drives _(maybe a mix of SSD and HDD)_ that will always allow the offline installation of the distro from a CD/DVD or USB NAND-Mass-storage-Device such that the closest thing to it being logged on some remote server run by the company is the aforementioned Electronic-Mail acting as the OAuthLogon _(JSON, etc.)_ which is unique per user shelling out. In the case of shelling out for Suse, it also gives a reason to slip a few bucks to Slackware since it is based upon it. If Suse included the electronic-mail and also some sort of firewall and antivirus _(and general security such as family-safety that would work with a M-F-A USB-RFID device which could also help with a LUKS partition and encryption),_ then it could be particularly competitive. An aspect that makes so much sense is the fact that the member of the public who has shelled out for it is probably putting the disk into a DVDRW drive which then means, at set-up, and option to make archiving-backups and snapshots to not only the 2nd HDD but a stack of DVDRW disks makes it especially easy to anticipate disaster recovery or to simply make it easier to have a fresh installation on the hard-drive _(SSD or HDD)_ with the previous settings carried over _(and homework files from the home-office and so on)._ that then means the verification and validation of backups (and archiving) is almost automatic and allows for air-gapped storage of it all, without even thinking about it too much since it would be part of the process from day one, and an occasional nag to do it n-amount of months later again, with a 5year LTS or whatever duration the updates last for on an AMD64/Intel PC. If Suse discontinue their forty quid disk, somebody else _(a backup software company bundling a distro for NAS/HTPC, or a game bundling a distro)_ could fill the void, making it fifty quid if it comes with the aforementioned electronic-mail and stuff, and maybe help-support pre-configured at its starting point from telemetry, tantamount to a DXDiag report showing what OpenGL GPU is in the computer and RAM and motherboard chipset and so on, hashed with FccID listings per component and sent from the desktop PC to a server. openSuse (even though it can be had via the free version) has a boxed version and it kinda-sorta does the "bundle" approach _(like the aforementioned)_ except the guts of it are eBook and the support is instead a form of eLearning which could be argued as training, and that then depends on what counts as eLearning training, such as how to set up a PC and use some command line and backup jobs. The relevance is more meaningful to some people than simply forking out for a TShirt or mug bearing the logo as a revenue model. The fact that it is on a DVD media _(usually in a box)_ makes sense for those who wish to make a system-image clone or backup and or archiving via their CDRW or DVDRW drive after installation, which is of course a wise move and should be encouraged. for that fact alone the "total-discouragement" or removable storage media doesn't work and is instead better to view as different tools for different jobs, so that sometimes a DVD media is best and at other times a cloud file better suits a different deployment solution. To eschew physical media for computer, especially Linux, is to say to people to not make a backup (or archive or system-image) to DVDRW/CDRW, which is of course far from the wise air-gapped solution. Beyond that, while tape (LTO etc.) is great, it is simply not as popular as pre-existing DVDRW/CDRW drives in a computers _(or USB attached)._ Plenty State (government etc.) prepping guides say to include personal documents and files not just on paper but also digital such as via the emergency-supply-kit a household may put together, and so national-backup-day and similar is part of that, so it includes the computer system-image or some sort of archiving or backup or settings saved. A simple DVDRW/CDRW disk has no microcontroller on it, even if using the NAND-mass-storage device _(USB pendrive or even an external USB-HDD)_ can be nice too. It is still possible also to get at the internet shops a Linux paper magazine which comes with a DVD on it and that is a way of forking out for a distro on a disk, and there are magazines who have written software. The PC format mag did software at some point. So it would be possible to have a distro from a magazine bi-annual bundle to the door. The video mentions magazines. You ask why a person would fork out, but the same could be said for those who are a funder by contributing some quids. By the time some member of the public has realised they have slipped twenty to fifty bucks over the span of 5 years (the same as an LTS) to Slackware or T2Linux or GhostBSD or whatever, they would start to realise that, what with their DVDRW drive for backups, there is no downside to them getting a DVD of the distro for their efforts (even if it means prebuying a year ahead for enough people to get a disk-batch made to satisfy the five thousand), and at that, it is also a known-quantity _(checksum ISO and dependency tree)_ that can be used off the net after expiry, but in the meantime is a form of telemetry helping both the member of the public and the distro author. That is unique to the distro (and perhaps the M-F-A key and TPM module combined) but also the cloud antivirus family-pack is a deployment solution peculiar to the package shelled-out for, not just a pre-configuration using solely what every other distro has. People want to get behind their guy, ike FPTP compared to proportional-representation, and then also it is with localisation _(a time and a place for where the party is at like a harvest festival metaphor or a music-concert or sports event)._ As an aside, this comment mentions a game-DVD having a distro on it for a known-quantity dependency-tree and drivers-set, and so an AudioCD _(just as some had MSWindows executables on them, like Movie DVD disks had)_ could be a way to ship a distro. If it seems absurd that the Barbie sound track could come with a distro on the CD via dual-mode Audio-data CDROM, then consider how Hannah-Montana linux is not that far off. Even collectors would want it. Of course, I'd prefer some rock-band or metal, but needs-must, so if it ends up as a 'chickstro' CD _("chick + distro" - see what I did there?)_ instead, then so be it. Perhaps Beyonce would not have been snubbed at the awards had she been more forward thinking and Linuxed-up her disks. Not saying she deserved it. Just saying she wouldn't deserve it if she were to put linux on a dual-mode data-audio CD. My comment has no hate in it and I do no harm. I am not appalled or afraid, boasting or envying or complaining... Just saying. Psalms23: Giving thanks and praise to the Lord and peace and love. Also, I'd say Matthew6.

[@davidb636]

There are still commercial end-user distros (atleast a few which have a commercial option, like ZorinOS)

[@MegaManNeo]

Late to the party but those early Ubuntu days were awesome and it thus kinda hurts to see how things went after Ubuntu 10.10 from both sides, Canonical and the salty user base. My first distro was Knoppix 3.7 on a well made CD-R that came via mail and which I still have, SUSE had LiveCD support around the same time too but it was Ubuntu that really changed the perspective of many. I wouldn't mind donating a bit to a distro I like to keep it running but the days of nice distributions sold with big user manuals in a nice box like SuSE 8.2 are long gone.

[@gerlosv]

You didn't mention another important thing Ubuntu did when it began: instead of slapping at you a huge and confusing list of applications to install during the first setup, most of them being half baked or unusable at all, it pre-installed a small suite of well curated and easy applications that suited the basic needs of anyone. Sure, you could install anything later on, but if you was a newbie installing Ubuntu you landed on a fully functional system with nice to use apps, and this was huge!

[@5speedfatty]

I got one of these CD's late in the lifetime of this program! it was at one point the way I went about installing Linux. which eventually lead to me being a daily linux user, I got 11.04 this way actually.

[@veritanuda]

Buying a distro back in the 90's did come with value add. Often it was some bundled software, but normally a nice box with manuals on how to install and run that distro. User manuals were quite helpful in priming people to use a distro without having to hand hold them all the time. I'd still pay for that if distros still did it. People underestimate how much a user manual is still worth to lots of low skilled computer people.

[@ShmuggumsMcGee]

if you still had to buy distro CDs i feel like distro-hopping would be a lot less prevalent lmfao

[@EmanueleC_BR]

I think the desktop distro as a commercial distro is still viable. But I think it needs to really invest in apps, and more specifically their instalation and themes. So to reframe the question, what would _I_ pay for? Linux has its flatpack/appimage/snap/deb/rpm and so on. Whoever can crack the nut to say. "Yep, we'll install that for you, don't worry about how it's packaged, it will install and look the same as everything else" will have a real winner on its hands. I would pay happily to be able to install (and update) apps from any of these where its completely transparent to me.

[@JimNH777]

Tbh I don't think it was the model of distribution combined with Internet and CD burning but just the rise of quality of free distributions and yes, especially Ubuntu. I remember early 2000s that different distros were widely available because they were on cds attached to computer magazines - and everybody was buying, reading them and installing software attached on CDs. By the time Ubuntu started sending CDs, I wasn't even aware of it - every month you could get a local "Linux Magazine" with a new distro attached and about 2005 practically every kid in my high school had a 24h Internet connection independent of dial-up. And that was Eastern Europe, not US. It did took few nights to download a whole distro, but it didn't cost you any extra. And even if you were poor but into PCs - someone could easily and legally burn you a distro on CD-R.

[@davidb636]

I also ordered Ubuntu CDs back in the days because it was free and my internet connection was slow. That was awesome... However if Ubuntu wouldn't have been the killer of commercial end-user distros, another distro would have come up - or improved internet connection speeds would have killed it.

[@pcallycat9043]

I remember requesting a stack of the Ubuntu cds, and put them in a ‘free’ stack on my desk at work. People would take them and then call me later for help installing them. Turned more than a few to Linux.

[@Durayne]

Gutsy Gibbon was my first try to get into linux. (2007) But mostly booted into into Windows because I wanted to play LOTRO. The performance was horrible under wine back then. Eventually uninstalled and forgot. But recently discovered a system backup of hardy heron, I never saw with windows as it was EXT. 12 Years later I moved to Mint for daily driving. 14 Years later Linus Tech Tips made me try out Arch for gaming with their challenge. So far no reason to go back.

[@rhodaborrocks1654]

I remember back around 1997 getting a couple of Linux tarballs without understanding what Linux really was and being defeated when it came to actually getting a running system, then hearing a while later of a local outfit selling Red Hat 5 CDs for 10 bucks, so I bought one of those and that's how I got started. Back in those days we only had dial-up internet over a very shaky telephone system, very low speeds, so buying a CD was really the only way.

[@Bogec]

If I get stability, and it simply works, one click download program, etc.. I'm learning linux, every time there's an update I don't know if the update will crash or if it'll be ok. Once after the update I don't have Bluetooth, the second time Wi-Fi, the third time my icons were changed, some simply disappeared from the desktop. I look at the Linux community and you work great, but there are still people who don't have the time or knowledge to spend a few hours or a day every time fixing a distro or searching the internet for a solution, and when you ask on the forums, then YOU who have Linux in your little finger make fun of us . As much as I hate windows i still have to use it, it's not just because of the applications (I'm not a gamer). Simplify the download of the program and that it simply works. Yes, I will be the first to pay for it. In 5 years, Windows has not crashed once and everything is as I arranged it.