PShaw, that's how I had to do it. Slackware on floppy. Pre-internet search engine, one computer per household. No cellular data.
windows -> Dial up -> look at some docs, take nodes -> reboot into Slackware -> mess with the console -> get stuck -> reboot into windows -> repeat
That's why I went with Red hat back then. They were sort of the gold standard and everything kinda just worked. Not as well as "it just works" Linux nowadays, but it used to be pretty good and easier to use, relatively speaking, compared to the other distros of the time.
Dependency hell still sucked.
I learned the most about linux back when stuff didn't work right out of the box
This is the equivalent of pushing your kid to the pool so it learns to swim.
For a second I thought it was the Linux comunity
