From: crude@sausa.ge   
      
   On 27 Jan 2026 01:30:45 GMT, rbowman wrote:   
      
   > On 27 Jan 2026 00:30:19 GMT, CrudeSausage wrote:   
   >   
   >> Admittedly, Linux seemed like a dying fad until Ubuntu released its   
   >> first edition. Once that happened, every distribution improved   
   >> significantly.   
   >   
   > Give me a break. For whatever reason Shuttleworth decided to take the   
   > windfall from the sale of his company to Verisgin to create a distro   
   > based on Debian and started mailing out CDs faster than AOL.   
   >   
   > Slackware, Debian, SUSE, Red Hat, Mandrake, and others. Mandrake had   
   > already gotten a reputation for being easy to install for new users 6   
   > years before Ubunutu. In fact they'd lost the trademark suit to Hearst a   
   > couple of month's before the Ubunutu brainstorm session.   
   >   
   > It's interesting Ubunut was and is based on Debian. Debian gores back to   
   > '93. Stallman's Free Software Foundation sponsored Debian for one year   
   > before the inclusion of optional 'non-free' software pissed off   
   > Stallman.   
   >   
   > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/   
   > The_Open_Source_Definition#Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines   
      
   The problem with the distributions you cited above as being "easy to   
   install" is that they were also easy to hate. In most cases, they were   
   utter slop that broke if you turned your head to sneeze. Ubuntu was both   
   easy to install and easy to use.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)