Then the terror of getting the modem to dial from a terminal, using lynx to get some browsing going so i could figure out how to get some GUI going on the thing.
Finally, getting Wine to run CS 1.6 so I could play at LAN parties with my buddies. They all thought I was a wizard because I was running this strange OS.
I genuinely believed that gentoo was going to give my machine super powers because all the software was "compiled and optimised for my machine." Maybe that was a little off the mark, but a great learning experience!
Now everyone has a smartphone, so it's hard to replicate that feeling of being cut off from the net with just a printed manual and your determination to carry you through. Good times!
Obviously at this stage, a working X was a fantasy. You had your 6 ttys and that was it.
My first linux was redhat 5 from the CD on the back of a book - it didn't support my SIS 6326 card -- funny how I remember what graphics card I had 20 years ago, but have no idea what's in my desktop at the moment other than "some nvidia thing".
According to a post I can still find on usenet: "I got X running in 600*480 but the mouse pointer was corrupt, so they were close, but not close enough."
I assume I was dual-booting with windows 95 or 98 for my first year or so, at least until I got a better graphics card -- a Voodoo Banshee I think. I'd moved to debian by September 2000 though when I went to uni, and a year later when I saw in the Billenium with date running in an xterm.
> Now everyone has a smartphone, so it's hard to replicate that feeling of being cut off from the net with just a printed manual and your determination to carry you through
It's amazing how we used to survive without the sum knowledge of humanity available at our fingerprints.
And of course help was available on the internet. On dialup. Which you couldn't get working without the modem.