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this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I remember when it was free. 👴
Free or just included with your internet service? I remember getting usenet as an ISP perk long ago. No idea if they indexed any binary newsgroups though.
Included with service. Then they stopped doing it citing cost, not unlike how they don't give you an email address anymore. I'm not sure I believe either excuse tbh.
The amount of space required to maintain an NNTP spool was considerable before Usenet spam because the problem it is today. When I was in undergrad (late 90's), the college I went to had an NNTP server for on-campus use. In 1998 it had something like 2TB of disk space (I don't want to think about how much that cost back then). I can't imagine that the spam has gotten better, or the amount of disk space needed for just the alt.* hierarchy has gone down since that time.
And back in 1998 we were paying the equivalent of $200 in today money per month for crappy slow internet access. They weren't hurting.
Huh. And many of us are still paying $200 per month for crappy, slow net.access. :(
But crappy slow has changed too, it was less than 1Mbps then. Dialup users had it worse yet, 48Kbps theoretical.
Funnily enough, 1Mbps is what I'm lucky to get on my DSL line out here on a good day.
F