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jordanspringer
06-02-2003, 06:08 PM
You guys at www.oldversion.com should distrubute the operating syster linux!! this is different than microsoft products because you do not have to pay a licence! this operating system is free, and you cannot find it in stores, it is only online!!!!! just an idea!

locustfurnace
06-03-2003, 12:06 AM
Which distribution should Oldversion carry? since there exists hundreds, and many come on SEVERAL CD's, thats ALOT of space and bandwidth. and not all Linux distros can be downloaded for FREE.
SuSE does not permit downloads of their CURRENT versions. since they use an installer which does not fall under the GPL. or LGPL. ( the GNU Public License )
when i Purchased my last version of SuSE, it came on 8 CD's! Thats alot of data to download if one even could!
and Mandrake 8.1 came on 9 CD's.

You can purchase Linux from some stores, such as Best Buy, Staples, Barns and Noble Bookstore, CompUSA.
and there are many places to purchase Linux online.
and if Oldversion would carry Linux distro's, what about *BSD's?
well you cant download ISO's of OPENBSD do to the ISO layout being copyrighted,
But all is not lost, if you wish to download lots of distros, there exists PLENTY of places to download em from
almost every distro offers several mirrored sites for downloading, then there also exists.

http://www.LinuxISO.org. which hosts about 20 dozen distros.
http://www.distrowatch.com/ has links to about about 130 different Distros.

The_Muffin_Man
06-05-2003, 01:49 PM
Yes, if you want to download Linux, you will have to go somewhere else. I downloaded DragonLinux and it works great for me. DragonLinux was really easy to install, but the hardest part was configuring XWindows, which was a pain in the ass with my crappy NeoMagic video card.

lzw
07-27-2003, 11:22 PM
looking for old linux iso's from last century.... redhat v1.x - 4.x or any others from that time period in iso format or any other cd image type!

thanks!!!

locustfurnace
07-28-2003, 01:46 AM
check here

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/

http://www.linuxhq.com/dist.html
http://public.www.planetmirror.com/

I dont know if you will find an iso of redhat 1.0. most likely they were just passed around in tarballs. I do have Linux 0.99. its not a iso either, just a tbz. good luck

igor
07-28-2003, 07:48 AM
The best best at finding old versions of RedHat Linux is to go through all their mirrors:
http://www.redhat.com/download/mirror.html

They all have different amount of data, so there may be one that has versions 1-4. I had a similar problem myself and I remember the oldest I found was 5, but I did not look everywhere, so it is very possible I missed it.

I don't know if you are interested, but Slackware archives versions all the way back to 3.3:
ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/

-igor

locustfurnace
07-28-2003, 01:02 PM
Another thing to consider, If you only have used Red Hat 6 and up, there is a world of difference. Red Hat Linux and most Distros today are simple, piece of cake, to set up. BUT that was not always the case.

They did not come with installers, mostly you have to untar the files into place. and configure it all by hand. Even today OpenBSD, although probably one of the most easiest OS's to install. is mostly a hand edited process.

I do have Red Hat 5.0 on a commerical CD. But will have to guess anything below that was not made readily available on ISO. back then burning CD's was not as common-place as it it now. alot of the installation was via ftp. or possibly even floppy's and maybe even tape. Rem also that Windows 95 was available on CD and Floppy's as well. a friend of mine had the upgrade for windows 95 and it was on i think 15 - 17 floppys.

So with that, unless they had made iso's of the distros you wanted in the past current years, you wont probably find an original version of Red Hat 2.0 as an iso, since that probably was not the way it was distrubuted at the time.

If you do find them on iso, lets us here know. I as well would like to have an archive of versions 1.0

lzw
07-28-2003, 08:48 PM
Thanks for the replies and links everyone... I see some pretty interesting distro's in a couple of those links to grab so will be spending some time with that but nothing very old yet.

I'm no linux guru by far but know redhat enough to get around pretty well. (currently configuring a redhat 9 server at work) I first tried it back in 98, downloading it file-by-file on my 33.6k modem and it took me a very long time just to learn to get it installed at first!

redhat's FTP so far is the very best place to get old versions from all the searching I have done.... They only go back so far for ISO's and other folders are empty, and all the way back to the first redhat version, they do have files there but they seem to be kernal patches, boot disk only, or other updates!

I'm not certain about other types of linux but I have studied readme/text files for many old verions of redhat and they all seem to refer a CD you could have ordered cheaply then, or spent a couple weeks downloading the directory tree!

At first when I started searching for old versions, my paranoia kicked in a little and I thought they must have removed them because they did not want anyone to know they ever made them! Then I realized that although a few people might have had CD burners back in the mid 90's, there was probably no good programs available for creating ISO files, and the CDR software may not have even supported ISO files!!

My hope is that someday, someone may find some of those old redhat cd's (and maybe other types to) collecting dust on a shelf somewhere and make an ISO, and maybe upload it with their broadband internet!

igor: thanks for the slackware ftp link... did not know about that!

locustfurnace: I have that .99 version to, found on some ftp a long time ago but had not tried installing it.

NOTE: there are tools that allow a person to put a bunch of old files like from linux and the image from a boot disk (used for installing) and make all of that into a self-booting/installing linux CD! I tried it before but never got the setup program to read from the CD even after the cd booted and loaded the setup program!!! Which means I don't know what I'm doing or that old of a version just did not support my modern cdr media or something...

it is possible to use old versions, just the way they were intended... Setup all the files on a DOS partition, make the boot disk and mount your DOS partition from the setup program! An iso/cd version is just so much easier!

locustfurnace
07-28-2003, 09:50 PM
Originally posted by lzw@Jul 28 2003, 08:48 PM
NOTE: there are tools that allow a person to put a bunch of old files like from linux and the image from a boot disk (used for installing) and make all of that into a self-booting/installing linux CD! I tried it before but never got the setup program to read from the CD even after the cd booted and loaded the setup program!!! Which means I don't know what I'm doing or that old of a version just did not support my modern cdr media or something...

Yes, that would makeisofs, available for Unix® and even WIndows systems. I have used it to create OpenBSD ISO files, Sicne OpenBSD does not permit download of their ISO, since it is copyrighted.
You just have to make a iso with a boot.catalog and a boot.image.

I think the folders on ftp sites that claim there was an ISO for Red Hat is just a standard folder they make - possibly, by default.

I really don't think there were iso images back when RedHat released its Mother's Day 1.0 version, Since that was in 1996. I did have a cd burner in 1997/8. it was a 2x burner, brand new. So i guess 1x came out in 1996/1997. So it was not really in wide use, to burn cd's.
With Red Hat coming out in 1996, and being based on Slackware Linux, which would have been 1994/5 possiby. Now Linus released his Linux kernel v0.01 in August 1991 and then later Linux v0.11 in Dec 1991. and that was before there were cd burners. Mostly the linux kernel was made available on BBS or News Servers.
It probably wasn't til 1997/8 that anyone packaged a distro for release on CD. but thats something i can't say for certain. thats something someone needs to find out.
I just think finding any 1.0 version on a commerical CD, or an Offical version might be like looking for a unicorn.

And also as far as sticking very old versions of linux and booting it and it works, that prolly wont happen for a few reasons. such as the system was never designed for that, there is no cramfs, or compressed kernel on the cd - was never necessary back then, no iso9660 support(?) was it HIGH SIERRA back then?, there were no bootable cd's or "El Torrito" filesystems back then. ramdisk's were small back then, since there was not alot of memory - unlike today. There was no Fat32 file support back in 1991, the kernel prolly will panic when faced with modern 32bit systems. (rem win 3.1 was a 16bit system). Processors were not 686.586. back then. and many more reason while an old old version of linux most likley wont work on a modern system.

da.phreak
01-12-2004, 03:06 AM
Hi !

I just came over this site searching for Acrobat Reader 5.5 (for Windows :), nice site !

I've seen that the programs are only offered for Windows, not for Linux. It would be very nice to see old Linux versions. For example, both real.com and Acrobat offer Linux-versions of their programs.

I could provide RealPlayer8 for Linux (.rpm), if anyone is interested.

locustfurnace
01-12-2004, 03:53 AM
OldVersion.com (http://www.oldversion.com) hosts only Windows Free & Shareware apps. Hosting any other apps, such as those for GNU/Linux is currently handled by many sites presently.
The problem with hosting GNU/LINUX or any *nix app is the many different formats available for files, such as the Red Hat rpm, the SuSE's rpm format, Debian's .deb, LNX-BBC's .gar, Stampede's .slp, Caldera OpenLinux's rpm, Mandrake's .mdk.rpm, Slackware's tbz or tgz (which differ from standard tgz and tbz's), then you have tar.gz, tar.bz2 and then src.rpm, tar.bz2 sources and tar.gz sources. Thats just too many different types of packages to host, If you start hosting 1 type, someone will suggest hosting another format.
Plus, the binaries are updated so quickly that you will be spending alot of time keeping track of updates.
and due to the licensing of each package, you could run into trouble hosting them with freeware or sahreware apps.
Lets not even begin to talk about the problem of dependencies.
If a user downloads a package and doesnt have the necessary dependencies, is Oldversion to also host these?

Then what happens when someone wants to see *BSD packages hosted? What about Solaris or Darwin or HURD or Apple or BeOS or QNX or Syllable........
Which architecture should you limit yourself to also, i386, Sparc, PPC, m68k..

This question has been asked in the past, you can check here for links to sites which host ISO's and binaries for GNU/LINUX
http://www.oldversion.com/talk/index.php?a...&f=3&t=1080&hl= (http://www.oldversion.com/talk/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=1080&hl=)

da.phreak
01-14-2004, 02:47 PM
What else can I say than OK ?

Well, I didn't mean to host every and any old linux version around, that would be quite hard to update. Getting old versions of Linux-programs is usually quite easy anyway, because the developers offer them. Only big companies like Acrobat or real.com only offer the latest version. Also, big companies usually offer only 2 versions, rpm and executable for other distros than redhat. This wouldn't be very hard, but if you don't want, well ... it's your choice.

locustfurnace
01-14-2004, 03:02 PM
Originally posted by da.phreak@Jan 14 2004, 03:47 PM
Well, I didn't mean to host every and any old linux version around, that would be quite hard to update.* This wouldn't be very hard, but if you don't want, well ... it's your choice.
Right, I understand that, But making space for a couple apps, will then have another poster saying, why not host this or that app. So you can't host everything someone makes suggestions too, even if the idea is a good one.
As you will notice there are no DOS apps on this site, or old games. OldVersion just hosts Windows applications.
At some point you have to decide where to draw the line on what OS you will only cater to, and then of that which apps you only will host.

You can find all older UNiX, Mac, OS2 and Win versions of Acrobat Reader here
ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobatreader/

Ropetin
03-14-2004, 10:16 AM
I was just clicking through a few of my old favourites and I can across this site again. Ahh the memories, many is the time that oldversion.com has saved me from having to install the newest spyware filled, bug ridden, try-before-you buy version of some piece of software or other. For that I give you my eternal thanks.

As I'm sure a lot of (semi) tech-savvy computer users have these days I have moved, in part at least, to Linux. It struck me then that maybe there is a need for a linuxoldversion.com website. Upgrades Linux software tends to be a positive thing rather than negative as seen more and more in the Windows world. Older version though still might be useful, for lower spec or legacy hardware machines for instance.

I would be interested in running such a site either in conjunction with oldversion.com or as a stand alone (but closely linked) project. Let me know if you think this would be worthwhile and if there is any interest within this group.

Thanks,
Ropetin.

locustfurnace
03-14-2004, 12:05 PM
A previous related posting;
http://www.oldversion.com/talk/index.php?a...t=1784&hl=linux (http://www.oldversion.com/talk/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=1784&hl=linux)
http://www.oldversion.com/talk/index.php?a...&f=3&t=1080&hl= (http://www.oldversion.com/talk/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=1080&hl=)
http://www.oldversion.com/talk/index.php?a...T&f=3&t=915&hl= (http://www.oldversion.com/talk/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=915&hl=)

Since your not asking the same exact thing as the previous poster, some additonal info might be necesary to include.
Remember that hosting a single iso image of an older version of GNU/Linux requires that ALL source code MUST be included on the same site. So this means or every 1 distro, you will need to host 2 files, the main installation cd, and the source code CD.
Another thing that you might rem also is that just because Linux and the GPL software are free does not mean it permits free redistribution, as SuSE/Novell might not permit some older version to be hosted as their installer is copyrighted.
Lets not forget the legal implication currently underway with SCO versus GNU/Linux. If this case turns out good for SCO, you would then need to license the software, as last time I checked it was roughly $1,399+ per CPU.
Recently SCO has sued some big companys for millions of dollars for running GNU/Linux software.
So you should look into this and keep track of the case.

Also, there already exists several large hosting sites which offer older GNU/Linux distros, as well as GNU/LGPL/GPL..etc software

If you only want to host GNU software, thats also a good thing in part, but alot of the older software will not work with newer libs. and then there is the dependency problem of hosting 1 file which depends on a chain of other older software. You would definitely need to test out what your hosting to atleast make sure you also hosting as many of the necessary deps as possible, otherwise hosting the old software without the deps wont do much good for most people.

If you have a good collection of software to start out with, that helps alot. I have also kept all downloads and their deps for whatever distro at the time I was runing.
If you plan to host any, you might want to host source code only, as it would be simpler, and much more easier to adapt to the varying distros than to pick and only try to host .rpm's or just .debs.
A benefit to hosting just source code would be less redundant files needing to be hosted, if you hosted pre-compiled binarys like rpm's, then you would also have to host the .src-rpm as well.
And another would be that alot of the older source code could be compiled for GNU/Linux and possibly other's, such as *BSD, Mac, Solaris, and other UNIX-like OS's, and quite possibly be made run on MS Windows under cygwin.

neognomic
03-18-2004, 09:54 PM
I was pretty much in shock when I saw the title of this post. I have been running with Linux for years and initially thought 'what's the point' but you are correct that there may be some people who could use such a service.

The thing is that it exists, already, under a different name. Certainly you must have heard of http://rpmfind.net/ by now? If not, please take a gander at it. There are gazillions of old and new files,,, okay, not GAZILLIONS, :), but I would venture hundreds of thousands of RPMS. I have found files there that go back when linux was just barely even "Linux". Rufus hosts them anyway because the CODE is licensed as free, GPL, BSD or some other, basically, free license and somebody might want to "start with a wheel", so to speak, to build a project.

If you have trouble getting to the US site there is a mirror at http://fr.rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/ also.

Rufus could use some more mirrors... (hint)

Oh, BTW, SCO is a NON-issue for hosting software. The suit is about the OS, not the software that runs on it.
( Besides, SCO is just trying to SCAM some money... it does not fly anymore than Penguins do.)

locustfurnace
03-18-2004, 10:22 PM
Originally posted by neognomic@Mar 18 2004, 10:54 PM
Oh, BTW, SCO is a NON-issue for hosting software. The suit is about the OS, not the software that runs on it.

Right, the suit is about the kernel, "Linux". Which if you are hosting GNU/Linux distros, your hosting the kernel. If your hosting GNU Software, such as gcc, gmake, gawk and the like, that's not Linux (kernel) related, it is software which runs on GNU/Linux, ofcourse it would not be an issue of hosting GNU software. But the problem lies in hosting anything which would contain the kernel in question. such as any distros.

Linux is not an operating system, Linux is a kernel. GNU/Linux is the Operating System. You can replace the Linux (kernel) part of GNU/Linux with another kernel and make a new OS, called GNU/HURD. HURD being the replaced kernel.

SCO's lawsuit would fizzle out if the HURD kernel worked. Everyone would just replace linux with HURD and not have to worry about being sued.
SCO's claim is alot of FUD ofcourse, as they are just upset with no one wanting to license their Unixware.

If you do not want to be sued, just switch over to *BSD. Which has already been through the lawsuits with when AT&T still owned the UNIX IP (which SCO now owns) many years ago. AT&T did not win, things were changed, as well as the current SCO vs Linux suit will end up doing with the kernel.

rpmfind.net is a good site, if your use a .rpm based distros. otherwise you would want to host source files in tarballs.

hi
06-10-2004, 12:59 AM
Program Name: Linux
Website: http://www.linux.com
Current version:9
Desired versions: anything
Description:an oberateing system like windows

locustfurnace
06-10-2004, 01:18 AM
Originally posted by FAQS@ http://www.oldversion.com/faq.php
Do you only provide software for Windows?
Yes. We currently do not provide software for any other operating systems. We also do not provide versions in languages other than English.


Linux.com is not the site for Linux, It is http://kernel.org/.
The current version of Linux is 2.6.6, not 9.
A GNU/Linux distro might be 9, such as Fedora, or Slackware, or Mandrake, but not the kernel.
Linux is only a kernel, and not an OS.
This subject was discussed already in previous threads.
http://www.oldversion.com/talk/index.php?a...&f=3&t=1080&hl= (http://www.oldversion.com/talk/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=1080&hl=)
http://www.oldversion.com/talk/index.php?a...T&f=3&t=915&hl= (http://www.oldversion.com/talk/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=915&hl=)

David
01-29-2005, 03:55 PM
Would you have possiabley be getting linux hats off or something like that any time soon :ph34r:

David
01-29-2005, 03:59 PM
my bad i nment linux red hat

straight talker
01-29-2005, 04:47 PM
considering this site only deals with versions of WINDOWS software i would think not, please read more about the site here http://www.oldversion.com/faq.php

locustfurnace
01-30-2005, 01:47 AM
you can download any GNU/Linux you like from linuxiso.org or distrowatch.org