While there is still only one Windows, Linux distros come and go. While some early distros have stood the test of time, others have fallen into computer history. I’ll look back on some pioneering Linux distros you can’t get anymore, at least in current versions.

Mandrake/Mandriva

In the ’90s, Linux was gaining a reputation among computer enthusiasts as a cutting-edge alternative to DOS/Windows or what was then called the Macintosh System software. The problem was that Linux distributions were considered nearly impossible to install for all but the most technically savvy users. Mandrake, created by French entrepreneur Gaël Duval, was originally based on Red Hat Linux, which itself was an attempt to put a user-friendly spin on Linux, but Mandrake quickly went in its own direction.

Macmillian (yes, the book publisher) thought they could sell so many boxed copies (with manuals, of course) that they created a ’90s-tastic promotional video:

Through the late ’90s and the 2000s, Mandrake was known as one of the easiest distros to install, or at least by the standards of the era. It was a staple of the era when they tried to sell Linux in boxes to normal computer users who would usually run Windows 95, 98, or were unlucky enough to run Windows Me.

This box came with a hefty tome of a manual, as well as smaller reference manuals, CDs, and even a floppy disk for computers that couldn’t boot from optical drives. The system also received high marks from publications such as ExtremeTech and CNET for itsease of installation and usage, compared to other distros.

Along with SUSE and Red Hat, Mandrake also pioneered the commercial sale of Linux distributions. The company eventually changed its name and distro to Mandriva. The company finally bid adieu to the Linux community in 2015, but Mandriva, and thus Mandrake, lives on in successor distros like OpenMandriva and Mageia.

Red Hat Linux

Before there was Red Hat Enterprise Linux, there was just Red Hat Linux. As with Mandrake/Mandriva, which was based on it, Red Hat was an attempt to make installing Linux easier for people who weren’t as versed in Linux and Unix concepts. It had a more polished presentation than other, more technical distros like Slackware or Debian, resembling offerings from other major Unix vendors of the time like Sun Microsystems or SGI. The latter was one of the first commercial companies to see the potential of Linux, offering Red Hat as a preinstalled option on their machines.

As with Mandrake, you could also purchase boxed copies in software and computer stores. I remember seeing a boxed copy in a CompUSA in Concord, Calif, around 2003.

Tech YouTuber Michael MJD installed it on a period-appropriate PC:

Red Hat eventually turned its focus to enterprise companies eager to replace their expensive legacy Unix servers with something compatible that ran on cheaper x86 processors. Red Hat discontinued its consumer-focused Red Hat Linux in favor of Red Hat Enterprise Linux or RHEL. As a replacement for the consumer version, Red Hat founded the community-led Fedora project, which continues in its place. It’s a favorite of serious developers, including Linus Torvalds himself.

MCC Interim Linux

MCC Interim Linux was one of the first Linux distributions when it first appeared in 1992, shortly after the Linux kernel was posted on Usenet in late 1991. It was created by the Manchester Computing Centre (MCC) at the University of Manchester in England. It was notable for offering a menu-driven installation process that was also a lot easier for people who were used to MS-DOS, which was the predominant OS on PCs at the time. The distro was used at the university to teach introductory Unix and C classes on cheaper PCs instead of expensive RISC-based Unix workstations.

Although it acquired a reputation for being easy to install, it was not without its problems. According to LWN, its X11 configuration utility “occasionally allowed the magic smoke to escape from your monitor.” In other words, it could spectacularly damage your monitor beyond repair by shorting out components in the days of hefty CRT screens. Fortunately, modern Linux distros are a lot smarter about automatic desktop configuration and keeping the magic smoke inside your machine.

As the name implied, its developers saw MCC Interim Linux as a temporary distribution to tide users over until something better came along. That something seemed to be Debian, which they were recommending their users migrate to, even providing tools to convert MCC to Debian, with the release of the final 2.0 version in late 1996. Perhaps Debian’s noncommercial, community-based development process suited MCC’s academic orientation and proved a worthy successor.

H.J. Lu’s boot-root

Credit: Shermozle/Wikimedia Commons

Ever since Linus Torvalds posted his first version of his Linux kernel on Usenet, people have been packaging it for consumption by others. Programmer H.J. Lie was one of the first, offering a “bootable rootdisk” or “boot-root” system on Usenet in early 1992, around the time that the MCC Interim Linux first appeared.

This allowed users to install Linux on their systems without touching the existing OS. You would pop the floppy disk (there were no USB drives back then) into the drive, turn on the computer, and you would have a minimal Linux system up and running. It’s a precursor to modern live systems, and it seems that as long as Linux has existed, people have been making minimal Linux distros. This was more important as most PCs were constrained in terms of memory and hard drive space compared to the workstations of the day.

It’s hard to believe that Linux is over 30 years old. These distros came onto the scene and had their time, but they eventually faded out of the limelight. As the needs of Linux users change, more distros will spring up and die off. The history of Linux is one of permanent change.