this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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    This image was created by /u/kuebic@discuss.tchncs.de for this comment here: https://discuss.tchncs.de/comment/21735989. I had encouraged them to post it somewhere, but as far as I can tell, they never did.

    Panel 1: “Installing Windows 20 years ago” screenshot of install wizard with just a couple buttons
    Panel 2: “Installing Linux 20 years ago” screenshot of a busy command line
    Panel 3: “Installing Windows today” screenshot of a busy command line
    Panel 4: “Installing Linux today” screenshot of install wizard with just a couple buttons

    (page 2) 50 comments
    sorted by: hot top controversial new old
    [–] LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world 21 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

    I am new to linux Mint and mullvad had an update ready, so i clicked update. It just stayed downloading on 0% for like 5 minutes, so i remembered this ISN'T WINDOWS. So i opened terminal and sudo apt upgrade and Mullvad was updated and new version installed.

    It's weird how windows makes things looks easy, but then they don't work well. Linux makes things look difficult, but it they work well.

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    [–] Digit@lemmy.wtf 21 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

    Uhhh. No.

    Is this like the time that travel journalist was in Hungary, saw 1 cow, that happened to be white, then wrote "all the cows in Hungary are white"?

    Over 20 years ago, I installed linux with a gui (suse, as easy as ubuntu to install, before ubuntu), and still could. At the same time, could also install Gentoo, and still do. Free to choose how to install linux, any of many ways, gui or not, then as now.

    ... Was this made by a windows user, and windows only gives you one way, and they thought that's what it was like with Free Software too?

    [–] bossjack@lemmy.world 7 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

    Think you're taking this too seriously.

    To the average Joe, yeah, Windows is easier to install than ever. But to anyone with a passing interest in the OS has needed to do more and more work just to keep the OS recognizably sane vs the mess it has become.

    Contrast that to Linux, which has stayed recognizably sane or even getting better.

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    [–] chaogomu@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago (3 children)

    Hell, I looked at installing Slackware again a few months back. I think I've said enough.

    Coincidentally, I actually did install Slackware as one of my first distros some 20 years ago. I actually had one of those old Linux for Dummies books, which made the experience close to painless.

    Sadly, the call of PC gaming pulled me back to windows for a while. But with Steam, and more specifically Proton, now those calls are coming from inside the house.

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    [–] gustofwind@lemmy.world 71 points 23 hours ago (14 children)

    My favourite part of the Linux installation process is when it automatically places itself before windows in the grub menu boot order

    Inb4 don’t dual boot: I occasionally need to for work 🫩

    [–] Enzy@feddit.nu 13 points 23 hours ago

    Linux: Signature look of superiority

    [–] Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 14 hours ago

    Dual booting is perfectly fine. Just try to not use the windows boot partition for both OS or Windows will occasionally "lose" the Linux entry... "Oops" I guess.

    If Linux is on its own drive, or at least has it's own uefi partition, it's just fine and dandy. Just chain load windows from it and there's basically nothing that can break.

    [–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 points 22 hours ago

    That's only because L comes before W alphabetically tho.

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    [–] Samskara@sh.itjust.works 48 points 23 hours ago (2 children)
    [–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 47 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

    Caldera had a GUI installer in 1998…

    Caldera OpenLinux Installer

    [–] paper_moon@lemmy.world 11 points 21 hours ago

    I never used Caldera, but holy hell the font and design of this installer brings back so many memories.

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    [–] Digit@lemmy.wtf 4 points 19 hours ago

    And at least a couple years before that too, when I started with it as a windows refugee.

    [–] regdog@lemmy.world 9 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

    This meme would be better if it were:

    left column: 20 years ago
    right column: today

    [–] buttnugget@lemmy.world 9 points 16 hours ago

    Both work because the reversal is part of the point. I didn’t find it difficult to read, so it’s subjectively legible.

    [–] criticon@lemmy.ca 34 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

    20 years ago it was way easier to install Linux from a boot disk (like ubuntu or suse) than windows from scratch. Sometimes XP didn't have the necessary drives and you'd need to find bootable drivers and load them from a floppy disk

    It was even easier to install OSx86 on my laptop than windows vista from scratch in 2007

    Maybe this is one of those thinking that 20 years ago was the 90s

    [–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 14 points 20 hours ago

    Yeah in 2005 every major distro had a decent clean gui installer. I recall at the time using fedora. Then Ubuntu a few years later.

    But god help you if you needed wifi drivers.

    Even in the 90s Redhat had a decent installer.

    [–] jj4211@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

    Well that screenshot was accurate for Gentoo circa 2005, it's just the worst choice for ease of install, with Linux graphical installs provided by suse, mandrake, and redhat from the 90s.

    Fair point could be made that the out of box experience was sorely lacking and you pretty much had to configure;make install most software you actually wanted...

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    [–] untorquer@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago

    I guess you're right in the sense that neither could play audio off drivers packaged with install media in that era.

    [–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 31 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

    windows xp WAS NOT 20 years ago

    [–] SatyrSack@quokk.au 46 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

    24 years ago! Don't forget to schedule your colonoscopy.

    October 25, 2001

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP

    [–] ClockworkOtter@lemmy.world 11 points 22 hours ago (7 children)

    Don't schedule a colonoscopy unless you have symptoms of a GI disorder, or unexplained weight loss. The evidence does not support non-targeted screening programs.

    [–] skyline2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
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    [–] SatyrSack@quokk.au 19 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

    What should be my default "Remember that you're getting old!" helpful tip now, then?

    [–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 15 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

    Check your linkin park cds for disc rot.

    [–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

    Ugh yeah. I've been slowly backing up my wife's, my parents', and my own music CDs, and while it thankfully hasn't gotten to many of them, it's ate enough to be annoying.

    Especially because my wife's collection is mostly very specific performances of classical music and operas, which can make finding rips difficult when it's not a particularly popular recording.

    And the CD-Rs are almost all toast. I'm lucky the old family PC HDDs still have most of the old family photos, so I've been able to back them up. Can't believe we used to think that backing up the pictures to disc would last longer.

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    [–] lauha@lemmy.world 9 points 19 hours ago

    I installed my first linux using graphical installer over 25 years ago

    [–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

    Tbh, Installing Gentoo today is basically the same as it was in the first screenshot anyway :D But then again, most people would object to conflating the Gentoo installation to the "Linux installation"

    [–] Digit@lemmy.wtf 3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (4 children)

    And there be ways to install gentoo [based respins] with a gui, even 20 years ago.

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    [–] PlaidBaron@lemmy.world 16 points 23 hours ago (3 children)

    You also had to spend hours tweaking your install in any Linux distro. Now most work out of the box.

    Windows on the other hand...

    [–] Digit@lemmy.wtf 4 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (3 children)
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    [–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 5 points 22 hours ago

    But once you got that XFree86 config dialed in, life was awesome.

    (Ok looks like Xorg has been around for 21 years, so maybe you were running it instead.)

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    [–] halvar@lemy.lol 9 points 23 hours ago

    I was scared because i thought there was a windows 20

    [–] LeninsOvaries@lemmy.cafe 6 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

    Ewbuntu. Show us the installer for Hannah Montana Linux.

    [–] Digit@lemmy.wtf 2 points 19 hours ago

    Yup. Gosh. HML was about 20 years ago now. Time flies.

    And yeah, as the point being made over and over in the comments keeps saying... we had gui installers even then (and even a decade earlier too).

    [–] usernameusername@sh.itjust.works 5 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

    kinda unrelated but why is this image seemingly recreated ui's rather than screenshots

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    [–] jpablo68 4 points 23 hours ago

    "How the turntables" -- Michael Scott

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