Oh good God. If you really want to test someone’s resolve, sit them down at an old computer with a CRT and no Internet and have them configure X11 from scratch. Seeing that default X11 crosshatch background for the first time was practically orgasmic after the bullshit I went through to make it work.
That’s one of those traumatizing experiences I’d completely blocked from my memory until I read your comment.
Traumatizing experience #2 that just came back to me was getting a winmodem working and connected to my ISP via minicom.
I can’t remember how long it was until xf86config made things slightly easier, yeah, getting modelines at first was basically impossible, I think it was trial and error for hours at least.
Same, same, still remember the install process, and how hard it was to get x11 working, plus how you ended up with twm after.
And of course having to reboot to escape vim.
Oh good God. If you really want to test someone’s resolve, sit them down at an old computer with a CRT and no Internet and have them configure X11 from scratch. Seeing that default X11 crosshatch background for the first time was practically orgasmic after the bullshit I went through to make it work.
That’s one of those traumatizing experiences I’d completely blocked from my memory until I read your comment.
Traumatizing experience #2 that just came back to me was getting a winmodem working and connected to my ISP via minicom.
Didn’t do winmodems, that would be a nightmare.
I can’t remember how long it was until xf86config made things slightly easier, yeah, getting modelines at first was basically impossible, I think it was trial and error for hours at least.
I don’t think it became easier at all until it was forked off into Xorg and they started making dramatic improvements.
It certainly was until I discovered the monitor I hadn’t fried had the modelines printed on a sticker on the back…
You are so damn lucky. I just took the safe ones, and pushed them until it looked good but the monitor’s whine wasn’t too scary.
Fucking dark ages…
Xorg was a massive improvement, still bad, but less insane.