This is kind of cool. 
It shows the time line, evolution of the various Linux distros.
http://www.linuxlinks.com/portal/news/staticpages/index.php?page=20070528113740321
That definitely nails the coffin on my secret wish to learn what Linux is all about. I thought it was all about code and now one must know the history!Â
You donât need to know the history to use Linux. If youâre ever curious about using or experimenting with Linux I suggest that Ubuntu would be a good place to start. Ubuntu has exceptional hardware detection and easily sets up a dual boot with windows.
Good first choices for Linux in no particular order: Ubuntu, Suse, Mandriva, Fedora, Red Hat.
You didnât need to know the history of Mac OS in order to learn Mac OS X, did you?
Yet, if you type âhistory of Mac OS Xâ into Google, youâll find plenty. But it isnât a prerequisite.
What would you say to someone who said âyou know, I really wanted to check out this Mac thing, but not if I have to learn the history.â ?
Man, I missed an opportunity for a good troll 
Â
My comment was just tongue in cheek and basically referred to the fact that I am either too lazy, too old, or too dumb to learn linux. Not that I donât like to learn new things; itâs just that my interest level towards Linux hasnât reach the threshold where I want to get into it. I donât really know what it would bring me other than the fact that I could understand what you guys talk about in some of the tech threads (Iâm sure you guys can come up with many reasons). But so far, I havenât been feeling that bad to be out of the loop.
Yet, you probably posted that using Mac OS X, and if I told you that you needed to learn BSD Unix in order to use Mac OS X, youâd have the same response.
Put in a Ubuntu live CD, and Iâll bet youâll be âusing Linuxâ in a few minutes.
You donât have to be an expert to use an OS.
Iâll bet you donât even know what the default shell is on Mac OS X 10.4, or it uses curl instead of wget. I could go on and talk really techy about Mac OS X too, 'cause itâs way more geekier than Linux.Â
If youâre under the impression that you need to be a total geek expert to use Linux, then itâs an incorrect impression. No more than you even need to know how to run a shell in Mac OS X in order to use Firefox.
Go back and replace the word âlinuxâ in your posts with âMac OS Xâ and see if they still make sense.
Heck, if you sat in on some Windows discussions Iâve had, and had the same reaction as you did to the Linux talk, youâd have come to a conclusion that Windows was too hard to use.
Ever listen to car nerds talk about geeking out their engines?
Did those conversations convince you that you are too old or too dumb to drive a car?
OK! OK! Iâll do it! Just give me some time!! 
You donât get it⊠you already know a lot about linux, since youâre running Mac OS X.
Linux is an attempt to be a âfreeâ (as in speech and as in beer) Unix.
Youâre already running Unix.Â
Didnât take much effort, did it?
I knew that Mac OS X is running Unix. I also knew that Linux is a free version of Unix. I heard about Unix for the first time in 1988 from our computer tech at DFO working on hp 3000 machines if I remember correctly.
What I want to know is if I try linux, what âmoreâ will it do?
Iâm still quite happy with Mac OS X. I also work on Windows XP daily and I see the difference but I still bear with it. My work computer is off limit to putting Linux on it because they donât give teachers admin rights ( I guess I could try running it from a memory stick couldnât I?). I pray that they donât stick us with Vista after what I read about it in these pages. And I donât have much money to spend on another computer right now so I donât really want to mess with my two Mac OS X machines. In light of all this, is Linux for someone like me?
Linux will run on any PC; it runs particularly well on low-end machines. You donât need to spend a lot of money on a computer to run Linux. My main Linux work station is an old IBM Plll 800 MHz with 768 MB RAM, it runs Slackware Linux very well indeed. If you become curious you can pick up a used Plll for a few bucks and try out Linux. 
RedHat forever
RH is awesome; it was one of my first distros. RH is stable, rock-solid. 
Worst thing about linux nerds:Â those who insist on calling it gunoo-slash-linux (and often mispronounce linux).
I had a long long long conversation with someone who protested that I referred to a server as âour linux serverâ instead of âour gnu/linux serverâ âŠÂ I told him I used Apache and KDE and other non-gnu stuff just to avoid such crap.
Heh-heh, Stallman (the ultimate gnu nerd) would have a bird if you called a server a âLinuxâ server. Zealots of any kind make me laugh. Iâve never seen the point of the âgnuâ designation even though Iâm a die-hard debian user. Linux is one of my favourite obsessionsâŠbut it isnât my religion:-)