In the very early 90s, my dad started using some sort of unix again (I don't know if it was an early linux or a BSD of some sort.) Up until that point, I'd only ever seen him used windows 3.1 or some raw terminal/TTY emulator.
It was winter and suddenly his screen was a fuzzy grey, with funny looking windows, instead of the comforting (to me) windows teal.
At the time, it represented to me, a change into the unkonwn. As it was (assume) the start of a new contract (my dad worked at home alot) it was also a time of financial pressure.
So to me, I hated X, and how it looked. It was to me, the equivalent of a brutalist housing block. Well built sure, but foreboding to look at.
Later when I was I was using Linux my self (around redhat 5/6) If you suddenly saw that you were dropping into a "natural" X, It was a sign that you'd fucked up the window manager, or that the switch between gnome and E (or which ever one you were trying) had gone wrong.
The stipple and X cursor are forever ingrained into my memories. I remember it so vividly how back in 1998 when I installed my first Linux distro (suse 6-ish) and after some configuring i typed "startx" and then BOOM! Grey "unix-y" weirdness for a minute or two and then KDE 1. It will never not hit me with immense levels of nostalgia whenever I come across it, which admittedly is not very often these days.
Wow, I could have written that exact comment myself. Those were the happy startx, after you got the monitor sync rates right. The myth went that if you got them wrong, you could fry the monitor. I remember that suse package came with a couple of pins. one tux and one suse chameleon. I preserved them for a long time. But I moved way too many times. Fun times. Thanks for the nostalgia:)
It was winter and suddenly his screen was a fuzzy grey, with funny looking windows, instead of the comforting (to me) windows teal.
At the time, it represented to me, a change into the unkonwn. As it was (assume) the start of a new contract (my dad worked at home alot) it was also a time of financial pressure.
So to me, I hated X, and how it looked. It was to me, the equivalent of a brutalist housing block. Well built sure, but foreboding to look at.
Later when I was I was using Linux my self (around redhat 5/6) If you suddenly saw that you were dropping into a "natural" X, It was a sign that you'd fucked up the window manager, or that the switch between gnome and E (or which ever one you were trying) had gone wrong.
I kinda like it now though.