Corel Linux (1999-2000): Exploring how easy it was to use [video]

This was my very first Linux distribution! My dad picked bought a copy of the Deluxe edition on a whim, an actual shrink-wrapped physical box of software. It had a cute penguin logo and had lots of nice software included.

We installed it on a Pentium II and used it mainly to author and print WordPerfect documents. It was surprisingly usable - we were familiar with DOS and Win95 but we knew literally nothing about Linux. Yet we got by with minimal trouble.

More importantly it opened the doors to experimenting with open source operating systems and hardware... I was hooked. I quickly switched to Red Hat then to Slackware then to BSD and Debian - better systems for sure. But Corel Linux had a certain cohesion and out-of-the-box usefulness that made it feel friendly.

This was the second Linux distro that I tried (Caldera Open Linux being the first). It was very usable for the time and didn't look too bad, either. While it never fully had a grip on my interest, looking back Corel Linux did show me what a Linux distro for someone with few or lesser-developed techie skills looked like. It paved the way for my exploration, and continued use, of Linux. So in that way, Corel Linux did its job.