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linux felt like less of a waste of time back when we didn't know things could be better 
god i can't believe it fucking worked, but then, it was 1997, and at that point I vaguely remember that when you followed the instructions for compiling source IT FUCKING WORKED
yeah, you had to compile from source. but it WORKED, instead of NOT WORKING because of unresolvable circular dependencies and "lol you need a yacc you can only download from some french FTP"
this isn't a joke by the way. over the course of like a decade every time I tried to touch anything involved on linux I ended up having to compile something like gtk, and it wanted a version of yacc that literally existed nowhere except on european FTP sites.
i honestly can't believe i figured this out and that it worked. you have to get the source RPMs off the source CD, apply a specific set of patches, and then make everything. it took like half an hour to build, and then it *worked*. fucking bizarre.
after install the default desktop environment had reverted to twm, so i edited xinitrc and it *worked.* i haven't seen xinitrc actually do anything since the early 2000s
