A history of Sourceware.net

Early in April 1999, compwiz.dhs.org went online, running Debian Linux 2.0 on a spare 486/100 as an experimental server for use on my private home network, using IP masquerading, Apache, Samba, etc. Later that month, I decided to switch to RedHat Linux and it suited me much better. In late May 1999, I decided to experiment with a Perl-based program that seemed to be around for a while, Daily Update by David Coppit. It allowed me to set up a basic template, run DailyUpdate from a cron job, and it would update news & stuff automatically without any interaction from me, for use just as a plain news page that I myself could go to just to check up on the latest news. A few days after I had put the page up for my own use and had shown some others, I decided I should serve it for public viewing, with the title "Linux & Computer Geek Daily News Source." The page seemed to be somewhat of a hit in the Linux community, being featured on various sites such as MetaLab (formerly known as Sunsite).

After not much going on for a while, in August 1999, the site went through a semi-major overhaul, with a new design, a new internet provider, a new domain, www.sourceware.net, and a switch to the newer version of DailyUpdate, Newsclipper 1.0. I had also upgraded to a faster server with more memory, and upgraded software & kernel.

January 2001 - server is FINALLY upgraded to an AMD K6/2-400 with 128 MB from a meager P166 w/96 MB. In an ironic twist of fate, I've switched back to Debian GNU/Linux on my main workstation (1 Ghz) while keeping Red Hat on the server.