I was thinking about the recent story about the DB looking for windows 3.1 administrator.
A classic issue I’ve soon working in heavy industry is that hardware last longer than windows version. So 10 years ago, you bought a component for the product you design or a full machine for your factory which only comes with a windows XP driver.
10 year latter, Windows XP is obsolete, upgrading to a more recent windows might be an option but would cost a shit load of money.
I have therefore the impression that Linux would offer more control to the professional user in term of product lifecycle and patch deployment. However, there is always that stupid HW which doesn’t have a Linux driver.
Linux already ran the vast majority of the web and internet services back then. I think qualifying as “it sucked” isn’t particularly accurate. Remember, fifteen years ago, Vista was still very current with Windows 7 having just been released.
Linux was a terrible experience for the standard home user and non programmer professional uses. You could make it work for some stuff, but today I’d feel comfortable telling anyone with basic computer and troubleshooting skills that they can make linux work for them. Meanwhile 7 or so years ago I was an engineering student who tried ubuntu and found it couldn’t do what I wanted and took too much work to do what it could.