Hah! I'd forgot about all those annoyances. Back then I had a modem and a crappy phone line with a maximum transfer speed of 25 kbits/second. I had to be really careful about what software I'd install from the Internet. In fact, most of the software that I installed came from CDs packaged with trustworthy computer magazines.

Aside from the pre-yum dependecy hell, Red Hat Linux was a breath of fresh air.