Yeah, I’ve been using it almost that long. Back then, the kernel panic messages said “call Linus.” I think it had his phone number, too...
Back then we had built a machine using an EISA board and numerous “expermental” I/O cards. I think we had 16 of the biggest drives of the day in that thing. It may have been one of the first “servers” around. I recall some salesman from IBM showing up and telling us we needed his $750,000 RISC machine. We took him back to the thing we had built (named Frankenstein) and he laughed when he saw this thing with multiple boxes and ribbon cables all over with a spot cooler blowing cold air into the boxes (only way to keep it running). He said, “that won’t work*”. He stopped laughing when we started doing things on the console and told him everything cost less than 10% the cost of his machines, he wanted us to buy. He mumbled something and left; we never saw him again.
*I’ve never really paid much attention to people who said I could not do this or that.