For those veteran linux people, what was it like back in 90s? I did see and hear of Unix systems being available for use but I did not see much apart from old versions of Debian in use.
Were they prominent in education like universities? Was it mainly a hobbyist thing at the time compared to the business needs of 98, 95 and classic mac?
I ask this because I found out that some PC games I owned were apparently also on Linux even in CD format from a firm named Loki.
I think you need to qualify that having used or tried Linux in college was normal in the 2000s for someone in computer science or engineering, or basically my fellow undiagnosed autistics and autistic adjacents. In my experience it was fairly normal in college for most people to have trouble operating a basic word processor, and they would not have had any idea what Linux was at all.
Maybe, but I took some business courses too and even some of them had at least tried a Linux distro. I think it was more widespread than just turbo nerds and cs majors. Hell one of the biggest Linux guys I knew was an anthropology major.