Yes, yet it was. There were the BSDs, some more popular than others. A lot of the time, especially back in the earlier days, stuff was more regional.

There certainly were mailing lists, usenet, forums, all of an all-encompasing scope. But there were also very local user groups, and pockets of wildly more and less usage depending upon region. The Internet was young, and many made decisions predicated upon what they saw around them.

The best way to be sure you had support, was a local healthy community of hackers around.