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What Did You Do First With Linux?
ruphus13 writes "OStatic has an interesting article on remembering the first time you used Linux. Quoting: 'I'm not sure if the admission that I remember my first Linux installation much more clearly than any date with my first boyfriend or my first date with my husband is a really wise thing to put in writing. I will freely admit it wasn't quite as anxiety-inducing as a date, and the long-term relationship that sprang from it taught me quite a bit about myself, how I learn, and how to passionately load kernel modules at boot. So, what was your first Linux experience?'"
I tried to access the floppy drive. Eventually gave up, and re-installed Windows. That was 1998. I finally installed Debian Aug 2006 and it's been running on this machine ever since.
Windows is like a drug addiction. Sometimes it takes several tries to kick it.
First time was kind of mandated by moneyless employer. With my own Windows Compaq laptop in hand, I flew to Atlanta and was greeted by a bunch of old Unix hippies. I was to write PHP/miniSQL code for them but had only one computer to do it on, mine. Problem was that I had windows and they wanted me to run RH. So, I totally wiped my machine and installed RH. Even at that time (years ago), I had no problem getting Red Hat installed (5.2?) on my presario.
Ever since then my tolerance of Windows has been in nothing but decline.
Long live The Penguin!!
-- A cat is no trade for integrity!
Up to that point, I never thought of myself in any way, shape or form as a logical thinker. In some sense, I'm really not. But I learned something about myself. I learned that things go wrong in even completely logical settings for no apparent reason -- but there is a reason, and searching it down, identifying it, and solving it is actually fun and rewarding. I can't write code, but I am quite skilled in digging around in it and bending it to my will -- something I never dreamed I'd like doing.
I must say that using Linux (manpages and all) has taught me a stack of confidence, logical thinking, problem solving skills etc as well as a lot about computers in general and how they run. I even run a PC repair business now as well as setting up free Linux boxes for disadvantaged students.
Has anyone else found that using Linux has really helped them develop personally in this way?
sudo mount --milk --sugar
I first installed an early version of slackware, back in 95 or so. I don't quite remember how many floppies it was, but a couple friends and I were able to split the downloads up between us. One boot floppy, one root floppy and a significant number of installation floppies (that we soon learned to copy to the HD before installing). We got this through a hole in the state library system's gopher access number.
I spent a large number of sleepless nights chatting on the 50 person(!) BBSs, facinated by the ability to chat with so many people at once instead of the one or two that I could with the better set-up local dialup BBSs. A little later I learned about ytalk and got to have more "personal" (wink wink, nudge nudge) chats with 1 or 2 people at a time again. :-D
Eventually, I met my wife on the Illinois Institute of Technology computer club's BBS, shadow. Yep, that annoying sound a modem makes was "the handshake o' love" to me.
Now excuse me while I go see if there are any kids on my lawn.
Interesting... usually the "handshake o' love" only involves one person...
In the 1997th year, much Quaking was being done by myself, a young 2ltnapalm. I fragged and it was good. Yet not all was well in the land of the rocket launcher. There was this fell beast, Windows 95, which ever was watchful for any joy in the world, existing only to bring the blue hell to the screens of the earth.
"Surely, there cannot be this misery alone for the computers of the earth. For in the earlier days of home computing I cast off Windows 3.0, who was then but a pretender operating system, for DOS 5. But Windows has grown more ambitious if not more useful and its infection spreads wide and no retreat to DOS does it permit. Tell me, Quakers, are their no alternatives to this dreck? And speak not of MacOS, for it is a joke."
Out of the depths of IRC, from the servers of EFNet, the oracles of #quake did speak.
"Linux. For it is stable and the Carmack has decreed that Quake shall run upon it with joy in its heart."
"Carmack the Wise is a powerful programmer and much does he understand. Hark, I shall give this Linux thing a shot."
To the merchant Computer City, I did go and they had a boxed copy of Red Hat 4.2 (if my memory does not betray me) which I did buy. Upon returning to my abode, I did begin preparations for the installation upon my whitebox. Partitioning was simple enough. The choices which one needed to make were not difficult, but to one who was but yet a pup it, it was so foreign. Eventually, perseverance and much RTMFing did triumph. Linux was installed. But one other thing must be done. X.
Many were the incantations invoked and the curses hurled due to X. Long days were spent editing text and typing that accursed startx only to find my work in vain. And yet did I endure for I knew that Windows 95 was cackling in the darkness of Redmond, awaiting my defeat to consume my soul should I fail and never again would I be able to hold my head high amongst the geeks of the realm.
Always teetering on the edge of disaster, but never managing to destroy my machine (which the pages of man ensured me was possible), I one day found something new. Something unexpected. For after messing with mode lines and color depths and other things arcane, startx worked. A graphical user interface was mine!
"My heart doth rejoice in this success! I shall install Window Maker and Enlightenment and many others besides so that I may never be bored with the look and feel of this machine, for that is the crowning glory of this victory: I can have any UI I desire."
Feeling very pleased with myself, I looked over all I surveyed with great confidence, yet the victory was not mine alone. For this unnamed box had endured much in the trials of installation. Yes. "Endured much beyond the reckoning of the typical home computer," said I, "and not just endured, but thrived and in the coming days shall have many challenges to overcome, so henceforth let this machine be known as tankgirl!"
Many were the adventures of tankgirl and, now, ltnapalm. Running a website over a cable modem, a MySQL database server, and numerous other tasks that tankgirl did perform, singing all the while with her K6 233 and 128 megabytes of RAM. In time, helper machines were obtained so that less interesting tasks tankgirl would not have to do herself, for her processing time was valuable and wasted on other tasks. A 486 there was, scorned by many as out of date and useless, now raised from its nadir to its apex with Linux installed and became a mighty wall of fire, shielding the local area network from the depredations of script kiddies and other wearers of the black hat of crackerdom.
Many were the nooks and crannies that cptnapalm and tankgirl delved into together, from dabbling in C programming and shell scripting to kernel compilation and switching to Debian. Together we witnessed the horrors of sendmail.cf and learned the mysteries of bind. And Quake there was, of course, too.
After long years, time did takes its toll and its toll was death. Impoverishment prevente