And i had my last argument i would ever have with windows about the stability of my computer. I was to the point of buying a new computer, which i couldn't exactly afford to do at the time. In a last act of desperation before doing so, i remembered the handed down copy of Redhat 4.2, given to me by a friends brother who had tried for weeks to get it running, to no avail. I tried and was more successful, taking ONLY two weeks to configure my Soundblaster AWE64, Rockwell 28.8 ISA modem (FULL hardware modem might i ad, cant beat an ISA modem with a chip count in the teens weighing 2+ pounds!) and VLB 1MB S3 virge video card on my AMD K6-166 with 32MB RAM and a Quantum Bigfoot 2.1GB HDD (who remembers the Quantum Bigfoot!!?? the thing was slow as xmas and ran hot enough to warrant a custom dremel and fan job). The two weeks it took to get everything running were at the same time, the most exciting, and the most frustrating times in my computing life. I learned by feel, running commands and seeing what would happen, thereby discovering man, and all else is history. Besides the excitement of learning something new, I gained new stability. I went from 10+ blue screens a day, corrupted hard drives, various driver problems to a SINGLE unexpected kernel panic till the day i retired the machine due to a misplaced coke perched above my open computer as well as uptimes in weeks. Like many other here relate, it changed the way i think about computers, and just things in general. It made me a better problem solver and a more critical thinker and now, 12 or so years later, Linux is my profession. I vowed from that point to never again pay for the privilege of badly written software when I could run software written by people passionate about computing for the advancement of all us, rather than for the advancement of stock price. Not to mention, I was legally able to modify and extend my new operating system and contribute my changes and ideas to a worldwide community that shared my new found passion. In short, the first thing I did with linux was actually be able to use my computer, and enjoy doing it. As a side benefit, I found i didnt need to smoke a pack a day. Linux saved my faith in computing and my lungs!
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And i had my last argument i would ever have with windows about the stability of my computer. I was to the point of buying a new computer, which i couldn't exactly afford to do at the time. In a last act of desperation before doing so, i remembered the handed down copy of Redhat 4.2, given to me by a friends brother who had tried for weeks to get it running, to no avail. I tried and was more successful, taking ONLY two weeks to configure my Soundblaster AWE64, Rockwell 28.8 ISA modem (FULL hardware modem might i ad, cant beat an ISA modem with a chip count in the teens weighing 2+ pounds!) and VLB 1MB S3 virge video card on my AMD K6-166 with 32MB RAM and a Quantum Bigfoot 2.1GB HDD (who remembers the Quantum Bigfoot!!?? the thing was slow as xmas and ran hot enough to warrant a custom dremel and fan job). The two weeks it took to get everything running were at the same time, the most exciting, and the most frustrating times in my computing life. I learned by feel, running commands and seeing what would happen, thereby discovering man, and all else is history. Besides the excitement of learning something new, I gained new stability. I went from 10+ blue screens a day, corrupted hard drives, various driver problems to a SINGLE unexpected kernel panic till the day i retired the machine due to a misplaced coke perched above my open computer as well as uptimes in weeks. Like many other here relate, it changed the way i think about computers, and just things in general. It made me a better problem solver and a more critical thinker and now, 12 or so years later, Linux is my profession. I vowed from that point to never again pay for the privilege of badly written software when I could run software written by people passionate about computing for the advancement of all us, rather than for the advancement of stock price. Not to mention, I was legally able to modify and extend my new operating system and contribute my changes and ideas to a worldwide community that shared my new found passion. In short, the first thing I did with linux was actually be able to use my computer, and enjoy doing it. As a side benefit, I found i didnt need to smoke a pack a day. Linux saved my faith in computing and my lungs!