Peachy Posted May 31, 2003 Share Posted May 31, 2003 Lets see, it was around the fall of 1993 or early 1994 I came across a little near the back page article in Byte magazine that mentionned some Finnish grad student named Linus Torvalds was working on a Unix-like operating system called Linux that was designed for the 386 processor. The reviewer said it had a promising future ahead of it. Little did he know. Anyway, I filed it away in my head for future reference. Then in the fall of 1994 I was browsing in my university bookstore and saw a Linux book written by Patrick Volkerding, the creator of Slackware. I picked it up and read it realizing that someday I was going to be using this OS. Within a couple of weeks I downloaded enough packages from the Slackware distro to prepare an install. You have to remember that most people were using 9600/14,000 baud modems and Mosaic had just been introduced for those who figured out what www meant. The install for me consisted of multiple floppy disk images and eventually I got it up. It wasn't terribly user-friendly at the time and X Windows didn't have KDE or GNOME yet. Not fully understanding TCP/IP, getting Linux to connect to the internet using PPP was an utter failure. This was one of the primary reasons I was using Windows. But each subsequent Linux distro I tried brought me closer to appreciating Linux as well as having learned quite a lot about computer hardware, networking, the internet in the past decade. My best successes before this year with Linux would have been in 1998 when I tried Caldera Open Linux 1.3 and Mandrake 6.0. Both those distros were very polished. But my experience with the current 2.4.x kernel distros has been what has really propelled my excitement for Linux. That and the fact that I've had to stay on top of it for work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zox Posted May 31, 2003 Share Posted May 31, 2003 I can't remember when I learned about Linux, but I am certain that I found on internet.If it's on internet, it must be true Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent007 Posted May 31, 2003 Share Posted May 31, 2003 I 1st heard about GNU/Linux in the year 2001.....From our GNU/Linux local user Group. Was so bored, that I attended the meeting and actually installed RedHat 7 late 2001...Played around quite a lot, that the HDD crashed... It was fun! The countless formats and stuff..007 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted May 31, 2003 Share Posted May 31, 2003 4 - 5 years ago I did read about it in a mag. and got interested. Heard about it before tough.Needed a full year to get used to the idea that someday I would try it . . . . .but then it went fast, first disto was a desaster RedHat 6.1, could not make anything from it. Mandrake 7.0 really got me going, reading, reading and more reading . . . 7.1, 7.2, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 9.0 and now 9.1 ! Only last year I started trying other distro´s like VectorLinux etc.Was a big joy all that learning and reading ! Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greengeek Posted May 31, 2003 Share Posted May 31, 2003 Got Mandrake 8.0 on a couple of magazine CDs and haven't looked back. Easy to install, I wondered what all the fuss was about, Linux being hard to learn and all. Unfortunately it was easier to install than it was to use at first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nlinecomputers Posted May 31, 2003 Share Posted May 31, 2003 I worked for a computer company(a whiteboxer) back in 1997 that work with an company that was selling Citrix and Linux to Public School districts. I was never involved in the Linux part(I'm Microsoft Certified). I know we were using RedHat 6 and I also know that we were seriously hacked had a nasty root kit put on our server and serveral of our clients. Needless to say everyone in the Linux end of the company quickly got FULLY upto speed on ipchains. The dot bomb blew up my job, I got married, moved and started out as a Consultant on my own. About 2 years ago I decided that I really needed to learn this stuff and bought a book with a copy of Red Hat 7.2 in it. I quickly realized that once you learn the basics Linux is very trouble free. I build Linux servers for small offices that might at one time used a peer to peer network or maybe Novell or Windows Small Business Server. It's cheaper, it's more stable, and easy to remote admin. Most small business just need a basic file server. Samba works just fine. Many companies have simple applications written in Visual Basic that use Access type DBs. They often will port to an SQL server if one is at hand. MySQL comes with most distros and runs a heck of a lot faster then running of an Access DB sitting on the Windows 98 box receptionist desk. I don't think that Linux is ready for the desktop but as cheap file server for the office that can't really afford one but needs one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeg4 Posted May 31, 2003 Share Posted May 31, 2003 I was going to Community College in Mansfield Pa. in Jan.1999 when I first heard about it and I still have the complete tutorial that I printed out at the school , all 165 pages of it . That was back in the days of Red Hat 4 and I have been curious ever since . I just acquired RH9 about two weeks ago and have been using it for the last couple of days . And I love it I don't think I will ever go back to windows . Except unfortunately a few applications I don't have software for in linux . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teacher Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 Let's see. I put down on the poll the first time I paid attention - right here. I had heard about it before but did not know anyone using it and had no reason to explore. I am still just playing with it. But I am having fun reading and figuring it all out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest genaldar Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 I first heard of linux in the spring of 99. I was on dial up so downloading tons of floppy images was out of the question. Then in the fall of 99 I found a site called pogolinux that sent out a free distro each month. I signed up. I expected to get redhat (it was the only distro I had heard of), but instead I got caldera 1.3. Man caldera was decent, wine was integrated, and everything (except my modem) worked. It even let you play pacman while it installed. After a while of playing with it it went belly up. I reinstalled 98se and then tried to reinstall caldera. Well of course caldera no longer wanted to play nice with windows so it destroyed my windows partition. At that point caldera went into the back of my desk drawer. Since then I've tried another half dozen distros (and over a dozen different releases) and they all seem to give me problems. At one point, no matter what, they crash the windows partitions. I've gotten so tired of reinstalling windows, especially now that I have 2 different versions to reinstall everytime. Which is why I'm waiting for my friends to upgrade their computers so I can buy their old ones for cheap before I go back to playing with linux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havnblast Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 I don't remember when it was, but it was a friend of mine that got me interested. He is a Debian fan and so I gave it a whirl with RedHat and have been hooked ever since. I don't even remember the version it was, but I think it was shortly after xwindows was developed. I remember having to type start xwindows to get to it. Great OS!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest genaldar Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 Surprisingly in some distros you still have to start x from the console. Of course its great to have it as an option (in case x dies and you need to access the cli at boot to fix it). What's even worse though imo is having to manually config x when you install. Thats the main reason nobody can get me to use debian. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted June 1, 2003 Author Share Posted June 1, 2003 Surprisingly in some distros you still have to start x from the console. Of course its great to have it as an option (in case x dies and you need to access the cli at boot to fix it). What's even worse though imo is having to manually config x when you install. Thats the main reason nobody can get me to use debian.Easy to fix. Just need to edit your /etc/inittab file and change the line that says:init:3:initdefaultand change the 3 to a 5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 Peachy this is correct . . . . . . . .but, ONLY for Slackware it is runlevel 4, well, there has to be a difference ;) Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riff Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 I first found out about linux in 1989 or 1990. I was back-packing across Europe that year. We started off in Amsterdam, I'm sure you can guess why. From there it was off to Denmark, Sweden and Finland. We were in Helsinki when our on-hand funds started getting low (too much time and money spent in Amsterdam coffee shops I guess). It was too cold to camp and we wanted to stretch what money we had until the money transfer from back home came through, so we tried to blend in with the college kids around the university. After a couple of days of sleeping in empty dorm rooms on campus we stumbled across a guy who ended up inviting us to his moms house for dinner. And what did we find at that house? Linux. The guy who invited us to dinner was Linus Torvald. This whole story was a complete fabrication, but it sounded better than just saying I have read about it for years in computer mags and finally started using it around 2000. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted June 1, 2003 Share Posted June 1, 2003 Hi RiffSo that was you who borrowed my bike and never brought it back, I suppose it is still standing at Linus´s house is it ? Will drop by his place tomorrow to see if I can get it back. Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 (snip) After a couple of days of sleeping in empty dorm rooms on campus we stumbled across a guy who ended up inviting us to his moms house for dinner. And what did we find at that house? Linux. The guy who invited us to dinner was Linus Torvald.This whole story was a complete fabrication, but it sounded better than just saying I have read about it for years in computer mags and finally started using it around 2000.ROTFLMAO! Riff- You should definitely be writing ad copy for Microsoft or something. I loved the tricky double ending- I got to laugh two times for the price of one. You're not by any chance related to Walter Mitty, are you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chr1s Posted June 2, 2003 Share Posted June 2, 2003 I remember hearing bits about Linux around the time I started university (about 5 years ago). I did a computing degree and so you just kinda heard about stuff. My main intro to Linux was from a PC magazine (probably PC Pro) who were running a set of issues on alternative operating systems. This lead me to try BeOS one month and then the next issue came with Mandrake 7 which I tried out for a short amount of time (a few days, if that). Since this point I tried to keep a bit more up-to-date with what was happening in the Linux world. The next thing I tried was Mandrake 8.2 I think, but I didn't do anything with it. I eventually decided to take the plunge with Mandrake 9 and now 9.1 which I'm very happy with. I've nuked my Windows install for good and now run 100% Linux on my home system (hey, I can do it and I'm a Linux newb!).I've found that once you've picked up the basics, Linux isn't really as hard to use as people make it out to be - the tides are changing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daihard Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 My first Linux was RH 6.2, back in 2000 or so. The software we sell is cross-platform, so I did have the opportunity to work with various flavours of UNIX (HP-UX, Solaris, DEC Unix, etc). RH 6.2 was the first non-Windows OS that I've ever installed at home, though. It didn't install well 'cause of some hardware incompatibilities. I gave up on it after a week or so.Nex time I ran into RH was when they released 7.1. I decided to give them another chance. Thank God I did... installation went flawlessly this time, and KDE was up and running in less than an hour. I've been hooked on Linux ever since. :)I am thinking about switching to another distro. (I'm using RH 7.3 now.) My candidates include Vine 3.0, FreeBSD 5.1 and RH X (when it comes out). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quint Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 daihard quote: My candidates include Vine 3.0, FreeBSD 5.1 and RH X (when it comes out).I thought about d/l'ing and installing Vine Linux, but I cannot read Chinese, or whatever it is; even struck-out trying to translate the page, so I gave up. Do you have a link to the English version? Would be most appreciative, thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeber Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 In 1976 I met my first computer in the Army. We used a command line interface, punch cards and tape. In 1999, I bought a copy of "Linux Unleashed" that included Red Hat 5.1. Thought it would be familiar enough to use. Wrong! At least twice a year since I've tried a newer distro, only to get frustrated at the unfamiliar commands and structure. Finally, with the help of this forum, I managed to actually get RH9 installed and am using it daily. Without the support and info from here, I'd still have all the Linux books on my shelf and XP alone on my machines. Thanks everyone.BTW chris - I tried BeOS too about a year and a half back. It only stayed on my desktop for about a month before it frustrated me too much and it got wiped. But in some ways it was fun and interesting. I like alternatives, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryB Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 Actually heard about linux from working with unix on military systems..Ran a ISA course for the Navy and one of the instructors was talking about the "other OS" that was derived from unix...well finally got the spelling right and checked it out on the internet...bought the Complete Idiots Guide to Linux w/ caldera disk ( How did they know )..and Redhat book w/7.2 disk..installed the caldera disk, thought it a waste..almost stop being a linux user right then..checked some linux help forums ( if RTFM can be deemed as help) almost gave up again..then installed RH..it worked..then 7.3 worked...then mandrake..then stumbled onto SFNL and found the Forum..and have become a distro fiend..not as bad as Quint.. ..Now running 5 distros on 7 different computers, and my wife thinks I left her for a penguin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teacher Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 and my wife thinks I left her for a penguinGee - My neighbors think I have left my husband for a penguin. Hubby doesn't notice a thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryB Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 and my wife thinks I left her for a penguinGee - My neighbors think I have left my husband for a penguin. Hubby doesn't notice a thing. Hmm..that penguin gets about Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teacher Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 Yes he does. But they think he is harmless. Little do they know he practices mind control and convinces you to go with a straight Linux OS on your computer. He convinces you it can meet all your needs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryB Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 Yes he does. But they think he is harmless. Little do they know he practices mind control and convinces you to go with a straight Linux OS on your computer. He convinces you it can meet all your needs. :)Mind Control? Afraid the lil fella's out of luck with me then.. ...ok I thought it was funny.....But maybe this linux thing is just a form of passive rebellion against status quo ......or of course it could just be "this Penguin stuff is just cool and different" .Or Maybe "Only the Penguin Knows" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
volunteer Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 Yes he does. But they think he is harmless. Little do they know he practices mind control and convinces you to go with a straight Linux OS on your computer. He convinces you it can meet all your needs. Mind Control? Afraid the lil fella's out of luck with me then.. ...ok I thought it was funny.....But maybe this linux thing is just a form of passive rebellion against status quo ......or of course it could just be "this Penguin stuff is just cool and different" .Or Maybe "Only the Penguin Knows" I sure wish I could have found this Penguin a few years ago. I used HP UX workstations to test hardware and software the last three years I worked. After I retired and aquired a newer computor, I tried several different linux programs. They were not user friendly and help was impossible to find unless you could prove you had read and understood every how-to that was written. My linux box was just for playing games.This group (and more computers) made me believe that Linux really can do everything I need albeit a rather steep learning curve on how to fine tune. Great fun and thanks to everyone on the forum because in some way you have all helped me learn this OS.Barry, you're right "this Penguin stuff is cool and different."Ken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BarryB Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 KenIt's funny because "Cool and Different" weren't the words I used when I first tried linux...won't repeat the words I used...but over time and finally finding a place (this fourm) that helped without telling me to RTFM but explained what the manual meant has really changed my mind....Not to mention if you buy enough computers MS gets really expensive!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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