fifteen years

[saturnian]

I got started with Linux a little over 15 years ago. Skipping over a lot of things, here's a timeline:

 

 

January 2005 - Picked up a (Balance) notebook, preinstalled with Linspire. This was my first look at Linux. (One week after that, I wrote in my notes about problems I encountered on my primary computer, dealing with a Windows XP crash and recovery.)

 

January 2006 - After toying around with Linspire for about a year (no crashes!), I found out about (and installed) a Linux distro called SimplyMEPIS.

 

February 2006 - First Kubuntu installation (5.10 "Breezy").

 

December 2007 - First Debian installation ("Etch").

 

By late 2008, I still had XP on an old eMachines computer, parked in a back room for the kids to play games on, but I was multi-booting only Linux distros on the computers that I was actually using each day. I gave away my XP computer around this time, and haven't used Windows at home since.

 

2009 - Finally switched from dialup to an ethernet connection (!!).

 

December 18, 2009 - I installed a file manager called "d3lphin" in Mepis 8. It later became known as Dolphin.

 

February 15, 2013 - Installed Chakra Linux. A week later, installed Bridge Linux. My first experiments with Arch derivatives, and my intro to pacman.

 

November 2013 - First Arch Linux installations.

 

February 2020: I've tried many different distros over those years. Three have survived here; today, I'm still running Debian, Kubuntu, and Arch.

 

[securitybreach]

Very cool!

[securitybreach]

I am on my 17 year of Linux. I was tinkering with Linux for about a year before I joined here.

[ichase]

Congrats on 15 years Saturian!!!!

10 years for me albeit I took a sabbatical from delving deeper.  I still  have Arch installed on my Dell inspiron laptop and Mint on my music box.  Have decided it is time to delve deeper back into Linux.  Must say, what I learned from the great Linux users here at Scot's has paid dividends with using Redhat at work. 

 

 

 

 

[securitybreach]

Excellent

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Well, I've been Slackin' for a while now... nearly 15 years. Of course, I was a distro farmer at one time, too. I still remember the 18 distinct distributions that I was multi-booting on one of my machines back in the day. It was a learning experience.

[raymac46]

My first crack at Linux was with Ubuntu Dapper Drake back in 2006. I was an early wifi adopter because I didn't want to string cable through the house. Back then it was pretty hard to set up WPA security in Linux. Bruno and striker helped me out although they were not keen on wifi security  even with WPA.

Most of my work was with old junkers until I actually got a new machine built by a clone shop in 2008. That machine has never run anything but Linux. It's still in service.

The best desktop hardware for Linux back in the day was Dell Dimension. Now I'd have to say older Thinkpads are great.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

18 minutes ago, raymac46 said:

My first crack at Linux was with Ubuntu Dapper Drake back in 2006.

 

Me, too.

 

I actually had a nine-floppy set of discs to install Mandrake for a long time, but never got up the nerve. It was our old pal Urmas, who finally got me to install Ubuntu. He also brought me over here to this board, to the everlasting sorrow of many.

[ebrke]

I spent three months in 2003 agonizing over which distro to try. I did try a live cd of Knoppix, however that produced such a hard shutdown that I had to unplug the box (a Dell Optiplex) before I could even turn it on again. After flashing the BIOS, I eliminated that problem and finally installed SuSE. And that was it--I'm still running OpenSUSE to this day. I operate on the if-it-ain't-broke theory of distro exploring. OpenSUSE does what I need it to do almost flawlessly, and I have no desire to move on. I always do a clean install of a new version, never an upgrade, although I do usually preserve my /home partition.

Edited February 7, 2020 by ebrke

[securitybreach]

2 minutes ago, ebrke said:

I operate on the if-it-ain't-broke theory of distro exploring. OpenSUSE does what I need it to do almost flawlessly, and I have no desire to move on.

 

I felt the same when I moved from Slackware to Arch many moons ago. I loved Slackware but hated chasing dependencies. When I found Arch, I fell in love as it was like Slackware but with binaries instead. I've haven't looked back since but I did run Centos in my server for a bit.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

I was pretty happy with Ubuntu originally, actually. It was Bruno who suggested Slackware to me. The rest is history.

[raymac46]

Bruno was a big Mandriva fan too, and I was tempted to go that way but - I was a soldier in the GNOME vs KDE wars back then. Mandriva had a GNOME variant but it was buggy especially when it came to wifi.

I am not a big customizer so the default desktop has a lot to do with my choice of distro. That and hardware compatibility. I used Vector Linux on an old laptop because it worked. Eventually I went with Linux Mint because it was easy for the grandkids. I use Debian for me.

[saturnian]

2 hours ago, ebrke said:

I spent three months in 2003 agonizing over which distro to try. I did try a live cd of Knoppix, however that produced such a hard shutdown that I had to unplug the box (a Dell Optiplex) before I could even turn it on again. After flashing the BIOS, I eliminated that problem and finally installed SuSE. And that was it--I'm still running OpenSUSE to this day. I operate on the if-it-ain't-broke theory of distro exploring. OpenSUSE does what I need it to do almost flawlessly, and I have no desire to move on. I always do a clean install of a new version, never an upgrade, although I do usually preserve my /home partition.

 

With openSUSE, do you do an in-place upgrade to newer versions? The 18-month maintenance life cycle for minor releases (see: https://en.opensuse.org/Lifetime) didn't seem to be a good fit for me. I like to do fresh installations of new releases, though. I very much enjoyed my time with openSUSE. If I install it again, I'd like to try doing so with the Network Image.

[saturnian]

2 hours ago, raymac46 said:

Eventually I went with Linux Mint because it was easy for the grandkids.

 

And that's one reason why it's so cool to have a distro like Linux Mint available! I was running Mint back before they started going with Cinnamon. I had a lot of fun with it, played around with various DEs/WMs, etc. Do they still offer the Debian Edition or whatever it was called?

[securitybreach]

Yes, they do. It's called LMDE https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

[ebrke]

18 hours ago, saturnian said:

 

With openSUSE, do you do an in-place upgrade to newer versions?

No, I do a fresh install every time, although I usually retain my /home. I can do a net install in less than 90 minutes, which means I don't even backup anything but my /home partition. In the event of disaster, it's just as easy to do a fresh net install as it would be to restore a backup.

Edited February 8, 2020 by ebrke

[ebrke]

Just completed net install of OpenSUSE Leap 15.1 on my main laptop. This time I timed it. After making changes to the installation settings (additional software, partition setup) that maybe took 10 minutes, the net install completed in 29 minutes. That was for xfce DE; if I'd been using KDE or Gnome  I guess it might have taken a little longer, although my install does include the gnome libs to support GnuCash. Since I set the install to preserve /home and also "retain user", all my personalized settings are in place when system reboots after the install. So far, no issues.

[ebrke]

Only one issue, probably me, but still strange. I was annoyed when my root password didn't work--I've used the same one for many years and have never made a mistake entering it during install. Also, it meant that my verification during the install process was identically incorrect. A lucky guess gave me the actual password; it seems the installation program didn't catch the capitalization of the final character. I wondered about a mechanical keyboard failure, but I realized the system caught another capitalization in the middle of the word. So it's a mystery, but at least one that was solved.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Ooops!

[Cluttermagnet]

Fascinating to read about folks being Linux users for so long.

I got a whole bunch of friendly and patient help here, made it

possible for me to jump from Windows 98 to Ubuntu. This

happened in my case in 2007. I remember the times fondly,

though It was confusing at first. I needed a good bit of hand-

holding at the start.

 

My first Distro was Dapper Drake 6.06. I guess the advice

at the time suggested something Debian-based would be

good for newbies. In retrospect I'm convinced it was a very

good way to get started- no compiling or anything of that

sort...

 

I had gotten 'good enough' at Windows that I was doing a

little computer help for friends- strictly gratis. I remember

the first few times I booted into Ubuntu 6.06 and, while it

did look fairly Windows-like, still I felt soooooo lost!

That's where all the hand-holding came in. Boy, did I have

bunches and bunches of questions! But I stayed the course

and I never looked back...

 

It's mostly Linux Mint these days, all over both houses.

Several laptops and at least a half dozen desktop towers

in use presently. I like 'easy'... So grateful to have made

it into the Linux world. Much gratitude to Bruno and all

you guys for the help...

 

Clutter

 

[securitybreach]

Very cool Clutter

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Man! You were still running 98 in '07? You definitely needed to go over to Linux!

[Cluttermagnet]

Clutter is a notorious cheapskate. And the 'phone home' and other control freak

stuff that Msft had cranked in by then just made me see red in a BIG way! So

no Win 2000 or XP for me:  'Bow down to us and pay tribute or we'll disable

your OS.' Yikes! Further, I was becoming a bit of a hardware hobbyist and was

accumulating multiple copies of the standard tower/monitor/kbd/mouse...

Meanwhile, 98SE was nearing end of support and was going to be cut off by

Msft... and I was spending ever increasing amounts of time playing the

security software updates Bozo Shuffle- ugh!

 

There was no way I was going to be able to afford paying a hundred bucks on

each and every setup. Then there was this Linux thing: 'Here, have a free OS on

us. We'll do as good or better on updates supporting security and functionality.

You'll be safer...' At that time, under those circumstances, I dove right in. That

move knocked me back from a 'fairly competent HS senior', computer wise,

to a frustrated grade schooler. I had to relearn a bunch of stuff. Linux was

pretty different. But I stayed the course. Sure am glad I did! There are a lot of

nice people supporting Windows in forums like this- but I found some equally

nice folks who would patiently support my growing pains with Linux!

 

You know, the funny thing is, I eventually started getting free copies of XP

by buying old hardwars, including several used Lenovo laptops- and I have

nonetheless never gotten around to setting up and using these OS's.

I just don't have the time or inclination- and besides, XP is now obsolete

and vulnerable. I think I even got one or two copies of Win 7. Don't know

its status, either. Probably obsolete/unsupported? I just don't feel like I

have the time. What little learning time I do have is reserved for Linux!

 

Clutter

Edited February 17, 2020 by Cluttermagnet

[saturnian]

3 hours ago, Cluttermagnet said:

You know, the funny thing is, I eventually started getting free copies of XP

by buying old hardwars, including several used Lenovo laptops- and I have

nonetheless never gotten around to setting up and using these OS's.

I just don't have the time or inclination- and besides, XP is now obsolete

and vulnerable. I think I even got one or two copies of Win 7. Don't know

its status, either. Probably obsolete/unsupported? I just don't feel like I

have the time. What little learning time I do have is reserved for Linux!

 

I hear ya! Each time a new (to me) Windows computer comes my way, I say I'm gonna boot into Windows and explore for a while. But what happens? I set it up so that I can boot into a live Linux session, then I boot that up to see if that works ok (* see note below), then I wipe the drive and install Linux. I simply have no reason to bother with Windows at home. I think that if I did start using Windows at home, I'd have quite a learning curve to get over. Or maybe not -- I mess around with various  distros, DEs, and WMs in Linux, so maybe running Windows would be no big deal.

 

I must say, when I ran Windows at home, I did NOT get to know as much about the operating system as I've learned about Linux! Well, I've been running Linux a lot longer than I ran Windows, though!

 

* - I always try a live MX session first. When And when Mepis was still around, that was my go-to distro when testing a computer with a live session. These days, other distros have very nice live sessions, too, but I don't know if any are better than MX. At least not for my purposes. Anyway, those Mepis roots run deep here.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

11 hours ago, saturnian said:

I must say, when I ran Windows at home, I did NOT get to know as much about the operating system as I've learned about Linux! Well, I've been running Linux a lot longer than I ran Windows, though!

 

I came late to the modern Internet. Prior to 2000, I hadn't had a computer in my home since some old piece of carp that my nephew gave to me to play Wolfenstein 3D on. It was a 486 with Win 3.1, if I remember correctly. That was back in the early 90s. In 2000, I got a hand-me-down Pentium I 90 from my brother after he purchased a new Gateway system. This little gal had Win 98 on it. I got pretty proficient with Win 98. It's actually my fav version of MS Windows to this day. XP was way too buggy; the rest of the Wins since then were NOT impressive.

 

And I hadn't thought about this, but if you count from 2000 when I got that little Win 98 machine till today, I've actually been running Linux as my primary operating system nearly three times as long as I ran Windows. That's pretty neato when you think about it.

 

Unfortunately, since I have not kept up with newer Win versions or with newer UEFI baloney, I'm of very little help to my old IT customers... family and friends. When they call me nowadays with issues, I tell them,  "Sorry... don't know nuttin' 'bout that carp."

 

And that's the way it is...

[securitybreach]

Well I ran every version of windows from 3.1 to XP, except for ME (thank goodness) until 2003 until I found Linux and the rest is history...

[saturnian]

On 2/8/2020 at 6:17 AM, securitybreach said:

Yes, they do. It's called LMDE https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

 

LMDE 4 "Debbie" - beta release -- https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3860

[securitybreach]

8 minutes ago, saturnian said:

 

LMDE 4 "Debbie" - beta release -- https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3860

 

Well they do have their stable version on the  download link I provided.

 

[saturnian]

Yeah -- Just posted because I noticed the announcement about the new beta.

 

I don't know why I had a brain fart earlier about the name, but I've had LMDE installed here in the past. One of many Debian-based distros I've tried over the years. By the way, anyone remember SalineOS? It was based on Stable and it shipped with Xfce; as I recall, it came along before MX did. I enjoyed running it for a while but with only one dev the project was never gonna make it for very long.

[securitybreach]

Nice

 

I remember the name SalineOS but I had never used it before.