How You Got Started With Linux or Open Source Software

BillytheImpaler

BillytheImpaler

BillytheImpaler

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I was at work the other day and a coworker from a different department noticed that I wasn't running Windows on my laptop at my desk. I told him that I was running Ubuntu, a variant of Linux. I also showed him that I was running the same system on my Power Mac and he was amazed. He didn't think that you could do such things. I began to tell him how flexible Linux was for me and how it let me do a lot of nice things that I couldn't do in Windows or OS X alone. He said he'd heard of Linux and that he'd love to try it. I quickly produced a Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop disk and handed it over, explaining what a Live CD was and how it worked. We got to talking about open source in general and he asked me how I got started with it.

This was the first time I'd really given it any thought. I considered it for a moment and realized that my first experience with Linux was in high school. A friend of mine was running Mandrake 8.2 on his laptop. I thought it was a bit neat but didn't give it much consideration.

The first time I consciously used open source/free software was when I was encouraged to get Firebird, a web browser, to replace IE on my Windows computer. I started using it and immediately fell in love with the software and all of its advanced, for the day, features. Wee Firebird eventually morphed to become Firefox and the rest, as they say, is history.

The first time I used Linux was when I was trying to set up a dedicated SETI machine in about 2004. I found a floppy image that contained a minimal Linux setup and auto-ran SETI. I had to provide my own network drivers but when I did it booted and worked flawlessly. I started reading about Linux at Slashdot and other tech sites and eventually put it on my desktop.

Now I've got it on everything; my laptop(s), my desktop(s), even my television (MythTV). :D

That's enough rambling from me, so I shall ask you:

How did you first get exposed to Linux?

What was the first time you used FOSS like?

What was the first time you yourself used Linux like?
 
It was a few years back now...

I purchased an AmigaONE G4-XE PPC Mobo which was bundled with Debian Woody (PPC) which we were to make do with whilst Amiga Os4 was being developed.

It was a .... nasty awakening to other O's's but once up and running it was actually pretty damn good.

There were Linux guru's withing the Amiga community who would put up with our cretinous, angry attempts at doing stuff and patiently explained the whys and wherefores.

This was probably loooong before the Ubuntu communty was created which now, ironically emulates the Amigas once fantastic community.

I still have the AmigaONE sitting dormant next to this machine... But Ubuntu is so good it rarely gets switched on these days.
 
Hmm, first Linux exposure was when i brought Debian off ebay when i was about 13 lol.... After that i went through pretty much every distro under the sun over the years and didnt get on with them, giving up after a few days use. Then i found arch a while back, and used it since :D

Also learnt linux properly for some uni work, and its 10x more usable as a desktop OS when you fully know whats going on behind the scenes IMO :p
 
I started about three years ago in a concious effort to avoid The Borg, but I'm still a n00b, and still only playing. From memory the first Linux setup was RedHat, but can't remember which one. My high point was getting a triple-boot machine up and running: Win XP/Mandrake 9.1/Suse 9.0. Currently I'm trying various different distros (so far OpenSuse10.3, Mandriva 2008) and currently on Kubuntu 7.10 (KDE > Gnone IMHO). My main problem is that having loaded Linux, I can't actually think of anything to do on it except play Nethack, because I principally use my PCs for gaming.

It's also a a useful thing for an old brain like mine to be learning something, even of the curve can be a tad steep: it took me about a week to track down the info I needed to get my Kubuntu machine to connect to a network printer running of a wireless print server. But I still think of Linux as a chore/duty, not a pleasure, or even a tool.


M
 
8 years ago with a copy of Gentoox for the Xbox. Just had a play. Could see potential but for xbox use it was pointless for me.

2 years later I started to become a bit of a devil with computers and did a bit or wardriving etc. Faze didn't last long though.

6 years on and I have started messing around with Ubuntu. It's amazing how my rig can't actually handle it all that well. So when I next upgrade I plan for Ubuntu to be my main OS.
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Tobes said:
It's amazing how my rig can't actually handle it all that well. So when I next upgrade I plan for Ubuntu to be my main OS.
Click to expand...
Sorry to derail my own thread, but of what hardware does your rig consist? With some tweaking you should be able to get it to run quite nicely on any machine built this decade. I'm posting this from an 800 MHz PIII rig from 1999. ;)
 
AMD 3500, MSI K8 Neo 2 plat mobo, 1gb OCZ ram.

But really, the only problem is my graphics card/drivers. X800 XT PE. Just can't get a nice framerate when watching videos, effects are not smooth etc.

I should problem re phrase what I said. Ubuntu is as stable as anything and haven't had one error. But I would prefer to use it with a better system.
 
I started playing with various Linux distros when they began to appear in PC Plus magazine cover discs years ago. I think the first one was a copy of Red Hat (on a really old Packard Bell P60-based machine) and also played about with QNX. I think that was pre-2000 as I hadn't started work at that point.

My first real use of Linux was when my work decided to have a student lab of ~25 machines and a server, which I was volunteered to look after while the main admin was at CERN. The lab was running Debian though when the accounts got hacked (some exploit with user accounts and students making passwords the same as usernames iirc) it got updated to Ubuntu.

Outside of work I've played about with Debian as a home server for services like Samba, Bind9 and GNUmp3d.
 
Must have been 10/11 years ago now. I got a CD with it on free with a copy of Personal Computer World. I would have been about 11 or so at the time.

I installed it, it broke lots and I went back to windows.

Next up was an install of Caldera OpenLinux when I was 16 or thereabouts. That was better but I really couldn't be bothered to learn it all so I once again went back to Windows for a few months until I found Mandrake linux. Used that for a good few months before once again something didn't work that I couldn't overcome and I reinstalled Windows on my main machine but kept a 2nd machine running Linux.

That 2nd machine kept on being a Linux box, few hardware upgrades later and someone on here (Mpemba Effect IIRC) posted me an Ubuntu CD which I installed in about 2004 and haven't looked back since. I still run Windows on my 'main' desktop for a few specialist software reasons but everything else runs Linux unless for a specific reason.

I am posting this from my new Laptop running Ubuntu :)
 
Well it was around 10 years ago now.. I used to play in a quake clan which had one guru guy who admim'd our games server. He basically told me windows was crap so I tried debian and was hooked from then on. He also taught me a lot about programming/operating systems so much so that I ended up contributing to open source development. Thanks Athan! :) haha.

I can't really remember the first time I used it. I remember having hack the source code for ISDN drivers to get them to compile for my euro ISDN card.. Which took around 2 days to get working. That was pretty mad. Crazy how easy linux is to get into these days compared to back then. Distro's like Ubuntu have made the entry level much lower.
 
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tntcoder said:
Hmm, first Linux exposure was when i brought Debian off ebay when i was about 13 lol.... After that i went through pretty much every distro under the sun over the years and didnt get on with them, giving up after a few days use. Then i found arch a while back, and used it since :D

Also learnt linux properly for some uni work, and its 10x more usable as a desktop OS when you fully know whats going on behind the scenes IMO :p
Click to expand...

Arrrrrrrr thats bad lol

I've tried Red hat 4 years ago and gave up

I tried Fedora core 2 2 years ago and gave up

Now running Ubuntu 7.10 on a dedicated setup so it doesn't interfere with my games/work while I learn

Also got a linux bible on the way w00t!
 
sid what is the linux bible you are expecting? I just got a book about Ubuntu and am thinking of converting at the end of the month. Been runnig Ubuntu using Virtual Box but I only have a small O/S drive which Vista is hogging. :(
 
First tried it with mandrake 6 I think, liked the idea it was free, but hated the install and the fact that no devices worked as well as rpm hell :-(
Ended up re-installing windows and didn't look at linux again until Kubuntu last year and I have mixed feelings.
Initially the change was forced on me, one day my laptop refused to boot to windows and also refused to boot off several (genuine) windows disks, from server 2000 to server2003 and XP/vista. the only bootable disks were a DOS diagnostics disk and LInux, so needing an operating system, I installed kubuntu and despite misgivings, am still using it.
Im impressed, all devices work out the box, and the package management system is amazing, but everything is so much hard work. Things that used to take seconds in windows now take half an hour googling to find what software is needed and then a lot of playing around getting things right especially on the media side. And using my WM6 smartphone as my bluetooth modem took days of frustration and still is flaky at best. As for open office - its ugly! :D
But my laptop is linux and its staying Linux, because I am stubborn and convinced that half my problems are down to my lack of knowledge rather than problems with the OS, and Im gonna learn Linux if it kills me! On the server side, they are our most reliable servers at work which says a lot.
However I must admit, Im always relieved to get back on a windows box, Id describe my experience with linux as an ongoing battle rather than a tool for productivity, but I will get there...

Life story over now :p
 
I've been reading and thinking about Linux for several years and never seemed to get round to trying it.
Well due to changes at work in the near future and a desire to learn I recently installed Arch Linux to a spare hard drive after reading recommendations on these forums and elsewhere. I tried a few live CD's for the popular distro's and decided on Arch mainly as I wanted to be forced to be involved in the set up.
I am currently using the KDEMod DM and feel that Arch Linux is excellent for all my needs other than Gaming so highly recommend it. I had no problems with the install (although it takes a while), but sadly I have not yet manged to get Dual boot XP Pro/Arch Linux working through Grub so have to switch drives via the BIOS.
Arch Linux will soon be the OS on my P3 800 Laptop too.
 
Cody said:
sid what is the linux bible you are expecting? I just got a book about Ubuntu and am thinking of converting at the end of the month. Been runnig Ubuntu using Virtual Box but I only have a small O/S drive which Vista is hogging. :(
Click to expand...

Hi cody

Heres the isbn as i don't want to post links

ISBN-13: 978-0071492478

Had a browse in the purple shirt store and looked good with no emphasis on particular distro. purchased from the rainforest store as its obviously cheaper lol. I don't think i'm going to migrate to linux but I will run it side by side as a geek project. Something like Ubuntu is a good start but i'm hoping to move on to Arch sometime in the near future.

sid
 
i got started with linux years ago when i wanted to set up my own web server.
i thought why should i run a server on windows when not many other people are...nearly everyone is running servers in linux. so i got some livecds messed about...went through a huge amount of reformats after trashing the different linux versions. with these failures i learnt more and more about how it works.
right now i've settled with ubuntu, but also like PCLinuxOS which is also pretty good, maybe even better than ubuntu for a beginner.
 
I am still in the very early stages, but I started when I realised I wanted to setup a NAS and mail server as I hate having to migrate emails etc. Also, I realised that I wanted a reliable webmail interface to get into my mail. I know I can do this with gmail and catching pop3 but I just prefer my own.

Then I wanted to run a website/forum and it all began (about a year ago). I went straight into downloading CentOS 4 which seemed to be the right distro and have been using it since. I'm still using GUI's but only really because I haven't had the time to sit down and learn the command line. I can do things in the command line but I don't know what exactly I'm doing (if that makes any sense).

I also didn't want to have to pay ridiculous MS prices for server software. There is also greater freedom in terms of flexibility, so I have just stuck it out and will eventually learn things much clearer. It would help if I understood the file structure, which is my next task i.e. C:\WINDOWS is the windows install, and you have \Program Files for app installs etc.

I'm still getting my head around the /usr/local and /home directories and their intended uses. Shouldn't take me long, it's just that I haven't bothered to find out as yet and it is a hindrance to me, as I'm quite the pedant with things such as this.
 
i got started about 10 years ago when everyone was still on dialup, and because the windows tcp/ip stack was so poor you could hardly ever max out your line consistently.

introduce linux (slackware dist) and ip masquerading for networking the other pc's as well....worked an absolute treat :)

she was all CLI back then, GUI was so crap i never bothered to use it.....it was kinda cool because linux was hardcore back in those days - no live cd's to d/l off your 20mbit cable line in 10 mins to boot into a beautiful GUI desktop just a floppy disk or 2 to get going.
 
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My first Linux use was at Uni using RedHat. Didn't like it at all at first and forgot about it for a bit.

About four years ago I was further introduced to Linux via work and started to have a little play on and off.

I don't really use linux all that much now but do have a keen interest still. I've read a few books, setup the odd mail server etc but nothing big.
 
Probably 9 or so years ago, was telling a friends dad about trying to get a web server running (He was a web coder IIRC) and he name dropped linux as a great platform for doing anything network related.

Started on Slackware 3.9 on an old 233 PII with naff all ram, played about with it, spent hours aimlessly trying to resolve dependencies to get things working (And learning what the hell dependencies meant anyway)

Luckily the hardware worked (I would not be so lucky with all my boxes in the future) I managed to get this (Relatively new) piece of software called apache working :P which rocked.

From there, due to the amount of power you had over a linux box compared to a windows box, I just carried on playing with linux, moved up through new releases of Slackware over the years, eventually dumping it for redhat for a while (RPM's were nice at the time)

Then went through a stage of trying lots of distro's in a short time to see what the differences were, RH/debian/mandrake/suse (Still got the impression here it was nowhere near ready for a desktop, and was a 'server OS' only)

Years later I got a job while at college running a network for a growing company, and by then was quite seasoned in the world of linux.

I was given time and hardware to test/implement linux solutions on the promise it would keep cost down (Everyone goes through that linux evangelism stage :P) and it did, firewalls, DNS/DHCP Filestores, backups, E-Mail, webservers were all used, mainly on gentoo / Whitebox (and later Centos) and this to be honest was great for me, as it gave me my own 'playground' for a couple of years, in which my linux knowledge grew again.

The job faded out when I went to uni, with the now much larger company demanding more in-office time than I could provide.
More linux was used at Uni, with crazy linux-powered networking projects and way to many machines for one uni room than can be healthy. (Other people involved will remain nameless to protect the questionably innocent) :P

It has been pretty cool to see linux develop over such a large time, seeing the problems pointed out by users and how they have been solved, and now starting to see (for the first time I beleive) real desktop contenders to windows that are ALMOST ready for the bigtime.
Call it a n00b distro if you want, but ubuntu kicks everything elses ass for usability as a desktop/laptop solution...

You can get other distro's to the same state, but so much more messing / maintenance / compiling / driver editing / days of stressful broken-ness is needed.
Although, as someone mentioned above, the entry level with modern linux is a lot lower, and so some people will probably question this, having never seen any of these problems, or manually fixed there ACPI DSDT Table into their initrd :P, Or recompiled their kernels more times than one can count

I'm now working at Sun Microsystems (which is awesome!) and have been using a lot of Solaris. This was a new learning curve for me, but as I learn more, I like it.. a lot! and have started to use this as a server OS over linux's (for many reasons I will explain if anyone wants to listen)
(relegating linux to my desktop, and any server's I have not had time to update yet)

echo 1 > /dev/theend *coat/hat/taxi*
 
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