blackbelt_jones
06-09-2003, 07:13 PM
I've been struggling with Linux for these last nine months. I've had terrible luck with hardware, a terrible time deciphering the manuals, and until I started going to the LUG meetings, everybody I talked to didn't know anything linux-- including every clerk at every computer store.... For a while, I went back to Windows full-time, until i could get better hardware, but after a while, despairing that I was in danger of forgetting what little I'd learned, I jumped back into the fray, and borrowed an old computer from my daughter.
What sustained me through this was the idea of Linux, a world where ideas freely shared in an opposition to a society that seems to be growing ever more stingy with our very thoughts. Even as I was growing more determined in my opposition to Microsoft, in my secret heart I was beginning to have my doubts that Linux was really going to allow me a better computing experience.
And then I got Debian working! This is the fourth, maybe fith distro I've tried... maybe the tenth or eleventh if you count different numbered versions. Hey, it's only been about 24 hours, and I know that I've got a lot to learn, but this is when I finally heard the "click" , and even though I've been arguing pro linux with my brother for a bout a year now, I don't think that before last night I really understood what it was all about. I love interacting directly with the computer on the level of the line command, I love the speed and the power... when I was running RedHat on this low-end computer, it was a pretty sad spectacle...which is not to diss RedHat... I'm sure it's great if you got the Ghz's and MgB's. But one of the things I love about the idea of Linux is the potential to empower those with little money and older machines to do some real computing.
Hey, I'm not into dissing anybody's distro! (Unless of course, your "distro" is windows.) Having a choice is big part of the appeal of Linux. I just want to say that, for time being, I've finally found MY distro-- and all my effort and frustration has been rewarded. And I hope that somebody reading this can find the encouragement they need to keep working through to the click. If you've been knocking yourself out trying to master Linux, that proves to me that you care enough about computing to make it worth all the misery when it all comes together in the pay off.
Vive le penguin!
What sustained me through this was the idea of Linux, a world where ideas freely shared in an opposition to a society that seems to be growing ever more stingy with our very thoughts. Even as I was growing more determined in my opposition to Microsoft, in my secret heart I was beginning to have my doubts that Linux was really going to allow me a better computing experience.
And then I got Debian working! This is the fourth, maybe fith distro I've tried... maybe the tenth or eleventh if you count different numbered versions. Hey, it's only been about 24 hours, and I know that I've got a lot to learn, but this is when I finally heard the "click" , and even though I've been arguing pro linux with my brother for a bout a year now, I don't think that before last night I really understood what it was all about. I love interacting directly with the computer on the level of the line command, I love the speed and the power... when I was running RedHat on this low-end computer, it was a pretty sad spectacle...which is not to diss RedHat... I'm sure it's great if you got the Ghz's and MgB's. But one of the things I love about the idea of Linux is the potential to empower those with little money and older machines to do some real computing.
Hey, I'm not into dissing anybody's distro! (Unless of course, your "distro" is windows.) Having a choice is big part of the appeal of Linux. I just want to say that, for time being, I've finally found MY distro-- and all my effort and frustration has been rewarded. And I hope that somebody reading this can find the encouragement they need to keep working through to the click. If you've been knocking yourself out trying to master Linux, that proves to me that you care enough about computing to make it worth all the misery when it all comes together in the pay off.
Vive le penguin!