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How did you start with Linux?


michaelcole
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I was trying to move away from Winbloze since 95 came out. I was fooling around with OS/2 3.0 when I first heard of Linux (In a dilbert cartoon) I did a search on the Library computer and found what it was. I cut my teeth on debian loaded from floppies since I didn't have a workable cd rom (in 98). I then upgraded my old 486 DX4 to a 450 mhz AMD on a via chipset mobo. It gave me all kinds of hell with Win95 and WAS NOT going to 98 (though I use it now for games). There were problems with the pci bridge that you needed to load a patch driver. But after some time the patch would get botched-bunged up, something, and the computer would flake out and I would have to reformat. Usually lasted 1.5 months. I got cd's for Corel and Mandrake 7.0. Corel looked nice but didn't like my old Sound Blaster and couldnt' get my modem to work. Mandy went in and I was off and after one good weekend of tinkering and two more reinstalls to experiment I converted all my data over and have been running Linux ever since. Went to Debian woody when itcame out and came back for Mandy 10.0. I've now got 3 older computers (including my laptop) dualbooting W98 and Mandy 10.0 and the big box dualbooting W98 and Mandriva2006PowerPack. Almost went to Debian Sarge but no longer have the time to tinker and "just want it to work".

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After coming to Med School, the budget got REAL tight what with a wife, two kids and no job. Windows got too expensive and I didn't want to resort to piracy. Solution = open source.

 

I started with Linspire, but that had some major issues on my laptop. Switched to Mandriva and then to Ubuntu. Never going back to the dark side.

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Was given a dailup account into the school from my high-school instructor which was a shell acount. This was ages ago when 9600bps was all the rage. :) That started me on alternative platforms. Then in 1995-96, I got hold of a slew of Slackware floppies, I've been hooked on Linux ever since.

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I learned to use Windows 3.1, and liked it. Then I got W98 and hated it, because I wanted to take of the programs I did want (namely Internet Explorer). If I'm not mistaken, someone told me about Linux, so I started reading to see which distribution I wanted. Mandrake was the easiest, so. . . . I believe I started with 7.something.

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I was a very experienced Windblows user , iked new technologies and tinkering with computers, read internet computer mags, etc., probably from there discovered about Linux, but it was my eldest sister who herself is quite good with computers and was using RedHat at that time, suggested me to try Mandrake as a first time distro, when I had asked her for an advice about trying out Linux, so I downloaded and installed Mandrake 9.1, but I only went full time Linux when Mandrake 10.0 CE came out because it was more usable, I knew more about Linux by then AND it had very few problems with my hardware (nothing a newbie like me couldn't fix). (earlier versions had messed up soundcard drivers for my card)

Edited by solarian
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After having software installed on my win98se w/o my permission, and since I have children, I determined to know everything about how a os works, despite the fact I hated computers. I quickly got bored with my secure win98se-lite-hack, found myself addicted to hacking, and saw mandrake-7.2 at walmart. Researched, told my wife all about it, and she bought it :thumbs: Didn't work with some of my newer, crappy intel hardware so I waited a year and bought ML8.1.

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Last year a colleague retired and was cleaning out a cupboard and came across Red Hat 5.2 (or 7.2 I can't rememebr which) on a CD from a computer mag from 1998/9 and gave it to me because he thought I might find it interesting. This was my first linux. I could only get two eyes which followed the mouse cursor around. No it was not love at first sight. But a quick google and I came across the mandrake.tips.4.free site. I think it was the screenshots and detail which made it seem so easy to switch. I went out on bought mandrake 10.1 based on this site and have not really looked back.

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my dental surgeon gave me a copy of mandrake.

 

i was having an extra tooth removed, and during some miscellaneous conversation he discovered I liked computers, and thus, I was given Mandrake and a copy of LXF.

 

James

 

OK that has to be the most bizarre reason yet!

 

I started with Slackware 2 having just finished a job and having a spare PC and after getting xeyes working it just sorta sat there. A bit like OS/2 ...

 

A couple of years later I was pushed into a UNIX based job and decided I better learn fast.....I installed Solaris7 on Intel and played about at 640x480x16 cols before thinking wtf...

The problem was just my display adaptor wasn't supproted in Solaris and the option seemed to be installing XFree. I had been on a Solaris course where a few people were also using linux and figured if I got rid of Xsun and replaced it with Xfree86 on Solaris why not go the whole hog!

 

My first install was RH5.2 and now linux actually did something other than eyes following me across the screen!

 

I stuck with RH right up to 7 :D

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i was working in a computer repair shop, and basically got fed up with windows machines.

 

it seemed every local computer running a microsoft o/s came into the shop every couple of months.

 

great for the boss and his business, bloomin boring as hell for me.

 

so i looked around for something else, found a "pc plus" magazine and purchased it.

 

inside was a cd with loads of the usual crap software aplication freebies, and a second cd with mandrake 7.2.

i was intrigued and imediately tried to install it.

to my amazement it worked (little old me actually got something other than microsoft installed and working).

(bearing in mind i had never seen a different o/s than microsoft).

i was impressed and have stuck with mandrake / mandriva ever since.

i have also tried many other flavours of linux, but mandy feels like home for me.

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I love learning and have always believed the best things in life are free. Then I heard about linux. Determined to run Mandrake, from the start, I bought Mandrake 7.2 from MandrakeSoft (2 cds + 1 KDE cd). I couldn't, however, get on with it as a complete noob with a very "old" donated computer. Mandrake 8.0 was also a no go for me. Slaped head with kipper for a few more years (windows) then bought Mandrake 10.0 and built a P3 with "all the right hardware" just for Linux and me... and it flew, I didn't.

 

Linux as an education and freedom of choice is second to none. A sincere thankyou to everybody new and old!

 

It's so good to be home, i've missed you ALL so very, very much! :thumbs:

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i was in my computer science curriculum at murray state university and for my unix sys admin class we had to have a unix/linux system running with servers, etc. in a secure manner. everyone and their dog in the class was installing redhat. we tried the corel linux, but at the time were too inexperienced to understand what was going on without a gui to hold our hands. (scarey that csc guys were inexperienced ain't it?) so we loaded mandrake 7.0.

 

i took it home and installed it shortly thereafter. good timess.

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I had to use IRIX for a computational chemistry course at university and basically decided that UNIX was for me. Chatted to a comp sci friend who suggested Linux and pointed me to a copy of red hat 7.1

 

The rest, as they say, is history. B)

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