TriedIT - Software and Hardware News and Reviews

Hi and welcome back to TriedIT. This post is a brief summary of how and why I have looked to Linux as my computer operating system of choice. I don’t claim to know Linux inside and out. But I have played with the system for over 10 years now and more convinced that ever that it has been time well spent.

I started using Linux on a NEC Pentium 60 by ordering a second hard drive from a company called Cosmos Engineering. They were selling a product called “LinuxonaDisk”. I do believe it contained a version of Slackware as well as RedHat on a 3 or 4 gig hard drive. The manual was a folded in four 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper with very very poor instructions for bringing the system to life. It did have lilo, be it crude by todays standards and promised to dual boot with my pristine copy of Windows 3.1 on the first drive. Needless to say things did not just plug and play shall we say. It took me many long hours trying to get my visionary dual booting computer system functioning. But I have to say the first look at at the Linux command prompt “with colored directories” got my heart a pumpin!

The leaflet accompanying the drive vaguely talked about a X window system and how you had to have knowledge of the computer parts inside if you ever hoped of making it work. I dug up my NEC manual and peered inside the case with a flashlight looking for clues on the video card. S3 ViRGE chipset… YAY…. I ran the required xf86config and fumbled though the required questions hoping, praying I was correct in my answers. The 15″ NEC Multisync monitor flashed and blinked… blank screen….. another flash they a little x in the middle of the screen. Another pause then a desktop appeared. Success! A working Linux desktop looked back at me and all was good in the world until I tried to use the mouse. It spazzed about the screen out of control, noooooo…. whats this all about?

Now trying to get information online in those days was not the easiest thing in the world considering the speed of the mighty telephone modem Internet connection but I did manage to sort out the necessary corrections for my mouse and the rest is history. Linux was crude back then but it was new, exciting, the prospect of a completely free operating system had me hook, line, and sinker. I learned about IRC chat and it was by that vehicle I opened up my world to the power of the Penguin. I continue to chat daily with the friends I have made all these years and the help and knowledge we have shared with each other has been truly amazing. I owe just about everything I know about Linux to the net and the my friends on IRC internet chat. Without them I would still be a sheep in the Microsoft fold beholden to prepackaged pay or don’t play software.

Since those early days Linux has made gigantic leaps and bounds into modern day computer usage. It’s being supported by some of the biggest corporations in the world IBM , HP, Novell, Dell, Oracle. The list goes on…. and for good reason Linux makes sense. Plain and simple. Times are a changing and I for one am glad to say I have seen it materialize. Everything I need to do on a computer these days can easily be done on a Linux machine. Browsing the Web, retrieving email, writing documents, doing spreadsheets, playing music and videos, printing, graphical design, Web authoring, gaming. And all on a shoe string budget. What’s not to like about that? Add in the no frustration of computer viruses and it’s hard not to want to use it exclusively. It has been said by my fellow friends on IRC that I’m a bit of an OS whore, this is mostly a valid assumption. I have used nearly all the top Linux distributions at one time or another and constantly try to keep abreast of the latest and greatest. My future posts will deal with my love hate relationships with theses distros. You may agree or disagree, its all good in my view and I welcome your humble opinions.

Stevo

PS. you can track me down and tar and feather me if you like on IRC chat Efnet #yowser.