My first 10 years with Linux (Linux.com)

My first 10 years with Linux (Linux.com)

Posted Oct 16, 2006 17:10 UTC (Mon) by marduk (subscriber, #3831)
Parent article: My first 10 years with Linux (Linux.com)

I remember my first introduction to Unix was... summer 1988. I was in high school then but taking a Pascal programming class at a local university. They taught us to use the "vi" editor. Having been used to DOS and Apple ][ environments I found vi and the whole Unix environment horrible.

Five years later I'm in college and wanting to get this internship which required Unix knowledge. I spent some time learning Unix from this this really good Unix book but sadly I can't remember the title. This time I fell in love with Unix. Man, the power. It was like DOS on steroids. I remember thinking "If only there was a way to run Unix on a PC". It was around that time that I discovered Linux. I believe my first distro was Slackware. I remember ftp'ing floppy images to install them. Then I bought a Linux book (written by Volkerding, IIRC). That had Slackware on CD. Linux was sexy, powerful and let me do what I wanted to do with my computer.

Thirteen years later Linux is even more sexy and more powerful. It runs on virtually everything and gives you choices with limitless possibilities. I have since moved to Gentoo Linux (after a short afair with Red Hat).

I remember there were so many times I would say or think "Linux will never be able to do *that*" and it seems I'm always taking back those words. Linux seems boundless, limited only by the imagination, skill, and hard work of the individuals who contribute to it. To those people I am very thankful. I'd better stop now before I cry.

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