just to change taste, stuck to it

**windowsblows** · 08-01-2009

Well I guess I'll start back to my computing history. i have used them all Mac Classic, Commadore 128, Apple IIe IBM 286, 386, 486 etc..... I had a little knowledge of programming and basicly used DOS of course and then 1999 a friend wanted me to try redHat. So I installed the commercial version. I was dissappointed that I had to do so much tinkering and my friend hands me a book that had a few thousand pages on how to use linux. Anywhoo I was trying to get the thing to work and had it dual boot with Win98 and well that didn't go so well because windows refused to work after a few boot ups with linux and windows. The funny thing was they were on seperate drives and windoze should have just accepted it but didn't.

I scrapped Linux for ten years and then last summer my laptop that was only a year old and out of warranty stopped working. I thought the graphics card was done for because it had the first versions of Vista on it and actually read some stories of Vista actually screwing up the graphics cards. Anyhoo I bought a new laptop with Vista on it and really I was tired of using win because it I really hate getting the errors and the fact that now a days you have to have a damned $2,000 ands up pc to actually play games it seems because of windows.

Well I did some research and came to this sight and decided on Ubuntu well I took out the laptop HD put it into a external USB case plugged it into the old desktop it worked great. No problems with burning to CD, install, or anything else. But my desktop video card had issues and it was not working with 9.04 so I decided to check out why my old laptop was not working and well it turned out to be just the LCD screen.

I found a place and ordered a new screen for $89.00

I installed the screen put my Hd back in and updated it 9.04 I then got it to play the DVD's and well I got to say that it is the best OS I have used. I now have no annoying pop ups and I actually kinda converted my wife to want to use Ubuntu.

She actually said that i could put it on her laptop but I told her just stick with win because she is familiar with it plus we had just bought anti-virus software and it seem like a waste of money not to use win so the anti-virus program would have something to do.

Anyway I am new to linux I am not new to computers. I got my linux customized in less than 2 hours.

***Dapper Dan*** · 08-01-2009

It all started back in 1998 when I decided I wanted Netscape Navigator as my preferred browser but Windows 98 wouldn't allow me to do that without suffering their schemed consequences...

**Segfault** · 08-01-2009

One nice day I saw a friend of mine on the street. He looked kind of pompous. What's up, doc? I asked. Linux, he said. He was notorious with his diseases, so I asked how long the cure may take. He wasn't helpful at all. Scripts, he said, have to be written. I didn't understand. I thought he is raving about recipes his doctor wrote.
...
Do I have to say his disease was infectious?
The year was 1997, Red Hat 5.0 was the latest.
My internet connection was 9600 baud, I knew less than 8 words in English (the CDR I was given was in English), I had a 66 MHz AMD-486 computer with Gravis Ultrasound Max soundcard. To get the sound working I had to download latest kernel sources, apply a patch, configure and build the kernel. I didn't know what the heck the kernel is, leave alone patching, and all documentation was in English. I got it working, I do remember kernel compilation took 14 hours. I do not remember how many hours, days, possibly weeks it took to get there.
...
I felt happy.

Edit: if you are an unhappy newbie, your native language is English, you do have access to these wonderful forums ... dude, you have no excuse!

**lucho** · 08-03-2009

compared to most I was somewhat lucky. A friend passed me a liveCD (Kurumin) and said to boot my comp with it. I didn't have an internet connection at the time ( whee, an XP install that's totally virus-free

), so I gave it a spin. I amused myself by looking at almost every file the system had; without internet I had no distractions in my learning process. Within three weeks I was compiling my own kernel ( though I had to DL the tarball from a friend ).

**Rubberman** · 08-03-2009

Originally Posted by sarlacii

Aargh, no, no, naughty, take you eyes off your wife's laptop! LOL
I tried to sneak in some changes once when I did a re-install post having the screen repaired. Man, did that go down ever so well. Wives like their laptops, cars and everything else to just work. Changing means learning something else, and there is no time for it!
Don't do it... ROFL ROFL ROFL

My wife's laptop is a Mac P4 PowerBook (17" screen) - she won't let me even look at it!

Of course, I won't let her touch my 8 core dual display CentOS workstation either...

**grishi_111** · 08-30-2009

i just wanted to change caz we five friends all with that traditional boring xp. nothing was new.
i didn't know much about linux though. got a DVD that was free with a magazine from my friend.
I was really scared of loosing my data but couldn't resist my excitement and just inserted that DVD that was containing Vector Linux. Couldn't install for first three or four time all because of choosing wrong partition for my root, usr and home. finally got it done, but...but... after rebooting when it asked for password, i was flat again bcaz i didn't change root password and was not aware of default password. So i decided to reinstall it. i installed it on the same day.
. but there war more problems waiting for me.
that gave me a entry into linuxforums.org.
today all that seems very funny but that was very scary. i did lost my lots of data during my first install.

**Rubberman** · 08-30-2009

Originally Posted by grishi_111

i just wanted to change caz we five friends all with that traditional boring xp. nothing was new.
i didn't know much about linux though. got a DVD that was free with a magazine from my friend.
I was really scared of loosing my data but couldn't resist my excitement and just inserted that DVD that was containing Vector Linux. Couldn't install for first three or four time all because of choosing wrong partition for my root, usr and home. finally got it done, but...but... after rebooting when it asked for password, i was flat again bcaz i didn't change root password and was not aware of default password. So i decided to reinstall it. i installed it on the same day.
. but there war more problems waiting for me.
that gave me a entry into linuxforums.org.
today all that seems very funny but that was very scary. i did lost my lots of data during my first install.

I have one firm rule I live by - when installing/updating OS, make bit-image backup of system disc to external drive first. That has saved my bacon on many more than one occasion. I absolutely do that when working on client systems also. My attorney dropped his laptop off last week because it lost track of the CD/DVD drive (Windows Vista). After doing the sensible things, to no avail, I decided to restore the system to a recent checkpoint, but did a full image backup of the drive first (fortunately). The restore to checkpoint succeeded - succeeded in losing all his data that is, and still didn't see the CD/DVD drive.

So, I restored from the backup I made and after some more searching and gnashing of teeth, figured out how to fix the problem (two registry keys needed to be deleted). He got the laptop back, with all data intact, and was able to use the CD/DVD drive again. He's a happy camper, and I have a credit of several hours of legal advice due me when needed.

**fguy64** · 09-02-2009

I was bored and needed a new challenge, so I set myself up with Debian Lenny on an old PIII I had. I was somewhat surprised and almost disappointed, to learn that using apt to build a LAMP server was no challenge at all. Faster and easier than it ever was on a Microsoft Box.

**Rubberman** · 09-02-2009

Originally Posted by fguy64

I was bored and needed a new challenge, so I set myself up with Debian Lenny on an old PIII I had. I was somewhat surprised and almost disappointed, to learn that using apt to build a LAMP server was no challenge at all. Faster and easier than it ever was on a Microsoft Box.

Actually on an MS box, its a WIMP server...

**fguy64** · 09-02-2009

Originally Posted by Rubberman

Actually on an MS box, its a WIMP server...

I'll use that!

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