5 Years on Linux: A look back and a look forward

[SunnyRabbiera]

I am not exactly precise on when exactly I started using Linux, but I know that as a write this I have officially entered my 5th year as a Linux user.
It was around this time back in 2004 or so I started using Linux, trying out distros like Yoper, OpenSuse and Mepis.
As I might have mentioned Mepis was the first distro I have successfully installed and kept and its been a roller coaster ride since that time.
But that roller coaster ride has had many more ups then downs, I have experienced incredible highs but even the lows seemed to have their merits.
The great progress linux has made is what makes me stick with it, even when I had severe issues with it at times Linux has served me better then anything Microsoft has given me.
To think how much progress Linux has made in the time I have used it is amazing, the experiment gets better every day that my computer turns on and the adventure continues.
Linux is the little kernel that could, it keeps chugging along with little to no obstacle to block its progress.
Right now Linux actually feels very alien to when I first started using it, but still maintains its ease of use.
I have come to the point that Linux feels like home, that it is windows that gives computers a bad rep and that Linux is the more easier to use.
My evaluation is the same now as when I first started using Linux:
That linux is the best OS with so much promise and if given the time and place could overtake windows without question.
I see linux as the future, where computers will go in the next few years.
Even with Windows 7 on the horizon I see it nothing more then hype, if we get another Vista out of Win7 (and you know I think we will, things might look good for MS now but we only have Beta's and RC's to tell the story) then Linux's future is secure :D

[toupeiro]

Nice writeup. I share many of the same sentiments as you do. I first tried to run linux as a mainstream desktop in the late 90's, so I truly have a grand appreciation as to where it is today..

I recently offered to try and repair someones completely infected XP based laptop (something which I VERY rarely do these days), and after realizing that it was well beyond hope, I had to tell her it needs a complete rebuild. Now, she didn't have a rebuild partition, or any of the original CD's, and all I had was a retail XP upgrade CD which would not accept the OEM key on the bottom of her laptop, so I offered her the option of installing ubuntu, and spending an hour showing her how to basically get around. I then extended that by saying she could get a hold of me through my wife if she had forgotten anything.

There were two text messages for help, but I was never able to respond to either one because she had already responded saying "nevermind, I figured it out, this is easy!"

This is another grand selling point of ubuntu to me. I simply cannot remember the last time someone that is a casual computer user (a.k.a. non-technical) told me Vista, or even XP and all the necessary software required to make it safe was "easy to use". Familiar, yes, but not "easy." She was literally blown away at all the free software in the repositories.

What was important about this is that I didn't give her ubuntu, making her think she was getting something like windows. I said "this is different from windows, but it is intuitive, more secure, and free." People aren't afraid of getting something thats different if they are simply told that its different.

I have to agree, linux's place on the desktop is secured. Even if it never sees the usage windows does, those willing to try it without bias or pre-condition of it "being like windows" are rarely ever disappointed.

[RyanthePenguin]

I remember installing Mandrake Linux from floppies and being blown away! I also remember the ex-wife freaking out and making me put Windows back on... Linux was great, the wife? Not so much. Both Linux and my love life have come so very far in the past ten years.

[blithen]

I am not exactly precise on when exactly I started using Linux, but I know that as a write this I have officially entered my 5th year as a Linux user.
It was around this time back in 2004 or so I started using Linux, trying out distros like Yoper, OpenSuse and Mepis.
As I might have mentioned Mepis was the first distro I have successfully installed and kept and its been a roller coaster ride since that time.
But that roller coaster ride has had many more ups then downs, I have experienced incredible highs but even the lows seemed to have their merits.
The great progress linux has made is what makes me stick with it, even when I had severe issues with it at times Linux has served me better then anything Microsoft has given me.
To think how much progress Linux has made in the time I have used it is amazing, the experiment gets better every day that my computer turns on and the adventure continues.
Linux is the little kernel that could, it keeps chugging along with little to no obstacle to block its progress.
Right now Linux actually feels very alien to when I first started using it, but still maintains its ease of use.
I have come to the point that Linux feels like home, that it is windows that gives computers a bad rep and that Linux is the more easier to use.
My evaluation is the same now as when I first started using Linux:
That linux is the best OS with so much promise and if given the time and place could overtake windows without question.
I see linux as the future, where computers will go in the next few years.
Even with Windows 7 on the horizon I see it nothing more then hype, if we get another Vista out of Win7 (and you know I think we will, things might look good for MS now but we only have Beta's and RC's to tell the story) then Linux's future is secure :D
:') Beautiful man, just beautiful.

[blithen]

Well I might as well tell my short story.

It started two years ago, when well windows messed up. And I was searching the demonoid forums for help because I frequent the forums. And a patron on there suggested ubuntu, I was like okay, so I looked it up and eventually went full on linux. I remember installing, I was so excited I was literally shaking. Well as time went on I would bounce from linux to windows, and then I would always come back. Simply because linux is linux, and it's just too awesome to give up. As most of you have said linux has it's fate sealed. It's going to own, and in my opinion very shortly.

[ActiveFrost]

Nice to see people sharing their experiences in general, not only about what works and what doesn't :)
I've been using Linux since .. well, it's not even a year, but, I really feel the same - it's an adventure which can't be found on any other OS ( not to mention that it's powerful and very easy to use ).

[ade234uk]

I remember spending all day getting the Nvidia driver to work on Mandrake 8, then turning it on next day and finding an xconfig error.

Another day getting my ASDL modem to work, then next day stopped working.

I also remember there being no half decent webbrowser either, and lots of sites failing to render properly. Thank god for Firefox.

It's when you think back to days like this, you do appreciate how far linux has come. Ubuntu is now so reliable with all these things, the Nvidia driver just works. Last time I saw an xconfig error was about 2 years ago.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Yeh I have more on the subject, soon I will give a year by year playback of my linux experience in my next post though, a brief summary of how each year was for me on linux

[ZackM]

I actually started using FreeBSD bash command line about three or four years ago now running IRC servers. That had me hooked. I loved getting into the shell and exploring something new and different from Windows (Which I was always keen on getting away from). I'm a computer nerd, you could say, so for me a new system was like finding a diamond in the ruff. From my experiences with the bash command line (Which I had to teach myself) I wanted more. At the time I didn't know that it was FreeBSD, but instead Linux. However, they both use Unix so it wasn't a far throw off. But, I absolutely love Linux and the community associated with it.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Well here is my playback that I promised:

Year 2004/5:
The first 2 years I used linux I kept to one distro: Mepis 3.3.
Even though I did not hop as much back then, I learned a lot about the basics of linux.
My command line use was actually spartan even back then, 5 times out of 10 I would need the terminal for something but it wasnt that bad.
Mepis was a desktop users linux, and still is, very simplistic and brainlessly simple to use.
But sadly I had to stop using Linux for a brief time during the year of 2005, my old computer had gone bust with a bad PSU and I got stuck using windows on my husbands computer until the beginning of 2006 when I could afford a new computer.
But I still count 2005 in my yearbook as I did use my old computer for some time before august when it died out.

2006:
2006 marked my return to Linux, after half a year of Windows I began to miss the simplicity and flexibility of Linux.
I tried to make up for it by using some hacks to XP to make it mine, but alas its limitations made me yearn for Linux.
I got the HP I have right now that year, and I did not hesitate for a second to wipe XP off and put linux on.
Again I used Mepis, this time version 3.4.
But Mepis 3.4 was not as good as 3.3, still it was much better then XP.
Then came Ubuntu Dapper, I heard about Ubuntu but didnt like it from what I saw because my only experience with it was Warty, and that thing was horrid.
Dapper kicked @#%^ though, it worked the same miracles as Mepis and ran much better.
Then from Dapper to Edgy I had a great experience with Ubuntu and it became my primary.

2007:
2007 was the first year I truly went distro hopping, as Ubuntu 7.04 failed on my system.
7.04 just didnt work for me, it refused to boot on my system 80% of the time.
At that time I tried Mepis again but it wasnt the same, then came PCLinux.
PCLinux was the distro of that year until Ubuntu Gutsy came out...
Much better then Feisty, Gusty worked where Feisty failed.
I used Gutsy until Hardy came out, but overall that year belonged to PCLinux for my system.

2008:
Ubuntu Hardy won out for 2008, very stable, very sturdy and was the best ubuntu 8.10 was not so good, Intrepid would cause me many issues so I stuck with hardy until the end of 2008.
Very little distro hopping that year though but I did experiment with Mandriva, Linux mint and even Debian.

2009:
So far this has been another hopper year for me, 9.04 Jaunty has failed me because of my intel card.
This year I have given Mandriva another try, Mepis, Mint, Debian, OpenSuse you name it.
Right now I have elected to use OpenSuse 11.0 as my primary as Hardy is showing signs of its age, OpenSuse however I am able to keep both current and stable thanks to OpenSuse's community repositories.
On Ubuntu Hardy, even with the PPA's Hardy is getting a bit old in its software database, I am just trying to balance out stability with newer software and OpenSuse seems to offer that.
11.1 wasnt so stable on my system though but I will see how Opensuse 11.2 goes before I declare this years winner...
Never know, but hopefully soon I will get another computer upgrade and see how things will run.
I will also keep my eye on Karmic too.
I have now set up a separate home partition now so that gives me a chance to see how a distro will work with my computer without harming my personal files.
Experimentation is fun :D