How did my fellow Arkansans discover Ubuntu?

[Cloudy]

I'm curious.

I got involved with Linux roughly two years ago, when one of my friends loaned me a Knoppix Live CD. I did a little more research on my own about distros and then ordered the 5.10 CDs (I was still on dialup, then) and that's the end of that. I've been using Ubuntu since fall of 2005 or something like that. :D

[Drate]

My instructor gave out the Live CD's at school in my Linux class.

[tophat2445]

Ubuntu wasn't the first GNU/Linux distro that I tried. After a few months of messing around with serveral differnt distros...some more popular than others....I finaly came across Ubuntu...I fell in love with 5.10, and I've been using Ubuntu since

Kenny

[thewahls7]

De Queen, Arkansas in the house.



I was looking for an alternative.

[hush]

got bored and decided to take the plunge and figure out what linux really was and how it worked

only one thing i don't like about linux - my yahoo launchcast radio subscription is worthless now... for whatever reason, yahoo requires directx files from IE inorder to play the radio stations.. or something like that?

[sek3r]

My lil ole story. :D

Well, I have been using Linux itself for about 5 years now. I first started out with Mandrake, and I wont say I loved it but it was better than using windows.

Then after awhile of using Mandrake I wanted to dip into another distro, so I chose Red Hat. I used RH for awhile and then it became Fedora(I've also used Knoppix and Debian).

I just got tired of using Fedora. I hated how things were working alright one min and then not. I hated how it gave me such a headache just to do simple things. So, I heard about Ubuntu and installed it and I fell inlove. I've been using it every since it first came out.

I'm currently running Edgy Eft w/ Beryl installed also. I'm going to upgrade soon. =)

[lanceHowell]

I'm from Ward, Arkansas. 5 minutes away from Beebee and 30 minutes away from Little Rock. I've been using Ubuntu since edgy eft. Since then I've been loving the system. I am running Feisty now as a Dual boot with Windows XP. I am about to get a new computer in probably 2 months. When I do I am going to wipe the current computer and install Ubuntu as the only OS for that computer, while my wife keeps Windows.

Hopefully she will come around to see how much faster and better Linux is over windows. I'm a very new user. I don't do much in the way of command line in linux, which I would like to learn more command line stuff.

But so far I have not needed to use the command line very much. I am so glad to see the Ubuntu group in Arkansas. We should get together and have meetings either on IRC or in person.


Thanks,

Long live Ubuntu,
Lance

[Tommy]

I am so glad to see the Ubuntu group in Arkansas. We should get together and have meetings either on IRC or in person.

There are lots of Ubuntu users in the LUGs (Linux Users Groups) that already exist here -- check out http://www.arlug.org/ for contact information.

CARLUG http://www.carlug.org/ is getting ready for an Install Feast on June 16th at the Faulkner County Library http://fcl.org/ in Conway.

At an install feast we get together, eat pizza, install linux, trade (and buy and sell) hardware, eat pizza, give away door prizes (including books, plus often computers and peripherals), and of course we'll probably eat pizza. (There might be some donuts and chips and sodas, too.) Usually folks bring copies of their favorite distros to trade around too, and that certainly includes all flavors of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu....

[lanceHowell]

That is great. I will be there.

[hush]

I'm a pretty big geek and have been my whole life, and am now a computer science major at UCA, and I think Linux is great and all..and I'm not hating on anybody or saying it's stupid or anything like that - I think it's great that there are Linux communities.. but to me for some reason it feels kind of odd/weird when I think about myself going to the Public Library for a Linux Party. Is that bad? I'm not trying to be mean or anything I just think it's kind of funny. If I had a friend to go with, I would probably show up. :)

[rcmullins]

played with several distros in my early college days. A recent frustration with Adobe (pricing strategys) has led me on a quest to discover the ultimate open-source web-developers platform. I am hoping Ubuntu is it, although im a bit concerned with Gimp right now.

[episodic]

I've been a computer geek since my early days. I sold pot holders my mom made all summer to buy a commodore 64. I've abhored the lockin that windows has these days, and have been looking to break out. Ubuntu has given me that chance. I'm from southeast Ark.

[rcmullins]

I have heard that Vista is taking 'lockin' a bit further, by binding itself to the mobo. Can anybody confirm this, or am i just being a conspiracy theorist?

[hush]

If you buy an OEM version of Vista, you can only use it once. I think thats bs, If I buy a license to it I should be able to use it however long I want to, but these rules they are coming up with now say you can only use it on 1 PC. If that PC dies or breaks or anything happens to it, you cannot use the Vista that was on it on the next computer that you build or put together. Microsoft is getting shady... if they were some starving company that had no money and really needed to protect themselves to remain profitable it would make sense... but the average user buying the software isn't trying to bypass any security features... if my PC craps out on me, I want to be able to rebuild it or another one asap and reload my operating system.. why should we be forced to buy another license to software we already own just because our hardware failed?
Next thing you know, the RIAA will be selling us CDs that only play in 1 CD player, if that CD player breaks we have to buy another CD to listen to.

[Tommy]

this is REALLY off topic from Ubuntu or Arkansas, but I have heard the license for Vista is even worse than that -- I understand the new EULA says that if the OS crashes (or their system determines you don't have all your license ducks in a row), you don't even have the right to recover data from your hard drive -- essentially Microsoft owns your data.

But if it IS true that would be yet another great reason to discover Ubuntu, no matter what state you're in.

[Grungydan]

Dan in Fayetteville, here.

I stumbled across Ubuntu by following a link one day from Lifehacker.com (a great website, btw). I had worked in a UNIX environment while in the Army, and had tried many years ago to get an old, old copy of Suse to run on a cheapo box that I had at the time (no success).

I'm big on free, which is part of the draw for me. The kick in the pants to actually install and get familiar with Linux was the announcement of Vista, and more importantly, the lock down issues and price structure. I'm just sick and tired of being told that I'm spending a few hundred dollars on "a license to use" a product.

Over the last year or so, I became a FOSS junkie in the PC world, and so it was just a logical jump to go FOSS with everything. I even install FOSS solutions on all of my relatives' machines to save them money and get the licensing monkeys off their backs. :)

Anyway, I'm runnning Feisty and loving it. Some command line stuff is coming back to me from the UNIX days (although I'm finding differences, of course; I was surprised when "alias q clear" didn't work in my terminal, although I bet it's just different in Linux; I meant to search that up and forgot), and so between having basic familiarity with a terminal interface and having used the Windows versions of many of the FOSS apps available in Ubuntu, it hasn't been all that bad of a curve. :D

[rcmullins]

I LOVE lifehacker! Not sure if you have heard about this, ,but Instructables is a great site also, O'Reilly's 'MAKE' magazine is ridiculously expensive. Instructables is free.

[Grungydan]

I usually only wander to Instructables when Lifehacker links it, but at your suggestion, I think I'll take a broader look. :)

[Alterax]

I discovered Linux in general about five years ago, when I was a field service technician for a popular desktop/notebook vendor. One of my coworkers was a Linux user, and was probably one of the most knowledgeable techs that I have met to this day.

He recommended that I start off with something. Grab a distro and run with it. I originally chose Mandriva, then a friend threw me an Ubuntu disk about two years later. I haven't gone back since.

--Alterax
Little Rock, AR

[TeraDyne]

I wast listening to the Linux Link Tech Show, and just decided to try it out. I've been using it since.

[rogun]

I stumbled upon linux 11 years ago while learning unix. There was a small overview on it in the textbook I was using, so I went to the link given, which was for Redhat 2.0, spent a week downloading it on a dial-up connection, and installed linux for the first time. Since then, I've mostly used it as a server, but I finally made the switch on my desktop a few months ago.

[bigern75]

Ive been using it for over 2 years now. When I started my web hosting / design company I was looking for server software and one I tried was ubuntu. (Ended up using CentOS on all my servers tho) BUT, I found ubuntu desktop to be great and easy to use. Ive had a dedicated box here at my house as a server / desktop for testing stuff. Then ive got my M$ xp pro desktop for my games and photoshop and stuff because of its speed(64bit 2.4 ghz amd 1.25gb ram) I use it for storage also.

But I finally got fed up with xp on my laptop (dell inspiron2200)
I tried to use 6.x but this damn wireless card, the dreaded BCM43xx syndrome kept me from switching. Well, I got do fed up with M$ I searched and searched til I found a work around that worked. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx/Feisty_No-Fluff
I really didn't want to go with ndiswrapper because it will probably break with the next kernal upgrade, but I fix it again if I have to.

To make a long story short (to late)
I got my wireless going, t-bird and firefox back the way I had them and all the little extra goodies installed and I couldn't be more happy.

GO HOGS GO!!

[Roaster]

I am a very new Ubuntu user, heck I'm a new computer user. I saw it mentioned in a post on a windows forum, someone really p.o.'d about something concerning Vista, can't remember what now. Googled it and found the link for Ubuntu 7.04 and requested a LiveCD. Installed it on this homebuilt, dual boot with XP Pro. Didn't like it at first so removed it and then when I had to go thru the hassle of reinstalling XP with all the bs of reactivating and downloading updates I put a second drive in this computer and reinstalled Feisty. Still dual booting with XP but as soon as I'm more comfortable with Ubuntu I'll be using XP less and less. No activation hassles, I can istall it as many times as I want, etc. Glad to hear from other ubuntu users around. By the way I live near Danville, AR

[homeskillit]

I'm a technician and I've known about GNU/Linux for a good while. I mostly just worked on Windows Servers and Windows Desktop Workstations, with a few Mac's mixed in.

Periodically people, mainly students, would come to me asking them to help with an installation, but I never really took an interest too much, but I knew in my heart that MS Windows was just getting more and more redundant, and bugged out with malware.

So one day out of boredom I decided to install OpenSUSE on a pos junk system. I messed around with it some and liked what I saw. A few months went by and I tried out Fedora, then I found Ubuntu a few month later, and I requested a CD of Dapper. I liked that one the best. I installed it on my workstation in a virtual hard drive.

After a couple of weeks of messin' around with it and felt comfortable enough, I backed up my docs and did a fresh install. I installed Windows in a virtual hard drive for some apps that needed it. Now it's on my lappy also and I just love it. :)

I'm trying to get my family to switch to Ubuntu. :lolflag: