[gentoo-user] Re: OT: Linux as a first platform? Was: Abut smb:// aware tools

[Harry Putnam]

Stroller <stroller@××××××××××××××××××.uk> writes:

> In separate posts, Harry Putnam wrote:
>> I started my computer life on linux 1996.. only moved to windows for
>> some things when editing video (I like the adobe tools... and linux
>> just doesn't have anything remotely comparable.)
>> ...
>>
>> I knew nothing whatever about a computer in the 90s you are talking
>> about. My only knowledge of a computer came from things like seeing
>> the girl at the unemployment office bring up my records.  And not even
>> all unemployment offices had computers yet.
>>
>> My first encounter with a computer or home computing started in
>> 1996. Right from scratch.
>
> Hi there,
>
> Out of curiosity, why did you choose Linux as your first platform?

[...]

> My family had a BBC Micro as a home computer when I was a kid and then
> later (but still late 1980s) a 286 or so running DOS, but I returned
> to computing at around the same time, 1996. Someone gave me an old PC
> which I got running and I then did my first self-build of a c 150mhz
> Pentium-class system.
>
> At that time it seemed "obvious" to me to install Windows 95. I had
> used Windows 3.1 at the mother-in-law's on a handful of occasions, and
> seen it in other people's offices. Win95 had been released with
> fanfare the previous year.

Quite an interesting story.  

> I can only guess that you had some previous background in electronics,
> because I did not learn of Linux until c 2000 (although I was inactive
> in computing for a couple of years 1998 - 1999). Until then (pretty
> much) as far as I was concerned, "all PCs run DOS or Windows".

> Could you possibly explain what led to to choose Linux as your first
> platform? I would love to hear from anyone else who has managed to
> completely skip the mainstream o/s (by which I mean Windows and Mac).

Sure... nothing more inviting to a windbag than a request to talk
about himself...

My background may be a bit different from most computer oriented
people.

I was born in Wyoming.  Way out in the boonies.  Things there were
backward even for the times.  We had no Electricity or running water.
Left there at age 7.

Later after our family had moved first to Las Vegas and then to
California. I became a helper in a big shipyard in San Diego.  My dad
worked there and helped me get the job... I was 17.

I learned the trade of welding... which carried me pretty much the
rest of my life.  I quit high school about that same time.  And only
got my GED years and years later when I was about 50.

I moved to Chicago in 1972 and thru work in a local shipyard... now
gone, I became a construction boilermaker.  Working in power plants and
refineries all around the midwest and west.

So I have no higher education... every little bit I managed to get
thru my hard head is self taught... or maybe taught by help lists and
reading along with lots of experimentation.

So, finally cutting to the chase now, I got a divorce around 1987 and
went back out to California where union construction wages for
boilermakers was quite a lot higher.

After a couple years I got together with a girl out there and started
seeing a lot of her... around 1992.  By 1994 we were married... 

She worked as a clerical worker on the campus of the University of Cal
at Santa Barbara... (a job had brought me up their from the LA area
around 1992. Building an Exxon refinery about 20 miles north of Santa
Barbara.  It turned in to a 2 yr stint which is a long time on one
project for a boilermaker... our jobs are usually measured in a few
mnths or less).

She worked with computers every day.. but I still knew nothing
whatever about them.  She also was very good friends with a couple for
yrs, The guy was the `network' guy for UCSB a network system admin on
most of there computer networks.  Largely unix of one stripe or
another.

(Yeah I'm finally getting there) 

Over a yr or two I too became very good friends with him.  As it
turned out he had a son who was a troublesome handful.. a kid about 13
or so at the time.  Me and this kid hit it off pretty well and I sort
of took it on myself to try to help him along... it turned out he did
more helping along than I did.

He was a linux advocate... a slackware guy, having learned about Unix
from his dad.. and I guess Linux too..  It was really him who got
me interested....  I started to see where that `computer stuff' was
really nothing more than a very highly developed tool.

I was a guy who liked good tools and had used many of every
description.  My young friend taught me very basic scripting and from
there it was a love affair... I saw it as a really advanced and
adjustable tool.  I'll admit it has been quite a battle.  That young
man was an order of magnitude brighter than me so he was getting well
into it... but I caught hell for several yrs.... still really.

I've got to admit to finding it very hard to learn my way around with
computer languages...Or admin'ing linux, at that time the languages
weren't really even programming languages (I mean the ones I took up)
just shell, and after a couple more yrs, perl.

So my first brush with computers was a computer running slackware.  I
hung out with the kid for a day every week.. sometimes 2.  I couldn't
really help but get interested since he was such a stricken linux
advocate.  (aside: That kid kind of got his act together after a few
yrs and wandered off to windows... but I stayed with linux).

Later my wife began to want a home computer... not many people had
them yet around 1995... She of course used the windows 95 OS on the
job and was also an experienced dos user.  But she really knew nothing
at all under the hood with windows and certainly nothing about linux.

For my wifes birth day that year, I got her a computer running a
fairly new OS called windows 95...  I think it was 1995 but could have
been late 1994... It wasn't long before I was thinking of trying to
install slackware on it.  I chickened out for fear of messing up her
computer and work... and got my own..  The network guy came over and
got us online. Somehow I got on to redhat.

I think my young friend had mentioned redhat disparagingly as supposed
to be easier than slackware.  I think redhat was in version 3
something... but not far from the release of version 4.  Being easier than
slackware sounded good to me.

I stayed with redhat for several yrs and tinkered with openbsd, tried
one of the very early free versions of Solaris for a while, tried
Debian for a while, but going back to redhat (fedora)
mostly... finally left fedora not long after that split.

Must have stumbling across gentoo maybe 5 yrs ago... maybe less or
more a bit.  I guess it would have been not long after fedora showed
up... that was in 2005 I think, so now I think about it... I must have
come to gentoo only about 4 yrs ago.

Now I'm retired and back in the midwest, been retired a good
while.. so have time to tinker with linux all I want.  My main desktop
is Gentoo.. and I have an Opensolaris machine running a zfs
server... and 4 windows based machines.  One is my wifes. (yet
another wife). 

But I keep two P4s (Those are getting a bit behind the times now) for
work on graphics, video, photo setups, and general tinkering with
adobe tools.. like photoshop and Illustrator.  Two of my
favorites. And finally a laptop running Vista.

Ok.. wake up, or if you aren't asleep or gone away in boredom... That
was the end.