> Feel free to write as much (Halcrow) or as little as you want... I might as well put in my story right here. I grew up using a mac and occasionally windows. My dad (and brother) did computer stuff but I really wasn't too interested until my sophomore year in high school when my grandpa got us all government surplus laptops. I played around some but the thing that really got my interest was when Andrew (my bro) showed me how to dial up into a Unix box at PrairieNet.org (a freenet organization in my home town). The whole idea of communication on the Internet (e-mail, irc, chess servers) really intrigued me.
I liked the power of the Unix shell (since I had only used Unix
remotely) much more than DOS so I had my dad bring home an old Unix
workstation. It was made by OKI and ran some version of OKI Unix. It
sucked. Then I became the admin of a random Sun box at the University of
Illinois. That sucked too. Both were completely different in many ways
(even though they were both variants of Unix), were close to impossible
for me to configure, the GUIs they offered were HORRIBLE, and I knew I
could never afford one to use in my own home (since I had to return the
one I was borrowing). I had yet to find anything I really liked.
I tried out BSD at the end of high school but I felt like it had many of
the same downfalls as the other Unicies I had tried. I thought BeOS was
neat but no one was catching onto that. MacOS hadn't progressed in the
last 10 years, and Windows 95 was a joke. Then I tried Linux.
It ran well on our home "server" that Andrew, Peter, and I bought
together. I messed around with it but I was no expert. I did realize
that this had a lot of potential. This was around 1997.
I got back from my mission in 2000 and by that time Andrew and Peter
were die hard Linux users. I bought my laptop and from that moment on I
have used Linux as my main desktop and have used it on every server I've
had to maintain.
I use Linux because:
1) It's free as in beer (I don't have to pay for it) and as in freedom
(I have the ability to customize it to how I would like).
2) It runs on many architectures (yes, there are computers out there
that aren't x86, and I happen to own some of them) and on older
equipment. It was only last year that I got rid of the original server
my brothers and I had bought.
3) There are apps for everything I need (for no cost) to check e-mail,
browse the web, type papers, etc. The only thing that isn't widely
supported is games but I don't play many in the first place.
4) It's a great programming environment.
5) It works great as a server, and I don't have to pay a ton for
databases, client licenses, etc.
6) It helps me to learn about how computers really work. I can see the
source code. I helps me understand how devices work. There is more to
computing than pointing and clicking.
There are many other things but I should get back to work.
Linux isn't perfect yet, but it's getting really good, really fast.
-Evan
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Evan McNabb: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://evan.mcnabbs.org
System Administrator, CS Department, BYU
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