What got you into UNIX/Linux/BSD?

I started with Slackware 2.0. My cousin had mentioned "this linux thing" to me, and said "Best way to get it is to buy a book from books-a-million" So I did, in 1995 or 1996... and it had Slack 2.0 included. Installed it, used it for a long time.. started OS/distro hopping. Settled on gentoo for desktop, standard debian for server, around 2002-ish or so. Then I went to the dark side: OS X. Once I got back into the PC world I discovered FreeBSD, just before 8.1 was released, iirc. Been using FreeBSD ever since.
 
I also had an old Packard Bell, it was a 386 that had Windows 95 on it I think. That was around 92 or 93 maybe? Mastered 95 pretty quickly for my age and it was just a toy at the time. I started chatting a lot the more I got into HTML, BASIC, and other starter programming type things and the subject came up a lot. Someone had told me to checkout Slackware. It made me so angry because I found it difficult to install but eventually got it. Just the processes of installing it made me feel like I had so much more control over my PC than windows did, eventually I understood what I was doing and I moved from distro to distro. Eventually I tried FreeBSD and had a similar experience with it as slackware and I just didn't have much time to mess with it but always planned to go back. I got to a point where I just hated Linux and couldn't stand to be on Windows and moved back over to FreeBSD and had that Ah-ha! moment and never looked back. I'll still run Windows and Linux on a virtualmachine for work or school though.
 
As a kid my dad had a Amstrad PCW with CP/M-80. Loved that thing - kept it until 2008 or so and it kept working, but I had to chuck it (worst decision ever - had the manuals, printer, everything) when my parents moved. Next up was our first PC in 1994, a Cyrix 486 with 4 Mb RAM and Dos 6.2 + Windows for Workgroups. In 1998 came a Gateway 2000 PC running Win95, got the 486 and dug around in the OS, modifying (and breaking :stud) it quite often.

Got my first PC with Win98SE in 2001, crappy machine that failed pretty soon.
At Uni we had Macs running MacOS 8.something, so I got me an eMac in 2003 running MacOS 9.2.2 and MacOS X 10.2 (one of the last dual boot models).
Dad got a new PC in 2004, running XP (me: "Why the F... can't I configure this thing easily?"), so I got the Gateway, upgraded it using parts left from my 2001 PC, loaded Win98SE and it still works very well to this day.

At Uni/work we had XP, my dad used XP (and I did the "support"), and I grew to loathe the system. Unwieldy, hard to figure out what the system was doing and why, the interface, the non-stop issues with virusses, etc. Got myself a PowerBook in 2005, running MacOS X 10.4, generally happy about it until I needed to do more complex tasks involving the command prompt and discovered I couldn't get a newer Perl to run properly because something was wrong and half of the man pages were missing.x( So I looked elsewhere. I remembered reading that OS X was partially based on a BSD, so I had a look at it. Decided some time later that if my next system was to be a PC, it'd run FreeBSD.

Had my first taste of Windows 7 18 months ago on a work laptop, hated it. Had to set Win7 up for my dad on his new PC, hated it more, especially after discovering Microsoft had managed to break compatibility between Outlook Express and the new Windows Mail (on the other hand, got my parents to use Thunderbird for their email and they like it - score one for Open Source). And since I got my dad's old PC again...:e
 
I've always been interested in the BSDs.
What sent me to FreeBSD specifically?

Believe it or not, these forums.
Any community running vBulletin, for me, is ++.
 
It was several years ago, maybe 5, that I switched to Linux. The main reason was the instability and virus threats of M$ platform. Therefore I decided to try something new and installed Ubuntu. After that was a great bunch of linux distros, after couple of months ago I didn't try FreeBSD for the first time. Actually I wanted to try it much earlier, but I heard it was too complicated. Now I regret I hadn't installed it couple of years ago. Switched to it and learned a lot more.
 
To the kids on this forum.

Typing MS as M$ doesn't lend an extra bit of respectability to the BSD community.

That apart...this thread is interesting. Putting Linux/UNIX/BSD in a single phrase provides a clue to where the OP is coming from.

Sorry, these Linux/UNIX/BSD are not analogous and even in the same league. You cannot put a Frankenstein, a dinosaur and normal human being in a single sentence.

Comparison is outrageous . I'm coming to belated realization that it is the BSDs that are more suitable for any role, server and desktop combined rather than the over hyped bloated mess called Linux.

I just had a bout of wrestling in the mud with latest Debian and Fedora vomit.

The Debian geniuses are not even aware that nowadays it is common to have WPA encrypted wireless networks in homes or office. So their installer does not offer it either. CentOS/Fedora have it. But...wait...the Linux community as whole does not get it either...for a minimal install one would not pull in half done hack job called Network Manager.

Did I even talk about sound? Well it doesn't work either. Not just out of box, not even after fighting with broken documentation.

Packages? Try anything custom, apt-get/yum run crazy.

My bare minimum FreeBSD install gets me working Wifi over WPA with Intel HDA blowing full blast over OSS driver. With KMS enabled video driver HD movies are watchable. That's a quality OS for you.

Want to do some kernel level stuff? What do one say of an OS peddled by GNU zealots that do not ship with kernel sources in standard installation media? To obfuscate it further you get a gazillion of packages named xxx-devel xxx-header and so forth. To much space to put half a dozen editors, four browsers, office package (that doesn't work) yet not enough space for few megs of compressed source text?

Misbehaving IP filters anyone? Yeah, that's Linux for you...Red Hat to be precise.

In my range of control, the only thing that stands between a clean purge are some Oracle installations. But my developers have already ported the RDBMS interface to DB neutral code to work with Postgres and Oracle...so I'll order those purges anyway...lol.

Sorry for the rant. Had a back breaking work week fighting these GNU inbreds.

>>>>>

To the kids, my Windows 7 installation (dual booted with FreeBSD) has not seen virus (or BSOD, the favorite whipping boy of the GNU zealots) as long as I remember.
 
As for typing M$ instead of Microsoft - sorry for that, if it insulted anybody. It is just quicker and everybody understands it. And there is no need in calling me a kid, you don't know me and have no idea who I am. I don't call you a dinosaur with your registration in 2009 and 100 posts (should see how useful). Anyways, I'm sure we are here not to insult each other, that's why please preserve politeness. If you don't agree with something a person types in forum, please make sure to give him polite correction.

Thanks in advance and best regards.
 
I understand English is not your first language.

So here's the translation.

Linux -> Frankenstein
UNIX (commercial variants) -> Dinosaurs
FreeBSD - Normal Human Being.
 
I think your's as well, because you're not aware of existence of synonyms. However, I think it's not language-specific, so I'm not sure about your knowledge of ANY language. I stop this argument and am not willing to comment on it anymore. Thanks for your kind attention.
 
vadimkolchev said:
I think your's as well, because you're not aware of existence of synonyms. However, I think it's not language-specific, so I'm not sure about your knowledge of ANY language. I stop this argument and am not willing to comment on it anymore. Thanks for your kind attention.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I do not confuse analogies with synonyms.
 
Okay, mine is the lamest of all I've read so far: I wanted to be a hacker. At that point in time, in Greece we thought that Chatropolis and Astalavista was the internet (well it was...), what was in 96.

Then I got my first computer in 2000 and got into IRC. But still I thought mIRC was IRC if you know what I mean. I entered a couple of channels, we formed a sort of gang (the lamest form you can ever imagine, a bunch of people who couldn't tell a USB from an ethernet plug, etc).

One day we got all trashed by a guy sitting on a "aDSL" connection. Well we were all using 56k (or maybe even slower connections, can't really tell). By trashed I mean receiving a sort of DOS attack, enough to keep us all out our the IRC (which was the internet at the time) server for some time.

After admitting that we need to enroll this guy, we talked to him and he told us that "in order to be a true hacker you have to know UNIX"... He also told us that it's very hard to learn and he doesn't know how to do it... That was the first time I've ever heard the word *UNIX*... A brand new world was there for me to explore ... I never became a hacker but at least I've learnt one thing or two about computers...
 
This is an entertaining and harmless thread, for which my thanks to the OP. Why SR_Ind insists on interjecting his overwrought flamebait is beyond me.
 
I totally forgot about my very first *nix exposure pre-Solaris at work.

Slackware 3.1, installed from floppies. I'd been playing a MUD at university and wanted to learn to code, and run my own.

This got me the Linux experience to be of assistance to the local small ISP (initially helldesk and poking around on the Sparc checking account issues, etc. - later setting up new boxes), and landed me my first "network guy" role.


Back in the days of dial up internet and having the chicken/egg situation of having to try and figure out a working PPP configuration with no internet available to do so. :D

You young whipper-snappers with Virtualbox and VMware have it easy - back then trying a new OS out meant wiping your box and starting from bare metal :D


My first release of FreeBSD that I actually used in anger (as in, for a production box facing the internet) was 4.0 from memory. I tried 3.3 previously but back then I was recompiling kernels (Linux) all the time and the buildworld process for FreeBSD scared me a bit.
 
atmosx said:
Okay, mine is the lamest of all I've read so far: I wanted to be a hacker. At that point in time, in Greece we thought that Chatropolis and Astalavista was the internet (well it was...), what was in 96....
Click to expand...

That's the best story yet. If I remember any of them it will be that one. :)
 
First PC was a IBM PS/2 with Win 3.1, worked with Windows OS till 2001. Had a friend who built his own linux firewall from a floppy disk. It intrigued me. Took a linux course while I was in college that same year. Started off with Suse --> RedHat/Fedora --> Gentoo --> FreeBSD.

Now I rock FreeBSD on everything. PC-BSD on laptop, FreeBSD on server with jails, FreeNAS on my storage, and pfSense on my NetGate Alix router.

FreeBSD is just solid and Beastie!
 
drhowarddrfine said:
You wanted to be a cracker. All crackers are hackers but not all hackers are crackers.
Click to expand...

See at this point in time, I understand that analyzing this sort of terminology the way you do is so retarded, that I'd prefer to rip my face off with a spoon rather than getting into this conversation.
 
After a former experience I had with Windows System Administration with a close relative that gave me the opportunity, I decided that I wanted to be a system-network security administrator..(I am a student of a computer-software engineering department). He told me that I MUST install FreeBSD on my new machine (made to become a home server for experimenting-learning) and start by reading the handbook... So I did and I am now almost finishing it. =) I have already used a bit of Fedora,Ubuntu linux but FreeBSD as a terminal only choice is kinda fantastic I think =D
 
I use UNIX because I'm a Lawful citizen :D and I didn't want cracked Windown.
My first Linux was Slackware when I was 12 :) and my first unix is OS X , Hackintoshed PC :) . Finally I become a FreeBSD user. My first BSD is DesktopBSD (FreeBSD-Based) and my 2nd BSD is FreeBSD :).
Now I'm JabirProject (JabirBSD , JabirOS GNU/Linux , Jabir NexT Social Network) leader and I'm very happy for my best choice , UNIX.
Thanks.
 
atmosx said:
See at this point in time, I understand that analyzing this sort of terminology the way you do is so retarded, that I'd prefer to rip my face off with a spoon rather than getting into this conversation.
Click to expand...

Yeah, well, learn the correct terminology. It will serve you well. Being a hacker is an honorable thing but not according to your definition which is wrong.
 
atmosx said:
See at this point in time, I understand that analyzing this sort of terminology the way you do is so retarded, that I'd prefer to rip my face off with a spoon rather than getting into this conversation.
Click to expand...

drhowarddrfine said:
Yeah, well, learn the correct terminology. It will serve you well. Being a hacker is an honorable thing but not according to your definition which is wrong.
Click to expand...

Here is the jargon file definition:

Hacker: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html
Cracker: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/C/cracker.html

I also like Crackers, Phreakers and Lamers:
http://catb.org/jargon/html/crackers.html

Further:
Phone Phreaker: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/P/phreaker.html
Lame: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/L/lamer.html

Of course your a real programmer if your name is Mel:
http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html
 
UNIXgod said:
Here is the jargon file definition:

[...]

Of course your a real programmer if your name is Mel:
http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html
Click to expand...

Wow this one was a new one for me also! That's a bit strange because around 2002 I was part of a "crew" of sleaze little kids. I was making interviews for a website so, one of my virtual hosts was ESR. Other people I interviewed were mostly famous by nicknames...

Lame days, it was fun though. Thanks for the story!

<offtopic>
A sys-admin story that I enjoyed a lot, although not programmer-specific is the The case of 500-mile email. Maybe we could make another thread with "funny computing stories" :-)
</offtopic>
 
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