Short history of me and Linux
One day, sometime in 1995 (I think) walking the streets of Nairobi
I noticed a PC magazine with a "Free operating system". I was very
intrigued by the title and bought the magazine. Inside was a CD with
SuSE Linux (around version 5). Since it said it is totally free and
fully functional system I couldn't resist but had to try it. Just
imagine how I was scared at first reading all the warnings that the
installation can destroy data on my hard drive and do all sort of
nasty things to my computer. It did not stop me from trying and I
got totally knew experience. I was somehow enchanted by this system,
and though I had to spent long days (and nights) to make the X
system work, then to set up my dial-up connection and finally make
the system print, I was genuinely happy. The YAST thing was good and
allowed me to get to all aspects of my system.
Then I decided to purchase an official CD. My first choice was LinuxEmporium and in a matter of days I received a box set of SuSE 5.2 and a nice penguin mascot. Next purchase was ApplixWare office suite and I was really thrilled that I can do everything I need on Linux. That was followed by SuSE 7 (I think) but meantime I discovered Mandrake and kind of loved it. The hardware detection was much better and the overall experience good. That was the time I also found Corel WordPerfect for Linux (imagine! in one of the bookstores, it actually was there between Corel Ventura and CorelDraw for Windows). Again I couldn't pass by without getting it and for long time was using it (till later upgraded the system and the libraries were changed and WordPerfect stopped working). I wish Corel could try its Linux adventure once more. I really do miss the best word-processor and would be willing to get it back on Linux.
There was a time when we had a leased line connection to the internet and we used my Mandrake box as a gateway. Again I was happy because everything worked and even my friends were able to reset the connection when it sometimes died.
Then I got hold of a Mac PowerBook G4 and an eMac. After enjoying the beautiful desktop of OSX I started to look for a way of putting Linux on it. Had a success with the eMac, but the PowerBook brought me some problems, and since I couldn't manage to get all the hardware to work, I gave up and gave out the Macs. And even so after Apple changed their processors from PPC to Intel, the PPCs were left out in the cold.
I always wanted to install Debian, but every time I tried, I messed the install. Then come Ubuntu. A Debian based distro with very easy installation. I was happy that finally can put Debian on my comp. I stuck to Ubuntu for long time but it became a little to huge for me (kind of the way SuSE did) and when I found a live CD of Crunchbang (by then still based on Ubuntu) I was surprised how fast and slim it is. So nowadays I try Crunchbang whenever I have a chance to play with a computer. And since now I don't have a 'private' machine, I use Linux on a VirtualBox and it has to suffice for the time being.
Will look for a good laptop and see if it can run Crunchbang. If you have any suggestion of a laptop fully supported on Linux, send me a message (on the contact page).
This is a very long story told in a few words and I know I left out
so many important elements, but still wanted to share it with
someone.
