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My first introduction to Unix was in 1979. The company I was working for at the time got the PWB (Programmer's Workbench) version to experiment with. We needed this for its ability to do remote job entry to the IBM mainframe. I just loved the simplicity of Unix on the surface, but also loved the powerful beast (maybe a grue?) lying beneath the surface.
For the next 18 months we learned about Unix and programming in C. It was a great time.
In late 1980, I got an offer from another company for a much better opportunity. I left the Unix environment. I've always had some regrets about leaving: from a personal angle, leaving something I enjoyed working with, and, on the professional side, wondering what paths my career would have taken. (Would it have been worse or better?)
Through the 1980's, I considered Unix variants Coherent and Xenix. The AT&T PC7300 would have been my ideal choice but it was around $5,500.00.
I eventually succumbed to the corporate standards, and adopted Microsoft Windows and office products to maintain compatibility.
In 1995, while at a local computer show, I came across a fellow selling Slackware Linux. I had heard of Linux from a friend who still worked at my original company. I bought a copy and installed it on an extra drive in my computer. Unlike today’s Linux distros, once installed, you had to go through a series of screens to configure the kernel for your hardware and other options, and recompile the kernel. Even after using Windows for years, I was having a great time.
The various window managers at the time were rough. I settled on FVWM (F Virtual Window Manager). It worked fine, but you had to edit a configuration file to add any applications to it.
I played with various distributions over the years as they came out. I used Red Hat, Caldera, Corel, etc. I eventually settled on SuSE, and was using Linux full-time, delving into Windows when I needed to for something with a client company.
In 2002, I decided to jump to an Apple iBook (no flames please). I liked it, but still wasn't giving up on Linux. When Ubuntu came around, I looked into and followed it. Linux support for Apple hardware at the time was not very good. It wasn't until 10.04 that I was able to install it on a spare drive on my MacBook with almost no issues. My MacBook was starting to develop an overheating problem, which was minor when running OS X but was worse under Linux. It was enough to see that I could use it for my day-to-day needs.
These days, I am one of the many IT professionals forced to work in a lousy job due to a lack of work in my area of expertise. My idea is to try to build a small business—installing and supporting Ubuntu for ordinary people who are fed up with viruses and spyware, or who have decent hardware but still can't run the latest and greatest versions of Windows. Not an easy goal, but I feel it is worth trying. To this end, I was able to get a new Acer computer, and I am running Quantal Quetzal and loving it.