It was 2005 and I was in high school. I used to play lot of video games on PC (windows os) and my elder brother was really stressed about it as I was not focussing enough on my education and instead wasting time while playing video games. So one day he decided to remove windows and installed linux instead .
Ask HN: How did you get started in tech and/or Linux?
91–100 of 162 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you get started in tech and/or Linux?
#92[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How did you get started in tech and/or Linux?
#93I got interested in networking trying to setup XBconnect to play Halo 1 over the internet. That led to using a Splinter Cell exploit to install Linux on my Xbox and then eventually installing Ubuntu 7.04 on my PC.
My first job was standing up a document management system on Linux servers which grew into virtualization, other sysadmin roles, and now a Product Manager focused in API integrations.
So, I too got my start thanks to Linux and have always been grateful for it!
Re: Ask HN: How did you get started in tech and/or Linux?
#94I'm 33 now. When I was in 7th grade, the same friend who taught me how to build PCs (also my age) one day brought over a burned CD of Mandrake Linux. Back then Mandrake was a major distro like SUSE, Red Hat, etc. IIRC, it was the heyday of Windows XP. I can't remember whether I did dual-booting or just wiped my whole drive with Mandrake but after I installed it there was little going back to Windows... at least not until I got into PC gaming for a brief stint in my early high school years. Damn EverQuest and Morrowind.
I had already taught myself basic programming with VB6 at the time, so learning more and more about PC power-user stuff was very exciting to me. I remember KDE back then was a treasure trove of great software that just came for free, making Windows XP actually feel inferior. At some point around that time I watched Revolution OS, the Linux documentary. I think I heard about it on ThinkGeek. I must have watched that documentary at least five times then. I was hooked on open-source software and I finally felt like I had some direction in my life: I wanted to help out with the open-source thing any way I could. Suffice it to say, when I started my high school "webmastering" and Computer Science classes, I was closer to the teachers in knowledge than my peers.
I've been a full time Mac user since '06 for desktop use, however recently I've gone back to giving Arch Linux a decent try for my main desktop environment. Gotta say, Linux on the Desktop, particularly with KDE Plasma, is finally what I had hoped it would become. There was a stretch of time in the last 20+ years I've used Linux that every time I tried using Linux seriously there were some major software disadvantages that kept me returning to Mac such as ridiculous issues with Broadcom or Nvidia drivers, no modern-feeling text editor, generally clunky UX, etc. These days pretty much all the software I use is cross-platform, making it very easy make the transition stick.
I think the Linux for the desktop has a very bright future. Remember folks, authoring cross-platform apps that support Linux is very important!
Re: Ask HN: How did you get started in tech and/or Linux?
#95It was around 1986 and my Mom purchased a secondhand Tandy Color Computer that had been upgraded from 16K to 64K. She gave it to my brother and I along with several books. When you turned the computer on, it said, "OK" and waited for instructions in basic.
My brother and I spent hundreds of hours in front of that machine copying games, fixing typos, and being amazed by our creations. I was hooked.
I'm 44 now and I still write code everyday. I also created a book called Splash of Code and published it on Amazon. It teaches JavaScript programming in a similar fashion.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get started in tech and/or Linux?
#96I started learning R on my own in 2010 after a 12 year long stint away from the workforce. I wanted to get my statistics skills brushed up before applying to grad school for Economics. I was hooked from the first time I typed in a command and then did formal education with community college classes and later an MS in SW Engr.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get started in tech and/or Linux?
#97I had already dropped out of high school, and went back. Graduated and went into the workforce. Did stuff like working at a gas station and bouncing. Figured I was too smart to do retail for the rest of my life.
Then I went to college. 6 years later, graduated as a liberal arts degree with three majors during the Great Recession. Couldn't find a job, so started bouncing around doing marginally better-than-retail jobs.
Talked to a friend who was working at Amazon as an automation engineer. Asked him where he went to school. Turns out he didn't go to college, but taught himself Linux. Asked him the best way to learn Linux, and he pointed me to a website...
Taught myself Linux, got CompTIA Linux+ alongside AWS's Solutions Architect associate. 2 years later was hired by AWS.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get started in tech and/or Linux?
#98In the early 2000's I was a teenager, I was fascinated with computers, mainly because my father worked in IT at the time, but I was stuck in the building and tinkering with computer hardware phase. One day my father gave me a copy of "Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Dummies" which included a Liveboot CD. He told me that if I learned Linux I would always have a well paying job. Man was he right. Looking back, that was a turning point in my life. That knowledge opened up so many doors and gave me such a leg up at a young age.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get started in tech and/or Linux?
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was Damon Albarn was Justine frishman of elasticas boyfriend at the time? I remember Dave rowntree of blur also wrote some Linux drivers
Yes. And Damon used to come to the Elastica gigs, but because Parklife had suddenly made them mega famous he always had to sneak in the rear doors of venues or climb drain pipes to get into dressing rooms to be with Justine. Dave did graphic design and 3d work as a hobby but this was much later.
Haha, amazing!
Re: Ask HN: How did you get started in tech and/or Linux?
#100Linux: back in 2006 Windows crapped out so hard, I lost some stuff that have been downloading for week and I remembered there's another OS called Linux and went to the local Linux user forum.
Tech work: dating programmers and hanging out at hackerspaces and open source conferences. Still have moments of doubt whether I'm the real thing or just a groupie.