Author Topic: Why did you convert?  (Read 999 times)

rtgwbmsr

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Why did you convert?
« on: 17 July 2002, 02:32 »
An interesting question. Ok, so the wording of the title is bad. It's more like "What were the circumstances of your conversion?". And no replies like XP sux or Linux rules.

Mine:
I was actually beta testing Windows XP (Yes, I've come that far in only a few months). I downloaded Beta 2 (with Luna), and installed it. At first sight of the sesame street-esque icons I said "Shit. You gotta be kidding me. This is the future of Windows?". So I decided to punch in fuckmicrosoft.com, as a joke.

I learned a lot from the site. I saw just how bad Microsoft was, and more importantly, why (Nobody ever addresses that. Just "Windows Sux"). And I also saw how many Linuxes there are.

OK, so now I had to escape the ever-worsening XP. After installing Quake III and seeing the performance, I was fed up. I went and downloaded Red Hat, which I had actually used before that time. It actually ran smoothly. Everything: Konquerer, Quake, everything. I actually started trying others too. Mac OS X and Mandrake are my current 2 OSes (I plan to be fully Windows free by the end of August).

So, everyone, tell me why/how etc. you converted. And someone...post this on the front page. I put a lot of work into it! Lol.

-Dustin

CaptainCool

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #1 on: 17 July 2002, 03:13 »
I havent completly gotten rid of windows yet i got a duel boot with 2k.
I will go linux only one of these days, probably when 2k becomes obsolete.
The reason why is because i'm just getting tired of all this m$ crap with the activation and shit.
It prob gonna get 10 times worse once m$ releases it's Palladium which is why ill never upgrade to another m$ windows ever again.

choasmaster

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #2 on: 17 July 2002, 03:40 »
hahaha, i actally learned about linux when i was over a mac hackers house, he was phucking with peoples websites at the time, and i asked what actally hosts the sites. he said either linux/unix. that stuck for a while. then in my windows mistaken edition days. i was in this game of who could get the most megs of warez. i noticed on redhats site that they charge 200 for the two discs, so i downloaded them and was about to make a bullshit claim that i just gotten 1.2 gigs of warez/*warez kiddies can be dumb, than god for enlightenment*/ then i though what the hell, ill install it on my second harddrive. at first i was in awe that something other windows would run on my system. the first few months were hard, but thanks to the solarise sysadmin that lives next to me/*hes moving though*/ i learned some early n00b commands like
ls
cp
mv
mount
startx

and a whole bunch of other, from him i also learned that the only thing requirering a reboot on unix is a kernel change. then i started to realize that windows sucked but i keep it cuase at the time cause i was a n00b. and the propetary usb phonline networking that my dad insisted on using. after small period of time i only found myself booting into windows to download something. i then suggested to my dad to use the much faster ethernet network. which we had used a version/*10base2*/ in our win95 days. he asked me why, and i told him that there were no drivers for network type under linux, then he asked me what linux was and i had too explain what linux was. when i told him that there were no drivers for linux for the usb phoneline thing, he immediantly thought that linux sucked. i had to buy all the networking equipment i wanted to use. so  i did. he also asked if linux would support connecting to the microsoft box, at this point i had learned alittle on tcp/ip and how crossplatform it was, so i took a risk and said, eaisly. when all my equipment arrived, we set it all up and it worked great. after learning more about stuff like WineX and Wine and other linux games, i took the big step and installed linux using both drives, its been great since i did that and i only think of windows when some games are realised mac and windows only. owell
id rather be on fire then use windoze

x86, a hack on a hack of a hack
alpha, the compaqed way
ppc, the fruity way
mips, the graphical way
m68k, the NeXT way
sparc, the reliable way


cloudstrife

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #3 on: 17 July 2002, 06:16 »
In 9th grade, i went to Veritas Software for career day.  I met the guy that i would be following around for the day, and then i noticed the computers under his desk.

One was running win2k.  That computer was for email.  Then i saw the other one, it said "sun" on it.  i had never seen a sun machine b4.  The programmer booted it up, and i was like "whoa!"  it wasn't windows!  then he started showing me all the cool shit i could do.  that night i went home and looked at all my software cds.  at the bottom of the pile was an old copy of redhat 5.2 (my dad bought it, then decided it was too different), which i then installed.  i never went back.  i now run freebsd and slackware.

Master of Reality

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #4 on: 17 July 2002, 07:13 »
I originally saw my brother using Linux and he explained what the hell it was. It was awesome.. I didnt have a computer then. Soon I forgot about Linux when i got my new computer with windows3.11. THen a little while later (1995) I got win95 installed and was amused by it for a while. THen i got win98 and began to get dissapointed. Then I got a new computer and then used win98 for awhile longer. Then i remembered Linux and tried putting Linux Mandrake 7.1(?) and it didnt work out too well. It didnt like my video and pissed me off of it. Then awhile later I tried linux again (same version) and it worked. I kept it for a while then went back to windows for no apparent reason.

Eventually I got really pissed off at having windows crashing every couple of seconds. Then i got cable and had to run a router. Needless to say; windows98 doesnt run a router very good. I kept the windows router while i Put Linux Mandrake  (newly dled), and said fuck this is too easy I want redhat!.
I got redhat and running NMAP i noticed that it would crash the win98 router on the slowest setting.
Thats when I switched to RedHat 7.2 on my server.

I am now running RH7.3 on my server. RedHat7.2 on my main comp along side a small win98 used only for Half-Life.
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LorKorub

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #5 on: 17 July 2002, 15:17 »
I started on Mandrake Linux 8.0 about a year ago, after cruising through K-Mart one day when I was buying some new fishing gear, and saw it sitting in the "Blue Light Bin."  I figured, "$20???  Why, not?"  So, I fired it up on a dual boot with $hitblows 2K, and made my first attempt at Linux.

As much as it pains me to say it, I didn't give it a long enough shot. I was working on an MIS degree at the time, and at UNLV, Linux was next to alien in the bullshit classes I was taking, which were basically all M$ oriented.  So the work I was doing was all done on $hitblows, and I lacked both the time and motivation to really get going on it.

Low and behold, I suddenly realized that college made me smart.  So, with this new-found intelligence, I did the smart thing by moving out to Cali, and switching my major to Computer Programming.   After one day in class when a substitute teacher of all people, steered me into SuSE 8.0, I ingested his praises toward it, and went down to Com(mie)pUSA and shelled out the $80 for it.

Best $80 I've spent in my life (and I've spent money on a lot of "good" things...if you catch my drift...)

With my exposure to the world of programming, you can't ask for a better tool.  An entire, open source OS, written in C (not like that M$ monkey-language Visual Bull$hit), that I can dick around with, and pick at.  I have been on it for about two solid months, now, and I learn something new everyday. Not to mention that you get GNU for free, and, if you are going to be taken seriously as a programmer anywhere, you had better learn to compile on UNIX based systems.  

There are other factors that have kept me away from M$.  Articles I read, stories I hear, etc.  The more I hear about them, the less I want to do with them.  I never bought any of their products, and I never will. I consider myself a victim of their oligopolistic tactics, and I try my damndest to break free.

So, with that said, I am never going back to M$. Linux keeps improving and improving. Someday, hopefully when I finally finish school, I would like to contribute to the open source community. It would be my pennace for being a M$ slave, and walking down the only road provided. Sooner or later it will be lights out for M$. When huge companies that serve government contracts ,like Grumman Northrop and TRW, opt for Red Hat Linux, you know that it is only a matter of time before the Ace of Spades is shown on a good hand. That old saying, "The bigger they come, the harder they fall" is timeless....
"American English -- the noble language of your superiors"

badkarma

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #6 on: 17 July 2002, 15:23 »
My conversion was actually non voluntarily (spelling?). I got a job as a programmer, and our shop only uses linux, so that left me with little choice (but I have no regrets, been working here for about a year and am a happy linux user   )
If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly.

choasmaster

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #7 on: 17 July 2002, 15:32 »
then your programing shop got it right. windows is not a good programing environment.
id rather be on fire then use windoze

x86, a hack on a hack of a hack
alpha, the compaqed way
ppc, the fruity way
mips, the graphical way
m68k, the NeXT way
sparc, the reliable way


choasmaster

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #8 on: 17 July 2002, 15:37 »
another reason why i like opensource software is the optimization that i can do just by pharking with the makefile
id rather be on fire then use windoze

x86, a hack on a hack of a hack
alpha, the compaqed way
ppc, the fruity way
mips, the graphical way
m68k, the NeXT way
sparc, the reliable way


badkarma

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #9 on: 17 July 2002, 17:17 »
quote:
Originally posted by choasmaster:
then your programing shop got it right. windows is not a good programing environment.


that's a pretty big understatement .... I couldn't imagine ever programming under windows again (even if I had to program for windows I'd just use a cross platform toolkit and the mingw cross compiler ... work under linux, compile for windows on linux)
If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly.

choasmaster

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #10 on: 17 July 2002, 18:04 »
and since borlend is relaesing there compiler for linux/*from what i have heard, it would kick ass, cuase the guys at bioware would have no excuse for no linux based NWM toolset*/ so that would be another option. i tried to program simple c under windows with a warezed version/*the best of cource*/ of visual c++, personaly i think that emacs has the best c++ editing environment in existince. and i think that gcc is a great compiler. as for mingw, you could always make it a pain in the ass and use cygwn  ;)
id rather be on fire then use windoze

x86, a hack on a hack of a hack
alpha, the compaqed way
ppc, the fruity way
mips, the graphical way
m68k, the NeXT way
sparc, the reliable way


creedon

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #11 on: 17 July 2002, 18:22 »
I have a moral objection to monopolies.
I'm SERIOUS about Linux; are you??

pkd_lives

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #12 on: 17 July 2002, 21:02 »
My conversion. It was not really a conversion, so much as a culmination of a life around computers. The first point to note is that I don't like computers. I get utterly bored with programming. The whole computer world pretty much bores me to tears. However it's what you can do with computers that interests me, I would be more interested in getting PI to a few million than playing almost any game on the market. Maybe that says a lot about me, but then I don't like to follow the crowd, I take pride in my intelligence and I like to do things for myself, if I don't now how and my life depends upon it, then I have to learn.

So many years ago I was using Autocad, it ran outside of windows, and it was a lovely program, I used to use word, when it was under dos, I liked it, it was easy to use, and pretty trim actually. Then they upgraded to 3.11, and suddenly windows sucked. I noticed more files appearing that had no relation to anything I could see, there were huge numbers of files under the system directory, and I wanted to know what they were, and what they did. I don't like things working unless I know how they work, at least the theory.

So almost three years ago I brought my first PC, having used them for the last 10+. I had used computers before that, and owned a couple of modern antiques - I still do somewhere back home. I hated windows 98 on my computer, I was fed up with it at work as it was. I had used a vax system, and that was nice, it operated cleanly and did what it was told, which M$Dos did, I had used other unix incarnations, and despite lacking a GUI was very nice, very solid, and whats more the engineers I was working with talked in good measure about it. Also software had become an issue, running old versions of the software was hard work, but the fact that the Excel that ran on 3.11 (version 4.0 I think) has all I need in a spreadsheet, why do I need office 2000 versions.

So then this year I finally connected my PC to the Internet, staight in with dial up, and it would be a mild understatement to say it was annoying. All of a sudden my web browser could be hijacked, I could get cookies from sites that were tracking me, and I had little control over them. My system went from a passably stable working device that needed rebooting once a week to the travesty it has become, unstable, virus suseptable. I have found windows unstable, since about 3.11.

Now it should be made clear that what I would like to do is build my own supercomputer, by linking processors together, and then once built run it forever and never buy another computer product for the rest of my life. It's a goal, and I may achieve it, there are many things I have to do first. That said it follows that I have recently been taking an interest in the computer world.

Another point is that I detest large conglomerates controlling the world, so I refused to use Netscape (AOL). However upgrading IE was also not an option, as this failed to help the stability, and just seemed to give me more errors and requirements to boot.

I wanted to write some software, and I had no programming capability with windows, which would cost a lot of money; for a hobby that is of minor interest that is not an option. Also I had unpgraded to Windows 2K, this is not an improvement, it is less stable and more likely to lock up than 98, takes forever to perform the most basic tasks in Windows Explorer, and does not always perform them, without notifying you of it's failure.

I have discovered windows is unstable as hell on dual processor and I want possably hundreds. So Windows operating system is not an option. Then hunting around Unix sites I come across this thing called linux being mentioned, and then I find a link to this site (I forget how). I found to my great joy that there are other browsers available, and that one action alone has made my computer more stable.

I see from this discussion board that others have the same issues, I dive in and buy, because this is a commitment for me, not some exercise in romantic ideals and political awareness. I find Linux offers what I have been trying to force out of Windows. Complete control, the ability to take apart the system from the ground up and prove every single line of code, or not as the case may be.

Now I am also a political animal of sorts, I belive everyone has the basic right to life, that sex, colour and religion do not seperate people, and that there are things required of everyone to enjoy life, totally selfish behaviour will destroy you in the long run. So I hear of the M$ trial, and I start searching the net, I read reliable news sites, and I realise that M$ have been very naughty, but not naughty trying to get you to buy naughty, but naughty, we wrote a program that looks at everything on your computer and that sends it all back to our HQ, it's a marketing tool, to find out what our cusomers want, oh okay mister regulator we will remove this program as the courts have deemed it an invasion of privacy. I detest companies pulling these types of actions, it is simply not good enough to apologise after the fact.

It was a culmination of things, but essentially it has come down to the fact that M$, have failed me, technically, professionally and ethically, that means they do not have the right to my business anymore, so now I am an evangelist of the conversion, don't say it, do it. Change browser, change mail service, change OS. I even advise and support going to Mac, and I am not a Mac fan. So long winded and missing many of the details this summarises why I have to use a different OS, Linux for now, BSD soon, and then my own eventually, depends how deep I decide to go. Would this convince someone else, I very much doubt it, but it's my choice, and I have made it, I have few regrets, the biggest being I am spending a little too much time on the computer, when I could be hiking more of the White Mountains.
Tough - Adapt or die : Read The Fucking Manual.

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choasmaster

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #13 on: 18 July 2002, 03:22 »
alittle bit better then trying linux becuase you were a 31337 w4r3z k1d13. and had downloaded it to make a bullshit claim that you had found 1.2 gigs of warez
id rather be on fire then use windoze

x86, a hack on a hack of a hack
alpha, the compaqed way
ppc, the fruity way
mips, the graphical way
m68k, the NeXT way
sparc, the reliable way


pkd_lives

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Why did you convert?
« Reply #14 on: 19 July 2002, 04:18 »
Makes no difference how, as long as a person is given the chance the 'naked lunch' moment will usually occur.

The trouble is a few people will never see it, and some people will carry on eating at the trough; because to be different, to be individual and to be free takes a big pair of brass balls, and most people will always let mob rule, instead of walking away from stupidity.

It's this very fact that fuels the fatuous and pointless marketing industry, it's this stupid attitude that foisters crap popular culture on us, and has been doing so for around 200 years.
Tough - Adapt or die : Read The Fucking Manual.

Local Area Network in Australia: the LAN down under.