That warm fuzzy feeling..

Hi All,

It's been a few months since I installed to my hard-drive. Since then I've been learning more about Linux and have to say that I have started to get a warm fuzzy feeling when I turn on my laptop, after the kids are in bed, and after a day of using Win2000 at work.

Since switching I've:
1. Flashed my Ipaq 3950 with Linux (www.handhelds.org). That was a bit of a curve but worth the experience.

2. Last weekend I created a prototype website for a friend of a friend using just Mozilla's Composer and PHP. He liked the prototype sooo much he's hired me (moonlighting) to build/maint a website for his little biz. Now I'm going to be making money with Linux? :shock:

3. This morning I'm downloading a cam of Farenheit 9/11 from suprnova.org. If it wasn't for the fellow who made the 'Klik' client and server(allowing me to install Azureus), I'd be doing it with my Windows, or wrestling with the command line.

I've tried linux a few times over the years and have always gone back to windows. I think my expectations for myself and linux were to high. This time I said let's try it for 12 months and give it a chance. After all I've been using windows for over 10 years and that's probably why it seems easier than linux. I've just need give it time and I'll catch on, just as I did with windows.

Still feeling warm and fuzzy,
Obs.

Obsoleto,

Cool, using Linux, and making money at it, thats seriously cool :D

For me, just one look at Knoppix from the Live CD, made my mind up. I was willing to throw away almost 20 years of M$ domination for this Live CD OS. All of my Visual Basic development software, and even decided in less than two weeks, that in "mid-project", I was going to migrate. BTW, not the best time to do this, but I was determined.

The first couple of months were rocky, to say the least. (I think I posted the "majority" of my post-count during those two months.) The learning curve was steap, but then again, so was the depth of my knowledge of Windows. I just knew this was going to be my next OS, and stuck through it. When things kept going to hell, and something would break, I kept looking at my lonely Win98 Install CD, and jumping back to trying to fix Knoppix/Debian.

I can easily say, I am hooked, line and sinker, with Knoppix, or at worst case, one of the Linux variants. Currently, I am looking to my new version install, of Knoppix v3.4, from v3.3, and after seeing the Live CD running of v3.4, and even more hooked on Knoppix. I still have a "backup" system running Win98, for the kids and "Significant Other", for them to play on, but have found it increasingly harder to "remember" things on the system. I don't think I could just "walk" back into my Windows Support job, as before, now. I can't seem to recall some of the "knowledge" I used to know in Windows, and it appears to me that it may have just been a long nightmare. I have trouble "thinking" in Windows' OS now, and think in Linux more. If I am trying to fix, one of many, problems in my Win98 installed system, I usually think in terms of Linux, and have to "translate" that into "how do you do that in Windows?" kind of thinking.

I pretty much have severed all ties with M$ and Windows, I no longer belong to any M$ supported newsgroups, or forums, and no longer post to these locations. I have made my life here, and am more than happy with the decision. I promote what I believe in, and usually give it all I have. Hence, why I am seen around these parts more and more. Linux has become my World, my ideal, and I support it as much as I possibly can, because I believe in it.

Sometimes I think back to my days in Windows, I think about all the money I "dumped" into it, in trying to get it running, or keep it running, the millions of download hours spent in "security updates" and virus signature downloads, and think, I am better now. The money I paid for, and kept paying for, to have Office Suite, and keep it current, or the costs incurred from having a development package, and keeping it current. Now, I have it all, and it didn't really cost anything, this time. If I want something, it is usually just an "apt-get" away. I have a stable and secure system, that is now measured in weeks of uptime, instead of minutes and hours. The Win98 system is constantly needing rebooting, and I just sit, and keep running. Its nice. Hell, its great, actually.

It takes the right mind-set to become a Linux Convert, it takes being beaten down by a corporation to the point of rebelous attituides, or your money continually being taken more and more, until you have no more, and they want more still, or, it just takes a person who can see what the benefits of this OS are, even with its cryptic commands, steap learning curves, but a closely related GUI, to make the jump. For me, the jump was hard, but well worth the outcome. I wouldn't have changed a thing, in fact, I keep beating myself over the head for not doing it sooner. I can't imagine ever going back to M$ Supremicy, or M$ Dictatorship. Now, its competition, not lack of choice. If I choose a M$ keyboard or mouse, its because I choose to have them, not because I have to have them because they work with Windows, it will be because I like them, or want to use them. All hail the Linux Revolution !!!!! ( or would this be more likely, a Linux Evolution ? )

Just the ramblings of an insane "Linux" promoter, user, and follower, you may all return to what you were doing before the "rambling" began.... [giggle]
Ms. Cuddles