How I fell in Love with Linux – A tale of genuine curiosity and discovery
Linux
is an Operating System for your computer. If you are not a deadbeat
in technology, you must have heard about it somehow.
Let's
face it, the first thing that comes to peoples mind when they think
Linux is its terminal (to which many are still scared of). Most
colleges usually have at least one semester to teach the students
basic shell commands in Linux or Unix; mine did. I was a bit allergic
to Linux at first, but soon realized what I've been missing so far.
Flashback
: Sometime in 2007 – 2008.
It
all started one day when with CHIP Magazine which I got from my
university and found a DVD in it containing various software. What
was printed in the upper half of the DVD caught my attention.
In
a green coloured layout was written, “Linux Mint”. I did not know
at that time that operating systems are distributed for free in DVDs.
Since
then I had the curiosity to try Linux Mint once, but brushed aside
the thought since I did not know anything about how to get it to run
in my desktop computer.
Curiosità.
In
the book titled, “How to Think
Like Leonardo da Vinci”, Michael
J. Gelb (Author),
writes about Curiosità being the first step in awakening your inner
genius.
There
is also a WikiHow article
(http://www.wikihow.com/Think-Like-Leonardo-Da-Vinci),
which describes the same.
So
I get on to the INTERNET and learn all about Live CDs, BIOS setup,
First Boot device etc.
Baby
Steps.
I
set my first boot device to CD-ROM and inserted the Bootable DVD
which started Linux Mint right before my eyes.
From
freedom came elegance. (That's what it said at startup)
As
Linux Mint started, I was startled at the welcome sounds that came in
from my speakers. I
clearly did not expect this. I
thought it required driver installations like Windows did.
The
Ethernet cable worked out of the box and I was connected to the
INTERNET.
It
was Linux Mint Cassandra.
Mint
names their operating systems alphabetically like Google names
Android (Alpha, Beta, Cupcake, Donut, Froyo, Ginger bread, Honey
Comb, Ice cream Sandwich,Jellybean, Kitkat and so on...)
I
browsed around the applications and couldn't believe that they packed
all kinds of software in it. Movie players, browsers, office
applications; the operating system was ready to use after five
minutes of me seeing it for the first time.
I
had the insatiable urge to click the install button in the desktop
and own this Operating system. I clicked anyway and it took me
through some formatting options which I had no clue about.
I
cancelled the operation and shutdown after some browsing.
Again,
Baby steps.
I
had this Idea of installing Linux Mint at the back of my mind all the
time from that incident. I didn't have the guts to go ahead with it.
I was afraid of the uncertainties involved in the process.
I
soon got a laptop and on it was running Windows 7. Due to some virus
problems, I was forced to reformat my laptop, and thus opened the
window of opportunity to try Linux.
I
downloaded the latest version at the time and installed it.
That's
me writing this article in Libre office, a free opensource Office
Suite. Chromium browser (Opensource version of Google Chrome) on the
left, Dolphin (file manager) on the right. The desktop environment is
KDE(http://www.kde.org/).
It
was difficult at start but as I learnt to mingle with Linux, it was
everything i dreamt of. It was fast. Professional. Had software for
almost everything I needed.
I
had to struggle initially but eventually grew out of the uncertainty
and never went back.
And
finally I ended where I started.
The
Terminal.
PS:
If you get the hang of it, the terminal is the best way to do things
in a blink of an eye instead of using GUI front ends.
References:
http://www.linuxmint.com/
(their current version is Mint 15 Olivia at the time of writing)
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