hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1913.txt

Episode: 1913
Title: HPR1913: The Linux Experiment
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1913/hpr1913.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 11:04:35

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This is HPR episode 1913 entitled The Linux Experiment.
It is posted by first time post The Linux Experiment and in about 3 minutes long.
The summary is help us take the Linux Experiment to the next level.
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You're listening to Hacker Public Radio.
My name is Tyler and today I wanted to talk to you about a little project of ours called
The Linux Experiment.
Back in 2009, while studying at university, some friends and I decided to undertake the
challenge of running Linux as our primary operating system for a period of four months
or roughly one school term.
Reading the original goal of the experiment from the website now, quote,
His free software ready for the mainstream has Linux progressed far enough in its evolution
to be a practical desktop environment for those who don't have degrees in computer
science.
Can a user really just switch off Windows or Mac and be as productive on a completely
open source operating system?
Over the course of these four months, the users will demonstrate, tinker with and use
Linux as a primary home operating system, utilizing the power of open source operating systems
and applications to see just how productive they can be.
This will be made on this very site along the way, providing an in-depth look into how
each user is adapting to the new environment.
The trials, tribulations, triumphs, and other nouns beginning with t will all be laid out
here, bare for everyone to see.
By the end of the four month cycle, each user has imposed their own goals as to where they
want to be with Linux.
Running a server environment, comfortable to tinker with bash commands, time will tell.
End quote.
What was interesting about this challenge was that many of us had never even tried Linux
before, while others had only ever tried it out here and there, so it would truly be
indicative of an average user experience.
To help ensure we were all learning, we advised a set of rules to govern our little experiment.
They read, quote, you must have absolutely no prior experience with the distribution
you choose.
You must use the distribution on your primary computer and it must be your primary day-to-day
computing environment.
The experiment runs from September 1st, 2009 until December 31st, 2009.
You must document your experience on at least a weekly basis.
After committing to a distribution, you may not later change to a different one.
And so that kicked off our adventure.
Of course, as the experiment progressed and we got a bit more comfortable with our distributions,
we threw in a couple of curveballs here and there.
For instance, at one point, we forced everyone to change the desktop environments for a period
of time.
So if you were running KDE, you'd have to switch to something else, like, say, XFCE.
To our amazement, the Linux experiment was a great success.
We featured on a number of Linux related websites, as well as excellent MintCast and Larry
Bushy's going Linux podcasts.
Feedback poured in from people encouraging us, interested in seeing our day-to-day progress,
and, as anyone familiar with Linux community already knows, their opinions on how to do things
differently.
Since the conclusion of that first four-month experiment, we've conducted two additional
experiments with different rules and kept up a healthy addition of new posts to the
website, as many of us continue to use Linux to this day.
In fact, we have such a good mix of content now that I often find myself googling for a
solution to an issue only to find that Google returns a link to our own website with
a fixer work around that we've already written.
At present, the Linux experiment remains a good resource and a fun place to contribute
new content to, and it is that latter bit where we want to take the website next.
Just like the excellent community that spawned its namesake, we want to make the Linux
experiment more of a collaborative community effort.
And so here comes our pitch to the HPR listeners, a group already familiar with contributed
content.
If you are a Linux user or are thinking about trying your own Linux experiment, we want
to hear from you.
If you've ever come across something broken or annoying, I figured out a solution that
you think others would benefit from, please let us know what it is.
If you can write a decent sentence or two, then we want to showcase your awesome content.
So if any of this sounds like something you'd be interested in, then please head over
to thelinuxexperiment.com and click the right for the Linux experiment link at the top
to get in touch with us, or simply send an email to editor at thelinuxexperiment.com.
This has been HackerPublicRadio, I'm Tyler, and we ate the Linux experiment hope to hear
from you soon.
Thank you.
You've been listening to HackerPublicRadio at HackerPublicRadio.org.
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Today's show, like all our shows, was contributed by an HPR listener like yourself.
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