hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1302.txt

Episode: 1302
Title: HPR1302: How I Got to Linux
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1302/hpr1302.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 23:11:53

---

.
I've heard the calls for episodes from HPR, so I'm going to give this a try.
This is my first attempt and I'm going to talk about how I got into Linux.
I'm using the handle executor and first I'll tell you a little bit about my computer background.
I started in computers on an IBM mainframe back in 1968.
I had the chance to use a 36075 which in the day was a really remarkable machine.
I was very lucky because in our high school we had a teacher who had an in with a professor
at the local university where the computer was.
We got to go to the computer center, make up our own decks, punching in those cards,
then we would haul them into the reader room, the reader had a room and the cards would
be read, output we would then receive.
It was on fan paper.
That's where I learned code.
Now I then went out of high school into university at that university and studied there for
about a year in that program.
However, the wise people of that university told us all that there would be no jobs.
The market they said was completely saturated to nobody would buy any more mainframes.
There would be no jobs.
I thought well they're the experts so I changed my major and ended up working in a totally
different field for many years.
I still liked computer stuff so as much as I could I would read about them and follow
their development.
It was many years later around 1989 when I bought my first PC which was an IBM clone.
It struck me as almost the machine that we were trying to design back in the day in 1968.
We would talk about what we'd like but could we have it home.
Although our real aim was the laptop.
The laptop was some years in the future at that point though.
I started using DOS and I stuck with it quite some time until computers started to come
in at the office.
This was by the mid-90s.
I was then using a laptop to Shiba.
It was running on Windows.
I never got into Macs.
I just didn't at first.
The PC's everyone was using it.
Work were all Windows and I transitioned from DOS into Windows.
I was not happy.
For many years though I continued struggling with Windows and using it at work and at home.
In 2007 I finally met someone who was a red hat certified instructor I think.
He kept trying to get me to use Linux.
At first I wasn't interested but when he explained about all the language options in it was
free and he gave me a CD to try it out.
Welcome on.
It was free.
I tried it.
The version that I got from him was Ubuntu and I think it was feisty fun.
In any event I started using that and discovered very quickly that it would be helpful to understand
the coding for the command line.
I went into Unix and Linux sites and taught myself a certain amount.
I then bought my own computers, the laptops I had been using some work about my own.
It had a legal windows system on it and I you booted it into Ubuntu.
By this time we're up to G and H. I don't remember what those were but they got a lot
better and a lot easier to use.
One morning I came out and saw that my system was open and running.
I was quite surprised because I shut everything down.
Coming from the days when RAM was something like 5 or 6 megabytes I religiously shut windows
and closed things down to maximize the use of the computer.
It took me a little while but I figured out that what had happened is that although I
had my windows system locked down every way I could think of and every way my friends
could think of, he had still opened up.
So what had happened was there was some attempt to boot into my windows system and I'm
assuming make alterations.
Now I'm thinking this was windows itself that was trying to do it and that I had effectively
been monitored in some fashion and now there was some effort made to get at my system.
I was extremely upset and in a rage I wiped the entire machine clean because the suspected
maybe something was planted and I booted up with Ubuntu only.
I stayed with Ubuntu only then for some years the various versions came and went.
I would install and use them and I actually have liked the Ubuntu system.
Not until Unity.
When Unity came in and I was forced to upgrade my system I was very upset.
Instead of being able to use the system that I was familiar with and which I had customized
to suit myself I was being forced to use this new layer.
I tend to help out friends who think I know a lot about computers which gives you an
idea of how little they know and I would have to work with Unity or such on their systems.
So gradually I was forced into that, didn't care for it, then Ubuntu went into partnership
with Amazon and before that system came out I decided I'd had enough.
What I do now is work in Linux Mint.
I know huge change right, I mean it's practically identical but it doesn't have the annoying
features.
I have customized Mint, I'm very pleased with the way it's running and I am using Audacity
now on Mint.
It seems to be working really well.
We'll see.
I did stay with pure Ubuntu machines for a very long time even though I got back into
gaming.
The problem back in the day was that Steam wouldn't run on the Ubuntu system unless you
really tweak the daylight set of one.
I got pretty good at it and I could get most of my Steam games to run even the full screen
large demanding ones.
I had another Toshiba with a heavy duty processor, RAM and so forth and it seemed to be able
to handle the processor.
I liked it well enough, except I have to admit it was pretty buggy.
It would not always run properly, sometimes games were messed up and so on.
So when I bought my current laptop I decided I would get a legal window system again and
then switch to do a boot.
When I first did that I was still in Ubuntu.
I discovered Mint and decided I would triple boot, I know, on suicidal.
I ran a triple boot machine for quite a while, six months, something like that.
It worked pretty well actually, but as the months passed I realized there was almost never
opening Ubuntu and I was basically offering out Mint.
Because I had the Windows system on the machine I could play Steam out of Windows.
This I found very satisfactory and I continued to use the system with the dual boot, I dropped
the triple and Windows regains Mint for everything else.
Another thing I did was swap out one of the 500 GB drives, took the spin disk out and
put in an SSD.
I run Windows on that side and I must say the gaming is wonderful.
However, for everything else that I do I run out of Linux Mint and I am happy with
that system.
I use it for preparing all my documents, PowerPoints, audio, everything for work.
I take it into work, everything runs well.
The bottom line is that for reality and day-to-day functioning I felt now function completely
in Linux.
For gaming I have to admit it's awfully nice to run the games on an SSD drive.
So that's about it for me and working with Linux.
I hope that this show isn't too bad and that others will be encouraged to go ahead and
give it a try.
This really isn't a tough system to use and I just saw the HPR program about recording
using a Dacity.
I found it very helpful and as you can hear I actually managed to record something.
If more people don't record additional programs for HPR then I may try a second program and
I think once in my bag would be a fun one.
Encourage people to try this, it's really not that hard, thanks for listening.
You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at Hacker Public Radio.
We are a community podcast network that releases shows every weekday Monday through Friday.
Today's show, like all our shows, was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself.
If you ever consider recording a podcast then visit our website to find out how easy
it really is.
Hacker Public Radio was founded by the digital dog pound and the infonomicom computer
cloud.
HPR is funded by the binary revolution at binref.com.
All binref projects are proudly sponsored by linear pages.
For shared hosting to custom private clouds go to lunarpages.com for all your hosting
needs.
Unless otherwise stasis, today's show is released under a creative commons, attribution, share