Me and my humble beginning of Linux

I cannot believe that I am posting this from an elegant  Nokia (pioneer of cellphones or it was called a brick those days) cellphone and not from a dumb and dark terminal of a PC with a standard keyboard.

1. Linus Torvard's Linux is three decades old.

2. I entered it 20 years ago, 10 years after him.

3. Thanks to the loads of books at that time including Rebate 8.

4. My first book "Using Linux,  5th Edition" by four authors, namely Jack Tackett, Steve Burnett, Rob Napier and Jeff Tranter started  the spin.

Now I am good at spinning a Goggly like Mulathiran.

Cricket was my only obsession then and now total disinterest, thanks to Indian IPL, terminated by Coronavirus.

5. No waning of my interest in Linux.

Since I am winding up my blog here  by mid July, it is fitting tribute to Google for allowing me to post Linux 100 here.

6. This piece, is for those guys/girls who have learnt only a few Linux commands and did not read a book at all, but posting as WEB GURUs (really bogus guys/girls) to read how Linux community including Ubuntu Community developed the Linux enthusiasm globally.

Read my books on Linux which even describe partitioning using Partition Magic under Windows hood to begin with.

7. Thanks to Emmabantus for extending its outreach to even Africa.

8. Thanks to MultSystem from France for helping me to carry all my favourite Linux in a USB stick or SATA disk.

Of course I am still struggling with my French accent but persevering.

9. Now to nitty gritty of Linux.

10. It is truly multiuser, multitasking with full implementation of  ITP/TC protocols, which windows could not implement of handle, then.

11. I started with dumb terminal using and editing fsdisk (Caldera) and cfsdisk (Debian) and particularly Partition Droid of Redhat.

I hate dumb terminals and thanks to X-Windows for Graphic interface that I love.

12. The book had 3 CDs and it all started with this book.

13. Of course, I used Knoppix and Pendrive Linux (humble beginning on a100 MB USB with Puppy Linux booting) extensively from Knoppix 3.9 to 7 to 8.2 on USB sticks.

I still could not download Knoppix 9 English version due to bungling of MobiTel and Dialog.

14. As a dog lover, Puppy Linux  is my ultimate favourite including FATPup in 64 bit version.

15. There were no CDs then Internet and Floppy Disks were the installation methods.

16. Linux is text based and not resource hungry and my son's first computer had only 4MB RAM and could not find another 2MB RAM extension then.

I used Debian 6 with six or seven CDs to boot it duel with Windows 95 which I hate to this day.

The book recommended 16 MB but ideally 32 MB RAM.

I still have that PC in my bedroom as a souvenir.

Windows destroyed  three or four hard disks of my office computer, with the then Dean who was a friend of mine over my shoulder.

To begin with over 40 floppies to install, taking full 8 hours.

17. Partitioning the disk either using partition magic or fdisk or partition droid was the first step.

18. It needed 64 MB  Swap and 128 MB for root files.
Rest of the MBs of a 1 GB space of my hard disk was for user partitions including home partition.

Now my SD card booted with Peppermint Linux has 32 GB (bought in Singapore).

19. It was LILO boot menu and but it became easy with with the GRUB boot loader.

20. I am into BSD using ZFS partitioning on tank structure routine on my Window's Laptop devoid of Windows but booting well to BSD only alone or Linux multiples if I desire.

21. I have Endless OS on a SATA disk but it won't duel boot with Linux.

22. I think that winds up 20 years of perseverance but not one night on 10 or less Linux commands to fiddle with in the web.
Linux has over 60,000 utilities in it's repositories but mastering a few will get your job at hand done especially with a server clouds now in operation.

I am fully retired now but with an eagle eye on what is going on.

23. What is annoying with Windows is that the operating system once installed is bare of any useful software and one has to install piece by piece often paying money.

Linux distributions have multitude of applications already installed with the first boot. I rarely need anymore except Abiword that is deleted due to popular Libre Office.

24. What I like most is to run my PC over decade without losing a single file (in spite of this ability I make copies and copies of my books on preparation ) in my PC.
It is a different story with the laptop, I test and erase numerous distributions but boot with USB, often with Knoppix.

I do not format my home partition and it's files remain with same home name over and over again and only the password is rarely changed a bit as a precaution.

This strategy was useful when I was busy working with lot of responsibilities  including  conducting examination under a strict protocol.

25. Other odd thing that standout with virtual keyboard is that they have already forgotten how to use F1 to F12 function key layout.

It used to be F1 to F8 then.



26. If you need the latest in Linux subscribe to Linux Magazine and Linux Voice that comes from Germany not USA.