Around late 2002, I started talking to one of my friends about Linux. I don't remember if I installed Mandrake first (I think he was using that, and gave me som

Around late 2002, I started talking to one of my friends about Linux. I don't remember if I installed Mandrake first (I think he was using that, and gave me some discs) or Red Hat (I've still got the Red Hat Linux for Dummies book that I got the CDs from), but I set up a dual-boot partition on my computer. I was absolutely fascinated by the idea of running a PC without Microsoft software. In 2003 after I started college, a friend got me switched over to Slackware, and I used that for a couple years. Great environment for learning...terrible environment to use as a bleeding-edge style Linux system. But I learned a lot about how the OS was put together by trying to use it that way.