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Anandtech is how I learned what Ubuntu is. I must have been about 10 years old, and the concept of any OS besides Windows or MacOS was completely foreign to me.
by ryukoposting 2y ago
Anandtech is how I learned what Ubuntu is. I must have been about 10 years old, and the concept of any OS besides Windows or MacOS was completely foreign to me. Within a few weeks, I had dug an old laptop out of my dad's bin of "stuff work wasn't using anymore" and I managed to put Ubuntu on it. I think it was an HP. I don't remember the exact specs but I do remember that the GPU was failing, there were weird video glitches all the time, and the battery held a charge for about 15 minutes.
That was my first experience with Linux. That broken-ass computer was what I used when I learned Arduino. I'm now a firmware engineer, writing this comment on my work laptop, which is running Ubuntu.
- whatever1 2y agoStill the GPU barely works
- ForOldHack 2y agoThat is not MY Fault.
- asadm 2y agoPR welcome
- cseleborg 2y agoThere's an excellent podcast called Acquired with a 3-part episode covering the birth and evolution of NVIDIA, highly recommended.
- vergessenmir 2y agoMakes me feel old. I was at uni when Ubuntu came out. But my story was similar to yours in the mid 90s and I got hold of a walnut creek cd with Slackware from some PC mag, a couple floppy disks and discarded hardware and I was off to the races There was something about discovering tech through dedicated tech sites back then that felt exciting. Now, any time I find something new it always has a polished marketed feel to it and has none of the secretive clandestine undiscovered power that old tech had. I guess I am getting old
- cseleborg 2y agoSlackware!!! Dang, I had forgotten that name. That was the first distro I installed as well. Xeyes and stuff. Oh, dear...
- 0898 2y agoThe guy got sick with a mystery illness didn't he? This was about 20 years ago. He blogged about the saga of having doctors try to figure out what was wrong with him, and I think was self-administering various treatments. Must look up how he's doing.
- com 2y agoHe seems to have made a significantly good recovery.
- nurettin 2y agoAfter installing it from 24 floppy disks, and getting it wrong the first few times I can't forget Slackware. I was scarred for life.
- nharada 2y agoYeah dang my first linux install was at about the same age but it was Red Hat (not RHEL or Fedora). I remember most of my time was spent trying to get my network drivers working properly.
- voidmain0001 2y agoI got hooked with Yggdrasil on CD-RROM. The 20+ 3.5” floppies was too bulky for me. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil_Linux/GNU/X https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil_Linux/GNU/X
- ryukoposting 2y ago> Now, any time I find something new it always has a polished marketed feel to it and has none of the secretive clandestine undiscovered power that old tech had. If you're getting old, then I must be too, because I know your pain. I don't remember the last time I saw new tech(1) that felt like a real novelty to me. Now that I've been fully in "career mode" for a few years, I have the budget to engage in my hobbies with greater depth than ever before, and that's amazing. Yet, I've found myself going deeper and deeper into the "retro." Old computers, old cameras, old music formats, etc. It's easier to find novelty there. (1): this is limited to tech. There's great new music that isn't too hard to come by if you can manage to train Spotify's algorithm to give it to you.