10 ms·

I’ll never forget the day my laptop Wi-Fi worked on Linux. I was a teenager and it was my first machine and I’d been dying to Ubuntu to break free from the gras

by _fw 2y ago

I’ll never forget the day my laptop Wi-Fi worked on Linux. I was a teenager and it was my first machine and I’d been dying to Ubuntu to break free from the grasp of Windows 7. Wi-Fi was a dealbreaker because it was a laptop and it was my only machine. I remember one day booting in the latest live CD that Canonical had sent (way back when you could get them delivered by post), switch on my laptop and seeing those SSIDs appear. It honestly felt like magic, and I’ll never forget it. Something as mundane as working WiFi drivers on a basic spec Vaio quite literally changed my life, by allowing me to run Linux natively with a web connection. That opened many doors to me later in life. Forever grateful for that work.

s0l1dsnak3123 2y ago
I came here to pretty much write the same comment. I also had my first Linux experiences via Ubuntu's CDs via post scheme. I grew up on a farm with poor network connectivity, so for a few releases in a row, I would apply to have them sent. I started using Linux at about 14 years old. By the time I was 17, I'd been offered an undergrad level job at an award winning software development agency. I don't think that would've happened if I hadn't become very interested in Linux at such a formative moment in my life. Before I managed to get WiFi working (I had lots of trial and error with ndiswrapper), my very first triumph was getting a USB-powered "winmodem" to work with Damn Small Linux (which I got for free in a magazine). One of the websites I used seems to still be online: http://www.linmodems.org http://www.linmodems.org While I am so thankful that compatibility and ease of use has dramatically improved since those heady days, I honestly think I wouldn't have gotten the career I have without that struggle and the curiosity FOSS provided that drove me to push through and learn something.
- _fw 2y ago
  Great story. And ndiswrapper… I haven’t read that word in SO long!
tapoxi 2y ago
I started somewhere around Red Hat Linux 7.2 and I remember in high school I had to have some shell scripts lying around to load the driver, bring up the interface, force DHCP renewal. I couldn't really play any games (outside of Battle for Wesnoth) and Flash's iffy Linux support always caused problems browsing the web. People didn't even care about supporting Mozilla browsers until Firefox shipped. I started using Linux full time again a year ago (Bazzite) after ~15 years away and I'm astonished how much stuff just works now. I can just use Chrome and every website works. My entire Steam library works. I installed this as an experiment but the experience is so damn good these days I haven't had the need or desire to break glass and install Windows.
kennysoona 2y ago
Windows 7 was objectively the best Windows, and Ubuntu is considered by many to be one of the worst distros. Why were you so desperate to flee Windows 7?
- frantathefranta 2y ago
  In my case (when I was 13-14 and messing with stuff) Ubuntu might as well have been the only distro I've ever heard of and my experience with Windows 7 was that it did not run as smooth and fast as Linux on my poverty spec laptop.
  - kennysoona 2y ago
    I can see that. Appreciate the answer, thank you.
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  > objectively I don’t think you understand what objectively means. When it comes to things like this, it almost always boils down to personal preference. Which is subjective not objective.
  - kennysoona 2y ago
    I think a case can be made for Windows 7 being objectively the best windows in terms of stable features, user surveys, other objective indications of user satisfaction. We could look at things like serious incidents, compatibility issues, various widespread problems, etc. Your comment implies Windows versions could not be ranked objectively, which suggests an objective criteria could not be established. I disagree.
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      How do you choose which categories matter most? That’s subjective. User satisfaction and user serveys are subjective. Also the stability of features often depends on where along the life of Windows you measure. For example XP post-SP3 is a very different OS to XP pre-SP1. So how do you decide where to measure? That’s also subjective. Not to mention the subjective question about what “stable” means and how you compare stability There’s been enough arguments on HN regarding that last point alone. For example Windows 2000 has crashed fewer times for me than Windows 7. Does this mean that Windows 2000 is now “objectively” the better OS? You might argue that the sample size is too small, but who decides the sample size? Are you including or excluding specific datapoints? Of course you are, which means “better” is then defined by the sampled data (for example the power-user vs novice ratio for windows 2000 will be different to Me and 7). And thus it’s subjective again because who decides which datapoints are important and why? Are we talking about “better” for web browsing? Home server tasks? Software development? Video editing? Etc. who decides that and why? What about “better” for memory or CPU footprint? That matters more to other people. We might think that because we are making measurements that this isn’t subjective but those measurements are still a matter of personal judgement. Edit: as an aside, this is precisely why I never use absolutes in a professional capacity. It’s easy to “say X is better than Y!” but it demonstrates far more professional experience to say “it depends. Tell me what your requirements are.”
znpy 2y ago
> I remember one day booting in the latest live CD that Canonical had sent (way back when you could get them delivered by post), switch on my laptop and seeing those SSIDs appear. Ah, those are fond memories. I had a similar experience with my first laptop when i was 13 or 14... Suddenly the new Ubuntu release (6.06? 6.10?) shipped with better drivers (nv?) and my display was correctly recognized as 1280x800 where as previously it was driven at 1024x764. Felt like magic :) Oh, to be young again...
ckrailo 2y ago
I spent a whole weekend on my Vaio trying Linux distros for the first time, same dealbreaker as you, until I discovered that same magic feeling on first Ubuntu boot as well. Super cool to hear such a similar journey.
CoolCold 2y ago
unrelated here, but I'm yet to get used to meet "I was a teenager" and "Windows 7" in a single sentence.

by _fw 2y ago

s0l1dsnak3123 2y ago

I came here to pretty much write the same comment. I also had my first Linux experiences via Ubuntu's CDs via post scheme. I grew up on a farm with poor network connectivity, so for a few releases in a row, I would apply to have them sent. I started using Linux at about 14 years old. By the time I was 17, I'd been offered an undergrad level job at an award winning software development agency. I don't think that would've happened if I hadn't become very interested in Linux at such a formative moment in my life. Before I managed to get WiFi working (I had lots of trial and error with ndiswrapper), my very first triumph was getting a USB-powered "winmodem" to work with Damn Small Linux (which I got for free in a magazine). One of the websites I used seems to still be online: http://www.linmodems.org http://www.linmodems.org While I am so thankful that compatibility and ease of use has dramatically improved since those heady days, I honestly think I wouldn't have gotten the career I have without that struggle and the curiosity FOSS provided that drove me to push through and learn something.

_fw 2y ago
Great story. And ndiswrapper… I haven’t read that word in SO long!

tapoxi 2y ago

I started somewhere around Red Hat Linux 7.2 and I remember in high school I had to have some shell scripts lying around to load the driver, bring up the interface, force DHCP renewal. I couldn't really play any games (outside of Battle for Wesnoth) and Flash's iffy Linux support always caused problems browsing the web. People didn't even care about supporting Mozilla browsers until Firefox shipped. I started using Linux full time again a year ago (Bazzite) after ~15 years away and I'm astonished how much stuff just works now. I can just use Chrome and every website works. My entire Steam library works. I installed this as an experiment but the experience is so damn good these days I haven't had the need or desire to break glass and install Windows.

kennysoona 2y ago

Windows 7 was objectively the best Windows, and Ubuntu is considered by many to be one of the worst distros. Why were you so desperate to flee Windows 7?

frantathefranta 2y ago
In my case (when I was 13-14 and messing with stuff) Ubuntu might as well have been the only distro I've ever heard of and my experience with Windows 7 was that it did not run as smooth and fast as Linux on my poverty spec laptop.
- kennysoona 2y ago
  I can see that. Appreciate the answer, thank you.
hnlmorg 2y ago
> objectively I don’t think you understand what objectively means. When it comes to things like this, it almost always boils down to personal preference. Which is subjective not objective.
- kennysoona 2y ago
  I think a case can be made for Windows 7 being objectively the best windows in terms of stable features, user surveys, other objective indications of user satisfaction. We could look at things like serious incidents, compatibility issues, various widespread problems, etc. Your comment implies Windows versions could not be ranked objectively, which suggests an objective criteria could not be established. I disagree.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    How do you choose which categories matter most? That’s subjective. User satisfaction and user serveys are subjective. Also the stability of features often depends on where along the life of Windows you measure. For example XP post-SP3 is a very different OS to XP pre-SP1. So how do you decide where to measure? That’s also subjective. Not to mention the subjective question about what “stable” means and how you compare stability There’s been enough arguments on HN regarding that last point alone. For example Windows 2000 has crashed fewer times for me than Windows 7. Does this mean that Windows 2000 is now “objectively” the better OS? You might argue that the sample size is too small, but who decides the sample size? Are you including or excluding specific datapoints? Of course you are, which means “better” is then defined by the sampled data (for example the power-user vs novice ratio for windows 2000 will be different to Me and 7). And thus it’s subjective again because who decides which datapoints are important and why? Are we talking about “better” for web browsing? Home server tasks? Software development? Video editing? Etc. who decides that and why? What about “better” for memory or CPU footprint? That matters more to other people. We might think that because we are making measurements that this isn’t subjective but those measurements are still a matter of personal judgement. Edit: as an aside, this is precisely why I never use absolutes in a professional capacity. It’s easy to “say X is better than Y!” but it demonstrates far more professional experience to say “it depends. Tell me what your requirements are.”

znpy 2y ago

> I remember one day booting in the latest live CD that Canonical had sent (way back when you could get them delivered by post), switch on my laptop and seeing those SSIDs appear. Ah, those are fond memories. I had a similar experience with my first laptop when i was 13 or 14... Suddenly the new Ubuntu release (6.06? 6.10?) shipped with better drivers (nv?) and my display was correctly recognized as 1280x800 where as previously it was driven at 1024x764. Felt like magic :) Oh, to be young again...

ckrailo 2y ago

I spent a whole weekend on my Vaio trying Linux distros for the first time, same dealbreaker as you, until I discovered that same magic feeling on first Ubuntu boot as well. Super cool to hear such a similar journey.

CoolCold 2y ago

unrelated here, but I'm yet to get used to meet "I was a teenager" and "Windows 7" in a single sentence.