Archive for December 5th, 2008

I created this website to attempt to record and share my opinions about GNU/Linux and serve as a help source for beginners

When i first installed my first linux distro I had to go through a large amount of trial and error, countless reinstalls, and a lot of frustation. This experience has been shared by most new users to Linux, regardless of distro or hardware. Because of this, many people easily become discouraged and return to Windows. I managed to stick fight through this and after doing some research was able to get everything running correctly, thanks to several helpful posts I found in forums from people who had similar experiences to mine. These forums were a lifesaver for me, in my opinion this is a much better way of getting support than the Windows way, where many times getting help means having to wait for a technician to become available, and then having to argue with them several hours or having to write a support ticket; or, sending an error report and then when no help comes starting to suspect that maybe the “Send Error Report” and “Don’t Send” buttons link to your trash bin.

In my opinion, Linux is much better than Windows. Windows doesn’t let me have the control i want over my computer and Linux does. I also share some anti-microsoft sentiments, although i do not hate Microsoft. I just find it ridiculous that the inner workings of your operating system would be kept secret (Only a few people in the world truly know how windows works, as it is propietary software), and that even though i spent alot of money to buy it, i only bought a license to use it, not own it, so this restricts my options with Windows a lot. I recognize that Windows is a great OS however. There is nothing wrong with running Windows instead of Linux or Mac, everyone should have their own opinions, and it is true that Linux has some ways to go before it is as beginner friendly as Windows.

I created this website to chronicle everything i have done with Linux, and in this way maybe someone out there can follow my steps as a guideline to where to start. This is NOT meant to be a definitive guide to linux however, there is no such a thing, Linux changes daily and although many distros’s are similar, they are not the same so some things that worked for me may not work for you (due to missing dependancies, processesor architectures, etc..), more than likely you may have to alter some parts. But this goes for every linux guide or blog out there.