The Linux thread

Originally Posted by CelticWhisper

I'd like to try a Stage 1 Gentoo build or an LFS install again at some point. Just not right now, too many other projects going on.

With great fear of flaming from someone more knowledgeable, I don't see the use of a stage 1 install. It's always been easier to me to do a stage 3 install and then recompile/update everything once I've created a "working system."

Now, on to my story:
My first Linux experience was with RedHat 8.0. At the time, I thought it was positively awesome, mostly because it wasn't Windows; I installed and ran this on a computer at school for awhile, albeit I didn't have time at school to "practically" use the operating system. After that, I soon moved to RedHat 9.0, because a teacher of mine let me use the 9.0 CDs that she had somehow acquired. I installed it and had some fun playing around, but, as with 8.0 before it, I never got too... involved in using the operating system.

Most of my early experience with Linux was in that class. I eventually had enough time to set up a small web server on the thing, but--as might be implied--it was never truthfully used for anything outside my own amusement.

After that class ended, I wanted to experiment more with Linux, but I couldn't do much since installing anything different on our home computer was out of the question. Later, however, a solution fell into my lap. The next semester, my "network essentials" course was given the ability to give away the computers we used for the course; there was something of a surplus. I won one of the better machines in a raffle of sorts, and I knew exactly what I was going to do with the thing: I was going to install Linux of some sort on it.

I had heard about Gentoo from Arainach's signature here on GFF, but I had never attempted to install it. This time, however, with much help from the install guide, I was going to attempt to do a stage 3 Gentoo installation. Unfortunately, I ran in to a major snag: the hard drive in the thing was too small for even a stage 3 Gentoo installation. Even more unfortunately, that was not actually the case--the drive had plenty of space, but most of it was marked as bad by something or other. (Shortly after discovering that, I also noticed clicking noises coming from the drive.)

It looked like my "Linux escapades" would be over at that point. Alas, however, I had a spare 10GB hard drive sitting around. Gentoo would be installed yet!

I learned quite a bit about Linux by running Gentoo for awhile. I was able to discover, thanks to Gentoo's documentation, how to get all sorts of things working.

From there, I decided for quite some time that Gentoo was far too slow for my sad little P3 box; compiling took too long. I then tried out other distros. I learned very quickly that RedHat had become, for my purposes, Fedora. I tried it out as well, and, appropriately, it reminded me very much of RedHat. I don't remember liking Fedora too much; it didn't seem to like my ethernet card at the time.

I didn't dabble in Linux for quite some time after that; I simply didn't have a proper machine for it. I then got a P3 server from someone, and ran Gentoo on it for a good time. I have since made Gentoo my main OS, only keeping Windows around for games, because I have not had much success with winex.
Don't misinterpret me, though: I don't outright hate Windows; I simply prefer Linux at this point.

Jam it back in, in the dark.