Money where my mouth is
Hi Folks,
Just something I thought I'd like to share with the list... It's nothing
crucially important, so if you're in a hurry, feel free to skip over it.
I've sort of been into Linux for a year or so now, I guess. Actually,
prolly not quite that long. I consider myself an 'advocate' and I'm
administering a small ISP running a PPP server on a RedHat box, so I've
had to learn a fair bit pretty quickly. But my primary machine at home has
always been a Windoze box (Dual boot NT/95 at the moment). I do also have
an old laptop, and now also a P150 also running Linux (both Debian 1.3).
Last Friday, the IDE drive on my Windoze box died on me, taking with it
Win95 and the NT loader I need to even get into my NT machine, leaving me
effectively winless. I took it back to the shop today, but they say it'll
take at least a week to get it fixed. So I'm winless for a while.
My P150 Debian system (a real 'bride of frankenstein', make of lots of
spare parts, but it works) has only been running for a few weeks now. Yet
that was my only recourse, so I've suddenly become a 100% Linux man for a
little while now.
I think I have surmounted the major obstacles (the fact that I can send
this sort of proves that). I have got X running with my fav. WM, AfterStep
1.0 (tho I don't like that Debian menu... how do I get rid of it so I can
edit the .steprc and get my HotList back?), PPP working, Netscape,
FetchMail to recieve my mail, Qmail 1.02 to send it, and mutt to write it
. I even have xicq so I can get all those ICQ messages I'm missing (well,
I don't have *that* many ICQ friends, but hey, don;t want to miss anything!)
I think I can safely say that anyone who tells you Linux (any flavour) is
as easy to set up as Win95 is pulling your leg. It's a lot of bloody
effort, and many hours of reading, to get a functional system capable of
PPP up and running. However, I believe that getting it up and running
properly (or something approximating properly) is much more rewarding. You
can make it exactly how you like it, and nothing (much) is forced down
your throat.
Do I miss windoze? Well, not windoze itself, but some of it's applications
would be nice... I don't think mutt will ever replace Becky! in my heart
of hearts... I think when I get my hard drive back, I'll load up something
like MI/X so I can keep using both when convinient.
Did this have any point? Well, prolly not :) I guess I may never have got
around to setting up my Debain system properly had I not been thrown in
the deep end, but now I have plenty of time to make it like it should be!
Goodnite,
damon
--
Damon Muller (damon@empire.net.au)
Systems Administrator
EmpireNET
Melbourne, Australia
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