Computers

From Alexander Krivács Schrøder.NET

Background history

I have been using computers since I was quite young. The earliest use of a computer that I can remember happened at one of my aunt's place, and I recall playing around with MS Paint in Windows 3.0. I think I was about four years old.

I got my first own computer at the age of nine. I managed to screw it up within the first half hour of using it. After all, after having to use others' computers carefully for such a long time, having to be careful about what I was doing, I could now do whatever I wanted. So of course I did. And being the newbie that I was, I managed to break something. The computer had to be reinstalled. The father of one of my neighbors had it reinstalled for me. I paid close attention to what he was doing and how it was done. After a few times, and after having gotten my hands on my own installation diskettes, and could do it myself. Over the course of the next half year or so, I learned everything I needed to learn about DOS and Windows 3.11.

A couple of years later, I got a computer with Windows 95 on it. A new playground! I was more careful this time around, though, I read up on things before trying them out, and I don't think I ever screwed that machine up; though—being Windows—it had to be reinstalled over every 6 months or so.

From Windows 95 to 98 to ME to XP was really no big change. I was also briefly using BeOS. I used Windows XP for some years, until I discovered something better. I recalled having read about it back in a computer magazine in 1994. I had heard about it every now and then since then too. But I always thought “I don't need that. Windows is good enough.” Which is true. Windows is good enough. However, why settle with good enough when something better is available? Eventually I grew really tired of having to reinstall Windows every six–ten months and having to restart my computer at least once a week.

I had read an article on a supposedly new-user-friendly Linux variant named Xandros Linux. Xandros, however, did not suit my tastes, and I quickly grew tired of it and went back to Windows. Again, after those six–ten months, I felt ready to give Linux a new go. This time around, I went with MEPIS Linux. That was a much greater success. I stayed with MEPIS for at least a year, but eventually went back to Windows, for reasons now forgotten.

For the last time I grew tired of Windows. This time around I tried Gentoo Linux. And I have stayed with it ever since.

Linux

See Linux