I Entered the Linux World

It was another break from the regular classes of the morning. In my college, sitting in the computer lab and wondering what to do, I recalled my friend’s favorite topic to talk about – Ubuntu! Until then, anything I had learned about computer systems and computing was of and for Windows and a few definitions of Linux from my computer book.

Due to various reasons, like Windows coming already loaded in the computer systems and lack of marketing for Linux, Windows is regarded as a synonym to computers to any general user and even the computer science students at various levels. They bring marks in the subject, with flying colors, but don’t even know an alternative to Turbo C. However, now I know, Windows is just Windows. Stop looking at it, and jump out of it!

So, as I recalled the name, the next instinct was to use the university’s WiFi. Having it downloaded and saved into my phone’s memory card, I came home, and all excited created a bootable USB stick for my Ubuntu 12.10 It took me some 30 minutes (being a beginner?).

Up to this point, I had not even tried to install a Windows OS myself.

After referring to some guide to get through with my first Linux installation, I booted my PC in Ubuntu, and I loved it, not at first sight, but browsing through it, I realized something incredible is waiting. Lead by some adrenaline rush, I chose the second option and formatted my hard drive to install Ubuntu, only to regret the decision later and to lose the pre-loaded Windows and some of the data.

But, I realized that Ubuntu is AWESOME and asked my friend about Ubuntu’s installation, an avid user of the same. She guided me through, and after partitioning my system in /ext4 journaling system, I installed Ubuntu in a 50 GB space to begin my journey with Linux.

To date, I have installed and experienced many of the distros, including Fedora, Linuxmint, Lubuntu, and Mageia. I wouldn’t say I liked Mageia (KDE), as it took ages to boot on my laptop. I wanted fedora (for its desktop environment, Gnome), but its certification issues did not allow me to install any software. In choosing my poison, I had once screwed up my lappy’s performance making it a multi-boot system with 4 OSs.

After a bit of research, I installed the GNOME desktop environment in my Ubuntu, Gimp, VLC, and others, and I love Ubuntu now.