So a few days ago I downloaded the DVD iso of Fedora 13, after having tested various LiveUSB’s of Linux distro’s I settled on Fedora because it seemed to function most smoothly on my computer (Linux Mint 8 had advantages, but all in all I liked Fedora better). I am currently running Fedora 13 from an external HDD. My internal (and tiny in comparison) HDD is retaining windows a) incase Fedora breaks sometime (and thus to give me the freedom to experiment with updates without worrying about it breaking) and b) because I also just got Oblivion, a game I have wanted for a while and Planescape Torment a game I wanted for over a decade. If I can get all the computer gaming out of my system in this summer I can finally declare myself an adult or something :p.
Anyway, I am impressed with Linux. It seems to get a lot of flack from a lot of people, and I can understand some of the issues, although some of them are a bit outdated (it’s really not hard to set it up nowadays unless you deliberately choose some 1337 distro like Gentoo or something) some of them are fair enough (dedicated teams of paid developers are generally speaking going to be more focused on producing software for customers according to their needs rather than just what they the developers would like). But still, I am impressed for the most part. I am impressed with the stability of GNOME, the appearance of KDE (I installed both just to get a feel for them) – indeed I find going into windows after only a few days of using Linux hurts my eyes with its hideousness. I like the way there are so many open source programs available now. I like the fact that open office seems to be working far better than way back when I tried it before. Most of all though, I am falling in love with the command line.
I don’t know how much you can do in cmd in windows. All I ever use it for is a) formatting stuff b) ipconfig and …no that’s about it these days (I mean, its not even msdos, it’s just an emulator…). So I can’t say “the Linux commandline is far more powerful” because truthfully I don’t know. What I can say is that even in a few short days of experimentation from a zero state knowledge base I have found so many cool things I can do with it. Simple things, but things I definately do not know how to do in MSDOS (or windows DOS emulator).
For instance I have learned how to use m4 to turn things like NAME into either a specific name, or the results of some other sequence of commands. I have learned how to use tr to replace characters with other characters (all this is in terms of output, the original file is unchanged). It’s so cool, there’s tonnes of other fun stuff. I did some of the vim tutorial. There is a perl tutorial I might try soon. It’s also just fun to type commands prefixed with sudo, sure its my computer, they’re my files, I can do what I like with them, but I still feel somewhat of a powertrip everytime I type sudo and my password. Haha.
I’m not a computer person. I’m basically an experienced windows user but only insofar as doing the basic tasks that I generally do, and some minor troubleshooting (or if connected to the internet I would say my troubleshooting skills are actually very good in terms of outcomes, but that basically comes down to my searching skills not my problem solving skills). I say that to make clear that I understand that really this is basic stuff, but its basic stuff that is really getting me into it. I am just so delighted when I try out a command and woooooo it works! So all in all I am really enjoying linux. Fedora is not hard. To set it up was very easy, older versions were apparently not, but 12 and 13 (I started this experiment in linux just before 13 was released as stable so I tried both) were both very easy to get set-up. 13 has so far been a smooth ride. I am looking forward to continuing my learning experience and my experiments in Linux. Once I am all grown up and weaned off computergames, maybe I’ll switch over completely 
My dad has been teasing me no end about Linux, when I was trying different distros on LiveUSB and half of them didn’t boot he was all “what do you expect” and generally coming from the “free as in crap” school of thought. But he has never used it. He’s quite wrong. It’s really fun. Even when I broke something major, and it took me two days to fix it (on a LiveUSB with permanence) – it was exhilarating. I had the time, it was a fun challenge. I want more!
Seriously, this rocks. It’s not geeky to think so. It’s true, anyone with any sense of adventure would agree. :p
