[UFO Chicago] what draws you here?

[Ian Bicking]

Well, among other reasons, Linux is actually a lot more productive for
me.  I have Emacs, I have Galeon, and I'm getting used to Evolution. 
That 99% of my time on the computer, and it all works well.  Oh, and the
command line, which I have become accustomed to and efficient with.  

Also, the environment is transparent, configyurable, and programmable. 
I suppose there's a part of it that has something to do with the elite
feeling one can have, part of a knowledgable minority.  But I dunno...
that probably got me to install it the first time.  And the second,
after I messed up the first.  And the third when I messed up the
second.  But since the third time I've actually used it because it works
for me, and that's been a while.  I still use Windows to play games, but
nothing else (and I'm actually glad Linux doesn't have many games,
because it means I am less tempted).

On Sun, 2002-01-27 at 22:08, John Kilbourne wrote:
> I'm curious why people are drawn to go through the trouble of 
> learning and using linux. (assuming that others share some sense that 
> it is challenging.) 
> 
> I remember two things I read between August and October. The first 
> was a snippet of In the Beginning Was the Command Line by Neil 
> Stephenson, where he described linux as a free all-terrrain vehicle 
> that gets 100 miles to the gallon and doesn't break down, and windows 
> as a kind of plain station wagon that is expensive but has 
> dealerships on every corner for people who believe in ABC news. It 
> wasn't till I read The Cathedral and the Bazaar that I decided, "I 
> want to learn this". Eric Raymond said that learning unix/linux is 
> one step to gaining some sort of mastery with the computer (along 
> with learning a few programming languages and some other advice that 
> I've forgotten now).
> 
> I figure that just getting linux to run means I must have learned 
> some general, useful things about computers. This is self-verifying; 
> nobody has to tell me that I do or don't know something. When my 
> email goes primarily to my linux box, that will be one additional, 
> objective indicator that I've learned something. It was only last 
> week that I finally got my RH 7.2 configured to access the web 
> through my DSL (thank you roaring penguin and linuxquestions.org. 
> 
> So why do you do this at all?
> 
> _______________________________________________
> UFO Chicago -- Users of Free Operating Systems
> Free Software Rules -- Proprietary Drools!
> http://ufo.chicago.il.us/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ufo
>