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A Looong Story
The story begins about 13 months ago...
Octomber 2004
I had just entered the university and during the first weeks of my life as a student of the Departement of Informatics
I met a lot new people. To tell you the truth they all loved computer science as much as I do if not more and guess what...
They all run Linux (well maybe some of them run BSD but who cares). Till then I had only heard of that OS and never worked with any
UNIX-like operating system. Yes, not even once, not even for one minute. Things changed dramatically when I was given an account to the
university network. That was because our network consists of some pcs with win2k and many ultra5 workstations. That's right, the very
first time I actionally sat in front of computer running a UNIX-like OS was with a Sun ultra5 running SunOS 5.8. A dinosaur slower to
death that gave all 1st year students the creeps. Believe it or not I loved it. And I learned not because I was reading something in a
book, not because I was listening to some teacher but because I was asking my own new friends or reading manuals. Naturally I asked
some folks who seemed to know a lot about UNIX which distro I should install to my new computer. Well, they told me: "Don't worry
Slackware is just right for a beginner like you. When you get used to Linux you should jump to Gentoo.". If I had a clue about Linux I
wouldn't have trusted them. I mean Slack? for a beginner? Little did I know. Anyway they gave me 2 CD's with Slack 10.0 and some
installation intructions. Later that day I got back home to my brand new pc. It's an Ath64 with a Seagate SATA hardisk, 512M RAM and
normally an HSF softmodem (they all have the same modem out of the box here in Greece). Now is the time I said while booting from my
CDROM. Till that day I had only installed an OS three times (twice win98 on my friends' PCs and once winxp on my system). Of course
slack's installer felt quite different to me. First of all it failed to install the os as it had no support for sata controllers.
However I didn't give up. I started searching the net for help and I found that if I somehow told the BIOS to treat my SATA disk as a
common ATA disk then slack would install. Of course I never even found such a setting on my BIOS. I failed again.
So, you may wonder what kind of success story is this, you failed twice. You are a miserable failure anyway. No I'm not. Google to see
who really is a miserable failure. Cause I don't give up so easy.
December 2004
I decided that my Christmas present was going to be an ATA hardisk. Guess why? This is the way I chose to install Slackware. You may
ask Why a new hardisk (which I did not need in the first place). Why didn't you just download Fedora or whatever which supported SATA out
of the box. The answer is simple: I am terribly selfish and stubborn. I cannot just accept defeat so easy especially from a stupid
machine like a computer (plus I don't have a broadband connection to download a whole DVD which I think is needed for fedora and there
is no DVD writer in the university network). Anyway I could find any other distro that would work but as I said I'm too proud of
myself. During the Cristmas holiday I successfully installed Slackware Linux in my computer for the first time. The installer was not
so difficult after all especially if you read all the info printed on the screen. But it was not exactly what I call a success. The
sata disk still would refuse to function, the softmodem too. I didn't have my precious mp3's, I couldn't connect to the net or write
cds and dvds. It was rather a starting point. That's how I learned basic system setup and administration. eg how to setup X, the fstab,
how to mount partitions and don't laugh it how to HOWTO. In order to get my flash memory working I even dared to recompile a kernel(or
build modules I cannot remember). Anyway I started getting used to it.
June 2005
It had become long ago clear to me that without a new kernel my $^& sata disk wouldn't work with slack. I had months ago downloaded
2.6.9 but just wouldn't decide to compile it. But as the summer holiday started I thought: Now or never. It's holiday which means lots
of free time = time to learn a few more things.(I know I'm a psycho. Instead of vacation I spent my summer in front of a terminal). So
I made the next BIG step. I compiled a new kernel. The first time took me hours as I was reading a LOT of documentation for the setup.
Anyway some time I got my bzImage and booted it. And guess what! Nothing happened. I just got a blank screen after the lilo prompt plus
I did not setup right lilo in the first place so I could't boot the old kernel. That's how I learned howto use the rescue disk and
setup lilo for multiple kernels (my "favourite" os was on the sata disk). Later that day I managed to get my first "home made" kernel
to boot and I even mounted my sata drive's ntfs and fat partitions successfully. I spent the rest of the summer getting used to the new
data. I would see movies or listen mp3s under slackware. I wasn't just getting used to it I was falling in love with it. Still I was
not happy. The tvtuner would not work (I did not compile support for it), the softmodem did nothing (then it's working right?) and
still could not install to the f***ing sata disk.
Octomber 2005
I have a plan. I get right back to the university download slack 10.2 cds (both in less than 30 mins), kernel 2.6.13.3 (later I saw
it was included in slack 10.2) and linuxant drivers. Then I get straight back home install to my sata disk (took a whole year),
compile a new kernel (if you want something done right do it yourself) and Linuxant drivers.
Now that's what I call success. Everything worked. EVERY LITTLE THING. Including the softmodem (at 14.4k but works) the
tvtuner(cx23881 on avermedia 303 studio), the 5.1 surround system (I check it out every day to hear every single speaker). That's a
successfull instalation.
The meaning of this story:
*You got to be patient
*You got to insist on doing some things or they will never become true
*You got to read a lot of documentation
*The more you run Slackware, the more you like it
*Slackware is an addiction
*tvtime is a great application for what it was written
*Windows suck
*I still have a lot to find out
Pros of the current situation (compared to what it was before linux)
*I don't have to worry about anything. No viruses (I know you can never be safe but...), no crashes, no nothing.
*As Patrick says to the last line of the root user's mail I "Have fun" with my pc for the first time in the last few years
*My sister is afraid of using my computer so it really is a PersonalComputer (however I made an account for her)
*I don't play games (I wouldn't play a lot before but now it ended)
*I have real power over my computer
*I love the way code is compiled in the UNIX world. pico and gcc are great.
*Beleive it or not I like the console. It may not be good looking or user-friendly but I like it even though I sometimes don't prefer it
Cons of the current situation
*I still do not feel so comfortable with my new OS although I haven't booted anything else for more than a month
*I miss some apps from the Windows world and Wine does not seem to do many things
*Sometimes I am confused with file ownership and permission issues
*Someone has to explain me how vi works cause I don't get it no matter how much documentation I read
*I missed something during mplayer's compilation and now it's not stable at all.
*Reading-Writing Greek characters in Linux is almost always a risc (maybe I'm exaggerating but I get that feeling)
*I can't get my tvtuner's remote to work with lirc (Avermedia Studio 303).
*My frineds call me a psycho, especially those who know some things about linux and what Slackware is
I want to thank those guys that gave me the slack cds in the first place. I did not meet them again since that day.
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