Allright, here we go!

I am cuirrently 17 years old, born 1987 and i got really late into computers. 1997 that is. Lets crack on with it shall we?

- Windows 95 (i got caught by the magics of computers)
- Windows 98 (man this sucked, i want windows 95 back!)
- Windows 2000 Beta (It got installed on one copmuter att the school, whats up with the icons?)
- Windows 95 (this kick-ass system still running at home)
- Windows 2000 Pro
- Windows XP (whats the deal with al the crashes and stuff, it made me sick of windows
- xp, 2000, nt, 200 again, then XP and so on. Noting intersting here
- RedHat 9 (ok now we are talking. Fedora had gotten realesed by this time, but i went for redhat, much cooler name. And wow. man... But i guess i hadent devolped som much so i continued to use Windows. Somebody explain to me why!)
- Fedore Core 1 (i went on summer holidays and suddenly my windows xp decided to quit working. Time for drastical changes over here!)
- Mandrake 10.0 Community Edition (dont really rember what, but something messed up my fedora, probly just me, so i installed mandrake.
- Fedora Core 1 (mandrake messed up, remebered that i loved god ol' fedora)
- Slackware 9.1 (I was told that the 10.0 litterally sucked. I dindnt get much use of slackware since it just wanted to display -bash-0.25$ instead of [user@host locatiation]. But ill stuff it in anyways)
- Gentoo (Man i love this! Emerge! Total control! My favorite. I dont think i will switch from it this century)

Well, that was my storie so far. Just thought it maight interest you guys about how i fell into the Linux world...

Cheers!
Benne

Benne, thanks for your story -- great to hear that even people who got into computers late (your own words) can see the benefits of using a system like Linux. I can't say that I'm old in the business myself, but I did start a bit earlier than you. Though most of my days with a computer have been with other systems than Linux, I'm afraid.

My first computer was a Commodore VIC 20 which I shared with my brother and which we used solely for playing. I don't remember the year, but I think the C64 had already come out when we got the VIC 20. Anyway, later I got a Commodore 64 (with tape station, no diskette drive) for myself which I used mainly for playing but did a little basic BASIC programming, too (pun intended). Did anyone succeed in getting Linux to run on the C64, BTW? My next machine was an Amiga 600 (non-HD version), first machine bought from new in a store. Together with a friend I bought Amos Professional and the Amos Compiler, and together we implemented the "Hotel" board game (actually, my friend did most of the programming).

My first PC run Windows for Workgroups 3.11, and it was not until a later computer that run Windows 95 that I first heard about Linux. I tried a distro or two (don't remember their names, but they came on computer magazine cover floppies) and liked it quite much but didn't see it ready for replacement of Windows, though (they were obviously small distros and I didn't really know of any others -- guess I hadn't really grasped the "distro" concept yet at that time). This must have been 1996-97 or so. Then later I got hold of some RedHat cdroms (hmm.. I don't really remember which... 5.2 or 6.1 perhaps? At least I'm pretty sure it was either one of the 5.x or the 6.x releases) and I immediately saw the opportunities in this, so I started to run RedHat distributions on a separate machine and/or in dual-boot with Windows.

And then suddenly, three or four years ago, I took "the step" and installed RedHat on my main computer. Until this day I have mainly used RedHat/Fedora Core and only played with other distros on separate machines. I guess RedHat meets my needs well; I like a system that is easy to use (so I can focus on working using the system, not working on making the system usable) but doesn't "think" for you and "help" you do the things that it thinks you want to do -- and a system that is still 100% configurable and of which you actually have super user access/privileges when you log in as a super user... And then, of course, I love the free software/open source idea.

Nice benne, glad to see your loving it
little help on the bash-0.25$ issue, just set PS1 to '[\u@\h \w]$ '... i.e.
PS1='[\u@\h \w]$ '
Or if you want to make it permanent just add it in /etc/profile or ~/.bashrc or whatever your bash startup script is.

I think the problem was benne was booting into single user mode.

By default slackware boots up something like this:
[user@darkstar]

You're lucky, back in my day we didn't have Linux. Of course we didn't have Windows either. Heck I didn't even have a monitor. Had to buy an rf converter kit from Radio Shack, build my own, and share my TV (12" black & white). But when I hit the power switch on my Radio Shack Model I it said ready in about a split-second!