NYLoCo Ubuntu first experience

[Nick Garvey]

My first experience with Ubuntu... was with a Breezy live CD (or 
possibly Hoary), although this did not last very long.  A friend I knew 
online suggested I try out Linux, and told me how to burn the cd.  
Unfortunately,  I had a computer with a Microsoft MN-510 Wireless USB 
device.  I had never used Linux before, and I had no idea how to set up 
this wireless usb thing (although a few weeks ago I still couldn't get 
the stupid thing to work).  Needless to say, a computer without wireless 
was useless to me, so I tossed Linux aside for a while.  Somewhere 
between this time and the beginning of the summer, my computer got moved 
into my room.  I was eager to try out Linux again, hearing that it would 
give me more power over my operating system.  Well, I still couldn't get 
the wireless to work, so somehow, I was able to convince my dad to drill 
a hole in the floor and let me run an Ethernet cable through it.  To 
this day I am still amazed he let me do this.  I got the Internet 
working, and did an install, although I believe it was OpenSUSE not 
Ubuntu (OpenSUSE had JUST been released to the public). 

I began to poke around the innards of Linux a little bit, not really 
knowing what I was doing (I recall once getting a permission denied 
error on a file in /etc, so I ran chmod 777 on the file...)  Clearly, I 
needed to figure out what I was doing.  I was eager to learn, so coming 
home from where I used to work, I asked my mom to stop by a book store, 
and I bought a rather overpriced Linux book called Linux for Dummies, 
the most appealing part being the several distros included on a CD in 
the back.  Cracking open the book instantly, I read it all the way home, 
and had decided to install Fedora Core 3 (even though 4 was out at the 
time, the book was dated).  Reading rapidly, I plowed through this book, 
although I found it rather weak, not a surprised considering the title 
though.  That same friend of mine suggested I try out Kubuntu again, so 
I did.  It has been Ubuntu bliss sense that moment on :).

Nick Garvey