I just installed Ubuntu 5.10 ("Breezy Badger", which I'm dist-upgrading as I type), and I'd like to say that GNU/linux has come a *long* way since I first started playing with it about 6 years ago. Let's take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

2000 - Fall semester at Georgia Tech. First install of linux. Mandrake 7 was my poison of choice. I bought the CD's from a local vender just off of Georgia Tech campus -- $1 for 2 cds and $5 for an "I 3 source code" sticker which I still have on my crappy 15" old-as-dirt monitor, but I digress. A friend of mine helped me install it (though there wasn't too much to help with -- Mandrake was known for easy install). He signed me up for the campus Linux User's Group and pointed me to some newsgroups to help out if I had any problems.

2001 - Spring semster at GT. Even after the I was impressed by Mandrake 8, my fellow techies made fun of me for running a "baby's distribution", so another friend hooked me up with Debian. Not as user-friendly, but apt was friggin' awesome compared to Mandrake's often-broken package manager. I never looked back.

2002 - Fall semester at Georgia Southwestern. New surroundings, new friends, new computer. Gentoo was the new thing, and one of my new friends said I should give it a whirl. I was unimpressed, and re-installed my beloved Debian. Perhaps I didn't give Gentoo a fair chance. I was biased after a year and a half of running Debian.

But the new surroundings made it hard. GT was a very linux-friendly place, but classes at GSW were centered around .NET programming. I was forced to go back to windoze as my primary desktop.

2003 - Fall semster at GSW. My experience with linux has gotten me a full-time position as System Administrator at the school! I don't even have a bachelor's yet and they're so impressed with me that they offer me a job... with a nice salary... and benefits... and dental. Geeks rule!

2004 - Fall semester at GSW. Ubuntu's the new thing. I kept telling myself I'll go try it out -- My roomate even gave me a free 1.5 cd (he ordered 20 -- free, of course -- of them and was giving them away to anyone that would take one. Still didn't get around to installing it. I had my debian install, nicely tucked away on a rarely used partition of my hard drive. Damn you and your .NET framework, microsloth!

2006 - Early summer at GSW. I decide to give ubuntu a try, since I don't (currently) have any classes to worry about.

What's changed? *Everything*. I pop in the cd and start up, the installation finds all my hardware with no problem, and I'm up and running in minutes. It even noticed I have my ipod plugged in. It appears that most of my programs are old versions (firefox is at version 1.0, gaim is at version 1.5), but I'm in the process of (hopefully) fixing that right now with a distribution upgrade.

The only complaint I have about it is that my favorite windowing system, blackbox, seems inoperable. I right click on the desktop and have 3 options -- xterm, restart, and exit. Where are all my apps? Maybe blackbox is old and I need to change over to fluxbox? Nope -- same thing. What's up with that?

Oh well. Gnome is ok for now I guess. I'll keep you posted on my progress. Wish me luck!

I was looking at record of forum posts and realize that I have two with a score of 5.

Sweet!

It's been a while since I visited the ol' /.

quite a bit has changed... for instance, the page load properly (menu doesn't overlap the body). Wack. Now I don't have to do the whole Ctrl+, Ctrl- thing to get it to look right.

I've also noticed a font change, along with a few other minute things here and there, but nothing severe. I guess once you've got a format working, you don't screw with it.

If any of you out there like outlook, but despise the way it formats outgoing mail, check out this link.

OK, this tears it. Firefox rocks *even harder*. Some of you may know Daniel Miessler -- he's got some cool stuff on his blog site, but I'm referring to a specific blog post:

Firefox Quicksearches

Ya know, I don't think to write out my thoughts about this kind of stuff much, but I tend to pick up and use several tricks that other people tell me about. Here's a few other gems:

Linux for desktop/coding/serving/etc -- thanks Jon (no link, sorry).

RSS feeds for my website -- Thanks Jason

Firefox for browsing -- I've been using mozilla for years, but thanks to the geek community it's become the best browser around.

mutt for email -- ok, it's no Thunderbird, but it gets the job done. Plus, it's portable (kinda)! I was using pine until I discovered mutt's power. Thanks Beckham

Del.icio.us for sharing and keeping track of bookmarks -- thanks Jason and Daniel for that one.

There's lots more, but I forget.

game addiction -- Resident Evil 4 -- not so much playing it as watching my roomate take on hundreds of baddies with the Chicago Typewriter (tommy gun + infinite ammo + 1-3 hit kill = KICK ASS!)

Well, I've *finally* gotten a permanent position here at GSW... System Administrator / Web Designer. I'm not so big on the Web Design part, but I'll muddle through.

So yeah. I haven't even gotten my BS yet and I'm getting as much as some of my GT friends expected to get *after* they get a degree.

so EAT THAT!

game addiction -- Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

Well, it's a month and a few days later -- I did pretty good last semester with 3 A's and a B -- and I'm already starting a new semester. This break didn't last long enough.

Game addiction: Kingdom of Loathing -- Yes, I'm still playing it.

I beat HL2 the other day. It's a pretty sweet game. The version of CS that comes with it (Counter Strike: Source) is pretty kick-ass, too.

Anyway, school's killing me -- I've got 2 term projects and like 3 assignments due, and that sux. I'm on my last week of school, though, so it's almost over.

Game Addictions: Kingdom of Loathing and Counter Strike: Source

It's been a while since my last post. Now it's the end of the semester and everything is coming to a head... just as halflife 2 has come out. So I have to tear myself away from the game to do homework, or study, etc. Then when I can't stand it anymore I go play HL some more. Right now I'm in the chapter "Anticitizen 1" where you have 4 brain farts following you around (offering very little help), and I'm in an appartment building, but I'm not sure where to go now.

Oh well, I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Game Addiction: Half Life 2

Another semster will start soon, and I have to sign up for classes tomorrow. I've written out a list of all the offered classes I need... but now that I have a job I can't take all 5 of them (sigh). Anyway, I'll probably end up taking 3, maybe 4. I can't wait to get out of this joint. That'll be golden.

Game Addiction: Random games from gprime.net. Suprisingly, most of the videos won't run from my browser (stupid wmv's), but I can open them with winamp.

...another post.

Ok, so I don't really post every day, but whatever. I got an email from a friend suggesting that I start blogging, and really this is the closest thing I have (and I'm *not* going to start a livejournal). Anyway, it's not like anyone's reading.

Have I mentioned that I hate election year? I do.

Randomness.

Game Addiction: none at the moment (shocker!). I'm pre-occupied with school and work. Blah.

...because *everything* becomes political. Mount St. Helens is threatening another eruption and it's a sign that we shouldn't re-elect bush. 4 hurricanes come through Florida (so what else is new) during an election year and people say it's punishment for screwing up Gore's chances last election. Get over it, people! I think God has better things to do than cause natural disasters because one guy gets a political position. Moreover, I thing God prefers Bush (though not by much).

Game Addiction: I'm still looking for a game where I can shoot people for discussing political subjects. Until then, I'm playing Madness Redeemer

I've got gmail invitations running out of my EARS! Every time I get them whittled down I log in a few days later and I've got 6 again.

Game Addiction: RuneScape

Posted the special Joke of the Random Time Period. Not really a joke this time, but it *is* September 11th.

Game Addiction: RuneScape

What the hell was the moderator thinking when he modded this post "informative"? I can see "Funny" and "Overrated", but not "Informative". People, *please* read the moderator guidlines and moderate properly!

Game Addiction: Cyrkam Airtos