In separate posts, Harry Putnam wrote:
I started my computer life on linux 1996.. only moved to windows for
some things when editing video (I like the adobe tools... and linux
just doesn't have anything remotely comparable.)
...
I knew nothing whatever about a computer in the 90s you are talking
about. My only knowledge of a computer came from things like seeing
the girl at the unemployment office bring up my records. And not even
all unemployment offices had computers yet.
My first encounter with a computer or home computing started in
1996. Right from scratch.
Hi there,
Out of curiosity, why did you choose Linux as your first platform?
I ask this not to criticise, or anything, but I'm just really curious
how you heard of it.
My family had a BBC Micro as a home computer when I was a kid and then
later (but still late 1980s) a 286 or so running DOS, but I returned
to computing at around the same time, 1996. Someone gave me an old PC
which I got running and I then did my first self-build of a c 150mhz
Pentium-class system.
At that time it seemed "obvious" to me to install Windows 95. I had
used Windows 3.1 at the mother-in-law's on a handful of occasions, and
seen it in other people's offices. Win95 had been released with
fanfare the previous year.
I can only guess that you had some previous background in electronics,
because I did not learn of Linux until c 2000 (although I was inactive
in computing for a couple of years 1998 - 1999). Until then (pretty
much) as far as I was concerned, "all PCs run DOS or Windows".
Could you possibly explain what led to to choose Linux as your first
platform? I would love to hear from anyone else who has managed to
completely skip the mainstream o/s (by which I mean Windows and Mac).
Cheers,
Stroller.
