My journey with Linux: beginner to power user
⚠️ This is not a technical post, this is intended to be a light-hearted story containing a series of life events & anecdotes, where i’ll try to write how & why I got interested in Linux, and how being a power user in Linux helped me in my career.
First, as an introduction, I grew up in a joint family, where we were 4 brother(3 cousins, if you will) and a sister, My sister chose commerce in her senior secondary instead of Science/Maths, so she’s disowned anyway 😅.
Growing up our Eldest brother Sid(Siddharth Upmanyu) who was also Fedora India Ambassador, had a deep impact on all of us. and it was from him that I first learned about Linux and Open Source software.
In 2006, I completed my Senior Secondary(12th Grade). But till then my only physical interaction with “computers” was during our 1 hour Computer Class, where systems rarely worked, and when they worked we’d (mis)use them to play Dangerous Dave.
After 12th Grade, I enrolled for engineering entrance exam mainly because my brothers were already pursuing their engineering degree, and it seemed like a normal choice to get myself enrolled too. I cleared the entrance exam & chose Information Technology as preferred stream, because why not!
Around second year in my college I borrowed one of my cousin’s old desktop (because that’s what you do in joint families, ohh.. i borrowed and crashed his bike too 😆 ). It was the first time I had a personal computer, all to my self, and now I could play Dave even outside Computer Class(Yay!).
But, Inspired by Sid, Instead of wasting time playing video games, I decided to learn more about Linux & FOSS.
So me & my roommate at that time, ordered a CD(free of cost) from fedora’s site, which used to take 6 weeks to be shipped & delivered(and at that time we didn’t know how to copy & burn a bootable cd, so if the CD gets corrupted, it would take another 6 weeks for it to be delivered).
We were somehow able to install Fedora in my desktop after few days’ effort. As we had no idea how install or operate this OS, everything was a challenge. Even extracting a tarball took us almost a week(yeah!), and the issues were compounded by lack of internet connection, so we’d go to nearby cyber cafe(yes they used to exist), search for terminal commands, write them on paper, and try them at home.
After initial weeks, we had a basic idea of Fedora and different apps, and after that the golden age of Fedora exploration began. We spent weeks and months breaking, fixing and reinstalling the system. In a few months we had invested lots of time in fixing hardware, software issues, learning skills like LAN networking, compiling software from source code, mastering GRUB, and best of all, brainstorming sessions on these extraordinary challenges.
This was a very unique period in my college time, learned a lot of new things ..ohh.. and we also watched every movie that we could get access to, in any language that we could find (personal favourites: all the movies where Akira Kurosawa & Toshiro Mifune collaborated).
Later on I shifted with my college mates, and there I came across books on RHCE exam, which my roommate was preparing for. As an avid reader I just had to read it. Back then I used to read anything & everything (from bankelal to Khalil Gibran). So I sat with those books(RHCE), and finished them in a couple of days. As I already had lots of hands-on experience I was able to grasp the concepts quickly, but also learned a lot of new things in the process.
By now I considered myself a power user in multiple Linux based OSs: Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, and tried lots of new distros also. I could write complex shell scripts, fix most of installation/setup related issues, install and manage services(Mainly LAMP), configure Local Network and so on.
The timeline around 2008–09, was the time I felt Linux evangelism was at it’s highest(around me), there were lots of activities/events in Colleges, promoting Linux and actively debating people on Open Source VS Closed Source. Windows was WinBlows & Apple was stupid at best & evil at worst.
I think the debate between open source and closed source has always been on moral grounds and the apparent dumbing down of our interaction with Software, where corporations choose what’s best for the end-users, rather than giving them the flexibility to choose themselves. But unfortunately this approach has broadly worked, and I also find myself tilted towards this direction, as I neither have time nor energy to deal with Software/hardware issues, now I just want everything to work out of the box(Which IMHO Ubuntu has excelled in, and is a great combination of usability & flexibility).
But enough of FOSS vs Proprietary.
Summing up, The skills I acquired having hands-on experience in Linux based systems, are still serving me in my day to day Job.
It’s useful in every aspect of my job, from simple things like keeping my PC updated/lag-free, fixing minor hardware related issues, to Job deliverable. Having experience as a power user in Linux, it was comparatively easier for me to grasp DevOps practises, Managing server infrastructure and creating server architecture.
It certainly gave me edge over “normal” developers and helped me survive in startup culture.
