Getting Started With Linux
Recently, I got mad at my Windows laptop and decided to install Linux.
Why did I decide to install Linux?
I’m a Mac girl through and through (Steve Jobs and Tim Cook saw me coming a million miles away) but I knew that the majority of my clients were using Windows laptops and I needed to be proficient in the software. Many businesses I’ve worked for primarily used Windows and I was a Windows user myself until about 15 years ago. Not a lot has changed since I last owned a Windows computer but you always want to keep your skills fresh.
My Windows laptop isn’t that old, maybe about 18 months. But in that 18 months, drivers have corrupted, software has failed to install or corrupted as well, and a few other issues. When the audio driver corrupted for the second time, I nearly threw the laptop against the wall. No idea why it stopped working, it just did. I spent time fixing it and it worked but I was over it. My Mac is four years old and my previous Mac laptop was eight years old before I decided to retire it. Other than age related issues, I’ve never had problems with anything on my Macs. Things just…worked.
Because I swapped between my Mac and Windows laptops for Nerd Girl Industries related work, I didn’t lose productivity, files, or software. I just unplugged the Windows laptop, gave it to Mr. Lisa, and told him to do with it what he will. Mr. Lisa is a Linux guy through and through and he was going to use it for development.
A few months went by and the laptop lay forlorn on Mr. Lisa’s office floor. At this time, I was planning on speaking to a group of college students on being a woman in STEM and what my previous tech experience was. One of which was a network engineer.
What is a network engineer?
A network engineer is someone who makes networks go. We are responsible from the physical aspect (cabling, hardware) to software. I loved working as a network engineer and I was thinking about getting back into it. Things have changed since I was in the field and now everything is nearly virtualized. Since the virtualizations and hardware mostly ran on Linux, this gave me the idea to take back my Windows laptop, install Linux, and go.
What is Linux?
Linux is an operating system (like Windows and MacOS) created by Linus Torvalds and released in 1991. Linux is a derivative of Unix, an operating system that itself was released by AT&T back in the late 1960s. Linux is used, and primarily still is used, as the backbone operating systems for most enterprise hardware (servers, embedded systems, super computers) to software development. ChromeOS, which powers Chromebooks, is based on Linux.
What makes Linux different from Unix is that its development is free and open sourced. This means that Linux distros (distributions) are managed by volunteers who abide by the GPL license, which means that the Linux kernel, the heart of Linux, can have the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software.
While there are enterprise versions of Linux (like Redhat), most Linux distros are free to download and install. (As mentioned, Redhat has an enterprise version but you can download a desktop version for free.)
Why Linux?
When Mr. Lisa and I were dating in the late 1990s, we both got into Linux. Mr. Lisa took to it like a fish to water and I was into it as well. We installed Mandrake when it was released in 1998 (deprecated since 2011) and went from there.
Linux at that time was very rough around the edges. Not all, if most, hardware was supported, most navigation and software were command line (CLI) based, and to even get a modem working could take hours. I went back to Windows and Mac (I had a Mac Quadra I liberated from work at the time) while Mr. Lisa continued using Linux. Other than a foray into a Mac laptop back in 2008, Mr. Lisa has been a Linux guru for most of his adult life.
In the near 30 years since I touched Linux, it has improved dramatically. Common software, or good approximations of, come in Linux variants, the desktops were graphical and easy to navigate, and like Macs, after installation of software, it just worked. Linux is so easy to use, even my tech challenged mother-in-law used to use it until Mr. Lisa swapped her to a Chromebook.
How will using Linux impact Nerd Girl Industries?
To my clients, very little. Having installed Linux alongside Windows, I can boot into either operating system as needed using Windows for Nerd Girl Industries projects and Linux for development and learning.
I’m also thinking about releasing a series of guides on how to do things in Linux that are well thought out, jargon free, informative, and as complete as possible. I found many guides in installing Linux to dual boot with Windows to be severely lacking, inelegant, and overall a pain in the ass.
The creation of the guides will happen when the whimsy strikes me as it is a very minor passion project. I have a lot to teach myself about Linux and as a librarian and a person who believes information should not be hoarded, will distribute these guides either the blog or via in the Freebies page.
And that is what I did over Snowmageddon last week! 😁