# What got you into UNIX/Linux/BSD?



## Grell (Sep 23, 2012)

What first got you using UNIX or UNIX-type OS?  I know for me I got interested in computer hacking when I was about 14 years old.  The first thing any basic hacking tutorial will tell you is to use Linux (or BSD) and start programming, which I did.  My first Linux was Red Hat 7.0 I believe.  Shortly after I bought my first FreeBSD from CompUSA which came packaged with a big FreeBSD reference book, in the Walnut Creek days.  It took a lot of frustration and trial and error but eventually I got used to UNIX and have not looked back since.


----------



## cbrace (Sep 23, 2012)

A somewhat geeky GF persuaded me to replace OS/2 Warp 4 with Fedora 2 back in the day. Never looked back, even though my JFS partitions got hosed in process. 

At the time, I had a website hosted at pair.com hosted on a shared server running FreeBSD, and subsequently at one point I thought to myself: I want my own FreeBSD server.


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Sep 23, 2012)

I taught myself to use the computer on an Apple II in the early 90's and always thought "real computers" used a terminal as an interface. 

The first one I owned used Win98 as an OS and it seemed like a toy compared to the Apple. It had a 100MB Zip Drive and in 2005 Puppy came out with a version that would fit on it, I tried it out, and knew that's what I was missing. I bought a CD burner for it and started downloading different distros till I came upon PC-BSD v0.7.5, which at the time was using FreeBSD 5.3,  stayed with it till PC-BSD v9.0, and switched to FreeBSD earlier this year.


----------



## jb_fvwm2 (Sep 23, 2012)

Windows98 needed a usb driver (an upgrade, in other words). The store had a dark blue CD set 5.x on sale... two of the four filesystems went into space within the extended FAT-XX partition using shareware BootIT NG which does 165/a5h formatting... root and another fit into their own partition.


----------



## jmccue (Sep 24, 2012)

At work, ages ago, scored a full set of docs and diskettes for a 16 bit UNIX system called IN/ix that ran on a non-IBM PC.  Learned the system and ended up being the Dept UNIX 'expert". Notice the quotes, expert is quite relative  

So had to replace DOS on my home 286, picked up coherent/286.  As time when on, found Linix and FreeBSD.


----------



## shitson (Sep 24, 2012)

Played with it a bit in my spare time when I was younger, also my Grandfather use to talk about it quite a bit (Linux). 

First real introduction was at University using a SunOS group Server (around 2007) and doing some of the Unix/Linux based courses. Now a Jr. Unix/Linux Administrator :stud


----------



## vermaden (Sep 24, 2012)

> What got you into UNIX/Linux/BSD?


I was sick and tired of lack of quality, reliability and stability of the Windows platform. After several years of UNIX I would add lack of flexibility 

As I already knew UNIX I tried Mac OS X, but after of year of trying to work there I went back to FreeBSD workstation.


----------



## freemason (Sep 24, 2012)

DOS/Windows 95 -> DOS -> Windows 98 -> DOS -> Windows XP -> Windows Vista -> Lots of Linux'es -> Windows XP -> DOS -> Windows XP -> Arch Linux -> Windows 7 -> Windows 8 RP -> OpenBSD -> FreeBSD (now) !


----------



## roddierod (Sep 24, 2012)

I had a Packard Bell 486DX known as Hank, that I had got when I started college...i think it was like 10 years into having this and I could no longer stand the pain of trying use windows on it and just one day searched for "free dos operating system". First hit I got was Debian so I downloaded and installed it.

After almost a year of using it, I came to the conclusion it was not better than windows for me...so one day while reading some of the source code I kept noticing FreeBSD in the copyright...so I thought if they are taking the code from FreeBSD why the hell am I not using that...so I downloaded FreeBSD.


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Sep 24, 2012)

I was bored one day when my wife suggested I create a web site for her sister's jewelry store. I had been approached about doing such things in the past but had no interest at all but this time it was closer to home. Her sister's  son-in-law worked at a Microsoft shop and sent me a whole bunch of Windows software and .NET stuff as I struggled to get the simplest things working but, one year later, it was working fairly well.

And then, Microsoft changed the way .NET worked which trashed everything I created. Don't ask me the details because I don't remember. 

Furious himself, her son-in-law suggested I switch to Linux. I had already been reading about FreeBSD and its advantages over Linux so I tried that first. It only took me 2-3 months to accomplish what took a year with Windows and .NET. 

That was eight years ago and now I have a thriving little web dev company that doesn't use Windows for anything but a little box sitting in the corner for testing IE (the worst browser on the planet).


----------



## ChalkBored (Sep 24, 2012)

I had used Red Hat back in the late 90's and didn't think it was bad, but software/drivers seemed lacking.

A friend of mine was always praising his FreeBSD servers, but I hadn't spent more than a few minutes logged on to one.

Then Vista showed up and I decided that if this was the direction Microsoft was heading, I should re-evaluate the alternatives.


----------



## NewGuy (Sep 24, 2012)

My first taste of UNIX came from a system admin course in college. We used Solaris at school and I took an interest in it. Started using Linux at home and found I enjoyed it. From there I slowly moved from a DOS/Windows at home set up to using Linux/BSD full time.


----------



## GuillotinePartition (Sep 24, 2012)

Im sick of conformity and cause im a rebel. In doing so I tend to find better quality things in life; like everything else, I did some digging which eventually led me to BSD and Slackware. If I want to indulge myself in something, it has to be (1) fitting for me and (2) down to the grit and grind of the system (top quality).


----------



## jrm@ (Sep 24, 2012)

After my first year of university, I moved into an apartment with a few other classmates and we needed to share an internet connection.  Of course we had almost no money, so we got a hold of a very old, nearly-free computer.  I think it was a 386 and the second network card cost more than the whole system.  It first ran IP masquerading with some Linux distribution I don't recall.  The university system administrator suggested natd on FreeBSD would work better, so we tried that and it did.  This was around 1997 so it must have been 2.something.  Around 2003 I was tired of the poor organization and stability of Windows and I wanted a challenge, so I started running FreeBSD as my desktop.  I started with a very Windows-like desktop running KDE, but eventually found, with a bit or work, the very simple window managers suited my style much better.


----------



## freethread (Sep 24, 2012)

I started in mid '80 as firmare developer and hardware designer (digital only) on custom Mostek Z80, 8088/86 and several microcontrollers hardware for a small company, using 80x86 DOS PC (nc/xtree, assembly/C compilers and schematic/pcb). When I left the company to work as consultant, my knowledge of Windows API was good, when Windows 95 was out I made few works in Windows but still in micro/fw world.
At the time, I tried to install Linux with no success (no distributions), I left for time-out, too much work to do, I thought it was not worth for my needs. Linux popped up again when I beat networking and web, then I decided to give it another chance. I thought it was better to learn a bit more about Unix, after that my choice was BSD, and inside BSD my choice was FreeBSD for its popularity. I skipped Linux.


----------



## xy16644 (Sep 24, 2012)

I remember just over 3 years ago reading on Slashdot that the "worlds most secure operating system" had just been updated. They were referring to OpenBSD. I thought it strange that I had never heard of OpenBSD despite my intense interest in all things security related. After much reading about OpenBSD I came across FreeBSD too. I was going to install and configure an OpenBSD server but didn't really like the lack of good books and material available to learn this OS. I then looked into FreeBSD and read Absolute FreeBSD 2nd Edition and Building a Server with FreeBSD 7 A Modular Approach. The rest as they say is history! I've been running my FreeBSD server at home for over 3 years now and think its the greatest OS ever. I'm sure OpenBSD is great too but I'll tinker with that one day too.

I'd really like to move from Windows to a FreeBSD/GUI desktop but to date have just found that it doesn't work for me yet. I hope that changes one day!


----------



## Majorix (Sep 24, 2012)

I had 3 reasons:
1. I wanted a proper terminal/shell.
2. I wanted updates/installs with a single command.
3. I wanted security.

First started with Linux 5-6 years ago, nowadays running both Linux and FreeBSD on my machines. (Hopefully) on my way to becoming a sysadmin.


----------



## kpedersen (Sep 24, 2012)

I didnt want to be tied down to someone elses server so linux package management or Microsoft's DRM was not acceptable for me.

FreeBSD and ports give me my independance


----------



## UNIXgod (Sep 25, 2012)

I needed a web server for a domain I had purchased in the late 90's. A friend recommended FreeBSD. I set up a phpnuke/bbforum site which in it's time was a popular choice. FreeBSD was at 4.2 release at the time.


----------



## Uniballer (Sep 25, 2012)

After a company merger I was in the position of having written/managed a fair-sized software toolkit and applications that management wanted ported to Unix from proprietary DEC operating systems.  We had Unix people on board, so there wasn't much fumbling around.  So I got paid to learn Unix.  This was prior to 386BSD and Linux becoming available, so when they did I was ready.


----------



## nekoexmachina (Sep 26, 2012)

Dad got some disks of ASPLinux from some software confest back in 2004.
He was a hardcore UNIX user back in 80s/beginning of 90s, switched to windows in 98 and got back to unix-like in 2009.
Used it for a week, realized that games do not work, deleted it. Loved the iface of it (KDE 3.2 iirc).
Installed again (but Mandriva) in 2005 on a laptop for learning purposes. In 2007 installed on main PC cause almost lost interest in games.
In 2008 tried Fbsd for the first time, just to have a look at it, loved it but found Linux more satisfying. 
Upgraded hardware in 2009, got 12309, switched to Fbsd.


----------



## throAU (Sep 27, 2012)

Started working in a small ISP that had a Solaris 2.5 box (Netra, back in 1996). As we expanded, we needed a proxy server.  Tried ISA on NT4 when it was brand new, and it failed miserably.  We replaced it after a week (of crashes and poor performance) with squid running on Solaris x86 and never looked back.

As we needed new machines, we started using Debian (name servers, mail relays, web servers, etc) and eventually started supporting a few local businesses with locally hosted debian firewall/router/smtp/pop3 boxes.

Once I moved on, I tried FreeBSD and after a little while to get my bearings, preferred the level of documentation, "proper" Unix way of doing things and seperation of core vs packages.

Ran both FreeBSD and Linux on the desktop from time to time, but I've discovered OS X (was curious when it first came out and the intel switch prompted me to jump ship) and it just suits my purposes a lot better for a desktop.

I still run production FreeBSD servers though today.


----------



## cerulean (Sep 28, 2012)

I toyed with linux a bit with friends in the 90's .. then at my job (I believe end of 1999) I had to setup a web server .. had it on Windows NT and it would not stay stable -- kept crashing and was very frustrating. Having tinkered with Linux a bit, I threw on a distro called esmith that just worked (same hardware, very stable) ... Since that point, got more interested in Linux, setup my own Linux box to learn (doing the distro shuffle .. red hat, mandrake, slackware, gentoo, suse, rinse & repeat) ... decided to try out FreeBSD in 2004 and absolutely loved the system.. read the handbook, bought some books and since then migrated my systems over to FreeBSD and have been running FreeBSD boxes since (mail, web, dns, dhcp, file, print, proxy, firewalls, you name it..)


----------



## freebuser (Sep 28, 2012)

First I got my pc in 1995 when I got the admission for university entrance for engineering.

It was loaded with Windows 3.1, I accidentally deleted some files and Windows refused to load. I was playing with DOS for a long time (changing prompt styles and colours) and later got into Windows 95.

My introduction to Linux was in the Uni, where we used to do computer aided drafting, after the class we reboot the PC to log into Red Hat OS even without knowing it was the linux (this is the only way to browse the internet). All I remember is there was a red hat on the bottom right of the screen and a 'X' cursor.

After some time I heard about Linux and installed on my system (Red Hat again) and went through all the 'dependency hell' things. Later Mandrake and Ubuntu with the free CD delivered. From Ubuntu I migrated to Debian - my all time favorite desktop Linux to date.

And recently moved my server to FreeBSD - One of my best decisions.

Cheers,


----------



## tingo (Sep 28, 2012)

Where I worked at the time, we needed a network monitoring tool. We had the software (I won't name the vendor), but when I told my boss that we needed to buy a real unix workstation (or server) to run that software on, he asked me to look at cheaper options. I found MRTG, and needed some unix-like os to install it on (we had access to lot's of x86 type hardware). My NX  (next in command) suggested I try something called "Red Hat" (this was around 5.1 or 5.2, IIRC), so I downloaded it and managed to install it, but it didn't feel familiar at all (at a previous job I had been sysadm for some SysV-based systems). Later, I told the story to a colleague (the firewall admin), who responded by giving me a CD with FreeBSD on it (I can't remember if this was 3.0 or a later version). I installed that, and felt at home at once. The rest is history...


----------



## break19 (Sep 29, 2012)

I started with Slackware 2.0. My cousin had mentioned "this linux thing" to me, and said "Best way to get it is to buy a book from books-a-million" So I did, in 1995 or 1996... and it had Slack 2.0 included.  Installed it, used it for a long time.. started OS/distro hopping.  Settled on gentoo for desktop, standard debian for server, around 2002-ish or so.  Then I went to the dark side: OS X.  Once I got back into the PC world I discovered FreeBSD, just before 8.1 was released, iirc.  Been using FreeBSD ever since.


----------



## kr651129 (Sep 29, 2012)

I also had an old Packard Bell, it was a 386 that had Windows 95 on it I think.  That was around 92 or 93 maybe?  Mastered 95 pretty quickly for my age and it was just a toy at the time.  I started chatting a lot the more I got into HTML, BASIC, and other starter programming type things and the subject came up a lot.  Someone had told me to checkout Slackware.  It made me so angry because I found it difficult to install but eventually got it.  Just the processes of installing it made me feel like I had so much more control over my PC than windows did, eventually I understood what I was doing and I moved from distro to distro.  Eventually I tried FreeBSD and had a similar experience with it as slackware and I just didn't have much time to mess with it but always planned to go back.  I got to a point where I just hated Linux and couldn't stand to be on Windows and moved back over to FreeBSD and had that Ah-ha! moment and never looked back.  I'll still run Windows and Linux on a virtualmachine for work or school though.


----------



## Thomash (Sep 30, 2012)

As a kid my dad had a Amstrad PCW with CP/M-80. Loved that thing - kept it until 2008 or so and it kept working, but I had to chuck it (worst decision ever - had the manuals, printer, everything) when my parents moved. Next up was our first PC in 1994, a Cyrix 486 with 4 Mb RAM and Dos 6.2 + Windows for Workgroups. In 1998 came a Gateway 2000 PC running Win95, got the 486 and dug around in the OS, modifying (and breaking :stud) it quite often. 

Got my first PC with Win98SE in 2001, crappy machine that failed pretty soon. 
At Uni we had Macs running MacOS 8.something, so I got me an eMac in 2003 running MacOS 9.2.2 and MacOS X 10.2 (one of the last dual boot models). 
Dad got a new PC in 2004, running XP (me: "Why the F... can't I configure this thing easily?"), so I got the Gateway, upgraded it using parts left from my 2001 PC, loaded Win98SE and it still works very well to this day.

At Uni/work we had XP, my dad used XP (and I did the "support"), and I grew to loathe the system. Unwieldy, hard to figure out what the system was doing and why, the interface, the non-stop issues with virusses, etc. Got myself a PowerBook in 2005, running MacOS X 10.4, generally happy about it until I needed to do more complex tasks involving the command prompt and discovered I couldn't get a newer Perl to run properly because something was wrong and half of the man pages were missing.x( So I looked elsewhere. I remembered reading that OS X was partially based on a BSD, so I had a look at it. Decided some time later that if my next system was to be a PC, it'd run FreeBSD.

Had my first taste of Windows 7 18 months ago on a work laptop, hated it. Had to set Win7 up for my dad on his new PC, hated it more, especially after discovering Microsoft had managed to break compatibility between Outlook Express and the new Windows Mail (on the other hand, got my parents to use Thunderbird for their email and they like it - score one for Open Source). And since I got my dad's old PC again...:e


----------



## AJ-BSD (Oct 1, 2012)

I've always been interested in the BSDs.
What sent me to FreeBSD specifically?

Believe it or not, these forums.
Any community running vBulletin, for me, is ++.


----------



## vadimkolchev (Oct 1, 2012)

It was several years ago, maybe 5, that I switched to Linux. The main reason was the instability and virus threats of M$ platform. Therefore I decided to try something new and installed Ubuntu. After that was a great bunch of linux distros, after couple of months ago I didn't try FreeBSD for the first time. Actually I wanted to try it much earlier, but I heard it was too complicated. Now I regret I hadn't installed it couple of years ago. Switched to it and learned a lot more.


----------



## SR_Ind (Oct 1, 2012)

To the kids on this forum.

Typing MS as M$ doesn't lend an extra bit of respectability to the BSD community.

That apart...this thread is interesting. Putting Linux/UNIX/BSD in a single phrase provides a clue to where the OP is coming from. 

Sorry, these Linux/UNIX/BSD are not analogous and even in the same league. You cannot put a Frankenstein, a dinosaur and normal human being in a single sentence.

Comparison is outrageous . I'm coming to belated realization that it is the BSDs that are more suitable for any role, server and desktop combined rather than the over hyped bloated mess called Linux. 

I just had a bout of wrestling in the mud with latest Debian and Fedora vomit. 

The Debian geniuses are not even aware that nowadays it is common to have WPA encrypted wireless networks in homes or office. So their installer does not offer it either. CentOS/Fedora have it. But...wait...the Linux community as whole does not get it either...for a minimal install one would not pull in half done hack job called Network Manager.

Did I even talk about sound? Well it doesn't work either. Not just out of box, not even after fighting with broken documentation.

Packages? Try anything custom,  apt-get/yum run crazy.

My bare minimum FreeBSD install gets me working Wifi over WPA with Intel HDA blowing full blast over OSS driver. With KMS enabled video driver HD movies are watchable. That's a quality OS for you.

Want to do some kernel level stuff? What do one say of an OS peddled by GNU zealots that do not ship with kernel sources in standard installation media? To obfuscate it further you get a gazillion of packages named xxx-devel xxx-header and so forth. To much space to put half a dozen editors, four browsers, office package (that doesn't work) yet not enough space for few megs of compressed source text?

Misbehaving IP filters anyone? Yeah, that's Linux for you...Red Hat to be precise.

In my range of control, the only thing that stands between a clean purge are some Oracle installations. But my developers have already ported the RDBMS interface to DB neutral code to work with Postgres and Oracle...so I'll order those purges anyway...lol.

Sorry for the rant. Had a back breaking work week fighting these GNU inbreds.

>>>>>

To the kids, my Windows 7 installation (dual booted with FreeBSD) has not seen virus (or BSOD, the favorite whipping boy of the GNU zealots) as long as I remember.


----------



## vadimkolchev (Oct 1, 2012)

As for typing M$ instead of Microsoft - sorry for that, if it insulted anybody. It is just quicker and everybody understands it. And there is no need in calling me a kid, you don't know me and have no idea who I am. I don't call you a dinosaur with your registration in 2009 and 100 posts (should see how useful). Anyways, I'm sure we are here not to insult each other, that's why please preserve politeness. If you don't agree with something a person types in forum, please make sure to give him polite correction.

Thanks in advance and best regards.


----------



## SR_Ind (Oct 1, 2012)

I understand English is not your first language.

So here's the translation.

Linux -> Frankenstein
UNIX (commercial variants) -> Dinosaurs
FreeBSD - Normal Human Being.


----------



## vadimkolchev (Oct 1, 2012)

I think your's as well, because you're not aware of existence of synonyms. However, I think it's not language-specific, so I'm not sure about your knowledge of ANY language. I stop this argument and am not willing to comment on it anymore. Thanks for your kind attention.


----------



## SR_Ind (Oct 1, 2012)

vadimkolchev said:
			
		

> I think your's as well, *because you're not aware of existence of synonyms*. However, I think it's not language-specific, so I'm not sure about your knowledge of ANY language. I stop this argument and am not willing to comment on it anymore. Thanks for your kind attention.



Thanks, I do not confuse analogies with synonyms.


----------



## atmosx (Oct 2, 2012)

Okay, mine is the lamest of all I've read so far: *I wanted to be a hacker*. At that point in time, in Greece we thought that Chatropolis and Astalavista was the internet (well it was...), what was in 96. 

Then I got my first computer in 2000 and got into IRC. But still I thought mIRC was IRC if you know what I mean. I entered a couple of channels, we formed a sort of gang (the lamest form you can ever imagine, a bunch of people who couldn't tell a USB from an ethernet plug, etc).

One day we got all trashed by a guy sitting on a "aDSL" connection. Well we were all using 56k (or maybe even slower connections, can't really tell). By trashed I mean receiving a sort of DOS attack, enough to keep us all out our the IRC (which was the internet at the time) server for some time.

After admitting that we need to enroll this guy, we talked to him and he told us that "in order to be a true hacker you have to know UNIX"... He also told us that it's very hard to learn and he doesn't know how to do it... That was the first time I've ever heard the word *UNIX*... A brand new world was there for me to explore ... I never became a hacker but at least I've learnt one thing or two about computers...


----------



## kpedersen (Oct 2, 2012)

SR_Ind said:
			
		

> UNIX (commercial variants) -> Dinosaurs



"My other box is a dinosaur".

They should so make car bumper stickers of that...


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Oct 2, 2012)

atmosx said:
			
		

> Okay, mine is the lamest of all I've read so far: *I wanted to be a hacker*.


You wanted to be a cracker. All crackers are hackers but not all hackers are crackers.


----------



## cbrace (Oct 2, 2012)

This is an entertaining and harmless thread, for which my thanks to the OP. Why SR_Ind insists on interjecting his overwrought flamebait is beyond me.


----------



## throAU (Oct 3, 2012)

I totally forgot about my very first *nix exposure pre-Solaris at work.

Slackware 3.1, installed from floppies.  I'd been playing a MUD at university and wanted to learn to code, and run my own.

This got me the Linux experience to be of assistance to the local small ISP (initially helldesk and poking around on the Sparc checking account issues, etc. - later setting up new boxes), and landed me my first "network guy" role.


Back in the days of dial up internet and having the chicken/egg situation of having to try and figure out a working PPP configuration with no internet available to do so.  

You young whipper-snappers with Virtualbox and VMware have it easy - back then trying a new OS out meant wiping your box and starting from bare metal 


My first release of FreeBSD that I actually used in anger (as in, for a production box facing the internet) was 4.0 from memory.  I tried 3.3 previously but back then I was recompiling kernels (Linux) all the time and the buildworld process for FreeBSD scared me a bit.


----------



## Deleted member 30996 (Oct 4, 2012)

atmosx said:
			
		

> Okay, mine is the lamest of all I've read so far: *I wanted to be a hacker*. At that point in time, in Greece we thought that Chatropolis and Astalavista was the internet (well it was...), what was in 96....



That's the best story yet. If I remember any of them it will be that one.


----------



## gentoobob (Oct 4, 2012)

First PC was a IBM PS/2 with Win 3.1, worked with Windows OS till 2001.  Had a friend who built his own linux firewall from a floppy disk. It intrigued me.  Took a linux course while I was in college that same year.  Started off with Suse --> RedHat/Fedora --> Gentoo --> FreeBSD.  

Now I rock FreeBSD on everything.  PC-BSD on laptop, FreeBSD on server with jails, FreeNAS on my storage, and pfSense on my NetGate Alix router. 

FreeBSD is just solid and Beastie!


----------



## atmosx (Oct 5, 2012)

drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> You wanted to be a cracker. All crackers are hackers but not all hackers are crackers.



See *at this point in time*, I understand that analyzing this sort of terminology the way you do is so retarded, that I'd prefer to rip my face off with a spoon rather than getting into this conversation.


----------



## Mr_P (Oct 5, 2012)

After a former experience I had with Windows System Administration with a close relative that gave me the opportunity, I decided that I wanted to be a system-network security administrator..(I am a student of a computer-software engineering department). He told me that I MUST install FreeBSD on my new machine (made to become a home server for experimenting-learning) and start by reading the handbook... So I did and I am now almost finishing it. =) I have already used a bit of Fedora,Ubuntu linux but FreeBSD as a terminal only choice is kinda fantastic I think =D


----------



## prp-e (Oct 5, 2012)

I use UNIX because I'm a Lawful citizen  and I didn't want cracked Windown.
My first Linux was Slackware when I was 12  and my first unix is OS X , Hackintoshed PC  . Finally I become a FreeBSD user. My first BSD is DesktopBSD (FreeBSD-Based) and my 2nd BSD is FreeBSD . 
Now I'm JabirProject (JabirBSD , JabirOS GNU/Linux , Jabir NexT Social Network) leader and I'm very happy for my best choice , UNIX. 
Thanks.


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Oct 6, 2012)

atmosx said:
			
		

> See *at this point in time*, I understand that analyzing this sort of terminology the way you do is so retarded, that I'd prefer to rip my face off with a spoon rather than getting into this conversation.



Yeah, well, learn the correct terminology. It will serve you well. Being a hacker is an honorable thing but not according to your definition which is wrong.


----------



## UNIXgod (Oct 7, 2012)

atmosx said:
			
		

> See *at this point in time*, I understand that analyzing this sort of terminology the way you do is so retarded, that I'd prefer to rip my face off with a spoon rather than getting into this conversation.





			
				drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> Yeah, well, learn the correct terminology. It will serve you well. Being a hacker is an honorable thing but not according to your definition which is wrong.



Here is the jargon file definition:

Hacker: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html
Cracker: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/C/cracker.html

I also like Crackers, Phreakers and Lamers:
http://catb.org/jargon/html/crackers.html

Further:
Phone Phreaker: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/P/phreaker.html
Lame: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/L/lamer.html

Of course your a real programmer if your name is Mel:
http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html


----------



## AJ-BSD (Oct 8, 2012)

UNIXgod said:
			
		

> Of course your a real programmer if your name is Mel:
> http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html



This was awesome.
Thank you!


----------



## UNIXgod (Oct 8, 2012)

AJ-BSD said:
			
		

> This was awesome.
> Thank you!



It really is a classic. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Here is the wikipedia page. It has the link to the original usenet posting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Mel


----------



## atmosx (Oct 8, 2012)

UNIXgod said:
			
		

> Here is the jargon file definition:
> 
> [...]
> 
> ...



Wow this one was a new one for me also! That's a bit strange because around 2002 I was part of a "crew" of sleaze little kids. I was making interviews for a website so, one of my virtual hosts was ESR. Other people I interviewed were mostly famous by nicknames...

Lame days, it was fun though. Thanks for the story! 

<offtopic>
A sys-admin story that I enjoyed a lot, although not programmer-specific is the The case of 500-mile email. Maybe we could make another thread with "funny computing stories" 
</offtopic>


----------



## UNIXgod (Oct 8, 2012)

atmosx said:
			
		

> Wow this one was a new one for me also! That's a bit strange because around 2002 I was part of a "crew" of sleaze little kids. I was making interviews for a website so, one of my virtual hosts was ESR. Other people I interviewed were mostly famous by nicknames...
> 
> Lame days, it was fun though. Thanks for the story!



The original "Hacker's Dictionary" book was put out in the 80's which had the definitions based on students jargon used at MIT AI labs. The original authors where Guy Steel, RMS, et al. ESR picked it up later.

drhowarddrfine's definition is correct. I believe he might have been a part of that "crew" as you call it. Most certainly he's been programming and hacking longer than you and I. His definition is not "retarded"... It's not some film industry's fantasy definition nor a journalists over-sensationalized hype of the script kiddies and dilettante's which only pretend to be.

If you want to be a hacker. Start here. Even Raymond put a paper together which defines what a hacker is and is not. If I find that I'll post a link.


----------



## Uniballer (Oct 9, 2012)

UNIXgod said:
			
		

> The original "Hacker's Dictionary" book was put out in the 80's which had the definitions based on students jargon used at MIT AI labs. The original authors where Guy Steel, RMS, et al. ESR picked it up later.



And the so-called jargon file was floating around in various places before the book came out.  I can't remember when and where I first saw it (probably the 1981 DECUS version), but I remember being amused when I saw the book in a mall bookstore.


----------



## DrJ (Oct 9, 2012)

The topic is drifting, but I'll throw in my two bits.

I was a graduate student at Berkeley when 4.1BSD transitioned to 4.2, and then to 4.3 (late 1970s to mid 1980s).  It was impossible to avoid.  There was the IBM mainframe, of course, but nearly everyone used the VAX 11/780s and 11/785s that ran BSD.  The philosophy students turned in papers formatted with nroff, and the campus actually had a C/A/T phototypesetter that turned out wonderful type with troff and friends.  The development environment was wonderful too.

Though I was a student at Berkeley, I was employed through Lawrence Berkeley Labs (now LBNL) -- they had VAX 8600s and fast Imagen laser printers that largely were unknown outside the most geeky of circles.

I got used to the standard Berkeley file layout -- other than /home it has not changed -- and the standard utilities that come with BSD.  Linux never seems to have those, and having a standard userland is important to me.  

FreeBSD (and the other BSDs probably too) feel like home, and when vi, awk, sed and the standard utilities are hard-wired into you fingers without all of the weird and verbose options simply it feels comfortable and like it should be.


----------



## Anonymous (Oct 9, 2012)

UNIXgod said:
			
		

> ...Of course your a real programmer if your name is Mel:
> http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html





			
				UNIXgod said:
			
		

> It really is a classic. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Here is the wikipedia page. It has the link to the original usenet posting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Mel



The story of Mel starts with:



> A recent article devoted to the *macho* side of programming made the bald and unvarnished statement:
> 
> Real Programmers write in Fortran.
> 
> Maybe they do now, ...



Some people do think that this is the reply on the other classic article about Real Programmers. And that one even gives us some deeper insights about Real Programmers and UNIX.

In 83, when both articles were written, I learned FOTRAN and Pascal in university courses. I bought my first computer in 1984, and it was a Mac 128k, and later on, I programmed for it in FORTRAN, Pascal, and C. I did the switch to Unix, together with Apple, switching from Mac OS Classic to Mac OS X in the early days of the new millennium.

I use Mac OS X on the clients and FreeBSD on the servers. Nowadays, I do every programming in C (client/server) and Objective-C (client).


----------



## atmosx (Oct 9, 2012)

UNIXgod said:
			
		

> The original "Hacker's Dictionary" book was put out in the 80's which had the definitions based on students jargon used at MIT AI labs. The original authors where Guy Steel, RMS, et al. ESR picked it up later.
> 
> drhowarddrfine's definition is correct. I believe he might have been a part of that "crew" as you call it. Most certainly he's been programming and hacking longer than you and I. His definition is not "retarded"... It's not some film industry's fantasy definition nor a journalists over-sensationalized hype of the script kiddies and dilettante's which only pretend to be.
> 
> If you want to be a hacker. Start here. Even Raymond put a paper together which defines what a hacker is and is not. If I find that I'll post a link.



I'll try not to rip off my face with a spoon(yet)â€¦ but this entire conversion seems utterly stupid to me because the definition as the jargon dictionary has it, is completely vague and can fill up a huge variety of totally different skillsets:

So apparently the FreeBSD developers core team are hackers, Linus Torvalds is a hacker and "spender" is a hacker also. Noir and aleph1 are also hackers, but nmav (gnuTLS dev) is also a hacker. Chris Demetriou is a hacker and ESR is a hacker also.  Phrack author's are hackers(?), probably yes.. They are "computer enthusiasts" by all means...

- Most of them know a couple of programming languages
- Love computers
- Think out of the box 

Is Theo De Raadt a hacker probably yes. Are the guys behind countless open source projects hackers? Mplayer, awesome, X11, awk(?) â€¦ hell yes!

Also look at No6 definition, I'm a computer enthusiast, am I a hacker because I can type 3 commands on a terminal and crack WEP wifi networks? For you hardly, wanna ask my friend who's approach to computing is the toast machine what he thinks of me? That I'm a computer genius...

Let's fly over to the "cracker" thing: The word cracker: as "drhowarddrfine" user define it, probably from here is the one who breaks into a security system. But what if the guy who breaks into a computer system, has written his own exploit, is capable of hiding his traces much better than others because of his deep understanding of a specific system let's say FreeBSD, etc. Does that makes him a hacker or is he just a cracker?

So the entire security-wise computer community are crackers. And the guys who find computer vuln's and write exploit code are crackers or hackers? I wonder if you have to be a hacker in order to write an OpenSSH 3.x Challenge-Response Buffer Overflow. Maybe not, maybe you're just a lame cracker who gets an awful lot of money for what he do, which is technically 4 times harder.

Are the people who reverse engineer compiled binaries hackers? Of course their motivations are not always sane or purely intellectual. Some times huge amount of money are involved but are they hackers?

Is Mark Zuckemberg a hacker?

Are the people behind stuxnet hackers?

Is the guy behind the 1st 3D-printer a hacker?

Are the F1 Ferrari team engineers hackers?

Is Kevin Mitnick a hacker?


It all depends on the perspective you put it. The definitions of the Jargon file are vague and that's why people, mainstream people and count me in that block, dislike using them. Makes the conversation turn from interesting to pedantic/idiotic without any apparent gain.

I'm pretty sure you understood what I've meant when I wrote the word on my first postâ€¦


----------



## hansivers (Oct 9, 2012)

My first contact with computers was on DOS (IBM/PC and various clones) near 1987. I bought a x86 clone in college but the Win95 fiasco bit me hardly : I had to reinstall about 20 times Win95 on my 486 because of problems with drivers, instability, etc. I began to search for alternatives and I heard about this non-windows/free OS Linux! First contact was Redhat (near 1997). I like it but I was still too much "infected" with the Windows way of computing (interface/settings/etc.) to appreciate the beauty of UNIX-like systems. 

In 2003, I had an opportunity at work to explore Linux and I dig more deeply into it. After installations of various distributions, I choose Debian for a couple of Web/files servers and everything went well. From time to time on sysadmin newgroups, I noticed mentions about the BSD family of OS and it caught my curiosity. I setup a FreeBSD test server and I immediately fall in love with the thing! That was exactly what I was searching for all the time : clean layout of filesystem, clean separation of base vs ports, extensive documentation, relatively conservative evolution and introduction of features, focus on server features, testbed for various research papers on OS, etc. 

I think that having been exposed to various OS before being introduced to FreeBSD and OpenBSD have help me to fully appreciate the beauty of the BSD's.


----------



## ChalkBored (Oct 9, 2012)

atmosx said:
			
		

> I'm pretty sure you understood what I've meant when I wrote the word on my first postâ€¦



You still don't get it. You're insulting the people who don't break into stuff by lumping them into the same group as the people who do.

Cracker is a subset of hacker. The difference is one does things with those skills that are immoral/unethical.

When people can't tell the difference between the two, normal hackers start catching hell for the things crackers do.


----------



## kpedersen (Oct 10, 2012)

ChalkBored said:
			
		

> Cracker is a subset of hacker. The difference is one does things with those skills that are immoral/unethical.



I enjoy cracking DRM software (I maintain devel/radare2 which is good for this type of thing). So I guess I am a cracker.

However, I don't think this is the same thing as a hacker (ethical or not).
Hackers often are required to analyze binaries to see if there is a flaw they can exploit to gain access to a running daemon etc... They probably wont modify the binary so perhaps this is where we can draw the line?

An ethical cracker... I guess I can't quite convince software studios that removing their DRM is for the good of the people but as long as I don't share or sell my "hackz" then I don't see anything wrong. I am simply customizing my software (to work on a desert island with no internet connection).

In other words, people can be arses regardless of their chosen profession / hobby lol.


----------



## throAU (Oct 10, 2012)

Hacking is not necessarily anything to do with breaking into things (DRM, networks, etc).


----------



## atmosx (Oct 10, 2012)

ChalkBored said:
			
		

> You still don't get it. You're insulting the people who don't break into stuff by lumping them into the same group as the people who do.



I don't have the intention of insulting anyone. I'm really sorry if you or any other user/group feel offended, I can assure you that was not my intention.



			
				ChalkBored said:
			
		

> Cracker is a subset of hacker. The difference is one does things with those skills that are immoral/unethical.
> 
> When people can't tell the difference between the two, normal hackers start catching hell for the things crackers do.



Personally, I can not imagine any real case scenario where a person would be in the position which you describe. Usually people who are in (really small in numbers) fields or groups who could be insulted by such distinction have the culture (and the good sense I guess) to use the terms a bit more _strictly_. But not necessarily in the way you mention.

Read here. The definition you give of the word, doesn't comply with wikipedia or even with theJargon dic.

 In point '8' there's a description of a cracker which goes much closer to what most people would call "script kiddie" (or used to call, can't tell for sure anymore).

I don't think anyone would call Stealth a 'cracker' because Brad Spencer disclosed that he was able to "get root" in to a SELinux system.

Oh wait, there we're again, is this guy a hacker or a cracker?


----------



## srobert (Oct 13, 2012)

*Engineering School*

In 1996 I had a Gateway 2000 that I had bought the previous year. I was working full time as a tradesman and going to school part time for mechanical engineering. I had learned over that year enough about Windows 3.11 (and Microsoft Bob  )to get email from AOL, write papers, play games, but still had the feeling that I was basically computer-illiterate. I was 32 and even teenagers typically knew more than I did about all this _computer stuff_. 
 In my school's engineering labs, all the work was being done on UNIX. If I wanted to become an engineer, UNIX was what I needed to learn. I was a little miffed that my expensive PC was useless for this purpose. Until another student told me that there was a version of UNIX that ran on PC's called "_Lynex or something like that_". This comment led me to get the Slackware '96 CD's from Walnut Creek. (I still have them ) Soon after I was using Linux as my desktop and laptop operating system. Maybe it was just because I enjoyed the challenge of it that I stuck with it. (Setting up a printer for the first time in Linux in '96 as a newcomer, I found that ghostscript was about as user-friendly as a rabid bear, but Hey it Works!). 
 Since then I've used Suse, Redhat, Debian, several flavors of Ubuntu, and several times built Linux from Scratch systems. 
Only a few months ago I thought I'd dive into FreeBSD and see what this is all about. I installed FreeBSD Release 9.0. It feels a little bit like Slackware did back then. Most things work fine, but a few things are just enough of a challenge to keep it interesting. 

P.S. I'm now a Professional Engineer and at work all day everything is done on machines running Microsoft Windows. It's good enough for work, but I don't use it on any of my personal computers.


----------



## TiberiusDuval (Oct 29, 2012)

Long story made short, I'm old Amiga user and liked system quite much, after my trusty old A-500 got a little bit old, I changed to PC-compatibles. Used Dos/Win9x/WinXP/WinVista/Win7 (still use that one for gaming), but I never felt comfortable with MS products, and longed for something different. Then in 2008 local computer magazine, MikroBitti had Ubuntu on itsubsriber DVD, and I tried it, used only little with my old Athlon machine. After getting new machine, I went on with Vista, until 2010 I installed Ubuntu 10.04 and started using it as my main os. Early in 2012 I tried FreeBSD 9.0 with virtual machine, and then with real install, but did not like workload needed to make it as usable desktop system. Little after first experiments with FreeBSD I found PC-BSD, and installed it, nowadays I'm using it as my main os, make some experiments with it and try learning about underlying FreeBSD. Maybe some time in future I try the real thing again, as PC-BSD shallowed the needed learning curve quite much.


----------



## TiberiusDuval (Oct 29, 2012)

BTW, FreeBSD's man pages are great, really informative and really helpfull.


----------



## Davsjo (Nov 17, 2012)

After being away from the Linux world for almost ten years it wasn't easy going back in yearly 2011. Compared to what I was used to, most major distributions now seem to have a strong desktop orientation, graphical installers, Gnome as the default dm, a multitude of unnecessary components installed by default (PulseAudio!), lacking documentation and more than anything a development pace that is so high that you can't be sure that anything will stay the same for any period of time. I actually found FreeBSD by googling for something like "stable unix alternative to linux" and have in every aspect been impressed.


----------



## zspider (Nov 17, 2012)

It just works so well, since everything is consistent and well documented, I've actually been able to learn this system.


----------



## arapaima (Nov 17, 2012)

When I was 14, a friends cousin called him self a hacker. He typed fast in some sort of command shell (Linux I think) read about C programming in bed. He didn't really tell me anything, but inspired my to search for information on my own.
I've never been the gamer kind of type, although my brother invited me to play different amiga games at the time we had one at home. I have a great history of destroying my fathers computers though, mostly by removing different files and see what happened 
It's interesting to think about why in the first place. I think structure and knowledge has always made a big impression on me.
I've been taking a vacation for a couple of years to get in depth knowledge about horticulture and sustainability. But it cannot really replace this world for me, so I'm back and inspired. Next project is to look up on python and re-learn funny mathematics by using C and ncurses/SDL.


----------



## wpostma (Nov 19, 2012)

I first installed a PC version BSD back in the pre-FreeBSD era, I think it was called 386BSD. I also used early Linux 0.98 distributions like "Yggdrasil".  

My first Unix experience was IBM AIX and other Unix mini/mainframe/workstation Unix versions when I was at University, in 1989.  I immediately loved Unix, and Usenet. I spent hours in news-reader programs reading and posting on "comp.*" newsgroups, and in those days, there was no "Web" but the Internet was already awesome.  I discovered FTP and open source, and I spent a huge amount of time logged into Unix systems from my 80386sx-based computer running DOS.  I used a terminal program (Telix) and a modem to dial into the Unix systems at the university.  It was amazing.

I'm a professional Windows developer these days. I don't hate Windows, and I don't hate Linux, but I do like FreeBSD a lot. I like the Ports collection. I like the fact that if the world were to be set back to the stone-age, one person with a computer and a complete Ports collection would have the complete power of the computer-age all present on their computer.   Please remember to back up a complete copy of your favorite FreeBSD release onto your own local mirror, before the world ends and the internet melts, please.   Just kidding. 

But seriously.  FreeBSD is really, really amazing. When you realize what you've got  in your hands, it's a fantastic feeling.

Warren


----------



## kpedersen (Nov 20, 2012)

wpostma said:
			
		

> I like the Ports collection. I like the fact that if the world were to be set back to the stone-age, one person with a computer and a complete Ports collection would have the complete power of the computer-age all present on their computer.



This is almost my number one reason for using FreeBSD. The software lifecycle is managed independently to a large central repository such as the Apple app store, Fedora's yum, Solaris 11's IPS. These are all examples of bad solutions.

So when the nuclear bombs start falling, I can retire to my fallout shelter whilst still compiling all my favourite software (after archiving the distfiles of course


----------



## zspider (Nov 20, 2012)

kpedersen said:
			
		

> This is almost my number one reason for using FreeBSD. The software lifecycle is managed independently to a large central repository such as the Apple app store, Fedora's yum, Solaris 11's IPS. These are all examples of bad solutions.
> 
> So when the nuclear bombs start falling, I can retire to my fallout shelter whilst still compiling all my favourite software (after archiving the distfiles of course



Make sure its EMP proof.


----------



## Slurp (Nov 20, 2012)

I can answer the question in the title in one word:
Vista.


----------



## freethread (Nov 20, 2012)

Slurp said:
			
		

> I can answer the question in the title in one word:
> Vista.



mah, I can see no reason at all...
http://youtu.be/bFj2B1UdqsY


----------



## Retsinakanister (Dec 19, 2012)

It was, primarily, being fed up with Windows. I wanted to get rid of it, so I got a Mac. While using OS X i developed a big interest for hard- and software, and soon I knew, the Mac was a bad idea. I sold it and bought me a new PC, on which i soon installed Ubuntu. And some months later, I migrated to FreeBSD. :> Nothing special, I'd say.


----------



## Amberleaf (Dec 21, 2012)

I'm eighteen now, I used Linux since I were fourteen or fifteen so really not that long ago although it feels I have been on BSD for years. I've only been on FreeBSD for just over a year and Debian for all the time beforehand. My dearest mother bought me a computer magazine once because there was no Karrang ones which is usually my preference. It's about the rock/indie rock and heavy metal music channel on television. This was back when I used to watch television but anyway, there was a double sided disk in this magazine with mint on one side and ubuntu on the other.


----------



## archmonk (Jan 2, 2013)

*S*tarted off with Ubuntu in 2006 and then went to Fedora then Arch Linux and now *I* am curious about freebsd FreeBSD 

*R*eading up on Linux based distributions vs freebsd FreeBSD and wondering if *I* should make a switch


----------



## Persephone (Jan 2, 2013)

Awesome stories.

My dream programming environment has always been unix systems.

However as to why BSD I would say the major reason I made the leap to FreeBSD was Slashdot. Years of reading that site has shown me what a nauseating ideology GNU was and what a bunch of monumental douchebags adhere to it.

I should have tried out FreeBSD years ago. So far the worst I can say about the FreeBSD community and developers is that it is obviously focused more on the server side of computing and that there simply aren't large numbers of people doing work on making FreeBSD a straight from default install desktop workstation. The BSD philosophy of focusing on writing well engineered code that is useful for yourself and hopefully others is very appealing over the 'demand you kiss my ass' GNU mindset and its Orewellian doublespeak about 'freedom'.

Now that I have a tablet for the past year a good deal of the things I use to do on my workstation I do on my tablet. That has made sticking with FreeBSD much easier since all my workstation needs to do is provide good development tools. Which FreeBSD does better than any other unix system right now. Having clang/llvm as the default compiler is the best part. It is amazing to see the clang/llvm community absolutely explode in development thanks to the modern and modular design all free from crippling ideology. And it just reinforces just how badly open source compiler development was held back by poisonous ideology with gcc.


----------



## Netherfox (Jan 2, 2013)

Persephone said:
			
		

> [...] its Orewellian doublespeak about 'freedom'.



This was a prime motivation away from GNU for me as well. The BSD license is much more aligned with my connotation of freedom than the GPL's "copylef.

That, and simple curiosity.


----------



## hexu (Jan 7, 2013)

no love for the institution, hacker mentality. tried several linux brands, some where just as buggy as windows. found a copy of FreeBSD 4.4 at barnes and nobles, been with FreeBSD ever since.


----------



## trh411 (Jan 8, 2013)

Long time UNIX (AIX, HPUX) guy at work, Mac OSX guy at home for the last 4 years. When Apple started the OSX bloat with Lion/Mountain Lion, my 4 year old iMac was no longer usable because of all the paging it was doing. Between OSX and Safari, nearly 3/4 of my 4GB RAM was used with just a dozen tabs open. Since I was at max RAM, I could only resolve the issue in the Apple world by buying another iMac for $2500. Dumping OSX and moving to FreeBSD has extended the life of my iMac and significantly improved my computing experience. Should have done this 4 years ago.


----------

