You are not logged in.

#51 2016-08-16 14:51:03

Texbrew
Member
From: The Lone Star State
Registered: 2016-02-09
Posts: 580

Re: A rant from an old user

@frank604,

That is amazing.  Thanks for the recommendation.  I ordered one from amazon for $0.01 + shipping lol

Oh no! Is it too late to cancel your amazon order? ewaller's link sends you to an online PDF which you can read or download for free.

I mean, $0.01 is great, but what about the shipping?

I like reading a book I can hold in my hand, but if I can get it for free by reading online or downloading, that's what I usually do.

tex

Offline

#52 2016-08-16 15:12:23

Texbrew
Member
From: The Lone Star State
Registered: 2016-02-09
Posts: 580

Re: A rant from an old user

@drcouzelis, Darn! Now you got me wondering what that turbo button did, but I'm thinking it was prob'ly just a gimmick. I'll prob'ly google it anyway...

Check that - I just put into StartPage, "'80s era pc with turbo button" and here are the first couple of hits:https://www.quora.com/History-of-Comput … 90s-PCs-do and for Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_button

The turbo button was added to many computers using CPUs produced after the original 4.77 MHz Intel 8086. Many software titles (games in particular) used the CPU's frequency for timing, so as faster chips came out, some of these games were unplayable. To provide a layer of compatibility for these titles, the "turbo" button was added.

So it seems the button actually slowed down the CPU to make older games playable.

This is fun to a geek like me. It's never too late to learn something new - and old... BTW, from that first link, sounds like the turbo button appeared in the '90s.

Geez, I gotta get a life...

tex

Last edited by Texbrew (2016-08-16 15:15:00)

Offline

#53 2016-08-16 18:10:48

frank604
Member
From: BC, Canada
Registered: 2011-04-20
Posts: 1,212

Re: A rant from an old user

Texbrew wrote:

@frank604,

That is amazing.  Thanks for the recommendation.  I ordered one from amazon for $0.01 + shipping lol

Oh no! Is it too late to cancel your amazon order? ewaller's link sends you to an online PDF which you can read or download for free.

I mean, $0.01 is great, but what about the shipping?

I like reading a book I can hold in my hand, but if I can get it for free by reading online or downloading, that's what I usually do.

tex

Oh, well this is a second hand book.  I like to keep books in circulation.  Plus the smell of paper is slightly exciting.

Offline

#54 2016-08-17 14:51:11

Rumor
Member
From: Albany, NY
Registered: 2006-07-07
Posts: 638

Re: A rant from an old user

drcouzelis wrote:

Guys, don't forget to mention if your computer had a "TURBO" button! big_smile

I don't recall if our 286 had one, but the 486/33 I bought to replace it did. I don't think the button was ever UN-pushed. smile


Smarter than a speeding bullet
My Goodreads profile

Offline

#55 2016-08-17 18:13:32

Head_on_a_Stick
Member
From: London
Registered: 2014-02-20
Posts: 7,682
Website

Re: A rant from an old user

Rumor wrote:

I don't think the button was ever UN-pushed. smile

Erm...

Wikipedia wrote:

The name itself is an intentional misnomer, as the button does not boost the speed; engaging it slows the system down to a state compatible with original 8086/8088 chips.

hmm

EDIT: Sorry Texbrew, you have already made this point.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2016-08-17 18:15:03)

Online

#56 2016-08-23 17:05:27

dunc
Member
From: Glasgow, UK
Registered: 2007-06-18
Posts: 559

Re: A rant from an old user

drcouzelis wrote:

Mardukas, I think you've successfully offended every operating system and every programming language in a single post! big_smile

He missed out Amiga. Well, let me tell you my story...

The first computer I ever saw was probably an Altair (or a clone) sometime in the late '70s, at a friend's birthday party, of all things. We were busy sitting on the floor, playing pass-the-parcel or something, when her dad - an engineer - came home from work lugging a box. Asked what it was, he replied, “A computer!” I was intrigued (What does it do? How can you tell what it's doing when it's all just lights and switches on the front?) but too shy at the age of... I don't know, but maybe six, to say anything. It wasn't until years later, when I saw the Altiar on Bob Cringely's show that I realised that this was (probably) what I'd seen all those years before.

I started out myself around 1982, like most British kids, with Sinclair stuff. ZX81 at first (eventually expanded to a mammoth 32K), then a series of Spectrums. BBC Micros at school of course, but never enough time on them to get to grips with the things, and RMLs across the room (looking vaguely like PCs, but probably running CP/M) for... well, I don't know what they were for, but they were there. Later on, I began to envy my mates who, by about '88/'89 were upgrading to Amigas, but couldn't afford one until quite late; '92, I think, just before Commodore collapsed under its own weight. And I stuck with Amiga until 2005, believe it or not. What can I say? I liked 'em. All my earliest internet adventures were on those machines. (And that was fun. Back then, none of the browsers for AmigaOS supported Javascript. Some of them didn't even do stylesheets. Fire up Dillo and you'll get some idea of what it was like. Except on dialup. With bitmap fonts.)

So I saw the writing on the wall - broadband was coming, which would be a pain to set up with Amiga hardware, and the hardware itself was becoming harder and harder to maintain - and bought a PC in September 2005. No way was I going to succumb to the Microsoft menace, so I decided to venture into the dark woods of Linux. I tried a few distros at first, still kicking the old Amiga into life when I got stuck, but eventually by December or so I'd settled on Mandriva. People who were around Linux at the time will probably remember Mandriva 2006 as being possibly the worst release they ever did, but for some reason I was comfortable with it. And, in fact, its poor quality was a bit of a blessing in disguise: it was so broken that I had to learn to fix it (I particularly recall having to rebuild GTK+ from source in order to satisfy a dependency... from the official repos).

But by early 2007, it was nearing EOL, Mandriva was in a complete mess so simply upgrading wasn't very attractive, and anyway I had itchy feet and a desire for something a bit less pre-packaged, something where I had a bit more control. I looked at a few distros - Slackware, Vector, & Gentoo spring to mind - but the one that really “clicked” with me was Arch. Everything just seemed to make sense. No default DE, configuration in text files that weren't overriden by the system because you probably didn't mean that, rolling releases (no waiting six months for the latest Firefox), a package manager that - how can this be? - actually worked... and more; everything I came across seemed to be the obviously right way to do it. Why would anyone use anything else?

It took me a couple of months to join the forum, once I was absolutely certain that this would be my main distro from now on, but when I didn't win the logo competition I went in a sulk and haven't been back since. No, only kidding... the truth is, after the initial few months of finding my feet, I've rarely had any problems, and with no questions to ask any more, kind of drifted away from the forum. It seems odd to say it about a distro with such a hardcore reputation, but it Just Works. I now have at least three machines running Arch at any one time and don't see any reason to switch. Almost all of the things that convinced me ten years ago still apply. And I've pretty sure I've learned more in that time than in the previous 25, thanks to Linux, but in particular Arch itself.

(Oh, and yes: this all means I've never owned a Windows licence or a Mac.)


0 Ok, 0:1

Offline

#57 2016-08-24 03:10:22

Texbrew
Member
From: The Lone Star State
Registered: 2016-02-09
Posts: 580

Re: A rant from an old user

@dunc, you presented a very good summary of reasons to choose Arch. The user gets to choose what is installed on his/her system, and maintaining Arch isn't difficult (though I'm still learning and may get a surprise with the next system upgrade).

While some other distros work very well, they all come with a fair amount of bloat - at least in my experience. While the bloat is no doubt well intended, I think it slows down boot times. I have Arch installed on three machines, Debian on a couple others, Linux Mint on a couple others, so boot times are not a distant memory. My light weight Arch installs are very fast at start up.

I enjoyed your discussion of the Amiga and your early memory of the Altair. I just read a book recommended by ewaller (admin) in this discussion thread. Follow his link to a PDF version of Steve Levy's Hackers book, which can be read online or downloaded.

The book includes a section on the Altair, and on the Homebrew Computer Club which grew up around that machine. A fun read!

tex

Offline

#58 2016-08-24 10:24:16

r0b0t
Member
From: /tmp
Registered: 2009-05-24
Posts: 505

Re: A rant from an old user

x33a wrote:

This thread should be renamed "Arch Veterans United".

I definitely agree on that smile
BTW, I had to install the system only if I got a new laptop. I think I reinstalled it once if I'm not mistaken the first years for some stupid mistake I'v made but everything was fine among the years and now it's even better.

Offline

#59 2016-08-24 14:37:43

Texbrew
Member
From: The Lone Star State
Registered: 2016-02-09
Posts: 580

Re: A rant from an old user

r0b0t wrote:
x33a wrote:

This thread should be renamed "Arch Veterans United".

I definitely agree on that smile
BTW, I had to install the system only if I got a new laptop. I think I reinstalled it once if I'm not mistaken the first years for some stupid mistake I'v made but everything was fine among the years and now it's even better.

I don't know, I may be the only Arch newbie posting/watching this thread; "rant" doesn't seem to fit the tone of it, maybe "Nostalgia from an old user"?

@r0b0t, you're not the guy who keeps calling me several times a day with a sales pitch, a political message or a threat that the IRS is suing me, are you? JUST KIDDING!

Of course, I call them "robo calls", and well, your user name... oh, I just remembered a main rule of joke telling - a joke isn't funny if you have to explain it...

Robo calls... now that's something I can rant about...

Thanks to everyone who has posted in this thread, it has dredged up a lot of good memories. And thank you, Arch Linux and the team that's keeping it great!

I don't do smiley faces, but I'm tempted to right now, and I don't mind if you do them.

tex

Offline

#60 2016-08-24 17:58:11

cowlick
Banned
Registered: 2013-10-13
Posts: 73

Re: A rant from an old user

My first programming language was SPS, (Symbolic Programming System). A-Operand, B-Operand, a precursor to FORTRAN that came out a year or two later. Everything was Holllerith cards and IBM and Univac ruled the world.


DELL Inspiron 14-3452, 32GB emmc, 4 GB RAM

Offline

#61 2016-08-29 02:29:07

Anonymo
Member
Registered: 2005-04-07
Posts: 427
Website

Re: A rant from an old user

It was certainly exciting to install with AIF, and everything being so fast and configuring rc.conf to perfection.

Offline

#62 2016-09-22 06:58:38

durian
Member
Registered: 2011-12-22
Posts: 15

Re: A rant from an old user

dunc wrote:
drcouzelis wrote:

Mardukas, I think you've successfully offended every operating system and every programming language in a single post! big_smile

I started out myself around 1982, like most British kids, with Sinclair stuff. ZX81 at first (eventually expanded to a mammoth 32K), then a series of Spectrums. BBC Micros at school of course, ...
[...]
(Oh, and yes: this all means I've never owned a Windows licence or a Mac.)

A BBC model B was my second computer, after the TRS-80 I got in 1981. I was living in The Netherlands at the time, and ordered the BBC from England (I think I phoned a random shop I picked from "Computing Today" (I think it was called)  and asked if they would send one to Holland, which they did :-) ).

Later I got an Atari ST1040, an Apple II, and an original Mac (via via, second hand). From the Mac I went to Linux in 1993 or 1994, don't remember.

I owned a Windows licence just because they came with PC hardware in those days, but I never used Windows :-)

Think I ran slackware in the beginning, and RedHat (I bought those infomagic CD rom sets), then gentoo (I see my gentoo forum registration was in 2003), and then Arch,

-peter

Last edited by durian (2016-09-22 08:06:16)

Offline

#63 2016-10-04 04:12:36

saif
Member
Registered: 2010-05-21
Posts: 59

Re: A rant from an old user

Here a story from a non-techy-cs-enginnering guy. An economist, skater and gamer instead.

I started out at High school, on 2007 with Ubuntu. Shortly as I understood the installation procedure, tried Mint and I was happy for a while specially because of the media codecs bundled.

I had no idea about terminals and ttys so I wanted to be as fancy as possible, my first attraction was a OS GUI interface which was different from Windows XP, specially when playing around with Compiz. So shortly, I thought distros were basically DEs. I tried OpenSuse and Fedora and got stuck because I couldnt get anything installed. My only way to try distros was doing full format and standard installation so you can imagine time spent.

Suddenly I met Arch. Was surprised by the beginners guide. Failed a couple times of copy pasting the instructions until it worked. And that was my first dual boot with grub as well, and this was already 2010. Still got that laptop somewhere. Sad thing is I had no idea what fstab or fdisk or whatever was before systemd, the daemon thing back then. Mostly copy past from arch community and wiki which was definetly the best. Wanted more. Vi was my nightmare, I remember cutting off the power because I didnt know what :q! was or where to put it.

Windows held me back because of the games, I gave Wine PlayOnLinux a chance from time to time. Wanted to stay on linux as much as possible. I loved getting stuck at things that wouldnt exist on Windows.

Later on linux became my hideout. If I needed to study for college and wanted to stop gaming, then boot arch. Most frequently, instead of studying I ended up breaking something just to fix it. Most usually fglxr drivers or alsalib and things that forced me to clean install to fix, and not study some more.

Today I am still on Arch, even though I tried a couple distros in the middle I always ended up coming back. I knew about VirtualBox much later on.

Main point is,I disagree that Arch is a difficult distro. How can a distro be difficult if it has the best wiki and community any Linux ever had? You just need to read.

Now I was using I3 and got awesome with the shell. Can even install packages without yaourt and got my pacman stuff clean. Broke my hand so i3 was a pain, installed gnome3 to give more use to the mouse, but im totally a Linux terminal fan now. Started learning some programming and later on created Scala programs completely written in Vim. Cant wait to keep learning, and cant wait to Arch some more. its Filosofy is great.

Best!

Last edited by saif (2016-10-04 04:30:09)

Offline

#64 2016-10-04 16:02:42

Texbrew
Member
From: The Lone Star State
Registered: 2016-02-09
Posts: 580

Re: A rant from an old user

@saif, Welcome to the obsession. Many of your bumps in the road sound very familiar; install a distro, wipe hard drive, install another, wash, rinse, repeat. Commonly called "distro hopping". Why not? Most linux distros are free. I think for me it was about 3 years into my linux journey that I discovered VirtualBox, and that led to giving Arch a try.

Now I have settled down to two favorite distros, Arch and old reliable Debian, which I have used since the beginning of my linux journey. Love them both.

Enjoy your journey!

tex

Offline

#65 2016-10-26 11:43:35

mouseman
Member
From: Outta nowhere
Registered: 2014-04-04
Posts: 291

Re: A rant from an old user

enrique wrote:
0x29a wrote:

@enrique: your log is a testament for that, lol.

smile

The install is running on its 3.rd motherboard, from AMD+ATI to AMD+Nvidia to Intel+Nvidia, from a RAID-5 (3 discs) to a single SSD. Same procedure every time; mount new disk, rsync, recovery cd, install grub smile

The same system has also been cloned to my HTPC and my laptop. But I think I'm doing a clean install on my next laptop just for the fun of it wink

You're gonna need some help for that, since its been so long you did an install from scratch, you wouldn't know where to start ;-).

Offline

#66 2016-10-26 12:20:59

enrique
Member
Registered: 2005-10-25
Posts: 95
Website

Re: A rant from an old user

Yeah I needed that smile

After my laptop install I also had to install Arch on my work machine, so it was nice to have been through it recently.


Kind regards, enrique

Offline

#67 2016-11-20 16:44:56

Shopko
Member
From: Nevada, US
Registered: 2004-12-09
Posts: 16
Website

Re: A rant from an old user

I started with Slackware when I was in college in the 90's.  I used it to write and test programs for my CS claws without needing to go to campus.  Being able to use gcc and interact with tcl/tk over the network felt so much more "advanced" than the people who trudged across campus to go to the computer lab.  I liked playing Doom and Wolfenstein though, so eventually I found djgpp which allowed me to write gcc programs in DOS.  I still used linux mostly though, and I remember being giddy every time a new kernel was released.  I remember going to see Return of the King at the theater with my friends, and sitting anxiously through the movie because that day was also Release of the Kernel.  smile

I've now been a professional developer for 20 years in the Microsoft realm with C# and WPF.  I've gotten into mobile development with Xamarin and I like exploring the "new frontier" of mobile devices, but nothing is as exciting to me anymore as things were back in those early days of Arch.  <3

Offline

#68 2016-11-20 19:13:42

Texbrew
Member
From: The Lone Star State
Registered: 2016-02-09
Posts: 580

Re: A rant from an old user

@Shopko,

...and sitting anxiously through the movie because that day was also Release of the Kernel.

I hate to admit this, but sometimes we have friends & family come to visit while I'm tinkering with a linux box. I will always stop what I'm doing and enjoy the visit, but afterwards I go back to my tinkering.

Offline

#69 2017-01-14 00:49:08

Mantiuk
Member
Registered: 2016-11-30
Posts: 2

Re: A rant from an old user

Newbie here as well.

It's been a little over a year since i read that article on lifehacker, while i was drinking my coffee at the local cafe. It was about archlinux, knowledge, power, simplicity, control... The thing is, i've been using windows exclusively for about 20 years to know anything about control, The UNIX Philosophy, or nano whatever.conf.

So armed with persistence and pretty much nothing else, i finished my coffee and decided to pull the trigger once and for all. No VMs, no dual booting Ubuntu, no windows DVD in case something goes wrong. Today, i can't even fathom installing a DE. I am using git to clone sources and keep them up-to-date, editing header files in C for dwm, st, ii, compiling my kernel and trying to learn anything i possibly can about UNIX, Plan9 and Linux.

//I hope i'm not necrobumping

Last edited by Mantiuk (2017-01-14 00:49:50)

Offline

#70 2017-01-24 04:48:01

duder2
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2009-03-21
Posts: 14

Re: A rant from an old user

Arch is my go to distro for lots of reasons.  Came in around 2006 from learning linux on PCLinuxOS-KDE3.    Mostly use Linux From Scratch now for last few years.  I also enjoy the new KaOS pure KDE5 x64.   I always have an Arch box in the rotation.

Archetech

Offline

#71 2017-01-26 01:44:00

cactus
Taco Eater
From: t͈̫̹ͨa͖͕͎̱͈ͨ͆ć̥̖̝o̫̫̼s͈̭̱̞͍̃!̰
Registered: 2004-05-25
Posts: 4,622
Website

Re: A rant from an old user

Still not enough tacos around here.
I run FreeBSD mostly these days.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Last edited by cactus (2017-01-26 01:47:11)


"Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." -- Postel's Law
"tacos" -- Cactus' Law
"t̥͍͎̪̪͗a̴̻̩͈͚ͨc̠o̩̙͈ͫͅs͙͎̙͊ ͔͇̫̜t͎̳̀a̜̞̗ͩc̗͍͚o̲̯̿s̖̣̤̙͌ ̖̜̈ț̰̫͓ạ̪͖̳c̲͎͕̰̯̃̈o͉ͅs̪ͪ ̜̻̖̜͕" -- -̖͚̫̙̓-̺̠͇ͤ̃ ̜̪̜ͯZ͔̗̭̞ͪA̝͈̙͖̩L͉̠̺͓G̙̞̦͖O̳̗͍

Offline

#72 2017-02-02 11:36:05

Mardukas
Banned
From: Lithuania
Registered: 2007-08-05
Posts: 121

Re: A rant from an old user

Software is updated slowly - for Node.js it takes 1 day, meanwhile for brew it takes 1 hour to get new changes, QQ.

Offline

#73 2017-02-19 11:40:42

stryder
Member
Registered: 2009-02-28
Posts: 500

Re: A rant from an old user

I started my linux journey in 2004 with libranet, moved to kanotix and offshoots when libranet folded (all debian based), and then to archlinux when it seems the developers in sidux and offshoots cannot stop squabbling. Archlinux forum by contrast was helpful and knowledgeable and no ego. As has been said by some in this thread, the experience I gained managing my system under archlinux gave me a lot of confidence dealing with computing environments to the extent I actually am now helping a small company to manage its network and server.

Offline

#74 2017-02-19 22:05:01

Texbrew
Member
From: The Lone Star State
Registered: 2016-02-09
Posts: 580

Re: A rant from an old user

stryder wrote:

...the experience I gained managing my system under archlinux gave me a lot of confidence dealing with computing environments to the extent I actually am now helping a small company to manage its network and server.

Man, I love hearing stories like that. I hope they aren't too small to pay you for your time, coffee and donuts, at least.

Offline

#75 2017-03-13 16:06:00

aardwolf
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2005-07-23
Posts: 304

Re: A rant from an old user

I've been a user since 2005 (possibly dabbling since 2004) and never really switched to something else, archlinux with KDE has worked great for me for those 11+ years and has been my only main OS at home since then.

I'm mainly someone who wants to USE the computer to do stuff, not someone who wants to spend time installing/tweaking operating systems. And with Archlinux I had to spend less time on that than with Windows before that. This even despite some "pacman -Syu"'s causing some trouble every now and then.

I started using archlinux in 2005 on a computer, and it stayed there and got updated til the end. Then I built a new computer in 2007, and installed arch on it, and that very same installation was on it and updated til 2012. Then I built a third computer, and my current arch install is working and kept up to date since 2012 on it. Never reinstalled. So yes, it's pretty reliable.

The only decision I dislike is when archlinux started using systemd, because it's buggier than what there was before, makes logs some binary format, and then sometimes can't even read its own logs because it managed to corrupt them or whatever its problem is.

I like how Archlinux always has up to date versions of software, with some other distros you're stuck with 2 year old versions of things from the package manager smile

Last edited by aardwolf (2017-03-13 16:11:50)

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB