Twenty years ago, I was a computer science student with a lot of spare time in my hands. I was tweaking my Windows 2000 installs, patching Explorer.exe with random versions found on the Internet like there was no tomorrow. However, I felt a bit cramped in Microsoft environment, and I was looking for alternatives. One of them was Linux, of course: I have had a few classes at school about it, including a hands-on lab session where we had to setup a PC from scratch to dual boot into Windows and Linux, with working networking for both (and trust me, back in the early 2000s, it was no simple feat). I didn't really understand why, on Linux, we had to edit configuration files in a black terminal like cavemen, whereas on Windows we could use nice graphical user interfaces to do the same thing. I probably also didn't understand why we had to spend much more time troubleshooting on Windows because there was almost no logs available…

I had already toyed with Linux: in 1998, I had found a magazine at my local book shop that came with a copy of Red Hat Linux 5.2 on a bunch of CD-ROMs and a very simple installation guide. The screenshots looked promising, and the magazine was cheap, so I decided to try it. After nuking my Windows installation by messing up with Disk Druid, realizing I was unable to read my floppy disks anymore (because there was no A: drive and because I had no idea that you had to mount the floppy drive before being able to access it), and being mocked by “enlightened” Linux users when asking for help on IRC, I had given up and moved back to the comfort of Windows 2000.

But this time, it was 2004, one of my classmates was a Debian user, and more importantly, there were online forums where very nice people were available at all times to provide guidance and advice to get you started with Linux. This time, I didn't want to nuke my Windows installation: I had homework and deadlines at school. But that summer, I had bought a second hand laptop, so I decided to give Linux another try. Two distributions were often mentioned for their ease of use: Fedora and Ubuntu. I started with Fedora (which had a wonderful installation process, way better than anything Microsoft had ever done, and better that what was available with Ubuntu at the time). It was a nice experience, but ultimately I went with Ubuntu, mostly because the French forums had much more users and they were much more responsive. The first version, 4.10 “Warty Warthog”, had just been released, and the forum was very active.

Back then, the biggest challenge was to get the Internet working. In France, the main Internet provider was using the Alcatel Speedtouch USB modem (they looked like manta rays) to connect to ADSL, which means proper drivers were required to make this work properly on Linux. I don't remember the details, but it involved extracting the firmware and reconfiguring PPPoE very often.

After getting things to work properly on my laptop, I installed Ubuntu on my main desktop PC as a dual boot option, and after a while realized I was not really booting into Windows anymore, so I removed it entirely to save some precious disk space.

Even though I've tried other Linux distributions, I've remained on Ubuntu, partly because I'm lazy, partly because, contrary to my student days, I don't have much spare time anymore, so I like when things work “out of the box”.

I haven't really used Windows since then, except at one point in my career in 2010 when I had to use it on company-provided laptops, and that was not fun.

I'm now using the terminal most of the time, and don't really see myself doing any configuration that would require a graphical user interface!

Linux distributions have come a long, long way since the early 2000s. Sometimes I'm annoyed by some bugs, but then I see my wife struggling with the Windows laptop that her company provides (“Oh no, the WiFi disappeared again, it will take 2 weeks for IT to fix it and in the meantime I will have to use a crappy USB Ethernet adapter and a 5 meters long cable to connect to the router!”), and I realize life is not so bad!

But most importantly, along the way, I discovered the power of free and open source software, and the wonderful communities behind it. I started my journey looking for the freedom to customize the user interface on my computer, and this journey taught me about the four freedoms. Today, it really pains me if I have to use proprietary software, and I will always try to find a FLOSS¹ alternative, even if it means less features.

Ubuntu is turning 20 this month. Happy birthday!