My Story #3: Linux Journey of Mr. Ahmad Adnan

Tecmint’s initiative – “Post your Linux Story”, is getting very warm response from our valuable readers who are influencing the Linux community by their Linux experience story.

Today is the day of Mr. Ahmad Adnan, who shared his real Linux story in his own words, must read…

About Me

I was Introduced to computers back in 1998, with Pentiums. MS Windows 95 was ruling in the desktops. Yet, the very small number of Computer vendors, sellers and professionals were minting money. The ICQ chat, mIRC, stuff :), yes I am that much old.

Started properly studying by short courses in year 2000 to have a Career start. Initially I was into Programming MS VB6 and I worked on it for a couple of years but really mind was like “What am I doing?”

Had my first job in May 2002 as IT Support Executive, among a team of BS or MS in Computer Sciences I was just a raw (non-CS) graduate. But since I had professional associates, I have learned a lot from them, by the next year I was the Network Administrator. My other senior colleagues, particularly GM HR motivated me to earn a Master in CS degree as evening executive/professional classes. In March 2004, I enrolled myself in Master in Computer Science. Routine was hectic, 9 to 5 regular job; 6 to 9 classes, 10 to 12 some private work to make extra money though.

Things going on, until I graduated in August 2006 with satisfactory CGPA. In the meantime, I switched to 2 other jobs. While I was in my last semester I got the offer from a private university in Egypt as Linux Manager. It was really exciting and yet I was feeling like hardwork of 2 years has reaped it fruit now. Stayed in Egypt for about 8 years, where I migrated there MS Windows old dumb machines to CentOS Linux on Dell PowerEdge. Upgraded the messy hubs based network to HP ProCurve Layer-3 switches. Upgraded the Internet from 6Mbps to 100Mbps. Got the Cyberoam introduced to deal with Hotspot, Ultrasurf.

Until the security conditions got really bad to stay there as expat, and I had to leave in Egypt in March 2014. Since, March 2014, waiting for a stable job with a hope, I nourishing everyday “Everything is going to be Okay“.

I am answering to the question asked by TecMint – When and Where you heard about Linux and How you encountered Linux?

My Linux Journey So Far

I heard about Linux way back in year 2000. When Redhat Linux 6 was being used by geeks for python. Linux was like a Myth or Taboo at that time, that how come a person is using Linux when MS WinNT was ruling with worst unstable performance. Yet MS Win2000 server jumped in also with loads of advanced features but it was more unstable than NT. I still remember that hateful NTLDR error which could show up anytime, even you didn’t touch the keyboard for long time. And you are like….. I am no where.

With loads of complaints and hate speech about MS Win products, one of my associated made me fun of me that you better switch to Linux. Since it is UNIX variant, it is what you call Stable.

I started to learn about Redhat Linux 7.1 (2CDs) downloaded after 3 weeks on Dialup :) while the second image was corrupt so it took me 1 more week for 2nd CD. Later downloaded Redhat Linux 7.3 (3CDs). The user guide and administrative guide I still remember I downloaded in PDF and got them printed.

At that time, it was very detailed but my mind was all new and immature to learn about Linux without having a mentor. But I kept on learning and the process goes on…

I don’t feel shame to share that RH-Linux was not as stable and mature as much it is now in the form of CentOS and/or RHEL. I still remember, how a tiny mistake of playing with kernel to configure the hardware just crashed the whole Linux. I have installed RH-7.3 almost every week for months, until RH-8 was released.

There were no such fancy desktops, no such pre-installed drivers, even for Audio. So I had to find the best hardware compatible with Linux. Thanks to the global Linux developers, who kept on not just adding features, but constantly updating device drivers.

The Good Thing is, I started to learn about Linux while Google and no other online resources were there, as much we are privileged now on 2015.

Proud to be a Linuxphile. :)

Tecmint Community is thankful to Mr. Ahmad Adnan for taking time and sharing his Linux journey. If you have something to share like the above story you may submit using following link. We promise to take your story to a next level, if it in accordance of our policies.

Note: The best Linux story will get an award from Tecmint, based upon the number of views and considering other few criteria, on monthly basis.