This is kind of a diary post..be aware 🙂
First thing’s first:
A great ted talk
This is something that wore me down..aaaaa loooootttt
Today with the help of a friend i finally made the final training step/first step in the ubuntu community and broke free.
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My first contact with linux was in my undergraduate years. There i got to know better some of the guys that they’ve made the department’s forum, they were coding in php..first time i had heard this..ahh many years ago.. so there where to guys..let’s call them Wizard and Heartdoc 😉
They were using ubuntu.
I never even hadn’t considered that there was another operating system.. i always was a Microsoft child from ’98, fricking millenium [omg…omg…and i have to confess something..millenium was in fact the only windows system that i’ve bought!..i have the actual cd in front of me now..shiny..such things must the Conquistador have given to America’s natives..], xp,vista 7(the only decent version).
So long story short they influenced me and tried to catechize (initiate) me to use linux..It’s ’07 or ’08 and the version that they proposed to me (and wrote me the cd for..because back then in Greece the internet speeds were low 256-512kbps low and i couldn’t download em fast enough..) was Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron)..when ubuntu hadn’t been commercialized..the hard stuff…
I sat almost two days in the pc, the first day straight. I must have looked in a gazillion of forums(the Greek community wasn’t developed enough back then and my english also..). What i was trying to do was to install the drivers, graphics, ethernet, sound(omg fucking creative soundblaster) and finally install the cube desktop app which had so amazed me seeing Wizard using it. Finally i achieved installing the graphics and the cube (!!!) but..there was no driver for the sound card and video, and flash apps were lagging in the browser.. So i said to myself..the hell with it..And i think that it was recorded through my unconscious that i was not good enough. Seeing it now it’s true that i was not good enough but this was only, by lacking the prior experience. Back then i was a big step. So my first try had been unsuccessful and stigmatized me with an i-am-not-good-enough attitude.
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The second time again undergraduate, having completed programming courses in java, html, fortran, having a stable relationship, more hair, i was working out, i did karate, yoga,running..feeling that i can conquer the world
something like the lyrics of in Grim Rapper:
and then you get to be 20
and it’s like not only are you invincible
you can get loaded for the first time and be really an asshole
going aw man I’m invicibleeeeeeeh
So i tried again.. This time again influenced from friends the old ones and a new one lets call him Mandos (yes he liked Tolkien..yes it was a pretty cool name..yes the Doomsman of the Valar) and i succeed. I’m making a basic setup through copying code from various forums and putting it to the terminal, never have read the code, never understood the commands..it was bound to fail..and it did..i kept the partition, with the grub, just to lose the 5-10sec from my life every time it booted up. Don’t get me started with the grub..i had no idea how to change the Grub options in order to change the partition’s order. I was also a hardcore gamer back then..a feature which couldn’t cope with linux.
Someday my hdd crashed and i lost much data, not all;backup bless. And also lost the ubuntu partition
Then it was time for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin)..thank god i only downloaded the lts(long time support) versions and not the experimental ones because for sure i would have been greatly disappointed. Some with the above..being a gamer i couldn’t jump to Linux.
I was more sure this time and also installed alongside with vista debian..and this was it..my confidence was shuttered again…
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And then it was the version that i actually have used almost a year now..but it wasn’t the right time back then, ’11 or ’12, i had problems with my stable relationship(in fact the relationship was in pieces..), i was still a gamer(how many work hours..i could have learned 4-6 musical instruments , languages [from research we know that in 1000 hours you became proficient in a skill]…ahhh..i don’t regret it though…i wouldn’t be who i am have not wasted all these hours)..i was enlisted to go to the army..nice times..
Anyway the version was Trysty Hair (14.04). Again built the basic setup and nothing more.
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Then i met this girl that i really liked, let’s call her Lobaroko, asked her out, got to know her..and what a surprise..she was something between a software engineer and a computer scientist..and she was mad for linux (Debian)..for some reasons the things didn’t work out but now i was instilled by linux culture..for the first time maybe i finally grasped the open culture.
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Now it was serious..it was me and them..And what a surprise to find those days in my mailing list an email from EdX that was suggesting me a course..can you guess the course..
Indeed it was Introduction to Linux (Debian,Suse,Slack) from Linux foundation..took the course completed it..learn basic scripting and many more stuff..for sure i had a better understanding but no confidence..I was still holding my stigma baggages from the past. But it was time, i had finished my master, passing a gap year.
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It was time indeed to, at least, give it a good try. So i went full linux. Trysty was heaven compared to the other editions. The system loaded fully set up, no drivers nothing. And this time slowly but steadily i got used to the environment, having stopped the hardcore gaming, i was ready. I really understood many commands, could write stuff, used terminal finally..with programs-commands like youtube-dl
For example one can download a music track in ubuntu without the shit that windows or OS X are giving you
you go to terminal or ctrl+alt+T
write:
sudo apt-get install youtube-dl (super user do- go and fetch from the repository program youtube-dl – install program youtube-dl)
and then copy the link of the song that i wanted to download
and write:
youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lhR09jVHko –extract-audio –audio-format mp3
which is pretty straight forward (program youtube-dl – download the video from the www. – extract audio in mp3)
And the track was added to my home folder!!
but still there was fear..the subconscious as you may have found out, gentlemen, is a bitch..
There were alot of stuff i didn’t knew.. Now i don’t know even more 🙂
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But today was an important one for me.
Yesterday i upgraded from 14.04 to 16.04(yeahhh)..it runs smoothly but i had to install some programs again or to find other ones.
One of them was quiterss(it’s a program that you feed a newsfeed from a newspaper, a blog you like etc and notifies you when the sites that you ‘re watching posts something new.)
So QuiteRss needed an update. But how do you update a program in linux? of course writing
sudo apt-get update & upgrade
Nothing..So there must be something that i am not doing right…ahhh..the fuck..i am to old for this shit..and then Mandos..the doomsman of the Valar..emerges..like a Deus ex machina – ένας Απομηχανής Θεός in fluent greek-..of course from skype..miles away..but closer than ever.
And things click..Ubuntu have repositories of programs, if a program is in your repository (something like a library) it get’s updated when you
sudo apt-get update & upgrade
if not, IT IS NOT 🙂
So what do i do.
Two choices go to the site find the source code and install it from the source code (which was what i was trying to do)
or… add the program to the repository..now obvious..but then unimaginable..
so write:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:quiterss/quiterss
sudo apt-get update & upgrade
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This is not a great thing though, i’ve done similar stuff in linux. No. But this click… It was something else..like an imaginable but pretty really weight was lifted from my a bit curved shoulders..maybe it was the friends help..
As we have seen in Haunted Moon from Disney’s buzz lightyear (http://blosc.wikia.com/wiki/Cooley)
..maybe it was the right time..maybe all those forum information that have been consolidated..It was a revelation..something like: I can handle it…there will be problems…i will not have the answers..i will break my balls to find them..but i can handle it..By god i can handle it. I am Enough!
Even if it is not true..no i can’t handle anything, every man breaks under something..ohhh Orwell has taught me well..
But..for a moment..for a brief glorious moment you are invincible..you are invictus..
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
The greek procrastinator 