“I don’t even know when I had first learned about Linux. Perhaps
it was by clicking a link on C|Net’s Download.com site. But
whatever the case, I had owned my computer for about a year, Give
or take a couple of months.”
“It looked promising, yet extremely complex, and I didn’t think
it had all the software I needed. Would it print? Would I be able
to edit graphics? Would I be able to even install it?”
“A few months later, I had installed AT&T @Home broadband
Internet access at home, and was much more capable with my computer
than when I started.”
“I downloaded a copy of PhatLinux, because if I didn’t like it,
I could always stop using it. The problem with Phat was that I was
unable to configure my soundcard, or start the X Window System. My
soundcard was a Yamaha DS-XG and I had guessed (incorrectly) that
it was Sound Blaster compatible. Since I couldn’t start X, or
configure it, I thought that Linux was not capable of meeting my
needs. Rightly so; it was not ready for me.’
“Over the next three or four months, I would download and
try to install various other distributions that “worked on
DOS/Windows partitions,” and had about the same amount of
success. Some of them would not be able to mount the VFAT
filesystem, so they wouldn’t load at all.”