My Linux History

I first started using Linux when I was an undergraduate in Physics, because Linux is widely used in the Physics community. This is because a lot of open-source, scientific software exists for Unix/Linux  systems, and we were required to use some of this software in our Lab courses, and sometimes in theory courses as well. The first distro of Linux I ever installed was Ubuntu Linux on my old laptop. It was partially so I could use some software for a lab course, but also because I was just very interested in using an alternative to Windows, which I had used all my life. I remember that at the time I was very exciting about all the cool graphics effects that were available using the Compiz software, and I stayed up half the night trying to get Ubuntu installed properly.

Over the past 5 years I have tried many different Linux distributions, and have used Windows for some of that time too. I have almost always dual-booted my computer so that I could use Windows when I really needed, especially for playing games. Nowadays I am using Arch Linux, which is my favourite distribution yet. Arch Linux takes a bit more effort to install, but you learn a lot by doing it, and in the end you get a very nice system that has everything that you want on it.

I am in the middle of doing interviews with Microsoft right now, and I might be working there this summer as an Intern. If that is the case, I will probably start using Windows a lot more often. I'm glad that I'm interviewing there now that Windows 7 has been released, because I actually really like Windows 7 a lot; it's easy to use, looks pretty, is very fast, and I would probably be happier developing for Windows 7 than previous version of Windows. Even if I do end up using Windows more often, I doubt that I would stop using Linux altogether because I also like Linux. It will be interesting to see how I balance things in the near future.