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My Experience on Linux
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Nowadays everyone knows linux knows what's ubuntu, which is
almost the most popular release of linux. On the other hand
, Arch Linux, as a Linux distribution intended to be lightweight
and simple, is widely used by geeks and semi-geeks like me.

When I was a fresh man to the college of 
mathematics, it was forbiden to bring a computer to our dorm. 
However, the rule did not stop me from get my own computer.
I bought a second-hand desktop pc with 700 RMB. A second-hand
computer has many benefits:

1. If the teacher want to confiscate it. It's cheap.
#. I can play with it in any way i like, no need to worry about
   anything went wrong with it. If it won't work any more, it's 
   just a few money. In the process, I learnt many thing about the
   computer from hardware to softwares.
#. When I'm allow to have my own pc by the school, I can sell
   this second-hand pc without much lose. And, the fact is I sold
   it for 700 RMB, about 7 months later, before that I cost 200
   yuan to upgrade the memery from 256M to 1G.

Ubuntu
==============================

First try
------------------------------

In the summer holiday, I tried to set up a ubuntu on the cheap 
computer, but I failed. Because I didn't have a experienced 
linuxer beside, and even didn't have a CD, I tried to install 
it by from my usb flash-disk, witch is a little more complicate. 
Anyway, I failed on this thing that summer.

First success try
------------------------------

Serveral months later, I bought a laptop, and someone burned a 
ubuntu cd for me. Then, for the first time, I got a ubuntu on laptop.
I installed ubuntu in the way called *Wubi*, witch is the most
safe and easy way to install a linux with windows. Just insert
the CD and then install it just as a normal windows software.
Nothing chanllenging in the process, and it's fit for a newbie.

On my first ubuntu, I learnt to use vi, to code fortran in vi. 
And something else I cann't remember clearly. It took me a lot
of time to config some of the system. One thing I still remember
is that the flash plogin always had some problems, while I
didn't know which to install. The media player also spent me
much time.

However, at that days, I often use putty in windows to connect
to the linux server to do these, for I was still tied to windows.

Install ubuntu on a separate disk partition
------------------------------------------------------------

Some days later, I found that there is a partition on my disk
was used for the windows-xp-ghost software, witch takes about
10G space. I think it's totally a waste, and want make use of it.

Ok, at this time, ubuntu is updated to 9.04, and I borrowed a
CD from a classmate. As it's my first time to install it on
the harddisk, I call him for some help. 

However, the process turn out to be quit easy, no help is needed.
My classmate was just standing by and smile.
Just format the tail of my harddisk, and press next, select the
keyboard layout, timezone, language, finally click finish.

This time follow the advice of a brother, I choose english as
the default language. It turned out to be a wise choice, I think.

On this version of operating system. I learnt latex, CUDA(GPU
programming), etc. Although, my latex is mostly learnt on 
windows in ctex. And I'm still not a purely linuxer. 

Expand my Ubuntu partition size and upgrade from soft ware center
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Blablabla... About a year later, I got more engaged into
ubuntu, I want to install many softwares in my ubuntu.
However, 10G is really a small space when I want to install
MATLAB 2009 and then mathematica 7.

At the beginning of a winter holiday, I reformat the tail
of my hard-disk. I deleted the F partition of windows and
merge it to the linux partition. Then, I happily got about
40 G space for ubuntu. 

This time I installed ubuntu 10.04. And when 11.04 turns
out, I upgraded it imediately from the software source.

  Why I brucely upgrade from software center?
  
  Because the wireless net driver of 10.04 has some deadly problem.

Now my laptop is on ubuntu 11.04, and it also has some problem
of it's screen saver. I don't whether it's caused by the 
upgration.

While the time of 10.04 10.10 and 11.04, I learned the python 
programming language. I had a intern ship in 
a software campany. And I learned to maintain a centos 5.5 server.
Meanwhile, I imigrate from vim to emacs, and almost write every
things in emacs.

Finally, I got to be a totally linuxer, I almost do every work
on ubuntu.

Arch
=============================

I heared of arch for the first from the brother who suggest me
English as the default language. And then, a year ago, one of
my classmates installed arch on his laptop. Finally, I tried
arch this summer. This summer I got to the laboratory, and there
is a desktop on my desk. There are several reasons I choose 
arch this time

1. This mechine is quite old(bought about five year ago). While
   Arch is light weight.
#. The previous system is ubuntu 9.04 which is out of support.
#. Arch is recomanded by a bro in the laboratory.
#. I got to like things that is simple, such as my 'jeans & 
   white T-shirt' wears.
#. Arch seems to be more geeky.
#. No ubuntu CD is at hand, and my usb flashdisk is too small to
   make a ubuntu boot disk now. My usb flashdisk is only 1G and
   2G is needed.