Have you ever written your first experiences? Fortunately I did. I visited my old blog written 3 years ago and read some of those when I was just beginning in php and linux. I can’t stop laughing at myself specially now I know what was the problem. Hahahaha! I’ll share it here but it’s written in Tagalog. It’s a bit too long to translate it so sorry for non-Tagalog speakers.

Its around 2:30 am now and i have not finished installing any Linux distro! I think i started working on it mga 9pm or 10 na. pero no luck p rin ako! Mejo naiinis n nga ako kaya naisipan kong isulat n lang tong experience n to at pagtawanan ang sarili ko pag dumating ang time n experienced n tlg ako.. hehehe

Nauna kong na try n install ung Suse enterprise server 8 (meron din akon ubuntu 5.04 dito) kc un ang sabi sakin n i-try. so ginawa ko naman. unang attempt p lang may problema na. ayaw magboot sa cd! ngayon pala hindi nakasaksak! hehehe tanga! edi pinlug ko so ok na. nag boot n kc eh,, edi mejo ok n ako.. then may checking ng hardware.. aba cnabi b nmn s akin n not enough daw ang disk space ko samantalang 40G free and hd ko! aba linoloko ata ako ng installer n un ah.. so edi i tried to configure it (as if marunong ako, pero try lang naman eh) kaya lang alam ata n wl akong experience kaya wl p rin.. nagreboot n lang ako at nag try ulit ng same process. malay mo kc may di lang nabasangmabuti ung installer.. at saka nagkaroon nga pala kc ako ng problema kc di ko alam kung anong cd ang gagamitin ko. biruin mo 6 n cd un, 3 ata ung may cd1 na pangalan. eh ang nkalagay lang sa intruction put the cd1 into the cd drive.. hindi b tanga un nun! anyways tinry ko ung tatlo para sure at wl akong namis.. wl p ring swerte.. lalo n at ayaw mag read nung mismong cdrom.. tinry ko n rin pati ubuntu,, ayaw tlg.. disk boot failure ang lumilitaw.. ay nku.. wl n tong pagasa.. humingi n ako ng tulong sa kasama ko thru internet.. ky lang hindi ko madescribe ng mabuti ang problema kaya wl rin syang naitulong.. hanap ako sa internet.. sa mga forums.. sa mga articles.. wl p rin solusyon.. ayaw ko naman magtanong sa mga forums dhil bk okrayin lang ako kc nga di ko alam describe ung hardware ko. as in di ko alam kung anong processor meron ako at ilang ram, memory at kung ano pang pwede nilang itanong.. ang alam ko lang may 40G hd ako(buti nga my alam p ako eh). so un, mahabang pagbabasa ang nangyari pero nagsawa n ako kc nga wl akong mahanap n magandang article.. so nagtry ulit ako. malay mo kc maghimala! Aba nag himala nga! hehehe.. pero hindi sa suse kc wl p ring magandang resulta dun.. n try ko lang ang ubuntu.. nag try akong mag install ng server. ewan ko kung ano un basta nag try lang ako.. edi un ok naman ang process.. tapos nag reboot.. edi akala ko ok n kaso biglang prompt sa akin command line!! hello! malay ko b sa linux command.. acutally ang lumitaw p lang naman dun eh ‘login’ hehhe nag panic n talga ako sa gnun lang.. pano kc di ko alam kung anon isusulat ko.. nag try ako ng root, kaya lang di ko alam ang password.. nagtry ulit ako ng ibang combination hanggang sa makapasok.. so akala ko papakita n sa akin ung color brown n gui ng ubuntu.. hay naku.. command line p rin ang ibinigay!! ano BA!! eh ls at whoami lang ang alam kong command sa linux eh.. ay meron p pl.. man! hehehe wlang pag asa to ang nasabi ko n lng.. pero syempre dpt optimistic tyo so nagsearch p ako.. at saka kc ang alam ko tlg may gui un eh.. un buti n lang may nabasa ako.. ang sabi nya un palang napasukan ko eh minimal lang ang iinstall. ibig sabihin, manual ang installation ng lahat. nge! hindi un ang hanap ko.. kaya no choice ako kundi mag install ulit.. hay.. wlang katapusang installation to! buti n lang at mejo bumait sa akin ang ubuntu kaya un nag trabahong mag isa..and after 30 minutes,, hahah horray!! nakita ko na ang color brown gui ng ubuntu!! horray talaga!!

oldo masaya n ako sa gnun pero alam ko start p lang ito ng mas madugong karanasan.. hay.. ano kaya itong napasukan ko.. just wish me luck ok..

Geez, my composition is horrible! hahahaha. I hope it’s better now. Is it?

About Linux, I still have not tried to install a linux distro by myself but I might again and while reading this blog!

Finally, I reinstalled my OS and used Ubuntu Feisty and it’s quite awesome! The installation was very easy and I like it very very much compared to my old Breezy. Most of the applications that I use are already in the synaptic so I don’t have to bother looking for them. I am quite one of those users who just want to click and run and ready to use. What really made the difference now is that I have an idea of the linux OS so I know how to navigate my desktop compared 6months ago that I was so clueless and afraid of this OS. Aside from having Feisty, there are also some things that I have learned I couldn’t live without:

Zend studio editor - I tried not to install Zend at the first few days after I installed feisty just to try some editors but I didn’t find anything that match my favorite feature, the autocomplete. At those days I couldn’t really do my work with much productivity. I used either Kate or Gedit but non of the 2 really satisfies me as a complete editor.Well, I tried the phpEclipse before but I didn’t really bother to use it since I have to do some configuration. Honestly, the only thing that makes me like an editor is the autocomplete power which Zend editor has, the left panel where I can see my files and the tabs which make my navigation faster. I hope there is an opensource tool like that. Please let me know if there is one existing.

Firefox - ofcourse, this is just one of those I can’t live without as long as I am a programmer specially my favorite extensions: firebug, web developer and del.icio.us buttons

IE - well, I have to live with it even if the world ends

Krusader - Just found this a few weeks ago. It’s a file manager but I use it as my FTP manager since I only need regular FTP connections. I used the gFtp before but it always crushes and it has become annoying. My favorite tool using Krusader is the Compare file content and the drag and drop copy of files. I use the xxdiff to do the comparison thing and it is really really helpful specially now that I have been involve in a project where we are a group. The drag n drop is just something I have always been looking for in FTP managers for linux. Also, I am able to open as many connections as I want using different windows. The best part is the bookmarking of sites and able to save their logins. I still have a lot of things I haven’t explored in this app yet but I think it is already great!

Tomboy - this is my piece of paper in my desktop and I like taking notes of any idea that pops up at any time of the day or just merely saving some users and passwords. It is really great to have it on your desktop.

KColorChooser - a color palette editor and color picker for KDE. I used this before when I was not aware of the difference of KDE applications and Gnome applications so I really didn’t mind installing it. Anyway, someone told me about gcolor2 and agave. I have installed them and will try but I am already satisfied with the accuracy of kcolorchooser so I really dont mind if it’s for KDE.

Gaim - or pidgin.. Gaim is already installed in Ubuntu so I didn’t bother to upgrade to pidgin.

And one of the most helpful thing I found just lately using Linux - the grep command line. My work always consist of debugging and tracing codes so looking for a specific function or line in hundreds of files, that is just some kinda ninghtmare. Thankfully I just use this

grep -R 'line to search for' /my/directory

and that’s it! I found what I am looking Is there such tool in windows like that? I tried to use the file search of crimson editor but it doesn’t give me the details I want.

Finally is graphics editor like Photoshop. I just hope there is a Photoshop version for Linux and I do not have to go back to windows again. I use gimp as an alternative but I just don’t see myself learning it in the near future

Well, those are just the stuff that I have to take note off when I plan to reinstall my pc again!