I have been interesed a lot in linux since past 3 yrs .. actually since the day I came to know about it. I tried a wide range of distros (Linux desktop environments) but found all of them insufficient (or you may say that I was inefficient) in some manner or the other. For example, the most famous distro among starters, Ubuntu did not work for me, I was unable to install some third party software on it. Similarly I could not connect to the internet (BSNL Broadband - when I was at home) from OpenSolaris. All went well with Sabayon 4 and Fedora 10 but they were extremely slow on my lappi and hanged every now and then.
Finally I laid my hands on Mandirva Spring 2009 when an internet friend of mine (he is just out of high school and writes for a famous Indian Opensourse Magazine) suggested me to. Well, to be honestI liked it, even though there were certain issues (eg. could not configure my internet, once it went into standby could not be retrieved etc). Apart from that there were a host of useful softwares available in the installer DVD itself. And it was also easy enough to install new softwares on it (just needed to download and install .rpm packages).I installed Java SE SDK, NetBeans IDE and a few more softwares. I tried a lot to get it connected to my DSL but all in vain. Later I had to replace my windows hard drive for some sensitive hard drive.
I came back to my hostel (after vacations) and wondered whether I would be successful in setting up Wi-Fi connectivity. Initially it said it lacked a package called rt73 firmware and I thought of moving over to some other distro but decided to stick around some more. Now the most astonishing thing happened. I used a friend's laptop to download the file, it turned out to be of just 3.7 KB. Well I being accustommed to windows, thought how could such an important file be so small and that there must have been some downloading error. So attempted downloaing again. But everytime the same file of the same size appeared. Well then with a little or rather no hope I ventured to install the package. Well, here i am presently, using the college's Wi-Fi to post this bit. I guess there would be only LINUX enthusiasts can understand what I am feeling presently.
