Ask HN: How did you get started in tech and/or Linux?
80s:  Dad bought me a Big-Trak and later a Commodore as a child, Mom an Intellivision, and I took to them all quickly.  But, I used a computer rarely for almost a decade after that because it was <i>so</i> early.<p>90s: Had given up temporarily at community college because I didn&#x27;t know what I wanted to do, i.e. was aimless and had no guidance.  After getting laid off (with severance pkg) at a good hospital job I had by chance, I decompressed for a week or two and contemplated what to do with my life.  Any medical industry advancement required a four-year degree, a no-go in the short-term.<p>At random chance, a catalog for the local &quot;adult school&quot; came in the mail with lots of &quot;computer classes.&quot;  I thought well, this stuff isn&#x27;t going away, it just keeps growing every year, and imagined whatever office-drone job I ended up at would need &quot;computer skills.&quot;  Things had changed a lot, Commodores&#x2F;TRS-80s were obsolete and everything was PCs and to some extent Mac. (I knew nothing about big-iron, War Games was my only exposure. :-)   What the hell, let&#x27;s take a class, <i>shrug,</i> couldn&#x27;t hurt.  Thankfully, it was study at your own pace, which I always loved.  No dummies to hold you back, amirite?<p>A few days later a lightbulb popped up over my head... it was 9:30 pm and the school said it was time to shut down for the night.  I&#x27;d been there since eating lunch and completely forgotten about dinner.  It was perhaps the third night of the first week, pushing ~40 hours already.  &quot;Wait, what am I doing here?&quot;  Playing with computers all day and night. &quot;Woah, I must love this stuff.&quot;  Not too surprising from this angle, as I loved tinkering with gadgets and playing video games as a youngster.<p>In a year or so, I&#x27;d gotten a PC computer-repair certificate, a Mac desktop-publishing certificate, got Netware certified, hooked on multi-player Doom, all of which had taught me about &quot;LANs&quot; which were becoming the rage.  Built computers from spare parts.  I saw a magazine article and asked the teachers about Unix.  One said he&#x27;d used it and it was &quot;more elegant&quot; than DOS.  Intrigued, I downloaded a trial, maybe from a BBS (can&#x27;t remember), I think it was a version of Minix, and kicked the tires for a few days.  (Also, met a friend still in high school, as mentioned below.)<p>Mid 90&#x27;s:  Having exhausted the adult school, it was now time to get a job.  I walked into my first or second interview at the Rockwell Science Center (think Space Shuttle) and talked about what I&#x27;d learned.  Can you start Monday?  God, I miss that.  Now had a fun IT job with incredible resources at my disposal:  PCs, Macs, Suns, SGIs, Crays, Networked printers, even a VAX held on tight by an old curmudgeon scientist.<p>It was a great time to be there—we were on the internet at work 24&#x2F;7 via T1 with no firewalls.  I was crushing my job and still running Quake servers on the side.  Was a sought-after expert at loading DOS TSRs into high memory to get lab equipment working.  Had a front-row seat to the rise of Mosaic, Netscape, Winamp, and Napster.  First learned Linux from installing Slackware from tens of floppies, until a guy said, &quot;Oh, I&#x27;ve wanted to try Red Hat.&quot;<p>Later, I became the resident Windows 95 expert as well, because my friend from school was providing me with the betas he&#x27;d signed up for.  Once, we were having our weekly IT meeting with my boss (and boss&#x27;s boss) and he was pleased we were getting an early drop on W95 as it was a big change coming.<p>&quot;So, who is your friend?  Is he some VIP at a big-company getting access?&quot;<p>&quot;No,&quot; I said.  &quot;He&#x27;s a high-school student!&quot;  BWAH HAHA HA....<p>Not long after that I realized I liked programming too, and that it made good money.  Went back to community college, this time with a purpose and got an AS degree in CS.  Wish I&#x27;d continued because stopping there became an impediment later.  But, I was making big-bucks at 25 and loving it, more school to learn theory didn&#x27;t seem like a good deal.  Also didn&#x27;t anticipate degree inflation and hordes of &quot;fakers.&quot; :-(<p>After XP I&#x27;d decided I&#x27;d had enough of Windows and moved to Linux and FLOSS full-time, though a few jobs have forced me to use it briefly.  Lots more to tell, but that&#x27;s good for now.  ;-)