My Journey to GNU/Linux

First sight

Previously, I never heard the term "Linux". The first time I hear it back in 2010, when my school's internet computer lab migrated all the OS to Ubuntu. Those computers are only used for web surfing. Each student had to pay a small amount of money to rent it.

Somehow Ubuntu doesn't attract my attention. Only until the end of 2012, when I heard that we can get the official Ubuntu CD and it will be sent directly from overseas. I came to Mr. Fajrin — who at that time is the chief of the lab — to clarify the news. Sadly, he told me that the program had been stopped. Fortunately, I managed to get the original CD from my friend, Rochim. I am super glad but I never play with the CD.

The sun rises

In August of 2013, I relocated temporarily to Aceh to teach some students for a year. One day I feel distracted by a Microsoft Office license. It prevents me to do certain things. I want to get rid of it but at the same time, I don't want to feel guilty about using cracker. I am also worried about not knowing how the cracker work and the things that are being injected into my OS. I've heard bad news about it.

On the following day, I asked my friend Jauhari Hapinuddin to get me an OpenOffice CD when he went to the city — He went to the city very often. He was a canteen staff at the time. So he has to keep the supply always ready —. Then I simply use OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office since then.

One day, I remembered about "Linux" and "Ubuntu", so I start searching for them over the internet. I find ubuntu.com and start downloading the ISO. It was Ubuntu 14.04 LTS at the time. I was in a very remote area with a poor internet access connection. The download took three to four hours. I managed to have it installed alongside Windows 8. I prefer to use it most of the time.

For a first-timer, I have so many questions in mind. I decide to join GNU/Linux Facebook groups and start throwing questions. My very first question was so silly cause I mistakenly type Ubuntu version 16.04, and the other group member was like "I don't think that version released yet".

I also had a viral questionnaire post saying "Which one do you choose, your tux or your wife". Indeed this is intended for joke and fun.

One of the very first members that helped me in person is Mircea Toader. I'm very thankful for having him answer my question in person at that time.

I asked Mircea so many things — Later, I know that this behavior is bad. At that time I didn't know how to ask a good question in online communities —. He is so kind. One time he told me that he is far away from home and will reply later. These days I always wondering about the replacement for video software such as SONY Vegas, ADOBE After Effect, and so on. Currently, there is an app that fills these gaps such as Natron and Blender. But, both can't replace my needs at that time.

After some months, I met with a lot of kind people such as Epsi Nur Wijayadi that points me to read the Debian Manual Book — we both still keep in touch as a good friends up until now —, and Ragil Satrio who helped me to solve my GRUB error. I and Ragil become the best brother after that time. He shared with me a lot about GNU/Linux and I told him a lot about Islam because he was muallaf at that time. Indeed there are other kind people from the "Ayo Belajar Linux" forum that I can't mention all of them here.

GNU/Linux grows rapidly in that school. We migrated all the computer labs with GNU/Linux. Even some ustadzs come to me to have Ubuntu installed on their laptops, some of them are Abthal Aufar and Bayu Kurniawan. Bayu started using Ubuntu and did his task mostly with Ubuntu rather than windows. The school headmaster heard this good news and saw the leaflet that we put on the bulletin board. He is so glad about this and called me "Ustadz Linux". He requested me to put Ubuntu on his laptop, but I refuse. To use GNU/Linux, we are required to have the ability to solve technical problems independently, search for the cause of problems, and willingness to ask other users online. Nowadays GNU/Linux is more user-friendly than it used to be. But I insisted to refuse since I will not stay there for a long time.

To use GNU/Linux, we are required to have the ability to solve technical problems independently, search for the cause of problems, and willingness to ask other users online.

I've put a lot of effort into the school labs. Including asking for the fund for more machines to an external organization. Fortunately, I managed to get two more machines. I leave this school in the mid of 2014, with an awesome legacy. I left the labs with some students that already had the skill to use GNU/Linux. Such as editing videos and music, etc. I also managed to make a "backup" PC with a big HDD capacity and Linux Mint installed to store all school data. This is meant to prevent broken files caused by a virus in our Windows machines.

I leave school and relocated to Surabaya. I met with the super nice and humble guy, Ade Malsasa Akbar. He taught me a lot. I learned so much from him. He was the first man that taught me about non-technical things in GNU/Linux such as licenses and GNU projects.

After the partition mismatch incident, I wipe my hard disk and only put Ubuntu as a single OS. Seven months later I relocated to Malang.

The flag fluttering

I learned more about GNU/Linux in Malang. Reading many Wikipedia articles, blog posts, and StackOverflow answers. In this phase, I don't want to lose any single bit of information regarding my reading history and all the solutions to the problem I faced. So I save every single of them to maff format. The number keeps growing. So, I invent a way to manage my digital files (the second brain).

I spent every day using GNU/Linux, and start customizing its behavior and looks. Later in 2015, I moved to Debian and never looked back. This year, I start to learn more about its philosophical and non-technical side. I learn about GNU and Linux history, GNU projects, RMS, licenses, and the difference between the open-source movement and the free-software movement.

Throughout the days I became more skeptical. I read a lot of things and joined many IRC channels. GNU Project's articles, RMS's Essays, and Lawrence Lessig's books taught me a lot about "freedom in society". I learn how to give software sincerely, how bad the proprietary model is, etc.

I want to thank many people who put their time and effort to make many great libre software available for use. Now we can live completely with libre software. Thanks to every single contributor in the BSD foundation, X.org Foundation, Free Software Foundation, Linux Foundation, and other projects.

I don't imagine if I didn't take this path. My career would be very different now. I am very grateful to know GNU/Linux early on in my life. I am connected to many great programmers, scientists, and authors. I managed to make a lot of contributions such as pull requests, translation, and talks. Those actions changed my career for good sake later on.

I don't imagine if I didn't take this path. My career would be very different now. I am very grateful to know GNU/Linux early on in my life. I managed to make a lot of contributions such as pull requests, translation, and talks. Those actions changed my career for good sake later on.

Thank you, GNU/Linux community.