So what got you into Linux?

[psych-major]

Was it work, curiosity, boredom, a sick desire to punish yourself? Let's hear how it all started for you...

I was a mainframe operator at a small bank in Maine. I was fairly new in IT, but very skilled in my mainframe duties, and learning Windows quickly. As the administrator of the PBX phone system as well, I was talking with the phone company tech one day when I asked him about the serial cable coming out of the PBX. He informed me that it dumped a raw data stream with delimited records of every inbound and outbound call placed through the system.

Now H.R. decided it would be nice to have that data for their own evil purposes and it became my project to make it so.

I started with the built-in Windows98 box used for configuring the PBX, with Hyperterminal. The records were piped to a text file, then sneaker-netted to an SQL server and run through a DTS script. This setup worked OK between the frequent reboots, but H.R. was now addicted to their data and demanded something more stable. I had no budget for a new PC and Windows license, and my boss said Linux is free and nothing is more stable. So I obtained a decommissioned teller PC (PII 450) and told the rest of the department my plans to set up a Linux PBX traffic sniffer. I was told, "You'll never be able to get it work in Linux, are you %$&*@# nuts?!?" That was it, now it was a matter of ego; it had to be done!

I started with RedHat 8 and ran minicom to intercept and log the PBX traffic data, which led to my first JL post, but eventually worked fine. The network engineer told me that hardcore Linux geeks use Slackware, so I switched immediately, leading to my next JL post, incidentally...

We later purchased a solid-state disk subsystem for the mainframe and needed a way to acces the web interface control screen without putting it on the LAN. Since I was already running the Slack box on its own subnet with the PBX, I plugged in the SSD, installed FireFox and java, and that was handled.

I have since left the bank, but I check in from time to time and the old Slack 9.0 box is still running and has not been rebooted in almost a year. The new operator has vowed to take it home with him if it ever gets decommissioned, and he might even send it to me for the sake of posterity...

So, what's your story...