Red Hat Linux wasn't Slackware, but it was good enough. Red Hat Linux wasn't Red Hat Enterprise Linux either - yet. I set it up as a dual boot, and I had a problem setting up sound at first, but I learned about the DOS program RAWRITE.EXE and the GNU dd (disk duplicator) and started to get a feeling for how Windows pads and changes your files to make them "safe" (which they aren't anyhow). Doom was apparently not available for Slackware either (on disk) but I bought Quake and was able to get assistance installing the Linux version through ID software who made it.
That is a digression to get into: ID software used Open Source tools like GNU. They read the license, and had no problem at the time following it. What it said was that if you create derivative works, such as a program which can only the compiled on it, you must make the source code freely available to all users to change as they see fit. The way this is supposed to work is this: there is really no conceptual difference between a game program and a program interpreter. The game program though is not the game: it is the game engine which interprets key strokes, mouse movements and mouse clicks and displays graphics and sound effects which advance the session. I did not look closely enough at the source code to be sure that the game engine for quake, one of the last engines they open sourced, could only be compiled with gcc. That would have compelled them to open source the game engine. The game engine though was not the game. I bought the game, which included graphics, a score by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, and other creative things which were inarguably the property of ID software. The GAME of Quake was never supposed to be open sourced - only the Game Engine. If that. ID was generous responsible an still deserve support but some confused kids and some horribly cynical people abused this to send pirated games around. You can still play the Doom Engine for free as PRBoom, and there are games based on other engines like OpenArena. ID Software certainly deserves props for doing it for as long as they did, as, despite some things, does Apple for the Darwin Kernel.
For about a year I was happy learning about my computer. I eventually found in the local "transfer station" (junkyard) a computer with a cdrw and a dying hard drive. It was about my birthday and after reformatting and putting Linux on it I was able to use it without replacing the drive until Labor Day. And I could have used it longer. When Red Hat 8 came out I bought that as well (at about the same time). Then came Fedora.
What I had been buying at Staples was openly a contract with Red Hat to use a testing version of their Operating System which, once all the bugs were worked out, they would take and distribute a stable version, with consultants they charged for, to corporate clients. I was paying money because I, at the time, did not understand how to download and burn an ISO boot disk or use rpm and yum files to update. In 2003 they marked a major upgrade to their OS by renaming the version I used Fedora I and the stable version Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
I went to Staples to pick up Fedora and not only did they not have it but the sales clerk gave me a lecture about how I should never use Linux because installing it voided my warranty (which is why I bought refurbs from small shops usually). I managed to burn it as one of my first successful attempts. It brought both my computers to a complete standstill. It used more memory than I had.
Before I went back to Slackware I had an equally rewarding experience with Debian, which I shall describe in part 3.
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