I started using Linux around 2006. I joked recently at work that "I haven't been using Linux as long as our interns have been alive, but it's getting scarily close." I still fondly remember mucking about with LVM on Thanksgiving Day 2006 - the very computer in this picture, with that exact monitor. That keyboard on the middle shelf was likely the first keyboard I ever touched.

We had 4 250gb SATA hard drives, and wanted raid1 on one pair, and raid0 on the other. I think we got the raid mode on the SATA card we had to work for raid1, but couldn't get it to do raid0 as well, so we ended up LVM'ing together the other drives. There was also some weird thing where it would work in Fedora Core 4 but not FC5... Yeah it was a while ago.

A couple of years later I used that same computer at college as a space heater router. I definitely had a lot less of an idea of what I was doing back then.

I've come a long way in my linux knowledge since then... I didn't really know about md or that it did exactly what I wanted. It's never too early to start learning - and learning in an environment where you can break things and learn how to fix them absolutely makes you better at writing software and managing systems.

This has been the first picture in my "Evolution of a Network" album for a long time now. It's important to remember where you started. It gives you a chance to reflect and realize just how far you've come. (and how far computers have come)