Ever Been Hacked?

It was summer's end, 1999. I was a seasoned, tough, and experienced SE preparing my customers for the Y2K nonevent with firmware, software, and professional advice. She was a tough dame from the wrong side of the pews from the local church group but could she sling COBOL during those months. The computer world felt like it was self-destructing before our very fingers, and then I decided to build a Linux box.

A Linux box. Oh, I had loaded Linux several times before, but it was time. Time to have a Linux box on my home network configured the way I liked it, time to have a Linux box on the Internet as a symbol of my computer prowess. Besides, all of you know how women dig guys who run Linux, right?

Well, that's how it all started. I built a 450MHz workstation/server from junk I had laying around, installed a 40GB disk, 256MB of memory, and 10/100 Ethernet. I built Linux from a "red" distribution I bought for $3 per disk from cheapbytes.com. Then I loaded everything. Not a few tools, but everything. I loaded compilers (FORTRAN, COBOL, C, C++, CplusC, and more) graphic tools such as gimp, hypersnap, and ASCII art; games and more games, X Windows, and SAMBA, MYSQL, YOURSQL, NFS, NSA, UBU. Anything I could find in RPM format, I loaded.

Oh, it was a fine box. A system built by a professional for his own amusement. It would be my personal Linux...