I’m sure this was expected and a long time coming…

… but my how the mighty have fallen.

Note: I’m actually shocked. I’ve written a lot more than I figured I would in this. For those interested in a summary, this is the story of how I found GNU/Linux, how I hated Apple and OSX, and how over time my feelings changed. I think the correct term is I matured and appreciated both platforms, but for comedy I figured I’d portray it like a descent into Dante’s Inferno.

I’ve always been anti-Apple. Anything that doesn’t allow me to completely customise my user experience, in my opinion, is a steaming pile of doggie doo-doo. This has been the militant case since I was in high school, and it continued on while in university. I’d not actively avoid the use of Apple products, a lecturer and friend of mine ran an enrichment programme for high school kids when I was at uni. I helped out, knowing that it meant I’d be walking teenagers through Objective-C and possibly setting them on the path of Apple fanboyism. In fact, I wasn’t even a fan of Windows! I was a True Believer™. I followed GNU/Linux like it was a religion (so much so, I called it GNU/Linux). Now, not only am I an iPhone user and an iPad user*, I’m also using a MacBook Pro at work and a Mac Mini at home - considering replacing it with a MacBook Pro when the time comes to upgrade (or sooner). What happened to me?

*I also own a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Let’s start from the beginning

Much like most amateur-to-moderate level hackers**, I picked up GNU/Linux back when I was in high school, trying to further my own education in one of the two fields I really enjoyed in school. I started with Debian, and at first tried using its stable branch. Now, this was my desktop so while it might be sufficient for some people, a highly antiquated (please don’t hurt me) operating system was never going to be sufficient for me. I moved from stable to testing, then after a while of noticing releases in unstable not being pushed upstream decided to live dangerously. This lasted until I graduated high school and I tinkered and learnt things quietly during summer holidays (while trying to hold a part-time job for cash).

**While I am an information security professional and have conducted a number of penetration tests, I’m using hacker in the wide-ranging tinkerer meaning here.

Package management is for the weak!

During my summer holidays between when university started and when I was smacked with some good sense, I decided that while apt-get install was really cool, ./configure, make and sudo make install (was sudo even a thing then?) was more elite. You can already see where my mind is going here: somebody who wants to learn to do as much as possible, but also somebody who always took the hard way because it was there.*** A friend of mine from uni had convinced me to give Gentoo a try. All the best parts of compiling from source without having to configure it yourself! Of course, I decided that a stage one install was warranted: on a dial-up connection. Note here that compiling XFree86 back then took about 36 hours and don’t get me started on some of the massive desktop environments (why didn’t I just compile Fluxbox and leave it).

From this point on for a couple of years, I found a distribution of Linux that I thought superior to everything else. Ever. I had even decided dual booting was not worth the hassle as I didn’t use Windows at all. Yes, back then dual booting was still a thing as virtualisation was still immature. Most of my subjects at uni were either code-based, mathematics (yay LaTeX), or paper-based due to being foreign languages that tested our writing ability, not our typing ability. I did the odd kernel upgrade manually, and there may have been one or two times when I just wiped it all and started from scratch again, but it was stable. I was happy. I even started evangelising to my friends and family who were still Mac or Windows users.

***There’s nothing wrong with compiling from source and it’s a great learning exercise, but if it’s unnecessary and it doesn’t add recognisable efficiency, go for a package.

I’m a Mac, I’m a PC, and I’m Linux

This was about the time that OSX had really taken off. There were those Get a Mac commercials on TV that were both funny and infuriating at the same time (you have to hand it to Apple, I reckon that has replay value even today). More and more people were starting to get a Mac. I think Alicia Silverstone helped that in Legally Blonde with her laptop (that wasn’t even a Mac). People were talking about how easy Macs were to use. I decided that, to be the evangelist of GNU/Linux I wanted to be, I’d need to not use a poweruser operating system, but upgrade/downgrade to one that is more user friendly, while still remaining a Linux computer.

Enter Ubuntu. I used Dapper Drake, its forth release (6.06) for the first time. The installation was simple, the setup was simple and the UI was intuitive. I didn’t even need to do anything that went beyond installing Windows XP when it came to technical knowledge. I felt dirty, yet content. I was able to continue my smug distaste of Apple and convince people that an Apple alternative existed that was still more stable than Windows. To my own defence, I was young (maybe 20) and still very naive. I used Ubuntu (and every now and then, Fedora) pretty much exclusively until maybe 2010. I was happy with my choice and I evangelised it perhaps until 2008, when I started working full-time. People, it seems, weren’t like me at the time, and they weren’t console gamers opting instead for PC.**** But yes, that’s how I was with Linux.

**** I also have learnt the error of my ways and am now a PC gamer instead of a console one. I even got rid of my consoles and my TV (this does not count DS).

My first ever Mac experience full-time

I was assisting with a research project for uni that required iPodLinux as a prerequisite. I didn’t really do very well - and in fact - this was likely my first failure in any computer-based exercise I tried. Anyway, during the project I got an iMac to do development on (I didn’t need it, but it was offered). I tried using it and for a while it seemed to work fine. I had to get used to all the new keyboard shortcuts, the fact that control is only on one side of the keyboard, and the intermittent power losses. Wait, what? It turns out that the PSU fan wasn’t very reliable. My iMac kept dying. Perhaps it knew I grudgingly used it and decided the sweet embrace of death was better? Perhaps. In any case, iPodLinux could be installed and configured on a Linux machine (naturally), so I continued my work there.

That is the first time I hardcore used a Mac.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate | Abandon all hope, ye who enter here

Back in 2009 I got an HTC Magic. My first smartphone. Previously, when coaching back to my parents’ place for visits, I was reading on my Motorola flip phone (it had a JVM in it, but wouldn’t be considered smart); I actually got through an online version of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy on my rides between the cities every so often on that tiny Motorola screen. I digress, the HTC Magic was my first smartphone and I was smitten. The fact that not only was I using a Linux box as my daily drive at home, but now my telephone was a Linux box was not lost on me. The Magic was great but dated quickly and I saved up and bought a Nexus S after about 14 months. Then a long list of phones continued: HTC One XL; Samsung Galaxy Note II, Nexus 5 (what a woeful night out it was when I lost that old girl), and finally Sony Xperia Z2. All were fantastic in their own ways.

After getting Windows 7, I had pretty much given up on Linux. I maintained a VM of Ubuntu at all times, like methadone. But after months of gathering virtual dust, I realised it was a crutch I didn’t need any more. I do keep Kali installed on a VM in my beefy Windows machine for whenever I need some pen-testing tools or forensic tools for work or research, but that’s very specialised.

Enter the iPad

In 2011 the iPad 2 came out. A good friend of mine who was (and is) an Apple fanboy went out to buy one, meaning he had an iPad to sell. I bought it from him for a sum of money I don’t remember, I just remember that the transaction took place at a local club after work one day. I went out and registered my 3G SIM with the telco and got a 365-day prepaid plan in place so I would only need to use the iPad on long coach rides. This was the first time I owned an Apple device I paid for myself. Yes, second hand but still paid for. I loved the little apps, but I didn’t feel like there was any real reason for brand loyalty***** By the time I moved to the big city in 2013, my iPad one was well and truly dated. I mean, it wasn’t even supported by the vendor any mo-

Note to vendors: Screw you. These devices aren’t cheap, they’re likely manufactured using slave or indentured labour, and they’re still often buggy by the time you discontinue support for them. Stop being difficult and treat expensive purchases like the durable items they’re supposed to be, not commodity (like I’ve treated my phones).

Note to me: Screw you. Stop exacerbating this culture of excess.

-re. So because of this I ventured to the local Apple Store and picked up a 4th Gen iPad for myself (one I still have and use as of writing). It’s been a hard route, but development for it and playing Final Fantasy and The World Ends with You on the bigger screen than DS is pretty cool. I also have Office, and a couple of text editors installed on my iPad and a bluetooth keyboard to ensure I can get some typing related work done on it. I might one day write a post on it to see what it’s like. But yes, the iPad has been a worthwhile purchase, and perhaps got me ready for the iPhone.

***** I still don’t, to be honest. I write mobile applications for both platforms and own a high-end Samsung device.

I cannot be without a computer

I’m sure you’re well aware if you’ve made it this far that I was not much of an outdoors person. As I age I’m finding myself more happy to visit places outside like favourite parks and read books, but in the past not so much. Anyway, having moved to Sydney (the big city) in 2013, I had put all of my gear away in storage. The bloke I had been staying with had offered to lend me a monitor of his while I didn’t have one, and when I moved into my own place I picked up a Mac Mini (late 2012). I’m actually typing this out on it right now. I found the 8GB to be a bit small so I picked up an upgrade of RAM from the MSY nearby. I think mine was the last to allow upgrading.

Note to Apple: You had better ensure - and you have been - that your desktop and laptop hardware last.

I do actually switch between Windows and OSX now. Windows becoming my gaming and multimedia system, and OSX being what I use to program, and as a daily drive.

The final step to my conversion

I started a new job in 2013 after moving to Sydney with a telecommunications provider. Being a telco, we were required to have mobile phones as our office phones. The company could either take care of our personal phones on the proviso that they also become our work ones (we’re contactable on them from work and so on). Or we could choose to separate our work and personal lives and maintain our own personal phone at our own cost and get a separate work phone issued then and there. I chose the latter. At the time my personal phone was a Samsung Galaxy Note II, so it was fair massive. I chose an iPhone 5 from work to complement the Galaxy Note II. It was purely a functional decision: I knew iPhones, due to their ultra restriction were less susceptible to easy hacking as Android ones were, and Samsung fills their phones with useless bloatware.******

I only used the phone for work. I didn’t even share contacts from my personal phone on it, it was 100% business related. It was tolerable and functional, but being an Android fanboy at the time, I just wasn’t really interested in using it save a few fleeting curiosities. Anyway, about a year later I moved on and was told I could keep the iPhone. I figured it’d come in handy as a media device (that requires a bloody SIM), a spare, or I could sell it. After two misadventures I found myself thankful that I had the iPhone as I needed a spare. Two months later I was due for a plan upgrade, and offered an iPhone 6 Plus. I bit the bullet. I missed having a big phone like the Xperia Z2. I haven’t looked back.

****** Though Apple is coming close: Tips, Voice Memos, Contacts (just use Phone), Stocks, Reminders, Maps (Google doesn’t drive you off a bridge), iBooks (Amazon), Health and the worst and most insidious forced app Apple has cursed us with, Apple Watch. I mean, come on Apple, can’t you have just allowed Watch owners to download the bloody thing once they got one?!

Why the long diatribe?

I never intended it to be this long, to be honest. I figured a short 500-word prose, not a 2600-odd word one. But I decided to start this blog after a friend told me about his because it’s a good idea. I have things to offer, I think, that may be useful to others out there. I have opinions and am more than happy for others to disregard them altogether. I guess I want to tell the story of myself, not necessarily for a portfolio - though that is helpful and my resume will be up soon - but just because the Internet is memories are fragile.

Also, I just told a story about myself in a way that wouldn’t otherwise be told. In my mind they’re memories, but they exist because they happened (granted, as I recall and a lot of this was a long time ago). I spoke about my mindset at a time when, thinking back without telling the story I’d just say “I was in uni and I used Linux”. I hope, for my own sake, I come back with another tech-related story about myself that spans many years. Maybe it’ll be an interesting read.

As thanks for joining me in my journey to device adulthood