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Comment by klyrs | Hacker News Reader

In the late 90s, my dad was really mad about me experimenting with Linux on my personal computer which I built from parts bought with money earned at a summer job. It was kinda hilarious. He has zero involvement with microsoft, very little knowledge of computers, and tended to be mildly anti-establishment... and since it was 100% my computer, it had zero impact on his life. It really felt like a "my role is to crack down on my rebellious teenager no matter the cause" situation. Of course, he shut right up when I lined up a sysadmin job starting immediately after graduation.

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My parents were always very concerned about whether I was “hacking anything”

Yeah, I blame the movie "War Games". I didn't get a modem until I was 12.

He might have just been sad that you weren't living your life how he would have - ie you spent a lot of time in front of the computer instead of out socializing, chasing girls, playing sports, etc?

He was pretty supportive of my computer hobby... him and my mom both were. But like he was also super big on ford trucks, fuck Chevy, I think there was some brand loyalty tribalism in play around microsoft? There was a ton of FUD about oss back then, so maybe he probably absorbed that? Shame he's dead, these "wtf were you thinking" conversations were always fun.

> when I lined up a sysadmin job starting immediately after graduation.

If you don't mind me asking, how were you able to do this? I would like to do this kind of work, but am unsure of how to get into it. I'm perfectly comfortable with Linux, and can hack together tools when needed but haven't had any luck.

Such jobs are not as numerous as they used to be. But, basically you chat up owners/managers of local businesses with computers.

When you go off defined path, everything becomes highly context dependent. Know people or interview well, preferably both. Apply anywhere & everywhere. View your first few years as a paid internship, ie don't care too much about pay

For what it's worth, here's what happened for me: During Summer at Ohio State, I worked as a "consultant" in the computer lab. The job involved opening/closing the lab, managing the printers, and providing basic assistance to students (we had to know how the subject matter of an intro sequence).

During Summer, it was so dead, I somehow found my way to contributing to Bugzilla. Those contributions, plus hanging out in IRC, caused me to be noticed by someone who was looking to hire a Bugzilla person. That eventually led to sysadmin, and later more.

Sorry, my experience won't help you much. In the late 90s, I took a programming class at a community college. A classmate noticed that I was a keener; she first approached me for tutoring and later introduced me to her boyfriend who needed somebody to help make a website. I did everything from server admin, maintaining desktops at the office, to writing cgi scripts, html etc., and doing random stuff the company needed like optimizing processes in their warehouse. Our endeavors on the web never went much of anywhere, but it was fun for a few years.

What hasn't changed is the value of networking. My boss's girlfriend noticed me because I was a keener. Rare to make that kinda connection, though.

Ha, kinda the same here.

I'm literally living off the stuff I've learnt by scavenging hardware off the local computer store's trash can and building PCs to run GNU/Linux on them.

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