[raarts]

I first downloaded Slackware in June '93. I needed 13 diskettes. Installed it on my Compaq 386/SX 4Mb laptop, and spent the rest of the year learning myself Linux.

In November '93 I founded one of the first internet providers in The Netherlands, and I'm pretty certain my family was the first Dutch family that had always-on public internet from the home.

Also I might have been one of the first companies in the NL to run Linux in a business-critical environment.

Linux always kept me from running Windows on my desktop. Although I switched to the Mac in 2005 after big problems get multimedia And graphics to work reliably.

Without Linux my life would have been completely different. It allowed me to create a new future for myself. So I'm hugely grateful for its existence.