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hello all,

	I started using linux this summer. A friend of mine passed a few disks
and said I should try it out. I thought it would be ok, you know?

The first time was not good. I went on a really bad trip and I swore I 
wouldn't touch the stuff again. However, a few weeks later my friend 
invited me to a "LUG",  sort of like a bunch of linux junkies meet to 
hang out and pass the latest kernel around. This time I really got a nice
buzz, all the the positive vibes you know. They showed me how to use it
right, and pretty soon I was rolling my own kernels. I borrowed a cd from
a "friend of a friend" and from that point on I was hooked.

My mom noticed I was acting strange, but I got hostile and told her to fsck
off when her questions got too inquisitive. My 'Linux: the choice of a
GNU generation' t-shirt in psychadelic colors didn't help either. My dad 
said it was just a symptom of the slackware generation. 

At this point I still considered myself a light user. It's not like I was
on 'X' or anything. But then at the next LUG I got a working XF86config file,
and it was all downhill from there... I started with fvwm, but I started 
getting into the heavier clientel, and I found myself lying to my mom about
where I was spending my money as I nervously was fingering my new 8 meg
simm module....

It's been a few months now, I've tried to cut down, I mean, vi instead of
xemacs, I've gotten back to fvwm, and I only use X every now and then..

I've gotten better, honestly.

Anyone else have any stories about their struggle to kick the Linux habit?

one day at a time,
Lars

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With horror stories like this, it is important that you know that leading 
signs that your kid may be hooked on Linux:

1) Certain key expressions used by Linux addicits are in your kids 
   vocabulary: "Go ahead, you can /dev/null that", "Mom, I gotta go now. 
   Like nice -20", "I've been up since 7am, so my uptime is about 4 
   hours", and so on.

2) You turn on your computer, and the word "LILO" flashes for 5 seconds 
   before your computer boots. Your kid claims he wanted to put in the name
   of a girl he likes named "Lilo" on your computer, but you wonder.

3) Your kid's computing habits become strange. For example, your kid 
   types in "ls" when he should type in "DIR". Your kid also expects your
   computer to be able to have more than 8.3 charactors in a file name.

And, worse of all...

4) A refusal to use Microsoft Windows, claiming that 'X' is much better.

If your kid is starting to act like this, ****get him to a treatment 
center immediately!**** Among other places, there is an excellent treatment 
center in Redmond, Washington you may be interested in.

If you don't act quickly enough, your kid may be beyond repair!