First phlog: how do I know about gopher

  It's been 2 years maybe after I created this account at SDF. Haven't
been here a lot and still navigating here and there. First heard about
gopher and gemini on Mastodon and visited some of the sites from
different people. I was born in 1990s and it was not until I entered
high school where computer became accessible to me. And it was a once a
week 40-minute class where learn basics such as how to use a web browser
(IE browser of course) and search something on the Internet or to enter
a URL to go to a specific site, how to use Microsoft office suit to
create and save documents and spreadsheets, thing like that. A lot of my
classmates were already familiar with PCs as their family were in better
financial status and they'd played games on computers for years before
high schools. However, I came from a small village and never saw a
personal computer or desktop before that. And I still remembered the
shock when I first saw my teacher put a tiny laptop on his lap and was
doing something without using a mouse. 

  I was amazed by how small the machine was, and also I cannot image how
to use a computer without a mouse as I never knew there was something
called touchpad.  It was my first time seeing a laptop after all! And
that's sometime around 2010-ish, which is not so long ago! So I guess
this explains my first impression about gopher/gemini: this sites looks
really old. Why should someone would like to use this in the 21 century,
which is called the Age of Info anyway. But I must admit that was not
Age of Info for me because I didn't do much except aiminglessly
bowsering some random websites, novels in the last several minutes of
the class after what the teachers' class thing and we'd have some free
time with the computers. I never know anything about programming, or
operating systems, or the Internet world beyonf WWW URLs.

  Then time comes I went to collage and it's officially the second
decade of 21 century. There was Windows XP and Windows Vista dominatin
the world of computers, and symbian OS from Nokia on the so-called smart
phones then. I got a Nokia phone as freshman in collage but I coundn't
afford a laptop or desktop.  There was task assignments and things we
had to use computers and luckily one of my roommates got a desktop and
was kind to let we use it when he was away. I got familiar then how to
use computers, how to type fast, how to download things, to watch movies
or listen to music, to chat online with friends and strangers,  and more
things like that like we all did. Came the second year personal
computers, including desktops and laptops became almost essential for
everyone so I got a desktop too. Not a big brand one, but one I
assembled with the help of others.  They put together the pieces into a
whole computer and installed Windows 7, which just came out, as the
operating system. 

  My own journey with computers started. And that was also the time when
iPhone 4 and 4S came out as big success, Android OS together with HTC
phones became popular too, all that things shocked me with their big
screens and touch and swipe thing as a new standards for smart phones.
Big surprise came to me one day when I was doing something on my
computer, the screen just flashed, and almost before I had the time to
react in any way, screen and everything were back except that wallpaper
was gone leaving me a desktop with total black wallpaper.  There was
also a warning message at the bottom-right cornor telling me that I was
running a illegal copy of Windows 7. I quickly looked up the Internet
and found out that I was actually running a copy of Windows that had not
been activated, and Microsoft had decided to hit piracy by turning every
desktop running Windows 7 without activation black when their 30-day
trials ended, unfortunately I was one of them. 

  I didn't know that until that day and got the answer that a
self-assembled PC always ran a pirated copy of Windows as nobody wanted
to pay another price almost the same as the PC itself for the everywhere
avaliable on Internet for download and installation Windows copies.
However, the black wallpaper didn't prevented me from using and computer
at all. It just checked and made sure it went back to black if I tried
chaning the wallpaper again from time the time.  During that few days I
was learning that basically if I bought a laptop, the Windows came with
it was usually activated at first use. The activation would not expire,
but a re-install of the system indeed would lead to a lose of
activation. So I learned that many computers around me were running
pirated copies of Windows. I also learned that computer from Apple
company didn't run Windows, and softwares copied from a Windows system
would not run or be installable for a Apple computer. Because the
operating system was different. 

  But since Apple computers were so different from PCs, like they still
are today, I didn't realize what it really meant to run different
operating systems.  Then one day I was still learning about things about
cumputers and operating systems, something called Linux came into my
attention. It was said to be totally free for use (or maybe it meant
free as in speech but I did't pay attention or know what it meant at
that time), no activation was needed. I looked up more information about
it and confirmed it was another operating system, it would run on a PC
without activation, all those interested in it could download a copy
from the Internet and install on their computer. I was very interested,
but I knew absolutely nothing about computers, how they worked the way
the behaved, what it meant to "install a operating system". The thing
(maybe a ISO file) I downloaded would not open no matter how many times
I double clicked it, nothing would show up. I learned even if I opened
it using some other software, there was still nothing I could as it was
a operating itself, so I could not just install it in Windows just like
any other sofware I downloaded and used. More searching and learning on
the Internet I started to realize it was something like Windows itself,
it let the computer run and then I could instal softwares I needed and
use them like I did in a Windows system. But still, installing a system
was both beyond my capability and understanding, and also seemed
dangerious to me because it would require to do something with "hard
disk", I could easily lose all the thing on my computer if I didn't know
wha I was doing. But luckily I found out something called Virtual
Machines. VMs acted like a really computer in a software and I could
install operating systems in them and turn on/off them just like a
"software computer" living inside a real computer. I quickly watched a
online course and leared how to install a Linux system and how to use
it. So there my story with Linux started. Started with VMs, different
distros, then installed them on my computer, and years later, sometime
around 2016-ish, I started to use Linux daily most of the time and kept
Windows as a backup systems when there were things I had to resort to
Windows. I used Ubuntu 12.04 LTS first, then Gentoo and Arch, Mint,
finally I was settled with Debian sid. I always enjoyed the experience
with Gentoo because the highly customizable package manager was really
facinating. But the compile time on the other hand is also a pain. Well
this has became too long before I realize, I didn't mean to write a lot
in first post.

  So this shoule be it? I hope this works.