I remember the joy I felt when I downloaded Linux for the first time and booted it on my 386 .. it was like I was suddenly granted access to the hallowed halls of technology. I'd been a Unix guy for a decade before that, but never able to afford my own machine .. working with a Magnum pizzabox at work, but a lame DOS PC at home, it was always very frustrating to me. But when I got on the minix-list and saw Linus' post a few days later, I was instantly transported into an .. at the time .. elite new world.
Never looked back, and its amazing to me today to see just how far we've come. Truly a phenomenal technology ..
And now the situation for many of us is reversed - I have a powerful Linux workstation at home where I work on my own projects, and a crappy under-specced Dell running Windows at work. It is very frustrating to me :(
Need they ever know if you do NAT instead of introducing a new IP on the network (making sure that the Linux image isn't advertising any naughty services like SSH of course)? Of course, on a corporate Windows box you may not be root, i suppose...
Courage to you nonetheless! Time to find a job where you're root on your machine? :)
Never looked back, and its amazing to me today to see just how far we've come. Truly a phenomenal technology ..