Re: Curious...Are most of you in tech-related careers/schooling?
On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 04:30:54PM -0700, Scott --sidewalking-- wrote:
> I wonder if all (or most) of you are in similar careers and that is
> why you are so proficient with compiling and testing and tweaking
> all of this stuff. Or is it just a hobby that has gone on for so
> long that you have advanced your knowledge of Linux/Debian to these
> levels that all of you are at?
I've been working as a support technician (in one form or another) for
the last 7 years. I started using Linux about 3 (late '99) years ago.
At first it was just to satisfy my curiousity.
I had a small home network consisting of about 5 systems all running MS
OSes. Periodically, the system we used for file storage would simply
stop (lock up, BSOD, etc). Additionally, it had become almost routine
to reinstall our personal systems almost monthly. All of this led to a
general sense of frustration with our current situation.
My room mate at the time picked up RH 6.1 and we began experimenting
with it. Shortly there after, RH 6.2 was released and we continued
with it. I borrowed an old laptop from my employer at the time and
started testing different ideas and configurations.
Eventually, I found that I could do almost everything I needed (both
professionally and personally) in Linux. I converted the system we were
using as a file store to Linux and the mysterious lockups stopped (exact
same hardware only the OS changed). Then I began migrating my personal
system and company laptop to RH. With the addition of VMWare, I had
everything I needed. VMWare was needed due to a proprietary development
environment our product used.
I then switched employers to a smaller company (my current employer) and
began using Linux to solve a myriad of problems around the office from
revision management (CVS, SVN), to scanner access (XSane and GIMP), to
sharing our Internet connection (iptables).
Throughout this time, I was constantly downloading other Linux releases
and installing them on my home systems. I was restlessly searching for
a distribution that fit my ideals and usage. I eventually found Crux
and it seemed to have most of what I wanted, but everything in it was
optimized for the 686 and my new notebook (Sony C1VN) wasn't happy with
it. I wanted one distribution for all my systems. So, I began with
Crux as a base and started recompiling the packages and making my own
distribution.
Right about the time I finished work on the first crude revision of my
home-brewed distro, a user of the firewall script I'd put together asked
why I was going through so much trouble when Debian seemed like a good
fit. I had previously looked at Debian, but been turned off by it's use
of a 2.2.x kernel and older packages. I didn't "get" how Debian was
structured at the time. He explained the differences between the
various releases and suggested I give "testing" a try. I did, and
within a month had begun the migration of my home network (by now ~12
systems) to Debian.
I've been using it ever since. I'm now working on becoming a Debian
Developer and am the current maintainer for the Jabber package. So,
yea, I'm a geek.
--
Jamin W. Collins
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