Dear All,
having joined this list a few weeks ago I am at last getting around to saying 'hello'.
I'm Rob of Lakenham, part time teacher of development economics at UEA, full time dad, very part time computer tinkerer and so on.
I have gravitated towards Linux after a long period of growing disaffection with another well known OS. Until a few years back I always assumed that the more I used computers in my daily work, the more I would understand, gain control and open up creative possibilities. However, the latest version of the ubiquitous OS has confirmed the opposite tendancy. I really feel that I am being patronised and almost deliberately deskilled. I wanted a computer, not a glorified fruit machine.
So to Linux. If you haven't realised by now, I am one of the very few (?) non-techie people on the list but perhaps a laugh at my newbie naivete may be warming on a cold winter evening.
I only started with Linux in December 2004. Maybe in desperation for some visible nuts and bolts, I have ignored advice about difficulty and gone straight for Debian (3.0 r3). I've got a dual boot working with XP as I only have the one machine which I do a lot of UEA work on. The machine is a Thinkpad T22 from ebay. Possibly because of this I've got nowhere with X so far but I'll get there one day. At the moment my install reminds me of Multics at Bristol in the 1980s. I'm enjoying learning all about vi and Unix in general.
That's it. My appreciation to all who contribute to making this an interesting list, especially to the kind folk who run it all. Perhaps look forward to meeting some of you one day; do you really venture down to the Billy Bluelight sometimes?
Best wishes,
Rob