The message 20031117101601.20618.79205.Mailman@terry.blackcatnetworks.co.uk from main-request@lists.alug.org.uk contains these words:

Welcome to the main@lists.alug.org.uk mailing list! Welcome to ALUG!

Too, too kind.

We welcome new members and we'd especially like you to send a short description of why you're interested in Linux to the mailing list.

Disclaimer: what you may consider typos may not be all they seem. qv uk.rec.sheds. Now read on.

I used to use FT at my place of work, and liked it. However, I was only given simple tasks and I've pretty-well forgotten how to do those in the intervening years. I don't work there any longer so support from that quarter isn't available in quantity, though I sometimes pop in for a chinwag.

After much wrangling in various newsgroups I've settled on Debian as my particular - er - sparring-partner. I tend to use keystrokes in Windows rather than the rodent for a variety of reasons: not the least of these is to show that nice Mr. Gates what fingers are for, so that OS seemed the logical choice. Not, of course, that I would dream of applying the same reason to Mr Linus T. (Whom God preserve.)

This is so that we can get some idea of how to cater for new members, as they're the most important ones!

<Preen>

Some general info should follow...

Oh. I seem to have jumped the gun.

General Info rose from the ranks by means of his intuitive grasp of the function of escalators, while bearing in mind the traditional insurance industry caveat that they can go down as well as up, he progressed through CP/M, Drapery, Haberdashery and Men's Wear, to DOS, Toys, Models and Restaurant and was dragged from thence, kicking and screaming into the clutches of Windows 3.0, because Someone Who Knew insisted that 'Everything was written for Windows these days'. As it happened, I used my first PC (DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0 for several years without ever needing to run the fenestral part.) Indeed, with half a metaphorical eye on the insurance industry, he noted that escalators promised to go down a good deal faster than the other way about, so he took great care to step onto escalators which were going in a generally upwards direction, thobut with a certain lateral shift.

Are you still with me?

You've not got on that escalator going down......

Hooter! He must have been listening too intently and not noticed where he was going.

Ah well, I'll mumble to myself then. Never have to correct myself, what?

As a result of all this upward mobility he is not as young as he used to be (FDVO young) and the escalators are becoming very thin on the ground. There's this one though, which promises to fend off the worst depradations of age, in that it exercises the brian, and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to get on. And it's fun: the top of it is receding rather fast, so I might have to climb rather than just stand there. That thing at the top, it's growing, and if I CBA to learn a little programming even I might be able to contribute something.

The last loading of Win98 got up my nose from time to time. Well, that's hyperbole *AND* oxymoron, I guvax. It was one of those escalators I stepped on without noticing which way it was going. However, making the best of a bad job I lined up in my sights that bloody Orofice Assistant. *BLAM!* - followed in short order by condescending messages and Junior Mickey$oftie six-year-old approach to naming things *MY* computer, *MY* documents, *MY* briefcase, *MY* &@$*! In the end I discarded so much junk that Windows gave up and sulked, so I reloaded it and despite its plaintive cries and entreaties, Outlurk, Outpuke Depress and a lot of other Mucodross never even made it into the filesystem.

But it's hard work, and without taking a hammer and a spanner into the codes there's not much that can be done to wipe off some of its evil habits. Besides, if I got in amongst the codes there wouldn't be much spanner about it. "Oops! It's borked! Where's the soopergloo?" would be the cry.

So, I'm defecting. A foot in both camps to start with, as my internet software runs in Windows, and as a beta tester, a clean break would be painful even though I'm not an addict. (Don't they all say that?) That's not all bad, as I shall make it my aim to fire up ZIMACS in one of the emulators. Zetnet is not just Debian-tolerant, much of its software works under it, and one of the directors is a guru thereof.

Enough?

Had enough?

Want some more?