ubuntu-us-ohio team mailing list archive

[Elias Ward <leeward1982@xxxxxxxxx>]

New member here of the LoCo.

I thought I might introduce myself by answering this latest question
in the mailing list.

I got started with Linux back in the 90's using a clone of Red Hat
that I found in a Wal-Mart for $5. Booted up to a console. Played
around and got startx going and started into twm. Neat. A GUI full of
term windows. Fell in love. Rewrote a driver I found online to get my
Winmodem to work and I was hooked on FOSS and Linux.

Learned about Ubuntu in 2005 and played around with it and liked it.
Used it as my primary OS for about 3 or 4 years (was using Debian and
Fedora Core before that). I remember there being some issues and so
started jumping between Fedora and Ubuntu before the great distro hop
years.

Now, while I dabble around in other distros, I pretty much use
Kubuntu. I like KDE and it was either Kubuntu or openSUSE and while I
like openSUSE, I don't have as much time to "force" things to work so
I use what most people write for which I admit pains me a little
because I have a special place in my heart for small distros.

Part of that is because I served on the Fuduntu Linux team for a while
before the upstream changes were too much for us to handle while still
giving users what they wanted and so it took its toll and came to an
end.

I worked with the openSUSE team for a short time before taking a few
year hiatus from any contributing. in 2007, helped to form up the
Nevada LoCo and worked with sum LUG's. Now, I'm trying to jump back
into the middle of the Linux and FOSS world.

Something that has disappointed me is the decline of LoCo's and LUG's
and I want to find a way to bring that back as well as advocate for
smaller distros.

By day, I am a Systems/Network Administrator. Pains me to say it, but
it's a 99% Windows network though I plan on changing that some. My
laptop at work runs Linux because most of my day is RDP'd into servers
(or via PowerShell) or in various browser-based clients so why not?

I live down by Cincy and have a wife and two small children. FOSS and
Linux advocate (but practical...sometimes FOSS and Linux don't have
the best solution). I saw a post from a couple years ago about
reviving this LoCo. Is that still something of interest to others?

Nice to virtually meet you all and hope that maybe this thread that
was started will spark some renewed interest. Linux and FOSS were
built on community. It's time to bring that back.

Elias