Introductions Thread

[althara]

If you feel so inclined post a reply to this thread introducing yourself. I'll start. :)

My name is Linda. I work in Seattle and live in the South Snohomish County area. I'm a long time linux user and have been using Ubuntu in the work place for the past 2 or so years. I'm transitioning to Ubuntu on my various workstations. I've just recently joined the Ubuntu community. I am helping to organize and reenergize the Washington LoCo, and I am active in the Ubuntu-Women project (http://www.ubuntu-women.org).

[Pastor_JW]

Nice to see it up!! I live and work in the Walla Walla area. Have been using personal computers since mid seventies having built an Altair and then moving on to the PET, C=64, Amiga, using and writing for operating systems such as Unix, Mac, OS/2, Amiga, Linux, C=64/128, and Video Toaster. I like Ubuntu especially in the KDE flavor except for version 4 which was a tad pre-mature in release. It is much better now and very much worth a look!

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Hi, I'm Valorie Zimmerman (nee' Cowan). I've lived in Washington all my life - born in Renton, grew up in Issaquah, and now live just outside Black Diamond. I've been using linux since 2001 or 2; whenever Win2K started showing its age. Both my son Thomas and my friends in the Linuxchix (http://www.linuxchix.org) have supported me along the way.

After Mandrake and Gentoo, I moved to Kubuntu, and have recently become active in Ubuntu-Women, after learning about it through Linuxchix. Linda/althara invited me to the LoCo channel, and here we are! I've recently gotten active in the support community for my favorite music player Amarok, so this is all very exciting. I hope that the LoCo can work together with existing local FOSS groups to make more of a splash for Free Software in Washington state. :)

[memilanuk]

Hello all,

Another one from the 'dry' side of the mountains - Wenatchee to be specific. Born-n-raised in western Nebraska, this is as far 'west' in this state as my wife could get me to move. Actually I'd be happier down around the Tri-Cities, but I've got a job here (hydro power plant operator on the Columbia River) that pays the bills...

This past year I started drifting back to Linux after a long absence. My first exposure to Linux was around...1995 or 96, when I was (then) interested in trying C/C++ but couldn't afford what M$ asked for a copy of Visual C++ at the time (EM2/SS pay in the Navy not being all that grand). A shipmate suggested this weird Linux thing ;) and down the rabbit hole I went. Slackware, then Redhat, then Suse, then some dabbling with most of the offerings out there: Mandrake, Debian, Corel, TurboLinux, Gentoo etc. Had a small stack of old PCs bought off ebay that I played with for a while, but eventually I got tired of beating my head against the monitor trying to get seemingly basic things to work like printing, sound, etc. Those of you who remember hacking your X11 config files know what I mean. So when Mac OS X hit 10.1 or so, I defected :oops:

Now... a number of years later when I was getting somewhat bored again ;) I picked up an older PC and started tinkering again. Then when I got a new desktop PC with oodles of HDD space and buku RAM... I discovered Virtualbox. So now I have a virtual sandbox to try just about anything in, good bad or otherwise. My current goal is to set up a virtual LAN and use that for training/education to learn how to make things work *before* I put them online for real. Ubuntu didn't exist when I left Linux, not sure it was even a thought in anyone's head. Today... despite my tendency to distro-hop, I keep coming back to Ubuntu because of two things: its Debian heritage, and frankly, I am sick and tired of the incessant sniping and generally viperish behavior that I run into on other distros regarding 'others'. I haven't ran into that in the Ubuntu community yet, so I figure I'll stay a while. ;)

Monte

[Ashex]

My name is Ahmed and I live out in Seattle! I grew up tinkering with Linux in my dads labs but never seriously played with it until about 4 years ago.
I was running Ubuntu for about 3 years until switching over to Arch Linux. I still consider Ubuntu to be a great distribution and am a passionate advocate for it's use.

[almostalive2009]

I'm Vince. I'm in Olympia. I've been using ubuntu (actually linux mint) for about 4 months, but it seems more like a year. I've been trying to get involved in the community, and would love to help, though I'm still trying to find my nitch.
I have two kids, a beautiful wife, and a couple years of school left before I can start a career doing something in the network admin field.


:PVIVA UBUNTU!!!!

[xuCGC002]

I'm Collin Dahl (http://ubudeb.wordpress.com), I have been using Linux since 2006, starting with Xubuntu 6.06. I have since then used Fedora, Damn Small, Puppy, Fluxbuntu, Kubuntu, PC-BSD, MINIX, tomsrtbt, Mint, Gentoo, and Mandriva, and eventually settled on vanilla Ubuntu. I had previously been using Windows XP since 2005, and Windows 98 since 1998 (when I was 3, mind you!). I live in Lynnwood, and I dabble in Python, play lots of Quake, and attend Linuxfest Northwest every year.


And yes, normally I am used to IRC channels with 100+ people constantly chatting away. :)

[ardchoille42]

Hi! My name is Ian MacGregor and I just joined the Washington LoCo team!
I've been using Linux since 2001 and Ubuntu since 2005. I've also been blogging about Ubuntu and Linux related stuff for a while. Some of you may know me as ardchoille in #ubuntu, where I have been helping others for a few years. I'm also on the Ubuntu forums as ardchoille42.

Glad to be here!

[newlinux]

Hello everyone. I work in Seattle and live in South Snohomish county. I first used UNIX based systems (AIX, HP-UX, SunOS/Solaris, IRIX, netBSD, Redhat) in the early 90s, then was stuck in windows world from around 97-06. At home I primarily run ubuntu (with one debian testing and XP install in VMs and one laptop that is dual boot Vista/Ubuntu). I primarily use Linux for HTPCs, web applications, and various other servers, although it is also used as our primary desktop.

I've been around the ubuntu forums for a while - and when I have time I try to help out as much as I can with ubuntu user problems.

[techn0mad]

Hi there:

My name is Larry and I've been working with *ix OSes on and off for almost 25 years now. My biggest enthusiasm for Ubuntu is it's accessibility to regular computer users. I've been promoting/encouraging/evangelizing it's use as a direct substitute for various Microsoft products for about a year now.

At home, I run Mac OS X, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Ubuntu (of course) and occasionally Windows.

Cheers,

[watertonian]

hello all. I've been using Ubuntu since earlier this year, so far I like it. I'm an old Amiga enthusiast, still pushing an A1200T (pics in album) as my primary computer. Though for school, I needed something a bit more modern, so I got a netbook with Win7 Starter installed. I pretty much immediatly dumped ubuntu on an SD card (not the netbook version, don't like the desktop it has), shrank the win partition, added another ntfs, and a fat32, as well as ext4 for ubuntu, and 2 more for solaris and aros. (Last 2 I never did get working). So now I have WinXP, Win7, FreeDOS, and Ubuntu on one system. (Need 7 and XP for school, use Ubuntu because neither XP or 7 impress me much) AROS doesn't like AHCI, and Solaris insists on being on a primary partition, so I have 2 empties on there.
So far I like it, just seems to lag behind the adobe browser stuff a bit, but nothing thats a big deal. (WTF is Adobe Air, anyway? Shockwave would be nice, but still run windows for that)
Anyway, OpenOffice seems to work fine for homework, despite myriad request for e-mailed docs in MS works (which I sometimes send as a PDF instead, just to mess with ppl), firefox works with most sites, and pidgin does all I need it to. With one client. Seems to work better than the win version, though that could just be me.

[gekken]

Heya folks -

Kinda new to the whole Linux thing. It all started when my ancient laptop, Methuselah, decided that winXP was just too much and borked all over himself. So a colleague said to try Linux. I looked at different distros for a couple of weeks and stumbled on Ubuntu 9.10. Which I picked solely because "Ubuntu" is fun to shout at people.

[lafaverp]

Hello,

My name is Paul. I'm a recovering MS-aholic. I moved to Birch Bay from Fremont CA about 5 years ago. I am in awe and wonder of Linux dudes and dudettes. I worked in IT at various companies for about 10 years mostly in Windows environments. My last couple of years were spent along side of some serious Unix database and system admins. I am really loving Linux because basically anything that can be imagined, can be done in the Linux environment (albeit with some pain). I am looking forward to leaching your brains.

[androidbruce]

Nice to meet you all! I've just moved to the South King County area and I am very excited to find so many Ubuntu users in the area. I look forward to collaborating and learning new things. If you can recommend anything I should see/do in the area please let me know.

[PWill]

Howdy, howdy! I'm Paul Williams. I moved out to Olympia (from Columbus, Ohio, where I was involved in the Ohio LoCo in high school) to attend Evergreen. I'm excited to start working with you all (once I wrap up the end of this quarter...)

[ghope]

Greetings, all. I live and work in Bellingham (hello up there, lafaverp!). I have used Ubuntu off and on since version 6 and have finally committed to making it my default platform. Sadly, I still have to dual boot into winxp occasionally for work reasons, but I have imported my life into Evolution, so this will hopefully keep me on the straight and narrow. I'm really happy with 10.10 so far!

Greg

[meonkeys]

I'm Adam Monsen. I've been using Ubuntu for a few years now. I live in Seattle.

[althara]

I'm Adam Monsen. I've been using Ubuntu for a few years now. I live in Seattle.

Welcome! As you can see the forums aren't terribly active yet. Join us on irc i you're so inclined, there are usually a few people in the channel. And check out the mailing list archives https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-us-wa/ for current planning efforts.

[tenach]

Hello everyone! My name is Thomas and I live in Tacoma. I've been using Linux since 2003 and moved over to Ubuntu in 2007.

I utilize UNIX and Linux distributions for servers and desktops, most notably FreeBSD, Arch, Debian and Ubuntu. It has proved a huge boon to my web development practices and I have learned a lot about the inner workings of 'nix and how it interacts with hardware.

Currently I am part of the Ubuntu Beginners Team, Development Focus Group.

[Jennyplayswu]

I live in Olympia and am new to Ubuntu. hoping to see more action on this forum. Anyone throwing a party for the new release?

[Valorie Zimmerman]

Nice to see you here, Jenny! As a matter of fact, we have a room reserved for a Release Party on Thu, 13 Oct. 2011 at the Valley View Library in south King County. See the LoCo Team Directory for more information:

http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/ubuntu-washington/1260/detail/

Thanks for reminding me that I need to post an announcement on the Forum too! Hope to meet you on the 13th.

Valorie

PS: We're open to ideas about what to eat, drink, and do for the party. We should be able to do some installing for those who want to.

[ghope]

I regret that I cannot join you all at the release party, but at least want to reply and thank you, Valorie, for making the party happen. Bellingham to Seatac is a bit of a drive, too. I will watch for other opportunities and hope that you all have a great time!

Greg


Nice to see you here, Jenny! As a matter of fact, we have a room reserved for a Release Party on Thu, 13 Oct. 2011 at the Valley View Library in south King County. See the LoCo Team Directory for more information:

http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/ubuntu-washington/1260/detail/

Thanks for reminding me that I need to post an announcement on the Forum too! Hope to meet you on the 13th.

Valorie

PS: We're open to ideas about what to eat, drink, and do for the party. We should be able to do some installing for those who want to.

[ievans3024]

My name is Ian, I live in Seattle and I've used ubuntu for the last three and a half or so years. I just recently learned that there are LoCos, and so I'm trying to get engaged with other ubuntu users in the area.

[KaitlinM]

Hi!

I live in Spokane. Any other Spokane residents out there?

I've used Ubuntu for just over a year now. Love it! I'm finishing graduate school in philosophy, but I've discovered I totally love programming and want a software development career. I'm here to learn and hopefully contribute back to Ubuntu (more generally, to free software).

It's so awesome to see growing awareness of Ubuntu--I don't see too many users just yet, but I don't get weird looks anymore when I mention it. :)

[jaimeaux]

Hey, I'm Jaymason, I live in Lewis County... I'm stuck in California until 2013 due to military obligation; however, I've always lived in Washington.... Right now I'm technically in Afghanistan.

Not sure if this is the right thread for me.

However, joining an Ubuntu LoCo sounds great, and this sounds like the right one for me.

I've been using linux since 2009, and have tried many distros. I work as a Data Systems Specialist in the US Marine Corps, and plan to continue in the IT field afterward.

[tenach]

Welcome to the WA LoCo forums everyone. :D

[mlinscott]

Hi, my name is Matt Linscott. I live in Bellevue, WA and have been using Ubuntu since 2008. Over the past month, my interest in contributing to Ubuntu has grown considerably, and I'd like to get involved and help out with the Washington LoCo group where I can.

I look forward to doing some great things with you all!

- Matt

[cfhowlett]

*pokes head up - 8 more weeks of winter*

Greetings and Happy 2012 to all. Be safe.