Introductions

[ncweber]

Hello, since I just joined, I thought I would introduce myself. My name is Nathan, and I actually live in the Takoma area (on the DC side). While I'm not exactly new to Linux in general, I'm still something of a novice.

I actually started working with Caldera Linux (mostly unsuccessfully since the blasted thing wouldn't work on the laptop I had at the time). Then I moved on to Lindows, which later became Linspire. That one was actually pretty good until Michael Robertson sold it to Xandros (there was a big stink about that because he allegedly had done it without shareholders even knowing about it).

So, believe me, Ubuntu was certainly a breath of fresh air when I discovered it. Actually, it was Linspire that brought Ubuntu to my attention when the Linspire 4.0 started using the Ubuntu 6.04 code base. These days, I have a netbook with UNE 10.10 (I started out at 9.04 and upgraded with each release). I'm finding the more I use it, the more dependent I'm becoming on it. Much moreso than Windows, which I still use to play MMORPG games.

I don't know if the team still meets, but I certainly hope I can meet members at some point.

[jbicha]

Thanks for posting. (I think you already figured this out, but this way there's a record for anyone else wanting to contact us.)

As you can see, we don't really use this forum. You can stop by IRC at #ubuntu-us-dc . We may not say much but there's often some of us lurking. We do also use our mailing list (https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/Ubuntu-us-dc) which basically serves the same purpose for us as this forum would. We have meetings most Saturday evenings at Taste of India (http://tasteofindia.us/). Just ping us on email or chat to confirm the time and if others are planning on going.

[GNURo]

Hello Folks!

My name is Robert, but my friends call me Ro. I'm from Maryland, and had considered forming a LoCo when I found out about them, and discovered that there's already a DC LoCo so a Maryland one would be fairly redundant. Though I live pretty far from DC, and likely won't make it out for many events, I do intend to at least be present on the internet.

I've been using computers for 21 years (Family got one when I was 8, and since I used an Apple IIGS at school, it was my job to learn how our 286 worked and teach the whole family.) and GNU/Linux for 16 of those 21. In late 1993/early 1994 I was a beta tester for Windows 95 because I registered with the "Microsoft Network" tester program under my Father's name (we have the same name, actually.) and switched to this "Lie-nux" thing I kept hearing about because all of the applications I used in Windows 3.11 didn't work with Windows 95, and with it being a Beta Test, there weren't any 32-bit versions of the software I used on a daily basis yet. Most companies were unsure of Windows 95 and a lot of them were fairly vocal about their plans to not produce 32-bit software until a large share of the IBM-Compatible market adopted the OS.

Lo and behold, this "Lie-nux" had lots of alternatives to all of the software I used, and I could even modify them if a feature I wanted wasn't present! It was pure bliss! So, after a year or so of using SLS, I tried Caldera (Ugh. Horrible) then Red Hat for a while until a friend introduced me to Slackware. I used Slackware until 2003 when I heard about Mepis Linux on an IRC Channel, and since then I've been hooked on Debian-based distributions. I've been using Ubuntu on at least two-three of my systems since 2005.

Anywho, that's me in a nutshell. I'm a linux nerd, a trekkie, a mudder, and a video gamer. I'm also planning an Ubuntu-based distro of my own called "Oneiros", meant to run on portable systems (laptops, netbooks, etc) for research, e-text books, and writing. It'll have lots of stuff like word processors, dictionaries, a thesaurus, etc.

Oh yeah... and I don't still call it "Lie-nux" like I did in the 90s. ;)