Welcome to Hippie House!
This be the hippie that lives in this house.
Here is where I rant, rave, curse, bless, and do what I do.
What else will be offered here is yet to be seen.... If nothing else, there is some good music, great pics and some really useful links (if yer into computers).
Okay, for all of you "sicko's" out there that keep bugging me.....
As you can see, I'm an older hippy from the 60's and 70's, but raised in the mountains of Montana which instilled a very old fashion work ethic. I believe in the “Do it right the first time...” and “The sooner you get done with work, the sooner you can play!” ethics.
I began using computers in the early 70's while in high school, via a TTY to Western TeleComputing at the Montana State University. From there it was into the United States Navy as a cryptologist where I got to play with some 'really sweet' toys! After that, I went into System Administration for a large insurance company back in Montana, running their IBM System 38, until they demanded that I lower my standards. NOT HAPPENING! From here I began looking into running my own business and after some 'polish' from San Luis Obispo, I moved to Central Oregon and did just that. First as a freelance consultant, then as a Service Manager for a retail / repair shop, then my own retail shop.
In the late 80's, early 90's I heard of this 'new thing' that was released, supposedly much better then MS-DOS. Something called... Line Ux. Well, being friends with all the other local computer shop owners, I started asking around. Sure enough, Rick Jefferies at Eagle Computers had a copy and it was pronounced LIN – UX. It thoroughly baffled me! I was thrown back a decade and a half, again totally lost and confused. Here I thought I KNEW the PC and how to use it and this new operating system was kicking my gluteus maximus all over the room! It sure was nice to have a challenge again, but I was NOT used to feeling like a dumb n00b!
For my first install of linux, RedHat 1.2 was chosen as the packages (.rpm's) were prebuilt and simple enough to install, after waiting days for them to download on my top-o-the-line 14.4 modem! It ran, albeit not as well as “I” thought it should and trying to configure even the smallest aspect of the hardware was a major task/chore. When my guru and I ran into the umteenth brick wall (and RedHat STILL doesn't fill their own dependencies!), the drive was formatted and a NEW distro was loaded on called Debian.
This seemed much better as X11 (the graphical) came up after only twenty minutes of tweaking, the modem was running within three minutes, and most of the binary packages that I required for day-to-day use were already on the CD set. For the next ten years I was a dedicated Debianite, starting with Hamm and going all the way up to Sarge, an OP in the #Debian channels and helped in developement projects. My only complaint was that, being a 'binary distro' (all the packages are already pre-compiled and delivered that way), I was always at LEAST two release levels behind. So, to get around this I moved onto the 'leading edge' (read: Bleeding Edge) and ran the UNSTABLE version of Debian. There were some glitches here and there, but I was finally only one release behind current on most of the packages I wanted. But, then, on a fateful day that “I” had a problem, caused by someone not triple-checking their package uploads, I went to my trusty #Debian IRC channel where I was an OPerator due to all of my time and dedication to the distribution. After explaining what had happened with a malformed package and how it had mangled my workstation and six servers, some dimwit responded with RTFM! Well, that was that, as they say. I formatted all the hard drives that minute, installed a new distro called Sorcerer and cursed the day I had installed Debian.
Sorcerer and I stayed together until some ugly 'in-fighting' began to develop amongst the packagers/coders. I was getting discouraged because I really liked the idea behind Sorcerer; Instead of building the 'packages' and having a binary distro, simply download the builders compressed files (tarball) and build from source, with the specific tweaks and fixes for YOUR personal machine! Great Idea! But, with the fighting going on, it was apparent that the distro was going to fold like a wet paper towel under a phatbroad. Then, low-n-behold, a friend showed up and had found a new distro that some of the Sorcerer guys had started, called Gentoo. Well, here I sit on my current Gentoo machine, running the AMD64 architecture and loving the O/S, enjoying the people I deal with and in lust with having a machine that has the newest of the new, every day, stable and ready to play!
As you can imagine, the more I got into Linux, the more I stretched my computer muscles. First with a few peer-to-peer networks, an occasional ftp server, then onto switching / multi-tiered networks serving html/nfs/ftp/ssh/smtp/etc. The more I ran Linux, the more I compared it to those silly commercials for a spaghetti sauce called Prego. When I would need to do something, that in the M$ environment would require hours of work, multiple software packages, and tons of reading, I would then find that with my linux, “It's In There!” Everything I wanted, was already there. Everything I needed, was already there. Then that fateful day came when I had two realizations...
#1 When I logged onto the internet, I was logging onto
a linux box. Not because it was free, but because all the tools
necessary, were already there AND FREE!
#2 For the last two months, the only reason I had booted up my M$
Windows box was to run
QuickBooks for a client reciept
WoW! I was M$ Free (minus QB)! and felt NO withdrawls, whatsoever!
WooHoo!
Here it is, decades later and the only reason I have an M$ partition on
any of my machines is for 'gaming purposes'
as we have YET to convince the manufacturers of said games of how many
dollar$ they are passing up by not building their games to run
'cross-platform'.
My Interests:
Computers! D'oh! What in the name of all the gods makes you think I could POSSIBLY have any other interest than that!! Damnation people! I spend too many hours a day fixing your broken and mistreated toys!! I don't have time for much else
Relationship Status:
As far as I know, I'm still married. Though I kicked the bitch out YEARS ago now and don't plan on ever seeing her again. And no, I am not involved with anyone (that i'll admit to).
Schooling:
Just the basic shit, kids. I hated school until a year after graduation and then found that I missed the challenge, people, and fun. Subsequently, I joined the U. S. Navy and HAD A BLAST!! (yuppers. a hippie in uniform)
I'm self taught in the computer field, with minor tutelage along the way.
Hobbies:
COMPUTERS!!...and some gaming. Although my greatest "adventure" so far has been into the world of LINUX. It's a free, strong, fast, "NO-Simpletons" operating system. It's not for the weak-hearted!, but it smokes any other OS I've run to date. :--)
Okay, that's about all there is. I'm just a hippie who has located a nitch I can fill with ease, and enjoy. Ifin more questions pop into your mind, you can either take a good healthy piss and forget them, or try writing me. :--) As far as I can tell, all of my mail links are working fine.
Have fun, and be kind to each other.
May the gods walk with you on all of your journeys thru this world and the next....
I strongly recommend that you follow this link. It's a "word to the wise"
Do you need help, assistance, or just general guidance??
