I have spent many years studying and implementing technology solutions, specializing in Linux and open-source software. Most of my knowledge was acquired from reading technical books, early internet white papers, UNIX man pages, and numerous informal methods. My first introduction to network computing was more text than image: chat was IRC, email was Pine, music was FTP, and web authoring was a simple text editor.
Upon landing some early work in technology, I put nearly every penny I had into computers, collecting the cheapest, legacy computers and all the scrap parts I could find. My office was a tangle of CAT-5, phone cords, and speaker wire. The first distribution of Linux I ever installed was Red Hat 5.2 – which I purchased because my connection was too slow to download it. I then moved to Slackware, then SuSe, then Gentoo, trying every distribution that caught my interest. I compiled custom kernels, bootstrapped the installs, tried experimental features, filled up disk drives with scattered core files.
It was an exciting time. Xevil was the most hilarious game that an OS could have preinstalled. 2600 magazine a publication of legend. The Crystal Method made the most fierce synth sounds I’d ever heard. Inside that world, I fell into an ever-unfolding interest in anything powered by text.
As my knowledge continues to expand, the new things I learn make the old things even more intriguing. Planet Telex seems fully upon us.