Welcome!

A lot of us liked the fact that Mint and Ubuntu made interaction with the system a GUI-thing, but man, when you ran into trouble, thank the gods for the Command Line! When I use Windows, I feel like writing a novel with finger-paints.

I'm new in the sense that I haven't ran #! on my main machine before, for everyday use. Blown away with stability, speed and configuration.......and the community.

Previously I used Linux Mint 11, and have only really been a Linux user for close to 2 years now. I have distro-hopped and experimented a bit in that time but returned to Mint. I stuck #! on a 12 year old dell, and briefly used it. Always had a bit of a soft spot for it. Before that I was stuck with Windows, too unknowledgeable about Linux to jump (like a lot, I thought it was perhaps all command and no GUI), too lacking in money to buy a Mac. Then I got a new laptop and just went for it. Never turned back (or maybe just in memory as to how awful Windows existence was).

My employment is as an ethnographic researcher and lecturer in a University in the North of England. Creativity, what it is and how we experience it, are notions that I am interested in.

Since being a Linux user this interest has blurred further into my everyday, and apart from the pragmatics of using Linux, it is also a learning and research exercise for me. Everybody loves learning whilst using Linux (most of the time...), but there is the potential my experience may someday take the form of an academic paper. If I ever can make space to do so.

Since using Linux a life long interest in computing, that was always nascent and never really realized, has grown in presence. I now spend a lot of time using my Raspberry Pi's, and fiddling about with #! on my x1212. I also 'administrate' (a nice way of terming 'colonialize' or appropriate for my own purposes) a few others machines. The evangelical desire though has reduced now quite a bit.

Miraculously, I really enjoy using CLI now, and have lots of mini projects on the go. Also imagining and in early stages of developing networked music composition using Linux and Raspberry Pi's. Some of which may come to fruition.

Though I don't like the clichés, Linux has become a way of life, or tempered the way I live my life, and opened up new avenues for creativity and thinking about creativity. Computing is no longer strictly a functionalist practice, my experience of it no longer strictly equipmental: it is enjoyable, there is something of value in just computing a computer, becoming together, affecting and effecting each other (Ok, time to stop...).

d:

[Edit: I just realized 'Greetings' is usually used by the hosting party rather than the newcomer...]