I haven’t written anything on any blog in far too long.  But a lot of things are happening in our world today, especially at the point where technology unfortunately meets with politics and in the FOSS community. It’s time I started writing again.

I’ve been using Ubuntu GNU/Linux as my primary OS for just over a year now and I don’t miss Windows a bit. It still blows my mind that 18 months ago I was a fairly  die-hard Mac user and thought I had really hit the big time because I wasn’t using Windows and occasionally typed some commands into OS X’s terminal. My G4 iBook traveled to Europe and on to Russia with me and served me well there, although it was difficult and (comparatively) expensive to obtain Mac software in Moscow from the huge number of “resellers” in the Gorbushka electronics market (that place must be seen to be believed). My iBook’s Main Logic Board died 10 days before I left Moscow in late June 2006. How amazing it is now where I rarely give a second thought to serial numbers and software licensing issues.

Last October I got a wild hair to try Linux again. I first used Linux in 1998 on a series of old Pentiums and later on my personal AMD K6-2 machine. Unfortunately, hardware support was pretty abysmal for internal ISA modems and I gave up after a lot of frustration (I had a brief but wonderful time with BeOS and remain saddened by the demise of Be, Inc). I’m happy I decided to give Linux another try.

I’ve learned so much in the last year that it’s actually opened up a new career path for me. I’m on track to take the CompTIA Linux+ exam in a few days (and intend to pursue LPI certification) and I’m currently trying to set myself up to find work installing, maintaining and administering servers, preferably in a *nix environment. I wouldn’t have thought I’d come back to IT a year ago.

We have a great community surrounding Ubuntu and I’m glad I’m part of it.  Free software is probably more important than ever, and I’m proud to be a member of the Free Software Foundation. But the struggle is far from over and new challenges are presented daily; unfortunately, most of these challenges seem to be in the courts and houses of government.