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Email: [[MailTo(keeling@nucleus.com)]] Email: <<MailTo(keeling@nucleus.com)>>
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[http://cuug.ab.ca Local User Group] [[http://cuug.ab.ca|Local User Group]]
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 * Help non-native English speakers with their English language web sites and Wiki pages (eg., ["WernerHeuser"] and [http://tuxmobil.org TuxMobil] (Werner calls this his "Germish" problem :-), Mika (who calls it the "Denglish" problem) and friends at [http://grml.org Grml] (one pretty slick Debian Sid based downstream distro), and now Kurt at ["DebianEdu"] and [http://wiki.skolelinux.de/SkoleLiveCd SkoleLiveCd] (another cool Debian downstream). I'd be happy to help other non-native English speakers with their English pages if I can. Email me if I can help. :-)  * Help non-native English speakers with their English language web sites and Wiki pages (eg., [[WernerHeuser]] and [[http://tuxmobil.org|TuxMobil]] (Werner calls this his "Germish" problem :-), Mika (who calls it the "Denglish" problem) and friends at [[http://grml.org|Grml]] (one pretty slick Debian Sid based downstream distro), and now Kurt at [[DebianEdu]] and [[http://wiki.skolelinux.de/SkoleLiveCd|SkoleLiveCd]] (another cool Debian downstream). I'd be happy to help other non-native English speakers with their English pages if I can. Email me if I can help. :-)

Email: <keeling@nucleus.com>

Local User Group


Hi. Welcome. If you're new to non-mainstream (MS Windows) and/or FLOSS or Linux or FSF related software, and wondering where to go next, email me! I'll either help, or try to point you at someone who can. I've been running/using FLOSS since '93, so I should be able to help by now, damnit! :-|

Philosophy (sorry).

Since 1990 [sigh; really trying not to toot horn; many sorrys], I've been a programmer, then system administrator, then independent contractor sysadmin (since '96). Among the many flavours of *nix I use and support, Debian's my personal preference, though I admit a strange attraction towards Slackware and the *BSDs (including Solaris).

I've worked with commercial Unixes as well as the *BSD's, and quite a number of the various Linux distributions. I prefer Debian for its stability, varied support paths, the fast paced development of free software in general, and the Debian community. Slackware (the second Linux distro I used) and its downstream Zenwalk is a joy to work with, and I liked SuSE when I worked with it. Regardless, I keep coming back to Debian (though the BSD /ports tree is pretty damned awesome! :-).

For me, it's "Free Software", not "Open Source." Richard Stallman may be many things, but he's right about this. The users of computers and software (all of us) deserve freedom, and that's the sharp end. Calling it "Open Source" to make it more palatable to business misses the point and ignores the raison d'etre: freedom to compute and use your resources as you see fit (and that applies to both individuals and their ficticious legal construct analogues (corporations; have I mentioned I'm incorporated?)). I like and respect many of the supporters of "Open Source", but on this point, I stand with Stallman.

And, btw, I support OSI, and voted for Bruce Perens for the OSI Board (just in case I haven't confused you enough already). Hey, this all fits into my World View. What's wrong with yours!?! :-)

I also (somewhat) know and very much respect and like Theo de Raadt. It's possible, really. Compared to RMS, Theo's practically cuddly. :-)

Things I Do With Debian

  • perl, shell, $OTHER development.
  • Read Usenet news and mailing lists, email, web surf, IRC.
  • Research on various topics of interest (high energy particle physics, astronomy, cosmology, small "L" libertarian/Objectivist politics, history, Spanish, ...). I have a fairly eclectic and wide ranging list of interests.
  • Tech. support for customers, friends, and family. I've insisted they buy Macs, at least, and I have FLOSS install CDs I'd be happy to use on their PCs if they wish. Lately, they've been migrating to Windows, so all my efforts to save them have been for naught. Yes, they are newly infested with malware, and no I don't much care.
  • Web publishing, documentation, writing.
  • Help non-native English speakers with their English language web sites and Wiki pages (eg., WernerHeuser and TuxMobil (Werner calls this his "Germish" problem :-), Mika (who calls it the "Denglish" problem) and friends at Grml (one pretty slick Debian Sid based downstream distro), and now Kurt at DebianEdu and SkoleLiveCd (another cool Debian downstream). I'd be happy to help other non-native English speakers with their English pages if I can. Email me if I can help. :-)

  • report bugs to improve Debian (must upgrade to Testing, damnit!).

Nowadays, my plan is to get off this Bad Software addicted continent. If I could spend the rest of my days bouncing from one developing nation to the next, installing free software on every machine I came across and training its owner in its use, I'd be one gloriously happy man. I call it the "Johnny Appleseed FLOSS project."

Favourite Tools (in no particular order)

This list of incredible software was obtained at such a marvelous price ($0.00), works so well, and is so reliable, it's a little (well, a lot!) amazing to me that others choose to use their far more brittle, unreliable, and expensive alternatives. I'd love to be in a position to dump a boatload of cash on the writers and maintainers of this software (or their favourite charities) but for now, all I can offer is my heartfelt gratitude. I can't tell you how thankful I am that these people felt they had to scratch that itch of theirs.

  • aptitude - Zenwalk's netpkg is damned good, and many say the newer yum related tools for RPM based systems are pretty good, but nothing matches Debian's dpkg, apt-get, and aptitude suite.

  • Emacs - I use both of the real editors: vi and emacs; the former for quick tweaks to config files, and the latter for heavier stuff.

  • perl - The Swiss Army Pocket Buzzsaw. :-) Positively Eclectic Rubbish Lister.

  • Procmail - It's syntax looks like modem line noise to many, but this has been so useful to me, I don't know how I'd manage without it.

  • ssh - telnet and ftp have had their day.

  • mutt - The Mail User Agent you can train to do anything.

  • slrn - Usenet News never looked so good or was so managable.

  • Bogofilter - Light weight Bayesian spam filter.

  • {Black,Flux}box - Light weight and fast X Window window manager.

  • Firefox/Iceweasel - Until something better comes along, this does the job. I also tried Galeon, but it can't do some things that FF can (ie., RSS).

  • irssi - Once or twice a decade, I dive in and try to make some sense of IRC. This is a nice IRC client, fitting in with mutt and slrn well.

  • Gkrellm - This cute little thing solved about fifteen problems for me when I started using it, and probably fifteen more since then. It's one rich little app. At a glance, it gives me the time, date, local weather, system uptime, CPU usage graph, network usage graph, memory and swap usage graphs, tells me when I have new mail, watches multiple mailboxes for activity, runs my MUA (mutt), plays music CDs, controls audio volume, and locks my X session. That's not all it can do.


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