Haven't been here for a while. So I thought I chip in with a "first year" report. Always a nice sandbox for things like that since it isn't all that frequented ...
. Here it goes:
PCLinuxOS – my first year
My word – time flies and I can't believe it is more than a year that I first decided to give PCLinuxOS a test launch on one of my PCs. What a journey it has been.
What happened? Well – I found the most reliable Linux distro, after some extensive hopping, I could wish for. Was it all plain sailing? Well – it mostly was. Impressive, huh?
Ok – there where a couple of hickups, not all 2300+ posts of mine where posted in the sandbox … I remember vividly me and KDE just not getting along after the initial euphoria to get it run on an ancient machine. I do remember the Gnome edition just shutting me out because of an hal error which was my very own one … nobody had that or could reproduce it. Still proud of that one!
What I remember most about these and/or one or 2 other issues is the support I received. Man – where do you get the chief developer to help you out and persist doing so until he is satisfied you got it. Being slow in comprehending and English being anything between my 2nd and 3rd language certainly didn't help his task either. There are OP, Bald Brick, Andy and many others chomping in and everybody just generally is trying and willing you to get it fixed.
So after my Gnome incident (you remember, it was in all the papers) I tried something else and had a look at Phoenix. Oh boy, there is one guy who wishes I never did … So I wrangled my way into it and found thrown into the bargain some wonderful Phoenix/XFCE users and developers to coach me all the way. The mag staff parnote and meemaw readily come to mind, but the the one who took my hand and coached me to look impressive (to everybody who doesn't know any better) is Sproggy, who not only is a great and dedicated dev but also passionate, straight forward, honest to the bone and has a great sense of sarcasm … humour I mean, humour.
Many a night was spent in Xchat (all remember the Xchat channels? … You do? I don't see you there) to get me going, correcting all the stupid mistakes I made in my half baked cleverness together with just the right amount of concern, helpfulness and banter. A huge thank you, Sprogs, for that!!!
Now the poor blighter is doing the html version of the magazine as well. We really know how to squeeze him …
After the Phoenix thing I additionally loaded LXDE, Neal's baby, and it is flying on me 2.0 Celeron. It takes a bit more “getting hands dirty” to get it configured, but what a great way to get one's self esteem going sometimes bordering on cockiness (until pulled down by some stupid mistake). I run Phoenix Mini and LXDE parallel now. Why? Because I can … !
Than I had the privilege of being a guinea pig in hootiegibbons everlasting task of making a minimalistic PCLinuxOS version. Boy did I learn fiddling with Wmii. I also learned about some minimalistic browsers and still use Jumanji as one of my browsers and love it for being fast and to the point. Hootie now has left me behind at the moment in his quest for minimalising more and more. I hope catching up again at some point and beta testing some of his wonderful creations.
The PCLinuxOS Magazine I learnt to read and love is, imho, the best distro magazine you'll find in the free Linux world. It is just a great piece of work and parnote and his team are doing wonderful, dedicated and passionate work to keep it not only going but actually exceeding their efforts time and again. In between, and just because they can, they churn out some special editions … just like that.
I had the privilege of translating some articles for the mag and look forward to be used again in some or other function by the team as deemed appropriate and necessary. What a great bunch to be part of.
In the midst of all this my than 12 year old son joined the fray and is know an enthusiastic part of our community. He is a staunch Linux man and I heard the other day from his 70 year old music teacher that he was trying to convert her as well, ever so subtly. That's my boy!
I immediately was part of a great community and many of you wiggled there way into my heart by the way you are acting, writing and informing us. Who could not be enchanted by the lovely ms_meme, not be informed about the latest in Linux and beyond by menotu, not being amused by the Super Villain T6, who seems to find the most interesting, funny, queer and exotic stuff on the net, not being forced to think twice by joechimp and uncleV (yes – he will come back), not being helped in any emergency with your pc by old pollack and bald brick and not being moved by some real live stories from rudge, who are not just finely written but also have an disarming air of honesty about them. And that's to name just a very few – there are many, many more.
So after my first year (and a bit) all I can say is Thank You to you all for being who you are – together this PCLinuxOS thing and it's community is unbeatable and will go from strength to strength.
A special thanks for Texstar and his crew for providing this rock solid base on which all this can freely develop.
What a rock!
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