Introduce yourself

I am Nate. I moved to Florida from California. I work for a video company that records music videos and shoots show footage for DVDs. My day job is whatever work I can find fixing computers for my moms friends. I surf but only in the summer because I hate the cold water and wet suits are uncomfortable. I love tattoos and have quite a lot of them.

I started using Red Hat Linux 5 years ago and I was faithful till Fedora core 6. I tried out Ubuntu and it was nice. Really nice.

My name is Chris, I started in Sarasota, then off to Penn State, then Cali for the Marine Corps and now back home in Florida, but in Lakeland now (where I could afford to buy a house).

I am still very new to linux at all, having only used any flavor of ubuntu for about 7 months now (now in Kubuntu) so I am pretty sure every one of you knows more than I do, and I will be haranguing you constantly for help ;)

I am excited that the group is taking off so well, and hopefully we can accomplish something here.

My name is Danny. My Blog: http://coachdanny.blogspot.com

I'm in Winter Park, just north of Orlando. On a short walk, I'm in Orlando.

I started using Linux with Fedora Core 4, for a class. After 20 years as a personal trainer, I'm back in school to get a degree in Information Technology. I needed Linux for a class on Operating Systems. After a few days of using it, I really liked it. Learning more about LInux brought me to try Ubuntu. I now use it as my primary OS, mostly because everythiing 'just works' with Ubunut. Didn't do that with Fedora.

The main reason I stick with Ubuntu is Mark Shutteworth's vision. I think he has some really good business ideas, and by getting in on Ubuntu now, I'll be on the 'ground floor' of something that will probably be very big.

Hello:

My name is Mike and I am from Cocoa Beach, I have been using numerous types of computers, programming languages, development environments, and operating systems for many years.

I got my Computer Science degree from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut and worked for GE Corporate while I was in college.

I also worked at the Cape for about ten years as a software engineer for the Air Force, but have since left to join the small business community of Central Florida.

In light of the latest software abomination bought to us by the people who live were it rains over 300 days a year, I have decided to "upgrade" to Ubuntu instead. I like Ubuntu as both a replacement for both servers and workstations, since it can run any type of software application that is written Linux.

I hope that I can spread the word about Ubuntu and in the process build a demand for people who understand how it works. People seem to like the idea that they can save money on software and still do everything that they want to do [ and more ].

Peace

Mike Feravolo Cape Royal Building #121 Cocoa Beach, Florida 32931 Cell: 321-278-8642

Hi, I'm Martin, from Orange City, near Daytona. I'm just finishing up getting my IB Diploma, and then I'm off to UF to pursue a Electrical Engineering degree. I moved to DeBary (also near Daytona) about 8 years ago, from Rhode Island. I started playing around with Linux about 4 years ago with Fedora Core 4.

Danny- I know right where Winter Park is (you probably know where I am in Volusia). It's cool to see so many local people with the greatness that is Ubuntu. And I agree, Ubuntu is by the far the easiest distro I've ever used. And it's still very advanced and customizable. I used to use Gentoo for the level of custimization, which I eventually got to work very well, but then I realized I had just wasted a month of my time...

Hello everyone,

My name is Alan. I am living in Palm City, very near Stuart.

I am a pilot for a big (the biggest) airline. I have been using Ubuntu and Debian since last summer, so I am pretty new to all of this. Just saw that this team had been formed, so I thought I would drop in and help if I can.

I would like to find out more about the Free Geeks and the idea of spreading Ubuntu to the local community. I think that Ubuntu has great potential, but it is not "buy and play" like MS products. There is a steep learning curve in many instances. I still keep my Dell/MS equipment running just in case there is something that must get done, but I haven't found the OSS solution. MSMoney and KMyMoney2 are the latest examples for me. But I have enjoyed learning about LInux, Ubuntu, and Open Source.

LayTek

Hey welcome aboard, Alan. I see you and I might be in the same boat re: linux experience ;) Did you sign up for the mailing list? You can find the address either on our wiki or in the thread called Resources.

My name is Justin, and I live in Tallahassee.

I currently work as a Web and Information Systems Specialist. That means I do just about everything.

I help run the local LUG (www.lugot.org)

I'm Max. I don't have a job, as I am in middle school. I have been trying to start the LoCo for several month, and am glad to see someone get it.

My name is Mike and I’m a UNIX & tech junkie! Caution: You may be amused, bemused, enlightened or otherwise edified by this, perhaps less than brief, intro with a sprinkle of editorial.

I worked 30 years at Wisconsin Telephone, later named Wisconsin Bell, then Ameritech, then SBC. The first 19 years as an Installer, Cable Splicer, Cable Repair, mostly outside construction. This afforded me the opportunity to learn cable print reading and rearrangements, no end of test sets, copper T1 carrier, and Subscriber Loop Carrier (SLC, aka Pair Gain) including the construction of remote terminals, light wave cable, digital multiplexers, and all the test sets that went along with it.

In 1990 I accepted a Central Office Technician position in Ameritech’s Midrange-Computer Operation Center where I cut my teeth on UNIX. Computers used included, and these are old ones kids, PDP-11’s, VAX, ATT 3B2, 5, 15 and 20 (developed just for the Bell System), Unisys (total junk), AS 400’s and several other makes. These machines used reel to reel tapes and moving head drives that utilized a removable disk pack, and UNIX System III. Does anyone reading this remember 8 inch floppies? How about ferrite core memory?

During this time I had also learned the workings of digital/electronic switches including Nortel, ATT 5 ESS, and Siemens. I also became admin for an ATT product called Datakit, a circuit-switched digital network similar to, and a direct product of digital voice switching technologies. If you’re interested, all this equipment can be looked up on Wiki.

I have no formal education, or degree, other than classes provided by the company and several night school college courses in computer languages including Basic, COBOL, Shell programming, and C. Back in the day, techs were given a box of parts and a heap of software tapes and told to make it work. So a lot of my training was hands on. In addition I was trained to administer Sun Sparks and completed Sun’s basic and advanced System Administration coursework including their hardware trouble shooting course.

In 1997 I was offered and accepted a position with Ameritech Communications to help support their fledgling long distance venture. Here I had the opportunity to polish my shell and Perl programming skills and get more deeply into UNIX (Sun Solaris) administration running on Sun Enterprise computers. Our group, although not named UNIX Administrators, were the first line in trouble resolution and problem solving the applications relevant to the support of the long distance applications. Administrators were contracted through Sun Microsystems.

After SBC bought Ameritech it was decided that, to save money, the older employees had to go and so, after some threatening sounding letters, I decided to take SBC’s voluntary separation package and in November 2000 was released. I understood I was too young to retire and that the money I had would in no way support me the rest of my life found a contract position in Melbourne, FL with Harris supporting their Netboss system as well as UNIX administration of our clients Sun systems. Some moron decides to fly several planes into buildings and that was the end of the Harris job. Aside from the fact the Network Services Division of which I was apart was losing tons of money.

I pretty much haven’t found a suitable job since September 2001. I did take, on Florida’s dime, several of the MCSE courses through a local community college and hated it. The instructors were morons and I was appalled by some of the things Mr. Gates claimed to have invented. They made it sound like old Bill invented IP and network communication with Active Directory. UNIX has been doing this stuff nearly since it’s been in existence.

I never quite understood why Microsoft didn’t make an effort to blend the power and flexibility of a UNIX like OS with the ease of use of an OS like XP. Their recovery console sucks and in my opinion is one of the most useless things on the planet and the registry idea is just a nightmare. Guess again if you believe you have true administrative rights, by MS own admission there is a bug that sometimes won’t allow even administrators to delete certain files. How do like having to restart your computer after loading your new software?

Ubuntu is a step in the direction in its attempt to blend ease of use with power and flexibility. If they could just make it simpler to: plug stuff in and have it work and run current Windoze software without the fuss, that’s what the masses want. If nothing else you can’t beat the price.

There are several problems here in Melbourne, or anywhere for that matter, including my lack of a formal education although I have huge amounts of practical, real life experience. It’s a little like the first Star Trek motion picture where Voyager returns with the knowledge of the Universe and everyone is intimidated by it until the benefit is realized. I guess my value just has not been realized. Not to diminish those that have gotten degree’s, you worked hard to accomplish that and I congratulate you, not to mention the investment made. The second is I don’t have any kind of security clearance, an important aspect since many of the companies here have government and DOD contracts.

It’s not easy trying to cram a lifetime of professional experience into a few paragraphs and what is here is in no way complete. I hope I didn’t bore you too much.

BTW this may be an opportunity to network with like minded people, if you know of someone hiring ex-telephone, burnt out techie types… ;-)_

Good to see another former "DEC-pert" has joined the group, I remember CORE Memory, Open Real Tapes, Chain Smoking Computer Operators, and machines that used $5000+ worth of electricity every month and filled entire rooms.

First UNIX experience for me was System Two Version Seven (AT&T / Berkley) at General Electric Corporate in the Summer of 1981, running on a PDP-11/45. I wrote test specifications for just about the entire operating system at the time during my co-op experience there while I was in college.

As another note I also remember the first time I used the term "A GIG" to describe computer memory, it was back about 1983 when I was working for Remington Products in Bridgeport CT. My boss and I were talking about how much "smaller" computers where getting and how we almost a "1000 Meg" of Hard Drive space on the company computer. I also remember laughing about how silly calling it "A Gig" (short for GigaByte) sounded for the rest of the day.

The IBM personal computers that where being used around the company had memory sizes the measured in KiloBytes and eight inch floppy drives. I think that about this time some future software multi-multi-billionaire was quoted saying "Why would anyone ever need more then 64K". Maybe that is just an urban legend, and someone else said it.

feravolo,

I see from your post we are not to far from each other. On the other hand at $3.00/gal across the street may be too far.

I wonder what it did cost to run our small 50,000 sq ft data center, cooling, and all that jazz. Don't matter I suppose, the phone factory where I worked was rich.

I'm John from St. Petersburg. I used early versions of Linux (pre-1998) but got away from it when I switched from desktop to laptop computers (could not get drivers for the laptop screen at the time) and there was a lack of programs. I'm now starting again, so I'm about as new as it gets. I look forward to learning from all the experience out there.

Well, I suppose I am the newest Ubuntu and Linux user here now. I installed Ubuntu 6.10 a two or three weeks ago and almost didn't look back. Yesterday I went back to XP for some stuff on that side of the partition and I have never felt so claustrophobic from my desktop ever! Whaddya mean only one desktop?!? :)

The only tech-savvy thing I have done is designed the website for my wife's business and designing another for my mom's aviary (www.sitstaygooddog.com and my mom's early-alpha www.sitstaygooddog.com/tropical.html ).

I live in Miami, but I am in the Navy and will be transferring next next year. Florida is my homestate; born and raised in Jacksonville - graduate of N.B. Forrest HS! <-- way back in the day, lol.

Anyways, look forward to discussing and troubleshooting with all my Floridian Ubuntu pals.

Shawn

Hi All!

My Name is Jason, I am originally from Buffalo, NY :lolflag: now 4 years relocated in Dunedin (between Clearwater and Palm harbor) I've only recently gotten into using Linux though I've dabbled here and there over he last few years.... until I was asked to try Ubuntu last year and was hooked. I'm still green with Linux but, willing to help where I can as I learn. Professionally, I am a Support Engineer for Access Control systems- Impro Technologies / Amano Cincinnati (which is also developed in South Africa :lolflag: :guitar: ). Most of our systems in use today,use windows but, there are several that are running Linux.

Hello Team,

I think, that may ending up as an introduction od an other kind ( in a good way) :)

My name is Juergen, I live now with my wife and our 2 children since almost 4 years, here, in Central Illinois, Lincoln. Actually born and raised in Germany, close to Stuttgart in a nice small Town called Maisenbach-Zainen in the North Black Forest. So, please, forgive some wrong spelling, once in a while.

We fullfilled our Dream, as we moved here to the USA. And my wife is now as well closer to here Mom and here brother.

I'm as a "Communication Electronics, Major: Information Technology" guy, had contact several years ago with Unix, around 7 years aou then with Suse Linux. But the problem with Suse is, it just works to a certain point. Last year then, I did a lot of reading over Linux, because I was so frustrated with Micropoop. I just could not see the reason anymore, why I should spend almost the same amound of money to make an unsafe, unreliable OS running on my Computer.

So I just ordert the free CD's tried it out on home computer and Laptop and a lot of help of this amazing Forum. AND, everything workes, it's reliable, it's safe, it's controlable and stable. I'm addicted, would like to learn every day a bit more with Ubuntu, and I do, amazingly :) You need help, ask this forum, this Forum rocks.

Also I like Mark Shutteworth's vision. I know, I stick with Ubuntu, because, I think there is something realy big coming for Ubuntu, and as soon the certification are up, I'll go and get them.

Mark, thanks a lot for this awesome OS.

And again, this Forum is the 1 of his kind.

:guitar:

Hi, My name is Eric. I'll be in high school in a few months and I live in the Palm Beach area. I've lived here all my life. I just made the switch a few days ago, but I've had the shipit cds for about a year and a half. I run 6.10 now.

I've been around the forums awile, but just starting in the communities and launchpad recently.

Hi. My name is Stephanie. I live in Lake Mary. I started out many years ago with Slackware, but at the time I wasn't ready for it and I abandoned it. Recently I had enough of Microsoft, and I ditched XP completely. I did my research and decided on Ubuntu. I couldn't be happier.

I teach a 6th grade Introduction to Computers course. I really wish I could convince the school system to use Edubuntu. They spend an astronomical amount on software! I have exposed the students to Linux though. :wink:

My dad is going to re-open his Corvette repair business soon, and I have convinced him that Ubuntu is the way to go.

Lastly, I would like to start a non-profit organization. I love helping volunteer groups, but I want to start something of my own. As I was building a computer with my students the other day, I thought it would be great to take donated systems, refurbish or repair them, then install Ubuntu on them. I know of many students without computers at home that would love to have them.

Ok, enough! Thanks for reading if you're still with me. :) I look forward to being a part of this group (if you will have me).

Stephanie, Welcome! It seems, from your intro, that you are right in line with a couple of our direct goals (strange, actually).

Mike Feravolo has expressed a desire to try to demonstrate the glories of edubuntu to the school system here in Florida (in whatever way possible, we know dealing with school boards is ridiculous).

And Danny (bodycoach2) introduced the idea of starting up a freegeek.org chapter here, or something like it, for just that purpose of distributing refurbished comps to those who need them, with F/OSS software (ubuntu). As freegeek says "help the needy get nerdy"

Please stop by our launchpad page and sign up, check out our wiki at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/FloridaTeam and stop on by our IRC channel on freenode at #ubuntu-florida

Talk to you later! Chris

And tell me... is your nameplate correct? Are you another Kubuntu user?! ZOMG I'm not alone!

Nick here, I live in Winter Haven and have been using K/X/Ubuntu for a few months now. I actually kicked windows out the door after about month of using ubuntu, although I do run it in Virtual Box when I absolutely need to do so. I have used all KDE Xfce and Gnome, and seem to keep jumping back and forth between the three on a weekly basis.

woo winterhaven, you're right around the corner from me ( i live in lakeland on 540A)

Hello my name is Mike

I am very new to linux i have been using it for 1 week now started with blender 3d and have not been able to learn anything else since i just cant stop playing with blender its awesome.

I work from home for myself

plan to spend lots of time playing around with and getting to learn linux (if i can get myself away from blender)

i love to learn new things especially when it comes to computers.

i will probably be pestering everybody with lots of questions:)

Hi, and thanks for the warm welcome. Please let me know how I can help!

Yes, I am a Kubuntu user. I used KDE with Slackware previously, so I feel most comfortable with KDE. I am using Edgy though, so I need to update that. Always something to keep up with! :)

I'm on my way to check out the wiki now...

Well this looks fun and exciting so I figure I'll give it a shot .

My name's Zac Brown, just Zac is fine though most of the time people either see me as 'rufius' or 'zbrown.' I'm 19 years old and am a student at the University of Miami. I'm double majoring in Math and Computer Science. From that you can obviously tell I'm big on computers and science lol.

I've been using GNU/Linux for 6 years now, going on 7 in August. I started using Ubuntu during the first release, and before that I bounced around between Redhat/Fedora, Mandrake/Mandriva, and Debian. I do a fair bit of programming, mostly scientific; mainly working in C, Haskell, and Java. I've also got some experience in Python.

I too am surgically attached to my computer, and my girlfriend gets jealous that I spend so much time with it. Often times she has to bribe me or hide my computer to get me to talk to her if I'm working on a problem .

My name is Jon im from Palm Coast (near daytona hehe). I started using linux back when redhat 5.3 came out and have been using it in some form or another since then (ive tried redhat,suse,slackware, and now ubuntu). I do support for small business and private networks in my area. Been living in florida since 88' but ive lived in a few different states (LA,GA,NY,TX). Hoping to meet all of you in the irc room eventually :)

Hi all, Cecil here in Miami. I'm a retired locksmith and have been using linux since Slakware 1.2 when ever that was ??? I still have windoze XP but it crashes about once a week. This is a great group.lol Cecil

email : [email]piercececil@comcast.net[/email]

Cecil, Glad you could join us... come check out our IRC room and hang out for a bit!

#ubuntu-florida on irc.freenode.net

Howdy folks,

My name is Patrick, I live in Orlando. I was a Ubuntu user back in the day but wandered away from it in its earlier stages because too many things didn't work for me at the time and school was pushing me to program in a Windows environment. I studied at Georgia Tech for 3 and a half years before finally failing out. I had been studying Computer Science.

Now I live in Orlando again and work for SAK Comedy Lab in downtown. Also if you watch Orlando Magic games you might see me. I'm on the Orlando Magic Blue Crew. I'm easy to spot, I wear a cowboy hat ;) -- Other than that I've got a few web ventures I'm working on getting off the ground, we'll see.

I'm excited to be returning to Ubuntu. I was away for 2 years, so I think the last Ubuntu I had installed was Breezy Badger, not sure though.

My desktop is currently set to dual boot but if I can get all my peripherals working then I am most likely going to just drop Windows all together, same goes for my Laptop.

W00t.

-- Phineas

Hey Phineas, nice to meet you. That's cool that you work at SAK, I've been a few times. Check out the IRC room (#ubuntu-florida on freenode).

My name is Ryan, I'm a systems administrator that was transplanted from San Jose, CA to Miami a few months back with my company. Been using Ubuntu since hory hedgehog and countless other distros before that. My company runs only Ubuntu 6.06LTS and OS X on the server and desktop side and I wouldn't have it any other way (most of the desktops are Macs).

My name is Ropetin (although not really), and I've been in the sunny state of Florida for about 6 years. I'm originally from the UK, although don't hold that against me. I'm IT Manager for a medium sized finance company. We have Linux running on one Desktop (mine, Edgy) and 50% of the servers. Mostly Redhat based, but can't have everything, eh?

Hi there,

Why I did not find this team any sooner is mystery. I could use the cliche excuse that I was just too busy but I am here now.

Firstly, I just have to praise the Ubuntu community for the motivation, inspiration, knowledge and warmth that I have experienced since I got involved a couple of years ago. There really is a great sense of family here.

My name is Jimmy. I live in Sanford - for now that is until I sell my house and move back to Winter Park where I feel I belong.

I am an application engineer (so the title goes) for a company in College Park. I install server and web-based applications for school districts on Windows and Red Hat.

Now for the good stuff...I have been using Ubuntu since Ubuntu 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog and currently run 6.10 Edgy Eft. I really enjoyed my experience with Xubuntu. I just purchased a new laptop from System76 after my IBM Thinkpad T30 kicked the bucket. If you do not know about System76 you should know that they sell laptops, servers and desktops with Ubuntu pre-installed. I am very proud of my "free" (if you will) purchase through System76 and am still having a wonderful expeience with them. System76 has a philosophy that is akin to Ubuntu. This makes it all worth the while.

I have worked with (well, at work) and have personally toyed with various flavors of Linux (SuSe, Fedora, Mandriva, Arch, etc.) but none have matched the richness of Ubuntu. I truly have made Ubuntu an undeniable part of my life. However it still falls into 2nd place after my family (wife and two baby girls) in my top 5 favorite things in life! Also, I try as hard as I can to meet up with the LUGs in the immediate but work keeps me real busy.

Ok, I will stop talking now. Hope to be talking with you guys soon!

Jimmy

Haldo! I am Brandon, and I live in Lakeland. Currently I am a Publix Supermarket workmonkey (I clean food processing equipment), and am studying to get an information technology degree so as I can transfer to the information services department for Publix. I run Ubuntu 7.04 on my home desktop, and various other live (DSL, PCLinuxOS, Puppy, ETC.) distros when I want to. My goal is to have all the house computers running *nix, and to have enough income from something besides a regular 9-5 job so as I can do what I want (help homeless people become productive disciples of Christ( www.basicorlando.org is the ministry that I started toward that regard)) without having to worry about being paid. I enjoy programming (Ruby seems to be suited to me the best right now) but am still a newbie at it all. I also enjoy ham radio (KG4GVL is my call) and am pretty good at that. been doin' that over 7 years now.

Most importantly I am a husband and father who enjoys watching his family grow in grace, knowledge, and good deeds.

Finally, someone else from lakeland!

Welcome aboard, qrprqt77

Terry. Currently living and working and going to school (in that order) in Miami. Born in Indiana and got here via OH, CT, and NY. I work for a medicare HMO and am slowly working on my degree after putting it off for over a decade.

I got sick of Windows, tried Red Hat and Mandrake. Couldn't figure them out. Gave up. Got sicker of Windows. Got a used iBook. Got another iBook. Never figured out how to become as productive, and got sick of the locked-down software. Tried Breezy. Couldn't figure out how to install software. Got a laptop with Windows Media Center edition on it. Got sick of it crashing. Got a lot of weird errors. Google searching suggested it might be a virus from 2004. How on EARTH could something that old still be a possible threat? Got irate. Waited a few days for 4/19 to roll around. Backed up the laptop, reformatted, and installed Feisty.

I still have a PC at home for windows work and TV, but I will not give up on myself this time. I WILL learn to work in Linux. I will relearn keyboard shortcuts. I will figure out how to do the simple things like install and uninstall programs. I am committed.

Fortunately (and unfortunately) I spend a LOT less time on the computer than I used to. But I'll be around.

My big strength, and probably my best possible contribution to "the community" is my ability to communicate technical things to non-technical people. I'm valued for that at work, and put it to use in creating simple, clear reports. Here, I hope to do this by spreading the word to people intimidated by such complex technology. I doubt I'll ever be much of a programmer. I just can't bear to sit still long enough...

Also I type too much. So that's all for now. I didn't setup any of the chat things, and am rarely on anyway. My username here is the same as my gmail account, and that's the best way to contact me, should anyone wish to.

Well where do I begin... My name is Andy and I live in Brandon I have been using linux off and on for many years. I used several differnt distro raning from slack to gentoo but always ended up going back to windows due to gaming.

Then one of my good friends introduced me to ubuntu and I havent switch back. I currently am working for one of the major cell phone companys and I am pretty much you typical computer geek where i eat sleep and breath technology. I like long walks on the beach... Oh wait wrong place for that.

That pretty much everything about me in a nut shell (or all i can think to tell you all)

pak33m said: Hi there,

Why I did not find this team any sooner is mystery. I could use the cliche excuse that I was just too busy but I am here now.

Firstly, I just have to praise the Ubuntu community for the motivation, inspiration, knowledge and warmth that I have experienced since I got involved a couple of years ago. There really is a great sense of family here.

My name is Jimmy. I live in Sanford - for now that is until I sell my house and move back to Winter Park where I feel I belong.

I am an application engineer (so the title goes) for a company in College Park. I install server and web-based applications for school districts on Windows and Red Hat.

Now for the good stuff...I have been using Ubuntu since Ubuntu 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog and currently run 6.10 Edgy Eft. I really enjoyed my experience with Xubuntu. I just purchased a new laptop from System76 after my IBM Thinkpad T30 kicked the bucket. If you do not know about System76 you should know that they sell laptops, servers and desktops with Ubuntu pre-installed. I am very proud of my "free" (if you will) purchase through System76 and am still having a wonderful expeience with them. System76 has a philosophy that is akin to Ubuntu. This makes it all worth the while.

I have worked with (well, at work) and have personally toyed with various flavors of Linux (SuSe, Fedora, Mandriva, Arch, etc.) but none have matched the richness of Ubuntu. I truly have made Ubuntu an undeniable part of my life. However it still falls into 2nd place after my family (wife and two baby girls) in my top 5 favorite things in life! Also, I try as hard as I can to meet up with the LUGs in the immediate but work keeps me real busy.

Ok, I will stop talking now. Hope to be talking with you guys soon!

Jimmy

Hey Jimmy,. We live about 30 minutes from each other, cool. I can hop on 4 and get to Sanford in about 25 minutes from here (Orange City). Hope you enjoy being part of the Florida team, see you around in IRC

Well - my turn now...

My name is Jon.

Why it took me so long to find this forum I will never know. Maybe the planets had not yet aligned properly so I could be shown the path. Whatever the case, I found it now - and the local group of geeks near me.

Some recent history on me: Grew up in Brevard County Fl - the Space Coast. I worked at Space Camp for two years before moving to Polk County (WTF?) and have been in Winter Haven for the past seven (damn, time flies even when you're not having fun). I have worked at Publix's Facility Technology Services (FTS) for 2.5 years before I had to find something else to do that didn't drive me crazy. I'm now working for a local beverage distributor - I'm a beer guy. I dabble in tech so much that my wife wonders if she would get more attention if she had a monitor on her shoulder. (To which I then reply," Yeah, but you can't run Linux" and then get hit.)

Some not-so-recent history: My tech background varies widely. My first PC was a Tandy 1000 and the dreaded "press play on tape" plagued me endlessly. I then moved up to a MacClassic - uh PUKE.... next came a REAL PC, a 486 DX2 66MHz - 4MB RAM and 270MB HDD- no CDROM. This was around 1990 and the net was still DARPA IIRC. I had a BBS that ran at night to early AM until I got my own line (TAG RULES!) From there I was stuck with windows because I had not yet discovered Linux - not until a few years later when Mandrake 7.1 came out. I had moderate success with that until I found FreeBSD 4.2 - I was hooked. Now fast-forward to today, I have a 1.36TB (Yes Terabyte) backup server, webserver, and firewall - that all run Linux. TB Server is running Ubuntu Edgy ( I see no reason to upgrade - it works, I'm not risking it) - webserver runs CentOS with PHPBB on top - firewall is IPCop. I absolutely love Linux and am currently weaning myself from the Windoze world (full-time) in the near future.

Anyone for a lan-party install-fest? I'm not an expert (yet) but I'm a few notches below advanced and can figure out pretty much whatever might go wrong. Oh, and I do have my own mirror of Feisty, Edgy, and Dapper. ;-)

BTW - I did start a Yahoo group a while back for a Polk County Linux Users Group (PLUG). I came to find out that while I was trying to get the word out - another one formed in the area as well!

WTG Bordy! Whatever you need - I can help with!

FINAL NOTE: Webserver down for a bit - UPS died. :(

My name is Chipo. I'm currently an IT Support Officer. I have done CCNA, ICDL plus a few other computer courses. i'm Zambian by birth and residence. I have also lived in Zimbabwe and Australia for a while.

I'm currently using Fiesty Fawn, having used Breezy Badger as my fist Linux distro. Have tried RedHat Enterprise 4 as well, but reckon ubuntu is much, much better, GUI wise anyway. I skipped straight from Breezy to Fiesty and found the OS much, much improved. Of particular interest is the mounting of ntfs drives (despite having read-only pems).

Looking forward to getting as much, and hopefully providing some advice as well. Long live Ubuntu!!

Welcome to our corner of the net, nttp and driftshin.... now go join launchpad and register with the team </cackle>

http://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-us-florida

Hey,

It looks like the Greater Orlando Area is rapidly becoming central to many of our members. I have a connection to some ad-hoc office space in downtown Orlando. It's an 1920's house on a brick side street off of Magnolia Street about 1/2 mile or so from the East West Expressway and Interstate 4. They did a great job fixing it up and have full time staff, free coffee and a really nice setup across the broad.

They have conference rooms for Twenty Five dollars an hour and computer workstations for ten, if you have business downtown and need to meet with people.

I am going to talk to them about setting up at least one of the workstations as a Linux station, even if I have to do some of the work as they say in Latin "Pro-Bono". I think in American English that means the pro gets the "bono", and the client gets over.

Anyway if this location has possibilities as a meeting place let me know, maybe I can talk them into letting us use it for free. Since we are all in the area and could be potential clients for them.

Mike

Hey, My name's Mike Riesenberg, I'm not actually on the FL team but Ilive in Pensacola so I guess that's good enough.

I have a family owned business selling commercial/industrial generators, in the proccess of making an assembly plant (hopefully running ubuntu on our systems).

I've been running ubuntu for a year now, still can't do much without my beloved copy/paste function though.

btw is there anything special I need to do to be on the FL team

loserboy said: I've been running ubuntu for a year now, still can't do much without my beloved copy/paste function though.

What copy/paste function?

To join the team, just register on launchpad, then go to our launchpad page (http://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-us-florida) and join it.

All our resources are here: wiki: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/FloridaTeam IRC: #ubuntu-florida on irc.freenode.net

And you already found the forum ;)

What copy/paste function?

with things in terminal, about 95% of the time im just copy and pasting the commands

Yeah, it is a lil more cumbersome than just ctrl-c ctrl-p, but at least its still there lol :)

My name is Billy R Baldwin (_no relation_) I am a Systems Engineer with a medical company. I have been using LINUX since 1997. Exclusively since 2000. Currently I work with Debian on an Enterprise level, Gentoo as my personal server, and Kubuntu as my personal machine. I have been a Doc Devel for several distros, and am attempting to join as a maintainer soon. I have 5 kids, 1 wife, and 2 cats.. heh heh.. thats about it..

Woo Kubuntu User!

Quick Billy! join the team on Launchpad so I don't feel so alone!

Hi everyone,

I'm Art and I live in Ocoee. I thought I had intro'd myself in this thread but apparently not.

Once a programmer (hobbyist but got my name in a few mags in the Commodore day) now I'm a hardware & networking guy. I support Windows at work, and carry some minor certs (MS Windows XP, Network+, A+). Installed Dapper just weeks before Edgy was released and I'm hooked. Still run a Windows domain at home and all the family rely on XP boxes (4 of them) but my Ubuntu with virtualized XP and spinning cubes has them interested.

I'd like to learn more about setting up a linux box as the domain controller. Just inherited a 700 mhz machine from a "client" (and older couple who I have yet to charge a penny for any work I've done) and look forward to seeing how well an xfce or fluxbox based ubuntu installation will run on it.

At this point I still might have more questions than answers but I'm looking to invert the ratio. I linger the fourms quite a bit answering newbie questions and trying things out that others are asking about. I just joined the launchpad team as ArtM and look forward to further discussion here. I don't bash Microsoft or their products-- they pay by mortgage. But given a choice (and I have been) I prefer my new home with Linux.

That's interesting; an Ubuntu System as an Active Directory Domain Controller. I would be interested in how you are going to implement that, I also think there is a bounty offer for something like that too.

I agree that it's a bad sell to bash a competing product and also makes what ever that you are trying to sell look inferior. If I remember from my MCSE exams there is a provision to make Linux systems members of an Active Directory Domain, but replacing the Windows System as an Domain Controller would make the transition from Windows to Ubuntu easier for people that use Active Directory.

Look into Open LDAP and other open source Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) services implementations. I have been lazy upgrading my MCSE to 2003 and plan to setup some systems to experiment with to prepare for the exams before 2008 is released. It's was interesting to see a command line only option when installing the Longhorn Beta 3.

Well, linux can't host an Active Directory domain... but thru Samba it can store passwords, apply logon scripts and roaming profiles. I'm drifting off topic here so I'll leave it go at that.

Once I'm more comfortable with various networking options I'd really like to be part of a conversion or at least an introduction to Ubuntu in the small business world.

lazyart said: Well, linux can't host an Active Directory domain... but thru Samba it can store passwords, apply logon scripts and roaming profiles.

Just a BTW, Samba-4 will have the cabablity of an AD DC http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba4 .

Hello all!,

My online name is A.J. and I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce myself to this community.

I was born and raised here in South Florida and currently reside in Miami-Dade County. About a week or so ago I was unable to reinstall Windows XP on this old desktop PC (Dell Dimension L500r P3 500Mhz) which was to serve mainly as a way for my brother to check his E-mail and surf the web. It worked fine with XP before but for some reason failed to work this time.

My younger cousin, who is into computers and is currently studying some computer related path through college, told me to try installing Ubuntu Linux before throwing the computer away for good.

Despite my preconceived notion that Linux equaled a difficult, MS-DOS like interface with which I would have more headaches than success, I have managed to get it up and running to this point with little to no difficulty and absolutely zero headaches. I must say that I am very pleasantly surprised by the extremely user friendly look and feel of this operating system.

Unlike many of the introductions I read prior to writing this, I am not really a computer person at all. I have had no formal training in any computer fields (programming, networking...etc.) but am willing and able to learn what I need to in order to make the most out of this experience.

Thanks for your time and I hope to learn a lot from you all.

A.J.

Hey AJ,

Welcome aboard dude, and don't worry, I am in roughly the same situation as you: about 9 or 10 months ago I just up and decided to test out Ubuntu with no good knowledge of how to do anything. Now, with the aid of the rest of the team and the community as a whole, I think I have taken giant strides forward and am relatively self-sufficient (I even answered someone's question last week!).

Just stop by the IRC room or on here if you need any help... the rest of the forum is wonderful for questions as well, its a giant repository of info.

Hey. So i have final decided to dedicate my old computer to run linux and learn as much as i can. i am currently studding Computer Science in Emory University but spend many months down here in Florida. In school i am used to using unix like systems and i have some basic programming skills in Java and Perl. I am always looking to learn more programming especially building our own distro.

hello, my name is Andrew I am a student in Tampa, Fl about to start my senior year i've been using linux for over a year now, and ubuntu for 9 months i've been looking for a ubuntu florida loco, and now i've found one

Howdy. My name is Chris. Nickname foxmulder881.

I live in Queensland, Australia. I'm a Network Administrator. And have been involved with computers all my life. I'm also a gamer, but I do use Windows for that.

I started using Linux from Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger. Since then, I've been using other distros too, such as Gentoo, SUSE, Fedora Core and many others.

hey I am jeff and i live in stuart. i work in palm city. i just got into linux and k/ubuntu 2 months ago but its the best s**t since sliced bread. well just letting people know im here i am not really expirienced but i ve learned a lot and i love sitting on my computer and playing with k/ubuntu.

Hi, my name is Peter. Though I'm originally from Tallahassee, I grew up in a hole in the wall about a half hour north of Gainesville, and after a bit of wandering have found myself back here again. I've been using Linux for about 6 years, and Ubuntu for about a year. Not sure why I never thought to look for a florida loco group...

Hi, my name is Chris Allison - born and raised in Pensacola and recently moved to Orlando to fill a IT job - currently residing in Altamonte Springs

Been using Ubuntu for about 4 months now, slowly weening myself off years of Microsoft brainwashing - but so far the procedures are going well. As I'm learning more of linux/ubuntu I'm planning on incorporating it into the company I work for (tired of paying for liscence seats!)

Mainly focusing on learning Samba3 and Asterix right now at work, while loving ubuntu FF on a slave drive at home.

Hi My name is Henry. I'm Miami , Fl. I started using Ubuntu 4 weeks ago. It like allot, But i still use windows. Well It's great talking to you guys. I'll be speaking to you later Bye.

Hi

I live in Lutz, on the Pasco/Hillsbro border. I'm a softmore in HS and I'm 15. I am a big Mac user as well to Ubuntu and I'm looking forward to Aug 7. ;)

My first Ubuntu box was a old Dell my mom used for work but she didn't need it anymore so I put Ubuntu on it. I used it for basically internet browsing. Sadly, I have territorial cats and they destroyed it (they PEED on it) so after that cat was buried* I set out to build my own PC. It was my 1st PC build so I learned from somethings not to do and things to do. I am planning on building another PC soon thats bigger and better than the 1st. Recently I got a iBook G3 and a Compaq box and put Ubuntu on both. I'm planning on donating the PC to a non-profit organization down here called 'God's Pedal Power Ministry'. They help out kids in the ghetto get bikes for free. The iBook is now my Ubuntu laptop, altho it doesn't preform as well as I hoped. In the long run I might get a Dellbuntu laptop.

My computers:

iMac

2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo
2 GB of RAM
500 GB HD
Mac OS X 10.4.10

MacBook

2 GHz Core Duo
1 GB of RAM
80 GB HD
Mac OS X 10.4.10

iBook G3

Overclocked G3 @ 900 MHz (from 800)
640 MB of RAM
30 GB HD
Ubuntu 7.04

Custom PC

2.2 GHz AMD Athlon
1 GB of RAM
60 GB HD
Debian ETCH

Henrymcs & C.A.T.S. CEO,

Hi there and welcome to our team. We hope that you will find a home here.

If you would like to get involved with the team see the team info here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=387138

If you would like to join the team meeting coming up this Sunday see the meeting info here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=510320

I just got the reply email from O'Reilly about the Ubnut Live conference and they have pics from it on Flickr - and I found me!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/x180/889166903/in/set-72157600949584482/

The guy in the white - near center of photo.

HI there

I've been using Ubuntu since a few days after Feisty was released, and after seeing what it could do, decided to become a fierce proponent of cleaning up Bug #1... lol

I'm not a programmer, nor am i particularly technical, but i'm learning my way around the system and am willing to help/learn/whatever is necessary

Hi, I'm Rick. I've tried different variations of Linux for the past 2 to 3 years after I had come across information about what Linux is about. My primary reason for using it is plain and simple: money, or the lack thereof. I'm considered "retired" due a disability, so I am a "home body" on a fixed income. I have no real computer knowledge, just enough to keep getting me into trouble. I've built my own computer, but, to me, that was the easy part. Just attach this and that with little screws, and bingo! A computer. I know it's not quite that easy now, though. lol The hard part for me is using the command line and trying to dig through all the man pages and tutorials to understand what does what. That's my biggest complaint about Linux, as a Gnu-Bee, is trying to find out how to do things such as apt-get, find where stuff goes when it's downloaded, etc. Oh, I forgot! I live in Kathleen, or North Lakeland, which ever your preference is. Also, I inadvertantly joined launchpad.net quite a while ago because I thought it was a different type of website when it is actually more for developers, right? Sorry for the rambling. I do that a lot.

gottatrieit (or Rick),

Welcome to the team!

I wanted to point you to our NewUser page on the wiki:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FloridaTeam/NewUser

It is chock full of good info about learning how to with Ubuntu, Linux, etc. If you want to know more about using apt-get check out the Apt HowTo for info on using apt-get. It has gotten me out of a few messes.

Oh, and Launchpad is not really just for Developers it is for everybody to use. I am not a Developer and just today I subscribed to a bug that had to do with my System76 laptop. If you think that you have found a bug post about it or just read up on some of the bugs out there (umm, fun).

Hope you will have fun with us.

Not to mention, Launchpad.net is where you can join the team officially if you want to. ( http://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-us-florida )

And I live in South Lakeland, Rick (near 540A and Bartow Rd)

Good morning everyone. My name is Robert Webb and I am in Miramar between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. I have been using linux for quite a while and have finally settled into Ubuntu. I am by no means an expert but try to learn a little more all the time.

I have a MIS degree from Keiser college but don't use it. I am currently employed with Everglades National Park, which is pretty much the south western tip of Florida, as a Fire Monitor in wildland firefighting. I do a lot of GIS work, take care of 3 weather stations and I fight fire when needed. I am using my computer skills to help organize their databases and compile data. Biggest challenge has been to get the feds to accept the usage of linux on their all active directory Microsoft network.

Hi im Andy im 17 i live in Indialantic Beach. i love to surf, fish and mainly geek it up as my little brother calls it lol im a burnt out dropout who needs a job im not really new to the linux scene i have the basic understanding and can fix / solve most of my issues but im always wanting to learn more and more because what i know now just isnt enough and it never will be ;]

Howdy, Rob here - waving a hand... I'm a info junkie with an extensive home office / library and a 2MB bookmark file. My primary studies are in Linux, web design, programming, wifi, hotspots, WISP deployment, networking, server admin, security, and... the list goes on. - Yes, I am soooo done with Bill. Aren't we all?? I'm a relative noob to Linux and the other topics above even though I began studying them in the 90's. "There is never enough time" ... always something to interrupt... relationship, sleep, work, etc...

I have been fooling around with computers since the late 70's, so I remember 8" floppies, tape reel and cake drives, punch cards, the Z80, 8086 & 88, and a myriad of other architectures. I'm another one of the guys who existed before Microsoft, Dell, Apple, "PC's" and the web ... Oh yeah, "terminals" existed before "PC's" there was UNIX, CP/M, then DOS, languages were; Fortran, assembly, C. Though I remember all that, I never really delved into any of it.

Having what is now termed ADHD made life difficult and the younger you are the more severe it is, so now in my later years that things are slowing down for me I have developed a insatiable thirst for the knowledge of what I shunned so many years ago.

Although computers have remained a passionate hobby over the years, ripping apart and building machines, toying with various configurations and OS's, I took the path of an Auto Technician out of High School, then a Trucker who travelled damn near every road we have in the good 'ol US of A. I did work for Compaq as a TSE for a little while before nearly going insane from incessant calls of rampant stupidity by the technically challenged and jumping back into the freedom of the road.

As I said before, computers have always been a passion for me and I would love to be able to jump into that career full time ASAP, preferably my own business.

I have a few machines in various states of assembly and a bunch of parts I might donate to a EDU program... maybe even join?? Starting a group around here (Stuart, FL) sounds good too.

Things are up in the air for me now... :confused: between jobs and wishing I was living on the west side of my state ... a little further north too.

I have lived in Florida for most of my life and would have been born here except my pop had to travel to Denver for training at NCR. I have also lived in CT, CA, & NC.

Well, that's my story... and I'm sticking to it... hehehe

Are you near me? Let's chat and see what we can get started around here. Toss me an email.

Sorry about the verbosity, thanks for reading! Be Blessed, ~Rob

Hey. All who have replied to this original post, and the originator of the thread should check out my post in Education/Science for archaeological mapping assistance. I used to live in Melbourne, and am moving back to the east coast for reasons I stated in said post. Serious only for that post, but if you live in florida hit me up. Ltr TF

Hello All, Long time Unix/Linux user, recent Ubuntu user. Started with Unix on a 3b2 (AT&T SysV w/UUCP!) Slackware was my first distro and have made the rounds of slackware/redhat/fedora/mandrake/suse/linuxfromscratch/gentoo/centos/distroofthemonth...

I'm using Ubuntu now on my DNS server (old Sun Blade 100), so yes it's Sparc Ubuntu and I've got another old sparc box to setup as a firewall that's getting the Ubuntu treatment as well.

I look forward to the discussion and I'll try to help answer any questions I can.

--Donald

Hello everyone I'm Doug. I live in Central Florida. I work for a local advertising agency 29th Parallel. I was surfing earlier today thinking about what I could do with my large personal inventory of pc's & parts.

So here I am. I read that Ubuntu has a nice GUI, which attracts me as a designer. I'm just starting out, reading the truckload of information on this forum.

Nice to meet you all, and thanks for having me!

Hi all, I joined a few months ago, but i don't think I ever properly intoduced myself. i live in Jacksonville/Orange Park and am currently a student at FCCJ working my way slowsly towards a computer science degree at the University of North Florida or UF (haven't decided yet.) I do a lot of programming and "tweaking" and i am one of those rare "lone" IT guys at work, though I also have to work in sales and sometimes in woodworking production as well. It's a small company....

I switched to ubuntu from windows xp during the edgy days, right before feisty came out, but I also use debian etch, fedora, knoppix, and a couple other distros from time to time. I'm really surprised at the lack of Jacksonville people on here, but I was surprised to see that someone graduated from the same high school as me -- N.B. Forrest -- named after the infamous confederate general and klan member, that's right.

Hi my name is Rasmus, sound weird? its because im from Denmark...

I'm still pretty new to Ubuntu, but evry little bit of it i learn i love it the more. I hate Microsoft products, most of my friends tell me to use windows but they know **** about OS's... I love researching on my computer (nerd) i've just started out learning how to do programming, i play few computer games because im just starting out on my education, so i have limited time for it...

I LOVE Linux, i HATE windows (XP i almost acceptabel Vista sucks!)

Thats me i guess...

My name is Bill.I live in Jacksonville. I have been using Ubuntu since January. I tried Suse pro 9.2 a couple of years ago when I built the tower I am using now. I built it around 64-bit processor technology and at the time Suse was ( I think) the only provider of a 64-bit distro. I didn't really know what I was doing and eventually went back to windows. The only time I use Windows now is to play Dawn of War. It is getting boring playing against the AI so I rarely even do that any more. If you live nearby send me a PM and let's see if we canstart a local hub or have a meet and greet.

Hello One and All: Jay from Clermont... Long time lurker, joined several months ago and now I'm finally getting around to posting. I've been involved in computing since the late 80's, currently employed as a Web Developer plus I am just starting a new Marketing company. Had a long 13 year career in broadcasting. Owned my own Internet Service Provider business In Michigan sold it in 2005 and moved South...Aaah love the Florida lifesyle :) I've tinkered with Red Hat 7,8,9, FC2 thru Fedora 8, Freespire 1.x, Slackware 7, Knoppix 5x...Had Training in Red Hat Enterprise Linux and last year got turned on by Ubuntu. I have 3 Ubuntu boxes including my wife's laptop (she loves it) and my beloved Macs (G3 iMac and a 20" Intel iMac) Yesss, can't beat that combo of Mac OS X and Linux...Feel the joy!

Hello,

I am in the daytona area...just about to jump in with both feet with ubuntu. I have it loaded on a couple of older boxes, and it performs extremely well. I do have trouble with wireless, and am currently working on that!

I have had a linux class in community college, and it stunk...because we used fedora red hat. I recently tried that again (one of the above pc's), and it smelled really baddddd. I mean, I couldn't even do the os updates...couldn't even do them! I erased that stinky stuff fast, and reloaded recently with ubu...man I love the kde desktop.... I plan on using one of the pc's as a proxy server/file server, and maybe mail server. One step at a time. I have to get wireless up first!

I like riding bicycles, and tinkering with all kinds of pc's, music and other good stuff. Later, ubu lovers.

sleeve_less

:guitar:

Hi im Crash 0verride aka Falling Inferno

My real name is Robert I live in Tampa FL Im 14 years old (15 this august)

About me: I am in High School. Honor classes, I program and play games. Watch Anime. As well as I have been suspended two times for hacking my school network (Using MSDOS lol) I am working on my Certification in Network+ also known as Net+ And im learning ubuntu I have had ubuntu for about a week so far and im looking for someone to teach me the OS inside and out (Because thats what I did for Windows)

How I came to find Ubuntu: I was talking with my dad and he was fed up with my brothers computers and he yell out that he was going to wipe out my computer and my brothers computers and put RedHat Linux on it.

I searched around and i found out that the last known free version of RedHat that I could find was 1995 version and they only made a bussiness version of it now that you had to pay for. So I talked with my friend Cody and he told me about Ubuntu so when he came over to my house we ordered Ubuntu. About 2-3 weeks talking about ubuntu it finally arrived for him -_-' He downloaded it and then another week passed of him talking about it and not letting me use his CD i finally get it. I was in my 5th period class and i Stuck the Ubuntu CD in my computer and browsed it. My teacher saw me and apparently reported me for it. I went to the office and they confiscated my networking book as well as my Open-Source version of Windows XP and my version of Ubuntu. Then i got 3 days out of school suspension and my dad caused hell when talking to my administrators and got my computer teacher (Who knows less than me about comps) fired. I got my stuff back and i loaded ubuntu the same day. I got it installed. (After 20 minutes of trying to find the eastern time zone on the date selection) And then i got my updates and messed around on it. i was overwhelmed. I wiped my computer the next day and reinstalled it

After 3 wipes i finally got a good handle on most of the stuff...Not all of it...about .2 percent of when there is to learn on this system.

Well that pretty much all about me.. (Sorry i rambled on a lot.)

Hello my name is Paul. I just started running linux when I bought this Dell with Vista on it. About the time Ubuntu 7.04 came out. I got soo tired of all the blue screens that went in search of a better OS so i tried Mandrivia and was very unhappy with it. Eventually i found myself at booksamillion looking at linux guide books and liked the one for Ubuntu. So i bought it and went home and installed it. I have loved it every since and could not ever see myself going back to windows. One of the things i like the most about Ubuntu is the way users of the OS treat one another. I have never read forums before where people did not spend a majority of it bashing each other or putting people down. Instead they do what i always thought they were there for which is to help.

Anyways i found out about the locol Ubuntu teams just a week or so ago by mistake when reading the forums and finally sat down joined. A little about me i was born in Lakeland , Fl and have lived in Fl all my life. I now live in Polk City and work in the orlando area.

Anyways I have rambled on enough. Just wanted to HI and thanks in advance for any help. :)

Hello all! I'm one of those IT guys for 10 years, but in denial about being a nerd so I surf to look cool too! (I'm kidding.. I do surf, but just because I like it and feels good to be out in the sun.. the scenery ;) doesn't hurt either)

I've fiddle with redhat over the years and even had a few systems in production a few times, but never felt comfortable saying I was a *nix admin. Hoping to change that in the not so distant future. I wonder how one goes about finding a ubuntu job? just monster, CareerBuilder, the usual? I'm a windows admin now, but looking to make a change both professionally and personally.

Jason

Hi to all

Well Ive been on this forum now for 4 days, and felt it was time to formally introduce myself to the local group at least.

Well I cant say for total sure, but from the posts I have read, I appear to be the ONLY GIRL in the group! HAHA, Im ok with that, Ive generally been in a minority when it comes to tech stuff, so IM good wth it.

What can I tell you about me? Well IM OLD! HAHAH, OLD, GIRL, and TECHIE! quite the anomolie here huh?

I have been involved in computers, and tech stuff for close to 30 years. I was the Director of System Support for a local Orlando based Vertical Market Contractor Job Costing package, about 20 years ago. It was there I had my first tastes of UNix. We did multi user ports of the package to an SCO Zenix based system, and I would travel the tri state area, doing the installs, adn trainign the staff.

Before that, I messed around with DOS machines writing Batch Menu sytems for varoius software companies.

Fast forward to present. I do some internet business and also have a small computer consulting company, where I do websites, system configuration, small business networking and data base stuff. I also contract IT train, in the areas of Web Development, and Graphic manipulation and optimization.

What brings me here,. is probably a common thread, SICK TO DEATH of the DEATH grip that Microsloth and WinDOZE seems to have on our lives.

I may not have come to this point, if after XP they left almost well enough alone, but VISTA! was the straw that broke the camels back. My son and my husband both got new notebooks with Vista, and I have already had to reformat hubbys, it got totally screwed up.. Sons, so far is ok, but he does not do as much on it, just email and car forums. I am just sick to death of how miserable this OS has made life, and the idealsit in me HAS to beleive there is a better way, to ahve a GUI OS, that ais user friendly, has lots of sortware available, and just WORKS!

Thats what lead me down THIS road.

I downloaded Gutsy, and within minutes was able to do a CDLIVE boot, adn Instantly LOVED IT! I went for the install, and have had very few problems, that I could not solve, or some wonderful, smart, helpful , friendly person on the boards had an answer for.

I ordered an eeepc for my travels, and cant wait to start playing with that, it arrive Monday.

So, there ya have ME in a nutshell.. Oh, the OTHER great love of my life, are my Golden Retrievers!! :)

OK, let the UBUNTU begin! ;)

Every breath I take is one breath closer to closing WINDOWS 4EVA!

Hi, my name is Brad. I live in Longwood, and I'm a computer geek.

I'm not lacking in the social skills, fortunately, but I know my way around a network like it's my second home.

I've been using Linux since the Mandrake 7.2 era, which is about 1999/2000, but a computer geek effectively since birth. My dad was a mainframe guy, so I've had punch cards, patch boards, broken disk packs etc. since I was little. My first computer was a Timex Sinclair TS-1000 with a 16k, yes, k, RAM pack on the back. It stored programs on audio cassette tapes and had a 4" thermal printer. Big deal in 1982.

Fast forward through the Timex/Atari/Apple ][ years to the PC era. My first actual PC was a Gateway 486DX266 with 16MB, a 320MB hard disk, and an 8MB Viper video card, and a CD-ROM drive. Note, no 'X' on the CD, since there was only 1X at that time. That was also the last PC that I bought in a box, I've built everything except laptops since then.

Life as a chemist brought me to HP Pascal systems, HP-UX 9000's, and Microsoft LanManager (*cough*). I then moved onto MS Advanced Server 3.1 (31 Floppies and all the users you could make work for $995 or something like that). Got my MCSE on Windows 3.5 and have been supporting Windows systems ever since.

After years of BSOD's and slow networking problems, I ran into Linux and have been scaling up ever since. Sure, the unstable Windows garbage keeps me employed and pays the bills, but there is NO Microsoft software in my house anymore. And everything works, day after day, month after month. Other than hardware failures here and there, most boxes have uptimes of 3-6 months. Not bad considering we moved in 7 months ago! My Linux servers are up well over a year and ticking along great.

Even though I support Windows for a living, even the servers in-house are slowly moving to Linux. I use VMWare a LOT and have about 24 machines virtualized, from Mail servers to second and third workstations for people here at work. Firewalls, iSCSI SANs, NAS'es, Mail, Mysql, web hosting, you name it, I've probably done it over the last, ew, ouch!, 20 years in IT.

Anyway, I'm relatively new to Florida after being outsourced from my job at *rhymes with Moneywell* in Chicago. Supported 3500 users and 300+ servers and was kicked in the butt after having my job sold to an Indian outsourcer. Good luck with that.

Sorry to ramble, looking forward to participating in things in the Orlando area!

Brad

WOOO...... Delray Beach........ just installed ubuntu 8.04 hardy heron a week ago after using it with vmware in windows xp for a couple months great stuff never switching back. Outside the pc world its all drums, surfing, and marimba. what more needs to be said? ~peace~:guitar:

David from Orlando. I've been using *nix since about the turn of the century (this current one, naturally). I played around w/ Hoary but once Dapper (6.06LTS) was released, I switched everything over. Now I try to convince enterprises and users alike to choose Ubuntu as their primary choice of OS.

j

Hi, My handle is phlembob. I live in Belleview near Ocala, NorthCentralFlorida a hour from Orlando and a 50+ minute drive to Gainesville. I have tried Pigen but it doesn't seem to have people on our talk channel at the same time, if I'm using it correctly. I have played with 3 versions of Ubuntu, and I wish to make it my primary OS now. I'm trying to stimulate a Ubuntu move so I wrote this: http://www.computersight.com/Operating-Systems/Ubuntu/Ubuntu-804-LTS-The-Open-Operating-System.116798 --- I think you will need to copy and paste it if you wish to read it.

I'm an ex-tech wishing to get into the programming side. I would like to start a driver builder group for Ubuntu and Debian. Windows has been good but it has always been a disappointment. It was made for ease which keeps people ignorant, to maintain operators only.

I have built my own desktops for at least 15 years now. Gateway is good, but I have repaired some Gateways. All in all, even though the price for computers have drop, I can still put computer products together that are slightly cheaper and better than most manufactures.

I have very little experience with Unix, but some. I worked both in real-time communication and radar, and weapons systems, and---and---and etc. My attempt at a little humor! Sorry :lolflag:

Yay! the forum is alive! :)

My name is Porter. I from the age of years old i lived in Seattle , Wa then due to the nature of my fathers job we moved out east to Tenafly,NJ, For the last 10 months I have resided down here in the sunshine state. My first and most educational experience with linux was he headlong dive into configuring a Samba server for my father network naturally the first server I ran was with Suse linux Pro 9,0 (pre Novel). Every subsequent sever I have configured has either been Ubuntu or another Debian off shoot.

bradwilliamson

I'm not lacking in the social skills, fortunately, but I know my way around a network like it's my second home.

You can also find me on Linuxquestions as Linux-hawk and on Daemon Forums and macrumors forums as FloridaBSD.

The User name is supposed to be the one mentioned for daemon-forums. ^^

hello ppl, i m an absolute beginner to ubuntu.. and i guess i m facing a big trouble( as i havnt fount the solution to my problem yet)

i m running ubuntu 7.10 on my XP by virtual box.

and once my PC hanged.. so restarted the system...when ubuntu was running on the virtual machine.

and now when i restarted the virtual machine i cant use the synaptic package manager.

when i run the synaptic i get

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem. E: _cache->open() failed, please report.

and i have to close

when i tried dpkg --configure -a in terminal it says..

dpkg: parse error, in file /var/lib/dpkg/updates/0025' near line 1: newline in field name #padding'

now when i tried the gedit to chk the file 0025.... it has got all lines

#padding #padding #padding #padding

..... like that.. is there a problem?

and i tried the similar post regarding the error message...

i have tried the following commands, but problem is still there

sudo apt-get install -f

sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo dpkg --clear-avail && sudo apt-get update

sudo mv status status.broken sudo cp status-old status

will have to perform the installation second time.??? please help me.. thanks in advance

and sorry for posting this thing here..because i dont know how to post a new message or thred????

Did you try re-installing synaptic?

Hi all.. My name is Nancy. I am a computer lab teacher in NC. I have some training in Windows networking, but none in Linux. I recently just got the school network upgraded to Win Server 2003. We are in process of migrating my 20 lab computers onto the big school computer.

Currently the 20 pcs are connected to a small Window 2000 network. However, on my own whim, I have installed Edubuntu 7.10 on all of them with dual boot, i'm in the process of upgrading them all to 8.04. we are a small private school and cannot afford to constantly buy educational software.

However, of course, the upgrade has NOT gone 100% smoothly, and I have had several issues as my forum questions have proved.

Thank you to all you geniuses and those of you who are simply willing to help me think through the process of problem solving. Its important to me, and to all the children in our small school and we appreciate all the help we can get!! Nancy

Hello, My name is Don and I live in the Fort Myers area. I decided to try Lenix after reading/hearing about it for years. Ubuntu was the first of several distro's I tried that works with all the hardware in the computer I wanted it on. Been using it for about a week now and so far I really like. I'm not a Windows hater but I don't like being forced to pay more money for an OS because the current OS is no longer supported. Plus I frequently reformat and move the OS to other computers I have. I currently have 14 computers (my hobby) running Vista, XP, 98, 95, and now Ubuntu. I have given Mr. Gates way to much money over the years. I am in the learning process of integrating Ubuntu into my home network...but thats the fun part.

Don

Steven Miano checking in!

I didn't know about the launchpad teams or forum section for the Florida team. I've been on the Florida-Mailing List now for a couple of months though.

I come from a background of working on HP-UX systems for the military, and while working around people in that field, they turned me on to Caldera way back when, which then led me to Red Hat, and now finally Ubuntu.

With eight years of system administrating experience (at home and professionally) I still have a large amount to learn about the kernel mainly and also some other items of interest to me.

I can script half-way decently, using SH, BASH, or KSH. I am hoping over the next couple of years to start working on Perl and Python next.

Hope I haven't gone on too much here, and will try to be a more active member in the community for sure! = )

dca said: David from Orlando.

David I live in Davie which is east of Fort Lauderdale.

Hello my name is Alan I joined the Florida LoCo a couple of days ago. I also joined the marketing team. I am new to linux but am a true believer. As a writer I moved to ubuntu because it just works and that is what I need. I live in Ocala and retired from the nuclear industry 8 years ago. I am sure everyone here knows more about linux than I, but that is good... I can only learn.

hey everyone

I live in Tampa and actually work for Canonical in the corporate services department responsible for a number of North American ISV relationships.

I have started a meetup for Linux in Tampa if anyone is interested simply PM me.

Brief history - born in Pensacola. Lived all over the US and have been in Tampa since 2003. Been around technology since the early 90's and have been working in the vendor space since 1995. Started playing with Slackware in the mid-90's.

Currently using 8.10 (just upgraded like we all have, right? :lolflag:).

See ya! ):P

Hi,

Name is Stephen. A Mac Geek recently turned on to Linux via ubuntu.

I feel sort of at home in Ubuntu, cause on my Mac I spent/spend a fair amount of time in terminal. And UNIX is UNIX after all. The commands translate to Ubuntu, thanks the gods..

I having some troubles, mostly cause I installed Ubuntu on me bad *** gaming rig. It has the latest and greatest hardware, and the Linux drivers (especially for my ATI 4800HD vid card) for it are spotty at best. But I'm getting along. And Ubuntu flies on this machine. ;)

Live in Ft Lauderdale, Florida. Love to join a user group to talk shop.

cragthehack said: Hi,

Name is Stephen. A Mac Geek recently turned on to Linux via ubuntu.

I feel sort of at home in Ubuntu, cause on my Mac I spent/spend a fair amount of time in terminal. And UNIX is UNIX after all. The commands translate to Ubuntu, thanks the gods..

I having some troubles, mostly cause I installed Ubuntu on me bad *** gaming rig. It has the latest and greatest hardware, and the Linux drivers (especially for my ATI 4800HD vid card) for it are spotty at best. But I'm getting along. And Ubuntu flies on this machine. ;)

Live in Ft Lauderdale, Florida. Love to join a user group to talk shop.

Hi Stephen. A lot of us hang out in IRC on a day to day basis. Mailing list and other info can be found in the team info sticky ( http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=387138 ).

We're planning a LoCo event in Miami around the BarCamp Miami/FOWA timeframe, so hopefully we'll see you out there.

dan

Hi, my name is Mike, I live in Port Salerno (just south of Stuart) and I like Ubuntu Linux and sell computers with Ubuntu installed on my site ...... I took computing in college back in 1968 (well for a short while), I got married and moved here in 1969, I don't have the wife any more but I have two daughters and 6 grandkids now ..... I would like speaking with local Ubuntu people and might show up at one of the group meetings or shows sometime .....

http://choice-computing.com/

My name is Bob. I am currently enrolled at FGCU for Environmental studies but have spent most of my life in Jupiter (north end of Palm Beach County).

I have been using Ubuntu for around 2 years. A friend in high school told me about it and I decided to check it out. What really pushed me to installing was when a different friend got me The Official Ubuntu Book. I haven't really read any of it; I just used it for the install disk (7.04). Pretty much everything I know about Ubuntu I learned from the Ubuntu forums. I still have XP on my computer but I can't remember the last time I used it. I'm afraid that by removing it I'll be shooting myself in the foot.

Still learning a lot about not only Ubuntu but computers and other fun tech/geek stuff which brings me to my first question. Can someone provide a crash course in IRC? I've seen the term before and I think I have a general idea of what it is but I would appreciate a run down of what it is and how to set it up in Pidgin.

Welcome to the Florida LoCo!

I googled for 'irc pidgin' and found this: http://stfu.blogs.ablenet.org/100/how_to_connect_to_irc_with_pidgin_gaim

You'll want to use "irc.ubuntu.com" for the server, and hopefully, join us in channel "#ubuntu-us-fl"

There are also tons of guides on irc commands online, but you may want to start by registering your nickname (nick)

http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#userregistration

Let me know if you have any issues.

dan

Thanks Dan.

Using the links you provided and one I found I was able to get onto the IRC channel. I think I sent you a message but that's only if you're "dantalizing".

I appreciate the help.

Bob

wrhalste said: Thanks Dan.

Using the links you provided and one I found I was able to get onto the IRC channel. I think I sent you a message but that's only if you're "dantalizing".

I appreciate the help.

Bob

That was me! Sorry I was on the way home from work when you were around. We're in there anytime you need us, or just want to hang out.

dan

Hi My name is gerry but call me sheff. I live in tamarac fl been useing ubuntu for about a year now and i like it alot.I don't have any formal training in computers at all but have built a few for ppl. who needed them but nothing fancy.I'm still a noob at working with linux and trying to get a dual boot going (I would be pulling my hair out if i had any lol)just about everything i have is put together from used parts (cant afford new). by the way I'm 44 and org. from mass. south boston to be precise.I was hoping to see if i could get some local help on getting this comp. to dual boot.

My name is Leo and I've been using Ubuntu for a little over 2 years now. I have Linux from Scratch and archlinux in the past but I always return to Ubuntu for its user friendliness.

I live in Miami-Dade and am a computer science student at FIU.

absolutezero1287 said: My name is Leo and I've been using Ubuntu for a little over 2 years now. I have Linux from Scratch and archlinux in the past but I always return to Ubuntu for its user friendliness.

I live in Miami-Dade and am a computer science student at FIU.

Welcome Leo. Check out the LoCo sticky post for ways to get involved and communicate.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=387138

Also, we're planning a Jaunty release party in Miami in early May. Hope you can make it out! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FloridaTeam/Projects/JauntyReleaseParties#Miami

dan

Hey I'm Pete

Just made the switch about a month ago from Windows to Linux. A friend of mine was tossing out a Dell Optiplex, so I asked if I could have it. He said it didn't boot but when I opened the cover the memory cards had become unseated from the expansion slots. Tried a few diffrent distros before deciding on Ubuntu. I've got the 8.10 server installed and I must say it is pretty sweet. I am pretty impressed that something I downloaded for free runs better than stuff i've paid money for. I got a free computer and a free operating system, life could not be better.

wojox said: Hey I'm Pete

Just made the switch about a month ago from Windows to Linux. A friend of mine was tossing out a Dell Optiplex, so I asked if I could have it. He said it didn't boot but when I opened the cover the memory cards had become unseated from the expansion slots. Tried a few diffrent distros before deciding on Ubuntu. I've got the 8.10 server installed and I must say it is pretty sweet. I am pretty impressed that something I downloaded for free runs better than stuff i've paid money for. I got a free computer and a free operating system, life could not be better.

Welcome Pete.

Check out https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FloridaTeam/Projects/JauntyReleaseParties to see if there is a release party near you. Hope you can come out.

dan

Name's Derrick. Been living in the New Smyrna Beach Area for almost 4 years now, have dabbled around with a few distro's, openSUSE, LinuxONE, mandrake, and a few others in the past 6 years. Found Ubuntu about 2 years ago, and have used it since. Well balanced Knowledge of Ubuntu, atleast i beleive so...lol Just recently found out about the teams, and looks like a bright idea. I work at a local computer shop and promote Ubuntu...to anyone that wants to be done with virus' :D

Hi! I'm Robin.

I'm a newbie to both Linux and Ubuntu (8.10), but in the few short weeks since I installed it, I've become a rabid fan. I live near Ocala.

I love teaching. I'teaching clogdancing (way cool percussive dance) at a dance studio. I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. But while I'm waiting to figure that out, I'd love to help promote Ubuntu if I can (but I have alot to learn first).

I just joined today and am glad this group is here!

my blog

-Robin (Linux user #488978, Ubuntu user #27062)

dixiedancer said: Hi! I'm Robin.

I'm a newbie to both Linux and Ubuntu (8.10), but in the few short weeks since I installed it, I've become a rabid fan. I live near Ocala.

I was in the fire department for 25 years (with Broward County - I know the area very well) and during my career there I served for awhile in the training division, where I discovered I have some skill in writing and public speaking. I've even written for a magazine here and there. Who knew?

I love teaching. I've taught subjects from CPR (back in the day) and water safety to clogdancing (way cool percussive dance) and Sunday school. I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. But while I'm waiting to figure that out, I'd love to help promote Ubuntu if I can (but I have alot to learn first).

I just joined today and am glad this group is here!

my blog

-Robin (Linux user #488978, Ubuntu user #27062)

Welcome Robin! If you hadn't seen it already there is a post that has a lot of our team information here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=387138

Please drop by and say hello to us in IRC: http://www.ubuntu-fl.org/index.php/team-chat.html

And in case you hadn't heard, we'll be having Jaunty Release Parties all over Florida. Please come by if you can! https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FloridaTeam/Projects/JauntyReleaseParties

Dan

dixiedancer said: Hi! I'm Robin.

I'm a newbie to both Linux and Ubuntu (8.10), but in the few short weeks since I installed it, I've become a rabid fan. I live near Ocala.

I was in the fire department for 25 years (with Broward County - I know the area very well) and during my career there I served for awhile in the training division, where I discovered I have some skill in writing and public speaking. I've even written for a magazine here and there. Who knew?

I love teaching. I've taught subjects from CPR (back in the day) and water safety to clogdancing (way cool percussive dance) and Sunday school. I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. But while I'm waiting to figure that out, I'd love to help promote Ubuntu if I can (but I have alot to learn first).

I just joined today and am glad this group is here!

my blog

-Robin (Linux user #488978, Ubuntu user #27062)

Welcome Aboard, be careful what you ask for!!! We will do our best to help you learn and I look forward to getting to know you!!

Chris aka itnet7

MRCeltic said: Name's Derrick. Been living in the New Smyrna Beach Area for almost 4 years now, have dabbled around with a few distro's, openSUSE, LinuxONE, mandrake, and a few others in the past 6 years. Found Ubuntu about 2 years ago, and have used it since. Well balanced Knowledge of Ubuntu, atleast i beleive so...lol Just recently found out about the teams, and looks like a bright idea. I work at a local computer shop and promote Ubuntu...to anyone that wants to be done with virus' :D

MRCeltic,

It was great to already get to know you a bit in IRC. Look forward to possibly meeting up with you at one or two of the release parties!

Thanks for joining up!!

Chris

itnet7

Well dang..i've never done this so i guess i will. Im Jk3mp. A college student in for a Bachelors in Information System Security and might bind it into a Masters in Computer Science. Also a freelance programmer and web designer. Guess thats it... lol. Welcome everyone else!

JK3mp said: Well dang..i've never done this so i guess i will. Im Jk3mp. A college student in for a Bachelors in Information System Security and might bind it into a Masters in Computer Science. Also a freelance programmer and web designer. Guess thats it... lol. Welcome everyone else!

Morning p-ninja. Parties!

JK3mp said: Well dang..i've never done this so i guess i will. Im Jk3mp. A college student in for a Bachelors in Information System Security and might bind it into a Masters in Computer Science. Also a freelance programmer and web designer. Guess thats it... lol. Welcome everyone else!

Glad you posted here! Not sure I have had a chance to talk with you in IRC. Hopefully we'll get a chance to know you better :-)

Talk with you soon,

Chris C. itnet7 #ubuntu-us-fl

I suppose most everyone knows me... but here I am anyway.

Michelle, cofounder of Qimo4Kids and QuinnCo, Inc. Um... In central Florida, still use Windows (sorry, guys, still working on that...) but active in this because of Qimo.

So... HI!):P

Hi I'm Ben From Ohio. Lived in San Antonio, and Corpus Christi TX for a few years, but started here in Ohio and ended up coming back. I have always been under the impression that Microsoft Windows was the only OS there was. Started out with DOS, then DOS + Windows 3.1, and all versions between that and XP. I was like the teenager who wrecked a car every month. I would wear windows out until it would crash and burn over and over and over, well you get the point. It got tiring re-installing windows every few months. I had a friend introduce me to Red Hat LINUX and I kind of liked it, and then I stumbled upon Ubuntu 8.04. It was love at first sight, and 8.10 was even better. And now here I am with 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope! Ubuntu Linux is the best thing that I have ever used. I dual booted with windows for a while, and one day I realized somthin's got to go. I formated my drive, re-partitioned for only Ubuntu. Now I do not run windows at all, and I even attend the University of Phoenix on line using Ubuntu (Shh Don't tell!). Microsoft Windows XP or better, plus microsoft word are both system requirements to attend. Open office is the best thing since sliced bread! I major in Information Technology, and plan on breaking the news at my graduation! Don't know how I'll say it but it will include thinking outside the box!

Michelle_Qimo said: I suppose most everyone knows me... but here I am anyway.

Michelle, cofounder of Qimo4Kids and QuinnCo, Inc. Um... In central Florida, still use Windows (sorry, guys, still working on that...) but active in this because of Qimo.

So... HI!):P

Hi there Michelle, it's definitely good to have you guys on board!!! We'll have to help you with your "windows problem" :lolflag:

Thanks for all of your help.

Chris C.

itnet7

syntheticflag said: Hi I'm Ben From Ohio. Lived in San Antonio, and Corpus Christi TX for a few years, but started here in Ohio and ended up coming back. I have always been under the impression that Microsoft Windows was the only OS there was. Started out with DOS, then DOS + Windows 3.1, and all versions between that and XP. I was like the teenager who wrecked a car every month. I would wear windows out until it would crash and burn over and over and over, well you get the point. It got tiring re-installing windows every few months.

I had a friend introduce me to Red Hat LINUX and I kind of liked it, and then I stumbled upon Ubuntu 8.04. It was love at first sight, and 8.10 was even better. And now here I am with 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope! Ubuntu Linux is the best thing that I have ever used. I dual booted with windows for a while, and one day I realized somthin's got to go. I formated my drive, re-partitioned for only Ubuntu. Now I do not run windows at all, and I even attend the University of Phoenix on line using Ubuntu (Shh Don't tell!). Microsoft Windows XP or better, plus microsoft word are both system requirements to attend. Open office is the best thing since sliced bread! I major in Information Technology, and plan on breaking the news at my graduation! Don't know how I'll say it but it will include thinking outside the box!

Nice Synthetic Flag!! Are you currently living in Florida? Good luck with finishing up school, I wish I could be there the day that you let everyone in on your little secret! Hope to talk with you some more in the future, stop by our IRC channel #ubuntu-us-fl.

Have a great one!

Chris Crisafulli itnet7

syntheticflag said: Hi I'm Ben From Ohio. Lived in San Antonio, and Corpus Christi TX for a few years, but started here in Ohio and ended up coming back. I have always been under the impression that Microsoft Windows was the only OS there was. Started out with DOS, then DOS + Windows 3.1, and all versions between that and XP. I was like the teenager who wrecked a car every month. I would wear windows out until it would crash and burn over and over and over, well you get the point. It got tiring re-installing windows every few months.

I had a friend introduce me to Red Hat LINUX and I kind of liked it, and then I stumbled upon Ubuntu 8.04. It was love at first sight, and 8.10 was even better. And now here I am with 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope! Ubuntu Linux is the best thing that I have ever used. I dual booted with windows for a while, and one day I realized somthin's got to go. I formated my drive, re-partitioned for only Ubuntu. Now I do not run windows at all, and I even attend the University of Phoenix on line using Ubuntu (Shh Don't tell!). Microsoft Windows XP or better, plus microsoft word are both system requirements to attend. Open office is the best thing since sliced bread! I major in Information Technology, and plan on breaking the news at my graduation! Don't know how I'll say it but it will include thinking outside the box!

Hey syntheticflag! I grew up in San Antonio. Now in Gainesville. Congrats on fixing your windows partition.

Dan

My name is Derek. Born in 1971 here in Tallahassee and been here since. I knew of Linux since 2000 but never got to work with it. Last year I purchased an HP Pavilion Elite m9340f desktop PC. I wiped an old hard drive from my last computer, a Dell XPS. Then I installed the hard drive to use for additional video editing purposes. It was not used that much. I came across Maxolasersquad (known him since he was a kid) on Facebook and got an invite to the Ubuntu 9.04 release party at the Leon County Library. My curiousity led me to the Ubuntu website to research the program. While I did not get to go to the release party, I ended up downloading Ubuntu 9.04 (64-bit) and installing it on the additional hard drive. Been in love ever since. I am not a programmer and probably never will be, but I will learn as much as I can about Ubuntu when time allots.

aliencure said: My name is Derek. Born in 1971 here in Tallahassee and been here since. I knew of Linux since 2000 but never got to work with it. Last year I purchased an HP Pavilion Elite m9340f desktop PC. I wiped an old hard drive from my last computer, a Dell XPS. Then I installed the hard drive to use for additional video editing purposes. It was not used that much. I came across Maxolasersquad (known him since he was a kid) on Facebook and got an invite to the Ubuntu 9.04 release party at the Leon County Library. My curiousity led me to the Ubuntu website to research the program. While I did not get to go to the release party, I ended up downloading Ubuntu 9.04 (64-bit) and installing it on the additional hard drive. Been in love ever since. I am not a programmer and probably never will be, but I will learn as much as I can about Ubuntu when time allots.

You're definitely off to a great start!! Glad to hear your curiosity got the best of you!

:guitar:

Chris C. itnet7 #ubuntu-us-fl

Hi, I'm Jeffry from Bandung, Indonesia. I'm a student...

I've been trying ubuntu since January 2009...

in my mind for ubuntu,.

i think that is a nice operating system...

thx....):P

linux_holic said: Hi,

I'm Jeffry from Bandung, Indonesia. I'm a student...

I've been trying ubuntu since January 2009...

in my mind for ubuntu,.

i think that is a nice operating system...

thx....):P

Welcome!

My name is John and I live in Jacksonville. Used Ubuntu about a year ago. A friend talked me into putting Fedora 10 on my laptop, hate it. Want to come back but will need a lot of help with installation and configuration. Any help will be really appreciated.

jwkearney said: Used Ubuntu about a year ago. A friend talked me into putting Fedora 10 on my laptop, hate it. Want to come back but will need a lot of help with installation and configuration.

I had so much trouble a year ago I gave up and decided to wait "for Linux to catch up with Windows" before I tried again.

About 3 months ago I found that Linux has not only "caught up," but surpassed Windows in functionality, form, and sheer beauty.

I also found, much more recently, that it's extremely helpful for newbies like me to have several codecs and useful simple tools installed by default. My [COLOR="DarkGreen"]Crunchbang[/COLOR] installation was effortless and flawless and absolutely everything worked perfectly right out of the box. With "vanilla" Ubuntu it took a couple of days getting ndiswrapper and utilities (from another computer's internet connection) on a USB stick and copying it to Ubuntu to make wireless drivers work... even dialup (wvdial) capability has been removed from Ubuntu by default in 9.04.

I dunno why they'd want to make it so hard for dialup users, but it looks like the same kinda thing - use another computer with an internet connection, find the repositories, download the packages to a USB stick, transfer to Ubuntu, install, hope it works. Geez.

The Ubuntu forums are the best and friendliest tech support on Earth though! Be nice and patient and polite and there is nothing these wonderful people won't do for you!

-Robin

Hello. My name is Mike. I first got interested in Linux when I was introduced to it in college. My first distro was Fedora Core 4, and later I experimented with Ubuntu 6.06 some, but it wasn't until Ubuntu 9.04 was released that I have been using Linux full time at home.

I went to school for CS and am a database programmer by day. I am hoping that by joining up here I can motivate myself to contribute to the Ubuntu community in some way.

mikepark said: Hello. My name is Mike. I first got interested in Linux when I was introduced to it in college. My first distro was Fedora Core 4, and later I experimented with Ubuntu 6.06 some, but it wasn't until Ubuntu 9.04 was released that I have been using Linux full time at home.

I went to school for CS and am a database programmer by day. I am hoping that by joining up here I can motivate myself to contribute to the Ubuntu community in some way.

Welcome Mike! We'd love to have your contributions. You can check out the forum sticky for the location of our mailing lists and IRC. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FloridaTeam/GetInvolved is also usually updated with ongoing events.

dan

hi my name is phil i live in canada and no im not an eskomo ... that swhat people have asked if you live in canada are you an eskomo.. all i say now is i ride polar bears to work and the rich kids live in ice huts

well im 15 i program things im not a nerd lol surprisingly i play hockey and baseball and an very active

i use ubuntu because i hate viruses :D :popcorn:

Hi!

Sorry, I haven't gone through everyone's intros as there are 11 pages of them! That's great news though.

My name is Jamal Fanaian. I am a web developer, living in Casselberry (Greater Orlando area). I have been using Linux for a few years now, started playing a while ago and about 2 years ago hopped on Ubuntu as my primary OS. I have to admit, it is great. It is also about time I meet some people that are as excited about Linux and Ubuntu as I am so I decided to try to join this group and meet some people.

Hope to see you all soon! I will be keeping up with the event page :)

Thanks! Jamal

Hi!

My name is Chris and I'm from the Dallas, Texas area. I'm currently working on my Undergrad in Software Engineering. I've worked in Web Development, Mobile Applications, Automation and Telecom. My first linux distro was Fedora 4, and I began using ubuntu in 2007.

When I'm not working/studying, I enjoy rock climbing.

philcamlin said: hi my name is phil i live in canada and no im not an eskomo ... that swhat people have asked if you live in canada are you an eskomo.. all i say now is i ride polar bears to work and the rich kids live in ice huts

well im 15 i program things im not a nerd lol surprisingly i play hockey and baseball and an very active

i use ubuntu because i hate viruses :D :popcorn:

Welcome to the Florida Local Community Teams Forums! I am slightly confused, I thought eskimo's were from Alaska... and do you think your not a nerd simply because you play sports??? I'll bet you spend more than an hour or two on your computer a day! Well regardless Thanks for letting us know a little about you!

Chris C. itnet7/#ubuntu-us-fl/freenode <---- if you know what this means.. you might be wrong about the nerd thing!

:guitar:

jfanaian said: Hi!

Sorry, I haven't gone through everyone's intros as there are 11 pages of them! That's great news though.

My name is Jamal Fanaian. I am a web developer, living in Casselberry (Greater Orlando area). I have been using Linux for a few years now, started playing a while ago and about 2 years ago hopped on Ubuntu as my primary OS. I have to admit, it is great. It is also about time I meet some people that are as excited about Linux and Ubuntu as I am so I decided to try to join this group and meet some people.

Hope to see you all soon! I will be keeping up with the event page :)

Thanks! Jamal

Jamal,

Thanks so much for stopping by and letting us know a little bit about you! Keep your eye on our Team Project Page and swing into #ubuntu-us-fl on freenode to find out more about our upcoming events! Welcome aboard the team!

Chris C. itnet7/#ubuntu-us-fl/freenode

cph05a said: Hi!

My name is Chris and I'm from the Dallas, Texas area. I'm currently working on my Undergrad in Software Engineering. I've worked in Web Development, Mobile Applications, Automation and Telecom. My first linux distro was Fedora 4, and I began using ubuntu in 2007.

When I'm not working/studying, I enjoy rock climbing.

Hey there Chris, It was nice of you to swing in and give a litte info about yourself. I used to dig Rock Climbing (Indoors at a local gym) but haven't been able to climb for some time. We're glad that you took the time to visit our forums. Feel free to swing into #ubuntu-us-fl on freenode if you feel like chatting with the rest of the team!

Thanks,

Chris C.

itnet7/#ubuntu-us-fl/freenode

Hello - Chris from Kissimmee. I have been playing with Linux for quite some time (98-99) Currently running Ubuntu on a T105 Server, a laptop, as well as an old PC I use as a firewall/router.

I am good with at the console, lots of experieince with iptables, Beryl, and VMWare Server.

cpare said: Hello - Chris from Kissimmee. I have been playing with Linux for quite some time (98-99) Currently running Ubuntu on a T105 Server, a laptop, as well as an old PC I use as a firewall/router.

I am good with at the console, lots of experieince with iptables, Beryl, and VMWare Server.

Awesome. We have a python or packaging jam coming up in early september if you're interested in learning those things. We also have the Florida Linux Show coming up in October. Stay tuned to our mailing list for upcoming events. A bunch of us are always chatting in IRC. Good to see ya. Welcome!

dan

Hey, gang, I'm Mick up here in Jacksonville, FL. New to Ubuntu, but an old-school PC user a-la Commodore Vic-20 back in the day. LOL I'm teaching myself Ubuntu and am having some issues with hardware and wireless networking configs. I'll post in the appropriate threads with those. Glad to meet everyone! :D

mickcc2001 said: Hey, gang, I'm Mick up here in Jacksonville, FL. New to Ubuntu, but an old-school PC user a-la Commodore Vic-20 back in the day. LOL I'm teaching myself Ubuntu and am having some issues with hardware and wireless networking configs. I'll post in the appropriate threads with those. Glad to meet everyone! :D

Alright!! Old school Vic-20 representing! Welcome!

Hey all! Old time user of Ubuntu coming back from the shadows. Used Ubuntu many years a go but due to time, hardware changes and compatibility issues I had to swap back to the dreaded Windows. Thought I'd give Ubuntu another shot now and I must say I an mighty impressed with how far it has come since the last time I used it. Ran the live CD and EVERYTHING was detected and working flawlessly.

Just wanted to say well done to the community here, everyone involved with Ubuntu but most of all to the developers.

I look forward to reading everyones posts! Expect a lot of newbie questions to be flung around by myself =p.

Regards,

Tayl.

Tayl said: Hey all! Old time user of Ubuntu coming back from the shadows. Used Ubuntu many years a go but due to time, hardware changes and compatibility issues I had to swap back to the dreaded Windows. Thought I'd give Ubuntu another shot now and I must say I an mighty impressed with how far it has come since the last time I used it. Ran the live CD and EVERYTHING was detected and working flawlessly.

Just wanted to say well done to the community here, everyone involved with Ubuntu but most of all to the developers.

I look forward to reading everyones posts! Expect a lot of newbie questions to be flung around by myself =p.

Regards,

Tayl.

Welcome Aboard! Talk with you soon. You can join us in irc #ubuntu-us-fl (irc.freenode.net)

Warm Regards,

Chris Crisafulli Florida Team itnet7/#ubuntu-us-fl

mickcc2001 said: Hey, gang, I'm Mick up here in Jacksonville, FL. New to Ubuntu, but an old-school PC user a-la Commodore Vic-20 back in the day. LOL I'm teaching myself Ubuntu and am having some issues with hardware and wireless networking configs. I'll post in the appropriate threads with those. Glad to meet everyone! :D

You can also join us in our irc channel #ubuntu-us-fl on irc.freenode.net. or if you prefer you can use the Team Chat web-based irc client here, to quickly join in a pinch!

Talk with you soon!!

Chris Crisafulli Florida Team Ubuntu LoCo itnet7/#ubuntu-us-fl

Hello, everyone, I'm Russ from the Buckeye State. I've been using Linux for almost two years now, and I've run almost the entire Debian family at one time or another, although currently I only have Linux Mint 7 and Xubuntu 9.04 on this desktop.

Unlike some Linux-heads, I don't really hate MS. I don't necessarily trust them, but I don't hate them. I don't love them, either, but that's beside the point. I just prefer Linux, and using Ubuntu is easy.

There's a lot more to say about me, I guess, but none of it seems to matter to me at this moment. I guess we'll get to know each other as time goes on.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to say that I'm "mostly harmless."

Wandering Ronin said: Hello, everyone, I'm Russ from the Buckeye State. I've been using Linux for almost two years now, and I've run almost the entire Debian family at one time or another, although currently I only have Linux Mint 7 and Xubuntu 9.04 on this desktop.

Unlike some Linux-heads, I don't really hate MS. I don't necessarily trust them, but I don't hate them. I don't love them, either, but that's beside the point. I just prefer Linux, and using Ubuntu is easy.

There's a lot more to say about me, I guess, but none of it seems to matter to me at this moment. I guess we'll get to know each other as time goes on.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to say that I'm "mostly harmless."

Welcome! Ping us next time you're in Florida!

Dan

Hello,

I'm a relatively new Ubuntu user who's in over his head. I'm not even a little competent yet and already trying to help a number of friends. There's a story explaining that that I won't bore you with now. I may be a pain/burden for a while, as I have Karmic problems on three computers, including mine, one of which needs to be solved asap.

I learned about GNU/Linux in late '98 and became thrilled and excited about the entire FOSS movement (I could tell then that it would be a major change in society). But I've had endless problems first with hardware and then with software, first with Windows, then with Ubuntu. Sigh.

As any reader can tell, I'm no geek and never will be. But I seek as nearly complete software freedom as possible and to help all my friends and acquaintances learn the value of superior software. So, anyone who helps me will be helping a dozen or more people indirectly.

I met you, Dan, at the 9.04 Release party here in Tallahassee. It was good to meet you.

rlynwood said: Hello,

I'm a relatively new Ubuntu user who's in over his head. I'm not even a little competent yet and already trying to help a number of friends. There's a story explaining that that I won't bore you with now. I may be a pain/burden for a while, as I have Karmic problems on three computers, including mine, one of which needs to be solved asap.

I learned about GNU/Linux in late '98 and became thrilled and excited about the entire FOSS movement (I could tell then that it would be a major change in society). But I've had endless problems first with hardware and then with software, first with Windows, then with Ubuntu. Sigh.

As any reader can tell, I'm no geek and never will be. But I seek as nearly complete software freedom as possible and to help all my friends and acquaintances learn the value of superior software. So, anyone who helps me will be helping a dozen or more people indirectly.

I met you, Dan, at the 9.04 Release party here in Tallahassee. It was good to meet you.

:guitar: Great to hear from you! Check the team info post (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=387138) for more information on how to contact us ... we usually hang out in IRC, but the mailing list is always great too.

Dan

Hello there! My name is Chris and I live in Orlando, FL. I've been an Ubuntu user since 5.10 and was using Slackware and Gentoo before that.

During my day job I'm the IT guy and web developer for http://carsigns.com. In my spare time, I run a non-profit company called Caring Compy. With Caring Compy we take donations of computers, fix them up, install Ubuntu and give them other non-profits, families, and individuals that can't afford a computer. We even give training and support all free of charge.

I'm looking forward to being active in this great community.

caringcompy said: Hello there! My name is Chris and I live in Orlando, FL. I've been an Ubuntu user since 5.10 and was using Slackware and Gentoo before that.

During my day job I'm the IT guy and web developer for http://carsigns.com. In my spare time, I run a non-profit company called Caring Compy. With Caring Compy we take donations of computers, fix them up, install Ubuntu and give them other non-profits, families, and individuals that can't afford a computer. We even give training and support all free of charge.

I'm looking forward to being active in this great community.

It was great to see you in the channel and great to hear about the things you're doing with CaringCompy. Another great addition to the Florida Ubuntu LoCo team. We're all looking forward to helping out. Welcome.

dan

I'm Ankit from India. I'm an engineering student from Computer Science Deptt. I'm new to this forum as well as to ubuntu(3 months). But I really liked it and I guess I'll never use windows again.

ankit.vader said: I'm Ankit from India. I'm an engineering student from Computer Science Deptt.

I'm new to this forum as well as to ubuntu(3 months). But I really liked it and I guess I'll never use windows again.

Welcome Ankit. I suggest you look up your local Linux User Group as well. India has quite an active Linux community. Glad you're done with Windows... one more step to fixing Bug #1

Hello everyone. I'm Chris, currently living in Germany. I started using Unix over 20 years ago, and have gone back and forth between W*****s and Unix/Linux ever since. I saw some interesting features on the new Ubuntu 10.04 and decided to download it and try it out, and I am very impressed. Looks like it's time to get back to a REAL OS for awhile. :)

-CMJ

Hey everyone, I'm a Linux/FLOSS adopter and advocate in the Southwest FL area (think Fort Myers & Naples). I've been using and trying a long list of distros for the past couple of years, and am now settling on using Ubuntu as the OS of choice for my notebook.

Although I've tried a good number of different OS', I don't feel like I'm very up to snuff on figuring out things and fixing problems... heck, I know pretty much one terminal command (apt-get, thankfully), and sometimes feels like there are some things that I'm missing out on, but I can get it to work fine for me. So I may not be able really solve alot of problems, but hey, I make a nice piece of furniture, eh? :P

Anyways, I work as an over-the-phone technical support for a nationwide big-box retailer, and I'm a huge fan of and always telling people about open source software, and it's philosophy. And that's me in a nutshell, I'll work on joining the actual group through Launchpad once I figure that out!

:lolflag: howdy there I'm jamz 3243 (you can also call me joe). I'm not particularly new to ubuntu or Linux in general, I don't use windows at all and I have already started to "show off" just how great ubuntu can be when compared to Mac and windows at my school since my dad is the computer tech at the school I also have a mini linux network in the school. any who, I was browsing the forums and I realized that there was a LoCo team available for Florida and I was wondering if I could be a part of this team and if so how do I go about or how are things done...?

joedoe47 said: :lolflag:

howdy there I'm jamz 3243 (you can also call me joe). I'm not particularly new to ubuntu or Linux in general, I don't use windows at all and I have already started to "show off" just how great ubuntu can be when compared to Mac and windows at my school since my dad is the computer tech at the school I also have a mini linux network in the school. any who, I was browsing the forums and I realized that there was a LoCo team available for Florida and I was wondering if I could be a part of this team and if so how do I go about or how are things done...?

Sorry that it has taken this long to get back with you! I usually get notified by any posts to this thread, so that I can be sure to see if I can help out with any info. I did see that you have already joined us on Launchpad, but am not sure if you have already seen the wiki page and the Florida Team Site.

If you are interested we also hang out daily in #ubuntu-florida (redirects to #ubuntu-us-fl) in IRC on irc.freenode.net. Please let us know if you have any other questions.

For any event info and other miscellaneous team info check out the LoCo Directory.

Thanks for your time,

Chris Crisafulli Florida Team Lead itnet7/irc.freenode.net

G'day, Ken from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, I'm 46, have used only Ubuntu for the last 3 years, started playing with Linux way back in 1998 (Red Hat 5.2), however stuck with WinXP once it was released till 2007. Am expecting (if you can call it that) my 1st Grandchild in August (it's a girl (Aleera Rose)), am a qualified Tradesman Plasterer, but now work for a plasterboard supplier as a manager of a warehouse (doing all that it entails, and loving it). :D

wow playing with linux since red hat 5.2? thats a bit more than me I barely started working with linux in 2003 with xandros 2.

and I'm glad I stumbled onto this LoCo team, I think this is a great opportunity for me. thanks itnet7

Keith here in St. Petersburg.

I've been using Ubuntu for 2 years now. I only run Windows in a virtual machine these days.

Name is Eric.

I may be moving to Jacksonville and would like to get some local contacts for job connections and general nerdiness.

Like volunteering with Freegeek, video games, beer, and Ubuntu user since 5.04.

Hi bored and have some problems with my lib repository, thought it would be cool to muk it up, turns out that it wasnt ;)

Greetings! I'm retired and live in Bradenton. I have a AS degree in electronics from 1969, so I'm self-taught on computers. I messed around with some early free Red Hat Distros in the early 2000s and tried a couple of Unbuntu live CDs, with 11.04 I finally decided to use WUBI and actually install it on my main Win 7 machine! Linux has come a long way and aside from still having to set up my network to "see" my other computers, I think that this distro is a serious contender to get people to switch from Windows especially in an office setting. Of course, we still have the specialized software issue, only works on Windows or Mac, not on Linux, but for everyday tasks, Linux is just fine. Anyway, glad to see users in Florida. :)

Hello, my name is Chris & I'm new to the Ubuntu community.

I reside about half way between Tallahassee and Gainesville. I am currently studying to pursue a career in technical writing. I am hoping to work on the Ubuntu-Manual-Team so I can gain insight and knowledge of Ubuntu while gaining experience and building my resume.

It would be nice to network with others in the Ubuntu community; is anyone in the Tallahassee area?

I hope all are having a great summer!

Best regards,

Chris

Hi, my name is Jason, and I am an Ubuntu abuser....

I moved back to Panama City, FL and am looking to get more involved with the Ubuntu community.

Hi! I am Ansersion, a name from a cartoon character.Because of the request from school, I have to switch to use Ubuntu.Really a difficult-learning system! Now I have a videocard driver problem, and I come here,and would like to stay here ...In a word, hello everyone!

Hello!

I'm Nicholas or Nick for short, moved from NYC to Orlando, FL not too long ago.

Currently in East Orlando and working on a project of my own, I use Ubuntu on my desktop for just working purposes and Windows on my laptop for daily use.

Hope to get more involved with this community soon!!