Hello, My name is Richard Belken, I'm 17, and I live in Central Missouri. Really, in my area, I don't think that many people use Ubuntu... even mac for that matter. My friend does, though, but only because I gave him one of my old computers with Xubuntu on it... he actually does like it though, as the old junker I gave to him and his brothers is alot faster then their families XP computer up stairs... and thats pretty pathetic.
I would love to pass out Ubuntu CD's at my school.... but I have no clue what the outcome would be.... because I'm one of the few people there who's actually interested in computers...
As for my vo-tech class in Jefferson City, sure I will, as its a computer class, and they seem interested in technology enough. However, I'm probably gonna wait until Gutsy Gibbon comes out.
Anyways, I'm in my senior year, and when I graduate, I want to go to Linn Tech to learn computer programming.
Back last September, I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I liked computers, but programming looked pointless because I had no motivation towards programming, as windows had so many programs with people supporting them, and I had no interest in Linux, as my experience with red hat 8 was bad enough.... before the computer that was running it just crashed about 2 years earlier.
But all of a sudden, this friend of mine (not the one I mentioned above), all of a sudden picked up an interest in MSN messenger. Since he had no internet, he constantly used to come over to my house to use my computer.... and I couldn't really trust him with my computer, because hes gullible enough to click ANYTHING his friends send him, and when I got on to him about how I don't want my computer destroyed, he ignorantly told me that I was taking this too seriously, and that it wasn't a big deal if I got a virus on my computer.
I thought my problems would be solved when I got a 6 year old low profile computer. But they werent, because the thing took about 15 minutes to boot up, it was very sluggish, and it crashed all the time. He used it for a while, but eventually he started asking me if we could switch computers, which defeated the purpose of having that miniature computer. I was getting really desperate, because doing a spyware/virus check didn't help, and I wanted him off my computer in fear that he would mess it up, so I thought about giving linux a second try, even though I couldn't figure out how you were supposed to install anything... except by advanced terminal commands that I wasn't familiar with. Before I had stayed away from Linux, because I remember being on my copy of red hat for hours just trying to figure out how you were supposed to set up stuff. Before the computer it was on died on me, I only managed to install flash, real player, and yahoo messenger.
But even though red hat 8 was not a good experience for me, I was desperate enough to try it again, because I remember how Red hat sped up the old computer I installed it on. When I went to their website, I found out about the Fedora project. I originally intended to install Fedora on that computer, but the next day, while I was looking for tech articles for my article review assignment, I stumbled on a CNN article that said: "Former space tourist takes on Microsoft". It was about Ubuntu's goals, and what open source was. Back then I thought Open Source was just a term for Linux programming. I became really interested in Ubuntu, and during the weekend I installed Xubuntu on that computer. I was very impressed, because it turned the computer from piece of junk to something actually usable. Now it only took about 3-5 minutes to load, opposed to 15 when it was running windows 2000 pro. It was also much faster, and even though it still occasionally crashed, it still didn't crash anywhere as much, and it even competed against my main computer in loading time, so I was very impressed. About a month later, my main computer decided to mess up. Since I didn't have a reinstall disc, I just decided to get rid of windows and use ubuntu, because unlike redhat 8, ubuntu actually had synaptic, which put most of my installing needs to an end, not to mention it was easier to use.
Although my friend still asked to switch, because flash player occasionally lost sound, but he didn't ask near as much, and at about that time, he stopped coming over to my house.
Ever since then, Ive wanted to learn programming so I can help Linux in some way... I just haven't found it yet, but I'm sure I will eventually.
I hope I'll enjoy my time here. :)