Ex University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
Started playing with Linux as an alternative to MS Windows 1996. It wasn't much use to the ordinary person back then with a lot of crashes and poor hardware support. Over the following ten years Linux in various forms came on in leaps and bounds with lots of opportunities for the OS and of course I saw the big hitters like Red Hat making in-roads in different types of establishments like Education, Corporate Business and I heard talk of the Police making use of it. Where it appeared to be coming into its' own was the film industry. Movies like Shrek demanded a way to manipulate the onscreen characters in real-time and apparently hundreds of programmers were employed to use Linux to do just this along with Linux itself being built to accommodate the specific tasks required. Something MS Windows and Apple OS could not do.
Around 2006 I started with a little known Linux version that really attracted me for its' sleekness and utter reliability. A couple of years later I was an Admin with this now almost forgotten version of Linux called Ultimate Edition Linux.
The amount of customisation compared with the norm was out of this world and at long last I felt like I had an environment that I could truly make my own.
I didn't write code in my Admin role - I was seen as a tester because I had several different make of pc and laptops at my disposal. Along with this I had years of toying with installs and many records of fixes for this and that when people were having difficulty. It was great to be able to help.
I ventured down the CrunchBang Linux route too. Just as an experiment to start with. To see how much could be done with a minimal system. I have tried the current day offering of CrunchBang++ but the producers have a bit to do with the install image as they have not written it to work properly with USB sticks. The image still looks for a cdrom device part way into the install and cannot continue. I have tried a couple of different methods for burning the image and different USB sticks to no avail.
So, by this you can tell that I like Linux in one form or another and it is my main OS of choice.
Apart from having a hobby like this I am an ex electronics workshop supervisor although I didn't specialise in electronics but rather Instrument Maintenance. Specifically maintaining and repairing scientific equipment.
I yearn for independence for my country so that we may make our own way in the world once more instead of being 'kept in tow' as part of a United Kingdom that totally threw away all the income from North Sea oil instead of banking it like Norway has for the future benefit of people. Now of course the oil is running out of both supply and favour.
I have had many cars with Japanese and German companies my favourites for modern tech and reliability.
I dabble in putting alternative operating systems on to smart phones with varying degrees of success.