Who IS that cracked man? (Or, Will Danger Come to Regret His Generosity?)

After a number of email correspondences between Danger and myself, he made the startlingly generous offer of a guest column on his website, to allow me to air my views without let or hindrance.

Truly, this is a kind gesture. I’d been contemplating starting my own website, but time and other issues left me of the belief that it wasn’t the best idea since it seemed likely I wouldn’t be able to update it regularly. A guest column allows me to write when and if the Muse strikes.

A few things need to be made clear at the outset:

1. Despite the nickname, Danger is really a very nice person.

2. I am not.

3. Because #1 and #2 are in stark contrast to one another, let it be known here and now that the opinions expressed in this column are my own. Danger is neither the author, nor is he responsible for any opinions aired here. If someone has a grip about what I say, a) don’t bother Danger about it, as it’s not his doing, b) feel free to respond to me, c) I may reply, d) I may not reply, e) if I don’t reply, and you were expecting one, get used to disappointment and goto (f)

f) tough.

I used to be a Windows user. I thought that this was going to be for life, but the nice man (Linus Torvalds) granted me a full pardon.

Let it be known that I am now a Linux user. The vast and serried ranks of ones and naughts on my hard drives are not tainted by any trace of MicroSoft code. In fact, I now have hard drives which have never been sullied by MicroSoft code, and I shall guard that status as assiduously as any father has ever guarded his daughter’s virginity.

It shames me to admit that there is still Windows usage going on in my household. My other half has a Windows partition on her drive. The only consolation that can be gained from this is that she, as is the norm with Windows users, is constantly dealing with a plethora of irritating problems. As the resident techno-geek whenever she has one of the all-too-common Windows ailments and pleads with me to “fix the damned computer,” I now have a Wilde-ean reply: “My dear, don’t you know that I don’t do Windows?”

Since this transformation has come about in only the last six months, there are some who might say, “Oh, he’s going through a phase,” or “He’s suffering from the fanaticism of a new recruit.”

In reality, I’m reverting to a prior state. I was originally a MacHead, having purchase one the year they came out (1984). Prior to that, I used a Commie 64, and from ‘83-95 I dabbled with MS-DOS, becoming fairly proficient with it, but never liking it.

In the ’90’s, events forced me from my Macintosh Elysium into the Orwellian world of Windows–a world of buggy software, slovenly customer service, frequent system crashes and lockups and virii galore. A world of arrogance it was, born of monopoly. It was there that I remained, fundamentally dissatisfied, until Linux began to come of age.

I’d heard of Linux by the early-mid ’90’s, not too long after Linus Torvalds released his first version. However, like most, I dismissed it as a novelty until the late ’90’s when I realized that a significant and growing percentage of the servers on the internet were running Linux.

A motherboard death, followed shortly by the gift of a new computer, complete with SimplyMEPIS Linux disc, granted me asylum from my own private Cleveland. I quickly segued from MEPIS to other distros and have finally settled on using DamnSmallLinux while I assay a stage 1 Gentoo installation. Further enhancements to my comptuer status have resulted in our household now having three computers, two AMD Semprons (mine) and the other half’s AMD K-6. All three have at least one Linux distro on them and once I get WINE running on her K-6, the other half assures me that I will be allowed to remove Windows from her drive. That will leave only one MicroSoft product in the household, an optical mouse…and it was a gift.

That’s the way it should be.

Cheers,
Gary