This Is An Amazing Place!!

[JusGellin]

I'm just amazed at all the changes going on here by all of you.
What kind of backgrounds do you come from to be able modify all of these variety of linux systems?

Do you have a set way that you use to modify things so that you do mostly the same thing when you would like to make a change?
There has to be a huge amount of thought that goes into this.
You sure must have a lot of intelligence to be able to do this.

Thanks for all you do. I hope you are having lots of fun.

Again this is just amazing to see.

[mikewalsh]

@JusGellin :-

Heh. Y'know, very few - if any - of us actually come from a computer-centric or even technical background. Puppy is basically a "hobbyist" distro, and for most of us, that's exactly what all this is.......a hobby.

Oh, sure; many of us have in all likelihood had an interest in this stuff for years.....my own interest dates right back to the late 70s/early 80s (around the time I left school), when the "home computer revolution" first kicked off in earnest. That in itself tells you something else about me.....and that's my age. Which is the same sort of age group as many others here, and means that a lot of us are semi-retired by now, if not fully retired. Which gives us lots more time to play!

Some of us are better at it than others. (Some are also considerably younger - I believe dimkr falls into this category - but then he's also much better at it than most of us!)

And then there's me. I don't take any of this seriously. I'm a bumbler. I potter about, messing around with odd bits of code.....every time I try and put summat together, I constantly amaze myself if & when I manage to make it work. My compiling skills are atrocious, my scripting is mediocre at best. Every time I open Geany, I massacre Bash. Seriously!

So why, you may ask, don't I try to improve my skills?

Haven't got the time, for one thing. Looking after a 91-yr old with heart problems, spinal arthritis and various other issues doesn't leave me a lot of "play-time". But i still keep coming back, and continue murdering Bash. You wanna know why?

'Cos it's FUN. Simple as that. And it gives me a break from real life.....

As for:-

You sure must have a lot of intelligence to be able to do this.

.....erm, well; OK. Nice of you to say so (though in my case, that's highly debatable! ) It has been said, at many different times and in many different places, that the average Linux user is usually of higher intelligence than the average Windows user. I have NO idea if there's any truth in that 'statement'. It seems rather dismissive, don't you think.....even vaguely 'elitist'? i mean, what do you even begin to base a statement like that ON?? And for anyone who makes such a statement, what gives them the right to make such off-hand remarks in the first place?

([*rant killed in its tracks...*] Nah, I'm not riding that 'hobby horse'! The seat's too uncomfortable.... )

Like I said above, for me it's just FUN. Pure & simple.

(*shrug...*)

Mike.

[rockedge]

Starting in the mid 1970's I began to have a lot of interest in computers and programming. I loved the hardware and everything about computers. The concept of a HAL 9000 was so intriguing to me I was looking for computer science programs offered by various Universities to apply to as I was due to graduate High School in 1980. But life experience changed the course and I ended up in the military. There I did well on tests and chose a job as a Weapon Systems Control Mechanic for the MA-1 computer onboard the F-106 Delta Dart interceptor. The close as I could get to computer technology.

I ended up working as a Veterinary Technician in an animal hospital somehow by fate and chance. I went to night school to learn IBM mainframe sysadmin and batch job scripting. Then it was discovered that I was good at being a Gaffer and had a lot of talent lighting Film sets for cinematography. So worked for a long time in the movie and television business making movies, shows and live sports.

One day I had been given some computers for free that were being trashed. I thought I could use a Linux for them......I found Puppy Linux.

All along I really wanted to be a computer engineer and programmer. So now I act as if and here we are.

[rockedge]

Do you have a set way that you use to modify things so that you do mostly the same thing when you would like to make a change?

Yes. Eventually a routine to quickly mount a decompressed KLV rootfs using a script was developed by @wiak and is what I use. Then running the chroot'ed rootfs run the XBPS package manager from the terminal command line to do a complete system update/upgrade. Followed by cleaning the rootfs and then squashing it into the rootfs SFS.

Extracting a fresh Void Linux kernel has a routine as well and can be done fairly quickly.

[gychang]

interesting thread....

[mikewalsh]

interesting thread....

@gychang ;-

From what I recall, Greg, there used to be no end of "odd" or "interesting" threads like this on the old forum, too. For some of us, it was almost like a "home from home"....

If memory serves, I started one on the Murga forum, within a couple of months of joining, that ran on for more than 14 pages! It was just a general ramble about anything & everything Puppy-related (or otherwise). Hardware, software, Puppies, tweaks, tips, general reminiscing.......it was ALL "fair game".

Yup, here ya go:-

https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=96487

Mike.

[geo_c]

If memory serves, I started one on the Murga forum, within a couple of months of joining, that ran on for more than 14 pages! It was just a general ramble about anything & everything Puppy-related (or otherwise). Hardware, software, Puppies, tweaks, tips, general reminiscing.......it was ALL "fair game".

Yup, here ya go:-

https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=96487

Mike.

Hadn't visited the old forum in awhile. I've got posts all the way back from 2010 I think running Lucid Pup at the time. And I was very bad at the "forum etiquette" back then. It was all new to me. I never posted on ANY forums before using puppy.

These OSs, of course linux in general, but all the flavors of Kennel distros in particular, have come a LONG way since then. A lot of things used to be kind of difficult to do, print, get specialized audio hardware drivers installed, etc...

At this stage of the game my main problem is not being able to keep up with and use and maintain all of the cool OS's available here.

[gychang]

Yup, here ya go:-

https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=96487

Mike.

@mikewalsh Mike, you are one of the main players on this forum stage...

[ozsouth]

When I went to uni in the early 70s, there weren't computer courses per se. I failed 2 science courses & got a government clerical job. In the late 70s, there WERE courses in oz, so I did a 1 year IT certificate course. Having found something I had some aptitude for, I foolishly didn't continue studying. I dabbled in Commodore-16 & AT-286s & programmed in Basic.
When my parents business badly needed automation, I wrote a stock control program, running in a ramdisk, started with a bootable dos data floppy & 'sneakernet' to the salesmen's pc's (they got an updated floppy each morning).
In my regular work, years later, when a computer upgrade trashed the software I was hired to use, the manager said 'find a way, at no cost, if you want to keep your job'. So over a long weekend I wrote an program in QuickBasic. Used it for 10 years until I convinced a big wig to use online software I'd tweaked.
As for Linux, I started with Mandrake in 1999 & switched to Puppy in 2005. 10 years ago, when a community radio station had folk often messing up the studio pc's, a friend asked me to make a locked down linux with only a clock, calendar & Firefox. Slacko-5.6 ruled! After near 20 years of Puppy & retired, it keeps my brain going.

[fredx181]

I'm just amazed at all the changes going on here by all of you.
What kind of backgrounds do you come from to be able modify all of these variety of linux systems?

Do you have a set way that you use to modify things so that you do mostly the same thing when you would like to make a change?
There has to be a huge amount of thought that goes into this.
You sure must have a lot of intelligence to be able to do this.

Thanks for all you do. I hope you are having lots of fun.

Again this is just amazing to see.

Sure this is an amazing place !
Let's say also: "Linux is an amazing place" !!
The Linux principle of "Open Source", opens an incredible amount of doors for opportunities, too much to mention all here, but lets's say for example "Creativity" which is something that goes for many stuff people create to serve many humans by adding positivity/lightness in their lives, think of Art, Music, etc...

All people posting here have different backgrounds, I think.
Some have much basic computer science education, some have developed expertise in some things, for example how to compile a kernel (e.g. as @ozsouth and others do (with all crazy amounts of possibilities), some know all (well... a lot) about printers or whatever... Graphics etc...
So all the variety of knowledge combined makes it great !

Indeed as @mikewalsh says, time is a big factor, sometimes I can't believe myself how much time I did spent on fixing some small problem or to create a simple program (and may get to enormous frustration, that you need to "shake off" to continue again with your "normal" life ).
But as I think Mike says too, in the end it's fun to do (I'm also a hobbyist, often trying to explore new things, e.g with using bash, gtkdialog, yad and learning never ends of course)