Long time Linux user comes to Garuda

Garuda Community Introduce yourself
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I realized I've been around now for a couple months now, have made some merge requests into Garuda already, and been active (more so in the Discord/Matrix than the forums), but, I figure it's time to introduce myself.

Hi! I'm Psi-Jack! Been using Linux for.... Just over 30 years now, and I'm going to continue to do so. I've used other operating systems... Windows up to NT 4.0 in a serious manner, but up to about 7 in occassional piddling. I use macOS on a regular basis for personal and business use, as it's generally my choice when the company offers me a company laptop, to go with a MacBook Pro because it interoperates very well with pretty much anything "business" related and isn't Windows. I've also used other operating systems, AIX, Irix, Solaris, SunOS, OS/2. etc etc etc..

So, yeah, been around a bit. I program, though I am not a software engineer, just a hobby/casual programmer, in various languages including Python, Rust, Pony, C++, PHP, and bash/zsh scripting. I've done other languages including Perl, Pascal, Dynamic C, and some lisp only for what's needed, and similarly lua. Ancient history languages I've worked with have been COBOL, Fortran, RPG, and BASIC (c64 and cisc).

So, all in all, a very.... diverse background and jack of all trades of knowledge set... I've literally forgotten more Linux than most people will likely ever know in their lifetimes, because of how long I've been using it extensively and primarily.

Oh, and I still run an actual BBS system, you know the things that pre-dated the internet? Yes those. And so while I don't use modern day forums so much because they're just nothing like the simplicity of the BBS forums I'm so used to. :slight_smile:

Oh! And I used to be in the USA in Florida, but I moved up north to Canada where it feels more like home should've been anyway! Really, it's my wife that wanted to come back here, as she was the one actually born here. Somewhat newly weds as we just got married April this year technically...

Hi! Hello! Bonjour! Aloha! Hej! And all that!

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:slight_smile:

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Welcome, Bienvenue sur le forum !

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Welcome friend! Wish you all the best.

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Welcome to Garuda and the Great White North. I was loving everything in your personal history that you wrote until you got to the marriage part. My condolences, but I guess she at least got you up to
North of the 49th. By the way, if you haven't visited the Northern Territories in the summer it is a must see. You can't consider yourself Canadian until you've done that. :polar_bear:

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Well, this is my second marriage, actually. The first one was.... Yeah, bad. This one, however, makes me quite the happy one and we work well together in pretty much nearly everything, which is something you can't always say. We support each other well, we talk, we can even be honest with each other and say, "I want to be alone for the day", and that's OK. My ex-wife was such a narcissist, everything had to be her way or she would make a big multi-hour long ordeal out of it. Was.... Quite ridiculous.

And I plan to actually go see the Northern Territories at some point, especially when I get my PR card finally. At the very least, that's what I want soonest, so I can start transferring the remaining things from US region to CA region, getting a new bank account, new credit card, transfer my Apple account to Canada from US, because I can't install everything, etc...

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So you were a Slacker (slackware) at some point? :smiley:

Welcome to the best distro (Garuda)! :smiley:

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Worse! I started off with SLS, PRIOR to Slackware’s existence. Then later Slackware existed. It’s too bad that Patrick Volkerding ended up being a ruthless dictator over it and still does to his very day.

So far, so good. :slight_smile:

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I think that predates Slackware. Wow. Linux is 31 years old and you used it for 30 years.

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Correct, and… Correct! I used Linux since nearly the beginning, around the 0.99.x era…

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A question ?
What made you choose/use Garuda

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Up this question .. erm I mean: Yeah I'd be curious about the answer to it too. :flushed:

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Oooohhhh a "Slacker".

I started out on Slackware 1.2. I'm all grown up now & use Garuda :slight_smile:

Welcome to the forum...from an ex-pat Canuck....I don't miss their winters.

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Quite a change! From long snowy cold winters to long dry hot Outbacks! :smiley:

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Yes but you can always put on another sweater when it gets cold outside. I don't find it too appealing to work in 120 degree heat. Once you're down to nothing but shorts what next? Ice packs to stay cool, it's hard to even keep your beer frosty at those temps. :sunrise_over_mountains: :beer:

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Quite honestly, it was the amazingly well considered setup of the default install, which I always focus on the initial out-of-box original setup of a distro. Fedora's was pretty impressive, but still to this day lacks a proper snapshots setup.
Garuda's considered most aspects of snapshot's proper setup and did it right, the first distro I have seen to actually do so, considering /srv, /root, /var/log, /var/tmp, and /var/cache, these things are very nice to have NOT part of the standard snapshots. Even EndeavourOS, whom I considered as well, didn't get it quite right, though you can customize the installation way more, with little effort.

And too, the community. Especially the live community, bridged between Telegram (Which I now hate because of what their own staff did to me in the very short time I used Telegram), Discord, Matrix, and yes, some random IRC server out there as well :rofl:. Actually caring enough to bridge them all for everyone's sake and try to make it work out as best as possible. I'd seen EndeavourOS's various Telegram, Matrix, and IRC, but none of them were bridged, and were all completely independent and that's just not useful. It actually is a major hindrance and turn-off.

And lastly... Communication, knowledge, and the desire to improve. Involved people, like myself, that wanted to step up and do something to help benefit the distro, was welcomed. Garuda's a fork of arch linux, yes, but it's got custom solutions to various things to make it easier to install and maintain for more people.

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Actually I landed softly at first (softlander linux system) :rofl:

Thanks! And I’m actually looking forward to my first winter here. I hate the heat, and I prefer colder, at least when you’re cold, you can always get warm, but when you’re hot, there’s literally only so much you can do before you shrivel up into a little ball of goo, that would eventually evaporate too…