Welcome to my blog
Hi, this is Mark and this is my first time creating a blog. I was recently listening to a "Ubuntu Podcast #25" from www.ubuntuos.com. Sal, one of the podcast team suggested that every new Ubuntu/Xubuntu user create a blog to record what they've learned and things they've tried.... so here I am!
I'm going to go ahead and use this blog to record my personal adventures with Ubuntu Linux 6.10 (Edgy Eft). Here's my brief story:
I have been a Windows user for most of my professional life (many years, actually I can date my starting computer experience to the Apple IIe and MS-DOS, yes... the some really old days.) I currently manage a team of Windows/Solaris System Administrators and Network Engineers. Several of my Unix System Administrators routinely use Ubuntu Linux at work. I often wondered what the big attraction was for them and why they choose to snub Windows (the software on 90% of personal computers today.) I often loaded and tested different distributions of linux under VMware Player in Windows XP, but never really spent more than just a few minutes poking around.
So just before Christmas 2006, I was taking a quick break from my regular schedule of work, ministry (I lead a community group in my congregation) and college (I decided to go back and finish the degree I started many years ago), I decided to learn more about network security and realized that there were a lot of tools out there that ran on linux. So I decided it was time to blaze the trail and really learn about it and how to use it. Then I could move forward with network security tools.
For a while now, I have spent lots of time downloading various live CD distros trying to decide what I would settle on. I found that I liked the "gnome" interface and tended to go back to distros that used this. Eventually I settled on Ubuntu. I'll post later on about my search process.
A few weeks ago I converted a four year old Compaq Evo laptop, 500mb ram and 30mb hard drive that used to run Windows XP into a dedicated Ubuntu system. It was my desire to use this system more and more at home so that I could get familiar with it.
I've up and running on it for several weeks. I'm using the system right now to type this blog.
Stay tuned... more to come!
