Idea: Linux for Home

[Martin Laberge]

On October 6, 2007 14:23:47 Brian Fahrlander wrote:
> 
>      Mine is a low-tech town. Over seven years I've lived here, taking 
> care of my aging Mom, looking for Linux work that barely exists at all. 
> The 30 years of computing I've been doing means little here; one of my 
> resume qualifications is "mechanically inclined". It has 300,000 people, 
> they're just completely unaware of anything but Windows.
> 
>      Over the years I've felt a strong, strong urge to set up an in-home 
> Linux support company.  Here's the idea:
> 
>      For $50 I come and install, say, Feisty. I set them up with their 
> firewall and ssh. For $20 a month, I'm on-call, so long as I don't have 
> to actually GO anywhere or bring equipment, the fixes are free. For 
> another $10/month, I rsync their home directories for safekeeping.
> 
>      The problem is in trying to replace my job; long before I get 
> enough clients to do this alone, it will demand time that will keep me 
> from getting a job (although once the Fed and the child support are done 
> with it, I make less than $75/week,)
> 
>      When the idea first came up I was on Redhat, and intended to keep 
> the root password so that nothing could be changed, increasing security. 
> But with Ubuntu's ability to add program with ease, I suppose I'll let 
> them keep it.
> 
>      - Is anyone out there doing this in their town?
> 
>      - Ideas?
> 
> -- 
>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>   Brian Fahrländer                 Christian, Conservative, and Technomad
>   Evansville, IN                              http://Fahrlander.net/brian
>   ICQ: 5119262                         AOL/Yahoo/GoogleTalk: WheelDweller
>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 

I am living the same thing as you seem to live now.

I am a 30 years-experience Unix guy (over 45 old) and just lose my wife
and my little girl of 4 1/2 years old, trying to keep up with living in Linux.

For the last 7 years I was the R&D director of a company with 25 Linux workstations
serving a batch or 50+ users on differents workstations in real time,
and 3 Linux servers, 5 high-speed laser printers (60pg/min) with multiple trays
for the multiples users, 10 different kind on single user lasers and inkjet printers,
25 palms for representatives sending orders from 500 miles away, a web catalog
and command center for customers, and a C++ proprietary application for a manipulation
of 18000 differents products, with 3600 differents customers/accounts, 
of a batch of 350 differents suppliers... with all the things that those of you
who have lived it can imagine that come with this infrastructure.

Running the whole company on Linux. 
(Except: 1 win-95 machine in the aeration control room installed by the Aeration contractor).

This company infrastructure was the work of a team of 1 poeple over 7 years. (me)

Then I crushed. (burn-out... seems I was doing too much as the  doctor says)

And the company, 28 days later, declared a request for protection from creance.
And closed 28 days later this obtention.

One year later I loosed my wife, my little girl, my sole...

Linux was, and will allways be the better thing you can use.
But sometimes there are traps. Being alone in a bunch of others
have a price. If there were others to maintain the cie, after my burn out
then THIS would may had been different.

Enough of Whining!!!!!

If Linux (and ?ubuntu) is to come a way of life as windows is now,
then more poeple will have to be Linux'ers in every town.

You can find a Windows replacement (with price) about anywhere.

But you can't find a Linux replacement (even with price) except some rare places.

All this marvellous infrastructure, builded within the last seven years
just did'nt survived the creator. (who just burned-out and lost his wife)

************

I am not here to whine, but to help those of you who
can take a lesson here, and maybe take actions to
make it better.

(please, someone, do not repeat my errors)



-- 
Martin Laberge, 30 years of unix admin... and still learning!
mlsoft at videotron.ca
(418) 575-2945