[UbuntuWomen] Just joined

[Jackie]

Hello,

I just joined the list today. My name is Jackie. I work in the legal field
in a non-technical position, but I've always been a computer geek at heart.
I've ruined more operating systems than I really should admit, but sometimes
we learn best by making mistakes... I've learned a great deal by breaking
things.  :-)

My primary home computer runs Win XP; I need it for when I have to work at
home (like tonight). I've never really had any major problems with XP, but I
prefer Linux because it's elegant, light, powerful, and not wasteful of
resources. I like the whole idea of open sourced software. I love to
experiment with computers and software, and open sourced stuff really
encourages creativity and experimentation!

I consider myself a "dabbler" in Linux. My first experience with Linux was
installing Yellow Dog 2.0 on an old Mac Power PC as a dual-boot system with
Mac OS 8. I wish someone would've talked me out of that little endeavor-- I
think I had about 300 more grey hairs on my head immediately afterwards. The
next installation was SuSE 7.0 on a 166 MHz Pentium that I bought in early
1996. Both systems worked okay for what they were, but I didn't have much
spare time to use them. I eventually gave both computers to my son's best
friend, who scrounged them for parts.

I obtained an Ubuntu CD set a couple of years ago. I tried the live CD and
thought it looked great, but I chickened out on actually installing it. I
didn't want to attempt to install a dual-boot system on my computer for fear
that I would erase saved work data. So, Ubuntu waited for a time when I
could obtain a spare computer.

My employer's IT department recently had several older computers/monitors
they planned to send off for recycling, and I asked if I could take a set of
them home. I chose a Celeron 700 MHz with 128 megs of RAM. I popped the
Ubuntu CD out of its case, installed it on my new/old computer... voila! The
installation went without a hitch and everything seems to work just fine. I
have a cable Internet connection and it worked as soon as I connected it to
my router. I wasn't able to get the Internet up and running quite as easily
on the previous two Linux installs!

So, I've paid a grand total of $10.00 to get an old 'puter up and running on
Linux (I had to replace the keyboard). My boyfriend tried out Linux for the
first time yesterday. I gave him a short tutorial on the Gnome interface,
and he was off and running. He was *very* impressed by how easy and fast it
is to use. Then, he asked me if I would install it on a spare laptop
computer he has sitting around... perhaps we have another convert ?!

I quickly realized from browsing online forums that my current version of
Ubuntu is several distros behind the newest one. I'm running Warty Warthog
for now, and I just ordered a Dapper Drake CD. Hopefully it will be here
sooner than later.

My goals in Linux? Well, first of all, I'd like to learn a lot more about
the terminal and become familiar with more than just basic commands. I would
also like to try some programming. I took BASIC in college years ago, and I
played around some with Visual Basic 6.0, just for fun. I haven't done any
programming at all in about 6 years though.

I'm looking forward to reading the mail traffic here and learning lots of
things. I will probably do more lurking than posting until I get a better
idea of what I'm working with-- I don't plan on doing a whole lot in my
current OS until I get the newest version. I plan to do a clean install of
Dapper over the Warty version I'm using now.

Greetings to all from the *very* hot state of Minnesota... it will be 41
degrees C., or about 102 F. here this weekend, so I will not be going
outdoors if I can help it!

Jackie