Hi I thought I'd type up a little (but long) "hi-hello" since barging in on discussions all of a sudden may be sending the wrong signal (read: rude). I'm not good with such things anyway - in both virtual _and_ physical reality. We'll all get to know each other better through time and events (I'll try my best to attend them), so I'll keep this Linux- and OSS-oriented.
I never knew SLUG was this active, or even _active_. I'd always believed there was close to 0 activity in Singapore with regards to Linux, though I knew there'd be commercial and corporate entities backing up these software to some extent. My participation was - and still is - as far as the HardwareZone, VR-Zone and www.sglnx.com forums. I conclude that most local enthusiasts are born out of work or graduate studies where Linux is used fairly a lot. I for one, got into it due to interest, solely (you may call it passion). Not exactly "new" to Open Source, I _am_ to the local scene since I've yet to attend any sort of meetup. It hasn't been that long either since I first mounted an "ext3", I would say, almost 2 years according to http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showpost.php?p=19072341&postcount=64(pardon the entire content of the post; it's foolish) and here's something to laugh at: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202626 Basically, I was and am an average teenager with strange interests; computers, among others. I really (honestly) don't know why I thought of Linux but most of it was due to a machine which failed to abide by my rules, as far as I can remember. Initially found Ubuntu via Wikipedia's list (or was it just an article?) of "free as in free beer" GNU/Linux distributions, and from the LiveCD experiences I ultimately decided on installing Kubuntu. To this day, I still am of the camp which says Ubuntu (GNOME) is - in cosmetic ways - archaic. Anyhow, after a few trial sessions of both the distributions I planned to submit to Fedora. I was, yet again, unimpressed. Eventually, I ended up back with Ubuntu for some reason. It remained that way for a while until I met Sabayon Linux, from which I had come to appreciate Gentoo for being what it is. Along the way I managed to "try" Freespire, Dreamlinux and eLive. I'm a big fan of the latter for being extremely good with old hardware, so I've religiously followed each and every release while donating to download the images. In short - I love Qt, KDE, Enlightenment, Xmonad, Nano and Kwrite. Early 2007, I deployed a Gentoo system in hopes of transforming it into a Digital Audio Workstation. I'm not a prominent musician, nor am I that well-versed in any instrument. I had a few gigs, shamelessly appeared on the papers a number of times, and worked at Yamaha for a while but that's about it. Primarily a hobbyist without much dough, I just wanted a value-for-money DAW with which I could produce amateur music. Unfortunately, I never did get it right. Stability is key for any such platform, and my "ricer" characteristics slowly took over. From wanting a DAW, it seemed like I changed my mind into wanting something which "doesn't work". I don't know much coding besides scripting in Bash, though I'm in the process of falling in love with Python. I hope to get comfortable with Qt design, Perl and C++ programming soon. Strangely, I find no interest in Java or Ruby. This is where I end my story, with Arch Linux. Indirectly introduced to by a person going by the alias "Balto" in various forums, I'm greatly thankful that my journey was completed with a huge wall in front bearing the message, "This is Arch Linux - where YOU stop." Stability meets power, enough said. As you can probably guess by now, I haven't used that many distributions. In fact, I wouldn't be joking if I said there were less than 5. Whatever it is, I'm not going any further. Arch Linux is where I am, and hopefully will be, until something unexpected occurs. So yes, I'm now back to getting a working DAW up and it's looking good (you can find me preaching about Linux in www.soft.com.sg forum). When the time comes, you will all have a listen ;) Like I mentioned, I'm a hobbyist. Professionally, I do freelance computer repair/administration, traditional (macabre) art, and audio production in the form of sequencing drum tracks and software synthesising - nothing fancy or worthy of mention. I love to write too, even have some leftover copies of novels which I intended to complete when I was much younger. None of them even reach chapter 1. I wonder, though, why I've yet to put up a blog. Maybe I just don't like the act of blogging or find it pointless. I have a few online aliases, namely "schivmeister", "maxhurt", "aeto" and "gutturalpiss" - all of them portraying different personalities to distort perception. Oh my, whom am I kidding with? P.S: You know, you didn't have to read every line of this. Regards Ray Rashif
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