Episode: 1547
Title: HPR1547: My Linux Experience Birthday Special
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1547/hpr1547.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 04:52:26

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Hello Hacker Public Radio.
This is David and it's on my birthday today, so I want to talk to you about how I came to
find Linux and why I use Linux.
Beans house my birthday, I'd like to tell you about my favorite birthday cake.
My mother used to make this for me, it's called an Ambrosa Sunshine Cake.
It was in the Pillsbury little book she got for collecting coupons and this was back
in the 60s and you could always tell that she made this cake a lot because Paige had
a lot of sticky stuff on it, remnants of when it was made.
She made a dandered pound cake from scratch, you take from that a small can of concentrated
frozen orange juice.
When you thaw it out, pour it over the top of the cake and let it absorb and then she made
a cooked frosting for the cake made out of basically egg white, sugar and vanilla in a
double boiler and mix that with a egg beater thing or a beater, electric beater, tell the
thing frothed up and got stiff peaks put a little vanilla in it and then make the two
layer cake and then of course a little coconut on top.
This was a wonderful cake and I used to have the recipe book or at least know how to make
it and I think she gave me the recipe book and it's been lost and so I haven't had the
cake for quite a while.
But today I don't want to talk about cakes even though the cake is truth, another thing
I'll talk about birthday cakes, one shop I worked in, every time it was your birthday
you brought the cake and I guess that's what I'm doing today with Hacker Public Radio
is I'm bringing the cake for my birthday.
Hacker 1979 was really when I first used a computer, why I really liked the computer
which was given to me was an Atari 160XE, it had the five and a half or so five and a
quarter inch floppy drives could use a tape drive, it was really very primitive, you could
use basic to program it but when I got this computer what it really did for me was help
me to type things.
I didn't learn typing very well when I was in school and I had a real hard time with
it.
So the first computer I had this Atari had an NX1000 printer hook to it and I could actually
using formatting commands, format a resume that I could actually was presentable so that
I could apply for a job and when I was younger I applied for jobs so it was really nice
to have this and I was really proud of the fact and there actually wasn't much in a way
of computers around people did things with electric typewriters, it's in the days of
the weighing labs if you remember that and the word processor typewriter that had an
actual LCD screen, the little characters that come upon you go back and correct it.
I did a horrible job of typing resumes, I typed a resume for a job, then I went to work
for the county and I was things were slow, I was in the construction field working on building
residential houses, so I decided to try to apply for a job the county had for a maintenance
supervisor.
I had a lot of experience doing different kind of fix it things and then also was a lead
on a construction crew building houses and so I applied for the job and when I did I
went, I typed my resume out and I used the little white out stuff and you know type
to hunt and pack so the actual type on the page was light and dark and there was across
some things out when they didn't work out because it was so frustrating.
Just think about it, the document had one flaw in it, it was ruined, where when I got
the computer I could look and see the flaw and eliminate it, so but to finish the story
I went to the interview and the personnel director for the whole county was there and
he asked me one of the questions was do you know how to type and I said yes and he just
smiled.
I still got the job and we were kind of became friends in fact since I had to fix it
knowledge I went up and roofed his house for him after he had retired from the county
and he trusted me that much with my fix it abilities so that worked out but I knew that
I couldn't type and so did he.
So having a computer is really a good tool for doing typing that.
My first use for a computer and probably one of my better uses or a real primary use
for me these days I can correct things, make a document look nice even though I really
can't type all that well except that I've really improved a lot because I use a computer
every day at work now.
So my first computer was the Atari 160XC there wasn't really a lot to that one I wasn't
really all that comfortable with it or programming and basic or anything so then my brother
could give me that computer and told me about a Mac that he had and so I got a Mac classic
and I liked it a lot but boy programs were expensive if you wanted a page they out program
I didn't know of any free ones but you could buy a page maker for $595 the computer
only costs $835 or you can buy quark express or you could buy a printer cost $2,000 for
300 DPI laser printer and I was trying to do type setting to make a few extra bucks
and because I'm not and using Adobe Illustrator to draw logos and stuff which I still like
to draw logos and that I'm really poor with an artistry and I think Richard Quarran
others going to test to that in fact I'll just point out right here I have on the drawing
boards and Richard's done some work making some logos I was going to make this cup for
HPR and I still got that on the drawing boards in fact I got a prototype made but this
has been over a year ago I won't tell you the tales of whoa that has made my year it
was 2013 was a year from hell but I'm about ready to put that out so I'm going to get
that out to the guys at lunar pages any other smack was very expensive and lo and behold
what happened things needed updated and I had to spend more money and it was irritating
to me and then it just wasn't working very well they moved on to different more powerful
machines and the mat classic even though it was a really good machine in fact what I liked
about it it was halfway portable I bought a big carry bag with you could stuff the keyboard
next to it take it down to the library and plug it in and still use it down there and
I had a hand scanner for it and a flat bed scanner CD-ROM drive all this stuff costs a
lot of money and the software and so as the internet came into being a little bit more
and I got dial up I bought a Windows computer to get away from the Mac because I figured
there was more free things made for the Windows computer which was true and I think I ran
Windows 95 on my first computer in the days of Napster I tried it out a bit and it's
pretty an interesting time but the Windows computer I stayed with that and later bought
a laptop computer and one of the things that I noticed about it was it had problems and
then Windows came out with this thing called the genuine advantage which was a genuine
advantage for them it told them whether you had ripped off their programs and I tried
a few in Kazaah in that but you know it was ridiculous the fact that they controlled
your computer that thing was sit there and spin I remember I had this laptop and it
was a Fujitsu I something or another laptop that I bought and I actually had Microsoft
office on it I think a friend gave it to me and this computer would just sit there and
spin and spin and I couldn't do anything with it what's going on is it calling home
is there a virus on it I didn't know it was hooked up to the internet it's very frustrating
well during the time I had this computer I worked on a job where I had a lot of free time
I was monitoring equipment and so I learned a little bit about Microsoft Excel which came
in handy a little later for me and did some internet surfing and stuff but I was really
frustrated with how the computer actually worked and so Mac big bucks I didn't have a
lot of big bucks and Windows didn't work very well what's going on there you know why
does Microsoft control all this stuff so much and so I was fairly frustrated and I have
to excuse me I have turning air on in this car it's my wife's dog here kind of dog babysitting
right now computer I started thinking there's I remember driving one day and thinking there's
got to be an alternative that hackers or people are our developers use besides this garbage
sites the Mac besides Windows and I can remember my brother telling me that Mac was based
on a unix operating system and somewhere I think on NPR which is you know a copy of
HPR right there was mention of Linux and so lo and behold my wife had to go in for
knee surgery and she was having it at the doctor's office in Beaverton and I know when I drove
by there I could see there was a border's books and I'm a very busy person and I didn't really
have time to go to the bookstore all that much I thought when she's in there for her surgery
and recovery when I won't be able to just sit around there and do nothing I think I'll run
over and see if I can find something out about Linux get a magazine or something there's got
to be a hobby magazine for this so I went over and I bought the Linux magazine in some sort
of it had a bunch of disc in it and as soon as I started looking around on the internet with
using a Windows computer I found out about Linux reality and I decided that I wanted to learn
a lot more about it so I listened to every episode of Linux reality on my commute and I was
really nervous though about putting Linux on my computer one of the first obstacles I faced
was getting an ISO image of Ubuntu and I had a disk in the book but for some reason I didn't want
to use it or in the magazine but I didn't want to use it so I figured out there was a freeware
program of some sort that I could make a ISO or downloaded and make an ISO image and I made that
and I had this laptop and I sorted out somehow how to make a dual boot with Linux and leave
my Windows on because I really wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do and I got a Ubuntu on
I believe it was Ubuntu 8 something and I was using it and I still used Windows though and I
needed that security blanket and kept it there then I found Linux Mint and started using it
now believe it or not I'm not a hacker I've never written a script even though I know
Shabang bin bash and you know make execute in this type of thing I know a little bit about this
I've never actually written a script so I'm more of a basic user I guess and I suppose a lot of
people are like me and when my wife worked for Nike and she used she had a laptop that had
Microsoft Windows on it and she had bought in the office program and open office was in Vogue
and Linux then but soon as she stopped working for Nike and went into this early retirement and
phase as she's still in and I'm not the I took her off and put Linux Mint on her computer and
do a booted it and since then we've migrated away from Windows entirely in fact I don't even use
it except it work I'm really frustrated when I see it it's kind of a joke I guess because I can
get a free program that's community developed that has where people are working together to make
the program and the Linux distribution and there's there's scratching their own itch everyone's
working together or I can go get a Windows computer where they want to basically tap into my
jugular get into my pocket book all the time or a Mac where it's really hard for people that don't
have a lot of money to use to buy these expensive Macs and that and guess what software I found out
software is available for things that I'm really interested in like well internet exploring
software no problem use Firefox or Midori if you want to do illustration for drawing programs you
can use Inkscape which is very similar to the Adobe Illustrator program GIMP for the new image
manipulation program for doing photo editing instead of thinking you have to use Photoshop lots
of free tools are out there to do things so Linux is my everyday use do I miss Windows no I like
the utilitarian part of Linux the fact that you can have something that's really lightweight fast
I like the fact there's a command line where you can do many things in grand fashion using the
command line I'm interested now and kind of listen to one HPR about the art programming language
and these things I really want to get into more advanced things but I don't think until I actually
reach my early retirement you know be able to do that my job seems to take up just a lot of time
and keeping up the place and everything so I'm going to close out now and say that this is my
birthday special for Hacker Public Radio is how I found Linux and I'm using Linux and it'd be a
nice thing if on your birthday or some other holiday you'd be KHPR and I'd like to hear about
more interesting things than what I've talked about so thank you very much and God bless
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