Episode: 572
Title: HPR0572: Interview with Mark Terranova from Zareason
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0572/hpr0572.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 23:19:28

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Hi everyone, welcome to Hacker Public Radio, this is Quatt 2, and this is a little intro
to the interview you're about to hear from Southeast Winning Fest.
This is an interview with Mark from Zaw Reason, that is Z-A-R-E-A-S-O-N.
If you talk to anyone who is at Southeast Winning Fest, one of the really surprising exhibitors
at Z-A-R-E-A-S-O-N, they for some reason made a really big splash this year.
I've seen their booths before at scale, I've seen them maybe at Z-A-R-E-A-S-O-N for O-L-F somewhere,
and whether it was just the people that they chose, like the amount of, I guess, the cool
factor of the people that were there, or whether it was, whether they just had a cool
line of laptops to show off or what, I don't know, but they made an impression this year
on me and a lot of other people, and Z-A-R-E-A-S-O-N, of course, is a computer manufacturer
who makes custom Linux computers, and you can put pretty much anything you want on there,
and one of the things that they really are trying to emphasize is that they consider these
computers very much your property once you buy it.
They even send you a screwdriver with, you know, Z-A-R-E-S-O-N on it, so that you can
actually take the thing apart if you ever want to.
I mean, that's how serious they are about these things, actually being your property.
It's not like those other manufacturers.
This is someone, this is a company that is serious about making sure that you have a computer,
that you own, that you have your OS on it, you know, whatever you want it on it, you
got.
They'll custom install just about any version of Linux that you want, I mean, really.
Yeah, it's a really cool company, and the representatives that they sent to self were
just really cool.
They were the type of people who they were hanging out with everyone else all the time after
the festival going out to dinner.
They were really cool people.
It was a lot of fun to meet them and great fun to talk to Mark, so listen to this interview.
Here on this is Klaat 2 on the Southeast Linux Fest, chilling with my friend Mark from
Zahezone.
Hi, my name is Mark Charanova, and I'm with Zah Reason.
We're based in Northern California, and we provide open source systems with desktops,
laptops, and servers, all running Linux.
That is obviously very cool.
I think you're going to say that you're probably pretty well-known, you know, the reason
is that brand I think that most Linux users probably know.
I saw some of the computers that you had out, which were really good-looking.
I don't know how you guys release, but I mean, like are there some new cool models out
or whatever?
Yeah, you bet.
My favorite one that we have is the Terra HD.
It's got the Adam N450 processor in it, and it is awesome on the battery power.
We've got something like four and a half hours if we're running wireless on there, and
even longer if you turn the dim down a little bit, and you aren't running the wireless.
But literally flying out to the east coast from California, I had a layover in Chicago,
and in the interim time we turned the thing off, I literally had not only enough time
for watching a movie of all of us in the air, watched a little bit more of a movie flying
from Chicago to Charlotte, and had a little bit of battery time at the motel before I had
to go plug it in.
And I probably still couldn't run it even more, but I didn't even want to do that.
But it was working great.
I was just so impressed with the hardware on it.
Some of one of our customers who had bought an earlier Terra, didn't quite have, I think
it had about three hours worth of battery time, they said they were very happy with it,
but that was one of the things that they weren't as happy with was the battery time.
And that was one of the reasons that Earl and Cassie, who are the owners of this
odd reason, had went and wanted to optimize the battery power as much as they could.
Yeah.
It was also an older Adam processor, which wasn't quite as efficient as the N450.
Okay.
That's my favorite one, another reason that's my favorite one is because you can actually
put a 3G modem with an external antenna on it so you can do connect all over the place
and it has 100% keyboard.
I know a lot of people can deal with the 93% keyboard just fine.
For me, my fingers are too fidgety and it doesn't quite fit.
But I love that it's a full size and it has everything.
What is your, I guess, your technical, I mean, like what are you with Zaw Reason?
I am a representative with Zaw Reason.
My official title, though, is I'm the community manager for Zaw Reason, and we have this
unofficial community of a whole bunch of fans where every place I go, I meet and
I talk to Linux and tech people, they're like, oh yeah, even if they don't have one,
they know someone who has one and they've heard good things about them.
And it started to get a lot of falling on it.
So we're trying to get more people involved with it and helping spread the word similar
to how lugs do in local areas.
We actually have an IRC channel on free node.
It's a pound Zaw Reason.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
Just recently started, we've only got a couple people idling in the carpet.
I'll go there.
Yeah.
We're starting that one, the Earl and Kathy are busy this weekend with their sons helping,
they're having an install fest at Zaw Reason.
And they're putting all sorts of distros on.
Primarily a boom-to is the main one, but they're putting Fedora and whatever, you know, distribution
people want to put on their own.
So they have a strong sense of community and trying to get people involved with hardware
and getting feedback from their customers.
Yeah.
To me, that was the most valuable thing here was getting feedback from people saying, oh,
I love this t-shirt, but maybe could you offer this shirt without the V-neck or other
people, you know, they have shirts that are female, shirts that have a little cut that
some people want on them.
And little input like that is very important on getting what people want.
We try and get to the small details.
And most places that we'll put on legs, with there are a few of them, still have a
windows key on the keyboard.
Yeah.
And that's sort of a small detail, but to me, very important, you can get a penguin on
the key, you can get an Ubuntu symbol on there.
And it's looking at the small details and going out, and I think it's one of the things
that people appreciate most.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, speaking of like the feedback aspects, I mean, it's, I don't even want
to say rare, because that almost seems to not extreme enough.
I mean, it's just you don't even find a company anymore that listens to its customers or
that customers can actually feel like they even can relate to that company at all.
So it's kind of cool.
You actually seem to have a dialogue going on.
It's important.
I know I actually helped my grandmother do and grandson stuff.
And one of the places that I was very happy to call, it's unrelated to tech, but was
Vermont Country Store and their catalog.
And I talked to this nice lady in Vermont.
She knew the people who were making the maple candies.
She knew the people down in the other part of the state who were making different things.
And she had a relationship with these people and she knew these people.
And of all the things I got to do for help with my grandma and be a good grandson, I love
deal with these people because they really wanted to know what we thought of it and what
we could make, what they could do differently on their catalog.
And it was that sort of thing.
And you know, that when you said where, that's the first thing I thought of is there aren't
a lot of people who do that and up at the top of my list was kind of Vermont Country Store
is a great place for us to call because they actually care about the people and they're
just thinking about numbers, they're thinking about, hey, how's it going?
And if I call again, it'll be the same person probably.
So why do you think it's so impossible if you think, if you're agreeing with me, why
do you think it's so impossible for customers and companies to like have a relationship
these days?
I mean, why do companies not get that?
Do you focus on the bottom line?
I think that if you're focused on the bottom line, everything else will follow after it.
A lot of times if you lead with quality and things that want, things that people want
and attention to small details like the cheese and stuff like that, the bottom line will
follow you one thing.
You know, part of that's being able to, you know, figure out what it takes for the
strongest keyboard or getting something going, oh, the sick cell battery wasn't quite
strong enough.
Man, this nine does an amazing job and it really makes people want to get the next one
when they know that you listen to what they said and you're able to do that.
Part of that is how the malrose is really value community.
They started in 2007 before that even.
They had a really strong emphasis on trying to empower their kids.
You know, one of the things that I think a lot of listeners would like to do is looking
up a little story about Tassie and some young girls, it's called the Unscary screwdriver.
And it's a really great story about how she took some young girls and said, hey, we're
going to let you build your own computer and they were able to build their own computer
and instead of them having to give it to someone, they were able to keep it for themselves.
Tassie got another computer for them and they were able to build things.
The malrose is old as son as part of one of his project for Eagle Scouts is taking computers
and they're fixing them up, putting Linux on them and donating them to Mexico.
They're also doing that and they have some help from Stormy Peters, they're a no foundation.
And so they're actually been doing that and it's not just something that they think
is a good idea and let's throw it against the wall in the stick, they actually believe
in it.
I actually, before I ever got involved as a reason, I have part of a group that donates
computers to people who need my local area and the Bay Area and I had actually shown some
of the movies about how the malrose is switched to Linux and one of the things they talked
about was they would much rather just have a computer that worked than spend all their
time fidgeting with it, just like getting rid of your lawn and your front yard.
You don't have to mow it all the time, that's family time you can spend, that's barbecue
time.
And so there's a deeper philosophy to it.
I think that a lot of people don't have it, not to sell it, but it's really caring
about things.
And when you start off like that, it makes a huge difference and it radiates there and
the bottom line will follow with it and that's part of how the following is happening
with people like him, so I've reasoned so much.
How long have you worked with that reason?
I've just been working with that reason for just under a couple of months.
I actually was volunteering for them before, even though they're a company.
There's a lot of people in the Bay Area that go out and volunteer to help them do stuff.
They've only been at their current location for under a year before that, they were
working out of their house and before that they actually had moved up from Santa Monica,
Earl had got a job in Santa Monica and they ended up moving out there rather quickly
from Texas.
And they went from having a business in their house to actually having a nice location
in Berkeley and there were so many people that were supportive of what Zahraism is doing.
People would go and volunteer to do stuff down there, which is not usual for a business.
That's not usual.
I volunteer for charities, I don't really volunteer, but there are people trying to make
things better.
And that was one of the things that really worked for me.
One of my friends actually who had volunteered with a group that don't have computers to
people had got a job with them a while ago and had always been an admirer before them.
And I had actually, last few years, had shown some of the movies about some of the things
that the mom roses had done.
So for me, there was this thing that was just like, it was an obvious thing.
And like I'd already known stuff about them, but once they had hired me for doing anything,
I actually went and I typed in Zahraism reviews and hardware and stuff and just wanted
to see what I saw out there.
And just looking back for years and looking through a few hundred, you know, different
entries in Google, I saw such positive responses on their stuff.
I was just like, there was nothing shocking on that.
It was just, I just, it really hit home and made a lot of sense for me.
Well, actually, maybe that is something I want to ask really quick, because these aren't
computers that are just like, the only reason to buy them is because they've got Linux pre-installed
on them, but they're going to fall apart next year, you know, these are, I mean, these
are actually like really good feeling in solid computers.
I noticed from your demos.
They're, yeah, they've spent a lot of time and energy on it.
Yes, you can take Linux and stick it on any computer.
I'm one of my proudest deep things as I have a Pentium 2 that's really old.
And it's neat.
I also have a laptop called a duct tape laptop and I get cheese for it.
I love this thing, but no, it's not that.
They actually have put a lot of time and attention to details on things and made sure to
really source where they're getting things, you know, they'll get, they'll get stuff
manufactured for them.
It isn't just a little saw, a reason sticker on that, it's manufactured.
Some people like the shiny cases, they have shiny cases.
They also have some brushed aluminum that's more my style, because I go to scratch everything.
And so that's my style.
They have some that has almost like a golf ball dimple thing on it that will help hide
everything that has some of the nice plastic look, but, yeah, but hides things.
They put a lot of attention into things like that.
It's solid hardware, you can get three year warranties on stuff with it.
They have warranties, you can get with it.
And it isn't just, hey, we'll throw Linux on it.
You have your choice of, you know, a lot of different distributions you can use.
You could use Fedora and Ubuntu or Debian.
It's not that a lot of people who buy this stuff can't put Linux on their system or find
something with it.
It's a save some time and be finding stuff that works with the Linux kernel.
It's got to work.
It's not like buying from, there's a big manufacturer that does sell some Linux machines.
And that's great because it puts it out there.
But they also have some stuff that's had to be a little, you know, tweaked here and there
to get working with the kernel.
If you wanted to get something with Ubuntu and then change your mind and you want to
deal something with later with Fedora because it's all upstream compatible.
You're going to be able to do that and not have to hassle with it and not have to use
any proprietary drivers or compile any things for it.
For me that comes back to the idea of I'd rather spend my time dealing with fun stuff.
So actually what is it kind of, what's it like inside the big fortress that is, is that
reason?
What's it like working there?
I worked there some of the time, not a whole bunch.
They have employees who work there part time and full time.
They have a five day a week regular office manager as one of my friends Courtney.
She's been working there for a while.
She does some of the graphic design and some of the t-shirt design and some of the bookkeeping.
She designed a new logo for the t-shirts and both male and female designs.
We brought out here t-shirt designs all the way from a little toddler size, all the way
up to a six X.
And that's one of the things.
That's another thing.
That's rare.
It isn't one size fits all.
One of the other workers at Zahreason works three days a week.
She will bring her two year old and her six month old and they're able to be there.
Her husband will come in for lunch and be able to have lunch there.
So there's a nice really family feel to it.
And one of the things about that when you feel so welcomed in the environment you're working
in.
You don't have this hurry to need to get out of there.
You know, they have some nice decorations up.
I mean, I'm a big fan of tuxed the penguin.
They have some good tuxed posters up, not enough in my opinion.
You can never have enough.
I'm not normal that way.
It's a really nice open space and depending on how many orders are going on, we'll set
up tables so that we can do a lot of builds in there.
There's another employee comes in and works with Earl and we'll do a lot of the big builds
and it can scale real nicely because one of the things we do is we have a real quick
turnaround on stuff.
Oh really?
Yeah, if you want to order something, it doesn't just sit around for a while.
You literally can go on the website and decide, hey, I want a little more RAM with this.
You know, I like this operating system installed.
You know, if you have any questions, it's in the column, ask some about it, but there's
a nice turnaround with it.
They're proud they're making neat stuff.
And they're proud that they're making what you want.
And if you want a little badge that's got a talks on it or if you want a little badge
that's got a fedora logo on that, you can put that.
And just having that on there, there's little things you can do with that that there's
a neat sense of pride and working with.
I know.
I spend a lot of time in the MS world and I took a lot of pride in what I did and I know
that there weren't a lot of people doing that.
Of course there are some people doing that.
And it was just so hard to find a lot of times that the mom and pop people were able
to do it.
And they're so a few far in between that it's very hard to get that.
And that's something to me that's very rewarding.
And I was just amazed.
This is the first conference I've gone to forza reason.
And I was expecting a lot of positive feedback, but I'm just still blown away at how many
people are coming up and saying they're so happy with theirs.
And we actually had someone who had to return something because of a keyboard or something.
And they were almost apologetic on it.
And they had it happen and they had done it and they had their hardware return real quick.
And they're one of our biggest fans.
It was like I actually had something break and it was fixed and I got it back real quick.
That's the thing you can do.
It's a peace of mind thing.
Peace of mind is huge.
Personally, what would you classify yourself are you a hardware guy or a software guy both?
I do some hardware.
I do a fair amount of software.
I personally get a lot of enjoyment out of teaching people how to use their hardware
and teaching them how to get the most out of their stuff.
And whatever is necessary on that, yeah, I've repaired laptops and desktops and done
a lot of that stuff.
But interacting with people for me is the most important part of it.
And that's one of the things that I like about the Linux philosophy and the sharing
is that is, you know, it can be sharing knowledge.
And when I teach people, I learn stuff too.
For me, that's the most important.
Cool. I mean, it was great talking to you and yeah, it's really cool that you guys came out with all of your best.
Thank you for listening to Hack with Public Radio.
HPR is sponsored by Carol.net, so head on over to C-A-R-O dot N-E-C for all of those things.