The Linux operating system is a wonderful mix of power and flexibility. Users short on experience or those who want something that works right out of the box can have a fully functional system up in minutes. Alternatively, an advanced user can dive into the guts of a distribution or even create their own. Everything can be customized including the distribution, packages, desktop environment, window manager, all the way down to the kernel and source code itself.
No matter what your level of experience, from time to time you are going to get stuck. It is at this point that you discover the outstanding level of support offered by the Linux and Open Source communities. When faced with a problem, a user can not only consult documentation but IRC channels, WIKI pages, and web forums swarming with other users eager to help. This support is key to not only giving back, which is central to the idea to Linux and Open Source software, but to encourage new users as Linux moves into the mainstream.
I started WiredRevolution.com to keep track of and share my experiences with Linux. Its collection of notes and articles act not only as a reference for myself but will hopefully provide a valuable resource for others. Topics include system administration, software development, the Linux kernel and modules, shell scripting, distributions, system tools, and software, as well as anything I have stumbled across that deserves to be noted. I encourage users to post comments not only because they are interesting feedback for myself, but helpful to others as they tend to clarify issues and hit on other valuable points.
I wasn’t always a Linux enthusiast. I first started using an Apple IIe back in the 1980’s and from there used various versions of MS-DOS and Windows 3.1/95/2000/XP/Vista. In fact, I still have a version of Windows on one of my machines, even if it is only to play the occasional game. I played around with Solaris and ZFS awhile back in an attempt to build a new home file server. I first tried Linux in 1999 when a buddy of mine installed SUSE and I used it to create a project with Apache and PERL. Since that time I have tried many distributions such as RedHat, Mandrake/Mandriva, Fedora Core, Knoppix, and Ubuntu. At the moment I have a server running Debian, but my primary and still favorite distribution is Gentoo.
I currently work as a UNIX/Linux system level software developer.