On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 05:21 am, Bruce Byfield wrote: > Helen's Faulkner's comment that "women follow a different route to being > interested in things like Debian and FOSS compared to the average man" > has made me curious. > > Would anyone be willing to comment or share their experience?
ok, heres mine: Two children, and at 26 (in 1994), yes, pretty old to start computing, I received my brother's cast off Amstrad cpc 6128 (oooo, shiny!). not being able to find many games for somewhat outdated beasty (286s and 386s were around), I started writing software in Basic. Next, my brother got bored with his 386, so I recieved that (and had wonderous homebirth to third daughter at same time, it was always a significant link to me;) ) Doshell, and then Win311. But Windows bugged me. Ok, shiny gui stuff, but where was the power of doing things for yourself? Then, I got shown a version of RedHat (2?), and fell in love. Gui was nothing to write home about after the comparitive 'advance' of Win311, but hey, the power! But, sharing computer with family meant I was not popular for suggesting it, so it got shelved. Fast forward to 1996, and a friend suggested I switch from philosophy to the new IT degree. There, playing in Unix, I was in heaven. Not for me the Windows labs, straight to the Xterms - bliss:) I got a copy of Redhat five from uni, and I had never had as much computing fun as installing that and playing:) Ok, I was comfortable after a while, but I wanted more. I was working with ITShare, distributing unwanted tech to low income people, refurbished, with Linux (Redhat) on it. Next, I tried Mandrake. Meh, too Redhat. Then our sister organisation in Victoria gave me a copy of the distro they used - Debian Sid. I was in love. I have used nothing but Sid since. Sure, Ive played with Fedora on the kids computers, but always find Debian to be more rational. Oh, beloved apt, sweet dpkg:) Debian on desktop, now three laptops (and two more wonderful offspring!) later, still as excited by the potential. Now I play with USB and Bluetooth and Wifi. I watch movies and listen to music. I got Diablo II working with WineX. I do email and chat and browsing. I do officework. Damn, its fun:) r:) -- Romana Branden Sticks & stones may break my bones, but words can break my heart.. ITShare SA Inc - http://itshare.org.au/ ITShare SA gives away computer systems created from donated hardware and opensource software.
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