Now updated for the 2011 experiment!

A Bit About Me

I’m a sysadmin and consultant who enjoys tech, good times with friends and the occasional rum and coke… well, there’s nearly always an occasion.

My Past Computer Experience

I’ve been using computers in one form or another since early elementary school – and helping people troubleshoot their problems with high-tech wizardry ever since. In high school, I began building my own systems and performing software development for local businesses. At work and as part of my own business, I use Linux on a daily basis.

My Past Experience With Free Software

While I have significant experience with free software, I don’t believe in a complete hippie-like communist worldview. Crusaders for a complete F/OSS (Free/Open Source Software) ecosystem often do more harm than good. Commercial software has its place in the ecosystem and can serve different needs than free software.

I’ve now used nearly all the Linux distributions on DistroWatch (including Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandrake, and SuSE) and software packages (Apache HTTPD, Firefox, Thunderbird, VLC), and have enjoyed my experiences with most of them.

Why I Agreed To This

For the previous experiment, my normal workflow in the office involved mostly free software, and I believed it wasn’t too much of a stretch to migrate to totally free software for nearly everything. It was an interesting challenge that showed my remaining dependencies on proprietary applications.

For this experiment, I want to get a better understanding of the intricacies of the OS and how Linux actually works. I use it regularly in both personal and professional contexts, but apart from understanding the differences between distributions it would be great to be able to understand things at a deeper level.

What I Hope To Get Out Of It

To gain additional experience with Linux and figure out which open source applications make viable alternatives to commercial software.

My Experiment Computer Setup

For the 2011 experiment I will be using my current desktop:

• Dell XPS 8300 platform
• Intel Core i7-2600K
• 12GB DDR3-1333 RAM
• OCX Vertex 64GB SSD (OS), WD Black 1TB 7200RPM (data)
• eVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti, driving a Dell 3007WFP 30″ monitor
• Intel Pro Gigabit Ethernet, PCI-Express card

For the 2009 experiment, I used my previous desktop:

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600, running at 3.0GHz
• 4GB DDR2-800 SDRAM
• OCZ Vertex 64GB SSD, WD Raptor 72GB 10K RPM and Seagate 7200.10 300GB SATA hard drives
• Asus P5K-E motherboard
• eVGA nVidia 9800GT graphics card, 512MB RAM – driving 2×24″ BenQ FP241W monitors at 1900×1200 each

What Distribution Did I Select?

I am planning on using Linux From Scratch (LFS).

In 2009, I used Gentoo, using the AMD64 build on the amd64/10.0/desktop Portage profile.

What Distribution Am I Running Now?

Linux mostly gets used on my VMs now. I run Debian Squeeze and Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, all 64-bit.