Lily’s Blog, Dragon Absconded!
Baking Until I Drop

Oh, um, I just remembered about the feed so if any LinuxChix are reading this, I didn’t post this just because I’ve suddenly signed up to the live feed and I want to feel validated. I just got asked questions by a guy and he said post it and I figured why not. Really.

Eeep.

Yes, unfortunately he doesn’t know many technical ladies (and I don’t consider myself one…). I’ve just stumbled along into all this. Not much skills at all. Just enjoyment. But maybe Trinidad is seriously developing and we might one day have a LinuxChix chapter here. Wouldn’t that be awesome!

So, this is the Linux story that came from him asking me about why I love macs. I’m not sure if the log transcript is edited yet (names yes…but…).

Anywayz, how I found Linux follows:

Lily: hi
Shivan: hey
Lily: what’s up?
Shivan: nothin much
Shivan: just relaxing
Shivan: u?
Lily: i think my mom needs a laptop
Lily: but otherwise nothing much
Shivan: IBM
Lily: i am at lenovo.com
Lily: i am wondering if i buy in the states or here for warranty purposes
Lily: but also
Lily: http://www.apple.com/macbook/macbook.html
Shivan: buy it here
Lily: *drools*
Lily: from?
Lily: memory banks?
Shivan: cuz if something goes wrong u can simply take it back to the store
Lily: yup
Shivan: trinidad systems
Lily: who they be?
Shivan: ask for (name)¹
Shivan: tell her i put you tru to her
Lily: i will try to rmemeber that :)
Shivan: Trinidad Systems Ltd
Lily: but http://www.apple.com/macbook/macbook.html
Shivan: they doing the ez buy thing
Lily: *is still drooling*
Shivan: is a big company in pos²
Lily: ez buy?
Shivan: yeah for cells
Lily: oh that
Lily: tsl
Lily: ok
Lily: lol
Lily: but
Lily: macbook :)
Lily: i’m trying to figure out which ibm tho
Lily: there are sooo manyoptions
Shivan: yeah i have to buya laptop too
Lily: we dont have to but…
Lily: we are looking for two so why not mke one a laptop
Shivan: yeah exctly
Lily: and dad is sorta on board bcause he says he’s over the laptop phobia atm as he’s been using mine
Shivan: i see
Lily: yes
Shivan: how come u into macs?
Lily: how come?
Lily: dunno
Shivan: yeah
Lily: i lived a month with a friend and used their mac
Lily: was v frustrated probably cuz it was getting old
Lily: but then wanted a laptop
Lily: and didnt want the hassle of installing linux on the laptop and gettin geverything working just right
Lily: so figured oooh mac
Lily: i was looking at cute 3 lb sony vaios
Lily: but then i kinda thought why not a mac
Lily: and i remembered what i liked abt a mac
Lily: and i figured…why not mac for a laptop…it’s *nix so cool
Shivan: but how were u introduced to linux
Lily: oh
Lily: well one of my friends kept telling me go linux! you’ll like it
Lily: and then when i went to school³, in my second term my work/school machine was a dell running red hat (which i dont like)
Shivan: lol
Shivan: so u went
Lily: and so much things were so much easier on linux
Lily: no i got it in 2001 or 2
Shivan: wow
Lily: and it was easier having my machine running linux to access all the services at school
Shivan: strange to seea girl into linux⁴
Lily: GAH!
Lily: and emacs
Lily: emacs
Lily: emacs
Lily: it’s so hard for me to code on windows
Shivan: lol
Lily: mac: adium! adium! adium!
Lily: and so one day i took the plunge and installed suse 8 (i think) on my computer, dual booting
Lily: struggled to get the cable modem working
Lily: made calls to hp to insist they send me restore cds because what if my hdd died and i needed to reinstall it, then what
Lily: and then installed it solo
Lily: and flipped back and forth and back and forth with great regularity … well..trying to find my linux of choice
Lily: never did try gentoo tho
Lily: i feel in love with knoppix
Lily: then figured if i loved knoppix i should try pure debian (which is what my friend of the “go linux! you’ll like it fame” was using and kept trying to make me use too)
Lily: didnt get the screen working so great but was nice
Lily: now, i’ve found ubuntu
Lily: and most likely on the machine i build, that’s what i’ll install
Lily: unless i finally try gentoo
Lily: wait
Lily: lots of others havent tried
Lily: slackware
Shivan: i have only played with red hat and knoppix
Lily: i liked suse
Lily: i managed with rh
Lily: after all that was what work/school installed on their linux machines
Lily: there were few windows machines at work/school/my dept⁵
Lily: but didnt really like it
Lily: tried it at home (the joys of hispeed internet…download and try in a breeze) and got rid of it
Lily: if it were my machine i’d probably try debian again
Shivan: good story
Shivan: blog it!!!!
Lily: lol, maybe
Shivan: just copy the convo and blog it
Lily: alright
Lily: ooh, you should’ve imagined the joy when i got my dell modem working on linux
Lily: i heard the dialing sound
Lily: and was like…aw man ecstatic
Lily: this is at home
Shivan: LOL
Shivan: i know dat feelin
Lily: :)
Shivan: blog ittt!!!
Lily: brb
Lily: k
Shivan: ok
Lily: on phone
Shivan: i am going out now
Lily: bye
Shivan: see ya
Lily: bye
Shivan: bye

1. Don’t know if I should post her name.
2. pos = Port of Spain, our capital city
3. grad school – my friend from before even undergrad went away to do his first degree and got introduced to linux in his massachusetts university and kept telling me about it. I waited to get into linux when I went to my massachusetts university for grad school.
4. Poor Shivan. I will call this Linux Da’wah. Da’wah is what Muslims call spreading the word and educating on Islam.
5. At least as far as I saw, and specifically in my department. But then who knows…I wasn’t very sociable so didn’t go inspecting all the machines. Maybe there were alot?