Sam Varghese
Monday, 07 April 2008 23:01
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 5
Some of the big names in the FOSS world were instrumental in fuelling his interest in Linux which was first aroused when he worked for an ISP in the area of tech support.
"Most of the work I did was supporting users on their Windows PCs (over the phone! ARGH!), but the internal system we used was Unix based. Our main web developer used Linux on his every day machine and this was my first introduction to the way of the penguin. I remember his Matrix wallpaper and the shell he was constantly hacking away on. He explained the basics and I thought it was really great," he recalls.
Around this time LinuxCare opened an office in Canberra office, right across from where Smart was working. He took the chance to mingle with some of the big names in FOSS development. "It was there that I met some truly great hackers such as Andrew Tridgell, Paul Mackerras, Paul 'Rusty' Russell and Stephen Rothwell. It was Tridge who kindly helped me set me up my first Linux machine. How could I have asked for a better introduction to free software? I was hooked."
He took to Gentoo after doing the rounds of all the usual distributions. "I tried Red Hat, Mandrake, SUSE. Debian wouldn't work on my newish hardware. I then stumbled across Gentoo and the whole idea of it really impressed me. I got to build my own Linux system from scratch.
"After struggling with RPMs, Gentoo's portage system was like manna from heaven. Because Gentoo is very hands on, I learned more using it over three months than I did with other distros in three years. I loved it!"
A few years later, Smart wanted a way to install Gentoo quickly and easily, without having to build the entire system from scratch. "This was when Kororaa was born. Originally it was just an install method for Gentoo, but it quickly became something more. My best mate Matthew Oliver (whom I had converted to Linux) helped me by writing the installer."
