[Tfug] specialties

[Erich Flothmeier]

   First of all I like to think of myself as a generalist, not a
specialist. I've been in engineering, music, mathematics, and physics;
but I cringe at the need to specialize in these fields. I'm an 
avid reader of Scientific American and The Wall St. Journal, and I
am just getting to like a new magazine called Computer Power User*
I think Linux Journal is too focused on the high-end server crowd
that buys expensive network equipment.

  Linux is a vast body of knowledge too, and I know just enough about it
to get by. Going to TFUG Bring Your Own Box nite has helped me bone
up on tips and tricks. I'm now on a quest to learn more about OpenSSH.

  In the workplace the story used to be that you could have any 
operating system on your computer so long as it was some version of
Microsoft, (I love paraphrasing Henry Ford).

  I kept asking "Is that all there is?". Even before Linux was available
for the PC there was an operating system for it called DesqView by a,
(now defunct), company called Quaterdeck Office Systems. Eventually
they came out with DesqView/X 2.0, and you had an X-windows operating
system running on DOS. Guess what, this is perfectly compatable with
Linux. So I have a 386 and 486 running legacy DOS software as X-clients
to my Linux box over a network. 

  My interface to the internet, right now, is an Alphastation 200. Why
an Alphastation, well I got tired of "Intel Inside" too. It's taking
me a long time to do it, but I want to upgrade the operating system to
a 2.4.xx kernel, (It has 2.0.35 now). That's why I'm phasing in a new
computer I just got with an AMD 1700 chip and kernel 2.4.18, learning how 
to log into it remotely is a major source of "cultural shock". They've
made Linux much more secure than it once was, but security is a two-
edged sword.

                                                         Cheers,
                                                         Erich

* Computer Power User, 
  Sandhills Publishing Co,
  PO Box 82667,
  Lincoln NE        68501

  http://www.cpumag.com