Experiments in Open Source Software

It may sound strange to say that my respect for Microsoft and software copyright drove me to open source, but that's true. After two years contracting at Microsoft in the Windows division I had a great deal of respect for many of the people I met there, and these people essentially make their living by selling licenses for the software they produce. To obtain a cracked version of a Microsoft product is to deny people that I know and respect a small bit of their income, and that doesn't sit well with me.

So what's a guy to do when he can't afford the latest and greatest? Especially when he likes to tinker with his PC? Though it would be easy enough to do, I wasn't prepared to download illicit versions of the software that provides a living for my friends. There isn't much else out there, not really.

While I had used Unix a little in the late 90's, it was during the mid 00's that I was introduced to linux. My brother had a great deal to do with it, but some of the credit also goes to my time working for the Chemistry Department at WSU.

Long story short, I cut my linux teeth editing xorg.conf on Ubuntu 5.10. The live-cd worked so well, but for whatever reason after installation the video was shot. Thanks to Google for getting me through that. Thanks to my wife for letting me Google stuff on her PC while mine was relegated to the command prompt. :-)