I am a geek.

Linux

Linux is my preferred operating system for almost everything. It's got all the software I need to do useful things, it's stable, and everything generally works better than other non-Unix operating systems. Besides, I'm a starving student, and can't legally afford commercial operating systems that are inferior anyway.

My current preferred distribution is Mandrake Linux, although I use Debian at school. It is the best distribution out there for desktop (or laptop) use, and despite the reputation for being newbie-friendly, it gives the power user the kitchen sink to play with. The goodness of a distribution is best measured by the amount of time it takes to get from the install to the point where I am happy with the system.

I've got some information about Linux on the IBM Thinkpad T40. That's my laptop, persephone. Say hi. There is also some information on Linux on the IBM Thinkpad T22, my former laptop, and old stale information about Mandrake/Mandriva Linux on the IBM Thinkpad T40.

If you use Mandrake Linux (or even if you don't), you might find my very brief URPMI and RPM Tutorial useful. Do as I say and you can avoid the "dependency hell" that haphazard use of these powerful tools can get you into.

I also have a collection of miscellaneous tips and tricks.

Free Software

I'm too lazy to put up a lot of the code I write, but every now and then something useful gets done.

Licq History Converter

This script converts a Windows ICQ (99b or 2000a) database file to a format usable by Licq. This is handy if you wish to preserve the history information as well as contact information when migrating to Linux. Since I no longer run ICQ on Windows, I can't test it on any other versions, so I'm making this available under the GNU GPL in the hopes that someone else can update it. Please read the script before running it.

iPod Shuffle Software

For those of you who were wondering, the iPod Shuffle does work quite nicely with Linux. At the time that I got mine, gtkpod didn't yet support the Shuffle and gnupod was very user-unfriendly, so I wrote some stuff to simplify things. Newer versions of gtkpod do support the Shuffle, but the Shuffle is so ridiculously simple that it's actually more awkward to do things with the GUI than with a single command. So there.

Vintage Computing

I'm also interested in old computers and reliving The Way Things Were. It's how we, as geeks, connect with our common cultural heritage. At least that's how I explain it to people, but then they look at me funny.