by Archie Arevalo (Archie)
Felipe Avalos is also known to many PCLinuxOS Forum regulars as Crow. He resides in Tamaulipas, México with his wife and two kids. Felipe is a psychologist working up ways to promote human values among university students.
“All my life, I’ve been in clinical and educative fields, mainly in Special Education.
“Family and my work fill almost all my time - from 5:30 in the morning to 11:00 at night. When I can, I like to collaborate with people working in Special Ed. I love to read; I’m a sort of Stephen King and Dean Koontz fan, but if I have time, I read almost anything I can get my hands on. I also like doing small maintenance at home. I love martial arts, especially Kenpo, but left the practice. These days, together with my kids, we practice Judo.”
I asked him what got him into Linux?
“I grew tired of the viruses and instability of Windows, and a friend told me about a new operating system. I read a lot about it and downloaded Mandrake, which turned out to be an amazing discovery. My friend is an IT professional, and after that, we both started using Linux.”
Don't most of us find Felipe's reasons familiar? Felipe is a long time Linux user. He registered with Linux Counter on October 11, 2003 and sports the number 330412.
“Right now, I exclusively use PCLinuxOS KDE4, LXDE and Enlightenment 17, but I had tried Mandrake/Mandriva, Kubuntu, Puppy, Slackware, Mepis, Vector and many others. One which I used a lot as a Live CD was dyne:bolic. I have had lots of good memories with it.
“I don’t remember very well how I ended up in PCLinuxOS, but I think I read somewhere (probably at Linux Today) that it was Mandrake done right. I left Mandrake when it became Mandriva and had a lot of bugs, so I downloaded PCLinuxOS, tried it, and I was just hooked. Some months later, I registered at the forums because I needed support.”
Felipe is also a proponent of PCLinuxOS e17 and a club member.
“I am an end user. I switched to e17 at work when KDE4 arrived with it’s hype and erratic behavior. Given my responsibility level, I couldn't afford failings. Linuxera did a great job ... and who can resist Agust’s themes? I like all that I’m using and sometimes that makes for a very busy desktop.
“PCLinuxOS is probably the best distro for end users right now. I have used it for years now in my daily work, and it has never failed me. None of the other fellows at work can say the same from their operating systems - Windows and OSX. I think that says all about the developers.
“Derivatives are a world of options. I want to someday try Full Monty, which I have been seeding and installed for several times, but I’ve never actually used it.”
Felipe has been a PCLinuxOS Support Forum member since January 29, 2007 so I asked him about our community.
“We have the best community, a sort of a family. And in families, there are all kind of personalities and we have to respect them and let them be. We are part of the diversity we all live in. If someone behaves badly, we say Papa Neal or another mod, and that’s all. The forums have a good reputation but a Mexican song says “no soy monedita de oro” (translation - I’m not a gold coin), so let’s face it ... we can’t please everybody.”
So I guess his signature "When life hands you lemons... add a little salt and Tequila", aptly says much about our friend and family member Felipe Avalos.
I had one last question I was trying to decide whether to include on the article or not. I asked Felipe if he thinks the world will end at the end of next year.
“Not the world. Humanity could end soon if we keep this population rate of growing.”
OK ... so I guess the first to go will be China then India ..
