Testimonial: I Always Stay Close To PCLinuxOS

by everstart

Sometimes you see applications that because perhaps the author is associated with, or more familiar with, another distribution, you are drawn to it imagining it might be best at doing that really neat thing being described.

But it doesn't take long, not even hours, before I head into the relative sanity of the PCLinuxOS environment, and may I say culture.

It blows my mind (a little) that every distro does not have interchangeable fstab configurations. The form and function is particular to the distribution. It seems obvious but sometimes it's tempting to copy-paste what works for one distro, but which you know really is a "gamble at a casino", meaning you're gonna lose.

I am not learning Linux just as a hobbyist and yet I am, so I don't have to defend what may sound condescending to hobbyists -- we are all serious about this. I think my special twist is that I mostly stopped advancing in CSC after the 90's, and now two decades later, I am that far behind. It means I have to get priority and perspective and be serious about advancing in ability to administrate what I need and learning things that can wait for later.

It has been and is like a giant jigsaw puzzle, but part if not all of the whole picture is not there. It comes together -- learning some here and there, finding out days or weeks later that it's good you picked up that bit, because you've come upon at least one reason you needed to know which way to go, and you did know. Still for me, the puzzle has lots of holes.

I have been working with the fstab and wow, is it important. I have had help from forum members with great detail made for me at great pains, and I have printed them out. I am now printing them out again, as they are so marked up with colored pen, I need fresh copies. Members have pointed me to links, told me the one book I must read. It's all very good and really perfect, but I am not perfect, and I don't have the time that a disciplined, diligent, on the ball person has.

I see the BSD work, which is admirable and top notch, but at the same time, I think it's important to realize that a NAS by whatever name can be well implemented with software such as ownCloud and Unison and sync from the Synaptic repo, and by learning it at that level, as they say, 'you own it.'

Yes, I have looked through other repositories and they are very lofty. But when I look through the PCLinuxOS repo, I am just as overwhelmed by what is really amazing. If this had existed when I was in 9th grade, well over 2 decades ago, then I would loved it and never thought anything of it because it was just there. But it wasn't always like this. Many of you know how far -- how far we were from where we are now and most of us couldn't imagine anything like all this.

When I went to college, I could program and well. But we never opened a computer box, we never spoke of Unix, but we did have a class on operating systems. The closest I came was hacking terrible code at the technical college on a burroughs mainframe/mini. It was so cold in there you had to wear 10 layers, and the box sat on top of the air conditioner blowing into it. It was the size of two washing machines -- big ones. All we did was COBOL, and I did that while a high school senior, as they let me sign up for that class at the tech college.

I want to do it on my own. I want to find the answers. But it isn't possible. I see the hardware, I know what it can do, I just can't yet put it together and anticipate what the Orico box that runs the 4TB NAS drive. I use it because I don't think the workstation T1600 board will support that large of a drive, and we are Linux, so the support is for Windows or Mac. We have only our own to lean on and within that, the varied distros sometimes competing for attention, and they are not compatible to the level necessary. Even the damn syntax changes among the fstab implementation. I have it connected via USB3 (it's faster) or esata. It hangs. I chip away and correct, but I am really in a hurry, but not just for the sake of rushing. I need to gain the skills and I am just me -- late, behind, and there are so many puzzle pieces.

Anyway, PCLinuxOS is not a baby step. It is a real, full size, exceedingly capable, liberal distribution. It's no mistake I came to it and stick with it.

To you, it is so easy; you see the whole picture. I see more and maybe right around the corner I'll see enough. I admit it is late, but I believe it is not too late to catch up to where I need to be.

I can't make this into a testimonial, altogether now, but I believe a little longer with PCLinuxOS tunnel vision, I will get where I'm going. Believe me, I have learned a lot. This is a good place. It is a noble thing that has happened in 20 years, like the grand experiment of limited democracy and escaping the tyranny of kings and all tyrannies that might try to take their place. It is open source, free, unthinkable and unheard of back in the IBM cloning, Xerox, Palo Alto Park, walking away from the 'mouse' and windowing OS.

The best I can do is say thank you to all that have chosen to help me out (so sappy but so true).

Keep being good, resist tyranny.