PCLinuxOS Family Member Spotlight: bliss

as told to YouCanToo

What is your name/username?
Bobbie Seller/bliss

How old are you?
82 aiming at 83.

Are you married, single?
Single blessedness.

How about Kids, Grandkids (names and ages)?
None!

Do you have pets, what is your favorite?
No animals due to allergies.

Are you retired, still working and if working, what do you do?
Retired and working at understanding my computer better, I am also a member of San Francisco Linux Users Group and help host monthly meetings and maintain the Distribution Library. It does not pay well, but is very satisfying at times.

Where do you call home? What is it like? IE: weather, scenery
San Francisco, California for the past 52 years. We enjoy every sort of weather aside from snowstorms, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Only strong Earthquakes wake up people who have lived in California the most of their lives.

Where did you go to school and what is your education level?
I finished High School in Sacramento, California. Then I took USN schools in hospital corpsman, psychiatric nursing technician, and nuclear power health physicist. Then, after the service, some nursing training classes.

What kind of things you like doing? hobbies, travel, fishing, camping?
Oh i like eating and breathing. When I was younger and before computers, I was an avid motorcyclist and liked to ride road events like the California 1000. In 1984, after several elective surgeries and anomalous illness, I acquired systemic exertional intolerance disease, and it has gradually worsened over the years since. I lived through the big explosion of computer interest and read all I could before I bought my Commodore 64 in the 1980's, and an Amiga in the 1990's.

Around 2011, I got serious and got a DSL line and started to download lots of distributions, but never found any I wanted to switch to until Mandriva went under and did not recover. I found PCLinuxOS around 2012.

I also liked to read SF magazines, but they became too expensive after I had to retire from nursing. Now, I make extensive use of the San Francisco Public Library. I got interested in Japanese animation in the early 2000's then, due to that in Japanese comics called "Manga." I buy a few manga at low prices. To better understand the topics of the comics, I got interested in Japanese history and foods. I have read lots of books on Japanese history, ancient and modern.

Why and when did you start using Linux?
About 2006 when the Commodore Business Machines had gone under in 1994, I hoped forlornly that it would do the smart thing and start transitioning to the x86 processor architecture. One of my online friends suggested Mandriva, but could not get it together to send me copies. Another online friend took pity on me and sent me the Mandriva 2006 iso files on a DVD. I made the 6 CDs using Windows XP, created a partition on the Great Quality(not so great) laptop and installed Mandriva.

I learned to use Knoppix as well from a book "Knoppix for Dummies". Shortly after starting with Mandriva, I joined SF-LUG to get help, principally with getting online with WiFi and repairing LiLo.

What specific equipment do currently use with PCLinuxOS?
A Dell E6540 with i7 4 cores and 16 Gigabytes of memory and a 500 GB hard drive. My favorite is the Dell E6540 that I am working on now.

I use it with a cheap lighted keyboard on the desk, while the computer and its screen are elevated on an easel.

I take a Dell E6520 with i5, 4 cores and 12 Gigabytes of memory to the meetings, usually. Both of these are used machine representing a few hundred dollar and much less than more current models. I have added memory and hard drives to each for my specific needs.

Do you feel that your use of Linux influences the reactions you receive from your computer peers or family? If so, how?
I think I am viewed a friendly geek by my friends, that I use PCLinuxOS in the LUG disturbs some who have been propagandized to believe that Ubuntu is a user-friendly distribution. Other much more knowledgeable and skilled users don't understand why I don't work from terminals. I don't like to work from terminals because I am a rotten typist.

What would you like to see happen within PCLinuxOS that would make it a better place. What are your feelings?
If you mean in the distribution, well a really large Live Install with the multiple options desktop for environments might get on a Linux Pro distribution, which would greatly expose others to the distribution.