hugh nicks
August 25th, 2003, 00:26
Hi all.
I was originally going to save this for a few buddies in an email, but decided that sharing it with everybody would do it more justice.
For those that know me, they might already know some of this, and for those who don't, I will try quickly to bring you up to speed.
In Oct of 02, I had a nice job working for a friend of mine at a medical company, heading up the IT dept. Which was me, by the way, but head it up I did. I knew I was in for a bumpy ride when our CEO at the time insisted that I buy all our hardware from Hell,.. I mean Dell Computers because "he had one at home". Turned out to be the worst thing I had ever done, but at least all the blame dripped right off me because it wasn't my suggestion. Needless to say, that CEO lasted only another 4 months. But while I was working, I got to really get my hands dirty with Windows XP Pro. I had those machines purring and the OS tuned like a piano (when they worked). Everything on the backend however, was BSD. My original intention was to convert the entire company (15) to some sort of open source software, but that was quashed right at the get go. I had also tinkered with the BSD's, both Open and Free at my previous job, but never really got into it because I had always done Windows support. So I always was a Windows guy.
Then one day, my friend decided that his company should look for a really good management team to come in and help us out. So he looked, and he looked, until he came across some guys from Buckley's. Yup, the very same. See, they had sold Buckley's a few years back and made some sweet smack from the deal. They would never have to work again let's say. So they grabbed some stock and jumped aboard, and we all sailed off to happy cheeryville. Then for some reason, in July, they panicked, pulled the plug on the company, fired everyone, shut the doors, and declared bankruptcy.
yikes.
told you i'd get you up to speed...
So now, I have my own consulting company, and I help people fix their problems. It's work, but at least I'm calling the shots. Fixed a bunch of computers in the last little while. Couple of hard drive failures. Windows failures. In fact, I must have been around it too much, because my very own drive died on me. Twice. Both times running XP Professional. Within a week of each other. So I got to thinking yesterday, why would I go and re-install that junk again? Why would I subject myself to the headache time and time again? Downloading over 100 MB of patches after the initial install? Knowing that I've given permission for MS to take a look at my computer whenever they want and they can make changes and they're not responsilbe? So I went to my roommate's computer, downloaded the kern and mfsroot disc images, and got to work. As of this posting, I have 5.1 running, did a full cvs and portupgrade (good lord that took a while), and now have evolution, xmms, openoffice, and phoenix compiled. Throw in a 17' DVI LCD, and kde never looked so good. So basically, with the exeption of a few programs that absolutly have to run on a windows machine, I will build a crap box for the crap, and leave the good stuff to FreeBSD.
I am done with Windows.
man that felt good to say *tear*
Thanks for listening everyone.
hn
I was originally going to save this for a few buddies in an email, but decided that sharing it with everybody would do it more justice.
For those that know me, they might already know some of this, and for those who don't, I will try quickly to bring you up to speed.
In Oct of 02, I had a nice job working for a friend of mine at a medical company, heading up the IT dept. Which was me, by the way, but head it up I did. I knew I was in for a bumpy ride when our CEO at the time insisted that I buy all our hardware from Hell,.. I mean Dell Computers because "he had one at home". Turned out to be the worst thing I had ever done, but at least all the blame dripped right off me because it wasn't my suggestion. Needless to say, that CEO lasted only another 4 months. But while I was working, I got to really get my hands dirty with Windows XP Pro. I had those machines purring and the OS tuned like a piano (when they worked). Everything on the backend however, was BSD. My original intention was to convert the entire company (15) to some sort of open source software, but that was quashed right at the get go. I had also tinkered with the BSD's, both Open and Free at my previous job, but never really got into it because I had always done Windows support. So I always was a Windows guy.
Then one day, my friend decided that his company should look for a really good management team to come in and help us out. So he looked, and he looked, until he came across some guys from Buckley's. Yup, the very same. See, they had sold Buckley's a few years back and made some sweet smack from the deal. They would never have to work again let's say. So they grabbed some stock and jumped aboard, and we all sailed off to happy cheeryville. Then for some reason, in July, they panicked, pulled the plug on the company, fired everyone, shut the doors, and declared bankruptcy.
yikes.
told you i'd get you up to speed...
So now, I have my own consulting company, and I help people fix their problems. It's work, but at least I'm calling the shots. Fixed a bunch of computers in the last little while. Couple of hard drive failures. Windows failures. In fact, I must have been around it too much, because my very own drive died on me. Twice. Both times running XP Professional. Within a week of each other. So I got to thinking yesterday, why would I go and re-install that junk again? Why would I subject myself to the headache time and time again? Downloading over 100 MB of patches after the initial install? Knowing that I've given permission for MS to take a look at my computer whenever they want and they can make changes and they're not responsilbe? So I went to my roommate's computer, downloaded the kern and mfsroot disc images, and got to work. As of this posting, I have 5.1 running, did a full cvs and portupgrade (good lord that took a while), and now have evolution, xmms, openoffice, and phoenix compiled. Throw in a 17' DVI LCD, and kde never looked so good. So basically, with the exeption of a few programs that absolutly have to run on a windows machine, I will build a crap box for the crap, and leave the good stuff to FreeBSD.
I am done with Windows.
man that felt good to say *tear*
Thanks for listening everyone.
hn