Another one beginning that journey

Hello everybody! This will be my first post syndicated on Planet Ubuntu and I thought I should take this opportunity and use it to introduce myself.

My name is Tim Bielawa (though to most I'm just 'Shaggy'), I'm a student at West Virginia University (seriously, it is a state, I promise!) and I'm majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics. My day job is working for the Computer Science Department as a Systems administrator (amongst other things) supporting our workstations and ever growing infrastructure. Oh, by the way, all of which (servers included) runs Ubuntu :). We're in the process of migrating all the workstations to Hardy now and by July first (mark that date to come and party in Morgantown, WVU for our release party!) rolling out with Hardy on the entire infrastructure.

I started with Slackware (9 through 11), and jumped between Debian (briefly), and Gentoo up until last Fall/Winter 2007 when I started this new job. Using Ubuntu everyday got me hooked, I rather like it :). I must admit, it took a while to get over my guilt issues of not having to ./configure && make && make install anymore -- it felt like cheating -- as if Linux was suddenly too easy and no longer a challenge to use.

I wonder how many new Ubuntu Linux users even know what that means (./configure && make && make install), or even better -- will ever roll their own kernels by hand? The less the better I think, because it means we're doing a good job of making Ubuntu the most user friendly community driven Linux distro out there.

Getting into this new position, working towards being a MOTU, has put the challenge and joy back into my Linux experience. Instead of compiling software for my box I'll be packaging it so it can work on anyones box, which if you ask me, is far more stimulating and most of all -- rewarding.

Before my introduction post gets too long I'll finish up. My goal for a job outside of college is to develop modeling software and/or graphics rendering engines. Basically if I don't turn into another John Carmack I'll be making a better MATLAB or Mathematica. To facilitate this goal I thought that joining the MOTU Science Team (though I wouldn't dare call myself a MOTU yet) would be the most logical decision. This way I'll be focusing around the kind of software I'll be writing one day.

I put this blog together to document my steps towards being a full fledged official MOTU and to maybe even help encourage others pursuing the same goal. I've got a patch submitted already for slocate (#155061) which has gotten great comments so far (Thanks to James Calver for his kind words. I'm glad my efforts helped you figure out bug fixing better!) and a new package (Bibus) up on REVU for inclusion in Intrepid.