The Perpetual Newbie

Welcome! This is a new blog to deal with my user experience - as a not-quite-novice, but not-quite-power-user, too - of the Linux operating system.

Why "The Perpetual Newbie"? Because my history of computing has led me, for the most part, to switch OSes every two years or so. This isn't because I'm fickle, but because I've changed needs every so often: for example, wanting to extend the life of an older PC, or needing to do something my current OS couldn't handle.

The result has been that I'm always starting from scratch, and I'm never up to date on the latest techniques, tools, and technologies. So I always feel like I'm behind the curve when it comes to learning this stuff.

By nature I'm a problem solver, and part of my motivation stems from the frustration of trying to solve certain problems, where I can't easily find help. Thus one purpose of the Perpetual Newbie will be to chronicle, as best I can, my experiences with certain problems and the path I took to a solution. Hopefully if I find my help buried in a forum somewhere, it will make someone else's life easier to find it here. Some problems have been simply insurmountable for me, and so comments will be open to allow others to share suggestions.

By trade I am a technical writer; it does no one any good to whine about what can't be done. Why not assure people that something can be done, and then explain, as clearly as I can, how?

My posting schedule will hopefully be about one post per week. I've got a backlog of possible topics that seems to pile up faster than that, so there should be no trouble finding something to say! I'll get into my computing history a little next time, before delving into some of my current adventures.