Ubuntu Wiki

I am brand new to the Ubuntu community and am following closely the tutorials and path laid out in the Wikis for community involvement, which I find to be very good so far.

I have been a programmer since before 1987, starting out on an Apple II, then on MS-DOS and CP/M machines, an early multi-board "network in a box" system based on a multi-user CP/M variant, then on to Windows (starting with Windows/386 then Windows 3.0), Windows 95 and Windows NT (which became XP/Vista/7). I also became a Certified Netware Engineer (CNE) for Novell Netware and have a long history of server, network and desktop engineering and administration.

After being lucky enough to eventually get hired as an IT guy at The Boeing Company, I eventually requested and got transferred to software development, becoming an embedded software engineer doing avionics (real-time, embedded programming) for the B1 Bomber as well as simulation software, some firmware and some hardware integration work in concert with my software work.

My software development platforms and targets were mainly Unix variants or Unix-like real time systems. I programmed some Linux including Red Hat Linux and YellowDog Linux. I found it quite like Unix and very exciting and cutting edge. On my own time, I have maintained RedHat and Fedora Linux PCs and done some programming on them to learn Linux programming skills and familiarize myself with the OS architecture and development tools

I currently have an Ubuntu "Natty" (11.04) i386 PC which is now completely set up with the full complement of Ubuntu development tools and a full Ubuntu development environment. I VNC into from my main Windwos Vista machine, and it seems much more stable than my main Windows machine - I have to reboot my Vista machine at least every 2-3 days, but since I have installed Ubuntu and upgraded to 11.04, have not had to reboot once due to memory leaks, stability issues or package installs.

I am finding as I get involved with the Ubuntu community that I am very impressed and excited to have found Ubuntu as an outlet for my creative energies. I am positive that one day, given patience and hard work, I can become a valuable contributor to the Ubuntu effort.

The community ethos is very positive as stated, the tools are excellent, the Wikis are good quality, the people are helpful and positive in the IRC channels and I find nuts and bolts of the packaging, build environment and other development tools to be very usable and robust. The Website tools and information are very robust and seem overall well maintained and usable.

I am happy to be on board, and plan on staying with the Ubuntu community for a long time.