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Contact Information

About Me

I am a Hindi speaking computer enthusiast, a 32 year male, from a small town in Northern India. I am a post graduate in Defence & Strategic Studies - an Arts stream subject, and finished college in 2005. Of the 5 jobs I have changed since 2007, only last two were IT-related.

In July this year, I finally left my last job and returned home - a typical North Indian rural village - due to some urgent reasons at home. Now I am hoping to start something of my own and hopefully realize a few dreams I have for far away future - involving Linux, Ubuntu or whatever, and a widespread chain of training and support which should be locally and quickly available to everyone. However, in my current circumstances it is not possible for me to make any significant move in this direction. So I'm planning to just make a start next year at a very small scale that I can afford right now, then escalate my work to higher levels as and when possible.

My Introduction with Ubuntu

I joined UbuntuForums in March 2010, but was using it for quite some time before that. I should mention here that I have never pursued any formal IT education nor training. I had never even seen a computer from a close distance before March 2005. How I got into computers and how I learnt whatever I know today is an interesting course of my life but perhaps not worth mentioning here. It should be enough to just say that it was all by breaking and building things, aka - "trial and error" method.

When I first got my hands over a live cd of 7.04 in late 2008, it was nothing less than a miracle, a dream come true for me that a whole OS could be run directly from a cd - without needing to be installed ! Still, although I kept lurking around in the domains of Ubuntu since then, even recommended it to a few friends, I never really used it seriously myself until around December 2009.

In October 2009, I had installed Ubuntu 9.04 on the laptop of a friend (more like my younger brother), who was a B.Tech.(Computer-Science) student, for study purpose. Two months later I got a call from him, & was sure he must have removed Ubuntu by then. To my utter surprise, he told me that he was so impressed that he had completely switched to it. He was going home for a few days, so handed his laptop to me. It was an Ubuntu-Studio 9.04 setup with all the eye-candy of Compiz enabled. The performance and glamour of the setup was enough to push me beyond the line of fear or hesitation. It immediately found its place on my portable HDD as a live system, and I kept using it like that for next 4-5 months. In my next job, I installed first 9.10, then 10.04 as soon as it came out, on a couple of PCs/laptop's as dual-boots in my new workplace, and kept playing with it. Every now and then I would recommend others to try it as much as they could. I also set-up an entire lab with 16 self-assembled computers - all dual-booting Mint-10 or Ubuntu 10.04 with XP. In the same place, I had also assembled two file-servers putting FreeNAS on them. However, never got time to play with advance options in FreeNAS.

In June this year (2012) I bought my first ever laptop, and of course, put 12.04 - 64 bit on it - a dual-boot with Win7 - 64 bit, hoping to explore Ubuntu more deeply, whenever I could manage some 'extra' time. But as it turned out - I now find it really hard to remember when I last booted into Win7. The only thing I'm sure about is - it's certainly no more than 6-7 times since I have bought it.

Contributions to Ubuntu Forums

Since I have no particular field of interest or 'expertise' in anything, my activity also spans across various sections on the UbuntuForums. Depending on time I have, I usually pick any thread which is old enough and hasn't got answers yet or not 'useful' ones while it seems like I can help. Be it networking, booting, installation,... in short, anything which I have some understanding of and believe that I may help the poster solving the problem. If a thread already has answers, I usually refrain from posting unless I can definitely add some value to it, or help the poster quickly reach the solution.

While posting I try to make the OPs feel comfortable and welcome, and in the process of troubleshooting, I try to give them an understanding of whatever I'm trying and how it works. If a poster asks me - "what does it mean" or "why did you do that", I get really delighted as if he/she has given me the License to Kill ! I would explain every possible bit of what I know about it and would encourage them to ask more if they need or are interested. Wherever I have doubts myself, I would clearly state that it is "my personal belief/opinion" and I may be wrong, thereby keeping the possibilities open.

Whenever dealing with new members, I like to educate them about posting different threads for different problems, using 'Code' tags or marking threads as [Solved], and that how it helps others and themselves. If they are also new to Linux, I would try to give them as much information as possible in a way so it remains relevant, informative and not overwhelming to them.

I try to help keeping the forums clean by reporting duplicates, spams, posts in outdated threads or irrelevant posts. Sometimes I'd even ask a mod to change titles or edit posts for the OP (oh, I love annoying mods with my reportings ! ).

Future Goals

My Long-Term Goals

Since playing with computers and Ubuntu has grown from hobby to profession and profession to addiction for me, now I'm working as much as possible to find ways to deliver my best to the willing and deserving people around me - from individuals to organisations - with whatever knowledge and experience I have and may gain with constant working and learning. I want to spread enough awareness in people so they become truly capable of deciding what is best for them, and if that happens to be anything Linux or Open-Source, I want to make sure they get full support - with maximum possible feasibility - whenever and wherever they need it. Of-course it needs an established, widespread chain of training and support, and a huge number of self-inspired good professionals. So it's like an ultimate dream for me to form or contribute forming such a large support network of trained and capable people who can also prove that if a few myths about Linux can be overcome by providing proper support and setting a few good examples, it can actually be more beneficial to all - both financially and performance-wise, to both the consumers as well as the service providers.

However, given my capabilities, resources, and to top it all - my unmatched laziness (yay !), I don't know how many lifetimes it is going to take for me to realize this dream. But I know I'd keep walking anyway, because actually it is the 'journey' that I am enjoying, not some expectation of achievements or accomplishments. It's great if they come along the way, but doesn't matter if they don't.

My Immediate Plans

In my 7-years of experience with computers, I have seen that most of the 'average' people I have met don't even know about existence of 'a different OS'. Most of those who do, are afraid of trying Linux - due to a few valid, but mostly hypothetical reasons. And this, surprisingly to me, includes IT professionals and IT students too! Those very few who dare to try it - either give up immediately or keep it limited to a hobby, because they see 'no future for them' in it.

To overcome the 'hypothetical reasons' and to avoid the learn-all-over-again complex, I have been thinking for quite some time to start with students who have potential, but no prior experience with computers. Now that I have left my job and am home doing nothing, I see it as a golden opportunity to start off. By looking at the quality of computer education offered in and around my area, which is worse than a bad joke, I hope it won't be difficult for me to win good students. I have done this in past when I didn't have much knowledge and experience, and hope to do far better this time. The only problem - my current financial constraints and some official formalities. So I'd be starting at a very small scale - maybe in January or at most July next year - with maybe no more than a 4-6 computers lab with relatively few students.

To extend my area and hopefully my influence too, I have talked to a couple of charity-based schools who are willing to involve me in their existing computer education system. I may be taking 'weekly' classes there and would be training their regular teachers for the 'regular' course. Although those courses don't have much scope for Linux, but at least I shall be able to introduce the students to Linux and give them a taste of its 'goodies'. So I guess this is going to be my main occupation for next year or so.

Testimonials

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