Ubuntu Wiki

Introduction

My wiki page.

About Me

I am Cortman. I live in mid-southern USA and do drafting and mechanical design with a renewable energy/power generation company for a living. I'm a very firm believer in Christianity. My handle comes from Richard Matheson's scifi novel I am Legend.

I've been interested in computers and a constant user ever since I got my first one in the late '90's. I started messing with Linux in 2006 with Xandros on that first computer- I didn't have internet access at the time and I could order the Xandros discs through TigerDirect. In those days I mostly ran Fedora and openSUSE, although I was simply dabbling at that point and didn't get in-depth at all.
I've always been a fan of customizing my hardware/software. I kept trying to trim down Windows and make it run more efficiently, but it seemed like a losing battle (I can't remember how many times I reinstalled Win7!). I flirted with the idea of trying Mac but was scared off by the prices. Thus I decided to go back to my Linux roots and see if it could achieve what I wanted.
I started first with Ubuntu in early 2011, mainly because it supported my wireless card "out of the box", and joined the forums some months later. Since then I've really enjoyed learning the nuts and bolts of Linux; the design; the shell, and dabbling in a few programming languages such as Perl, Java, and Python. DE theming is also of interest to me.
I've always enjoyed learning, and I like the mental stimulation that working with Linux affords me. For me, Linux is the answer to what I want in computing.

Contributions

I contribute regularly to the Ubuntu forums. I especially like helping in the Absolute Beginner's section- it's great to see people realizing the joy of Linux. I don't specialize in any single facet of the system; I just try to help however I can.
I am a member of the Forum Wiki Team and am working on maintaining the Ubuntu community wiki and helping move the T&T section of the forums to the wiki.
I'm also involved (sporadically) in the Ubuntu +1 group and in testing new release ISOs.

Future Goals

My number one goal is to become more knowledgeable about Linux in general and to help other beginners become comfortable with using it. I'd especially like to be able to help troubleshoot faulty installations of the OS itself and software, since it's the software that really makes a computer magical. I hope to become more proficient in scripting and increase my knowledge on that subject.
I plan to keep on maintaining the community wiki and assisting in information transfer there. I also hope to contribute more (and more knowledgeably) to the forums.

Testimonials

Very cheery, helpful chap. Sticky was a stroke of genius, I use it all of the time and can't believe no-one thought of it before. -MG&TL.

I signed up for the first time in Feb-2012 and I login almost every day in the Ubuntu-Forums. I can confirm that I see cortman very active and helpful , especially in Absolute Beginners section. - NikTh