Mario Limonciello

Launchpad:..https://launchpad.net/people/superm1

e-mail:............MailTo(superm1 AT gmail.com)

e-mail:............MailTo(mario.mailing AT gmail.com)

e-mail:............MailTo(superm1 AT iastate.edu)

IRC nickname:.....superm1 on Freenode network

Physical Location:.......Rochester, MN.

Linux Usage History:

Began experimenting with Gentoo during December, 2003. Solely used Gentoo from July 2004 through September 2005. Experimented with Ubuntu, September 2005 - December 2005. Soley used Ubuntu January 2006 - Present.

I originally got into Linux because a friend had told be it was the best thing to use for running a web server. I was quite stubborn at the time, and struggled with Gentoo Linux. As most people know, it's not the most "user friendly" operating system to start with if your coming from Windows. I went cold turkey in December of 2003, and stuck with it until March the next year. I went back to Windows for gaming purposes, and then toyed with the idea of exclusively using Linux again until July that year.

During May & June of 2004, I experimented with several time shifting solutions for my television. In looking around, I found MythTV. This was a perfect excuse for me to come back to Gentoo. I used Gentoo as my only OS for a little over a year. I used Ubuntu as a secondary OS (Breezy RC, and Dapper when Breezy went gold) through December. Once I was convinced, I switched to Ubuntu as a primary OS. Since then, I have been a strong supporter of the open source movement, and done my best to show people how great it is.

Linux Community Contributions

I have some level of programming in many different languages. Between taking classes in High School & College, I developed skills for programming in C++ & Java. During two internships, I learned how to use BASH scripting, perl, Tcl/Tk, and some OCEAN scripting.

If I'm presented with code in a language I haven't used, I very often can interpret the code and what its attempting to achieve. When I run into a bug in a program, I check the bug tracker for the project. If there is nothing listed for it, I will very often download the source package, and try to trace it down myself.

Outside Ubuntu

Gentoo

Before using Ubuntu, I maintained a network of machines for using MythTV on Gentoo. I was very active on the forums, even when not talking about MythTV.

find links

Compiz

MythTV

Ubuntu Contributions

MythTV

For the first few months, I experimented with mythTV only to run into troubles, bugs, and complaints from my roomates. I reported what I could to the mythtv mailing list, and tried to fix what I could with my own experiences. I was very lucky to have very experienced people working on ebuilds in my gentoo days to help keep mythtv running smoothly. When I was a gentoo user, I didn't give back nearly as much.

When I came into using Ubuntu, I was very happy to see very recent versions available directly in Breezy's repository. For a good period of time, this worked out very well for me. As I kept up with the MythTV mailing list, I started to hear about newer features and wanted these available in Ubuntu. I quickly learned how grueling of a process it was to try to modify packages and rebuild binaries on something without an ebuild. I hunted for other people's repositories, and used other people's packages as I learned.

Eventually a new version of myth was released. Unfortunately, 0.19 never made it into dapper, and it was pretty unheard of to have a package built in the correct debian format. Being that I had a gentoo backend, I attempted to build some packages myself. It was a matter of porting the patches applied to gentoo over to a debian package.

I made this package sync up with the gentoo version ...

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