I am a 68-year-old (retired after 30 years in IT)

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Hi,

I am a 68-year-old (retired after 30 years in IT), happily married Brit with two daughters living in the south of England. I’m a geek primarily for science, science fiction, computing and, more recently, writing as I have published my first book (SF of course) although I’m struggling with its sequel (hopefully the only one).

Both my desktop and laptop are Windows but I have four Raspberry Pi machines (three 5s and one 4) and an N97 mini-PC (upgraded to 2Tb) on which I’m building a Ubuntu server to replace my Pi one. The server will host Nextcloud, Samba (NAS) and DLNA as I have an awful lot of ripped videos and MP3s (all legal). I’m not sure if I’ll use JellyFin on this one as I’m not a huge fan of its interface.

So yeah, despite a period back in the early 2000s where I used Linux solely for a period of six months before retreating to Windows, I’ve mucked about with Linux now and then so I have a fair bit of Linux experience especially since I got my first Pi a couple of years back. That said, my Linux knowledge is piecemeal, I often just don’t “get it” and I sometimes jokingly refer to myself as a brain-damaged Windows ex-tech.

'spose the other thing I should mention is that, even though I’ve successfully migrated to Windows 11, I’m one of those people teetering on the edge of jumping ship because I’m finding more and more of post-Gates MS limitations (or whatever you’d call them) grating on me. I mean I’m seriously wondering how long it’ll be before you can’t even build a Windows PC without internet and access to a Microsoft account… hence some of my interest in Linux and I guess it’s only fear of the unknown that holds me on Windows.

Anyway, hello :slight_smile:

James

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Hey James, welcome!

That’s a solid setup. Those Pi 5s and the N97 make a great combo for tinkering and home services. Totally get you on the Windows frustration; more of us are reaching that point lately. I spent a year thinking I could use Windows more than Linux as a daily desktop OS. Not possible.

Sounds like you’re already halfway over to Linux anyway, especially with the self-hosted projects you’re running. Looking forward to seeing how your Ubuntu server build goes and hearing more about your book too.

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I’ve always loved and had access to computers, always built my own desktop systems rather than buy them and I’m definitely a desktop aficionado rather than laptop. Most stuff I can repair myself, I mean yesterday I knocked a pint of water over my keyboard which (despite drying it as quick as I could) left me with my main CTRL key malfunctioning… turns out it’s easier than I thought to switch keys on a mechanical keyboard and a quick bathe in isopropyl alcohol seems to have solved the problems with the “faulty” one.

I perused your blog article with interest… if you had a C64, I’m guessing we’ve been in computers about the same amount of time. After finishing Uni in '83 (it was a polytechnic then), I immediately bought myself a Commodore VIC20 and worked my way up via a C16 and an Apple IIe (I was kinda wedded to the 6502). I sold the Apple for my first PC, an Amstrad PC1512, I started upgrading and I’ve never left the PC path since, just kept on upgrading. Following poor experiences with them back in the early 2000s, I’ve never been a fan of AMD CPUs (I know, so many use them for gaming they can’t be that bad), so my current PC is a Core i5 11th Gen, with 32Gb Ram, a GeForce RTX 3050 (6Gb), 3Tb NVME and two 4K monitors. Oh, and a mechanical keyboard, haha.

Anyway, distracted… yeah, good to see you are open-minded about OSs. My view is all OSs have strengths and weaknesses and all of us have favourites, mine being Windows and I’m very much a fan of their Office suite. IMO MS (post-Gates) is going too far down the control route, I’ve found Win 11 a pain although I’ve customised the start menu to be as Win 10-like as possible and even Office is [expletive deleted]ing me off. As a consequence, I’ve been musing more and more about migrating to Linux the problem being, as someone on XDA put it, it’s a leap into the unknown and for all its ills, Windows remains [for me] a largely familiar environment, one that I’ve customised to my liking and one that I can do pretty much everything I want to do. I have a list of applications that I think would be challenging to get working on Linux or find alternatives I like for. I mean, whenever I mention Office, I’m immediately told about LibreOffice and (sorry not sorry) sure, it’s good but it just ain’t Office. But I’m still frustrated and it isn’t helped by the fact that, post-retirement, I have a kinda [ethical] home computer support business and all of my clients use Windows.

Yeah, my book… it’s called “Stars, Hide Your Fires”, it’s science fiction of a type I call a future alternative history because something happened in the past to change things but sets more recent historical events in a science fiction context. It started off as a trilogy but I’m having issues (structural and motivational) with the sequel in part because I see far too many authors going down the interminable series route (one trick ponies constantly writing variations on the same theme, usually the last decrepit spaceship defending Earth from superior but evil aliens) and I’m determined not to be one of them. Anyway, I’m trying to make it just the two books, a duology if that’s the right thing to call it? You’ll find more info at my website, unsurprisingly, jamescrocks.com.

James

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