Introduce Yourself Here!

Stephen Ewen · **Posted:** Fri Feb 15, 2013 8:57 pm

I'm the guy behind UberStudent.

I have an M.Ed. in Adult Learning from the University of British Columbia and additional postgraduate studies in Post-secondary Literacy Instruction. Before that I graduated from Florida Atlantic University Honors College with a B.A. in anthropology and political science. I have about 10 years work experience in higher education with a focus on getting mis-prepared learners ready for college-level studies.

I'm a U.S. citizen and live in eastern Wisconsin. I've lived in several Latin American countries, Micronesia, and Haiti.

I consider myself an educator first and software developer second. In so far as software development is concerned, I am self-taught. I saw and felt a need, went from there, and have become pretty well-versed by now, while learning more every day. :ugeek:

There is more UberStudent backstory here.

UPDATE: I read every introductory post here and enjoy each one a great deal, even if I do not reply.

Russell Bryant · **Posted:** Fri Feb 15, 2013 10:56 pm

Wow, that was fast!

My name is Russell Bryant, and as you can see, I took Stephen's suggestion that I use my real name instead of some cryptic pseudonym. For me, this is a new approach since I almost invariably try to hide some things about myself. Here in this place I will try for a certain amount of transparency.

I have been using Linux now since about 2004, when I ran it from live CD's with no 'persistence' because I was afraid of attempting to install anything to hard drive. As a result, I became very acquainted with Slax in its previous incarnation and with Puppy, which I still use, though installed to usb now. It was nearly two years before I first installed Linux Mint 7 to my harddrive. It was a good beginning, though I have fallen out of love with Mint.

As a Linux user, I've reached a plateau at the intermediate level and have not yet found my way to becoming an advanced user.

I live for learning things, even though I have not had a formal education. Being an orphan, there was little in the way of support for me, emotional or otherwise, and I had to find my own way. I tell people I went to the school of hard knocks.

I cook for a living, and yes, I am self-taught, with a lot of help along the way. I began cooking until I could find myself a way to get out of it and begin my real life, and thirty-odd (*very odd*) years later I realized this was my life.

And so, I have been trying to learn to stop running away from what is in front of me. I find that to be difficult, since I have been living in my mind for nearly all my life.

I feel life is a matter of learned techniques: everything you do or want to do can be broken down into its component parts. This is the essence of my 'philosophy.'

David Baum · **Posted:** Mon Feb 18, 2013 11:12 pm

Hi you two,

Stephen Ewen wrote:

In so far as software development is concerned, I am self-taught

Well, that is an impressive information. Making a whole distro by learning all of your own...

I laughed so hard while reading your profile Mr. Bryant:

Quote:

I rearrange fat, carbohydrates and proteins into consumable forms.

You're not using a cryptic pseudonym, but your are encrypting your occupation

Thanks for giving some insights in your life.

Bill Semm · **Joined:** Sun Feb 10, 2013 11:44 pm **Posts:** 18

Well I kind of introduced my self in another thread but I will do it hear as well.

Like Russell I tend to use the cryptic names on other forums so this is a bit of a change for me. I'm a Navy Veteran of 20 years, I worked on the jet engines and as I gained rank I moved more into management. When I graduated high school, back in the late 60's you either went into the service or college. There was no way my grades were going to let me in any college and to be honest I really had no desire to continue to go to school so I joined the Navy to get my training. While in the Navy back in '85 I was given a computer, that I literally did not know how to turn on (the on.off switch was in the back). I was supposed to track the training schedule, qualifications and TAD requirements for a large department on the ship. I really had no desire to use this big white box sitting on my desk but I had no choice. DBase III had been installed and an ensign had written a program to do the tracking but you had to know this number (which I discovered later was the primary key) to find an record. On a ship Chief Petty Officers (CPO) have their own dining facilities so I went down there one day and was belly aching to a couple of friends about this computer. One of them said if you don't like change it and write your own. That night he came up and showed me how to get into the source code and some basics of writing a program. Little did I know at the time a new career was born that night. I pick up programming quite easy and by the time the cruise was over I transferred I had written in the neighborhood of 20-30 programs to do everything from send someone mess cooking to tracking security clearances.

When I transferred I found I messed the computer and writing programs so the local school system had a program called continuing adult education and the Navy would reimburse me for the tuition if I passed. So I started taking classes just for the fun of it. I never thought I would end up having an IT career because of my education level. Fast forward an I retired from the Navy and worked in the HVAC industry for a while then went in to home maintenance trying to find my nitch. I developed a tumor on my right lung, a few years after retiring and while in the hospital a congregation member came up to visit and as we were talking he found out that I had some computer experience. So since I could no longer work in a physical demanding occupation he offered to give me a try and that was it. I spent a little over 20 years working in various IT departments and as a contractor.

I do have a couple of years of college I took while I was in the Navy but never got my degree so like Russell I also went the school of hard knocks. Back around 2000 -2001 I became dissatisfied with Microsoft and Window's. So I had heard about Linux and decided to give it a try. It was a love - hate relationship for a few years because back then you had to have some technical expertise to get things going on Linux, much more then today, so after programming all day dealing with problems in the office I did not want to deal with computer problems at home with Linux. So although I'm comfortable working with the command line I don't consider my self proficient with it. Also over the years of having to stay on up with the latest things going on with technology and dealing with it all day long I have burned out so now I just like something that works and an OS that just stays out of the way.

Since retiring I have come full circle and I now work on small engines in my spare time and a little computer work, mainly for friends. I now have several of our friends using Linux and it says a lot for Linux because most of these people are computer illiterate. Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it! :lol:

Thanks for taking the time to read it.

Guest · **Posted:** Fri Feb 22, 2013 1:48 am

An introduction thread is a great idea.

I'm Carl Feagans, an archaeologist in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas (well... finishing my master's this May).

I've been using Linux since my Army days back in the 90's ... I played around with several distributions then (probably Red Hat and one or two others). They were interesting, but that was a time when you really had to have some skills in computers to even install Linux much less make it a functional OS for every day use. For years I used Windows 2000 Professional until I needed to upgrade and I found XP to be a pain. The final straw was when it rebooted seemingly on its own to finish an automatic update -while I was in the middle of working!

In my frustration, I picked up a LiveCD for Ubuntu that I had laying around and installed it. That was 2004. I haven't gone back to Windows since on my computers. I have three machines (two desktops and one netbook) that run Linux now, one Ubuntu 12.04 and two UberStudent (Light on the netbook and Mate on my main machine).

I'm a huge advocate of education and academia and try to promote that in a couple of sites I have: http://ahotcupofjoe.net, my archaeology blog, and http://thescienceforum.org a science discussion forum. So UberStudent was right up my ally. At Stephen's recommendation, I installed the Light version on my daughter's netbook and she loves it. Running much faster than the Ubuntu 12.04 distro that *was* on it, even though its essentially the same thing under the hood. Not using Gnome is probably the reason.

In fact, I also noticed that file transfers to a USB stick under UberStudent are much, much faster than with a regular Ubuntu install. Is it because I'm using Mate instead of Gnome? The slow nature of USB flash drives not an insignificant problem and you can find a lot of discussion about it as a bug when you search Ubuntu forums.

gcoulthard · **Joined:** Fri Feb 22, 2013 4:24 am **Posts:** 4

Hi everyone -- My name is Glen Coulthard and I'm a professor in the Okanagan College, School of Business in British Columbia, Canada. I teach the business technology courses, including Office applications, Management Information Systems, E-Commerce, and IT Project Management. I've been solely a Windows user up until a year ago when I dove into sampling Linux distros - my favorites being Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Zorin, Pinguy, Solus OS, and Netrunner KDE. I'm currently multi-booting my tablet between Windows 7, Windows 8, Linux Mint, and Netrunner, while my desktop remains Windows 7 with a variety of Linux virtual machines. I'll be rebuilding my desktop after this semester completes and hope to move to a single Linux installation. I've been impressed with UberStudent and I'm looking forward to following its development, as it would be a great installation for my teaching tablet notebook.

Hope you don't mind a newbie!
-- All the best, Glen

Russell Bryant · **Posted:** Sat Feb 23, 2013 3:13 am

Hello, Stephen, David, Bill, Carl and Glen! I'm very happy to meet you guys, and I hope we can help each other in building a strong and supporting community here as this project grows.

David Baum · **Posted:** Sun Feb 24, 2013 12:10 am

gcoulthard wrote:

Hope you don't mind a newbie!

What ?! Get out of here !
Just kidding

Russell Bryant wrote:

building a strong and supporting community

sounds good

Nice week-end all

Damodaran Varrier · **Joined:** Mon Feb 25, 2013 1:34 pm **Posts:** 1

Hello Everybody,
I am Damodaran Varrier from Kerala State of India. I am a Linux user since 2003. I have tried Uberstudent about one month and happy to adopt it as one of my prime OS. I am very happy to congratulate the team who made this wonderful distro.
I used to demonstrate Linux in schools and other educational institutions. For me it seemed very convenient to run the computers on school lab from an LTSP server installed in my laptop.
The reasons are 1. The computers in schools are with very basic hardware (especially in India) with 128 or 256 MB RAM running Windows XP. Most of them have on board LAN, graphics etc.
2. I can easily run 15-20 PC's with my laptop during the demonstration thus giving the students the chance to explore the power of the Linux OS. Uberstudent have almost all software needed for a student. Hence I want to setup a LTSP server for running Uberstudent lite 2.0 version in thin clients.
Now I am only able to create LTSP server with "ubuntu-desktop" or edubuntu-desktop" images for thin clients. Please give me any hint to reproduce the same Uberstudent Lite desktop running in the server in the client. Once again I am conveying my regards to all members of this forum
Damodaran Varrier

Stephen Ewen · **Posted:** Mon Feb 25, 2013 6:37 pm

Hi Damodaran:

I'll try to make time to make a how-to to make UberStudent a thin client. I've done it before and it's not difficult. In the meantime, of you come up with directions, let me know and I'll make an account for you at the wiki and you can do the how-to.

UberStudent Forums

Introduce Yourself Here!

Who is online