I have always been interested in computers, and would find myself hanging out with the Computer Science students instead of the Aviation Management or Business Management students I was a part of. At home and at work I have been largely self-teaching myself using computers starting with Excel and Access with VBA through ASP and SQL at work. Thankfully my current employer values education, and so I have been taking classes and not only learning the technology, but un-learning what I have been doing wrong over the years. At home, though, I have been teaching myself Linux, system administration, networking and the overall method of migrating our system from Windows to Linux. I am involved in the Danbury Area Computer Society (DACS.org) I have the opportunity to take what I've learned the hard way and hopefully help others.. I have been enjoying Open Source for a while now, and I am hoping to get a better understanding of the entire model and application.
Authored Comments
Great article!
I haven't bought a computer since 2000, getting extras from companies, friends and family. So long as it runs Linux, I can generally make it useful.
If you are running a desktop and can up the RAM to 4GB, I have found that is the sweet spot for making a desktop (even a light one) comfortable. Servers can get by with 2 or even less.
I've also been using The Raspberry Pi Desktop (https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspberry-pi-desktop/) as it is a very light environment and gives you a good starting point.
I have also installed a Chromium OS (Neverware's CloudReady Home Edition) to make it into a low-maintenance browsing device and it works on a lot of hardware, but not all.
Gimp, InkScape and Scribus seem to be the standards for Linux Graphic Design.
For the KDE side Krita comes up, but what about Karbon for SVG?
I've tried Scribus but not with much luck. Unfortunately there are fewer alternatives for DTP than for image editing or creating it seems.