[Preston] Just joined...

[Matthew T. Atkinson]

Hello there,

I am new to the list (just joined today) so I thought I would send a brief
e-mail to say who I am and why I am here.  I am a Computer Science student
at Loughborough University - but I live in Penwortham, Preston.  My first
Linux was SuSE 8.0 Professional, which I bought in the summer.  I bought it
because I have been curious about Linux for some time and I have grown more
and more disappointed/angry with M$ over the years because of the products
they have released and the tactics that they use to ensure their popularity.
Since I have been back at university (for my 2nd year) I have tried Mandrake
9.0 and Lycoris.  I got Lycoris (build 46, I think) to see if it is really
true that my granny could use it, hehe.  Actually I tried it because it is
supposed to work well with windows networks but that failed ("Student Hall"
has a space in it and I thought that may be the problem).  Also, it didn't
work at all well with my USB Zip drive/scanner (for OCR) so I had to give up
on it.  Maybe one day I'll try it again - it seems to be well on course to
becoming a windows competitor.

At the moment I can only use Linux in console mode (which is amazing
compared to any other OS' console I have used) and I dual boot with win2k.
This is because I am visually impaired and need a screen magnifier to use
GUIs.  There is a screen reader/magnifier in development for the GUI side of
Linux (readers exist for console already) but I have not yet been able to
make it work (install) for me.  I hope that within this academic year I will
be using Linux exclusively.  I definitely intend to be before M$ "Longhorn"
comes out  anyway, but I hope I'll be using Linux to its full potential a
long time before then.

Well I think I've covered everything there.  I am still a relative Linux
newbie.  I have, however, been using computers since the end of the Spectrum
era and my first "real" one was an Amiga (excellent platform IMHO).  I have
been using PCs since 1996 and have got a lot of experience with them.
Currently I have an AMD machine which I "made" (bought the bits and paid
someone to put them together).  I am sure that I will learn a lot by
following this mailing list but I hope that I may be able to offer something
back too, as my experience with Linux increases!


Bye just now,




Matthew