User:DerrickDevine

Derrick Devine

Hello and Welcome to my User Page. I recently joined the rPath Documentation team (May 2007) and will be supplementing online documentation at wiki.rpath.com.

Where did you Get Your Start with Linux?

I am sometimes asked where and when I started experimenting with Linux. In 1994, I entered college at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska. We ran 2 SunOS (Solaris 2.0) boxes there...one for email and one for newsgroups. I began messing with IRC eggdrop bots and compiling my own IRC protection scripts there. Soon, I heard through various BBS postings about a free Unix you could download and install on your own computer. Slackware with a 1.2 kernel was my first Linux.

Fast forward to present. I was pulled in to rPath due to my work with PCLinuxOS...namely, the new user guides and wiki efforts I coordinated for .92 through 2007 releases. Now, I attempt to make life with the wiki here better :)

Are You Some Kind of MediaWiki Guru?

Not really. I got my start with wiki's by creating, maintaining, and designing the PCLinuxOS Documentation Wiki powered by Wikka. As time went on, many users complained that mediawiki was a change that we had to make. So we changed. I feel mediawiki is a bit cumbersome though and prefer light weight wiki's like Wikka.

Fast forward a few years and I am now one of the documentation team here at rPath, Inc. helping to populate the wiki with meaningful information for both customers and community. I get paid to do what I used to do for fun :) I couldn't be happier. So, I'm not a mediawiki guru at all. I do hang out with mediawiki guru's however...so maybe I'll get some of that knowledge to leak out into my brain.

Where Else Can You Be Found?

You can read my personal blog found on the menu bar on the right. You can also find me involved in various open source projects on both the KDE and Gnome fronts. I'm not a programmer but do script from time to time (nothing too dangerous). I'm actively involved in community development in PCLinuxOS and take heart in the fact that since I've begun my role as a community advocate, PCLinuxOS has shot up the popularity charts and is contending with distros like Ubuntu :D