I know Ron’s name from when he used to organize the New York Linux Users Group (NYLUG). He’s got a no-frills setup with a lot of solid software choices (what’s better than gPodder?). Like many Linux users, Ron is a ThinkPad guy, of which I wholeheartedly approve. They’re great computers in general, and the ones I’ve had have always handled a wide variety of distros very well, without a lot of drama.
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- Who are you, and what do you do?
I’m Ron Guerin, and I guess the best way to describe what I do is ‘entrepreneur.’ I also was the main volunteer and then primary organizer of NYLUG for over a decade. I’ve been a member/attendee/volunteer of many tech and FLOSS groups over the years. Now I’m doing some tech/FLOSS events over at http://luny.org.
- What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?
My distro is Debian GNU/Linux (Testing) with MATE. My first Linux was OpenLinux and I got my copy on April 13, 1999 from Ransom Love at a LUNY meeting. After riding Red Hat Linux to the end, I switched to Debian Testing and haven’t looked back.
- What software do you depend upon with this distribution?
On my notebooks, I mostly use Firefox, Thunderbird/Lightning, MATE, VLC, OpenShot, Scribus, Geany, GNOME Terminal, XChat, Pidgin, gPodder, Audacious, Audacity, Apache, MySQL, PHP, rsync, and ssh. When not working, like many people these days, I am both a producer and consumer of content and I use my Linux desktops for that as well.
- What kind of hardware do you run it on?
My hardware is ThinkPad (T61 and T500). I always put as much memory and storage as possible in my desktops, as I use it all.
- What is your ideal Linux setup?
ThinkPads are pretty much my ideal setup. I presently have two of them set up pretty much the same way. So long as Lenovo maintains the ThinkPad experience, I’d like my next machine to be a ThinkPad as well.
- Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?
Interview conducted January 21, 2013
The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.
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