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= Geoffrey Derber =

**IRC nick(s):** Asha`man

**Role in SMGL:** Section maintainer for z-rejected (on leave but will return)

**Age/Birthdate:** 23

**Location/Country:** San Antonio, TX. / USA (summer: Fort Worth, TX. / USA)

== Common ==

**When did you first start using Linux and why?**

About 3 years ago for my programming classes. At the time I only used it in class, but I quickly became interested in getting it to run on my computer, but not because I wanted to learn linux though. I wanted to install it because I didn't like using telnet to work on the linux machines across campus, and I didn't want to walk across campus to do my homework. I ran into a problem though, with the distributions at the time having poor (well non-existant) support for a PCI controler card for my hard drives, so the installers wouldn't detect that I had a hard drive. It took until the RH 7.1 release to be able to do that. (I had tried various previous versions of RH and Caldera). That would have been about 1 year ago. For the first 3 months of having linux on my system, I didn't use it all that much, because that was last summer, and over the summer I used my system mainly for games, and I didn't know much about wine or have any linux games at the time. Then starting in the fall, I really began to use it, and I haven't looked back since.

**How long have you been using the [[About|SMGL]] distribution?**

I've been using SMGL since March 2002. Since right after Spring Break this year. I first heard about it in January, and in fact, my cd was burned with the January 26 iso file. I had a little difficulty with the initial install. Basically my trouble came from lilo, so I ended up installing RH on another HD temporarily to install GRUB to get my initial boot to work.

**What piqued your interest in SMGL initially?**

Well, at the time, I felt I had reached a point where I had learned enough using RH that I was becoming really upset with the way the RPM system worked. I liked having my system completely up to date, and I felt like RPMs made it more difficult for me to do so. I just felt that I would have more control over the system than RH offered.

**What future do you personally see for SMGL?**

I see a great distro that puts the power and control back into the sys admins hands. One of the things I really like about this distro, and is why I think it will be around for a long while is the way the people came together to continue this distribution when it went through some tough times a couple of months ago.

**Tell us a little bit about yourself. Education/Career/Skills?**

I'm about to go into my senior year at Trinity University. I am a double major in Business Administration with a concentrition in Finance, and Computer Science. My degree when I graduate will be a BS in Business. As things currently are, I'm thinking very seriously about going into Health Administration after graduation, and work for a couple years before I go to grad school.

**Any personal messages for the Source Mage users out there?**

Have fun, SMGL is a distro that'll let you do whatever you want with your system.

**What other OS programs/software have you worked on?**

I've done some level editing for unreal tournament and Wheel of Time (great game btw, but I haven't gotten it to run in linux yet).

== Flamewars ==

**vi or emacs?**

emacs

**KDE or GNOME?**

Gnome

**BSD or GPL?**

GPL

== Strictly personal ==

**Do you have any family?**

My Dad and my sister, then my step-mom and her kids. No family of my own yet.

**What kind of car do you drive? Or what is your dream car?**

A car with 4 wheels and isn't powered by my feet on the pavement.