A Stylish Geek

There's something about March that makes me behave in a strange and curious way. In a bid to understand my good husband I have decided to learn about Linux. I recently read a very interesting Ezine article called “Women: Confused by Men?” The advice given was to be more interested in what makes them happy! Well, knowing the endless hours of glorious fun my husband shares with his Linux box, installing and uninstalling various distributions, I have decided to cut myself in on a piece of that Linux action. I too am going to turn the way of the geek, and show an interest in his Linux life... and I am going to do it with my chin held high and my dignity intact. I have some reservations though. Is it possible to be female, care about my appearance, still keep my collection of boots up and have the grey cells to learn about Linux? I'm intrigued!

I don't want to generalise, and I really do hate stereotyping, but in my experience I have never met a Linux advocate who hasn't got some sort of 'hair thing' going on. Either it's on the end of his chin, (housing a small robin redbreast) or it's pony-tailed half way down his back. Now I really don't mind this, it's just that I have noticed that geeks tend to look different to the normal Joe Bloggs. I am worried that in order to understand all things Linux (like kernels, and mounting hard drives) that I will have to make a personal appearance sacrifice. I have written a contract for myself promising that I will not end up looking like either a PVC clad, big busted, lip pouting female (like in most of the PC magazines) or a female Klingon extra. I'm not just going to become a geek, I am going to do it in style!

It would probably help if I actually got to meet some female geeks, to reassure me. Maybe I will pop along with my good husband to our local LUG to meet other Linux Ladies, and hopefully put my mind at ease. Fortunately for me, I'm already aware of the open source movement, and find the fundamentals inspiring and humanitarian. I have always listened to people rant on about the Linux community with admiration... and an incy wincy bit of scepticism. How come my husband can give me an enlightening (but sometimes inappropriately timed) rendition of the spirit within the Linux community, and then want to pan the next-door neighbour over a parking dispute? It seems that we've moved the boundaries of community from the neighbourhood to a different level; it's now somewhere in the ether, or beyond.

Making the leap

I'm thinking the leap from my current Windows platform to something a little less soul destroying, shouldn't be so hard, should it? I mean, I think I'm happy to turn my back on Bill Gates forever... if I can still do the things I usually do on my Windows box. I use web-based Google Mail for my email, so that's not got to change. I already use Mozilla Firefox for web browsing, and thanks to my husband I've been forced to use OpenOffice.org for some time now, so that's not a problem either. (Is it me and my suspicious mind, or have I been primed for this moment all along?) I am concerned, however, about using a Photoshop equivalent called the... I can hardly bring myself to say it (it scares me, reminds me of Pulp Fiction) ...The GIMP. Now, I'm no marketing expert, but surely that was a brave move on their part. I have only recently found out that it stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program, but I still can't shake that scary association. I will however put my feelings aside and try my hand at GIMPing.

All that's left to decide is what flavour of the operating system to use. How many Linux distributions are there? I have been advised to do this, that and the other, and am still quite confused as to which is best. However, Ubuntu has done a good marketing job on me in one single sentence. It's the heading on their homepage: “Linux for Human Beings.”

All I want is for the following statement to be true: “Regardless of the way in which you obtain a Linux distribution, we at Linux Online feel that switching to Linux will be a positive experience. You will see your knowledge of computing increase at the same time as your productivity.” <www.linux.org/dist/download_info.html>

I've listened to the vocabulary set my husband uses when he's having one of his install fests, and if cursing and grunting are part of that “positive experience” then bring it on, for I am the worm that turned! I may be turning up at your LUG this month for some advice and tips. So, if you see a fairly normal looking female walking your way, please be gentle and use jargon to a minimum. It might be me. I'm at the beginning of my journey and I feel it may be a long one.