It’s October 31. It’s Hallowe’en. It’s the one day of the year no one minds you looking terrible — but for ShipIt CD carrying members of the Ubuntu community, the nightmare has only just begun…
Thousands of omg! ubuntu! readers awoke, suddenly, to the bone-chilling realisation that they don’t know what kind of Linux setup is used to develop the site…
A hair raising shrill startled the deadened air last night as thousands of long-time omg! ubuntu! readers woke, suddenly, with a fear soaking sweat on their brow and a pounding heart in their chest.
Shallow breath stifled the terrifying thought that was troubling their mind from escaping their mouth.
Each thump of the body’s hardest working muscle hammered down hard on the realisation that, despite many years passing, they still know nothing about the Linux setup used to develop and maintain the omg! ubuntu! website..
”They could be using Windows 8,” readers gasped. “Or Windows 7… Or XP! ”.
“Maybe they use Mac… Mac… Mac-Oh–Es–” — the clatter of chattering teeth prevented this last thought from forming its final frightening conclusion.
As shrill air stole the stone cold sweat from their skin, omg! readers reached for reassurance. They rifled through the furthest reaches of their minds to find something, anything, they could thrust in the face of the unknown to plug the void-like ambiguity.
”At least not this isn’t as frightening as that recurring dream I have about Mark Shuttleworth and Steve Ballmer wrestling shirtless in orange jelly to a looped clip of the Ubuntu login sound…”
—Okay, now this is become a little too tumblr fanfic 😬.
The Linux Setup
I’ll exit the prattling horror-tinged prose (for now) and unearth the point of this post:
Sam, the dev playing ghost beneath the omg! bedsheet, has been interviewed about his Linux setup — and his choices WILL terrify
Sam, the developer/pumpkin carver who plays ghost beneath the omg! bedsheet, has been interviewed for the The Linux Setup about (spoiler warning) his Linux setup.
And though the certainty of his computing choices might calm the worried, the more easily shocked amongst WILL recoil in earnestly placed horror to hear that Sam —gasp— doesn’t use Ubuntu!
(Not that long-time readers will be surprised; Sam has staked his Linux distro of choice on these very pages before).
I think The Linux Setup is a terrific little feature that, this hallowe’en framing aside, more people should know about — hence this post.
Steven, the guy behind it, has interviewed a flood of interesting faces within and around the open source and free software communities over the past few years, making the archive well worth diving into.
Bag yourself some FOSS-flavoured insights by zipping on over toThe Linux Setup to learn more about the Linux setup Sam uses to keep this oddball blog looking so blinkin’ good.
Just remember to come trick or treat on Disqus’ door afterwards, as we want to know what you make of his particular computing choices in the comment crypt below 👇.