I Was Raised to Practice Kindness.

In computers, no one is more kind than The Penguin.

Way back in 1985, when I was a mere child, I bought my first computer. It was a Tandy 1000.

This beast had two 5.25" floppy drives, a CGA display and 8088 processor running at 4.77 MHz. I was in heaven. With the computer, display and a dot matrix printer, I had laid out around $2,000.00 of the family budget.

I remember shouting in glee to my wife downstairs, "It's writing my words to the DISK!" She did not reply. She was not happy about the money I had spent, nor was she impressed with the absolute wonder of technology that sat before me.

There was no going back. I felt as if I could do anything. This Tandy 1000 was the equivalent of a Daisy Red Rider. I held real power in my hand.

There is Always a Cost

An entire new world had opened up before me. I soon learned it was a world built for people (or organizations) with pockets much deeper than mine.

Nearly everything I wanted cost way more than I could spend. The software was expensive. Any hardware upgrades were expensive. Books about computing were expensive. Even OS upgrades cost money.

Then I found out about Linux. The concept of Free as in Beer software really appealed to me. First because I could afford free. Second because it meant there were other people out there like me who wanted to bring everyone along on this new fantastic journey into technological wonderland. I had felt like everywhere I turned someone was requiring payment I couldn't afford. Everyone, that is, except The Penguin.

It took me several years of messing around with Linux before I could finally actually use it for something useful. However, I never lost my fascination with it, and before too many years passed, that perseverance paid off.

Flash Ahead to 2025

I'm sitting on the couch with my first cup of Sunday morning coffee. I have a web browser up on our 4K TV. I am reading something I want to share with some other people so I copy the URL. Then I remember this computer doesn't have any personal messaging apps on it. That's intentional, but I had copied before thinking.

I open a terminal window and "ssh" into another Linux machine on my network. That machine has an implementation of the Linux 'mail' application on it. That is how I send out notifications of new posts here on drgerg.com to people who ask.

I formulate a command string that will send my wife an email, paste the URL and boom. Done.

I do not think I could have done that so simply in the proprietary world of Windows. But in a Linux world I can.

In a Linux World I Can.

That is why I argue so strongly for support of free open source software (FOSS). When you realize 2/3rds of the entire Internet runs on Linux, you have to give it its due. When you consider that FOSS does nearly everything proprietary software does and does so fighting the tide of prejudice that says, "If it's free, it can't be worth much," you might realize there's more value there than you think.

In a Linux world, I can. And so can anyone who can scrabble together a functioning PC or Mac. No major corporation is blocking your way with their hand stuck out expecting payment. You are free to learn. You are free to experiment. You are free to try and to succeed.

That, my friends, is a thing that works and just smacks of the spirit of giving. And that's no Ovaltine.

A Postscript

As it turns out, I missed a very simple way to get that URL out of that sandboxed computer and into my messaging app of choice. I use the Vivaldi browser everywhere, and it has this neat button on the right side of the URL bar that shows you a QR code for the current page's URL.

I could have captured the URL with my phone's photo app and dropped it into Signal. But at the time, I didn't think of that, so I went the SSH way instead. The point is unchanged, but in fairness I felt I should mention the QR thing. Both work.