Well, it’s official, I have accepted a position at Red Hat. I am excited because Red Hat is a company that I have wanted to work with since I started using Linux 1998. For Red Hat, I will be a Solutions Architect for Enterprise Linux, also known as a technology evangelist. Now, it’s my job to spend time with customers and explain the technology which is something I already love doing.
My first experience was in 1998 on a Compaq 1135 laptop. I remember buying a Red Hat 5.2 box at Best Buy after a good friend of mine, Chad Remesch, gave me a load of grief because I didn’t know what Linux was. What a struggle it was to put Linux on that laptop.
I had to boot between Window and Linux to get on the Internet because I had a winmodem. Eventually, I saved money to buy a Zoom PCMCIA modem, which had Linux drivers on a floppy. Once I compiled and installed the drivers I was dangerous and on the Internet with Linux! I probably called Shad two times a week for six months, but I eventually got there.
Linux has come a long way since those days! Now I talk to people all the time who have used and installed Linux on laptops, desktops, and servers. Most of them did it by themselves with very little help.
I have also come a long way since then. In the last couple of years, I have had the opportunity to implement a datacenter in almost all open source software. From Red Hat Linux to Bacula, to LAMP.
Now, at Red Hat we will be making inroads in many other data centers, I am looking forward to this new challenge, spreading Open Source software, a dream I have had for quite some time.