several weeks back Rocco from Linux
spotlight interviewed me and that
interview was released this morning it's
been really neat for me to see the
number of viewers who well I guess
viewers of Rocco's show Linux spotlight
who have expressed that that they've
been watching category five technology
TV since the very early days
Kevin why currents for example says that
he's been watching the show since then
Peter 14 even predates the show having
watched some of my very early youtube
videos he said on Twitter I got into
Linux thanks to Robbie back in 2004 with
Lindos when his show was live from his
living room a great person at heart who
has helped so many around the world
thank you so much
Jill Bryant rennaker says and I should
mention she's actually one of the
co-host on Linux gamecast
LW DW she says I have been watching
Robbie's great Linux content for years
and I'm so looking forward to watching
the Linux spotlight Tony Hughes says on
Twitter really pleased about this Robbie
was an inspiration and fantastic help to
me as a noob Cheers as Nick says as Nix
says great interview I have followed
Robbie's cat5 TV for several years and
it's always good thank you so much and
Joe Panico says I really like what
Robbie has done with his tech platforms
because of these fabulous interviews we
get a glimpse into the lives of the
people we have come to know at some
level the full interview is about an
hour and a half long don't watch it now
you can watch this show first and I'm
well tuned into the interview but I'll
show you a clip in just a moment so in
the course of the hour-and-a-half
interview we get into a ton of topics
both personal and behind the scenes here
at category-five TV everything from open
source my early days in Linux
my very first computer and the value of
buying no name margarine it'll all make
sense a little later
here's that short sample from the
interview for you
welcome to the Linux spotlight this show
is dedicated to showing off the best
thing about Linux our community
this community is made up of developers
distro maintainer x' youtubers and
everyday users each one plays a vital
role in our community and the goal is to
have a discussion with each individual
about their journey into linux and
beyond so join me now as we turn the
spotlight on
hello I'm your host Rocco and with me
today our special guest is Robbie
Ferguson hey Robbie how are you hey
doing great you I am doing excellent
dude these days when I say I'm doing
great is you gotta get the air quotes
yeah doing great
hanging in you're doing the best you can
that's it
yep I think that's what we're all doing
right now so yes sir
you know do you have shows like
Technology TV and newsroom they cover
all of technology not just Linux people
will know you from that but if you were
to meet somebody that didn't know you
what would you say to them if they said
if who's Robbie Ferguson personally Who
am I I guess you know I'm a family guy
I'm a I have a wife and three kids at
home and we have a great time together
and I love spending time with them we
love like we do our nature hikes as
often as we can we're just finally
getting to that point now where we can
do that the weather is nice enough here
in Ontario Canada that we've been doing
that every weekend so I like family time
I like doing things with with my kids
and and helping well having them
involved in my hobbies so that could be
like having my son do make or tech with
me connecting gpio on a Raspberry Pi to
some circuit that I'm about to blow up
you know that kind of stuff so we try to
do things together
teaching them right learning learning
and bringing them along for the ride
so you know because I'm always on a
quest to learn I'm never I'm never happy
with like I'm never at that point where
I'm done I know all there is to know I
don't need to learn more I'm caught if I
get to the point where okay I know
enough about one topic I'm moving on to
something else so I like to bring them
with me right well let's go down his
history lane and go back to the
beginning of your computers
what was the first computer that you
used the what I would attribute what I
would say is the first computer that I
ever sat down and coded on would have
been the vic-20 and I used that thing
like crazy like I got to the point where
I was writing code at you know five six
years old which incidentally you know I
always thought oh that's crazy like
coding at six years old and then my sons
have done the same and you know my nine
year old now our youngest is is coding
in roblox and it's and it's so that
throws me back to those days and and I
really like that time where computers we
understood how they worked we understood
the inner workings of them so taking
apart the Commodore vic-20 was something
that I was familiar with but but the
first real computer like PC would have
been an XT which as funny as it is this
big old IBM system that like is a boat
anchor as we say I wasn't allowed to
have a computer so it was under blankets
hidden in my closet like that that's the
kind of nerd I am that as a child I hid
an XT computer in my closet so that my
dad wouldn't find it and get me in
trouble
I don't I I can't even imagine what I
did with the monitor I don't know how I
figured out how to hide a CRT monitor
find it I can't imagine he didn't but he
never mentioned it so I think he
probably must have known but my naive
stupid kid mind thinks that oh that dad
doesn't know and it's like this massive
computer now how long is it before you
make the switch to Linux well then those
windows was a complete switch yeah
complete switch right from there yeah I
used an early version of Adobe Photoshop
in wine because the old version ran fine
under under wine so and then as soon as
like cs2 came out it was no longer it
wasn't working quite what real quite
right so because back then was
really bad but they've since fixed
with 2.10 so like scaling is it's a lot
better now but yeah Lindos was about the
time when I switched I mean I said I'm
not name dropping it was it was a
classic distro they got sued by
Microsoft for for the name they had to
change it to Lynne spire which made no
sense and then they and in typical
michael robertson style he just fired
everybody and sold the company and all
the creative rights and everything and
now it's owned by somebody else but yeah
but that got me to love debian debian
got me to love Ubuntu Ubuntu got me to
love Mark Shuttleworth and the whole the
whole ecosystem of realizing that you
can run a business based on support
rather than product I think that that
was kind of a revelation for me too
so so it's it's like everybody like you
kind of move along with the waves and
find where you're at right now I run
Linux Mint 19 like it's that's I'm old
school so I like the Matei interface
well I was gonna ask you so why do you
we've tried all of them so why did you
stick with Linux Mint I've been with it
since nineteen was released and that's
mainly because it was it just is a
brilliant out-of-the-box experience I
didn't I kind of I fell out of love with
a boon to for a little while because of
unity unity made me fall out of love
with a pun - you weren't a fan
definitely not no and I very much am a
little old-school in my desktop paradigm
so I say I prefer Matei I really do I
really do like that interface like
that's where uncomfortable so Linux Mint
with matei is a fantastic distro out of
the box everything works and they still
support campus which brings me all kinds
of nerd joy
well um you know not to sway you or
anything not the temperature to distro
hot but have you tried a bun to Ma Tei
and compared it to like oh yeah yeah
what Martin and and Pope you're doing or
is fantastic work and and I have run
that on some of my lower end systems and
I love it I've had it on laptops and
stuff nothing my choice to use Linux
Mint right now is not to say that
Lubuntu Matea is not brilliant it really
is but this is just where I've landed
yeah when you know how things work under
the hood a lot of stuff is very similar
so it's really just finding a stable
distro that works out of the box that
doesn't waste a lot of your time setting
it up because I use Linux Mint at at
work I need something that I can like
reinstall in and be up and running in an
hour and you know back in business kind
of things so it's worked not that I
couldn't do that with we're going to
Matei it's just where you are it's just
where I'm at yeah and I think that makes
it really confusing too for for new
Linux users because well which which
flavour should I go with which distro
why Ubuntu might a versus Linux Mint
with matei the it's really they're all
very very similar so it's community it's
the ecosystem of the distro itself it's
you know where where's the support that
you know I don't need support so I'm not
really caring about that so much but a
novice user would so yep you can watch
the full interview on Linux spotlight at
cat5 dot TV slash spotlight
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