So, the cat is out of the bag. Tiny Matt Revell is leaving LUG Radio to persue other things. Jono’s accouncement is here and pics are here. I was expecting to have to keep this under my hat until after Monday’s episode, but it seems to have been announced in advance. I’m truly sorry to see Matt leave, I thought he offered a perspective that often hadn’t been considered by the others or myself and was also the perfect counterweight to the 2 loudest presenters. I would have liked to have said this in the show, but the conversation ran away from me. Best wishes Matt.

So, that leaves a space on the team and having been hovering around since the very beginning and then stepping up to fill in when one of the guys couldn’t make it, the guys offered me the spot. I must say I’m delighted to take over and more than a little intimidated about what I have to live up to, I hope you’ll be patient with me.

I feel a little like the Sid Vicious of LUG Radio, the superfan since the beginning, several of my comments appeared as quotes on the very first LUG Radio website. I have been a listener since the first episode, I just hope that unlike Sid Vicious I am able to cope with moving from the audience to the team.

So who am I? An introduction is here, but for now, my name is Adam Sweet, I’m a 30 year old Linux Sysadmin from Wolverhampton and go by the slightly crap IRC nick of Drinky for historical reasons. I was a professional musician for around 5 years and then after a few career changes, I came to computers late at the age of 23. I had a Spectrum and ZX81 when I was a kid but music pushed that out of the way in my teens. I’ve had to learn fast and within a year of getting my first PC, I decided to do a Computer Science degree and discovered Linux. I realised at university that I was a crap programmer and became more interested in the systems and networking side. I’ve been using Linux for around 6 and a half years now. I use Ubuntu at home and Debian/Fedora/Centos on various servers.

And what can I bring to LUG Radio and why did they choose me? Well, first thing is that I live nearby and have known Jono and Aq through Wolves LUG since before LUG Radio and Ade since before he joined the team, again through Wolves LUG. I remember Matt, Jono and Aq, discussing the idea at a LUG Meeting. I appeared briefly in Season 1, Episode 5 as a silent guest and then filled in for the first time in the last episode of Season 2. Since then I’ve filled in on numerous occasions and hopefully, learned to break through the barrage of noise that is a LUG Radio recording. I have to say that, normally when I’ve filled in, I get less than 24 hours notice so don’t get to do much research and don’t know who most of the interviewees are at all until we interview them. So, I’ve been hanging around since the beginning and share a similar humour to the rest of the team which I guess is why I have been asked to join the team.

Being a sysadmin means I spend my days staring at terminals and am focused on technical implementation rather than the greater philosophies of the Free Software world, it remains to be seen how that will influence the show or my participation in it. I’ve always been a facilitator rather than a leader, I’ll hold things together and provide you a platform to build on rather than win you the game. At football I’m a goalkeeper, at cricket I was wicket keeper, as a musician I was a bass player and at work I’m a sysadmin.

So, here I am, it’s a big role to fill and we have a fantastic community of people around us, I hope I can do it justice. I’ll see you for Season 4 Episode 20 as my first episode as a full-time presenter. I’m sure we’d all like to wish Matt the best.