Welcome to my blog 🙂

If it wasn’t already obvious my name is Adam Sweet, I’m 28 and I hail from Wolverhampton, UK. I’ve been meaning to set up a blog for a while now as I have a lot of stuff happening this year: I graduate (hopefully), my first graduate job (ditto), my project and so on. I’ll be making my first steps in the big, wide, graduate world, so here is the journal.

So who the hell am I? Well, I’m a final year BSc Computer Science student at the University of Wolverhampton but aside from that I’m also a musician. I used to play professionally in a signed band a few years back, but now I’m content to do it for fun.

My main interests are computers, girls and beer :). Computers are what I do. I’m not a coder, a web guy or any other kind of specialist, I’m a computer guy. Sure, my main interests here are networks and operating systems, particularly Linux and I will make somebody a great Linux sysadmin one day (job offers to my email address drinky76 at yahoo dot com ;)), but I basically enjoy getting dirty with troubleshooting faulty hardware, installing Linux on anything that sits still long enough and networking it. I collect old computer hardware that people are throwing out because I feel sorry for it and I’m a hoarder…

I’m in the middle of my Computer Science Project right now. I’m creating a Debian based SOHO Internet appliance from Open Source Software that will function as a webserver, file server, mail server with webmail front-end, DNS proxy, DHCP server and firewall, all configurable via a web interface. Similar pre-existing projects include Clark Connect, SME Server, Trustix, Smoothwall and IP Cop. This project doesn’t have a name or a website yet, but its going pretty well and I aim to make the project available under the GPL. I can’t create a public website or make my work available until it is no longer an academic project. I don’t have any megalomaniac plans for my own distribution just yet ;).

My Linux distro of choice is Ubuntu for desktops or Debian for servers. I’m a modern Linux user in the sense that I only had my first computer 5 years ago and it had Windows 98SE on it (a painfully slow Cyrix 133MHz with 40MB RAM and a 512MB hard disk which my cousin built for me). I have no Unix heritage to speak of and I used Windows almost exclusively for some time, but found Linux purely by chance within a year of my first PC and became fascinated with it. It seemed so obscure and I’ve always supported the underdog, even though Linux isn’t any such thing these days.

My first distro was Mandrake 7.1 which ran like a pig on my aforementioned machine, though I had a 4GB disk by this time. I also became a member of Wolves LUG. I used Mandrake 7.1 through 9.x for around 2 years until it’s bugginess finally annoyed the crap out of me and Aq’s evangelisation (British spelling ;)) of Debian finally showed me the light. Since then I’ve learned a lot, you learn a lot more when you have to configure everything with config files and a text editor. I recently moved Ubuntu on my desktop and haven’t touched anything else since. I still don’t know how other distros live without apt and debconf.

Away from computers and Linux, music is my big thing. I play guitar but I’m a bass player by trade. My musical preferences are pretty eclectic and very British (whether this is a consequence of culture or taste I don’t know), I like The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Stiff Little Fingers, The Who, The Stone Roses, The Sundays, Sugar and Bob Marley. Being into The Clash meant I listened to punk a lot, but also a lot of what we call(ed) Indie music in the UK. I won’t try to explain it for non-Brits, it’s steeped in British social idiosyncrasy.

As a person I’m a pragmatic realist. I enjoy having a lot of beers with my friends at the weekend, but I’m otherwise quite studious. I read a lot (mostly Linux documentation these days ;)) and enjoy good films, particularly foreign cinema. Politically, I’m a leftist-liberal according to The World’s Smallest Political Quiz, which is pretty correct.

People might tell you all manner of things about me. I’m an arsehole. Possibly true, but thats just my sense of humour. I’m a grumpy fucker, also probably true but very rarely. I have no sexual morals at all. Most true of them all :D. I revel in the scandal of an illicit affair. Thats not to say I’m a cad, a player or whatever else you might call it, I enjoy people’s company and thats all. So long as nobody gets hurt or upset and you keep yourselves safe, I see no problem.

Oh, before I forget, go listen to LUG Radio. Its a hilariously funny Linux Radio show recorded bi-weekly by several members of Wolves LUG. Prepare for a lot of swearing…

One last thing. Major thanks to Sparkes for hosting my blog 😀 My eternal gratitude is yours.

Well for now, it’s nice to have you here and I hope you come back.

Take care,

Adam