[ Thanks to DennyMan for this article.
]
Learning about, installing and applying desktop Linux may have
saved my business. After a more than disappointing year, I was
faced with some tough choices. Running a real estate business is
tough, extremely tough in Austin and unbelievably tough if you are
an independant.
Left with few choices, I called a meeting with every department
head in attendance and called for ideas. I made sure they knew that
this was not a drill. Red lights were flashing and pink slips were
imminent unless we came up with something fast.
All the usual suspects were trotted out, some with merit, some
completely ridiculous. Stress makes you think dumb things.
Fortunately, my computer guy returned early from Idaho for this
meeting and his suggestion changed the course of my business. He
formed it as a simple question. “How much are we paying for
software?”
That was a good question. I remember the pain of writing the
last check to our Microsoft rep when we renewed our licenses. I
also remember thinking we had to do something to bring that cost
under control. I was under the impression we did not have any real
alternative.
That evening, I was doing a flow chart and deciding who I was
going to let go. I glanced up at my computer and the Microsoft
screensaver logo bounced within its limits around my screen.
I opened a browser and out of frustration typed “Microsoft is a
leach” in the search box. Surprisingly, I got a more than a few
hits. One of them a few lines down caught my eye. It was a web page
entitled, “Lobby4Linux–escape the clutches of the Evil
Empire.”
That’s when I discovered I did have an alternative. I spent some
time reading the articles, posts and editorials then bookmarked the
page and followed the tabbed links I had made. It took me less than
three hours of reading and research before I actually decided to
use the Live CD and try it for myself. I took it to work the next
day and gave it to my Sales Manager to use. “Use this all day if
you can and tell me at the end of the day what you think.” I booted
the disk for her and walked away.
At 5 that evening, Jenny stuck her head in the office door. She
came in and told me about her “alternate computing experience.” I
had also been using the disk during the day and had decided for
myself that we would make the plunge. I wanted to know what she
thought as well. Jenny agreed without hesitiation.
I had emailed the “contact us” button at Lobby4Linux and asked a
few generic questions. I expressed an interest in setting up some
test machines for my business and asked the website for any
assistance they could provide. When I got home, there was a message
on my home machine from someone called “helios”.
He took down some information and asked when I was looking to
get started. I told him as soon as it could happen. He asked me to
give him some time to put some things together and he would get
back to me.
When I turned the key in the lock of my door the next morning,
there was a customer waiting for me to open up. We walked in
together and as I hung my coat on the rack, I told him to have a
seat as our staff wasn’t due in until 8 AM. He shook his head. “Are
you Dennis?” I told him I was and he stuck out his hand. “I’m Ken
Starks, aka helios. Show me your test machine.”
I guess when helios says “let me get back with you on that,”
apparently he means pretty darned quick. I took him into the back
office and sat him down at one of several stations. He nodded and
opened a briefcase then told me to give him a bit and he would come
up front if he had any questions.
Jenny knocked softly on my open door. “who’s the scroungy guy in
the back?” She cast her eyes to the back of the office warily. I
told her that it was someone who was checking our stuff to see if
Linux could run on it. She nodded and left. It wasn’t two minutes
later, and helios repeated the soft knock. He wanted to know if I
had a minute to come take a look at what he had done.
When I sat down at the old Gateway Pentium three, I had to make
sure I was seeing things right. Not only was the monitor reflecting
a perfectly clear picture, when I clicked something it jumped right
up. Much unlike the sluggish behavior I had experienced with XP on
those machines. I had more than a dozen of them that were still in
service.
Helios gave me the guided tour from over my shoulder and told me
what to click and what I was looking at when I clicked it. He had
me open the file manager and what I saw next nearly floored me. In
less than an hour, he had put together a machine that could not
only see my other computers, I could access their files just like I
was sitting in front of it. I was sold. I inquired as to when he
could come by and arrange the changeover. He said to give him a bit
to put a plan together and he would get back to me.
By the end of the next day, with the exception of one computer
running Windows XP via Win4Lin, we were a Microsoft-free office. We
still are to this day. Did Linux save my business? No, but it saved
at least three employees from the unemployment line, and that is
enough for me.
I didn’t take time out of my schedule to write all of this to
sing the praises of Linux. I am writing it to bring shame upon a
particular sector of “The Linux Community”–if indeed such a thing
exists. I have never considered myself a community member. I am
simply a businessman who has taken advantage of this minor miracle.
I don’t know anything about the “Linux Culture” or your politics,
and frankly, now I don’t want to.
See, much more than getting my computers fixed evolved from
meeting Ken Starks. We became friends. Not the kind of friends that
go bowling together or to the lake with our families. I mean the
kind of friends that take for granted that the other will always be
there when you need him. It was only a bit over a week ago when the
wrongness of that assumption hit me.
I saw it on digg.com. Something about a Linux Advocate being
sick, so out of curiosity I clicked it. That was the first time I
learned that Kenny has cancer and that it is trying its god damnest
to kill him. I have talked to Ken several times in the past year
and never once did he mention being sick. He talked about several
projects, his envolvement with helping senior citizens and a
planned trip to Washington DC to give them hell over DRM. This is
what I
discovered.
Even though it was announced on Lobby4Linux that he was raising
funds for his trip, even though it was published in several
articles, several people did donate. Not nearly enough. Ken drove
instead of taking a flight. He had not raised enough money for
that. Fact is, he didn’t raise enough money to afford a hotel room
or enough money to eat on. He raised just enough money to pay for
gas and get some new tires on his old truck.
So I confronted him on this. Instead of just giving the couple
hundred he raised back to the donors, he felt as if he had an
obligation to the community and he made the trip. He slept in his
truck and took his meals at a Salvation Army kitchen.
Here is the hell of it. Any psychopath can walk into selected
Mosques right here in America, claim thier loyalty to Allah, vow to
slay as many infidels as possible, and inside of a week, he has
fifty thousand bucks in his pocket.
Let one guy with a dream, a passion, try to make the computing
world a better place, and he gets nickles and dimes tossed to him
like some bum. Now wait, I stand to lose a friend by writing this,
so losing the potential customer here in Austin doesn’t mean flip
to me. You have among you a seriously ill man, who is willing to
give everything he has to contribute to the community, and you
ignore him like a beggar on the street. Yes, there are many of you
who did help Kenny, and yes, we did not know he was sick, but now
we do.
Did this discourage him? Did he whine about it? Go look at his
website. He is not only still hanging in there fighting, he is
trying to raise money to provide laptops for wounded soldiers at
Walter Reed and kids who do not have computers to do their homework
on. No, not buy computers, he is going to buy the parts and BUILD
them. That way the money goes farther.
I have come to realize that there are thousands of Linux people
out there who are trying to make a difference and I thank them for
their work. Maybe some of them might want to take a look at
Lobby4Linux and see how it’s done.
You have a treasure among you and too few of you realize it.
Personally, I am going to tell helios that this is not worth his
effort. What time he has left should be spent with his family.
Somehow I don’t think he will listen. Then, I will silently hope to
find another friend half as good as Ken Starks. I may well have
pushed too far the boundries of our friendship.
Dennis Mallory
DM and Associates
Austin Texas
My thanks to Devnet, Don and those at LXer.com for the
assistance they have provided to Ken and his family during this
terrible time.