“My computer isn’t doing strange things for no reason”

When I saw that as the subject line in an email we’ve received, I thought it was a great way to open a testimonial to Linux.

Last week we had a visitor in the lab who bought one of our splendid £30 computers. Normally, we don’t hear from our customers: the machines just keep running efficiently and they might just call 3 years later… Anyway, back to that testimonial, from a gent named Mark, which started:

Firstly, I just wanted to say thanks for machine I picked up off you on Friday. Since switching to Linux a short time ago it’s made my user experience that much more enjoyable. My computer doesn’t start doing strange things all of its own accord. Not once has it decided to shut itself down whilst I’m in the middle of something. Likewise, not having to send meaningless error reports all the time is both a new and wonderful experience.

Unexpected shutdowns? Meaningless error reports? I wonder what operating system that is… Of course a meaningful error report – one you can pop into your favourite search engine – is what you get from a Linux system. 😉

Linux and open source also encourage inquisitiveness and a desire to help others as our correspondent continues:

The thing I’m finding with Linux is the more i learn the more i want to learn more.

The whole ethos of the OS community blows me away. The other day I was looking at antiX and the main Mepis distro and was well impressed. I have also started looking online to find out how to write programs in C. Again, I’m not expecting to be a competent programmer over night but I want to learn. Today I’m starting to see for myself what Linux has to offer and would love to be able to help share it with others. To be honest with you the reason I sent this email was to see if you had any opportunities to volunteer. Like I said I cant program in C or C++ and I certainly don’t know about Java. However, I can make great cups of tea and coffee.

Great tea and coffee? Sounds like an offer we cannot refuse!

Mark concludes:

You guys know your stuff and are sharing it with the community and many are benefiting from it. In the future I would like to be able to do the same. If I can help in any way I would love to be able to offer some of my time to the project. Please feel free to contact me at any time.

Once again thanks for the PC and thanks for getting me hooked on Linux.

Anyway, if you feel like volunteering or buying one of our refurbished machines, please do get in touch: we’d love to hear from you.