Dan. Greetings and Welcome!
I am not a member of Pubnix, and I am a member of WPN (Wood Peckers Nest) of Italy.
My name is Schimon, and I am a lawyer.
I currently develop software of XMPP, due to necessity.
I intend to stop developing software, or reduce my engagement with software development, once software that I sense to be missing are made available.
On Thu, 15 Jan 2026 08:47:47 +0100 ~dan dan@envs.net wrote:
Hello envs.net citizens!
Because I would like to (hopefully) bring some life into the mailing list, and also because I'm a new user since Mon, 12 Jan 2026 I'll post a little introductory post on here (despite having posted an introduction to #meta already).
So, my handle is ~dan, but you can also call me Daniel, or "fab" which I go by in Gemini/Gopher space and it's also my IRC nick. I'm 50 years old and live in a small town called Norf in Northrhine-Westphalia in Germany.
I've retired early because of health problems, and I'm in no way an IT professional and never worked in that field. All I know about IT I've "learned by doing" and I'm a zealous computer nerd since I'm 8-9 years old (with a C64).
I have most experience with Linux but I think I've also gotten into FreeBSD as a server system relatively far and like it a lot in the meantime. I have little to no experience with the Microslop OSs and I'm also not interested.
My preference is OpenBSD, yet FreeBSD is good too!
I'm using AwesomeWM, which I have adjusted to my needs alot over the 3 years I'm using it now. I used QTile and I3 before, but I could have saved myself that if I had just tried AwesomeWM earlier. And I'm so satisfied with it that I fear the day when XOrg is completely outdated :(
I am utilizing i3, and you should no worry.
X11 is better than ever, and is also available over FreeBSD!
Also two law firms which I am working with have scheduld to update the systems to Slackware with X11Libre.
I also wrote several articles about X11Libre.
gemini://woodpeckersnest.space/~schapps/journal/2025-07-31-the-reason-that-xlibre-is-important.gmi
My programming interests are diverse: shell, python3 or even still perl. Whatever fits the problem best. At the moment I'm learning golang which I really like. But to say it again: I'm no professional in all of these. I learn while trying to solve a specific problem or need and I have to consult the docs often.
I also have my own Gemini/Gopher/Finger/Smolnet server which is reachable at https://redterminal.org (or gemini://, gopher://, finger://). There you can also read more about me on the "About and Contact" page if you like.
I wanted to be a member of a pubnix for a very long time already, but couldn't bring myself to sign up on one until now. I'm not really a people's person but I hope to come out of my shell a little more in this virtual space. And I may also not be a good teacher (I'll try my best) but at least I can try to be a good student. My main problem in not joining a pubnix earlier was/is a little uncertainty what it will be like and what's expected from me. But I was told in IRC "not to worry", which I thought was a wise advice. So I'll try not to worry too much with making mistakes. At least I believe, I won't break the service somehow :)
By my experience, including legal and coding experience, lessons are tought mostly by mistakes.
Once there is fear of mistake or a place which forbids mistaks, it is almost impossible to learn.
So, it is important to allow mistakes to occur.
I hope I'll make some friends over time and can be an enrichment for the community. I'm not sure what projects I'll follow with my time on envs.net yet (I'll start with trying to revive this mailing list), but I'm sure some ideas will come to mind sooner or later.
I'll stop here before it's becoming a novel. But I want to highly encourage all the other members of envs.net to also post introduction posts, maybe also if they are older and wider known members of this pubnix. We could also make an introductory post a little more mandatory to make new users more known.
And I also want to encourage ~creme to make this mailing list more prominent (although I believe he already has a lot to do). But maybe giving this mailing list it's own help page with general information and infos about what's its purpose without being too restrictive. It would also help new users to find out about the maybe long-established members if they would post something about themselves.
So - That's it! I hope we have a good time together and thanks to ~creme for providing all this stuff and all the sudoers staff who do such an execellent job. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!
Thanks for reading.
Best wishes, ~dan
Good luck!
Best regards, Schimon