User:Dowdle

Scott Dowdle

Scott Dowdle

I've been using Linux since 1995, Red Hat Linux since 1996, and Fedora since Fedora Core 1 was released. I prefer Fedora for desktop usage and am currently running Fedora 10 at home and Fedora 9 at work. On servers I prefer RHEL or CentOS.

I took the RHCE cram course in 2003 and made a 98% on the exam... although that has since lapsed and I haven't retested. I'd really like to learn SELinux someday as it looks pretty sweet... but just haven't gotten around to it.

I run the MontanaLinux.org[1] website which is a content hub for LUGs in the state of Montana (USA). So far there is the BozemanLUG (which I'm the leader of), HelenaLUG, BillingsLUG and MissoulaLUG.

I am very active in the OpenVZ Project[2] and maintain OS Templates for CentOS and Fedora (updated bi-monthly) which can be found in the OpenVZ contrib area[3].

I've been lucky enough to attend a few Linux oriented shows. I helped staff the OpenVZ booth at LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in 2007 and 2008 in San Francisco... in the .Org Pavilion. I attended Linuxfest Northwest 2007- 2011. At Linuxfest Northwest 2008 I gave a presentation entitled "Hardware/Machine Virtualization vs. OS Virtualization". In 2009 I gave a presentation entitled "OpenVZ Project Update". At the 2009 Utah Open Source Conference I gave a presentation on OpenVZ.

Email: mailto:dowdle@montanalinux.org
IRC: I hang out on #ubuntu-montana, #openvz, and #zimbra with the registered nick of dowdle. I visit the #fedora channel sometimes but the channel traffic is so heavy it is hard for me to keep up with so I don't hang out there all of the time. #ubuntu-montana really isn't used much as an Ubuntu channel... it is for all Linux users in Montana and there are Fedora users, CentOS users, Gentoo users, etc.

I have been promoting Red Hat and Fedora for many years by writing articles and reviews for my website and by burning CDs and DVDs to give away at LUG meetings.

I participate on a number of Fedora and Red Hat mailing lists... and am a frequent lwn.net commenter.

I have a personal Fedora Remix that I call MontanaLinux which I have been building every release since Fedora 9 for both i686 and x86_64 using the standard livecd-tools. It is primarily a collection of all of the packages I like including all of the desktop environments / managers, a large selection of desktop apps... and several third-party packages from RPMFusion for multimedia playback. It boots into KDE by default. I don't customize it very much other than to add some Montana nature shots for the live media and the grub splash screens. I rebuild it after every big push of updates so it is as current as possible... unlike the stock Fedora install media a month or two after release. I don't really promote it as I don't have the bandwidth for many people to download it but the configs I use are available [4].

At some point in the future, I want to see if I can get the Fedora Project interested in making OpenVZ a stock part of the distro and / or putting some focus on Linux native containers (LXC).

I'm the SysAdmin for the Computer Science Department in the College of Engineering at Montana State University Bozeman. I manage several student computer labs. The PCs are triple boot with Fedora, CentOS and Windows XP. The iMacs are triple boot with Fedora, Mac OS X and Windows XP.

I teach an undergraduate Linux Systems Administration class and expose the students mostly to Fedora and CentOS.