Engineering Linux

Jonni Bidwell meets Sean Finney, a recent convert to Linux, and hears heartwarming tales about how LXF eased his journey to the light side.

Sean Finney is a contract engineer and Raspberry Pi tinkerer who’s almost completed the switch to becoming a full-time Linux user. He’s a jack of all trades: involved in programming, fault diagnosis and fighting with LibreOffice’s take on .docx compatibility. He owns heavy machinery, but so far hasn’t used it to destroy his laptop. He was good enough to share his experiences and advice with us…

Linux Format: What’s your background?

Sean Finney: I’m an electrical engineer/PLC (programmable logic controller) programmer by trade. I would say my job role is quite unique in that respect – it’s so diverse. One day I could be stripping a machine down, repairing and rebuilding, the next project planning, the next, resolving software issues – be it PLC, C#, Visual Basic, Python – or coming up with ideas that would add value to systems. As far as programming goes, I wouldn’t class myself as a professional programmer, I’d say a “good amateur”. My current contract work is all Microsoft Windows based.

LXF: That does sound interesting, but also not very Linux-oriented. What’s been your experience of Linux?

SF: Linux is great fun. I’ve used it for almost a decade; however, there have been times (figuratively speaking), when I’ve seriously wanted to strap a stick of dynamite to my laptop, light the fuse and hurl it as far as the eye can see. I’ve also resorted to headache tablets for the sheer amount of frustration resulting from attempts to get something working. And I’m seriously lucky to have an understanding wife, who allows me to spend an inordinate amount of hours tinkering on my PC.