Linux and Your Geekcode
One of the more popular developments on the Net recently is the appearance of ``geekcodes'' in e-mail signatures. If you take pride in your being a geek, perhaps you should show yours off regularly. Learning Linux system administration will boost your geekcode by leaps and bounds.
If you don't know what the devil I'm talking about, a geek code resembles a PGP digital signature at the bottom of e-mails. Mine looks like this:
----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK---- Version: 3.2 GTW/GL/GP d- s+:+ a+ C+++ UL++++> P++ L+++ E++ W++ N++ o--@ K- w--- O+(++) M V PS+ PE+(++) Y++> PGP++ t+ 5 X R- tv@ b++ DI+++ D++ G++ e++ !h r+++ y++++ ----END GEEK CODE BLOCK----
You can visit http://www.geekcode.com for a complete explanation of each of these symbols. If you administer a Unix system, your geekcode automatically improves dramatically. The reason is that many of these questions are biased toward Unix and Unix tools.
Admin Tools
First of all, you have to be pretty foolhardy as well as ambitious to undertake a Linux installation at all. You will need to know how to repartition your hard drive, plan and size partitions, locate device numbers and ports, know I/O addresses and IRQ numbers in some instances, and you'll need to have a good sense for troubleshooting and resolving problems patiently. Patience, it seems, is perhaps the most important trait for Unix system administration. (That, and being on good terms with the Almighty!) It's terribly easy to really foul something up when you lose your cool and get careless. Admin tools are too powerful to trifle with.
Second, knowing Linux admin tools enables you to answer favorably to seven or eight questions right off the bat. If you're only a windows user, you probably wouldn't be inclined to use these tools, or even hear about them. As a Linux admin, you more than likely qualify for C+++ and UL+++ and P+ and L+++ ratings. You could also qualify for E+ or better because you might use Emacs, one of the standard text processors distributed with Linux. If you praise Linux above other OSs, you might also qualify to quietly state your disapproval of competitve operating systems with O and M and V. I happen to like OS/2, however, so I carry O+(++), because my opinion on OS/2 varies according to my many moods (and Warp's many moods too).
If you like PGP encryption and authentication software, you're eligible for entries in Y and PGP. Otherwise, you'll either need to use the ? variable, or simply Y and PGP, with no modifiers. Cypherpunks become a lot more involved with the political and economic aspects of online life, particularly with privacy issues, than modest users of PGP. However, there tends to be a correlation between enthusiasm with PGP and zeal about privacy issues. So, you probably act like a cypherpunk at least in small ways if not in big ways.
Unix Services
Since many Linux distributions already come with a preconfigured web server and news server (among many others), you are a web master as soon as you fire up Linux for the first time! Take a bow!
In truth, there is normally some configuration to be done, and news feeds normally consume massive gigabytes of disk space, so you probably won't want to run an entire newsfeed. But, you could configure innd to keep a few newsgroups current in a cron job; you could thusly run a very modest newsfeed. Doing so would boost your geekcode in the Web and Newsgroups categories. You don't have to be running Unix to score highly here, but not that many Windows users are running their own news or webservers on their home networks, so you earn a snobbery bonus here.
Being acquainted with Unix services gives you unique insight into how the Internet works. What services you configure on a single machine are some of the services that are configured on the Internet at large. One of the oldest services on the Internet, and one of the most mythological of aspects of Net lore, is the Usenet Oracle.
When I first created my geekcode, I had no idea of who the hell the Usenet Oracle was. Couldn't care less. I thought it was a bunch of post-pubescent geeks who could scarcely be qualified to advize anyone in the ways of wisdom and life. But the oracle programs stem from Peter Langston's work at the Harvard Science Center in 1975-76, for the nascent Unix System V. Lars Huttar was inspired by this work from Langston and wrote a similar program which he posted to alt.sources in 1989, which Steve Kinzler, sysadmin at Indiana University, installed on his network. The program became a network sensation. Ray Moody (moody@cray.com) rewrote the software for Kinzler and in 1986 the Net-wide service was renamed the Usenet Oracle. The ``Oracle Priesthood,'' a cadre of volunteers, select weekly their favorite answers from the participants who use the service for publishing in the Ocularities collections. As a Linux geek, you are heir to the Unix-biased nature of these high and mysterious proceedings!
I don't think you could possibly know enough Unix to understand Kibo, however. And perhaps it's safest for us all that way.
The Bad News
When it comes to Entertainment, Appearance, and Lifestyle, you're on your own. No amount of Unix admin experience can save you here. Your politics and computer ratings will improve, but unless you adore Doom, X-Files, and sex with Madonna, your geek code will suffer for it.
Your only hope in such a circumstance is to desert your spouse and family, move into an apartment with a T-3 or better dedicated Internet connection (preferrably near a Dominos), and then ask Madonna if she'll let you father (or mother) her next child.