About (me) chaslinux

Hi, I’m Charles, aka chaslinux on most social media platforms. Lately, I’m mostly using Mastodon. You can contact me on Mastodon: @chaslinux@techhub.social.

I have a lot of computer-related interests:

  • Computer Hardware
    • Especially troubleshooting Xubuntu Linux on different PC hardware.
    • Server hardware as it applies to home servers. This includes various network hardware and software.
  • Programming
    • BASH scripting, mostly to support and automate our Xubuntu installs.
    • A couple of years ago I developed an Asteroids-like game, Fasteroids, using the GameMaker Studio 1 & 2 game engine on Windows. I released Windows and Linux versions of Fasteroids, but the engine itself only ran on Windows at the time. Then GameMaker got bought by Opera, who decided to change future licensing to a subscription model. This change was “the final nail in the coffin” for my personal use of Windows and GameMaker. At some point I’d like to look at re-doing Fasteroids using the Godot game engine.
  • KODI
    • I’ve used KODI to manage my DVD and Blu-ray collection back when KODI was still known as XBMC (XBox Media Centre).
    • Over the years I’ve backed up my physical media using a number of programs under different Linux distributions. Some of that will be reflected here.
    • KODI is frequently mentioned by Android-box sellers who often sell the boxes with sketchy add-ons that pull movies from torrent sites. The sellers market the boxes as “unlimited free movie” solutions, but the reality is that they’re often buggy.
  • Steam (games) on Linux
    • I’m primarily interested in Linux-native games that run on Steam under Xubuntu, but I do play the odd Windows-native game under Linux.
  • Photography
    • I mostly use GIMP for photo editing and Darktable for importing and modifying photographs in RAW format.
  • Writing
    • Back in 2013 I wrote a small book on XBMC, Instant XBMC, for Packt Publishing. The entire book was written using OpenOffice (before it needed to be forked to LibreOffice) and GIMP for photo editing.
    • For a number of years I wrote a column for Full Circle Magazine, an Ubuntu Linux-oriented digital magazine. Full Circle Magazine still exists today and as a good resource for learning new Linux-related programs and news.

Outside of work, my better half and I enjoy good food, travel, and meeting with friends.