 Well I'm almost 13, I actually turned 13 in 10 days, so I just don't really have, I don't have much to do in my daily life, but you know, I'm at LinuxCon right now, so I have lots to do. You said Linus is your hero? Yup, Linus Torvalds is kind of my hero because I've used Linux for about a couple of years now, and I'm still loving it. What brought you to LinuxCon? There was a school project on, so everyone had to write to their hero, or something. Everyone was like, writing to their favorite celebrities, but I wrote to my hero, Linus Torvalds, and you know, I said, hi, I'm Zach Ducont, I use Arch Linux. On my laptop, I like it because I can configure the system to my intent. It uses the Pacman package manager and system D. And what's your distribution of Linux? So anyways, my mom got a call later, like in the summer, and apparently I, they were planning to fly me to Chicago and fly me to Chicago so I could meet Linus Torvalds and go to the LinuxCon. Did you meet him? Yup. What did he tell you, and what did you tell him? He signed my Linux Bible, which is actually just a guide to using Linux, which helped me a lot. And he gave me a copy of Just for Fun, which is a signed copy actually, and actually I have a picture of him signing that book on my, I think on my Twitter timeline. So I got to go to the LinuxCon. How did you come to know about Linux? I heard about an OS called Ubuntu, and about like, I don't know, I think about 2012, and I started experimenting with Ubuntu in a virtual machine on the family PC, and when I actually got my own laptop, I installed Ubuntu on it a few months later, because I was tired of the preloaded Windows 8, and since then I really started to, you know, love Linux. So how did you come to know about Ubuntu? How did I come to know about Ubuntu? Well, I've seen, I've seen, like, I've seen people mention, you know, talk about Ubuntu, and I've actually had this book on how to tweak and have your Windows operating system, and there's actually this tutorial, there was actually this tutorial on how to install Ubuntu in a virtual machine. That's kind of where I had started to know about Linux, and there was also this other tutorial on how to boot a live Linux session using the NotPix live disk. And that's pretty much what got me, you know, knowing about Ubuntu, and this is kind of great, but I had a really dumb PC back then, like, in 2011 or 2012 when I had that book. The PC was, like, Windows XP professional from, like, I don't know, the early 2000s, and it just didn't work well with virtualization for, you know, modern OSes. So when I had the chance to try it out on the family PC, which was better, 8GB of RAM, Windows 7 in 2009, I think, it actually worked. And I actually loved the Ubuntu experience, especially with 12.04, you know, it was stable, I mean, and I started actually experimenting with other Linux distributions on the actual computer, you know, dual booting while still keeping the Windows 7 that was preloaded. And, you know, when I got my first laptop, I said, hey, I should probably install Linux on this, and it was really great, you know. It was really stable, and I just had a better experience with Linux than I had with Windows operating systems. And now you use OpenSUSE that you said? I don't use OpenSUSE now. I'm just kind of a distro hopper, you know, especially on the gateway, which isn't my main laptop, and I like to experiment with the different distros. I think what I want to do next is Gen2 Linux. And because I've heard that's kind of cool, you know, being able to build your own software from source. I mean, like a customized package is you install from source. I mean, I've installed Arch Linux before, and I actually on my main Dell laptop, I've actually installed Arch Linux on it like eight months ago, and I've used it as my main operating system on it since then, and, you know, I just had a really great experience with Arch Linux. What do you love about Linux? All the distributions are free. It is open source, and I can configure it to my intent, and it doesn't really need... It just seems a bit more stable than something like Windows. I still need to use Windows, but only for certain programs like Sony Vegas. Okay. And, you know, I love Linux. The community is great. It can help you with anything, whether you're a beginner or you've used it for quite a while. The Linux community, because Linux is just really community-based. Linux being open source, it's really focused on the community. Unlike Windows, where there has to be certain developers, it's closed sourcing. Same thing goes with other closed source OS operating systems and programs. But open source, it's really focused on the community, and Linux is one of those operating systems, and it's actually one of the biggest open source operating system collaborative projects I've heard. So, you know, that's why I love Linux. Do you use just open source operating system, or do you use open source applications as well, you know, on Windows? Oh, I like to use some open source applications as well. You know, there's a lot of them. LibreOffice, Firefox, or Ice Weasel on Debian. And, let me see some, let me think. VLC, I think is open source, yep. Chromium is there? Oh, Chromium, yeah, that's what Chrome is actually based on. So, some of my favorite open source applications. And, on my Gateway laptop, I have a dual bid system between Windows 7 and Debian GNU Linux. Windows is only for certain programs, and I don't use it that much. Debian is, you know, is for most of the, you know, things that I would usually do on a computer. Anything that's compatible with Linux, I'll run on Linux. Are you planning to contribute any code back to Linux or any other open source project? Well, once I get better at programming, sure. Do you file bug reports? I don't really file any bug reports, but I probably should, you know, this and that. I just don't experience many bugs with Linux, or certain programs. Which desktop environment do you use? Well, I like a lot of desktop environments. Currently, on my Debian install, I use XFCE. Have you tried KDE? Oh yeah, I've tried KDE before, and it's great. It's another great desktop environment. It just doesn't work great with Gateway laptops hardware. I did put the Dells though. I mean, the Dell had four games in RAM, so it was able to run KDE smoothly, and wobbly Windows on those cool effects. What message do you have for people your age? Should they use Linux? People my age, I'm going to tell them they use Linux. Well, if you don't have much to do on Windows, if you don't have any Windows exclusive programs, and you want to mainly use Linux, I mean, Linux is a great operating system. It's stable. There's many distributions for your taste, you know, and whatever you need. So, you can get a basic Linux distribution, and you can dual-boot it with your current Windows or Mac installation. Windows and Linux dual-boot is pretty easy nowadays, and so you can install it alongside Windows, whatever distribution you choose. And the Linux experience is a great experience. I mean, if all you do is, you know, web browsing and other things that you can do with Linux, then Linux will be great because if you're just a person who does just those things, why would you need Windows? I mean, if you can do the same, if you can get the same outcome on Linux. Is it hard for people to use Linux or is it easy now? Well, depending on what distribution you choose to use, I mean, if you're using a beginner distribution like Ubuntu or Linux Mint or Fedora Linux, I think it'll be a great experience. It'll be very easy to use, but something a bit challenging for new users such as Arch Linux or Gen 2 or Debian Linux. We're going to have to learn some stuff before you get your hands on something like those distros I just mentioned.