fmxsh

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HELLO!

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My name is Fredrik.

Web:_______ fmx.sh

GitHub:____ github.com/fmxsh

Type:______ I’m a recreational technologist with a focus on software and systems, but also with focus on biology, psychology and lifestyle as comprised of a set of systems open to improvement.

Mail me at "fred" at the domain fmx.sh.

-- Chronology of Systems and Life --

Nintendo

Either you had Nintendo or Sega. The games "Zelda" and "Super Mario Bros" were my first games. Summer days, running with excitement to my friend's house to watch the older kids show how to make progress in "Shadowgate". Winter days, carrying "Willow" to a friends house to play the game together, and trying to use the controller with hands still frozen from the cold. A sense of personal growth, unfolding in parallel with my progress in "Zelda".

Amiga 500 and Workbench

On my birthday, I was bought a used Amiga 500 with 350 floppies, an extra floppy drive, and 1MB of extra memory. I cycled those 350 floppies from the previous owner many times on rainy days. Used XCopy with friends. "Crystal" cracktros were among the favorites (yes, the one for "Moonstone"). Almost solved all of "Monkey Island 2" without knowing the English language. "Dungeon Master" was another beloved game, but I didn't have the manual for the spells and didn't know what those symbols were meant for. Maybe I should try to finish the game some day. The green bush monster really scarred me.

Super Nintendo

"Chrono Trigger" and "Final Fantasy 6" were never released in Europe. I had to buy an adapter and order from the Imported from the USA section in a game magazine. These games were like parallel dimensions of existence. SNES cemented itself as the best console to me, probably because whatever you experience as a teenager becomes the gold standard for everything ahead.

Windows 95

Explored everything from "Turbo C++" and "FastTracker" to "SoftICE" and games like "Command & Conqueror". Being a beginner, I got paranoid when I realized "Telnet" could connect to other computers, as I concluded others could connect to mine. Another memory is of myself using the chat program "mIRC", and someone "hacked" my computer by convincing me to accept a file, probably the "Back Orifice" backdoor file. He deleted my "C:\Quake". I then reinstalled Windows. Later, I actually did crack a few programs, much thanks to "+Fravia" and "+ORC". Compiling my first C program gave me an incredible sense of creative freedom.

Slackware

First exposure to Linux. Blackbox VM. Even got my 56k modem working (with PPP something). Programmed a MUD server and reached 2% of my goal. Used Pico editor, which wasn’t that great of an IDE. Also tried Red Hat. Later reverted to Windows.

PlayStation and N64

When Final Fantasy 7 arrived at the post office, I was shaking with excitement. Pre-ordered the USA release, running on a modified PAL console (the retailer offered modding). A guy at the local game store actually completed Final Fantasy 7 in the store. He was there almost every day playing. He used to stand on one leg and switch legs. The store let him have his own memory card.

Windows 98

A time of CD-ROMs and MP3s. Making maps in Quake and attending a few LAN parties. Never really liked the social aspect of it. It was more fun with close friends. Carrying my computer to my neighbor’s house to play Quake in multiplayer over a null modem cable. I cracked "Half-Life" on the fly with "SoftIce" when I and my friend got stuck at the installation because he had lost the serial code. It was very simple; just inverting a single JNE a few steps after a MsgBoxA breakpoint. I felt like a hacker just like in the movies. Also wiped a friend’s hard drive by mistake when convincing and assisting him to install Linux because it’s cool. The intended dual boot obviously failed. He had to learn to deal with loss, which is a very beneficial skill to have. I could have ended up with the “cool kids,” but I found myself in the geeky circles---and today, I’m grateful for that (I probably avoided being exposed to things provoking bad choices that, on the other hand, seems brilliant from a young person's perspective).

Windows ME

I actually ran that for a short period. The big thing was that the Start menu would fade in when opening it. I had never seen anything like that before in an OS. Probably too heavy of a rendering load for previous versions.

Windows XP

The dawn of broadband for me. Downloading a whole album of Game OST in a few minutes was Began exploring PHP. Had some really good success with web projects. The code is alive today but I won't touch it.

Playstation 2

My interest in gaming vanished. Final Fantasy 8 was a disapointment to me, but really, I probably had grown past it. Fascinating to see others have the never games in the series as their nostalgic favorites. I just can't relate to FF>=8 the way I did to FF7.

Gentoo

Got it working, including general stuff like sound. Later used LFS too. Used Linux for some time—mostly a window-centered environment. Switched back to Windows, mainly for games, Photoshop, and convenience. I never really got the Linux philosophy. Without guidance, Windows-users tend to struggle against the natural way of Linux, because they perceive it trough a Windows-lense. Windows-people expect "the best way" to be hard coded into the "UI", while in Linux, you learn some fundamentals and configure what you consider the best way down to granular detail.

Windows 7

Other things in life... not much computer engagement.

Windows 10

The death of creativity and engagement. (What happened here? Aging? Aging equals decline, unless you stay active and challenged.)

Windows 11

I absolutely refuse! And... I already felt paranoid with Win10. Win11 appeared horrifying to me, for many reasons. Adds, silly app-store, (but yeah, finding basic software on windows that isn't malware isn't easy, so I get the point). Forced cloud account to login etc...

Arch Linux

I’m alive again. I’ll never return to Windows. I got my enthusiasm back. Why didn’t I do this from the start? Fan of a basic window manager and a heavily terminal-centered environment. I like to explore and configure it, as well as run servers. System administration and programming. Love Neovim.

ChatGPT and similar

To be honest, it blows all quirks of Linux (as with any other system) out of the picture by solving them quickly and making it way easier to learn and understand the core of Linux, enabling the realization of its power—and why things that seem odd actually unleash the most power.

I’ve started to love the fact that Linux is not user-friendly because I like the challenge (as long as it’s not non-logical exceptions and quirky syntax taking hours to solve… but thanks to AI, those things don’t stand in the way).

However, Windows nowadays actually requires more time to solve basic things than the value it returns. For example: try disabling the requirement of signing in with a remote account just to use the computer.

Also

NES, SNES, PS1, N64, PS2, and now most recently PS4, but only the most casual play of simple games.