Just for fun, I will be 84 in a couple of weeks. Might I be the most elderly openSUSE user advocate?
I started working on the Apollo program as a youth using mainframes, keypunch cards, and FORTRAN and Basic.
I’d like to meet and converse with the elders if I could find who they are and maybe swap some stories.
tom kosvic
I’m 65 here, you have me beat. Been using openSUSE(SuSE) since 7.3.
Tom, “only 65” started with S.u.S.E. 5.3 in 1998, a month later got a box of 6.4 and basically never left. My start in IT was being re-schooled to become a COBOL programmer. Landed in a UNIX sysadmin job in ~1990, and learned there to program in DataBus, some in-house languge, all this from printed sources and one colleague in the company that knew a slight bit more than me. No docs, no nothing.
Imagine that you would write like many youngsters, i.e. without punctuation. 
My friend David S has lots of computers. He mostly uses MacOS on his Macs, but he has others with Windows and Linux, at least one of which I put Leap on, probably more. He’s currently 89 years and 202 days old.
have you watched any historic event? like moon landing or remember news of JFK
I am 77 will be 78 shortly. Ah, words like Fortran, Basic, punch cards, bring back lots of memories. Have wandered a lot on the computing landscape. Good to know there are some even older than me, still trucking. My hope reach to @tckosvic . Live Long And Prosper 
I watched the Moon Landing live on TV 
Edit: See https://forums.opensuse.org/t/most-elderly-opensuse-user/186656/49
Thanks for all the fun comments. I did watch the moon landings on tv. I remember listening to car radio in North American Aviation parking lot on Kennedy assassination. Radios were not allowed in facility.
I was in New Jersey early on. I was in California during Apollo design/development. I then went to Minnesota for a very long time. Spent short time in Louisville, KY. Now in assisted living in Texas.
I guarantee that I am the only one in this building using linux. I have no security concerns. I did have to go down to one PC due to space limitations.
I still dabble in computational fluid mechanics, astronomy/orbit calculations, and test various linux in libvirt vm. openSUSE has been main OS for 15 years or so. I recently did manual linux-from-scratch install. Having trouble getting it to boot but put in the time and got it done. Proud of that. Probably took 60 hours at the computer for LFS.
Anyone near Plano, Tx?
tom kosvic
Wow it’s brilliant to see more wised human beings by the ages with all that of knowledge.
And well I’m 37 on 1st of August without for example even a lower english language certificate. None by any means knowledge especially around coding.
But besides that I’m using PC’s from age of 10? And as a former Graphic Designer
who fell in love with Audio/Music Production by the age of 29.
A very warm and encouraging topic @tckosvic 
My biggest problem with current generation of kids is that when confronted by something they are told or perceive as difficult, they divert and avoid it rather than saying “I can do this”. Then, put in the effort and master the topic.
I’m profoundly inept at computer graphics and computer audio. I have written some specialized data plotting code in the past.
Anyone in any online linux groups that they enjoy?
tom kosvic
I was in that place of avoiding so I can agree and regret in the same moment. I made the jump because the end of support in Win 10, but also always I wanted to escape from all that proprietary and bloated software.
If I got it right, I’m a member of the geekos DAW- openSUSE telegram group and soon or Later I’ll create an account on Linux for Musicians for more specific topics and help around audio in Linux.
I am 79, started using CP/M in 1980, first heard about SUSE from a talk by a SUSE representative at the West Yorkshire Linux Users Group in 2000 - he made some predictions about the slow uptake of LInux which outraged a lot of the attenders but he was proved right in the end.
At the time I was using Caldera Linux but swapped to SUSE and then OpenSUSE after Caldera collapsed.
I have been able to achieve a huge amount using OpenSUSE over the years but remain frustrated at how few people recognise the benefits of FOSS.
Oh, very well, then – I’m “only 75” – began with SuSE Linux 8.1 in 2002.
I admit to dabbling with Red Hat 5.1 in 1998 and, “Power Linux” (Springer Verlag) in 1997.
I worked for DEC Field Service in the UK from 1979 to 1988 – beginning with 16-bit PDP-11 hardware and later support of the related Operating Systems – RT-11, RSX-11M, RSTS/E – a little bit later, I burnt my fingers with the deployment of Ultrix (BSD) on DEC 32-bit machines. I was also dealing with DECnet support issues, mostly on VAX/VMS machines …
I then moved back into the Telecommunications industry working for a local manufacturer here in Germany – I was in at the deep end of mobile telephony development – first the GSM roll-out and then, UMTS development. I exited that phase as a ISTQB Software Tester, which then carried me through to retirement.
tckosvic, you are a few months ahead of my 83, but we share some memories (like watching the moon landing–on a 10 inch b/w CRT).
Briefly got into a computer company in 1978 that offered WordStar to adv and PR agencies. Flop–“I’ll just have Gloria retype it.” Spent most of my career in networking, rather than software, so I still struggle with things like moving Thunderbird to a new computer (complete failure) and dealing with my latest problem “Firefox is already running but not responding”. But you can ask me how I invented containers in 2001 :-0
For more than 25 years I’ve not used Windows (even after paying the tax with each new computer. Found Linux was the most attractive way to abandon MS after they had made my life difficult in several ways: 1. MS Word (for DOS) wasn’t able to generate a full index for a book I wrote; 2. MS was showing its collective ignorance of communications when I was using modems through a PBX --the MS dialer sent the code to suppress call waiting before dialing 9 for the outside line; 3. They put suicide code in Word 5 for DOS (great app for a writer) which trashed every file opened after Y2K.
Remember Lindows? Had one of the first “one-click install” repositories. MS sued them all over the world. Glad I didn’t buy the “life time” membership 
Bought Suse to run some app that I don’t recall. Liked it. Switched to openSuse when time got tough and I had 6 computers. May go back to SEL.
Not sure how this forum works for swapping stories. Added a bookmark, will check back.
Well I maybe a lot “younger”, yet my oldest memories of historical events was when I was 3 years old. Mum and Dad were sitting at, and listening to the radio. Suddenly the programme got interupted by “extra news”. Within seconds Mum and Dad were crying loudly. Mum kept repeating “they killed him, they kiled him”. I remember that there were boxes everywhere in the room, which made it easier to put in place. Mum, Dad, me and my baby sister were moving per the 1st of December. Dad later cofirmed that what I remembered was indeed the JFK murder.
The landing on the moon? We had no TV, but I was invited to stay over at a friend, where they did. His dad woke us up in the middle of the night and watched it with us. What made it even more special was that we got Coca Cola and crisps, both completely new to us. This guy was a programmer writing stuff to punch foldable 1 piece cardboard boxes out of 6 ton rols of cardboard. We were allowed to punch our names in punch cards ( wouldn’t know how anymore ) and have that printed on cardboard.
My approach to difficulties was (and still is), someone else was able to figure it out, I can as well do it.
I’m 77 and the “baby” in my retirement community. I’m old enough that I forgot how I got started with SuSe then opensSuSE. I do remember taking a class that required I produce punch cards. I was a non-technical employee of a “computer” company that made tape drives. Our hot product was a “desktop” tape drive, about the size of refrigerator you put under a kitchen counter. We were put out of business by a blunder made by a clerk at Honeywell. My main memory of that time was a building across the street from our factory. It was a nuclear target. For me, a war would be over before I knew it started.
I’m only 67, a youngster in this group. Started with SuSE in '96. Before then i worked on ships with radar, telegraph and fax via transmitting on air.
Using Sailor and Skanti transmitters and radar systems like Kelvin Hughes, Raytheon and JRC.
It was painful back in the early days.
My very first portable personal computer was a 1982 Panasonic Sr. Partner. It weighed over 30 US lbs. It had a click-on keyboard, a carrying handle, 2 5-1/4" floppy drives (pre 3 1/2"). I have no recollection of the green on black text screen size (3"x5" ??).
It had NO HARD DRIVE - you had to boot the operating system 5 1/4" floppy in one drive, boot up, then use a second 5 1/4" floppy for your data storage. Those 5 1/4" floppy disks were truly floppy!
