People of openSUSE: Manu Gupta

Please introduce yourself!

My name is Manu, I am 21 years old and I live in India. I am currently in my final year of graduation in computer science. My native language is Hindi. During my free time, I participate in openSUSE Project and hang out with friends, watch movies and do other stuff.

Tell us about the background to your computer use.

I started with computers in my 6th standard I believe starting with computer games. I immediately fell in love with them. But as I moved to boarding I had no access to computers until my college.

When and why did you start using openSUSE/SUSE Linux?

I started using openSUSE around 2 years back. I started to use it out of fascination and to learn about Linux as much as I can. Earlier I used Ubuntu and Fedora too but openSUSE caught my attention. I realized it to be a wonderful operating system that furnished my needs.

When did you join the openSUSE community and what made you do that?

The same time I started using openSUSE. One prominent reason was to learn Linux. So I joined the community to meet awesome people and learn from them.

In what way do you participate in the openSUSE project?

I participate in the openSUSE Project in a lot of ways. I am a part of the marketing team, the news team and also the part of ambassador welcome team in our ambassador programme. With my GSoC Project, I will be working on SaX3 and I hope to do it justice.

What especially motivates you to participate in the openSUSE project?

The fun element and the awesomest people in the project.

Tell us about your GSoC project?

I am working on SaX3, and off course it needs no introduction. I just hope I do justice to it at the end of the coding period.

When do you usually spend time on the openSUSE project?

I usually spend a lot of my free time for openSUSE.

Three words to describe openSUSE? Or make up a proper slogan!

Have a lot of fun :)

What do you think is missing or underrated in the distribution or the project?

We need a tighter integration with media codecs. Rest all works like a charm.

What do you think the future holds for the openSUSE project? And your future at the project?

openSUSE has got a wonderful future. I don’t know about my future at the project but definitely like to keep it the way as it is now.

A person asks you why he/she should choose openSUSE instead of other distribution/OS. What would be your arguments to convince him/her to pick up openSUSE?

I will ask them to use it for at least 2 months and explore it and then decide. People want instant results and that is not achievable.

Which members of the openSUSE community have you met in person?

Sankar P, Vincent Untz, Bharath Acaharya, Akhil Ladha and a lot of the people from SUSE / Novell Bangalore (now Bengaluru) office. Off course, there are other like Akash, N B Prashanth and Saurabh Sood who contribute a lot to openSUSE and are my very good friends.

How many icons are currently on your desktop?

Well none, because of GNOME 3, otherwise there would have been plenty

What is the application you can’t live without? And why?

Firefox, I spend a lot of time over the net

Which application or feature should be invented as soon as possible?

A git like filesystem maybe

Which is your preferred text editor? And why?

Vim.. as gets the job done

Which famous person would you want to join the openSUSE community?

Linus

Which computer related skills would you like to have?

Packaging

The Internet crashes for a whole week, how would you feel, what would you do?

I will move out, and read some books, hang out with friends.

Which is your favorite movie scene?

Difficult again as I watch a lot of movies and do not remember one specific out of it.

Star Trek or Star Wars?

Star Wars ( I have not watched Star Trek yet )

What is your favorite food and drink?

While at home, I enjoy my Mom’s cooking ( I make sure I gain a few kgs/pounds ;) ). Otherwise, I love pizzas a lot. I love a lot of coffee and also ice-creams.

Favorite game or console (in your childhood and nowadays)?

Lots and lots of games, the list is endless. Earlier when I was on Windows I remember playing carmaggadon, star gunner, flying tigers, xonix, Halo and others. These always remained classic for me even though I enjoyed playing other RPGs and RTS. Nowadays on Linux, I do not play a lot of big games but certainly among my favorites are tux racer, open arena, ardentryst and specially I have no tomatoes are among my favorites

Which city would you like to visit?

Again, I am not sure about this there are a lot of places to visit but one of my favorite holiday destinations would be Venice

What is your preferred way to spend your vacation?

I prefer to stay at home as this is my only time when I meet my family.

Image you would win the GSoC! What would you do? Would you stay with openSUSE?

I don’t know what I am going to with that amount of money not decided yet. Yes I will stay with openSUSE

If traveling through time was possible, when would we be most likely to meet you?

I do not prefer time travel :) but maybe this openSUSE Conference if I get to it.

There’s a thunderstorm outside, do you turn off your computer?

Naa. Why would I do that?

Have your ever missed an appointment because you forgot about it while sitting at your computer?

My friends always call me up :)

Show us a picture of something, you have always wanted to share!

I don’t have one such photo yet

You couldn’t live without…

My family, friends, a computer and a lot of other things

Which question was the hardest to answer?

This one among the other hard ones

What other question would you like to answer? And what would you answer?

None :)