As the TOYA Boy Turns...

A couple months back I coined an acronym for a specific type of person we are seeing more and more lately. Now we've talked about this before but for those that are recently joining this experience, let me rehash briefly.

TOYA Boy.

I, at all levels of logic, can understand Linux fanboy-ism. After all, we are not as much a Kernel, an operating system, and Free Software as we are a philosophy.

An important philosophy to my way of thinking.

So of course you are going to have those that take this philosophy to near, ahem...religious heights. Many of us actually have changed our life-course because we believe so strongly in this philosophy. There are millions of us across the globe that understand what computing freedom is...and we embrace it.

Zealot, Fanboy, NerdGeek...

Guilty as charged. More than willing to re-offend. Unrepentant Recidivist.

And I don't mind a bit evangelizing our philosophy...healthily demonstrated by the fruit of that philosophy...it's the core of what we believe...of what we know.

That's where the confusion starts to creep in.

The difference between a philosophy and a product. Let's break it down to what we are talking about at the core.

Linux (Gnu/Linux for my brethren who prefer) exists as much as a philosophy as it does a system.

Microsoft Windows is a product. Redmond cannot even spell philosophy.

Bought and sold with demanding stockholders eying its stability, big, with gleaming buildings and lots of people paid huge amounts of money to produce said product. I can understand liking a product...I like my HP 2710 printer, I like my poor old decrepit Isuzu Rodeo...

But I cannot understand defending it like they defend and protect Microsoft products, especially given the corporate entity that produces it and the Licensing agreement they must agree to before using it.

So if you like a product that's good...buy it, like it and use it. But when someone else, a free consumer in the market for Heaven's sake wants to try something else.....

Why are many of you prepared to do just about anything to keep him from doing it? Why are you prepared to mangle the truth or even lie in order to keep someone on your side of the fence? You will repeat complete falsehoods mouthed by others just as ignorant as you in order to sway a decision.

Why? And don't bother...it's rhetorical.

Well, I ran into another TOYA Boy this weekend.

Oh, and TOYA = Talking Out Your A$$. (when your mouth knows better.)

...and I do mean boy.

He was all of 16 years old.

A 16 year old with a smart mouth that stays in one piece by the blessing that he is only 16 years old...an adult with his mouth would have gained some hard-learned manners long before now.

I drove South to San Antonio and the surrounding area this weekend to do a spate of installs that I had reserved for a one-shot circuit. We've learned to schedule them at least 2 weeks from the time of request to insure that any other installs in that area can be done at the same time. It saves a ton on gas and wear and tear.

His name is Bryan and he too is 16, but much better behaved...well-behaved to the point where him calling me "sir" started to get on my nerves. Bryan has had it tough. He has bounced from foster home to foster home for the past 9 years and it has nothing to do with his behavior. The System simply sucks. The referrer was a CPS Counselor who calls me often with referrals and she told me his story. "Psychologically Brutal" is by no means an exaggeration of his previous circumstance. Through it all, Bryan has a 3.55 grade average going into his Senior year and has already been approached by two colleges. It seems that Bryan possesses some extreme music talent.

One of these Universities would surprise everyone...not many get that invite 3/4th's of the way through high school.

But Bryan is still a 16 year old boy...the voice of a man...just adjusting to the increasing testosterone levels and not at all comfortable with it. He's on that cusp that made all of us as young men extremely uncomfortable.

To take his mind from his problems, Bryan likes to play computer games...and write music scores. Original music scores.

Two of his friends had gathered in the family room with Bryan and his caregiver as I unpacked the computer and began to set it up. I had went out of my way to build Bryan a good computer. This kid captured my attention immediately upon his paperwork coming across my desk.

Bryan knelt down beside me and started putting the various cables and wires into the back while I bench-pressed the 21 inch CRT onto the desk. Have I ever mentioned in passing, my extreme dislike for 21 inch CRT's...? The wonderful woman that pledged to care for Bryan excused herself and told me that if we needed anything, to let her know.

When it came time to push the button, I nodded at Bryan.

"It's your computer son, you turn it on."

The Dell Bios bar crept slowly across the screen until the Super OS logo appeared in brilliant color. I glanced at Bryan and his friends to catch their expressions.

It wasn't any where near what I was expecting.

Bryan was not frowning but I could tell he wasn't exactly ready to do cartwheels either.

Bryan is a gamer and he was expecting Windows.

I sat down in the side chair and motioned Bryan to take the Captain's seat. I had him drop the menu and we started exploring his system. As he traveled through the various sub catagories, I explained how the menu system is set up and how to prioritize the applications to his particular needs. Bryan likes to manipulate music and by the time I showed him Rosegarden, LMMS, Audacity, and ZynAddSubFX, he had forgotten his initial disappointment. He was excited. He was absolutely enthralled with ZynAddSubFX.

I explained to Bryan that while Linux was not anywhere near on par with Windows in the gaming sense, it far surpassed Windows in about everything else. I was about to show him the Gimp when one of his friends chimed in from behind us. It was TOYA Boy.

"I've got a cracked copy of XP at the house Bry...we'll go get it later"

I turned in my chair and the kid smirked as I met his gaze.

"Why would you want to ruin a perfectly good computer by putting XP on it. It will be ate up with viruses in a month. Besides, Bryan doesn't have to steal anything...everything he wants is one mouse click away and absolutely free." I glanced over at the cased laptop on the end table. "Have you ever used Linux?"

The kid snorted in reply. "Dude, If he wanted a toy he would have went to the mall and bought one. Besides", he jerked his head toward the brand new Dell. "I haven't gotten a virus on my computer ever, so that's a bunch of crap. Power Users don't get viruses.

I eyed the other kid then TOYA Boy. "That is a sweet computer. Can I see it?"

He froze for just a moment and then went over and picked it up from the table and handed the case to me. I opened the case and pulled out the gleaming black beauty. 2000 bucks worth of upgraded Dell studio XPS laptop wasted on this rich boy snot.

I opened the lid and he smiled with pride as I turned it on and waited for it to boot.

"Do you have any games on it now?"

"Well yeah...that's what it's for. Check it out."

I opened the Experienced cracked menu and started looking through the games he had...all cracked...no CD needed...not a thing on it legitimate. Even Photoshop was stolen. This particular "release" of XP comes with the ability to install some impressive software...all cracked without any of the keygen or serial hassles. The only real protection he had on it was an expired copy of Norton and it had a big red X through it. I didn't pull it down from the menu but I would guess it was nefariously gained as well. Wireless dutifully found the open signal and connected.

Bad move.

I shifted in my seat and reached in my pocket for the right thumb drive, carefully holding the XPS as I did so. I pulled the cap with my teeth and slid it into the side slot. I waited for the device to register than opened the directory.

"Here's a game you don't have. Click that icon."

The kid glanced at the explorer box then took the laptop from me and took two steps back toward the love seat and sat down. He looked up at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Dude, that's a kid's game man...that's not a real game."

I just smiled.

"Oh trust me...it's as serious a game as you can get...try it and see if I'm not right".

He shrugged and tapped twice on the indicated icon. He fooled with it for about two minutes then laid the machine on the bed. Bryan was still deep into the menu of his new computer. He and his well-mannered friend had discovered Rosegarden and were excitedly exploring the options and features of the application. There was an almost gleeful dialog going on between the two friends.

"Dude, that's so lame my sister wouldn't play it." He pulled the 8 gig drive out of the slot and tossed it back to me.

I just shrugged and turned, put the drive in my pocket and focused my attention back to Bryan.

I took my time with him, explaining to him why Linux and Free Software were a better bet for him, not only now but for the rest of his computing life...barring The Cloud descending upon us all that is. I did accentuate that this was his computer and that indeed he did have a choice of what he put on it but that he should not buckle to peer pressure. Bryan should do what's best for Bryan. I noted with satisfaction the similarities between Bryan and a young man I encountered in Felton California. That was a good thing.


It would seem that helios is geographically-challenged...see if you can spot the boo-boo.


The other young man was listening just as attentively and that seemed to bother our Little Eddie Haskell.

"Dude, but what about our games. He can't play our games on that junk."

I patiently told him that "that junk" was a dual core 64 bit AMD Turion with a 250 gig hard drive and three gigs of memory. Because I knew ahead of time that Bryan would have some specific graphics needs, I installed the Quadro FX 5800, bypassing the onboard ATI setup. I also did a mini lecture on the abilities of Wine, Cedega, Crossover Office and some virtualization engines that would allow him to play at almost peak.

It didn't bother me at all to emphasize with authority that Bryan was being given this computer so he could better himself academically...not putz around at LAN parties and form associations with kids that prioritized gaming over building their futures. None the less, I directed Bryan to a text file in his home directory that listed all the games that played fine on Linux. Then I ended it with my regular finger-wagging .

"AND, it is all but impossible to get a Windows virus on Linux...it's almost impossible to get any virus."

Spawn of Satan snorted. "Big deal, that's not a problem for me either."

I looked him dead in the eye.

"Pull up your favorite game." He just looked at me like I had spoken to him in Swahili.

"Do it...I'm going to show you something."

I motioned Bryan to quickly vacate the seat he was sitting in and dug the red thumb drive out of my pocket and inserted it into the front of the computer. When the sdb1 drive opened, I clicked a folder and double engaged the Sub7 Server...who's client was softly nestled in the whack-a-mole game I allowed him to execute. While Bill Gates Jr. was yammering on about how he didn't need security protection and that Windows was as secure as Linux could ever be, the server connected and I clicked the control panel - screen text:

DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME?

Bryan looked at me with his head cocked and without looking behind me I typed again:

Yeah, I'm talking to you, "Mr. I-Don't-Get-Viruses."

Plato responded in the way I figured he would.

"Hey, someone's typing on my computer."

Boy genius, ain't he?

Bryan smiled widely and I winked.

Again, appearing in a little yellow bordered box on his desktop: "How's that Windows system working out for you now sport?"

For good measure, I opened about 12 incidences of his desktop calculator and choked his 2 gigs of memory to a crawl.

By then, the kid had caught on. The sound of initiating applications was still dinging on his computer. He all but flung his laptop onto the love seat and came stomping over to the where we were seated.

"You put a virus on my computer?"

I just smiled at him.

"No pal...YOU put a virus on your computer. And it's a trojan, an OLD trojan. A Power User should know the difference. If you had any kind of protection at all, it would have warned you. You might want to think about re-enabling system messages while you are at it. It would have told you something was altering your Registry. You were dumb enough to click on a program given to you by a complete stranger so welcome to the world of social engineering Dilbert."

Bryan and his other friend almost fell out of their chairs laughing. The kid sputtered and spewed impotent threats about suing me and police reports...I think he even said he was going to tell his mommy.

That sent his friends even deeper into hysteria. Bryan's "Mom" stuck her head in the door to see what was going on. They were completely at the mercy of their own laughter. I smiled and waved. she surveyed the room, waved back then closed the door.

I unmounted the thumb drive and tossed it to the next candidate for the cover of Mad Magazine.

"Open the same folder, click on the "untitled" folder and double click the icon that has the red and white lifesaver. It says "rescue" under it. When it says to reboot, do it. It'll take the trojan completely off. Oh, and be patient closing all those calculators...Windows does not handle memory very efficiently."

The removal tool had him back to normal in 20 minutes.

I spent the next two hours with Bryan, Michael (the quiet kid) and David...a much subdued David. We used the time to explore OpenOffice, Ekiga, Pitivi and a host of sound manipulation applications. I also showed them how to use both synaptic and the shell to apt-get new applications. Even David was obviously impressed and sheepishly asked me how he could obtain the same Linux System Bryan had. I dutifully dug in my bag and gave him a disk and explained it was simple enough even for a Windows Power User.

As I prepared to leave, we gathered in the living room and I spoke to Bryan's caregiver, I made sure Bryan AND her had the username and password, our business card and instructions to call if there were any problems. I even told Bryan's "mom" about the incident with David and she laughed softly as she shot him a sideways look...something told me that she was pretty sick of his mouth as well.

I was at the front door with the four of them standing in the hallway, I turned and looked at David.

"So did you learn anything today Dave?"

Shuffling his feet, he repeated that he should never trust a stranger or his word when it came to putting stuff on his computer. He also mumbled something about not talking about things until he knew what he was talking about.

I nodded and smiled. "Yep, that's a good start." I began to open the door to leave, then stopped and turned back to him.

"So Dave... was I less of a stranger to you when I told you to click the second icon...?" I met his blank stare for the three seconds it took him to understand what I was saying.

I'm betting there is a good chance he finds a way to re-activate that anti virus program...or if he's smart, he'll follow Bryan's lead.

With that I pulled the heavy front door behind me closed and stepped into the blistering Texas afternoon. I had two more installs in Schertz and New Braunfels before the day was allowed to finish and it was already 1 PM. Eventually, I would return to my home at 12:10 AM on Sunday.

It was a good day.

All-Righty Then

For those who may be concerned, all parties mentioned in this article have read, approve of their participation in the article and bear no ill will toward the author. David's father thought it was a scream and donated $50.00 to The HeliOS Project - h