samuel.baggen@elivecd.org
My name is Samuel F. Baggen, nicknamed Thanatermesis, born in 1980. I lived most of my life in Barcelona - Spain, I moved to Belgium in search of a better quality of life when I was 19 where I started developing Elive and educated myself further developing my skills and finally moving back to Spain when 26.
If I would have to define myself in a single word I would say that I’m a re-designer, because I always think of better ways of improving something. I’m very imaginative and open-minded, trying to break down traditional concepts in order to innovate.
I spent most of my life speaking Spanish and French when I was child and for many years I’ve learned and practiced English due to my work. A brief summary:
My Spanish is perfect in all aspects, as it's my most fluent and often-used language. French is my mother tongue so I speak it perfectly but my grammar is somewhat imperfect. Catalan is a language that I learned at school as a second language, and my English is my mostly used for work. My written level is not perfect but I make myself understood and have no problem communicating, however, my speaking requires a bit more practice and am not so fluent.
My objective in life is to help make a better world. I try to do this by giving people better tools with which to operate. I also think that the world could be a much better place to live in if we could improve different aspects such as education and automation. I actually collaborate by:
From a work point of view I am interested in computers, smart algorithms, human-computer interfaces, visual representation of data, design and creativity. I believe that we can absorb much more information in a much faster way if we are able to represent it in a visually optimised manner.
I have a general interest in psychology and sociology, and I'm concerned about social justice and other global problems we face.
And finally for leisure, I love travelling and discovering new things, listening to music, and I enjoy peaceful moments.
I’m very intuitive and logical at the same time, I always try to find optimal or different ways of solving problems, I think that I’m resourceful in this aspect.
I'm also:
This is a list of personality traits that I think that could define myself pretty well:
| [ ] Accept criticism | [x] Adaptable | [ ] Ambitious |
| [ ] Assertive | [x] Competent | [x] Confident |
| [x] Conscientious | [x] Creative | [ ] Dependable |
| [ ] Diplomatic | [x] Easy-going | [x] Efficient |
| [x] Energetic | [ ] Enthusiastic | [ ] Flexible |
| [x] Friendly | [ ] Helpful | [x] Honest |
| [x] Intelligent | [ ] Loyal | [ ] Motivated |
| [x] Open-minded | [x] Organized | [ ] Patient |
| [x] Persistent | [x] Problem-solver | [ ] Productive |
| [ ] Punctual | [ ] Quick learner | [ ] Rarely absent |
| [x] Reliable | [x] Resourceful | [ ] Responsible |
| [ ] Take direction | [x] Tenacious | [x] Trustworthy |
| [ ] Understanding | [x] Versatile | [x] Intuitive |
| [ ] Accept responsibility | [x] Analyze data | [ ] Articulate speaker |
| [x] Assessing others | [x] Compile information | [x] Counseling others |
| [x] Creative | [ ] Customer/client service | [x] Delegate duties |
| [x] Develop goals | [ ] Develop relationships | [ ] Edit materials |
| [x] Evaluate ideas | [x] Friendly | [ ] Get results |
| [ ] Good listener | [x] Instruct others | [ ] Interview/hire people |
| [x] Logical thinker | [ ] Manage a budget | [x] Mange projects |
| [ ] Mediate | [ ] Meet deadlines | [ ] Mentor others |
| [ ] Motivate others | [ ] Negotiate agreements | [x] Organizing data |
| [ ] Plan events | [ ] Public speaking | [x] Research information |
| [ ] Run meetings | [ ] Sell ideas/products | [x] Strong, clear writer |
Even though I’m very realistic regarding the real world, I have a dreamy imagination so I’m always trying to extend my possibilities to new horizons.
I developed all my best skills on my own when I started to make the GNU/Linux operating system called “Elive”, which started around the year 2003 under a different name. I learned and enjoyed improving the system and better adapting it in terms of usability and user-friendliness -apt for any kind of user. The need to adapt each part of the system pushed me to learn new things every day. I enjoyed designing concepts.
I don’t consider myself a programmer, simply because my needs had never been focused on making “only an application”, but instead, I needed to touch on many kinds of different things on a system, similar to a system administrator. This is what made me into a “Linux Expert”. I have also had to deal with lots of problems and situations where I had to find solutions for each question that the users might have had. I have always considered these user difficulties as usability problems, which is what led me towards the “User Experience Design” side.
Because of the need to manage lots of different things I was never able to specialise in any specific programming language, except for a few being the ones that I have mostly needed.
I use Bash more than C as I find it faster to obtain the same solutions, considering options like: speed of development, required interface, complexity, and my familiarity with the language
The adventure of making Elive pushed me to acquire miscellaneous but not any specific experience in lots of different ways, the most notable being:
Everything that I learned I learned by myself, in fact, I was a very bad student at school, one of the worst students that ever existed (well, a little less than that), teachers always told me that I would never be anybody in life. Perhaps they would have been right if I had followed their directions, but let’s rather talk about my story regarding computers:
I got my first computer at 12, but I started using “Linux” when I was around 19 years old. With no internet connection, surprisingly this was a time in my life when I most learned about Linux. One day, a system called Knoppix appeared which I really liked; a completely different concept, but the usability and environment was not enough for me and this is when I decided to modify it. I was very happy with the result and wanted to make a similar version to share with the world, and thus begins the story of Elive.
I was living on Belgium at that time, with a quiet life, disconnected from internet and totally stress-free, playing with the Console/shell mode on a very old computer (300 Mhz / 200 Mb RAM). Surprisingly, this is where I made the first versions of Elive. The reason why I worked on Console is just because I was never quite satisfied by the graphic system and I was happier with it, being able to do many different kinds of things (even watching videos, browsing the net, viewing images, etc.) A fun experience, in short.
After deciding to start making my own operating system, I needed to have a stable internet connection. It was then that I started dealing with lots of different tasks and requests / questions / problems by the users, and these have remained my most common tasks until now.
All my experience has been influenced in one way or another by my development of Elive.
I’m the founder and only developer of Elive for more than 10 years, although I have received collaborations from others for free or by paying collaborators; I have managed the project and its development entirely on my own.
Short list of my common tasks:
Some applications that I have made for Elive:
I’m an official developer of Enlightenment, where I still collaborate to this day on miscellaneous jobs, especially reporting bugs, beta-testing, small fixes, and a couple of redesigns or new features.
As I use Debian as the basis for Elive, I have a thorough understanding of it. Although this relationship is unofficial, I do try to participate in different projects, in particular Debian Live.
If you wish to contact me, you can use the email found at the top or via my website.