About me

Photograph of Ben de Groot in 2007 Hi, I am Ben de Groot, and I write this blog to help users with Gentoo Linux and to inform people about free software and related topics. I have been fascinated by computers since I was a young boy. Late 2002 I became a user of Gentoo Linux and have been a fan ever since. I set up an overlay (third party repository in Gentoo-speak) to share some of the stuff I was interested in that was not part of Gentoo's official portage tree, such as the live subversion ebuild for MPlayer, that I still maintain. Finally in February 2008, around the same time as I started this blog, I became a developer for Gentoo.

Having blogged before, especially on web standards and related issues, both in Dutch (my mother tongue) and English, I wanted to take this up again, but this time more as a communication channel between me (as developer) and the users of Gentoo, as well as other interested people.

I love travel, and have lived in several countries around Europe, but have recently returned to my native country, the Netherlands. I am fascinated by the ways technology is changing our lives, enriching us with more and easier ways of communicating and learning. Music has always had a special place in my heart as well, and I continue to discover new genres and artists. I am currently studying for the TEFL certificate, with the intention to teach English in the Far East.

If you want to contact me, you can shoot off an email to yngwin@gentoo.org or find me as yngwin on IRC in Freenode's #gentoo-media channel.