Great to see such initiative by Basecamp. This is good for devs around the world. GitLab sits on the other extreme with their "open salaries": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10924957
For a person who is initially starting with Linux. I'd suggest you to get familiar with the terminal. I'd also ask what your primary use case is. If you are a software developer vs code is a great editor to download.
1. Want to resize your server? you can do it.
2. Want to create a new server and move some kind of elastic IP to point to this new server? you can do it with most cloud providers
3. Want to backup the whole disk, very easy to do it.
4. Want to spin up a 1000 instances for an hour? cloud servers can do it.
5. Want hourly pricing? cloud servers can do this.
One things that has helped me in the past is going anonymous and creating a project and just shipping features without thinking a lot about architecture and code quality. Making sure that I made progress every day.
I have given up my free time which I used to spend enjoying movies, television etc,. I don't get that much time to do that. Most of my time is consumed in the startup that I am building, my kids and a bit of contracting work. But, I am happy :)
Everyone has different definitions about "success" and "being happy". I can tell you as a father of 2 kids, that having kids has been one of the greatest things that has happened to me. I am really happy when they are around me. I am 32 which is relatively young but even I can't match their energy levels, this is only going to get worse. So, I am happy that I've had kids earlier than most fathers.
My definition of being successful is being happy and content. I make decent money and have a happy life, that is successful enough for me. What are you going to do after you retire with all that money? You should do that thing now!
> My definition of being successful is being happy and content. I make decent money and have a happy life, that is successful enough for me.
You and I are the same, then. I just don't feel the need to have children to feel successful or happy.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to put people down who genuinely enjoy having children. I just know that they're not for me, and my soon-to-be-wife is on the exact same page. We've been together for 7 years, and I'm 35 and she's 34, so it's highly unlikely we'll ever change our mind.
> What are you going to do after you retire with all that money? You should do that thing now!
Travel. Without having to worry about where I'm going being family friendly. I plan on spending less than 3/4ths of my time at home, the rest being out of state.
I can't travel as much as I'd like to right now because I only get 17 days of PTO per year, and my company shuts down between Christmas and New years so I often need to bank 4-6 days of PTO for that time.
My fiance and I went on a 7-day cruise to Alaska last year. I couldn't imagine doing it with a kid tagging along. Sure, they have some kid and family friendly activities, but if we had one with us, we couldn't decide to get shit-faced at a bar or head to an on-board dance club.
Yeah, I could find babysitters, but I prefer the other option: Just not having kids. I never have to tell my friends "Sorry, we can't join you...we can't find a babysitter". My brother has had to say that too often.
You are I are almost the same. Me and my girlfriend are both 38, no kids, no plan for kids, been together for 7 years, just got back from a 7 day Alaska cruise.
