We recently interviewed Jona Azizaj on how she uses Fedora. This is part of a series on the Fedora Magazine. The series profiles Fedora users and how they use Fedora to get things done. Contact us on the feedback form to express your interest in becoming a interviewee.

Who is Jona Azizaj?

Jona Azizaj is currently pursuing a bachelor degree in Business Informatics at the University of Tirana. She is also on the board of Open Labs Hackerspace. Open Labs Hackerspace promotes free/libre open source culture in Albania. She is also a co-organizer of Open Source Conference Albania (OSCAL). Azizaj is part of the Fedora Project and the first Fedora Ambassador in Albania.

The first time Azizaj heard about Linux was when she went to university. “At first I used Ubuntu because that’s what our teachers suggested, but after OSCAL I switched to Fedora just to see if it met my needs,” Azizaj says. “I was really satisfied with Fedora as an operating system and the community. That’s why I am still using it.” She has been using Linux for the last four years.

Apart from being an open source lover Azizaj also loves digits. In her free time she teaches math to high school students. She is also passionate about football. “I see almost every match of my favorite teams: AC Milan and FC Barcelona. Many people know me as jonatoni (also my FAS username) because my favorite football player is Luca Toni.”

“Lately it’s been really difficult for me to find time and watch TV,” Azizaj says, “but when I do have some free time I watch movies or serials because I love them. My favorite two movies are A Beautiful Mind and The Theory of Everything.”

The Fedora community

Azizaj’s first experience with the Fedora Community was at OSCAL. “I followed a presentation from Giannis Konstantinidis talking about Fedora as an operating system and how to be part of the community.” Inspired by the presentation, she visited the Fedora booth and took a CD. Azizaj immediately installed it on her computer.

After OSCAL she went to Open Labs, the community that organizes OSCAL. They helped her get involved with the community and organize events related to Fedora at Open Labs Hackerspace. “The first event that I’ve organized was I love Fedora Meetup on 14th February. Even though it was St Valentine’s Day many people came to Open Labs to attend.” Azizaj continued to organize a variety of events, including localization sprints, release parties, and even a Python workshop. “The last event I organized was Fedora Loves Python Workshop #1.”

Azizaj loves the spirit of the Fedora Community. “It is a fun, friendly and engaging environment which fosters participation and further development for anyone who wants to help.” She continues, “If you have an idea and want to implement it the community will give you all the suggestions and help you need.”

Azizaj also made a point to highlight that the Fedora community is thankful for all contributors regardless of their technical skill level. It was Giannis Konstantinidis who convinced her to contribute to Fedora by becoming part an Ambassador and a member of the Diversity, i18n, l10n, Marketing and CommOps teams.

From organizer to speaker

Azizaj wasn’t the kind of person who liked public speaking, but overcame this fear because she was so motivated to talk about her experience with Fedora. “I started organizing some small events at our local hackerspace, continued with OSCAL and now I go to different conferences abroad to talk about Fedora and to bring more people (especially women) to be part of our community.” Documenting the events she attended and organized also helped her improve her writing skills.

Azizaj has attended events outside of her native Albania, including:

Fedora and Mozilla Activity Day in Prishtina Kosovo

DORS/CLUC in Zagreb Croatia

FSFE Summit in Berlin Germany

SFK in Prishtina Kosovo

Pycon in Brno, Czech Republic

OpenFest in Sofia Bulgaria

She frequently speaks at events. For isntance, at OpenFest her talk was about encouraging people to contribute to the Fedora Project and the initiatives to encourage women to contribute to open source communities.

Azizaj is also a core member of the Diversity Team. She mentions that “in January we (Diversity Team) will have our first FAD to discuss differents problems that we have faced in open source communities and how we can improve and solve them.”

What hardware?

Azizaj has a Lenovo Thinkpad T410 laptop with an Intel i5 2520M CPU, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, 320 GB HDD and Intel HD 3000 graphics. The laptops has a resolution of 1600×900 on a 14.1″ LED backlit LCD screen. It supports USB 3.0 and has a DVD-RW drive.

What software?

When asked about software, Azizaj replied that she runs “Fedora 25 on my laptop and my favorite desktop environment is GNOME.” She uses Firefox for web browsing and Thunderbird for email. When communicating on IRC she uses Xchat and Telegram. She recently started using Focuswriter to help her concentrate when writing and article or event report. For synchronizing her files she makes use of Nextcloud. When working at night she uses Redshift to assist with the light of her laptop. GNOME To Do helps her to remember any jobs she needs to finish.