[dundee] Last Nights Meeting

[Mark Harrigan]

I realise the amount of notice given for last nights meeting was
paltry to say the least so I wasn't too upset at the turn out. We
basically discussed things that people would like to see in terms of
talks and discussions in the near future. These are simply ideas, we
have no idea whether anyone can speak about all of them (though from
the looks of the group I suspect we shouldn't have problems there).

Programming: C++, Perl, Shell 
Compiling Kernels, patching etc
Debian: Installation, Usage, Advantages, Disadvantages
Samba, NFS
Sendmail, Exim and other mailers
WLAN on Linux and in general
Apache
Open Source Alternatives BeOS, BSD's, OpenVMS etc
Broadband Setup Under Linux
Politics of Open Source / Free Software 
Gnome Vs KDE 
Organisational Structure of TLUG
Promotion of Linux / Open Source in Dundee - Hospital, Schools, Unis
Gaming in Linux (This got quite a bit of discussion at the meeting)
Talks from people external to the group, Nick Dawes (Dundee Uni),
Stephen Tweedie (Kernel Hacker and FS Guru) were potentials mentioned.
Reports on interesting things you're playing with (very very good
idea, if you've been playing with something cool tell us about it! Or
we'll have to hurt you).
Computing Benefiting the Community
A Wiki on the website to allow easier group communication
Security
Distributed Computing

There was some discussion about setting a definite end time in
addition to a start time, this way we can allow people to come see the
talks and have a definite time in mind to go home to ensure they
didn't miss out. This shouldn't inhibit the ability of others to
continue anything they got particularly interested in. The times we
discussed were starting at 8:00 as now and ending at 9:30. The day of
the meetings is also going to change. I'm going to say Monday for now,
any complaints you've got until the start of the week to tell me.

We also discussed the potential of advertising the group using
newspaper's community pages etc as well as putting up posters in
computer shops around Dundee.

I'm going to put together an agenda for the next meeting within the
next few days so that we get plenty of planning time. Anyone who knows
about any of the above (esp. in regard to the technical subjects) and
would like to give a presentation should mail this thread so that I can put
together a list of speakers. Anything else that you think would be
interesting should also be added. You don't have to know about it
yourself, remember.

After the meeting Tom and I bumped into Jonathan in the pub and he mentioned
as someone that hadn't made it along yet that we should try and give
some sort of impression of the experience level of the group. From
what I've seen of the group I'd say that most of us are quite
experienced in relation to computers in general. There is also a fair
amount of *nix experience that said there are some members who are quite new
to *nix. 

I actually think that the levels are quite nice because
advanced subjects could be approached and even if certain members were
not so familiar with the concepts involved they should have no problem
grasping the basic ideas if presented in a sensible manner and
researching a little on google if it's something that interests
them. This is not to say we'll avoid more newbie centric topics but
for the sake of the more experienced members we need to hit a balance,
plus newbies need targets on their journey to *nix guru utopia.

All in all I felt last night was very useful, thanks to all who
contributed. But I still want more ideas! I await your responses with interest.

Mark

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