[Gloucs] Future meetings and/or future of the LUG

[Bob Henson]

On 14/02/2012 11:10 PM, Anthony Edward Cooper wrote:
> Thank you Paul. But anyway no worries - it was bound to happen sooner or 
> later.
> 
> Reading the other postings I agree that if we are to carry on then more 
> advanced notice of the meetings and agenda plus likely attendance (as a 
> guide) seem like very good ideas. Interesting that some of the talks 
> were considered too advanced by some. I think all concerned would be 
> happy to `dumb down' talks to make them more accessible. Perhaps it's 
> for the Linux newbes to suggest topics that the more experienced members 
> can give talks on?... :-)

Or perhaps they could be based on newbie questions in the mailing list -
not that there are many at the moment. One that immediately springs to
mind (experienced users all cringe now!) is a hardy perennial - perhaps
under the heading of "Horses for Courses", a discussion of the different
distros and their target users. Having made the decision to try Linux,
the biggest problem facing newbies is "which distro, and why".

Newbie lecture 2 could be on the topic that, from reading around the
forums,  seems to plague most people after they have picked a distro -
Networks and Wifi.

"Media" are all the rage these days and, again reading the forums, the
playback of various media would seem to be a regular and thorny problem
in Linux - maybe No. 3 could be "Playback - why won't it?"

The list for newbies is endless - the only question is keeping the
experienced users happy. I may have given a wrong impression in just
saying the the lectures were too advanced - whilst that may still be
partly true, may I steer that in another direction and suggest that part
of the problem was that they were aimed at professional (hence advanced)
computer users, not hobbyists, and had little to do with Linux per se.
For example, lectures on programming languages have nothing to do with
Linux - fascinating though they may be to those that write software for
a living, they won't pull new friends into the LUG meetings. It all
depends what you want and where/if you want the group to go.

Regards,

Bob