[HLUG] Topics at Meetings

[Matthew Macdonald-Wallace]

Quoting Richard Smedley <smedley358 at btinternet.com>:

> Hello Matthew,
> This is a coincidence - LinkedIn has just thrown your
> name at me in a list of people it suggests that I
> should connect with. #SocialMediaCoincidences :)

Heh, although I think I recognise your name from somewhere else -  
possible the OSC?

>>> I often feel that far from being a "Linux User Group" community in
>>> this country (and I do mean the whole of the UK here), we are rapidly
>>> becoming a "Ubuntu User Group" and that is not what I'm looking for at
>>> a meeting.
>
> Local BSD groups went through this with MacOS a few
> years ago. The irony is that some of them are now
> so annoyed with Apple they've gone to Ubuntu =^)

LOL, I was given a mackbook pro by work, it now runs Ubuntu (much to  
the annoyance of the MAC die-hards here!)

>>> 1) If there is interest in how to run a Linux server for fun and
>>> profit, or people would like to know more about securing and
>>> monitoring servers I'm more than happy to do a talk/presenation.
>
> Sounds good. There are few evenings when I'm not working as
> an unpaid taxi driver - taking the kids to various band
> rehearsals, sports events, etc., but it's the kind of
> event I'd come to if I could - does that count as a
> positive vote for your talk? ;-)

Yup!

> Another change in the LUG landscape that you may not
> have noticed so much is the shift to web-based industries'
> groups. GeekUp [1] holds monthly meetings in Manchester,
> Preston, Chester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, and now
> Grimsby.
>
> Hardware hacking has brought a combination of techies
> and artists to hackspaces [2]. Indeed a combination of the
> above two will happen next month when, at the border
> of Shrops, Staffs & Cheshire, a new GeekUp group
> will meet in Alsager partly to discuss the new
> Shropshire Hackspace [3] & a possible Stoke-On-Trent
> group.

And a possible one in Monmouth (where I'm based) - I'm hoping to start  
on the marketing and seeing if there's interest for Monmouth  
hackerspace in the next few weeks - we already have the obligatory  
google group @ http://groups.google.com/group/monmouthhackerspace

> With many who work all day with servers going to
> GeekUp or Hackspaces in the evening, and many new
> GNU/Linux users coming along, it's probably natural
> that LUGs are becoming so Ubuntu-focussed - but
> that doesn't prevent them covering anything else,
> of course :)
>
>>> As I said at the beginning, I've probably offended someone by the
>>> above and to put it bluntly the level of discussions generally at
>>> meetings tend to be on getting the GUI working as opposed to the
>>> technical in depth discussions that I crave, but that's probably just
>>> me! :)
>
> Not just you, don't worry. Last time I went to
> a SC.LUG meeting in Cheshire there were people
> reminiscing toggling the instructions in in Octal! :-)

LOL, I remember going to a BristolLUG meeting when I was relatively  
new to all this stuff and being blown away by the number of people  
talking assembly language or the finer points of tuning RPM Spec Files.

Actually, that raises an interesting point, is it worth splitting the  
meetings or alternating between "desktop" and "server" or "user" and  
"administrator/developer" as guidelines for the kind of expertise that  
the talks are aimed at?

Kind regards,

Matt
-- 
Matthew Macdonald-Wallace
matthew at truthisfreedom.org.uk
http://www.truthisfreedom.org.uk/