[HLUG] Topics at Meetings

[Julian Robbins]

Malcolm Herbert wrote:
> [top posting apology]
>
> I'm also a non-attender at HLUG meetings (usually through work/travel)
> commitments, but a follower of HLUG discussions. 
>   
Hi Malcolm
> Like Matt, my world is server/configuration/management and increasingly
> virtualisation, for server workloads and environments. Big things in the
> Linux IT world at the moment are consolidation, operation efficiency,
> certification etc and the ongoing threat from M$, Oracle and
> increasingly vmWare to an open source future. 
>
> I'd be also interested in providing a market update and review of the
> commercial world of Linux (its still smaller than that of commercial
> Unix's globally) as well as key technology (puppet is one). Novell /
> Suse is dead (and we can discuss why), Canonical is moving to business
> from home-users, but is it doing it the right way ?
>   
We would be more than delighted to hear your views and I'm sure it will 
be a stimulating and interesting discussion.
> perhaps we can arrange something and I'll look to plan to attend and
> provide a presentation and lively discussion. Other LUGs (like London
> and Surrey) have lots of people who make a living from Linux 
>   
Yes, I think Linux specialists are a bit thinner on the ground in the 
county than in the cities and the home counties, but its a changing 
picture.

We've spoke before about you giving us some kind of talk, and I hope we 
can get it arranged sometime over the oncoming next few months

Regards

Julian Robbins

> Malcolm
>
> On Fri, 2010-02-19 at 09:47 +0000, Matthew Macdonald-Wallace wrote:
>   
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Firstly, I apologies if anything in this email offends people here, I  
>> don't intend to sound as if I'm belittling people or that I think I'm  
>> some kind of Linux God (I'm not!), however I also have never really  
>> trusted email as a communications medium to say things that might not  
>> seem as good written down as they would sound if spoken!
>>
>> With all that said, one of the reasons that I've become less  
>> interested in coming to the meetings is that the discussions tend to  
>> revolve around how to migrate from Windows to Ubuntu or how to fix an  
>> issue in Ubuntu.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> I can already hear some of you murmuring along the lines of "so why  
>> doesn't he step up and do something then?" and I'll get to that in a  
>> minute.
>>
>> For those of you who don't know, I spend my working life with Linux.   
>> We have recently implemented Automated Configuration Management using  
>> Puppet and we're now looking to put together a build system around  
>> cobbler so that it is easier to rebuild than repair any of our 100+  
>> servers.
>>
>> All our servers run Centos or Debian and we tend to experience issues  
>> with loosing disks from Hardware Arrays, recovering Software Raid,  
>> analysing security incidents and similar.  I really don't spend much  
>> time working with Linux on the desktop, I use it and it works for me  
>> to do my job, but I don't have any issues after the install as a rule  
>> and (as I run Ubuntu on my desktop - Stop smirking at the back! :oP )  
>> if I do have any issues, I ask on the Ubuntu Community mailing lists.
>>
>> So, if any of you are still reading, here's what I'd like to propose:
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 2) If people aren't interested in this, I will continue to lurk on the  
>> mailing list and help out where I can
>>
>> 3) If people are offended by the above, I'm happy to move on if asked.
>>
>> 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! :)
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Matt
>>
>> -- 
>> Matthew Macdonald-Wallace
>> matthew at truthisfreedom.org.uk
>> http://www.truthisfreedom.org.uk/
>>
>>     
>
>
>