[Menai-LUG] Hello

[Kevin Donnelly]

Hi Thorben

On Wednesday 29 January 2003 4:50 pm, TJ wrote:
> I just joined the mail list, and been reading the archive, sorry I
> didn't
> sooner, I get easily distracted =) (yep I use smilies)
> although I note that barely half of last meeting attendees
> have posted anything.
> I'll talk to some of my other Linux using friends at the dept.

Yes, true.  We have a pretty good number so far, but only about half those at 
the last meeting have actually signed up.  So if you can chivvy more, all the 
better.  

The lack of traffic has also been partly my fault.  I'm adding to and 
documenting the scripts on the site, so that they can be packaged as a 
ready-made portal, and over the last week I've also been building an app 
which would allow people to add translations for KDE (and other things) using 
just a browser.  This would greatly extend the number of possible helpers on 
the translation projects for KDE and Gnome (and OpenOffice.org?).

We do need to start thinking about the next meeting, and to help the 
collaboration on that I had been thinking of adding a wiki to the site.  I 
was looking at phpWiki, but it is very much a work in progress, and doesn't 
even have a good way to set up users - there is a patch available for that, 
but I'm still trying to get it to work!  I've also looked at cvstrac, which 
is really good, but that one might need the willing agreement of the LUG 
server people!

Perhaps it might be a good idea to solicit ideas about the next meeting.  
First, location.  I have been thinking about this, and my own view is that a 
pub is not in fact the best place to meet, especially if, as someone at the 
meeting pointed out, there is a chance that younger people will come along.  
I would therefore prefer, subject to views, to have the meeting in a room 
somewhere (and that does not rule out repairing to a hostelry afterwards).  I 
asked the Greenhouse, which Jim had mentioned at the last meeting, but they 
only have Thursdays and Saturdays free.  I can't make a Thursday, and I don't 
think Saturday is a good night.  Any views?  I would, being selfish, actually 
prefer a Monday.

You had mentioned the possibility of a room in the Arts building.  Could I ask 
you to follow up on that and see if there is any possibility of that?  And if 
anyone else has suggestions for rooms in the Bangor area, can they throw them 
into the hat?

The general view was that the topic should be a demo/install.  So to set the 
ball rolling, I propose three "strands", for which 3 PCs would be needed:
    * An actual install - I would be willing to do one of SuSE, but perhaps a 
Debian afficionado (yourself?) would be interested in doing one. The key 
thing is that whatever PC is used, there should be a couple of dry runs 
through the install before the presentation, to ensure that no embarassing 
niggles emerge.
    * A PC set up as a Samba server, with (ideally, a Windows PC saving and 
fetching files from that). It would also be nice if this PC could also be 
running as a terminal server, with an older (486?) PC attached to it as a 
terminal - I have in mind the LTSP stuff, which I did get running last year, 
but have no real use for.
    * Some demos of actual software - the installed PC and the server PC could 
demo things like ?OpenOffice.org, GIMP, etc, and the Windows PC could be 
rebooted with the Freeduc CD to demo some of the software on that.

I can probably supply two of the PCs.

This is a bit ambitious, but could be scaled down as nec.  On the other hand, 
there's no reason why it couldn't be done if we take a bit of time to prepare 
things.

Date can't be specified until we have a location, but it would be 
end-Feb/beg-Mar.  Once this is sorted, I would then intend to do a press 
release to the local papers, and see if we can spread the net a bit wider.  
any other ideas for publicising would be gratefully received.

> As to those old computer I was talking about, they belong to the dept.

Yes, I heard there was little chance of this from another member.  No matter.

> Just buring some Debian Woody r1 CDs since poeple have asked to
> borrow my install CDs of which I have non since I installed Debian
> over a modem =)

Ooh, that must have taken a while.  That's why I buy a box.  Apparently the 
Menai exchange has 114 names down towards its target of 300 for changeover to 
ADSL, so if anybody here lives in Llanfair/Menai Bridge, can you please call 
silly old BT and put your name down (it's not a commitment to buy - just an 
indication that you *might* buy).

Anyway, let's have all your ideas for the next meeting.

Kevin