New *nix users on the list [was Re: [SC.LUG] Meeting - Five minutes of fame!]

[Richard Smedley]

On Sun, 2006-08-13 at 05:59 +0100, Jason Lucas wrote:

> > Sounds a great idea - if anybody wants to keep their topic
> > near GNU/Linux, suggestions include:
[snip]
> While I admire your commitment to GNU/Linux and your more technical
> understanding of computing, I feel that we should really be targeting
> the less computer literate with events that they can associate with -
> such as politics, teh Arts and Sciences, Philosophy and Corrie Street

Hey Jason,

I've no problem at all with this sort of thing myself. The practical
impediment to a LUG event along these lines is that no-one here with
the time and energy to organise events feels ready to step forward
and say ``I'll organise this''.
[note I explicitly exclude myself from the list of people with
time and energy, atm :-/ ]

Our most successful run of meetings was around fairly technical
subjects (GRUB, Emacs, low-resource *nix, ...). The venue of those
meetings, btw, is no longer available as easily - so if anyone wants
more meetings book a room near them, announce a date, and some of us
are bound to turn up :-D

I hope that people who are relatively new to Unix and Free Software
feel welcome on this list, and feel happy to put their heads above
the parapet and ask questions.
However the current lack of mailing list postings, and of meetings, 
may indicate that this is not the case - well, there are no
leaders here, if anyone has a problem with the group please speak
up and start a debate ;-)

Meanwhile, yes, to repeat, people are not just welcome, but encouraged
to organise newbie-friendly meetings.  :-)

...And then Robert and I can present 
a newbie's guide to Emacs ;-)

> > "...In the UNIX world, people tend to interpret `non-technical user'
> >  as meaning someone who's only ever written one device driver." 
> > -- Daniel Pead

> "In the real world, people tend to interpret 'non-technical user' as
> meaning someone who doesn't know where the 'any' key is."
> -- Karl Marx might have said this.

Well, in my job, I often give computers to people who have never
previously used one. Training them up on a *nix desktop is not a
problem. Training Microsoft users to use a (*nix) computer is,
however - and needs someone with MS Windows knowledge to do the
job, which is why I leave it to our ``experts''. ;-)

Oh, and don't get me started on Karl Marx ;-P

Regards,

 - Richard

btw Now that the new SC.LUG webserver is up (for HTML at least)
    content is welcome. I'm happy to post useful stuff for people, 
    until I get a chance to open up access. A wiki will probably
    appear there sometime, but 1) I'm desperately short of time
    at the moment & 2) a lot of wiki software is appallingly
    insecure :-(

--
"When C++ is your hammer, everything looks like a thumb." 
                                             -- Steven M. Haflich