Hi Ralph, thanks for writing up your thoughts so extensively.
I will try to productively supplement Nick Rout's answer to you.
The two main themes I read are what CLUG can & can't do (currently), and our meetings.
Ralph Stoker wrote:
Like Nick says - writing for clarification can be a pain, but one gets more used to it over time. By then though the need for technical guidance has been dissipated by increased motivation (vs sheer frustration)! The problem is one of professionals' already overladen time, and that our own is more cheerfully available.Thanks again to all who commented.
I am more than happy to ask questions. My concern was / still is to a certain extent that Newbies are very 'resource hungry' and typing (for me at least) results in a transfer / assimulation of information at leat twenty times slower than I could have achieved verbally or visually. If there are other true Newbies out there and they , like me start to ask a multitude of questions all at the same time then this post will no doubt suffer from 'overload' or worse still a 'them and us' mentality. Any mechanism put in place to alleviate this peak in demand on CLUG's resources would IMHO be a good thing to have.
Jim Cheetham has given us a Wiki knowledgebase to share building an alternative reference point to the list: http://clug.inode.co.nz . David Kirk has offered something similar through http://ostc.dyndns.org , & Chris Sawtell tried before those. Why these forums are yet to take off is worthy of separate examination, but the short answer is you may establish a dialogue there (esp the CLUGwiki) & thereby help strengthen the G/LUG. A whole different level of dialogue is likely to result from such initiative, just to suit.
The main thing to understand is that the meeting formats put up are the best we have been able to manage. Improvement can only come from direct effort for it, and showing up for that purpose is the only thing that counts there. So can you commit to the monthly timetable?With respect to the suggestions for the re-introduction of trouble-shooting nights I believe that these would be a good idea...
However they were not quite what I had in mind for Newbies and pose significant headaches for organisers given the variations in user ability / sytem configuration / distros.
I say this while arriving at a position of being in two minds about it myself. Having taken the initiave to organise regular meetings for CLUG, I did it from the belief that work opportunities existed with FOSS but that these depended on growing the GNU/Linux user base. That would provide the necessary client demand, which couldn't be won over without the positive, interpersonal 'hand-holding' environment of consistent support meetings. So maintaining the meetings is critical as GNU/Linux's public interface. This is a key aspect of our difference from the Winworld, where usage & acceptance is so generalised that organised support is unnecessary or available super cheaply.
I now question the viability of this sequence though, having experienced the difficulties of an integrated GNU/Linux community. The answer comes simply from people's involvement though, and remains "show up" and make CLUG - as Nick makes clear - more closely what you need it to be. This applies equally to all our membership.
Practically, Chris Sawtell is going to book us into the St Albans venue for our first gathering there, next month. This will be a trouble-shooting session in part, from a high-speed hub. Let's hope the date is suitable for you. The issue of newbie vs experienced needs & compatibility is never going to leave us. One could argue that CLUG's mismanagement of it is the reason why our attendances slumped from 50+ to half a dozen through 2003, and it's time to constructively deal with it. Bear with us Ralph, and you'll (make us) find what you want.
My best guess is that two meetings a month is exactly what GNU/Linux needs to grow locally.
This is where practicality explodes your argument, in that distro standardisation (of knowledge) is a level beyond CLUG before now. It could equally be argued that it is never good, too, for reasons of selection. That "everyone would have installed SuSE" is an assertion I happen to agree with, but that did not happen. Hence the install followup is similarly scrambled. Again, we are doing our best. All are committed to improve the Linux (+ BSD etc) offerings over time, it seems safe to say. It does need to be worked on. Not mentioning Mandrake shows your distance from the Installfest moment, because some modems seemed more readily solved with it at the time.To me the Installfest was the perfect platform to have started the introduction / education of Linux Newbies in a systematic / controlable manner. The event could have (and I believe did) set up Newbies with a new operating system, correctly configured computer (to enable swapping of existing Windows files) and at least a connection to the internet. From this equal footing (everyone would have installed SuSE ) I would have expected of a CLUG meeting at least some time spent in the weeks following a 'BYO intro course' where a teacher(s) goes through the very basic tasks such as:
Sitting down for half an our at the next fixup meeting with voluntary help should sort all of this out for you, moreso than October 14.Where things are? How to set up Kontact / Kmail. How to transfer personal information across from windows. How to install and run a new program a) With YaST b) Downloading a tarball / rpm. How to install / mount new hardware (printer)/ drives. Simple shell commands
Now you're being adventurous ;-) , but you will find people keen on the same projects through this list, once you've met them.Connecting to another computer - The DSE 802.11b discussion recently and wi-fi networking with a wok antennae looked like a great fun and highly educational project...Does anyone work in one of the high-rise office buildings in town??
Agreed - join the 'pressure' for agreeing standard toolsets. But don't expect "distro specialists" to actually be available when you need them - work on becoming one yourself. Or see the practicality of becoming a distro generalist (of diverse capabilities) where possible, as I do.If there is the worry of someone using starting with a different distro have two or more distro specialists on hand...but try to stick with one for the 'training' if at all possible.
Feel free to initiate this innovation. You'd be surprised how fast things change and move on though, one month or year to the next. Gaining adaptability - to the rapid change and tremendous range of choice in FOSS - is perhaps more important than static processes.Video the on-screen demonstration to allow Newbies to go over at their leisure the new concepts / procedures....and allow other Newbies arriving between installfests to get a head start.
You will probably find this list sufficiently long in the computing tooth for any Win-justification not to hold sway here. The home PC market made Windows, not the other way around. BilI G was unscrupulously clever in exploiting this dynamic, but it could quite easily have been Macs or IBM OS/2 that 'everyone' uses. No points there. CLUG exists because the consumer market is not the only value by which software quality gets evaluated. Our contribution to society is probably to extend (in order to maintain) those quality values. Let's get on with it, I agree.Just some thoughts....it seems a shame to have such a comprehensive group skill set and not to use it in a more evangelical / passionate manner.
You can knock Bill Gates' operating stystems for a lot of things but he did at least put the computer into the 'reach' of the average user! (no feedback required on this last point...please)...so who will carry the flag for Linux in this part of the world?
Ralph
Would have liked to attend tonight but unfortunately I've been roped into a
Korfball Referee's course for the next two Thursday nights.
I was about to say "what's Korfball" - but then I Goooogled. This may not be the reflex assimilated from the Winworld. Only you can decide which is best for you.
hth
Regards, Rik
