Dear Huan,
I didn't get to any FSCK meetings last year -- I won't bother with excuses.
But I did see an FSCK e-mil about UberStudent, and decided to look into it. I now
have it on my dual-boot computer. It seems to me to have many advantages for me as
a lifelong researcher. I still don't really know how to run Linux, but I sure
would like to learn -- if I could find such coaching.
Perhaps FSCK meetings could prove supportive to me.
Or perhaps I might find someone skillful in Linux (and Windows, which I
cannot completely abandon, so far as I now know) who would consent to help me on a
personal basis.
Anyway, please consider me as one tentative vote for resuming FSCK meetings.
Andy Hilgartner
On 8/27/2010 12:52 AM, Huan Truong wrote:
Hi FSCK,
I don't know if any of you guys are still interested in FSCK, but it is
apparent that the interest for free software last semester was rather
low, while we are having a very good momentum for it.
Now we have people who are aware of alternative choices, such as Mac and
Android instead of just Windows and MS Office. For example, I've seen
students who are proud to talk to me that they can use Pages on their
Mac instead of MS Word for word processing, and save some tens of
dollars. The funny thing about that is we used to *think* that people
don't like free software because it has different UI, and it's not
compatible with existing files that they had. Now actually OpenOffice is
better than Pages in terms of familiarity and compatibility, and many
students want to save money. It's funny that they just aren't aware of
the existence of oOo, and when they know about it, it's just too little
too late, they already bought and used Pages. We also have people who
are willing to try things like Linux or oOo but don't know where to get
help, and is afraid of not being able to get help. Last semester I
personally helped some-five students to know and start using Linux
(including non-CS majors), but it's really bad that none of them know
about FSCK, and even when I told them about that, they still prefer to
ask me personally than asking on the mailing list. Composing mail is
inconvenient when one wants to fix the WiFi connection, and it's just
not good that they feel they are among very very few people having to
deal with the problem if there is any.
I wonder if we can 'polish' FSCK a little bit and have a more friendly
approach for general audiences, or at least MathCS students. I believe
that many students, professors, and staff members on the list do have a
whole bunch of topics ranging from interesting to jaw-dropping to share.
For example, we can host some tech-talk or presentation weekly or
bi-weekly in the nerdery (and ask professors such as Dr Bindner, Dr Beck
or Dr Matthews to talk). It will not only be very beneficial to members
but also is a very cultural thing of Truman MathCS.
It's like how Apple make people to be happy using Macs. That way people
are more aware of things and feel good to be well supported by others.
So it's just my sketchy and unorganized ideas, if anyone is still
interested, please speak up and hopefully we can figure out
something...?
- H.
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