Program: 6:00 pm Welcome & registration 6:25 pm KD - ILUG Bangalore & Bang!inux 6:50 pm Venkatesh Hariharan - indLinux 7:20 pm Khader - Debian install 7:30 pm Snacks 7:50 pm Khader contd .. 8:10 pm Atul - wind up With much enthusiasm (ILUGers turning up much before any of the co-ordinators), the 1st ILUG meet of 2000, began unpromptly at 6:30 pm. KD, our MC for the evening welcomed all ILUGers and gave a preview of the evening's program. He introduced Deepak Thomas, Bangalore representative of WROX, who then took centre-stage, and explained about Bang!inux. He listed the speakers coming in for the conference and the topics to be covered, and requested help from LI's local chapter to demo Linux power. Are we looking at a recreation of IT.COM'99??, .... most ILUGers (or at least the co-ordinators) reacted!! We've barely recovered from the last time! Venkatesh Hariharan, a IITian (Institute of Information Technology, ITPL), took over, and spoke about the development of Linux in Indian languages making it more accessible to the masses. The response to this was a bit lukewarm from the mostly english-speaking ILUG group, but the concept and importance of such a project came across clearly. Several members of the audience are themselves involved in projects on these lines, and it is hoped that we will see something coming out of this. Khader started his long awaited debian install, ably supported by his assistant for the evening - Shanker "Shanu" Balan, the ILUG-Cochin coordinator who turned up as a surprise guest for the meet. This time the process passed through without major hiccups, unlike the last time this was attempted. Accompanied by a few comments and queries? from our official inquisitor, Sachin Garg (also our projector-provider!!), the text install took about 30 minutes. It came across fairly clearly that a Debian install is no harder or easier than any other Linux installation, though debian clearly requires knowledge of what needed to be done. Despite the much anticipation, ILUG-Bangalore lived up to its reputation of being fair and "secular" when it came to technology - no distro-bashing happened, and all queries and discussions were purely technical in nature. Snacks provided a break from screen-watching. It was noted that the meet, which is usually male-dominated, featured some lady-students from RVCE. It is hoped that the perceived gender-bias when it comes to Linux takes the beating it deserves over the next few meets. Khader came back with his work machine and demo-ed the UI of Debian with translucent screens. Very evidently, there was nothing Debian-specific about using a Debian machine - apart from a few technical queries ("how to configure sound", "how to install packages"), there were no issues at all - in fact much of the discussion was aimed at the FrameBuffer Device installation on Khader's machine. Atul, who had been pretty silent so far ("burnt out" was a comment that could be heard :), asked a number of questions, and mentioned that the performance was good enough to be an effective workaround for the problems faced by newbies with unsupported display cards. Atul then wound up the evening with some discussion over Bang!inux. A mini-IT.COM show, and the promise of IT.COM 2000 to come!! He also announced a sys-admin linux conference in Goa, on Feb 5-8. It was decided to take the discussion about Linux India's involvement in Bang!inux to the main LI list, to decide the kind of support, and the terms, that would be offered. A relatively quiet ILUG meet ended as ILUGers took the rest of their fellow-shipping to the foyer. Members present - 50 Cost - 4000/- ILUGers contribution - 2100/- GT Enterprises sponsorship - 2000/- Amount carried forward - 100/- Jessie -------------------------------------------------------------------- The Linux India Mailing List Archives are now available. Please search the archive at http://lists.linux-india.org/ before posting your question to avoid repetition and save bandwidth.