Hello all, First I would like to thank William Thomson Jr. for his fast and informative response. I am definitely hoping to see a December meeting. I will be bringing two other new Linux geeks with me but we need a heads up on the date in order to schedule time off from work.
Definitely appreciate the diskless Gentoo install write up Will. Nice. I think the idea for a meet and greet with desktop introductions is a good idea. That's a quick way to get to know everyone and often times locate cool new toys that you may have been unaware of (that is how I initially discovered Conky) http://conky.sourceforge.net/ It would probably be a good idea to allow people to show off ANY OS that they may be running. I mean it's always cool to see what a Windows buff has done with Cygwin http://www.cygwin.com/ or to see an OSX setup with Gnome and various Linux apps ported over with Fink http://www.finkproject.org/ (Or a Mac running YDL http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/ ) My current setup(s) are somewhat disappointing. On my Dell XPS M1530 I am still running Fedora 13 with Conky and a VirtualBoxed Gentoo (That I goofed the kernel and have not fixed/recompiled yet) Missed the ext2 support! Ha Still have a broadcom wireless card running the blob STA driver until the Atheros card I ordered for it arrives (Uses the Ath9k driver on Linux and athn for BSD). I also have a Dell Mini 1012 that I tore apart and swapped the Broadcom card for Atheros (same card I just ordered for the XPS). I also added a 2GIG stick of 800MHZ RAM. I have Fedora 14 on it with a VM of BackTrack 4r2 (I have a Cisco lab at home and like to play here) but this is the box that will be wiped for my FreeBSD install. My friends and I (and another that's going to visit from St. Louis) are going to spend a weekend on that FreeBSD install late December/early January. I am ordering the BSD kit from freebsdmall.com (and maybe a t-shirt)... That is what I meant in my previous post by liking to contribute (if I like something). I read the entire FreeBSD handbook and absolutely fell in love with it... (another thing that I also loved about Gentoo and Arch Linux)!!! Also, regarding projects, I was thinking that it might be cool to create a *Nix (probably Gentoo, Slack or Deb) system on a slimline wireless PC to act as a media center PC. Not talking like MythTV which seems to be geared more toward a home media server/DVR but as a device similar to the Google TV devices they are selling at BestBuy etc. Could include Myth type features as well as a system for Netflix, Hulu, Youtube etc with a nice (all-in-one yet customizable) interface. Currently could not locate anything in the brief time I spent Googlein' for it. Has anyone come across anything like this? Talking about a Cable/Sat TV replacement (use the internet alone)! Thinking something like this: Dell Zino HD (or similar design) http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-zino-hd-410/pd?oc=ddcwfw1&model_id=inspiron-zino-hd-410 Capabilities: * DVR (in case using cable/Sat) * Media Center * NFS storage * SAMBA * Interface for Internet TV to include both paid and free stuff) * iTunes/Windows Media Player etc. * Monster CODEC support (similar to Mint) with an easy CODEC upgrade capability due to restrictions on some in base systems * blue tooth support for wireless keyboards, mice, headphones, speakers etc. * Plenty of stuff that I have not thought of here * Oh.. and wine that allows Linux use of "Magic Jack" This thing would save people so much money... Could lose cable and phone bill (Magic Jack is like twenty bucks a year but only boasts Windows support) so in essence you could get rid of cable and the house phone and pay $10 a month for Netflix and $20 a year for the phone (Magic Jack). Has anyone seen anything like this? Could not find anything on distrowatch.com etc. Later guys! Very Respectfully, Billy Haines Associate of (ISC)2 toward CISSP, CCNA Security, CCNA R&S, ETA FOI [email protected]
