Re: [ubuntu-uk] The JACK audio system
On 17/07/10 06:37, Andrew Bryant wrote: Does anyone here know how the JACK system works? There are some pretty basic concepts that don't make any sense to me, and I can't persuade their mailing lists to give me a functional login. I won't bore you all with my questions unless there's a chance someone can answer them. Andrew Hi, heres some basic links on what its all about https://help.ubuntu.com/community/What%20is%20JACK https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToJACKConfiguration Im sorry if you have already researched these though, hopefully there may be someone on here that could help. - Mark -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] UK ISO testing - do or die.
Hi, I previously mailed the list about organising a team in the UK around ISO testing, but haven't had the time to take it further. Would someone else like to take this on? https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-uk/2010-June/024546.html Cheers, Al. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] UK ISO testing - do or die.
On Mon, 2010-07-19 at 11:20 +0100, Alan Pope wrote: Hi, I previously mailed the list about organising a team in the UK around ISO testing, but haven't had the time to take it further. Would someone else like to take this on? https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-uk/2010-June/024546.html Cheers, Al. I'd love to take it on unfortunately my time is too short already. However I would like to make myself available to whoever does take this on. I know most of the iso testing processes ermm I wrote them. :D -- Seek That Thy Might Know http://www.davmor2.co.uk signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
Hey! We seem to be quite good at turning up to technical events such as LUG meetings, technical conferences and other self-organised events and telling everyone how great Ubuntu is. However we seem to spend a lot of time preaching to the converted, speaking to people who already run Ubuntu or some other distro, rather than 'converting' people who have little or no exposure to Ubuntu. Amber Graner recently wrote about her experience evangelising and advocating at a local Goat Festival. She was also interviewed about this on the Full Circle Magazine podcast recently. http://akgraner.com/?p=471 http://fullcirclemagazine.org/2010/07/15/full-circle-podcast-10-trawling-the-internet-for-a-goat-festival/ When I heard about this it made me think that it's something we should think about. Not specifically Goat festivals, but non-technical events. I wanted to canvass the group to see what events people might want to have a presence at. I'm not (at this point) asking for volunteers, but just ideas of events where people go and we might be able to have a stand where we could talk to people about Ubuntu and how they might want to use it. These could be non-technical business events, they might relate to a specific sector such as education, or they could be cultural events like festivals. Anything goes really. I'll start the ball rolling with a fairly generic example that pretty much anyone here can do:- Village Fêtes - these attract families from all walks of life, and would be a great opportunity to have a public stand at little or no cost to run. Other attractions could include simple games (always popular at Fêtes) with prizes perhaps donated by community members, sponsors or (if willing/possible) Canonical. With summer coming it would be a great opportunity to get geeks _outside_ in the sunshine and show off what we have to offer. What events local to you would you like to see a stand at? I also posted this on my blog where there may be other suggestions. http://popey.com/blog/2010/07/19/ubuntu-at-non-technical-events/ Cheers, Al. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
On 19/07/10 11:53, Alan Pope wrote: What events local to you would you like to see a stand at? The West Dean Chilli Fiesta! http://www.westdean.org.uk/Garden/News%20and%20Events/ChilliFiesta.aspx Al -- The Open Learning Centre http://www.theopenlearningcentre.com -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
Environmental events are good, foreground stuff like how to refurbish their XP kit and keep perfectly good electronic kit out of landfill . . . Paula On 19/07/10 11:53, Alan Pope wrote: Hey! We seem to be quite good at turning up to technical events such as LUG meetings, technical conferences and other self-organised events and telling everyone how great Ubuntu is. However we seem to spend a lot of time preaching to the converted, speaking to people who already run Ubuntu or some other distro, rather than 'converting' people who have little or no exposure to Ubuntu. Amber Graner recently wrote about her experience evangelising and advocating at a local Goat Festival. She was also interviewed about this on the Full Circle Magazine podcast recently. http://akgraner.com/?p=471 http://fullcirclemagazine.org/2010/07/15/full-circle-podcast-10-trawling-the-internet-for-a-goat-festival/ When I heard about this it made me think that it's something we should think about. Not specifically Goat festivals, but non-technical events. I wanted to canvass the group to see what events people might want to have a presence at. I'm not (at this point) asking for volunteers, but just ideas of events where people go and we might be able to have a stand where we could talk to people about Ubuntu and how they might want to use it. These could be non-technical business events, they might relate to a specific sector such as education, or they could be cultural events like festivals. Anything goes really. I'll start the ball rolling with a fairly generic example that pretty much anyone here can do:- Village Fêtes - these attract families from all walks of life, and would be a great opportunity to have a public stand at little or no cost to run. Other attractions could include simple games (always popular at Fêtes) with prizes perhaps donated by community members, sponsors or (if willing/possible) Canonical. With summer coming it would be a great opportunity to get geeks _outside_ in the sunshine and show off what we have to offer. What events local to you would you like to see a stand at? I also posted this on my blog where there may be other suggestions. http://popey.com/blog/2010/07/19/ubuntu-at-non-technical-events/ Cheers, Al. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] EXT3 or EXT4
On 16/07/10 21:18, Rob Beard wrote: [...] Is the Extents where it allocates space for big files? (I found something about this when googling about EXT4). I wonder too if it's possible to go back to EXT3 from EXT4 like it is possible to go back from EXT3 to EXT2 (how I understand it, EXT3 is EXT2 with journalling). Hello, Rob. Tyler has already answered your question about extents, and I also think you would be best to avoid converting your ext3 filesystems unless you have no alternative. I was faced with a similar situation with our ext3 filesystems, but I decided to backup, reformat as ext4 and restore. Although this was more work than converting ext3, I think it is worth it in the longer term. HTH, Tony. -- Dr. A.J.Travis, University of Aberdeen, Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health, Greenburn Road, Bucksburn, Aberdeen AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK tel +44(0)1224 712751, fax +44(0)1224 716687, http://www.rowett.ac.uk mailto:a.tra...@abdn.ac.uk, http://bioinformatics.rri.sari.ac.uk/~ajt -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
On 19/07/10 13:21, pmgazz wrote: Environmental events are good, foreground stuff like how to refurbish their XP kit and keep perfectly good electronic kit out of landfill . . . Paula I agree, someone in our local LUG donated a couple of old PCs (I think they were around early Pentium 2's) to a local nursery, one was running Windows and another was running some Linux distro, turns out the kids preferred the Linux PC and I believe Windows was replaced with Linux too. Also in our local LUG we've installed an LTSP server and 6 client machines (old Dell P3's which were donated by a local business) at a local community centre. The server (albeit a rather beefy, if not too beefy) is running as an LTSP server running Ubuntu 8.04 and the clients netboot. It was great to see the machines actually being used at an open day, I believe they're really benefiting the community as some folks in the area can't afford internet access or don't have a computer at home and they can pop down to the community centre and get access to the internet and learn computer skills, and the kids (especially the older teens) like to go down in the evenings and browse the Internet giving them something to do in a safe secure environment. I'm hoping as a LUG in Devon we can start to do more of this in the future, I'd even refurbish machines and stick Ubuntu on them if it wasn't for another guy on our local Freecycle list who gets old machines, refurbishes them and sticks Windows XP and Office 2003 on them (I think he's either got a whole load of Office 2003 licenses he wants to give away or he's installing pirate copies of the software, however good his intentions are I'm sure one day he'll come unstuck). Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
On 19/07/10 11:53, Alan Pope wrote: Hey! We seem to be quite good at turning up to technical events such as LUG meetings, technical conferences and other self-organised events and telling everyone how great Ubuntu is. However we seem to spend a lot of time preaching to the converted, speaking to people who already run Ubuntu or some other distro, rather than 'converting' people who have little or no exposure to Ubuntu. Amber Graner recently wrote about her experience evangelising and advocating at a local Goat Festival. She was also interviewed about this on the Full Circle Magazine podcast recently. http://akgraner.com/?p=471 http://fullcirclemagazine.org/2010/07/15/full-circle-podcast-10-trawling-the-internet-for-a-goat-festival/ When I heard about this it made me think that it's something we should think about. Not specifically Goat festivals, but non-technical events. I wanted to canvass the group to see what events people might want to have a presence at. I'm not (at this point) asking for volunteers, but just ideas of events where people go and we might be able to have a stand where we could talk to people about Ubuntu and how they might want to use it. These could be non-technical business events, they might relate to a specific sector such as education, or they could be cultural events like festivals. Anything goes really. I'll start the ball rolling with a fairly generic example that pretty much anyone here can do:- Village Fêtes - these attract families from all walks of life, and would be a great opportunity to have a public stand at little or no cost to run. Other attractions could include simple games (always popular at Fêtes) with prizes perhaps donated by community members, sponsors or (if willing/possible) Canonical. With summer coming it would be a great opportunity to get geeks _outside_ in the sunshine and show off what we have to offer. What events local to you would you like to see a stand at? Well a few of us in the Devon Cornwall LUG try and get to events when we can, unfortunately our resources are limited (there are at best about 10 of us out of say 200 or so) actively going out to events and this mainly seems to be in South Devon although I believe a couple of members in Cornwall have been doing bits and pieces. Such events I can think of that we've attended are a local community fun day (kind of like a fete) where in the LUG we had a stall and handed out free copies of Ubuntu 9.04 (this was last summer) and copies of The OpenDisc along with flyers about Ubuntu and The OpenDisc, stickers for the kids (Paul Sutton who is on this list printed a load of Tuxes on small round Avery labels). I think in the end all the discs were snapped up along with some flyers, I believe we managed to get one new member come along to our LUG meetings. We also had a stall at the Exeter Hospital Radio Fun Day back in 2007, we managed to get a couple of PCs for this and a generator so we were able to demonstrate Ubuntu (7.04) running on the PCs. We were trying to sell copies of Ubuntu (self burnt discs) and The Open Disc to visitors along with giving out flyers. We gave away quite a few flyers but didn't do so well selling the discs (the idea was that the money raised would be donated to the Hospital Radio funds). It also didn't help being a really sunny day with no shade so a lot of the time no one could see the screens. Both these events though were non-technical community events. I think part of the problem is those of us who went along aren't that confident talking to strangers (I'm getting more confident). It's been nearly a year since we've done anything but with summer coming up I'm hoping that we might be able to get to a couple of more events such as a Surestart Childrens Centre event coming up in August. I'm hoping we might possibly be able to setup a couple of machines running Tuxpaint and have a stack of discs to give out and possibly follow it up with an install day or maybe offer to assist folks if they decide they want to migrate to Ubuntu or dual boot. Rob I also posted this on my blog where there may be other suggestions. http://popey.com/blog/2010/07/19/ubuntu-at-non-technical-events/ Cheers, Al. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] EXT3 or EXT4
On 19/07/10 13:27, Tony Travis wrote: On 16/07/10 21:18, Rob Beard wrote: [...] Is the Extents where it allocates space for big files? (I found something about this when googling about EXT4). I wonder too if it's possible to go back to EXT3 from EXT4 like it is possible to go back from EXT3 to EXT2 (how I understand it, EXT3 is EXT2 with journalling). Hello, Rob. Tyler has already answered your question about extents, and I also think you would be best to avoid converting your ext3 filesystems unless you have no alternative. I was faced with a similar situation with our ext3 filesystems, but I decided to backup, reformat as ext4 and restore. Although this was more work than converting ext3, I think it is worth it in the longer term. HTH, Tony. Yep thinking about it I agree with what you said. Okay it took a long time to backup (I left it running overnight) but the actual restore didn't take half as long and my machine is much snappier now. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
I've done a bit of this - I've demo'd an Ubuntu LTSP and also laptops at voluntary sector events - people don't 'get' what an operating system is and tend to think that MS Win is 'part of the machine'. They have to have a reason for considering changing OS and I find that being able to help the environment and save money at the same time is a powerful incentive to consider something new. Paula On 19/07/10 13:42, Rob Beard wrote: On 19/07/10 13:21, pmgazz wrote: Environmental events are good, foreground stuff like how to refurbish their XP kit and keep perfectly good electronic kit out of landfill . . . Paula I agree, someone in our local LUG donated a couple of old PCs (I think they were around early Pentium 2's) to a local nursery, one was running Windows and another was running some Linux distro, turns out the kids preferred the Linux PC and I believe Windows was replaced with Linux too. Also in our local LUG we've installed an LTSP server and 6 client machines (old Dell P3's which were donated by a local business) at a local community centre. The server (albeit a rather beefy, if not too beefy) is running as an LTSP server running Ubuntu 8.04 and the clients netboot. It was great to see the machines actually being used at an open day, I believe they're really benefiting the community as some folks in the area can't afford internet access or don't have a computer at home and they can pop down to the community centre and get access to the internet and learn computer skills, and the kids (especially the older teens) like to go down in the evenings and browse the Internet giving them something to do in a safe secure environment. I'm hoping as a LUG in Devon we can start to do more of this in the future, I'd even refurbish machines and stick Ubuntu on them if it wasn't for another guy on our local Freecycle list who gets old machines, refurbishes them and sticks Windows XP and Office 2003 on them (I think he's either got a whole load of Office 2003 licenses he wants to give away or he's installing pirate copies of the software, however good his intentions are I'm sure one day he'll come unstuck). Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] Fwd: [SFD-announce] SFD 2010 registration is OPEN!!!
Anyone fancy doing something for Software Freedom Day? -- Forwarded message -- From: Frederic Muller f...@beijinglug.org Date: 19 July 2010 14:45 Subject: [SFD-announce] SFD 2010 registration is OPEN!!! To: SFD announcements sfd-annou...@sf-day.org, Open discussions about SFD sfd-disc...@sf-day.org Dear all, This is with a lot of struggles that we have finally managed to open the SFD 2010 registration! [0] As you can see there is still a lot of ongoing work on the site, and this includes a New Wiki [1] where you can create your team page [2] , a new home page [3] for all the information about Software Freedom International and other generic and important stuff and much more to come. I want to particularly thank Thilo, JM, Matt and Robert for helping out as well as our web infrastructure sponsors, that is Canonical [4] and Linode [5] for providing our little corner on the web. Due to the delay there will only be 10 days to get free CDs this year, so don't slack! And happy SFD preparations! Oh and by the way, the direct link to registering your team is here http://cgi.softwarefreedomday.org/register.html after creating your team page [2] of course. Any question please let us know. The SFI Board [0] http://cgi.softwarefreedomday.org/register.html [1] http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/ [2] http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/CreateYourTeampage [3] http://maddog.softwarefreedomday.org/cms-sfd/ [4] http://www.canonical.com/ [5] http://www.linode.com/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
On Mon, 2010-07-19 at 13:42 +0100, Rob Beard wrote: if it wasn't for another guy on our local Freecycle list who gets old machines, refurbishes them and sticks Windows XP and Office 2003 on them (I think he's either got a whole load of Office 2003 licenses he wants to give away or he's installing pirate copies of the software, however good his intentions are I'm sure one day he'll come unstuck). If that were my Freecycle group I'd contact the mods and ask them to make sure they are legal copies! Dianne -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
On 19/07/10 15:24, Dianne Reuby wrote: On Mon, 2010-07-19 at 13:42 +0100, Rob Beard wrote: if it wasn't for another guy on our local Freecycle list who gets old machines, refurbishes them and sticks Windows XP and Office 2003 on them (I think he's either got a whole load of Office 2003 licenses he wants to give away or he's installing pirate copies of the software, however good his intentions are I'm sure one day he'll come unstuck). If that were my Freecycle group I'd contact the mods and ask them to make sure they are legal copies! Dianne Why on earth doesn't he put Ubuntu on them? (I finally remembered to bottom post!) -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fwd: [SFD-announce] SFD 2010 registration is OPEN!!!
Happy to do what I can, count me in. GLLUG is also thinking of doing something. Paula On 19/07/10 14:49, Alan Pope wrote: Anyone fancy doing something for Software Freedom Day? -- Forwarded message -- From: Frederic Mullerf...@beijinglug.org Date: 19 July 2010 14:45 Subject: [SFD-announce] SFD 2010 registration is OPEN!!! To: SFD announcementssfd-annou...@sf-day.org, Open discussions about SFDsfd-disc...@sf-day.org Dear all, This is with a lot of struggles that we have finally managed to open the SFD 2010 registration! [0] As you can see there is still a lot of ongoing work on the site, and this includes a New Wiki [1] where you can create your team page [2] , a new home page [3] for all the information about Software Freedom International and other generic and important stuff and much more to come. I want to particularly thank Thilo, JM, Matt and Robert for helping out as well as our web infrastructure sponsors, that is Canonical [4] and Linode [5] for providing our little corner on the web. Due to the delay there will only be 10 days to get free CDs this year, so don't slack! And happy SFD preparations! Oh and by the way, the direct link to registering your team is here http://cgi.softwarefreedomday.org/register.html after creating your team page [2] of course. Any question please let us know. The SFI Board [0] http://cgi.softwarefreedomday.org/register.html [1] http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/ [2] http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/CreateYourTeampage [3] http://maddog.softwarefreedomday.org/cms-sfd/ [4] http://www.canonical.com/ [5] http://www.linode.com/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fwd: [SFD-announce] SFD 2010 registration is OPEN!!!
anyone else thinking live video links ? azmodie On 19 July 2010 15:42, pmgazz pmg...@gmx.co.uk wrote: Happy to do what I can, count me in. GLLUG is also thinking of doing something. Paula On 19/07/10 14:49, Alan Pope wrote: Anyone fancy doing something for Software Freedom Day? -- Forwarded message -- From: Frederic Muller f...@beijinglug.org f...@beijinglug.org Date: 19 July 2010 14:45 Subject: [SFD-announce] SFD 2010 registration is OPEN!!! To: SFD announcements sfd-annou...@sf-day.org sfd-annou...@sf-day.org, Open discussions about SFD sfd-disc...@sf-day.org sfd-disc...@sf-day.org Dear all, This is with a lot of struggles that we have finally managed to open the SFD 2010 registration! [0] As you can see there is still a lot of ongoing work on the site, and this includes a New Wiki [1] where you can create your team page [2] , a new home page [3] for all the information about Software Freedom International and other generic and important stuff and much more to come. I want to particularly thank Thilo, JM, Matt and Robert for helping out as well as our web infrastructure sponsors, that is Canonical [4] and Linode [5] for providing our little corner on the web. Due to the delay there will only be 10 days to get free CDs this year, so don't slack! And happy SFD preparations! Oh and by the way, the direct link to registering your team is herehttp://cgi.softwarefreedomday.org/register.html after creating your team page [2] of course. Any question please let us know. The SFI Board [0] http://cgi.softwarefreedomday.org/register.html [1] http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/ [2] http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/CreateYourTeampage [3] http://maddog.softwarefreedomday.org/cms-sfd/ [4] http://www.canonical.com/ [5] http://www.linode.com/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
On 19 July 2010 11:53, Alan Pope a...@popey.com wrote: What events local to you would you like to see a stand at? If you know of any specific events near you, maybe you could add them to this page:- https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/NonTechEvents Cheers, Al. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
On 19/07/10 14:16, pmgazz wrote: I've done a bit of this - I've demo'd an Ubuntu LTSP and also laptops at voluntary sector events - people don't 'get' what an operating system is and tend to think that MS Win is 'part of the machine'. They have to have a reason for considering changing OS and I find that being able to help the environment and save money at the same time is a powerful incentive to consider something new. In my case I wasn't changing the OS, they didn't have any computers to start with and I managed to source some old desktops (again with no OS) and funding for a server, monitors, keyboards, mice and custom built cabinets. Luckily the centre manager was aware of Open Source and wanted some 'green' machines (i.e. lower power consumption). I see what you mean though about some people's perception, one good reason for switching is if they have older hardware, especially anything that might be running Windows 2000 (unlikely but you never know), they could find that older kit might run better with something like Xubuntu or as LTSP clients. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
On 19/07/10 15:39, pmgazz wrote: On 19/07/10 15:24, Dianne Reuby wrote: On Mon, 2010-07-19 at 13:42 +0100, Rob Beard wrote: if it wasn't for another guy on our local Freecycle list who gets old machines, refurbishes them and sticks Windows XP and Office 2003 on them (I think he's either got a whole load of Office 2003 licenses he wants to give away or he's installing pirate copies of the software, however good his intentions are I'm sure one day he'll come unstuck). If that were my Freecycle group I'd contact the mods and ask them to make sure they are legal copies! Dianne Why on earth doesn't he put Ubuntu on them? (I finally remembered to bottom post!) Maybe he doesn't know about Ubuntu or isn't used to it. I'm probably going to send him a quick e-mail saying that he's probably better putting Ubuntu or something along those lines (even Linux Mint) on there and explain that there is a large community out there (the local LUG for instance, and if he chooses Ubuntu, the Ubuntu forums and Ubuntu-UK mailing list) for support. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] ubuntu-uk Digest, Vol 63, Issue 34 - Non Technical Events
Hi Guys I suspect that there are vast numbers of people to whom the philosophical and financial aspects of free/open source software would be very attractive. Trouble is, they've probably never heard of it. Where do we go to talk about FLOSS? OggCamp, LUGs and the like. Great and enjoyable as those events are, they don't do much to spread the word. The suggestion to go and have stalls at village and school fetes, etc, is brilliant. They usually cost next to nothing to exhibit at. The only downside I can see is that it is sometimes difficult to get a mains supply on a stall at such events. Mind you, there are always laptops, I suppose. One thing I've learned after years of attending trade and techie exhibitions is that knocking the opposition doesn't actually work. Slagging off Microsoft is liable to alienate many punters who currently use Windows, as it feels as if you're crticising their judgement. Far better just to point out all the attributes of your product, in this case Ubuntu, and let them do the selling. Whenever I take the opportunity to demonstrate Ubuntu to people I meet in the course of my work, the biggest point of interest always seems to be the fast boot times and not needing to have Norton/McAfee/AVG running in the background, slowing everything down. Regards Nige -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
P3s run great as thin clients (just need a pxe card) and the ubiquitous P3 compaqs have them already. But if people haven't got any money at all, the the LTSP option is a stretch as they need at least one halfway decent machine - but if they can stump up a couple of hundred quid for a basic dual-core with 2GB+ RAM it'll work great. I've tried using single-cores (AMD Sempron and various Intel) with 1GB RAM and it sort of works OK but you get a hellish lag if 3+ people use OOo at the same time - which isn't great for a production environment. OK if all people will do is surf the web though. P3s can't run Xubuntu standalone for any sensible use - even the first generation XP PCs can't without a RAM upgrade (any P4 will do but 512 is the min RAM if you don't want to have time to make and drink a cuppa each time you open an OOo doc) - and a gig is more like it if you ask me. Again, you can get away with Xubuntu standalone on P4 with 256 MB RAM as long as no-one's going to try to get much more ambitious than surfing the web. Older than that and it's gulp Puppy . . . or a custom Debian desktop. Paula On 19/07/10 15:50, Rob Beard wrote: On 19/07/10 14:16, pmgazz wrote: I've done a bit of this - I've demo'd an Ubuntu LTSP and also laptops at voluntary sector events - people don't 'get' what an operating system is and tend to think that MS Win is 'part of the machine'. They have to have a reason for considering changing OS and I find that being able to help the environment and save money at the same time is a powerful incentive to consider something new. In my case I wasn't changing the OS, they didn't have any computers to start with and I managed to source some old desktops (again with no OS) and funding for a server, monitors, keyboards, mice and custom built cabinets. Luckily the centre manager was aware of Open Source and wanted some 'green' machines (i.e. lower power consumption). I see what you mean though about some people's perception, one good reason for switching is if they have older hardware, especially anything that might be running Windows 2000 (unlikely but you never know), they could find that older kit might run better with something like Xubuntu or as LTSP clients. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] ubuntu-uk Digest, Vol 63, Issue 34 - Non Technical Events
Hi Nigel, Thanks for the reply ;) On 19 July 2010 15:58, Nigel Verity nigelver...@hotmail.com wrote: I suspect that there are vast numbers of people to whom the philosophical and financial aspects of free/open source software would be very attractive. Trouble is, they've probably never heard of it. Where do we go to talk about FLOSS? OggCamp, LUGs and the like. Great and enjoyable as those events are, they don't do much to spread the word. Absolutely! That's the main motivation to do something different. After posting this mail and the blog post one of the people who run the Massachusetts loco team said I basically described them! They do lots of advocacy at events where tech isn't the main attraction. So we're behind the curve on this :) The suggestion to go and have stalls at village and school fetes, etc, is brilliant. They usually cost next to nothing to exhibit at. The only downside I can see is that it is sometimes difficult to get a mains supply on a stall at such events. Mind you, there are always laptops, I suppose. If you can park a car nearby then an inverter could be used to top-up a laptop battery here and there ;) One thing I've learned after years of attending trade and techie exhibitions is that knocking the opposition doesn't actually work. I completely agree. We've got some pages on the wiki which talk about 'best practice' for attending conferences/events:- https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuAtConferences https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ConferenceTopTips I've added them to the UK/NonTechEvents page:- https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/NonTechEvents Cheers, Al. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] Non Technical Events
Totally agree -- really important to stay positive and focus on benefits. Also agree that speed and relief from 'drive by' downloads etc is a major selling point :) Paula One thing I've learned after years of attending trade and techie exhibitions is that knocking the opposition doesn't actually work. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
On 19/07/10 15:47, Alan Pope wrote: On 19 July 2010 11:53, Alan Popea...@popey.com wrote: What events local to you would you like to see a stand at? If you know of any specific events near you, maybe you could add them to this page:-http://childrensweek.co.uk/home.htm https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/NonTechEvents Cheers, Al. Sounds like a great idea, I've just added Torbay's Childrens Week Festival (http://childrensweek.co.uk/home.htm) in August. I'll ask one of my contacts if it's possible for us to get some sort of stand. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
On 19/07/10 13:42, Rob Beard wrote: I'm hoping as a LUG in Devon we can start to do more of this in the future, I'd even refurbish machines and stick Ubuntu on them if it wasn't for another guy on our local Freecycle list who gets old machines, refurbishes them and sticks Windows XP and Office 2003 on them (I think he's either got a whole load of Office 2003 licenses he wants to give away or he's installing pirate copies of the software, however good his intentions are I'm sure one day he'll come unstuck). I would kindly point this chap at the following story and probably suggest he desist rather pronto... http://openbytes.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/microsoft-test-purchasing-a-pc-near-you-watch-out-small-business/ Al -- The Open Learning Centre http://www.theopenlearningcentre.com -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
On 19/07/10 16:10, pmgazz wrote: P3s run great as thin clients (just need a pxe card) and the ubiquitous P3 compaqs have them already. But if people haven't got any money at all, the the LTSP option is a stretch as they need at least one halfway decent machine - but if they can stump up a couple of hundred quid for a basic dual-core with 2GB+ RAM it'll work great. Yep, we were lucky with the installation in Exeter, I was working for a local radio station who had a charitable trust and I was able to help the community centre get some funding to buy some monitors and a server. Sadly this charity is no longer running. In the current project we're working on we've had a donation of a Xeon server. It's not the fastest server ever but it's a dual CPU capable server (Netburst Xeon) and upgradable so for now they might have to make do with getting some cheap memory and upgrading it to 2GB and maybe adding an extra CPU (or upgrade the existing 2.4GHz CPU to two 3GHz CPUs). I've tried using single-cores (AMD Sempron and various Intel) with 1GB RAM and it sort of works OK but you get a hellish lag if 3+ people use OOo at the same time - which isn't great for a production environment. OK if all people will do is surf the web though. Yep, the one thing I have found even with a fast server and dedicated 100Mbit to each client, things like Flash do run a bit slowly, well things like Youtube do. I'm guessing it's because there's a lot of data being shifted about (this was with 6 clients at 100Mbit each attached to a Gigabit switch (the server has a Gigabit port on it). P3s can't run Xubuntu standalone for any sensible use - even the first generation XP PCs can't without a RAM upgrade (any P4 will do but 512 is the min RAM if you don't want to have time to make and drink a cuppa each time you open an OOo doc) - and a gig is more like it if you ask me. Again, you can get away with Xubuntu standalone on P4 with 256 MB RAM as long as no-one's going to try to get much more ambitious than surfing the web. Actually I installed Xubuntu on a P3 800 laptop with 192MB Ram and it wasn't too bad. Okay it was slow with Flash and Youtube was pretty much unwatchable but for web browsing and Abiword it was reasonably okay. If I was going to be giving out standalone machines though I'd probably try and give out at least P4 or Athlon XP's with 512MB (or more) memory. I've done two of these in the past, an Athlon XP 1700+ with 512MB Ram for a friend's mother (now running Ubuntu 9.10) which works fine (little bit slow at times but works fine for what she wants, Word Processing, Internet browsing and Skype) and an Athlon XP 2000+ with 640MB Ram for a local community project, again runs fine for what they want. Later on I'm going to be sorting a PC out for the kids, it's a bit better spec, Celeron 3.33GHz (I've mislaid my P4 2.8), 1.25GB Ram running Ubuntu 10.04 probably. I'm even going to give Userful a try for multi-seat (I figured I can turn the machine into 2 PCs and stop the kids squabbling). Older than that and it's gulp Puppy . . . or a custom Debian desktop. I tried a custom Debian desktop once, for the folks who I gave Xubuntu to (on the P3 800's) and somehow they managed to break it within a day. :-) Next time I do anything on any older hardware I'm going to give Peppermint Linux a try, it looks to be better matched to old hardware as it runs LXDE. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Non-technical events?
I'm hoping as a LUG in Devon we can start to do more of this in the future, I'd even refurbish machines and stick Ubuntu on them if it wasn't for another guy on our local Freecycle list who gets old machines, refurbishes them and sticks Windows XP and Office 2003 on them (I think he's either got a whole load of Office 2003 licenses he wants to give away or he's installing pirate copies of the software, however good his intentions are I'm sure one day he'll come unstuck). I should drop him an email and point this out to him. I've done this myself, and had Are you sure? type replies. When I point out the Office costs £400 odd and MS might get annoyed, they normally stop. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fwd: [SFD-announce] SFD 2010 registration is OPEN!!!
On Mon, 2010-07-19 at 14:49 +0100, Alan Pope wrote: Anyone fancy doing something for Software Freedom Day? -- Forwarded message -- From: Frederic Muller f...@beijinglug.org Date: 19 July 2010 14:45 Subject: [SFD-announce] SFD 2010 registration is OPEN!!! To: SFD announcements sfd-annou...@sf-day.org, Open discussions about SFD sfd-disc...@sf-day.org Dear all, This is with a lot of struggles that we have finally managed to open the SFD 2010 registration! [0] As you can see there is still a lot of ongoing work on the site, and this includes a New Wiki [1] where you can create your team page [2] , a new home page [3] for all the information about Software Freedom International and other generic and important stuff and much more to come. I want to particularly thank Thilo, JM, Matt and Robert for helping out as well as our web infrastructure sponsors, that is Canonical [4] and Linode [5] for providing our little corner on the web. Due to the delay there will only be 10 days to get free CDs this year, so don't slack! And happy SFD preparations! Oh and by the way, the direct link to registering your team is here http://cgi.softwarefreedomday.org/register.html after creating your team page [2] of course. Any question please let us know. The SFI Board [0] http://cgi.softwarefreedomday.org/register.html [1] http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/ [2] http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/CreateYourTeampage [3] http://maddog.softwarefreedomday.org/cms-sfd/ [4] http://www.canonical.com/ [5] http://www.linode.com/ I will be running the famous Ubuntu Installfest (that was at Oggcamp, but now with added Joggler ;) ) at a Software Freedom Day event in Manchester on the 18th September. If you are in the area, please come along and enjoy the fun. Full details are here http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2010/Europe/United% 20Kingdom/Manchester Thanks Les -- Les Pounder identi.ca / twitter @biglesp Blog lespounder.wordpress.com -- Les Pounder identi.ca / twitter @biglesp Blog lespounder.wordpress.com -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu UK GeekNic - Not Long Now!
Hello Everyone, It's emerged that our attendence list for the Ubuntu UK GeekNic is a little out of date! If you could please add/remove yourself from the list at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/UKGeekNic2010/Attendance it would be most appreciated The date for the GeekNic is Sunday the 8th of August 2010 (just over 2 weeks away) and we have a preliminary start time of 1pm, with an estimated finish around 4pm. Thanks! Joe --- Joe O'Dell GreenerClassrooms Project Co-Ordinator http://www.greenerclassrooms.org.uk Fedora Ambassador Contributor (FreeMedia) http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Ascenseur bedsLUG Co-Ordinator beds.lug.org.uk DFEY Member (SouthEast) dfey.org -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu UK GeekNic - Not Long Now!
On Mon, 2010-07-19 at 21:14 +0100, Joe O'Dell wrote: Hello Everyone, It's emerged that our attendence list for the Ubuntu UK GeekNic is a little out of date! If you could please add/remove yourself from the list at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/UKGeekNic2010/Attendance it would be most appreciated Done. And this time I'll try to make it on time so that I don't miss everybody like I did at the Science Museum. The date for the GeekNic is Sunday the 8th of August 2010 (just over 2 weeks away) and we have a preliminary start time of 1pm, with an estimated finish around 4pm. Have we already got a meeting point planned? Hyde Park is big so we'll need to decide on a general area so that latecomers can find the group. Bruno -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Ubuntu UK GeekNic - Not Long Now!
On 20 Jul 2010, at 02:10, Bruno Girin wrote: Have we already got a meeting point planned? Hyde Park is big so we'll need to decide on a general area so that latecomers can find the group. Yep, that's something that Andy G picked up on as well. We are going to discuss this tonight, as well as set a permanent time. Thanks :) Joe --- Joe O'Dell GreenerClassrooms Project Co-Ordinator http://www.greenerclassrooms.org.uk Fedora Ambassador Contributor (FreeMedia) http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Ascenseur bedsLUG Co-Ordinator beds.lug.org.uk DFEY Member (SouthEast) dfey.org -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
