here are the notes for the may meeting. I first sent them to D. Mandel for review. alter as needed. Dennis

HIGHLIGHTS FROM MAY PLUG MEETING:

Portland Linux user's group Meeting for May 1998

meeting began at 7 pm in room 160 of the Millar Library at PSU.

1) The mailing list problems appear to be solved. If you have not recieved mail recently, you may need to re-subscribe.
2) The Corvalis group's lat meeting was almost a clinic. Dave brought a box; attempted to load the SuSE distribution, with some success. Also, Red Hat and debian were loaded on other boxes at the meeting. Those loads appeared to be more successful.
3) This meeting was the initial attempt at a discussion group format. There will continue to be speakers as they volunteer, though.
4) There are some flyers left from the networking Tech. Conference. A Digital copy of the final edition is still needed.
5) Bussiness cards: still being worked on. Few people have looked at the posted designs, and they are not ready for voting on. This issue has two parts to it -- there was talk of brochures as well. Discussion at the meeting concluded that the bussiness cards were geared to a more specific group of prospective linux users than the brochures, which were deemed to be of more generic interest.
5 A) There was also a brief discussion regarding printing the cards as well. The posibility of printing them professionally, at, say, Kinko's was tossed around, with comments that that method would likely result in a more proffessional looking result at similar cost to use of members equipment. Someone said that some printers would print from designs given to them via a floppy disk.
6) Sean Utt: Discount from O'reilly and Assoc. regarding 20 % off of their merchandise. One needs to belong to a linux user's group to receive the dis- count, though.
7) Clinics have been going well, with more volunteers than participants. This month the clinic will be held at the regular date, i.e. the 3rd saturday from 1 to 4 pm. Next month the date will be moved up to the second week due to Riverdale's summer school situation.
8) Plug for Education
-A) Linux clinics: Riverdale has been letting us use their facilities for meetings. Many schools are desiring internet access, plus access to hardware. There has been a lot of response to this. So, there are 6 Pentiums now available for k - 12 schools. If you know of any schools needing such equipment, mail > dwpalmer@teleport.com for information as to how to sign them up. If there are more applicants, there will be more computers provided.

Meetining of the "plug for education" group meet at Riverdale prior to the clinic meeting times.

Machines are now coming through the "Strut" program, via Intel donations. Strut is now outside of Intel, and non-profit. ANY school which is K - 12 has acces to the units; previously, Intel had misgivings about some school's theological persuasions or beliefs.
-B) Other topics discussed included the possiblity of giving Demonstrations, training sessions for configuring and maintaining systems, a need for volunteers to "adopt a school" so as to provide a higher level of tech support, and a clinic on " basic system administration." For this last, volunteers are urgently needed.
-C) Main items so far decided on:
>> what software to install on schools systems. Whatever is chosen needs to be low maintainance.
1) Base level: file and print servers
2) Firewalls and internet servers
3) X-Bill
>> class agenda
>> On-site systems. Need to be nearby. Volunteers needed.
D) Further discussion: 1) Schools need a LAN to be helped. Many schools desire internet access, so this is not much of a problem. 2) Most schools now have a mixed bag of units; due to the purchasing parties having little faith in the continued presence of Apple. However, Apple is still a big pressence in the classroom. 3) An idea for administration remotely was presented based on the pressence of the MET-NET at PSU. This example was brought up because it works, demostrates a high degree of cooperation, and most importantly was done at very low cost. 4) It is good to see "free" software at use in schools. This empasises the academic nature of learning rather than the presence of substantial $$$. 5) Finally, the idea of getting one system working well and burning a number of CD-ROMs for the other systems to be distributed. This way, if a system is "hosed", i.e. severely corrupted, then that system administrator can merely reinstall the system in pre-configured format. Red Hat Kick-start was suggested for this. 9) Discussion groups. A comment was made that there appear to be two main classes of user present in the main group: "Beginners" and "Power_Users." After a short presentation on a general topic, the two groupings should gather and discuss the material presented. The idea of discussion groups was initially due to a continued shortage of guest speakers, and speakers in general.
-A) Also, McMennamins has several problems as an after-meeting discussion arena: Too much C2-H5-OH ( as in alcoholic beverages and the age limits implicit in the sale of such drink ) and lack of seating space. Also, it is a bit noisy at times. Unfortunately, alternatives within walking distance are not readily available.
- B) The following topics were presented as posibilities for subjects for future meetings:
1) Raids : software, and hardware
2) Basics : tweaking systems for use if not previously setup.
3) Window managers, getting menues and desktop managers
4) Libraries, static, dynamic, how they work
5) File system layout
6) How to create RPM packages, and use same.
7) " .DEB's "
8) Where to find info on linux
9) Office automation software, such as Applixware and others.
10) A system to look at for examples of how to configure key sections.
11) Multimedia: sound, scanning, recording
12) Configuring of Slip, PPP, and modems
13) Diald, dynamic addressing
14) Incoming and outgoing fax, and Hylafax
15) Basic Networking stuff
-C) a topic for next meeting: NNTV, a local discussion and news server for local use.
-D) There will be 15 - 20 minutes for presenting information prior to breaking up into the groups. This will be a generic message having a wide range of applicability.
10) There was also discussion of name tags, but it did not go far.
11) At about 9:05 pm, the meeting degenerated into raving about some kind of relational database software, the weightiness of NT, and other things which were beyond my comprehension. One could smell gathering thirst for potable beverages -- Terminator and others -- and your scribe was getting fuzzy-headed, as it was a good deal past his normal bedtime even with a good nap. The meeting formally broke up shortly thereafter, and many of the participants gravitated to McMennamins for food and drink.