Hawaiʻi's Technology Community

HI LUGs

I've been playing around with Linux for a while, learning through trial & error and reading up on articles/forums. The problem is that not all documentation out there is clear to everyone (I get stumped every now and then over what the heck the man pages are talking about).

So I've been wondering... are there any LUGs that meet regularly on Oahu? I've been trying to look for one but have never found one. Someone on another forum had told me that we used to have one and they would meet at HCC, but they just sort of died out.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ben Kinsey on August 10, 2008 at 12:51pm

There is a mailing list called LUAU... see http://freesoftwarehawaii.org/

I don't know if they have any regular meetings or not... so let's make 'em happen.

One idea I had was to host a "Laptop" party at my apartment. We can all share what we know about free and open source software...

--Ben Kinsey

Permalink Reply by Jerry on October 30, 2008 at 9:09am

LUAU got moved from The Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation servers (http://www.hosef.org/) this past summer. It seems some of the guys had a falling out or something though, so I'm not sure if they're still part of HOSEF or not. Looks like HOSEF doesn't meet up too regularly at any rate.

I'd definitely be down for getting into a regularly meeting LUG. I've been on primarily Linux for about five years and going strong.

Permalink Reply by Jerome Madlangbayan on November 30, 2008 at 11:51pm

Ok, so how about we make those meetings happen? I know it's easy to say and more difficult to set up, but I would really like to learn more about open source software (ie. Linux).

If we were to make this happen though... when, where, and how regularly would we meet? Also, would it be just an open forum or could we possibly have a topic for each meeting in which experts in that area would present that to us and we can ask our questions.

I don't know, would be cool if this group could make that happen though.

Permalink Reply by Laurence A. Lee on December 1, 2008 at 8:47pm

Organizing and maintaining an Interest Group is always a challenge. If there's enough interest, I'm sure someone will step forward to organize a meeting location.

One thing I've noticed about Linux Enthusiasts, though - they tend to be rather polar and devoted to their favorite distribution. Whether it's Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Fedora, or Damn-Small - Linuxers should realize that it's still "Linux" under the hood, and the distribution is just Package-Management candy backed by people willing to maintain the package archives.

In the interest of drumming up possible Linux-Related topics.. I could give brief demonstrations on Fedora/CentOS, given a few weeks to prepare:

Exploring the Basics in Fedora Linux
15-minute Ruby on Rails Hosting Server (on CentOS)
15-minute Blog/Wiki/Shopping Websites with Drupal (on CentOS)
Security-Hardening a Linux Server (CentOS)
Scheduled Offsite Backups made Ridiculously Easy (Any Linux)
Lighttpd: A Lightweight Web Server Alternative (Any Linux)
Gnu Mono: Build and Deploy .NET code on Linux (Fedora/CentOS)
Unleash your Linksys Router with OpenWRT (Fedora/CentOS)
Exploring LinuxPMI: Build Your Own Elastic Linux Clusters

In all fairness, though - the list of interesting Linux Topics is kind of small, and possibly too specific. I'm guessing that's probably why many User Groups fizzle out after a while. It might be better to roll Linux into a much larger "Technology-Focused" User Group that would meet more often (every 2 weeks?), and have a wider variety of topics.

That way, people get to know each other better (meeting more often), and we have more variety of topics. The downside would be that most topics may need to be watered down to an introductory group.

It might not be so bad, though -- it could be a gateway into giving a Java, C#, PHP or Rails developer a chance to understand Django, without their having an intimate knowledge of Python or Django. And the Java guys might connect the dots and do some Django on Jython, as part of their evolutionary path. Same for C# guys with IronPython.

Permalink Reply by Jerome Madlangbayan on December 3, 2008 at 10:03am

That sounds great, Laurence.

We just have to figure out how many people will be willing to show up. I don't want you to end up wasting your time preparing these demonstrations when nobody is willing to attend.

So how about it? Maybe people who would like to attend can reply to this discussion. Then we can go on from there I guess. I really didn't want to be the one spearheading the meetings but if this will help the community as a whole then I'll have to do it.

But I'm willing to go to these meetings for sure. Who else is with me?

Permalink Reply by Stephen McMahon on December 3, 2008 at 10:08am

I'd go!

Permalink Reply by Jerome Madlangbayan on December 4, 2008 at 9:56pm

Alright, so now we have at least 4 people who are willing to attend.

Any other takers?

Permalink Reply by Mika Leuck on December 5, 2008 at 6:39am

I will join you.

Permalink Reply by Jerome Madlangbayan on December 5, 2008 at 12:15pm

Alright! Now we've got at least 5.

By the way, does anyone know where we can hold the meetings? I want to choose a place that's convenient for everyone.

Other problem is where we can get space for free? Unless we do some kind of fund raiser to help pay for the place.

If anyone has suggestions that would be great because I have no idea where to start. :-S

Permalink Reply by Adam Leszczynski on December 5, 2008 at 1:36pm