[colug-432] december

[Rob Funk]

[Maybe on my third attempt I can send this properly....]

On Friday 18 December 2009 10:16:33 am Jim Wildman wrote:
> so this brings up the bigger question...is COLUG relevant anymore?  Any
> thoughts from anyone?

The last few years I've felt like Linux has gotten so easy to use that 
there's not nearly as much call for a "support" group of the sort that this 
used to be.

It's gotten to the point that I can install Ubuntu on a nontechnical friend's 
machine and set them loose with no support needed, as long as I remembered to 
do all the post-install stuff for Flash and DVDs and such.

We even have major cellphone companies selling phones based on a form of 
Linux (Android), with most of their customers not knowing or caring that 
there's a Linux kernel in there. (They only care how it compares to the 
iPhone.)

There's still interesting stuff happening, some of which may be appropriate 
for COLUG to cover, but I feel like "how do I make XYZ work on Linux" used to 
be the primary driving force of COLUG, and is no longer as necessary.

(Another factor may be that MacOS X has fulfilled many Linux geeks' need for 
a no-compromises easy-to-use Unix. Even I use it for my living-room media 
center.)


The Linux group up in Canton (where I spent six years of this decade) kind of 
died off for a number of years, but some people I used to work with are 
trying to revive it for 2010. Their tentative list of topics includes:
- KDE4 and how you use it
- FireFox Plugins and what you use
- Security and how you secure your Linux distribution
- Creating a Linux media box/center
- Ruby and all its uses and glory
- Commands you didn't know you should know
(They alternate these with "geek socializing, hacking and networking".)

-- 
==============================| "A slice of life isn't the whole cake
 Rob Funk <rfunk at funknet.net> | One tooth will never make a full grin"
 http://www.funknet.net/rfunk |    -- Chris Mars, "Stuck in Rewind"