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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi, by request a quick "what I did on my holiday" ;-) System Stuff Drove up to Aston University Saturday 17th May, it is kind of easy to get to as you drive up to the M6, and take the A38M into Aston (train is also easy). Had a bit of a "senior moment" with the entrance barriers, and made the mistake of not taking the lift, but was eventually met and offered a coffee by Mark Ray, as Jason Clifford was just getting started on "Running an ISP with Free Software". Jason is a Linux veteran, and has set up at least three ISPs to my knowledge, the talk was on ukfsn.org, from which profits will go to Free Software (to be distributed by AFFS). Some interesting discussion on choice of POP3 server, but other than that nothing Theo hadn't covered in his speech at the University. Free software is cheap, flexible and reliable, and you don't have to rely on vendors to send you security patches to critical components. Next in the "System" section ws a discussion of LVM2 module just going into 2.5 kernel by Alasdair Kergon. All the features you'd expect from modern LVM, including online reallocation of disk space to mounted filesystems. Some useful tips on testing stuff on snapshots. Note the command line will be greatly simplified and the format of command output is more flexible, presumably to make it easier to author GUI's and automatic management systems on top of the LVM2 module. Sound Stuff Two speakers on Linux sound systems followed, Bob Ham described the new Linux sound architecture, and how JACK will provide glue between many audio applications in future, providing better support for professional quality audio tools than OSS. Richard Brown was discussing the Rosegarden software for sequencing, omposing, ad mixing music. Call me a luddite, but I'd have prefered more sound and less "Star Impress". Still it was interesting to hear <no pun intended> how they are supporting the Rosegarten project. Both speakers seemed to see prebuilt Digital Sound Workstations as the obvious way to market. Education Stuff The Education session kicked of with Kevin Donnelly explaining how the project to localise Linux into Welsh has used a web interface to allow many non-Linux users who are keen Welsh promoters to join in the effort to produce a computer system that works in their own tongue. He expressed an interest in producing a Welsh Knoppix CD. Next John Adams discussed Moodle, and how they chose it to develop OSAL.ORG. Moodle is a course management system. John expressed The rest of the sessions were under "community". Ian Lynch gave an interesting talk on anticompetitive practices and how the Office of fair trading assess and pursue claims. His company registered a complaint over the Microsoft Schools Agreement. On patents we were encouraged to visit ffii.org, and speak to our MEPs before June 18th. The AGM was fairly short, not least lacking a quorum to vote on key issues, it was suggested we use electronic voting to ensure we have a quorum for decision making. I went over the talk I gave on Freeduc at St Peter's in the break of the education session, and the value of the event was as much in meeting people and the discussions as the excellent talks. Alas I had to get back to Norwich and couldn't join the post meeting socialising to continue the discussion. The meeting was in a University lecture theatre, and the focus on a few individual speakers discussing in some depth, was a similar format to the day I organised at Exeter University, possibly even less structured. I'll certainly consider organising some local meetings in a similar low key fashion. As always some speakers stand out as better than others, but all were enthusiastic for their topic, and even those with less skill at presentation still came over very well as a result. Perhaps a lesson for all those who have something to say, but aren't sure about public speaking. Simon -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQE+0Q37GFXfHI9FVgYRAnlEAJ4l1ynakpCiqG4d+xpq4WjP0TV9wQCgzs35 IQILvAuS+rMoBlMtQ3fumHE= =a8+D -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.