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I also enjoyed the day and agree with mat (thanks for the event!) (even if it is a 210mile round trip, thanks Kai for the petrol money :-) ). For me it was nice to meet other linux users (not just debian) and the whole event inspired me to install debian testing on my laptop. It was a natural, free running event with intresting talks (even if i don't completly agree with all the comments :-) , but thats personal opinion) and helpful people. The event met my expectations and has got me on the road of debian. I came with questions regarding debian that were answered for me and found out some other usefull stuff on the way (zope etc.) I have not installed debian untill now as i was too lazy to fight through it. This all changed when i used the netinstaller on firday night, it coudn't have been easer i burnt one 100mb iso to a cd and booted by laptop from it, answered some very basic questions and a few hours later ended up with debian testing. Ok the install was not as colourful as Mandrake but it was as easy (IMHO i think mandrakes installer is pretty good). The other problem I have had in the past is non-standard networking hardware which can be problematic to get going anway so when you only have a 100mb net install image you are going to struggle. The one advantage mandrake might have is that it is very customised and contains many third-party kernel modules (out of the box) so it is often possible to get certain hardware working with out any additonal work, this is not a fault of debian but the main hurdle for linux as a whole it the fact that many of these drivers are still alpha/beta quality and when finished will be integrated into the kernel as modules anyway. While HURD may not be much practicle use at the moment it is of academic intrest and I do find it intresting to know "what else is going on" even if i have no plans of using such a system myself. Personaly I also like the varity in linux and so will be keeping 1 mandrake and 1 debian system as i like to see more that just one distro. I think "linux" is all about choice. As for my wirless card it is working the best it ever has, on debian, the mix of tools avaiable and pulling a few things in from apt-get has made a system where i have to configure one file (my 128-wep key) and everything else is automagic. Robin On Sunday 26 September 2004 10:02, Matt Lee wrote:
I'm not going to bother quoting here, as it would be hard to keep it in
context.
Firstly, for what its worth, I enjoyed today - I felt we had a decent
setup to begin with, and got a lot of things done.
I don't have a problem with swearing on list -- I personally feel
people should be allowed to express themselves, providing they're not
comments that are directly aimed at others.
My feelings of today were always that it would be people who were
interested in, or using Debian, getting together and talking about and
evangelising Debian. Let's just be clear about what Debian is.
"Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An
operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make
your computer run. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an
operating system), but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU
project; hence the name GNU/Linux."
Debian makes it's intentions clear with that first paragraph from its
website. It's not attempting to be "UserLinux" or "Linspire" or
"Microsoft Windows Replacement" or "Mac OS X that's free" -- it's the
GNU operating system, and the Linux kernel. Unlike most[1] other
distros, it makes itself perfectly clear. It doesn't try and confuse
the issue, by referring to "Linux" only, nor does it try to hide away
from what GNU is, or where its philosophies lie. It's clearly, a free
software operating system.
I like Debian. For me, Debian makes me feel warm and fuzzy, because I
am someone who outside of computing, makes media stuff. My little
would-be-dotcom-organisation, plods along happily doing what its always
done, which is to make media for the web, TV and radio. However, at the
moment, I work as a developer... for me, software freedom is important,
and Debian offers me that in a way that nothing else does. It's far
from perfect, and I find myself finding things wrong with it quite
often, but it's the best we've got, I believe.
Today was about enlightenment for a lot of people, I believe. It wasn't
about trying to convert people who use Windows or proprietary software
to use Debian, it was more about showing what Debian is about, and what
can be achieved with free software. GNU/Linux or GNU/Hurd, it doesn't
matter, the goal is still the same.
I enjoyed Kai's talk on web applications, I just wish we could have
convinced more people that free software is the way to go.
I think we should put materials on the site to help people understand
why GNU/Linux is good for them. We need to preset freedom in a way
that's clear, and we need to understand that what we need to succeed.
matt
-- Robin Cornelius --------------------------------------------------- robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx GPG Key ID: 0x729A79A23B7EE764 http://www.biglumber.com/x/web?qs=0x729A79A23B7EE764
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