[KLUG Members] KLUG Meeting Notes for 01/21/2003

mag00 members@kalamazoolinux.org
Thu, 23 Jan 2003 02:08:40 -0500


KLUG Meeting Notes:  Tuesday - January 21, 2003  7:00PM       

I.	PRESENTATION RECAP  		  
II.	NEXT WEEK'S MEETING INFO   <=== Mandatory Access Control!!! 
III.	KLUG MAILING LISTS              
IV.	KLUG NEWS FLASHES
V.      KLUG CONTACT & MEETING INFO

Tonight's Meeting Moderators: Todd Pillars

I.  PRESENTATION RECAP         
THIS WEEK'S KLUG PRESENTATION:   (24 active KLUG participants)
*****************************************************************
A Look At Lindows
by Bruce Smith
                            
Bruce provided & presented one of those fabled Walmart 
Lindows machines for inspection, testing, and insulting.  
We saw how the Lindows distribution and desktop shape up?  

PRESENTATION SUMMARY:
Bruce brought in a $199 PC, sold by Walmart, to show us
what you get at that price.  The machine he brought in is
owned by Armstrong International*.  The specs were 800 MHz
VIA C3 (formerly Cyrix) processor with 128 Mb Kingston RAM
and a 10 Gb Fujitsu hard drive.  The CD-ROM is 52X, the 
modem is 56k, 10/100 network card, and the sound card was
an onboard Sound Blaster compatible.  It had 3 open IDE
slots and room for 2 SIMMs.  That is a lot of machine for
$200.  Well did it boot?  YUP!  Did a fine job of coming up.

The software was the amazing part.  NO MICROSOFT!  WOO HOO!
Ding Dong... is the 800 pound gorilla dead?  Not yet.  The
PC had the Lindows OS installed.  KDE was the desktop and
it came with enough software to be fully functional right off
the shelf.  Check out the Lindows web site to find out about
the software.  They have a $99 software subsrciption deal that
gives you some commercial Open Source titles and nearly a 
thousand others.  There were lots of goodies including games.

SEE URL for more details      http://www.lindows.com

Bruce made this presentation informally and let the KLUG
attendees participate in his exploration of the "disposable 
appliance grade consumer electronics PC."  It was a rowdy 
bunch of Linux advocates enjoying Bruce's indulgence and 
patience.  It was a time to joke and learn and get distracted
with side conversations and Linux information exchanges.  Hope
Bruce had as much fun presenting as the attendees did listening!
Everyone seemed interested in the $199 wonder!!!  Yet another
interesting and professional presentation from Mr. Smith! (YAIPP)

* NOTE:  Thanks to Armstrong International for letting Bruce
demonstrate this personal computer to KLUG.
                            
Bruce Smith is a Systems Administrator and Software Developer
for Armstrong International Inc. where he is responsible for 
a HP-UX network of Servers, Workstations, printers and 
X-Terminals spanning five buildings in Three Rivers.  Bruce has
a degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from Central Michigan
University. (go Chips! :)  Bruce runs Linux, almost exclusively,
on all his PC's at work and home, and runs a lot of Armstrong's
networking services on Linux!


II.  NEXT KLUG MEETING - TUESDAY  01/28/2003   
******************************************************************
Mandatory Access Control
by Matthew Benjamin

Mandatory Access Control (MAC) with LIDS is a security
subject included in a training course on Linux System 
Administration taught by Matthew.  What is LIDS?  A 
kernel patch and admin tool to enhance the linux kernel
security.  http://www.lids.org/

Matthew Benjamin is employed by The Linux Box.  The Linux
Box Corporation is an open source consulting, support,
software development and training firm, focused on high 
quality customer service for regional and national
businesses.   http://www.linuxbox.nu


III.   K L U G    M A I L I N G    L I S T S
*************************************************************
Diversified mailing lists can be found on the KLUG web site.
http://kalamazoolinux.org/listserv/
Facilitated by - John Bridleman listmaster@kalamazoolinux.org   
Sign up and participate to serve the Open Source community!!!


IV.   K L U G    N E W S    F L A S H E S ! ! !
==============================================================
SUN EXPANDS LINUX LINEUP
The Unix systems maker now offers seven products in the
Sun ONE family on Linux. 
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,840945,00.asp
==============================================================
OPENOFFICE v1.0.2 RELEASE ANNOUNCED
OpenOffice 1.0.2 is ready for download. Technically
a "micro" improvement, one in which many bugs have been
fixed, 1.0.2 is, according to reports, significantly
faster than 1.0.1. There are no new features. To learn
about all the bug fixes 1.0.2 incorporates, read the
Release Notes.  Posted on Tuesday, January 21,2003
http://www.gnomedesktop.org/article.php?sid=867
==============================================================
LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S LINUXWORLD
LinuxWorld Conference and Expo 2003, Jan. 21-24, New York City
It's here--the first LinuxWorld of 2003. And it's all happening 
in New York City, where the financial community was among the 
first to embrace Linux in mission-critical enterprise computing. 
You'll see why enterprises around the world are following their 
lead and migrating to Red Hat Linux Advanced Server.
http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/linuxworldny03/V33/index.cvn
==============================================================
RED HAT CHIEF SPEAKS OUT
NEW YORK  Proprietary software applications often result in
bad architecture, which locks in users and is a cause for 
oncern, Red Hat chief technology officer Michael Tiemann 
old delegates listening to his keynote here at the LinuxWorld
conference Wednesday.  "The limitations in software force
unnatural thinking and result in bad architecture.  A lack of
competition has led to vendor intransigence," he said. 
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,841253,00.asp 
==============================================================
SUPERCOMPUTERS SET FOR LINUX
Businesses and researchers looking to bring Linux into their
supercomputing environments will soon have new options coming
from Silicon Graphics Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. to choose
from.  http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,827740,00.asp 
==============================================================
FIRMS PUBLISH RESEARCH ON RED HAT AND LINUX
The amount of research support for Red Hat, Linux, and open 
source technology is quickly growing. We've collected a few 
recent and recently updated research reports. Take a look:
---> "Computing" Magazine in the UK published a survey regarding 
customer satisfaction of software vendors. Red Hat led in several 
categories including high performance, good return on investment, 
and overall brand satisfaction, and ranked second only to IBM in 
high reliability.  Read about the "Computing Magazine" survey:
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$LWTlAJPSNNALw8UdAD5nWbXS/utbj3
---> According to a report commissioned by the US Defense
Information Systems Agency (DISA), open source software is 
ready for the government.  Read about the DISA report:
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$LWTlAJPSNNALw8UdAD5nWbXS/utbj4
---> The META Group recently released new data on Linux 
adoption. They predict that Linux will be used on nearly 
half of new servers by 2007.  Read about the META research:
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$LWTlAJPSNNALw8UdAD5nWbXS/utbj5
----> David Wheeler's "Why Open Source? Look at the Numbers!" 
Frequently updated, Wheeler's report is an extensive look at 
data that quantifies the adoption of open source technology. 
A classic.  Download the paper:
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$LWTlAJPSNNALw8UdAD5nWbXS/utbj6
==============================================================
LINUX SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT COMES TO FORE
As Linux continues to power its way into the enterprise, managing
Linux-based systems is becoming a top priority for corporate customers.
To help in that effort, Red Hat Inc., Ximian Inc. and IBM are each
planning to make system management announcements at this week's
LinuxWorld conference in New York.  The Red Hat Network, which to
date has been primarily a software update mechanism, will be expanded
to include system management functions, including provisioning,
performance management and transaction monitoring.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,837709,00.asp
==============================================================
BIG GUNS HIT LINUXWORLD
DOMINANT LINUX players such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard are proving to 
be the chief beneficiaries of Linux's rising financial fortunes in 
the enterprise as smaller, Linux-only companies struggle for survival. 
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/03/01/20/030120hnlinuxshow.xml
==============================================================
RED HAT AND IBM ANNOUNCE SUPPORT OF IBM eSERVER PLATFORMS
Red Hat recently announced the availability of new releases of 
Red Hat Linux Advanced Server for IBM's iSeries, pSeries, and 
zSeries enterprise server platforms. The upgrades also include 
expanded hardware and language capabilities. Red Hat Linux for 
all eServer platforms now support English, German, and Japanese 
languages natively.  Learn more about the new releases: 
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$LWTlAJPSNNALw8UdAD5nWbXS/utbj1
==============================================================
LINUX NETS IBM $1 BILLION
IBM to announce that it received more than $1 billion in
revenue from Linux sales, plus a slew of product and new customer
announcements.  http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,840669,00.asp
==============================================================
COMPARING RED HAT LINUX ADVANCED SERVER AND RED HAT LINUX
The choice is simple: Pick Red Hat Linux if you want to try Linux 
at home. But when deploying Linux servers in your organization, 
choose Red Hat Linux Advanced Server. We'll show you why:
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$LWTlAJPSNNALw8UdAD5nWbXS/utbj2
==============================================================
RED HAT IN THE NEWS
--> CNET Special Report: A good year for Linux
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$LWTlAJPSNNALw8UdAD5nWbXS/utbj18
--> CIO Magazine: Linux scales new heights
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$LWTlAJPSNNALw8UdAD5nWbXS/utbj19
--> Boston Globe: Open source changes the rules
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$LWTlAJPSNNALw8UdAD5nWbXS/utbj20
--> ZDNet: Linux 2002: Making headway
http://redhat.chtah.com/a/tA$LWTlAJPSNNALw8UdAD5nWbXS/utbj21
==============================================================
RED HAT'S "UNDER THE BRIM" NEWSLETTER IS FREE
Sign up for Red Hat's e-newsletter at www.redhat.com
to get a monthly report of Linux related information!
==============================================================


V.   K L U G    C O N T A C T   &   M E E T I N G    I N F O  
*************************************************************
KLUG WEB SITE  http://kalamazoolinux.org

MEMBERS AND GUESTS - COME JOIN US FOR A MEETING!!!
http://kalamazoolinux.org/meetings           
WE MEET WEEKLY, EACH TUESDAY AT 7:00PM.      
                                             
Our meeting site is the Kalamazoo Chamber    
of Commerce office building downtown.          
346 W. Michigan Ave. - Kalamazoo, MI  49007
http://kazoolug.org/meetings/maps.php3   <=== MAP!

CONTACT INFORMATION:
Kalamazoo Linux Users Group, Inc.
6749 South Westnedge Avenue
Suite K-288
Portage  MI 49002
e-mail address: chairman@kalamazoolinux.org


Copyright 2002                 Kalamazoo Linux Users Group, Inc.

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