Philly Meetup

[kejava]

Good news!!! I met up with Iamalex at today's Bring a Computer Workshop at NTR. I spoke with the Executive Director, Stan Pokras, about getting meeting space for our group. He's fine with use using space at NTR!

He's offered up not one but several rooms. There are two that I am mainly interested in. The room on the bottom floor where they have Workshop would be perfect for install fests. The second floor has something similar but lugging desktops up there may not be a good idea. The second floor may be good meetings and planning. There's a little conference room layout with an over head projector.

For those of you itching to googlemap it, here's the address and url:
1524 Brandywine Street, Philadelphia PA 19130
http://ntronline.org/

For now, I'm going to assume that Saturdays will be our target meeting days. Presently, Stan is doing his Workshop on the 2nd Saturday of each month from 2-5. He has plans to move that up to twice a month then maybe even every week.

I'm not too clear on how we are going to work this out yet. Perhaps we should just plan for a meeting at NTR one of these upcoming Saturdays. This way you Philly guys can get a feel for the location. Would meeting Sat the 28th be too short notice?

Tell me what you think of this location as an option.

[jedijf]

Kevin,

Great job securing a location for philly meetups.

I believe that install fests are the way to go. Promotion of these install fests
is critical to their success.

April 28th is not good for me personally, I will be attending the Trenton Computer Festival that weekend. I want to touch base with some of the NJ lugs and possibly even the NJ loco team.

Our proximity to South Jersey makes cooperation with these groups seem like a natural extension of our reach.

Maybe sometime in May would give us more time to promote the event to make it more of a success, and gain support etc. Send out emails to any group mailing lists that we subscribe to, make flyers for meetings that we attend, etc. Promote, promote, promote.

If we set a date before Saturday, I will make up flyers for the PACS meeting.

jedijf

[lamalex]

I already have 3 kids who want to come to the install fest. They're sick of the corporate BS that comes with MS/Mac os.

[kejava]

Hi Jim,

I was thinking this first meeting would not be an install fest. Just the LoCo team members meeting up, checking out the NTR facility, and coming up with a plan for the install fest. I think we have lots of things to discuss before we jump into the install fest. Several issues to start with:

• Testing wireless connections for laptops. Do we have a WAP available?
• What kind of wireless encryption do we send them home with? None, WEP, WPA-PSK?
• How many people + PCs can fit in the target room?
• Do we have enough monitors, keyboards, mouse, power outlets?
• Will we charge a small fee to cover for pizza and drinks?
• Should we select a day that permits us to use both rooms?
• How do we advertise for the install fest?
• How do people sign up? I guess this is where our own web page could come in handy.
• What roles does each of us play?
• Do we have enough Ubuntu CDs?
• What version of Ubuntu do we start with?
• Should we use Mint Linux or some other flavor of Ubuntu?

The list goes on. Let's think of these first NTR visits as orientation meetings for the LoCo team members. It would be great if we could meet several times prior to the first install fest. Anyone have a problem with Saturdays for the LoCo team meetings? We could certainly arrange for a day during the week for you sys admins with odd hours.

To clarify, I'm strictly talking about orientation team meetings at this point. The install fest will most likely happen a few weeks after we get several team meetings under our belt.

-kevin

[kejava]

Hey Iamalex,

Sorry I couldn't give you a better demo of the thin client setup at NTR. I really meant to show you how it was using PXE to boot from the NIC. I also wanted to show you the various config files and the system output during boot-up. It's easy for me to get distracted during the NTR workshops!

-kevin

[lamalex]

I have an AP i can get. I can get as many as we need (and they're all running OpenWRT )
No encryption is going to be best, we'll just be downloading updates so nothing personal should be goig over it.
How many were there at the thing this weekend? we could fit a few more potentially in that one room, it'd be tight but how many are we expecting
Accept voluntary donations?
Both rooms would be good, but not a necessity. one room would be ideal, emphasize the community aspect.
fliers, word of mouth, everyone blog it, advertise here, irc, wiki, and i can throw the website together after I talk to Chris (my boss).
Website is probably a good way for signups, i'll make a gmail account they can email or a wiki page people can sign up at.
Install assistants? Information?
I would say definitely Feisty. It's very stable and has made major improvements from Edgy including the easy codecs : major for new users.
Personally I think we should stick with pure Ubuntu. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but pure is definitely better I think

[kejava]

I have an AP i can get. I can get as many as we need (and they're all running OpenWRT )

Wow, OpenWRT! You can't get much more l33t than that Yes, for initial testing no encryption should be sufficient. My only concern is when they get home and want to enable encryption. Should we show them how to configure WPA-PSK at the install fest? Perhaps it's too advanced of a topic? If we do go that path, we should have two routers: one for open connections and another for WPA-PSK. Sounds like you already have that covered.

How many were there at the thing this weekend?

I don't know but I think the number of tables is 10 or 11. Yes. I'm sure we could fit more in that room. If we had KVMs at each table, we could conceivably have 3 people at each table doing parallel installs. So my best guess is 30 to 35 people. Stan actually had that many people for one Workshop so it should be possible. Wonder if we can get that many KVMs? I have a mechanical one. Stan may have some.

Accept voluntary donations?

That's a tricky one. I'm all for voluntary donations. I suppose we'll need some kind of LoCo bank account + paypal.

Both rooms would be good, but not a necessity. one room would be ideal, emphasize the community aspect.

Yeah we can start with one room in mind. If there are a lot of people coming, we may want to split the group in half. Send the laptop users upstairs with the WAPs.

Website is probably a good way for signups, i'll make a gmail account they can email or a wiki page people can sign up at.

Great idea Just having a place were people can sign up would be a great start.

I would say definitely Feisty. It's very stable and has made major improvements from Edgy including the easy codecs : major for new users.

I've heard the wireless config has been cleaned up a lot too.

Personally I think we should stick with pure Ubuntu. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but pure is definitely better I think

Agreed. If these are mostly new users, all the different flavors may just get too confusing.

[andrewPCT]

I'd love to help with the install fest (or a second+ one). Only problem is that I won't be back in that area until May 16.

[jedijf]

1) Access Point - 1 netgear 1 linksys wireless router and a kvm switch

2) Donations - I like that idea - the 12 step approach works - donate whatever you can in a
basket - bucket - hat - whatever we can come up with on location.

3) Any sign up works - this forum is already here, this might be the most natural place.

4) 6.06 Long Term Support - I think that this is where we should start, because of the life
cycle of the release.

jedijf

[andrewPCT]

I'd recommend going with Ubuntu 7.04 (but still have 6.06 LTS on hand if needed/desired).