New thread! AR Loco Revitalization!

[Drate]

My name is Dustin and I am in Little Rock these days.

I would love to see the Arkansas LoCo team function as a TEAM on something. Why don't we pool our skills and interests and see if we can manage a functional project.

I'm sure we all have jobs to deal with but I for one would love to the opportunity to volunteer my effort toward a good (albeit geeky) cause! It would give me something to look forward to and take real ownership in, rather than the corporate grind!

My skills are:

Network Engineering
PHP/MySQL
C++ (moderate, getting better)
Talking to random folk. (That's a skill right?)

[Niedzwiedz]

My name is Dustin and I am in Little Rock these days.
My skills are:
Network Engineering
PHP/MySQL
C++ (moderate, getting better)
Talking to random folk. (That's a skill right?)

I sorta condense my quotes.

I just North of you. Been here off/on most of my life and lived from North Carolina to California. So, talking to random folk probably my best skill.

I started with Electronics and Computers back in 1980's. Back then we built; Clones, if anyone familiar with the term.
Being a Linux user in Arkansas has been a challenge, most people are still learning winders and that where I still work mostly. I have been nurturing some people into Linux, by showing them how that $5 desktop in a yard sale can at least get them on the Internet and maybe an IM or how adding $100 to it make it a top of the line computer. So, Linux gaining more interests as people see what been holding them back is winders. True, for gamers, the hook was set, but, wine seem to be setting some back into catch and release program.
More people are finding other capabilities to computers besides games and this seems a good time for Linux. Open source from Music to Education are the cornucopia of Linux users. More people are working from their homes, and again, Linux can provide an easy way into this new workforce. No longer should a person say they can not afford the computer, when people are giving them away, like VCRs, and Linux can make the freebie very capable of doing the job! So, this where I am at in convincing people Linux is not just for programmers, it for people wanting to pursue, education, work, community and the list goes on.
Sports in Arkansas has always been interesting, any State that can make gambling illegal for decades and yet have a Horse and Dog track where people make bets, has to be sports oriented, we love to play the game and I hope we still love them Hogs. Wooooo! Pig! Soooie! Arkansas Razorbacks!

I forgot to add, not sure of a project, but, it sound like fun, I did download the 11.04 and I may have an HDD to put in my Dell D610, I guess it have the requirements to run the Natty Narwhal, but, not sure I can make any commitment for the release Whamba Jamba!

[freeflyer57]

I have been nurturing some people into Linux, by showing them how that $5 desktop in a yard sale can at least get them on the Internet and maybe an IM or how adding $100 to it make it a top of the line computer.

So true!

[Drate]

Alright, anybody else? I'm not real picky about what we get started on at first. An Ubuntu "papercut", bug picking, spread the message event. For all I care we can simply volunteer at habitat for Humanity whilst wearing Ubuntu T-Shirts!

We could develop some useful application if we want. I'm open to suggestion. But I intend to hang out here in this forum and wait for passer's by and newcomers. I would be ecstatic to see a bit more of a buzz start up in our LoCo Team forum.

[r2d2rogers]

Well, I made the move back to Arkansas, and I'm still using Ubuntu... so I guess I'm in. There is a semi-regular chat night on the team IRC channel on irc.freenode.net #ubuntu-us-ar on Tuesday nights at 9:30pm. I'll try to be active in the channel tomorrow, if I have internet at the house we've just rented.

-Rob

[Windwalker51]

I am Windwalker. I am from the Missouri/Arkansas Ozarks and I am the contact person for the Missouri Ubuntu LoCo Team and I just thought I would stop by and invite you to our team meetings on Freenode IRC channel ubuntu-missouri every Wednesday night at 7pm.
If you get the chance stop in and say hello.
Windwalker

[maroism]

Hey All;

Is there any active User Group or LoCo group up here in the Northwest corner of Arkansas? Several years ago I was a member of a Perl UG that would meet regularly and I was thinking a group that met regularly to discuss not only Ubuntu but PHP, Apache, and MySQL would be useful for the many professionals up in this corner of the state. I'm a software developer/accountant at the largest protein company in the US and the home of the largest retailer in the world along with the largest transportation company in the US are based here. Any thoughts or information?

TIA, Mike

[StygianAgenda]

I'm located in Central Arkansas (Little Rock), and have been using Linux for 14 years (Ubuntu, particularly, for 7 years). I work as a Network Support Analyst, currently, and run a primarily Linux based lab from home where I do a wide range of technical tasks & jobs, such as system conversions & rebuilds, system repair, some hosting (email currently, and until very recently, web hosting).

I would love to coordinate with other local Linux users & sysadmins in any way that I can, provided it will help spread Ubuntu and/or other Linux systems. Over the past few years, I've converted systems to Ubuntu whenever I can talk someone into letting me, or often, I've thrown in an installation on the end of a freshly reloaded Windows PC, free of charge just to help the OS spread. Although I prefer to avoid pro bono work, I've been known to do the occasional conversion for free in cases where (a) the user provides unusual or challenging hardware, (b) the user is a close friend that I want to ween away from Microsoft's cancerware, or (c) in cases of charity causes. I'm also currently the lead Linux sysadmin at my work, having managed a small group of Linux servers for <agency omitted to avoid reprisal> for several years now.

My interest in the Arkansas LoCo is both personal & professional, as I would like to expand my professional Linux talents, yet my job has recently taken the stance that they plan to evolve our infrastructure into a purely Microsoft shop... and the whole idea of that goes against my personal goals, so inevitably I will have to part ways with them in the near future. But in the mean time, I'm still pretty entrenched here, where Linux is concerned anyway.

Anyway, before I digress, I'm interested in actively participating in AR-LoCo projects, provided that the projects are of like-minded goals. I can be reached via Facebook, under the same nickname that I use here.

[Tommy]

One thing that StygianAgenda posted in another thread (not hard to find since there are only two "active" threads in our team board lately.) Stygian wrote "One of my hobbies is installing Linux into anything that will run a kernel."

That sounds like the mission statement for "The Universal Operating System" ... AKA Debian! (Some folks may not realize it's NOT disloyal to Ubuntu to praise Debian -- Ubuntu is a "child" distro to Debian; without Debian and its ongoing infrastructure Ubuntu would not be what it has become.)

That statement prods me to write a little today. I came to Ubuntu in a circular way -- though I don't have any formal training I tried Slackware and then Red Hat maybe a dozen years ago, but once I tried Debian I was convinced of the superiority of apt ... then when Ubuntu Warty came out I tried it and posted a critical message somewhere and one of the principals at Canonical personally addressed my concerns, and I have been using it since.

One big difference nowadays is the hardware I'm running -- I tried Debian and Yellow Dog and then Ubuntu because they ran on my Apple "orphaned" PowerPC hardware... but a few years back I gave up trying to keep PPC patched enough to get any work done. My (now rarely booted) PowerBook G3 still has Ubuntu 6.06 as well as Mac OS 9, but I use a variety of commodity Intel hardware for my "real" work. I serve as the support person my family's Macs running Mac OS X. (I have never tried Ubuntu on my wife's iBook G4, even though there is STILL a community-supported version, if anyone is interested. Now that the G4 is completely orphaned by Apple I'm more tempted again.)

OH and if I have a "mission" it's to do as much as I can in my work using open source software. Nowadays that's pretty much everything, though I am sure I will be a pragmatist when necessary. (Just because I haven't used Microsoft Windows in years won't stop me from doing so tomorrow if I need to.)

Our local linux groups have had their fits and starts but I am heartened to see the recent activity here. I'm hoping I can be more active again soon. (At the very least I need to get my Launchpad Karma higher again.)

I'm in Conway, not far from downtown. Unfortunately the "Map Yourself" function in Launchpad has been removed so it's difficult to see how spread out we are, but for whatever reason our active participants ARE spread widely across the state.

If you are looking for "geeky" activities or groups near your location, there's no better resource than Tony's Arkansas Geek Central.

[Jimbo48]

Hi folks. Newest of the 'Newbee Clan' here. I live justa bit north of Mountain Home. I'll see ya inna bit...I gotta start on an apprently Steep learning curve. I installed Ubuntu 12.04 and it ATE my old Windows Vista OS.