Too Cool for Internet Explorer
Hibiscus Coast GNU/Linux Users Group

Today:

HBCLUG exists to support and promote the use of free software and GNU/Linux on the Hibiscus Coast.

Installfest: Saturday 2nd of November

A day of coffee, views, and GNU/Linux. Wether you want to install, are just curious, or someplace in between, this is your day to meet the geeks and gurus of the GNU/Linux world for free (as in beer) assistance or just a chat.

Speaking of which - we need more geeks. At least two people have expressed an interest in Linux on the Mac this year. I have no Mac experience (though I'll be boning up) so: calling all install-gurus!

Starting at 10am, at my place:
27 Duncansby Road
Stanmore Bay
Whangaparaoa

We'll be going until everyone leaves or 4pm, whichever is later. No booking required, just drop in. Bring nibbles, and a computer. If you have updates to do, I have broadband and wireless. Have fun.

Open Source Computing

The Fourth OSC Course: 30th of October

Is advertised for four weeks from the 30th of October. Stay tuned. Last term's course was cancelled due to lack of demand. You gotta register! The website lists it as "Linux and Open Source Computing".

Free Seminar: CANCELED

Too many people have signed on for the course - so show up to the course. I see no reason you cannot skip out on the fee if you only attend the one session. You can say, "Sorry, not for me. And there's this thing called the 'Fair Trading Act'." :)

Open Source Computing

Offers a crash course in Free Software using gnuLinux. Featuring revised course materials. You need to book seperately for the FREE Seminar which goes with this course.

Open Office Skills

Standard Productivity Suite skills for people who want to be free of Microsoft for good. You need to book seperately for this course too.

Covers Open-Office, Photo editing, the LaTex desktop publishing standard, and XHTML Web publishing.

You have to phone up about this one - it hasn't made it to the web page dispite telling them about it.

It may be that I'll have to do this one privately.

How to be a Linux Guru

Covering the geek skills for the home user. Covers topics from network administration to programming. Projects can include media boxes and cluster computing (depending on resources). See the dedicated page for details.

Intrepid Ibex

Intrepid Ibex Logo
Destined to be Ubuntu 8.10 come November - this edition is in development right now. Repos are up for people who want to test things - so far it looks great! Bear in mind that not all the dependancies have been worked out yet - so things will break.

Additional Video:

A main-page for Intrepid has not been created yet, and won't be until the official release. However, I am experimenting with the pre-releases on that Acer I've been ranting about. So - there is a set of notes, which will be slowly added to, here.

Since official artwork has not come out yet - here's four Intrepid wallpapers to keep you going. Click on the thumbnail to get a bigger picture. Right-click the bigger picture and select "save image as" to download.

[Wallpaper 1]
[Wallpaper 2]
Wallpaper 3
[Wallpaper 4

Windows is not "popular"

- it is "common" (like the cold.)

Ten Reasons Ditch Windows and Upgrade to Linux

To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it; to mess up your Windows box, you just have to work on it.

-- Scott Granneman, an author, entrepreneur and adjunct professor at Washington University in St. Louis

1. Freedom and Flexability
... GNU/Linux is licenced in such a way as to guarantee you your right to do what you want with your computor. You own it, after all. The software is written to empower you, as a computer user, to take charge of your machine. The ultimate goal is that you should enjoy the experience.

2. Functionality
... GNU/Linux distributions like Ubuntu, SLED, fedora, include, out of the box, more applications and IT solutions than anywhere else. Then there are many thousands of packaged additions and drop-in replacements in case the bundled set is not exactly to your taste. By comparison, each MS Windows release does less, out of the box, than the previous one but needs more and more expensive hardware to do it.

3. Reliability
... MS solutions need monthly (sometimes daily) updates just to be less insecure. You need a daily scandisk and defrag to avoid crashes. By comparison, GNU/Linux is written by the people who must ultimately support it, with the fussiest computer user in the world, the geek, as a major user-group. They don't get paid for tech support, so they are strongly motivated to write their programs to be reliable, first, and then add fancy features and interfaces. GNU/Linux solutions are renowned industry-wide for high reliability.

4. Productivity
... GNU/Linux gets out of your way so you can get on with your work and enjoy your computer. Major distributions include, out of the box, productivity and entertainment software that would cost thousands from MS. If you don't like the bundled apps, there's thousands more where they came from. Need something that has been overlooked, it's three mouse-clicks away.

5. Interoperability
... MS Windows was designed to be a single user computer isolated fram all others. Even Vista suffers as a result. GNU/Linux was designed from the start to be network aware. It is based in and informed by the same processes and technology that made the internet. The project itself involves very large scale interoperability - involving millions of active contributors globally. No other project can claim this, ever.

6. Aquisition Cost
... zero + your time. $50-$250 if you pay someone for the upgrade. Actual cost depends on your needs. There is no cost hump for aquisition to get over. It is even possible to order computers with GNU/Linux (Dell, hp, Lenovo) pre-installed.

7. Ownership Cost
... zero + your time. Want professional support? It's there, in a variety of flavours. Because of GNU/Linux' famous reliability, tech support callouts are much rarer.

8. Security
... since GNU/Linux has always been net aware, it has always been designed to be secure. You have to try hard to run malicious software - even harder for someone to trick you into doing it.

9. Vendor Lock-in
... dosn't exist in GNU/Linux. With MS products, you do not own the right to read your own work - MS do. If you use MS solutions end-to-end you are stuck it an MS world - if they decide to change a major component, you are stuck with buying the upgrade. In GNU/Linux, if a vendor starts giving you greif, you can move to another one - taking all your file formats and software with you.

10. MS Dosn't want you to.
MS is a billion dollar multinational with a 90+% stranglehold on the domestic computer market. But they are frightened of Linux. Presumably they know their stuff... what is it that they know, that you don't?