Well, one thing I can confidently state is that LUGs in India are pretty active. I've been personally involved with the New Delhi LUG, and have had chances to see activities in the Bangalore LUG as well.
The first one is still a bunch of old school users - people who have been using Linux for a long time, as well as droves of new users who discover Linux everyday - have developed a camaraderie through all the meetings. This extends to more than just discussions and demos - the group has conducted a number of *events* spanning over a day or two with workshops, seminars and talks to make even larger numbers aware of Linux.. and if you do this in a city with more than 30 colleges which offer Computer Science as a major, you've got a serious number of potential LUGgers coming in. Not only the main LUG, but suburban LUGs too have sprung up under the umbrella of the mother LUG, so to speak - which offer localized help to both organizations and home users - an example being the Linux Access Project, which aimed at helping schools adopt Linux.
Bangalore on the other hand grew from something described above into a much more formal affair - attended by a large number of people who would come to attend talks and presentations decided over mailing lists, and they too organize one of the largest events in south asia - Linux Bangalore. Group these together with fledgling and established LUGs in half a dozen cities across India, and the growing exposure just can't be discounted.
Whats important here is that LUGs today propogate the concept of Open Source, and community based development, offering people a glimpse into projects they might be able to contribute to - and this goes much farther in helping the community, rather than teach a newbie all about Linux and solve teething problems - thats where our IRC channel on Freenode comes in - and I daresay, people in there are able to solve a lot of common problems, or atleast, refer people to channels related to whatever problem they've been facing.
IM(NS)HO, LUGs are still important - although not in the same way they were say, 10 years ago. Their functions and focus has changed, but in essence, they are still what they were initially visualized to be - a meeting place for people interested in discussing about (Linux, OSS and ) technology.
Usual rant about Tolkien and Clarke.
But are we seeing only Sci Fi type novels here? I thought a lot of people would've loved stuff like Robert Heinlein, and Philip K. Dick's books.
The moon is a harsh mistress, and Riverworld are amazing books..
And who in the world voted AGAINST the king of cyberpunk - Neuromancer?!
So, am I the *only* on on/. who even thought about the semantic web and the Web Ontology language (OWL) when this post was announced? I for one assumed this had something to do with RSS and OWL - in my opinion, a name with double entendre..
Vik
I had similar troubles on the Cyrix card (MediaGX on board) If I remember correctly.
But the reason I wanted to get it work under linux was because I saw it as a challenge - something on which windows would work (but only barely - this machine had 64 MB of RAM and shared VRAM) - could be replaced by a number of easy to use (and cool looking) window managers - IceWM and Fluxbox/Blackbox were lighter, and could run the same app types with lesser memory usage.
How did i resolve it? I went through the hardware specs of the card and motherboard, posted on to the XFree86 experts mailiing lists, got on to my local LUG lists, IRC channels and what not. Eventually, with the help of some people from all over the world (which was cool, considering I was in grade 8 or 9 at the time - 1997-98) I got a driver, and methods of how to change it to make X work.
After a month of effort, which taught me much more about computer systems than any particular class or course can, I got framebuffer X working on it. And usage apart, I now had bragging rights as to be one of the few people then who got it running. I put up a how to on my site, and hopefully helped a lot of others use it - I was answering emails over the next few months, till support was finally built into the new kernel.
Considering the the fact that I 'wasted' a month getting something to run, but doing it myself - thats what the basic reason is for people to switch over.
As for LaTeX above :
I pre installed everything *Tex* in FC3, and apt-get installed Kile. Hey presto. My total learning curve time for my first paper to come out, was less than 10 hours. On windows, certain classmates had to install a dozen utilities, before being able to isolate the right one.
Need I see more?!
But problems in P2P make it bad for distribution of software which is updated regularly. CVS updates? Document additions? PHP based, contributable and regularly updated content on the site itself is what is being looked at.
Just to bring to your notice, Electronic Voting was first (ever..) introduced in india, in 1984. Due to the omnipresent politicians, the technology was phased out after just once election. The mindset was that it wouldnt allow candidates to rig elections. duh:)
the election being referred to, btw, was a state election, not a national one.
If someone does make a small io chip for the intel platform, think of the possiblities! Wouldnt a normal PC be able to double up as a mac then? and if THAT happend, well..good luck steve!
sounds like a good idea..but considering the fact that most cell phone masts are way outside the normal areas where such monitoring activity needs to be done..is it really beneficial to justify spening millions on research?
guys, you have to admit that no matter what, s@m was one of the most engrossing games ever made by mr lucas and his "force" (forgive the pun) of people..
Slashdot Mirror
Whoops.
Looks like I messed up on the Formatting options tab up there.. Sigh, tab keys are hateful sometimes.
Well, one thing I can confidently state is that LUGs in India are pretty active. I've been personally involved with the New Delhi LUG, and have had chances to see activities in the Bangalore LUG as well. The first one is still a bunch of old school users - people who have been using Linux for a long time, as well as droves of new users who discover Linux everyday - have developed a camaraderie through all the meetings. This extends to more than just discussions and demos - the group has conducted a number of *events* spanning over a day or two with workshops, seminars and talks to make even larger numbers aware of Linux.. and if you do this in a city with more than 30 colleges which offer Computer Science as a major, you've got a serious number of potential LUGgers coming in. Not only the main LUG, but suburban LUGs too have sprung up under the umbrella of the mother LUG, so to speak - which offer localized help to both organizations and home users - an example being the Linux Access Project, which aimed at helping schools adopt Linux. Bangalore on the other hand grew from something described above into a much more formal affair - attended by a large number of people who would come to attend talks and presentations decided over mailing lists, and they too organize one of the largest events in south asia - Linux Bangalore. Group these together with fledgling and established LUGs in half a dozen cities across India, and the growing exposure just can't be discounted. Whats important here is that LUGs today propogate the concept of Open Source, and community based development, offering people a glimpse into projects they might be able to contribute to - and this goes much farther in helping the community, rather than teach a newbie all about Linux and solve teething problems - thats where our IRC channel on Freenode comes in - and I daresay, people in there are able to solve a lot of common problems, or atleast, refer people to channels related to whatever problem they've been facing. IM(NS)HO, LUGs are still important - although not in the same way they were say, 10 years ago. Their functions and focus has changed, but in essence, they are still what they were initially visualized to be - a meeting place for people interested in discussing about (Linux, OSS and ) technology.
Usual rant about Tolkien and Clarke. But are we seeing only Sci Fi type novels here? I thought a lot of people would've loved stuff like Robert Heinlein, and Philip K. Dick's books. The moon is a harsh mistress, and Riverworld are amazing books.. And who in the world voted AGAINST the king of cyberpunk - Neuromancer?!
So, am I the *only* on on /. who even thought about the semantic web and the Web Ontology language (OWL) when this post was announced? I for one assumed this had something to do with RSS and OWL - in my opinion, a name with double entendre..
Vik
I had similar troubles on the Cyrix card (MediaGX on board) If I remember correctly. But the reason I wanted to get it work under linux was because I saw it as a challenge - something on which windows would work (but only barely - this machine had 64 MB of RAM and shared VRAM) - could be replaced by a number of easy to use (and cool looking) window managers - IceWM and Fluxbox/Blackbox were lighter, and could run the same app types with lesser memory usage. How did i resolve it? I went through the hardware specs of the card and motherboard, posted on to the XFree86 experts mailiing lists, got on to my local LUG lists, IRC channels and what not. Eventually, with the help of some people from all over the world (which was cool, considering I was in grade 8 or 9 at the time - 1997-98) I got a driver, and methods of how to change it to make X work. After a month of effort, which taught me much more about computer systems than any particular class or course can, I got framebuffer X working on it. And usage apart, I now had bragging rights as to be one of the few people then who got it running. I put up a how to on my site, and hopefully helped a lot of others use it - I was answering emails over the next few months, till support was finally built into the new kernel. Considering the the fact that I 'wasted' a month getting something to run, but doing it myself - thats what the basic reason is for people to switch over. As for LaTeX above : I pre installed everything *Tex* in FC3, and apt-get installed Kile. Hey presto. My total learning curve time for my first paper to come out, was less than 10 hours. On windows, certain classmates had to install a dozen utilities, before being able to isolate the right one. Need I see more?!
Not a bad thought.
But problems in P2P make it bad for distribution of software which is updated regularly. CVS updates? Document additions? PHP based, contributable and regularly updated content on the site itself is what is being looked at.
Just to bring to your notice, Electronic Voting was first (ever..) introduced in india, in 1984. Due to the omnipresent politicians, the technology was phased out after just once election. The mindset was that it wouldnt allow candidates to rig elections. duh :)
the election being referred to, btw, was a state election, not a national one.
If someone does make a small io chip for the intel platform, think of the possiblities! Wouldnt a normal PC be able to double up as a mac then? and if THAT happend, well..good luck steve!
sounds like a good idea..but considering the fact that most cell phone masts are way outside the normal areas where such monitoring activity needs to be done..is it really beneficial to justify spening millions on research?
guys, you have to admit that no matter what, s@m was one of the most engrossing games ever made by mr lucas and his "force" (forgive the pun) of people..