[sf-lug] Linux show demos (was: Linux podcasts)

[Asheesh Laroia]

On Mon, 25 Feb 2008, Rick Moen wrote:

> Then, have that information reflected in a DNS nameserver (which could 
> serve up fake TLD ".sflug", e.g., "station1.sflug", etc.).  You could 
> then have informational Web pages on the server, an NFS share or two, 
> and so on.

Avahi in the Free Software world allows you to do that automatically 
through multicast DNS.  If you enable a particular NSS handler, which is 
enabled by default in distros like Fedora and Ubuntu, computers will 
self-identify as $hostname.local.

Don't worry if you don't know what NSS is; all this is handled and on by 
default in modern distibutions.

It means that you don't need to keep track of MAC addresses or even IP 
addresses so long as your machines boot up with distinct hostnames.  FWIW, 
this technology is also enabled by default on Mac OS X.

> In general:  For gosh sakes, it's a _network-oriented_ operating system;
> how about showing off and using those capabilities, for a change?  LUGs
> that persist in treating it like a funny-looking substitute for
> MS-Windows will suffer having it perceived that way.  That Would Be Bad.

Golly gee whiz, I whole-heartedly agree.

-- Asheesh.

-- 
Indecision is the true basis for flexibility.