[sf-lug] sf-lug news update

[Christian Einfeldt]

Hi,

On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 4:46 PM, jim <jim at well.com> wrote:

>   if you have a little time and want to screw
> screws and get down with sheet metal, help ACCRC
> and/or christian einsfeldt rebuild computers.
> christian might welcome help with other problems
> he has at the KIPP school, though i'm just guessing.


Yeah, that's true.  There is lots and lots of work at our public middle
school project, and it really needs someone with greater sys admin knowledge
to be the lead, because I am sure that I am not doing as good a job as I
could if I could be just a gopher there, rather than a lead organizer, which
is the role that I have just sort of fallen into.  I have learned a lot
along the way, but I have probably blundered quite badly, too.

And just today I met with the music teacher, who is planning to increase her
use of the Edubuntu lab next year.  Plus, lots of the teachers are asking
for audio to be able to play across the network.  Drew Hess has been
gracious enough to volunteer to provide some real high level sys admin work
to make this happen, but he will need good support.  I can be a second pair
of hands for him, but I am guessing that this job will be quite big, and the
school is being forced to cut its budget by 10%, which means that it will
need to fundraise 50% of its budget next year, up from 40% this year.  They
have no money for technology, which is potentially a real advantage for us,
because it means that we have less competition from Microsoft-partnered
vendors.

On the other hand, the lack of funds also means that we, the SF-LUG
community (along with the other Bay Area LUGs) are going to need to do a lot
of work in getting YouTube-type video and audio to run across this network.

We have made lots and lots of progress at this school over the 4 years that
we have been supporting the school.  We are getting lots of eyeballs into
the Edubuntu lab, including several SF supervisors.  We have given boxes out
to students, and we now actually have a waiting list of students and orgs
that are waiting for Linux boxes!!  That is a really nice change for me from
the beginning of this project, when I found that it was hard to even give
away Linux boxes.  We are slowly but surely winning a brand-name-recognition
contest with Microsoft in our small little corner of the world.

I remember when I first started doing this work, and I still hadn't found
out about this list or the SVLUG list, and it seemed as if the few Tuxheads
that I knew were so alone and that we were isolated and not making much
headway.  Now it seems that we have newbies coming to us for GNU Linux
boxes, and that is a nice change.  We are now really at the point where the
main thing holding us back is not enough volunteers, which is a nice change
from the beginning, when we had more volunteers than interested newbies.

c u

-- 
Christian Einfeldt,
Producer, The Digital Tipping Point
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