[sf-lug] quick report on saturday's Tech Fair

[Lx Rudis]

g'day luggers:

as usual, the St. Anthony's Tech Fair was a success, and they continue to support and celebrate our involvement in the Computer Lab.  we were mentioned several times during the volunteer introductions and imvho we are _very_ well thought of by this group!

BIG THANKS to Christian who came in at 0830 to help me set up our small demo station, and also stayed for the duration.  

we had several interesting  visitors [including one of the main guys behind Ubuntu California LoCo], got about four people to sign up for the SF-LUG list and we distributed 5 'UCLoCo' copies of Xubuntu to interested users.  

the overall feel of the day was relaxed - it was more like an SF-LUG meeting than problem solving - most of our guests were experienced Linux users, and the remainder were there to experience the ease of using Ubuntu - one user spent most of his visit using firefox to study paleontology sites,  but accepted an Xubuntu disc at the end of it.  our group discussion centered on fairly geeky stuff - virtualization using Xen and other systems came up several times.

as with last time, we were well fed, with nuts, fruit and pastry breakfast in the morning, pizza in the afternoon.

future plans:
i've been invited to start making a regular presence at St. Anthony's, and have volunteered to do two 4 hour on-sites per month.  right now i'm working out what those days will be, and i'll report back as soon as the date/times are confirmed - as with the tech fair, i'd love to see SF-LUGgers involved in this project. 

initially, i'll just be inventorying and maintaining our small fleet of Ubuntu machines - 9 complete systems.  eventually i hope to add a couple of 'older' machines with smaller distros.
 
ryan [St. Anthony's onsite Lab manager] and i will be setting up a couple of dual-boot machines for their drop-in computer lab, this will likely happen about 4 weeks from now.  we're still putting together details on how we'll run this test, but our intent is to eventually install Ubuntu on _all_ their machines down there, effectively making their entire fleet dual-boot.

ryan has reported to me that an increasing number of their clients are using Ubuntu and other distros.  it's his opinion that these people will make it a point to come in if they know another Linux person is on-site.  if this happens, we'll either establish a "St. Anthony's LUG" or announce a 'third monthly meeting' for SF-LUg.

more reports as things of interest occur.  if any of this interests _you_ and you have any ideas for this project, please drop me a line!   

lx