I went to the Philippine Linux Users Group (PLUG) quarterly technical seminar last Saturday, April 8, so I can get a feel of an event by the "opposite camp", as well as learn a new thing or two, who knows. There were around 40-50 people in attendance. I met a couple of acquaintances who happen to be some of the more active people in PLUG. I know one of the PLUG officers, as well as the head of the Ubuntu PH group.
Some observations/opinions about the event:
- The presentations were functional, technical, to the point. A number of presentors used black and white for slides. Black text on white background, that's it. The command-prompt ethos embodied in presentation slides.
- The seminar was a sampling of the entire Linux ecosystem, including infrastructure (some hacking tools), a distro (SLAX), development (PostgreSQL, Ruby on Rails), GPL 3.0, a generic entrepreneurial talk and some tips from a PR guy on how to promote OSS. I like this format, this brings a lot of different people together. Hopefully we can have MS Community events with this kind of variety in one sitting.
- Most people didn't ask questions. So it's the same everywhere.
- The place at Asia Pacific College is quite roomy, though commuting there will force you to walk a long distance. Still, a venue to consider, if just to one-up PLUG at their own turf. [:P]
- PLUG sells the event certificates, and it seems to be a primary source of income. They sell Tux keychains too.
About the Linux crowd:
- No, they don't bite. [:P] I didn't get lynched.
- I didn't get to talk to a lot, so wasn't able to catch the demographics of the crowd. My perception, from their reaction to the talks, is that a lot of them are relative newbies.
- They have their own "cool merchandise". If we have MS jackets, they have "Red Hat" red hats.
- Linux people have their pet distros, and they will bash the other distros, with varying degrees of animosity, ranging from light banter to mailing-list flames. The "in" distro right now apparently is Ubuntu, it used to be Knoppix some time back.
- Various Linux distros do have their corporate backers, so it's not like they're necesssarily handing out cheap CD-R's. The Ubuntu CD's I got had professional packaging. Apparently you can have them delivered for free.
- I got the impression that PLUG people use IRC a lot, and of course the PLUG mailing list. Most of the talk isn't even related to Linux (I can see a parallel with MS Forums here). However they post porn links there on occasion, so the MS community discussion is decidedly more tame.
I got to talk to Ealden, the head Ubuntu guy in the Philippines, and he told me a little about how the community here works, and how active participation is quantified. As I understand, contributions are quantified with points. There's a system that converts code contributions (like bug fixes) to points (galeng!) For the non-code contributions like writing articles, conducting talks, etc., one has to submitted URL's to an evaluation group. Testimonials from fellow community members are also considered.
And finally, a rant about the copy of Ubuntu they gave me.
I got 4 CD's, 2 for the x86 version and 2 for the 64-bit version. One CD is the Install CD, and the other is the Live CD (the one you boot from the CD not requiring an install). I tried the Live CD, and I ran into some experiences which have made me conclude that desktop Linux still has some way to go:
- I couldn't make any MP3 files or WMA files play, apparently the codecs weren't installed by default.
- My Windows partitions weren't mounted. Yes they were NTFS, but Linux does support NTFS nowadays -- reading, anyhow. The write functionality is in beta, though one PLUG member said that he tried to write to NTFS in Linux, and after that he couldn't access the NTFS partition anymore. Fair warning.
- I tried mounting a partition myself, but I had to be using the root account to do that. I happen to know the "su" command, but I didn't know the root password which was required. And it's not on the CD cover or anything. I know Linux people are very careful with the root account, but try explaining that to someone who just wants to access his Windows C:\ drive and is scratching his head about what the blood root password is.
- There were 2 brown wallpapers to choose from. Wow.
- The desktop theme was also brown. I tried to change the theme, but to apply it, you have to specify a save filename and location. Hmm, where to save, /usr, /bin, /etc, /dev...
- I wanted to connect to the Internet via dial-up connection, partly to post this rant, partly to Google to help me figure out solving any of the above. However the Networking applet had me choose from a dropdown with "/dev/modem", "/dev/ttsy1" (or similar), etc. I tried all of them, and I couldn't make it work, didn't get as far as the dial tone.
In fairness, the GUI was spiffy and intuitive enough, the sound was working, and my Flash drive was detected and auto-mounted. I know a bit about Linux and mounting drives, and wondered what would happen if I just pulled out the Flash drive without unmounting which I could do in Windows, but didn't dare try it. The games were fun because I happen to love the WEP games (Klotski!) I had an officemate try Ubuntu Live in the office and we were able to make LAN access work, and even got to use GAIM and connect via Remote Desktop to a Windows machine without a hitch. OpenOffice 2.0 worked and looked, well, very useful. But hey, you have that in Windows too.
So that's it for my venture into Linux Land. The PLUG-ers are most welcome to return the favor and gatecrash into MS events. [:)]