The message 20040603131452.GF17621@thebowery.co.uk from adam@thebowery.co.uk contains these words:
On Thu, Jun 03, 2004 at 12:58:24PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
After http://lists.alug.org.uk/main/2004-May/018849.html, Craig seemed in favour of meeting at the internet cafe, but hadn't checked the place. No-one else has any opinion?
I walked past the cafe yesterday and had a bit of a look through the window, personally I don't feel it would be a suitable venue for an evening meeting due to the following things.
Which café? The one in the market?
Beer :)
Is this meant to mean beer, or the lack of it?
Lack of availability of food Really comfy chairs (the city gate has extra comfy chairs imho) If everyone ends up sitting around browsing the web and not talking face to face then we could just sit at home and IRC for the same result really.
True. An idea is brewing....
Now I figure that part of the success of the Norwich evening meetings has been because there hasn't been much kit present, that there is beer and comfy chairs and a lack of internet access so all of us chat about things (not necessarily Linux) instead of being head down at a computer. Norwich Internet Cafe looks like a good place to go if you want to grab email or use the web etc. when out and about in Norwich but using it as an evening meeting venue didn't seem to be a viable alternative.
An internet café would mean I had to get another system of accessing the net.....
What do other people think? Personally I prefer meetings without kit now, after a couple of lug meetings when I have been moaned at after installing an unfamiliar version of Linux for someone when they wanted a specific distro installed,
Hmmm. I have an unfamiliar distro which I should like to play with - it's what you might call 'heritage' - Linux FT.
However, I should also like to learn to fly my Debian without having to refer to the handbook - on a CD (run on the Winbox), CD kindly provided by a kind listmember....
and then getting moaned at because the winmodem wouldn't work in Linux or the other time because I couldn't get the obscure sound card working.
Hmmm. I wouldn't countenance a Winmodem on *ANY* platform. Everything I have in any computer since my 386 was pensioned off (but still being used as a word-processor by someone else) is allegedly Linux-compatible.
I know that a lot of folk will have come to Linux without having had the notion at the backs of their minds for a long time, but anyone with enough sense to se the advantages of Linux should have enough savvy to know that a hell of a lot of hardware was only manufactured with Windows in mind.
(this isn't to say that I don't mind helping people out, but when they are rather rude and ungrateful that you have just spent 2 hours setting up a machine for them that if it was being billed for they would have had to pay me at least 50 quid for the pleasure you wonder if you can be bothered in future)
Humph! I'd better refrain from comment as I've just been sampling some of my homebrew....
Oh, and I have adsl again now, so if bandwidth encumbered people want distros (or other Linux related or Free Software) downloaded and burned to CD then let me know (preferably about a week) in advance of a Norwich evening meeting or a weekend meeting and I will see if I can sort you out (payment in beer tokens or giving me blank CDs in exchange would be nice but not necessary) or if you want a distro stuck in the post then I will do it "for cost" as I don't have an income right now (again contact me offlist).
It's amazing how kind offers like this are usually made by those who can't really afford to do so.
There's a rather pleasant pub in Norwich which has a fair amount of space and a really good selection of cask-conditioned beers. I hope to sink a pint or two of mild there tomorrow, so I'll ask if a Lugmeet could be contemplated.