Hello Alug...
I didn't think that there was a Linux users group in Suffolk until I stumbled across your web page. Hopefully the group is alive and well.
I see that you have meetings at the Milestone Beer House - when is your next meet? I'm guessing the 21st from your web page.
Anyway I could ramble on forever about what I use Linux for but it boils down to this: my missus uses Ubuntu Gutsy because she it does what she wants it to do (and the BBC finally got a beta out the door for iPlayer). I use Linux because it's easier to work with (haha, but seriously it's getting easier to work with) although I hanker after games. I randomly nuke my machine and put a new distro on there, run virtual machines and then remember I didn't back up all my data to that spare disk under my feet. Favourite distro: Ubuntu. Least favourite: Gentoo, although friends of mine swear by it I swear at it.
If there's anyone out there - please give me a shout back.
John.
On 13 Apr 09:55, John Herd wrote:
Hello Alug...
Hi-de-ho John!
I didn't think that there was a Linux users group in Suffolk until I stumbled across your web page. Hopefully the group is alive and well.
Well, alive, certainly...
I see that you have meetings at the Milestone Beer House - when is your next meet? I'm guessing the 21st from your web page.
Anyway I could ramble on forever about what I use Linux for but it boils down to this: my missus uses Ubuntu Gutsy because she it does what she wants it to do (and the BBC finally got a beta out the door for iPlayer).
Fair play. I'm waiting for the Wii iPlayer stuff ;)
I use Linux because it's easier to work with (haha, but seriously it's getting easier to work with) although I hanker after games. I randomly nuke my machine and put a new distro on there, run virtual machines and then remember I didn't back up all my data to that spare disk under my feet. Favourite distro: Ubuntu. Least favourite: Gentoo, although friends of mine swear by it I swear at it.
I work with, play with and generally use linux rather a lot more than windows, and have done for about 13 years... and for most of that I've found it a lot easier to work with than a windows box... these days I can't actually sit infront of a windows or OS X box for too long, and a linux box that I'm going to be using often will get my favourite window manager of the time installed fairly quickly (this is currently "awesome", which is quite good at doing what I'd expect and has a friendly config file to make it really do what I want!).
There's a lot of Ubuntu and Debian users on the list (I'm a Debian user, mostly because I need parts of Debian that are only in Ubuntu's universe/multiverse repositories quite often, and so it's much easier just to run the distro that those parts come from and not have to worry about the lack of security updates because they're covered in Debian :).
Gentoo appears to be the distro of choice for people that are control freaks but actually shouldn't be let near a compiler... Generally I have better things to do than sit and watch my OS recompile every few days because I can ;)
If there's anyone out there - please give me a shout back.
Shh, it's Sunday morning... less shouting.
On Sun, 2008-04-13 at 10:41 +0100, Brett Parker wrote:
On 13 Apr 09:55, John Herd wrote:
Hello Alug...
Hi-de-ho John!
I didn't think that there was a Linux users group in Suffolk until I stumbled across your web page. Hopefully the group is alive and well.
Well, alive, certainly...
Thanks for the reply Brett. Is there an active turnout of folks to meets or is the mailing list the main outlet?
I see that you have meetings at the Milestone Beer House - when is your next meet? I'm guessing the 21st from your web page.
Anyway I could ramble on forever about what I use Linux for but it boils down to this: my missus uses Ubuntu Gutsy because she it does what she wants it to do (and the BBC finally got a beta out the door for iPlayer).
Fair play. I'm waiting for the Wii iPlayer stuff ;)
I think the BBC's been surprised at how popular iPlayer has been judging by the number of complaints from ISP's about bandwidth...
I use Linux because it's easier to work with (haha, but seriously it's getting easier to work with) although I hanker after games. I randomly nuke my machine and put a new distro on there, run virtual machines and then remember I didn't back up all my data to that spare disk under my feet. Favourite distro: Ubuntu. Least favourite: Gentoo, although friends of mine swear by it I swear at it.
I work with, play with and generally use linux rather a lot more than windows, and have done for about 13 years... and for most of that I've found it a lot easier to work with than a windows box... these days I can't actually sit infront of a windows or OS X box for too long, and a linux box that I'm going to be using often will get my favourite window manager of the time installed fairly quickly (this is currently "awesome", which is quite good at doing what I'd expect and has a friendly config file to make it really do what I want!).
There's a lot of Ubuntu and Debian users on the list (I'm a Debian user, mostly because I need parts of Debian that are only in Ubuntu's universe/multiverse repositories quite often, and so it's much easier just to run the distro that those parts come from and not have to worry about the lack of security updates because they're covered in Debian :).
If there are any lurking Debian/Ubuntu users around please get in touch: I'm always happy to chat, although I can't say I'm the most technical of users out there. I have to say that I've stuck with GNOME because it's there.
Gentoo appears to be the distro of choice for people that are control freaks but actually shouldn't be let near a compiler... Generally I have better things to do than sit and watch my OS recompile every few days because I can ;)
All the care and feeding does get in the way with the playing with the shiny toys.
If there's anyone out there - please give me a shout back.
Shh, it's Sunday morning... less shouting.
John,
Personally I have not been to the meets, as I am fairly new to the ALUG family, but there is a very healthy following in our IRC channel. It can be found on the OFTC network, and the room is #alug. Anyone would gladly help you get connected, if needs be.
Steve
John Herd wrote:
On Sun, 2008-04-13 at 10:41 +0100, Brett Parker wrote:
On 13 Apr 09:55, John Herd wrote:
Hello Alug...
Hi-de-ho John!
I didn't think that there was a Linux users group in Suffolk until I stumbled across your web page. Hopefully the group is alive and well.
Well, alive, certainly...
Thanks for the reply Brett. Is there an active turnout of folks to meets or is the mailing list the main outlet?
I see that you have meetings at the Milestone Beer House - when is your next meet? I'm guessing the 21st from your web page.
Anyway I could ramble on forever about what I use Linux for but it boils down to this: my missus uses Ubuntu Gutsy because she it does what she wants it to do (and the BBC finally got a beta out the door for iPlayer).
Fair play. I'm waiting for the Wii iPlayer stuff ;)
I think the BBC's been surprised at how popular iPlayer has been judging by the number of complaints from ISP's about bandwidth...
I use Linux because it's easier to work with (haha, but seriously it's getting easier to work with) although I hanker after games. I randomly nuke my machine and put a new distro on there, run virtual machines and then remember I didn't back up all my data to that spare disk under my feet. Favourite distro: Ubuntu. Least favourite: Gentoo, although friends of mine swear by it I swear at it.
I work with, play with and generally use linux rather a lot more than windows, and have done for about 13 years... and for most of that I've found it a lot easier to work with than a windows box... these days I can't actually sit infront of a windows or OS X box for too long, and a linux box that I'm going to be using often will get my favourite window manager of the time installed fairly quickly (this is currently "awesome", which is quite good at doing what I'd expect and has a friendly config file to make it really do what I want!).
There's a lot of Ubuntu and Debian users on the list (I'm a Debian user, mostly because I need parts of Debian that are only in Ubuntu's universe/multiverse repositories quite often, and so it's much easier just to run the distro that those parts come from and not have to worry about the lack of security updates because they're covered in Debian :).
If there are any lurking Debian/Ubuntu users around please get in touch: I'm always happy to chat, although I can't say I'm the most technical of users out there. I have to say that I've stuck with GNOME because it's there.
Gentoo appears to be the distro of choice for people that are control freaks but actually shouldn't be let near a compiler... Generally I have better things to do than sit and watch my OS recompile every few days because I can ;)
All the care and feeding does get in the way with the playing with the shiny toys.
If there's anyone out there - please give me a shout back.
Shh, it's Sunday morning... less shouting.
main@lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!
I didn't think that there was a Linux users group in Suffolk until I stumbled across your web page. Hopefully the group is alive and well.
Well, alive, certainly...
Though, not necessarily early on a Sunday morning. ;)
Thanks for the reply Brett. Is there an active turnout of folks to meets or is the mailing list the main outlet?
There are two sets of meets - Ipswich and Norwich. I can't comment on the latter (tho they've been going so long, one assumes they're numbers are healthy!). The Ipswich meets were started up regularly again, a little over a year ago. Numbers vary, but you can get an idea of them and what we get up to by looking at the Ipswich meeting notes on the wiki. On top of that, the mailing list gets a lot of action and there's usually quite a few ppl in the IRC channel. Info on all that stuff is on the website.
I see that you have meetings at the Milestone Beer House - when is your next meet? I'm guessing the 21st from your web page.
That ain't a guess. It's clearly stated. :) I'll be sending out a reminder email on Tuesday, assuming I don't forget!
I think the BBC's been surprised at how popular iPlayer has been judging by the number of complaints from ISP's about bandwidth...
I don't think so - they just think it's the ISPs problem, not theirs. The Register has some interesting commentary on the subject. Personally, I blame the marketeers - unlimited broadband doesn't exist and if they hadn't sold it as such, ppl would pay for what they actually use ...
I use Linux because it's easier to work with (haha, but seriously it's getting easier to work with) although I hanker after games.
We've covered games-playing under Linux off and on, but the main round-up was in November last year. Check the meeting notes for a list of stuff we had running in the pub ...
If there are any lurking Debian/Ubuntu users around please get in touch: I'm always happy to chat, although I can't say I'm the most technical of users out there. I have to say that I've stuck with GNOME because it's there.
Debian user here ... but I was Kubuntu before that. Tend to be a KDE person usually, tho. There's plenty of variety at the Ipswich meets including Gentoo users. :)
Hope to see you a week on Monday - the more the merrier. Annoyingly, there's a new regular meeting of poker players every Monday @ 19:30, which moved us from our usual collection of tables. If they become a pain, we'll have to discuss changing venues/nights and/or times.
Peter.
On Sun, 2008-04-13 at 12:04 +0100, samwise wrote:
I didn't think that there was a Linux users group in Suffolk until I stumbled across your web page. Hopefully the group is alive and well.
Well, alive, certainly...
Though, not necessarily early on a Sunday morning. ;)
I was up early this morning: won't do that again in a hurry.
Thanks for the reply Brett. Is there an active turnout of folks to meets or is the mailing list the main outlet?
There are two sets of meets - Ipswich and Norwich. I can't comment on the latter (tho they've been going so long, one assumes they're numbers are healthy!). The Ipswich meets were started up regularly again, a little over a year ago. Numbers vary, but you can get an idea of them and what we get up to by looking at the Ipswich meeting notes on the wiki. On top of that, the mailing list gets a lot of action and there's usually quite a few ppl in the IRC channel. Info on all that stuff is on the website.
I fired up pigin and had a peek at #ALUG, thanks for the info. When I've got more time I shall log on and actually say something.
I see that you have meetings at the Milestone Beer House - when is your next meet? I'm guessing the 21st from your web page.
That ain't a guess. It's clearly stated. :) I'll be sending out a reminder email on Tuesday, assuming I don't forget!
One day I might remember to trip over and say hi :-P
I think the BBC's been surprised at how popular iPlayer has been judging by the number of complaints from ISP's about bandwidth...
I don't think so - they just think it's the ISPs problem, not theirs. The Register has some interesting commentary on the subject. Personally, I blame the marketeers - unlimited broadband doesn't exist and if they hadn't sold it as such, ppl would pay for what they actually use ...
I use Linux because it's easier to work with (haha, but seriously it's getting easier to work with) although I hanker after games.
We've covered games-playing under Linux off and on, but the main round-up was in November last year. Check the meeting notes for a list of stuff we had running in the pub ...
I had a quick check through the meeting notes and got the games section. I've had quite a blast with Quake 4 a few months ago.
If there are any lurking Debian/Ubuntu users around please get in touch: I'm always happy to chat, although I can't say I'm the most technical of users out there. I have to say that I've stuck with GNOME because it's there.
Debian user here ... but I was Kubuntu before that. Tend to be a KDE person usually, tho. There's plenty of variety at the Ipswich meets including Gentoo users. :)
Hope to see you a week on Monday - the more the merrier. Annoyingly, there's a new regular meeting of poker players every Monday @ 19:30, which moved us from our usual collection of tables. If they become a pain, we'll have to discuss changing venues/nights and/or times.
Peter.
One of these days I will try Debian seeing as I've been running Ubuntu for long enough.
main@lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!
Hello John, Welcome to the list
On Sun, 2008-04-13 at 11:28 +0100, John Herd wrote:
Thanks for the reply Brett. Is there an active turnout of folks to meets or is the mailing list the main outlet?
Turnout varies, not huge as the meetings are split between Norwich and Ipswich, The Ipswich meet usually hovers around 5-6 people (they are very organised and take notes and everything, you should find their notes on www.alug.org.uk to get an idea of what they do)
Norwich meets are generally slightly larger, but the Norwich meet has been longer established.
Also we have a kit meet every so often, generally they have a higher turnout, often someone will demonstrate something they have been playing with at those, other people bring stuff they have broken in the hope that a tamed geek will fix it.
The Ipswich meets sometimes have a tutorial/bring and tell session, subjects like Mastering the Gimp, Virtualisation options, Legacy Game emulation and Film editing/DVD production have been covered in the past.
The Norwich meets are a bit more free-form, with discussion often staying on technical subjects but sometimes drifting to a gadget someone brought with them and in the example of the one just gone a two sided rant by me and Adam about customers in the service industry :)
I think the BBC's been surprised at how popular iPlayer has been judging by the number of complaints from ISP's about bandwidth...
I think moving forward we are going to see more of that, when I first got broadband it was hard to find content that actually needed the bandwidth (piracy aside). Now with the on demand services cropping up as well as things like youtube etc average people are actually making use of their connection.
Although the whole ISP's asking for kickback from the beeb to supplement their service costs is a slippery slope. As a licence fee payer I would strongly object to some of my fee going to ISP's that have oversubscribed their systems, even more so when it is for a system to which I have limited access because the BBC won't release a linux client.
There was a broadband provider price war and IMO many providers are selling their services at a price that is unsustainable if people actually start using it.
If there are any lurking Debian/Ubuntu users around please get in touch: I'm always happy to chat, although I can't say I'm the most technical of users out there. I have to say that I've stuck with GNOME because it's there.
Ubuntu here, there are also a lot of Ubuntu and Debian users on IRC, Ignore the bit about the IRC meetings on Monday evening, in reality it makes no difference what time/day you are on there, generally it is active from 9AM-1AM. Generally IRC is a extension of the Social meets, Discussion will frequently drift away from Linux/OSS more that it would with the list. http://www.alug.org.uk/wiki/moin.cgi/IRC
On Sun, 2008-04-13 at 12:43 +0100, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Hello John, Welcome to the list
On Sun, 2008-04-13 at 11:28 +0100, John Herd wrote:
A. > Thanks for the reply Brett. Is there an active turnout of folks to meets
or is the mailing list the main outlet?
Turnout varies, not huge as the meetings are split between Norwich and Ipswich, The Ipswich meet usually hovers around 5-6 people (they are very organised and take notes and everything, you should find their notes on www.alug.org.uk to get an idea of what they do)
Norwich meets are generally slightly larger, but the Norwich meet has been longer established.
Also we have a kit meet every so often, generally they have a higher turnout, often someone will demonstrate something they have been playing with at those, other people bring stuff they have broken in the hope that a tamed geek will fix it.
The Ipswich meets sometimes have a tutorial/bring and tell session, subjects like Mastering the Gimp, Virtualisation options, Legacy Game emulation and Film editing/DVD production have been covered in the past.
The Norwich meets are a bit more free-form, with discussion often staying on technical subjects but sometimes drifting to a gadget someone brought with them and in the example of the one just gone a two sided rant by me and Adam about customers in the service industry :)
Thanks for the answer, both sound pretty good.
I think the BBC's been surprised at how popular iPlayer has been judging by the number of complaints from ISP's about bandwidth...
I think moving forward we are going to see more of that, when I first got broadband it was hard to find content that actually needed the bandwidth (piracy aside). Now with the on demand services cropping up as well as things like youtube etc average people are actually making use of their connection.
Although the whole ISP's asking for kickback from the beeb to supplement their service costs is a slippery slope. As a licence fee payer I would strongly object to some of my fee going to ISP's that have oversubscribed their systems, even more so when it is for a system to which I have limited access because the BBC won't release a linux client.
There was a broadband provider price war and IMO many providers are selling their services at a price that is unsustainable if people actually start using it.
The demand for payment is interesting as it's the likes of the beeb and You Tube that generate the interest in broadband in the first place. I suspect though that the super cheap broadband has to end when the market finally consolidates into the two or perhaps three players with deep enough pockets to survive long term at which point one wonders if they'll cook up a cartel....
If there are any lurking Debian/Ubuntu users around please get in touch: I'm always happy to chat, although I can't say I'm the most technical of users out there. I have to say that I've stuck with GNOME because it's there.
Ubuntu here, there are also a lot of Ubuntu and Debian users on IRC, Ignore the bit about the IRC meetings on Monday evening, in reality it makes no difference what time/day you are on there, generally it is active from 9AM-1AM. Generally IRC is a extension of the Social meets, Discussion will frequently drift away from Linux/OSS more that it would with the list. http://www.alug.org.uk/wiki/moin.cgi/IRC
main@lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!
On 13/04/2008, Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk wrote:
Although the whole ISP's asking for kickback from the beeb to supplement their service costs is a slippery slope. As a licence fee payer I would strongly object to some of my fee going to ISP's that have oversubscribed their systems, even more so when it is for a system to which I have limited access because the BBC won't release a linux client.
And yet you presumably have no problem with the BBC paying Eutelsat or the terrestrial equivalent to transmit programs.
There was a broadband provider price war and IMO many providers are selling their services at a price that is unsustainable if people actually start using it.
We're getting well off topic, here, but is there perhaps a case for a publicly funded 'base' service, for say SD PSB channels, and an individual funded services (via the ISP) for, e.g. multi-channel or HD channels.
Greg
On Mon, 2008-04-14 at 00:27 +0100, Greg Thomas wrote:
On 13/04/2008, Wayne Stallwood ALUGlist@digimatic.co.uk wrote:
Although the whole ISP's asking for kickback from the beeb to supplement their service costs is a slippery slope. As a licence fee payer I would strongly object to some of my fee going to ISP's that have oversubscribed their systems, even more so when it is for a system to which I have limited access because the BBC won't release a linux client.
And yet you presumably have no problem with the BBC paying Eutelsat or the terrestrial equivalent to transmit programs.
That's different though I think. The BBC are already paying to host the content, run the infrastructure etc..licence money is already going into the project and I have no problem with that. What I object to is them being forced to pay what is essentially the other half of the peering just because their content happens to be popular.
John had a good point, without content domestic broadband would be pretty worthless. Yet demands for payment made by ISP's just because your content is popular/bandwidth intensive is a huge step against net neutrality because presumably, if you simply refuse to pay then access to your content will be bandwidth limited. In conjunction with recent comments made by the CEO of Virgin Media it looks like Net Neutrality is most certainly dying if not already dead. Forget DRM etc, this IMO is currently the biggest threat to freedom on the Internet.
There was a broadband provider price war and IMO many providers are selling their services at a price that is unsustainable if people actually start using it.
We're getting well off topic, here, but is there perhaps a case for a publicly funded 'base' service, for say SD PSB channels, and an individual funded services (via the ISP) for, e.g. multi-channel or HD channels.
No that is still broken, Internet access should be neutral. Ok so with traffic shaping done by a lot of ISP's that hasn't technically been true for some time, but it is not generally discriminatory to a specific content provider, just a specific protocol.
If the BBC want to offer an HD service and then charge extra for access to it then fine but nowhere in this should the ISP of the consumer be involved.
Since the mass availability of Broadband in this country we have gone from-
It's unlimited and always on to It's unlimited and always on (within our fair usage terms) to Ok so actually it is capped
and now it is being proposed that as well as being capped, if we all go to a particular popular content provider even whilst presumably staying within our usage cap then that provider is going to have to pay our ISP as well as for their own hosting, i.e the ISP's half of whatever peering arrangements are in place.
If the price ISP's are charging consumers doesn't stack then they need to raise the prices whist still offering a neutral connection. Otherwise not only will the service become discriminatory but also it will be impossible to compare ISP's service. For example whilst ISP A may be offering the same overall connection speed as ISP B, ISP A may be limiting access to one of your favourite sites whilst ISP B has forged a deal with said site and has no such restriction.
Hello John.
Welcome to the fold. I wont be there on Monday - something about daughters 17th and being at Centerparcs! But have a good time of you remember to get there.
Keith
I'm going to try to do my best to remember.
On Mon, 2008-04-14 at 09:25 +0100, keith.jamieson@bt.com wrote:
Hello John.
Welcome to the fold. I wont be there on Monday - something about daughters 17th and being at Centerparcs! But have a good time of you remember to get there.
Keith
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