meeting ideas

[Mark Szidik - MLC]

I have been thinking about some things for a while.  I finally decided
to post it to the group to get some feedback.

My goal in all of the discussion below is to get more people excited
about Linux and coming to the meetings.


I have noticed that a lot of our meeting topics lean towards the more
tech savvy people.  Although I think they are great and provide a
lot of insight, many newbies to GNU/Linux probably have a hard
time with the presentations. 

I have noticed that new faces will show-up for a meeting or two and then
disappear.  There are probably many factors contributing to this, but I
suspect that part of it is that the meeting format and topics are not
newbie friendly.

What do you think of a "newbie series" of presentations for those people
that are just getting started out with Linux and GNU software?  Think of
it as a follow-on to the install-fest.  

Here are some topics:  
 (they will all be short - under 1 hour, and intended to get a new
person heading in the right direction)
 
The GNU & Open Source philosophy and licensing issues

 Intro to Linux basics  - the shell, basic commands and tools, file
 locations, the *nix model (the everything is a file idea)

 Editors - vi and pico   (<duck>I dont do Emacs)

 The X window system
 
 File systems and partitions
 
 Networking basics - intro to Ethernet, IP and the ISO model, wire
 (I did this presentation a while ago, so I am ready to give it)


I am willing to do all of these presentations.  I just need to figure
out a way to incorporate it into our meeting format.  I think we dont
want these to be our main meeting topics because our techies will get
bored.  I am thinking that we could hold our normal meeting with a
normal topic, and I (or other volunteers) will go off for 45 minutes to
teach the newbie course and then we will all join-up at the end for
general discussion and Q & A like we do now.

Comments?



______________________________________________________________________
Mark Szidik
System Administrator           Ph: 517.694.4242 x17  Fax: 517.694.9303 
Michigan Library Consortium    http://www.mlc.lib.mi.us