The Ubuntu Georgia LoCo and ALE will be holding an Ubuntu 9.10 install fest at ITT-Tech Atlanta.

When:
Saturday, November 21st, 2009, 9am-5pm

Where:
ITT Tech
1745 Phoenix Blvd # 100
Atlanta, GA
(Map)
Enter the ITT Tech building at the north end, front doors on the east side are kept locked on the weekends.

For Atlanta Linux Fest 2009 and UbuCon Atlanta 2009, Mark was kind enough to sit down with us and announce Ubuntu 10.04: Lucid Lynx.

If you can’t see it, click here.

Watch the video on YouTube.

UbuCon @ Atlanta Linux Fest 2009

On and off the last few months, we have been thinking about having an UbuCon as part of Atlanta Linux Fest (ALF).We struggled with the notion that an UbuCon would make  ALF seem biased towards Ubuntu, which was not our intention. Even though the Georgia LoCo is doing most of the heavy lifting, we didn’t want to make it uncomfortable for other distributions to participate.

After lots of hemming and hawing, Amber Graner took charge and decided to run with UbuCon Atlanta. In hindsight, it should have been a no-brainer. Looking at the presentations, there will be lots of  speakers who are part of the Ubuntu community, and plenty of individuals from neighboring LoCos will be attending. Why not take the opportunity for various parts of the community to come together, learn, teach, share experiences, and most importantly, have fun?

UbuCon will be run like an unconference. On the day of ALF, there will be a whiteboard, where community members can sign up to lead a session on anything Ubuntu related. But if you already have an idea of what you want to talk about, sign up here.

Is Your Hardware Ready for Karmic?

Several members of the Ubuntu Kernel Team are going to be on hand to help determine if your hardware will work with the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 release. They will have custom built USB sticks that can be booted and used to run a test suite. This will not touch the hard disk and will let users know what of the new kernel/hardware features will work on their machines, like KMS.

Live Hack Session

Interested in learning how to hack drivers? The Kernel Team will be running a live hack session to show you how. Using a USB dongle that is a thermometer and a “shell” driver, users will be taken through writing the drivers, compiling it, and running it.

Hotels

If you are visiting Atlanta for this event, there is a block of hotel rooms being held ALF. To get the best rates, they should be booked by September 1st. To find out more, see here.

To find out more about Atlanta Linux Fest 2009, visit http://atlantalinuxfest.org.

With less than 2 months till Atlanta Linux Fest 2009, we are close to finalizing the list of talks.

There are two talks that I’d like to point out: Rikki Kite’s Her PR Problem/Tooting the Horns of Women in Open Source and Don McMorris’s Evergreen – the FOSS ILS behind GPLS. Rikki will be talking about positive steps women can take to promote themselves and the advantages of promoting the work of women. Evergreen is open source software that helps library users find materials, and helps libraries manage, catalog, and circulate those materials.

One of the things we are in the process of working out is having a mini PostgreSQL conference as part of ALF. Possibly 6 or 7 sessions devoted to PostgreSQL. Nothing is set in stone yet, but hopefully we will be able to pull it off.

Amber Graner was in town today, locking down hotel rates for ALF 2009 and 2010, and a potential Ubuntu User Conference. Amber is one of the reasons ALF will rock!

To find out more about Atlanta Linux Fest 2009, visit http://atlantalinuxfest.org.

To coincide with Software Freedom Day, Atlanta Linux Fest 2009 will be held on Saturday, September 19th 2009!

We have lots of exciting talks lined up this year! Paul Frields and David Nalley will be showing off the Fedora community, lots of Ubuntu representation, with Rick Clark (Server Team manager), Pete Graner (Kernel Team manager), Ken Vandine discussing the desktop, Richard Johnson covering KDE/Kubuntu, John Pugh doing virtualization, and Daniel Chen will be giving his vaunted PulseAudio talk.

Sure its called Atlanta Linux Fest, but we want to spread the love to all open source projects. Roger Wickes is a certified Blender trainer and will be talking…well, Blender; Tarus Balog, CEO of openNMS will discuss running an open source business; Josh Sweeney on the cool stuff you can do with SugarCRM; multi-site Drupal Management by Michael Haynes and David Tomaschik; Mark Hinkle on Zenoss; also, Michelle and Michael Hall will present our favorite distro for children, Qimo 4 Kids. Last but not least, Rikki Kite will present “Her PR Problem — Tooting the Horns of Women in Open Source.”

Registration for Atlanta Linux Fest 2009 is free (but required if you want to use the wifi!).

To keep with updates, follow http://twitter.com/atllinuxfest or http://identi.ca/atllinuxfest.

To find out more, visit http://atlantalinuxfest.org.

Funniest comment during Open Week so far comes from today’s Q+A session with Mark Shuttleworth:

17:24 jcastro [nixternal] jcastro: QUESTION: Do you think Kubuntu is a blue headed step child that every seems to think it is? If not, can you put the rumours to rest, with possibly a song or a lovely poem letting everyone know just how much you really love us over in the Kubuntu community?
17:24 sabdfl oh dea
17:24 sabdfl r
17:24 sabdfl this question makes me rather sad, because i don’t know what else i could do
17:25 sabdfl i worked out the other day that i personally spend more than $2m a year supporting Kubuntu and KDE
17:25 sabdfl and yet those communities think it’s cool to act unloved
17:25 sabdfl i think the Kubuntu community’s work is amazing, and they should be proud of it
17:25 sabdfl there’s no need to make out like it’s against the forces of corporate indifference
17:26 sabdfl when in fact I and many others bend a long way to make it possible
17:26 sabdfl that’s about enough on the subject
17:26 sabdfl next?

As usual, nixternal trying to cause a ruckus!

Who?
Ubuntu Georgia LoCo

What?
Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope Release Party

When?
Saturday, April 25, 2009 from 5:00 PM – 10:00 PM EST

Where?
Manuel’s Tavern
602 N. Highland Ave
Atlanta, GA 30307

View Larger Map

Bring your laptops and get ready to party like its 1999!

We went to the Georgia Aquarium this weekend, and I got some video. The aquarium is largest in the world in terms of square footage and total gallons. If you are ever in Atlanta, stop by, its pretty cool.

See the video here.

We had a good meeting yesterday. It was the first time in a few months. A few new folks showed up. Besides giving away stickers, we also gave away books related to OSS.

One interesting conversation we had was how to promote Ubuntu. Traditionally we have been holding install fests and release parties. We were asking people to come to us. The attendance depended heavily on how well we did marketing for the event. Its time to go out to where people need help. Community centers that have refurbished machines, help out non-profits that have old machines meant to given away to low-income families. Hopefully we’ll make progress on this front soon.

I’m wondering if any other LoCos have noticed a certain pattern. Last year, we would hold LoCo face to face meetings every month. Turnout would fluctuate from 3 people (yes, just 3) to 15 for no apparent reason. My gut reaction is that if the meetings occur every month, members tend to take them for granted and only come when its convenient for them. But when the meetings are held every couple of months, everyone looks forward to them and people make time for them.

Or am I just making up excuses?

We will hold the March face to face meeting Saturday March 21, 2009 at 2pm. We will be meeting at the Athens Pizza House in Decatur (1341 Clairmont Rd Decatur, GA 30033).

If you plan on attending, drop an email to jreagan1990 at gmail.com, so we know how big of a table to get.

One of the things that we would like to discuss is getting volunteers together to install Ubuntu on refurbished machines for low-income families in Savannah or part of various other similar projects.

If you are around the Atlanta area, there is a speaker opportunity to introduce Ubuntu to college students going into the IT field, check this out.