Ubuntu Toronto Meeting Processes

[Evan Leibovitch]

Dave Sullivan wrote:
> Thanks for your response, Frank, this is exactly the kind of thing I was trying to get from the list, and hence why I am trying to address
> the issue. As I mentioned last night, we started in September We're still in the "just getting started" stage I believe, and as such
> things are very trial-and-error right now. I apologize that you felt disappointed, and I hope we can change that for future meetings.
>   
As always, folks are welcome to attend their local LUGs to see other
perspectives on how new users are welcomed. In Toronto there are two
different groups; the techie one at UofT (2nd Tuesday of the month) can
be intimidating for newcomers but the NewTLUG meetings (held at IBM and
Seneca College, 4th Tuesday of the month) are specifically designed with
a no-such-thing-as-a-dumb-question format, lots of time for wide-open
Q&A and regular segments such as "command line 101".

Recent TLUG and NewTLUG meetings have featured
- a tour of the new features in OpenOffice 2.1
- what LDAP is and how to implement it
- a tutorial on the Unison file-synchronization tool
- explanation of shell wildcards
- discussions on the pros and cons of proprietary video drivers
- introduction to (and reasons to use) the Logical Volume Manager
- explanation of the concept of virtualization -- why would one use it
and how?

There is a lot of Linux expertise out there, and Ubuntu folks may
actually be able to learn something from Red Hat, Mepis, PCLinuxOS,
Mandriva and even Novell Linux users. It's important to remember that
what unites Ubuntu users with the rest of the open source community is
far greater than what separates them. Why Ubuntu gatherings aren't
simply SIGs of larger, more-general local open source groups is yet to
be understood.

BTW, the way I read Frank's reply was that the problem was one of
personality rather than process. The best policies in the world can't
make a newcomer feel comfortable if people aren't welcoming.

- Evan