Welcome to the Ubuntu NZ LoCo list

[Craig Box]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for subscribing to the mailing list.  I'd like to start by
introducing myself and telling you about my motivation for being
involved, and then encourage everyone to introduce themselves also.

History of Ubuntu NZ
--------------------

A LoCo team was originally formed for the lower North Island in May,
which was changed soon after to be an all-NZ-encompassing team.  Other
than a couple of interested people joining the IRC channel, nothing
happened after the initial curiosity period, and for several unfortunate
reasons, planned resources did not become available.

With Jono Bacon's recent appointment as Canonical's community manager
for Ubuntu, one of his goals is "ensuring LoCo teams kick arse" [1]. To
that end, he is working on a program where more active LoCo teams mentor
ones that have floundered [2].  There are several ubuntu-au members
lurking on this list and on IRC to help us out if we need.  I
volunteered to help kick-re-start activity in NZ and demonstrate that
once we put our mind to something we're a proactive, self starting
bunch!

My personal history with Linux
------------------------------

I was a BBS sysop in the mid-late 90s and, as I'm sure many other people
on this list can attest to, started using Linux at about the time that
the BBS community was dying off.  I loved the camaraderie and community
in the BBS scene and enjoy involvement in this aspect of the Linux world
most.

My first distro was Red Hat 6.2; I started running Debian as a
gateway/server distribution soon afterwards, which was probably Potato.
I never liked running Debian on the desktop, as it was always a few
versions of eye-candy behind Red Hat; I tried Gentoo for a while, but I
ate a hard drive installing it (dev/hdb, not dev/hda, Craig!) and it
seemed far too much effort required for the reward I got from it. When
Fedora was released I started using it as a desktop Linux variant at
home. However, I much preferred the structure, repositories and methods
of Debian.

I finished university and started working in 2002, for an IT services
company in Hamilton.  One of the things we do for our clients is a Linux
firewall, which was initially purchased from a partner and ran RH7.x.  I
took development of that in-house, built an automatic installation CD,
and replaced the distribution on all the machines with Debian Woody.  At
around the same time I became the founding secretary of Waikato Linux
Users Group (Inc), a position I still hold today.

I follow the GNOME project closely, and was interested to hear rumours
of a project with 'no-name-yet', designed to bring Debian up to date
with GNOME releases. When the Warty preview was released, I downloaded
it at work, and was amazed with the "just works" with both our Exchange
server and network printer.  It wasn't long till I found myself
replacing my Fedora installation!  "Ubuntu fever" quickly spread through
WLUG, both due to the community and the technical excellent and was the
distribution of choice for our 2005 installfest.

Tired of backporting and waiting for Sarge, I ended up replacing our
firewall network with Ubuntu Hoary (now Dapper), and now maintain Ubuntu
as a server OS on both firewall/router/filter machines and hosting
servers.

I investigated the possibility of starting a "Linux AU"-esque body in NZ
last year, and joined the NZOSS council with the goal of promoting
interaction between user, community and business groups.  I also
organised WLUG's Software Freedom Day event, which was well attended,
and gave away ~150 Ubuntu CDs.

I have a tech-diary-blog at http://craig.dubculture.co.nz/blog.

(Please don't feel like your introductions, should you choose to make
one, have to be equally longwinded :)


The way forward
---------------

As an example, the Australian Team have a number of projects going:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AustralianTeam/Projects

NZ and AU have a very different population density/makeup etc, so I
wouldn't suggest that everything they do will work here.  One idea I
have to get things started - I know John McPherson has a script that
customizes an Ubuntu install for NZ (downloads OO.o dicts etc) so I will
grab that from him and get it up on the wiki, and we can start a "NZ
customization for Ubuntu" page.  Other than that, most of the general
support is covered well by the LUGs and NZLUG, so please have a think
about what we might do as a meta-group to support and promote Ubuntu in
NZ.


Regards
Craig


[1] http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=757 - Jono's original post about LoCos
[2] http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=770 - introducing LoCo mentoring