We held our second Idaho Linux Users IRC Meetup on July 21st with 5 in attendance, all from the Boise area. We did have about a 90 minute discussion, primarily centered on the planning the statewide event promoting OSS/Linux on Saturday Nov, 20th, 2010. Plans are to still shoot for four physical locations to have this event simultaneously. Those locations would be North Idaho (Moscow), South East Idaho (IF), Twin Falls and in the Boise Area. We discussed the agenda at some length, proposing three segments. The opening session would be Why Linux in educating potential Linux users as to why they would want to use Linux over some other operating system; the session would focus on ease of use, the "free" quality software that is available n Linux, and compatibility with Microsoft users. Some discussion focused on what distribution we would focus on and avoid starting a distribution war as to what is best. Clint believed that LinuxMint 9 was the best one for winning converts to Linux and another attendee came up with this link that lists LinuxMint as in the top 5 distro's for moving users to Linux. (http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2009010701835RVSW). Application focus would be OpenOffice, Firefox, Photo Management, Thunderbird/Email, and media. Clint mentioned that a very non-technical approach be taken, even avoiding terms like "chat" in a world of users that thing "instant messaging." The second session would encompass a short but powerful demonstrations of these applications. The concluding session would be a demonstration on installing Linux. All sessions would provide interactive question and answer time.
We also discussed how we would be promoting this event, use of the media, and possible fliers that could be distributed in the community as well as using libraries and educational institutions in helping get the word out.
Moving forward, more will be discussed at our August IRC meetup and hopefully we will have better representation from the other parts of the state on August Meetup.
We have 7 people signed up in the Idaho Linux Users Group on Hub Folk but we need everyone to register there and check for updates. Hub Folk is at http://www.hubfolk.com and the Idaho Linux Users is at http://www.hubfolk.com/pg/groups/328/idaho-linux-users. All are encouraged to sign up on Hub Folk and connect by joining the Idaho Linux Users Group. This is a social website and as a group, we can have discussions, post pictures, create blogs, keep a live calendar and easily email other members of the group.
Our next Idaho Linux Users IRC Meetup will be on August 25th at 7 PM on Freenode.net in #idaho-linux-users.