Highlights of the Meeting

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THIS DOCUMENT COMES TO YOU `AS IS', WITHOUT ANY DEGREE OF RELIABILTY, OR EMPHASIS ON CORRECTNESS. THE AUTHOR OF THIS DOCUMENT DID NOT TAKE DOWN NOTES, AND HAS TRIED TO REVERSE-ENGINEER THE MINUTES FROM HIS MEMORY (A HIGHLY BUGGY, PRE-ALPHA STUFF) ;-)

THE READER IS INVITED TO READ ON AT HIS/HER OWN RISK, AND *IS* ENCOURAGED TO CORRECT/MODIFY/IMPROVE THIS EFFORT !!!

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The ILUG-Calcutta had its second meeting today at 11:20 AM in Room # 47 of St. Xaviers College.  The `infinite patience' of the members was thoroughly tested out/benchmarked by Indra who choose to turn up 17 minutes behind schedule.  ;-)

We moved to Room # 47, and after helping ourselves to some tea 'n' snacks the meeting started in real earnest. With a total of 10 people turning up, we registered 250% increase in attendence over the initial meeting. Since so many new people were present, we all introduced ourselves along with brief mentions of our different encounters with Linux. We began with the question... why we were there in the first place (aims/objectives/intentions etc. etc)....

With exception of Ayan, the rest were found to have been irradiated with varying degrees of Linux exposure. Moloy was perhaps the oldest user present (he predates Kernel 1.0) and was the person to initiate Partha to Linux. While Partha, to his credit, happened to be the only person present, who has used only Linux on his home PC which he had bought some time back during the Middle Ages ;-)

A random listing of the Linux-wallahs present:

1. Partha Pratim Ghosh,
2. Rohit Shah,
3. Arup Kanjilal,
4. Darshan Shah,
5. Indranil Das Gupta,
6. Ayan Mallick,
7. Ranjan Roy,
8. Moloy Mitra,
9. Subhodeep Goswami,
10. Sanjay Kumar

The members represented at least 4 distros -- Slackware, Redhat, Debian, S.u.S.e.....

It was decided that from the next meeting onwards, we are going to have some focussed discussions/talks on different topics related to Linux or its use. The gurus (in specific areas) present have accented their support to this.... the possibility of inviting speakers from outside, to the meetings for giving the talks was also discussed, and generally agreed upon.

A small tug-of-war ensued over the choice of theme for the next meeting, whether it is should be CGI in general or PERL in particular. It ended in a bloodless coup for CGI :-) Arup and Moloy have been entrusted with the job of upgrading the knowledgebase of the members by delivering the CGI lectures.

Moloy was also requested to deliver a lecture on the topic of VSAT connectivity using Linux boxes (something which he has done for his office), but thats for later.

During the meeting, Dr. Ranjan Roy expressed his interest to have a feasiblity study for a project of CU (Calcutta University) regarding an implementation of web-based education delivary modules, and he plans to check out the capabilities of Linux as compared to proprietory, commercial products.

It was agreed by all that the need-of-the-hour is keep on evangalising people about Linux.... the possibility of offering formal courses on Linux, ranging from introductory primers to more in-depth stuff featured in the discussion. The members agreed that SXC Computer Center may be roped into this (provided they agree)

The sheer absence of even a minimal network as a test-bed for the members to experiment was expressed by one and all.  Moloy, Partha, Dr. Roy have promised to talk to the SXC Computer Center management about this. Moloy has also promised to speak to CSI (Computer Society of India - Calcutta Chapter) to see if they can help us by providing some of the resources which we desparately need.

Indra mentioned that ILUG-Cal web-site could well do with some original articles on different topics related to Linux...he secretly plans to coax/cajole/bribe/torture the members till they deliver them :-)  

The decision was taken to discuss at the next meeting on how to build up a Linux Resource Center in Calcutta which will provide easy, catalogued access to Linux resources available in Calcutta to the people needing them.

The meeting ended with the decision to meet again in a month's time, and this time preferably on a weekday evening around 7:00 PM. The finalised date/time of the next meeting will be posted on the ILUG-Cal list.  

MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU :-)

Indra (aka Indranil).

HTML version of the posting on ILUG-Cal@egroups.com