Another good meeting with lots of interest and questions as Clint presented on three subject areas - Lucid Lynx 10.04 Beta1 release, Ubuntu-Idaho, and the Amahi Home Server. Clint demonstrated Lucid Lynx 10.04 Beta1 as he had installed it on his laptop. Clint was very impressed with the stability of 10.04, even in Beta1 release with not so fond memories of the somewhat flawed final release of Ubuntu 9.10 last fall. Long time member Alice even commented on how stable it was as she had installed and been using it on her netbook. Clint had loaded his laptop desktop install up with Apache, MySQL, and PHP running the Drupal Content Management System along with the phpMyAdmin web administration tool for MySQL. He also installed Adobe's Acrobat Reader 9 and Flashplayer 10 from Adobe's website with no issues. Clint gave everyone a tour of the desktop's new theme, functionalities, social networking features, and showed IE 6 running on Wine. Clint had gathered a number of web resources and blogs which he visited as part of the presentation:
Ubuntu Guide - Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx)
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Lucid
LucidLynx/TechnicalOverview - Ubuntu Wiki
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidLynx/TechnicalOverview
Sneak Preview: Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 LTS
http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow/?p=12443
Ubuntu 10.04 Beta1 Inplace Upgrade
http://practicalswitchtoubuntu.blogspot.com
Ubuntu 10.04: The Perfect Operating System?
http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7740/2/
IE 6 On Wine
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Lucid#PlayOnLinux
IE 7 on Linux with Wine
http://www.wine-reviews.net/wine-reviews/applications/ie-7-on-linux-with...
As part of his presentation, Clint got into the world of IRC chat where you will find support for Ubuntu, Amahi, and Drupal. Lucid Lynx provides several applications which support IRC chat including the Empathy IM client and Pidgin Internet Messenger but he noted that IRC access to Freenode.net seems difficult at times due to timeout but access seems to always work at http://webchat.freenode.net and all you have to put in is a nickname and a channel (chat session) such as #ubuntu-us which bypasses the usual process of IRC where you first have to login to the irc server and then join a session. He noted that you should register your nickname with the IRC and assign it a password.
Clint then spent about 15 minutes discussing the state of The Idaho Ubuntu Local Community (LoCo) Team which was started by a group of Ubuntu Linux enthusiasts a year ago May, they held one meeting of which many our group attended and then the "Team" fell into inactivity with no further meetings or website activity at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IdahoTeam/. Clint had been approached by the Ubuntu-US Team back in February about having the Boise Linux Group taking on the responsibilities of being the Idaho Ubuntu Local Community Team. Over the last two months, efforts had been made to contact the original team members with no response from them so Clint has started the steps for our group to take on those responsibilities feeling that doing so would only help to grow the Boise Linux Group and enhance the presence of Ubuntu Linux in Idaho. He explained what those responsibilities were and the benefits of doing so were and then called for a straw vote to see if anyone was opposed to moving forward with the taking on off the mantle of the Idaho Ubuntu Local Community Team. Alice asked a question about if this was a group function to which Clint answered yes. No one was opposed to us doing this.
The 3rd presentation was on the Amahi Home Server. Clint had installed Amahi with Fedora 12 and went through the install steps including screen shots. His install did not go flawlessly but he had found help quickly on http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=amahi for which there was even a link provided on the Amhi desktop and with the assistance of one the knowledgeable members found there, quickly resolved the issue. Clint was very impressed with the Amahi Home Server implementation and was going to replace his unused Windows Home Server with Amahi. Besides providing the usual home server functions of DNS, DHCP, workstation backup and file folder sharing, Amahi goes way beyond those in providing a wide range of applications including audio and video streaming and full DLNA support which is the next level of streaming video and audio content throughout the home. Amahi also allows you to access your home server streaming content anywhere, even on an airplane sitting on the tarmac of an airport as one person gave testimonial to. Clint recommended anyone interested in building or using a home server, to take a good look at Amahi and it is free to use. Details and download can be found at http://www.amahi.org/ and by clicking on the Apps tab, see the long list of installable applications available on Amahi.
A short Q&A followed at the end of the meeting. Our next meeting will be on May 6th.