Portales Linux
Welcome to the special event wiki for the Software Freedom Day installfest in Portales, New Mexico. The event is tentatively scheduled for:
- Saturday, September 19th, 2009, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
- In the Campus Union Building of Eastern New Mexico University.
The Portales Installfest
This event is an opportunity for local volunteer advocates to meet with computer users in the Roosevelt / Curry County / Cannon AFB areas who are interested in Free and Open Source Software solutions like the Linux Operating System. This will be a community-building event, where folks can:
Ask advocates about the concept of "Open Source",
- Learn how Open Source software compares to proprietary products by Microsoft and Apple, and
- Generally explore Open Source technology.
- There is no charge for any of these goods or services.
Members of the public are invited to bring their computers along with their preferred Open Source operating system installation disks to the event, and experienced users can help them in getting started and troubleshooting problems. Various Linux distributions will be demonstrated and available for installation.
Free installation discs for a variety of Linux distributions will be available.
The goal of the event is to provide an informal opportunity to advocate Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to computer users in the general public regardless of experience level. In addition to the Linux OS, there is plenty of Free and Open Source Software for users of other platforms. For example, The Open Disc offers a sampling of FOSS for users of Microsoft's proprietary operating system.
What Is This Linux Stuff?
From a Linux User's Group press release:
"Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers around the world. Developed under the GNU General Public License, the source code for Linux is freely available to everyone. The fact that the source code is freely available to anyone is one of the major attractions to linux for many people. Linux is an excellent example of what is commonly referred to as Open Source software. Open Source software in a nutshell means that the source code which is used to build the software is available for anyone to view. As well as being Open Source linux is also an example of Free Software. Free meaning liberty rather than price (although linux can almost always be obtained for $0 as well). Free Software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software."
To be clear, Linux is not a Socialist plot. Linux is not, as some have characterized it, a "cancer". Linux is free, but developers are not free to appropriate the hard work of other programmers and use secrecy or patents to deny the work to others. Some software publishers feel threatened by a system that fails to recognize the rights of programmers and highlights the inefficiencies and lack of innovation in proprietary business models.
Because Linux is a Free and Open Source entity, many different distributions of Linux have appeared. Individuals and organizations have repackaged the Linux kernel with GNU Tools and various other software applications to create "distributions" of Linux. These distributions include, but are by no means limited to: Fedora, Debian, Mandriva, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Puppy Linux, Suse, PCLinuxOS, CentOS, Mepis, Saybayon, Crunch Bang Linux, even tiny little personal distributions that people put together for their own limited purposes like Katian Linux. Given the roughly 200 or so different Linux distributions available, there is surely a linux distribution for everyone.
Hear Linus Torvalds pronounce "Linux". Most folks pronounce it "lin '-nuhks".
This installfest is made possible thanks to the power of the knowledge-sharing spirit -- one of the keystones of the open source community.
Related Links
Contact
Email: portales.gnu.linux@gmail.com
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