Western Sydney Linux User Group

WSLUG has existed as a focus point for Linux users in the Richmond district of western Sydney since 1997.

A welcome is extended to both existing users of Linux and anyone who wishes to learn more about this alternative operating system. In addition to enjoying the social and learning activities that meetings provide, a goal as a group is to promote the use of Linux and other alternative systems and to co-operate with other organisations with similar commitments.

Due to the voluntary efforts of individual members and the support provided by organisations, WSLUG does not charge membership fees.

Meetings are on the the 2nd Sunday of each month @ 2pm.

*** Next Meeting is (To Be Advised) ***
In the Bligh Room of the Richmond Club
Cnr Francis & East Market Street, Richmond NSW 2753

The venue is quite close to Richmond station and there is adequate parking.

We are always trying to improve our our website. If you would like to make suggestions or contribute material to help make the site more interesting for members and visitors contact wslug@wslug.org.au.

Don't forget Australia's national Linux conference to be held at The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia, from Wednesday 22nd to Saturday 25th January 2003. Visit linux.conf.au to learn more.

New! 19 Nov 2002. Our Lug List Project (see top nav bar) has become the definitive listing of Linux User Groups in Australasia. Help keep it the best by advising of any groups that are not listed or fall by the wayside. Does anyone know of any groups in the nearby regions such as Oceania or to our immediate north?

There is a mailing list available with a web based archive for reading directly on line at:-

Please feel free to subscribe/read this to find out what's happening! There is a web based message board at:-

People are welcome drop into the meeting or use the mailing list to establish contact. You may also email us at wslug@wslug.org.au

www.slug.org.au Sydney Linux Users Group
Operating from the University Of Technology Sydney (UTS).
(Webmasters note the use of CSS and Perl in their page layout.)

www.linux.org A central source of Linux news and information. If you are new to Linux or interested enough to want to look a little closer ..check out the free on-line tutorials.

www.computerbank.org.au Computerbank Project. An Australian initiative to supply free GNU/Linux systems to low income individuals, community groups and disadvantaged schools.

www.everythinglinux.com.au Everything Linux -The Alternative Operating System Store.
Located at 40 East Street, Five Dock, NSW 2046, Australia.

www.lankum.com Lankum.Com -The Australian Linux/BSD On-line Store.
Located at 36 Bouvardia St, Asquith, NSW 2077, Australia.

www.linsup.com LinSup. A Sydney based company providing computer network services and support for small and medium sized businesses seeking e-mail, web and internet capability using 'open source' software. Good links!

If you feel that you, your organisation or anyone you know of, is making a contribution to the Linux community and has website that is likely to be of interest to our members and visitors please send an email with the proposed url to wslug@wslug.org.au.

This section provides space for some changing content to provide some interest. "Stuff" might not be the best title but for now it beats "Miscellaneous" (by eight letters to be precise ..which can be important when laying out a nav bar).

15 Dec 02. A disto which is starting to make a name for itself is Knoppix. See www.knopper.net. It was developed by a guy who wanted to be able to go into any classroom and be able to run Linux from a CD drive without a need to intall to the harddrive. Demo CD's do already exist but Knoppix is a full distro in it's own right that uses modern compressing methods that allow 2 Gigabits to be stored on the CD. OpenOffice is included as well as all the development tools favoured by those manning the Linux forward trenches.

26 Nov 02. In Nov 1982, Compac announced the first computer that was legally compatable with an IBM PC. They did this by building their own bios that could not be legally challenged by IBM. The explosive era of "compatables" had begun.

The GPL operating system Linux always ran on a propriety bios such as that of Phoenix Technologies (who incidently, has recently challanged the right of the opensource browser Phoenix Project to use the word "Phoenix").

It should give pleasure to all to hear that in Nov of this year, 20 years after the Compac announcement, the opensource LinuxBIOS which can run Linux and FreeBSD has been now made to run Windows 2000! Further the good folk behind the effort say they are close to being able to run FreeBSD as well as Win 98 and Win XP!

For completeness, credit is also due to those behind "ALDO" and "Bocks BIOS" which on first reading appear to be used with LinuxBIOS to replace the PC Bios.

It transpires that funding for this work came from DARPA who contributed to the drive to make the internet in the early days. Evidently their involvement stemmed from wanting to speed up cluster computing by having a non-proprietry bios that they had could tweak.

The signifigance of the achievement of having a truely free opensource software bios needs time to be absorbed. How about sending some suggestions as to what you think it could mean? Meanwhile the background can be pursued starting with this Announcement at www.clustermatic.org/../ in the US and www.freiburg.linux.de/OpenBIOS, a German site with related objectives.

Australian's code added to revision 2.5.46 of the Linux kernal. See www.zdnet.com.au/../. uClinux was a set of patches to operate on small, embedded processors but Linus Torvalds and his chief kernal architect Alan Cox were so impressed with the small size and functionality they decided to take it into the kernal.

Visit Tim 0'Reilly's Open Book Project at www.oreilly.com/openbook which includes facinating reads like Eric. S. Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" and Richard. M. Stallman's "Free as in Freedom". Once you start reading these it's hard to stop. There are also many Linux and Free/Opensource software technical books.

There is an Financial Review article on Australia's Andrew Tridgell and Samba at afr.com/../. Facinating to think that an Australian led team is defeating the protocols being deliberately built-in by Microsoft to prevent Linux products from being able to co-exist with Windows in corporate networks. It is said that Linus Torvalds shook his hand.

The Cray was an expensive super computer used by the US military and a few big corporations but you can see by reading the article at star-techcentral.com/../ that Linux is no toy even though it's free.

Consider visiting www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html. It's Google's web search statistics. One statistic as at 20 October 2002 is that the break up of operating systems is 2%Other 1%Linux 5%Mac and 92%Win. Interesting for a quick visit. You can see if anyone else out there uses the browser you do and if nothing else you will learn what the German word "zeitgeist" means and why Google use it.

Short Rant.

What could be worse than the unsolicited commercial spam piling up in our in-boxes? How about people painting their promotional message on the footpath in front of your business, home or anywhere that they feel gives them the visability they seek? Who would do that? More particularly who does do that? Who considers they have so much influence at Federal Government level that they can do this with impunity knowing that city authorities can, at most, only respond by issuing fines originally intended to deter young graffiti writers or those who litter?

Hint: Messages spray painted in the past on footpaths in the USA, UK, Europe and Australia contained the word "XBox" and ".Net" has appeared more recently.

Linus Torvalds says we should promote Linux because we enjoy using the software and want to introduce it to others not because of any sense of wanting to wage a crusade against another organisation. In deference to Linus the rant will cease.

Update! 1 November 2002. Apparently XBox sales were poor and are now being sold at a loss with the anticipation of making the money back on game sales. The price in Australia is AUS$399 which is very inexpensive for a machine with a modified Windows 2000 kernal. Some people taking a good look at the opportunity presented is the XBox Linux Project at xbox-linux.sourceforge.net whose major achievement so far is XBox Linux Mandrake 9. This is the first full Linux distribution for a (modded) XBox and is 100% compatible with Mandrake Linux 9. To rub salt in, a respected Hong Kong company Lik-San at www.lik-sang.com sells chips that are easily cable connected to the XBox that allow playing of games by Sony, Nintendo and those from hobby game writers or start-up game writing companies.

"Although I am a typical loner in my daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated."

Albert Einstein