14 August 2004 - Linux on Thinkpad
Topics
Getting Linux on an IBM ThinkPad (by Loren Weith)
Attendance
16
Presentation Resources
Meeting Announcement (txt)
http://www.panix.com/~lweith/thinkpad
slideshow presentation (OpenOffice.org Impress format)
Meeting Notes
Usually our meetings fill all available time and people are continuing conversations in the parking lot. No this time, though. Everything was very efficient. I actually made it to the meeting early and had time to get everything pretty much set up by the time people started arriving. There were at least three new faces, which was good to see. We talked briefly about how they found the group (website) and what they were interested in. I started the meeting at about 2:45 (15 minutes late, per tradition).
I discussed the upcoming Murchison Center Meeting on Wednesday, August 25th. A few people said that they were planning on being there. We talked about Ohio LinuxFest 2004, which is fast approaching. It's a free event, but you have to register. Mark Pangle will be attending the event and had room for 6 additional people in his van for the ride down. Please email me if you want to carpool or if you are offering spaces in your vehicle. I will try to coordinate the carpooling.
We discussed upcoming meeting topics. It seems that Shane Graber is planning on completing his ATA/IDE Hard Disks presentation in time for a September meeting. He just has to pick the Saturday... E-mail me your choice and I'll book it. There's also the perennial focus on new users that usually coincides with the start of classes at the U. Murchison and CATNet are also interested in some basic Linux classes, so maybe we could try to coordinate times with them.
Anyhow, after a long discussion, Loren was allowed to begin his presentation. He actually made a nice slide show presentation. He had only just gotten started when the pizza and pop arrived. We broke for pizza and he gracefully continued talking about the TCPA chip and how it does neat-o crypto stuff. His presentation was a good review of what works and what doesn't with the new line of ThinkPads. While somewhat technical, it still gave the average person a basis for deciding whether or not they wanted to try Linux on a ThinkPad. I will be posting the material from his presentation here as soon as it is available.
After the presentation portion of the meeting, I invited people to form a small group to field questions from the new members. No one took me up on it and the conversation continued on topics such as the implications of DRM and TCPA, Ohio LinuxFest, etc. The meeting broke up at about 4:30pm, almost a full hour early!
All told, a very successful meeting! Thanks to Loren for the quality presentation and for tolerating the pizza interruption.
