January 09 Meeting Synopsis

Our first meeting of 2009 was a record breaking event with 21 people
attending. This was a great turn out, which I am sure everyone
enjoyed. It just goes to show you how strong the Linux community is
and how it is still growing. Especially in Kent.

The people attended, their distro of choice and IRC nickname were;

Our 'Tech Talk' for this month was called 'Linux In Business'. Paul spoke about the reasons for using free Open Source application and servers
for his clients and the associated benefits. This talk generated lots
of interesting discussions, too numerous to record, but included
visualization, remote monitoring servers via sms, off site backups
and the ridiculous price some companys had been quoted for a Small
Business Server install with Exchange. That sort of solution could of
course be done cheaper with Linux products.

Paul's company is www.linuxisready.co.uk

We then broke for refreshments and everyone mingled and grouped together
to find out who was who, and what they did etc.

Our second 'agenda' item was to discuss the KLUG website and form 'Action
Groups' to ensure things were actually done. First a brief overview
of the current site, the virtual server is runs on and the reasons
why were given to the group. The server currently runs the website,
Mumble and OpenAreana but can do anything.

We then took suggestions for content for the site and these items
included.

About Us
How to start and where to start with Linux
Tech Talk content – summary and downloads
Maps
Meeting Events
Meeting Notes
Planet
Twitter Feed Page

The server also currently has a wiki installed and it can be secured with kerberos. If the wiki is not needed it was suggested it was deleted.

We discussed Content Management Systems (CMS) and Wordpress, a plain wiki and Drupal were suggested. As more members have experience and interest in Drupal it was decided to go with that. However to ensure that security was done properly this time and the server not be compromised like lug.org.uk.

It was suggested that Postgress be used instead of mysql because of memory usage and also switching from apache to lighthttp (spelling/correct name not sure of as did not hear clearly). Neither of these suggestions have been decided on.

Action Groups were organized from people who volunteered and they are.

Server Team
Spode, Fish and Mike Evans will look after updating the server. An automatic system will be enabled to email them changes/updates that need to take place.

Website Team
Dan Attwood, Nathan, Colin and Dan Ellis will install, configure and maintain Drupal.

BackUp Team
Paul offered help setting up the backups.

Content Team
Spode offered to write the 'Linux where to start guide'.

Then to end the meeting we had a quick 'idea shower' for future events.
Ideas for 'Tech Talks' included ssh, vpn, Hamachi, backups and MytTV which Paul and Spode will do. For social events it was suggested another 'Summer BBQ' was organized. I believe a location was offered but I need to check. And it might be nice to have another 'Night out in London' as the one after LinuxExpo was good.

Thanks to everyone who came and especially James and Daniel Subert for the location.