The feature presentation at the ALE Central Meeting
at 7:30pm on Thursday, Aug. 20th, 2009 will be:
“Open SUSE: The State of the Disavowed Distro”
with Chuck Payne, Atlanta regional OpenSUSE Ambassador
==
Synopsis:
— Despite extensive concerns and criticisms from the Free Software
community regarding SUSE’s partnership deals with Novel and the
dangerous precedents of their concessions to the extortionist FUD
campaigns of MicroSoft, the OpenSUSE project has continued to be
an important contributing developer in the global GNU Linux and
Open Source arenas. SUSE’s recently appointed volunteer ambassador
for our region, Chuck Payne, will bring us up to date on the features
and strengths of current OpenSUSE 11.1 offering and talk about
enhancements scheduled for the pending 11.2 release.
Bio:
— Chuck “PUP” Payne has been working with computers since
his parents gave him an Atari 130XE for his 16th birthday
[ed – (: presumably misunderstanding his actual requests for
a Commodore Amiga :) ]. He has since worked with personal
computer platforms ranging from Atari and Apple to Mac and
PC, and has explored various operating environments including
Linux, BeOS, Solaris, FreeBSD and others. He has been
working with GNU Linux since 1998, when he bought a book on
Slackware ’96. After Slackware he tried out Red Hat, then
moved to openSUSE with their 1998 5.3 release and he has
stayed with the SUSE choice since.
Computers also became central to Chuck’s career, and he has
worked as a System Administrator since 1998. He is currently
employed by Travel Channel Media as a Unix Systems Admin,
where day to day tasks include managing TCM’s DNS, 70+ Red
Hat Linux Servers, 20 Solaris Servers, and a handful of Mac
XServers. He also helps out with web development in the areas
of Apache and JBOSS administration.
In April 2009 Chuck’s application to be a regional volunteer
ambassador for OpenSUSE was accepted, facilitating his goals
of helping people discover the benefits of Free Software,
GNU/Linux and the OpenSUSE distributions. In his free time he
bolsters his geek cred by writing bash scripts or php code,
hacking hardware in his home gadget lab, and watching any
and all Zombie flicks that cross his path.
Related Links:
— OpenSUSE.org
=============
We will be meeting at Emory Law School in our
usual Gambrel Hall, room 1C venue.
Meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found
via the side bar link.