ALE Mailing List: ale@ale.org
Our ALE Central Meeting on Thursday, Aprl 16, 2009,
7:30pm, at Emory Law School (Gambrell Hall Room 1C)
will feature two topical presentations:
“A Demo of the Opensuse Build Service (OBS)”
with Greg Freemyer
— plus —
“A Premier of the ALE OSPREX Deck”
with Stephen R. Blevins
Synopses:
— Opensuse Build Service:
The OBS is distro agnostic and can be used to build rpms and debian
packages without requiring the user to install the various distros. It is
targeted at people packaging projects for publishing. The following
distros are currently supported: Fedora, Red Hat, Debian, OpenSUSE,
Mandriva, xUbuntu. Intel (32bit and 64bit) and PPC builds are fully
supported. ARM support is being introduced now, with other embedded
cpu architectures to follow.
The build service is leveraged by the opensuse studio service to allow
custom opensuse live CDs / bootable USB images to be created via
the web.
— The ALE OSPREX Deck:
OSPREX (for Open Source OS Presentation) is the working project
name for an effort by several ALE volunteers to create a consistent,
portable presentation package targeting general public audiences
that concisely and effectively promotes the numerous profound
advantages of GNU Linux OS and FFOSS software alternatives.
Stephen Blevins has taken the lead in this effort by locating and
adapting a distributable presentation slide deck that can serve as
an aid to Linux evangelists for delivering a brief but informative
talk on the various FFOSS topics. Stephen vetted the OSPREX
Deck at a recent ALE organizational meeting and, having
incorporated those suggestions for enhancement, is anxious to
present the OSPREX Deck to the general ALE membership.
Bio Info:
— Greg Freemyer is currently employed as the CTO of The Norcross
Group. He has been involved with UNIX since 1983 and with Linux
since 1996. Greg served as a Senior Internet Engineer on several
major projects for international corporations such as Siemens and
Ford Motor Company. His current job focuses on Computer Forensics
and eDiscovery, but he continues to work with Linux systems for both
work and pleasure. His use of the OBS evolved out of trying to connect
a linux PC up to a weather station.
— Stephen R. Blevins has been an I.T. professional for over 20 years,
including 15 years working with various UNIX systems (AT&T 5.2.2,
SVR4, HPUX, SunOS, Solaris). In 2003 he became a philosophical
convert to GNU Linux and Open Source software due to the influences
of Pamela Jones, of GROKLAW fame. He currently runs a triple-boot
computer system that can wake up as an MS XP box, or greet the world
as a secure and functional CentOS or Ubuntu Linux system. Slowly,
but surely, Stephen’s wife, his wife’s son, and his own son are
becoming Linux converts as well (and not just in philosophical sense)!
============================
Our meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found
HERE (or via the side bar link).
=====================
[POSTING NOTE: My apologies for delays in posting this
months meeting notice, but BOTH of the presenters
we had originally lined up for this month had to cancel
on short notice (for very valid reasons). Big THANKS to
Greg and Stephen for filling the voids!]
Recognizing the desire of many of our members to revitalize
our ALE users group and improve our organization’s visibility,
services and outreach, we have scheduled an organizational
and outreach brainstorming meeting for
Saturday, March 28th, 1:00pm at
Twains Billiards & Tap
211 E Trinity Pl
Decatur, GA 30030 (404) 373-0063
Google Maps URL: http://tinyurl.com/aletwains090329
This is an OPEN Invitation to participate in an OPEN Discussion
and volunteer your support for ideas in promoting OPEN Source
Software and GNU Linux throughout our local community, city
and State regions.
Since anyone who participates in an ALE meeting is welcomed
as a member of the group, anyone is welcome to participate,
though the members who can participate as actively involved
volunteers will be the most welcome!
Some of the topics already on the agenda include ways to
improve cooperation and coordination with other OSS groups
in Georgia and the Southeast, expanding and better utilizing
our online facilities, finishing a deliverable OSPREX package
and providing better new user installation and information
support with small, regional “Linux Clinux” offerings.
We hope everyone interested in participating can be there in
person, but if you are unable to attend the meeting and have
ideas or information you want to share, please contact me by
email or phone before Saturday:
Aaron Ruscetta
ALE Event Coordinator (etc.)
arxaaron [at] gmail.com
404.315.0406 (10a-10p any day)
Our feature presentation for the
Thursday, March 19, 2009, 7:30pm
ALE Central Meeting will be
“The Brave New World of IPv6”
presented by Michael Warfield
Synopsis:
— This presentation is an introduction to the Internet Protocol
version 6, IPv6, a topic of interest to everyone involved in
growing or supporting Internet delivery technologies, as well
as to anyone involved in designing, authoring or accessing
Internet content.
— IPv6 is the newer, widely available, version of the Internet
Protocol that carries a number of significant performance and
security advantages over earlier versions. IPv4 administrators
may be unaware that IPv6 is available nearly anywhere IPv4 is
available and that IPv6 traffic can pass through their networks
and firewalls without their awareness. Because they have
ignored IPv6 as something to worry about in the future, they
frequently lack the expertise to manage it and they assume it
is not present on their networks. But IPv6 and IPv6 transitional
mechanisms offer new security issues and open new avenues
of attack even on IPv4 based networks.
Bio:
— Michael Warfield is a Senior Researcher and Analyst for the X-Force
Managed Security Services of IBM Internet Security Systems.
— With computer security experience dating back to the early 1970s and
Unix experience dating back to the early 1980s, Mike is responsible for
doing research into security vulnerabilities and intrusion protection
techniques for IBM-ISS X-Force.
— Prior to joining ISS, now IBM-ISS, Mike has held positions such as, a
Unix systems engineer, Unix consultant, security consultant and network
administrator on the Internet. He is one of the resident Unix gurus at
the Atlanta UNIX Users Group and is one of the founding members of the
Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts. He is also an active member of the Samba
development team and is a contributor to the Linux Kernel and numerous
Open Source Software projects. Mike has published articles on both
Samba and on Security and is a respected cryptographer in the Open
Source community.
============================
Our meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found
HERE (or via the side bar link).
Our feature presentation for the
ALE Central Meeting on Thursday,
February 19, 2009, 7:30pm, will be
“Getting to Know Cobbler”
presented by
Derek “Goozbach” Carter,
Certified Linux Instructor
Synopsis:
— Debian’s “preseed”, RedHat’s “kickstart”, SUSE’s “autoYAST” and similar
Linux based installation automaton systems are all very useful. However,
setting up and maintaining the environments that enable these systems
to work properly can be time consuming and prone to error.
— Cobbler is an installation provisioning and automation system which
leverages these existing system tools to create a powerful installation
server which allows for rapid bare-metal provisioning of a myriad of
Linux distributions and lesser operating systems. This presentation is
an opportunity to learn the basics of Cobbler and see how easy it is to
use this powerful tool in your own environment.
Bio:
– Derek Carter (goozbach as his online friends know him) is active
participant in the Open Source community. Part-founder of two
Linux users groups and a former Linux instructor for Guru Labs (The
industry leader in hands-on Linux training). He has taught Linux
classes all over the United States and the world for such companies
as Red Hat, IBM, Novell, HP, Lockheed Martin and others. Derek
has been actively using Linux as his primary OS since 1999. He’s a
certified RedHat instructor and examiner. He’s also a Star Wars
geek who has been known to dress up as obscure characters and
wait in line for the premiers.
============================
Our meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found
HERE (or via the side bar link).
Our feature presentation for the
ALE Central Meeting on Thursday,
January 15, 2009, 7:30pm, will be
“Fedora 10: Looking at Features,
Fixing the Flaws, and Planning the Future”
presented by David Nalley,
Regional Fedora Ambassador
Synopsis:
— This talk will be a casual exploration of, and an open
dialog about, the many new design and package features
found in Fedora 10, the latest release of the Linux community
development distribution from which Red Hat Enterprise
Linux is derived. Supporting the goal of continuing to improve
Linux tools for the future, any audience questions, comments,
critiques or observations regarding Fedora Linux will be
welcome and encouraged.
Bio:
— David Nalley is a Linux Sysadmim, a Fedora Developer
and the Regional Fedora Ambassador for the South Eastern
U.S. working out of Greenville, South Carolina. David travels
frequently to technology events throughout the region to
promote Fedora Linux distributions specifically and the FLOSS
philosophy in general. He recently journeyed to Atlanta for
the Software Freedom Day & Linux Fest 2008 celebrations in
September, where he graciously agreed to visit with ALE
again once Fedora 10 was released.
============================
Our meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found
HERE (or via the side bar link).