[ale] [ANNC] ALE CENTRAL MTG. for Thurs., May 17th, 2012

[Aaron Ruscetta]

Our feature presentation for the ALE Central Meeting
at 7:30pm on Thursday, May 17th, 2012 will be:

"GRUB 2: Bootloader Magic Demystified''
    with Michael Trausch

Synopsis:
- The GRUB 2 bootloader will be presented with a discussion of
its architecture. There will be emphasis on upstream functionality
in comparison with (some of) the ways that bootstrapping tasks
could be accomplished with GRUB Legacy.
- For those who are unfamiliar with bootloaders, there will be a quick
introduction to what a bootloader does and where its role exists in the
system boot process for the most predominant architecture of common
desktops and laptops, a BIOS-based x86/x86-64 system.
- If there are any particular questions that you have and would like
answered, or _particular_ functionality that you would like shown,
please let me know directly at [mike at trausch.us].  I'll incorporate
anything I can, and anything that I can't incorporate I'll move to the
list for after the meeting.

Reference:
>From the GNU GRUB Web site <a
href="http://www.gnu.org/s/grub/">http://www.gnu.org/s/grub/</a>:
 - GNU GRUB is a Multiboot boot loader. It was derived from GRUB,
  the GRand Unified Bootloader, which was originally designed and
  implemented by Erich Stefan Boleyn.
- Briefly, a boot loader is the first software program that runs
  when a computer starts. It is responsible for loading and
  transferring control to the operating system kernel software
  (such as the Hurd or Linux). The kernel, in turn, initializes the
  rest of the operating system (e.g. GNU).

Bio:
Michael B. Trausch is an independent consultant and developer
performing all manner of IT services using free software, including
network systems administration and programming (in many different
and often disliked languages).  He works from home (when everything
is going well) and devotes much of his time to parenting his six year
old son, Benjamin.  He is an advocate for free software, public
education, and freedom in general, accepting the responsibilities that
come with it.  He is also obsessed with typography and Unicode, and
drinks way too much coffee.  ;-)

=============
The meeting will be held at Emory Law School in our
usual Gambrel Hall, room 1C venue.
Our meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found at
<http://ale.org/?page_id=2>

Per usual, this information is also posted at  <http://ale.org>