I have heard from about 15 people now, nicely spread out across the state. I am not sure that everyone is a member of the mailing list. I am starting to think that this and the list should become our main discussion board for now. I have a few topics I wanted to put forth and discuss.
I have heard some good Ideas for implementation of Ubuntu. One is to revitalize some old computers at a church that are currently running Win98 - Edubuntu with thin clients is one possibility and using 1-2 Gig USB drives for these machines is another.
- Projects - Any Ideas?
I have also heard from one who rebuilds/recycles computers for a charity in Miami county. A good idea and cause that I had been wanting to get involved in.
I had some ideas early on of putting some fliers up at local universities and the library here in Salina to drum up interest in a LoCo, but have come to find that the Wiki page and ubuntuforums.org is the best recruiting tool. It isn't reaching the "not familiar with Ubuntu" set, like a flier at a university might, but for now we will need members who are familiar to provide support. I have had some individual requests for support, but if anyone else is willing to provide support, let me know.
- Fliers, promotional items, CDs
There are people in the community making aluminum case badges that would be great to hand out if we set up a table at KU or K-State or some other Linux/Computer related function. I didn't put my name in for any, because the cash would have came out of my own pocket, but I thought it was a good idea and I am sure that when they are manufactured that we could wind up with some pretty easily.
I ordered 50 CDs from Canonical late this summer and they've arrived. There are 5 that are 64-bit and the remainder are 32-bit PC version. Most people I have offered them to have said that they will just download the .iso, and that they didn't need one, but I remember when I started getting interested in Linux 3 years ago, I didn't even know what an .iso was at first. I made about 5 coasters out of CDs trying to burn Knoppix or Puppy before I learned more about MD5 Checksums etc. (I was on dial up and a lot of images I downloaded were incomplete or corrupted) This state has a lot of areas that are dial up only and there are probably some people out there struggling to figure out how to try Ubuntu and they don't know there is a guy in Salina who would be glad to send them a free CD just for asking. Lets try to find those people and get them a copy.
As always, any input and discussions are allowed, encouraged and needed.
Eric Klemm