Linux/BSD Geek Fest

Life Technology
1

Back in July I mentioned that I’d like to help start up an informal Linux/BSD Club for English-speakers. I got sidetracked by a kidney stone which made me return home (to Taitung) and I haven’t had occasion to go back to Taipei.

My brother is coming to Taiwan on Sept 21 (which is next Tuesday) and I plan to meet him at CKS Airport. So my plan is to go to Taipei a few days in advance and meet up with a few of you who have expressed an interest in Linux and BSD. I’ll also be back up in Taipei a second time around Sept 28 so I can see my bro off at the airport. As it turns out, that’s a “double holiday” (Mid-Autumn Festival and Teacher’s Day). I’ll probably hang around Taipei for a few days before returning home, so a possible second meeting would be fine.

Anyway, I see that Forumosa is going offline tonight! No telling how long it will be down, so I think I’d better let some of you know how to contact me. My regular public email address (which attracts lots of spam) is:

y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net

It’s hard for me to connect to the above email address when I’m on the road, so I have a second webmail-based address:

taibei@yahoo.com

Anyone who is interested in the Linux/BSD club should just contact me directly at one or both of these addresses.

Hope to meet some of you soon. By the way, I’m currently running FreeBSD 5.3-BETA4. It’s the first version of FreeBSD I’ve seen that actually displays Chinese correctly in a web browser (at least without a lot of tinkering). So far it’s been rock solid - if this is a beta, can’t wait to see the final release (next month). Also downloaded SimplyMEPIS and Kanotix - very interesting Debian-based distros that will give Knoppix some competition.

regards,
Robert

2

For those who are interested, the “Geekfest” did come off, but with only two people plus myself. Actually, it was two meetings, each one with me plus one other person. This was because the two particpants had different work schedules. One of the participants was a newbie who learned a lot from me, the other partipant was more advanced than me and therefore I learned a lot from him.

I apologize for the fact that the meeting announcement was made just a few hours before Forumosa shut down for the weekend. That no doubt reduced the number of people who were able to participate. I hadn’t realized that Forumosa was going down for maintenance until it was nearly too late.

I had originally planned to be back in Taipei today to see my brother off on his return journey to The Old Country (USA), but I’ve gotten involved in a home construction project and therefore he’s going to get himself on the airplane without my assistance. So I will not go to Taipei today, but will probably make an appearance sometime in October. I will make an announcement when the time comes, so anybody else with this Linux/BSD obsession can meet with me.

This geek “club” will probably remain very informal, meetings will occur whenever somebody gets the initiative to make an announcement and suggest a meeting. Obviously, it doesn’t have to be me - I don’t “own” the club (if indeed it is a club). However, I do suggest that anybody interested in participating in future geekmeets should email me and let me know your email address - I will contact you before I go to Taipei and invite you to participate.

best regards,
Robert