Present for the meeting:

* Bijon "Multi Distro" Shaha * Mario "PHP" Alvares * Sylvester "Hardware" GeekBox * DP (Hiding Behind The Alphabets) * FN reporting on some points that came up

* We handed over copies of GeekBox and Ubuntu to Mr Joshi of Goa Sc Centre * Bijon Shaha gave us an update of LB-2004, the Bangalore FOSS event * The talk veered around to pendrives, Ubuntu

* Can we do something to re-start meetings in South Goa, at the useful D-Link venue? Another offer is to hold meetings at a cybercafe in Vasco... * Debian Weekly News is a great model for an e-letter sharing information about what's happening in the FLOSS world.

* Mario mentioned his experiences on a Mac, with OSX * Woes of Fedora Core 3 users and the security hassles outlined. * Is Fedora Core 3 just "too secure"?

* Sylvester offered information about SLAX, the Slackware distro. Slackware is more customisable. Syl@Comtech has a copy. * Mario is keen to create a live distro with Postgres on it.

* This was followed with a demo of Ubuntu, the live version For free copies of this distro, just log on to http://shipit.ubuntulinux.org and ask for it. They even offer you free postage, and encourage you to ask for multiple copies (postage is costlier anyway than the medium!)

* Later, a pen drive -- UMAX Apus 208 -- was easily got working on Mandrake 9.1. Did the same on EgovOS (based on Red Hat). Had some difficulty in getting with going with Debian Woody. Any clues?

* Some useful tips for newbies or challenged-learners (like myself) Use this command to download an entire site wbet -m http://www.sitename.com

To compress a folder tar cjf newfile /home/user/directory and to uncompress a folder tar xjf

To unzip a filme unzip filename

MC, or Midnight Commander is a good tool for this.

* DP mentioned that Open Office 2.0 preview is out, which offers OOBase, a tool similar to DBase or Access in utility.

* Later, the session continued with informal networking. We shifted to Cafe Prakash, the usual haunt, and shared some moments with friends there.

Please point out any errors or mistakes above.

Next meeting: January 22, 2005 (fourth Saturday). Miramar Science Centre.

Our websites and URLs:

http://ilug-goa.swiki.net (website on Swiki.net) http://www.ilug-margao.org (Margao site: Andrew, Arvind, Clinton...) http://ilug-goa.notlong.com (website on IOSN.net * free space for LUGs) http://iluggoa.iosn.net (Wiki on IOSN.net * free space for all LUGs) http://iluggoalist.notlong.com (short link to this list) http://ilug-goa-announce.notlong.com (low volume announce) http://tyl.notlong.com (for newbies) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linuxgoahelp (specifically help list)

PS: OFFTOPIC -- Derek Cordeiro pointed out to me this useful tool for bookmarking and sharing sites. Please visit http://stumbleupon.com and also my tiny attempt below... works great! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) Nr Convent Saligao 403511 GoaIndia Freelance Journalist P: 832-2409490 M: 9822122436 http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks http://fn.swiki.net http://fredericknoronha.stumbleupon.com http://fn-floss.notlong.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avoid Word/PowerPoint: http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html