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4th March 2001 - IBM Mainframe Hardware from a Linux Hacker's Viewpoint -
Malcolm Beattie
This talk is intended for those who are unfamiliar with
modern IBM mainframe hardware (S/390 and the newly-announced
z900). It covers the architecture, reliability and
performance characteristics of the hardware of a modern
mainframe, compared and contrasted with those of traditional
Linux/Unix systems. By the end, IBM jargon such as STI,
ESCON, and SAP will hold as little terror as PCI and SCSI and
the mild Linux/390 brainwashing will be lurking painlessly in
your subconscious.
4th February 2001 - ROCK Linux and CFEngine
Pjotr Prins will be demonstrating ROCK Linux and CFengine (the GNU Configuration Engine). Pjotr Prins is the author of the ROCK Linux Guide (see http://e-zine.nluug.nl/) and active participant in the ROCK Linux distribution - a clean distribution especially intended for system administrators. But it is a very good distribution for workstations too! CFengine (the GNU Configuration Engine) is a tool for keeping your systems in a sane state. It is a high level language for system administration and ties in very well with ROCK concepts. In the talk Pjotr will cover how to maintain very up-to-date systems. ROCK users tend to use the latest versions of most packages and CFengine makes upgrading a breeze. ROCK gives you all you ever wanted in a Linux distribution - and less! Dynamic Probes - a tool to aid kernel-level development/debugging We'll be joined by other members of the Linux Special Interest Group at IBM Hursley. Steve Coast will demonstrate Lego Mindstorms Robotics with Linux - past, present & future, with some notes on alternatives. Gerv Markham will talk about Mozilla and the Mozilla project, developing the next generation of internet client software.
On the eve of the launch of FreeservePlus Home, Steve Clarke will discuss what ADSL is, what products are available for Linux users and what the future may hold. Slides. Chris Evans will discuss some of the new features in the 2.4 kernel. This meeting was preceded by a picnic.
Tony Duell will introduce us to several technologies that we may well have heard of but have little experience with or knowledge of their interesting history. Tony is a collector of various hardware and has a substantial collection of some vary varied kit. This meeting was preceded by a picnic.
Robert J. Chassell, founding Director and Treasurer of the Free Software Foundation, will speak on the nature of free software. The nature of free software is such that it can be modified and redistributed at will. Chassell will discuss application to the business of writing computer software and to the wider software landscape as a whole. He will also speak of the dangers inherent in a world where we increasingly see our freedoms and rights being compromised and how free software can make a difference. Robert Chassell writes and edits. He is the author of "Programming in Emacs Lisp: An Introduction". He graduated from Cambridge, has his own aeroplace and an abiding interest in social and economic history.
8.30pm, Oxford University Computing Laboratory
The GlobalFileSystem is a journalled, fault-tolerant, clustered file system. It provides a high-performance solution to many applications where reliability is of foremost concern. The talk will centre upon the applications of the GlobalFileSystem and will also cover the implementation and describe how it interacts with the Linux kernel.
Steve Whitehouse is a software consultant running his own company
(ChyGwyn Limited) which mainly takes on contract programming work
on Open Source and Linux based projects. He is also in the final
stages of writing up his PhD thesis on "Error Resilient Image
Compression". Steve first became involved with Linux when he
was an undergraduate at the University of Wales, Swansea where
he was an active member of the computer society. Steve maintains
the Linux DECnet kernel code.
Jonathan will provide an introduction to the DVD technology itself, the
video technology, hardware and features. He will also cover the current
status of DVD on Linux systems and what is likely to be available in the
future.
Time: 6.30pm
Time: 6.30pm
Time: 6.30pm
Adrian Cox of AG Electronics will demonstrate a cluster of PowerPC Linux
workstations in a single desktop box, and describe the system
architecture. The talk will cover the PowerPC G4, high speed networking,
and the importance of blinkenlights.
Malcolm Beattie will show us the power that perl puts at the fingertips of a web-developer:
4th September - KDE 2.0 - Jo Dillon What'll be in KDE 2.0? Jo will talk us through an up-to-date pre-alpha CVS snapshot. Venue: Trinity College (entrance from Broad Street) 6.30pm
Venue: Oxford University Computer Laboratory. Maps.
Details of the UKUUG's Linux '99 Conference are now online. Several members of OxLUG are putting a substantial amount of time into making this event a success, and OxLUG hopes to have a noticeable presence at the conference. It's also a good excuse to meet those of you on this list who aren't able to come to our regular meetings in Oxford for whatever reason! It is a two day event (the afternoon of Friday 25th June and all day Saturday 26th June). People who aren't already members of the UKUUG must purchase a half-year membership of the UKUUG. The website has a booking form. (The University of Oxford is a Corporate member of UKUUG - so students and staff should check with office@ukuug.org what price they need to pay.) We expect many of the leading figures in the UK Linux Community to be present, as well as Linux suppliers, developers and users alike. O'Reilly will be there so you can buy their books with 25% discount!
Enterprise Management Consulting began by providing consultancy to blue chip clients - JP Morgan, Andersen Consulting, CSC - mostly as trading floor support. Then early last year they saw that Linux was rapidly capable of becoming a "one size fits all" operating system and last September they became Red Hat commercial support partners. Since then they've been bending everyone's ear about Linux and convincing their existing customers to convert from NT or Novell to Linux. They currently support around 30 commercial Linux sites across the UK. EMC will speak about some of the conversions that they have done and also more broadly about the future available directions for Linux - ie. clustering and High Availability, NDS and Global File Systems. Venue: Oxford University Computer Laboratory. Maps.
An introduction to mainframes - what they're good at, how they work, perhaps a little bit about where they're going. The speaker intends to try to present the material in a manner that's as palatable to Unix people as possible :)
Venue: Oxford University Computer Laboratory.
Maps.
- The high performance of the Linux kernel is increasingly taken for granted - it certainly gives other operating systems a run for their money! However, this is hard to justify without impartial facts and figures.
Chris Evans will present some new figures and also examine the performance
enhancements provided by the new Linux 2.2 kernel when compared with 2.0.
He'll also take a peek into the future at what could be made yet faster!
Jo and Phil will demonstrate both of these contenders for Linux on the desktop and describe where they see things developing in the next year or so.
There will also be the usual Q+A sessions for beginners and experts alike. Come
along and join the fun!
Contact events@oxlug.org for information.
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