linuxNUS Welcome Teao 2009 - By Ruiwen

Future FLOSS sardines - By Gaurav

It’s really heartening to see such strong support for FLOSS (Free, Libre, Open Source Software) in NUS, and we’d really like to do more to help everyone learn and grow as much within the community as possible. Many have said mentioned to us that they’d really like to get more involved with the FLOSS community, but feel like they aren’t yet up to snuff. If you feel that way, don’t! The great thing about the FLOSS community is that all you need to do is ask, and someone usually has a handy solution waiting. Even better, tell us which activities you think will be most beneficial to you and we’ll absolutely try our best to get it done!

Oh, and we were talking about contributing right? A few kind souls have mailed us expressing great interest in being part of the organising team (or Coreteam) for linuxNUS. We’re always happy to have see new faces, of course, so if you’re ready to be part of one of the most active and diverse group of open source advocates in Singapore, join us (if you haven’t already)!

The Welcome Tea might be over, but we’re definitely not putting our feet up! linuxNUS has a few great activities lined up, and we really hope you’ll be able to be part of them!

In there coming weeks, stay tuned for the Installfest, and Hackfest (details to be confirmed). We will also be at Software Freedom Day Singapore 2009, Booth #7.

With that, I’ll leave you now with some pictures taken at the Welcome Tea, held Thursday, 9 Sept 09, at SoC COM1. Enjoy! (Pictures after the jump)

The audience packed out the door

Luther a.k.a elfgoh, explaining how he got into FLOSS

"Ooh, can I see?"

Happy FLOSSers!

More happy FLOSSers!

The rest of the photos can be found here: [1] [2].

We already had one adhoc match over the weekend, arranged via IRC. So hang around in our IRC channel if you are looking for HoN beginners :p We should be arranging another games night in the near future. So keep your eyes open for our next event.

Here are some photos of this HoN-y night.

Busy concentrating

Owned! Dead!

Trying to get wireless working on Linux

Yes finally you’re dead! No, you killed me!

More photos of our HoN games night here. Many thanks to the guys at S2Games for providing us with Heroes of Newerth beta invites and a great game.

Post-it declarations

Genius at work do not disturb

The HackFest started off at Geek Terminal. The turnout was hardly shabby We had post-its stuck to our laptop, indicating who we were and our development interests. However, the venue proved a little unconducive for any serious coding, no thanks to the changing volume of music as well the cacophony from some teenagers.

Thanks to the Neng Giin and Microsoft, we were able to shift our coding party to Microsoft office at 1 Marina Boulevard Lvl 22 at around 3pm. The room we were given was definitely more suitable than Geek Terminal for a HackFest.

Junk food and Coke were plenty. And we were also treated to Pizza, courtesy of Microsoft. At the end of the HackFest, the gang switched from being coders to Guitar Heroes!

Besides having fun, the session was also a great place to share knowledge. Some of the things shared were Parrot and Recess PHP Framework. More photos by Ruiwen on Flickr.

Many thanks to Neng Giin for helping us organise this event and Microsoft for being such a wonderful host.

Not quite as far fetched a scenario as one might imagine.

As Ole Tange, wiki master on wiki.openmoko.com, showed linuxNUS, the OpenMoko phones are exactly that customisable. Developed by OEM First International Computer (FIC), the OpenMoko project is "dedicated to delivering mobile phones with an open source software stack ". In fact, the promise of a completely open source software stack was precisely the thing that drove Ole to get involved with the OpenMoko projects. To him, the project was a breathe of fresh air in a world filled with the smog of software patents .

In the first half of the session, Ole spoke about the various features of the OpenMoko platform, ranging from its hardware capabilities to the various types of applications that have been developed so far. There was also some discussion on the potential uses of a device such as the Neo FreeRunner. A notable mention is the idea of a location-based calendar. Have something to get done at the local supermarket? Tell your OpenMoko phone (the Neo FreeRunner, to be exact), and thanks to its built in GPS receiver, it’ll alert you when you’re in the vicinity. Alternatively, if you find that you have a tendency to leave home without your mobile device in the mornings, another interesting application idea put forward at the session was one that could get your phone to alert you if it was not already on the move in your pocket by the time your morning routine usually takes you out of the house.

In the later half of the evening, Ole took the members of the audience on a tour of the internals of the Neo FreeRunner, cracking it open and laying bare its insides for all to see. One aspect of the device that was quibble-worthy though, was the large amount of empty space within its casing. The screen and circuit board assembly really isn’t all that huge, so it really makes one wonder why the device as-sold, is so chunky. Apart from that though, it was really great to see a mobile device whose manufacturers readily claim that they actually want their users to take the things apart and play with them.

There also had been word recently that OpenMoko had stopped development work on the FreeRunner’s successor . Do note though, that is only the development work on the subsequent device that has ceased, and that the OpenMoko project is still very much alive. CEO Sean Moss-Pultz also mentioned that the company’s efforts would now be channeled into what has been called "Plan B".  What "Plan B" will be however, remains to be seen at this point.

Looking forward, while its unfortunate that we won’t be seeing the next version of the OpenMoko Neo FreeRunner, it’s heartening to know that at least the ideals will still live on. The OpenMoko Linux distribution will still be developed, and perhaps, we’ll see its reemergence on a different device some time in the future.

And here are the long awaited photos.

Don’t be surprise if you haven’t. The inaugural meetup for this group has just taken place last week, and linuxNUS sent a small contingent to the event.

From the meetup group and facebook group:

This group is created to be a platform with feet in many worlds. In the good old times it used to be that every hard or software platform was unique and had no or badly defined connections with the other platforms. This was ok because it was not important…. That has changed, new and old operating systems are used throughout the company infrastructures. Applications are now build or bought. Things are open source or propitiatory.. and we are all caught in the middle. But this also creates new chances and options. Will you run your new website on Microsoft Windows or on one of the available Linux platforms.. or maybe on Solaris.. and why would you do that. How do you manage all these different systems and are there other options. These are the questions that we try to answer, and maybe raise some new ones and offer them to the vendors or suppliers of these platforms. We want people to come together and discuss these options or to show their solutions. If you want to be a part of this, or just want information. Come to us. We have our meeting every 4th Wednesday of the month. Just for the record, this is about technology.. not philosophy. We just want it to work, its business.

Of course, there is always the post event dinner which was necessary to keep give us energy for hacking More photos at the facebook album.

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The presentation
The breakout (that’s Android btw)
The people

.. and the dinner.

We had dinner at Dover after the talk. The food was great and so was the company.

Quite a few ideas popped out from the conversations. One suggestion from Mario was to organise some girl only events to attract girls into Open Source. This has been successfully practiced in Taiwan. Another idea that is likely to be worked on is to organise FOSS.SG.

Check out the rest of the photos.

Hello from Barcamp 3 SG!

Many of the the #linuxnus regulars had attended Barcamp 3 Singapore held at Ngee Ann Poly on 28 Feb.

It was really nice to be able to meet many irc peeps in real life face to face . More photos here courtersy of Mario

We were also fortunate to meet up with Mario Behling, the President of the LXDE Foundation. Mario is very interested in getting people interested in contributing to LXDE. Currently, linuxNUS is making plans to have Mario down at at NUS for a meetup. So stay tuned!

LXDE Desktop

If you are interested to find out more, check out the LXDE website and wiki.

PS. Photos will be up soon once we can get hold of them

After arriving at his office, Ahmad elaborated that after Samba installation, internet access becomes limited. We couldn’t figure the solution, and decided to start a fresh install.

For more photos, please check out our album here.

And of course what is a linuxNUS gathering without good coffee and pizza? We help ourselves while Centos installed.

After installation, the internet worked. Yipee! And we got Samba working flawlessly too after a bit of tinkering plus trial and error. But unfortunately, installing Samba killed the net connection We threw every trick in the book that we knew… but sad to say we couldn’t really resolve the issue.

But then again, it was good to meet for the alumni and the present members to meet. And some of the more junior members did learn quite a bit Oh, and free pizza and coffee