[Discuss] Boston Linux and Unix LXXIII, reminder, tomorrow, Wednesday September 24 3:30PM EDT

[announce at lists.blu.org (Jerry Feldman via Announce)]

When: Wednewsday September 24, 2025 3:30PM EDT

Location

UMass/Boston, University Hall, 3rd floor, room 3-3540

Summary

A periodic get-together where volunteers from our group help people with 
Linux installation and other hands-on issues.
Abstract

We invite you to become a member of the Boston area Linux community and 
offer our assistance in getting Linux installed on your computer.

We hold our InstallFests several times each year; we meet on a weekend 
at a location where people can bring in their computers and we can help 
them install Linux or other Unix variants. It's also a great way to get 
together and share our collective experience with each other in a 
hands-on learning environment, in the grand tradition of the UNIX community.

What Is Linux?

Linux is a UNIX variant, an operating system built around POSIX 
standards. From its inception in 1991, Linux was developed over the 
Internet by a group of people spanning the globe, and has evolved in 
that time from a simple hobbyist toy to a powerful enterprise computing 
platform. The operating system (and the source code for it) is free for 
anyone to use.

The Linux kernel, the heart of the operating system, was created by 
Linus Torvalds 1991; much of the rest of the operating system is from 
the GNU and BSD communities, which share most of the same origins and 
traditions.

?BSD? originally stood for ?Berkeley Software Distribution?, a 
collection of software tools developed at the University of California 
at Berkeley in the late 1970's to enhance the original AT&T UNIX 
operating system. In the early 1980s, BSD introduced major enhancements 
into the Unix kernel, notably the ?Berkeley sockets? functionality that 
lies at the foundation of Internet applications to this day.

?GNU? stands for ?GNU's Not Unix? (a recursive acronym), and represents 
a software development effort begun by Richard Stallman in the early 
1980's to build a variant of UNIX that could be shared freely.

Strictly speaking, these various groups are really subsets of a single 
community, often referred to these days as the Free Software community 
or the Open Source community.


Who Can Use Linux?

Linux is for you if:

You are a Windows 10 user who does not want to upgrade to Windows 11.

You're a student strapped for cash, and need a rock-solid operating 
system, word processors, Internet mail and browser software, and X11 
desktop environment, all without charge.

You're a parent of two teenagers, and need a way to allow them both to 
use the Internet at the same time (without fighting over one machine).

You have more PC's in your house than printers, and want to link them 
together with a network operating system that allows every PC to use any 
printer.

You're a systems administrator who's through with the hassle of abend 
calls and deciphering proprietary standards, and tired of paying license 
fees.

We have limited space, so first come first served.

Please bring a Linux distribution and your complete system including 
monitor, keyboard, mouse, power strips, power cords, etc. We'll help you 
load all needed software onto your system. Linux distributions are 
available as free downloads from:

Fedora - https://fedoraproject.org
Ubuntu - https://www.ubuntu.com
Rocky - https://rockylinux.org
Linux Mint - https://linuxmint.com
Open SuSe:? https://www.opensuse.org

If you do not bring a distribution, our volunteers will generally have 
some available.

Cost

It's free! However, we do have expenses, and contributions are welcome.? 
UMB students, faculty and alumni are free,? otherwise please consider 
contributing $25 per machine.


Getting There

UMB's Shuttle buses run on Saturdays from the JFK/UMass station on the 
MBTA Red Line to the UMB campus center, from 7:30 AM to 1:30 AM.

Attachments

Map of entire campus: 
https://www.umb.edu/media/umassboston/content-assets/admissions/freshman-students/events/driving-tour/21.199_Campus_Driving_Tour_Map.pdf
University Hall is attached to Campus Center.
Shuttle Bus Information - UMass Boston: 
https://www.umb.edu/transportation/shuttle-bus-information/

Boston Linux and Unix
http://www.blu.org
PGP key id: 6F6BB6E7
PGP Key fingerprint: 0EDC 2FF5 53A6 8EED 84D1 3050 5715 B88D 6F6B B6E7


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