Objective:

To advocate the use of the Ubuntu Operating System and other Open Source Software applications to the Small Business and Household Computing Community of the Greater Orlando Area and the Space Coast.

Please feel free to call us on the phone at 321-784-5553, if you are currently using Ubuntu in the City of Orlando, Orange County, Seminole County, or Brevard County, (or any where else in Florida) since we would like to talk to other Ubuntu Users about how to spread the good news about Ubuntu to people in our area.

What's Next:

In order for the general populous to embrace Ubuntu as a viable open source computing solution, we must make the transition from "pay as you go" software to open source software (e.g. Ubuntu) as comfortable as possible. We all know that open source software will save people loads of money by eliminating the costs of software licensing, but what if they have already paid for software licenses ?

Unfortunately many people are afraid of anything new in the field of computer science, since computer people often have trouble explaining things to other people. We have also seen this problem occur even when the audience are other members of engineering profession.

How can we promote using Ubuntu and other open source source software, without scaring off an audience comprised mostly of people that just want their computer to work for them ?

Selling ? Ubuntu:

When you own a business you always have to something to sell, even if your only products are consultation, expert advice or some other professional service. Many times when you encounter other people that are also trying to sell something tangible, it's hard for them to understand that your product is just called "time".

In a way Ubuntu can give us something tangible to sell, even though by definition software is intangible and Ubuntu doesn't cost anything to use.

A Quick Fix for the Scary Live CD Splash Screen

People that we have given the Live CD's to often were scared off by the term "Start or Install Ubuntu" on the splash screen.

Here is how you can change that "scary text" before you burn your own Live CD's. You will need the following software tools: An ISO Editor (isomaster), a text editor (gedit) and a iso image of a unbuntu distribution.

1) Download your Favorite Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu or Edubuntu Distribution

2) Open the ISO image file with the ISO editor

3) Extract the File /isolinux/isolinux.cfg to your desktop

4) Make sure you have read and write permission to isolinux.cfg

5) Edit isolinux.cfg and remove the word install, and/or replace it with something like "Test Drive" to make it less scary.

6) Save isolinux.cfg and quit the text editor

7) using the ISO Editor replace the file /isolinux/isolinux.cfg with the one that you edited

8) Save the Modified ISO Image for your favorite flavor of *-buntu

9) Burn it to a CD

10) Restart Your System and Enjoy

Extending the Life of Older Systems

Ubuntu is great a way to extend the life of an older system, that has an older (possibly unsupported) version of that "pay as you go" operating system. If you want to leave a copy of the other operating system make sure that you install it first. That way you will be able to use the Linux Boot Loader, with both operating systems.

Another really cool thing is that you can buy a older use system that once cost thousands of dollars for less then One Hundred Dollars (plus shipping).

Bug Report Number One:

It didn't really surprise me that I couldn't find a computer system that didn't have an operating system already installed on it; When I visited various local major consumer electronics, office supply or other "big-box" retail chain stores. Nor did it surprise me that they all had the same operating system, and that operating system wasn't Linux.

Although there was a small computer store in the Melbourne Square Mall in Melbourne Florida that would be happy to sell us a computer without an operating system. We left information about Ubuntu with them and let them know know to download the software, since we were out of CD's at the time. We will follow up with them in a few weeks to see if they are selling systems with Ubuntu installed on them.

This many also be the case with other smaller computer retailers local to you if you ask them, maybe you can get them to join us in advocating Ubuntu by selling selling with Ubuntu installed as them.

New Systems Available Over the Internet

NOTE: We offer the information [below] about various equipment vendors because they have either saved us a bunch of money over the years or look like they can save us some money in the future. (Peace)

We have also found a couple of sources of inexpensive systems that are sold without an operating system over the Internet. One is an ebay seller (e-college) that has a number of systems based on both Intel and AMD-64 chip sets starting around $300 + shipping. They seem to have a good feedback rating (&prices) although we have not yet bought anything from them our selfs.

Another is CybertronPC which offers several "bare-bones", "gaming bare-bones" PC's and "servers" without an operating system. We have bought systems from them in the past and have had a pleasant experience with them.

Also for those of you that are looking for some horsepower Tiger Direct offers Dual Core AMD-64 Opteron "servers" starting at just under a "dime" (US $1000).

We have getting catalogs from Tiger Direct & Provantage for over ten years and also have brought hardware from both of them with out any major hassles.

Update: April 15, 2007: Just found two more sources of systems that are sold without an operating system: PCUSA.com (Opetron 1000 $500+) and or the heavy horsepower "little iron:, Penguin Computing ( www.penguincomputing.com).

Florida LoCo Group

Everyone around our State of Florida is invited to join the Florida LoCo. All you need to do is go to our home page under Local Groups and sign up.

Orlando Area Local Update: I have passed around the first five Ubuntu Dapper Live CD's to people at the EOCC events and at a few local Internet Cafes. Everyone that I met interested in open source software since it's entirely free.

People at Panera Bread which is one of my favorite free WiFi hotspots. Will let you post anything non-religious and that is not for profit on their community bulletin broad. Ubuntu CD's easily comply with those requirements.

I also have burned a couple of Edubuntu Live CD's myself to for the staff of our chamber of commerce. I called it "educational software" which can either run along with peoples existing operating system or replace it and that you can use it for free and make copies of it.

Our Flock of Ubuntu Penguins

We have installed the four major Ubuntu Distributions on various machines at our offices, and we would like to share with you our observations.

Ubuntu: [ Celeron 533 Notebook with 192MB or RAM, PCMCIA WiFi ] Firefox, Open Office and Evolution all work great, nor did we experince any problems when we access our servers on the road. It also took very little time to get the WiFi card working, including the time it took to install the device drivers that were included on CD with the WiFi card.

Ubuntu: [ Multi-Boot Northwood P4 2.4GHz/800FSB (Hyper threading Enabled), 1 GB RAM and geForce6800 128MB AGP Dual Head Video Card] No problem here this is our boss's main system and he has been using Ubuntu for just about everything, in lieu of the other operating systems that were installed on that machine. No problems with the Nvidia drivers, although he stills needs to make room on his desk for a second monitor ("Stay Tuned").

Edubuntu: [ Athlon XP 2200 Thoughbread with 640MB RAM w/No Monitor ]. It was easy to set this machine up for remote access using VNC, by enabling auto login and remote access with a monitor connected to the system. Then once everything worked the monitor was disconnected and the machine was ready for remote access via the Internet.

We really like Edubuntu as a gateway into the Household Computing Market, by billing it as both educational and fun for kids of every age.

Kubuntu: [ Dell 610 (2) Xeon 550 MHz w/1GB RAM ] A nice operating system for all the Slackware fans, once they get used to using not being able to login as root all the time. KDE is also a nice desktop for all of the UNIX Guru's past, present and future. We not trying to start a KDE vs GNOME flame war, but it's our feeling that most people; "Just want things to work", and that they may be more comfortable starting out with GNOME.

Xubuntu: [ Super-Micro (2) PIII 600 MHz w/1GB RAM ] An excellent choice for older under powered machines this configuration runs very well in a Dual Boot configuration with Ubuntu installed on another other disk drive. The Xcfe Desktop is compatible with many GNOME applications and would be acceptable for the general populous as a replacement for that other operating system (re: Bug Report Number One).

_ Kubuntu _ [ IBM (2) Xeon 1.7GHz 400 MHz FSB w/1GB RAM ] Another New "Old" system acquired recently from the Linux Foundation. Awesome! one of the best deals that we have made on ebay, we opened the box and to our surprise an extra hard drive too.

We got Windows 2000 up and running with Open Office, IE 6.0 Service Pack 1 [ & installing that was lots of fun on a closed network ] and the "free" Visual Studio 2005 Web Express Edition for ASP.net 2.0 programming on one drive. We used NTFS for the operating system and FAT32 so data can be shared between the two operating systems.

We have picked Kubuntu to be the flavor of Ubuntu to be installed on this machine on the other disk drive, so we can test our groovy applications using the "Kool" Desktop Environment (KDE).

How to Find Mike:

Mike regularly attends most East Orlando Chamber of Commerce events (EOCC.ORG) and the leads group that meets at 8:30 am Tuesday at Qdoba in the Waterford Lakes Town Center on Alafya Trail in East Orange County. On Thursdays you can also find him at the Orlando International Airport Marriott Hotel at the "Coffee Club" hosted by the publisher of "Insight East Orlando" (InsightEastOrlando.com) which meets at 8:30am.

Everyone is welcome to join us at any of these events.

Thank You

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