Dorset

Well, what can we say? Everyone had a very enjoyable day looking at several 'live' demonstrations including a fully-functional firewall/DHCP server/web proxy (which was acting as our link to the Internet), Open Office and installing and trying many of the latest distributions of Linux, whilst comparing and discussing their various differences.

In the end, we had about 30 people who came along for the day - not as many as we would have liked but not bad all the same. We probably didn't get as many people along as we had hoped for because a lot of our time and effort went into coordinating the National Linux Install Day and we left it a bit too late to organise and publicise our local event. A lesson for future events - we should consider having separate teams acting as local and national organisers/coordinators so there is not so much of a conflict of interest.

As a result of the Install Day, the LUG has gained a few new members and we have hopefully persuaded a few more people and businesses that Linux is not just an operating system for techies/hobbyists but is in fact a very viable (i.e. cheaper and more powerful) alternative to their more obvious options for home/office PC operating systems.

Many thanks to Bournemouth.com for providing us with web space and bandwidth to host the www.linuxinstallday.org web site and to Mat for setting it up and also providing the firewall/DHCP server/web proxy machines on the day, to Bournemouth University and James for allowing us to use the venue and providing us with high-speed Internet access for the day, to O'Reilly for giving us several books and other 'goodies' and to Mandrake and RedHat for providing us with installation disks and other 'goodies' to give away and to the many other sponsors who helped us make the day a success.