Meetings

Linux Grows Up?

A Look at Linux's Past, Review of its Present, and Some Speculations on its Future

Bill Latura

Nalco Chemical Company

Tuesday, January 26, 7:00-9:00 pm
College of DuPage Room SRC-1024

Abstract

Linux has come along way in the ten years since its humble beginnings as a hobby for a Finnish student, Linus Torvalds. In the past six months, stories in the trade press have picked up significantly, as major players such as Oracle, IBM, Netscape, and Intel have announced their support of, and investment in, Linux as an alternative to Windows NT. This talk will examine the reasons behind this phenomenon, and will cover topics from the profound to the mundane, such as:

Brief history of Linux
Features and capabilities
Linux distributions
GNU, Open Source and XFree86
KDE and GNOME
Commercial applications and support
Tux the penguin
Speculations on the future
Resources

Current events in the world of Linux, spanning many of the topics listed above, will be discussed in depth.

Speaker Bio

Bill Latura is a Senior Engineer with the Applied Services group at Nalco Chemical Company in Naperville, where most of his time is spent designing and implementing process automation systems, including computerized controls and MMI's. He is also the system administrator for a Linux box currently being used as a file and internal web server, running Samba and Apache. Bill has been working with PC's in one form or another since the early 1980's, starting with his first, an Atari 800. Currently his home network includes four machines, running a combination of Linux and Windows NT.

Bill's first exposure to Linux was in the pre-kernel 1.0 days of winter 93-94. He's been a fan of Red Hat since the Mothers Day release of summer 95, though he has also worked with Slackware, Yggdrasil and Caldera distributions. His web site, The Linux Applications and Utilities Page, has been mentioned in a number of computer trade publications, and his collection of Linux Journal's goes back to Issue 2.

Bill has been the treasurer for UniForum Chicago for the past three years.

Getting to the meeting

The next meeting of UniForum Chicago will be from 7:00 pm to 9:00 PM on Tuesday, January 26, 1999 at the College of DuPage. The address of the meeting facility is:

        College of DuPage
        Building SRC, Rm 1024
        22nd and Lambert
        Glen Ellyn, IL 60137-6599

Take 355 to Butterfield Rd (Rt 56). Butterfield West to Lambert Rd. Lambert Rd North to first right after College Road. Park in lots 7 or 8 and walk to SRC building. Room 1024 is on the first floor of the SRC building, near the entrance.

All UniForum Chicago general meetings are open to the public free of charge.

Contact Michael Potter at (630) 960-0133 x615 for additional information.

For more information about UniForum Chicago contact nemec@xnet.com.