We are a group of enthusiastic Linux users in the state of Kentucky (Commonwealth really). We were formed originally around January 12th 2007. Around a year after we started we remade ourselves as a more general LUG but kept up with all things Ubuntu. On January 14th 2008 the BGLUG was formed.
Key Details
Date - (September 21st 2010)
Team Contact - Eric Lake <ericlake@ubuntu.com>
Membership - 80 as of 1st September 2010
Mailing List - http://groups.google.com/group/bglug
Web Site - http://bglug.net
Team Wiki - http://bglug.net/wiki
IRC - #bglug on freenode
Roadmap
KLF - Inspired by the awesome OLF (Ohio Linux Fest) we have been discussing the possibility of hosting a KLF (Kentucky Linux Fest). This is a huge effort and something that will take time to come to fruition.
Member Reviews - Encouraging members to submit reviews (books, software, hardware) to the site in order to drive traffic and attract new members.
Survey - We are actively working to better understand the needs of the members of our team.
- We have started with a simple survey to discover if our current meeting times work for the majority of the group.
- We are taking polls to get a feel for what kinds of topics our member are interested in discussing at our regular meetings.
Past Events
September IRL (Crypto, Django, Backtrack) with video of the Crypto talk
May IRL (Lucid (Ubuntu 10.04) and Goddard (Fedora 13) release party)
July IRL (MySQL administration)
September IRL (OLF roundup)
Current Events
Grid Computing - Using our spare cpu cycles to help fight cancer and cure other world problems
Logo Design Contest - In an effort to get a nicer logo for our group and our users more involved we are currently having a Logo Design Contest
School Review Board - A number of our members are on the Review Board for East Side Technical School in our local area. As a part of the board we attempt to help guide the curriculum to stay with the current Tech workforce. A good portion of the CDs that our group receives from Canonical go to this school to be passed out to their student as it is the OS that is used on the desktops.
Team Projects - We are actively seeking projects for our team to work on. Currently we have the following:
A diaspora pod
Working on setting up OneSocialWeb as well
Working on creating a custom CMS for the group using Django on github
Experience
Release Parties
- We have been hosting release parties for Ubuntu since Feisty was released.
- We have hosted release parties for Fedora since Constantine was released.
Install Fest - To date we have held three install fests.
Regular Meetings - Our team holds regular IRC and IRL meetings
- IRC - The first Tuesday of each month at 9:00PM EST in #bglug on irc.freenode.net. We are currently discussing moving to having two meetings per month on the first and third Tuesday.
- IRL - The third Saturday of each month from 2:30PM - 4:30PM EST
- Our goal at each meeting is to have some content to fit all experience levels. We do not want to talk over new users heads but we also do not want to bore the ones that have been using Linux for a long time either.
Live streaming of meetings via Ustream with recorded presentations available
User Support - We have been providing support to those we come in contact with since our beginning. We support users in the following areas: irc, in person, mailing lists, and forums.
Comments / Testimonies
My name is Peter Paterson, username MintSpider, and I have been a member of Bluegrass Linux User Group for over a year. Had been interested in Linux for a few years, and had mostly been using Xubuntu and Linux Mint Xfce on my own. It was a true blessing to discover the BGLUG group, and have been very impressed by their dedication to all aspects of Linux and especially Ubuntu. The group has taught me a lot via IRC and IRL meetings, and are always available for teaching & questions via IRC and mailing list. These days I am using Ubuntu NBR on my Asus EeePC 1000, and Linux Mint 9 Xfce on my desktop. BGLUG have been invaluable in keeping me using Linux and breaking away from using Windows at home.