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 have retired older machines such as Intel 486's, and would like to
put them in service again.
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 power PC user, and want to go beyond the limits of Windows or
OS/2 while keeping your old software.
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
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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