On June 14th we held a Release Party celebrating newest Fedora 15 Lovelock. This vent was held on Universidad Centromericana at Roberto Teran conference hall.
When yo go to an event as speaker you are contributing some of your time and sharing your experience. But for having such opportunity there is a lot of work done before. Like securing facilities, planing the agenda, contacting people, printing leaflets and posters as invitation, making videos, sideshow, securing equipment for demonstration, physically moving equipment, setting up equipment … sure I am leaving so many thing out. This time at Universidad Centroamericana we have the opportunity of having plenty of people giving a hand, working hard and having fun with event. This time we have two students group working together to make this event happen. I will name alphabetically to avoid any preferences, ANETIC and GUL-UCA. Anetic is an student association for Information and communication technologies, they like free software but they are not exclusively engage in free software. Then we have the GNU/Linux user group of the Universidad Centroamericana. Both groups have gather the best people in System Engineering degree, and they usually help each other when the have events. Now this was a new experience because both group were helping the event, no one group leading and other helping out. The event turn out a success.
Fedora Project was awarding a dinner as a thanks gesture for those people that help out making an release party. Well, there is need for procedures, like registering your event and reporting, taking pictures and so on.
I found funny that people organizing events are really driven and make arrangements quickly, but for getting an agreement on how, when, where this dinner was supposed to be held brought some ups and downs. As the hardest point to agree was on food I suggested that we went to a food court so we can have the best of both worlds: pizza and chicken.

It was fun to share some leisure time with Aura, Wendy, Enrique, David, Ana, Pablo, Cesar, Katherine and Norlan. We do miss Francys. Last time I said that we need to do things beyond events, where we can talk freely and enjoy each others company. I shall make time for this.

Este 14 de Junio, en el Auditorio Roberto Terán de la Universidad Centroamericana a partir de las 1:30pm vamos a realizar el evento de lanzamiento de Fedora 15 – Lovelock.

Como siempre los detalles de los eventos de Software Libre estan disponibles en Linux Tour

Para este evento contamos con el apoyo de la Universidad Centroamericana que esta facilitando el local, y con el apoyo de: GUL-UCA y ANETIC-UCA

Necesitamos ayuda con la divulgación, asi que no dudes en comentar esto con tus amigos. Una forma de divulgarlo es por Facebook, aunque otras redes sociales y servicios de microbloggin tambien son válidos.

Les esperamos!

English at the bottom

El evento inicio a tomar forma el día 16 de octubre de 2010 que nos confirmaron que contariamos con el Salón Roberto Terán de la Universidad Centromericana. Desde algunos dias atras habiamos estado en un intercambio entre los usuarios de fedora en la lista local y en la lista del grupo de usuarios de dicha universidad.

Los detalles del evento se fueron trabajando en la wiki de linuxtour.org para permitir que todos fuesen aportando y teniendo en cuenta el estado actual de los preparativos. Los preparativos incluyeron dos partes muy distintas. Uno era la logistica del evento. Dar a hacer camisetas, descargar las imagenes de los discos, quemar los discos, imprimir panfletos, imprimir cubos. Afortunadamente aun habian calcomanias y discos en blanco del lanzamiento anterior. Por otra parte estaban las charlas. Nos habiamos propuesto invitar a gente que usara fedora en sus labores diarias como parte de la agenda de charlas.

Esto realmente tuvo muy buena respuesta. Simas confirmo inmediatamente. La Fundación Zamora Terán dijo que queria apoyar el evento. A final esto significó que pagaron por las camisetas que se distribuyeron durante el launch party. De parte de Güegüe Comunicaciones, dijeron que les intersaba mucho compartir.

Nuestra agenda final se desarrollo así:

• Que es Fedora por Aura Lila Gutierrez (GUL-UCA)
• Que hay de Nuevo en Fedora 14 Wendy Tablada (GUL-UCA)
• YUM-Jitsu: Uso del instalador de paquetes Neville Cross
• Post Instalación en Fedora por Johana Araica (GUL-UCA)
• Experiencias de uso de Fedora en Fundación Zamora Terán por German Ruiz
• Experiencias de uso de Fedora en SIMAS por Byron Corrales y Adolfo Fitoria
• XBMC: Fedora Media Center por Omar D’ Berroterán
• Experiencias de uso de Fedora en Güegüe por Guillermo Andrade y Juan Carlos

Nos reunimos a las 12:45pm para montar las mesas de demostración. El personal de la Fundación Zamora Terán ya estaban en el parqueo para descargar sus equipos. Los muchachos de GUL-UCA me ayudaron a mi para descargar mi vehículo.

La primera sorpresa fue que el salón estaba cerrado y nadie sabía del evento. Eso se logro resolver, pero tomo algo de tiempo. La verdad yo estaba un poco corto de paciencia, puesto que las camisetas habian sido entregadas a medio día.

La siguiente inquietud fue sobre el proyector, dado que el encargado del salón se fue a buscarlo, pero realmente nadie sabía que estaba en ello. Igual fue con los equipos que nos prestarian de la universidad. Llegaron hasta las 2pm. A mi me frustraba haber trabajado en instalar el sistema de registro pizzabashlog en ambas máquinas, y ninguna estaba disponible. Finalmente el proyector tenia un haz de luz débil. Cuando ibamos a iniciar nos dieron otro, que estaba más débil. El tiempo para hacer la configuración de doble pantalla se perdió y trabajamos con la pantalla de la laptop apagada y solo el proyector.

Afuera ya estaban la mesa de la Fundación Zamora Terán, quienes llevan la implementación de OLPC más exitosa en el pais. Tenian ocho XO en su mesa y estaban atrayendo mucha atención de quienes pasaban por el lobby. La mesa de Fedora estaba activa, en una maquina estaban registrando personas, entregando calcomanias, cubos truqueros y discos de instalación de Fedora. La otra computadora se quedó para demostración de las capacidades de Fedora.

Se distribuyeron 5 discos Live de KDE LiveCD, 11 discos Live de Gnome y 27 Discos de Instalación. Teniamos muchos panfletos informativos, pero solo se distribuyeron 19. Las calcomanias de la burbuja de Fedora fueron un éxito, se distribuyeron cerca de 50, las insignias para CPU fueron cerca de 25. Durante el evento se distribuyeron camisas a los expositores, a los que colaboraron con el evento y a quienes respondian preguntas.

Estuvimos usando el pizzabashlog para registrar a quienes asistieron al evento, sin embargo no todo mundo se registra. En determinado momento conte cabezas dentro del auditorio y eran más de cincuenta. Luego el número de personas creció, pero ya no tuve tiempo para volver a contar.

Lo mejor del evento fue que hay sangre nueva en la comunidad de software libre, y mejor aun que hay una fuerte presencia femenina. Hubieron algunos errores con las presentaciones, en cuanto a tipos de letras que se descuadraban. Algunos dependian mucho de las filminas. Pero para mi lo más significativo es que los estudiantes que iniciaron este GUL no estuvieron involucrados directamente. Todo fue iniciativa de esta nueva generación, incluyendo que ellos pidieron que el evento se hiciera en su universidad.

Yo estaria feliz de volver a hacer actividades con el Grupo de Usuarios de Linux de la UCA.

• Fotos por Camilo
• Fotos por Gema
• Fotos por Neville

ENGLISH

The event began to take shape on October 16, 2010 , when we were confirmed that we would have the Roberto Teran Conference Room at Universidad Centromericana. Some days before that we started to exchange mails between users on the local fedora mailing list fedora and also on the Universidad Centroamericana Linux User Group.

The event details were worked on the wiki linuxtour.org allowing everyone to contribute and take into account the current state of preparations. The preparations included two very distinct parts. One was the logistics of the event. To order t-shirts, download the images of the discs, burn discs, print brochures, print cubes. Fortunately we had stickers and blank discs of the previous release event. On the other hand there were talks. We had proposed to invite people who use Fedora in their daily work as part of the agenda of talks.

We had very good response. Simas confirmed immediately. Zamora Foundation Terán said they wanted to support the event. Ultimately this meant that they paid for the t-shirts that were distributed during the launch party. From Güegüe Communicacion they were keen to share their experiense.

Our final agenda was as follow:

• What is Fedora by Aura Lila Gutierrez (GUL-UCA)
• What’s New in Fedora 14 by Wendy Tablada (GUL-UCA)
• YUM-Jitsu: Using the Package Installer by Neville Cross
• Post installation by Johana Araica Fedora (GUL-UCA)
• Fedora user experiences in Fundación Zamora-Terán by German Ruiz
• Fedora user experiences in SIMAS by Byron Corrales and Adolfo Fitoria
• XBMC: Fedora Media Center by Omar D ‘Berroterán
• Fedora user experiences in Güegüe by Guillermo and Juan Carlos Andrade

We meet at 12:45 pm to set up demonstration tables. The staff from Foundation Zamora-Terán were already in the parking lot to unload their equipment. The boys and girls from GUL-UCAhelped me to unload my vehicle.

The first surprise was that the room was locked and no one knew about the event. That was solved, but it took some time. To tell the truth, I was a bit short of patience, since the shirts had been delivered at noon.

The next concern was about the projector, as person in charge were bringing one, but nobody really knew he was doing it. Same was with the equipment that we borrow from the university. That arrived at 2pm, people were already sitting on the conference room. I was really frustrating, because I have worked installing the registration system pizzabashlog on both machines, and none was available. Finally, the projector had a weak beam. When we were about to start, the person brought another projector, which was weaker. The time for dual-screen setup was lost and we work with the laptop screen off and just the projector on.

Outside there were the staff from the Zamora-Terán Foundation, who are carrying the most successful implementation of OLPC in the country. The eight XO at the table were attracting much attention from those passing through the lobby. The Fedora table was active on a machine were people were getting signed in, providing stickers, cheat-cubes and Fedora media. The other computer was kept for demostrating Fedora capabilities.

It was distributed the following media: 5 KDE LiveCD, 11 GNOME LiveCD and 27 Installation DVD. We had plenty of brochures, but we distributed only 19. The Fedora bubble stickers were a hit, we distributed around 50. The paper case badge distributed were about 25. During the event 25 t-shirts were distributed to exhibitors, people who collaborated with the event and those who responded to questions.

Pizzabashlog was used to record attendance to the event, however not everyone is registered. The log showed 36 people. At one point I made a head count in the auditorium and were more than fifty persons. Then the number of people grew, but I did not have time to recount.

The best of the event was that there is new blood in the free software community, and even better that there is a strong female presence. There were some mistakes with presentations about fonts that were growing bigger that the screen, some persons relied heavily on slides during the talk. But for me, the most significant is that the students who started this LUG were not directly involved in the event. Everything was an initiative of this new generation, including that they asked that the event was held at their university.

I would be happy to work again with UCA Linux Users Group.

• Pictures by Camilo
• Pictures by Gema
• Pictures by Neville

English at the bottom

Es el primer día de la Copa Mundial de Fútbol y estábamos iniciando un evento de Fedora en la Universidad Centromaericana. Así que rompimos los esquemas y pusimos el partido de Uruguay contra Francia desde el inicio. El partido inicio durante el almuerzo y nosotros nos apropiamos del salón más temprano. Así que solo invertimos 40 minutos de nuestro tiempo asignado para el lanzamiento.

La mayor parte de la gente se interesó en el partido, algunos prefirieron quedarse al fondo del salón y platicar. Algunos preguntaron como estábamos proyectando el partido, lo que involucraba un dispositivo USB y VLC Player. Otro se quedaron alrededor de la maquina de demostración. Esta maquina además de tener Fedora 13 tenia instalado un software llamado TurboJet y cuatro unidades para quemar DVD. Espero pronto hacer un post con más detalles sobre esto. Algunos incluso preguntaron sobre la antena casera. A final fue muy informal para una que otra persona, pero creo que complacimos a la mayoría. También teníamos otra máquina para llevar las inscripciones con una aplicación Pizzabashlog que es GPL y creada en Nicaragua.

En cuanto terminó el juego iniciamos nuestra agenda. Primero hablamos sobre el Proyecto Fedora, luego sobre las cosas nuevas en Fedora 13 y finalmente sobre como mover repositorios en memorias USB.  Teníamos asignado un laboratorio para jugar con estos conceptos, pero debido a la lluvia nos quedamos en el salón.

Nos reunimos unas 50 personas, distribuimos discos, calcomanías, y rifamos camisetas a aquellos que contestaron preguntas sobre Fedora. Varias personas aprovecharon nuestro amplio repertorio de imágenes iso de los distintos spin para copiar en sus memorias USB. Creo que tuvimos un buen día.

Tengo que agradecer por las fotografias a Agustin Chavarría, el resto de las fotos las pueden ver aquí

English

This was the first day of the Soccer World Cup, and we have a Fedora event at Universidad Centroamericana (Central American University). We decided to go out of ordinary and display the match Uruguay vs. France. The game started during lunch time, so we took over the room early. We just invested 40 minutes from our time given for the Launch party.

Most people got interested on the match, but some people preferred to stay at the end of the room and talk. Some of them asked how we were projecting the game, which involved a USB device an VLC Player. Others hanged around a demo computer that had Fedora 13 installed, and also it has installed an application called TurboJet and four DVD Burners. I hope to write one post with more info about this.  Some people even asked about the home made tv antenna. In the end it proven to be way too informal for a couple of people, but I think we pleased the majority. We also had a computer to run registration with an Nicaraguan GPL application called Pizzabashlog.

As soon as the game ended we started our agenda. First we talk about Fedora Project, then about what’s new in Fedora 13 and finally how to move repos in a USB stick. We have a lab to play with repos and USB sticks, but we stayed at the room as it was raining.

We gather about 50 persons, a distributed among them media and stickers. We also gave t-shirts to those who answered some trivia about Fedora. Several people took advantage of our stock of iso images for almost all Fedora spins to copy them into their USB sticks. I think that we had a good day.

I have to thanks for the pictures to Agustin Chavarria, and you can see more of his pictures here