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LINUX-IL: Meeting Minutes
The Israeli Linux Users' Meeting
Minutes
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The Israeli Linux Users convened in room 201 of the Ross building in the
Hebrew University Givat Ram campus on December 9th, 1994. Some 30+ people
attended.
The first subject discussed was the means of Linux distribution in Israel.
A number of pronlems were highlighted:
1. There are no adequate ftp sites in Israel, which requires people to
obtain the entire distribution or the files they are interested in
individually. This usually results in ftping entire Slackware sets or
even all of the Slackware distribution from sites overseas (mainly from
the States).
2. Once the material is on an Internet host here in Israel, it may take
hours and even days to download it through the modem (even with the
currently ubiquitous speed of 14,400 baud) to a home PC. Additionally,
this task frequently entails diskette juggling as the space on the
local hard drive isn't sufficient (because of quota systems or lack of
resources) to hold the entire distribution even for the duration of
the downloading period.
3. Another option suggested was to share CD-ROM's among the users - the
trouble with this approach is that most users don't own and don't plan
to own CD drivers in the near future.
4. The suggested solution reached was having someone who _is_ subscribed
to a CD distribution allowing users to copy the CD to diskettes which
will be made available for others in their city - volunteers to hold the
diskettes were found for Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and Haifa (?). One hundred
diskettes were donated by the Hebrew University Institute of Computer
Science for this purpose.
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The next subject was Hebrew support.
"Hebrew support" in the meeting's context is mainly Hebrew editor and
Hebrew Tex support.
Editors: Someone mentioned that they know of people who used emacs 19
under Linux to write Hebrew text. This person promised to check what
are the exact details involved in this.
Another option is pico - a small text editor which offers Hebrew support
but which writes the text in a direction opposite to the one expected by
the Hebrew TeX.
The third option is vi-iv. People reported that they used it successfully
under Linux and that it combines well with the Hebrew TeX.
Hebrew TeX: It is called TeX-XeT, and its "home site" is on:
ftp://noa.huji.ac.il/tex
It is yet to be discovered if it can be compiled under Linux.
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At this point a round of introductions was held.
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The conversation turned to the question of Internet access.
The drift of the conversation seemed to indicate that the interest in this
subject is limited to only about a third (if not less) of the present.
Information provided by Alon Lelcuk and Amir Plivatski seemed to
indicate that the best course for those interested in an Internet
connexion is to either buy an Internet account from one of the account
providers and run POP/DIP/TIA or buy an Internet Provider Service from
the above servers and an Internet domain from Machba.
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Thereupon the latecomers introduced themselves and the meeting
adjourned but for a small group of people (sagiv@cs.huji.ac.il,
lelcuk@macom.co.il, marc@shum.cc.huji and some others). lelcuk@macom.co.il
suggested creating a minor distribution containing the absolute minimum
required to connect a Linux machine to the Internet. This proposal is
yet to be evaluated.
sagiv@cs.huji.ac.il requested of marc@shum.cc.huji.ac.il a written question/
suggestion list pertaining setting up an Non-Profit Organization (Amuta)
and the advantages stemming from such an undertaking. Limor Schweizer
offered to weigh the issue and provide information pertaining to
the subject.
The issue of becoming an NPO has NOT been decided upon and would probably
require a meeting to be decided upon.