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The United Way of Bruce Grey is helping high school students by
providing re-conditioned computers to those who do not have access to a
computer at home.
Through the STARS (Supplying Technology to At-Risk Students) program,
the Bruce Grey Linux Users Group collects used computer equipment
(nothing below a Pentium 2), makes sure it all works and builds
computers for these students, says Francesca Dobbyn, executive director
of the United Way of Bruce and Grey.
The Linux Users Group loads a version of Linux which is free shareware
that has no licence and is not pirated software. The computers have
their own version of a Power Point Presentation, word processor,
spreadsheet, etc. They are also set up to save in a Microsoft format so
the students can take their work to school and print it off.
Computers are given out through agencies of the United Way, community
word-of-mouth, or referrals from the schools.
The Bruce Grey Linux Users Group was founded in 2000 to bring
local Linux users together and help newcomers to Linux. The group holds
monthly meetings, gives technical presentations, distributes Linux
CD-ROMs and hosts a website, www.bglug.ca,
which provides on-line support. The group is currently centred in Owen
Sound but has members scattered around Bruce and Grey counties. It is
freely open to everyone.
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The group gathers for four main reasons: advocacy,
education, support, and socializing. Originally founded by
Richard Court, its key members also include Brad Rodriguez,
Andrew Howlett and Dan Eriksen. Court gave up control of the
group to the current active maintainer, Dan Eriksen (site
administrator, LPIC-1 certified). A lot of work is still
from the other members of the group, namely Howlett
(meeting co-ordinator, LPIC-1 certified) who started the
free CDs service.
Over the past few years, the group has grown significantly.
Nearly everyone has played a role in making the meetings
interesting and helping to keep the group growing. The bglug.ca domain
was purchased in November, 2002. After several months, the
forums were added and eventually the mailing list.
The group is constantly evolving and welcomes any
constructive feedback and suggestions.
GNU/Linux ("Linux") is a clone of the operating system Unix.
It was originally created by Linus Torvalds with the
assistance of thousands of volunteer developers around the
world. It is distributed under the GNU General Public
Licence which means the source code is freely available to
everyone. Linux has powered much of the Internet for years
and is now available with many applications for "desktop"
computer users.
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