This past Saturday I drove myself and my friend MrNex(https://github.com/MrNex) to a Linux Workshop meetup run by Interlock Rochester(http://www.interlockroc.org/).
The description of the meeting according to Carl(carl@interlockroc.org) states: "Come and get your questions about Linux answered. We have experts on hand to fix problems and answer questions about Ubuntu and FOSS. Bring your system in so we can help you get the most from your FOSS.". After having attended the meetup I can say that Carl's description is spot on.
Although I had no experience with installing or using Linux(or really any other operating systems aside from Windows and Mac OS) I was very interested in broadening my knowledge of operating systems especially with an open source one like Linux. I had a friend in high school who ran Linux off of an external hard drive on his half broken laptop, and I always thought the operating system seemed pretty cool. Then through taking my Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software class and reading up about Linus Torvalds, my curiosity was further peaked towards Linux.
As Carl's description states above, there were several experts at the meeting. The 2 that helped me the most were Joe(IRC Handle: dzho) and Carl himself. After MrNex expressed our shared interest in getting Linux installed onto our laptops, the 5 members attending the meetup were extremely generous in shifting some of their attention into helping MrNex and me out. Joe went up to the white board and was kind enough to go so far as to draw diagrams showing us how dual booting and virtual machines work, and which support each Operating System. Joe said that for dual booting Linux on Windows, we should look into either NTFS or FAT32, although FAT32 has memory restrictions. It was also highly suggested that we simply run Linux in a virtual machine, which we ultimately carried out with the suggest VirtualBox program(https://www.virtualbox.org/).
The process (for those of you who care) was actually a lot easier than I thought. I had to download the VirtualBox program. Then, I had to grab the OS that I wanted, which was initially RedHat Fedora(http://fedoraproject.org/). Unfortunately, Fedora was giving an ETA of about an hour so Carl kindly allowed us to borrow his latest copy of Ubuntu via CD. Turns out carrying around a copy of an OS can actually be quite useful especially depending on your career! After VirtualBox installed, all I had to do was set up a new virtual operating system machine and specify which OS was to be installed. Then I navigated to the disk(or ISO depending on which type of disk you mount) and set it to boot. After the machine boots, I just had to go through the installation process, which was basically just continuously clicking "YES".
Overall, I really enjoyed this meetup and I am hoping to attend more Linux User events to get more involved both in developing on the OS, and also in the community. I find it extremely intriguing that such a handy OS could have been the product of a lot of open source hacking. I can honestly say that the members of the group were incredibly generous, welcoming, and helpful. They never made me feel like I was inferior despite my extreme lack of specific knowledge with Linux, and I was amazed at how they instantly were willing to help with any problem that I had.
I had a ton of fun at this Interlock Rochester meetup and would highly recommend that anyone with any kind of interest in Linux attend the meetings. The meeting was held in a brick building complex on I believe the 4th floor(can't remember exactly), and signs are posted for the location. I think I entered the building through a door near a comic book store. The actual room where the meeting was held was a super neat "hackerspace" with gadgets and cool stuff everywhere. To find the building, I recommend just using a GPS and looking up "Interlock Rochester" :)
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