BLUG was started in 1998 by a small group of computer geeks in Bellingham, Washington who wanted to get off Windows and learn from local Unix gurus. Our focus is on Linux and all Open Source software.
We hold a presentation meeting the first Thursday of the month at Bellingham Technical College in Campus Center room 201 (CC201). On the third Wednesday, we hold an informal organization meeting with the time and location being Bellingham Makerspace (located in the Bellisfair Mall, next to Dicks Sporting Goods). We also put on special events including the regional LinuxFest Northwest in the Spring.
Next Meeting
Choosing a linux “distro”
01/21/2026 at 05:30 PM
There isn’t just one “Linux” operating system; the core Linux system and various bundles of user environments and applications are packaged as “distributions” (commonly called “distros”) by several different groups, companies, and non-profit organizations, each with different goals in mind. Depending on how you plan to use Linux (or your level of familiarity), one or another distro might be a good fit for you. Join us as we share some of the different things to think about when choosing a distro.
Past Meetings
INSTALLFEST
05/06/2005 at 12:00 AM
This meeting will be an install fest hosted by blug. If you, or someone you know, wants help installing linux this is the place to come!
LinuxFest video footage showing
05/05/2005 at 12:00 AM
Matt Hartley will be showing some LinuxFest 2005 footage from the Google presentation done by Chris Dibona.
LinuxFest Planning
04/07/2005 at 12:00 AM
This meeting will be mainly focused on LinuxFest Northwest which is happening April 30th. here at BTC. We’ll have our regular linux Q&A and linux news followed by Fest planning. Everyone is invited, and encouraged to participate.
LinuxFest 04 Planning
04/01/2005 at 12:00 AM
This meeting will be a regular Linux news/events, Question and Answer, as well as an LFNW 04 planning meeting. We’ll talk about LinuxFest 04 and discuss strategies for volunteers and staff.
Increasing performance with rzip, z7a and lzop
03/03/2005 at 12:00 AM
How to use little known, but top performing, lossless data compression utilities to increase backup and bandwidth capacities by up to 400%.
While Linux’s best known data compressors may be “gzip” and “bzip2”, my research has found that
“lzop” is faster, “7za” compresses more, and “rzip” achieves some of both with extra memory, which is becoming more and more affordable.
Kingsley has been using computers for twenty nine years and Linux for eight . I’ve worked at IBM and Hewlett Packard and have written articles for Byte magazine, the L.A. Daily Journal and the First International Conference on Neural Networks.
http cache and expiration headers
02/03/2005 at 12:00 AM
Michael Titus will give a short presentation on HTTP cache and expiration headers that can be used to improve browser performance and reduce server workloads. This presentation should be of interest to Apache administrators and to web developers using Java, PHP, and Perl.
Slides…
https://blug.org/presentations/titus/Http.html
Christmas Party
12/11/2004 at 12:00 AM
Saturday December 11th is the annual family potluck picnic sponsored by blug.org and friends. It’s from 5pm till 10pm at the Fairhaven Park Pavilion in Bellingham.
http://bellingham.kulshan.com/Washington/Bellingham/Outdoors/Fairhaven_Park.htm
It’s an OpenSource (potluck) event. The pavilion is dry, heated and has a full kitchen. We’ll also have the World Famous Blug Raffle with tons-o-prizes. For prizes so far we’ll have a ton of new
publications from O’Reilly, Prentice Hall, and Apress, A cool Linux keyboard, Linux clothing, software and much more. (donated prizes are welcome and all monies raised go to help fund linuxFest Northwest 2005)
Attendees are encouraged to bring family members.
INSTALL FEST!!!!
11/07/2004 at 12:00 AM
November’s meeting will be an install fest. This is a chance to bring your machine and have the BLUG crew help you with a fresh Linux install. It’ll be from 7pm till 9pm in D building room D-1 at Bellingham Tech. Soooo, seasoned Linux users bring yourselves and Linux newbies bring your machines.
There will be install CD’s of your favorite flavor of Linux available. Also, we’ll have our regular question and answer period, as well as, news about this year’s Christmas meeting(party).
Linux Games
11/04/2004 at 12:00 AM
John B will demo his flight simulator and I will bring my linux box and demo the linux version of Doom 3. Also, I think Michael Dodd will be doing a presentation on setting up a linux game server.
Ubuntu, a new Debian distro
10/07/2004 at 12:00 AM
Matthew Weaver will present an introduction and overview of Ubuntu, a new Debian-based Linux distribution.