Clemson LUG Speakers

[Ross George]

A few months ago, I posted about starting a Clemson Linux User Group.  I have a few people interested and I'm working on the administrative/organizational aspect of things, but one thing we will need is speakers.  Is anyone local willing to come talk about something (Linux/FOSS adjacent) that they're passionate about?  Anything will do- I am trying to find things that I can advertise to get people to come to LUG meetings and dates/times are very flexible.  Please reach out to me if you are interested.

TL;DR- Let me know if you want to come present to Clemson LUG.

Thank you,

Ross George

[Zach Underwood]

I must have missed the first email about a Clemson LUG meeting. I dont have anything to speak about right now but would be interested in coming. I just moved 15 mins from Clemson. 

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Zach Underwood (RHCE,RHCSA,RHCT,UACA)

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[George Law]

so not trying to be an ass here, but wasn't this tried years ago?

I feel like there was some group involved with the first go-round of SELF which took place at Clemson

might be hard to get some of the groups that normally sponsor the food and stuff at UCLUG to come down to Clemson as well.

any kind of virtual option planned as I know a large number of people attend UCLUG remotely.

Its been harder for me to attend UCLUG the last few years as my wife volunteers for CAFE (clemson area food exchange) and usually is out delivering stuff tuesday evenings.  my eye sight is better at night so i am usually driving).

~George

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[Jas Eckard]

Ross, I'm really encouraged to learn that you're starting/restarting a
LUG at Clemson. It's got to be hard for any sort of organization to
be stable, when its population changes every 4 years.

As George mentioned, UCLUG, ColaLUG, CharLUG, TriLUG, ALE, and lots of
other LUGs in the area were brought together to help start SouthEast
LinuxFest (SELF), and Clemson LUG was the host for the first year of
this wonderful conference in 2009.

I would be glad to speak and, actually, attend any meeting you might
have. I just recently gave a demo at work on git's `bisect` feature,
which I've held in my back pocket in case we don't have a topic at
UCLUG, so it's fresh in my mind and I could give that demo. I could
also talk about git in general, I'm pretty sure it's not in the
curriculum, but used by everyone in the industry. I could also blow
the dust off of talks about bash, vim, salt, sudo, cron, markdown, or
other things.

--Jas Eckard
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[Ross George]

Yes, there was a LUG at Clemson a few years ago.  They seem to have disappeared sometime around 2017.  Virginia Tech's LUUG had also been dead for some time until it was revived in 2024 by a group of students.  It turned out to be quite a fun club, so I thought I would try to bring something similar to Clemson.  From what I have seen, there is decent interest among the student population, and even a couple of local people.  I don't know how it will end up, but it seemed like starting something at Clemson is worth a shot.

[Ross George]

It was quite a while ago- April or May if memory serves me correctly.  I don't have a lot of details right now.  I have a Google Group.  Honestly, I'm not even sure about the name- it might just end up being the Clemson Linux and Unix User Group to avoid colliding with the Cincinnati LUG (Virginia Tech's LUUG did a similar thing in the late 90's to avoid conflicting with the Vermont LUG).  I'll keep you updated with information once I figure it out.

[Jim]

Ross,

We don't try to talk folks out of things, but if you're new to organizing a meetup, then we have many of the local organizers in one place in the HackGreenville Slack's #community-organizers channel to offer feedback.

The challenges of sustaining a monthly meetup in a city of Greenville's size are notable.  We don't see a lot of groups start in places like Anderson, Clemson, or Spartanburg and I think it's because smaller locations can come with even more challenges.

The Columbia Linux users group seems to enjoy tuning in virtually to UCLUG in Greenville (i.e. Jas Eckard) to minimize the need to have a speaker and venue every month.  I think many of the recent speakers have been from Greenville, so both groups help each other sustain.

Speakers are one of the hard parts, but getting people to show up / marketing, having a consistent venue, having sponsors (if food is part of the plan), and general organizer tasks (setup / breakdown, posting events online, etc) all add up to make for a notable amount of effort to sustain a meetup.

It's not common, but UpstatePHP switched to quarterly meetings coming out of the pandemic, and they put all of their organizing effort and personal connections into putting on a larger event, including speakers and attendees often coming from out of town.

The HackGreenville orgs list shows a history of past and current meetup groups.

That's all for now, but I hope this provides more food for thought.

Best,

Jim

On Tuesday, September 2, 2025 at 2:20:05 PM UTC-4 George Law wrote:

[Jas Eckard]

To counter Jim and George, I say: Go for it! Sounds like the VT
model would be great for you. And the fact that you're at one of the
most technical Universities in the state, just a little too far from a
big city, you may have a really great niche.

The great thing about the youth is that they don't know that they
can't do something. That's something that older folks like me find so
hard trying out new things.

--Jas
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[Ensley Feemster]

I would be interested if the meetings were on a night other than Tuesday. If the meetings were on Thursday the person who presented at the Tuesday meeting might be convinced to present at the Thursday meeting in Clemson.

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R. Ensley Feemster

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