The bus is a 1984 MCW Mk11 Metrobus, 9.5m in length and is powered by a 10.5L 6 cylinder Gardner engine. From 1984 to 2005 it spent its life in the North-East of England finishing up with “Go North East” as a school bus. It was then retired and converted to a mobile casino. In November 2006 John purchased it for a well-earned semi-retirement in the West Country being converted into an IT centre on the top deck and a servery below.

John writes that he still has a few jobs to do, including an LTSP suite on the top deck. John says: “I am working with the green energy organization Panacea, who are very excited at the prospect of promoting their stuff on the bus. I will show a video of theirs and some PDF files on the prototype equipment they are working on. Have a look at their site; it is full of green OS energy projects.”

John continues: “I don’t have any inside photos of the bus yet as its still a mess due to lack of storage space. I need to book up some events for August onwards. Have a look at the Linux Lounge website and I would appreciate any comments you may have - good or bad.”

The event will involve two and a half days of technical workshops exploring many aspects of modern technology and the use of free open source software. During the workshops you’ll learn how to revitalize your PC by installing and configuring Linux, plus setting up a home network and web server, making a router and hacking into various set-top boxes. At the end you’ll know how to tap into the world of open source computing and gain skills for a profitable and worthwhile career.

If you already know some of this stuff, Linux Boot Camp will still allow you to explore advanced system configuration topics.

Don’t delay as numbers are limited to about 60 places. There may be a few residential places available in UWE’s student accommodation. If you are interested, please contact the organisers to check on availability and cost. Social events are also planned.

For further information or to book please contact Pat Cottrell or Craig Duffy by e-mail lbc (at) uwe.ac.uk or telephone 0117 32 84242. More details can be found on UWE’s Boot Camp page.

The forward crew of Mike, John, Amias, Woodsy and Acesabe arrived on site at Highbury Farm on the Wednesday evening, pitched their tents and settled down for the night (eventually) ready for a hard day’s work setting up the site for arrivals due from Thursday: the hard work entailed erecting the big white tent, setting up the network, satellite dish, clearing the barn and establishing a workspace, servicing the site loos and myriad other minor tasks.

Hacktionlabbers started turning up from the afternoon onwards, the most thought-provoking being the arrival in the early evening of Alan who’d cycled all the way from Sheffield (150 miles away) in 11 hours. The most welcome vehicular appearance on site was Llanos, whose wee blue hatchback made it to within some 100 metres from the barn despite being fully laden with essential supplies - cider and a barrel of beer. Another welcome arrival was fellow BW volunteer Hamish, fresh from Scotland with a goodie bag of traditional Scottish fare - shortbread, potato scones, oatcakes and Irn Bru - tasty!

Friday saw Hacktionlab proper swing into action with the post-breakfast ritual of introductions and organising the schedule for the day, which set the pattern for the next 3 days. Workshop topics were wide and varied, including Mike’s ever-popular satellite workshop, networking in difficult environments, collaborative working and security tools, privacy, security sessions encryption sessions, multimedia workshops, plus the geeks’ key signing party. Perhaps the most controversial session of the weekend - mainly because its content and purport flew in the face of a lifetime’s conditioning - was round the firepit on Sunday evening, when BW member John gave a taster session on common law rights and their use.

Hacktionlab also gave a showcase for low power and renewable technologies: there was our LTSP on display and in use in the barn, whilst the marquee boasted solar panels powering a 12 volt cinema consisting of a media player, LED projector and sound system, which came into their own once the day’s work was done.

In summary, a worthwhile and enjoyable event in good surroundings and company, made better by the fine weather, plus a larger turnout than last year. In Mike’s words: “We got some very positive actions out of it, got some great people together to get to know each other better, strengthened the UK network for techs and activists, and erm, drank rather a lot of cyder in a lovely rural setting”. An urban Hacktionlab is being thought of later this year, somewhere up North. Details will be posted on the Hacktionlab wiki. For now thanks are due for this event to Mike (general organisation), Amias, John Jane and Becky for keeping us fed, Llanos for vital beer and cider supply, Woodsy for a warm fire in the evenings, Acesabe for tech support (and the photos used in this piece. Ed.) and all workshop organisers/facilitators, not forgetting our hosts at Highbury Farm.

With a new beginning welcoming us at Hamilton House, Bristol Wireless are of course not forgetting those we are sadly leaving behind.

So, we will be organising a fabulous and sumptuous LEAVING PARTY, to be held in The Zoo Bar at St Werburgh’s Community Centre (our home for this past three years) on Thursday 25th June, 6pm to 10pm.

All are welcome, especially the staff and volunteers of St Werburghs Centre, who have made our residence there so enjoyable and successful.

We’d also like to welcome, members, customers, associates, friends and oddballs – in fact anyone who has been part of or touched by the Bristol Wireless project over the past six years.

The legendary Bristol Wireless bar will be open, catering for all your liquid needs; musical entertainment is promised by the famous Mr Woods and the rumour drums are beating a repeat of the famous “Geek Quiz” with prizes, prizes, prizes!

Venue: Zoo Bar, St Werburghs Centre, Horley Road, Bristol BS2 9TJ (map here)
When: Thursday 25th June 2009, 6pm to 10pm
Who: All friends of BW.
Info: 0117 3250067 or by email to info (at) bristolwireless.net

Quite independently of our move, the Bristol Evening Post is today carrying a feature on Hamilton House and its role in the transformation of Stokes Croft. The piece includes the following on ourselves:

Among the businesses in the building are cycle repair firm Jake’s Bikes, and Bristol Wireless, which builds wireless computer networks to help social improvement.

We would like to thank the Post’s Suzanne Savill for her accurate reporting of just one aspect of Bristol Wireless’ work, unlike a previous report by one of her colleagues, which had us erroneously described as ‘recycling computer waste’.

For those who haven’t heard, this year’s rural Hacktionlab starts tomorrow 11th June and runs until Sunday 14th and takes place at Highbury Farm in the Wye Valley just inside Gloucestershire.

Hacktionlab is aimed at people interested and/or working in the areas of alternative media, renewable energy, on-line video distribution, free software and any other form of activism that uses technology.

The idea for the gathering has come from many years of experience gained by activists working for organisations such as Indymedia, as well as specific experience from involvement in the Horizone Eco-Village in Stirling (2005), the Camps for Climate Action in Drax (2006), Heathrow (2007) and Kingsnorth (2008), plus the No Borders camp at Gatwick (2007). There have had 2 successful gatherings so far - a rural meeting in the Wye Valley in June 2008 and an urban one in Leeds in October 2008.

This evening sees the forward crew of Bristol Wireless volunteers going to site to set up the infrastructure ready for when people start arriving tomorrow. There’s a fair bit of work to be done, such as setting up a reception tent and other infrastructure (LTSP suite, network, kitchen, compost loo, etc.).

The Hacktionlab site has full details of the programme.

Finally, it’s still not too late to sign up for Hacktionlab or join the mailing list.

Of course, moving is one of life’s stresses - and this is also true of organisations; there’s lots of sorting out and packing to be done at one end and lots of sorting out and unpacking at the other. In anticipation of the move, Bristol Wireless volunteer Sean has posted the following email in a search for willing hands and bodies:

Bristol Wireless are moving from St Werburghs Community Centre to Hamilton House sometime in June. It’s a big job. We estimate it will take one day of packing, another day of moving and one more day of
unpacking and setting up at the other end. We will need help from supporters and friends, so we’d like you to tell us what days you can help (if you can help) to aid our planning the best dates for the move. You can email us with questions or any other offers of help (transport, etc.) at info (at) bristolwireless.net or in the notes on the doodle.

All the best and thanks in anticipation.

Sean

Hope to hear from a few of you readers.

This morning he sent me the following email, the first part of which I’ve ignored and chosen to interpret in my own particular way:

You might like to tell your Twitter followers that Mr Treasurer’s project to turn his EeePC into a pocket webserver is progressing well

Stage 1: after an awful lot of fiddling with packages and dependencies last night, have just got the Eee PC into full KDE desktop mode. It now works a treat and looks just like a proper Linux desktop rather than the toy desktop Asus ship it out with

Now proceeding with the LAMP stack install … I’ll document what had to be done on the Wiki, ‘cos it wasn’t bloody well obvious.

Update 14.30 hrs: Jules has just emailed again…

It all works using XAMPP, but a lot of fiddling to make it go on Xandros.

Proof of the pudding in HTML body of this message. A fully functional LAMP stack on a pocket PC

Now loading mysql tools ….

Research by Dell found that 13 per cent of UK consumers do not recycle electrical goods at all - more than four times the figure in Germany.

Moreover, awareness of legislation such as the WEEE Directive, which requires manufacturers to offer hardware take-back schemes, is lower in the UK than anywhere else.

However, the survey suggests there is a desire for more electrical recycling services ­ since over half of those polled recycle everything they can. Nevertheless, Dell’s has found that although take-back schemes are available, they are not being used.

The European Commission estimates that across the EU only about one-third of electrical and electronic waste is treated in accordance with the WEEE Directive and that the illegal trade in waste continues from all Member States.

The original article is here.

Of course, before sending computer hardware to recyclers such as our friends Byteback, extending the life of equipment should be considered. At Bristol Wireless we’ve found that most redundant computer hardware being junked by companies* is quite capable of a new lease of life: we take these unwanted computers, refurbish them, install Linux and sell them very cheaply.

* We’ve found most companies/organisations have a 3 year replacement cycle; the better ones renew stuff over 5 years.

This is a predicament faced by many people who find themselves on benefits and low income through no fault of their own. Do you break the law by using pirated software in the hope that you can better your employment capabilities, or do you do without? Thankfully I did neither.

After some thought and research I removed entirely the licensed software which had restricted me from my PC. In doing so I made a decision to dive head first into the world of free and open source software. It didn’t take me long to realise some of the many benefits.

Linux provides a level playing field whereby everyone has the ability freely to enhance and develop our educational and IT capabilities regardless of socio-economic status, gender, age or race. This has been and continues to be my experience as a Linux user.

I’m dyslexic and have a problem writing with a pen, yet thankfully for £30.00 I was able to buy a reconditioned PC powered with the Linux operating system. In doing so I’ve been given the capabilities to write an article such as this. This is just one small example of what free and open source software has done for me.

Over the last year I’ve also had the opportunity learn how to make and design flyers, as well as manipulate and touch up photos using the GNU Image Manipulation Program (Gimp 2.6). Furthermore, I’ve also had the opportunity to learn how to DJ in a digital format. The only reason I’m able to do this is because I’m no longer economically restricted by the licence demands of proprietary software vendors. I can simply test an application and, if it doesn’t meet my needs, remove it and legally and freely replace it with another one.

One of the major things I’ve not had to worry about is viruses, spyware or malicious attacks on my system. The reason for this is due to the fact the free and open structure of software development on Linux enhances its security, unlike that of the corporate software suppliers, who sometimes take years to fix bugs. I’ve found my system’s powerful and secure enough and I can get on doing stuff instead of spending time locking it down.

As previously mentioned, the more I learn about my operating system the more I want to know. Lately I’ve started to delve under the bonnet to investigate how the system works. Again I’m not an academic or greatly knowledgeable in IT. However, over the last few months I’ve began studying again at home and something I learnt the other day blew me away. I didn’t know that when I place a bash command into a terminal window that the terminal transforms the bash command into a binary code capable of being read by the kernel. I thought the kernel understood bash and never knew bash was the way in which we communicate with the kernel.

Like I said, I’m a newbie so I’m allowed to take delight in my little discoveries, even if they do seem obvious to others. Knowing this makes me want to learn more shell commands and eventually reduce my dependence upon the GUI.

I’m only just beginning on the journey and to be honest still know very little, but it’s one hell of a trip so far. I just want to say a special thanks to every one at the lab for your continued support, patience and friendship. And to think a year ago I thought PC’s were just for MySpace, Facebook and YouTube.

PS: Midnight Commander ROCKS!