Kyle Rankin will be giving a talk at the November North Bay Linux Users' Group meeting on the differences between Ubuntu and earlier Linux distributions. The talk is titled "Where'd my Files Go? A guide to the Modern Ubuntu Distribution".

While you might not be able to tell at a cursory glance, a lot has changed behind the scenes on a modern Ubuntu system from what you might be used to if you have used Linux for years. For example, did you know Ubuntu is phasing out System V init? That you can't loopback-mount the initrd? In this talk I would discuss the current changes Ubuntu is making to what we might consider the traditional Linux system. There's a little something for everyone on the talk: For Linux newbies who are curious about what's under the hood I will cover the traditional and modern boot process including how init works and follow up with a guide to where important files are in Ubuntu. For the experienced Linux user I'll show you how (and why) things have changed and where you can look now when you want to, for instance, change the default runlevel on an Ubuntu system.

The meeting is at O'Reilly and Associates in Sebastopol on Tuesday, November 11 at 7:30 PM.