I would like to have a newbie actually install and configure a computer as part of the presentation.
I think that's a great idea.
I would also like to attend equivalent presentations by other folk who prefer a substantially different distro (I am particularly curious about Gentoo and LFS).
Gentoo is pretty boring, for all that it's made out to be special. Oh, you can do it the "hard way" if you like (which just involves waiting for days for everything to compile), but there are pre-built .tar.gzs for bootstrapping your new install, and that's the sensible way to install it. And once it's installed, it's no different to any other modern distribution with a decent package management system. Even if you opt for the very-cut-down-and-masochistic installation, all you do is issue a few commands (such as "emerge gnome-desktop", which will build the entire dependancy tree for gnome as well ) and wait for 500MB of source to download and compile. Yawn. Even LFS seems to be getting trivially easy to install.
Again, I stress that I am not attempting to start a distro-war. I would be attempting to discuss the underlying philosophy behind the oldest surviving Linux distro and to question whether the purported user-friendliness of GUI-based administrative suites can be justified.
I've long maintained that this isn't the case. However, I'm not the average user, and I dare say neither are you. I also maintain that MS Outlook is a horrible horrible email client and that people should avoid using it at all costs, but here's the kicker: as soon as you take it away from people, they start to yell. Even if you've given them something that is superior in every way, people are incredibly reluctant to step out of their comfort zone. One reason the LUG has officially recommended Ubuntu (and in the past, Fedora Core) was to limit the myriad of choice a new LUG member has as to which distribution to use /to a distribution that majority of people who were able to offer assistance were familiar with/. So when you see Ubuntu being officially recommended at Installfests and so on, it's not necessarily because it's the best distribution (although some of us think it is), it's because it's the one that is able to be supported best. When you're trying to install linux on people's random hardware (with winmodems and both esoteric and faulty components) in as short a time as possible, it pays to have as many people round that have really good indepth knowledge of the distribution as possible. Of course, this is a somewhat vicious cycle, as it will mean there are more people who know Ubuntu better, but that really can't be helped. Anyway, I think your suggestion was a good one, although I probably won't be able to make it as I live in Auckland now. I have been meaning to revisit Slackware as last version I used was 3.1, and I know that it's unfair to base my opinion of it on those experiences. We may as well judge Ubuntu on the first Debian release if we're going to do that. It's also good to see a general LUG member offer to organise a meeting, that's a rare occasion :)