Amid an imposing and yet inspiring blend of historical and modern architecture at the University of Hull is an often-overlooked treasure.
One might be forgiven for jumping to historical figures, such as Phillip Larkin, the notable poet; Robert Blackburn, the aviation pioneer; or John Venn, who advanced Symbolic Logic amongst other areas of mathematics. However, in my view this treasure lies in plain sight. Yet like a cipher, would be difficult to unravel without the right code. Ironic, given the treasure’s ability to transform students’ understanding of computing, networked systems, and cyber security.
This hidden treasure is called Freeside.
Freeside, run and managed entirely by student volunteers, is the Linux User Group on Campus. It maintains its own Lab in the Robert Blackburn building on campus where students from any degree pathway can get involved and contribute to projects completely free of charge.
In its formative years, Freeside maintained physical servers allowing students to gain hands on networking, security, and maintenance experience. Presently, virtual machines are used to run Freeside infrastructure which is more appropriate for current industry skillsets.