- WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

Topic for April?
by Tim Keller March 30, 2011

March 30, 2011

Any ideas what people would like to do for a topic for April? We'd talked about doing a distribution bake off... Does that still have any traction? Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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WLUG meeting idea - Distro comparison
by joel d March 25, 2011

March 25, 2011

I am setting up a new laptop and trying to decide on which distro to go with... Probably the same list of finalists as everyone else in no particular order (Red Hat / CentOS / Fedora / Ubuntu / Gentoo / others). Has WLUG done a disto comparison night meeting? I think it might be interesting. Each person bring in a laptop with their favorite mainstream distro (possibly 3 or 4). Spend 20 to 30 minutes on each, showing the major differences (installs / apps handling / etc) and why they like it. Probably not a new idea. If it's been done of late then please disregard as I cannot make as many meetings as I once could. (This is due to my personal schedule not due to lack of interest.) Joel

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Re: [Wlug] Gentoo
by joel d March 25, 2011

March 25, 2011

Got it. "Ward, aren't you being a little hard on the beaver?" I don't believe I shared my personal Gentoo opinion. Instead I mused about a hilarious website and Gentoo's popularity growing and fading like a wave... Approx. 4 years ago I tried Gentoo once for a few days and discovered it wasn't for me. "Hi... My name is Joel and I'm a "Distro-XYZ" user." Sounds like a support group intro to me. No axe to grind, it is just my personal preference. I prefer not to drink instant coffee also, so I merely go elsewhere for my warm, slightly burnt, caffeinated goods. As always your mileage can and will vary... Actually I was mostly amused with the odd autos makes me want to do the following to 15+ year old Honda Civic showing lots of rust: put a rear wing with a half sheet of plywood held on with drywall screws Spray the home-made wing neon yellow spray can to not match the car (don't mask the car first) remove the exhaust with a sawzall at the headers (loud with real flames) leave a pair of custom exhaust pipe tips out the rear (leaving the labling of Folgers coffee). hood scoop made with a sawzall duct tape and a Cheerios box replace all the wheels with 4 "donut" spares. drive it up and down the street with a really bad car stereo blasting "Tom's Diner". Anyone have a spent, near end-of-life donor car in their driveway? (on second thought, nevermind) Joel From: Gary Hanley <gary(a)hanley.net> Subject: Re: [Wlug] Gentoo To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org Message-ID: <4D8C0929.9090808(a)hanley.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Where is Barbara Billingsley when you need her? :-) On 03/24/2011 04:27 PM, joel d wrote: > Wow. > I have never been to Gentoo is Rice before. > That guy has some issues but I missed why he was so upset ;-) > Was very entertained by the highly visually modified but still stock > underpowered autos. > Pics are a "People of Walmart" for the auto world. > > That Gentoo's install numbers are fading: > everyone that wants it is upgrading as Jamie mentioned > dying due to Ubuntu adoption/popularity from the article > developers numbers dwindling from the article > no longer the cool distro for techies or average users (we want to > be cool too) > some other reasons... > or is it the end of it's technology "wave" > > IMHO, most technology comes and goes in 1 to 8 year waves. > > A technology wave example is the Slackware disto. > Who else remembers running Slackware (back when it was rather cool)? > Not sure I even know if they still release Slack anymore (I did just > go there and yup they do). > > Three related waves which took longer admidedly were > centralized processing and dumb terminals of the simpler good old days > modern servers and intelligent desktops with processing power > back to virtual machines (and thin clients which are really akin to > fancy terminals) > > Joel

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Re: [Wlug] Gentoo
by joel d March 25, 2011

March 25, 2011

Wow. I have never been to Gentoo is Rice before. That guy has some issues but I missed why he was so upset ;-) Was very entertained by the highly visually modified but still stock underpowered autos. Pics are a "People of Walmart" for the auto world. That Gentoo's install numbers are fading: everyone that wants it is upgrading as Jamie mentioned dying due to Ubuntu adoption/popularity from the article developers numbers dwindling from the article no longer the cool distro for techies or average users (we want to be cool too) some other reasons... or is it the end of it's technology "wave" IMHO, most technology comes and goes in 1 to 8 year waves. A technology wave example is the Slackware disto. Who else remembers running Slackware (back when it was rather cool)? Not sure I even know if they still release Slack anymore (I did just go there and yup they do). Three related waves which took longer admidedly were centralized processing and dumb terminals of the simpler good old days modern servers and intelligent desktops with processing power back to virtual machines (and thin clients which are really akin to fancy terminals) Joel

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Re: [Wlug] Gentoo
by Jamie Guinan March 24, 2011

March 24, 2011

On Wed, 23 Mar 2011, Joshua Demallistre wrote: > I was thinking about giving Gentoo a try. It would be nice for some one in > the group could give me a hand. Another distro to consider is Arch. I haven't used it, but it appears to be similar in spirit to Gentoo. Looking at the beginner's guide, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide it contains a lot of relatively low-level configuration stuff that one would not need to know for a plug-and-play distro. So as a "learning Linux" platform, Arch does looks promising. -Jamie

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Gentoo
by Joshua Demallistre March 24, 2011

March 24, 2011

I was thinking about giving Gentoo a try. It would be nice for some one in the group could give me a hand. Sent via Android On Mar 23, 2011 12:00 PM, <wlug-request(a)mail.wlug.org> wrote: > Send Wlug mailing list submissions to > wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > wlug-request(a)mail.wlug.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > wlug-owner(a)mail.wlug.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Wlug digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. My Ubuntu Remix CD... (Andy Stewart) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:47:44 -0400 > From: Andy Stewart <andystewart(a)comcast.net> > Subject: [Wlug] My Ubuntu Remix CD... > To: Worcester Linux Users Group <wlug(a)mail.wlug.org> > Message-ID: <4D896D60.2040901(a)comcast.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > > HI gang, > > I recently remixed an Ubuntu 10.10 CD for the Linux ham radio users (and > there are many!). I am not yet distributing it widely, but I would like > to get a couple of people to try it. It is a Live CD that can also be > installed to the hard drive. > > If you are interested, please download the ISO file from this location: > http://home.comcast.net/~andystewart/linux_intro/ubuntu-remix-5.iso > > My target hardware is an older computer, 256MB of memory, and 1GHz > processor, at a minimum. This started from the Ubuntu 10.10 server > edition. I added icewm and a bunch of programs for amateur radio. One > can see these programs in the "Amateur Radio" menu. > > Even if you are not an amateur radio operator, you might find the > software selection interesting. > > I am mostly concerned about the sound system, which seems to be changing > yet again(!), this time to pulseaudio. An easy program to try is xcwcp > which will simply beep morse code at you. If that works, I expect other > apps will work also. (xcwcp -x /dev/dsp should work, or invoke it from > the menu). > > Also, if you attempt to install it to a hard drive, please do it in a > computer with no valuable data or other operating systems, just in case. > > If you try it, please send me some feedback. > > Thanks! > > Andy > > -- > Andy Stewart (KB1OIQ) > Founder: Worcester Linux Users' Group > Founder: Chelmsford Linux Meetup Group > President: PART of Westford, MA (WB1GOF) > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > > > End of Wlug Digest, Vol 89, Issue 8 > ***********************************

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Re: [Wlug] Gentoo
by Jamie Guinan March 23, 2011

March 23, 2011

On Wed, 23 Mar 2011, Eric Martin wrote: > On 03/23/11 12:19, Joshua Demallistre wrote: > > > > I was thinking about giving Gentoo a try. It would be nice for some > > one in the group could give me a hand. > > > What sort of help are you looking for? There used to be a > disproportionately large Gentoo user base in WLUG, although I don't know > how large it is anymore. I use it at home and work and I'd be glad to > help you out. For me, the great thing about Gentoo is the learning > experience; I learned a lot about GNU/Linux by doing my first Gentoo > installs, and I'm still learning. If you haven't already, grab the > install discs and peruse through the install docs. If you have a 64bit > machine, I suggest grabbing the 64bit disc. Maintaining Gentoo x64 > isn't terribly hard, and you can use memory more efficiently. Gentoo user here, too. Although I haven't done a fresh install in quite a while, I just keep updating. What I like best about Gentoo is picking and choosing which packages to include and leave out, both applications and libraries. For example, the other day I wanted to install "gtkpod", but I really don't want to have Mono or QT4 installed on my system, for various reasons. Doing a test install, I can verify that they are left out: # emerge -ptv gtkpod These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order: Calculating dependencies... done! [ebuild N ] app-pda/gtkpod-1.0.0 USE="aac flac mp3 ogg -curl" 1,856 kB [ebuild N ] media-libs/libgpod-0.8.0 USE="gtk iphone python udev -mono -static-libs" 975 kB [nomerge ] media-libs/libgpod-0.8.0 USE="gtk iphone python udev -mono -static-libs" [nomerge ] sys-apps/sg3_utils-1.30 [ebuild N ] sys-apps/rescan-scsi-bus-1.48 21 kB [ebuild N ] sys-apps/sg3_utils-1.30 863 kB [ebuild N ] app-pda/libimobiledevice-1.0.4 USE="python" 404 kB [ebuild N ] app-pda/usbmuxd-1.0.6 57 kB [ebuild N ] app-pda/libplist-1.3 67 kB [ebuild U ] dev-util/cmake-2.8.3-r1 [2.8.0-r2] USE="ncurses -emacs -qt4 -vim-syntax" 5,310 kB ... The USE= "-mono" and "-qt4" flags indicate that the listed packages will be built without that support. Gentoo handles that by passing the necessary options to "configure" when it builds the package, and that is IMO the main point of using a source-based distribution. If you *did* want support for mono, you could edit "/etc/make.conf" (system-wide) or "/etc/portage/package.use" (package-specific), add the "mono" flag (or remove "-mono"), and try again. For better or worse, I think gentoo kind of peaked in popularity several years ago. Related article, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10047439-16.html?tag=mncol;title But it still meets my needs on several of my computers. And finally, yes, I am aware of "http://funroll-loops.info/", and I don't care. :) -Jamie

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My Ubuntu Remix CD...
by Andy Stewart March 23, 2011

March 23, 2011

HI gang, I recently remixed an Ubuntu 10.10 CD for the Linux ham radio users (and there are many!). I am not yet distributing it widely, but I would like to get a couple of people to try it. It is a Live CD that can also be installed to the hard drive. If you are interested, please download the ISO file from this location: http://home.comcast.net/~andystewart/linux_intro/ubuntu-remix-5.iso My target hardware is an older computer, 256MB of memory, and 1GHz processor, at a minimum. This started from the Ubuntu 10.10 server edition. I added icewm and a bunch of programs for amateur radio. One can see these programs in the "Amateur Radio" menu. Even if you are not an amateur radio operator, you might find the software selection interesting. I am mostly concerned about the sound system, which seems to be changing yet again(!), this time to pulseaudio. An easy program to try is xcwcp which will simply beep morse code at you. If that works, I expect other apps will work also. (xcwcp -x /dev/dsp should work, or invoke it from the menu). Also, if you attempt to install it to a hard drive, please do it in a computer with no valuable data or other operating systems, just in case. If you try it, please send me some feedback. Thanks! Andy -- Andy Stewart (KB1OIQ) Founder: Worcester Linux Users' Group Founder: Chelmsford Linux Meetup Group President: PART of Westford, MA (WB1GOF)

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Northeast Linuxfest April 2, 2011
by Chuck Anderson March 22, 2011

March 22, 2011

Come join me at the Northeast Linuxfest! Saturday, April 2, 10:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. FREE registration (optional $30 donation) at http://northeastlinuxfest.org/ Worcester State University Student Center 486 Chandler St. Worcester MA 01602 I've forwarded more details from the BLU list below. ----- Forwarded message from b p <bruce84(a)yahoo.com> ----- From: b p <bruce84(a)yahoo.com> To: discuss(a)blu.org Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2011 19:31:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Northeast Linuxfest April 2, 2011 Hey guys - I haven't seen this posted yet so I'm sorry if it has on another list. The Northeast Linuxfest is just around the corner, the event will be held in Worcester MA. We hope you can make it! Jonathan Nadeau of Frostbite systems and he has posted his speakers list for the Northeast Linuxfest. He's got John Maddog Hall! Now you really have no reason not to go! Here is the list of speakers below: 11am Roberto C. Sanchez "Getting Stuff Packaged for Debian." 12pm Jarod Wilson "Intro to GNU/Linux Home Theater PCs" 1pm Jon “Maddog” Hall "GNU/Linux in Education, Government and Business." 2pm Matt Lee "Why Software Should Be Free." So, now that we're two weeks away, I hope to see you all there! Hurry because attendance is filling fast! Details can be found at Northeast Linuxfest - http://northeastlinuxfest.org/ ----- Forwarded message from b p <bruce84(a)yahoo.com> ----- From: b p <bruce84(a)yahoo.com> To: Tom Metro <tmetro-blu(a)vl.com> Cc: discuss(a)blu.org Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 05:06:36 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Northeast Linuxfest April 2, 2011 Good morning all, I should have clarified some of the murkier statements made, I apologize for that. Tom, what I put up was the complete schedule of speakers and you are correct the event is FREE. The $30 is optional, this is to help cover costs for the student center space. Red Hat has graciously agreed to sponsor the event. The purpose of this event is to gather linux users for a one day event, mostly to discuss all things linux/unix and to meet other users throughout the area. This is the inaugural event, so based on attendance this year there are plans to hopefully expand the event much like SCALE or any of the other community driven events. As for who Jonathan of Frostbite systems is, his company sells computers with linux installed. He gives a percentage back to the distro that is ordered on the machines. His main focus is selling machines for the blind or visually impaired, which he himself is. He is also the podcaster for both Fedora weekly and Debian. He resides in Worcester MA and of course for more about his company you can checkout - http://www.frostbitesystems.com/ This is not meant as a selling point for the event. He is merely setting this up because he felt there was a need and interest for such an event. Lastly, I don't have a list of exhibitors but I do know the folks at Hacker Public Radio will have a table there. I hope I've addressed all questions. Again sorry for the confusion, I should have proof read the original before sending out. Take care, Bp ----- End forwarded message -----

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2D CAD for Linux
by Richard Klein March 15, 2011

March 15, 2011

I just read that DraftSight 2D CAD software is now available for Linux: http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/free-cad-software/ I use it all the time in Windows. It works, and the price is right. -- Rich

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