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desktop (linux Mint/ubuntu) Motherboard/sata/grub fun
by Doug Mildram 10 Dec '18

10 Dec '18

Warning: there's a couple "fun" ( aka "new to me") things in this LONG email. SUMMARY 2-lines-below: 1) on reboot, an initramfs prompt, errors only seen briefly as boot screen overwrites it. Needed fsck. 2) later when things got worse, my solution followed by a different error message re: "environment block too small". the LONG story: Months ago i managed to move wife/maureen's desktop environment to Mint(ubuntu underneath). Usage: firefox,gmail (almost nothing else of note. This took some persuading, but desktops are such a fallback these days......another topic for another day) DESKTOP: 10?yr-old Gigabyte motherboard with sata2/sataII ... 4 ports. I only use 1 sata port. I "gave" it a $90/bestbuy 256g SSD Samsung months ago for /dev/sda which ran well+fast of course, turns out the SSD is actually still fine internally. A FEW WEEKS AGO, the "hint" symptom (1 of 2 in this long story) for disk woes was.... ( it started crashing occasionally, then) ON BOOT, it would sometimes STOP at this prompt initramfs> and with good eyes as the boot-attempt screen(s) would fly by and return to above prompt, I discovered I could fix it with ( actually i did not use the "-y" prompt, but it's the same fix either way) initramfs> fsck -y /dev/sda1 Which worked every time (a few times), nothing scary for an ex-unix-sysadmin, followed by initramfs> exit ######## would allow it to boot and be OK for days or so. I taped THAT magic (fsck...) onto a paper mini-sign on the PC for another rainy day. TODAY, the crash was followed by not booting (random results, kernel panics or bios/grub waiting). So I brought the SSD to my other living room desktop (not booting FROM it...) checked SSD with sudo smartcl -a /dev/sda #### AND ITS FINE. I moved the SSD "back" to wife's PC on another SATA port. It's fine! (motherboard deteriorating i guess....but might last another decade). I did run into.... ("created" by moving the disk i assume) .... a boot/warning error NEW TO ME: On initial boot a WARNING ERROR on the early/black screen (similar to where initramfs> shows up..just before that i think) "warning: environment block too small" was actually ignorable (after a few secs, boot marched on to kernel/logo). But I found "it's a thing" and the error appears solvable with first google hit suggesting linux user# sudo rm /boot/grub/grubenv # or "mv" it somewhere.old; 1024 byte file. ...............# sudo grub-editenv /boot/grub/grubenv create and reboot. Seems good now except (new i think; probably from the sata port move?) there's a ONE MINUTE wait on the initial boot with the Mint logo flashing. Final things-to-inspect: (no need to "fix" /etc/fstab which of course does find the disk parts ( just / and swap) by UUID and /var/log/syslog ( I have exportedthe old history to study, i think the disk errors stopped. ) =========================WRAPUP Haven't solved this learn-all mission yet, but...hope to make it to WLUG THURS EVE and i just thought of a (this) topic. Trick is knowing where to start such a story/tutorial; I'd try to skip over BIOS and sata/disk/etc basics, the fuzzy parts for me involve "initramfs" ... grub ..... and maybe that's it for me. Desired talk/take-home: linux BOOT steps you don't want to know. -doug

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WLUG meeting this week
by Anderson, Charles R 10 Dec '18

10 Dec '18

I haven't seen any messages to the list since November 8, so I'm sending this message to see if the mailing list still works. We have a WLUG meeting scheduled for this Thursday at 7pm in the WPI Campus Center, Mid-Century Room (the location we use most often).

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OpenGameArt Movie Video Game
by Dennis Payne 04 Dec '18

04 Dec '18

Normally I do National Novel Writing Month in November. This year I decided to try the Indie Game Making Contest 2018. I spent the month working in my free time on a new computer game. I had thought of this game a while ago (including doing a novelization of it for NaNoWriMo last year). The idea was to use lots of art from OpenGameArt.org. Since the styles of the artwork can be drastically different, that was integrated into the story. The villain is in the Liberated Pixel Cup style. (It was a contest opengameart.org did to create lot of artwork which could be used together.) He would be trying to wipe out all the other art styles. (It's a crazy mashup like the Lego Movie.) The game didn't get to the level of completion I had hoped. I posted a Postmortem on the project: http://identicalsoftware.com/games/opengameartmovie You download the Windows version of the game from: https://dulsi.itch.io/opengameart-movie-video-game Unfortunately there isn't a log of content in the game as much of the work was building the game engine. (Why isn't there a Linux download? I was rushing to post it before the contest end and didn't get around to posting a Linux build. We aren't allowed to put up new downloads while the judging is being done.) -- Dennis Payne <dulsi(a)identicalsoftware.com>

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Frantic last minute room change
by thinkbrown＠gmail.com 08 Nov '18

08 Nov '18

Hey WLUG! Frantic last minute change of room. Due to the relative inaccessibility of Stratton after 5PM, we moved to Campus Center room 128 (the Taylor Room). This is on the first floor (down the stairs through the main entrance). Sorry for the last minute notice Logan (pretending to be Tim)

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Reminder! WLUG Meeting NEXT week! Nov. 8th, 2018! NOTE: LOCATION CHANGE!
by Tim Keller 02 Nov '18

02 Nov '18

Hey Gang! We've got a meeting next week! Date and Time: Nov. 8th, 2018 @ 7pm Location: *Stratton Hall Room 309* Topic: GNURadio / Software Defined Radio / GQRX Presenter: Ian Gelman Here's what Ian had to say about his presentation... I'd like to throw my hat in the ring and give an overview+demo of GNURadio, a FOSS package for graphically developing DSP applications and interfacing with Software-Defined Radios (SDR). I spent last summer at MITRE using this software heavily, and I'm also using it for my MQP work. For the demo, I'd like to bring down some hardware from my lab ( https://www.ettus.com/product/details/UN210-KIT) as well as the $20 RTL-SDR dongle ( http://www.nooelec.com/store/sdr/sdr-receivers/nesdr-mini-rtl2832-r820t.html) to show reception of broadcast FM, ADS-B telemetry from airplanes, as well as some real time views of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and streaming drone footage from a DJI Phantom 3 Pro. Here's the outline: What's SDR? Why should we care? Why do I care? Who uses GNURadio? GNURadio fundamentals Introducing the workflow/flowgraph interface Cloning/Building/Installing (this won't be specific, just mentioning the GitHub repo and where the quickstart guide is) How to contribute (also GR-hackfest!) GNURadio as a software development framework Ex: GQRX (http://gqrx.dk) For the demo, I'll show off some stuff I've made with GNURadio, as well as GQRX to interface with the RTL-SDR. I'm pretty confident that I can cram it inside of 2 hours, because I'll be basically recycling the slides I made for my MITRE presentation, minus the branding and project-specific content. As usual, drinks and snacks will be provided and we'll head out to dinner afterwards. NOTE: I will be unable to attend this meeting. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Too bad about redhat...
by Tim Keller 01 Nov '18

01 Nov '18

Sad trombone for redhat or do you think IBM won't screw it up? -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Eagle to KiCad conversion?
by John Stoffel 19 Oct '18

19 Oct '18

Guys, This is a total shot in the dark, but I'm wondering if anyone here has taken an Eagle project design, stripped out pretty much everything but the holes and outline of a board, and them imported it all into KiCad 5? I'm trying to build a cape for an AdaFruit Gemma M0 board (which I'll be happy to talk about at some point down the line at a meeting) where it auto-matically turns my sound bar on/off and the TV is turned on/off. Not more having to hunt for the sound bar remote! I've been vaguely beating my head against the wall here, esp since it's my first ever board design. Lots to learn! John

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Pocket Arcade and Tiny Arcade
by Dennis Payne 17 Oct '18

17 Oct '18

I received a Tiny Arcade from Tiny Circuits. It is an interesting toy. I've had a lot of fun playing with it. They recently released the Pocket Arcade. I purchased two. This is even better than the Tiny Arcade. I've been working on a new game for the system. It is a pokemon like game where you paint your monsters. It's still early in development. I've been writing about the development. http://identicalsoftware.com/games/colormonster http://identicalsoftware.com/games/colormonster2 -- Dennis Payne dulsi(a)identicalsoftware.com Roon's Raccoon Sprintladder: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/126010

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Reminder! WLUG Meeting tonight! Rm RC61 Topic: Enterprise Wi-fi!
by Tim Keller 11 Oct '18

11 Oct '18

Hey Gang, We've got a meeting tonight in WPI Recreation Center Room 61 (RC61) This is the building in the Quad that's got all the exercise equipment. Date: Oct 11th, 2018 Time: 7pm Topic: Logan is going to do a quick talk on Enterprise WiFI. I can also talk quickly about the relatively incompleteness of 64bit linux on raspberry pi! Refreshments and snacks will be provided and we'll head off for dinner later. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Next Meeing Oct 11th, 2018! NOTE LOCATION: RC61! Topic: TBD
by Tim Keller 08 Oct '18

08 Oct '18

Hey Gang, We've got a meeting! Date: Oct 11th, 2018 Time: 7pm Location: WPI Recreation Center Room 61 (RC61) Topic: TBD If anybody has a topic burning a hole in their pocket let me know. I've already got next months lined up! One option was to possibly demo a raspberry pi running a true 64bit version of debian. As usual, snacks and refreshments will be provided and afterwards we'll head off for dinner to continue the conversation. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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