- WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

WLUG Meeting March 12th 2019!
by Tim Keller March 10, 2020

March 10, 2020

Hey Everybody, We've got a meeting! Date @ Time: March 12, 2019 @ 7pm Location: WPI Student Center Rm 129 (Chairman's Conference Room) at the bottom of the stairs. Topic: TBD but I thought we might talk about subsonic and plex. I guess we should also talk about people working remotely and the technologies that exist on linux for remote desktop access as well. Refreshments and snacks will be provided and we'll head off for dinner afterwards. Sorry for the last notice. Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

2 1

Greetings
by madserge＠pm.me March 2, 2020

March 2, 2020

Hello, My name is Forrest I am a gamer and a Linux enthusiast that mainly uses a Arch Based distro called Manjaro. My friend reached out to the group for me and then emailed and told me about it so I thought I would create a account and introduce myself. I would also like to say my level of understanding is probably more on the beginners level of things and have been learning slowly and would like to learn more about other things like raspberry pis and servers since I recently obtained a server from a family members work because they upgraded, I will also leave specs of the two custom built computers I own and the name of the server I have down below, I look forward to meeting you all next meeting. Sincerely, Forrest Server: Dell PowerEdge 2950 (Minimal Manjaro XFCE Installed) Raid Slots 6 Hard Disk Drives 6 (2 146GB 10K RPM, 4 600GB 15K RPM) That's all I know atm Custom PC's: Current Rig Case: NZXT H440 (EnVyUs Edition) Mobo: ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming K6 GPU: EVGA GTX 1080 Ti SC2 (11GB GDDR5X) CPU: Intel i7 7700K Quad Core 4.2 GHz (No Overclock) RAM: 16GB G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4 3200 HDD: 2TB FireCuda (SSHD) + 2TB FireCuda (SSHD) + 250GB Samsung 850 EVO (SSD) + 1TB Crucial M.2 NVMe SSD OS: Windows 10 Pro / Manjaro KDE Other Rig Case: NZXT H440 Mobo: Asrock Z75 Pro3 GPU: EVGA GTX 980Ti Hybrid (6GB GDDR5) CPU: Intel Core i7 2600 Quad Core 3.4 GHz (Overclocked to 4GHz) RAM: 16 GB DDR3 1600 HDD: 2TB (7200RPM HDD) + 128GB (SSD) OS: Windows 10 Pro 64Bit

3 2

GRUB failure
by Richard Klein Feb. 16, 2020

Feb. 16, 2020

The other day, my computer crashed to a blank, black screen. On reboot, my BIOS didn't see the SSD that held my OS. I tried swapping the SSD onto different cables and different motherboard connectors. When I started the computer back up, it saw the SSD, but gave me a GRUB rescue prompt. On the next reboot, the BIOS again didn't see the SSD. That's repeatable: warm boots make the SSD disappear; it re-appears on cold boots, but dumps me to the GRUB rescue prompt. I figured the SSD has died and I already requested an RMA, but I can't boot to my Windows drive if I remove the SSD, so maybe it's not actually dead. I don't have the patience to troubleshoot from the GRUB rescue prompt and I wasn't thrilled with Manjaro, so I'm going to try to install good, old Debian to the SSD while I wait to hear back about an RMA. -- Rich

4 5

Reminder: Meeting tonight! Topic: TBD! Open Forum, etc.
by Tim Keller Feb. 13, 2020

Feb. 13, 2020

Hey Everybody, We've got a meeting tonight! Location: WPI Campus Center Room 304 (Peterson Conference Room) Topic: TBD, open forum, etc. I'm going to show off Visual Studio Code for Linux running on my laptop with the emacs, git and python integrations I've been using. That'll probably be pretty quick and then we can open it up to a general discussion around what's going on in linux, what people are interested in and what people would like to see for topics. There will possibly be some new people since I've created the Meetup site. Snacks and refreshments will be provided and we'll head off for dinner afterwards. Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

1 0

Meeting today
by Joshua Stone Feb. 13, 2020

Feb. 13, 2020

Hey all, I'm sorry to say that I won't be able to attend today's meeting because I have some last minute errands to do. Sorry about that! - Josh

1 0

Topics for upcoming meetings..
by Tim Keller Feb. 11, 2020

Feb. 11, 2020

I've got some updates and ideas for the upcoming meetings! I've reached out to Daniel Moghimi about doing a talk regarding his work on the various security issues he's found in modern CPUs. He's agreed to speak either March or April. I'll work to finalize the details with him. I'm definitely interested in doing a Keysigning party, we'll just have to work out the logistics and what additional presentations that we'd like to go along with it. I know a while a go Eric Martin showed off a cool keyfob that had his key stored in it. I recently stumbled across a cool technology called "Node Red" which people are using to do automation stuff with IoT and MTQQ. https://www.nodered.org It allows you to create flows using their graphing engine. Another piece of software that people might find interesting is subsonic <http://www.subsonic.org/>. It lets you run your own music streaming service. This way you're not subjected to whatever algorithm spotify / pandora / etc wants to subject you to! I recently helped a buddy build a home nas to run it and it's pretty damn slick. Let me know if you have any more ideas for meeting topics! Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

1 0

Retro-puters
by Mike Peckar Feb. 11, 2020

Feb. 11, 2020

Some fun reads on retro projects in links to hackaday. I wasn't aware of the book mentioned... https://boingboing.net/2020/02/04/766826.html

1 0

sorry about the spam
by Chuck Anderson Feb. 10, 2020

Feb. 10, 2020

Sorry about the spam. I'm cleaning up spam from the moderator's queue and accidently accepted a 8 or 12 messages.

2 2

Reminder: WLUG Meeting Next Week! Topic: Modernizing the Linux Desktop
by Tim Keller Feb. 9, 2020

Feb. 9, 2020

Hey Gang, This is my usual reminder that we've got a meeting next week. Here's the details... Date & Time: February 13th, 2020 @ 7PM Location: WPI Campus Center Room 304 (Peterson Conference Room) Presenter: Joshua Stone Topic: Modernizing the Linux Desktop with Silver/Blue, Toolbox and Flatpak Our speaker this month is Joshua Stone. He's going to giving a talk about a couple of cool technologies in Fedora! Josh provided me some details about these innovations so I've mashed them up and included them below. Silverblue: https://fedoramagazine.org/what-is-silverblue/ Toolbox: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-silverblue/toolbox/ Flatpaks: https://flatpak.org/ *Silverblue* s a Fedora variant designed around immutability where a new system image is committed as the new /sysroot without affecting the state of the running system. This is reminiscent of Android A/B updates, although the update backend -- ostree -- has elements of a version control system like git. *Toolbox* is also interesting as it lets you switch into an unprivileged development environment that can be built up and torn down without affecting the host as tools are installed inside a container. *Flatpak* uses the same file storage backend as Silverblue to manage apps and shared runtimes. This app distribution technology allows you to decouple apps and operating systems as everything is built and run inside a sandbox, making upgrades easier. Compare needing only one version of an app to package as a flatpak, versus packaging for different versions. As usual, snacks and refreshments will be provided and afterwards we'll head off for dinner to continue the conversation. Thanks, Tim Keller WLUG President -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

1 0

Favorite email client for Linux these days?
by Tim Keller Jan. 29, 2020

Jan. 29, 2020

Per the conversation regarding pgp, it got me thinking about my "email flow" Currently I'm using gmail in a browser, but I realize that unless I want to install a 3rd party add-on for chrome I can't really do PGP. What are people using for mail clients on linux? Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

13 17

Future Meeting idea...Zombie Load Attack
by Tim Keller Jan. 27, 2020

Jan. 27, 2020

I saw that one of the researchers for the https://zombieloadattack.com/ Zombie Load attack is working on a Ph.d at WPI! Would this be something that people might be interested in? If so I'll reach out and see if he'd like to give a talk at WLUG. Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

1 0

It never ends...
by Tim Keller Jan. 27, 2020

Jan. 27, 2020

https://zombieloadattack.com/ -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

1 0

Keysigning party?
by Gelman, Ian S. Jan. 27, 2020

Jan. 27, 2020

Hi everyone, I keep noticing several encrypted emails flying back and forth on the WLUG listserv. It occurred to me that we haven't done a PGP keysigning party in a couple of years - maybe we're due for another? It could also be a way to introduce some new student members to the group. Ian (from mobile device)

4 6

Different topic... Embroidered T-shirts!
by Tim Keller Jan. 27, 2020

Jan. 27, 2020

I've come into possession of a brother embroidery machine! I'd like to get it working with linux, but I'll just be happy to start putting WLUG and the tux penguin on a polo shirt! Hopefully for the Feb. meeting I'll have something! Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

3 3

CAD /3D printing
by Richard Klein Jan. 17, 2020

Jan. 17, 2020

Somewhat off-topic for this list, but we often discuss 3D printing... I'm sitting in a SolidWorks user group meeting. The presenter mentioned that Windows 10 includes a 3D paint program (or maybe it's a 3D mode in the regular paint program). You can paint in there and import the files into SolidWorks for further editing. He also mentioned that he thinks 3MF files will replace STL because they carry more data.

2 1

The future of WLUG
by Joshua Stone Jan. 16, 2020

Jan. 16, 2020

Hey all, Last night's meeting was excellent, and I'd like say thanks again to Tim for giving me a ride home! Last night's discussion gave me ideas of ways we could improve general activity, increase attendence, and improve outreach efforts. Hosting a meetup.com group would be certainly improve discoverability, and getting in touch with WPI's computer science group would be great too. I think what a lot communities are doing nowadays is having a text chat format for users who want to communicate more easily over the internet, especially with mobile devices. As an example, there are Discord servers for Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, etc, and they have room sizes generally in the hundreds or even well over a thousand. Even before Discord they'd use IRC for providing support, posting updates, etc. Having a text chat of our own would certainly help improve participation -- I think Matrix would be a good option here because it has many nice features and has a fairly polished user experience: - Numerous clients available on desktop, mobile, and web ( https://matrix.org/clients/) - Persistent chat history - Link previews - Various bots to choose from for adding functionality ( https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bots/) - User moderation - Server federation - Self-hosting available, both client and server are completely FOSS - File sharing - Voice/video calls I have a screenshot if anyone wants to see what a Matrix chat room would look like: https://i.imgur.com/aVILcWB.png Or you can join the room I made: https://matrix.to/#/!EiTljkvagZDFKfQfFu:matrix.org?via=matrix.org Alteratively, if you have a Matrix client already: #wlug:matrix.org Any thoughts? -Josh

10 18

Improving WLUG outreach
by Joshua Stone Jan. 14, 2020

Jan. 14, 2020

Hey all, I thought I'd like to continue the topic about what we could do to increase attendance meeting. I think working with the community at WPI would be a great thing for us, so long as we try to understand more about the student culture. I've learned that one of the most important things about WPI is that a sense of community and working toward a greater goal are included as part of the curriculum. One of the earliest classes a WPI student takes involves thinking about the biggest problems impacting the world and makes strides to tackling such problems head-on. https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/wpi-plan/10-things-to-know I believe WPI also has a strong background in bioinformatics, and that's a field that can surely benefit from FOSS as we want to encourage openness and ethics when being on the forefront of scientific research that could have sweeping societal impact. The last thing we need is more companies like 23andMe hoarding genetic data for profit. Perhaps WLUG can do more to be involved in such things, emphasizing the importance of "ethical" computing with the problems of DRM, spying/tracking, proprietary software and data formats, software patents, and licenses that lock away data that the community could benefit from. Essentially we could give people more of an opportunity to think about the social aspects and ramifications of technology, and can use that as a framework for creating a better future. These are still ideas I'm throwing at the wall, hopefully something sticks! -Josh

4 3

Reminder! We've got a meeting tonight! (January 9th 2019) at 7PM. WPI Campus Center Rm 331
by Tim Keller Jan. 10, 2020

Jan. 10, 2020

Hey Everybody, We've got a meeting tonight. I'll be in our usual haunt (WPI Campus Center Mid Century Room (rm 331)) at 7PM. As this was a short notice meeting, I suspect the attendance might be sparse. Josh, why don't we plan for February so you're not on the spot and I can get the word out a bit better. I'm thinking tonight might be a bit freeform which is always fun! We can also talk about things that we might all find interesting for up coming topics. As usual snacks and refreshments will be provided and afterwards we'll head off for dinner. See you there! Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

3 2

Greetings Programs!
by Lexi Haley Jan. 9, 2020

Jan. 9, 2020

Hi, I'm Lexi! I've not been to a WLUG meeting since ... since a long time .... I remember a Blender talk, and a Maddog talk - and these look like circa 2003/2004.... So, absent a long time! Anyways. I am trying to find the time to come again. I've been a casual Linux user since 1998, when I installed Debian from a pile of floppies (( or should I say, my friend installed it for me, and my learning journey began )) .... and for a long time I was an exclusive user .... and at heart I think I am still - even as I flog along a 10 year old iMac. But for a couple years now, on my laptop I've been running 'Tiny Core Linux' , which if you're unfamiliar with it, it is based on the Linux From Scratch work, with an emphasis on a 'tiny' footprint. Needed additional software are mounted into ram from squashfs archives, on the fly. It is quirky, but I like it. I wondered if anyone else has used it (or uses it). I didn't feel right just asking blindly, without a vague reintroduction of myself. So - question: Anyone else use, now or previously, the Tiny Core Linux Distribution? [*] Thanks, Lexi Haley (WPI CS 2002) [*] a search on the email archives yielded no hits ...

2 1

We've got a Meeting on January 9th! Usual Spot, Topic: Possibly TBD
by Tim Keller Jan. 8, 2020

Jan. 8, 2020

Hey Gang, I hope you all had a great holidays and a happy new year! We've got a meeting on Thursday, the 9th! Location: WPI Campus Center Mid Century Room Rm 331 (our usual haunt) Date / Time: January 9th, 2020 at 7PM Topic: TBD! Let me know if you'll be attending we'll see what we might want to do. If more people are going to show up we could do a redo of Joshua's talk, it was fantastic. Another option might be to have a round table for topics people might want to hear this year. Obviously, if people have ideas feel free to post them to the list as well! As usual snacks and refreshments will be provided and afterwards we'll head off for dinner to continue the conversation. Hope to see you there Tim Keller WLUG President -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

2 1

STM8 blue pill boards and programmer
by John Stoffel Jan. 5, 2020

Jan. 5, 2020

Guys, I've got some STM8 bluepill boards and a spare knock off ST-Linkv2 programmer if anyone is interested. I was playing around with them this weekend and the lack of a decent IR Library meant that my interest has waned. They're cheap cheap chear, and interesting as a way to learn more low level programming. I can give you my linux notes if you like too! Or if you know of a library for STM8 that does both send/receive of IR codes, I'd love to hear about it. I'd trade for an AVR ISP programmer instead if anyone has one, since I'm now more interested in ATtiny 85/84/88/841 boards these days. I won't be able to make meetings (unless maybe if you have one the 16th of this January) for a while though, so we'd have to arrange a meetup or something. Cheers! John

1 0

Wireless Networking for Cub Scouts
by Dennis Payne Dec. 29, 2019

Dec. 29, 2019

Anyone have a wireless networking card or computer with wireless networking they would be willing to donate to the cub scouts? For last years pinewood derby we used DerbyNet ( https://jeffpiazza.github.io/derbynet/) It was great. We want to step it up a bit this year. I'd like to have a computer running the software and tablets connecting wirelessly to register cars. This way we can take pictures of every car as they are registered. I have some old computers which could be used but none have wireless networking. -- Dennis Payne dulsi(a)identicalsoftware.com https://social.freegamedev.net/channel/dulsi

2 1

WLUG meeting and presentation material
by Joshua Stone Dec. 21, 2019

Dec. 21, 2019

Hey everyone, Thank you again for letting me present on Silverblue, Toolbox, and Flatpak for December's WLUG meeting! I've uploaded a PDF copy of the slideshow material to my Google Drive for anyone who couldn't make it to the meeting and/or wants to look at some of the references inside: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FJc9864buwRFS5UktivfffU7u9CySSKB Admittedly the material itself can be difficult to understand as it was made more to complement an oral presentation format, but I could continue improving on the material to make it more complete if there's enough interest, plus much development has been going on around containers that it makes sense to update it anyway. I hope everyone is having an excellent time enjoying the holidays! -Josh

2 1

Encrypted Sorna Reviewer CD files
by Richard Klein Dec. 21, 2019

Dec. 21, 2019

I picked up a copy of some x-rays and MRIs. They're on a CD, encrypted, with Windows viewer software. Has anyone figured out how to view these in Linux? I have the password to decrypt, I just don't know what software to use (without resorting to Windows). I think it may actually be a DICOM file format. Here's a link to the viewer software: https://sorna.com/solutions/reviewer/ -- Rich

6 7

December WLUG Meeting! Topic: Fedora Silverblue, toolbox and Flatpaks!
by Tim Keller Dec. 19, 2019

Dec. 19, 2019

Hey Everybody, We've got a meeting this Thursday on December 19th 2019! Location: WPI Campus Center Mid-Century room (our usual haunt) Date & Time: December 19th, 2019 Our speaker this month is Joshua Stone. He's going to giving a talk about a couple of cool technologies in Fedora! Josh provided me some details about these innovations so I've mashed them up and included them below. Silverblue: https://fedoramagazine.org/what-is-silverblue/ Toolbox: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-silverblue/toolbox/ Flatpaks: https://flatpak.org/ *Silverblue* s a Fedora variant designed around immutability where a new system image is committed as the new /sysroot without affecting the state of the running system. This is reminiscent of Android A/B updates, although the update backend -- ostree -- has elements of a version control system like git. *Toolbox* is also interesting as it lets you switch into an unprivileged development environment that can be built up and torn down without affecting the host as tools are installed inside a container. *Flatpak* uses the same file storage backend as Silverblue to manage apps and shared runtimes. This app distribution technology allows you to decouple apps and operating systems as everything is built and run inside a sandbox, making upgrades easier. Compare needing only one version of an app to package as a flatpak, versus packaging for different versions. As usual, snacks and refreshments will be provided and afterwards we'll head off for dinner to continue the conversation. Thanks, Tim Keller WLUG President -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

4 4