- WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

Free, viable videoconferencing ?
by Michael Voorhis April 4, 2020

April 4, 2020

Does viable free videoconferencing software exist? --MCV.

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Fwd: IT Revolution: Spring Reads Free eBook Promotion!
by Eric Martin March 27, 2020

March 27, 2020

I figured we all like good books for free. The days are off by one (DevOps Handbook is today) and on all of the platforms. Eric Begin forwarded message: > From: IT Revolution <info(a)itrevolution.com> > Date: March 24, 2020 at 1:22:07 PM EDT > To: Eric Martin <eric.joshua.martin(a)gmail.com> > Subject: IT Revolution: Spring Reads Free eBook Promotion! > Reply-To: editorial(a)itrevolution.com > > > Hey everyone! > > Starting today, we're offering three of our eBooks free for 24 hours each. > > March 23: The DevOps Handbook > March 24: DevOps for the Modern Enterprise > March 25: The Art of Business Value > Follow @ITRevBooks here on Twitter to get all the details! > > While you're at it, help spread the word by retweeting, sharing on your social media platform of choice, or even forwarding along this email to friends and colleagues. :) > > > > Cheers, > IT Revolution > > > If you wish to stop receiving our emails or change your subscription options, please Manage Your Subscription > IT Revolution, 25 NW 23rd Place, Suite 6314, Portland, OR 97210, US

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Re: [EXT] Re: Physical WLUG Meeting is cancelled tomorrow...
by Chris Thompson March 23, 2020

March 23, 2020

(PS - moderator, please ignore my last post from the incorrect address...doh! sorry.) LOL Chuck. That's not very nice, but...funny! :P Sorry to hear you are stuck with Windows 'cause of "the man". Haven't used it for a rather long time now, so I dunno if these still even exist, but mIRC I think was the last I used (before that Pirch rings a bell). There are great Web-based interfaces if you are maintaining a server somewhere - my favorite there is the node implementation called "The Lounge". https://thelounge.chat/docs Nice thing is it'll stay connected for you so you won't miss messages. --Chris On 3/18/20 2:30 PM, Chuck Anderson via WLUG wrote: > format c: > > (make sure to run from a CMD window with Administrator privileges) > > On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 02:22:25PM -0400, Richard Klein via WLUG wrote: >> Do you guys have a favorite IRC client for Windows? >> >> On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 1:28 PM Chris Thompson via WLUG <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org> >> wrote: >> >>> I would certainly recommend organizing in IRC, but for more interaction, >>> Jitsi is worth a shot. >>> >>> Zoom does work very well on Gnu/Linux, but yes - proprietary, so, >>> personally not interested in using them more than I already am coerced to >>> :P >>> >>> Jitsi usually handles rooms with up to about a dozen people pretty well, >>> but often struggles beyond that. Most issues are resolved with a simple >>> reload of the page. >>> >>> Try it out @ either of these instances, no registration require: >>> >>> https://meet.jit.si/ (typically pretty bleeding-edge, so sometimes less >>> stable) >>> >>> or: >>> >>> https://meet.mayfirst.org/ (pretty up to date, but generally more stable >>> of late) >>> >>> Tim, you may be able to recover your ident info with the following, once >>> you've connected with #Freenode. If the name is registered with >>> NickServ, it'll email you at the registered address: >>> >>> /msg NickServ SENDPASS turbox >>> >>> --Chris >>> IRC: wolcen >>> >>> On 3/18/20 11:28 AM, Keith Wright via WLUG wrote: >>>>> Subject: [WLUG] Re: Physical WLUG Meeting is cancelled tomorrow... >>>>> From: madserge--- via WLUG <wlug(a)lists.wlug.org> >>>>> >>>>> Never used IRC before but I do have an app on Manjaro called >>>>> Konversation that I think is a IRC client, would like to join if anyone >>>>> can tell me any info about the chat room that would be great! >>>> How did this work? >>>> >>>> I used IRC once before. A friend said "let's try this", >>>> and told me what program to run and how to start. >>>> >>>> The conversation went something like: >>>> Hi, are you there? Yes. It works! Yes. Well goodbye. >>>> >>>> That was many years ago, and I have forgotten the name >>>> of the program. Then I got busy and forgot the WLUG >>>> meeting entirely. >>>> >>>> Diane has been using something called Zoom on Windows. >>>> Google turns up some hints that Zoom can work on Linux, >>>> but it seems to be a binary mystery code that connects >>>> to the mother ship and does secret stuff...anybody know? > _______________________________________________ > WLUG mailing list -- wlug(a)lists.wlug.org > To unsubscribe send an email to wlug-leave(a)lists.wlug.org > Create Account: https://wlug.mailman3.com/accounts/signup/ > Change Settings: https://wlug.mailman3.com/postorius/lists/wlug.lists.wlug.org/ > Web Forum/Archive: https://wlug.mailman3.com/hyperkitty/list/wlug@lists.wlug.org/message/YCS6I…

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YAICB (Yet Another Intel Cpu Bug) only worse...
by Tim Keller March 19, 2020

March 19, 2020

We should definitely talk about the huge flaw that was just found the CSME on intel cpu's from the last five years and how intel has admitted it's entirely unpatchable... https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/6/21167782/intel-processor-flaw-root-of-tru… Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Physical WLUG Meeting is cancelled tomorrow...
by Tim Keller March 18, 2020

March 18, 2020

I'm cancelling the physical WLUG meeting for March. WPI just put out a notice that they're closed for all events/meetings and I've been contacted by several members that they're going to be staying home out of an abundance of caution or they're under the weather... I'll be in our IRC channel tomorrow night and we can continue the fun online! Hopefully things will calm down for April. Stay safe. Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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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".

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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

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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

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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".

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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

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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".

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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

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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.

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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".

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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".

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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".

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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".

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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)

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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".

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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.

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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

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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

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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".

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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 ...

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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".

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