- WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

solar/energy monitoring
by Chuck Anderson April 28, 2023

April 28, 2023

I use IoTaWatt (http://iotawatt.com/) for solar/energy monitoring at home. It works with a standard web browser (no app required) and doesn't require any kind of Internet/cloud connection (but can use one if desired). It will keep years of data internally on the SD card and you can make pretty graphs from your phone/laptop/whatever web browser, or you can download the data and do whatever you want with it. It is an open source software/open hardware design by a guy in New Hampshire. It is manufactured in the US, and it is ETL certified. ("The hardware is professionally manufactured in an ISO9001 contract facility in New Hampshire, USA. The base units are ETL safety certified to UL standards") See pics of my setup here: http://www.wlug.org/files/iotawatt/ $314.30 gets you a US 120V bundle with split-core CTs for 14 circuits (2 mains + 12 branch circuits), 9V AC reference transformer, and USB power supply. The split-core/clamp-on CTs are easy to install, just open them up, place them around the wire, and close them. If you use non-split-core CTs (not included in the bundle above), you need to to disconnect the hot lines from each circuit breaker to slip on the CT, then reattach to the breaker.

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Science on State Street on Saturday
by Dennis Payne April 21, 2023

April 21, 2023

Framingham State is having Science on State Street this Saturday Apr 22. It is an annual science festival they do. The NatickFOSS group has a booth at the event. I will be there with my homemade aracde machine. It runs from 2pm to 6pm. https://cm-center.org/soss2023 -- Dennis Payne dulsi(a)identicalsoftware.com https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@dulsi

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WLUG Meeting tonight.. maybe?
by Tim Keller April 20, 2023

April 20, 2023

Hey Everybody, The last couple of weeks have been challenging at best. If people want to have the meeting tonight that's great, I'll be unable to make it (quite likely). My Dad had heart surgery yesterday at MGH so there things I need to do. Option #1: You guys just have the meeting without me. Option #2: We push the meeting out another week. Let me know what you guys want to do. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Is there a WLUG meeting tonight?
by THE HAMMER April 20, 2023

April 20, 2023

...I wanted to double check. Is there a WLUG meeting tonight? [https://s-install.avcdn.net/ipm/preview/icons/icon-envelope-tick-green-avg-…]<http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_cam…> Virus-free.www.avg.com<http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_cam…>

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Fight or Perish
by Dennis Payne April 8, 2023

April 8, 2023

Fight or Perish is a free software clone of Gauntlet. It never really progressed past a prototype from the original creator. I've been working to fix it up. I've written an Open Game Source article about my work. https://identicalsoftware.com/games/fop -- Dennis Payne dulsi(a)identicalsoftware.com https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@dulsi

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X11 app on Windows
by Zori Babroudi March 21, 2023

March 21, 2023

Last meeting I mentioned that I was using WSL + an X11 app to develop on windows. Here is the X11 app I use. https://www.microsoft.com/store/productId/9NLP712ZMN9Q It lets me easily run gnome-terminal and other apps remotely. [image: image.png] <Z>

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Okay LÖVE is really cool.
by Tim Keller March 20, 2023

March 20, 2023

Per the post that Dennis made about his porting of Lady Bug using the LÖVE framework, I started looking at it. It's pretty damn cool and it looks like the barrier to entry to making simple games, etc. is really really low. I think it might be worth a talk. Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Lady Beetle
by Dennis Payne March 19, 2023

March 19, 2023

I discovered a Love2D remake of Lady Bug. I've never played the arcade game but it looked interesting. It is a maze chase game like Pac-Man but you have these turntiles through out the maze that you can move to alter the maze. The remake was well done but used sprites taken from the arcade game. I replaced all the graphics with new creations. I also modified the game to support two player simultaneous. I wrote up an Open Game Source article about the changes. http://identicalsoftware.com/games/ladybeetle -- Dennis Payne dulsi(a)identicalsoftware.com https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@dulsi

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Reminder, meeting tonight!
by Tim Keller March 16, 2023

March 16, 2023

We've got a meeting tonight! Time: 7PM Date: March 16th, 2023 Location: WPI Student Center Chair's Room 129. Address: 100 Institute Road, Worcester MA. Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: Ventoy, docker stuff, printers, pi compute stuff, etc. I thought I'd show off Ventoy which is a multiboot usb that lets you run a whole pile of different distros. It's become yet another tool in my pocket when dealing with weird stuff. We can definitely talk about printers.. I've been deploying lots of Ubuntu 22.04 machines and I've had to delve into the fun that is cups.. I can definitely get on the HP hate bandwagon.. There's some scuttlebutt that Docker is talking about purging all the OSS images of users who don't pony up subscription money.. I'm sure we'll dive off into lots of topics as well. Pi compute boards, personal k8s clusters, etc. As usual snacks and refreshments will be provided and we'll do dinner afterwards and continue the conversation. Hope to see you there! Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Meeting Reminder: Next Meeting March 16th 2023 (Tomorrow) Location: WPI Student Center Rm 129
by Tim Keller March 15, 2023

March 15, 2023

Hey Everybody! We've got a meeting tomorrow! Time: 7PM Date: March 16th, 2023 Location: WPI Student Center Chair's Room 129. Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: Ventoy, docker stuff, printers, pi compute stuff, etc. I thought I'd show off Ventoy which is a multiboot usb that lets you run a whole pile of different distros. We can definitely talk printers.. I've been deploying lots of Ubuntu 22.04 machines and I've had to delve into the fun that is cups.. I can definitely get on the HP hate bandwagon.. There's some scuttlebutt that Docker is talking about purging all the OSS images of users who don't pony up subscription money.. I'm sure we'll dive off into lots of topics as well. Pi compute boards, personal k8s clusters, etc. As usual snacks and refreshments will be provided and we'll do dinner afterwards and continue the conversation. Hope to see you there! Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Next Meeting
by Tim Keller March 14, 2023

March 14, 2023

I'm thinking of moving the next meeting to Thursday of next week since we just had a meeting. Any objections? Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Re-Roll RHEL isos to skip the 60sec countdown and media check
by Dan Davis March 6, 2023

March 6, 2023

Good Afternoon, I'm trying to re-roll a RHEL9 iso to remove the media check and 60s timeout that occurs because rd.live.check is baked into the kernel command line and grub menu. I'd like to use the result with an unattended install. I start by loop mounting the OEM iso image and extracting the contents to a working dir. In the working directory, I've attempted to edit EFI/BOOT/grub.cfg an isolinux/grub.cfg before rerolling the disk with: mkisofs -o output.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table workingdir But after editing either or both, I'm still presented with the 60s default timeout and the media check (rd.live.check) in the kernel commandline. Is there something akin to grub2-mkisofs that I need to do for my changes to the grub.cfg for this iso prior to my re-rolling it? Thank you, Dan

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Broken Laptop Screen
by hammerron March 1, 2023

March 1, 2023

I have a friend that told me he has kept his laptop stored away because the screen is broken. I do not know if the screen is crack or not operating. I have a monitor from a desktop pc. If I give him the monitor to use with his laptop is there any kind of electrical safety issue? I presume the laptop is windows, and hints on how or if I should tweak the settings? Ron

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Reminder WLUG meeting tonight
by Tim Keller Feb. 24, 2023

Feb. 24, 2023

https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Andy in Hackaday
by John Stoffel Feb. 24, 2023

Feb. 24, 2023

Guys, It looks like our founder made Hackaday this morning! https://hackaday.com/2023/02/23/a-linux-distro-for-all-your-ham-needs/ Congrats Andy! Maybe we could get you to come to a meeting and show off all you've done? John

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Tomorrow's meeting is going to be Virtual
by Tim Keller Feb. 22, 2023

Feb. 22, 2023

Hey Everybody, Last week it was the career fair, this week the trustees have reserved everything.. However, the weather looks like it's going to be a mess. Our meeting for Feb. is going to be virtual. I'd rather keep everybody safe they try to find someplace we can all fit. We'll be at our usual virtual haunt: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA starting at 7PM. The plan is to talk about containerized distributions, though knowing how our virtual meetings go it'll be a hilarious raucous affair. I hope to see you all online and in March we'll *actually* have a physical meeting! Later, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Meeting agenda for thursday Feb 16th?
by John Stoffel Feb. 15, 2023

Feb. 15, 2023

Hi all, Is there an agenda for this thursdays meeting? I can bring an OrganPI 3 LTS I just recently setup. Neat little box running Armbian. Haven't don't anything with it though. I know KiCad 7.0.0 has been released, but I haven't had any time to update my old discussion on KiCad for the new version. So I really can't talk about it too much. I'm planning on being there, but who knows what will happen. John

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Solving Nvidia support with image-based distros
by Joshua Stone Feb. 15, 2023

Feb. 15, 2023

Hey all, I thought I'd share a side project I've been working on, which involves building containers with Nvidia kernel modules and userspace components that work as bootable OS images thanks to "container-native" <https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/OstreeNativeContainerStable> support within Fedora Silverblue. This approach has several advantages over the traditional package management model for installing out-of-tree drivers, including: 1) Have the install process and QA shift from client side to server side, making a CI/CD model of driver distribution possible. 2) Eliminate the possibility of update failures (i.e., will a , as only container builds with successful runs will be committed to a container registry and updates are delivered with an "immutable" model 3) Modules are signed with one key from a central repo, ensuring that only one key has to be enrolled for all client systems for enabling secure boot support 4) Enable the possibility of supporting multiple driver release streams. i.e., give users the freedom to rebase on 525xx, 520xx, 470xx series drivers, etc, as well as pin to a specific image snapshot in case of a driver regression 5) Have the ability to download a pre-built bootable image from a central repo, or build an image locally with further customizations thanks to the flexibility of the Containerfile format 6) Give maintainers a broader framework for debugging regressions, namely being able to boot into a specific snapshot listed in a bug report It's true that Nvidia has been the source of many hardware issues <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYWzMvlj2RQ>. I refuse to own an Nvidia card because of this. But many Linux users use Nvidia, which I thought would be a great motivation for working on a container-native approach to out-of-three driver support. More info here: Nvidia images available for testing! <https://github.com/ublue-os/base/discussions/33> We did it! Hassle-free Nvidia drivers on Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite: Testers wanted! <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl9EJCF_GM4> <https://www.ypsidanger.com/a-34-line-container-file-saves-the-linux-desktop/> Nvidia Linux users, this thirty-four line Containerfile might make your life suck way less. <https://www.ypsidanger.com/a-34-line-container-file-saves-the-linux-desktop/> - Josh

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Next wlug meeting on the 16th of Feb.. not tonight.
by Tim Keller Feb. 9, 2023

Feb. 9, 2023

Hey Gang, Considering that we just had a WLUG meeting the last Thursday of January, the next meeting will be on the 16th and then we'll go back to the regular second Thursday of the month for March. Sorry for the confusion about when meetings are. Thanks, Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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M-DISC 1000-year DVD and Blu-Ray
by Chuck Anderson Jan. 31, 2023

Jan. 31, 2023

Last night we were talking about long-term storage media that won't degrade or fail. What you want is M-DISC: https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-1000-year-dvd-is-here/ https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-98913-M-Disc-100GB-Surface/dp/B017H13DFS

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Reminder! WLUG Meeting Tomorrow Jan 26th 2023: Topic Frame.work laptop demo!
by Tim Keller Jan. 26, 2023

Jan. 26, 2023

Hey Everybody, This is a reminder that we've got a meeting tomorrow at WPI! Time: 7pm Location: WPI Student Center Room 128 (Taylor Room) Down below the stairs. Virtual Location: https://meet.jit.si/WlugMA Topic: frame.work laptop demo, passbolt demo Cara Salter has agreed to come and show off her frame.work laptop. This laptop is designed with upgrade ability in mind. Components such as the motherboard can be easily swapped for more powerful versions, etc. I'm also going to show off passbolt <https://www.passbolt.com/>. This is a FOSS password manager. With the massive breach of lastpass, people may want to think about having total ownership of their password stores. This solves that. As usual snacks and refreshments will be provided and afterwards we'll head off and have dinner and keep the conversation going. I hope to see you there! Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Reminder! Meeting January 26th at 7pm Topic: Frame.work, passbolt
by Tim Keller Jan. 22, 2023

Jan. 22, 2023

Hey Everybody! Happy 2023! We've got our first meeting of the new year!! Time: 7pm Date: 1/26/2023 Location: WPI Student Center Rm 128 (Taylor Room) Topic(s): frame.work laptop demo, passbolt demo Cara Salter has agreed to come and show off her frame.work laptop. This laptop is designed with upgrade ability in mind. Components such as the motherboard can be easily swapped for more powerful versions, etc. I'm also going to show off passbolt <https://www.passbolt.com/>. This is a FOSS password manager. With the massive breach of lastpass, people may want to think about having total ownership of their password stores. This solves that. As usual snacks and refreshments will be provided and afterwards we'll head off and have dinner can keep the conversation going. I hope to see you there! Tim. -- I am leery of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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Framework Laptops
by David Glaser Jan. 16, 2023

Jan. 16, 2023

I ran across a laptop company called Framework https://frame.work/ that sells an upgrade-able laptop. Has anyone had any experience with their products? -David -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. www.avast.com

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January meeting date?
by John Stoffel Jan. 6, 2023

Jan. 6, 2023

Where & when are we meeting in January?

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Looking for a good VPS provider
by John Stoffel Dec. 19, 2022

Dec. 19, 2022

Guys, I'm looking for a new provider to host my domain, which is mostly email only. Some small web presense. I'm currently on Linode, but since Charter is blocking all of Linode's IP space from sending email... it kinda makes it hard to keep in touch with neighbors who have @charter.net email addresses. Don't want to spend a ton,but I would like to get something with a dedicated IP and 2gb of RAM, or maybe a little more. Not much more than that. I don't want any management, I'll do it all myself. John

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