Previous Meetings
From FOSUG
List of Previous Meetings, All videos and slide shows are located in the Howto/Videos Section
February 2010
KDE Tips & Tricks
Linux is known for its command line prowess, but linux also offers a myriad of Desktop Graphical User Interface (GUI) options. Among the most commonly used, is the KDE Desktop that some say resembles the Windows Desktop. In February, Steven Hollingsworth aka stevo gave a demonstration on "KDE Tips & Tricks" to show the versatility of this desktop option, including how KDE can be programmed with shell scripts and custom keyboard combinations, making this desktop truly your desktop.
January 2010
Screen Fundamentals, Tips and Tricks
Andrew Baker presented a demonstration on the command line program "Screen". He showed us how creen allows you to create virtual terminals which are not connected to your actual xterms or console screens. In addition, you can organize your screens by naming them and flip back and forth as you like. You can then disconnect from a screen session and reconnect from somewhere else while preserving your shell or other running processes. You can connect to a session more than once from different locations, too. Watching Drew as he showed us the ropes made it look easy. See also additional information.
Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP)
After Drew wow'd us with Screen, Darin Land gave a demonstration on Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP) Many of the local penguins are also Ham Radio enthusiasts, and Darin's presentation was definitely enthusiastic. Darin showed us how to use a handheld/mobile radio to talk to people all over the world. Part of the demonstration included actual air time talking to several people in various locations both near and far. He also showed us various kinds of equipment that would be needed or could be used to do that, after obtaining an Amateur Radio License.
IRLP nodes are used to create a linux-based worldwide virtual communication network used by Amateur Radio operators. The Internet Radio Linking Project operates a stable, telephone quality, worldwide VOIP communications network linking hundreds of towns and cities across the world.
At our next meeting Darin Land promises to demonstrate how to use a UHF radio to access a local IRLP node and establish several communication links to places such as Green Bay, Honolulu, North Pole, even Sydney, Austrialia.
December 2009
December of 2009 we did not hold a meeting, however with the help of Dan Zahlis, we were able to find a new meeting place for FOSUG for the year of 2010, and possibly, longer. For the year of 2010 we will be meeting in the Public Safety Community Room in Clovis. We will still be meeting on the 3rd Saturday of each month, but the time has been bumped back to 3:30pm - a small concession to have such a nice place to meet in.
We thank both Dan Zahlis of Active Agenda and Carlos Martinez, our contact for the Public Safety Community Room room for their efforts.
November 2009
In November, we held our first meeting at our new location, the Public Safety Community Room in Clovis. Everyone was impressed with the nice features, and there was interest in it as a permanent location.
Andrew Baker gave a demonstration on Zimbra the open source email and collaboration software. He gave us a tour of the various features and what it could do. Afterwards, stevo further demonstrated Vimperator. Vimperator is a free browser add-on for Firefox, which makes it look and behave like the Vim text editor, enabling users to navigate the Firefox browser using the keyboard only.
October 2009
In October, we were kind of living out of our suitcases, but Al Constable dug into his resources bag and found a place for us to meet. The owner of the Little Leaf Tea Shop graciously made some room for us. Since we couldn't exactly crack open a computer, we used the time to huddle around our laptops and swap generally useful (OK, maybe it wasn't exactly mission critical) information.
September 2009
stevo did a demonstration on some of the hacks that can be performed from the book "Google Hacking". stevo showed how certain small commands can help you find what you really want from the Google search engine. Some of us realized that he never used the mouse, or as he called it, "the rodent", during his browsing, and so we got an ad hoc demonstration in the FireFox Add-on Vimperator This was the last meeting that we had at the ITT campus.
August 2009
Linux/OS Games - Discussing (and playing) favorite linux games was the main topic, and many did that, and after a while, the group simmered down into a nice long chat about various different computer related topics.
July 2009
One of the greatest strengths of linux is using the terminal, or command line. The command line interface (CLI) gives users access to powerful resources, but most beginners shy away from this tool, afraid that it is too complicated to master.
Ronnie Ugulano gave a demonstration on the basics of using the command line, and how even beginners can become familiar with what it has to offer. Part of the demonstration allowed new users to follow along.
May 2009
Our usual May meeting was replaced by a picnic held at Bicentennial Park. There were hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, chips & salsa - all the usual suspects. The location had more shade than we were expecting, but the grill was, shall we say, less than usable. Fortunately, Patrick May, our grillmeister saved the day by locating and bringing a portable grill along with his handy-dandy camp grill pack. From there, he did a stellar job of keeping us in oversized hamburger patties and other grilled meat tidbits. Our group included an introduction to Buzz Piersol, aka Buzz-CP who has been joining us in the irc chat for the past several weeks, as well as a few wives, daughters and visitors of various members, bringing us to a total of about 20 participants.
Our picnic location had a horseshoe pit, and Darin Land aka k6osx had sent in a horseshoe set by way of our Enabler, and Buzz had brought his Bocce ball game to fill the "entertainment" slot.
Later, a bunch of real horseshoe enthusiasts showed up, and we had room to allow them to use some of our tables. Of course, they wanted to know who we were, and in identifying ourselves, we found that several in the group were also linux users or interested in using linux, so we wasted no time in inviting them to upcoming meetings.
Sadly, there was no wifi access (yes, we would even play with computers at a picnic location), but the ham radio subsection of the group provided geek interest by setting up an antenna and ham radio equipment.
So, with the food, chatter, and some geek options along the way, the picnic was declared a success.
April 2009
Andrew Baker gave a presentation on using Zabbix. Zabbix is an open source network and system monitoring system that could be used to replace Nagios to monitor large numbers of servers, websites, devices and other IT resources. Drew started the presentation with Zabbix preloaded and running, and showed how Zabbix could be configured to monitor temperature, CPU usage and generally whatever is happening on multiple systems or servers through a web interface. Zabbix also can be configured to send out notifications through Jabber, text messages and emails to designated people when custom set levels have been exceeded. It can even do some checks on availability and usage without installing Zabbix on the monitored host (say, Google).
March 2009
Michael S. Collins gave a presentation on using FreeSWITCH™/VoIP options. FreeSWITCH™is an open source communications platform that runs on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, *BSD, and other Unix flavors. Optional modules can be employed to add virtually any functionality desired by the user. Michael gave a basic description of how various VoIP software generally worked, using diagrams and his extensive experience, and how FreeSWITCH™ used some creative innovovations solve various roadblocks in the VoIP world, and how it is usable for small or large companies/organizations. Finally, he gave us one thing that we geeks always enjoy, a chance to get a closer look, test driving the software in question. Michael Collins has been a PBX tech for 15 years, mostly with NEC equipment. He spent last 10 years working at collection agency as the "phone and computer guy". Michael has been working full-time on FreeSWITCH™ (anonymous corporate sponsor) since December.
February 2009
Ryan Showalter gave giving a demonstration on using Blender. Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite (similar to New Tech's LightWave), available for all major operating systems. Ryan's demo was created for following along, so many brought laptops preloaded with Blender to allow them to participate. Ryan walked us through basic usage by demonstrating the build of a 3D monster truck using a 2D photo as a guide. Then he showed two brief 3D animated movies with sound that were created entirely with Blender.
January 2009
Andrew Baker gave a very interesting hands-on demonstration on basic soldering techniques. Everyone that wanted to participate brought their own soldering tools ranging from the basic-little-soldering-iron-with-a-stand to slick Rocket-Science-Warp-9 models. Participants very diligently stripped wires, learned the value of Flux, a non-spill soldering paste, and the proper way to solder wires to a component.
December 2008
December is usually an extremely busy month for all, so no formal meeting was held. Instead, a few penguins met at Ronnie & Dennis Ugulano's house for a cozy, informal dinner. Inevitably, dinner faded into technical talk leading to hands-on computer access.
September 2008
Wine for Young penguins - Resident penguin in training Ronnie Ugulano demoed installation, configuration and use of WINE. [www.wine.org WINE] is an application that allows for the running of Windows software under Linux.
August 2008
Regional Events Local Linux Penguins do not swim alone. They also swim with State, Regional and National counterparts. The month of August was about attending the Defcon and LinuxWorld events out of town, the week of 3-10. A small group represented FOSUG in San Francisco early in the week, while a greater number of Big Penguins flocked to Defcon in Las Vegas to hack their electronic badges. The August meeting, only the next weekend, was a great chance to swap fish stories about the respective events. After that debriefing, stevo gave a brief demo on BackTrack3, "The Swiss Army Knife for security assessments". Extended chatter continued as penguins, both little and big, went in search of dinner at Applebee's.
April 2008
Install fest for Spring 2008. Two or three times a year, FOSUG holds Installfests, where experienced linux enthusisiasts show newer members and visitors how easy it can be to give new life to their own older computers, by doing a hands on, real-time install. The FOSUG meeting location had the power, tables and fistfulls of distribution disks to do the job.
While there were very few attendees that had never installed linux before, leaving Drew's 60gb of distribution isos feeling unappreciated, this month's Installfest theme seemed to be “unfinished projects”. Newer members consulted with the more experienced to work on various issues. One member was seen to be working on multiple installations at the same time, while another, got help tackling a wireless modem driver issue. Roz reported that she got Ubuntu successfully installed on her Eee, as well as the wireless modem and onboard camera working.
Our local Enabler enjoyed working his way around, chatting with members.
Afterwards, all that were able, met across the street at the Roundtable pizza for dinner.
March 2008
Steve Hollingsworth demonstrated the theory and ideas behind full hard drive encryption in Linux. Demonstrating how to create and use encrypted partitions and hard drive. Good password practices, and the use of common sense when choosing them. Steve explained the pros and cons to encryption, and pointed out several ways even encrypted data can be compromised.
Feb 2008
Mike Cederquist gave a demo on the Seti@home software. SETI is known for the search for extraterrestrial life or also more humorously known as “the search for ET”. Mike described how SETI uses computer non-use time to process information obtained by the various astronomical arrays. Boinc projects also use distributed computing for various other huge projects that can be divided into smaller projects. Seti can be set to run either on a schedule you specify, or run like screensaver to use smaller increments of unused computer time. Mike also described how he uses the seti project as a means to test a new computer's capacity and dependibility before actually putting it into production.
Jan 2008
This January, FOSUG offered 2 topics for demonstration. First, Andrew Baker, a long time Linux enthusiast, gave a demonstration on a basic install of SPLUNK. Splunk is a very powerful tool used to sort, search and navigate all the millions of logs that your average system administrator will deal with on a daily basis. The program automatically indexes logs and assigns them search variables based on repeating patterns in the logs. Splunk has various methods for accepting the log data. Files, streams, syslogs, direct serial, etc. Although splunk is NOT an open source application, it is built on a lot of OSS technology, and worthy of consideration. Splunk also offers a free license that will fit the needs of MOST small/medium architectures.
The second part of our FOSUG meeting was a demonstration by Chad Godfirnon on setting up software RAID using directories to simulate hard drives. Wikipedia describes RAID: "The main aims of using RAID are to improve reliability, important for protecting information that is critical to a business, for example a database of customer orders; or where speed is important", and Chad showed us how to use this option.
December 2007
In December, Dan Zahlis and Mattias Thorslund gave FOSUG a presentation on the Active Agenda Project. The presentation of the history of the project and Dan and Mattias' migration towards Open Source has been recorded and is available.
In addition, the slide presentation itself that Dan and Mattias used can be had at:
March 2007
Gentoo Linux Install - Gentoo Linux is a highly customizable distribution of Linux, and a favorite of many. Drew Baker showed the high points of what is involved with installing this more complicated-to-install Linux distribution.
February 2007
Beryl 3D Desktop - This was a very, very cool last minute demonstration. Chad Godfirnon demonstrated the Beryl 3D Desktop. With windows that burst into flames, flinch with motion when moved, and a cubed desktop selector to choose your workspace, this desktop system goes WAY beyond "skins" or themes. The demo went something like this YouTube segment, only with a lot more detail but without the music. Newer penguins attending were very impressed that such a cool piece of software is available to users of the Linux operating system.
January 2007
Pendrive Linux
December 2006
Linux Installs and Troubleshooting
November 2006
Linux Installs and Troubleshooting
October 2006
ESX Server - Mike Treas handled October's program "ESX Server". Mike gave us an overview on how ESX Server can help use server resources more effectively, and a tour of the interface that makes it happen. Session Outline available.
September 2006
The Linux Terminal - Drew Baker handled September's session topic "The Linux Terminal", the first of a multipart series. He showed us how to move around in the file structure, some commands to get things done, explained about file permissions, and how to find the user's manual. In addition, he showed us some commands that save you typing and make repetitive tasks easier. Finally, he indirectly answered that great cosmic question: "Why do Linux guys name their files differently than Windows users?" Session Outline available.
June 2006
Drew Baker - The many uses of VMWare
May 2006
Chad Godfirnon - MySQL basic usage and tools. Video available
April 2006
Robert Nickel - RT: Request Tracker. Video available
March 2006
Tom Limoncelli - Time Management for Network and system administrators. Video available
May 2005
Beginning Session: Steven Hollingsworth - Installing and Using Ubuntu Linux for Beginners. Video available
May 2005
General Session: Elliot Johnson - Elliot goes over how interprocess communication works in Unix, as well as the LISP Programming language. Video and slide show available
April 2005
Beginning Session: Stephan Aleman - Package Management in Various Linux Distros. Video and slide show available
April 2005
General Session: Robert Nickel - Logging and Graphing with RRDTool. Video and slide show available
February 2005
Drew Baker - Beginning Linux Session 3. Video available
November 2004
Beginning Session: Drew Baker - Beginning Linux Session 2. Video available
November 2004
General Session: Mike Cederquist - Integrating Samba and LDAP Overview. Video available
September 2004
Steven Hollingsworth - Using Iptables and Short. Presentation available
June 2004
Steven Hollingsworth - Building an OpenBSD Firewall. Presentation available