Past Meetings

Paul Nijjar will relate his experiences using the learning management system Open edX as an instructor, and why in the world he would use it when his workplace already has D2L's Brightspace available.

Jeff Smith will discuss the popular configuration management software Ansible.

Michael Hitchens will follow up his LMMS presentation with another music-related project: the music composition software MuseScore.

Jason Eckert will demystify containerization and orchestration for us. Docker, Kubernetes, Swarms, Rancher... what are these tools used for? Why are they useful? How do they fit together? How has the industry evolved over the past seven years? Jason will answer these questions and more.

In May we had a Blender/Krita presentation that emphasized Blender. This month we have a followup from Kyle Murphy, who will emphasize the digital painting tool Krita. He will offer some tips and techniques, shows how he incorporates Krita into game design, and demonstrate cross-functionality with Blender.

Bob B will give us a tour of his homelab: a collection of servers, storage and networking that lives in his house.

This meeting will be held on our BigBlueButton instance: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug 

Paul Nijjar will explain how and why he transitioned from the GNU Screen multiplexer to Tmux.

The group will collectively hold a trivia night. You can bring some free-software trivia to share and maybe we will get stumped.

This meeting will be held on BigBlueButton: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug .

Brent Clements will demonstrate a few "real world" uses for inexpensive Arduino  controllers. He will start with a crash course on what they are and how to work with them. Next he will demonstrate how to control simple lights and other devices with simple programs, as well as discuss a couple of ways he has used Arduinos in the past. 

Tim Laurence will tell us about text formats. A few common human readable file formats connect many of systems in our lives together. Tim will introduce us to some of the more common and useful ones you may encounter and show examples of them in use.

This meeting will be held on BigBlueButton: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug

Michael Hitchens will discuss LMMS, a digital audio workstation application used to create sounds and music. He writes:

Learn how to make music with LMMS, the GPLv2 digital audio workstation!  Well maybe not how to compose music, but at least how to realize your musical endeavors in digital form. Michael Hitchens will guide you through the basics of how to navigate the interface, enter notes, use multiple built-in instruments, apply built-in effects, and to unleash your musical creations unto the world.

(Michael has also publish supplementary material on his blog.)

Rocco Commisso will show us how he uses Kritia and Blender to create illustrations and video game art. Rocco is a talented artist and educator, and will be taking us on an informal tour of what these tools do, and how artists can you them to express themselves.

This meeting will be held on BigBlueButton: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug

John Kerr will tell us about Joplin, an open source note taking app that can be easily synchronized to cloud services. He writes:

Joplin is a Markdown based note taking application. You can have numerous notes in tabs.  Information can be hosted on dropbox to synchronize with all of your devices. This feature makes Joplin a reasonable personal Wiki substitute for OwnCloud or NextCloud. I create a calendar page that I find more useful than many calendar apps, mainly because I do not have multiple meetings on many days of the week.

Doug Moen will give an update on Curv, focusing on the new design of the programming language. Curv is a programming language for creating art through mathematics, focusing on 2d and 3d geometric modelling. He writes:

After 5 years of messing around with Curv, the limitations of the current  design and implementation are quite clear. It's time to redesign everything. This will be the 3rd major design for the language and its internals.

This meeting will be held on BigBlueButton: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug .

Jason Eckert will give us a beginner-friendly introduction to the  fast, modern, secure, formally-verified, multi-platform and trendy VPN tunnelling software WireGuard.

Marc Pare from the local LibreWaterloo group will give us the inside scoop on some internal projects, and demonstrate how to read ODF files without the GUI.

Update: You can download both presentations below. Jason has posted a blog post with roughly the same content as his presentation here: https://jasoneckert.github.io/myblog/an-introduction-to-wireguard-vpn/

Update: Alisa had to postpone her presentation, but we will reschedule.

Christian Snyder worked on a digital storytelling project for Reception House, a local refugee settlement agency. He developed a workflow to help new refugees share their stories on social media, and he turned to open source for help. Among the tools he recommended was OpenShot, the free software video. Christian will discuss the project and lead us through the technology decisions he made.

The PinePhone is a recently-released open hardware phone that runs mainstream Linux. Stephen Paul Weber owns one, and will share his experiences about it. Stephen also owns a Novena laptop, and may share his experiences with that as well.

This meeting will be held on BigBlueButton: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug . There will be no passcode.

Mikalai Birukou will give us an update about his 3NWeb project. He writes:

There is no separate cybersphere, there is only life here. Online is real  life. Your digital rights are no different from everyday human rights.  Unfortunately, today most people live in a digital feudalism.

Unlike physical space that was here already, we've been creating digital realm. Disrespect towards users is not a technical phenomena, but it is made possible by certain architectural choices.                                                                       

3NWeb gives a practical architecture for spaces that users own, where it is safe to build one's life, the promised land.                                 

 

Raul Suarez decided to move to a minimalist desktop using  XMonad on Archlinux. He will tell us about his journey, how he is adapting to the desktop, and the applications he uses. Part of his journey involved switching from bash to fish, which he says he "should have done years ago."                                          

The meeting will be held on our BigBlueButton instance: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug . There will be no passcode.

Mikalai was unable to present in September, so he will talk about his work in online voting systems this month. He writes:

Tech can change distribution of power. Online voting is usually developed only as a convenience for voters, but we can do more. I will present a design that shifts power to voters by letting every voter to count votes. My device counts votes, your device counts votes, and we the people come to consensus. 

Derek Steinmoeller will tell us about scripting and apps for Linux users. He writes:

In this talk, I'll introduce Python 3 to Linux users interested in building automation solutions and/or their own simple apps. We'll look at application areas both on the desktop and the Raspberry Pi.

The meeting will be held on our BigBlueButton instance: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug . There will be no passcode.

Chris Blasko will follow up his well-received computer vision presentation with a look at OpenCV, an open source computer vision library. 

Jon Champagne will discuss some topics related to IPv6 and DHCPv6.

This meeting will be held on our BigBlueButton server: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug . There will be no access code.

This month we will hold a roundtable discussions around FLOSS-related questions and answers. Is there a free-software topic you would like to know more about? Are you struggling to solve a problem? Are you looking for software/hardware recommendations for a particular task? Bring your questions and we can see whether we can answer them collectively.

Update 2: Unfortunately, Mikalai had a last-minute emergency and could not present his online voting presentation this month.

Update: the meeting url will be https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug . There will be no passcode.

Alesh Slovak will introduce GamerOS, a Linux distro that provides an "out of the box couch gaming experience." Find out what GamerOS is, what makes it unique, and why Alesh committed the mortal sin of creating his own Linux distribution.

Mikalai Birukou will talk about some workshopping he has done around online voting. He writes:

Tech can change distribution of power. Online voting is usually developed onlyas a convenience for voters, but we can do more. I will present a design that shifts power to voters by letting every voter to count votes. My device counts votes, your device counts votes, and we the people come to consensus. 

Update 3: Unfortunately Colin had a family emergency and was not able to present WireGuard. We will attempt to reschedule this topic.

Update: The URL for this month's meeting is https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug . The access code is 507191 . Update 2: we have disabled the access code.

Colin Knapp will demonstrate how he installs the fast, small, and modern VPN WireGuard on his devices.

Mikalai Birukou will tell us about his YAW-Hooks project, which creates transient credentials for use in scripts. He writes:

There are times when you want a process on one machine to do something on another.

The simplest and POLA (Principle of Least Authority) compliant approach would be to define a script/command, give it a url that may even lock arguments (POLA) passed to script/command, and generate credentials applicable only this url (POLA). Use creds to do precise curl-ing.                                     
                                                                              
Repo is at https://github.com/3nsoft/yaw-hooks .

Update: This meeting will be held via our BigBlueButton instance. URL: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug . Access code: 019336 . If you need telephone access contact us before the meeting.

Michael Hitchens will demonstrate video collection and editing using FLOSS tools. He will gather video using OBS, and edit it with Kdenlive.

Andrew Cant will discuss MusicBrainz, the open source encyclopedia of music.

Update: This meeting will be held online. The URL is https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug . Update 2: There is no code for this meeting. If you need to connect to the meeting by phone please contact us in advance.

Colin Knapp will tell us about OhMyForm, a Google Forms open source alternative that he has adopted from the ashes of the TypeForm project. He will demonstrate the project and his involvement with it, and recruit some additional contributors to it.

Paul Nijjar will discuss the setup and care of the open-source web conferencing software BigBlueButton, including caveats and gotchas.

Update: This meeting will be held online. The meeting URL is https://webconference.kwlug.org/b/pau-2ap-jzy . (Sorry for the ugliness.) The access code is 932324 . Please use your name or a handle we recognise so that we don't accuse you of being a Zoombomber. (Also, don't be a Zoombomber.)

Update 2: Lori has posted the following dnsmasq resources:

• https://www.iana.org/assignments/bootp-dhcp-parameters/bootp-dhcp-parameters.xhtml
• http://www.thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/docs/dnsmasq-man.html
• His sample dnsmasq.conf

Tim Laurence will tell us about KW Commits, an initiative to increase the visibility of people who contribute to open source software locally.

Lori Paniak will tell us about Dnsmasq, a program that provides network infrastructure for small networks: DNS, DHCP, network booting, and more...

Update 3: As previously announced, the meeting will be held online at https://meetings.theworkingcentre.org/room/kwlug . The access code is 254896 . Please use your real name, or use a handle we would recognise from other interactions. Everybody will be able to join in listen mode, and we will unlock people we know to be able to use the microphone (but please mute yourself unless you are actively participating in the discussion).

Update 2: We will be holding this meeting online: https://meetings.theworkingcentre.org/room/kwlug . You will need an access code to get into the meeting. We will post that code here by Thursday April 2 at 8pm, and also announce the access code in the monthly meeting announcement. For more information about the online platform we are using, see the meeting location link.

COVID-19 Update:We will not hold this meeting in-person (partially because of public health guidelines, partially because TriOS is closed). We will try to make a virtualized online meeting happen; otherwise we will cancel. We will have an update on this page by Friday, April 3 at 8pm.

John Eddie Kerr will deliver his long-anticipated presentation on LaTeX at his law library. He writes:

Not just for math and science, LaTeX has found its way into the law library I manage. I will demonstrate some of the documents I create in the library. I will also show what Gaelic and LaTeX have in common.

This will be a beginner-friendly presentation.

Jeff Smith will explain how he uses clusterssh to manage lots of Linux machines at once.

Each year, the Free Software Foundation holds a conference in Boston. This year, some people in Kitchener-Waterloo are organizing a satellite event to be held at the Delta Hotel in Waterloo. They write:

We're excited to be hosting our own version of LibrePlanet, an annual conference hosted by the Free Software Foundation in Boston for free software enthusiasts and anyone who cares about the intersection of technology and social justice. LibrePlanet brings together software developers, law and policy experts, activists, students, and computer users to learn skills, celebrate free software accomplishments, and face challenges to software freedom. Newcomers are always welcome, and LibrePlanet 2020 will feature programming for all ages and experience levels. The theme for LibrePlanet 2020 is "Free the Future".

For the first time ever, all the great presentations of LibrePlanet are coming to Canada! Bringing in the main talks via live stream, with space for local hallway track and more, LibrePlanet Canada Satellite Edition is your chance to meet with like-minded participants and take in the event from Canada. For those in Southern Ontario who find travel to Boston just beyond their price range, or those in Canada or anywhere else who have difficulties with travel to the USA, this is the version of LibrePlanet for you.

Tickets have a suggested price ranging from $50 (for students/low-waged) to $250 (for those being sponsored by their companies). Pricing is flexible in that you can pay less (or more!) for tickets depending on your financial circumstances.

Learn more about the conference and register at https://2020.libreplanet.ca/