Past Meetings

The meeting starts at 7pm, and the doors open for conversation and networking at 6pm.

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We have three great presentations lined up for the March meeting:

• Raul Suarez will demonstrate how to install Linux on a USB key. This installation can then be booted from any computer that supports USB booting.
• Andrew Cant will demonstrate the Subversion version control system. He will include some background of version control management concepts.
• Kyle Spaans will show off git, a distributed version control system initiated by Linus Torvalds to manage the Linux kernel source. Kyle will explain what git is, what makes it different from other source control systems, and what it's good for. He will finish off with a live demo.

The meeting starts at 7pm, and the doors open for conversation and networking at 6pm.

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Imagine a live demonstration of a Content Management System (CMS) where each member of the audience can follow the presentation with their own copy of the software running on a laptop in front of them. Now, after a 10 minute break, each laptop is emulating an OLPC machine, complete with network ability. After another 10 minute break, each laptop is now running a different CMS for the audience to put through its paces.

Our own Lori Paniak will give a newbie-friendly tutorial on how to use VMware in Linux to accomplish this silicon sleight-of-hand.

The Demo Room at Ontario Linux Fest consisted of thirteen laptops each running a copy of VMware Server. Demos were VMware images which could be quickly (and remotely) switched from one presentation to the next. This presentation gives a tutorial on the preparation and installation of VMware Server on a Debian system, cloning the installation to the laptops and administering the final system.

Mondoarchive disaster recovery software, the VMware Server Console and cluster management tools such as clusterssh each play a role in the tutorial.

Several copies of the installation DVD will be given away. Each disk will install a (nearly) ready-to-go Debian Etch/2.6.22 kernel/VMware Server system on a target hard drive.

Happy New Year! And welcome to the first 2008 meeting of keeping your Free Software Resolution. KWLUG meetings are open to everybody with an interest in Free Software, GNU/Linux and Open Source. Arrive when the doors open at 6pm for conversation and networking. Formal presentations start at 7pm. Often, many of us relocate to a restaurant for further discussion and sustenance after the meeting ends at 9pm.

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LinuxMCE is a free, open source add-on to Kubuntu including a 10' UI, complete whole-house media solution with pvr + distributed media, and the most advanced smarthome solution available. It is stable, easy to use, and requires no knowledge of Linux and only basic computer skills.

With our history of "Standing Room Only" for MYTH-TV presentations, you'll want to be sure to arrive early for this Instant Classic as presented by our very own John Van Ostrand.

Happy GNU Year.

Why not ring in the GNU year with a donation to the Free Software Foundation? They run important campaigns like Defective by Design, that defends against digital restrictions management and Open Document that encourages free and open data interchange.

So Join, or update your membership, or donate in any amount or order some cool FSF schwag.

And of course, have a happy and safe GNU year.

The meeting starts at 7pm, and the doors open for conversation and networking at 6pm.

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Brent is our resident turntable mix-ologist and DJ-Extrordinaire. He's going to whip a little Learnin' on us regarding audio.

If you aspire to be a musician, or if you used to, or i you know someone who does, you might be interested to know that virtually ever tool you need to create, record, mix, master, and publish music is available from GPL software repositories, and you can do the job on virtually dumpster-class hardware. If all goes well, I will demonstrate in my presentation how to record music from both digital and acoustic instruments and vocals, mix it and master it into CD ready recordings, using the 64Studio linux distro--Debian based, and preconfigured for effective audio creation and manipulation.

I don't really have any music talent, but this talk will focus on the technology, which is a lot simpler than it may look. Some general music production knowledge will undoubtedly be imparted at the same time. Plus someone is probably going to have to sing something.........

The meeting starts at 7pm, and the doors open for conversation and networking at 6pm.

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We'll have a demonstration and explanation of the fancy eye-candy extensions.

This meeting will be round-table style. John will lead off with a laptop and discuss the challenges presented by the hardware selections made by the laptop manufacturer and how he solved them.

Bring your challenging hardware and tell us how to address it.

We have a vendor presentation scheduled for this meeting. Doors open at 6pm for casual conversation and networking. Formal presentation starts at 7pm.

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VMware provides virtualization products. The largest of four world wide VMware support centres is in Burlington, Ontario.

Brian Ferguson and a number of colleagues from VMware will delight us with stories from inside VMware. They'll provide us with configuration and deployment tips to make VMware work better for us.

Presentation outline
* Introduction to VMware and a little about our culture
* Most Interesting Cases we have faced
* Strangest Cases we have faced
* Most Challenging Cases we have faced
* Recognizing when and when NOT to use VMware products

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The host for this meeting was richard.

Summer is here and we have another festival of social interaction planned!

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Several people will present command line tools and tricks:

• Chris Bruner: wc
• Paul Nijjar: three ways to rename files on the command line
• John van Ostrand: network piping and diagnostic tools (strace, tcpdump, strings, hexdump, ldd, ls -lu), RPM commands (rpm -qi, rpm -qf, rpm -ql, rpm -qa)

This presentation is newbie-friendly.

IPCop is a specialized Linux distribution for firewalls. We'll learn how to acquire and install IPCop and how to use its web-based administration interface.

Addon packages can extend IPCop's capabilities. We'll look at selected addons if time permits.
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The host for this meeting was John Kerr.

Cedric Puddy will give us the "nickel tour" of installing Linux on the Linux WRT54GL hackable router. He will:

• flash the routers with OpenWRT
• demonstrate the flexibility of the built-in switch
• show OpenWRT's ipkg management
• share scripts that he wrote to make flashing the boxes easier
• Discuss differences between the stock Linksys images, OpenWRT and DD-WRT

If there is time Cedric will also demo the Wi-Spy 2.4 GHz spectrum analyser.

Before the meeting Brent Clements will demonstrate package management for newbies.
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The host for this meeting was User 26.

This is a periodic Meet & Greet meeting. Members are encouraged to come with "Show & Tell" from their latest or current projects. No formal presentations are scheduled beyond LUG-maintenance-type discussion.

Members are encouraged to meet and talk in informal groups. This is an opportunity to chat with LUG-folk that they see less-often.
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The host for this meeting was User 26.

HICK Tech is coming to Owen Sound on the Monday, 30 April and Tuesday 01 May 2007. This two day conference / workshop looks at several aspects of technology with an emphasis on rural users.

KWLUG regulars might even recognize a presenter in the "Digital Lifestyles" stream.

H.I.C.K. Tech is the [Grey-Bruce] region's first technology conference taking place in Owen Sound, Ontario from April 30-May 1, 2007 on beautiful Georgian Bay. Participate in HICK Tech by attending:

1. The Keynote Address: The Power of Community and How to Build It On-line at the Roxy by Jennifer Evans
2. The Forum: Attend up to nine workshops and sessions. There are more than 30 sessions to choose from!
3. The Digital Fair: Meet local IT businesses in our human-friendly trade show area.

We have a festival of encryption presentations this month. We'll learn about the GnuPG tools, how and why they work and why you should consider them. We'll also look at using GnuPG tools within a few different email clients.

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Andrew Cant will demonstrate and discuss using GnuPG with the Thunderbird and Mutt email clients. After the presentation the attendes should have enough information to go out and use Thunderbird or Mutt to sign, verify, encrypt and decrypt their email.
The presentation is intended for beginner/intermediate.

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What is GnuPG, you might ask? Well, according to the www.gnupg.org:
"GnuPG is the GNU project's complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC2440 . GnuPG allows to encrypt and sign your data and communication, features a versatile key managment system as well as access modules for all kind of public key directories."

Adam's presentation will attempt to explain what that means and why you might care. This will include an overview of public key cryptography, its uses, and the GnuPG implementation in particular. Time permitting, the use of GnuPG with the KMail email client will also be demonstrated.

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The host for this meeting was John Kerr.

Our special guest presenter for March is Evan Leibovitch. He's a tireless advocate of Open Source and co-founded the Linux Professional Institute and the Canadian Association for Open Source.

This meeting begins at 7pm. Doors open at 6pm for casual conversation and perhaps a Linux-related video.

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Evan Leibovitch will demonstrate and discuss the Drupal Content Management System.

We've had lots of questions about Content Management Systems. A CMS moves the burden of creating a web site from "writing some HTML" to "writing the content." Drupal is a leading open source CMS. Attend this meeting and you'll see why.

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The host for this meeting was Raul Suarez.

Chris Frey will demonstrate and discuss the X Window System from a user's point of view, focusing on the common tools that come with X, regardless of which desktop system you choose to use. The following topics are planned:

* X configuration overview
* The X startup process
* Connecting to your X server
* X managers
o The display manager
o The window manager
o The session manager
* Cut and paste
o What's the difference between the current selection, cut buffer, and clipboard?
* X toys
* Poking around the X window system
* X fonts
* X authentication
* X forwarding
* Security recommendations and conclusion

The presentation is intended for intermediate audiences.
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The host for this meeting was rbclemen.

This introduction to VoIP is aimed at small office / home office users. John will cover hardware, software and configuration issues at the introductory level. The interested attendee will learn what options they have, and what steps to take to implement their own VoIP system. Expect to hear about VoIP phones, analog telephone adapters, telephony cards, Asterisk, TrixBox, and VoIP providers.

Are you interested in a $2.50 phone line at home? How about I throw in enhanced features like "follow me", voice menus, multiple extensions and voice mail for your staff or teens? Finally how about being able to use off the shelf hardware, open source software, and your choice of provider?
Sound too good to be true! It's not, but there is work involved.
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The host for this meeting was richard.

Our guest presenter, Glenn is from Hamilton LUG.

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We have another interesting Linux presentation this month. Our guest presenter, Glenn, will amaze and entertain you with his mastery of the Linux command line.
Make sure you arrive early to get a seat.
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The host for this meeting was richard.

It's a festival of graphics presentations this month!

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Chris (et fil) will demonstrate the Blender 3D modelling package and some of the animated results of Blender.

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In Part One Richard will discuss and demonstrate a few of the many capabilities of the GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Programs). We'll look at

• layers,
• contrast enhancement,
• red-eye reduction
• and expensive wedding photo cliches.

In Part Two we delve deeper into the GIMP and look at other photo-manipulation techniques.

• Fun with banknotes.
• Building an alibi: add yourself to a photo.
• On-line dating or how to put your face on the body of a celebrity.

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The host for this meeting was rbclemen.

This meeting will be held at The Working Centre in Kitchener, Ontario. Our meetings are free and open to those with an interest in Linux.Doors open at 6pm for casual conversation and perhaps a Linux-related video.We have another interesting Open Source project presentation this month. Make sure you arrive early to get a seat. The formal presentation will begin at 7:00pm.
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By popular demand, and no small amount of begging, Robin has agreed to reprise his MythTV presentation. We're told the the new MythTV box includes more goodies now, so prepare to have serious geek-envy.