Past Meetings

Aden Seaman will discuss a number of technologies and tricks he discovered in setting up a two-node high-availability cluster in his own home. He will give an overview of how DRBD block device mirroring, OCFS2 shared disk filesystems, GlusterFS cluster filesystems, clever network configuration, and the Pacemaker and Corosync cluster resource tools can work together to make a high- availability computer cluster. He will also briefly touch on integrating User Mode Linux virtual computers, an Asterisk PBX, and a DSL and firewall setup with the cluster. Finally he will give a live demonstration of his system.

Note that we will be holding this meeting on January 9, even though technically January 2 is a non-holiday Monday.

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The GNOME desktop environment has recently released version 3, and with it a new interface called the GNOME Shell. The Ubuntu project has developed an alternative interface called Unity. In this presentation, Chris Irwin will tell us why GNOME Shell is awesome, and Darcy Casselman will do the same for Unity.

Some aspects they may cover include:

• Change is not (always) evil
• The common underpinnings and goals of Unity and Gnome Shell
• The benefits of competition
• Extensions
• Common complaints and rebuttals

FLOSS Fund: MusicBrainz

Kiwi Ssennyonjo will talk about the latest release of pfSense, a powerful firewall distribution based on the BSD kernel. The firewall features: a powerful web GUI, easy rule editing, OpenVPN, pretty graphs, Captive Portal functionality, extensions/plugins, a large user base and much more.

We have two presentations lined up for this month.

Rodrigo Gonzalez will give us a short presentation on "Free Software in the Developing World". This may turn into a series of short presentations on free software adoption in different geographic areas.

Raul Suarez will give a talk on batch editing tools. He writes:

GUI Video editors are great for one-offs but very time comsuming when you need to repeat the same video process to multiple videos.

There are several very powerful free software command line utilities that can be used for scripting those repetitive tasks.

I started investigating using them to edit my presentation videos consistently and, althogh I found that the learning curve is steep, one can start with cookie cutter recipies and evolve from there.

In this presentation I will go through some of those recipies using mainly mencoder, ffmpeg, imageMagick and a few other tools I've found along the way.

KWLUG held its first meeting on October 13, 2001, which means this month marks the 10th anniversary! Help us celebrate at this informal social event.

Join KWLUG as we celebrate Software Freedom Day 2011. There will be

- Presentations
- An install/supportfest (bring your computer!)
- Giveaways of CDs and DVDs
- Demonstration machines

and more.

For more information about our local celebrations, please visit http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2011/Canada/Kitchener/TWC

Tim Laurence will discuss cryptography and the Secure Sockets Layer system that we all use for https webpages.

Tim kindly provided his presentation slides in Text Presentation Program format.

Big Blue Button is open-source web conferencing software geared towards education. It features live video chat, VoIP communication, document sharing and much more. Raul Suarez will discuss Big Blue Button:

- What it is
- How to set it up
- How to use its Web API
- How to integrate components

In addition, Norman Young will demonstrate a mobile phone app he created called "RealLife Mobile Messaging". He writes:

Despite running on Linux, Android incurs a paradigm shift from
traditional application programming. On Android, you don't call the
System, the System calls you! This introductory talk reviews the
presenter's experience in re-targeting a messaging application from
Python and GTK on the Maemo Nokia N800 Tablet to Android. We compare
Android's architectural components (Activity, Service, Intent, Content
Provider, and Broadcast Receiver) to their approximate counterparts on
Linux (GUI, Job, Message RPC, File system, and Signal).

NOTE: We are indeed having a meeting on July 4, because the Canadian holiday is Friday July 1 this year.

* * *
Join us for a series of shorter presentations:

Kiwi Ssenyonjo will update us on the latest developments in FreeSWITCH (the telephony platform) and FusionPBX (a graphical frontend).

Darcy Casselman will give a presentation on "Ubuntu Canada: Communitizing the Community with Community Tools"

Paul Nijjar will give a presentation on "Keeping Debian/Ubuntu Systems Up to Date", which will cover apt-cacher-ng, apticron and apt-dater. (slides, presentation steps)

Join us for another KWLUG social night! Depending on attendee interest, this meeting might include:

- Interesting discussions about technical and social topics related to open source
- Hands-on informal demonstrations of interesting hardware and software (including projects being worked on by KWLUG members)
- Installfests and Linux troubleshooting help
- A keysigning party
- Snacks and munchies

Brian Nickle will present the Google App Inventor for Android, a programming language that supports drag-and-drop programming.

Fernando Duran will present an overview of Linux server security, with a review of security areas, a checklist covering security aspects to be aware of, and a list of OS tools and free services you can use for security auditing.

John van Ostrand's presentation on the Sleuth Kit will be rescheduled.

Lori Paniak will discuss the powerful OpenVPN virtual private network solution, which allows you to connect computers that are far away physically into a secure virtual network. OpenVPN server and/or client is available on a wide range of hardware from routers to servers running BSD, GNU/Linux, Windows and MacOSX.

Topics of discussion:
1) Generating your own Certificate Authority with Easy RSA. Creating and maintaining certificates and keys for use with OpenVPN.
2) Setting up a simple point-to-point VPN connection between an OpenVPN server and remote client.
3) Routed VPN - the Road Warrior.
4) Bridged VPN - just like being there.

Video

(We only video for Darcy's part of the presentation)

and a link to the video if the embedded version does not work.

* * *
This meeting will consist of three shorter presentations by KWLUG members.

Tim Laurence will present the Linux Volume Manager (LVM). He writes: "Partitioning without LVM is so 1988! With LVM you can gain flexibility to allow you to deal with all your changing and complex storage configuration needs with ease. Come learn how LVM can make your system administration easier."

Darcy Casselman will present Clutter. He writes: "Clutter is a library developed by Intel designed for building their smartphone user interfaces. It's open source and available for use on the desktop as well. Gnome is using it for Gnome Shell and Ubuntu is using it in their Unity netbook UI. Best of all, it's fun and easy to get started with it and see some nifty effects. We'll show you how to get started with Clutter in Python.

John van Ostrand will demonstrate Firebug, a useful (some would say essential) tool used to debug webpages.

The doors open for conversation, networking and casual Q&A some time between 6 and 6:30. Formal meeting and presentations start at 7:00pm sharp.

* * *
Due to unforseen circumstances, Khalid will be postponing his PHP presentation to a later date. However, other KWLUG members have jumped in to offer some shorter presentations and demos:

John van Ostrand will demonstrate ZoneMinder, a camera and surveillance system for Linux.

Kiwi Ssennyonjo will demonstrate FusionPBX, a web management interface for the FreeSWITCH telephony solution.

John Kerr will present a "Law Librarians Linux Desktop" presentation.

Paul Nijjar may present a "Keeping multiple systems up to date with apt-dater" presentation.

John van Ostrand may demonstrate Firebug this month instead of next.

The doors open for conversation, networking and casual Q&A some time between 6 and 6:30. Formal meeting and presentations start at 7:00pm sharp.

* * *
Ralph Janke will discuss Ruby on Rails, a popular web development framework.

The doors open for conversation, networking and casual Q&A some time between 6 and 6:30. Formal meeting and presentations start at 7:00pm sharp.

* * *
Andrew Cant will enlighten us about the "Debian Way", which is also applicable to Ubuntu, Linux Mint and other derivatives of this established Linux distro.

Topics that I can think off/summarize on the "Debian Way":
- Debian installation configuration (already covered by Eric as apart
of his awesome automatic installation presentation)
- creating Debian packages
- using Debian packages high-level (aptitude, synaptic, Ubuntu
Software Installer)
- using Debian packages low-level (apt, dpkg, dpkg-reconfigure,...)
- general how Debian works overview (philosophy + history + guidelines
+ outline of the system)
- how to configure the "Debian Way" (network, kernel compilation, how
things fit in with the LSB?)

The doors open for conversation, networking and casual Q&A some time between 6 and 6:30. Formal meeting and presentations start at 7:00pm sharp.

* * *
This informal, somewhat-unstructured meeting will feature:

- socialization
- opportunities for Q&A with LUG members (bring questions!)
- demos (this is your opportunity to show off something cool!)
- troubleshooting (this is your opportunity to get help fixing something!)

The doors open for conversation, networking and casual Q&A some time between 6 and 6:30. Formal meeting and presentations start at 7:00pm sharp.

* * *
XBMC is an open-source, cross-platform media player and entertainment hub. Adam Glauser will tell us about his adventures in configuring and using it.

Adam will discuss what differentiates XBMC from MythTV, as well as how they can work together. We will also look at choosing an installation method, configuring a remote, and various methods of streaming content over the local network. Using plugins to access various content on from the Internet will also be addressed.

The doors open for conversation, networking and casual Q&A some time between 6 and 6:30. Formal meeting and presentations start at 7:00pm sharp.

* * *
Kyle Spaans will tell us all about privacy, both from a technical and non-technical perspective. There will also be a key-signing party.

He writes: "Kyle, _who is not a lawyer_, will outline Canada's privacy laws and acts (with some nods towards copyright, just for fun) such as PIPEDA and the upcoming ACTA. For the technical side of things, Kyle will give a high-level overview of Tor: how it works and why you'd use it. Other privacy-enhancing technologies can be discussed, such as PGP, WikiLeaks, etc."

The doors open for conversation, networking and casual Q&A some time between 6 and 6:30. Formal meeting and presentations start at 7:00pm sharp.

* * *
Raul Suarez will give a practical introduction to programming in Linux.

He writes: A very common question I've heard in on-line forums and casual chat is: "I'd like to develop for Linux, where do I start?"

This presentation is meant to provide an answer to that question. Probably not the ultimate answer and certainly not a comprehensive one as it won't cover every single possibility, but it should at least point the novice Linux developer on the right track.

Here I am using the term "developer" loosely, as my purpose is to include from the desktop user that needs to automate a repetitive task to the expert developer new to Linux development.

This will be an overview and a practical comparison of various programming alternatives available and the resources available to learn them.

From single line command line scripts to rich web applications to code-less programming there should be something for almost everybody.

As it is usual for my presentations, I'd like you to invite people that are (or could be) curious about developing under Linux. If you tell people, you'd be surprised how many may come just out of curiosity.

I've attached a map of the presentation in three formats:

• If you install the FreeMind application you can use the mm version (best option)
• If you like Flash, download the flash version to a directory and open the html in your favourite browser. It is interactive.
• If you don't like Flash or don't want to install FreeMind, Just extract the html version to a folder and open it with your favourite browser.

Free Mind
Using FreeMind was invaluable to organize all this information. I highly recommend installing and using it.

You can find Free Mind in your favourite distribution repositories or directly at http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page