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Linux Supporters Group

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Next Meeting: Wednesday the 10th of July 2024

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the date above in the new Adelaide South West Community Centre in the Minor Works Building at 22 Stamford Court, Adelaide. This is between (East of) Norman St and (West of) Frew St. You may enter the Court from Sturt St or Wright St.

Topics:

[1] Being Watched, Getting Malware: How our choice of browser and its configuration can keep us safe from these scourges. Comparison and discussion refers to https://privacytests.org/.

[2] Masterful Multibooting: See how you can construct a live USB disc to easily experiment with many different distros. Full demonstration refers to https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html

[3] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[4] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 12th June 2024

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the date above in the new Adelaide South West Community Centre at 22 Stamford Court, Adelaide. This is between (East of) Norman St and (West of) Frew St. You may enter the Court from Sturt St or Wright St.

Topics:

[1] Your GNU/Linux Experience: tell us about your software, tasks, peculiarities, failures, joys, etc.

[2] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[3] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

NOTE: The PDF of the talk about the Raspberry Pi Pico and Pico W has been added to our 'Tutorials' page.

Meeting: Wed 8th May 2024

Topics:

[1] Your GNU/Linux Experience: tell us about your software, tasks, peculiarities, failures, joys, etc.

[2] The RaspberryPi Pico and Pico W: an Introduction to their Architecture and Uses.

[3] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[4] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 10th Apr 2024

Topics:

[1] http://linuxlsga.net: the experience of creating and maintaining our website.

[2] xz backdoor attempt: a walk through what happened, how discovered, how avoided.

[3] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[4] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

NOTE: The PDF of the talk about the Raspberry Pi GPIO Programming has been added to our 'Tutorials' page.

Meeting: Wed 13th Mar 2024

Topics:

[1] The Raspberry Pi GPIO: Using the Raspberry Pi nanocomputer in the Internet of Things -- How to program the General Purpose Input/Output pins.

[2] The Graphics Processing Unit: how it is becoming a bigger player in the computing world.

[3] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[4] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

NOTE: The PDF of the talk about the Internet-of-Things has been added to our 'Tutorials' page.

Meeting: Wed 14th Feb 2024

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the date above at an alternate location -- just for this month -- in the Box Factory at 59 Regent Street South, Adelaide (park in Halifax St).

Topics:

[1] The Internet-of-Things: an exploration of definitions and basic options, with various hardware examples.

[2] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[3] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 13th Dec 2023

This is our End-of-Year Break-up, so bring some Funny Videos to share!

End-of-Year Xmas Feast: at The Donburi House, 52 Sturt St (in the Minor Works Courtyard) 6.30pm-7.30pm.

Funny Videos in the Centre: bring your own to show us all!

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Extra Note: The LSGA closes down over Christmas. Last Linux Lounge is Fri 8th Dec 2023, restarting Fri 2nd Feb 2024. First Evening Meeting is Wed 14th Feb 2024.

And a Very Merry Xmas to all our Linux Enthusiasts!

Meeting Wed 8th Nov 2023 deferred to Wed 13th Dec 2023

Due to rescheduling problems, this meeting is deferred for one month.

Meeting: Wed 11th Oct 2023

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre at 22 Stamford Court, Adelaide. This is between (East of) Norman St and (West of) Frew St. You may enter the Court from Sturt St or Wright St.

Topics: T.B.A.

[4] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[5] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 13th Sep 2023

Topics:

[1] "No Updates Available": But there are actually quite a few; Why?

[2] Eye Candy: Organising a bespoke boot splash screen.

[3] Feeling /Homeless? : Home is where the /etc/fstab says it is!

[4] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[5] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 9th Aug 2023

Topics:

[1] Grubbing About: Messing with the Linux Boot Loader configuration.

[2] The Internet is not the Answer: So what is the Question?

[3] IOT (The Internet of Things): Soon to be 50 billion, and counting...

[4] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[5] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 12th Jul 2023

Topics:

[1] Linux Networking: A Demonstration of some methods you can use to make it easier to administer your Local Area Network with the Linux Networking Tools.

[2] The Large Hadron Collider: What is it ... and Why it won't fit in your backyard!

[3] Talking to a Computer: Is anthropomophism creeping up on us with our AI programs?.

[4] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[5] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

The PDF version of the Linux Networking talk has been added to our 'Tutorials' page.

Meeting: Wed 14th Jun 2023

Topics:

[1] KDE Connect: A Demonstration of How to Pair your Devices Automatically.

[2] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[3] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

The PDF version of the KDE-Connect talk has been added to our 'Tutorials' page.

Meeting: Wed 10th May 2023

Topics:

[1] ChatGPT: What happened when we asked chatgpt to write a (bash script) program.

[2] Stellarium + Kstars: An appreciation of 2 user-friendly astronomical programs.

[3] Big-Time Linux: How Linux crunches the video graphics for blockbuster movies.

[4] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[5] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 12th Apr 2023

Topics:

[1] Xephem: How to use this astronomical program, with useful digressions into the korn shell (for the maths), gnuplot (for plotting starcharts), /bin/date (for expressing the date in various formats) and ghostscript (for combining a sequence of screenshots into one pdf).

[2] xdotool: how to set up keystroke combinations and teach your mouse new tricks.

[3] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[4] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

There is a summary of the 'xephem' talk in our 'Interest' section.

Meeting: Wed 8th Mar 2023

Topics from amongst these:

[1] xdotool: how to get a special key to insert text at the cursor position.

[2] Big-Time Linux: a survey of various apps that play movies.

[3] ChatGPT: join in the discussion of its features and drawbacks.

[4] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 8th Feb 2023

Topics from amongst these:

[1] Functions: Define, invoke and use functions.

[2] Artificial Intelligence: Some user experience of AI programs.

[3] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[4] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 14th Dec 2022

This is our End-of-Year Break-up, so bring some Funny Videos to share!

End-of-Year Xmas Feast: at The King's Head Hotel, cnr Sturt St and King William, 6.30pm-7.30pm.

Funny Videos in the Centre: bring your own to show us all!

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Extra Note: The LSGA closes down over Christmas. Last Linux Lounge is Fri 9th Dec 2022, restarting Fri 3rd Feb 2023. First Evening Meeting is Wed 8th Feb 2023.

And a Very Merry Xmas to all our Linux Enthusiasts!

Meeting: Wed 9th Nov 2022

Topics:

[1] Functions and Aliases: An exploration of the advantages and disadvantages of different methods for defining and combining commands to make useful Linux programs.

[2] Bytes and Brainwaves: We often like to compare the human brain with electronic devices. That’s mostly not helpful, but in defining differences we can better understand computer functionality.

[2] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[3] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 12th Oct 2022

Topics:

[1] OpenBSD: personal experience installing and using a contemporary, very secure, free and open-source Unix-like computer operating system + comparisons with Linux.

[2] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[3] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 14th Sep 2022

Topics:

[1] Alias Magic: One way of defining a shortcut invoking a sequence of Linux commands.

[2] Virtual Machine: What’s the advantage of using 'boxes' to run a distro from inside another OS?

[3] Gnu/Linux: Why does it work at all, with so many people creating their own projects?

[4] Distro Bloat: Are some becoming too big and controlling of our computing experience?

[5] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[6] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 10th Aug 2022

Topics:

[1] Kali Linux Undercover Mode: Some tricks for testing the robustness of your networks.

[2] Kodachi Linux: Explore a pentesting distribution comprising secure browsers and VPN mode.

[3] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[4] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

NOTE: This meeting starts our new schedule of 2nd-Wednesday-of-the-Month meetings.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting Wed 13th July 2022 deferred to Wed 10th Aug 2022

Due to a surge in infections, this meeting is deferred for one month.

Meeting: Wed 1st June 2022

Topics:

[1] Battery Chargers: A demo of the PowerTech 4-channel Universal Battery Charger with LCD.

[2] Round-Table Discussion: about any Linux problems, apps, features or queries.

NOTE: Just this time doors open 15mins later than normal.

NOTE: Entry at 1945, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 4th May 2022

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP has deferred this meeting until June (for various reasons).

Meeting: Wed 6th Apr 2022

Topics:

Programming Linux: C? C++? Perl? Python? Shell Scripting? (yes! that last one.)

The Tor Browser: Some Notes on Installation.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 2nd Mar 2022

Topics:

Ideas of March: Have a hand in planning some topics for later in the year.

Kali Linux: Examine ways of testing the security of your computer system.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 2nd Feb 2022

Topics: Stuff from end of last year + other odds and ends.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 1st Dec 2021

Topics:

End-of-Year Xmas Feast: at The King's Head Hotel, cnr Sturt St and King William, 6.30pm-7.30pm.

Funny Videos: bring your own to show us all!

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Extra Note: The LSGA closes down over Christmas. Last Linux Lounge is Fri 3rd Dec 2021, restarting Fri 4th Feb 2022. First Evening Meeting is Wed 2nd Feb 2022.

Meeting: Wed 3rd Nov 2021

Topics:

AppArmor is not something that you want to regularly play around with, but you should know about it, because it keeps the core of your system in good health.

Linux Fx (a.k.a. Windows Fx): do we really need this distro?

KDE Connect: how can Android and Linux talk to each other?

Vym will map your mind (depending on storage!)

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Note: The PDF of Neil's talk about the TS251D NAS has been added to our 'Tutorials' page.

Meeting: Wed 6th Oct 2021

Topics:

Burning Audio CDs and storing music is easily done; here is how to use the Asunder program effectively.

WebApp is a LinuxMint app for quick access to your favourite internet sites.

Network-Attached Storeage: experience with the Model TS-251-D NAS unit from QNAP.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

[ Note: meetings 4th Aug & 1st Sep skipped for COVID/other reasons ]

Meeting: Wed 7th July 2021

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] Present a Subject that you think is important and have investigated in some detail.

[4] And Just Hang Out with the other Linux enthusiasts ...

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 2nd June 2021

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] PERSISTENCE: Work and save your data on USB created by MX-Linux.

[4] GIMP and Krita: Our amazing GNU/Linux drawing tools?

[5] My Digital 'Ego': Hiding 'me' on the 'web.

[6] Terminal Trix: du Pictures, duf, git, vym, bpytop, convect.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 5th May 2021

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] SHELLS: Your feet leave the ground using Manjaro on a Computer in the Clouds.

[4] My Digital Image: How you are expressed in the 'web.

[5] NetRunner: An interesting GNU/Linux distro.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 7th April 2021

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] Lenovo: Taming the machine.

[4] WebP: what is it and do we need it?

[5] ... And your Subject ... Step up and intrigue us.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 3rd March 2021

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] wget --spider: how to index a website for transparent exploration.

[4] MX-AHS: the variant of MX Linux for the newer laptops.

[5] Edge Computing: holding on or falling off ...

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 3rd Feb 2021

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] The New MacBook: with the ARM processor and the possibility of a Linux installation.

[4] What is an AppImage?: and when and how would you want to use one?

[6] Telegram-Desktop: our way of keeping in touch for Linux help.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking in nearby Sturt Street.

Note: The PDF of slides from Syd's musings about Linux has been added to our 'Tutorials' page.

Meeting: Wed 2nd Dec 2020

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

This is our End-of-Year Break-up, so bring some Funny Videos to share!

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Our last Linux Lounge this year will be on Fri 4 Dec 2020. We expect that our first LSGA Meeting next year will be on Wed 3 Feb 2021, and that our first Linux Lounge next year will be on Fri 5 Feb 2021.

Until the Adelaide City Council finds a new permanent place for the Centre, we shall be meeting in the Minor Works Building, located just off of Stamford Court, between Sturt Street and Wright Street.

Details shall follow about the move into our temporary new venue early next year.

And a Very Merry Xmas to all our Linux Enthusiasts!

Meeting: Wed 4th Nov 2020

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] Open Discussion: Are we coming to the End of the War between Windows and Linux ?

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 7th Oct 2020

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] Devuan+Lenovo: The IdeaPad Slim 3 -- Every Model presents a Unique Challenge !

[4] [Un|In]Security: A Perspective on this Aspect of your Computer System.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 2nd Sep 2020

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] ! gotcha ! : Lessons from installing Devuan 3.0 (beowulf) on an old Lenovo 100S laptop.

[4] enscript: a program for quickly and conveniently formatting text files for printing.

[5] Linux without Decoration: Come and Learn Something New about GNU/Linux !

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 5th Aug 2020

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall start meeting again on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] Remote Services: A detailed look at the three essential items that you must configure to set up your own secure Chatroom, Data Cloud, Security Camera (and so on) hosted in your own home and accessible from anywhere else.

[4] The MX-Linux distro: Exactly How to make a Live Writable USB stick to boot MX and preserve any changes you make.

NOTE: Entry at 1930, exit at 2130.

All Welcome. Cost $3. COVID restrictions apply. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Reopening of Lounge on Friday the 12th of June 2020

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP Linux Learners Lounge restarts on this date (with limited numbers for the time being) in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Please phone the Centre in advance to book in. All Welcome. $2 to attend, $3 if you get help. Runs slightly later from 1430-1600. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Secure Chatroom available for May 2020

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP still has its meeting place shut down in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Therefore regulars who normally attended our Linux Learners Lounge might like to contact our Secretary to find out how to access the secure chatroom that we are running instead (for the time being) during the same hours (Friday 1400-1600).

Next Meeting: Wednesday the 1st of April 2020

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

All Welcome. None accomodated. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Obviously, this is an April Fool's Joke in advance.

After the government panic has run its course, there will be further information on our next meeting. Until then, maybe spend spare time revisiting the magnificent work of the Linux Documentation Project. Myself, I have rediscovered a massive book named "Linux: The Advanced Reference", published by Walnut Creek CDROM Books in 1999, comprising almost 2000 pages, each chapter a full-on Linux HOWTO. Well worth immersing yourself in.

When the storm rages and the state is threatened by shipwreck, we can do nothing more noble than to sink the anchor of our peaceful studies into the ground of eternity. -- Johannes Kepler

Meeting: Wed 4th March 2020

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] Quantum Computing and the IBM Q Experience: Barry's introduction aims to get you acquainted with quantum computing concepts.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 5th February 2020

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] How the Web was Lost: Syd talks about Tim Berners-Lee's proposal to reclaim some of the original promise of the web.

[4] Take your Tablet: Syd looks at what Android can offer Linux people.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The talk about Berners-Lee and his mission for the internet has been added to our 'Tutorials' page.

Meeting: Wed 4th December 2019

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

End-of-Year Break-up Feast 7pm: at The Duke of Brunswick, 207 Gilbert St nearby

End-of-Year Party afterwards: in The Centre, for Funny Videos [bring some!]

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note:

Our last Linux Lounge this year will be on Friday 6th December; our first LSGA Meeting next year will be on Wednesday 5th February 2020. our first Linux Lounge next year will be on Friday 7th February 2020.

And a Very Merry Xmas to all our Linux Enthusiasts! See you next year!.

Meeting: Wed 6th November 2019

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] The DMZ: Neil talks about using a Raspberry Pi as a sophisticated demilitarised zone between your PC and your modem, and some of the amazing and useful things you can do with it by analysing the traffic.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

NOTE: The LSGA is running a Linux Presentation at the Adelaide Box Factory for the University of the Third Age from 1000-1130 on Friday the 22nd of November 2019. More details in this U3A Newsletter. Book in or come along and help!

Meeting: Wed 2nd October 2019

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] .iso files: What makes up a Linux distro .iso image? and how does it work? Tell us what you know about running and installing Linux distros.

[4] Weather Balloons: Scott will show us something about sending them up, getting them back down again, and what happens in-between using a Raspberry-Pi!

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 4th September 2019

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] A Byte of This and a Nybble at That: Bring in a bit of your interesting computer stuff and give us a 10-15 minute talk about it.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 7th August 2019

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] Hayden shall chair a Discussion of various Privacy Policies found on the Internet.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 3rd July 2019

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.00pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

***** Join us for our Winter Solstice Pizza Night at 7 pm *****

Since 1.42 am on Saturday the 22nd of June (Adelaide time) the Sun has been returning to the Southern Hemisphere --- and the LSGA knows how to celebrate this return, courtesy of our renowned Chef Hayden!

Note the slightly earlier time of 7 pm. And, if you please, bring a video -- funny or otherwise -- for our edification and/or amusement. See you there!

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 5th June 2019

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] Living in the Cloud means Trusting the Computers of Strangers: Consider the Advantages, Disadvantages, Strategies, Alternatives and Opportunities.

This meeting is an Open Session, so join in! Bring your information and experience in the field of Cloud Computing on a USB stick. You'll be given the opportunity to talk, with free discussion moderated by Syd.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 1st May 2019

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] Snap and snapd: a look at one of the important protocols for packaging and executing a distro-independent application for Linux.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The details of the Snap and snapd talk have been uploaded to our "Tutorials" section in PDF.

Meeting: Wed 3rd Apr 2019

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

[2] The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

[3] To Upgrade or not to Upgrade: How long before a full re-install is advisable?

[4] The Box NUC 7i3 BNK: An appraisal of one Intel Next Unit of Computing running Devuan 2.0 ascii.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The slides from the Hidden Configuration Files talk and the Charles Babbage talk have both been uploaded to our "Tutorials" section in PDF.

Meeting: Wed 6th Mar 2019

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

[1] Bring Him $HOME: those .hidden files in your personal directory -- what are they there for?

[2] The amazing Charles Babbage: the Father of the Modern Computer.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The slides from the Organic Robots talk have been uploaded to our "Tutorials" section in PDF.

Note: Have a look at our "Interest" section for something about my recent exploration of a NEC Powermate P6050.

Meeting: Wed 6th Feb 2019

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

(1) Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

(2) The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

(3) A Bit about Organic Robots: -- something you didn't know about, eh?

(4) OpenBSD and Linux: compares and contrasts their Features, Installation and Security.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: Our lsga-secure package for protecting private files by encryption is now available for OpenBSD as well as Linux.

For Linux, simply run:

$ wget linuxlsga.net/lsga-install; chmod +x lsga-install; ./lsga-install secure

For OpenBSD, similarly:

$ wget linuxlsga.net/openbsd/lsga-install; chmod +x lsga-install; ./lsga-install secure

A detailed description is in our 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 5th Dec 2018

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP invites you to gather at The Duke of Brunswick Hotel (Gilbert/Logan St) at 6.30pm, and afterwards (bring youtube vids, pix, etc) for some entertainment nearby at our Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

All Welcome. Own cost at Pub. Parking out front of Centre in Sturt Street.

Note: Our last 'Linux Learners Lounge' this year is on Friday 7th December 2018, and the first one next year is on Friday 1st February 2019, before our first general meeting on Wednesday 6th February 2019.

Merry Xmas to all our members, and see you whenever!

Meeting: Wed 7th Nov 2018

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

(1) Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions on the spot from the members present.

(2) The Forum: Take the floor and wax poetic about your recent discoveries in the computer world.

(3) If-Then-Else-Whatever: Fix your bash logic with a dose of Decision-Tables.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 3rd Oct 2018

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

(1) Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions, from the members present -- and best of luck with that!

(2) The Forum: Wax poetic about your discoveries in the computer world, which might well include some or all of the following subjects:

--- T.B.A.:

(3) lsga-secure: a simple-to-use script (Linux/bash and OpenBSD/ksh) for managing your private files, for those who normally avoid the command-line!

(4) photography in the raw: it's good stuff; get some exposure to this cutting-edge technique!

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The 'lsga-secure' PDF handout from this session has been added to our 'Tutorials' section, containing instructions for fetching, installing and trying out the secure program on your PC.

Note: The 'Photography in the Raw' PDF handout from this session has been added to our 'Tutorials' section, containing experienced instructions for enhancing photos kept in raw format.

Meeting: Wed 5th Sep 2018

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

(1) Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions, from the members present -- and best of luck with that!

(2) The Forum: Wax poetic about your discoveries in the computer world, which might well include some or all of the following subjects:

--- youtube-dl: Download the videos they don't want you to save on your computer.

--- heartbleed: Why and how to use the LibreSSL program instead of OpenSSL.

--- serendipity: Or how I got the HUAWEI E8372 LTE Wingle to work on Devuan.

--- /etc/hosts: One way of reducing the overhead of fetching those pesky trackers.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: PDF handouts from this session have been added to our 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 1st Aug 2018

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

(1) Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions, from the members present -- and best of luck with that!

(2) The Forum: Wax poetic about your discoveries in the computer world, which might well include some or all of the following subjects:

--- xawtv+guvcview: View, control and save a modern webcam stream.

--- recordmydesktop: Make a video of what you do on your desktop.

--- usb-to-ethernet: Laptop too thin for an RJ45 socket? Get around it like this.

--- speaker-test+aplay: A neat way of helping to configure sound for (eg) TV/HDMI.

(3) Devuan GNU+Linux 2.0 ASCII Stable: An appreciation of the newly-released systemd-free version of Debian 9 (stretch).

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The PDF handout from this session has been added to our 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 4th Jul 2018

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.00pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

***** Join us for our Winter Solstice Pizza Night at 7 pm *****

Since 7.37 pm Adelaide time on the 21st of June, the Sun has been coming back to the Southern Hemisphere. And of course the LSGA loves to celebrate this return!

Note: the slightly earlier time of 7 pm. And, if you please, bring a video, pictures or writings of interest to show us all.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: Commentary on the release of Devuan 2.0 ASCII has been added to our 'Interest' section.

Meeting: Wed 6th June 2018

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

(1) Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions, from the members present -- and best of luck with that!

(2) The Forum: Wax poetic about your discoveries in the computer world, which might well include some or all of the following subjects:

--- WTF?! Moments: Tracking down elusive programming errors and other 'gotchas' in a recent micro-satellite project.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 2nd May 2018

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

(1) Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions, from the members present -- best of luck with that!

(2) The Forum: Wax poetic about your discoveries in the computer world, which might well include some or all of the following subjects:

--- Something on Micro-Waves.

--- Meet Sylvia, a.k.a. Linux Mint 18.3.

--- Copying a bootable .iso file to a Thumb Drive.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The PDF from the "Copy a bootable .iso file" talk has been added to the 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 4 Apr 2018

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

(1) Quick Question Quest: Get answers to your technical questions, from the members present -- if you can!

(2) The Forum: Wax poetic about your discoveries in the computer world; includes the following subjects:

--- Desktop Environments: Hayden on the venerable KDE.

(3) Don't Get Eaten!: Barry on the algorithm used to solve the 'Missionaries and Cannibals' class of problem.

Centre's Safety Procedures: Syd shall present an update on what to do in an emergency.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 7 Mar 2018

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

(1) Quick Question Quest: Get answers from the members -- if you can!

(2) The Forum: Wax poetic about your discoveries in the computer world.

including:

--- Linux Goodies: Hayden on some lesser-known, very useful Linux programs.

--- Bits and Pieces: Syd on the HTML language; what is the Midori browser like.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: Our 'Linux Learners Lounge' this Friday 23rd February has been cancelled as the Centre is running another event that afternoon.

Note: The PDF notes from recent Forum sessions have been added to the 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 7th Feb 2018

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

(1) Quick Question Quest: Get answers from the members -- if you can!

(2) The Forum: Wax poetic about your discoveries in the computer world.

including:

--- firefox: some formatting changes in its menus and displays.

--- libreoffice: finding rearranged items in its drop-down tabs.

--- uzbl: introduction to an interesting alternative internet browser.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: Our first 'Linux Learners Lounge' this year is on Friday 2nd February, in the week before our first meeting.

Happy New Year to all our members!

Meeting: Wed 6th Dec 2017

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP invites you to gather at The Duke of Brunswick Hotel (Gilbert/Logan St) at 6.30pm, and afterwards (bring youtube vids, pix, etc) for some entertainment at our Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

All Welcome. Own cost at Pub. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: Our last 'Linux Learners Lounge' this year is on Friday 8th December 2017, and the first one next year is on Friday 2nd February 2018, before our first general meeting on Wednesday 7th February 2018.

Merry Xmas to all our members, and see you whenever!

Meeting: Wed 1st Nov 2017

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

(1) Deep Learning. Barry and Peter shall talk about applications of research into neural networks: driverless cars, robot learning, picture recognition; and about bionic processors, used for face and voice recognition.

(2) Quick Question Quest: Get answers from the members -- if you can!

(3) The Forum: Wax poetic about your discoveries in the computer world.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The PDF version of the Deep Learning talk has been added to our 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 4th Oct 2017

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

(1) Quick Question Quest: Get answers from the members -- if you can!

(2) The Forum: Wax poetic about your discoveries in the computer world.

(3) Mickey and Minnie: How to get two X-Mice for the price of one.

(4) Grep and Family: Some useful tips about its search capabilities.

(5) Dialog, Espeak and Animation: Exploring a new paradigm for simplifying email encryption on Linux, Mac and Windows.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The PDF version of the Dialog+Espeak+Animation talk has been added to our 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 6th Sep 2017

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

(1) Email Encryption: Just Do It! How to use the 'gpg' encryption program with mutt on Linux and with thunderbird on MacOSX.

(2) Quick Question Quest: Get answers from the members -- if you can!

(3) The Forum: Wax poetic about your discoveries in the computer world.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The PDF version of the Email Encryption talk has been added to our 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 2nd Aug 2017

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

(1) The 'diff' Program: What it's good for, and How it works, by Barry.

(2) Quick Question Quest: Ask a Linux question that has bugged you and get an answer from the members present -- if you can!

(3) The Forum: Share what you have found in the computer world over the past month.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The PDF version of Barry's 'Adventures with DIFF' has been added to our 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 5th Jul 2017

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.00pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

***** Join us for our Winter Solstice Pizza Night at 7 pm *****

Since 1:54 pm Adelaide time on the 21st of June, the Sun has been coming back to the Southern Hemisphere. The LSGA loves to celebrate this return!

Note the slightly earlier time of 7 pm. And, if you please, bring a video, pictures or writings of interest to show us all.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 7th Jun 2017

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics: Q&A from the floor.

This month we are looking for contributions 'from the floor'. What have you found lately in your travels in computer land? We shall have a screen and a computer set up for you; just bring your contribution on a USB stick in PDF.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Topics from the Floor included these:

-- An in-depth exploration of the Zorin-12.1 distro. (education version).

-- An expose of the crippled recent BIOS 1.08 in the ACER ES1-523 and 533 laptops (and others).

-- Excessive fun installing Debian Stretch on an old MacBook 7,1 (hint: forget rEFInd and friends; just do a standard UEFI install and be patient!).

-- And, apropos that, we discovered a suprising way of getting a stuck CD out of a crashed MacBook (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwm9e_RhygE).

Note: There is a bit about TAILS in the 'Interest' section.

Meeting: Wed 3rd May 2017

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topic by Jan: "Wirelessly Printing to a Printer on a Network."

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The PDF version of the Wireless Network Printing talk has been added to our 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 5th Apr 2017

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Four topics tonight in two parts:

Part A by Syd and Part B by Greg.

(A-1) Open source mapping: OpenStreetMap -- introducing the new breed of GPS plo[tt|dd]ers.

(B-2) Installing Debian-9 on an HP 'stream' notebook, with UEFI and a wireless-only interface.

(B-3) Latex and Loving it: an intro. to the scientific and technical publishing suite.

(B-4) A Look at the Linux kernel compared to many others.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The PDF version of the OpenStreetMap talk and the handout, with references, for the other three talks have both been added to our 'Tutorials' section, along with a list of links to a number of excellent introductions to Latex for beginners.

Meeting: Wed 1st Mar 2017

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Two topics tonight:

(1) The GUID Partition Table (GPT) and how it works with BIOS and UEFI.

(2) A look at Open Source Mapping using 'OpenStreetMap'.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: On Friday 24th March we present Linux to The University of the Third Age at The Box Factory, Adelaide, from 1000-1200.

Note: The PDF version of the GPT talk has been added to our 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 1st Feb 2017

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

No organised speaker tonight, so you're it! Come along and give us your opinion on any or all of the following three topics:

(1) Computing has come of age, so except for some extraordinary interactive desktops by Apple we won't be going anywhere.

(2) More social networking and addictive gaming is bound to further impoverish our lives.

(3) There might be something outside of computing in 2017 that will improve humanity's lot.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: On Friday 24th March we present Linux to The University of the Third Age at The Box Factory, Adelaide, from 1000-1200.

Meeting: Wed 7th Dec 2016

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

End-of-Year Party 6.30pm: at The Duke of Brunswick, 207 Gilbert St nearby

End-of-Year Party 8.00pm: in The Centre for Funny Videos [bring some!]

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

And a Very Merry Xmas to all our Linux Enthusiasts! See you next year!.

Meeting: Wed 2nd Nov 2016

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

1. HTTPS: What you might need to know about it.

2. Overview of an Animal-Feeding Computer.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: We are presenting a Linux Course to The University of the Third Age at The Box Factory, Adelaide, from 1000-1200 on Friday 24th March 2017. Details at this meeting.

Meeting: Wed 5th Oct 2016

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topic: Linux Essentials: Mastering The vim Editor.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

BTW: We are negotiating a presentation to The University of the Third Age, at The Box Factory, Adelaide, for early in 2017. Details should be finalised by the next meeting.

Meeting: Wed 7th September 2016

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topic: Decision Trees & Random Forests: how machines can learn.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Our Linux Supporters Group has another opportunity to take our message to the public through presentations that we are planning for the City Library on Rundle Mall. While we were still talking about it, they approached us. They are having a special Digital Awareness Week and are asking us to be part of it.

So we have set in place two workshops:

1. Learn Linux Part One on Thurs 8th September 1:15 PM to 3 PM

2. Learn Linux Part Two on Thurs 15th September 1:15 PM to 3 PM

You may book online now for these City Library courses.

Come along to a session!

BTW: We've blacklisted Linux Mint 18 for the time being --- see our 'Interest' section for why.

Meeting: Wed 3rd August 2016

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

1. LUKS: Whole-Disc Encryption using Linux.

2. REDIS: a Relational Database Application explained.

3. Family Trees: Represent and Manipulate them using Prolog.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The PDF versions of the 'LUKS' and 'REDIS' talks have all been added to our 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 6th July 2016

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Events:

Winter Solstice Pizza Night: - just roll up at 7pm and enjoy !

Show-and-Tell Session: - bring in your unusual tech-related items for us to gawk at.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied; Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Meeting: Wed 1st June 2016

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

1. Tips and Tricks: - Bits of Useful Linux Stuff.

2. Inkscape: An Introduction to a Vector Graphics Program - perfect at any scale, unlike chunky bit-mapped graphics.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The PDF version of the 'Inkscape' intro. has been added to our 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 4th May 2016

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Topics:

1. But what about Analogue Computers? They are still going strong, and range from slide rule to neural network.

2. Drawing and Photos using the GIMP: It might look complicated but a new user can do a lot of good grahics with it.

All Welcome. Cost $3. Refreshments supplied; Parking out front in Sturt Street.

Note: The PDF versions of the 'Analogue Computers' and 'Using the GIMP' talks have been added to our 'Tutorials' section.

Meeting: Wed 6th Apr 2016

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Topics:

1. Beginners Bash Scripting for Fun and Profit: Bring your laptop and try automating regular tasks.

1. A Look at the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B: Using the integrated wireless capability.

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt St.

Note: The new Model 3 Raspberry Pi has arrived on our doorstep; see the 'Interest' section of our website.

Meeting: Wed 2nd Mar 2016

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Three Topics tonight.

Newbie Hints: 1. Where to find things (File Manager and file layout) — 2. A run-down on Mint Applications — 3. How a computer counts.

The GoPro Action Camera: ‘Camera Suite’ has added Linux support over the past months, allowing control of action cameras such as the GoPro Hero 2/3/4 over Wifi/WLAN for a licence fee of about 5 Euros. There are Opensource libraries available at https://gopro.com/support/opensource/ for related purposes. Thus we decided to have a look at the GoPro Camera. Come along tonight and get some good ‘exposure’ to its capabilities.

Linux Help: How to get lots of help about your Linux system while you are logged in to your computer.

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt St.

Note: The handouts on Getting Linux Help and Newbie Hints have both been added to our Tutorials section in pdf form.

About Debian …

http://blog.docker.com/2015/12/ian-murdock/

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/12/ian-murdock-father-of-debian-dead-at-42/

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/31/ian-murdock-a-tribute-to-the-man-and-his-work-on-linux

Meeting: Wed 3rd Feb 2016

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Two talks – Topics:

“The ASUS sonicmaster, Chromecast, and some Tips and Tricks for Newcomers to Linux.”
“Replacing your vendor version of Android with CyanogenMod on phone and tablet.”

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt St.

Note: The PDF versions of both the cyanogenmod talk and the newbie talk are in our ‘Tutorials’ section.

End-of-Year Party: Wed 2nd Dec 2015

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall hold its Annual Christmas Party from 1830 onwards at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Spouses/Friends Welcome! — and expect Pizzas, Drinks, Dancing Girls, &c.

For more entertainment bring a USB stick containing your favourite/interesting/useful/scandalous ‘youtube’ video. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Note that the Linux Learners Lounge afternoons conclude on the Friday after this party and then restart next year on Fri 5th Feb. Our normal meetings commence on Wed 3rd Feb next year.

Many thanks to all our speakers and members who have attended throughout this year! See you at the party!

Meeting: Wed 4th Nov 2015

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Topic: Cats.

$ which cat

/bin/cat ?
/usr/bin/cryptcat ?
/usr/bin/ncat ?
/bin/netcat ?
/usr/games/oneko ?
/usr/bin/pacat ?
/usr/bin/socat ?

Well, /bin/netcat, actually. So you can bring in your favourite laptop and do some real work! Have fun streaming the PiCam using some Old Unix Trix.

Also some “Linux Command Fun in a Terminal” + Pack-of-Cards demo. of Sorting Algorithms: bubble, selection, merge, quick and heap.

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt St.

Note: The PDF version of the tutorial on “Streaming the PiCam” has been added to our ‘Tutorials’ section.

Meeting: Wed 7th Oct 2015

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Topics: A demonstration of the Pi Camera on the ‘Model 2B’ Raspberry Pi nanocomputer: how to use it to take photos when you log in to your home from far away, and what videos taken by the camera look like.

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt St.

Meeting: Wed 2nd Sep 2015

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Hello Spring! — A sort of “AGM” where we discuss our expected themes for talks, workshops and events during the coming year. Hear about Privacy Concerns in Windows 10. Follow through a Prolog Program for automated IT course-planning advice. Get to handle the new ‘Model 2B’ Raspberry Pi.

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt St.

BREAKING NEWS: APTs and cyber criminals announce they will no longer reverse engineer Oracle because it is a violation of the terms. — George V. Hulme (@georgevhulme) August 11, 2015

Meeting: Wed 5th Aug 2015

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

We are having a one of our famous “Pizza Nights” to celebrate the successful conclusion of our “Linux Introduction Course: Learn Linux Part 1 & 2″ at the Adelaide City Library (Digital Hub). Pizzas by Ruff’n’Reddy (chef Hayden), BYO other stuff and shoot the breeze/solve technical issues/hang out!

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking out front in Sturt St.

Meeting: Wed 3rd June 2015

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

We’ll have some fun exploring how to receive, record and playback television shows on a laptop (bring some rabbit ears!) and we’ll listen to an exposition of the dastardly ‘data destroyer’ program (dd and relatives).

We plan a Linux Introduction Course at the Adelaide City Library (Digital Hub) on Friday 24th July and Friday 31st July this year. We shall fill you in on our latest negotiations regarding the format and content of the Linux presentation we want to do. Have some input, if you like. It is all looking good at the moment.

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Note: The handouts from the TV-tuner talk and the dd-command talk are now in the ‘Tutorials’ section of our website.

Meeting: Wed 6th May 2015

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Topic: “Things We Like to Talk About.”

Anyone is welcome to take up to 20 minutes to:

(1) Share some great moments in computing that you especially like;

(2) Demonstrate a couple of little-known Linux ‘apps’ that you wouldn’t be without;

(3) Show digital photos (max. 20) of a recent trip – we often seem to be away on trips over the last few years.

A computer, wi-fi internet and projector (with VGA connector) will be available.

In the meantime, we installed Debian 8 on an ACER Aspire E3-112 laptop. Useful notes on this experience are in our ‘interest’ section — linuxlsga.net/interest.html.

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Meeting: Wed 1st April 2015

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

This evening we shall celebrate Easter with some wine and hot-cross buns, while we all reflect on an “appropriate” “measured” “necessary” “proportionate” and “targeted” response to the warrantless betrayal of our human rights by the australian labor party (and the others).

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Why not say a bit about Surveillance ? …

We had an illuminating informal chat with a Linux user — an ex-citizen of a technologically-challenged country — and it turned out that we learnt more about technology from him than he did from us! ( see our ‘interest’ section at http://linuxlsga.net/interest.html )

Meeting: Wed 4th Mar 2015

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Two Topics tonight:

1. A Tutorial on How to Login Securely from Anywhere to your Home Computer.

2. What is Fuzzy Logic and How to Use it to Control an Air-Conditioner.

For the tutorial part you might install the programs: ‘telnet‘, ‘expect‘ and ‘ssh‘.

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

NOTE: Files (in PDF) from the Secure Login talk have been added to our ‘Tutorials‘ section.

Meeting: Wed 4 Feb 2015

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

JoEe will run a hands-on tutorial on the “docker” container virtualisation technology (q.v.), which can be used for a variety of purposes.

Bring your laptop or tower to the workshop. Note that ‘docker’ is usually packaged to run on 64-bit computers. We have wireless internet available because you’ll need to install ‘docker’ and at least one ‘docker image’ during the workshop — unless you are feeling lucky and decide to install them beforehand.

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

NOTE: A pdf file with the slideshow of this talk has been added to our ‘Tutorials’ section.

End-of-Year Party: Wed 3 Dec 2014

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall hold its Annual Christmas Party from 1830 onwards at the Duke of Brunswick Hotel and later at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Spouses/Friends Welcome !

First: Food and Drink at the Duke. We are booked in at 6.30pm in the courtyard out back. The Duke is at the other end of Logan Street which starts at the ASWCC.

Later: At the ASWCC. For entertainment maybe bring a USB stick containing your favourite/interesting/useful/scandalous ‘youtube’ video. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Note that the Linux Learners Lounge afternoons finish after our last meeting tonight and then restart next year on Fri. 6th Feb. after our normal meetings which commence on Wed 4th of Feb .

Many thanks to all our speakers and members who have attended throughout this year! See you at the party!

Meeting: Wed 5 Nov 2014

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

This session comprises two talks:

1. Binary ‘1+0’: Comparing Windows-10, MacOS-10, Debian-010;

2. Installing and using a virtual machine: what’s to know about ‘VirtualBox’.

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

bashbug “shellshock”

A downloadable tar file of the current version of GNU/bash with all official patches applied is always available from savannah (as below).

$ x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable’ bash
vulnerable
$ exit 1

$ mkdir bash-src; cd bash-src
$ wget http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/bash.git/snapshot/bash-master.tar.gz
$ tar zxvf bash-master.tar.gz
$ cd bash-master
$ ./configure && make && su -c “make install”

$ x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable’ bash
bash: warning: x: ignoring function definition attempt
bash: error importing function definition for `x’

$ exit 0

Interestingly — for the curious — if you poke around on the ‘web a bit you’ll find somewhat similar vulnerabilities in the Windows Powershell command line tool, most also discovered this year. Didn’t hear too much about them, did we?

Meeting: Wed 1 Oct 2014

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Barry Dwyer to talk about “Compilers: the low-down on high-level Languages.”

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Note: The pdf notes from the talk are now in our ‘tutorials’ section.

Meeting: Wed 3 Sep 2014

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Peter Perry to talk on “What Makes Computers Tick: an analysis of a simple instruction set.”

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Note: The PDF of the presentation is now in our “tutorials” section.

Meeting: Wed 6 Aug 2014

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the date above in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

We are holding a workshop dealing with near and remote networked computers. We shall cover physical setup, network testing, secure administration, file transfer, etc., featuring interactive command-line help during our hands-on exercises for GNU/Linux and MacOS (but sadly not XP etc.).

Bring your laptop to this workshop, but not before you have installed these packages: openssh-client, openssh-server, arp-scan.

Your debugging skills shall be honed.

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

NOTE: The handouts used in the workshop are now in our ‘tutorials’ section.

Meeting: Wed 2 Jul 2014

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Tonight: “An Introduction to the Python Programming Language“, by Peter Perry.

This shall be run as a workshop, so bring along your laptop loaded with Python!

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Note: The workshop talk has been added to our “Tutorials” section in PDF.

And for the Computer Historians (TrueCrypt) amongst you — just for some cozy winter reading — http://www.privacylover.com/encryption/analysis-is-there-a-backdoor-in-truecrypt-is-truecrypt-a-cia-honeypot/.

What the hell – go the whole hog –> http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/!

And for the Programmers (OpenSSL) amongst you – for the same reasons — https://www.peereboom.us/assl/assl/html/openssl.html.

Meeting: Wed 4 Jun 2014

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

We call it our Solstice Celebration … a slightly different June meeting.

Refreshments: Tux food (krill (o.k., shrimp) and pasta, &c. [probably wine].

Entertainment: Comic videos including young people’s reactions to
our old computers.

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Meeting: Wed 7 May 2014

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP normally meets at 7.30 pm at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Due to a previously scheduled event at the Centre, there will be NO EVENING MEETING this Month (May) of our Linux Supporters Group.

Our regular Friday afternoon ‘Linux Lounge’ will continue of course for your interaction, support and problem solving.

Meeting: Wed 2 April 2014

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

“A bit of this, a bit of that, and before you know it we are talking about something seriously Gnu.”

This shall be an exposition of some interesting, curious and useful stuff to consider when support for XP ends and your life with Gnu/Linux begins.

All Welcome. Cost $3, refreshments supplied. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Note: The whole talk in PDF has been added to our ‘tutorials’ section.

Meeting: Wednesday 5th March 2014

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

“GRUESOME STUFF: an iMac dissected; are there signs of life in it?”

Full video instructions for replacing the power supply and the hard disk shall be shown, along with a demonstration of Debian 7 running on an iMac.

Any other interesting piece of hardware is also welcome to go under the scalpel.

Do not expect miracles. A Linux transplant is available for ‘Windows’ machines.

Cost $3, refreshments supplied. All Welcome. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Meeting: Wed 5th Feb 2014

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Talk on “Network-Attached Storage using Linux-based Nano-Computers”

For some years we have explored the use of Linux on personal computers.This year, however, with the explosive growth of nano-computers running Linux — such as the Raspberry Pi, the BeagleBone and the CuBox — we shall concentrate on using Linux installed on these exquisite devices (with the dimensions of a credit card) to interact with the wider world.

Tonight, for example, we start off with a demonstration of the — shall we say, idiosyncrasies — of the Pi, CuBox and BeagleBone, as we tackle the task of providing networked backup.

And something ‘hot off the press’: a video from the 2014 LinuxConf by Dr Suelette Dreyfus giving an australian perspective on ‘Surveillance and Whistleblowers’.

Cost $3, refreshments supplied. All Welcome. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Note: The PDF of the talk slides has been added to our “Tutorials” section.

>>> Merry Xmas and Happy New Year !!!

To the committee and to all our regular members and those who attended our talks, workshops and learners lounge throughout this year.

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall hold its annual Christmas Feast from 6.30 p.m. onwards at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Spouses/Friends Welcome !

Food is provided, cost $5. BYO drinks.

For Entertainment: maybe bring a USB stick containing your favourite ‘youtube’ video or other interesting item. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Note that the Linux Learners Lounge afternoons cease after the last one on Fri 6th Dec. They restart next year on the first Friday in Feb, and our normal meetings commence on the first Wed in Feb.

Many thanks to Hayden for making the best pizzas in the world!

Meeting: Wed 6th Nov 2013

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Tonight we shall have some mini-talks, wine, cheese … come and see which.

Cost $3, refreshments supplied. All Welcome. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Meeting: Wed 2 Oct 2013

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Tonight we shall have some ad-hoc mini-talks: a bit on bash; something about encryption; and who knows what else? Come and see.

Cost $3, refreshments supplied. All Welcome. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Note: The RSA Encryption talk PDF has been added to our “Tutorials” section.

Don’t leave Privacy to Chance …

Our thoughts on the NSA revelations? Maybe here –> [encrypted] [plaintext].

And we are old enough to have appreciated the ‘clipper chip’ debacle .

Which reminds me: these guys designed and manufactured a hardware backdoor in 2008, and here is one using the Linux kernel in 2010

Meeting: Wed 4 Sep 2013

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

A planned talk has been postponed, so we shall have a Ad-Hoc (or Peer-to-Peer) Evening. This includes a talk about configuring a live distro to boot from USB stick whilst preserving your settings for next time.

Cost $3, refreshments supplied. All Welcome. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Note: The PDF from the USB talk has been added to our “Tutorials” section.

Meeting: Wed 7 Aug 2013

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

This evening we have a talk by Barry Dwyer: “HTML — a Tutorial”.

Cost $3, refreshments supplied, All Welcome. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

NOTE: The files from the HTML talk have been added to our ‘Tutorials‘ section.

Jan Tomasz Malko

We mourn our beloved friend, colleague and committee member, Jan Malko.

Jan, originally from Byeloruss, was a man of many talents. Those coming to our attention over the years include engineering, skiing, sailing, flying and painting.

He enjoyed imbibing both modern science and red wine — when he could get time off wrestling with SUSE Linux.

Jan was unfailingly generous. We have added one of his amazing paintings to our website, and we shall miss him a lot.

Meeting: Wed 3rd Jul 2013

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

This evening consists of An Informal Get-Together, because there are no prepared talks.

All matters — scientific, engineering, computing, politics, religion and sex — are up for grabs.

Of course, you may bring your computer if you wish.

Cost $3, refreshments supplied, All Welcome. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Meeting: Wed 5th Jun 2013

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

There shall be these two presentations:

1. A film of scientific, engineering and computing interest.

2. Demonstration of yet another nano-computer: the CuBox.

Cost $3, refreshments supplied, All Welcome. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Impressions of Debian ‘Wheezy’.

Well, that was fun. Downloaded the net-install iso; installed; rebooted.

Up came something that looked like gnome, walked like gnome, but did not quack like gnome.

Familiar-looking menus, but nothing that you need for initial configuration; all gone walkabout. Even the appalling behaviour of the ‘/bin/df’ command was still there (after more than a year on notice that it is a bug).

Oh, dear. What to do?

Use force.

First, fix the ‘df’ bug.

# edit /etc/default/grub

(and delete the # in the line ‘#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true’)

# update-grub

Then, grab a decent desktop environment.

# apt-get install xfce4

And finally, try again.

# /sbin/reboot

Ahh! … Peace, light, love and happiness …

Meeting: Wed 1st May 2013

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

A film of scientific, engineering and computing interest shall be shown and discussed.

The Myths and Reality of … Computers- Trillions of Bits per Second.

The Myths and Reality of … Artificial Intelligence.

Cost $3, refreshments supplied, All Welcome. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

Meeting: Wed 3rd Apr 2013

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

A number of mini-talks shall be given, each 12-15 minutes. Advised so far are:

–> “Astonishing Numbers”

–> “Linux on Single-Board Computers”

–> “WiFi monitoring using wavemon”

–> “The Hacker Ethic”

–> “The Skinner Sequence”

Cost $3.00 refreshments supplied, All Welcome. Parking nearby in Sturt St.

BTW: LinuxConf2013 videos @ http://mirror.linux.org.au/linux.conf.au/2013/mp4/

Meeting: Wed 6th Mar 2013

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at 7.30 pm on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, ADELAIDE.

Hayden looks at “Wayland”, the protocol for and the implementation of the proposed graphics compositing engine.

Cost $3.00 refreshments supplied, All Welcome. Parking in Sturt St.

NOTE: The PDF of this talk has been added to our “Tutorials” section.

Meeting: Wed 6 Feb 2013 at 7.30pm

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet at the above date and time. at THE ADELAIDE SOUTH WEST COMMUNITY CENTRE, 171 STURT ST ADELAIDE.

GUEST SPEAKER: Barry Dwyer on “Tractability (and Intractability!)”

Cost $3.00 refreshments supplied, All Welcome. Parking in Sturt St.

Note: The PDF of the slides from this talk has been added to our ‘Tutorials’ section.

BBQ Wed 5th Dec 2012 deferred to 2013

The LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP normal end-of-year BBQ shall be rescheduled for earlier in 2013.

Meeting: Wed 7th Nov 2012

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP will meet at the above date and time. at THE ADELAIDE SOUTH WEST COMMUNITY CENTRE, 171 STURT ST ADELAIDE.

GUEST SPEAKER: PAUL SCHULZ presents 3D printing and a demo. with the help of HACKSPACE.

Cost $3.00 refreshments supplied, All Welcome.

Parking in Sturt St.

Meeting: Wed 3rd Oct 2012

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP meets at the ADELAIDE SOUTH WEST COMMUNITY CENTRE, 171. STURT ST ADELAIDE, on the above date and time.

All Welcome.

Guest Speaker: HAYDEN TREMITHICK on “GNU CASH”.

Refreshments supplied, Cost $3.00.

Meeting: Wed. the 5th of Sep. 2012

The Linux Supporters Group Adelaide shall hold its next meeting on Wednesday the 5th of September 2012, at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide from 7.30pm-10pm.

Speaker Gabriel Hyde on: “Smart Phones: A Look at the Latest Technology.”

Cost $3. Parking available, all welcome.

NOTE: The slides of the talk have been added to our ‘Tutorials’ section in PDF form.

New part to “Interest” section

The committee have decided to add a bit to our “Interest” page.

We shall put up some useful “Tips, Tricks and Wrinkles” that we come across, including example usage and other comments.

These shall be in time order — most recently-added at the top of the page. There are already two: about ‘curl ifconfig.me’ and ‘fping’.

Meeting: Wed 1 August 2012

The Linux Supporters Group Adelaide shall hold its next meeting on Wednesday the 1st of August 2012, at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide from 7.30pm-10pm.

Barry Dwyer to talk on: “Everything [well, pretty well everything] about Spreadsheets”.

Cost $3. Parking available, all welcome.

NOTE: The pdf of the Spreadsheet talk is now in our Tutorials section.

Workshop: Wed 4 Jul 2012

The Linux Supporters Group Adelaide shall hold a Workshop on Wednesday the 4th of July 2012, at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide, from 7pm-10pm.

The workshop concentrates on ‘hands-on’ exercises using ‘bash’, the popular Linux shell.

We have received our Raspberry Pi, the ARM-based Single-Board-Computer, and installed Debian ‘Squeeze’ on it without any problems, and you’ll have a chance to assess it during the evening.

Drynks, nybbles and bytes provided. Cost $5. Parking available, all welcome.

Further information available at http://linuxlsga.net/workshop.txt

Note: The notes and exercises from the ‘bash’ workshop are in our ‘tutorials’ section.

Meeting: Wed. 6th June 2012 @ 7.30pm

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the above date and time at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Speaker Peter Perry on “Cellular Automata”.

Refreshments provided. Cost $3. Parking available, all welcome.

Note: The PDF from the talk is now in the Tutorials section of our website.

Meeting: Wed. 2nd May 2012 @ 7.30PM

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP shall meet on the above date and time at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Speaker BARRY DWYER on “Genetic Algorithms in Computing”.

Refreshments provided. Cost $3. Parking available, all welcome.

Meeting: Wed. 4th April @ 7.30PM

The Linux Supporters Group will meet on the above date and time at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

RICK MATTHEWS details the new Linux “RASPBERRY Pi” Single Board Computer.

Refreshments provided, Cost is still only $3.00. All welcome.

Distros: I try Slackware 13.37

The latest version of this OS came out last year. I installed it like a breeze on a Compaq Evo with an HP1740 LCD, and it worked perfectly (using 5.7GB), even through my KVM switch, which other distros sometimes choke on.

What really impressed me?

Slack boots to a console for login by default, so you can upgrade without stuffing up the X-server.

It still uses lilo for boot management, which is so much easier to configure than grub2.

Xfce ran without a hitch using startx.

Even better, ctrl+alt+bksp killed the X-server, so no more configuring this key combination with ‘setxkbmap -option terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp’ as you have to in other ‘modern’ distros.

And amazingly, with no X-server running, just on the bare login console, movies play perfectly using the frame buffer, because Slack had created the device /dev/fb0 by default on booting:

$ mplayer movie.avi
MPlayer 20101218-4.5.1 (C) 2000-2010 MPlayer Team
Playing movie.avi.
vo: couldn’t open the X11 display ()!
VO: [fbdev] 640×480 => 640×480 BGRA

The only small quibble I have is that 13.37 perpetuates the brain-dead /bin/df of recent times, which can’t get the root filesystem device right, even though the OS has access to that info:

$ /bin/df -HPT
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/root ext4 12G 5.7G 5.3G 52% /

Easily fixed, however, with this kludge:

$ /bin/df -HPT|sed s/root/$(/bin/ls -l /dev/root|awk ‘{print $NF}’)/
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 ext4 12G 5.7G 5.3G 52% /

What a distro!

Command Line: weird /bin/df output.

I have been seeing this broken /bin/df problem for over two months now, and I thought that was long enough for it to be fixed — but no, someone somewhere must think it is already producing the correct output. It is not.

The problem is in the advanced Linux distros, where /bin/df reports that the root filesystem is mounted on root, which is pretty pointless — after all, that is the definition of the root filesystem. Worse than that, /bin/df now fails to report which device the root filesystem is on, and cannot even report the file type, even though all that information is available to the operating system.

Research on the ‘web seems to suggest two reasons for this recent weird behaviour: implementation of ‘systemd’ and a careless soft link of /etc/mtab to /proc/self/mounts. I have developed a workaround which restores the normal default behaviour, with the correct root device and type displayed, and it shall be placed on our website in a couple of days in the “Tutorials” section.

Meeting: Wed. 7th March 2012

The Linux Supporters Group Adelaide will meet on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide, commencing at 7.30pm.

We shall have a “Micro Talk-Fest” where all attendees talk for up to ten minutes on a computing subject they are currently dealing with.

Subjects so far are: Impressive (app.); FreeBSD & Linux; Number System development; Rosegarden composing (app.); Image processing; and the Halting problem.

We will supply refreshments, wine and nibbles. No extra cost, still only $3.00. All Welcome.

Linux Learner Lounge: Fri 3 Feb 2012

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP first Lounge this year is as above. We meet at the ADELAIDE SOUTH WEST COMMUNITY CENTRE, 171 STURT ST, ADELAIDE, between 1415 and 1630, and offer help with Linux-related problems.

Just drop in. Refreshments supplied, Cost $3 if we help, $2 otherwise. All welcome

Meeting: Wed. 1st Feb. 2012

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP holds its First Meeting of the Year in the Adelaide South-West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide, starting at 7.30 pm.

Hayden explores “Linux Kernel Concepts”.

Refreshments supplied; Cost still only $3 — All Welcome.

[Note: PDF of notes have been added to the ‘tutorials’ section of our website]

SOPA and PIPA – Learn More …

Only one US WikiPedia page is open today, Wed 18 Jan 2012: see why …

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

In the Magazines: Dec 2011

I know — December already: I’ll catch up with the others over the Xmas break; until then, this.

Linux User and Developer (Issue 107, Dec 2011)
— A few tips on how to fix some common problems that occur using Linux
— Build your own distro. using SUSE
— How to get media onto your Android
— Clever password managers
— Reviews of distros: OpenSUSE 12.1, Lubuntu 11.10, Sabayon 7
— Reviews of apps: AV Linux (audio/video), Shotwell (photo management)
— Bootable DVD included.

Next Function: Wed. 14th December, 2011 at 6pm

The Linux Supporters Group shall hold its end-of-year barbeque at The Box Factory, 59a Regent Street Adelaide. We supply the food and a short movie — you BYO drinks. Cost $5.00 (same as last year).

Should you wish to attend please let us know by Friday the 2nd of December via the Adelaide South West Community Centre.

Meeting: Wed. 2nd Nov. 2011

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUPS next meeting is above, we meet at the ADELAIDE SOUTH WEST COMMUNITY CENTRE, 171 STURT ST, ADELAIDE, starting at 7.30 pm.

BRIAN EDWARDS from Print Graphics will give the Presentation.

Refreshments supplied Cost $3.00 All welcome

Meeting: Wed. 5th of Oct 2011

The Linux Supporters Group Adelaide plans to meet on the above date at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide, at 7.30pm.

PRESENTATION By Hayden: “Wifi Terminology: an Overview.”

Refreshments supplied, all welcome, parking OK. Cost $3.00

NOTE: the talk notes in PDF form have been added to our ‘Tutorials’ section.

Meeting: Wed 7th September 2011

The Linux Supporters Group next meeting starts at 7.30pm at The Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Hayden shall speak on “Wifi — Transmission Theory, Practice & Jargon.”

Refreshments supplied; Cost is $3.00, Parking Available, All Welcome.

Note: The PDF version of our April talk “Advanced Options in Google” is now in the ‘Tutorials’ section.

Meeting: Wed. 3rd August 2011

The Linux Supporters Group shall meet at the Adelaide South-West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide, at 7.30pm on Wednesday 3rd of August 2011.

RICK MATTHEWS to present “The DEVELOPMENT of CHAOS THEORY“.

COST $3.00, refreshments available, plenty of parking, please bring your friends. ALL WELCOME.

Note: Useful links for this talk have been established in our ‘Tutorials’ section.

In the Magazines: July 2011

Linux User & Developer (Issue 99): Very clear Multi-boot tutorial (Windows+Linux+BSD) — Reviews of: Firefox 4, OpenSUSE 11.4, TinyCore 3.5 — Tutorials: Build small business server, create virtual machines — Media player programs tested — Included DVD (openSUSE 11.4, Debian 6.0, JoliOS 1.2).

Linux User & Developer (Issue 100): Drizzle might replace Oracle’s MySQL — Summary of 99 opensource favourite programs (they overlook a handful of goodies, ‘though) — How to run Linux on lots of alternate hardware — Short LibreOffice tutorial — Good guide to top 10 Linux distros. — Review of Ubuntu 11.04 ‘Natty’ Beta, Debian 6.0 ‘Squeeze’, Bodhi Linux 1.0.0 — Included DVD with 5 bootable distros.

Linux Format (July 2011): Roundup of lightweight window managers (enlightenment, opembox, windowmaker, fvwm, ratpoison) — What’s new in Ubuntu 11.04 — Introduction to ChromeOS — Tutorials: Xfce, Firefox 4, Advanced commandline, FrugalWare linux, server administration — DVD included with Ubuntu 11.04, TinyCore Linux.

Linux Format (August 2011): Roundup of interesting Linux podcasts — Distro ‘showdown’ assessing by ten criteria: best all-round distro. is Debian, followed by Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE — Tutorial on Fedora — Android apps. — What is GNOME3 — Grub2 tutorial — ‘Lyx’ front-end to LaTex — mhWaveEdit for audio recording — Mint LXDE in detail — Tutorial on Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux — Linux tools for photographers — Linux admin. commandline tutorial — DVD with Arch, Debian, Fedora, Mint, SUSE, Ubuntu.

In the Magazines: June 2011

Linux User & Developer (Issue 101): Device Tree protocol integrates ARM into Linux kernel — Full instructions for creating own distro. — Full tutorial on Areca backup utility — VMWare virtualization tutorial — How to access your own computer (network) from anywhere — PHP tutorial — History of early days of Linux — Review of backup applications — Review of Samsung Galaxy (android) phone — DVD with [XL]ubuntu.

Linux Magazine (June 2011): DVD with Linux Mint Debian (rolling release), PCLinuxOS, Puppy — Filesystem ZFS discussion — OpenCL: how to use a graphics processing unit (GPU) as an extra central processing unit (CPU) — GPS tracking software — Ripping CDs with abcde.

Linux User & Developer (Issue 98): BeagleBoard ARM-based single-board computer (SBC) — Linux productivity with timetrack, screencast, gnome office suite — Wine how-to (if you must) — Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE) exposed — Edit videos with OpenShot.

Linux Journal (May 2011): Chrome OS explained — Security-test your network — Linux high-availability firewall tutorial — Android stuff.

LSGA 4th Birthday: Wed. 6th July 2011

The Linux Supporters Group shall celebrate our 4th year, with a Birthday Party held on the day of our normal Monthly Meeting, at 171 Sturt St., Adelaide, commencing at 7.30pm.

All welcome. Cost for Members and Regular Attendees, $2.00, Non Members P.O.A

Refreshments supplied or BYO. Fresh pizzas cooked on the night by “Pizza Hayden”.

A short film will be shown, “Secret Life of Machines”

For Catering and Attendance: RSVP 82123533 Community Centre 9am-5pm

Meeting Wed. 1st June 2011

The Linux Supporters Group Adelaide

shall meet at The Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt St., Adelaide, on the above date, for a visit to the Adelaide Weather Bureau.

We will leave the Centre at 7PM SHARP. Transport is availble there and back. Return to the Centre after the visit for refreshments.

Cost $3.00

[NOTE: The PDF of the talk about the Kinect Sensor from the XBox is now in the Tutorials section.]

Meeting Wed. 4th May 2011

LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP ADELAIDE will hold our next meeting on the above date and time.

AT: ADELAIDE SOUTH WEST COMMUNITY CENTRE, 171 STURT STREET ADELAIDE, COMMENCING AT 7.30PM.

RICK MATTHEWS SHALL PRESENT “CHAOS THEORY”.

[NOTE: This was postponed, and a demo. about the XBox Kinect Sensor given instead]

COST $3.00, refreshments available, plenty of parking, please bring you friends. ALL WELCOME.

Meeting April 6th 2011 @ 7.30PM

Linux Supporters Group Adelaide shall meet at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide, at 7.30pm on April 6th 2011.

BARRY DWYER shall talk on “Advanced Options in Google”.

Refreshments provided, parking available. Cost $3.00

Interesting Programs: March 2011

RIP Linux 11.3 (Recovery Is Possible): I tried this out recently, and I am very impressed with RIPLinux. It is about 131Mbytes in size, so it fits conveniently onto a business-card CD. It appears stable and reliable and it works really well. If you need extra programs (e.g., a browser) it goes out to the ‘net and gets one. See http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/RIPLinux for more info.

In the Magazines: February 2011

Linux User & Developer (Issue 97, March 2011): Interview with LibreOffice developer and exposition of version 3.3 — System Administration commands — ZFS — Arduino development — Tutorial on Python and Perl — Review of Recovery Software — Enclosed DVD with Lubuntu10.10, MeeGo1.1, OpenSUSE11.4, and RIPLinux11.3 (Recovery Is Possible).

Linux Format (March 2011): Backup strategies — Openoffice macro tutorial — KDE plasma desktop — Unity desktop explained — Using ntop for network traffic — Boot process tutorial — Cheroke: faster than Apache — On the included DVD: PCLinuxOS 2010.12; Lubuntu 10.10; Puppy Linux 5.2; SystemRescueCD.

Meeting: Wed 2nd March 2011

The Linux Supporters Group meets next on Wednesday the 2nd of March at the Adelaide South-West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street Adelaide, starting at 7.30pm and going until about 10pm. [Committee meets 6-7.]

Talk: Hayden shall give a basic introduction to the GRUB2 bootloader.

[The notes of the talk are in PDF on our site at linuxlsga.net/tutorials.html]

Refreshments available. Cost still the same – $3. Plenty of parking. See you there!

Meeting: Wed 2nd Feb 2011

The Linux Supporters Group Adelaide will commence monthly meetings on the above date.

We meet at The Adelaide South-West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street Adelaide, starting at 7.30pm and going until about 10pm. [Committee meets 6-7.]

Paul Schulz will be talking about LinuxConf-2011 held recently in Brisbane. Videos of many of the talks shall be available at our Friday Linux Learners Lounge.

Refreshments available. Cost still the same – $3. Plenty of parking. See you there!

In the Magazines: January 2011

Linux Magazine (January 2011): Knoppix 6.4 DVD — Using ntfs-3g to write to NTFS — Google VP8 inferior to H.264 — Password management — XRandR tutorial — Trying Pinta instead of GIMP.

Linux User & Developer (Issue 94): Linux kernel 2.6.36 ‘Tile’ processor support — 20 Virtualisation tips — Making a screencast — Shell scripting ‘sed’ and ‘awk’ — Projects with projectpier — Netbook distro. comparison: jolicloud, UNR, easypeasy — Hardware reviews: Sheevaplug, Samsung tablet, Huawei ideos — Review of shotwell — DVD with fedora 14(beta), openSUSE11.4, XBMC(Mediacenter) 10.4.

Linux Journal (November 2010): Building a wireless firewall — Chinavasion pico projector — Software on the Large Hadron Collider — Linux fun with the Nokia N900 phone — Desktop control: a D-bus tutorial — Smartphone control of your computers.

Linux Magazine (February 2011): RHEL6 review — Blender 2.5 review — Diaspora free social network — Piwigo photo hosting app. — Synapse launcher — Better DNS security — Ubuntu 6-pack DVD.

Circuit Cellar (December 2010): Embedded linux boards — Building an interactive USB module — Shaft encoder essentials — Chip overview: microprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors.

In The Magazines: December 2010

Circuit Cellar (October 2010): Embedded Development systems — TS-7500 based on ARM and Linux 2.6 kernel — Onmiflash ARM Linux 2.4 board — Lots of Microchip projects (using the 16F628A, etc) — Tips on using prototyping boards — Robot project discussions (i.e., applications of Murphy’s Law) — Designing systems with small LCDs — 8-bit MCUs are still popular.

Silicon Chip (November 2010): RFID security system to build using a PIC16F628.

Admin Network and Security (01): Review of backup programs — How to make .deb packages.

Australian Personal Computer (January 2011): A big article about Android– How to add video clips to HTML5 — Building a Linux ‘cloud’ desktop — Adverts for really fast systems.

The Enemies of Productivity

There has been some complaint about people buying overseas rather than here.

Well: I have recently bought three items from the US. None were available here. A book on understanding how Linux works behind the scenes, and two general purpose ARM-based microcomputer boards running Linux. The book was out of stock here, and arrived in 10 days from the US. The circuit boards are not designed here, and cannot be made here for any reasonable price. In addition, using the international option via the US Postal System, they each arrived 5 days after internet orders were placed!! Not only that, but I have given some Yanks a fistful of Australian dollars that can only be redeemed here in Oz, thus increasing our exports … i.e., not just talking about being patriotic!

Harvey Norman would not even understand what I was seeking. This outspoken retail coalition might more properly be seen as an enemy of productive people.

End-of-Year BBQ and Linux Learners Lounge.

Please note that Friday the 3rd of December is our last for this year. Because the normal venue for our end-of-year BBQ is not available for the full function, we shall postpone it and have two such events next year to celebrate our 4 year mark.

We restart our meetings next year on Wednesday the 2nd of February, followed by our first Linux Learners Lounge on Friday the 4th of February.

In the Magazines: Dec 2010

Linux Magazine (November 2010): DVD containing archive of all Linux Magazine articles from 2000 to 2010 — How to schedule tasks to run regularly — Managing your music collection using ‘clementine’.

Linux Magazine (December 2010): Metasploit for intrusion testing — How-to using your webcam — Tutorial on eCryptfs — Checking plugins for security holes — Tutorial on DBAN — Klaus on VirtualBox — A bit about sudo — DVD: ubuntu 10.10 live.

Linux Format (December 2010): Comparison of backup tools — detailed comparison of Fedora and Ubuntu — Good list of 20 reasons to use Linux — Investigation of package managers — Tutorial on ‘awk’ — Tutorial on ‘gnome’ versus ‘kde’ desktop environments — Using ‘shotwell’ for photos — Desktop Publishing tutorial — More on virtualisation — DVD with live Fedora 14, OpenSUSE 11.4, Ubuntu 10.10.

Linux Journal (September 2010): Notes on using lynx — Shell exit codes — Building a firewall — grub and grub2 — A lot of web application tutorials — Mouse tricks.

Linux Journal (October 2010): Command-line applications tutorials — Mutt configuration — Review of the Ben NanoNotebook — Tutorial on ‘sc’ terminal spreadsheet — Discussion of VirtualBox for virtualisation.

Linux User & Developer (Issue 92): Talk with GNOME Foundation — Android vs iPad — lighttpd alternative to apache — Taskjuggler project management — Tutorial on HTML5 — Ubuntu 10.10 beta DVD.

Linux User & Developer (Issue 93): Openoffice forks away from Oracle as LibreOffice — Parted Magic distro. (good documentation) — DVD: fedora 14 beta; zenwalk (based on slackware); ubuntu 10.10 RC.

PCPlus (October 2010): Big article on BotNets — The best ten microprocessor chips — Hack your ADSL router — 10 reasons to try Linux — intro. to the GoogleCL and GoogleGO — A bit about secure internet connections.

Meeting: Wed. 3rd Nov 2010

The Linux Supporters Group, Adelaide meets on the first Wednesday of each month at 7.30pm in the Adelaide South-West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Peter Perry shall present “Virtualisation”

Cost $3. The usual speak-to-a-geek session to help solve your Linux problems. Refreshments provided. Parking available. All welcome and bring your friends.

Note: The PDF version of the talk has been added to our “Tutorials” section.

Linux Learners Lounge: not Fri 22 Oct 2010

Please note that this particular one is not on, because we are giving an introductory seminar: “The Linux Adventure: an alternative to Windows 7” at U3A from 1pm-3pm on that day. We shall be back to normal on Fri 29 Oct 2pm-4.30pm, etc.

In the Magazines: October 2010

Linux Format (Nov 2010): Reviews of various ftp programs — Photo management with ‘shotwell’ — Creating movies with ‘openshot’ — Google ‘chrome’ in depth — The new ‘SystemD’ for booting — Cryptography tutorial — ‘QDVDAuthor’ for making movie DVDs — Includes DVD with PCLinuxOS 2010, ubuntu 10.10 preview, and KDE 4.5.

In the Magazines: September 2010

Circuit Cellar (Aug 2010): Debugging USB connections — USB communications tutorial.

Linux Magazine (Sep 2010): DVD: Mandriva 2010 Spring and Slackware 13.1 — Intro. to libguestfs (for browsing disk images) — Xen 4.0 virtualisation — Verifying Linux code with Signatures — Manipulation PDFs from the commandline — ‘Enna’ media centre project review — ‘RedNotebook’ for notes, &c.

Linux Magazine (Oct 2010): DVD: Open SUSE 11.3 and Mint Linux 9 — PublicSQL tutorial — HTML-5 exposed — Secure wireless router via OpenWrt &c. — eMount GUI for disks — Creating PDFs from commandline — Some cautious comments on The Cloud.

In the Magazines: August 2010

Linux Format (Jun 2010): PC-BSD 8 review — Roundup of distributions that are pure Firewalls — A curious distro: Igelle (runs on the ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, x86) [but contrast with the T2-Project] — Big Virtualisation tutorial, focussed on using Fedora’s Virt-Manager — Ubuntu 10.04 review — How to use zsh instead of bash — Some useful tricks with Firefox — Tutorial on Openoffice (data)Base.

Linux Journal (Aug 2010): Tools for discovery what hardware you have in your computer —Tutorial on signals in the operating system — Building a transparent firewall — Building your own wireless firmware with openwrt — Making movies with kdenlive.

Hakin9 (3/2010): How IP video calls are hijacked — How attacks are made against smartphones.

! Found this online: “Linux: – If it isn’t broke, fix it ’til it is, then reinstall and start over.”

WORKSHOP: WED. 6th OCTOBER 2010

Linux Computer Workshop
to be held on
Wednesday 6th October 2010
at the
South-West Community Centre

171 Sturt Street, Adelaide, from 7.30pm – 10pm.

This October meeting will be a “hands on” workshop where we shall present the following topics (and many extras):

Installing various flavours of Linux
Creating ‘live’ CD and USB distributions
Managing databases on Linux (MySQL etc)

Bring your laptop/tower and a blank CD-RW or USB stick

Participants may be guided by people with computer expertise and they can learn Linux through our “hands-on” approach.

This Workshop offers an opportunity to explore Hardware Problems.

Everyone welcome. Cost is $3 per person, includes tea/coffee & biscuits.

Meeting: Wed 1st Sept. 2010

The Linux Supporters Group, Adelaide. We meet on the first Wednesday of each month at 7.30pm, at the Adelaide South-West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Barry Dwyer presents “The ‘P’ in ‘LAMP’ — PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor”

[A pdf version of the slides from this talk is now in our ‘tutorials’ section]

Cost $3. The usual speak-to-a-geek session to help solve your Linux problems. Refreshments provided. Parking available. All welcome and bring your friends.

Meeting: Wed. 4th August 2010

We are the Linux Supporters Group Adelaide. We meet at the Adelaide South-West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide, at 7.30pm. on the first Wednesday of each Month.

On August 4th we shalll have short talks on Linux and its promising future. Speak-to-a-Geek about your Linux FAQs. Surprise subject on the night, turned out to be :

“Creating a live USB Boot Stick for Kubuntu”.

[A PDF of this talk has been added to our “Tutorials” section]

Plus hear about our future programme, and end-of-year function.

Refreshments provided. Cost is $3.00 — plenty of parking available.

Bring your Friends, All Welcomed.

In the Magazines: July 2010

Linux Format (Jul 2010): Multi-booting summary —Better compression using xzip — Compiz-Fusion tutorial — Project management using Gnome-Planner — Introduction to version control with Subversion

Linux Format (Aug 2010): Web browser comparison — Linux phones discussed — methods of repairing damaged files — Blender in its 3D mode — Tutorial on email program ‘mutt’

Linux User & Developer (Issue 88): Review of web application programs — Tutorial on Python — Ubuntu 10.04 DVD

Linux Magazine (Jul 2010): Klaus Knopper’s column — Password management — Vim and Terminator; a new look at terminals and command-line — Multibuntu DVD

Admin Network & Security (Linux Special): Knoppix troubleshooting tools — remote administration tricks — Tools for networking with windows computers

Linux User & Developer (Issue 85): Tutorial on virtualisation — Some bash command-line hints — GNU ‘C’ compiler explanation — Quick and easy GUI development using PyGTK — Article on ChromeOS vs Moblin — How to make bare-metal backups

Linux User & Developer (Issue 87): The German WePad (linux-based) alternative to the iPad — Creating .pdf with Scribus — A bash tutorial — How to create .deb packages — A bit about device drivers

Linux Journal (June 2010): Remote access using OpenVPN — A brief history of Linux distributions over the past almost 20 years — Linux on the PowerPC, the ARM and the Itanium — Remote backup techniques

Linux Format (June 2010): Game FlightGear ! — Firewall distriburtions —A swathe of distros. on DVD to try via virtualisation — Shell ‘zsh’ — Boost Firefox performance — Base (instead of MySQL etc).

Linux Magazine (June 2010): Get ‘git’ version control running — File permissions explained

Meeting: 7th July 2010

The Linux Supporters Group Adelaide meets at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide on the first Wednesday of each Month at 7.30pm.

On July 7th, we have two presenters:

Adam Webb shall talk on The Latest CPUs in Personal Computers.

Peter Perry shall talk on How to Manipulate Images in Linux.

Cost $3.00. Refreshments provided. The usual speak-to-a-geek session. where we try to solve your computer problems.

Bring your friends — all welcome.

Meeting: 2nd JUNE, 2010.

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP meets at the ADELAIDE SOUTH-WEST COMMUNITY CENTRE. 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide at 7.30pm on the First Wednesday of each Month.

At our Wednesday night meeting in June, Trevor Glen and Michael Terrington from Sarugo will present “A new cool way to back up all your data”, using a method — “MemoryBox” — introduced by their company.

Cost is $3.00 refreshments provided. bring your friends. All welcome.

Plus our usual “speak-to-a-Geek” and solve your computer problems.

Meeting: 5th MAY 2010

THE LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP ADELAIDE meets on the FIRST WEDNESDAY of EACH MONTH from 7.30PM at 171 STURT STREET, ADELAIDE.

MAY 5TH WORKSHOP: “HANDS ON LEARNING”

Bring your own computer and monitor with power cords, mouse, keyboard.

(We have a few laptops loaded with Debian Lenny available, too).

We shall be showing several ways to install and use Linux. You may make use of our debian/ubuntu partial mirror, too.

Hot Soup and crusty bread, Tea and Coffee: Cost $5.

Please RSVP for catering to: ASWCC phone 82123533 between 9am – 5pm.

Sale of books, pc hardware, disc drives, cables, kvm switches &c cheap.

NOTE: The slides and extensive supporting notes for the recent talk on MySQL have been added at the bottom of the “Tutorials” section of our website under the topic “Databases: How to manage MySQL via PHP”.

And just to make sure we are on the same page, check out http://www.promotinglinux.com/truth/ …

In the Magazines: March 2010

Linux User & Developer (Issue #83) : A whole heap of python programming tips — How to get started with the mutt mail client — A fair bit about the Android phone — A brief look at Chrome OS — DVD containing Debian ‘squeeze’.

Linux Magazine (April 2010): Knoppix 6.3 DVD — MySQL Workbench tutorial — Klaus Knopper on why KVM switches can mess up your video resolution choices — ClamAV install+configure tutorial — (the original) GRUB tutorial.

Linux Journal (March 2010): Using OpenVPN for Linux — Using ssh through a compromised firewall.

New Partial APT Mirror

The Linux Supporters Group has created an APT partial mirror for use in our Friday Linux Learners Lounge, our monthly Wednesday Meetings and our bi-annual Workshops.

It should now be easy to bring in your own computer and install any one of over 3500 packages that you might need on the spot, by connecting to our server via ethernet cable. You may also upgrade your distro. You have to be running one of the following distristribution releases:

DEBIAN: [i386] etch lenny squeeze

[main contrib non-free]

UBUNTU: [i386] dapper hardy intrepid jaunty karmic lucid

[main restricted universe multiverse]

In the Magazines: February 2010

Linux Format (January 2010) : Linux Netbook distros — Grub booting tutorial — SSH tunnel over HTTP to get out anywhere.

Linux Journal (January 2010) : Lots about how to control amateur radio systems from Linux — Using Firewall Builder 3.0 — Port-knocking sequences for security — Create a Linux DNS, Web & MySQL server using Xen.

Linux Format (February 2010) : Comparison of anti-virus software — Nine Linux projects in 90 minutes ! — Recovering lost data on a disk — Using NAT in Linux — GRUB2 tutorial.

Linux Journal (February 2010) : Linux Virtual Private Networking — Mutt: how configurable ! — Running Remote Applications: XDMCP, Xnest, ssh -X, Vino, &c.

Linux Format (March 2010) : Very good article which follows an HTTP datagram as it traverses the internet.

Linux Magazine (March 2010) : Linux Steganography tutorial (hiding stuff in plain sight) — Details of how an attack can be carried out via Javascript in a pdf file — Managing all those passwords you have — Constructing a sandbox (isolating damage from untrusted scripts) for Firefox — Comparison of popular Linux media players — Tiny Core Linux — Abiword tutorial — Linux photo managers compared — ImageMagick command-line photo editting.

Linux User & Developer (Issue 81) : Slax Linux with installation tutorial — Xen virtualisation tutorial — DVD containing Slax Linux & openSUSE11.2-RC1.

Linux+ (Vol 4 No 1) : Linux Mint intro. — Linux Server Administration Tools — Using SSH instead of VPN for secure remote access.

Meeting: WED. 7th APRIL 2010

The Linux Supporters Group Adelaide meets at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street Adelaide, at 7.30pm, on the first Wednesday of each month.

April Meeting: Barry Dwyer shall present MySQL – database in Linux.

Cost is $3.00, refreshments provided, also our usual speak to a geek session.

Meeting on Wed. the 3rd of March 2010

LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP ADELAIDE

We meet at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street starting at 7.30pm.

Two topics, two speakers:

Preparation for Encryption Workshop — The packages to install for encryption schemes like GPG, and Secure Shell (SSH) facilities to be covered in our May Workshop segment.

Steganography & White-Noise Encryption — A look at how software projects are developed and managed, using these two advanced encryption methods as an illustration.

Refreshments &c. + our usual Speak-to-a-Geek session ’til about 10pm; cost $3 for the evening.

LINUX LOUNGE FRIDAY FEB 5TH 2010

LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP

A Reminder to our supporters, that the LINUX LOUNGE will start for 2010 on Friday Feb5th 2pm-4pm Adelaide South West community Centre.171.Sturt Street Adelaide.

All Welcome.

LINUX SUPPORTERS GROUP

We re-commence our Meetings for 2010 at the usual venue: the Adelaide SouthWest Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Starting at 7.30pm, PAUL SCHULZ shall present “LinuxConf 2010” followed by “Satellites and Ham Radio with Linux”.

The usual Speek-to-a-Geek session follows. Refreshments provided.

Cost for 2010 is $3.00 All Welcome.

Just a Thought …

Next time you feel pretty special because you run Linux, ponder the statistics from w3counter.com/globalstats.php and reflect on just how special you really are!

percentage of Windows users = 86

percentage of Mac OS X users = 7

percentage of Linux users = 2

In The Magazines: January 2010

Linux User & Developer (Issue 81, Jan 2010) : Explanation of how to use Windows 7 as a client of a Linux server — Open source desktop publishing using Scribus — Analysis of network security for web servers — Review of the JoliCloud netbook operating system — EasyPeasy Linux on an enclosed DVD.

Linux Journal (Issue 188, Dec 2009) : Very simple firewall specification for wireless browsing — Some hints on using virtual terminals 1-6 — Small desktop-notification programs: blinkd, osd_cat, notify-send — Very small embedded experimental board called ‘Beagle Board’ — About the Player Project (robot control software framework) — Tutorial on the the structure of the typical embedded system — The Mesh Potato router project — Using the Linux Terminal Server Project.

Linux Magazine (Feb 2010) : Setting up telnet, network file system and subsystem for Unix-based applications in Windows 7; Linux under Windows – cygwin, colinux, virtualization; A bit about cloud computing; All about GRUB 2; Videos+mencoder+sox; Using shell built-in commands.

Linux Shell Handbook (Linux Magazine – Spring 2010): — This is a fantastic special edition, with detailed tutorials on over 300 bash commands, covering topics such as: introduction to bash, files management, search tools, regular expressions, pipes, textmanipulation, configuration files, disk utilities, time commands, mount, users, sudo, processes, dvd commands, networks, ssh, ftp, rsync, wireless, cron, at, scripting, etc. — also a Knoppix 6.2 DVD.

In The Magazines: December 2009

Linux+ 4/2009 — Xen virtualisation — Tutorial on Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) — Tutorial on RAM Disks in Linux, including how to configure firefox to use one — Musings on the rise of Linux on the ARM-powered smartbooks after the ix86-powered netbooks were smothered by you know who.

Linux Journal Nov 2009 — Using ‘vim’ with other applications — Virtualisation comparison — DNS and ipv4 — Filesystems: ext3 vs. XFS.

Linux Format Christmas 2009 — Shell scripting tutorial with basic examples — Network security using wireshark for sniffing — The usefulness of /proc and /sys explained — Creating video discs using dvdstyler — X-forwarding for remote desktops — UNR (ubuntu netbook remix) on DVD for USB booting.

Linux User & Developer, Issue 80, 2009 — Interview with Klaus Knopper — Notes on securing the Linux Kernel — Project control tutorial using ganttproject — A bit about gnuplot.

… and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

Multi-Booting Tutorial added

Added to our “Tutorials” section from our November meeting:

Multi-Booting: Tips, Traps and Treasures: This PDF version of the talk gives a very comprehensive description of the hard-drive multi-booting procedure for XP, Vista and Debian Linux systems using the GRUB.

Meeting Wed. 2nd December 2009

The Linux Supporters Group will meet on the above date.

Where: The Box Factory, 59 Regent Street South, Adelaide (between Carrington St. and Halifax St.)

For Our Annual Bar. B. Que and Movie Night.

Commencing at 6pm, movie will follow the Bar. B .Que at 7.30pm. Cost is $5.00 per person.

The movie is ‘Pulse’ (Kairo) which is related to computer viruses.

There is plenty of parking in Carrington St and Halifax St.

Meeting Wed. 4th Nov 2009

Multiple Booting — Tips, Traps and Treasures.

Presented By Hayden Tremethick.

Discover the secrets of successful multi-booting without tears or gnashing of teeth.

Meeting commences at 7.30pm. Cost $2.00. Refreshments provided.

Meeting Wed. 7th October 2009

Linux Supporters Group Adelaide

MICHAEL SUMMERS shall talk on LAPTOP COMPUTERS.

Installing Software, Adding Memory,and Hardware, Repairs, and more…..

Questions of Michael will be welcomed

We meet at the Adelaide South West Community Centre. 171 Sturt St Adelaide, at 7.30pm. Cost is $2.00 to cover centre costs. Refreshments supplied. Street parking available.

Plus the usual speak to a geek session after the meeting. All Welcome.

Tutorial on Virus-Trojan-Worm added

Added to our “Tutorials” section from our September meeting:

Viruses, Trojans, Infections and Attacks: This comprises the slides shown at the talk and the handout that accompanied them. The talk traces the history and describes instances of these pests that have appeared in both Unix and Linux from 1988 onwards.

Meeting Wed. 2nd September 2009

Linux Supporters Group Adelaide

Viruses, Trojans, Infections and Attacks.
How they affect Linux/Unix and other systems.
How to prevent them.

Meet Adelaide South-West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street Adelaide, commencing at 7.30pm. Refreshments provided. Cost is $2.00.

The usual speak-to-a-Geek during refreshments at the end of meeting.

Committee Meets 6pm-7.15pm.

We have added these to our “Tutorials” section from our July and August meetings:

Using GPG under Linux: how to install and use gnupg; also some handy encrypt/decrypt bash scripts for dealing with directories.

Meeting on Wed. 5th August 2009

Linux Supporters Group Adelaide

Encryption & using PGP/GPG in Linux and XP
Review of the Latest PC Hardware Standards

The meeting shall be held at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Supper provided. $2 Centre fees. Further Info.: contact us on this Blog.

Everyone welcome. Meeting starts at 1930. Doors open at 1915.

Usual ‘Speak-to-a-Geek’ session. (Committee meeting 1800-1915)

WE WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU.

The Linux Supporters Group is looking for some people who are willing to give our Group a presentation on any LINUX related subject.

In particular the following…Gimp-Blender-Inkscape. Audio-Music-and TV apps. How to use some of Linux email clients. and Embedded Linux.

If you would like to give a presentation then please contact us at our normal monthly meeting address.

Thanks

Recent Tutorials Posted

We have added this to our “Tutorials” section from our July meeting:

File Permissions in Linux: Explains what they are and how to use them.

Meeting on Wed. 1st of July 2009

Linux Supporters Group Adelaide

A Lot about Prolog:
Linux File Permissions:

The meeting shall be held at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Supper provided. $2 Centre fees. Further Info.: contact us on this Blog.

Everyone welcome. Meeting starts at 1930. Doors open at 1915.

Usual ‘Speak-to-a-Geek’ session. (Committee meeting 1800-1915)

LSGA Workshop on Wed 3 Jun 2009

The committee is holding a workshop at our normal meeting time and venue. This allows people to bring in their computers and go into various topics in a practical way and in a depth that is not possible during our more formal meetings. Participants will be guided by people with computer expertise, and they can learn by the “hands on” approach. Topics are chosen from amongst our talks given in previous months and from our Linux Learners’ Lounge.

This first LSGA Workshop shall be held on Wed 3 June 2009.

In addition to ad-hoc topics arising on the night, we expect to include:

Configuring a Linux gateway/router for wired and non-wired systems
Installing Debian Linux onto an EeePC
Using KDE4
Getting Wireless PCMCIA working on a Debian Laptop

The workshops start at 7.30pm and go in two sections of 45 minutes each. Everyone is welcome, and please bring a friend if you wish. There shall be a break for Tea/coffee, and biscuits. Cost for use of this Centre is $2 per person.

In the Magazines: June 2009

Linux Format June 2009 — Slackware 12-2 DVD iso files with install tutorial — BitDefender alternative to Clamav review — Review of graphical file managers — Screen as a command-line tool — Debian repository structure — SSH and VNC tutorial.

Circuit Cellar April 2009 — General purpose input/output pod for USB (rather than parallel) — Robot navigation and control software.

Recent Tutorials Posted

We have added these to our “Tutorials” section from our May meeting:

KDE4 History, Development and Features: An appreciation of the latest upgrade to the KDE desktop environment..

Configure a Gateway/Router using Linux: how to set up a computer to act as a gateway between a wired and mobile network.

In the Magazines: May 2009

Linux Format May 2009 — Netbook distro. review — Full distro. review — Debian Lenny + DVD — Create .deb files — Put another distro. on the ACER Aspire One — Clone your hard disk.

Circuit Cellar Mar 2009 — Embedded Linux single-board computers — Wireless robot vision and control — Home watering system control.

Linux Journal April 2009 — A lively comparison of the strengths and otherwise of the Mutt and Thunderbird mail clients.

Meeting on Wed. 6th of May 2009

Linux Supporters Group Adelaide

An Appreciation of KDE 4: Looking at the history of the development of the K Desktop Environment — comparing and contrasting this latest version with what has come before.
Configure a Gateway: Explaining the details behind getting a Linux box to act as a router and gateway — a bit about iptables and TCP/IP — in preparation for a workshop in June.

The meeting shall be held at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Supper provided. $2 Centre fees. Further Info.: contact us on this Blog.

Everyone welcome. Meeting starts at 1930. Doors open at 1915.

Usual ‘Speak-to-a-Geek’ session. (Committee meeting 1800-1915)

We have added these to our “Tutorials” section:

An Intro. to the C Language: a gentle introduction to the C language for programming hardware using Linux.

Controlling an LCD: a C program to write to a commonly-available LCD module connected to a parallel port under Linux.

In the Magazines: April 2009

Elektor January 2009 — Review of current wireless technologies — Very small wireless modules for interfacing with microcontrollers — All about RFIDs.

Linux Format April 2009 — Troubleshooting your Linux distro. — Tutorial on networking your computers — A bit about GPG — Knoppix 6 DVD — Lyx and Latex.

Linux Magazine April 2009 — ‘Sugar’ OS still going without OLPC — Distros to put on your EeePC and AspireOne — Tutorial on dnsmasq for baby network routers — How to solve Javascript security problems.

Meeting on Wed 1st April 2009

Linux Supporters Group Adelaide

Controlling an LCD: Rick Matthews explains how to wire up a commonly-available LCD module and gives us a gentle introduction to the C language for configuring and programming the module in our own projects.
Puppy Linux: Rick also demonstrates the features of this remarkable mini-distro running entirely in RAM from a business-card CD.

The meeting shall be held at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Supper provided. $2 Centre fees. Further Info.: contact us on this Blog.

Everyone welcome. Meeting starts at 1930. Doors open at 1915.

Usual ‘Speak-to-a-Geek’ session. (Committee meeting 1800-1915)

In the Magazines: March 2009

Silicon Chip March 2009 — How to revive older laptops by installing PuppyLinux — How to construct a wall clock that is synchronized by a GPS chip!

Linux Journal February 2009 — Full review of the Dell Mini-9 netbook with pre-installed Ubuntu 8.04 — Shell tutorial on special variables — Use ssh to create an http proxy.

Circuit Cellar February 2009 — Detailed tutorial on understanding and manipulating the FAT16 file system.

$ Command-Line Tutorial

www.linuxcommand.org/learning_the_shell.php was stumbled upon by me recently; it is an excellent command-line tutorial.

The LSGA Workshops: update

A short while ago we were considering running workshops, held on a separate night, that allowed people to bring in their computer and go into various topics in a practical way and in a depth that is not possible during our normal meetings.

These might now be run twice a year, but replacing our monthly meeting on those two nights. The first one could be held on Wednesday the 3rd of June this year.

At our LSGA Workshop meeting you can bring your computer in and attend any or all of up to a dozen hands-on sessions over a two-hour period.

Proposed topics shall be chosen from amongst our talk topics from previous months, as well as from our Linux Learner Lounge tutorials, and of course there shall be ad-hoc topics arising at the workshop itself. As far as possible, topics shall be advertised on this blog and elsewhere well in advance.

Keep tuned!

In the Magazines: February 2009

Linux Format February 2009 — Intel “Atom” — Web editor review — Ubuntu 8.10 DVD — Virtualisation tutorials — Window-manager reviews — Programs for easy firewall configuration — Gimp tutorial — How to fetch email from anywhere — Webcams — Top 10 security tips.

Linux+ Issue 1/2009 — OpenSUSE 11.0 DVD — ‘sidux’ install (a form of debian ‘testing’) — Secure password storage using CPM — Linux network backups –Creating gadgets for the TuxDroid robot.

Linux Magazine March 2009 — Fedora 10 and Slackware 12.2 DVD — Rolling your own kernel, by Klaus Knopper — Home media centre review.

Linux Format March 2009 — More than you needed to know about KDE — OLPC drops Linux –Software for project planning (Gantt charts, CPA) — CD recovery software — Tutorial on Impress slides — Try out Xfce on a netbook — GIMP tutorial — Git tutorial;.

In the Magazines: January 2009

LiNUX+ Vol 3, No. 1/2009 OpenSUSE 11.0 DVDs — ‘sidux’ debian testing install from a businesscard .iso — Console password management system — Programming TuxDroid.

Linux Magazine January 2009 Managing virtual systems — Ubuntu 8.10 DVD — Mesh computing analysis.

Linux Journal January 2009 Shell programming — Samba security — One-time password authentication; — How to uncover encryption keys on cold-boot — Validating Linux security — MythVideo tutorial.

Meeting on Wednesday 4th March 2009

Linux Supporters Group Adelaide

MiniTechFest: Compare and contrast the development of the menu systems and shared libraries in Windows and Linux — Algorithms used in common memory-testing programs — Introduction to the ACER Aspire One netbook running Linpus Linux — Installing SUSE 11 on a Compaq laptop.

The meeting shall be held at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Supper provided. $2 Centre fees. Further Info.: contact us on this Blog.

Everyone welcome. Meeting starts at 1930. Doors open at 1915.

(Committee meeting 1800-1915)

Wireless Tutorial

A tutorial based on the talk at our meeting of Feb 4th, describing the procedures for configuring and managing an ad-hoc wireless network using Linux, has been uploaded in PDF form to the ‘Tutorials’ section.

A PDF form of the recent talk about installing and using magnetic tape under Linux has been added to the ‘Tutorials’ section of the site.

Also had my attention draw to this useful site: http://www.linuxhelp.net/newbies

1st Meeting for 2009: Wed 4th Feb

Linux Supporters Group Adelaide

So far we have arranged the following:

LinuxConf2009: report on the conference by an attendee.
Linux Wireless: how the 802.11 standard works; setting up an ad-hoc wireless network; demonstration using three laptops.

The meeting shall be held at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Supper provided. $2 Centre fees. Usual “Speak-to-a-Geek” session.

Further Info contact us on this Blog.

Everyone welcome. Meeting starts at 1930. Doors open at 1915.

(Committee meeting 1800-1915)

In the Magazines: December 2008

‘Atomic’, January 2009 issue, has a good tutorial about details and advantages of ZFS, the kernel-level filesystem in OpenSolaris, BSD and MacOS, and how it compares with LVM (Linux Volume Manager) for disc data integrity and so forth.

In the same issue there is a set of in-depth tutorials on network security: in storeage, wireless, and the Linux OS.

And if you want to try OpenSolaris itself (which is a type of Unix, but now comes with bash) there is a CD on the cover of ‘Linux User & Developer’, Issue 78, just out now.

‘Linux Magazine Jan 2009’ has a good article exploring Debian’s implementation of the draft 802.11s standard for wireless meshes. a formal extension of ad-hoc networks.

Linux Learner Lounge — Fri 12 Dec 2008

It turns out that we need to come in to the Centre this Friday the 12th of December, and that shall be the last Linux Learner Lounge for this year.

We expect to be messing about with the Intel Pro 3945 wireless chip, the RaLink RT61 driver for the D-Link G630, installing software on an old tower, tutoring a bit of Ubuntu and any other odds and ends that arise.

We restart the Lounge on Fri 6th Feb 2009. Have a good holiday!

Tutorials now uploaded to website

The tutorial on scripting, describing the development of the script that explores all user commands available on your computer using bash, cmd.exe and powershell, has at last been uploaded to the tutorials section.

The tutorial comparing and timing bash, cmd.exe and powershell running the same word-frequency task has been uploaded to the tutorials section.

The X11 tutorial and some X11 exercises to try out are also there now.

An appreciation of the OpenOffice.org suite has been added as a slide-show that was recently given at our meeting.

Linux Jokes ‘n Stuff

www.freesoftwaremagazine.com has some good Linux cartoons … as well as a whole heap of interesting magazines devoted to free software issues.

LSGA DECEMBER 3RD O8 MOVIE NIGHT

Our December Meeting night is always a Movie night.

The movie on December 3rd will be “HACKERS” starting at 7.45pm.

We Meet at ASWCC, 171.Sturt st Adelaide. Cost $2.00 for Centre use.

The LSGA Workshop

We shall be running workshops that allow people to bring in their computer and go into various topics in a practical way and in a depth that is not possible during our normal meetings.

These workshops start in 2009 and shall be held in March, April, May and then September, October and November.

In our “LSGA Workshop” bring your computer and attend a formal main hands-on session and a few minor sessions over a three-hour period (on a night to be decided, in the week or two following our normal meeting night) of each of the above months from 1900-2200, with a small cost (probably $3-$4 or so) for venue hire.

Proposed topics shall be chosen from amongst our talk topics from previous months as well as ad-hoc topics arising at our meetings. They shall be advertised on this blog in advance.

The Linux Learner Lounge

Since some committee members come in to the Centre between 2pm and 4pm every Friday to discuss LSGA business, we thought that it was a good opportunity to invite anyone with Linux-related questions to drop in and learn some Linux skills at the same time.

You may bring in your tower or laptop if it is that sort of issue (we have a VDU/keyboard/mouse) or just seek to resolve any other Linux problems that you are grappling with. $2 covers Centre costs for tea, coffee, biscuits.

Recent issues dealt with: Dual-Booting Linux and XP; Installing a DVD Writer; Installing a Wireless PCMCIA Card on Debian Lenny Laptop.

Maybe we’ll see you at the Linux Learner Lounge in the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide, between 1400-1600 any Friday!

LSGA Meeting 5th Nov 2008

Linux Supporters Group Adelaide

Presenters discuss details of projects they have got working recently.

Mandriva 09 Installing and using the distro.
Blender a graphics animation and video production program
Building a PC how to construct your own very fast PC.
Magnetic Tape experience managing backups under Linux.

Meeting at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt Street, Adelaide.

Supper provided. $2 Centre fees. Usual “Speak-to-a-Geek” session.

Further Info contact us on this Blog.

Everyone welcome. Meeting starts at 1930. Doors open at 1915.

(Committee meeting 1800-1915)

In the Magazines: September 2008

‘Linux Journal Sep 2008’ has a review of some very fast browsers; tutorial on secure remote desktop sessions; a fair bit about the Mutt email program.

‘Linux+ magazine issue 3/2008 ‘ has a good introductory shell scripting tutorial; in-depth tutorial on virtual X sessions.

‘Linux Format magazine Nov 2008’ has a full tutorial and DVD on how to get MythTV up and running. Advice on compiling your own version of of a package from source for speed or other optimisation reasons.

‘Atomic magazine Nov 2008’ has a very thorough article with details on how and why to select each and every component when building up your own PC.

Interesting Linux WebSite

Try this www.tldp.org Linux documentation page it’s well worth a look

check it

Confused about RAID?

Stuff appears in unlikely places! For a very clear layman’s introduction to the various RAID options, there is an article entitled ‘Network-attached storage devices’ in the July 2008 issue of “Digital Arts” magazine.

LSGA meeting Wed. 1st Oct. 2008

Linux Supporters Group Adelaide

Next meeting on Wednesday 1st October at 1930.

Presentation by Peter Perry on “OpenOffice.org”.

Supper provided. $2 Centre fees. Usual “Speak-to-a-Geek” session.

Everyone welcome. Doors open at 1915.

(Committee meeting 1800-1915)

LSGA SEPTEMBER 3RD 2008 MEETING

Linux Supporters Group Adelaide

September Meeting will be held at the Adelaide South West Community Centre, 171 Sturt St. Adelaide, at 7.30pm.

PETER GOSSNER will present “COMPILING THE LINUX KERNEL FROM SOURCE” and “THE SYNAPTIC PACKAGE MANAGER”.

All Welcome, cost $2.00 for the use of the Centre, Supper provided.

Plus speak to a Geek, and we may be able to solve your problem.

(Committee meeting 1800-1915)

Debian 5.0 Lenny tryout

Linux Magazine September 2008 has a DVD with the 32-bit and the 64-bit x86 versions of Debian 5.0 to try.

Don’t throw away your old computer

We at the LSGA can help you, by Introducing you to some new FREE Software, that can be installed onto your old computer.

If you are interested send us a blog. On this site.

ssh in mag. ‘Hakin9’ issue 3/2008

Just found a very good tutorial on using secure shell (ssh) which covers: configuration; advantages; best practice; avoiding common mistakes. Well worth perusing.

Scripting Tutorial

The tutorial on developing a logging script using bash has now been uploaded.

Accidentally bought something interesting. The last game I played was ‘Dark Castle’ on a Mac+ back in ’91, so you can see how keen I am on gaming. However, consider the magazine PC Gamer; the issue I got is the 2008 PC Builders Bible. Maybe if you are considering upgrading a workstation, you could do better to scour the used gaming machines – they are always getting rid of what they regard as ‘old’ stuff – old stuff that might have some serious advantages over standard new workstations – don’t need to play games on it. Just a thought…

Meeting: Wed 6th Aug 2008

This Meeting will be held at the ASWCC, 171 Sturt St., Adelaide, at7.30pm. Our Speaker will be Robert Hart, on Air Stream community wireless, and how Linux can be used with this Group. For further details, please contact Barry on this site, by leaving a comment. Yes we still charge $2.00 admission for the use of the Centre.

Linux Group HOWTO

What you find on the net! While looking for information on Linux organisations, I found some bemoaning the moribund nature of once-active groups. The Linux Documentation Project actually has a HOWTO guide to founding, maintaining and growing a Linux Group, which contains a lot of experience from all over the world about this subject. Might be worth a squiz at http:// tldp.org/ HOWTO/ html_single/ User-Group-HOWTO/

eeepc dual boot

Also in the Linux Format August 2008 issue is a tutorial about how to add another distro. to boot from an SSD card in the slot on the right of the EeePC, so you could have Debian Etch running with Xandros, for example, rather than replacing Xandros.

ftp downloader

The latest Linux Format magazine for August 2008 reviews ‘aria2c’, a good commandline ftp and http file downloader, which is cleverer than the one I usually use (viz. wget). It is just as fast as wget for one connection — the difference is that it can break files into parts, then download the parts and reassemble them later. Works on BitTorrent protocol as well.

from pinchthepenguin

Yes I am changing my Isp, for personal reasons. I need to expand to faster horizons, I can’t squeeze enough out of current provider. So I should be able to reach you all very soon.

Software Freedom Day joint venture

Check out Grant’s wiki on this event, looking under the Southern Fleurieu entry and see the sort of things we LSGA members shall be helping them to do; the wiki may be found at this address: http:// www.softwarefreedomday.org/ teams/ oceania/ au/.

Tech Show

I found the Tech Show fairly disappointing for a Linux user. We had to trawl though all the exhibits three times to come up with any small crumbs of interest. We found only 2 books on Linux and not a single Firefox. At least there were some pretty girls …

I.T. internet show

Hi All, we are going to the above tomorrow, Wayville Showgrounds. To have a good look around, its on all weekend 10am-5.30pm.