Annapolis Linux Users Group

Meeting Notes June 2009

About 8 people showed up for this meeting.

Summary of talk:

Leroy talked a little about how he had a grant to put in 40 different machines in Cambodia villages.
He wanted to use Userful to allow the individual villages to have the function of more than one machine at each spot. Userful seems like a very inexpensive way and easy way to do this.

Office Depot had 1TB SATA Seagate drives for $90. This is dirt cheap.

Mark had a problem with Grub getting all messed up when he used an ide drive in conjunction with a SATA drive.
It seems BIOS re-labels the drive order on SATA drives when an IDE is connected. The easy work around is either use all IDE or all SATA on older BIOS.
Sometimes BIOS allows you to use enhanced support, and that might help.

Audio issues with different versions of KDE where discussed. With audio Linux is moving to a two part system. Most of the hardware is now interfaced with using Alsa drivers. However, although ALSA drivers provide the basic sound, Pulse audio has been added as a another software layer to allow multiple medias to playback. This becomes apparent with newer versions of software that require pulse audio. Pulse audio allows multiplexing.

Hulu a site to view tvshows online was talked about. This was the first time I have ever heard of Hulu. Hulu uses flash to deliver content. It works in Linux.

Meeting Notes May 4th 2009

About 7 people showed up for the meeting.

Topics discussed:
1. Cray computers and vector extensions.
A new guy Matt was trying to get some old Cray software to do combustion simulation working on a Linux box.
Dave mentioned that Crays normally used vector extensions with Fortran, so it might be tricky.
2. Astricks PBX
There was more talk about creating a home PBX/Automation system with Myth TV.
3. UAVs

4. Cars

Books recommended: “why things break” a book on science of fracture mechanics in layman terms.

Meeting Notes April 6th 2009

About 8 people showed up for this meeting.

Everyone brought a bunch of tiny laptops.

Linux questions: iwconfig
How do you use iwconfig in contrast to using the gui?

SGI: Cluster questions.
How do you configure a Linux cluster using a SGI cluster hardware ?

There was some talk about the monthly rate for a classroom at AACC. Last time we checked the cost wast $50.00.
Nick and John said they would pick up the fee if wanted to meet there. This was a surprise.

John Cash said he would present myth tv and home automation.

The one Tera byte drive is down to $100 now.

Meeting Canceled: Monday March 2 2009

Meeting Canceled due to [Snowy] weather.

Monday Feb 2 2009 Meeting

About 5 people showed up to this meeting.

Talked about home automation and Misterhouse.

Linux Mint.

Home Theater.

Virtual instruments.

Song Smith.

And, Bay watch.