====== SLUUG Steering Committee Minutes - 3 December 2008 ======
NOTE: Minutes posted on the wiki are always unofficial.
Schedules for upcoming presentations are always tentative.
(Some more tentative than others!)
====== Location ======
Saint Louis Bread Company,
(at Old Olive and Olive),
10550 Old Olive Street Road,
Creve Coeur, MO 63141
====== Date and Time ======
* Wednesday, December 3, 2008
* 6:30 PM - 8:17 PM
====== Attendees ======
* Jeff Muse
* Craig Buchek
* Carl Fitch
* Lee Lammert
* Stan Reichardt
* Gary Meyer
====== Secretary Report ======
* Secretary has been MIA for several months -- needs to print out minutes.
====== Treasurer Report ======
* Balance: $1346.55 as of 10/31/08
* Receipts (pending submission):
* Carl - Annual registration fee to State of Missouri
* Craig - Submit receipt for voice recorder.
* Gary - Turn in receipt for domain registration.
* Need suggestions for following up with and attracting potential sponsors.
====== Attendance Report ======
Gary suggests we discuss why the #s on the general meeting and STLLUG are so low!
What can be done to return them to more traditional values?
Also relate to subscriptions to ANNOUNCE.
* Numbers, as of end of November 2008:
| Meeting ^ Oct ^ Nov ^ Dec ^ Jan ^ Feb ^ Mar ^ Apr ^ May ^ Jun ^ Jul ^ Aug ^ Sep ^ Oct ^ Nov ^
^ Steercom | No | 6 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 5|
^ SLACC | 5 | 8 | 4 | 7 | 4 | (4)| ? | x | 6 | 9 | 8 | 6 | ? | 4|
^ SLUUG | 24 | 25 | 20 | 14 | 12 | 23 | 17 | 31 | 18 | 17 | 15 | 18 | 21 | 20|
^ STLOSUG | No | 5 | No | 13 | No | 6 | No | 20 | 10 | No | 12 | No | 11 | 10|
^ SNUG | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 5 | 4 | No | 5 | 3 | 5?|
^ STLLUG | 19 | 25 | 20 | 17 | No | 16 | 17 | 29 | 22 | 20 | 23 | 13 | 15 | 11|
^ STCLUG | 11 | No | 11 | 9 | 11 | 3 | 13 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 19 | No|
^ HZWLUG | 10 | 15 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 14 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 9 | 11 | 9|
* No - indicates no meeting.
* NA - Not part of SLUUG
* () - Numbers in parentheses are head count.
* ? - Question mark indicates attendance not taken or sheet missing.
* xx - attendance numbers not yet recorded.
* Dropped reference to LDAP meetings.
====== Mailing List Report ======
* Gary suggests we talk about what can be done about the declining subscriptions to ANNOUNCE.
* A ~20% drop in 18 months! (And it was over 1000...when?)
* Subscriber numbers (approximate) as of end of November 2008:
| List ^ Oct ^ Nov ^ Dec ^ Jan ^ Feb ^ Mar ^ Apr ^ May ^ Jun ^ Jul ^ Aug ^ Sep ^ Oct ^ Nov ^
^ ANNOUNCE | 877 | 877 | 866 | 857 | 856 | 853 | 854 | 843 | 835 | 830 | 828 | 807 | 805 | 802 |
^ DISCUSS | 192 | 192 | 185 | 185 | 185 | 186 | 1?? | 188 | 188 | 192 | 193 | 192 | 193 | 194 |
^ STEERCOM | 32 | 32 | 32 | 31 | 31 | 31 | ?? | 29 | 32 | 33 | 33 | 33 | 34 | 34 |
^ SYSADMIN | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | ?? | 15 | 15 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
* Numbers will now be as end of each month.
* Blocking of mailing list attachments not completely configured yet.
* ANNOUNCE mailing list.
* Still no volunteer editor to do a quarterly or monthly newsletter.
====== Meeting Review and Comments ======
===== November 2008 =====
November 2008
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30
==== SLACC - November 6 ====
* Linux Configuration Workshop - No presentation.
* Library bumped us out of large room.
==== SLUUG - November 12 ====
* BASE: What's a wajig (and why should your care) by Carl Fitch
* One of Carl's best presentations -- well-prepared.
* MAIN: Booting PC Style! by Rich Seibel
* Phenomenal.
==== Solaris - November 18 ====
* TOPIC: Dedicated DNS Server in a Zone, by Jeff Muse and Carl Fitch.
* Showed how to set up a dedicated DNS server in a zone (SUN virtual machine) during the meeting.
* Good, ran the presentation on the fly.
==== SNUG - November 19 ====
* TOPIC: Discussion about new features from Novell.
==== STLLUG - November 20 ====
* TOPIC: Nexradix⢠Linux by Tony Lovasco
* Showed new items in his custom distribution.
* Not well attended or advertised.
==== STCLUG - November 2? ====
* November meeting was canceled due to scheduling problems.
==== HZWLUG - November 25 ====
* Topics are usually determined by attendees. We sometimes cover more than one.
* TOPIC: Partitioning and Making File Systems with MKFS
====== Presentation Schedule ======
===== December 2008 =====
December 2008
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31
==== SLACC - December 4 ====
* Linux Configuration Workshop - No presentation.
==== SLUUG - December 10 ====
* BASE: Installation from source - config, make, make install, etc. by Carl Fitch
* MAIN: Scott Granneman's new book "Google Apps Deciphered: Compute in the Cloud to Streamline Your Desktop" (confirmed, via Gary)
==== Solaris - December 16 ====
* TOPIC: Dedicated DNS Server in a Zone, Continued
* Participation will be appreciated.
==== HZWLUG - December 16 ====
* Holiday schedule, one week early.
* Topics are usually determined by attendees. We sometimes cover more than one.
* OPTION1: Continued exploration of /var directory.
* OPTION2: Exploring the GNOME File Manager.
* OPTION3: Partitions.
* OPTION4: Anything else.
==== SNUG - December 17 ====
* TOPIC: Teaming and Conferencing (T&C) by Gary Hollingsworth
==== STLLUG - December 18 ====
* TOPIC: TBD
* TOPIC: POSSIBLE: Rick Clark (Ubuntu topic) (via Craig -- Craig to follow up)
* TOPIC: BACKUP: Everything You (N)Ever Wanted to Know About Hard Drives by Craig Buchek
==== STCLUG - December 22 ====
* HOLIDAY Schedule - need to avoid conflict with Christmas Day
* TOPIC: Favorite Applications (sort of like keyboard karaoke). CLI or GUI.
==== HOLIDAY - December 25 ====
* Christmas Day
===== January 2009 =====
January 2009
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31
==== SLACC - January 1 ====
* HIATUS - Holiday schedule. No Meeting.
==== SLUUG - January 14 ====
* Back to back meeting dates with STLLUG.
* BASE: ps by TBD
* MAIN: TBD
==== STLLUG - January 15 ====
* Back to back meeting dates with SLUUG.
* TOPIC: TBD
==== Solaris - January 20 ====
* TOPIC: TBD
==== SNUG - January 21 ====
* TOPIC: TBD
==== STCLUG - January 22 ====
* TOPIC: Software RAID by Carl Fitch
==== HZWLUG - January 27 ====
* Topics are usually determined by attendees. We sometimes cover more than one.
* OPTION1: Continued exploration of /var directory.
* OPTION2: Exploring the GNOME File Manager
* OPTION3: Partitions
* OPTION4: Anything else.
====== Potential Presenters ======
These are some people who can present, and possible topics they can speak about.
* Don Hardaway and Craig Van Slyke (St. Louis University)
* TOPIC: Open Source on the Desktop: Why Not?
* Gary to contact them to request a presentation from them.
* See first article [[http://lwn.net/Articles/293907/ | here]]
* Wehrenberg Theaters (via Gary)
* TOUR/DEMO: Digital cinema projectors
* Sanjiv Bhatia (or someone from UMSL, via Lee)
* TOPIC: AIX 6
* TOPIC: Open Grid Computing
* December or January
* David Letscher (Prof of CS at SLU) (via Gary)
* TOPIC: TBD
* Still gone for summer. Awaiting details.
* Rick Clark (Ubuntu) (via Craig)
* TOPIC: TBD
* Might be able to talk to STCLUG and STLLUG
* Jeff Logullo (Sun)
* TOPIC: MySQL - now a Sun product
* TOPIC: Project Indiana, a new package management system a la apt/dpkg
* TOPIC: Versioning filenames (snapshots?) in ZFS
* TOPIC: New release of ZFS
* TOPIC: Belenix & other live CD's based on Open Solaris
* Scott Nesler
* TOPIC: GIMP (follow-up from previous presentation)
* Jeff Muse
* TOPIC: various Solaris topics
* Ed Howland (via Gary)
* TOPIC: Last.fm, Amarok, etc. - free music downloads
* TOPIC: Building a modern kernel
* Stan Reichardt
* TOPIC/DEMO: Google Calendar
* TOPIC/DEMO: Using Scribus
* Tim Dreste (via Stan R)
* TOPIC: Untangle Gateway Platform
* TOPIC: CentOS Linux
* unknown (via Carl)
* TOPIC: EnterpriseDB (packaged version of PostgreSQL)
* Would be a video-conference, so requires solving logistics problems
* Craig Buchek
* Mac OS X
* Miro, Songbird
====== Potential Topics ======
These are some topics that we've had requested, or brainstormed, but need to find speakers for.
* Drawing network diagrams using Dia or OpenOffice Draw
* Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL 5)
* Still looking for volunteer; tried Clark Smith at Red Hat
* Fedora recent releases
* SuSE or OpenSUSE recent releases
* Someone from Novell?
* Gary Hollingsworth?
* HP-UX current release, features, future
* Dave Mills?
* HP corporate?
* iSCSI
* Using git
* CPUs
* Features of modern Intel/AMD CPUs
* x86-64
* x86, x86-64, IA64, Sparc, PowerPC, ARM, POWER
* iPhone
* Developing for (web, native)
* iPhone competitors
* LG Dare
* Samsung Instinct
* Other Linux-based phones
* LiMo versus Google Android
* Linux from scratch.
* SplashTop - a quick booting distro.
====== Sponsorships ======
* Current paying sponsors have been asked to renew with nice letter in April.
* Gary - Ask Ajilon about continuing $200 sponsorship.
* Craig - Ask S3 - Strategic Staffing Solutions (follow up)
* Potential sponsors
* Sun - Jeff Logullo
* IBM - (John Hodge may have a contact)
* Red Hat - Clark Smith (Craig to follow up)
* Canonical/Ubuntu (Craig to follow up)
* VMware - Matt Skipton
* We should review them once or twice annually and establish an end date on recognition.
* Need sign about sponsoring our group for booth/table display at meetings and trade shows.
* More effort should be directed to find new sponsors.
* No effort means no more new sponsors.
====== Server Admin ======
* Wash U took our **webdev** box (128.252.19.27) off network Mon December 1.
* They detected questionable IRC traffic with IP addresses in Finland & Norway.
* We should analyze and respond.
* Jeff Muse added Ultra and Busch - Sun Netras running Solaris 10.
* Expect to use one like Bud and one for backup storage.
* Carl and Jeff broke into the Sun machines again and reset passwords so they do not expire!
* Carl connected serial port on Bud to serial console on Busch.
* Carl connected serial port on Budlight to serial console on Ultra.
* Can use minicom to connect via serial ports.
* Carl and Jeff set up a back-end network at Primary.Net, to run our backups.
* We have 2 Sun E250s, which are currently racked but not connected.
* Carl proposed parting out those boxes.
* Craig concurred.
* One of the systems is reporting a bad/missing CPU.
* The other seems to be OK, but needs power and an OS.
* Jeff got 4 x 36 GB hard drives, to place in Sun E250s.
* We're planning to setup our own DNS on Ultra/Busch.
* Make our own servers authoritative for our own domains.
* Would allow us to publish reverse records.
* Primary has said they can allow this.
* Would allow us to publish SPF records.
* We could offer dyanmic DNS services to our members.
* On a subdomain, such as users.sluug.org
* Steve Smith (from Solaris SIG) offered a 36 GB drive to install in one of the Netras.
====== Server Migration Project ======
* Backups
* Work left to do:
* Make sure docs are up to date.
* Add documentation telling users how to configure mail clients to use Bud.
* Started documenting client email configurations, to help users migrate.
* See [[../users]] and [[../mail_setup]] pages.
* Craig - Work on finishing server builds.
* Document changes to PAM to correct MAIL variable. (Craig)
* More security, for SSH and otherwise.
* Get offsite backups working. (Mike)
* Publish SSH host keys on web page.
* Standardize/regularize user accounts (IDs, password expirations). (Mike)
* Other work to do:
* Better web site management tools
* Document useradd process.
* Develop standardized 'Membership List' & same UIDs on all production machines.
====== SLACC as a SIG ======
* Need to register SLACC.COM domain.
* Carl - follow up with Noel about transferring the SLACC.COM domain to us.
* Noel asked that we allow current email users to keep their SLACC.COM email addresses.
* Check on SLACC.ORG - seems to be owned by a cybersquatter
====== Membership (and Shell Accounts) ======
* Membership drive
* Need to print out name tags.
* Omnitec will print them out and bring to SLUUG meeting.
* Cafe Press merchandise
* Carl/SLUUG/Lee need to reconcile demo merchandise
* Lee has proposed to sell pizzas as fund-raiser if continued insufficient Memberships & Sponsors.
====== Manage The Group ======
* Lee suggested we create a Rails app on Bud to manage the group.
* Member data - payments, expirations, etc.
* Sponsors - expirations, etc.
* Attendance
* STL Ruby Group is writing a similar application.
* RAMS - Rails Association Management System
* We should leverage that, and guide it to our needs
* Scott Nesler has built an app for attendance
* Stan has plugged data into it for the year
* Not sure if the app fits any of our other needs
* (app is developed on CakePHP MVC architecture).
* Member Payment, expiration would be simple addition to existing table/screens.
* CRUD functionality simplifies expanding the application with additional tables.
* Compartmentalization of CSS and layout templates simplifies changes to the look and feel.
====== Domain Name for St. Charles LUG ======
* Scott Nesler purchased and donated STCLUG.ORG domain.
* Domain expires mid December -- need to renew it.
* Craig added to Apache configuration, so it now runs off our servers properly.
====== Other Old Business ======
* None.
====== New Business ======
* Small Business Expo is in March.
* Lee has signed up for a booth -- same one as last time.
* Project is to build a business desktop GNU/Linux PC to show off.
* Need to get requirements/recommendations.
====== Blue Sky ======
* Stan asked if Clarence might re-start the Security SIG.
====== Prep for February Elections ======
* Figure out Board opening(s).
* Nominate warm bodies.
* Determine eligible voters.
====== Follow-up and Action Items ======
* Gary - Renew STCLUG.ORG and SLACC.COM domains.
* Gary - Contact Don Hardaway and Craig Van Slyke (St. Louis University).
* Craig - Contact Rick Clark (Ubuntu) about presenting at October or November STLLUG.
* Lee - Need list to print out name tags for paying members.
* Carl - Get with Mike to set up accounts for new members. (Lee has the info.)
* Barry - Follow up w/ John Hodge about a presentation in the near future.
* Lee, Barry - Get someone from IBM to talk about POWER6, AIX 6.0, etc.
* Craig - Email Jim Leingang @ S3 about $200 sponsorship.
* Everyone - Talk to someone about coming to meetings.
* Everyone - Talk to someone about sponsorships.
* Everyone - Talk to someone about giving a presentation.