====== SLUUG Steering Committee Minutes - 4 February 2009 ====== 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, February 4, 2009 * 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM ====== Attendees ====== * Jeff Muse * Craig Buchek * Lee Lammert * Stan Reichardt * Gary Meyer * Carl Fitch ====== Secretary Report ====== * Secretary has printed out minutes for prior months. (Missing October 2008 though.) ====== Treasurer Report ====== * Balance: $1361.65 as of 1/31/2009 * Receipts (pending submission): * Carl - Annual registration fee to State of Missouri * Craig - Submit receipt for voice recorder. * Gary - Turn in receipt for domain registration. ====== Mailing List Report ====== * Subscriber numbers (approximate) as of end of January 2009: | List ^ Dec ^ Jan ^ Feb ^ Mar ^ Apr ^ May ^ Jun ^ Jul ^ Aug ^ Sep ^ Oct ^ Nov ^ Dec^ Jan ^ ^ ANNOUNCE | 866 | 857 | 856 | 853 | 854 | 843 | 835 | 830 | 828 | 807 | 805 | 802 | 791 | 790 | ^ DISCUSS | 185 | 185 | 185 | 186 | 1?? | 188 | 188 | 192 | 193 | 192 | 193 | 194 | 196 | 201 | ^ STEERCOM | 32 | 31 | 31 | 31 | ?? | 29 | 32 | 33 | 33 | 33 | 34 | 34 | 34 | 34 | ^ SYSADMIN | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | ?? | 15 | 15 | 16 | 16 | 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. ====== Attendance Report ====== * Numbers, as of end of January 2009: | Meeting ^ Dec ^ Jan ^ Feb ^ Mar ^ Apr ^ May ^ Jun ^ Jul ^ Aug ^ Sep ^ Oct ^ Nov ^ Dec ^ Jan ^ ^ Steercom | 3 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 5| 6 | 6 | ^ SLACC | 4 | 7 | 4 | (4)| ? | x | 6 | 9 | 8 | 6 | ? | 4| 4 | No | ^ SLUUG | 20 | 14 | 12 | 23 | 17 | 31 | 18 | 17 | 15 | 18 | 21 | 20| 27 | 24 | ^ STLOSUG | No | 13 | No | 6 | No | 20 | 10 | No | 12 | No | 11 | 10| 7 | 6 | ^ SNUG | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 5 | 4 | No | 5 | 3 | 5?| No | 7 | ^ STLLUG | 20 | 17 | No | 16 | 17 | 29 | 22 | 20 | 23 | 13 | 15 | 11| 10 | 19 | ^ STCLUG | 11 | 9 | 11 | 3 | 13 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 19 | No| 6 | 11? | ^ HZWLUG | 9 | 10 | 11 | 14 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 9 | 11 | 9| 4 | 2 | * 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. ====== Meeting Review and Comments ====== ==== SLACC - January 1 ==== * HIATUS - Holiday schedule. No Meeting. ==== SLUUG - January 14 ==== * Back to back meeting dates with STLLUG. * BASE: The ps Command by Carl Fitch * Good. Thorough. Coverage from basics to advanced. * MAIN: The bash Shell by Jeff Muse * Excellent. Good interaction. Good slides. ==== STLLUG - January 15 ==== * Back to back meeting dates with SLUUG. * TOPIC: Hi-Def and Digital TV by Craig Buchek * Technical difficulties - no Internet (presentation was going to be on web) * Some hands-on with Stanford's new TV and some antennas. * Decent, considering difficulties. ==== Solaris - January 20 ==== * TOPIC: Dedicated DNS Server in a Zone, Continued by Jeff Muse * Covered various other topics: * iLo (Integreated Lights-Out Management) * Solaris Volume Manger * Solaris memory requirements ==== SNUG - January 21 ==== * TOPIC: Teaming and Conferencing Demo by Gary Hollingsworth * Very informative. Good demo. ==== STCLUG - January 22 ==== * TOPIC: Software RAID by Carl Fitch * Lots of introductory questions asked. ==== HZWLUG - January 27 ==== * Topics are usually determined by attendees. We sometimes cover more than one. * Severe Winter weather shut down HZWLUG early. ====== Presentation Schedule ====== ===== February 2009 ===== February 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 ==== SLACC - February 5 ==== * Linux configuration - no presentation * Balloting. ==== SLUUG - February 11 ==== * BASE: Different diffs by Stan Reichardt * MAIN: Netbooks (Miniature Notebooks) by various via Carl * Official Annual Meeting. * Balloting. ==== Solaris - February 17 ==== * TOPIC: Dedicated DNS Server in a Zone, Continued by Jeff Muse * Balloting. ==== SNUG - February 18 ==== * TOPIC: TBD * Balloting. ==== STLLUG - February 19 ==== * TOPIC: Mozilla-based Apps: Miro (formerly Democracy TV), Songbird, Komodo by Craig Buchek * Balloting. ==== HZWLUG - February 24 ==== * 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. * Balloting. ==== STCLUG - February 26 ==== * TOPIC: TBD * Balloting. ==== MYTHTV - February 28 ==== * TOPIC: Installation and Troubleshooting by various * Balloting. ===== March 2009 ===== March 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 ==== SLUUG - March 11 ==== * BASE: TBD * MAIN: Enterprise DB (web-based) TENTATIVE via Carl ==== Solaris - March 17 ==== * TOPIC: TBD ==== SNUG - March 18 ==== * TOPIC: TBD ==== STLLUG - March 19 ==== * TOPIC: TBD ==== HZWLUG - March 24 ==== * 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. ==== STCLUG - March 26 ==== * TOPIC: TBD ===== April 2009 ===== April 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 ==== SLUUG - April 8 ==== * BASE: TBD * Main: Live Demo IBM Virtulization by Sammie Allam, IBM (via Lee) ====== 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 * Don Ellis * Mac OS X Snow Leopard * Kyle Cordes * git and GitHub * Flying Boxes * Craig Buchek * git and GitHub * ack (grep replacement) * GNU grep (--count, --context, -e, --color) * wget and curl * Mac OS X topics * Ruby on Rails * Test-Driven Development (or get Brian Button, if possible) ====== Potential Topics ====== These are some topics that we've had requested, or brainstormed, but need to find speakers for. * Unix glossary - define terms * mount point * white space * "well-behaved" app * zombies * parent process * Knoppix karaoke (various users sit in front of Knoppix system) * regedit - edit Windows registry from Linux * 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. * PGP/GPG use in Email * Thunderbird Enigmail * KMail ====== Prep for February Elections ====== * Two Board openings. * Terms expiring for Lee Lammert and Stan Reichardt. * Jeff Muse added to ballot. * Nominate warm bodies. * Determine eligible voters. * Stan working on it. * Print ballots. * STLLUG and STCLUG chair positions will be write-in only. ====== Small Business Expo ====== * Small Business Expo is March 18. * Lee has signed up for a booth -- same one as last time. * Project is to build a business desktop with GNU/Linux to show off. * Need to get requirements/recommendations. ====== STCLUG ====== * Scott Nesler purchased and donated STCLUG.ORG domain. * Gary renewed STCLUG.ORG domain. * Craig added to Apache configuration, so it now runs off our servers properly. * Gary needs to create DNS records in EveryDNS and point the domain at EveryDNS. * Currently pointing at GoDaddy parking page. ====== SLACC ====== * Need to register SLACC.COM domain. * Carl - follow up with Noel about transferring the SLACC.COM domain to us. * Expires in March; need to renew. * Check on SLACC.ORG - seems to be owned by a cybersquatter. * Noel asked that we allow current email users to keep their SLACC.COM email addresses. ====== StlWebDev ====== * Lee proposed resurrecting StlWebDev as a SLUUG SIG. * Lee spoke w/ Allan Trick, president of (now-defunct) StlWebDev group. * They're willing to abide by SLUUG terms. * They've not held meetings for some time. * Would like to move the web site and mailing list to our servers. * Mailing list would be separate from our DISCUSS list. * Using our Mailmain and Apache services. * Unanimous agreement. ====== Server Admin ====== * Omnitec offered to provide secondary DNS for us. * We would provide secondary DNS for them. * Lee and Carl would maintain DNS on both ends. * Dark is alive again, thanks to a campus-wide power outage. * Anyone who needs to get anything off should do so ASAP. * We should retire this system. * 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. * 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, and placed in the good Sun E250. * 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 Management ====== * 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. ====== 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. * Need suggestions for following up with and attracting potential sponsors. ====== Membership (and Shell Accounts) ====== * Craig had a discussion with Jim Leingang about membership, and got several suggestions. * Assign small task to more members, so they feel more a part of the organization. * For example, have someone new every month doing sign-in sheets and new user contact. * Reward good behaviors. * Awards at the end of the year. * Provide incentives (like door prizes) for people who bring in new members. * 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. ====== Low Numbers ====== * 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. * 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?) * Craig has a stuffed penguin to give away as a door prize. * Will give it to whoever brings the most (new, returning) people to STLLUG meeting. ====== Other Old Business ====== * Anything? ====== MythTV SIG ====== * MythTV SIG - Should this be an official SLUUG Special Interest Group (SIG)? * Yes, unanimous support. ====== Ubuntu ====== * Rick Clark from Canonical proposed SLUUG sponsor an Ubuntu release party. * Spoke w/ Carl. * Need to finalize date. * Will be 2nd Saturday in May - May 9. * Will be somewhere in Westport Plaza. * Tony Lavasco from Nexradix volunteered to pay for the location. ====== Other New Business ====== * Nothing. ====== Blue Sky ====== * Nothing. ====== Completed Action Items ====== * Recognize who did anything useful. * Craig - printed out minutes from previous months. * Stan - updated web sites, calendars, ANNOUNCE. * Gary - emceed. ====== Follow-up and Action Items ====== * Carl, Gary - Transfer and renew SLACC.COM domain. * Gary - Renew STLLINUX.ORG. * Gary - Contact Don Hardaway and Craig Van Slyke (St. Louis University). * Gary, Stan - Election preparation. * Craig - Contact Rick Clark (Ubuntu) about presenting at October or November STLLUG. * Lee - Need list to print out name tags for paying members. * Jeff Muse - Work on Sun boxes at Primary. * 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. (March?) * Everyone - Talk to someone about coming to meetings. * Everyone - Talk to someone about sponsorships. * Everyone - Talk to someone about giving a presentation.