====== SLUUG Steering Committee Minutes - 6 May 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, May 6, 2009 * 6:30 PM - 8:05 PM ====== Attendees ====== * Jeff Muse * Craig Buchek * Barry Morrison * Lee Lammert * Carl Fitch * Stan Reichardt * Gary Meyer * Tony Lovasco ====== Secretary Report ====== * Secretary has printed out minutes up through March. ====== Treasurer Report ====== * Balance: $1271.62 as of 3/31/2009 * Accounts Payable: $100.00 for booth at Small Business Expo * Accounts Paid: $90.03 for electricity at Small Business Expo ====== Mailing List Report ====== * Subscriber numbers (approximate) as of end of April 2009: | List ^ Apr ^ May ^ Jun ^ Jul ^ Aug ^ Sep ^ Oct ^ Nov ^ Dec ^ Jan ^ Feb ^ Mar ^ Apr ^ ^ ANNOUNCE | 854 | 843 | 835 | 830 | 828 | 807 | 805 | 802 | 791 | 790 | 786 | 785 | 783 | ^ DISCUSS | 1?? | 188 | 188 | 192 | 193 | 192 | 193 | 194 | 196 | 201 | 206 | 212 | 215 | ^ STEERCOM | ?? | 29 | 32 | 33 | 33 | 33 | 34 | 34 | 34 | 34 | 34 | 35 | 35 | ^ SYSADMIN | ?? | 15 | 15 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 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 April 2009: | Meeting ^ Apr ^ May ^ Jun ^ Jul ^ Aug ^ Sep ^ Oct ^ Nov ^ Dec ^ Jan ^ Feb ^ Mar ^ Apr ^ ^ Steercom | 4 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 5| 6 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 8 | ^ SLACC | ? | x | 6 | 9 | 8 | 6 | ? | 4| 4 | - | 6 | 5 | 6 | ^ SLUUG | 17 | 31 | 18 | 17 | 15 | 18 | 21 | 20| 27 | 24 | 23 | 18 | 32 | ^ STLOSUG | - | 20 | 10 | - | 12 | - | 11 | 10| 7 | 6 | xxx | 8 | 13 | ^ SNUG | NA | NA | 5 | 4 | - | 5 | 3 | 5?| - | 7 | xxx | - | ? | ^ STLLUG | 17 | 29 | 22 | 20 | 23 | 13 | 15 | 11| 10 | 19 | 32 |18(21)| 20 | ^ STCLUG | 13 | 5 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 19 | -| 6 | 11? | 12 | 9 | 10 | ^ HZWLUG | 11 | 11 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 9 | 11 | 9| 4 | 2 | 8 | 7 | 11 | ^ MythTV | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | -| - | - | 8 | - | - | * - - 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. * Added MythTV as a SIG. ====== Meeting Review and Comments ====== ===== 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 ==== SLACC - April 2 ==== * Linux configuration workshop - no presentation ==== SLUUG - April 8 ==== * BASE: GNU screen by Jeff Muse * Good. Lots of us learned a lot. * Started and finished on time! * MAIN: WordPress by Craig Buchek (backup) * Good. * Started and finished on time! * Canceled Main: Live Demo of IBM Virtualization by Barry Morrison, IBM (via Lee) ==== STLLUG - April 16 ==== * TOPIC: Open Source on the Desktop: Why Not? by Don Hardaway (St. Louis University) * Started out good, ebbed in the middle (too much preaching to the choir), finished strong. * Good person to have as a friend of the group. ==== STLOSUG (Solaris) - April 21 ==== * TOPIC: Continuation of System Build - Live Upgrade of Zones * Somber/depressing, but good discussion. * Last month of this topic! ==== SNUG - April 22 ==== * Met on 4th Wednesday this month * Special community service meeting ==== STCLUG - April 23 ==== * TOPIC: Building Web Access Point by Carl Fitch * TOPIC: Google Calendar by Stan Reichardt * Very good. * TOPIC: Google Gadgets by Jerry Stutte * Good. ==== HZWLUG - April 28 ==== * Topics are usually determined by attendees. We sometimes cover more than one. * Good meeting. * Had 1 new person. Covered lots of resources. ==== MythTV - NO APRIL MEETING ==== * This SIG meets at irregular intervals. ====== Presentation Schedule ====== ===== May 2009 ===== May 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 - May 7 ==== * Linux configuration workshop - no presentation ==== SLUUG - May 13 ==== * BASE: Using System Rescue by Carl Fitch * MAIN: Firefox Extensions by Mike Wilkerson ==== STLOSUG (Solaris) - May 19 ==== * TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD) * New location (TBD) ==== SNUG - May 20 ==== * TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD) ==== STLLUG - May 21 ==== * TOPIC: Patent-Free Codecs (Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Theora, FLAC, Dirac) by Tony Lovasco ==== HZWLUG - May 26 ==== * Topics are usually determined by attendees. We sometimes cover more than one. ==== STCLUG - May 28 ==== * TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD) ==== MythTV - NO MAY MEETING ==== * This SIG meets at irregular intervals. ===== June 2009 ===== June 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 ==== SLACC - June 4 ==== * Linux configuration workshop - no presentation ==== SLUUG - June 10 ==== * BASE: To Be Determined (TBD) * MAIN: Neural Networks to Scan DNA by Bryce Meyer (via Lee) ==== STLOSUG (Solaris) - June 16 ==== * TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD) ==== SNUG - June 17 ==== * TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD) ==== STLLUG - June 18 ==== * TOPIC: OpenGL by Jerry Stutte (TENTATIVE) ==== HZWLUG - June 23 ==== * Topics are usually determined by attendees. We sometimes cover more than one. ==== STCLUG - June 25 ==== * TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD) ===== July 2009 ===== July 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 - July 2 ==== * Linux configuration workshop - no presentation ==== SLUUG - July 8 ==== * BASE: To Be Determined (TBD) * MAIN: Managing Systems with Puppet by Kyle Cordes (TENTATIVE, via Craig) ==== STLLUG - July 16 ==== * TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD) ==== STLOSUG (Solaris) - July 21 ==== * TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD) ==== SNUG - July 22 ==== * TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD) ==== STCLUG - July 23 ==== * TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD) ==== HZWLUG - July 28 ==== * Topics are usually determined by attendees. We sometimes cover more than one. ====== Potential Presenters ====== These are some people who can present, and possible topics they can speak about. * June Topic: * Creating your own Neural Network to scan DNA (or other interesting stuff) * Bryce Meyer (bmeyer@sei.cmu.edu) - confirmed for June SLUUG * Jerry Stutte * OpenGL (June 2009 STLLUG) * Kyle Cordes * Puppet * git and GitHub * Flying Boxes * Hostirian/Primary.NET * Tour of their data center * What it takes to run a hosting data center * 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 (formerly of 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) * TOPIC: PGP and GPG * Jeff Muse * TOPIC: various Solaris topics * Stan Reichardt * Evaluating Security * TOPIC/DEMO: Google Calendar * TOPIC/DEMO: Using Scribus * Tim Dreste (via Stan R) * TOPIC: Untangle Gateway Platform * TOPIC: CentOS Linux * Don Ellis * Mac OS X Snow Leopard * 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) * Tony Lovasco * ??? * Mike Wilkerson * Round-Table on Joe Linux User (moderator) ====== 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 * Google Android * Gateway and STL JUGs both recently had presentations * GUI builders (GLADE, KDevelop) ====== 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. * Craig will add DNS records on our EveryDNS account. * 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 September 2009; need to renew. * Check on SLACC.ORG - seems to be owned by a cybersquatter. * Expires in August 2009. * Noel asked that we allow current email users to keep their SLACC.COM email addresses. * ACTION ITEM: Carl, Gary - Transfer and renew SLACC.COM domain. ====== StlWebDev ====== * Mailing lists have been set up. * Web site has been recovered from old server. * Needs to be pruned - 250 MB. * Needs to be published. ====== Server Admin ====== * Lee will install (and document) Webalizer on Bud, to gather web stats. * Partitions on Bud are getting full. * Home and var partitions. * Tony looked into prices for 9 SCA hard drives - 36 GB and 72 GB. * $49 / drive for 72 GB drives. * Discussion on whether it might make more sense to replace the systems. * Discussion on whether it might make more sense to move storage to a separate NAS box. * Leaning toward NAS solution. * Jeff Muse brought in an EMC Clariion with 10 x 36 GB drives * Directly attached to Budlight via FibreChannel. * Still need to re-check hardware to get it running fully. * Will configure with RAID 5 and a hot spare. * Considering using an LVM partition for some users. * Jeff installed Solaris 10 on the remaining E250. * Ran into mirroring issues, due to disk sizes. * Other E250 has been parted out and sold off. * 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'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: * Document useradd process. * Better web site management tools * Develop standardized 'Membership List' & same UIDs on all production machines. ====== Sponsorships ====== * Made changes to web site to promote Hostirian. * As requested by Hostirian, in response to their hosting sponsorship. * Tony Lovasco will look into getting some sponsorships. ====== Membership (and Shell Accounts) ====== * NEW MEMBERS: * Terry Wall - SILVER * John Gilster - SILVER * 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. ====== Improve Attendance ====== * 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 gave away a stuffed penguin as a door prize. * Had stated that whoever brought the most (new, returning) people to STLLUG meeting. * Tony Z won the penguin, bringing his Linux class to the meeting. ====== Free Software and Technology Expo ====== * Rick Clark from Canonical proposed SLUUG sponsor an Ubuntu release party. * No longer calling it Ubuntu Release Party * Changed references to a Ubuntu Release Party to simple Ubuntu Release coming end of April * Official Name: Free Software and Technology Expo * Date will be 2nd Saturday in May - May 9. * Runs from 1 PM to 7 PM (NOTE: time change) * Setup from noon to 1 PM * Tony Lovasco from Nexradix paid for [[http://www.westportstl.com | Westport Plaza]] location. * Sheraton (900 Westport Plaza) - gold tower * Tony has registered [[http://freesoftwareexpo.com | freesoftwareexpo.com]] * Single ballroom - 75' x 30' * Tables in a horseshoe, with projector * Booths around the edges * SLUUG membership desk * Changed home pages for SLUUG, STLLUG, STCLUG and STL computer events calendar ====== Recognize Useful Effort ====== * Recognize completed action items. * Recognize who did anything useful. * Jeff Muse, Jerry Stutte, and Carl Fitch installed more hardware. ====== Follow-up and Action Items ====== * Everyone - Talk to someone about coming to meetings. * Everyone - Talk to someone about sponsorships. * Everyone - Talk to someone about giving a presentation. * Lee - Ask Sammie to bring past (and current) presentation to us on thumb drive. * Craig - Follow up with Kyle Cordes on Puppet. * Gary - Update STLLINUX.ORG to show 3 names in WHOIS data. * Gary - Point STCLUG.ORG domain registrar to EveryDNS name servers. * Gary - Clean up home directory on Bud. * Carl, Gary - Transfer and renew SLACC.COM domain.