NOTE: Minutes posted on the wiki are always unofficial. Schedules for upcoming presentations are always tentative. (Some more tentative than others!)

Saint Louis Bread Company,
(at Old Olive and Olive),
10550 Old Olive Street Road,
Creve Coeur, MO 63141

• Wednesday, April 1, 2009
• 6:30 PM - 8:45 PM

• Tony Lovasco
• Mike Wilkerson
• Carl Fitch
• Lee Lamert
• Craig Buchek
• Gary Meyer
• Stan Reichardt
• Jerry Stutte

• Recognize completed action items.
• Recognize who did anything useful.

• Secretary has printed out minutes up through March.

• Balance: $1361.65 as of 2/28/2009
• Accounts Payable: $100.00 for booth at Small Business Expo
• Accounts Paid: $90.03 for electricity at Small Business Expo

• Subscriber numbers (approximate) as of end of March 2009:

• 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.

• Numbers, as of end of March 2009:

* - - 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.

     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            

• Linux configuration workshop - no presentation
  • Was Internet available, any issues?

• BASE: Internet Tablet Demo by Jerry Stutte
  • Lots of participation. Really good demo and interaction.
  • Needs to post some of the info referenced to DISCUSS list.
• MAIN: March Through Linux /proc by Carl
  • Need a re-do.

• TOPIC: Continuation of System Build
  • Really really good. Jeff Muse set up zones.

• CANCELLED Because of StL Business Expo on same day.

• SLUUG Booth
• See Discussion Below

• TOPIC: Podcasting and New Media by Mike Wilkerson
  • Very good. Different than most of our presentations.

• Topics are usually determined by attendees. We sometimes cover more than one.
  • TOPIC1: Miscellaneous
  • Not many questions asked.

• TOPIC: Bulk Deployment with Linux by Tony Lovasco
  • Some technical issues; had to improvise.
• PLANNING: Free Software and Technology Expo
  • No longer calling it Ubuntu Release Party
  • See Discussion Below

• This SIG meets at irregular intervals.

     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      

• Linux configuration workshop - no presentation

• BASE: GNU screen by Jeff Muse
• Main: Live Demo of IBM Virtualization by Barry Morrison, IBM (via Lee)
• Backup: WordPress by Craig Buchek

• TOPIC: TBD (lunch meeting)

• TOPIC: Open Source on the Desktop: Why Not? (TENTATIVE, via Gary)
  • by Don Hardaway and Craig Van Slyke (St. Louis University)
  • See first article here

• TOPIC: Continuation of System Build - DNS
  • Last month of this topic!

• TOPIC: Google Calendar by Stan Reichardt
• TOPIC: Google Gadgets by Jerry Stutte

• 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.

• This SIG meets at irregular intervals.

      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                  

• Linux configuration workshop - no presentation

• BASE: Using System Rescue by Carl Fitch
• Main: Firefox Extensions by Mike Wilkerson

• TOPIC: TBD

• TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD)

• TOPIC: Patent-Free Codecs (Ogg Vorbis, Ogg Theora, FLAC, Dirac) by Tony Lovasco

• Topics are usually determined by attendees. We sometimes cover more than one.

• TOPIC: To Be Determined (TBD)

• This SIG meets at irregular intervals.

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 at April Main
• 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 (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
  • 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)

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)

• Small Business Expo was March 18.
  • Very nice day.
  • Plenty of support.
  • Handed out 100 fliers.
  • Lots of people stopped by and said that they use Linux.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.
• Mailing lists have been set up.
• Web site has been recovered from old server.
  • Needs to be pruned - 250 MB.

• Lee will install (and document) Webalizer on Bud, to gather web stats.
• Craig updated DokuWiki to the latest version.
• 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 installed Solaris 10 on the E250 with the hard drives.
  • Ran into mirroring issues, due to disk sizes.
• 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.

• 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.

• Lee said that Hostirian is looking for more out of their sponsorship of our hosting.
  • Move their logo up on our home page.
  • Include both Hostirian and Primary.NET logos on our web site.
  • Somehow determine how many hits we're sending to them.
• Tony Lovasco will look into getting some sponsorships.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Rick Clark from Canonical proposed SLUUG sponsor an Ubuntu release party.
• 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 Westport Plaza location.
  • Sheraton (900 Westport Plaza) - gold tower
  • Tony has registered freesoftwareexpo.com
• Single ballroom - 75' x 30'
  • Tables in a horseshoe, with projector
  • Booths around the edges
  • SLUUG membership desk
• Potential Presentations
  • something by Rick Clark of Canonical / Ubuntu (TENTATIVE - have not heard from him)
  • Open Source Licensing: What You Need to Know by Craig Buchek
  • something by Scott Granneman (TENTATIVE)
  • something security-related by Christine Wanta
  • Open Source in an Economic Downturn by Craig Buchek
  • Why Ubuntu? (POTENTIAL)
  • Were You Worried About Conficker? We Weren't! (POTENTIAL)
• Need to have speakers confirmed by Tuesday April 7.
  • Need bio and synopsis (with photo, if possible) - send to Tony Lovasco.
• No longer calling it Ubuntu Release Party
  • Changed references to a Ubuntu Release Party to simple Ubuntu Release coming end of April
• Changed home pages for SLUUG, STLLUG, STCLUG and STL computer events calendar
• Planning to visit Westport site at 5:30 on Wednesday April 8.
  • Meet at Pujols 5 at 5:00 PM.

• Everyone - Talk to someone about coming to meetings.
• Everyone - Talk to someone about sponsorships.
• Everyone - Talk to someone about giving a presentation.

• Lee - Please ask Sammie to bring past (and current) presentation to us on thumb drive.
• Gary - Follow up with Don Hardaway and Craig Van Slyke (St. Louis University).
• 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.
• Craig - Follow up w/ Scott Granneman about talking at Expo.
• Craig - Send bio/abstract to Tony Lovasco.