Michael Cree will give a talk on the recent vulnerabilities Meltdown and Spectre and how they are fundamentally different to previous ones. A bit of CPU development history and architecture will illuminate why modern CPUs are so vulnerable to these attacks. He will also demo a cache attack with the proof of concept codes/exploits and offer some hints at mitigations for Linux users. This will be followed by a general discussion.
Time permitting, we will watch a video from lca2018 as recommended by William Mckee.
Ian Young will be demoing Manjaro (https://manjaro.org/), a Linux distribution that has become very popular recently according to the Linux Journal's poll (https://linux.slashdot.org/story/18/02/14/1850259).
General discussion on backup tools and strategies: What tool do you use? What approach is working for you? What should you stay away from at all costs?
2018-03-26 Rsync
Due to the lively discussion around backup at last month's meeting, we decided to delve a bit deeper into backups using rsync (https://rsync.samba.org/).
Lawrence D'Oliveiro will give an introduction to rsync and some of its very useful options. Combining rsync with ionice and badblocks, you can ensure that your backup doesn't slow down your system and is in a consistent state.
Peter Reutemann will give a short overview of some of the user interfaces for rsync, making life easier for the less command-line savvy users among us.
Angus will show how to use encryption to ensure that your backup files are secure from prying eyes.
Time permitting: Lawrence and Ian will bring along a 3D printer, and present its hardware design and the printers software that runs on Linux.
With the Cambridge Analytics scandal around (ab)using data obtained through Facebook, how about we have a look at (self-hosted) alternatives to the social network giant?
Information on scandal: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/facebooks-cambridge-analytica-scandal-explained/
Social media alternatives (eg diaspora, gnu social): https://alternativeto.net/software/facebook/
Carsten will give a short introduction to their FOSS project "DiLer" which is a LMS and school administration software and how they made it a business model. Some details are available at https://digitale-lernumgebung.de in English.
Lawrence D'Oliveiro will show off Pop!_OS, the Ubuntu-derivative that System76 uses on their computers that they sell (https://system76.com/pop).
Roger Hardy will give an overview of a fully open source production mail server installed at a small company. Includes features such as integrated groupware, calendaring, contact management, spam filtering, antivirus, and pretty much every feature found in commercial products. Easy to install, and very scalable. See iredmail.org for more details.
Tom Butz will bring his RaspberryPi to this meetup. After introducing RISCOS and how the Pi was born, he will give a short demo of RISCOS. He will also use Debian/Raspbian on the Pi and, among other things, demo web-browsing, email-checking, database handling with COBOL, playing games and videos. Instead of using an external display via HDMI, he will also show the use of a pop-on LCD screen.
"Linux is Alexa's best mate"
Brendon Ranum, owner of a voice driven highly automated accommodation business in Cambridge, discusses Alexa integration from a Linux User perspective.
Brendon will bring along his collection of every Amazon Echo ever made (10 models), and talk about adding voice control in front of home automation, the pitfalls, and how a spare Raspberry Pi can be used to solve some of them. He will also demo creating and using Echo Skills, compare differences in features of the Echo's in different countries, and share how guests attitudes have changed over the last year using Alexa.
2018-09-24 Ecryptfs, SparkyLinux, and Matrix
Ian Stewart will present on the ecryptfs.org "home folder encryption" that has been a feature of ubuntu for many years.
Rod Aldridge will demo SparkyLinux (https://sparkylinux.org/) and discuss the pros and cons.
Peter Reutemann will briefly touch on matrix.org, an open network for secure, decentralized communication, with Riot (https://riot.im/) being one of the clients. Matrix/Riot has been adopted recently by the NZ Python User Group (https://chat.python.nz/).
John Thompson, is a trucker who got rattled with Windows 98x eighteen+ years ago. Spent a few frustrating years trying to understand a new Linux operating system and finally having the temerity to offer himself as a sysadmin with a surprisingly positive outcome.
General discussion on patents, FOSS and the implications of Microsoft's latest action (eg joining OIN).
Potentially a quick demo of the just released Ubuntu 18.10.
2018-11-26 AGM 2018
The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Waikato Linux Users Group Society.
Agenda (preliminary)
- President's Report
- Treasurer's Report
- Election of 2019 Committee
- General business
- Consumption of pizza