June: Modem firmware and Linux programming

Date

7pm, Wednesday, 10 June 2026

Topic 1/2: Linux on the Go: The only cellular modem with (nearly) open firmware

Speaker: Camden Bruce

The second talk in Camden’s “Linux on the Go” series. This talk is centered on cellular modems and how they work on Linux. The demo modem is a Quectel EG25-G which is the only modem with (nearly) open firmware. This is a rare case, as it is not legal to have access to the firmware of the modem; it opens up the possibility of malicious hijinks…

Topic 2/2: Why it’s still a good time to get into programming and Linux

Speaker: Tim-Hinnerk Heuer

Tim will talk to us about the impact of AI and the current job market on future roles in IT, and why learning programming and Linux is still a good idea despite that.

Continue reading “June: Modem firmware and Linux programming”

May: Unix domain sockets and Pop!_OS

Date

7pm, Wednesday, 13 May 2026

Topic 1/2: Unix domain sockets

Speaker: Tom Ryder

Tom will froth a little about Unix domain sockets, and try to talk you into using them a bit more for inter-process communication on the same host, affording greater control, security, and performance, and avoiding the bourgeoning problem of local HTTP listeners on random high ports.

Download slides (application/pdf, 168 KiB)

Topic 2/2: The LTT Test: How to install Pop!_OS like a complete noob update Fedora

Speaker: Brendon Green

It’s high time I subjected my poor unsuspecting hardware to more OS abuse for our amusement. So, let’s find out, once and for all, what happens when a complete newbie:

  • tries to install Pop!_OS
  • with no prep or prior knowledge
  • in a high-stress situation
  • following whatever instructions they can find, completely blindly
  • and tries to run a game from their Steam library.

EDIT: Brendon has changed his mind and will now be demonstrating a Fedora update instead. We’re as confused as you.

Continue reading “May: Unix domain sockets and Pop!_OS”

Welcome to Richard O’Donoghue

Longtime PLUG member and regular speaker Richard O’Donoghue was nominated and confirmed as the new Vice President of the club at our meeting tonight, running uncontested, replacing outgoing VP John Flower. Richard had already contributed a great deal to the club at the time of his nomination, including running one of the monthly meetings when the committee at the time were indisposed. The committee is grateful to Richard for stepping up, and we’re confident he’ll do a great job helping to keep the club interesting and fun for all our members.

April: Ardour and Dokploy

Date

7pm, Wednesday, 8 April 2026

Topic 1/2: Ardour

Speaker: Nick Skarott

Ardour is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) that is immensely powerful; so powerful, it proclaims its only limits are your system, not a license key.

Topic 2/2: Dokploy: Self-hosting made easy…yet again!

Speaker: Richard O’Donoghue

In my last talk I spoke about a PaaS called Coolify for self hosting. Yeah that didn’t work out so great so I found a better alternative.

Download slides (application/pdf, 4 MiB)

Continue reading “April: Ardour and Dokploy”

Thank you to John Flower

The PLUG committee would like to publicly thank outgoing Vice President John Flower, who has resigned due to relocating to Whanganui and no longer being able to attend meetings regularly. John took a very active role in stepping up to keep the group moving during our “time in the desert” and then adjusting to our new venue, and setting new standards and procedures for our meeting posts and mailouts that we still follow to this day. We’re also unlikely to have so knowledgeable a speaker on Blender and other design tools again, so his presence at meetings will be very much missed in many ways. Thank you John, and all the best to you!

Nominations for the new VP will be made at next month’s meeting.

March: Namespaces and lazy NeoVim

Date

7pm, Wednesday, 11 March 2025

Topic 1/2: What’s in a name(space)?

Speaker: Robbie McKennie

If you’ve used GNU/Linux a bit, you’ll be used to thinking of the mount table, the network interface list, the file hierarchy… just one of each, all visible to all processes. The kernel in fact supports having multiple instances of each of these, so that you can arrange for different processes to see different resources on the same system: a feature called namespaces. Robbie will go through some of the practical applications of this feature, focusing in particular on building and managing networks.

Download slides with speaker notes (application/pdf, 680 KiB)

Topic 2/2: Lazy coding with NeoVim

Speaker: Tim-Hinnerk Heuer

Tim-Hinnerk Heuer will take a break from his beloved competitive coding long enough to show us a demo of how he programs using NeoVim, the modern Vim rewrite, in as lazy but still lightning-fast a way as he can. With a bit of luck, this will include some LLM assistance, possibly even with an open-source model…

Continue reading “March: Namespaces and lazy NeoVim”

February: Mobile Linux and home automation

Date

7pm, Wednesday, 11 February 2025

Topic 1/2: Linux on the Go

Speaker: Camden Bruce

From the far-flung lands of Hawkes Bay, PINE64 community manager Camden Bruce will visit to speak to us about Linux working on phones…and how much easier it has become with both libhybris and mainline Linux. He’ll demonstrate using Linux on a PinePhone Pro and a Pixel 3A, including a breakdown of the history and hard work that got the community this far. If we’re lucky, we might get a quick recap of his attendance at FOSDEM 2026.

Download slides with speaker notes (application/pdf, 1.9 MiB)

Topic 2/2: A Passage Lamp With Home Assistant

Speaker: Stephen Worthington

Stephen will apply Home Assistant to put together a small lamp, a smart socket, PIR detectors, and a luminance sensor to provide an automated lamp that comes on as one walks by.

Download slides (application/pdf, 55 KiB)

Continue reading “February: Mobile Linux and home automation”

Start-of-year social meet: Beer!

PLUG is ready for 2026, and this year we’ve decided on a social meet for January.

Please join us for dinner and/or a drink at Rosie O’Grady’s Irish Bar, 96 Fitzherbert Avenue, Palmerston North, on Friday the 16th of January, 2026, at 6:00pm.

If you’d like to come along, please RSVP by email to secretary@plug.org.nz, by 11am on Wednesday the 14th, with the names of those coming, so that your humble secretary can make a reservation. We’ll add a couple of extra seats to our booking just in case, but please don’t bank on this. Newcomers, family, and curious friends are welcome, as always.

Attendee Robbie is prepared to be a designated driver for anyone in Palmerston North or Feilding who would come but for needing to drive. Please contact him on 021 245 6893 if you would like a ride. His car seats five.

We’ll look forward to seeing you there! Note that our usual technical meetings at the Milson Community Hall with presentations from our members will resume in February.

End-of-year social meet: Pizza!

PLUG has had yet another great year, and now 2026 looms. To celebrate, you’re invited to join us at our end-of-year social meet—for pizza!

We don’t have technical presentations at these end-of-year meetings, just good geeky company, hopefully in some summer warmth and sunshine. Feel free to bring along any family or friends!

Newcomers are welcome, too! We don’t have a formal membership beyond the mailing list, and you don’t have to have attended any meetings this year.

Weather permitting, we will meet at The Esplanade, at the tables near the paddling pool, on Wednesday December 10th, at 6:30pm. If the weather is looking bad, the venue will change to the Milson Community Centre. We will update the post here and send another email to the list if this happens.

Please bring $10 per adult in cash to recoup the costs of the pizza. We’ll get at least one vegetarian pizza, and some garlic bread, but if you have dietary restrictions, it would be wise to bring along anything else you’d like to eat.

We’ll look forward to seeing you all there!

Thank you to Richard Barlow

The PLUG committee and regular members would like to acknowledge outgoing committee member and “Man at Arms” Richard Barlow, who has moved away from the Manawatu to further his career. Richard has always been a reliable member of the committee, doing the unglamorous but essential work of gear care, transport, setup, and teardown for our meetings, while also being a presenter, and even carting your humble Secretary around for the nightly McDonald’s pilgrimage. Thank you so much Richard from all of us, and we wish you all the best!