Author: Tom Ryder

Date

7pm, Wednesday, 14 September 2022

Topic 1/2: Self-hosting continued

Speaker: Chris Winkworth

Chris will return with some more details about his home media network setup that he last spoke about in July, since there were so many questions from the audience last time and people doubtless want to know more about his astonishing setup.

Topic 2/2: 10 Years of OBS & VDO.Ninja

Speaker: Nick Skarott

OBS or Open Broadcast Software has become a linchpin piece of kit for many video livestreamers around the globe. It has powered everything from basic talking head livestreams to full on productions with switching and live graphics and has produced many other key tools to produce graphic overlays and even inject others desktops into livestreams. Nick will go over what’s new since PLUG was first introduced to OBS, and give real world examples on how he has used OBS and a new free tool, VDO.Ninja, to produce commercial-grade live streams.

Continue reading “September: Self-hosting, self-casting”

Date

7pm, Wednesday, 10 August 2022

Topic 1/2: Running Windows programs with Wine

Speaker: Tom Ryder

In many cases, people who want to switch to GNU/Linux as their operating system are held back by only one or two programs native to Microsoft Windows running on their machines, for which there’s no suitable free software replacement. One option in this case is to use Wine, a compatibility layer that allows running programs built for Windows on Unix-like operating systems. While it’s not perfect, it’s pretty impressive what Wine can do; Tom will demonstrate a few of the things it makes possible, including demonstrating the PlayOnLinux frontend.

Download slides (application/pdf, 716 KiB)

Topic 2/2: Design for Military Crests with Inkscape

Speaker: John Flower

John Flower will return to demonstrate some more of the design that free software allows him to do. This month, he’ll demonstrate how he’s been using the vector drawing program Inkscape in tracing and working with military crests.

Continue reading “August: Wine and Ink”

Date

7pm, Wednesday, 13 July 2022

Topic 1/2: Self-hosting software

Speaker: Chris Winkworth

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a business model to run the software sold on a company’s own servers, and provide people with access to their accounts only remotely, usually through a web browser, and on a subscription basis. This is opposed to the older “on-premises” model where the software is run on a customer’s own computers. Unfortunately, companies can still exert a lot of power over customers who buy licenses to their software this way; the risk of censorship is particularly troublesome. Chris will give us an overview of self-hosting: running applications in a similar way to the SaaS model, but moving control back to your own computer, an approach particularly compatible with properly free and open-source software.

Topic 2/2: Adventures in Codeland

Speaker: Tim-Hinnerk Heuer

Tim will return for another demonstration of competitive programming on Leetcode, this time using C++ specifically, with the C++ compiler from the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), and the Vim text editor.

Continue reading “July: Self-Hosting and Adventures in Codeland”

Date

7pm, Wednesday, 11 May 2022

Topic 1/2: Networking PulseAudio (with a Windows Server)

Speaker: Stephen Worthington

PulseAudio serves as a means to bridge the sometimes complex gap between sound sources from programs via ALSA and OSS libraries, and sound sinks to come out of actual speakers or other destinations, for appropriately mixed sound. In its role as an abstraction between the two, it’s capable of acting as a networked sound server, even for other operating systems that don’t use its native kernel, Linux. Stephen will demonstrate how this is done.

Download slides (application/pdf, 112 KiB)

Topic 2/2: Trusted networks with WireGuard

Speaker: Tom Ryder

WireGuard is a replacement for IPsec and OpenVPN, offering secure communications over otherwise untrusted networks, using public key authentication both for authentication purposes and to form its routing table. It made its way into kernel space in Linux v5.6, which is as official a blessing as it gets (short of an RFC, maybe). There’s lots to love about WireGuard; Tom will show us the basics, along a few of the niceties that suit him (personally) down to the ground.

Download slides (application/pdf, 580 KiB)

Venue

Milson Community Centre

Cost

$2 gold coin donation

COVID-19 restrictions

• Masks must be worn, unless medically exempt.
• Guests may sign in using either the COVID-19 tracer app or the paper register, but this is no longer required.
• It’s unclear at the moment whether we can use the kitchen; please bring your own drink bottle, just in case.

Agenda

• 7:00pm: Welcome (John Flower)
• 7:10pm: Topic 1/2: Networking PulseAudio (with a Windows Server) (Stephen Worthington)
• 8:00pm: General business (John Flower)
• 8:10pm: Topic 2/2: Trusted networks with WireGuard (Tom Ryder)
• 9:00pm: Doors close

The Palmerston North Linux Users Group invites its members to join us in the Victoria Esplanade on Friday 17th December at 6:30pm, at the picnic tables by the pool, to share a pizza dinner in good company to round off what has been at times a difficult year.

Please bring $10 in cash to contribute to the cost of your pizzas, along with any drinks, and anything else you would like to eat as well (or instead).

These plans are, of course, weather-dependent; we will make another post and send out another email to the mailing list should the weather take a turn for the worse.

For the avoidance of any doubt: the Palmerston North Linux Users’ Group will not have its usual meeting at the Milson Community Centre this month, as the holiday season is upon us. There are tentative plans for a pizza meet in the Victoria Esplanade on the evening of Friday 17th December; we will post more details about this as they become available. Watch this space!

Date

7pm, Wednesday, 10 November 2021

Topic 1/2: VoIP PBX with 3CX

Speaker: Nick Skarott

Nick has been spending the lockdown trying to teach himself software PBX systems for Voice-over-IP phones. He will discuss his journey through a couple of different platforms, and why he’s settled on using 3CX.

Topic 2/2: Selenium browser automation

Speaker: Scott Davies

Scott will demonstrate the use of the Selenium browser automation tool, best-known as a means of running automated tests for software, and “other useful things”, including automatic web form completion. He says to expect surprising performance, along with a few gotchas…

Scott’s presentation will consist of demonstrating some uses of Selenium in Ubuntu with Java for automated testing, and in its own dedicated IDE.

Download slides (application/pdf, 576 KiB)

Venue

Milson Community Centre

Cost

$2 gold coin donation

COVID-19 restrictions

• Masks must be worn, unless medically exempt.
• Guests must sign in using either the COVID-19 tracer app or the paper register.
• We are prohibited from using the kitchen, so there will be no coffee/snack break. We recommend bringing your own drink bottle.

Agenda

• 7:00pm: Welcome (John Flower)
• 7:10pm: Topic 1/2: VoIP PBX with 3CX (Nick Skarott)
• 8:00pm: General business (John Flower)
• 8:10pm: Topic 2/2: Selenium browser automation (Scott Davies)
• 9:00pm: Doors close

As was the case last month, the Palmerston North Linux Users Group will not have its usual monthly meeting for October, due to continued uncertainty around the timing of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and our venue’s consequent availability. At the time of writing, we expect to see you all in November.

The Palmerston North Linux Users Group will not have its usual monthly meeting for September, due to uncertainty around the timing of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. We hope to see you all in October.

Date
7pm, Wednesday, 11 August 2021

Topic 1/2: Nodes in Blender for Geometry/Procedural Art

Speaker: John Flower

John will demonstrate the use of nodes in Blender, the free software 3D creation suite.

In addition to creating materials as just described using all the settings on all the materials panels, Blender allows you to create a material by routing basic materials through a set of nodes. Each node performs some operation on the material, changing how it will appear when applied to the mesh, and passes it on to the next node. In this way, very complex material appearances can be achieved.

Blender manual

Watching John use Blender is a thing of beauty—if you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out!

Topic 2/2: The Freedom Ladder

Speaker: Tom Ryder

The Free Software Foundation’s position at the forefront of software freedom for users, with instruments like the GNU General Public License and the Defective by Design anti-DRM campaign, has often led to criticism of them as too hardline, or too purist, especially for less technical people. A more recent effort made in part to dispel this image has been the Freedom Ladder, a campaign to encourage users new to free software to take a first step, simply by replacing one proprietary program they use with a free software substitute, and building on their new freedom gradually from there.

By supporting them in taking a step at a time, we’re confident that we can help bring more people to a fully free setup than ever before. We’re calling this campaign the “freedom ladder,” and we need your support to help others begin climbing it.

The journey begins with a single step: climb the freedom ladder

Tom will discuss a few things he learned in watching and participating in the initial IRC meetings for this campaign.

Download slides (application/pdf, 468 KiB)

Venue
Milson Community Centre

Cost
$2 gold coin donation.

• Agenda
  • Welcome
    Chair: John Flower
  • Nodes in Blender for Geometry/Procedural Art
    Speaker: John Flower
    7:10pm
  • Break
    7:50pm
    Tea, coffee, & biscuits
    Donations collected
  • General Business
    8:05pm
  • The Freedom Ladder
    Speaker: Tom Ryder
    8:10pm
  • Doors close
    9pm