Previous WeMaLU Meetings:
Early 1999
1998
Wednesday Oct 21, 1998 MIT, Boston, MAA small WeMaLU posse made the trek into Boston for a presentation on Corel's new Netwinder computer by it's creator, hosted by the Boston Linux-Unix users group (www.blu.org). Overall an interesting little machine. Runs Redhat and claims 275MHz (250 MIPS). Has a slew of features: 2 NICs, sound, direct video in and out. Draws 12VDV at 1.5A, is about the size of an answering machine, and comes totally sealed. Does everything you'd expect of a Linux box, and currently cost about $1000 US. Much of the presentation was spent discussing the nitty-gritty assembly-level instruction set of Netwinder's StrongARM CPU (once a Digital product, now Intel) and how Linux was compiled on it. Observations by Mike Thomas: You can configure it(SA-110 CPU) to be big-endian or little-endian (i.e. bytes are orderd like an Intel chip or like a Motorola chip). The add and sub commands included an integral shift, without any performance penalty. I don't remember the exact assembler syntax, but something like add r1, r1, <<#2 would add a register to itself after shifting left 2. This means you can do an integer multiply by 5 in a single clock cycle. Similarly, sub r1, r1, <<#4 would be an integer multiply by 15, again in 4 useconds. Very cool for those of us brought up on Z80 and 6502 assembly. Afterwards Rich, Tom and Tom hung around a bit at Toscanini's, chatting and drinking some darn-strong coffee before heading back out on the Pike. A fun night out. Wednesday September 16, 1998 Morrill Science Center Umass, Amherst, MAGyepi Sam did a fantastic job of de-mystifying ipfwadm and ip masquarading. He showed us his actual rules config file for the powerful ipfwadm command. He starts by denying everything and then opening up access where needed. He overcomes complications of a dynamic ip environment with clever scripting, never leaving his network venerable for a moment (he hopes). Unusual netbios and udp packets plague him no more! He also showed how to control logging options for ipfwadm. I came away realizing that ipfwadm can be very finely tuned to control access to your Net or firewall machine. Thanks again Gyepi. Wednesday August 19, 1998 Morrill Science Center Umass, Amherst, MA"The past, present, and future of Java: One geek's views." John V. E. Ridgway led a rousing discussion of Java and Java development. Garbage collection and strong vs weakly referenced objects was a big part of the discussion. One quote from the evening: Jave was, Java is, Java will be. Thanks John. July 15 1998 Morrill Science Center Umass, Amherst, MAAndrew Reiter did a great job demonstrating FreeBSD (thanks again Andrew, and good luck in college.)He went through how things are arranged on a FreeBSD machine. I thought the boot -c option was interesting, allowing you to pick and choose what drivers to load or not load at bootup, darn nifty! He also gave us a look at the kernel configuration options file. Overall I thought FreeBSD is quite similar to Linux. I brought up the issue that, maybe, we should NOT be splitting the Free Unix-OS development effort between two platforms. Pez then chimed in, pointing out that it's good to have so many OPTIONS, which is true, so true. The discussion went on to include other operating systems on the horizon. The BeOS was brought up. It just happen that Justin had BeOS installed on his PC laptop and was up to an impromptu demo! Unfortunately we could not get it to display properly on the overhead projector, so the group had to be content with watching the laptop display. What can I say? It was interesting, somewhat MAC-like, but I'm not sure why I would pay for and install the BeOS myself. I did get to play around with Be's version of a bash session, which was quite interesting. Be's bash even had that grand-daddy of all multi-media programs installed, the VI editor. And lets face it, VI is ultimately the only application anyone ever really needs. June 17 1998 Morrill Science Center Umass, Amherst, MAQmail presentation/Q and A, by Mike Thomas. Mike Thomas authored an article on Qmail in the Linux Journal.He gave an excellent presentation on the Qmail package. Describing how Qmail is a collection of smaller mail handling programs as compared to Sendmail. Qmail does very little as 'root,' it runs mail delivery processes as the appropriate user, reducing security woes. He also went into how Qmail gives users greater control over their email environment, enabling them to setup their own mailing lists, etc. Thanks again Mike, and welcome aboard. www.qmail.org is the place to go for more Qmail info. Qmail is developed by Dan Bernstein. Wednesday May 20, 1998, Top of the Campus Umass, Amherst, MALinux Pub Night madness..Connectivity was one of the many topics bandied about. Will media one and cable modems really give everyone T1-like access right from their living rooms? The search for the cheapest 'fat-pipe' continues.. Or how about a T1 co-op? It was also good to see some new faces among the 'sofa drinkers.' Wednesday April 15, 1998, Morrill Science Center Umass, Amherst, MATaking the mystery out of Sendmail configurationGeorge, Steve M. and Jake did a superb job of shedding light on the mysteries of sendmail, this very powerful but often confounding mail delivery agent. They pulled apart the sendmail.cf configuration file, They showed us why using smrsh (sendmail replacement shell) is a good idea for Mprog. Jake showed us how using the m4 macro precompiler can make the process of setting up your sendmail.cf a bit more SANE. All in all they provided an excellent technical presentation, thanks guys. sendmail.org is the place to go for more sendmail info. Wednesday March 18, 1998, Morrill Science Center Umass, Amherst, MALinux Office Suite DemoIt's end-user office-suite maddness! Demo of the Applixware and STAR software suite (Word Processor, Spreadsheet and Presentation Apps). Tom L. and George M. to present, thanks guys! Observations from Steve B: I thought last night's meeting went quite well. The demonstrations were interesting and informative (although what I took away were really two things: (1) it is amazing how Mac applications still have a much more consistent "look and feel" compared with the random appearance of linux applications (even between components of the same application) and (2) that linux office utilities are not really ready for prime time.) Wednesday Feb 19, 1998 TOC(UMass-Pub), Amherst, MAOkay, this meeting initially went somewhat awry, but out of the chaos we managed to have some good fun. First, our meeting Presenter on Linux and Java was ill and then through some bizarre twists of administrativa logic, Monday was Wednesday at UMass, so we lost our usual WeMaLU room..to make a long story even longer..So with no Presenter and no room, we decided, in the best tradition of Linux and Unix, to seek out BEER. Our merry little band re-convened at UMass's pub-like 'Top-of-the Campus.' The bass-ale taps were dry, so it was Guinness Stout all around (with a Mudslide and coffee thrown in for good measure). Amid tall glasses of BEER we did managed to install the Java JDK on TomJ's Linux Laptop (Aaah! Please no more nights of Tom and his laptop!). The merry little band made squinty eyes at the tiny screen as we compiled a few simply Hello World samples and used the appletviewer in X to run a few of Sun's Java demos. Then the discussion ranged far and wide. Some of the topics: What exactly is Posix?; How does Linux compared to other favors of Unix (HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, Digital); Open standards vs. proprietary; and, of course, the future of Linux and the free world... This report is from Steve M. on his trip to the Boston Linux User's group meeting where the RedHat folks did their song and dance.. Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 14:23:13 -0400 (EDT) The presentation was quite useful. Donnie Barnes spoke for 1/2 hour on upcoming RedHat releases 5.1 and 6.0, although he didn't give timetables as to when the releases would be available. After the talk, he spent the next 1 1/2 hrs answering questions from the audience. A large percentage of questions were X11, and KDE related. He also talked about the future of RedHat and the plans for its future growth. At the end of the meeting, several door prizes were given away, including RedHat 5.0 and ApplixWare.
The presentation was attended by well over 150 people, most of whom were
hobbyists or student/staff from MIT. I'm not sure how many people normally
attend the meetings, but it's quite possible there were a large number of
folks in the crowd just to see the RedHat folks. There are plans for
another Installfest in the middle of this month, on a Saturday at Howard
Johnsons. From what I can tell, there is a small charge for the RedHat
software, ( 10-20 ) before they'll help you install it.
Wednesday Jan 21, 1998,Morrill Science Center Umass, Amherst, MARich on editing: 'Why Vi ? or how I learned not to fear TERM and love emacs'Tom on fvwm and Xwindows: Configuring X and fvwm. Fred correctly pointed out that all the magic for fcwm2 configuration happens under the /etc/X11../wmconfig directory. Just cat out any of the files under wmconfig and you'll understand. Much, much better than hacking the fvwm2rc.menus file. December 17 1997 Morrill Science Center Umass, Amherst, MAQuestion and Answer on Linux and other topics concerning computers, networking and the future of the free world. Our discussion ranged far and wide, but usually came back to Linux. Steve floated the idea that soon everyone will have/need a 'personal information server' hooked-up to the Internet and that Linux is the best candidate OS to accomplish this (I'm generally paraphrasing here). The group also touched on Java, 'Network Computers' (NCs), how to stay connected to the Internet.We also talk about how the group needs to balance between advanced and introductory topics, perhaps with some kind of 'Introduction to Linux' workshop and even a Linux Install-fest. November 19 1997 Morrill Science Center Umass, Amherst, MATying it together with Linux: Using a Linux machine as a file and print server for MS-Windows and MAC clients via SAMBA and NETATALK. (Demonstration and Presentation).It took us about an hour to setup a Linux box on a small LAN to provide file and print services to a MAC powerbook and a Win95 laptop. Fred and Steve did a great job of explaining the NETATALK and SAMBA configuration files. October 15 1997 Morrill Science Center Umass, Amherst, MAOkay now this was a meeting. After a month-long delay of Steve and Tom trying to settle on a date, the advertising did get out on time and folks actually showed up. It was a fairly well rounded group with all levels of Linux users. The raucous discussion covered a lot of ground: Xwindows setup, Packet-radio networks, duelbooting schemes, the OS holywar, hardware we have and wished to have, install-fests anyone? and our fav Linux distributions. In fact it almost got ugly when a discussion of RedHat vs Slackware just about came too blows. But overall a good beginning!August 19 1997 LaFiorentina Cafe, Northampton MAThis was really more of a proto-meeting than an actually meeting. It was poorly advertised and poorly attended. But this gathering did establish a place for future meetings (OEB 319 S Morrill) and a web site (your reading it) for the fledgling group, thanks to Steve and George.Tom and George did get into a notable (for Steve’s yawns) but lengthy discussion of the virtues of the much beloved sendmail program. Back to main WeMaLU page.
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