Apr 072012
 
Our March meeting took place on our new meeting night, the second Thursday of the month. We are really starting to get into a groove with the new meeting night and location!Tonight we had 15 people in attendance. The meeting was divided into four presentation segments:  

  • Arduino Basics (part 1) –  Brad Coxhead started his first in a series of many lectures on using the Open Hardware platform, Arduino. Brad described the basic tools and techniques used to work with the Arduino as well as provide an idea of what is come in his future lectures. The topics were  well received with many members expressing a serious interest.
  • Tmux (part 1) – Sam Williams provided an introduction to the use of the terminal multiplexer known as tmux. Sam presented many ways in which the tool could be used for practical workflows in a terminal based development or administrative environment. Sam will finish this topic next month with more configuration and details on leveraging the tool in a serious  production or development environment.
  • Ubuntu 12.04 beta 1 – Sam Williams provided a brief demonstration of the new beta of Precise Pangolin (Ubuntu 12.04). There are some very significant improvements, particularly in the area of Unity and the newly added HUD. Ubuntu 12.04 is still on schedule for a release on April 26th, 2012.
  • Linux News – Sam Williams also led the group with a brief discussion of a couple of major Linux news items.

The meeting went really well. Nice to see the momentum starting to build again!

References:

  1. Arduino – http://arduino.cc/
  2. tmux – http://tmux.sourceforge.net/
  3. Ubuntu – http://release-blog.ubuntu.com/
 Posted by at 12:31 am
Feb 242012
 

Our February meeting took place on our new meeting night, the second Thursday of the month. The new venue at Rasmussen College is really working out well!

Tonight we had 15 people in attendance. The meeting was divided into three presentation segments:

  • Introductory Linux Topics: The first segment was devoted to discussing introductory Linux topics. We started with a list of questions and work through a majority if them. The audience also added questions through-out the entire evening.
  • Comparing the Unity and Gnome-Shell Desktop Environments: The second segment provided a comparison of Unity and Gnome-Shell on Ubuntu 11.10. There was a bit of discussion bringing the pros and cons of each to the forefront. Since Unity has few configuration options, the final part of the discussion dealt with configuring Gnome-Shell, particularly using the Gnome-Shell Extensions site. (http://extensions.gnome.org)
  • Embedded Programming with the Arduino: Brad Coxhead discussed a future set of lectures which he will start in March.   He will discuss and demonstrate the use of the Arduino platform for doing rudimentary embedded programming. It should be an interesting and fun set of lectures.  For those that are interested in participating with these hands-on lectures there will be a parts list posted on the LUG website.

The meetings have gotten off to a really good start in 2012 with more good things to come. Hope to see you all at the March meeting starting at 6:30pm on 03/08 (Thursday).

 Posted by at 5:46 pm