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Hardware free to good home
by Andrew Pam 15 Jul '16

15 Jul '16

The following computers are available free to good homes: 1. An HP P4300G2 2RU rackount SAN server with 48GB RAM, 2x quad-core Xeon CPUs, 4x1TB 7200RPM SAS hard drives, four empty HDD slots with caddies (but the installed SAS controller only has enough ports for the four installed hard drives), and two spare HDD caddies. 2. A Thinkpad i1200 laptop model 1161-43M with a 750MHz Celeron CPU, 320M RAM, 1024x768 colour LCD display, 20G HDD and a PCMCIA Ethernet adapter. I have successfully run Debian 8 on it (including Firefox). 3. A VIA C3 "Samuel" 600MHz fanless Mini-ITX motherboard with two matching cases, each with a failed fanless PSU. No RAM, no storage but includes one plastic vertical case stand, and the cases can take a 2.5" IDE hard drive or SSD, a slimline laptop optical drive and/or a Compact Flash to IDE adapter. I might even have one of the latter somewhere. If the PSUs can't be repaired they can easily be replaced and I'm sure we can find suitable RAM - the BIOS supports up to 512M but apparently if you're brave enough to reflash with CoreBoot it can handle 1GB. 4. A Labtam Xterminal (!) All are available for pickup from tomorrow's LUV meeting or weekdays 10am-5pm at the same location: https://luv.asn.au/2016/07/16 Please email or phone me to confirm the item you want is still available. Other donations to the LUV hardware library are welcome! Cheers, Andrew

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LUV Beginners July Meeting: GNU COBOL
by Andrew Pam 13 Jul '16

13 Jul '16

Start: Jul 16 2016 12:30 End: Jul 16 2016 16:30 Location: Infoxchange, 33 Elizabeth St. Richmond Link: http://luv.asn.au/meetings/map COBOL is a business-orientated programming language that has been in use since 1959, making it one of the world's oldest programming languages. Despite being much criticised (and for good reasons) it is still a major programming language in the financial sector, although there are a declining number of experienced programmers. In the early 2000s a free implementation of COBOL was developed by Keisuke Nishida and Roger While. This project was gradually transitioned to the Free Software Foundation and on June 17th, 2005, OpenCOBOL became GnuCOBOL. With strong C integration, GnuCOBOL has a high level of compliance with modern standards of the language. This hands-on presentation and tutorial will include some of the history of the language, why it is (surprisingly) still important, and plenty of examples to begin the journal into GnuCOBOL. Lev Lafayette is the HPC Support and Training Officer at the University of Melbourne. Prior to that he spent several years in a similar role at the recently deceased Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing and has spent many years on the Linux Users of Victoria committee. ------------------------- There will also be the usual casual hands-on workshop, Linux installation, configuration and assistance and advice. Bring your laptop if you need help with a particular issue. This will now occur BEFORE the talks from 12:30 to 14:00. The talks will commence at 14:00 (2pm) so there is time for people to have lunch nearby. The meeting will be held at Infoxchange, 33 Elizabeth St. Richmond 3121 <https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-37.810879,144.992834&z=16&t=m&hl=en-US&gl=…> (enter via the garage on Jonas St.) Late arrivals, please call (0490) 049 589 for access to the venue. LUV would like to acknowledge Infoxchange <http://infoxchange.org/> for the venue. Linux Users of Victoria Inc., is an incorporated association, registration number A0040056C.

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Fwd: [Linux-aus] linux.conf.au 2017 in Hobart -- Talk, Tutorial, and Miniconf submissions now open!
by Andrew Pam 04 Jul '16

04 Jul '16

-------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [Linux-aus] linux.conf.au 2017 in Hobart -- Talk, Tutorial, and Miniconf submissions now open! Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 09:28:48 +1000 From: Christopher Neugebauer (linux.conf.au 2017) <chair(a)hobart.lca2017.org> Reply-To: team(a)hobart.lca2017.org To: Linux Australia List <linux-aus(a)lists.linux.org.au>, announce(a)lists.linux.org.au, lca-announce(a)lists.linux.org.au We’re rather pleased to announce that the Call for Proposals for linux.conf.au 2017 is now open! linux.conf.au is one of the best-known community-driven Free and Open Source Software conferences in the world. In 2017, we’re welcoming you to Hobart, Tasmania, on Monday 16 through to Friday 20 January. You can read this Call for Proposals, and submit a proposal at https://linux.conf.au/proposals IMPORTANT DATES * Call for Proposals Opens: 4 July 2016 * CFP Closes: 5 August 2016 * Notifications from the programme committee: Mid-September 2016 * Conference Opens: 16 January 2017 WHO WE WANT TO HEAR FROM linux.conf.au is a conference where people gather to learn about the entire world of Free and Open Source Software, directly from the people who shape the projects and topics that they’re presenting on. If you’re working with Free and Open Source Software, Open Hardware, if you’re exploring openness in a field outside of technology, or if you’re doing something that you think will be interesting to people interested in Open Source, we want to hear from you! linux.conf.au welcomes first-time and seasoned speakers from all free and open technology communities – people of all ages, genders, nationalities, ethnicities, backgrounds, religions, abilities, and walks of life. We respect and encourage diversity at our conference. WHAT WE WANT TO HEAR ABOUT The theme for linux.conf.au 2017 is _The Future of Open Source_. So, while we’re interested in hearing anything new and exciting about Free and Open Source Software – especially stories about the projects you’ve worked on – we’re inviting you to think especially about how the world of Open Source will look in the future. Here are some suggestions to get you started with your proposal ideas: THE FUTURE OF YOUR PROJECT linux.conf.au is well-known for deeply technical talks, and lca2017 will be no exception. Our attendees want to be the first to know about new and upcoming developments in the tools they already use every day, and they want to know about new open source technology that they’ll be using daily in two years time. OPENNESS FOR EVERYONE Many of the techniques that have made Open Source so successful in the software and hardware world are now being applied to fields as disparate as science, data, government, and the law. We want to know how Open Thinking will help to shape your field in the future, and more importantly, we want to know how the rest of the world can help shape the future of Open Source. THREATS FROM THE FUTURE It’s easy to think that Open Source has won, but for every success we achieve, a new challenge pops up. Are we missing opportunities in desktop and mobile computing? Why is the world suddenly running away from open and federated communications? Why don’t the new generation of developers care about licensing? Let’s talk about how Software Freedom and Open Source can better meet the needs of our users and developers for years to come. WHATEVER YOU WANT! It’s hard for us to predict the future, but we know that you should be a part of it. If you think you have something to say about Free and Open Source Software, then we want to hear from you, even if it doesn’t fit any of the categories above. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW PROPOSAL TYPES We’re accepting submissions for three different types of proposal: * Presentation (45 minutes): These are generally presented in lecture format and form the bulk of the available conference slots. * Tutorial (100 minutes): These are generally presented in a classroom format. They should be interactive or hands-on in nature. Tutorials are expected to have a specific learning outcome for attendees. * Miniconf (full-day): Single-track mini-conferences that run for the duration of a day on either Monday or Tuesday. We provide the room, and you provide the speakers. Together, you can explore a field in Free and Open Source software in depth. SPEAKER RECOGNITION In recognition of the value that speakers bring to our conference, once a proposal is accepted, one speaker per proposal is entitled to: * Free registration, which holds all of the benefits of a Professional Delegate Ticket * A complimentary ticket to the Speakers' Dinner for the speaker, with additional tickets for significant others and children of the speaker available for purchase. * Optionally, recognition as a Fairy Penguin Sponsor, available at 50% off the advertised price If your proposal includes more than one speaker, these additional speakers will be entitled to: * Professional or hobbyist registration at the Early Bird rate, regardless of whether the Early Bird rate is generally available * Speakers’ dinner tickets available for purchase at cost As a volunteer-run non-profit conference, linux.conf.au does not pay speakers to present at the conference. FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE linux.conf.au is able to provide limited financial assistance for some speakers, for instance where the cost of flights or accommodation might prohibit a speaker from attending. You can indicate your need for financial assistance when making your proposal. If there are other financial barriers – including those that affect accessibility – to your participation in linux.conf.au, you can indicate this when making your proposal as well. We will try to accommodate as many requests for assistance as possible within our limited budget. ACCESSIBILITY linux.conf.au aims to be accommodating to everyone who wants to attend or present at the conference. We recognise that some people face accessibility challenges. If you have special accessibility requirements, you can provide that information when submitting your proposal so that we can plan to properly accommodate you. CODE OF CONDUCT By agreeing to present at or attend the conference, you are agreeing to abide by the terms and conditions (https://linux.conf.au/attend/terms-and-conditions) We expect all speakers and delegates to have read, understood, and act according to the standards set forth in our Code of Conduct (https://linux.conf.au/attend/code-of-conduct) RECORDING AND LICENSING To increase the number of people that can view your presentation, linux.conf.au might record your talk and make it publicly available after the event. We plan to release recordings of every talk at the conference under a Creative Commons Share-Alike Licence. When submitting your proposal you may note that you do not wish to have your talk released. Additionally, if the subject of your presentation is a software project, you must ensure the software has an Open Source Initiative-approved licence at the time of the close of our CFP. HOW YOU CAN TAKE PART Go to our site at https://linux.conf.au/proposals -- you can create an account and submit a proposal over there. -- --Christopher Neugebauer Conference Director - linux.conf.au - January 2017 - Hobart Call for Proposals now open - Closes Friday 5 August - linux.conf.au/proposals _______________________________________________ linux-aus mailing list linux-aus(a)lists.linux.org.au http://lists.linux.org.au/mailman/listinfo/linux-aus

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LUV Main July 2016 Meeting: ICT in Education / To Search Perchance to Find
by Andrew Pam 01 Jul '16

01 Jul '16

Start: Tuesday Jul 5 2016 18:30 End: Tuesday Jul 5 2016 20:30 Location: 6th Floor, 200 Victoria St. Carlton VIC 3053 Link: http://luv.asn.au/meetings/map Speakers: * Dr Gill Lunniss and Daniel Jitnah, ICT in Education * Tim Baldwin, To Search Perchance to Find: Improving Information Access over Technical Web User Forums Dr Gill Lunniss and Daniel Jitnah, ICT in Education --------------------------------------------------- Dr. Gill Lunniss will present on: what is the Scientists, Mathematicians and ICT in Schools program, the background, what does a partnership look like and what they can do, examples of teacher requests, how to get involved and maybe some partnership stories depending on time. Daniel Jitnah will talk about using ICT, Linux and Open Source software in Education. He will also speak about his experience gained during his short involvement on the above program. Dr. Gill Lunniss has a BSc(hons) in chemistry from Aberdeen University and a PhD from Imperial College London. Prior to becoming a Scientists and Mathematicians in Schools Project Officer at CSIRO in 2013, he worked as a medicinal chemist for GlaxoSmithKline, UK and at the Cancer Therapeutics CRC, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Science. Daniel Jitnah is currently secretary of LUV. He has a particular interest in free software in education, and has been using Linux for over 15 years as his main operating system. He claims to have never used a Microsoft OS on any of his machines as main OS. Tim Baldwin, To Search Perchance to Find Improving Information Access over Technical Web User Forums ----------------------------------------------------------- Tim Baldwin will discuss approaches to tasks including thread discourse parsing and question equivalence detection as a means of improving information access over web user forums such as StackExchange. Tim Baldwin is a Professor in the Department of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne, and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. He has previously held visiting positions at Cambridge University, University of Washington, University of Tokyo, Saarland University, NTT Communication Science Laboratories, and National Institute of Informatics. His research interests include text mining of social media, computational lexical semantics, information extraction and web mining, with a particular interest in the interface between computational and theoretical linguistics. Current projects include web user forum mining, monitoring and text mining of Twitter, and text analytics for the creative industries. Tim completed a BSc(CS/Maths) and BA(Linguistics/Japanese) at The University of Melbourne in 1995, and an MEng(CS) and PhD(CS) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1998 and 2001, respectively. Prior to joining The University of Melbourne in 2004, he was a Senior Research Engineer at the Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University (2001-2004). Venue ----- 200 Victoria St. Carlton VIC 3053 Late arrivals, please call (0490) 049 589 for access to the venue. Before and/or after each meeting those who are interested are welcome to join other members for dinner. We are open to suggestions for a good place to eat near our venue. Maria's on Peel Street in North Melbourne is currently the most popular place to eat after meetings. LUV would like to acknowledge Red Hat and Infoxchange for their help in obtaining the meeting venues. Linux Users of Victoria Inc. is an incorporated association, registration number A0040056C.

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LUV Beginners June Meeting: MPE on SIMH / Programming with Python
by Andrew Pam 15 Jun '16

15 Jun '16

Start: Jun 18 2016 12:30 End: Jun 18 2016 16:30 Location: Infoxchange, 33 Elizabeth St. Richmond Link: http://luv.asn.au/meetings/map Please note change of topic Rodney Brown will demonstrate the HP minicomputer OS "Multi-Programming Executive" running on the SIMH emulator. Andrew Pam will lead a hands-on Python programming class using the learnpython.org website. Suitable for people with no programming skills or with existing skills in other languages. Bring your own laptop or use the desktop machines on site. There will also be the usual casual hands-on workshop, Linux installation, configuration and assistance and advice. Bring your laptop if you need help with a particular issue. This will now occur BEFORE the talks from 12:30 to 14:00. The talks will commence at 14:00 (2pm) so there is time for people to have lunch nearby. The meeting will be held at Infoxchange, 33 Elizabeth St. Richmond 3121 (enter via the garage on Jonas St.) Late arrivals, please call (0490) 049 589 for access to the venue. LUV would like to acknowledge Infoxchange for the venue. Linux Users of Victoria Inc., is an incorporated association, registration number A0040056C.

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UPDATE: Functional Programming talk postponed
by Andrew Pam 06 Jun '16

06 Jun '16

My sincere apologies. Due to a scheduling error, the Functional Programming talk will now be postponed to later this year. The BOINC talk will proceed as planned. LUV Main June 2016 Meeting: BOINC / TBA ======================================= Start: Jun 7 2016 18:30 End: Jun 7 2016 20:30 Location: 6th Floor, 200 Victoria St. Carlton VIC 3053 Link: http://luv.asn.au/meetings/map Speakers: * Russell Coker, BOINC * TBA BOINC ----- An overview of BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) on Linux and running SETI@home with it. Will also include random side topics such as how to deal with heat problems in PCs. Russell Coker has done lots of Linux development over the years, mostly involved with Debian. Our sincere apologies - due to a scheduling error, the Functional Programming talk will now be held later in the year. Venue: 200 Victoria St. Carlton VIC 3053 Late arrivals, please call (0490) 049 589 for access to the venue. Before and/or after each meeting those who are interested are welcome to join other members for dinner. We are open to suggestions for a good place to eat near our venue. Maria's on Peel Street in North Melbourne is currently the most popular place to eat after meetings. LUV would like to acknowledge Red Hat and Infoxchange for their help in obtaining the meeting venues. Linux Users of Victoria Inc. is an incorporated association, registration number A0040056C.

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LUV Main June 2016 Meeting: Functional Programming / BOINC
by Andrew Pam 05 Jun '16

05 Jun '16

Start: Jun 7 2016 18:30 End: Jun 7 2016 20:30 Location: 6th Floor, 200 Victoria St. Carlton VIC 3053 Link: http://luv.asn.au/meetings/map Speakers: * Les Kitchen, Functional Programming * Russell Coker, BOINC Functional Programming ---------------------- >From Wikipedia: In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm—a style of building the structure and elements of computer programs—that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids changing-state and mutable data. It is a declarative programming paradigm, which means programming is done with expressions or declarations instead of statements. In functional code, the output value of a function depends only on the arguments that are input to the function, so calling a function f twice with the same value for an argument x will produce the same result f(x) each time. Eliminating side effects, i.e. changes in state that do not depend on the function inputs, can make it much easier to understand and predict the behavior of a program, which is one of the key motivations for the development of functional programming. Dr Les Kitchen is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at The University of Melbourne. BOINC ----- An overview of BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) on Linux and running SETI@home with it. Will also include random side topics such as how to deal with heat problems in PCs. Russell Coker has done lots of Linux development over the years, mostly involved with Debian. Venue: 200 Victoria St. Carlton VIC 3053 Late arrivals, please call (0490) 049 589 for access to the venue. Before and/or after each meeting those who are interested are welcome to join other members for dinner. We are open to suggestions for a good place to eat near our venue. Maria's on Peel Street in North Melbourne is currently the most popular place to eat after meetings. LUV would like to acknowledge Red Hat and Infoxchange for their help in obtaining the meeting venues. Linux Users of Victoria Inc. is an incorporated association, registration number A0040056C.

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LUV Beginners May Meeting: Apache Cassandra Workshop
by Andrew Pam 13 May '16

13 May '16

Start: May 21 2016 12:30 End: May 21 2016 16:30 Location: Infoxchange, 33 Elizabeth St. Richmond Link: http://luv.asn.au/meetings/map This hands-on workshop will provide participants with an introduction to the Cassandra distributed "NoSQL" database management system, including deployment, keyspace and table manipulation, replication, creating multiple datacenters and creating users. Participants will: * Install a Cassandra server * Create a keyspace * Create a table and insert data * Replicate data across a three-node cluster * Replicate data across a two-datacenter cluster * Set up Cassandra and JMX authentication Some virtual machines will be provided, but participants will need to bring their own laptop computer in order to access them. It is also possible to run the exercises on your own laptop, however some some advance preparation is advised - the workshop will require four virtual machines or containers with the following configuration: * minimum of 512Mb each * minimum of 2Gb disk space each * Debian Jessie Paul Dwerryhouse is a Linux System Engineer with Australia Post, a job that involves a combination of system administration, dev-ops, database wrangling, and plenty of coding. He was first introduced to Unix in the form of SunOS 4 in 1991 and Linux in 1994. Shortly after that, he turned it into a twenty-year career of sysadmin and dev-ops (before the world had given dev-ops a name) in Australia and Europe. There will also be the usual casual hands-on workshop, Linux installation, configuration and assistance and advice. Bring your laptop if you need help with a particular issue. The meeting will be held at Infoxchange, 33 Elizabeth St. Richmond 3121 (enter via the garage on Jonas St.) Late arrivals, please call (0490) 049 589 for access to the venue. LUV would like to acknowledge Infoxchange for the venue. Linux Users of Victoria Inc., is an incorporated association, registration number A0040056C.

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LUV Main May 2016 Meeting: UNUM Computing / Monitoring with "mon" and Jabber
by Andrew Pam 02 May '16

02 May '16

Start: May 3 2016 18:30 End: May 3 2016 20:30 Location: 6th Floor, 200 Victoria St. Carlton VIC 3053 Link: http://luv.asn.au/meetings/map PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE Speakers: * Lev Lafayette, UNUM Computing * Russell Coker, How to monitor systems with "mon" and Jabber UNUM Computing UNUM is an abbreviation of the Universal Number format developed by John Gustafson in response to the limtations of standard floating point formats. UNUMS provide greater accuracy - and indeed claim to abolish computational error altogether - with typically fewer bits and therefore less power consumption. UNUMS claim to have no overflow, no underflow, and no rounding. Implementations have been made in some mathematical programming languages (e.g., Julia, Python) but hardware manufacturers have been slow to express enthusiasm. Lev Lafayette is the HPC Support and Training Officer at the University of Melbourne. Prior to that he spent several years in a similar role at the recently deceased Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing and has spent many years on the Linux Users of Victoria committee. How to monitor systems with "mon" and Jabber The "mon" program (which is difficult to Google) is a plug-in based program to monitor a server and network services. Russell will describe how to configure it, write plugins, and make it send alerts via Jabber. Russell Coker has done lots of Linux development over the years, mostly involved with Debian. 200 Victoria St. Carlton VIC 3053 Late arrivals, please call (0490) 049 589 for access to the venue. Before and/or after each meeting those who are interested are welcome to join other members for dinner. We are open to suggestions for a good place to eat near our venue. Maria's on Peel Street in North Melbourne is currently the most popular place to eat after meetings. LUV would like to acknowledge Red Hat and Infoxchange for their help in obtaining the meeting venues. Linux Users of Victoria Inc. is an incorporated association, registration number A0040056C.

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LUV Main May 2016 Meeting: UNUM Computing and TBA
by Andrew Pam 30 Apr '16

30 Apr '16

Start: May 3 2016 18:30 End: May 3 2016 20:30 Location: 6th Floor, 200 Victoria St. Carlton VIC 3053 Link: http://luv.asn.au/meetings/map PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE Speakers: * UNUM Computing - Lev Lafayette * Second talk to be announced UNUM Computing UNUM is an abbreviation of the Universal Number format developed by John Gustafson in response to the limtations of standard floating point formats. UNUMS provide greater accuracy - and indeed claim to abolish computational error altogether - with typically fewer bits and therefore less power consumption. UNUMS claim to have no overflow, no underflow, and no rounding. Implementations have been made in some mathematical programming languages (e.g., Julia, Python) but hardware manufacturers have been slow to express enthusiasm. Lev Lafayette is the HPC Support and Training Officer at the University of Melbourne. Prior to that he spent several years in a similar role at the recently deceased Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing and has spent many years on the Linux Users of Victoria committee. Second talk to be announced. 200 Victoria St. Carlton VIC 3053 Late arrivals, please call (0490) 049 589 for access to the venue. Before and/or after each meeting those who are interested are welcome to join other members for dinner. We are open to suggestions for a good place to eat near our venue. Maria's on Peel Street in North Melbourne is currently the most popular place to eat after meetings. LUV would like to acknowledge Red Hat and Infoxchange for their help in obtaining the meeting venues. Linux Users of Victoria Inc. is an incorporated association, registration number A0040056C.

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