gmane.org.user-groups.linux.portland

ReactOS - lucrative opportunity?

Keith Lofstrom — 2013-06-18T19:41:10

The Sourceforge project of the month is ReactOS, an open source
functional equivalent of WinXP.  I haven't tested it yet, but it
looks nifty! 

http://sourceforge.net/blog/potm-201306/

I run about three windoze apps on a virtual Win2000 guest inside
VMWare - that was the last version of Windoze that didn't "phone
home" for permission from M$.  I look forward to upgrading that
stack to Virtualbox and ReactOS, so that the only remaining M$
code on my machine is Internet Explorer (which I run only to make
sure my web pages don't break on that broken browser).

Folks come to the clinic hoping to make their Windoze machines
dual boot.  If ReactOS works as well as I hope, and the developer
team can stay ahead of M$ attempts to redesign apps so they don't
work on it, we can offer virtualization on top of Linux instead. 

Folks wanting to do this should have at least a gigabyte of RAM
on their machine. I strongly suggest leaving the old windoze hard
drive alone, and spending $100 on a new hard drive that we will
install Linux and VirtualBox and ReactOS on.  With both drives
connected (using an external case for the old laptop drive, another
$50) we can transfer files off the old drive to the new guest. 
The old drive will still be around for warranty repairs and such.

This means big bucks for those proficient in ReactOS migration.  
The state of Oregon has thousands of WinXP machines and millions
of dollars of custom applications running on them.  The EOL for
WinXP is putting the government in a severe bind; redeveloping
all that code for Win8 would cost more millions and cause great
disruption.  Converting to ReactOS guests on a Linux host could
save the state millions now, and prevent millions more per year
from heading north to Redmond.  Over time, new custom apps running
on Linux can interact with the old apps running on ReactOS.

I can hear the John Lennon mashup now:
 "Imagine there's no Windows. 
  It's easy if you try.
  No hell in software.
  No bad upgrades to buy ..."

So who wants to take the lead on this for PLUG? 
  
Keith

Re: Jewel cases requiring a good home

Richard England — 2013-06-16T05:11:34

Thank you for the response, Paul.

~~R

June PLUG Advanced Topics: Lucky Lab Social Event

Michael Dexter — 2013-06-16T04:55:58

Portland Linux/Unix Group Advanced Topics Meeting Pseudo-Announcement

Who: You
What: Food, drink
Where: Lucky Lab on Hawthorne
When: Tuesday, June 18th, 2013 at 7pm
Why: The pursuit of technology freedom

I will be out of town and to the best of my knowledge, no one has 
proposed a keyholder and topic for a Free Geek meeting, making for a 
PERFECT opportunity to go directly to the Lucky Lab on Hawthorne for the 
meeting.

Calagator Page: http://calagator.org/events/1250464124

PLUG Page with information about all PLUG events: http://pdxlinux.org/
Follow PLUG on Twitter: http://twitter.com/pdxlinux

Michael Dexter
PLUG Volunteer

Re: BSD unix

2013-06-15T23:35:39

So, what flavor BSD and what program?  iIf it's NetBSD I might be helpful,
others probably not so much.  A good resource are the distro-specific mailing
lists and IRC channels (irc.freenode.net).

Re: Jewel cases requiring a good home

Paul Munday — 2013-06-15T21:24:53

Free Geek would normally recycle these. At the moment however our
upstream vendor is not taking plastic: China is not taking in any
plastic at the moment  so its all siting in warehouses downstream and we
have very limited space so we might not take them at all at the moment.

Re: Jewel cases requiring a good home

2013-06-15T20:50:39

I would talk to Sean and Canoe Design in the Northwest. He had mentioned he was looking for one a few weeks ago and I think he's willing to pay for a good one.

They're customers of mine so I don't know his personal number. Try the store at 503-889-8545.
-Eamonn
------Original Message------
From: Richard England
Sender: plug-bounces< at >lists.pdxlinux.org
To: PLUG
ReplyTo: Portland Linux/Unix Group
Subject: [PLUG] Jewel cases requiring a good home
Sent: Jun 15, 2013 1:44 PM

Does anyone know if Freegeek or any other organization would care for a 
large number of used jewel cases?

I hate to simply recycle them but they've got to somewhere and I'd 
rather they be reused.

Suggestions welcomed.

Jewel cases requiring a good home

Richard England — 2013-06-15T20:44:29

Does anyone know if Freegeek or any other organization would care for a 
large number of used jewel cases?

I hate to simply recycle them but they've got to somewhere and I'd 
rather they be reused.

Suggestions welcomed.

Re: [PLUG-ANNOUNCE] June Linux Clinic - Escape Windows!

Rich Shepard — 2013-06-14T22:48:38


Keith,

   I see you're competing with Pearls Before Swine.


   Easier to simply defenestrate.

   While your prose stimulates the Friday afternoon of all who read it I
suspect that the Microserfs to whom you address your erudite literary
efforts do not subscribe to our mail list. That's too bad ... they avoid the
groaners.

Carpe weekend,

Rich

June Linux Clinic - Escape Windows!

Keith Lofstrom — 2013-06-14T22:16:50

This time of year reminds me of my friend Junie.  Her husband
Ollie is in prison for making an illegal copy of Windows.  I'm
in contact with the escape committee, Linux users who are also
fond of Rodgers and Hammerstein show tunes.  So when I got a
singing phone call, "June is busting out Oliver!" ...

I don't want any more punnishing telephone calls, or friends in
jail for using the wrong operating system.  Before the Business
Software Alliance sends the cops to break down your front door,
sneak out the back with your computer, and bring it to Free Geek
at 1731 SE 10th Avenue (three blocks south of Hawthorne) Sunday
June 16 between 1pm and 5pm.

We will erase the evidence, replacing it with Linux (perhaps even
BSD) in your choice of decorator colors and distros!   No worries
about fingerprints - we have keyboards, monitors, and mice that
the cops will never find.  Yes We Scan?  No!  Free Geek has wired
and wireless internet for your anonymous Internet pleasure.  We
don't do good-cop/bad-cop - but we do have good and bad Linux
advice (your choice) from our skilled team of easily distractable
look at the pretty butterfly!

We have coffee and snacks.  We may not have a cake with a file
baked in it, but we have cake packs of CDs and DVDs onto which
we can bake all the files you want!

So - escape from the prison of Windows, and join us this third
Sunday for Linux Clinic!

Keith

Re: Removing annoying mail notice

Rich Shepard — 2013-06-14T19:00:42


   Yep. Turned off biff years ago to no avail.

Rich

Re: Removing annoying mail notice

Neal — 2013-06-14T18:48:06

Possibly relevant but likely ancient history, did you try 'man biff'?

NealS

Re: Removing annoying mail notice

Bryan Linton — 2013-06-14T18:42:38

You (or your system defaults) probably set MAIL or MAILPATH
variables in your shell environment.  They're probably either in
bashrc or .profile.

If you're not using bash, I know that zsh and ksh use the same
variables for the same reason, so unsetting them is likely to
solve your problem, but are likely going to be in .zshrc or
kshrc respectively.

The following is sourced from: https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bourne-Shell-Variables.html

MAIL
If this parameter is set to a filename or directory name
and the MAILPATH variable is not set, Bash informs the
user of the arrival of mail in the specified file or
Maildir-format directory.

MAILPATH
A colon-separated list of filenames which the shell
periodically checks for new mail. Each list entry can
specify the message that is printed when new mail arrives
in the mail file by separating the file name from the
message with a `?'. When used in the text of the message,
$_ expands to the name of the current mail file.

Re: Removing annoying mail notice

Rich Shepard — 2013-06-14T18:40:49


   Thanks, Paul. I'll see how this works over the next few days.

Much appreciated,

Rich

Re: Removing annoying mail notice

Paul Munday — 2013-06-14T18:32:40

 try unset MAILCHECK (in .bashrc etc)

Removing annoying mail notice

Rich Shepard — 2013-06-14T18:07:14

   This message frequently pops up on the command line:

                   You have mail in /var/spool/mail/rshepard

which tells me what I already know. I've not tracked what triggers
displaying that message and I've not found where I can turn it off. If you
know where the switch is located please point me to it so I can eliminate an
unnecessary annoyance.

Thanks,

Rich

Re: Possible OSCON Free Expo Pass

C W — 2013-06-13T02:53:41

Thanks Mike,

It worked for me, too.

See you all there,

Elcaset


On Wed, Jun 12, 2013 at 6:20 PM, Galen Seitz <galens< at >seitzassoc.com> wrote:

Re: Possible OSCON Free Expo Pass

Galen Seitz — 2013-06-13T01:20:31

I just registered for the expo pass using this.  I can confirm that this 
gets you in for $0.  Thanks!

galen

BSD unix

2013-06-13T01:08:51





I need help with BSD unix.  The program can connect to the internet, but I am not able to.
Are there any Unix experts in PLUG?

Possible OSCON Free Expo Pass

MJang — 2013-06-13T01:08:58

Folks, 

Just saw a listing on the PDX Tech Professionals Linkedin group for a
"free" OSCON expo pass, using code:

PDXEXPO

(there's reportedly also a 20% discount on OSCON packages with code
PDXTECH).

(I would test it myself, but have already been registered by the company
I work for.)

Thanks,
Mike

Re: Editing a video DVD

Keith Lofstrom — 2013-06-12T19:02:49

Thank you to the folks that suggested gopchop - I was able to edit the
nasty bits out of VOB file.   The truncated file plays back properly
with mplayer. 

A problem remains with reassembing the DVD with K3B and playing it on
the DVD player, which does not play back the sound from the VOB file
I edited or the VOB file that follows.  PEBK&C, probably.  I'll frob
on it some more and report back in a day or two.

Keith

June Advanced Topics

Michael Dexter — 2013-06-12T06:30:39

Hello all,

It is highly unlikely that I will be around for the June Advanced Topics 
talk.

For the record, a Free Geek keyholder and long-time participant has 
questions about various strategies on package building. May I kindly ask 
that people chime in with either their specific desires for knowledge or 
with an offer of packaging insights? Or both?

Keep in mind: A 'talk' need not have slides or even a structure. 
Expertise and a positive attitude are all that are needed to enable a 
worthwhile dialog. That, plus the courage to sit before an audience. 
That took me a decade or two but now I'm wrangling upset neighbors at 
the neighborhood association! You can too!

Michael Dexter
PLUG Volunteer