Details About Upcoming Meetings

Babashka and Clojure

Overcome frustrations, when writing bash and Make, without looking at stackoverflow. Frustrated with python? Wish something was there to enable instant feedback when developing scripts? Finding that python isn't as easy as it seems? Tearing your hair out with python package management?

• Rahul will introduce Clojure, a language that was not made for scripting — now made possible with Babashka.
• Learn how the Clojure Babashka ecosystem makes scripting and programming a much better experience — imagine a world without need for stackoverflow!
• More useful links:
  • Babashka Book
  • Babashka — Github
  
  
• Acess this virtual presentation using a link on Meetup which will be be posted on the day of the meetup.

Using Linux File Access Policy Daemon (fapolicyd)

Derek will discuss and demonstrate the use the File Access Policy Daemon (fapolicyd), including enhance security on Linux systems.

Introduction to Database Forensics

Zak will present a primer on getting information from a database when obtained from forensic sources. Planned topics:

• Open and closed source databases
• Unicode and other character sets
• Tools to use on linux systems

Making Hardware Work (With Linux)

John will speak on Making "it" work — how to break incompatibility and dependency hell for your hardware without mashing your desktop. He will present an overview of Linux features to get awkward, custom, or, unusual hardware working without destroying a system or descending into madness.

Sponsored jointly by NoVaLUG & Shropshire Lugs — SLUG

Presentation Rescheduled to December 11^th

Going Off Grid — A Practical Guide

Sponsored by Shropshire Linux Group ( SLUG)

Hosted by John Kennedy & Great Britain's John Alexander

Andy will spaek onr the design and installation of renewable energy at his home in South Shropshire. Beginning with overall energy requirements for power and space heating, the talk will cover the design and implementation, followed by a discussion of how well everything works.

Issues identified during implementation and predicted performance led to some re-engineering. As demand changed, an EV was purchased. The talk will cover these changes and issues which arose.

In sum, it is possible to run 100% solar power with a small generator boost at the end of December at a reasonable cost. However, implementers need to really understand needs and design accordingly. Andy will describe key requirements and design features required for a successful project.

Andy About Andy

"As a child I used to rip apart anything electrical to see how it worked and on occasion even put it back together afterwards. Became a licensed radio amateur at the age of 16 and worked designing PMR radios and infrastructure since the early 1980s. Involved public safety network design and operations for various organisations for around 20 years.

"First played with Linux in 1995 (Slackware 0.98 kernel). Managed the ongoing Linuxbierwanderung mailing list since 1998. Linux has been my daily driver since about 2000.

"I developed a strong interest in the decarbonisation of energy over the last decade and now live off grid (100% solar) in South Shropshire.

"I recently got back into embedded design after a gap of about 20 years and am really enjoying the rediscovering those skills."

Linux — Questions and Answers

Bring your questions for answers from the NoVaLUG community.

Decoding Radio Signals with an SDR on Raspberry Pi

Build a public safety radio scanner for under $100 using the Raspberry Pi 4. Discover what digital trunked radio is and how to set up hardware and software on the RPi 4 to decode Project 25 radio traffic and stream to an icecast server. The icecast server, running on a separate Linux system provides client access to the stream and archives the streams using systemd timers/services. Connect over WiFi with VLC to the Icecast server and listen live to public safety radio traffic. At this meeting, Rich will share his experiences assembling and operating this method.

 Lightening Talks — Rasp Pi 

Led by John Kennedy, speakers will talk about things they have done with their Raspberry Pi computers. He will speak on using a Pi to deploy to AWS with Terraform and Ansible.

We have had previous, relevant presentations at NoVaLUG meetings. Look for them on our Presentations page. Examples: science experiments aloft, kite photography, Pi Hole.

The GIMP

Best viewed on device with a large screen.

Background

The GIMP — GNU Image Manipulation Program — is a free and open source program licensed under the GPLv3+ license. It is very powerful alternative to non-free (expensive) image editing programs. It is available for Linux, Windows and macOS. The GIMP has been under continuous maintenance and development since 1995 and is widely used by amateurs and professional photographers for post processing of their images.

Session Objectives

This talk is aimed both at introducing prospective users to The GIMP as well as moving on to intermediate levels of usage. Expect the following:

• Intro to basics of imaging as they relate to editing photos.
• A few basics about shooting photography.
• Some basic setup info for The GIMP, including,
  • Setup and layout,
  • Short-cut keys.
• Demonstrations of editing tools for basic and intermediate operations.
• Tips and tricks.
• Q & A.
• How to get The GIMP
• References / Resources

The Rocky Linux Project

Note: This meeting, sponsored by the Wolverhampton (UK) LUG, will open at 14:40 EDT (19:30 GMT); the formal presentation will start ~  15:30&EDT (20:30 GMT).

Session Objectives

With the EOL of CentOS 8 coming this year and transition to a rolling release model, Greg Kurtzer is initiating the Rocky Linux Project, a free, community-run drop-in replacement for CentOS and RHEL. Greg is original founder of the CentOS.

After a whirlwind start of 3 months of infrastructure building, the first release candidate of Rocky Linux is expected by 31 March 2021; the official release is expected in mid-2021.

Greg and Leigh will speak and answer questions on:

• The formation and status of Rocky Linux,
• Address questions that sysadmins might have about migrating a CentOS system to Rocky Linux, and,
• How users can contribute to the success of the Project.

Reverse Engineering Example
Migrate & Re-engineer Closed Source Solutions

Derived from closed source Minitouner, Longmynd is an open source an application that "talks" via USB to a DVB-S/S2 demodulator. It is mainly used by the Amateur Television Community to receive Transmissions of video pictures.

The Longmynd re-write is a transmitter solution to run alongside a Portsdown,a Raspberry Pi based Transmitter solution for DVB-S/S2 pictures. This allows for both TX and RX of video pictures on one, Raspberry Pi box. Hence, the Longmynd Receiver was born. The biggest challenge was that the specification and documentation of the DVB-S/S2 hardware (the Serrit NIM) was only available on an NDA basis and the USB interface between the hardware and the Windows PC (an FTDI board) contained custom code.

The presentation will tell the tale of some reverse engineering, trial and error, lucky guesses and hours of analysis of many GBytes of data which finally led to the fully functional, Longmynd Receiver on the RPI. The implementation has been used as the software basis for three new receivers, is fully Open Source (available on GitHUB), has been widely adopted in the ATV community. Longmynd is a two, significant, awards for innovation in the Amateur radio world.

Getting started with Traefik
Container Edge Router / Reverse Proxy

Containers enable quick installation of new applications and scaling of existing apps. Then comes exposing them to users, load balancing across replicas — even at home. Reverse proxies are a great at exposing services, terminating SSL, and modify traffic during a request. Traefik is a popular reverse proxy for exposing containers because of its flexibility, as a load balancers, and its but ability to with Docker, Kubernetes, Let's Encrypt, and more.

We will demonstrate the whys and hows of running Traefik at home and in an enterprise. To follow along with demos:

• Pre-install Docker, including docker-compose.
• Expose port 443 to the internet too to use Let's Encrypt.

Traefik works on ARM so it works well on a Raspberry Pi. Knowledge of containers will help, but isn't necessary — we'll review the important stuff as we go.

Michael and Phil are Docker Captains from Virginia Tech.

CentOS Is Not Dead

— The rumors of CentOS' death are wildly exaggerated —

On December 8, 2020, Red Hat announced a big change for the CentOS project. Peter Larsen from Red Hat will talk about the changes and how it brings CentOS ("Stream") than CentOS Linux is today. He will discuss how Fedora, CentOS and RHEL get software, updates and how the process works. The process of converting CentOS Linux to CentOS Stream will also be described.