February Raspberry Pi meeting

[tom r lopes]

First Sunday of the month Feb 2, 2020 at Cafe Blue Door 11 am to 2 pm.  

As always:  

- The meeting is in a shared public space, and I expect that we can respect the business 

- and other patrons. 

- I will bring a power strip with a couple usb power outputs, but it has been pretty much 

- BYOPi (Bring Your Own Pi)  

- That said, if you have an idea and just need some stuff to try out, let me know and I'll 

- bring it if I can.  

- It is not exclusive to the Pi computer.  But anything in the DIY or Maker ethos is good. 

So on the Conspire list (http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire) it was suggested that this event 

be included in the BALE list (http://linuxmafia.com/bale/)  Now we are official thanks to Rick.  

Rick did point out that the Berkeley Pi meeting has no web presence.  I'll try to fix that as soon as possible.  

Seems appropriate to actually host the webpage on a Pi.  I am thinking a Pi 3 hosting a webpage that 

announces meetings and meeting notes.  That might be what I'll work on this Sunday.  

Also on the agenda:  Discuss March meeting.  

This years Pi Jam is on the Leap day weekend (Feb 29 and March 1) 

https://www.raspberrypi.org/jam/big-birthday-weekend/ (for me the link is showing last years 2019, 

hopefully they'll update soon for 2020)  The Raspberry Pi was introduced 8 years ago!  

This coincides with our regular meeting so I'll try to get us on the official Pi Jam map.  But it is already kinda 

late.  Maybe I'll just slap together a quick eventbright page and apply for a spot on the Pi Jam map.  

Also the Arduino anniversary is on March 21'st.  Should we have an event then?  

Or Π day 3.14, March 14th

Thomas

[tom r lopes]

March: 

Ok so Pi day (March 1) for the anniversary is now official.  

Check out Berkeley on the map https://www.raspberrypi.org/jam/#map-section 

To get listed by Pi Foundation rules you need an event page with a link to 

the foundations child safety guidelines.  

So I created an eventbright page https://www.eventbrite.com/e/berkeley-raspberry-pi-jam-tickets-91996019571

 I made it with 5 spots as I am worried about space.  

Not sure if the official meeting kit (placards and signs) will arrive in time.  So my little sign will have to do.  

I am trying to get my friend Phil to come by (in March) to give a little talk or presentation.  I'll try to confirm next week 

when we have a face to face.  Right now he has texted "sounds fun"  He has Pi's as media server and Pi-hole and others 

turning on fans and pumps for heating and cooling.  Also for work he has a set of Pi Zero's in gadget mode which 

allow him to configure headless servers (I don't know how it works - he has said the code is proprietary but maybe 

he can explain a little anyways)

I am interested in any leads toward speaker or demonstration.  

Also Peter Mui has our meeting listed on his Meetup group: https://www.meetup.com/Raspberry-Pi-SF-Bay-Area/events/nnqnnrybcdbdb/ 

February: 

Tomorrow.  Evidently there is some Sports Ball thing going on (you see how clueless I am.  Only found out this week) .  That should 

mean that we will have plenty space and ample close-by parking.  You are all welcome to come by.  

Thomas

[Rick Moen]

Quoting tom r lopes (tomr...@gmail.com):

> Rick did point out that the Berkeley Pi meeting has no web presence.
> I'll try to fix that as soon as possible. Seems appropriate to
> actually host the webpage on a Pi. I am thinking a Pi 3 hosting a
> webpage that announces meetings and meeting notes. That might be what
> I'll work on this Sunday.

That (running it on a RPi) would be kind of awesome -- and exemplify the
'eat your own dog food' ethos that we LUG greybeards spent a lot of time
talking about.

(When I say 'talking about', I mean in late-1990s pieces like this, which
I maintain still are worth dusting off:
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Linux_PR/newlug.html )

> February:
> Tomorrow. Evidently there is some Sports Ball thing going on.

No foolin'? ;->

--
Cheers, "It's still magic even if you know how it's done."
Rick Moen -- Terry Pratchett, _A Hat Full of Sky_
ri...@linuxmafia.com
McQ! (4x80)

[tom r lopes]

Ok here and sorry for being late.  There is a group already here taking up 

most of the tables but now it is clearing up.  

I'm at a small table at the window.  

If the large table opens up i'll move there.  

Thomas

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[Rick Moen]

Quoting tom r lopes (tomr...@gmail.com):

> Ok here and sorry for being late. There is a group already here taking up
> most of the tables but now it is clearing up.
>
> I'm at a small table at the window.
>
> If the large table opens up i'll move there.

Sorry to have missed you, Thomas. Deirdre and I arrived about 11:10am,
waited around for a while, and double-checked this Google Group for any
'I'll be a little late' or 'We've moved to $FOO' posting, and saw none.
So, we appear to have narrowly missed your arrival when we gave up and
drove home -- but it was a pleasant drive both ways, and I got to see
many old Berkeley haunts.

On the other matter you posted about, I hear that it's Superb Owl Sunday,
so I'm intending to spend some time this afternoon at one of our local
hilly parks, hoping to sight a Great Horned Owl.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article239788423.html

[tom r lopes]

Oh Rick I am very sorry.  

I got there around 11 and there was a line of people waiting to sit down.  I left to try to find a new spot and 

no luck.  So I thought that closer to lunch would be easier and yes then I got a table (noonish)  

My bad. I should have at least posted on the list the troubles I was having.  

Next month for the anniversary event I'll have to arrive early and reserve a spot.  

So eventually it was me and Bob Smith and Peter Mui.  

Peter gave out some Intel Edison boards.  Intel's foray to IOT.  Which they have 

now given up on.  I think it is still useful even with Intel dropping support as it runs 

Linux and is supported by the Arduino IDE.  

Bob and Peter had Pi's with the official touchscreen.  Bob also had a battery power 

shield/hat for the Pi and an RTL-SDR dongle.  

I tried to install LAMP on a Pi3.  Nginx for the web server and MariaDB.  Using this guide: 

https://howtoraspberrypi.com/install-wordpress-on-a-raspberry-pi-with-nginx/  But having 

trouble with the MySQL commands.  

Anyways, I brought along a WRT54G router and configured it in "client mode" connecting to 

Blue Door Cafe wifi.  That worked at least!  Bringing my own router makes it easy to ssh into 

a headless Pi.  

We got some interest from a student sharing the table.  He is studying programming and 

got a Pi to run a toy car that can be controlled by a smartphone.  But he hasn't even 

started.  

A big point of the meeting is to get all these Pi's out of the drawer and get it actually doing 

something.  I have the same trouble: a lot of ideas but not so much the skill or dedication.  

I hope to fix all that, though.  

Thomas

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[Rick Moen]

Quoting tom r lopes (tomr...@gmail.com):

> Oh Rick I am very sorry.

Seriously, don't worry. I love visiting Berkeley, which has all sorts
of good memories and special places for me, and for reasons I discussed
with you on the telephone a short while ago, I was really delighted to
have a nice Sunday road trip to there and back.

> So eventually it was me and Bob Smith and Peter Mui. Peter gave out
> some Intel Edison boards. Intel's foray to IOT. Which they have now
> given up on. I think it is still useful even with Intel dropping
> support as it runs Linux and is supported by the Arduino IDE.

Affirmative. Much fun can be had:
https://www.linux.com/tutorials/intel-edison-linux-maker-machine-matchbox/
It's kind of impressive to get a dual-core Atom CPU, 1GB RAM, 4GB of
flash storage, _and_ Arduino compatibility on something the size of an
SD card (1/6 the size of a RPi). Especially given out for free: Intel
had spec'd this for a $50 price point, about.

As the (above-cited) article points out, the GPIO pins running at a
(low) 1.8 volts is an obstacle to doing much analogue-ey stuff until you
do voltage shifting with ancillary hardware.

It'll run some major distros, or at least walk them briskly. (Comes
preloaded with Yocto Linux image for Edison.)

Part II of that article series:
https://www.linux.com/tutorials/interact-intel-edison-using-sparkfun-blocks/

> Bob and Peter had Pi's with the official touchscreen. Bob also had a
> battery power shield/hat for the Pi and an RTL-SDR dongle. I tried to
> install LAMP on a Pi3. Nginx for the web server and MariaDB. Using
> this guide:
> https://howtoraspberrypi.com/install-wordpress-on-a-raspberry-pi-with-nginx/
> But having trouble with the MySQL commands.

The MySQL command-line interface is a pain in the tochis. On any system
where you have PHP going, you can help yourself a great deal by using
the Adminer tool, a single-piece PHP front-end to MySQL (and thus to
MariaDB):

https://www.adminer.org/
(As the Web page suggests, the author was inspired to write it by just
how ghastly a piece bloatware spaghetti code the _other_ thing usually
suggested, phpMyAdmin, is. He succeeded in vastly surpassing the
competition, by making something that's equally functional, but tiny and
fast.)

Once you've gotten used to that, having to deal with /usr/bin/mysql will
seem like wearing the hair shirt, trust me.

> A big point of the meeting is to get all these Pi's out of the drawer
> and get it actually doing something. I have the same trouble: a lot
> of ideas but not so much the skill or dedication. I hope to fix all
> that, though.

Respects for that. Next time I attend, I can use the occasion to
motivate me to do something with my spare WRT54G.

--
Cheers, "Why doesn't anyone invite copyeditors to parties,
Rick Moen when we're such cool people out with whom to hang?"
ri...@linuxmafia.com -- @laureneoneal (Lauren O'Neal)
McQ! (4x80)