Next Meeting virtual again. This Sunday the 14th

[tom r lopes]

It is the same URL same phone number and pin.  

11am till whenever Sunday June 14th 2020 

tom-desktop is inviting you to a meeting.

Join the meeting:
https://meet.jit.si/berkeleylug

# Go the above URL in any modern web browser.  Jitsi Meet uses webrtc so

# you may see the best results from Chrome based browsers.  

# There is a desktop client.  

# Find it on the Jitsi GitHub here: https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-electron

# Download the appimage and chmod +x or in the gui right click - select properties 

# - allow executing as a program

# There is a possibility of cybersquatting the room.  This mailing list is public 

# after all.  https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/berkeleylug (You should be 

# able to read posts there without logging in)  But one of us can create a new 

# room and post to the list.  

To join by phone instead, tap this: +1.512.647.1431,,1036197220#

Looking for a different dial-in number?
See meeting dial-in numbers: https://meet.jit.si/static/dialInInfo.html?room=berkeleylug


If also dialing-in through a room phone, join without connecting to audio: https://meet.jit.si/berkeleylug#config.startSilent=true

Thomas

[tom r lopes]

Meeting live now: 

tom-desktop is inviting you to a meeting.

Join the meeting:
https://meet.jit.si/berkeleylug

To join by phone instead, tap this: +1.512.647.1431,,1036197220#

Looking for a different dial-in number?
See meeting dial-in numbers: https://meet.jit.si/static/dialInInfo.html?room=berkeleylug


If also dialing-in through a room phone, join without connecting to audio: https://meet.jit.si/berkeleylug#config.startSilent=true

2 of us here 

Thomas

[tom r lopes]

Nice meeting today.  

Some Berkeley-LUGers haven't been seen in a while, hope you are all OK.  

I went by Blue Door today.  And there are no indications of it opening.   Nor
that it is permanently closed.  We will just have to see.  There doesn't appear to be much info 

online.  Facebook page appears to be dead.  I think it is unlikely for the business to be 

viable without the university.  There is not that much foot traffic.  Especially now 

with the gym across the street closed.  (and track, pool, tennis, etc)  I hope those 

ladies can manage.  

So we may need to consider a new venue when that time of in-person comes back.  

Wait and see.  
https://photos.app.goo.gl/J6abXYJGUmbNhzMAA

(I'll have some 1 to 2TB spinner desktop drives to give away when we do meet 

again.)  

Another reason to use Jitsi vs Zoom: 

https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/4ayxnb/zoom-just-totally-caved-in-to-china-on-censorship

Thomas

[goossbears]

On Sunday, June 14, 2020 at 7:44:11 PM UTC-7, trl wrote:

Nice meeting today.

Yeah, basically Tom L, Michael P, Chris P, myself and then Rick M a bit later on.

One significant part of the Jitsi meetup was helping to resolve Chris's HP printer driver issue (Chris, Rick, Michael and others, pls feel free to jump in about that.)

 

Another reason to use Jitsi vs Zoom: 

https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/4ayxnb/zoom-just-totally-caved-in-to-china-on-censorship

There is also the worrisome and recent wsj.com article 'Tech Firms Are Spying on You. In a Pandemic, Governments Say That’s OK.'

by Sam Schechner, Kirsten Grind and Patience Haggin

http://www.mrbrklyn.com/resources/tracking_and_virus.pdf

IMHO, it's amazing what's happening behind the scenes supposedly for the sole purpose(s) of preventing the spread of COVID-19

# Go the above URL in any modern web browser.  Jitsi Meet uses webrtc so

# you may see the best results from Chrome based browsers.  

# There is a desktop client.  

# Find it on the Jitsi GitHub here: https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-electron

# Download the appimage and chmod +x or in the gui right click - select properties 

# - allow executing as a program

Am still lackadaisically troubleshooting Why the WebRTC-compliance test run on Firefox (https://test.webrtc.org/ ) successfully shows my microphone as operational in both Slackware64 14.2 and Debian-amd64 Stable/buster, but fails to recognize the same microphone in Devuan Beowulf 3.0; all on the same machine.

-Aaron

[Rick Moen]

Quoting goossbears (acoh...@gmail.com):

> Yeah, basically Tom L, Michael P, Chris P, myself and then Rick M a
> bit later on. One significant part of the Jitsi meetup was helping to
> resolve Chris's HP printer driver issue (Chris, Rick, Michael and
> others, pls feel free to jump in about that.)

Most important thing (IMO) is that Chris was still running Ubuntu Linux
14.04 LTS 'Trusty Tahr' -- which means he is running a six-year-old
(2014) distro whose support ended for almost everyone[1] 14 months ago.
So, yeah, its HPLIP drivers package probably wouldn't support recent HP
multifunction printer/scanners -- but the bigger concern is very
outdated software with accumulating security holes.

Thus, my strong recommendation (as was Michael's) to Chris was to fix
that problem first. Probably, doing so would make his printer driver go
away effortlessly, too.


Ubuntu's LTS (long-term support) series since then has been:

o Ubuntu Linux 14.04 LTS 'Trusty Tahr' -- what Chris is still running
o Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS 'Xenial Xerus' -- from 2016
o Ubuntu Linux 18.04 LTS 'Cosmic Cuttlefish' -- from 2018
o Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS 'Focal Fossa' -- from 2020

ISTR that Ubuntu notifies you when there's each new Ubuntu Linux release
(or, if you're tracking LTS, more specifically each new LTS release),
and that you ought to let it go through an upgrade process.
_People really should do so._ If things are working as intended, Chris
would have been prompted three times that he ought to permit upgrade to
a new LTS release.

That having not gone right, our best recommendation was _not_ to attempt
stepwise upgrade three times in a row (possible but slow and
complicated), but rather to back up personal files and any system files
he may have altered, and then do a from-scratch installation (erasing
and re-creating existing partitions) of Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS.
http://mirrors.ocf.berkeley.edu/ubuntu-releases/20.04/

I found and provided to Chris the URL of Ubuntu's blurb about their
current recommended tool ('Startup Disk Creator') for writing out to
things like USB flash drive image files like the ones at the URL in the
prior paragraph.

Here's one such page. (Not sure it's the URL I gave Chris.)
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick#Creating_a_bootable_Ubuntu_USB_flash_drive_from_Ubuntu

There are separate pages & recommended tool about burning the image to a
writeable DVD (old-school ;-> ).

Chris said he doesn't currently have any USB flash drive handy , but
that sounds like a very solvable problem, mail-order or otherwise:
https://www.newegg.com/USB-Flash-Drives/SubCategory/ID-522

[Rick Moen]

Supplying omitted footnote:

> Most important thing (IMO) is that Chris was still running Ubuntu Linux
> 14.04 LTS 'Trusty Tahr' -- which means he is running a six-year-old
> (2014) distro whose support ended for almost everyone[1] 14 months ago.
> So, yeah, its HPLIP drivers package probably wouldn't support recent HP
> multifunction printer/scanners -- but the bigger concern is very
> outdated software with accumulating security holes.

[1] After April 2019, they're offering 'extended support' for a while,
which IIRC means _only_ to people who pay significant money for support
contracts.

[Christian Peeples]

Dear All:

As soon as the thumb drives I ordered from Fry's get here (long story, but I am stuck at an assisted living place without my tools or equipment), I am going to burn an iso of 20.4 LTS and upgrade.

-- Chris Peeples --

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BerkeleyLUG" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to berkeleylug+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/berkeleylug/20200619044322.GT31850%40linuxmafia.com.

[Rick Moen]

Quoting 'Christian Peeples' via BerkeleyLUG (berke...@googlegroups.com):

> As soon as the thumb drives I ordered from Fry's get here (long story, but I am stuck at an assisted living place without my tools or equipment), I am going to burn an iso of 20.4 LTS and upgrade.

Coolness. I think you'll like the many OS-wide improvements, just from
swapping in a current distro version. Also, I predict that your printer
driver _problem_ (a word I accidentally failed to include last time)
will effortlessly go away.

[Michael Paoli]

And ...
once the ISO is at hand on bootable media (USB, or DVD),
before even going about to install it, boot the 20.4 LTS in "live"
mode, and reasonably test it out - make sure it behaves at least
in general, adequately, on the hardware it's intended for.

Ubuntu - very much so, and to somewhat lesser extent, various
*buntu - the hardware requirements do keep creeping up, most notably
in terms of recommended minimum RAM, and also how well (or not) they'll
generally perform for a given amount of host RAM.
If the Ubuntu demands of 20.4 LTS are excessive for the hardware,
it's also possible that some other *buntu variant (it's same
Operating System, just a different Desktop Environment - at least
by default) may perform at least adequately/satisfactorily compared
to Ubuntu.

Note also, however, LTS ... for *buntu variants other
than Ubuntu itself, the LTS support lifetime may be somewhat
shorter (though those may have gotten equal or closer to equal
in more recent years? ... I'm not sure the latest on that, but
it is something to review and consider if deciding to go to
a non-Ubuntu *buntu variant).
E.g., quick peek comparing
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20200423)
vs.
Kubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa"
looks like we have End of Standard Support/Supported Until dates
respectively of:
2025-04 and 2023-04

references/excerpts:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubuntu#Releases