CHLUG - June Meeting

[Bryan Quigley]

Hi All,

I believe we discussed previously about trying to do a talk for June.  The only time I could reserve a room at the Voorhees library was:

Room: Voorhees Meeting Room - B
Branch: Voorhees
Date(s): Friday, June 03, 2011
Time: 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Reminder for me: Please fill out the Use of Facility Form that is found in the room and deposit in the box located.

Who wants to give a talk?

Also, I will be at several Philly Tech Week events. Anyone else going?

Thanks,
Bryan

[David A. Harding]

In message <BANLkTi=240OqNjoD0saC...@mail.gmail.com>, Bryan Quigley wrote:
> Date(s): Friday, June 03, 2011
> Time: 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
>

> Who wants to give a talk?

I'd love to give a 45-minute talk about hacking the Linux-powered
Linksys NSLU2.

Of all the toys I've bought or built in 10 years of using Linux, nothing
has impressed my non-techy family and friends more than when I pull out
my Android phone or Maemo PDA and pause the music on my stereo receiver.

What they don't see is the tiny, low-power, $10 NSLU2 plugged into
the back of my receiver. The NSLU2 holds my entire music collection
plus a complete Debian GNU/Linux operating system and the Music Player
Daemon (MPD).

The NSLU2, whose users affectionately call it "slug", can be controlled
by MPD clients that run on almost every operating system--Linux,
Windows, Android, OS X, iPhone, PalmOS, Windows Mobile, Maemo, Symbian,
and Meego. The Complete current list of clients has almost 200 entries:

http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/Clients

## Picture And Presentation Overview

Here's a picture of my slug being controlled simultaneously by my phone
and PDA:

http://dave.dtrt.org/slug.png

In the presentation, I'll tell you how to install Linux on a 133
MHz, 32 MB ARM processor that lacks even a floating-point CPU. (You
can see why we call it a slug. I won't demo the install because it
takes forrrrrrrrever.) I'll also show you the $16 of extra hardware
you need to connect a slug to a typical stereo receiver. I'll even
bring a Kill-A-Watt so we can measure how much (how little!) power
the slug draws.

## CHLUG Karaoke!

No, no--not real karaoke--goodness save us from that, but you will be
able to play along with the presentation if you bring a computer, PDA,
or smartphone with an MPD client installed. Here are some programs that
should work; you only need one MPD client for each device you bring (but
you can have more):

* Linux/*BSD:
* GNOME Music Player Client (GTK, Debian/Ubuntu package name: gmpc)
* ncmpc (ncurses, Debian/Ubuntu: ncmpc)
* mpc (command line, Debian/Ubuntu: mpc)
* Android:
* MPDroid (by Soreha; free)
* Maemo
* Maemo Music Player Client (package name: mmpc; installed size: 0.6 MB)
* iPhone OS
* MPoD (See http://www.katoemba.net/makesnosenseatall/mpod/ )
* More, see list at http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/Clients

Just install the MPD client app and I'll show you in just one step how
to connect to my slug at the meeting. Multiple people can connect at the
same time, so you'll all have plenty of fun messing around with my music
collection.

## Questions About The Vorhees Library

I've never been there, so can someone please answer the following
questions so I can adapt my presentation accordingly:

1. Will there be free wifi?
2. Is it open or will I need to configure each device to access it?
(E.g. access keys or agree-to-terms-in-Web-browser)
3. Will we have a VGA-compatible projector? (I don't really need one
for the presentation, but it'd be nice.)
4. Will there be any open ethernet ports in the room which route to
the wifi network? (The slug only has an ethernet port--I can
route its connection through my netbook, but using the Library's
connection would save me the hassle.)
5. ESSENTIAL: will there be an available power outlet in the room?
6. Is there anything else I should know about the Library, the
meeting room, or the network?

Also, I'd really appreciate if someone can give a 15 minute or longer
presentation before my presentation so I can set up my hardware.

## WARNING

There are some problems with using the NSLU2 as a media player--for
example, its lack of a floating-point unit prevents it from playing
several types of audio, including MP3s encoded at 48000 Hz or Ogg
Vorbis files with experimental features.

Because of these problems, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you listen to my
presentation before you invest any money into a slug. I'll tell you
about all the problems I've found, show you some scripts I've written to
work around them, and tell you about the hardware other slug users are
starting to use which is much, much more powerful and only a bit more
expensive.

Also, slugs are currently selling for $40-50 on eBay[1], but I'll tell you
how you can get one for only $10 (plus about $10 shipping).

http://completed.shop.ebay.com/i.html?LH_Complete=1&rt=nc&LH_Auction=1&_nkw=nslu2

Hope to see you all at the June 3rd Meeting,

-Dave

P.S. There's also more you can do with a slug, of course--it does run a
full Debian operating system capable of installing all 27,583
Debian packages that have been ported to armtel. If we have time,
I'll tell you some of the other things I've tried to do with
mine--like running an always-on BitTorrent client or using
Wake-On-LAN to turn on my desktop when I was hundreds of miles
away from home.
--
David A. Harding Website: http://dtrt.org/
Email: da...@dtrt.org
Jabber/XMPP: dhar...@jabber.org

[Bryan Quigley]

Sounds great

1. Will there be free wifi?

Yes

2. Is it open or will I need to configure each device to access it?

Open one per floor   appears to just work

3. Will we have a VGA-compatible projector? (I don't really need one
for the presentation, but it'd be nice.)

I can look into this but might have to change rooms

4. Will there be any open ethernet ports in the room which route to
the wifi network?

There is a ethernet port labeled data... Will ask about it

5. ESSENTIAL: will there be an available power outlet in the room?

Yes

6. Is there anything else I should know about the Library, the
meeting room, or the network?

The room is on the third floor

Sent from my Linux-powered Palm Pre

[David A. Harding]

In message <4db32ce2.52a3...@mx.google.com>, Bryan Quigley wrote:

> David A. Harding <da...@dtrt.org> wrote:
> > 3. Will we have a VGA-compatible projector? (I don't really need one
> > for the presentation, but it'd be nice.)
>
> I can look into this but might have to change rooms

If there's no projector, that's not a problem for me--when I tap on my
phone and music starts playing, I think people will figure out what just
happened. :-)

If it turns out there is a projector, please let me know so I can
prepare a few slides.

(The answers to the rest of the questions were exactly what I needed.
Thanks, Bryan.)

-Dave