Clean up this Misssoula group list

[Dan Hubing]

Hello everyone;

You may or may not know that I'm starting up a new Linux User Group, based at the Missoula Public Library.  Last summer, I started with Linux by updating the Windows 10 Makerspace laptops to Linux Mint Cinnamon.  I also facilitate a monthly Windows User Group at the Library and decided to start a monthly meeting for Linux users as well.

Another project, I've started, is to help Windows users migrate to Linux by offering a free support session to assist with the installation of Linux Mint and invite these new Linux users to the monthly Library, Linux User Group meetings.  

So, to that end I'd like to clean up this Google group to only include folks that are still interested in participating.  If you are not interested in this participation, please remove your email address from this group.

I'd like to offer membership to this group for the new Linux users, as a "local" Linux community to offer support and a means of discussion of Linux topics, all local to Missoula. (I'm open to any other ideas as well.) 

I have a Google website that contains information on the "Linux Install Support" project, to assist others in installing Linux Mint.  

If you are interested, here's the link:  https://sites.google.com/view/linuxinstall

I'm open to any comments or suggestions.

Monthly meetings at the Library, for the Linux User Group, can be found by going to the Library's website and searching for the word "Linux".  Then select the Linux User Group to find the dates, time and location of the next meeting.  Hopefully some of you can participate.

Here's the Library's website link: https://www.missoulapubliclibrary.org/  

Thanks; 

Dan Hubing (Makerspace volunteer)

 

[Seth McClain]

I think it is fine for folks to stay subscribed to this group. I
don't believe any clean up is warranted.

What types of linux related projects have folks been working on lately?

I've been dabbling with a Zoneminder setup.

Has anyone used Home Assistant, WeeWX, or other neat self hosted services?

Seth McClain

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[robert bowman]

I play around with Arduinos, Picos, Raspberry Pi, ML, Web maps etc.  Except for the Pi I can't say any are Linux related. Almost all the tools I use are cross platform. I prefer Linux to Windows but I could do almost everything on Windows.  The flip side is except for some Esri coding using their ArcObjects SDK there wasn't much I had to use Windows for. 

[Richard Werst]

I'm not sure what I can provide to the group...I've used the Ubuntu version of Linux, exclusively, for nearly 20 years...Initially, for my wife's counseling office, we needed to have a Windows machine for the medical billing/patient software system, but I was actually able to get it running on Linux, using WINE...I am interested in Ham Radio, Software Defined Radio as an aspect of that, as well as electronics (bucket list thing), music recording, and transferring old analog audio to digital...at 75, I'm not nearly as active as I once was -- there's a joke in there somewhere, and living in Alberton I don't get into Missoula very often...I do have a LOT of older hardware, which I've kept, thinking it could/would be useful at some point (for emergency communication, and accessing information in older media formats)...Richard Werst

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[Seth McClain]

Richard, I'm interested in hearing what types of things you've done
with Ham Radio and SDRs!

Robert, What type of Pi projects are interesting to you? Is the web
mapping using openstreetmap or something else?

Seth McClain

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[robert bowman]

Back in the '90s one of the attractions of Linux was it supported AX.25 which was used for packet radio.  The thrill of 1200 baud nets wore off. afaik HARC's packet repeater is down and I don't know if it will be back up. The packet people weren't all that popular at meetings back then. I've got a RTL-SDR dongle and used it on Windows, mostly for ADS-B.

My Pi/Arduino stuff is pretty basic. I've got a homemade two wheel chassis with an Arduino that currently is steerable with photo transistors and a flashlight.  I've got a commercial 4 wheel chassis that I have to work on and probably will ultimately control it with  nrf24L01 modules or I might migrate to a Pico 2 W although that might be overkill. 

I'm  using leaflet.js with OSM for the basemap tiles. The backend is node/express.   I have a fitness tracker that saves track information as a gpx file. Leaflet has a gpx plugin that is pretty funky and can only handle one track so I have a C program to convert the gpx to GeoJSON which can be handled by leaflet.  I get distracted easily so that led me down the rabbit hole of comparing bun and deno as alternatives to node.  That's sort of the story of my life. Look, a squirrel !   

[Kevin Locke]

On Sun, 2026-01-18 at 10:47 -0700, Seth McClain wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 15, 2026 at 10:30 AM Dan Hubing <hubi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> You may or may not know that I'm starting up a new Linux User Group, based at the Missoula Public Library. Last summer, I started with Linux by updating the Windows 10 Makerspace laptops to Linux Mint Cinnamon. I also facilitate a monthly Windows User Group at the Library and decided to start a monthly meeting for Linux users as well.
>>
>> Another project, I've started, is to help Windows users migrate to Linux by offering a free support session to assist with the installation of Linux Mint and invite these new Linux users to the monthly Library, Linux User Group meetings.

Kudos for your work on both of those!

>> So, to that end I'd like to clean up this Google group to only include folks that are still interested in participating. If you are not interested in this participation, please remove your email address from this group.

I'm curious why you want people who are unable/unwilling to
participate to remove themselves? Can you clarify what you mean by
"participating"? Does it include people like me who no longer live in
Missoula, but are interested in what's going on and happy to
contribute to the discussion?

> I've been dabbling with a Zoneminder setup.

Neat! I've heard good things, but never used it. Curious to hear how
it goes.

> Has anyone used Home Assistant, WeeWX, or other neat self hosted services?

I've been running WeeWX on a Raspberry Pi for many years[1] and have
contributed a few minor changes.[2] I'm a fan and would be happy to
chat about it.

I've also been running OpenWrt on a variety of devices for a long
time. Most of my work on 'em has been related to IPsec VPNs (which
are still exceedingly painful).

My next project is cobbling together a NAS running openmediavault,
which is new to me. Curious to see how it works!

Cheers,
Kevin

[1]: https://sourdough.kevinlocke.name/weewx/
[2]: https://github.com/weewx/weewx/pulls?q=is%3Apr+author%3Akevinoid+is%3Aclosed

[Dan Hubing]

I “was” thinking of using this Google Groups for the new Library’s Linux User Group collaboration app. It appears we may be using a different app instead, maybe Discord. 

Since this Google Groups for has been inactive for a couple years, maybe it’s time to update it’s membership. Thats all - no worries, all good. 

Dan Hubing. 

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[Seth McClain]

Kevin,

That WeeWX system is beautiful! Which weather station(s) are you using for it?

Having a good robust NAS system would be great. "Eventually" I plan
on having something better than a VM running samba. I wonder if
openmediavault could help.

Hardware like this seems like it would be perfect, but I don't think
it is available any more https://kobol.io/
If there is something close to the Helios64 by kobol I'm very interested!


Richard and Robert,

This weekend is Winter Field Day for the HARC (Hellgate Area Radio
Club) at Fort Missoula (the church cabin?). It will be going from 9am
Saturday to 3pm Sunday. I doubt folks will be there overnight though.
I plan on being there for part of it.

I only have my Technician license, but someday I might make the time
to get General. I can't participate in the local nets with the
hardware I have at my location, so I want to get something better for
my car. Pi-Star could be neat, or something along those lines.

KV4P looks neat too!

I'd eventually like a system that can show the waterfall on android
auto, but that seems pretty unlikely.

Robert,

I didn't realize ESRI was ArcGIS. That seems quite powerful! I think
the county uses it.

Dan,

I'm interested in participating in the new group at times. I'm open
to helping new users with things. I'd prefer to do it after work
during the week sometime.

Seth

On Sun, Jan 18, 2026 at 4:29 PM Kevin Locke <ke...@kevinlocke.name> wrote:
>

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[Dan Hubing]

Seth, I’ve reserved Tuesday, March 24’th for a 5:30 -7:30pm for an after work Linux User Group meeting. The Jan & Feb are on Saturdays early afternoon, to see who wants a weekend meeting. Maybe me could have every other Sat / Weekday for our meetings.

Dan 

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[Kevin Locke]

On Tue, 2026-01-20 at 07:53 -0700, Seth McClain wrote:
> That WeeWX system is beautiful! Which weather station(s) are you using for it?

Thanks, I'm glad you like it! I tried to contribute the plotly.js
graph generator upstream, but unfortunately it was rejected.[1] I've
been hoping to reimplement it using the built-in JSON generator, so it
can be shared as a skin, but haven't had the time. However, it should
be possible to do something similar with the Highcharts extension.[2]

> Having a good robust NAS system would be great. "Eventually" I plan
> on having something better than a VM running samba. I wonder if
> openmediavault could help.
>
> Hardware like this seems like it would be perfect, but I don't think
> it is available any more https://kobol.io/
> If there is something close to the Helios64 by kobol I'm very interested!

I agree. Kobol would have been great for my project too. The closest
currently-available hardware I found is the UGREEN NASync Series.[3]
It's UGOS Pro operating system is based on Debian and they officially
allow installing other OSes without voiding the warranty.[4]

Cheers,
Kevin

[1]: https://github.com/weewx/weewx/pull/364
[2]: https://github.com/rwg0/weewx-highcharts/
[3]: https://nas.ugreen.com/pages/ugreen-nasync-series
[4]: https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Ugreen

[Kevin Locke]

On Tue, 2026-01-20 at 10:16 -0700, Kevin Locke wrote:
> On Tue, 2026-01-20 at 07:53 -0700, Seth McClain wrote:
>> That WeeWX system is beautiful! Which weather station(s) are you using for it?
>
> Thanks, I'm glad you like it! I tried to contribute the plotly.js
> graph generator upstream, but unfortunately it was rejected.[1] I've
> been hoping to reimplement it using the built-in JSON generator, so it
> can be shared as a skin, but haven't had the time. However, it should
> be possible to do something similar with the Highcharts extension.[2]

Sorry, I forgot to answer your question! For the last couple years
we've been using a Davis Vantage Vue.[1] It's a little pricey, but
quite good. Before that we were using an Oregon Scientific WM918.[2]
It was workable, but not the best quality.

Cheers,
Kevin

[1]: https://www.davisinstruments.com/pages/vantage-vue
[2]: https://www.oregonscientificstore.com/p-318-oregon-scientific-wm918-professional-home-weather-station.aspx