Summary

Here's topics, links, slideshows and scripts from previous PLUG meetings.  Enjoy!

July 2006

VoIP using Asterisk (Trevor Merrit)

Trevor demonstrated how he is saving his store money by making all his long distance calls over his broadband Internet. All his calls inbound and outbound are also managed by a single PC running a custom Linux distribution called Asterisk. Additional benefits include multiple lines (PBX), call management, call forwarding, voicemail, recording calls and much more.

Asterisk - This is the software you'll need.

June 2006

X-Box Media Centre (Trevor Merritt) & Torrentflux (Scott Tompkins)

Frustrated by technical issues, Jason volunteered his presentation slot to Trevor who did a splendid presentation on turning your X-Box into a media centre. The X-Box can still be used to play games although the box won't be allowed onto X-Box Live anymore. Trevor accomplished this miracle by using a known exploit in the game Splinter Cell, loading Evox, and then XBMC. No modchip was required. Trevor was unusually careful in explaining that by using this software and exploit you were doing things of which Microsoft would most definitely not like and would most certainly void your warranty.

Scott did a terrific presentation of Torrentflux, a BitTorrent client that can be controlled via a web browser from anywhere. Torrentflux requires apache with php4 module, mysql and python 2.2 or better, and Scott showed how to install these other apps and configure them correctly using the command-line in Ubuntu 5.10 although it is noted that all of this can also be done using a graphical package manager. Scott then showed the Torrentflux install and basic configuration and how to start downloading torrents.

XBox Scene - Lots of great tutorials here and forums for help getting started.

XBMC - This is the software that will eventually run on your X-Box.

Torrentflux - Basic setup info is included in the tarball, but also note that link to the Forums if you need help.

May 2006

BitTorrent: Getting Started (Jason Wallwork)

A presentation on what BitTorrent is and why it's a better way of getting large and popular files, including Linux ISOs. Also an introduction to Azureus, a BitTorrent client written in Java that runs on Linux (and Windows, incidentally).

How BitTorrent Works - There are some excellent diagrams here that I used during the presentation.

BitTorrent Frequently Asked Questions - The official website has this great section on using BitTorrent. You can also download the official BitTorrent client here although we think Azureus is the client most preferred by PLUG members.

Azureus - This is the client that appears to be most used by PLUG members. As long as you have Java installed, just download the Azureus tarball, extract and run the Azureus shell script.

Some members commented that they found Azureus chewed up a lot of resources. One setting (amongst) many that you can try if this happens is under Tools --> Options --> Performance Options. Change the size of cache to 32 MB (and click Save). Also, set the maximum upload rate to no more than 80% of your ISP's maximum. Otherwise, you may find your bandwidth severly congested (as in dial-up surfing and downloading speeds).

April 2006

OpenSSH Basics & Uses (Jason Wallwork)

A presentation mainly on what SSH is and how to use the OpenSSH client for Linux. There are a couple of tricks for those that already known SSH. The text format of the presentation is a fairly detailed walkthrough while the slideshow is more of a visual reminder of the main points.

• Tutorial in OpenOffice.org Writer format - 24 KB

• Tutorial in OpenOffice.org Impress format - 59 KB

April 2004

Encrypted Emails using Seahorse and Evolution (Chris Garland)

• Slideshow (OpenOffice.org Impress format, HTML) - Using secure email is easy with Evolution and Seahorse

   

March 2004

Thin Client Project (Harry Ellis)

• Slideshow (KPresenter 1.2 format, HTML) - Report on K12LTSP setup at Reboot using old Pentiums as thin clients and a PII server

GRUB - The Other Sister (Jason Wallwork)

• Slideshow (OpenOffice.org 1.1 Impress format, HTML) - for users familiar with LILO, showing differences in configuration file and using the GRUB console

   

February 2004

Backups (Clint Gilders)

• Slideshow (PDF) - Using tar, gzip, bzip2, rsync, cp to backup files even remotely

The Big Hard Drive Project - Part Deux (Harry Ellis)

• Slideshow (KPresenter 1.2 format not presently available, Check out the online version instead) - How LILO is setup, how to avoid problems.

January 2004

Installing Browser Plugins (Harry Ellis)

• Slideshow (KPresenter 1.2 format, HTML slideshow presently unavailable) - Step-by-step Flash player install for Mozilla/Konqueror

Compiling the 2.6 Kernel (Jason Wallwork)

• Slideshow (OpenOffice 1.1.0 Impress format, PDF, HTML) -Reasons for compiling your own kernel and new features of the 2.6 series

   

November 2003

Adding another hard drive in Linux (Trevor Merritt)

• Mounting new drive, moving files from cramped /home partition to new drive, reconfiguring Linux to see new drive as /home

A look at OS X (Trevor Merritt)

• We had some extra time left, so Trevor gave us a tour of the Macintosh OS X operating system.

   

September 2003

CrossOver Office (CodeWeavers Developer)

• What it does, how it works, how much it costs

Older Slideshows

Three Easy Linux Installs (Harry Ellis, July 2003)

Running Windows applications inside Linux (Jason Wallwork, June 2003)

The Big Hard Drive Project (Harry Ellis, May 2003) - Multi-booting several Linux distributions

Streaming MP3s over a network (Clint Gilders, April 2003)

• Slideshow (PDF)
  

• Perl script for generating playlists. To download, right click this link, and use Save Link As or Save Target As.