[sf-lug] SF Lug meeting Sunday May 1st, 2014

[Bobbie Sellers]

    SF-LUG meets every first Sunday of the month from
11 A.M. to 1 P.M. at the Cafe Enchante, 26th and Geary Boulevard.

    These meetings are usually lightly attended with a high for the
year so far of 12 members.   If you have a problem come along
and maybe we can help but if not we can usually find someone
who can.
    Last week I got the latest issue of Linux Pro magazine which I will
 bring along. This arrived on the news stand only about 3 weeks
late.
    It contains a double-sided DVD with open Suze 13.1 and
Mageia 4 which both are x86_64 versions.  Both are suitable for
installation on later model x86_64 machines.
     Many interesting articles.

    Well have you heard of TAILS aka the amnesic incognito live system,
I downloaded an iso and made a bootable disk.   This operates online
only through TOR for maximum security.
     If you need more information check the URL below.
    <https://tails.boum.org/about/index.en.html#index1h1>

    And then there is the Boot Repair Disk for fixing problems with
EFI/UEFI setups on more recent machines.

    Now I belong to a general discussion list "Team *Amiga* and some
how the talk turned to the modern GUI which some referred to as
a "ribbon" interface and complained about how it takes away scant
usable space especially on the wide 1368 x768 display of consumer
model notebook devices.
     So using KDE I rearranged the interface to a columnar mode which
I am using now and hope to be able to show off at the next meeting. 
The actual use may show problems but I am gradually refining the
disposition of icons and pagers on dual task bars set to either side of
the display area.   KDE was not really designed for this but it seems to
work and gives me a bit more vertical space to show programs. A few
more lines of textual display.
    I presume as well that this computer bought on the 14th of May will
still be up and running.  It was an emergency buy since the SATA interface
on my old Compaq notebook failed.  I was not able to afford a lot of the
features I wanted in my next 'book but I have a .hdmi output, and 2 of
3 USB ports are USB 3 and it has an AMD A10 4 core cpu.  Seems to run
a lot cooler than the Compaq and it is a full pound lighter.

       Meeting times are strictly nominal which means that I try
to show up on time or actually ahead of time, in case I have
to trouble shoot my set-up.  We leave if no other  interested
parties show up up by 7:30 Monday nights or 12:30  PM on
 Sundays.  On the other hand if you bring an interesting problem
or discussion we may hang out until long after the nominal time
to end the meeting.

    Thanks for your attention!

    Bobbie Sellers