[sf-lug] SF-LUG meeting notes for Monday, 20 May 2019

[Bobbie Sellers]

Hi LUGers,

     Well I have been a bit tired and busy so these notes were delayed.

     I arrived about 5:30 PM and had my Dell E6520 set up and online by
5:35.
     I had expected certain parties to show up and they did not but that is
Ok.  They can get what they need at the next meeting or the one after
that.

     Aaron C. showed up about 5:55 and he brought along his ancient
Dell Inspiron which is big and heavy.  It has display defects and some
problems getting online with the tools he was using.  I think we finally
managed that.  Everyone coming to the meeting and wishing to use
Wireless connections should know that Cafe Enchante has changed
the password to "notredame" by the way.  This happened since the
disastrous fire in Paris recently.   Aaron also donated some CDs
containing PLOP images on 5 inch disks for older computers and
some other live utility disks.  PLOP lets computer not designed
to boot from Flash Drives and other media to do so.

     John the Qubes user showed up and we discussed a few things like
why I use Mandriva forks like PCLinusOS 64, but he is very happy with
Qubes after having used several other systems.

     About 7 Jim Stockford showed up to eat some supper and read some
magazines as we discussed what was news.  Jim is selective in his
email reading and had not heard about the so-called "Zombieload"
problem.  He enjoyed reading maddog's column about Open Hardware
and how the Maddog believes it will conquer especially with all the
problems Intel built into the x86 cpu chips.

     I booted up SuperX Linux 5.0 and explored a bit more.  This is
designed for beginners and restricts normal choices from KDE's Plasma 5.
You cannot change the Dashboard style menu, you cannot create new
task panels.  So I think children who have learned to read could use this
but I think they would find the limits on choice to chafe after they got
over the joy of having such a tool.  I leave it to the users to ask 
about the
special tool to remove such restriction when they start getting creative
with the interface.  It has all the tools one might need to do homework
in this modern age.

     Then I booted up Emmabuntüs and this is another distribution based
on XFCE.  This is a very lively looking distribution suitable for an 
older beginner
or school child.  It has some hidden menus but the main tools are the
Icons on a colorful Cairo dock some few open programs and other open
folders to show more programs.
         XFCE is enhanced by the choice of the Cairo dock.
The Cairo dock is on the bottom center of the display.  At the top is
a task bar which can display loaded programs.  On the Dock is
a square of 4 smaller squares which is the pager allowing you
to change to another virtual desktop.  It has a LibreOffice Suite,
a few games and  it was easy to get the Wireless connected.

     Besides that I had a copy of Fedora's Astronomy Lab which
I downloaded for a friend in the Central Valley and will be mailing
it to him later this week.  I was surprised to see how many
astronomy programs were featured, some for viewing and
some for calculations.  It uses KDE Plasma 5 and it seems
to work very well.  My only quarrel is that it uses DNFDragora
for a package manager.

     I started packing up about 7:45 PM and Jim Stockford kindly gave
me a ride home and took Aaron on to his next stop.  John the Qubes
user continued to use the Wireless at the Cafe as we left.

     Anyone attending the meeting is free to correct my omissions or
incomprehension of the activities and asked to do so asap so that the
membership not in attendance will not be mis-informed any longer
than necessary.

     The next meeting will be on June 2, 2019 at the Cafe Enchante
from 11 AM to 1 PM.
     Not sure what I will have at that meeting but so far have gotten
a version of RoboLinux and will have a couple of versions of Kali
the well-known security distribution.  Hopefully Mageia 7 will be
finished shortly and released.   More information by Monday
May 27.

     Don't forget Memorial Day coming up next weekend.

     Bobbie Sellers