Meeting Notes for January 8, 2005

The meeting was held at the Menomonee Falls Public Library, in the large meeting room. Thanks to Mary Ann Panevska and Roger Jenson for getting this set up at the last minute due to a scheduling glitch with WCTC.

Presentation by Chris Negus

Our speaker was Chris Negus, who has written a number of books about Linux, including the one that was his topic, Linux Toys. He showed us several of the hardware projects from that book, including:

• A home video archive system that could automatically record TV shows after looking up the listings in XML format on the web (and from which you could make bootable movies on CD!).
• A music archiving system that would not only play but rip and catalog a CD when inserted
• A Linux box set up as an arcade machine (came up in runlevel 4 with username being the name of the game you want to play)
• more

He also gave us a peek at what volume II of his book would look like. To avoid having to create (and then maintain) these projects himself, he hopes to enlist existing projects. He also wants to provide a Linux distro with the book that will be able to run the projects.

Some of the possibilities for Linux Toys II include

• X.10 control,
• internet cafe software
• video surveillance
• Lego Mindstorms projects
• a personal firewall
• entertainment and navigation software for your car
• and more.

Stay tuned for the publication of this exciting volume!

Chris brought some of his books with him, and there was a steady stream of people coming up afterward to buy autographed copies and chat with him. We also passed around a cookie jar (actually, an Alterra coffee jar), and were able to give Chris a handsome honorarium that more than covered his gas money (he drove in from the Reedsville area).

Glenn Holmer, Acting Secretary in absence of M.A. Panevska