April Meeting: 2013-04-11
Just a reminder that Thursday next week is the March meeting.
As a quick followup to last month, I managed to get the raspberry pi (RPi) to boot BSD after, so there has been success there.
I also managed to get the RPi to do the multi boot thing as well, so the next thing to try is to see if I can get it to boot FreeBSD as part of the menu system. One of the interesting things is that it can store images and boot from an external USB device, both HDD and USB stick. This allows for some extra flexibility, and maybe allow for a multi boot of BSD versions. Either way, there is a lot to things one can do with an RPi.
I saw a post from last week about using it as an agent for remote monitoring. There is a company exploring it as a product line and I see value in that. It is a very cheap to deploy network monitor for an external monitoring service. That has great potential for the SMB market, either with the offering or rolling your own. I know that xBSD is used for router implementations and secure web servers, etc. and I was wondering if there a BSD based monitoring appliance out there yet?
This could be a useful topic. I don’t see why we don’t have a BSD distribution based monitoring appliance. The tools are there and perhaps one exists and I don’t see it hiding in the plethora of Linux based offerings.
Other topics are welcome, come out and offer a topic or opinion.
For anyone new who does not know the rest of us, look for the table that either has a BSD daemon on the table of a set of BSD daemon horns. If I can find the stuffed daemon, I’ll use that. If not, there will be a small pile of DVDs and a few sets of horns on the table.
Don’t forget that BSDCan 2013 is in May at the university of Ottawa. This is the 10th BSDCan, so expect some event to commemorate it.
If you require directions, visit the website for the location https://ocbug.ca if you need to find out where.
March Meeting: 2013-03-14
Meeting this Thursday: Cafe Colonnade @ 18:00
For directions, see the Meeting Information at the top of the page.
As this is (American dating system) Pi Day, come out and have a slice of Pizza Pi and some social interaction. One item up for discussion is Raspberry Pi and FreeBSD on the device. I’ll have a few spare DVDs for PC-BSD and FreeNAS of anyone is interested.
February 2013 Meeting
Thursday the 14th of February is our regularly scheduled meeting. Nothing special planned, however I have seen tweets from Diane indicating success at installing FreeBSD on a RaspberryPi unit. I have not tried yet, but hope to sometime over the next few weeks. Hopefully Diane will show up and talk about it.
Reminder:
- BSDCan 2013 will be held 17-18 May
- It will be preceeded by two days of tutorials on 15-16 of May
At the User Group Connect event last weekend, one of the attendees was trying to get FreeBSD installed on an ultrabook that has an EFI BIOS. According to what I could dig up, this should be possible, however I don’t have a spare machine with an EFI BIOS to test it on. Perhaps someone has such information and would be willing to share?
User Group Connect 2013 – Feb 09 at Shopify
For those who haven’t heard me talking about it, we are having an “unconference” at Shopify’s headquarters on February 9th. It is an open event any anybody is welcome to come out and see what user groups we have in the region. You can visit the site at ugconnect.ca
UGC 2013:
- Drop in to our free relaxed one day unconference.
- Meet some of the many technical User Groups in Ottawa.
- Chat with fellow high tech workers, and students.
- Meet with some of the most tech-friendly local companies.
Why would we do this?
Not everyone knows about all the user groups – the user groups are doing very interesting stuff and sometimes complementary things that would benefit from knowledge of the topics in other user groups. We want to get these doers in the same room together where they can collaborate with and learn from each other.
Why should you go?
- Meet new people
- Learn about technical groups
- Meet people you haven’t seen in a while
- Invite your ex-co-workers from some ex-employer to meet there, and go for lunch after
- See new technology (or new-to-you technology)
- Try out some new technology
- Play some bzflag
Why should you join a user group?
- Advance your career
- Learn new technologies
- Meet people from other companies that need people to do the same thing you do now
- Meet people from other companies that need your skills to different things that you aren’t doing now
- Bullets on the HR checklist – “learns stuff”, “learns from others”
- Present topics
- even short ones count
- practice brings comfort
- gives you amazing name recognition in the community and makes you an expert
When
February 9, 2013
General Public: 10:00 – 16:00
Where
Shopify is in the Market area, right downtown, at 126 York Street, half a block east of Dalhousie and the Byward Market, not far from the Rideau Centre Transit Station. Google Map
The entrance for our meetings is at the back of the building, next to the ‘pay’ parking lot. Look for the glass doors with the unicorns on them.
January Meeting: 2013-01-10
Just a reminder that Thursday the 10th of January is our regularly scheduled meeting. No topics are scheduled, however I am thinking about installing FreeBSD on a RaspberryPi unit. I have not tried it out yet, but I have seen some activity on the forums discussing this topic. I don’t think it is ready for prime time yet but it is supposed to be functional.
Remember:
- BSDCan 2013 will be held 17-18 May
- It will be preceded by two days of tutorials on 15-16 May.
- 19 Jan 2013 Proposal acceptance ends if you wish to propose a talk