[plug] Talks and events so far, venue questions

[Harry McNally]

Thank you for requests for talks so far.

I'd like to keep calling for ideas so we can have confirmed talks, and some in development, to hand off to the new committee so they have a solid starting position after the AGM.

Looking at the second-Tuesday events days

http://plug.org.au/events/

We have eleven talk/seminar slots from February through December with March 11 being the Raspberry Jam evening.

Talks (or seminars) we have in recent threads are:

IPv6 - From reading emails, should this day include PLUG setting up a switch and AP to swap between networks, Avahi, pen testing to observe firewall rules are correct ? For anyone interested in the seminar, please add the knowledge you would like to have to be able to use IPv6 with confidence.

Mail server 2025 - Like all OSS, there are choices and it would be useful to survey and select which of the available servers are best covered in a talk or seminar. Also to compare online services vs running your own. If you wish to +1 this choice, please let us know what you would like from a mail server talk.

Desktop file managers - Similarly, we need to survey the file manager choices for a talk, preempt the talk with some resources, come together to discuss their advantages or shortcomings including the documentation that describes them. Learn where to find open bug reports and feature requests and how to post your own to developers. Please advise the file manager or desktop that you would like to review.

Desktop package management tools - As above, survey which tools attendees have or use and consider how effective each one is. A further evening on CLI package management, dependencies, pinning etc for distros of attendees choice. Examples Rob gave of "just: sudo apt blah" are all fine until the cut and paste of commands don't respond as advertised.   

Home automation - Would a talk/seminar be best provided as a series of 2 minute lightning talks about how Home Assistant or other tools are being used followed by questions to any of the people sharing their system designs ? If not, how might this topic be covered ?

Homelab - there is overlap of RPi, Installfests and Home Automation. As BillK suggested, perhaps this can follow the same theme as home automation; lightning talks and questions to presenters. Dean B has also offered a talk and this could be the same or an additional evening (perhaps on a meetup day prior to the 'lightning demo' one).

socketcan - bring along a CAN bus based device (smaller than a car) and use some CheapAndCheerful CAN interfaces and linux tools to sniff CAN traffic. I'd be interested to hear from other CAN users to support this evening.

Your own idea for something that piques your interest - [________]
  
Raspberry Jam project demos for the evening:

Like home automation above, should Raspberry Jam give people 2 minutes to describe their Pi application or have open house for people to go between "exhibits" and ask questions ? Either way, it would be useful to have discussion on the list to pre-empt who will be there and resources needed in the room for each Pi setup prior to attending (more on pre-emptive intent below). 
    
So far:

PLUG on Pi
Pi as NAS
Home Assistant and other home automation
Hardware hacking on/using Pi
Any roles that need a Pi-in-the-Room rather than services from a co-lo
Co-lo Pi advantages and limitations
Masterdon on Pi .. if anyone shows interest, I will explain this choice on a non-Chair post since 'my opinions are my own' etc and may disturb some viewers :-)

If you have an application that you are proud to demo, please add to this list for the Raspberry Jam

Attending with pre-emptive intent
---------------------------------
In a previous thread I suggested that our announcement of events might include curated on-line content and resources that allow attendees to do preliminary learning and testing so that the evening is a culmination of that; the presenter (and knowledgable helpers) address specific issues (even one-on-one) or present on knowledge that comes from their experience with the subject.

Two hours is not a long time and coming to the subject cold may not give best bang. If this sounds familiar to old-guard, it was the atmosphere of the Installfests of olde ("Have a go first, bring the broken pieces") and it would be great to test this in our first Talk/Seminar.

"It's pedagogy, Jim, but not as we know it!"

The committee can review how it all went and see if we can improve from there.

Installfest were always a morning or afternoon event; I think a minimum of four hours is a useful amount of time to get araound all of the things that people want advice or helpful hacking to fix. This favours a weekend hack session time rather than try to rush on a two hour evening meeting. Please add some feedback to running 2025 Installfests and how we can attract people who know about Linux but have not booted a live Linux or installed to a machine; due to uncertainty, making the time, etc.

Venue and access questions

The afternoon hack sessions have been held at the Artifactory which benefits from a relationship between the two groups. A member of PLUG must attend the venue that has Artifactory access and that has largely fallen to Nick. A recent PLUG/POSH event was held and Nick turned up to open the doors and had no attendees. At this point I thought: we need to re-consider what we are wanting to achieve at these events. So if anyone can offer up ways that they might want to use these days then please offer some ideas.

The Artifactory has grown organically to be a workshop for Makers so it may not be the venue that suits all attendees. Being in Osborne Park it is a brisk walk from the bus stop which is fine with a laptop in packpack but trickier with more equipment. I have talked to Nick about other venues he knows of so the committee can consider issues of access and what we need to in order to repurpose one or more of the afternoons as Installfest events.

Please would you offer frank and fearless advice on would make a Hack Day an event you would look forward to attending.

All the best
Harry
Chair, Perth Linux User Group

ps Finally, apologies to skribe whose name I think I also mispelled in the dark past. I hope this email finds you well.

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