[NBLUG/talk] June NBLUG meeting summary

[Derek B. Noonburg]

Hey Brad,

A couple of quick comments for you...

You may have found this already, but for LineageOS I recommend checking
the XDA forum occasionally.  There will be a specific thread for the
latest version of LineageOS on each phone.  Here's the OnePlus 6T
thread:

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/rom-official-fajita-12-lineageos-19.4437349/

I've found it useful to check for known problems with specific weekly
releases, etc.

Signal on f-droid has a long and sordid history.  Signal is open source
(though I've heard they don't always keep the public release up to
date), but they (the Signal organization) don't like third party builds
connecting to their servers.  I suspect there's more to that story, but
I've never dug deeply enough to figure it out.  But yeah, the signal
app isn't on f-droid, and I downloaded it from the signal web site.

- Derek


On Mon, 20 Jun 2022 04:52:37 -0700, Brad Morrison
<bradmorrison at sonic.net> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Well, the June NBLUG meeting has come and gone. For those who didn't 
> make it or for those who want to rehash the glorious conversations,
> here is my best recollection of events. I really need to take notes
> next time as waiting this long after the meeting to send out notes is
> like searching through a file cabinet trying to find a document that
> you can't quite remember the name to...
> 
> LineageOS install: I gave an update on my progress and struggles with 
> the installation of LineageOS (https://lineageos.org/) on my OnePlus
> 6T (https://www.oneplus.com/6t?from=buy). I was able to get it up and 
> running after a few delays due to the fcat that I had the 
> T-Mobile/vendor firmware on the phone instead of the 
> OnePlus/manufacturer firmware, which presented some installation 
> problems. So I had to use payload-dumper-go to do something to the 
> OnePlus OxygenOS software 
> (https://www.oneplus.com/global/support/softwareupgrade/details?code=PM1574156215016) 
> and then install that before I could move on. My experience with
> asking for help on the LineageOS Libera.chat IRC service was OK - I
> got answers to my issues, but the only person in the chat that
> responded definitely made me feel like my questions were below him
> (not that anyone else was asking questions at the same times that I
> was) and wasn't hesitant about sharing his distaste for stupid/newbie
> questions. On the larger scale, experiences like that are a big part
> of why people that are not super knowledgeable tend to stick with
> corporate software. I've literally never had any paid customer
> service rep say/type anything like "I saw it and I ignored it" in
> response to my asking if he wanted me to repost my original
> question/situation. I was able to find and install the Signal APK
> (https://www.signal.org/) and F-Droid will be my next task.
> Surprisingly, it looked like Signal was not on F-Droid, when I did an
> app search for it (https://search.f-droid.org/?q=signal&lang=en
> <https://search.f-droid.org/?q=signal&lang=en>).
> 
> I briefly displayed the Turris Omnia open source router 
> (https://www.turris.com/en/omnia/overview/) that I bought a few years 
> ago and have barely used since I got it, as most of the places I've 
> lived in since have already had internet setups and the various 
> roommates didn't want me messing with the established system. Turris 
> (https://www.turris.com/en/) is a company out of the Czech Republic
> that produces open source networking products that are geared towards 
> security minded folks - I just thought that they were cool and wanted
> to support their work. Turris is developed by the Czech Domain
> Registry (https://www.nic.cz/page/357/kontakt/). I've been surprised
> at how many open source products I have seen come out of the Czech
> Republic - which is impressive for a relatively small country.
> 
> During the meeting, Brian was struggling with some installation 
> difficulties with Fedora 35/36 (?), but a few people seemed to be
> able to help out with that.
> 
> There was a small debate over whether Google was more evil than
> Amazon (that was brought up by a conversation about various app
> stores).
> 
> I was surprised to be nominated and then elected to the NBLUG Board.
> I was sure I would have failed any kind of basic computer science
> exam, but thankfully there are no such requirements to be on the
> Board. The success of this campaign has already gone to my head and
> I'm thinking about parlaying my recent success and running for higher
> office. POTUS pays much better and 2024 might be my time - I'm over
> 35 and I was born in the USA!
> 
> Finally, my interest in more Linux adoption didn't seem to get my 
> traction, as one person pointed out that something like 90% of 
> supercomputers use Linux, 70% of all websites use Linux 
> (https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-linux), and most mobile 
> phones run Linux. The desktop market is another story though, but
> other people reiterated how many people are using their phones for
> all/almost all of their computing. At least in my current work world
> (accounting), Linux isn't even an option as no good open source
> accounting software exists. And with almost every business doing at
> least some of their own bookkeeping, it locks lots of users into
> Microsoft's platform. Someone made the point that accountants love
> Excel and while I didn't really think about that before, I've
> definitely seen that at my workplace. We are in the process of
> transitioning CRM software from RedTail
> (https://corporate.redtailtechnology.com/crm/) to Salesforce
> (https://www.salesforce.com/) and so a lot of time lately has been
> devoted to pulling reports/data from RedTail and into Excel to be
> formatted/modified so that we can prep it for the move to Salesforce.
> The behemoth in financial/accounting software that we interact the
> most with is Intuit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit) and we use
> both Lacerte and Quickbooks a lot.
> 
> I have a friend that lives in Weaverville (in Trinity County, CA) and 
> when I visited him several years ago, I was surprised to learn that
> the Trinity County public library in Weaverville uses a version of
> Linux on all of their public use library computers (although it was
> way out of date at the time - 2018). That got me thinking about
> approaching the IT manager of the Sonoma County Library system and I
> had met Nancy Trbovich (?) years before at some Access Sonoma
> Broadband (https://sonomaedb.org/current-initiatives/broadband)
> meeting. Nancy seems to have retired or moved on and now the IT
> manager for the Sonoma County library is Mike Dawe
> (https://sonomalibrary.org/person/mike-dawe) 
> - does anyone know him?
> 
> OK, that's all I can recall - feel free to add to this list or
> continue any of these conversations if you're so inclined.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Brad