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K-LUG - Rochester, MN Area Linux Users Group

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We can use presentations for upcoming meetings, please see a list of ideas if you're willing but lacking a topic.

LUG News

Technical Meeting: Thursday April 10th

Dennis DeLorme, on Beaglebone Black.

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Small scale computing is becoming more affordable as technology advances. For low cost simple 8 (or occasionally 16) bit micocontrollers were the norm. This trend lead to the Arduino microcontroller on a board. The low cost and popular support have made it a very popular system.

A few years ago the Raspberry Pi project was started to bring the cost of a full computer on a board into the Arduino price range. This was followed by the Beaglebone Black, a lower cost version of the Beaglebone family. These new systems, which have price points under $50, are significantly different than the Arduino level systems. They have similar I/O capabilities but much more computational power than the Arduino. They are also more complex to use effectively.

In this presentation I will briefly compare the differences and than discuss some Beaglebone Black features. Unlike the Arduino, development can be done directly on the Beaglebone as a stand alone system. I will also talk about VNC which allows a PC to remotely control the Beaglebone GUI.

Dennis' slides are here.

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6 pm, in or near RCTC Heintz Center's HA109. Please note we're going to try meeting in the computer lab just across the bigger hallway (to the west) from our usual room, due to hardware differences between the two rooms.

Directions to Campus

Heintz Center Building Map

Also a reminder that Tim will be running this meeting, along with all things K-LUG for May-August (thanks Tim!). If you have any agenda items to add, please make sure Tim knows about them in advance.

Lunch: Thursday April 17th

11:30 am, Apache Mall food court, near B&N.

Social: Tuesday April 22nd

6th annual participation in CITO/LBB trash clean up. Cascade Lake soccer fields, 6:30 pm.

Bring your own gloves and beverage. If possible, also bring waterproof boots or waders, as there’s some shoreline. Trash and recycling bags are provided, along with the disposal. More details at http://coord.info/GC4ZNJ1 .

Planned Technical Meeting: May - FIELD TRIP

Field trip to Lake City for to see the shop, meet the team, and check out their robot that just completed a season of FIRST robotics league. Tim Massaro and Mo Holahan were involved in coaching this FIRST team.

Time and location details TBA.

Planned Lunch: Thursday May 15th

11:30 am, Apache Mall food court, near B&N.

Planned Social: May TBD

Ideas can be found here or invent your own. What would you like to do? Tell Tim or Tina.

Planned Technical Meeting: June

Speaker needed, please let Tim or Tina know if you're willing to volunteer. Willing to present but want to know what people have expressed interest in? Check out our requested topics page.

Planned Lunch: Thursday June 19th

11:30 am, Apache Mall food court, near B&N.

Planned Social: June TBD

Ideas can be found here or invent your own. What would you like to do? Tell Tim or Tina.

Planned Technical Meeting: March or later, 2013

Oculus Rift, "the first truly immersive virtual reality headset for video games"

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game

Peter Shabino

Planned Socials: Fall or winter

-Jim Henderson, "Silicon Valley" documentary

-Rock climbing at Prairie Walls

-Liquid nitrogen ice cream. This needs a non-Tina organizer. Dennis DeLorme has 2 recipes. We need safety equipment and someone trained enough to keep us from freezing ourselves.

-MAME/foosball/ping pong at Tim Massaro's.

Upcoming Meeting Crisis!

Well, not really a crisis, but we do need some meeting topics (& speakers) for 2014. We'd like to know what you want to see and hear about. Please email Tina or Tim with suggestions for topics. Should we run some previous sessions again (maybe something you really wanted to see but missed out on)? What type of topics are good, what type are bad? Also see this page for a list of suggested topics http://www.k-lug.org/Meetings

Old News Items

See the OldNews page.