Event report, SFD17.
Seven attended, though one was in a carry-pouch at 4 weeks old. Her dad
saw our ad on bethere and came to discuss Android Phone Pals, for
utilising the monthly Freenix* workshops to get a user group off the
ground again. APP started a year or two back, but got boiled down into
generic smart phone help from a community agency, so there'll be a take
2 that delves deeper into phone operating systems ('pocket PC') again -
Weds 4 Oct 7:30pm, South Learning Centre lab. We agreed Win10 was very
painful!
One attendee got turned away at 2pm, because the day before we had
learned that our lab booking only ran until then, not 4pm. This was a
dual-boot request for Win8.1 that was best not rushed - please return
another time. On the upside, the lab was then more fully used - by a
young girls' Minecraft group under library supervision. This must be to
encourage IT uptake, where competitive and boisterous boys can be
off-putting. The mixed *nix crew were allowed to stay on, however,
concentrating on extended computer tasks that our two hours, one night
per month, can't quite accommodate.
About three hours go to whoa saw an Ubuntu 14.04 duo laptop upgraded to
16.04 (at it had been from 12.04). Now, a clean install would be much
quicker and the data had been backed up, but the exercise was revealing.
10GB of hard-drive space was eventually freed, once all the old kernels
and other redundant software had been automatically dumped. This cruft
was what slowed the upgrade process down a lot, but the result ran
pretty slick: well under 5% CPU utilisation when idling. But 1.4GB of
the 2GB RAM was in use with the new Unity - before any browser was
opened. This would be halved to 700MB once the desktop was changed to
MATE later, for keeping this unit viable. No one seemed keen on GNOME 3.
The rock-solid Debian upgrade process seems just as reliable in the
Ubuntu implementation today.
A Celeron 1300 MHz, on the third install trial variety, accepted Point
Linux (Debian Wheezy-based) very well. This is supported until May 2018,
after which Debian Jessie will probably work ok with the 512MB RAM -
until 2020. 4MLinux provided entertainment, in a LiveCD session run
alongside the 4-hour Celeron solution that included putting all its
updates in place. 4MLinux would be a last ditch choice for old gear, as
it runs nice on pretty much anything but as Slackware requires a lot
more fathoming to update.
Lastly, wifi on an Ubuntu-MATE 16.04 duo PC (thank you Steve H for
this) was achieved using advice from
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=163512 - a very quick fix
though requiring a cold reboot:
sudo apt-get install git
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential dkms
git clone https://github.com/pvaret/rtl8192cu-fixes.git
sudo dkms add ./rtl8192cu-fixes
sudo dkms install 8192cu/1.10
sudo depmod -a
sudo cp ./rtl8192cu-fixes/blacklist-native-rtl8192.conf
/etc/modprobe.d/
This email confirms it works: online now. One question remains though.
- What, if any, repeat of these instructions will be needed after
future kernel upgrades?
Thank you for supporting SFD and Freenix monthly workshops.
Regards, Rik
On 2017-09-14 10:55, Rik Tindall wrote:
This Saturday is Software Freedom Day 2017, September 16th -
http://www.softwarefreedomday.org - celebrated with an installfest
and
educational event from 10am to 4pm in the South Learning Centre (SLC)
of South Christchurch Library at 66 Colombo Street, Cashmere. Access
through rear door of the building -
https://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/locations/SOUTH/
<snips>
Links: http://bethere.co.nz/event/11004 +
http://www.infohelp.co.nz/sfd17.html +
http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2017/New%20Zealand/Christchurch
pp Sydenham GNU/Linux Users
http://lists.ourshack.com/mailman/listinfo/gnuz
http://www.facebook.com/TeamChristchurchSFD
* Freenix: Unix-derived Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS)
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