Greetings List Lurkers,
So, this is the official notice of the Barre Open Systems Institute (BOSI)
Adult Swim. The swim stars at 5:00 PM EST, our continued vanity being to
include a goggle hangout https://www.google.com/calendar/render?pli=1 until
7:00 PM EST.
Today has been completely wasted on an upgrade from Vista to Linux Mint
Cinnamon. The main NT partition seems to have a virus that has taken over
the SAM and causes the system to exit with the "dirty" disk flag set. No
self respecting installer will allow Linux to co-exist in this condition,
and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to clean up the dirt.
So I am down to knives and bearskins...(rsync and god forbid "dd" :^)
The great
news is that BOSI has been invited to the Mini Maker fair at the Solar
Fest in Tinmouth. We will be there on July 14th.
Again a local benefactor, has arranged for the Adult Swim to handle the
re-distribution of the excellent collection of O'Reilly class books into the
arms of the awaiting young geeks as they arrive. This is what we live
for.
Our latest idea involves setting up a PXE boot distribution loader at the Barre
library which would allow folks to enter the library, and load onto their
equipment the distribution of their choice. While this would be a free service
and would not defray the cost of the LinuxWorld subscription it would tend to
center Open Source activity and extend outreach in Barre, which might be a
model for other state library institutions.
With Yarger down south, activity on the Snobot has slowed to a crawl. I
believe I have managed to break it...
Again, we have posted a partial working pin-out of the output board on the
snobot web site, look for Control Module for Ranger II MWD - current diagram.
At risk of repetition, the real payoff was to realize that a 24V APC without
batteries is an excellent power center and can charge the 24V general batteries
on the bot, as well as supply 110VAC for all sorts of nefarious purposes. At
the end of the day this breakthrough is the use of the capability of adapting
the APC UPS so that we can charge the snobot traction pack and use the extra
space where the old battery went to install the motor system control. Pictures
are on G+, Yarger has a video commentary up and additional still and motion
pictures shall be forthcoming. Now that the right controller and power system
are complete for the snobot, the damn thing will be visiting Adult Swim again
today, and we can begin the real Robot issue, software...
The FM project http://docbox.flint.com:8081/raspberry/pifm/index_html
Turning the rPi into an FM transmitter remains a solution looking for a
problem. There are numerous applications for this technology, stay tuned.
This week we hope to expand use of "Andro-Mouse", which is a series of
apps for an Android controller and a Java control element. That said,
ListNote, which we are using as part of the great garage gestation remains
fairly cool... Putting the latest set of labels on as we speak...
Now that BOSI will exhibit at the Solarfest Mini Maker Fair, we really
need to clean up the "tsp" site (http://docbox.flint.com:8081/tsp)
suddenly we need to organize the now live shots and consolidated shots of
the working beasts (look at the first three links off this site). The
goal is to get the pictures and text better organized, and we expect to
have pictures of the spiffy new enclosure. You will find on the site the
actual programs that exploit the python miniterm class to gather data from
the Arduino based temperature sensors via the USB. The software interface
between the Arduino and mrtg is solid and have what we need in that
department. This baby is done for the first phase, now for the rewrite,
after we get organized (the triple t's again)...
At this point we have a working version of the the furmon project. The
final refactoring will make the entire beast a single python program. As
mentioned again last week about the furmon, the Xbee radio link work from
the pellet furnace is now on the pbug development system. This is a
milestone since we now have live data to play with. For more information
see the furmon site as detailed below. Regarding the furmon, with mrtg you
can trend the sample data, I want to also exploit pylab, an include that
makes time-series data plotting and analysis a snap. Maybe this coming
week, with snobot keeping everyone else out of my hair, we have the furmon
at least to a release point. Now to get more live winter data.
Kevin has taken package management to the level where we may able to release
the code using the "quickly" product to package code as ".deb"s. Once I have
completed this I will cite this in yet another wiki. Watch this space... The
need to package software makes me reconsider my release dates, say two weeks
from now.
Robotsrules.org has had some new stuff added. Who knew that there was a
python tarball apparently available?
I am really looking foreword to going to the Barry Library and reading the
latest issue of Linux World.
The ever growing list of projects includes:
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/snobot - jesum they love this robot
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/furmon - monitor that pellet furnace
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/arduino - moving in the arduino groove
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/javajive - to get better at Javascript
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/tsp - Temperature Sensors Project
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/robotsrules - The quest for Roberts Rules - - -
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/visual.bash - Yea, I am not kidding...
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/mrtg - remedial raw mrtg for the slow...
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/raspberry - all rPi'ness
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/organized - oh please let me be organized!
- http://docbox.flint.com:8081/music - this may be the least organized
site ever!
Otherwise, Barre indeed remains a great venue for a Linux and Open Source
Software meeting and general system rejuvenation. That said, we expect to
assemble more of the Dallas Semi "1-wire" temperature probes, and we have two
Arduinos, with lots of fixin's as well as several Raspberry Pi's a boat load of
radio modules, and an embarrassment of riches in terms of books.
Needless to say the Arduino remains the coolest thing for 2012, the Raspberry
Pi the coolest thing so far for 2013, and Ras-BMC the coolest thing for the
month of April, xBMC for May, PiFm the coolest thing for June. My bet
is that Solarfest will be the coolest thing in July.
Do not forget that the Barre library stocks "Linux World", and the latest issue
is on the shelf. The DVD's are available to checkout and copy, we intend to
continue provide copies and isos of each and every one.
Anyway, come and do open source stuff. For more information about the BOSI
Adult Swim meeting time and location try this:
http://family.flint.com/adult_swim_location/index_html
Show up at the the Hedding United Methodist Church Basement if you have
questions or are interested in Linux or the concept of free and open systems,
The basement of the Hedding UMC facility is actually working out pretty well.
If you wish to be included on the "Linux_adult_swim" mailing list, send a
response to this note. Note that the mailing list system is a bit peevish
right now. Let me know if you have any difficulties.
Kindest Regards,
Paul Flint
/************************************
Based upon email reliability concerns,
please send an acknowledgment in response to this note.
Paul Flint
Barre Open Systems Institute
17 Averill Street
Barre, VT
05641
http://www.bosivt.org
http://www.flint.com/home
skype: flintinfotech
(802) 479-2360 Home
(802) 595-9365 Cell
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