[GNUz] Software Freedom Day 160917

[Rik Tindall]

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)