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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Hi all, <br>
</font></p>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">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...</font></p>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">LineageOS
install: I gave an update on my progress and struggles with the
installation of LineageOS (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://lineageos.org/" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://lineageos.org/</a>)
on my OnePlus 6T (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.oneplus.com/6t?from=buy"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.oneplus.com/6t?from=buy</a>).
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 (<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.oneplus.com/global/support/softwareupgrade/details?code=PM1574156215016"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.oneplus.com/global/support/softwareupgrade/details?code=PM1574156215016</a>)
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 (<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://www.signal.org/"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.signal.org/</a>) 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 (<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://search.f-droid.org/?q=signal&lang=en">https://search.f-droid.org/?q=signal&lang=en</a>). </font></p>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">I briefly
displayed the Turris Omnia open source router (<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.turris.com/en/omnia/overview/"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.turris.com/en/omnia/overview/</a>)
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 (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.turris.com/en/"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.turris.com/en/</a>)
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 (<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.nic.cz/page/357/kontakt/"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.nic.cz/page/357/kontakt/</a>).
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. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">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. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">There was a
small debate over whether Google was more evil than Amazon (that
was brought up by a conversation about various app stores). <br>
</font></p>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">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!<br>
</font></p>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">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 (<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-linux"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-linux</a>),
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 (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://corporate.redtailtechnology.com/crm/"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://corporate.redtailtechnology.com/crm/</a>)
to Salesforce (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.salesforce.com/"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.salesforce.com/</a>)
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 (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuit</a>)
and we use both Lacerte and Quickbooks a lot. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">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 (<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://sonomaedb.org/current-initiatives/broadband"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://sonomaedb.org/current-initiatives/broadband</a>)
meeting. Nancy seems to have retired or moved on and now the IT
manager for the Sonoma County library is Mike Dawe (<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://sonomalibrary.org/person/mike-dawe"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://sonomalibrary.org/person/mike-dawe</a>)
- does anyone know him?<br>
</font></p>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">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. </font></p>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Thanks!</font></p>
<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Brad</font><br>
</p>
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