About this group

Sun, 15 Feb 2026 22:28:13 +0000

We re-branded ourselves in January 2011 from the Ottawa Carleton Unnix Users Group to the Ottawa Canada BSD Users Group, given the core group membership so to align with our new name, we have a new public face, ocbug.ca.

Over the years, in person attendence has dropped off and we had reduced to quarterly meetings. The COVID-19 shutdown also did not helkp us with in-person meetups, so there is still some intent to revive the meet-up for pizza and beer and conversation. Click on the Meeting Information link for more details.

Static Conversion

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 23:42:42 +0000

While this is a conversion to a static site from the wordpress system, it is also a migration to a more modern OS as well as the conversion.

In order to get everything migrated to the “new way” of maintaining the mailing list, the extraction from wordpress into a easier to maintain site, and a newer mail system, I have to move it in partials. That is probably going to be invisible to everyone simply because I’m doing it on a replica site prior to going live.

In-person meeting: 2022-11-16 @ The Royal Oak on Wellington

Sun, 13 Nov 2022 22:04:44 +0000

Rare in-person meeting sighted: 2022-11-16 @ 19:30 - 21:00

WHEN:

This coming Wednesday (November 16) from 7:30-9:00pm works best for the most people for an in-person OCBUG meetup.

LOCATION:

The Royal Oak on Wellington

REASONS:

Centrally located
Big tables
Not concerned about loud conversation
They have a large alcoholic (and non-alcoholic) drink selection
Good food, vegetarian/vegan options
They are on a bus route
They are welcoming of cyclists and bicycles being parked out front
They have convenient street parking

TOPICS:

Seems we had a broken mailing list

Mon, 13 Sep 2021 17:42:42 +0000

I was recently informed that our mailing list was broken. After investigation, I discovered that when I migrated the website back to a Canadian provider in late February 2020, I had not migrated the mailing list before we had the COVID lockdown and it never got completed. That has been corrected for those interested. I’ll post to the list to verify, but it should be live now.

…so of course we don’t

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 02:12:03 +0000

Naturally, once I show an interest in getting meetings back on track, we end up under COVID-19 restrictions. Perhaps once everybody has been vaccinated and places are open for indoor dining. we can have an in-person meeting. Somehow I don’t expect that to happen for at least 6 months, if then.

I’ll probably convert this to a static site over the next few months, as I’m no longer interested in keeping WordPress updated either. The layout will probably change as a result, but you never know, maybe I’ll make an attempt at porting the theme as well. Web design was never my main thing but I could learn something new from the exercise.

Despite evidence to the contrary...

Thu, 20 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This site is not dead yet. COVID-19 has kept things quiet and I don’t expect that there will be any meetings soon, but it would be possible to have a virtual meetup if people are interested.

I’m sure we are all tired of video conferencing, but that is the only medium right now. We do have a mailing list, so if we get some activity about it, we should consider having a virtual meetup just to say hello to various people who have dropped off the radar since we last met.

Still Alive

Sat, 07 Mar 2020 17:06:29 +0000

It has been very quiet on here for the past year and a half, but the site is still live. I recently repatriated it to Canada from a hosting service in the U.S. as I am no longer providing hosting services for clients of my consulting company. That probably will not last much longer either, as I have discovered that since I have converted to a employee from doing contract work, I am no longer willing to give up evenings and weekends any more to take care of client issues.

October Meeting!

Sat, 06 Oct 2018 22:52:20 +0000

We received a solicitation via the mailing list to have a meeting this month, so have a meeting we shall. The traditional venue and time – 2018-10-11 at Colonnade Pizza on Metcalfe @ 18:00 until people leave (or it closes).

Discussion:

BSD on the Raspberry Pi 3
Becoming a technical group again
Project ideas from the floor

BSDCan 2018 has just passed…

Wed, 13 Jun 2018 02:31:42 +0000

and our thoughts turn to maybe we should have a meeting.

I was talking to Diane at the conference and perhaps we should make this a more technical event rather than social. I’m not sure where we should start, but the fine people at the BSD Foundation passed me an InstallFest kit, so the first meeting of the soon to be revised and resurrected group woould be to install FreeBSD on either an appropriate device or at least a VM running on your laptop.

June Meeting: 2017-06-08 @ 18:00

Sat, 03 Jun 2017 18:02:20 +0000

As was sent to the mailing list, we should have a meeting this month as it is BSDCan time.

This meeting will be at The Red Lion, not at Café Colonnade.

BSDCan 2017 registration is at The Red Lion

Sat, 03 Jun 2017 04:56:55 +0000

After many years, the registration night (Thursday, June 8^th starting @ 15:00) will be in a new location, The Red Lion. While Dan has mentioned it on various media, I think I should mention it here. Once again, it will NOT be at the Royal Oak this year.

HEADS UP: BSDCan 2017 registration at the pub is in a new location.

The Red Lion – 47 Clarence Street, Ottawa, Ontario

BSDCan 2017 is nearly upon us

Tue, 18 Apr 2017 02:37:16 +0000

As BSDCan is around the corner, we should have a meeting just to see who is still kicking around locally.

I’m thinking May 11, 2017 at the usual location, see the Meeting Location item above for details.

Next Meeting August 11 2016

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 15:57:06 +0000

Due to popular demand, we will be having an August meeting.

There are two possible topics from the last meeting, BSD on the Raspberry Pi 3 and on the Pine64. Feel free to bring additional questions, ideas, hardware, etc.

July Meeting was a success…

Fri, 15 Jul 2016 03:31:28 +0000

As we measure it anyway. Seven people is way up from one 🙂

Due to popular demand, we’ll have another one in August and see if we can get at least as many people out. There are rumours of BSD on Pi or Pine. The only way to be sure is to be there.

Next Meeting July 14 2016

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 20:11:10 +0000

It’s BSDCan 2016 time and after meeting up with a bunch of people, it appears that having a meeting in July would be a good idea.

We will be having our “quarterly” meeting. There are no scheduled topics, feel free to bring questions, ideas, hardware, etc.

This will be the first meeting after BSDCan 2016, so if you come out, there will be a couple of promo items from the conference for you – read that as a couple of stickers and a pen. I’ll see if I can get some autographed pictures of @GroffTheBSDGoat :)

July Meeting: 2015-07-09

Tue, 07 Jul 2015 16:22:31 +0000

It is time for the quarterly meeting. While there are no scheduled topics, feel free to bring questions, ideas, hardware, etc.

This will be the first meeting after BSDCan, so if you come out, there will be a couple of promo items from the conference for you - read that as a couple of stickers and a pen.

As a topic, there was a great talk on configuring network devices for remote offices that I attended. I found it quite interesting. There was also a talk on a replacement X11 desktop that looks pretty good. I’ll have to give that a shot.

April Meeting: 2015-04-09

Wed, 08 Apr 2015 03:29:04 +0000

It is time for the quarterly meeting. While there are no topics bubbling to the top, feel free to bring questions, ideas, hardware, etc.

Hopefully you have looked at the schedule for BSDCan this year. There are quite a few interesting talks scheduled. One such talk, if you ever used Minix, is a talk on a reimplementation of NetBSD using a MicroKernel by Andy Tanenbaum. Check out the schedule and remember that BSDCan is in June this year.

Meetings for 2015: January, April, July and October

Wed, 31 Dec 2014 15:09:11 +0000

Meetings for 2015 will be in January, April, July and October. If anyone has a great topic and wants to schedule a meeting in between, feel free to send an email to the mailing list and I’m sure we can make it happen.

This is in response to the dwindling number of people who have been attending meetings over the past year and rather than try to get people out every month, I’ll try for once a quarter. If this doesn’t help, I’ll combine the BSD group with another group and see if we get a little more activity that way. Comments are welcome.

December Meeting: 2014-12-11

Sat, 22 Nov 2014 03:39:58 +0000

It has been a little busy lately and I’ve been away for the past two meeting periods. I’m planning on being at the December meeting at our normal time.

Topics:

FreeBSD 10.1 is out. Anyone tried it yet?
If anyone noticed, BSDCan will be in June in 2015
New model RaspberryPi units have come out, the A+ is quite inexpensive and has a lot of GPIO pins (no network though, unless you want to use a USB network adapter)
iX Systems (FreeNAS, PC-BSD) was at LISA’14, as well as the FreeBSD foundation.

September Meeting: 2014-09-11

Wed, 10 Sep 2014 23:56:04 +0000

No meeting this month.

As we discussed last meeting, we are going to see about doing something technical at a different venue. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to get the alternative location booked, so no meeting this month.

August Meeting: 2014-08-14

Sat, 09 Aug 2014 20:26:53 +0000

Thursday is the second Thursday of the month, so that means it is monthly meeting night.

It has been a quiet summer, so not much to talk about so far.

Topics:

Upcoming installfest at Jack Purcell Center
Group future activities, maybe a venue change?

Watch this website…

Mon, 28 Jul 2014 00:09:24 +0000

While it may not be all that exciting, we are planning a BSD installfest sometime in the next month at the Jack Purcell Center. Should be an interesting evening, so watch for further details. I’ve been told it will be a Monday night.

Bring hardware to test, your favorite BSD version, something new or just come out to see what it is all about.

July Meeting: 2014-07-10

Wed, 09 Jul 2014 18:45:21 +0000

No meeting this month.

I’m unavailable and the attendance has been down during the summer, so rather than have one person show up, no meeting.

June Meeting: 2014-06-12

Wed, 11 Jun 2014 01:54:15 +0000

Another somewhat late posting.

Thursday will be the second Thursday of February and that makes it meeting night.

Topics:

Post BSDCan discussion for those who went and those who may be interested

Other topics will be entertained.

May Meeting: 2014-05-15

Sat, 10 May 2014 17:37:12 +0000

Reminder

This month we are having the meeting at BSDCan 2014. The topic is puppet, actually a puppet BoF

You can find the location on the BSDCan website

April Meeting: 2014-04-10

Thu, 10 Apr 2014 16:36:25 +0000

Very last minute post for tonight.

Today is the second Thursday of April and that makes it meeting night.

Topics:

Until May is over, BSDCan is a topic and registration is open.
I have an APC PDU that I do not need. This one is wired for a 20A plug (NEMA 5-20).
We will be moving the OCBUG meeting for May to the third Thursday and will be holding it at UofO in conjunction with the Puppet BOF. The room has not been determined when I checked, but keep an eye on the site. There is no fee required to attend the BOF.
Has anyone tried out FreeBSD 10 yet? My last install was a FreeBSD 9 box.

Other topics will be entertained.

March Meeting: 2014-03-13

Wed, 12 Mar 2014 03:54:15 +0000

Thursday will be the second Thursday of March and that makes it meeting night.

Topics:

Until May is over, BSDCan is a topic and registration is open.
I will be bringing a couple of small PC units with me. They were originally used for managing wall displays.
Anyone using Puppet? I have to get the details settled, but there will be a Puppet BOF at BSDCan 2014. Specifically, we will be moving the OCBUG meeting for May to the third Thursday and will be holding it at UofO in conjunction with the Puppet BOF.
Anyone using ZFS? I have not had a chance to look at this yet, but FreeBSD 10 is supposed to handle installation onto ZFS.

Other topics will be entertained.

February Meeting: 2014-02-13

Thu, 13 Feb 2014 01:09:17 +0000

Looks like I forgot to post the meeting from last month. I almost forgot to post this month. I need a better reminder system for this stuff.

Thursday will be the second Thursday of February and that makes it meeting night.

Topics:

BSDCan is coming soon, are you going?
I have a number of small PC units if anyone is interested. They were originally used for managing wall displays. I’ll bring a sample and can bring quite a few at the next meeting. I don’t have a current count, but it exceeds 10 units
Remote sensing – anyone have experience with I2C, etc.?

Other topics will be entertained.

December meeting will not be hapening

Wed, 11 Dec 2013 17:31:32 +0000

Given the time of year and people with commitments, rather than add one extra item to the list, I’m cancelling the meeting. Given the turn out and the travel requirements for some of us, this should make it a little easier.

Season’s greetings, whatever season you celebrate!

November Meeting: 2013-11-14

Tue, 12 Nov 2013 03:24:07 +0000

Thursday will be the second Thursday of November and that makes it meeting night.

We should raise a glass to FreeBSD for it’s 2o year anniversary last week.

Topics:

sparc emulation – running 4.3 BSD on virtual sun hardware
simh and vax BSD
other emulation

Other topics will be entertained.

October Meeting: 2013-10-10

Sun, 06 Oct 2013 02:25:32 +0000

Just a reminder that Thursday the 10th will soon be upon us and it will be time for the next OCBUG meeting.

Topics:

FreeBSD 9.2 is out. Anyone planning to update?
VirtualBox on FreeBSD status
Useful photo management software on FreeBSD. Anyone have a recommendation?

September Meeting: 2013-09-12

Wed, 11 Sep 2013 18:17:41 +0000

Just a reminder that Thursday the 12^th will soon be upon us and it will be time for the next OCBUG meeting.

Topics:

What oddball hardware can you run BSD on? (and should you?)
Using simh and 4.3 BSD

Feel free to add topics as comments!

Post August followup…

Sat, 10 Aug 2013 02:58:49 +0000

It seems we had our largest turn out this time around. Must have been the serial cables.

Diane brought out a beaglebone black running BSD. It was less expensive than I had thought. Apparently Active Electronics stocks them and they go for less than the ones at adafruit, newark element14, etc.

August Meeting: 2013-08-08

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 20:25:09 +0000

Just a reminder that Thursday the 8th will soon be upon us and it will be time for another fascinating OCBUG meeting.

This is going to be a random topic meeting, as I have nothing new to talk about. I will be making an attempt to install PCBSD on a HP elitebook 8440 laptop, so that might make for a full discussion right there. Results at the meeting.

Feel free to add topics as comments!

July Meeting Follow-Up

Fri, 12 Jul 2013 15:45:22 +0000

For those interested in more information on the topics from the meeting, here you go:

Raspberry Pi as a FM transmitter:

http://www.icrobotics.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Turning_the_Raspberry_Pi_Into_an_FM_Transmitter

Belkin WeMo hacking (not BSD based, but might be possible):

We did not get into the TTL to serial devices, however the link for the USB one from ADAfruit is:

http://www.adafruit.com/products/954

You can also get the converter as a small board that goes to a serial port for those looking for a serial port solution. I picked up a few from ebay.

July Meeting: 2013-07-11

Mon, 08 Jul 2013 22:45:32 +0000

July… We are on the downward spiral for the year 🙂

Based on a recent post from Diane, we can talk about USB to TTL serial converters, consoles and their utility on embedded devices, wemo plugs (and hopefully the future wemo light switch), hacking the wemo, Raspberry Pi as an FM transmitter, etc. Bring out some ideas!

June Meeting: 2013-06-13

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 22:39:46 +0000

Nothing special scheduled, we’ll see what comes up at the meeting. I am looking for someone who can give an ethics talk. I don’t have any specifics yet, but I will be getting those shortly.

May Meeting: 2013-05-09

Tue, 07 May 2013 02:42:47 +0000

Just a reminder this Thursday is the May meeting.

I suspect that BSDCan will be the main topic. Dan is expected to be there, so come out if you can make it.

Other topics are welcome, come out and offer a topic or opinion.

For anyone new who does not know the rest of us, look for the table that either has a small pile of DVDs and set or two of BSD daemon horns.

April Meeting: 2013-04-11

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 01:46:46 +0000

Just a reminder that Thursday next week is the March meeting.

As a quick followup to last month, I managed to get the raspberry pi (RPi) to boot BSD after, so there has been success there.

I also managed to get the RPi to do the multi boot thing as well, so the next thing to try is to see if I can get it to boot FreeBSD as part of the menu system. One of the interesting things is that it can store images and boot from an external USB device, both HDD and USB stick. This allows for some extra flexibility, and maybe allow for a multi boot of BSD versions. Either way, there is a lot to things one can do with an RPi.

March Meeting: 2013-03-14

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 04:05:21 +0000

Meeting this Thursday: Cafe Colonnade @ 18:00

For directions, see the Meeting Information at the top of the page.

As this is (American dating system) Pi Day, come out and have a slice of Pizza Pi and some social interaction. One item up for discussion is Raspberry Pi and FreeBSD on the device. I’ll have a few spare DVDs for PC-BSD and FreeNAS of anyone is interested.

February 2013 Meeting

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 04:24:58 +0000

Thursday the 14^th of February is our regularly scheduled meeting. Nothing special planned, however I have seen tweets from Diane indicating success at installing FreeBSD on a RaspberryPi unit. I have not tried yet, but hope to sometime over the next few weeks. Hopefully Diane will show up and talk about it.

Reminder:

BSDCan 2013 will be held 17-18 May
It will be preceeded by two days of tutorials on 15-16 of May

At the User Group Connect event last weekend, one of the attendees was trying to get FreeBSD installed on an ultrabook that has an EFI BIOS. According to what I could dig up, this should be possible, however I don’t have a spare machine with an EFI BIOS to test it on. Perhaps someone has such information and would be willing to share?

User Group Connect 2013 – Feb 09 at Shopify

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 20:06:26 +0000

For those who haven’t heard me talking about it, we are having an “unconference” at Shopify’s headquarters on February 9th. It is an open event any anybody is welcome to come out and see what user groups we have in the region. You can visit the site at ugconnect.ca

UGC 2013:

Drop in to our free relaxed one day unconference.
Meet some of the many technical User Groups in Ottawa.
Chat with fellow high tech workers, and students.
Meet with some of the most tech-friendly local companies.

Why would we do this?

Not everyone knows about all the user groups - the user groups are doing very interesting stuff and sometimes complementary things that would benefit from knowledge of the topics in other user groups. We want to get these doers in the same room together where they can collaborate with and learn from each other.

January Meeting: 2013-01-10

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 03:57:34 +0000

Just a reminder that Thursday the 10^th of January is our regularly scheduled meeting. No topics are scheduled, however I am thinking about installing FreeBSD on a RaspberryPi unit. I have not tried it out yet, but I have seen some activity on the forums discussing this topic. I don’t think it is ready for prime time yet but it is supposed to be functional.

Remember:

BSDCan 2013 will be held 17-18 May

It will be preceded by two days of tutorials on 15-16 May.

19 Jan 2013 Proposal acceptance ends if you wish to propose a talk

December Meeting: 2012-12-13

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 17:35:14 +0000

Just a reminder that Thursday the 13^th of December is our regularly scheduled meeting. I’ll be at the LISA conference in California, so I won’t be able to make it. No topics are scheduled, so feel to meet or not as you wish. The pizza is still good, as well as the various beverages.

On a side note, the call for papers for BSDCan is out:

BSDCan 2013 will be held 17-18 May, 2013 in Ottawa at the University of
Ottawa. It will be preceded by two days of tutorials on 15-16 May.

November Meeting 2012

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 04:56:34 +0000

Just a friendly reminder that this Thursday is the second Thursday of the month and we will be meeting at Cafe Colonnade downtown.

Cafe Colonnade is located at the corner of Metcalfe and Gilmore. If you need better directions, click on the “Meeting Information” link under the top graphic.

Official start time: 18:00 (unofficial – whenever you get there)
Official end time: 20:00 (people usually start drifting at 19:00 unless they are engaged in a conversation)

October Meeting 2012

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 02:31:05 +0000

Just a friendly reminder that this Thursday is the second Thursday of the month and we will be meeting at Cafe Colonnade downtown.

Cafe Colonnade is located at the corner of Metcalfe and Gilmore. If you need better directions, click on the “Meeting Information” link under the top graphic.

Official start time: 18:00 (unofficial – whenever you get there)
Official end time: 20:00 (people usually start drifting at 19:00 unless they are engaged in a conversation)

OARC Hamfest is this weekend

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:53:24 +0000

The OARC Hamfest is held yearly early in September. A fleamarket session is held in the morning followed by a forum.

There will be a qualified licence examiner on site, so you can get your ham radio licence or upgrade at the hamfest!

Date: Saturday, September 8, 2012
Place: Carp Agricultural Fairgrounds,
3832 Carp Road (at Falldown Lane),
Ottawa (Carp), Ontario.

Time:

Indoor Vendor setup: 7:30 am – 9 am;
Tailgaters Open: 8 am;
Public: 9 am – Noon.
Admission: Public: $6;
Tables: $12 each (plus admission); if booked before August 1 Price rises to $15 after Aug. 1
Tailgate: $5 (plus admission)

No September Meeting

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 03:49:49 +0000

This is just a reminder to the regulars that there will be no September meeting due to the number of people who will not be able to attend. We will continue on in October. A post to the mailing list will follow.

August Meeting: 2012-08-09

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:12:54 +0000

Just a friendly reminder that this Thursday is the second Thursday of the month and we will be meeting at Cafe Colonnade downtown.

Cafe Colonnade is located at the corner of Metcalfe and Gilmore. If you need better directions, click on the “Meeting Information” link under the top graphic.

Official start time: 18:00 (unofficial – whenever you get there)
Official end time: 20:00 (people usually start drifting at 19:00 unless they are engaged in a conversation)

July Meeting: 2012-07-12

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 03:08:11 +0000

Just a friendly reminder that this Thursday is the second Thursday of the month and we will be meeting at Cafe Colonnade downtown.

Cafe Colonnade is located at the corner of Metcalfe and Gilmore. If you need better directions, click on the “Meeting Information” link under the top graphic.

Official start time: 18:00 (unofficial – whenever you get there)
Official end time: 20:00 (people usually start drifting at 19:00 unless they are engaged in a conversation)

Meeting: June 14, 2012

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 16:17:08 +0000

Just a friendly reminder that this Thursday is the second Thursday of the month and we will be meeting at Cafe Colonnade downtown.

Cafe Colonnade is located at the corner of Metcalfe and Gilmore. If you need better directions, click on the “Meeting Information” link under the top graphic.

Official start time: 18:00 (unofficial – whenever you get there)
Official end time: 20:00 (people usually start drifting at 19:00 unless they are engaged in a conversation)

Old posts from the Dupal site have finally been added

Tue, 15 May 2012 20:43:45 +0000

I’ve finally added the old material from the previous incarnation of the site. It’s one of those tasks you hate doing, as it’s fraught with opportunity for error and really messing up the site. I was looking at a post somewhere else on migrating a Drupal 6 site to WordPress 2 and thought there was a way to do the work, install a fairly old WordPress on a different machine, grab the old backup I made before the migration and upgrade that to Drupal 6 and follow the procedure and then upgrade the WordPress install. It worked, or at least as well as could be expected. I did lose the authors of a couple of posts, and I need to go back and see if they re-registered with the site so I can change them back. At present all old posts are authored by ocuug.

BSDCan 2012 is over

Sun, 13 May 2012 03:43:40 +0000

That just about wraps it up for BSDCan 2012. Mark your calendars for BSDCan 2013, May 15-18 I think. I saw it on the screen today, but didn’t write it down. The only events left are social in nature and happen tomorrow. PGCon is next week as well for those who are looking for a good conference on Postgres.

Short summary: Lots of good information. I realized today how woefully ignorant I am with respect to ZFS functionality. Some of the things I saw today were quite inspiring and I will have to convert my web server over to a BSD base. I think it’s time to (re)learn a lot of things I thought I was familiar with.

BSDCan 2012 starts tomorrow!

Fri, 11 May 2012 03:36:00 +0000

Well. the conference itself anyway. The two days of tutorials are over, the initial pub night is complete, registration packs have been handed out and people have been seen in conference T-shirts.

There is still time to come out and register. Two full days of conference events as shown below:

BSDCan 2012 Schedule

[ocbug] And we kick off tomorrow with the first day of tutorials…

Wed, 09 May 2012 03:07:45 +0000

Just reminding folks that BSDCan is getting underway on Wednesday with the first day of tutorials.

It appears that the mailing list functionality has been restored and we can now post to the list again.

___________________
Ocbug mailing list
Ocbug@ocbug.ca
http://mail.ocbug.ca/mailman/listinfo/ocbug_ocbug.ca

May Meeting and BSDCan 2012

Wed, 02 May 2012 14:22:44 +0000

Just a reminder that May 10^th is our next meeting. As this coincides with BSDCan, we will be having our meeting at the Royal Oak on Laurier near the University of Ottawa. This will be a very social meeting, as people from all over will be there as conference attendees. Come out and meet old friends and make a few new ones. Registration for the conference and registration packages handouts will also be happening at the same time.

April Meeting 2012

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 02:28:33 +0000

Just a reminder that we will be having our monthly meeting on Thursday, April 12. This will be in our usual location. Check the “Meeting Information” link at the top for location details.

Reminder: BSDCan 2012 next month. You can view the BSDCan 2012 schedule. I have five confirmed volunteers for the conference setup so far and will be collecting a name or two more to make sure we have sufficient people.

March Meeting 2012

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 17:46:32 +0000

Just a reminder that we will be having our monthly meeting on Thursday, March 8. This will be in our usual location. Check the “Meeting Information” link at the top for location details.

For those who have not noticed, the BSDCan 2012 schedule has been posted. I’ll be collecting volunteer names for the conference bag stuffing event at our meeting. I need approximately six people for this and have managed to collect three so far. It would be nice to have a few alternates just in case.

February Meeting

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:06:24 +0000

Just a reminder that we will be having our monthly meeting on Thursday, February 9. This will be in our usual location. Check the Meeting Information link at the top for location details.

For those who may not have noticed, FreeBSD 9.0 is out. I should have posted that last month, but did not. For more details, visit http://www.freebsd.org/releases/9.0R/announce.html

We also have a twitter account, so I’ll be attempting to tweet on there as well. Hopefully the integration works and we have this post tweeted as well. If not, I need to spend more time looking at the plugin documentation.

January 2012 Meeting

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 22:30:18 +0000

Just a reminder that we will be having our first meeting of 2012 on Thursday, January 12. This will be in our usual location. Check the Meeting Information link at the top for location details.

No special topics, however if anyone has questions on LISA’11, I’ll be glad to answer any.

In other news, the BSDCan 2012 call for papers just came out. I’m going to assume that I’ll be coordinating volunteers again, so if you are interested, let me know. I will also be sending this to the mailing list.

Mailing list issues appear to be fixed.

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:25:51 +0000

It looks like the mailing list issue that was happening after the upstream provider migrated the site to a new server has been fixed. It was quite frustrating, as the message queue was not showing anything and the messages were vanishing into a black hole somewhere. All appears to be good now, as at least one person besides me received the test post.

The mailing list appears to be broken

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 04:04:58 +0000

The web service provider migrated this site (and a few others) to a new server. It did cause me a bit of alarm at first, as all the notifications were hiding in my SPAM folder and the sudden rash of certificate errors and new server names associated with them started hitting me all at once. I thought I had been hijacked.

As far as I can tell, only the mailing list is broken, and I hope that I’ll get a chance to get that corrected over the next few days.

December Meeting: 2011-12-08

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 04:01:16 +0000

This is a reminder that the December meeting is scheduled for Thursday, December 8th at Colonnade Pizza on Metcalfe and Gilmore.

No special agenda, I won’t even be there, as I’ll be at LISA’11 in Boston. It is likely I’ll see Dru while I’m there, so I’ll say “Hi” from the group.

Scott

[ocbug] FreeBSD wallpaper

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 01:16:11 +0000

November meeting was a success

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 05:17:38 +0000

Well, we had three people show up, so that makes it much more of a success than the October meeting.

One of the items discussed was the web site paper.li and the self-publishing it allows. I’ll be using it as part of the @ocbug twitter feed that I’m planning on starting as a regular part of this group. Hopefully I’ll be a little more regular with tweets than posts.

I also have not yet seen any posts to the mailing list get published, so here’s hoping that starts assisting the population of the site.

November Meeting: Thursday, Nov 10, 2011

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 04:10:16 +0000

This Thursday evening at Cafe Colonnade on Metcalfe and Gilmore, 18:00

No special topics, maybe some discussion on the upcoming release and that mini install we were considering.

For the hardware collectors, I have a few spare parts I’ll be bringing along if anyone is interested. I would prefer to give away some before I drop them off for recycling. There is also a Toshiba T6400 “laptop” in fully operational condition. Requires 120v to run, plasma display.

August followup…

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 13:16:02 +0000

We had a slightly better than normal turnout due to a couple of unexpected arrivals. This should happen more often.

As usual, the conversation was all over the map – Scotch tasting, GPL vs. BSD licensing, Creative Commons, old hardware, OS religious wars, etc. All said, a good evening.

We did decide on the next mini-install day, we are considering either October 15 or 16 (that is the weekend after Thanksgiving for us Canadians) and we will be looking at the current FreeBSD and PC-BSD for that event. The OS images will be available, as well as network connectivity and hopefully we will be live on IRC while we are doing it. I will warn in advance that if you wish to do a USB install, you should create your USB install device in advance, as dumping the full image to a USB stick is a very slow process.

August Meeting: 2011-08-11

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 02:39:12 +0000

Just reminding people that the OCBUG meeting is the 11th at our usual location.

Topics:
– Next mini-install 9 beta 1?
– What are we doing with BSD?
– Project ideas – Home automation? Weather station? Home radio station?

June Meeting – 2011-06-09

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 13:21:16 +0000

It’s almost time for the June meeting and I’m still not used to the revised night.

This Thursday evening at Cafe Colonnade on Metcalfe and Gilmore, 18:00

No special topics, maybe some discussion on BSDCan 2011, FreeBSD 9, etc. We also have some pictures from the conference, although I didn’t take nearly as many as I meant to.

[Show as slideshow]

Out with the old and in with the new…

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 18:20:26 +0000

Well, to some extent anyway. The new website is launched and live. In order to participate, you need to sign up. All the good reasons (mostly spam) are in effect. I’m going to copy over the items from the old website to this one with a tag of “OCUUG Archive”. As this is effectively a blogging engine, the management is a bit easier than the old one and comment spam is much easier to deal with. You still need to be a member to comment and you need to come out to a meeting to get blog/post privileges. That might change as time goes on, but right now, that’s the requirement.

April Meeting – note change in meeting night!

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:12:36 +0000

Thursday April 14 @ 18:00

The April meeting will be held on the second Thursday of the month. We are moving back to the original night as the prior move did not assist in gathering new faces. We’ve been pretty consistent at 4-6 people every month.

As everyone on the mailing list should know, we re-branded ourselves in January as the Ottawa Canada BSD Users Group, given the group membership and to that end we have another public face, ocbug.ca.

Mailing List

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:59:51 +0000

The OCBUG mail list is the original heart of the organization. Discussions about anything related to UNIX like Operating Systems (the focus is on BSD) or the group are conducted here. Everyone is welcome to participate.

To subscribe, visit the List Archive Page for instructions.

Meeting Information

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:58:48 +0000

NOTE: As anyone viewing this should know, in-person meetings have not been happening since the COVID-19 shutdown.

Attendance has been down to just a few people for quite some time, so once we get back to in person meetings, the schedule will be once a quarter unless we get a surge of interest.

The group meets for pizza, beer and conversation. (You are not required to eat or drink, but participation in the conversation is encouraged.)

September Meeting just passed…

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:16:25 +0000

Due to a miscalculation, I was off by a week in my reminder post to the mailing list and didn’t even update this site. We had the meeting Wednesday, September 15, 2010.

The next meeting should be: Wednesday, October 20, 2010.

Don’t forget to sign up for the new mailing list at http://mail.ocbug.ca/mailman/listinfo (The Ottawa-Canada BSD User Group). If you haven’t been watching the list, you may be unaware that the concentration here has been BSD for so long that we may as well re-brand as OCBUG and move on. This site will be sporadically updated and the mailing list content will be archived at OCBUG as well.

August Meeting 2010

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:48:35 +0000

The August Meeting is almost upon us.

Just as a reminder, Wednesday (August 18) is the third Wednesday of the month.

For those who do not remember, that means the Ottawa-Carleton Unix Users
Group gets together for an evening of conversation, beverages and food
(not necessarily in that order).

Come out and share a story, bring a question, lurk, maybe even score some odd/old hardware… Show up to find out more!

BSDCan 2010

Sun, 09 May 2010 04:05:18 +0000

BSDCan 2010 registration is open. If you haven’t heard about it, it’s the Canadian BSD Conference. visit www.bsdcan.org for more information.

April Meeting 2010

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 03:01:06 +0000

The April Meeting is almost upon us.

Just as a reminder, Wednesday (April 21) is the third Wednesday of the month.

For those who do not remember, that means the Ottawa-Carleton Unix Users
Group gets together for an evening of conversation, beverages and food
(not necessarily in that order).

Come out and share a story, bring a question, lurk!

February Meeting – 2010-02-17

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 04:35:12 +0000

The February Meeting is almost upon us.

Just as a reminder, Wednesday (February 17) is the third Wednesday of the month.

For those who do not remember, that means the Ottawa-Carleton Unix Users
Group gets together for an evening of conversation, beverages and food
(not necessarily in that order).

We had a surprising turnout in January, so let’s see if we can keep the momentum going.

Details:

Colonnade Pizza & Restaurant, 280 Metcalfe (at Gilmour)
18:00 (6:00pm)
Thursday, February 17, 2010

Scratching the historical itch with uwm

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:56:48 +0000

I can safely be accused of having retro tastes, whether it’s antique cameras, typewriters or hi-fi cabinets. (I recently acquired my parents’ Silvertone Hi-Fi, which seems to be in good working order except for the strong burning smell it emitted when Oldies 1310 started playing an Anne Murray song. Draw your own conclusions.)

This tendency towards the antiquated also extends to my computing habits. While I normally vacillate between fvwm and Xfce, I also often tinker with twm when I want to relive 1989. Recently, though, I stepped even further back and installed uwm (the Ultrix Window Manager) on my laptop. Originally released in 1985 for Digital’s Ultrix brand of Unix systems, it is still available today for most UNIX and Unix-like systems. (I’ve been shacking up with NetBSD lately, and thus was able to download uwm as a binary package.)

Linux-centric coverage a disservice to overall Unix community

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:59:48 +0000

I should preface the following by saying that I have absolutely nothing against Linux nor the Linux community. In fact, Linux was my point of entry to the world of Unix, and for that very reason I am thankful it exists. I also see it as an invaluable hotbed for new ideas and permutations.

Over the past few years, however, I have seen just how far and wide the world of UNIX and Unix-like operating systems extends. In this realm there is a legacy of innovation and code-sharing going back 40 years. (In the early years, the code-sharing was done as a matter of unofficial practice, even though it had yet to be codified by way of licenses such the GPL or BSD. Of course, the one legal caveat back then was the requirement to have an AT&T site license.)

9twm (twm with a “Plan 9” theme)

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:24:50 +0000

Pasted below is a .twmrc file I’ve been hacking the past few days. In conjunction with a simple mod to .xinitrc (see below), it is my attempt at making twm impersonate Plan 9 from Bell Labs as much as possible without adding any extra software or widgets other than those native to X. (For example, the .xinitrc lines suggested below use xload in place of stats from Plan 9.)

The final result equals the looks and sensibilities of Plan 9, but with the behavior and functionality of twm. One glaring omission on the aesthetics side is Plan 9’s big fat pointer arrow. Instead, I’ve opted for a skinny little thing (draft_small) that is much closer to the root window cursor in 9wm.

August Meeting

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 21:40:59 +0000

Just as a reminder, Thursday (August 13) is the second
Thursday of the month.

For those who do not remember, that means the Ottawa-Carleton Unix Users
Group gets together for an evening of conversation, beverages and food
(not necessarily in that order).

We’ve had a couple of thin months, so let see who can make it.

Details:

Colonnade Pizza & Restaurant, 280 Metcalfe (at Gilmour)
18:00 (6:00pm)
Thursday, August 13, 2009

February Meeting

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:23:04 +0000

Just as a reminder, this Thursday (February 12) is the second
Thursday of the month.

For those who do not remember, that means the Ottawa-Carleton Unix Users
Group gets together for an evening of conversation, beverages and food
(not necessarily in that order).

It’s traditionally the coldest month here in Ottawa, so come out for hot pizza, hot toddies (or other hot drinks) and see what the hot topics are.

January Meeting

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:37:52 +0000

Thursday Jan 8, 2009
Cafe Colonnade
18:00

See the Meeting Info link (upper right corner of the page) for more details.

First meet of the year! Come out and celebrate the (slightly) longer days. Bring a friend!

December Meeting

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:31:08 +0000

Thursday Dec 11, 2008
Cafe Colonnade
18:00

See the Meeting Info link (upper right corner of the page) for more details.

Last meet of the year! Come out for a meat lovers 🙂

September Meeting

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:09:57 +0000

Thursday Sept 11, 2008
Cafe Colonnade
18:00

See the Meeting Info link (upper right corner of the page) for more details.

I seem to have been slack in posting over the past few months. Blame it on my day job interfering 🙂

April Meeting

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 02:49:49 +0000

Thursday April 10, 2008
Cafe Colonnade
18:00

See the Meeting Info link (upper right corner of the page) for more details.

For those who forget such things, it is probably the last meeting before BSDcan.

Don’t forget to register!

(Yes, I forgot to post last month)

February Meeting (Valentines Day)

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:59:00 +0000

Thursday February 14, 2008
Cafe Colonnade
18:00

See the Meeting Info link (upper right corner of the page) for more details.

For those who forget such things, it is also Valentines Day

January Meeting

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 03:54:58 +0000

Thursday January 10, 2008
Cafe Colonnade
18:00

See the Meeting Info link (upper right corner of the page) for more details.

December Meeting

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 01:49:16 +0000

Thursday December 13, 2007
Cafe Colonnade
18:00

See the Meeting Info link (upper right corner of the page) for more details.

November Meeting

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 14:30:41 +0000

Thursday November 8, 2007
Cafe Colonnade
18:00

See the Meeting Info link (upper right corner of the page) for more details.

October Meeting

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 04:10:09 +0000

Thursday October 11, 2007
Cafe Colonnade
18:00

See the Meeting Info link (upper right corner of the page) for more details.

Software Freedom Day

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 16:07:12 +0000

Software Freedom Day is coming up on Saturday, September 15th. Software Freedom Day is a global celebration and education of why transparent and sustainable technologies are now more important than ever. There will be displays at Carleton University, location to be added later, from 10:00am until 3:00pm. Some of the items to be displayed are:

The OpenCD
OSBR
BSD Certification
PC-BSD
Carleton’s TIM Program

September Meeting

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 15:52:16 +0000

September Meeting

Thursday September 13, 2007
Cafe Colonnade
18:00

See Meeting Info link at top of page for full directions.

August Meeting

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 13:53:13 +0000

August Meeting

Thursday August 9, 2007
Cafe Colonnade
18:00

See Meeting Info link at top of page for full directions.

July Meeting

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 17:21:00 +0000

Meeting Thursday, July 12 @ 18:00 Cafe Colonnade

See “Meeting Info” link at the top for directions

UNIX CERTIFICATION

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 15:09:58 +0000

I am new in the Country/City. I am looking for possible place I can take classes in Solaris Unix and write certification examination subsequently. I need your able assistance please.

Aniekeme Etokimo

June Meeting

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 13:33:30 +0000

Meeting Thursday, June 14 @ 18:00 Cafe Colonnade

See “Meeting Info” link at the top for directions

One item of discussion will be next month’s meeting. Picnic/BBQ type of event or continue with the same format & venue.

What would you like added to the site?

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 17:30:04 +0000

There are many options:

Event Calendar
Private Messaging
Link Farm

April Meeting – UPDATE

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 15:30:16 +0000

Just a reminder that the April meeting is 18:00, Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at Cafe Collonade, Gilmore & Metcalfe

For directions, see Meeting Info link

BSDCan 2007

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 06:37:31 +0000

For those who are unaware as of yet, BSDCan 2007 will be held on 18-19 May 2007 at University of Ottawa, and will be preceeded by two days of Tutorials on 16-17 May 2007.

Mailing List

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 03:52:52 +0000

The OCUUG mail list is the heart of the organization. Discussions about anything
related to *NIX or the group are conducted here. Everyone is welcome to participate.

To subscribe, visit the OCUUG mailing list link.

Meeting Information

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 03:49:41 +0000

The group meets monthly for pizza and beer and conversation. (You are
not required to eat or drink, but participation in the conversation is encouraged.)

Location: Colonnade Pizza, 280 Metcalfe St.
[Google Map]

Time: 18:00

When: Third Wednesday of the month

Welcome to the New Website

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 03:44:01 +0000

I’ve finally gotten motivated sufficiently to do something about the site, so here we go. As CMS systems are all the rage, we’ve joined the 21st century.

There are a plethora of features that could be added here, but Im sticking with the basics for the moment. You will need to sign up in order to post messages/announcements/comments. If you want to sign up, click on the “Create New Account” link on the menu to the right.