Show Past Events (57)
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: First meeting of the semester; Intro to VTLUUG!
Presenter: rsk (rishik@vt.edu)
Description: Discussing VTLUUG past, present, and future.
slides @ https://vtluug.org/files/2024/rsk-intro/intro.pdf
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: Funding, CS Afilliation, and server room field trip!
Presenter: rsk (rishik@vt.edu)
Description: We will briefly meet in MCB 240, before moving to the TOP SECRET seventh floor of Whittemore hall
to pay a visit to the VTLUUG/WUVT server rack.
Items up for general discussion:
+ Funding -- how much we have, and what to spend it on.
+ Colo in WHIT is a pain in a post-jkh world. would CS help?
+ server happy happy playtime
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: Retro gaming and ripping dvds
Presenter: Brendan W. Roeting (roetinb@vt.edu)
Description: An original N64 will be brought for people to play and take a look at along with some gameboys to show how saving
ROMS and Save Files are done. We will also learn how to rip dvds to an .mkv format to be used without the physical
medium including blue-rays and 4k movies.
+ elections soon?! think of all the cool new officer titles...
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: elections!
Presenter: milo (miloc@vt.edu)
Description: it's VTLUUG election season, this time for the Spring '25 - Fall '25 cycle!
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: LIGHTNING TALKS!
Presenter: various (officers@vtluug.org)
Description: The lightning talk: the favorite clubular passtime of LUUGers who can't muster up the end-of-semester energy to come up with a real presentation.
Premeditated lightning talks (follow the guide on the vtluug/calendarium github repo to add yours, if you feel like it):
+ typst: LaTeX for rust-huffing zoomers (rsk)
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: Free (as in speech) Computer Algebra Software
Presenter: Ross George (rossgeorge@vt.edu)
Description: Why use a regular calculator when you could use a really awesome one? Where can you find a really awesome one? How do you use one? Why do you want to use one? Find out!
Location: McBryde 240, maybe. we'll find an empty room day-of if that one's occupied.
Subject: Installfest planning and the Spring semester
Presenter: Rishi Krishna (rishik@vt.edu)
Description: We're going to hold an Installfest on the first week of February. This meeting, we'll hash out the details (what date, who's coming, what flavor pizza, ...). Also up for discussion: the rebuilt 100TB cyberdelia, and our new GPU compute server 'gibson'.
Location: McBryde 240, maybe. we'll find an empty room day-of if that one's occupied.
Subject: Fooling around with local LLMs, as well as more Installfest & semester planning
Presenter: Rishi Krishna (rishik@vt.edu)
Description: Talking about Installfest some more (possibly re-scheduling it per room availability), and playing with the (now actually set up) AI server, Gibson.
We can also start planning talks for the upcoming meetings.
Location: McBryde CS Lounge
Subject: Installfest!, (12:00PM to 5:00 PM)
Presenter: VTLUUG (root@vtluug.org)
Description: VTLUUG's once-and-now-again semesterly festival of pizza & install media. Come experience
+ linux users in a room for five hours
+ esoteric operating system installation (TempleOS, anybody?)
+ doing irresponsible things with infrastructure
+ free pizza
Location: McBryde 238
Subject: snow day!
Presenter: VTLUUG (officers@vtluug.org)
Description: campus is snowed-out! rsk's still going to be hanging out at McB, but feel free to stay home. enjoy the winter wonderland.
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: Introduction to Proxmox
Presenter: Mikhail Schneide (mikhail@licas.dev)
Description: A basic introduction to Proxmox which goes over installation and basic usage.
Location: McBryde 224
Subject: Leveraging Botnet-as-a-Service "Free VPN" services to harvest working SOCKS & HTTP proxies
Presenter: rsk (rishik@vt.edu)
Description: It's an open secret that most shady "Free VPN" services are actually using reselling your live connection as a residential proxy. But what can we gain from this?
As it turns out, apart from backdooring you, they do actually provide users with valid SOCKS5/HTTP proxies -- rsk will demonstrate using wireshark & other request monitoring tools to sniff their proxy-fetching handshake and make off with free working proxy lists.
Location: McBryde 224
Subject: Secure Boot and Linux
Presenter: Caleb (calexkeatts@vt.edu)
Description: Secure Boot gets a bad rap for being an attempt by Microsoft to lock down the PC platform to the Windows operating system. However, x86 and x64 PCs are required to allow clearing the keys per Microsoft. Utilizing this setup mode allows creating custom keys and removing all reliance on Microsoft and their Third-Party CA. -- Caleb will show how to put a device into setup mode and create and enroll keys, as well as how to sign the Linux and Windows bootloaders. If time allows, we might discuss FDE.
Location: McBryde 224
Subject: VimTutor Tutoring
Presenter: Eric (erickauppi43 @ vt dot edu)
Description: Vim is a great terminal text editor, but it seems like a lot of VTLUUG members don't know how to use it. In this meeting, Eric will be guiding members through the vimtutor program, which provies a short overview of some of the shortcuts that make vim so efficient in the hands of a skilled user. Whether you don't know how to close vim or want to refresh your knowledge, this lesson should be helpful for anyone who wants to become a true Linux user.
Location: McBryde 224
Subject: Compiling Linux from Source
Presenter: (no|any|every)body (officers@vtluug.org)
Description: We'll be doing a live build of the Linux kernel from source code to establish the start of VTLUUG's newest iteration of the Hokie Linux distribution project.
Location: McBryde 224
Subject: fixing servers + possible custom libvirt HA solution + more linux from scratch
Presenter: mikhail, rsk (mikhail@licas.dev)
Description: + We upgraded everything to a ubuntu 24 LTS, switched to a real NIC on the router, and now it all is very, very slow. Why? God only knows.
+ While debugging, we've dreamed up the system architecture for a simple libvirt High Availability setup. Maybe discuss this?!
+ Last week's LFS install was aborted due to RUHPL (rapid unscheduled homeserver power loss). Dreams of Hokie Linux continue.
Location: McBryde 224
Subject: innanet relay chatting with the cool kids: an introductory guide to weechat(-relay)
Presenter: rsk (rsk@vtluug.org)
Description: Installation and use of weechat on a remote (tmux|screen) pane, configuration of weechat-relay, glowing-bear, weechat-android, and probably playing back some sick asskey art.
IRC is the greatest chat platform ever made, and probably the greatest that ever will be made. Plus, it's out-of-band, so you can still chat when our occasionally flaky matrix infra goes down!
Location: McBryde 224
Subject: MINI INSTALLFEST
Presenter: VTLUUG (officers@vtluug.org)
Description: Come on down to a good old fashioned end-of-semester mini installfest! We all have a bunch of spare hardware lying around, so go ahead and install linux on it. You know you want to.
Location: McBryde 224
Subject: social meeting
Presenter: nobody :) (officers@vtluug.org)
Description: Part MCDXXXIX (roughly) of the greatest hang on the planet.
Location: McBryde 224
Subject: we're almost at the end of the semester...
Presenter: (no|every)body :) (officers@vtluug.org)
Description: ...can you feel finals creeping up? gibson is back online, we're watching Hackers next week, and life is (hopefully) good -- come hang out.
Location: Zach's place. check pound vtluug for info.
Subject: TUESDAY HACKERS WATCHPARTY GET HYPED
Presenter: kz4ki (kz4ki @t pm dot me)
Description: can you believe half these chumps haven't seen Hackers yet? shameful. late email because rsk is bad at planning.
Location: McBryde 224
Subject: Making propaganda and figuring out logistics for the semester.
Presenter: VTLUUG (officers@vtluug.org)
Description: Come help us make propaganda and figure out when fall installfest will be. We will also discuss other important aspects of the upcoming semester probably, like figuring out meetings and things.
CALEB SPELLED PROPAGANDA WRONG THE FIRST TIME LAUGH AT HIM ~rsk
Location: McBryde 226
Subject: ELECTIONS! also, clj talks about flakes and we all move very expensive server equipment
Presenter: VTLUUG (officers@vtluug.org)
Description: Time to get a new president before heads start rolling. Also on the docket is \'what is even an NixOS flake?\' and hauling heavy boxes accross campus.
We should probably plan installfest sometime, too. fun for the whole family.
Location: McBryde CS Lounge (MCB 106/110)
Subject: Installfest!, (3:00PM to 7:00 PM)
Presenter: VTLUUG (root@vtluug.org)
Description: VTLUUG's once-and-now-again semesterly festival of pizza & install media. Come experience
+ linux users in a room for five hours
+ esoteric operating system installation (TempleOS, anybody?)
+ doing irresponsible things with infrastructure
+ free pizza
Location: McBryde 226
Subject: A GUI's problem and its solutions
Presenter: Enzo R. Isotton (enzoisotton@vtluug.org)
Description: That GUIs are bloated, everybody knows. I am not going to talk about that.
There is another big issue with GUIs that most people are not paying attention to when installing their graphical applications.
Curious? Come to the meeting!
Location: McBryde 226(?)
Subject: Podman and Quadlet
Presenter: Mikhail Schneide (mikhail@licas.dev)
Description: Docker is managed by a for-profit organization that has already changed the licenses on all of their products to a proprietary one which isn't open source for all of their projects execept the core docker engine and docker compose. Alternative OCI runtimes which are separate of Docker exist such as Podman which is likely to stay truly free and open source for ever.
Location: McBryde 226
Subject: VTLUUG's Infrastructure
Presenter: Enzo R. Isotton (eri) (enzoisotton@vtluug.org)
Description: Do you want to know how our infra works? And help plan updates to it?
We will be answering questions like:
What is running on each server? How is that running?
How is our network configured? And much more.
Location: McBryde 226
Subject: End of Windows 10
Presenter: Enzo R. Isotton (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: Let's celebrate another poor decision made by Microsoft.
(Bill Gates is secretly a Linux fan and is trying to make Windows worse so people switch to Linux)
Location: McBryde 226
Subject: AWS is down. We are up. Let's talk about Cloud.
Presenter: Enzo R. Isotton (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: AWS went down at about 3 am on Monday and with it half the internet.
Does our lives depends on the Cloud? Have the idea of serverless went too far?
Should we start making sacrifices to the gods of Cloud?
Location: McBryde 226
Subject: nob.h: A build system that only requires a C compiler
Presenter: Enzo R. Isotton (eri) (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: nob.h is a simple and powerful single file build system for C/C++ projects.
It solves the problem of having to install make, cmake, mason/ninja, automake or any other build system.
nob.h only requires you to have the same compiler that you would use to compile your project.
Location: McBryde 226
Subject: Some FOSS projects + watch IPv6 talk
Presenter: Enzo R. Isotton (eri) (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: Average informal VTLUUG meeting. Let's talk about some cool FOSS projects and maybe watch a talk about IPv6.
If you think this will be boring, shame on you. This will be epic as always.
Location: McBryde 226
Subject: It's December! Let's do some Advent of Code
Presenter: Everyone will participate! (officers@vtluug.org)
Description: Let's do some chaotic dynamics to solve Advent of Code problems.
Including, everyone puts a language in a hat and we have to use the one we draw.
Food or drinks will be provided if I find something Christmas related at Kroger.
Location: McBryde 226
Subject: First meeting of the year!
Presenter: Enzo R. Isotton (eri) (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: New year.
Same LUUG.
29 years of VTLUUG.
More thousands of years to go.
Meetings every Wednesday.
See you there!
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: Installfest Planning
Presenter: Enzo R. Isotton (eri) (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: Installfest is next week!!!
Let's have some fun making flyers and planning this event.
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: Stop Cat Abuse!
Presenter: Enzo R. Isotton (eri) (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: Do you do "cat file | grep something" ?
You are abusing your cat!
Come to the meeting and learn how to protect your cat.
(No cat will be harm during the presentation)
Location: McBryde 106/110 (McBryde CS Lounge)
Subject: Installfest! (date change)
Presenter: Enzo R. Isotton (eri) (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: Curious about one of the few Microsoft Windows alternatives out there?
Just having a hard time getting Linux going on your laptop?
Come on out to the Virginia Tech Linux & Unix Users' Group Installfest!
And, of course, FREE PIZZA!
No registration required – just show up! Stay for a little while or the whole time.
If you are an experienced Linux/UNIX user, we will be installing unusual OSes on unusual machines.
(Due to the snow, this was moved from Wednesday to Saturday (Feb. 7th), from 2 pm to 7 pm or later).
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: There will be a meeting and there will be cookies!
Presenter: Enzo R. Isotton (eri) (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: It's this time of the semester again; I got busy with school work and forgot
to plan something for the meeting. If this is not your first time attending a
meeting, you probably know they are very freestyle. So, I can only guarantee
two things...
There will be a meeting and there will be cookies!
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: Intro to Kernel Module Programming
Presenter: Enzo R. Isotton (eri) (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: Come learn the basics of Linux kernel modules and how to create your own kernel module.
Location: McBryde 202
Subject: Intro to RISCV (By CINLUG)
Presenter: Matt St. Onge / CINLUG (vtluug@vtluug.org)
Description: The Central INdiana Linux User Group (CINLUG) is hosting a talk today
on RISC-V. Let's virtually join them.
More info at https://www.cinlug.org/2026/02/20/march-2026-cinlug-meeting-intro-to-risc-v/
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: SELinux Primer
Presenter: John Franklin (john.franklin@vt.edu)
Description: Explore SELinux's power! We'll cover MAC security principles including
Bell-LaPadula/Biba, policy building, essential CLI commands for managing
SELinux and look into packaging policy for deployment.
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: [Open Discussion] Achieving Long-Term Maintainability
Presenter: Enzo R. Isotton (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: Have you ever had to maintain a software, a service, or a system that you did
not help create?
Most of the time, it is not easy, and often it almost feels easier to rebuild
everything.
What do you do or would do to make sure what you are doing will be
maintainable in ten years?
Come share your thoughts with us :)
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: Two Talks, One Meeting
Presenter: rsk & Enzo (rsk@vtluug.org, eri@vtluug.org)
Description: rsk shows off a typst framework for single-document builds with tiered levels
of inline access classification, backed by age encryption.
Enzo presents how to jailbreak a kindle, the main breaks you can use, and what
you can do after freeing your device from Amazon.
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: Let's vibe code together
Presenter: Enzo (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: I don't have a topic for today's meeting, but I have a bunch of free claude
tokens.
So, let's burn the natural resources of the planet together!
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: Installing Gentoo on a Sparc64 Sun Desktop
Presenter: Enzo (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: We are installing the Gentoo Linux distribution on a Sun Microsystems desktop
machine with a Sparc64 CPU. What else do I need to say to convince you to come
to this meeting?
EDIT: Typo :P
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: Are you an AI agent?
Presenter: Enzo (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: Let's play with AI agents / subagents!
PS: If this meeting led to the creation of Skynet, it was Rishi's idea.
Location: McBryde 202
Subject: Low-tech backup keys with age
Presenter: Clark Jones (clj@vtluug.org)
Description: Printers are untrustworthy, but cryptography is goated. I'll explain how you can use
age to make and use cheap offline backup keys for when you inevitably lose your YubiKey. The concepts apply to more than just
age, but
age is a modern, extensible tool with a user interface that is harder to misuse. It also has a slick feature that makes it particularly suited for this purpose.
Location: McBryde 226
Subject: Propaganda
Presenter: Officers (officers@vtluug.org)
Description: Installfest (our interest meeting / linux installation / FREE PIZZA event) is
next week. Lets discuss what poster designs we want to print and more ways
of getting people involved.
Location: McBryde 106/110 (McBryde CS Lounge)
Subject: Installfest!
Presenter: VTLUUG (officers@vtluug.org)
Description: Curious about one of the few Microsoft Windows alternatives out there?
Just having a hard time getting Linux going on your laptop?
Come on out to the VTLUUG Installfest!
And, of course, FREE PIZZA!
No registration required -- just show up! Stay for a little while or the whole
time.
If you are an experienced Linux/UNIX user, come hang out with other linux people
and talk about interesting topics.
Location: McBryde 226
Subject: MicroVMs
Presenter: Enzo (eri@vtluug.org)
Description: Smaller VMs?
An alternative to containers?
Some cloud bullshit designed to steal your money?
Come to the talk and find out.
Location: McBryde 240
Subject: Clark does homework
Presenter: Clark Levi Jones (clj@vt.edu) (clj@vt.edu)
Description: I have a comparative languages project due today lol.
Come and chat
Location: McBryde 226/240/we will see
Subject: Minibash retrospective
Presenter: Clark Levi Jones (clj@vt.edu)
Description: The statute of limitations (due date) has passed for CS3214's first project, minibash.
We will chat about this beloved project for a beloved class. We WILL.
Location: McBryde 226/240/we will see
Subject: Wacket + Clash of Code
Presenter: Clark Levi Jones (clj@vt.edu)
Description: Let's talk about some wack
Racket code.
What the heck does
(λ(s'(curryr regexp-match* s)`length)(+`'"[ij.;!?:]"`'":")) do‽
We'll also play some Clash of Code (timed code golf) on
Codingame.
Don't worry about the timer; the puzzles are super easy.
Location: McBryde 226/240/we will see
Subject: μKanren
Presenter: Clark Levi Jones (clj@vt.edu)
Description: μKanren is an implementation of logic/relational programming in fewer than 40 lines of Scheme. We'll walk through the short paper that covers the entire implementation and discuss improvements, implementations in other languages, and what it's actually like to use such a minimalist system.
Location: McBryde 2nd floor; exact room TBD
Subject: eMudhra Certificate Authority Compromise
Presenter: Clark Levi Jones (clj@vt.edu)
Description: eMudhra, an intermediate certificate authority (CA) was compromised a few days ago. They had multiple SINGLE-BYTE private keys including FOUR (4). You can learn more and check whether you are impacted
here. (Firefox users should be safe). We will talk about the ramifications of this compromise, how this strengthens existing criticisms of the CA system, and different approaches to revoking certificates at both the application and OS level.
Location: McBryde 2nd floor; exact room TBD
Subject: We will get the wiki back up or die trying
Presenter: Clark Levi Jones (clj@vt.edu)
Description: I took the wiki down in response to a (perhaps overblown) PHP vuln, and I really should have brought it up at the last meeting. This time I will for sure. Definitely. We'll also have some Nix + k8s discussion.
Location: McBryde 2nd floor; exact room TBD
Subject: Jank
Presenter: Clark Levi Jones (clj@vt.edu)
Description: Jank (https://jank-lang.org) is a “robust” Clojure dialect that combines the elegant and pleasant design of Clojure with the… C++ness of C++. Clojure is my favorite (family of) language(s) that I never use, so this is a good excuse to talk about it.
Location: McBryde 2nd floor; exact room TBD
Subject: Code Golf
Presenter: Clark Levi Jones (clj@vt.edu)
Description: Code golf is a fun pastime where you write a program that does something in as few (key)strokes as possible. We'll talk about the general process and some language-specific tips before launching into codingame.com, my favorite website to connect my agent to. (It has many easy problems to golf and multiplayer)