Mailing List Shut Down

If you’re here to find out why the DLUG mailing list isn’t working, here’s the explanation.

With no warning, our hosting company (Dreamhost) shut down its Mailman Discussion List feature last month and deleted the management interface. We’re still not sure if there’s any way to recover our subscriber list, so this post may be the only way (besides Facebook) to get the word out.

We are actively looking for another place to host the mailing list, and will post again when we have it set back up.

July Meeting: Decentralized Chat with Matrix

When:

Thursday, July 16, 2026 @ 7:00pm

Where:

Wright State University
Russ Engineering Center, Room 348

We will also have an online presence via the Zoom web conferencing service.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87602254357
Meeting ID: 876 0225 4357

The easiest way to join the meeting is to click “Join from browser”. You can also choose “Join from Zoom Workplace app” to open the meeting in an existing Zoom installation or to download and install the app for Windows. For those using Linux, you can download the free (not Free) Zoom client from this page. It’s available for a variety of distributions.

For those attending in person, we will most likely adjourn to Milano’s afterward for food and socializing.

Presentations/Topics:

Have you used Matrix, the open standard for decentralized, real-time communication? Neither has Grant Root, so he’ll lead a discussion where we can all learn about it together – and maybe get a server up and running!

Matrix is designed to be the foundational “glue” of the Internet’s chat layer, much like the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) defines how email works. Unlike popular services like WhatsApp, Slack, and Discord, the entire power of Matrix rests on its radical departure from the centralized model, opting instead for federation. Matrix is implemented in a number of Open Source servers (e.g. Synapse, Dendrite) and clients (e.g. Element, Nheko, FluffyChat). We’ll discuss the protocol itself, and try getting a client and server talking!

As always, we’ll also have discussion time for Linux and Open Source news, projects you’re working on, and questions for the rest of the group.

Presentation Slides: https://linux.dma1.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/matrix_dlug_presentation.pdf

June Meeting: Kinect with Ubuntu

When:

Thursday, June 18, 2026 @ 7:00pm

Where:

Wright State University
Russ Engineering Center, Room 348

We will also have an online presence via the Zoom web conferencing service.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87602254357
Meeting ID: 876 0225 4357

The easiest way to join the meeting is to click “Join from browser”. You can also choose “Join from Zoom Workplace app” to open the meeting in an existing Zoom installation or to download and install the app for Windows. For those using Linux, you can download the free (not Free) Zoom client from this page. It’s available for a variety of distributions.

For those attending in person, we will most likely adjourn to Milano’s afterward for food and socializing.

Presentations/Topics:

JMB will present on attempting to use a Microsoft XBox 360 Kinect device with an Ubuntu 24.04 Linux box and displaying a real-time depth map video.  A depth map sensor can be the basis for robotics such as a distance measurement, obstacle avoidance, gesture interpretation, 3D point cloud generation for virtual reality, etc.

Wikipedia (summarized): “Kinect for Xbox 360 hardware included an infrared projector and camera and a special microchip that generates a grid from which the location of a nearby object in 3 dimensions can be ascertained. This 3D scanner system called Light Coding employs a variant of image-based 3D reconstruction. The device features an “RGB camera, depth sensor and microphone array running proprietary software”, which provide full-body 3D motion capture, facial and voice recognition capabilities.”

The necessary Ubuntu software modules, settings, python code sources and tweaks to get it to work will be detailed.  Facial and voice recognition have not been attempted.  A live video of the currently working setup will be attempted.

As always, we’ll also have discussion time for Linux and Open Source news, projects you’re working on, and questions for the rest of the group.

Presentation Slides: https://linux.dma1.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Kinect_with_Ubuntu.pdf