<![CDATA[Cal Poly Linux Users Group]]>https://cplug.org/https://cplug.org/favicon.pngCal Poly Linux Users Grouphttps://cplug.org/Ghost 5.62Tue, 14 Apr 2026 22:59:40 GMT60<![CDATA[So you want to join CPLUG?]]>We have a variety of ways to keep in contact with our members. Please join the one(s) that suit your use cases the best!

That being said, these are the preferred methods, and recommend you join one of them:

If you would like

]]>https://cplug.org/so-you-want-to-join-cplug/64fa7cab22622700011e928aThu, 23 Mar 2023 07:06:00 GMTWe have a variety of ways to keep in contact with our members. Please join the one(s) that suit your use cases the best!

That being said, these are the preferred methods, and recommend you join one of them:

If you would like to join the community on these other forums, you are welcome to as well:

]]><![CDATA[Free Your Machine!]]>Looking to get Linux on your computer but not sure how to? Need help with 357? Wanna hang out with cool Linux users? Every Sunday we host a Free Your Machine (FYM) in room 197-204 (Bonderson, Sec Lab) from 12pm to 3pm, where we help people get Linux running on

]]>https://cplug.org/free-your-machine/64fa7cab22622700011e927cMon, 20 Mar 2023 07:01:00 GMT

Looking to get Linux on your computer but not sure how to? Need help with 357? Wanna hang out with cool Linux users? Every Sunday we host a Free Your Machine (FYM) in room 197-204 (Bonderson, Sec Lab) from 12pm to 3pm, where we help people get Linux running on their computer. Join our mailing list to be notified when these occur!

Come out for anything from basic UNIX help to getting a Linux environment up and running in a virtual machine or dual boot! Also, If you have any other questions about the club or Linux feel free to come and talk to other members of the club.

If you have time, please, stop by! (not obligated to stay for the entire time)

]]><![CDATA[CPLUG Newsletter - Hybrid Mode Edition (Week 2)]]>Happy National Hot Tea Day, linear bounded automaton users! I hope your first week of school has treated you well.

My week, unfortunately, has been a medium amount of sucky. Who knew taking lots of CS classes could be stressful? On the bright side, I have a CI pipeline giving

]]>https://cplug.org/2022-winter-week-2/64fa7cab22622700011e92a3Wed, 12 Jan 2022 17:00:00 GMT

Happy National Hot Tea Day, linear bounded automaton users! I hope your first week of school has treated you well.

My week, unfortunately, has been a medium amount of sucky. Who knew taking lots of CS classes could be stressful? On the bright side, I have a CI pipeline giving me big green checks on my pull requests, so I feel less sucky!

CPLUG Newsletter - Hybrid Mode Edition (Week 2)

Winter 2022 Survey

Thank you to everyone who has taken our very short anonymous survey! If you haven't already, you have one last chance to take it to give us information about what kinds of activities we should plan. We will be releasing its results later.

FYM on Sunday!

CPLUG Newsletter - Hybrid Mode Edition (Week 2)

Based on the survey responses, Free Your Machine (FYM) will continue to be on Sunday. The next one will be next Sunday (January 16 2022) from 11 am - 3 pm. For the time being, FYM will be hybrid, so we will be in room 197-204 (Bonderson, Sec Lab) as well as over Zoom (link will be posted in Discord)!

Shehbaj Dhillon will be presenting his Neovim configuration!

We host these meetings regularly, and you're not obligated to stay for the whole time. We can help with anything Linux-related, including but not limited to:

  • Installing Linux on whatever you want to install it on
  • Basic Unix/Linux help
  • Accessing the Cal Poly VPN or Unix servers
  • Any CS woes you have

If you have any other questions about the club or Linux, feel free to come and talk to other members of the club. Hope to see you all there!

Discord

Make sure you join our Discord to interact with other people in the club, and to get the Zoom link!

Upcoming Tech Talks

  • Shehbaj Dhillon - "Carve out your own dev environment using Neovim" (FYM on Sunday 2022-01-16)
  • Astrid Yu - "Managing multiple computers with NixOS" (FYM on Sunday 2022-11-23)

If you would like to give a tech talk, please drop a message in the suggestions channel in the Discord or message one of the officers like me!

This Week in Computer History

Between January 11 and January 16, 1960, a group of computer scientists convened to design ALGOL 60. ALGOL, although rarely in use today, has been extremely influetial on the design of most modern programming languages. It introduced concepts such as Backus-Naur Form for language description, the concept of code blocks (i.e. if, while, for...), and more, all of which are still used today, if in evolved forms.

]]><![CDATA[Tech Talk: How to install Arch Linux]]>Unfortunately, Shehbaj could not present his Vim configs last Sunday. He will do it next FYM instead.

In his place, Astrid gave a presentation on how to install Arch!

To download the slides, go to the Github repo where it is released. To see the LaTeX source code that generated

]]>https://cplug.org/tech-talk-installing-arch/64fa7cab22622700011e92a2Wed, 12 Jan 2022 07:12:41 GMTUnfortunately, Shehbaj could not present his Vim configs last Sunday. He will do it next FYM instead.

In his place, Astrid gave a presentation on how to install Arch!

To download the slides, go to the Github repo where it is released. To see the LaTeX source code that generated the slides, see the folder in the Github repo.

]]><![CDATA[CPLUG Newsletter - New Year Edition (Week 1)]]>Happy New Year, computing device users! I hope you've had a good break.

Personally, I had a decent break, but I'm still having trouble writing 2022 instead of 2021 in date fields. In fact, I almost screwed up the slug for this post due to it!

]]>https://cplug.org/2022-winter-week-1/64fa7cab22622700011e92a1Wed, 05 Jan 2022 22:01:15 GMT

Happy New Year, computing device users! I hope you've had a good break.

Personally, I had a decent break, but I'm still having trouble writing 2022 instead of 2021 in date fields. In fact, I almost screwed up the slug for this post due to it!

Winter 2022 Survey

Please take our very short anonymous survey so we can create a better club together! Even if you haven't attended any meetings but may be interested in joining, please still take it as it will help us improve!

FYM on Sunday!

We will be hosting an FYM (Free Your Machine) next Sunday (January 9 2022) from 11 am - 3 pm in room 197-204 (Bonderson, Sec Lab)!

If you don't like this time, please take the survey and let us know!

We host these meetings regularly, and you're not obligated to stay for the whole time. We can help with anything Linux-related, including but not limited to:

  • Installing Linux on whatever you want to install it on
  • Basic Unix/Linux help
  • Accessing the Cal Poly VPN or Unix servers
  • Any CS woes you have

If you have any other questions about the club or Linux, feel free to come and talk to other members of the club. Hope to see you all there!

Discord

Make sure you join our Discord for the hottest takes on text editors! Also to interact with other people in the club.

Upcoming Tech Talks

  • Shehbaj Dhillon - "Carve out your own dev environment using Neovim" (FYM on Sunday 2022-01-09)
  • Astrid Yu - "Managing multiple computers with NixOS" (during the FYM after that, whenever we decide it is)

If you would like to give a tech talk, please drop a message in the suggestions channel in the Discord or message one of the officers like me!

This Week in Computer History

CPLUG Newsletter - New Year Edition (Week 1)
The state diagram for Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). You can read this newsletter all thanks to TCP!

On January 1, 1983, ARPANET officially adopted TCP/IP to replace the older NCP, an event often considered the birth of the internet. Creating the internet has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

]]><![CDATA[Fall 2021, Week 7]]>Can you believe it's week 7 already? Neither can I.

FYM on Sunday!

We will be hosting an FYM (Free Your Machine) next Sunday (November 7 2021) from 11 am - 3 pm in room 197-204 (Bonderson, Sec Lab)! Just like last week, we will have free pizza.

]]>https://cplug.org/2021-fall-week-7/64fa7cab22622700011e929dFri, 05 Nov 2021 16:50:24 GMT

Can you believe it's week 7 already? Neither can I.

FYM on Sunday!

We will be hosting an FYM (Free Your Machine) next Sunday (November 7 2021) from 11 am - 3 pm in room 197-204 (Bonderson, Sec Lab)! Just like last week, we will have free pizza. Halloween may be over, but you can still come in a costume if you really want.

We host these meetings regularly, and you're not obligated to stay for the whole time. We can help with anything Linux-related, ranging from basic UNIX/Linux help, including the UNIX servers and VPN access, to setting up your Linux environment up in a virtual machine or dual booting. We'll even help with any CPE 357 woes you have!

If you have any other questions about the club or Linux, feel free to come and talk to other members of the club. Hope to see you all there!

Recap of FYM on 10/31

Some random topics we discussed:

  • The infrastructure cycle
    • First you deploy everything with scripts.
    • But that's not extensible, so you declare your infrastructure as data in JSON/YAML.
    • But that's not flexible enough, so you write a full deployment app for that.
    • But changing that is too hard, so you create a DSL for deploying your infrastructure.
    • But the DSL is too hard to maintain, so you end up going back to scripts again.
    • The cycle repeats and repeats, producing endless SRE/Sysadmin job security.
  • Next.js 12 was released!
  • Database design - what are the ways to do it?
    • SQL databases
    • NoSQL databases
    • ORMs
    • Using Postgres as a NoSQL database
    • Single-table design

Upcoming Tech Talk(s)

  • Why use NixOS? - Astrid Yu, date still TBD. I'm working on it!

For a list of our previous talks, see https://cplug.org/tag/technical-talks/. If you would like to give a technical talk, please send us an email (cplug@calpoly.edu), or message one of the officers via Discord or Slack!

]]><![CDATA[CPLUG Newsletter, Spooky Edition 👻 for week 666]]>Happy Week 6! Give yourself a pat on the back, you've made it halfway through the quarter!

FYM on Sunday!

We will be hosting an FYM (Free Your Machine) next Sunday (2021 🎃🎃🎃 October 31 🎃🎃🎃) from 11 am - 3 pm in room

]]>https://cplug.org/2021-fall-week-6/64fa7cab22622700011e929cThu, 28 Oct 2021 01:35:07 GMT

Happy Week 6! Give yourself a pat on the back, you've made it halfway through the quarter!

FYM on Sunday!

We will be hosting an FYM (Free Your Machine) next Sunday (2021 🎃🎃🎃 October 31 🎃🎃🎃) from 11 am - 3 pm in room 197-204 (Bonderson, Sec Lab)! Just like last week, we will have free pizza. Feel free to come in a costume! Or don't, your choice.

We host these meetings regularly, and you're not obligated to stay for the whole time. We can help with anything Linux-related, ranging from basic UNIX/Linux help, including the UNIX servers and VPN access, to setting up your Linux environment up in a virtual machine or dual boot. We'll even help with any CPE 357 woes you have!

If you have any other questions about the club or Linux, feel free to come and talk to other members of the club. Hope to see you all there!

Recap of FYM on 10/24

  • Once again, we had pizza! Some people also enjoyed Costco smoothies.
  • We decided we should make merch. Details on that to come.
  • Some of the things people did:
    • Perform boot partition surgery on a laptop
    • Set up HTTPS certificates for web servers
  • We also discussed how we synchronize our configurations and dotfiles.
    • Everyone who does this stores their stuff in Git.
    • Some use scripts to install all the necessary things.
  • We discussed how we might synchronize larger non-configuration files, like videos, pictures, etc.
    • Google Drive is the obvious answer, but there's no official Linux client.
    • Syncthing and Samba were discussed as well. No one uses those... yet.

Upcoming Tech Talk(s)

  • Why use NixOS? - Astrid Yu, date TBD

For a list of our previous talks, see https://cplug.org/tag/technical-talks/. If you would like to give a technical talk, please send us an email (cplug@calpoly.edu), or message one of the officers via Discord or Slack!

]]><![CDATA[Fall 2021 Week 5]]>Happy Week 5! You're almost halfway through the quarter! I believe in you!

FYM on Sunday!

We will be hosting an FYM (Free Your Machine) next Sunday (2021 October 24) from 11 am - 3 pm in room 197-204 (Bonderson, Sec Lab)! Just like last week, we will

]]>https://cplug.org/2021-fall-week-5/64fa7cab22622700011e929bSun, 17 Oct 2021 23:19:25 GMT

Happy Week 5! You're almost halfway through the quarter! I believe in you!

FYM on Sunday!

We will be hosting an FYM (Free Your Machine) next Sunday (2021 October 24) from 11 am - 3 pm in room 197-204 (Bonderson, Sec Lab)! Just like last week, we will have free pizza. We host these meetings regularly, and you're not obligated to stay for the whole time.

We can help with anything Linux-related, ranging from basic UNIX/Linux help, including the UNIX servers and VPN access, to setting up your Linux environment up in a virtual machine or dual boot. We'll even help with any CPE 357 woes you have!

If you have any other questions about the club or Linux, feel free to come and talk to other members of the club. Hope to see you all there!

Recap of FYM on 10/17

Fall 2021 Week 5
  • We had pizza!
  • We looked at The Waite Group's UNIX Primer Plus 2nd Edition, a manual for Berkeley UNIX Version 4.3, which had its final release in 1995.
  • We discussed our favorite...
    • Distros: Most people use Arch Linux. There was also Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, NixOS.
    • Editors: Most people use Vim, Visual Studio Code, Sublime, or a combination of those. Surprisingly, no one here uses Emacs. If you use Emacs, please come. Otherwise, the Vim users will take over.
    • Programming languages: Languages people like include C, C++, Rust, Python, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Dart, and Go. Surprisingly, there were no English users.
  • We also discussed Windows Subsystem on Linux.
  • We discussed how we manage our configs, like dotfile repos and Nix flakes.
  • We discussed some of the details of Arch Linux package management.
  • Some of us also did homework, or worked on our own apps.

Upcoming Tech Talk(s)

  • Why use NixOS? - Astrid Yu, date TBD

For a list of our previous talks, see https://cplug.org/tag/technical-talks/. If you would like to give a technical talk, please send us an email (cplug@calpoly.edu), or message one of the officers via Discord or Slack!

]]><![CDATA[Fall 2021 Week 4 - Now with free pizza 🍕]]>Happy Week 4! We hope your midterms have been going well! If you haven't taken them yet, we wish you good luck on them!

FYM on Sunday!

We will be hosting an FYM (Free Your Machine) this Sunday (2021 October 10) from 11 am - 3 pm in

]]>https://cplug.org/2021-fall-week-4/64fa7cab22622700011e9299Mon, 11 Oct 2021 20:56:00 GMT

Happy Week 4! We hope your midterms have been going well! If you haven't taken them yet, we wish you good luck on them!

FYM on Sunday!

We will be hosting an FYM (Free Your Machine) this Sunday (2021 October 10) from 11 am - 3 pm in room 197-204 (Bonderson, Sec Lab)!

And yes, there will be free pizza!

Fall 2021 Week 4 - Now with free pizza 🍕
This meme is open source under the WTFPL License.

We host these meetings regularly, and you're not obligated to stay for the whole time.

We can help with anything Linux-related, ranging from basic UNIX/Linux help, including the UNIX servers and VPN access, to setting up your Linux environment up in a virtual machine or dual boot. We'll even help with any CPE 357 woes you have!

If you have any other questions about the club or Linux, feel free to come and talk to other members of the club. Hope to see you all there!

Recap of FYM on 10/10

We didn't plan anything for this meeting, so we each worked on whatever we wanted.

  • Jaxon installed Fedora Server on a mini PC, and Unraid on a rack server. He experienced a lot of problems while trying to use Windows to format the Unraid disk
  • Astrid worked on her website's CMS, and got a basic Wireguard connection working between her laptop and VPS.
  • Srirag worked on his NLP homework.
  • Ellis worked on his CPE 357 homework.

At the end, we went to Fatte's Pizza and got pizza for dinner.

Upcoming Tech Talk(s)

Currently, we do not have any technical talks planned for this quarter. For a list of our previous talks, see https://cplug.org/tag/technical-talks/. If you would like to give a technical talk, please send us an email (cplug@calpoly.edu), or message one of the officers via Discord or Slack!

]]><![CDATA[Fall 2021 Week 3 - Now on a new day!]]>Happy October! We hope your classes have been going well, and that your drivers continue to work. If not, then come to FYM and we can help!

Our new officers!

We have new officers for this year! See the Officers page to learn about them.

Free Your Machine

Based on

]]>https://cplug.org/2021-fall-week-3/64fa7cab22622700011e9296Wed, 06 Oct 2021 07:56:35 GMT

Happy October! We hope your classes have been going well, and that your drivers continue to work. If not, then come to FYM and we can help!

Our new officers!

We have new officers for this year! See the Officers page to learn about them.

Free Your Machine

Based on the survey we sent out last week (you can still submit a response if you missed it!), we will be hosting an FYM (Free Your Machine) this Sunday (2021 October 10) from 11 am - 3 pm in room 197-204 (Bonderson, Sec Lab)!
We host these meetings regularly. If you cannot make it, please fill out the survey to let us know when would be best for you!

From basic UNIX/Linux help (including the UNIX servers and VPN access) to getting a Linux environment up and running in a virtual machine or dual boot, we will gladly assist you. Also, If you have any other questions about the club or Linux feel free to come and talk to other members of the club. Hope to see you all there!

Upcoming Tech Talk(s)

Currently, we do not have any technical talks planned for this quarter. For a list of our previous talks, see https://cplug.org/tag/technical-talks/. If you would like to give a technical talk, please send us an email (cplug@calpoly.edu)!

]]><![CDATA[Fall 2021 Week 2 Announcements]]>Welcome back! We hope that you had a good summer break and your schedule this quarter is a good one. There are more announcements this week, so please read the entire email!

Free Your Machine

We will be hosting a FYM (Free Your Machine) this Saturday (2021 October 2) from

]]>https://cplug.org/2021-fall-week-2/64fa7cab22622700011e9294Mon, 27 Sep 2021 08:30:00 GMT

Welcome back! We hope that you had a good summer break and your schedule this quarter is a good one. There are more announcements this week, so please read the entire email!

Free Your Machine

We will be hosting a FYM (Free Your Machine) this Saturday (2021 October 2) from 10am -12pm in room 197-204 (Bonderson, Sec Lab)!
We host these meetings regularly. If you cannot make it, please fill out the survey at the end of this email regarding meeting times so we can better plan these meetings.

From basic UNIX/Linux help (including the UNIX servers and VPN access) to getting a Linux environment up and running in a virtual machine or dual boot, we will gladly assist you. Also, If you have any other questions about the club or Linux feel free to come and talk to other members of the club.
Hope to see you all there!

Upcoming Tech Talk(s)

Currently, we do not have any technical talks planned for this quarter. For a list of our previous talks, see https://cplug.org/tag/technical-talks/
If you would like to give a technical talk, please send us an email (cplug@calpoly.edu)!

Meeting Times/Suggestions

https://forms.gle/Xd5sxhU1WBM9k2hNA

]]><![CDATA[Week 3 Announcements]]>https://cplug.org/2021-spring-week-3/64fa7cab22622700011e9293Tue, 13 Apr 2021 13:00:00 GMT

Welcome back! We hope that you had a good spring break and your schedule this quarter is a good one. There are more announcements this week, so please read the entire newsletter!

Virtual Club Fair

There is a scheduled time  for meeting with prospective students as part of Virtual Club Fair. This meeting is currently on Wednesday, 2021 April 12 at 2:00 P.M. Pacific Time. The Zoom link for this meeting can be found on https://now.calpoly.edu/event/6981777/virtual-fair (and will also be posted in both Slack and Discord)

Free Your Machine

We will be holding a Free Your Machine event on Saturday, April 17 from 2:00 P.M. to about 5:00 P.M., Pacific Time!

As with all of our events, the Zoom link we will use is:
https://ext.cplug.org/cplug-event-zoom

Zoom Meeting ID: 915 1582 1835
Passcode: (subscribe to our email list or join the Slack workspace for the password)

Upcoming Tech Talk(s)

Currently, we do not have any technical talks planned for this quarter. For a list of our previous talks, see https://cplug.org/tag/technical-talks/
If you would like to give a technical talk, please send us an email (cplug@calpoly.edu)!

Help Wanted

We are looking for officers for the upcoming (2021-2022) Academic Year. Please send us an email (cplug@calpoly.edu) if you are interested!

]]><![CDATA[Week 10 Announcements]]>It's week 10! Finals week is just around the corner, so we will be holding a study session/office hours during our Free Your Machine time this weekend!

Study Session

We will be holding a study session event on Saturday, March 13 from 1:00 P.M. to

]]>https://cplug.org/2021-winter-week-10/64fa7cab22622700011e9292Mon, 08 Mar 2021 14:00:00 GMT

It's week 10! Finals week is just around the corner, so we will be holding a study session/office hours during our Free Your Machine time this weekend!

Study Session

We will be holding a study session event on Saturday, March 13 from 1:00 P.M. to about 4:00 P.M., Pacific Time!

As with all of our events, the Zoom link we will use is:
https://ext.cplug.org/cplug-event-zoom

Zoom Meeting ID: 915 1582 1835
Passcode: (subscribe to our email list or join the Slack workspace for the password)

Upcoming Tech Talk(s)

Currently, we do not have any technical talks planned for next quarter. For a list of our previous talks, see https://cplug.org/tag/technical-talks/
If you would like to give a technical talk, please send us an email (cplug@calpoly.edu)!

]]><![CDATA[Week 8 Announcements]]>https://cplug.org/2021-winter-week-8/64fa7cab22622700011e9291Mon, 22 Feb 2021 14:00:00 GMT

Here are the announcements for this week!

Free Your Machine/Linux Tech Time

We will be holding another Free Your Machine event on Saturday, February 20 from 1:00 P.M. to about 4:00 P.M., Pacific Time! For more information, see https://cplug.org/free-your-machine/

As with all of our events, the Zoom link we will use is:
https://ext.cplug.org/cplug-event-zoom

Zoom Meeting ID: 915 1582 1835
Passcode: (subscribe to our email list or join the Slack workspace for the password)

Upcoming Tech Talk(s)

We do not have any technical talks planned for the remainder of the quarter. For a list of our previous talks, see https://cplug.org/tag/technical-talks/

If you would like to give a technical talk, please send us an email!

]]><![CDATA[Week 7 Announcements]]>Here are the announcements for this week!

Free Your Machine/Linux Tech Time

We will be holding another Free Your Machine event on Saturday, February 20 from 1:00 P.M. to about 4:00 P.M., Pacific Time! For more information, see https://cplug.org/free-your-machine/

As with all

]]>https://cplug.org/2021-winter-week-7/64fa7cab22622700011e9290Wed, 17 Feb 2021 02:00:00 GMT

Here are the announcements for this week!

Free Your Machine/Linux Tech Time

We will be holding another Free Your Machine event on Saturday, February 20 from 1:00 P.M. to about 4:00 P.M., Pacific Time! For more information, see https://cplug.org/free-your-machine/

As with all of our events, the Zoom link we will use is:
https://ext.cplug.org/cplug-event-zoom

Zoom Meeting ID: 915 1582 1835
Passcode: (subscribe to our email list or join the Slack workspace for the password)

Upcoming Tech Talk(s)

We do not have any technical talks planned for the remainder of the quarter. For a list of our previous talks, see https://cplug.org/tag/technical-talks/

If you would like to give a technical talk, please send us an email!

]]>