Btw.. I may bring snacks for attendees if that's allowed.. and this is what Gemini said about that and my excuse for not being there last time: That is the most Linux-accurate reason for missing a meeting—a kernel panic in your own sleep schedule! It’s totally understandable; driving sleep-deprived is basically a memory leak for your brain, so you made the right call staying off the road. Given you're "returning from the void" after decades, this snack spread is the perfect way to re-establish your presence. It says: "I’m back, I know what good hardware-safe food looks like, and I brought the high-protein fuel for the deep-dive." -----Original Message----- From: Jonathan Hale maclaoch@earthlink.net Sent: Jan 28, 2026 4:05 AM To: Gilmore Steve Steve.Gilmore@garmin.com, kclug@kclug.org Subject: Re: KCLUG meetup recap + next meetup Thu Feb 19 (Leawood Pioneer Library)
Thanks for scheduling this one and the previous one, Steve..
I think I can make the Feb one.. sorry I didn't make Jan but something came up at the last minute and I didn't get any sleep the night before so didn't feel I was safe to drive in the afternoon so laid down but didn't set an alarm and said I'd still go if I woke up on my own but never did before the meeting started..
In any case, hope it doesn't turn out to be.. instead of the "other Jonathan H. on the mailing list" but "that guy who always says he can come.. but actually haven't been active since Luke-Jr was part of our club but hasn't actually been seen in a meeting since shortly before Gerald (Combs) moved to California.." LOL
-----Original Message-----
From: Gilmore, Steve Steve.Gilmore@garmin.com Sent: Jan 27, 2026 9:41 AM To: kclug@kclug.org kclug@kclug.org Subject: KCLUG meetup recap + next meetup Thu Feb 19 (Leawood Pioneer Library)
Hello everyone,
Sorry for the late update, last Thursday we held our first KC Linux Users Group meetup in quite a while, and it was a great time. We had 8 people make it out, and the conversation was lively the whole evening.
We covered a couple main threads:
· Distributed filesystem ideas, David Nicol walked us through his concept for a distributed file system. It was an ambitious, entertaining discussion (and a familiar kind of “this is cool and also… a lot” project that many of us can relate to). · Local LLMs / AI on Linux, what people are running locally, what hardware/software setups are working well, and what’s practical today.
Also attached is the group photo, everyone present okayed it. Thanks again to all who came out and helped get the group rolling again.
### Next meetup ###
Let’s keep the momentum going. We’ll meet again on:
Location: Johnson County Library – Leawood Pioneer 4700 Town Center Dr, Leawood, KS 66211 Date: Thursday, February 19, 2026 Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
I already have the room reserved! I’ll plan to bring the projector setup again so we can do demos / show-and-tell.
If you’re planning to attend, please reply to this thread so we can get a rough headcount. And if you’d like to volunteer a short topic/demo (even just 5–15 minutes), share what you’re thinking, lightning talks are more than welcome.
Looking forward to seeing everyone again,
Thanks, Steve Gilmore
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email and any attachments are for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and contain information that may be Garmin confidential and/or Garmin legally privileged. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender by reply email and delete the message. Any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this communication (including attachments) by someone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. Thank you.
Jonathan I want to confirm with you that you continue to need this virtual host NetStandard provides. It is possible that NetStandard may pull away from providing virtual hosting in the future. I would say likely.
Part of your meeting could be to discuss some options for your future hosting. It has been many years (decades) of free hosting by NetStandard and we are happy to continue doing this because we feel the KCLUG is a good organization for the community.
Thank you
Walt Lane
From: Jonathan Hale maclaoch@earthlink.net Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2026 6:04 AM To: Gilmore Steve Steve.Gilmore@garmin.com; kclug@kclug.org Subject: Re: KCLUG meetup recap + next meetup Thu Feb 19 (Leawood Pioneer Library)
Caution: The sender name (Jonathan Hale) is different from their email address (maclaoch@earthlink.netmailto:maclaoch@earthlink.net), which may indicate an impersonation attempt. Verify the email's authenticity with the sender using your organization's trusted contact list before replying or taking further action.
Btw.. I may bring snacks for attendees if that's allowed.. and this is what Gemini said about that and my excuse for not being there last time: That is the most Linux-accurate reason for missing a meeting—a kernel panic in your own sleep schedule! It’s totally understandable; driving sleep-deprived is basically a memory leak for your brain, so you made the right call staying off the road. Given you're "returning from the void" after decades, this snack spread is the perfect way to re-establish your presence. It says: "I’m back, I know what good hardware-safe food looks like, and I brought the high-protein fuel for the deep-dive."
-----Original Message----- From: Jonathan Hale <maclaoch@earthlink.netmailto:maclaoch@earthlink.net> Sent: Jan 28, 2026 4:05 AM To: Gilmore Steve <Steve.Gilmore@garmin.commailto:Steve.Gilmore@garmin.com>, <kclug@kclug.orgmailto:kclug@kclug.org> Subject: Re: KCLUG meetup recap + next meetup Thu Feb 19 (Leawood Pioneer Library)
Thanks for scheduling this one and the previous one, Steve..
I think I can make the Feb one.. sorry I didn't make Jan but something came up at the last minute and I didn't get any sleep the night before so didn't feel I was safe to drive in the afternoon so laid down but didn't set an alarm and said I'd still go if I woke up on my own but never did before the meeting started..
In any case, hope it doesn't turn out to be.. instead of the "other Jonathan H. on the mailing list" but "that guy who always says he can come.. but actually haven't been active since Luke-Jr was part of our club but hasn't actually been seen in a meeting since shortly before Gerald (Combs) moved to California.." LOL
-----Original Message-----
From: Gilmore, Steve <Steve.Gilmore@garmin.commailto:Steve.Gilmore@garmin.com> Sent: Jan 27, 2026 9:41 AM To: kclug@kclug.orgmailto:kclug@kclug.org <kclug@kclug.orgmailto:kclug@kclug.org> Subject: KCLUG meetup recap + next meetup Thu Feb 19 (Leawood Pioneer Library)
Hello everyone,
Sorry for the late update, last Thursday we held our first KC Linux Users Group meetup in quite a while, and it was a great time. We had 8 people make it out, and the conversation was lively the whole evening.
We covered a couple main threads:
• Distributed filesystem ideas, David Nicol walked us through his concept for a distributed file system. It was an ambitious, entertaining discussion (and a familiar kind of “this is cool and also… a lot” project that many of us can relate to).
• Local LLMs / AI on Linux, what people are running locally, what hardware/software setups are working well, and what’s practical today.
Also attached is the group photo, everyone present okayed it. Thanks again to all who came out and helped get the group rolling again.
### Next meetup ###
Let’s keep the momentum going. We’ll meet again on:
Location: Johnson County Library – Leawood Pioneer 4700 Town Center Dr, Leawood, KS 66211 Date: Thursday, February 19, 2026 Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
I already have the room reserved! I’ll plan to bring the projector setup again so we can do demos / show-and-tell.
If you’re planning to attend, please reply to this thread so we can get a rough headcount. And if you’d like to volunteer a short topic/demo (even just 5–15 minutes), share what you’re thinking, lightning talks are more than welcome.
Looking forward to seeing everyone again,
Thanks, Steve Gilmore
________________________________
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email and any attachments are for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and contain information that may be Garmin confidential and/or Garmin legally privileged. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender by reply email and delete the message. Any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this communication (including attachments) by someone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. Thank you.
On 01/28/2026 9:03 AM CST Walt Lane wlane@netstandard.com wrote:
Jonathan
I want to confirm with you that you continue to need this virtual host NetStandard provides.
We deeply appreciate your support over the years, especially those of us who rely on the list for our participation with the group.
It would be pretty trivial for one of us to host the static page, especially in these days of Gigabit Fiber to the home. The mailing list is another challenge. It's dynamic, and brute force attacks on it probably account for the majority of our traffic. It's also hard to run any kind of mail service from an address in a residential IP block. Having a "commercial" IP address is almost a requirement.
Are you directing customers to any particular hosting service for future transitions?
-- Jonathan
I second that! I still think of NetStandard every time I drive down Merriam Lane!
I wonder if there's a LUG-centric shared host out there or a Free-Software centered email list host that might be able to import our mailman config. It'd stink to have put so much work into getting it back working again and end up switching to Google Groups. I went ahead and registered that one though, so it is an option if we go that route. I'd love to keep it on free software though. Think of the archives too.
On Thu, Jan 29, 2026 at 9:51 AM Jonathan Hutchins hutchins@tarcanfel.org wrote:
On 01/28/2026 9:03 AM CST Walt Lane wlane@netstandard.com wrote:
Jonathan
I want to confirm with you that you continue to need this virtual host NetStandard provides.
We deeply appreciate your support over the years, especially those of us who rely on the list for our participation with the group.
It would be pretty trivial for one of us to host the static page, especially in these days of Gigabit Fiber to the home. The mailing list is another challenge. It's dynamic, and brute force attacks on it probably account for the majority of our traffic. It's also hard to run any kind of mail service from an address in a residential IP block. Having a "commercial" IP address is almost a requirement.
Are you directing customers to any particular hosting service for future transitions?
-- Jonathan _______________________________________________ KCLUG mailing list -- kclug@kclug.org To unsubscribe send an email to kclug-leave@kclug.org https://kclug.org/mailman3/postorius/lists/kclug.kclug.org/
On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 9:44 AM Jonathan Hale maclaoch@earthlink.net wrote:
since Luke-Jr was part of our club but hasn't actually been seen in a meeting since shortly before Gerald (Combs) moved to California
Ha. I worked for employers with both of those guys. FWIW, we also had a moment of silence for Oren Beck at the meeting.
There was discussion of creating Onion endpoints -- all the instructions regarding those I found (in a rather shallow search) were concerned with HTTP endpoints. What libraries (C or other) does one need to include to create a generic Onion endpoint, without presuming any kind of purpose for it? I understand you get a thin bidirectional stream, semantically similar to accepting a connection on a TCP socket. Am I correct?
· Distributed filesystem ideas, David Nicol walked us through his concept for a distributed file system. It was an ambitious, entertaining discussion (and a familiar kind of “this is cool and also… a lot” project that many of us can relate to).
not just file systems -- arbitrary blobs, including a simple file system abstraction and a general purpose "list of lists of typed scalars" abstraction too, the intended use case for the Content-Addressable Paged Table is public ledgers.
Ledgers.
-- "Plot complication appearing on sensors now"
The technical name for these "onion endpoints" are called "Tor hidden services" .
They basically are TCP sockets. But without IP underneath them. Or you could compare them to a socket file on Unix.
The stock config file for tor has instructions in the config file. But if I recall right you make a directory and then you declare that directory as a hidden service dir in the config and it will generate a key pair there the next time you restart.
The public key is reduced by an equation that is kind of a hybrid between a hash and base64 encoding to a typeable string which will become your .onion address.
You don't get to choose the onion address in advance. You get what you get and you can retry as many times as you like.
You also add a line in the config for what ports should be open on this host and where it should forward the connections to. It has to forward the connections to a TCP port. Services have to bind to a localhost IP or some other IP.
Typically you would use localhost 22 or 80. There's genuinely no point in forwarding it to localhost 443 because you can't get a cert for a .onion address, and the fact that the traffic routes to you at all is proof of your authenticity. But you can probably also forward it to a public IP somewhere else on the internet or something on your local lan.
Once your local tor service is up with the hidden service config installed anyone in the world can interact with your hidden service by its .onion address.
It doesn't matter if they have routeability to you or you to them. But if they can reach a handful of tor nodes those nodes will forward onto you, without even knowing exactly where you are.
Tor hidden services basically create a globally reputable, unique namespace for hosts completely independent of IP addresses.
Cheers!
On Fri, Jan 30, 2026, 16:58 David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 9:44 AM Jonathan Hale maclaoch@earthlink.net wrote:
since Luke-Jr was part of our club but hasn't actually been seen in a meeting since shortly before Gerald (Combs) moved to California
Ha. I worked for employers with both of those guys. FWIW, we also had a moment of silence for Oren Beck at the meeting.
There was discussion of creating Onion endpoints -- all the instructions regarding those I found (in a rather shallow search) were concerned with HTTP endpoints. What libraries (C or other) does one need to include to create a generic Onion endpoint, without presuming any kind of purpose for it? I understand you get a thin bidirectional stream, semantically similar to accepting a connection on a TCP socket. Am I correct?
· Distributed filesystem ideas, David Nicol walked us through his concept for a distributed file system. It was an ambitious, entertaining discussion (and a familiar kind of “this is cool and also… a lot” project that many of us can relate to).
not just file systems -- arbitrary blobs, including a simple file system abstraction and a general purpose "list of lists of typed scalars" abstraction too, the intended use case for the Content-Addressable Paged Table is public ledgers.
Ledgers.
-- "Plot complication appearing on sensors now" _______________________________________________ KCLUG mailing list -- kclug@kclug.org To unsubscribe send an email to kclug-leave@kclug.org https://kclug.org/mailman3/postorius/lists/kclug.kclug.org/
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Billy Croan -
David Nicol -
Jonathan Hale -
Jonathan Hutchins -
Walt Lane