Linux Users' Group of Davis

The Linux Users' Group of Davis (LUGOD) will be holding the following meeting:

  Monday
  June 17, 2013
  7:00pm - 9:00pm

Presentation:
  Exploring the Terminal
  by Micah Cowan

  Everything you ever wanted to know about the terminal -- the virtual
  consule used for interacting with the command-line and text-based
  applications:

    * how terminals work,
    * the special codes used to move the cursor to different positions,
      set colors and graphical effects, draw dialogs, or designate character
      encodings,
    * the terminfo and termcap databases for terminal features,

  and how to:

    * make a custom color bash prompt,
    * record and play back terminal sessions,
    * create interactive demos to run on the terminal, and
    * manage a set of "virtual" terminals you can disconnect from and
      reconnect to, using tools called terminal multiplexers.

  Various useful utility programs will be covered in the course of this
  talk, including:

    * script, scriptreplay
      Record and playback terminal sessions.

    * teseq, reseq
      (both written by the speaker)
      Explain invisible sequences of characters that control the terminal,
      using plain English, and turn those explanations back into terminal
      control sequences.  Also useful for creating interactive demos to
      run on the terminal, out of terminal sessions recorded with the
      script command (above).

    * screen, tmux
      (portions written by the speaker)
      Set up terminals you can detach from, and reconnect to later (very
      useful for leaving things running on a server, and reconnecting
      from elsewhere to see the results).

    * prompt-jobs.sh
      (written by the speaker)
      Instantly add color and an abbreviated suspended jobs list to your
      interactive shell prompt.

  Note on this talk's technical level: Terminal features can be a very
  technical subject; however, it is believed that there will be something
  of interest to audience members of any technical skill, if they find
  themselves using the terminal. No previous knowledge of terminals will
  be assumed for this talk.

About the speaker:

  Micah Cowan is a programmer, musician, typesetting enthusiast and gamer.
  Along with engineering positions at the likes of VMWare, Inc., Nano ISI
  and Barracuda Networks, Micah is also active in the open source community,
  acting as manager of the GNU Project's Wget application, mentoring and
  admin'ing GNU Project participation in the Google Summer of Code program,
  and fixing bugs in Ubuntu OS.

This meeting will be held at:

  Davis Public Library
  Blanchard meeting room
  315 East 14th Street
  Davis, California 95616

For more details on this meeting, visit:

  http://www.lugod.org/meeting/

Date: 
Monday, June 17, 2013 - 7:00pm