[lug] [LUG] creating a Zoomicater

[Jed S. Baer]

On Sat, 03 Apr 2021 17:30:05 -0600
Dru Whitledge wrote:

> that I assume is NOT OSS (or is it?) next to 
> their private, precious, top secret, federal grand jury type data their
> HDDs.

I keep that stuff on an encrypted volume. Tomb is quite easy to use.
https://www.dyne.org/software/tomb/

> I do wish we'd foreseen that and 
> worked more on the Jitsi client

I hadn't heard of Jitsi. Looks pretty nifty, though continuity of
development seems a little problematic, just based on a quick look at the
Wikipedia article.

However, the masses are already using Zoom, Google, WebEx, etc., and
typically aren't interested in non-mainstream anything.

> So, I have to adapt to our impeding Zoom and 
> here's an idea for those that don't want their 
> data on that same HDD sitting next to that Zoom 
> client -- it's ............................ 
> YES!!! ............ the Zoomicator (c).
> 
> Great timing on Easter as it's intended to raise 
> from the dead old ancient deceased laptops with 
> camera and mic to live once again as Zoomicators.

Difficult to make any particular recommendations, since that depends a lot
on just how old and feeble any particular laptop is. I've had success
running Mint, Manjaro, and Mageia on older hardware, but YMMV.

I can't speak directly to Puppy, but the other "small" distro I recall
messing with was DSL - Damn Small Linux, which worked fine on an ancient
Compaq lappy, but that was quite a few years ago.

In re. being able to create a custom bootable thumbdrive image, I recall
that Knoppix used to have directions for doing just that. I didn't play
with it. Knoppix, being based on Debian, would probably be a decent target
for non-Free commercial things, based on my noticing that usually those
supply either a .deb or .rpm.

IIRC, Zoom will run in a browser, so maybe anything that'll run a newish
version of Firefox or Chromium will be fine.

> Unfortunately, my knowledge of Linux still sucks 
> and I would welcome critiques and ideas and 
> suggestions from smarter Linux folks on the mechanics of making this
> happen.

I haven't played with webcams on Linux, but if were somehow desirous of
doing so, and keeping things isolated, I'd be tempted to get a cheap USB
webcam, and access it using a system running in a VM. The cam itself would
be under my desk, probably pointed at the wastebasket, or maybe at a photo
of Quick-Draw McGraw.



-- 
All operating systems suck, but Linux just sucks less
 - Linus Torvalds