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Sat. May 9, 2026 – Raspberry Pi OS & ZFS

Presenter: Mark G.
Topic: Using ZFS on A Souped-Up Raspberry Pi 5

Abstract:
This presentation gives an overview of the Zettabyte File System (ZFS) on a Raspberry Pi 5. The Pi 5 has 16GB of memory, helpful since ZFS is memory hungry. The operating system is 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS (Trixie). Topics covered are how to enable ZFS on Raspberry Pi OS, how to create a ZFS storage system, and some examples of ZFS in use.

Of note is the Pironman 5 Max case used to hold the Pi 5 and its built-in ability to allow for two NVMe drives to be attached directly to the Pi’s PCIe controller. ZFS works much better with directly attached drives rather than USB attached drives.

pdf here

zfsrpi5nvme

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work then there is no meeting and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. May 23, 2026 – Q & A and Help

New to the Raspberry Pi or micro-controllers?
Have questions or need expert help?

Q&A

Drop by this Saturday’s meeting, and there will be plenty of friendly folks to answer your questions!

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work, then there is no meeting, and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. Apr 25, 2026 – Q&A and Help

New to the Raspberry Pi or micro-controllers?
Have questions or need expert help?

Q&A

Drop by this Saturday’s meeting, and there will be plenty of friendly folks to answer your questions!

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work, then there is no meeting, and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. Apr. 11, 2026

George will talk about his homemade “Clapper” that he uses to turn 
things on and off.

Robert and I, Deid, will do an informal demonstration of Meshtastic, a Lora 
radio mesh network. (meshtastic.org) I say informal as I just made this 
work yesterday, with a second node this morning.  I’m hoping that Robert 
will help me fix what I have done wrong.

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work then there is no meeting and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. Mar 28, 2026 – Q&A and Help

New to the raspberry pi or micro-controllers?
Have questions or need expert help?

Q&A

Drop by this Saturday’s meeting and there will be plenty of friendly folks to answer your questions!

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work then there is no meeting and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. March 14, 2026 – OpenSCAD

Deid will do a presentation on OpenSCAD. A programmatic method to create and print 3D things. This does not have much to do with the Pi, etc., but it is code, and the code will run on a Pi 5.

OpenSCAD Image

This is the perfect thing for someone like me who flunked scissors and crayons, but who is not bad at coding.

See you on Saturday.
Deid

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Sat. Feb 14, 2026 – RPI Containerized Services Part 1

This session launches a two‑part deep dive into building a resilient, secure, and remotely accessible Raspberry Pi platform. Part I focuses on preparing a Raspberry Pi to operate from an external SSD using an encrypted LVM layout, establishing a solid foundation for containerized services in Part II.

The presentation walks through installing Debian 12 (Bookworm) onto the SSD, applying practical hardening measures, and structuring the system so that both the root filesystem and future container volumes reside within an encrypted partition. An unencrypted boot partition completes the setup, ensuring compatibility with the Pi’s firmware while maintaining strong data protection.

From there, the session moves into remote‑unlock and secure‑access workflows. Attendees will see how Dropbear is integrated into the initramfs to allow remote SSH access for unlocking the encrypted volume. The talk then introduces Cloudflare Zero Trust (formerly Cloudflare Tunnel), demonstrating how cloudflared can provide authenticated, firewall‑friendly access to both SSH and HTTP services without exposing the Pi directly to the internet. The session concludes with an introduction to Incus, the modern fork of LXC, preparing the ground for containerized feeder services in Part II.

Gordo is doing a second session on March 14th.

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work then there is no meeting and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. Jan 24, 2026 – Q & A and Help

image

New to the raspberry pi or micro-controllers?
Have questions or need expert help?

Drop by this Saturday’s meeting and there will be plenty of friendly folks to answer your questions!

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work then there is no meeting and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers
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Sat. Jan 9, 2026 – Lenovo M93p Tiny PC

 Mark’s Lenovo M93p Tiny PC
and how he got it up and running.

Stuff includes:

– changing the BIOS battery,
– re-pasting the CPU,
– trying to add a mini-pci card
— getting BIOS locked out when card is inserted (unauthorized!)
— updating BIOS with trick to unblock the unauthorized card.
– running the BIOS updater,
– fixed, noisily the problem

Anyone want to bring their M93p tiny and do this stuff?

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work then there is no meeting and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. Dec. 13th 2025 – Object Detection (AI) with an Arduino for less than $100CAD

arduino logo

Object detection (identification of objects and their location in an image) is one of the most useful and widespread application of artificial intelligence, even on microcontrollers.

This demo shows how free, web-based tools designed for memory-constrained devices at www.edgeimpulse.com can be used to collect a dataset, train and test a neural network, and deploy it to an Arduino microcontroller to detect pop bottles.

James presentation is attached.

Want to build the project yourself?

https://github.com/James-Canova/Obj_Det_Arduino.git

Notice_13_Dec_2025_VicPi_V0

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work then there is no meeting and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat Nov 8, 2025 – PySide6

This presentation will look at how to write a program in the Python programming language using a graphical user interface (GUI) library named PySide6.

Our example program will accept a string of text, usually an HTTP link, and perform some sort of processing on said string. As part of the architecture of the program, to increase generality and usefulness, we use a shell (Bourne is the example) script, which is used to hold the command or commands processing the string.

The Python GUI program will call this external program and capture its output.

We will also take a brief look at PyInstaller for creating a
distributable single executable.

lazylink.pdfDownload

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work then there is no meeting and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. Oct. 25, 2025 – Q & A and Help

image

New to the raspberry pi or micro-controllers?
Have questions or need expert help?

Drop by this Saturday’s meeting and there will be plenty of friendly folks to answer your questions!

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work then there is no meeting and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. Nov 8, 2025 – Drag and Drop Processing With Python and QT6

python

This presentation will look at how to write a program in the Python programming language using a graphical user interface (GUI) library named PySide6.
Our example program will accept a string of text, usually an HTTP link, and perform some sort of processing on said string.
As part of the architecture of the program, to increase generality and usefulness, we use a shell (Bourne is the example) script, which is used to hold the command or commands processing the string.
The Python GUI program will call this external program and capture its output.
We will also take a brief look at PyInstaller for creating a distributable single executable.

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work then there is no meeting and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat. Sept 27, 2025 – Help Session

rpi image

New to the raspberry pi or micro-controllers?
Have questions or need expert help?

Drop by this Saturday’s meeting and there will be plenty of friendly folks to answer your questions!

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work then there is no meeting and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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2025 Summer Break

VicPiMakers is taking a well-deserved summer break. We will be back to our regular bi-weekly programming in September. In the meantime… join us at our Linux SIG or NetSig. See the blocks on the right for the details and links.

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Sat Apr 26, 2025 – Explore Python Virtual Environments on the Raspberry Pi

Discover Virtual Environments in Python, and how to manage them. Additionally, we will cover variable typing, and how it makes your code more readable.

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work then there is no meeting and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers

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Sat Apr 12 2025 – Python Virtual Environment and Typing

Deid presents: Python Virtual Environment and Typing

Where: Quality Foods, View Royal, 27 Helmcken Rd #110

When: 9:30-10a Beverages & Conversation
10a Presentation

This is a Hybrid meeting (in-person and on Jitsi)
NOTE: The online server is only available during meeting times, so if you click on the link below and it doesn’t work then there is no meeting and this is normal.

Join Us Online here:

https://meet.vinnythegeek.ca/vicpimakers