mintCast 294 – Linux Gaming is Alive Again!
294]
Bi-weekly Wanderings:
- Isaac
- Worked on getting several Linux Mint tickets issues closed
- Had a PR accepted for Linux Mint
- Been playing with Visual Studio Code and Vue.js
- Dumped Ting and started back with T-mobile
- Rob
- Getting DDO running under Steam on Linux
- Got ncdu installed based on a listener’s suggestion…thanks!
- Updated the Podcasting box from LMDE 2 to LMDE 3
- Joe
- Proton playing the Batman Arkham games
- Paprefs setup and issues
- Why would i want to
- Linux Mint VM on Windows tablet
- Tony W
- Mint 19 recording/podcast machine build
- KDE Neon in place update went smoothly
- Flashed Lineage OS on a couple of devices, saw performance improvement on both over stock
- Leo
- Lutris and DXVK setup on Mint
- Fiddling with LMDE and sore spots with Audacity
- New audio hardware (boom arm, shock mount)
- Moss
- Fiddling with my partitions, grub repair
- VPN issues
- Rant on monthly costs, and why Mullvad
- Temporary issues with Mullvad LOL
News:
- Google kills Google+ after security breach (temporarily)
- “The New Microsoft” adds 60,000 patents to open innovations Network
- Google to charge a licence fee in Europe for use of Play store and other Android apps.
- Flatkill.org says “The sandbox is a lie” and Flatpaks are a “security nightmare”
- Ubuntu 18.10 released on Oct 17. Mint 19.1 is coming. Updated Ubuntu usage stats
Linux Innards:
- This week the crew shares some exiting new developments that are making gaming much more viable on Linux.
- Some of the links we referenced:
Vibrations from the Ether:
- We hear from a good friend of the show, Sgt MacBear!
- An interesting letter asking if we would accept sponsorship and/or advertising on the show. We ask for listener feedback… so what do you think?
Check this out!:
- Tony H
- A YouTube video on how to make LibreOffice look like MS Office for non-geeks and those you are trying to get to use open source software.
- Isaac
- Joe
- What is on everybody’s podcatcher, and what podcatcher is everyone using?
- Moss
Pre-Show Music:
- “Yesterday’s Conversation” by Angus Wallace
- “The Red Stone” by Ground & Leaves
Podcast Announcements:
More Information:
Hosts: Tony, Tony, David, Bo, Moss, Leo, and Joe
Live Stream every other Sunday 2:00 p.m.(Central): mintcast.org/livestream
Contact Us:
- Forum: forums.linuxmint.com (rarely)
- Email: [email protected]
- Twitter: @mintCast @Linux_Mint
- IRC: irc.spotchat.org – #mintcast
- Google+: mintCast
More Linux Mint info: website, blog, forums, community
Credits:
Podcast Entry and exit music provided by Mark Blasco (podcastthemes.com). Podcast bumpers provided by Oscar.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Thanks for a great show. The new hosts are starting to settle in really well. Will you be documenting the set-up of the podcast box?
Peter, Thanks for the comment, we’re glad that your enjoying the new guy’s. Its going to take a few episodes for us to find our feet so let us know if you have any ideas regarding the show and what we may try different in the future.
Tony H
Thanks to the hosts old & new for the time & effort you put into this show.
My podcatcher is AntennaPod for Android. It is open-source and can search iTunes but can also sync with gPodder.net (related to the gPodder podcatcher for Linux).
Linux podcasts (besides MintCast):
* Ask Noah Show (Jupiter Broadcasting) – questions from listerners, interviews, news commentary
* Linux Action News (Jupiter Broadcasting) – just Linux news (fairly short)
* Ubuntu Podcast
* Late Night Linux
* Bad Voltage
* FLOSS Weekly – interviews on particular free software projects
Programming podcasts:
* Talk Python to Me (thanks to Rob for the recommendation!)
* Developer Tea
* Python Bytes
* Coder Radio (Jupiter Broadcasting)
Data Science / Machine Learning podcasts
* Linear Digressions – summarizing content of interesting technical articles
* Becoming a Data Scientist – interviews with practitioners
* DataFramed – DataCamp website’s podcast – various topics
* DataHack Radio – interviews with practitioners
* The R-Podcast
* Not So Standard Deviations
* Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal
* O’Reilly Data Show
* Data Driven
Finance / Economics:
* NPR Planet Money – very accessible takes on the economy
* EconTalk – Russ Roberts – in-depth interviews
Interesting / Fun:
* NPR Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me – comedy + current events
* The Thrilling Adventure Hour! – hammy old-time radio broadcasts
* NPR This American Life – obligatory mention
Christianity / Faith:
* The Faraday Institute – faith & science
* The Holy Post – faith & current events – quite funny
* The Kindlings Muse – faith & big ideas
Also — free public domain audiobooks via Librivox, and library audiobocks via Hoopla or Overdrive / Libby or Axis 360. So much content!
Hi Joel, We will definitely respond on the show although I can’t guarantee we will have time to read all of your response we will do our best to do it justice.
Tony H
Regarding ads, I don’t mind them if they are relevant to the show (something like Digital Ocean or Private Internet Access, not an ad for mattresses or meal kits), short and infrequent. I would still probably skip them, but I don’t mind doing it…. Besides helping with hosting costs and recording equipment, the best use of sponsorship money I can think of is to pay for audio editing. It sounds like Rob and Isaac are partly burning out from the time commitment required for the podcast so cutting out the drudge work could help with that. Besides that, donating to Linux Mint seems like a good option. Maybe a Mint developer (other than Isaac) would actually come on the show.
Speaking of burning out, It sounds like Isaac is just about done with the show. Rob on the other hand seems reinvigorated from all the new hosts — is he really going to leave?
For podcatcher, I use AntennaPod on Android. I should point out that the show notes for Mint Cast do not display in AntennaPod. Mint Cast is the only one of the ~70 podcasts I subscribe to that doesn’t have good show notes in the player.
I don’t have time to go into much depth regaridng podcast subscriptions. I subscribe to all of the ones Joel listed under Linux and most of the programming ones. I subscribe to way more than I can listen to so I pick based on the show topics. Some Linux related ones that I subscribe to that Joel did not list are UBports, Binary Times, Garbage, Destination Linux, User Error, Bug Report, Fedora Project Podcast, Linux Unplugged, Admin Admin, and Linux Lads. Mint Cast is one of the ones I almost always listen to. Part of the reason is that it does not overlap too much with the other shows. A lot of the Linux shows have a long news segment that covers the same three or four stories that all the other podcasts cover — there are only so many times I can listen to people talk about the new release of elementaryOS or the fact that Microsoft joined the OIN.
I think it is good to discuss the comment feedback in the show. I am always tempted to send an email instead of posting a comment because my comments rarely get any acknowledgement but emails get read on the show and discussed.
Hey there, Will,
Leo here.
Ads aren’t something we’re ready to jump into bed with just yet, but your feedback will help us figure out if it’s something that’s worth doing at all. So, thanks! The more feedback we get about this, the better we can make a decision that works best for everyone, thought I know that’s a pretty tall order.
Rob and Isaac have been doing the podcast for quite some time, and I think they’re just ready to move on. The time commitment is something that can definitely wear you down as we saw when Rob was showing us the ropes on how to pump out an episode. It’s a lot! There are a lot of moving parts that have to be set up and I think with all the new blood on the team, we can keep it going for years to come. I can’t speak for them, but It’s my sincere hope that Rob and Isaac drop back in from time to time (or more if they want!), because they’ve been such a big part of mintCast for so long.
AntennaPod was my recommendation to the group interally as well! You’ve got good FOSS taste 😉 . It’s still what I use on Android, going on two years now. I didn’t know our show notes weren’t getting out there! I’ll see what we can do about getting the show notes accessible to all the podcast catchers. Thanks for the podcast selections. I know I found a couple to take a listen to.
As for comments, I think our new group has enough hands on deck to cover all the bases! Keep the website feedback here coming, but we’re watching email too. We’ll do our best to cover it.
Honestly, I have not put any time into researching podcatchers. When I first got into Linux, I had an iPod. I heard Joe Ressington extol the virtues of AntennaPod on Linux Luddites, so when I got an Android phone I just started using it. I wish it supported multiple playlists so I could organize episodes I might want to come back to later a little better (now they are all just crammed together as favorites). Also, sometimes it has issues with variable bitrate recordings (plays them from the beginning fine but if I pause and come back it loses its place).
Another Linux related podcast I just heard about is Command Line Heroes from Red Hat.
I hope Rob and Isaac do drop back in. I miss hearing from hosts of various podcasts like Scott from Mint Cast and Paddy from Linux Luddites.
I like the new hosts so far. I am interested to see how the show shakes out. The number seems a little unwieldy but the hosts seem promising and I am sure things will work out through something like attrition or hosts alternating shows.
I agree re: ads. I don’t mind them if they are short (who thinks that anyone is going to listen to an ad longer than, say, 30 seconds? Why even bother??), a relevant organization you actually believe in, and if the money has a good purpose / use.
Sorry to hear that Isaac didn’t have a good Ting experience. I am still a huge fan of Ting & its model of charging based on usage. I haven’t had coverage problems, and I don’t use my cellular data service that much. So it’s perfect for me.
Did you guys set up a proper poll for podcatchers? If not, I’ve been using BeyondPod on Android for quite a while, and Doggcatcher before that. Doggcatcher worked great for me for years, but I ran into problems that I don’t remember after an update, prompting me to switch to BeyondPod.
Just listened to this episode this morning. You guys asked about favorite podcatching software/app/method. Here is mine: I wrote my own, called “marss” that downloads episodes from the subscribed RSS streams, prepends the file names with 01, 02 etc, depending on the order of streams in the conf file (so that I can listen to them in that order) and puts them in a folder. All I have to do is run it once every Sunday morning and copy the resulting directory to my phone, so I can listen (using the ever-awesome Smart Audiobook Player) during bike rides, car rides, doing dishes, whatever!
I wish to release the source code of this application – written in C++ using codelite – (on github or something) but I am not sure how to go about it.
For the record, I am a ‘recent’ convert to Linux, having moved over once I realized the horrors of the decimal version of that OS.