November 11, 2020MP3

mintCast 347.5 – Sensational Silverback (mp3)

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1:39 Linux Innards
49:14 Vibrations from the Ether
53:30 Check This Out
56:34 Outro

In our Innards section, we cover our experiences with the flavors of Ubuntu 20.10!

And finally, the feedback and a couple suggestions

LINUX INNARDS:

Ubuntu 20.10 Tinkering

- Ubuntu Proper
  - Pi Joe
    - Super easy to install. Used the rpi-imager instead of etcher. Very quick install
    - It took a couple of tries to get the screen image to show up on the monitor that i was using but after that it was very much like a standard install of Ubuntu
    - Post initial setup i tried some of my standard application installs.
      - X2go worked easy
      - Chrome browser did not because it is arm and the old method for getting chromium to work with netflix did not work either
      - Also installed audacity and mumble which seemed to work easy enough
      - I was able to install a docker version of chromium that did work with netflix and video played very smooth after a couple of minutes of dropped frames
    - I have to say that it is not the smoothest os i have seen on the pi but i am able to multitask on it.
    - I am familiar with gnome from the time that i was using fedora and it does work
    - Very standard linux but at least on the pi version it has this issue where it locks the screen at x time even when video is playing so i had to set it to not lock on its own
    - There were some obscure programs that i could not install because there was no arm version also
    - I wouldn’t want to use the pi long term as a desktop but it works well enough as a secondary or backup machine for me. I was able to do daily tasks and browsing with it and video watching was smooth
    - Gnome did not seem to be a too much of a resource hog which had been a problem in the past.
- Kubuntu
  - Leo – Just wow. Every time I jump on a Plasma desktop, I fall in love all over again. The more I do this, the more chances there are for it to stick!
  - The biggest downside to Kubuntu is Plasma quickly released a huge update in 5.20 after Kubuntu’s freeze. So Kubuntu folks will have to wait for 21.04 for those fixes and additions or jump on KDE Neon and slap on the HWE kernel and fixes there.
- Ubuntu Unity
  - Bo – I’ve been running it all week and…. I kinda like it.
    - The “window dodge” feature is missing
  - Moss – I’ve been running 20.04 all along, so I installed this. It would not install the Nvidia driver — the same driver which installed perfectly in 18.04 and 20.04. I think we’ve identified this as a kernel 5.8 issue, and I’ll talk a bit more about this in the next section.
- Ubuntu Studio
  - Tony W –
    - Implementation of ubiquity installer looks slick
    - Menus look WAY more modern
      - Big change – descriptions added to each application without the need to hover mouse cursor
  - Moss –
    - I downloaded it and tried it, but I could not get the panel to the bottom. Some things you just don’t have to live with. I’ll just add the tools to another flavor or even Mint.
  - Tony H –
    - I installed it on my Lenovo X230i last night, and it would not connect to my network WiFi, but would tether to the phone. I found out later that any other room in the house is fine but it can not connect to my WiFi network from the studio, so probably a hardware issue as no issue with my other machines.
    - As for the OS it looks slick and seems very friendly with RAM use at 620Mb at boot and 1.5Gb with FireFox and 3 tabs open. The install and a couple of additional programs not included by default take 13.1Gb of HDD space so it needs at least 16Gb+ in a VM. So I would suggest a 32Gb USB Flash Drive if doing a persistent install to one.
    - There are a few little annoyances with Plasma, but as an OS aimed at creators I would recommend giving it a go for the included software, it even has Blender pre installed and all the Audio visual and graphics software you could want.
- Ubuntu Mate
  - Tony W
    - Available for Rpi, and I would think very usable
    - PERFORMANT on low powered machines (tested w/ Dell 7130)
    - Mate Welcome got a nice cosmetic refresh in 20.04
    - Mate Tweak remains amazing, and now properly saves changes to each panel config to allow for switching back and forth
    - I love Mate’s Software Boutique
  - Moss – I tried installing this after the failure with the driver in Unity, for the primary purpose of seeing if the driver loaded, and had the same issue, so I didn’t go any further with it.
- Lubuntu
  - Played with this a little bit. It’s a hard call between this and MATE for any VM that needs a GUI. Of which I have two. They run on Linux Mint Mate for now, but it’s so good to have options.
- Xubuntu – nobody cares LOL
- Ubuntu Kylin
  - Tony W – I had a very brief play with the live USB, had never tried Kylin before.
    - Very friendly for Windows users.
    - Chinese language remnants even if using English (expected).
    - Kylin store is interesting
- Ubuntu Cinnamon remix
  - Josh – I installed 20.04 and upgraded it to 20.10 no issues doing that whatsoever.
    - Pros –
      - Upgrade was a breeze
      - Cinnamon desktop is great and just what you would expect.
      - All the comforts of Ubuntu without the Gnome in the garden.
    - Cons –
      - Theming is a little much with extensive use of orange
      - Not yet an “official” Flavor but is working on it
      - Not a ton of tools preinstalled like Linux Mint has
- Ubuntu Budgie
  - Josh – Also installed 20.04 and upgraded to 20.10 again went smoothly.
    - Pros –
      - Budgie is a great and simple Desktop Environment
      - Again it is Ubuntu based so it has all the Ubuntu support
      - Great welcome screen with a ton of options!
    - Cons –
      - Weird implementation of the Budgie desktop
      - Theming was very inconsistent
      - Tried the snap store (I know snaps ewwww) and had a weird transparency to it but still functioned as usual.

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

John Wallis
John Wallis Part 2
Werewoelfchen

CHECK THIS OUT!

Leo
- Spoopy NASA Posters!
- Rosewill 92mm Fan/Heatsink

Announcements:

Our next episode will be Sunday, November 15, 2020, at 2 pm Central Time, check for your local time! https://everytimezone.com/s/b3937eae

Wrap-up:

Joe – www.Tllts.org, www.linuxlugcast.com, MeWe, [email protected]
Bo – undercastnetwork.com , YouTube Undercast Collective
Moss – Peaceful Hippo, It’s Moss, MeWe, @bardictriad on Twitter, blogs on Peaceful Hippo, LinuxQuestions.org, and Dreamwidth, music on Bandcamp and my YouTube channel or Robert Warren’s channel, [email protected], [email protected], Sponsus!!
Tony Hughes – HPR – http://hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents.php?hostid=338, Occasional Blog https://tony-hughes.blogspot.com/, Twitter @TonyH1212, [email protected], [email protected]
Tony Watts – [email protected], Echoes of Savages (band)
Josh Hawk – [email protected], @joshontech on Twitter and most other social sites.
Leo – leochavez.org and @leochavez on Twitter, [email protected], linuxuserspace.show and you can get your five minute news digest at Full Circle Weekly News

Before we leave, we want to make sure to acknowledge some of the people who make mintCast possible …

Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
Archive.org for hosting our audio files
HPR for our Mumble backup
Hobstar for our logo
Londoner for our time zone link
Owen Peery for our audio editing
Archive.org for hosting our audio files
The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>