Episode 454 Show Notes

Welcome to mintCast

the Podcast by the Linux Mint Community for All Users of Linux

This is Episode 454!

This is Episode 454.5!

Recorded on Sunday, February 2, 2025.

… Joe; … Moss; … Bill; unfolded, I’m Majid; … Eric

— Play Standard Intro —

  • First up in the news: Solus 4.7 Released, Facebook bans Linux,
  • In security and privacy: Judge Says Controversial FBI Searches Require a Warrant,
  • Then in our Wanderings: Joe, Bill, Majid likes cursing at his computer and Eric
  • In our Innards section:
  • And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
  • Please remember if you want to follow along with our discussions, the full show notes for this episode are linked in the show’s description at mintcast.org.

— Play News Transition Bumper —

The News

20 minutes

  • Solus 4.7 Released
    • From the Solus blog (via londoner)
    • Last Sunday, January 26, the Solus team proudly announced their latest release: Solus 4.7 Endurance.
    • <Quote> This release focuses on updating our editions, and refreshing the default kernels. We’ve called this release Endurance to highlight our promise to users that we will continue to deliver timely updates to keep their systems stable and beautiful <End quote>. The release is available with the Budgie desktop and three other editions:
    • Solus ships with Budgie 10.9.2, the latest release of the Budgie Desktop. The mature 10.9.x series brings some small improvements, and builds on Budgie’s reputation for stability and polish.
    • Solus GNOME Edition ships with GNOME 47.3, an update to the GNOME 47 Denver series. Features Added in GNOME 47 include
      • Accent Colors
      • Enhanced Small Screen Support
      • Screen Capture Hardware Encoding
      • Faster, More Accurate GTK Rendering
      • New Open and Save File Dialogs
    • Solus 4.7 Plasma Edition ships with the latest Plasma Desktop, KDE Frameworks, KDE Gear, and the KDE branch for QT.
    • The Xfce Edition has been updated to version 4.20. This is a big milestone for the Xfce project: It brings very experimental support for Wayland.
    • All the editions feature:
      • Firefox 134.0.2
      • LibreOffice 24.8.4.2
      • Thunderbird 128.6.0
    • For audio and video multimedia playback, Solus offers software out-of-the-box that caters specifically to their desired experience for each edition.
      • Budgie and GNOME editions ship with Rhythmbox for audio playback, with the latest release of the Alternate Toolbar extension to provide a more modern user experience.
      • Budgie and GNOME ship with Celluloid for video playback.
      • Xfce ships with Parole for multimedia playback.
      • Plasma ships with Elisa for audio playback and Haruna for video playback.
    • Solus encourages users to try one of the new Software Centers as a replacement for solus-sc (Solus Software Center). A new software center gets you out-of-the-box support for Flatpaks, and better app descriptions through Appstream metadata support.
    • Solus contributors and staff have been hard at work adding and fixing the metainfo.xml files used for Appstream support. The goal is for every packaged GUI application to have a working metainfo.xml file, so that the software centers can show users all kinds of information about an app before they decide to install it.
    • Curious Budgie, GNOME and Xfce users can install gnome-software, while Plasma users should install discover.
    • The ISO images now include firmware support for more NVIDIA GPUs out-of-the-box. Some users with 4000 series cards were seeing black screens when trying to install Solus; this should now be fixed.
  • Facebook bans Linux
    • From Distrowatch Weekly Issue 1106 (via londoner)
    • Starting on January 19, 2025 Facebook’s internal policy makers have decided that Linux is malware and labelled groups associated with Linux as being “cybersecurity threats”. Any posts mentioning DistroWatch and multiple groups associated with Linux and Linux discussions have either been shut down or had many of their posts removed.
    • Distrowatch says it’s been hearing all week from readers who say they can no longer post about Linux on Facebook or share links to DistroWatch. Some people have reported their accounts have been locked or limited for posting about Linux.
    • The sad irony here is that Facebook runs much of its infrastructure on Linux and often posts job ads looking for Linux developers.
    • Unfortunately, there isn’t anything Distrowatch can do about this, apart from advising people to get their Linux-related information from sources other than Facebook. They have tried to appeal the ban and were told the next day that Linux-related material is staying on the cybersecurity filter. The writer’s Facebook account was also locked for his efforts.
    • Distrowatch went through a similar experience when Twitter changed its name to X – suddenly accounts which had been re-posting news from our RSS feeds were no longer able to share links. This sort of censorship is an unpleasant side-effect of centralized communication platforms such as X, Facebook, Google+, and so on.
    • In an effort to continue to make it possible for people to talk about Linux (and DistroWatch), as well as share their views and links, they are providing two options. There are RSS news feeds which get updates whenever they post new announcements, stories, and the weekly newsletter. They also now have a Mastodon account where they will start to post updates – at least for new distributions and notice of our weekly newsletter. Over time we may also add news stories and updates about releases. Links for the feeds and the Mastodon account can be found on the Distrowaatch contact page.
  • Wine 10.0 Release Brings New Drivers, Features & Changes
    • from omgubuntu
    • A fresh stable release of Wine — the open-source compatibility layer that makes it possible to run Windows apps and games on Linux and macOS — has been uncorked.
    • More than 6,000 thousand changes were distilled in Wine 10.0, changes collected, collated, and curated over the past 12 months of Wine 9.x development releases. For those who’ve supped the dev cycle builds, the bulk of what’s new in Wine 10.0 will be familiar.
    • Wine is not the ‘everyday essential’ it was in years past. Back then, web-based services weren’t as capable, so folks were wedded to specific pieces of Windows software, making Wine an indispensable, if often guilty, aid to day-to-day Linux desktop use.
    • Today, the software remains widely used in the Linux gaming scene, where it’s integral in Valve’s Proton and CodeWeaver’s CrossOver. Its use for desktop software has lessened, although Linux distributions like Zorin OS do integrate it.
    • The newest stable release brings a sweet bouquet1 of new features, drivers, and improvements, expands architecture coverage, and fixes bugs — a vintage that proves Wine truly does get better with age.
    • Wine 10.0: New Features – Strong ARM’d
    • Wine is not an emulator —literally what the name Wine stands for— but it sure does act like one.
    • Being able to run 64-bit x86 apps on ARM systems is a big lure as ARM-based PCs become ever-more commonplace, so Wine 10.0 implements an x86 emulation interface in its ARM builds.
    • This, devs say, “takes advantage of the ARM64EC support to run all of the Wine code as native, with only the application’s x86-64 code requiring emulation.”
    • The catch is that no emulation library is provided with Wine, but external libraries can be used.
    • Additionally, Wine 10.0 amps up its ARM coverage by adding ARM64EC architecture support with ARM64 parity, support for Hybrid ARM64X modules (requires experimental LLVM toolchain), and handling C++ exceptions and Run-Time Type Information (RTTI).
    • Scaling & Vulkan
    • Wine 10.0 introduces more ‘accurate’ High-DPI support and non-DPI aware windows are now scaled automatically. Users wishing to override that support, be it per-app or globally, can use newly added compatibility flags in the relevant prefixes.
    • Elsewhere, the X11 backend supports Vulkan child window rendering for apps. This change brings parity with OpenGL, which has supported 3D rendering in child window in early builds.
    • The Vulkan driver is bumped to v1.4.303 and now supports Vulkan Video extensions.
    • Desktop Changes
    • Wine 10.0 features an improved Wayland driver with OpenGL support, proper positioning of pop-up windows, and auto-repeat key support. With the experience deemed decent, Wine 10.0 enables its Wayland driver by by default (though X11 driver is used if available).
    • There’s also an experimental modesetting emulation mechanism available which, devs says, can “force display mode changes to be fully emulated, instead of actually changing the display settings.”
    • Sticking with displays, Wine 10.0 offers a new Desktop Control Panel applet. This is used to inspect of modify display configuration, change virtual desktop resolution, or control the above-mentioned emulated display settings.
    • Want to disable system tray icons and/or shell launchers on desktop? Set NoTrayItemsDisplay=1 and/or NoDesktop=1 values in the following key:
    • HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
    • Input-wise, Wine 10.0 supports touchscreens in the X11 backend, basic multi-touch support, expands Dvorak keyboard layout support, and adds a new Joystick Control Panel applet to make toggling some advanced settings easier.
    • A Bluetooth driver has also been implemented, albeit in a formative state with only basic functionality.
    • Other changes
    • GL renderer now requires GLSL 1.20
    • Shader stencil export implemented for GL and Vulkan renderers
    • Alternative GLSL shader backend using vkd3d-shader
    • FFmpeg-based backend alternative to GStreamer (opt-in, experimental)
    • Media Foundation multimedia pipelines ‘more accurately implemented’
    • DirectMusic supports loading MIDI files
    • Unicode 16.0.0
    • Command Prompt tool input parser rewritten
    • File Comparison tool supports comparing files with default options
    • Network sessions are supported in DirectPlay
    • Kernel process elevation implemented
    • Disk labels retrieved from DBus (where possible)
    • The release announcement covers the above changes plus many more – go get drunk on the detail!
    • You can download Wine 10.0 source code and build it from hand. But why crush grapes when you can just buy it ready bottled: the official Wine website has details on official binary packages for various Linux distributions.
    • Wine maintains its own Ubuntu repo for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and later so it is relatively easy to install the latest Wine release on Ubuntu – new stable builds lag the announcement by a week or two; give devs time to package it!
    • I can’t remember the last time I had need to use Wine (I am not a developer or a gamer) but I nonetheless appreciate the effort that goes into the software so that it is there, ready if ever I have need.
    • Whether you’re an infrequent user or sup on its goodness daily, I’m sure you’ll join me in raising a glass to the dedicated devs behind the Wine project on a rich, full-bodied Wine 10.0 stable release.
  • GTK’s X11 Backend Now Deprecated, Planned For Removal In GTK 5
    • from Phoronix
    • GTK developers have been holding another hackfest this week for the annual FOSDEM developer conference happening this weekend in Brussels. GTK developers are working toward the GTK 4.18 stable release and continuing to think more about GTK 5.
    • In a blog post today on the GTK project blog, they noted as part of their spring cleaning they have removed their old OpenGL renderer given the successes of their newer renders. GTK developers have also made the move to deprecate their X11 and HTML5 Broadway backends. Broadway was a nifty back-end for outputting to modern HTML5 for GTK apps within web browsers but ultimately not much use. GTK developers previously talked about deprecating their X11 support in favor of Wayland and that has now taken place.
    • GTK 4.17.4 was released today and it goes ahead with the X11 and Broadway backend deprecation. Meanwhile new to GTK 4.17.4 is an Android back-end: GTK apps can now work natively on Android smartphones but for the time being is considered experimental. GTK 4.17.4 also adds support for rotated videos with GtkVideo, fixes many bugs, and other enhancements.
    • GTK developers are planning on removing the now-deprecated X11 and Broadway back-ends for the GTK 5 toolkit release.
    • On the GTK blog they also outline other spring cleaning like dropping support for prior to Windows 10 and macOS 10.15. Plus other development work with their sights on the GTK 5 toolkit.
  • Linux 6.14 RISC-V Kernel Adds Support For T-Head Vector Extensions, GhostWrite – Bill
    • from Phoronix
    • The RISC-V CPU architecture feature updates have now been submitted and merged for the nearly-over Linux 6.14 merge window.
    • Most notable this cycle on the RISC-V architecture side is adding support for the T-Head Vector Extensions. The Linux kernel now supports exposing these T-Head Vector Extensions to user-space on systems implementing support for them.
    • The XuanTie XTheadVector extension is a non-standard, non-conforming extension for adding 32 vector registers and 6 unprivileged CSRs. XTHeadVector is derived from the RISC-V Vector 0.7.1 extension. The patches working out this T-Head Vector Extensions support has been in the works the past number of months but now mainlined.
    • Linux 6.14 also adds mitigations for the GhostWrite vulnerability… The vulnerability affects the XTHeadVector instruction set. The mitigation is disabling this newly-added support. GhostWrite was announced back in August as one of the first notable RISC-V CPU vulnerabilities.
  • “Just give me the f***ing links!”—Cursing disables Google’s AI overviews
    • From ArsTechnica
    • The latest trick to stop those annoying AI answers is also the most cathartic.
    • If you search Google for a way to turn off the company’s AI-powered search results, you may well get an AI Overview telling you that AI Overviews can’t be directly disabled in Google Search. But if you instead ask Google how to turn off “fucking Google AI results,” you’ll get a standard set of useful web suggestions without any AI Overview at the top.
    • The existence of this “curse to disable Google AI” trick has been making the rounds on social media in recent days, and it holds up in Ars’ own testing. For instance, when searching for “how do you turn off [adjective] Google AI results,” a variety of curse word adjectives reliably disabled the AI Overviews, while adjectives like “dumb” or “lousy” did not. Inserting curse words randomly at any point in the search query seems to have a similar effect.
    • A nice, polite query that results in a nice, polite “you can’t” from AI Overviews. Google / Ars Technica
    • A cathartic curse eliminates the AI Overview in the results. Google / Ars Technica
    • There’s long been evidence that Google’s Gemini AI system tries to avoid swearing if at all possible, which might help explain why AI Overviews balk at queries that contain curses. Users should also keep in mind, though, that the actual web link results to a query can change significantly when curse words are inserted, especially if SafeSearch is turned off.
    • For those who want to get rid of AI Overviews without a curse-filled Google search history, users have discovered plenty of other methods for disabling the intrusive recommendations. Just after Google launched the AI Overviews feature, savvy searchers noted that adding “&udm=14” to the search URL would get rid of both the AI Overviews and the “Web Snippets.” A little fiddling with browser settings or plug-ins can even get this URL parameter inserted automatically into every search.
    • More recently, some Google users have noticed that appending the string “-ai” to a search (without quotes) seems to also turn off AI Overviews in the results. That method has worked in Ars’ testing, as has appending practically any other text string after a minus sign at the end of a search, for some reason.
    • The bit about using glue on pizza can be traced back to an 11-year-old troll post on Reddit. (via) Credit: Kyle Orland / Google
    • So while cursing at your Google search box to get rid of intrusive AI might not be strictly necessary, it can serve as a cathartic way to eliminate a feature that seems to be flawed by design and serves as a fundamental misunderstanding of why people use Google in the first place. More than that, the social spread of the new “curse the AI” method shows how many Google users are still annoyed or angered by a feature that often gives misleading, dangerous, or outright incorrect results.

— Play Security Transition Bumper —

Security and Privacy

10 minutes

  • Judge Says Controversial FBI Searches Require a Warrant
    • From Wired (via londoner)
    • A US judge in New York this week found that the FBI’s practice of searching data on US persons under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act without obtaining a warrant is unconstitutional. FISA gives the US government the authority to collect the communications of foreign entities through internet providers and companies like Apple and Google. Once this data was collected, the FBI could perform “backdoor searches” for information on US citizens or residents who communicated with foreigners, and it did so without first obtaining a warrant. Judge DeArcy Hall found that these searches do require a warrant. “To hold otherwise would effectively allow law enforcement to amass a repository of communications under Section 702—including those of US persons—that can later be searched on demand without limitation,” the judge wrote.
    • More details at Gizmodo.com

— Play Wanderings Transition Bumper —

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

30 minutes (~5-8 mins each)

  • Bill
    • So 22.1 has released since we’ve last spoke and I’ve taken the opportunity to experiment with a Btrfs on root install
    • After missing 453’s innards, I thought I’d take a minute to talk about my experience with Docker a bit.
  • Joe
    • The saga of the server rack continues.
      • More 3d printing for the hdd tray. the main portion of it was an almost 48 hour print but the other parts came along pretty easy. the side mounts that i had designed and the back plate and the slot holders that the hdd’s go into
      • I have printed the rails for the hdds and i have tested the adapter to 2 2.5 inch drives and it is working well. there are so many different configurations that i could set up for this. I can mount anywhere from 6 to 12 drives into the rack and i have a cable that i can use to hook only 4 drives to my large pc with the possibility of getting another cable for a total of 8. I dont think i need to worry about getting 8 full size drives at this point so i will stick to the first cable and will be looking at ways to hook up the rest of the drives to the mini pc that i am going to put in the rack which is the next item i want to talk about and will come back to this
      • Got an HP proliant 600 g3 mini that i put proxmox on. That was an ordeal in itself. I actually have done a lot with that so far but I think that I am going to save that for the next show. But in short I will say that I setup portainer again and pihole is now running from it. Along with some other very interesting things.
      • I do have a plethora of lower storage 2.5 inch drives from 250g to 1tb. I can put a lot of them in the rack and either power them all with the power supply that i am pulling from my das or i can get the sata to usb adapters which while slower are simpler and easier. I have seen some interesting m.2 m key adapters to sata that i think will work well since i already have several very long cables. Then i can swap out drives as needed in the future. I can put the drives for the main pc in the same rack as the ones for the mini pc and still only have one cable ran to the main pc.
      • Besides the power supply from the das and the drives i will either need to pull the power switch or buy a barrel momentary switch and add a hole to the rack to mount it. And with the power supply i still need to decide on the best way to mount it. I am hoping to add a back cover with a proper hole for the PS on the same shelf that will be for the pi’s and sbc’s in the front. I could use a full size atx power supply but it will take up more space and i would need to get a board adapter for the 24 pin connector so that i could add in a switch to turn off and on.
      • I also see some low cost 1u itx power supplies that would fit in easier but while they are low cost i am still not trying to throw money at my problems to solve them. Might be something to look at in the future though.
      • Once that is decided i should be able to start arranging the rack into its proper configuration. It is 8u which should be plenty and i am going to try to use the back where i can.
      • I have also designed some side panels that should provide a bit more stability and uniformity and i am looking at ways and places that i could mount a couple of 120mm fans to keep everything cool. On top of that i was able to modify someone elses handles designed for something else changed so that it would go on top of the rack to make moving it around a whole lot easier.
      • It also makes it more similar to the geeekpi rack that inspired all of this
    • I also am getting that lenovo from Moss. Thank you Moss. I am going to have it setup as a settop box in my living room but since it will have some added room to do other things i think i will also install an instance of nextcloud and make sure that it has enough storage to be a full back up. since it will also be directly connected to my router instead of in my garage i think that it will have my backup wireguard instance on it.
    • I know that i will probably setup a few other things on it and i may just end up turning it into another proxmox machine but one thing at a time. I will let you guys know when i make up my mind.
    • Back to the proliant a couple of other things to add. I have ordered 32gb of ram for it and will be installing that along with an adapter to convert the a+e connector that is normally for wifi into 2 sata ports. Hopefully that works.
    • When I first installed the primary hard drive I installed both an m.2 and a sata drive the first couple of times that I booted the machine I was able to see both but now I am only able to see the sata drive. I did have to 3d print an adapter to go from 2242 to 2280 and that went on easy enough.
    • Not sure what the issue is but I will look at the connections when I go in to replace the wifi connector and remove the serial connector so that there is a hole for the extra long sata cables that I have.
  • Moss
  • Majid
    • So I missed the last episode, so havent been here for a month or so. You’d expect I’d have a lot to report and a lot of wandering. But unfortunately not much. Its amazing how in modern life you can feel so busy and overwhelmed, but when it comes down to it, there hasnt been actually much stuff done. I think more then quantity, its timing. Everything happens at the same time, today is a case in point, friends mother passed away, having a service at the mosque… at almost the same time as this podcast! Similar during the week. And that before getting into work!
    • I was supposed to be going morroco at the time of the last show, however some health problems in the family meant it wasnt a good idea to go with the way things were at home. I definetly wouldnt have enjoyed it whilst worrying if nothing else. The upshot was that I was able to attend the wedding of a childhood friend which had clashed with the trip. Maybe I’ll go later in the year.
    • On the Linux front, I did the in-place upgrade to Mint 22.1 Xia. It was probably the most painless update I’ve ever done on any operating system ever. Less then 10min and all done. Very impressed. Cant say I’ve seen much difference in my day-to-day running of the mint box, but then again I know much of the changes are on the backend. Mint-Y theme looks nicer too. I suppose its early days!
    • Ubuntu 24.10 working well on the laptop, I don’t know what has changed recently, but battery life on it has improved with this release. Could it be wayland?
    • My days with a foldable are over. An acquaintance wanted the OnePlus Open and I was getting a good price (which I wouldnt have got as the new Open 2 is allegedly out new month) so have gone back to a traditional smartphone. I do miss the ability to use my phone as an e-reader, but thats a very small gripe and #firstworldproblem.
    • With deals going around the new S25 Ultra was what I went for, it was cheaper to get this, then get the S24 Ultra. I do think the S24 is better overall though. (bluetooth Spen and more distinctive design). Looks like I’m back in the samsung eco-system.
    • There was no OTC last week due to variety of factors, but in the episode before that, I had discovered (live on radio!) that my Synology NAS had got corrupted, I have no idea why. I had to do a full reinstall of the DSM OS on it. Which because of the spinning rust HDD took a couple of nervous hours, I really thought I’d lost all my data. Thankfully though I didn’t! which is good. 3-2-1 backups folks! Really the only way to be reliably backed-up.
    • Listened to the last episode of mintcast with interest as I have wanted to put docker and jellyfin on that NAS, was having issues with the compose file. I think I might go back to plex.
    • That dash cam I bought is still sitting in my room! Need to install it.
    • Finished The Agency. Really enjoyed. Got through second season of Paatal Lok on Amazon in a few days. Gripping TV. Due to my wifes tardiness, we havent finished Black Doves yet, though I might quietly do that without her knowing. Its sooo British! I love the welsh assassin too #iykyk Slowly ploughing through Dexter – Original Sin. Some good moments but not as interesting as I thought it would be. Started Dark Matter, but it seems very predictable so far, I’m not sure whether I’ll continue
    • Eagerly awaiting the new Manic Street Preachers album, the soundtrack of my life. New tracks from Architects and Memphis May Fire have been good. Oh and of course Bloodywood! Their collab with Babymetal is epic. 3 different languages and it works!
    • So, having issues with Tidal, the quality is great (as mentioned before) and though the music library isnt as extensive as others (especially when looking at non-english tracks) it hasnt been an issue. The app though is starting to frustrate. Slow, and random bugs. Looked on the internet and it seems to be well-known issue. I’m sticking with it as so far its bearable, but I wouldnt be surprised if I get offered a free trail of something, I might jump ship. Havent tried Deezer for about 10 years, must be due a trial!
  • Eric

— Play Innards Transition Bumper —

Linux Innards

30 minutes (~5-8 minutes each)

  • Upgrade or nuke and pave

— Play Vibrations Transition Bumper —

Vibrations from the Ether

20 minutes (~5 minutes each)

— Play Check This Transition Bumper —

Check This Out

10 minutes

Housekeeping & Announcements

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  • Bill for our audio editing and for hosting the server which runs our website, website maintenance, and the NextCloud server on which we host our show notes and raw audio
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