Episode 462 Show Notes

Welcome to mintCast

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

This is Episode 462!

This is Episode 462.5!

Recorded on Sunday, June 8, 2025

Broke as a joke I’m Joe; Is it Friday Yet? I’m Bill; energised I’m Majid; feeling the heat, I’m Eric; glad to be home, I’m Dale,

— Play Standard Intro —

  • First up in the news: Mint Monthly News – May 2025, controversy around the Nintendo Switch 2, Fedora 43 Workstation (GNOME) to remove X11 session, end of Linux Format, and we have a new format and new co-host!
  • In security and privacy:
  • Then in our Wanderings: We have moved it to the Saturday Round Table stream
  • In our Innards section: Dale discusses mobile internet devices and networks
  • In Bodhi Corner,
  • In Check This Out, we cover Packet, a new file transfer utility that integrates with Android’s Quick Share
  • 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/show-notes

— Play News Transition Bumper —

The News

20 minutes

  • Mint Monthly News – May 2025
    • Mint 20.x has reached End Of Life. Upgrade options are shown in the blog.
    • Fingerprint Authentication
      • Linux Mint 22.2 will feature a brand new app called “Fingwit“, which is a fingerprint configuration tool. It detects if your computer has a fingerprint reader and lets you record your fingerprints. It then configures your system to use fingerprint authentication for:
      • The login screen
      • The screensaver
      • sudo commands
      • Admin apps (pkexec)
    • libAdwaita apps and patches
    • Starting with Linux Mint 22.2, libAdwaita will be patched to work with themes. Support for libAdwaita was added to Mint-Y, Mint-X and Mint-L. The following apps will be upgraded to their libAdwaita versions:
      • gnome-calendar
      • simple-scan
      • baobab
    • libAdapta fork
    • In the scope of XApp and for our own projects, libAdwaita was forked into libAdapta: LibAdapta is libAdwaita with theme support and a few extras. It provides the same features and the same look as libAdwaita by default.
    • Framework
    • The company sent Clem some of their hardware so he was able to test the Laptop 13 and the gaming Desktop already. Their products are really nice. Clem hopes to be able to review them soon and add them to the store section. This isn’t just a commercial partnership. By testing this hardware we boost compatibility for the brand and significantly improve Linux Mint. It’s thanks to Framework we implemented power profiles in Linux Mint 22.1. It’s also thanks to them that we worked on fingerprint authentication or pushed towards an HWE kernel in Linux Mint 22.2. Their hardware challenges us to do better, because it’s packed with features in need for support.
  • Nintendo Switch 2 Controversy (Joe)
    • I wanted to discuss some of the hate around the NS2 and see if you guys think it is justified or not
    • First the price of the switch 2 is 450 dollars to start
    • Second the games are also more expensive at between 70 and 80 dollars
      • That seems expensive and seems to price out a lot of casual gaming in my opinion
      • It also is selling Upgrade packs for games AKA DLC for 20 dollars which since it just launched seems a bit odd considering the starting prices. So basically you have to pay more to get the full game
    • Buying game cartridges now only gives you a download link as opposed to an actual game
      • Game-key cards give users a full download of a game rather than allowing them to simply play it right out of the box, which has prompted concerns about game preservation, and generally hasn’t been met particularly warmly by those who value physical media.
      • Gamesradar
      • means that you cant really preserve versions of the game and or nintendo can just get rid of whatever game that they want and also if they ban you from Nintendo online wouldnt the games that you purchased be useless?
      • Also if you dont have an internet connection and dont have the game loaded….
    • Nintendo now says it can disable your Switch or potentially even your new Switch 2 if you don’t follow its user agreement. Nintendo has updated its user agreement, toughening its stance on those who pirate games, attempt to emulate titles, or otherwise modify their consoles
      • Techradar
      • It has been pointed out to me that this is a bit blown out of proportion sinc other companies do the same and nintendo has done similar in the past
      • the wording that is causing the problems is: Nintendo may render the Nintendo Account Services and/or the applicable Nintendo device permanently unusable in whole or in part
      • but that is supposed to be in regards to modifications of the Nintendo Account Services, so any of the online services that Nintendo controlls. I still find it disturbing that they can brick the hardware. But if you are going to hack Nintendo SERVICES then you should be banned and or prosecuted
    • There are others including the patch needed on launch day to get online and use backwards compatiblity for switch 1 games. Makes it very much an internet connections is required to do anything on the device . Day one Update Required
  • Fedora 43 Workstation (GNOME) to remove X11 session (Eric)
    • Via Phoronix (https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fedora-43-Wayland-Only-GNOME)
    • The Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) signed off on May 20th on the planned change for Fedora 43 that the GNOME desktop will be Wayland-only: the GNOME X11 packages will be removed in this next Fedora Linux release.
    • Fedora 43 will be shipping this autumn with GNOME 49 and is now cleared to only ship with Wayland support, although XWayland support is still sticking around to be able to run X11 clients from within the GNOME Wayland session.
    • As usual, Fedora and GNOME are pushing forward with new technology, in this case, pushing to make Wayland the default display manager for the Linux desktop. Fedora has a history of being an early adopter of new advancements in desktop Linux, notably projects like PipeWire and systemd.
    • I respect them for being willing to advance the state of the art and providing a much needed push to get key projects adopted on a wider scale.
  • After 25 Years, Linux Format Magazine is No More (Majid)

— Play Security Transition Bumper —

Security and Privacy

10 minutes

— Play Wanderings Transition Bumper —

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

30 minutes (~5-8 mins each)

  • Moved to saturday

— Play Innards Transition Bumper —

Linux Innards

30 minutes (~5-8 minutes each)

  • Dale
  • Continuation of mintCast Episode 458’s Innards
  • Now we return back to the states.
  • During the beginning of the 2000s we still had 2G service with slow data modes in many of the countries using GSM. The mid 2000s saw the introduction of 3G and data modes appearing in the US. It is most commonly referred to as ‘Mobile Broadband’. Another feature of 3G was providing mobile Internet to computers. This was by way of tethering with a cable attached between the computer and phone. The other way was with USB thumb drive size USB modems. They were available for 2G and 3G with comparable speed as you have on a phone.
  • The ability of having Internet access spawned a new category of devices and briefly resurrected the PDA (Personal Digital Assistants). The new devices were tablets, which were basically phones with a bigger screen.
  • Another thing I want to touch on briefly is web browsing on a phone. The early phones had text/graphical interface which was similar to Gopher. Gopher was popular on computers during the 80s and 90s. The interface was called WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) which was released in 1999. It wasn’t widely adopted and had many issues. It wasn’t compatible with existing web standards and needed its own standard called WML. It was a markup language like HTML. A gateway on the providers network was also required to access the content. The gateway was used to interface with the HTTP and HTTPS protocols.
  • WAP 2.0 was released in 2002 and was completely re-engineered. It used a custom version of XHTML with HTTP compatibility called XHTML MP. This removed the need for the gateway to broker the connection between HTTP and HTTPS. XHTML MP would also provide additional information about the phone.
  • Some providers started offering services for WAP 2.0 in 2003 – 2004 which allowed it to gain more popularity. Though with the ability to tether or use a USB modem on a computer. It still wasn’t widely adopted. It stuck around until 2013, which is a lot longer than it should have. At least in my opinion.
  • The 3GPP2 created CDMA2000 as the name for the 3G standard. It was also know as C2K or IMT-MC (IMT Multi-Carrier) and was the successor to cdmaOne (IS95).
  • Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communication channel. This allows several users to share a band of frequencies. To permit this without undue interference between the users, CDMA employs spread spectrum technology and a special coding scheme. Where each transmitter is assigned a code.
  • CDMA2000 1x aka 1xRTT or 1x is the data mode for CDMA2000. It used Packet Switching which is similar to Ethernet and used the IP protocol. It had a maximum speed of 153 kbit/s with an average speed between 80 and 100 kbit/s. The 1x denoted that it used a single 1.25 MHz channel. Some providers used up to 3 channels. This was referred to as 3xRTT. It was backwards compatible with the previous cdmaOne (IS95), by using the same 1.25 MHz bandwidth and the same 800 – 900 MHz bands and 1800 – 1900 MHz bands. The ability of using native IP based protocols was a huge benefit.
  • In 1999 Qualcomm developed 1xEV-DO revision 0 (1x Evolution-Data Only) and was later changed to mean (Evolution-Data Optimized). As some didn’t like the ‘only’ definition. Many providers dropped the 1x from the name and referred to it as EV-DO. It was a much faster than the previous 1x data mode. It was an easy addition because it could use the existing 1xRTT equipment.
  • EV-DO revision 0 used CDMA’s 1xRTT and TDM (Time Division Multiplexing). TDM utilized TDMA technology to send multiple signals on the same channel. Each channel had a time slot similar to how TDMA functioned. The average speed was about 1.8 Mbit/s.
  • In 2006 EV-DO revision A was released. It had peak rates of 3.1 Mbps on the downlink and 1.8 Mbps on the uplink. Though real world results varied and were typically lower. QoS (Quality of Service) was a much needed addition. It allowed for latency sensitive IP traffic. Which included Voice over IP (VoIP), Video Telephony, and Video/Music Streaming/Downloads to name a few.
  • In late 2006 early 2007 EV-DO revision B was deployed. It had much faster rates up to 4.9 Mbit/s. Some providers opted to bond multiple channels together for a peak rate of 14.7 Mbit/s. Which was a technique used in 3xRTT. This was referred to as Multi-Carrier EV-DO. It allowed an increase up to 20 MHz bandwidth. Although that was largely dependent on the provider and the available RF spectrum at each tower.
  • EV-DO revision C was released in 2006. It was a standard in 2007 called EV-DV (Evolution Data and Voice). It had a proposed data rate of 280 Mbit/s. Although real world usage showed 14 Mbit/s. Which was good considering that revision B needed multiple channels bonded to achieve that speed. The difference between revision C and B was ability to have both voice and data on the same channels.
  • Previous to EV-DO rev C. You could only have a voice call or a data connection not both.
  • Between 2006 and 2007 Ultra Mobile Broadband was released but it wasn’t used by many carriers. It was meant to be a replacement for CDMA2000 and EV-DO. It used technologies from W-CDMA such as TDM (Time Division Multiplexing), LS-OFDM (Least Square Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing, OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), and OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access). This is the best way I can describe OFDM and OFDMA. They both divide the frequencies into sub frequencies. Sort of like a VM host running multiple VMS. OFDM is best for single user and OFDMA is best for multiple users.
  • The reason I haven’t explained in detail on how it worked is quite simply because I can’t. So please forgive me for the less technical detail when I get to LTE, 4G, and 5G.
  • Despite the improvements offered by revision C and Ultra Mobile Broadband. Qualcomm ended the development of EV-DV in November of 2008 in favor of adopting LTE. Multiple factors contributed to this. The two most common was the update fatigue the mobile providers faced. They were losing interest in these marginal upgrades, although rev C EV-DV was quite an improvement over revision B.
  • In 2010 there was an update to 1x called 1x Advanced. Providers could have 4 times the voices calls in the same bandwidth of 1x. This allowed the data modes to use more of the available bandwidth. Unfortunately this required phones that could use 1x Advanced. It was backwards compatible with 1x.
  • SVDO (Simultaneous Voice and EV-DO) was an implementation of EV-DV by Verizon and Sprint. It was used with phones supporting the standard. This was released in 2011 though it was short lived. Once LTE was available, SVDO was only of use when the phone roamed into a 3G area, since LTE allowed for calls and data at the same time.
  • Many factors hindered further revisions of CDMA2000 and EV-DO.
  • AMPS’s (1G), cdmaONE’s (2G), and CDMA2000’s (3G) voice calls were Circuit Switched. Meaning they had a dedicated connection to the tower. That meant each carrier (signal from each phone) in the channel was occupied regardless of it being used or not. It waited until a call is made or received. The IMTS that proceeded AMPS only used the channel when it needed to make or receive a call.
  • If you have heard the recording “All circuits are busy now, please try you call again later” that meant the tower wasn’t accepting any new connections. EV-DO used packet switching which is similar to Ethernet, which also allowed the use of IP based technologies.
  • Here are some other factors.
  • The providers needed to implement the new technology. The issue with that was the technology was being released faster than they could install it. The only saving grace was the backwards compatibility.
  • The customers needed to upgrade their phone to take advantage of the new technology. The providers began subsidizing the cost of the phone. Otherwise it was a hard sell to tell a person that spent $500 on a phone that the new $500 phone is much better. Selling the phones at 50% or so was a much easier sell. However, it was very expensive for the providers. Which is why they had 2 year contracts and early termination fees.
  • A good example was 1x Advanced, as previously mentioned. The benefits could only be achieved if all the phones connected to a tower used 1x Advanced. Which was a blessing and a curse for the providers.
  • A huge factor was the size of North America, with the US being a large percentage of it. Large scale deployments takes much more time and money.
  • I do want to make a quick mention of T-Mobile and AT&T. T-Mobile is a German telecommunications company owned by Deutsche Telekom AG. They entered the US a few years after CDMA2000 was rolled out. They brought the UMTS service from the European market. AT&T’s history is too complicated to mention. They used UMTS as well. The bands UMTS used in the US was 1700, 1900, and 2100 MHz. AT&T was the only US based provider to use UMTS. I will mention UMTS next.
  • So let’s head back across the pond.
  • In 2002 UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) was the 3G replacement for GSM. It used W-CDMA (Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access) that used two 5 MHz wide channels. This is compared to the CDMA2000 that uses multiple 1.25 MHz channels. UMTS had the addition of MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service). Which enabled files to be sent via SMS. MMS enabled the ability to send messages longer than 160 characters. If a message exceeded 160, it would be converted from SMS to MMS. UMTS continued using the SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) used in GSM.
  • UMTS used the following bands in Europe. 1885–2025 MHz for mobile-to-tower and 2110–2200 MHz for tower-to-mobile. Some countries used 850 – 900 MHz and the 1900 MHz bands.
  • 3GPP released HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) in 2005. It serves as the data mode like EV-DO on CDMA2000. HSPA utilizes two protocols. HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) and HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access). HSPA used a similar method that CDMA2000’s EV-DO used. UMTS called it UTRA-TDD (UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access – Time-Division Duplexing). UTRA encompasses different channel access methods. HSPA provided a peak of 2 Mbit/s but in real world use it was more like 384 kbit/s which was 3 times faster than CDMA2000’s initial 1xRTT. This was considered 3.5G.
  • The 3.75G HSPA+ (Evolved High Speed Packet Access) was released in 2008. The max throughput was 337 Mbit/s. Though again, these are lab test numbers. Even with that said, it was still 3 to 4 times faster than CDMA2000 EV-DV’s at up to 56 MBbit/s. Another thing to keep in mind is that you could have simultaneous voice and data. This was due to the wider bandwidth of W-CDMA.
  • The 3GPP announced LTE (Long Term Evolution) in December of 2008 and was actively used in 2009 by TeliaSonera in Oslo and Stockholm Sweden. It made it to North America in September of 2010. LTE is considered 3.95G and was a transitional technology towards 4G. It is based on the UMTS/HSPA standard.
  • They use category numbers to define the speeds and capabilities. They use MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output). It uses multiple antennas to increase the amount of data that can be transmitted and received at once. The categories are sequential but a higher number doesn’t mean a faster download. It more depends on the category the device uses for its hardware. For example, you wouldn’t use a category that uses 4×4 MIMO when the device only has 2 antennas. I will mention a couple as there are many.
  • LTE was the migration path of UMTS systems. It is a packet switched network and doesn’t use the circuit switched network. This posed a problem for the providers. Since this was how voice and messages were sent on the network. I will discuss the solution after mentioning LTE Category 4 which is next. Another problem is that many of the providers couldn’t support the requirements of 4G. Which is another reason why LTE was a migration path to 4G.
  • The ITU-R initially enforced the requirements and wouldn’t allow something to be called 4G when it didn’t support all of its features. The ITU is the governing body over 3GPP and 3GPP2. ITU is the International Telecommunication Union and is also under the control of the UN (United Nations). ITU among other functions works with member countries to regulate intercommunication between member countries via wired connections. ITU-R is the radio communications division of the ITU. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the ITU-R relented and allowed the use of name 4G if it was mentioned along side LTE. This was unnecessary because LTE was a standard of its own and wasn’t meant as a long term implementation. Despite the name Long Term Evolution. I will speak more on the requirements after this LTE section.
  • Here is a list of the bands and frequencies used in LTE.
  • North America – 600, 700, 850, 1700, 1900, 2300, 2500, 2600, 3500, 5000 MHz
  • (bands 2, 4, 5, 7, 12, 13, 14, 17, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46, 48, 66, 71)
  • Central America, South America and the Caribbean – 600, 700, 800, 850, 900, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2300, 2500, 2600, 3500, 5000 MHz (bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 17, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46, 48, 66, 71)
  • Europe – 450, 700, 800, 900, 1500, 1800, 2100, 2300, 2600, 3500, 3700 MHz (bands 1, 3, 7, 8, 20, 22, 28, 31, 32, 38, 40, 42, 43)
  • Asia – 450, 700, 800, 850, 900, 1500, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2300, 2500, 2600, 3500 MHz (bands 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 18, 19, 20, 21, 26, 28, 31, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42)
  • Africa – 700, 800, 850, 900, 1800, 2100, 2300, 2500, 2600 MHz
    (bands 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20, 28, 40, 41)
  • Oceania (incl. Australia and New Zealand) – 700, 850, 900, 1800, 2100, 2300, 2600 MHz (bands 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 28, 40)
  • This distribution of frequencies and bands meant that a phone from one country wouldn’t function as well in another country. This lead to the creation of internationally compatible phones and hotspot/mobile routers.
  • LTE Category 4 provides peak rate of 150 Mbit/s down and 51 Mbit up with a latency of less than 5 ms. It supports 1.4 MHz to 20 MHz channels. It also supports previous frequency division duplexing and time-division duplexing that CDMA and TDMA used. The use of faster IC’s allow to use them more efficiently. LTE aims to replace the circuit and packet switching IP method with an all IP method.
  • Other benefits are.
  • ▪ Support of movement up to 220 MPH / 354 km/h depending on the frequency band.
  • ▪ Support of higher density of cell towers, Femto and Picocells for example.
  • ▪ Backwards compatibility with GSM / UMTS / CDMA2000. For example, If a call is started on LTE and roams to a CDMA2000 area, the connection would continue without disruption.
  • ▪ VoLTE (Voice of LTE) allows calls to placed using the data instead of the traditional voice circuit-switched system.
  • VoLTE is how many providers offered voice and messaging service. However, this required them to have LTE equipment at every tower. Other providers continued to support their 3G network only for voice and messaging. This was referred to as Circuit-switched fallback (CSFB). Simultaneous voice and LTE (SVLTE) was another option which was similar to 3G’s SVDO (Simultaneous Voice and EV-DO). Where the phone was specifically designed to support both systems. This was done by way of having a radio for each system. Which also meant it had worse battery life.
  • LTE Advanced, also known as LTE+, LTE-A or 4G+ was first used by SK Telecom in South Korea in 2013. By 2019 it was deployed in 134 countries. The most notable improvement were carrier aggregation and 4×4 MIMO. Carrier aggregation was yet another form of bonding. As I previously discussed, multiple frequencies were used together to improve performance. Carrier aggregation does one better. It will combine multiple channels which are made up of current method of combining frequencies.
  • The 4×4 MIMO is the same technology used in WiFi but on a much larger scale. Multiple transmitters and antennas are used. In this example, Four are used for transmit and four are used for receive.
  • Cat 6 and 12 were part of the LTE Advanced standard.
  • LTE Category 6 was rolled out between 2011 and 2013. It increased the download peak to 300 Mbit/s and the upload peak to 51 Mbit/s.
  • LTE Category 12 was rolled out in 2015. Cat 12 was capable of 603.0 Mbit/s on the download and 102.0 Mbit/s on the upload.
  • Carrier Aggregation is a popular feature on mobile routers like my Peplink. It can support using two sims or e-sims at the same time. I am not using that feature but it is a nice option to have.
  • For completeness sake I need to mention WiMAX. Mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e) was a competing standard for fixed devices in 2005. Despite being a few years ahead of LTE. Providers didn’t think fixed was going to be as popular and instead waited for LTE. WiMax is still in use though for fixed devices instead of mobile. Sprint was one of the few providers to use it for mobile use in 2008. It branded it as 4G even though it doesn’t support 4G requirements. They stopped using it late 2015.
  • The 3GPP released 4G around 2012. It was announced at the same time as LTE. Due to previously mentioned reasons. It took longer before it was adopted by the mobile providers.
  • 3GPP had the following requirements for 4G.
  • ▪ An all IP packet switched network
  • ▪ Have a peak data rate up 100 Mbit/s for mobile and 1 Gbit/s stationary / nomadic access.
  • ▪ Dynamically share and use network resources to support more simultaneous users per cell.
  • ▪ Channel bandwidths of 5 to 20 MHz up to 40 MHz.
  • ▪ Smooth handovers for previous generation networks.
  • So you can see that LTE and 4G have more in common than they don’t.
  • The 5G standard was created in 2015. The initial details were available in 2017. Ooredoo, a mobile provider in Qatar, had the first 5G NR system on May of 2018.
  • The main difference from 4G is the capability of a peak speed around 10 Gbit/s with lower latency. The unified standard for 5G is called 5G New Radio (5G NR). It improved upon 4G’s OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing).
  • Voice over NR (VoNR) is the 5G iteration of VoLTE on 4G.
  • 5G NR uses two band in two frequency ranges. These ranges extend into what is called Millimeter Wave (mmWave).
  • Frequency Range 1 (FR1), 410 MHz – 7,125 MHz
  • Frequency Range 2 (FR2), 24,250 MHz – 71,000 MHz
  • FR1 is primarily used for mobile and FR2 is primarily used for stationary. Although the mmWave portion of FR1 can be used for both mobile and stationary.
  • 5G can use additional radios depending on type of service needed. Millimeter Wave is used for microwave transmission to fixed locations and mobile service. The mobile service is in a smaller confined area than a typical 4G cell tower. There are low-band, mid-band, and high-band. Low-band is a similar to a 4G tower’s coverage area using 600 to 900 MHz. Mid-band uses microwaves at 1.7 to 4.7 GHz allowing for speeds up to 900 MBit/s. The High-band uses 24 to 47 GHz. This allows for speeds in the Gigabits per second range. They are for fixed locations with high speed demands. The problem with mmWave is that it can’t easily go through buildings or trees. It is better suited for fixed locations like 5G Home Internet.
  • Here are the benefits and disadvantages of 5G for mobile. 5G has smaller sized tower equipment. A typical 4G tower is 100 ft or 30 m tall with each panel antenna at about 4 ft or 1 m in length. A 5G tower can be the size of a backpack or small suitcase. It uses multiple small antenna similar to what you would have on your WiFi router. It can be mounted on utility poles, light poles, traffic lights, and ledges or roofs of buildings.
  • For comparison. A 4G tower is about 1 to 4 miles or 1.6 to 6.5 km apart from each other. A 5G tower needs to be between 500 and 1000 ft or 152 and 305 m apart.
  • With 5G you can have a higher bandwidth in a smaller area. A good example is a sporting event. You can mount dozens of 5G towers around the perimeter of the stadium providing up to 10 GBits of bandwidth. The other I already mentioned is 5G Home Internet.
  • The downside with 5G is it doesn’t have the range of 4G. This is a technical limitation of the mmWave bands. So I think we will have 4G for quite awhile unless perhaps 6G brings something new to the table.


–Play Bodhi Corner Transition Bumper*–

Bodhi Corner

3-5 minutes

— Play Check This Transition Bumper —

Check This Out

10 minutes

  • Packet – https://github.com/nozwock/packet (Eric)
    • A partial implementation of Google’s Quick Share protocol that lets you send and receive files wirelessly from Android devices using Quick Share, or another device with Packet.
    • Yes, there are a plethora of file transfer apps but this one is interesting for a few reasons.
      • It integrates with an inbuilt Android feature making transferring files more straightforward than installing yet another app.
      • The speed seems to be very good based on the testing I’ve done.
      • Perhaps not important to some, the UI is very well done and the app is easy to use.

— Play Vibrations Transition Bumper —

Vibrations from the Ether

20 minutes (~5 minutes each)

  • Jaiden Martin
    • Hey mintCast crew. You should look into tailscale for your VPN needs for connecting network services. It has really simplified my setup. No more messing around with wireguard configs. Love the podcast, but please stay away from politics. Cheers.
  • Stan Richardt
    • Anyone that might want to help MS Windows 10 users in October. > Prepare for October 2025 end of Microsoft support… > Bye Bye Windows® 10: > Saving Money and Landfill Space When Your Operating System Retires > © Copyright 2025 by Stephen B. Whiteman > The PDF version of this book may be freely distributed. Download it from either of these sites: > https://mega.nz/folder/tc5RgRoR#nR0J66ublmMc5-0nlnoRaA > https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/143M0UNAqhIDck7TORlrvAJs7uuR4Ti2T?usp=sharing Written by a member of the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts ( ALE ) it is available from Amazon as a paper back book, or in Kindle format. The first half of the book covers converting to Linux with the second half explaining how to buy a computer for transitioning to MS Windows 11. Seems well balanced and informative.
    • Introduces Linux Mint as a good choice.

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