Welcome to mintCast

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

This is Episode 482!

Recorded on Sunday, March 29, 2026.

Still no Kings in America im Joe; … Moss; … Bill; Samsung-less I’m Majid; … Eric; ..Wishful thinking I’m Charles; Down with markdown, I’m Jim

— Play Standard Intro —

• First up in the news: The fight against enshittification starts
• In security and privacy: Shock-horror, Chinese government spies
• Then in our Wanderings: Joe rambles, Bill, Majid actually has fun! Charles, and Jim explores notes apps.

• 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 https://mintcast.org/show-notes/episode-482-show-notes/.

— Play News Transition Bumper —

The News

20 minutes

• Charles Norway’s Consumer Council takes aim at enshittification

— Play Security Transition Bumper —

Security and Privacy

10 minutes

• Charles China Upgrades the Backdoor It Uses to Spy on Telcos Globally

— Play Wanderings Transition Bumper —

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

30 minutes (~5-8 mins each)

• Bill
  • Truck Show
  • Vocaster instead of Solo
  • Black Magic ATEM switcher HDMI cameras for the win
• Joe
  • Well I did take some time off from doing intense projects and the mini rack was very stable and boring. I have started trimming some of the unneeded items out of it and am looking for new things to try out on it. But in the meantime i have done some other small simple stuff. I pulled out the skullcandy crushers and finally reprinted a bunch of hinges and got them all back into production again. including the one that i had previously modified to make more comfortable with larger earcups. I also fixed one of the very cheap mods that i had previously done looking for a replacement for the neckband lgs. Just a simple solder job to get things connected properly.  Now i have several of them all working well with varying battery duration but decent sound
  • I also put into place the prints for the mini rack that i discussed last time. replacing the top plate with a narrower one that was also significantly thicker so that it will not sag when the mini monitor is mounted to it. I also put in place the keystone panel for the back in the left over space but i think that i will probably move it lower in the rack later so that the ethernet cables are not coming out of the very top. This may be easier to do if i swap out the power supply for a sff one instead of a full sized atx power supply.  I have two different ones that may be a good choice to use which will save a lot of space and cabling.  
  • Finally had an actual issue with the Elegoo Centauri Carbon. Well not really an issue but after 8 months it was time to replace the nozzle. I probably waited a little bit too long. The old nozzle i guess got a little bit too worn out and ended up with plastic all over the hotend. It was quicker and easier to just pull off the whole hot end and replace it with the spare. Then to go back after and clean up the old hotend with a lighter and a pick. or at least so i thought.  the nozzle did not want to come off and i ended up snapping one of the connections while trying to remove the .4mm. I did order a new backup that comes with different size nozzles though and will give the .6 a try eventually Still i think that considering how much printing i have done with this machine that the nozzle lasted a really long. no exotic materials or anything but still, PLA ABS and PETG so far. Almost time for some TPU. I also did some multicolor printing using the auto pause feature and the resume feature. Just two colors so that i could print a no soliciting sign for by my front door.  And i should mention that i am having to restart it often and make sure i run a level every time.  I may be looking at needing a new mainboard eventually.
  • My mini rack was stable and running non stop for 33 days.  it was kinda cool.  But then the controller went out on the mini pc again.  First one of the drives started throwing errors but did not have any fixes required when i ran it through fsck.  Then on restart it did not see any of the drives.  Then i let it sit for a while and restarted again and the drives came back but one was read only then another couple of restarts where none of the drives were seen and and then one where just that one drive was not seen.  I should mention that this started after i tried out a long test for the 2.5g connections with a large volume data move.  So my assumption is that it is heat causing the issue.  I could solve this by buying another one of the controllers and setting things into place so that i can add a fan.  but i think that i may have a better chance at using an adapter to pcie and then a pcie sata adapter.  with the long cables i will also be able to have the controller outside the pc case for easier cooling and much easier replacement.  Plus i can always upgrade to a better controller or more ports later on.  Right now i have pcie x4 5 port controller that i am going to use and i will just move the 4tb back to the garage PC then split the 8tb that has vms on it into two so that i can move immich and audiobookshelf files onto it.  
  • This also means that i can finish up the other hardware work that i was going to do and finish installing that rear panel for the ethernet ports.  it should be much easier to move the rack after that with all of the external ports run through the ports on the back of the machine.  
  • Also when i do upgrade the controller to a 10 port in the future i will be able to add in the 2.5 inch drives that i have sitting around doing nothing.  That and the adapter that i made to hold them all.  But if this external controller does not work i have my eyes on a mini itx board with built in dual 2.5g and 8 sata ports that i would need to 3d print a shelf for.  Already has a low profile fan and if 8 ports are not enough i have the 5 port pcie and a riser cable.  Plus i already have the ATX power supply in place.  179 dollars.  But it would definitely fix the controller problems i have been having.  I just wanted to do this with parts i pick up easily.  Kinda feels like cheating and i am sure that it would add a bunch of new problems to the mix somehow. 
  • Then after i ordered and received the new part the old controller started working correctly.  I may move the pc up in the rack and add a fan so that it stays cool.  I can find another use for the adapters with no problem.  Maybe i will even set up the other pc in the rack in a similar fashion to hook up the other drives.
  • I also 3d printed a couple of small things.  Another rail for the mini rack that i am hoping to mount the sata controller to, a new spring clip for one of my bags a pill holder and a whole bunch of the replacement hinges for the skullcandy crushers, although i might try a different design for those.  Or reprint them in ABS or some CF mix if i ever get any.  PETG just had too much flexibility to it.  I have some clear ABS left but i dont think that is a good choice for this application.  
  • A snaphook replacement for one of my belt bags that had broken.  All i did was take someone elses design and scale it up until it fit.  Oh and i know i have mentioned it on a couple of other shows but i dont think i talked about with you guys.  I know i mentioned before that i went out of my way to get a APC UPS that i ended up spending 100 dollars on because i couldnt find a used one that i liked.  Well i was at one of the resale places the other day and i found one that was brand new for 10 dollars.  I could tell that it had never been used because the battery connector was not in place.  I will be putting it into my living room to power the modem and the router in there as well as the proxmox pc that is also a set top box.  This will mean that when the power goes out i should still have internet at least for a while.  Even if i have to set up tethering cause the power goes out for my telecom company.  
  • In some linux things that i done did.  I am now using guake on all my machines.  If you are unfamiliar guake is a drop down terminal application.  Just use a quick key combo and a terminal with tabs drops down from the top of the screen.  I did some settings tweaking so that it will also hide when not in focus.  I find it useful but i have yet to figure out how to get it to open in terminal when i am in a specific folder.  Yes i have it set as the preferred application but when i right click and say open in terminal it just takes me to home or to where i was before in the terminal.  For which i have a work around for but is not that pretty.  Looking around i found a way to make a new open in guake function that creates a new tab in guake and brings it into focus on the requested path.  Now everything works perfect.  Still a bit of set up to get everything working the way that i want.  Now i just have to remember to do it everytime i set up a new machine.  I new there was a reason i tend to go for stock settings.  But i was able to scp the file to all of the correct locations pretty quick easy for the things that i have running now.
• Moss
• Majid
  • General
    • Ramadan over, Eid..lots of food! Moroccan/pakistans breakfast
    • Increasing management roles at work…maybe time to scale back?
    • Topsy turvey weather…welcome to the UK!
  • Tech adventures AKA Where has all the android competition gone?
    • Lenovo chrome tablet – postmarketos
    • Galaxy tab s2
    • Pixel 6 & GrapheneOS
    • OLED vs LCD screens (honor magicpad)
    • for a brief moment, no samsung devices!
  • Media
    • Bosch Legacy
    • Invincible/Paradise/Daredevil
    • Time for Anime?
    • “Old Songs, new headphones”
    • Spotify
    • The Killers
  • 7Stations
• Eric
• Charles
• Jim
  • Notes: What solutions for notes does everyone use? Are your notes automatically synchronized between your devices? Not counting the shared Show Notes for the mintCast here on Collabora.
    • Notesnook: I’m personally pretty content with Notesnook on my Linux laptop, Android smartphone, Fire HD tablets , and other devices with free automatic syncing.
    • Obsidian: But after hearing a lot about it wanted to try Obsidian which, while proprietary, uses open standards to share notes as markdown files. So exported my notes from Notesnook as .md files. Obsidian on my laptop imported them easily. Also installed Obsidian on my Android phone and Fire HD tablets. Now needed sync capability, because unlike Notesnook which has free syncing, but puts some other features like a task list or embedding images behind a paywall unless you want to self host it, Obsidian is the opposite and makes all it’s considerable features free, but puts their auto-syncing behind a paywall.
    • Syncthing: Used syncthing for the first time ever to synchronize the Notes directory containing the small markdown files on my laptop with other devices. Syncthing is a little confusing to set up when trying to share the same folder multiple places so as not to make redundant connections. But it’s available for most every platform including more obscure operating systems.
    • Syncthing-fork: My Android phone and Fire HD tablets use syncthing-fork from F-Droid to effectuate sync between all devices. I use Obsidian on my phone and tablets or an alternate app that reads markdown, of which there are many. You are not tied down to using Obsidian only- you can mix and match clients on each device at will because of .md files being an open standard.
    • Markor: Free and open source app from F-Droid that is a full featured markdown editor and reader which is an alternative to Obsidian on Android phones or tablets depending on your preference.
    • GhostBSD: Aside from my Linux computers and Android phone or tablets, that left my GhostBSD desktop needing a client to read and edit markdown. Obsidian is not available in the Software Station, but it is available in Ports, meaning it can be built from source. Ports and some dependencies must first be installed from the command line in GhostBSD, which downloads hundreds of directories containing some smallish text and support files with what are essentially instructions to automate the build process. This would be my first time ever building a application from source, following prompts in the terminal in this case Well, I got it set up After six hours of downloading and compiling when it almost seemed like it was close to completion, I saw it started download multiple huge Electron packages, probably borrowed from Linux, and I knew I was out of luck since there was many more GB coming and I had simply already ran out of space, with over 15 GB filled up during this process on my smallish SSD on this old Celeron desktop. Mind you, Obsidian on Linux only takes up about 300 MB, so this was a lot of extra space to compile it from ports. So I needed another client to read and edit markdown on GhostBSD.
      • QOwnNotes describes itself as free & open source plain-text file markdown note-taking app with Nextcloud and ownCloud integration. It is available in the GhostBSD repository and easily installed through the Software Station, and is also available for most other platforms including Linux, Windows, and Mac, but not for mobile platforms. Notes on Nextcloud/ownCloud can be accessed via mobile, fwiw. There’s something to be said for a purpose built app since this is only 21 MB compared to Obsidian which is over fifteen times bigger. It’s attractive enough with a dark mode, and easy to point it at the directory containing my notes synced with syncthing, but I had to use a syncthing exclude file to to hide the small file notes.sqlite file it created in my local notes directory on GhostBSD to keep it from getting copied over to my other devices. Plus I created a .hidden file to hide it from myself in the folder on on GhostBSD.
    • Multi-Device Sync: Eventually I arrived at a hub & spoke model with my laptop as the central server. My notes data is in sync now with every operating system and device form factor including a Linux laptop, an Android phone, a Fire HD 8 tablet, a GhostBSD desktop, and also a Linux installation on a USB drive, more on that later. And amazingly enough syncthing is able to do this over not only over a local network, but also over the internet, tested when I turned off Wi-Fi on my phone or left the house and synced over 5G.
    • Advantages to Notesnook: Easier with less set up since you don’t need syncthing installed and running constantly everywhere. Also has a web interface for less popular OSes like FreeBSD where there is no client.
      • Interesting tidbit- I learned that it is possible to add any web site to the Cinnamon menu as if it was an app and therefore open it with a few key strokes without touching the mouse- just make the link “firefox https://url.com and add any icon you like to represent it including the official one. When invoked through the menu it opens in a tan if the default browser is already open, or opens the browser if not.
    • Advantages to Obsidian: Using an open standard markdown files to easily share or transport data as is. Possible FreeBSD client if you compile it from ports. Similar interface as Notesnook, and huge base of plugins.
    • Advantages to QOwnNotes & Markor: Lightweight, small, and purpose built, but full featured apps. Unlike Notesnook and Obsidian where you cannot change the size of the font in one device without having it change on the other, using these disparate apps with markdown files for your notes you can have for example, a bigger font using one app on the desktop or laptop monitor since you have more screen real estate, but make the font size smaller so that it fits the small screen better without any lines wrapping.
    • Conclusion: I am currently running both Notesnook as well as Obsidian & Markor with markdown files, which is redundant since I have to make updates to both. Probably going to just stick with Notesnook in the end, but I learned a lot along the way about markdown, notes apps, syncthing, GhostBSD Ports and compiling from source.
  • Yt-dlp issues: I spoke about how YouTube has been throwing up a lot of roadblocks lately making yt-dlp less effective. It helps to read the error messages you get in the terminal when a download fails. That led me to a referenced github where I was able figure out how to get past the latest electronic gatekeepers. Firstly, you want to make sure you have the latest version of yt-dlp from the PPA or otherwise since it’s an arms race they have to stay on top of. Then I had to use curl to download and automatically install deno, a captcha solver. Type deno –version in the terminal to make sure you have it installed. Then use the correct switches when you invoke yt-dlp. In my case to download a live geo-blocked video as it streamed yesterday with an active VPN connection with a London, England endpoint, I had to use -cookies from browser to log in since they often block downloads through a VPN unless logged in, even if they allow streams without an issue. And for the first time I had to invoke a –remote-components ejs:github switch which worked for me in conjunction with deno. Note that YouTube could still block your i.p. address temporarily if they don’t like your VPN i.p range or the amount of videos you are downloading. The whole command looks like this:
    • yt-dlp --live-from-start --cookies-from-browser firefox --remote-components ejs:github URL
  • Compose Key: As a keyboard-centric person, I finally I decided to assign a compose key, specifically using Caps Lock, an otherwise rarely used key, as the compose key to more easily write special characters. For example [Caps Lock 1 2 space] makes the ½ symbol. The codes are relatively easy to remember since they try to resemble the special character you want to write to a greater or lesser degree.
  • Unicode: Special characters invoked through CTRL + Shift + U followed by a unique code to produce not just foreign, currency, or mathematical characters but also characters similar to emojis with color, capable of being rendered even in most places where plain text is readable including markdown documents. It’s saving me space in some of my notes to have a white check mark on a green background to indicate Yes and a red No Entry sign to indicate No at a glance.
  • Laptop from Craigslist: Purchased over a year ago, it’s an AMD Turion X2 Dual-Core Mobile RM-75 2.20 Ghz. with 4 GB RAM. It’s in beautiful condition and has a 17″ WXGA screen at only 1440 x 900 resolution. Came with smallish HDD and I also put one of my fourteen year old original 120 GB SSDs from my Sager Laptop in it. Also has a built in webcam which is nice. Wanted to try a lighter weight desktop environment or window manager on an OS in the Ubuntu or Debian space on this under-powered laptop.
  • Bodhi Corner: MX Moksha. With Bodhi Linux not being updated in quite a while due to the lead developer’s illness and still being stuck on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish, I decided to check out the live installation on a USB of MX Moksha, as an alternative. The Moksha desktop environment was borrowed from Bodhi Linux and incorporated into MX Linux, which is based on Debian 13 Trixie. MX Linux comes with a full suite of installed applications and utilities, plus access to a large repository of apps, with some featured apps including the latest yt-dlp, and of course, anything in the apt repository, .deb files, Flatpaks, AppImages, and presumably Snaps if you really want can be installed. Notably, the Super key as an application launcher is already set up in MX Moksha. It’s a good spiritual successor to Bodhi Linux if you really like Moksha or want a very lightweight desktop environment that runs in a small amount of RAM.
    • https://www.bandshed.net/mx-moksha/
  • Puppy Linux: TrixiePup 64 Wayland: This week I decided to check out what was new with Puppy Linux after a couple of years of not using it. For those who don’t know, Puppy Linux is a family of Linux distros created from a common formula where the operating system is loaded up from squash files, and which is made to work on a USB stick with persistence. The o.s. loads in RAM with a window manager and a suite of very lightweight applications, which can be blazingly fast on an older computer,. Puppy notably uses very little RAM so it is suitable for older computers, including 32-bit devices with as little as 1 or 2 GB of RAM. There are multiple versions of based on Debian, Slackware, and Void. You can also have multiple versions of it sharing the same USB stick or hard drive. So anyway, I saw the newest version from January 2026 of TrixiePup64 Wayland based on Debian 13. After installing and exploring the latest version on a USB stick, I soon realized that the switch to labwc as opposed to JWM (Joe’s Window Manager) – the traditional window manager used in many classic and discontinued Pups- opens up the possibilities of much better custom configuration of keybindings.
    
    The thing is though is that this feature is hidden, and you have to ignore the menu settings at Desktop → Desktop Control → Hotkeys. These settings would lead one to believe that only a relatively limited set of hotkey combinations are possible, specifically ALT, CTRL, and SUPER keys as a mask, in combination with letters a to z as a key. When I initially saw this, I was very disappointed and thought that this is even more limited than what was possible with JWM on the old FossaPup 95 I used to use, and therefore a deal breaker for me to bother with Puppy Linux again.
    
    But after reading this documentation online at https://labwc.github.io/labwc-config.5.html#entry_keyboard_default, I was able to see that one can edit the rc.xml file at /root/.config/labwc to customize one’s keybindings in many more ways than the GUI settings referenced above would leave one to believe.
    
    Most critically, the one keybinding possibility that is present in many full featured desktop environments (Windows, Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE, and Moksha), but absent in some others (Mate, XFCE, LXDE) is the ability to press and release a key and use that to trigger an action, and also be able to press that same key in combination with another key to trigger different actions, but not have that latter functionality collide with the press and release of the first key. Some window managers have this same functionality using the right plugins. Openbox does, as seen in Bunsenlabs beautiful implementation of it in their new Carbon release, while others do not- notably JWM used for years in many versions of Puppy Linux. *
    
    A typical example of this functionality would be the press and release of the Super key triggering the application launcher to allow one to type a few characters in the name of an app and then Enter to open up an app without using a mouse like one does in Cinnamon for example, while at the same time being able to assign Super + e for example to open the default file manager, or Super + d to show the desktop. And all of those keybinds not crashing into one another.
    
    The labwc github referenced above shares this bit of code to enable this functionality. onRelease is the key variable here to launch rofi in this example, or more relevantly to launch included app launcher Wofi-launcher in TrixiePup64 Wayland, replacing “rofi -show drun” with “wofi-launcher”.
    • <keybind key="Super_L" onRelease="yes">

                  <action name="Execute" command="wofi-launcher"/> 		            </keybind>

• So now for the first time to my knowledge it is possible to have a proper application launcher in an official Puppy Linux triggered by the press and release of the Super key as well as many other keybinds one customarily uses, such as CTRL + grave (accent grave), my normal keybind to open up the default terminal with one hand near the left side of the keyboard.
  
  Aside from this issue that is very important to me personally and to keyboard focused users in general, I also applaud TrixiePup64 for being forward thinking with using Wayland, as well as the overall more “modern” look of the panel and icons, which in my opinion at least are a lot more conventional and attractive than the more cartoonish or cutesy ones that came standard with the old Puppies I played around with in the past. Of course, power users can customize these elements as well to get their desired look. But I think it’s a good thing for a Puppy Linux spin to have a more mainstream and familiar look by default with the same ability to run and have persistence on a USB stick, extremely light RAM usage, compatibility with Debian repositories rather than old style purpose built .pet applications. along with the community that make Puppy Linux special.
  
  * I’m happy to be wrong about Joe’s Window Manager (JWM) if someone can show me the documentation that allows these same keybinds to work in JWM in Puppy Linux or elsewhere.
• Samsung TV Plus app. A free streaming service with a wide variety of TV shows, movies, animation, and sports for those with Samsung TVs, tablets, and smartphones. I couldn’t figure out how to send the signal to my Fire TV 4K device connected to either of my internet connected TVs. Don’t think it’s possible and I don’t want to watch on my phone’s small screen. So I ended up beating the system by watching a live MMA event that regularly streams on YouTube with Spanish language commentary in full screen on my TV, but since they have a deal for their English language commentary on Smart TV Plus, I simply synced the audio from my phone and video from my TV when the round bell started. Path of least resistance.
• Calculator rant: Linux & Phone: GNOME calculator installed with Mint looks nice but really sucks since it doesn’t show the subtotal as you input values. You have to hit enter or = to get a total and your previously input values move upward, so that you lose the original list of values making them not easily referenced or editable. Kalk calculator, despite the stupid K naming from KDE is not quite as nice looking, and skinnier, but it shows you the sub-total as you add or subtract values, also making them easily editable if you need to go back and make a correction. However, if you have a long list of values, they get pushed off to the left of the calculator and are no longer visible. Why is this important, you may ask? When doing calculations, the total is not the only thing that matters, the individual numbers provide context. For example, imagine you are a salesman who made $500 in sales today. There’s a qualitative and perceived difference between making five one hundred dollar sales, versus one five hundred dollar sale. Similar situation with calculators on my Android phone. The Samsung calculator that came with my phone sucks, while the Google calendar from the Pixel or the Play store shows the sub-total as you input numbers. Every calculator should be like that.
• Media:
  • The Beauty on Hulu. A sci-fi body horror eleven episode series starring Vincent D’Onofrio and Ashton Kutcher as an evil billionaire who unleashes a revolutionary drug on the world that makes people undergo a painful metamorphosis who then emerge from a gooey sac as a healthier, younger, slimmer, more beautiful versions of themselves. But also makes them burn up and spontaneously combust less than two years later without follow-up booster shots. It’s also transmitted as a STD after sex, and the billionaire has his mercenaries executing people who transmit it to others unwittingly before the product launch to stop it from devaluing his market share while he sends heavies to compromise the FBI agents sent to investigate what is going on.

— Play Vibrations Transition Bumper —

Vibrations from the Ether

20 minutes (~5 minutes each)

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Check This Out

10 minutes

Housekeeping & Announcements

• Thank you for listening to this episode of mintCast!
• If you see something that you think we should be talking about, tell us!

Send us email at [email protected]

Join us live on Youtube

Post at the mintCast subreddit

Chat with us on Discord and Telegram

• Next Episode – 2 pm US Central time on Sunday, April 12, 2026.
• Get mintCast converted to your time zone
• Next Saturday we will host a Roundtable Live Stream. Please come and join us using the Discord voice channel at 2 pm US Central time on Saturday, April 4, 2026.
• Get the Roundtable Live Stream converted to your time zone
• Livestream information is at mintcast.org/livestream

Wrap-up

• Joe – Tllts.org,  linuxlugcast.com, [email protected], Buy Joe a coffee
• Moss – Full Circle Weekly News, [email protected], Mastodon @[email protected], occasionally on HPR
• Bill – [email protected], Bill_H on Discord, @[email protected] on Mastodon, also checkout the other podcast I am on, Linux OTC (with Eric & Majid).
• Majid – [email protected] @[email protected], Atypical.doctor on Instagram and Threads and The Atypical Doctor Podcast and also Linux OTC and Distrohoppers Digest.
• Eric – I can be reached by email at [email protected].
• Charles – [email protected], Mr PDX on Discord
• Jim– [email protected], GNU2Linux on Discord, The Linux Shortcut on YouTube

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

• 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
• Archive.org for hosting our audio files
• Hobstar for our logo, initrd for the animated Discord logo
• Londoner for our time syncs and various other contributions
• The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem … and co!>

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