Welcome to mintCast

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

This is Episode 483!

Recorded on Sunday, April 12, 2026

… Joe; … Moss; sweating the stream, I’m Bill; going down memory lane, I’m Majid; … Eric; …Charles; I, for one, welcome our new VDO.ninja overlords, I’m Jim; …Charlie

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First up in the news: Mint 23 is named, Ubuntu 26.04 coming up and its already causing controversy, Firefox gets more features, big tech making some changes, and the governments of the world are meddling, in good and bad ways… and we welcome another host!
In security and privacy: Flatpak getting more secure allegedly
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-483-show-notes/.

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The News

20 minutes

The code name for Mint 23 is “Alfa”– Bill
26.04 Beta – Majid
Does Ubuntu Now Require More RAM Than Windows 11? Jim
26.10 could drop btfrs zfs and luks – Majid
Firefox Announces Built-in VPN and Other New Features Including New Mascot Jim
Google Now Lets You Change Your Gmail address. Jim
Samsung’s Messages App Is Shutting Down Jim
Microsoft Mysteriously Freezes Accounts for VeraCrypt, WireGuard, Windscribe Joe
Why did the FCC ban foreign-made consumer routers? Joe
NHS staff resist using Palantir software – Charlie
France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins – Majid
Student Loans Fiasco, and its IT underpins – Majid
LibreOffice Drama: TDF Removes Collabora Developers in One Sweep – Charlie

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Security and Privacy

10 minutes

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Linux Innards

(5-8 minutes)

Quick Introduction to our newest member…. FOSS Charlie!

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Check This Out

10 minutes

New to Flatpak – Swifty Notes & Prunr
26.04 – Another view

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]

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Chat with us on Discord and Telegram

Next Episode – 2 pm US Central time on Sunday, April 26, 2026.
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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 18, 2026.
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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], AtypicalDoctor on Discord, 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
Charlie– FOSSCharlie on Discord, [email protected]

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
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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Episode 483 Show Notes