mintCast 304 – Interview with Joshua Lowe (mp3)

mintCast Episode 304

This is mintCast: A podcast by the Linux Mint community for all users of Linux
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And now on with the show

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to mintCast Episode 304. This is Leo and Bo and Tony Hughes and Tony Watts and Joe and Moss and special guest Josh Lowe AKA All_About_Code. We’re recording live on Sunday March 10th 2019. First up, we’ll hear Josh talk about his new PC, my SSD and Docker stuff, Joe with X2GO and Raspberry Pi, Tony Watts with his OnePlus 3T, Bo with some SCCC info, Tony Hughes with LineageOS and a new Dell, Moss still fighting issues, but soon with more RAM! Then, lots of news including Kernel 5.0, The amazing interview with Josh Lowe, and some feedback from our listeners.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings:

Josh Lowe
Setup a custom PC running Mint 19 after recommendation from Tony H. Moved from Ubuntu and so far much happier with Mint.
Played around with “Numpad superpowers” (A visual editor for creating macros) with the Pimoroni Keybow.
https://numpadsuperpowers.com/
Leo
Got a 256GB m.2 SATA disk for my Thinkpad. For VM Storage, dual boots, etc.
[Bo, Co-topic] Hank’s suggestion to write disks with cat instead of dd.
Having a play with Docker, and learning the ropes.
Joe
Ordered an AMD FX 8350 for the server.
Installed and working
Temperatures are much more stable
Got new screens for the kids tablets
Have not installed yet
Took apart the other tablet to try and fix the charging problem
Not seeing any damage. Further testing required to find out if it is the actual port or the battery
Might be better to replace the board with Tala’s to get around the bezel issue on her device then fix the port when i can. Will also be able to quickly tell if it is the battery or port.
Took apart the dell venue 8 pro to try and get the battery to read power correctly
Didn’t work, but did get it put back together and working again
Install X2GO server on the pi
sudo apt-get install dirmngr
sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keys.gnupg.net E1F958385BFE2B6E
sudo editor /etc/apt/sources.list.d/x2go.list
# X2Go Repository (release builds)
deb http://packages.x2go.org/raspbian stretch main
# X2Go Repository (sources of release builds)
deb-src http://packages.x2go.org/raspbian stretch main
sudo apt update
sudo apt-cache search x2go
sudo apt install x2goserver
sudo apt install mate-desktop-environment
sudo apt install x2goclient
It works. Love that i have it again and may turn it into an x2go gateway

Tony Watts
Updated firmware on guitar pedal
Upgraded OnePlus 3T to Lineage 16, Android Pie
In place upgrade not possible.
Had to flash latest oxygen OS to get up to date firmware, THEN flash latest Lineage

Bo
SCCC
New Streaming setup question for the crew/audience

Tony Hughes
Installing Lineage OS 16 onto my OnePlus 1, ready to hand over to my wife as her upgrade from a Nexus 4 running Android 5.1
Rooting and Flashing Lineage OS 15.1 to the Nexus 4. After quite a bit of fiddling due in part to my impatience and partially due to some difference in the terminal commands in the youtube video and what were needed in my system. Also the latest Lineage image wouldn’t install had to use one from about a week earlier, and Open Gapps would only work with the nano package image, but as the phone only has 16-Gig of storage the less space used the better.
Buying another laptop from auction, a Dell E7250, paid about what it’s worth although I have seen less clean models go cheaper on Ebay, I’m happy with it.
Recording my 50th Episode for Hacker Public Radio.

Moss
I can’t run Mullvad VPN in MX unless I enable systemd. And OM4’s Grub, which is in control, does not include the MX Advanced Boot selections, so I can’t currently load MX with systemd enabled. Probably have to reinstall MX and let it have the Grub.
I still have not taken the time to track down the missing files in OM4 Beta to get Mullvad to work. I have also discovered (happened twice so far) that when I install OM4 updates, the Grub forgets everything except OM4. I have to run sudo update-grub2 to restore it.
I have a clue about getting Kodi back on LM (runs in Terminal but the desktop does not believe it is installed) and maybe Bodhi (copy my /.kodi directory?). Not much time to work on it, needing to drive extra hours to catch up on bills.
I just ordered the extra 4Gb RAM stick for my Lenovo T430. Should be here Friday.
Life Updates: My Hyundai is still damp from the flood, the insurance company decided to send it to ServPro rather than simply total it (unless it is found too damaged by ServPro), but has not called the tow truck yet. And my mother is still in hospital. And I get to take a wallet, accidentally left in my car while exiting the vehicle, back to an Uber rider after the show.

THE NEWS:

Rumor False: Ubuntu is not going to stop using apt in favor of snaps.
Linux servers being targeted by Chinese cryptomining group
Called Linux.GreedyAntd, and is a cryptominer using a modified XMRig
Harder to track because the config file is stored on the CnC server
Not a huge threat if you keep your stuff up to date
May be derived from Linux.HelloBot
Kernel 5.0 released
New release, but nothing more than the next iteration
Linus “ran out of fingers and toes” so no x.21 releases
AMD/Nvidia fixes
Raspberry Pi touchscreen fixes
Phoronix has run tests on 5.0 and seems slower overall. Spectre/Meltdown?
Alternate link
Linux Mint Monthly News
Linux Mint is working on a new logo and site! (Josh L read this week + added)
Update Manager improvements
Removal of old kernels
Automated log rotation
Package blacklisting
System Reporting in the GUI! (aka easier to read logs)
System76 exploring High-End ARM Laptops and Desktops

LINUX INNARDS:

Tony HUGHES – Live Interview with Josh about EduBlocks


https://edublocks.org/

VIBRATIONS FROM THE AETHER:

A link of comparing retropie and recalbox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq70Rs_CKHc z

Syd on March 4, 2019 at 7:44 pm said:

The Synaptics mouse issue (losing two finger scrolling after waking from suspend) is a well known issue on ThinkPad T450 and X250 models (maybe others, I’m not sure).
The solution is to add the following kernel parameter:
psmouse.synaptics_intertouch=0
In other words, add that to your GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in etc/default/grub so it looks something like this:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash psmouse.synaptics_intertouch=0″
Then run: sudo update-initramfs -u
Reboot, and you’re good to go.

Leo: That is the permanent fix. A temporary fix is:
sudo modprobe -r psmouse
sudo modprobe psmouse

Organizing MicroSD cards with a USB3 adapter:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B005SPQ8XK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

New topic on a newbie wanting help starting a podcast, please join in and help:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=289662

Tony Watts: A great resource for podcast production:

Getting started

CHECK THIS OUT:

Moss – Q4OS – lightweight distro with either Trinity or Plasma Desktop, Debian based
Tony H – During the flashing of the Nexus 4 I discovered the ‘sudo -i’ command for dropping the terminal into administrator mode if you need to run a number of separate commands requiring you to be administrator/root user, that will not run using sudo.
Josh L – Using UKUU to upgrade your Kernel by Les Pounder
Joe – Cosmo Communicator

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Next episode will air at 2PM Central Time on Sunday,, moss March 24, 2019, 3pm EST/8pmUTC

Joe – www.Tllts.org www.linuxlugcast.com mewe [email protected]
Bo – undercastnetwork.com
Moss? Triad Bardic College, Peaceful Hippo, Bandcamp, MeWe, all over YouTube on various peoples’ pages, [email protected]
Tony Hughes – HPR – http://hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents.php?hostid=338
Occasional Blog https://tony-hughes.blogspot.com/
Twitter @TonyH1212
Tony Watts – [email protected] check out Echoes of Savages on YouTube, spotify, itunes, facebook, etc etc
Leo – leochavez.org and @leochavez on Twitter

Before we leave, we want to make sure to acknowledge some of the people who make mintCast possible …
KWisher for the “PiCaster”, a Raspberry Pi that streams each episode as we record it
The folks at Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we use to communicate
The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about

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