mintCast 319 – New Mumble

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First up, in our Wanderings, I talk Dynamic DNS, Tony is writing articles, Moss test drives EndeavourOS, Josh visited Media City, and Joe relaxes with fiction.

Then, our news: CentOS 8 and Mumble 1.3 are released, Ubuntu 19.10 is almost here, the GNOME Foundation and Docker navigate rough seas, and more.

In security, we talk Exim.

WANDERINGS:

• Leo
  • Dynamic DNS – Finally got this setup with a lot of personal resistance.
    • Took inspiration from Telegram. Quite a few people were setting up Dynamic DNS a couple of months ago, and I was resistant because my IP address hardly changed. Seems like my address is changing all the time now.
    • Not quite sure if my router is handling it correctly (ER-POE-5) even though I have it configured as the Ubiquity forums suggest.
    • So as a backup, I’m running a cron job once every 6 hours on my Pi-Hole to update the IP address.
    • Used afraid.org. Very simple setup once you dig into it. To update, you basically have to visit a URL.
  • Installed two new packages that are supposed to give better battery statistics and life.
    • sudo apt install tp-smapi-dkms acpi-call-dkms
    • I’m not testing this scientifically, but these packages should help calibrate my Thinkpad batteries properly. I’ve only gone through one charge cycle, so it’s hard to tell if things have changed.
• Tony H 
  • Starting to write a series of articles on Getting started in podcasting, for Full Circle Magazine, I have written the first 2 articles so check out the October magazine as you may see me in print.
  • Continuing to use MX 19 beta 2.1 – beta 3 was released yesterday I have downloaded the iso and will install as just updating may miss some bug fixes.
  • Got a reply to my bug notification about dropping into the login screen when rebooting, as it’s not a critical bug it is on the to do list as they want to fix it but at the moment they are not sure how to do it.
• Moss
  • Distrohoppers’ Digest Episode 006 was a rollicking good time, I hope our listeners enjoy it as much as we did.
  • I installed Endeavour OS on my T430. A few issues, easily solved, and everything else installed. I had everything except Mumble & Audacity. Then I noticed it kept creating copies of boot records — my boot was a mass of multiple selections of the same distros. I used Grub Customizer to clean them up, and at next boot it created more. I reported the issue. It has now come off my T430.
  • I still wanted to have something to review for October, and so decided to try a SINGLE INSTALL (what a concept!) on the IdeaPad. I attempted to install OpenMandriva, but got nowhere, it failed to create a partition. I got my GPartEd disk out and redid the disk, with a small Swap partition and a large Primary. I installed OpenMandriva Lx 4 just fine, and rebooted. No boot. It didn’t write Grub properly or whatever, I’ve had this issue before. So I tried Manjaro, and it wouldn’t even find my wifi. I’m using SuperGrub2 on a CD to boot, then going into OM4. There is supposed to be a way to use SuperGrub2 to write Grub but it isn’t obvious, got more reading to do.
  • I have some items for sale from my earlier inheritance. See my eBay listings (moss23) and talk to me if you’re interested in any of them. I did sell the Hackintosh, did not really get fair value for it. I now have $95 saved up towards the new laptop; eBay sales go towards that as well. I have also started a Sponsus for Distrohoppers, but you’re all welcome to join in. http://sponsus.org/zaivala 
  • My job has gone sideways. I still have it, and finally am working part time, but my wonderful manager got demoted and moved for no reason, and the new manager just isn’t the same. I had wanted 4 days per week, I’m getting 3. I’m looking for work again. Some employees have not stopped crying about the change, and it was 3 weeks ago. Another result of the change is I’m making even less income.
  • As this show is turning into Readers’ Corner, I should note that I finished reading the Nightside series by Simon R. Green to my wife, and have started in on Temeraire by Naomi Novik. Unlike Joe, I don’t get audiobooks, I *am* the audiobook reader.

• Joe
  • I need to solder something.  Don’t know what yet
    • Ordered a small set of HBS 820’s
    • Haven’t worked on those before but i am willing to give them a try
  • My CPAP machine is dying.  Makes getting sleep difficult.  Which makes motivation to do projects even more difficult
    • I pulled out one of the spare CPAPs that i have and reprogrammed it to match my other one.  I think i got everything right and i am sleeping a little better
    • Have to wait for my referral to go through with the VA and it is taking longer than it should so that i can get the right one refurbished or replaced.
  • Finished up the Wheel of time series again.  I love the book series.
    • Very well done audiobook series.
    • Still think they should have split the last book in two.  Very long
  • I will be listening to the new Alex Verus novel as well as the second book in the last reaper series.
    • Alex Verus is still very good as a series.  It may have slowed a bit but it is still enjoyable
    • The last reaper series is fun.  Not necessarily great writing but a bit of mindless action and adventure.
  • I am also waiting to pick up the new M.D. Massey novels books 7 and 8 of the junkyard druid series
  • I am acting manager at work for most of the month,  That should be fun
  • Picked up some usb cables with switches in the middle.
    • Needed one for the wireless phone charger in my car since my accessory port does not turn off with the vehicle and i don‘t want to run down the battery or wear out the connectors on the cable or the charger.
    • Works very well.  Thinking of replacing the power supply with something a bit more powerful.  Then maybe work on some cable management.

• Josh
  • Visited the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) for micro:bit Live, the first ever micro:bit conference!
  • Some big announcements regarding micropython and other micro:bit classroom tools
  • Did a talk, Panel Discussion and did a stand for the magazine.
  • No updates on the phone situation. Still waiting for them to send a replacement.

NEWS:

• Linux Mint September Update
  • Fixed the invisible Update Manager tray icon bug from back in August
  • Date Format will better respect locale in 19.3.
  • More progress on XAppStatusIcon introduced last month.
  • System Reports gets versioning information — it’ll now tell you when upgrades are available, and of course, tell you about system information and crashes as always.
  • The logo is almost official!
  • Work continues on the MintBox 3.
• Mumble 1.3.0 Released
• CentOS 8 Released 
  • EPEL is released, but I’m not sure if it has all the software users might expect. Need to test!
  • CentOS Stream! – A semi-rolling release of CentOS 8.
    • Stream will live between the ultra stable RHEL/CentOS and the forward thinking Fedora.
• Ubuntu 19.10 Beta Available
• Firefox Updates to 69.0.2
• Looking Ahead to Kernel 5.4
• Pi 4 Gets Better Raspian Support
• Pine64 October Update
• GNOME Foundation is Being Sued Because of Shotwell Photo Manager
• Docker is in deep trouble

SECURITY UPDATE:

• Exim had a bad September
  • Lilocked (Lilu), a Ransomware Targeting Linux-based Servers (Sept 6ish)
    • Early reports suspected Exim, but later was confirmed. Lilocked encrypts user files and drops a Readme file on the system with instructions on how to pay the .03BTC ransom.
  • Millions of Exim Servers Vulnerable to Root-Granting Exploit (Sept 7ish)
    • Servers running 4.80 to 4.92.1 are susceptible to a remote code execution flaw
    • An attacker can exploit this with a specially crafted handshake.
    • The temporary fix is to disable TLS… just no.
  • New Critical Exim Flaw Exposes Servers to Remote Attacks (Sept 30ish)
    • Servers running 4.92.2 and earlier are susceptible to DoS and remote code execution.
  • Patch up to version 4.92.3!
  • This version is available in Ubuntu, Arch, Debian, and Fedora as of Sept 30.
  • Regular email users should take steps to backup their data at the very least.

WRAP-UP:

• Joe – www.Tllts.org www.linuxlugcast.com MeWe [email protected]
• Bo – undercastnetwork.com
• Moss – Triad Bardic College, Peaceful Hippo, MeWe, music on Bandcamp and all over YouTube (search for Moss Bliss, ignore the young black South African gospel singer), [email protected], [email protected]
• Tony Hughes – HPR – http://hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents.php?hostid=338
  • Occasional Blog https://tony-hughes.blogspot.com/
  • Twitter @TonyH1212, [email protected] [email protected]

• Tony Watts – [email protected], Echoes of Savages (band)
• Josh – [email protected], [email protected], edublocks.org and @all_about_code on Twitter
• Leo – leochavez.org and @leochavez on Twitter, and Full Circle Weekly News

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

• Josh Lowe for all his work on the website and the livestream (We’ve had over 60 listeners today on the backup mixer platform and brought on some new listeners who’ve never heard of the podcast)
• Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
• Archive.org for hosting our audio files
• The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>

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