May 20, 2020News, OGG, Podcast

mintCast 335 – Be Our Guest

First up, in our Wanderings, I finally got my Pi4, Scott has been working from home, Moss plays for his peeps, Tony’s been reinstalling, and Joe’s been printing in 3d

Then, in the news, no ZFS for Mint, some honorable mentions on the Ubuntu section last episode, LibreOffice Alpha is out, and more!

In security, it’s GitHub’s turn for issues.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

Scott
- Working about 50% Home and on-site at my employer
- Golfed 3 times this week. Nothing stellar for any rounds (Mid-80s)
- Working on MS Teams at work. Great little program. Best collaboration program I have used in a while. I am a big SharePoint fan for work, and this brings it all together. Just started to Learn more about Flows and Power Apps and see how they can help my team.
- Got another friend to install Linuxmint on an old laptop for his kids this week!

Leo
- Finally got a Pi 4, 4GB! Luckily I’ve been collecting bits slowly for it since they came out. I already had the power cable, SD cards and keyboard and mouse, so I only had to get the new micro HDMI cable and a case.
  - I tried getting it converted over to a recording box on the latest Raspbian. It performs quite well, even under load, if not a little hot. Audacity alone worked fantastic. Mumble worked great alone, also. However, when using them together, it seems like the two softwares will steal the mic from each other, not even leaving the hardware selectable in any lists!
  - I’m planning on setting everything up on Ubuntu 20.04, since it’s official now.
- Kubuntu on the laptop, Fedora Plasma spin on the desktop. Duking it out for ease of use.
Tony H
- 3 or 4 weeks ago I badly cut the middle finger on my left hand which was initially very painful and made using the computer a little tricky as I didn’t want to bash it while using the keyboard.
- More playing with my model cars, I did a couple of more regular car models since the last time I was on the show, the Matchbox No64 MG1100 which is a cool little model with a little dog with his head out the back window. And a very old 1950’s casting of the Jaguar XK140, I ended up painting this little model twice after mucking up the paint job while detailing it the first time around.
- Baking and cooking (it was during a cooking session that I cut my finger on a can lid) I’ve also been baking sultana scones the homemade ones are so good compared to the shop bought ones.
- Playing with Kubuntu 20.04 on the Distrohoppers laptop for my review for episode 14 of DHD, I’m quite liking it and glad the issue with the keyring password manager before logging into the WiFi is not an issue as it was with the Q4OS Plasma release I was using last month.
- Attended the virtual meeting of my LUG/Makerspace, this has become a regular Saturday morning meeting and is keeping us connected during the lockdown, I try to be part of it as much as possible. One of our younger members lives across the road from me and I have only seen him online in the last 4 weeks when I could shout to him from across the road.
- Reinstalling my Desktop PC after Kubuntu 20.04 screwed up my Grub and all efforts to rescue it failed, I wish I had listened to the Feedback on the latest mintCast and the tip about the Mint Cinnamon live disc having the grub rescue baked into the ISO.
- Recorded 2 shows for HPR about restoring my Matchbox models, the first of which went out last Wednesday. This will be a short series as I will go through the process from dismantling the casting, right through all the work needed to get ready for paint and then reassembly,

Moss
- I had a minor health setback, one of my lymph nodes in my face decided to “explode”. A few days later it went down and then one on the other side exploded. It is affecting my speech a bit, but the treatment is simple and it isn’t bothering me a lot today. It has now been more than a month since my auto accident.
- I kept my distrohopping to a minimum, as I had to get DHD done. We had a great time, with our all-time longest episode thanks to Leo! After the show, I set up the Linux box I inherited with Linux Mint and OpenMandriva, effectively decommissioning the Galago Pro from everyday use. I later changed OpenMandriva to Bodhi 5.1, and was surprised to see that they jettisoned Midori, the default browser in 5.0, for Web. I can’t think of another distro using Web as default. I eventually swapped Ubuntu Mate 20.04 on the Kudu for Kubuntu 20.04 plus the Studio tools. So I have Mint and Bodhi on the box, Mint, Kubuntu with Studio, and OpenMandriva 4.1 on the Kudu, looking for something new for the Kudu for the next DHD.
- Friday night May 15th I did a half hour concert online. I was asked to do an hour, but my shoulder still hurts quite a bit and the act of draping it over the guitar (my picking hand) is still a bit painful so I talked them into a half hour. I went over a little bit, but overall I did really well and got a lot of good feedback … and a poor recording. Zoom does not handle guitar and voice on one mic that well.
- I’m not sure what to check out for the next episode of DHD. The last thing I almost tried was Fedora, but that just got reviewed by Leo for us. Suggestions are welcome, but understand that I will ignore most of them as you guys seem to keep asking for things you *know* I won’t review. There is as yet nothing new in SuSE/Gecko. Solus uses a completely different bootloader that conflicts with multibooting.
- I finished a few classes on StackSkills that I paid for over 3 years ago… nice that I have time to get to that. I can no longer call myself a full-fledged Linux n00bie, although I still feel like one, and I’m not sure some of those topics were covered as well as the presenter thought they were — actually, the class marked as Beginners Linux covered the same stuff and in better detail than the Linux Power User class did. I also signed my wife up for a website writing class a few years back, which she never got around to looking at, so if I get time I might go take that one.
- I’m sending out more resumes for jobs in the computer field (5 last week, 6 this week), emphasizing companies dealing in used computers and working on bridging the digital divide, places that need someone experienced in installing distros.
- We are getting near the end in reading Summer’s Knight, the 4th book in the Dresden Files series. We are enjoying it, although Dresden is still only getting by by the skin of his teeth and a lot of unexpected help. We are getting tired of hearing Dresden referred to as “the most powerful wizard X knows” when he can’t zap his way out of a paper bag at times.

Joe
- Listened to the 3rd companion series for the Nate Temple novels “The Phantom Queen”
  - Enjoyable.
- Listened to a couple more from the main series now that I am all caught up on the companion series and now I am all caught up on that as well
- Listened to the most recent book of the Mercy Thompson series
  - Always good books in this series.
  - Think this one was slightly better than the last two books in the series which felt somewhat stagnant
- Listened to the most recent Hellequin book Sorcery Reborn. Text aloud
  - This series is decent. Has some high points in it.
- Started the Netherworld Paranormal Police Department books
  - A bit juvenile but still enjoyable
- Almost time to pull something out of the all time favorites list and give a listen. Kinda want something that is familiar.
  - Maybe WoT or Dresden or Dark Tower
- Spent a lot of time fixing my 3D printer
  - After replacing the hot end for the second time the thermal shielding was damaged
  - Ignoramus that I am I tried to run it anyway but the pla+ ended up stuck to the hot end in such a way that I could not fix it.
  - So I replaced the entire hot end including heating element for the nozzle because the other one was stuck
  - Switched to silicone socks instead of the thermal cotton and kaptans tape
  - Started having a major problem leveling the bed, even after several tries I was still getting unbalanced and hard to stick prints
  - Tried adjusting the Z axis to make it level across the bed and was able to get one print that was ok to use.
  - Checked and my bed is extremely warped. Going to try a glass plate overlay but I don’t think that will work so I have also ordered a new hotplate and will see how that goes.
  - Printed an altoids tin insert to hold microsd cards in a convenient way.
  - Seriously considering putting the Monoprice Maker Select V2 up on a shelf and getting the Ender 3 Pro which seems to have a lot more of a community and parts seem easier to get.
  - Got the glass bed and was still having a bit of trouble leveling but did get that portion dialed in.
  - Also needed to get the infill settings dialed in because they were not holding up. Doubling the width and increasing the percentage seemed to help
- I found a set of stl files for printing your own headphones with 40 mm drivers.
  - Really want to do this one
  - Ordered some of the 40 mm drivers from China
  - Also started modifying the STL for 50mm drivers. I am not very skilled at this yet so it is taking some time and I am sure that I will go through several iterations before I get something that is usable
  - But I have a solution for while I design my own: scaling. I had to take two copies of the cup’s image and delete the hinge from one and everything else from the other. Then I scaled the cup portion up to 125 percent which gives me mounting for a 50mm driver from a 40mm model. Then I merge back in the normal size hinge. I have no idea if that will work or not but it will be fun to try. Also I will need to make a size adapter for the cushions to get it up 100mm. It is currently at 92.5 so it won’t be too much of one
  - Learning a lot about TinkerCAD
  - I also want to see what other modifications I can make.
    - Can I add bluetooth?
    - Open back / close back etc
- My Raspberry Pi 4 is acting odd. The desktop is unresponsive now and it is selective on what keyboard and mouse will work with it. So nuke and pave time. Probably also new microSD time as well.
  - Also looking for a printable stl that will allow me to stack a series of 2.5 for use with the Pi
- Spending a lot of time sick and not doing much the last 2 weeks with various maladies.

Londoner suggests Moss tries Slackware

THE NEWS:

Clem confirms there will be no ZFS-on-root on Linux Mint 20.
- Taking a wait and see approach. Letting Ubuntu test it, but ultimately stability reigns.
Ubuntu Unity Remix 20.04 in beta using Unity 7
- Honorable mention from last episode. Ubuntu DDE.
Ubuntu Studio is leaving XFCE for KDE
- Official post
Fairphone 3 now available with /e/OS installed
Munich calls for open source code only for items receiving public funds
- “Public code for public funds”
Without much fanfare or even information, Backbox Linux 7 is released
- Based on Ubuntu 20.04. Competitor to Kali and Parrot which are both based on Debian Testing.
Manjaro Linux Now Available On Star Labs Laptops
LibreOffice 7.0 Alpha Released
Something we missed
- Inkscape 1.0 Released

Linux gains popularity in April
- Average of 1.5% to a single month score of 2.8%. Windows sees 2.5% drop in the same month.
- Subquestion: What do you think needs to do to move the needle more?

Security Update: