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mintCast 355 – Deferred Update (mp3)

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2:09 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
59:34 The News
1:28:22 Security
1:40:00 Announcements & Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, Mike shreds a new axe, I’m more and more impressed by Proton, Joe has frozen joints, Moss is going to be rich someday, Tony Hughes gets immunities, and Josh panics with a crowbar. 

Then, in the News, so much controversy, Linux on Mars, VLC on the moon, Mint and mintCast make the cut, and more

In Security, patch Mint, patch the kernel, patch your browser

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS: 

  • Mike
    • Finished reading 2 Mitnick books recently (Ghost in the Wires and The Art of Invisibility)
    • Bought a new guitar (Fender Newporter Special)
  • Leo
    • Path of Exile runs 95% as good as Windows via Proton Experimental
    • Played with Trinity Desktop Environment for a month
  • Joe
    • It has been cold in Texas which tends to slow me down because it hurts.
    • I did get a new 8 Tb hard drive for my server.  Transferred all the data from my 2 Tb onto it but I still need to swap it into the PC instead of the external enclosure.  Then I will be changing the name to match the 2 Tb drive and after I restart it should work fine with my Plex auto detecting.
    • Picked up 5 Raspberry Pi Picos for future projects but I have not found the right project for me yet
      1. Plus as of yet you can use Thonny which gives you an environment for micropython but I am waiting for arduino to get their UI up and running for it which they say they are doing so that I can more easily use c/c++ and more easily convert some of the pro micro code over.
      2. This will make things easier to build a usb controller although I think I will try  a few other projects first
    • I have spent a lot of time cooking and looking up recipes.  Mostly cause if I’m cooking in the kitchen that means that it is warm in the kitchen
      1. Got an air fryer / toaster oven combo that I have been using quite a bit to make healthier fish and chips.  
      2. Also made another batch of protein bars.  This time it was the caramel chocolate version instead of the Skor bar.  It does not firm up as much as I would like in the freezer but is still very tasty and the silicone dish that I used was very helpful as was adding a bit of nonstick to the wax paper.
      3. The burrito skillet was a big hit and I am looking for other recipes to add to my favorites list
    • Work was a little rough here in Texas with the record cold and snowfall
      1. For most places the cold and the snow that we got would not be a problem.  But because this area never gets that we are not prepared for such a thing.  We don’t have snow plows and salt on standby so things got a little crazy here
      2. Millions of people without power for extended periods of time.  Schools closed even though the majority of students are SFH right now anyway.  Road and business closures
      3. I was lucky in that my power was very stable at my house.  Because of this I also ended up working a lot more because most of my team was unavailable.  Lots of 14 hour days and lots of getting called back into work after hours because everyone else had lost connection
      4. While this was going on I also had a water pipe burst due to freezing.  It was fun.  The pipe actually burst in 2 places so the first fix didn’t work.  Thankfully I was able to get a plumber out pretty quick to get the work done.  Which is surprising considering how many people had the same problem including the local post office.
      5. The drain for the washing machine is also frozen so I will not be able to run clothes for a few days and I will need to remember how to do drywall soon after I am satisfied that the wall is dry
    • Been playing a lot of Borderlands 3 to pass the cold Texas days.  I am still liking it.  Also playing some Victor Vran on occasion.  
      1. Someone on Telegram mentioned that a redone version of Diablo 2 is supposed to be coming out.  I have to wonder if it will be playable on linux.  I know that you can easily get the old one to play on linux but Blizzard and Steam don’t have any kind of deal and probably never will.
  • Moss
    • There are updates taking OpenMandriva Lx to version 4.2. If you run them as upgrades and don’t read the blog posts first, you will have issues. I’ll talk more about that in Distrohoppers’ Digest Episode 020, which we should be recording this week. I have a clean install on the FuzZ400 but have issues with the upgrade on my Kudu, all reported to the OMA Forum.  Distrohoppers’ Digest will also feature a brand new segment, Beautiful Failures. We will talk about the distros we *almost* got to review and what happened. Our most-downloaded episode, 018, has stalled out just below 700 downloads.
    • Listener Dylan Burger has been added to the growing team at It’s MOSS, and added a new feature: Distro Madness 2021. This features head-to-head choices between distros, with a winner emerging. We haven’t had many visitors to the site on a daily basis, so Dylan came up with this idea. The first round of voting is nearly over, so get your votes in now. We intend to have the voting for each round end on the Friday following each whole-numbered episode of mintCast.
    • I have a new sponsor on Sponsus. Every little bit helps, and I am grateful for the support.
    • My other project, All Women Housed, is taking some big steps forward. We are currently in the “almost” phase: almost on the shelves in two southern California grocery chains and in negotiations with a monster chain in Florida most of you have heard of. We have almost completed negotiations for online sales of produce and other products as well. I should have something to actually announce by next episode, don’t wanna jinx it. 
    • My mother’s estate should be settled in 60 days or less, and that will help a lot. She will finally be laid to rest on Friday, February 26th.
    • My wife wants a new computer and wants to learn computer art. I had my eye on a 12-core HP Z800 Workstation for her, but Leo convinced me the 8-core would be a better deal and it’s cheaper. I’ll get that when I get my income taxes back if it’s still there. 
    • We are now reading Book 10 of Dresden Files, Small Favor.
  • Tony Hughes
    • Same old same old here in the UK, still in Lock Down so not able to go anywhere so our Valentines meal was a delivery chinese. On a good note I had my first Covid Jab yesterday (Saturday 20th Feb) so I’m halfway to being a little safer.  
    • I have been doing lots of walking during lock down to keep fit and for the last week or so I’m starting to get some distance in with 5 miles a day the last 4 days.
    • Nothing much Linux wise although I did install EndeavourOS to one of my laptops, my remaining Toshiba Z30, I’ve just sold the other one with Windows 10 installed, I had been asked to do a dual boot with Mint, but Windows took over the boot process and I could not get it to boot into the boot selector or bios so that was a no go. Although since then, the guys gave me a way to get to the boot menu by crashing windows several times to confuse it, for future reference if it ever happens again.
  • Josh
    • Crowbar Kernel Panic the new official unofficial Linux Mint gaming podcast with hosts Bo and Me (Josh). This mintCast spinoff will dive into the nitty gritty of gaming on Linux. We will test games and launchers to see just how good gaming on Linux has become. 
    • SNOW! No seriously too much snow please stop…
    • Other than snow in my life I have actually switched fully over to Debian as my main server distro of choice. There are a few reasons for this. 
  1. It’s not controlled by one entity.
  2. It’s extremely static.
  3. It’s super flexible with iso’s that even include proprietary firmware.
  4. The installer is BETTER than Ubuntu.
  • I have also set up a Matrix-synapse with Debian on the backend all running on Linode. I cannot say enough good things about Linode, they are great. [Moss: And if you sign up with Linode and use the code “mintcast”, you will get exactly zero added benefits!]
  • My dad finally upgraded his TV woot! He got a 65” LG NANO90 4K TV and it’s so beautiful with some tweaking possibly by the user and possibly by AI. There are some caveats to having a 4K TV that I didn’t even know about till now.
  1. On default settings right out of the box the picture quality on 1080p or lower is really really bad.
  2. Netflix price gouging.
  3. webOS kinda sucks compared to Roku’s UI.
  4. Not all 4k or 1080p content is the same even on HD broadcast TV.
  • Last but not least, I am turning LMDE4 into a rolling release.

THE NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE: 

ANNOUNCEMENTS: 

Our next episode will be at 2 pm Central US time on March 7, 2021.

Get the show time converted to your time zone!

Wrap-up:

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

  • Owen Peery for our audio editing, Josh Lowe for all his work on the website, Hobstar for our logo, and Londoner for our time sync
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our backup Mumble room
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>

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