Episode 450 Show Notes

Welcome to mintCast

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

This is Episode 450!

This is Episode 450.5!

Recorded on Sunday, November 10, 2024

well im still Joe; … Moss; Considering a move to Denmark, I’m Bill; crossing the streams, I’m Majid; … Eric

— Play Standard Intro —

  • First up in the news: Mint Monthly News – October 2024, Xfce 4.20 Pre1 Pre-Release Published For Testing, KDE’s New Distro, Mozilla Foundation crumbles as third of staff cast off
  • In security and privacy:
  • Then in our Wanderings: Bill upgrades fast, and breaks things, Joe fixes even more things, Moss goes paperwhite, Majid headbangs and Eric …
  • In our Innards section:
  • 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

— Play News Transition Bumper —

The News

20 minutes

  • Mint Monthly News – October 2024
    • From the Linux Mint blog (via londoner)
    • Night Light in Cinnamon: The team is working on adding Night Light support in Cinnamon. Night Light reducies the amount of blue light emitted by the screen. It makes the color of your monitor warmer as you get closer to bed time to help reduce eyestrain and improve sleep quality.
    • In the past Linux Mint shipped with Redshift to provide this functionality. Redshift wasn’t integrated in the settings though, it only worked in Xorg and it was auto-configured by something called geoclue which is no longer functional.
    • The team is hoping to have this feature fully integrated into the Cinnamon desktop and working out of the box, both in Wayland and Xorg.
    • Clutter Dialogs: Work continues on migrating key Cinnamon dialogs to Clutter.
    • Donations via Stripe: Stripe was added as an alternative to PayPal on the donors page. This was done to make it easier for people who couldn’t or didn’t want to donate via PayPal. More countries and more bank cards are supported by Stripe and no account registration is necessary.
    • Framework Laptops: The team started working with Framework. They’re hoping this will lead towards a great partnership. Framework promotes a concept which is quite admirable. They make high-performance laptops which are easy to upgrade, repair and customize.
    • They want to achieve full compatibility with Linux Mint and the Cinnamon desktop. That’s also very important to the team because it means they can recommend this brand within our community without having to worry about compatibility issues. Their laptops are packed with components the team doesn’t have or technologies which haven’t really been focused on yet. This will boost new areas of development for Mint.
    • Quote from Clem: “The Laptop 13 they sent me just arrived today so I won’t be able to review it until the next blog post. Spoiler alert: I like it. When it comes to hardware I love it when a product feels special and/or of high quality. I’ve had many different computers in the past. The ones I enjoyed the most weren’t the most modern or the most powerful, they were the ones I grew attached to, either because they were very well built or because I loved something unique about them. I still work mostly on a Mintbox 3 and an old Macbook Pro Retina. I’ll be comparing this Laptop 13 to these two next month.” End quote
    • Hellotux Garments: Some of the Mint branded clothes will soon be discontinued. Hellotux can’t source the green Mint shirts anymore. Some sizes are missing, some are reduced. The old Mint logos will also probably be eventually removed. If you like the green shirts or the old logos don’t wait until they’re gone.
  • Xfce 4.20 Pre1 Pre-Release Published For Testing
    • From Phoronix (via londoner)
    • Right on schedule for releasing the Xfce 4.20 desktop in December, the “Pre1” pre-release was posted on Friday for testing. Xfce 4.20 Pre1 is the first tagged milestone in working toward the big Xfce 4.20 desktop release. This also marks the feature freeze and string freeze for Xfce 4.20.
    • Xfce 4.20 has been continuing its work around Wayland support, various modernization improvements, and other efforts. The Xfce 4.20 release notes will be out around the official release date of 15 December. More details on Xfce 4.20 Pre1 via the release announcement. Xfce 4.20 Pre2 as the next tagged milestone should be out at the start of December.
  • KDE’s New Distro: Btrfs-Based, Immutable Linux OS, with Flatpak and Snap
    • From Linuxiac (via londoner)
    • Surprises never end. The KDE project is about to take a bold step by introducing its own Linux distribution. Here’s what it’s all about. Introduced at Akademy 2024, KDE Linux (codenamed “Project Banana”) is a brand-new, still-in-development initiative by the KDE devs to bring a seamless, user-friendly experience that merges KDE software’s reliability and rich interface with cutting-edge Linux technologies.
    • Immediately, we want to clarify that this isn’t a rebranded version of the well-known KDE Neon developed by the KDE community. KDE Linux is an entirely new project with a completely different technical approach under the hood and ambitious goals for both developers and end users. The distro is designed to be a bulletproof, highly user-friendly operating system that showcases the best of KDE technology—a system that KDE can confidently recommend to casual users and hardware manufacturers.
    • With an eye on simplicity, the OS will use Btrfs for its file system and introduce an image-based (immutable) approach, allowing users to easily switch between different OS versions, ensuring a secure, flexible experience without the stress of traditional system management.
    • KDE Linux will feature rolling OS updates based on snapshot releases and employs systemd-boot with custom theming. All mutable data, such as user home directories and cache locations, is encrypted for enhanced security. Moreover, the architecture also includes an image-based A/B update mechanism with rollback capabilities and a recovery partition for added resilience. Users can benefit from an automatic backup system using Btrfs snapshots, which includes a user-friendly GUI similar to Apple’s Time Machine.
    • Using Arch as a base, KDE Linux aims to attract a broad audience, including KDE developers, enthusiasts, and hardware vendors. It will include applications from Flatpak (and possibly Snap), helping to keep the core system and applications separate for greater stability.
    • Among KDE Linux’s top priorities are a high-quality user experience and a system that “doesn’t break”—or, at the very least, is easy to recover if things do go awry. To keep development accessible, KDE Linux requires no packaging knowledge, simplifying the process for anyone wanting to contribute to its growth. In keeping with modern expectations, KDE Linux will feature technologies like Wayland by default and a read-only base system, similar to other immutable Plasma-focused Linux distros like openSUSE Kalpa and Fedora Kinoite. This approach ensures that the core operating system remains tamper-proof and reliable while user-specific data remains flexible.
    • There are several editions planned for KDE Linux, each built to suit a different group of users:
  1. Testing Edition: Updated daily and aimed at quality assurance testers and KDE developers.
  2. Enthusiast Edition: Targets KDE enthusiasts and power users with beta and stable releases.
  3. Stable Edition: Built for everyday users, with a delayed release schedule that prioritizes stability.
  • These will allow users to choose between the latest features or a more conservative, stable environment. Moreover, should their needs change over time, switching between editions will be simple and risk-free.
  • Now, on to the other main question—why do we need another heavily KDE-focused distribution when we already have KDE Neon and KaOS? The main difference lies in the fact that, unlike some other Linux distributions, KDE Linux will be distributed by KDE itself, which brings many advantages.
  • First, it ensures a clear chain of responsibility that isn’t reliant on third parties, enabling KDE to build direct relationships with hardware partners and recommend KDE Linux without favoritism.
  • Furthermore, KDE Linux will use systemd tooling, such as systemd-sysupdate, for seamless updates, making it more efficient compared to other distros relying on different update methods.
  • For those unfamiliar, systemd-sysupdate is a system service that allows unprivileged clients to update the system, which brings the benefits of an image-based design, including immutability, automatic updates, adaptability, factory resets, and uniformity.
  • On top of that, the distro will also distinguish itself by its forward-thinking approach to software distribution. Instead of relying on legacy packaging systems, KDE Linux will focus on modern deployment systems, such as Flatpak and systemd-sysext, a set of useful functionalities for managing system extension images, thus keeping the applications and the immutable base system separate for easier maintenance and development. This means developers don’t need traditional packaging skills—they simply target Flatpak and other containerized formats.
  • Lastly, another unique aspect is KDE Linux’s approach to long-term maintenance. In case the distribution reaches its end of life, the KDE team plans to push a final update that transforms KDE Linux into a different supported distribution, ensuring users always have a path forward.
  • Personal Reflections of Bobby Borisov (an editor-in-chief at Linuxiac): With that in mind, here’s my take on the subject. I believe KDE Linux will primarily appeal to a smaller, specific group of users—mainly enthusiasts eager to explore the latest KDE advancements and developers—rather than the average Linux user. The main reason for this is the buzzword in recent years, “immutability.”
  • Don’t get me wrong; I genuinely appreciate immutable Linux systems and use them daily, especially in contexts where they shine, like containerized workloads. However, immutability on a desktop is still a tough sell for the everyday Linux user who has relied on traditional package managers for decades. While immutability does simplify things for developers by sidestepping the “dependency hell” of package management and provides a secure and very reliable OS foundation, it often complicates things for non-developers outside of the DevOps community. But again, this is just my personal view on the matter.
  • Anyway. We’re excited to see how things progress and look forward to the first stable release. Meanwhile, the distribution is currently available as an 11 GB RAW file for those eager to try it out. You can write it to a USB stick or import it into virtualization software like KVM’s virt-manager.
  • Mozilla Foundation crumbles as third of staff cast off
    • From The Register (via londoner)
    • The Mozilla Foundation is laying off about a third of its staff. The non-profit org, which oversees the corporation that develops the Firefox web browser, insists it will continue its advocacy mission, though its approach may change.
    • “The Mozilla Foundation is reorganizing teams to increase agility and impact as we accelerate our work to ensure a more open and equitable technical future for us all,” said Brandon Borrman, VP of Communications at Mozilla, in a statement to The Register Tuesday. “That unfortunately means ending some of the work we have historically pursued and eliminating associated roles to bring more focus going forward. We’re not sharing a specific number, but it represents about 30 percent of the current team.”
    • While Mozilla Foundation declined to quantify the number of people being let go, it reported 60 employees on its 2022 Form 990 disclosure , which was filed November 15, 2023. The Register understands the current headcount is closer to 120, so presumably around 36 people stand to lose their jobs.
    • Mozilla Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit advocacy organization that runs subsidiaries Mozilla Corporation (the Firefox browser and other consumer products); Mozilla Ventures (a tech-for-good investment fund); Mozilla.ai, an AI R&D lab; and MZLA, which maintains the Thunderbird email client.
    • The foundation’s advocacy efforts follow from the Mozilla Manifesto, which calls for the internet to remain a global public resource that’s open and accessible. Thus it pursues policy advocacy, privacy research, and online campaigns in support of its stated mission. The restructuring affects Mozilla Foundation and it may somewhat limit the organization’s advocacy efforts. “We want to clarify that the restructuring has not dropped advocacy; on the contrary, advocacy is still a central tenet of Mozilla Foundation’s work and we are in the process of revisiting our approach to it,” said Borrman.
    • A prior version of that statement – sent to The Register then revised – made a more expansive commitment. The initial wording suggested advocacy would be part of every Mozilla Foundation activity. The adjusted framing suggests that advocacy efforts will be dialed back.
    • Mozilla Corporation in February laid off about 60 staff, representing about five percent of that software maker’s headcount. Those cuts followed then CEO Mitchell Baker’s decision to step down and resume her prior role as executive chair of Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla Corporation’s current CEO is Laura Chambers, who is leading the Firefox maker toward new sources of revenue, namely advertising.
    • In its consolidated financial report for 2021 and 2022, Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiaries reported more than $1.2 billion in financial assets, up from around $1.1 billion in 2021. Royalties – largely fees from search engines – fell to $510 million in 2022 from almost $530 million in 2021. During this period, revenue from subscriptions and advertising reached about $76 million, up from about $57 million in 2021.

— Play Security Transition Bumper —

Security and Privacy

10 minutes

— Play Wanderings Transition Bumper —

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

30 minutes (~5-8 mins each)

  • Bill
    • So, it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve been on the show, and a couple things have happened. My health continues to improve as my exercise routine increases in intensity. I must say – I’m quite proud of what my body is still able to accomplish, in spite of my age, and the unhealthy lifestyle I’ve been living for the past couple decades. I was a little worried about my heart, and overall cardiovascular disposition going into the regimen, but I must say, there’s been no light-headedness, or dizziness at all. Headaches are all but a thing of the past. Sleep, and energy level is much improved. I continue to avoid getting on the scale, because I don’t want to inject discouragement where it doesn’t make sense. The goal of my endeavor is to improve health, and that needs to remain my focus.
    • Ok. Let’s talk about upgrades. Oh my goodness. Last week I decided to go ahead and upgrade the two big servers that were at the time still running on Ubuntu Server 22.04. I wanted to wait at least until the release of 24.10 to give the LTS time to work out some of the initial bugs, and allow the internet time to fill up with the questions and answers to any problems and pitfalls that may arise as a result of the upgrade, and oh boy henry was I proven right for doing that. In both cases the upgrade went smoothly, and the machines rebooted into the new systems. I initially thought it was as copacetic as the upgrade from 20.04 to 22.04. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Upon the first tests to ensure all necessary services were back on line, it was immediately evident there were problems. Although all of the Docker containers were back online, our Nextcloud server installation is not containerized. It’s an old school LAMP stack installation which from time to time requires some above average sys-admin attention. This was one of those times. Our domain which normally resolves to our Nextcloud was returning a “Bad Gateway” message. My first thought was that it must be either the reverse proxy, or Cloudflare at fault. Neither were at fault. It was in fact the “P” in LAMP that was the bugaboo. You see, Nextcloud relies heavily on PHP to run all of it’s higher functions – especially if you use it for stuff other than just simple cloud storage and backup. Unfortunately, there is no single PHP package to provide all of the necessary modules to perform the necessary functions of websites, and/or cloud servers. There are literally a myriad of these modules, and they all have their own package that needs implicitly installed. One could be forgiven for finding this all to be maddening. Some how the upgrade left me missing no fewer than six of said modules making the installation completely unusable. I don’t know if the modules didn’t get upgraded, and instead were uninstalled, or if the new base version of PHP introduced changes to the distribution of these modules, and there’s no mechanism to install them automatically. Either way, they had to be installed, and enabled. There were a couple of configs that had to be edited as well to reflect the new version numbers. Once this was done, we were back up and running. This all happened Saturday night before the recording of episode 449. The stress was real. I don’t imaging any of my co-hosts were even aware of the problem until the next day when I told everyone, and given the lack of response I got, I imagine some of them are hearing this all for the first time. Had I used the officially supported Docker method of installing Nextcloud, all of this may have been avoided, but that’s kind of the point when it comes to self-hosting – learning how to fix these problems yourself. There was a real rewarding sensation when it was over.
    • Later in the week, it was made clear there was a tangentially related problem with the Jellyfin server I have running on one of the servers that were just upgraded. The domain I have which is supposed to resolve to my Jellyfin returned a “505” error, which again means DNS is unable to connect to anything on the server side. Upon inspection, it was revealed the Docker container for Jellyfin was not running. It turned out the problem was actually due to improvement. Prior to this problem, in order to give the container access to the necessary path to allow Jellyfin to use hardware accelleration, you had to have two very specific options specified in your Docker Compose. Now there is a simple one line option which gives the container what it needs to enable hardware decoding. This problem was revealed so closely in terms of time to the PHP problems, I initially conflated the two things. I now believe the upgrade to Jellyfin happened a couple days after the upgrade to 24.04.
    • The thing about self-hosting is that there is consequence in equal measure with reward. Learning to build these services, and getting them up and running is one thing. Keeping them running is quite another, and can prove challenging. Often changes are made that completely move the goal post. You have to be ready to re-tool at times. It’s good to keep track what you do as a reference. Perhaps write a blog describing what you did to build something, then write more when you have to fix things. It can be a lot of fun and you can learn a lot, but you have to be aware of what you are taking on.
    • I’ve completed building another purpose-built machine. Though I’m not sure I’m going to keep it as is. The problem I had was that while at the Mid America Trucking show, I can only run two cameras at a time given most laptops only have one USB host adapter. Any more than two makes the whole thing fall flat on it’s face. I wanted provision for at least 4, perhaps 6. The only way I was going to achieve this was with multiple USB Host adapters, and the only way to do that without Mac and thunderbolt is with a desktop. I built the machine out of a Lenovo P92m motherboard, and two PCIe USB cards. I purchased the Lenovo a couple years ago for parts. One of the two servers I was talking about in my upgrade section is a Lenovo P93m Thinkcentre, which is similar to the P92m. With a combination of the two USB cards I am able to run 5 cameras with this machine, while having to use CPU encoding on OBS Studio. In order to use VAAPI (hardware encoding) I need to hook up my AMD Firepro 5100 which takes one of the PCIe lanes back from one of the USB cards, which is ok but not ideal. With 4 cameras, The CPU runs at roughly 40 percent while recording. I’ve not tested CPU usage with the descrete graphics card inserted. I’m currently looking at alternative motherboards on ebay and such which may have more PCIe lanes, and perhaps a little newer than 12 years, which is how old the P93m is.
  • Joe
    • Right after last show I started working on some electronics because I got the bug.
    • First thing I did was apply the USB fuse fix to the last of my Razer Nari Ultimates because it finally stopped connecting.  this time I had a lot of trouble doing it because I could not find my flux.  I did end up finding some of my very liquid flux that I don’t like using but needs must as it were.  This time instead of hooking up a wire I simply mounded the solder and connected it that way.  I did have to go back in at least once to get it correct it but now it is working as it should
    • Another one of the Naris would no longer hold a charge and turn on.  I was able to get it hold a charge and turn on for a couple of minutes once and verify that everything else was still working but that was it.  would not do anything. Let it charge for a couple of days and the thing would still show as charging
    • Previously I had found a fix for it using the board of the battery and some 18650s.  I was able to find an 18650 that I had left over and charge it up, I had wanted to add a second to increase the battery life but the other that I found would not hold a charge.  Cut off the board to the battery and solder it to the 18650 and everything works as it should.  Device turned on fine and was able to connect.  also I hooked it up to the charger and within a few minutes the light went green showing a full charge.
    • The reason that you use the board from the original battery is because that is where all the safety circuitry is as well as the temperature shut off switch.  Important when using batteries that might explode.  Shouldn’t be a problem since the 18650’s that I buy have that circuitry built in as well but why take a chance.  Also it prevents me from having to add a resistor on the white wire
    • https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/tc65mq/razer_nari_ultimate_battery_upgrade/
    • Then I found out that it was probably just an issue with the USB cable that I was using to charge because it happened on the next set of Naris that I used to it on to charge but when I switched it a different cable it charged fine. Still it should last longer power wise now.
    • next I pulled out the Brix mini computer that won’t power on and was running my DNS sinkhole and one of my Wireguard instances.  I removed pieces one at a time to see if it would power on and nothing.  Checked all the fuses and zero ohm resistors and everything worked as expected.  Next I verified that continuity happened through the switch and then I verified that power went from one side of the switch to the other.  All good still no power.  Even made sure the CMOS battery was still good.  That is about the extent to which I can check things.
    • I have stripped it for parts and since I have the ssd all set up and ready to go I am thinking about buying another when I have money again.  For now Christmas comes first
    • A few days later I was having problems printing again on my 3d printer because those bolts holding the hot end in place had worked themselves loose again. Well this time I was able to find the replacement back plate so I put that on and it looks like the bolts will hold it well. However, the new backplate was not an OEM the way that it said it was on amazon. The portion where the belt connects was a bit wider and this made it so that the belt would not tighten
    • I did not have the tools to fix this correctly. So I got an electronics end connector kit and used one of the pieces in the same way that the sleeves are used after shortening the belt. It has worked great so far.
    • I also dropped the speed of the cooling fan back down to 50 percent and wow between that and back plate my print qualities are awesome
    • I went to my sons robotics competition. There was 30 something teams there designing and running robots made to pick up plastic rings and put them on stakes.
    • I found it very interesting to see the different types of strategies involved in running the robots, some defensive and some offensive. There was some programming involved as each team was allowed to use some automation at the first part of the match in order to see which bot could pick up the most rings without someone using the controller.
    • Most of the designs were very similar, grab the stake hold it at the correct angle and then scoop up the ring, run it up a belt and put it on the ring at the end of the belt. There were some non mobile stakes set at different heights and there were some creative ways that teams got them on there.
    • I like the idea behind this and I do hope to be able to go to some of the future events and see how or if the machines evolve in the future
  • Moss
    • I worked one day this biweek. Nothing exciting.
    • I went to my Open House event at ETSU, and it was a horrible disappointment. The promised mobility access was almost non-existant, and I was exhausted before I even got to meet with a counselor. We left early, in pain, and I was lucky to have the energy to drive the 2.5 hours home. I have disenrolled, might try again in Summer or Fall 2025.
    • I got a bunch of stuff back from Joe: my Turtle Beach headphones (fixed?), another headphone, my disabled Lenovo ThinkCentre M700 Tiny (which may become my wife’s desktop machine). Also an Xbox-labeled headphone holder which does nothing (supposed to light up or something, but no dice).
    • I ordered a used Kindle Oasis Paperwhite reader. My Fire tablet has, through updates, made itself nearly unusable as a reader, as I need to go through a bunch of menu options before I’m to the reader. Since this is 99% of what I use this tablet for, and since I have the PineTab 2 if I just need a tablet, the Fire tablet will be recycled after I receive the reader. It should be here Monday.
    • Updates on my PineTab 2 have been interesting, as I’m not really that into pacman as a update manager, but it’s still going. The tablet thinks it is upside down, so I have to lock it in place to use as a tablet, which limits its usability. I should be asking questions on how to fix this, but haven’t had the spoons to do so.
    • We strongly considered moving to another area, but for now have decided to wait things out. I also thought about pulling my miniscule amount of money out of the stock market, but didn’t jump fast enough. Only thing to do now is hang on and hope for a recovery.
    • There have been some interesting updates in DeBodhi, and I’m considering reinstalling that on one of my two PCs, probably the T580.
    • It is getting to be music season again. I skipped Ohio Valley Filk Festival, as I do every year since 1994, but have a couple of online sings coming up this week and GAFilk is getting closer, 2nd week of January. I have now sold over $350 on my Bandcamp page, but that’s over like 8 years. Obviously I’m not breaking into commercial radio anytime soon.
  • Majid
    • So I wasnt on the last show due to the death of my uncle. He wasnt related by blood to us, but we were stillclose. He had a life well-lived, and the funeral arangements were more a celebration of his life which is rare in muslim funerals. Theres a concept we have in islam of “continuing charity”, he had lots of it!
    • I think these guys on here (and OTC, looking at you Leo!) are “bad” influence on me. Firstly the discussion on my last mintcast where we talked headphones, got me buying another set, Sennhiesor Momentum True CX (great name…not). Then listening to LUS, Leo talked about Mint & Cinnamon, and so I’m now on Mint on this podcasting box. To borrow an cupertino phrase, It just works! Much better experience for me ten my week-long experiment on the laptop when in India, this will probably last a while (well until I get the itch for something else) Then listening back to the episode of mintcast I missed about distro-hopping made me distro-hop. Running Fedora on my Lenovo Miix tablet. My first experience with vanilla fedora maybe ever. Gnome does work well in that device and is very touch-optimised, but the battery life leave a lot to be desired, often I pick it up and its dead. Probably not surprising for a device thats 5 yrs old. Maybe I need to look back at our battery life innards we did last year.
    • So I took in by the hype (and a 0% interest deal and the fact its a business expense) and bought a Lenovo Snapdragon laptop. This is my first real “premium” laptop. Amazing build quality, great screen, great performance, app compatibility not an issue, and the battery life is insane, comparable to the m-series macbooks. I suppose you get what you pay for I’m going to wait before putting linux on it, though there is support for the architecture in kernel 6.11
    • My mom needed a new computer, so I got her an ex-enterprise Lenovo thinkcentre off ebay. 7th gen I5, 1TB ssd. They accidentally gave me the 32gb version, but no extra money required! Not bad for £200. Ive brought the old one back tomy house, and am thinking what to do with it. Well firstly going to get an SSD to replace the spinning drive. Then the plan is to upgrade the cpu, get a second hand gpu and turn it into a gaming rig with my son. Thinking Nobara for gaming. Its a long-term project, so will take my time. I havent built a computer since the 90s, and only rarely open up my devices to upgrade as it is (sometime cheaper to buy a replacement box) so I’m quite looking forward to it.
    • Going back to headphones, I bought the sennheisers as I’d head they had good quality, and supported aptx hi-def codecs. Of course for this to work you need to have hi-res audio. Spotify is what I’ve used in the past, as it integrates well with most other services and is kind of ubiquitous for music sharing. However I had a free trial of Youtube Premium and Music, so thought I would move over to that. I also liked the fact that there was a greater selection of live music on there compared to spotify. So using a tool called soundiiz, I was able to trasnfer all my playlists (I had about 53!). It was at this point that I relaised I hadnt done my research, youtube music doesn’t have a high-def tier. Againm no problem, theres always tidal. Its something I had using sparingly many years ago, and so was eligible for another free trial. It has the industry-lead when it comes to high-def audio. So back to Soundiiz, and hey ho I’m on Tidal. When I compare the different streaming services (when it comes to quality). Even with bluetooth earbuds, Tidal sounds the best, with Youtube Music the worst (but not terrible) and spotify in-between. It does depend which earbuds you use. Its more pronounced with the sennheiser and its aptx, then say the nothing ear (a) and its LDAC. Not really obvious if using AAC like with my Galaxy Buds FE (they have SSDC which only works with Galaxy phones, an I’m on OnePlus at present). Of course this is much more pronounced when using wired headphones (IEMS with a DAC) with Tidal the clear leader, and bouth YTM and spotify being disappointing. I have cancelled my spotify premium for the time being, and I think I’m going probably will go over to Tidal. When you hear the difference (even if subtle) it does kind of spoil you. Lets see.
    • I’ve not been having fun trying to get Jellyfin working on my NAS. I think I need to sit down with Bill and have him go through it with me. Docker et al is new language to me
    • The keyboard I’m using on this podcasting box is starting to annoy. Its just a cheap amazon knock-off. When spending ages typing (like for these shows notes) it comes up very short indeed. Either that or laptop keyboards (esp lenovo ones) have me spoiled)
    • TV-wise, still enjoying The Penguin, and looking forward to the finale tonight/tomorrow. Have started some of the Citadel series on Prime. Also watching the Devils Hour season 2 on Prime, lots of great acting talent on display. I had never watched the US version of The office (as I loved the UK one and didn’t want to be disappointed) but started it with my son (who has never seen it), it is damn good! Why did I not do this?
    • Saw Venom 3 with my lads, not as good as the first. About the same as the second. Good fun, good conclusion to the character. Probably the only decent films in the Sony universe.
    • Went to challenge academy with the family, and then went to a new steakhouse. Good family fun!
    • Work is busy, when isnt it? I had a few days off, but cut it short to do some extra shifts. I do think I’m doing too much, mainly to pay for the recnt car problems we had DEF. I started doing more work in the private sector, and I cn see how money changes the way you approach patients. Mybe I’ll decrease that as time goes on.
    • Theres an initiative called Mental Health First Aid. Started in Australia, been in the UK for a decade. Since I look after the resident doctors now, I thought it would be good to do it to help support them. Actually I’ve found it useful for life!
  • Eric

— Play Innards Transition Bumper —

Linux Innards

30 minutes (~5-8 minutes each)

  • digital hygiene https://digitalhygiene.net/ 1. KEEP YOUR SOFTWARE UP-TO-DATE
    This includes all software, starting from your operating system (Windows, MacOS, Linux, etc) to applications (office suites), browsers (Chrome, Firefox) and plug-ins, extensions, etc. Remove any unused software.

2. KEEP YOUR ANTIVIRUS UP-TO-DATE AND LIVE SCAN ON
Make sure to install an adequate antivirus and anti-malware software. Also, make sure it’s always up-to-date and the “live scan” feature is enabled.

3. MANAGE YOUR FIREWALL
Make sure your firewall software is installed and up to date. Also, it is highly advisable to manually check all rules (and edit/remove if necessary) in your firewall. NB! Having a firewall on network level doesn’t mean you should not have a firewall on device level as well.

4. USE STRONG PASSWORDS
Do NOT use dictionary words or passwords based on keys location on the keyboard (QWERTY, etc). Include uppercase letters, numbers and symbols. Use different passwords for different places.

5. USE PASSWORD MANAGER
Password managers make it easier to use STRONG and UNIQUE passwords in different websites. Both, free and commercial, options are available. Use very strong password for your password manager.

6. USE TWO-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION (2FA)
Use of two-factor or multi-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security requiring not only something you know (password) but also something you have (mobile phone, for example).

7. keep your mailbox and device(s) secure and clean
Take extra steps to keep your mailbox tidy and secure. Compromised mailbox can authorize access to your accounts on other websites, social media, etc. SECURE and TIDY are the keywords here.

8. DOWNLOAD SOFTWARE ONLY FROM LEGITIMATE SOURCES
Do NOT download and install any games or software from dubious sources. This includes torrent downloads, “cracked” software downloads, etc. Most commercial software packages have free and reputable alternatives.

9. BACKUP often AND ENCRYPT
Make backups and make them often. Also, make sure to secure your backups – this includes encrypting your data and securing the physical devices like USB sticks or removable hard drives.

10. LIMIT YOUR DIGITAL & SOCIAL FOOTPRINT
Social networks are fun but you should be aware that they broadcast a wide array of information about you, your colleagues and your organization to anyone, including bad actors. Limit the information available about you online, especially to people you do not know.

11. BE AWARE OF ANY PHISHING ATTEMPTS
It can be anything, email or dm from a bank, email service provider, mobile phone company, etc – please take time and consider if the request is legitimate. Also, double check all the links and make sure they are correct. 

12. don’t be an easy target
Develop a “security first” mindset. Stay cautious and keep yourself up-to-date in the world of cyber security. Heed the advice of security guidelines and best practices.

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Vibrations from the Ether

20 minutes (~5 minutes each)

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Check This Out

10 minutes

  • soundiiz.com
  • https://mhfaengland.org/

Housekeeping & Announcements

  • Thank you for listening to this episode of mintCast!
  • If you see something that you’d like to hear about, tell us!

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Wrap-up

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

  • Bill for our audio editing
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • Hobstar for our logo, initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • Londoner for our time syncs and various other contributions
  • Bill Houser for hosting the server which runs our website, website maintenance, and the NextCloud server on which we host our show notes and raw audio
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem … and co!>

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Linux Mint

The distribution that spawned a podcast. Support us by supporting them. Donate here.

Archive.org

We currently host our podcast at archive.org. Support us by supporting them. Donate here.

Audacity

They’ve made post-production of our podcast possible. Support us by supporting them. Contribute here.

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