Episode 455 Show Notes

Welcome to mintCast

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

This is Episode 455!

This is Episode 455.5!

Recorded on Sunday, February 16, 2025.

Lots of talking Joe; kicking and screaming, I’m Moss; Evenin’ Partner, I’m Bill; and hoping to be Amazefitted, I’m Eric

— Play Standard Intro —

  • First up in the news: Mint Monthly News – January, Ubuntu 24.04.2 Delayed, Asahi Linux Lead Developer Hector Martin Steps Down As Upstream Apple Silicon Maintainer, Serpent OS Rebrands as AerynOS, OBS Studio Threatens Fedora With Legal Action
  • Then in our Wanderings: Bill has been busy with work, Joe has been spending some quality time with Proxmox and Portainer, Moss tries to get up to speed with a long overdue update, and Eric has been have a great time with smartwatches and LLMs.
  • In our Innards section: Joe discusses his Proxmox setup
  • In our newest feature, Bodhi Corner: Moss discusses what the Bodhi team is working on for current and future versions of Bodhi Linux;
  • And finally in Check This Out, Eric covers a nice GUI tool named Pods, used to manage Podman containers.
  • 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 at mintcast.org.

— Play News Transition Bumper —

The News

20 minutes

  • Mint Monthly News – January 2025 (Bill)
    • From the Mint blog (via londoner)
    • The only news from the Mint team this month is that in January donations reached an all-time monthly record of $31,720 from 852 people. This is in addition to the regular sponsors who contributed a sum of $3,909 from 1,467 patrons, making a grand total of over $35,000.
  • Ubuntu 24.04.2 Delayed (Bill)
    • From Joey Sneddon at OMGUbuntu (via londoner)
    • Canonical’s Utkarsh Gupta reports that an ‘unfortunate incident’ resulted in some of the newly spun Ubuntu 24.04.2 images (for flavours) being built without the new HWE kernel on board (which is Linux 6.11, for those unaware). And while the main Ubuntu ISO did include it, flavour images are Ubuntu too – it’s only right they all arrive at the same time.
    • Ubuntu installer images are being rebuilt with the correct kernel on board but each ISO also needs to undergo (re)testing. As there was not enough time to do all of that and still meet the original release date of February 13th… so the team decided to delay the release by one week. The new release date for Ubuntu 24.04.2 is February 20th, 2025 – not the longest wait, really.
    • As for the new HWE stack with Linux 6.11 and a newer Mesa, that began rolling out to existing users of Ubuntu 24.04 this week. Remember, Linux Mint 22.1 will now use these HWE kernels, so expect an update very soon.
  • Asahi Linux Lead Developer Hector Martin Steps Down As Upstream Apple Silicon Maintainer Moss
    • From Phoronix (via londoner)
    • Following arguments on the Linux kernel mailing list the past few days over some Linux kernel maintainers being against the notion of Rust code in the mainline Linux kernel and trying to avoid it and very passionate views over the Linux kernel development process, Asahi Linux lead developer Hector Martin has removed himself from being an upstream maintainer of the ARM Apple code.
    • In a patch today removing himself as a maintainer, Hector Martin wrote on the patch:
      • I no longer have any faith left in the kernel development process or community management approach. Apple/ARM platform development will continue downstream. If I feel like sending some patches upstream in the future myself for whatever subtree I may, or I may not. Anyone who feels like fighting the upstreaming fight themselves is welcome to do so.”
    • So as of now, the Asahi Linux lead developer doesn’t plan on directly contributing any longer to the upstream Linux kernel but seemingly just to the Asahi Linux downstream code.
    • Others could take over wrangling the patches in an effort to get them upstreamed. Asahi Linux developer and co-maintainer Sven Peter already commented:

“Give me a few days to figure out what we’ll do. I think we can keep tree going forward.”

  • But in any event these upstream Linux kernel mailing list drama isn’t good for moving the Apple Silicon support forward especially for those wanting to see Linux on Apple Macs outside of the confines of Asahi Linux. We’ll see how this situation evolves.
  • Update Feb 9: A new co-maintainer has volunteered to help oversee the Apple Silicon code for the mainline kernel. As a co-maintainer alongside Hector Martin there was already long-time Apple Silicon Linux contributor Sven Peter. Now in addition to Sven helping to oversee the upstream Apple Silicon patches for the Linux kernel is Janne Grunau. Janne is an existing Asahi Linux / Apple Silicon contributor and has been working on the downstream Asahi kernel tree since last April as well as working on a number of drivers. Janne Grunau has the blessing of both Sven Peter and Hector Martin.
  • As of Feb 11, a major development has taken place with a Rust kernel policy being put in place to prevent future conflicts. Posted by Miguel Ojeda, lead of the Rust for Linux project, this new policy looks to help set the record straight surrounding Rust integration in Linux. It is backed by a community of developers who come from different backgrounds and organizations, with a couple of notable sponsors (one of which is Google) acting as a driving force.
  • It lays out key topics like how Rust for Linux is not an effort by the Rust Project or the Rust Foundation, how many key kernel maintainers do support Rust in the kernel, and how changes are not allowed to be introduced if a C change breaks a Rust-enabled build (with an exception for Rust subsystems).
  • And yet another update. On Feb 13 Phoronix reported that Hector Martin (who started the Asahi Linux project) has decided to resign as project leader of Asahi Linux. He commented on his blog that working on the project has become less fun over time and notes user complaints around the lack of Apple M3/M4 support thus far and other missing features with Asahi Linux on Apple Silicon like Thunderbolt and USB-C monitors.
  • <Quote> “I’m resigning as lead of the Asahi Linux project, effective immediately. The project will continue on without me, and I’m working with the rest of the team to handle transfer of responsibilities and administrative credentials. My personal Patreon will be paused, and those who supported me personally are encouraged to transfer their support to the Asahi Linux OpenCollective (GitHub Sponsors does not allow me to unilaterally pause payments, but my sponsors will be notified of this change so they can manually cancel their sponsorship).
  • I want to thank the entire Asahi Linux team, without whom I would’ve never gotten anywhere alone. You all know who you are. I also give my utmost gratitude to all of my Patreon and GitHub sponsors, who made the project a viable reality to begin with.”<End Quote>
  • The Asahi Linux blog has also confirmed Hector’s resignation while the remaining developers plan on to keep pushing Linux on Apple Silicon hardware. They will be focusing still on upstreaming to the Linux kernel. The Apple M3 and M4 hardware support isn’t expected until after more of their code is upstreamed and progress on continuous integration. For Apple M1/M2 hardware this year they hope to accomplish DP Alt Mode, sparse images within the Vulkan driver, and internal microphone support.
  • Lots more detail in Hector’s blog at https://marcan.st/2025/02/resigning-as-asahi-linux-project-lead/
  • No More Snakes: Serpent OS Rebrands as AerynOS (Eric)
    • From Linuxiac (via londoner)
    • With a surprise announcement named “Evolve This OS,” Ikey Doherty, leader of the still-in-development rolling release Linux distro Serpent OS, announced a major rebranding effort, and more specifically, the project now adopts the more welcoming name AerynOS. (air-en or a-air-en)
    • He said the decision to abandon the original name was motivated by concerns about the word “serpent’s” negative and somewhat intimidating associations. A quick clarification for our listeners: In the Bible, the serpent in the Garden of Eden represents temptation, sin, and Satan.
    • <Quote> In order to move forward, our identity needs to be more befitting of the project we’re building. A move into the real world. This isn’t a hobby project, it’s a full blown Linux distribution with serious technical underpinnings, achievements and goals. Getting the tone right from day dot is critical. <End Quote>
    • In explaining the choice of AerynOS, Doherty highlights the dual significance of “Aer,” derived from Latin, and “Erin,” which nods to the project’s Irish roots.
    • The transition timeline is already underway. The official rebranding will be finalized on March 17, 2025, coinciding—rather fittingly—with St. Patrick’s Day. The project has secured relevant domain names such as AerynOS.com and AerynOS.dev and is updating social media profiles and public communication channels.
    • Additionally, a new GitHub organization has been established, and the project will migrate its code repositories there in the coming weeks.
    • The author shared a few thoughts. <Quote> “First off, congratulations on the new name! However, there’s an old saying: “It’s not the name that makes the man; it’s the man that makes the name.” In that spirit, I believe there are still more important things for the project to focus on moving forward.
    • First, after four and a half years, the project barely made it to alpha—just over a month ago. Of course, it all comes down to the time and resources the developers can put in, which clearly aren’t great. And let’s not forget that Doherty recently announced that he is facing serious financial trouble.
    • The bottom line? This project’s challenges are far bigger than just deciding what to call it.
    • Sure, Serpent OS might not sit well with some people because of its demonic associations (though FreeBSD doesn’t seem to have that issue). But at the same time, I’m not convinced that AerynOS really conveys any particular message to a Linux user—forgive me, diehard Game of Thrones fans.” <End Quote>
    • He goes on: “Anyway, I hope this change gives the project a much-needed boost and helps it grow faster. The core concept behind it is fantastic (atomic updates but without the nowadays so “modern” immutability under the hood), and it would be a great addition to the Linux ecosystem. So, goodbye, Serpent OS. Go AerynOS!”
  • OBS Studio Threatens Fedora With Legal Action (Joe)
    • From It’s Foss.com (via londoner)
    • Fedora is known for consistently providing a reliable Linux desktop experience, while also shipping with the latest packages and offering multiple editions to cater to a wide range of users.
    • The Fedora Project also distributes Fedora Flatpaks, which are built from their RPM packages and maintained by them in their repository. Unfortunately, many of these are often unmaintained or broken, leading to a poor experience for users who aren’t usually aware they’re using them.
    • However, this issue has taken a more serious turn, involving the popular OBS project and Fedora’s poorly maintained OBS Studio Flatpak. What started initially as a request to either remove or better present the unofficial OBS Studio Flatpak three weeks ago has now turned into an ultimatum. OBS lead Joel Bethke has stated that if Fedora doesn’t remove all of OBS’s branding from the unofficial Flatpak by February 21, 2025, they will pursue legal action against them.
    • The main issue here is that the unofficial OBS Studio Flatpak is in a very poor condition, causing many users to report issues to the OBS Studio developers, mistakenly thinking they are using the official build.
    • However, there’s more to it. In a comment on a video by Brodi Robertson, Joel shared that folks from Fedora were not taking this issue seriously, with one of them even resorting to name-calling by labeling the OBS Studio devs as being “terrible maintainers”.
    • Since then, a major step has been taken by Neal Gompa, a well-known Fedora contributor and member of the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo). He has opened a new issue to remove Fedora’s OBS Studio flatpak from the registry as soon as possible.
    • First discovered by Ni Rui, GNOME Software now seems to show an end-of-life message for both the official Flatpak by OBS Studio and the unofficial one provided by Fedora. The writer tested it out on his Fedora 41 installation, and that behavior was pretty apparent.
    • Luckily, this seems to be a temporary issue, as another community member, Chris Williams, chimed in, saying that this was due to the official Flatpak version of OBS Studio using an older, unsupported runtime.
    • In the end, the writer agrees with this move to retire the unofficial OBS Studio flatpak, and to be honest, Fedora Flatpak’s have become something of a hindrance. Doing away with them as a whole also works, in my opinion.

— Play Security Transition Bumper —

Security and Privacy

10 minutes

— Play Wanderings Transition Bumper —

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

30 minutes (~5-8 mins each)

  • Bill
    • Work has been crazy these last few weeks. Which after the dry spell leading up to the election – I’m thankful for. I’ve been on a run that takes me almost to the Mexican border (right outside of Corpus Cristi, Texas) to deliver cast aluminum ingots to a steel mill in Sinton, Texas. A trip down there and back basically takes the duration of the week to get done. Especially if I have to load and/or if I have to pick up something to bring back, which hasn’t happened lately. I know I said I was getting off the road, and wasn’t going to be doing this kind of stuff, but after the terrible month of December, I felt I had little choice. I had to do what I knew would bring the money in. It’s a temporary fix for the next month or so.
    • Last week’s episode of 3 Fat Truckers went off with a bit of panic, at least in the beginning. I normally use a Focusrite Scarlet Solo 4th gen as my primary audio interface during recording. This particular recording was to be with one of my co-hosts, Steve, here in my basement studio recording with me. I also own a 4th gen Scarlett 2i2 which allows for two XLR microphone inputs. All should have been well to unplug the Solo, in favor of the 2i2, though for some reason this particular time it screwed up the routing tables and mixing tables for both devices which basically meant no audio was going from the scarlett to the computer. I was in full Kernel panic. Full support for these devices has been in the mainline kernel for a while now, and the GUI software that has recently been made available gives the user access to the ALSA routing controls as well as granular mixing controls that Windows users really don’t have. I’ve never taken the time to learn how it all worked – at least until now. About 10 minutes after we finally gave up for the day and Steve left, I figured the whole thing out and was able to get audio working again. Steve came back over the next day, and we recorded two episodes. I’m a self-proclaimed expert in managing the controls within the gui for both devices now! I have to give a big shout out to the dev team of “ALSA Scarlett2 Control Panel” once I was able to calm down, and have a look at their Github page, I found they made excellent documentation on each device they support, and was able to not only fix the problem but also learn what each setting did. I highly recommend the software to anyone wanting to use Focusrite stuff on Linux.
  • Joe
    • I know that I have done a lot but I don’t know how much I am going to end up putting into the show notes since we might do an innards on it one of these days soon.
    • I have been working a lot on Proxmox and Portainer trying to figure out how it works and how best to fit it into my workflow. Last show I talked a lot about the 10 inch network rack that I put together. I am loving it it still and I may reprint a lot of it in PETG instead of PLA. But for now I am moving on from the building and working on the electronics and the software but that is what will be talked about in the innards.
    • First of all, the mini PC that I have hooked up to it is the HP Prodesk G3 600 Mini. i5-6500t processor with 2 cores, 4 threads and while it came with 8 GB of RAM I was able to get that up to 12 GB of RAM right away with the stuff that I had sitting around. I have also ordered 32gb for it that I have received but that I have not put in yet because I am waiting for other parts. I ordered an m.2 adapter for NVMe to 5 SATA from AliExpress. Hopefully this one works unlike the a/e one that I got before. I also at the same time ordered some right angle SATA cables that go off to one side. Hopefully that all fits in the casing and I am able to add a bunch more HDDs directly to device instead of having them come up over USB. Although the NGFF adapter that I am using along with the USB-C adapter is pretty cool too.
    • I am thinking that I will probably upgrade the CPU to the i7-7700t eventually. That with the 32gb of RAM should be more than enough to cover most of my needs. Especially if the parts that I have already ordered are good enough to hook up more hard drives. Will take a lot of further setup though and I don’t think that I will migrate everything away from my current setup on my garage computer.
    • I am also looking to purchase some larger hard drives to replace the 12 TB hard drive that is going bad. I actually found some 8tb drives for sale on the secondary market with little use that were too good of a deal to pass up, ended up getting 40TB for 200 dollars. Now I have to figure out where I want to hook them up and get data transferred to them.
    • I also got the Lenovo that Moss sent me. Very similar stats to the HP that I have in my server rack. I was able to get it running by replacing the fan with one that I had from the purchase that fixed Moss’s other Lenovo. I could 3D print a bracket and turn this into another node on my rack but I don’t think that is the best use for it.
    • Instead I have installed Mint on it and I will be using it to replace the tablet that I am using as a set top box in the living room. I will also be attaching a 1TB USB hard drive to it and installing Nextcloud on it and maybe an instance of Wireguard.
  • Moss
    • I won’t even attempt to tell you everything that has happened since I was last here.
    • I have only worked 1 day since the New Year. The kids enjoyed having me. Two periods were “Computer Systems”, but they had no lab, nothing but personal Chromebooks, and the kids couldn’t even tell me the name of the operating system they were using. And didn’t care to hear me talk more on the subject.
    • We’re still trying to find a new place to live. No luck. Prices for rent are what they should be in the 2200s.
    • I’m offering to trade my very well endowed PineTab 2 for a Surface 4 or 5 in equally good condition (with keyboard). Contact me if you’re interested. There is nothing wrong with it, I just find it too heavy to use as a tablet.
    • My brief performance at GAFilk in January went quite well, as did all my other efforts. I have video, but there is pretty bad fan noise. Not having the least clue about editing sound in a video, I may just have to post it the way it is. Any SIMPLE help you may offer, especially “I’ll do that for you”, is welcome.
    • Some of you noticed there was a hiatus in Full Circle Weekly News. Most of that was not my problem (various issues in the supply and distribution chains). But we’re back on track and all caught up. I am nearing my 200th episode (which will be Episode 403 I think),
    • I still have this HP Z800 Workstation I’d love to get rid of. The biggest issue is shipping cost, so if someone wants to come pick it up and give me a couple Benjamins for it, that would be appreciated.
  • Eric
    • I’ve spent more time recently using LLMs on my local computers. I was curious to see if the DeepSeek models were as impressive as people have said. Large language models run best via a GPU but can be run just using the CPU as well. In either case, it takes a pretty substantial amount of system resources to do so, mainly memory. If you’re using your CPU then you’ll be using system memory and if it’s a GPU then it will be VRAM. It’s also possible to use a combination of both, where you offload as much of the processing as possible to the GPU and then processing the rest on the CPU.

      My desktop PC has an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 with 6 GB of VRAM which is about the bare minimum needed for reasonable performance with smaller models, maxing out around 12B models. 7B models run faster but are obviously less capable. I’d like to find a more capable card, something like an RTX 3060 which would double the VRAM to 12 GB. AMD cards could potentially offer more VRAM but I’ve read numerous accounts of either difficulties running models or that Nvidia performs better overall.

      Unfortunately, a decent RTX 3060 can cost many hundreds of dollars that I’m not particularly interested in spending, although I can probably get one and offset the cost a bit by selling the 2060.
    • I figured I’d mention that I have been using several apps to run these models. These are Alpaca, GPT4ALL, and LM Studio. All three of them make running LLMs pretty painless. They all do their best to optimize the experience based on the available hardware, taking advantage of a GPU if possible but still being able to run just on the CPU. The generation speed is considerably slower but unless you’re watching it generate the answer it’s not that big of a deal.
    • My smartwatch journey continues. If you recall, it started with a PineTime which was ended up being a mixed bag. On one hand, I was able to prove the benefit of wearing a smartwatch. For me that is mainly for notifications, fitness and sleep tracking, and surprisingly for me, the speaker phone capability. It’s been very convenient to have a brief call via my wrist rather than needing to fish out my phone, especially when my hands are full. I’ve also used navigation and NFC payments.

      The PineTime unfortunately didn’t last long. After about six weeks of wearing it every day it started to malfunction. I wasn’t receiving notifications and the screen was starting to fail. I also didn’t have a great experience using the third party Gadgetbridge software which is what connected the watch to an Android phone. Both it and the watch left a lot to be desired feature wise so honestly, while I wasn’t thrilled when it stopped working correctly, it was an excuse to get something else.

      I am now wearing a Google Pixel Watch 3, the 45mm version. I got a great deal on a lightly used one and ended up saving well over $100. I’ve been wearing it for four months and, while is vastly more capable than the PineTime, I can’t say I’ve loved it. My main dissatisfaction stems from Fitbit. Google owns them and there are still Fitbit branded watches for sale. The software is designed for those watches and it feels out of place on the Pixel watch in my opinion. I also am not a huge fan of the Fitbit app on my phone. The UI is meh and there’s no dark mode. I find that unacceptable in 2025.

      That all leads me to looking at other watches. In the process of shopping for the Pixel watch I realized that there are numerous non wear OS based watches. I’m calling these mid-tier options but that’s mainly based on price. The current retail price of the Pixel Watch 3 45mm Bluetooth version is $350. A comparable watch is the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 is $330. The mid-tier options are generally in the $100 – $200 range.

      The mid-tier option in particular that caught my eye is the Amazfit Active 2 which is $100. It offers almost all the same functionality as the upper-tier options but because it’s not using wear OS the battery life is substantially longer, around 10 days in this case as compared to the 24-36 hours of the Pixel. I did end up buying one and am waiting for it to arrive this week. Amazfit have their own app called Zepp which provides the phone integration as well as the fitness capabilities. One other advantage is that the Pixel watch uses a proprietary band connector system so normal watch bands aren’t compatible. The Amazfit uses the standard quick release band style, the 20mm size. I already have a bunch of those bands so I’m all set as far as that goes.

      I’ll be sure to report back with an update on the Amazfit once I’ve been wearing it for long enough to form an opinion.

— Play Innards Transition Bumper —

Linux Innards

30 minutes (~5-8 minutes each)

Joe’s Proxmox

  • Proxmox is an operating system that is designed to be a virtualization platform. It allows for the deployment of virtual machines and containers. Lots of web based interfaces and management
  • Proxmox is really easy to setup and get running but a bit harder to understand as a whole. I got everything working at a high level very easily. Getting installed and setting up my first LXC and my first mint VM. Not too difficult to understand how to allocate the hardware and that overlap is not an issue until things get too expansive. So I can pass 1 core 2 threads to 3 or 4 different VMs and containers and they will use them as needed depending on availability
  • Mint was up and running in no time and every VM you set up has an instance of NOVNC which allows you to view the OS or the console from a webpage. When you are setting up the VM you have the chance to allocate the storage and the RAM and set the size of the page file as well as the IP address of the VM.
  • This one I have been using for days now along with Dex to have a full version of Linux available on my phone at any given time. I am loving it. Its not the Linux machine in my pocket the way that I always wanted but if the network connection is good it may as well be. All you need to do is request the desktop page on your phone and you are off to the races
  • What caused me the most issues was passing things to the lxc containers
  • such as using a samba share the correct way. I followed all the instructions that I could find. Setting it up on the top level and trying to pass it down to through the built in systems to the VMs and LXCs but the permissions would never get right. Privileged containers or not, the best I could get is read access and that was not going to work for everything that I want setup
  • In the end it was easier to forgo the passing of the share and create the access at the container level or from within the VM itself. There are some restrictions like none of them use an actual fstab but that can be gotten around with some bash and some crontab.
  • That’s one of the great things about the command line. Nearly everything that can be done can be automated.
  • I spent nearly two weeks trying to do it the hard way before deciding to hit it with the proverbial hammer. And now I have a lot more things to setup. With the direct access I will be changing the samba to make it a bit more limiting depending on the information that is needed for each tool. Basically mounting the different drives on the samba to different containers in Portainer.
  • So I still have the Portainer setup that I had before but with the samba share connected I can now use the slicers and the Libreoffice.
  • I spent a bit of time trying to get Batocera to run in a VM on the Proxmox server. But to no avail. I even went so far as to get it running on virtualbox on my computer and attempt to migrate that VM over but it would not ever load. Or at least it would never show anything on the screen, but there was some CPU usage that I could see from the dashboard.
  • In the end, while looking for a solution to that, I was able to find a Docker project that worked really well called emulatorjs. Fit right into Portainer with no problems and I was able to start playing Super Mario 1 right away. I have a lot more classic games to test before I can give it a proper review but for ease of setting up and portability it seems pretty good to me.
  • I am also able to either load files from the webpage or have it look from the samba share which means my whole collection should fit on there easy enough.
  • I am planning on setting up Home Assistant and seeing how I can make that work with what I already have setup for Alexa. and if I can get a bit more automated without having to set things up from my phone. But I will also need to learn a lot more about home assistant in order to use it so it is on my list of things to do but I don’t know how high up in the priorities it really is.
  • Now that I have the samba storage situation a lot closer to sorted I am going to have to look at migrating a couple of my other VMs and setups over to the machine.
  • Since my pi 4’s fan is going out I also decided look into a container for Octoprint which I was able to find and install onto the Portainer instance. But it ran very very slowly even though it was not using much RAM or processor (Proxmox lets you monitor all of that from the web interface).
  • I did get it running though but there were also a lot of errors. It was saying that it was unable to access the internet and no matter how I passed the USBs for the camera and the printer to it and adjusted the privileges it would not work.
  • I installed on my garage computer in Portainer and everything ran fine. Also I have passed several things over USB to the Mint VM so I decided to set Portainer up on that and pass the USB through. That worked without a hitch freeing up my pi 4 for other projects once I get a new fan and making my garage a lot more quiet
  • So currently I have
    • cura
    • emulatorjs
    • freecad (which I still need to learn)
    • it-tools (which is a great collection of simple tools)
    • libreoffice
    • orcaslicer
    • pihole
  • all setup and in use on Portainer lxc with more to come in the future
  • then a VM with Mint and Portainer, Octoprint and probably Nextcloud
  • I may end up using the VM instance of Portainer for several more things since I got the 40tb of hard drives all ready to be hooked up, and when I had Jellyfin on there it looked to work pretty well and it is much easier to pass the drives to the VM than it is to the containers and have everything seen.
  • I did try to get Nextcloud working on Portainer with docker compose but it would not deploy so I ended up installing the repo version of docker desktop on the VM and letting the sync run.
  • From the Proxmox top level it is much much quicker to format the USB hard drives. I noticed this when one of the drives needed reformating and I tried doing it from the mint when it was saying that it was going to take 9 hours. It took only seconds from the interface how you would expect it to.
  • My next software related project on this is to move my VM that runs on my garage computer over to it and see how well it runs.

Shape 1 Bodhi Corner

5 minutes

  • Everyone who has listened to the show for long knows that I’m a huge fan of Bodhi Linux, which is still the best-known distro to be using Enlightenment E17 for their desktop, or rather a fork thereof. The mintCast team is allowing me to experiment with adding what I would like to have become regular content regarding Bodhi to the show.
  • Bodhi has a small team, with Robert Wiley (@ylee) the lead dev. The rest of the team features Stefan (@the_waiter), Tristam (@tristam), @hippytaff, @ryenigma, and a few others working on translations.
  • Stefan and Robert are working on the Drawer module. They knew about this interesting module for years but it was very buggy. It took a bit of digging to find the source code. We fixed many of bugs and added some new features but it still needs some love. Drawer module is a special, container like module with 4 plugins to cover Launcher, Winlist, History of launched apps and Folder files list to show in popup after clicking the gadget icon. PCLinuxOS is using an older, buggy version, as shown here: https://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201012/page06.html . Besides cleaning up the code quite a bit, Robert added a Blacklist feature so you can limit what the Drawer is showing.
  • The Moon module was fixed and released. (Again, both Stefan and Robert worked on it.) It is now available for all versions of Bodhi. This module brings up a high definition image of the current moon phase, right on your desktop. It is, of course, an optional gadget.
  • Hindi and Marathi translations to Moksha were added by “Pagoda_user”.
  • Stefan plans to start on new Moksha theme which will be bright with rounded corners and floating like effects. If you’ve tried any of the themes on Bodhi, you know they are a cut above the themes in other distros.
  • The current debate in moving forward with Bodhi is whether we will continue to release both Ubuntu and Debian versions. The voting is leaning toward just Debian, but no decision has been made.
  • The latest versions of Bodhi are Bodhi 7, based on Ubuntu 22.04, available with the LTS kernel, the HWE kernel, and the System76 kernel depending on your gaming needs, and the AppPack version, which is the basic version but with the most popular apps included. DeBodhi 7 (Debian 12 base) is at a very workable Beta3; Bodhi Legacy 7 (32-bit Debian 12 base) is at Beta2, also quite usable. Work on Bodhi 8 is still in infancy stages, awaiting a decision on continuing with Ubuntu base or going strictly to Debian. “Hippytaff” has resumed his role as PR Director, and I will be giving regular updates right here in Bodhi Corner.

— Play Vibrations Transition Bumper —

Vibrations from the Ether

20 minutes (~5 minutes each)

— Play Check This Transition Bumper —

Check This Out

10 minutes

Pods is a frontend for podman. It uses libadwaita for its user interface and strives to meet the design principles of GNOME. It is clean and seemingly simple but surprisingly powerful when you start digging deeper. It’s an excellent way to visualize what containers are configured along with all the pertinent details. Keeping track of all the disparate pieces of container setups can be challenging from the command line and this tool allows you to not only get a 10,000 foot view but also drill down into the specifics and make changes.

With Pods you can, among other things:

  • Connect to local and remote Podman instances.
  • Easily overview images, containers and pods.
  • View prepared information about images, containers, and pods.
  • Inspect images, containers and pods.
  • View and search container logs.
  • Monitor processes of containers and pods.
  • Download images and build them using Dockerfiles.
  • Create pods and containers.
  • Control the lifecycle of containers and pods (in bulk) (start, stop, pause, etc.).
  • Delete images, containers, and pods (in bulk).
  • Prune images.
  • Rename containers.

Housekeeping & Announcements

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  • If you see something that you think we should be talking 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 and for hosting the server which runs our website, website maintenance, and the NextCloud server on which we host our show notes and raw audio
  • 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
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem … and co!>

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Linux Mint

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