Arco Linux – mintCast https://mintcast.org The podcast by the Linux Mint community for all users of Linux Wed, 06 Jan 2021 05:37:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1 https://mintcast.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/cropped-small-logo-32x32.png Arco Linux – mintCast https://mintcast.org 32 32 164426984 mintCast 351.5 – Batting a Thousand (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-351-5-batting-a-thousand-mp3/ Wed, 06 Jan 2021 05:30:34 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4852 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions Download
]]> Download

1:40 Linux Innards
1:12:18 Vibrations from the Ether
1:17:37 Check This Out
1:21:21 Outro

In our Innards section, we look back on last year’s predictions, and make new ones.

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

LINUX INNARDS:

What Did We Get Wrong?

  • Joe
  • Leo
    • Microsoft Office will have a native Linux version released
    • Adobe Photoshop will have a native Linux version released
    • AutoCAD will have a native Linux version released
      • Nope, Nope, and Nope
    • Moss will record a Gentoo show
      • Moss has moved away from Gentoo but is getting closer to Bodhi, and even started a Bodhi Telegram group which is semi-official
    • Firefox vs. The World. Firefox will be the last popular non-Chromium holdout.
      • The key word is “popular”. At the current rate, that soon won’t include Firefox. Gnome Web and Safari (Mac only) are also still blink-free.
    • 1
  • Tony H
    • Linux Driver support will continue to improve and more hardware manufacturers (Nvidia I’m looking at you) will develop open source Linux Drivers. 
      • Nope
    • I was banking on a New R.Pi revision if not a totally new model, I still think that adding M.2 support, as other SBC manufacturers have, is the way to go in the long term. But this will probably require a totally new board design and may still be a year or 2 away. It may be that someone designs an add on board that will provide this function, but if they do it needs to be a device that allows the drive to be the boot drive.  
      • As for Driver support not much has changed with this so that is probably a Zero  
      • But I nailed it in respect of the Pi, a new compute module 4 was released which if you get a board to plug it that has a PCIe slot you can add a M.2 SATA board and use this for the drive storage. Also the Pi 400 was also released which is a totally new model based on the Pi 4 chipset but clocked at 1800MHz and with a totally new layout that allows for a good passive heat sink across the whole of the board that sits in the Keyboard.
    • 2  100 percent
  • Moss
    • Now that Canonical has agreements with Microsoft for WSL and Amazon for Ubuntu Pro and AWS, I predict they will begin (or continue, if they have already begun in secret) working on agreements with other megacorps such as Alphabet, Oracle, SAP, and Apache.
      • Nope. All wrong. Or they kept it quite well-hidden.
    • If they succeed with any one of these new alliances, they will be insulated from potential buyouts and takeovers. I therefore predict this is the year they go IPO.
      • If not-A then not-B. But SUSE is rumored to be heading for an IPO in 2021.
  • Tony W
    • Maru OS will significantly expand supported devices
      • Will add support for a Oneplus device, very likely 3/3T
      • Will also add support for Galaxy Note devices, Note 9 and/or Note 10
        • Nope
    • We will see convergence on Pine64 devices, with Pinephone able to dock to peripherals and run full desktop applications
      • Oh, Yeah
    • A big box store will sell a PC preconfigured with Linux in 2020
      • Nope
  • Oliver Kelly
    • End of Windows 7 support won’t increase the Linux desktop uptake
      • Point
    • Intel’s new Graphics card wont suck on Linux
      • Not released yet.
  • Erik Lietz
    • Purism will go out of business – the Librem 5 phone endeavor will put it under
       (Purism’s reach into so many products will be their undoing and even with some products doing well, this will be too much for their business to sustain)

      • Although not out of business but Purism has been much much quieter in 2020 than they were in 2019.
    • The PinePhone will be an amazing product and success story for Pine64
       (I am waiting for the second offering after the Brave Heart edition. The PinePhone product development will set a ‘gold’ standard how to correctly launch new product)

      • Pine64 has been a joy to watch their activity in 2020. So much I have just received my Manjaro edition PinePhone. What a great product for $200.
    • An major industry specific software company (Adobe, Autodesk (for AutoCAD), or similar) will offer a Linux version for a flagship software product
       (Adobe, Autodesk, or another specific flagship program dedicated for a very specific task. Running natively, no Wine, no web apps – AutoCAD can already run as a web app)

      • Dud on this one… As a side note for our business we are looking to migrate away from AutoCAD.
    • Microsoft will offer Office 365 on Linux
       (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint at a minimum will be running natively on Linux, no Wine, no web apps)

      • Again a zero – although we are using Edge on Linux in the office for our web accounting systeming.
    • Linux preinstalled from a major hardware supplier will be available in big box stores available off of the shelf (a large hardware vendor (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc)
      • I claim a handicap on this one as with all the goings on people weren’t allowed in stores most of the year. Although, both HP and Lenovo in particular have made major releases with Linux including both Fedora and Ubuntu on a whole bunch of Lenovo products. [Moss: Don’t forget that Dell increased their offerings of Linux machines.]

What About Next Year?

  • Leo
    •  Apple’s M1 Air and Pro will work moderately well on Linux.
    • Microsoft Office will have a native Linux version released.
    • Everybody focuses on the browser and not the CEO. Firefox sees an upswing in users. 5% and going up.
  • Joe
    • Red Hat will somehow disappoint us more over the next year and become even more corporate.
    • Game streaming services will have a very good year and become much more common.  Steam will release a Stadia competitor, with no local install.
    • It will be both a good year and a bad year for linux because of online services.  There will be many more ‘computers’ using the linux kernel but not actually linux. Similar to the chromebook.
  • Tony H
    • Well as I have been successful with my Pi predictions I’m going to do another one and  go way out on a limb and  suggest we may be heading for a Pi 5 or at least a Pi 4+. I will also predict that the Pi 400 will get a revision with 8Gb of RAM and possibly a further overclock of the CPU so those not comfortable doing things like that will have a 2.1Ghz CPU out of the box, as with the very good passive cooling it has been shown to be very stable at this clock speed.
  • Moss
    • Distrohoppers’ Digest will exceed 18,000 total downloads. (this would require our average downloads per episode to exceed 600, and at least 10 episodes)
    • At least 6 long-standing distros (3 years or longer) will close or merge, and be replaced by at least 8 new distros – at least 4 of them forks of what just closed shop.
    • I and/or my wife will have a job which pays enough for our needs and will survive 2021 much better than we did 2020.
    • Covid will be a minor irritation by the end of the year, not a world-spanning pandemic and contact-tracking apps will be a thing of the past.
  • Josh Hawk
    • Linux phones will double in number and power in 2021
    • All mainstream cable tv channels will switch to apps.
    • Firefox will be given to the community to maintain (maybe for the better) or be so underfunded that they will lay off almost all working on it.
  • Erik Lietz 
    • Wayland – the transition to Wayland will become much more prevalent or mainstream among distributions in 2021. It won’t completely transition from X but it will gain much more traction in 2021. (Hedge! hedge!) (Durden!)
    • Microsoft Office 365 natively on Linux (repeat of 2020).
    • A Linux phone (probably the Pine Phone) will be available for the ‘average’ consumer in 2021 and be able to be a daily driver phone.
    • Warpinator will expand to almost all distributions and become the ‘go to’ solution for easy computer to computer file transactions similar to the Apple AirDrop.
    • A new, independent non-Chrome based web browser will enter the market. This will either push Mozilla to retool and reinvigorate Firefox or the downward spin will speed up.
  • Owen Peery
    • Raspberry Pi will continue to develop either the 4 or the 400 so that all the models can easily come with 8G RAM minimum and with processor speeds above 2 Ghz with no overclocking necessary
      • So more distros will function on it, and it can BE A REPLACEMENT for low end Chromebooks that are pretty crappy
    • Linux podcasts will continue to fumble advertising and promotion and alienate their listeners as they pile on more and more promotional spots. Spots for legitimate companies, who might even be our friends, and support our interests, but the sheer number of spots we hear each week as we listen to our favorite podcasts, turns the signal into noise, and noise that we will ignore. Let’s not adopt the advertising models that many of us are trying to get away from, we can do better.
    • Linux audio will get better as Pipewire rolls out in more places. Even if it’s not widely adopted at the beginning it will show a simpler path forward is possible.
    • Linux influencers will continue to wring their hands about the perpetual issue of lack of diversity in the Linux ecosystem, while at the same time, failing to take public stands against white supremacy and toxic masculinity in our very community. It’s not enough to just invite people from underrepresented groups to our spaces, we have to make sure our spaces are not hostile to the very people some of us are trying to include. This is where a lot of growth in Linux use and adoption can happen, but will it?
    • Software for creative endeavors will continue to get better and better on Linux so hobbyists can make our fun pet projects, on software that works, that has tons of options to make it pretty, AND that doesn’t have an obtuse soul crushing work flow. Sometimes we focus on getting the pro level users a good experience on Linux software, but I think the hobbyists are where we should focus. A pro level user probably works for a company that already has a license locked in, and has an entire workflow based on proprietary solutions, and dozens, if not hundreds of employees, so that will be a hard nut to crack.
    • The onboarding path for beginners will not get easier. The time investment needed to get up to speed on some basic tasks will continue to be just enough to scare off the competent but casual users, let alone semi incompetent users. We need to either change that or accept that Linux might not be a good option for beginners. If we want to make space for beginners in Linux, we must hold space, without judgments, for beginners, and bring them in with intention, not left in the wild.
  • Josh Lowe
    • Ubuntu support on Raspberry Pi will improve dramatically and become as popular or overtake Raspbian as the main Raspberry Pi OS
    • We could see an Official Raspberry Pi Laptop
    • a RISC-V Powered RPi
  • Oliver Kelly
    • A new demonstration of MS <3 Linux with desktop compatible Office suite via Electron or some container system like Snap or LXD.
  • Utopic Unicorn (Discord)
    • Canonical will go closed source.
    • Linux Mint will see a huge controversy.
    • Manjaro gets shut down.
    • Arco linux sees a huge increase in new users.
    • Redhat gets decimated in the server industry in favour of other distros including Debian.
  • rockhazard (Discord)
    • MS will *drop* development of Edge for Linux. (a man can hope)
  • Sundaram (Telegram)
    • Proton/Wine will support EAC
    • Matrix users will skyrocket.
    • Linux will run on Apple M1.
    • Lots and lots of ARM devices.
    • RISC-V will grow a lot.
    • Nvidia will open source its drivers. (Lol)
    • Due to the release of many cloud gaming platforms fragmentation will occur (also timed exclusives will be more common).
  • J Arun Mani (Telegram)
    • Microsoft will expand its poison net: WSL, VSCode and many things that will prevent users from really moving to Linux
    • Adobe will continue to call Linux a modest platform
    • Emacs will become more modern and beginner friendly.
  • Dave Goldsbrough (Twitter)
    • (More of a wish!) Accessibility will be much better in Linux.
  • Joussef Jouda 
    • No innovative changes in Linux in 2021

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

  • Clay Stone
  • From Alex
  • Brad Alexander
  • Avinash

CHECK THIS OUT! 

Announcements:

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!>
]]> 4852 mintCast 351.5 – Batting a Thousand https://mintcast.org/mintcast-351-5-batting-a-thousand/ Wed, 06 Jan 2021 05:13:38 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4846 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Download
]]> Download

1:40 Linux Innards
1:12:18 Vibrations from the Ether
1:17:37 Check This Out
1:21:21 Outro

In our Innards section, we look back on last year’s predictions, and make new ones.

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

LINUX INNARDS:

What Did We Get Wrong?

  • Joe
  • Leo
    • Microsoft Office will have a native Linux version released
    • Adobe Photoshop will have a native Linux version released
    • AutoCAD will have a native Linux version released
      • Nope, Nope, and Nope
    • Moss will record a Gentoo show
      • Moss has moved away from Gentoo but is getting closer to Bodhi, and even started a Bodhi Telegram group which is semi-official
    • Firefox vs. The World. Firefox will be the last popular non-Chromium holdout.
      • The key word is “popular”. At the current rate, that soon won’t include Firefox. Gnome Web and Safari (Mac only) are also still blink-free.
    • 1
  • Tony H
    • Linux Driver support will continue to improve and more hardware manufacturers (Nvidia I’m looking at you) will develop open source Linux Drivers. 
      • Nope
    • I was banking on a New R.Pi revision if not a totally new model, I still think that adding M.2 support, as other SBC manufacturers have, is the way to go in the long term. But this will probably require a totally new board design and may still be a year or 2 away. It may be that someone designs an add on board that will provide this function, but if they do it needs to be a device that allows the drive to be the boot drive.  
      • As for Driver support not much has changed with this so that is probably a Zero  
      • But I nailed it in respect of the Pi, a new compute module 4 was released which if you get a board to plug it that has a PCIe slot you can add a M.2 SATA board and use this for the drive storage. Also the Pi 400 was also released which is a totally new model based on the Pi 4 chipset but clocked at 1800MHz and with a totally new layout that allows for a good passive heat sink across the whole of the board that sits in the Keyboard.
    • 2  100 percent
  • Moss
    • Now that Canonical has agreements with Microsoft for WSL and Amazon for Ubuntu Pro and AWS, I predict they will begin (or continue, if they have already begun in secret) working on agreements with other megacorps such as Alphabet, Oracle, SAP, and Apache.
      • Nope. All wrong. Or they kept it quite well-hidden.
    • If they succeed with any one of these new alliances, they will be insulated from potential buyouts and takeovers. I therefore predict this is the year they go IPO.
      • If not-A then not-B. But SUSE is rumored to be heading for an IPO in 2021.
  • Tony W
    • Maru OS will significantly expand supported devices
      • Will add support for a Oneplus device, very likely 3/3T
      • Will also add support for Galaxy Note devices, Note 9 and/or Note 10
        • Nope
    • We will see convergence on Pine64 devices, with Pinephone able to dock to peripherals and run full desktop applications
      • Oh, Yeah
    • A big box store will sell a PC preconfigured with Linux in 2020
      • Nope
  • Oliver Kelly
    • End of Windows 7 support won’t increase the Linux desktop uptake
      • Point
    • Intel’s new Graphics card wont suck on Linux
      • Not released yet.
  • Erik Lietz
    • Purism will go out of business – the Librem 5 phone endeavor will put it under
       (Purism’s reach into so many products will be their undoing and even with some products doing well, this will be too much for their business to sustain)

      • Although not out of business but Purism has been much much quieter in 2020 than they were in 2019.
    • The PinePhone will be an amazing product and success story for Pine64
       (I am waiting for the second offering after the Brave Heart edition. The PinePhone product development will set a ‘gold’ standard how to correctly launch new product)

      • Pine64 has been a joy to watch their activity in 2020. So much I have just received my Manjaro edition PinePhone. What a great product for $200.
    • An major industry specific software company (Adobe, Autodesk (for AutoCAD), or similar) will offer a Linux version for a flagship software product
       (Adobe, Autodesk, or another specific flagship program dedicated for a very specific task. Running natively, no Wine, no web apps – AutoCAD can already run as a web app)

      • Dud on this one… As a side note for our business we are looking to migrate away from AutoCAD.
    • Microsoft will offer Office 365 on Linux
       (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint at a minimum will be running natively on Linux, no Wine, no web apps)

      • Again a zero – although we are using Edge on Linux in the office for our web accounting systeming.
    • Linux preinstalled from a major hardware supplier will be available in big box stores available off of the shelf (a large hardware vendor (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc)
      • I claim a handicap on this one as with all the goings on people weren’t allowed in stores most of the year. Although, both HP and Lenovo in particular have made major releases with Linux including both Fedora and Ubuntu on a whole bunch of Lenovo products. [Moss: Don’t forget that Dell increased their offerings of Linux machines.]

What About Next Year?

  • Leo
    •  Apple’s M1 Air and Pro will work moderately well on Linux.
    • Microsoft Office will have a native Linux version released.
    • Everybody focuses on the browser and not the CEO. Firefox sees an upswing in users. 5% and going up.
  • Joe
    • Red Hat will somehow disappoint us more over the next year and become even more corporate.
    • Game streaming services will have a very good year and become much more common.  Steam will release a Stadia competitor, with no local install.
    • It will be both a good year and a bad year for linux because of online services.  There will be many more ‘computers’ using the linux kernel but not actually linux. Similar to the chromebook.
  • Tony H
    • Well as I have been successful with my Pi predictions I’m going to do another one and  go way out on a limb and  suggest we may be heading for a Pi 5 or at least a Pi 4+. I will also predict that the Pi 400 will get a revision with 8Gb of RAM and possibly a further overclock of the CPU so those not comfortable doing things like that will have a 2.1Ghz CPU out of the box, as with the very good passive cooling it has been shown to be very stable at this clock speed.
  • Moss
    • Distrohoppers’ Digest will exceed 18,000 total downloads. (this would require our average downloads per episode to exceed 600, and at least 10 episodes)
    • At least 6 long-standing distros (3 years or longer) will close or merge, and be replaced by at least 8 new distros – at least 4 of them forks of what just closed shop.
    • I and/or my wife will have a job which pays enough for our needs and will survive 2021 much better than we did 2020.
    • Covid will be a minor irritation by the end of the year, not a world-spanning pandemic and contact-tracking apps will be a thing of the past.
  • Josh Hawk
    • Linux phones will double in number and power in 2021
    • All mainstream cable tv channels will switch to apps.
    • Firefox will be given to the community to maintain (maybe for the better) or be so underfunded that they will lay off almost all working on it.
  • Erik Lietz 
    • Wayland – the transition to Wayland will become much more prevalent or mainstream among distributions in 2021. It won’t completely transition from X but it will gain much more traction in 2021. (Hedge! hedge!) (Durden!)
    • Microsoft Office 365 natively on Linux (repeat of 2020).
    • A Linux phone (probably the Pine Phone) will be available for the ‘average’ consumer in 2021 and be able to be a daily driver phone.
    • Warpinator will expand to almost all distributions and become the ‘go to’ solution for easy computer to computer file transactions similar to the Apple AirDrop.
    • A new, independent non-Chrome based web browser will enter the market. This will either push Mozilla to retool and reinvigorate Firefox or the downward spin will speed up.
  • Owen Peery
    • Raspberry Pi will continue to develop either the 4 or the 400 so that all the models can easily come with 8G RAM minimum and with processor speeds above 2 Ghz with no overclocking necessary
      • So more distros will function on it, and it can BE A REPLACEMENT for low end Chromebooks that are pretty crappy
    • Linux podcasts will continue to fumble advertising and promotion and alienate their listeners as they pile on more and more promotional spots. Spots for legitimate companies, who might even be our friends, and support our interests, but the sheer number of spots we hear each week as we listen to our favorite podcasts, turns the signal into noise, and noise that we will ignore. Let’s not adopt the advertising models that many of us are trying to get away from, we can do better.
    • Linux audio will get better as Pipewire rolls out in more places. Even if it’s not widely adopted at the beginning it will show a simpler path forward is possible.
    • Linux influencers will continue to wring their hands about the perpetual issue of lack of diversity in the Linux ecosystem, while at the same time, failing to take public stands against white supremacy and toxic masculinity in our very community. It’s not enough to just invite people from underrepresented groups to our spaces, we have to make sure our spaces are not hostile to the very people some of us are trying to include. This is where a lot of growth in Linux use and adoption can happen, but will it?
    • Software for creative endeavors will continue to get better and better on Linux so hobbyists can make our fun pet projects, on software that works, that has tons of options to make it pretty, AND that doesn’t have an obtuse soul crushing work flow. Sometimes we focus on getting the pro level users a good experience on Linux software, but I think the hobbyists are where we should focus. A pro level user probably works for a company that already has a license locked in, and has an entire workflow based on proprietary solutions, and dozens, if not hundreds of employees, so that will be a hard nut to crack.
    • The onboarding path for beginners will not get easier. The time investment needed to get up to speed on some basic tasks will continue to be just enough to scare off the competent but casual users, let alone semi incompetent users. We need to either change that or accept that Linux might not be a good option for beginners. If we want to make space for beginners in Linux, we must hold space, without judgments, for beginners, and bring them in with intention, not left in the wild.
  • Josh Lowe
    • Ubuntu support on Raspberry Pi will improve dramatically and become as popular or overtake Raspbian as the main Raspberry Pi OS
    • We could see an Official Raspberry Pi Laptop
    • a RISC-V Powered RPi
  • Oliver Kelly
    • A new demonstration of MS <3 Linux with desktop compatible Office suite via Electron or some container system like Snap or LXD.
  • Utopic Unicorn (Discord)
    • Canonical will go closed source.
    • Linux Mint will see a huge controversy.
    • Manjaro gets shut down.
    • Arco linux sees a huge increase in new users.
    • Redhat gets decimated in the server industry in favour of other distros including Debian.
  • rockhazard (Discord)
    • MS will *drop* development of Edge for Linux. (a man can hope)
  • Sundaram (Telegram)
    • Proton/Wine will support EAC
    • Matrix users will skyrocket.
    • Linux will run on Apple M1.
    • Lots and lots of ARM devices.
    • RISC-V will grow a lot.
    • Nvidia will open source its drivers. (Lol)
    • Due to the release of many cloud gaming platforms fragmentation will occur (also timed exclusives will be more common).
  • J Arun Mani (Telegram)
    • Microsoft will expand its poison net: WSL, VSCode and many things that will prevent users from really moving to Linux
    • Adobe will continue to call Linux a modest platform
    • Emacs will become more modern and beginner friendly.
  • Dave Goldsbrough (Twitter)
    • (More of a wish!) Accessibility will be much better in Linux.
  • Joussef Jouda 
    • No innovative changes in Linux in 2021

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

  • Clay Stone
  • From Alex
  • Brad Alexander
  • Avinash

CHECK THIS OUT! 

Announcements:

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!>
]]> 4846 mintCast 350 – Rocky Road Ahead (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-350-rocky-road-ahead-mp3/ Thu, 17 Dec 2020 05:12:09 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4820 Then in the news, We have the latest Mint newsletter, Cinnamon 4.8 arrives, Elementary OS goes Pi, and much more  
In security, we shed some light on Oblivious DNS over HTTPS
Download
]]> Download

1:14 HPR Spot
2:13 Show Start
3:18 Wanderings
54:52 News
1:18:33 Security
1:30:54 Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, Joe preps for 3D work and does some Audio editing, Tony gets older and has a new toy to play with, Bo has been educating himself, Moss destroys his wife’s computer by accident, and Josh was a little late.

Then in the news, We have the latest Mint newsletter, Cinnamon 4.8 arrives, Elementary OS goes Pi, and much more  

In security, we shed some light on Oblivious DNS over HTTPS

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Playing with Arco Linux and a Tiling Window Manager.
    • Owen sent me a Pi 3B. Thanks! 
    • Giving Gitea a try. More in the feedback!
  • Joe
    •  Have not been doing much of my own stuff in the past 2 weeks.
      • Lots of people on vacation at work so I have been putting in a lot of extra hours doing what would normally be their work and my work and trying to lighten the load for my boss.
    • Have sliced several designs to print but have not had a good time to get those printed and ready to go.  Plus I think I still need to tweak some of the settings.  Maybe try a much slower speed with petg or try a different brand.  The brand I am currently using seems like I get about half way through the roll and it becomes progressively harder to get a good print
    • Edited some audio from last year’s HPR new years show for my daughter so that she can remember it forever.  
    • Picked up a PSP Go for a good price that was listed as for parts only.
      • Have to say that I am both happy and disappointed with my purchase
      • Once again got a low cost device and it works perfectly
      • CFW and a selection of games installed but limited by the internal memory of 16gb
      • The device takes a very proprietary memory module (M2) and there is only one prebuilt adapter available for it that is in Japan but is not currently available due to covid.
      • It is possible to directly solder to this device and convert to memory stick duo but I don’t want to hard mod the device and bring the value down succeed or fail the hardware would no longer be original
      • I was hoping that the backlight was out or the screen needed to be replaced so I could work on a new fix.
      • But I have been using it to play Hydro Thunder 
      • Also sold another of the PSP 1001s so I have just about broken even for all the PSPs and the parts I have purchased
    • Was able to get the VPN Docker instance with Transmission to connect to a VPN from internally but I could not get it to work from startup.  Also getting to work from inside would then cause it to close down. So I am still using the VM to do the heavy lifting.
      • But I was able to find a VPN client Docker instance for which I was able to modify the ovpn file from my provider to get it working.  
      • This has allowed me to set up my Docker version of Chrome with the traffic pushed through the VPN container on all my machines
    • Have started biking in the evenings
      • Forgot how much I enjoy biking.  Have been getting a lot of time in and it seems to be helping a bit with the hip arthritis 
      • But I did get pulled over.  
  • Josh
    • Messing around with my new server HP dl380 g5 and laptop Dell XPS P54G.
    • Writing some python.
    • Back on Linux Mint on my main desktop and Dell XPS.
  • Tony Hughes
    • Recorded the latest episode of Distrohoppers Digest with Dale, who at the end we inaugurated as a permanent team member. By the time you listen to the edited show, the episode should be available for download.
    • A week and a half ago I had a camera down my throat to check out why I have been unwell recently and have a diagnosis of a Hiatus Hernia, now I know what the issue is, I can now hopefully mitigate some of the unpleasant symptoms with a few lifestyle changes.
    • And I have just recently celebrated my birthday, although I’m only the second oldest of the mintCast team lol. As a present from my wife I got a new toy to help me do my modeling a little safer, a small pedestal drill. It works great and will reduce the risk of me drilling my fingers as I will be able to use a small vice to hold things I’m drilling and it is far more accurate and so far the results I’m getting are fantastic.  
  • Moss
    • Last night, I thought I would do my wife a favor and remove Ubuntu Unity from her machine; she wasn’t using it and sometimes booted into it accidentally, causing some freaking out. I thought I did everything right, wrote a new boot on the Mint partition, used GPartEd to remove the partition, and expanded the Mint partition to fill the vacated space. About 90 minutes before showtime today, while talking to my mother about her Medicare running out on her rehab care and she would have to pay $300 a day to stay there while her hip continued to heal, my wife informed me she had a Grub Repair screen. I tried a lot of things I have learned over the years, but eventually had to get my Ventoy stick out and boot to Mint. When I still couldn’t get GRUB restored, and with time running out before the show, I took the easy way out and installed Mint again, and was pleased to see that it allowed me to install alongside the original boot so she still has her original installation to run. There is still a lot of work to do to get it back to a single installation which actually boots. That will happen after the show.
    • I just managed to complete another circuit of the Homestar, and am now 68 years old as measured in this backwards system. As celebrations went, this was not one of my finest, nor was the year itself, but I’m happy to have survived this far and thrilled to be on mintCast team.
    • We will have released Distrohoppers’ Digest Episode 018 by the time anyone hears this episode. To date, three episodes have reached or exceeded 600 downloads each, which warms my furry little heart, and Episode 017 is over 500 already.
    • I am set up this episode in my second bedroom, with a TV tray and my laptop. If I get any money over the holidays which is not necessary for my continued existence (bills, food), I will add a smallish desk and a mid-sized TV, say 24-26”, and use my mini-desktop; this also means I will have to get the Pi 4 working as my Kodi server for the living room.
    • Dresden-wise, we’re about 75% through Proven Guilty. Dresden and team have just marched into Mab’s broken-looking stronghold.
  • Bo

THE NEWS: 

SECURITY UPDATE:

  • ODOH (Oblivious DNS over HTTPS) * thanks to Londoner
    • FTA: Together, the added encryption and proxying provide the following guarantees:
  • The target sees only the query and the proxy’s IP address.
  • The proxy has no visibility into the DNS messages, with no ability to identify, read, or modify either the query being sent by the client or the answer being returned by the target.
  • Only the intended target can read the content of the query and produce a response.
  • Open Source Devs not concerned about security
  • Trickbot
    • A banking fraud trojan converted to a full malware-as-a-service solution.
    • While UEFI malware is rare because of the difficulty, Trickbot is changing that.
    • This could open the door to OS agnostic UEFI malware that can persist between OS installs and disk swaps.

Announcements:

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!>
]]> 4820 mintCast 350 – Rocky Road Ahead https://mintcast.org/mintcast-350-rocky-road-ahead/ Thu, 17 Dec 2020 04:57:24 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4814 Then in the news, We have the latest Mint newsletter, Cinnamon 4.8 arrives, Elementary OS goes Pi, and much more  
In security, we shed some light on Oblivious DNS over HTTPS
Download
]]> Download

1:14 HPR Spot
2:13 Show Start
3:18 Wanderings
54:52 News
1:18:33 Security
1:30:54 Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, Joe preps for 3D work and does some Audio editing, Tony gets older and has a new toy to play with, Bo has been educating himself, Moss destroys his wife’s computer by accident, and Josh was a little late.

Then in the news, We have the latest Mint newsletter, Cinnamon 4.8 arrives, Elementary OS goes Pi, and much more  

In security, we shed some light on Oblivious DNS over HTTPS

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Playing with Arco Linux and a Tiling Window Manager.
    • Owen sent me a Pi 3B. Thanks! 
    • Giving Gitea a try. More in the feedback!
  • Joe
    •  Have not been doing much of my own stuff in the past 2 weeks.
      • Lots of people on vacation at work so I have been putting in a lot of extra hours doing what would normally be their work and my work and trying to lighten the load for my boss.
    • Have sliced several designs to print but have not had a good time to get those printed and ready to go.  Plus I think I still need to tweak some of the settings.  Maybe try a much slower speed with petg or try a different brand.  The brand I am currently using seems like I get about half way through the roll and it becomes progressively harder to get a good print
    • Edited some audio from last year’s HPR new years show for my daughter so that she can remember it forever.  
    • Picked up a PSP Go for a good price that was listed as for parts only.
      • Have to say that I am both happy and disappointed with my purchase
      • Once again got a low cost device and it works perfectly
      • CFW and a selection of games installed but limited by the internal memory of 16gb
      • The device takes a very proprietary memory module (M2) and there is only one prebuilt adapter available for it that is in Japan but is not currently available due to covid.
      • It is possible to directly solder to this device and convert to memory stick duo but I don’t want to hard mod the device and bring the value down succeed or fail the hardware would no longer be original
      • I was hoping that the backlight was out or the screen needed to be replaced so I could work on a new fix.
      • But I have been using it to play Hydro Thunder 
      • Also sold another of the PSP 1001s so I have just about broken even for all the PSPs and the parts I have purchased
    • Was able to get the VPN Docker instance with Transmission to connect to a VPN from internally but I could not get it to work from startup.  Also getting to work from inside would then cause it to close down. So I am still using the VM to do the heavy lifting.
      • But I was able to find a VPN client Docker instance for which I was able to modify the ovpn file from my provider to get it working.  
      • This has allowed me to set up my Docker version of Chrome with the traffic pushed through the VPN container on all my machines
    • Have started biking in the evenings
      • Forgot how much I enjoy biking.  Have been getting a lot of time in and it seems to be helping a bit with the hip arthritis 
      • But I did get pulled over.  
  • Josh
    • Messing around with my new server HP dl380 g5 and laptop Dell XPS P54G.
    • Writing some python.
    • Back on Linux Mint on my main desktop and Dell XPS.
  • Tony Hughes
    • Recorded the latest episode of Distrohoppers Digest with Dale, who at the end we inaugurated as a permanent team member. By the time you listen to the edited show, the episode should be available for download.
    • A week and a half ago I had a camera down my throat to check out why I have been unwell recently and have a diagnosis of a Hiatus Hernia, now I know what the issue is, I can now hopefully mitigate some of the unpleasant symptoms with a few lifestyle changes.
    • And I have just recently celebrated my birthday, although I’m only the second oldest of the mintCast team lol. As a present from my wife I got a new toy to help me do my modeling a little safer, a small pedestal drill. It works great and will reduce the risk of me drilling my fingers as I will be able to use a small vice to hold things I’m drilling and it is far more accurate and so far the results I’m getting are fantastic.  
  • Moss
    • Last night, I thought I would do my wife a favor and remove Ubuntu Unity from her machine; she wasn’t using it and sometimes booted into it accidentally, causing some freaking out. I thought I did everything right, wrote a new boot on the Mint partition, used GPartEd to remove the partition, and expanded the Mint partition to fill the vacated space. About 90 minutes before showtime today, while talking to my mother about her Medicare running out on her rehab care and she would have to pay $300 a day to stay there while her hip continued to heal, my wife informed me she had a Grub Repair screen. I tried a lot of things I have learned over the years, but eventually had to get my Ventoy stick out and boot to Mint. When I still couldn’t get GRUB restored, and with time running out before the show, I took the easy way out and installed Mint again, and was pleased to see that it allowed me to install alongside the original boot so she still has her original installation to run. There is still a lot of work to do to get it back to a single installation which actually boots. That will happen after the show.
    • I just managed to complete another circuit of the Homestar, and am now 68 years old as measured in this backwards system. As celebrations went, this was not one of my finest, nor was the year itself, but I’m happy to have survived this far and thrilled to be on mintCast team.
    • We will have released Distrohoppers’ Digest Episode 018 by the time anyone hears this episode. To date, three episodes have reached or exceeded 600 downloads each, which warms my furry little heart, and Episode 017 is over 500 already.
    • I am set up this episode in my second bedroom, with a TV tray and my laptop. If I get any money over the holidays which is not necessary for my continued existence (bills, food), I will add a smallish desk and a mid-sized TV, say 24-26”, and use my mini-desktop; this also means I will have to get the Pi 4 working as my Kodi server for the living room.
    • Dresden-wise, we’re about 75% through Proven Guilty. Dresden and team have just marched into Mab’s broken-looking stronghold.
  • Bo

THE NEWS: 

SECURITY UPDATE:

  • ODOH (Oblivious DNS over HTTPS) * thanks to Londoner
    • FTA: Together, the added encryption and proxying provide the following guarantees:
  • The target sees only the query and the proxy’s IP address.
  • The proxy has no visibility into the DNS messages, with no ability to identify, read, or modify either the query being sent by the client or the answer being returned by the target.
  • Only the intended target can read the content of the query and produce a response.
  • Open Source Devs not concerned about security
  • Trickbot
    • A banking fraud trojan converted to a full malware-as-a-service solution.
    • While UEFI malware is rare because of the difficulty, Trickbot is changing that.
    • This could open the door to OS agnostic UEFI malware that can persist between OS installs and disk swaps.

Announcements:

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!>
]]> 4814