Firefox – mintCast https://mintcast.org The podcast by the Linux Mint community for all users of Linux Wed, 15 Apr 2026 01:17:12 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1 https://mintcast.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/cropped-small-logo-32x32.png Firefox – mintCast https://mintcast.org 32 32 mintCast false episodic CC-BY-SA 4.0 CC-BY-SA 4.0 podcast Firefox – mintCast https://mintcast.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/big-logo-1600.png https://mintcast.org TV-G 164426984 483 – Chucking at Charlie https://mintcast.org/483-chucking-at-charlie/ Wed, 15 Apr 2026 01:17:10 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7883 First up in the news: Mint 23 is named, Ubuntu 26.04 coming up and its already causing controversy, Firefox gets more features, big tech making some changes, and the governments of the world are meddling, in good and bad ways… and we welcome another host!

In security and privacy: Flatpak getting more secure allegedly

]]> First up in the news: Mint 23 is named, Ubuntu 26.04 coming up and its already causing controversy, Firefox gets more features, big tech making some changes, and the governments of the world are meddling, in good and bad ways… and we welcome another host!

In security and privacy: Flatpak getting more secure allegedly

Link To Full Show Notes

The News:


The code name for Mint 23 is “Alfa”


26.04 Beta


Does Ubuntu Now Require More RAM Than Windows 11?


26.10 could drop btfrs zfs and luks


Firefox Announces Built-in VPN and Other New Features Including New Mascot


Google Now Lets You Change Your Gmail address


Samsung’s Messages App Is Shutting Down


Microsoft Mysteriously Freezes Accounts for VeraCrypt, WireGuard, Windscribe


Why did the FCC ban foreign-made consumer routers?


NHS staff resist using Palantir software


France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins


Student Loans Fiasco, and its IT underpins


LibreOffice Drama: TDF Removes Collabora Developers in One Sweep

Security And Privacy:


Flatpak 1.16.4 Brings Important Security Fixes


CPUID website hacked: users report HWMonitor and CPU-Z delivering malware


Cloudflare aims to dethrone WordPress with EmDash, its new plugin-secure CMS

Check This Out:


New & Update Flatpaks – Nora


26.04 – Another view

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • 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
  • 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!>
]]> full 1:47:56 7883 481 – Change For The Sake of Jim https://mintcast.org/481-change-for-the-sake-of-jim/ Tue, 17 Mar 2026 22:57:08 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7842 First up in the news: Mint Monthly News, March 2026; Major Redesign for Firefox: Chrome getting an upgrade; Debian 13.4; SUSE for sale - again; ASUS says MacBook Neo is “shock”; HBO, Paramount Merge; Xfwl4 coming to XFCE, and more.

In security and privacy: Age Verification coming to your Linux PC?; Anthropic turns Claud loose on Firefox code.

]]> First up in the news: Mint Monthly News, March 2026; Major Redesign for Firefox: Chrome getting an upgrade; Debian 13.4; SUSE for sale – again; ASUS says MacBook Neo is “shock”; HBO, Paramount Merge; Xfwl4 coming to XFCE, and more.

In security and privacy: Age Verification coming to your Linux PC?; Anthropic turns Claud loose on Firefox code.

Link To Full Show Notes

The News:


Mint Monthly News for March 2026


Firefox Is Getting a Major Redesign After 5 Years


Google Chrome on Linux is Getting the Much Awaited Upgrade


Debian 13.4 Released With Dozens Of Fixes


Xfwl4 – The roadmap for a Xfce Wayland Compositor


SUSE May Undergo Another Ownership Change in Potential $6 Billion Sale


Asus Co-CEO: MacBook Neo Is a ‘Shock’ to the PC Industry


HBO Max and Paramount+ will soon merge into one mega streaming service — here’s what you need to know

Security and Privacy:


Age Verification Laws Are Multiplying Like a Virus, and Your Linux Computer Might be Next


Anthropic found a heap of Firefox security flaws using new Claude tools

Check This Out:


YTDown YouTube Downloader

Vogon Poetry

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • 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!>
]]> full 7842 479 – Bill’s Bash Scripts Bring All The Boys To The Yard https://mintcast.org/479-bills-bash-scripts-bring-all-the-boys-to-the-yard/ Fri, 20 Feb 2026 04:43:40 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7805 First up in the news: Mint Monthly News – January 2026,

In security and privacy: Theres an SSH Stalker

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

]]> First up in the news: Mint Monthly News – January 2026,

In security and privacy: Theres an SSH Stalker


And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

Link To Full Show Notes

The News:


Mint Monthly News – January 2026


Discord Launches Teen-by-Default Settings Globally. Face scan or I.D. needed?


Firefox Announces ‘A.I. Controls’ To Block Its Upcoming A.I. Features


AppManager offers drag-and-drop AppImage management.


Sony Will Ship Its Final Blu-ray Recorders This Month


The Memory Crisis Is Taking No Prisoners


RaspberyPi goes Dual RAM


Linux 6.19


KDE 6.6 & Gnome 50 Betas out


Ubuntu getting rid of the Software & Updater tool


Libreoffice 26.2 released

Security and Privacy:


SSHStalker Botnet Uses IRC C2 to Control Linux Systems via Legacy Kernel Exploits

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • 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!>
]]> full 1:43:01 7805 470 – Laptop Rescue Service AKA “Send us your stuff!” https://mintcast.org/470-laptop-rescue-service-aka-send-us-your-stuff/ Sun, 12 Oct 2025 21:53:38 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7680 First up in the news: LMDE 7 ‘Gigi” release imminent, Mint Monthly News, Ubuntu 25.10 is out and breaking stuff, Firefox shaking is loved by TIME, Windows 10 is officially dead and lots more!

In security and privacy: Charles has some interesting news on AI and new laws in Spain

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

]]> First up in the news: LMDE 7 ‘Gigi” release imminent, Mint Monthly News, Ubuntu 25.10 is out and breaking stuff, Firefox shaking is loved by TIME, Windows 10 is officially dead and lots more!

In security and privacy: Charles has some interesting news on AI and new laws in Spain

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

Link To Full Show Notes

The News:


LMDE 7 Release Imminent


Mint Monthly News – September 2025


Ubuntu 25.10 released, and breaks flatpaks!


Ubuntu Linux 26.04 LTS Officially Named Resolute Raccoon


Cosmic Beta released


Mozilla Firefox is about to add an important feature other browsers have had for years: Profile Management


Mozilla Firefox Shake To Summarize feature gets special mention in TIME’s Best Inventions of 2025


Opera Wants You To Pay $19.90 a Month for Its New AI Browser


Android Security or Vendor Lock-In? Google’s New Sideloading Rules Smell Fishy


Open Source Android Repository F-Droid Says Google’s New Rules Will Shut It Down


Amazon Ditches Android — Launches ‘Linux-Based’ Vega OS for Fire TV


TiVo Exiting Legacy DVR Business


California Law Forces Netflix, Hulu To Turn Down Ad Volumes


Windows 10 support ends on October 14, 2025



PC Sales Explode In Q3 As Windows 11 Deadlines Force Millions To Upgrade


Microsoft Is Plugging More Holes That Let You Use Windows 11 Without an Online Account

Security and Privacy:


AI for America – “A Roadmap to Make AI Work for All Americans, Not Just Big Companies”


Spain’s New age Verification

Check This Out:


Workaround for Flatpaks

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • 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!>
]]> 470 470 Laptop Rescue Service AKA "Send us your stuff!" full 1:43:58 7680 468 – Very Plexable https://mintcast.org/468-very-plexable/ Mon, 15 Sep 2025 21:40:22 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7640 First up in the news: Linux Mint 22.2 “Zara” released, Mint Monthly News – August

In security and privacy: Plex is a problem again

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

]]> First up in the news: Linux Mint 22.2 “Zara” released, Mint Monthly News – August

In security and privacy: Plex is a problem again

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

Link To Full Show Notes

The News:


Mint 22.2 ‘Zara’ released


From the Mint blog by Clem


What’s new in Mint 22.2 Zara


Release Notes for Mint 22.2 Zara


How to upgrade from Mint 22.1


LMDE 7 beta expected in Sep. 2025; Mint 22.3 in Dec. 2025


KDE launches its own distribution (again)


Firefox To End 32-bit support in 2026


Run Windows apps in Linux using open source WinBoat


Is Roku Driving the Final Nail in the Coffin of Traditional TV?


Not completely linux related but Borderlands 4 released Sept 12


Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite Linux Performance Improving But Short Of AMD Ryzen & Intel Core Ultra

Security and Privacy


Plex User Data Exposed


An (almost) catastrophic OpenZFS bug and the humans that made it (and Rust is here too)

Check This Out


NerdyDayTrips


The Bullshit Machine

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • 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!>

]]> 468 468 Very Plexable full 1:57:04 7640 463 – Tacos And TikTok https://mintcast.org/463-tacos-and-tiktok/ Mon, 07 Jul 2025 10:29:03 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7552 First up in the news: Linux hits 5%, Nintendo does what we feared, The orange baby eats a TACO, Steam prefers Proton to Native, Fedora might have killed Bazzite and a new Firefox release

We also welcome Charles as a new co-host!

In security and privacy: more password leakage by big tech

And finally, the Feedback and a couple of suggestions

]]> First up in the news: Linux hits 5%, Nintendo does what we feared, The orange baby eats a TACO, Steam prefers Proton to Native, Fedora might have killed Bazzite and a new Firefox release

We also welcome Charles as a new co-host!

In security and privacy: more password leakage by big tech

And finally, the Feedback and a couple of suggestions

Full Show Notes Here

The News:


Trump extends deadline for US TikTok sale to September


Steam Client Now Enables Proton by Default for Games without Native Linux Builds


Firefox 141 Promises to Use Less Memory on Linux Systems, Beta Out Now


Linux Reaches 5% Desktop Market Share In USA


F44 Change Proposal: Drop i686 support (system wide)


The whole truth about Fedora’s 32-bit proposal w/ Kyle from Bazzite


Nintendo is nuking Switch 2 accounts for using Mig Flash

Security And Privacy


16 billion passwords leaked in Google, Facebook, Apple massive data breach

Check This Out:


WHW03 Mesh Router openwrt


GL.iNet GL-SFT1200

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • 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!>

]]> 463 463 Tacos And TikTok full 1:24:29 7552 459 – Travel Digital Hygene https://mintcast.org/459-travel-digital-hygene/ Sat, 19 Apr 2025 17:24:27 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7479 First up in the news: Mint Monthly News, Linux 6.16 To Add Asahi UAPI Header For Apple Silicon, Switzerland battles privacy intrusions, Firefox adds HEVC playback in Linux, Debian releases APT 3.0, Apple may add Mx GCC core support, Git turns 20, ProtonMail adds advanced features, ArcoLinux ends it all

Then in our Wanderings: Bill is having trouble on the road and won’t be here, Joe returns to us, Moss juggles tablets, Majid learns things, and Eric is AWOL

In our Innards section: we talk travel computing

In Bodhi Corner, Robert Wiley releases a script which can be used to install Moksha on any version of Debian, including Trixie

]]> First up in the news: Mint Monthly News, Linux 6.16 To Add Asahi UAPI Header For Apple Silicon, Switzerland battles privacy intrusions, Firefox adds HEVC playback in Linux, Debian releases APT 3.0, Apple may add Mx GCC core support, Git turns 20, ProtonMail adds advanced features, ArcoLinux ends it all

Then in our Wanderings: Bill is having trouble on the road and won’t be here, Joe returns to us, Moss juggles tablets, Majid learns things, and Eric is AWOL

In our Innards section: we talk travel computing

In Bodhi Corner, Robert Wiley releases a script which can be used to install Moksha on any version of Debian, including Trixie

Full Show Notes Here

The News:


Mint Monthly News – March 2025


Linux 6.16 To Add Asahi UAPI Header For Apple Silicon Graphics But No Actual Driver Yet


Secure encryption and online anonymity are now at risk in Switzerland


Mozilla Firefox 137 Is Available with HEVC Playback Support on Linux, Tab Groups


APT 3.0 Debian Package Manager Released with Revamped Command-Line Interface


Apple M1 / M2 / M3 Core Support Might Soon Be Merged For The GCC Compiler


Git Distributed Version Control System Turned 20


FerenOS 2025.03 Released


Proton Mail Is Getting Some of Gmail’s Best Features


A farewell to the ArcoLinux University


ParticleOS: Systemd’s Very Own Linux Distro in Making

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • 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!>
]]> 459 459 Travel Digital Hygene full true 2:00:31 7479 457- mozillaCast https://mintcast.org/457-mozillacast/ Sat, 22 Mar 2025 16:48:20 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7437 First up in the news: Firefox’s new terms aren’t that bad, uBlock Origin is the Most Popular Firefox Add-on, Cloudflare bounces browsers, and PocketCast goes free

In security and privacy: French government rejects security backdoors, and TAILS replaces balenaEtcher with Rufus as installer for Windows

Then in our Wanderings: Joe moxxes the prox, Bill goes deep in the heart of Texas, Moss sings again, and Majid finally learns Audacity...sort of

]]> First up in the news: Firefox’s new terms aren’t that bad, uBlock Origin is the Most Popular Firefox Add-on, Cloudflare bounces browsers, and PocketCast goes free

In security and privacy: French government rejects security backdoors, and TAILS replaces balenaEtcher with Rufus as installer for Windows


Then in our Wanderings: Joe moxxes the prox, Bill goes deep in the heart of Texas, Moss sings again, and Majid finally learns Audacity…sort of

Full Show Notes Here

The News:


Firefox’s Updated Terms of Use Are Not As Bad As They Sound


uBlock Origin is the Most Popular Firefox Add-on


Cloudflare’s bot bouncer blocks weirdo browsers


Thunderbird 136 Release Adds New Appearance Controls


Pocket Casts Makes Its Web Player Free and Criticizes Corporate-Owned Rivals

Security and Privacy:


France rejects controversial encryption backdoor provision


TAILS replaces balenaEtcher with Rufus as installer for Windows

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • 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!>
]]> 457 457 457 - mozillaCast full 1:56:58 7437 442 – AMD Support is Cachy(ing) On https://mintcast.org/442-amd-support-is-cachying-on/ Sat, 27 Jul 2024 22:09:09 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7066 First up in the news: Mint 22 update, Red Hat may replace GRUB, Fedora drops X11, CachyOS adds AMD support, Apple approves PC emulator, SUSE Requests openSUSE to Rebrand, EXT4 Has A Very Nice Performance Optimization For Linux 6.11

In security and privacy: CrowdStrike broke Linux and nobody noticed, Firefox's New Controversial Feature

Then in our Wanderings: Bill puts his foot down, Joe is working on magnetism, Moss has new toys,

In our Innards section: We talk about Pine64 products

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

]]>
First up in the news: Mint 22 update, Red Hat may replace GRUB, Fedora drops X11, CachyOS adds AMD support, Apple approves PC emulator, SUSE Requests openSUSE to Rebrand, EXT4 Has A Very Nice Performance Optimization For Linux 6.11


In security and privacy: CrowdStrike broke Linux and nobody noticed, Firefox’s New Controversial Feature


Then in our Wanderings: Bill puts his foot down, Joe is working on magnetism, Moss has new toys,


In our Innards section: We talk about Pine64 products


And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

Full Show Notes Here

The News:


Mint 22 Update


Red Hat may replace GRUB


X11 Is No Longer Part of Fedora Workstation 41


CachyOS Introduces New Repository Optimized for AMD Zen 4 and Zen 5 CPUs


Apple Approves First PC Emulator App for iOS – Can it Run Linux?


SUSE Requests openSUSE to Rebrand


EXT4 Has A Very Nice Performance Optimization For Linux 6.11

Security and Privacy


CrowdStrike broke Debian and Rocky Linux months ago, but no one noticed


Firefox’s New Controversial Feature: Is it a problem?

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • Bill Houser 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!>
]]> 442 442 AMD Support is Cachy(ing) On full 1:51:18 7066 441 – Mint’s Back and Rocking https://mintcast.org/441-mints-back-and-rocking/ Wed, 10 Jul 2024 14:02:04 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7031 First up in the news: Mint 22 Beta Released, Mint Monthly News – June, Firefox has a Weather tab, Seattle computer collection is being auctioned, Proton adds Docs to Proton Drive, Linux runs on Google Drive

In security and privacy: KDE Plasma Flaw Opens Door to Unauthorized System Access

Then in our Wanderings: Majid has overdosed on Schadenfreude, Bill screams at OnlyOffice, Joe has fun with his 3D printer, Moss makes a mess of things

]]> First up in the news: Mint 22 Beta Released, Mint Monthly News – June, Firefox has a Weather tab, Seattle computer collection is being auctioned, Proton adds Docs to Proton Drive, Linux runs on Google Drive

In security and privacy: KDE Plasma Flaw Opens Door to Unauthorized System Access

Then in our Wanderings: Majid has overdosed on Schadenfreude, Bill screams at OnlyOffice, Joe has fun with his 3D printer, Moss makes a mess of things

Full Show Notes Here

The News:

Linux Mint 22 Betas Released

Mint Monthly News – June 2024

Firefox’s New Weather Tab

Seattle’s Living Computers Museum logs off for good as Paul Allen estate will auction vintage items

Proton launches its own version of Google Docs

Linux Distro Can Run on Google Drive: This Developer Made It Happen

Security and Privacy:

KDE Plasma Flaw Opens Door to Unauthorized System Access

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • 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!>
]]> 441 441 441 - Mint's Back and Rocking full 1:22:40 7031 438 – Copilot Takeover https://mintcast.org/438-copilot-takeover/ Fri, 31 May 2024 23:26:32 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=6940 First up in the news: Mozilla Reveals New Features Coming to Firefox, Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for NVIDIA Users, KDE Plasma 6.1 Beta Released With Wayland Explicit Sync, Input Capture Portal & More, KDE Plasma 6.1 Lands Dynamic Triple Buffering Support, Btrfs Sends In Fixes For Linux 6.10 & Restores "norecovery" Mount Option, Turkey bans Distrowatch

In security and privacy: High-severity GitLab flaw lets attackers take over accounts, Microsoft unveils Copilot+ PCs with generative AI capabilities baked in, including one that is causing concern for a UK-based watchdog group.

Then in our Wanderings: Joe gets his shots, Bill endeavors to dual boot, Majid creates Frankensteins Ubuntu, and Eric dips his toe into the world of digital art pens and illustration as well as honing his Audacity skills.

]]> First up in the news: Mozilla Reveals New Features Coming to Firefox, Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for NVIDIA Users, KDE Plasma 6.1 Beta Released With Wayland Explicit Sync, Input Capture Portal & More, KDE Plasma 6.1 Lands Dynamic Triple Buffering Support, Btrfs Sends In Fixes For Linux 6.10 & Restores “norecovery” Mount Option, Turkey bans Distrowatch

In security and privacy: High-severity GitLab flaw lets attackers take over accounts, Microsoft unveils Copilot+ PCs with generative AI capabilities baked in, including one that is causing concern for a UK-based watchdog group.

Then in our Wanderings: Joe gets his shots, Bill endeavors to dual boot, Majid creates Frankensteins Ubuntu, and Eric dips his toe into the world of digital art pens and illustration as well as honing his Audacity skills.

Full Show Notes Here

The News

Mozilla Reveals New Features Coming to Firefox

Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for NVIDIA Users

KDE Plasma 6.1 Beta Released With Wayland Explicit Sync, Input Capture Portal & More

KDE Plasma 6.1 Lands Dynamic Triple Buffering Support

Btrfs Sends In Fixes For Linux 6.10 & Restores “norecovery” Mount Option

Turkey bans Distrowatch

Security and Privacy

High-severity GitLab flaw lets attackers take over accounts

The next two articles will actually be discussed during the innards (next episode) but we’ve linked them here anyway.

Microsoft unveils Copilot+ PCs with generative AI capabilities baked in

UK watchdog looking into Microsoft AI taking screenshots

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • 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!>
]]> 438 438 Copilot Takeover full 1:35:08 6940 426 – Happy Birthday, mintCast! https://mintcast.org/426-happy-birthday-mintcast/ Thu, 30 Nov 2023 04:34:37 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=6485 First up in the news: mintCast has a birthday, Mint 21.3 is named, Amazon works on a Linux fork for their devices, Ubuntu commits to Netplan, Firefox attempts Wayland, FreeBSD 14 is out, Endeavour releases Galileo, Vivaldi comes to Flathub, Google kills magazine content, OpenMandriva releases Rock 5.0, Pipewire reaches 1.0.0

In security and privacy: Google Chrome’s Privacy Washing

Then in our Wanderings: Bill may just be losing his mind, (there are doubts?), Joe prints everything but money, Majid does VR, Moss hangs on, and Eric spends more quality time with his Linux tablet.

Download
]]> First up in the news: mintCast has a birthday, Mint 21.3 is named, Amazon works on a Linux fork for their devices, Ubuntu commits to Netplan, Firefox attempts Wayland, FreeBSD 14 is out, Endeavour releases Galileo, Vivaldi comes to Flathub, Google kills magazine content, OpenMandriva releases Rock 5.0, Pipewire reaches 1.0.0

In security and privacy: Google Chrome’s Privacy Washing

Then in our Wanderings: Bill may just be losing his mind, (there are doubts?), Joe prints everything but money, Majid does VR, Moss hangs on, and Eric spends more quality time with his Linux tablet.

  1. 00:00:00 – Hacker Public Radio New Years Eve Promo
  2. 00:00:56 – Intro
  3. 00:01:23 – New Intro Music
  4. 00:02:41 – News
  5. 00:54:13 – Security And Privacy
  6. 01:04:49 – Bi-Weekly Wanderings
  7. 01:58:35 – Housekeeping and Announcements
  8. 01:59:43 – Wrap Up
  9. 02:02:24 – Special Thanks
  10. 02:03:10 – New Outro Music

The News

mintCast Turns 15

Linux Mint 21.3 has been named

Amazon moves from Android Fork to Linux

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Committing Fully To Netplan For Network Configuration

Firefox is going to try to ship Wayland as default

FreeBSD 14 Released

EndeavourOS Releases Galileo Desktop

Vivaldi comes to Flathub

Google News is shutting down purchased magazine content, offering refunds

OpenMandriva LX 5 released

Pipewire reaches 1.0.0

Security and Privacy

Google Chrome’s IP Protection is privacy washing

Full Show Notes Can Be Found Here

Wrap Up

Special Thanks To:

  • Someone (probably 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!>
]]> 426 426 Happy Birthday, mintCast! full 2:04:20 6485 425 – Firefox Down https://mintcast.org/425-firefox-down/ Sun, 19 Nov 2023 03:17:20 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=6460 First up in the news: Ubuntu 24.04 gets a name, Mozilla Doubles Down on Firefox DEB Package, Discord is now official on Flathub, scrcpy gets an update, LXQt 1.4.0 is released, Firefox Accounts gets a Mozilla rename, Brave launches an AI, there is a new Audacity, OpenELA forms to preserve RHEL access, Element gets a new license, Proton has a new app, Fedora 39 is released, and OBS Studio 30 is out

Then in our Wanderings: Bill gets things linked up, Joe plays with Nextcloud, Moss shuffles his files around, Majid plays musical chairs, and Eric finally buys a tablet.

Download
]]> First up in the news: Ubuntu 24.04 gets a name, Mozilla Doubles Down on Firefox DEB Package, Discord is now official on Flathub, scrcpy gets an update, LXQt 1.4.0 is released, Firefox Accounts gets a Mozilla rename, Brave launches an AI, there is a new Audacity, OpenELA forms to preserve RHEL access, Element gets a new license, Proton has a new app, Fedora 39 is released, and OBS Studio 30 is out

In security and privacy: we got nothing

Then in our Wanderings: Bill gets things linked up, Joe plays with Nextcloud, Moss shuffles his files around, Majid plays musical chairs, and Eric finally buys a tablet.

  1. 00:00:00 – Intro
  2. 00:01:48 – News
  3. 01:09:23 – Bi-Weekly Wanderings
  4. 01:37:57 – Housekeeping and Announcemnts
  5. 01:38:45 – Wrap Up
  6. 01:40:38 – Special Thanks

The News

Ubuntu 24.04 gets a name

Mozilla Doubles Down on Firefox DEB Package

Discord is now Verified on Flathub

scrcpy v2.2

LXQt 1.4.0 Released

Why ‘Firefox accounts’ are becoming ‘Mozilla accounts’

Brave launches Leo AI

Audacity 3.4 Released with New Music Workflows, Time Stretch Tool

CIQ, Oracle, and SUSE unite behind OpenELA to take on Red Hat Enterprise Linux

A new home and license (AGPL) for Synapse and friends

Proton releases a brand-new Linux app with many new features for its Proton VPN service

Fedora Linux 39 is officially here!

OBS Studio 30 Released with Support for Intel QSV H264, HEVC, and AV1 on Linux

Full Show Notes Can Be Found Here

Wrap Up

Special Thanks To:

  • Bill Houser 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 contribution
  • 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!>
]]> 425 425 Firefox Down full 1:42:37 6460 420 – “Puff Puff Pass” https://mintcast.org/420-puff-puff-pass/ Wed, 06 Sep 2023 04:00:00 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=6354 First up in the news: Mint Monthly News – August, New Asahi Linux Mac GPU beats Apple, Gnome improves Epiphany, Budgie 10.8 is out, Bodhi 7.0.0 is released, QEMU 8.1 released, LibreOffice gets a new number, Linux Turns 32, Mageia 9 released, Linux Kernel 6.5 is out, and Firefox loses users

In security and privacy: Nothing. We have nothing.

Then in our Wanderings: Joe and Moss return to the fold, and welcome Eric Adams to join us

Download
]]> First up in the news: Mint Monthly News – August, New Asahi Linux Mac GPU beats Apple, Gnome improves Epiphany, Budgie 10.8 is out, Bodhi 7.0.0 is released, QEMU 8.1 released, LibreOffice gets a new number, Linux Turns 32, Mageia 9 released, Linux Kernel 6.5 is out, and Firefox loses users

In security and privacy: Nothing. We have nothing.

Then in our Wanderings: Joe and Moss return to the fold, and welcome Eric Adams to join us

The News

Mint Monthly News – August

New Asahi Linux Mac GPU drivers just did something even Apple couldn’t manage

Gnome 44.4 Is Out To Improve Epiphany and more

Budgie 10.8 Desktop Released, New Trash Applet, Menu Improvements

Bodhi Linux 7.0.0 Released

QEMU 8.1 Released With New PipeWire Audio Backend, Many CPU Improvements

LibreOffice Changes Its Stripes, er, Numbers

Linux Turns 32

Mageia 9 Officially Released with Linux 6.4, Smaller Disk Footprint, and More

Linux 6.5 Kernel Released

Firefox Has Lost around 70M Users in Last 5 Years

Full Show Notes Can Be Found Here

Wrap Up

Special Thanks To:

  • Bill Houser 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 contribution
  • 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!>
]]> 420 420 "Puff Puff Pass" full 52:16 6354 416.5 – Browser Arousal https://mintcast.org/416-5-browser-arousal/ Wed, 19 Jul 2023 05:00:00 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=6268 In our Innards section we talk browsers

And finally, the feedback

In "Check This Out" a link to a cool project and a YouTube video worth giving a look

Download
]]> In our Innards section we talk browsers

And finally, the feedback

In “Check This Out”

A link to a cool project and a YouTube video worth giving a look.

https://openscad.org/downloads.html

https://youtu.be/KyADkmRVe0U

Full Show Notes Can Be Found Here

Wrap Up

We would like to acknowledge some of the people who make mintCast possible:

  • Bill Houser 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 contribution
  • 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!>
]]> full 1:35:40 6268 404 – The Tenacity of Tenacity https://mintcast.org/404-the-tenacity-of-tenacity/ Wed, 25 Jan 2023 04:59:00 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5914 First up in the news, RPi adds an autofocus camera, Fairphone2 hits EOL, more Tenacity than ever, new Unity, Xubuntu Minimal arrives soon, Brave adds Bridges, Kodi 20 is released, Libvirt 9.0 is out, Google gets shot down, and new features arrive in Firefox 109

In security and privacy, nothing to see here, move along

Then in our Wanderings, Moss is back, Joe has fun with a Pihole, and Bill takes some OTC stuff.

Download
]]> First up in the news, RPi adds an autofocus camera, Fairphone2 hits EOL, more Tenacity than ever, new Unity, Xubuntu Minimal arrives soon, Brave adds Bridges, Kodi 20 is released, Libvirt 9.0 is out, Google gets shot down, and new features arrive in Firefox 109;

In security and privacy, nothing to see here, move along;

Then in our Wanderings, Moss is back, Joe has fun with a Pihole, and Bill takes some OTC stuff;

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit. Youtube.

The News

New autofocus camera modules for Raspberry Pi

Fairphone 2 hits End Of Life after 7 years of updates

More developers reportedly now use Linux than macOS

Xubuntu 23.04 will offer “Minimal” version, under 700 Mb

Brave browser adds support for Tor Bridges

Kodi 20 released with AV1, Pipewire support

Libvirt 9.0 released

Google Topics API for targeted ads gets shot down

Firefox 109 – New Features, Updates, and Fixes

Wrap-up

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

AudioFreak (Riyo) 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

Bill Houser for hosting the Pi400 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

]]> 404 404 The Tenacity of Tenacity full 1:16:16 5914 395 – Buttery Smooth Experience https://mintcast.org/396-buttery-smooth-experience/ Wed, 28 Sep 2022 14:34:01 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5614 In security and privacy, 8 Year Old Linux Kernel Vulnerability Uncovered, and Plex gets exposed;
Then in our Wanderings, Moss reconfigures again, and Norbert contradicts himself.
In our Innards section, Mint and Gnome have lots to show us;
And finally, the feedback and a suggestion or two.
Download
]]> 1:08 The News
26:46 Security and Privacy
33:17 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
55:54 Linux Innards

First up in the news, AWK gets Unicode, GIMP out, Firefox improves its memory, Nitrux released, Unity is a Flavour, Microsoft drops Linux, Makulu adds to the confusion, and Debian wrestles with firmware;

In security and privacy, 8 Year Old Linux Kernel Vulnerability Uncovered, and Plex gets exposed;

Then in our Wanderings, Moss reconfigures again, and Norbert contradicts himself.

In our Innards section, Mint and Gnome have lots to show us;

And finally, the feedback and a suggestion or two.

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit. Youtube.

The News

Security and Privacy Update

Wrap-up

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

  • Norbert, Londoner, Tony H, and all others for our audio editing
  • Leo for timestamps and publishing
  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • 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!
]]> 395 - Buttery Smooth Experience full 1:17:43 5614 390 – This is the Way(land) https://mintcast.org/390-this-is-the-wayland/ Thu, 30 Jun 2022 00:54:22 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5538 In security and privacy, Hertzbleed is coming for your CPU, and the EU is going after deepfakes.
Then in our Wanderings, Moss goes Custom, Norbert emerges, and Joe is Florida Man In our Innards section we discuss the various licenses in the world of open source software
And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Download
]]> 1:20 The News
15:47 Security and Privacy
21:07 Bi-Weekly Wonderings
35:42 The Linux Innards
56:58 Vibrations from the Ether
1:03:45 Check This Out
1:04:20 Announcements

First up in the news, Gnome wins Microsoft money, Firefox translates offline, Rocky overtakes the Red Hat pack, apps on KDE look more klear, Debian gets the Gecko treatment, Zoom gets Wayland screen sharing, Photoshop is kind-of–but not-really coming to Linux, and Nvidia contributes.

In security and privacy, Hertzbleed is coming for your CPU, and the EU is going after deepfakes.

Then in our Wanderings, Moss goes Custom, Norbert emerges, and Joe is Florida Man
In our Innards section we discuss the various licenses in the world of open source software

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit. Youtube.

The News

Security and Privacy Update

Linux Innards

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • A cast of thousands for our audio editing, including Norbert, Londoner, Tony Hughes, and others. We continue to need volunteers for our audio editing, please contact us.
  • Bill Houser and Josh Lowe for their work on the website, and Bill Howser for hosting the Linode which runs our website
  • Hobstar for our logo, initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • Londoner for our time syncs
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about. Thanks, Clem!
]]> full 1:08:57 5538 382.5 – It’s Time to Focus https://mintcast.org/382-5-its-time-to-focus/ Sat, 04 Jun 2022 19:25:16 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5435 Download
]]> 1:19 Linux Innards
38:41 Check This Out
41:09 Announcements

In our Innards section we discuss our free and open source alternatives for proprietary software.

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit. Youtube.

The Linux Innards

Our FOSS alternatives to proprietary software:

  • Firefox
  • VLC
  • Audacity
  • Rhythmbox
  • Lollypop
  • Kdenlive
  • Easytag
  • GNUCash
  • Jitsi
  • Openshot
  • Libreoffice
  • Thunderbird
  • Bitwarden
  • Gparted
  • Handbrake
  • Kdenlive
  • OBS
  • GIMP
  • Krita
  • Inkscape

Check This Out

10 minutes

  • lfs – a linux utility listing your filesystems (Norbert)

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • Norbert and Tony H for our audio production
  • Leo for timestamps and publishing
  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • 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!
]]> 382.5 - It's Time to Focus full 45:00 5435 379.5 – Phishing Season https://mintcast.org/379-5-phishing-season/ Sat, 09 Apr 2022 18:39:37 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5354 In security, Ubuntu Kernel Security Patches, FGKASLR gets closer to mainline, Data stealing malware hides on Linux servers, Go Daddy data breach
In our Wanderings, Joe does some 3d printing, Josh got a new monitor, Norbert switches OS’s, and Clayton looks back
Download
]]> 1:06 Linux Innards
42:46 Check This Out
44:16 Announcements & Outro

In our Innards section, we talk about how much security is enough.

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit. Youtube.

Check This Out

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • Norbert for our audio production
  • Leo for timestamps and publishing
  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • 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!>
]]> 379.5 - Phishing Season full 48:19 5354 377.5 – Predicting Predicaments https://mintcast.org/377-5-predicting-predicaments/ Sat, 29 Jan 2022 16:46:15 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5324 Download
]]> 1:30 Linux Innards
56:32 Check This Out
57:28 Announcements & Outro

In our Linux Innards, we review our 2021 predictions and make our new predictions for 2022.

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit. YouTube.

The Linux Innards

Our predictions for the new year

  • Joe
    • Steam Deck will be a success and will contribute to the number of Linux machines in the wild
    • The Chip shortage will continue and prices on computers will remain high
    • Graphics card prices will somewhat return to normal as a new hardware competitor will come out that will be better for crypto than graphics cards
  • Norbert
    • When using the proprietary Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu, Wayland will be at least enabled on Ubuntu 22.04 and will be the default session in 22.10
    • EndeavourOS will be in first place on DistroWatch on the default 6-month ranking list at some point during the year
    • GTK theming will still be viable with GTK4, but with libraries as opposed to CSS
    • Increased focus on Wayland will lead to development of the X12 protocol
  • Josh Hawk
    • Steam Deck will succeed (not everyone will cancel orders)
    • SteamOS will only be really good on steam deck
    • Pop OS will have at least a beta of their new DE by end of 2022.
    • Community arguments about Gnome will worsen and lead to many leaving Gnome as users.
    • Alma Linux will become more popular than RHEL/CentOS Stream.
  • Nishant
    • Gaming on Linux will pick up.
    • Fedora will lead the forefront in adoption of latest kernel/DE
    • I will make my foray into Linux System Administration.
    • Linux phones will double in number and power in 2022.
    • I am throwing my elbows out here, Linux will overtake Mac OS in market share by end of 2022
  • Bill
    • The Steam Deck will not ship in February
    • Asahi Linux will gain hardware acceleration on the Mac

Check This Out

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • Norbert for our audio production
  • Leo for timestamps and publishing
  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • 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!>
]]> 377.5 - Predicting Predicaments full 1:02:03 5324 376 – Joe, Do You Copy? https://mintcast.org/376-joe-do-you-copy/ Sun, 19 Dec 2021 18:40:05 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5299 In security, Ubuntu Kernel Security Patches, FGKASLR gets closer to mainline, Data stealing malware hides on Linux servers, Go Daddy data breach
In our Wanderings, Joe does some 3d printing, Josh got a new monitor, Norbert switches OS’s, and Clayton looks back
Download
]]> 1:46 The News
16:16 Security Update
23:52 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
52:38 Announcements & Outro

First up in the news, Linux Mint monthly news, Europe embraces open source, Debian has browser issues, Fedora goes all in on Wayland, Firefox helps you fight spam, And the Linux kernel gets rusty

In security, Ubuntu Kernel Security Patches, FGKASLR gets closer to mainline, Data stealing malware hides on Linux servers, Go Daddy data breach

In our Wanderings, Joe does some 3d printing, Josh got a new monitor, Norbert switches OS’s, and Clayton looks back

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit. Youtube.

The News

Security Update

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

  • Joe
    • 3d printing, crypto, food
  • Josh
    • Health, monitors, outdoors
  • Norbert
    • Debian testing, Gnome, Japanese
  • Clayton
    • The old days, SSD’s, printing

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • Norbert for our audio production
  • Leo for timestamps and publishing
  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • 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!>
]]> 376 - Joe, Do You Copy? full 58:02 5299 374 – Mounted Archery https://mintcast.org/374-mounted-archery/ Wed, 17 Nov 2021 07:16:41 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5274 In security, A Dutch newspaper gets hacked, Azure is vulnerable, and AMD and Intel have more security flaws
Then in our Wanderings, Joe works on an xbox, Josh remodels a bathroom, Tony got a new phone and Norbert tells us about running arch
Download
]]> 1:49 The News
10:37 Security Update
20:35 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
41:38 Announcements & Outro

First up in the news, Linux Mint Monthly News, Firefox 94 released, Steam OS announcement, System76 Desktop announcement, Intel has been doing this for a long time and Nvidia released a fix

In security, A Dutch newspaper gets hacked, Azure is vulnerable, and AMD and Intel have more security flaws

Then in our Wanderings, Joe works on an xbox, Josh remodels a bathroom, Tony got a new phone and Norbert tells us about running arch

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit. Youtube.

The News

Security Update

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • Norbert for our audio production
  • Leo for timestamps and publishing
  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • 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!>
]]> 374 - Mounted Archery full 45:14 5274 373.5 – App-Get Install https://mintcast.org/373-5-app-get-install/ Wed, 10 Nov 2021 07:03:36 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5267 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Download
]]> 1:39 Linux Innards
28:54 Vibrations from the Ether
35:16 Check This Out
41:57 Announcements & Outro

In our Innards section, we discuss the applications that we use most often

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit. Youtube.

Linux Innards

  • Joe
    • Cura
    • Standard Notes
    • Resilio Sync
  • Tony
    • Firefox
    • GIMP
    • Inkscape
    • Audacity
  • Norbert
    • Brave
    • LibreOffice
    • OBS
    • Photoshop
    • Premiere Pro
    • Illustrator
  •  Josh
    • Firefox
    • Lollypop
    • EasyTAG
    • Syncthing
    • GnuCash

Vibrations from the Ether

  • Alfred

Check This Out

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • Norbert for our audio production
  • Leo for timestamps and publishing
  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • 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!>
]]> 373.5 - App-Get Install full 46:52 5267 373 – Ex-SUSE Me, Microsoft? https://mintcast.org/373-ex-suse-me-microsoft/ Wed, 03 Nov 2021 05:08:09 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5258 In security, an NPM library gets hijacked, Proton will not retain your data, Firefox implements GPC, and black Friday scams abound
Then in our Wanderings, Joe tries his hand at tv repair, Norbert plays with legos, Tony shops for a new pc, and Josh gets a new throne
Download
]]> 1:49 The News
10:37 Security Update
21:47 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
45:39 Announcements & Outro

First up in the news, Raspberry PI Zero 2 W, Xorg has something new, SUSE goes Edge, A new MX linux, and Microsoft Blunders

In security, an NPM library gets hijacked, Proton will not retain your data, Firefox implements GPC, and black Friday scams abound

Then in our Wanderings, Joe tries his hand at tv repair, Norbert plays with legos, Tony shops for a new pc, and Josh gets a new throne

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit. Youtube.

The News

Security Update

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

  • Joe
    • https://github.com/bluppfisk/coinprice-indicator
  • Norbert
  • Tony
  • Nishant

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • Norbert for our audio production
  • Leo for timestamps and publishing
  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • 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!>
]]> 373 - Ex-SUSE Me, Microsoft? full 50:34 5258 370 – New Wanderers https://mintcast.org/370-new-wanderers/ Wed, 22 Sep 2021 05:40:56 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5214 In security, no encrypted chats are safe
Then in our Wanderings, we hear from the old AND new crew
Download
]]> 1:35 The News
30:19 Security Update
38:58 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
50:36 Announcements & Outro

First up in the news Linux Mint gets a new website, A new point release, Firefox snaps back, Gnome and Plasma get updates, and much more

In security, no encrypted chats are safe

Then in our Wanderings, we hear from the old AND new crew

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit. Youtube.

The News

Security Update

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

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 production, Josh Lowe for all his work on the website, Hobstar for our logo, initrd for the animated Discord 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!>
]]> 370 - New Wanderers full 1:26:23 5214 369 – Cache Flushing https://mintcast.org/369-cache-flushing/ Wed, 08 Sep 2021 06:05:00 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5198 In security cache flushing and Bluetooth flaws
Then in our Wanderings Joe pines a phone with plasma, Tony walks 500 miles, and I search for a keyboard
Download
]]> 1:49 The News
27:48 Security Update
32:18 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
1:01:28 Announcements & Outro

First up in the news Linux Mint is ready for the facelift, Snaps get an upgrade, Kernel 5.14 is out, and 5.15 is looking good, and Ubuntu gets a release date

In security cache flushing and Bluetooth flaws

Then in our Wanderings Joe pines a phone with plasma, Tony walks 500 miles, and I search for a keyboard

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit. Youtube.

The News

Security Update

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

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, initrd for the animated Discord 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!>
]]> 369 - Cache Flushing full 1:05:23 5198 368 – Unlimited Steam Games https://mintcast.org/368-unlimited-steam-games/ Wed, 25 Aug 2021 04:40:34 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5181 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Download
]]> 1:28 The News
24:36 Security Update
28:51 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
42:30 Announcements & Outro

First up in the news OpenSSH takes another step, Firefox and Thunderbird match now, Lots of new releases and AV1 headed for kernel support

In security, you were this close to having all games on Steam

Then in our Wanderings Joe started Joe’s Plumbing Service and I’ve been boring

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit.

The News

Security Update

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

  • Joe
  • Leo

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, initrd for the animated Discord 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!>
]]> full 49:04 5181 366 – Prox Your Mox https://mintcast.org/mintcast-366-prox-your-mox/ Wed, 28 Jul 2021 05:30:42 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5152 In security, updates on Kaseya, PrintNightmare and a new systemd vulnerability
Then in our Wanderings, Joe actually wanders, Josh proxes his mox, and I’m going full btrfs.
Download
]]> 2:17 The News
33:06 Security Update
39:52 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
1:12:51 Announcements & Outro

First up in the news DuckDuckGo protects us even more, then, It’s always DNS, the SteamDeck looks awesome, the Kernel is 30, and more

In security, updates on Kaseya, PrintNightmare and a new systemd vulnerability

Then in our Wanderings, Joe actually wanders, Josh proxes his mox, and I’m going full btrfs

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit.

The News

Security Update

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

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, initrd for the animated Discord 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!>
]]> 366 - Prox Your Mox full 1:16:58 5152 mintCast 364 – The Better Beta https://mintcast.org/mintcast-364-the-better-beta/ Wed, 30 Jun 2021 05:15:42 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5118 Then, our news Linux Mint Beta is out! Rocky Linux is official, and Elementary OS tries Beta 2
In security, lost data
Download
]]> 2:24 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
53:37 The News
1:36:34 Security Update
1:42:59 Announcements & Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, I go ECO friendly, Josh’s DHCP fails, Joe is heavily medicated, and Tony is playing with EndeavorOS while on holiday

Then, our news Linux Mint Beta is out! Rocky Linux is official, and Elementary OS tries Beta 2

In security, lost data

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

The News

Security Update

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, initrd for the animated Discord 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!>
]]> full 5118 mintCast 363 – Audacity Rewind https://mintcast.org/mintcast-363-audacity-rewind/ Wed, 16 Jun 2021 17:43:40 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5100 Then, our news we have a Linux Mint update, Audacity backtracks, a top 10 and OBS’s wayland support
In security, polkit
Download
]]> 2:33 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
43:26 The News
1:26:28 Security Update
1:29:58 Announcements & Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, I miss a delivery, Joe forgets to backup, Bo tinkers with pipewire, and Tony turns the amperage up to 10.

Then, our news we have a Linux Mint update, Audacity backtracks, a top 10 and OBS’s wayland support

In security, polkit

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

The News

Security Update

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, initrd for the animated Discord 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!>
]]> full 5100 mintCast 354.5 – Everyone Has an Opinion (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-354-everyone-has-an-opinion-mp3/ Tue, 16 Feb 2021 05:46:05 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4924 Then, in the News, a Linux Mint update, Ubuntu loses the lead, Wayland changes, and some new releases
In Security, time to patch… again.
Download
]]> Download

1:30 Linux Innards
33:12 Vibrations from the Ether
51:24 Check This Out
53:45 Announcements & Outro

In our Innards section, We discuss chromium and how to pick a distro

And finally, the feedback and a couple suggestions

More Chromium Talk – Leo

  • What do we use?
  • Chromium-based? Firefox?
  • The monoculture…

What’s My Distro? – Moss

As I was just pressed into service on this topic yesterday, some early bits of this article were borrowed from or inspired by the article, “What Does The Penguin Say?” on LinuxInsider.com,

So Windows gives you “Windows the Windows Way”, Mac gives you “Mac the Mac Way”, and Linux gives you… everything you ever dreamed of — or your worst nightmares — in a user salad of options.

Just look at the desktop paradigms.

  • Does the desktop try to capture a “traditional” or revolutionary desktop interface paradigm?
  • Does it favor sleekness or no-frills functionality?
  • Do the developers strive for constant evolution or stability and consistency?
  • Are windows, menus, and settings panels minimalist or information-dense?
  • Should users accept the UI as it is, or make it their own?

As founder and co-host of Distrohoppers’ Digest, these and other issues come to the fore. 

  • Which installer does it use, or do they write their own? 
    • Ubiquity – most Ubuntu, Mint
    • Calamares – other Ubuntu, Ubuntu forks, GeckoLinux, and others
    • Anaconda – Fedora
    • Debian-Installer
    • YaST

Now that Ubuntu is setting off writing an all-new installer, this issue is even more timely. How will it be better than Ubiquity? Anyone who has used Calamares has a few answers to that one. But can it be better than Calamares? What about flexibility? Some users of OpenSUSE claim their installer is better than Calamares because it has much more and better options, while others, like me, say those options are not the least understood by most users.

… or does the distro provide a pure image (.img) file, and you have to install GRUB or another bootloader yourself? (EasyOS)

  • Which package manager do they use, or do they write their own?
    • APT with .deb packages (or .rpm packages, in PCLinuxOS)
    • Portage or Entropy
    • URPM, dnf
    • pacman, pamac
    • YUM
    • YaST, zypper
    • eopkg
    • .pup, .snf, you name it

I guess next would be to discuss families, which mostly boils down to:

  • Debian Family
    • Ubuntu sub-family – probably 90-95% of all desktop Linux users
      • Ubuntu
      • Ubuntu wannabes, remixes, respins
      • Linux Mint
      • Indies (Peppermint, FerenOS, Zorin)
    • Independents
  • Slackware Family
    • OpenSUSE variants
  • Red Hat Family
    • Red Hat variants (Fedora, Scientific, CentOS, Rocky, Clear, Oracle)
    • Mandrake variants (PCLinuxOS, Mageia, OpenMandriva, Rosa)
  • Arch Family (Endeavour, Manjaro)
  • Gentoo Family (Sabayon, ChromeOS, Mocaccino, Calculate, Redcore)
  • LFS and Homebrew Family (SolusOS, Clear Linux OS)

Then there is the topic of Desktop Environments. We’ve discussed this rather extensively in the past on this show. The major choices are:

  • Gnome or variants, which includes Cinnamon and Budgie, as well as forks of earlier versions such as MATE
  • KDE Plasma, or forks such as Trinity
  • Enlightenment, or forks such as Moksha
  • XFCE
  • LXDE or LXQt
  • Independents such as Deepin, Pantheon, and Lumina

So in terms of complete packages of distros, according to statistics seen by Martin Wimpress, mentioned by Martin Wimpress in the past year or so, but not referenced anywhere public, around 85% of all Linux Desktop users run Ubuntu (Gnome), perhaps 5% run Ubuntu MATE, around 4-5% run Linux Mint, and that leaves 5-6% for everything else. What are the other “everything else”s that I would recommend for new users?

Everyone has an opinion. I’m running 9 different distros across 4 machines, with eight on one machine alone.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to just recommend the main version of Ubuntu or Linux Mint, and you’d be right to do so, but there are others I’d also recommend based on the machine and the user. Right now, my list would include UbuntuDDE Remix, Bodhi Linux, Lubuntu, PCLinuxOS, OpenMandriva, KDE neon, Zorin OS, FerenOS, and PeppermintOS. The first two are the most unusual and forward-looking, and the last three are the easiest to make them look or work the most like Windows 7 or 10. You are of course encouraged to try anything Official or unofficial Ubuntu, including Linux Mint and Pop!_OS. On that list, only OpenMandriva and PCLinuxOS are not Ubuntu-based, and what is missing from that list includes Fedora or OpenSUSE or Arch-based distros.

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER: 

CHECK THIS OUT!

ANNOUNCEMENTS: 

Our next episode will be at 2 pm Central US time on February 21, 2021. 

Get the show time converted to your time zone!

Wrap-up:

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

  • Owen Peery for our audio editing, Josh Lowe for all his work on the website, Hobstar for our logo, and Londoner for our time sync
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our backup Mumble room
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> mintCast 354.5 - Everyone Has an Opinion full 58:39 4924 mintCast 354.5 – Everyone Has an Opinion https://mintcast.org/mintcast-354-everyone-has-an-opinion/ Tue, 16 Feb 2021 05:45:56 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4921 Then, in the News, a Linux Mint update, Ubuntu loses the lead, Wayland changes, and some new releases
In Security, time to patch… again.
Download
]]> Download

1:30 Linux Innards
33:12 Vibrations from the Ether
51:24 Check This Out
53:45 Announcements & Outro

In our Innards section, We discuss chromium and how to pick a distro

And finally, the feedback and a couple suggestions

More Chromium Talk – Leo

  • What do we use?
  • Chromium-based? Firefox?
  • The monoculture…

What’s My Distro? – Moss

As I was just pressed into service on this topic yesterday, some early bits of this article were borrowed from or inspired by the article, “What Does The Penguin Say?” on LinuxInsider.com,

So Windows gives you “Windows the Windows Way”, Mac gives you “Mac the Mac Way”, and Linux gives you… everything you ever dreamed of — or your worst nightmares — in a user salad of options.

Just look at the desktop paradigms.

  • Does the desktop try to capture a “traditional” or revolutionary desktop interface paradigm?
  • Does it favor sleekness or no-frills functionality?
  • Do the developers strive for constant evolution or stability and consistency?
  • Are windows, menus, and settings panels minimalist or information-dense?
  • Should users accept the UI as it is, or make it their own?

As founder and co-host of Distrohoppers’ Digest, these and other issues come to the fore. 

  • Which installer does it use, or do they write their own? 
    • Ubiquity – most Ubuntu, Mint
    • Calamares – other Ubuntu, Ubuntu forks, GeckoLinux, and others
    • Anaconda – Fedora
    • Debian-Installer
    • YaST

Now that Ubuntu is setting off writing an all-new installer, this issue is even more timely. How will it be better than Ubiquity? Anyone who has used Calamares has a few answers to that one. But can it be better than Calamares? What about flexibility? Some users of OpenSUSE claim their installer is better than Calamares because it has much more and better options, while others, like me, say those options are not the least understood by most users.

… or does the distro provide a pure image (.img) file, and you have to install GRUB or another bootloader yourself? (EasyOS)

  • Which package manager do they use, or do they write their own?
    • APT with .deb packages (or .rpm packages, in PCLinuxOS)
    • Portage or Entropy
    • URPM, dnf
    • pacman, pamac
    • YUM
    • YaST, zypper
    • eopkg
    • .pup, .snf, you name it

I guess next would be to discuss families, which mostly boils down to:

  • Debian Family
    • Ubuntu sub-family – probably 90-95% of all desktop Linux users
      • Ubuntu
      • Ubuntu wannabes, remixes, respins
      • Linux Mint
      • Indies (Peppermint, FerenOS, Zorin)
    • Independents
  • Slackware Family
    • OpenSUSE variants
  • Red Hat Family
    • Red Hat variants (Fedora, Scientific, CentOS, Rocky, Clear, Oracle)
    • Mandrake variants (PCLinuxOS, Mageia, OpenMandriva, Rosa)
  • Arch Family (Endeavour, Manjaro)
  • Gentoo Family (Sabayon, ChromeOS, Mocaccino, Calculate, Redcore)
  • LFS and Homebrew Family (SolusOS, Clear Linux OS)

Then there is the topic of Desktop Environments. We’ve discussed this rather extensively in the past on this show. The major choices are:

  • Gnome or variants, which includes Cinnamon and Budgie, as well as forks of earlier versions such as MATE
  • KDE Plasma, or forks such as Trinity
  • Enlightenment, or forks such as Moksha
  • XFCE
  • LXDE or LXQt
  • Independents such as Deepin, Pantheon, and Lumina

So in terms of complete packages of distros, according to statistics seen by Martin Wimpress, mentioned by Martin Wimpress in the past year or so, but not referenced anywhere public, around 85% of all Linux Desktop users run Ubuntu (Gnome), perhaps 5% run Ubuntu MATE, around 4-5% run Linux Mint, and that leaves 5-6% for everything else. What are the other “everything else”s that I would recommend for new users?

Everyone has an opinion. I’m running 9 different distros across 4 machines, with eight on one machine alone.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to just recommend the main version of Ubuntu or Linux Mint, and you’d be right to do so, but there are others I’d also recommend based on the machine and the user. Right now, my list would include UbuntuDDE Remix, Bodhi Linux, Lubuntu, PCLinuxOS, OpenMandriva, KDE neon, Zorin OS, FerenOS, and PeppermintOS. The first two are the most unusual and forward-looking, and the last three are the easiest to make them look or work the most like Windows 7 or 10. You are of course encouraged to try anything Official or unofficial Ubuntu, including Linux Mint and Pop!_OS. On that list, only OpenMandriva and PCLinuxOS are not Ubuntu-based, and what is missing from that list includes Fedora or OpenSUSE or Arch-based distros.

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER: 

CHECK THIS OUT!

ANNOUNCEMENTS: 

Our next episode will be at 2 pm Central US time on February 21, 2021. 

Get the show time converted to your time zone!

Wrap-up:

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

  • Owen Peery for our audio editing, Josh Lowe for all his work on the website, Hobstar for our logo, and Londoner for our time sync
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our backup Mumble room
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 4921 mintCast 352 – Repredictability (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-352-repredictability-mp3/ Wed, 13 Jan 2021 05:03:17 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4866 Then in the news, Linux Mint 20.1 is here, the M1 gets closer, Firefox gets a facelift and Project Lenix makes more progress 
In security, what’s going on with Qt6?
Download
]]> Download

1:41 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
33:10 News
1:02:08 Security Update
1:08:04 Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, I’ve been playing with Docker, Joe got a 1up, Tony bundles up again, and Josh re-predicts

Then in the news, Linux Mint 20.1 is here, the M1 gets closer, Firefox gets a facelift and Project Lenix makes more progress 

In security, what’s going on with Qt6?

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • My focus has been at work and editing Linux User Space these past couple of weeks.
    • I am finally going to put Aaron’s Docker compose file to good use to get a long term Gitea instance now that my NAS is settled and running well.
  • Joe
    • Got the screen adapter for the Arcade1Up machine.  Still need to finish putting it together
    • 3d printed a part for listener Dustin for a pair of headphones that I had sent him.
      • Had to switch to pla for the print
      • Happy to say that it printed perfectly and seemed very sturdy using the gcode that I had used before for the same print
      • Sad to say that this means that I need to go back to tweaking the settings for PETG.  Slow it down even more and see if that gets the prints to turn out right
    • Was able to fix the Samsung Galaxy Gear S3 Frontier watch with a 15 dollar part from ebay
      • I had purchased a broken motherboard for the watch that was only supposed to have issues with the heart rate sensor and the pedometer so that I could verify that the screen was working correctly
      • The screen does work and most of the functions on the watch itself works as well
      • Thought that I got lucky and the pedometer and the heart rate monitor were correct.  I verified that the heart rate monitor was working by comparing it to my other watch and everything seemed to be fine.  I did see that the number of steps were being counted but when I compared it to my phone over the course of the day the number on the watch was lower than the phone.  This should not be the case it should be the other way around.  
      • Then i found out that the watch was showing that i was going up and down stairs all day so i ordered another one and will be getting it soon in order to do another fix
      • I am giving my other watch to my wife to see if she likes it or not.  If not, I will probably sell it.
    • Got a family portrait coming in a few months. The pictures were taken for it
      • We won a raffle for it but there was still a lot of cost involved because we wanted the larger size because it comes with a couple of extra 10 inch paintings that we can send to the rest of the family
      • Way more money than i wanted to pay but with my eldest child turning 18 I really want to get it done whilst the kids have no choice in the matter
      • But it is a rather large expense for me and I don’t want to go through that same company in order to get the frame
      • I could really use some suggestions and knowledge on framing.  If you have any knowledge on the subject please advise me on the best way to frame a museum quality painting, please email me jb@mintcast.org
  • Tony Hughes
    • Not a lot going on here as we went into another stay at home order right after New Year, so I have been baking, modeling and watching other people modeling on YouTube.
    • On a good note regarding the Virus, my wife has now had the FULL vaccination as she works in the critical care department of our local hospital in an admin role. She was lucky to get her second dose just before they changed it to be 12 weeks after the first, the day after she had her second injection. This will reduce my risk considerably given where she works.
    • On the Diecast modeling as it is winter and my paintshop is in the garage which is not heated. So I have mainly been preparing models for the paint stage so dismantling them, drilling and taping the posts ready for reassembly and paint stripping then storing for later paint and reassembly. I will also print the decals needed for those models that require them at the reassembly stage.   
    • Very quiet Linux wise although last night I installed the Mint 20.1 upgrade onto my main Laptop which we will be talking about later. 
  • Josh Hawk
    •  First to clarify my predictions.
      • 1. Linux phones will double in number and power in 2021.
        • What I mean by number is the amount of phones on the market.
        • What I mean by power is a benchmark score would be doubled.
        • Only to include phones that use an official Linux kernel.
      • 2. All mainstream cable tv channels will switch to apps.
        • I know they all have apps now but what I meant was they will all have an app that requires a monthly subscription to access. Such as Discovery+ and the likes.
        • I do not mean that cable tv will die and only have apps with subscriptions but will have cable tv broadcasts and the option to use their streaming service with a small monthly fee.
      • 3. Firefox will be given to the community.
        • I don’t think that would be a totally bad thing depending on who picked up the code base.
    •      I put a poll on the mintcast group asking what distro I should use for a year long run on my main laptop. The consensus was Arch Linux and I have been working since then to get it installed and functional on that laptop.  I have the base system installed at this point and it boots but no desktop yet because I cannot get wifi connection even though I had it on the live usb. I am working with cryptodan and londoner on the issue. Finally I got WIFi working and I got to install my desktop (Cinnamon of course). I actually had to use nmcli to finally connect to wifi instead of iwd that I was using but was not working. Once I got WiFi working it was a few simple installs and I had a desktop but I did run into one more issue. After installing the desktop and lightdm I was greeted with “Failed to load light display manager” and found out I needed what was called the  lightdm-gtk-greeter and then it would load the login screen.
    • I have been working on my HP server at my parents house. I had to replace 3 drives that must have been damaged in shipping and learn how to set up hardware RAID. I finally got openSUSE Leap 15.2 installed but the wifi card I was using to install would not work once openSUSE Leap 15.2 was installed. I have since ordered some ethernet over powerline adapters to see if that solves my internet woes. The powerline ethernet was the plan all along but I was just wanting to get the system set up at least and I had the wifi usb dongle already so I figured i’d use that till it didn’t work. 

THE NEWS: 

SECURITY UPDATE:

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!>
]]> full 4866 mintCast 352 – Repredictability https://mintcast.org/mintcast-352-repredictability/ Wed, 13 Jan 2021 05:03:12 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4862 Then in the news, Linux Mint 20.1 is here, the M1 gets closer, Firefox gets a facelift and Project Lenix makes more progress 
In security, what’s going on with Qt6?
Download
]]> Download

1:41 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
33:10 News
1:02:08 Security Update
1:08:04 Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, I’ve been playing with Docker, Joe got a 1up, Tony bundles up again, and Josh re-predicts

Then in the news, Linux Mint 20.1 is here, the M1 gets closer, Firefox gets a facelift and Project Lenix makes more progress 

In security, what’s going on with Qt6?

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • My focus has been at work and editing Linux User Space these past couple of weeks.
    • I am finally going to put Aaron’s Docker compose file to good use to get a long term Gitea instance now that my NAS is settled and running well.
  • Joe
    • Got the screen adapter for the Arcade1Up machine.  Still need to finish putting it together
    • 3d printed a part for listener Dustin for a pair of headphones that I had sent him.
      • Had to switch to pla for the print
      • Happy to say that it printed perfectly and seemed very sturdy using the gcode that I had used before for the same print
      • Sad to say that this means that I need to go back to tweaking the settings for PETG.  Slow it down even more and see if that gets the prints to turn out right
    • Was able to fix the Samsung Galaxy Gear S3 Frontier watch with a 15 dollar part from ebay
      • I had purchased a broken motherboard for the watch that was only supposed to have issues with the heart rate sensor and the pedometer so that I could verify that the screen was working correctly
      • The screen does work and most of the functions on the watch itself works as well
      • Thought that I got lucky and the pedometer and the heart rate monitor were correct.  I verified that the heart rate monitor was working by comparing it to my other watch and everything seemed to be fine.  I did see that the number of steps were being counted but when I compared it to my phone over the course of the day the number on the watch was lower than the phone.  This should not be the case it should be the other way around.  
      • Then i found out that the watch was showing that i was going up and down stairs all day so i ordered another one and will be getting it soon in order to do another fix
      • I am giving my other watch to my wife to see if she likes it or not.  If not, I will probably sell it.
    • Got a family portrait coming in a few months. The pictures were taken for it
      • We won a raffle for it but there was still a lot of cost involved because we wanted the larger size because it comes with a couple of extra 10 inch paintings that we can send to the rest of the family
      • Way more money than i wanted to pay but with my eldest child turning 18 I really want to get it done whilst the kids have no choice in the matter
      • But it is a rather large expense for me and I don’t want to go through that same company in order to get the frame
      • I could really use some suggestions and knowledge on framing.  If you have any knowledge on the subject please advise me on the best way to frame a museum quality painting, please email me jb@mintcast.org
  • Tony Hughes
    • Not a lot going on here as we went into another stay at home order right after New Year, so I have been baking, modeling and watching other people modeling on YouTube.
    • On a good note regarding the Virus, my wife has now had the FULL vaccination as she works in the critical care department of our local hospital in an admin role. She was lucky to get her second dose just before they changed it to be 12 weeks after the first, the day after she had her second injection. This will reduce my risk considerably given where she works.
    • On the Diecast modeling as it is winter and my paintshop is in the garage which is not heated. So I have mainly been preparing models for the paint stage so dismantling them, drilling and taping the posts ready for reassembly and paint stripping then storing for later paint and reassembly. I will also print the decals needed for those models that require them at the reassembly stage.   
    • Very quiet Linux wise although last night I installed the Mint 20.1 upgrade onto my main Laptop which we will be talking about later. 
  • Josh Hawk
    •  First to clarify my predictions.
      • 1. Linux phones will double in number and power in 2021.
        • What I mean by number is the amount of phones on the market.
        • What I mean by power is a benchmark score would be doubled.
        • Only to include phones that use an official Linux kernel.
      • 2. All mainstream cable tv channels will switch to apps.
        • I know they all have apps now but what I meant was they will all have an app that requires a monthly subscription to access. Such as Discovery+ and the likes.
        • I do not mean that cable tv will die and only have apps with subscriptions but will have cable tv broadcasts and the option to use their streaming service with a small monthly fee.
      • 3. Firefox will be given to the community.
        • I don’t think that would be a totally bad thing depending on who picked up the code base.
    •      I put a poll on the mintcast group asking what distro I should use for a year long run on my main laptop. The consensus was Arch Linux and I have been working since then to get it installed and functional on that laptop.  I have the base system installed at this point and it boots but no desktop yet because I cannot get wifi connection even though I had it on the live usb. I am working with cryptodan and londoner on the issue. Finally I got WIFi working and I got to install my desktop (Cinnamon of course). I actually had to use nmcli to finally connect to wifi instead of iwd that I was using but was not working. Once I got WiFi working it was a few simple installs and I had a desktop but I did run into one more issue. After installing the desktop and lightdm I was greeted with “Failed to load light display manager” and found out I needed what was called the  lightdm-gtk-greeter and then it would load the login screen.
    • I have been working on my HP server at my parents house. I had to replace 3 drives that must have been damaged in shipping and learn how to set up hardware RAID. I finally got openSUSE Leap 15.2 installed but the wifi card I was using to install would not work once openSUSE Leap 15.2 was installed. I have since ordered some ethernet over powerline adapters to see if that solves my internet woes. The powerline ethernet was the plan all along but I was just wanting to get the system set up at least and I had the wifi usb dongle already so I figured i’d use that till it didn’t work. 

THE NEWS: 

SECURITY UPDATE:

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!>
]]> full 4862 mintCast 349 – NAT Ain’t A Firewall (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-349-nat-aint-a-firewall-mp3/ Wed, 02 Dec 2020 05:19:55 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4794 Then in the news, OpenSUSE’s going public?, Pine64 feels the Plasma, and Linux gets Ray tracing.
In security, kill switches and a reminder that NAT ain’t a firewall.
Download
]]> Download

1:44 Wanderings
42:27 News
50:35 Security
59:43 Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, Leo has another helping of Pi, Moss gets spooked, Josh changes up the desktop, and Joe strips.

Then in the news, OpenSUSE’s going public?, Pine64 feels the Plasma, and Linux gets Ray tracing.

In security, kill switches and a reminder that NAT ain’t a firewall.

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

Leo

  • Been playing with more Pi!
    • Dug up my old Pi 2, have some download automation running on it now. Made a VM of mine redundant. Considering converting it to a Gitea server to manage my notes.
    • Will relieve my i7 2630qm from Nextcloud duty. The Pi 4 is working beautifully. Now, what to do with it? Docker time?
    • Have some ideas for my old rickety Pi one. Use TMUX to ssh into multiple servers and run bpytop or some monitoring tool on a screen, 24/7. Basically, blinking lights. Raspbian Lite will likely do the job nicely.

Moss

  • I thought I had a problem with the FuzZ400…and before I determined what the problem was, I grabbed my now-repaired mini box and hooked it up. Just as I was tightening the screws on the case, I saw that my tablet, which had been plugged in for charging, was sitting on the keyboard. Problem solved, but too late to go back.
  • I had to reinstall everything on the Mini’s SSD except Mint and Manjaro, probably having to do with having been installed on a completely different computer (Xeon and Nvidia instead of i3 and Intel). 
  • I’ve added more partitions to my Kudu’s 1 Tb SSD. I now have 10 distro partitions, one of them unused. I installed Enso OS, and am probably going to review that for the next Distrohoppers’ Digest. I’m also trying 4M Linux on a USB stick, as it seems to be a Puppy-like version of Arch.
  • I had a lot of other issues, but I’ll save those for the next DHD, which should be out right about the time of the next mintCast.
  • Distrohoppers’ Digest now has 4 episodes with over 500 downloads – 1 of those over 600 –  and only 4 under 400. We’re averaging 463 downloads per episode. Episode 018 featured Dale Miracle live in studio for the first time. Dale covers distros NOT made for beginners, a welcome addition. The next episode is currently scheduled to be recorded on December 9.
  • I’ve been getting a few days’ work as a substitute teacher, but they keep closing the schools. Last week it was that they didn’t have enough healthy bus drivers, next week it’s that they don’t have enough teachers and subs. I got paychecks from Grainger Schools, All Women Housed, and finally from Census2020! I’m still way behind on lots of things, since it has been so long since I last had a paycheck.
  • I’m reading the Kevin Mitnick book. It did not convince me why I need that much security, and completely convinced me that I won’t be secure no matter how much time, effort, and money I spend. So why bother? I’m about to give up and give Google all my money.
  • We are working our way through Proven Guilty, in the Dresden Files series. Almost halfway through.

Josh

  • I have been trying out Plasma and really trying to give it a good shot. I tried openSUSE Tumbleweed first because it has a great plasma representation. It uses the newest plasma available because it’s a rolling release. I personally don’t like anything about default plasma, it just rubs me wrong. I quickly discovered that it just won’t work for me due to look & feel and settings issues. 
  • Next I tried Manjaro Plasma and that felt much better out of the gate. I could live with it as default but some small quarks just keep me at bay. Right clicking on both openSUSE and Manjaro resulted in a menu that I was unfamiliar with. You had to not only right click but then open a menu inside of the dialogue to get the open in terminal option. Also there is no open as root by default but as stated to me by Dale Miracle there is an add-on. The dolphin file browser also does not feel right to me for either of these first two distros I tried. Things get really out of hand when trying to compensate for HiDpi monitors. It’s so hard to get every aspect of the desktop to look right that I just gave up entirely and I tried for hours with both tweaking and resetting but nothing looked good. 
  • Finally I tried FerenOS and, by George, I think he’s done it. Next to Solus (which I will mention later) FerenOS has the best customized plasma desktop hands down. Everything looks proportionate, nothing seems out of place or not scaled right and he fixes the Dolphin issue by ripping it out and replacing it with good old Nemo! Theming is great and you can change everything, the dark or light theme, the accent color, and even the layout of plasma right from the welcome screen. Now that all being said the HiDpi issue of scaling still persists with FerenOS unfortunately. I think that’s just a plasma issue. 
  • So I did try Solus Plasma a while back and I feel that it is the best Plasma Distro but I don’t recommend it anymore because they have fallen behind on the kernel (last I saw it was 5.6). I understand they have an LTS kernel as well but it’s not default and there have been many vulnerability patches applied to the kernel since 5.6. 
  • Even with how good FerenOS is I still went back to Linux Mint with the cinnamon desktop. Cinnamon just looks better to me and is the perfect balance between customizability and functionality. Also when I scale the desktop to anything between 100% and 200% it does not look wrong it scales everything appropriately. An example being when I set it to 125% on my HiDpi dell laptop it scales all aspects of the desktop exactly the same. In plasma unless you know how to edit the panel (which is not obvious) it remains the same size. Only downside to this on Cinnamon is when you set it to 125% 150% or 175% it has screen tearing and I am submitting a bug report for that asap.
  • One last thing I want to mention. I am trying out Manjaro Cinnamon as we speak. It is what I am recording my segment on Mintcast with and it’s given me some options that I would not have known about if I didn’t give it a go. More on this next time.

Joe

  • I have mostly stopped talking about books on here but I read 2 recently that I wanted to mention.  Ready Player 2 and Rhythm of War.  Both really good book and you should check them out as soon as you can
  • Well I decided to put one of the more messed up PSPs in a new cover.  Things did not go in my favor.
    • Was able to get it removed easy enough despite the stripped screws and wrong size screws from the last guy that took it apart.
    • Got it most of the way put back together when the power switch broke (it was loose before I swear)
    • I was able to desolder that power switch and one from a known bad board and move it over but had some trouble with the positioning so had to do it over again a couple of times until I ended up putting it at the far end of where it should sit
    • Also started having problems keeping the ribbon cable for it seated but was finally able to get that into place as well. 
    • Had to take it apart and put it back together in the new case several times due to small errors and needing to get the front of the case seated properly which never really happened
    • Because the one side of the mobo is higher than it should be, the joystick does not work and the volume down is stuck the way it was last time I tried to fix this device with a new front. Was really hoping that it was just the casing that was bent but this turned out to not be the case
    • Being disappointed in how that turned out I decided to pick up another broken psp for 20 dollars. The device supposedly had a broken screen and charging issues and I had an extra screen from this build. Well I got very lucky and the only thing wrong with the device was a bad battery and a broken casing.  One of the previous psps that I had purchased for 20 dollars had come with 2 extra sets of buttons as well as the full housing that I had just tried to use and a brand new piano black faceplate.  I put the faceplate on and put one of the batteries into it and it looks immaculate. I almost want to take it apart and verify that it is the original screen and not an upgraded one because of how good it looks.
    • Now I have a broken battery to work with as well which I will be able to use for a battery mod on a device with a umd drive in the future.  Or if I feel the need to do it for the sake of doing it. 
  • Tried to print some small thin items with PETG and it has not worked very well.  Evidently PETG does not do well in the 1mm range.  Granted it took me several tries with various settings to go and look at what other people had to say on the subject before I came to this conclusion.  So I may try the print in ABS and see how it turns out.  PLA works but is too soft for long term. I however think that ABS will be too brittle.   Maybe I should use carbon fiber or something similar but that would require a lot of refitting of my 3d printer
  • My laptop was overheating while gaming.  It was not doing this before so I don’t know if it was a change from the new update for Borderlands 3 or the laptop itself so I decided to take it apart and clean the fans and replace the thermal paste.  
    • This is not normally an overly difficult fix for my particular laptop, the MSI GE72-6QD 
    • But one of the screws that connect the heatsink to the CPU stripped at the top in a very inconvenient location down next to another heatsink and the arm that holds it all down is very thin.  The  only thing I could do was get out the dremel and the cutting bit and cut a new groove for a straight tip instead of a phillips head screwdriver
    • It worked and I didn’t mess it up.  It was very nerve wracking though cause it would not have taken much of a slip to ruin my laptop
    • Still happy with the results so far

THE NEWS: 

SECURITY UPDATE:

Announcements:

Our next episode will be Sunday, November 29, 2020, at 2 pm Central Time, check for your local time!

https://everytimezone.com/s/1506acff

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!>
]]> full 4794 mintCast 349 – NAT Ain’t A Firewall https://mintcast.org/mintcast-349-nat-aint-a-firewall/ Wed, 02 Dec 2020 05:18:09 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4788 Then in the news, OpenSUSE’s going public?, Pine64 feels the Plasma, and Linux gets Ray tracing.
In security, kill switches and a reminder that NAT ain’t a firewall.
Download
]]> Download

1:44 Wanderings
42:27 News
50:35 Security
59:43 Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, Leo has another helping of Pi, Moss gets spooked, Josh changes up the desktop, and Joe strips.

Then in the news, OpenSUSE’s going public?, Pine64 feels the Plasma, and Linux gets Ray tracing.

In security, kill switches and a reminder that NAT ain’t a firewall.

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

Leo

  • Been playing with more Pi!
    • Dug up my old Pi 2, have some download automation running on it now. Made a VM of mine redundant. Considering converting it to a Gitea server to manage my notes.
    • Will relieve my i7 2630qm from Nextcloud duty. The Pi 4 is working beautifully. Now, what to do with it? Docker time?
    • Have some ideas for my old rickety Pi one. Use TMUX to ssh into multiple servers and run bpytop or some monitoring tool on a screen, 24/7. Basically, blinking lights. Raspbian Lite will likely do the job nicely.

Moss

  • I thought I had a problem with the FuzZ400…and before I determined what the problem was, I grabbed my now-repaired mini box and hooked it up. Just as I was tightening the screws on the case, I saw that my tablet, which had been plugged in for charging, was sitting on the keyboard. Problem solved, but too late to go back.
  • I had to reinstall everything on the Mini’s SSD except Mint and Manjaro, probably having to do with having been installed on a completely different computer (Xeon and Nvidia instead of i3 and Intel). 
  • I’ve added more partitions to my Kudu’s 1 Tb SSD. I now have 10 distro partitions, one of them unused. I installed Enso OS, and am probably going to review that for the next Distrohoppers’ Digest. I’m also trying 4M Linux on a USB stick, as it seems to be a Puppy-like version of Arch.
  • I had a lot of other issues, but I’ll save those for the next DHD, which should be out right about the time of the next mintCast.
  • Distrohoppers’ Digest now has 4 episodes with over 500 downloads – 1 of those over 600 –  and only 4 under 400. We’re averaging 463 downloads per episode. Episode 018 featured Dale Miracle live in studio for the first time. Dale covers distros NOT made for beginners, a welcome addition. The next episode is currently scheduled to be recorded on December 9.
  • I’ve been getting a few days’ work as a substitute teacher, but they keep closing the schools. Last week it was that they didn’t have enough healthy bus drivers, next week it’s that they don’t have enough teachers and subs. I got paychecks from Grainger Schools, All Women Housed, and finally from Census2020! I’m still way behind on lots of things, since it has been so long since I last had a paycheck.
  • I’m reading the Kevin Mitnick book. It did not convince me why I need that much security, and completely convinced me that I won’t be secure no matter how much time, effort, and money I spend. So why bother? I’m about to give up and give Google all my money.
  • We are working our way through Proven Guilty, in the Dresden Files series. Almost halfway through.

Josh

  • I have been trying out Plasma and really trying to give it a good shot. I tried openSUSE Tumbleweed first because it has a great plasma representation. It uses the newest plasma available because it’s a rolling release. I personally don’t like anything about default plasma, it just rubs me wrong. I quickly discovered that it just won’t work for me due to look & feel and settings issues. 
  • Next I tried Manjaro Plasma and that felt much better out of the gate. I could live with it as default but some small quarks just keep me at bay. Right clicking on both openSUSE and Manjaro resulted in a menu that I was unfamiliar with. You had to not only right click but then open a menu inside of the dialogue to get the open in terminal option. Also there is no open as root by default but as stated to me by Dale Miracle there is an add-on. The dolphin file browser also does not feel right to me for either of these first two distros I tried. Things get really out of hand when trying to compensate for HiDpi monitors. It’s so hard to get every aspect of the desktop to look right that I just gave up entirely and I tried for hours with both tweaking and resetting but nothing looked good. 
  • Finally I tried FerenOS and, by George, I think he’s done it. Next to Solus (which I will mention later) FerenOS has the best customized plasma desktop hands down. Everything looks proportionate, nothing seems out of place or not scaled right and he fixes the Dolphin issue by ripping it out and replacing it with good old Nemo! Theming is great and you can change everything, the dark or light theme, the accent color, and even the layout of plasma right from the welcome screen. Now that all being said the HiDpi issue of scaling still persists with FerenOS unfortunately. I think that’s just a plasma issue. 
  • So I did try Solus Plasma a while back and I feel that it is the best Plasma Distro but I don’t recommend it anymore because they have fallen behind on the kernel (last I saw it was 5.6). I understand they have an LTS kernel as well but it’s not default and there have been many vulnerability patches applied to the kernel since 5.6. 
  • Even with how good FerenOS is I still went back to Linux Mint with the cinnamon desktop. Cinnamon just looks better to me and is the perfect balance between customizability and functionality. Also when I scale the desktop to anything between 100% and 200% it does not look wrong it scales everything appropriately. An example being when I set it to 125% on my HiDpi dell laptop it scales all aspects of the desktop exactly the same. In plasma unless you know how to edit the panel (which is not obvious) it remains the same size. Only downside to this on Cinnamon is when you set it to 125% 150% or 175% it has screen tearing and I am submitting a bug report for that asap.
  • One last thing I want to mention. I am trying out Manjaro Cinnamon as we speak. It is what I am recording my segment on Mintcast with and it’s given me some options that I would not have known about if I didn’t give it a go. More on this next time.

Joe

  • I have mostly stopped talking about books on here but I read 2 recently that I wanted to mention.  Ready Player 2 and Rhythm of War.  Both really good book and you should check them out as soon as you can
  • Well I decided to put one of the more messed up PSPs in a new cover.  Things did not go in my favor.
    • Was able to get it removed easy enough despite the stripped screws and wrong size screws from the last guy that took it apart.
    • Got it most of the way put back together when the power switch broke (it was loose before I swear)
    • I was able to desolder that power switch and one from a known bad board and move it over but had some trouble with the positioning so had to do it over again a couple of times until I ended up putting it at the far end of where it should sit
    • Also started having problems keeping the ribbon cable for it seated but was finally able to get that into place as well. 
    • Had to take it apart and put it back together in the new case several times due to small errors and needing to get the front of the case seated properly which never really happened
    • Because the one side of the mobo is higher than it should be, the joystick does not work and the volume down is stuck the way it was last time I tried to fix this device with a new front. Was really hoping that it was just the casing that was bent but this turned out to not be the case
    • Being disappointed in how that turned out I decided to pick up another broken psp for 20 dollars. The device supposedly had a broken screen and charging issues and I had an extra screen from this build. Well I got very lucky and the only thing wrong with the device was a bad battery and a broken casing.  One of the previous psps that I had purchased for 20 dollars had come with 2 extra sets of buttons as well as the full housing that I had just tried to use and a brand new piano black faceplate.  I put the faceplate on and put one of the batteries into it and it looks immaculate. I almost want to take it apart and verify that it is the original screen and not an upgraded one because of how good it looks.
    • Now I have a broken battery to work with as well which I will be able to use for a battery mod on a device with a umd drive in the future.  Or if I feel the need to do it for the sake of doing it. 
  • Tried to print some small thin items with PETG and it has not worked very well.  Evidently PETG does not do well in the 1mm range.  Granted it took me several tries with various settings to go and look at what other people had to say on the subject before I came to this conclusion.  So I may try the print in ABS and see how it turns out.  PLA works but is too soft for long term. I however think that ABS will be too brittle.   Maybe I should use carbon fiber or something similar but that would require a lot of refitting of my 3d printer
  • My laptop was overheating while gaming.  It was not doing this before so I don’t know if it was a change from the new update for Borderlands 3 or the laptop itself so I decided to take it apart and clean the fans and replace the thermal paste.  
    • This is not normally an overly difficult fix for my particular laptop, the MSI GE72-6QD 
    • But one of the screws that connect the heatsink to the CPU stripped at the top in a very inconvenient location down next to another heatsink and the arm that holds it all down is very thin.  The  only thing I could do was get out the dremel and the cutting bit and cut a new groove for a straight tip instead of a phillips head screwdriver
    • It worked and I didn’t mess it up.  It was very nerve wracking though cause it would not have taken much of a slip to ruin my laptop
    • Still happy with the results so far

THE NEWS: 

SECURITY UPDATE:

Announcements:

Our next episode will be Sunday, November 29, 2020, at 2 pm Central Time, check for your local time!

https://everytimezone.com/s/1506acff

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!>
]]> full 4788 mintCast 342 – Security Theater (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-342-security-theater-mp3/ Wed, 26 Aug 2020 04:50:08 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4592 Then, in our news, Pinta, Lutris and Mozilla
In security, we talk security recommendations and the NSA
Download
]]>

Download

We would like to welcome Owen Peery to the team. He’s our new editor!

1:40 Wanderings
46:32 News
1:05:05 Security
1:22:05 Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, I’ve been testing out a new keyboard, Tony Hughes tries to remove a finger (again), Joe has been soldering and reading, Moss has been adding more distros,

Then, in our news, Pinta, Lutris and Mozilla

In security, we talk security recommendations and the NSA

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Digging into some errors I got, last stream on Youtube. It was complaining that I was streaming at only 3500kbps. That was odd as I’ve always streamed at OBS’s default. Turns out, Youtube wants 4500kbps now. So, I cranked the video bitrate up to 6400 in OBS’s Output section. No errors!
    • Kernel 5.8 is smooth as silk
    • Got a new keyboard. A cheap mechanical with OUTEMU Red switches. Cost $35, but also came with a mouse pad and mouse. They’re all RGB of course, except for the mouse pad.
    • Been watching Star Trek Lower Decks. It’s hilarious. It’s a story of about 5 ensigns that work on the starship Cerritos. They’re not high ranking, and only get to do grunt work for the most part, but they find their niche and get their jobs done. I’ve never been much of a Trek fan, but this is seriously something I can see myself watching until the end of the series. It has the feel of Rick and Morty and Futurama fused together. Hijinks obviously ensue.
    • Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 1 Trailer
  • Tony H
    • So I managed to drill my finger in an accident while doing some work on the matchbox cars, it’s not good when a drill bit brakes while you are drilling a post out and you have the model held in your hand, the cut was very sore and the end of the finger is still numb from a little bit of nerve damage as a result. What with that and cutting myself while cooking my wife thinks I have a death wish.
    • As a result of the accident I haven’t been doing much in the way of restoration for the last couple of weeks but I have made some nice eBay buys which have resulted in the collection and spares to the restoration has grown a little larger, although I had to stop bidding on stuff as I wouldn’t have been around for any deliveries that may have arrived after I came away, it has probably saved me a few shekels.
    • For a little light relief I installed Ubuntu Touch on my OnePlus 1 and while it was a fairly painless process unlike trying to update Lineage OS to 17.1 on the same phone which I can’t get it to do, it is definitely NOT ready for prime time yet. All the apps seem to be web based and do not work very well, I was thinking of Using the phone as my Sat Nav for my car but as you need the internet even if it worked well, which it doesn’t then I would need to get a new sim card and data plan as it will not work on the GPS alone as it needs a web connection for the apps to work. I also tried to connect to the WiFi here at Woodbrooke and it will not connect to the login page to finish authorising access to the WiFi.
    • I’m continuing to play with Mint 20 Mate on the DHD laptop with the intention of this being my review for the September show. Given my findings so far It might be a short review as apart from the Snapd issue and a few programs being updated it is pretty much business as usual, so while I am here at Woodbrooke I’m having a look at a distro suggested by a listener, SparkyLinux and while it is based on Debian they do what Mint used to do with the LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) and base one of the spins on the testing branch with a warning that it is not for those wanting a stable system or are new to Linux. Just to note that both iso’s will fit on a 2Gb Flash drive (or less than 1GB if you opt for one of the stable minimal GUI spins). So if you have an old one kicking around you were wondering what to use it for, then maybe SparkyLinux could be an option.    
    • I wrote the 4th in my Full Circle Magazine series on podcast production the first of which was in issue 159 at the end of July. I’m not a natural writer but I have been enjoying sharing what I have learned since starting on mintCast and DHD.
  • Moss
    • I installed Gecko ROLLING to my desktop. So now I have ROLLING on my desktop and STATIC on my laptop (equivalent to openSUSE Tumbleweed and Leap, respectively). 
    • On the 15th, I installed KDE neon, also to my desktop. Oddly, the announcement that neon was available based on 20.04 did not mention that you would still be installing the 18.04 version, and then be greeted with the Upgrade button. It took a few more button pushes to get the upgrade started, but it ran beautifully. I then ran updates and installed some of my more common additions, including Stacer 1.10. Stacer ran great, but Discover popped up and said there was an update to it. I ran the update. And now Stacer wouldn’t load, it said “program not found”. So I reinstalled from my .deb package and it worked again… and Discover said there was an update again. I have posted to the KDE neon user forum to report this issue and ask how I can get Discover to ignore the update. Apparently they think an app in the repo is newer than the same app from a .deb file, but why it disables the program to run the update is beyond me. Note to self: Check the repo to see if an application is there before installing saved .deb files.
    • I now have only one free partition each on my desktop and laptop. And I’m starting to have memory issues — not my computer, me, trying to remember what all I have installed. Updating has already gotten beyond the “fun” level.
    • I am tempted to install Releax Linux to my system even though it’s only 0.5beta. This is a fully independent distro out of India, with a new package manager and everything. It sounds really exciting. Maybe I should dig up Tony Hughes’ instructions and learn how to install it in a VM.
    • I posted a new blog to LinuxQuestions.org.
    • I did some performing on Thursday the 20th on Eurofilk, which is now happening every other Thursday. I got to play with Cecilia Eng, first time for me and she’s a legend, and a total of 9 others in the Zoom room, including my friend K.J. Noren. This is the first performing I’ve done since about 2 weeks after my accident. My shoulder hurt a lot more afterward, but I seem to have gained mobility.
    • We’re about ⅔ of the way through Blood Rites, the 6th Dresden Files book. Dresden missed a huge hint when he had a major data download from Thomas; there is no explanation for that miss. We’re enjoying the book, we just wish Dresden could be more successful stopping people from dying.
  • Joe
    • Watched a lot of YouTube and did some soldering
    • Took a break for a few days from reading but still got some in
      • Up to book 20 in Drizzt
      • Demon Accords book 16
      • Big Damn Hero
        • Firefly book, surprisingly good
    • Soldered some headphones
      • New MMCX connectors came in and got them set up on 2 sets of headphones.
      • Only need to redo one of the connections at this point
    • Was informed that I missed the 8th book of the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony.  Although I am more than a little disillusioned by his work since he uses it as a platform to push his ideology on age of consent.
      • Also the book does not exist in audio format from what I can see so if I do read it, it will have to be text aloud
    • Attempted to make the macro keyboard, followed the instructions exactly but was not able to get it working.
      • Rechecked my soldering several times but it was solid
      • Only about 6 of the 12 keys would work.  
      • So I took it apart down to the board on the keypad and did continuity tests on the whole thing
      • Bad board and a slightly different pinout than was in the instructions but the different pinout shouldn’t be a concern
      • I could try to solder directly to the board and to the pins but that seems a little crazy even for me.  Although if I get bored enough you never know.
      • I have ordered a couple of different types of keyboards to give another try using different methods
      • Right before the show a test set of 4 mechanical keys showed up and I was able to get them wired in place although I still need to wire the Promicro and I need to 3D-print the case for it
      • Thinking about ordering a set of 90 MX Cherry Blues and 3d printing everything else
  • Tony W
    • Refinishing my basement practice/rehearsal/studio/home office space
      • Installed carpet to cover concrete floor
      • Covered the one concrete wall in this room with drywall/heavy cloth, for now
      • Have insulation and drywall ready to go for remaining walls/ceilings
      • Will most likely get a permit from county before installing drywall over electrical, ductwork etc
      • This involved disassembling all of my tech, my podcast setup, etc and almost did not set back up before today’s podcast
    • Updated to Mint 20
      • Upgrade was fairly seamless, but had a couple minor issues
        • The update did break my Grub.  Reinstalled Grub very easily using MX Linux live USB Boot Repair (courtesy of Ventoy)
        • The version of Mumble installed from Software Manager didn’t work, had to install the Flatpak
      • Installed Linux via Crouton on Acer Chromebook 314
          • Crostini was great, but somewhat useless to me as there is no direct access to hardware (particularly USB audio devices) 
        • Crouton gives you full Linux desktop courtesy of chroot
        • Process to install:
          • Have to turn on Developer mode (which erases local data)
          • Follow instructions to install via crosh (Chrome terminal)
          • Once installed, to enter Linux desktop: Sudo enter-chroot startxfce4 (or sudo startxfce4 as a shortcut)
        • From there, Ctrl/Alt/Shift Forward and Ctrl/Alt/Shift/Back to switch between ChromeOS and XFCE (or desktop of your choice)
        • Default is XFCE but Cinnamon, KDE, e17, LXDE and Unity are also available 
        • IT WORKED!!!  My audio interface works perfectly with XFCE running on the Chromebook. 
          • Audacity, Mumble, OBS studio ready to go
        • Downsides: 
          • Developer Mode
          • Not supported – ChromeOS updates can break it
          • Default install is 16.04.  I believe you can specify 18.04
        • I think I will be using this.  It’s a cheap, light portable device with 12 hour battery life that I can take on the go

THE NEWS

SECURITY UPDATE

  • NSA reveals SOMETHING about Russian hacks
  • Linux Malware and Securing Your System
    • CTT goes in early about preventive measures and turns his nose up at the idea that someone would be running kernels earlier than 3.7 because it was released in 2012. RHEL 6 is still on 2.6… Sure. For a desktop user, it’s probably not likely, but for Enterprise? The NSA and the FBI didn’t put out a report for grandma in her kitchen. They put it out for the military and other institutions that are slow moving. In some cases, RHEL 5 is still in use and in Extended Life Phase.
    • Don’t install untrusted kernel modules or unsigned kernels.
    • SecureBoot
    • CTT offers a script that does:
      • Turning on UFW
      • Limiting SSH (which prevents brute force/dictionary style attacks)
      • Opening 80/443
      • Denying everything else incoming
      • Allowing everything outgoing
    • The script is a little odd. While limiting SSH is good, much thought should be given to just using keys, and disabling password login altogether. Also, why open 80 and 443? You would really only need this if you’re hosting a website of some kind. Most tools use custom ports (i.e., Cockpit uses port 9090).
  • Alexa Can Be Hacked, Instagram Retains Deleted Data, Linux Malware Found By NSA & FBI – ThreatWire

Announcements:

Our next episode will be September 6, 2020 at 2 pm Central US Time, 7 pm UTC, 8 pm British Summer Time – https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Add Dallas Tx

Wrap-up:

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

  • Londoner for his suggestion to use timeanddate.com
  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 4592 mintCast 342 – Security Theater https://mintcast.org/mintcast-342-security-theater/ Wed, 26 Aug 2020 04:49:31 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4588 Then, in our news, Pinta, Lutris and Mozilla
In security, we talk security recommendations and the NSA
Download
]]>

Download

We would like to welcome Owen Peery to the team. He’s our new editor!

1:40 Wanderings
46:32 News
1:05:05 Security
1:22:05 Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, I’ve been testing out a new keyboard, Tony Hughes tries to remove a finger (again), Joe has been soldering and reading, Moss has been adding more distros,

Then, in our news, Pinta, Lutris and Mozilla

In security, we talk security recommendations and the NSA

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Digging into some errors I got, last stream on Youtube. It was complaining that I was streaming at only 3500kbps. That was odd as I’ve always streamed at OBS’s default. Turns out, Youtube wants 4500kbps now. So, I cranked the video bitrate up to 6400 in OBS’s Output section. No errors!
    • Kernel 5.8 is smooth as silk
    • Got a new keyboard. A cheap mechanical with OUTEMU Red switches. Cost $35, but also came with a mouse pad and mouse. They’re all RGB of course, except for the mouse pad.
    • Been watching Star Trek Lower Decks. It’s hilarious. It’s a story of about 5 ensigns that work on the starship Cerritos. They’re not high ranking, and only get to do grunt work for the most part, but they find their niche and get their jobs done. I’ve never been much of a Trek fan, but this is seriously something I can see myself watching until the end of the series. It has the feel of Rick and Morty and Futurama fused together. Hijinks obviously ensue.
    • Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 1 Trailer
  • Tony H
    • So I managed to drill my finger in an accident while doing some work on the matchbox cars, it’s not good when a drill bit brakes while you are drilling a post out and you have the model held in your hand, the cut was very sore and the end of the finger is still numb from a little bit of nerve damage as a result. What with that and cutting myself while cooking my wife thinks I have a death wish.
    • As a result of the accident I haven’t been doing much in the way of restoration for the last couple of weeks but I have made some nice eBay buys which have resulted in the collection and spares to the restoration has grown a little larger, although I had to stop bidding on stuff as I wouldn’t have been around for any deliveries that may have arrived after I came away, it has probably saved me a few shekels.
    • For a little light relief I installed Ubuntu Touch on my OnePlus 1 and while it was a fairly painless process unlike trying to update Lineage OS to 17.1 on the same phone which I can’t get it to do, it is definitely NOT ready for prime time yet. All the apps seem to be web based and do not work very well, I was thinking of Using the phone as my Sat Nav for my car but as you need the internet even if it worked well, which it doesn’t then I would need to get a new sim card and data plan as it will not work on the GPS alone as it needs a web connection for the apps to work. I also tried to connect to the WiFi here at Woodbrooke and it will not connect to the login page to finish authorising access to the WiFi.
    • I’m continuing to play with Mint 20 Mate on the DHD laptop with the intention of this being my review for the September show. Given my findings so far It might be a short review as apart from the Snapd issue and a few programs being updated it is pretty much business as usual, so while I am here at Woodbrooke I’m having a look at a distro suggested by a listener, SparkyLinux and while it is based on Debian they do what Mint used to do with the LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) and base one of the spins on the testing branch with a warning that it is not for those wanting a stable system or are new to Linux. Just to note that both iso’s will fit on a 2Gb Flash drive (or less than 1GB if you opt for one of the stable minimal GUI spins). So if you have an old one kicking around you were wondering what to use it for, then maybe SparkyLinux could be an option.    
    • I wrote the 4th in my Full Circle Magazine series on podcast production the first of which was in issue 159 at the end of July. I’m not a natural writer but I have been enjoying sharing what I have learned since starting on mintCast and DHD.
  • Moss
    • I installed Gecko ROLLING to my desktop. So now I have ROLLING on my desktop and STATIC on my laptop (equivalent to openSUSE Tumbleweed and Leap, respectively). 
    • On the 15th, I installed KDE neon, also to my desktop. Oddly, the announcement that neon was available based on 20.04 did not mention that you would still be installing the 18.04 version, and then be greeted with the Upgrade button. It took a few more button pushes to get the upgrade started, but it ran beautifully. I then ran updates and installed some of my more common additions, including Stacer 1.10. Stacer ran great, but Discover popped up and said there was an update to it. I ran the update. And now Stacer wouldn’t load, it said “program not found”. So I reinstalled from my .deb package and it worked again… and Discover said there was an update again. I have posted to the KDE neon user forum to report this issue and ask how I can get Discover to ignore the update. Apparently they think an app in the repo is newer than the same app from a .deb file, but why it disables the program to run the update is beyond me. Note to self: Check the repo to see if an application is there before installing saved .deb files.
    • I now have only one free partition each on my desktop and laptop. And I’m starting to have memory issues — not my computer, me, trying to remember what all I have installed. Updating has already gotten beyond the “fun” level.
    • I am tempted to install Releax Linux to my system even though it’s only 0.5beta. This is a fully independent distro out of India, with a new package manager and everything. It sounds really exciting. Maybe I should dig up Tony Hughes’ instructions and learn how to install it in a VM.
    • I posted a new blog to LinuxQuestions.org.
    • I did some performing on Thursday the 20th on Eurofilk, which is now happening every other Thursday. I got to play with Cecilia Eng, first time for me and she’s a legend, and a total of 9 others in the Zoom room, including my friend K.J. Noren. This is the first performing I’ve done since about 2 weeks after my accident. My shoulder hurt a lot more afterward, but I seem to have gained mobility.
    • We’re about ⅔ of the way through Blood Rites, the 6th Dresden Files book. Dresden missed a huge hint when he had a major data download from Thomas; there is no explanation for that miss. We’re enjoying the book, we just wish Dresden could be more successful stopping people from dying.
  • Joe
    • Watched a lot of YouTube and did some soldering
    • Took a break for a few days from reading but still got some in
      • Up to book 20 in Drizzt
      • Demon Accords book 16
      • Big Damn Hero
        • Firefly book, surprisingly good
    • Soldered some headphones
      • New MMCX connectors came in and got them set up on 2 sets of headphones.
      • Only need to redo one of the connections at this point
    • Was informed that I missed the 8th book of the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony.  Although I am more than a little disillusioned by his work since he uses it as a platform to push his ideology on age of consent.
      • Also the book does not exist in audio format from what I can see so if I do read it, it will have to be text aloud
    • Attempted to make the macro keyboard, followed the instructions exactly but was not able to get it working.
      • Rechecked my soldering several times but it was solid
      • Only about 6 of the 12 keys would work.  
      • So I took it apart down to the board on the keypad and did continuity tests on the whole thing
      • Bad board and a slightly different pinout than was in the instructions but the different pinout shouldn’t be a concern
      • I could try to solder directly to the board and to the pins but that seems a little crazy even for me.  Although if I get bored enough you never know.
      • I have ordered a couple of different types of keyboards to give another try using different methods
      • Right before the show a test set of 4 mechanical keys showed up and I was able to get them wired in place although I still need to wire the Promicro and I need to 3D-print the case for it
      • Thinking about ordering a set of 90 MX Cherry Blues and 3d printing everything else
  • Tony W
    • Refinishing my basement practice/rehearsal/studio/home office space
      • Installed carpet to cover concrete floor
      • Covered the one concrete wall in this room with drywall/heavy cloth, for now
      • Have insulation and drywall ready to go for remaining walls/ceilings
      • Will most likely get a permit from county before installing drywall over electrical, ductwork etc
      • This involved disassembling all of my tech, my podcast setup, etc and almost did not set back up before today’s podcast
    • Updated to Mint 20
      • Upgrade was fairly seamless, but had a couple minor issues
        • The update did break my Grub.  Reinstalled Grub very easily using MX Linux live USB Boot Repair (courtesy of Ventoy)
        • The version of Mumble installed from Software Manager didn’t work, had to install the Flatpak
      • Installed Linux via Crouton on Acer Chromebook 314
          • Crostini was great, but somewhat useless to me as there is no direct access to hardware (particularly USB audio devices) 
        • Crouton gives you full Linux desktop courtesy of chroot
        • Process to install:
          • Have to turn on Developer mode (which erases local data)
          • Follow instructions to install via crosh (Chrome terminal)
          • Once installed, to enter Linux desktop: Sudo enter-chroot startxfce4 (or sudo startxfce4 as a shortcut)
        • From there, Ctrl/Alt/Shift Forward and Ctrl/Alt/Shift/Back to switch between ChromeOS and XFCE (or desktop of your choice)
        • Default is XFCE but Cinnamon, KDE, e17, LXDE and Unity are also available 
        • IT WORKED!!!  My audio interface works perfectly with XFCE running on the Chromebook. 
          • Audacity, Mumble, OBS studio ready to go
        • Downsides: 
          • Developer Mode
          • Not supported – ChromeOS updates can break it
          • Default install is 16.04.  I believe you can specify 18.04
        • I think I will be using this.  It’s a cheap, light portable device with 12 hour battery life that I can take on the go

THE NEWS

SECURITY UPDATE

  • NSA reveals SOMETHING about Russian hacks
  • Linux Malware and Securing Your System
    • CTT goes in early about preventive measures and turns his nose up at the idea that someone would be running kernels earlier than 3.7 because it was released in 2012. RHEL 6 is still on 2.6… Sure. For a desktop user, it’s probably not likely, but for Enterprise? The NSA and the FBI didn’t put out a report for grandma in her kitchen. They put it out for the military and other institutions that are slow moving. In some cases, RHEL 5 is still in use and in Extended Life Phase.
    • Don’t install untrusted kernel modules or unsigned kernels.
    • SecureBoot
    • CTT offers a script that does:
      • Turning on UFW
      • Limiting SSH (which prevents brute force/dictionary style attacks)
      • Opening 80/443
      • Denying everything else incoming
      • Allowing everything outgoing
    • The script is a little odd. While limiting SSH is good, much thought should be given to just using keys, and disabling password login altogether. Also, why open 80 and 443? You would really only need this if you’re hosting a website of some kind. Most tools use custom ports (i.e., Cockpit uses port 9090).
  • Alexa Can Be Hacked, Instagram Retains Deleted Data, Linux Malware Found By NSA & FBI – ThreatWire

Announcements:

Our next episode will be September 6, 2020 at 2 pm Central US Time, 7 pm UTC, 8 pm British Summer Time – https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Add Dallas Tx

Wrap-up:

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

  • Londoner for his suggestion to use timeanddate.com
  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 4588 mintCast 341 – GRUB Breaks the Internet (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-341-grub-breaks-the-internet-mp3/ Wed, 12 Aug 2020 04:36:37 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4570 Then, our news Linux Mint gets stats, Gnome squashes a memory bug, and Ubuntu hits its first 20.04 point release.
In security, Intel pulls an Intel
Download
]]>

Download

1:38 Wanderings
45:15 News
53:22 Check This Out
1:08:21 Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, I’ve been browsing, Joe’s been fixing docks, Moss has been slowly filling up his machine, and Tony Watts gets a new axe

Then, our news Linux Mint gets stats, Gnome squashes a memory bug, and Ubuntu hits its first 20.04 point release.

In security, Intel pulls an Intel

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Configuring GPU rendering on Firefox
      • In about:config , change “gfx.webrender.all” to “true”
      • Great on the desktop where I have a discrete card. Not so much on the laptop where it’s integrated and can get choppy at higher loads.
    • One thing I keep running into in other distributions besides Mint is odd color profiles in anything Chromium based. 
      • My eyes aren’t good enough to see if it’s absolutely everything, but I can certainly see a red hue on links which turn them purple.
      • This includes electron apps like Discord. The links and my profile picture look funny.
      • I can fix it in Chrome and Chromium by changing the Force Color Profile option in chrome://flags from “default” to “sRGB”
      • This doesn’t work in Electron apps cause I don’t know how to do this! Is there a command line addition? In flatpak? Curious and annoying.
    • Got a windscreen for my PodMic. 
      • I was noticing a lot of air in my P’s and B’s in the recordings. This should cut it down a little.
      • It was a non standard size, and since it already has an internal pop filter, there weren’t many choices. $12 later, I have one.
  • Moss
    • I added Manjaro Cinnamon to my Desktop PC last week, and last night I burned a USB stick with the latest Feren OS and installed it. I then reburned the stick for Gecko ROLLING, but it was too late to start another installation. And you have no idea how much willpower it took to not install it just before the show.. This means I have at least one variant of every base Linux distro except Red Hat and Slackware (unless you count that SuSE was the first variant of Slackware). I also do not have any independents such as Solus. I have not quite finished configuring everything I have installed, but I did make up a neat checklist to make sure I was getting everything. I will still have 2 free partitions on my desktop and 1 on my laptop… gotta get serious and do more hopping!
    • I got my new Raspberry Pi 4, a gift from Firecat which I previously mentioned, working with Ubuntu MATE 20.04. I even got Mullvad working on it. The only software I can’t load are SoftMaker Office (or FreeOffice) and PySolFC, neither of which apparently come in ARM64 versions. I discovered that the sound features of the Pi are a bit on the weak side; at no more than 80% of the normal loudness of my desktop, using the same powered speakers, the sound is a bit on the fuzzy side. I have ordered a USB sound “card” from eBay, and it should be here soon.
    • I also just received some new Bluetooth earbuds, AMZLAB Gmbh T16. It’s weird having something just “sit comfortably in your ear” and not be actually affixed with rubber earplugs. For the most part, they sit. I’ve had them drop out a couple times, and accidentally turn off when I pick them up. Still learning the ins and outs of these, but they seem cool. I decided to order them with the last of my covid-19 money when the nice LG headset Joe had sent me started having the right ear go in and out. And of course they are having trouble working with my desktop and Mumble, so I’m still wearing my old wired earbuds for this show.
    • My wife’s T430 messed up running Mint 20 Cinnamon. After trying a few things, I wound up replacing the SSD with another one and doing a clean install of Mint 20 MATE. I also attempted to put KDE neon on it, but that would not boot AND messed up the Mint boot. I put Ubuntu Unity in the second partition and ran Grub Customizer, and now Mint boots. That was 3 hours of a whole lot of not fun, but I got the job done.
    • I’m finding a few more jobs to apply for. I have yet to get an actual response except for the one two months ago, and they also had their own employment section for seniors but I haven’t heard from them either. There have been a few online tests, but I haven’t heard the results from those either; you rarely do, except for possibly getting an interview or a next step.
    • Ubuntu Unity 20.04.1 was released on the 6th. I did a complete new installation, and used the same partition I previously had installed Unity 20.04. I got everything set up the way I wanted it, and then returned control of GRUB to OpenMandriva, (because nobody does a beautiful GRUB screen like OM4). I immediately discovered that I could not boot into Ubuntu Unity but all my other distros worked. DUH. OM4 had not been updated for the new installation and was still looking for the old one. Back into OM4: sudo update-grub2. 
    • We finished reading Death Masks, the 5th book in the Dresden Files series, and have started the 6th, Blood Rites. Still don’t think it’s as good as Demon Squad, but we’re enjoying it.
  • Joe
    • I know Josh and I discussed it before but I am going to make my own macro keyboard
      • I have ordered a solderable 12 key keyboard and an arduino pro micro
      • I will set it up along with hotkeys to run programs that are already setup or to kick off bash scripts in a specific locations
    • Ended up with 12 of the Lenovo docks in the set of 10 that I ordered to see if I could fix.
      • All of them worked but 3 were missing some of the outer casing
        • Was able to 3D print some mounts that cover the missing parts and I will be keeping those for myself to use in future projects
      • This is probably also the right time of year to be selling with school about to start
      • Still need to buy some power supplies for them, which I think I can get for around 7 dollars a piece
      • That means the total cost will be around 9 dollars each and I am going to try and sell 9 of them for 30 dollars each (which is 10 dollars less than you can find them anywhere else)
    • Started playing around with X2Go screen mirroring instead of the usual spinning off a new desktop and I have to say that it works really well.
      • It used to be that you would have to install a whole new application specific for the task but now it is built into the server application and it works awesome.  
      • Using it with the 7140 in conjunction with the dock until I get some more HDMI cables
      • I do see some occasional latency but nothing insurmountable and only on the wifi in the garage.  I should put a wifi access point out there and see if that helps
    • Small problem with the 7130 and the 7140 with the dock.  They heat up and dont charge worth a darn.  Not sure what the issue is at this point.  I could try modding the dock so that it has a cooling fan in the back that blows against the tablet but that won’t fix the underlying issue.  Why is it heating up?  It doesn’t do that when connected to the keyboard dock or when connected to the other power supply. 
    • Borderlands 3 on mint with proton
      • Worked after reinstalling Vulkan
      • Slow to start but runs smooth after the first few seconds  *ACO 
    • Made it to book 12 in the Drizzt collection and decided to take a break so I don’t get burned out on it with 24 left to go
    • M.R. Forbes Ghost and Magic books
      • 4 book series
    • Son of the Blacksword books 1 and 2
    • Steve McHugh Death Unleashed one of the Hellequin novels
    • Stephen Blackmoore’s Eric Carter novel 1-3
    • Headphones fun
      • Found a really good deal on 6 broken Skullcandy Hesh 3’s which are not as good as the Crushers but have some really good things going for them.  Like passthrough power. And the fact that all the electronics are on one side.  Which makes them better for building my own bluetooth dongles
      • Already have two different types of female connectors that I can use but I will only do it to the ones that I cannot get back in good working order.
      • My other Hesh 3’s that I had sitting around ended up with a bloated battery but I was able to replace it with one from one of the 2 Crushers that I was not able to get working. The battery size was a little different but there was plenty of room to work and they are all the same 3.7 volts.
      • Someone asked me to fix a PS3 headset that their kid was using for school and I agreed.  Cechya 0080
        • Loaned them one of the Crushers with the 3D printed hinges and a couple of extra hinges just in case
        • Bad battery and some broken plastic around the mic and some occasional static on the mic
        • Replaced the battery easy enough with one with a lot more capacity.  It turns on but takes a super long time to charge fully
        • Used Gorilla Glue to reseat the plastic for the mic but my son then broke it again so I ended up gluing it to the side at full extension.  
  • Tony W
    • Beverage sampling
    • I gots me a NEW ELECTRIC GUITAR Y’ALL!!
    • GIGS!
      • Played at Ironshield Brewing Friday night.  New brewery right in my backyard, serving up German lagers and Belgian ales.  Lovely place, great crowd, and everyone really seemed to enjoy the music.  I met a couple of the owners.  Owners and staff were very pleased with the live music and I’ll be back again in September, and hopefully regularly after that.  
      • Played Lucky’s in Brookhaven (near Atlanta) Saturday night, last minute pickup gig to fill in for a musician who injured his hand.
    • New gaming headset for my kid
      • JBL Quantum 200
    • Chromebook exchange
      • Bought a 2020 Acer Chromebook 314 Open Box on Ebay
      • This was to replace the 2018 Chromebook I bought a couple weeks ago that didn’t last 24 hours (wouldn’t charge)
        • That model had a puny barrel connection for power and seemed like the charge port had broken loose – newer model uses USB C (yay)
        • Bought for my kid who is special needs and it’s simple enough for him to use – it’s very similar in operation to his Android phone (Myself I’d be interested in used Thinkpad for a personal laptop).  But I actually really enjoy using the Chromebook
        • Some features 
          • 64GB storage
          • 4GB Ram
          • Celeron N4000
          • Battery lasts about 12 hours
          • Able to run linux apps as well as Android apps – available to launch just like any other ChromeOS app
          • Sync with android phone, smartlock etc
          • Family Link 
          • Stadia works well!
          • Have not yet tried Linux via Crouton yet but I will!

THE NEWS: 

  • Linux Mint Monthly News July 2020
    • Lots of donations as expected a month after a release
    • Most of the user base, a little more than half,  is on some version of 19
      • Most of those are on 19.3, just slightly edging out 20.
      • But, a little under a quarter of the user base are already on 20.
      • Coming in slightly under LM20 is LM 19.1, Tessa
      • Next in line is LM 18.3, Sylvia
    • The chart shows about half the Linux Mint users surveyed use the most recently or close-to-recent versions of Linux Mint.
    • However, the chart leaves out anybody that has changed their default Linux Mint Firefox start page, which is probably, a very sizable chunk.
  • <Moss>Gnome software memory bug: Rudra Saraswat of Ubuntu Unity writes: Thanks for reporting this issue [memory getting eaten up in UUE]. gnome-software seems to be the main culprit in this memory hogging issue. There is an open High priority issue in Launchpad for this. This started with 17.04, and the issue still exists in Focal Fossa. Even on fresh boot of Gnome, people have reported 500-600 MB of ram usage (some even reported 22 GB and above). Also, check – https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/gn5an6/gnome_software_memory_bug/ (This should be fixed in the 20.04.1 release.)
  • Ubuntu 20.04.1 released

SECURITY UPDATE:

  • Whoops! Intel “Misplaces” 20GB of Data
    • Till Kottman, an IT consultant that has helped break other data dumps in the past, linked to a trove of 20GB of Intel proprietary information named “Intel exconfidential Lake Platform Release ;)” 
    • Kottman says the anonymous source claims to have breached Intel’s security, while Intel claims this is false.
    • Here’s some of the chat log
      • Anon: They have a server hosted online by Akam[a]i CDN that wasn’t properly secure. After an internet wide nmap scan I found my target port open and went through a list of 370 possible servers based on details that nmap provided with an NSE script. {reconnaissance / port scanning}
      • Anon: I used a python script I made to probe different aspects of the server including username defaults and unsecure file/folder access. {enumeration}
      • Anon: The folders were just lying open if you could guess the name of one. Then when you were in the folder you could go back to root and just click into the other folders that you didn’t know the name of. {directory traversal attack}
      • Anon: Best of all, due to another misconfiguration, I could masqu[e]rade as any of their employees or make my own user. {privilege escalation}
      • Anon: Another funny thing is that on the zip files you may find password protected. Most of them use the password Intel123 or intel123.
    •  
    • None of that is confirmed, so grain of salt.
    • The initial posting was done in an effort to have people download the data dump and scour it for interesting or useful information.
    • If the titles are to be believed, there’ll be Intel ME flash tools (oh no), Intel dev and debugging tools, roadmaps, schematics, Intel Snowridge Process Simulator dev kit, among other things.
  • GRUB Breaks the Internet
    • Researchers at Eclypsium identified a buffer overflow that happens in GRUB2 as it goes through the grub.cfg file allowing an attacker to gain arbitrary code execution. Dubbed Boothole. For those playing along at home, that means game over.
    • What would happen is that an attacker would configure grub.cfg to run malware of her choosing before handing off the boot sequence to the OS.
    • If administrative privileges on the box are available to the attacker, this exploit can even be used on SecureBoot enabled systems without altering the vendor shim, which is the bit that actually boots the system while still being recognized as “secure”. While that makes this attack a bit harder, surely there are no shortage of additional attacks that can grant this privilege.
    • So here’s the rub. Every. Single. Version. Of. Linux. Needs. An. Update.
    • With the exception of one, unnamed, vendor.
    • What needs to happen to actually fix this once and for all
      • An update to GRUB2
      • Distros need to update their installers, shims and bootloaders
      • Microsoft needs to sign off on all of the new shims
      • Users and Admins need to be aware of this exploit and use only the newest, patched versions of install and recovery media
      • Firmware updates on affected hardware to prevent this attack

Announcements:

Our next episode will be Sunday, August 23, 2020 at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC and 8 pm British Summer Time. Time conversions are available at Calculator.net should you need to determine your time.

Wrap-up:

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

  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 4570 mintCast 341 – GRUB Breaks the Internet https://mintcast.org/mintcast-341-grub-breaks-the-internet/ Wed, 12 Aug 2020 04:11:34 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4563 Then, our news Linux Mint gets stats, Gnome squashes a memory bug, and Ubuntu hits its first 20.04 point release.
In security, Intel pulls an Intel
Download
]]>

Download

1:38 Wanderings
45:15 News
53:22 Check This Out
1:08:21 Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, I’ve been browsing, Joe’s been fixing docks, Moss has been slowly filling up his machine, and Tony Watts gets a new axe

Then, our news Linux Mint gets stats, Gnome squashes a memory bug, and Ubuntu hits its first 20.04 point release.

In security, Intel pulls an Intel

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Configuring GPU rendering on Firefox
      • In about:config , change “gfx.webrender.all” to “true”
      • Great on the desktop where I have a discrete card. Not so much on the laptop where it’s integrated and can get choppy at higher loads.
    • One thing I keep running into in other distributions besides Mint is odd color profiles in anything Chromium based. 
      • My eyes aren’t good enough to see if it’s absolutely everything, but I can certainly see a red hue on links which turn them purple.
      • This includes electron apps like Discord. The links and my profile picture look funny.
      • I can fix it in Chrome and Chromium by changing the Force Color Profile option in chrome://flags from “default” to “sRGB”
      • This doesn’t work in Electron apps cause I don’t know how to do this! Is there a command line addition? In flatpak? Curious and annoying.
    • Got a windscreen for my PodMic. 
      • I was noticing a lot of air in my P’s and B’s in the recordings. This should cut it down a little.
      • It was a non standard size, and since it already has an internal pop filter, there weren’t many choices. $12 later, I have one.
  • Moss
    • I added Manjaro Cinnamon to my Desktop PC last week, and last night I burned a USB stick with the latest Feren OS and installed it. I then reburned the stick for Gecko ROLLING, but it was too late to start another installation. And you have no idea how much willpower it took to not install it just before the show.. This means I have at least one variant of every base Linux distro except Red Hat and Slackware (unless you count that SuSE was the first variant of Slackware). I also do not have any independents such as Solus. I have not quite finished configuring everything I have installed, but I did make up a neat checklist to make sure I was getting everything. I will still have 2 free partitions on my desktop and 1 on my laptop… gotta get serious and do more hopping!
    • I got my new Raspberry Pi 4, a gift from Firecat which I previously mentioned, working with Ubuntu MATE 20.04. I even got Mullvad working on it. The only software I can’t load are SoftMaker Office (or FreeOffice) and PySolFC, neither of which apparently come in ARM64 versions. I discovered that the sound features of the Pi are a bit on the weak side; at no more than 80% of the normal loudness of my desktop, using the same powered speakers, the sound is a bit on the fuzzy side. I have ordered a USB sound “card” from eBay, and it should be here soon.
    • I also just received some new Bluetooth earbuds, AMZLAB Gmbh T16. It’s weird having something just “sit comfortably in your ear” and not be actually affixed with rubber earplugs. For the most part, they sit. I’ve had them drop out a couple times, and accidentally turn off when I pick them up. Still learning the ins and outs of these, but they seem cool. I decided to order them with the last of my covid-19 money when the nice LG headset Joe had sent me started having the right ear go in and out. And of course they are having trouble working with my desktop and Mumble, so I’m still wearing my old wired earbuds for this show.
    • My wife’s T430 messed up running Mint 20 Cinnamon. After trying a few things, I wound up replacing the SSD with another one and doing a clean install of Mint 20 MATE. I also attempted to put KDE neon on it, but that would not boot AND messed up the Mint boot. I put Ubuntu Unity in the second partition and ran Grub Customizer, and now Mint boots. That was 3 hours of a whole lot of not fun, but I got the job done.
    • I’m finding a few more jobs to apply for. I have yet to get an actual response except for the one two months ago, and they also had their own employment section for seniors but I haven’t heard from them either. There have been a few online tests, but I haven’t heard the results from those either; you rarely do, except for possibly getting an interview or a next step.
    • Ubuntu Unity 20.04.1 was released on the 6th. I did a complete new installation, and used the same partition I previously had installed Unity 20.04. I got everything set up the way I wanted it, and then returned control of GRUB to OpenMandriva, (because nobody does a beautiful GRUB screen like OM4). I immediately discovered that I could not boot into Ubuntu Unity but all my other distros worked. DUH. OM4 had not been updated for the new installation and was still looking for the old one. Back into OM4: sudo update-grub2. 
    • We finished reading Death Masks, the 5th book in the Dresden Files series, and have started the 6th, Blood Rites. Still don’t think it’s as good as Demon Squad, but we’re enjoying it.
  • Joe
    • I know Josh and I discussed it before but I am going to make my own macro keyboard
      • I have ordered a solderable 12 key keyboard and an arduino pro micro
      • I will set it up along with hotkeys to run programs that are already setup or to kick off bash scripts in a specific locations
    • Ended up with 12 of the Lenovo docks in the set of 10 that I ordered to see if I could fix.
      • All of them worked but 3 were missing some of the outer casing
        • Was able to 3D print some mounts that cover the missing parts and I will be keeping those for myself to use in future projects
      • This is probably also the right time of year to be selling with school about to start
      • Still need to buy some power supplies for them, which I think I can get for around 7 dollars a piece
      • That means the total cost will be around 9 dollars each and I am going to try and sell 9 of them for 30 dollars each (which is 10 dollars less than you can find them anywhere else)
    • Started playing around with X2Go screen mirroring instead of the usual spinning off a new desktop and I have to say that it works really well.
      • It used to be that you would have to install a whole new application specific for the task but now it is built into the server application and it works awesome.  
      • Using it with the 7140 in conjunction with the dock until I get some more HDMI cables
      • I do see some occasional latency but nothing insurmountable and only on the wifi in the garage.  I should put a wifi access point out there and see if that helps
    • Small problem with the 7130 and the 7140 with the dock.  They heat up and dont charge worth a darn.  Not sure what the issue is at this point.  I could try modding the dock so that it has a cooling fan in the back that blows against the tablet but that won’t fix the underlying issue.  Why is it heating up?  It doesn’t do that when connected to the keyboard dock or when connected to the other power supply. 
    • Borderlands 3 on mint with proton
      • Worked after reinstalling Vulkan
      • Slow to start but runs smooth after the first few seconds  *ACO 
    • Made it to book 12 in the Drizzt collection and decided to take a break so I don’t get burned out on it with 24 left to go
    • M.R. Forbes Ghost and Magic books
      • 4 book series
    • Son of the Blacksword books 1 and 2
    • Steve McHugh Death Unleashed one of the Hellequin novels
    • Stephen Blackmoore’s Eric Carter novel 1-3
    • Headphones fun
      • Found a really good deal on 6 broken Skullcandy Hesh 3’s which are not as good as the Crushers but have some really good things going for them.  Like passthrough power. And the fact that all the electronics are on one side.  Which makes them better for building my own bluetooth dongles
      • Already have two different types of female connectors that I can use but I will only do it to the ones that I cannot get back in good working order.
      • My other Hesh 3’s that I had sitting around ended up with a bloated battery but I was able to replace it with one from one of the 2 Crushers that I was not able to get working. The battery size was a little different but there was plenty of room to work and they are all the same 3.7 volts.
      • Someone asked me to fix a PS3 headset that their kid was using for school and I agreed.  Cechya 0080
        • Loaned them one of the Crushers with the 3D printed hinges and a couple of extra hinges just in case
        • Bad battery and some broken plastic around the mic and some occasional static on the mic
        • Replaced the battery easy enough with one with a lot more capacity.  It turns on but takes a super long time to charge fully
        • Used Gorilla Glue to reseat the plastic for the mic but my son then broke it again so I ended up gluing it to the side at full extension.  
  • Tony W
    • Beverage sampling
    • I gots me a NEW ELECTRIC GUITAR Y’ALL!!
    • GIGS!
      • Played at Ironshield Brewing Friday night.  New brewery right in my backyard, serving up German lagers and Belgian ales.  Lovely place, great crowd, and everyone really seemed to enjoy the music.  I met a couple of the owners.  Owners and staff were very pleased with the live music and I’ll be back again in September, and hopefully regularly after that.  
      • Played Lucky’s in Brookhaven (near Atlanta) Saturday night, last minute pickup gig to fill in for a musician who injured his hand.
    • New gaming headset for my kid
      • JBL Quantum 200
    • Chromebook exchange
      • Bought a 2020 Acer Chromebook 314 Open Box on Ebay
      • This was to replace the 2018 Chromebook I bought a couple weeks ago that didn’t last 24 hours (wouldn’t charge)
        • That model had a puny barrel connection for power and seemed like the charge port had broken loose – newer model uses USB C (yay)
        • Bought for my kid who is special needs and it’s simple enough for him to use – it’s very similar in operation to his Android phone (Myself I’d be interested in used Thinkpad for a personal laptop).  But I actually really enjoy using the Chromebook
        • Some features 
          • 64GB storage
          • 4GB Ram
          • Celeron N4000
          • Battery lasts about 12 hours
          • Able to run linux apps as well as Android apps – available to launch just like any other ChromeOS app
          • Sync with android phone, smartlock etc
          • Family Link 
          • Stadia works well!
          • Have not yet tried Linux via Crouton yet but I will!

THE NEWS: 

  • Linux Mint Monthly News July 2020
    • Lots of donations as expected a month after a release
    • Most of the user base, a little more than half,  is on some version of 19
      • Most of those are on 19.3, just slightly edging out 20.
      • But, a little under a quarter of the user base are already on 20.
      • Coming in slightly under LM20 is LM 19.1, Tessa
      • Next in line is LM 18.3, Sylvia
    • The chart shows about half the Linux Mint users surveyed use the most recently or close-to-recent versions of Linux Mint.
    • However, the chart leaves out anybody that has changed their default Linux Mint Firefox start page, which is probably, a very sizable chunk.
  • <Moss>Gnome software memory bug: Rudra Saraswat of Ubuntu Unity writes: Thanks for reporting this issue [memory getting eaten up in UUE]. gnome-software seems to be the main culprit in this memory hogging issue. There is an open High priority issue in Launchpad for this. This started with 17.04, and the issue still exists in Focal Fossa. Even on fresh boot of Gnome, people have reported 500-600 MB of ram usage (some even reported 22 GB and above). Also, check – https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/gn5an6/gnome_software_memory_bug/ (This should be fixed in the 20.04.1 release.)
  • Ubuntu 20.04.1 released

SECURITY UPDATE:

  • Whoops! Intel “Misplaces” 20GB of Data
    • Till Kottman, an IT consultant that has helped break other data dumps in the past, linked to a trove of 20GB of Intel proprietary information named “Intel exconfidential Lake Platform Release ;)” 
    • Kottman says the anonymous source claims to have breached Intel’s security, while Intel claims this is false.
    • Here’s some of the chat log
      • Anon: They have a server hosted online by Akam[a]i CDN that wasn’t properly secure. After an internet wide nmap scan I found my target port open and went through a list of 370 possible servers based on details that nmap provided with an NSE script. {reconnaissance / port scanning}
      • Anon: I used a python script I made to probe different aspects of the server including username defaults and unsecure file/folder access. {enumeration}
      • Anon: The folders were just lying open if you could guess the name of one. Then when you were in the folder you could go back to root and just click into the other folders that you didn’t know the name of. {directory traversal attack}
      • Anon: Best of all, due to another misconfiguration, I could masqu[e]rade as any of their employees or make my own user. {privilege escalation}
      • Anon: Another funny thing is that on the zip files you may find password protected. Most of them use the password Intel123 or intel123.
    •  
    • None of that is confirmed, so grain of salt.
    • The initial posting was done in an effort to have people download the data dump and scour it for interesting or useful information.
    • If the titles are to be believed, there’ll be Intel ME flash tools (oh no), Intel dev and debugging tools, roadmaps, schematics, Intel Snowridge Process Simulator dev kit, among other things.
  • GRUB Breaks the Internet
    • Researchers at Eclypsium identified a buffer overflow that happens in GRUB2 as it goes through the grub.cfg file allowing an attacker to gain arbitrary code execution. Dubbed Boothole. For those playing along at home, that means game over.
    • What would happen is that an attacker would configure grub.cfg to run malware of her choosing before handing off the boot sequence to the OS.
    • If administrative privileges on the box are available to the attacker, this exploit can even be used on SecureBoot enabled systems without altering the vendor shim, which is the bit that actually boots the system while still being recognized as “secure”. While that makes this attack a bit harder, surely there are no shortage of additional attacks that can grant this privilege.
    • So here’s the rub. Every. Single. Version. Of. Linux. Needs. An. Update.
    • With the exception of one, unnamed, vendor.
    • What needs to happen to actually fix this once and for all
      • An update to GRUB2
      • Distros need to update their installers, shims and bootloaders
      • Microsoft needs to sign off on all of the new shims
      • Users and Admins need to be aware of this exploit and use only the newest, patched versions of install and recovery media
      • Firmware updates on affected hardware to prevent this attack

Announcements:

Our next episode will be Sunday, August 23, 2020 at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC and 8 pm British Summer Time. Time conversions are available at Calculator.net should you need to determine your time.

Wrap-up:

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

  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 4563 mintCast 339 – OLTs? More Like OLGeez (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-339-olts-more-like-olgeez-mp3/ Wed, 15 Jul 2020 04:17:50 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4525 Then, in the news, Linux is more popular than ever, there’s a snake in my boot menu, Firefox fixes the fixes, and more
In security, DuckDuckGo Stops, and hackers are stealing your interwebs.

Download
]]>

Download

1:46 Wanderings
40:36 News
54:43 Security
1:04:28 Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, Joshua Hawk is fighting with his mic, I upgrade all the things, Tony Hughes inkscapes and breaks lockdown, Moss gets Full Circle love, and Joe does TV repair

Then, in the news, Linux is more popular than ever, there’s a snake in my boot menu, Firefox fixes the fixes, and more

In security, DuckDuckGo Stops, and hackers are stealing your interwebs.

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS: 

  • Joshua Hawk
    •  I have been searching for the perfect linux desktop distro for the past 2 plus years and have been everywhere from Linux Mint to Manjaro. I was on solus for about a year and then found out that it did not have the software I needed. The beginning of this year I settled back on linux mint for my main desktop and have also enjoyed openSUSE especially for servers. 
    • Before the show I had a major issue with my mic on my desktop. The audio sounded like I put the mic out of the window of a moving car. I figured it out and It happened to be the overclock on my desktop, it was really bad.
  • Leo
    • Finally got the desktop upgraded to LM20, but haven’t done anything fancy with it yet. The kernel is 5.4, and I don’t want to wait til November to get a newer one. I’ll probably move to Ukuu soon. Same with Mesa. 20.2 has given me lots of performance improvement
    • Had a couple bugs show up in LM20 on the laptop.
      • Bluetooth stutters a lot
      • cinnamon-screensaver freezes the screen in an unlocked state after waking up from suspend. However, this has been resolved.
    • Warpinator. Fantastic. It may not be better than whatever you have now, but it’s really, really good.
      • It is quite literally AirDrop for Linux.
    • I’ve installed Chromium using the Apt pinning solution provided by Clem. Chromium… is annoying. It will crash every now and then.
    • Excited to see the new episode of Linux User Space hit the internet. Tomorrow if you’re listening live, yesterday if you’re listening on mintCast release day, and a while back if you listen later. Any which way. July 12th.
  • Tony H
    • This last 2 weeks have been a little more relaxed as the lock down here in England has relaxed quite a lot so a friend came up from London and stayed a few days which was great as we had not seen each other for over 4 years. It is one of those friendships that we may not talk for months but when we do it is like it was just a few days ago. I sent him home with a loaf of homemade sourdough bread and one of my Matchbox models from the early 1960’s that he remembered having as a child.
    • The new printer is working well and I have started to use Inkscape more to design decals for the model restorations, as this gives a much better result when printing them out despite the small scale you can tell if they are just scaled photo reproductions of the original decal, although for some of the decals a upscaled picture of an original can work. There was a problem with Inkscape 0.92 not allowing me to flow text to a path, so I installed the Flatpak of 1.0 and this is working well in the new version. I’ve now got some laser decal paper and will try that out soon!!!! 
    • I’ve been using bunsenlabs Linux on the Distrohoppers laptop and it is very lightweight in respect of resources, I’m also getting more use to using keyboard shortcuts to access the web browser and various things, although I’m still using the mouse to access menus although you can use a shortcut to bring up a run menu to start software so it is possible not to use the mouse unless the software needs mouse input. As it is based on Debian 10 (Buster) then the software is a little dated but it is not a major issue as it all works.
    • Joe joined my Zoom LUG meeting last week at 4AM in the morning! ‘His’ time, that is what I call dedication or serious insomnia!!!!  
    • I joined BDLL Europe edition last night and had a good time geeking out with the crew again, I no longer feel able to stay up till 3-4am Sunday Mornings due to the disruption to my sleep pattern so the Monthly Euro edition is my BDLL fix at the moment.
  • Moss
    • I wrote up a bio of my computing life for the Linux Mint telegram group and the members insisted I submit it to Full Circle Magazine. I did so, and it was accepted for a future issue. So then I submitted my little writeup on Ventoy to FCM, and it was accepted for a NEAR future issue: Ronnie not only accepted it for an App Pick but said he was going to rush off and try it himself. Feeling good about this. If you want to read the bio, I posted it as a blog on LinuxQuestions.org. I also posted the Ventoy article as a blog, and you should also see Leo’s video.
    • I had a problem with Manjaro booting when Linux Mint 19.3 controlled Grub. I used my Ventoy stick to boot to Manjaro’s GRUB and ran grub-install there, which worked fine. I tried the OpenMandriva GRUB, and that didn’t want to work quite right (but it worked later when I went back to it). So I let Manjaro control GRUB. The guys in the Telegram group told me to try this and that, but none of it fit into my head at the time.
    • On Saturday night, the 3rd of July, I downloaded three versions of openSUSE Leap 15.2 and copied them to my Ventoy stick. I then got Joshua Hawk talking with me in the Distrohoppers’ Digest Telegram room, and figured out that Leap refuses to load from Ventoy (although Tumbleweed does work in Ventoy). So I burned a stick by itself for the netinstaller… and it could not find the website online. Did I log into my modem correctly? I don’t know. So at 23.30, I started an installation using the DVD installer on a USB stick. There were a couple times when I didn’t know what to do and Joshua helped me out. For some reason, the installer did not see my 2 Gb EFI sector, and reported I didn’t have one which was at least 550 Mb. I went ahead with the installation… and it completed. But  when I attempted to boot, it again said it could not find any boot for itself. I booted to Manjaro and attempted to fix the boot using Grub Customizer, but no. I now have a complete installation of openSUSE Leap 15.2, but no way to boot to it. I have asked for help in the openSUSE forum on LinuxQuestions.org but so far the answers are lacking understanding on one side or the other. 
    • Due to this issue, I still have no distro for the next Distrohoppers’ Digest. I tried going with BionicPup64, but it obviously is not meant to be run as a daily driver and has problems updating to current versions of apps. Still trying to work around this issue.
    • I received a Canakit with a Raspberry Pi 4, 4 Gb model, from my old friend and mintCast listener, Firecat. It’s assembled, and I only plugged it in, without OS, to make sure that it runs and to determine that it did not have a blue LED on the fan like Firecat’s fan did.
    • I received the Hyundai Technology Koral 10×3 tablet I talked about last show. But in the end, it was not even close to the hype: The advertising said it was as powerful as a desktop PC; the reality was that it was not half as powerful as my Moto X4 phone. I could not load GIF images; the camera was poor; motion in videos was blurry. I returned it to Target for full credit, and the return process was sweet as could be.
    • I did buy another tablet, helped by listener cryptodan. This one is unbranded on Amazon but met all the specs and was even cheaper, and came with an included cover, screen protector, and earphones. It is considerably better than the Hyundai was, and you can even avoid going full Android as most Google apps need to be installed. The brand turned out to be DUODUOGO, the price was $84 (although they’re sold out of the black one, and the gold one they have now – also not labeled by the brand, but called “Novel TTT” is $90). Very generic, MediaTek SoC with Mali 400 GPU. I really, really like this tablet, and have been talking about it a lot on our Telegram groups. I’ve posted a review on the new site, and am trying to elicit help in getting it to layout right. I still wish I could have gotten a PineTab, so I could have actual Linux on a tablet.
    • I was goofing around with Leo and the DHD gang on Telegram about my threatened joke site, It’s MOSS. And Cryptodan put up the money for 2 years’ domain registration, and Firecat gave me webspace, so dammit, I had to write the site. I quickly learned how much WordPress has changed, to the point that I had serious trouble even getting stuff to publish to the site and still don’t have the menus and stuff right.
    • On Thursday night the 9th, I attempted to run the Mint 20 Upgrade. I got lots of error messages, several restarts, repeated it to see if I got the same errors, and I did. So I gave up on it, and reported the same to the Linux Mint Telegram group. I booted my machine normally on Friday afternoon, and watched the usual things I watch. About 22.00, I saw an icon I didn’t recognize, telling me I had updates, and then noticed that several other icons were more Dark Mode than I was used to. I went to my computer and opened the Welcome Screen, to see that it reported I was now running Mint 20. So I opened my Terminal and ran sudo apt autoremove to get rid of the old 19.3 files, which went smoothly. I did have to install the flatpak of Mumble, and had to reinstall Kodi as there is no PPA for Focal as yet.
    • My wife has been in increasing amounts of pain, and her doctor does not seem to be willing to do anything and the chiropractor does not seem able to do anything. We are exploring other options. I just started physical therapy for my shoulder; more pain, but some increase in motion as of today. My mother is still alive and about as well as a 91-year-old woman can be expected. And we haven’t read any Dresden since before the last show. Which leads us to Joe.
  • Joe
    • Restarted the Dresden Files books so I can be all caught up when Peace Talks comes out on the 14th
    • Picked up a 60 inch 1080p TV for free with a bad HDMI chip.  HDMI did not work at all.  So I purchased a 16 dollar adapter for HDMI-to-composite and everything on the TV is working great
      • But it is hooked up to my little mini PC in the garage. which does not seem to have the graphical processing power to handle two large TVs at the same time, so I get a bit of screen tearing but I swapped the outputs of the 2 TVs and that helps the tearing a lot.  Lowering the resolution on both screens got rid of it almost entirely
      • Plus it is a plasma which probably won’t do well out in the heat for very long
      • But hey — free
    • Because it is a plasma I really can’t leave it on all the time either so I ordered an IR Blaster hub that works with Alexa since I wont be able to hook the TV up to the smart outlet, which I doubt would be able to provide enough power throughput.  
      • It works very well with both of the TVs that i have out there which are both LG
      • So I have timers setup on the computers to turn it off and the blaster to be able to quickly turn both back on.
      • This seems like a low cost substitute for a harmony remote.  You don’t need to use Alexa, you can use your phone.  Reminds me a lot of the Note 3 and Galaxy Tab 2
    • Also worked with an NFC tag and IFTTT to get some silent actions on some of my smart devices so I don’t wake the wife when I go to bed after her.  It was not too hard to setup but you have to do it from the individual apps instead of directly from Alexa which can get a little annoying 
    • Redoing my work space out in the garage because of the replacement TV.
      • Pulled out every extension cord and plug and got rid of the TV stand and a desk so far.  Reboxing some of the storage, throwing some things away and giving away some other things trying to make room for new projects
    • Priced getting ethernet run out to the garage.  Didn’t like the prices but hey I kinda expected it.  I miss having friends around that have the tools and the skills to do that type of thing.
      • It is now run and I have much more stable speeds and should be able to do several projects.
      • I moved my server out there but I don’t know how it will handle the heat of the garage.
      • I need to check the cable from the router to the wall but I am not seeing speeds as fast I should in the garage
      • Have not used the tower as a PC in a while although I have kept up with updates I may completely reformat and start over 
    • Attended Tony H LUG because I could.  
      • It was fun talking TV shows and books.
      • 4 am is a terrible time for a LUG but I had a lot of fun
      • Thanks for inviting me and I may join again.
    • Sold all of the working f*** Insignia Headphones.
      • Did not make much of a profit doing it and they were not fun to work on.  
      • Will not buy Insignia headphones again.  I have yet to find any that were worth the cost which is saying a lot considering I got this set for a bout a dollar a piece 
    • I only have one of the Skullcandy Crushers left which means I have sold 3 of them not including the ones with the 3D printed hinges.  
      • Have made a decent profit selling these so far
      • Paid less than 90 for the headphones 
      • Sold 3 so far at 60 dollars each so I have doubled my money
      • Seems like this might be a good time of year to sell cans
      • Have given or traded 2 of the ones with 3D printed hinges.
        • One to my daughter which she loves
        • One to a listener in exchange for a broken laptop
        • I am also using one of the ones with 3D printed hinges which leaves one left.  Wonder what I should do with it
    • Put a graphics card into my server and set it up to use as a desktop in my garage
      • I let it sit for a day powered in my garage to make sure that it was stable and had no problems
      • In the wee hours of the morning i could not sleep so i finished hooking it up to my monitors and after some finagling it worked although I had intermittent cut outs on one of the monitors which I was still troubleshooting and thinking that it was an issue with power
      • I did the upgrade path for Linux Mint 20 although I did have to go through 19.3 to get there.  The power cut part-way through the update
      • It was not hard to fix, just restarted and configure all and it was done
      • The upgrade path required removing all the external repos so it removed x2go docker resilio sync and plex
      • Installed a couple of applications since the update required removal of some of the repos
      • It shut down again but I was monitoring temperatures.  While they were higher than I would have liked, they should not have caused the shut off
      • I let the machine sit for about ten minutes and then powered it on again.  It powered back off after the login twice.
      • But the third time it shut off before the login was finished so it was not programmatical 
      • Turns out both of my back up power supplies were also bad.  One provided no power and the other would turn on and then turn off.
      • My assumptions of the possibilities at this point are 
        • The power supply is bad and I need a new one
        • The motherboard is bad and I need a new one
        • There is a problem with the motherboard cpu combo and I need a new motherboard
        • Any way you cut it I need new hardware
        • Haven’t decided if I am going to get the new mobo power supply and reuse the processor and ram or if I am just going to completely upgrade

THE NEWS: 

SECURITY UPDATE

Announcements:

The next show will be Sunday, the 26th of July at 7PM UTC, 2PM US Central Time, 8PM British Summer Time

Wrap-up:

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

  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 4525 mintCast 339 – OLTs? More Like OLGeez https://mintcast.org/mintcast-339-olts-more-like-olgeez/ Wed, 15 Jul 2020 03:52:53 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4520 Then, in the news, Linux is more popular than ever, there’s a snake in my boot menu, Firefox fixes the fixes, and more
In security, DuckDuckGo Stops, and hackers are stealing your interwebs.
Download
]]>

Download

1:46 Wanderings
40:36 News
54:43 Security
1:04:28 Outro

First up, in our Wanderings, Joshua Hawk is fighting with his mic, I upgrade all the things, Tony Hughes inkscapes and breaks lockdown, Moss gets Full Circle love, and Joe does TV repair

Then, in the news, Linux is more popular than ever, there’s a snake in my boot menu, Firefox fixes the fixes, and more

In security, DuckDuckGo Stops, and hackers are stealing your interwebs.

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS: 

  • Joshua Hawk
    •  I have been searching for the perfect linux desktop distro for the past 2 plus years and have been everywhere from Linux Mint to Manjaro. I was on solus for about a year and then found out that it did not have the software I needed. The beginning of this year I settled back on linux mint for my main desktop and have also enjoyed openSUSE especially for servers. 
    • Before the show I had a major issue with my mic on my desktop. The audio sounded like I put the mic out of the window of a moving car. I figured it out and It happened to be the overclock on my desktop, it was really bad.
  • Leo
    • Finally got the desktop upgraded to LM20, but haven’t done anything fancy with it yet. The kernel is 5.4, and I don’t want to wait til November to get a newer one. I’ll probably move to Ukuu soon. Same with Mesa. 20.2 has given me lots of performance improvement
    • Had a couple bugs show up in LM20 on the laptop.
      • Bluetooth stutters a lot
      • cinnamon-screensaver freezes the screen in an unlocked state after waking up from suspend. However, this has been resolved.
    • Warpinator. Fantastic. It may not be better than whatever you have now, but it’s really, really good.
      • It is quite literally AirDrop for Linux.
    • I’ve installed Chromium using the Apt pinning solution provided by Clem. Chromium… is annoying. It will crash every now and then.
    • Excited to see the new episode of Linux User Space hit the internet. Tomorrow if you’re listening live, yesterday if you’re listening on mintCast release day, and a while back if you listen later. Any which way. July 12th.
  • Tony H
    • This last 2 weeks have been a little more relaxed as the lock down here in England has relaxed quite a lot so a friend came up from London and stayed a few days which was great as we had not seen each other for over 4 years. It is one of those friendships that we may not talk for months but when we do it is like it was just a few days ago. I sent him home with a loaf of homemade sourdough bread and one of my Matchbox models from the early 1960’s that he remembered having as a child.
    • The new printer is working well and I have started to use Inkscape more to design decals for the model restorations, as this gives a much better result when printing them out despite the small scale you can tell if they are just scaled photo reproductions of the original decal, although for some of the decals a upscaled picture of an original can work. There was a problem with Inkscape 0.92 not allowing me to flow text to a path, so I installed the Flatpak of 1.0 and this is working well in the new version. I’ve now got some laser decal paper and will try that out soon!!!! 
    • I’ve been using bunsenlabs Linux on the Distrohoppers laptop and it is very lightweight in respect of resources, I’m also getting more use to using keyboard shortcuts to access the web browser and various things, although I’m still using the mouse to access menus although you can use a shortcut to bring up a run menu to start software so it is possible not to use the mouse unless the software needs mouse input. As it is based on Debian 10 (Buster) then the software is a little dated but it is not a major issue as it all works.
    • Joe joined my Zoom LUG meeting last week at 4AM in the morning! ‘His’ time, that is what I call dedication or serious insomnia!!!!  
    • I joined BDLL Europe edition last night and had a good time geeking out with the crew again, I no longer feel able to stay up till 3-4am Sunday Mornings due to the disruption to my sleep pattern so the Monthly Euro edition is my BDLL fix at the moment.
  • Moss
    • I wrote up a bio of my computing life for the Linux Mint telegram group and the members insisted I submit it to Full Circle Magazine. I did so, and it was accepted for a future issue. So then I submitted my little writeup on Ventoy to FCM, and it was accepted for a NEAR future issue: Ronnie not only accepted it for an App Pick but said he was going to rush off and try it himself. Feeling good about this. If you want to read the bio, I posted it as a blog on LinuxQuestions.org. I also posted the Ventoy article as a blog, and you should also see Leo’s video.
    • I had a problem with Manjaro booting when Linux Mint 19.3 controlled Grub. I used my Ventoy stick to boot to Manjaro’s GRUB and ran grub-install there, which worked fine. I tried the OpenMandriva GRUB, and that didn’t want to work quite right (but it worked later when I went back to it). So I let Manjaro control GRUB. The guys in the Telegram group told me to try this and that, but none of it fit into my head at the time.
    • On Saturday night, the 3rd of July, I downloaded three versions of openSUSE Leap 15.2 and copied them to my Ventoy stick. I then got Joshua Hawk talking with me in the Distrohoppers’ Digest Telegram room, and figured out that Leap refuses to load from Ventoy (although Tumbleweed does work in Ventoy). So I burned a stick by itself for the netinstaller… and it could not find the website online. Did I log into my modem correctly? I don’t know. So at 23.30, I started an installation using the DVD installer on a USB stick. There were a couple times when I didn’t know what to do and Joshua helped me out. For some reason, the installer did not see my 2 Gb EFI sector, and reported I didn’t have one which was at least 550 Mb. I went ahead with the installation… and it completed. But  when I attempted to boot, it again said it could not find any boot for itself. I booted to Manjaro and attempted to fix the boot using Grub Customizer, but no. I now have a complete installation of openSUSE Leap 15.2, but no way to boot to it. I have asked for help in the openSUSE forum on LinuxQuestions.org but so far the answers are lacking understanding on one side or the other. 
    • Due to this issue, I still have no distro for the next Distrohoppers’ Digest. I tried going with BionicPup64, but it obviously is not meant to be run as a daily driver and has problems updating to current versions of apps. Still trying to work around this issue.
    • I received a Canakit with a Raspberry Pi 4, 4 Gb model, from my old friend and mintCast listener, Firecat. It’s assembled, and I only plugged it in, without OS, to make sure that it runs and to determine that it did not have a blue LED on the fan like Firecat’s fan did.
    • I received the Hyundai Technology Koral 10×3 tablet I talked about last show. But in the end, it was not even close to the hype: The advertising said it was as powerful as a desktop PC; the reality was that it was not half as powerful as my Moto X4 phone. I could not load GIF images; the camera was poor; motion in videos was blurry. I returned it to Target for full credit, and the return process was sweet as could be.
    • I did buy another tablet, helped by listener cryptodan. This one is unbranded on Amazon but met all the specs and was even cheaper, and came with an included cover, screen protector, and earphones. It is considerably better than the Hyundai was, and you can even avoid going full Android as most Google apps need to be installed. The brand turned out to be DUODUOGO, the price was $84 (although they’re sold out of the black one, and the gold one they have now – also not labeled by the brand, but called “Novel TTT” is $90). Very generic, MediaTek SoC with Mali 400 GPU. I really, really like this tablet, and have been talking about it a lot on our Telegram groups. I’ve posted a review on the new site, and am trying to elicit help in getting it to layout right. I still wish I could have gotten a PineTab, so I could have actual Linux on a tablet.
    • I was goofing around with Leo and the DHD gang on Telegram about my threatened joke site, It’s MOSS. And Cryptodan put up the money for 2 years’ domain registration, and Firecat gave me webspace, so dammit, I had to write the site. I quickly learned how much WordPress has changed, to the point that I had serious trouble even getting stuff to publish to the site and still don’t have the menus and stuff right.
    • On Thursday night the 9th, I attempted to run the Mint 20 Upgrade. I got lots of error messages, several restarts, repeated it to see if I got the same errors, and I did. So I gave up on it, and reported the same to the Linux Mint Telegram group. I booted my machine normally on Friday afternoon, and watched the usual things I watch. About 22.00, I saw an icon I didn’t recognize, telling me I had updates, and then noticed that several other icons were more Dark Mode than I was used to. I went to my computer and opened the Welcome Screen, to see that it reported I was now running Mint 20. So I opened my Terminal and ran sudo apt autoremove to get rid of the old 19.3 files, which went smoothly. I did have to install the flatpak of Mumble, and had to reinstall Kodi as there is no PPA for Focal as yet.
    • My wife has been in increasing amounts of pain, and her doctor does not seem to be willing to do anything and the chiropractor does not seem able to do anything. We are exploring other options. I just started physical therapy for my shoulder; more pain, but some increase in motion as of today. My mother is still alive and about as well as a 91-year-old woman can be expected. And we haven’t read any Dresden since before the last show. Which leads us to Joe.
  • Joe
    • Restarted the Dresden Files books so I can be all caught up when Peace Talks comes out on the 14th
    • Picked up a 60 inch 1080p TV for free with a bad HDMI chip.  HDMI did not work at all.  So I purchased a 16 dollar adapter for HDMI-to-composite and everything on the TV is working great
      • But it is hooked up to my little mini PC in the garage. which does not seem to have the graphical processing power to handle two large TVs at the same time, so I get a bit of screen tearing but I swapped the outputs of the 2 TVs and that helps the tearing a lot.  Lowering the resolution on both screens got rid of it almost entirely
      • Plus it is a plasma which probably won’t do well out in the heat for very long
      • But hey — free
    • Because it is a plasma I really can’t leave it on all the time either so I ordered an IR Blaster hub that works with Alexa since I wont be able to hook the TV up to the smart outlet, which I doubt would be able to provide enough power throughput.  
      • It works very well with both of the TVs that i have out there which are both LG
      • So I have timers setup on the computers to turn it off and the blaster to be able to quickly turn both back on.
      • This seems like a low cost substitute for a harmony remote.  You don’t need to use Alexa, you can use your phone.  Reminds me a lot of the Note 3 and Galaxy Tab 2
    • Also worked with an NFC tag and IFTTT to get some silent actions on some of my smart devices so I don’t wake the wife when I go to bed after her.  It was not too hard to setup but you have to do it from the individual apps instead of directly from Alexa which can get a little annoying 
    • Redoing my work space out in the garage because of the replacement TV.
      • Pulled out every extension cord and plug and got rid of the TV stand and a desk so far.  Reboxing some of the storage, throwing some things away and giving away some other things trying to make room for new projects
    • Priced getting ethernet run out to the garage.  Didn’t like the prices but hey I kinda expected it.  I miss having friends around that have the tools and the skills to do that type of thing.
      • It is now run and I have much more stable speeds and should be able to do several projects.
      • I moved my server out there but I don’t know how it will handle the heat of the garage.
      • I need to check the cable from the router to the wall but I am not seeing speeds as fast I should in the garage
      • Have not used the tower as a PC in a while although I have kept up with updates I may completely reformat and start over 
    • Attended Tony H LUG because I could.  
      • It was fun talking TV shows and books.
      • 4 am is a terrible time for a LUG but I had a lot of fun
      • Thanks for inviting me and I may join again.
    • Sold all of the working f*** Insignia Headphones.
      • Did not make much of a profit doing it and they were not fun to work on.  
      • Will not buy Insignia headphones again.  I have yet to find any that were worth the cost which is saying a lot considering I got this set for a bout a dollar a piece 
    • I only have one of the Skullcandy Crushers left which means I have sold 3 of them not including the ones with the 3D printed hinges.  
      • Have made a decent profit selling these so far
      • Paid less than 90 for the headphones 
      • Sold 3 so far at 60 dollars each so I have doubled my money
      • Seems like this might be a good time of year to sell cans
      • Have given or traded 2 of the ones with 3D printed hinges.
        • One to my daughter which she loves
        • One to a listener in exchange for a broken laptop
        • I am also using one of the ones with 3D printed hinges which leaves one left.  Wonder what I should do with it
    • Put a graphics card into my server and set it up to use as a desktop in my garage
      • I let it sit for a day powered in my garage to make sure that it was stable and had no problems
      • In the wee hours of the morning i could not sleep so i finished hooking it up to my monitors and after some finagling it worked although I had intermittent cut outs on one of the monitors which I was still troubleshooting and thinking that it was an issue with power
      • I did the upgrade path for Linux Mint 20 although I did have to go through 19.3 to get there.  The power cut part-way through the update
      • It was not hard to fix, just restarted and configure all and it was done
      • The upgrade path required removing all the external repos so it removed x2go docker resilio sync and plex
      • Installed a couple of applications since the update required removal of some of the repos
      • It shut down again but I was monitoring temperatures.  While they were higher than I would have liked, they should not have caused the shut off
      • I let the machine sit for about ten minutes and then powered it on again.  It powered back off after the login twice.
      • But the third time it shut off before the login was finished so it was not programmatical 
      • Turns out both of my back up power supplies were also bad.  One provided no power and the other would turn on and then turn off.
      • My assumptions of the possibilities at this point are 
        • The power supply is bad and I need a new one
        • The motherboard is bad and I need a new one
        • There is a problem with the motherboard cpu combo and I need a new motherboard
        • Any way you cut it I need new hardware
        • Haven’t decided if I am going to get the new mobo power supply and reuse the processor and ram or if I am just going to completely upgrade

THE NEWS: 

SECURITY UPDATE

Announcements:

The next show will be Sunday, the 26th of July at 7PM UTC, 2PM US Central Time, 8PM British Summer Time

Wrap-up:

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

  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 4520 mintCast 338 – Two Oh Snap (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-338-two-oh-snap-mp3/ Wed, 01 Jul 2020 04:44:18 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4504 Then, in the news, we focus on the new release of Linux Mint 20
In security, Ripple20
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Owen refurbishes, Tony prints new stuff, Moss has a panic attack, Joe attends a LUG, Bo games, and Leo upgrades to 20.

Then, in the news, we focus on the new release of Linux Mint 20

In security, Ripple20

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS: 

  • Owen
    • Continue to refurbish donated computers with older hardware, add RAM and SSDs, install Mint 19.3, and deliver them to families in need at my school
    • Won an Innovative Teacher award from the Fab Foundation and Chevron for this project which also came with a $1000 cash award, which also allowed me to purchase more/better RAM and SSDs
    • 3d printing PPE like face shields and ear savers
    • Ordered 2 new 3d printers via a Kickstarter campaign, one for me, one for school
    • Test driving Mint 20.04 beta after finally separating my /home directory and OS into different partitions, and a few days of being really lost in the weeds, but I had a backup so I knew it would all be OK
    • Attended a virtual STEM conference in June called Inclusive STEM and CS
    • Been learning how to use Kdenlive by using an action camera on top of my helmet and going on different bike rides each day
    • Slowly working on installing motioneyeOS on a Raspberry Pi with one of the new fancy cameras to setup a security camera due to a recent arson at my condo complex
    • Exploring Ubuntu Studio and am almost certain my main machine at home will to to Ubuntu Studio for 20.10 when it’ll be Plasma by default
    • Setup a Ventoy USB stick and started installing all.the.ISOs.in.the.world.
    • Working my way through a lynda.com course on Bash scripting to get better using the command line
    • Staying sane during shelter in place by taking a bicycle ride everyday, not new since I”m a bike commuter for almost 2 decades now, having a standing Sunday morning Zoom call with friends from around the world, walking my dog further than before and more frequently, using the kids playground at the school next to my home to work out on, and trying to think each day of at least one thing I”m grateful for.
    • Gardening, community garden, gardening on our terrace, and gardening in the front of our building
  • Leo
    • Upgraded to Linux Mint 20 on the laptop I’m recording on!
    • Still need to do the desktop, but have a few things going on this weekend, so I may not make it.
    • I’m on a new show! Linux User Space
  • Tony H
    • Baking and playing with my model cars, I also won a few eBay auctions of some nice models to go straight into the collection. Today I spent the afternoon with my sister and her husband as it was their 1st wedding anniversary and I restored a little matchbox Rolls Royce model and painted it up as a wedding saloon which they missed out on as they got married on a cruise ship last summer. My sister is into bead jewelry making so I thought something a little crafty would be appreciated, and they both loved it, so my model restoration hobby has a new fan. 
    • I’ve recently been recording a series of episodes for HPR about my diecast model restorations and I have been having problems with Firefox not letting me reserve a slot in the HPR schedule to upload the show too. It returns an error message. However If I use Chromium to book the slot, not a problem, I can then go back into Firefox and do the remainder of the process from there. It used to work just fine, I’m wondering if my ad blocking plugins might be the issue?  
    • The big story for me this week is, since the last show I purchased a new colour Laser printer, the HP Color Laser 150nw, so I can produce high quality decals for my models that require them. I bought this printer as I was led to believe that it had Linux support. I set it up, downloaded the HP driver package HPLIP from the Developers page which is a more up to date version than that in Mint 19.3, and I thought great, we are good to go. No this did not recognise that the printer was present even after restarting the printer several times with the USB cable attached to the PC. So I went into CUPS which prior to installation of the HPLIP package had not had any idea what this HP printer was, it now recognised it was there and came up with the model and a recommended driver which I installed. I tried a test print the light on the printer starts to flash but apart from a little noise from it as the paper feed whirls around nothing else happens. Several attempts later I started to suspect I had a faulty printer, but I had one last option before I gave up. Here’s where I have to say the dreaded ‘Windows word’ I got out my Dell 7250 laptop that has W10 installed as a test machine for troubleshooting windows issues for other folk, I plugged in the printer and it picked it up right away and started to install the driver, after installing I printed the test page and it worked. In one way I was relieved as my $160 / £130 I spent for the printer is not wasted but I’m more than a little disgruntled that I have to have a Windows laptop to drive the thing instead of just working on my Mint 19.3 box like it should!!!! I then had an idea and booted into Ubuntu Studio 20.04 and it picked the printer up without the addition of any other software so the moral of the story is run the latest OS you can if you want your printer to be supported in Linux.
  • Moss
    • Distrohoppers’ Digest 014 is out. We’d love to have everyone listen to it. Tony and I have a great time doing this little monthly hop.
    • Sometime after the last show was in the can but before we did Distrohoppers’ Digest, I accessed my two machines and did what can only be called Adventures In GPartEd. My desktop box went from 2 partitions to 3, and my laptop went from 3 to 4, complete with cleaning up unnecessary partitions and moving things around so much that if GPartEd *were* dangerous to use, I would have lost lots of data. It is of interest to note my desktop’s hard drive somehow had both EFI and Grub partitions; I removed and reallocated the latter, and also increased the size of my swap partition. Everything works. I’m waiting for all the distros which have been promised, including a new openSUSE, and Slackware 15.
    • Over the past couple days, I have been trying the new Mint 20 on the laptop. I overwrote the Manjaro partition… I tried Cinnamon, but found something mildly upsetting in yesterday’s show meeting and installed MATE instead, then had a couple minor catastrophes causing me to reinstall MATE… TWICE… so I was up all night again. When I get Mint 20 up to the level I need for working, probably today or tomorrow, I will reinstall Manjaro over the Mint 19.3 partition… and will lose the GRUB niceties of 19.3, which were removed in 20 because they caused some machines to not boot. I guess I can make OpenMandriva the Grubholder then, so I can still have a pretty boot menu.  For the record, my memory use in 20 Cinnamon was 1.7 Gb at rest, where in MATE it’s about 770 Mb. Both of those are high for these desktops, but I assume they will work on getting it down soon.
    • I am making an effort to use Bodhi for more of my daily stuff, rather than treating it like a fun curiosity. It is interesting to learn what stuff goes where in a superlight desktop, very different from what I’ve been used to in heavier desktops like XFCE. For instance, I created Key Bindings to turn my touchpad on and off. What I mean by “superlight”: Stacer reports 324 Mb in use with only Stacer open, and 14 Mb of that is Stacer itself. We usually call a desktop “light” if it has 550-700 Mb in use at rest.
    • I still don’t have a distro to review for next Distrohoppers’, but Mint should be out soon. I already have downloaded what should be the final, but they haven’t announced it yet.
    • I bought a new tablet, a Hyundai Technologies Koral 10×3. I was trying to order a PineTab but my wife blocked the purchase. It turns out she thought I was just trying to order another Raspberry Pi, and then, when she approved me buying it, it was sold out. Then a friend told me about her tablet, and I got excited and bought one… I probably jumped at it too quickly, and I do have a bit of buyers’ remorse, having read a few more reviews, but I’ll wait until it arrives before I bad-mouth it… or talk it up…
    • I’ve been running around with all this extra Covid money from Congress, getting  clothes and bedsheets and all the things we have absolutely needed but couldn’t afford, and spending out of pocket for my wife’s health care, which we previously had no money for and still can’t get insurance for. Also due to the Covid money, we are not currently eligible for the various low-income healthcare programs. I’m  cleaning up debt, most of which was caused by importing my wife from Canada — all the money the government and lawyers need for that to happen. Everything’s done except the debt reduction program I’m in, which will be over in less than a year. But all this good money is scheduled to end July 31, which will mean a $540 per week dropoff, and there are no legal jobs in sight.  I can’t even work in my previous employment, as I’m more of a driver risk, have a still-injured shoulder, and otherwise I’m still 67 years old. This is the first time in my life I haven’t been stuck at around 140% of poverty level, and it’s ending in 33 days.
    • As I haven’t been sleeping in bed since the accident, our Dresden Files reading has dropped off, but we’re pretty deep in the 5th book right now.
    • Enough of this. Let’s get to Joe.
  • Joe
    • Attended a virtual LUG
      • It was interesting
      • It was nice to get to see all the people that I normally hang out with at the LUG even if it was over Zoom
      • Got to help a bunch of people and learn a couple of things about top and htop
    • Jim Butcher Codex Alera
      • Good series.  The last book is the weakest but still a really good conclusion
      • Remember the new book comes out next month for the Dresden Files
        • The first few chapters are available online although i have not read them as i would rather wait for the whole book
    • Larry Correia 
      • Grimnoir
        • Trilogy with some short stories attached.
        • Alternate history book post WW2
      • Monster Hunter
        • Really good series that I keep going back to
      • Saga of the Forgotten Warrior
        • Only two books in the series so far but I am liking it
    • Book 14 of the Nate Temple series.  
      • I thought the series was starting to lag but it seems to be picking up again.  Really good book
    • Decided that if i am going to use the Pi as an sshfs gateway then I should make the internet connection a bit more stable.  The Powerline ethernet adapter that I use doesn’t provide much speed and has many drops.  I could possibly code my way around that being a major issue but I would like more reliability.  I have a few wifi adapters that i could try out but my set top box in the garage has a solid connection and good speeds on 5 GHz so i am going to use internet sharing on that to a network switch.  https://www.tecmint.com/share-internet-in-linux/
      • Also found out that the if up and if down folders do not work so i tried dhclient-enter-hooks.d
      • Which i have not been able to get to work so far
      • Trying out systemctl which i am seeing a response from using the simple statements that i was using before.  I am able to keep that service running +with an extremely simple while loop but it currently lacks flexibility on failures so i will need to write some loops that are dependant on the response from pings
    • I was able to print a mount for my 7130 that allows me to keep it directly under the monitor that I use for work.  This allows me to watch fix it videos during the slow times or when i am doing something routine.  As well as do things like type up my bi-weekly wanderings during my breaks.
  • Bo
    • ESO on stadia
      • PC and Steam accounts
      • Performance

THE NEWS: 

SECURITY UPDATE

  •  Ripple20 Is a Pack of Almost 20 Bugs Affecting Millions of Devices
    • Specifically, it’s pinned to a service called Treck with DNS support
    • The bugs can cause Denial of Service all the way up to Remote Code Execution
    • Affected devices can be just about anything since this is a supply chain flaw.
      • Essentially, a vulnerable piece of software is made available by, in this case Treck, and it is then taken by manufacturers and used in TONS of devices to add additional functionality without having to write code themselves.
      • Printers, Uninterruptible Power Supplies, Smart home thingies like thermostats and light bulbs. This library is truly pervasive.
    • Update your Treck libraries to 6.0.1.67 and all is well for every bug that’s part of Ripple20.
    • Easy right? Well, no, actually. When’s the last time you updated your smart light bulb? Your UPS? This problem will be with us for years. How many people do you think will hear these advisories? It’s been out for almost two weeks at the time of this recording.
    • Folks, it really is time to ask yourself if it’s worth having someone know everything about you, or take control of your network in exchange for being able to shut off a light from two rooms away.
    • NanoLeaf light panels, the app allows you to download other people’s light patterns and put them on

Announcements:

The next show will be Sunday, the 12th of July at 7PM UTC, 2PM US Central Time, 8PM British Summer Time

Wrap-up:

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

  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 4504 mintCast 338 – Two Oh Snap https://mintcast.org/mintcast-338-two-oh-snap/ Wed, 01 Jul 2020 04:25:31 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4499 Then, in the news, we focus on the new release of Linux Mint 20
In security, Ripple20
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Owen refurbishes, Tony prints new stuff, Moss has a panic attack, Joe attends a LUG, Bo games, and Leo upgrades to 20.

Then, in the news, we focus on the new release of Linux Mint 20

In security, Ripple20

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS: 

  • Owen
    • Continue to refurbish donated computers with older hardware, add RAM and SSDs, install Mint 19.3, and deliver them to families in need at my school
    • Won an Innovative Teacher award from the Fab Foundation and Chevron for this project which also came with a $1000 cash award, which also allowed me to purchase more/better RAM and SSDs
    • 3d printing PPE like face shields and ear savers
    • Ordered 2 new 3d printers via a Kickstarter campaign, one for me, one for school
    • Test driving Mint 20.04 beta after finally separating my /home directory and OS into different partitions, and a few days of being really lost in the weeds, but I had a backup so I knew it would all be OK
    • Attended a virtual STEM conference in June called Inclusive STEM and CS
    • Been learning how to use Kdenlive by using an action camera on top of my helmet and going on different bike rides each day
    • Slowly working on installing motioneyeOS on a Raspberry Pi with one of the new fancy cameras to setup a security camera due to a recent arson at my condo complex
    • Exploring Ubuntu Studio and am almost certain my main machine at home will to to Ubuntu Studio for 20.10 when it’ll be Plasma by default
    • Setup a Ventoy USB stick and started installing all.the.ISOs.in.the.world.
    • Working my way through a lynda.com course on Bash scripting to get better using the command line
    • Staying sane during shelter in place by taking a bicycle ride everyday, not new since I”m a bike commuter for almost 2 decades now, having a standing Sunday morning Zoom call with friends from around the world, walking my dog further than before and more frequently, using the kids playground at the school next to my home to work out on, and trying to think each day of at least one thing I”m grateful for.
    • Gardening, community garden, gardening on our terrace, and gardening in the front of our building
  • Leo
    • Upgraded to Linux Mint 20 on the laptop I’m recording on!
    • Still need to do the desktop, but have a few things going on this weekend, so I may not make it.
    • I’m on a new show! Linux User Space
  • Tony H
    • Baking and playing with my model cars, I also won a few eBay auctions of some nice models to go straight into the collection. Today I spent the afternoon with my sister and her husband as it was their 1st wedding anniversary and I restored a little matchbox Rolls Royce model and painted it up as a wedding saloon which they missed out on as they got married on a cruise ship last summer. My sister is into bead jewelry making so I thought something a little crafty would be appreciated, and they both loved it, so my model restoration hobby has a new fan. 
    • I’ve recently been recording a series of episodes for HPR about my diecast model restorations and I have been having problems with Firefox not letting me reserve a slot in the HPR schedule to upload the show too. It returns an error message. However If I use Chromium to book the slot, not a problem, I can then go back into Firefox and do the remainder of the process from there. It used to work just fine, I’m wondering if my ad blocking plugins might be the issue?  
    • The big story for me this week is, since the last show I purchased a new colour Laser printer, the HP Color Laser 150nw, so I can produce high quality decals for my models that require them. I bought this printer as I was led to believe that it had Linux support. I set it up, downloaded the HP driver package HPLIP from the Developers page which is a more up to date version than that in Mint 19.3, and I thought great, we are good to go. No this did not recognise that the printer was present even after restarting the printer several times with the USB cable attached to the PC. So I went into CUPS which prior to installation of the HPLIP package had not had any idea what this HP printer was, it now recognised it was there and came up with the model and a recommended driver which I installed. I tried a test print the light on the printer starts to flash but apart from a little noise from it as the paper feed whirls around nothing else happens. Several attempts later I started to suspect I had a faulty printer, but I had one last option before I gave up. Here’s where I have to say the dreaded ‘Windows word’ I got out my Dell 7250 laptop that has W10 installed as a test machine for troubleshooting windows issues for other folk, I plugged in the printer and it picked it up right away and started to install the driver, after installing I printed the test page and it worked. In one way I was relieved as my $160 / £130 I spent for the printer is not wasted but I’m more than a little disgruntled that I have to have a Windows laptop to drive the thing instead of just working on my Mint 19.3 box like it should!!!! I then had an idea and booted into Ubuntu Studio 20.04 and it picked the printer up without the addition of any other software so the moral of the story is run the latest OS you can if you want your printer to be supported in Linux.
  • Moss
    • Distrohoppers’ Digest 014 is out. We’d love to have everyone listen to it. Tony and I have a great time doing this little monthly hop.
    • Sometime after the last show was in the can but before we did Distrohoppers’ Digest, I accessed my two machines and did what can only be called Adventures In GPartEd. My desktop box went from 2 partitions to 3, and my laptop went from 3 to 4, complete with cleaning up unnecessary partitions and moving things around so much that if GPartEd *were* dangerous to use, I would have lost lots of data. It is of interest to note my desktop’s hard drive somehow had both EFI and Grub partitions; I removed and reallocated the latter, and also increased the size of my swap partition. Everything works. I’m waiting for all the distros which have been promised, including a new openSUSE, and Slackware 15.
    • Over the past couple days, I have been trying the new Mint 20 on the laptop. I overwrote the Manjaro partition… I tried Cinnamon, but found something mildly upsetting in yesterday’s show meeting and installed MATE instead, then had a couple minor catastrophes causing me to reinstall MATE… TWICE… so I was up all night again. When I get Mint 20 up to the level I need for working, probably today or tomorrow, I will reinstall Manjaro over the Mint 19.3 partition… and will lose the GRUB niceties of 19.3, which were removed in 20 because they caused some machines to not boot. I guess I can make OpenMandriva the Grubholder then, so I can still have a pretty boot menu.  For the record, my memory use in 20 Cinnamon was 1.7 Gb at rest, where in MATE it’s about 770 Mb. Both of those are high for these desktops, but I assume they will work on getting it down soon.
    • I am making an effort to use Bodhi for more of my daily stuff, rather than treating it like a fun curiosity. It is interesting to learn what stuff goes where in a superlight desktop, very different from what I’ve been used to in heavier desktops like XFCE. For instance, I created Key Bindings to turn my touchpad on and off. What I mean by “superlight”: Stacer reports 324 Mb in use with only Stacer open, and 14 Mb of that is Stacer itself. We usually call a desktop “light” if it has 550-700 Mb in use at rest.
    • I still don’t have a distro to review for next Distrohoppers’, but Mint should be out soon. I already have downloaded what should be the final, but they haven’t announced it yet.
    • I bought a new tablet, a Hyundai Technologies Koral 10×3. I was trying to order a PineTab but my wife blocked the purchase. It turns out she thought I was just trying to order another Raspberry Pi, and then, when she approved me buying it, it was sold out. Then a friend told me about her tablet, and I got excited and bought one… I probably jumped at it too quickly, and I do have a bit of buyers’ remorse, having read a few more reviews, but I’ll wait until it arrives before I bad-mouth it… or talk it up…
    • I’ve been running around with all this extra Covid money from Congress, getting  clothes and bedsheets and all the things we have absolutely needed but couldn’t afford, and spending out of pocket for my wife’s health care, which we previously had no money for and still can’t get insurance for. Also due to the Covid money, we are not currently eligible for the various low-income healthcare programs. I’m  cleaning up debt, most of which was caused by importing my wife from Canada — all the money the government and lawyers need for that to happen. Everything’s done except the debt reduction program I’m in, which will be over in less than a year. But all this good money is scheduled to end July 31, which will mean a $540 per week dropoff, and there are no legal jobs in sight.  I can’t even work in my previous employment, as I’m more of a driver risk, have a still-injured shoulder, and otherwise I’m still 67 years old. This is the first time in my life I haven’t been stuck at around 140% of poverty level, and it’s ending in 33 days.
    • As I haven’t been sleeping in bed since the accident, our Dresden Files reading has dropped off, but we’re pretty deep in the 5th book right now.
    • Enough of this. Let’s get to Joe.
  • Joe
    • Attended a virtual LUG
      • It was interesting
      • It was nice to get to see all the people that I normally hang out with at the LUG even if it was over Zoom
      • Got to help a bunch of people and learn a couple of things about top and htop
    • Jim Butcher Codex Alera
      • Good series.  The last book is the weakest but still a really good conclusion
      • Remember the new book comes out next month for the Dresden Files
        • The first few chapters are available online although i have not read them as i would rather wait for the whole book
    • Larry Correia 
      • Grimnoir
        • Trilogy with some short stories attached.
        • Alternate history book post WW2
      • Monster Hunter
        • Really good series that I keep going back to
      • Saga of the Forgotten Warrior
        • Only two books in the series so far but I am liking it
    • Book 14 of the Nate Temple series.  
      • I thought the series was starting to lag but it seems to be picking up again.  Really good book
    • Decided that if i am going to use the Pi as an sshfs gateway then I should make the internet connection a bit more stable.  The Powerline ethernet adapter that I use doesn’t provide much speed and has many drops.  I could possibly code my way around that being a major issue but I would like more reliability.  I have a few wifi adapters that i could try out but my set top box in the garage has a solid connection and good speeds on 5 GHz so i am going to use internet sharing on that to a network switch.  https://www.tecmint.com/share-internet-in-linux/
      • Also found out that the if up and if down folders do not work so i tried dhclient-enter-hooks.d
      • Which i have not been able to get to work so far
      • Trying out systemctl which i am seeing a response from using the simple statements that i was using before.  I am able to keep that service running +with an extremely simple while loop but it currently lacks flexibility on failures so i will need to write some loops that are dependant on the response from pings
    • I was able to print a mount for my 7130 that allows me to keep it directly under the monitor that I use for work.  This allows me to watch fix it videos during the slow times or when i am doing something routine.  As well as do things like type up my bi-weekly wanderings during my breaks.
  • Bo
    • ESO on stadia
      • PC and Steam accounts
      • Performance

THE NEWS: 

SECURITY UPDATE

  •  Ripple20 Is a Pack of Almost 20 Bugs Affecting Millions of Devices
    • Specifically, it’s pinned to a service called Treck with DNS support
    • The bugs can cause Denial of Service all the way up to Remote Code Execution
    • Affected devices can be just about anything since this is a supply chain flaw.
      • Essentially, a vulnerable piece of software is made available by, in this case Treck, and it is then taken by manufacturers and used in TONS of devices to add additional functionality without having to write code themselves.
      • Printers, Uninterruptible Power Supplies, Smart home thingies like thermostats and light bulbs. This library is truly pervasive.
    • Update your Treck libraries to 6.0.1.67 and all is well for every bug that’s part of Ripple20.
    • Easy right? Well, no, actually. When’s the last time you updated your smart light bulb? Your UPS? This problem will be with us for years. How many people do you think will hear these advisories? It’s been out for almost two weeks at the time of this recording.
    • Folks, it really is time to ask yourself if it’s worth having someone know everything about you, or take control of your network in exchange for being able to shut off a light from two rooms away.
    • NanoLeaf light panels, the app allows you to download other people’s light patterns and put them on

Announcements:

The next show will be Sunday, the 12th of July at 7PM UTC, 2PM US Central Time, 8PM British Summer Time

Wrap-up:

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

  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 4499 mintCast 333 – Half of the Beast https://mintcast.org/mintcast-333-half-of-the-beast/ Wed, 22 Apr 2020 06:52:32 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4361 Then, in the news, Firefox 75 sees daylight, Mozilla and Red Hat get new CEOs, Gnome Challenges the community and more.
In security, Git gets tricked.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, I fiddle with audio equipment, Tony Hughes reinstalls Mint, Moss fights with a giant pickup truck, Tony Watts streams live-ish, Bo makes sense of OPNsense, and Joe blends with Blender.

Then, in the news, Firefox 75 sees daylight, Mozilla and Red Hat get new CEOs, Gnome Challenges the community and more.

In security, Git gets tricked.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings:

  • Leo
    • Still playing with mics and their configuration. Especially in Linux. I may have no choice but to learn to live with Jack.
    • Have two setups now: The Behringer UM2 with the Behringer XM8500 as mentioned last show and a Focusrite Scarlett Solo with the Rode Podmic. Both XLR based setups.
    • The UM2 connected to either mic is fantastic. Very little noise compared to the MXL990 I had before.
    • The Scarlett Solo is where the issues start. The quality is awesome, but it seems Linux, or rather PulseAudio tends to trip all over itself when in use. Seems when one application is running sound, things are flawless. The moment another device tries to take priority of the mic or playback things can get unpredictable. These issues seem to only crop up when I’m using the input and output of the Scarlett Solo at the same time.
  • Tony H 
    • So I finally got around to fitting the Icy Dock 2.5” x 4 Bay drive port into my tower PC this week. I have been having some issues with my Tower and decided to get a 1TB SSD to reinstall Mint 19.3 Mate as the main drive then use the Dock for Dual booting other Linux Distros. As the Dock has 4 bays and my motherboard only has 4 SATA connections the 5.5” DVD drive has been removed and all the discs including the 1TB are now hot swappable without needing to access inside the PC case. At the moment I have 2 128Gb SSD’s with Ubuntu Mate 20.04 Beta and Q4OS in 2 of the remaining 3 bays and all these could be installed with more than one OS, so lots of scope for hardware testing different Linux and BSD Distributions as I move forward. 
    • Time will tell if the reinstall has cured the issues I have been having with the PC and in the last few weeks particularly with Mumble constantly crashing, we shall see how things go this evening during the recording.
    • I continue to play with my matchbox models and this week have been restoring/customising some mark 10 Jags, a few Lamborghini Mazal’s and a couple of Ferraris, I also took delivery of a few display worthy models and a few for further restoration projects down the line.
    • I took part in the BDLL Euro edition last week and was able to go to bed at a sensible hour as it is between 8pm and 10pm on the Saturday evening my time, the same as the mintCast recording time, which is far more sociable for me, and you guys in the US get the opportunity to be part of 2 shows on one day. This morning it was 1am-3am my time so if I am a bit jet lagged you know why. 
    • My New headset arrived as I had damaged the 3.5mm jack on one of my others but this was not an expensive buy and I’ve still to get the mic to work acceptably for Zoom use so continue to just use it for listening to the audio and use my laptop’s microphone for audio in, it is actually surprisingly good if there is no background noise.
    • And finally myself and Moss recorded our 12th episode of Distrohoppers Digest despite my issues with Mumble we got through it, marking a year since we started. So it is onward into year 2, we may have a guest host for our next episode if we can find a mutually agreeable time to record, otherwise we may have our first Distrohoppers listener edition :-).        
  • Moss
    • We had another wonderful episode of Distrohoppers’ Digest, our twelfth episode and the conclusion of our first year. I even had a tad bit of extra experience: Tony’s machine was dropping Mumble from time to time, so I set up and saved the Mumble Recording for the first time ever.
    • I tried setting up Solus once more. It absolutely refuses to use an existing partition for me. The installer looks just like Ubiquity, but there is no way to select *and change* a partition. I did try installing it as a sole distro and it worked just fine — which means it blew away three perfectly good distros doing so. I don’t think I’m going to be reviewing Solus again unless and until they change/fix that.
    • It looks as if I’m going to be reviewing Ubuntu Mate 20.04 for the next episode of DHD. I’ve also loaded Ubuntu Studio 20.04 Beta, but I’m not happy with it yet and XFCE is not my friend.
    • Thanks to Joe, I have a new Bluetooth headset, an LG HBS770. It works really great in all respects, except I couldn’t get it to connect to this computer before the show, which is probably my fault for deleting more Bluetooth from the machine than I could find to reinstall.
    • This past Wednesday, while driving for work, I got in a REALLY BAD auto accident, resulting in me having to be taken by ambulance to the emergency room. The car is totaled and so is my job. But I’m getting better and nothing is broken. I could barely move for the first two days with massive pain levels, but I’m only hurting REALLY BADLY today and sitting in my usual office chair. As I have covered this in our Telegram group, complete with video, I won’t go into it any more deeply here. I got well enough fast enough that I had my wife drive me to work yesterday and I drove my own car home… with a little pain but not bad. I couldn’t find anyone else to do it, as it is a stick shift and drivers were not being found.
    • I feel I’m misusing the Galago Pro 2, that it doesn’t quite fit my use needs. I’d like to move it to someone who could use it better, and get a 15.6” or 17” ThinkPad. I need the larger keyboard, and to a point the larger screen. According to eBay, what I could get for the Galago Pro — with an i5, 16 Gb RAM, 14” form factor, a 1Tb hard drive and a 256 M.2 drive — would get me a fairly nice ThinkPad with an i7 and 16 Gb RAM, and I don’t care about the size of storage as I have enough of my own. I posted a swap offer on Mastodon and a couple groups, but have garnered no interest as yet. Contact me if you’re interested, or I may take other means of moving it.
    • One of my domain names came up for renewal, and the registrar tripled the price. So I had to go through the effort to move nameservers. Mission accomplished.
    • We finished reading “Grave Peril” and started in on “Summer’s Knight”, the 5th book in the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. So far it seems that Harry keeps getting deeper and deeper with no rest and no advancement. In a comparable series, Demon Squad by Tim Marquitz, the lead character, Frank, got stronger with each book’s events. Frank had a cast of characters who were introduced early and came and went as needed, Harry seems to keep inventing new friends and enemies each book although there are some notable holdovers. My wife seems to be more critical of both the main character and the direction of the series as compared to other series we’ve read as we get deeper in the series.
  • Tony Watts
    • Live streaming music
      • Did a live 35 min set on Facebook last night.  Recorded on my back deck just using the phone’s microphone, this time
      • Attempted unsuccessfully to live stream with my old PC, old audio interface, and droidcam for live streaming.  Too glitchy but I think this is due to the underpowered Core Duo PC I was using
    • Purchased Presonus Studio 24C
        • Will test this with Android, Dell 7130 
    • Helped a friend get set up for home vocal recording
    • Played some games on Google Stadia
    • Updated Lineage 16 to 17 (Android 10 Update)
    • Have been watching Mr. Robot
    • Local breweries doing carry-out – highly recommend 
  • Bo
    • Update on my wife’s exploded PC
    • pfSense and OPNsense
    • Resurrected a dead podcast
  • Joe
    • Kim Harrison the Hollows.
      • The books have slightly improved and I did finish the series
    • Started the Nate Temple series By Shayne Silvers
      • Decent book series.  Not great but decent
    • Red Dwarf feature length
      • Not all I was hoping for but it did feed the addiction.  
    • Watched Dog Soldiers and VFW at the recommendation of the guys over at ECN
      • Really good movies 
    • Just got done with Eden 6 on Borderlands 3 and am back on Pandora.
      • Have not done much of the sidequests although I am playing through the DLC for the better weapons and experience
      • Think Eden 6 will be good for the next play through when I decide to go exploring
    • Got my 3D printer working.  Still haven’t done much printing yet
      • Cleared the clog and started testing different prints.
      • Was able to print a couple of parts but still dialing in the settings for the best print
      • Then it would not maintain temperature again on the hotend
      • So i pulled the board and checked it but everything seemed fine
      • After that I replaced the heating element for the hot end
      • I have to say it seems to be working much better and the power supply does not seem to be getting as hot as before.  Hopefully that is the last fix that i need to do on it for a while
      • But I did get to learn a lot taking it apart and putting it back together
      • Lots of work to get done on it but I am enjoying
    • Started messing around with blender and tinkercad and I have to say blender is way too power user for me at this time.
      • Tinkercad on the other hand was very easy to use the web version for the simple designs that I was creating
      • Plus a couple of youtube tutorials really helped out
    • Fixed a Sony XB700bt which is one of the few headsets with USB-C charging and a 30 hour battery
      • Just needed to replace the drivers on it as the first one I had ordered to make a bt receiver did not have any but turned out unsuitable for the task
      • It may have a 30 hour battery life but definitely not a 30 hour wear time.  I find them very uncomfortable.
      • So i am going to 3d print an adapter to increase the size of the earcups and see if that helps(what i am doing in tinkercad)
    • Tried out Q4OS on the 7140 with Plasma
      • Had a bit of trouble with the installation and the startup
      • But even beyond that I had trouble with the occasional kernel panic at startup 
      • When it did work it looked very familiar but I used to be a Kubuntu user way back when
      • Interesting issue with the gyros on the table.  It would not rotate but when the gyros were activated it would cause the keyboard and touchpad to quit working.  Sometimes the USB port would also quit working.  It would be a random amount of time before they came back if they were going to come back.
      • Also the occasional random restart but it is hard to judge on a tablet that isn’t exactly mainstream.
      •  Did have to manually install the drivers for audio in order to get it to see the card.  But although it could see the card it did not work.  
      • USB sound card also did not work. Along with Bluetooth headsets not working.
    • Listener Dustin purchased one of my turtle beach stealth headsets for his kid.  Thank you
      • Also sent me a couple of broken headphones that i am in the process of working on
      • Some Samsung in ear oems and a pair of monoprice DJ headsets
        • Mentioned that the speakers may be blown

The News: 

Security Update: 

Announcements: 

  • Our next episode will be at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC, May 3, 2020. That’s 8PM British Summer Time. 

Wrap-up:

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

  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 4361 mintCast 333 – Half of the Beast (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-333-half-of-the-beast-mp3/ Wed, 22 Apr 2020 06:52:31 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4359 Then, in the news, Firefox 75 sees daylight, Mozilla and Red Hat get new CEOs, Gnome Challenges the community and more.
In security, Git gets tricked.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, I fiddle with audio equipment, Tony Hughes reinstalls Mint, Moss fights with a giant pickup truck, Tony Watts streams live-ish, Bo makes sense of OPNsense, and Joe blends with Blender.

Then, in the news, Firefox 75 sees daylight, Mozilla and Red Hat get new CEOs, Gnome Challenges the community and more.

In security, Git gets tricked.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings:

  • Leo
    • Still playing with mics and their configuration. Especially in Linux. I may have no choice but to learn to live with Jack.
    • Have two setups now: The Behringer UM2 with the Behringer XM8500 as mentioned last show and a Focusrite Scarlett Solo with the Rode Podmic. Both XLR based setups.
    • The UM2 connected to either mic is fantastic. Very little noise compared to the MXL990 I had before.
    • The Scarlett Solo is where the issues start. The quality is awesome, but it seems Linux, or rather PulseAudio tends to trip all over itself when in use. Seems when one application is running sound, things are flawless. The moment another device tries to take priority of the mic or playback things can get unpredictable. These issues seem to only crop up when I’m using the input and output of the Scarlett Solo at the same time.
  • Tony H 
    • So I finally got around to fitting the Icy Dock 2.5” x 4 Bay drive port into my tower PC this week. I have been having some issues with my Tower and decided to get a 1TB SSD to reinstall Mint 19.3 Mate as the main drive then use the Dock for Dual booting other Linux Distros. As the Dock has 4 bays and my motherboard only has 4 SATA connections the 5.5” DVD drive has been removed and all the discs including the 1TB are now hot swappable without needing to access inside the PC case. At the moment I have 2 128Gb SSD’s with Ubuntu Mate 20.04 Beta and Q4OS in 2 of the remaining 3 bays and all these could be installed with more than one OS, so lots of scope for hardware testing different Linux and BSD Distributions as I move forward. 
    • Time will tell if the reinstall has cured the issues I have been having with the PC and in the last few weeks particularly with Mumble constantly crashing, we shall see how things go this evening during the recording.
    • I continue to play with my matchbox models and this week have been restoring/customising some mark 10 Jags, a few Lamborghini Mazal’s and a couple of Ferraris, I also took delivery of a few display worthy models and a few for further restoration projects down the line.
    • I took part in the BDLL Euro edition last week and was able to go to bed at a sensible hour as it is between 8pm and 10pm on the Saturday evening my time, the same as the mintCast recording time, which is far more sociable for me, and you guys in the US get the opportunity to be part of 2 shows on one day. This morning it was 1am-3am my time so if I am a bit jet lagged you know why. 
    • My New headset arrived as I had damaged the 3.5mm jack on one of my others but this was not an expensive buy and I’ve still to get the mic to work acceptably for Zoom use so continue to just use it for listening to the audio and use my laptop’s microphone for audio in, it is actually surprisingly good if there is no background noise.
    • And finally myself and Moss recorded our 12th episode of Distrohoppers Digest despite my issues with Mumble we got through it, marking a year since we started. So it is onward into year 2, we may have a guest host for our next episode if we can find a mutually agreeable time to record, otherwise we may have our first Distrohoppers listener edition :-).        
  • Moss
    • We had another wonderful episode of Distrohoppers’ Digest, our twelfth episode and the conclusion of our first year. I even had a tad bit of extra experience: Tony’s machine was dropping Mumble from time to time, so I set up and saved the Mumble Recording for the first time ever.
    • I tried setting up Solus once more. It absolutely refuses to use an existing partition for me. The installer looks just like Ubiquity, but there is no way to select *and change* a partition. I did try installing it as a sole distro and it worked just fine — which means it blew away three perfectly good distros doing so. I don’t think I’m going to be reviewing Solus again unless and until they change/fix that.
    • It looks as if I’m going to be reviewing Ubuntu Mate 20.04 for the next episode of DHD. I’ve also loaded Ubuntu Studio 20.04 Beta, but I’m not happy with it yet and XFCE is not my friend.
    • Thanks to Joe, I have a new Bluetooth headset, an LG HBS770. It works really great in all respects, except I couldn’t get it to connect to this computer before the show, which is probably my fault for deleting more Bluetooth from the machine than I could find to reinstall.
    • This past Wednesday, while driving for work, I got in a REALLY BAD auto accident, resulting in me having to be taken by ambulance to the emergency room. The car is totaled and so is my job. But I’m getting better and nothing is broken. I could barely move for the first two days with massive pain levels, but I’m only hurting REALLY BADLY today and sitting in my usual office chair. As I have covered this in our Telegram group, complete with video, I won’t go into it any more deeply here. I got well enough fast enough that I had my wife drive me to work yesterday and I drove my own car home… with a little pain but not bad. I couldn’t find anyone else to do it, as it is a stick shift and drivers were not being found.
    • I feel I’m misusing the Galago Pro 2, that it doesn’t quite fit my use needs. I’d like to move it to someone who could use it better, and get a 15.6” or 17” ThinkPad. I need the larger keyboard, and to a point the larger screen. According to eBay, what I could get for the Galago Pro — with an i5, 16 Gb RAM, 14” form factor, a 1Tb hard drive and a 256 M.2 drive — would get me a fairly nice ThinkPad with an i7 and 16 Gb RAM, and I don’t care about the size of storage as I have enough of my own. I posted a swap offer on Mastodon and a couple groups, but have garnered no interest as yet. Contact me if you’re interested, or I may take other means of moving it.
    • One of my domain names came up for renewal, and the registrar tripled the price. So I had to go through the effort to move nameservers. Mission accomplished.
    • We finished reading “Grave Peril” and started in on “Summer’s Knight”, the 5th book in the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. So far it seems that Harry keeps getting deeper and deeper with no rest and no advancement. In a comparable series, Demon Squad by Tim Marquitz, the lead character, Frank, got stronger with each book’s events. Frank had a cast of characters who were introduced early and came and went as needed, Harry seems to keep inventing new friends and enemies each book although there are some notable holdovers. My wife seems to be more critical of both the main character and the direction of the series as compared to other series we’ve read as we get deeper in the series.
  • Tony Watts
    • Live streaming music
      • Did a live 35 min set on Facebook last night.  Recorded on my back deck just using the phone’s microphone, this time
      • Attempted unsuccessfully to live stream with my old PC, old audio interface, and droidcam for live streaming.  Too glitchy but I think this is due to the underpowered Core Duo PC I was using
    • Purchased Presonus Studio 24C
        • Will test this with Android, Dell 7130 
    • Helped a friend get set up for home vocal recording
    • Played some games on Google Stadia
    • Updated Lineage 16 to 17 (Android 10 Update)
    • Have been watching Mr. Robot
    • Local breweries doing carry-out – highly recommend 
  • Bo
    • Update on my wife’s exploded PC
    • pfSense and OPNsense
    • Resurrected a dead podcast
  • Joe
    • Kim Harrison the Hollows.
      • The books have slightly improved and I did finish the series
    • Started the Nate Temple series By Shayne Silvers
      • Decent book series.  Not great but decent
    • Red Dwarf feature length
      • Not all I was hoping for but it did feed the addiction.  
    • Watched Dog Soldiers and VFW at the recommendation of the guys over at ECN
      • Really good movies 
    • Just got done with Eden 6 on Borderlands 3 and am back on Pandora.
      • Have not done much of the sidequests although I am playing through the DLC for the better weapons and experience
      • Think Eden 6 will be good for the next play through when I decide to go exploring
    • Got my 3D printer working.  Still haven’t done much printing yet
      • Cleared the clog and started testing different prints.
      • Was able to print a couple of parts but still dialing in the settings for the best print
      • Then it would not maintain temperature again on the hotend
      • So i pulled the board and checked it but everything seemed fine
      • After that I replaced the heating element for the hot end
      • I have to say it seems to be working much better and the power supply does not seem to be getting as hot as before.  Hopefully that is the last fix that i need to do on it for a while
      • But I did get to learn a lot taking it apart and putting it back together
      • Lots of work to get done on it but I am enjoying
    • Started messing around with blender and tinkercad and I have to say blender is way too power user for me at this time.
      • Tinkercad on the other hand was very easy to use the web version for the simple designs that I was creating
      • Plus a couple of youtube tutorials really helped out
    • Fixed a Sony XB700bt which is one of the few headsets with USB-C charging and a 30 hour battery
      • Just needed to replace the drivers on it as the first one I had ordered to make a bt receiver did not have any but turned out unsuitable for the task
      • It may have a 30 hour battery life but definitely not a 30 hour wear time.  I find them very uncomfortable.
      • So i am going to 3d print an adapter to increase the size of the earcups and see if that helps(what i am doing in tinkercad)
    • Tried out Q4OS on the 7140 with Plasma
      • Had a bit of trouble with the installation and the startup
      • But even beyond that I had trouble with the occasional kernel panic at startup 
      • When it did work it looked very familiar but I used to be a Kubuntu user way back when
      • Interesting issue with the gyros on the table.  It would not rotate but when the gyros were activated it would cause the keyboard and touchpad to quit working.  Sometimes the USB port would also quit working.  It would be a random amount of time before they came back if they were going to come back.
      • Also the occasional random restart but it is hard to judge on a tablet that isn’t exactly mainstream.
      •  Did have to manually install the drivers for audio in order to get it to see the card.  But although it could see the card it did not work.  
      • USB sound card also did not work. Along with Bluetooth headsets not working.
    • Listener Dustin purchased one of my turtle beach stealth headsets for his kid.  Thank you
      • Also sent me a couple of broken headphones that i am in the process of working on
      • Some Samsung in ear oems and a pair of monoprice DJ headsets
        • Mentioned that the speakers may be blown

The News: 

Security Update: 

Announcements: 

  • Our next episode will be at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC, May 3, 2020. That’s 8PM British Summer Time. 

Wrap-up:

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

  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 4359 mintCast 331 – The Art of Tracking https://mintcast.org/mintcast-331-the-art-of-tracking/ Wed, 25 Mar 2020 05:15:53 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4303 Then, in the news, NPM gets acquired, OBS adds a number, Purism and Pinebook have new releases, Basilisk takes us back in time, and Gnome gets new features.
In security, Edge is coming, and it’s worse than we thought.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Leo upgrades TLP, Tony Hughes tinkers with LMDE, Manjaro fights with Moss, Josh gets cancelled, and Joe works from home.

Then, in the news, NPM gets acquired, OBS adds a number, Purism and Pinebook have new releases, Basilisk takes us back in time, and Gnome gets new features.

In security, Edge is coming, and it’s worse than we thought.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings:

  • Leo
    • Updated to TLP 1.3, from 1.1.
    • Got some $16 Tascam TH-02’s. The original earpads really dug into my ears in a very painful way. Purchased some Brainwavz replacement earpads for the Audio Technica M50X’s. They are the red and fuzzy types and oh so comfortable. My ears warm up for a bit, but I can easily wear these headphones for hours, comfortably.
    • I may upgrade to the actual M50X’s one day. It’s between those and the Behringer 770’s.
    • Plan on running Ubuntu 20.04 on my Lenovo T450s until Linux Mint 20 comes out probably around June. Considering whether I should use the Beta or not.
    • I have Fedora 31 lurking as my 2nd distro right now, and am waiting for 32 to drop next month. This is making it hard.
  • Tony H 
    • Still Playing with my model cars, I will be doing much more of this over the coming weeks to help pass the time at the moment. If anyone wants to take a look at some of them there is a picture in the off topic section of the Discord channel.
    • Myself and Moss recorded our 11th Episode of Distrohoppers Digest Thursday 12th, we had a bump as I nearly missed the recording time due to the changed time difference at the moment but remembered just in time.
    • Watching Alan Pope’s YouTube channel, he did a great tutorial of creating a snap package, also the video before that was on the free software only option in Ubuntu, if you’re interested check out his channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/popeydc/videos
    • And now as everything is in lockdown due to this virus, my LUG created a virtual meeting yesterday morning via a Google Hangout so I still got to have my Saturday LUG fix for over 2 hours while not having to leave the house. I also Joined the BDLL international LUG at midnight my time as I could have a sleep in the following morning as my Worship community has closed our weekly meetings for the foreseeable future.
    • I also installed the Distribution release of Linux Mint Debian Edition as it went from Beta to DR on Friday, first impressions are good after installing the MATE DE although I had problems with the install not installing GRUB properly and after the third try at getting a bootable install, installed 19.3 as a dual boot and now Grub works and I can boot into LMDE. I will be doing a full review for the next Distrohoppers Digest. I had planned to review AntiX but after the install although it could see my WiFi card it could not find any networks when I scanned and as the install was a laptop It makes things difficult to run it as a credible daily driver.     
  • Moss
    • We had another lovely episode of Distrohoppers’ Digest, although we got a late start due to the confusion of time changes. I did manage to get to work on time, or 3 minutes late actually.
    • I’ve been going crazy on distros lately. I got Endeavour OS installed on my Galago Pro 2, got all the updates done, and then installed Zorin OS Lite to get my Grub menu back… to discover that Endeavour no longer boots. Black screen, no cursor or anything. I’ve tried a few things the guys in the DHD Telegram group suggested but no luck. I reinstalled, and found I had the Grub issue I had before, where each distro installed had multiple entries on the Grub menu in varying numbers. Bye-bye to Endeavour. I did report these issues to the Endeavour forum.
    • I got Manjaro to work on my Kudu, with XFCE desktop, co-resident with OpenMandriva 4.1 and Feren OS for now. And just Friday morning, I got MaBox installed on the Galago Pro, which gives me Manjaro with Openbox window manager. Since that time, however, MaBox has crashed my machine twice, taking my GRUB menu with it and, in particular, keeping me from being able to boot Mint. So I wiped it and Zorin Lite, deleted a partition on /dev/sdb, and reinstalled Zorin Lite. In the offing, I wiped KDE neon, but I have a blank partition I’m considering installing that to AFTER THE SHOW. There are now only 6 distro partitions on the Galago Pro 2 (as opposed to EFI, Restore, and Swap partitions), 4 on /dev/sda and 2 on /dev/sdb.
    • During all this, I discovered there are 19 entries in my EFI boot. I looked for an EFI editor and came up with rEFInd, which so far does not look like an EFI editor but rather a Grub/EFI replacement. I can get to my Grub boot menu through option #7, and I’ve identified which of my current installations boot from Options 1, 2, 3, 18, and 19. The menu would be more informative if I could edit the entries to better identify them, most either have an Ubuntu logo or a penguin logo, except Mint has a Mint logo (the old one). Until further notice, I have no idea how to edit the zombie distros from the EFI menu. Stay tuned for further details!
    • I was surprised to hear the Destination Linux team finally found Stacer in Episode 164;. I’m pretty sure I’ve been talking about that for nearly a year, and I’m not a self-proclaimed expert on Linux.
    • I GOT MY FIRST SPONSUS! It’s probably somebody I know, but they used a handle and their profile is not filled out, so I may never know. Welcome esskaybeenz! Every $3 is a help.  On top of that, I sold another CD of my music, and I’m busy setting up my music videos at LBRY.
    • Otherwise, things have been oddly lifelike. My wife and I are nearly halfway through Grave Peril. 
    • My boss is under stress from upper management, Covid-19 has cut our business by more than half, but I’m working 5 days a week at least until the state finally decides to go to lockdown. Tennessee is one of the last three states to make no mandatory closures of any kind. 
    • My mother is still doing as well as any 90-year-old deserves to be doing. And everything else is in a holding pattern.
  • Josh
    • I suddenly left school. With Coronavirus, schools here in the UK have shut and my exams have been cancelled. So that’s it for me. I now have 5/6 months of doing my own work.
    • I installed 20.04 and it’s really nice.
    • Started a new podcast, bit:cast
    • Launched a new magazine issue, micro:mag Issue 7
  • Joe
    • New Book series galore
      • Las Vegas paranormal police department Ian Dex novels by John P. Logsdon
        • Very short very puerile but I did listen to the whole series,  really missing a lot of detail but still enjoyable
      • Hex series Books Craig Zerf and Mia Darien
        • Also very short and not as juvenile but very tropeish, felt like I was reading a mix of the last dragon and the lone ranger
      • The Bowl of Souls by Trevor H Cooley
        • very sword and sorcery
        • Super good altogether I will take a look at this author’s other books.
      • Metal Mage series by Eric Vail.
        • Struggled through the first book
        • Do not recommend 
        • Very teenage pubescent fantasy
        • I would have read the second book to see if it improves but the reviews say it stays the same.
      • Hammonds Hardcases
        • Sci fi books
        • Good trilogy.  No complaints but nothing spectacular 
    • Self isolation
      • Kids are hating it
      • Working from home has its ups and down
      • Need more electronics to work on.  Send me an email if you have something that you think I might like to work on.  I will talk about it all on the show if you send it to me.
      • Also need to get back into my weight lifting from home groove
    • Borderlands 3 on steam
      • Enjoying playing it and the 2 expansions since it was 50 percent off on steam
      • Haven’t tested much out yet but I am currently enjoying fl4k for my first playthrough 
    • Studying some on 3d printers but still need to take mine apart and put it back together. May do some upgrades at the same time.
    • Ordered a broken monoprice bluetooth dj headset.  Should get this week and while it will be a different fix for me I don’t think it will be hard.  And if I can’t fix it I will be able to use the top band to fix other headphones. Got at a really good price for it on ebay.
    • Fixed my other pair of Turtle Beach Z2s with the broken band. 
    • Setting up a multi boot on the Pi 4 using Berryboot
    • Still enjoying Fedora on the 7140
    • Installed CITRIX receiver on my garage PC so that I can work out there when the kids are getting loud inside.
      • Still an interesting setup you have to install the CITRIX deb and then fix the cert error
      • sudo ln -s /usr/share/ca-certificates/mozilla/* /opt/Citrix/ICAClient/keystore/cacerts
      • Too bad it has been way too cold and still way too much pollen to work in the garage comfortably 
    • Reinstalled Windows on a T100ta so that it can replace the 11 year old Toshiba that we are using as a set top box – the Toshiba only has vga out.  Want to see if it can do better with lower power consumption. I am thinking that I will need to add a powered usb hub
      • Since it will be plugged in all the time I think I can get away with using the powered hub as the tablet charger as well.
      • Did have to use woeusb to setup the windows 

The News: 

Security Update: 

  •  Not Linux, YET.
    • Edge Breaks Privacy
    • Douglas Leith with the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College in Ireland, Edge sends privacy-invasive telemetry to Microsoft’s back-end servers — including “persistent” device identifiers and URLs typed into browsing pages. Brave ended up being the most private, with Firefox trailing in a second, less-private, group.

Announcements: 

  • Our next episode will be at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC, April 5, 2020. That’s 8PM British Summer Time. Thanks Londoner, I hope I got that right. 🙂

Wrap-up:

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

  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 4303 mintCast 331 – The Art of Tracking (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-331-the-art-of-tracking-mp3/ Wed, 25 Mar 2020 05:15:23 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4301 Then, in the news, NPM gets acquired, OBS adds a number, Purism and Pinebook have new releases, Basilisk takes us back in time, and Gnome gets new features.
In security, Edge is coming, and it’s worse than we thought.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Leo upgrades TLP, Tony Hughes tinkers with LMDE, Manjaro fights with Moss, Josh gets cancelled, and Joe works from home.

Then, in the news, NPM gets acquired, OBS adds a number, Purism and Pinebook have new releases, Basilisk takes us back in time, and Gnome gets new features.

In security, Edge is coming, and it’s worse than we thought.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings:

  • Leo
    • Updated to TLP 1.3, from 1.1.
    • Got some $16 Tascam TH-02’s. The original earpads really dug into my ears in a very painful way. Purchased some Brainwavz replacement earpads for the Audio Technica M50X’s. They are the red and fuzzy types and oh so comfortable. My ears warm up for a bit, but I can easily wear these headphones for hours, comfortably.
    • I may upgrade to the actual M50X’s one day. It’s between those and the Behringer 770’s.
    • Plan on running Ubuntu 20.04 on my Lenovo T450s until Linux Mint 20 comes out probably around June. Considering whether I should use the Beta or not.
    • I have Fedora 31 lurking as my 2nd distro right now, and am waiting for 32 to drop next month. This is making it hard.
  • Tony H 
    • Still Playing with my model cars, I will be doing much more of this over the coming weeks to help pass the time at the moment. If anyone wants to take a look at some of them there is a picture in the off topic section of the Discord channel.
    • Myself and Moss recorded our 11th Episode of Distrohoppers Digest Thursday 12th, we had a bump as I nearly missed the recording time due to the changed time difference at the moment but remembered just in time.
    • Watching Alan Pope’s YouTube channel, he did a great tutorial of creating a snap package, also the video before that was on the free software only option in Ubuntu, if you’re interested check out his channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/popeydc/videos
    • And now as everything is in lockdown due to this virus, my LUG created a virtual meeting yesterday morning via a Google Hangout so I still got to have my Saturday LUG fix for over 2 hours while not having to leave the house. I also Joined the BDLL international LUG at midnight my time as I could have a sleep in the following morning as my Worship community has closed our weekly meetings for the foreseeable future.
    • I also installed the Distribution release of Linux Mint Debian Edition as it went from Beta to DR on Friday, first impressions are good after installing the MATE DE although I had problems with the install not installing GRUB properly and after the third try at getting a bootable install, installed 19.3 as a dual boot and now Grub works and I can boot into LMDE. I will be doing a full review for the next Distrohoppers Digest. I had planned to review AntiX but after the install although it could see my WiFi card it could not find any networks when I scanned and as the install was a laptop It makes things difficult to run it as a credible daily driver.     
  • Moss
    • We had another lovely episode of Distrohoppers’ Digest, although we got a late start due to the confusion of time changes. I did manage to get to work on time, or 3 minutes late actually.
    • I’ve been going crazy on distros lately. I got Endeavour OS installed on my Galago Pro 2, got all the updates done, and then installed Zorin OS Lite to get my Grub menu back… to discover that Endeavour no longer boots. Black screen, no cursor or anything. I’ve tried a few things the guys in the DHD Telegram group suggested but no luck. I reinstalled, and found I had the Grub issue I had before, where each distro installed had multiple entries on the Grub menu in varying numbers. Bye-bye to Endeavour. I did report these issues to the Endeavour forum.
    • I got Manjaro to work on my Kudu, with XFCE desktop, co-resident with OpenMandriva 4.1 and Feren OS for now. And just Friday morning, I got MaBox installed on the Galago Pro, which gives me Manjaro with Openbox window manager. Since that time, however, MaBox has crashed my machine twice, taking my GRUB menu with it and, in particular, keeping me from being able to boot Mint. So I wiped it and Zorin Lite, deleted a partition on /dev/sdb, and reinstalled Zorin Lite. In the offing, I wiped KDE neon, but I have a blank partition I’m considering installing that to AFTER THE SHOW. There are now only 6 distro partitions on the Galago Pro 2 (as opposed to EFI, Restore, and Swap partitions), 4 on /dev/sda and 2 on /dev/sdb.
    • During all this, I discovered there are 19 entries in my EFI boot. I looked for an EFI editor and came up with rEFInd, which so far does not look like an EFI editor but rather a Grub/EFI replacement. I can get to my Grub boot menu through option #7, and I’ve identified which of my current installations boot from Options 1, 2, 3, 18, and 19. The menu would be more informative if I could edit the entries to better identify them, most either have an Ubuntu logo or a penguin logo, except Mint has a Mint logo (the old one). Until further notice, I have no idea how to edit the zombie distros from the EFI menu. Stay tuned for further details!
    • I was surprised to hear the Destination Linux team finally found Stacer in Episode 164;. I’m pretty sure I’ve been talking about that for nearly a year, and I’m not a self-proclaimed expert on Linux.
    • I GOT MY FIRST SPONSUS! It’s probably somebody I know, but they used a handle and their profile is not filled out, so I may never know. Welcome esskaybeenz! Every $3 is a help.  On top of that, I sold another CD of my music, and I’m busy setting up my music videos at LBRY.
    • Otherwise, things have been oddly lifelike. My wife and I are nearly halfway through Grave Peril. 
    • My boss is under stress from upper management, Covid-19 has cut our business by more than half, but I’m working 5 days a week at least until the state finally decides to go to lockdown. Tennessee is one of the last three states to make no mandatory closures of any kind. 
    • My mother is still doing as well as any 90-year-old deserves to be doing. And everything else is in a holding pattern.
  • Josh
    • I suddenly left school. With Coronavirus, schools here in the UK have shut and my exams have been cancelled. So that’s it for me. I now have 5/6 months of doing my own work.
    • I installed 20.04 and it’s really nice.
    • Started a new podcast, bit:cast
    • Launched a new magazine issue, micro:mag Issue 7
  • Joe
    • New Book series galore
      • Las Vegas paranormal police department Ian Dex novels by John P. Logsdon
        • Very short very puerile but I did listen to the whole series,  really missing a lot of detail but still enjoyable
      • Hex series Books Craig Zerf and Mia Darien
        • Also very short and not as juvenile but very tropeish, felt like I was reading a mix of the last dragon and the lone ranger
      • The Bowl of Souls by Trevor H Cooley
        • very sword and sorcery
        • Super good altogether I will take a look at this author’s other books.
      • Metal Mage series by Eric Vail.
        • Struggled through the first book
        • Do not recommend 
        • Very teenage pubescent fantasy
        • I would have read the second book to see if it improves but the reviews say it stays the same.
      • Hammonds Hardcases
        • Sci fi books
        • Good trilogy.  No complaints but nothing spectacular 
    • Self isolation
      • Kids are hating it
      • Working from home has its ups and down
      • Need more electronics to work on.  Send me an email if you have something that you think I might like to work on.  I will talk about it all on the show if you send it to me.
      • Also need to get back into my weight lifting from home groove
    • Borderlands 3 on steam
      • Enjoying playing it and the 2 expansions since it was 50 percent off on steam
      • Haven’t tested much out yet but I am currently enjoying fl4k for my first playthrough 
    • Studying some on 3d printers but still need to take mine apart and put it back together. May do some upgrades at the same time.
    • Ordered a broken monoprice bluetooth dj headset.  Should get this week and while it will be a different fix for me I don’t think it will be hard.  And if I can’t fix it I will be able to use the top band to fix other headphones. Got at a really good price for it on ebay.
    • Fixed my other pair of Turtle Beach Z2s with the broken band. 
    • Setting up a multi boot on the Pi 4 using Berryboot
    • Still enjoying Fedora on the 7140
    • Installed CITRIX receiver on my garage PC so that I can work out there when the kids are getting loud inside.
      • Still an interesting setup you have to install the CITRIX deb and then fix the cert error
      • sudo ln -s /usr/share/ca-certificates/mozilla/* /opt/Citrix/ICAClient/keystore/cacerts
      • Too bad it has been way too cold and still way too much pollen to work in the garage comfortably 
    • Reinstalled Windows on a T100ta so that it can replace the 11 year old Toshiba that we are using as a set top box – the Toshiba only has vga out.  Want to see if it can do better with lower power consumption. I am thinking that I will need to add a powered usb hub
      • Since it will be plugged in all the time I think I can get away with using the powered hub as the tablet charger as well.
      • Did have to use woeusb to setup the windows 

The News: 

Security Update: 

  •  Not Linux, YET.
    • Edge Breaks Privacy
    • Douglas Leith with the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College in Ireland, Edge sends privacy-invasive telemetry to Microsoft’s back-end servers — including “persistent” device identifiers and URLs typed into browsing pages. Brave ended up being the most private, with Firefox trailing in a second, less-private, group.

Announcements: 

  • Our next episode will be at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC, April 5, 2020. That’s 8PM British Summer Time. Thanks Londoner, I hope I got that right. 🙂

Wrap-up:

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

  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 4301 mintCast 329 – fish Pi and Wine https://mintcast.org/mintcast-329-fish-pi-and-wine/ Wed, 26 Feb 2020 06:30:41 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4241 Then in our news, Python 2 is dying, a new kernel is in the works, ElementaryOS is getting devs paid, and more.
In security, we talk more Firefox woes.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, I go fishing, Bo has some Wine, and Joe bakes some Pi.

Then in our news, Python 2 is dying, a new kernel is in the works, ElementaryOS is getting devs paid, and more.

In security, we talk more Firefox woes.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings:

  • Leo
    • Been hearing about “FISH” shell for a while, and never figured I’d need anything more than BASH. Well, that’s still true, but FISH is pretty awesome.
    • We missed the news of Fish’s 3.1.0 release back on the 12th.
    • Great for beginners, but can be a double edged sword.
  • Bo
    • Recorded first session of Star Trek Adventures. Check it out at ecnradio.com
    • I could let Leo have the highest kernel version of the show so I installed kernel 5.5 and borked my Mint installation.
    • Running into Wine installation issues on Mint.
    • I’ve been taking on small Python projects at work.
  • Joe
    • For my reading pleasure
      • Demon accords
      • Stormlight archive book 1 and 2
      • Looking for something new
      • Going to listen to Andy Weir again
        • Listened to the Martian
          • Really good book
        • Have Artemis in my queue
        • Both great books
      • Used voice aloud for Steven Barnes Aubry Knight book 2
        • A classic book, worth the read.  I like it better than the first book and think the third book is a little weak
    • Pulled the screen from an old laptop and converted the monitor so that I could use it with the Pi 4
      • The connection is relatively simple
      • Fabricating the stand for it was a bit more difficult but only because it is a bit out of my normal wheel house
        • Used a soft board that was very light to do it and repurposed an old tablet stand to hold it in the correct position.
        • Attached the controller board and the pi to the back of the screen as well.  The viewing angle is very narrow but it is working great and has a much lower profile than the other screen i was using for it.
      • Also setup the case of the pi so that it connects to the back of the stand.  It looks pretty good.
    • I have never liked any of the BT receivers that I have purchased.  Granted that may be because i buy the cheap ones.
      • But I do have plenty of broken bluetooth headphones.  
      • Solution:  Bust out the soldering iron and convert an old pair of headphones into a bt receiver giving longer battery life and better sound quality
      • The Sony XB650 is not the simplest choice for this as the battery is on the opposite side to the usb port and controls but the end result is pretty low profile and sounds great.  
      • I was even able to use a 4 pole female 3.5mm adapter and wire into the existing microphone so that my gaming headsets will work properly.  Although i used an old 3.5mm extension cable and this added a problem where the speaker audio was being pumped back through the mic. This can be easily fixed by either putting back in the old mic or replacing the jack with a new one.
      • 10 solder points total the cable was a bit difficult to work with and took longer than it should have to connect the headphone wires.  
      • Moved all the electronics from the left ear to the right ear including the battery and shortened all the cables down to about 2 inches.  Had to shave down the supports at the back of the can so I could put in the battery and controller for it along with the NFC tag. 
      • I have done similar in the past with one of the neck band headphones that i have.  That was much simpler. Some speaker wire from each headphone connection to a 3.5mm female jack.  It works well but not pocket friendly. Although the built-in mic is useful.
    • Also received the DIY desktop headphone amplifier 
      • It was fun to put together
      • Good way to practice through hole soldering
      • There was also some surface mount but that was easy
      • Did not quite get the left channel chip soldered properly on the first try and had to go back and fix it
      • End result is pretty good.  It works as an amp and gives me a knob to control the volume
      • Had to switch from my razer krakens to the neo classics in order to have something that could be pushed with minimal distortion(for testing)
      • Good volume but not great quality
      • What do you expect for 9 bucks
    • Went to the lug on saturday.  Spent a lot of time there writing show notes.
    • My son had fun as well.  I was using my 7130 and he was using the 7140.  
    • Lots of discussion about old school linux and new advances.  Discussed powershell on linux and WSL.
    • Had a root canal.  Can’t say it was fun but i will say it was one of my better visits to the dentist.  I do have to go back for the crown and I have already had the cleaning. Also not fun.  
    • I want to ask if anyone knows what to do about cable hardening on headphones. 
      • Something that happens to some headphone wires as they age.  
      • The only thing I know to do is use a hairdryer to get them into the most comfortable position and then live with it or replace the whole dang cable.
    • Ordered the parts to fix my 3d printer
      • Also ordered the mosfet fix this time too so hopefully i don’t have any further board burnout problems
        • I understand that similar things can happen to the mosfets but they are 10 dollars to replace as opposed to 120
        • Will have to keep a close eye on the first couple of run throughs as I hear that some of the fetts come broken. 
        • Will do a slightly difficult test print and see how it comes out and how much time it takes to dial in.
        • Then a few simple prints to test longevity and because i need more headphone desk hooks. And maybe a stand or two

The News:

Security Update:

Announcements:

  • Our Next Episode will be live March 8th, 2020. 2PM CST, 8PM UTC

Wrap-up:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> full 4241 mintCast 329 – fish Pi and Wine (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-329-fish-pi-and-wine-mp3/ Wed, 26 Feb 2020 06:30:15 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4239 Then in our news, Python 2 is dying, a new kernel is in the works, ElementaryOS is getting devs paid, and more.
In security, we talk more Firefox woes.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, I go fishing, Bo has some Wine, and Joe bakes some Pi.

Then in our news, Python 2 is dying, a new kernel is in the works, ElementaryOS is getting devs paid, and more.

In security, we talk more Firefox woes.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings:

  • Leo
    • Been hearing about “FISH” shell for a while, and never figured I’d need anything more than BASH. Well, that’s still true, but FISH is pretty awesome.
    • We missed the news of Fish’s 3.1.0 release back on the 12th.
    • Great for beginners, but can be a double edged sword.
  • Bo
    • Recorded first session of Star Trek Adventures. Check it out at ecnradio.com
    • I could let Leo have the highest kernel version of the show so I installed kernel 5.5 and borked my Mint installation.
    • Running into Wine installation issues on Mint.
    • I’ve been taking on small Python projects at work.
  • Joe
    • For my reading pleasure
      • Demon accords
      • Stormlight archive book 1 and 2
      • Looking for something new
      • Going to listen to Andy Weir again
        • Listened to the Martian
          • Really good book
        • Have Artemis in my queue
        • Both great books
      • Used voice aloud for Steven Barnes Aubry Knight book 2
        • A classic book, worth the read.  I like it better than the first book and think the third book is a little weak
    • Pulled the screen from an old laptop and converted the monitor so that I could use it with the Pi 4
      • The connection is relatively simple
      • Fabricating the stand for it was a bit more difficult but only because it is a bit out of my normal wheel house
        • Used a soft board that was very light to do it and repurposed an old tablet stand to hold it in the correct position.
        • Attached the controller board and the pi to the back of the screen as well.  The viewing angle is very narrow but it is working great and has a much lower profile than the other screen i was using for it.
      • Also setup the case of the pi so that it connects to the back of the stand.  It looks pretty good.
    • I have never liked any of the BT receivers that I have purchased.  Granted that may be because i buy the cheap ones.
      • But I do have plenty of broken bluetooth headphones.  
      • Solution:  Bust out the soldering iron and convert an old pair of headphones into a bt receiver giving longer battery life and better sound quality
      • The Sony XB650 is not the simplest choice for this as the battery is on the opposite side to the usb port and controls but the end result is pretty low profile and sounds great.  
      • I was even able to use a 4 pole female 3.5mm adapter and wire into the existing microphone so that my gaming headsets will work properly.  Although i used an old 3.5mm extension cable and this added a problem where the speaker audio was being pumped back through the mic. This can be easily fixed by either putting back in the old mic or replacing the jack with a new one.
      • 10 solder points total the cable was a bit difficult to work with and took longer than it should have to connect the headphone wires.  
      • Moved all the electronics from the left ear to the right ear including the battery and shortened all the cables down to about 2 inches.  Had to shave down the supports at the back of the can so I could put in the battery and controller for it along with the NFC tag. 
      • I have done similar in the past with one of the neck band headphones that i have.  That was much simpler. Some speaker wire from each headphone connection to a 3.5mm female jack.  It works well but not pocket friendly. Although the built-in mic is useful.
    • Also received the DIY desktop headphone amplifier 
      • It was fun to put together
      • Good way to practice through hole soldering
      • There was also some surface mount but that was easy
      • Did not quite get the left channel chip soldered properly on the first try and had to go back and fix it
      • End result is pretty good.  It works as an amp and gives me a knob to control the volume
      • Had to switch from my razer krakens to the neo classics in order to have something that could be pushed with minimal distortion(for testing)
      • Good volume but not great quality
      • What do you expect for 9 bucks
    • Went to the lug on saturday.  Spent a lot of time there writing show notes.
    • My son had fun as well.  I was using my 7130 and he was using the 7140.  
    • Lots of discussion about old school linux and new advances.  Discussed powershell on linux and WSL.
    • Had a root canal.  Can’t say it was fun but i will say it was one of my better visits to the dentist.  I do have to go back for the crown and I have already had the cleaning. Also not fun.  
    • I want to ask if anyone knows what to do about cable hardening on headphones. 
      • Something that happens to some headphone wires as they age.  
      • The only thing I know to do is use a hairdryer to get them into the most comfortable position and then live with it or replace the whole dang cable.
    • Ordered the parts to fix my 3d printer
      • Also ordered the mosfet fix this time too so hopefully i don’t have any further board burnout problems
        • I understand that similar things can happen to the mosfets but they are 10 dollars to replace as opposed to 120
        • Will have to keep a close eye on the first couple of run throughs as I hear that some of the fetts come broken. 
        • Will do a slightly difficult test print and see how it comes out and how much time it takes to dial in.
        • Then a few simple prints to test longevity and because i need more headphone desk hooks. And maybe a stand or two

The News:

Security Update:

Announcements:

  • Our Next Episode will be live March 8th, 2020. 2PM CST, 8PM UTC

Wrap-up:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> full 4239 mintCast 327 – The Mozilla Thrilla https://mintcast.org/mintcast-327-the-mozilla-thrilla/ Wed, 29 Jan 2020 08:02:54 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4152 Then in our news a new Wine, GParted, Edge and Yaru theme for Ubuntu. The Pinephone ships and Firefox runs into issues.
Finally, in security, we talk password leads and Mozilla addon bans.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, I follow in Tony H’s footsteps and paint, Tony H upgrades a laptop and attends another LUG, Josh returns, Moss meets a mintCast listener, Joe listens to more books and learns about Cockpit, and Tony Watts edits video and works on his Studio.

Then in our news a new Wine, GParted, Edge and Yaru theme for Ubuntu. The Pinephone ships and Firefox runs into issues.

Finally, in security, we talk password leads and Mozilla addon bans.

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • DnD Mini painting! D:
  • Tony H
    • Upgraded a Windows 8.1 Sony VAIO i5 laptop to Windows 10 and after the upgrade replaced the spinner with a 120Gig SSD and upgraded the RAM from 4 to 6Gb and this now boots in under 10 seconds. Even I was impressed with the performance improvements, I’m sure part of the issue was that over time the Win8 install had built up a load of windows bloat which slowed it down, but the person who asked me to do this will be very happy to have a workable laptop back. Listening to the first part of the HPR new years eve/day marathon event which was released this week, if you want to know what me and Popey talked about, have a listen.   
    • Went to the LUG and talking to a new member who has just moved to the area and we seem to have trod a similar path with Linux, starting with Ubuntu and migrating to Mint with the advent of the Unity DE. Good to see new people coming to the LUG. 
    • Oh and this week at the LUG I got given some sourdough starter which I have christened ‘Fred’ well it is a living organism lol. So this week sometime I will be trying to bake a sourdough loaf, may have to do a little YouTube research beforehand to make sure I’m doing it right. I’ve made many loaves before but this will be the first time making sourdough. Wish me luck.    
    • And I can’t forget the Matchbox cars, had a lucky flea-Bay find and picked up some very nice models that can go straight into the collection for around a £1 each. I’m sure I can get a lot more than that if I ever want to part with them, but for now they will be staying put. Considering having a stall at the next swap meet, to try and move on some of my many repeats either sell or swap.
  • Moss
    • So I missed the Thinkpad Lovefest last episode. I had a great time at GAFilk (as I always do, which is why I keep going year upon year), but the resultant video did not sound great. I’m waiting for better audio to patch in, foretelling my first go with KDEnlive.
    • At least you didn’t decide to replace me permanently with Alan Pope. My first Thinkpad was purchased only 5 or 6 years ago, a X130e, which later I replaced with a T430 and sent the X130e to my fiancee (now wife). After about a year, she decided she wanted a T430, so we sold the X130e and bought her one. She still has hers; I just sold mine to listener Dale Miracle at a price which was definitely to my benefit, and we got dinner along with it. Thanks, Dale!
    • I’ve been playing Musical Distros on my machines, and somehow managed to have Mint Cinnamon and KDE neon on both computers. I need to find some more distros to play with.  I looked at Nitrux but it doesn’t look like you actually install it. 
    • The problem I was having with Feren OS on my Galago Pro 2, which to date has only shown itself when using only with Kmines and KMahjongg, was not a Feren problem, it was something between the Galago video system and KDE. I had the same issue with KDE neon. And while the blocks of video dropout are white in regular mode, they are dark grey in Dark Mode, which is really something. I haven’t tried Kubuntu to further investigate, but the Galago Pro was reported to have been pretty well-used when listener Jackie Moore sent it to me so it could just be wear.
    • To the people in our Telegram group who seem to think I have the record for the most distros on a machine: one of my MeWe friends has 11. And I have done the math: if I allocated a generous 25 Gb for each distro, I could easily fit 50 distros on my Galago Pro 2; however, thinking about having to update all those distros, not to mention navigating the GRUB menu. I think I’ll stick with 7.
    • I’m trying to talk Tony into doing Peppermint 10 Respin for Distrohoppers’ Digest Episode 010 on February 5th.  I tried it and was driven bonkers by the peppermint candy icon in the taskbar. I hate doing negative reviews, especially for good distros, so I’ll get Tony to do a positive one, if he’s up for it. I believe I’ll do Feren OS again, it’s a whole new distro with KDE and what he has done is simply amazing. Our episode download numbers keep increasing, with currently 2 episodes over 500 downloads and 3 more over 400 out of 9 episodes. For as niche-y as we are, those are nice numbers.
    • I replaced Ubuntu Budgie 19.10 with Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix, because that’s what we’re doing this episode. I have no need for two versions of Ubuntu 19.10, but I will miss Budgie. 
    • My wife and I have finished reading Storm Front and got a $1.99 deal on Fool Moon (Dresden Files series), so I’m reading that to my wife now. Apparently these books are not in Kindle Unlimited — which beggars the use of the word “unlimited”, but there you have it. Our flying the skies with Temeraire continues to be on hold.
    • The Rehab facility sent my mom home again just yesterday. Hope she can stay there.
  • Josh
    • Back from Australia
    • Problems with Grandad’s PC (He needs a new one)
    • Editing photos
    • EduBlocks draggable video tutorials
    • Much less of me on the show due to exams in 14 weeks
  • Joe
    • Listened to some good books
    • NOS4A2 by Joe Hill who is the son of Stephen King
      • Really good book
      • You can tell that it was heavily influenced by King
      • Lots of references to Kings works
      • Very detailed but still easy to follow. 
      • Highly recommend and I will be trying a few more books from the same author.  Maybe find out if he has written any series
    • Listened to the Avalon Chronicles which are a continuation of the Hellequin novels
      • Well read but complex enough that for the first read through I needed to drop the speed from 3x to 2x
      • I like the following of new characters while still having the cameos from the previous series to tie it all together.
      • Book 2 and 3 jumped around a lot
    • Started the Lost Fleet series so I could get the beginning of the story.
      • Really having read the second series of this I am having trouble getting through because it is so similar that I feel like I have already read it.
      • Don’t know if I will finish the series any time soon but I will keep it in my library
    • Listening to the Daniel Faust novels again
    • Was hoping to listen to the Demon Squad novels but my copy is gone and I have not found a new one yet
    • Also Yancy Lazarous novels but I was able to find another copy.  So it will be next on my list
    • Started using voice aloud reader which was recommended to me by one of my co-hosts on the linux lug cast.
      • I have never before liked text-aloud books, but using one of the online voice reader options it has worked out very well.
      • So far I have read the 6th book from the Garrett P.I. novels and the first book of the Aubry Knight trilogy
        • Both series are available as ebooks but not audiobooks
        • Both are very good books that I always wanted to get in audio
        • It is not perfect but it is much better than it was 10 years ago
    • Haven’t done much with PI’s in a while and all I have left at this time is some Pi 1’s and a couple of zero w’s
      • For a warm up I plan on setting up a zero w as a pi hole
        • Used raspbian lite
      • I would like to order a Pi 4 and I will get around to it
      • Also looking hard at some physical switches on the GPIO to run scripts
      • But I may just use a usb numpad to start off with.
      • Also looking at 7 inch hdmi touch screens for the pi’s 
    • Thanks Popey for coming on the show last time.  Also thanks for the suggestion on cockpit
      • It helped me easily diagnose the problems on my server.  Yes it all could have been found elsewhere but this tool made it easy with everything consolidated.  I was also able to use the interface to find the issue while I was several miles away at the office.  
      • Turns out one of my 4tb hdds has some bad sectors.  Sadly it is the partition that has all my configurations for docker and all my audiobooks.  
      • Which explains the corrupt audiobook files that I have been seeing. 
      • Ordered an 8tb to replace it.  
    • 8Tb HDD was really easy to set up.  Didn’t have to jump through all the large hard drive hoops that I used to have to.
      • Setup in disks and then use rsync to copy everything over 24 hours to copy 4tb of data.  Power down and power back up to make sure the data is still there and the partition is accessible.
      • Use disks again to change the mount name to what the old drive was(one of them the one for docker) and change the mount point on the old drive
      • Restart the machine and make sure that docker is working then point plex to the new drive location.  
      • Do a full shutdown with no power for a few minutes
        • Yes I’m paranoid
      • It is all working.  I now feel comfortable taking the 4Tb out Although I may wait a few days before doing anything with it.  
    • Installed android x86 on the 7140 which may spend some time as my testing machine
      • I did not want to wipe out my hard drive so I attempted to install it to a USB stick
      • I think my powered usb hub or the cable to it was simply not up to the task
      • So I wiped my drive and ran it there.  
      • It was nice being able to play some of the android games on full screen and install all the apps that I usually use on my phone
      • But the sound did not work on either the speakers or the 3.5mm jack but did work over bluetooth so kinda usable 
      • The only issue I had was recovering when it attempted to sleep since the 7140 does not support that.  The touchpad and wifi would both stop working although I could fix the wifi I could not fix the touchpad without a full restart
    • So I wiped the drive again and attempted to install ubuntu cinnamon.  Invalid partition table every time.
      • Will talk about that in the innards but I did get it fixed
    • Also am attempting to install android x86 in virtualbox on my 7130
      • Need to increase the resources for it but it does seem to be working
    • May have to buy a larger/faster drive for the 7140 
    • Dell Venue 8 Pro woes
      • Spent a couple of days trying to get that set back up
      • Couldn’t install anything with cinnamon
      • Ended up install Mint Mate to replace mint xfce
      • Tried all the old audio fixes and could not get the audio working
      • Surprisingly though the Bluetooth is now working
    • Copyq from the going linux podcast
  • Tony W
    • More progress on digitizing 8mm video
      • Located all of the cables for camcorder
      • VLC did capture both audio and video streams, after selecting video camera as source (vs analog TV as used previously per instruction in a reddit or something)
      • Resulting video files from VLC capture are HUGE.  Uncompressed AVI format
      • Essentially the process is to capture audio/video, then convert the raw uncompressed files to MP4 etc (I will use Handbrake for this)
    • I will be doing some work on my home studio in the basement very soon
      • Drywall and insulation, framing around ducts and pipes, carpet…
      • Need permit from county
      • Planning to host band practice at my house for yet another band project
    • Have been enjoying some of the basic features of Plex I had somehow managed to avoid to this point
      • Bought the android app
      • Casting to chromecasts in the house
      • Added user accts for the kids – gives control over BOTH libraries and ratings restriction

THE NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE:

Announcements:

  • Our Next Episode will be live Feb 9, 2020. 2PM CST, 8PM UTC

Wrap-up:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> full 1:09:00 4152 mintCast 327 – The Mozilla Thrilla (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-327-the-mozilla-thrilla-mp3/ Wed, 29 Jan 2020 07:40:07 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4150 Then in our news a new Wine, GParted, Edge and Yaru theme for Ubuntu. The Pinephone ships and Firefox runs into issues.
Finally, in security, we talk password leads and Mozilla addon bans.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, I follow in Tony H’s footsteps and paint, Tony H upgrades a laptop and attends another LUG, Josh returns, Moss meets a mintCast listener, Joe listens to more books and learns about Cockpit, and Tony Watts edits video and works on his Studio.

Then in our news a new Wine, GParted, Edge and Yaru theme for Ubuntu. The Pinephone ships and Firefox runs into issues.

Finally, in security, we talk password leads and Mozilla addon bans.

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • DnD Mini painting! D:
  • Tony H
    • Upgraded a Windows 8.1 Sony VAIO i5 laptop to Windows 10 and after the upgrade replaced the spinner with a 120Gig SSD and upgraded the RAM from 4 to 6Gb and this now boots in under 10 seconds. Even I was impressed with the performance improvements, I’m sure part of the issue was that over time the Win8 install had built up a load of windows bloat which slowed it down, but the person who asked me to do this will be very happy to have a workable laptop back. Listening to the first part of the HPR new years eve/day marathon event which was released this week, if you want to know what me and Popey talked about, have a listen.   
    • Went to the LUG and talking to a new member who has just moved to the area and we seem to have trod a similar path with Linux, starting with Ubuntu and migrating to Mint with the advent of the Unity DE. Good to see new people coming to the LUG. 
    • Oh and this week at the LUG I got given some sourdough starter which I have christened ‘Fred’ well it is a living organism lol. So this week sometime I will be trying to bake a sourdough loaf, may have to do a little YouTube research beforehand to make sure I’m doing it right. I’ve made many loaves before but this will be the first time making sourdough. Wish me luck.    
    • And I can’t forget the Matchbox cars, had a lucky flea-Bay find and picked up some very nice models that can go straight into the collection for around a £1 each. I’m sure I can get a lot more than that if I ever want to part with them, but for now they will be staying put. Considering having a stall at the next swap meet, to try and move on some of my many repeats either sell or swap.
  • Moss
    • So I missed the Thinkpad Lovefest last episode. I had a great time at GAFilk (as I always do, which is why I keep going year upon year), but the resultant video did not sound great. I’m waiting for better audio to patch in, foretelling my first go with KDEnlive.
    • At least you didn’t decide to replace me permanently with Alan Pope. My first Thinkpad was purchased only 5 or 6 years ago, a X130e, which later I replaced with a T430 and sent the X130e to my fiancee (now wife). After about a year, she decided she wanted a T430, so we sold the X130e and bought her one. She still has hers; I just sold mine to listener Dale Miracle at a price which was definitely to my benefit, and we got dinner along with it. Thanks, Dale!
    • I’ve been playing Musical Distros on my machines, and somehow managed to have Mint Cinnamon and KDE neon on both computers. I need to find some more distros to play with.  I looked at Nitrux but it doesn’t look like you actually install it. 
    • The problem I was having with Feren OS on my Galago Pro 2, which to date has only shown itself when using only with Kmines and KMahjongg, was not a Feren problem, it was something between the Galago video system and KDE. I had the same issue with KDE neon. And while the blocks of video dropout are white in regular mode, they are dark grey in Dark Mode, which is really something. I haven’t tried Kubuntu to further investigate, but the Galago Pro was reported to have been pretty well-used when listener Jackie Moore sent it to me so it could just be wear.
    • To the people in our Telegram group who seem to think I have the record for the most distros on a machine: one of my MeWe friends has 11. And I have done the math: if I allocated a generous 25 Gb for each distro, I could easily fit 50 distros on my Galago Pro 2; however, thinking about having to update all those distros, not to mention navigating the GRUB menu. I think I’ll stick with 7.
    • I’m trying to talk Tony into doing Peppermint 10 Respin for Distrohoppers’ Digest Episode 010 on February 5th.  I tried it and was driven bonkers by the peppermint candy icon in the taskbar. I hate doing negative reviews, especially for good distros, so I’ll get Tony to do a positive one, if he’s up for it. I believe I’ll do Feren OS again, it’s a whole new distro with KDE and what he has done is simply amazing. Our episode download numbers keep increasing, with currently 2 episodes over 500 downloads and 3 more over 400 out of 9 episodes. For as niche-y as we are, those are nice numbers.
    • I replaced Ubuntu Budgie 19.10 with Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix, because that’s what we’re doing this episode. I have no need for two versions of Ubuntu 19.10, but I will miss Budgie. 
    • My wife and I have finished reading Storm Front and got a $1.99 deal on Fool Moon (Dresden Files series), so I’m reading that to my wife now. Apparently these books are not in Kindle Unlimited — which beggars the use of the word “unlimited”, but there you have it. Our flying the skies with Temeraire continues to be on hold.
    • The Rehab facility sent my mom home again just yesterday. Hope she can stay there.
  • Josh
    • Back from Australia
    • Problems with Grandad’s PC (He needs a new one)
    • Editing photos
    • EduBlocks draggable video tutorials
    • Much less of me on the show due to exams in 14 weeks
  • Joe
    • Listened to some good books
    • NOS4A2 by Joe Hill who is the son of Stephen King
      • Really good book
      • You can tell that it was heavily influenced by King
      • Lots of references to Kings works
      • Very detailed but still easy to follow. 
      • Highly recommend and I will be trying a few more books from the same author.  Maybe find out if he has written any series
    • Listened to the Avalon Chronicles which are a continuation of the Hellequin novels
      • Well read but complex enough that for the first read through I needed to drop the speed from 3x to 2x
      • I like the following of new characters while still having the cameos from the previous series to tie it all together.
      • Book 2 and 3 jumped around a lot
    • Started the Lost Fleet series so I could get the beginning of the story.
      • Really having read the second series of this I am having trouble getting through because it is so similar that I feel like I have already read it.
      • Don’t know if I will finish the series any time soon but I will keep it in my library
    • Listening to the Daniel Faust novels again
    • Was hoping to listen to the Demon Squad novels but my copy is gone and I have not found a new one yet
    • Also Yancy Lazarous novels but I was able to find another copy.  So it will be next on my list
    • Started using voice aloud reader which was recommended to me by one of my co-hosts on the linux lug cast.
      • I have never before liked text-aloud books, but using one of the online voice reader options it has worked out very well.
      • So far I have read the 6th book from the Garrett P.I. novels and the first book of the Aubry Knight trilogy
        • Both series are available as ebooks but not audiobooks
        • Both are very good books that I always wanted to get in audio
        • It is not perfect but it is much better than it was 10 years ago
    • Haven’t done much with PI’s in a while and all I have left at this time is some Pi 1’s and a couple of zero w’s
      • For a warm up I plan on setting up a zero w as a pi hole
        • Used raspbian lite
      • I would like to order a Pi 4 and I will get around to it
      • Also looking hard at some physical switches on the GPIO to run scripts
      • But I may just use a usb numpad to start off with.
      • Also looking at 7 inch hdmi touch screens for the pi’s 
    • Thanks Popey for coming on the show last time.  Also thanks for the suggestion on cockpit
      • It helped me easily diagnose the problems on my server.  Yes it all could have been found elsewhere but this tool made it easy with everything consolidated.  I was also able to use the interface to find the issue while I was several miles away at the office.  
      • Turns out one of my 4tb hdds has some bad sectors.  Sadly it is the partition that has all my configurations for docker and all my audiobooks.  
      • Which explains the corrupt audiobook files that I have been seeing. 
      • Ordered an 8tb to replace it.  
    • 8Tb HDD was really easy to set up.  Didn’t have to jump through all the large hard drive hoops that I used to have to.
      • Setup in disks and then use rsync to copy everything over 24 hours to copy 4tb of data.  Power down and power back up to make sure the data is still there and the partition is accessible.
      • Use disks again to change the mount name to what the old drive was(one of them the one for docker) and change the mount point on the old drive
      • Restart the machine and make sure that docker is working then point plex to the new drive location.  
      • Do a full shutdown with no power for a few minutes
        • Yes I’m paranoid
      • It is all working.  I now feel comfortable taking the 4Tb out Although I may wait a few days before doing anything with it.  
    • Installed android x86 on the 7140 which may spend some time as my testing machine
      • I did not want to wipe out my hard drive so I attempted to install it to a USB stick
      • I think my powered usb hub or the cable to it was simply not up to the task
      • So I wiped my drive and ran it there.  
      • It was nice being able to play some of the android games on full screen and install all the apps that I usually use on my phone
      • But the sound did not work on either the speakers or the 3.5mm jack but did work over bluetooth so kinda usable 
      • The only issue I had was recovering when it attempted to sleep since the 7140 does not support that.  The touchpad and wifi would both stop working although I could fix the wifi I could not fix the touchpad without a full restart
    • So I wiped the drive again and attempted to install ubuntu cinnamon.  Invalid partition table every time.
      • Will talk about that in the innards but I did get it fixed
    • Also am attempting to install android x86 in virtualbox on my 7130
      • Need to increase the resources for it but it does seem to be working
    • May have to buy a larger/faster drive for the 7140 
    • Dell Venue 8 Pro woes
      • Spent a couple of days trying to get that set back up
      • Couldn’t install anything with cinnamon
      • Ended up install Mint Mate to replace mint xfce
      • Tried all the old audio fixes and could not get the audio working
      • Surprisingly though the Bluetooth is now working
    • Copyq from the going linux podcast
  • Tony W
    • More progress on digitizing 8mm video
      • Located all of the cables for camcorder
      • VLC did capture both audio and video streams, after selecting video camera as source (vs analog TV as used previously per instruction in a reddit or something)
      • Resulting video files from VLC capture are HUGE.  Uncompressed AVI format
      • Essentially the process is to capture audio/video, then convert the raw uncompressed files to MP4 etc (I will use Handbrake for this)
    • I will be doing some work on my home studio in the basement very soon
      • Drywall and insulation, framing around ducts and pipes, carpet…
      • Need permit from county
      • Planning to host band practice at my house for yet another band project
    • Have been enjoying some of the basic features of Plex I had somehow managed to avoid to this point
      • Bought the android app
      • Casting to chromecasts in the house
      • Added user accts for the kids – gives control over BOTH libraries and ratings restriction

THE NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE:

Announcements:

  • Our Next Episode will be live Feb 9, 2020. 2PM CST, 8PM UTC

Wrap-up:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> full 1:09:00 4150 mintCast 326 – One Byte Opposition (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-326-one-byte-opposition-mp3/ Wed, 15 Jan 2020 07:10:03 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4126 Then, in our news - Dell shows a new developer XPS 13 laptop at CES, there is a new enterprise Chromebook from Samsung and EA boots Linux gamers out of multiplayer Battlefield and more.
In Security - It’s time to update Firefox... again. And Cablehaunt spooks your modem.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Special Guest Alan Pope finds gold in the loft and plays 30+ year old games online, Leo wins at gifts, but fails at MicroK8s, Tony Hughes plays with Ubuntu Studio, more Matchbox cars, and donates some tech, Joe tries to repair a pebble, fixes more headphones and listens to lots of books, Tony Watts converts 8mm film to digital, plays with a dual monitor setup on his Thinkpad and reconfigures his recording setup.

Then, in our news – Dell shows a new developer XPS 13 laptop at CES, there is a new enterprise Chromebook from Samsung and EA boots Linux gamers out of multiplayer Battlefield and more.

In Security – It’s time to update Firefox… again. And Cablehaunt spooks your modem.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

  • Alan P
    • Found a bunch of old audio cassettes in the loft. Bought a cassette player off ebay to sample them into a PC (thinkpad, of course) and then feed them into an emulator if they’re computer stuff.
    • Some of them were programs that I’d written with a friend over 30 years ago.
    • Also played some old 8-bit games with my friend Martin Wimpress on our new twitch channel “8bitversus”. We decided to start playing games online when a friend in the Ubuntu Podcast telegram channel suggested it might be fun to watch. I was a massive sinclair spectrum fan, and he was a commodore 64 fan. In these streams we take turns choosing games and get the other person to play games on the other persons platform. It’s fun!
  • Leo
    • Got handed a desktop sans case from a friend that wasn’t using it anymore and was moving out of state. I’ve been wanting to build a new server for quite a while to get more into Docker and other enterprisey-type things and I saw it as a sign to forge ahead!
    • i5-6600k, 16GB 2400MHz RAM, ASUS Fancy Pants motherboard, and a 700W PSU.
    • Planning on moving the services I have at home, like Nextcloud, from snap and VMs to MicroK8s, but am having some issues with getting the Dashboard to listen outside on a local LAN subnet.
    • Making slow but steady progress on the manual Raspberry Pi Zero W motion camera setup.
  • Tony H
    • Having issues with Ubuntu Studio that I had installed on my Dell 7440 i7 it was reporting errors every time I started it. So I swapped out the M2 SSD with a 2.5” SSD and did a clean install to this drive. More problems, the new iso would not boot, so I ended up finding and using the original iso off my portable HDD to make a new bootable USB install drive this worked and I have a clean install of Ubuntu Studio on the Test laptop for January’s test distro. One issue I have found so far is not an Ubuntu issue but a Firefox issue, I can no longer copy my Firefox folder over to the new machine and have all my bookmarks as they were previously installed. Yes I have a FireFox account but it does not seem to be doing what it is supposed to and syncing bookmarks which is a pain when you have several Hundred of these that you would like to access. Previously it was a doddle to copy my FireFox over to a new install and it was one of the reasons I still use it. And yes my desktop PC is linked to the laptop as far as sync is concerned, just not doing it.
    • Recording the latest Distrohoppers Digest episode with Moss, it went out on Friday.
    • Continuing to play with Matchbox models, pick up a couple of bargains over the holiday but now it’s time to start actually restoring a few. Started on a Ford GT superfast restoration and have a couple of others on the go as well. I’ve ordered some replacement parts from one of the model suppliers here in the UK to enable me to restore some of the models with parts missing, but where possible I try to use parts from other models bought for this purpose. Yesterday I went to a collectors Fair / swap meet and bought a few things and did a couple of swaps, thinking next time I may get a table to sell a few things that I have surplus, in the collection.    
    • Going back to PC stuff, I made a donation of some Pi stuff and a couple of Laptops to a friend of my friend Les Pounder. Drew works in Egypt and is hoping to teach local children Computing, but has absolutely no equipment, or didn’t have until Les sent him some Pi’s and an old Lenovo x61s with Raspbian x86 installed so the children will be using the same software on all the machines. One of the PC’s I am sending is an x61s and also a Dell E6220 with some random Pi stuff and a couple of Pi’s to the cause. It’s easy to forget that having access to fairly cheap older hardware via various sources such as ebay is beyond the financial ability of many in much of the world, and for some even in the rich countries. A shout out to Zeb from Destination Linux who did a 24Hr marathon YouTube stream of Euro Truck simulator over the holiday to raise funds for Free Geek, in the US you can find them HERE. There are similar projects in the UK one is the WEEECharity based in the North West so if you want to help people in your own community bridge the digital divide consider a donation of unused and unloved hardware or bung them a small donation to help out. 
    • Finally joined the BDLL Euro show, realised at the last minute that it was the second Saturday of the month, so after a quick check in with the crew dropped out of the pre show mumble chat and jumped into the BDLL Zoom after installing the Zoom client as I was on the Ubuntu Studio laptop, after a bit of a glitch at the beginning with the hardware it went OK for the rest of the 2 hours. 
  • Joe
    • Someone gave me an equallogic ps6500  Toyam gave it to me.
    • I have no idea what to do with it
    • Honkeymagoo sent me a pair of pebble watches to work on
      • They both needed battery replacements
      • I failed miserably
      • Ruined one of the ribbon cables that go around the side on one
      • Did get the new batteries connected but was not able to get them to turn on
      • Other then the ribbon break i am not sure what I did wrong
      • One of the boards did get hot at one point but I reflowed the connection for the battery and it settled down
      • Interesting highlights.  I did have to solder a cable onto one of the battery boards.  Just used some wire from some ethernet cable that i had sitting around.  The cable is a little stiff for this application but when i checked the voltages it came out fine.
    • Jim Butchers Codex Alera
      • Good series.
      • Had to replace my copy because the old one was corrupt.  
      • Not sure if it is my hard drive with bad sectors or one of the ones that I used for a backup
    • The book of 5 rings
      • Interesting but because of the type of book and the fact that i am going over it with audio i think i am going to have to go through it several more times before i get the most out of it
    • Shattered Bonds, book 13 in the Jane Yellowrock series
      • Good book, not the easiest to follow.
      • Jumps around a bit and references some obscure aspects of the long series before it
    • Alex Verus novels again
      • Really good series.
      • Better after a couple of read throughs and getting in all the details
    • Also was able to get a python class in this morning.  We should start meeting weekly again. I think the next class that we are going to take may be centos
    • Working on old headphones again
      • Replaced the cable on my daughter’s cheap little headphones
      • Not even sure what brand they are just grabbed an old aux cable and replaced the broken cable
      • I have found that full cable replacements are sturdier and more reliable than patching the cable or replacing the jack
    • Fixed one set of 770’s by shortening the cable on one side
    • Fixed one set of 510’s by shortening the cable on one side and replacing the other
      • I had a problem with the replaced side
      • I tried shortening the original cable first but the sound was dim so i just did a replacement.  
      • Sound was still dim on that side so what I ended up doing was putting some flux down on the board and running my iron over a bunch of the connections while the device was on and playing music(do not try that) this reseated whatever was loose and fixed the sound issues
    • Fixed 2 sets of 810’s and a set of insignia’s by opening the speaker up and shortening the cable from that side
      • 1 more 810 to do that on
      • This is a very difficult fix because of the small size and the fact that it doesnt like to go back together if you get too harsh taking it apart
        • One of the 810s have another problem that i am not going to be able to fix but the insignias work well
          • The 810s i was able to get the earpiece working but it is much dimmer than the other side.  Next time i am setup i may try to reflow some of it 
          • But I think the problem is the connections on the spindle are wearing out so i may take it all the way apart and try to clean that up
          • The insignias work well for audio books but have terrible call quality in and out
        • The other 810 is working good
    • Full cable replacement on some earforce recon 50x’s that i found at goodwill for 4 dollars
      • Will probably also do the same for my other pair of 60p’s
      • This model has a separate line going to each ear one with the cables for the mic
      • The only issue that i have found is when the mic is in the correct position the left and right channels are reversed
    • Did a full band replacement on the z2’s.  Glad the replacement model worked.
      • Was not an exact match on the hinges but was close enough to the same size that i was able to get it together
      • Had to switch back to the standard sized ear cups because this band is narrower than the original
      • Much more clamping force but still comfortable
      • Used the earcups on the razer kraken z2’s
    • Attempted to replace the full cable from the board to the earpiece on a pair of 780’s but was plagued with problems and had to set it aside before i got frustrated while wielding a soldering iron. But as i mentioned before that is a difficult fix.
    • Picked up a pair of Meze 99 neos for 20 dollars
      • These headphones are 200 new on Amazon
      • Work perfectly and sound great
      • I am using a portable amp to push the headphones when i want a good sound
    •  Also picked up a pair of razer krakens for 15 dollars.
      • Had some problems where the left speaker was acting as the mic instead of the mic but was also pushing through sound
      • This had the side effect where everything that played on the headphones was transmitted in complete clarity back through the mic connection.
      • Attempted a cable fix directly at the 3.5mm jack but this did not work and left me somewhat confused as to the actual pinout of the device. Essentially when i had it hooked up right it was doing the same thing as before.
      • Cut the cable again above the included remote as that is the next likely place for an issue to arise. Hooked up a second cable from there and still got the same issue
      • Did a full cable replacement and while testing i found out that the mic is completely shot.
      • Works as a pair of headphones until i find another solution but i think i may mod an old mic from another system. 
      • Basically bypassed the surface mount board that is built in and hooked everything up direct except for the offside speaker
      • Sound good and are comfortable
      • I have a couple mono connectors that i might be able to use, i will need to look more closely 
      • Did not realize that it took proprietary ear cups but the ones i bought for the z2’s to add extra padding worked fine with the extra built in edge material.
      • Even covers up the hole from where i removed the mic 
    • Gave serious consideration to recording the whole thing and while i could have done it from my phone i had 2 problems
      • My phone is my bluetooth testing device
      • If I were planning on posting anywhere i would have had to refrain from cursing. And I was not about to do that.
    • For those of you that are wondering I go through a lot of bt headphones and my kids go through a lot of cans.  Dont think they are going to be using the meze’s though
    • Ordered some new tips for my soldering iron as the ones from microcenter dont quite fit
      • These do fit and work very well.  
    • My server is down after the most recent round of updates.  Not sure what is wrong yet. Need to put the video card back into the server. Which is annoying.  
  • Tony W
    • Miracle Morning 
      • First heard about it from User Error
      • S.A.V.E.R.S. explained – “The Miracle Morning”
      • More about habit and discipline than time spent or results 
      • Will stick with some variation of this morning routine
    • Music keeping me very busy (4 “gigs” in the last 4 days)
    • Converting old 8mm video using VLC
    • Thinkpad dual display conundrum
    •  Recording setup revisions
      • New boom stand (cheap Neewer)
      • Presonus Audiobox
      • Still using budget Behringer XLR mic
    • Have really been enjoying convenience of true wireless earbuds
      • Using Anker Liberty Soundcore buds that were a Christmas gift
      • Plex on the go is great for breaks

News:

Security Update:

  • Mozilla Patches Zero-Day Being Actively Exploited in 72
    • The Firefox team updated version 72 one day after initial release because of a Type Confusion flaw that is being exploited in the wild.
    • These flaws essentially do not look at some specific input and run whatever is given to it. This can cause issues when privileged data is requested.
    • Upgrade to Firefox 72.0.1 or Firefox ESR 68.4.1 to fix this issue.
  • Cable Haunt Vulnerability Affects Hundreds of Millions of Cable Modems
    • Users of cable modems with Broadcom chips are affected.
    • The spectrum analyzer on the Broadcom chip, typically used for debugging and testing purposes, can be leveraged to:
      • Change default DNS server
      • Conduct remote man-in-the-middle attacks
      • Hot-swap code or even the entire firmware
      • Upload, flash, and upgrade firmware silently
      • Disable ISP firmware upgrade
      • Change every config file and settings
      • Get and Set SNMP OID values
      • Change all associated MAC Addresses
      • Change serial numbers
      • Be exploited in botnet
    • ISPs or manufacturers can fix the issue with a firmware update. There’s not much you can do about it. However, the complexity of the attack is very high, so unless you’re under the microscope, you’ll likely not be affected.

Announcements:

Wrap-up:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> full 1:43:27 4126 mintCast 326 – One Byte Opposition https://mintcast.org/mintcast-326-one-byte-opposition/ Wed, 15 Jan 2020 07:02:29 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4131 Then, in our news - Dell shows a new developer XPS 13 laptop at CES, there is a new enterprise Chromebook from Samsung and EA boots Linux gamers out of multiplayer Battlefield and more.
In Security - It’s time to update Firefox... again. And Cablehaunt spooks your modem.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Special Guest Alan Pope finds gold in the loft and plays 30+ year old games online, Leo wins at gifts, but fails at MicroK8s, Tony Hughes plays with Ubuntu Studio, more Matchbox cars, and donates some tech, Joe tries to repair a pebble, fixes more headphones and listens to lots of books, Tony Watts converts 8mm film to digital, plays with a dual monitor setup on his Thinkpad and reconfigures his recording setup.

Then, in our news – Dell shows a new developer XPS 13 laptop at CES, there is a new enterprise Chromebook from Samsung and EA boots Linux gamers out of multiplayer Battlefield and more.

In Security – It’s time to update Firefox… again. And Cablehaunt spooks your modem.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

  • Alan P
    • Found a bunch of old audio cassettes in the loft. Bought a cassette player off ebay to sample them into a PC (thinkpad, of course) and then feed them into an emulator if they’re computer stuff.
    • Some of them were programs that I’d written with a friend over 30 years ago.
    • Also played some old 8-bit games with my friend Martin Wimpress on our new twitch channel “8bitversus”. We decided to start playing games online when a friend in the Ubuntu Podcast telegram channel suggested it might be fun to watch. I was a massive sinclair spectrum fan, and he was a commodore 64 fan. In these streams we take turns choosing games and get the other person to play games on the other persons platform. It’s fun!
  • Leo
    • Got handed a desktop sans case from a friend that wasn’t using it anymore and was moving out of state. I’ve been wanting to build a new server for quite a while to get more into Docker and other enterprisey-type things and I saw it as a sign to forge ahead!
    • i5-6600k, 16GB 2400MHz RAM, ASUS Fancy Pants motherboard, and a 700W PSU.
    • Planning on moving the services I have at home, like Nextcloud, from snap and VMs to MicroK8s, but am having some issues with getting the Dashboard to listen outside on a local LAN subnet.
    • Making slow but steady progress on the manual Raspberry Pi Zero W motion camera setup.
  • Tony H
    • Having issues with Ubuntu Studio that I had installed on my Dell 7440 i7 it was reporting errors every time I started it. So I swapped out the M2 SSD with a 2.5” SSD and did a clean install to this drive. More problems, the new iso would not boot, so I ended up finding and using the original iso off my portable HDD to make a new bootable USB install drive this worked and I have a clean install of Ubuntu Studio on the Test laptop for January’s test distro. One issue I have found so far is not an Ubuntu issue but a Firefox issue, I can no longer copy my Firefox folder over to the new machine and have all my bookmarks as they were previously installed. Yes I have a FireFox account but it does not seem to be doing what it is supposed to and syncing bookmarks which is a pain when you have several Hundred of these that you would like to access. Previously it was a doddle to copy my FireFox over to a new install and it was one of the reasons I still use it. And yes my desktop PC is linked to the laptop as far as sync is concerned, just not doing it.
    • Recording the latest Distrohoppers Digest episode with Moss, it went out on Friday.
    • Continuing to play with Matchbox models, pick up a couple of bargains over the holiday but now it’s time to start actually restoring a few. Started on a Ford GT superfast restoration and have a couple of others on the go as well. I’ve ordered some replacement parts from one of the model suppliers here in the UK to enable me to restore some of the models with parts missing, but where possible I try to use parts from other models bought for this purpose. Yesterday I went to a collectors Fair / swap meet and bought a few things and did a couple of swaps, thinking next time I may get a table to sell a few things that I have surplus, in the collection.    
    • Going back to PC stuff, I made a donation of some Pi stuff and a couple of Laptops to a friend of my friend Les Pounder. Drew works in Egypt and is hoping to teach local children Computing, but has absolutely no equipment, or didn’t have until Les sent him some Pi’s and an old Lenovo x61s with Raspbian x86 installed so the children will be using the same software on all the machines. One of the PC’s I am sending is an x61s and also a Dell E6220 with some random Pi stuff and a couple of Pi’s to the cause. It’s easy to forget that having access to fairly cheap older hardware via various sources such as ebay is beyond the financial ability of many in much of the world, and for some even in the rich countries. A shout out to Zeb from Destination Linux who did a 24Hr marathon YouTube stream of Euro Truck simulator over the holiday to raise funds for Free Geek, in the US you can find them HERE. There are similar projects in the UK one is the WEEECharity based in the North West so if you want to help people in your own community bridge the digital divide consider a donation of unused and unloved hardware or bung them a small donation to help out. 
    • Finally joined the BDLL Euro show, realised at the last minute that it was the second Saturday of the month, so after a quick check in with the crew dropped out of the pre show mumble chat and jumped into the BDLL Zoom after installing the Zoom client as I was on the Ubuntu Studio laptop, after a bit of a glitch at the beginning with the hardware it went OK for the rest of the 2 hours. 
  • Joe
    • Someone gave me an equallogic ps6500  Toyam gave it to me.
    • I have no idea what to do with it
    • Honkeymagoo sent me a pair of pebble watches to work on
      • They both needed battery replacements
      • I failed miserably
      • Ruined one of the ribbon cables that go around the side on one
      • Did get the new batteries connected but was not able to get them to turn on
      • Other then the ribbon break i am not sure what I did wrong
      • One of the boards did get hot at one point but I reflowed the connection for the battery and it settled down
      • Interesting highlights.  I did have to solder a cable onto one of the battery boards.  Just used some wire from some ethernet cable that i had sitting around.  The cable is a little stiff for this application but when i checked the voltages it came out fine.
    • Jim Butchers Codex Alera
      • Good series.
      • Had to replace my copy because the old one was corrupt.  
      • Not sure if it is my hard drive with bad sectors or one of the ones that I used for a backup
    • The book of 5 rings
      • Interesting but because of the type of book and the fact that i am going over it with audio i think i am going to have to go through it several more times before i get the most out of it
    • Shattered Bonds, book 13 in the Jane Yellowrock series
      • Good book, not the easiest to follow.
      • Jumps around a bit and references some obscure aspects of the long series before it
    • Alex Verus novels again
      • Really good series.
      • Better after a couple of read throughs and getting in all the details
    • Also was able to get a python class in this morning.  We should start meeting weekly again. I think the next class that we are going to take may be centos
    • Working on old headphones again
      • Replaced the cable on my daughter’s cheap little headphones
      • Not even sure what brand they are just grabbed an old aux cable and replaced the broken cable
      • I have found that full cable replacements are sturdier and more reliable than patching the cable or replacing the jack
    • Fixed one set of 770’s by shortening the cable on one side
    • Fixed one set of 510’s by shortening the cable on one side and replacing the other
      • I had a problem with the replaced side
      • I tried shortening the original cable first but the sound was dim so i just did a replacement.  
      • Sound was still dim on that side so what I ended up doing was putting some flux down on the board and running my iron over a bunch of the connections while the device was on and playing music(do not try that) this reseated whatever was loose and fixed the sound issues
    • Fixed 2 sets of 810’s and a set of insignia’s by opening the speaker up and shortening the cable from that side
      • 1 more 810 to do that on
      • This is a very difficult fix because of the small size and the fact that it doesnt like to go back together if you get too harsh taking it apart
        • One of the 810s have another problem that i am not going to be able to fix but the insignias work well
          • The 810s i was able to get the earpiece working but it is much dimmer than the other side.  Next time i am setup i may try to reflow some of it 
          • But I think the problem is the connections on the spindle are wearing out so i may take it all the way apart and try to clean that up
          • The insignias work well for audio books but have terrible call quality in and out
        • The other 810 is working good
    • Full cable replacement on some earforce recon 50x’s that i found at goodwill for 4 dollars
      • Will probably also do the same for my other pair of 60p’s
      • This model has a separate line going to each ear one with the cables for the mic
      • The only issue that i have found is when the mic is in the correct position the left and right channels are reversed
    • Did a full band replacement on the z2’s.  Glad the replacement model worked.
      • Was not an exact match on the hinges but was close enough to the same size that i was able to get it together
      • Had to switch back to the standard sized ear cups because this band is narrower than the original
      • Much more clamping force but still comfortable
      • Used the earcups on the razer kraken z2’s
    • Attempted to replace the full cable from the board to the earpiece on a pair of 780’s but was plagued with problems and had to set it aside before i got frustrated while wielding a soldering iron. But as i mentioned before that is a difficult fix.
    • Picked up a pair of Meze 99 neos for 20 dollars
      • These headphones are 200 new on Amazon
      • Work perfectly and sound great
      • I am using a portable amp to push the headphones when i want a good sound
    •  Also picked up a pair of razer krakens for 15 dollars.
      • Had some problems where the left speaker was acting as the mic instead of the mic but was also pushing through sound
      • This had the side effect where everything that played on the headphones was transmitted in complete clarity back through the mic connection.
      • Attempted a cable fix directly at the 3.5mm jack but this did not work and left me somewhat confused as to the actual pinout of the device. Essentially when i had it hooked up right it was doing the same thing as before.
      • Cut the cable again above the included remote as that is the next likely place for an issue to arise. Hooked up a second cable from there and still got the same issue
      • Did a full cable replacement and while testing i found out that the mic is completely shot.
      • Works as a pair of headphones until i find another solution but i think i may mod an old mic from another system. 
      • Basically bypassed the surface mount board that is built in and hooked everything up direct except for the offside speaker
      • Sound good and are comfortable
      • I have a couple mono connectors that i might be able to use, i will need to look more closely 
      • Did not realize that it took proprietary ear cups but the ones i bought for the z2’s to add extra padding worked fine with the extra built in edge material.
      • Even covers up the hole from where i removed the mic 
    • Gave serious consideration to recording the whole thing and while i could have done it from my phone i had 2 problems
      • My phone is my bluetooth testing device
      • If I were planning on posting anywhere i would have had to refrain from cursing. And I was not about to do that.
    • For those of you that are wondering I go through a lot of bt headphones and my kids go through a lot of cans.  Dont think they are going to be using the meze’s though
    • Ordered some new tips for my soldering iron as the ones from microcenter dont quite fit
      • These do fit and work very well.  
    • My server is down after the most recent round of updates.  Not sure what is wrong yet. Need to put the video card back into the server. Which is annoying.  
  • Tony W
    • Miracle Morning 
      • First heard about it from User Error
      • S.A.V.E.R.S. explained – “The Miracle Morning”
      • More about habit and discipline than time spent or results 
      • Will stick with some variation of this morning routine
    • Music keeping me very busy (4 “gigs” in the last 4 days)
    • Converting old 8mm video using VLC
    • Thinkpad dual display conundrum
    •  Recording setup revisions
      • New boom stand (cheap Neewer)
      • Presonus Audiobox
      • Still using budget Behringer XLR mic
    • Have really been enjoying convenience of true wireless earbuds
      • Using Anker Liberty Soundcore buds that were a Christmas gift
      • Plex on the go is great for breaks

News:

Security Update:

  • Mozilla Patches Zero-Day Being Actively Exploited in 72
    • The Firefox team updated version 72 one day after initial release because of a Type Confusion flaw that is being exploited in the wild.
    • These flaws essentially do not look at some specific input and run whatever is given to it. This can cause issues when privileged data is requested.
    • Upgrade to Firefox 72.0.1 or Firefox ESR 68.4.1 to fix this issue.
  • Cable Haunt Vulnerability Affects Hundreds of Millions of Cable Modems
    • Users of cable modems with Broadcom chips are affected.
    • The spectrum analyzer on the Broadcom chip, typically used for debugging and testing purposes, can be leveraged to:
      • Change default DNS server
      • Conduct remote man-in-the-middle attacks
      • Hot-swap code or even the entire firmware
      • Upload, flash, and upgrade firmware silently
      • Disable ISP firmware upgrade
      • Change every config file and settings
      • Get and Set SNMP OID values
      • Change all associated MAC Addresses
      • Change serial numbers
      • Be exploited in botnet
    • ISPs or manufacturers can fix the issue with a firmware update. There’s not much you can do about it. However, the complexity of the attack is very high, so unless you’re under the microscope, you’ll likely not be affected.

Announcements:

Wrap-up:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> full 1:43:27 4131 mintCast 325.5 – Oracles Virtually Boxed In https://mintcast.org/mintcast-325-5-oracles-virtually-boxed-in/ Wed, 08 Jan 2020 07:30:37 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4108 And finally, our listener feedback
Download
]]>

Download

In our Innards section, we make our 2020 Predictions!

And finally, our listener feedback

LINUX INNARDS: 

2020 Predictions:

  • Joe
    • We will see many more operating systems that are optimized and working for the Raspberry Pi 4.  
    • Probably also see a new slim version sometime this year
    • Microsoft will push more towards applications that can run on either operating system.  We will still be blind to their evil plans.
    • The announcement for edge OS will be towards the end of the year
  • 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
    • Moss will record a Gentoo show
    • Firefox vs. The World. Firefox will be the last popular non-Chromium holdout.
  • 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
    • We will see convergence on Pine64 devices, with Pinephone able to dock to peripherals and run full desktop applications
    • A big box store will sell a PC preconfigured with Linux in 2020
  • 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. 
    • I’m 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.  
  • Moss
    • I was going to beg off on any predictions. But no. 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.
    • 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.
  • Oliver
    • End of Windows 7 support won’t increase the Linux desktop uptake
    • Intel’s new Graphics card wont suck on Linux
  • Eric Lietz (listener)
    • Purism will go out of business – the Librem 5 phone endeavor will put it under
    • The PinePhone will be an amazing product and success story for Pine64
    • An major industry specific software company (Adobe, Autodesk (for AutoCAD), or similar) will offer a Linux version for a flagship software product
    • Microsoft will offer Office 365 on Linux
    • Linux preinstalled from a major hardware supplier will be available in big box stores available off of the shelf

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER: 

  •  Katya* (from Discord)
  • Erik Lietz
  • Benjamin Moser

CHECK THIS OUT! 

ANNOUNCEMENTS: 

  • Next Episode will be January 12th, 2PM Central, 8PM UTC

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> full 55:05 4108 mintCast 325.5 – Oracles Virtually Boxed In (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-325-5-oracles-virtually-boxed-in-mp3/ Wed, 08 Jan 2020 07:30:24 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4106 And finally, our listener feedback
Download
]]>

Download

In our Innards section, we make our 2020 Predictions!

And finally, our listener feedback

LINUX INNARDS: 

2020 Predictions:

  • Joe
    • We will see many more operating systems that are optimized and working for the Raspberry Pi 4.  
    • Probably also see a new slim version sometime this year
    • Microsoft will push more towards applications that can run on either operating system.  We will still be blind to their evil plans.
    • The announcement for edge OS will be towards the end of the year
  • 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
    • Moss will record a Gentoo show
    • Firefox vs. The World. Firefox will be the last popular non-Chromium holdout.
  • 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
    • We will see convergence on Pine64 devices, with Pinephone able to dock to peripherals and run full desktop applications
    • A big box store will sell a PC preconfigured with Linux in 2020
  • 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. 
    • I’m 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.  
  • Moss
    • I was going to beg off on any predictions. But no. 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.
    • 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.
  • Oliver
    • End of Windows 7 support won’t increase the Linux desktop uptake
    • Intel’s new Graphics card wont suck on Linux
  • Eric Lietz (listener)
    • Purism will go out of business – the Librem 5 phone endeavor will put it under
    • The PinePhone will be an amazing product and success story for Pine64
    • An major industry specific software company (Adobe, Autodesk (for AutoCAD), or similar) will offer a Linux version for a flagship software product
    • Microsoft will offer Office 365 on Linux
    • Linux preinstalled from a major hardware supplier will be available in big box stores available off of the shelf

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER: 

  •  Katya* (from Discord)
  • Erik Lietz
  • Benjamin Moser

CHECK THIS OUT! 

ANNOUNCEMENTS: 

  • Next Episode will be January 12th, 2PM Central, 8PM UTC

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> full 55:05 4106 mintCast 325 – Ring My Bell https://mintcast.org/mintcast-325-ring-my-bell/ Wed, 01 Jan 2020 12:04:37 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4092 Then, in our news, Linux Mint 19.3 is here, Vivaldi champions Linux, DXVK forges ahead, and more.
In security, we talk Chrome flaws and the risks of Ring.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Leo bakes a camera Pi, Tony Watts gets steamed, Joe gets an unexpected upgrade, Tony Hughes installed Lineage on a new old phone, Moss has an Xapp mishap, and Oliver treats his ears.

Then, in our news, Linux Mint 19.3 is here, Vivaldi champions Linux, DXVK forges ahead, and more.

In security, we talk Chrome flaws and the risks of Ring.

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Upgraded to 19.3! No issues so far.
    • Raspberry Pi Zero W + Pi camera = Front Door Motion Detector
  • Tony W
    • Travel recording setup 
      • Had a great solution with Presonus audiobox and XLR mic with boom stand… but abandoned it in the interest of traveling very light
      • Currently using Samsung earbuds to record to Audacity on one machine, and using Anker ‘true wireless’ earbuds for mumble on the phone
    • Mint install without disabling secureboot
      • No 3rd party drivers, graphics, wifi, etc
      • Adds ‘ubuntu’ option to boot order in BIOS
      • Booting to Ubuntu changes the time to GMT in BIOS, have to manually change it back
    • Created persistent live USB using mkusb,
    •  Linux Updated to mint 19.3 on multiple machines
      • No issues, though prompted via system reports to make several changes
        • Set root pw, add the xapp status applet, something else I don’t remember
      • Noticed Mint logo did not change when updated Dell tablet from 19.1 to 19.3
    • Dell venue 11 pro tablet keyboard cover
      • Detection is still an issue with both keyboards
    • Steam games!
      • Sale still ongoing until Jan 2 (around the time this episode will air)
      • Bought Need for Speed Hot Pursuit for $5, the Valve Pack for around $13 (Portal 1 and 2, half life 1 and 2 and others, loads of Counter Strike games…)
  • Joe
    • My reading choices and projects are so far pretty slim because of traveling for vacation
    • For reading while driving long distances I wanted something familiar. So I listened to the Mercy Thompson books because the book needs to be familiar enough that if I miss something, it is not a big deal but interesting enough that it doesn’t make me sleepy
    • Also went through the Alpha Omega series by the same author in the same universe
    • Next I am listening to the Hellequin novels.
      • Finished the first of the 3 series for this one and am about to start the second series.
      • I will get the third series when I am able to get it.
      • I like this series  
    • All the series are decent and a bit different.  
    • Last show right before the show the plastic broke on one of my Earforce Z2’s  
      • Going to give fixing it a try with the glue that Tony H suggested and see how well things work.
      • Have never had any luck fixing the bands on any of the headphones. So we will see
    • Installed 19.3 on all my machines through the update manager
      • Very simple
      • Don’t see much difference
      • Still have not upgraded the kernels past 5.0
    • Setting up a remote workstation at the in-laws.  
      • Setup in the cupboard area to try and get some noise free area. Not really working out but can’t complain
      • The acoustics are a bit different but I don’t think that they are bad.
    • The 7130 I ordered ended up being a 7140 
      • Still for 40 dollars you can complain
      • Hooked it up to the chargers that i have, gave it a couple of minutes and it fired right up
      • And this one is the 8 Gb of ram model
      • Very similar to the 7130, takes the same peripherals including the same size ngff card so I was able to use the 32 Gb SSD that I had on hand as a backup for the 7130
      • But everything worked right out of the box including the wifi.
      • Two issues that i have come across
        • Audio from the 3.5mm port will only come out as mono and the mic will not work
        • The 7140 cannot do suspend to ram
          • Working on alternatives
          • Freeze
          • Suspend to disk
      • When I did the upgrade to 19.3 the touchpad quit working but the same did not happen on the 7130
      • Thought that a full reinstall might clear some of the issues that i am having since upgrading to 14.3
      • Didn’t do a full reinstall.  The live disk was not even giving me access to the touchpad
        • sudo depmod -a  
        • Cleared the issue right up after a reboot
      • Had been thinking that I would either need to go back to 4.15 kernel or go back to mint 19.2
      • Very glad that the fix worked.
      • Battery life is still not that great.  Not all day use but it is slightly better than the 7130
      • And it is silent, the 7130 has fans and you know it when you use it.  The 7140 doesn’t have fans.
      • The only problem I’m having with it is in regards to the cheap ngff drive that I have in it.  Was thinking about buying another as a replacement but I am thinking that I will need to sell it.   
    • Got a waveshare game hat setup for my son. Gave him my last raspberry pi 3 to get it running
      • It’s an add on for the raspberry pi that turns it into a handheld retro gaming system
      • Works pretty well
      • Just used the image from the waveshare site that contains retropie
      • The buttons are not all that well positioned and the edges feel very sharp but all in all 
      • The games that come with the image are pretty good; I will go back later and add a few more
      • Couldn’t use the 16gb micro sd that I had (the image was too large) so I pulled the 128gb stick out of one of my tablets and will need to replace it when i get home
      • Also needed an 18650 battery to get it working mobile
      • Will say that the battery life is not that good but you can use it passthrough.
      • Still need to connect to network.
    • Going to convert some more of my old LG headsets that no longer work over to mmcx so i ordered some parts to do that
    • Also instead of gluing my Earforce Z2’s back together i have ordered a replacement band that is very similar that I am hoping to be able to get working.  Always have the choice to go back later with the glue if it doesn’t work.
      • I can get the headsets for 20-30 dollars and the replacement part i ordered for 10.
    • Will be on the HPR new years show for at least part of the day
      • Or at least I am planning to be.
  • Tony H
    • Well Christmas has kind of got in the way but I managed to download and install Ubuntu Studio 19.10 on the test laptop for the review on February’s Distrohoppers show but I’ve not had a lot of time to play with it. I will make that laptop my main portable PC for January but currently using the Mint 19.3 install on its non identical twin brother, an i5 as opposed to an i7 Dell E7440.
    • Santa brought me a 4 bay Icy Dock, the nice all metal one which should last longer if swapping out drives on a regular basis. I’m wondering if I should install it in the current tower unit or wait a few weeks until I get a newer Ryzen based system tower, decisions, decisions. 
    • Went to visit my wife’s family in Scotland for a few days before Christmas and drove home on Christmas Eve, Christmas was just the two of us, I cooked lunch and we went for a post lunch walk to counteract some of the excess calories consumed.
    • Also continuing to interact with a new community around my new Diecast toy hobby, I’ve found there are nearly of many diecast geeks, as Linux ones, possibly more. Another Christmas present was a collectors book for Matchbox from 1953-1969, what is considered the golden era to many collectors. This was pre Hotwheels and Matchbox’s  superfast response to falling sales in the US as a result of the Hot Wheels models.
    • After buying my wife a New Phone for Christmas (her first new phone) she gave me back my old OnePlus1 that she has been using since February this year. I finally managed to update the LineageOS to the latest daily build on 26th December, previously I left it too long between updates and it would no longer install the daily build automatically so I had to do a manual install. I now have a fully working and updated Android 9 based Lineage 16 backup phone in case I break the one Josh let me buy off him after I trashed my Nokia 6 screen. Incidentally I bought my wife the Nokia 6.2 and so far she likes it.  
  • Moss 
    • I received a gift from an old friend. It was supposed to be a couple of 256 Gb SSDs, but Amazon messed up and sent me a whole box of 10 Lexar NS100 256 Mb drives. I can accept those kinds of mistakes!
    • I have converted the main drives on my Kudu 3 and my wife’s T430 to SSDs, while keeping the Galago Pro 2 as it was (1 Tb spinning metal drive and 128 Gb M.2 drive), and also converted two external drives and my Timeshift drive to SSD, leaving the the 2 Tb external spinning metal alone. 
    • This also gives me a stack of spinning metal drives to use as paperweights or sell on LetGo, Craigslist or eBay.
    • I also installed Zorin OS 15 Ultimate on my wife’s T430, as she had been reporting issues and preferred that to upgrading her Linux Mint install, and between the SSD speed and the new distro she is quite happy.  She has had to learn a few things about how Zorin does various setup and display things differently than Mint. Whoda thunk the Workspace switcher would be on the Superkey?
    • I replaced the drive in the T430 I have for sale with an SSD. I think I have a buyer for it from one of our listeners, and have finally posted the Ideapad 110 on eBay. I have 4 unused SSDs at present.
    • I upgraded my Mint Mate machine to Tricia 19.3, and it works all right, but my icons in the bottom right which are not system icons, such as Mullvad, and Discord, show as doubled tiny icons rather than a single icon the size of the others; Telegram has a single tiny icon, covered by the number of current unread messages. (Leo gave me the fix for this, which is to install the XApp Status Applet.) I installed Mint Cinnamon also on my SSD in the Galago Pro, and it does not have this issue. Also, when I minimize Firefox Mint actually closes it, although it doesn’t log me out of Google. In further observations, Tricia Mate still shows the icon of the program opened in a workspace; Tricia Cinnamon just shows a lighter shade of grey for the active workspace but no icon.
    • After experiencing just a few too many issues with Q4OS and not responses I was happy with, I installed KDE neon on that partition. Had  to have SOME Plasma on my machine. It makes for a nicer boot menu, with the exception of only showing the top five choices — you have to scroll down to see the others, and there is nothing on the screen to indicate that.  It also keeps me having a KDE install on my main machine. After installing Mint Cinnamon, I got to see the new Mint menus, and they are almost as sharp as Plasma but do not need scrolling.
    • This frees up the Kudu 3 for something new, and right now I’m toying with Russian-developed, Gentoo-based Calculate Linux in the LXQt flavor. The installation offered a lot more options than I’m used to, but, unlike Fedora and Suse installation attempts, the language was simple and easy to understand. It looks as though I’ll need to learn Portage package manager to get any updates done though; with Sabayon, I only had to learn the Aptitude-like Entropy package manager. I have a ways to go on learning this one, and somehow I managed to get my user account installed without sudo privileges.
    • Playing with Sabayon and Calculate have given me a tiny glimpse into the world of Linux as seen by Arch users (well, Gentoo users anyhow). The amount of configuration and control made available when you’re doing more than just a generic, plug-and-play installation makes me want to try a Void challenge or something…
    • Things have been too hectic to do much thinking about the next episode of Distrohoppers’ Digest, but I got a script started up earlier today.
    • I thought I was going to get a better job, but I failed the physical, including learning about an issue of which I was not previously aware. I could jump through more hoops and MAYBE qualify, but it was a disappointment.
    • My wife and I have started reading the first book in The Dresden Files. For the moment, we have stopped reading Empire of Jade (Temeraire) and started reading the first Jim Butcher story. Not sure how much we like it yet but it’s holding our interest, wondering where it is going. We will, of course, return to Temeraire, probably after we finish this book. We got a deal on the Kindle version, only $2.99, but the rest of the series is $5.99 – $6.99 each. If this keeps up we’re going to have to subscribe to Kindle Unlimited.
    • I will be absent next episode, as I’m going to my annual family reunion / music gathering in Atlanta. If Bo or Tony Watts wants to join me there, we could set up for the podcast, otherwise I’ll be too involved in having fun. There will be videos.
    • I take the blame for Oliver Kelly being here this episode. I wrote up the blank show notes, listing everyone who might possibly be here, and another team member thought he had volunteered. So he did. Take it from here, Olzi!
  • Oliver

THE NEWS: 

  • Purism Server Now An Option
    • The cheapest option will run $2700, but seems very capable. A 45W Xeon D-1541, 2x 10Gbps, 2x 1Gbps, and 1x IPMI ports, up to 128GB RAM, and 6 SATA ports and an M.2 slot.
  • DXVK 1.5 Released
    • D9VK is now part of DXVK! Now you can play all your DX9 games, same as you do DX11. (Michael Tunnell said it the other way around if I understood correctly, that DXVK is no longer being maintained but D9VK added it to their project.  And the last time I understood something differently from what you thought, I was wrong.)
    • Some other HUD improvements as well as fixes for Crysis 3, Fifa 19, Halo and Star Citizen.

SECURITY UPDATE: 

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> full 1:34:45 4092 mintCast 325 – Ring My Bell (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-325-ring-my-bell-mp3/ Wed, 01 Jan 2020 12:04:23 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4090 Then, in our news, Linux Mint 19.3 is here, Vivaldi champions Linux, DXVK forges ahead, and more.
In security, we talk Chrome flaws and the risks of Ring.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Leo bakes a camera Pi, Tony Watts gets steamed, Joe gets an unexpected upgrade, Tony Hughes installed Lineage on a new old phone, Moss has an Xapp mishap, and Oliver treats his ears.

Then, in our news, Linux Mint 19.3 is here, Vivaldi champions Linux, DXVK forges ahead, and more.

In security, we talk Chrome flaws and the risks of Ring.

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Upgraded to 19.3! No issues so far.
    • Raspberry Pi Zero W + Pi camera = Front Door Motion Detector
  • Tony W
    • Travel recording setup 
      • Had a great solution with Presonus audiobox and XLR mic with boom stand… but abandoned it in the interest of traveling very light
      • Currently using Samsung earbuds to record to Audacity on one machine, and using Anker ‘true wireless’ earbuds for mumble on the phone
    • Mint install without disabling secureboot
      • No 3rd party drivers, graphics, wifi, etc
      • Adds ‘ubuntu’ option to boot order in BIOS
      • Booting to Ubuntu changes the time to GMT in BIOS, have to manually change it back
    • Created persistent live USB using mkusb,
    •  Linux Updated to mint 19.3 on multiple machines
      • No issues, though prompted via system reports to make several changes
        • Set root pw, add the xapp status applet, something else I don’t remember
      • Noticed Mint logo did not change when updated Dell tablet from 19.1 to 19.3
    • Dell venue 11 pro tablet keyboard cover
      • Detection is still an issue with both keyboards
    • Steam games!
      • Sale still ongoing until Jan 2 (around the time this episode will air)
      • Bought Need for Speed Hot Pursuit for $5, the Valve Pack for around $13 (Portal 1 and 2, half life 1 and 2 and others, loads of Counter Strike games…)
  • Joe
    • My reading choices and projects are so far pretty slim because of traveling for vacation
    • For reading while driving long distances I wanted something familiar. So I listened to the Mercy Thompson books because the book needs to be familiar enough that if I miss something, it is not a big deal but interesting enough that it doesn’t make me sleepy
    • Also went through the Alpha Omega series by the same author in the same universe
    • Next I am listening to the Hellequin novels.
      • Finished the first of the 3 series for this one and am about to start the second series.
      • I will get the third series when I am able to get it.
      • I like this series  
    • All the series are decent and a bit different.  
    • Last show right before the show the plastic broke on one of my Earforce Z2’s  
      • Going to give fixing it a try with the glue that Tony H suggested and see how well things work.
      • Have never had any luck fixing the bands on any of the headphones. So we will see
    • Installed 19.3 on all my machines through the update manager
      • Very simple
      • Don’t see much difference
      • Still have not upgraded the kernels past 5.0
    • Setting up a remote workstation at the in-laws.  
      • Setup in the cupboard area to try and get some noise free area. Not really working out but can’t complain
      • The acoustics are a bit different but I don’t think that they are bad.
    • The 7130 I ordered ended up being a 7140 
      • Still for 40 dollars you can complain
      • Hooked it up to the chargers that i have, gave it a couple of minutes and it fired right up
      • And this one is the 8 Gb of ram model
      • Very similar to the 7130, takes the same peripherals including the same size ngff card so I was able to use the 32 Gb SSD that I had on hand as a backup for the 7130
      • But everything worked right out of the box including the wifi.
      • Two issues that i have come across
        • Audio from the 3.5mm port will only come out as mono and the mic will not work
        • The 7140 cannot do suspend to ram
          • Working on alternatives
          • Freeze
          • Suspend to disk
      • When I did the upgrade to 19.3 the touchpad quit working but the same did not happen on the 7130
      • Thought that a full reinstall might clear some of the issues that i am having since upgrading to 14.3
      • Didn’t do a full reinstall.  The live disk was not even giving me access to the touchpad
        • sudo depmod -a  
        • Cleared the issue right up after a reboot
      • Had been thinking that I would either need to go back to 4.15 kernel or go back to mint 19.2
      • Very glad that the fix worked.
      • Battery life is still not that great.  Not all day use but it is slightly better than the 7130
      • And it is silent, the 7130 has fans and you know it when you use it.  The 7140 doesn’t have fans.
      • The only problem I’m having with it is in regards to the cheap ngff drive that I have in it.  Was thinking about buying another as a replacement but I am thinking that I will need to sell it.   
    • Got a waveshare game hat setup for my son. Gave him my last raspberry pi 3 to get it running
      • It’s an add on for the raspberry pi that turns it into a handheld retro gaming system
      • Works pretty well
      • Just used the image from the waveshare site that contains retropie
      • The buttons are not all that well positioned and the edges feel very sharp but all in all 
      • The games that come with the image are pretty good; I will go back later and add a few more
      • Couldn’t use the 16gb micro sd that I had (the image was too large) so I pulled the 128gb stick out of one of my tablets and will need to replace it when i get home
      • Also needed an 18650 battery to get it working mobile
      • Will say that the battery life is not that good but you can use it passthrough.
      • Still need to connect to network.
    • Going to convert some more of my old LG headsets that no longer work over to mmcx so i ordered some parts to do that
    • Also instead of gluing my Earforce Z2’s back together i have ordered a replacement band that is very similar that I am hoping to be able to get working.  Always have the choice to go back later with the glue if it doesn’t work.
      • I can get the headsets for 20-30 dollars and the replacement part i ordered for 10.
    • Will be on the HPR new years show for at least part of the day
      • Or at least I am planning to be.
  • Tony H
    • Well Christmas has kind of got in the way but I managed to download and install Ubuntu Studio 19.10 on the test laptop for the review on February’s Distrohoppers show but I’ve not had a lot of time to play with it. I will make that laptop my main portable PC for January but currently using the Mint 19.3 install on its non identical twin brother, an i5 as opposed to an i7 Dell E7440.
    • Santa brought me a 4 bay Icy Dock, the nice all metal one which should last longer if swapping out drives on a regular basis. I’m wondering if I should install it in the current tower unit or wait a few weeks until I get a newer Ryzen based system tower, decisions, decisions. 
    • Went to visit my wife’s family in Scotland for a few days before Christmas and drove home on Christmas Eve, Christmas was just the two of us, I cooked lunch and we went for a post lunch walk to counteract some of the excess calories consumed.
    • Also continuing to interact with a new community around my new Diecast toy hobby, I’ve found there are nearly of many diecast geeks, as Linux ones, possibly more. Another Christmas present was a collectors book for Matchbox from 1953-1969, what is considered the golden era to many collectors. This was pre Hotwheels and Matchbox’s  superfast response to falling sales in the US as a result of the Hot Wheels models.
    • After buying my wife a New Phone for Christmas (her first new phone) she gave me back my old OnePlus1 that she has been using since February this year. I finally managed to update the LineageOS to the latest daily build on 26th December, previously I left it too long between updates and it would no longer install the daily build automatically so I had to do a manual install. I now have a fully working and updated Android 9 based Lineage 16 backup phone in case I break the one Josh let me buy off him after I trashed my Nokia 6 screen. Incidentally I bought my wife the Nokia 6.2 and so far she likes it.  
  • Moss 
    • I received a gift from an old friend. It was supposed to be a couple of 256 Gb SSDs, but Amazon messed up and sent me a whole box of 10 Lexar NS100 256 Mb drives. I can accept those kinds of mistakes!
    • I have converted the main drives on my Kudu 3 and my wife’s T430 to SSDs, while keeping the Galago Pro 2 as it was (1 Tb spinning metal drive and 128 Gb M.2 drive), and also converted two external drives and my Timeshift drive to SSD, leaving the the 2 Tb external spinning metal alone. 
    • This also gives me a stack of spinning metal drives to use as paperweights or sell on LetGo, Craigslist or eBay.
    • I also installed Zorin OS 15 Ultimate on my wife’s T430, as she had been reporting issues and preferred that to upgrading her Linux Mint install, and between the SSD speed and the new distro she is quite happy.  She has had to learn a few things about how Zorin does various setup and display things differently than Mint. Whoda thunk the Workspace switcher would be on the Superkey?
    • I replaced the drive in the T430 I have for sale with an SSD. I think I have a buyer for it from one of our listeners, and have finally posted the Ideapad 110 on eBay. I have 4 unused SSDs at present.
    • I upgraded my Mint Mate machine to Tricia 19.3, and it works all right, but my icons in the bottom right which are not system icons, such as Mullvad, and Discord, show as doubled tiny icons rather than a single icon the size of the others; Telegram has a single tiny icon, covered by the number of current unread messages. (Leo gave me the fix for this, which is to install the XApp Status Applet.) I installed Mint Cinnamon also on my SSD in the Galago Pro, and it does not have this issue. Also, when I minimize Firefox Mint actually closes it, although it doesn’t log me out of Google. In further observations, Tricia Mate still shows the icon of the program opened in a workspace; Tricia Cinnamon just shows a lighter shade of grey for the active workspace but no icon.
    • After experiencing just a few too many issues with Q4OS and not responses I was happy with, I installed KDE neon on that partition. Had  to have SOME Plasma on my machine. It makes for a nicer boot menu, with the exception of only showing the top five choices — you have to scroll down to see the others, and there is nothing on the screen to indicate that.  It also keeps me having a KDE install on my main machine. After installing Mint Cinnamon, I got to see the new Mint menus, and they are almost as sharp as Plasma but do not need scrolling.
    • This frees up the Kudu 3 for something new, and right now I’m toying with Russian-developed, Gentoo-based Calculate Linux in the LXQt flavor. The installation offered a lot more options than I’m used to, but, unlike Fedora and Suse installation attempts, the language was simple and easy to understand. It looks as though I’ll need to learn Portage package manager to get any updates done though; with Sabayon, I only had to learn the Aptitude-like Entropy package manager. I have a ways to go on learning this one, and somehow I managed to get my user account installed without sudo privileges.
    • Playing with Sabayon and Calculate have given me a tiny glimpse into the world of Linux as seen by Arch users (well, Gentoo users anyhow). The amount of configuration and control made available when you’re doing more than just a generic, plug-and-play installation makes me want to try a Void challenge or something…
    • Things have been too hectic to do much thinking about the next episode of Distrohoppers’ Digest, but I got a script started up earlier today.
    • I thought I was going to get a better job, but I failed the physical, including learning about an issue of which I was not previously aware. I could jump through more hoops and MAYBE qualify, but it was a disappointment.
    • My wife and I have started reading the first book in The Dresden Files. For the moment, we have stopped reading Empire of Jade (Temeraire) and started reading the first Jim Butcher story. Not sure how much we like it yet but it’s holding our interest, wondering where it is going. We will, of course, return to Temeraire, probably after we finish this book. We got a deal on the Kindle version, only $2.99, but the rest of the series is $5.99 – $6.99 each. If this keeps up we’re going to have to subscribe to Kindle Unlimited.
    • I will be absent next episode, as I’m going to my annual family reunion / music gathering in Atlanta. If Bo or Tony Watts wants to join me there, we could set up for the podcast, otherwise I’ll be too involved in having fun. There will be videos.
    • I take the blame for Oliver Kelly being here this episode. I wrote up the blank show notes, listing everyone who might possibly be here, and another team member thought he had volunteered. So he did. Take it from here, Olzi!
  • Oliver

THE NEWS: 

  • Purism Server Now An Option
    • The cheapest option will run $2700, but seems very capable. A 45W Xeon D-1541, 2x 10Gbps, 2x 1Gbps, and 1x IPMI ports, up to 128GB RAM, and 6 SATA ports and an M.2 slot.
  • DXVK 1.5 Released
    • D9VK is now part of DXVK! Now you can play all your DX9 games, same as you do DX11. (Michael Tunnell said it the other way around if I understood correctly, that DXVK is no longer being maintained but D9VK added it to their project.  And the last time I understood something differently from what you thought, I was wrong.)
    • Some other HUD improvements as well as fixes for Crysis 3, Fifa 19, Halo and Star Citizen.

SECURITY UPDATE: 

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> full 1:34:45 4090 mintCast 322.5 – Clem Before the Storm https://mintcast.org/mintcast-322-5-clem-before-the-storm/ Wed, 27 Nov 2019 05:02:21 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4030 And finally, our listener feedback.
Download
]]>

Download

In our Innards section, we talk more about Linux Mint and Clem’s comments.
And finally, our listener feedback.

LINUX INNARDS:

Clement Lefebvre on Episode 321

oh.. mint tools and apps, cool

mintbackup should list all added software, not just software added through mintinstall

but it does so only in Mint, not in LMDE

it relies on a list of pre-installed software which is generated by ubiquity (that’s something live-installer doesn’t do atm)

you might remember Alberto Milone’s Envy

that’s how it started, then he was hired by Canonical and worked on drivers and integrating them with the OS

that’s jockey;

nowadays this is just embedded in something we don’t use in Mint called software-properties-gtk

anyway, ubuntu-drivers is the backend (libs and command line utilities) behind all that

and it’s used by two frontends, software-properties-gtk in Ubuntu and mint-drivers in Mint

in 19.3 mint-report will put a little warning icon in your taskbar if it detects drivers for you, so it won’t just be the welcome screen telling you about mint-drivers

although it’s integrated in Mint, timeshift is not developed by us

https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift

GitHub

teejee2008/timeshift

System restore tool for Linux. Creates filesystem snapshots using rsync+hardlinks, or BTRFS snapshots. Supports scheduled snapshots, multiple backup levels, and exclude filters. Snapshots can be re…

I never tried to export a timeshift backup from one machine to another

I suppose it could work, but you’d need the entire timeshift dir… since backups are incremental

it’s probably better to ghost or disk image though

to move a window to another workspace: ctrl-alt-shift + arrow

alternatively, drag the window with the mouse, press arrow button

you can use expo too (ctrl-alt-up)

or there might be extensions using the edges.. but that’s usually used for tiling

open as root and open in terminal have been in Mint (in all DEs) since the very start

since we dev nemo, we just made these core features, but we also still add these to caja and thunar

regarding snap, the main issue is vendor locking. Imagine you’re developing software for windows and it happens to work more or less for mac and linux.

you don’t want to spend too much time testing it in various distros and you definitely don’t want to package it in a hundred different formats.

somebody comes to you and say “we’re Ubuntu, put your software in our store and it’ll work everywhere in every Linux distribution”

it sounds good and you don’t have to worry about it anymore

if there are commercial aspects you negotiate them with ubuntu, if there are integration aspects, Ubuntu tells you what to change

basically if there’s money involved it goes to Ubuntu, if there’s one theme and one DE to work with, it’ll be the ones used by Ubuntu

if you go here

https://www.spotify.com/ie/download/linux

Music for everyone.

Spotify is all the music you’ll ever need.

first you’re told Linux is a 2nd class citizen and you’re lucky Spotify supports it

second you’re told whatever distro you’re running is a 2nd class citizen and all they care about is Ubuntu.. but that’s ok cause you can install snap

they could have an appimage, they could have a flatpak repo, if they didn’t want to work on it, they could put it in flathub (or just link to it, since it’s already there

https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.spotify.Client)

Flathub—An app store and build service for Linux

Find and install hundreds of apps and games for Linux. Enjoy GIMP, GNU Octave, Spotify, Steam and many more!

they could basically make it so a Fedora user or an Arch user isn’t constantly reminded they’re running a weird distro to access a software app they’re actually paying for

eventually if they think snap is great they’ll drop their APT repo and if we won’t have access to a .deb anymore

do you guys remember what happened when adobe delegated the Linux distribution of their flash plugin to google? for a while we were stuck with old broken versions in Firefox and the only format we were getting updates for was the one that was supported by chromium..

and then we found out it couldn’t play DRM, but the one in Chrome could

you basically do not want to rely on a commercial third party between you and the editor, there’s a huge conflict of interest.

as it turns out Flash died, good riddance.

(on Episode 320):

Linspire was one of the easiest ootb distribution for a while. When we developed mintinstall, to many people we became the first distribution with an “app store”. At the time Android and iOS already had one though, and Linspire already had CNR. You had to pay for it and Linspire wasn’t as popular, but it was an inspiration for us.

I also remember something had been done before Mint in PCBSD if I remember well…

ok I found it, mintinstall was introduced in Mint 3.0 Cassandra (2007), it was predated by Click’n’Run (Linspire) and a solution (I think it was PBIdir) in PCBSD.

it’s weird to look back after so many years :slight_smile:

and all of that was after Google and Apple had done their app stores in Android/iOS of course.

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

  • Marc
  • David
  • Gordon
  • George from Tulsa

Topic for MintCast:

What, if anything, do these other distros offer that Mint doesn’t?

If it’s something like “newer software” how about a Mint user taking a Timeshift snapshot, trying the new install from PPA or otherwise, so if things don’t work out, safely reverting?

How about a guide to updating software versions within Mint, if that’s important to the user?

CHECK THIS OUT!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • Next Show: Nov 17, 2019 – 2PM central time

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website and the livestream (We’ve had over 60 listeners today on the backup mixer platform and brought on some new listeners who’ve never heard of the podcast)
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 52:01 4030 mintCast 322.5 – Clem Before the Storm (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-322-5-clem-before-the-storm-mp3/ Wed, 27 Nov 2019 05:01:50 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4028 And finally, our listener feedback.
Download
]]>

Download

In our Innards section, we talk more about Linux Mint and Clem’s comments.
And finally, our listener feedback.

LINUX INNARDS:

Clement Lefebvre on Episode 321

oh.. mint tools and apps, cool

mintbackup should list all added software, not just software added through mintinstall

but it does so only in Mint, not in LMDE

it relies on a list of pre-installed software which is generated by ubiquity (that’s something live-installer doesn’t do atm)

you might remember Alberto Milone’s Envy

that’s how it started, then he was hired by Canonical and worked on drivers and integrating them with the OS

that’s jockey;

nowadays this is just embedded in something we don’t use in Mint called software-properties-gtk

anyway, ubuntu-drivers is the backend (libs and command line utilities) behind all that

and it’s used by two frontends, software-properties-gtk in Ubuntu and mint-drivers in Mint

in 19.3 mint-report will put a little warning icon in your taskbar if it detects drivers for you, so it won’t just be the welcome screen telling you about mint-drivers

although it’s integrated in Mint, timeshift is not developed by us

https://github.com/teejee2008/timeshift

GitHub

teejee2008/timeshift

System restore tool for Linux. Creates filesystem snapshots using rsync+hardlinks, or BTRFS snapshots. Supports scheduled snapshots, multiple backup levels, and exclude filters. Snapshots can be re…

I never tried to export a timeshift backup from one machine to another

I suppose it could work, but you’d need the entire timeshift dir… since backups are incremental

it’s probably better to ghost or disk image though

to move a window to another workspace: ctrl-alt-shift + arrow

alternatively, drag the window with the mouse, press arrow button

you can use expo too (ctrl-alt-up)

or there might be extensions using the edges.. but that’s usually used for tiling

open as root and open in terminal have been in Mint (in all DEs) since the very start

since we dev nemo, we just made these core features, but we also still add these to caja and thunar

regarding snap, the main issue is vendor locking. Imagine you’re developing software for windows and it happens to work more or less for mac and linux.

you don’t want to spend too much time testing it in various distros and you definitely don’t want to package it in a hundred different formats.

somebody comes to you and say “we’re Ubuntu, put your software in our store and it’ll work everywhere in every Linux distribution”

it sounds good and you don’t have to worry about it anymore

if there are commercial aspects you negotiate them with ubuntu, if there are integration aspects, Ubuntu tells you what to change

basically if there’s money involved it goes to Ubuntu, if there’s one theme and one DE to work with, it’ll be the ones used by Ubuntu

if you go here

https://www.spotify.com/ie/download/linux

Music for everyone.

Spotify is all the music you’ll ever need.

first you’re told Linux is a 2nd class citizen and you’re lucky Spotify supports it

second you’re told whatever distro you’re running is a 2nd class citizen and all they care about is Ubuntu.. but that’s ok cause you can install snap

they could have an appimage, they could have a flatpak repo, if they didn’t want to work on it, they could put it in flathub (or just link to it, since it’s already there

https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.spotify.Client)

Flathub—An app store and build service for Linux

Find and install hundreds of apps and games for Linux. Enjoy GIMP, GNU Octave, Spotify, Steam and many more!

they could basically make it so a Fedora user or an Arch user isn’t constantly reminded they’re running a weird distro to access a software app they’re actually paying for

eventually if they think snap is great they’ll drop their APT repo and if we won’t have access to a .deb anymore

do you guys remember what happened when adobe delegated the Linux distribution of their flash plugin to google? for a while we were stuck with old broken versions in Firefox and the only format we were getting updates for was the one that was supported by chromium..

and then we found out it couldn’t play DRM, but the one in Chrome could

you basically do not want to rely on a commercial third party between you and the editor, there’s a huge conflict of interest.

as it turns out Flash died, good riddance.

(on Episode 320):

Linspire was one of the easiest ootb distribution for a while. When we developed mintinstall, to many people we became the first distribution with an “app store”. At the time Android and iOS already had one though, and Linspire already had CNR. You had to pay for it and Linspire wasn’t as popular, but it was an inspiration for us.

I also remember something had been done before Mint in PCBSD if I remember well…

ok I found it, mintinstall was introduced in Mint 3.0 Cassandra (2007), it was predated by Click’n’Run (Linspire) and a solution (I think it was PBIdir) in PCBSD.

it’s weird to look back after so many years :slight_smile:

and all of that was after Google and Apple had done their app stores in Android/iOS of course.

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

  • Marc
  • David
  • Gordon
  • George from Tulsa

Topic for MintCast:

What, if anything, do these other distros offer that Mint doesn’t?

If it’s something like “newer software” how about a Mint user taking a Timeshift snapshot, trying the new install from PPA or otherwise, so if things don’t work out, safely reverting?

How about a guide to updating software versions within Mint, if that’s important to the user?

CHECK THIS OUT!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • Next Show: Nov 17, 2019 – 2PM central time

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website and the livestream (We’ve had over 60 listeners today on the backup mixer platform and brought on some new listeners who’ve never heard of the podcast)
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 52:01 4028 mintCast 321 – Celluloid Service https://mintcast.org/mintcast-321-celluloid-service/ Wed, 06 Nov 2019 06:24:17 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4001 Then, our news Firefox, MX, Tails and Fedora all have new releases, and we cover the Linux Mint Monthly News. 
In the security section, we talk two bugs, one with Ubuntu and one on Firefox.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Leo finally gets upgraded to kernel 5.3, Tony Hughes tries out Ubuntu 19.10, Moss fights with Ubuntu Mate 19.10, Joe picks up an HP tablet to fix, and Tony Watts has a new guitar.

Then, our news Firefox, MX, Tails and Fedora all have new releases, and we cover the Linux Mint Monthly News. 

In the security section, we talk two bugs, one with Ubuntu and one on Firefox.

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS: 

  • Leo
    • Testing out kernel 5.3 on my desktop and laptop. Been on it about 5 days now.
      • It may have cleared up the freezing issue I was seeing that I think was caused by power states on my CPU. Time will tell here. It was fairly random and could take days to show up.
      • On my laptop, I haven’t seen a huge change, but seems stable.
  • Tony H
    •  Attending 2 family funerals which was the reason for my absence on the last episode, sadly I’m at that time when I see family at more funerals than weddings.
    • Buying and ‘playing’ with old diecast models, I’ve developed a liking for watching youtube videos of people restoring them. One of the Guys I watch is Marty from Australia who does Marty’s Matchbox Makeovers  I sent him a couple of cars to have a go at a while back.
    • Recorded the latest Distrohoppers Digest, and have now installed Ubuntu 19.10 Gnome on the test laptop for next months show. (We are recording the first week in December) 
  • Moss
    • I just added Bodhi to the Galago Pro 2, bringing it to 5 distros. I think I’ll leave it at 5, and I have been looking up what I did to fix the little paper cuts I had when installing Bodhi on the T430. I also saw a nice review of Bodhi by Jason M in the new issue of Full Circle Magazine.
    • I reported a bug in Ubuntu MATE 19.10. I literally had to get Alan Pope to get me to the right page to file it. (And doesn’t that say a lot of good things about the Linux community!) My desktop completely loaded sometimes, but most times it forgot to load the taskbar. And one day it loaded correctly, but after a while it went into Suspend mode, and when I entered my password to log back in, it opened without the taskbar. It’s not a lot of fun opening a terminal via right-clicking the desktop and running the program from terminal.
    • We recorded Episode 7 of Distrohoppers’ Digest on October 30th. We’re getting pretty good download numbers. Episode 4 has exceeded 450 downloads, two others have exceeded 350, and only Episode 2 has not yet reached 300, still sitting at 291. Tony Hughes got back from his trip to Glasgow. We reviewed OpenMandriva Lx 4 and MX Linux 19 (beta2 and final release). Go and have a listen, you’ll enjoy it.
    • Also, my wife and I both have been having issues where PIA locks us out of a website we’re trying to load, and we have to change nodes. This has been going on for all of the 2 months we’ve had the service. We have decided to go back to Mullvad, which is still a bit cheaper on month-to-month billing, when the current month runs out sometime today as we record this.
    • Now that Distrohoppers’ Digest is out of the way for this month, I attempted to install Manjaro on the Kudu 3, and ran into the same problem as before; it will download updates or programs I want to install, and stop. I have to log out and back in and run the installer again, and installs what got downloaded. So I have dumped Manjaro for this month and installed Zorin OS Core 15 on the Kudu 3. I’ll keep the results to myself (unless you’re in our chat or Terminal), but it should do for next month.
    • Which means I have an IdeaPad to get ready for sale. I haven’t done much more than download Windoze 10 and the installer program, haven’t even tried burning the iso yet, but it’s on the list.
    • We have a new kitten. We rescued it from being feral just outside our trailer. Then the trouble started. He climbed up inside our dashboard, unbeknownst to us, and we thought he had gotten out of the car without our knowledge. So after a lot of emotions being displayed, I got back into the car and started driving back to the last place we went to, and heard him mewing inside the dash. Our two nearest neighbors came to help me tear the dashboard apart. No luck. He spent the night in the car, with an open can of cat food. When I got up in the morning, he was still in the dash. I drove to the fire department, but nobody was there when I got there, including police or anyone else. I got back in the car… and there he was on the floor, looking at me like, “What is all the fuss about?” So he’s home now. Tiny little thing. Black, with white paws, blue eyes and a white bib. We have named him Gremlin. He is as cute as can be and instantly bonded to us.
  • Joe
    • Fixed my downstairs toilet.  Replaced some of the internals and readjusted the float so it doesn’t run all the time.
      • It is a bit more broken so I will be replacing more parts.  Or the whole damn thing
    • Picked up an HP Pavilion X360 with an i3 7th gen for 50 bucks on FB.  
      • https://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-touchscreen-i3-7100U-Bluetooth/dp/B078VP7GX2
      • Not in very good condition because it has been dropped.  
      • It had a bad hard drive but I was able to replace that.  
      • Also has a bad keyboard where only some of the keys work.
        • Tried readjusting the ribbon cable but no luck
        • A replacement costs about 20 bucks.  Ordered but it will take some time to arrive
      • The digitizer is also broken so no touch screen but the monitor itself is still useable
        • Replacement digitizer cost $130-150
        • Have watched the videos on youtube on how to replace
        • Looks difficult
        • For people that dont know the digitizer is the glass that sits in front of the monitor used for touch screens.  Including phones and tablets
    • Going through the Larry Correia collection again.
    • Charley Davidson series by Darynda Jones
      • Not my favorite series but it was ok
      • Seems very cookie cutter meaning not much originality of its own.  Mostly it feels like the author just took her favorite parts of other book series and put them together.  But it hasn’t stopped me from reading it.
    • More Python classes with friends. went over boolean, if statements and while loops today.  Probably gonna go over for loops next time.
    • Got the MMCX connectors but I am not sure about the tension relief on them so I have not done anything with them yet.  May order a couple more cable versions of the connectors and not do the retractables just yet, 
    • Attempted to purchase a set of 14 LG headsets of different types on auction.  Prices looked good and thought I was going to get a deal until the last day and the bidding went higher than I wanted.
    • Still a fan of how easy the Turtle Beach Earforce Z2’s and X50’s are to work on.  Also the Z2’s are great for podcasting but terrible for music listening without a very good equalizer.  The X50’s sound much more crisp but are terrible for long-term wear and distort at higher volumes. Thinking about trying out a headphone amp on the Z2’s and see if that helps.  Also looking to see some of the mods that are floating around that might help with the sound quality. I am open to suggestions
    • I guess that came about because I did bust out the Sennheiser Urbanite XL’s, which, while comfortable and get reasonably good sound, have very small earcups and very poorly placed touch controls.
  • Tony W
    • The Tascam Model 24 acquired!
      • Will not Multi function
        • Audio interface to DAW, 22 simultaneous channels
        • Can also record directly to SD card
        • Can use as live sound board
      • Using with Reaper recording software
        • Proprietary but does work on Linux
      • New guitar – PRS SE Angelus A40E

THE NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE: 

  • Ubuntu 19.10 bug Shares Your Media Folders Without Permission
    • Users of non-Gnome versions of Ubuntu 19.10 are getting hit with automatically shared home folder bits (Photos, Videos, Music). On those flavors, the rygel media server is starting automatically.
    • The quick band-aid is running ‘sudo apt remove rygel’
  • Firefox fixes security bug in Master Password
    • This is an issue in Firefox 68.0.2 that allows an attacker to see your passwords without using the master password. This should already be fixed in your current version of Firefox as long as you’ve updated, but may affect you on the ESR. However, the fix is still the same. Update!
  • And here

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website and the livestream (We’ve had over 60 listeners today on the backup mixer platform and brought on some new listeners who’ve never heard of the podcast)
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 54:11 4001 mintCast 321 – Celluloid Service (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-321-celluloid-service-mp3/ Wed, 06 Nov 2019 06:23:44 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=3999 Then, our news Firefox, MX, Tails and Fedora all have new releases, and we cover the Linux Mint Monthly News. 
In the security section, we talk two bugs, one with Ubuntu and one on Firefox.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Leo finally gets upgraded to kernel 5.3, Tony Hughes tries out Ubuntu 19.10, Moss fights with Ubuntu Mate 19.10, Joe picks up an HP tablet to fix, and Tony Watts has a new guitar.

Then, our news Firefox, MX, Tails and Fedora all have new releases, and we cover the Linux Mint Monthly News. 

In the security section, we talk two bugs, one with Ubuntu and one on Firefox.

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS: 

  • Leo
    • Testing out kernel 5.3 on my desktop and laptop. Been on it about 5 days now.
      • It may have cleared up the freezing issue I was seeing that I think was caused by power states on my CPU. Time will tell here. It was fairly random and could take days to show up.
      • On my laptop, I haven’t seen a huge change, but seems stable.
  • Tony H
    •  Attending 2 family funerals which was the reason for my absence on the last episode, sadly I’m at that time when I see family at more funerals than weddings.
    • Buying and ‘playing’ with old diecast models, I’ve developed a liking for watching youtube videos of people restoring them. One of the Guys I watch is Marty from Australia who does Marty’s Matchbox Makeovers  I sent him a couple of cars to have a go at a while back.
    • Recorded the latest Distrohoppers Digest, and have now installed Ubuntu 19.10 Gnome on the test laptop for next months show. (We are recording the first week in December) 
  • Moss
    • I just added Bodhi to the Galago Pro 2, bringing it to 5 distros. I think I’ll leave it at 5, and I have been looking up what I did to fix the little paper cuts I had when installing Bodhi on the T430. I also saw a nice review of Bodhi by Jason M in the new issue of Full Circle Magazine.
    • I reported a bug in Ubuntu MATE 19.10. I literally had to get Alan Pope to get me to the right page to file it. (And doesn’t that say a lot of good things about the Linux community!) My desktop completely loaded sometimes, but most times it forgot to load the taskbar. And one day it loaded correctly, but after a while it went into Suspend mode, and when I entered my password to log back in, it opened without the taskbar. It’s not a lot of fun opening a terminal via right-clicking the desktop and running the program from terminal.
    • We recorded Episode 7 of Distrohoppers’ Digest on October 30th. We’re getting pretty good download numbers. Episode 4 has exceeded 450 downloads, two others have exceeded 350, and only Episode 2 has not yet reached 300, still sitting at 291. Tony Hughes got back from his trip to Glasgow. We reviewed OpenMandriva Lx 4 and MX Linux 19 (beta2 and final release). Go and have a listen, you’ll enjoy it.
    • Also, my wife and I both have been having issues where PIA locks us out of a website we’re trying to load, and we have to change nodes. This has been going on for all of the 2 months we’ve had the service. We have decided to go back to Mullvad, which is still a bit cheaper on month-to-month billing, when the current month runs out sometime today as we record this.
    • Now that Distrohoppers’ Digest is out of the way for this month, I attempted to install Manjaro on the Kudu 3, and ran into the same problem as before; it will download updates or programs I want to install, and stop. I have to log out and back in and run the installer again, and installs what got downloaded. So I have dumped Manjaro for this month and installed Zorin OS Core 15 on the Kudu 3. I’ll keep the results to myself (unless you’re in our chat or Terminal), but it should do for next month.
    • Which means I have an IdeaPad to get ready for sale. I haven’t done much more than download Windoze 10 and the installer program, haven’t even tried burning the iso yet, but it’s on the list.
    • We have a new kitten. We rescued it from being feral just outside our trailer. Then the trouble started. He climbed up inside our dashboard, unbeknownst to us, and we thought he had gotten out of the car without our knowledge. So after a lot of emotions being displayed, I got back into the car and started driving back to the last place we went to, and heard him mewing inside the dash. Our two nearest neighbors came to help me tear the dashboard apart. No luck. He spent the night in the car, with an open can of cat food. When I got up in the morning, he was still in the dash. I drove to the fire department, but nobody was there when I got there, including police or anyone else. I got back in the car… and there he was on the floor, looking at me like, “What is all the fuss about?” So he’s home now. Tiny little thing. Black, with white paws, blue eyes and a white bib. We have named him Gremlin. He is as cute as can be and instantly bonded to us.
  • Joe
    • Fixed my downstairs toilet.  Replaced some of the internals and readjusted the float so it doesn’t run all the time.
      • It is a bit more broken so I will be replacing more parts.  Or the whole damn thing
    • Picked up an HP Pavilion X360 with an i3 7th gen for 50 bucks on FB.  
      • https://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-touchscreen-i3-7100U-Bluetooth/dp/B078VP7GX2
      • Not in very good condition because it has been dropped.  
      • It had a bad hard drive but I was able to replace that.  
      • Also has a bad keyboard where only some of the keys work.
        • Tried readjusting the ribbon cable but no luck
        • A replacement costs about 20 bucks.  Ordered but it will take some time to arrive
      • The digitizer is also broken so no touch screen but the monitor itself is still useable
        • Replacement digitizer cost $130-150
        • Have watched the videos on youtube on how to replace
        • Looks difficult
        • For people that dont know the digitizer is the glass that sits in front of the monitor used for touch screens.  Including phones and tablets
    • Going through the Larry Correia collection again.
    • Charley Davidson series by Darynda Jones
      • Not my favorite series but it was ok
      • Seems very cookie cutter meaning not much originality of its own.  Mostly it feels like the author just took her favorite parts of other book series and put them together.  But it hasn’t stopped me from reading it.
    • More Python classes with friends. went over boolean, if statements and while loops today.  Probably gonna go over for loops next time.
    • Got the MMCX connectors but I am not sure about the tension relief on them so I have not done anything with them yet.  May order a couple more cable versions of the connectors and not do the retractables just yet, 
    • Attempted to purchase a set of 14 LG headsets of different types on auction.  Prices looked good and thought I was going to get a deal until the last day and the bidding went higher than I wanted.
    • Still a fan of how easy the Turtle Beach Earforce Z2’s and X50’s are to work on.  Also the Z2’s are great for podcasting but terrible for music listening without a very good equalizer.  The X50’s sound much more crisp but are terrible for long-term wear and distort at higher volumes. Thinking about trying out a headphone amp on the Z2’s and see if that helps.  Also looking to see some of the mods that are floating around that might help with the sound quality. I am open to suggestions
    • I guess that came about because I did bust out the Sennheiser Urbanite XL’s, which, while comfortable and get reasonably good sound, have very small earcups and very poorly placed touch controls.
  • Tony W
    • The Tascam Model 24 acquired!
      • Will not Multi function
        • Audio interface to DAW, 22 simultaneous channels
        • Can also record directly to SD card
        • Can use as live sound board
      • Using with Reaper recording software
        • Proprietary but does work on Linux
      • New guitar – PRS SE Angelus A40E

THE NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE: 

  • Ubuntu 19.10 bug Shares Your Media Folders Without Permission
    • Users of non-Gnome versions of Ubuntu 19.10 are getting hit with automatically shared home folder bits (Photos, Videos, Music). On those flavors, the rygel media server is starting automatically.
    • The quick band-aid is running ‘sudo apt remove rygel’
  • Firefox fixes security bug in Master Password
    • This is an issue in Firefox 68.0.2 that allows an attacker to see your passwords without using the master password. This should already be fixed in your current version of Firefox as long as you’ve updated, but may affect you on the ESR. However, the fix is still the same. Update!
  • And here

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website and the livestream (We’ve had over 60 listeners today on the backup mixer platform and brought on some new listeners who’ve never heard of the podcast)
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 55:48 3999 mintCast 319 – New Mumble https://mintcast.org/mintcast-319-new-mumble/ Wed, 09 Oct 2019 05:33:51 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=3961 Then, our news: CentOS 8 and Mumble 1.3 are released, Ubuntu 19.10 is almost here, the GNOME Foundation and Docker navigate rough seas, and more.
In security, we talk Exim.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, I talk Dynamic DNS, Tony is writing articles, Moss test drives EndeavourOS, Josh visited Media City, and Joe relaxes with fiction.

Then, our news: CentOS 8 and Mumble 1.3 are released, Ubuntu 19.10 is almost here, the GNOME Foundation and Docker navigate rough seas, and more.

In security, we talk Exim.

WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Dynamic DNS – Finally got this setup with a lot of personal resistance.
      • Took inspiration from Telegram. Quite a few people were setting up Dynamic DNS a couple of months ago, and I was resistant because my IP address hardly changed. Seems like my address is changing all the time now.
      • Not quite sure if my router is handling it correctly (ER-POE-5) even though I have it configured as the Ubiquity forums suggest.
      • So as a backup, I’m running a cron job once every 6 hours on my Pi-Hole to update the IP address.
      • Used afraid.org. Very simple setup once you dig into it. To update, you basically have to visit a URL.
    • Installed two new packages that are supposed to give better battery statistics and life.
      • sudo apt install tp-smapi-dkms acpi-call-dkms
      • I’m not testing this scientifically, but these packages should help calibrate my Thinkpad batteries properly. I’ve only gone through one charge cycle, so it’s hard to tell if things have changed.
  • Tony H 
    • Starting to write a series of articles on Getting started in podcasting, for Full Circle Magazine, I have written the first 2 articles so check out the October magazine as you may see me in print.
    • Continuing to use MX 19 beta 2.1 – beta 3 was released yesterday I have downloaded the iso and will install as just updating may miss some bug fixes.
    • Got a reply to my bug notification about dropping into the login screen when rebooting, as it’s not a critical bug it is on the to do list as they want to fix it but at the moment they are not sure how to do it.
  • Moss
    • Distrohoppers’ Digest Episode 006 was a rollicking good time, I hope our listeners enjoy it as much as we did.
    • I installed Endeavour OS on my T430. A few issues, easily solved, and everything else installed. I had everything except Mumble & Audacity. Then I noticed it kept creating copies of boot records — my boot was a mass of multiple selections of the same distros. I used Grub Customizer to clean them up, and at next boot it created more. I reported the issue. It has now come off my T430.
    • I still wanted to have something to review for October, and so decided to try a SINGLE INSTALL (what a concept!) on the IdeaPad. I attempted to install OpenMandriva, but got nowhere, it failed to create a partition. I got my GPartEd disk out and redid the disk, with a small Swap partition and a large Primary. I installed OpenMandriva Lx 4 just fine, and rebooted. No boot. It didn’t write Grub properly or whatever, I’ve had this issue before. So I tried Manjaro, and it wouldn’t even find my wifi. I’m using SuperGrub2 on a CD to boot, then going into OM4. There is supposed to be a way to use SuperGrub2 to write Grub but it isn’t obvious, got more reading to do.
    • I have some items for sale from my earlier inheritance. See my eBay listings (moss23) and talk to me if you’re interested in any of them. I did sell the Hackintosh, did not really get fair value for it. I now have $95 saved up towards the new laptop; eBay sales go towards that as well. I have also started a Sponsus for Distrohoppers, but you’re all welcome to join in. http://sponsus.org/zaivala 
    • My job has gone sideways. I still have it, and finally am working part time, but my wonderful manager got demoted and moved for no reason, and the new manager just isn’t the same. I had wanted 4 days per week, I’m getting 3. I’m looking for work again. Some employees have not stopped crying about the change, and it was 3 weeks ago. Another result of the change is I’m making even less income.
    • As this show is turning into Readers’ Corner, I should note that I finished reading the Nightside series by Simon R. Green to my wife, and have started in on Temeraire by Naomi Novik. Unlike Joe, I don’t get audiobooks, I *am* the audiobook reader.
  • Joe
    • I need to solder something.  Don’t know what yet
      • Ordered a small set of HBS 820’s
      • Haven’t worked on those before but i am willing to give them a try
    • My CPAP machine is dying.  Makes getting sleep difficult.  Which makes motivation to do projects even more difficult
      • I pulled out one of the spare CPAPs that i have and reprogrammed it to match my other one.  I think i got everything right and i am sleeping a little better
      • Have to wait for my referral to go through with the VA and it is taking longer than it should so that i can get the right one refurbished or replaced.
    • Finished up the Wheel of time series again.  I love the book series.
      • Very well done audiobook series.
      • Still think they should have split the last book in two.  Very long
    • I will be listening to the new Alex Verus novel as well as the second book in the last reaper series.
      • Alex Verus is still very good as a series.  It may have slowed a bit but it is still enjoyable
      • The last reaper series is fun.  Not necessarily great writing but a bit of mindless action and adventure.
    • I am also waiting to pick up the new M.D. Massey novels books 7 and 8 of the junkyard druid series
    • I am acting manager at work for most of the month,  That should be fun
    • Picked up some usb cables with switches in the middle.
      • Needed one for the wireless phone charger in my car since my accessory port does not turn off with the vehicle and i don‘t want to run down the battery or wear out the connectors on the cable or the charger.
      • Works very well.  Thinking of replacing the power supply with something a bit more powerful.  Then maybe work on some cable management.
  • Josh
    • Visited the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) for micro:bit Live, the first ever micro:bit conference!
    • Some big announcements regarding micropython and other micro:bit classroom tools
    • Did a talk, Panel Discussion and did a stand for the magazine.
    • No updates on the phone situation. Still waiting for them to send a replacement.

NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE:

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website and the livestream (We’ve had over 60 listeners today on the backup mixer platform and brought on some new listeners who’ve never heard of the podcast)
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 1:02:03 3961 mintCast 319 – New Mumble (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-319-new-mumble-mp3/ Wed, 09 Oct 2019 05:30:45 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=3959 Then, our news: CentOS 8 and Mumble 1.3 are released, Ubuntu 19.10 is almost here, the GNOME Foundation and Docker navigate rough seas, and more.
In security, we talk Exim.
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, I talk Dynamic DNS, Tony is writing articles, Moss test drives EndeavourOS, Josh visited Media City, and Joe relaxes with fiction.

Then, our news: CentOS 8 and Mumble 1.3 are released, Ubuntu 19.10 is almost here, the GNOME Foundation and Docker navigate rough seas, and more.

In security, we talk Exim.

WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Dynamic DNS – Finally got this setup with a lot of personal resistance.
      • Took inspiration from Telegram. Quite a few people were setting up Dynamic DNS a couple of months ago, and I was resistant because my IP address hardly changed. Seems like my address is changing all the time now.
      • Not quite sure if my router is handling it correctly (ER-POE-5) even though I have it configured as the Ubiquity forums suggest.
      • So as a backup, I’m running a cron job once every 6 hours on my Pi-Hole to update the IP address.
      • Used afraid.org. Very simple setup once you dig into it. To update, you basically have to visit a URL.
    • Installed two new packages that are supposed to give better battery statistics and life.
      • sudo apt install tp-smapi-dkms acpi-call-dkms
      • I’m not testing this scientifically, but these packages should help calibrate my Thinkpad batteries properly. I’ve only gone through one charge cycle, so it’s hard to tell if things have changed.
  • Tony H 
    • Starting to write a series of articles on Getting started in podcasting, for Full Circle Magazine, I have written the first 2 articles so check out the October magazine as you may see me in print.
    • Continuing to use MX 19 beta 2.1 – beta 3 was released yesterday I have downloaded the iso and will install as just updating may miss some bug fixes.
    • Got a reply to my bug notification about dropping into the login screen when rebooting, as it’s not a critical bug it is on the to do list as they want to fix it but at the moment they are not sure how to do it.
  • Moss
    • Distrohoppers’ Digest Episode 006 was a rollicking good time, I hope our listeners enjoy it as much as we did.
    • I installed Endeavour OS on my T430. A few issues, easily solved, and everything else installed. I had everything except Mumble & Audacity. Then I noticed it kept creating copies of boot records — my boot was a mass of multiple selections of the same distros. I used Grub Customizer to clean them up, and at next boot it created more. I reported the issue. It has now come off my T430.
    • I still wanted to have something to review for October, and so decided to try a SINGLE INSTALL (what a concept!) on the IdeaPad. I attempted to install OpenMandriva, but got nowhere, it failed to create a partition. I got my GPartEd disk out and redid the disk, with a small Swap partition and a large Primary. I installed OpenMandriva Lx 4 just fine, and rebooted. No boot. It didn’t write Grub properly or whatever, I’ve had this issue before. So I tried Manjaro, and it wouldn’t even find my wifi. I’m using SuperGrub2 on a CD to boot, then going into OM4. There is supposed to be a way to use SuperGrub2 to write Grub but it isn’t obvious, got more reading to do.
    • I have some items for sale from my earlier inheritance. See my eBay listings (moss23) and talk to me if you’re interested in any of them. I did sell the Hackintosh, did not really get fair value for it. I now have $95 saved up towards the new laptop; eBay sales go towards that as well. I have also started a Sponsus for Distrohoppers, but you’re all welcome to join in. http://sponsus.org/zaivala 
    • My job has gone sideways. I still have it, and finally am working part time, but my wonderful manager got demoted and moved for no reason, and the new manager just isn’t the same. I had wanted 4 days per week, I’m getting 3. I’m looking for work again. Some employees have not stopped crying about the change, and it was 3 weeks ago. Another result of the change is I’m making even less income.
    • As this show is turning into Readers’ Corner, I should note that I finished reading the Nightside series by Simon R. Green to my wife, and have started in on Temeraire by Naomi Novik. Unlike Joe, I don’t get audiobooks, I *am* the audiobook reader.
  • Joe
    • I need to solder something.  Don’t know what yet
      • Ordered a small set of HBS 820’s
      • Haven’t worked on those before but i am willing to give them a try
    • My CPAP machine is dying.  Makes getting sleep difficult.  Which makes motivation to do projects even more difficult
      • I pulled out one of the spare CPAPs that i have and reprogrammed it to match my other one.  I think i got everything right and i am sleeping a little better
      • Have to wait for my referral to go through with the VA and it is taking longer than it should so that i can get the right one refurbished or replaced.
    • Finished up the Wheel of time series again.  I love the book series.
      • Very well done audiobook series.
      • Still think they should have split the last book in two.  Very long
    • I will be listening to the new Alex Verus novel as well as the second book in the last reaper series.
      • Alex Verus is still very good as a series.  It may have slowed a bit but it is still enjoyable
      • The last reaper series is fun.  Not necessarily great writing but a bit of mindless action and adventure.
    • I am also waiting to pick up the new M.D. Massey novels books 7 and 8 of the junkyard druid series
    • I am acting manager at work for most of the month,  That should be fun
    • Picked up some usb cables with switches in the middle.
      • Needed one for the wireless phone charger in my car since my accessory port does not turn off with the vehicle and i don‘t want to run down the battery or wear out the connectors on the cable or the charger.
      • Works very well.  Thinking of replacing the power supply with something a bit more powerful.  Then maybe work on some cable management.
  • Josh
    • Visited the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) for micro:bit Live, the first ever micro:bit conference!
    • Some big announcements regarding micropython and other micro:bit classroom tools
    • Did a talk, Panel Discussion and did a stand for the magazine.
    • No updates on the phone situation. Still waiting for them to send a replacement.

NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE:

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website and the livestream (We’ve had over 60 listeners today on the backup mixer platform and brought on some new listeners who’ve never heard of the podcast)
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 1:04:03 3959 mintCast 317 – Yak Shaving https://mintcast.org/mintcast-317-yak-shaving/ Wed, 11 Sep 2019 05:57:14 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=3880 Then, in our news we cover the Linux Mint Monthly News, exFAT in the kernel, iPhone and Android exploits and the new Pinebook Pro
In security, we talk Firefox and why you should give it another try
Download
]]>

Download

This week, in our Wanderings, Toyam (Void Linux maintainer) shaves a yak and gets to soldering, I blew up and recovered my Mint install, Tony’s been editing audio and LUGing, Josh has been playing with Windows Subsystem for Linux , and Joe finally gets the Note 10

Then, in our news we cover the Linux Mint Monthly News, exFAT in the kernel, iPhone and Android exploits and the new Pinebook Pro

In security, we talk Firefox and why you should give it another try

WANDERINGS:

  • Toyam
    • Yak shaving: Need a calendar for my household, to share appointments and other plans, and can’t be Google, must work from the CLI…. Oh also should be offline compatible.
      • During a class last year I wrote the frontend for this calendar, but didn’t have a satisfactory backend.
      • So started investigating Wails, which lets you, like Electron, use javascript for your frontend, but Wails lets you build a golang backend.
        • Got Wails to support Void Linux.
        • But still working on linking my frontend with their backend.
    • Soldered parts onto a PCB I previously designed. I now regret choosing small parts (0402).
  • Leo
    • Broke my desktop Mint install by using ppa-purge for the padoka PPA so I can test the oibaf PPA for performance differences on my graphics card. Didn’t pay attention to what it was going to uninstall. It even makes you type in “Yes, do as I say!” Turns out, it uninstalled EVERYTHING. I watched icons disappear from Plank one-by-one. Checked the terminal and my jaw dropped. CTRL+C couldn’t save me here. SSDs are brutal for mistakes like this.
      • Luckily I don’t tinker with Mint on my laptop that way, or it could have been a bigger issue!
      • Timeshift saves the day.
      • Ended up reinstalling anyway since I still wanted to tinker with oibaf and didn’t want to go through recovery again. Backed up home, and started fresh.
    • Got a new mechanical keyboard for $15 after using some amazon credit that I didn’t know what to do with. Ended up buying a Velocifire 78-key keyboard with Outemu brown switches. They’re a little loud for my tastes, but it’s growing on me.
  • Tony H 
    • Editing the Audio for the last show, and was happy to say that it was the best effort I’ve made with the editing since I joined the show. For anyone out there trying to get to grips with audio recording and editing, stick with it as the only way you learn how it works is by doing it, you will find what works for you and your set up. We have a production guide that was written by Rob and Issac, and has been modified by us since, but you sometimes have to go with what works with the audio you have to work on and the setup that you have.
    • So for the next Distrohoppers digest review I’ve installed and been playing with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, I seem to be developing a liking for rolling distributions. I’m also developing a liking for XFCE and installed this as the DE again as I had been using it in EndeavourOS.
    • We had the last meeting at the current makerspace venue which involved mainly taking away the equipment we wanted to transfer to the new venue (my Garage) over the next few weeks we will be reconnecting with our Linux roots and advertising the Saturday meetings in the local library as our LUG as it was in the old days. There maybe an opportunity to install the 3D printer at the library at a later date but for now we need to work on making my Garage fit to use the printer and Laser cutter at my place.
    • Getting more donations of PC’s, Les gave me a Tower from his uncle who passed away recently, this will be passed on to a charity after having Linux Mint 19.2 XFCE installed as its light on memory at only 2Gb of RAM.
    • Setting up a Dell Optiplex 7010 i5 with 8Gb Ram 240Gb SSD (Mint 19.2 Mate) and a 250Gb HDD (windows 10) For my better Half. Her old Pentium Dual core was well past its sell by date having Mint 17.3 and Windows 7 on a 160Gb HDD in dual boot mode. I set up Libreoffice Writer to ribbon mode as she uses MS Office at work so is more used to that interface. Her first comment once she went on line was that she can play some of the games that stopped working on the old PC due to an outdated Flash codec. One happy Wife, Life is Good 🙂  
    • Broke my phone today 🙁
  • Josh
    • Been playing around with WSL. I did use it back in the BETA stages but it’s much improved now.
    • I’ve found a VSCode plugin that allows you to edit files in folders that are within WSL. This allows me to do EduBlocks development in Windows. 
    • It’s quite obvious that this could now replace Linux for me and I do wonder what we will see in 10 years. Will linux distros be as popular or will Windows WSL get even better and be more popular?
    • Found a new OS called “CloudReady” from Neverware that lets you turn any PC into a Chromebook. It’s super cool!
    • I returned to school this week 🙁
    • The printed magazines are live! We’ve had so many orders, considering we thought we’d get none, we’re really happy. 
    • I got a new GPU. I opted for an Asus OC Nvidia RTX 2060. It’s amazing, the drivers actually work properly *cough AMD* and so far my experience of Nvidia is great. Real Time Ray Tracing is super cool, even though it’s not really implemented in anything. 
  • Joe
    • Have been taking a break from social media 
      • I am even behind on my podcast listening.
    • Have been listening to the wheel of time again
    • Got the Galaxy Note 10 plus
      • Still think it cost way too much but the wife convinced me to get it
      • Will come up with a full review
      • Android Dex is nice, works very well and easy
      • Linux on dex is not yet available for the Note 10+
      • The screen is brilliant. 
      • Transferred a 60 gig of data over wifi to the device very easily
      • Didnt even heat up using resilio sync with 60+ gb of data
      • Usb c dock worked without a hitch as did displaylink
        • Although Dex does not work over display link
      • Also want to test steam link with android on dex
    • Fixed an m.2 adapter with a faulty usb 3.0 b connection
    • Testing anlinux on the note 10+
      • It works very smooth, no hitches or delays that i have seen
      • Using ubuntu but it feels a lot more like trying to setup arch
        • Very minimal install 
        • Installed mate
        • Installed nautilus
        • Created a new user and attempted to install vlc
        • VLC installed but still will not launch
        • Further testing required
    • One of the few issues that i have found with my migration to the new phone is that a lot of my settings in podkicker did not migrate, although all of my subscriptions did so i have ended up with a backlog of pocasts

NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE:

  • Firefox 69 blocks trackers by default!
    • By using the standard tracking profile built into the browser, Firefox 69 will block mainly 3rd party cookies: this means ads and their trackers.
    • Cryptominers are blocked by default!
    • Autoplay videos will be blocked by default, as well, and you can control how. Nothing at all, no audio only, or allow.
    • Firefox is also blocking Flash from automatically running without your explicit permission. The “Always activate” option has been removed.
    • This is for all platforms you can run Firefox on, not just Linux! That includes Windows, Android, MacOS and iOS.
    • New logo coming in 70!

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website and the livestream (We’ve had over 60 listeners today on the backup mixer platform and brought on some new listeners who’ve never heard of the podcast)
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 1:05:18 3880 mintCast 317 – Yak Shaving (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-317-yak-shaving-mp3/ Wed, 11 Sep 2019 05:55:34 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=3878 Then, in our news we cover the Linux Mint Monthly News, exFAT in the kernel, iPhone and Android exploits and the new Pinebook Pro
In security, we talk Firefox and why you should give it another try
Download
]]>

Download

This week, in our Wanderings, Toyam (Void Linux maintainer) shaves a yak and gets to soldering, I blew up and recovered my Mint install, Tony’s been editing audio and LUGing, Josh has been playing with Windows Subsystem for Linux , and Joe finally gets the Note 10

Then, in our news we cover the Linux Mint Monthly News, exFAT in the kernel, iPhone and Android exploits and the new Pinebook Pro

In security, we talk Firefox and why you should give it another try

WANDERINGS:

  • Toyam
    • Yak shaving: Need a calendar for my household, to share appointments and other plans, and can’t be Google, must work from the CLI…. Oh also should be offline compatible.
      • During a class last year I wrote the frontend for this calendar, but didn’t have a satisfactory backend.
      • So started investigating Wails, which lets you, like Electron, use javascript for your frontend, but Wails lets you build a golang backend.
        • Got Wails to support Void Linux.
        • But still working on linking my frontend with their backend.
    • Soldered parts onto a PCB I previously designed. I now regret choosing small parts (0402).
  • Leo
    • Broke my desktop Mint install by using ppa-purge for the padoka PPA so I can test the oibaf PPA for performance differences on my graphics card. Didn’t pay attention to what it was going to uninstall. It even makes you type in “Yes, do as I say!” Turns out, it uninstalled EVERYTHING. I watched icons disappear from Plank one-by-one. Checked the terminal and my jaw dropped. CTRL+C couldn’t save me here. SSDs are brutal for mistakes like this.
      • Luckily I don’t tinker with Mint on my laptop that way, or it could have been a bigger issue!
      • Timeshift saves the day.
      • Ended up reinstalling anyway since I still wanted to tinker with oibaf and didn’t want to go through recovery again. Backed up home, and started fresh.
    • Got a new mechanical keyboard for $15 after using some amazon credit that I didn’t know what to do with. Ended up buying a Velocifire 78-key keyboard with Outemu brown switches. They’re a little loud for my tastes, but it’s growing on me.
  • Tony H 
    • Editing the Audio for the last show, and was happy to say that it was the best effort I’ve made with the editing since I joined the show. For anyone out there trying to get to grips with audio recording and editing, stick with it as the only way you learn how it works is by doing it, you will find what works for you and your set up. We have a production guide that was written by Rob and Issac, and has been modified by us since, but you sometimes have to go with what works with the audio you have to work on and the setup that you have.
    • So for the next Distrohoppers digest review I’ve installed and been playing with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, I seem to be developing a liking for rolling distributions. I’m also developing a liking for XFCE and installed this as the DE again as I had been using it in EndeavourOS.
    • We had the last meeting at the current makerspace venue which involved mainly taking away the equipment we wanted to transfer to the new venue (my Garage) over the next few weeks we will be reconnecting with our Linux roots and advertising the Saturday meetings in the local library as our LUG as it was in the old days. There maybe an opportunity to install the 3D printer at the library at a later date but for now we need to work on making my Garage fit to use the printer and Laser cutter at my place.
    • Getting more donations of PC’s, Les gave me a Tower from his uncle who passed away recently, this will be passed on to a charity after having Linux Mint 19.2 XFCE installed as its light on memory at only 2Gb of RAM.
    • Setting up a Dell Optiplex 7010 i5 with 8Gb Ram 240Gb SSD (Mint 19.2 Mate) and a 250Gb HDD (windows 10) For my better Half. Her old Pentium Dual core was well past its sell by date having Mint 17.3 and Windows 7 on a 160Gb HDD in dual boot mode. I set up Libreoffice Writer to ribbon mode as she uses MS Office at work so is more used to that interface. Her first comment once she went on line was that she can play some of the games that stopped working on the old PC due to an outdated Flash codec. One happy Wife, Life is Good 🙂  
    • Broke my phone today 🙁
  • Josh
    • Been playing around with WSL. I did use it back in the BETA stages but it’s much improved now.
    • I’ve found a VSCode plugin that allows you to edit files in folders that are within WSL. This allows me to do EduBlocks development in Windows. 
    • It’s quite obvious that this could now replace Linux for me and I do wonder what we will see in 10 years. Will linux distros be as popular or will Windows WSL get even better and be more popular?
    • Found a new OS called “CloudReady” from Neverware that lets you turn any PC into a Chromebook. It’s super cool!
    • I returned to school this week 🙁
    • The printed magazines are live! We’ve had so many orders, considering we thought we’d get none, we’re really happy. 
    • I got a new GPU. I opted for an Asus OC Nvidia RTX 2060. It’s amazing, the drivers actually work properly *cough AMD* and so far my experience of Nvidia is great. Real Time Ray Tracing is super cool, even though it’s not really implemented in anything. 
  • Joe
    • Have been taking a break from social media 
      • I am even behind on my podcast listening.
    • Have been listening to the wheel of time again
    • Got the Galaxy Note 10 plus
      • Still think it cost way too much but the wife convinced me to get it
      • Will come up with a full review
      • Android Dex is nice, works very well and easy
      • Linux on dex is not yet available for the Note 10+
      • The screen is brilliant. 
      • Transferred a 60 gig of data over wifi to the device very easily
      • Didnt even heat up using resilio sync with 60+ gb of data
      • Usb c dock worked without a hitch as did displaylink
        • Although Dex does not work over display link
      • Also want to test steam link with android on dex
    • Fixed an m.2 adapter with a faulty usb 3.0 b connection
    • Testing anlinux on the note 10+
      • It works very smooth, no hitches or delays that i have seen
      • Using ubuntu but it feels a lot more like trying to setup arch
        • Very minimal install 
        • Installed mate
        • Installed nautilus
        • Created a new user and attempted to install vlc
        • VLC installed but still will not launch
        • Further testing required
    • One of the few issues that i have found with my migration to the new phone is that a lot of my settings in podkicker did not migrate, although all of my subscriptions did so i have ended up with a backlog of pocasts

NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE:

  • Firefox 69 blocks trackers by default!
    • By using the standard tracking profile built into the browser, Firefox 69 will block mainly 3rd party cookies: this means ads and their trackers.
    • Cryptominers are blocked by default!
    • Autoplay videos will be blocked by default, as well, and you can control how. Nothing at all, no audio only, or allow.
    • Firefox is also blocking Flash from automatically running without your explicit permission. The “Always activate” option has been removed.
    • This is for all platforms you can run Firefox on, not just Linux! That includes Windows, Android, MacOS and iOS.
    • New logo coming in 70!

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website and the livestream (We’ve had over 60 listeners today on the backup mixer platform and brought on some new listeners who’ve never heard of the podcast)
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
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