FOSS – mintCast https://mintcast.org The podcast by the Linux Mint community for all users of Linux Fri, 10 Dec 2021 08:59:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1 https://mintcast.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/cropped-small-logo-32x32.png FOSS – mintCast https://mintcast.org 32 32 mintCast false episodic CC-BY-SA 4.0 CC-BY-SA 4.0 podcast FOSS – mintCast https://mintcast.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/big-logo-1600.png https://mintcast.org TV-G 164426984 375.5 – One Is the Loneliest Number https://mintcast.org/375-5-one-is-the-loneliest-number/ Fri, 10 Dec 2021 08:51:33 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5293 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
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]]> 1:46 Linux Innards
42:07 Vibrations from the Ether
51:07 Check This Out
54:28 Announcements & Outro

In our Innards section, fragmentation
And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

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

Linux Innards

  • Joe
    • Inevitable
    • Innovative
    • Provides an outlet for many
    • Yes it is somewhat daunting for a new linux user to pick that first distro
  • Tony
    • One of the benefits and one of the drawbacks of a free and open culture in Linux. Some loved Distributions over the years have started because someone wanted things in ‘Their’ Linux system to be a certain way and initially released an ISO to share with others, some of these even live on after the original creator moves on.
    • Gives a wide variety of choices to the user. DE wise for me if Gnome was  the only option I would probably have gone back to Windows even windows 10 is more to my liking as a DE
    • As for Distroes the issue again is choice, some like a lightweight minimal system and only install the apps they use, while some prefer all the bells and whistles to be installed. This is also helpful if offline for long periods or on a Data capped ISP
  • Norbert
    • Choice of defaults
    • Not all may work
  • Josh
    • Freedom of choice lies at the heart of free open source software and is preferable to less choice
    • Good for devs as they get to work on the projects they are passionate about
    • Good for users who get to experience the vision of the devs
    • Differentiates Linux from proprietary OS’s
    • Choice paralysis is a thing but not in this case
    • Arguments for this being the reason that proprietary software companies don’t cater to Linux has been nullified by universal package formats
    • Drawback is that applications utilizing non-native toolkit can appear out of place

Vibrations from the Ether

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!>
]]> 375.5 - One Is the Loneliest Number full 58:52 5293 mintCast 345.5 – Linux on the Edge (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-345-5-linux-on-the-edge-mp3/ Wed, 14 Oct 2020 04:44:33 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4704 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Download
]]>

Download

1:31 Linux Innards
41:23 Vibrations from the Ether
1:02:31 Check This Out
1:05:07 Outro

In our Innards section, we Introduce Josh Hawk and pick his and all of our brains.

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

LINUX INNARDS:

  • To Josh: Do you think insistence on FOSS is holding back Linux adoption?
  • To All: Do you think Windows will ever be Linux based?
  • To All: Who is using Edge for Linux when it drops? Sometime later?
  • To All: Given the above, should we be concentrating on what we can do on Linux, rather than Linux distributions when promoting it to the non-Linux-using public. This comes from a recent interview with Stuart Langridge of ‘Bad Voltage’ on ‘Linux User Space’ 

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

  • Reci Fluência
  • TBA
  • Dylan B
  • Henrik Hemrin
  • @casulemarc (twitter)

https://github.com/jakeday/linux-surface

  • fjord

CHECK THIS OUT:

  • Moss
    • Amazon Echo add-on Hey Samuel! – Samuel L. Jackson
      • 1st gen Echos can only use “[LadyTube], Ask Samuel to…”
    • Ting has added Verizon to their existing Sprint and T-Mobile lines. If you were not signing up for Ting because you needed Verizon coverage, you can do it now.
      • Ting’s subscriber rolls were enumerated as fewer than 300,000 customers
      • On the other hand, Ting (along with Boost and TracFone) has been bought by Dish Network, which eventually wants to roll out their own cellular brand. Ting claims their plans will not change.
  • Joe

Announcements:

Our next show will be on October 18, 2020 at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC. Check https://everytimezone.com/s/a5d26573  to convert to your local 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
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our Mumble backup
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • Londoner for our time zone link
  • Owen Peery for our audio editing
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 4704 mintCast 345.5 – Linux on the Edge https://mintcast.org/mintcast-345-5-linux-on-the-edge/ Wed, 14 Oct 2020 04:22:34 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4697 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Download
]]>

Download

1:31 Linux Innards
41:23 Vibrations from the Ether
1:02:31 Check This Out
1:05:07 Outro

In our Innards section, we Introduce Josh Hawk and pick his and all of our brains.

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

LINUX INNARDS:

  • To Josh: Do you think insistence on FOSS is holding back Linux adoption?
  • To All: Do you think Windows will ever be Linux based?
  • To All: Who is using Edge for Linux when it drops? Sometime later?
  • To All: Given the above, should we be concentrating on what we can do on Linux, rather than Linux distributions when promoting it to the non-Linux-using public. This comes from a recent interview with Stuart Langridge of ‘Bad Voltage’ on ‘Linux User Space’ 

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

  • Reci Fluência
  • TBA
  • Dylan B
  • Henrik Hemrin
  • @casulemarc (twitter)

https://github.com/jakeday/linux-surface

  • fjord

CHECK THIS OUT:

  • Moss
    • Amazon Echo add-on Hey Samuel! – Samuel L. Jackson
      • 1st gen Echos can only use “[LadyTube], Ask Samuel to…”
    • Ting has added Verizon to their existing Sprint and T-Mobile lines. If you were not signing up for Ting because you needed Verizon coverage, you can do it now.
      • Ting’s subscriber rolls were enumerated as fewer than 300,000 customers
      • On the other hand, Ting (along with Boost and TracFone) has been bought by Dish Network, which eventually wants to roll out their own cellular brand. Ting claims their plans will not change.
  • Joe

Announcements:

Our next show will be on October 18, 2020 at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC. Check https://everytimezone.com/s/a5d26573  to convert to your local 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
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our Mumble backup
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • Londoner for our time zone link
  • Owen Peery for our audio editing
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 1:07:14 4697 mintCast 344.5 – “Working” from Home (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-344-5-working-from-home-mp3/ Wed, 30 Sep 2020 04:05:44 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4683 And finally, the feedback
Download
]]>

Download

1:38 Linux Innards
58:33 Vibrations from the Ether
1:17:19 Check This Out!
1:20:44 Outro

In our Innards section, we go over the working from home slash home-office setups we have.

And finally, the feedback

LINUX INNARDS:

“Work from Home” setup

  • Tony
    • My views of last time’s topic on Proprietary software v Open Source holding Linux back.
    • For me I’m very pragmatic about using what works, my first preference is Opensource but if there is a proprietary bit of software that would offer a better solution I would use it, and I do as I install the Nvidia drivers on my desktop PC as I have a dedicated Nvidia graphics card.
    • As for the availability of proprietary software for Linux such as Photoshop I’m not sure this is a major issue as this is a very niche package and a very small possible Linux user base making it uneconomic for Adobe to spend time creating a Linux version. Looking at industry leading software one example of Open Source leading the way is Blender, and again very few regular Linux users would even look at this let alone use it too it’s full potential, those that need this software for professional 3D rendering are already using it and probably on Linux.
  • Leo
  • Joe
    • MSI ge72 6qd with an i7-6700HQ and a gtx 960m
    • That has a 17 inch screen
    • For the second screen i have a laptop table with a 32 inch tv on it
    • The table also has a mount for my 7130 so i can do other small things when work is slow or i need to look something up
    • The table that my laptop sits on has an articulated arm for my microphone which is right now a hyperx quadcast or a samson meteor
    • Also use my Samsung Galaxy note 10 all day every day with several of my custom built lg hbs 770 headphones along with a pair of skullcandy crushers if i want to listen to music and a modded pair of sony xb700s for when i can no longer stand the idea of using an in ear but want all day wear and a pair of 99 neos for when it has to be wired
    • Because i rely so heavily on my phone to be able to do my work i also keep my old galaxy s7 around incase something happens to the note
    • Extra wide recliner that is seeing a lot of wear and tear lately
    • Logitech k360 keyboard and m570 trackball mouse
    • ASUS AC2900 router
      • Need to be able to handle all my work stuff and all the kids school stuff
      • 300mbps connection from spectrum
    • My backup workstation in the garage
      • Ryzen 5 3600 16gb of ram rx 560
      • Two lg tvs as monitors
        • One 60 inch that i got for free because of a bad hdmi board
        • One 43 inch that i also got for free because my friend closed out his storage unit
      • Logitech g613 keyboard and m570 mouse
  • Tony H
    • So even though I am no longer working I do obviously use my PC for quite a lot of tasks as well as numerous laptops my main PC is my tower, and this is what I use for podcasting and much more.
    • So my Desktop PC setup is an:
      • HP Compaq Elite 8300 with the following specs:
        • A 2012 Intel® Core™ i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz with 4 cores and 8 threads.
        • 24Gig of DDR3 Ram
        • NVIDIA GeForce 8400 256Mb Ram
        • Generic USB keyboard and mouse
        • And a 1Tb SSD in the primary Bay of my 4 bay IcyDoc. Running Mint Maté 19.3. There are an additional 2 128Gb drives in the dock with Ubuntu Studio 20.04 and Ubuntu Maté 20.04 installed. The 4th bay is not populated because for some reason it does not recognise any drives installed despite all the cables being connected??
    • I have a ProSound USB podcast mic, that I picked up in a bankruptcy sale a few years ago for a very reasonable £12/$15 and this is mounted onto a boom arm and has a pop filter in front of the mic.
    • I also have a SriHome USB webcam that I got a couple of months ago once I could find one that would not mean remortgaging the house. This cost £31 pounds on Amazon.
    • I have 2 4TB USB3 external backup drives with plenty of room for more data at the moment, Both have 1.9Tb of free space, I should have of site backup as well but at the moment I don’t. I also have a 2TB and 1Tb portable USB3 drive for storage on the go.
    • I have 2 Laser printers, a Greyscale Brother and a recently purchased HP Color Laser 150nw, bought for printing my own decals for my models, this cost £130 of Amazon but as buying decals from online sellers can be £2-3 a set this will quickly pay for itself in the next few months. Yes Decal paper is about £1/sheet but you can print many decals on one A4 sheet so the paper is hardly a factor in the decal cost.
  • Bo
    • Work setup
      • Lenovo laptop and docking station at work
      • KVM switch at home
    • Podcasting
      • System76 Kudu
      • Zoom H6 USB interface
    • Gaming
      • Ryzen 7 build
      • Dual Booting win and Linux
  • Tony W

Will talk about my basement office/studio setup

    • 2 desks, catty corner
      • One desk holds both my podcasting/music desktop as well as my work laptop setup
      • Other desk has my server on it and also use for working on any other machines
    • Network
      • Ran wired internet into basement
    • Repurposed wifi extender as access point with DD WRT
    • Work Setup
      • Thinkpad T480
      • Thinkpad dock
      • Lenovo wireless keyboard/mouse
      • Plantronics Savi w720
    • Music/Podcasting setup – Sentimental value and stories with a lot of this gear
      • Share peripherals w/ work setup
      • Old Dell desktop
        • Video card for multiple monitor support
      • M-Audio Delta 66 soundcard (have a presonus studio 24c)
      • Behringer XM1800S microphone (I have a MXL V57M will use at some point)
      • Neewer desk mount boom arm
      • Audio-Technica M50x headphones
      • Dual monitor “Goodwill Edition” setup (sometimes use a 3rd monitor)
      • JVC stereo R-K11
      • Bose bookshelf speakers
    • Tablet
    • PC in living room: Lenovo desktop (unsure of model right now, has 4th gen i3 in it, 8GB RAM)
      • Dual boot, mostly used in Windows these days by my son for homework
      • Linux mint partition

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

  • Larry Murphy

Hello Leo & All,

I just hear episode 342.5. I wanted to let you know that way back when (early to mid 2000’s) when I wanted to multi-boot I found a You Tube that was a step-by step guide. The person had 106 OSes on his computer. The guide was very complete. I modified it for my needs. It worked for about 6 mos. Till it wouldn’t boot. Checking I found out that my downfall was updating the config files. I accepted one that was a default with the system upgrade and I needed to save the one I had filled out. It was a real nooby error.

Now I boot ALL my OSes from my bios, much easier and safer. I use a SSD for each OS, such as Windows and Linux. I only put OSes on SSD,s and data on separate internal and external drives.

I have found that Linux is quicker to install and even with ALL the customizing I do. I customize many of my folder and almost all of my desk top icons for easy identification. I have use the same icon in both Windows and Linux. I find it,s much easier in Linux because I don’t have change the pics I use to .ico files as is needed by Windows. I also find that my internet is faster in Linux as well as download speeds and I can burn dvds faster in Linux as well. I didn’t want you to think setting up multi-boot my my own. I wanted to do it just to see if I could. I always customize my Windows installs but the Linux installs are MUCH easier to do and as always I always enjoy listening to each one of you folks on the show. Thanks for the great content and all your hard work that goes into each show.

  • John Wallis

Hello Leo,

I would appreciate your assistance please with the error messages arising in the attached screenshot at boot stage, before and after the hard disk encryption password is entered. I look forward to hearing from you.

Try This GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=“quiet splash pci=noacpi”
  • John Wallis Part 2

Hi Leo,

I would appreciate your guidance on systemd-udevd.service. What is it used for? Lynis has marked it as unsafe.

  • Raphaël

You guys MADE MY DAY!!!

I was having a long day at work on Thursday. Then, listening to my podcasts, the Linux Mint Podcast was on… and then the listeners questions section was like… all about me 🙂 Sorry if I made this episode longer than you like 😉

This was a great joy to hear you talking about this question. I immediately felt the need to give back to you. I’ve made a donation to archive.org on your behalf!

As for the solutions proposed:

– I just downloaded the LM20 ISO and plan on installing it soon

– I’ve tried “sudo flatpak install org.videolan.VLC” and got the error message “error: REMOTE and REF must be specified”. The correct invocation (source) is “flatpak install flathub org.videolan.VLC” (+ no sudo needed). It seems to work, I have not finished checking yet.

Keep up the good work.

  • Anthony

So I got to ask a question having to do with Foss or bust! Years ago I would use Wine to do things from Windows on linux and it worked at least sometimes. How come I don’t see that option discussed any more?

CHECK THIS OUT!

Announcements:

Our next episode will be Sunday, October 4, 2020 at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC and 8 pm British Summer Time. Time conversions are available at https://www.timeanddate.com. You can use Austin, Texas as a Central Time reference.

Wrap-up:

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

  • Owen Peery for audio editing
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our Mumble backup
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 4683 mintCast 344.5 – “Working” from Home https://mintcast.org/mintcast-344-5-working-from-home/ Wed, 30 Sep 2020 03:23:49 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4671 And finally, the feedback
Download
]]>

Download

1:38 Linux Innards
58:33 Vibrations from the Ether
1:17:19 Check This Out!
1:20:44 Outro

In our Innards section, we go over the working from home slash home-office setups we have.

And finally, the feedback

LINUX INNARDS:

“Work from Home” setup

  • Tony
    • My views of last time’s topic on Proprietary software v Open Source holding Linux back.
    • For me I’m very pragmatic about using what works, my first preference is Opensource but if there is a proprietary bit of software that would offer a better solution I would use it, and I do as I install the Nvidia drivers on my desktop PC as I have a dedicated Nvidia graphics card.
    • As for the availability of proprietary software for Linux such as Photoshop I’m not sure this is a major issue as this is a very niche package and a very small possible Linux user base making it uneconomic for Adobe to spend time creating a Linux version. Looking at industry leading software one example of Open Source leading the way is Blender, and again very few regular Linux users would even look at this let alone use it too it’s full potential, those that need this software for professional 3D rendering are already using it and probably on Linux.
  • Leo
  • Joe
    • MSI ge72 6qd with an i7-6700HQ and a gtx 960m
    • That has a 17 inch screen
    • For the second screen i have a laptop table with a 32 inch tv on it
    • The table also has a mount for my 7130 so i can do other small things when work is slow or i need to look something up
    • The table that my laptop sits on has an articulated arm for my microphone which is right now a hyperx quadcast or a samson meteor
    • Also use my Samsung Galaxy note 10 all day every day with several of my custom built lg hbs 770 headphones  along with a pair of skullcandy crushers if i want to listen to music and a modded pair of sony xb700s for when i can no longer stand the idea of using an in ear but want all day wear and a pair of 99 neos for when it has to be wired
    • Because i rely so heavily on my phone to be able to do my work i also keep my old galaxy s7 around incase something happens to the note
    • Extra wide recliner that is seeing a lot of wear and tear lately
    • Logitech k360 keyboard and m570 trackball mouse
    • ASUS AC2900 router
      • Need to be able to handle all my work stuff and all the kids school stuff
      • 300mbps connection from spectrum
    • My backup workstation in the garage
      • Ryzen 5 3600 16gb of ram rx 560
      • Two lg tvs as monitors
        • One 60 inch that i got for free because of a bad hdmi board
        • One 43 inch that i also got for free because my friend closed out his storage unit
      • Logitech g613 keyboard and m570 mouse
  • Tony H
    • So even though I am no longer working I do obviously use my PC for quite a lot of tasks as well as numerous laptops my main PC is my tower, and this is what I use for podcasting and much more.
    • So my Desktop PC setup is an:
      • HP Compaq Elite 8300 with the following specs:
        • A 2012 Intel® Core™ i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz with 4 cores and 8 threads.
        • 24Gig of DDR3 Ram
        • NVIDIA GeForce 8400 256Mb Ram
        • Generic USB keyboard and mouse
        • And a 1Tb SSD in the primary Bay of my 4 bay IcyDoc. Running Mint Maté 19.3. There are an additional 2 128Gb drives in the dock with Ubuntu Studio 20.04 and Ubuntu Maté 20.04 installed. The 4th bay is not populated because for some reason it does not recognise any drives installed despite all the cables being connected??
    • I have a ProSound USB podcast mic, that I picked up in a bankruptcy sale a few years ago for a very reasonable £12/$15 and this is mounted onto a boom arm and has a pop filter in front of the mic.
    • I also have a SriHome USB webcam that I got a couple of months ago once I could find one that would not mean remortgaging the house. This cost £31 pounds on Amazon.
    • I have 2 4TB USB3 external backup drives with plenty of room for more data at the moment, Both have 1.9Tb of free space, I should have of site backup as well but at the moment I don’t. I also have a 2TB and 1Tb portable USB3 drive for storage on the go.
    • I have 2 Laser printers, a Greyscale Brother and a recently purchased HP Color Laser 150nw, bought for printing my own decals for my models, this cost £130 of Amazon but as buying decals from online sellers can be £2-3 a set this will quickly pay for itself in the next few months. Yes Decal paper is about £1/sheet but you can print many decals on one A4 sheet so the paper is hardly a factor in the decal cost.
  • Bo
    • Work setup
      • Lenovo laptop and docking station at work
      • KVM switch at home
    • Podcasting
      • System76 Kudu
      • Zoom H6 USB interface
    • Gaming
      • Ryzen 7 build
      • Dual Booting win and Linux
  • Tony W

Will talk about my basement office/studio setup

    • 2 desks, catty corner
      • One desk holds both my podcasting/music desktop as well as my work laptop setup
      • Other desk has my server on it and also use for working on any other machines
    • Network
      • Ran wired internet into basement
    • Repurposed wifi extender as access point with DD WRT
    • Work Setup
      • Thinkpad T480
      • Thinkpad dock
      • Lenovo wireless keyboard/mouse
      • Plantronics Savi w720
    • Music/Podcasting setup – Sentimental value and stories with a lot of this gear
      • Share peripherals w/ work setup
      • Old Dell desktop
        • Video card for multiple monitor support
      • M-Audio Delta 66 soundcard (have a presonus studio 24c)
      • Behringer XM1800S microphone (I have a MXL V57M will use at some point)
      • Neewer desk mount boom arm
      • Audio-Technica M50x headphones
      • Dual monitor “Goodwill Edition” setup (sometimes use a 3rd monitor)
      • JVC stereo R-K11
      • Bose bookshelf speakers
    • Tablet
    • PC in living room: Lenovo desktop (unsure of model right now, has 4th gen i3 in it, 8GB RAM)
      • Dual boot, mostly used in Windows these days by my son for homework
      • Linux mint partition

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

  • Larry Murphy

Hello Leo & All,

I just hear episode 342.5. I wanted to let you know that way back when (early to mid 2000’s) when I wanted to multi-boot I found a You Tube that was a step-by step guide. The person had 106 OSes on his computer. The guide was very complete. I modified it for my needs. It worked for about 6 mos. Till it wouldn’t boot. Checking I found out that my downfall was updating the config files. I accepted one that was a default with the system upgrade and I needed to save the one I had filled out. It was a real nooby error.

Now I boot ALL my OSes from my bios, much easier and safer. I use a SSD for each OS, such as Windows and Linux. I only put OSes on SSD,s and data on separate internal and external drives.

I have found that Linux is quicker to install and even with ALL the customizing I do. I customize many of my folder and almost all of my desk top icons for easy identification. I have use the same icon in both Windows and Linux. I find it,s much easier in Linux because I don’t have change the pics I use to .ico files as is needed by Windows. I also find that my internet is faster in Linux as well as download speeds and I can burn dvds faster in Linux as well. I didn’t want you to think setting up multi-boot my my own. I wanted to do it just to see if I could. I always customize my Windows installs but the Linux installs are MUCH easier to do and as always I always enjoy listening to each one of you folks on the show. Thanks for the great content and all your hard work that goes into each show.

  • John Wallis

Hello Leo,

I would appreciate your assistance please with the error messages arising in the attached screenshot at boot stage, before and after the hard disk encryption password is entered. I look forward to hearing from you.

Try This GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=“quiet splash pci=noacpi”
  • John Wallis Part 2

Hi Leo,

I would appreciate your guidance on systemd-udevd.service.  What is it used for?  Lynis has marked it as unsafe.

  • Raphaël

You guys MADE MY DAY!!!

I was having a long day at work on Thursday. Then, listening to my podcasts, the Linux Mint Podcast was on… and then the listeners questions section was like… all about me 🙂 Sorry if I made this episode longer than you like 😉

This was a great joy to hear you talking about this question. I immediately felt the need to give back to you. I’ve made a donation to archive.org on your behalf!

As for the solutions proposed:

 – I just downloaded the LM20 ISO and plan on installing it soon

 – I’ve tried “sudo flatpak install org.videolan.VLC” and got the error message “error: REMOTE and REF must be specified”. The correct invocation (source) is “flatpak install flathub org.videolan.VLC” (+ no sudo needed). It seems to work, I have not finished checking yet.

Keep up the good work.

  • Anthony

So I got to ask a question having to do with Foss or bust! Years ago I would use Wine to do things from Windows on linux and it worked at least sometimes. How come I don’t see that option discussed any more?

CHECK THIS OUT!

Announcements:

Our next episode will be Sunday, October 4, 2020 at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC and 8 pm British Summer Time. Time conversions are available at https://www.timeanddate.com. You can use Austin, Texas as a Central Time reference.

Wrap-up:

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

  • Owen Peery for audio editing
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our Mumble backup
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 4671 mintCast 343.5 – FOSS or Bust (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-343-5-foss-or-bust-mp3/ Wed, 16 Sep 2020 04:08:13 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4630 And finally, the feedback and a suggestion
Download
]]>

Download

1:29 Linux Innards
38:20 Vibrations from the Ether
1:06:58 Check This Out
1:09:29 Outro

In our Innards section, NonFree vs FOSS

And finally, the feedback and a suggestion

LINUX INNARDS: 

Is insistence on FOSS limiting the growth of Linux?

  • This came up because of a recent Humble Bundle sale that had Magix offering their Sound Forge Audio Studio 13, Movie Studio 16 and a few more bits of software all for $25. It’s one version old, but still fully functional and never-expiring software.
  • The kicker: It’s proprietary, close-sourced, and Windows-only.
  • So, what’s your stance on proprietary software?
    • Leo
      • To the prompt, “no.” For Linux, as a technology, a kernel, FOSS has been the driving force of its adoption. It’s made Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, and every other major internet company out there take notice, adopt and adapt.
      • However, for Linux as a desktop, for regular folks like us, it can limit our personal growth. For instance, daVinci Resolve. It’s a full on audio video editor that is Linux native, but proprietary. It’s not wrong to decide you don’t want to use it because of its proprietary nature, but if it has features that you want, and isn’t in other tools, you’re hamstringing yourself.
      • I have a “right tool for the job” mentality. But, I do lean toward and prefer Open Source software. For instance, we use Audacity and Mumble to create the show every week, and I’m pretty proud of that. However, if it turned out that another software, Open Source or not, free or not, reduced the time required to, say, edit the show, from 5-8 hours to 2-4, I would certainly use it and encourage us all internally to try it.
      • To that end, I went ahead and bought this bundle and installed most of it on my Windows disk.
        • Sound Forge Audio Studio is actually pretty good in that you’re able to do non destructive editing and very fast. 
          • These things are important because one of the drawbacks of Audacity for me is that every compress, noise reduction and truncate silence you do is written to the disk before you ever save. And it’s HUGE. 1-4GB per audio track, and there are 4 or 5 of us on at a time. It’s write speed dependent, which means you want to do this on an SSD, not a HDD, but this puts a lot of wear on an SSD.
        • The built-in effects are… fine? It looks like I’m going to need to find a VST for everything that Audacity does out of the box.
          • These look promising:
            • https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
        • The Movie Studio software, I haven’t used much yet. But it reminds me so much of Kdenlive, which is what I’m pitting it against. I’ll report back if it’s amazing or not, but with Kdenlive’s 20.08 release… I may have a hard time making a switch.
      • We also use Google Drive, and have been pretty open about that fact for a while. It’s such a good, cross-platform, collaborative, free writing application that is so simple to use, it’s impossible to pass up, and extremely difficult to migrate away from because of the responsibility that’s put on you for alternatives.
        • Syncthing and the like are options, but aren’t instant
        • Nextcloud is an option, but it’s not without maintenance
      • To close out all my rambling, FOSS isn’t holding us back, per se, it’s more that we don’t have any killer apps that are Linux-only on the desktop. If we want that to change, we need to get on “team developer.” Buy them coffee, send them $10 for a job well done, share successes, build them up, and for those adventurous enough, become one. Because remember, we’re competing with the likes of multi-billion dollar companies.
      • Linux is different. It truly is community-based and can be so very user-driven. Let’s use the power we have to invest in our own future.
    • Moss – History Lesson
      • Corel came out with Corel Linux with WordPerfect in late 1999, back when WordPerfect was still *a* leader in the Office market. They wanted $89. They were hoping for positive feedback to improve the product; instead got screamed at by the FOSS crowd and had to pull their product. They finally pulled the Corel Open Source Development website in March 2002.
      • SoftMaker has made Office since 1987. I’ve been using it since 2008 (in Windows) and have used the Linux edition since 2012. (They even had a BSD version in 2006.) It has always been more compatible with MS Office than any of the free office packages. I filed three bugs with OpenOffice.org (2010? 2012?) having to do with MS Office compatibility which greatly impeded my ability to use OOo in my professional editing work, and was told they were not interested in fixing those bugs. I have been loyal to SoftMaker since. I have not seen LibreOffice 7, but at least two of the bugs continued to exist through the latest 6.4 version. I have mentioned on this show many times how I have taken a lot of heat and even been forced to leave discussion groups because I was not using a FOSS word processor.
      • People coming over from Windows are not willing to work without Adobe software, or AutoCAD, or similar professional software. Linux people keep saying it’s up to those companies to OPEN SOURCE it before they can use it. 
      • The only software Linux people seem to be willing to pay for is games.
      • My view is, you use FOSS first, and then look for other software when FOSS software does not meet your needs. Expecting companies to give up the way they operate just to provide a very limited userbase software they will use is closed-minded.
    • Joe
      • I tend to not stress whether an application is open source or not.  As long as it works on Linux with minimal fuss
      • I don’t think this limits the growth of Linux in any significant way.  You will always have people that think the best way to make money is to have complete control of the product.  If you disallow that type of thing then you would be discouraging the platform.  Yes, money can be made as a service, but some just don’t like that dynamic and some applications simply will not fit into that mold.
      • Also if you are going to have an environment that is open then the programmers can make whatever they choose to fit on top of it.
      • Now if something will only run in Windows or is basically unusable in Linux, I will either find an alternative or I will load up Windows long enough to run the application.  I do keep a Windows install around for those purposes.
      • If you are going to have an open platform then people can use it in any way they see fit.  Including writing proprietary code for that open platform.
      • Check out Windows 10 Ameliorated: https://ameliorated.info/
    • Tony W
      • I am not sure that insistence on FOSS is hindering Linux growth in any significant way
        • The main reason I feel this way is I think the vast majority of people that come to Linux desktop are technically savvy, will research and try things on their own.  and are presented with the options to install alongside windows,etc. They can research options for proprietary software vs FOSS and will decide for themselves with the information available to them.
        • DUAL BOOT: This option actually may keep people using Linux more because there is a safety net if something doesn’t work.
      • My stance on proprietary software: If it works and is convenient, I use it.  I do look for FOSS options first.
      • I cannot understate how much I appreciate that most FOSS is free as in beer and that it’s intended to be that way.  Donate to those projects, when you can.
      • The proprietary software/hardware I use and why:
        • Windows software 
          • Have to use Windows and Windows software for work, no choice there)
          • Boss tone studio
          • Studio One
        • Google stuff
          • Chromebook
          • Google Home/Chromecastz
          • Android, Play store, google apps
  • It’s MOSS, the Website
    • My website, which has been mentioned a few times on this podcast, is about using the best tool for the purpose and to encourage the Linux community to stop sending good software away just because the provider wants  to charge for it.  I have a few articles up on the need for, use of, and desire to increase the availability of non-FOSS software in Linux. I am always open to receiving more articles and comments. I have noticed that It’s FOSS sometimes has articles referencing non-FOSS software, and I have suggested to them that they could use my website to post those articles, thereby dodging some slings and arrows from the FOSS community. All submissions are welcome.

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER: 

  • Joseph Husak on Youtube

Joseph’s Followup Email

Tony W Response

  • TheComputerKid

Leo’s Response

Moss’ Response

  • Raphaël

Leo’s Response

sudo flatpak install org.videolan.VLC

sudo flatpak install fr.handbrake.ghb
  • John Wallis Saga

I’ve disabled avahi-daemon.  Lynis does not provide more information regarding the services.  I’m puzzled as to why hddtemp.service should be marked as unsafe.  Could we make hddtemp.service the first service to be investigated?

Leo’s Response

Here is some basic usage.

leo@maya ~ > sudo hddtemp /dev/sda

[sudo] password for leo:        

/dev/sda: ADATA SU800: 27°C

leo@maya ~> sudo hddtemp /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb: TCSUNBOW N4 240GB: 40°C

I wouldn’t worry about hddtemp much, especially if you use it with any frequency. If you don’t ever use it, it may be prudent to remove it with 

sudo apt remove hddtemp

If you want to keep it, but are worried that it is listening to its default TCP port 7634, you can run

ss -l4

and check for a line like this

Netid       State        Recv-Q    Send-Q      Local Address:Port

tcp         LISTEN       0         0           0.0.0.0:7634

If you see anything with the port 7634 in the far right there, it’s listening. If you see anything other than 0 under Recv-Q or Send-Q, it’s been talking to remote hosts!

  • Brad Alexander
  • Brad Alexander
[storm@danube ~]$ cp rsx.jpg Media

[storm@danube ~]$ cd !$

cd Media

[storm@danube Media]$

CHECK THIS OUT! 

  • Moss
    • https://itsfoss.com/best-markdown-editors-linux/

Announcements:

Our next episode will be Sunday, September 20, 2020 at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC and 8 pm British Summer Time. Time conversions are available at https://www.timeanddate.com. You can use Austin, Texas as a Central Time reference.

Wrap-up:

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

  • Owen Peery for audio editing
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our Mumble backup
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 4630 mintCast 343.5 – FOSS or Bust https://mintcast.org/mintcast-343-5-foss-or-bust/ Wed, 16 Sep 2020 03:46:43 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4618 And finally, the feedback and a suggestion
Download
]]>

Download

1:29 Linux Innards
38:20 Vibrations from the Ether
1:06:58 Check This Out
1:09:29 Outro

In our Innards section, NonFree vs FOSS

And finally, the feedback and a suggestion

LINUX INNARDS: 

Is insistence on FOSS limiting the growth of Linux?

  • This came up because of a recent Humble Bundle sale that had Magix offering their Sound Forge Audio Studio 13, Movie Studio 16 and a few more bits of software all for $25. It’s one version old, but still fully functional and never-expiring software.
  • The kicker: It’s proprietary, close-sourced, and Windows-only.
  • So, what’s your stance on proprietary software?
    • Leo
      • To the prompt, “no.” For Linux, as a technology, a kernel, FOSS has been the driving force of its adoption. It’s made Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, and every other major internet company out there take notice, adopt and adapt.
      • However, for Linux as a desktop, for regular folks like us, it can limit our personal growth. For instance, daVinci Resolve. It’s a full on audio video editor that is Linux native, but proprietary. It’s not wrong to decide you don’t want to use it because of its proprietary nature, but if it has features that you want, and isn’t in other tools, you’re hamstringing yourself.
      • I have a “right tool for the job” mentality. But, I do lean toward and prefer Open Source software. For instance, we use Audacity and Mumble to create the show every week, and I’m pretty proud of that. However, if it turned out that another software, Open Source or not, free or not, reduced the time required to, say, edit the show, from 5-8 hours to 2-4, I would certainly use it and encourage us all internally to try it.
      • To that end, I went ahead and bought this bundle and installed most of it on my Windows disk.
        • Sound Forge Audio Studio is actually pretty good in that you’re able to do non destructive editing and very fast. 
          • These things are important because one of the drawbacks of Audacity for me is that every compress, noise reduction and truncate silence you do is written to the disk before you ever save. And it’s HUGE. 1-4GB per audio track, and there are 4 or 5 of us on at a time. It’s write speed dependent, which means you want to do this on an SSD, not a HDD, but this puts a lot of wear on an SSD.
        • The built-in effects are… fine? It looks like I’m going to need to find a VST for everything that Audacity does out of the box.
          • These look promising:
            • https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
        • The Movie Studio software, I haven’t used much yet. But it reminds me so much of Kdenlive, which is what I’m pitting it against. I’ll report back if it’s amazing or not, but with Kdenlive’s 20.08 release… I may have a hard time making a switch.
      • We also use Google Drive, and have been pretty open about that fact for a while. It’s such a good, cross-platform, collaborative, free writing application that is so simple to use, it’s impossible to pass up, and extremely difficult to migrate away from because of the responsibility that’s put on you for alternatives.
        • Syncthing and the like are options, but aren’t instant
        • Nextcloud is an option, but it’s not without maintenance
      • To close out all my rambling, FOSS isn’t holding us back, per se, it’s more that we don’t have any killer apps that are Linux-only on the desktop. If we want that to change, we need to get on “team developer.” Buy them coffee, send them $10 for a job well done, share successes, build them up, and for those adventurous enough, become one. Because remember, we’re competing with the likes of multi-billion dollar companies.
      • Linux is different. It truly is community-based and can be so very user-driven. Let’s use the power we have to invest in our own future.
    • Moss – History Lesson
      • Corel came out with Corel Linux with WordPerfect in late 1999, back when WordPerfect was still *a* leader in the Office market. They wanted $89. They were hoping for positive feedback to improve the product; instead got screamed at by the FOSS crowd and had to pull their product. They finally pulled the Corel Open Source Development website in March 2002.
      • SoftMaker has made Office since 1987. I’ve been using it since 2008 (in Windows) and have used the Linux edition since 2012. (They even had a BSD version in 2006.) It has always been more compatible with MS Office than any of the free office packages. I filed three bugs with OpenOffice.org (2010? 2012?) having to do with MS Office compatibility which greatly impeded my ability to use OOo in my professional editing work, and was told they were not interested in fixing those bugs. I have been loyal to SoftMaker since. I have not seen LibreOffice 7, but at least two of the bugs continued to exist through the latest 6.4 version. I have mentioned on this show many times how I have taken a lot of heat and even been forced to leave discussion groups because I was not using a FOSS word processor.
      • People coming over from Windows are not willing to work without Adobe software, or AutoCAD, or similar professional software. Linux people keep saying it’s up to those companies to OPEN SOURCE it before they can use it. 
      • The only software Linux people seem to be willing to pay for is games.
      • My view is, you use FOSS first, and then look for other software when FOSS software does not meet your needs. Expecting companies to give up the way they operate just to provide a very limited userbase software they will use is closed-minded.
    • Joe
      • I tend to not stress whether an application is open source or not.  As long as it works on Linux with minimal fuss
      • I don’t think this limits the growth of Linux in any significant way.  You will always have people that think the best way to make money is to have complete control of the product.  If you disallow that type of thing then you would be discouraging the platform.  Yes, money can be made as a service, but some just don’t like that dynamic and some applications simply will not fit into that mold.
      • Also if you are going to have an environment that is open then the programmers can make whatever they choose to fit on top of it.
      • Now if something will only run in Windows or is basically unusable in Linux, I will either find an alternative or I will load up Windows long enough to run the application.  I do keep a Windows install around for those purposes.
      • If you are going to have an open platform then people can use it in any way they see fit.  Including writing proprietary code for that open platform.
      • Check out Windows 10 Ameliorated: https://ameliorated.info/
    • Tony W
      • I am not sure that insistence on FOSS is hindering Linux growth in any significant way
        • The main reason I feel this way is I think the vast majority of people that come to Linux desktop are technically savvy, will research and try things on their own.  and are presented with the options to install alongside windows,etc. They can research options for proprietary software vs FOSS and will decide for themselves with the information available to them.
        • DUAL BOOT: This option actually may keep people using Linux more because there is a safety net if something doesn’t work.
      • My stance on proprietary software: If it works and is convenient, I use it.  I do look for FOSS options first.
      • I cannot understate how much I appreciate that most FOSS is free as in beer and that it’s intended to be that way.  Donate to those projects, when you can.
      • The proprietary software/hardware I use and why:
        • Windows software 
          • Have to use Windows and Windows software for work, no choice there)
          • Boss tone studio
          • Studio One
        • Google stuff
          • Chromebook
          • Google Home/Chromecastz
          • Android, Play store, google apps
  • It’s MOSS, the Website
    • My website, which has been mentioned a few times on this podcast, is about using the best tool for the purpose and to encourage the Linux community to stop sending good software away just because the provider wants  to charge for it.  I have a few articles up on the need for, use of, and desire to increase the availability of non-FOSS software in Linux. I am always open to receiving more articles and comments. I have noticed that It’s FOSS sometimes has articles referencing non-FOSS software, and I have suggested to them that they could use my website to post those articles, thereby dodging some slings and arrows from the FOSS community. All submissions are welcome.

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER: 

  • Joseph Husak on Youtube

Joseph’s Followup Email

Tony W Response

  • TheComputerKid

Leo’s Response

Moss’ Response

  • Raphaël

Leo’s Response

sudo flatpak install org.videolan.VLC

sudo flatpak install fr.handbrake.ghb
  • John Wallis Saga

I’ve disabled avahi-daemon.  Lynis does not provide more information regarding the services.  I’m puzzled as to why hddtemp.service should be marked as unsafe.  Could we make hddtemp.service the first service to be investigated?

Leo’s Response

Here is some basic usage.

leo@maya ~ > sudo hddtemp /dev/sda

[sudo] password for leo:        

/dev/sda: ADATA SU800: 27°C

leo@maya ~> sudo hddtemp /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb: TCSUNBOW N4 240GB: 40°C

I wouldn’t worry about hddtemp much, especially if you use it with any frequency. If you don’t ever use it, it may be prudent to remove it with 

sudo apt remove hddtemp

If you want to keep it, but are worried that it is listening to its default TCP port 7634, you can run

ss -l4

and check for a line like this

Netid       State        Recv-Q    Send-Q      Local Address:Port

tcp         LISTEN       0         0           0.0.0.0:7634

If you see anything with the port 7634 in the far right there, it’s listening. If you see anything other than 0 under Recv-Q or Send-Q, it’s been talking to remote hosts!

  • Brad Alexander 
  • Brad Alexander
[storm@danube ~]$ cp rsx.jpg Media

[storm@danube ~]$ cd !$

cd Media

[storm@danube Media]$

CHECK THIS OUT! 

  • Moss
    • https://itsfoss.com/best-markdown-editors-linux/

Announcements:

Our next episode will be Sunday, September 20, 2020 at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC and 8 pm British Summer Time. Time conversions are available at https://www.timeanddate.com. You can use Austin, Texas as a Central Time reference.

Wrap-up:

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

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

]]> full 4618 mintCast 340.5 – Will It Blend? https://mintcast.org/mintcast-340-5-will-it-blend/ Wed, 05 Aug 2020 04:33:42 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4554 And finally, the feedback and a few suggestions.
Download
]]>

Download

1:41 Interview with Jason van Gumster
1:01:48 Feedback
1:11:03 Check This Out
1:15:27 Outro

In our Innards section, we become blender experts with Jason van Gumster’s help.

And finally, the feedback and a few suggestions.

LINUX INNARDS

Jason van Gumster

  • Tell us who you are and why we wanted you here.
  • What was your first Linux experience?
  • What was the very first Linux distro you ran?
  • What’s a typical workflow for you entail?
  • Why/Why not Linux Mint?
  • Does Linux do everything you need in a system?
  • Do you do any Linux Gaming?
  • What was your motivation for writing books about Blender?
    • Is it something you just fell into or someone asked you to do?
    • How long had you been a user before writing?
    • Who published it and how did you connect? 
  • Blender is hard (as is most of 3D)… what’s the easiest way to get started with it?
  • Is there any piece of Linux and open source software, other than a browser, you could not live without?
  • Other things that might be fun to talk about:
    • Video editing?
    • Getting more artists/creatives to use Linux
      • https://blenderartists.org/top
    • 3D printing in general
    • Animation… both the production of it and enjoying watching it
    • I will totally nerd off about version control (and why creatives should use it, too… not just programmers) if you’re not careful
      • Preference on version control tools
    • Writing books on and about Linux and OSS

Listener question (Joussef Jouda): My question is: The animation playback in viewport in Blender is slow. What is your workaround to view it in realtime?
Follow up: Have you tried Eevee in Blender?

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER

  •  Enrique Pizana
  •  Jack

“VisiData is a free, open-source tool that lets you quickly open, explore, summarize, and analyze datasets in your computer’s terminal. VisiData works with CSV files, Excel spreadsheets, SQL databases, and many other data sources.”

https://www.visidata.org/

and the tutorial is at: https://jsvine.github.io/intro-to-visidata/

A Follow Up by Jack

Leo’s Follow Up

  • Cody

https://git.sr.ht/~_dev_fra/hwrc-proton-launcher/blob/master/hwrc-proton-launcher. 

  • Henrik Hemrin
  • Alexander

Leo’s Response

  • John Wallis 

CHECK THIS OUT

Announcements:

The next show will be Sunday, the 9th of August 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 4554 mintCast 158: Foss – Doomed or Dominating? https://mintcast.org/mintcast-158-foss-doomed-or-dominating/ Thu, 02 May 2013 13:06:49 +0000 http://www.mintcast.org/?p=2435 Listen: mintcast158.mp3 or mintcast158.ogg

News:

  • Ubuntu 13.04 is released, while 13.10 gets a name. (LinuxUser.co.uk)
  • Originally thought to be assured passage, CISPA dies in the US Senate. (FossForce.com)
  • MariaDB merges with SkySQL. (ZDNet.com)
  • Fuduntu Done Now, All Hail FuSE. (OStatic.com)
  • Announcing Outreach Program for Women Internships for the Linux Kernel. (Linux.com)
  • Left 4 Dead 2 public beta coming next week, will include Linux version of game. (Polygon.com)

The Main Topic:

Tip:

  • How to install .sh and .bin files on Linux Mint – shamelessly stolen from Tim Lawless over at the Linux Mint G+ community. (Link )

More Information:

Hosts:: Rob, Scott, James

Live Stream (Mondays at 8:00 p.m. Eastern): mintcast.org

Contact Us:

More Linux Mint info: website, blog, forums, community

Credits: Podcast Entry and exit music provided by Mark Blasco (podcastthemes.com). The podcast’s bumpers were provided by Oscar.

]]> 2435