Kdenlive – mintCast https://mintcast.org The podcast by the Linux Mint community for all users of Linux Sat, 04 Jun 2022 19:37:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1 https://mintcast.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/cropped-small-logo-32x32.png Kdenlive – mintCast https://mintcast.org 32 32 164426984 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!
]]> 5435 368.5 – Pi and Coffee https://mintcast.org/368-5-pi-and-coffee/ Wed, 01 Sep 2021 07:04:00 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5190 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Download
]]> 1:59 Linux Innards
48:03 Vibrations from the Ether
55:26 Check This Out
59:19 Announcements & Outro

In our Innards section, Pi’s Pi’s and more Pi’s

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

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

Linux Innards

  • Joe
  • Leo
    • Wireguard
      • Using fast.com
      • VM 1gbps – Wireguard 45mbps, Local Only 140mbps
      • Raspberry Pi 1gbps (300mbps effective) – Wireguard 30mbps (but took quite a while to ramp up), Local Only 65mbps
        • Generate keys with wg genkey | tee privkey | wg pubkey > pubkey
        • nano /etc/wireguard/wg0.conf
          • Set Private Key, Address, Listening port and iptables rules for the setup and tear down
          • Add client pubkey and the address it’s allowed to use
        • /etc/sysctl.conf
          • Uncomment net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
        • Bring it Up: sudo wg-quick up wg0
        • Bring it Down: sudo wg-quick down wg0
    • FreshRSS
    • Gitea

Vibrations from the Ether

  • Brad
  • Jeff
  • Hilander

Check This Out

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • Owen Peery for our audio editing, Josh Lowe for all his work on the website, Hobstar for our logo, 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!>
]]> 5190 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.
]]> 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.
]]> 4588 mintCast 332.5 – Debian Mojito https://mintcast.org/mintcast-332-5-debian-mojito/ Wed, 15 Apr 2020 05:32:17 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4347 And finally, our listener feedback and a few suggestions.
Download
]]>

Download

In our Innards section, we talk about our experiences with LMDE4!

And finally, our listener feedback and a few suggestions.

LINUX INNARDS: 

LMDE4

  • Tony H
    • So I installed LMDE4 a couple of hours after it went RC onto my Dell E7440, after the install the Laptop could not see anything, I installed it 3 times with the same result on this laptop, the third time around I installed Mint 19.3 as a dual boot to see if that would get a grub install and a working boot menu and it did. This issue was replicated on a Dell E6540 but on my Lenovo X230i the install worked perfectly. On last night’s BDLL it was mentioned that someone else had an issue with it not flagging the drive as a boot drive, and they went in with a live disc again and were able to fix the flag issue and all was well, so it could be that this was the issue all along.
    • Post installation you have a welcome menu with the option to install the proprietary codecs that Debian does not install so the Mint devs give the option to install these, which I did. I also installed the software that I use regularly for recording the show and a little photo editing. Also the Zoom client which has become even more of an essential application with all that is happening in the world at the moment, I now use it several times a week for various reasons and joined my worship community using it this morning. 
    • It’s worth noting that while all the software I needed was available in the Debian repositories it is several versions behind the current releases apart from things like Firefox which are classed as security updates. LibreOffice is on the 6.1.7 branch and the current cutting edge DEB file is 6.4.2.
    • So I have been running it for 16 days or so and I have found it rock solid, I have no fancy graphics on my laptop so the latest graphics drivers are not an issue for me but I understand from others that you can get most cards to work with a little tweaking and delving into the system. Stability is great and none of the few updates that have come through have done anything to compromise that. I have been using the LMDE4 laptop as my daily driver for my portable computing needs and a little more and I would be very happy to continue to use this if the main Mint branch went away due to the demise of Ubuntu.          
  • Tony W
    • I ran it in a VM, don’t have a lot to say.  It was Linux Mint
    • I only gave it 2GB of RAM and it ran just fine
    • I did notice the standard responsibility greeting when using apt install which isn’t present in standard Linux Mint
  • Joe
    • I have installed and used it on a VM.  Have to say at first glance it is very much like mint.  X2go loaded right up from the repos and worked fine for the client
    • Used 4gb of ram and only one processor and it still ran very smooth.
    • Docker did not load from the repos.  I will have to look and see if instructions exist.  
    • Snapd did install and run which is a big benefit.
  • Leo
    • Had only one issue during installation. Unfortunately, if someone greener than me would have run into it, I believe it may have been fatal. That is, of course, unless that person had a friend that had a little experience in Linux and partitioning. Or, ya know, joins our Telegram or Discord.
      • Letting the installer deal with partitioning led to it telling me that the partitions weren’t able to be written and to reboot and try again.
      • No amount of reboots seemed to fix the issue, and manual partitioning with the built in GParted editor was the real fix. Created a root and a swap, moved on, and the installer didn’t skip a beat after that.
      • I suspect this may have had something to do with installing it on what is essentially a MMC card. Or, at least, that’s what it shows up as in lsblk.
    • Great as a neverchanging workhorse.
    • Installed just about everything as a Flatpak

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:
We have so much feedback this go-around, we had to skip a few. We’ll hit the ones we missed in the next episode!

  • Discussion re: EFI and Grub between Londoner and Moss on Distrohoppers’ Digest Telegram group

More info on configuring rEFInd can be found at https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/configfile.html under the heading “Hiding and Displaying EFI Boot Loaders”. This page also tells you how to change the icons used.

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=315043 “GRUB CUSTOMIZER should be default”

I have a lot I have learned since this, but it got me started on a good track. I will be back next episode with a summation of my findings. – Moss

CHECK THIS OUT!

Announcements: 

  • Our next episode will be at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC, April 19, 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.
]]> 4347 mintCast 332.5 – Debian Mojito (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-332-5-debian-mojito-mp3/ Wed, 15 Apr 2020 05:32:15 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4345 And finally, our listener feedback and a few suggestions.
Download
]]>

Download

In our Innards section, we talk about our experiences with LMDE4!

And finally, our listener feedback and a few suggestions.

LINUX INNARDS: 

LMDE4

  • Tony H
    • So I installed LMDE4 a couple of hours after it went RC onto my Dell E7440, after the install the Laptop could not see anything, I installed it 3 times with the same result on this laptop, the third time around I installed Mint 19.3 as a dual boot to see if that would get a grub install and a working boot menu and it did. This issue was replicated on a Dell E6540 but on my Lenovo X230i the install worked perfectly. On last night’s BDLL it was mentioned that someone else had an issue with it not flagging the drive as a boot drive, and they went in with a live disc again and were able to fix the flag issue and all was well, so it could be that this was the issue all along.
    • Post installation you have a welcome menu with the option to install the proprietary codecs that Debian does not install so the Mint devs give the option to install these, which I did. I also installed the software that I use regularly for recording the show and a little photo editing. Also the Zoom client which has become even more of an essential application with all that is happening in the world at the moment, I now use it several times a week for various reasons and joined my worship community using it this morning. 
    • It’s worth noting that while all the software I needed was available in the Debian repositories it is several versions behind the current releases apart from things like Firefox which are classed as security updates. LibreOffice is on the 6.1.7 branch and the current cutting edge DEB file is 6.4.2.
    • So I have been running it for 16 days or so and I have found it rock solid, I have no fancy graphics on my laptop so the latest graphics drivers are not an issue for me but I understand from others that you can get most cards to work with a little tweaking and delving into the system. Stability is great and none of the few updates that have come through have done anything to compromise that. I have been using the LMDE4 laptop as my daily driver for my portable computing needs and a little more and I would be very happy to continue to use this if the main Mint branch went away due to the demise of Ubuntu.          
  • Tony W
    • I ran it in a VM, don’t have a lot to say.  It was Linux Mint
    • I only gave it 2GB of RAM and it ran just fine
    • I did notice the standard responsibility greeting when using apt install which isn’t present in standard Linux Mint
  • Joe
    • I have installed and used it on a VM.  Have to say at first glance it is very much like mint.  X2go loaded right up from the repos and worked fine for the client
    • Used 4gb of ram and only one processor and it still ran very smooth.
    • Docker did not load from the repos.  I will have to look and see if instructions exist.  
    • Snapd did install and run which is a big benefit.
  • Leo
    • Had only one issue during installation. Unfortunately, if someone greener than me would have run into it, I believe it may have been fatal. That is, of course, unless that person had a friend that had a little experience in Linux and partitioning. Or, ya know, joins our Telegram or Discord.
      • Letting the installer deal with partitioning led to it telling me that the partitions weren’t able to be written and to reboot and try again.
      • No amount of reboots seemed to fix the issue, and manual partitioning with the built in GParted editor was the real fix. Created a root and a swap, moved on, and the installer didn’t skip a beat after that.
      • I suspect this may have had something to do with installing it on what is essentially a MMC card. Or, at least, that’s what it shows up as in lsblk.
    • Great as a neverchanging workhorse.
    • Installed just about everything as a Flatpak

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:
We have so much feedback this go-around, we had to skip a few. We’ll hit the ones we missed in the next episode!

  • Discussion re: EFI and Grub between Londoner and Moss on Distrohoppers’ Digest Telegram group

More info on configuring rEFInd can be found at https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/configfile.html under the heading “Hiding and Displaying EFI Boot Loaders”. This page also tells you how to change the icons used.

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=315043 “GRUB CUSTOMIZER should be default”

I have a lot I have learned since this, but it got me started on a good track. I will be back next episode with a summation of my findings. – Moss

CHECK THIS OUT!

Announcements: 

  • Our next episode will be at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC, April 19, 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.
]]> 4345 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!)
]]> 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!)
]]> 4150 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!)
]]> 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!)
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