Python – mintCast https://mintcast.org The podcast by the Linux Mint community for all users of Linux Fri, 26 Aug 2022 15:26:03 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1 https://mintcast.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/cropped-small-logo-32x32.png Python – mintCast https://mintcast.org 32 32 164426984 394 – With music on our side to break the old hard drives https://mintcast.org/394-with-music-on-our-side-to-break-the-old-hard-drives/ Fri, 26 Aug 2022 15:20:07 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5598 In security and privacy, Discord and your passwords are pythoned, and hard drives apparently have a taste in music
Then in our Wanderings, Joe plays with his handheld, Bill is setting up a new server, Moss skips the assault and gets a couple batteries, and Norbert has had done some things.
Download
]]> 1:25 The News
16:15 Security and Privacy
26:03 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
1:22:59 Housekeeping and Announcements

First up in the news, The Kernel gets a bump, LibreOffice adds a point, Android 13 is out if you have a Pixel, and Gnome has a birthday,

In security and privacy, Discord and your passwords are pythoned, and hard drives apparently have a taste in music

Then in our Wanderings, Joe plays with his handheld, Bill is setting up a new server, Moss skips the assault and gets a couple batteries, and Norbert has had done some things.

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

The News

Security and Privacy Update

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • Norbert, Londoner, Tony H, and all others for our audio editing
  • Leo for timestamps and publishing
  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • Londoner for our time sync
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our backup Mumble room
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.Thanks, Clem!
]]> 5598 mintCast 350 – Rocky Road Ahead (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-350-rocky-road-ahead-mp3/ Thu, 17 Dec 2020 05:12:09 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4820 Then in the news, We have the latest Mint newsletter, Cinnamon 4.8 arrives, Elementary OS goes Pi, and much more  
In security, we shed some light on Oblivious DNS over HTTPS
Download
]]> Download

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

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

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

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

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

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

THE NEWS: 

SECURITY UPDATE:

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

Announcements:

Wrap-up:

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

  • Owen Peery for our audio editing, Josh Lowe for all his work on the website, Hobstar for our logo, and Londoner for our time sync
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our backup Mumble room
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> 4820 mintCast 350 – Rocky Road Ahead https://mintcast.org/mintcast-350-rocky-road-ahead/ Thu, 17 Dec 2020 04:57:24 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4814 Then in the news, We have the latest Mint newsletter, Cinnamon 4.8 arrives, Elementary OS goes Pi, and much more  
In security, we shed some light on Oblivious DNS over HTTPS
Download
]]> Download

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

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

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

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

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

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

THE NEWS: 

SECURITY UPDATE:

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

Announcements:

Wrap-up:

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

  • Owen Peery for our audio editing, Josh Lowe for all his work on the website, Hobstar for our logo, and Londoner for our time sync
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our backup Mumble room
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> 4814 mintCast 329 – fish Pi and Wine https://mintcast.org/mintcast-329-fish-pi-and-wine/ Wed, 26 Feb 2020 06:30:41 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4241 Then in our news, Python 2 is dying, a new kernel is in the works, ElementaryOS is getting devs paid, and more.
In security, we talk more Firefox woes.
Download
]]>

Download

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

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

In security, we talk more Firefox woes.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings:

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

The News:

Security Update:

Announcements:

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

Wrap-up:

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

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

Download

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

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

In security, we talk more Firefox woes.

Bi-Weekly Wanderings:

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

The News:

Security Update:

Announcements:

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

Wrap-up:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> 4239 mintCast 324 – Attack of the Releases https://mintcast.org/mintcast-324-attack-of-the-releases/ Wed, 18 Dec 2019 17:35:23 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4060 Then, in our news, Linux Mint 19.3 is almost here, Canonical has been very busy, New elementaryOS and Firefox, and more
In security, two Linux vulnerabilities and a takeover of PIA goes weird
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Leo suffers from new computer ills, Tony Hughes works on his cars, Moss fiddles with more distros, it’s reading and repairs for Joe, Tony Watts is rockin’ it, and Josh goes mad and gets an iPhone.

Then, in our news, Linux Mint 19.3 is almost here, Canonical has been very busy, New elementaryOS and Firefox, and more

In security, two Linux vulnerabilities and a takeover of PIA goes weird

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Finally saved up and got the 5700XT I’ve been drooling over for months.
      • Works great in Windows
      • Not so much in Linux Mint. There was some really bad mouse stutter that really impacted desktop performance and made most games unplayable. I was on the latest development Mesa, version 20, but Kernel 5.3.
      • Had a Manjaro Gnome install that I knew was on a later kernel (5.4.2), and 5.4 had some Navi improvements that affected my card. Tried it, and the desktop was smooth, however, nothing I tried would let me play games. They would freeze and never recover. It was so bad that I couldn’t even hop to a new TTY.
      • Installed UKUU on Mint and upgraded to 5.4.2. Mint wins again.
    • While I was troubleshooting, and using Windows to play games, I couldn’t get over how much my workflow was tied to Linux. I’m glad to be back on Mint.
    • Got the wife a new AData SU800 512GB SSD and she gets my hand-me-down Radeon 380x. Both will be a nice upgrade for her.
  • Tony H 
    • Recorded Distrohoppers with Moss, and this went well.
    • Continuing to play with my diecast models and a few more were delivered this week, some of which were in quite good condition for their age so will be added to the display collection until something better comes along. I restored a Matchbox No. 5c Routemaster London Bus this week and just need to add the advertising decals, which I don’t currently have. I am planning to make my own but need both the decal paper and a colour inkjet or laser printer but as a set of decals for one model can be between £2-3 in the long run it will be cheaper to make my own and I could probably make some for sale as well.
    • I also got a portable spray booth and Airbrush with a mini compressor as Birthday gifts this week, I’ve set up the spray booth in my office/workshop in the spare bedroom and plan to test it out next week before heading up to Scotland until Xmas eve to visit my step son and brother in law.
    • Having new UPVC windows fitted to my garage in preparation for turning it into the Makerspace Workshop. When we lost our last venue we lost the ability to use the Laser cutter and 3D printer as we can not install these at our current meeting venue of one of our local libraries.
    • Joined the BDLL Euro show last night.     
  • Moss 
    • We had a great Episode 008 for Distrohoppers’ Digest, available now at your favorite podcatcher or from our website, http://distrohoppersdigest.blogspot.com. This will be our last one for the year, and our next episode will be more laid back, although I’ve already installed KDE neon on my test machine.
    • I attempted to install Haiku OS on my Kudu, but learned it does not install to UEFI, so I broke out the still-unposted IdeaPad 110. I got to a certain point, and ran into informational vacuum, needing to know how to prepare the partition. I did get a nice response from the team, but have not been able to get back to it.  I learned a lot just getting that far, and maybe I’ll go on from there soon.
    • I attempted to install  Peppermint OS 10 to my test laptop. The partitioning failed. The installer crashed the second try. I reinstalled KDE neon.
    • Sabayon was refusing to load the desktop lately. I could not log in as my username, but logging in as root got me a full-screen terminal. I posted the issue to the Sabayon forum and got a quick reply. Stating that I needed to reload lightdm, with instructions as to how. That worked. As I doubt any of our listeners are running Sabayon, I won’t post the commands I used to fix the issue.
    • I did some Timeshift backups today. I keep infrequent backups of everything except Sabayon (haven’t figured out how to load Timeshift through Entropy). As part of my efforts today, I learned that my Galago Pro identifies the external backup drive as sdb, and then finds I don’t have an sdb5, which is where my Linux Mint is installed (Pearl on sdb3). So I need to keep it unplugged until after boot, or I can’t boot to either Mint or Pearl. Odd that it isn’t identified as sdcX…
    • I had a pretty good birthday, with a pleasant gift from my mother and a lot of good wishes, plus extra hours being offered at work. I have stopped looking for work, with only one possible job not yet offered. Also, a great Thanksgiving and even a Holiday Party, with my friends at the Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Education Center in Liberty Hill, TN. My wife and I feel we have found a new family.
    • And I received a donation from one of our listeners, David Lindberg. Thank you, David!  I purchased some much-needed USB-C cables.
  • Joe
    • Finished relistening to the Dresden files.  Love that series. Can’t recommend enough to everyone
      • Very well read
      • Good long series that takes some time to get through even at 4x
      • Too long since the last one but the author has had to work through a lot of issues and from what I understand the wait should not be long now.
    • Also went through the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony
      • This is a very convoluted series where all the books are very intertwined
      • Well read and well written
    • Need to catch up on Rick and Morty new season.
    • Behind on all the tv shows.
    • Bought some LG HBS 510’s 
      • Kinda old school
      • ordered 4 for 15 dollars
      • 1 no power show fully charged
      • Battery is working fine.  Can’t find a problem with the switch.  could check all the wires across for continuity.  But won’t. need the extra parts anyway
      • One of the sides went on another set
      • 1 neither side works but connects and pause play works
        • This will probably just require shortening of the cables
      • 1 left side out 
        • obvious, the casing was cracked around the earpiece and I could see that one of the connections was off.  soldered back on and glued the casing together with jb weld. It works great may go back and fill the hole with JB Weld 
      • 1 right side out, as in it is not there.  Another cracked casing but the speaker fell off
        • Was able to take one side from the one that wont turn on and swap it in.  now it just plain works
      • Should be able to fix 3.   
      • had extra glue so also glued one of the 820s with a broken band.
        • But it did not hold very well even after a couple of days worth of drying
      • The 510s are smaller and have fewer buttons than most of the ones that I have worked with but are still usable.  the sound is not terrible and they are not too difficult to work on. a single large mic that will require more testing.  Battery life is middling. the materials are a bit flimsy considering some of the fixes that I had to put in but they are also the lightest neckband headset I have used.  No one has complained about the call quality and I have not had any issue on my side of a call. the simplistic controls do take a bit of getting used to, especially when I am still switching amongst other headsets with a more standard setup.
    • Ordered another Dell Venue 7130 for 40 dollars.  Don’t know much about it yet other than it is missing the M.2 hard drive.  But it is the i5 version so it is either 4 or 8gb version.  
      • I have extra drives for it
      • Will find out if it has a good battery
      • And a good charging port
      • But there are 2 charging ports so if the usb one is bad I may have to either buy a dock or one of the high powered ones that use the same port
      • If I get it working I will either turn around and sell it or give it to one of my kids.
    • Fixed my dad’s old Toshiba Satellite L755-S5110
      • It had this problem where during startup it would get past the splash screen and start beeping horrendously
      • Figured it was the ram so I pulled the ram sticks one at a time and tested with less ram and known good ram still the same issue
      • So I removed the keyboard and started it up.  Worked fine.
      • Tested rehooking the keyboard while it was booted and it is always triggering some keys.
      • May order a new keyboard or may just use it as a settop box.
      • Second gen core i3 but still usable.  
      • Does need a new battery
      • But other than that, it would cost 20 dollars, 13 for the keyboard and 7 for the power supply to have a working laptop
      • Like 12 dollars for a battery.
    • Also was having a problem with my garage computer randomly shutting off.
      • Hard to isolate the problem because days could go by without it happening
      • After much testing of peripherals to find the issue I discovered that it was a problem with my Thinkpad USB 3.0 docking station
      • So I am looking for a decent low cost powered replacement (probably a couple of them) 
      • Preferably 7 ports and sub 10 dollars but I am not finding anything that fits the bill. 
    • Bought a Samsung gear fit2
      • Not sure how much I like it.
      • Heart rate is iffy 
      • Step count I will have to track more
  • Tony W
    • Busy as ever with music.  
      • Formed a band of my colleagues at the office and we played at the company holiday party.  It was a resounding success.  
      • Speaking of holiday party… will be doing to my wife’s work party toward end of our show, may have to drop a bit early
      • Also solo gigs, rock band, church band…
    • Mobile recording setup:
      • Dell 7130
      • Presonus Audiobox USB
        • Metal – built like a tank
        • Works out of the box with Linux, no problems whatsoever
        • Very light and portable
        • Power draws from USB – no power plug required
      • Unidirectional microphone (Either my Behringer or a borrowed Shure SM58 – doesn’t seem to be a dramatic difference)
        • I use a unidirectional mic to avoid picking up noise in my house (space heater and server right next to me, not to mention anything else in the rest of the house, kids, dogs…)
    • Dell 7130
      • Spent more time with the machine after it being a bit idle for a while.  I tend to spend a lot of time *obsessively* getting things to work like I want, and then walk away from them after that is accomplished.
      • Batteries in both tablet and keyboard actually seem to be in pretty good shape.  Linux mint indicates keyboard will last nearly 3 hours and the tablet about 7.5 hrs (have not tested this, no idea if will actually get that much, but so far can confirm the keyboard will last 2+ hrs charging the tablet)
      • Keyboard is very glitchy.  Have to dock multiple times before the tablet will recognize keyboard/touchpad (even though battery display seems to update every time)
      • Ordered a tablet keyboard cover, maybe less issues.  Will report back on that
    • New work laptop
      • Old: Dell E6430
        • I used that laptop for 7+ years.  IT dept delayed in replacing it as it was up to spec after various upgrades
        • Processor 3rd gen i7, 8GB Ram, 500GB SSD, new battery…
        • Replaced due to touchpad button issues (may have been a Windows only problem)
      • New: Thinkpad T480.  Great machine
        • I7 model
        • I will need a USB C dock now, for working at home
  • Josh
    • Finished my mock exams (finally) after two weeks. Sorry for the absence but they say school comes first (whatever that means).
    • Released Issue 6 of micro:mag, our most popular issue yet where we got 2000 readers in the first 48 hours.
    • Got myself some 8BitDo Bluetooth Stereo Speakers after winning a gift card during a Black Friday competition. Really good for the price and work well with Linux.
    • Last time I was on the show, I was having some trouble with Google after my Pixel 3 got RMAed.
      • 3 Months of battling with them
      • Support engineers cut me off the phone a few times
      • They can’t contact the refunds team
      • Google support is the worst
      • I really don’t want to be negative, but this has happened to many other customers too
      • We contacted the retailer where I got the phone from, John Lewis, who refunded me after trying Google support from themselves and seeing how bad it was.
    • I ended up getting the iPhone 11 Pro on a really good contract with o2 here in the UK after putting some of the refund money towards it.
      • iOS is really nice
      • Camera is incredible, especially the 4k60 video
      • Smooth performance
      • 2 Day Battery life
      • Apple devices are still too expensive and i’d never buy one outright but luckily thanks to a mix of Black Friday deals and putting a bit of money upfront from what I did have. 

THE NEWS: 

  • Linux Mint 19.3 Images Being Tested
    • Images showed up on Friday, marked as testing. Release is imminent!
  • Canonical announces Ubuntu Pro for AWS
    • These images, for a little extra money, provide 10 years of support, Kernel Livepatching, Compliance profiles for things like HIPAA and PCI, and AWS Security integration.
  • Ubuntu AWS Will Use A Rolling Kernel
    • For non Ubuntu Pro instances, you’ll still be getting some goodies.
    • The rolling kernel is the typical hardware enablement kernel with AWS features built in, and all 18.04 instances will be upgraded to 5.0 from 4.15 by default.
    • You can test early to be sure things will work
      • sudo apt install linux-aws-edge
    • Or you can force your instances to stay on 4.15.
      • sudo apt install linux-aws-lts-18.04
  • Canonical Becomes Feature Sponsor for WSLConf
    • Hayden Barnes, Developer Advocate, Ubuntu on WSL, Canonical
  • Nginx offices raided for copyright dispute with Rambler (Moss)
  • Open Source Music Notations Software Musescore 3.3 Released! (Tony W)
    • For playing, printing and creating sheet music
    • Free but can use either a free or premium account for sharing with Musescore community
  • elementary OS 5.1 Hera
    • A new Greeter and first-install process
    • Flatpak Support
    • Accessibility being treated as normal options rather than things shoved away into a corner.
    • Ubuntu’s HWE 5.0 Kernel.
    • Some app improvements
    • If you’re upgrading from Juno, you won’t get the new kernel automatically. For that, run:
      • sudo apt install –install-recommends linux-generic-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-hwe-18.04
  • Firefox 71
    • Picture in Picture for videos! (Windows only for now. Linux and Mac in Firefox 72)
    • Native MP3 decoding on Windows, Linux, and macOS
    • More visible tracking protection
    • Improvements to Lockwise
    • Kiosk mode
  • Zorin OS 15.1 released (Moss)
  • Ubuntu Cinnamon first release (not official flavor yet)
  • MS Teams Is Now On Linux (second link)
  • Mac Pro is here (Josh)
    • Probably one of the most powerful consumer computers out there
    • Comes with a price for the top spec – $52,748.00
      • 2.5GHz 28‑core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz
      • 1.5TB (12x128GB) of DDR4 ECC memory
      • Two Radeon Pro Vega II Duo with 2x32GB of HBM2 memory each
      • 4TB SSD storage
      • Apple Afterburner card
      • Stainless steel frame with wheels
      • Magic Mouse 2 + Magic Trackpad 2
      • Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad – US English
    • Base spec is $6,000 which is very expensive for what you get
      • 3.5GHz 8‑core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.0GHz
      • 32GB (4x8GB) of DDR4 ECC memory
      • Radeon Pro 580X with 8GB of GDDR5 memory
      • 256GB SSD storage
      • Stainless steel frame with feet
      • Magic Mouse 2
      • Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad – US English

SECURITY UPDATE: 

  • <Moss>Remember the PIA purchase by Kape Technologies? Kape is a renamed malware company owned by a former Israeli spy (not from right wing sources)
  • New Linux Vulnerability Lets Attackers Hijack VPN Connections
    • Very in depth, but the short and sweet of it is that using this vulnerability allows an attacker to inject packets regardless of encryption.
    • People with a version of systemd released after Nov 28th, 2019 are affected. However, more distributions that aren’t on systemd are affected: Devuan, Void, FreeBSD.
    • A temporary fix would be to block bogon IP addresses. Essentially bogus or fake IPs. See: https://ipinfo.io/bogon 
  • Two malicious Python scripts caught stealing SSH and GPG keys
    • A result of typosquatting. Essentially naming libraries visually similar to confuse people into using the library.
    • Python3-dateutil was spoofing dateutil
    • JeIlyfish (the first l is replaced with a capital I) was spoofing Jellyfish. The spoofed JeIlyfish libraries were where the malicious code resided, and python3-dateutil would call the malicious JeIlyfish library.

Once the libraries are used, keys are sent to xxx://68.183.212.246:32258

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • Next Episode will be December 29, 2019, 2pm Central US time.

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!)
]]> 4060 mintCast 324 – Attack of the Releases (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-324-attack-of-the-releases-mp3/ Wed, 18 Dec 2019 17:35:14 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4055 Then, in our news, Linux Mint 19.3 is almost here, Canonical has been very busy, New elementaryOS and Firefox, and more
In security, two Linux vulnerabilities and a takeover of PIA goes weird
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Leo suffers from new computer ills, Tony Hughes works on his cars, Moss fiddles with more distros, it’s reading and repairs for Joe, Tony Watts is rockin’ it, and Josh goes mad and gets an iPhone.

Then, in our news, Linux Mint 19.3 is almost here, Canonical has been very busy, New elementaryOS and Firefox, and more

In security, two Linux vulnerabilities and a takeover of PIA goes weird

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Finally saved up and got the 5700XT I’ve been drooling over for months.
      • Works great in Windows
      • Not so much in Linux Mint. There was some really bad mouse stutter that really impacted desktop performance and made most games unplayable. I was on the latest development Mesa, version 20, but Kernel 5.3.
      • Had a Manjaro Gnome install that I knew was on a later kernel (5.4.2), and 5.4 had some Navi improvements that affected my card. Tried it, and the desktop was smooth, however, nothing I tried would let me play games. They would freeze and never recover. It was so bad that I couldn’t even hop to a new TTY.
      • Installed UKUU on Mint and upgraded to 5.4.2. Mint wins again.
    • While I was troubleshooting, and using Windows to play games, I couldn’t get over how much my workflow was tied to Linux. I’m glad to be back on Mint.
    • Got the wife a new AData SU800 512GB SSD and she gets my hand-me-down Radeon 380x. Both will be a nice upgrade for her.
  • Tony H 
    • Recorded Distrohoppers with Moss, and this went well.
    • Continuing to play with my diecast models and a few more were delivered this week, some of which were in quite good condition for their age so will be added to the display collection until something better comes along. I restored a Matchbox No. 5c Routemaster London Bus this week and just need to add the advertising decals, which I don’t currently have. I am planning to make my own but need both the decal paper and a colour inkjet or laser printer but as a set of decals for one model can be between £2-3 in the long run it will be cheaper to make my own and I could probably make some for sale as well.
    • I also got a portable spray booth and Airbrush with a mini compressor as Birthday gifts this week, I’ve set up the spray booth in my office/workshop in the spare bedroom and plan to test it out next week before heading up to Scotland until Xmas eve to visit my step son and brother in law.
    • Having new UPVC windows fitted to my garage in preparation for turning it into the Makerspace Workshop. When we lost our last venue we lost the ability to use the Laser cutter and 3D printer as we can not install these at our current meeting venue of one of our local libraries.
    • Joined the BDLL Euro show last night.     
  • Moss 
    • We had a great Episode 008 for Distrohoppers’ Digest, available now at your favorite podcatcher or from our website, http://distrohoppersdigest.blogspot.com. This will be our last one for the year, and our next episode will be more laid back, although I’ve already installed KDE neon on my test machine.
    • I attempted to install Haiku OS on my Kudu, but learned it does not install to UEFI, so I broke out the still-unposted IdeaPad 110. I got to a certain point, and ran into informational vacuum, needing to know how to prepare the partition. I did get a nice response from the team, but have not been able to get back to it.  I learned a lot just getting that far, and maybe I’ll go on from there soon.
    • I attempted to install  Peppermint OS 10 to my test laptop. The partitioning failed. The installer crashed the second try. I reinstalled KDE neon.
    • Sabayon was refusing to load the desktop lately. I could not log in as my username, but logging in as root got me a full-screen terminal. I posted the issue to the Sabayon forum and got a quick reply. Stating that I needed to reload lightdm, with instructions as to how. That worked. As I doubt any of our listeners are running Sabayon, I won’t post the commands I used to fix the issue.
    • I did some Timeshift backups today. I keep infrequent backups of everything except Sabayon (haven’t figured out how to load Timeshift through Entropy). As part of my efforts today, I learned that my Galago Pro identifies the external backup drive as sdb, and then finds I don’t have an sdb5, which is where my Linux Mint is installed (Pearl on sdb3). So I need to keep it unplugged until after boot, or I can’t boot to either Mint or Pearl. Odd that it isn’t identified as sdcX…
    • I had a pretty good birthday, with a pleasant gift from my mother and a lot of good wishes, plus extra hours being offered at work. I have stopped looking for work, with only one possible job not yet offered. Also, a great Thanksgiving and even a Holiday Party, with my friends at the Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Education Center in Liberty Hill, TN. My wife and I feel we have found a new family.
    • And I received a donation from one of our listeners, David Lindberg. Thank you, David!  I purchased some much-needed USB-C cables.
  • Joe
    • Finished relistening to the Dresden files.  Love that series. Can’t recommend enough to everyone
      • Very well read
      • Good long series that takes some time to get through even at 4x
      • Too long since the last one but the author has had to work through a lot of issues and from what I understand the wait should not be long now.
    • Also went through the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony
      • This is a very convoluted series where all the books are very intertwined
      • Well read and well written
    • Need to catch up on Rick and Morty new season.
    • Behind on all the tv shows.
    • Bought some LG HBS 510’s 
      • Kinda old school
      • ordered 4 for 15 dollars
      • 1 no power show fully charged
      • Battery is working fine.  Can’t find a problem with the switch.  could check all the wires across for continuity.  But won’t. need the extra parts anyway
      • One of the sides went on another set
      • 1 neither side works but connects and pause play works
        • This will probably just require shortening of the cables
      • 1 left side out 
        • obvious, the casing was cracked around the earpiece and I could see that one of the connections was off.  soldered back on and glued the casing together with jb weld. It works great may go back and fill the hole with JB Weld 
      • 1 right side out, as in it is not there.  Another cracked casing but the speaker fell off
        • Was able to take one side from the one that wont turn on and swap it in.  now it just plain works
      • Should be able to fix 3.   
      • had extra glue so also glued one of the 820s with a broken band.
        • But it did not hold very well even after a couple of days worth of drying
      • The 510s are smaller and have fewer buttons than most of the ones that I have worked with but are still usable.  the sound is not terrible and they are not too difficult to work on. a single large mic that will require more testing.  Battery life is middling. the materials are a bit flimsy considering some of the fixes that I had to put in but they are also the lightest neckband headset I have used.  No one has complained about the call quality and I have not had any issue on my side of a call. the simplistic controls do take a bit of getting used to, especially when I am still switching amongst other headsets with a more standard setup.
    • Ordered another Dell Venue 7130 for 40 dollars.  Don’t know much about it yet other than it is missing the M.2 hard drive.  But it is the i5 version so it is either 4 or 8gb version.  
      • I have extra drives for it
      • Will find out if it has a good battery
      • And a good charging port
      • But there are 2 charging ports so if the usb one is bad I may have to either buy a dock or one of the high powered ones that use the same port
      • If I get it working I will either turn around and sell it or give it to one of my kids.
    • Fixed my dad’s old Toshiba Satellite L755-S5110
      • It had this problem where during startup it would get past the splash screen and start beeping horrendously
      • Figured it was the ram so I pulled the ram sticks one at a time and tested with less ram and known good ram still the same issue
      • So I removed the keyboard and started it up.  Worked fine.
      • Tested rehooking the keyboard while it was booted and it is always triggering some keys.
      • May order a new keyboard or may just use it as a settop box.
      • Second gen core i3 but still usable.  
      • Does need a new battery
      • But other than that, it would cost 20 dollars, 13 for the keyboard and 7 for the power supply to have a working laptop
      • Like 12 dollars for a battery.
    • Also was having a problem with my garage computer randomly shutting off.
      • Hard to isolate the problem because days could go by without it happening
      • After much testing of peripherals to find the issue I discovered that it was a problem with my Thinkpad USB 3.0 docking station
      • So I am looking for a decent low cost powered replacement (probably a couple of them) 
      • Preferably 7 ports and sub 10 dollars but I am not finding anything that fits the bill. 
    • Bought a Samsung gear fit2
      • Not sure how much I like it.
      • Heart rate is iffy 
      • Step count I will have to track more
  • Tony W
    • Busy as ever with music.  
      • Formed a band of my colleagues at the office and we played at the company holiday party.  It was a resounding success.  
      • Speaking of holiday party… will be doing to my wife’s work party toward end of our show, may have to drop a bit early
      • Also solo gigs, rock band, church band…
    • Mobile recording setup:
      • Dell 7130
      • Presonus Audiobox USB
        • Metal – built like a tank
        • Works out of the box with Linux, no problems whatsoever
        • Very light and portable
        • Power draws from USB – no power plug required
      • Unidirectional microphone (Either my Behringer or a borrowed Shure SM58 – doesn’t seem to be a dramatic difference)
        • I use a unidirectional mic to avoid picking up noise in my house (space heater and server right next to me, not to mention anything else in the rest of the house, kids, dogs…)
    • Dell 7130
      • Spent more time with the machine after it being a bit idle for a while.  I tend to spend a lot of time *obsessively* getting things to work like I want, and then walk away from them after that is accomplished.
      • Batteries in both tablet and keyboard actually seem to be in pretty good shape.  Linux mint indicates keyboard will last nearly 3 hours and the tablet about 7.5 hrs (have not tested this, no idea if will actually get that much, but so far can confirm the keyboard will last 2+ hrs charging the tablet)
      • Keyboard is very glitchy.  Have to dock multiple times before the tablet will recognize keyboard/touchpad (even though battery display seems to update every time)
      • Ordered a tablet keyboard cover, maybe less issues.  Will report back on that
    • New work laptop
      • Old: Dell E6430
        • I used that laptop for 7+ years.  IT dept delayed in replacing it as it was up to spec after various upgrades
        • Processor 3rd gen i7, 8GB Ram, 500GB SSD, new battery…
        • Replaced due to touchpad button issues (may have been a Windows only problem)
      • New: Thinkpad T480.  Great machine
        • I7 model
        • I will need a USB C dock now, for working at home
  • Josh
    • Finished my mock exams (finally) after two weeks. Sorry for the absence but they say school comes first (whatever that means).
    • Released Issue 6 of micro:mag, our most popular issue yet where we got 2000 readers in the first 48 hours.
    • Got myself some 8BitDo Bluetooth Stereo Speakers after winning a gift card during a Black Friday competition. Really good for the price and work well with Linux.
    • Last time I was on the show, I was having some trouble with Google after my Pixel 3 got RMAed.
      • 3 Months of battling with them
      • Support engineers cut me off the phone a few times
      • They can’t contact the refunds team
      • Google support is the worst
      • I really don’t want to be negative, but this has happened to many other customers too
      • We contacted the retailer where I got the phone from, John Lewis, who refunded me after trying Google support from themselves and seeing how bad it was.
    • I ended up getting the iPhone 11 Pro on a really good contract with o2 here in the UK after putting some of the refund money towards it.
      • iOS is really nice
      • Camera is incredible, especially the 4k60 video
      • Smooth performance
      • 2 Day Battery life
      • Apple devices are still too expensive and i’d never buy one outright but luckily thanks to a mix of Black Friday deals and putting a bit of money upfront from what I did have. 

THE NEWS: 

  • Linux Mint 19.3 Images Being Tested
    • Images showed up on Friday, marked as testing. Release is imminent!
  • Canonical announces Ubuntu Pro for AWS
    • These images, for a little extra money, provide 10 years of support, Kernel Livepatching, Compliance profiles for things like HIPAA and PCI, and AWS Security integration.
  • Ubuntu AWS Will Use A Rolling Kernel
    • For non Ubuntu Pro instances, you’ll still be getting some goodies.
    • The rolling kernel is the typical hardware enablement kernel with AWS features built in, and all 18.04 instances will be upgraded to 5.0 from 4.15 by default.
    • You can test early to be sure things will work
      • sudo apt install linux-aws-edge
    • Or you can force your instances to stay on 4.15.
      • sudo apt install linux-aws-lts-18.04
  • Canonical Becomes Feature Sponsor for WSLConf
    • Hayden Barnes, Developer Advocate, Ubuntu on WSL, Canonical
  • Nginx offices raided for copyright dispute with Rambler (Moss)
  • Open Source Music Notations Software Musescore 3.3 Released! (Tony W)
    • For playing, printing and creating sheet music
    • Free but can use either a free or premium account for sharing with Musescore community
  • elementary OS 5.1 Hera
    • A new Greeter and first-install process
    • Flatpak Support
    • Accessibility being treated as normal options rather than things shoved away into a corner.
    • Ubuntu’s HWE 5.0 Kernel.
    • Some app improvements
    • If you’re upgrading from Juno, you won’t get the new kernel automatically. For that, run:
      • sudo apt install –install-recommends linux-generic-hwe-18.04 xserver-xorg-hwe-18.04
  • Firefox 71
    • Picture in Picture for videos! (Windows only for now. Linux and Mac in Firefox 72)
    • Native MP3 decoding on Windows, Linux, and macOS
    • More visible tracking protection
    • Improvements to Lockwise
    • Kiosk mode
  • Zorin OS 15.1 released (Moss)
  • Ubuntu Cinnamon first release (not official flavor yet)
  • MS Teams Is Now On Linux (second link)
  • Mac Pro is here (Josh)
    • Probably one of the most powerful consumer computers out there
    • Comes with a price for the top spec – $52,748.00
      • 2.5GHz 28‑core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.4GHz
      • 1.5TB (12x128GB) of DDR4 ECC memory
      • Two Radeon Pro Vega II Duo with 2x32GB of HBM2 memory each
      • 4TB SSD storage
      • Apple Afterburner card
      • Stainless steel frame with wheels
      • Magic Mouse 2 + Magic Trackpad 2
      • Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad – US English
    • Base spec is $6,000 which is very expensive for what you get
      • 3.5GHz 8‑core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.0GHz
      • 32GB (4x8GB) of DDR4 ECC memory
      • Radeon Pro 580X with 8GB of GDDR5 memory
      • 256GB SSD storage
      • Stainless steel frame with feet
      • Magic Mouse 2
      • Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad – US English

SECURITY UPDATE: 

  • <Moss>Remember the PIA purchase by Kape Technologies? Kape is a renamed malware company owned by a former Israeli spy (not from right wing sources)
  • New Linux Vulnerability Lets Attackers Hijack VPN Connections
    • Very in depth, but the short and sweet of it is that using this vulnerability allows an attacker to inject packets regardless of encryption.
    • People with a version of systemd released after Nov 28th, 2019 are affected. However, more distributions that aren’t on systemd are affected: Devuan, Void, FreeBSD.
    • A temporary fix would be to block bogon IP addresses. Essentially bogus or fake IPs. See: https://ipinfo.io/bogon 
  • Two malicious Python scripts caught stealing SSH and GPG keys
    • A result of typosquatting. Essentially naming libraries visually similar to confuse people into using the library.
    • Python3-dateutil was spoofing dateutil
    • JeIlyfish (the first l is replaced with a capital I) was spoofing Jellyfish. The spoofed JeIlyfish libraries were where the malicious code resided, and python3-dateutil would call the malicious JeIlyfish library.

Once the libraries are used, keys are sent to xxx://68.183.212.246:32258

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • Next Episode will be December 29, 2019, 2pm Central US time.

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!)
]]> 4055 mintCast 321 – Celluloid Service https://mintcast.org/mintcast-321-celluloid-service/ Wed, 06 Nov 2019 06:24:17 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4001 Then, our news Firefox, MX, Tails and Fedora all have new releases, and we cover the Linux Mint Monthly News. 
In the security section, we talk two bugs, one with Ubuntu and one on Firefox.
Download
]]>

Download

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

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

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

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS: 

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

THE NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE: 

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

WRAP-UP:

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

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

Download

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

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

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

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS: 

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

THE NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE: 

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

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website and the livestream (We’ve had over 60 listeners today on the backup mixer platform and brought on some new listeners who’ve never heard of the podcast)
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> 3999 mintCast 183 – Python, Twitter, and Pi https://mintcast.org/mintcast-183-python-twitter-pi/ Wed, 13 Nov 2013 03:27:27 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=2705 183] Download

News:

  • Low-end laptops:The rise of the Chromebook– Some people are still in denial about the rise of the Linux operating system with the Chrome Web browser interface, Chrome OS, and its hardware: the Chromebooks. The experts say, however, it’s the one segment of the PC market that’s growing while everything else shrinks. (zdnet.com)
  • Slackware Linux 14.1 – Yes, it is that time again! After well over a year of planning, development, and testing, the Slackware Linux Project is proud to announce the latest stable release of the longest running distribution of the Linux operating system. (distrowatch.com) (slackware.com)
  • Canonical “abused trademark law” to target a site critical of Ubuntu privacy – “Fix Ubuntu” site accused of trademark violation, asked to change domain name. According to Micah Lee, Canonical sent him an e-mail this morning asking him to stop using the Ubuntu logo and also to stop using the word “Ubuntu” in his domain name. Lee reprinted the entire e-mail in a blog post. (arstechnica.com) (muktware.com) (markshuttleworth.com) (softpedia.com)
  • The future of Linux: Evolving everywhere – Mark Shuttleworth’s recent closure of Ubuntu Linux bug No. 1 (“Microsoft has a majority market share”) placed a meaningful, if somewhat controversial, exclamation point on how far Linux has come since Linus Torvalds rolled out the first version of the OS in 1991 as a pet project. But where from here? (itworld.com)
  • Linux Voice – A new Free Software and Linux magazine that gives profits back to the community – from an all-star team of ace Linux journalists. Linux Lifestyle originally shared: OK folks here it is. We’re launching a crowd funding campaign to create a new Linux magazine that puts the community first. That means we’ll donate half of our profits back to the community. There’s loads more details on the campaign page.  (linuxvoice.com) (indiegogo.com)
  • Humble Store Opens with 24-Hour Debut Sale – First there was the Humble Bundle, and it was good. Then came the Humble Weekly Sale, and it was pretty cool too. Now it’s time for the next step in the Humble evolution: The Humble Store, where games go on sale and proceeds go to charity. (escapistmagazine.com) (humblebundle.com)

Main Topic: Python, Twitter, and the Raspberry Pi

  • Python (python.org) is a programming language that lets you work more quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. You can learn to use Python and see almost immediate gains in productivity and lower maintenance costs.
  • Twitter: Developer (dev.twitter.com); Manage Apps (dev.twitter.com/apps); Create a new App (dev.twitter.com/apps/new)
  • NLTK (nltk.org) is a leading platform for building Python programs to work with human language data.
  • WordNet® (wordnet.princeton.edu) is a large lexical database of English. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are grouped into sets of cognitive synonyms (synsets), each expressing a distinct concept.
  • @braynebuddy is where the results will eventually appear, and you can follow the development process on Rob’s webwords blog.

Websites:

Tips:

  • Unix: The Art of Being Lazy – One of the most endearing qualities of Unix devotees is how determined they are to be as efficient as possible. Why type three characters if you can do the same thing with two? And one of the best ways to cut down keystrokes is to turn common commands into aliases. (itworld.com)

Podcast Announcements:

  • Watch for “Event” announcements in the mintCast Community on Google+ to find out when we’re recording!
  • Mumble Server: The LinuxBasix community funded the mumble server we currently use to live stream and record mintCast. Since they have segmented a bit, jneuster has funded it privately. While ~$5 runs the server for a month, it would be nice if it was community funded. (openspeak.cc)
  • Texas Linux Fest 2014 has been scheduled. We are going to be at the Austin Convention Center June 13th and 14th! This year we are planning to do two full days of expo floor in a much larger venue! We are already accepting registration for this year’s event! We are also starting the call for papers immediately to get as many exciting talks as we can! If you would like to submit a talk, please check here for more info: http://texaslinuxfest.org.

More Information:

Hosts: Rob, Scott, Joe
Live Stream (Mondays at 8:00 p.m. Eastern): mintcast.org/livestream
Contact Us:

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

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

]]> 2705