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

In security and privacy: Flatpak getting more secure allegedly

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

In security and privacy: Flatpak getting more secure allegedly

Link To Full Show Notes

The News:


The code name for Mint 23 is “Alfa”


26.04 Beta


Does Ubuntu Now Require More RAM Than Windows 11?


26.10 could drop btfrs zfs and luks


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


Google Now Lets You Change Your Gmail address


Samsung’s Messages App Is Shutting Down


Microsoft Mysteriously Freezes Accounts for VeraCrypt, WireGuard, Windscribe


Why did the FCC ban foreign-made consumer routers?


NHS staff resist using Palantir software


France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins


Student Loans Fiasco, and its IT underpins


LibreOffice Drama: TDF Removes Collabora Developers in One Sweep

Security And Privacy:


Flatpak 1.16.4 Brings Important Security Fixes


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


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

Check This Out:


New & Update Flatpaks – Nora


26.04 – Another view

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • Bill for our audio editing and for hosting the server which runs our website, website maintenance, and the NextCloud server on which we host our show notes and raw audio
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • Londoner for our time syncs and various other contributions
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem … and co!>
]]> full 1:47:56 7883 437.5 – Dude, Where’s My Password? https://mintcast.org/437-5-dude-wheres-my-password/ Wed, 22 May 2024 04:00:00 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=6911 In our Innards section: we’re going to discuss some best practices for good hygiene and safety when utilizing technology.

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

]]> In our Innards section: we’re going to discuss some best practices for good hygiene and safety when utilizing technology.

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

Full Show Notes Here

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • Bill for our audio editing
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • Hobstar for our logo, initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • Londoner for our time syncs and various other contributions
  • Bill Houser for hosting the server which runs our website, website maintenance, and the NextCloud server on which we host our show notes and raw audio
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem … and co!>
]]> 437 437 Dude, Where's My Password? full 1:05:53 6911 391.5 – The Subscription Service Rabbit Hole https://mintcast.org/391-5-the-subscription-service-rabbit-hole/ Sat, 30 Jul 2022 19:02:25 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5551 Download
]]> 0:42 Linux Innards
1:24:06 Vibrations from the Ether
1:28:30  Check This Out
1:30:45 Housekeeping and Announcements

In our Innards section, we discuss the subscription services we’re using.

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

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

The Linux Innards

  • Bill
    • Netflix
    • Amazon Prime
    • Hulu
    • Disney+
    • Discovery+
    • Paramount+
    • HBO Max
    • Philo
    • Mozilla VPN
    • Trust.Zone VPN
    • ABC Mouse
    • Xbox Gamepass Ultimate x 3
    • Big Fish Games
    • Tutanota Email
    • Google Domains
    • GoDaddy
    • Linode
    • Bitwarden
    • Apple Podcasts
    • Github
    • Truckerpath
    • Pandora
    • Protonmail
    • Pluto
    • Tubi
    • Red Circle
  • Moss
    • Xfinity Internet
    • Amazon Prime
    • Protonmail
    • My-diary.org
    • Surfshark
    • Bitwarden
    • Namecheap
    • PurplePenguin
    • Paramount+ with ShowtimeDisney+/Hulu+/ESPN+
    • Peacock
    • Amazon Prime Video
    • PlutoTV
    • Tubi
    • Joe’s Plex
    • Bill’s Jellyfin
    • Hypnotix
    • Real Debrid
    • Trakt.TV
  • Norbert
    • Tidal
    • Google Drive
    • Netflix
    • ProtonMail
    • YouTube Premium
    • Windscribe VPN
    • Spotify
    • Patreon
    • Crunchyroll
  • Joe
    • Prime
    • Netflix
    • PIA VPN
    • Spectrum
    • T-mobile
    • Plex
    • Crackle
    • Google voice

Check This Out

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!
]]> 391.5 - The Subscription Service Rabbit Hole full 1:35:22 5551 379.5 – Phishing Season https://mintcast.org/379-5-phishing-season/ Sat, 09 Apr 2022 18:39:37 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5354 In security, Ubuntu Kernel Security Patches, FGKASLR gets closer to mainline, Data stealing malware hides on Linux servers, Go Daddy data breach
In our Wanderings, Joe does some 3d printing, Josh got a new monitor, Norbert switches OS’s, and Clayton looks back
Download
]]> 1:06 Linux Innards
42:46 Check This Out
44:16 Announcements & Outro

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

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

Check This Out

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • Norbert for our audio production
  • Leo for timestamps and publishing
  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • Londoner for our time sync
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our backup Mumble room
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> 379.5 - Phishing Season full 48:19 5354 366.5 – Protect Your Bits https://mintcast.org/366-5-protect-your-bits/ Wed, 04 Aug 2021 06:36:21 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5159 And finally, the feedback and a couple community choices
Download
]]> 1:56 Linux Innards
33:35 Vibrations from the Ether
49:15 Check This Out
59:02 Announcements & Outro

In our Innards section we talk OpenVPN, Wireguard and staying safe online

And finally, the feedback and a couple community choices

Twitter. Discord. Telegram. Matrix. Reddit.

Linux Innards

Vibrations from the Ether

Check This Out

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • Owen Peery for our audio editing, Josh Lowe for all his work on the website, Hobstar for our logo, initrd for the animated Discord logo, and Londoner for our time sync
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our backup Mumble room
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> 366.5 - Protect Your Bits full 1:02:55 5159 mintCast 350.5 – Change Your SSID (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-350-5-change-your-ssid-mp3/ Wed, 23 Dec 2020 05:18:28 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4832 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Download
]]> Download

0:16 HPR Spot
1:26 Show Start
2:44 Linux Innards
50:34 Vibrations from the Ether
1:04:09 Check This Out
1:07:14 Outro

In our Innards section, we talk spooky scary security

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

LINUX INNARDS:

The Art of Invisibility by Kevin Mitnick

  •  Joe
    • I do like this book.  But it is not about security it is about anonymity and the different things that you have to go through in order to be truly anonymous and the reasoning behind it.  It does get to be what seems a bit extreme but they do discuss the reasoning that you need someone else to purchase the gift cards in order to get the vpn and the bitcoin wallet and the ways of putting more into the wallet anonymously.
    • One of the things that I want to mention is Kevin says in the start of the book “You may not have anything to hide but you do have everything to protect.”
    • Kevin goes into detail about how different people were attached to the identity that they created online and how they were caught also advises how to not make those same mistakes.
    • The most extreme of which is to get someone that is not associated with you to go in and buy a gift card so that you are not on camera buying the card.  Then you use that card to purchase a VPN from a company that does not log and does not require you to identify yourself.  Then you set up a burner machine and never log in from home and you use that burner machine and the VPN in order to set up a bitcoin wallet and then you can either use more gift cards to add to it or you use a cleaning service to get more coins into it so its untraceable where the bitcoins came from.  You can use that to pay any further fees to the VPN and opr purchase items online. You can also use this to do things like publish articles and remain unknown.  But you have to keep switching locations and continue to trust your VPN
    • Also spends some time talking about PGP keys and touts the use of https everywhere which is a good thing to have but most of your modern browsers do that built now anyway
    • Also discusses the various types of tracking that advert agencies and the government do and different ways to subvert that including using a VPN, HTTPS everywhere a non standard DNS and never log in to anything that is attached to your identity if you want to stay anonymous.  Also changing mac addresses every time you log in or every time you change locations so that your fake identity is not attached to a specific machine
  • Tony:
    • Due to my lack of concentration in the last few weeks I’ve not listened to apart from the first chapter, but this alone is enough to make you wary of security issues, and although I never use 12345678 or password, as a password. But I must admit I do need to pay more care in choosing passwords in the future. And I need to consider using a VPN at least when I am doing financial transactions or having a dedicated laptop that is only used for this task.  
  • Leo
    • Things to know
      • You are likely the weakest link.
      • If it’s not you, it’s because you never update
    • The argument “I’m not interesting, they won’t hack me.” misses the point
      • They don’t have to target you. The entire thing is an automated humanless process. If you have lax security practice, you’ll show up vulnerable in a scan, sometimes even on Shodan. Then it’s all downhill from there.
    • Just good, simple wifi recommendations
      • Change your SSID
      • Use WPA2 or 3 if it’s available
      • Change the admin password*
      • Change the admin username*
      • Use long passwords
      • MAC Allow/Deny list
      • Wardriving is rare, not non-existent.
    • Keep it separated
      • If you can, use a device dedicated to banking and health type services. The private ones.
    • HTTPS everywhere
      • Thanks to the EFF you can use this plugin. But with the latest Firefox, you don’t need it.
    • VPN in public
      • Public wifi is never secure. Not ever.
      • VPN to obfuscate your traffic from prying eyes in public. Use a Raspberry Pi to set up OpenVPN manually, or use PiVPN. If you’re adventurous, set up Wireguard.
      • VPN’s for getting special Netflix is something different.
    • Tor isn’t for you
      • But if it is, keep in mind that logging into any service attached to your real name or using your own finances pretty much defeats the purpose.
    • Don’t be the low hanging fruit
      • If it’s easier to hack your neighbor, they will.

Tinfoil hats are for sale in the lobby as you leave the theater…

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

  • Hank Barta by email
  • From Larry Murphy by email
  • Nick (Followup from Last Time) email
  • Wayne (mintcast.org)
  • Aaron (email)

CHECK THIS OUT! 

  • Leo
  • Moss
    • I found my history – BBS The Documentary. It’s 5 hours long, but you’ll never see this stuff elsewhere. I didn’t get into BBSing until 1988, but there are a lot of forgotten things here, including the age when free phone calls were only for your local calling area.
    • Yippy – Privacy-focused search engine, powered by Watson — one click to make it default in Firefox

Announcements:

Wrap-up:

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

  • Owen Peery for our audio editing, Josh Lowe for all his work on the website, Hobstar for our logo, and Londoner for our time sync
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our backup Mumble room
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 4832 mintCast 350.5 – Change Your SSID https://mintcast.org/mintcast-350-5-change-your-ssid/ Wed, 23 Dec 2020 04:56:27 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4827 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Download
]]> Download

0:16 HPR Spot
1:26 Show Start
2:44 Linux Innards
50:34 Vibrations from the Ether
1:04:09 Check This Out
1:07:14 Outro

In our Innards section, we talk spooky scary security

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

LINUX INNARDS:

The Art of Invisibility by Kevin Mitnick

  •  Joe
    • I do like this book.  But it is not about security it is about anonymity and the different things that you have to go through in order to be truly anonymous and the reasoning behind it.  It does get to be what seems a bit extreme but they do discuss the reasoning that you need someone else to purchase the gift cards in order to get the vpn and the bitcoin wallet and the ways of putting more into the wallet anonymously.
    • One of the things that I want to mention is Kevin says in the start of the book “You may not have anything to hide but you do have everything to protect.”
    • Kevin goes into detail about how different people were attached to the identity that they created online and how they were caught also advises how to not make those same mistakes.
    • The most extreme of which is to get someone that is not associated with you to go in and buy a gift card so that you are not on camera buying the card.  Then you use that card to purchase a VPN from a company that does not log and does not require you to identify yourself.  Then you set up a burner machine and never log in from home and you use that burner machine and the VPN in order to set up a bitcoin wallet and then you can either use more gift cards to add to it or you use a cleaning service to get more coins into it so its untraceable where the bitcoins came from.  You can use that to pay any further fees to the VPN and opr purchase items online. You can also use this to do things like publish articles and remain unknown.  But you have to keep switching locations and continue to trust your VPN
    • Also spends some time talking about PGP keys and touts the use of https everywhere which is a good thing to have but most of your modern browsers do that built now anyway
    • Also discusses the various types of tracking that advert agencies and the government do and different ways to subvert that including using a VPN, HTTPS everywhere a non standard DNS and never log in to anything that is attached to your identity if you want to stay anonymous.  Also changing mac addresses every time you log in or every time you change locations so that your fake identity is not attached to a specific machine
  • Tony:
    • Due to my lack of concentration in the last few weeks I’ve not listened to apart from the first chapter, but this alone is enough to make you wary of security issues, and although I never use 12345678 or password, as a password. But I must admit I do need to pay more care in choosing passwords in the future. And I need to consider using a VPN at least when I am doing financial transactions or having a dedicated laptop that is only used for this task.  
  • Leo
    • Things to know
      • You are likely the weakest link.
      • If it’s not you, it’s because you never update
    • The argument “I’m not interesting, they won’t hack me.” misses the point
      • They don’t have to target you. The entire thing is an automated humanless process. If you have lax security practice, you’ll show up vulnerable in a scan, sometimes even on Shodan. Then it’s all downhill from there.
    • Just good, simple wifi recommendations
      • Change your SSID
      • Use WPA2 or 3 if it’s available
      • Change the admin password*
      • Change the admin username*
      • Use long passwords
      • MAC Allow/Deny list
      • Wardriving is rare, not non-existent.
    • Keep it separated
      • If you can, use a device dedicated to banking and health type services. The private ones.
    • HTTPS everywhere
      • Thanks to the EFF you can use this plugin. But with the latest Firefox, you don’t need it.
    • VPN in public
      • Public wifi is never secure. Not ever.
      • VPN to obfuscate your traffic from prying eyes in public. Use a Raspberry Pi to set up OpenVPN manually, or use PiVPN. If you’re adventurous, set up Wireguard.
      • VPN’s for getting special Netflix is something different.
    • Tor isn’t for you
      • But if it is, keep in mind that logging into any service attached to your real name or using your own finances pretty much defeats the purpose.
    • Don’t be the low hanging fruit
      • If it’s easier to hack your neighbor, they will.

Tinfoil hats are for sale in the lobby as you leave the theater…

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

  • Hank Barta by email
  • From Larry Murphy by email
  • Nick (Followup from Last Time) email
  • Wayne (mintcast.org)
  • Aaron (email)

CHECK THIS OUT! 

  • Leo
  • Moss
    • I found my history – BBS The Documentary. It’s 5 hours long, but you’ll never see this stuff elsewhere. I didn’t get into BBSing until 1988, but there are a lot of forgotten things here, including the age when free phone calls were only for your local calling area.
    • Yippy – Privacy-focused search engine, powered by Watson — one click to make it default in Firefox

Announcements:

Wrap-up:

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

  • Owen Peery for our audio editing, Josh Lowe for all his work on the website, Hobstar for our logo, and Londoner for our time sync
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our backup Mumble room
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 4827 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!>
]]> full 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!>
]]> full 4814 mintCast 335.5 – Big Ol’ Lug https://mintcast.org/mintcast-335-5-big-ol-lug/ Tue, 26 May 2020 04:55:12 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4421 And finally, our listener feedback
Download
]]>

Download

In our Innards section, we’re making good on the promise to include more community.

And finally, our listener feedback

Linux Innards: 

Community Interview: Scott

When was the first time you ever saw or noticed Linux? 

  • Started looking back in 2015, but never had the guts to do it! I believe I got intrigued with Linux when I started watching Mr. Robot. Fantastic Show!

That calls for the old question: ASL?

  • Massachusetts (Boston area)

Did you use it yourself at that time, or just see someone else using it?

  • I did a lot of research and looked at a lot of the Top 5, Top 10 Distros Around 2016. I never saw it used, just a lot of reading online. A friend of mine said they used Ubuntu a long time ago

Do you remember the distribution? 

  • Ubuntu, Kali, Arch, Fedora, Linux Mint were some of the ones I read about.

What was your very first Linux distro?

  • I installed Mint as a dual boot with WIndows. The main driver for installing was when I had to Upgrade Win 7 to WIn 10 and it took like 3-4 hours to complete. That was the last straw.
  • I have only used Mint as a daily driver for my home laptop. I have a few Pi’s at the house with Raspbian. I have done a camera system with one, a headless Minecraft server for the kids…. Lots of steps to install that, but it worked like a charm

What’s a typical workflow for you entail?

  • If you are talking about how I maintain the system, I typically use the terminal, because it’s cool 🙂
  • Sudo apt-get update. Then upgrade, then autoclean, then autoremove  <try sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade – Moss>

Does Linux do everything you need in a system?

  • It does. I mainly surf the web, have played old classics like Baldur’s Gate on my PC and got Ultima I, II, III working in WINE, brings me back to the old days of my Apple IIe (I have played that in the old days as well ICEWind day. My Wife and I would sit at the PC together playing BGII
  • Gaming, I don’t do much anymore except browser ones, mostly strategy like Ogame, just to kill time.
  • I use LibreOffice, not hard to use compared to Office, does what I need.
  • Use a VPN, still using PIA 

Do you contribute at all?

  • For bugs, no, never really ran into one that was not hardware related, but able to work through it.
  • I have lurked on the Forums and done some posts to help but mostly ask questions
  • Once a year typically donate to LinuxMint
  • I have converted some friends to using Mint, my in-laws use it on both of their desktops. Mother-in-law complained the all-in-one HP she had was slow, 15+ min to boot. Now It boots in 45 sec and the touch screen works with Mint.
  • Have about 6 machines at home with Mint on them.

Is there any piece of open source software, other than a browser, you could not live without?

  • Typically, I will adapt to something I need, example, I used to use Canon DPP, Darkroom works good enough
  • I do miss having my Stock trading software I used to use, but i can deal with a web browser now, no issues

Closing thoughts for the audience, just for the folks that are sick and tired of Windows and want something faster and more secure.

  • If you surf the web, pay bills online, use social media Linux is for you.
  • The cardinal rule I live by now, Don’t spend money on a new machine, take that old machine, buy an SSD for 20 bucks, and install Mint… you will have a brand new PC! If you don’t have a machine, and get one from a friend that doesn’t need it, or buy a used one, you can have a great machine that is stable for your day to day needs.

Vibrations from the Ether

Bill

Erik

Scott T.

Basically lubuntu.me is the official site and one individual is keeping lubuntu.net going,

confusing users. A link to the mailing list that discusses it is here:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/lubuntu-users/2016-August/thread.html

John Wallis

Henrik Hemrin

Michael

Check This Out!

Announcements:

  • Our next episode will be at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC, May 31, 2020. That’s 8PM British Summer Time.

Wrap-up:

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

  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 57:34 4421 mintCast 335.5 – Big Ol’ LUG (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-335-5-big-ol-lug-mp3/ Tue, 26 May 2020 04:50:15 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4423 And finally, our listener feedback
Download
]]>

Download

In our Innards section, we’re making good on the promise to include more community.

And finally, our listener feedback

Linux Innards: 

Community Interview: Scott

When was the first time you ever saw or noticed Linux? 

  • Started looking back in 2015, but never had the guts to do it! I believe I got intrigued with Linux when I started watching Mr. Robot. Fantastic Show!

That calls for the old question: ASL?

  • Massachusetts (Boston area)

Did you use it yourself at that time, or just see someone else using it?

  • I did a lot of research and looked at a lot of the Top 5, Top 10 Distros Around 2016. I never saw it used, just a lot of reading online. A friend of mine said they used Ubuntu a long time ago

Do you remember the distribution? 

  • Ubuntu, Kali, Arch, Fedora, Linux Mint were some of the ones I read about.

What was your very first Linux distro?

  • I installed Mint as a dual boot with WIndows. The main driver for installing was when I had to Upgrade Win 7 to WIn 10 and it took like 3-4 hours to complete. That was the last straw.
  • I have only used Mint as a daily driver for my home laptop. I have a few Pi’s at the house with Raspbian. I have done a camera system with one, a headless Minecraft server for the kids…. Lots of steps to install that, but it worked like a charm

What’s a typical workflow for you entail?

  • If you are talking about how I maintain the system, I typically use the terminal, because it’s cool 🙂
  • Sudo apt-get update. Then upgrade, then autoclean, then autoremove  <try sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade – Moss>

Does Linux do everything you need in a system?

  • It does. I mainly surf the web, have played old classics like Baldur’s Gate on my PC and got Ultima I, II, III working in WINE, brings me back to the old days of my Apple IIe (I have played that in the old days as well ICEWind day. My Wife and I would sit at the PC together playing BGII
  • Gaming, I don’t do much anymore except browser ones, mostly strategy like Ogame, just to kill time.
  • I use LibreOffice, not hard to use compared to Office, does what I need.
  • Use a VPN, still using PIA 

Do you contribute at all?

  • For bugs, no, never really ran into one that was not hardware related, but able to work through it.
  • I have lurked on the Forums and done some posts to help but mostly ask questions
  • Once a year typically donate to LinuxMint
  • I have converted some friends to using Mint, my in-laws use it on both of their desktops. Mother-in-law complained the all-in-one HP she had was slow, 15+ min to boot. Now It boots in 45 sec and the touch screen works with Mint.
  • Have about 6 machines at home with Mint on them.

Is there any piece of open source software, other than a browser, you could not live without?

  • Typically, I will adapt to something I need, example, I used to use Canon DPP, Darkroom works good enough
  • I do miss having my Stock trading software I used to use, but i can deal with a web browser now, no issues

Closing thoughts for the audience, just for the folks that are sick and tired of Windows and want something faster and more secure.

  • If you surf the web, pay bills online, use social media Linux is for you.
  • The cardinal rule I live by now, Don’t spend money on a new machine, take that old machine, buy an SSD for 20 bucks, and install Mint… you will have a brand new PC! If you don’t have a machine, and get one from a friend that doesn’t need it, or buy a used one, you can have a great machine that is stable for your day to day needs.

Vibrations from the Ether

Bill

Erik

Scott T.

Basically lubuntu.me is the official site and one individual is keeping lubuntu.net going,

confusing users. A link to the mailing list that discusses it is here:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/lubuntu-users/2016-August/thread.html

John Wallis

Henrik Hemrin

Michael

Check This Out!

Announcements:

  • Our next episode will be at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC, May 31, 2020. That’s 8PM British Summer Time.

Wrap-up:

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

  • Hobstar for his work on the new logo
  • Josh for all his work on the website
  • Hacker Public Radio for the Mumble server we are using to record
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.
]]> full 4423 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!)
]]> full 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!)
]]> full 4055 mintCast 323.5 – Traveling Networker Problem https://mintcast.org/mintcast-323-5-traveling-networker-problem/ Wed, 11 Dec 2019 06:54:26 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4047 And finally, our listener feedback
Download
]]>

Download

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

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Working on the stream
      • With Josh schedule packed, I gave streaming a try. Back to youtube it is since the barrier to entry was so low.
      • OBS is quite the software. Currently, we’re doing a streaming simple with an image. Nothing fancy, but as I got looking into the details, you can do so much more.
      • I didn’t want to rock the boat too much, but a Telegram, Discord and IRC chat monitor would be nifty, and something I want to look into for the future if we stick with youtube.
      • I know there are people out there that want an audio-only stream. For you all, I have a fix.
    • UBPorts on a Nexus 7 2013 (Wifi)
      • This was an interesting journey. I dusted off my Nexus 7 from a few years ago, plugged it in to charge, and about 30 minutes later, was installing UBPorts using their snap installer.
      • The bootloader was unlocked years ago, so I can’t recall exactly how I did my ADB magic, but I’ve had a few OSes on it over the years.
      • I’m just getting familiar with Ubuntu Touch, but it seems promising.
    • Installed a 1080p panel on my T450s
      • Fun times. For a little under $50, I bought a 1080p replacement panel for my T450s. I had been on the 900p panel since I bought it about two years ago, and finally got fed up with it. The discoloration that comes with TN panels finally wore me down.
      • This 1080p was supposed to be an IPS Field Replacement Unit, so, same same as the OEM screen, but turned out to be a 1080p TN, or low quality VA panel, at best.
      • Still 1080p, still more room, still a huge improvement, and for the price, I’m still happy.
  • Tony H 
    • This week I’ve put Mint onto an HP G62 Laptop with a 2.1 GHz AMD Phenom II Triple-Core Processor N830. This processor came out in December 2010 so the PC is nearly 9 years old. I used it at the LUG last week and the battery life despite being at full capacity (I suspect it is a replacement of the original) is a paltory 1.5-2 Hrs or less if playing video, and it runs quite walm. The top power on the CPU is 35w, compared to modern mobile processors which can be less than half of this processor. It’s probably destined to be passed onto my local homeless charity to give someone a new start in tech.
    • Continuing to get to grips with Ubuntu 19.10, thanks to Peter Jones I now have a half usable system with the Dash to Panel installed and on the bottom of the screen and the side dock hidden from view. Feels a little more like home, but it would be great if this was a one button in a menu somewhere to set it up without having to install all these additional functions to get it to work. Apart from this, it’s a great Linux OS as you would expect from Ubuntu, I can’t say I’ve had any issues with it at all in day to day use. 
    • Also continuing to Invest (code for spending all my money) on my new hobby of restoring Matchbox models. I bought a large consignment on Ebay and got a bargain with many 50’s and 60’s models and only a few of the later 1970’s (which are still nearly 50 years old). I’ve been buying tools and preparing to buy a small modelers spray booth, as well as buying materials for paint stripping and preparing the models for repainting. Starting to appreciate the time these YouTubers put in to the hobby and all the videoing and post production it takes. 
    • As of yesterday I actually completed my first restoration a Matchbox No28 Mk10 Jaguar if any one is interested.     

 

  • Moss 
    • I sold an ASUS MeMOPad to a listener; I hadn’t even put it up for sale, but he asked what I had that was cheap and I told him. It was a turkey of a tablet; I had such high hopes for it when I bought it. I got about $12 for it and bought some groceries.
    • Zorin OS 15 has just released their Lite version, with XFCE Desktop, and they did quite a lovely job on the desktop. I put it on my Kudu 3, and I kinda like it. Yes, I am now triple-booting the Kudu – Core, Ultimate, and Lite – but it’s all Zorin.
    • During a period of digital frustration, I remembered I had a free partition on my Galago Pro 2. I eased my nerves by taking a few hours and successfully installing Sabayon. Yes, it took a while. Yes, it’s Gentoo. But it’s so sweet…
    • I made an attempt to boot my inherited Linux box. Sadly, the password was not what I expected, so I couldn’t log into what was probably an old version of Fedora, so I attempted to install Linux Mint on it. I ran into another instance of the GRUB not being written properly, and I also could not get the CD drive to boot (I could have used my Super Grub 2 disk). I had some discussion with the Telegram group of people, mostly cryptodan and Peter Jones, and got frustrated so I put the box away for a while. I promise to get back to it. The box is pretty nice, a mini ATX with 16 Gb of RAM and a 120 Gb SSD on a Gigabyte motherboard.
    • I have added some tiers and a Donation link to my Sponsus page. Now to get some sponsors and donations. 
    • I found I had opened 2 accounts at ReverbNation sometime in 2014 and promptly forgotten about both; I’ve written RN to see if they can combine the two and then see if I can put the site to some use promoting my music. I did find a recording I didn’t think I had posted anywhere on one of the accounts.
    • I just celebrated my 3rd Anniversary…and Wednesday will be my mmphthy-mmph birthday. Distrohoppers’ Digest is set to be recorded on Wednesday, and Tony should have it out by Friday.

 

  • Joe
    • Listened to an Audio Drama/podcast.  2 Seasons of Wolverine.  
    • Also listened to Piers Anthony’s Bio Of a Space Tyrant
      • Most assuredly not a book for younger readers.  Based on the topics
        • Murder 
        • Piracy
        • Incest
        • Sex with people that I would consider underage
      • I did listen to all 6 books in the series and Anthony is one of my more liked authors.
      • He also writes all his books on linux machines since about 2000
      • Well read series
      • But in the end I am not sure I would recommend to readers.
      • I didn’t dislike it but I find it hard to suggest it for others
    •  Listening to the Dresden Files again, hoping that the next one comes out soon
    •  Replaced the keyboard on that convertible laptop
      • Also removed Linux and reinstalled Windows for my daughter
      • Had to install woeusb in order to get a functioning bootable Windows 10 usb stick
      • Then gave it to my eldest daughter and she gave her laptop to her sister
      • Who ruined another charging port on another tablet, the ASUS Transformer T102HA which I will be taking apart to see if it is an easy fix because it is an awesome device
      • That is 2 T100’s and a T102 that currently have that problem.  Looks like I need to learn how to fix it and get a hot air gun.
    • Also had a problem with one of my Dell Venue 11 keyboards where not all the keys were working
      • I had a spare keyboard with a bad battery so I did a swap between the two but for some reason the touchpad would not work(at least not with the battery connected)
      • So I pulled the touchpad off and swapped that from the one with bad keys
      • Still didn’t work
      • So I swapped the cables for the touchpad.
      • Still didn’t work
      • So I swapped the connector bracket that goes from the keyboard to the tablet, thinking it would be the last time I had to take it apart
      • It wasn’t, still didn’t work
      • Finally I swapped the mainboard hoping that wasn’t what was bad on the other keyboard and it works great(most of the time)
      • Still some issues sometimes on restart but that seems to be a problem with all keyboards for this device.  Just disconnect a reconnect a couple of times and everything works
      • About 7 hours worth of work total with testing and reseating between each step to make sure I had done things correctly.  Also I could have had it done much quicker if I had realized it was the mainboard first.
      • But hey I have 2 fully functioning keyboards again and I know a lot more about how that keyboard is put together.
      • Really need the extra battery power to make it through the day.
      • But I am still thinking about getting one of the soft keyboards without batteries.
    • Picked up a travel router
      • GL.iNet GL-AR300M-EXT 
      • Works good so far.  
      • Easytether install worked like a charm.  But t-mo seems to be detecting and throttling.  May be detecting the router. More testing required. More details in the innards.
  • Tony W
    • RAM upgrade on main/living room PC (why did I not do this before?)
    • Gaming fun: Native Linux and Proton games on Steam, PCSX2 Emulator
      • Native on Linux 
        • Team Fortress 2 (my kid plays this, I watched)
        • CS GO, No Room in Hell are MPO games I still plan to try
        • Was interested in Shadow of Mordr and Tomb Raider but too expensive
      • PCSX2 Emulator
        • Fun, works well
        • Had to change a couple of the defaults for Spiderman 2 
          • Changed graphics to Software vs hardware
      • Reversed axes for controllerProton: 
        • Underpowered machine: PC is an old Lenovo with i3 4th Gen, low profile 1GB Nvidia card, 8GB of Ram
        • Batman Arkham Origins – Unplayable due to lag in Steam/Proton.  I am sure it would have been fine on a more powerful PC. It did run OK in Windows
        • GTA San Andreas – Ran great in Proton, occasional crashing when loading a saved game.  Easy enough to kill with TOP and restart. Not a bi issue for me but I see how minor glitches like this might be annoying enough to make somebody dive back to Windows to play a game
        • Consensus on Proton, definitely awesome if you have a machine that can spare the overhead

THE NEWS:

  • Linux Mint Monthly News ALL
    • “All 3 editions of Linux Mint 19.3 passed QA and we’ll be announcing the BETA release on Tuesday!”
    • Assuming that’s December 3rd.
    • New, unannounced changes to the software section, and three new apps are making their arrival.
    • System Reports will now give messages from the tray. This will give users access to workarounds, solutions  and information. This feature will also be used to announce the full release of 19.3 from within the BETA, and it’s being backported, so you’ll hear about it on 19.2 and previous as well (if you run updates on older releases)!
  • System76 will start designing and building their computers from the ground up in DenverMOSS
  • Kali Linux 2019.4 Released LEO
    • XFCE the new default desktop
    • kali-undercover changes your DE to look like Windows. Icons and all.
    • Our markdown overlords are winning. Kali’s docs are now in markdown!
    • BTRFS 
  • Kape Technologies buys PIA’s parent company (also owns ZenMate and CyberGhost VPNs – total over 2 million paying subscribers)MOSS
  • Kernel 5.4 is released Tony W LTS – last LTS was 4.19
    • Primary feature is a new kernel lockdown mode that aims to improve the separation of UID 0 (aka root) and the kernel.
    • Lots of AMD support added – 
      • Navi 12 and 14 GPUs
      • MD Arcturus graphics cards,
      • AMD Dali APU
      • AMD 2020 APU
    • Lots of added ARM support Snapdragon 855, a bunch of ARM based laptops (ASUS NovaGo, HP Envy X2 and the Lenovo Miix 630)
  • Is full Linux kernel support coming to Android? Google outlines its plans Joe
  • Librem 5 is shipping, First Impressions TONY W
    • Early adopter/developer stage
    • Some flaws that are expected to be fixed in future software updates
      • No audio in calls
      • Camera issues
      • Battery life “meh”
      • Gets really warm
      • Software generally alpha status
    • Former employees have expressed the company releases “disingenuous” updates
    • My opinions:
      • I am glad to hear the progress that some backers have the device in hand, and the early flaws don’t dampen my optimism
      • you REALLY have to believe in the Purism/Librem cause to justify $699 for this device, especially when Pinephone is coming soon at $149!!!  (300 Euros for Volla phone, *Check This Out)
  • Glimpse Released LEO
    • The 0.1.0 release is based on 2.10.12, instead of the current 2.10.14.
    • The Glimpse guys prefer Flatpak as the preferred way to install (it’s on top!)
    • Snap and AUR are in a separate community section.
    • Windows and Mac are also supported (same as GIMP)
  • US Student was building a Gentoo-based distro for ISIS MOSS

SECURITY UPDATE: 

      • D-Link ‘Won’t Fix’ even more routers
        • The flaw (CVE-2019-16920) that D-Link won’t fix allows an attacker to bypass authentication entirely to get admin access to your router. This is very, very not good. 
        • You can mitigate the issue by turning off remote management, but that doesn’t stop the attack from happening from within your network. Please do yourself a favor and move to something else.
        • Models: DIR-866, DIR-655, DHP-1565, DIR-652, DAP-1533, DGL-5500, DIR-130, DIR-330, DIR-615, DIR-825, DIR-835, DIR-855L and DIR-862.
      • Mozilla Increasing Bug Bounty Payouts
        • Doubling, for critical, core and other Mozilla sites. 
        • And, tripling for Remote Code Execution on critical sites.
        • Firefox Monitor and Private Network are added to the list of Core Sites
      • Webmin Attacked by Mr. Roboto Botnet
        • A follow-up to Episode 316.
        • The vulnerability we were talking in that episode has been weaponized
        • Mr. Roboto, the botnet, is utilizing the flaw to be able to create a reverse shell, run commands, run files within URLs, DDoS, and self-uninstall.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • Next Show: Dec 15, 2019 – 2PM US Central Time

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website and the livestream (We’ve had over 60 listeners today on the backup mixer platform and brought on some new listeners who’ve never heard of the podcast)
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 50:42 4047 mintCast 323.5 – Traveling Networker Problem (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-323-5-traveling-networker-problem-mp3/ Wed, 11 Dec 2019 06:51:15 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4045 And finally, our listener feedback
Download
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Download

In our Innards section, we talk travel networking and access

And finally, our listener feedback

LINUX INNARDS:

Travel Networking

  • Joe
    • First get a travel router unless you want to set up one of your laptops as a hotspot
      • I suggest the GL.iNet GL-AR300M if you want a robust machine.
        • Comes stock with openwrt and 128mb nand flash which allows you to install applications.
        • It does not have 5ghz which is a con
        • Installed easytether and nano using opkg
      • Otherwise if you want a simple setup I suggest the TP-Link MR3040
      • Setting up a netbook as router with dnsmasq is not too difficult and while it adds to complexity in some ways it removes some in others
    • If not one of the routers that I suggested then try something that is 5v.  I know a couple of podcasters that stand by the HooToo TripMate Titan.
      • The 5v travel routers are nice because you can use any cell phone charger or a port on your laptop.  Any USB port.
      • Comparatively the 12v or higher voltage routers have more functionality but are more limited in where you can hook them up
    •  The point of getting a setup like this is that you can set the wifi to be the same name and password as the one from home
      • This means that everyone’s devices will almost automatically connect.
      • Because it is a different device you may have to tell your devices to connect to it the first time but the password will already be stored
      • This means that you will be able to take it to the grandparents house and just hook up the ethernet cable and everyone will be ready to go
    • This device can also be useful while traveling down the road.
      • You can set up a local area network in your vehicle and have one of your devices act like a server and provide media to all the other devices
      • Texas is a big place that takes a long time to drive across with many open spaces with very little cell connectivity
      • A simple low power device like a netbook or a pi which keeps things at five volts and a plex server can provide endless entertainment for the kids and passenger.
      • The server is why you need something that can set static IP addresses
    • Usually your phone is more than good enough for your listening needs but if phone memory is a premium it may also be nice to have a music server setup.
    • As for hotels the setup is mostly the same as for at the grandparents house with some addendums
      • Many hotels limit the number of devices that can be connected at one time.  The router is a good way around that
      • The easiest way to get up and running is to allow your phone to connect to the wifi and then use easytether to provide that connection to the router
        • This however can be limiting to speeds
        • You will also need to use the phones browser to get past whatever login screen the hotel has
      •  The next way to do it is a bit more complicated
        • Hook the router directly into the ethernet(if you are lucky)
        • Then you will need to connect your laptop to the router wifi and use ssh -l to forward port 80 and then go through the login screen.  All your other devices should then work fine
        • Also recommend using a vpn which I will cover soon
    • VPN
      • A VPN is a great tool while traveling
      • It has 2 main uses.
        • One is security
        • The other is giving you access to your entire home network without opening more than one hole
        • We have done other shows where we talked about how to set one up and why your public internet connections should always be encrypted.
    • Easytether
      • Pretty easy to use.  Need the android app and the server/drivers.
      • You need to go out to the easytether drivers website and grab the proper one based on the processor or operating system that you have
      • For the AR300M I needed the ar7xx drivers which I had to extract from the zip and push to the devices tmp
      • Then I used opkg to install and had to use the command easytether-usb to get it listening
      • I also needed to make that command run at startup which is a matter of adding it to the rc
        • Make sure the first line of your script reads:
          #!/bin/sh /etc/rc.common
        • Copy your script to the /etc/init.d/ directory
        • Make sure the execute bit is on
          chmod +x /etc/init.d/your script
        • Enable your script
          /etc/init.d/your script enable
          Your script should now have a symlink in /etc/rc.d/
          ls -lh /etc/rc.d | grep your script
        • Confirm your init script is enabled:asy
          /etc/init.d/your script enabled && echo on
          If this command returns on, then you’re all set. If this command doesn’t return anything, then your script isn’t enabled. Here’s an example of a script that’s enabled:
          root@OpenWrt:~# /etc/init.d/system enabled && echo on on
        • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33340659/how-to-auto-start-an-application-in-openwrt
      • Also needed to add the interface for the network
cat  EOF /etc/config/network

config interface 'wan'

option ifname 'tap-easytether'

option proto 'dhcp'

EOF
      • On the phone you need to turn on developer mode and usb debugging
      • With a laptop running Ubuntu it is a matter of installing the drivers and then turning off your other interfaces before connecting your phone. You also will need the proper drivers for your device as well as adb.
      • Found out something very disappointing.  My cell company now detects easytether usage and throttles like any other tethering.  Yes I am still looking for a workaround.
  • Leo
    • Most of the apps I use are directly on my phone. Bring a pair of headphones with a mic, and I’m golden. Most of the time, I try to disconnect, though. Mental fortitude is at a premium!
    • If I need to access things at home from away, I have my VPN certs on both my phone and my laptop. Phone when I don’t have wifi, and laptop for when I do.
    • The Nextcloud desktop app is where I do all of my work like news articles, or accessing docs or pictures.
    • I can get to my VSphere host, my NAS and other little devices via VPN as well.
    • If I’m in a no service area altogether, Plex sync is fantastic. Fill up your device before you go, and you’ve got hours of watching/listening.
  • Tony Watts
    • Have a plan for NO connectivity
      • Local media on external HDD, for VAC
      • Bring portable set-top box or HDMI capable laptop, HDMI cable, to connect to a TV in hotel etc
      • Pro Tip: Bring a Raspberry Pi and set it up with both Kodi and Retropie (Batocera has BOTH – also there is a Kodi plugin for Retropie)
      • Scope nearby places with wifi, in case network is not good

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

  • David
  • Henrik Hemrin via mintcast.org (Re: 321.5 mp3)
  • KWisher (via MeWe, with response from MeWe)

CHECK THIS OUT!

  • Leo
  • Moss
    • Volla Phone Kickstarter – 300 Euro privacy phone, only needs $385k to get going, kickstarter ends SOON Dec 15, lots of cool things about this one. Runs AOSP with no Google apps but almost all Android apps, or can run with Ubuntu Touch. No US phone yet, Europe only.
    • Synaptic is 18 years old (unmaintained for the past 2 years)
    • MS Users Now can use Puppy with just a few mouse clicks (LICK Installer, no CD/DVD or USB stick needed) LICK can be used with any distro and is MIT licensed, but uses Puppy to demonstrate the concept.
  • Joe
    • One Netbook One Mix 2S Yoga
      • Same processor as the GPD Pocket 2 and same form factor. Just can rotate the screen 360 degrees. ($770!!! Can’t even use it as a phone – Moss)(IKR???!!!JB)
  • Tony W
    • ncdu – utility to analyze disk storage, what files/directories are using up your storage

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • Next Episode will be December 15, 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!)
]]> full 50:42 4045 mintCast 161: Thoughts on WiFi Security https://mintcast.org/mintcast-161-wifi-security/ Fri, 24 May 2013 01:53:43 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=2507

Special Announcement!

The mintCast feeds have moved! You will need to point your pod catcher to the new feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/mintcast_podcast

Listen: [MP3] or [OGG]

News:

  • The Linux Mint 15 Olivia RC is now available for download (blog.linuxmint.com)
  • Linux Mint 15 Most Ambitious Release Ever (ostatic.com)
  • Ubuntu’s single platform SDK to be ship shape by October (zdnet.com)
  • While Jono Bacon “Dogfoods” the new Ubuntu Phone (jonobacon.org)
  • Critical Linux Exploit In The Wild (ostatic.com)

The Main Topic: Thoughts on WiFi Security

  1. Use https:// – Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is a communications protocol for secure communication over a computer network. Technically, it is not a protocol in and of itself; rather, it is the result of simply layering the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) on top of the SSL/TLS protocol. (wikipedia.org)
    • A site must be completely hosted over HTTPS, without having some of its contents loaded over HTTP, or the user will be vulnerable to some attacks and surveillance.(eff.org)
    • Force secure Web browsing is an extension for a browser or a built-in feature forces an SSL/TLS connection to a website that offers a secure alternative to a plain http connection even when you click a link or type in a URL to the unsecured location.
  2. Virtual Private Network (VPN) – A VPN connection encrypts all the data between a device and a VPN server on the other end.
  3. SSH Tunnel – You probably use SSH (Secure Shell) to access the command line on your machines remotely. In addition to providing secure access to shell accounts, SSH can also securely transport other kinds of web traffic as well. In a sense, it can provide you with a quick and easy VPN into the remote network where your SSH server resides. (www.revsys.com) (makeuseof.com)

Featured Website:

  • LinuxSecurity.com (http://www.linuxsecurity.com/) was first launched in 1996 by a handful of Open Source enthusiasts and security experts who recognized a void in the availability of accurate and insightful news relating to open source security issues. Led by Dave Wreski, who currently serves as chief executive officer of Guardian Digital, this group has grown into a global network of collaborators who devote their time to gathering and publicizing the latest security news, advisories and reports relevant to the Linux community. Headquartered in Guardian Digital’s offices in Allendale, New Jersey, LinuxSecurity.com’s editorial and web development staff also creates feature articles, commentaries and surveys designed to keep readers informed of the latest Linux advancements and to promote the general growth of Linux around the world.

Tip:

  • A basic beginner guide to getting started with Inkscape. (inkscape.org)

More Information:

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

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

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

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