Windows – mintCast https://mintcast.org The podcast by the Linux Mint community for all users of Linux Fri, 21 Nov 2025 22:34:34 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1 https://mintcast.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/cropped-small-logo-32x32.png Windows – mintCast https://mintcast.org 32 32 mintCast false episodic CC-BY-SA 4.0 CC-BY-SA 4.0 podcast Windows – mintCast https://mintcast.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/big-logo-1600.png https://mintcast.org TV-G 164426984 472 – New Distros, Old Issues https://mintcast.org/472-new-distros-old-issues/ Fri, 21 Nov 2025 22:34:33 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7713 First up in the news: Mint Monthly News – October 2025

Then, new distro news and updates, and more streaming stuff

In security and privacy: don’t trust every PPA!

]]> First up in the news: Mint Monthly News – October 2025

Then, new distro news and updates, and more streaming stuff

In security and privacy: don’t trust every PPA!

Link To Full Show Notes

The News:


Mint Monthly News – October 2025


GNOME 50 Ends the X11 Era After Decades


CachyOS Continues Delivering Leading Performance Over Ubuntu 25.10, Fedora Workstation 43


ElementaryOS Updates


IncusOS: A New Immutable Linux System Built for Running Incus


KDE Plasma 6.6 Introduces QR Code Wi-Fi Connections, Boosts Performance


Ikey Doherty Missing from AerynOS for Six Months


Debian’s APT Package Manager to Integrate Rust Code by May 2026


90% of Windows games now run on Linux; Linux gamers on Steam cross 3% mark


The Internet is Dying. 50% of all traffic is now non-human


The Internet Archive’s legal fight is over but loses 500,000 books from its Open Library in the process


The Internet Archive’s legal fight is over but loses 500,000 books from its Open Library in the process


YouTube TV’s Disney blackout reminds users that they don’t own what they stream

Security And Privacy:


Don’t blindly trust every PPA. FreeRDP installed via this PPA for Winboat may have malware

Check This Out:


Instagram- web site to view videos and photos without an account: https://imginn.com


Firefox- tip to get shorter tab height: about:config change browser.uidensity from 01 to 1 https://leochavez.org/old/firefox-tabs.html


AppImageLauncher v.3.00 beta (.deb file or AppImage, not the old PPA, which is no longer compatible with Noble Numbat and therefore Mint 22.0+) https://github.com/TheAssassin/AppImageLauncher/releases


Load All Reddit Comments: Bookmarklet with keyboard shortcut triggered bykeyword using javascript on Bookmarks Toolbar (CTRL + Shift + B)bookmarklet


IRCCloud allows a persistent connection with the free tier as long as your device stays connected, and allows two network connections, plus is able to connect to same network twice, so one can use two different nicknames on same network.


How to get started with Tailscale in under 10 minutes


Interview with Mark Shuttleworth on LNL

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • Bill for our audio editing and for hosting the server which runs our website, website maintenance, and the NextCloud server on which we host our show notes and raw audio
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • Hobstar for our logo, initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • Londoner for our time syncs and various other contributions
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem … and co!>
]]> 472 472 New Distros, Old Issues full 1:13:30 7713 457- mozillaCast https://mintcast.org/457-mozillacast/ Sat, 22 Mar 2025 16:48:20 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7437 First up in the news: Firefox’s new terms aren’t that bad, uBlock Origin is the Most Popular Firefox Add-on, Cloudflare bounces browsers, and PocketCast goes free

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

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

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

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


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

Full Show Notes Here

The News:


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


uBlock Origin is the Most Popular Firefox Add-on


Cloudflare’s bot bouncer blocks weirdo browsers


Thunderbird 136 Release Adds New Appearance Controls


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

Security and Privacy:


France rejects controversial encryption backdoor provision


TAILS replaces balenaEtcher with Rufus as installer for Windows

Contact Info:

Special Thanks To:

  • Bill for our audio editing and for hosting the server which runs our website, website maintenance, and the NextCloud server on which we host our show notes and raw audio
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • Hobstar for our logo, initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • Londoner for our time syncs and various other contributions
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem … and co!>
]]> 457 457 457 - mozillaCast full 1:56:58 7437 453 – Nice Rack, Joe! https://mintcast.org/453-nice-rack-joe/ Wed, 22 Jan 2025 05:00:00 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7359 First up in the news: Linux Mint 22.1 “Xia” released, Parallels can finally run x86 versions of Linux on Apple Silicon, German router maker is latest company to inadvertently clarify the LGPL license, Google and Linux Foundation form Chromium love club

In security and privacy: Microsoft patches Windows to eliminate Secure Boot bypass threat,

Then in our Wanderings: Joe enjoys prepares his rack , Dale does routing , and Eric shares 80s kid culture with his kid.

]]> First up in the news: Linux Mint 22.1 “Xia” released, Parallels can finally run x86 versions of Linux on Apple Silicon, German router maker is latest company to inadvertently clarify the LGPL license, Google and Linux Foundation form Chromium love club

In security and privacy: Microsoft patches Windows to eliminate Secure Boot bypass threat,

Then in our Wanderings: Joe enjoys prepares his rack , Dale does routing , and Eric shares 80s kid culture with his kid.

Full Show Notes Here

The News:


Linux Mint 22.1 “Xia” released joe


Parallels can finally run x86 versions of Linux on Apple Silicon


German router maker is latest company to inadvertently clarify the LGPL license


Google and Linux Foundation form Chromium love club

Security and Privacy:


Microsoft patches Windows to eliminate Secure Boot bypass threat

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!>
]]> full 1:12:33 7359 445 – Wearable https://mintcast.org/445-wearable/ Wed, 11 Sep 2024 23:09:07 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=7141 First up in the news: KITE OS educational Linux developed in Kerala, India, Microsoft rolls out Windows Recall again, Linus regrets merging BCacheFS again, 4M Linux 46 released;

In security and privacy: “Something has gone seriously wrong,” dual-boot systems warn after Microsoft update, “sedxp” Linux malware avoids detection for two years;

Then in our Wanderings: Majid is back from his travels, Moss, Joe, Eric gets his PineTime

In our Innards section: we do wearables

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

]]> First up in the news: KITE OS educational Linux developed in Kerala, India, Microsoft rolls out Windows Recall again, Linus regrets merging BCacheFS again, 4M Linux 46 released;

In security and privacy: “Something has gone seriously wrong,” dual-boot systems warn after Microsoft update, “sedxp” Linux malware avoids detection for two years;

Then in our Wanderings: Majid is back from his travels, Moss, Joe, Eric gets his PineTime

In our Innards section: we do wearables

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

Full Show Notes Here

The News


KITE develops FOSS-based OS for public schools


Upgrades to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Paused Due to ‘Critical Bug’


Microsoft will try the data-scraping Windows Recall feature again in October


Linus Torvalds Begins Expressing Regrets Merging Bcachefs


4MLinux 46 Mini Linux Distro Released with New Apps, Integrated LAMP Server

Security and Privacy


“Something has gone seriously wrong,” dual-boot systems warn after Microsoft update


Stealthy ‘sedexp’ Linux malware evaded detection for two years

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!>
]]> 445 445 Wearable full 2:13:07 7141 397 – Bye Bye Stadia https://mintcast.org/397-bye-bye-stadia/ Fri, 07 Oct 2022 23:02:38 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5633 In security and privacy, a new virus for Windows and Linux
Then in our Wanderings, Joe is fixing bikes on his audiobookshelf, Moss has more classes, and Bill gets Nextcloud running.
Download
]]> First up in the news, Monthly Mintyness, Gnome gnarliness, and KDE K-ness, Ubuntu 22.10 gets fresh, Ubuntu now on AWS, Brave blocks consent, Google kills another app, GNU Toolchain moves, Matrix patches holes, new Shotcut, new Audacity, and more…

In security and privacy, a new virus for Windows and Linux;

Then in our Wanderings, Joe is fixing bikes on his audiobookshelf, Moss has more classes, and Bill gets Nextcloud running;

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

The News

Security and Privacy Update

Wrap-up

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

  • Norbert, Tony H, and all others for our audio production
  • Leo for timestamps and publishing
  • Josh Lowe, and Bill Houser for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • initrd for the animated Discord logo
  • Londoner for our time sync
  • Linode for hosting mintcast.org
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about.Thanks, Clem!
]]> full 5633 374.5 – “Smart” Phones https://mintcast.org/374-5-smart-phones/ Fri, 26 Nov 2021 06:22:38 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5280 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Download
]]> 1:46 Linux Innards
42:07 Vibrations from the Ether
51:07 Check This Out
54:28 Announcements & Outro

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

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

Linux Innards

  • Joe
    • First smartphone was the samsung behold 2 which i hated
    • I also had the htc dash which was a blackberry knockoff but pretty awesome
    • Then the htc hd2 which is the most modded phone ever
      • Windows mobile
      • Android
      • Linux
    • After that i went back to samsung and had the s3 which is a great phone and if you can find one that is working still has its uses.  My son is using one now
      • I used this phone until it died, smaller device but ran well and did everything i needed
      • Still good today as an MP3 player which is what my son uses it for
    • Then the Note 3
      • I used this for a long time
    • S7
      • I still use this for some things but the ports are getting old.  The 3.5mm jack no longer works and the usb connection is a bit wobbly
    • Note 10 plus
  • Tony
    • History – The First Smartphone I bought was the Nexus 4 which I got in February 2013. This was a great introduction to the smartphone experience but quickly started to feel restricted and in October 2014 I made the giant leap to a OnePlus1 which I paid £299 but was a premium phone for a mid range price at the time.
    • When that started to feel its age in 2017 I bought a Nokia 6, this was a great Phone and the following year I purchased the 6.1 upgrade for my wife who had been using my old Nexus 4 as her first Smartphone. Unfortunately I dropped the Nokia in 2018 smashing the screen badly and was sold the Huawei P20 lite which I used as my daily driver until last week when I went and bought the Nokia X20 6.6” behemoth which I am still getting used to.
    • This phone has the advantage of receiving guaranteed Android updates for 3 years from release and I should get to Android 14 before the time runs out from the current Android 11 that is installed.
    • Before retiring the OnePlus1 as my daily driver I did delve into the world of alternative Roms and successfully installed Lineage to it, but had an issue with upgrading it at one point and that led me to purchasing the Nokia 6. A while back I decided to have a play with the OnePlus1 and I have installed Ubuntu Touch to it and last night was playing with it and have got it running the latest update of the 16.04 install. I know that they are working on getting 20.04 and I have enabled this to be downloaded as an OTA update when available for the OnePlus1.
  • Norbert
    • 2010 – Neonode N2
    • 2010 – (Apple iPod Touch 4G)
    • 2014 – Sony Xperia SP
    • 2015 – Sony Xperia Z Ultra
    • 2016 – (Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 9.7”)
    • 2017 – Sony Xperia X Compact
    • 2019 – Samsung Galax
    • y A8 (2018)
    • 2021 – LG G7 ThinQ
  • Josh
    • My initial foray into the world of smartphones were all lower tier devices which were “free” with the signing of a contract. They were all quite terrible and that’s probably why I can’t remember any of them specifically.
    • My first noteworthy smartphone was a Nexus 5 which I purchased early in 2014. It was quite an impressive device for its price point and I still have it today as a backup phone, although it now runs Ubuntu Touch in place of Android. I have had to replace the battery on it once and it does suffer from the all too common power button issue on occasion that causes it to constantly reboot which is why I eventually moved on from it.
    • From there I decided I wanted to focus more on privacy so I went through a number of different flip and feature phones only to find most of them ran stripped down versions of Android and the lackluster performance was maddening. Just attempting to text while the system lagged caused multiple input errors but there was a bit of nostalgia returning to T9 predictive text.
    • I decided to return to the world of smartphones and purchased an LG V30+ off of Ebay. I got it at a very reduced price due to some screen burn in but the phone was pristine outside of that. This is still my daily driver today even though the OS hasn’t received a security update since August of 2019. The DAC is still considered by many to be the best ever put in a phone which is why I’m reluctant to replace it. I use it mainly for listening to music and podcasts and store as little personal data as possible on it.
    • I also purchased a Pinephone UB Ports edition and a Sony Xperia X which I installed Ubuntu Touch on with hopes that one of them could serve as a privacy focused daily driver. The Xperia is usable if you’re willing to compromise convenience quite considerably but the Pinephone remains little more than a developer’s toy that cannot be daily driven under any realistic circumstances. Unfortunately it seems the reality of a capable Linux phone is still quite a ways off into the distance, the hardware is there but the software is definitely not.

Vibrations from the Ether

  • Brad A
  • Larry M
  • William W

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!>
]]> 374.5 - "Smart" Phones full 58:04 5280 372 – Ryzen Sun https://mintcast.org/372-ryzen-sun/ Wed, 20 Oct 2021 04:49:53 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5244 In security Retpolines patches for performance and Azure Linux boot failures
Then in our Wandering, Joe has some Pi, Norbert edits video, Tony Updates a BIOS, and Nishant upgrades Fedora
Download
]]> 1:44 The News
18:21 Security Update
21:43 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
56:20 Announcements & Outro

First up in the news Pinephone Pro, KDE’s 5.23 on their 25th, Ubuntu Frame, Windows 11 Ryzen slowdowns, and Nvidia updates

In security Retpolines patches for performance and Azure Linux boot failures

Then in our Wandering, Joe has some Pi, Norbert edits video, Tony Updates a BIOS, and Nishant upgrades Fedora

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

The News

Security Update

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • Bo for our audio production
  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • initrd for the animated Discord logg
  • 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!>
]]> 372 - Ryzen Sun full 1:03:16 5244 371 – Rounded Corners https://mintcast.org/371-rounded-corners/ Wed, 06 Oct 2021 05:37:05 +0000 https://mintcast.org/?p=5230 In security, More bugs and more malware
Then in our Wanderings, Joe does vacation, Norbert Listens to the Doctor, Josh tries ventoy, Tony is making ice cream trucks, Leo plays D2
Download
]]> 1:49 The News
28:03 Security Update
38:05 Bi-Weekly Wanderings
1:19:37 Announcements & Outro

First up in the news, Linux Mint Monthly updates, Ubuntu news, Windows being Windows and Steam deck news

In security, More bugs and more malware

Then in our Wanderings, Joe does vacation, Norbert Listens to the Doctor, Josh tries ventoy, Tony is making ice cream trucks, Leo plays D2

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

The News

Security Update

Bi-Weekly Wanderings

Announcements

Wrap-up

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

  • Owen Peery for our audio production
  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • initrd for the animated Discord logg
  • 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!>
]]> 371 - Rounded Corners full 1:27:49 5230 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 351.5 – Batting a Thousand (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-351-5-batting-a-thousand-mp3/ Wed, 06 Jan 2021 05:30:34 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4852 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions Download
]]> Download

1:40 Linux Innards
1:12:18 Vibrations from the Ether
1:17:37 Check This Out
1:21:21 Outro

In our Innards section, we look back on last year’s predictions, and make new ones.

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

LINUX INNARDS:

What Did We Get Wrong?

  • Joe
  • Leo
    • Microsoft Office will have a native Linux version released
    • Adobe Photoshop will have a native Linux version released
    • AutoCAD will have a native Linux version released
      • Nope, Nope, and Nope
    • Moss will record a Gentoo show
      • Moss has moved away from Gentoo but is getting closer to Bodhi, and even started a Bodhi Telegram group which is semi-official
    • Firefox vs. The World. Firefox will be the last popular non-Chromium holdout.
      • The key word is “popular”. At the current rate, that soon won’t include Firefox. Gnome Web and Safari (Mac only) are also still blink-free.
    • 1
  • Tony H
    • Linux Driver support will continue to improve and more hardware manufacturers (Nvidia I’m looking at you) will develop open source Linux Drivers. 
      • Nope
    • I was banking on a New R.Pi revision if not a totally new model, I still think that adding M.2 support, as other SBC manufacturers have, is the way to go in the long term. But this will probably require a totally new board design and may still be a year or 2 away. It may be that someone designs an add on board that will provide this function, but if they do it needs to be a device that allows the drive to be the boot drive.  
      • As for Driver support not much has changed with this so that is probably a Zero  
      • But I nailed it in respect of the Pi, a new compute module 4 was released which if you get a board to plug it that has a PCIe slot you can add a M.2 SATA board and use this for the drive storage. Also the Pi 400 was also released which is a totally new model based on the Pi 4 chipset but clocked at 1800MHz and with a totally new layout that allows for a good passive heat sink across the whole of the board that sits in the Keyboard.
    • 2  100 percent
  • Moss
    • Now that Canonical has agreements with Microsoft for WSL and Amazon for Ubuntu Pro and AWS, I predict they will begin (or continue, if they have already begun in secret) working on agreements with other megacorps such as Alphabet, Oracle, SAP, and Apache.
      • Nope. All wrong. Or they kept it quite well-hidden.
    • If they succeed with any one of these new alliances, they will be insulated from potential buyouts and takeovers. I therefore predict this is the year they go IPO.
      • If not-A then not-B. But SUSE is rumored to be heading for an IPO in 2021.
  • Tony W
    • Maru OS will significantly expand supported devices
      • Will add support for a Oneplus device, very likely 3/3T
      • Will also add support for Galaxy Note devices, Note 9 and/or Note 10
        • Nope
    • We will see convergence on Pine64 devices, with Pinephone able to dock to peripherals and run full desktop applications
      • Oh, Yeah
    • A big box store will sell a PC preconfigured with Linux in 2020
      • Nope
  • Oliver Kelly
    • End of Windows 7 support won’t increase the Linux desktop uptake
      • Point
    • Intel’s new Graphics card wont suck on Linux
      • Not released yet.
  • Erik Lietz
    • Purism will go out of business – the Librem 5 phone endeavor will put it under
       (Purism’s reach into so many products will be their undoing and even with some products doing well, this will be too much for their business to sustain)

      • Although not out of business but Purism has been much much quieter in 2020 than they were in 2019.
    • The PinePhone will be an amazing product and success story for Pine64
       (I am waiting for the second offering after the Brave Heart edition. The PinePhone product development will set a ‘gold’ standard how to correctly launch new product)

      • Pine64 has been a joy to watch their activity in 2020. So much I have just received my Manjaro edition PinePhone. What a great product for $200.
    • An major industry specific software company (Adobe, Autodesk (for AutoCAD), or similar) will offer a Linux version for a flagship software product
       (Adobe, Autodesk, or another specific flagship program dedicated for a very specific task. Running natively, no Wine, no web apps – AutoCAD can already run as a web app)

      • Dud on this one… As a side note for our business we are looking to migrate away from AutoCAD.
    • Microsoft will offer Office 365 on Linux
       (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint at a minimum will be running natively on Linux, no Wine, no web apps)

      • Again a zero – although we are using Edge on Linux in the office for our web accounting systeming.
    • Linux preinstalled from a major hardware supplier will be available in big box stores available off of the shelf (a large hardware vendor (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc)
      • I claim a handicap on this one as with all the goings on people weren’t allowed in stores most of the year. Although, both HP and Lenovo in particular have made major releases with Linux including both Fedora and Ubuntu on a whole bunch of Lenovo products. [Moss: Don’t forget that Dell increased their offerings of Linux machines.]

What About Next Year?

  • Leo
    •  Apple’s M1 Air and Pro will work moderately well on Linux.
    • Microsoft Office will have a native Linux version released.
    • Everybody focuses on the browser and not the CEO. Firefox sees an upswing in users. 5% and going up.
  • Joe
    • Red Hat will somehow disappoint us more over the next year and become even more corporate.
    • Game streaming services will have a very good year and become much more common.  Steam will release a Stadia competitor, with no local install.
    • It will be both a good year and a bad year for linux because of online services.  There will be many more ‘computers’ using the linux kernel but not actually linux. Similar to the chromebook.
  • Tony H
    • Well as I have been successful with my Pi predictions I’m going to do another one and  go way out on a limb and  suggest we may be heading for a Pi 5 or at least a Pi 4+. I will also predict that the Pi 400 will get a revision with 8Gb of RAM and possibly a further overclock of the CPU so those not comfortable doing things like that will have a 2.1Ghz CPU out of the box, as with the very good passive cooling it has been shown to be very stable at this clock speed.
  • Moss
    • Distrohoppers’ Digest will exceed 18,000 total downloads. (this would require our average downloads per episode to exceed 600, and at least 10 episodes)
    • At least 6 long-standing distros (3 years or longer) will close or merge, and be replaced by at least 8 new distros – at least 4 of them forks of what just closed shop.
    • I and/or my wife will have a job which pays enough for our needs and will survive 2021 much better than we did 2020.
    • Covid will be a minor irritation by the end of the year, not a world-spanning pandemic and contact-tracking apps will be a thing of the past.
  • Josh Hawk
    • Linux phones will double in number and power in 2021
    • All mainstream cable tv channels will switch to apps.
    • Firefox will be given to the community to maintain (maybe for the better) or be so underfunded that they will lay off almost all working on it.
  • Erik Lietz 
    • Wayland – the transition to Wayland will become much more prevalent or mainstream among distributions in 2021. It won’t completely transition from X but it will gain much more traction in 2021. (Hedge! hedge!) (Durden!)
    • Microsoft Office 365 natively on Linux (repeat of 2020).
    • A Linux phone (probably the Pine Phone) will be available for the ‘average’ consumer in 2021 and be able to be a daily driver phone.
    • Warpinator will expand to almost all distributions and become the ‘go to’ solution for easy computer to computer file transactions similar to the Apple AirDrop.
    • A new, independent non-Chrome based web browser will enter the market. This will either push Mozilla to retool and reinvigorate Firefox or the downward spin will speed up.
  • Owen Peery
    • Raspberry Pi will continue to develop either the 4 or the 400 so that all the models can easily come with 8G RAM minimum and with processor speeds above 2 Ghz with no overclocking necessary
      • So more distros will function on it, and it can BE A REPLACEMENT for low end Chromebooks that are pretty crappy
    • Linux podcasts will continue to fumble advertising and promotion and alienate their listeners as they pile on more and more promotional spots. Spots for legitimate companies, who might even be our friends, and support our interests, but the sheer number of spots we hear each week as we listen to our favorite podcasts, turns the signal into noise, and noise that we will ignore. Let’s not adopt the advertising models that many of us are trying to get away from, we can do better.
    • Linux audio will get better as Pipewire rolls out in more places. Even if it’s not widely adopted at the beginning it will show a simpler path forward is possible.
    • Linux influencers will continue to wring their hands about the perpetual issue of lack of diversity in the Linux ecosystem, while at the same time, failing to take public stands against white supremacy and toxic masculinity in our very community. It’s not enough to just invite people from underrepresented groups to our spaces, we have to make sure our spaces are not hostile to the very people some of us are trying to include. This is where a lot of growth in Linux use and adoption can happen, but will it?
    • Software for creative endeavors will continue to get better and better on Linux so hobbyists can make our fun pet projects, on software that works, that has tons of options to make it pretty, AND that doesn’t have an obtuse soul crushing work flow. Sometimes we focus on getting the pro level users a good experience on Linux software, but I think the hobbyists are where we should focus. A pro level user probably works for a company that already has a license locked in, and has an entire workflow based on proprietary solutions, and dozens, if not hundreds of employees, so that will be a hard nut to crack.
    • The onboarding path for beginners will not get easier. The time investment needed to get up to speed on some basic tasks will continue to be just enough to scare off the competent but casual users, let alone semi incompetent users. We need to either change that or accept that Linux might not be a good option for beginners. If we want to make space for beginners in Linux, we must hold space, without judgments, for beginners, and bring them in with intention, not left in the wild.
  • Josh Lowe
    • Ubuntu support on Raspberry Pi will improve dramatically and become as popular or overtake Raspbian as the main Raspberry Pi OS
    • We could see an Official Raspberry Pi Laptop
    • a RISC-V Powered RPi
  • Oliver Kelly
    • A new demonstration of MS <3 Linux with desktop compatible Office suite via Electron or some container system like Snap or LXD.
  • Utopic Unicorn (Discord)
    • Canonical will go closed source.
    • Linux Mint will see a huge controversy.
    • Manjaro gets shut down.
    • Arco linux sees a huge increase in new users.
    • Redhat gets decimated in the server industry in favour of other distros including Debian.
  • rockhazard (Discord)
    • MS will *drop* development of Edge for Linux. (a man can hope)
  • Sundaram (Telegram)
    • Proton/Wine will support EAC
    • Matrix users will skyrocket.
    • Linux will run on Apple M1.
    • Lots and lots of ARM devices.
    • RISC-V will grow a lot.
    • Nvidia will open source its drivers. (Lol)
    • Due to the release of many cloud gaming platforms fragmentation will occur (also timed exclusives will be more common).
  • J Arun Mani (Telegram)
    • Microsoft will expand its poison net: WSL, VSCode and many things that will prevent users from really moving to Linux
    • Adobe will continue to call Linux a modest platform
    • Emacs will become more modern and beginner friendly.
  • Dave Goldsbrough (Twitter)
    • (More of a wish!) Accessibility will be much better in Linux.
  • Joussef Jouda 
    • No innovative changes in Linux in 2021

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

  • Clay Stone
  • From Alex
  • Brad Alexander
  • Avinash

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, 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 4852 mintCast 351.5 – Batting a Thousand https://mintcast.org/mintcast-351-5-batting-a-thousand/ Wed, 06 Jan 2021 05:13:38 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4846 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Download
]]> Download

1:40 Linux Innards
1:12:18 Vibrations from the Ether
1:17:37 Check This Out
1:21:21 Outro

In our Innards section, we look back on last year’s predictions, and make new ones.

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

LINUX INNARDS:

What Did We Get Wrong?

  • Joe
  • Leo
    • Microsoft Office will have a native Linux version released
    • Adobe Photoshop will have a native Linux version released
    • AutoCAD will have a native Linux version released
      • Nope, Nope, and Nope
    • Moss will record a Gentoo show
      • Moss has moved away from Gentoo but is getting closer to Bodhi, and even started a Bodhi Telegram group which is semi-official
    • Firefox vs. The World. Firefox will be the last popular non-Chromium holdout.
      • The key word is “popular”. At the current rate, that soon won’t include Firefox. Gnome Web and Safari (Mac only) are also still blink-free.
    • 1
  • Tony H
    • Linux Driver support will continue to improve and more hardware manufacturers (Nvidia I’m looking at you) will develop open source Linux Drivers. 
      • Nope
    • I was banking on a New R.Pi revision if not a totally new model, I still think that adding M.2 support, as other SBC manufacturers have, is the way to go in the long term. But this will probably require a totally new board design and may still be a year or 2 away. It may be that someone designs an add on board that will provide this function, but if they do it needs to be a device that allows the drive to be the boot drive.  
      • As for Driver support not much has changed with this so that is probably a Zero  
      • But I nailed it in respect of the Pi, a new compute module 4 was released which if you get a board to plug it that has a PCIe slot you can add a M.2 SATA board and use this for the drive storage. Also the Pi 400 was also released which is a totally new model based on the Pi 4 chipset but clocked at 1800MHz and with a totally new layout that allows for a good passive heat sink across the whole of the board that sits in the Keyboard.
    • 2  100 percent
  • Moss
    • Now that Canonical has agreements with Microsoft for WSL and Amazon for Ubuntu Pro and AWS, I predict they will begin (or continue, if they have already begun in secret) working on agreements with other megacorps such as Alphabet, Oracle, SAP, and Apache.
      • Nope. All wrong. Or they kept it quite well-hidden.
    • If they succeed with any one of these new alliances, they will be insulated from potential buyouts and takeovers. I therefore predict this is the year they go IPO.
      • If not-A then not-B. But SUSE is rumored to be heading for an IPO in 2021.
  • Tony W
    • Maru OS will significantly expand supported devices
      • Will add support for a Oneplus device, very likely 3/3T
      • Will also add support for Galaxy Note devices, Note 9 and/or Note 10
        • Nope
    • We will see convergence on Pine64 devices, with Pinephone able to dock to peripherals and run full desktop applications
      • Oh, Yeah
    • A big box store will sell a PC preconfigured with Linux in 2020
      • Nope
  • Oliver Kelly
    • End of Windows 7 support won’t increase the Linux desktop uptake
      • Point
    • Intel’s new Graphics card wont suck on Linux
      • Not released yet.
  • Erik Lietz
    • Purism will go out of business – the Librem 5 phone endeavor will put it under
       (Purism’s reach into so many products will be their undoing and even with some products doing well, this will be too much for their business to sustain)

      • Although not out of business but Purism has been much much quieter in 2020 than they were in 2019.
    • The PinePhone will be an amazing product and success story for Pine64
       (I am waiting for the second offering after the Brave Heart edition. The PinePhone product development will set a ‘gold’ standard how to correctly launch new product)

      • Pine64 has been a joy to watch their activity in 2020. So much I have just received my Manjaro edition PinePhone. What a great product for $200.
    • An major industry specific software company (Adobe, Autodesk (for AutoCAD), or similar) will offer a Linux version for a flagship software product
       (Adobe, Autodesk, or another specific flagship program dedicated for a very specific task. Running natively, no Wine, no web apps – AutoCAD can already run as a web app)

      • Dud on this one… As a side note for our business we are looking to migrate away from AutoCAD.
    • Microsoft will offer Office 365 on Linux
       (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint at a minimum will be running natively on Linux, no Wine, no web apps)

      • Again a zero – although we are using Edge on Linux in the office for our web accounting systeming.
    • Linux preinstalled from a major hardware supplier will be available in big box stores available off of the shelf (a large hardware vendor (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc)
      • I claim a handicap on this one as with all the goings on people weren’t allowed in stores most of the year. Although, both HP and Lenovo in particular have made major releases with Linux including both Fedora and Ubuntu on a whole bunch of Lenovo products. [Moss: Don’t forget that Dell increased their offerings of Linux machines.]

What About Next Year?

  • Leo
    •  Apple’s M1 Air and Pro will work moderately well on Linux.
    • Microsoft Office will have a native Linux version released.
    • Everybody focuses on the browser and not the CEO. Firefox sees an upswing in users. 5% and going up.
  • Joe
    • Red Hat will somehow disappoint us more over the next year and become even more corporate.
    • Game streaming services will have a very good year and become much more common.  Steam will release a Stadia competitor, with no local install.
    • It will be both a good year and a bad year for linux because of online services.  There will be many more ‘computers’ using the linux kernel but not actually linux. Similar to the chromebook.
  • Tony H
    • Well as I have been successful with my Pi predictions I’m going to do another one and  go way out on a limb and  suggest we may be heading for a Pi 5 or at least a Pi 4+. I will also predict that the Pi 400 will get a revision with 8Gb of RAM and possibly a further overclock of the CPU so those not comfortable doing things like that will have a 2.1Ghz CPU out of the box, as with the very good passive cooling it has been shown to be very stable at this clock speed.
  • Moss
    • Distrohoppers’ Digest will exceed 18,000 total downloads. (this would require our average downloads per episode to exceed 600, and at least 10 episodes)
    • At least 6 long-standing distros (3 years or longer) will close or merge, and be replaced by at least 8 new distros – at least 4 of them forks of what just closed shop.
    • I and/or my wife will have a job which pays enough for our needs and will survive 2021 much better than we did 2020.
    • Covid will be a minor irritation by the end of the year, not a world-spanning pandemic and contact-tracking apps will be a thing of the past.
  • Josh Hawk
    • Linux phones will double in number and power in 2021
    • All mainstream cable tv channels will switch to apps.
    • Firefox will be given to the community to maintain (maybe for the better) or be so underfunded that they will lay off almost all working on it.
  • Erik Lietz 
    • Wayland – the transition to Wayland will become much more prevalent or mainstream among distributions in 2021. It won’t completely transition from X but it will gain much more traction in 2021. (Hedge! hedge!) (Durden!)
    • Microsoft Office 365 natively on Linux (repeat of 2020).
    • A Linux phone (probably the Pine Phone) will be available for the ‘average’ consumer in 2021 and be able to be a daily driver phone.
    • Warpinator will expand to almost all distributions and become the ‘go to’ solution for easy computer to computer file transactions similar to the Apple AirDrop.
    • A new, independent non-Chrome based web browser will enter the market. This will either push Mozilla to retool and reinvigorate Firefox or the downward spin will speed up.
  • Owen Peery
    • Raspberry Pi will continue to develop either the 4 or the 400 so that all the models can easily come with 8G RAM minimum and with processor speeds above 2 Ghz with no overclocking necessary
      • So more distros will function on it, and it can BE A REPLACEMENT for low end Chromebooks that are pretty crappy
    • Linux podcasts will continue to fumble advertising and promotion and alienate their listeners as they pile on more and more promotional spots. Spots for legitimate companies, who might even be our friends, and support our interests, but the sheer number of spots we hear each week as we listen to our favorite podcasts, turns the signal into noise, and noise that we will ignore. Let’s not adopt the advertising models that many of us are trying to get away from, we can do better.
    • Linux audio will get better as Pipewire rolls out in more places. Even if it’s not widely adopted at the beginning it will show a simpler path forward is possible.
    • Linux influencers will continue to wring their hands about the perpetual issue of lack of diversity in the Linux ecosystem, while at the same time, failing to take public stands against white supremacy and toxic masculinity in our very community. It’s not enough to just invite people from underrepresented groups to our spaces, we have to make sure our spaces are not hostile to the very people some of us are trying to include. This is where a lot of growth in Linux use and adoption can happen, but will it?
    • Software for creative endeavors will continue to get better and better on Linux so hobbyists can make our fun pet projects, on software that works, that has tons of options to make it pretty, AND that doesn’t have an obtuse soul crushing work flow. Sometimes we focus on getting the pro level users a good experience on Linux software, but I think the hobbyists are where we should focus. A pro level user probably works for a company that already has a license locked in, and has an entire workflow based on proprietary solutions, and dozens, if not hundreds of employees, so that will be a hard nut to crack.
    • The onboarding path for beginners will not get easier. The time investment needed to get up to speed on some basic tasks will continue to be just enough to scare off the competent but casual users, let alone semi incompetent users. We need to either change that or accept that Linux might not be a good option for beginners. If we want to make space for beginners in Linux, we must hold space, without judgments, for beginners, and bring them in with intention, not left in the wild.
  • Josh Lowe
    • Ubuntu support on Raspberry Pi will improve dramatically and become as popular or overtake Raspbian as the main Raspberry Pi OS
    • We could see an Official Raspberry Pi Laptop
    • a RISC-V Powered RPi
  • Oliver Kelly
    • A new demonstration of MS <3 Linux with desktop compatible Office suite via Electron or some container system like Snap or LXD.
  • Utopic Unicorn (Discord)
    • Canonical will go closed source.
    • Linux Mint will see a huge controversy.
    • Manjaro gets shut down.
    • Arco linux sees a huge increase in new users.
    • Redhat gets decimated in the server industry in favour of other distros including Debian.
  • rockhazard (Discord)
    • MS will *drop* development of Edge for Linux. (a man can hope)
  • Sundaram (Telegram)
    • Proton/Wine will support EAC
    • Matrix users will skyrocket.
    • Linux will run on Apple M1.
    • Lots and lots of ARM devices.
    • RISC-V will grow a lot.
    • Nvidia will open source its drivers. (Lol)
    • Due to the release of many cloud gaming platforms fragmentation will occur (also timed exclusives will be more common).
  • J Arun Mani (Telegram)
    • Microsoft will expand its poison net: WSL, VSCode and many things that will prevent users from really moving to Linux
    • Adobe will continue to call Linux a modest platform
    • Emacs will become more modern and beginner friendly.
  • Dave Goldsbrough (Twitter)
    • (More of a wish!) Accessibility will be much better in Linux.
  • Joussef Jouda 
    • No innovative changes in Linux in 2021

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

  • Clay Stone
  • From Alex
  • Brad Alexander
  • Avinash

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, 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 1:24:25 4846 mintCast 345.5 – Linux on the Edge (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-345-5-linux-on-the-edge-mp3/ Wed, 14 Oct 2020 04:44:33 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4704 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Download
]]>

Download

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

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

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

LINUX INNARDS:

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

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

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

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

  • fjord

CHECK THIS OUT:

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

Announcements:

Our next show will be on October 18, 2020 at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC. Check https://everytimezone.com/s/a5d26573  to convert to your local time.

Wrap-up:

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

  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our Mumble backup
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • Londoner for our time zone link
  • Owen Peery for our audio editing
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 4704 mintCast 345.5 – Linux on the Edge https://mintcast.org/mintcast-345-5-linux-on-the-edge/ Wed, 14 Oct 2020 04:22:34 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4697 And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions
Download
]]>

Download

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

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

And finally, the feedback and a couple of suggestions

LINUX INNARDS:

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

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER:

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

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

  • fjord

CHECK THIS OUT:

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

Announcements:

Our next show will be on October 18, 2020 at 2 pm Central US time, 7 pm UTC. Check https://everytimezone.com/s/a5d26573  to convert to your local time.

Wrap-up:

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

  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • HPR for our Mumble backup
  • Hobstar for our logo
  • Londoner for our time zone link
  • Owen Peery for our audio editing
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 1:07:14 4697 mintCast 343.5 – FOSS or Bust (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-343-5-foss-or-bust-mp3/ Wed, 16 Sep 2020 04:08:13 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4630 And finally, the feedback and a suggestion
Download
]]>

Download

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

In our Innards section, NonFree vs FOSS

And finally, the feedback and a suggestion

LINUX INNARDS: 

Is insistence on FOSS limiting the growth of Linux?

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

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER: 

  • Joseph Husak on Youtube

Joseph’s Followup Email

Tony W Response

  • TheComputerKid

Leo’s Response

Moss’ Response

  • Raphaël

Leo’s Response

sudo flatpak install org.videolan.VLC

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

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

Leo’s Response

Here is some basic usage.

leo@maya ~ > sudo hddtemp /dev/sda

[sudo] password for leo:        

/dev/sda: ADATA SU800: 27°C

leo@maya ~> sudo hddtemp /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb: TCSUNBOW N4 240GB: 40°C

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

sudo apt remove hddtemp

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

ss -l4

and check for a line like this

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

tcp         LISTEN       0         0           0.0.0.0:7634

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

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

[storm@danube ~]$ cd !$

cd Media

[storm@danube Media]$

CHECK THIS OUT! 

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

Announcements:

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

Wrap-up:

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

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

Download

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

In our Innards section, NonFree vs FOSS

And finally, the feedback and a suggestion

LINUX INNARDS: 

Is insistence on FOSS limiting the growth of Linux?

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

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER: 

  • Joseph Husak on Youtube

Joseph’s Followup Email

Tony W Response

  • TheComputerKid

Leo’s Response

Moss’ Response

  • Raphaël

Leo’s Response

sudo flatpak install org.videolan.VLC

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

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

Leo’s Response

Here is some basic usage.

leo@maya ~ > sudo hddtemp /dev/sda

[sudo] password for leo:        

/dev/sda: ADATA SU800: 27°C

leo@maya ~> sudo hddtemp /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb: TCSUNBOW N4 240GB: 40°C

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

sudo apt remove hddtemp

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

ss -l4

and check for a line like this

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

tcp         LISTEN       0         0           0.0.0.0:7634

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

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

[storm@danube ~]$ cd !$

cd Media

[storm@danube Media]$

CHECK THIS OUT! 

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

Announcements:

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

Wrap-up:

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

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

]]> full 4618 mintCast 328 – Sigh-DPI https://mintcast.org/mintcast-328-sigh-dpi/ Wed, 12 Feb 2020 05:51:56 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4215 Then in our news, Linux Mint goes HiDPI, Proton open-sources its VPN, Kernel 5.4 makes long-term support waves, Wireguard lands in Kernel 5.6, and more.
In security, your data is not safe. But we already knew that!
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Leo says Kernel 5.5 is the best and worst thing ever, Moss works on Distrohopper’s Digest, Joe is booking it again, and Bo is getting ready for a test.

Then in our news, Linux Mint goes HiDPI, Proton open-sources its VPN, Kernel 5.4 makes long-term support waves, Wireguard lands in Kernel 5.6, and more.

In security, your data is not safe. But we already knew that!

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Kernel 5.5 fixed everything and improved gaming performance!
    • A development snapshot of mesa 20 broke everything!
    • Updating to 5.5.2 and the February 8th development snapshot of mesa fixed everything again!
    • What a ride
  • Moss
    • Distrohoppers’ Digest has moved into double digit episode numbers, with Episode 10 recorded on February 5th. Download numbers are well above what we expected when we started this project.
    • I’m getting my Galago Pro 2 reconfigured after the Mint Crash. The actual cause was a Grub mess-up, but until I really learn how to work with Grub it’s just easier to reinstall.  Anyone who wants to know what my current 7 installations are can ask me in Telegram.
    • I installed OpenMandriva 4.1 on my Kudu, currently residing along with Feren OS and Ubuntu Budgie. It looks really good. But I still don’t know the package manager, and have no idea whether I can get Mullvad on it.
    • On Feb 3, I got word that I have been added to the team at Ubuntu Budgie. While this is exciting, and I’ve been added to the Ubuntu Budgie Discourse and Slack, I still don’t know how to actually do anything when I find something to fix. At any rate, Leo was wrong, my next podcast project will be BudgieCast.
    • We’re getting deep into Fool Moon, the second of the Dresden Files series. I read the graphic novel of it, and it hardly scratches the surface of the novel itself. Especially the chapter where he is wiped out to the point of getting to talk to his subconscious self. Good stuff. Firecat has managed to get me copies of the rest of the books, so we won’t have to stop reading just because I’m a pauper.
    • Work is being stressful, although I’m still employed; It would be more stressful if I were not.  I keep getting ideas of how to move on into other work, and keep running into the papercut issues which are bad enough to prevent me from moving forward with those ideas.  If people really did want to move to Linux from Windows 7, I can’t think of anyone better than myself to do those installations. 
    • I went out this morning to drive for Postmates, just another food delivery service but one which averages more income than GrubHub or Uber Eats, and found to my chagrin that I did not have one essential tool with me. So I had to drive home and I’ll try again tomorrow.     
  • Joe
    • Good reading
      • Found a copy of Demon Squad
        • Simple read and not for everyone but I enjoyed it 
      • Catching up on podcasts
      • Wanted a quick read so I also listened to one of my favorites: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
        • If you did not like the movie give the book a try
        • If you did like the movie definitely give the book a try 
      • Wax and Wayne series from Brandon Sanderson
        • I really like the first 2 books
        • Third book isn’t as good and the fourth book should be coming this year
    • Picked up a Pi 4 and a couple more pi Zeros
      • Still debating projects for the Zeros.
      • Testing out the 4
      • Will give my impressions on it at a later date
    • Having been researching Pi projects, I think I like the project for multiroom audio.
      • Don’t know if I have a use for it but it does seem fun
      • And I have 3 Pi Zeros ready to go
    • Also thinking about soldering a USB hub onto one of the Zeros.
      • Kinda negates the point of the zero but still a cool project and it is still cheaper than a 3B
      • Using a slim hub would not add much space.
    • Working on a new set of scripts to automatically convert and transfer newly purchased Amazon ebooks
      • Will work a lot like my automation of torrents
      • Purchase and download book on any of my devices
      • Move to a location on said device that uses resilio sync
      • Automatically gets transfered to my server which then moves it to another location
      • Book gets converted to epub or mobi, then the original and the copy get moved to my calibre library and a copy of the converted file gets moved to a resilio location that transfers to my phone. 
      • This then can be played using voice aloud.
    • Broke my second pair of Earforce z2’s  Not sure how they ended up breaking while sitting on my desk at work but they did, and I can’t find anyone selling the replacement bands unless I want to buy them from aliexpress and I don’t.  So I am looking for alternatives
    • I had purchased a lot of ‘as is’ wireless tv headphones with base stations from Sony (wh-rf400r if curious) so that I could give 2 of them to my dad and step mom for christmas and a have a few extra.  I was hoping that the hooks on them were the correct size but no such luck
    • They were however correct enough in size for a pair of Skullcandy Hesh 3’s that I had picked up from a previous job lot of broken headphones and the hesh’s only issue was a broken band.  I had to drill the hook holes a bit larger and cut back some of the internal bracing on the Hesh’s but now they work great
      • The Hesh are a great sounding pair of headphones with nice soft earpads and the new band provides a nice amount of clamping force.  I do need to make sure I put my ears in the earcups just the right way because the cups are pretty small. Otherwise the amount of time I can wear them is fairly small.  Also the batteries are pretty good considering how much time these set on a shelf waiting for me to find parts for them
      • Also very easy to work on with well placed easily accessible solder joins
      • Also the sonys have extra cables that run through the band, i was thinking about seeing what the output voltage is and seeing if i could use the base to charge the battery in the hesh
    • In testing the Pi 4 i had some networking issues because the wifi adapter in the pi is not very good
      • I don’t want to get into too many details on the Pi
      • But here is what I tried
      • External USB wifi.
      • Wifi router as bridge
        • This is the fault of the router though as it was an older one that had issues.  This fix should have worked and provided better speeds and stability
      • Brought back my powerline adapters and this greatly helped although it has not fixed all the networking issues
  • Bo
    • Missing you guys
    • Using terminal for as much as possible to prepare for LPIC, even for simple tasks.
      • Cat, join, sort
      • Ls | Xargs chmod 755
    • AWX
      • Credential manager
      • Inventory management
      • Roles
    • non -linux life
      • Tabletop RPGs
      • Star Trek Adventures podcast

THE NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE:

Announcements:

  • Our Next Episode will be live Feb 23, 2020. 2PM CST, 8PM UTC

Wrap-up:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> full 4215 mintCast 328 – Sigh-DPI (mp3) https://mintcast.org/mintcast-328-sigh-dpi-mp3/ Wed, 12 Feb 2020 05:51:18 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4213 Then in our news, Linux Mint goes HiDPI, Proton open-sources its VPN, Kernel 5.4 makes long-term support waves, Wireguard lands in Kernel 5.6, and more.
In security, your data is not safe. But we already knew that!
Download
]]>

Download

First up, in our Wanderings, Leo says Kernel 5.5 is the best and worst thing ever, Moss works on Distrohopper’s Digest, Joe is booking it again, and Bo is getting ready for a test.

Then in our news, Linux Mint goes HiDPI, Proton open-sources its VPN, Kernel 5.4 makes long-term support waves, Wireguard lands in Kernel 5.6, and more.

In security, your data is not safe. But we already knew that!

BI-WEEKLY WANDERINGS:

  • Leo
    • Kernel 5.5 fixed everything and improved gaming performance!
    • A development snapshot of mesa 20 broke everything!
    • Updating to 5.5.2 and the February 8th development snapshot of mesa fixed everything again!
    • What a ride
  • Moss
    • Distrohoppers’ Digest has moved into double digit episode numbers, with Episode 10 recorded on February 5th. Download numbers are well above what we expected when we started this project.
    • I’m getting my Galago Pro 2 reconfigured after the Mint Crash. The actual cause was a Grub mess-up, but until I really learn how to work with Grub it’s just easier to reinstall.  Anyone who wants to know what my current 7 installations are can ask me in Telegram.
    • I installed OpenMandriva 4.1 on my Kudu, currently residing along with Feren OS and Ubuntu Budgie. It looks really good. But I still don’t know the package manager, and have no idea whether I can get Mullvad on it.
    • On Feb 3, I got word that I have been added to the team at Ubuntu Budgie. While this is exciting, and I’ve been added to the Ubuntu Budgie Discourse and Slack, I still don’t know how to actually do anything when I find something to fix. At any rate, Leo was wrong, my next podcast project will be BudgieCast.
    • We’re getting deep into Fool Moon, the second of the Dresden Files series. I read the graphic novel of it, and it hardly scratches the surface of the novel itself. Especially the chapter where he is wiped out to the point of getting to talk to his subconscious self. Good stuff. Firecat has managed to get me copies of the rest of the books, so we won’t have to stop reading just because I’m a pauper.
    • Work is being stressful, although I’m still employed; It would be more stressful if I were not.  I keep getting ideas of how to move on into other work, and keep running into the papercut issues which are bad enough to prevent me from moving forward with those ideas.  If people really did want to move to Linux from Windows 7, I can’t think of anyone better than myself to do those installations. 
    • I went out this morning to drive for Postmates, just another food delivery service but one which averages more income than GrubHub or Uber Eats, and found to my chagrin that I did not have one essential tool with me. So I had to drive home and I’ll try again tomorrow.     
  • Joe
    • Good reading
      • Found a copy of Demon Squad
        • Simple read and not for everyone but I enjoyed it 
      • Catching up on podcasts
      • Wanted a quick read so I also listened to one of my favorites: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
        • If you did not like the movie give the book a try
        • If you did like the movie definitely give the book a try 
      • Wax and Wayne series from Brandon Sanderson
        • I really like the first 2 books
        • Third book isn’t as good and the fourth book should be coming this year
    • Picked up a Pi 4 and a couple more pi Zeros
      • Still debating projects for the Zeros.
      • Testing out the 4
      • Will give my impressions on it at a later date
    • Having been researching Pi projects, I think I like the project for multiroom audio.
      • Don’t know if I have a use for it but it does seem fun
      • And I have 3 Pi Zeros ready to go
    • Also thinking about soldering a USB hub onto one of the Zeros.
      • Kinda negates the point of the zero but still a cool project and it is still cheaper than a 3B
      • Using a slim hub would not add much space.
    • Working on a new set of scripts to automatically convert and transfer newly purchased Amazon ebooks
      • Will work a lot like my automation of torrents
      • Purchase and download book on any of my devices
      • Move to a location on said device that uses resilio sync
      • Automatically gets transfered to my server which then moves it to another location
      • Book gets converted to epub or mobi, then the original and the copy get moved to my calibre library and a copy of the converted file gets moved to a resilio location that transfers to my phone. 
      • This then can be played using voice aloud.
    • Broke my second pair of Earforce z2’s  Not sure how they ended up breaking while sitting on my desk at work but they did, and I can’t find anyone selling the replacement bands unless I want to buy them from aliexpress and I don’t.  So I am looking for alternatives
    • I had purchased a lot of ‘as is’ wireless tv headphones with base stations from Sony (wh-rf400r if curious) so that I could give 2 of them to my dad and step mom for christmas and a have a few extra.  I was hoping that the hooks on them were the correct size but no such luck
    • They were however correct enough in size for a pair of Skullcandy Hesh 3’s that I had picked up from a previous job lot of broken headphones and the hesh’s only issue was a broken band.  I had to drill the hook holes a bit larger and cut back some of the internal bracing on the Hesh’s but now they work great
      • The Hesh are a great sounding pair of headphones with nice soft earpads and the new band provides a nice amount of clamping force.  I do need to make sure I put my ears in the earcups just the right way because the cups are pretty small. Otherwise the amount of time I can wear them is fairly small.  Also the batteries are pretty good considering how much time these set on a shelf waiting for me to find parts for them
      • Also very easy to work on with well placed easily accessible solder joins
      • Also the sonys have extra cables that run through the band, i was thinking about seeing what the output voltage is and seeing if i could use the base to charge the battery in the hesh
    • In testing the Pi 4 i had some networking issues because the wifi adapter in the pi is not very good
      • I don’t want to get into too many details on the Pi
      • But here is what I tried
      • External USB wifi.
      • Wifi router as bridge
        • This is the fault of the router though as it was an older one that had issues.  This fix should have worked and provided better speeds and stability
      • Brought back my powerline adapters and this greatly helped although it has not fixed all the networking issues
  • Bo
    • Missing you guys
    • Using terminal for as much as possible to prepare for LPIC, even for simple tasks.
      • Cat, join, sort
      • Ls | Xargs chmod 755
    • AWX
      • Credential manager
      • Inventory management
      • Roles
    • non -linux life
      • Tabletop RPGs
      • Star Trek Adventures podcast

THE NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE:

Announcements:

  • Our Next Episode will be live Feb 23, 2020. 2PM CST, 8PM UTC

Wrap-up:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> full 4213 mintCast 325.5 – Oracles Virtually Boxed In https://mintcast.org/mintcast-325-5-oracles-virtually-boxed-in/ Wed, 08 Jan 2020 07:30:37 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=4108 And finally, our listener feedback
Download
]]>

Download

In our Innards section, we make our 2020 Predictions!

And finally, our listener feedback

LINUX INNARDS: 

2020 Predictions:

  • Joe
    • We will see many more operating systems that are optimized and working for the Raspberry Pi 4.  
    • Probably also see a new slim version sometime this year
    • Microsoft will push more towards applications that can run on either operating system.  We will still be blind to their evil plans.
    • The announcement for edge OS will be towards the end of the year
  • Leo
    • Microsoft Office will have a native Linux version released
    • Adobe Photoshop will have a native Linux version released
    • AutoCAD will have a native Linux version released
    • Moss will record a Gentoo show
    • Firefox vs. The World. Firefox will be the last popular non-Chromium holdout.
  • Tony W
    • Maru OS will significantly expand supported devices
      • Will add support for a Oneplus device, very likely 3/3T
      • Will also add support for Galaxy Note devices, Note 9 and/or Note 10
    • We will see convergence on Pine64 devices, with Pinephone able to dock to peripherals and run full desktop applications
    • A big box store will sell a PC preconfigured with Linux in 2020
  • Tony H
    • Linux Driver support will continue to improve and more hardware manufacturers (Nvidia I’m looking at you) will develop open source Linux Drivers. 
    • I’m banking on a New R.Pi revision if not a totally new model, I still think that adding M.2 support, as other SBC manufacturers have, is the way to go in the long term. But this will probably require a totally new board design and may still be a year or 2 away. It may be that someone designs an add on board that will provide this function, but if they do it needs to be a device that allows the drive to be the boot drive.  
  • Moss
    • I was going to beg off on any predictions. But no. Now that Canonical has agreements with Microsoft for WSL and Amazon for Ubuntu Pro and AWS, I predict they will begin (or continue, if they have already begun in secret) working on agreements with other megacorps such as Alphabet, Oracle, SAP, and Apache.
    • If they succeed with any one of these new alliances, they will be insulated from potential buyouts and takeovers. I therefore predict this is the year they go IPO.
  • Oliver
    • End of Windows 7 support won’t increase the Linux desktop uptake
    • Intel’s new Graphics card wont suck on Linux
  • Eric Lietz (listener)
    • Purism will go out of business – the Librem 5 phone endeavor will put it under
    • The PinePhone will be an amazing product and success story for Pine64
    • An major industry specific software company (Adobe, Autodesk (for AutoCAD), or similar) will offer a Linux version for a flagship software product
    • Microsoft will offer Office 365 on Linux
    • Linux preinstalled from a major hardware supplier will be available in big box stores available off of the shelf

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER: 

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

CHECK THIS OUT! 

ANNOUNCEMENTS: 

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

WRAP-UP:

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

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

Download

In our Innards section, we make our 2020 Predictions!

And finally, our listener feedback

LINUX INNARDS: 

2020 Predictions:

  • Joe
    • We will see many more operating systems that are optimized and working for the Raspberry Pi 4.  
    • Probably also see a new slim version sometime this year
    • Microsoft will push more towards applications that can run on either operating system.  We will still be blind to their evil plans.
    • The announcement for edge OS will be towards the end of the year
  • Leo
    • Microsoft Office will have a native Linux version released
    • Adobe Photoshop will have a native Linux version released
    • AutoCAD will have a native Linux version released
    • Moss will record a Gentoo show
    • Firefox vs. The World. Firefox will be the last popular non-Chromium holdout.
  • Tony W
    • Maru OS will significantly expand supported devices
      • Will add support for a Oneplus device, very likely 3/3T
      • Will also add support for Galaxy Note devices, Note 9 and/or Note 10
    • We will see convergence on Pine64 devices, with Pinephone able to dock to peripherals and run full desktop applications
    • A big box store will sell a PC preconfigured with Linux in 2020
  • Tony H
    • Linux Driver support will continue to improve and more hardware manufacturers (Nvidia I’m looking at you) will develop open source Linux Drivers. 
    • I’m banking on a New R.Pi revision if not a totally new model, I still think that adding M.2 support, as other SBC manufacturers have, is the way to go in the long term. But this will probably require a totally new board design and may still be a year or 2 away. It may be that someone designs an add on board that will provide this function, but if they do it needs to be a device that allows the drive to be the boot drive.  
  • Moss
    • I was going to beg off on any predictions. But no. Now that Canonical has agreements with Microsoft for WSL and Amazon for Ubuntu Pro and AWS, I predict they will begin (or continue, if they have already begun in secret) working on agreements with other megacorps such as Alphabet, Oracle, SAP, and Apache.
    • If they succeed with any one of these new alliances, they will be insulated from potential buyouts and takeovers. I therefore predict this is the year they go IPO.
  • Oliver
    • End of Windows 7 support won’t increase the Linux desktop uptake
    • Intel’s new Graphics card wont suck on Linux
  • Eric Lietz (listener)
    • Purism will go out of business – the Librem 5 phone endeavor will put it under
    • The PinePhone will be an amazing product and success story for Pine64
    • An major industry specific software company (Adobe, Autodesk (for AutoCAD), or similar) will offer a Linux version for a flagship software product
    • Microsoft will offer Office 365 on Linux
    • Linux preinstalled from a major hardware supplier will be available in big box stores available off of the shelf

VIBRATIONS FROM THE ETHER: 

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

CHECK THIS OUT! 

ANNOUNCEMENTS: 

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

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh for all his work on the website and the livestream
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about (Thanks, Clem!)
]]> full 55:05 4106 mintCast 317 – Yak Shaving https://mintcast.org/mintcast-317-yak-shaving/ Wed, 11 Sep 2019 05:57:14 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=3880 Then, in our news we cover the Linux Mint Monthly News, exFAT in the kernel, iPhone and Android exploits and the new Pinebook Pro
In security, we talk Firefox and why you should give it another try
Download
]]>

Download

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

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

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

WANDERINGS:

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

NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE:

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

WRAP-UP:

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

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

Download

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

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

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

WANDERINGS:

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

NEWS:

SECURITY UPDATE:

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

WRAP-UP:

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

  • Josh Lowe for all his work on the website and the livestream (We’ve had over 60 listeners today on the backup mixer platform and brought on some new listeners who’ve never heard of the podcast)
  • Bytemark Hosting for hosting mintcast.org and our Mumble server
  • Archive.org for hosting our audio files
  • The Linux Mint development team for the fine distro we love to talk about <Thanks, Clem!>
]]> full 1:09:01 3878 mintCast 256 – Open Source Collaboration Tools https://mintcast.org/mintcast-256-open-source-collaboration-tools/ Tue, 01 Nov 2016 22:57:35 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=3192 256]

Download

News:

BASHing on Windows:

Main Topic: Open Source Collaboration Tools

Tips & Websites:

Pre-Show Music:

Podcast Announcements:

More Information:

Hosts: Rob, Scott, Joe and Isaac
Live Stream every other Sunday 2:00 p.m.(Central): mintcast.org/livestream

Contact Us:

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

Credits:

Podcast Entry and exit music provided by Mark Blasco (podcastthemes.com). Podcast bumpers provided by Oscar.

]]> full 3192 mintCast 252 – World Domination, The IoT, PowerShell, and Ubuntu on Windows https://mintcast.org/mintcast-252-world-domination-the-iot-powershell-and-ubuntu-on-windows/ Tue, 23 Aug 2016 01:40:01 +0000 http://mintcast.org/?p=3164 252]

Download

News:

Tips & Websites:

Pre-Show Music:

Podcast Announcements:

More Information:

Hosts: Rob, Scott, Joe and Isaac
Live Stream every other Sunday 2:00 p.m.(Central): mintcast.org/livestream

Contact Us:

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

Credits:

Podcast Entry and exit music provided by Mark Blasco (podcastthemes.com). Podcast bumpers provided by Oscar.

]]> full 3164