This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #310 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
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This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #310 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 310, Listener Feedback. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you're new to Linux, upgrading from Windows to Linux, or just thinking about moving to Linux, this podcast will provide you with valuable information and advice that will help you in going Linux. We hope that you'll find this and all of our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. If you want, you can send us feedback. Our email is goinglinx at gmail.com and our voicemail number is 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, Listener Feedback. Hello, Bill. Hello, Larry. I just want to say you need to drink more coffee before we start recording. It's not my fault. Uh-huh. Likely story. I installed Ubuntu Mate 16.10 since we last recorded and I need to get all my settings set up properly. That's the story and I'm sticking to it. Well, that's all right. I've been using the long-term support (1/44)
of the latest Ubuntu and I felt so stupid. I forgot where a setting was and I'm sitting there and it's like, where is this setting? And then it was right in front of me. Yeah, that was like me today with this stereo and mono setting on Audacity. And I just want to point out that both of us have done the intro at least a hundred times. You've done it more than me and we both stumbled on the intro this morning. Yes, that's true. Yes, we did. So, we're just firing on all two cylinders today. Yes, one each. All right, well, we've got a lot of email this time and a few long ones so we should probably get right into our emails. Okay, so I'll let you go first because I'm going to sit here and sip coffee. Uh, sounds good. Well, this is a short one so don't take too much of a break. This feedback is actually from our YouTube video, the Screencast number 7, partitioning a hard drive using Gparted and it comes from someone whose name on YouTube is Snake. Snake? Snake, yeah. Says, guys, great (2/44)
video but I have a situation where Gparted doesn't see, in quotes, the brand new hard drive I just put in my laptop. I've tried to do a fresh install of Peppermint Linux as well as Slitax, I think that's Slitaz, from a USB. That's it. That's all it says. So, um, I'm assuming there's a question in there as to why Gparted doesn't see a new hard drive. Any thoughts or ideas on that, Bill? Um, so it's not seeing the hard drive at all. Yeah, so he's put it in a laptop and he says it doesn't see and it's a brand new hard drive, maybe it's not formatted. Well, I would see well, let's see, if you put a new drive in, well it depends, there's not really enough information. Right, yes, exactly. You know, we don't know, he's saying that the Linux is not seeing a hard drive but is the BIOS seeing a hard drive? Yeah. Uh, and then what make and model, what kind of hard drive it is? Um, does he have another operating system on it? Does it see the hard drive code? I don't know because there's just not (3/44)
enough information for me. But, I would say, eliminate some of the simplest stuff, open it up again, make sure all the connections to the hard drive are plugged in. He might have a I doubt it, I haven't run across one of those in a while, but he might have a bad hard drive. I mean, you just don't know. It's just too much to troubleshoot with just that little bit. I would say, if the computer's not seeing it, you know, the BIOS on the computer, then you need to check your connections. That's all I got. Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking as well. It could be that if he's got this, you know, if it's one of those laptops that has two bays in it, and Thinkpads and some other manufacturers give you an accessory bay that you can put a hard drive into, then make sure that the connection is okay. Another way to do it if you have one is a USB adapter so that you can take the new hard drive and connect it externally from your running system and make sure that's working. That's a good idea. (4/44)
Yeah, and if he's got the new hard drive in his laptop and he's booting from a live media, like a live USB or a live CD, then you know, that introduces another variable. So, yeah, not enough information for us to come up with a diagnosis, but we've given you hopefully some things to think about. Snake? Thanks, Snake. Okay, our next email comes from Tony, and Tony describes a problem but didn't give us enough details to help. Seems like a pattern here, right? Yeah, well, he wrote, Hi Larry and Bill. I have a severe problem. My emails will not come up. Only a blank page comes up in its place. I'm using Chrome on Windows 10 right now. I don't like Firefox and IE for some reason. Regards, Tony. Hmm, I'm going to throw it to you since you threw that last one at me. Here, I'll throw it to you because I have no clue. Fair enough. Yeah, so Tony, we don't know whether you're using Gmail from an email client. We don't know whether you're using Yahoo Mail. We don't know what you're using. Is it (5/44)
online? Is it Thunderbird? Is it something else? We need some more information. I just want to point out something, Larry. I mean, we're always glad to help somebody, but he's asking the Linux guys a question about Chrome on Windows 10. No, I don't think so. I think that comment was just because he needed to get us the email, right? So he switched over to Windows 10 and sent it using that, right? I think. I think. Otherwise, if he is asking us about Windows 10, we can't help. There is no help. Yeah, so don't even get me started on 10. Anybody that just wants to know about that comment, poor Larry had to listen to me 15 minutes this morning before we started recording, ranting about my Windows 10 experience, and that's all I'm going to say because the show is just not long enough, and I could go on for a while, and Larry has forbid me to go on a rant again. So, anyway, the only thing about the email that had just come to mind while we were talking is, is he trying to access Gmail (6/44)
through Chrome, or is it Gmail, or is it MSN, or is it a private, you know, a third-party company? Is it web-based? Is it, I mean, because if he's using Chrome, that's not an email client. You know, he could try, if it's just like an email that his Internet service provider gave him, he could try Thunderbird. Yeah. And see if that solves his problem. Right, exactly. And just to make an assumption here, let's assume that he's using Linux. Let's assume that he's using something that has Thunderbird pre-installed and that he's been using it for a while, and it has been working, and all of a sudden it has stopped. One thing you might want to try, if that's the case, Tony, is to log in if your mail provider has given you a web interface. Log into the web interface, make sure that the site is up. That's probably not the problem if it's Thunderbird, if it's coming up with a blank page. It may be that it has somehow disconnected from your mail server, or the other possibility is that somehow (7/44)
you've logged out of the account in Thunderbird. So just go to the Accounts menu. It's been a while since I've used Thunderbird, but I think there's an Accounts menu, and make sure that you're connected to your mail account on there, and once you do that, you should be able to get back into your inbox and see your emails. So since I haven't used Thunderbird in a long time, I'm not sure that's exactly the right menu selection, but it should lead you in the right direction, I think, Tony. Okay, good luck, Tony. Yep. Okay, Jack Deaf is a person who provided us with the next email, and he's commenting about printers and Linux. He writes, Hi guys. In my continuing attempt to catch up on old episodes, I am listening to episode 306 and heard the comment from a user asking for a recommendation for a good printer to use with Linux. Our shop sells a ton of HP Officejet printers every year. We have customers that use Windows, mostly, Linux, and Mac. Of all the printers out there, HP has the most (8/44)
cross-platform compatibility, and the best overall compatibility with Linux in general. To take it a step further, of all of the models of HP, I have found the Officejet series to be the most compatible overall. However, the first thing a user should do is to download and install the HP LIP packages from the repository, or even better, download the latest version from the HP site to make sure you have the latest list of drivers and compile it yourself. Compiling is very easy, and they typically include step-by-step instructions on the site on how to do this. That's true. HP is really good about this. Most of the time, though, their printers will install fine with HP LIP out of the repository. Beyond Linux compatibility, I also recommend their latest, greatest models of Officejet for efficiency reasons. HP has been promoting their Officejet 8610, 8620, 8630, and now their 8710, 20, and 30, and 40 printers as being 50% cheaper cost of operation than laser printer. While this is (9/44)
technically true, if you compare the printer to a low-end laser, I wanted to do a direct comparison myself with a little higher-end small business laser to get a more accurate assessment. I compared the most expensive model of Officejet 8740 to the HP Color Laserjet 4000M451DN. The Officejet 8740 has dual paper cassettes. You can get it as low as $359 or cheaper on Amazon. Black ink cartridges are $34. You get about 2,000 pages from a cartridge. That is 0.017 cents per page. Collar is $31.97 for 1,600 pages. That's 0.01998 cents per page. The HP Laserjet 4000 has a single tray at $521.39. You can add a secondary paper tray for another $150. Black toner is $79.66 for 4,000 pages of printing. That's 0.019915 per page. Color is $96.94 for 2,600 pages. That's 0.037284 cents per page. Approximately. So, at a baseline you can see that their claims are correct in that it is at least cheaper than a comparable laser. They also have a new program called HP Instant Ink where you pay a monthly (10/44)
membership fee based on how much printing you do monthly on average. And they just automatically send you replacement ink when your printer tells them online that you are running low. Do a Google search for the website and check out the chart. We have had customers, both Windows and Linux, say they have tried the program and they do save quite a bit of money using the program. Even on top of the great efficiency of these printers. These printers are a piece of cake to install with Linux with HP LIP and you can use the printer's full features. I would strongly recommend the HP Officejet 8710, 20 or 40 if you need dual cassettes, much faster speed and extra features and their Instant Ink service to anyone using Linux. Troy, aka Jack Death. Well, thanks Troy. Great review of HP and what they offer and it's interesting that inkjet printers are now less expensive to operate than LaserJet, at least comparing these two models of HPs. That's crazy. First off, he went into some massive detail, (11/44)
more so than I would. I just rounded the thing up, but he went out to the sixth decimal point. I just want to also throw this out. HP and Amazon, you're welcome for the advertisement. No, that's cool though. Since Troy actually does have a computer shop, computer repair and support, he knows what he's speaking about and has access to these things and can do that kind of a review. So we appreciate it, Troy, when you take your time to do that and then to provide us the feedback on the Going Linux podcast. So thanks again, Troy. Thanks, Troy. Our next email comes from Steve who wrote about his experience with Thinkpads and Linux. He writes, hi, I thought I would share a story that might be helpful to a listener if they happen to be experiencing things similar to what I did. About nine months ago, I purchased a factory Furb Lenovo Thinkpad T 550 laptop. That is one of the newer T model laptops having been introduced in early 2015, I think. I am a long time Slackware user and still do use (12/44)
Slackware on certain workstation computers. I have decided that for workstation type computers, it can be a bit difficult and time consuming to maintain. So on this laptop, I decided to branch out a bit. I had heard quite a few good things about Linux Mint. I believe, Larry, you were still recommending Mint at the time as well. So I installed 17.3 which was the newest one at the time with Cinnamon. I was really happy with it for a while. I did have to do a bit of tweaking here and there to get some things right. For example, I found a tweak to the power management that helped greatly with the battery life, but overall I was happy. And then I started noticing some persistent issues. One thing was that it would take longer than it should to find and connect to a wireless network signal when I would wake the laptop up. Or if I would switch from wired to wireless network. Or sometimes the network manager would seem to go stupid and not find the signal at all until I rebooted. Additionally, (13/44)
about every tenth time I would wake up the laptop from sleep, it would reboot completely. Sometimes more often than that. I also noticed that often if I had a number of terminal windows open, all of a sudden they would all lock up and I couldn't do anything with them other than close them and open up new terminal windows. The computer would get into states where it would seem to just stall for a second every once in a while. This was particularly noticeable when watching a video stream. If I would reboot the computer, it would be better, but eventually it would come back again. There may have been a few other things too. So I started to wonder if this was some hardware issues with the laptop or if it was issues with Mint. And some compatibility issue with my hardware. Or what? I began to think about trying a different distro. It was about that time that you, Larry, said on an episode that you had switched from Mint to Ubuntu and that that had solved some issues that you had had. So I (14/44)
decided to do that, but I debated between Matei and Ubuntu. I decided on the latter because I am quite familiar with the XFCE as that it is shipped with Slackware and I rather like it. Since I have made the switch, almost all the problems that I was having went away, occasionally the network manager goes a bit stupid still, but not as often. And the other issues have gone completely. So I don't care if it was a kernel version issue or maybe something with Cinnamon or something else. But with the T550 anyway, I found Ubuntu to be a far superior experience. Take care, Steve. KDO1JP. Thanks, Steve. Yeah, and as far as Ubuntu 17.3, I think it was based on the version of Ubuntu that actually had the networking problems. So I think that is probably the cause of the problems and completely switching over to Slackware is likely what fixed your problem. Because Slackware didn't have the same problems that Ubuntu and Ubuntu derivatives like Mint were having at the time. And as far as what I (15/44)
recommend now, Steve had mentioned that I recommended Linux Mint and I switched over to Ubuntu Mate, which I'm using today. My recommendation is still Linux Mint for new users as the first choice. Linux Mint 18 is what's available today. And I would recommend that for most people that are just starting to use Linux. I would, as a second place, recommend Ubuntu Mate, not the latest release, 16.10, but rather 16.04. And that's because 16.04 is a long-term support release. And with 16.10, what I've noticed is they're in the middle of switching from GTK2 to GTK3. And in 16.04, they had a combination of both. And in 16.10, they've made the switch so everything runs on GTK3. So they're just keeping up to date with the background technology that makes the desktop environment work. But they haven't got all the bugs run out of the GTK3, I think. I think that's what's going on. I've noticed a few more crashes with 16.10. I've noticed some odd behavior with some of the applications, some of the (16/44)
panel icons, things like that. And I can only believe that it's due to the fact that they're still working out all the details around compatibility with GTK 3.0. Something else that I've noticed is that they've removed some of the ability to customize the theming, especially around the colors. And again, I have to attribute that to the switch to GTK3, and they just haven't got that functionality put back in yet. So, for new users to avoid issues, I would stick with Ubuntu Mate 16.04, and even Ubuntu 16.04 for that matter, mainly because it's the long-term support. Linux Mint 18, still first choice. I just like how it goes. It goes a bit stupid, and still dead. Yeah, that describes it, doesn't it? Yep. That's awesome. Okay, our next email is from Marcio, who is a new listener. He writes, Hello Larry and Bill. I've started to listen to your podcast last month and found it very helpful for beginners. I'm a sysadmin, and I've been using Linux as my primary operating system since 2014. I (17/44)
would like to state to beginners that almost all of my servers around 300 use Linux as their operating system. It might look hard in the beginning, but as soon as you realize the power of Linux, you would never switch back to Windows and its crazy licensing contracts. Keep up the great work, guys. Marcio. Our buddy Jack Deathwrights writes again. He goes, Hi Larry and Bill. In response to your listener feedback episode where a user was jokingly looking for a mouse with 12 buttons, here you go. And he provides a link to razorsone.com Gaming Mouse, and then it's called Razor Naga. And he finishes it with saying, Troy aka Jack Death. Thanks, Jack. Only he would go look for a 12-button mouse for us. And find one. And find one. Yes, it's a gaming mouse and it's actually got more than 12 buttons if you count them. It's got 12 buttons on the side, kind of in the configuration of a telephone keypad, and then of course the right and left mouse button and a scroll wheel, which I'm assuming has a (18/44)
button, and then two buttons behind that. So it's got, what, at least 16, maybe 17 buttons. It's amazing. See, my mouse has one, two, three, four, five... My mouse has five buttons, and that's too many for me. Yeah, I used two and a scroll wheel. Well, you are low tech there, come on. Only two buttons? Yeah, I'm sorry. Your scroll wheel doesn't have a feature to click? Yes. So that's three buttons. Yeah, okay. I had to get that in. Yes, and technically my mouse has five buttons but I only use the three. Well, I know. I'm fired. Go away. Anyway, let's move on. Paul writes and lets us know about another outlet for Linux computers. Hi Bill and Larry, have enjoyed your show for years. First off, thanks for all your hard work. I recently sent the same feedback to the folks at Linux Voice and Ubuntu Podcast, and when listening to a recent episode of yours, felt like it might not be a bad idea to throw it your way as well. Thanks again for your efforts. We are a largely brick and mortar store (19/44)
on a well-trafficked street in the third largest town in Finland, Tampiri. I'm sure I'm getting the pronunciation wrong, but that's how it looks to me. We are selling refurbished computers with a clear push towards open source solutions in the way of Ubuntu Mate, as easily 90-95% of our refurbs get Ubuntu Mate installed on them, currently using 14.04. We've been operating now for just over a year in our current location. We definitely saw in the beginning how people's faces fell, and their interest immediately went to zero as soon as we mentioned that a computer was installed with Linux. We'd mix it up a bit, sometimes call it Ubuntu Linux, but generally no matter what we called it, the word Linux clearly brought up some negative connotations, and the sale became next to impossible at that point. I recently read 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, a relatively easy read, which I recommend. In it, the authors talk about preconceived notions and how you as a salesperson can talk till you're (20/44)
blue in the face about the factual, positive aspects of product X, but if the customer has a preconceived notion about the product, warranted or not, you are not likely to convince them otherwise. Based on this, we struck Linux from virtually all of our signage, Facebook postings, etc. Instead, we now refer simply to Ubuntu Mate. Many people have heard of Linux, and though most of them cannot tell you why, they just know they don't want that. But mention Ubuntu or Ubuntu Mate, and the likelihood they have any sort of opinion is minimal. Mostly, we just get blank stares. They are able to continue listening as we sing its praises. However, of the few people that recognize the term Ubuntu, many of them have negative perceptions as well, and invariably when I probe further, it seems that Unity is the culprit. In this sort of situation, I clearly explain that I didn't like that other version of Ubuntu at all, and show them how clearly this one, Mate, is laid out, explaining that (21/44)
particularly for our most elderly customers, having clear menus with finished text that one can read is so much clearer than just having a collection of colored icons. It's really a shame. I think that so many people have been introduced to Ubuntu after Unity came out and gone away with a negative opinion, because they couldn't make sense of it. It's a truly unfortunate disservice. But okay, not to make this point into another Unity bashing conversation. The real point is to offer this advice to others who are trying to do some sort of Linux advocacy. If you can possibly help it, just stop mentioning Linux altogether. Obviously, a bit harder if you're trying to push something like Linux Mint as your distro of choice. But really, don't even mention that whatever distro you like is based on Linux. Leave it out of the equation. Try it for a few weeks, and see if you see the same results. By the way, our arguments in a nutshell for using Ubuntu Mate instead of Windows, it's clearer, (22/44)
faster, more reliable, more secure, runs lighter, eliminates need for virus checkers, updates come from single source, and by the way, in 10 years of using it, no, not Mate, but Ubuntu, I've not once been told by my computer that I can't shut down yet, because updates have to finish. Also, computer doesn't slow down over time, and no need to defragment your hard disk. Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Paul, and thanks for the advice. We're going to have to change the name of our podcast. It is now the Going Podcast. We're just going to leave Linux out of it. You know, I don't do retail sales, but anybody that I've talked to about Linux, I don't know if it's just because he's in a different country, but I don't see that quite as much, and we both know if anybody ever has listened to any of our podcasts. I used to hate Unity with a passion, and I've grown to where I've used Unity and like it, I think it's really easy to use now. They've really cleaned it up and made it easier to work with, but (23/44)
usually you can say Ubuntu and people have a general, usually a general positive because they've heard about the free operating system, and it doesn't need virus checkers and stuff, so I don't know, I guess mileage may vary. Yeah, I think you're right, and once you get over the hurdle of a different user interface, it's actually pretty easy to use, and I've heard the same thing about Windows 10 and Mac OS 10 switching there from Windows, and both Windows and Mac OS 10 have the same kind of display the icon rather than the words for the menu selection, and that's probably the biggest hurdle, and of course when you hover over the icon, you get what it is, but for a new user sometimes that's not very intuitive. Well what I usually do is I just say, here, play with it, and usually they click around and then Nelson will say, well this is easy, and that has worked I would say over 50% of the time, so that's another one that's like you know, hey, this is Unity, just play with it and see what (24/44)
you think. A lot of times once they click it you can see it's not rocket science, they're like, oh, this isn't bad, I kind of like it. So anyway, that's just my suggestions and my opinions which equal about a half a cent, so moving right along, and again we got another one from Troy. He's just catching up on old episodes. Oh, okay. Troy got behind! He writes, hi guys, again, just catching up on previous episodes, I really liked your episode on backup solutions. While backing up one's data, whether full or incrementally, is important, there are some small businesses that would be very put off if they experienced a hard drive crash and had to completely install a new system from scratch and to restore all their data. Many times just installing Linux on a particular computer isn't enough to get it running. Some people, like myself, have to do a little more extensive tweaking of the machines to get it working just the way they want. I don't know anything about that, Bill. Neither one of us (25/44)
do. Sometimes video or wifi won't work unless they install a specific version of the kernel. Sometimes they have to do extensive searches for drivers for certain things. Many of their applications may have needed compiling from source, and it may put bits and pieces in areas outside of the home folder. These kinds of people need something closer to a bare metal backup. Something that will enable them to restore not only their data, but the whole operating system as well. I would recommend doing at least a separate monthly backup with something like Clonezilla as well. Just my two cents for Troy aka Jack Death. Now, I don't know about you, but the company I work for, their workstations are pretty much standard installs, and they don't want you making any changes to the settings or applications or anything. Usually it's there and that's it. And I haven't had hardly any issues with wifi or video, well, under Ubuntu in years. Have you? No, not on the computers that I have hand selected to (26/44)
install Linux on. So I think that's because I choose hardware that I know is going to work with Linux out of the box, or as close to it as I can. Every once in a while I end up with a wifi card that I have to install a proprietary driver to get it working. But other than that, I think where Troy is coming from is that oftentimes when installing Linux on a computer that's handed to you, you've sometimes got an oddball video card or an oddball wifi card and you have to install separate drivers and depending on the applications you're using, if it's not a repository based application, it's not going to put the application files in the same place as it would normally put it. It'll put it in the opt directory instead of the standard place. Standard is a bit of a loose term because there's different philosophies from different distributions as to where software should be installed. So generally speaking though, software that you install from third parties as opposed to your normal (27/44)
repositories may go in a different location. So I think that's where his point is, and I agree with him that if you need a complete image of your hard drive, that Clonezilla is a really good tool to do that, whether you're using Windows, Linux, or Mac. I think it works on Mac, I'm not sure. But you can make a clone of your hard drive to a similar or a larger sized hard drive using Clonezilla and then you've got a backup that you can just swap hard drives or restore it from the other hard drive as long as the partition on the backup drive is the same size as your original drive. You're good. If it's larger, then you've got to do some resizing to make it work. Bottom line is, Clonezilla is a really good tool for making a complete image of your hard drive, and then you don't have to worry about reinstalling anything or restoring home directories or tweaking your settings. It's backing up everything in an image that you can just restore from scratch. Okay. Our next email is from Ken. Ken (28/44)
writes, to provide us some feedback on AMD processors and Linux. Larry, on the last going podcast, he actually took the Linux out, so he's right ahead, I guess. He said, on the last going podcast, 308, listener feedback. One of your listeners asked about compatible processors for Linux. You all but said that Intel is the way to go. I think we did say that Intel is the way to go. I think that mostly because you have little or no experience using AMD processors. I think we mentioned that as well. Well, I hate to hear that because I have mostly used AMD processors for quite a few years and have had absolutely no problem using Linux with AMD processors. My latest is the A10 with the integrated graphics. As yet, I have no problems. Of course, my experience does not cover the universe of AMD processors for all occasions, nor does your experience with Intel. I just hate to see AMD put down, even in a mild way, because I have had such good experience with them. Keep up the good work, 73. Ken, (29/44)
km4qze. Well, Ken, thanks. And you're quite right. We really haven't had a lot of experience with AMD processors. I've installed Linux on a few computers with AMDs and not had any problem myself. So, maybe we should relax a little bit on our description. But, as with any hardware in a computer, just double check that it's going to be Linux compatible before you purchase. And if you're given a computer, just be aware that you may have to install proprietary drivers or go hunting if you do run into problems. And maybe the AMD processor is not such an issue, but the Wi-Fi cards are usually the culprit for me. Especially if it's one of the, what do you call them? Oh, the, um, that one. Yeah, that one. Broadcom? Broadcom, yes, that's it. Okay. Yeah, thank you. I had to think there. Now, if I remember the conversation while we were talking about that, someone, they were kind of asking, what runs Linux well? And we kind of went over that Intel processors seem to be the way to go. Now, I've (30/44)
run AMD processors and back in the day, when I first started, AMD processors would sometimes cause problems. I think it's pretty much because they were still fleshing out some of the architectural changes they were doing. But I really don't think that's an issue anymore. So, you know, I prefer Intel, but that's just me. But AMD, I have one, actually I have an AMD, an older AMD running Linux. I'm looking at it and it's never caused a problem. So, yeah, I would say just make sure that the hardware is compatible. Yes, exactly. Yeah, and when I started with computers and processors, Intel made a far superior chip than AMD did. And then AMD caught up and surpassed them and then they got to be pretty equal overall. And I think from the perspective of today, they're pretty similar in performance and just their capabilities. I'm not a processor expert by any stretch, but my perception is that they're very similar in their capabilities. And as long as it's compatible with Linux, you're good. (31/44)
And I think Ben is quite right. You've got to be careful, even with Intel, even with AMD, even with other kinds of processors, just double check. Like you said, Bill, make sure it's compatible if you can before you install Linux. And the best way to do it is with live media, a CD or USB with a live install. Give it a try. Yeah, well, I this is just my personal opinion. This is not the opinion of going Linux podcast. But I think the i7 processors from Intel are superior processors, but that's just me. I like i7s. I've never had a problem with them and everybody I've ever talked to thinks they're great chips. So I don't have any AMDs except that one which is old, so I can't really qualify that statement now. But that's just my feeling. So anyway, our next email comes from Eduardo and he asks us if we secure our backups and he writes Hi, Larry. Oh, I'm sorry. You got top billing this time. I got top billing. Hi, Bill and Larry. That's wow. Okay. I take that one in. Hi, Bill and Larry. I (32/44)
really enjoyed your review of backup technology on episode number 307. That is such an important subject. Thanks for mentioning so many options. It was great to learn about so many new things. One question for you guys regarding backups. What do you do to secure your backups? For example, backing up to a USB hard drive means the contents can be read by anyone who finds it and plugs it into their Linux computer. Or the owner of or anyone who hacks into a cloud solution could look at your files. Just curious about what you guys do to keep your data under wraps. Thanks for the great content. Well, mine is if I have sensitive documents and stuff or pictures or whatever, I just usually use like, well, I haven't had to encrypt anything for a while. But remember the old one called Cryptext? I think that's what it was called. Right, like VeraCrypt now. Yeah, VeraCrypt, that's what it's called. And I haven't really had an issue because good luck trying to figure out. I usually do my backups to (33/44)
a DVD and I only know where they are. But I do have a question and this is one I don't know. If you plug in a USB hard drive from another Linux computer, I didn't think it would be able, without the password or some sort of, to look at it, can it? Yeah, you can, as long as the drive or the files aren't encrypted. And if they are, if you chose whole disk encryption when you installed Linux, or if you encrypted your home folder or just encrypted the files, then it's locked out. But, you know, it's very easy to recover files from an external hard drive as long as it's not encrypted in some way or another. And you just plug it in through a USB connection, you know, an adapter or something like that, and you have access to the file system. The permissions may not match up, but when you connect it through USB it still gives you access to the files so you can change the permissions and do what you need to make them accessible. That makes sense. Yeah, and that's what he's getting at. That's (34/44)
what Eduardo was talking about. And, quite frankly, I don't encrypt my backup files. My backup, I have a couple of ways I backup. One is to a USB drive, the other is to a network attached storage, neither of which are encrypted. And sure, if somebody had physical access they could plug those into a computer and get all my files. Or, in the case of the network attached storage, if they had access to my network, they could get the files directly from there, if they could get the password on the network attached storage. And knowing your password is probably about 22 letters. Yeah, 24, but who's going to? And, you know, if they had access to the network, then I've got other problems. And, you know, so I think the risk is pretty low. And, similarly, if, you know, if somebody were to break into the house here and take one of the hard drives or take one of the laptops that isn't encrypted, they would have access to all the files. Yeah, so there's that risk. But I don't I don't encrypt my (35/44)
backups, simply because the risk is very low. And, what I'm backing up is not anything, I mean, it's mainly files related to the podcast. So, I mean, you just go on our website and get them if you want. Unless you want to hear all the mistakes and all the flubs and things in raw files. We don't make mistakes. Oh, that's right. I forgot about that. There's no editing at all on our podcast. No, none. Because it's perfect for my studies. I do have a high tech way of securing my backups. It's my it's my fat dachshund who's always on duty. Oh, I meant to sleep. Never mind. No. Okay. We have a gone Linux story that's fairly lengthy from Madison. And so we'll break this up into two parts. And I'm going to give you the longer part, Bill, just because. Because you can? Because I can. So let's get started. Madison offers the gone Linux story for this month. Firstly, I would like to say that I love your show. A little under a year ago, I was looking for alternatives to Windows when I came across (36/44)
the idea of Linux. I rather enjoy doing research and learning new things. So after some digging, I found the Going Linux podcast. Your show was the first podcast I started listening to to find out if Linux was a platform for me. Later, I found the Linux Action Show, of course, but Going Linux was the first and continues to stay on my podcast list. Wish you guys could do more frequent shows, but I understand the limitations of a podcast not being your primary source of income like Chris and Jupiter Broadcasting. Anyway, still love your show. So when I bought my current laptop around a year ago, it came with Windows 10 installed. But I felt confident enough to give Linux a try. This laptop has never run a Windows install on bare metal. It does run a Windows 10 VM for school purposes. I use Linux every day now for a year and have no desire to go back to Windows. And when I'm done with school, the VM will die too. This leads me to where I am now, which is a happy Linux user minus a few (37/44)
things. I'm an aspiring novelist and would like the functionality provided by Scrivener, but even in Arch, the only place you can find Scrivener that I can find anyway, it is a really old, unmaintained, dead project. Plume Creator looked promising, but the translation at the last time I checked it was incomplete. I do not speak or read French, so that software was unusable. I don't know if I can find a replacement that is contained in a single application. Most of the functionality can be found by using six or seven pieces of software simultaneously. This, however, is impractical. Do you guys know of a solution for a novelist? Alright, and he says, my next thing is the business plan I have. I recently helped my friend go Linux through he moved out of state and I can no longer help support that device. This makes me wonder if the world needs more Linux. How can I help that happen? So I've come up with a plan opening a small store where I can buy used computers and make them Linux boxes. (38/44)
I still have to learn, as I would obviously need to be able to support these machines and teach people about Linux, which is where Linux Academy comes in, which I plan to use when I get a bit more financially stable being a full-time student. I am getting an associate's degree in IT, although my school doesn't offer Linux programs, so that's what the Windows VM is for. Anyway, I would need an inventory and a POS, and POS stands for Point of Sale System, that would work for cataloging the computers on hand and deal with transactions. This would need to run on Linux or BSD, not sure where to start. Are there any ideas? Any of the suggestions you offer can be distro agnostic. I don't mind Ubuntu base or Arch base and although I haven't had much experience with Red Hat products like Fedora or CentOS OS or the SUSE family, I wouldn't mind learning, and in fact they are on my to-do list. I am comfortable with Solace, although I've been running into strange issues with it like my hunspill (39/44)
dictionary breaking for no reason as well as other quirks. I am most comfortable with Gnome, so GTK apps are preferred, although I'm sure I could get a Qt app to work properly. As I write this, I'm installing Anthracos with the Gnome desktop because I enjoy having the latest and greatest that comes with an Arch base even though the issues that it brings. Anyway, I know that this was long and rambling and probably at points incoherent, but in short, having a good novelization software and business management tools are my only points of contention using Linux. Suggestions are appreciated. I love going Linux. Keep up the great content. Don't tell the guys at JB, but your show is better. Thanks a ton from Madison, a happy Linux convert. Yeah, thanks Madison for the kind words. And I wrote back to Madison with some suggestions. I suggested Scribus as a possible replacement for desktop publishing. I suggested that Madison take a look in the software center, library store for those kinds of (40/44)
things for the distribution that's currently being run. So I also suggested the Alternative 2 site and provided a link to alternatives to Scrivener since that's the original software that was being discussed, and I also provided a link to POS Systems from a small business computing article, and we'll include all of those links in the show notes for anybody else interested in this, but if any of our listeners are experienced with any of this software, feel free to comment back. Okay, and then Madison responded, thank you for your suggestions. The Apache solution seems like it may fit my needs in that area. I have looked at Scribus and it is on my list of software to get comfortable with, although not as powerful as Scrivener, and this still requires use of other software like Brain Dump and a Notes app. I frequently use the alternatives website, which happens to be where I learned about Plume Creator. I am also aware that most software is distroagnostic. What I meant was I enjoy having (41/44)
the latest and greatest with all the bells and whistles despite the rare breakages, and the security that comes with it, which is why I am using an Archbase versus an Ubuntu base. That, and the vastly wider range of the AUR against the PPA and Snap solutions. Anyway, with that said, thank you again, and keep up the great content and useful information. It is much appreciated. Oh, we're glad to help, Madison, but Larry, and I could just be a retard. Why doesn't it just look like LibreOffice? Well, LibreOffice is okay for doing that kind of thing. I think the functionality that he's looking for that LibreOffice doesn't have is more the desktop publishing aspect of things that is predefined to set up chapters and put things in a format that a paper book publisher would want to see it in. Those kinds of things. So I think that is more the reason for using specialized software. And quite frankly, Madison, the more you get into specialized software on Linux, the more you find that it focuses (42/44)
in on that specialization, and you end up needing to use multiple applications because the philosophy, the Unix philosophy, and of course for new users Linux is derived from Unix. The Unix philosophy on building an application is you build the application to do a specific function and nothing more. And with Unix, you end up using multiple programs to do whatever the task is you're trying to do unless it's that one thing that that application does specifically well. So, you know, if you're looking for an all-encompassing application, then maybe there is an OpenOffice or LibreOffice kind of application for desktop publishing out there. As somebody who doesn't do desktop publishing as a routine, LibreOffice meets all of my requirements and I really think you're looking for something a little more specialized, you may end up having to choose a specialized application and then maybe use it in conjunction with other applications as well. Just a thought, unless someone more experienced with (43/44)
this in our audience can provide some feedback in the next listener feedback episode. And on that note, our next episode will be a user experience episode yet to be defined, and that's pretty much it for this episode. Okay, until then, you can go to our website at goinglytics.com for articles and show notes as well as links to download and subscribe. We are the website for computer users who just want to use Linux to get things done. If you like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining the discussion in our Going Linux podcast Google Plus Community. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. (44/44)