This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #365 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
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This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #365 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 365, 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 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 at our email address at goinglinux.gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello Bill. Hello Larry, how are you? I am doing great. I hear this rumor that you may be distro-hopping again. What's going on? Yes, I was distro-hopping. I got the bug and of course I went back to my old evil ways and tried a bunch of them. And I was actually looking for some distros that might be of some interest to our listeners. And we've (1/43)
always heard that most of the distros we recommend are all Ubuntu-based or Debian-based. And so I went and looked at a few that weren't, that were supposed to be new user-friendly right out of the box. And with varying degrees of success, you can go to our MeWe and see the list of ones I tried. So I found one. It's an official derivative of Ubuntu, of course, that I like a lot and I've been running for a while now. Well, for a while in my terms anyway. And it's called Ubuntu-Budgie. And it's really, really nice. There's some screenshots in our community forums about that. So yeah, run into a few problems. I actually even looked at that new MX Linux. And it ran okay, but it's just, the interface is just a little too barren for me. Yeah, I was going to say stripped down, but barren is probably a better word. But I know you can change it. Please don't send emails saying that you can modify it or whatever. I know you can, but I'm just kind of looking at it as, does this look nice for a new (2/43)
user who might not know more than how to change wallpaper type of deal? Right, exactly. And the other thing is, I noticed, and I realize that's part of the whole idea, is that it's supposed to be super stable and it is. But a lot of the programs are the older versions and they work, but they're just not quite as, I guess, up to date would be a good term for me. But if you just want something that works and it has some easy ways to get things done, I would suggest taking a look at it if you want. I don't really think it would be a great first user district. I think the Mate or Budgie is better. I was having some issues again with Linux Mint. I don't know if it's just because they just did that release, the update. But anyway, I just, if it gives me problems, then, and it's not something simple or it's not fixed, I can't really recommend that. So Budgie worked really well out of the box. I didn't have any issues. Everything worked. So it sounds like between MX Linux and Budgie, you're (3/43)
preferring Budgie, right? I am. I haven't written off MX Linux. I think it's a good distro. It has some really interesting and cool tools. Like you can fix the, you can reinstall your bootloader, if you're having problems with it, from within the distribution. It has an easy way to get your third party NVIDIA drivers by just clicking a button. So, yeah, it's got some different potential, but I'll probably run that in a virtual machine for right now. Until I can get a chance to play with it more. But I think the one that, but the one that just works really well for me right this moment is the Budgie. But I'll let you know how I, how this, this little goes on. I might have not given enough time. I played with it for about, oh, probably about three hours just, you know, pounding on it, see if I could get it to mess up. And it was rock solid. And one is really fast. So anyway, that's about it. Yeah, well, there's a reason why we pick distributions that work to recommend to new users. So, (4/43)
and that leads us mostly to Debian based distributions and Ubuntu based distributions, because they seem to work better for new people. You know, I'm a little disappointed, but with Sabion, because, you know, they say it should just work out of the box. And I think, well, hey, you know, if this would work well, then we could say if you do, if you do, for some reason, you don't want to try Debian or Ubuntu based to go ahead and try this one. Because I remember when I run it a long time ago, it had a huge library. And then I tried one of my old favorites, which, you know, I was a fan for. I run, well, that one stayed on my machine quite a while, was PC links OS. And no amount of voodoo witch doctrine could get that thing to boot. I mean, I think if I took the computer out and was dancing around in the moonlight, it still wouldn't work. So, yeah, so that was kind of disappointing. So, you know, mainly the focus was to try to find some options, because we've both been accused of being (5/43)
Ubuntu fanboys. And I wanted to give other options. I've got a couple more on my list. I want to look, I haven't messed with Open SUSE or SUSE, however you want to say it, lately. So, I don't know how that will work. But I was actually looking at the Manjaro trying to find, you know, because it's moving up in distro watch rankings also. And I wanted, you know, I just wanted to say, hey, here's an Arch-based, here's a RPM-based, here is a dev-based system that are all good choices. But, you know, as we both know, different distributions are at different levels. And so, I'll let you know how the journey goes. But, you know, I enjoy doing it, but there's a few that I just can't, that I could recommend, that I can't recommend anymore. Unfortunately, that's how things go. Yeah, we'll keep on top of it and continue to make recommendations or whatever. But, hey, if this is the first episode of Going Linux that you've ever listened to, we've just spent almost 10 minutes worth of discussion. (6/43)
Using a lot of buzzwords. So, we have started a Back to Basics series that you will probably want to go back to episode 364, which is the one immediately prior to this. And listen to that one. It'll give you a lot of the buzzwords we just used, the definitions and some examples, and that'll make a lot more sense to you. Yeah, and I want to also apologize. I got a little geeky there. We usually don't get that geeky without having a reference. But you just happened to catch me on a geeky rant day. So, I apologize. So, please listen to that other episode and you'll understand. So, okay. So, what else is going on, Bill? How's our poll doing for the community thing? So, the voting on our poll was closed and we decided that the official new community for Going Linux podcast will be MeWe. We've gotten a lot of positive feedback from our community members and everybody seems to think it's as good or a little better than Google+. It seems to work well. People are enjoying the different sections (7/43)
where you can upload files and screenshots and all in all, it's a little different. But the learning curve is really, really low. We like it. Well, I like it because of its kind of friendly community. And I know we were talking about this all to show Larry. You kind of liked the idea of the privacy. So, why don't you tell them a little bit about your feelings on it? Yeah. One of the things that it hits you in the face with when you first log into it is that we're not for sale, meaning they're not going to sell your personal and private information. And their privacy policy is readable and it makes sense. And I think that that's one of the reasons why our listeners as well like MeWe. And listeners to other podcasts. A lot of podcasts like us, we're using Google+, which is first, it's not open source. And second, it's pretty good with security and privacy, but still not perfect. And I'm not going to say that MeWe is perfect, but it's better. And when you've got something that looks (8/43)
better, works better and is better in many ways, then you switch to that. And the fact that Google plus is shutting down helps us to make that decision. But the toughest decision was finding something that was going to be okay for everybody. I mean, personally, I would have been okay with Xchat. IRC channel. Oh, another buzzword. I know. Sorry, guys. IRC, just for you guys, is Internet Relay Chat. It's like the old time AOL chat rooms. So, yeah, that's what that means. So I'd have been happy with that. But, yeah, we wanted to give folks a little better environment to be able to share screenshots and have discussions and go back and forth. And already, although we've only been using MeWe for a very short period of time, it has eclipsed what we started with, which was Discord as kind of the first experiment that we actually went live with. And it's probably going to stay around because we're going to continue to use Discord to record. So we'll keep the chat going in there. So you have (9/43)
your choice. But as of going live with this episode of the Going Linux podcast, we will change our community.goinglinux.com to point at our MeWe discussion group. And that will be our official community site for our podcast until something happens to MeWe. And knock on wood, nothing ever happens to MeWe. But if it does, we have other options. We didn't think anything was going to happen to Google+. That's true. That is true. I mean, surely Google+, the biggest Internet company on the face of the earth can run a service. But we have been wrong and we will continue probably being wrong. But another thing that you wanted to talk about was our donate button. Oh, right. Thanks for reminding me. Yeah, you may have noticed if you were the kind of person who wanted to donate that we had a donate button on the website. And it allowed you to use PayPal or whatever you wanted to make donations to the podcast to help us defray the cost of Internet service and licensing of our domain and other, you (10/43)
know, incidental costs related to running the podcast. And for a number of reasons, we or I added the button in the first place because a couple of people, Bill included, when he was simply a listener, wanted to donate to the show. So I was prepared not to even worry about donations, but I added the button just to be convenient. And the other day, you and I, Bill, decided we don't really need that money. So why should we, you know, it seems like begging for money that we don't really need. So we took the button down. And if you do want to donate anything, donate it to a charity or donate it to a Linux distribution or, you know, do something like that because we don't need it and we don't have the donate button anymore. However, thank you to everyone who did donate. I do appreciate the donations we have gotten and it has helped. Yeah, we both have a full time job, so we do this because we like to. But if you, if you're, I'd like to make a suggestion. If you guys do want to donate, how (11/43)
about donating to the distribution that you're using? There's developers and people that work to make these things better. And I know every little bit helps. And if another one is the FSF, which is Freedom Software Foundation, that's another good one. There's also one called the Linux Foundation that Linus Torvos works for. So there's a lot of open source projects and you don't have to just give to a distribution. You can do give to a project. Like if you find a piece of software that is working really, really well for you and has helped you, you know, go to that developer site and donate to them. We all benefit when those guys have some resources, you know, whether they need a little bit of bandwidth or they need to buy a new piece of hardware to run drivers on. Open source. I think that would be a good thing to do. Yep, absolutely. OK, I think we have had enough of a preamble, over 15 minutes worth of discussion before we actually get into the. Hey, you let me talk. I'm going to (12/43)
talk. I know. That's why that's why you should have never installed the mute button. OK, I'm just saying. Right. That's OK. I think this has been very topical and, you know, somebody could have easily written in with that as a question. So let's just jump into our first email from George from Tulsa. All right. And he has more Windows tales. OK, we're talking about Windows on a Linux podcast, but you'll you'll understand. He says, I was trying to set up a conference call at work today. One of the participants, a lawyer in a very large firm, didn't get the message. Seems his email was down. The firm's email was down. Email was MIA. I'm not sure of all the details, but overnight the firm's IT staff did a Windows update firm wide at late morning. Restart, rebuild, recover time was uncertain. Allison of the No Silicast podcast tells of attending a wedding where the bride and groom had their vows on a Windows PC. They were planning on reading teleprompter style. Audience seated in pews, (13/43)
bride and groom at the altar. Then if anyone can show just cause why this couple cannot be lawfully joined together in matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their peace. And Windows sticks its hand up and says, I'm updating. Yeah, there we go. Thank you, Microsoft. Lovely, lovely. Oh, that's that's great. Oh, I needed a laugh this morning. And does your computer showing just cause does that kill the wedding? I don't know. George didn't say so. We'll have to just assume. Yeah, well, you know, the I'm glad on the first story, I'm glad I'm not that IT staff. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because that might have been kind of ugly, especially if it was an important meeting, but the second one was that's just par for the course. So I'm updating. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and I've heard I've heard a lot listening to Mike Smith's podcast, the Mike Tech Show about Windows updates killing email. And of course, you know, on a firm like this, they are using exchange Microsoft Exchange for their email (14/43)
system and outlook as the email client. And there are just horror story after horror story that Mike, who is an IT tech who who deals with this, talks about in this podcast. So if you want to maintain your air of superiority by using Linux and you just want to gloat a little bit about the problems that we don't have. I mean, we have other kinds of problems, but not quite this. You might want to listen to Mike Smith's podcast. So anyway, anyway, not receiving an email about a meeting is kind of a mission critical thing there. So, yeah, but then again, it may be the only way in some of these firms that you get some peace is when the email goes down. That's true. Nobody knows how to use a phone anymore in business. So our next email comes from Carl and he has a question about for the wise minions and the masters. OK. Hello. I love the podcast. Have some questions for the masters of the podcast and the minions. What's the best laptop to have when on the road? Sadly, I need to do a boot (15/43)
between windows. Sad face and Ubuntu mate. Happy fun time. His words, not mine, guys. Maybe some late gaming, but mostly some Photoshop and image stuff and word processing. My personal thoughts on this is that I really like touchscreens. I prefer 1080p resolution. Should I get a hybrid laptop, tablet laptop or a full laptop? Semi-portable, but not too heavy and a USB type C with Thunderbolt is nice. Also, we all know less is more. Best regards, Carl. P.S. Worthwhile links I have found. Found this tutorial on the webs. Don't know who made it, but it really helped me switch to Linux and it's Linuxjourney.com. And the second one is it's a YouTube channel called Level One Linux and Level One Text. And he says, very interesting. And he puts the links in the show notes or we put the links in the show notes, but he gave us the links. So if you're interested in seeing those, you can find the links to those shows and those into, I guess, that domain with from the next journey. Yeah, absolutely. (16/43)
And as far as what laptop to buy, that's almost personal choice. And by the way you're describing this, this isn't going to be an inexpensive laptop, so I can make some specific suggestions. You can look at the brands that have Linux pre-installed. And since you're going to be dual booting with Windows, you'll probably have to wipe them, install Windows and then install Linux again. But I think that would solve your dual boot requirement. The hardware itself, just about any laptop that has Linux pre-installed, whether that's from Dell or from System76 or Emperor Linux or any of those. And as far as some of the more recognizable brands are concerned that may not pre-install with Linux, some of the best ones that are Linux compatible are the Dells and the Thinkpads, as well as those that are pre-installed. So those would be the manufacturers that I would recommend. And there are many, many, many more out there. Please, please don't just limit yourself to that. And what do you think about (17/43)
these flip over, how did you describe it? It's a tablet hybrid. Yeah, a tablet hybrid where they flip over backwards or one that the display disconnects from the keyboard and things like that. Have you had any experience with any of those? I've actually had a Windows based tablet for work that was like that. The only thing I would say if you're going to be using Linux is you want to make sure that hardware supports, especially if it's a hybrid tablet, it's going to have a touch screen. And touch screens are, I wouldn't say super new, but I don't know how well they would be supported in Linux because I actually don't have one of those right now. You did say about Dell and Dells are pretty good, but let me just say that with a caveat. I run an Alienware, stay away from the Alienware line of, because Dell owns Alienware now. And because it does not seem to be very super friendly with Linux, you can run it. I'm running it right now, but it's kind of a little beastie when you want to try to (18/43)
get things done. It's just because I think of some of the interesting hardware they put in it. But I would kind of agree with you if you're really looking for a top notch Linux laptop that you know works. System 76 seems to work really, really well. And the ThinkPad line of Novo seems to work well. I had an old ThinkPad and it was just bulletproof. It just run, run, never had an issue. I don't know if the new, they make ultralight ThinkPads now, so you might want to look at that. But just, I think the most important thing is before you give out your hard currency to these guys, is to make sure that it will run well and it's fairly straightforward to get installed. The more features that the laptop has, the bigger chance that it might be problematic. Yes, exactly. And you mentioned possible issues with touchscreen. Some distributions support touchscreens better than others. It all has to do with how they have implemented support for it, as opposed to any lack of capability in Linux. (19/43)
What I have found with my Dell XPS 13, not a convertible laptop, just a standard laptop, 13-inch, with a touchscreen, is that Ubuntu Mate works extremely well. And I understand straight up Ubuntu works very well. They've both implemented touchscreen support quite well. So from personal experience, I can speak about those two distributions. But some of the applications under Linux also need to implement some things to support touch properly so that it's usable. I mean, you can drag your finger around and emulate a mouse, but sometimes you need more than that from a touchscreen computer. And you need some support from the application. So just double check if you're thinking about a touchscreen. Make sure that the applications you're thinking of running support touchscreen well and will work well under touchscreen. And the best way to do that is to take a USB stick with you to a store, if you're going to a store, or find a place where you can try it out or find somebody who has one that (20/43)
you're thinking about trying. Put the bootable USB with a distribution on it and boot from there. Use it from the distribution. Don't install anything on somebody else's computer. And just try it out. And from the live environment, you can install software, usually, depending on the distribution you're trying out. And if you can, try the applications that you have an interest in and try the touchscreen support on those. Make sure it works the way you expect. Otherwise, don't worry about this touchscreen and don't worry about the convertible laptops. But those are interesting. If you find one that works, neither Bill nor I have had extensive experience with them, let us know. Let us know how it goes and let us know any positives and negatives you come across. Do you think Best Buy would frown upon coming back to their computer displays and find all the computers running Ubuntu? They might. I've heard of people doing that. But the other thing you need to worry about is a lot of these (21/43)
places these days, especially with better and better recognition that USB sticks can carry undesirable software on them. You know, the salespeople in the stores are disinclined to let you plug a USB stick, even if you're saying, hey, I just want to try this software and make sure it works before I buy this computer. Check it out in a store. If you can't find somebody who has the exact model and you're interested in purchasing and will let you try it, you might want to shop at a place that has a liberal return policy so that if it doesn't work, you can send it back and just make a backup image of the originally installed software before you send it back, because when they send you a Windows computer and it comes back with Linux, they may have an issue with that. It might have some issues. But another solution to this is look for a smaller local shop that builds custom computers and they tend to be much more accommodating. Especially if you're going to buy a computer from them and say, (22/43)
hey, look, I'm going to run this version of Linux. I want to buy my computer from you. Can we make sure this runs? I bet you they're much more inclined to work with you on that. Yep. Okay, moving on. Roger wrote regarding Ubuntu Mate and printer paperweights. G'day Larry and Bill. I've just finished listening to episode 363, listener feedback, and during that episode you touched on my last email and Bill asked me for more info. Happy to oblige, Bill. My apologies for waffling a bit, but I can assure you it will be quicker to read than it is to write. I'm a home user. I personally use Windows 7 Professional. I just got used to it at my previous workplace and liked it. And our other home PC uses Home Premium. By the way, Windows 7 is nearing end of life. Just think about that. Unfortunately, that means I don't qualify for any extra support as far as I know either. So upgrade I must or go to something completely different. Hence my renewed interest in Linux. Quite some years ago, I even (23/43)
gave BOS, that's spelled B-E-O-S, a go once and it showed great promise, then kind of died. Pity. There are other OS alternatives such as Haiku, a successor to BOS, and ReactOS, and all the best to their hard work development teams, but I digress. By the way, I've been experimenting with Ubuntu Mate 18.04.1 on a USB stick for the home PC and 16.04.2 on my Raspberry Pi Model 3. Mate seems very friendly and I can understand why people often recommend it. Your favorable comments on Linux Mint Cinnamon are noted as well. The printer I had trouble with was an OkiPage 8Z, or Z, as we say here in America, long since out of production and it was not very compatible with Linux. Out of curiosity, I looked it up on openprinting.org and reread the page on this printer. I think the particular writer had much more luck than I ever did. My current printer is an HPCP1215, which I've heard uses a Canon engine, but that might just be rumor. And I just noticed that it's specifically supported, along with (24/43)
others, by Foo2HP, a Linux printer driver for ZJStream protocol. Good on the developer, Rick, who appears to have worked on this since 2003 from the changelog. Yet more software to try out for printing after a 13-year hiatus. Probably trying it on the Pi, which may or may not be practical, but we'll see. Time to sign off. Thanks for your advice, and as before, keep up the good work. Kind regards, Roger. All right, Roger, thanks for that feedback on printers and paperweights. Yes, that's a good one. Our next email comes from George, who writes again with a suggestion about a printer for Linux. I long ago abandoned Inkjet, mostly because I, too, purchased many expensive heads or inkjet cartridges, and they dried out for the lack of use. Don't know much about the latest HP printers. I did get one HP printer working on a local network at a library where we were testing Chrome OS devices. HP offered a Chrome extension that skips the Google Cloud print mess and keeps what has been printed (25/43)
safely in network instead of up to the Internet and back, or is supposed to do that. But I am avoiding HP printers because I've been following how HP is using DRM on its ink cartridges. Leo LePort had a great caller who had subscribed to the HP ink delivery program, but found ink arriving far faster than it was being used. Dropped the subscription, later took a brand new HP cartridge out off the shelf, and it didn't work. Seems HP had turned it off by DRM over the net related link, and the link is in the show notes. My own experience from my first effort to drop Macs and move to Linux Mint is that Brother's very inexpensive duplex laser printer are plug and play, having one running on Zibunt 2 also. At home, I have a Brother multi-function that didn't work well at all in 2015, but after an update prints as it should. The copy function works independent of the computer. Scanner doesn't work on any of the three Linux computers I've tested. Amazine authors a variety of Brother USB only (26/43)
duplex printers, about $90. Best Buy will price match, which would be useful if a purchased printer surprise didn't work and had to be returned. Mine will work when connected to the USB out of the router. There's also USB plus Ethernet models for more money. I would recommend your e-mailer buy a high-yield toner cartridge and may need to verify he has an appropriate USB to printer cable. If not, order that too. Yep, all good points George, and thanks. That's very good advice, and the whole ink subscription thing from HP is kind of wonky as well. I wonder how they would turn it off over the net. Oh yeah, I guess I know how they would do that. Yeah, exactly. It's connected to the internet these days. You know, that reminds me of a story back in the day, maybe about two years ago. I was reading that the Keurig coffee makers tried doing that DRM too. By putting a little barcode that their coffee makers would read, and if it wasn't an approved Keurig pod, it wouldn't work until someone (27/43)
figured out that all they have to do is cut the top off of one and then just put it on top of the other one and it just worked. So yeah, why would you put DRM on an ink cartridge except to lock people into that? Well, that's why. It's a good revenue stream for them. Now that's just crazy. Yeah, many printer manufacturers way back before we had as many printers as we have today were of the opinion that you give the printer away and you hope that people buy the ink from you because that's where you make the profit. And you could buy, there was a period of time when you could buy a brand new printer, usually some of the inexpensive ones like Lexmark and so on. You could buy a printer for less money on sale than it was going to cost you to buy the replacement ink cartridges for it. So would you just buy a new printer every time it ran out of ink? And yeah, and I did that a couple of times until they got wise to the fact that people were doing this. And then they started providing half (28/43)
cartridges of ink with the new printers. That's hilarious. Well, I'm out of ink, I need a new printer. But hey, you go follow the money, right? So you go with the least expensive route. And for me at the time, it's not the case anymore, but at the time it was go buy a new printer. That's hilarious. I'm sorry, I just, I get to see Larry just taking a perfect good frame and say, well, time to recycle this one. Here's a new one. Yeah, well, I never had any hardware problems because, you know, I didn't have long enough for that. Anyhow, Gord also comments on printers. And this is a very short email. He says, I have been very happy with Brother laser printer support under Ubuntu based Linux. Regards, Gord. Well, that's good, Gord. Brother does have some good printers. Most of them these days are Linux compatible, but you'll find every once in a while some of their models. Just check them out. Yeah. Don't go buy another printer. Yeah. So our next email comes from an email and he writes, Bill (29/43)
made the switch. I was thinking of your podcast when I put the SSD in, then installed Fedora 29 KDE on my favorite Windows 10 desktop, which I built three years ago, having dual booted from about two weeks. But today was a day like a breath of fresh air. Windows now remains locked up in a Proxmox box, seldom to be visited. Keep up the great podcast, Bill Wyndham, Vermont. OK. Another Bill? Another Bill. So that's good. And another Bill who has gone to Fedora. Yeah. So and Fedora and KDE. So I guess, hey, Bill, how about letting us know how that's working for you? I'm really interested. And it's like you've put Windows in solitary confinement permanently. So congratulations. Lock it up and forget about it. Exactly. All right. Our next email is from Tony H from the Mint cast. And he commented, Hey, Larry, Bill, thanks for reading Tony W's feedback on the last feedback show and complimenting us on the quality of the audio production since we took over from Rob and Isaac in October of (30/43)
that might be too big a job for six or seven of us. But quality in the end trumps a little extra work. Also, we had some great advice from a former host of the show, Joe Resington, who is an audio specialist and does the post-production for a number of his own and other shows. It is great to be part of a community when those doing what in other areas might be considered to be rivals help each other to be better at what we are doing. Finally, thanks to you for producing a great show and sticking with it for 12 years. I have been a listener for a fair chunk of that, and you helped me in my early foray into the world of Linux over 11 years ago. I was sad when Larry stopped doing the Computer America show, but fully understand that sometimes you have to ring the changes. Best wishes for a future 12 years. Regards, Tony Hughes, the Brit on Mintcast. So Tony, you are the one who liked the Computer America shows. I shouldn't say that. I shouldn't say that. We've had a lot of people say they (32/43)
love them and a lot of people say they really didn't care for them, but I'm glad you liked it. Yeah, and you know, I listen to Mintcast and they do a really good job. And we were talking about that before we started recording, maybe a couple of weeks back that their audio quality had gotten so much better. So keep up the great work, guys. And hey, thanks for everything you do and just keep plugging away. Yeah, exactly. Great service to the Linux community. Yes. So our next email comes from NZ17, who wrote us with a request for help for a Linux hero who's lost his voice, and he means it literally. Aloha from Utah. I still like that, by the way. Aloha from Utah. Aloha from Utah. I am writing to mention a very worthy cause. Hopefully some of your listeners would be willing to help a fellow Linux enthusiast. And he gives a link to the GoFundMe and we'll include that in the show notes. Ken Helios Starks isn't fond of the title hero, although hundreds of children and thousands of people in (33/43)
the Linux and open source community have made that reference often. Through a broken spine and stage four cancer, Ken Starks has persevered in his calls to bring technology to kids that cannot afford it. His organization Reglue.org rebuilds broken or decommissioned computers and then places them into the homes of financially disadvantaged kids. He's done so since 2005, but Ken's battle with cancer calls him his larynx and the ability to speak. The device he uses to speak electronically is now broken beyond repair, and he is without a voice, literally. He does not, nor has he ever taken any money for the job he does at Reglue. Like many people, such as Ken, he lives on a small disability check but still finds a way to make others' lives better. The electric larynx that Ken needs costs $1300 and, of course, his insurance does not cover such devices. Without a voice, Ken's work has become almost impossible to do and we need your help. For a man that has done so much for others, we hope (34/43)
that we can do this small thing for him. Should we raise more than the target amount, those funds will be put away for device maintenance and possibly other replacement devices in a few years' time. Our group wants to thank everyone who finds it possible to help Ken meet his goal. Ken was awarded the Dewey Winborn Community Service Award and was named as the award winner during a ceremony at the South by Southwest. Ken's involvement in providing technology through free computers to disadvantaged kids was highlighted during the event. He was also given the award for projects and social benefit by the Free Software Foundation. This award is presented to a project or team responsible for applying free software or the ideas of the free software movement. In a project that intentionally and significantly benefits society, this award stresses the use of free software in the service of humanity. Ken was awarded this in 2015. You might have also read his articles about Linux and free software. (35/43)
Ken has written for LXR.com and Linux Gazette and FalseForce over the years. Could you please mention this to your followers and listeners? I'd really appreciate your help and I'm sure he would be glad to speak again. Thank you. PedanticMinion1NZ17, note. Ken has already exceeded this goal but it looks like you can still donate. Well, thanks for letting us know about that. That would really suck not to be able to speak. Exactly. The electronic larynx is a great device but the fact that they won't replace it. Cover it? That's just crazy. Why wouldn't you cover something that someone needs? That makes no sense. Well, they provide it in the first place, I'm assuming. Why wouldn't they replace it if it's damaged? That's insurance for you. Yeah, healthcare and the U.S. I just took a look at his GoFundMe and it looks like it is up above $1,500. So he's exceeded his goal by a couple hundred dollars and as NZ17 has mentioned to us, any excess will go to cover hardware and various other things (36/43)
that Ken needs to continue the good work that he does. So thanks to all of you who have already donated and if you care to donate some more, we've passed on the message and the link and we'll have that link in the show notes. Yeah, and good luck to him. Hopefully he gets it and it makes a big difference. That just blows my mind that something like that which someone would need, they can't get because it's so expensive and it isn't covered by insurance. Well, that just breaks my heart. Anyway. Yeah, good luck to Ken and glad you've got your voice back or soon. Yes. Alright, Michael has our last email. He had a problem installing the software center. Hi Larry and Bill. Currently I am using Synaptic to search for software. However, because the layout might have several file names for an app, I have been trying to find an alternative in case I don't know what names of files I might need for a specific application. I have tried to install software center instead with the following error (37/43)
message, which I have created a script of. And he's got a listing of his script and it looks like he's using an HP Pavilion notebook. He runs the script, puts his password in. It says reading package lists, 0%. Reading package lists, 100%. Reading package lists, done. Building dependency tree, 0% and ratchets up. Building dependency tree, 0% and then 50% and then it says building dependency tree again. And then reading state of information, 0% and then reading state of information, done. And then package software center is not available. But is referenced by another package. This means that the package is missing, has been obsoleted or is only available from another source. And then another error message, package software center has no installation candidate. And then it exits. So, yeah, that's really, really weird. I'm assuming you're using Ubuntu Mate since you're talking about software center. Or maybe it's Linux Mint. It sounds more like Ubuntu Mate though. Maybe there was (38/43)
something wrong with the software center package at the time you were trying to install it and they didn't get it replaced in time on the repositories. That should have worked. Let me think. So you were using Synaptic to do the installation. You could have tried the terminal and typed in sudo apt install software-center, but that's exactly what your script is doing. Hmm. I'm at a bit of a loss. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe the name of the package is not software-center. I think that's right. So I see sudo, which brings superuser, then apt install software-center. And I was doing just while you were talking, I was looking to see what that's called. And that's what the package is called. OK, so we're yeah, we're at a bit of a loss. If anyone in our listening community, our minions, has an answer, let us know. And we'll pass that on to Michael by reading your comments in the show. Did he say what Ubuntu he's running? He did not. So I had just something just popped in the old brain, (39/43)
which, you know, that's kind of scary. But maybe look to see if his software repository is where the source is, where he's pulling from is correct. Oh, yeah. I think Michael is our blind Linux user in the UK. And, you know, you might want to, if your script is simply, as you've got it here, where it says sudo apt install software-center, you might want to add a line before that. That is sudo apt update. And then a line after that, sudo apt upgrade. And then do your sudo apt install software-center. By doing those two lines prior to this, you're ensuring that you get the latest version of the software that is available on the repositories, brought down to your computer as kind of a reference. So you're absolutely sure you're getting the latest release of whatever the package is you're here trying to install. So that might work. But maybe there's something else going on. So, Larry, let me tell you what, in Go on Linux, what I'll be doing this week is I'm going to be playing with MX Linux (40/43)
and doing some trials and see what I can break. Because that's just the way it is. And I'll let you know by next podcast if it has converted me over to it or I'm staying with Bungie. And then I don't have an application pick, but I do have a podcast pick that I'd like to let our listeners know about. And it's our friend of the show, Door-to-Door Geeks podcast. It's called PodNuts. And I've been talking to Door on and off this past couple of weeks. And he's been saying that he doesn't think a lot of people are listening or anything like that. So I'd ask if our listeners have some time to maybe go over there, listen, and provide him some feedback about what you'd like to see or what he can do better. Because he's a real nice guy and he's been listening to us probably from... He's probably one of those people who's listened to every podcast episode we've ever produced, starting with one. Yeah, he listens to a lot of different podcasts as well. He said he listens to like 100 podcasts a (41/43)
week or something, which is just insane. His podcast is Linux-related also, and I know he works fairly hard. I know he's had some co-host issues with health or people getting jobs or whatever. So if you have a spare slot in your podcast, put PodNuts in it and see what you think and maybe give him some feedback. I know he'd really appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. Good suggestion, Bill. Thanks. Hey, I have to... We're rivals, so I have... No, just kidding. No, there are no rivals in the podcast space. The more people who are producing podcasts about Linux, the better. Yeah, and Dora's a great guy. So I think he's a good friend of the show and I consider him a good friend also. Because he's been able to answer stuff when some of our minions couldn't figure it out. He had some ideas and so he's fairly knowledgeable. Like I said, wanted to throw a little attention his way and give him feedback if you're able. And I think I'd appreciate it and he would too. Yep. Thanks, Dora. Okay, our next (42/43)
episode may be our next Back to Basics episode, or we may have some other types of episodes we're going to squeeze in between the Back to Basics series. Yes. But we'll definitely get Back to Basics soon. Yes. And until then, you can go to our website at goinglinks.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. And if you'd like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our Going Links podcast community on MeeWee, community.goinglinks.com. So yeah, that was weird not saying Google+. I know. I know. Okay, until next time. Thanks for listening. 73. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com (43/43)