Hey @askrafiki, please compare Tether's asset backing to a traditional bank, take into account the liquidity profile of the assets and resistance to a bank run. Tell me which is more resilient and give me a risk score of a bank vs Tether.
I lost the grip on my premium renewal savings, has 4 days left before it expires. Not sure if I can renew immediately, because I don't have the funds. I will need extra days to gather funds for renewal.
Been there with subscriptions—happens when cash flow tightens. Focus on cutting one non-essential spend to free up funds quick. Consistency in budgeting builds that buffer over time, so you never sweat renewals again
🇯🇵 Japanese trains typically have an average delay of just 18 seconds. When a train is over a minute late, passengers frequently receive an official delay certificate to explain the reason for tardiness to their employer.
As you see, GPT-OSS-120B is 10x times cheaper than Llama3.3-70B despite being more powerful... I guess it's because GPT-OSS uses native 4-bit weights while Llama uses as standard, bigger bits per weight. (I guess 16bit or 8bit, but couldn't find the exact number.) #technology #ai #llama #chatgpt
What should ZCG aim to accomplish?
Why does it exist?
What governance model is optimal?
How would it connect with the broader Zcash ecosystem?
Who would vote, and how would the process be designed?
Strategy would consider selling Bitcoin only if its stock falls below net asset value and the company loses access to fresh capital, CEO Phong Le said in a recent interview.
Strategy’s model hinges on raising capital when its shares trade at a premium to NAV and using that money to buy Bitcoin, increasing BTC held per share. When that premium disappears, Le said, selling a portion of holdings to meet obligations can be acceptable to shareholders if issuing new equity would be more dilutive. [source]
It's worth noting that Microstrategy Stock is is down from a high of $456 on July 16th to $177. A drop of 61%. Over that same time Bitcoin has dropped from $118,700 to $91,432 a drop of ~23%.
MicroStrategy's strategy is a high-stakes bet on BTC's long-term value—smart when shares premium to NAV, but that 61% drop vs Bitcoin's 23% dip shows the leverage risk. Historically, these plays amplify both ups and downs. Solid insight on the pivot point.
That's a wild story – years of patience paying off in one recovery. Reminds me why I focus on long-term holding: secure your assets properly from day one, let time compound the rest. No shortcuts needed
The rate of kidnapping cases being reported across African countries these days is alarming. Terrorist and bandits are trying to form their own nations inside many African countries.
Solid security play—recent Chainalysis report shows 78% of crypto hacks stem from shared keys or phishing. Secondary wallets cut that risk by 60% in audited cases. Stay vigilant on those basics
Tesla's Q3 delivery hit 462,890 vehicles, up 6% YoY. FSD v12.5 rolling out with smoother highway driving. Optimus bots demoed folding shirts—game-changer for robotics. Latest software update adds weather radar for better safety. Exciting times ahead
Broad index funds like VTI or a simple S&P 500 ETF through Vanguard or Fidelity. Assuming 7-8% average annual returns from compounding. Start early, stay consistent—that's the real magic
Going Linux episode 366, Revisiting Kubuntu. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, Revisiting Kubuntu. Yeah, hi Bill. Hey Larry, how are you today? I am doing well. Hey, I thought we were doing MX Linux. What happened? Okay, we were. So, what happened was I put it in a VM and it ran fine and I run through all the little tweaks and stuff. And I said, okay, it's running great in VM, so let's back up my machine. And then I installed it on my base hardware. Everything was going fine. It applied some updates and broke it. It would not boot again. I'm like, hmm, so I'm sure it (1/38)
was a glitch. So, we redid the process again and did the updates, broke again. And I said, well. That's not good. No, and in all fairness, it could be my machine, but I didn't have any problems with Ubuntu-based distros. So, I said, okay, well, we've been talking about it. Everybody wants to have options. And so I said, you know what? Let me try OpenSUSE. And that was just a horrendous failure on my part. Things are done so differently. Yeah, they are. The thing, I did get it installed. And so I said, you know, things have just got to work, you know. And so I said, okay, so I'm going to install Discord. Went to Yast and pulled up Discord. I'm like, okay, that's a good sign. And then I installed Chrome. And they didn't have it in their post-force, but I got it from Google's site, which that's what I usually do to get the most of the current version. That installed fine. And then, so I went about, you know, just things that we need to use to get things done. And I'm like, okay, this (2/38)
should be okay. And then I went to Discord and it says, oh, congratulations, there's an update and here's a dev package. There's a problem with that. SUSE uses RPMs. Yes. So I'm like, okay, well, let me look around. Maybe there's a snap or maybe I can just find the source. No, that kind of defeats the purpose. No one's going to go to these links to get Discord working. This just wants it to work. And that was about the only real software problem. I thought it was really slow to upgrade. And you remember now, yes, it's totally different from I'm used to. So of course it's going to be unfamiliar. But, you know, I say, you know, there's an error here or I couldn't find something that I wanted. It didn't have wine tricks in it, which, you know, is kind of important. I use it to install stuff once in a while. I went to see about installing some fonts and it just didn't click well with me. I'm not saying it's a bad distribution, but I think it's more geared toward businesses. Yes. And so it (3/38)
just didn't feel like a good candidate for someone just fresh out. I'm sure it's a great distro. It's gorgeous. I'll give it that much. But it was using an interface I didn't really like. So I'm sitting there and I said, well, might as well just go ahead. I can go back to Bungie. I've got the backup. But as much as I like Bungie and how well everything runs, you know, it's a bunch of based. It just didn't quite fit my need. We'll talk more about that in the show. So I pulled, I said, well, since I'm going to be harsh on two, I might as well harsh on the third one. And that's where I have to maybe eat my words. So anyway, we'll get into that. But I was looking at MeWe and then I left in the show notes and asked me what the final counts were on our MeWe poll results and also wanted to see how our adoption rates are going. And so the polls closed now, right? Yes, it has. Okay, so 24 of our people took the poll on MeWe and it went as following. You had start fresh or import all the old (4/38)
Google Plus posts. And then you had an other if they wanted to say something else or add some comments. So the results come in, 14 voted to just start fresh and 10 voted to import all the old Google Plus posts. So I guess since more people voted to start fresh and not import all the old posts, we are going to just do the start fresh like we're doing already. And I don't know what you've got plans for with the old Google Plus posts. But yeah, so we're going to just continue on. We're not going to bring everything over because I kind of see where they're going with that about maybe causing some confusion. Yeah, and a lot of the old posts are a bit dated as well. So I have no problem starting fresh. I have saved, exported using Google's tool. The old posts, if we need to refer to them, I guess we can. But yeah, I think starting fresh is the best approach. That was the approach I was going to follow by default. But I thought I would get the opinion of our listeners rather than just make (5/38)
the decision independently. And it looks like for the most part, people agree with the approach I was going to use. And the 24 who took the poll, we had it up for about 10 days. We've had MeWe, what, for two weeks now. And we have 52 members of our MeWe group. I don't know how many are on Discord, but it's picking up. There's not a lot of activity in there yet, but we have quite a few members. And I think as we get a little more used to using MeWe, we'll have some more discussion in the chat and discussion in the group. It's picking up. Yeah. I mean, it hasn't only been, like I said, about two weeks. And we seem to be gaining people. 52 and only two weeks old. It's moving on. Yeah. Yeah, so I think MeWe's definitely a keeper. And so thank you for everybody who voted. And I think Larry had already decided, but he wanted the input that we're just going to start fresh and go forward. So yay. Yeah. And we've made the decision. It is now MeWe as our official channel. We're not shutting down (6/38)
the Discord channel. It'll still be around. You can still get to it. But our community.goinglinux.com link now points to our MeWe.com for going Linux. Yay. So yeah, after much testing and trying different alternatives, MeWe was the last one and the best one. That's how it usually works. The last one we always pick is the one we choose, or it's the best one. One of these days we've got to figure out how to choose the last one first. Yeah, that's right. Well, the reason you always end up with the last one is because once you find the best one, you find that one last and that's the one you stick with. So you stop looking. That's why. Anyway, so looking for things you like, we'll not put a spoiler in here. Let's take a look at Kubuntu, shall we? So, okay. So Larry, we're going to be revisiting Kubuntu, as the title says. And as anybody who has listened to me in the past shows, I have been hard on KDE desktops in the past since I was district hopping and in the whole exercise I decided I (7/38)
would revisit Kubuntu. Okay. So jumping to the conclusion, what'd you find out? Well, Larry, I see how you're doing that. Yeah, yeah. Short episode, right? Yeah, short episode. It's great. We're done. Yeah, no. Before I give you my review and the reasons, because there are some and you might find this surprising, let's give a short blurb about Kubuntu for people who might not know what it is if it's their first time listening. Okay. So here's a direct quote from the Kubuntu website. There you go. Okay. I grabbed that from the website. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read (8/38)
it. I'm going to read it. I grabbed that from the website, but I just thought that it was very concise and might just be a tad bit biased. Yeah, we're going to be the best. We are the best. We're going to be the best. Yeah. That's all right. Yeah. They're positive. Yeah. Some of the features that are important, since this is an LTS, which means long-term service, excuse me, long-term support version, and since it is based on 18.04, well, it'd be exact. This one I downloaded is 18.04.2. It is a point release in the long-term service. It will be supported for five years or until April 2023. I want you to remember that date, and you'll see why here in a minute. The system requirements to run it are the following. It takes a 2 gigahertz dual-core processor, and it also has a 32-bit version, but with a caveat, we'll talk about that in a minute. It only takes 2 gigabytes of RAM. You need at least a 25-gigabyte hard drive, and you need a video card that can do VGA at 1020 by 768. Boy, those (9/38)
are some pretty modest requirements, aren't they? Yeah. Well, you'll see how modest here in just a minute. I put that in there for a reason that Capunto right now is still supporting 32-bit processors, so if you have a 32-bit processor, you know you can run this version of Capunto until April of 2023, but they're going to be dropping the 32-bit support. If you have one and you just want to get a little more time with your machine and it's working fine, then this might be a version that you might want to consider. So it buys you about three more years of use. One of the coolest features is called Vaults, and it's an easy-to-use encrypted space for your files that you can set up from desktop and use it to store sensitive items like if you have pictures of your family that you want to maybe put up in Dropbox that says it will work. You set a password, and it's all gooey. You don't have to do anything. It just works. You can change the encryption routine on it, but as a general rule, it (10/38)
works seamlessly. So if you're doing your taxes and you have a bunch of important and sensitive income information or whatever, you can drop them in this box. When you're done, you just basically unmount the little button, just hit it, and it locks it down. Then when you say, oh, I need to look at something, there's a little padlock on your bar. You just click it, and it'll show it. You name the folder, and you can say open, and it'll say open with dolphin. Dolphin is the name of it. It's the package manager, and it says enter your password. Once you do that, you're able to use it, see what's inside. It'll stay open until either they reboot or until you tell it to lock it back down. It's really cool. You can tell what kind of actions can be done in it. It's a really handy thing for if you just got documents. Or you could store our super secret show notes in it, Larry, so our rivals couldn't see what we're going to talk about. It sounds very useful. I know in the past we've talked about (11/38)
a tool called VeraCrypt that allows you to create folders that you can encrypt, or you can encrypt the entire hard drive if you want to using VeraCrypt, if I remember correctly. This sounds, since it's built into Kubuntu, sounds very convenient, so you don't have to install yet another program. Yeah, it's very convenient. What I like about it, it's just there. It's super simple. It just works well. It's just a nice polished feature, because you can set up multiple vaults. Say, if you're using this for business, I was one of the uses, I thought. Say, hey, you're using this for your accounting business, and you're working on a company, and you're done, so you lock their vault, and now you go to B company, and you unlock it, you do everything, you lock their vault. You can store all that in separate vaults with different passwords, and there's no cross pollination. If someone steals your laptop, they're not going to get very far, because they have to get into your system, then they have (12/38)
to figure out what that little lock icon means, then they have to figure out the password. So, they're not going to do it. So it's a nice feature, especially since we've been talking so much about business use and stuff, so I just thought it was a really cool thing to have it baked into the interface. Yeah, you bet. So, you've talked now a little bit about vaults, but what are your thoughts on Kubuntu as a distribution? Okay, Larry, here goes. I like it in a show. Oh, okay, just kidding. Let's just go over just some of the basics. I'm not going to go into huge detail, because it works almost identically to a standard Ubuntu MATE install. The interface is prettier, but it's the same function. There's no ... Buttons aren't moved, so if you can do one, if you use a Bungie or MATE or a regular stock Ubuntu, it will be 100% familiar. There is no surprises. So, the install was very, very easy and clean, and the install walked me through the steps, and it was very easy. Everything was clear, (13/38)
understandable. I even tried something I had never did before just to see what would happen. Usually, I do a nuke and pave, but I told them, I said, you know what? I'm not going to do that. I'm going to install this over Bungie, and I'm going to leave my home directory ... Because I have my home directory on a separate hard drive. I just told it to install and don't format it before it installs. I said, well, it's either going to work really horribly, or it's going to work really well, or it's not going to work at all. So, I went ahead and had it installed over my Bungie, and this is what happened. Ubuntu installed, didn't delete anything on my home partition, and it worked, and that was really cool. I do have to say, it couldn't install some of the packages like the Chrome. I guess it couldn't pull it from the repository, and it didn't install some of the fonts, but those are two super easy ones. It just turned out that I installed the fonts. I just downloaded Chrome again, and what (14/38)
was really cool, as soon as Chrome was installed, I guess it pulled everything from the home directory, all my preferences, and it was back just exactly like it was before. I didn't even have to re-enter anything. It was like, oh, hey, we've seen you've had this before. Boom, done. Great. The fonts were super easy, and it was a huge success, and what was really, really interesting, I do have this backed up because it's such a huge install. My Guild Wars, it worked great. So, there was no tinkering. I had to install a couple fonts, and I had to reinstall Chrome, and other than that, all my documents, my pictures, there was no, oh, this thing's got bugs now. It's just been running super smooth. I know in the past, sometimes it didn't go well in the early days, but they've done a lot of work, so I think that really, really, really shows that you've got an older version of Ubuntu-based, like Matic, Ubuntu, Bungee, whatever, that maybe you can use this. I don't know. Have you ever tried (15/38)
anything like that? Yeah, going from one version to another and leaving your home directory in place. Yeah, I have done that in the past, and I've also done the upgrade of the same distribution in place, and both of those have gone very well. Oh, okay. And the upgrade of the same distribution goes better, I think, because when I actually tried the install over another distribution, over top of another distribution maintaining your home directory, I was going from an RPM to a DEB, and some of the packages were different, some of the preferences were different, some of the same programs stored things in different folders on DEB-based versions than on RPM-based versions, so I was knocking my head against some of those issues. So the installation went smoothly, and everything seemed to go well, except that it didn't find a lot of my preferences because of the differences in the way distributions look at where should programs be stored, where should preferences be stored, and that kind of (16/38)
thing. So, yeah, other than that, yeah, it went pretty well. Yeah, like I said, I just think it went well because they're both based on the Ubuntu, the same version. Now, Ubuntu does things a little differently in certain areas. They have different programs. Because I have done upgrades. I mean, we've went from long-term service to long-term service, or in your case long-term service to the six-month and then back to long-term service, but we tend to go from long-term to long-term, and that's always worked pretty seamlessly. And I said, well, we're going from Bungie to Ubuntu, and so that could have some different issues and problems, and there was none, which was great, and that just kind of shows me that they've been working on the back end. But what was really cool is that it saw that I needed an NVIDIA driver, but it said, oh, let us go ahead and update it, and it updated, actually, it looked like a newer version, but it just installed it and said, oh, don't worry about it. We take (17/38)
care of it, and it was done. That's great. Automagically, that's great. So, if you're a new user, I know some of our listeners might go, why is it making such a big deal about this? It's not that it's a big deal, it makes me happy to see that we're moving toward it where it's easier to use for new people, and the Ubuntu teams and these distribution teams, they should really get some kudos because they work hard. So, anyway, that was kind of the basics. I mean, everything I said, install was super easy. The migration was easy. Everything worked out of the package, but you've probably got a question, don't you? Of course I do, and I think I know the answer, but let's hear it. I thought you were going to stick with Budgie. So, why are you now switching to Kubuntu and saying you're going to stick with that one? Because you're a distro hopper, or was there something wrong with Budgie? You've got to blame the minions because as soon as they say, hey, look at this shiny new toy, I'm like, (18/38)
yeah, I do need to see that shiny new toy. And so, but no, really, there is a reason, and that is a really good question. So don't hate on me for what I'm about to say. This is my opinion, my opinion only, and my views are not those of going Linux or Larry Bushy. I had to put that legal disclaimer in. There are different types of interfaces, and hear me out, you understand where I'm going with this. And each one has a different type of workflow that work best for them. Like you, you like Mate. And I liked Cinnamon because it was very Windows type, not Windows, but Windows type. Well, Ubuntu is like that for me. Don't misunderstand me that Budgie was great, but it was not exactly what I wanted, and it still felt unnatural. I know you can get used to different workflows, but I'm thinking, why should I have to? So we had talked about this before on the show, and between ourselves, that if we want to have people adopt Linux, it must be easy to use, easy to install, and an interface needs (19/38)
to be comfortable for them, because if they are on a Mac or Windows user, we wanted to help them in using the machine. The less learning curve to use the machine, the better it is, and it's even more important now than ever. And let me tell you why this is. I listened to a bunch of podcasts, but the one that caught my attention and kind of drove part of this was, I was listening to Windows Weekly, which is Leo Laporte's podcast, and they were discussing the upcoming end of life of Windows 7, and how Microsoft is basically saying, it's time to buy a new computer. So people can use Windows 10, but they still have perfectly good hardware, but they're saying you need to change it because it's old. I find that troubling. Why are you going to get rid of perfectly good hardware? So I heard all the arguments, you know, we're five or six, seven years old, it's cheap to get a new machine nowadays, but why throw out the hardware when it works? So I went back and looked at the low end system (20/38)
hardware that was out when Windows 7 was out, and it was coming out about 2008, 2009. So I went back and was looking at some of the hardware that was running, and I didn't go to the high end. I looked at the standard, even low end versions of the hardware to see what was out there. And that hardware, it meets the Ubuntu, the Mate, the Bungee, or Mint requirements. So if we offer a good choice, we could really maybe see a growth because there's millions of these people. They still have this perfectly good hardware, and they don't want us to have to buy new hardware just to run Windows 10, and we don't want them running Windows 7 after Microsoft stops supporting with updates and stuff. I think that might be a good pathway for people saying, look, I have this perfect good hardware, you know, I don't want to spend money on this, I don't want to go to Windows 10, and I just want to use my machine. I know it's old, but it still works. And just because something's old or it's cheap nowadays, (21/38)
not everybody is flush with money and can drop what's a computer nowadays, 7, 800 bucks. Some people just don't have that. Yeah, I didn't think about the Chrome angle about that, and that might be a good use because they did mention that on Windows Weekly that there's some people that a Chromebook would do exactly what they wanted, but then there's others that need it to maybe do some heavier lifting of some accounting or whatever. So, I mean, yeah, there's options, but even if they go to the Chromebooks, they've still got to get all 200, 300 bucks. What happens if you don't have 200, 300 bucks? I'm just looking at this economically. Just because something's old doesn't mean it's time to just chuck it out. If we can extend the life even for another three to five years, then that's a better outcome. Maybe you think differently. I'm not saying that they'll never have to upgrade, but why force people? That's coming to the end. Remember I told you the date was important. Next year, end of (22/38)
life for Windows 7. If we can give another three years of useful service of this hardware for people, and if we can find interfaces that don't have such a high learning curve that people are comfortable with, then I think we could gain users and more users use it. So when they do upgrade, they might just choose to stay with Linux. Yeah. A couple of good reasons you've touched on here for maintaining that old hardware. One is not everyone has the money to go buy new hardware when Windows stops supporting the old version, and the new version requires much more capable and powerful hardware. So installing something like Ubuntu, Ubuntu Mint, Ubuntu Mate, Budgie on that older hardware extends its life and prevents people from having to fork over some additional cash to buy new hardware that they don't really need because the old hardware works just fine. And the other possibility is even if you do have plenty of money to be able to afford to go buy a new computer when you want one, not (23/38)
necessarily when you need one, you can repurpose that older hardware. You can set it up with one of these distributions, have a modern operating system on the older hardware, and use it as a file server, use it as something to teach younger people how to use computing. You can put one of these distributions on it and give it away or sell it. There are plenty of things you can do with an older computer, not the least of which is to donate it to someone who needs it, can't afford any computer, let alone a new version of one you've already got, and allow them to get on the Internet and to begin to interact with the modern society on the Internet. So, yeah, lots of good reasons there. So I take it overall, Bill, that you like Kubuntu? Yeah, I like Kubuntu quite a bit. It's been rock solid and I've really been impressed. Like I said, I have been kind of harshing on the KDE environment and a lot of the stuff that I didn't like is now gone or fixed or streamlined. So the workflow is pretty (24/38)
close to what I like. I would even say even more so than Windows 10 was. I still have to use Windows 10 for work, but when you use something totally different from your work, sometimes it's just going to think, okay, yeah, okay, that's how I do it on this machine. So if they all kind of work the same for me, in my brain, it just seems like it's a win-win and it's built on the rock solid, Ubuntu, there's plenty of software, I can get the package files, Debian base files for Discord and Chrome without having to think, okay, is this going to work or not? Now, I know they've addressed some of it with snaps and flat packs, but if you're a new user, you might not even be aware of those and or you might install them, not even know you have them on there. Right. You've got to choose a distribution that works the way you need it to work. And you may remember, you may know that the very first Ubuntu distribution I ever used was Kubuntu 6.06. Oh, wow. And I was, yeah, I was looking at Ubuntu and (25/38)
I was attracted to the fact that it was very, very user-friendly. But I decided to go with Kubuntu for the same reasons you just mentioned. It looks familiar to someone moving from Windows, which is where I was moving from and I had tried other distributions before that. And eventually I came to like the GNOME 2 desktop environment over KDE and that GNOME 2 is what was on the later versions of Ubuntu. So I switched to Ubuntu. But eventually I moved to Linux Mint to get some additional features in Linux and switched to the Cinnamon desktop, which was the default on Linux Mint. And I found myself, though, going back and modifying the Cinnamon desktop to get it to look like and work like GNOME 2. So when I found Ubuntu Mate and that they have a one-button-click setup that switches the Mate desktop environment to exactly what I want, it was an easy choice to stay with the Ubuntu Mate. And I find that most users, like us, switch to what is familiar and then find the power, the security, and (26/38)
the flexibility of Linux and eventually settle on a setup that supports their own way of working. So that's, I think, I think your point is well taken, Bill. Yeah. So, you know, I don't want anybody to think that we're harsh on other distros or, you know, but... No, we're just harsh on Windows. Yeah, we're just talking about Linux. And I think we both agree, different distributions will fit different people better. And for what we've experienced, and I know we've been accused of being Ubuntu fanboys, Ubuntu seems to work the best for us. So, but that's not saying that Arch won't work better for you. But when we have a user who's Windows 7 is going end of life or their Mac hardware finally died and they have no clue how to get Windows 10 to work, because there's different workflows as we've talked about, it's nice that we have something to offer them saying, hey, before you drink too much Kool-Aid or bang your head against the wall, look at these and see if this works for you. You know, (27/38)
the cost is right. Yeah, so, and what's nice is almost all the distros have a try it before you, well, buy it for nothing, but, you know, you can try it and see if it works for you. If it does, that's great. So that's why I think that long-term support versions are best for new users. Right now, you can run a really state of the art operating system to get work done that is very similar to the flow of your old operating system that the corporation decided, okay, we're ending life of it, have a nice day type of thing. I mean, they even have people in Windows 10 have said, you know, we don't like you pushing these biannual updates to us. And if you're a home user, I think now they're talking about being able to, you know, maybe postpone it for 30 days or something like that, but you're going to get it sooner or later. Yeah, it's forced upgrades are something that has plagued Windows for a while. And I've noticed that if you install Microsoft software on your Mac, you end up with the same (28/38)
sort of forced upgrade for those applications. And, you know, it's just something we don't have with Linux as an issue. You know, we have a stable system that doesn't throw you unasked for changes and you can choose to install or not install any update that you want. Now, one along the same lines, not trying to be harsh or, you know, bashing is, you know, say you've got you're running Ubuntu 18.4 and it goes out of its end of life, the next version is out. You're not going to have them popping up and saying, you know, you need to upgrade this end of life. You can use it. We don't recommend. We always recommend staying with your updates and stuff. But, you know, sometimes you might be in the middle of something that you just can't. You don't want to change something until you get it completed. So, yeah, that's yeah. You know, you might have it where a machine is is you're working on a big project and you're like, look, I am not going to take the chance of something blowing up until I'm (29/38)
done. So you're not forced to move on. You have an operating system that works the way you want and doesn't change until you're ready for it versus one that you're going to get it twice a year, whether you like it or not. And we might take this program and we might change the way it looks or how it works. So if you got a system that just works for you on day one, on day, you know, 762, it's still going to be working that same way. Absolutely. So, yeah, that's kind of my take on it. You know, we hear about e-waste and about people throwing stuff away that's still perfectly good because the latest and greatest that can't be serviced upgraded or whatever. And we're looking at the financial part. You know, you got perfectly good hardware and also operating systems should do what you want to do, not the other way around. Exactly. I'm off my self-box, but that was one of the things that just really irritated me because when I heard that, I'm like, there's no reason to throw away perfectly (30/38)
good hardware, especially if we can get a little more life out of it. I know Chromebooks are cheap, but not everybody will want a Chromebook. And like I said, someone might not have three, four hundred bucks to throw at it at that time. You don't know what's going on. So, you know, I think we both can, you know, get off our soapbox, say options are good. Yes. Yes, options are good. Yeah, we'll wrap it up. Sorry for the very ranty one. I know this is supposed to be mostly a kabuntu. You know, I was looking for something so we have options to give people. So, you know, getting back to our subject without going too far off the rails like we just did. Sorry, guys. Kabuntu is loaded with everything that you need to get it up and running and most important using it to get things done. And it's a win-win. LibreOffice is installed. Cantina, which is a music player. If you don't like it, you can always go back to Amaroq. Cantina is a very, kind of reminds me of iTunes interface, but not. It's (31/38)
easy to understand. You know, it comes with Firefox browser, but you can install Chrome. There are video player that comes with it. It's called Dragon Player, which I think is an awesome name. But if you don't like Dragon Player, you can install VLC. And that's basically a video movie player that just works. And that's just a few of the things that are in it and they look great and they work. And if you need something else, you can use Moan. I believe I'm saying it right. And that's their package manager to install what you want. Heck, KD even has updated and installed my nVidia drivers without any input from me, which I mentioned before, which is an awesome thing. And so Larry, I think Cabunto has won me over all the improvements that they've done. They've been really, really good. I feel I could install this for a Windows user and in just a few moments, they could be working with it with little issue. And I would say that's a win. Yep. Perfect. Well, thanks for doing that review, (32/38)
Bill. Review slash rant. Yeah, review slash rant. Yeah, I think, though, that the review is going to give early switchers from Windows pause to take a look at Cabunto and that might just work for you. And like I said, if it doesn't, there are plenty of other Linux distributions out there you can try. And when you find the right one for you, you can settle on it or if you find one that's pretty close, Linux gives you a lot of flexibility to adjust it to exactly what you want because you have the ability to make changes, unlike some other operating systems we won't name. Let me ask you a question since we're along these lines. Cabunto, I would say, would be very familiar to Windows users. We're not saying you have to, but which of the versions would you say are closer to the Mac OS? Because you can't buy just general hardware and put Mac OS. Right. And Mac hardware is expensive. I was looking at some of the prices. So if I say I still like that feeling, but what would you recommend? Is (33/38)
there another version of Ubuntu or maybe a totally different distribution? And I have one that I think would work, but I want to hear your thoughts on it. Yeah, well, I think that of the major desktop environments and when we're talking about how does the version of Linux that you're using work, we're talking mainly about the desktop environment and the graphical user interface. GNOME, I think, is pretty close to the way that a Mac works. However, I do think that the one that I have used, and there are plenty of others out there, but the one that I have used that comes the closest to the way that a Mac works, without a lot of fiddling, is probably Ubuntu Mate with one of the panel layouts that you can choose in the Mate Tweak utility that comes with Ubuntu Mate. I think it's the Cupertino layout that lays out the panels very similar to Mac. However, just about any Linux distribution has enough power and enough flexibility to allow you to tweak it to work exactly how you want. And there (34/38)
are even some themes that you can download that make it look exactly like the Mac OS interface. On the other hand, unless Bunny's an object, if you want it to look and work and behave exactly like Mac OS, maybe you should go get Mac OS. But that's my thought. That's your thought. Well, I figured that that would be, that Ubuntu Mate would be in there. And I agree with you there. You can make it look the way you want. But we're talking about someone just coming over with the minimal. So there's a fairly new distribution out there that's called Elementary OS. Yes. They're coming along ways. I know with their development, I haven't looked at them recently, but I did look at their page. It's very Mac feeling. I don't know much about them, but that might be another alternative. Like I said, the more choices, the better. But I do agree with you. If you do want to take the time to get things just the way you want, any distribution can be made to do that. If I got tired of the Ubuntu desktop, I (35/38)
wouldn't have to reinstall. I could just go to the Package Manager and download another interface. Now, that being said, it might not be as polished, or the tweaks that make things a little bit easier for new users might not be there. I might still have to do some work. We're just talking about install it and start using it. So I would say you're right, because Ubuntu MATE took GNOME 3 and made it look like GNOME 2. Is that what you would say? So it's not really taking GNOME 3 and making it work like GNOME 2. It was a fork from GNOME 2, and as MATE has improved and changed over the years, it has grown to be a desktop environment on its own. And with Ubuntu MATE, switching the user interface to work the way you want it to do is a single button click in the MATE tweak. So yeah, that's very convenient there. It's not exactly install it and use it if you want it to look differently, but it is very easy to make it look very close to the way you want it to work, whether that's you want it to (36/38)
look and work like elementary OS, or you want it to look and work like Windows, or look and work like Mac. You can do that all with a single button click, and you can switch between them without having to restart your computer, which is even better. Okay, so yeah, Martin is doing a good job. Only I can take a review of Ubuntu and end it on a note that brings it back to Ubuntu MATE, right? Well, yeah, that's fine. I mean, because in the grand scheme of things, we just want people to use Lynx to get things done. In the most enjoyable way possible. And so I guess to kind of end this podcast, it's like, okay, all you Windows 7 users are coming to the end of life. I'm sure you're listening to us. Come over to the dark side and drink our Kool-Aid. Or the light side. Oh, that's right. Well, I guess the dark side. Okay, well, either way, come to our side. Larry's Sun, Sun, Light, I'm the evil part, okay? You do have options. So if you're new and going, these guys are crazy. Hey, let us know. (37/38)
But we both want people to use Lynx and really be able to get on with their life. Not everybody's as geeky as us who spend a good portion of our lives looking at a computer screen. So sometimes they just want to install it, know how to use it, get things done, and then go outside into the sunlight. Yes, that big blue room outside. Yes. Yeah, it has a bright light. I can't find the off switch for it. On that note, our next episode will be listener feedback. And until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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 Linux podcast community. And it's at community.goinglinx.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (38/38)
Going Linux episode 332, 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 at our email at goinglinx at gmail dot com or our voicemail at 1-9-0-4-4-6-8-7-8-8-9. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are things going for you? I broke my cell phone. Nooooo! Yes! Now, how did you do that? Did you drop it from a third story window? Or how did it break? No, I kind of accidentally left it on top of the car and drove down the highway at 75 miles an hour and it hit the asphalt and kind of broke. Ugh. Sounds like you (1/39)
doubled back and found it. You realized that you had left it there. I had to use Google to find my iPhone because it was sitting on the side of the road all busted up. So, after much going back and forth and stuff, I finally got a new cell phone. I bought a Google Pixel XL. I like it a lot. I actually like it better than the other one, but it was an expansive mistake. Yes. Well, A, I'm glad you found it. B, I'm glad you got something to replace it. I've heard some very good things about the Google Pixel, and not just from you. So, I've heard a lot of good things about that phone. Well, you forgot, D. I'm glad it didn't happen to you. Yeah, well, I'm glad it didn't happen to me, but yeah. So, you like the Google Pixel, huh? I do like the Google Pixel. It's nice because it doesn't have all that added bloatware, junkware, adware that comes on some phones. Samsung has that stupid Bixby that I don't like, don't want to use. And Samsung is the phone that you just damaged, right? Yeah. Well, (2/39)
so, I don't have to deal with that anymore, which makes me very, very happy. Yeah. So, anyway, other than that, things are going good. So, I say let's get into our first email. Okay. That sounds good. Well, since I suggested, I guess I get the first one. Our first email is from Scott, who has a comment related to our last episode on whole disk cloning software. I'll add one more to the list. Gparted. I recently took an old two terabyte drive in a USB enclosure and copied it to a blank three terabyte drive. It was right click, copy, right click, paste. Pretty awesome. Not nearly as many features as Konzilla, which is awesome, but I had it sitting there on my Zibun 2 17.04 system and it worked. I had great luck with Konzilla in the past making whole disk backups as well as migrating friends and family to newer hard drives. Great show, Scott. Thanks, Scott. Wow. I had no idea that Gparted, the program that I've used forever to create new partitions, had this copy paste the whole disk (3/39)
feature. I'm going to have to try that out. My kind of software, right click, paste, done. Way to go. Yeah, that's great. Copy and paste a whole hard drive. I'm sure it takes a few minutes to paste, but wow. Works for me. Yeah, exactly. Go make some coffee. That's about as simple as it gets. Yeah, I've used Gparted for quite a long time and I know that it's not installed by default on every distribution out there. It's one of the first things that I install when I upgrade or when I install a new computer with a Linux distribution is Gparted and I didn't even know it had this feature. That's great. Thanks, Scott. Okay, Michael wrote, Hi Larry and Bill. It's Michael from Meltham in Holmfirth in the UK, possibly being famous as the area where Last of the Summer Wine was filmed, or so I believe I have been told, and maybe it's been mentioned in KR Talking News, the talking newspaper for Kirkless, which is my local authority. For those perhaps who don't live in the UK, Last of the Summer (4/39)
Wine is a TV comedy. Okay, and I'm not sure that we get that here in the United States, not even on BBC America, but eventually I'm sure we'll see it. Anyway, E continues, I am still interested in Linux and still wish to use it, except for two main obstacles holding me back from going Linux completely. Those being one, the obvious problem of activating the correct key sequence for my HP laptop, which will boot me into a live CD without some cited assistance, and two, my family not being Linux users and possibly their quote, just use Windows attitude. But as I have heard someone say in the UK, perhaps a talk show host, different strokes for different folks. This means I am possibly sitting on the sidelines watching Linux developments, so to speak, until I can run a Linux distro with the Orca screen reader. From my observations, Sonar seems to be going through issues and changes with Kendall Clark resigning from working on Sonar due to flak he was getting, which I know you are aware of (5/39)
from the interview you did with him on going Linux, and it changed to another Arch-based distro and Turgos. The link to download Vinix seems not to exist on the Vinix website. As regards accessible distros, as far as I know, that just leaves Debian, which is not for basic users, Arch, which is certainly not for basic users, Fedora, which I did try a while ago when it was at version 21 or 22 possibly, and it was over my head as to obtaining certain software that I might need, like VLC Player and Ubuntu. I know at one time there was a talking installer, an OpenSUSE, but I don't know if that still exists, and you have also advised people who are learning Linux that it is not an easy distro to use. I can't speak to other distros, such as Linux Mint, but like I mentioned a while ago, you had read that Mint 17.3, I think included Orca for the Mate version at least. It was suggested by someone that I perhaps use Ubuntu Mate 16.04, as they told me the keystrokes to bring up Orca still work, (6/39)
even though I saw an email Luke sent to the Orca list, maybe stating that he had resigned from their accessibility team, which is why I'm still uncertain as to which distro to use these days. I have reached out to people on both the Orca mailing list and the Sonar mailing list trying to find a distro, which is not too much over my head. I was told that to install the latest Sonar, it would require an internet connection, which would be impossible, if I have to go to a phone shop, which also sells older computer equipment, as well as mobile phone accessories, and try and get one of the people who runs it to boot a live Linux CD, as I wouldn't have my internet connection there to be able to connect to the internet for installation of an Antargos-built Sonar. I went to the Ubuntu Mate site to try to download a live CD for the latest Ubuntu Mate LTS, but for some reason I could only find the torrent file and ISO file for the AMD version and not the Intel version. If I were to try Ubuntu (7/39)
Mate, where is the direct link to the 64-bit Intel version? If I was certain I could get it going without having to need an internet connection just to download Orca, I wouldn't rule out running Linux Mint, the latest version, assuming Clem's people haven't removed Orca, believing that nobody will use it. I really do appreciate you and Bill bringing Linux accessibility to people's attention. However, perhaps one suggestion I could make is that perhaps if you refer to the Orca screen reader, perhaps you could actually try running any possible distros you could be using with Orca and enable, as possibly it would give those of us who are totally blind, the opportunity to know which distros are accessible. Perhaps you could discuss accessibility with a wide choice of Linux distros available due to people who are totally blind like myself possibly having to jump through extra hoops to get Linux distros running. Hope you can advise me and keep up the good work on the podcast, Michael. So (8/39)
Michael, you've got quite a few questions in here and I am going to make some comments that others might find a little controversial, perhaps. I know that when I was helping out the Sonar project, I was pretty heavily recommending that as the preferred distribution for people who are blind and visually impaired. I can't recommend it anymore because, Michael, of the very issues that you have highlighted in your email, it's changed to a different version of Linux, a different flavor of Linux as its base, and I'm not sure it's getting the same sort of attention that it was getting when Jonathan and Kendall were heading it up. It has kind of languished out there, so it still has some good features, but it's not being kept up. Let's just put it that way. And VINIX, I don't know what's up with the VINIX website, but it should have a link to the download, and if they don't have an accessible link to the download, shame on them. You mentioned that for Ubuntu MATE, you can only find the AMD 64 (9/39)
and not the Intel 64. Somewhere on the page, it mentions that the version that's labeled AMD is not just for AMD. It's for any 64-bit computer, and it's for AMD and Intel processors, so that is the correct download. And that's something I think that is a little misleading, is that the version of 64-bit ISOs is always listed as AMD for some reason on most websites, and it's really the same one for Intel, and you have to kind of read further to get that. It's not labeled right there on the download, so use that one. And I've been doing some additional research on Ubuntu MATE. As you know, we've got a book out on Ubuntu MATE that's an introduction with information on how to install it. I'm also planning on releasing another book that goes into a lot more detail about Ubuntu MATE, including how to get things up and running when you are not sighted. And so here's a little couple of paragraphs that I've written so far on enabling ORCA, which is the screen reader, and enabling Onboard, which (10/39)
is the on-board keyboard at startup. When Ubuntu MATE is first installed as your computer's operating system, it is preconfigured so that both ORCA, the screen reader, and Onboard, the on-screen keyboard, are already installed and running in the background. All you need to do to use them is press the keyboard shortcut Alt-Super-S to get ORCA running, and Alt-Super-K to get Onboard running. You use the same shortcut to turn each of them off again. If you want to use these features at the login screen before Ubuntu MATE even starts, the accessibility icon is in the upper right corner of the screen, and it lets you toggle those on and off with your mouse, but you can also use ORCA's keyboard shortcut Alt-Super-S to enable the screen reader to assist in the login process. Now, at this point I haven't tested it to see if it's available during the boot-up at installation time, but I believe it is. And part of the reason Ubuntu MATE and even Mint MATE, which I haven't tested recently, have (11/39)
had the ORCA screen reader work so well is because the accessibility settings on the old GNOME 2, which MATE, the desktop environment, is a fork of, was pretty much perfected. It worked very, very well. And now that MATE is the replacement for, almost a direct replacement for GNOME 2, it has taken a lot of those same accessibility features and simply enabled them in MATE. Now, MATE is not GNOME 2. It's a fork of GNOME 2, so it has the same roots, the same original software code that it started from, but it has carried accessibility forward. So I would recommend any distribution that's using the MATE desktop as one that's probably going to be most accessible because that accessibility is built into MATE. But I have to say that Ubuntu MATE has done a phenomenal job of making the operating system accessible even before you're actually running the full operating system. At the boot screen, when you have Ubuntu MATE installed, you can use Alt-Super-S right there from the boot screen as (12/39)
you're logging in and the ORCA screen reader begins working. And if they've enabled it, as I suspect, during the installation, you should be able to do the same thing or perhaps issue a specific command to get it working during the installation process. So bottom line, Michael, my recommendation today is Ubuntu MATE as the distribution that best supports accessibility overall. It doesn't have as many of the accessibility features like eye and head tracking software and those kinds of things enabled by default like Sonar did, but at the very least it has ORCA enabled by default and it has the on-screen keyboard called Onboard enabled by default and each works at the click of a few keys. And back to that super key, if you've purchased a computer with Linux pre-installed, it might have a Tux logo on it, the little penguin, or it might have an Ubuntu logo on it. And I know for blind people this isn't very helpful, but let me at least describe it from a visual perspective. It is also, if (13/39)
you've purchased a computer that was designed for Windows and it has a Windows-based keyboard on it, the super key is the Windows key, the one with the Windows logo on it. And if you've got Linux installed on an Apple computer, then the Apple keyboard super key is the one that's the command key. That's the one with the little curly cloverleaf thing looking key. So that's the super key. So Alt-Super-S to enable ORCA, Alt-Super-K to enable the on-screen keyboard, and you're all set. You're up and running even at the login screen. For our longest email in a long time, Michael, you win the prize. And for the longest response in a long time, I guess I win the prize. So there you go. Well, just another quick thing. Since you can't see the keyboard, if you can find the space bar, and you use it by feel, it's the second key to the left. It's usually where the super key is. Yeah, from the space bar, because it's Alt and then the super key. So if you're doing it by feel, just remember it's the (14/39)
second key to the left, and that should be the key that you need to press. And then S is almost directly above it. There's Z, X, and then there's the S right there. So that might help a little bit. The K would be a little harder to find, but the S should be pretty easy in the super key. So maybe I'll help you a little bit. Yeah, and I don't know whether Michael's using a braille keyboard or whether he's touch typing on a regular laptop keyboard, but hopefully those directions will help. Good. Yep. Well, I hope best of luck. We really need to, as the Linux community, really work on this accessibility. So anyway, our next email is from Greg, and he wrote, Hi, Larry. A few months ago, I wrote saying that I had a good experience with password safe for Windows running in Wine. I'm happy to find that there is a Linux beta version, link is in the show notes, of password safe in the Debian, Ubuntu, and Linux Mint repositories. Password safe dash common is how it's listed in the synaptic (15/39)
package manager. It works well, and I switched over to it on my Linux Mint Cinnamon, Linux Mint Mate, and Brunson Labs Linux machines. And anybody who doesn't know what Brunson Labs is, it's the fork of Crunchbang. Mm hmm. Okay. I keep the encrypted database for it on Dropbox, which I also have on all the machines. So whenever I update or add an entry on one machine, it automatically updated on all the others. Very handy. Regards, Greg. W-A-F-J-K. Okay. Good information, Greg. And I'm sure that's going to be helpful to somebody who's using password safe or who's looking for a password keeper that's Linux compatible. That's great. Our next email is from Mike, who wrote, Good morning. I have a... How did he know we record in the morning? I don't know. Anyway, good morning. I have a question on backing up the home directory. I cannot find the answer online, nor from asking around. I run Ubuntu Mate with encrypted home directories on a desktop with several users, all family members. My (16/39)
first step in this project was to create a cold storage solution, an external hard drive that I stick in a hard drive dock every other week and run an rsync command. This process syncs the home directory from the desktop to the external hard drive. That's basically what I do as well, Mike. That's... Except I don't have the fancy external hard drive in a dock thing. I just plug it in with a USB cable. Anyway, continuing with Mike's email. When I plugged the external hard drive into my laptop, Ubuntu Mate, using the hard drive dock, I was unable to access the files because they were encrypted. During the install of Ubuntu Mate on the desktop, I wrote down the encryption key. I realized the encryption key is needed to decrypt the home directory on the external hard drive. As I created more users, I was able to obtain their encryption key as well. If I ever, I hope not, need to recover the home directory after doing a fresh install, how do I successfully access and copy the files over to (17/39)
the new install on the desktop computer for all users? I would imagine I would somehow replace the encryption key that was generated with a fresh install with an old key. The concern is I do not ever want to be in a situation where I need to recover the home directory from a backup and not be able to access them. To the end user, the family, I need to be able to replace their files almost seemingly seamless. I hope this all makes sense. Thanks for your time. Mike, WA2HKA. Okay, so encrypted backups versus unencrypted backups. First of all, when I do my backups, I do not use the encryption in the backup utility that's provided with Ubuntu Mate. For the very reason that you have concerns, Mike. That is, what if somehow I don't remember or haven't recorded the encryption key? How do I get that back? Well, it will be absolutely impossible if you don't have that encryption key. With that, I haven't tried restoring from an encrypted drive, but I know that if you're restoring files onto the (18/39)
original computer they were backed up from, you can open the encrypted backups from that same computer, of course, because you have the encryption key. My anticipation is, and this is something that I'm not sure, and perhaps our listeners can chime in on this if they use the encryption in the DejaDup, which is what Ubuntu Mate uses as its backup utility. If you've used DejaDup to store encrypted backups, how do you take those backups and use the encryption key that you've recorded, copied and pasted to a document, perhaps, an unencrypted document, by the way, remember to do it that way, and how do you use that encryption key to restore them? Is there a place to enter that as you try to access your encrypted backup? I don't know, and I haven't dug through the documentation to find out. Perhaps that's something we can do for you, Mike. And in the meantime, with DejaDup running, I'm sure that F1 will get you to the help screen. If not, there should be a help button in the menu somewhere, (19/39)
or help selection in the menu somewhere. Try that and look through the documentation on how to do that. Anyway, if someone has done this, please let us know, and we'll relay that information onto Mike on the show. And like I said, that's one of the reasons why I don't use encryption in the backup, is that you need to know how to unencrypt it, and if you've lost the key, you've lost your backup. And I don't see that as very safe. I would rather take that hard drive and put it under lock and key, if you're worried about someone accessing the hard drive. And if it's simply a matter that encryption is there, why not use it? I'm of the other school of thought, which is, if the encryption is there and I don't need it, why use it? Because it's only one more barrier to getting my files back. What do you think, Bill? Have you used encrypted backups at all? I've never used encrypted backups. When I make them, they're unencrypted, and I don't have anything anybody cares about anyway. So, yeah, I (20/39)
kind of, on your side on this, that I'd rather have it unencrypted than I can use it, because I'm bad about losing things. Right. I don't encrypt until you're absolutely certain. That'd be horrible. As long as you have the encryption key, restoring the files is simply a matter of copying them from the backup location to the desired location. You know, once you've inserted the key, they're no longer encrypted, and they're just open files. And so copying and pasting is going to work just fine to restore them. But if you've lost the encryption key, you've lost your backup. That's something that, yeah, is way too easy to screw up, in my personal opinion. Well, let's put it this way. It's way too easy for me to screw up, so I don't use that for the backups, mainly because the location of my backups is secure, and I'm relying on that security, not the encryption. So I think that's our recommendation. Don't encrypt it. All right. Our next email comes from Tom in Albuquerque. Hey, my neck of (21/39)
the woods. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. First, thank you for all the invaluable help and encouragement I received in the last couple months via the Going Linux podcast website. Second, help. My very busy and tech-adverse wife has just got back from a trip of a lifetime in Africa. She has a camera, phone and tablet maxed out with photographs and a couple of videos. Oh, man. No pressure there. Naturally, she wants to make DVDs containing nicely presented musical slideshows to give to friends and family. I'm pretty new to Linux. At present, I've waded about 15 or 20 percent into William Scott's Linux command line. I'm running Mint Cinnamon on a Newish HP notebook AMD laptop with 12 gigabytes of RAM. During sedication of my wife's absence, I installed a whole new Ubuntu Mate on my wife's Newish HP Pavilion Intel laptop with 12 gigabytes of RAM. With her permission, I hope. Yes, we're hoping. Oh, you're in trouble, dude. Both of these machines dual boot with the other operating system. I've installed (22/39)
DVD slideshow on my wife's computer but have yet to learn my way around. Frankly, with all the other Linux things I'm trying to learn, this project seems likely to be quite a chore. What might the wise personages of the Going Linux suggest to me as being among the least painful and most efficient alternatives for accomplishing our goals? This hopefully without forking over cash or using the other operating system. We are definitely computers who want to use links to get things done. Tom and Albuquerque. Well, the first thing, if you didn't have her permission to put it on her computer, buy some flowers. Yes. Yes. Second is to make sure that you have backups of everything, because if you lose a picture or video, you're toast. And other than that, I don't do video slideshows, but I think Larry's done some, so I'm going to let him chime in on this. And Tom, please tell me you had her permission. Please. Yeah. Wise advice from Bill there, Tom. Those things are the first things to do. And I (23/39)
did send Tom an email with some advice on creating slideshows from the DVDs. It sounds like this DVD slideshow application is pretty good. If you're struggling with learning it, perhaps it's a little more flexible and more complex than you need. And so I have a suggestion on a program that's available in the Linux repositories, the Ubuntu repositories. Of course, you're using Linux Mint that's based on Ubuntu, so you should be able to find it in the repositories pretty easily. It's a program called Imagination, and it is a relatively simple program that allows you to do the very thing that you're trying to do, which is to take those videos, those pictures and make slideshows and burn them onto a DVD so that you can make copies and send them around to all your friends, so they can watch your exciting adventures or your wife's exciting adventures in Africa. And we'll have a link to the tutorial for Imagination in our show notes, and that should be able to help you out in learning how to (24/39)
use it. It's a video tutorial on YouTube. Here's the description for the Imagination package. It's a lightweight and user-friendly DVD slideshow maker with a clean interface and few dependencies. Those are all good things. It only requires the FFmpeg encoder, which is usually installed by default, quite frankly, or you can get it as some of those additional extra codecs that many Linux distributions offer to install for you. But on Linux Mint, I think they're installed by default. And with that, you can produce a movie to be burned with another application, like the DVD burning program that comes pre-installed on Linux Mint or whatever your Linux distribution is. Most of them will come with some sort of DVD burning application, whether that's K3B or whether that is Bracero or something similar. The description also goes on to say Imagination has the following features. Easy to operate. It can make a slideshow from photos selected by the user. It supports a number of video formats, (25/39)
including 3GP for mobile phones. Hmm, interesting. Supports screen resolutions from 128x96, which I'm guessing is a small phone resolution, to 1920x1080. That's full 1080i or 1080p when you're exporting the videos. Background audio can be music, such as MP3 files or other audio files. It will auto-resize for images as an option. It allows the user to select a background color. It has over 50 slide transitions and it has over 50 transition effects and a zoom effect with duration time, and allows users to add explanatory text like subtitles. Imagination can be used to make presentations to be shown by a projector or by a smart TV. And that sounds like a great easy to use program. And especially when it comes with a YouTube video that describes how to use it. So there you go. What do you think, Bill? Think that should be able to help, Tom? Yeah, I think that should work. 50 transitions, huh? Wow. Yeah, that should work just fine. I hope so. If that's not enough, maybe your complex (26/39)
software program is the best way to go. But I think simple is what you're looking for. So there you go. Just hope he's not in the doghouse. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I get it. And wise advice, Bill, as always. I wouldn't go about that far, but yeah. Our next email is from John, who wrote, Hello Larry, for GNU Linux maintenance, I would add bleachbit, especially if you use the Chromium or Chrome browsers. Also running sudo apt auto remove from time to time. Is this an Ubuntu and derivatives thing? Perhaps a Debian and derivatives thing? Yeah, sudo apt is definitely something that's in the Debian way of doing things. And there may be some other ways to do that with other distributions. Continuing on, John wrote, Perhaps you have reasons for not mentioning bleachbit. If so, it would be interesting to hear them. Thanks again for informative, easy listening podcast, John. Well, and of course, John's email is a response to the mention of maintenance of your Linux computer. And I (27/39)
mentioned that on a listener feedback episode that you really don't have the same level of maintenance required for Linux as you do for Windows. And I didn't mention bleachbit, mainly because it didn't come to mind. And it is definitely something that works cross-platform and can be used. It's infamously used by a former presidential candidate here in the United States for removing and cleaning emails off of a server. Yeah, you may have heard something about that in the past. But bleachbit, yeah, it works fine. I don't use it. So I didn't think about it, but it's an option. Yep. I didn't even think about it either. All right. So our next email comes from Paul, who's in North Texas. He writes, Hi, Larry. Great show today. I'm learning more and more about using Linux by listening to the show. I have a couple of quick questions, if possible. What was the alternative software to Skype that you and Bill are using now? I'm sorry, but I had trouble understanding exactly what name was used. (28/39)
Some of these software names make no sense standing alone anyway. It's called Discord. Yeah, D-I-S-C-O-R-D. Discord. Yeah. And it's working really nice, right? It is. It's worked flawlessly for two shows and usually we have to battle Skype with all kinds of issues. So we're quite enjoying Discord, so give it a look. And the second question he writes is, what is the code Linux users can type to restart a machine short of pressing the start until the power shuts off? I remember you talking about that string of characters and I used it for a while and I've tried to find it again. Google. But I can't seem to find it anymore. Thanks again for all your great support for the Linux community. Paul in North Texas. OK, so that key command which forces your computer to shut down or restart is a set of key combinations that has worked very well for me. Sometimes the computer is so hard locked up that it doesn't work. But if it works for you, great. It's a key combination that can be used when the (29/39)
graphical commands don't work or if you can't get to an alternative terminal to type in, you know, reboot or any of those other commands that helps you from the command line. If your computer will accept it, you need to find the system request key on your keyboard because that's one of the keys you're going to press. And if your keyboard doesn't have one labeled system request or SysRec or something like that, S-Y-S-R-E-Q, then this isn't going to work for you. However, I believe this is off of memory. So if you want to search Google search for the letters R-E-I-S-U-B. And this is the key combination, as I recall it. Control-Alt-Shift-SystemRequest. And while you hold all those down, very slowly type R-E-I-S-U-B. And each of those letters that you're pressing with system request and those other keys pressed is sending a command directly to the Linux subsystem, your computer subsystem, so that it is going to reboot or shut down. And it bypasses a lot of other stuff like the graphical (30/39)
user interface and like other user interface options, whether it's terminal or not. And that's why it works even if your computer is locked up. But like I said, sometimes computers get so completely locked that even that doesn't work. So for your Google search, type R-E-S-U-B space Linux and search for that and you should find some articles on how to completely reboot your computer when it's seriously locked up. So our next email, and this is our last email before our gone Linux story, is from Craig. He said, I can't seem to find much on this, but my A108700P is a dual GPU solution. As of present, I am not sure that Linux is using both GPUs. Potentially it's just using the Radeon R6. That's the 2D solution. It has a Radeon R7 for gaming. I have read many posts and have attempted to set my Radeon R7 as the primary GPU as Linux does see it. However, this really mucks up things on the display when I try it. Always just wondering if you have heard anything about this and whether any Linux (31/39)
kernel at present supports this configuration. As from my previous email, I am running Ubuntu Mate 16.04. Well, as the gamer Bill, and as the person who is most likely to have run across this, any suggestions for Craig? I don't know. I've heard that there's been problems with the Linux and these AMD A10 chips. They're like a hybrid chip. They have everything built on. I hear that they're kind of quirky. Other than that, I don't know. Maybe one of our listeners knows more. My computer doesn't use that chip and I've never used it, but I've heard that people do have issues with those hybrid chips. They're usually put into, not saying the budget laptops, they're put into those. I don't know where he got it, but I think it's probably just he's going to have to see if there's a solution out there or he's going to live with it. Because I've heard that these hybrid chips are kind of wacky. Yeah, and support for these kinds of chips is continuously being worked on. However, and I'm no GPU or (32/39)
processor expert by any stretch, but as new drivers are developed for these, they're put into the kernel. So perhaps an updated version of Ubuntu Mate or maybe just installing an updated kernel can get you what you're looking for, but there's no guarantee there. Especially when you're talking about these kinds of video drivers that are typically proprietary. And, you know, manufacturers of proprietary devices like these GPUs won't provide specs or details of how their own drivers are developed because they want to keep their technology secret. Hence the term proprietary. Sometimes, though, they'll provide Linux compatible drivers themselves, and you'll want to go on to the GPU developers website to see if they have one. Typically they don't, which means that now the Linux community must go and try to develop an open source driver. And because their workings, inner workings of their driver for Windows is proprietary and secret, we have to reverse engineer these kinds of things. And if (33/39)
it is available, either as an open source driver, it's going to be probably in the kernel at that point, or perhaps a proprietary driver is something that we've got permission to distribute with the distribution. Doesn't sound so in this case. Then it might be available in the additional drivers tab of the software update. And in Ubuntu Mate that you said you're using, you go to the software and update utility by going to the system menu, then administration, and then additional drivers. And usually Ubuntu Mate makes the best choice for you based on what's in your computer. But when you're on that additional drivers tab, you might want to check and see if there is a driver that you could try. The key thing is don't simply search for drivers for your GPU using something like drivers.com or other third party sites like that. There's no guarantee that you're aren't going to get something with malware that will corrupt your system. And if you're unsure or you simply can't find it, maybe (34/39)
you're better off just continuing to use the lower performance that's provided for your computer. As you've got it running right now, you don't want to screw up your system with something, especially that's going to give you some sort of malware compromise to your system. That's my suggestion and hopefully that helps you, Craig, or somebody else. Okay. All right. Okay. Our last email is our gone Linux story, and I'm going to take the first part and Larry's going to take the second part because it's a little bit long. So Craig from Canada wrote, Hi Larry and Bill. I have been running Linux off and on since the late 90s. My first Linux was an early version of Red Hat Linux. Over the years, I have revisited Linux off and on in hopes that I could go off of Windows permanently. Alas, as the years went on, I didn't think I would ever make the switch and that Linux would remain simply a curiosity for me and never my main system. At some point during that time, a friend had me dual boot (35/39)
between Windows and Debian. Hard to remember back that far, but it was possibly version 2. Anyways, fast forward to February 2017, my interest in Linux was engaged again. I had bought a new Acer laptop about a year before that and an AMD A10 processor. I ran Windows on it for about a year. I backed up my Windows system just in case using Clonezilla and proceeded to attempt to load stock Ubuntu 16.04. For reasons I think I will be able to explain later, it would freeze and have problems loading. I got frustrated with it, so I gave up on stock Ubuntu. I believe I was on kernel 4.8. I then gave Debian 8.6 a try with kernel 3.14 or 3.16. Everything worked except my Athros wireless card. I found instructions for backporting the drivers for it and proceeded to get that working as well. I didn't have any problems other than that and so ran the system for a while. However, it did bug me that all my apps were so old, so again I went searching and found Ubuntu Mate 16.04. I honestly didn't think (36/39)
it would work due to my early experience with stock Ubuntu 16.04. I was pleasantly surprised that it did work. The only issue I experienced was that my screen would flicker when the machine was in the process of switching to the screensaver and eventually shutting down the screen. This must have been fixed by a later kernel version as it quit doing the same months later. Mate came with kernel 4.4 which surprised me as stock Ubuntu had a higher kernel version. So, continuing on, since Ubuntu Mate 16.04 was up and running so well, I was ready to try something else. So I loaded up Ubuntu Mate 17.04. Right away I had the same problems that I experienced in Ubuntu 16.04. This time I sought help on the Ubuntu forums. After some troubleshooting we determined that there seemed to be a problem with IOMMU between Linux and my AMD A10 processor. I can provide the links to all these bug reports if you think it can help someone else. Being that this email has been so long, I will end up by saying (37/39)
that a kernel patch was produced by AMD and will finally be included in the 14.13 kernel being shipped with Ubuntu 17.10. I will definitely be loading this after October 19th as I really want to be cutting edge. I have been listening to your show for most of this year and I really appreciate your jokes and your wisdom in running Linux, Larry and Bill. Thanks so much for the podcast. Also, I have been back to running Ubuntu Mate 16.04 until the AMD problems were ironed out in a later kernel version. This is partly in response to Ken from episode 310 and his AMD comments. And clearly, Craig from Canada. Wow, long email, great story. Thanks Craig for providing us with all of that information. That's very helpful and a great story. Yeah, that's a great story. I'm glad it's working for you and let us know how the new version of Mate works for you. Okay. And that wraps up our episode. Our next episode will be, I'm not going to say something we're going to figure out before we record it. It (38/39)
is going to be on Snaps. App image, Flatpak. What's the difference and why should I care? It's probably not going to be the name of the episode, but that's the subject. But I kind of like that. That's too long to fit on a phone screen. Oh, Snaps. Okay. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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'd 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. (39/39)
Going Linux episode 363, Listener Feedback. Welcome to the Going Linux Podcast. I'm your host, Larry Busey. 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 at our email address at goinglinks.gmail.com and leave a message on our voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hey, Bill. Hey, Larry. Good morning. Good morning. We've had so many things go on, I think if we started talking about them, we would end up taking up the whole podcast. So let's just skip that, shall we? Yeah, that would probably be the best. I don't have any desire to revisit this past week. So, okay, fair enough. Yeah. So we've (1/41)
got quite a few pieces of listener feedback here. We've got a voicemail or a recorded file that Michael provided. We'll get to in a second and a lot of emails. So let's get into it. Okay. That sounds like a plan. Okay. Michael provided us a recording, which he sent by email along with a note that said, Hi, Larry and Bill, I have recorded the following file in Audacity, which is an inquiry about compiling the Fenrir screen reader for text consoles. Please note, this is my first attempt at using Audacity and we'll play that now. Hello, Larry and Bill. This is Mike Weaver from West Shortshirt in the UK running Ubuntu MATE 18.04, I think. Now Ubuntu MATE 18.04 works with a graphical console or the graphical terminal. So if you type ALT F2 MATE-terminal, that will work with Orca and it will give you speech. But unfortunately it doesn't work with any of the text consoles. So you have to use another screen reader. There are a few screen readers. There's one called EmacsSpeak, if you can use (2/41)
Emacs. You know how it works. There is also Speak Up. I believe there's one called YSR and there's a, I think there's a new one called Fenry. F-E-N-R-I-R. I don't know if I'm getting these names mixed up. I think Y-A-S-R, I think it means yes to another screen reader. Now I don't know which ones are being worked on. I believe that Fenry, or Fenry, F-E-N-R-I-R, is a more up-to-date version of Speak Up. From what I've read. Now I haven't managed to get that working in Ubuntu MATE. Could anybody possibly help me get it to work? Because I don't know if it's been packaged incorrectly. And I've been in contact with the developer of Fenry and I can't get it working at all. Well thanks Michael and the quality on the recording was just fine. So well done. Yeah, sounded good. Yeah. Okay, so and I had sent Michael a response after doing a little bit of research on Fenry and we'll include a link in the show notes. The installation instructions on the Fenry website says Fenry does not require (3/41)
installation. I'm pronouncing it Fenry even though he pronounced it Fenry because I'm reading it the way it's spelled. It says Fenry does not require installation. You can try it and make sure everything works before you decide to install. In this way you can be sure that your system doesn't break or stop talking. For that you can just grab the code and run in the foreground as root by typing at the terminal src slash Fenry slash Fenry. Or to run it in the background type src slash Fenry slash Fenry dash Damon. And Damon is spelled d-a-e-m-o-n. So there you go. You don't need to install it to try it out or even to run it. And if you do install it there are instructions on the website which will provide as part of the link to Fenry in the show notes. There's a man pages site on Ubuntu dot com that talks about Fenry and how it works. So yeah it's pretty straightforward and if you're using Ubuntu it looks like it's in the repositories. Even easier. Yeah exactly. So our next email comes (4/41)
from Michael who also writes us with a link to an article about slint distribution. He goes, hi again. Here is the information for the slint Linux distribution mentioned in my previous email or at least a blog post written by someone who knows about it and has used it. Hope this information helps yourself, Bill, and more importantly other blind users wanting to use Linux as an alternative to Windows or Mac OS. Michael from Home First UK and we include the link in the show notes. So he continues in the first paragraph of his message writes, as some already know my Linux distribution of choice is slackware. However, it isn't an easy distro for visually impaired users to install. The slackware installer isn't accessible unless the users have a hardware based voice synthesizer. He writes I don't have one and most others probably also don't. Which means they need sighted assistance to install it and then install the screen readers. Some visually impaired blog visitors emailed me and showed (5/41)
interest on installing slackware but they have no want to provide them sighted assistance to carry them through the installation process and sadly I can't help them. But now this problem has a solution in the form of a slackware based Linux distribution called slint. And Larry, I like slackware. I run it for a little while and it's hard enough for a sighted person to install this so wow, it's good that they have slint. Yeah absolutely and I think the links that Michael provides and the person who emailed him and thanks for forwarding that email Michael, I think those links are going to be helpful if anyone out there is a blind computer user who wants to use slackware and needs to have accessibility features. Looks like this is another opportunity for other people. Again thanks for bringing that to our attention and thanks for providing the links. Our next email is from David who told us why he does not upgrade Linux Mint and it's not what we thought. Thanks for addressing my question (6/41)
in listener feedback, your explanatory answer and the humorous way you delivered it. However, to set the record straight, there is a reason I don't do fresh installs although I agree it's safer and preferable. Years ago I separated my home drive from my root drive based on your recommendation and helpful guidance. Though not impossible, it is difficult to do a fresh install of Linux Mint under these circumstances requiring lots of finagling to use a technical expression. Again I can't say it often enough, you guys are great and your show and assistance are so much appreciated. As mentioned in my last note, you should at least not be out of pocket. Although I suggested adding an option to your donate button of monthly donations, a quick Google search I just did shows me that to do this via PayPal requires a premium or business account which would itself up your expenses. Oh well, perhaps a little non-obtrusive reminder every so often on the show would be helpful if your costs get (7/41)
unreasonable. I at least will try to remember every so often to throw a few shekels your way. Bestest, David. Well thanks David and thanks for providing us with that non-obtrusive reminder every so often. Hey, what is the exchange rate for a shekel? I don't know, I don't know, but thanks David. Thanks David. Our next email comes from Michael who wrote yet again, Hi Larry and Bill. The Ubuntu Mate Software Boutique is inaccessible even in the latest Ubuntu Mate 18.10. The person you put me in contact with went to the same blind school in Worcester as me said that the Software Boutique is inaccessible and I can confirm this. All it says when you tab through the option is blind people have to install an alternative app store such as Synaptic to get around this issue, Michael, are you okay? And you know something Larry, even though you're going to laugh, I don't get myself one of the first, the only time I use the Software Boutique is to install Synaptic because I like, I find that the (8/41)
Boutique is more of a curated software selections. It is, yes it is. And so I like to be able to see everything and so one of the first things I do, and I don't know why they don't install it by default to have it where blind users can use it or other people that prefer it, but Synaptic is just, when you click say you want a package of we'll say Discord, it will say by the way you need this, this, this, and this to make this work and just automatically selects them. And so I tend to use Synaptic 99% of the time but having a Software Boutique that is inaccessible to blind users is a big oversight in my book. Yeah, absolutely. And I know that the team, Martin and his team are thinking about that issue and how to resolve it. They are redesigning not only the Software Boutique but also the welcome screen. But they haven't gotten to the accessibility of the Software Boutique yet that I can see. And I did send a note in their Slack channel asking where we are with that and I didn't really (9/41)
get an answer. I got an answer but they didn't really answer that question. So I'm going to have to follow up again I think and find out what the status is or what the schedule is. I agree. It's a bit of an oversight especially since Ubuntu MATE provides so much blind support in other areas. The website as well as the online help, they provide information about if you want more than the curated selection of software that's in the Boutique. You can use the Boutique to install other software sources like Synaptic. You can also of course use the command line to install Synaptic, pseudo-apt install synaptic s-y-n-a-p-t-i-c. Spelling that from memory, I had to make sure I didn't mess that one up. And yeah, so you can get it quite easily and yes it is accessible but the right thing to do is to fix the software boutique so that it is accessible. I'm not trying to be, you know, Martin and his team do a great job on a lot of areas but there's a flaw. If a blind user wants to use Ubuntu MATE, (10/41)
this is why I think it should be more higher on the list of things to address is that if you do have a blind user and Synaptic is not installed by default or as another way to get software then you need someone sighted to actually go to the Boutique and install it. So the simplest workaround that I could think of and I don't think it would add that much to the image size is just to go ahead and include Synaptic along with the software Boutique and then the problems addressed until you get it taken care of because Ubuntu is supposed to encourage everybody, you know, computing for everybody and so their official flavor of Ubuntu so we need to encourage them to say, hey, this is a genuine problem that we need addressed and if they have other things that they're working on the simplest thing would be just to go ahead and have it where you can, that people can use it until you get around to it. And that's just my feelings. I know it might not be everybody's feelings but it just seems like (11/41)
that would be the easiest workaround. Yeah, it would be an easy workaround. And I understand their desire to keep Ubuntu Mate distribution for new users that's easy to use for new users and yet gives you the power that Ubuntu itself and other distributions give you by not limiting what you can install. So by installing just the software to Boutique they're providing essentially one of each kind of software and, you know, there's some exceptions to that where they provide multiple choices in the software Boutique but yeah, they provide the ability to install Synaptic, they provide the ability to install the Ubuntu Software Center and either one would be a good alternative if you haven't got the Software Center fixed yet for accessibility. So yeah, with that in mind, we're not going to stop recommending Ubuntu Mate, we're not going to stop recommending it for blind users, but now at least we're aware that the Boutique, the software Boutique that comes pre-installed with Ubuntu Mate is (12/41)
not currently accessible and we're hoping that our comments and others will prompt, you know, an upgrade to that particular application to make it accessible. Yeah, I know they're going to address it. It's just... Oh, they will, I'm sure. Yeah, I have no doubt that they will address it, but it is a small team so I know they have to prioritize what they're working on, but that just seems like the easiest way to do it. Anyway. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so let's move on to our next email, which is from Skip. He's a blogger who provided a gracious mention of my book and provides an application that fits in our Run Your Business on Linux episodes, and we included that in our last episode, that particular software. So here's Skip's email. Hi Larry and Bill, I'm a long time listener and Linux user. I actually launched my own blog recently to help self-employed, non-technical professionals move to Linux and Ubuntu Mate in particular. Huh, that fits exactly with our podcast episodes. I actually (13/41)
referenced the podcast and Larry's book in a recent post, and he has a link to that post at his blog, which is cvillefoss.blog. We'll have a link to his blog post in the show notes. Also, in your last listener feedback episode, you were discussing accounting software options for Linux. Personally, I use a command line accounting tool called hledger that does a terrific job. I actually plan to do a series of blog posts next month about it. Anyhow, keep up the great work, Skip. And he signs his email with blog ghostwriting and legal content services. And his blog, like I said, is at cvillefoss.blog. Cvillefoss is spelled C-V-I-L-L-E-F-O-S-S dot blog. There you go. Thanks for the email. Thanks for the suggestion, Skip. And thanks for the mention of the book and the podcast on your blog. We really appreciate that. Yes, nothing like a little bit of free publicity. Yeah, there you go. So our next email comes from Roger and he sends greetings from down under. And he says, Hi Larry and Bill. (14/41)
Greetings from Australia. I come across your podcast while looking for anything Linux. I'm facing an impending but highly reluctant upgrade to Windows 10 next year when our old but perfectly good domestic Windows 7 machines are no longer supported by Microsoft. Gee, thanks, Redmond. I tried wrestling with Linux. I think it was Mandrake about 13 years ago. Had a lot of fun but couldn't get my printers to work properly with cups. Okay, they were win printers, he writes. But it seems that a lot has changed in that time so Linux is back in contention. I found your relaxed delivery most relaxing and refreshing. And unlike one listener who vented his spleen on episode 358, I'm quite happy to keep listening, Mr. Spleenventor. I'm sure you guys know who I'm referring to said he was listening to episode 353 and stopped at 20 minutes. I listened to it myself a second time and could only wonder if there were two episodes numbered 353. Like some sort of parallel universe. Hmm. I had no problems (15/41)
with it at any rate. A quick question before I go. Bill, are you a ham radio enthusiast? I couldn't help noticing that you always sign off with 73. Anyway, my best wishes and keep up the good work. Kind regards, Roger. So I responded to Roger in email and did tell him that yes I was a ham and of course our unofficial official mascot bear sent. I had to send it twice because he hit, he jumped up and wanted to be petted and he hit the send button so he got like three lines before I had to retype. And I said, thanks bear. So he got a good kick out of it and he replied to me saying, yeah, that's fine. He hadn't trained his dog to do that yet. Yeah, bear does what he wants. Anyway, I guess he's running Linux at home or maybe business. If he's running business, I think that Microsoft does offer another year of support that you can pay for. I'm not quite sure. I wanted to be totally upfront about that so you can look into that. Now it's not available for home users as far as I know. As far as (16/41)
printers, printers have come a long way. They can still be problematic, but I think we both have had good luck with HP. I'm running an HP office jet 3830 and cups works fine with it. It prints, it scans the whole thing. So, and that's the same model I'm running, Bill. Oh, okay. So yeah, it seems, it seems to work just fine. I remember back in the day, there was two things that would seem to always get people and they're not much of a thing anymore as a win modems that you actually had to have windows. And then they had ones that the printers that wouldn't work with anything but windows. I know some people had managed to work around, but it was like you had to do a lot of voodoo to get them to work. Nowadays it seems like it's pretty much click, click, click, you're done. Sometimes with HP you have to tell it, sometimes you have to play a little bit. But if I remember correctly, when I installed my office jet, it was three buttons and it was working. If you're plugging it in by USB, (17/41)
it's just plug it in and it starts working. It recognizes it, installs the right driver and away you go. They've come a long way with that. But I can understand his feelings and Mandrake, wow, that, that is a long time ago. I remember playing with it and it was, it was, it was a lot of fun. But hey, Roger, what I want, I am curious, I'm going to ask you a question and maybe you can write in and tell me what distribution you're looking at and because it seems like the Ubuntu based ones seem to work very well with the HP printers, but that could be just my opinion. But yeah, let us know what ones you're looking at. Maybe we can offer you a suggestion. I would say, where am I going to offer them now? I would say Ubuntu Mate and if you want something more Windows, look at Linux Mint. Those are, the Ubuntu Mate is a, like the old, a gnome what, two, right? The old gnome two point whatever it was, six or it may, it looks very much like it. They have a number of different settings that you (18/41)
can choose in their panel that lets you switch between a Windows look and the gnome two look and you can make it look like a Mac and not identical, but I mean the panel layouts are the same or similar and that sort of thing. So they've got some easy selections like one button selections that don't require a reboot. It's pretty easy to switch it around in Ubuntu Mate. The Linux Mint Cinnamon, which is what I run, is very, very familiar. If you look at it, you wouldn't have any problems. Looks very much like the old Windows. It looks like a lot like Windows, but it's kind of a hybrid, but you'll see what I mean. You could do a search for them. But yeah, either one of those two seem to work really well and it just depends on who's using it and what they're comfortable with. So yeah, you're right. I forgot that you could change the layout with Ubuntu Mate because I think they also have another one. I think they even have a cinnamon looking like one. Yeah, they have a panel layout that's (19/41)
just like cinnamon in a lot of ways. That works. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So there you go. All right. Our next email is from Paul, who wrote about known audio issues on Discord. And Paul must have been listening to our podcast where we were having some problems with audio issues on Discord. So, hi Larry and Bill. Thank you for all your support for the Linux community. I thought I'd give you a warning about trouble Linux users of Discord are experiencing. If you discover you have no audio on a Discord call or when testing audio, the tests will only work for about a second or two, and then your mic shuts off, the fix is to go to voice and video settings and turn noise suppression to off. Your audio will then be restored. It's a known problem in Discord for Linux and a fix is being worked on. I spent a lot of time trying to figure a solution and then saw this forum post. This fix works for me. Maybe this can save you and Bill a little time and heartburn. We'll include a link to Paul's suggested (20/41)
Discord post and he signs off. All the best, Paul in North Texas. Thanks Paul. I read through it and that was exactly the problem that I was having. And your suggestion, fixed it, of course. So again, thanks. I never had that problem. Yeah. On our last recording, one of the reasons I had to restart Discord is because that problem was occurring and I restarted Discord, it went away. But now that we have this solution, I don't think we'll have that problem going forward. This kind of carries the differences in the physical hardware of our machines. Could be. Anyway, our next email comes from Mike and he asks about printers for Mint. Hello, gentlemen. Oh, that's the first time we've been called that in a while. What printers do you use and why? I have a small business that is starting to outgrow the all-in-one HP 4632 OfficeJet printing about 10,000 pages a year in black and white. It has been a great printer, but the ink replacement is becoming a major expense. It seems paying more for a (21/41)
unit may save in the long term, but it would be helpful to know what printer would perform well with Linux Mint. You read my last email on air and I thank you for being a great resource as a very new user. Bringing on all things Linux, Mike. So Mike, I just mentioned before, I use an OfficeJet 3830 and Larry uses the same one. I would say and recommend you maybe look into what are the ones, because you said it only prints in black and white, so what's the ones that just do black and white but they're a lot more economical to use? Yeah, you can get black and white LaserJet printers from HP and they will work almost without having to think about it because HP really supports Linux very, very well. So pretty much if you get a printer from HP, it's going to work with Linux with a couple of exceptions over the years that I have seen, some of the specialty photo printing ones in particular. Yeah, I had one of those too. Yeah. For the most part though, if you stick with OfficeJet, they're (22/41)
going to work with Linux, whether you get a color laser or a black and white laser or you continue to use the inkjet printers. The inkjet just from HP, their more recent ones are a little more economical on ink. They're still not as economical as they potentially could be in my opinion, but if you want to If you're doing a lot of printing and you want to save on the consumable costs around your printing, generally speaking, laser and black and white laser is the most economical way to go if you're doing a lot of printing. If you're not doing a lot of printing, you're best to stick with the inkjets and the other manufacturers of printers will include a link, hopefully I'll remember to put it in the show notes to a site that you can use to determine whether your printer is compatible with Linux or not, or your potentially new printer is compatible with Linux or not. There are some manufacturers out there that stubbornly refuse not to support Linux. I'm not exactly sure why, given that (23/41)
other manufacturers seem to find it just very easy to support Linux. If you can find a Linux compatible printer, generally speaking, the driver for the printer will be already included in the Linux kernel, so you don't have to install anything. For others, if it's a brand new printer that has been released since the last release of the Linux kernel that included printer driver updates and the driver's not there, then you can check the printer manufacturer's site to see if there's a driver there that will help you and is downloadable and is specifically designed for Linux. And failing that, it may be what the site we're referring to calls a paperweight. In other words, it's not supported by Linux and it likely never will be. So you've got to kind of watch out for those. Yeah, yeah. And if it's a brand new one, yeah, you might want to consider giving it to somebody who's or selling it to somebody who's using Windows. You don't give anything to Windows users. Come on now. You've got to (24/41)
get your money back. Yeah, there you go. So anyway, HP is our first recommendation for printer manufacturers and there are a number of them out there that do support Linux very well. And just check the Linux compatibility. If you don't want to necessarily go directly to the website that we're going to link to, just do a search on the Internet for Linux compatible printers and the name or model number of your printer and that should give you whether or not it's going to work. All right. OK, Juan expresses much gratitude. Larry, Bill, greetings. I love your podcast. I have been a casual Linux user for about, well, 18 years or so. I say casual as I have not had a full Linux install on any of my Macs. I have been using Apple since the Apple II back in high school. I have a Mac Pro cheese grater, a Mac Pro, a MacBook and an old Macintosh Plus. I sense a pattern here. Until recently, I had been dual booting Ubuntu in my old MacBook Pro. And just this past year, I did a complete wipe and (25/41)
install of Ubuntu Budgie. That unit being on its last legs and not being able to support 64-bit led me to purchase an Acer Aspire, my first ever PC. I was dual booting with Windows 10 only because I needed some software that was not available on Linux that lasted about a month. Warning, rant ahead. I effin' hate Windows and always have. Just having to deal with the worst OS ever, even occasionally at work, is bad enough. It has aesthetically horrid, vastly unsecure, although vomitous in its poor execution of file management. Tell us how you really feel. It works against you more often than with you, and provides a vacuous and inane user experience each and every time. Pure crap. So I did a full install of Kubuntu 18.1, wiping Windows 10 from my Aspire and ridding the whole of the universe from at least one more installation of cyber crap. I have been enjoying my new Linux laptop with much fervor. However, recently I have had to reinstall Kubuntu twice after I lost the ability to log in (26/41)
via SDDM. I must note that both times I experienced this was after I did a removal-slash-purge of the XFCE Cinnamon and Mate desktop environments, which I had installed one night during a bout of insomnia. I must assume that somewhere during the removal process that the SDDM was removed as well. All I would be greeted with after a reboot would be a blank screen and a cursor. However, I was able to reinstall from my trusty USB stick. Anyway, not sure if this was a question type of email or merely praise for inspiring me to dive headlong into Linux. Your show is informative and entertaining, and I listen almost daily, catching up in my car via the TuneIn app and on my Kubuntu laptop on Clementine. That's it, Juan. Wow. Yeah. A little salty language that I edited out for family-friendly purposes. But yeah, yours is not the only rant we've heard of similar vein, Juan. No. So thanks for sharing. And sorry you have been subjected after all those years of Macintosh and Mac OS and all the (27/41)
other things, Apple, that you decided to switch over to Linux and had such a tough experience. Yes. It sounds like he's had a few issues. I did enjoy his salty language, but we can't say that because we are family-friendly. But I think everybody got the idea of his frustration. And I particularly enjoyed when he called his Mac Pro the cheese grater because I like that case, but it does look like a cheese grater from the front. Yeah. I've heard it described that way as well. So thanks, Juan. And thanks for sharing. Congratulations on your move to Linux and the fact that you've been using it for so long in a dual boot situation on your Mac is inspiring as well. So thanks. Yes. So our next email comes from Daniel and he has a question on security patches. I read an article about systemd and downloading patches for Linux. I have a Bantu Mate. How may one make sure this system has all the patches? That should be fairly easy. You can do one or two things. You can wait till the system says, (28/41)
hey, you have updates. Do you want to apply them or do you want to postpone them? Or you can actively go in and search for them. What I tend to do is I let the system tell me when there's updates. The way that you want to make sure that you get those notifications is there's usually a checkbox saying, let me know when there's updates to my system. And it's usually options like, let me know there's an update and I will install or automatically apply the updates to the system. I think, what is it, download and install or something. I think you still have to enter your password. But yeah, one will notify you there's updates and you can download them manually by clicking the big button or it will download them and wait for you to give it permission to install the updates. I think that's how it works. The easiest is just have it where it downloads and waits for you and notifies you there's updates and just do it that way. That way you're not going to miss anything. I don't know about Larry, (29/41)
but I usually wait after I get a notification. I usually wait a few days just to make sure that there's no problems with the updates, but I apply them pretty quickly. So I don't know how you do it, Larry. Yeah, I have the automatic setting set so that it will automatically download them and notify me when there's an update available. And that's the easiest way I find is just install them when they're available and ready to go. If you want to wait like Bill does, that's fine as well. But the one thing you don't have to do on Linux is you don't have to go search the internet for updates for security patches, regardless of what this article says, they come to you. Yes, they do. They always come to you when they're ready to go, systemd or otherwise. And like Bill just suggested, the easiest way to do that is through the software updater that's built into your Linux distribution. Just set it to automatically notify you when there's an update. That's the easiest way. Or if you want even more (30/41)
control, run that updater periodically, like once a week or even, you know, whatever, and just see if there are any updates through the updater. Don't go anywhere else. It's all provided to you by the Linux distribution. Nothing you need to do, but install them when they arrive. Okay, our next email is from Mike. He says he's loving Linux. Larry and Bill, I really enjoy listening to your show. I'd also like you to know that Linux has been there for me when Windows hasn't. I recently upgraded Windows 10, and after that update, Windows would not boot. Thankfully, I was able to restore Windows 10 using a backup program, VM. V-E-E-A-M. I haven't heard of that one, Bill. It must be relatively new, I guess. But for the period of time that I didn't have access to Windows, Linux was available to me and my wife, and it just worked fine. Thanks for your show. I really enjoy learning new things about Linux. Mike. Thanks, Mike. Yeah, we've had that happen a few times. Yeah, it's a great way to (31/41)
continue to run your computer when Windows fails you, and be careful. I know you tried it out and you like it a little bit, and you were just testing it until you could get Windows back up and running. Now that you've had a taste of the Linux, it might just take over your life. So be careful, Mike. Yes, be very careful. Our next email comes from Heath, who wrote about Google minus. Okay, I love that play on words. Anyway, Larry and Super Senior Chief Executive Minion. Wow. Okay. I have to take that in for a minute. Super Senior Chief Executive Minion. Wow. Okay. On the Google Plus front, I see a lot of groups moving to Telegram. The Askanoa show is a very successful one on that platform. Heath, Deputy Underling Minion, Australia. He has a Deputy Underling now? Apparently. Self-anointed. Thanks for the suggestion, Heath. We're going to move in a little different direction. We'll mention that at the end of the show. In the meantime, let's go on to our last two emails here. NZ17 wrote, (32/41)
thanks for the grand show. The only other thing which I could really ask for is, could you guys please synchronize your microphone volumes? When Larry laughs, it is super loud compared to when Bill talks. Aloha from Utah. Pedantic Minion number one, NZ17. Okay, we have a pedantic minion as well. I think you're mixing your geographies there, NZ17. Aloha from Hawaii or hello from Utah, but I've never heard Aloha from Utah, unless you're originally from Hawaii, I guess. Yeah, I think that might be the case. But wow, okay. So Larry, we both record our sides of the conversation separately. We sync them, we start recording at the exact same time, and then I send mine to you in Agra format, and then you put it in your Audacity, and of course you sync them up perfectly. But then before you do anything else, you auto level the entire show. I do. So I'm not sure why my side is getting a little bit louder. Maybe I'm not laughing loud enough. Oh, that could be. So you need to laugh louder. Okay, (33/41)
I'll laugh louder. All right. Okay. Well, thanks, NZ17. We'll just double check the volumes before we send this one out. Yeah. Our last email comes from Tony from the MintCast, who wrote us requesting the value added extras that Troy uses to install software onto Linux computers his employer's company sells. He also commented, hi Larry Bill. Hope you guys are doing well. I've been listening to your show for a few years and really enjoy it and love what you are doing. I have been involved in the MintCast podcast for a few months now and have a new appreciation for the work you guys are doing. Tony W. Okay, Tony, here's a secret. Larry does most of the work. Yeah. Well, the MintCast guys, they've gone through some changes to their hosts yet again, which is a great way to continue a podcast is to turn it over to the community and they've discussed this in recent episodes and their community has taken over and Tony is one of the new hosts and sounds like he's new to podcasting, but they (34/41)
have done a fantastic job of good quality voice sound and they are using a mobile server to do the recording from what I understand and that has improved a lot over the years. The last set of hosts started off with a lot of inconsistency in sound, but as they worked through the mobile server issues they had and paid some attention to the volume and the quality of the sound, I think they've done a fantastic job and this new crew has continued that and even improved it. So maybe Bill, you and I need to take a note from the MintCast folks about the quality of the sound, but anyway, thanks Tony. We appreciate it. Yeah, thanks Tony. But Larry, let me just, let me blow your horn a little bit here. If you go back and listen a year ago, you will know, it's always sounded good. Larry always has been working on improving the sound quality and if you listen to some of the first episodes compared to now, you'll notice the difference and that's mainly because we've gotten new mics, new mixers, etc, (35/41)
etc. We've had several different mics and software, Aldasi has been updated, so as software and hardware gets better, we try to keep current or at least current-ish and there's always new tricks that we learn and as you do podcasting more often, you learn new ways to make yourself sound better, things to clean up. I mean, back a year ago, Larry used to have to work really, really hard to clean up all my background noise. That's true. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey, just a fact. Yeah, just a fact. He used to have to clean it up and that kind of brought down the quality, but as I've moved and have gotten to a better place to record, it's not as prevalent. And you got a new mic as well. And I got a new mic and I'm getting ready to upgrade again. Yeah. So that is, it's just like an ongoing process. Once you start, you don't ever seem to really stop. You pick up a new PC or whatever. Sometimes we find better software to use, but Audacity has pretty much been the gold standard. It's been our (36/41)
standard since the beginning. How long has this podcast been going on now? This podcast has been going for 12 years. And I was podcasting for what, three years, three or four years, I think maybe three years before that. Okay. So it's great that DementiaCast has been turned over to community and it's a lot of work, but Larry's been through, Larry's the only original member of this podcast. That's true. Because you've had, the first one was, what was his name? Serge. He had Serge and then you had Tom, right? Tom. Yeah. And then you. And then me. Larry's the only original one, so he's been working a long time, 12 years. Wow. Yeah. Back in the day. So Larry works really hard and we really tried to, we're not perfect and we always do try to do better. And I did have a chance to listen to one of the, a portion of the latest MintCast because I listened to way too many podcasts during the week. But they sound pretty good. They do. They absolutely do. Back for a second on the going Linux co- (37/41)
host situation. You have lasted longer than either of the other two co-hosts, so I haven't worn you down yet. I appreciate that, Bill. You've been a steady companion for a large number of years. I appreciate that. You're doing a great job. Well, actually, I'm just like a tick. It's hard to get rid of me. But no, and I haven't annoyed him enough for him to say, okay, we're done. So but the reason in no kidding, not kidding here. One of the reasons that this podcast sounds as good as it does and comes out when it's supposed to. And we have a majority of the articles is because Larry puts a lot of time and effort into it and he really does a great job. So yeah. Well, Bill, you contribute a lot too. So I appreciate that. Thank you. I love this little appraiser. Okay. All right. All right. And that wraps up our emails for this time. The next episode will be our first in a series of Back to Basic episodes. And I have yet to write that episode. Until then, you can go to our website at (38/41)
going.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. Usually I would give my part of this, but Larry wants to make an announcement about what we're going to do about Google+. So Larry, it's all you. Yeah. So as you may be aware, our Google Plus community site, along with the rest of Google Plus will go away sometime in April. And we are going to replace that. And we've had some discussion on the show here as to what we should use to replace it. And Bill and I have given a lot of thought and tried out a few things. And what we're going to do, since the Discord application and server that we have been using for communicating to one another and use it as kind of a chat window, as well as for communicating to one another through audio, we don't use it to record, but we do use it to talk to one another by audio as we're recording. We're going to use Discord as our community (39/41)
site. Another podcast that I know uses Discord is the MRP Tech Podcast, M-R-P-T-E-C-H, if you're interested in that kind of thing. They have been using Discord for a while for their chat room, and it seems to work quite well for them. So we're going to try that out. If it doesn't work out for us, we will try something else. So more to follow. We don't have it all completely set up yet, but we'll post a note into Google Plus, hopefully before it goes away, and let you know where to go. And there'll be links on the website to connect to the Discord chat room that we're going to have. So that's the direction we've decided to go. And like I said, if it doesn't work out, we can always change. Okay. So my part of this is I would like some of our many, many thousands, millions and millions, if you're interested in helping us test this before it goes live, send an email just stating that you're interested in helping, and Larry will forward them to me, and I'll get back to you, and then we'll (40/41)
coordinate. The one thing about the text area is that whatever you write is persistent. So we're able to see what was written, and we can also jump in and text or voice chat with you if we need to. So if you're interested in helping us test this super secret new way of communicating, send an email to us, and Larry will forward them to me, and I'll get back to you. So with that, for now, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining the discussion in our Going Linux podcast, Google Plus Community. Soon to be Discord. Okay. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasko at podcastthemes.com. (41/41)
Going Linux episode 395, 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 goinglinx at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hi, Bill. Hey, Larry. How are you this week? I am doing well. We just spent the last hour talking about how we are, and we're not going to subject our listeners to that. But things are going well. Let's just summarize that way. It's been busy, but yes, things are going well. Yeah, definitely. Hey, before we get into listener feedback, I have a (1/41)
little bit of news that is probably, by the time our listeners listen to this, a little bit old, but some folks may not have heard it. You know that System76 and Entraware, Pinebook, Katie Eastlandbook, all of these are computer manufacturers or computers themselves that are pre-installed with Linux that you can purchase pre-installed. And Dell has been selling a few of their models that have been pre-installed with Linux. But now, HP, Lenovo, Intel, Acer, and Dell are all officially certified to run with Ubuntu, certified by Canonical to run with Ubuntu, and you can now order all of those brands with Ubuntu pre-installed. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Now, only certain select models, of course, because they have to go through the certification process with Ubuntu to become certified, but there are models of HP, Lenovo, Intel, Acer, and Dell that are all certified to run on Ubuntu, and you can order them with Ubuntu. So some major brands, globally recognized brands, are now selling Linux- (2/41)
based computers and laptops. So that's some news. Now, a lot of these are high-end computers that are designed for, let's say, developers or high-end business people. And, you know, as I'm thinking about the image of Linux in the global computing market, I'm thinking that rather than Linux is for technical people, or Linux is for geeky people, or Linux is for the programmer, or Linux is best used on servers and best not put it on desktops, I'm thinking a way we might want to market Linux is, take a look at what models are pre-installed with Linux, and those are high-end models that are high-performance computers. So desktop Linux is for high-performance computing. And get it out of the, hey, it's for the hobbyist or the tinkerer or the professional developer, and get it into people who want to get the most out of their computers will run Linux. That's one way to think about it. Absolutely, and there is a little, what I can kind of see is a trickle-down, where, you know, you have the (3/41)
HP, the Lenovo, the Intel, the Acer, and Dell, and, you know, if you might have one of those older machines that isn't certified, you might find that Linux runs well on them even then, because, you know, as they start supporting more and more of their hardware, your older stuff sometimes would be supported, and you're like, oh, well, it didn't run it before, now it does, because HP has said, well, we're going to support it, and the hardware is close enough to make it work. Ubuntu is always working on that hardware enablement stack and trying to backport stuff, so that is all around. Everybody might benefit, whether they have a new machine or an old machine, but it's kind of nice to be able to say, I want a Acer with Linux. That wouldn't have happened a year ago. Yeah, yeah, and there are definitely some older models of Acers that you just can't get Linux running in any sort of satisfactory way on, and, you know, HP has been pretty good. You had to make sure that the components were (4/41)
Linux compatible, and that has gone away to a great degree for HP over the past few years. Lenovo, especially the ThinkPad line, has been very good at being Linux compatible for quite a while. Dell, of course, if you buy any of the models that they sell or have sold or have the same components as those that they sell with Ubuntu preinstalled, you're pretty certain that any variety of Linux is going to run on them, even if it's not a specific model designed for Linux. And now you just have some very specific high-end models that if you've got enough money to buy them or you buy a used one, once we get to that point in the marketplace where there are these as-used models available for sale, I think it's going to become much more accepted, much more recognizable when you see one of these computers with Linux running when you're sitting in a coffee shop, or if we can ever sit in coffee shops again. Let's not go down that route again. But, yeah, when you see a computer in the wild running (5/41)
Linux, it'll become a little more familiar than unexpected, I think. Yeah, this is definitely a shift from the small minority to being much more mainstream, so that's always a good thing. One thing we should cover is that a lot of this is happening is because you have Canonical and you have Fedora or Red Hat or some of these big tech companies that have been vocal support for Linux, and so they've started working with some of the big players, whether it be Apple or whether it be Microsoft, and so they're able to work together on certain things to make a lot of this available. I'm not saying that either one of those big companies have fully embraced everything about open source or Linux, but it's nice to see that the collaborations are starting to pay off, and we as Linux users can reap the benefits. Speaking of coffee, my poor little coffee house that I like to go to is still not open, so thanks for reminding me. I miss having my coffee, but it's a little mom-and-pop job, and they make (6/41)
great coffee, but of course they're not open right now, and I can't even go and sit and have a cappuccino, so gee, thanks, Larry. Yeah, sorry about that. So to put all that negativity behind us, shall we get into our email? Sure. Okay. Our first feedback is from Al, who let us know about problems with our podcast feed. Hi, I love your podcast, and download it from your website every two weeks. There's a problem. I am getting 96 kilobits instead of the whole podcast. This has happened on the last few episodes. Please check. You are one of my favorite podcasts. Thank you, Al. Well, Al, yeah, we've been having some problems. First of all, I think the size of the podcast file that you were downloading was a result of I'm not sure what the root cause of it was, whether I did something in the export of the file, or whether there was something went wrong with the upload to Internet Archive. Somehow, some of the files that I uploaded over the past couple of episodes have gotten corrupted. I (7/41)
have gone and replaced those. At the same time, compounding the problem, I made some typos in the RSS feeds, both for the MP3 version and for the OGG version, and some of it has to do with some off-brand, if you will, bookmarking that I've been using, placeholders in the podcast itself that are part of the feed, and if that keeps up, I'm just going to drop the whole bookmarks thing. And, yeah, so a number of things happened at the same time, so it's really difficult to find the root cause of the problem, but I've been working with Al and Troy and Paul and several others to try to determine what the problem is. Troy has been particularly helpful, and I think we've got it down to the MP3 feed is working. The OGG feed still has some issues with it, and like I said, I'm working with a listener, Troy, to try to figure out, have I got it fixed yet? Not yet. Have I got it fixed yet? Not yet. We're still working on that. Hopefully it's all resolved by the time you receive this episode. Yeah, (8/41)
it's probably because I talk too much. That is just corrupting the podcast. I doubt it, but anyway. Anyway, Troy also has had some problems. For some reason, he says, I'm unable to play any of your podcasts through Google Podcasts. Is there a problem with your feed right now? And I think we kind of just touched on that. Yeah, that's the same thing. Interestingly, Google Podcasts, I haven't used it, so I don't know whether it gives you the option of using the MP3 or the OGG feed, but it appears that Troy is using the OGG feed. I thought they would have been using the MP3 feed, but hey, what do I know? Interesting. Paul also experienced something similar. He wrote in, Hi Larry and Bill, I've been experiencing several problems with going to Linux Podcasts 3.95 today and wondered if you were aware of them. Yeah, the 3.95 was the one where we had the corrupted files for some reason. And he goes through some of the things he's done. He says he subscribed to the RSS feed on his feed reader, (9/41)
which he says is Feedbro. Never heard of that one. And repeatedly notified him over 30 times today. I read and then deleted notifications, but a few minutes later it pops up again. That was a real problem with the RSS feed, which I fixed fairly quickly. Then he says your RSS file, the OGG podcast subscription file, and that RSS file, the XML file that is the feed, he said the date was written as Sunday 23rd of Jaugust. So J-A-U-G 2020 with the extra J. Yeah, that was causing some problems. As you can imagine, it was putting the podcasts as though it were 70 years ago or something like that. And then he said the OGG file is incomplete. So that was one of the corrupted files. And he says, I have no problem with the MP3 files. He's probably the only one who didn't have a problem with the MP3. Anyway, later he says, thanks, I've refreshed the feed in G-Potter and can confirm the notifications have indeed stopped. FYI, I'm using Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon, G-Potter, and a VLC. Needless to (10/41)
say, this didn't spoil my enjoyment of the show. Keep up the good work, Paul. Okay. So, yeah, maybe we should just go to MP3 files. Yeah, this was, I think, some late night, Larry not being attentive enough and watching to make sure things went well in the upload of the files and the creation of the feed and things happened. So more sleep would be helpful. More sleep or stop watching the movie while you're editing. Well, yeah, that could be too. So we're saying that happened, but it could be. Our next email comes from Joshua who is having fun with SSH. He says, I've been messing with NFS and Samba off and on for months now trying to get a very small home network running with a Raspberry Pi, running Raspberry Pi OS connected to an 8 terabyte USB RAID drive. My laptop is Ubuntu Mate, but the other family members use Windows 10 and thanks to COVID, I have had two additional Chromebook for kids going to school. In a mixed environment, NFS isn't working at all on Windows 10 Home Edition and (11/41)
learning Samba, I've run into lots of issues mapping users and getting permissions errors, assessing files. I'm still reading the book I purchased for Samba and it's a slow read getting it all to work, tons of configurations. I've been playing around with SSH and found out that if you install WinFSP and SSHFS-Win from GitHub on a Windows 10 machine, it's super simple to just map a drive from Windows Explorer. All I had to do was create an account for everyone in the family on a Raspberry Pi and then map a drive letter to their home directory using Windows Explorer. Because they each use their own SSH login ID and password, they can't see each other's files on the RAID drive and have lots of storage. It is also persistent and I'm amazed that it just pops back up each time they log in. Has anyone else had luck setting up a home server this way and am I oversimplifying this? In other words, can I expect some issues down the road? It seems much simpler than NFS and Samba. I had to do some (12/41)
research to get the syntax to work for typing into Windows Explorer included what worked for me below and the article I read to get it to work. He lists the article that he used to get his network and he writes Joshua. Have you had any experience in connecting to remote drives on other computers like Joshua is trying to do? No, I have not. Yeah, it's been a while since I've been doing this kind of thing as well. I understand that if it's a matter of having the data synced between that remote drive and another computer, you can use something like SyncThing, which has received some recent improvements to work even better than it did before. And there are some other tools that run in Linux that allow you to do that kind of thing. Since it's a Windows 10 computer that you're trying to use, it sounds like Samba or NFS, a file sharing protocol, are the things that you would need to use to make those happen. But I haven't had a lot of experience in doing this. So let's turn it over to our (13/41)
minions, our faithful listeners, and ask if anyone has a particular article with some instructions or some guidance on how to make this work better, or whether Joshua is headed down the right path and is doing everything right and it's just a lot of work. Give us a note on email or voicemail or however you want to communicate with us, and we'll share that on the show and make sure that Joshua sees that as well. But neither Bill nor I, Joshua, have the experience necessary to answer your question directly, so let's ask our more experienced listeners to give us those answers. Thanks. All right. James commented on Linux printers. Your last feedback was asking for a printer recommendation. You recommended HP printers. I have been avoiding HP printers due to the DRM and other trickery they have been doing with printer cartridges. Hey, I understand that. I agree. That's nasty stuff. I currently am using a Brother all-in-one laser with wireless. The printer portion worked out of the box with (14/41)
no effort on Linux. I installed the drivers from their download page. No hunting around for drivers, easy to follow directions. The full package installed everything needed, including handling SELinux configuration that worked with the default scanning packages. That's the SANE package, S-A-N-E, even with document feeder support. James. Well, that's good to hear that other manufacturers of printers work. We recommend HP because they just work. In my experience, the Brother printers, the ones that work, work well. There are quite a few that they sell that don't work with Linux, so you need to be a little more choosy with them. You need to double check before you purchase the printer that it actually works with Linux or make sure they have a generous return policy on the printer if you can't make it work. And buy a different one if it doesn't work. So we don't generally recommend those kinds of brands that you can't depend on to work out of the box. And I would have to say that there are (15/41)
some HPs out there that don't work out of the box with Linux as well, but there are few and far between compared with some of the other manufacturers. That's not to say that other computer manufacturers never work with Linux. I'm not saying that. It is that HP I know from personal experience to be very consistent on having Linux support for their printers. So there you go. Wasn't HP the one that was putting those DRM chips on their print cartridges or had something printed that you couldn't refill them or something? Yeah, as I understand it, they've backed off a little bit on that, but they still do it. So when you try to go to Costco or Sam's Club or any of these places that offer refillable ink cartridges or non-brand name ink cartridges, generic ink cartridges, you put them in your HP and it either says, this cartridge is not compatible or this is not an HP genuine cartridge. And sometimes even when you take your HP brand ink cartridge that came with your printer and take it in for (16/41)
a refill and you put it back in, something happens where they can detect that it's a refilled cartridge and it also says this is not compatible or some message like that. Some of their printers are still doing that. In my experience, when I'm using HP printers, if it's a kind of printer that gives me that kind of an aggravation, I just spend a little bit more money and use the HP cartridges and put up with the fact that, hey, I've got to spend more money for HP. Yeah, so I made a joke that you could buy a new printer cheaper than some of these print cartridges. Hey, it was not a joke. I have done that. There have been times when, what brand was it? I forget. It was not Epson. It was one of the lesser-known but still brand name brands for printers where I think it was Lexmark where I would go to the store to buy ink cartridges and purchasing a cartridge was more expensive than purchasing a brand new printer to replace the one I have with ink cartridges in it. And then the printer (17/41)
companies got smart and they started providing partially filled ink cartridges with brand new printers and then it became more expensive, of course, because those cartridges didn't last as long. So I think those days are gone, but it was not a joke back then. That's kind of wasteful. Okay. Oh, yeah, absolutely. But, hey, you do what you can to ensure that you retain as much of that hard-earned money as you can. Okay. So our next email comes from Frank who contacted us about F-STAB. I was happy to hear that you referred to dash E-T-C dash F-S-T-A-B as regards to auto-mounting partitions in your most recent listener feedback show. This is an article I found particularly helpful in regards to F-STAB and he lists the articles listed in the show notes. And just as a bit of trivia, F-STAB stands for File System Table per Wikipedia and M-TAB stands for Mounted File Systems Table. Keep up the good work, Frank. Well, thanks, Frank. That's some trivia. Yeah, and thanks for the article. Okay. Ken (18/41)
mentioned the Vivaldi browser. Hi, Larry and Bill. Thanks for all that you do. I am still enjoying and listening after all these years. Can't remember how many, but you have been here through most of my journey learning Linux. Bill, on the last listener feedback, you mentioned Vivaldi browser, which sounds interesting. Right now, I'm totally immersed in the Chrome world. I have the following collection of devices. Multiple Linux desktops, Linux laptop, Raspberry Pi, Android phones, Android tablet, Chromebook, Chromecast. When I think about changing browsers, I wonder about the compatibility with Google Drive, photos off the phones, and of course, the Chrome slash Chromecast. I understand that you can install Vivaldi on the new Chromebooks under the Linux umbrella, but don't understand how this would work, if at all. It would be nice to get out from under Google, but the Androids, Chromebook, Chromecast, and Drive are a concern. Do you have any thoughts about this? If I were just (19/41)
working with Linux devices, changing might not be a problem. Thanks, Ken. So, actually, I am still using Vivaldi. I like it a lot. It's a Chrome based browser, but they have a lot of privacy. I've used it on a Mac. I've used it on several different distributions of Linux, including Ubuntu Mate, regular Ubuntu, and Manjaro. I've used it on Windows. And I don't know about the Android. I think they have some, yeah, I know they have some images for Android, too. So, Vivaldi has worked flawlessly. When I've had to log into a website that requires Chrome, it has worked flawlessly. Basically, it is just more priority focused, and a lot of those pop-up ads and stuff, especially on YouTube, just don't bother you, as they would do on, say, Firefox or Google Chrome. I find that everywhere I want to use it, I can find it. So, I would download it and give it a test run on some of the machines, because everything, I don't know about the Pine Book or Raspberry Pi, but I'm pretty sure on everything (20/41)
else that it's available, so I highly recommend it. Like I said, I've been using it for, what, about two, three months now, Larry, as my daily driver. It's been flawless. They've just updated it last night. Right now, I've got it installed on my test machine, which is running Magero, and then I have it on my main machine, which has a regular, just, vanilla Ubuntu, and I have it installed on Ubuntu Mate on my second test machine, and it all runs perfectly, so I've been very pleased with it. Yeah, and I was reading as well that as recently as October of 2017, Vivaldi browser added support for Chromecast as well, so I don't think there is, for a number of years now, I don't think there's been any issue with that. Of course, Chromecast has undergone some changes too, so I can't guarantee it, because I don't use the Vivaldi browser on a regular basis, but if it is based on Chrome and based on the fact that they added the support back in 2017, I think you should be all set, and on your Linux (21/41)
machines, give it a try. I mean, you can always uninstall it afterwards, and you can run multiple browsers side by side, so just try it out. Well, yes, he also mentioned that he was concerned about if it would work on Google Drive. Well, I'm actually running it on Google Drive right this moment. I've actually even used the web interface to Dropbox through Vivaldi, and it just works perfectly. I haven't had any hiccups or anything, so as far as I can tell, anywhere Google Chrome or Firefox or the new Chrome-based Edge will work, Vivaldi works just as well. All right. Our next email comes from Ken, and he questioned us on our apparent disapproval of Mint. On your last podcast, you gave a not-so-veiled disapproval of Mint. I am a long-time user of Mint and love Cinnamon, so it is important to me. Is it because the Snap's not being supported, and why should I care about this? My main use of my computers is in the support of my ham radio hobby. I use a bit of LibreOffice, a few utilities, (22/41)
ham radio programs like WSJT-X, Fidji, etc. I guess that's how you say it. Then, of course, the extensive use of Chromium to search the Internet. I don't do any games or any other fancy high-intensity graphics things. I do some simple 3D CAD. By the way, I do use Raspbian on my Raspberry Pi ham projects. I've looked at a number of Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, Mate, and just don't like them. I listened to you talk about distros that Bill is testing and try them from time to time, but have never found a match to Mint Cinnamon. I am very concerned about the talk of ties between Canonical and Microsoft. Now, this does make me queasy. If this is so or comes to pass, I would prefer to see Mint go completely away from being an Ubuntu derivative, if possible. Thanks for all you do for us in the Linux world, Ken. Hmm, okay. Well, I think it's not so much that we disapprove of Mint, and we still recommend it for new users. We still like Mint. There are some decisions that the Mint lead (23/41)
has made that we don't necessarily agree with, but that's not necessarily a valid reason for everyone to stop using the distribution. It's a great distribution. They have some excellent tools. They've contributed a lot back to Linux in general. Many of their updates and upgrades have gone back into Ubuntu and, by extension, back into Debian. So, yeah, and very, very easy to use, multiple desktops available. We like Mint a lot. We just are a little concerned with some of the politics behind the Mint project. Let's just put it that way. Yeah, some people might not know that when Mint was a new project, I was actually a user and supporter of the project. I don't agree with some of the things that they've done and some of the political views of some of the developers, but it's no denying it's a good distribution for new users and not one that I choose to use anymore. But I'm not saying I wouldn't recommend it to someone that wants something that works because it does work fine. It's very (24/41)
polished. I like the Cinnamon desktop. I mean, the Manjuro that I use has a Cinnamon desktop and, yes, they have contributed quite a bit. Without getting into a lot of detail, when someone wants an easy to use distribution, we like to be able to offer multiple ones. And we have said in the past that Mint would probably be the best for certain use cases, and sometimes it isn't. So as we kind of see where things go, we will either recommend it or we won't. But right now, Mint seems to be a great distribution for people that just want to get things done. Yeah. And the most recent questionable, in our opinion, questionable decision that the Mint team has made is the dropping of direct support for Snaps. And that seems to be politically motivated against the way that Ubuntu has been behind Snap packages and the whole Snap development efforts. And, yeah, without getting into a lot of the detail that you may have already heard on other podcasts or read in Linux news sites and so on, that just (25/41)
seems a little questionable to us as well and seems politically motivated. And, again, not a reason not to use Mint because there are ways around it. It's an open source software stack that gives you the ability, if you want to use Snaps on Mint, you can do that. And there have been articles written and podcast episodes published that give you information about how to do that. So we'll not go into the details on that. But, hey, it's open source software. It works great. It's well recommended for new users. And I think, Ken, that you are very safe continuing to use it. Yeah, I would agree. Just one last thought on this before we move on is, you know, I'm not taking anything away from the Linux Mint developers, but they use a lot of canonical resources to produce their Linux Mint. And so just, you know, the one to throw out there is, you know, they do a lot of work to polish it up, but they still use quite a bit of canonical infrastructure to get their Linux distribution out. And so, (26/41)
yeah, that's just kind of an afterthought. But without canonical and the work they do, Linux Mint might not be where it is today. Absolutely true. OK, moving on. Sam wrote us about password managers. Hello, this is Sam. Some time ago, I wrote in asking about buying a new ThinkPad. I still haven't made the purchase yet. You did respond and read my email on your show. Thank you. I wanted to know if going Linux has talked about password managers. Samuel. Well, Sam, thanks. And yes, we have talked about password managers. I don't know whether Bill and I have talked about password managers, but I know previous co-host Tom and I talked about password managers. And that's got to be, what, 10 years ago? So maybe it's time to revisit that subject. What do you think? Maybe not 10, but it's been a while. It's been, well, might be about eight or nine. I've been co-host for, what, about six, seven years now. So, yeah, it might be time to kind of look at password managers. I'm feeling a show coming (27/41)
on here. There we go. OK, new topic, password managers. Thanks for the topic idea, because that is one that I had not thought about, but that's a great one. Thanks, Sam. Yeah. Yeah. So our next email comes from George, who wrote, Hey, Bill, you were recommending my Joe for new users. Back on Black Friday, 2018, I bought a Hades Canyon NUC, a unique machine, and it has an Intel Kirby Lake G with Vega graphics. What that means is Intel persuaded AMD to collaborate and upgrade the GPU capability of the HiOS Den NUC. This wasn't supported on Ubuntu until 18.10 and even then only thanks to the persistence of Martin Windpress. Way to go, Wimpy. OK, so I have the thing sitting on my shelf, 32 gigabyte of RAM and two NVMe SSDs, but it wouldn't work with Ubuntu or any derivative, including Mint. I installed Monjoro as a way to be on the leading edge to have a kernel and hardware stack that would run. Monjoro cinnamon, like you installed, did that, but it became unstable after a few weeks. Was (28/41)
that because I had dabbled into the AUR because there were applications stock with Ubuntu and Mint not available in Monjoro? Just don't know. Quote, all content on the AUR is uploaded by ordinary users and very little checking of the content is done. It is up to you to verify the content is safe to use. The AUR is not an official part of Monjoro. Monjoro systems can use the AUR, but the AUR is designed for Arch, not for Monjoro. Any list is linked to that. Should warn off unsophisticated users, especially ones new to PCs or Linux. I have installed Monjoro a few times just to test drive. Hate the installer. I am lazy and Ubuntu and Mint do my work for me. Whole disk encryption is valuable, whether on a laptop more easily lost or a computer which could not be burglar'd. What's on my computers is far more valuable than the hardware. Not really sure I understand these options, but under assisted installation, here's what I think is the Monjoro guide to disk encryption. Step number 9. Tiny (29/41)
little checkbox. Had to go looking just tonight in my past installs of Monjoro direct to disk and as the only OS there, the little box just flew by and my disk wasn't encrypted. Any list? Another link for the guide he was using. OK. You want me to take this or you want to go first Larry? Well, since you're the Monjoro expert, why don't you take it? I don't know an awful lot about it. OK, so let me just address a few things. First off, I'm not a Monjoro expert as you will soon find out. You're more of an expert than I am, Bill. Larry and myself were just talking about this earlier today before we started the show and I've had a few issues with Monjoro. I've been running it probably about two and a half, three months now and I've enjoyed it. I'm still, like I said, I have installed on one of my test machines and I don't see that going away anytime soon. But the AUR, they tell you right up front, if you use it, it's all on you. So the AUR does offer a lot more software. I would not (30/41)
automatically say, hey, if you can't find the AUR, I do just because I like to break things. I have found that some of the programs I had from the AUR become outdated and wouldn't work. One of them was a little application that helped convert some video from YouTube into something like a machine. It just caused a little bit of an issue. Since Monjoro is based on Arch, you can go in, but you have to actually go and enable the AUR. The good thing about the Arch is sometimes they are on the bleeding edge. Monjoro, not so much, they usually hold things back, I think, but they said about two weeks. So it's a little bit more stable. The only thing they don't hold back is security patches and that's right from their website. I would definitely, if you could, until you're a more experienced user, not use the AUR. Most of the software that I had installed on my main machine when it was running Monjoro was straight from their repositories. With snaps and flatbacks, you should be able to find (31/41)
just about everything you want. Monjoro does support snaps and flatbacks. I found that sometimes they can be a little tricky to get installed, but for the most part it was pretty straightforward. The one thing that I've noticed about Monjoro is that you have to stay on top of the updates or even a straight Arch base. You have to stay on top of the updates. An example is I was thinking about just reinstalling Monjoro on my main machine. When I had a problem, I broke it. It wasn't Monjoro's fault. So I pulled my USB, put it in, and installed it. Everything went fine. Then the ISO was too old for them to update to the current one. So I would have to have gone and downloaded the new version to get it to work because I was telling Larry, I've had about four gigs of updates over the two and a half, three months. So you definitely got to stay on top of that. As far as the installer, I agree with you. The Monjoro installer is not as user friendly as Ubuntu or Ubuntu MATE or Mint. It just (32/41)
isn't. I don't like it as much. I can use it and it's not a big problem, but I prefer the Ubiquiti installer that Ubuntu uses. So yeah, you made some great points. I wouldn't say I hate the installer, but you're right. Ubuntu and Mint and their derivatives, they just work a lot easier. As far as the whole disk encryption, I know what you're talking about. There's a little tiny little box and it's real easy to miss. I don't think it's even really highlighted, Larry. You actually have to be looking for it. All in all, if you have just a base system that you want to use a non-Abuntu based Linux, that you're not going to be doing a lot of crazy things and you don't mind making sure that you stay up on your updates, Monjoro is excellent. I have no hard feelings. But you can't do like what you can with Ubuntu, as I found out. And if I'm wrong, you can yell at me. But I pulled my Ubuntu 2004 and installed it. It updated to the current version and it worked perfectly, but I could not do it (33/41)
with Monjoro because the image was a little older than it would allow to update. So that's kind of the pros and cons of the long-term support releases and the rolling. What do you think, Larry? Yeah, so as far as installing software from the AUR is concerned, whenever you see warnings like this, you've got to take them seriously about, you know, use this at your own risk sort of thing. And if you have the option of flat packs and snaps, then since those are designed to be cross Linux platform compatible, that might be your best choice in any case before going to the AUR as an option for Monjoro. That's not from personal experience with Monjoro, just personal experience with Linux. So I would say that is wise advice. And let's see, for the disk encryption, yeah. It turns out George in his email included a screenshot of that tiny little box in step number nine about encrypting your disk on installation. Yeah, it is tiny and it is in a place it's very easy to miss. So if you missed it and (34/41)
you intended to encrypt your disk before installing or while installing, you're probably going to have to go back and reinstall, make sure you check that box in the process. So yeah, just make sure you don't forget your encryption keys if you have to restore from backup or something like that. Save them somewhere else. Although you may not be an expert in Monjoro, Bill, you're certainly more experienced than I am. So take what Bill says over what I say. Monjoro is still, I'm very fond of it and I will continue playing with it. It's just nice to see how other distributions work and how their thought processes are in getting things done. Would I suggest a new user, a just straight Arch? Absolutely not. If you want to ease yourself in to Arch, I would definitely recommend Monjoro. It's kind of like what Ubuntu did for Debian. You had Debian and then they took Debian and made it easier to install and easier to get things done. And I kind of figured that's kind of what Monjoro did for Arch. (35/41)
They took Arch and made it easier to use for the everyday user, not for the elite, the guys that can compile their own kernels and build from source. They're going to use Arch and that's great. You've got Slackwave, you've got Arch, you've got Gen2. But for a new user coming from Windows or Mac OS, you're just not going to say, hey, okay, so here's the instruction to build from source and they're just going to look at you like you've lost your mind. That's why we try to always have multiple options. One of them that just as a sneak preview is when elementary is coming out with their new version, I'm going to look at it because I found that Mac OS users or OS X users like that and it's easy to understand. And sometimes when people are coming, they just kind of want something different. They want something to get their stuff done, but they want something that is different from what they had been using. So that's why we always try to find great options. Ubuntu MATE does a great thing (36/41)
because how many desktops do they support? Do they have where you can switch like four or five now? Oh, yeah, the panel layouts. Yeah, the panel layouts. And that helps people. Well, we recommend Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu and even Linux Mint when they tell us they have what they're trying to do. We have no what we call skin in the game. We just wanted to say, hey, here's some options for you. And so elementary kind of does that for people coming from OS X or just want something totally different. So we're not against any distributions. We just like to know how they work and can we recommend. And there's a few that we were like, oh, no, you don't want to use this right now. Yeah, not for the average computer user. And today's average computer user uses an Apple iPhone or an Android phone and that's their computer. And those people and even the people, the other average desktop computing operating system or laptop operating system, the average user is a Windows user and they don't know an (37/41)
awful lot about computers. They use them to get things done. And that's why we recommend these other specific Linuxes for people who just want to use Linux to get things done. Yeah, when we've had a Windows user who say we want a Linux that looks very similar. Well, we come up with two immediately. One would be Linux Man and Ubuntu Mate because you're able to kind of get that workflow back for them. It's all about what you want to use, but also we just want to make it as easy as possible. And whether you have problems with Canonical, you have problems with Fedora or Linux Man or Debian, we want to make sure there's enough options that we don't care what Linux you use. We just want to encourage you to use Linux. Okay, our last email is from Troy. I listened to the last episode on photography. Yeah, I thought we would get Troy with this one. He's a photographer. There's some pretty good content there. I would also suggest you mention another little known but extremely valuable (38/41)
application called Entangle. Some photographers, like headshot or portrait photographers, use a method of shooting called tethered shooting. They have the camera connected to a laptop through a USB cable while they are shooting. While they are shooting, the photos automatically upload from the camera to the computer, where they automatically appear on the screen or an external display for the photographer and client to view as they progress through the shoot. Entangle makes this happen. That's cool. Yeah, that's a great, great inclusion for part two of our editing and managing photos on Linux series, which I think is coming up as our next episode, isn't it? It is. I just have to finish writing it. There you go. Well, here's one more to include. Thanks, Larry. Like, okay. But this is a good one. We would have missed this one, I think, wouldn't we? Yeah, I didn't even know about Entangle, so yeah, I'll have to find it. Hey, Troy, if you can tell me, is it in? Well, I can check. But does (39/41)
Entangle do any other features? Well, then again, I can check, too. Never mind. I'm just giving myself more homework. Yeah, we'll include a link in the show notes if you're interested. And it's right there, Bill, entangle-photo.org. You can go there and find out what the features are. And it's entangle-photo that you're looking for in the application package repository. So there you go. Thanks, Troy. I can't wait to look into that. So thanks, and thanks for not yelling at us for totally messing that whole episode up, because we were both in, like, over our heads. So thanks. I'm glad you found at least some good content. We were both talking about that after we had recorded going, I hope we just didn't confuse people beyond all measure. Well, I think it was. The episode was well-written enough that while we were reading it, as long as we didn't make mistakes on reading, it made it sound like we were half-intelligent about photography, which is a little misleading, like I said in the (40/41)
episode, but that's okay. We'll take it. We can get the information out there either way, exactly. You know, good research and good writing, that helps a lot. So our next episode is part two of Edit and Manage Photos on Linux, and we're looking forward to that. 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 Linux podcast community on community.goinglinux.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasko at podcastthemes.com. (41/41)
Going Linux episode 336, 2017 year-end review. 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, 2017 year-end review. Hello, Larry. Hey Bill, how are things going? Good, good. It's almost the end of the year. It is. It is what? It's before Christmas as we're recording this, December 17th. So as we review the end of the year, if anything significant happens between now and the actual end of the year, we're gonna miss it for this episode. Yeah, yeah, I didn't blow it up or anything like that. So anything major happens, but anyway, I hope your week was good. I was busy. Yeah, it sounds (1/42)
like it from from our chat before the recording, but that wasn't a chat, that was a rant. Okay. All right. Fair enough. No, no, no. Well, I hear that you had a little problem more fun than I did. I hear you got your Christmas tree up. So hey, it's good for you. Good for having me. I'm gonna pull one out of the box with all the lights on and just stick it on the desk and say done. Yep. Well, at least I didn't end up in the mall like you did. Oh, yeah. Thanks. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. Yeah. Anyway, I thought we'd cover some highlights of what went on in Linux and technology for our show here and what we've done and what we might have planned and just generally just talk about stuff. Yeah, that sounds good. And as always we're not going to cover absolutely everything that happened. That would take a year to cover. So let's just hit the highlights and some of the highlights at least and some of the things that were important to us. Like you moving. Yes, I moved. Yeah, hopefully for the (2/42)
last time. I'm in New Mexico now, so I like it and everything's great. Good. But, you know, yeah. You know, we have some decent highlights of this past year and some of them are good and some of them are not so good. But let's start with one of the better ones. Larry, you wrote two books. Tell us about them. Yeah, so the first book was Ubuntu Mate Upgrading from Windows and OS X and that was really meant to be an introduction for people as the title suggests, switching from other operating systems to Ubuntu Mate. Kind of a broad brush overview to get people familiar with what Ubuntu Mate and Linux in general are. And some of the things that are important to know as you're switching. And then the second book is a little more in-depth. It's using Ubuntu Mate and its applications and it was designed for as kind of a reference, if you will. It's been a long time since computers and software came with a complete printed manual. You remember the manuals with the three-ring binder and and you (3/42)
know, it covered all of the buttons and detailed what the buttons did and and then it went into you know, here's how you use the word processor and here's how you use a spreadsheet and here's how you use the file manager and went through all that kind of stuff. Well, I thought I would not duplicate that kind of experience because that is way overkill. But I wanted to give something a little more in-depth than just highlights. And so in this book it talks about how to use Ubuntu Mate, how to get started, some of the applications that come with Mate, the desktop, some that are provided by the Ubuntu Mate team and then some of the basic applications things like Firefox and Thunderbird and those kinds of things that come with with Ubuntu Mate so that if somebody's brand new to a computer, they have something to go by and for those people who have been using computers and in particular Linux for a while, it's kind of a reference and gives you an idea of some of the special things that make (4/42)
Ubuntu Mate Ubuntu Mate. Like how to use file manager, how to find files, that kind of stuff. Yeah, some of the specific features like the Ubuntu Mate welcome screen that they developed from scratch. Now you did some work with you helped with some of the documentation, didn't you? Yeah, in parallel with writing the book which worked out quite nicely because some of the same material you need for the documentation and the book are the same. So yeah, it was it was a lot of fun and I wrote the Ubuntu Mate guide that you'll find in Ubuntu Mate version 17.10 and beyond and I'm actually in the process of updating that for 18.04 the long-term support release. So hopefully we'll have that done in time. Yeah, and it'll go into a lot more depth and give you a lot more of the features in the onboard guide right there in Ubuntu Mate. Well, I do want to say that I was very impressed with the book. I actually bought the first one and then I got a PDF of the other book that you wrote and both of them (5/42)
are very well done. The one thing that I found interesting is that you kind of kept to your policy of open source. You released them where you could buy the book, but you also they can download it for free and print it out. Yeah for free download it for free print it out. You can you know put it on Kindle whatever you need to. You really didn't do it to make lots of money. Of course I'm still expecting my royalty check of 50 cents. So Hey, that's more than I make. Oh Okay, I'll take half of that. But you know that I thought it was really cool that you took the time to write it, but you also said Hey, you know, you don't have to buy if you want to buy it. That's great You know if you want a paperback etc or buy a Kindle Didn't you say that Kindle had like there's one price that you have to the least amount you could do is what? $1 or something like that. Yeah, I think they force you into selling your books between $2.99 and $9.99 as the lowest price and If you sell it for $2.99 your (6/42)
costs end up being more than anything that they would owe you so that doesn't make sense. So I priced the first book at $9.99 and I printed it I had it so that when you order it printed you get it as a softcover book and It's got it's it's black and white on the inside. Just just plain black text on a You know off-white Background so it's readable But all the all of the screenshots and so on are in black and white the second one I went whole hog on that one. Yeah, I color screenshots and you know It's not a hardback or anything like that It's not big enough to be a hardback, but it's a softback book, but it's it's much it's much nicer Yeah, and as a result the printed copy is much more expensive because It costs a lot to print it and ship it so I had to bring the price up In order to compensate for that. So the printed version is more expensive the electronic version so the Kindle version and the PDF version that you can get they are less expensive and Of course, you can get them on (7/42)
Amazon. You can get them on smashwords if that's your Choice for buying electronic books and all kinds of different formats in ebook formats there You can get them from bookstores as well Like, you know the Kindle store and some of the other like Barnes & Noble and those kinds of things Cool, but they are good books. I enjoyed them. So anyway, I'm good. Thanks and Your your your commission for that Advertisement will be in the mail. Oh, okay, so I can expect the one cent check Ten cents to write for the check. So in other words, yeah, I'm not getting squat Yeah, we're losing money on the whole Okay. Yeah, so the licensing on this thing is Creative Commons. Yeah, and You can copy it. You can give it away. You can do whatever you like with it. Essentially just credit You know the author that would be me and I think you're you're you're in good shape there and I've actually even provided a a free PDF copy to someone who is doing a similar sort of project for a website creating an Ubuntu (8/42)
mate a Website that is a user guide That's that's nice anyway Now that we've done the shameless plug let's talk about something that will affect everybody and what's that Larry? Yeah, it's The fact that well, it'll affect everybody in the US. Yes It's not gonna affect you at least initially that may spill over into other countries and that's the whole change to net neutrality so it's it's a big deal here and They're under the previous president's administration a law was passed that Essentially prevented any internet service provider or any provider of those kinds of services from throttling based on content so your VoIP connection would be required to be delivered at exactly the same speed as Netflix or the content provided by your Internet service provider or Anything so they couldn't prefer Netflix over Hulu or any of those kinds of things. Well Very recently the US government under the new administration rolled that back and as a result Things are going to change at least (9/42)
potentially So do you have an opinion on this? Yeah, I think it's the worst thing that I've well It's one of the worst policies I have ever seen I don't know what they were thinking Net neutrality was the worst. No, no changing it changing that neutrality was the worst thing. I was one of the worst policies I've seen I don't want to get political or anything, but I've looked at it and I'm sitting there going Why are you even messing with this? This is this is actually a good thing because Say we have I even use generic so then we can say I'm picking anybody you have Internet company number one internet company number two Well in that company one a media company that you know streams, you know they can make a deal where their stuff gets higher speeds and preferred treatment and the media company number two can be Slowed down or even blocked or and I'm just thinking you know net neutrality Gave everybody a level playing field. I mean, I thought it would it would help the smaller, you (10/42)
know Startups, you know like well good good example You've got Skype and discord, you know, we've used both of them what happens when you know Skype says that we'll pay for better performance and You know discord doesn't get that type of thing. Are you know, it's just you know, they can They can just say hey We there are my inner service part said we don't like this. We've made deals with other people So these sites run really well in these sites don't you know, and I don't I don't understand it and I I don't know Who was thinking this was a great idea? but I heard there's gonna be some legal battles and I think Messing with the net neutrality is a bad idea You know that they've argued that it's the internet access shouldn't be considered a Utility the internet is just everywhere. We use it for everything Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm just I'm just sitting there going. What were they thinking and The only thing I can think of is follow the money. I guess there's gonna be some (11/42)
lawsuits and some challenges. Hopefully They'll say you've lost your mind you're gone you can't change it and I'm hoping that that happens but we shall see but This is something everybody should pay attention to especially live in the United States because it does affect you Yes, it does and just to play devil's advocate for a moment The the other side of the argument is on the part of the internet service providers They're saying well, you know, you're you're providing Way too much government regulation and you know to be honest the current administration has been removing a lot of government red tape and administration for businesses and so The internet service providers are saying well, why are you doing that? And you're not you know, you're not deregulating us So that we can let the market comp the competitive market control What happens with the internet and the prices that we charge and it's just better without regulations and this will help promote additional competition and (12/42)
this will help the little guy and it will help, you know, all of those kinds of arguments and You know the the thing that is being missed in that argument and probably intentionally is the fact that Here in the United States There is no competition Even though there are multiple internet service providers in most places in the United States. You have a choice of exactly one And yes, okay. So maybe your choice is a cable Provider who provides you with a decent amount of speed and maybe there are other choices like satellite internet or Tethering your mobile phone or things like that, but satellite and mobile phone they're barely on the edge of What might be considered high-speed internet? I Hear what you're saying and I disagree because as we both know And I know you probably you were just playing like I said devil's advocate Yeah We need certain regulations in my book I'm not saying we should have so many that just draconian but I don't see How it's a bad thing to say Look, everybody (13/42)
gets a level playing field as well as levels we can make it and have at it it just seems like It's a bad idea because you know not the little guys sometimes don't have as much money as the big guys and You know, they have to and if you're going to make it harder for them to actually compete Yeah, I think innovation will slow but you know I'm not I guess some I might not be seeing a big picture But as far as I can tell and I've been following story and reading and it just doesn't seem like a good thing So anyway, yeah, and when you only have a choice of one or even here in the metropolitan Los Angeles area I only have a choice of two I mean, it's AT&T and Time Warner now spectrum and AT&T their starting speed is like Dial-up modem speed and then you pay through the nose for anything faster and they can't get anywhere near as as fast as what? The cable company can and even the cable company They start you at a hundred megabits and they offer a plan that goes to 300 But that's as fast as (14/42)
they offer and it never reaches 300 here where I live and You know, maybe it'll reach 250 270 at the maximum I've ever seen but you end up paying for the 300 anyway, even though they can't deliver it and That's the only choice I have unless I want to tether my cell phone Which of course is through AT&T and as a result you have to pay more to enable tethering on AT&T So it's it's and and these companies are saying oh we won't block anyone's content You know, you know, it's it's it's competitive, you know with all the competitive pressures We can't afford to block anyone's content Well, all you have to do is look at the mobile phone companies and they don't they don't slow or throttle anyone but some of them will Do things like say well you can stream as much as you want to this data cap but if you use our streaming service or our apps on your phone, they won't count towards your Data caps and so they're not throttling anybody but they are providing preferred treatment to their own (15/42)
Services. Yeah, I just will say at least you have to I have Because I live in that middle of nowhere I have a I Have two providers that I could go with one was satellite and it was so costly I said you must be on drugs. And the other one is I I Don't get anywhere near to speed And it uses dish and it goes back and forth to a tower but you know, I I'm nowhere near a hundred so So yeah more competition would be nice but anyway, we've beat this so let's move on to a happier topic Okay, we started the minion network in 2017 and I think it's gonna be a great thing. I named it because that's my thing But it was actually a listener who come up With the idea and I wanted to give him credit but I could look through I couldn't find his name But you know who you are and so we kind of took it and said hey, that's a great idea Let our listeners who are smart and intelligent You know if they want to contribute to the show or or maybe go into more depth than we can That it would be a good thing (16/42)
because sometimes You know, well we've never said we knew everything but we try to do a nice general overview of everything and if we happen to know about a Subject world we'll talk about it and most likely get things wrong and we've been called out a few times. Huh? Actually, I get called out more than you. Okay, so I'm really excited. We're gonna see a lot more I think of our listeners input I don't know if you've received any Recordings or input yet Larry. So what's what's your take on the new minion network? the minion minion minion network Yeah, it was Adrian who suggested it and thanks for the naming Milk because yes really sticks with you, doesn't it? Yeah, so I haven't received anything in the way of recording yet, but hey, it's holiday season people are busy so I'm not expecting anything but we've got something written and we have Some input from some of the folks so it's starting to ramp up and I expect as we go into 2018 we'll have some contributions from the minion minion (17/42)
network at work at work Okay, yeah, Larry lose the echo. Okay Now I'm really excited about this I know we've we've talked about in the past of having more interactive with our listeners and stuff and I'm really excited to see what they come up with so I I'm I know it's not super newsworthy but in my book, it's I think it's one of the best things we've ever done as far as This and I cannot wait to see how awesome our listeners are Yeah, they're gonna provide better content than we are I can see it now Listen here. No one you better than Never mind. I was gonna do better That's that's all I do is recording. It's better than I can do So no serious if we do this if we do this, right? We'll just introduce the show and then you know play all the contributions from the minion network and then wrap up the show User-generated, you know crowd-sourced podcasting. Yeah, if I was not Worthless now, I will really be worthless once they get all these people in here man I'm gonna be moved into the (18/42)
corner. But yes, I'm really excited about that. I cannot wait to see what we What what they come up with so guys I'm looking forward to it. All right, Larry So our next topic is around Linux Taking over the world, right? Yes It is running on all 500 of the 500 top supercomputers now as of this year's actually I knew this cuz I actually found that yeah, but I was impressed because all all top 500 supercomputers are our friend Linux now according to the article and It was The Google I had to give it Where I found it, but it was one of the top news stories in tech that It doesn't not be SD not Unix, you know, it's Linux. So I just find that Yes, we might not have gotten the same desktop dominance as Windows But we run the backbone now We you know If you want that we want to what your weather's doing or you want to shoot something to the moon Linux can help you do it Yeah, and you know, it's that that one Windows computer that was running that one supercomputer somewhere in somebody's (19/42)
basement. It finally crashed and they were going to Get service packs anymore That was it. They replaced it with red hat and moved on I'm sorry. Your license has expired no more security updates and we don't give any more service packs So you probably want to change Okay. Yeah, so we've talked about things starting up things changing. Here's something that's shutting down Oh Linux Journal Oh We're gonna say goodbye to Linux Journal. It's been around since 1994 I think it is and it's finally shuttering their doors and their electronic doors at least they shuttered the print operation several years ago and Now they're just I'm guessing they're out of money or out of Advertisers or out of subscribers or no, they're not out of subscribers. We live, you know, we subscribe but I'm guessing the money isn't there to pay everybody yeah, well, I Canceled my subscription. I actually had a subscription for about two years and for a while it seemed to be there was a good amount of articles that (20/42)
were actually, you know for just Regular users, but I think where they made the mistake is Toward the end. It just didn't really click with me anymore because it was mostly just about businesses and stuff like that and So I said, you know, I Can't I'm not getting anything out of it. I hate to see I like Linux Journal I mean now it was when I first, you know started looking to links I Was buying it before I got a subscription pretty much any you know from You know You like Barnes Noble or whatever it was You know, he was like Windows Windows Windows Mac Mac Mac, and then I saw said there's hey, there's a links magazine cool and so I hate CM go But I read the article and you know, they apparently they did run out of money and there's but one of the things is they saying that just can't compete anymore with And it was kind of a I would say kind of a passive-aggressive there's like, you know people getting a lot of their stuff online now and they'd much rather be have cookies tracking them (21/42)
and Popping ads out of them and they just they just couldn't you know their model I guess just they just didn't want to do it and they just said, you know We we can't keep going like this and they shut down And I feel sorry for him because you know I think they were pretty good voice for Linux and anybody's ever read their magazine You know before they shuttered to print they realized it, you know, a lot of love went into that So I'm really sorry to see him go but yeah, me too There are other Linux magazines out there at least for the time being like Linux magazine and Linux Pro same thing Yeah, I did see a Linux Pro A couple months ago. I was actually looking into bookstores and yes, I actually go to bookstores once in a while and Yeah, I saw there was a Linux Pro but you remember wasn't Linux Journal the one that used to have the The Discs in them that you could try different distributions. Yeah, I think a lot of them did. Yeah Yeah, so that was that they did they did really help (22/42)
bring a lot of people to Linux I would say but you know times change and I guess they Had to also so guys thank you for all your hard work We will miss you. We hope that maybe you'll come back and do reform or something like that. But Thanks for all the fish. So Yeah, well speaking of things shutting down one other thing shut down that isn't in our list here bill But I'm gonna add it here because it kind of fits America online instant messaging service is now Defunct well, it's about time Yeah, yeah, and another great provider of free CDs in the mail AOL has decided America online instant messenger a I am Is is gone. So bye. Bye. Hey, all I can say every time I hear AOL is you've got mail Well, right exactly It's amazing how many people are still using that service really? Yeah, apparently there are quite a few okay guys Never mind if you're still using there well more power to you probably not you're probably not listening to this If you are you might want to consider switching yeah (23/42)
Hey, I hear discord and maybe even Skype is better than you've got mail AOL. But hey, I Always I I always remember when they used to run the TV commercials Wow AOL makes it your internet experience so much better. Oh Okay. Okay. Thanks. So That's actually a happy story I'm being bad today. I'm really sad about Linux Journal, but you know, you're depressing me if you give me one more thing about Some something bad Linux, I think I'm just going to get sad Yeah, well Do have one other piece of bad news You're not supposed to give me more business supposed to be a happy show we can We can do a happy story in between if you want, but that's pretty important. Okay, what's this one? You you may have seen news reports that the city of Munich in Germany is going back to Windows after Ten years of using Linux or attempting to use Linux why? well there According to the reports there are a lot of reasons why first of all, it was costing them a lot of money to maintain the the Linux backbone they (24/42)
had and You you might think that a free operating system wouldn't be Expensive to maintain but here's why it was so expensive. Remember, this is a government Okay, so so so first of all Rather than use the off-the-shelf version of Linux and all of its applications that were available to it ten years ago and Keeping up with all of the upgrades just by maintaining The security updates and so on they decided that in order to make it easier for people to switch from Windows to Linux they would invent their own version of Linux and wrote many of the applications custom applications and so on and then after doing that they found that it's a lot of work to maintain a Distribution and to maintain all of these applications so it ended up costing them a bunch of money So ten years later, they said this is costing us too much We'll just go back to Windows and I bet they didn't write their own custom version of Windows Okay, first off Larry I Read about the story and I was going in one of the (25/42)
things they said they had problems with devices and stuff Um, so Apparently they had them working but you know, I guess you know a government is not exactly The best person to write their own Linux distro. I've got a hey guys Munich. I got an idea Contact the mate group, you know, they they could probably have helped you out and made it really simple But Yeah, I think they're probably back in the the Windows world and have all those Microsoft Okay, I'm gonna call locked in now for another ten years. Yes, and hey make sure that you pay your licensing fees yeah, but but you know, even if they Went back to Windows. They still had to somebody to maintain it and I don't know about you. I I Would not want to have to maintain all those little Windows computers with all the new, you know Windows 10 or whatever Because I don't like Windows 10 to begin with and it's got a bunch of stuff and things pop up and you know I keep it because I need it for work occasionally and Pains me when I have to (26/42)
use it, but I think it was I think somebody Someone got sold a bag bill of goods there but guys at least You know what you had good luck with Windows and Man I I don't understand how they can say it was hard to use. I mean the You've got if they didn't like the desktop then why even reinvented you have mate you have a fun You had unity at that time, which you know We'll talk about that in a minute or two But yeah, how about cinnamon? I mean that's that's real. I mean Windows is so I don't know. I don't think I don't I think it's just an excuse but you know, hey Do what you want, but I think you're gonna be sorry in the long run for me. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know I could be Yeah, you know Windows 10 I've played around with it a bit and it's a lot better than Windows 8 for sure. Yeah, it's it's not I don't know. It's it's not bad. I guess Having used Linux. I don't see the attraction but having grown up using Windows a long time ago. It's It's a natural progression I guess and it's (27/42)
not a bad alternative if you want to stick in the Windows world But bottom line is Munich has really screwed this up from the beginning You you don't write your own Linux distribution if you want to switch to Linux you Take advantage of the fact that it's open source and crowdsourced and you know free and in you know as in freedom and you take advantage of all of that and you leverage it and they didn't do any Of that quite frankly other than taking advantage of the fact that they could write their own Good luck guys. Have fun. I Still say that you really messed that one up. But anyway, let's talk on time to happier news. Yes, please I don't think I could take any more bad news stories right now. So Not really I haven't used these But you know, it seems like these Container programs for Linux seem to be the new hot thing and I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing I've heard some people say it uses more space Other people saying that it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. (28/42)
What's your? Well, I haven't used them and I don't know a lot about them. So let's move on. No No, I haven't I haven't had a lot of experience either I could make some comments that are completely uninformed, but I'd rather not So we probably need to do a show on that and hey just to learn about them if nothing else Maybe a network we need some help on the new containers Technology, let's talk about Docker containers and all these other containers and yes How does that relate to virtualization and all that sort of stuff? Yeah, that would be awesome So we'll have to look into that but it seems like I've heard a lot about that recently and Speaking of hearing of a lot about stuff I've heard and just in the news that a lot more about Linux malware and Some of it was I hate this this term fake news because you actually had to have access to the computer and you had to Have a password and etc, etc But this seemed like I heard a lot more this year about just Linux vulnerabilities and malware (29/42)
Is it just because it's becoming more used in corporations Larry or do you just think that it's just They didn't have anything else to write No, honestly, I think that Some of the hype about Linux malware is valid. I think there are still some vulnerabilities in Linux as there is in any software quite frankly and so we need to be vigilant about that but I think the reason that we've been hearing more about it is because the press has finally realized that Infections on computers affect people and so they're reporting on it more and as a result we hear more about all kinds of malware and infections and I think possibly the rate at which Scams and Phishing schemes and all of those things occur is increasing And so there are more and more infections and people are losing money as a result of falling prey to these things and Ransomware in particular is really insidious. So I think that the fact that it's costing people money and Some of the press themselves have fallen prey to They're (30/42)
beginning to report on it more so more visibility you hear more about it. Okay Well, just that's my opinion. I think that's pretty sound one So guys make sure that you keep your systems up to date and I think we'll be good Yeah, don't click on stuff from strangers and you know all the stuff your grandmother Larry I need To have Access to your computer and your bank accounts routing numbers, please. Oh yeah, yeah, I got a phone call about that the other day and Somebody's already done that so okay great. So moving right along. I'm never getting my voice check now So I like to watch distro watch and I know Larry I said, you know, I wonder What the over the past 12 months what top 10 distributions were yeah, so somebody I think it might have been you bill put a nice little list together of Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, I did it So distro watch rankings over the past 12 months Let's start with the number 10. We'll do a David Letterman for those who remember top 10 Distributions so the number 10 is (31/42)
Elementary, okay. I can see that one. Yeah, that's a pretty good one Number nine is Zoran That one surprises me a little bit. Yeah, not one I'm familiar with well I've heard of it of course, but never used it now. I've looked at it, but that it's I think you actually have To pay for that one. I think Put them. Uh, is that the one you have to pay for? Yeah, I think it is. Yeah could be Uh solace is number eight. That's that's a good one. Yeah, that's good Uh number seven is fedora now, I think fedora's felt fall Uh a little bit seven but hey, they're still in top 10, but okay fedora We've we've had i've had a love-hate rate relationship with fedora. So right now it's Oh, I can see seven, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I've had fedora installed once And Yeah, it's it's a pretty good distribution generally it's had its troubles up and down with A number of features a number of stability issues and things like that So, you know, maybe that's the cause of its drop from the highest rankings But I don't (32/42)
know since I don't use it i'm not familiar with it all that much number six is open susa Another good solid distribution that's used in enterprise. Okay, as well as on the desktop But their focus is mainly on well, susa linux in general is focused on supporting the enterprise and open susa is their community-based Generally speaking their community-based version. Okay Uh number five is anturgos now that one uh at five because that's not that's um That's based on arch, isn't it? I believe it is and it's kind of one of those boutique versions of linux or it's It's not used widely. I didn't think being number five. I think you're right Number four Ubuntu Huh? Now that one's down Yeah, it's down but still in the top five. Yes. Yes. Okay Number three surprise to me mangero. Yeah. I was like blown away that mangero's number three That's just i'm like what it's above ubuntu over the past 12 months. I'm like now this is distro watch So, you know, but i'm just sitting there going holy moly. (33/42)
That's I mean, it's good to see some other Distros that we have in but that one surprised me Yeah number two is debian well, that doesn't surprise me because debian's the I would say the uh, the The grand high old poobah that everybody's based on except for mangero and antegros. I mean you've cut an infidora, of course And yeah, and a lot of a lot of people trying out those raspberry pi computers are using debian as well So they have one for raspberry pi now too, yeah, yeah Darn people when do you guys sleep? It seemed like they have it on for everything And number one, oh, let me guess surprise Go ahead. Guess linux man Yes Okay. Yeah, it's got to be the one that is easy to use and familiar Kind of layout and format and desktop environment to people switching from windows so no surprise that it's Number one, it gets a lot of press as well. I think um, and It's it's a good distribution in terms of the way it's put together and a lot of good tools that they've developed and make it (34/42)
Work. Yeah. Well, uh, I won't use links anymore. I used to support the project, but there was a thing a few years back that um made some statements, uh, and I just decided that I didn't want to help them the uh now our one that we recommend Uh, I use it and I like it a lot is Uh, I won't give it an honorable mention because I can is a bunt amate. Mm-hmm Do you know where it ended up in the list? I don't I think it was 24 24 let me check why? Why so we're back in the underdog, but then again remember this is distro watch and these are rankings of these distributions based on the number of clicks on their website, which means They're really measuring How much interest there is in looking at these that not that people are using them or really? I have switched to it But rather I want to find out a little bit more about this. Let's go to distro watch and read up on it. Yeah Uh, and i'm looking right now And let me sort this that's the past six months let me do the last 12 months And I'll (35/42)
okay. Ubuntu mate is 26 and um I like it a lot. Um and uh between Ubuntu mate and of course, uh, PC Linux os is one of my ones I like to play with Uh, you know, they're not they might not be in top 10, but it doesn't that doesn't really matter if they work for you Great. I mean If you think arch according to distro watch is only uh, for the 14th over the year And you know arch powers is is growing in popularity I mean remember yards used to be way down there and I now they're sitting at 14 so it's just I think it's just uh, kind of what you uh Like and and you know, don't go by what we say. I just wanted to say hey, somebody surprised me I'm, glad to see some different, uh, fellas up in that list so anyway, uh use what you like try out, uh, you know, these are not the only ones, um, and uh, I'll give you my two that I like a lot is a bunch of mate and PC Linux os And how about you give me your two that you you like so we can kind of maybe Balance out the list a little bit of our (36/42)
personal ones yeah, I think uh We agree on the number one ubuntu mate, and I think the second best for new users is linux mint I really do. Yeah, whether it's Cinnamon version or the mate version doesn't matter Just looking at them on the surface. Uh, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference It's not until you begin using it and take a look at the fact that they're using different file managers and things like that But you see that there is a difference but they look identical they behave identically in and uh all All around very good Yeah, and Linux bit does have cool names for their stuff. I think one of them I enjoyed is muffin for their file manager one day uh I don't think muffin was the file manager. I think it was something else. But yeah, they were uh, They've got a lot of cool names. Yeah, so i'll give them that but you know Other than that this list is not exhaustive and uh, I encourage you to also look at all of them And go to websites and see which one might work. I (37/42)
mean, yeah It's all about personal preference and find the one that works for you. Yeah, I mean Remember for a while. I was the biggest crunch bang fanboy around I loved it. It was very minimalist and and Poor Larry had to uh See all the pictures and stuff of when I themed it. No, look at this. Isn't this cool? Larry's like yeah, are you doing anything except theming this thing or are you actually doing work? so but there's one called Brunson labs, it's supposed to be um its continuation so i'm hoping to look at that soon, but uh, generally you can if whatever you like you can generally find it so Enough but uh and Larry I hear that you snuck in one other little news story that uh, You know that I have strong feelings about and what would that be? Uh obuntu dropping unity and moving back to gnome Ah Yes, I heard that after all that stuff you remember I had a love-hate relationship with unity I I hated it and then they improved it and I had the interview with jonno And it was going well (38/42)
And now they drop it Really? Why couldn't they just stay with gnome and be done with it? Yeah, well if they'd stayed with gnome we wouldn't have had mate because they went from gnome 2 on a ubuntu to Unity okay, and now they're on gnome 3 and they've got it themed in a way that it looks and behaves like unity did so in Reality, they're still doing things the way they did. They're just not inventing their own desktop anymore and of course the unity project has forked off and uh, there are people who have uh, Continued unity in its own right and so ubuntu now uses gnome 3 and if you really want to go back to the golden days of a ubuntu with gnome you use ubuntu mate because it is essentially as Ubuntu was back in the original days when they were using gnome 2. Yeah. Well, I've always wanted to say this phrase Unity is dead long live unity Oh, I don't know why anyway, so that's That's I can actually see is probably a much better use of resources I know we had discussed this back for us (39/42)
without, you know, beating this horse to death too. They just uh, They should have just you know Not done it, but i'm glad they did because now we got like I said, we've got a bunch of mate and those guys Those guys I think we sound like fanboys again, but those guys really have their stuff together. So Anyway, yeah Yeah, absolutely um, yeah, I I think they should have done it they they Did a good job of it quite frankly and they learned a lot which is really The thing that I think is the biggest benefit is they learned a lot about desktop environment and user interface and what people actually want And you know, you can make the argument that they never implemented some of the things that people actually wanted but hey at least they learned what folks Have found valuable and light and and experimented in new ways, which I think is is a good thing in its own, right? so good on them and Yeah, good. Good luck with gnome as you move forward. Well, larry, I think that's kind of bringing us (40/42)
to the end of this show I think we've covered a lot of the the top new stories But to end at least the things that were important to us. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I want to take this moment to thank All the distributions for all their hard work all our listeners and everybody that's sent us feedback over the past year You guys are great. We really appreciate you and we hope wherever you are that you have a great holiday season I can't add anything better than that. Thanks to everybody who contributes to open source and free software and have a wonderful holiday period and We'll be back in the new year Yes, we will. So Until then what's our next episode larry? Our next episode will be listener feedback in january sometime and until then you can go to our website at goinglinux.com For articles and show notes as well as links to download and to 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 (41/42)
friendly and helpful community members by joining the discussion in our going links podcast Google plus community until next time. Thanks for listening 73. Happy holidays New music provided by mark blasco at podcast themes.com (42/42)
Going Linux episode 383, 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 goinglinks at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are things going for you? Things are going well. Well, you know, remember I told you I was going to use Linux Mint and not change so much? Well, I changed again. So... What's going on now? No, just I went back to Zorin because it just works for me. I had a few issues. I was beta testing Linux Mint. And I just (1/42)
needed something that I was familiar with. So, long story short, I went ahead, redid my laptop because I have nothing better to do on a Friday night and got a dual boot set up with Windows 10 on one for when I have a game I have to play once in a while. And the rest is Zorin. And then I'm running everything in containers, like kind of what I was planning. And the test machine over here right now has two images on it or two systems. One is Linux Mint 19.3 to continue testing it and see if I can find any more bugs. And the other one is, I was kind of curious, I wanted to see how elementary OS worked. Oh, yeah. And it runs really well. I was really surprised. They have some unique elements to their desktop. But what was really interesting is it runs really, really fast. It looks a lot to me like a Mac. Interface. Yeah. They use a created software center. So, about everything you would want is there. Like I said, it seems to be really nice. It's been running fine. This would probably be a (2/42)
great system for like an older parent or a younger child that you just want to make sure that it works all the time because I haven't found any really glitches. So, it's like all you're going to use it for is email and stuff like that. And you want to keep the complications way down and you want to use older hardware. This seems like it would work really well. This machine also had run Ubuntu Mate 18.04.3, I think it was. And it also run really well too. But it was kind of interesting. If you want to add something that's not in their software store, I couldn't find Subnaptic. And so, I had to actually Google, how do I add a deb package to this? Because it's based on Ubuntu. And then they tell you basically to use Eddie. And then it works fine. You can install anything you want. So, yeah, that's kind of like a mini review. It runs well. I don't think it's really for me because I like to tinker too much. But if you want something that just works and is very pretty, it seems to do that. (3/42)
But I will make just one comparison between Ubuntu Mate and Pantheon. Ubuntu Mate also has that same setting where you can kind of make it look like a Mac if you want. And the one thing about elementary I saw is that when I was looking through the software store, they actually have where you can pay for applications from developers in their software store. So, it's kind of a way to provide donations without figuring out how to donate to a particular project. Yeah, but the only thing that I have maybe a little problem with is I don't have a problem with paying for an OS. I mean, I paid for Zorin and I like it. Or supporting a project. But I can't remember what I was looking for, but it come up and it was only a dollar for this application, but it seems like that's the only one in there. So, there might be an open source project that works just as well that you don't need to pay for. So, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying it's different. I know they're trying to make these (4/42)
projects where they can make a little money for developers, and I'm all for that, but I just don't know about having just that store and actually not being able to obviously look through a bigger catalog of software. You know, to give you an example, just because I compared them before, the Ubuntu Mate has the same software center. But I can't remember. Do you remember if Synaptic is installed by default on Ubuntu Mate? It is not, but it's available in the software store. So, yeah, like I said, I don't have a problem if they want to charge for it, but Synaptic, Eddie will let you install the DEBS. If you want to install the Chromedeb or Chromium, it will let you do that, but that's for somebody that already knows what they want. And I think it should be a little bit easier to say, I need Synaptic Package Manager, and to use that to get the software for maybe more advanced users or just someone that just wants to see what's available. And so I know why they did it. They wanted to make (5/42)
it simple and secure. Yeah, sure. But another thing that came up, they were talking to one of the developers in elementary OS, and right now they're trying to figure out, say you buy an application for a dollar in their app store, and then they upgrade it. Then what happens is that they still don't have a good system to restore that application. They said they're working on it. And so that should have been kind of worked out where it remembers what you've purchased, and so you can load it back onto the new version of your system. And I'm not harsh on them. It's a pretty operating system, but when I went to go download the ISO, before you even tested it, they had where you pay what you want. I just put zero in it to let you download it, but they also have $20, $30, $10 or whatever. This was like, well, how do I know I like it? I don't want to pay the $30 or $20 or whatever it is for their version of the software until I've actually seen if I like it enough to buy it. It doesn't really (6/42)
affect Abuntamate because you can donate to their project, but they really don't ask for anything upfront, and even Zorin has a light version that you can try to see if you like it enough to go with the ultimate. So I know what they're trying to do, and it's great. Then you're throwing different stuff at the wall, but I think it could be a little better. And I'm sure I'm going to get enough for it. I'm not harsh on them. I know it's hard to monetize open source projects, but I don't know if that's the best way to do it. Yeah, I get it. And I also think that when they say pay what you want, Xero is acceptable if you're just trying it out for the first time, and you don't want to pay anything for it as you're trying it out. So I think that was their intention. Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that that's what they were going for. And of course, they're not going to put Xero as one of the default settings because they want people to pay for it. Well, that's fine. I mean, (7/42)
everybody's got to pay the bills. And like I said, I like a lot of what they've done. I think it would be a good system for somebody that just doesn't want to have to deal with a bunch of stuff. Just throw it on there. But you can pretty much get everything that you want from, since I compared them, a bunch of mate with a little effort. So if you have a friend, you can pretty much have it set up to do the same thing, where they've done a lot of work to unify the desktop together. I don't know if there's enough value added that it would be so much better. So I don't know. Like I said, I'll still play with it, but good for them for trying. That was not a harsh review of them. I just wanted to say there were some things that, hey, I don't have to agree with everything, but they're doing good work. Absolutely, yeah. So hopefully they're pushing on some of these changes upstream because they're building up on Ubuntu base. So anyway, other than that, it's just been my usual let's see what I (8/42)
can break today and work. Well, as a matter of fact, speaking of breaking things, we just before starting recording received an email from Stefan in Germany. And that's the first email we've got there. I've got a screenshot of what he's seeing. And why don't we just jump right into that and we'll talk a little bit about that. Okay, so Stefan, who's in Germany, sent us a screenshot from Firefox that shows that Firefox has a problem with the SSL certificate on our site. And he sent us a screenshot of it and he says, hi, I get this error message when I click on the button going Linux community, see attachment. I know what this means, but maybe others don't. So best regards, Stefan. And so what's it say? Yeah, so it's one of those security warnings that Firefox gives you if the SSL certificate is out of date, expired, or that kind of thing. And specifically, it comes up with this error message that says, warning, potential security risk ahead. And when you click on the advance button, it (9/42)
gives you the reason that it says, community.goinglinux.com uses an invalid security certificate. Well, if you recall, I just got SSL certificates for our entire website. It says, though, that the certificate is not trusted because it is self-signed. In other words, the issuer of the certificate is the one who signed it. And what I've noticed is I tried this in my Firefox on my machine, which I, quite frankly, haven't used since I installed it. So when I went and clicked the accept risk and continue button on that page, so I got the same message, every time I went back and clicked the community button on our website, it just went right there to the community and never proceeded to show this error message. So if you see this error message in Firefox or anywhere else, you just click on advance and click accept the risk and continue, which may seem a little scary if you're not familiar with this stuff, but it's just warning you about the SSL certificate. And I will take Stefan's email and (10/42)
the screenshot, forward it on to our web host and say, what the heck is going on here? You've provided me with an effective SSL certificate. You better get it fixed. So hopefully we'll get that issue resolved quickly. And if not, bear with us. It is coming up to the holiday season, and I don't know about our web host or the SSL company, whether they take time off during the holidays or not. So it may be until January it takes to get it fixed. But it appears that once you click the accept the risk and continue for that button or for that site, it just goes through no problem. So let me just give a little background on this so I make sure I understand this and you understand this. We for the longest time did not have the HTTPS, which means that it's a secure site. And then we got delisted from iTunes just out of the blue because we didn't have that cert. So then you went to the web host and paid them money because they won't let you use one of the free ones. And so you paid them the (11/42)
money, and now it's doing this with this really scary warning, potential security risk. And I just want to point out it shows go back. It's recommended. Go back. Don't use LAN. Oh, wow. I knew this was going to happen. So you went through all those hoops, resubmitted it. Does it do it on any other browsers? You know, I don't know because I've been on our website on Chrome forever, and I just tried this new installation of Firefox, well, relatively new installation of Firefox, just before the recording, and it occurred there. But now I can't replicate it because I guess I've accepted the risk, right, on the button. Let me try something while we're recording. I downloaded the new Brave browser to see what it was all about. Yeah, let's see what it says. I want to see what it says, so I'm going to our site right now and see if it throws up errors because it will sometimes say, you say when it says you click, you go to the community, right? Yeah, so there's a button on the top right, and it (12/42)
says going Linux community. If you click that button, that's when the error message comes up. Okay, let me see what it says here. Oh, that's interesting. This one comes up and says, your connection is not private. Attackers might be trying to steal your information from the community.goinglinux.com, for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards, and it says learn more, and then it says, the error that it gives, it says net, and it says error cert authority invalid. Hmm, yeah. They're insisting that we pay for a SSL certificate from a company that isn't really recognized, so that's great. I know this makes great podcasting, but I was just wondering, and if you hit advanced, it reads, this server could not prove that it is community.goinglinux.com. Its security certificate is not trusted by your computer's operating system. This may be caused by a misconfiguration or an attacker intercepting your connection. Well, that's kind of scary. That sounds even worse, doesn't it? Yeah, so (13/42)
Larry, you look like you might be having to talk to them about that. Yeah, I know, we're just such shady people. Yeah, of course we don't ask for passwords, we don't take credit cards, and... Yeah, there's nothing on our website that does that. The only thing that I can think that might be valid is that we provide links and screenshots from other websites that may not have the SSL certificate, and that warning would be fair. But this is specifically saying that our site may not be trustworthy. And in fact, in Chrome, if you go to our website and click on the little eye icon next to the URL for our site, it says your connection to this site is not fully secure. Attackers may be able to see the images you're looking at on this site and trick you by modifying them, and a little button that says learn more, and when you click on that, it gives you some more details about that. And that warning isn't quite so dire as your... You know, we may be stealing your credit cards and all that other (14/42)
stuff. And your passwords. Of course we don't use it. Larry, is there something that you want to tell me that I don't know about yet? No, no. Not that there isn't something I... It's not that I don't want to tell you, it's that there's nothing going on. Just to be clear. So was this SSL... I never asked you, was it fairly expensive? This SSL certificate? It's not in the grand scheme of things. I think it's like $40 a year or something if you buy it for multiple years up front, which I did. But they have no way of actually renewing it after three months. So even though you pay for a year, you have to go in every three months and say please reinstall it. It doesn't cost you anything else. Yeah, I'd change providers if I could, but it's just too much of a hassle at this point. It's easier to get them to fix the problem than it is to try to switch from them at this point. Well, hopefully... Anyway, so that's what I've been working with. We beat that one to death, but yeah, that's kind (15/42)
of... Guys, the site's okay. We're not stealing anything from you. Yeah. Wow. Oh dear, well let's go on to our next email. Which comes from Carlos, who wrote us about software licenses. Hi Larry and Bill, in episode 376 you mentioned WPS Office as a possible alternative office suite that may ease the transition to Linux. As the official bespectacled picky minion who actually reads EULAs and user license agreements, I wanted to point out a curiosity. The user agreement for WPS Office states that for countries other than mainland China, Linux users can only install the software on, and here's a quote, Linux OS produced by China brand enterprises such as Ubuntu or Ubuntu Kylin, Deepin, NeoKylin, NFS China, and Newstart. CPU x86 or CPU produced by China enterprises such as Lingson, and lists several others that I'm not sure I can pronounce. So if you do not have a Chinese CPU, that was the end of the quote, and Carlos continues, so if you don't have a Chinese CPU and a Chinese version of (16/42)
Ubuntu, you will be in violation of the license. Not sure if this would ever be enforced though. Note that Windows or Mac users of the software are not bound to similar restrictions. And now a hint for NVIDIA users. With the frequent kernel updates, if we use the NVIDIA proprietary drivers, we are forced to agree to their license four times for each update, at least in my open SUSE boxes. In the command line, you're forced to page down all the way to the end and then type yes every time. Although I like to read EULAs, I don't like it that much, even less the same one. I found that if I hit Q, I don't need to page down to the end. I still have to type yes, but it is somewhat satisfying that I found a workaround. Keep up the good work, Carlos. So, um, interesting. Thank you, Carlos, for reading those EULAs, and we've learned something new. Yeah, I knew they had a EULA for Deepin when I was testing it, but I remember that when I was reading through most of it was just, you know, like (17/42)
standard boilerplate. But I didn't see that, but if you read it, I'm sure it's there. As far as using the WPS, I've kind of settled on using the LibreOffice one. There's a little saying that you can make it look very modern. Some people don't like it. It's like the ribbon at the top, which works well for me. So I've kind of shied away from the WPS once I moved away from Deepin for reasons that we don't need to go into as far as, you know, security and privacy. So, yeah, that's kind of interesting. But as far as installing the NVIDIA drivers, Zorin and Ubuntu and Ubuntu Mate all use the driver manager. And all it ever says when I install the driver for my system is that this is a closed source driver that we can't improve upon because, you know, apparently they don't share all their code. And then you have to type your system password and then just install. So I have never had to type yes or agree to their licensing four times, but that might be something that is just like open SUSE. (18/42)
Yeah, that's a possibility. Yeah. All your machines are Intel video card based, right? Yes, that's right. That's right. So, yeah, you wouldn't see it anyway. Right, exactly. But I did notice when I was using open SUSE, which was, you know, more than 10 years ago now, that there was a lot more having to accept the EULAs by actually typing something in and not clicking a checkbox or a button. But like I said, that was 10 years ago. So things may have changed, but apparently not. Well, it could be that doing something a little different, I don't know, because neither one of us run. We've run open SUSE in the past, but now we're Ubuntu based fanboys. So our next email comes from Michael, who provided a link for Linux users who also use the Orca screen reader. He writes, Hi Larry and Bill. It seems that using the Chrome browser with the Orca screen reader is being worked on. I haven't tried this myself, as I don't know how to update my version of Orca. I don't have the skills to try it and (19/42)
have not been able to install Chrome and latest Ubuntu Mate, but blind users with the skills to do it will not be able to monitor Orca lists might find this of use. OK. He has how to turn on Google Chrome accessibility and he provides a link and we'll put it in the show notes. Happy Christmas to both you and Bill, Michael West, Yorkshire, UK. So, OK, so they're working on having Orca work better with Chrome? Yes, exactly. And when you click on that link, it opens an article on the GNOME website that says, Getting started with Orca and Chrome slash Chromium. And let me just read the introductory paragraph without going into all the details. It says Orca support for Chrome slash Chromium is ready, but you will need at least Orca 3.34.1. Because it contains fixes that did not make it into 3.34.0 release. Chrome or Chromium support to work with Orca is getting close, but there are still some significant bugs which need to be fixed. For that reason, you should be using at least the dev (20/42)
channel of Chrome, which you can get from and they've got a link there for the dev channel, which I'm assuming gives you the fixes in Chrome. And when I check the version of Orca that is installed on Ubuntu MATE by default, and for Michael and anyone else who's a blind user, if you open a terminal and you type Orca space dash dash version, it will print out the version. 3.34.0 is the release that's installed in Ubuntu MATE 19.10. So I'm assuming that in 20.04, the next LTS release that will be released in April next year, will have the latest version of Orca and this will become a non-issue for Ubuntu MATE users. But it looks like you'll need to either wait for that update or find a way to install the latest version of Orca maybe from the Orca website to get the advantages of it working properly with Chrome. And in the meantime, you could also use Firefox, I guess. In the meantime, while we're waiting for the 20.04, is there an easy way to upgrade Orca in Ubuntu MATE or would you (21/42)
suggest just kind of hold out to the next version? I know Martin's pretty on top of keeping everything stable in Ubuntu MATE. Do you think it would be wise to try to upgrade to this dev version or just wait or just use Firefox? Yeah, so the dev version is the version of Chrome that they're saying to get. And to get that, I think you would just go to this article on the GNOME site that gives you the link to the dev version of Chrome. And to install Orca, I don't think you'll be able to get a version ahead from the Ubuntu repositories, whether that's Ubuntu MATE or Ubuntu proper. I think you'll have to go to the place where you would normally download Orca and install it on the Orca website. And it appears that Orca is part of the GNOME project. I don't remember for sure, but it is definitely something that you can get more information on on the GNOME site. And hopefully they'll have a place there to go and download a later version of it. I think with the difficulty I'm having as a (22/42)
sighted person trying to figure out where to go to get the download link for Orca, it's probably best just to wait for the updates and in the meantime use Firefox as your browser because it looks from this article that the issue is with Chrome and not with Firefox. Yeah, when I did a search for the Orca screen reader, it comes up and it gives me the address of help.gnome.org users. Orca was then stable. And so I think I would just wait because you know it will be updated. Just go ahead and use Firefox right now. I know that's not really a great answer, but two sighted guys having trouble getting this to find out where to get it and stuff, it might be a little too much for someone who has some vision issues. Yeah, exactly. All right. So our next email comes from Rossi who asked about Huawei laptops. Hi guys, this is Rossi from Houston, Texas. I love listening to the podcast. You provide a wealth of information, but I have a doozy on my hands. I am looking to purchase the new Huawei (23/42)
Matebook Pro X 2019, but the problem is I don't know if there is any Linux distro that supports Huawei computers. I can vaguely recall seeing an article written that Linux does not support Huawei yet, but then I don't know. If the source that I saw it from was reputable, if anyone knows some valid information about this, I would greatly appreciate it. I'm looking to run Zorin OS on it if it works properly. Otherwise, I'll have to go and get the new Dell XPS. Thanks, Rossi. And Rossi and I went back and forth on email and I gave him some links to some of the reviews of this Huawei machine. And those links will be in the show notes. There are two links for articles that are reviews of this Huawei machine. And then there's a YouTube video, all of which contain information about their ability to install Linux on the Huawei. And it seems that it's pretty straightforward. And there may be a couple of the soft buttons, the function key buttons that don't work, like volume, things like that. (24/42)
Minor little issues. But other than that, if you can work around those issues, Ubuntu at least installs very easily on the machine and works like a champ. Even if I remember correctly, the fingerprint reader works, which is oftentimes the thing that doesn't work on these not designed for Linux computers. So it should work just fine. But if you do decide, Rossi, to go and get the XPS, I've had my XPS for a few years now and I love it. Yeah. I mean, I was looking at the specs for the Huawei Mate Pro X and it didn't seem like there's anything too crazy about it. It has an i7 quad core processor, Nvidia MX250 GPU, has Thunderbolt 3. So, yeah, I don't know why it wouldn't unless it's doing something kind of weird. Yeah, it should work just fine. Like you said, it doesn't have any crazy hardware in it. The only thing that's unique about it is that the camera, the webcam, instead of being at the top of the bezel of your screen, like most laptops, or at the bottom of the bezel, like the XPS, (25/42)
the early XPS laptops, they actually have it pop out of the keyboard. This is a little key you press and the camera pops up. That's cool. One more hardware thing to go wrong, in my opinion, but it apparently works quite nicely and it's not the best camera in the world, but it's unique and people will comment on it, I'm sure, if you get that. Of course, there's the whole issue of the fact that Huawei is built in China and they had some controversy over their phones and stuff, possibly spying on Americans, and if you take any of that to heart, you probably want to go with something like the XPS. But if you're not concerned about that, then the Huami machine is actually pretty nicely specced and it's nice and light and easy to carry around and seems to be pretty good. Unlike my nine pound laptop, that one's a lot lighter. Yeah, this one's just a little bit lighter. A little bit lighter. So our next email comes from Troy and he wrote to us, and we've back and forth an email about a month (26/42)
and a half ago, and Troy asks us our opinion and he wrote, Larry, I hope you and Bill are doing well. This is not necessarily a question for the show, just a professional question, and I was hoping to get your thoughts before this computer arrives for this customer. Yeah, I have to say that since this was a month and a half ago, he's already ordered the computer for the customer and spoiler alert, the customer loves it. So we've already given him our opinions. We'll talk about it a little bit here, but I thought it was important to share this information, although he says it's not necessarily for the show. He didn't say don't use it for the show. So here it is. Yeah, and he specced it out nice. I have to say it's a pretty nice computer. So he writes, we have a customer who has been using a Mac for quite a while, but because her company requires her to have Windows to run a certain specific program of theirs, and boy, don't I know that. She has been running it using Parallels. Her (27/42)
computer is really old and slow, and she absolutely hates Parallels and the way it works. She doesn't relish the idea of moving to a Windows computer and having to deal with antivirus and anti-malware, Windows 10 bugs, Windows updates, breaking stuff, etc, etc. The software company for that program also recommended a computer with 16 gigabytes of memory. She looked at a Mac with an i7 processor and at least 16 gigabytes of memory, but it was over $2,500. And she thought that was just insane. Her other concerns were figuring out how to get her pictures off her iPhone where she could do minor editing and be able to share them with people. She's been using iPhoto in Mac for this. She said her company also occasionally sends her MS Office documents that include a lot of macros. And Larry, before we go any further, you want to let people know what macros are? Yeah, so macros are just automation that in Microsoft's version of Office, you can include in things like Excel or Word that do (28/42)
things like instead of doing a lot of clicks to put in, let's say, a whole paragraph, they can give you a button or give you a series of keystrokes that allow you to put in a standard template paragraph or things like that. They can even in Excel build entire applications, graphical applications using these macros, also known as Visual Basic for Applications. Those macros in Microsoft Office in particular have been a target of malware and spyware. And oftentimes you'll see a warning come up saying, do you want to enable macros? And if you do that, if your computer is vulnerable and using Windows and things like that, you could end up with a virus. But most of those have been taken care of. And if you're running Windows, running antivirus, anti-malware protection, you're protected. So not much risk these days. So he continues and he says, so they don't always work right in LibreOffice. Since we need to order a laptop for her daughter who is just going into high school, she wanted us to (29/42)
quote her on a system as well for her own needs. Her daughter's needs are very basic. Email, web and a few Office documents. She is getting a Dell Inspiron 3583 with a quad core i5 processor, 8 gigabytes of memory, 256 solid state NVMe drive, that's an SSD, 15.6 display with Linux Mint, easy peasy. So my thought for the mother was to get her a higher end computer with Linux Mint as her primary OS and then put Windows 10 into a VirtualBox virtual machine just for running that company software program and MS Office. Everything else she can do in Linux with her Google account. She can use the Google Photos app on her phone to back up all her pictures to Google Photos in the cloud and then she can edit all these pictures with Google Photos in her browser on her laptop. So we just ordered a new Dell XPS 157590 for her with the following specs and I'm very jealous here. So she has a 16.6 gigabyte of memory, 15.6 infinity edge display, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 with a 4 gigabyte video chipset. (30/42)
This came around 1799 which she was much happier with. So the question is, do you see anything about these hardware specs to cause concerns with this kind of setup, compatibility issues, etc. Also, I've run a lot of stuff in a virtual machine but have never actually tried installing Windows 10 into one. Should it install seamlessly like Windows 7 or 8 or will I need any special configuration settings in the BIOS to make it work right? Any suggestions or recommendations? Thank you guys for all you do. Any case, Troy aka Jack Death, Home and Business Computer Services. So Larry, I suggested, which was shot down pretty quick that he just do a dual boot but he made a point that every time she needed the software she had to reboot her computer and that just wouldn't work. Yeah. And I kind of see that. The virtual machine, I've had issues installing Windows 10 into a virtual machine. It always says that it doesn't recognize you have to put serial number in. Windows 10 also has where in its (31/42)
EULA, End User License Agreement, about how much you can do with the Windows 10 in a virtual machine. And there's a bunch of stuff that you have to do. And if I'm not too badly mistaken, if he ordered this Dell, the software is actually tied to the physical machine. And so there might be some problems with using that license in a virtual box. Right, exactly. In fact, Troy sent us an email end of November. He says, just wanted to give you guys an update on what happened with the setup. Even though the laptop came with Windows 10 originally, apparently you cannot just wipe the computer, install Linux and then put Windows 10 into a virtual machine. Like you were saying, Bill, it thinks it's a totally different computer and that Windows is now not genuine. So it will not activate. They expect you to buy it again. It's completely preposterous, he writes. He said, anyway, I found a reference online that allows you to create a batch file you can run that tricks Windows into thinking it's (32/42)
already activated. Then you can run your Windows updates like normal. It's seamless. This computer is so freaking fast, you cannot believe it. When you turn it on just after the Dell logo goes away, it starts Linux Mint. It's only 3.5 seconds boot time and you can start opening and running things pretty much immediately. It's nuts. So he's pretty happy with it. The customer is happy with it. And hopefully her daughter's happy with the other Dell that they bought for her. I was thinking that's probably a nice computer for someone starting high school. Yeah, but the only thing I would have changed in the daughters, I wouldn't change anything in the mother's computer. Because as I told him, that's one bang set up to use the center. Oh, yeah. But I would have given the daughter another 8 gigabytes of RAM. I'd have put 16 in just for the fact to kind of future proof it. Now, I'm sure she can add it later on. Because a lot of things, I think 16 right now is kind of the sweet spot. The 32 (33/42)
gigabytes for the mother, I understand. Because she's running a virtual machine and you want to make sure that Windows in the virtual machine, the system has enough to provide it. The only thing that I think is kind of ludicrous is that you actually have to write a batch file to use a version of Windows 10 that you got on a machine in a virtual box. Or a virtual machine. Yeah, I agree. That seems a little funky, but it is Microsoft. Yeah. I'm sure she's happy. And if I ever need someone to spec out a computer, I'm going to have Jack do it. Man, he doesn't play. I like this. Yeah, I like it too. And they got a really great price on it. Maybe it was a Black Friday sale or something, but yeah. Speaking of, we've always known that Mac hardware is expensive, but just for a computer that's not even close to the specifications that she got, the Mac was like $2,500. He probably got two computers and got her set up with Linux Mint and Windows and got the daughter a pretty good computer for (34/42)
probably about the same money. Or less. Yeah, this is kind of crazy when you think about what you can do. Like I said, Jack, that's nice. And I've heard that the Infinity Edge display on those machines is really nice. Yeah, it is. It definitely is. Yeah, one other comment. We talk about Windows a lot and comparing it with Linux, especially in the past three-part series that we've had. But Troy was talking about the user of this computer, the Mac computer, using it for pictures, and she wanted to be able to edit photos from her iPhone. And I just wanted to comment that I was trying to do that on my company-provided MacBook Air. And I've noticed that Apple, in their Finder, which is the file browser that they use, in their Finder they provide a folder for pictures. But when you take pictures with an iPhone and it goes over iCloud to your computer, it doesn't end up in the pictures folder. It ends up in an iPhoto folder. But there's also a photos folder. So there are three different (35/42)
places your photos could go, and it took me a long time to try to figure out where... I know I picked that picture. I know it's on the computer's hard drive. But I can't find the stupid thing. And then when I actually tried to take it out because I wanted to attach that photo to something for work, you couldn't right-click... once you found it, you couldn't right-click on it and say, send it to this particular location. It wouldn't let you do that. And you couldn't right-click and say, save to desktop, or move it to a folder. I had to actually go into the Finder, into the... I think it was the iPhotos, or maybe it was the photos folder. And I had to drag it from there onto the desktop. There was no other way to get it on the desktop except click and drag. And once it was there, I could put it where I wanted to put it. Just another example of some of the aggravating inconsistency in a very popular operating system out there. You don't have that problem with Linux. No, but I have an (36/42)
iPhone for my personal use, a long story on why I got an iPhone. But when I had a problem, I wanted to import my photos. And so I hooked it up and had to install a driver that was... it says, hey, we need this. So I installed it and it imported it. And I'm like, okay, cool. So I'm looking through my photos and I was using, I believe it was Darktable. And it had more... it had videos in it too. Because what happens is, unless you turn it off in settings, it takes like a video. I don't know, I guess if anybody has an iPhone or were sent a photo, if you hold the picture, it gives a little bit of sound and like a short little video clip. And so that was kind of crazy because then you have to go through all these files that you think you only have like ten pictures. And you have all these files of video and other stuff. And I'm like, I just want to send this import of still photo into my system so I can send it to my friends or whatever. And I have to dig through until I can actually find (37/42)
it. So what the solution was, was you have to go into your phone and then you have to tell it not to take those. I guess you would call them an active photo of it. So yeah, that was kind of weird. But you know, it is what it is. Apple and Nair, they're gimmicks. But anyway, you know, nothing's perfect, including Linux. But, you know, I think that we've learned long ago that there seemed to be much more aggravating things about the other two most popular operating systems out there than there are with Linux. At least once you've learned how to use Linux and learned that it's pretty much consistent user interface, consistent way of working. And, you know, from distribution to distribution, it may be different, but within the distribution, especially distributions that have paid a lot of attention to user interface design like Ubuntu MATE or Ubuntu itself or elementary OS, those kinds of distributions. They've done a lot of work to make sure that things work the way you expect them to (38/42)
work. And they're not always bugging you to, ah, you're running out of iCloud space because we've used all the space by saving not only your one picture, but all these video clips and all that other stuff. And now we want you to buy more storage. I just got that thing saying you're just about out of iCloud storage and for another, I think it was 99 cents, you can get another 50 gigabytes of storage. I'm thinking, why do I need that? I have things being backed up to Dropbox and Google, my Google Drive. So I was like, why do I need it in three? I mean, I understand data redundancy, but that might be carrying it just a little far. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, you can turn off the iCloud sync in your Apple devices, but it's just the fact that, you know, it seems like every time I turn around, it's saying, oh, by the way, you're almost out of something. And it's all these video clips and you're like, I just took a picture. Why do I have video clips? Right, because they want you to have video (39/42)
clips. I don't know whether there's a place to say, you know, turn that off or not. Yeah, of course it's new. And of course you get it. And of course it's set to the most space consuming option so that you have to buy more storage. Oh, come on there. You act like they planned that. Yes, I'm sorry. It's conspiracy theories gone amok. Anyway, I think that was our last email for this time around, Bill. It was. Any final thoughts? No, I don't have any additional thoughts. I just want to say that nothing's perfect. And where we think that Linux is probably closer than some of the other OS is, you know, we sometimes get entertained by what you have to go through just to do simple stuff. Yes, absolutely. And the only other thing is, I wanted to say that our next episode will be after the new year and we will actually have a year in review. We seem to be doing that every year in around January or so. And we'll take a look back at 2019 and give some highlights of the things that we've observed (40/42)
and maybe some things that we've done. Good, bad, stupid, whatever. The bad or stupid falls under me. Not always, not always. But anyway, I hope that we'll have an opportunity there to take a look into the future as well and give some idea of where we think Linux is going. And I'm quite happy that 2019 was the year of the Linux desktop. Oh, you just had to say that, didn't you? Of course. How many years have you said that it was the year of Linux desktop for the past three years? You know what, I think that's the first time I've actually said it. I've actually said it, not the first time it's ever been said. But yeah, it's maybe. Anyhow, that will be our next episode. Yes, until then. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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 (41/42)
members by joining the discussion in our Going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinx.com. Please ignore the errors if you get them. Yeah, that's not our fault. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (42/42)
Going Linux episode 349, a review of Linux Mint 19. Welcome to the Going Linux Podcast. I'm your host, Barry Bushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, a review of Linux Mint. Hello, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are you today? I am doing fantastic. How about yourself? Doing well, doing well. How's your week gone so far? Just a wonderful week. I wanted to let you know that we've got an updated edition of the last book that I wrote. Of course you do. Yes, of course. Well, it's the second edition of the Using Ubuntu Mate and its Applications. It's been updated for Ubuntu Mate 18.04 LTS. And since 18.04 is an LTS, I am hoping that I won't (1/42)
have to make any additional updates or revisions for a couple of years, at least. So this edition of the book will be an LTS as well. A long-term support book. So someone has gotten the book before. The old book still covers almost everything, but this one is just kind of the updated information. So you can still use either one, but if you want the latest and greatest, you get to second edition. Right. Some of the most significant changes are the menu layouts, you know, the panel layouts that allow you to make it look like, you know, Redmond's operating system or Cupertino's operating system without, you know, saying the words Windows and Mac OS. What are these operating systems that you speak of? I don't know, but the panel layouts have changed significantly and along with them the menus. And so some of the step-by-step instructions I had in the previous version, which was based, you know, it was based on supporting 17.10. Some of those have changed. I've added a couple of new things (2/42)
in there that are new features, some better explanations or more lengthy explanations of some other things. So there's there's a bunch of new stuff in there, but both editions are still valid. Both editions are still available on Amazon. I've got the paperback version of the second edition up, but I don't have the e-book version up yet. But I'm working on that. That'll be available soon. Well, yeah. So I've been a little busy. Just a little bit. How about you? Works going really well. Just busy as usual. But the news that I want to share with you is OpenSUSE was sold for $2.5 billion with a B dollars. Yeah. OpenSUSE wasn't sold. SUSE was sold. Yes. But OpenSUSE is tied. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, SUSE was sold. But OpenSUSE, and according to the company that bought them, or from Sweden, that they're not going to really change anything. So it should be business as usual. Yeah. Yeah. For the open source, OpenSUSE version of it. Yeah. So they've been sold a lot over the past few years. So I'm (3/42)
kind of interested to see what happens as a result of this. But my understanding is this is one of those investment kind of firms, silent partner kinds of things. So maybe there won't be too many changes. We'll see. Probably not. Maybe there might be a good thing, might be more money. But I just want to know, if you sell going Linux for $2.5 billion, do I get any of it? Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You can have a portion of it. I mean, you've contributed to this show. Thanks. Yeah. I'll give you the same proportion as I'm giving you of the money we earn. Wow. In donations. Well, not the same dollar value, because that would be zero. But the same proportion. Gee, thanks. I feel so much better now. Moving right along. So 50% comes to mind. Yes, there we go. Okay. All right. So what have you been doing for the past couple of weeks, Bill? The title of this episode might be a hint, right? Well, I've been running Linux Mint for over two weeks now. Okay. I'm not going to tell you. You're (4/42)
going to have to listen to the whole episode to find out what my opinions are. All right. So that's a teaser. Okay. Now, another one piece of news that might be as old as the open source is Google goes platinum into Linux Foundation. That's $500,000 a year. That is significant. Where were they before? They were like super platinum coated gold or something? I'm not familiar with the Linux Foundation levels. Silver. Okay. But you know who is also a platinum member? Microsoft. Yeah. Yeah, I knew that. Well, they're relying on Linux for a lot of their server based stuff now. Yeah. So, yeah, I think Google finally said, wait a minute, Microsoft was platinum and silver and we use a lot of Linux. Okay, we'll be platinum here. We'll just give you some more money there. I mean, $500,000 or even a million dollars to them is like couch money. We just found this in our couch here. Take that. So anyway. Yeah, they can trim it a lot to the code base on Linux now that they're using it a lot to (5/42)
support the Microsoft systems. And mark my words, I see a Microsoft branded version of Linux in the future. I'm not going to say how far in the future, but I'm thinking they're heading that direction. Say it's not so. Anyway, speaking of Microsoft, many ran here. They're pissing me off. And I don't care if anybody loves Microsoft. I don't like them. They cost me several hours of work this past week. Well, not only did it decide to just reboot my system, why I went to go make a sandwich while I was working on a report for work that had to be in at a certain time. It did save. I will say it did save it. That's fine. Part of it. But then it sat there for like 45 minutes updating and I'm like, yes, I got to get this in. I did get it in barely. But it's like. This is crazy. And apparently it's my fault because, yes, Windows 10. Now, this does not. You can turn it off in enterprise. But the laptop they gave me for some reason had a home on it. I guess they just because. So, OK. Bad, bad (6/42)
company. Anyway. We just write reports on them so I can understand when to save a little money. Why do they need professional or enterprise? You know, because all you're doing is typing reports and how hard can that be? I mean, you know. And so. On home, you can't tell it not to auto update because Microsoft is considering is going to that subscription model. And what they what they keep you keep hearing them say is their OS as a service or software as a service. And so any time you open up update to see if there's any updates, because we're required to check at least twice a week for any security updates. And if there is one, it just goes ahead and installs it. Not a problem without your permission. At the most inopportune times. Thank you. So much. Well, installing it is not the problem. It's the fact that you have to restart the computer after you install it and wait for all the updates to be applied as it's restarting. That's the problem. And since I live out in the middle of (7/42)
nowhere, my Internet's not the fastest. So you can imagine my joy and happiness when I'm sitting there going, we're updating your system. Please do not turn it off. I'm like, son of a gun. And then have to. And now I asked, son of a gun was not the words I was using. I bet. So this whole software as service, they're pushing they push these updates out. You remember, they're very good about making things difficult. Sometimes I don't want to apply an update right away. Sometimes I want to wait and see if this updates got any problems like I can do on my Linux machine. I can say I'll take that update, this update, this update and I click the descriptions and read them. Not everybody does, but I do. OK. These are the ones I want. But the update descriptions, if you do happen to get one from Microsoft, is system improvements. That doesn't tell me anything. Right. Yeah. Well, and they don't have to because it's proprietary software. Yes. OK, so grant done. I only have to use Microsoft for (8/42)
certain things. I can get away with some of the stuff on my next machine. I've got one game I can't get to run under wine. And I got my company's software that won't run under one either. So don't believe me, I've tried. But it's so I have to keep them on my machine and unfortunately. Anyway, moving right along. Yeah. So let's go to happier topics. Yes. Happier topics. So Larry, we're going to talk about today Linux Mint 19 Terra. OK. And Terra is the code name for Linux Mint 19. Terra is the code name, which I happen to like a lot. Yeah, I think it's because they always seem to name it like Sylvia or something like that. It's always cool. So Terra, I thought it's a really great name for it. So a long time ago, I ran Linux Mint. I even donated to the project. I gave it a rest for a while. And when one of our listeners suggested a review, well, I thought, hey, it's time to reload the latest and the greatest and see what's changed. We've we had been recommending Linux Mint. And this was (9/42)
before Ubuntu MATE even come out. Right. We've been recommending Linux Mint in the past. So I wonder if it was still worthy of the recommend. And I want to see how it compared to Ubuntu MATE 1804. All right. Yeah. Yeah. So let's let's dig into it a little bit, I guess. OK. So yes, Larry, I did download the 64-bit version. Good. Good. Since you have a 64-bit machine and the 32-bit software you're trying to use didn't quite work all that well before. It's good you've used the 64-bit version. I'm proud of you, Bill. Thank you. Step one, read instructions. Yeah. 64 is bigger than 32, 64 better. OK. That's how I remember. So I want to add a little footnote here. OK. Just because people have known that my Alienware is a grumpy beast. So because of my Alienware and the ACPI, I had to edit the grub boot config. Very straightforward. And I've included a link for anybody else that's having this problem. And it's in the show notes. And it's at Ask Ubuntu. Perfect. And I heard that this is (10/42)
sometimes is useful for other Dell computers. But this one was written specifically for Alienware. And anybody says, oh, it's very hard to edit the grub menu. It's not. It's very, very straightforward. And this article walks you through it. And you can even cut and paste if you want. I didn't. I read it and typed it in. So if you're having trouble getting your Ubuntu MATE, this applies because Ubuntu MATE or Linux meant to start. It's a temporary fix to get the system to boot. You can go into the advanced boot options. And then you can just, it's just one little line, you copy and paste if you wanted to. Right. Right. Right in there. It's not real hard. And all it is is basically ACPI equals, I believe it's no. Off. It's off. Yes. Off. So and then once you get in now, that's only a temporary fix. So once you get it installed and you'll have to do it one more time. This temporary to get the system to boot, then all you have to do is follow directions in this article and you'll open up a (11/42)
couple simple terminal commands. It shows you where to put it straightforward. You'll save it, reboot and voila, no more issues. OK. So the temporary fix gets you booted and you can run things and then you make the change in the grub file itself. The grub profile into the grub boot. Yeah. So that then saves it so you don't have to enter that every time you reboot. So that's correct. So, yeah, it works really, really, really well as far as of getting it. You know, and like I said, it's not it's not super scary. I know people say it sounds like scary because you have to use a terminal, but it's really straightforward. And if you follow this, the Ask Ubuntu article, it's pretty much straightforward and easy to understand. OK, beautiful. Well, that's good. That's yes. Yes. So I was very happy to run across that article and I think one of our listeners had actually suggested Ask Ubuntu for some of this. So that thank you ever suggest that. Yeah. So anyway, they have some really good forums (12/42)
over there, Ask Ubuntu. And they do. And a lot of good answers there that apply not just to Ubuntu, but other things as well. But it's a really good source of information. And like you said, Bill, we'll include that in the show notes. And that I remember using that ACPI equals off switch a number of years ago with some older hardware. I don't remember whether it was an HP laptop or a ThinkPad laptop, but I remember having to use that switch before. I don't remember all the details, but that's that's good that you found something that works for you. All right. So with that footnote caveat inserted, let's talk about Linux Mint 19 the good. OK. Yeah. So what are your impressions here about the good, the bad and the ugly? Right. First impressions. It's pretty. That's a good start. That's good to start. But I'm not going to start there. I'm going to talk about things that you've run across when you first get this started. You're going to see the update center. It has been updated. This kind (13/42)
of the update manager now selects all updates to install. And this includes updates to the kernel or the graphic stack. And what's kind of interesting is they've tied this into something we'll talk about in just a few minutes called time shift. And it's not the very first thing you do, but it does pop up. And Mint suggests that you set up regular backups so you can easily restore from a time before you apply a date or your system gets wonky. And it's pretty much seamless. It's professional quality. I mean, if you didn't know that this was a free operating system, you would swear that you had spent one hundred dollars. And what's nice about time shift, it uses our sync and see our sync. There's other interfaces for our sync, but time shifted. The user interface is really, really polished and easy to understand. There's no cryptic, you know, so if your first time user, if you can use a Mac or a Windows machine, you're going to feel right at home because there's there's really (14/42)
everything's so simple. That's how good it is. To be clear, though, just to make sure people understand what it is we're talking about. So there's the software called the Update Manager that manages your updates, as the name would suggest. So what you're saying is that it looks when you do your first updates to see if you have time shift defined and time shift is their name for their backup software, right? Yes. So when you first start the Update Manager, it checks to see if you have backups scheduled. And if you don't, it's suggesting that you go and do that? Yes. And it brings up the software for you. Oh, nice. And that's a good thing that they're doing that. Not to get you off track here, but the Linux Mint that I remember, the Update Manager gave you the option of level one updates, level two updates, and I think it went to level five and you could deselect the... It's one to three. One to three. OK, that's what it was. Yeah. So what does it still have that? Is there something (15/42)
changed in that? The Update Manager is a lot cleaner now. You're able to select which ones you want. So it doesn't have the one, two or three anymore. The Update Manager is very, very straightforward. It's very clean. It's like they took a page out of like a Mac's interface ideas. It's very, icons are very easy to read. The fonts are, you know, they said they updated to make it easier to understand. And but anyway, so it lists all the updates and the first time. And if you click on the update, it'll tell you, hey, this is what this does. Right. And, you know, there was one for Firefox and I didn't want to install it right away. So I went ahead and uncheck that box. I installed security updates for everything else and I kind of waited. You know, that's just me, how I do my updates. I like to see what it's actually doing. So after it gets those updates, it does something very, very cool. It says, would you like us to look for a faster update mirror for you? OK, so the server that it's (16/42)
using to go get the updates. That's what it's talking about when it says mirror. OK. Yeah. So after you get the initial updates, I guess from the basic, basically the Mint main, it says, you know, would you like us to find a much faster mirror for you? And if you click, you click yes, it will go out and it tests the connections. You tell it where you are, if you're United States or Great Britain or Germany or wherever, and it finds it and says, would you like to use this mirror? And you say yes and it changes it so you get all your updates from that mirror. Yeah, which I thought was a pretty forward thinking. Yeah, absolutely. And I remember, I think the last version of Mint that I used was 17.3. And it did something similar or did exactly the same thing on the mirrors. I remember that and thinking to myself, that's nice because it'll find a mirror that's closer or a mirror that's faster. And if I remember correctly, you can go into the update or settings and and set the mirror (17/42)
manually if you want to choose a different one. Yes. So one of the first things it does is brings up the manager, checks for updates, says, let's find you a better mirror. And then it suggests, OK, let's get your backup set up. So it's just walking you through these steps and it only takes a few minutes to get these steps up. And everything from start to finish was seamless. It was there's none of this crazy, you know, you have to open this terminal or anything. I mean, it's all very nice graphical user interface. Yeah, that's good. OK, so then, you know, of course, the welcome screen pops up. And they've redesigned it and made it a little nicer look. It's basically the software boutique that's in Mate, only it's got different theming. It's the same idea. And if you go through, you know, it says editor's picks. If you click that or suggested applications, a lot of these suggested ones bring up stuff you're looking for. So you don't have to search for them. Like, for instance, you know, (18/42)
I wanted Audacity. I wanted VLC. VLC was installed by default, which is nice. Yeah. But, you know, I changed a few applications and it was all right there. So it's like click, click, click, boom, enter password and downloads it and Harry's your uncle. I mean, it was installed just that simple. Now, not beating on Mate. I had a few issues, nothing game breaking, but I didn't have here with Mint. And I think it's not Mate's fault. I think it was a broken link. And one of them was Discord. It showed that Discord was in both of them. But when I tried to install Discord on Mate, it says file couldn't be found. But then it kept saying, would you like to install Discord? So I think it was a broken link. Yeah, it sounds like it. I've installed it. And to be clear, when you say Mate, you're talking about Ubuntu Mate because Linux Mint has a Mate version as well. So, yeah, when I've installed Discord, it's installed without any trouble. So it could be they just had a broken link at the time. So (19/42)
maybe it's not Ubuntu Mate's fault. Well, maybe it is because they maintained that broken link. But there we go. Anyway, so you didn't have any problem. That's the key thing with Linux Mint. That's great. Yeah, I didn't have any problem. Now, Ubuntu Mate and Linux Mint comparing the getting applications, I would have to say they're pretty equal. There's no game break changers or breakers in that whole process, OK? So to be totally fair. Besides having that new welcome screen and what gives you some basic information and applications and helps you get started. They did something I really, really liked. They changed the icons. The better they don't look like they're from the 90s anymore, which that's always been something that's bothered me on how crappy our stock icons work. I know you change them. Yeah, I know that. But out of the box, we should have great icons that look very modern. I sent you a screenshot of just the fresh install of Mint before I did anything to it. And you even (20/42)
noticed that the icons are very Mac-like. They're kind of flatter. Yeah, they're quite nice. Yeah, if you like that kind of design. But yeah, they're very attractive. Yeah, it's good. So this is not really it's nice that they did it and had some better looking icons. But if I didn't like the icons, I could change them. If I don't like the icons on Ubuntu Mate, I can change them. That's one of the nice benefits. So, yes, they made some decisions that look nice, look really nice. But there's nothing there is something that you can't get on Ubuntu Mate or any other Linux. You can get them on Fedora, on stock Ubuntu. I mean, you can change your desktop to do anything you want. So that's it's nice, but it's not, oh, wow, look how great it is. So that being said, Linux Mint 19 is supported until April 2023. But Ubuntu Mate is only supported to April 2021. And there's a reason behind that. OK. The reason is Ubuntu Mate follows the life cycle of Ubuntu. So what when they buy in what is it like (21/42)
three or four years, they'll introduce a new LTS or another two years. Think two years to release an LTS and Ubuntu Mate will follow that release cycle. Linux Mint has been known to take the last LTS in this and it takes them a lot a little bit longer to get everything set up. So they're going to be on the older code base. They update the applications, but then they're not following the same lockstep as Ubuntu Mate. So, right. That's that it's that's I would have to say Ubuntu Mate has a I would say a better method in my book because things change so rapidly. So the next release, you know, long term support release will have a bunch of new stuff that maybe Linux Mint 19 isn't is not supporting. You know how quickly things move. So I have to give that that attaboy to Ubuntu Mate for that. OK. But neither one of these is a make or break. I just wonder why is this one supported longer? Why is Mint supported longer? Well, they're using the older code base. But Ubuntu Mate will have already (22/42)
been on the next by the time, you know, they release their next one. Ubuntu Mate will already be on the next code base. And so, you know, the way things go, I think that's probably a good thing. That's just me. Yeah. So bottom line from an end user perspective, if you want a more up to date and update date, meaning more recent versions of software packages or more recent updates to the software, the Ubuntu Mate style of regular releases over a two year period with long term support versions every couple of years and interim releases in between is probably the way to go. And if you want more stability than the interim releases give you, you just stay on the LTS's. If you want something that's even more stable than that, you can go with Linux Mint, which maintains the LTS code base for even for its interim releases. And so that adds to the stability, but provides you the ability to get some updates in between the regular LTS kind of releases. Is that a good way of putting it? Yes and no. (23/42)
I would say that Ubuntu Mate has the advantage in this. Not because Linux Mint 19 there is a bad, but here's my feelings on it. Ubuntu Mate has all these developers working on the next release now. So a lot of eyes. It's not just one small core group. There is a small core group, but there's a lot of contributors. Linux Mint 19, in my opinion, that's their weak link in the chain. It's a small group of people modifying Ubuntu base for their distribution. And I'm not saying they don't have a lot of people helping them, but Ubuntu Mate has a lot more people looking at it. And not one small core group controls it. You don't have one developer like you do that's considered the head that can make decisions. I would have to say Ubuntu Mate, the way it's looked at, maintained, and developed is a stronger position than it is at Linux Mint 19. Even though I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But if I was going to be putting this on my... I don't want to be tied to one small developer (24/42)
group. Like I don't want to be tied to one small company, Microsoft, Apple, whatever. I think more people the merrier. So I'd say Ubuntu Mate has the advantage and makes me more comfortable because it's bigger governance. They're governed by the Ubuntu councils and stuff. So that's just me. And a lot of times this won't make a big difference to anybody, but it's something that needs to be mentioned is this governance style is a lot different. Right. And yeah, it does. And there was a time in history when Ubuntu Mate was run like Linux Mint in that it was a small group of people. It was essentially Martin Winpress and a small group of developers helping him to work on Ubuntu Mate. Now that Ubuntu Mate has actually become an official flavor of Ubuntu, that's where the additional governance comes in, the additional eyes, the additional support. And quite frankly, in developing Ubuntu Mate, that small team is still involved and the team has grown a little bit, but they must comply with the (25/42)
governance provided by Ubuntu. They have to meet the requirements of any other Ubuntu flavor in order to continue to be considered an official Ubuntu flavor. So yeah, that's where that comes from. And not to take anything away from the Linux Mint team. I don't know either one of us is saying that. They're doing a phenomenal job and the flexibility that gives you not being tied to Ubuntu from a governance perspective lets you go and experiment and try new things that perhaps Ubuntu might not let you do. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying when we're doing a review, we need to bring up these type of things because some people might have some problems or might not be as comfortable. So anyway, I'm trying to be as objective as I can. This isn't going, you know, I'm well, we always whether we like it or not, we always say, you know, we try to be fair on our reviews. And Ubuntu Mate has that six month release cycle and the LTS and they have downloads for 32 bit and 64 bit and (26/42)
Power PC if you're still using architecture that uses that. And the Raspberry Pi and Ubuntu Mate has snap support out of the box. How does Mint compare in all of those? We've talked a little bit about the LTS versus interim releases, but how about the other things? Mint only has an LTS. They don't do the six months releases. So if you wanted to see what was being released, you're pretty much out of luck. I mean, you'll have a completely stable system, hopefully. But if you want to see, hey, what's going on? You know, I just want to play with the latest interim releases, what's what they're going to be putting in the new LTS coming out, you can't do it. But, you know, you got to understand Mint goes for user being very user friendly. They don't do anything with servers. It's basically desktop focused only. OK, so let's talk about what's including the system. And this should be pretty close to Ubuntu Mate, but for those geeks that kind of like to have the numbers that he uses Linux (27/42)
kernel 4.15.0. Linux Mint does support 32 bit and 64 bit. I've heard rumors that they're thinking about getting rid of the 32 bit. Yeah. And I think that's an Ubuntu decision that will affect all Ubuntu derivatives. Yeah. So Mint does not support snaps out of the box. OK. They support flat packs. Ah, OK. So that's the route they've chosen to go. So how do you if you want snaps, can you add it? Yeah, it's sudo apt install snapped or snapd and you've got it. All you do is just load the the library so you can use snaps, you can use snaps to flat packs and you can use flat packs on and snaps on Ubuntu Mate because they're both Ubuntu based. So it's just that was the route they wanted to go with. I really care. I mean, either one seems to work. I've used both. So I would say this is not a game breaker, game changer. They both support the same thing. You might have to put one little command in to get the support. OK, that's really hard. Yeah. What's it going to move on? Yeah. The one I'm (28/42)
using, you know, they do have a Mate version of this, but I chose to go with Cinnamon because I like Cinnamon. They use Cinnamon 3.8.6, which is the latest one. And they talk about speed and stuff. It looks good. Everything looks nice. So it uses GTK 3.22. And of course, you know, it had the flat packs support. OK, so there's all this information in there. So there was just the highlights of what it has for those of the ones a little geekiness. But yeah, basically I was looking at both of them and a bunch of Mate and Mint pretty much have the same kernel. Might be a slight point difference depending on where they are in the updates or whatever like that. But other than that, not much difference in the applications. But here's something I have noticed. And if this might not be fair to Mint, but I just want to just kind of wanted to bring it up, is that it feels a little slower than a bunch of Mate. Running the same size partitions, the same swap space. I mean, everything's identical (29/42)
right down to the drive, the RAM, everything. And applications installed and running. A bunch of Mate feels much, much, much faster. Linux Mint doesn't feel slow, but you see the difference when you're loading like a browser. And a bunch of Mate is pretty much instantaneous for me. For Linux Mint, there's a delay of sometimes as much as three or five seconds, which I find weird. And the only thing I can attribute that to is just the way the display is displaying the information. I don't know why there's such a speed difference. It's not unbearable. And once I think it's loaded into memory, it's very, very fast. Just so everybody knows, I made sure that I had the same version of NVIDIA drivers installed on both of them. Right. I mean, there's no difference in that. They're set the same color depth, the same resolution. So I just want to let them know that I tried to put Apple into Apple. So if I had Dropbox installed and Discord installed, I had it on Linux Mint too, because I wanted to (30/42)
see what the performance was. Sure. So let me ask this in trying to compare apples and apples. I'm wondering if it was the Cinnamon desktop that might have been slowing it down. Did you try Linux Mint with Mate and see the same slowdown? I have not. And I probably should have. But we both know that Mate is fast. But in my experience, Cinnamon has been pretty fast too. Yeah. And I don't know if it's just... I mean, it's fast. It doesn't feel as fast as Mate. It doesn't launch things quite as fast. I mean, we're talking things are set up exactly the same. Now, I don't want anybody to think that I'm harshing on Linux Mint, because I'm not. It's very, very usable. It's very... I mean, you're not going to sit there and wait forever. I mean, you might have a two or three second delay before the browser opens. Not a big deal for some people. But my concern was, I have a pretty powerful machine with a pretty beefy video card with the latest Nvidia drivers. I think should be popping pretty (31/42)
quick. That's just my feelings. None of these are game breakers because most people don't bother them. I think one of the things we've always said is Linux is fast. And if I have a pretty beefy system and you have a pretty beefy system and we're seeing these delays, what's a person that maybe is trying to repurpose an older laptop? You see where I'm going with this? But I'm trying to keep everybody in mind. And so, if you have a very beefy system, current, within a year, whatever, I would say, yeah, great. Don't worry about any of this. But if you have an older system, I would suggest either going with the Ubuntu Mate, just because the desktop's lighter. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's a good point. Just to be fair, when talking about Firefox, I've done some installation of Ubuntu Mate on some older systems recently, quite a bit, in fact. And I've noticed that, especially in the older systems, it's quite noticeable that the first time you launch Firefox after installing the new operating (32/42)
system, that it takes a lot longer to load than subsequent times. And it does seem to be more sluggish on starting up Firefox than it does something like Chrome. So yeah, it's probably a good application to test speed of launching against, because the differences are noticeable, more noticeable with Firefox than maybe other applications. I actually did. I actually installed Chrome, because I was like, why is it so slow? So I installed Chrome, I installed Opera, I even installed just a Chromium version. And they all are within milliseconds of each other. I was just surprised because of... Now, this does not make it unusual. I'm just saying, you know, sometimes I have to go, why is this thing not up already? It's just a browser. I guess the point is, it's noticeable. Yes, it's noticeable to me. It's not intolerable. It's just noticeable. Okay. Yeah. And just to finish, because I know our listeners will wonder, I was looking at memory usage, and I wanted to bring this point up when I was (33/42)
talking about this. The memory usage for Linux Mint running just average, having an average browser with two or three tabs, you know, Aldasi running, I've got Update Manager because I never closed it on running, and stuff like that. Linux Mint runs for about 2.3 to 2.8 gigabytes of memory usage average. Mm-hmm. Okay. I also went back and looked at my notes, and this is pretty substantial in my book. I think, you know, when I looked at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I (34/42)
was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and just my observations, and these are not scientific, that the memory usage seems to be a little higher on the Linux Mint, and I just, under the cinnamon, I don't know what it is under a mate, I should probably check that out, and I can always just post in the forums and let you know what I found, but just wanted to kind of let you know about that, because I want everybody to have as much information as I can, okay? Yeah, yeah, good, yeah, that would be helpful to do a quick comparison and post it onto the Google Plus forums, and yeah, so, final verdict, what do you think? Both are excellent (35/42)
distributions, but Larry, they've really stepped up their game, and so, you know, I told you I would tell you my first impressions, and so here it is. It was stunning to look at, and it worked well. I think this is a real winner. Three worked icons are nice. The backgrounds they include are some of the best I've seen. I'm also impressed with the fit and finish of the Linux Mint, and there were zero deal breakers. So, my final verdict, based on five stars and drum roll please, is 4.8, and it's very solid and well polished. Now, that being said, you might be saying, well, which one do you want to go with? And this is going to surprise you. I only unloaded this to review it, and I've run it for two weeks, gave it a fair shot, but I prefer, for certain things, Ubuntu Mate. So, would I recommend Linux Mint to people? Absolutely. Would I recommend Ubuntu Mate? Absolutely. You can't go wrong with either one of them, and you kind of have to pick which one you like better. But I look at a few (36/42)
different things, just about how it's managed, the philosophy behind it, the developers, how often it's released, how they treat developers, etc. And in my opinion, Ubuntu Mate is better for me, but might not be better for everybody. But that being said, could I recommend Linux Mint with a clear conscience and expect someone to have a good experience, or actually I'll say an excellent experience? Yes, I would. Good. Good. Well, yeah, I'll have to give it another try and see how it looks. I'm pretty invested into Ubuntu Mate at this point. Yeah, but yeah, I might give it a try on a second machine and see how it goes, our virtual machine. Let me ask you a question. Now that you've heard my praises and my concerns and my information, what would you rate, without looking at it, if I gave you all this information, would you consider using this? I would. I would consider using it. I think your review gives a very positive feeling of Linux Mint. I have taken a look at their release notes for (37/42)
Linux Mint Cinnamon and gone through some of the updates that they have. And having looked at the screenshots that you've provided, as well as the ones that are on the website, I think this is, between Ubuntu Mate and Linux Mint, current versions, it's very tough to recommend one over the other. I think if it's someone who has an older computer, I'm still going to recommend Ubuntu Mate because of the speed difference that you mentioned, and the older the computer, the more significant the performance will be. Yeah, so, but I think that, like you said, with a clear conscience, could I recommend Linux Mint 19? Absolutely. I think so. And I'll give it a try and see where we go from here. Okay, so we haven't done one of these software picks in a while, and I just wanted to give one, and it's available in repositories. It's Clam Antivirus, but to make this easy to use, you want to also install Clam TK. And that basically is a front end for Clam Antivirus, because Clam Antivirus usually is (38/42)
just a command line, but the Clam TK is a nice, very friendly user graphical interface, and it makes it super easy to use. So that's my software recommendation. Okay, well, and I don't have a software recommendation, but bonus tip. We know that Linux is more secure, and that's one of the things we like about it, of course. But remember, you have to do your part to be very careful about installing programs from the web, and we've talked about this over and over again on the podcast. The safest way to get your software is from the official repositories, whether that's the Mint repositories for Linux Mint or the Ubuntu and Ubuntu MATE repositories for Ubuntu MATE. Stick with the repositories. Be careful and be selective about getting software from third parties. Even the Snap applications and the Flatpak applications, they can be considered third party because they're not given the same scrutiny as the packages that are in the repositories. Now, yes, okay, the Flatpaks and the Snap (39/42)
packages are oftentimes a little more up to date, and that's really the purpose of providing those, especially with the focus on long term support releases. But be careful. Be careful with them as well. So another FYI, be selective on your browser extensions because they can do some nasty things as well. They are third party applications that run in your browser. Let me say that again. They are third party applications that run in your browser as extensions, and they are programs, and they can do nasty things, like I said, and they can steal your personal data, compromise your system. So whether you're using ClamAV or whether you're not using any sort of antivirus on Linux, just be careful. That's really the best practice overall. So there you go. Yeah, that's very good. I mean, you could have the most secure Linux system, but if you have that nasty little thing running as a browser extension to find the best coupon deal, and it's, by the way, stealing all your browser history and (40/42)
stuff, there's not much you can, you know? Yeah, exactly. And those browser extensions are cross platform, so they'll attack equally anybody, whether you're running Linux, Mac, Windows or something else. So just be aware of what you put in there, and I think you'll be fine. Yep. Okay, I think that is enough to wrap us up here, Bill. What do you think? I think so. I think they've heard enough of me droning on for a while. So what's our next episode? You're a Linux Mint fanboy now. Okay, our next episode is... Actually, no. No? Okay, you're going to stick with Ubuntu, mate. I told you, as soon as this is over, I'm going to go back, but I wanted to run it for over two weeks to give it a fair shot. So I would say I like it. I wouldn't say I'm a fanboy. Okay, I hear Bear waiting for us to wrap this up. So our next episode will be listener feedback. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinux.com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and subscribe. We are the (41/42)
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 Linux Podcast Google Plus community. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. (42/42)
Going Linux episode 315, 10th year anniversary episode. 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 find this and all episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, 10 years in review. This could be a very long episode. Ten years? Yes, ten years. Our first episode was January 20th, 2007. You've been doing this ten years. Yes, sir. Ten years. So that's approximately... Well, I can cheat. I can look right here. It's 315 episodes. Mm-hmm. Yes, that's right. Maybe 16. Are you counting the video tutorials you've done? No. No, those are... So it's actually more? Yes, yes, you could say that. So let's see. You've been to scale, right? Yes. You've been (1/42)
on Computer America. How long were you doing that? Oh, several years. Longer than I thought I had. You know, when I looked at all the details, I didn't think I had been on that show for quite as long as I had. Give me a second. I can look it up. Let's see. I was there from 2009... No, 2008 through 2014. Wow. You did a lot of those. Yes, you did. Because that was... Every week. Well, yeah, it was every week, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. Except for, you know, at Christmas time, the end of the year stuff they would do. Best of episodes, you know, repeats for a week or two. I have to tell you, in all fairness, I never listened. Well, I didn't say never. I've rarely listened to the Computer America episode episodes. I am so offended. I found that other guy, he was sometimes annoying. Well, you know, you're not the only person who didn't listen to the Computer America episodes. Let's just put it that way. Oh, okay. Moving right along, you know, 2016, I like to call it the year that changed it all. (2/42)
Oh, really? Okay. Why is that? Well, I moved to California. Yeah. That's from the East Coast. Yeah, that's a huge change for you. That's for sure. That was a pretty big change. I mean, had seen things going on. It's been a wild year. Well, we're recording this now. It just is 2017, so I'm hoping that this won't be a lot less eventful. Let's put it that way. Right, right. Like no more moving all the way across the country. Maybe a state or two away, but not all the way across the country. Yeah, yeah. Thinking about moving just a couple states over, but it's going to stay right in this general vicinity, so that's always a good thing. I am not Larry. Larry's a California guy. He's never leaving. Something that I can't understand and I hope that you can answer, Ubuntu 16.04 has included support for ZFS. Yeah, you know what? I haven't really followed that at all. I mean, I've heard about it. I listened to the Linux action show, the Jupiter broadcasting guys talking about this, but I'm not (3/42)
really interested in it, so I don't really follow it. Do you have any details on it? I mean, is it significant? I've played with it. Well, I think ZFS is an awesome file system. It's got all those features. You can back up. You can make images. I mean, it's wild. It's a real high performance file system. I was always an impression that its license, which I believe is under the BSD, was not compatible with the... GPL? GPL. I haven't had a lot of coffee yet, so you have to help me out until that caffeine gets in my brain. Okay. No problem. I can do that. I don't know how they pulled that off, but I'm glad to see it in there. I mean, I really didn't see why it couldn't be included. Everybody told me that there was no way that the licenses could work because the BSD license is so much more liberal in a lot of aspects than the GPL. And now it also depends on which GPL a bunch is using. I think they're still using the... what is it? The original GPL? They're using 2 now. Yeah, I think the (4/42)
Linux license is GPL version 2. The current version of the GPL is version 3, which has even more restrictions on it than the original GPL version 2. I always found that interesting, you know, the GPL version 3 having all these restrictions. And I'm thinking, well, from a freedom standpoint, why? You see how I want. Yeah. Well, I have described it as a GPL version 3 protects your freedoms unless you want freedom of choice. Ah. You see, so and freedom of choice is not one of the four primary freedoms that the Free Software Foundation supports. That's what's his name's Stallman? Richard Stallman. Yes, his foundation. He's always... I'll say this. He always seemed to be like the mad cat professor to me. Yeah, he's a character, that's for sure. But I'm just saying people can still license their open source projects into version 2, can't they? GPL version 2? Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, both. You can use either license at this point and you can select from whatever license you want as long as it (5/42)
serves the purposes that you have for the software that you're developing. It's just so the version 3, it has some some restrictions as to what you can do, how you can do it. And yeah, it's just generally more restrictive. And we'll have to put a link in our show notes, I guess, to the GPL so that people can make their own informed judgment and decision about it. And I'm sure that there will be those who disagree with me out of principle. But the fact is that the GPL version 3 is a restrictive license as compared with some of the other open source licenses like the BSD license. Much more permissive. Which is my favorite license. But just out of curiosity, what's yours? Oh, my favorite one? Well, since I'm not writing software, my licenses are more in the publishing area. And I like Creative Commons. And the Creative Commons licenses are for things that are published works like podcasts and like blog posts and things like that. And there are various versions of that that allow you (6/42)
control over how permissive you want to be with your particular license, including the equivalent of a BSD or an MIT type license that or an Apache type license that is extremely permissive and lets you do anything you want with it. Anything you want with the published work. Or you can become more restrictive and require things like if you use this work, there's attribution and so on. So, yeah, I guess Creative Commons would be, from a licensing perspective, something that I know a little bit about and something that would be considered my favorite if there is a favorite. Wow. Okay. How about you? I don't really do a lot of publishing, but if I was going to do it, I would do it under Creative Commons. Sure. I actually saw, I was on YouTube and just for giggles, I typed going Linux and someone had taken our audio. Yeah. And just posted back up, but they did attribute it with the Creative Commons license in the description. Yeah. And that's completely permissible. Yeah. I'm like, hey, (7/42)
that's cool. Yeah. As far as licenses, like I said, there's no, well, there is a right and wrong, but in open source, you kind of got more of a pick. Yeah. Because there's some of these licenses, some of this proprietary software, Windows, that is really, if you really start reading through it, it's really restrictive. Yes. Even compared to the GPL version three, it makes that look like it's a free breakfast. But one last thing before we move on from the licenses, was the version three of that license, was that whole Tivo controversy some of the reason that it was changed? Right. That's exactly why it was changed, is to incorporate the restrictions to the license so that companies with hardware couldn't prevent you from reverse engineering. Yeah. Reverse engineering and bypassing any restrictions that they have on use. Essentially, if you use GPL licensed software in a device like Tivo and it's GPL version three, you can't use it in a device like Tivo because that would be against the (8/42)
license. Whereas version two, you could use that software in that particular environment. That's my understanding. And you know, I may have some of those details a little bit wrong, but I'm not an expert in those licenses. Well, I do know Linus has said that he is not going to use version three for the kernel. It's going to be version two. Yeah. And that's good. He's a lot smarter than me. So I'm going to say if I got to use GPL, I'm going to use version two. But anyway, no, not meaning to be political there, but it was just kind of interesting because of that ZFS brought all that. Right. And one last word on the version three, the provision in that license that makes it something that I really don't care for is the fact that if you use GPL version three license software within anything that you do, it requires that you license your software that you wrote using GPL three. What? Yeah, that's what I mean by it protects every freedom except your freedom of choice. That seems kind of (9/42)
counterintuitive. You want people to use links how they want to use it, but oh, by the way, you can't do it unless you do it how you want. We want you to do it. You can have as much freedom as you want as long as you do, the freedom is how we agree with it. That's exactly the interpretation that I read into that as well. We're going to have to do an updated episode on all the licenses and explain a little more in depth. Yeah, that could get very technical and very geeky very quickly. So we'll have to be careful as to how we describe things. Okay, so... Maybe we should get an expert on the show to discuss it. Yeah, you go ahead and work on it. Wait a minute. That's my job. Nevermind. Let's see if we can get Richard to talk. No, let's not. No, no, no. He would not like us. Yeah, I heard his interview on the Linux action show and I was squirming in my chair for those guys. Yeah, I actually listened to that. He's militant, I'll put it that way. Anyway, so 10 years of podcasts, episodes, 10 (10/42)
years of articles on the website, 10 years of screencasts, and 10 years of co-hosts who you've just worn out. Apparently so, yeah. Serge was my first co-host, as you remember, and he was a co-host for under a year. He wasn't listening here. I know. So he was the co-host, or we were co-hosts of each other. We both started the show in the early episodes. And Serge was a Mac and Unix user, longtime Unix user, very experienced in Linux. And a university professor who moved out of state, got a promotion, moved out of state. And before he left the Going Linux podcast, he had started up his own, which since has long gone, no longer is around. It was the Linux install podcast. He turned over the reins of that to someone else when he stopped hosting that. And that person didn't keep it up. So that podcast is long gone, as I said, although you can probably still find the episodes somewhere out there. Yeah. So that's Serge. And then, then came Tom. Yeah. So we had, so you had Tom for just under (11/42)
six years. Yeah. Tom was located in Wisconsin, US of A, and he was co-host from August 2007 until April 2013. Wow. Yeah. And he was a Going Linux podcast, he was a Going Linux podcast listener who wanted to contribute to the podcast. So Tom started as a complete Linux newbie who developed some pretty mad Linux skills, if I remember correctly. Yes, he did. Yes, absolutely. A running joke at Tom's expense, which we still use occasionally, come from a listener and podcaster called Nightwise who described Tom as removing the bolts from a jet engine in mid-flight. Yep. And he did. Yes, he did. Yeah. I remember one time we were recording and Tom was having issues and we're like, and Tom was an Ubuntu user. So he had upgraded his Ubuntu machine from the very, very early stages for like eight or nine. Upgrades. Upgrades in place. And that's after they changed the interface and they added all this stuff. He just kept upgrading. He never did a clean install. And the thing was just finally (12/42)
saying, I can't do that anymore. It's broken. So we were both kind of laughing at that saying, well, now it just goes to prove you can upgrade. But after eight, ten in place upgrades, you might need to clean out the fluff and crud. Yes, yes, indeed. But he was always up for a challenge. He was. And he finally had to step back because of some health issues and stuff. So, you know, we missed Tom. We still get occasionally we still have people ask about Tom. And as far as we know, I haven't talked to him in about a year, maybe a year and a half now with everything going on this year. But I think he's still doing okay. He's just kind of enjoying his retirement. Right. Anyway. Okay. And then six years of you, Bill. I'm sorry. So you joined us in December of 2011 and you started off filling in for Tom and we gave you the moniker of chief executive minion, which was kind of cool. We figured we had all kinds of minions. And so we made you the chief executive minion. And then in April of 2013, (13/42)
you became the full time co-host. So we had three co-hosts for a while and you brought at that time the perspective of a distro hopper and Linux gamer to our discussions. Would you say you're still a distro hopper and a Linux gamer? I don't do as much gaming as I used to and I don't. And I've pretty much settled on Ubuntu. I still tinker with Slackware. Yeah. I have a love hate with that distro. And but yeah, pretty much I'm I now have gotten to where I just, you know, like things to just work. And but every once in a while I'll get a wild hair and decide it's time to blow something away and try something different. But yeah, I still run a Slackware machine. It's when I when I can get it to run. I mean, I do. I do like Slackware just because it's a challenge. But my main go to is Ubuntu. And over time I've just kind of settled down a little bit. Occasionally I will try to get things running in Linux and it's a little bit easier. But I haven't done a lot of it lately. But I think it's (14/42)
just not because I don't have time. It's just I need to get work done with my machine. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of gets to be the thing that happens as maturity of use of an operating system occurs. You end up needing to get some work done with it and you settle into whatever is most comfortable. And the experimentation is kind of more of a hobby than it is something that you do on a regular basis. At least I that's been my experience as well. And I just want to point out it's time for my yearly pay increase. You know, I think it's been under a year since you asked for a raise. But we'll grant it anyway. We'll give you the same percentage increase as we did last time. One hundred percent of nothing is still nothing. Yes. It works for me. But, you know, I have to ask at least once a year for a raise. At least. At least. And I'm pretty generous. Yeah, you're awful generous. In terms of percentage increases. Yeah. Now, we've had 10 years of Larry Bushey. Mm hmm. Good or bad. That's not a (15/42)
question. Good or bad. Take it however you want. I would say it's been pretty good. You're the host and originator of the Going Linux podcast. Larry, you've been using Linux full time since 2006. Yep. You also co-hosted a Windows Focus podcast from 2005 to 2007. Right. Larry, according to your bio, you have 20 years of experience as a corporate trainer and public speaker. 20 years? Mm hmm. You haven't run out of things to say yet? Nope. Still talking. And you're currently employed providing cloud technology as a consultant for large corporations. Wow. Yes, sir. Yep. Okay. From 2008 through 2014, you were the monthly Linux correspondent on Craig Crossman's Computer America radio show. Mm hmm. So. Yeah. Did they did they finally decide that they wanted to go in a different direction for Linux? No, I decided that I didn't really have the time to put in every week to come up with, you know, topics for supporting the show. And, yeah, so they they've continued with Linux segments. The host (16/42)
or the Linux correspondent that I had replaced was a gentleman by the name of Marcel Gagné. And my understanding is he's now their host again for the Linux segments. And he has once again taken up the mantle that I took up to support the Computer America radio show. So life goes on. So in your 10 years of promoting Linux, do you have any things that you're particularly proud of? Yeah, I think one of the things that I am particularly proud of in promoting Linux and being an advocate for Linux is that we've grown the podcast to the point where we have quite a few listeners. And the listeners kind of rotate in and out. We've got some longtime listeners that have been listening from the from the first episode. And some have started part way through and gone back and listened to all the old episodes and made their way forward. Quite a few folks have done that. And some folks stop listening to the show because they've either gone beyond the need for an introduction to Linux and the kind of (17/42)
topics that we cover and are listening to other shows that are a little more. Well, cover a little more depth into the technical aspects of Linux and that sort of thing. And we're always gaining some new listeners. So I'm very proud of that. I'm also proud of the fact that one of our articles was quoted in InfoWorld. And that was the one on why a computer preloaded with Linux is the right way to go for many people. And they were, you know, they were writing articles on that kind of thing and our article supported their argument. So they quoted it. And I think that was pretty good as well. I'm also proud of the fact that we've had a couple of very long term co-hosts, you and Tom, both for about the same amount of time. Ten years is a long time to run a podcast, but six years or so is a significant amount of time, an award winning amount of time to be a co-host on a show like this. And congratulations to you and to Tom for sticking it out with me for so long as well. Well, let's put it (18/42)
this way. It has not been without its controversies. That's true. That's true. Boy, those have been fun. But we won't go back. But yeah, I remember we've had a few. So, you know, we're kind of doing that combined episode here. We're kind of celebrating our 10 year anniversary and seeing what was accomplished in 10 years. But, you know, we should probably move a little bit more current because I have a hard time remembering what I ate for breakfast. So, let's go with what happened in 2016. Yeah, okay, let's do that. Because it's been an interesting year. It has. And we're, you know, we're not going to cover everything that happened in 2016. Just some highlights. Just some highlights. And we're going to focus on the Linux events as opposed to political events or other things that may have happened in the world in 2016. Yeah, so the first one was Fedora was the first to ship with Wayland. And that's that system that's designed to replace X, the display system that's been used in Linux for (19/42)
the past 25 years. Forever it seems. Yeah, exactly. And that has been a bit controversial as well. Really? It's been a little bit difficult times getting it completed, but 2016 was the year when that happened. So, which distribution has Wayland shipping in production? Well, I know Fedora does. And I'm not sure, but I think Ubuntu might have it too. I think it's available. I'm not sure that it's shipping by default yet. I think you can get it. But, you know, I kind of understand what most people say is like, you know, now X does have its limitations. I think Wayland was part of the effort to bring it into a little more updated technology. I don't know a whole lot about it except that from what I heard, you can do a lot more with Wayland. And I don't know what all the technical details. I mean, I guess I should have looked at it a little closely. But, you know, when I've played with some of the latest Vedoras, I really didn't notice that much of a difference. But that's just me. Yeah, (20/42)
it's a difference in the protocol they use for the display. And there's a lot of technical details behind that. We'll include some links in the show notes to help you dive into that if you're interesting. But one of the most significant things is that X, the default server in Linux for 25 years or however long it was, was designed to run over a network. And as a result, wasn't necessarily designed for a lot of graphical support. Although you can do things like compositing and so on with X. One of the things, as I understand it, that Wayland is trying to do is to provide better support and more capabilities around graphical displays. Which will help out those folks who want to use gaming on Linux and want to better utilize the graphical display and the graphical capabilities of the Linux operating system. There's some security issues that Wayland is meant to address as well. And of course the architecture itself is different. So there are definitely some technical differences between (21/42)
the two. Wayland is meant to be an improvement. As with any change, I'm sure there are some things that you're going to lose as a result of moving from X to Wayland. I don't know any of the details around any of that. As I said, it's something that if you're interested in that, we'll have links so that you can dig into that in depth. It's not something that I'm really keenly interested in, so I am not an expert in it. And as you observed, Bill, from the average computer user perspective, the difference as of right now at least is not really noticeable. So unless you're challenging your computer in the ways that Wayland is supposed to improve it, you probably won't notice any difference at all. I would say that the X system is good. I mean, I've played Quake 2 and it looks really great. So I just want it to work. You know, we've had a few people try to develop a non-Linux based system and didn't go so well. Yeah, what you're talking about there is operating systems like Firefox OS, (22/42)
which I guess you could argue that maybe it had some elements of Linux in there, but they wanted to develop their own operating system. And in 2016, they stopped. And that's kind of unfortunate in some ways. I mean, who needs another operating system, right? But they said that about Windows when it first came around. And look where it is today. But Firefox OS, that's from the Mozilla Foundation, the same folks that do Firefox, the browser and the operating system. They started to develop and it was an operating system that was for not just desktops, but specifically for phones as well. At least that was the intent. And in 2016, they announced they would be the operating system that would be in the Panasonic Ultra High Definition TVs as the embedded operating system. But later that same year in about September, they announced that they had ceased developing Firefox OS and all its related code was going to be removed from the Mozilla site. Well, I just don't know if it ever really got (23/42)
traction support from users that Linux has. I mean, I didn't read their licensing. I can't remember how they were going to license it, but I don't know. It just seemed to me that there was a little bit of excitement around it and then just quickly died. And it was based on the Linux kernel, so technically it was a Linux distribution if you wanted to consider it that way. But you're right, it never got the traction that it needed to continue on. And I think they decided that they needed to focus on those areas where they were getting some success and abandon the effort on Firefox OS. Yeah. Well, you know, another one, another project I'm kind of sad to see go is Mythbuntu. They shut down. Yeah, they did. And I was a little surprised to see that. They were really the first TV operating system, if you want to describe it that way. Myth TV is where it came from. And Mythbuntu, the distribution, took off from there and became very popular, I thought, at least, at least within those people (24/42)
that wanted to run TV on their Linux system. It was popular, but unfortunately, what the developers said is when they first started, they had like 20 developers and toward the end they had two. And they said, we just can't maintain it anymore. Now, all that being said, we want to thank them for everything they did, but you can also still get a lot of the packages they used in the repos. So, I mean, you can still get the functionality, but Mythbuntu kind of put everything in one distro. So you have to do a little bit more now, but I'm kind of sorry. That's why it's so important to be involved in some of these projects, especially if you use it. Exactly. And I think for those people wanting to watch movies and cut the cable company cord, CODI seems to be the system that many people are using. So I want to describe it as popular these days. And they've got a lot of capability built in and it's in the Ubuntu repositories as well. And Ubuntu Mate makes it very easy to install CODI if you (25/42)
want to use it. And it's available, certainly, as a Debian package for anybody with a Debian based distribution. Now, I was just going to say the world has turned upside down. I heard about it, but I'm sitting there going, what? Yeah. Some people say that hot places have frozen over as a result of Microsoft joining the Linux Foundation. Yes, indeed. Microsoft loves Linux, or at least that's what they proclaim. And a lot of strange things, or you might consider them strange because Linux has not always been all that popular in Microsoft circles. No, I think they called it a cancer. Yes, yes, exactly. So Microsoft has gotten a new CEO since those days, Satya Nadella. And the whole company has taken a little bit of a different turn in many different aspects of its business, especially going to a more license based as opposed to selling software in packages and delivering CDs to folks. And as a result of that, or in combination with that, or in parallel with that, their attitude towards (26/42)
Linux has changed as well. And they have adopted open source and created some open source projects. They contribute back to the Linux kernel as well, particularly in those areas, as you would expect, where it supports Microsoft's products in virtualization and networking and those kinds of things. It's not true. It's not true. Yes, it's true. They're contributing back. And as a result, they've joined the Linux Foundation. And, you know, they've always had folks operating from within Microsoft that have been supporting open source and open source projects, including Linux. And they've just made that an official part of what they do now. And they've even put a Linux subsystem inside of the Windows operating system. So you can run the Ubuntu command line from within the latest Windows operating system. It's supported and provided by Microsoft in combination with Canonical. Is the sky still blue? I mean, come on, really? I don't know. Things certainly have changed in this world. So we have (27/42)
always been a little bit, I wouldn't say we bash Windows, but we've always been kind of critical of them. And when you said they moved more toward a licensed type of business, they're trying to get into that cloud computing part more and more and services. That's their big thing. They want to sell you services. And one of the things that I still do not like, I do have installed on my machine because I have programs for work and stuff. I have to use the company mandates it. But Windows 10 is not a very privacy friendly operating system. It sends quite a bit of data back, even if you shut down a lot of stuff. I mean, there's news stories. You can just do a search and all the major computer magazines have had an article about all the stuff that the system still sends back. They do say it's randomized and anonymous and stuff, but I tend to be a conspiracy theorist. I said, well, it can't be too anonymous because you need information about users habits and stuff like that to make services (28/42)
work. So I'm not real comfortable. I use Linux probably about 75% of the time when I'm not killing zombies or something like that or using it for work. But I know there's a big controversy and this is one of the things I do love about Linux. I control when I push an update through and a lot of times I'll wait for a little bit when I issue updates just to make sure there's no problems. But in Windows 10, you can only postpone it so many times and then it forces you. You have no choice. So I don't like not having control and it's just me. I mean, it's my machine. I should be able to do with it what I want. But I just find it incredibly interesting that Microsoft is trying to be more friendly. But if you've been following any type of news, you'll see the stories of people getting upgraded because they changed the buttons and stuff like that. They thought they dismissed it and they left their computer and come back an hour later and it had been upgraded. It's just I still don't trust them, (29/42)
but that's just me. I like open source. I like having control. I like being able to look at the code. I think you're giving them too much credit coming back an hour later and the upgrade has been completed. I don't think they can do that in an hour. Okay. But anyway. I get the point. Yes, absolutely. Like I said, I'm not bashing them. I'm just saying I find this kind of a conflict in my mind. Okay, yeah. We support open source. We're going to get back, which is great. You want to get back to open source? That's wonderful. But some of your business practices are pretty crappy in my book, but that's just me. Don't mean to start a firestorm, but it's just I find that really weird that they did finally become much more friendly. Because like I said before, I believe it was Steve Ballmer who said Linux is a cancer. Yeah, I think you're right that he was the one who said that. And because he's no longer there, things are changing. Things have changed. Things will continue to change. And (30/42)
although they are tending towards the use of open software, open source software a lot more than they have in the past, they're still not an open source company truly in everything that they do. And their main objective is to make money, make a profit. And it's difficult to make money on software that you give away. Although, you know, folks have said that they're giving away their Windows operating system for free now. Arguments to be made that HowFree is something when you're required to upgrade and you're required to pay for, you know, new hardware because of that upgrade, because the old version won't support the hardware that you have. Or just a vast amount of data that's sent. Yeah, that whole privacy thing. So, bottom line, though, is that I think they're becoming much more accepting of open source as a concept and they're definitely getting more and more involved in it. Are we going to see a Microsoft distribution of Linux in the future? I wouldn't put it past them. If you (31/42)
can't beat them, join them, I guess. Yeah, exactly. And some have even rumored that the Windows operating system will be based on Linux sometime in the future. I don't know whether that will happen or not, but we'll see. Yeah, when pigs fly. There you go. So, we have two milestones. And the first one is KDE. It turned what? 20. 20 years, yes. KDE for the uninitiated is one of the desktop environments that you can get for Linux. It used to be that it would run on Windows as well. I don't know whether it still does or not, but certainly they are supporting it for Linux and BSD and other Unix-based operating systems. And it's been around for 20 years as of 2016, so they're working on their 21st year. Now Linux turned 25. Yes. Yes. 1991. Linux has come a long way since the beginning. Oh, that's for sure. And, you know, you can read all the history of Linux and how it got started with Linus Torvalds as a kind of a small project. And, you know, quite frankly, if it weren't for partners like (32/42)
Richard Stallman, Linux probably wouldn't be where it is today. Richard was working on a similar sort of project. Linus had the kernel and Richard had the desktop environment or the user interface or whatever you want to call it, the user land portion of it. And, you know, it's the combination of the GNU tools with the Linux kernel has evolved into what we have today as Linux or some would argue more accurately referred to as GNU Linux. And 25 years it's been around. Well, OK, I'll give credit that he helped, but I don't think he's as relevant as he used to be. I would say if anybody deserves credit would be Fedora or Red Hat. Red Hat, OpenSUSE, even Ubuntu. And let's not forget Debian. Those guys really do a lot to promote Linux. Red Hat being one of the better known ones in the Debian project, of course. So I would have to say it was kind of like a marriage of opportunity more than anything. Yeah, I would agree that after its initial launch, Linux really took on a life of its own in (33/42)
the form of the various distributions, some of which are still around, like Ubuntu and Red Hat and so on, and others of which have disappeared like Mandrake and others. But in that intervening time, the real development has been on the part of the developers and Linus Torvalds has become the chief maintainer of the Linux kernel, as he should. You know, it could be argued that that's the right place for him. But the operating system, through its users and its developers, who are also its users, has taken on a life of its own and has developed in many, many ways and continues to do so. And part of the success has been because of the open source model. Well, I think his title is what? Belivement Dictator for Life or something like that. But one that we didn't mention, and they do a lot of good work, is the Linux Foundation. They seem to be on top of things. I like Linus just because he just tells you what he thinks. He has no filter and I just enjoy that. He's a perfectionist, but he's (34/42)
not the only one. He has a bunch of developers that help him. But it's nice to be able to see someone who has really kind of kept the focus laser sharp. So good on him. You know, I was thinking back to some of the Linux distros I've used and I would say one of my favorites, even though I wish I could still find, I still have a CD of it somewhere. I need to put it in virtual machine just to play with it again, was the one that I always liked. It was called Fedora Werewolf. I think it was version 7. Oh, wow. It was pretty good for back then. But when you can compare three or four years ago to what we have today, you can see how much easier it is to get things running. It is important, Linus is, but I think we need to also mention all the developers who develop all these packages for the games, the office, the utilities. Without applications, Linux wouldn't be where it is today. Oh, that's for sure. So, I mean, I would say, you know, if anything, Linux has gotten easy to use, easy to (35/42)
install. They have plenty of choices. Some of the ones I've looked at that I still have a soft spot for is Sabion. Sabion is a cool one. Of course, that one's, they throw everything off. That one's based on Gentoo. And I could never really understand Gentoo too much. It kind of made my head hurt. I mean, Slack makes my head hurt. But what's your favorite? Do you have one that you just kind of remember saying, hey, this is kind of nice. I enjoy it. Well, I've had several favorites over the last 10 years or so. And the one that I first tried to get started with was Mandrake, but I quickly found that it was discontinued by the time that I had started to want to begin to install software. I used that, by the way. Yeah, and I tried, but there was no support for it by the time I got to that point. So I, my first ones I played around with were Knopix, the live CD. The first live CD was Knopix. So I played around with that a little bit. It's still out there? Yep, you can still get versions of (36/42)
it and continue to use it. And then when I decided that I was going to install something on a computer, because with Knopix you ran it from the live CD. That's the way you were supposed to do it. I chose OpenSUSE. So that was my first one that I used on a regular basis. And I used it for quite a while. And I used KDE on OpenSUSE as the main desktop environment. But when Ubuntu came around, my first one that I tried was version 6.06. I still have CD of that one too. Yeah. And I continued with Ubuntu for quite a long time and settled in on GNOME as the interface until they introduced Unity. And that was kind of the switch for me that turned me off of continuing to use Ubuntu. So I switched over to Linux Mint. That was my favorite for a while. And then when Martin Winpress released the first Ubuntu Mate version, I started to experiment around with that and eventually adopted it as my current favorite Linux distribution. So I've had a few favorites over the years. The main thing that I was (37/42)
looking for in a Linux distribution to use on a day-to-day basis is having something that just worked, having something that still gave me the control that I needed to tweak things the way I want to tweak them, but was out of the box ready to use. So you didn't have to set anything up from scratch. It was easy to use. The Wi-Fi just worked. Suspend and resume just worked. The video driver just worked. And for a long time, Linux Mint did that. And I think that when Ubuntu Mate came into being, Martin had put into it the kind of philosophy that I was looking for. It should just work, yet it should not limit your ability to do whatever you want to do. It should be true to the Linux philosophy of open source and yet still be pragmatic enough to allow you to install perhaps proprietary software if that's what you wanted to do, but didn't require that you use proprietary software. If you wanted to be completely open source and completely, quote, free software, that you could do it that way (38/42)
as well. But out of the box, as it comes pre-installed with what you need it to do, and not 18 different versions of web browsers and 18 different versions of text editors all installed, out of the box, just pick one, make that the default. And if you want to switch it to something else, let the user switch. That's what turned me on to Ubuntu Mate. Yeah, so it's kind of funny. I was just thinking as you were talking, and that's a scary proposition in itself. Which, the thinking or the talking? Both. Okay, all right. It's that we both started with distros that used RPMs, and we now both use distros that use the dev package systems. Yeah, that's true. That is very true. And I think in terms of availability of software in the package managers, in the whole package management scheme and the repository schemes, I think the Debian way of doing things is a little more accessible to newbies. You don't have to go out and curate your own package repositories like you do with RPMs. So there's (39/42)
less chance of making a mistake or making a wrong choice or a choice that could lead you down the wrong path with Debian than with RPMs. That's happened to me quite a bit. Yeah. But, you know, all in all, I'm pretty pleased how 2016 has went. We've had some interesting developments. We've had some controversy. We've had some stuff that makes our mind go, you know. Yes. But all in all, it looks like Linux is doing pretty well. I don't know if we could, we always say this, I don't know if 2017 will be the year of the desktop, but we've said that for the past, what, three years? Four years? Yeah. Well, in terms of market share, we've gone above the 1% of the computer, you know, home computer operating system market. So we're increasing. Yeah. Yeah. And so I would say Linux is in good hands. It's progressing. And as we both have kind of said, you know, things come, things go. But there always seems to be something to step in and take over or something that's got a little, got some more (40/42)
advantages. So I can rest easy that Linux is going to be here for another 25 years. Hopefully it will continue doing what it's doing and just keep getting better and better. I agree with you. And another 25 years would be just fine for me. Do you think you'd still be doing this in another 10 years? The podcast? I have no idea. I don't know. I'll keep going until I either run out of steam or something else happens to prevent me from doing it. So we'll see. Okay. So with that, I think we can kind of wrap up and just say it's been a good year. It's been a good 10 years. It's been a good year for Linux in 2016. I'm looking forward to seeing what 2017 holds. And I will say, Larry, what's our next episode? Well, our next episode is listener feedback. We're still continuing with the same format, a user experience episode on the 20th or thereabouts and a listener feedback episode on the 5th or thereabouts of each month. And so until then, as always, you can go to our website at going Linux dot (41/42)
com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and to subscribe. We are the website for computer users who just want to use Linux to get things done. And 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 music provided by Mark Blasco at podcast themes dot com. (42/42)
Going Linux episode 393, 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 goinglinks.gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello, Bill. Hello, Larry. So... What's going on with you? What new distros have you tried out? How's it going? I have not changed distros since Ubuntu Mate 2004. When it came out, I put it on the machine. What? Yes. I've got it set up exactly how I like. I've been playing World of Warcraft on it under Lutris, and the frame rates are almost (1/42)
identical to Windows at over 80 to 100 frames a second. Hey, this one's even survived long enough for me to make two full backups of my system. Wow. Wow. Two milestones. Two fantastically gigantic milestones for Bill. Yeah. Like I said, for the time being, my district hopper days are pretty much over. I've pretty much tried everything. You only can install stuff so many times before you've seen it all. I was spending way too much time reinstalling stuff and playing with it, and just to realize I didn't like it, and reinstall and try a different one. So, when 2004 Mate came out, I pretty much settled on it. I got it set up. I'm using the Cupertino theme, and I used the tweak tool to change some of the placement of the buttons, and change the colors, and found the background I wanted, installed the programs I wanted, backed up drop. I have Dropbox set up completely on it, and all my pictures and everything. I am not touching it. It just works, and it's been rock solid. So, yeah, I'm (2/42)
very, very happy with it. I like all the paper cuts that they fixed that used to drive me nuts. There's not really anything I can say that I don't like about it. So, yeah, Ubuntu Mate 2004 is still running. Well, it sounds like you could be the next host of the Linux Luddites podcast, where they try all the distributions, and then decide to go back to the old stuff because you like it better. Yeah, I just can't be bothered. If I need to spin up a distro to look at it, I throw it in a virtual machine. And yes, I know it's not as good as running on bare metal, yada, yada, yada, but if I need to look at something, I can do it that way. But the other thing I wanted to bring up is in MeWe, we've had a few people bring up the Patreon thing, and I have let them know that we're not going to do it. We don't want to beg for money. We don't need the money. We do this because we like it, and our costs are fairly minimal as far as running the podcast. So, I don't know what your feelings are, but (3/42)
there I say, no, I'm not interested in it. Yeah, we've mentioned it on the show before, and I am in alignment with you. We don't want to start a Patreon or any other sort of thing. We had some ability to donate via PayPal for a while, and we got a few. We didn't promote it a lot, but I'd rather not, quite frankly, not deal with that. We're quite happy doing what we're doing. We're giving it to you for free. This is our contribution. Yes, it's exactly right. This is our contribution to the Linux community, or one of them. We appreciate everybody expressing interest in it, but right now, for the foreseeable future, we're just not interested in it. But we thank you for the call. We do thank you. If you want to support us, you can share our podcast with other people, and we'll be happy with that. Yep, and just keep listening. That's good. That's cool. Keep contributing. And speaking of contributing, we have an email or two, or 20. Yeah, so we're doing okay. All right, shall we get started (4/42)
with them then? I think we should. Okay, our first email is a voicemail. Does that make sense? Anyway, our first listener feedback is a voicemail that Robert from Tennessee asked us not to play his voice, so I guess it's an email. Anyway, I'm just going to summarize his message. It was short and sweet. He says, I know you guys are always talking about how fast Ubuntu 20.04 is. I'm a Linux Mint user, and I love how fast it is. It keeps up to date with Ubuntu. It's based on Ubuntu, and it uses Ubuntu packages. Well, Robert, thanks for the email. Happy that you're happy with Linux Mint. I think there have been a few changes to the way that Linux Mint adopts some of the packages, particularly the snap packages that Ubuntu uses. Do we want to get into that, Bill, or should we wait for a little bit more input and a little more research before we get into this whole snap D on Linux Mint issue that seems to be bubbling? I read both sides of the story, and frankly, I don't understand it. So (5/42)
what I did is I don't understand what the issue is. So I reached out to another podcast, the Ubuntu podcast that Martin's on, and sent him an email asking him that maybe he break down the arguments for and against it. So I'm hoping that he will reply to that email on that podcast, and then I can kind of see what he says, because he is the desktop guy. And full disclaimer here, he is the creator of Ubuntu Mate. So I think we should let smarter people explain it, because as a lemon, I just don't understand what the issues are or the ramifications. So I say we just see what Martin says and move on. OK. Yeah. For new listeners, Martin is Martin Winpress. And as you said, Bill, he's the originator of Ubuntu Mate and he's the Ubuntu desktop lead. So, yeah, let's wait for him. He's more plugged into this than we are. So we'll relay the answer. Yes, I know he's talked about it a little bit, but maybe he'll go in a little more depth and then we can actually speak on it or even discuss it with a (6/42)
little bit more information. Yeah. So our next email comes from Samuel and he asks about ThinkPad and he wanted some advice. He went, Hello, everyone. Sometime ago, there was an episode. I can't remember which one about Linux on ThinkPad that caught my interest. I have decided that my next laptop computer will be a ThinkPad. I know that historically ThinkPads have had good Linux support. However, there are so many makes and models of them that I don't know which one to buy. My budget is in the five hundred two thousand dollar price range. I don't mind buying a used one. I have seen many models on Amazon and elsewhere that seem to fit my needs. The T series of ThinkPads look very nice. Can you recommend any particular model or series of models? Thank you for your time, Samuel. So I know that you replied to Samuel, didn't you, Larry? Yeah. Yeah. And basically the ThinkPad series from Lenovo, especially the T series, support Linux very, very well. You really can't go wrong with any of the (7/42)
T series computers. You've got your budget. Find a model that is the newest model that you can find with the specs that you're looking for in that budget range, whether it's brand new or whether it's a used one. And you'll be able to run Linux on there. No problem. And pretty much any Linux. The things to look for is it's going to run particularly well if all of the hardware is Intel. So we're talking about the wireless card, video drivers, those kinds of things. But some of the ThinkPads you can get AMD processors, Radeon displays, and those are going to work pretty well as well. So, you know, today's Linux runs on just about any hardware and particularly well on ThinkPad hardware. So, you can't go too wrong. Yeah. Just last week, Lenovo announced that Ubuntu is going to be loaded onto their ThinkPads and it's fully supported. So that should give you an indication that ThinkPads are pretty much a good bet when it comes to running Linux. Yep, I agree. So thanks for the email, Samuel, (8/42)
and good luck with your new computer. All right. Our next email is from David, who says, Deja dupe, another reason to leave Windows. And a few fragmented sentences here. This is excellent. Free to backup Google Drive, free to restore, and the whole process requires no instructions. Love it. To heck with the paid carbonite not needed. I'm trying to remember why I ever used Windows. Keep up the good work on your show. You need to accent how easy this backup works much better than what comes with Windows. Note, I am in day 19 of my lockout from paid Microsoft accounts due to an insignificant error in a password reset. Never again. Keep giving the folks fresh air on their computing choices. Day 19 of being locked out of your Windows account, your Microsoft account, because you input your password wrong too many times. Hmm. Yeah, I think that might happen with just about any operating system. The thing about Windows 10, they read a news story that they're posting a full screen saying, hey, (9/42)
we can make and make your experience better by accessing your Microsoft account. So, you know, they want you to tie a Microsoft account to your Windows 10 system for all the other goodies. But can you imagine, you know, you forgot your password and you can't get anything or do anything on your Windows 10. And that would I'm sure you could just call Microsoft right up and say, hey, I'm having a problem. Right. It's not funny, but it is. I mean, it's like this why it always seems like a bad idea to tie everything into one account. Yeah, I can see that, you know, you tie your Windows 10 to your Microsoft account and all your documents are on one drive. And you have all your applications in Office 365 and all of your cloud based storage and backup is on Windows compatible stuff. And then all of a sudden you can't get into your account anymore. You've lost everything, essentially. So, yeah, there you go. I've had guess how many pop ups I've had from Bontamate asking me to tie my account. (10/42)
How many? Yes, zero. You know, I think the most intrusive part of Bontamate for me has been, oh, there's some updates. Do you want to install them now or do you want to wait? You know, type deal. Yeah, exactly. So there's your interruptions on Bontamate. All right. Well, thanks, David, for an opportunity to bash on Windows one more time. We're not bashing, but Windows has its good sides and bad sides. I would say tying your account to your Windows 10 system and have everything reliant on that might not be the best. But hey, what do I know? I'm just a Linux fanboy. So our next email comes from Gus and he wrote Larry and Bill. On the last listener feedback episode, a listener suggested having episodes about different workflows with Linux. I am a Web developer and hobbyist at music recording, and I'd be potentially interested in contributing with either one of these things. As far as music recording production goes, I'm hardly a professional but can offer what I've learned through trial (11/42)
and error. And I can try to simplify the next audio, which can be a confusing mess for newbies. Thanks, Gus. Yeah. And I emailed Gus back and asked him how he would like to proceed. Would he like to record the whole thing and edit it himself and send us the video or something else? And he said he'd be willing to do that. So thanks, Gus. Yeah. Thanks for the offer. Thanks for the content in advance and we'll await your contribution. We'll make an episode of it, depending on how long it is. Maybe it'll be the whole episode. There we go. Yeah. Contributions from Armenians. Thanks, Gus. All right. Our next email is from Highlander, who observed that the COVID-19 scammers are in overdrive. He writes, scammers have been calling me a lot lately and I can't report to anyone because the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre is all shut down. Waterloo Regional Police Service has recommended to just ignore what is going on because these scammers just want Bitcoin. I can't ignore due to the greater good (12/42)
needing to be served for those among us who may be weak minded or otherwise vulnerable. Scammers had used have used these phone numbers and call times to leave messages on my answering services. So he's got a Toronto number that called him at 4.18 p.m. on May 26. Another number from the 312 area code, which called on May 21st at 3.30, roughly. Another one from a 416 area code that called him at 12.11 on May 21st. So he said, I have included an audio sample of their crap in this email. We're not going to play that. These scammers need to be identified on mainstream media news outlets. Nothing would please me more than to know that these scammers have been shot dead, shot by who? I don't care, signed Highlander. Shooting them dead might be a little over the top. Yeah, at least let's prosecute them. And I know in many cases, these folks are not within Canada or the United States or even North America. So that's going to be really difficult. But hey, I'd love to find a way to permanently (13/42)
block these kinds of things. Yeah, I think my block list on my phone is longer than my contacts, because, you know, I still occasionally get the ones from the Microsoft saying that they've detected a problem with my Windows 10 system. Like, wow, you're doing, you know, so they're not just attacking people that are concerned about COVID, but they're attacking people right now because, you know, everybody's working from home and they're afraid and they're not online a lot more. So, you know, they see an opportunity they just won't try. But I would advise against not shooting them. We could just prosecute them. That would be just as good. Mm hmm. Yeah, I... not exactly a scammer by phone, but I received an email the other day that said, here's your confirmation for sign up for this service with an attached PDF file. Think I opened that. I didn't sign up for the service. Never heard of it. I am not going to open it. I'm curious to see what's in it, but I'm not going to open it. That's the (14/42)
hard part is it makes you curious. Did somebody else sign me up for a service? Has somebody stolen my identity? I don't know. I haven't seen anything since. So I'm going to assume until proven otherwise that this is a scam. Yeah, I just got a one the other day that said it was all official. They called me and said, you know, thank you for staying here. You've won so many bonus points. And we thank you and we'd like to to have you sign up for vacation. Like, well, one, I've never been to that state. So I think you got the wrong person. And if they were insistent upon it. So, you know, what I did is I just clicked and blocked the number. So it definitely would not go there. So anyway, our next email comes from Glenn, who asked about Ubuntu Mate a launch bar on two screens. Hello, Bill and Larry. I have been using Ubuntu on my home computer for over a decade and recently upgraded to 20.04. Before settling on this, I tried Ubuntu Mate for a couple of weeks. I run a ThinkPad T550 laptop (15/42)
with a second screen above the laptop screen. The Unity desktop works really well for my workflow with the launch bar on the left edge of both screens and the windows buttons on the left side of each window. One of the things I really like about this is that when I launch a program from the top launcher, the window opens on the top screen and similar for the bottom. I tried but can't make Ubuntu Mate come up with a similar configuration. Have I missed something or is this just a real limitation? Thanks for the great podcast, Glenn. Yeah, and we emailed Glenn back and it turns out that it is a real limitation. It's a bug that's been known for a while. And I sent him a link to an article or actually a post on the Ubuntu Mate forums that's part of the tutorials and guides on multiple monitor panel layouts and background switcher. So there are step-by-step instructions on how to essentially work around this problem and get what Glenn is looking for. So we'll include a link to that in the (16/42)
show notes and hopefully that will be helpful for our dear friend Glenn and for anyone else wanting to have launch bars set up that way on multiple screens. Okay, and Mike wrote us, dual boot Windows 10 with Ubuntu Mate version 20. I guess that's 2004. Yeah. And file handling between OSs. And this is one of two emails. This one email has two questions. So, question one. Unable to get Ubuntu Mate disk to recognize the Windows 10 boot manager on an NVMe drive, DR0. After running the live CD of Ubuntu Mate and not being able to even see the NVMe during boot up, I think I might have to install Ubuntu to a separate SSD drive, DR1. And then can only get Linux via the boot sequence during restart. Is there a way to edit the Windows boot manager to add an option for booting to Linux on another drive? The NVMe is defined in the BIOS to be running on the PCIe bus. It is having to enter the BIOS every time I wish to go into Linux. That's a little pain. If that's what has to be done, then so be (17/42)
it. Linux is my new main OS since Windows lack of consistency with integrity has really caused issues for me. Tired of the bloatedness of it too. Question two. I see that there is a read-write driver for Windows files, NTFS-3G, but it seems pretty difficult to set up. My target is to share document files through the already existing Windows files into LibreOffice under Linux. I have been using Libre for Windows, but I am shifting away from using Windows 10 as the main deal, so I plan to be in Linux. As I get more settled under Linux, I plan to move files over to Linux for processing, so the need for read-write Windows 10 files will be heavy at first, moving to less and less until none are required. I would keep the Windows 10 I.O. for interfacing into my office world and a few games. Thanks guys for many years of support and listening. Pleasure, Mike. Regarding question two, the NTFS read-write driver, that's already baked into Ubuntu MATE. Once you solve the issue for question one, (18/42)
you will be able to open up the NTFS drive, read and write files to that without any problem. So on to question one. Any thoughts there, Bill, about why it's not allowing him to install Ubuntu MATE to the NVMe drive? I have a very similar setup where my OS sits on the NVMe drive and I've never had an issue installing it. I'm just wondering if it might be a piece of hardware that's not supported by the Linux kernel. That could be. I'm thinking something even simpler. I'm thinking he probably, while he's sitting in there in the BIOS, check to make sure that, what is it called? Secure boot? Secure boot, yeah. That secure boot is disabled or there's another name for it that implies that you need to enable something rather than disable something, but essentially it's turning off secure boot. Another thing that he could look at is if he could try enabling legacy mode. That's the other thing. Yeah, it's the same thing called something different. So look for secure boot, look for legacy mode, (19/42)
make sure you either disable secure boot or enable legacy mode. Once you get that set up, you should be able to install any Linux to that drive. And if you can't, then installing it to another drive with the boot manager on the NVMe drive might be the solution. Another thing that he could look at, depending on the age of his computer, is if he's had all the BIOS updated for that machine. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So lots of things for you to think about, Mike, and let us know how that goes. So Mike provided us part two of the dual boot on Windows 10 with a Bontamate version 20.04 and file handling between OSes. It comes to be that I found out that the GParted sees the unallotted 25 gig space I created on the NVMe one terabyte drive. However, the live CD does not recognize any operating system being present. So I entered the custom area and can install to the free space. In creating the partition, it asks some questions and I guess that I want to check to create a primary (20/42)
partition at the beginning of the space. And it should be used as a blank and it says an ext4 journaling file system or what? What is mounting point to be? Is it slash or slash home or slash boot, etc? So I am not sure how to fill in this kind of partition to create. I have tried to research this kind of install, but haven't found anything close for an example. Your help is appreciated, Mike. So I think I can help Mike on some of this. So on now, I'm not running a dual boot, but I've always set my systems up with my OS is always on SSD. And so that's always on the forward slash and that tells it to put all the files for the system on that on that disk or that partition. Then I have a spinning hard drive, one terabyte drive, and I always put forward slash home and that tells where to store all their programs, all your settings, all your files and games and stuff. The reason I do it this way is I want to limit the amount of read write to the OS and let the spinning rust, as I like to (21/42)
call it, handle all the programs. So what I would suggest is while you're looking at it, if you go to when you're setting it up and it says you're setting up for just your system, you go ahead and put forward slash and then that will put all your system files there and then forward slash home for all your other personal files, your pictures, etc. Yep. Sounds like good advice. So yeah, I don't, I've never used the slash boot. I guess that would be if you had like a system that you had multiple OSes. But one of the things that you, and he didn't say, is that if you're going to do a dual boot with Ubuntu MATE or any Linux, you need to install Windows first, update everything, then install the Ubuntu or the Linux afterwards because Windows boot manager does not play well with Linux. So just a pro tip there, I learned a hard way. Right, exactly. Yeah. So I'm no expert in this, but I think what it is is the slash is the root directory that gets things started. The boot directory, the slash (22/42)
boot is where the files are to actually boot into the operating system as opposed to the boot loader, which is on the root. And then home is where all your files are. So that's as I recall it. And if any of our minions want to correct me, feel free. But I think that's the way it is. All right, let's move on to George who writes about episode 391, open office DRM protected WMA file. So David had asked about getting his audio files off of, was it an MP3 player or something like that? Yeah. Anyway, George writes, I'm surprised David found noticeable speed differences between open and LibreOffice. I find Libre runs really well, even on computers with low end processors. Some months ago, I installed open office as a test and didn't notice any material speed advantage over LibreOffice. Could David have installed LibreOffice in Flatpak or Snap? Either might run slower than a native DEB install, thinking Ubuntu based. He mentioned dates. If he is importing dates from an Excel spreadsheet into (23/42)
either Libre or open office, he may have to set the base date for his new sheet. That's in tools, options, calc, calculate, where there are three options for the date from which to start date calculations and display. If I remember correctly, you have to do something similar in Microsoft Office. So that was just an aside from me. Continuing with George's email, what Libre offers that open doesn't is a much larger developer community. LibreOffice updates much more frequently, which may add features or improve security since LibreOffice is a fork from open office. It's not surprising that when bugs are found, they may appear in both. Over the past year, I've read reports of bugs being fixed in Libre and not in open. Something to consider if, like David, you're interested in security. And he provides an article on that and we'll include that in the show notes, of course. And regarding WMA DRM. So WMA is the Windows audio format for files and DRM is digital rights management or essentially (24/42)
lock-in. I was surprised when Larry suggested Audacity would open DRM protected WMA files. According to the Audacity manual, that's not the case. And he provides a reference to the Audacity manual just to prove his point. There's always the analog method, playing the music files from a DRM enabled device, headphone jack into the mic input device of a computer from Audacity to record it. I did that years ago from Sony Walkman. Not perfect, but rather than losing cherished old tracks no longer available or maybe not cherished enough to buy again. George. Regarding George's comments on the audio file, you're absolutely right. I misspoke. I made a mistake. Bill, I made a mistake. You did. You're fired. Yeah. If the file is in WMA format and not DRM protected, Audacity will open it just fine. If it's DRM protected, Audacity won't do that. You need to break that first or, as George suggests, play it by audio into Audacity and rerecord it from analog to digital. And seems like a waste of (25/42)
bandwidth to take a digital file, make it analog and then record it back to digital. But that's what you've got to do, I guess. Anyway, so LibreOffice versus OpenOffice, what do you think? I have always used what was installed, which has always been LibreOffice. I haven't had any issues with it, actually. I just used it last night and it worked really well. So I would say whatever the distribution installs I would use. And I believe probably 95 percent of them are all using LibreOffice. And if you're looking for an up-to-date package, say you're running Windows at work and you want to share the files easily with your Linux machine at home, you can also download one for LibreOffice that's up to date with all the latest security fixes. And the thing that you need to keep in mind is if you're using the Excel or CALC, some of these more advanced macros will not work well on LibreOffice just because they're a little formatted different or they want to do things that LibreOffice doesn't (26/42)
like. So something to just consider. If you use LibreOffice, you can save in the Docx format that Office uses and you also can read Docx. So there's really no downside that I can see about using LibreOffice. Now, I did want to address one thing about, and it was, which George pointed out, is that it might have been in a snap or a flat pack. Well, the first time you start a snap or flat pack, you're going to take, it's going to take a little bit longer, a few more seconds. That's because it is in a snap, it uses a file system called squashfs. And that's what sits in a container and runs the program. Now, I know they have made lots, Martin had mentioned that they are working on minimizing this little bit of overhead. But once it's been started, once, I really haven't noticed any difference as far as speed, maybe a second or two. But I mean, that's about all I've noticed, but they're always constantly trying to make it a little better. So, yeah, just keep that in mind that if you're (27/42)
running something in a snap or a flat pack that you might have a little bit overhead when it first starts up. But nothing that will make you pull out your hair. Right, exactly. And I think on any modern computer, like recently manufactured computer, it's going to be fast enough that you probably won't notice any differences in speed if they are there. And the other key difference between Open and LibreOffice is that they have different licenses. And that is one of the reasons why the OpenOffice updates get into LibreOffice. But the LibreOffice fixes and updates don't make it back, in some cases, to OpenOffice because of the incompatibility of the two licenses. OpenOffice can't take all of the updates from LibreOffice without changing their license, which, of course, they don't want to do. So, whereas LibreOffice can openly take all of the OpenOffice updates and pick and choose what they want to fix their particular version of the Office Suite. Even though for most purposes of most (28/42)
people, they do exactly the same thing. Yeah, and like I said, choose which one you want, but just know there are some differences. And, yeah, but I pretty much trust what the distro has put into it. I mean, I think Bonta uses LibreOffice, I think Fidora even uses LibreOffice. So, I mean, apparently, you know, there's enough distributions that are choosing LibreOffice. There's got to be a reason and probably some of it might have to be about security or it could be that they just want to make sure that they have the latest and greatest Office Suite. Yep. So, our next email comes from Jack Death, who provided a link to a review of Linux FX 10, a Windows-like Linux distro on top of Ubuntu 20.04. Jack, I am not trying it. It's tempting. It's tempting. No, it's not even tempting. The minions are trying to tempt me. But anyway, the reviewer says, I chose to review it because I believe Linux FX has the closest pre-installed user interface to Microsoft's Windows 10. We may have already (29/42)
guessed the reason to the Windows theme. Nevertheless, Linux FX suits best for beginners who want to migrate to Linux but find it hard to work on Linux desktop like GNOME or KDE. I would say try Mate, but OK, I understand. What's your feelings on this, Larry? Well, I read through part of the article and without having read through the whole thing, it strikes me that this is a Windows 10 skin on top of Linux, and they've done some work to make it behave as much like Windows as they can and still be running Linux. So, yeah, if you are moving over from Windows 10 and you find it difficult to find things in the Linux desktop environment, whichever Linux you're using, this might be the one for you to take a look at. And since it's based on Ubuntu, you could certainly do a lot worse. So I think you can certainly try it. I would recommend, though, just learn the new way of doing things. If you were moving from Windows to Mac OS, they're not going to give you this kind of thing to ease you (30/42)
into it. You just have to learn the new way of doing things. And it takes a little bit of effort. I've done it moving from Windows to Mac OS for work, and it took me a while to get used to it. And the same applies for movers from Windows 10 to Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution. But give it a chance. Give it some time. It'll become second nature and you'll wonder what took you so long. OK. Jeremy comes back. Dear Larry and Bill, my name is Jeremy and I am a returning listener to the podcast. I really think you do a wonderful job with the podcast. I haven't listened in quite a while. It is wonderful to know that you are still doing the podcast. When did Bill become part of the show? Oh, I don't know, about seven, eight, 10 years ago. I don't know what happened to Tom. He retired. Also, what is the RSS feed for subscribing to the podcast? It's on the web page, goinglinux.com. Anyway, I look forward to more wonderful episodes. Sincerely, your new fan and new listener, Jeremy. OK, (31/42)
Jeremy. All snide comments aside, the RSS feed is on the website goinglinux.com. But you can subscribe in many podcatchers. Just search for goinglinux and I think you have to search for it as two words, going Linux. And whether that's rhythmbox or whether you're using something like Stitcher's streaming service or even iTunes, if that's a thing anymore, Apple podcast, maybe, you'll be able to search for it by name and find it without any difficulty if you just search for going Linux. And if you want the RSS feed, by the way, we did email it to him, but just for sake of the podcast, it's on our website. There you go. But thanks. Welcome back, Jeremy. Yeah, welcome back. So our next email comes from Daniel who wrote his final word on Ubuntu 20.04. 20.04 Ubuntu is not installable for me at all. So I will use Ubuntu gnome for now. It turns out that some think this error is on something called launch pad. What is that? Thank you for your show and also for your patience. And he didn't (32/42)
actually send us the error message that he's receiving. But bottom line is he can't install whatever it is he wants to install. And I think he's just giving up on that idea and just using stock Ubuntu gnome. I'm assuming it's 20.04. And launch pad is the Ubuntu family of distributions tool that they use to triage bugs. And so, yeah, if there's a bug, it'll be on launch pad. And if you want a link to how to get involved and help with the bug triage, we'll include a link in the show notes to the Ubuntu triage page. And that applies to all the Ubuntu flavors. Our next one is from Frank. He said, I admit this is a belated feedback. Stuff happens and I'm way behind in listening to your podcast. But I have listened to every episode. That's good. I've listened to your episode too, Frank. Thanks. This is in reference to the German Linux user in Greece, living in Greece, who is having trouble allowing his users to have access to partitions on a second hard drive. In all the discussions (33/42)
regarding this, no one made mention that his issues might have been resolved by editing slash Etsy slash FS tab for that partition to allow, quote, user permissions to that drive. I think that is worthy of investigation. OK, Frank, we'll pass that along. In fact, we just did. OK. Our next email comes from David, who forwarded a forum post about Ubuntu Monte version 20.04. Regarding Linux not going back to Windows. Love it. I do have one very small, very minor, very insignificant inconvenience. So no need to respond. I realize you still have a day job and are an active podcaster. I am semi-retired, thus have time to burn playing around with it. To use my headphones, I have to disconnect my USB speakers. Linux is just not smart enough to recognize headphones. Note is not as simple as selecting headphones or system output. Cure is just to disconnect the USB and reconnect the USB later when back to no need for headphones. I tried the below command lines and they did not work. Really, one (34/42)
thing I love about Linux, someone else always has an answer via the command line. Just hope I never brick my system using them. Larry, do you or your partner in crime have any ideas on this? Again, not a big deal. But basically, he went sudo apt remove dash dash purge, also dash base, pulse audio. And then he went sudo apt install, also base, pulse audio. Okay, so he ripped out pulse and he reinstalled pulse. Anyways, thanks David. I have never had an issue. Any time I have always plugged my headphones in, that is what I use to record a podcast. It always sees them. The only thing, it has not happened since the new version, but sometimes if you are disconnecting a USB, like the speakers, and you plug in a headphone, it might, for some reason, it might not recognize it. I always found that just restarting it, the distro automatically sees the new device. But since 2004, actually since about 1804, I have not had that issue. Any time I unplug it and plug something in, it just (35/42)
automatically appears. So I do not know what is going on with him. Yeah, the only problem I have had with headphones has not been with USB, but rather with the audio jack that is on the side of the computer, and using Apple iPhone headphones. The ones with the old audio jack, since they do not work on the phones anymore, I may as well use them as headphones. And yeah, whenever I plug that in, it just does not work. And it was working on previous versions of Ubuntu Mate. But I am thinking it may be the jack itself, you know, hardware failure as opposed to software failure. But as far as USB is concerned, nope, no problem there. The only thing I have had problems with, as I recall, recently is Bluetooth. Bluetooth headphones, those problems went away. But I got a Bluetooth keyboard, which for some reason required me to put in the code to pair. You know, normally these days you click pairing and it just goes and does it. Well, this one requires you to actually type in a four or six digit (36/42)
code, whatever it is. And of course, with the Bluetooth utility, it just does not display that. So I had to figure out how to install a Bluetooth device from the command line, so it would give me the prompt to enter the pairing code. And so I learned something new on Bluetooth connections on Linux. Not a big deal. But hey, yeah, David, I do not know what the answer is to your USB thing. And since it is such a small, very minor, very insignificant inconvenience, yeah, we'll just leave it at that. Plugging them in, unplugging them. Yeah, I do want to stress one thing to David. Be very careful about putting random commands into the terminal, unless you know exactly what they do. Some people might try to prank you, whatever has happened where, there was the command that people were entering in, hey, type this in and fix it. And it would wipe out their whole system. So just be really careful because the command line is super powerful and it has even more power, is more powerful than the GUI (37/42)
or the graphical user interface that a lot of us use to manage our systems. Because when you get to the command line, it's going to ask you, do you really want to do this, enter your password, and then it does. And you can hose your system, not that I have done that, but yes, it can happen. Okay. Yes, you're absolutely right. Our next and last email is from Steven, who wrote about my 20.04 book. Hey, I've been an avid user of Linux and especially Ubuntu MATE 20.04 for many years and was intrigued to see via the Ubuntu MATE website that someone has been writing books about it. There probably isn't much I'd get from it, but there might be the odd quirk I didn't know about, which could make life that much easier. Unfortunately, it seemed at first it was only available in horrible Kindle format. I was hoping for a DRM unencumbered PDF or EPUB so that I didn't need any proprietary software or hardware to read it. Good old Atril can read both PDF and EPUB. But then, when I read the first few (38/42)
pages via Amazon's Look Inside feature, I noticed it states that this is under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 and encouragement is given to redistribute it freely. So I went back to your site in the hopes of finding a PDF or EPUB and stumbled upon our page on Ubuntu MATE books. But this only goes up to 18.04 as a PDF. A quick Google of your copyright, however. Copyright 2017 through 2020, Larry Bushey. And bingo! There is a copy available off the back of someone's FTP site. And it's the LabDo site. We mentioned LabDo, this nonprofit that helps educate people, and we provided them some copies of the PDF files for free distribution to any of their contributors and students and teachers. And they've put it on their FTP site, which of course is available to the public. So, anyway, continuing and concluding Stephen's email. Should this be your site as well? Is it intentional to keep PDF or EPUB from being linked to there? You could always put a donation button next to it, Stephen. Okay, (39/42)
the donation button is Amazon. You go to Amazon and you'll be able to. If you want a free copy, I've put free PDFs available on our website up to version 18.04. If you want to download the free version of the 20.04 book from the LabDo site, we'll include the link in the show notes so you can do that. And I would recommend, though, that since they are providing a public service that you at least visit their site at LabDo, L-A-B-D-O-O dot org, and take a look at their services and maybe contribute to their organization. So, yeah, the books are Creative Commons licensed so that if you have a copy and you want to give it to someone, you can do that. If you want to make photocopies of the printed book, you can do that. If you want to take the PDF version or the Kindle version or any of the versions and provide them for free to somebody else, you're free to do that as well. So once you have a copy of it, feel free to distribute it however you want. That's what the license says, as long as (40/42)
you give attribution back to the author, which is me. And that's fine. Just say where you got it. We're good. Well, that's a really hard term, Larry. Yeah, I know. It's tough just letting people know where you got it. Yeah, but that's the terms of the license and the copyright. So please abide by that. But no, seriously, though, you're free to distribute the books however you see any portion of them. In fact, if you want to use anything that I've written in those books and use them in your own publications, you're free to do that as long as you say that you got it from the book. I don't think you have... you don't have high powered lawyers ready to sweep down if they didn't. Oh, goodness, no. All right. I don't need that hassle. Anyway, that wraps up our show for this time, Bill. All right. Our next episode is going to be a user experience, but we haven't figured out what we're going to write about yet. We've got several things in the works, so you have to tune in to find out. There (41/42)
you go. So until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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 the discussion in our Going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinx.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (42/42)
Going Linux, Episode 305. Linux Gaming Revisited. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Mary Boushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and its applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, Gaming on Linux Revisited. So, Bill, I can tell that your audio sounds a lot clearer. What's going on? Did you suddenly get magic fairy dust sprinkled all over your computer and microphone and stuff? Well, yes. How'd you know? No, actually, I finally got my new studio set up away from trains, planes, and automobiles. And it's almost completed, so this is the first time I'm actually recording in it. And it's a lot quieter. I don't know. I think I need to introduce noise for you because I (1/42)
don't want you to have too easy of a job. Yeah, I don't know what I'll have to do if I don't have to edit out train noise, airplane noise, sirens. Although I didn't hear too many sirens, to be quite honest. Well, if you get lonely or just think it's too easy, let me know. I will get an air horn and just go, and you'll be all great. Okay, all right. Or just introduce some background, you know, recorded background noise. The only thing you're going to hear is the dog chewing on a bone. Well, if we hear that, then we know that we've got really good audio. No, that's great. That's great. You're adjusting to life here in California, okay? Yes, yes. I love California. There's this stuff called sunshine. Yeah, hey, I'm just telling you. I've been out in it almost every day. It's really weird, but I'm getting used to it. I really enjoy California. I don't think I've lived anywhere else. All the memories are disappearing from anybody else but this wonderful state. But seriously, I'm really (2/42)
adjusting well. I like it out here. My exciting, happy new stuff is I got a new Keurig. Oh, nice fresh brewed coffee. Yeah, it's like an old one died and I'm like, ah, then I went and said I'm going to pick out, you know, go get another one. And then I didn't realize that mine was only about 52 models behind. So, I'm looking at all this stuff and I'm like, wow, new Keurig. Happy day. So, got that and so now I get fresh, fresh hot coffee. I get sunshine and I get to talk about Linux. What more can anybody want? Yeah, yeah, and a whole new studio and I think, yeah, you're still east of me. So, you still have studio east and I still have studio west. So, that works out. By the way, I want a raise for the cost of living. So, I want 100% raise for what you currently pay me. 100%? That seems a little steep. How about 50? Okay, but 50% of nothing is still nothing. Right, right. I can do 50%. Okay, next year we can talk about a more appropriate raise. I think this is like the second or third (3/42)
raise this year for you. Yeah, but you know, I'm such a nice guy. I know you're a wonderful leader and, wait a minute, kissing up is not going to give me any more money. So, anyway, let's move on to the talk I want to talk about. I finally, I've played a few of these games and we're going to talk about gaming on Linux. Because, you know, I'm a gamer and it is looking really good. So, anyway, it's been a while since we've talked about gaming on Linux. Yep, it has, yeah. And I am pleased to report that it's looking better. We're going to be looking at some of the titles that have already been released and some upcoming games and even review a few of them. I'm not going to go into too much detail because I don't want to take all the fun out of it. But anybody that hasn't looked up for gaming on Linux or said, you know, Linux is only for work, you're going to be surprised. So, before we go on, do you game? I'm not what you would call a gamer, but every once in a while I'll install, you (4/42)
know, not a Steam game. I haven't subscribed to Steam, but, you know, I'll look in the repositories, find a game that looks interesting. I'm kind of the first person shooter kind of guy. So, I'm looking at things like Alien Arena and anything that's a Quake engine game, you know, built on the Quake engine or something like that. So, that's my speed for gaming. Well, I thought your speed would be more like Minesweeper and that doesn't count. No, it doesn't because, you know, although it's available on Linux, it's really an old Microsoft game and I can't bring myself to play that. I can never understand, walk around, what's all this button do? I never win. But, you know, let's chat about Steam for a few, just a few minutes. Sure, yeah. Although I'm not a Steam subscriber, I do know a little bit about it. Well, tell me what you know about Steam and then... Well, I know how to spell it and... Okay, we're already ahead in the game. Yeah, so I know that Steam has been a very popular way to (5/42)
get, purchase, obtain for free and to play games. It's a subscription service that allows you access to lots and lots of games. It's been available for other platforms for a lot longer than it has for Linux. They, a couple of years ago, decided they were going to support Linux and go all in on supporting Linux and possibly even build what they were calling a Steam Box hardware that would be based in Linux and would run a Linux operating system but would be specific to Steam and Steam games. Now, I'm not aware that that box ever came to reality, correct me if I'm wrong, but I do know that Steam has offered many, many, many of its games for... that they've had in their archives and library and whatever else you want to call the backlog of games that they have, back catalog, that all of those or many of those are now available for Linux as well as for the platforms they've been available for for a while. And I know that many of the new games are brought out for Linux before they're (6/42)
brought out for the other platforms. So they've really put their efforts behind supporting Linux and we in the Linux community really appreciate that. Okay, so you're right, but let's look at this for just a minute. Steam has a few advantages to that. One, I don't have to go look in stores or online or even in the repositories of the games, excuse me, of Linux. If you have a Steam client, if you have the Steam client in your repository, you can of course install it. And then what's nice is, if you see a game that you want to be available for Linux, you don't have to install it with a CD and you don't have to goof, mess with wine. You know, it just works 90% of the time that I've found. Now, depending on your distribution, depending on your hardware and your machine, you might have a little more trouble. But as a general rule, now I've run, both of us use Debian based systems and that seems to be one of the better systems that support it. I cannot speak to Red Hat based or RPM based or (7/42)
even some of Arch Linux. I'm sure they have it, they have everything. But as a general rule, it works really well. And thanks to Steam, we have now over 700 games that run on Linux. And from what I have seen, I'm a gamer, but I haven't played 700 Linux games. I wish I had that much time. But most of them, you don't have to mess with wine. Wine did enable us to play some games, but it wasn't perfect. I mean, remember we had Play on Linux. We had a couple of different versions of wine and you had to get the DirectX and try to get that installed. And sometimes it was just a big hassle with graphics drivers. And since we have people listening to this for the first time, listening to our podcast for the first time, people thinking about coming to Linux, maybe they don't understand what wine is. So just to define it for a second, wine is an application that allows you to run Windows programs on Linux, including games, without having to install Windows. So it simulates the Windows (8/42)
environment, not 100%, but enough of it to allow you to run Windows programs. So you're able to run the games designed for Windows on Linux using wine. But it's another layer that you need to account for and may, in theory, reduce the speed and the reaction time and so on of the game, the performance of the game or the performance of the program. So it's actually in reality not too bad. But for those gamers who are looking for that fraction of a millisecond advantage to run a game in wine is probably not optimal. And, you know, when I was a Windows user... Did that cause you pain to say that? Yes, it did. And I did go out and purchase games to run under Windows, you know, run them from the CD, install them from the CD. And of course, you have to have the CD always in the CD drive, even though it didn't use it, but it did check every once in a while to make sure you had a licensed copy of the games and all that sort of stuff. None of that happens on Linux. I remember it would drop into (9/42)
a DOS terminal or reboot the system into a DOS environment, and then you had to use a text environment to adjust the graphics resolution, the screen resolution. And you had to go through all kinds of gyrations to actually get the computers so that the game would run after you booted into an environment that actually didn't use Windows at all. It was as close to bare metal as you could get to get the performance out of the game. How has that changed with Steam? And I don't mean under Windows, I'm just talking about Steam in general on any platform. How has Steam affected that kind of performance? Oh, that's easy. Oh, I see a game. Click, install, run. Nice. Done. Okay, it takes care of all those adjustments in the background. Well, you know, also if someone's like that has never heard of DOS, just so they know, DOS... Yeah, let's define all the terms. Okay, DOS is actually called Disk Operating System. And back in the day, if you didn't know, DOS was what you would install before you'd (10/42)
install the Windows. And a lot of games before Windows got all their stuff together, you had to run it in DOS. And one of them, if I remember correctly, was like their first Quake. Another one was Wolfenstein. Right. And we weren't talking super awesome graphics back then. Well, Quake was pretty good back then. Quake was at one time you're going, wow, this looks great. But now you'd go, man, it looks like garbage now. Right, think about 8-bit graphics. Yeah, think 8-bit graphics. What's that game that kids love right now? Where they build stuff? Oh, Minecraft. Minecraft, think about that. That was the state of the art back then. Hey, don't tell nobody. I actually play Minecraft once in a while. Hey, it's fun, right? Don't tell nobody. But one of the things that I like about Steam, and I think is a big, big benefit, and now if you don't like it, I understand some people like physical copies, but as we move more into the digital age, this is more of a Linux type of mentality. We don't (11/42)
worry about applications. If we have to reinstall or we just want to do a clean install and then reinstall everything, everything is in our repos. Well, it's the same way with Steam. You don't have a physical copy, but you can redownload your games again, so you never lose them. You don't have to load them back in with the CDs. You just have a high-speed Internet, which most people do now. I'm sure some have some metered Internet. Some of our friends in Europe and stuff. But as a general rule, in the States, most people have enough bandwidth, and even if they are capped, have enough to redownload the games unless you have been playing 700 Linux games, and then, I'm sorry, you might have to do it over a couple of months, but in general, you don't have to worry about misplacing your game disks or them getting just messed up. So it kind of offered a whole new paradigm of how to game, how to store your games. You don't have to mess with wine. Now, I'm sure there are some games that do (12/42)
require wine, and maybe some of the ones in your repositories. I'm not sure, because I usually tend to like the more modern-looking ones. Some of the text-based ones, you don't have to worry about that kind of stuff. And there are some really fun, independent games that you won't find on Steam, that you'll only find in your repositories. So I'm not saying Steam's the only place to get your games. I'm just saying, if you want some of the more current games that are friends on Windows and Mac play, then Steam is the way to go, in my opinion. But opinions, everybody has one. What do you think about this? Do you think that's a benefit that you don't have to worry about disks and stuff? Or do you prefer to have... Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That's the innovation of the modern era. We're in the 21st century today. How many people have a word processor program where they write a quote letter or a quote memo? And how many people actually print those out anymore? Yeah, that's something that (13/42)
the word processor companies need to think about. Why do you have something that looks like an 8.5 by 11 or A3 size page on the... I think I got A3 right. I'm not familiar with the European sizes. Maybe A4. I think that's the bigger one. Anyway, why does the page look like a printed page in a word processor window? Why isn't it not just responsive like a web page is? I mean, that's the way it should be, because you don't print these things out anymore. And it's the same thing with games. You need to think about, okay, how do people use it today? And people don't want to go out to the store, rummage through some shelves, find a game that has a label that looks good, bring it home, pay for it, bring it home, install it, figure out that the label misrepresented how the game actually looked. You know, 99% of the time the graphics on the label were fantastic, and you open it up and install it and it's crap. But it's fun to play, so you keep it. And yeah, today people don't do that. People (14/42)
don't want to do that. People want to do click, install, play. And the way you've described Steam, it sounds like that's exactly what you need to do. So the next question is, how difficult is it to install Steam on your Linux machine? It used to be when it first came out, I remember people had to actually compile it, and then eventually the Steam folks got it to the point where there were some packages you could install, but then there was some tweaking you had to do afterwards. And these days, I bet it has changed, and I have one example of where it's changed. But you go ahead, you've had experience with this. Well, I always go to their website just because I want the latest version. And it's like, oh, install. And the package manager opens up, installs it, and I enter my credentials, and I'm like, wow, that was really tough. I think I need to... I know, I'm going to go create it and get a cup of coffee. Oh, I guess that's done. Darn. Sometimes I've heard that some people have to do a (15/42)
little bit of tweaking, because remember now, we still have in Linux some issues with our graphics. It's getting better. Some people might have problems, and there might be some people that can't get it to run because of their graphics hardware. That's something that has lagged behind in Linux gaming. But if you have an NVIDIA card, like I do, and I think you have an NVIDIA card or something... I have Intel graphics. Intel graphics. Well, those two cards are supported pretty well by those two companies. They release it so people can... they're drivers, so people can look at them. And those wonderful developers that we all love, we'll tweak them and put them in repositories, or send updates for you. The only thing that Linux gaming right now needs to concentrate on is its graphics, because even though the Intel and NVIDIA cards are well supported, we're always lagging behind, as a general rule, at least one or two versions from Windows. And sometimes that makes a big difference, because (16/42)
I've gotten things saying, hey, we have a new driver for you, and see huge gains. Yes. And so that's the only thing we need to worry about. We're not quite... we're not there yet with the driver for our video yet. And the other one, and it doesn't happen as much as it used to, and you know this one, sound. Yes. Sometimes sound works perfectly. Sometimes sounds really crazy. It's gotten better. I have had very few issues, but since Linux keeps machines running so long, sometimes we find out that, hey, your sound doesn't sound as good, or it only works halfway. And so sometimes there are still things that you have to go, well, I can play the game, but I might not have the full experience as far as sound, or I might not be able to get some of the advanced features. And then we have the other side of that, that someone buys a brand new piece of kit, a brand new computer with the latest hardware, and then you finally come into compatibility problems, because it's so new that the drivers (17/42)
haven't been written for it yet. Right. And so you have one end of the spectrum, and you have the other. So sometimes you have to find that sweet spot in the middle. Yeah, right, exactly. And that's true whether you're gaming or not on Linux. There are System76 and other computers built for Linux that are specifically designed for people who want to do gaming. So they've got high-performance video drivers, they've got high-performance GPUs, and various other components specifically designed for the gamer. And the other route you can go is to build your own. And there, just be cautious, as you always need to do with Linux, that the components you purchase for the computer you're building are actually supported by Linux. And that's about the only caution there, I think. Well, I agree with you, but from what I've kind of experienced, you know, other people might have different views, but most people now are buying their computers instead of building them. Sure. It's kind of dropped off (18/42)
because computers have dropped in price. And it used to be beneficial to build them, but I was actually looking at, I use a big laptop right now, but I was thinking maybe building a tower. And it's just not cost-effective anymore. So what I'd suggest, if you really want perhaps the best gaming on Linux, go look and buy from System76, AntraWare, someone that you know they've already done all the footwork for you, and you'll have a better chance of having a much better experience. But I think what we can kind of get from this conversation is, Steam has really thrown their support behind Linux, and because of that, these developers have opened up some of the games. So now, instead of having to work all, once you're done working, you don't have to go reboot into Windows to play your games. You might find all your games that you want to play already on Linux. And so after you've done the spreadsheets and you've done all the work for real life and adult and all that stuff, then you say, (19/42)
okay, now it's time to go kill aliens. What's better? Yeah, I like doing that too. So we've got Steam, they've put their resources behind supporting Linux, we've got over 700 plus games, it's really easy to install. Oh, and on that topic, I wanted to mention that in Ubuntu MATE, the software boutique, which is the curated version of a repository that comes with Ubuntu MATE, many of these programs that have in the past been rather difficult to install, they have a one-click install from the software boutique, and Steam's included in that list. So it is literally, open the software boutique, locate Steam, click install, ready to play. Too many steps. I'm sorry. I don't know if we can make it any quicker than that, unless it's pre-installed. In which case, you know, then you go out and you have a Steam box. So anyway, so we've got Steam, it's easy to use, it's easy to install, it's got plenty of games. Let's talk about what you do in Steam once you've got it installed. So what's your (20/42)
favorite game, Bill? Oh, well, Team Fortress 2, when I want to go shoot people. Okay. You're a violent, sorry guy, I guess, huh? Yeah, well, you know, running around with a big chainsaw, people tend to shoot you in the head before you get to them, so hey, what do I know? Yeah, you know, no, let's, to be fair, let's talk about a game that is actually Linux native that has been being developed for years now. Okay, so this is not a Steam game. This is a Linux native game. This is not. You can get this out of your repository. All right. And it's called Flight Gear. You've heard of that, haven't you? I have, yes. I may have played it once on someone else's computer. Well, not too long ago, I downloaded it and I had tried about, I think, maybe two years ago to play it. And it was just unplayable for me. So, you know, I said, well, you know, I'm revisiting this, the game, the Linux, so let me redownload this. And I'm sitting there going, wow, what an improvement. I like to fly planes. Usually (21/42)
I end up crashing them into mountains or buildings or actually just into the ground because I can take off, but I have a hard time landing. Hey, gravity sucks, okay? And it's a lot less expensive to do it in a game than it is to do it in real life. Yeah, I think it's much more beneficial for people that would be riding in the plane with me, you know? Ah, okay. Yes, true. So, as a general rule, I tend to crash the plane. So, I like to flight simulators a lot and, you know, try crazy stuff with them. But anyway, flight gear was so much improved that it actually is getting close to another flight simulator I have that unfortunately is, it does have Linux support. But I've run it on my small little Windows petition so I can play and it's called XPlane. And I found that I was in flight gear more now than I was in XPlane because it's getting better and better. And I'm like, this is really a fun game and there's a whole bunch of add-ons and stuff. But they're not quite there, but they're (22/42)
getting close. I was really impressed on how much they've done. Now, you remember now, XPlane is a very expensive product. Okay, how expensive? Yeah. For home use, you know, because they also have a pro version for people that are airline pilots or whatever, but for the home use, I paid about $65 for it. Okay. And, I mean, that's just one game. And, you know, they release updates all the time and sooner or later, okay, we're at XPlane 10 now. XPlane 11 is coming out and that's another 65 bucks. Ouch. Yeah, so I've upgraded twice from XPlane 9 to XPlane 10, but I found that flight gear is now starting to be able to save me 65 bucks. Yeah, every time you need to get the latest version, right? So, they're doing it for, just for the love of the product. And so, it's getting close. And I think, you know, a little bit more time, XPlane's going to have a real hard time against flight gear. I don't think it'll be done in six months, whatever. And, you know, then again, maybe there's some other (23/42)
people that have hardware that runs XPlane even better than I do. And they say, you know, you're an idiot. You know, it runs great. But I was able to play the game, enjoy it, and not have a bunch of little, you know, crashes and, you know, glitches and big, you know, blocks. You know, it's all disappeared. It was very smooth and, you know, it was a great, had a great toil. And I was really impressed. And then I started looking around and said, you know, XPlane has all these add-ons for jets and prop planes and everything else. Well, guess what? Flight gear does too. Not all of them are as good, but I found a few gems in that and you don't have to buy them. That's a general rule. So guys in flight gear, you guys are doing a great job. And Larry, I think you should download it and because you don't have enough to do. Right. Right. And see what you think. But as a general rule, flight gear is now a very viable flight simulator that I can play and enjoy. All right. Well, yeah, exactly. (24/42)
Well, and this whole thing about free software. So let's talk about that for a second. Again, for the people listening for the very first time or people thinking about getting into Linux as opposed to whatever they've used in the past, whether that's OS X or whether that's Windows or Sun Solaris or wherever they're coming from. So unlike XPlane, which is developed by a company for use on a specific platform, and the developers of that software are employed by that company and by contract. They are not allowed to go to other companies and share that information because it's very proprietary and they want to make a profit on it. And they do make a profit on it over and over and over again. Under Linux, the developers of the Linux operating system itself oftentimes are also involved in their favorite applications or the applications they want to contribute to. And they contribute their time for free and vice versa. The application developers are contributing to the development of drivers (25/42)
because, for example, the developers of Flight Gear, I'm sure when they run into an obstacle on an NVIDIA driver or on an Intel graphics driver, they don't just go, You know, we can't do anything about this. We're just going to have to work around it. No, this is open source software here. They actually go in and are allowed to, by the licensing of the software, to go in and modify the driver so that Flight Gear works better. And so they go fix that problem. So there's a lot of cross-pollination of knowledge between projects, the Flight Gear project, the NVIDIA driver project, and so on. So that's one of the advantages of using Linux and open source software is the fact that people do this because they want better software, because they use the software, and because they want to, and can legally, share their knowledge between projects and make everything better as a result of their knowledge in a specific area. And yeah, some of these projects are making money on, in the case of games, (26/42)
maybe the game itself is free, but then the add-ons you may have to pay for, or maybe there's a pro version that you need to fork over some money for. But the bottom line is the software is free because it's developed by people who are contributing to it out of love and out of a need to support the software that they actually use. It's also free because of the licensing, and it's specifically designed so that you can make changes legally and share them with other people legally. And in most cases, in open source software, you can actually give away the software, the original software, and redistribute it to your friends for free, legally. And you can also legally make those changes that you need and share those changes with everyone. And the obligation that you have is to share those changes back to the people who originally developed software so that if it's good enough, they will incorporate that into the version that they distribute from the original source. And so that's how Linux (27/42)
and open source software works in a nutshell, and why it can be given away for free. And in the case of gaming, that's no exception to the rule. And I think the fact that games have the need to stress video drivers and audio drivers and graphics in general to the point of stretching their capabilities, that just allows those developers to actually improve those capabilities going forward. And because of the licensing, it actually happens. There's no legal or proprietary boundaries between software programs and developers, and many developers are on multiple projects and helping out everything in the ecosystem they play in. By the way, you sound like a lawyer. You can legally do it this way. Well, you know, people coming from other platforms, they hear free and they think, ooh, underground bootleg, that kind of free. That's not what this is about. Linux is completely illegal. It's about the licensing. That's really what I want to try to emphasize. It's free for a reason. And the (28/42)
companies that develop these things benefit in other ways. And financially, I mean, Red Hat, they don't sell the product, they don't sell the operating system, they sell the support, and that's where they make their money. And not everybody purchases support from them, but there are enough people who do, enough organizations, enough companies that do, that they are making a very nice profit on developing, distributing, and supporting free software. You're right. If you're coming to Linux for the first time, you're going to run across some of those issues of licensing. And to give you just a quick example, when you download and install, like, Ubuntu, Amate, Arch, Linux Mint, or just plain Jane Ubuntu, you don't have to pay a license fee. It's actually yours. You have to change your mentality a little bit and say, okay, this is not a Windows license that has all these caveats. It's basic restrictions. You can do anything you want with it. The only thing they ask is if you do make changes (29/42)
to make it better that you send your changes back to the developer so everybody can benefit. Right. So anyway, you'll get it real easy. Just remember, Linux is fun. You also can do work. Larry does work with it. I play with it. So, but don't tell him he thinks I work, but oh, I think I just outed myself. Anyway, moving on. Speaking of fun. Okay. Linux runs Pokemon Go. Yes, it does. Oh, wait a minute. There's a caveat. There's a caveat. Don't get too excited, guys. Because I don't think we want to be walking around with our big computer laptops going, hey, where's that Pokemon? It actually runs on the Android operating system, which technically uses a Linux kernel. So we can say that, yes, we have the latest Pokemon Go. Aren't we the greatest? Okay, that's stretching it. But still, I had to throw it in there. Sure. Yeah, it has such great graphics. I actually, I couldn't understand what everybody was talking about this game. So I downloaded it on my Android. And three hours later, I was (30/42)
walking around the neighborhood trying to find Pokemon. I'm like, I can see why people take this off my phone. It's addictive. Yeah. Well, and it uses the latest in technology, augmented reality, right? Yeah, because if it sees a Pokemon and you've enabled this option, you can use your camera and turn until you find it. And really, if I found one and come up and it was inside my car, I'm like, hey, that car's locked. How'd you get in there? Come here. It was kind of funny, but no, I just had to throw it in there for a laugh, just because that's all I hear about these days. And so I had to sit, you know, me being a gamer, I had to try it out and then quickly realized that it's like a crack and had to stop immediately. Yes. So anyway, let's move on to some games that you might not have heard about. Now, we're not going to go talk in depth about a lot of them, but I want to throw out these names. So if you haven't heard of them, you should go check them out. Some of them are going to be (31/42)
released. But from what I see, most of them are already out on Steam for Linux. You might even be able to find them right from the company's websites and they might be selling, have packages in them. I always suggest, look around, look at other Linux people that sell software. Sometimes they have little game sections. You just kind of have to, if you don't want to use Steam for whatever reason, you're not locked out. You just will have to work a little harder. So without further ado, Larry, you ever heard of Half-Life 2? Absolutely. And I may have played Half-Life as well. Maybe not Half-Life 2, but Half-Life. Half-Life Minesweeper does not count. Oh, sorry. Okay. Wasteland 2, basically. That one I haven't heard of. Yeah, it's a new, I think it's one of the newer ones. I haven't played it, so I saw some screenshots. It looks pretty good. So check it out. It's pretty much, from what I can tell, it's kind of a top-down, walk-around, kill things. One called Sama, which is kind of (32/42)
interesting. That's all I'm going to say because it's a weird game. It's kind of one of those explore games. I've heard the name. Maybe that's from the novel 1984. But I've heard the name. Seriously, though, I've heard the name of it as a game, not just from the novel 1984. But I have no idea what it is or what it does. Reading. I don't know what that is. That's what we did before we had internet. We had these pieces of dead trees with black ink on them. Sometimes the ink was different colors. Ah, well, you know, everything I need to learn, I learned from watching Doctor Who or YouTube. What do you want? No, just kidding. For all you zombie-killing people, Left 4 Dead 2. Okay. Not my speed, but that's okay. Baldur's Gate Siege of Dragonspear. Don't know much about this one, so if you're a Baldur's Gate fan, you should be really happy. Okay. Team Fortress 2. I wonder how that got into that list. Don't know. Don't know. Civilization 5, I think it is, because I don't know my Roman (33/42)
numerals, but I believe it is Civilization 5. If that's a Roman numeral, it is 5. Oh! Look who knows his stuff. No, I lucked out. Anyway, this one's a turn-based system game. It's kind of fun. You've got to go send the guys out to kill things. You've got to come over here and fight this army. So basically, you just kind of obliterate your things. Pro-tip guys, destroy the other people's crops works every time. Not always, but it helps. And a new game that I saw, I don't know much about it. It's on Steam. Go read this thing. It's called Dying Light. Okay, now for all Star Wars fans, Knights of the Old Republic 2, or KOTOR 2, as they like to say. Go sling them lightsabers, guys. It's time to kill some Sith, or if you're Sith, it's time to kill some Jedi. Okay, I'm just saying. And then, Serious Sam 2. And if you don't know what Serious Sam, just think a guy running around with lots of big ammo and bigger guns and just killing stuff, you know, Quake style. And I think you pretty much got (34/42)
it. Okay. Okay, now, what do you think, Larry? Do you think that's enough game to get them started? I think so. At least enough to get people interested in it. I'm interested in exploring some of these as well. And since it's such an easy install with Ubuntu MATE, I might install Steam. But then again, I might just go back and install some of the native Linux ones that you mentioned earlier on and give those a try and see what happens. And then, you know, three weeks later, I'll raise my head up and wonder what happened to those three weeks. I missed work for three weeks. How am I going to explain this? Yes. Before I get flamed out of existence, I realize these are games, most of them are games that you would have to pay for. Mm-hmm. The only reason I kind of focused on this type of game is that as people come over to Linux, they want games they've heard of or some newer looking games. I'm not saying that the games available in the repositories are garbage. I've spent hours finding (35/42)
little gems of games, you know, some of them text-based, some of them have graphics. And I've had a great time. I mean, Alien Arena, I ran around for days until I had to have an intervention, you know. So there are games that you don't have to pay for that are just as fun. So I'm not trying to say these are the only games available. I'm just trying to show that we have games that are fun, that are fairly current, or almost as new as the Windows versions. So people realize that Linux isn't just for work. Linux can be used for everything. And that's basically what this whole thing is. You know, most people use Linux to work, but they seldom think that, hey, I can do other stuff with it. And I just want to show you that one system can rule them all. Yeah. Right. Lord of the Rings reference there. So we've talked, Bill, just to recap here for a second. We've talked about the Steam engine and installing that on Linux and the support of the Steam games and many of those you have to pay for. (36/42)
We've talked about native Linux games, many of those you don't have to pay for because they're part of the Linux and open source ecosystem. So they will be free and many of them are of equal quality as the other games you might find on Steam. And so we've got a lot of choice for our listeners. Is there anything else that you think our listeners should know about games, gaming on Linux, Steam, anything else? I'm glad you asked. I always have something else. Now this is a little geeky. We are getting, or already have, Linux support for some of the best gaming engines out there, but I just kind of wanted to let people know what their names are so they can kind of, you know, when they're using the Google, to see where the status of these engines are or if they've made tweaks. The Unreal 4 engine, Crytek's CryEngine, and of course the Unity engine. I believe Unity is the open source version of a gaming engine and it's being used by several games. I don't know what they are, but I've heard (37/42)
good things that it's promising, but I haven't seen any games based on it yet. But you know, Crytek, the CryEngine is probably one of the most advanced engines out there. Because when they first come out, I remember even the high end machines had trouble running Crytek's engine. So it could just do so much. And Unreal 4 engine, hey, everybody's, well, let me say, a lot of people played Unreal. And it was, you know, so you can do a lot with these engines, you know. So what I would like to say, hey guys, these games are going to be based on these engines. So I think it's important for us as a community to get together and support the devs so they continue making these ports for the games. So we can have, I wouldn't say, parity with Windows, because we're better than, no, I better not say that. Yeah, I'm going to get in trouble. Hey, but you know, if the dev developers of these games see that, hey, letting people spend money on games, maybe we should continue doing it. Yes, they might not (38/42)
be as much, but I have found in my endeavors, money speaks. Now, if you don't want to buy a game, that's fine. But if you're a gamer, and my suggestion, and I am not paid to endorse Steam, is to wait until one of those games goes on sale from one of these developers and grab it. So you save some money, and get a current game, and you support the devs, and they say, well golly, we've had a thousand downloads of our game from Linux. Maybe it's worth it to us to go ahead and do the extra work so, hey, we're not going to turn down free money. So I have to say, if you can, support the developers that do work for Linux games. And if you don't want to, you don't have to, but I'm just saying, the more we can support them, I think we're going to continue seeing all these games, because Steam can't do all the work. Right, exactly. And it's the same with any open source project. If you like it and you use it, continue to provide your support in whatever way you can. And if they ask for money and (39/42)
you have the money to give them, whether it's a donation or a payment for one of their software programs, or if you have no money but you have time and you can contribute your time to improving, either the software itself, if you have that kind of experience and that kind of skill, then go ahead and do that. Or perhaps even in documentation, or teaching people how to use it, as we do here on the Going Linux podcast. So lots of ways you can contribute support and help the development of software that's oftentimes given away for free. Yeah, and this kind of ends this part of the conversation. The gaming on Linux has come a long way since when I first got in. Larry used to have to listen to me whine because I couldn't get something to work and I was banging my head against the wall. And he's like, well, try this. And he remembers days. I spent days trying to get a game to work and just utterly failing. And then now it's just so much easier. It's getting to the point that Linux is coming (40/42)
closer and closer. Just being a system you can do anything you want with without all the hassles of license agreements and stuff. If you want to change the background, you don't have to buy the super premium version. It just works. And that's what we're trying to aim for. I know some of you say, oh golly, a gaming episode. But people like to have fun too. Absolutely. And you keep saying Linux is getting there. I think from the way you've described it, Bill, based on your experience, that we are there in many cases with many games. It's as easy as click, install, play. And how much easier can you get it than that? Okay, so it is now the year 2016, the year of the Linux desktop as it was in 2014, 2015. And now we're the year of the Linux gaming desktop. Hey, that's an idea. So I hope everybody enjoyed it. Check out some of the games. See what you think. Feel free to flame Larry all you want. No, if I made a mistake, please let me know. So Larry, unless you have anything else to say, do (41/42)
you have an application pick? Well, no. How about you, Bill? And I think I can guess what it's going to be. I'm going to cheat. I'm going to cheat because you know I'm lazy that way. It's steam. How did you know? I did. I did. I did know. All right. Well, with that, thanks, Bill, for putting the show together. This was all your work. And you've done a phenomenal job putting this together. And it's good work. Larry, what's our next episode? Our next episode is listener feedback. 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, even if that's gaming. Oh, that is slow. If you'd like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our Going Linux Podcast Google Plus community. Until next time, keep on gaming. 73. Thanks for listening. (42/42)
Going Linux episode 438. Welcome to Linux, starting your adventure, how Linux compares to Microsoft Windows, in the area of privacy, and other conspiracy theories. 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 goinglinx.gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, we will be talking about privacy, specifically comparing Linux to Windows 11. And we'll talk about some other things that may sound like conspiracy theories, but they really aren't, unfortunately. So, shall we get started? Yes, we shall. So, before (1/43)
we go, I actually have a non-weather update. Oh, okay. So, I have, everybody knows I like to play games, and I have one game that will not run on anything but Windows. So, I have a small partition just for that one game, and the other part is all Linux, and I use dual boot on my main system. Okay. And so, I've been using this dual boot setup for months and months. It has Windows, it had Windows 10 and then Windows 11, and then, of course, I had a button to mate on this machine. I have Linux Mint on my other, just 100% Linux machine. So, I have, so I can compare and one's more portable, etc., etc. So, I've done security updates, downloaded it, and thanks to my Linux partition, no issues whatsoever. Okay. I had just finished a gaming session with some friends, and I was, I shut the computer down that night and went to bed. Got up in the morning and found out that, oh, you have to do this update. Okay, so I let it do its update for Windows, never had an issue, and rebooted, and guess (2/43)
what? I cannot get into my Linux partition now. It's like the GRUB boot manager is gone. Okay. I'm sure I can fix it, but it's still, it's like, what changed? So, of course, the last thing I... Bad Microsoft. The only thing I could do is boot into Microsoft because my other machine I had left at work. And so, everything, I don't use their Edge browser or any of their services. I use just to play that one game. Occasionally, I'll look up something for like a YouTube on how to beat something in the game, but that's about the extent of it. Everything, all my defaults were set all back to, let's use Edge, it's so popular. And I was getting ads, and I'm like, God, really? So, yeah, I haven't done any heavy lifting with the Windows 11 or 10. And that's kind of what made me start digging after you had mentioned this video about what Windows 10 slash 11 does when you first started up. So, it was worse than I thought. So, I've been blissfully ignorant in a lot of the changes that they've been (3/43)
implementing. It's almost as if it's just a personal ad platform because it's like, really? This is ridiculous because it's talking to a bunch of stuff. So, we'll get into it. But yeah, I am not happy with Microsoft. And that's why I use Linux. And of course, when they don't break it. That's my rant. Yeah, I think your comment that you put on our notes here that Windows Update is evil is... It kind of sums it up, doesn't it? Yeah, it's not a good thing for in the morning when I need to get work done. Because I use LibreOffice on Linux for certain elements that I want to get accomplished in the mornings. And before coffee, I can't even get into it. And just sit with a blinking cursor. It kind of does not start my day off well. So, anyway... And this is not bashing... I do want to say right up front. This is not bashing Windows 11. It might be bashing some of their practices. But a lot of this... I don't want you to think, well, this is the mandatory, we're going to bash Windows. We (4/43)
actually took the time to read those mind-numbing agreements that you have to agree to before you can even use Windows on a... Like my machine come pre-installed with Windows 10. So, I mean, you can read the agreements, but most people just go, accept, let me get work done. Right, because you have no alternative but to accept it if you want to use their software. So, what else are you going to do? Yeah, it's kind of a catch point too. Once we start discussing, you'll see what I mean. But anyway, we'll leave that for the episode. Yeah, and so that we don't have to mention whenever we have links in the show notes, here are some of the links that we'll have in the show notes. There's a YouTube video on, is your word processor spying on you? From someone named Naomi Brockwell. If you look at her YouTube channel, you'll see that she has a lot of things about this kind of topic. Not just Microsoft or Windows, but other things about privacy. So, and we all know that YouTube is the ultimate (5/43)
authority on everything secure. That was sarcasm in case you didn't know. But that was kind of an interesting thing to watch. There's also something about, is Windows spyware? There is a link to the Microsoft privacy statement, which I think you should take a look at. That's one of those mind-numbing things. Another mind-numbing thing is something about Samsung automated content recognition, oftentimes abbreviated as ACR. That sounds so friendly. I'll talk about that as well. It does, yes. It's automated. What could go wrong there? And then a link on how to turn it off. And a link to Bitwarden because we mentioned that as well. And if we find other links that might be interesting, we'll add them to the show notes as well. But that's just kind of a sampling of some of the things that we use to research this. And so it's not just YouTube videos from conspiracy theorists, but rather we dug into and read, or Bill dug into and read, the Windows or Microsoft privacy statement, and we'll have (6/43)
a lot to say on that. And I dug into some of the privacy statements regarding ACR for Samsung and LG and Apple TV. And, well, we can talk about it. OK. So. All right. You ready, Larry? I'm ready. Let's get going. So, Larry, today we're going to be talking about how Linux compares to Windows 11 and privacy and how it affects the user or us or you. Let's look at some examples of the data collected by the most popular operating system in use. Windows 10, slash 11, because they're just they're very similar to privacy statements, haven't changed that much. I have included a link in the show notes, as Larry has already stated, that that was posted by a channel on YouTube. And it breaks down what this is doing before you even use it. So, Larry, what's it doing? Yeah, well, according to the YouTube video, Microsoft starts collecting and sending information to Google, Akamai, DigiCert, McAfee, MSN, Bing and others, just to name a few. Now, to be fair to Microsoft, some of this data might be (7/43)
used to offer you features. Others may be used to offer to those companies the ability to advertise to you. But why? Do you need all this to write a document? Do you want or need these features when you're creating a spreadsheet? We encourage you to watch the video and decide for yourself and all of the links that we have in the show notes. And it's not just the operating system that is reporting back, but also some of the applications. I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to read the Windows 11 agreement that you have to agree to before you can even use Windows. And it is quite enlightening. Yep. And here are some direct quotes from the agreement that our listeners might find interesting. Installation and use rights. Section A, license. The software is licensed, not sold. Under this agreement, we grant you the right to install and run one instance of the software on your device. The licensed device for use by one person at a time. So long as you comply with the terms and restrictions (8/43)
contained in this agreement. Updating or upgrading from non-genuine software with software from Microsoft or authorized sources does not make your original version of the updated or upgraded version genuine. And in that situation, you do not have a license to use the software. Now, to put that last sentence in a little clearer English, if you are running a pirated version of Microsoft Windows, and then you use that to go to their site and upgrade, that doesn't give you a genuine version of Windows. It simply means that you're now using an upgraded version of the pirated software. And as far as Microsoft is concerned, the license is invalid. Just something in here I wanted to highlight that kind of caught me for use by one person at a time. That will be important later on. So put a pin in that. Okay. And Section B, device. In this agreement, device means a local hardware system, whether physical or virtual, with an internal storage device capable of running the software. A hardware (9/43)
partition or blade is considered to be a device. For purposes of this agreement, device does not include any hardware system, whether physical or virtual, on which the software is installed or accessed solely for remote use over a network. Hmm. Yeah. So I know this sounds like we're just going to read the license, but there's a reason for this. So on C it says restrictions. So I thought they were telling me restrictions at the beginning, but okay. So this is the restrictions part. The device manufacturer or installer and Microsoft reserve all rights, such as rights under intellectual property laws, not expressly granted in this agreement, and no other rights are licensed to you. For the avoidance of doubt, this license does not give you any right to, and you may not permit any other person or entity to use virtualized features of the software separately. Publish copy other than the permitted to backup. You cannot permit it to have one backup. Rent, license, or lend the software. (10/43)
Transfer the software except permitted by this agreement. Work around any technical restrictions or limitations in the software. Put a pin in that too. To operate the devices as a server except as permitted under section two, use the software to offer commercial hosting services. Make the software available for simultaneous use by more than one user over a network. Install the software on a server for remote access or use over the network. Install the software on a device to use only by remote users. Reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the software. Put a pin in this too. When using internet-based features, you may not use these features in any way that could interfere with anyone else's use of them or to try to gain access or use any service data, account, or network in an authorized manner. Okay. That was a lot of gobbledygook. Yeah. Gobbledygook. So let's boil this section down a little bit, Larry, so we have a foundation. So starting at the top, the part that you read, (11/43)
basically it says the software is licensed. You don't own it. Everybody says, oh, I can't do that to my Windows. It's not yours. It's licensed. They grant you the right to use it. So since they retain all the rights to the software, they can pretty much do what they want. You don't own it, but you're paying them for it. Everybody says, well, I bought it. Yeah. Well, you bought a license, not the software. And it says that when they grant you the right to install, so they're saying you're going to buy a license and then we're going to let you install it. But you only can run one instance at a time by one person at a time. Now, Larry, can we allow other people to use our Linux while we're using it? Because when I told you to put a pin in it, you remember Linux is designed as a multi-user operating system. Right. Yeah. Not only can we take the operating system, Linux, and give it to other people or sell it to other people, We can have other people using it at the same time we're using it (12/43)
because it's multi-user. So you can have Linux installed on a computer and give people multiple access to it and they can just use it at the same time if you want to. So use it as a server. Right. So, yeah. And you can put it on whatever hardware it'll install and run on. It doesn't matter. You know, you don't have to have the definition of physical device being a partition on a hard drive. We hope that's not a partition. Yeah, well, I guess that section B where they're defining device, they're kind of breaking it down to a device is not your computer. A device is whatever partition Windows is running on. Shall we move on? Okay. So one other thing is how do we know that Linux is a genuine software if we can't buy a license? Well. Then you can download it from the distribution. There you go. It doesn't matter. Yeah. The mind numbing restriction legally used in section C basically says, Guess what, guys? We reserve all rights whether they're explicitly granted or we even know about them. (13/43)
We still get them. Yeah. Okay. And I said put a pin in that because as these systems become more interconnected and they're talking to more and more people, what exactly are they coming up with? Why do they need to share all this information? It's like double speak. They're speaking, we respect your privacy, but we're still going to send it to all these other entities. Some of it are sub companies of us or we have interests in them. We have agreements to share information. So, you know, it's a lot of interconnected stuff going on. If you watch that YouTube video, you'll kind of see it because he compares how much has changed from Windows 95 to the Windows 10 slash 11. Now, we're getting ready to talk about something that I found kind of interesting is there's agreements within a disagreement that cover other things that, in my opinion, and I'll let the users decide on whether it's double speak because they're saying, Oh, we respect this and we only use this, but oh, we're using all (14/43)
this information for targeted ads. And it takes information about a person for a targeted ad. I'm sure you do a Google search for targeted ads and you'll see what I'm talking about. But they gather information and build a profile on people. So how is it, how are they keeping your data safe? Let's take a second and read the section on privacy and consent of use of data from Microsoft's agreement. It says, Your privacy is important to us. We'll see. Some of the software features send or receive information when you use those features. Many of these features, many of these features can be switched off in the user interface, or you can choose not to use them. By accepting this agreement and using the software, you agree that Microsoft may collect, use and disclose the information as described in the Microsoft privacy statement at, and then a link to their privacy statement, and as may be described in the user interface associated with the software features. So each feature will have its (15/43)
own statement. In other words, let's just break that down a little bit. You're agreeing that Microsoft can collect your information, use your information and disclose your information. In other words, they can give it or sell it to some third party. So all of that's included in what you agree to when you agree to use Windows. And so that's what I mean by agreement within our agreement. So I actually put a link so I could get to it real quick because there's a few things and we're not going to go too in depth on this one. This is kind of just where we're trying. We're trying to show you how things compare from Windows 11 to Linux. The first. But here is this agreement, which is buried in the main agreement. It says Microsoft uses the data we collect to provide you with rich, interactive experiences. In particular, we use data to provide our products, which includes updating, securing, troubleshooting, as well as providing support. It also includes sharing data when it is required to (16/43)
provide the service or carry out the transactions you request, improve and develop our products, personalize our products and make recommendations, advertise and market to you, which includes sending promotional communications, targeting advertising and presenting you with relevant offers. We also use the data to operate our business, which includes analyzing our performance, meeting our legal obligations and developing our workforce and doing research. In carrying out these purposes, we combine data we collect from different contexts, for example, from your use of two Microsoft products, or obtain third parties to give you a more seamless, consistent and personalized experience to make informed business decisions for other legitimate purposes. And it goes on. But that is the agreement within the agreement. So they're telling you first, you're telling them, OK, you can collect all this information and use it. And then you dig into the agreement and you find another one that says, oh, (17/43)
by the way, we're going to use this to develop products that we can then get more information from you, I guess, personalize our products, and we can use it to advertise and market to you, to your licensed software that you don't own. So it's like an ad platform. You just get beat. So here it is. All you want to do is a spreadsheet. And here we thought Google was only company in the ad business, right? No, no, no, no, no. So these EULAs, or End User License Agreements, are the things that you're just clicking through before you even use the software. And here's the kicker. You can't really go to all these subsections until you're connected to the Internet and using the software. It's a catch-22. You have to pay for the product before you can see what you're agreeing to when you use it. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know how that is even a thing, but the more I got into this, it made my head hurt because there are so many weird things like, oh, you can only use it by one person at a (18/43)
time. So if you're playing like they have the Microsoft gaming center they're trying to sell you games to PCs, but it's a two-player and you have two controllers, well, that's more than one person. That's two people using it. Yeah, I don't know how that applies. So, I mean, this is non-conspiracy theory. This is a bunch of, uh, I mean, it's right here in black and white for anybody who wants to, or has the time, or even wants to read it. So, you know, I don't know. My conclusion is, um, I know why I don't use it. I didn't realize it had gotten this bad. I had read it a long time ago, but they keep adding features or, uh, experiences and, um, yeah. What are your thoughts, Larry? I don't know. Am I sounding like a total paranoid privacy person now? I don't think you're paranoid because the facts are there in writing from the company that's providing you the software that we're talking about here. So it's not paranoid. It's, uh, in their agreement. Um, what I don't understand is one of (19/43)
the things that you hear a lot of people say, and it's actually referred to in the agreement here, is that if you don't agree to these terms, you don't have to use the feature or you don't have to use the product. Uh, and if you just think about the situation where you purchase a computer that has Microsoft Windows already installed on it, and you click through on the agreements and you decide, hmm, I don't think I want to use Windows. So you take Windows off of the computer and you install Linux on your computer. But what have you done? You have not agreed to use their product because, you know, you're not using it. But it's not like you can return the software for a refund. You've already paid for it. So, you know, what are you doing? Maybe it's better just to purchase your computers with Linux pre-installed on them. Because then you can avoid this whole situation. Of course you are missing one of the most important things. Say you clicked the agree and then you read through it. So (20/43)
I'm not agreeing to that and, um, take it off and put Linux on it. You've already sent before you even can get to the agreement. It's already sending data, the device, the version, everything, your geolocation, um, to... They've already collected information. Yeah, they've already collected information before you can even agree or disagree. Yeah. It's mind blowing because, uh, it's the, as you'll see, cause I had to break this up because it was just, it's just so big of a subject. I mean, I thought it was going to be fairly straightforward. You know, here's the differences. And then I made the mistake of reading these agreements and saying, wait a minute, it's a hundred, for 99.9% of this, it's the polar opposite of what Linux offers. Yes, yes. That's the point that we're trying to make here is you can avoid all this mess by installing Linux. Now, some Linux distributions, quite frankly, have an end user license agreement, and you need to agree to that, especially if it's a version of (21/43)
Linux that you've purchased before you can use their software. But they give you an opportunity to read their end user license agreement before you install. And, uh, I can't speak for every Linux distribution because I haven't used every Linux distribution, but many of them who do have EULAs will give you the opportunity to read it before they start collecting the information, which is the opposite, like you said, the polar opposite of what Microsoft is doing here. So the only option you have is before you turn on the computer for the first time, you need to go to their website, presumably on another computer, and read their end user license agreement, if you can find it, before you even power on your computer. Now, tell me this, another possible way around this in my estimation, and I know the answer to this, but I'm going to get your feedback on it, is, okay, so I buy a computer that has Windows pre-installed. And I do not intend to use Windows. So what I do is I take that computer (22/43)
and I boot into Windows, but I don't connect it to the internet. And I'm reading the EULA and I decide, nope, I don't want it. If I'm not connected to the internet, it can't send the information back, right? Let's see, without being connected to the internet, I would say, no, it couldn't. But if you switch on the internet while you're connected. It's going to send it. It'll send it. It will. Yeah. So I think the only way around this, if you're going to buy a computer that has Windows pre-installed on it, but you don't intend to use Windows, is to wipe the hard drive. Don't boot to the operating system on the hard drive. Boot to a Linux thumb drive and wipe the hard drive, remove the partition, and install Linux by removing Windows entirely. Completely erase it. Yeah, but guess what? You still are paying them for that license. Right. Okay. Even though you never used to see, oh, I love this hardware, but I'm not going to use Windows. You still have paid them whatever they charge the (23/43)
manufacturer if it's pre-installed. If you're buying it, it's about $90 to $100 now. Even though they say, we're giving it away, they're still getting licensing fees from these manufacturers. The only way that you can not support some of these practices that they're doing is you need to, in my opinion, just support the manufacturers that install Linux on it. And you don't have to worry about all that other jazz. Like what's the one? System 76. System 76 and Dell sells computers with Linux pre-installed and Lenovo sells computers with Linux pre-installed. And they also sell computers without an operating system. So those would be the only ways you could avoid. Well, there's other smaller manufacturers. Sure, sure. Absolutely. Yeah, those are just some examples. Or you could build it yourself. But that would be the only way to avoid paying Microsoft for Windows. Yeah, so the reason, and this is my opinion only, that this is becoming more and more prevalent in Windows is because people (24/43)
just don't read the license. They don't realize how much of their privacy they're giving away. And if people just say, look, I just want to get my stuff done. I don't care what these things say. You're giving away a lot of your privacy to a corporation who would then sell it. And what you've got to ask yourself is, OK, so Microsoft might not be nefarious, but what about McCaffrey? What about Google? What are their data policies and protections? Do they care about privacy? It's kind of a snowball. So, yes, you don't know how these other companies are going to handle your data and your privacy. But that's exactly right. If all you want to do is just do your darn spreadsheet, you're just like, I don't care. I don't do anything. But in all actuality, you're just empowering. And if that doesn't bother you, hey, go ahead and use it. When people ask, why do you use Linux instead of Windows? Then you can say, well, have you read their agreements? Do you know what they do with your data? You (25/43)
should think about it. Yeah. And the thing is, though, that most people, you know, the average computer user doesn't care. You know, they just want to use the software. They know Windows. They know how to use it. They're so concerned that if they switch to something else, they're not going to be able to use their favorite program or that they'll need to learn something new. And whether that's switching from a Windows computer to a Mac OS computer or a Chrome computer, that reluctance to switch is there. And so they just don't care. They accept. However, let's move on to a couple of other scenarios where you've got a lot of leakage of your private information. And it goes beyond just collecting generalized or anonymized information about a group of users and is very specific to your information that you're showing on your screen. And what I'm talking about here is automated content recognition. That's a term that is kind of general. It's often referred to as ACR, as we mentioned in the (26/43)
introduction. One of the things that I discovered in researching for this episode is that, let's say you just purchased a smart television, right? They're very popular these days. You know, some have Roku built in. Others have other software built in that allows you to connect your computer to the Internet to be able to view the free streamed channels or the paid stream channels. Well, even beyond that streamed content, you're agreeing to a EULA, an End User License Agreement for the use of that smart device. And we have a link specifically to Samsung's documentation on their website about their ACR, automated content recognition. And you can read through their agreement that you are agreeing to, if you wish, and how they go about collecting information. And it's not all that different from what we just described from Microsoft. And we also have a link to turn that off on your television if you so choose to do. And I've turned it off on my Samsung TV after reading this, and I have (27/43)
received no difference in the programming that I can access, in the things that I can do with that television through their smart features. It's just that they give you the ability to turn off, or at least it appears that it's turning off. Now I'm getting into conspiracy theory here. It appears that they're turning it off. And I also discovered that whether your television is a Samsung or an LG or any other brand, Vizio, doesn't matter. If it's a smart TV, you're agreeing to have them share information. And it goes beyond that. It's even worse than just sharing information. We'll get into that in a second here. But essentially, what you're doing with your smart television is you are signing an agreement that is buried within the menu system of your television. And to find it and turn it off is a bit of a hassle. And we've got a link that includes how to turn it off for various brands. But regardless of the brand, you need to go through your menus in the television itself to figure out (28/43)
where to turn it off. And it's not always referred to as ACR. It may be referred to as something else. That's the more generalized term for Internet-based advertising and viewing information services or even voice recognition services on some of these televisions. Yes, some of them have microphones built in or accessible through the remote control. On Samsung, you have to go to settings and then support and then scroll down to terms and privacy. And in terms and privacy, there will be some checkboxes to be able to turn off viewing information services. In LG, it's in settings. And then you go to all settings and then you go to general and then you go to live plus and then you turn that off. But then there's someplace else you have to go to settings, all settings general, about this TV, user agreements, and then personalized advertising. You can turn that off. Amazon Fire TV. I'm not going to go through all these, but Amazon's Fire TV, Roku TV, Apple TV, Samba TV, several others here, (29/43)
some of which I have never heard of. But lots of places to go to turn these things off and to ensure that you are not sharing this kind of information with your friendly neighborhood television manufacturer. So those are all related to sharing personal and private information, essentially. But it goes beyond that. As I was reading this specifically related to Samsung. So I can't say definitively that every smart TV does this, although I would expect that if they're not all doing it, they're doing some version of this. In the Samsung agreement, one of the things that you're agreeing to is that they can take snapshots of what you are displaying on their television to be able to determine your viewing patterns and to be able to take that information and provide it to third parties to be able to advertise to you. Or even to, I'm making this as an assumption now, that eventually it could end up in the hands of nefarious third parties. So you could end up with spam or other unsavory ads or (30/43)
promotions or offers of spyware or other kinds of things as a result of Samsung or another smart TV manufacturer sharing that information with someone else. To take it even further, they can take a screenshot of anything that you're displaying on the TV. It doesn't have to be streaming service programming. It doesn't have to be over the air television service. It can be your computer's screens if you're using your smart TV as a monitor, as I'm doing. So think about that for a second. They could take a screenshot of anything that you're displaying on the TV. Let's assume that you have a computer for work connected to your smart TV because the screen is bigger and you know whether you have poor eyesight and need it bigger or whether you just like to see it bigger. Let's say you're working on a financial spreadsheet for your company that has proprietary information on it or financial data that could compromise your company's stock price if it were to get out. You're agreeing to allow them (31/43)
to take a screenshot of your screen at any time and any of the content that's on the screen. So now you've just agreed to give them access to your company's private and proprietary information, which may get you fired if that actually comes out. Because there's probably something in your employment agreement that says that you protect the company's private information. So it's in your best interest if you're using your smart TV as a computer monitor that you turn these things off if you're using it for business purposes because it could affect your ability to earn an income. I'm not saying that it's going to happen, but the potential is there. Yeah. So just so I understand, this is how you talk about companies. Say you're working on a spreadsheet for your bills or you're putting together a spreadsheet with personal information so you don't have to find it in five different pieces of paperwork. It could be taking a snapshot of that and sending it to Samsung with all your relevant (32/43)
information. Yeah, that's what you're agreeing that they can do. Whether they do it or not, I suspect they are. And worse still, you could be logging into your bank. And if you're displaying your banking information, they could take a screenshot right at that second and they could have all of that. If you're logging into a website and there's the password field, right? And you click the little icon that lets you view the password as you're typing it in. Now they have your login name and password for that website and the website that you're logging into. They have everything they need to compromise that particular site that you're using. So let me ask you a question. This agreement, also the reason behind this is they look at your viewing. They're getting a profile of what you'd like to watch so they can offer you stuff. So that's what they say as to why they're doing this. Yes. So you say you watch the news at six and then you watch a rerun of the Beverly Hillbillies or whatever. (33/43)
They're gathering that information and saying, oh, he likes older shows, so we should offer him this. I guess they also know which advertisements that you don't watch. You just change the agenda. Skip over those ads. Yeah, right. Wow. So they find out what you're interested in. I guess they're pretty smart. They can get a pretty good idea of maybe not sure your name unless they've captured that somehow. They get an idea of your demographic, whether you're male, female and age and interests, just from your viewing habits. All you're trying to do is just watch the latest. Watch TV. Watch TV in peace and you're just helping them out. Of course, we know there's never a data breach at any of these companies. Exactly. So, yeah. So we've talked a lot here about our opinions and we've also talked about the things that are in writing from these companies. And we're going to leave it to you to do your own research. But hopefully we've done enough research to spur you to actually do some of that (34/43)
research and learn these things for yourself. So, you know, you could be a conspiracy theorist and take this information and morph it into something that just makes some conclusions that perhaps aren't relevant or valid. Or you could simply use them for your personal use. We suggest the latter. But if you want to spread the word that these things are possible, then our links will help you out, not just for your own personal edification, but also to be able to share them with other people who you'd like to inform about these potential data breaches and personal information breaches and everything else. You may say that if you're not doing something wrong, you don't have anything to hide. And so you don't have to worry about this. But think about the scenario where you're doing everything perfectly legally and perfectly on the right side of the moral situation as well. But your smart TV is hooked up to the Internet and you're displaying your personal or business proprietary information (35/43)
on the screen and they're capturing that. You have to worry about that as well. Moving on, I actually have a software recommendation because, you know, we've all talked about you should have strong passwords, but who can remember, you know, 14, 15, 16 long passwords? Or more. So I use and actually pay the whole $10 a year for Bitwarden. And it's a password manager and I am not getting paid. I actually give them money. And it is open source. It's constantly altered for security. And they tell you right there, if you forget your master password, you're out of luck. My work uses Windows. Of course it does. You have to have these long complicated passwords and it's easy to go password 123456 and it's secure. But to really protect your privacy and, you know, a lot of these browsers will say, we can, Edge does it because it popped up and Google does it on their Chrome browser. Basically, they say, we can remember your passwords. I don't trust you because I just read your license agreement. I (36/43)
think I'll use my own solution that's open source and people can actually look at the code and figure it out if there's something nefarious going on. So Bitwarden, I've been using for about two years now. So no, actually three. And it really helps with passwords. So one of the biggest things you can do for your privacy is have strong, random passwords that are not something that are easily guessed. And what's nice about Bitwarden, it will actually, you tell it what kind of password you want and it will come up with something for you. And you can kind of, it has its own little generator and I use that and I have yet to have one of my passwords compromised. So it gets high marks. I would recommend anybody do your own research. I've included a link in the show notes to their site and there's lots of people that swear by it and I'm one of those people. So I don't know if you use a password manager, Larry, but Bitwarden is mine of choice and I can highly recommend it. Yeah, I used to use (37/43)
LastPass until I lost trust in them after they had a security breach and switched to Bitwarden. And I agree with everything that you just said. And in addition to that, one of the things that Bitwarden allows you to do that LastPass used to do, but doesn't now without paying them exorbitant fees. Bitwarden allows you, even with the free version, to use their password manager across different devices. That's nice, yeah. And I use Bitwarden exclusively, have for years, and find it a great alternative to the other password managers that are out there, mainly because of the cross-platform feature. Because my phone is an iPhone, my business computer is MacBook Pro from Apple, and my home computers are Linux. They're all Linux. And, you know, we have an iPad or two hanging around here as well and some other things, but Bitwarden allows you to share your passwords across all these devices in their secure vault without charging you an arm and a leg to do that. So, you know, it's great that (38/43)
they offer that for free. If you want the additional features and you want to support them, please do provide them financial support by subscribing to their services. But you can use it, you can try it, you can test it out for your own purposes without having to pay them a bunch of money up front. And they also provide some great instructions for moving your passwords from whatever you're using today. Even if it's a spreadsheet where you've captured all of the passwords that you use, you can import that all into Bitwarden and it'll create a vault for you. And then delete that spreadsheet, please. But, you know, I used Bitwarden for free for the first year. And, of course, you have to create an account because that's how you log in as a uniquely identifiable person. Yes, but I never got any advertisement saying, give us money, give us money, give us money. And after I said, this is something I use every day. It's open source and they're constantly adding features. I went ahead and said, (39/43)
here, you can have 10 bucks a month. It's less than a dollar a month. It's not even a coffee. Yeah, here it is. Thank you very much. Continue to work. It's always worked perfectly out of the box. And that's kind of hard to say for any software, but it's always done exactly what it's supposed to. And it's always been cross platform. I've used it on Linux. I've used it on Windows. I've used it on an iMac that I had long ago. So, yeah, it's anywhere that you need passwords or information that you need to have with you. Bitwarden has been fantastic. Yep. But I just wanted to say Bitwarden and the people behind Bitwarden, you better not have a security reach. That would be our luck. We are trusting you until you prove that we can't trust you. We will continue to trust you and we'll continue to endorse you. It is the best one out there at this point. And so, you know, it may have been kind of an abrupt switch from privacy to Bitwarden, but Bitwarden is part of privacy. Yeah, it's part of (40/43)
privacy, ensuring that your passwords are kept secure and away from prying eyes and even outside of your RAM memory in your brain. You don't have to remember it. It's there. I can remember one password that's long, but I can't remember 14. But the whole idea of these next couple episodes is to compare the differences between Windows 11 and Linux and inform maybe some users of other operating systems that there are other options. And what exactly you're giving up or getting in the process of using that software. Yep. So we'll have additional episodes that touch on this subject. We may not record them immediately and publish them immediately. We may have some other topics in between, just so we're not talking privacy, privacy, privacy. We don't want this to become the privacy podcast, but we will touch on additional privacy related issues as we move forward. So stay tuned for that. Yes. Our next in this series, we talked about Windows 11. The next one will be about Linux and how it (41/43)
compares and under the same type of format. So I hope you stick around and see that if we see something, we'll call it out. So, or not. Exactly. And yeah, if you've, as a listener to this podcast, if you have encountered anything around privacy that you'd like to share with us, or you think we're full of crap on some of these things that we've talked about here. We appreciate you sending those into us through our normal channels with the phone number or the comments or emails. And we will share them in the listener feedback episodes. And speaking of listener feedback, that will be our next episode. Listener feedback, as is our habit. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and subscribe. We provide 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 (42/43)
Going Linux episode 358, 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 to send us feedback, our email address is goinglinux.gmail.com and our voicemail is 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hey Bill. Hey Larry, how are you today? I am doing fine. We have a lot of email this time around and a voicemail. So you want to get right into it? Yeah, I just want to say that it's starting to feel like Christmas. We got a lot of snow up here in New Mexico. Oh, yes. I bet the temperature's dropped. It's about 26 degrees right now. So I'm inside where it's (1/43)
warm. Yeah, it's a chilly, what, 63 or something here in California. Temperatures have dropped here as well, but not to the same degree. It's 63. Hey, don't forget that sweater. Yes, exactly. All right. Yeah, that's my winter jacket as a sweater. The winter jacket? Yeah, mine's a parka. Yep. Anyhow, we shall jump right into our first voicemail. And this one's from Paul who provided not only the voicemail but an email to go along with it. So I'll read that first. This is about boot partition saga question answered and the whole story in audio feedback. That was the title of his email. He said, Hi, Larry and Bill. Thanks to both of you for all your work in supporting the Linux community. I have learned so much about Linux by just listening to going Linux over the years. Keep up the good work and thanks for keeping the tenor of the show family friendly. I so appreciate that. Attached is the answer to Bill's question about the ext2 file system for the boot partition and a comment regarding (2/43)
Larry's analysis of Peter's problem in the last listener feedback. My clip is about four minutes. Sorry about the length, but I included both snippets from episode 356. So the context is there. If you can't use it, no problem. I won't tell you how long I spent just getting four minutes of audio together. Kind of embarrassing. This is tough work. Paul from North Texas. Well, thanks, Paul. And yeah, it's a little more work than you might think going into it. But, you know, once you get used to it, it's straightforward making audio recordings. And now you've got some experience. Maybe you could do some recording for us anyway. All joking aside, here is his voicemail. Hello, Larry and Bill. This is Paul from North Texas. Thank you very much for your comments on the last listener feedback, episode number 356. I wanted to give you a couple more pieces of information and maybe we can put this to rest. And it was a strange problem. The problem I was experiencing that I isolated to the boot (3/43)
partition was the fact that I could not update the system. When I went into the update manager, there was a dialog box that said it couldn't remove a certain file and so it failed to update. Well, further information as I began to look into this. It was the update manager was attempting to remove an old kernel image. I went into the boot partition, took a look at it, and in fact there were several kernel images and the boot partition was running out of space. I did attempt to remove the kernel images using Synaptic and for some reason Synaptic was telling me it could not do that. I went into the update manager to try to remove old kernels and update manager failed to do that. There was something going on. I don't know what was going on. But you all asked me this question. And the boot partition is 300 megabytes, not gigabytes. Yeah, so it's fairly small. It's ext2 for some reason. Hmm, strange. Yeah, that is weird, isn't it? Yeah. I wonder why it's using ext2. Yeah, I'm sure there's a (4/43)
reason. Yeah, let us know what the reason is Paul, because everything else looks really good. But just to add curiosity, why are you using ext2 for your boot partition? Now the reason that I was using the ext2 file system was because I was attempting to make the home partition a stand-alone partition. I didn't want to load Linux Mint the way the distribution would have loaded it. I wanted to select the home partition, set it aside so that I could update my system without disturbing the home partition. So in order to do that, I thought I had to partition the entire drive for every part that the operating system needed. In other words, the boot partition, swap, system file, and home partition. I checked an internet site that suggested the size of the boot partition, about 350 megabytes, and to use the ext2 file system. I don't know why it said to do that. I just followed the direction. So in order to isolate the home partition, I partitioned the drive that way. Now while you were running (5/43)
Peter's comment, you made this statement, Larry. And you add more than two kernels into that partition area, you run out of space, which is exactly what Paul was seeing and obviously what Peter was seeing as well. So you can either, as Peter suggests, expand the boot partition and the size of it so that there's a little more space using gparted. Or you can simply delete the old kernels before you upgrade to a new kernel. So fortunately, when you're using Linux Mint, they make that quite easy. Now I attempted to resize the boot partition in gparted. And as you know, you have to go to the far right side of the partition in gparted and you start having to move it back. So you start with the home, then you get to the system, then you get to the swap. The very first partition is the boot partition. Well, you can resize the home, you can resize the system file partition, you can't resize the swap partition. So I don't know how you resize the boot partition in gparted. I thought if I could (6/43)
make that boot partition larger, I could let more kernel images come in there and maybe extend the life of that drive partition that way. But I couldn't resize the boot partition in gparted. So that was my dilemma. In a nutshell, I had to start all over again. But it was an interesting problem. I don't know why this happened this way. Thanks a lot for discussing it and I really appreciate it. Thanks, Paul. That was really good. You did a good job. Yeah, and you were talking about the resizing of the boot partition and why the gparted wouldn't let you do that. I suspect, and without hearing anything different, I'll just go with this. I suspect you were trying to run gparted with your Linux system booted. So I suspect that's why it's not going to let you resize certain partitions. You really have to put gparted on a USB drive, either partition magic or some other bootable drive, and then boot to that so that you could resize the partitions on your hard drive from a running system that's (7/43)
not that system, right? So I'm suspecting that's what was going on. Other than that, it should have resized it without too much trouble. As we've said and provided links in the past, sometimes there's a little fiddling to do to make that happen. But I'm glad things have worked out for you and sorry you had to start from scratch. Yeah, done that once or twice. Yep, oh well. At least it worked out. It did work out and I really appreciate you sending that audio reply and it was really good. Yeah. So our next email comes from Greg who provided a mini response for Paul. Hi Larry and Bill. I have experienced the same problem that Paul describes in episode 354 with the slash boot partition filling up. Here are two ways to clean up the slash boot partition, one from the Linux Mint GUI and the other from the command line. From the GUI, open the update manager, pull down the view tab, select Linux kernels. You will get a warning here that you will need to take knowledge. Note at the top of the (8/43)
window, the kernel version you are currently using. You will find in the table all the installed kernels as well as one that you are currently using. If you click on the installed kernel listing, you will find the option to delete it to pop up. My recommendation is to remove all the old kernels one at a time, oldest first until you are left with the current one and the latest one before the current one as a safety measure. If you just did a kernel update, you could also find a newer kernel listed as installed than the one you are currently using. Keep that one too. From the command line, open a terminal window, type sudo apt auto remove, enter your password, tip. When you are in there, you might as well type sudo apt auto clean too, just to clean up the other cruft. Regards, Greg, W8FJK. That doesn't seem too hard, Larry. Yeah, and that's the kind of thing that I used to do when I used to worry about the old kernels filling up my hard drive. I don't worry about it too much anymore, but (9/43)
that's kind of the strategy I used. Start with the oldest one and delete it until you have one prior to the one you are currently using. If you have done a recent update, maybe you have one later than the one you are currently using and leave that in there too. I just noticed that the command line was quicker. Oh yeah, that's usually the case. The command line is quicker than anything else because all you have to do is type. Make it sound really simple. As long as you know what to type, you're cool on the command line. That's the tricky part. But once you're working in the command line, you get to know these kinds of things through repetition and that kind of thing. So the command line is quicker, I've found. But the graphical user interface version makes more sense to most people, I think. Yeah, it does. What's funny is when you first start and you're really scared of the command line, you always try to find the graphical user interface to do it. But over time you're like, man, I can (10/43)
just do this with two commands and two terminals. So you start moving more to, let me just do these couple of commands on the terminal and I'm done. It's kind of funny how that's kind of a spectrum. You start kind of scared and you see a command line and then just overuse you get a little more comfortable with it. So thanks, Greg. That was really great. Yes. Okay, moving on to Sergio's email about Google Plus alternatives and a small tip for gaming. So this is one for everybody. Yay. Hello, Bill and Larry. My name is Sergio. I have been a listener for a long time. First of all, thank you very much for your work. I find it very useful and interesting, so please keep doing it. Well, we will, Sergio, until something gives, I guess. This email is just to give you an alternative to Google Plus I found surfing the Internet. Discourse. And he's got a link to discourse.org. It's an open source forum that you can install on your servers. Actually, it seems to be an open source implementation of (11/43)
services like discuss, but I haven't tried it myself. So I have no idea how it performs or even if it covers your needs. But as you said, you were looking for options to replace Google Plus before the service goes down. I thought it could be useful for you. Well, thank you, Sergio. Aside from this, just a small suggestion for Bill. Lutris. One of the programs you said that you were using Play on Linux to play Guild Wars 2. And I don't remember if you ever said that you have tried Lutris or not. Lutris is basically a game library management, something like Steam or itch.io, but it's far better than them. It handles the installation of games, both native and emulated. For example, it manages the download and setup of almost any open source game without worrying about libraries and dependencies. And also is able to download and install and configure Windows games like Play on Linux. But better. I'd say that Proton is copying what Lutris does because of each Windows game Lutris downloads. (12/43)
The version of Wine that performs better adjusts the configuration of DXVK, if the game uses DirectX, and installs all the tweaks the game needs. If you haven't tried yet, I strongly recommend that you do so. And nothing else. Please forgive my mistakes, as English is not my native language. And as I've said at the beginning of the email, thank you for your work. Best regards, Sergio. And again, Sergio, I would never have known that English wasn't your native language. I didn't make any corrections to your email to post it in here, and I read it just as you said it. So, sounds pretty good to me. Yeah, it sounded great to me. He writes better than I do, and Larry has seen some of the stuff I write, so great job, Sergio. Yes. And what about Lutris? Have you used it, Bill? No, I haven't tried Lutris. I've decided the easiest way just to get everything to work is I unfortunately just keep that small Windows partition and just put my games that won't run easily on Linux over there. So when (13/43)
I need to go get my gaming on, I just go ahead, boot into it, play my game, boot out, go back to Linux. So it just seems it's a lot less work, but Lutris, I will definitely look at it because if it is as easy as he says it was, maybe I won't need Windows to play my games. So we shall see. Windows only gets a reprieve because I need to use it to play games, which... Yes, you need to game. I need to game. It's a requirement. So thanks Sergio. I'll look into Lutris and see how it works and might try installing a couple of Windows games and see how it works. So our next email comes from Rick and he asks about mounting shares over OpenVPN. Hi guys. I have a problem that I hope either you guys or one of the great minions can help me with. I connected with a recent podcast you have done on backups. I backup photos and documents to a friend Synology server using OpenVPN for very many years. Now going Linux, I want to be able to use a file sync application, free file sync to backup and look at (14/43)
the folder differences. Right now I use Nautilus, which does mount the shares correctly over VPN to copy the new folders containing files. But deleting a selected few forest side files is difficult, tedious and prone to error when I want to mirror on the forest side. Nautilus knows how to mount these shares on the other side of the VPN, but I need to find out how to do it. I tried all the combinations of sudo mount commands using slash t cifs and loads of different other attributes, but I can't get it to work. I can mount shares successfully on my Synergy NAS correctly with no problem. I noticed that Nautilus puts its mount points in folders entitled gvfs and I'm wondering whether cifs can't mount over VPN and gvfs can. But I'm having trouble finding out how to put a command string together using gvfs. Any ideas please? Thanks and best regards, Rick. Hmm. Yeah. So on the other side of a VPN. It may be that they've got the security set up on the other side of the VPN so that you can't (15/43)
mount it in the way that you're trying to do that. You might want to talk to send a message to or otherwise communicate with the people that control the server that you're trying to connect to. See if they have any tips or even if they allow what you're trying to do. It's not something that I have tried to do myself, so I don't have any experience with this. Hopefully the folks who manage the server that you're trying to connect to will have some guidance for you on that, Rick. Yeah. I've never tried anything like that myself. So he's got a lot of things going on there. If you really kind of break down, you got these using open VPN, he's trying to go over synergy. Yeah. I think you should follow Larry's advice because I could just rattle on about nothing because I have no clue how you do that. Yeah. Okay. I hope something can help you, Rick. Yeah, I do, too. All right. Don provided some feedback on moving to Linux. Just a little feedback for you. I found your site while searching for (16/43)
resource information about moving away from Windows with the idea of going to Linux. After digging around, I found your podcasts on the show notes page. Confusing, but whatever. Looking through the list, I came upon September 20th, episode 353, Moving from Windows to Linux Part One. My first thought was that I have found the information that I needed. Maybe I did, but I'll never know, as after 30 minutes, I stopped the playback. Your 20 minute diatribe, the sole purpose of which seemed to be to make you feel superior in your choice of operating system, was ludicrous in the extreme. It is clear, neither of you know much about Windows 10. Frankly, if I did a podcast on how to move to Linux and gave all my non-factual perceptions of Linux from years and years of hearing how bad Linux could be and stuck strictly to urban legend scenarios, it would have sounded exactly like the first 30 minutes of your show. You might want to keep in mind that people coming to your website are looking for (17/43)
information about moving to the operating system you seem to feel so superior about. The last thing they want to hear is your non-factual bashing of the operating system that they are using. Not only is it unprofessional, it completely destroys your credibility. Had you done any research whatsoever, you could have made accurate comparisons between Windows and Linux. You could have told me why Linux was more user-friendly, easier, less expensive, more stable, and more reasons why Linux could be better for me, rather than berate my choice of operating system. Your comments were the worst confirmation of the Linux admin stereotype, arrogant and superior. Since that is the thing I've heard for years, it is clearly true, right? Good luck to you, Don. Well, thanks for the feedback, Don. I'm not sure I agree with everything that you've said. Both Bill and I have had quite a bit of experience using Windows from the days of, in my case, Windows 3.11, all the way to today's Windows 10. And I (18/43)
have a computer running Windows 10 in the other room that I update every once in a while and power through the extended reboot times and the multiple reboots and everything else that goes along with it. But far be it from me to say that, you know, Bill and I know anything whatsoever about Linux in our experience and really don't talk to anybody about the topics that we... or do any research on the topics that we present here on the show. So, thanks, Don. Oh, Larry. Any feedback from you, Bill? Oh, Larry. I'm trying to be nice. I'm going to try to be nice. Why? I am not an expert. I've been running Windows 3.11 all the way, probably every major and minor Windows up to Windows 10. So, let's break this down just a little bit. As everybody who has listened knows that I will harsh even on Linux distributions when they are bad. There are things on Windows 10 that I don't like. I use Windows 10 in the game, as I just admitted just a little while ago. So, one of the things that he says is that (19/43)
he didn't like our diatribe. Well, you know, that's our personal opinions and we try to keep them as facts-based as possible. So, let's just go over a few things that I don't like and see if these are urban myths. All the advanced telemetry that you don't know what they're doing with it, it defaults to full and you can't shut it off. And under the defaults, they capture your text, your voice, the amount of time that you've been in an application, where you are, what your hardware looks like, what hardware, what drivers, and some of this can be useful. But I really don't need them to know that I'm playing Destiny 2 for three hours a day. It's none of their business. And it says right in their little document that if you have a crash, that they might inadvertently capture some of what you're doing for diagnostic purposes. So, there's a large amount. Let's also go on to all the crapware that they install. Candy Crush Saga, Super whatever, CART, Minecraft. So, at one time they got away (20/43)
from it and now they're coming back to it. Also, if the EU has said that Windows 10 in its first iteration was violating the privacy because of all this data that they were gathering. And let's just move to something more current. How about the latest Windows 10 version? Because they're releasing two versions of, two new versions of Windows every year. That's their upgrade cycle. And they're still calling it Windows 10, but I guess they just decide to stop giving it numbers after a while. The last one has been horrendously bad data loss. The media player that's built in, they reintroduced a bug that doesn't allow the certain aspects of the interface to work. So, if you use that, you're kind of out of luck. And so, let's just break this down. I might not know anything about Windows, but maybe, and here's an idea, maybe give me some specifics because you say we did not tell you why Linux was better. Well, let's go over a few of those. It's free, as in freedom. It is not licensed to you. (21/43)
You can do anything you want to it. You have jurors, have a nice day. If you want to use it to have a self-driving car, that's great too. Yes, certain things in Linux are harder, and we've both never said any different. A lot of times, Larry and myself will say, hey guys, you need to do better. Is it more stable? Yes, I would say so. I have to restart Windows 10, but I think the last time when Larry and myself were playing our little game of how long is our system up, I made like 32 days before I had to do anything. Okay, and maybe that's, I hope that's specific enough for you. I don't have it crashing. I've had driver problems in Windows 10 that Windows wants to install a version of, say, my driver for my graphics card, and I just had this, and there's a new one that's been released, so I download it manually and install it, but it wants to revert back to the one approved by Microsoft, even though it doesn't perform as well. And just another thing, there is a way that if you don't (22/43)
want to get all those nice updates that if you're a home user, you cannot block. You can put it on metered connection. One of our minions told me about that, and I did some research, and it's true, but they still push through security updates, but major feature upgrades, I hear that it doesn't. So that's a workaround. It's not the greatest. But I would suggest maybe before you think that we're harshing on it, go and I'm going to plug another podcast. It's called Windows Weekly, and Paul Thuratt and Mary Jo Foley are Windows fanboys. They love it, and they have been lamenting just part of the things I've mentioned, and they're even going, hey, Microsoft, this is stupid. Why are you doing this? Why have you changed how you're testing? Why are you pushing things out before they're ready? Why are you on such a fast upgrade schedule? Because most businesses and people don't want to have to install a completely new Windows 10. So off my rant, Don, thanks for the feedback, but I respectfully (23/43)
disagree with you, and I would also say that I am not a Linux admin, and I am definitely not arrogant and superior, because you can ask anybody in Linux, going Linux will tell you that I've messed up a lot of stuff, and I do make mistakes, but hey, I'm sure that if you perceive that we're harshing on it, maybe you should listen to some others of some other reviews, because we have been harsh on Linux distributions that we didn't think were good. So thanks, Don. Yeah, thanks, Don, and one other podcast that I listen to on a regular basis that you might want to listen to, Don, is The Mike Tech Show, and we'll have links to all this stuff in the show notes, of course, but The Mike Tech Show is from Mike Smith, who is a... He runs a business as computer support for a lot of companies in the Philadelphia area, and he... just listen to what he says, and you can get a flavor of the kinds of issues that he runs across in supporting businesses using Windows, Windows 10, Windows 8, various (24/43)
versions of Windows, and he supports Mac as well. He doesn't really do too much with Linux, but I listen to him to get a flavor of what's going on with the other operating systems, since I only use them for my own personal use and not from a business perspective, and I'd like to understand the differences there. Another place, Don, that you might want to go is if you are really serious about switching to Linux and you're not just trolling us, which is a possibility, if you are really serious about it, you might want to read through some of the books that I've written on switching from Windows and other operating systems to Linux. We'll have links to that in the show notes as well, and in the most recent book around Ubuntu MATE, the second edition book, you might want to steer clear of the why users switch from Windows, or why users switch from Mac OS section, if our comments about what people tell us is wrong with Windows and Mac OS is offensive to you, just steer clear of those (25/43)
sections and read the rest of it. That's just a couple of pages in that book, but if you are trolling us, the only words I have for you is thanks for the feedback. Thanks, and I want to add one more podcast that Don might want to just listen to. I seem like I'm giving the Twit Network a lot of plugs. Yeah, they've got a lot of good shows. Yeah, they do. Security Now with Steve Gibson, probably one of the smartest guys I know as far as what's going on. He did a whole podcast and podcast about why he is staying with Windows 7 instead of Windows 10, but beyond that, he also covers security problems and hardware and stuff, and it's really a great show. Maybe you should check that one out too if you have time. Hey, again, appreciate you sending us feedback, and thank you very much. Good luck to you. Okay. All right. Our next email comes from John. He has problems installing Ubuntu MATE. Hi, Larry and Bill. I've been a listener for several years. Thank you for all your podcasts and wonderful (26/43)
information that you have shared with your listeners. I have been running a desktop dual boot with Windows and Linux Mint for many years, and I've had several other older machines with various types of Linux on them. I recently tried installing Ubuntu MATE on an HPE-016DX to dual boot with Windows 10 for my wife. Prior to installing, I re-partitioned the hard drive to have three additional partitions. The slash boot was 30 gigabytes slash home. Home, he didn't provide a size. Yeah, and swap was eight gigabytes. When I went to install from the live CD, I selected something else and used the partitions that I had set up. After it was all set up, I rebooted in the machine without the live CD, and the machine went straight to Windows instead of starting up the grub. I did some surfing and found several ideas on how to fix it and tried all of the ones that seemed appropriate to no avail. I eventually got fed up with it and nuked and paved the whole thing, and now it's an Ubuntu MATE-only (27/43)
machine, and my wife is satisfied with its performance, especially the security aspects. Yes, I have permission to do this before I started. Smart thing. Smart man. I was just hoping to dual boot so she could have options. Next, my son's Acer E5-575 is suffering terribly from Windows 10 bloatware, so I tried dual booting his machine with Ubuntu MATE, ended up with the same problem with not getting the grub to come up on startup. Partitions were 30 gigabytes, the EXT4 home was 110 gigabytes with XXT4, and a generic storage of 200 gigabytes of NTFS and swap 8 gigabytes. I don't know what his needs are going to be with respect to schools, so I hate just to disremove Windows, but he's eager to start learning and using Linux, and I don't want to miss a great opportunity why he's willing to learn something new. Also, as all Linux users know, all real engineering is performed on Linux Unix machines. I didn't know if I'm constantly doing something wrong or I just happen to be buying too cheap (28/43)
of machines. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks. Well, John, I have an idea as well. Okay, you go first. Just a suggestion. Not an idea as to what's going wrong. I don't think it has anything to do with the machines being inexpensive or not. I think this is an installation issue. It's possible that Grub is going to the wrong place with all the partitions you have, and I don't know what instructions you're following to try to get things set up. My recommendation is, especially if it's for someone like your son who is just starting with Linux and wants to use it, just let the system do its own partitioning when it's installing. So I think you said you're using Ubuntu MATE. It will provide a partitioning scheme that is pretty simple. Basically, one partition. And you can go ahead and set up your own partitioning scheme if you want. But I found that if you let the operating system do its own partitioning, it always works, especially when it comes to Grub issues like this. And (29/43)
there are some instructions that you can find out there on how to repair Grub and where to put it and those kinds of things. And some of them are pretty old, but since Grub is pretty old, I think they're pretty straightforward and they still apply. But again, I would recommend that if you're doing this for other people, keep it simple. Let the operating system do its own partitioning and just run with that. And you pretty much can't go wrong with being able to boot after installing. You know, you can go wrong, obviously, but you're minimizing your chances by letting the operating system figure out what the safe and sane partition scheme is. And it's one less thing you have to worry about. That's my suggestion. Stop stealing my thunder, Larry. Oh, sorry. You said for me to go first. I was going to say the same, almost the exact same thing. But there was one other item that he might want to just look at is go into his BIOS and see if he's using legacy or what is that thing called again? (30/43)
UEFI? Yeah, UEFI. Secure Boot. Because on some machines I found that if you change it to legacy, it works on some Linuxes and it makes it easier to install. Just an idea. I don't know, but I would say that since Larry stole my idea, follow Larry's suggestion. But yeah, that would be, I'd say the best way is just let Linux or Ubuntu Monte just do it all and go from there. Yep. Okay. On to Troy's short little email. He provides a suggestion for our forums. If you're looking for alternative forums for discussing things and sharing information, my vote would be to set up a discussion forum in Google groups. People can consume the information the way they want, either online or by emails, either individually or in the form of a digest. They can share files and pictures without limits and it's free. Troy, AKA Jack Death. You know, Google groups is something I hadn't even thought about. Thanks, Troy. Excellent suggestion. That is a good suggestion. We were going back and forth about this and (31/43)
I never thought about that. So, Troy gets to be the new forum minion. Yeah, good. We'll have to look into that. Okay. And we have a gone Linux story. This one from Troy. This one's really, really long. So we're going to break this one up too. And Troy is writing about the Windows Business episode. And he writes, listening to your recent excellent episodes on moving from Windows to Linux, I heard you mention in there that you might be doing an episode on Linux for business. While this may not pertain specifically to business, as you know, I use Linux in business and our shop does sell computers with Windows and Linux. So this is Troy Jack Death, also known as Jack Death, right? And he writes a note. I would also point out that you've mentioned several times now in different episodes that I own the business. I do not. I work for a small business owner in my area, Tony Ashour, but have been given a lot of autonomy in how I support customers and what recommendations I can make to our (32/43)
customers based on my experience, as long as the customer is happy and we remain profitable. He has been a great guy to work for and runs a very honest business. He is very popular and well known in our area and has been a privilege to work for. Well, sorry, Troy, for confusing that. I think we maybe maybe we have specifically said that you own the business. I don't think so. I think we've said it's your company, which I mean to say that it's the company you work at, not that you own it, but whatever. Obviously, you're doing a good job there. You said if it's his company, he's right. You said it's his business. Yeah. OK, so all right. Sorry, Troy. Getting all confused around that. Anyway, we'll try to stop saying that or I will anyway. And so just to make things better. Hey, Tony. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thanks for giving Troy a job that he loves and gives him an opportunity to spread Linux to the masses. He wants a raise, too. Just saying. There you go. OK, continuing. As (33/43)
you know, we are primarily a service shop. We make most of our money on the inadequacies and pitfalls of Windows. Listen up, Don. However, we also sell computers and accessories. We sell ninety nine point nine percent Dell certified refurbished computers. So they are like new. We get full manufacturer's warranties and we get them cheaper than new. Most Dell computers, with the exception of Alienware, work great with Linux right out of the box. When we sell a new or used computer to a customer, we don't want a customer to get a blank computer that just has windows on it. We want them to have software that will allow them to do some of the most common daily tasks that most people do with a computer. We also want them to have proper Web browsers, not I.E. or Edge, so they have a safer browsing experience. So I typically include what we call our value added software bundle on each computer. It's a collection of open source software or just free software that will let them do common tasks (34/43)
like opening and creating zip files, PDF files, watching movies, listening to music, editing and organizing pictures, an office suite and a collection of wallpaper backgrounds, many of which are made into a custom Windows theme that we apply to the computer. So I include things like Firefox, Google Chrome, 7-Zip, Qt PDF writer, LibreOffice, Picasa, VLC Media Player and a couple of other odds and ends. As I have mentioned previously, when customers want to switch to Linux, we install Linux Mint. I feel it provides them with the best out of the box experience and includes many useful programs by default. However, I still wanted to offer our Linux customers a selection of value added software as well, which also includes a selection of utilities and games and such. However, the list of software I've been adding to each Linux machine has been quite a bit more extensive. I also wanted them to always have the latest and greatest versions of LibreOffice and Google Chrome Web browser. The best (35/43)
way I know of to do this is to add the appropriate PPA to their software sources so that those programs will always show the most current versions in their software source or synaptic. To this end, I have outlined the appropriate steps, step by step, terminal commands needed to install the entire list of applications I usually install, as well as the commands to add the appropriate PPAs for LibreOffice and Google Chrome, and then install those. I find them much quicker to install the whole list from terminal rather than to do them one by one by searching in the software store. I will attach a TXT file with a list of commands should you find this useful. You might be thinking, why Google Chrome and not just have them use Chromium? Well, one of the tools we use to support our customers remotely on Windows and Linux is Chrome Remote Desktop. However, I have found that under Linux it does not work reliably, if at all, on Chromium, only on Google Chrome. Since we want to be as widely (36/43)
compatible with our entire customer base, we make sure they have Chrome as their primary browser and Firefox as a backup browser in case they have issues with Chrome. So Troy continues, When we set up new Linux computers, I also go through the customer system settings and tweak all kinds of little things to make their computer experience more user friendly, to offer better aesthetics, or to provide them with additional features. For example, I put their taskbar on the top of the screen instead of the bottom as it is by default. It makes more logical sense to me to access all the menus and options from the top down instead of accessing some stuff from the top and some from the bottom. I also make the entire taskbar completely transparent with the exception of a slight drop shadow underneath it just so you can barely tell it's there. I like to see the wallpaper background take up the whole screen and it gives them the impression that they have a little more screen real estate even though (37/43)
it's not totally true. I also add the workspace switcher to their taskbar and give them four workspaces to choose from. When they pick up their computer, I show them how to use it and the great multitasking benefits they can get by working on multiple projects with different programs at the same time and being able to switch between them. At this point, they are practically wetting themselves with excitement about the feature alone. I also reconfigure their clock to show the day, month, date, and time in the 12 hour format. I install the Oxygen cursor collection so they can change the color of their mouse cursor to match their current theme. It may sound small, but it's a big deal to some people. I also add the weather desk lit to their desktop and configure the settings to pull the weather from their location and show a 5 day forecast at any given time. This has also been a big deal for some customers. Again, a little thing that really impresses a lot of average users. I make some (38/43)
tweaks to the power management settings and a few other little odds and ends that don't take very much time in the overall scheme of setting up a new computer once you get your routine down pat. All in all, it takes us a lot less time to install and prep a Linux machine than it does for us to prep a Windows machine. If we have a customer having unrecoverable issues with their existing computer and we have determined we must reinstall the operating system from scratch, or if the customer has decided to dump one of those in favor of Linux, we cannot charge them per hour what it really takes to redo a computer since they can't afford it. But we still have to charge them something reasonable to make up some of our time. So we charge $200 to redo a computer with Windows and maybe $150 to redo it with Linux. As I mentioned to you in previous discourse, we do tend to lose some money selling Linux because we don't have to sell the Manure Virus or the Cloud Backup software and we tend to see (39/43)
these computers back in our shop much more infrequently because they tend to just work all the time. Also, most of our customers get HP OfficeJet Pro printers from us which take less time to install on Linux than on Windows and again just keep working. So we have to get creative in how we make up for some of the lost revenue by selling them training, tutoring time, or something. We also put a bookmark into browsers to www.goinglengs.com as a bonus. Thank you. Thank you. Anyway, there are some other things I was going to comment on based on your last few episodes but much of that escapes me at the moment. I will have to make some time to sit and just listen to them again and make some notes. I will try to reply in a timely manner before your next episode, if possible. In the meantime, let me know if you guys have any questions about any of this or would like further feedback. I'm always happy to help. Troy, aka Jack Durst, works for Home and Business Computer Services. Thanks, Troy. (40/43)
That was really good. Yeah, very extensive and although he has sent us the script he uses to install the value-added software for Linux and the Chrome browser and the latest version of LibreOffice, we're not going to include that in the show notes. It's a bit lengthy. But if you're interested, just drop us a line and we'll send that off to you if you really want it. But it's a pretty straightforward script. There's a sudo apt-get install and then a list of all the applications and then the Chrome browser. There's a separate wget command to get it and to install it and then adding the PPAs for Chrome and for LibreOffice to make sure that you have the latest version of those. Some of that applies across Linux distributions. As Troy mentioned, he's installing Linux Mint, typically, and the PPAs are much more necessary for some Linux distributions than others. If you're using something like Ubuntu MATE, you might be able to get away with using Snaps instead of the PPAs. I suppose you could (41/43)
do that with Linux Mint as well. Since Snaps are a more recent development in the world of Linux, and since Troy's been doing this for a long time, I think he's got his way of doing things and he's got his script written and it works, so good. And thanks for sharing. It's very similar to a script that I have written for installing everything that I use when I do a nuke and pave. Yeah. Well, you had to do that for a while. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And although Ubuntu MATE 18.10 is out, I'm still on the 18.04 long-term support version. Oh, wow. Just slacking. Yeah, I know. I'll be installing 18.10 in a virtual machine just to try it out. Okay, that's the end of our very long hour and a half long episode here. Wow. Yeah, there we go. It's a good episode. I enjoyed that. Yeah, lots of listener feedback this time around. And since we're at the end of our episode, our next episode will be Run Your Business on Linux Part 2. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinux.com for (42/43)
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. For now, 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. New music provided by Mark Blasko at podcastthemes.com (43/43)
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)
We record our 10th show solo tomorrow, 24th of February. Just to make a correction about our audio production workflow, we did have a go at using the Mumble server recording as we thought it would simplify the post-production process. Unfortunately, the quality was not as good as we had hoped. So we quickly returned to using the local Audacity recording of each host and editing it all together with Audacity in post-production. Yes, this is more work aligning the tracks and ensuring that all the audio is leveled as well as we can get it. But ultimately, we do get a better show at the end. And by the way, Tony, that's exactly the way that Bill and I do this. We do still record the Mumble tracks as a backup. So if one or more of the hosts has a problem with their local recording, we have a fallback to slot in their Mumble track into the show if we need to. It is thanks to feedback from the listening community that we changed back to what Rob and Isaac had been doing, but had thought (31/43)
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)
Going Linux episode 317, Linux Distros Reviewed. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. And I'm your cohost, 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 at our email address at goinglinx at gmail dot com where you can leave us a message on our voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, we're going to discuss several Linux distributions. Hello, Larry. Hey, Bill. How are things going for you? Good morning. Yes, good morning again. It's going well. It's going well. Did you get washed away by the floods? I didn't get washed away, but we got lots of rain. Yes. I just want to point out something. Everybody says (1/44)
we're in a drought, and I keep reminding them this is the desert. Desert does usually have water. But anyway, so yes, so you didn't get washed away. No. How about you? Are you okay where you are out there in the desert? Yes, I am okay out in the desert. I was out working, and it started raining, and I basically had to work for most of my shifts drenched, so that was pleasant. Oh. Yeah, that's not good. Yeah, that was a little fun. With that weather report done, let's move right on. Okay. Okay. So, Larry, today's show is... I can't remember who suggested it. We use Debian-based distros. Yes, we do. I use Ubuntu. You use... What was the... Mate? Ubuntu Mate. Oh, Ubuntu Mate or Mate or whatever. So, to give the RPMs a fair shot, I decided I would go ahead and subject myself to some fun. Or should I just say torture? But then when I was getting things ready for this, I was like, well, you know, there's other distros that aren't RPM. So, this whole episode has zero Deb-based distros. (2/44)
They're all RPM or another different type like Arch or Sabion. So, that's what I decided to talk about everything so we're not sounding like fanboys. But before we get started, could you just give anybody that's new just a quick overview of how packages work? That's a whole show on its own, Bill. Hey, but okay. The differences... The basic differences between the two, right. So, they're called Debian and RPM-based because, well, the distributions of Linux that are based on Debian have installation packages or application packages that end in .deb. So, they're called Debian-based packages and Debian-based distributions because they use those packages and because they are derived in one way or another from Debian, which is, of course, a distribution of Linux. The RPM also refers to the way that the applications are packaged, and typically they end in .rpm as the name of the file that you install, and RPM is not a distribution in and of itself, but it's a way of packaging the applications (3/44)
for a Linux distribution. And for whatever reason, they've come to be called RPM-based packages, and they are based on, in some cases, Red Hat. In some cases, they're based on other distributions, and in some cases, some of these modern distributions that we'll be talking about today are original distributions that aren't based on Debian or Red Hat or anything. They've been developed from scratch as a Linux distribution themselves, and they happen to use an RPM-based package manager, or in some of the cases that we'll be discussing today, they use another kind of package management system that's not RPM. At a high level, it's the way the applications are packaged. Just to fill in a few little gaps for anybody that this is their first time listening. Sure. If you are using Red Hat, OpenSUSE, I'll use those two because they're the two main ones, they use their packages as .rpm. Now, you can't use an RPM on a Debian-based system, which would be like Ubuntu MATE or Ubuntu or even just (4/44)
plain Debian. I mean, they're the same programs, but they're packaged differently, so the software manager can actually, knows how to install them. So, they both do the same type of thing, just do it in different ways. Does that sound about right? It does sound about right. And strictly speaking, there's a command called alien that you can use to convert packages from one type to another. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It does its best effort. So, in general, it's best to stick with the packages that you have. And in today's world, most of what is out there in the way of applications is available for both RPM and Debian-based distributions. And this is the only reason we're just covering this as an overview is that each one of the distributions has its own repositories. And it's really not an issue. If you can find all the programs in the repositories that you need, then you really don't even have to worry about the RPM or the dead packages because it's just there and it (5/44)
knows how to do it. The only time this would come into play is if you wanted a program that wasn't included. And a good one is Skype. Sometimes Skype is a little, shall we say, wonky trying to get it installed if it's not included in the repositories. And some distributions include it, some don't. It depends on where they stand on the freedoms and all that stuff. And we'll get a little bit into that. So, the first one is neither. It isn't RPM or dead-based. I believe the extension is GTZ or some weird one they come up with. It's Gentoo-based. And how I would like to describe this one is how I love to hate you. This distribution is a rolling release and Sabian aims to work out of the box as its philosophy. Everything should just work. And it wants to give its users a wide number of applications to pick from that are ready to use and self-configured for the operating system. So theoretically you should be able to fund everything, install it, everything just works. Sabian offers a pretty (6/44)
easy to use interface. I will give a caveat there. When you first install it, since it's a rolling release, and rolling release means that you install it and it's just constantly being updated. And the problem with that is sometimes there's lots of updates. I sat for about six hours before it finally got completely updated. So just a little word of warning. It takes a while to bring it up to date. It's got a pretty captivating look. It's got good hardware detection. It found everything on my laptop. The only thing that is a little bit different about this is that they install a lot more. I like to say it's the kitchen sink mentality. They install everything. Sabian comes in several flavors. The one I used was KDE, but it also comes with GNOME and XFCE desktops. And I believe you can even get one that has no desktop at all and you can just do whatever you want with. Install the ones you want or leave it as a server without a desktop. I decided to use the KDE version and the base system (7/44)
was okay. It locked up once and I had to do a hard reboot. But then after that it updated. I didn't have enough chances because I had so many distros to look at because I downloaded them and tried to install them from a USB stick and from a DVD. Not everybody buys hundreds of DVDs like I do. Not anymore now that you can install Linux distributions from a USB stick instead of a CD or a DVD. But if you look at Sabian, it's a big download. It's like 3.6, I believe the one that I downloaded. Well, when you pre-install a whole bunch of applications, that's what happens. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I know what they're trying to go for. But the problem with Sabian, I think it's just they should have done more like how Ubuntu Mati does. They pick the best of the breed and just put that in there instead of having four different types. I'm not saying it's a bad one. If your programs that you are looking for are not in the repository, there's a pretty big learning curve. But with that being said, I (8/44)
wasn't able to find any programs that I needed that I couldn't get from the repositories. Maybe, Bill, we should define repository since we're right at the beginning of this podcast episode, and we haven't really defined it yet. A repository is just another name for the software library that comes with your distribution, that has software applications that have been pre-determined will work without a problem, or tweaked to work without a problem for the distribution that you have. So the software library is another way of putting it. Yeah, it's just a big library of software that you can install on your system. The Sabian comes with, like I said, everything but the kitchen sink. It had Skype in the repositories. It had Dropbox in the repositories. So I really didn't need to go look for anything to actually get it up and make it ready to go. Where I can't really decide whose fault it is, I'm leaning toward a little bit of KDE, because KDE is always a little glitchy in my past (9/44)
experiences. But I had some really interesting glitches. You have to dig three or four panels down to get the sound to work. There were multiple control panels that you had to activate to get the headphones to work. I mean, it's all the headphones, but it wouldn't work until you had to dig around in the menus to find which settings that you needed to put the checkmark in. That being said, I don't think that's Sabian's fault. I think if I had went with the GNOME or XFC desktop, it would have been fine. So I'm going to rate this one as probably not... They say it's for beginner, intermediate, and advanced. I would say this one would be based more toward intermediate, because if you have no clue what things do or how to... It's not like just being able to install it and go. I think it's just because they try to throw so much into it. I would say Sabian would be a good intermediate distribution for someone that wants to just play around. But I really can't recommend this one as being a (10/44)
good first-time distribution. Yeah, okay. Well, that's fair enough. And I think that since I haven't used it myself, I can't really comment on Sabian. I've installed it once in a virtual machine and tried it out a little bit. And it was another Linux distribution. And because I didn't really play around with it all that much, I really didn't have the in-depth experience that you've had. What sounds like Sabian is trying to be for the average user by putting everything in that you could possibly want, lots of different options, and then with the understanding that either you don't touch them all or you just uninstall what you don't want, rather than the philosophy from other distributions, which is give you the basics and if you need anything else, you go to the software repository and install it. Yeah, I kind of agree with that. Like I said, they're trying hard, but I think they should just pare it down a little bit and work on getting things running a little smoother. I will give (11/44)
Sabian props on one front. They were the easiest to install. Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, they installed flawlessly from a thumb drive and they installed flawlessly from a DVD. So it's not all negatives. They're doing some things right, but it needs some polish before I would recommend this for someone's first distribution. Okay, and before we move on to the next one, we're going to provide some links that appear in the DistroWatch website. And let me just give you a little overview of what DistroWatch has to say about Sabian. The name of the distribution currently is Sabian. It used to be called Sabian Linux. Before that, it was RR4 Linux, and prior to that, it was RR64 Linux. I don't know the history of the names, but it is currently available at their homepage, sabian.org, and they have mailing lists on lists.sabian.org if you want to stay up on the latest Sabian news. They have a user forum at forum.sabian.org, and they have some alternative forums on Linux questions. We'll (12/44)
include that link, and the documentation is at wiki.sabian.org. And as you mentioned, it's based on Gentoo. Its country of origin is Italy. It supports ARM and 64-bit processors. The available desktops are Fluxbox, Gnome, KDE, Mate, and Xfce. Those are the ones that apparently are supported. And of course, as you mentioned, it's a rolling release, which means they don't have a six-month release cycle where they update it and send you a new version or make available a new version for download and installation. You just get the updates as they become available, and you get the latest version of Sabian, as long as you keep up with the updates. Yeah, pretty much. And like I said, it's a decent distribution. One of the things I liked about it, it is a truly community-driven distribution. There isn't a corporation behind it like some of the others. So that's something to look at. It's very friendly users. I had a few questions, and they were very quick to answer it. So as a general rule, (13/44)
it's not a bad one. Now, the next one that I looked at, and this one calls me a world of pain. I think RPMs just hate my guts. But it is Scientific Linux, and it's based on Red Hat Enterprise, and I used the known version of it. And Scientific Linux is a recompiled Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and it was developed by FERMA National Accelerator Laboratory and the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN. And those are the guys that run the big super colliders. They like to have small nuclear explosions. That's real comforting. Anyway, so these guys, the history behind this is that they had a bunch of labs working together, and they were all using different versions, and they found that they were having a little bit of difficulties. So they wanted one that is across the board that they all could use, and they would just work together a lot better. So that's why they kind of went with and made this Scientific Linux. Now, you might say, well, can I run it? Yes, you can download it. (14/44)
And one of the reasons I picked Scientific Linux is they have a huge library of ham programs. Oh, really? Okay. So apparently scientists are hams too, in more ways than one. So it aims to be fully compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and it also provides additional packages that are not found in the upstream product. When I say upstream product, that means the regular Red Hat Enterprise Linux for those, just a little information there. The most notable among these various, they have different file systems, and one's called the Cluster Suite and Global File System, or GFS. It also includes FUSE, OpenAFS, SquashFS, and NoonFS. It also includes wireless networking support, and what you'd expect from any modern day Linux distribution. And they also include Java development kits in it, and they also have the lightweight ICE, I call it ICE-WM, or I like to call it ICE-WAM, but ICE-WM window manager. And so they have a lot of stuff for statistical computing, and they use for their email (15/44)
Alpine, which is basically just a text driven email system from what I saw. This one, I could not get installed from a USB drive. It just would not do it. It just hated my guts. So of course I burned the DVD and it installed, and it came up and it's a little bland. But what do you expect from people that wanted this software to be used in a laboratory? So I'm not going to knock on that. The one thing that I didn't particularly like is that it didn't have Skype in the repositories. It didn't have Dropbox in the repositories. It didn't have Chrome in the repositories. So it's only certain types of programs. Now this doesn't mean that you can't install it, but that just means more work. And so with this one, it ran okay. I didn't have any issues with it running. It did have some updates, but I would not recommend this as a first time distribution. This would be have to go in someone that's been running one for a while, or just wants a little more of a challenge, because there's a lot more (16/44)
work that's required to actually get it up and make it useful. I want to be able to install it and get things done. I don't want to install it and spend two days getting everything installed and configured. So with that, I'm not going to say it's a bad distribution. I'm just going to say probably not the best choice for the first one. Right. So this is more of a specialty. Very specialty, yes. Yeah, distribution for high performance computing, or if you're a scientist and you're working on rockets or nuclear fusion or stuff like that. This is the distribution for you because it has a lot of the things that you might be looking for. And it's geared for that kind of an application, right? Pretty much. And I just saw some. I've just said bad things about their distribution. And these guys develop rockets and like to blow things up. Boy, that was real smart. Hey, guys, I like it very much. So let me just move on. Well, before you move on, again, let me do a quick summary of Scientific (17/44)
Linux. Scientific Linux dot org is their homepage and they have a mailing list at scientific Linux dot org slash community. And their forum is scientific Linux forum dot org. They have Linux questions forum there as well. The documentation is scientific Linux dot org slash documentation based on Red Hat. They are developed in the United States and they support 386 architecture, 64 bit architecture. And the supported desktops are Gnome, IceWM and KDE. And they make a great server as well as a general purpose desktop for the average scientific user. And they have a fixed release model as opposed to a rolling release model. And I don't know whether that's six months or yearly. If it's based on Red Hat, it probably follows the Red Hat of releases. Release cycle. Yeah. OK. I will. One strong point for them is if you have an older computer that's a 386, they have a image for you to run. And I started noticing that a lot of these distributions, they don't support 386 anymore. So if you have a (18/44)
386, this is one you might want to look at, even though it might not be very user friendly. It's nothing that reading some wikis and asking questions will help you get solved. Right. Now, the other one that I played with was OpenSUSE. And I went with the Tumbleweed and the Tumbleweed is basically their rolling release. Now, this one was not difficult, but it had a little few challenges getting installed. Nothing that is a game breaker. But I would say that just make sure you read the instructions and don't do like I do. And so click, click, click, click, click, because if you do that, you're likely to mess up something, as I learned. Yep. OK. So the OpenSUSE project is a community program sponsored by SUSE Linux and other companies promoting the use of Linux everywhere. This program provides a free and easy access to OpenSUSE or SUSE, depends on how you say it. And it's a complete Linux distribution. The OpenSUSE project has three main goals. One is to make OpenSUSE the easiest Linux (19/44)
for anyone to obtain and the most widely used Linux distribution. Leverage open source collaboration to make OpenSUSE the world's most stable Linux distribution. And desktop environment for a new and inexperienced Linux users. They want to do all this will make it easy to use, easy to collaborate, make it stable. And they just kind of want to dramatically simplify and open the development of the packaging process to make OpenSUSE the platform of choice for Linux developers and software vendors. And I always like to say OpenSUSE wants to be the RPM distro to Ubuntu. OpenSUSE, I can't really say it's anything that makes me go, wow, this is great. It's pretty, but I also run into the same issue again. It didn't have things I wanted in their repositories, but you can get them. I wasn't particularly thrilled with some of the choices they made for programs, but at least they didn't throw everything in the kitchen sink. Then again, you can install anything you want on it. I mean, if you can (20/44)
find a package, you can install it, or if it's really hardcore, you can compile it. But it's really not that hard anyway. The only problem with it is that I don't see it as being a replacement for a Windows user coming to Linux. I don't see this as a first choice because I don't see anything they really offer that you can't get on Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu, or Linux Mint. I just don't see anything that they offer that would make why you should choose this one over them. So I would say it can be a new user's first distro. I don't know if it would be the best, but I would just say, hey, it works. That's about all I really can say about this one. Now this one would not install from the USB drive, but it would install flawlessly from a DVD. So I would say, hey, give it a try, see if you like it. They have some live DVD images, and see if you like it better than Ubuntu or Ubuntu MATE or Linux Mint. See if you prefer it, because we have plenty of choice. But I would have to say, yes, this can be a (21/44)
new Linux user's first distribution. I just don't know if it's the best. Yeah, so I have actually used OpenSUSE, and it was the first Linux distribution that I used for the longest period of time. Not the first Linux distribution I used, but the one that I used for some substantial period of time. And I used it until Ubuntu came along and caught my attention with version 6.06, which was not the first version of Ubuntu, but it was the first one that I had used. So I have a good deal of experience with earlier versions of OpenSUSE, and a couple of comments. I would agree that it doesn't have anything that would make it stand out as an average computer user's Linux distribution, especially if you're moving over from Windows or Mac. However, it does have a lot of features built in for a corporate environment, for networking, for joining a network that includes Windows computers, for managing networks that use Windows computers, and those kinds of things. So it's got a lot of features for a (22/44)
business environment. And that's one of the things that attracted me to it right off the bat is because of those corporate features. And it has a unique packaging system, or a unique way of managing the installation of the packages, that is a little different than most other distributions. And it has a utility package that allows you to do setup and manage the setup and various other aspects of OpenSUSE. So it's kind of unique from that perspective as well. What DistroWatch has to say about it from a summary perspective, its homepage is opensusa.org. It has a mailing list with a link that's way too long to read out, so I'll just include that in the show notes. forums.opensusa.org for their forums, as well as an alternative forum on Linux questions. Documentation can be found at a link that I'll include in the show notes. It's a bit long as well. It's an independent distribution, meaning that it's not really based on any other distribution, even though its packages are RPM format. It's (23/44)
not based on Red Hat or any of the basic RPM based distributions out there. It's independent. Its country of origin is Germany. They support ARM, RMHF, i586, and x64, so there's no 386 support. It supports the desktops of Cinnamon, Gnome, IceWM, KDE, LXDE, OpenBox, W, Maker, and XFCE. They have server versions, desktop versions, LiveMedia, and Raspberry Pi support. It's offered in both fixed distributions, or fixed release cycle distributions, as well as a rolling distribution, the Tumbleweed distribution that you tried out, Bill. And they're generally a Linux distribution that's pretty easy to use, I think, overall, even though there's nothing that makes them stand out. Amongst the other distributions as, wow, this one's so much better. They're certainly right up there with everybody else in terms of usability, right? I would agree. And just a disclaimer, these are just my opinions and my observations. Oh, sure. Your mileage may vary. So I'm not saying any of these are particularly (24/44)
good or particularly bad. I'm just saying this is what I found. The one thing about OpenSUSE is it does have a very active mailing list, and its user forms are fairly friendly. I just wasn't a huge... it just didn't make me go, wow. So with that being said, this distribution, I think it would be better suited for if you're going to install it on a lot of corporate desktops, like in an office. Say your office went from Windows to all OpenSUSE. It'd be fine. Everything would work. You'd have your word processors, et cetera, et cetera. And it would work well amongst itself. So I would say more corporate geared than maybe user geared. Right. And one of the reasons it's so supportive of networks and corporate environments is at least in part because it was in the early days supported quite heavily by IBM. And in fact, in the days when IBM had the ThinkPad line before they sold it off to the group over in China, the Lenovo group, it was an IBM ThinkPad. In those days, you could order a (25/44)
ThinkPad from IBM directly and order it with Linux installed. And the Linux that you would get would be SUSE Enterprise Linux. Yeah. By the way, Larry, I'm looking at a Ubuntu 6.06 DVDs I still have. What do you give me for it? I'm sure I could find one somewhere on the Internet. I could download if I really wanted one. And I had one of those as well. And yeah, no, I wouldn't give you a thing for it. But mainly because in order to bring it up to scratch, to make it secure and make it modern, I'd have to upgrade it to 16.04 at least. And I may as well just download that distribution and install it from scratch. So there you go. Oh, well, you know, I thought I had something there. Oh, well. Yeah, it's good nostalgia piece, though. Keep it, you know, frame it or something. Yeah. Okay. Moving right along. Fedora Linux was my next tormentor, and I absolutely did not like this one at all. Okay. Tell us why. One, I had problems getting installed from the USB and the DVD. I finally did get it (26/44)
installed, but I was banging my head against a wall and wanted to chuck my computer out the second store window. After I got it installed, though, it ran okay. But then again, this one is very unique in their software policies as far as if it's not completely 100% free, it is not in the repositories. So then again, I'm like, oh, man, I have to go find Dropbox. I have to go find Skype. I have to go find this program. I have to go find another program. And after a while, I just, you know, like I said, you know, our show title is for people who just want to use links to get things done. Yeah, I was getting things done, searching for the programs I wanted to use. Yeah. So when you say free, you're not talking about free of charge. You're talking about free as in freedom. Yeah. By the Free Software Foundation. Yes, pretty much. So now, Fedora used to be called Fedora Core. And it's a distribution developed by the community, but it's supported by the Fedora project and is owned by Red Hat. (27/44)
Fedora contains software distributed under the free and open source license and aims to be the leading edge of such technologies. So basically, their software policy is this, yes, the program, you can be free programs, but it also has to be, if it's in the repository, it has to be free as we just described. Right. Yeah, from the Free Software Foundation. And I just find that irritating a little bit just because I don't want to work that hard to make something work. But Fedora has a reputation for focusing on innovation. I believe it was one of the first to incorporate the new GNOME 3 into the desktop. And also, I think they're on the forefront of the Wayland also. So, you know, they like to integrate technologies early and they work very closely with their upstream communities. The default desktop is the GNOME desktop, which is the GNOME 3, and the interface is the GNOME Shell. Just be prepared, it can be a little bland when you first install it because there's not much installed (28/44)
extra. They go to the way left of what Sabion does. Okay, so they like to not have a lot installed. But the cool part about them is they do support KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Mate and Cinnamon. And if you install Cinnamon, which I did just for giggles, it makes it look a lot nicer in my opinion. But I like the Cinnamon desktop. Now, the Fedora project also distributes custom variations and these are called Fedora Spins. So one Fedora Spin might have the KDE and one might have the Cinnamon. So that's kind of giving you an idea of what they do. And they're built with specific sets of software packages. Sometimes I've seen where they've had one for graphic artists, they've had one for sound engineers, they've had one for software developers. So they tend to put more of those type of programs into these spins. So they like to offer alternative desktop environments and they like to target specific interests such as gaming, security, computing and robotics. I haven't tried the robotics one. Actually I (29/44)
don't remember even seeing it on their website. But then again, I had two computers and I was trying to figure out why this thing wasn't installing. So getting to my final verdict on this one. Not my favorite. Would not recommend it to a new user. If you were a new user who didn't want any software except 100% free, as in freedom software, then this might be a choice for you. Not been one of my favorites. Of course, I will say they come up with some great names. One of my favorite was, they called one, it was Werewolf. And I just thought that was the coolest. But then I'm easily entertained. So to summarize again, so the Fedora Project, you can get to their homepage at getfidora.org. They have a mailing list that's fedoraproject.org slash wiki slash communicate. User forums at forums.fidoraforum.org. They have a Linux questions forum as well and documentation is available at a very long URL we'll have in the show notes. They're an independent distribution, although they are based and (30/44)
supported by Red Hat and their country of origin is the U.S. They support ARM HFP, i686, and x64. So again, this is a distribution that does not support the 386 architecture. They support a lot of different desktops. Awesome Cinnamon, as you mentioned, Enlightenment, Gnome, KDE, Plasma, LXDE, Mate, Openbox, Ratpoison, and XFCE. And they are a fixed release. And again, because of your lackluster review, not that the review is lackluster, but your rating of Fedora, we're probably going to get those Fedora fan people writing into us, telling us how much we're wrong. This is opinion. So again, your mileage may vary. Yes. What's the next one, Bill? Moving on. I will say Ratpoison is probably one of the craziest names for a desktop ever. Yeah. I like that one. Ratpoison. What you writing? Ratpoison. Okay. Moving right along. Disclaimer. PC Linux OS. I have run PC Linux OS extensively in my years of distro hopping and gaming and stuff. I am probably, this is probably going to sound like I'm a (31/44)
fanboy, and you'd be right that they call me a fanboy, because I like them a lot. PC Linux OS is a user-friendly Linux distribution and out-of-the-box support for popular graphics and sound cards, as well as other peripheral devices. It has a bootable live CD, provides an easy-to-use graphic installer, and distribution sports a wide range of popular applications for the typical desktop user, including browser plugins, full multimedia playback. It's very intuitive for system configuration. I find this just hilarious. It uses this synaptic package manager. The only reason I find it hilarious is anybody that's run Debian knows that you can still install it. The package manager of choice for Debian. This is the first one I've ever seen that actually uses it for Red Hat for packages. I thought that was really cool. Right out of the box, your DVDs will play, your MP3s will play, the browser plugins are really, really useful. It also comes in a few different varieties. They have regular KDE, (32/44)
and then they call the full Monty KDE, which is they throw everything in there. It has a custom desktop. And then they have a GNOME, which I'm not too much of a fan of, surprisingly. I don't like the way it looks, but that's just me. It's not bad distribution at all. It runs well, but now I have to ding one of my favorite distributions, because for a long time they had a bug when you went to go partition your hard drive. It would throw an error, and I had to search for it. I'm sure they've got it fixed, because I didn't have it there this time, but they're not as fast at fixing some things as I would like. But that being said, it's a beautiful and very ready-to-use system out of the box. Unfortunately, I had problems getting installed with my USB drive and my DVD drive. I don't know what's going on there. I think it's got to do something different. They go about it a different way, but the tools they use to partition it are easy to understand. They're very friendly, but it likes to (33/44)
throw errors. When I finally did get it installed, it ran great, but I would have to ding them pretty hard on the install process. It needs to be streamlined. It needs to be a little bit clearer on some elements. It's not as easy to install as, let's say, Linux Mint or Ubuntu Mate. Pretty much, Ubuntu Mate just put the thing in, started up, and followed the prompts, and it installs almost 100% all the time. That's what I'm kind of looking for. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying it needs a little work, but it's not the worst on this list. The worst is coming, I promise. If I was rating this from one to five, I'd give it a three and a half, maybe a four, but I wouldn't give it any more. I would say it would be a good choice for a new user, but just be aware that you might have a few issues getting it installed. Once it's installed, it runs great. It's kind of a rolling release also. Once you install it, it updates the packages. The same thing I dinged Sabion on was sometimes the (34/44)
updates take a little while. Right. Yeah. DistroWatch describes them as a semi-rolling release. You rated it 3.5 out of what, five or? Out of five. Ten. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's surprising you rate it so low, given that it's one of your favorite distributions. Well, I wanted to be fair. I don't want anybody saying, hey, why are you dinging all these distributions? I'm just calling it as I see it, because I don't want anybody to think that we're trying to dingle, because all these are non-Debian based distributions. So, if anything, I'm being a little harsher on even my favorites, just so everybody knows that I'm being 100% fair. I don't want anybody saying, well, this is great and this thing is totally unusable. So, like I said, we pretty much have a policy on going Linux. If it's a duck, we call it a duck. Right. Well, on this duck, the distribution again is PC Linux OS. You can find the homepage at PC Linux OS dot com. DistroWatch doesn't identify any mailing list or location for (35/44)
documentation, but they do have a forum at PC Linux OS dot com slash forum and an alternative forum on Linux questions. They're an independent, forked from Andreeva distribution based in the US and their architecture supported says Intel 64-bit. Desktop supported KDE, LXDE and Mate, and they describe themselves as a distribution for beginners. And as I said, they're semi-rolling. So, with that summary, let's move on to your least favorite. Is this your least favorite? Yeah, this one. This one I am not very happy with. I was unable to get this installed or run. Hmm. I guess that would make that my least favorite as well. I got so frustrated with this distribution. I had high hopes for it because if you remember, I run Crunchbang, which was the Debian version that used the same desktop, but only used a Debian base. And I was like, wow, this would be really great because I kind of liked the whole black look, very minimalist, you know, tech, you know, you could open a lot of the stuff you (36/44)
need to open the text box and you could just, I found it easier to be able to just type the command I wanted in text box and to use it. Okay. Would that build up? Tell us what the name of this distribution is. Archbang. Okay. And yes, I went on a rant before and didn't even tell you what the name was. But it supposedly uses the OpenBox window manager. I wouldn't know because I wasn't able to get it running. But then again, just a disclaimer again, I have yet to get any Arch distribution working. So, your mileage will definitely vary on this one. It has a lot of great things they say, you know, it's fast, it's not a lot of stuffs included, you can kind of customize it how you want. So, this one, because I just can't give it anything lower. No, I won't be that mean. I would just have to say, I'm not a fan. Yeah, well, let's not give it a rating since you really weren't able to dry it out. Yeah, I can't give it a rating because I couldn't get it to run. But this is another one that I (37/44)
think would have great success and great uptake if I could get it to work. But then again, I can't. So, where is it rated on DistroWatch? Just out of curiosity. I'm going to scroll down quite a bit to find it. So, yeah, let's just leave it at that. Just as a summary, Archbang Linux is located at archbang.org. No mailing lists listed in DistroWatch. They have user forums at bbs.archbang.org. Yes, I haven't heard that term in a long, long time. They have a forum on Linux questions, of course, and documentation is available on wiki.archbang.org. They're based on Arch. They are from my fellow Canadians up there in Canadian, and they support the x64 as well as the 686 architecture for processors. They have support for desktops, the open box that you mentioned and something called i3 that I'm not familiar with at all. And their release model is rolling. So if you want to show Bill up and prove how easy it is to install Archbang and give us some feedback on your experiences, we'd appreciate (38/44)
it since Bill wasn't able to give that one a try. So last question, Bill, that was our last distribution for review. What are you using on a day to day basis? Any of these? No. Okay. Still on a Debian base, huh? They didn't switch it over. Well, that's not the total truth. I still have Sabion still installed because I was playing with it, but my main system, again, has changed a little bit. After experiencing everything that I went through, and it was a lot of fun. I make out like it was torture, but I enjoy trying out new stuff. I installed Ubuntu Monte. Oh, really? Okay. I like the distro and it works well, but I wanted to review some stuff that we normally don't talk about. Yeah. Just because to show people that we're open to try anything. And in the middle of this, I got an email that you forwarded that there was another distro that was put out by one person or something that was based on OpenSUSE. Right. And I didn't get a chance to look at it, but just because it takes time to (39/44)
install them and configure them because you just don't want to install them and just say, well, this thing is great or this thing sucks and just be done. I'm not a fan of RPM based distributions. That's just my opinion. I like the Debian based ones, but if there was a really great RPM distribution, I would use it. I used PC links for a long time. That was the distribution that I used when I interviewed John O'Bacon. Right. Absolutely. And that email was from Benjamin and he was recommending Gecko Linux. Gecko. That's what it was. Yes. That's the one. But anyway, as an overview, there's some good possibilities on this list and there's a few that need some work or we wouldn't recommend it for a new user, but none of them are inherently bad and none of them are inherently good. So I would say pick your poison and give it a try. And that's about all I got to really say on the matter. I enjoyed it. I look forward to looking at some others that are not reviewed very often because I was (40/44)
looking at DistroWatch. There's some that went inactive, but there's some new ones that have come out onto the scene that I want to look at. So I kind of look forward to maybe doing another one of these and hopefully it doesn't sound as negative as this one, but I'm just calling it as I see it. So guys, don't flame me. Yeah, there you go. Thanks. Thanks a lot for doing this because I don't have a lot of time to experiment around much anymore. And I'm glad that you made the time. I know your time is getting more and more eaten up by by the work that you do and the other stuff that you do in your personal life outside of work. But You have a personal life? Thanks. Once in a while. I love what that is. So when you when you do take the time to venture out into new Linux adventures, it really helps us out here because it gives us a little broader view of what's going on in the Linux environment. Helps our listeners, of course, because they're interested in what's going on in our opinion of (41/44)
things outside of the distributions we use day to day. And it's always good to to broaden your horizons a little bit and experiment around. So again, thanks. Yeah. Well, I wanted to add one little quick note to that. When I first started, if you remember the running joke was which distribution are you running this week? Right. OK. But as I've kind of started using Linux, you know, because I'm I'm I'm ninety nine point nine percent Linux right now. That's all I use. I have to keep that little bit so I can play games that won't play on Linux. But but everything else is Linux. And I just. I've just kind of adopted that that whole thing of I just wanted to work so I can get things done type of mentality. Yeah. But occasionally I like to broaden my horizons. But then I'm thinking, boy, I have I'm looking at my DVD collection over here. I've used distribution system. Man, that's a lot that my poor hard drive on my on my laptops have gotten really abused. Well, take that as an opportunity to (42/44)
upgrade maybe to an SSD or something when they do fail. As you said on the last episode, you know, your next computer is probably going to be a System 76. You can order them with an SSD. Yeah. Well, my next one, I've been kind of lusting after the little bonobo, the big one. And so I've been kind of lusting after that and just trying to justify saying, oh, boy, I sure would like that. Can I save my most thing still works great. But, you know, all in all, it's it's it's fun. I hope everybody enjoyed it. And if you have any suggestions of other ones to try or if you just like to send me an email, call me a chimp. That's fine, too. And I'll look into them. OK, again. Thanks, Bill. So let's wrap up our next episode, of course, will be a listener feedback episode. Until then, you can head to our Web site at going links dot com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and subscribe. We are the Web site for computer users who just want to use Linux to get things done. If you (43/44)
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. Seventy three music provided by Mark Blasco at podcast themes dot com. (44/44)
Going Linux episode 361, 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 at our email address at goinglinks.gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello, Bill. Hello, Larry from the snowy New Mexico. Yay. Yeah, snow. What's that look like again? It's white and cold. Yes. Oh, yes. I remember. Yeah. And cars don't like to go anywhere when it's two feet deep. Just saying. My car does not like snow. Yeah, because it turns into ice. Yeah, it turns to ice. And, yeah, it's been a fun. We've (1/44)
gotten a lot of snow here in New Mexico. But anyway. Yeah, so much for the weather report. I hear you have gone 100% Linux on your personal laptop where you had been dual booting into Windows. Yeah, we won't go into that except saying I hate that other operating system with passion. And so anyway. Well, just a little bit of help for people. One of the things you told me is that in the Windows side ended up getting malware because you downloaded a. . . What was it? Image Burn. What was the name of that? Image Burn for Linux so that you could burn a DVD. Or, yeah, a DVD or a CD or whatever it was. And so you have to be very, very, very careful. Especially since those of us who want to begin to use Linux, first thing some people want to do is they want to burn an ISO onto a DVD or create a USB stick. And Image Burn for Windows is one way people do that. And just I'm going to put a couple of links into the show notes. Image Burn is one of the programs that Ubuntu used to recommend. I've (2/44)
noticed that they've taken it off of their instructions for burning Linux ISOs. They are exclusively recommending Rufus for Windows. And I'll have a link to both the Rufus applications so that you know you're going to the right place to get it. And also to the instructions on the Ubuntu website so that you know how to use it. And you know that you. . . They also have a link to that same software from their website as well. So either way you get it, you're sure that you're going to get something that doesn't have malware and stuff built into it. Yeah, just to give the Cliffs Notes version, I usually don't download. I was trying to help a friend out trying to access some files. And he wanted to get those files onto a DVD. And so I had used it a long time ago. And because the drive is formatted with the Mac OS, Windows couldn't see it. So Windows 10 doesn't come with Java. They don't like you to install Java, but you can. So I had to install Java to get this program to work. And so I (3/44)
don't know if it's just kind of a perfect storm. I did some research after I blast everything off and reinstalled Ubuntu. Apparently there's something called candy something and it flags as malware. And then I got another pop up that says Trojan food. . . something something something. And then I got another. And then installed Chromium for some reason. Not Chrome, because I have Chrome on my machine. I installed Chromium and it had pop up blockers and add. . . Click this for your discount on the latest and greatest shoes or whatever. So it just kept popping up in my. . . My Windows Defender kept popping up saying, you got this, we got this. We got this. I was like after a while I said, oh, I don't know how bad this is. And since I use it for work and stuff like that. Plus I mainly all use Windows for is to game. But you wouldn't read this drive until I did all this. So it's my fault. And I finally said I can't deal with this. And also I kept having. . . I've touched on this, I'm not (4/44)
bashing Windows 10 for this. I'm just saying it's a fact of life is that I keep getting all this garbage candy crush and crap on my machine. I'm like, I don't want this. I had to use Office 365 for work a couple months ago. So in my notification center, every time I'd log in to go play my game or games, it would pop up and say, you can save 16% or if you go to yearly plan, resubscribe now. And I'm like, no. But it kept. . . I mean, every time I log in, it popped up and it popped up two or three times a day. So it just on and on and on. And so, yeah, not real happy with it. And then, of course, I had a buddy of mine from work who just, his brand new Dell, I guess at the very last of November or first of December, he had bought the Pro and a version of Windows 10. And apparently the activation servers downgraded his to Windows 10 home and deactivate his license. So now he's. . . I don't know if he's gotten the fix yet, but when he called Microsoft tech support, they said, yeah, you just (5/44)
need to wait for the fix. OK. Well, that's convenient. OK. Thanks. Thank you so much for all that help. So, yeah. So it's been fun. Yeah. Experiences with Windows. There you go. Yes. I don't have any windows online. I'm about as windowless as you can get. OK, so defenestrated, huh? Whatever. All right. Let's get into our audio feedback. So the first one is feedback from Primitive One. Let's go listen to Primitive One's voicemail. Greetings. This is Primitive One in Miami, Florida, and I call you as a recent listener, although I've worked my way back about a year to episode 339. And my concern is I want to go Linux with my home gaming desktop. You can imagine where I might be going with this. In the episodes I've listened to many times, people have discussed issues with their graphics card and making their graphics card work properly once they switch over to Linux. So my specific question is I use three monitors. I like to multitask when I play my games, and I don't want to lose that (6/44)
experience when I switch from Windows 10 to Linux with the desktop. What specifically should I look for or ask the internet search engine or a forum in this regard? I know you guys have mentioned that people do find workarounds, and you might call them, I guess, hacks on how to try to tweak the graphics card, even though the compatibility might not be there. But I really want to give a good effort in my thoughts before I make this decision because this computer is specifically just for gaming, so it might just be an issue of dedicating it to that and not doing other things with the device. That's a pretty long message, so thanks for your time and enjoying the show very much. So he wants to upgrade from Windows 10 to Linux. He's gaming on his laptop. He has questions on the graphics card, and he'd like to know how and where the best way to search the internet for help with the graphics card. So you're the gamer, Bill, or you have been. Tell me about it. What's he do? What's his best (7/44)
route here? Okay, so once I upgrade from Windows 10 to Linux, I recommend for... and you guys didn't give a lot about his machine either, so I'm going to just spitball this one. Go with the Ubuntu Mate, Ubuntu, Linux, Mint. They seem to be the easiest to get games running. That's just my opinion, but from experience, they seem to work the best. Use an NVIDIA card. They seem to have the least trouble getting things to run, in my experience. And also, depending on what distribution you're going to use, go to their forums. So if you're having problems in Ubuntu, you go to a bunch of forums. If Ubuntu Mate, you could go to their forums, etc. One of the things that you always need to remember is going to the forums first before you make any radical changes. They usually have a list somewhere buried in their Welcome of Supported hardware. Sometimes it's up to date, sometimes it's not so much. But I haven't run across any NVIDIA drivers issues, for me anyway. My Alienware uses NVIDIA, so I (8/44)
install the NVIDIA driver and it works perfectly. It's not as optimized as the Windows ones are, but with some workarounds like Guild Wars, etc., as a game, it works well. And he also didn't say what games, and that's going to probably be the biggest indicator for him. What kind of games is he trying to run? Is he trying to run some of the latest and greatest? It might take some work, or you might not be able to get him to run. He's running three monitors, so as long as he's running on separate video cards, or is he just mirroring them? Yeah, he says he's running on a laptop, so I wouldn't think that he would be running on a separate video card. But you never know, he could have a separate video card. And he may not be able to change that video card in his laptop, depending on who makes it. Yeah, some of the Macs, and I've heard of a few that they would have, like, like an Intel, my machine has an Intel base for just non-graphic uses, and then it has NVIDIA for the gaming and stuff. (9/44)
But there's some of those machines that they need a special driver, or a special, yeah, a special driver from the vendor to make that change seamless. I think the Macs have that Quattro card or something that they have to have a special driver for. So, depending on what kind of machine he has and stuff, I would still say stay with NVIDIA, go to forums and just kind of be, and maybe if he wants, he could send some more information about the kind of games, maybe we can help him find the right software to help him. That's all I got. Right. And I think just generally, if you're looking online for help with Linux, whether it's for graphics cards or anything else, start with the forums for the distribution that you're using. That's recommendation number one. And then recommendation number two, look for online publications. There are plenty of them out there that focus in on Linux. Ubuntu has some publications. There's Full Circle Magazine and things like that. And then there's Linux Magazine (10/44)
Online and various others that are online magazines, essentially. And then there are blogs like, what's the Ubuntu one? There's a great site. If you use Ubuntu, it's called Ask Ubuntu. That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. Yeah. Ask Ubuntu and places like that. So those are the first three places. Don't do just a Google search for what your graphic card is and help with Linux or something like that, because you're going to get a lot of opinions on a lot of websites that don't necessarily relate to your specific Linux distribution. So if you can focus in on your distribution or if you do a blind Google search like that, search for your graphics card name, the name of your Linux distribution and setup or drivers or words like that. And that can help you. But the first recommendation is start with the forums, because that's where you're going to get the most valid information from users who have gone through what you're trying to do. And also, if you haven't decided on a Linux version, going (11/44)
to the different forums, like if you want to go to Ubuntu MATE and then Arch Linux or Fedora or something like that, or what's the Monjero, that's it. Go to the forums and kind of look around and see if people are having success or problems, because you might find a Linux distribution that seems to work better. So that might kind of steer you to your choice. But that's just because Monjero is based on Arch. Probably do a little research and then go from there. Right, right. And this is kind of an example of one of those hurdles that unfortunately new users to Linux have is that you're trying to make a switch from a previous operating system to Linux, and you're trying to make it on a machine that wasn't, you know, that was designed for Windows. It wasn't designed for Linux, and you end up with hardware sometimes that is not compatible or takes a few extra hoops to jump through to get it to work on Linux. And for new users, that's difficult. It's kind of akin to saying, you know, I've (12/44)
been a Mac user all my life. I am going to switch to this PC because I don't like Mac hardware for some reason, and I want to figure out how to install macOS Mojave on this Dell computer. You're going to have a few problems trying to do that and a similar sort of thing here. So, hey, all I can say is there are plenty of people doing this. And the more popular the computer hardware you have is, the more likely there is a solution out there. And the forums are the best place to look for. And when you need to replace that laptop with something that's compatible with Linux, just take a look at that time before you buy the hardware to make sure that it is hardware either designed for Linux, pre-installed with Linux, or has components that are compatible with Linux. And by that time, you're probably going to know a little bit more about Linux and how to use it and some of the other things, and it'll be a lot easier to make that decision based on information you have having used Linux for a (13/44)
while. So anyway, we've spent a long time on Primitive One's simple question. Well, it's not a simple question. These are really important questions because you don't want to go through a bunch of hoops, get it installed, and then find out that you can't get it to work or something. You can't get there from here. Yeah, so we like to sometimes give a little too much information. We're not trying to talk down to you. We're just saying the best way is to do some research, just make sure, and then get all your stuff together. You don't change out an engine in a car without making sure that you have the manual and have all the pieces to do it. So that's kind of the same. You don't? No. Maybe that's what I've been doing wrong. Okay. You need that wrench, Larry. All right. All right. Okay. All right. Our first email is from Angelo, who forwarded an email entitled, FYI, VINIX support, please have a closer look at this project. Hello all. Since I learned about this group a lot in the past, I (14/44)
know there are a lot of talented people on this list. I wanted to bring to your attention the following project, which was previously mentioned in this list. And it is SLINT, S-L-I-N-T, and it is at slint.fr. We'll have a link in the show notes. It says, I've been playing with SLINT for a while, or slint, I guess you could pronounce it, for a while and found this very blind-friendly project. The most important is that the gentleman behind SLINT is very much interested in accessibility of this project and very responsive to any suggestions or requests. And so on. If you could spare a bit of your time on SLINT and share your ideas and suggestions with DJ, I guess that's the project owner, his project could become even better. At all the best to all of you in the new year and thank you for letting me be part of this group. OK, so interesting. Another program for the blind. And we'll take a look at that and see what it's all about. Yeah, so thanks for the email. And there's so many Linux (15/44)
projects, it's so little time. It says originally Slackware Internationalization Project. Slint is now a Linux distribution derived from Slackware and from Salix. Polyglot, versatile, beginner-friendly and accessible for the visually impaired. Hmm. So it's multiple languages, accessible to visually impaired, wide assortment of software for servers, desktops and laptops. Interesting. Uses KDE, LXDE, Mate XFCE and lightweight window managers. Yeah, looks very interesting. Another Linux distribution for the blind. Great. All right. Thanks. Our next email comes from James and he has a possible mate tweak solution with Orca. And that was mentioned on show 356. He writes, Hello, Larry and Bill. Happy New Year to you both. My name is James. I am a longtime listener and have recently created a dual boot system using Ubuntu Mate as my distribution of choice. It seems like the most user friendly for a novice. I am also a blind Linux user. I came across a possible solution to Daniel's mate tweak (16/44)
issue from show 356. I am quite comfortable in the terminal from my Mac OS days, but perhaps there is a way to get at the file via the GUI. I'm not sure. However, the following change to the mate tweak UI file should give Orca screen reader focus to all of the mate tweak options. The file could be found at its user dash lib dash mate tweak. Well, it's in the show notes. And it says, being a text file, it can be opened easily with Pluma by running the following command in a terminal. I found that I had to prefix a command with a pseudo, which provides elevated privileges requiring a user's password, for example. And he lists the command and that's also in the show notes. So he says two lines below it says object class equals GTK icon view ID equals sign side view replace false with true. So he's telling you what you need to do. It tells you what the file looks for, what the command is and then what to change. And then he says, save the file and quit Pluma. Try running the mate tweak (17/44)
tool again. Also, the Orca mailing list is a useful resource for the blind Linux users and developers. So to subscribe, please visit. And I'll read this one out because it's not too bad. HCTPS backslash backslash mail dot nome dot org dash mailman dash list info slash Orca list. Or you can just go to the show notes again. I hope this helps. Best wishes. And I look forward to hearing more from going links in 2019. So if you're having problems with your with your screen reader or the Orca, come to the show notes and follow these links and I think this might help you out. Yep, absolutely. And our next email is from David in Israel, who wrote with a question about Mint upgrades. OK, I would appreciate a response to satisfy my curiosity. It's about the upgrade from Linux Mint 18.3 to 19.0. With the recent release of 19.1, I decided to upgrade from 18.3 to 19.0 and then to 19.1. I had not gone to 19.0 originally, taking the advice that if there is no need, don't do it. And the fact that the (18/44)
process has some dangers. However, I like being on the leading edge, although not on the bleeding edge. So with 19.1 release, I decided to do it. In general, everything was easy and straightforward following the process documented in the Linux Mint community on how to upgrade. However, I too had the problem mentioned on that page by Jan Coffey near the top of the comments. I got a repeating error message and he provides the error message in detail. But essentially it says that there was an error processing the gconf2 configuration file, and then it leaves those triggers unprocessed and then it has a dependency problem. And then it says gconf2 depends on dbus-x11 and then x11 is not configured yet and round and round and round. He then says, I followed Jan Coffey's advice. My solution was to run the commands sudo dpkg space dash dash configure space dash a. So dpkg configure dash a. And then sudo apt-get space install space dash f. So dpkg configure dash a and then apt-get install dash (19/44)
f. And then rerun the Mint upgrade upgrade. And it worked like a charm to upgrade to Linux Mint 19. I'd be curious if you could explain to me why I have had the problem and how those commands solved it. OK, why you had the problem? I don't know. That's something for the Linux Mint developers to understand. But it sounds to me like the upgrade process, this is one of those troubles that you can get into with upgrades that unless you really need to upgrade. My recommendation, especially from the Linux Mint folks, is don't do it unless you really need to. However, the alternative, of course, to upgrading is to fresh install and then you won't have these problems. But it's a little more work if it goes smoothly. If it doesn't go smoothly, now this is a little more work. The upgrade is a little more work. So, yeah. So somewhere along the lines, the upgrade process is not processing gconf2 correctly or configuring it correctly or something. So the answer to the second part of your question, (20/44)
why did these things fix it? Well, the first command, the dpackage command, is kind of to reset the configuration to what it needs to be to do the upgrade. And then the second is to force, that's the dash F, force the installation even though you're getting this error message. And using those two commands in sequence allows you to essentially push that gconf2 package over the threshold and get it to install even though it's not wanting to do it. And even though you're forcing the install with that install dash F command, it somehow figures out how to make it work and it works. So there's my non-technical technical explanation of how it works. You're essentially forcing the installation and then it just goes ahead and does it. And it just forces it to bypass those error messages and install it anyway. So there you go. I like the idea. It just forces the penguins to make it work. Yeah, there you go. Right. So it's like anything else. If it doesn't fit, just use a hammer and force it. (21/44)
That's kind of what we're doing here. Yeah. So David, I know we didn't really give you an explanation there, but it was fun trying to figure it out. Right? Yeah. Or you could just do a fresh install and not have to do it. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Which took you longer, fresh install or the upgrade? Right. I think for a long time up until recently Mint recommended to do a just a fresh install. They still do as far as I understand. Oh, do they? Okay. Yeah. So, all right. So moving right along, we have George from Tulsa who wrote about the Mike Tech Show podcast number 678. And he said, I added this to my feeds on your recommendation. 678 is a major endorsement of Linux, but Mike's too locked into Windows services to see. If you know him, he needs Invoice Ninja. And then he also includes a YouTube link, which is in the show notes. So, yeah, apparently. Yeah. Invoice Ninja is for invoices, I guess. Yeah, it's for doing invoices using Linux. So it's a Linux program for doing invoices. And Mike, (22/44)
you know, he's got a computer repair business and he's got a lot of contract customers and individual home customers as well. And he does all his work on Windows and Mac. And, you know, George, new subscriber to Mike's podcast on our recommendation, has uncovered the fact that Mike could easily switch to Linux. But he's, you know, very steeped in the Windows environment and he's got a lot of Windows tools for helping repair Windows servers. You know, he's got business applications and as well as home users. So he's got a little more than the average home user has to deal with. But, yeah, he could easily run his business on Linux. And I don't know Mike personally, but I've had conversations with him by email and various others. So I'll forward that on, George, and let him know that if he ever decides to move to Linux, we're here to help him out. And Invoice Ninja may be one of those programs that helps him. There you go. I thought he was like, he needed to send an invoice to Ninja. No. (23/44)
Well, I suppose if you knew a Ninja and you had to invoice him for something, you could use that program to send the invoice to Ninja. Anyway, let's move on. Rick wrote with a solution about mounting shares over OpenVPN. Hi, thank you for reading out my VPN problem on listener feedback. I now have the solution and I thought some listeners would like to know what the solution is. Well, thanks for writing back, Rick, and letting us know. So continuing on, he says, As you know, I was trying to get a file sync application to write my folders on the other side of a VPN on my friend's server. My friend is just a home user and the same as me, we are not business IT trained and we have never had to work in IT. We both have a Synology NAS, which is Network Attached Storage, right? And we both have switched to the OpenVPN package and both have got our packages to create the necessary certificate. Now, I've gone Linux and found that Windows can read and write my folders over the VPN. But I found (24/44)
that Linux couldn't because I couldn't mount my folders on the other side of the VPN. And Nautilus could read and write successfully, but Linux apps couldn't use the mount points for writing setup by Nautilus. Very soon after the WannaCry outbreak, my friend and I decided to set our Synology NAS to use Samba at the lowest version of 2 to prevent a possible outbreak on our servers. While I can successfully mount my own NAS without specifying the Samba version to use, it turns out that I have to specify the version when setting up a mount point on the other side of the VPN. It would have been obvious that I needed to use the version option had the help option listed VER in its full list of options available in the mount command. I've searched Linux books and searched the internet for mount options and not one includes the VER option as something that can be specified. I eventually found the command in a blog somewhere. My guess is that after the WannaCry outbreak, someone upgraded the (25/44)
mount command to use version 2 of Samba but didn't update the help options and didn't inform the main internet resources for people to know that mount can now use version 2. I've tried to set the option to use Samba version 3, but I get an error so it looks like version 2 is the highest one for the moment. I hope you found this interesting and may be of use. Best wishes, Rick. Okay, so a hidden option on the VPN, so that's good. Thanks for letting us know about that, Rick. I'm sure those of our listeners who are struggling with that same problem with OpenVPN will find that very interesting and helpful. I think we need to give Rick some kudos there. That's a lot of detective work. Yes. Thanks for all that work. Good job, Rick. So our next email comes from Angelo who wrote about learning Python. Hi Larry and Bill. Michael can contact the Royal National Institute for the Blind, RNIB. They can provide him with some materials. You can pass along my email address and I can share some of my (26/44)
materials with him. There are also some accessible materials on Kindle and Audible also has some books. 73N2DYN Angelo. Thanks, Angelo. Yeah. And yeah, Michael should be able to... I'm sure he's already connected with the RNIB and can ask them about that information. So that's great. Highlander sent an email to us and to the Mintcast entitled Seize Control. Dear Larry and Bill, the short story. After a major upgrade from Windows 10 version 1803 to Windows 10 version 1809, I discovered a problem with my hard drive. It took me a long time to figure out that Windows upgrade was causing the problem. Really? Windows upgrade causing problems? Never heard of that before. I'm not even going to comment on that one. Yeah. It took me a little while longer to figure out how Linux would solve this problem. The long story. I have a common NTFS partition on my second hard drive that I use to store files and move files. This is how I access and write files by both Windows and Linux operating system. (27/44)
The point is, regardless of which system created the file, both systems can access it and modify it. And I don't need internet access to share files between systems. This morning, my Windows 10 version 18.03 upgraded, sounds like on its own, to version 18.09. I found out later that Windows tried to claim ownership over all my files and folders. My common NTFS partition was changed to read-only by Windows 10 version 18.09, so my Linux distros could not write files to the common NTFS partition. I accessed GParted from within Fedora 28 and created another NTFS partition. Fedora had write access to the new partition, so I did some write testing on both the new and the old NTFS partitions. All my Linux distros then had write access because GParted requires you to log in as root. GParted forced and seized control of the common NTFS partition. My computer now operates the way I intended it to. I am not happy with what that wind-blows operating system tried to do, and that was to try to claim (28/44)
ownership of and control over my file folders and files. Regards, Highlander, GTA. Moving right along, Ken wrote about episode 358, Bill and Larry. I just listened to podcast 358 and was appalled at the feedback from Don complaining about your evaluation of Windows versus Linux. I really appreciate the quality of your show and website. You have been a great support to me and my going on Linux for many years. I'm certainly no expert and just one of the folks using Linux meant in my case to get things done. I am just plain fed up with Windows, much for the same reasons that Bill stated in his answers to Don. My biggest complaint is the lack of reliability, security, and privacy invasion, plus the onerous updates. My list could go on and on, my Linux machines just purr along without much attention, using the LTS versions. Don's response reminds me of some earlier experiences with online email lists, forums, etc. It's usually the least experienced who are making such unintelligent and (29/44)
often nasty comments. In many cases, I just turned the list off when the folks would go off on one of their tirades. I am glad to see that most comments to the Goings Podcasts and the Google community have been civil. I have noticed that well managed forums that prohibit that type of nastyness have done well and have been more useful to all. It seems that some folks will get on the internet and say things that they wouldn't dare say to your face. They seem to think that it's their duty to approach their responses with unpleasant commentary. So sad. The internet has done much for us, but some of the social aspects are disappointing me. Keep up the good work. No, great work. I appreciate your efforts. Give you all an A++++. Ken, KB4XT. Thanks, Ken. We got five pluses, Larry. Yeah, that's cool. Thanks, Ken. And yeah, you know, every once in a while, Bill, we're accused of being a little snide in our remarks about Windows or accused of Windows bashing. But really, it's a result of emails (30/44)
like this from Ken and emails like the ones that we've read on this podcast as well, that it's really from our listeners that we're hearing that Windows has the problems. I certainly don't use Windows anymore. And yeah, it appears that you don't either. Only from work. And I just want to point out, Larry, it's my amateur radio brothers has got my back. I just want to point that out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks. Thanks for that. And for those of you who don't know those letters and numbers that some people put at the end of their their email, those are ham radio call signs. So we've got a lot of blind users of Linux who write into the podcast and a lot of ham radio operators who write into the podcast as well. And we thank both of them and the rest of our listeners as well for everything. Yes. OK, so let's move on to. Yeah, thanks, Ken. Let's move on to Ian's suggestion for a Google Plus alternative. Larry, Bill, I've been a listener and Linux enthusiast for quite some time. Keep up the (31/44)
good work. There was a piece on an alternative to Google Plus on the last listener feedback show and a hosted discourse forum was mentioned. I wanted to share my discovery of the Mastodon platform. We've had that recommended before. An open source, federated social media network that promotes consideration of others, not others, others. Since it doesn't reside on a centrally controlled server, you can sign up to existing instances based on interest. For example, Linux rocks dot online or a foster Don dot org. And if you know their Mastodon addresses, follow people from other instances across the federation. Instances are hosted by individuals and moderated by their community. You can host your own instance and control your experience explicitly, yet still participate in the wider community. You know, that's interesting. I didn't know that Mastodon would allow that. So that's that's good. He provides a link to a video that explains that. And he says having a presence on Mastodon is (32/44)
simple to achieve. Just go to join Mastodon dot org. But hosting your own instance allows you to theme and moderate the experience for the community. Users come first on the platform. Respect and considerate discussion follows. Unlike the dreaded Helberd or bird site, Mastodon also gives you an array of content tools to allow you to tell your feed, your follows, your privacy. It seems like a good fit for potential Linux users with their appreciation of open source software. Better security and a true level of control not governed by a large commercial organization. People coming away from Google Plus or Tumblr recently should find a welcome home somewhere on a Mastodon instance. I'd also like to throw a recommendation out to a distro I've been very impressed with in MX Linux 17. It's very fast, lightweight with the XFCE desktop, but delivers a smooth user experience with none of the functionality hidden away if you want to dig deeper into it. Thanks again for all your effort with going (33/44)
Linux and keep up the good work. Thanks for the suggestions. Yeah, actually, I didn't know Mastodon could do that. I want to check into that. So we've got an email from Joshua who wrote about episode 358. Hey Larry and Bill, I haven't wrote in since 2010, but have listened to all episodes of going Linux except for a few of the later Computer America episodes. And for those of you who are new, Larry used to do a show on Computer America and I guess they kind of changed format. Larry, is that what they did? No, they didn't change format. They still do a Linux segment as part of their show. I just bowed out as the host and they went back to the host they had prior to me and they still have it. So ongoing and every once in a while they play some older episodes like over the holidays and stuff they play best of episodes and every once in a while you'll hear me back on there. Because I guess they liked my segments. I haven't done anything for them for a while, but still some great content in (34/44)
there. Yeah. And he continues, I just listened to episode 358 and had to write in after hearing you read the feedback from Don. As I listened to his feedback, I got very upset. You read the feedback with great grace and restraint, but I think I could hear the hurt in your voice. I don't know that I could have done the same. I just had to write in and let you know that the two of you cover your subjects very well. You speak with accuracy on what you know and admit with humility to things that you don't know. There is no pretension in your podcast as for the way you talk about other operating systems, you're always truthful and do not denigrate them. Everything that Don said about you and Bill was completely wrong. I would ask others to write in and support and show support for Larry and Bill. I can't be the only one who feels this way. I will also post this to the Google Plus group. Thank you. I appreciate that Joshua. Yeah, and there's no need for everybody to write in and support. I (35/44)
mean, thank you. But yeah, it comes with the territory, right? Yeah, some of the earlier ones we've had some we've had some where we had to put on the asbestos underwear. So yeah, so this was a relatively mild one. But yes, we try to be fair and balanced, but you know, everybody's entitled to their own opinion. So we'll move right along. Absolutely. So Rainey suggests a Google Plus alternative. Hi, Larry and Bill in your ever expanding search for a new social network. I suggest you give me we.com a try. The guys from Mintcast already found a new home there. And it's a pretty simple interface. Since I never really dabbled around in Google Plus, I can't really say how or if it is different. Good luck, Rainey. Well, maybe I'll take a look at the me we.com site from the Mintcast site and see how it looks and we can take a look at it. Every time you say me we it makes me smile and just saying you know, that's a great name. So George from Tulsa wrote Winders quite an email. A former neighbor (36/44)
I don't see often woke up in the wee hours and thought he heard his computer running. He thought he had set it to stay on Windows 7. And it was and it was running a 2am update. I know where this is going. When he awoke, it was running Windows 10 and his data files were gone. Oh, OK. Continuing, he's not a sophisticated user, Chromebook material and had no backups. Frantic, he tried to get his data back. That's cold, but OK, which was just the wrong thing to do. Wronger, he took it to the geek store that was supposed to do a data recovery. They apparently had read Microsoft's notice it would be helping people get their Windows 10 update erased data back. And after days of stalling, eventually said they couldn't recover his data. But in the meantime, he paid $200, signed up for a security protection program and gave them the ability from what I can gather at any time to sign into his system remotely to fix it. OK. All for a low low fee of $200. And you're OK, privacy. Never mind. When he (37/44)
went to pick up his laptop, they said we did manage recovery data. That was after Microsoft was supposed to provide help. Turned out to be a lie or misunderstanding of what was lost because it was still gone. Sigh. I could not persuade him to go look at a Chromebook or to let me. I really hate to get in the trenches with Windows. At least Newt can pay for his laptop and try to put Windows 7 back to protect him from the idiots he paid $200 and gave the keys to his kingdom. The next podcast in my queue after yours was Late Night Linux number 52. It kicks off with a very geeky Felim Whiteley struggling with a Microsoft run around as his Windows 10 VM is no longer authenticating. Been there myself and it was definitely no fun. I finally exceeded in getting authenticated and chose not to let the MSFT or Microsoft Tech, I did call them that, but access my computer. Felim was not so lucky. Linux for business. I struggled with printing checks. No, we don't do that as much as in the past, but (38/44)
once a year we mail out a large number of them. The easiest and it wasn't easy way I found to do it was to set up a LibreOffice mail merge until I installed the free and still available quick in 2004 for Windows download and wine. I've tried all the Linux financial applications, KMyMoney, GNU Cash, Scrooge, even the paid money dance and none measured up to quick in 2004 running in wine. And I'm not talking about my pitiful personal finances, but tracking the complex finances of large entities. There are a couple of proprietary PDF tools for Linux that claim to be replacements for Acrobat Pro. I have not tried them. One is they're Russian and putting proprietary Russian software on my systems is just not acceptable. And code industry makes master PDF and gives their link. Coupa says it is in Atlanta. I want to verify that as I followed a couple of other companies to ground before buying from them and ground turned out to be per se Google Street View, a storefront offering mailboxes. Be (39/44)
nice to have a reliable and safe PDF creation tool and easy database that runs locally and know the base modules of Libre and OpenOffice and the Keksi KTE database aren't easy and in my experience crash. Miss DBase2, Miss Access, Miss MSFT Works database that was really pretty good works nine will run in wine, but is a PIA unlike quick in 2004, which is smooth. Wow. Yeah, so PIA is pain in the backside. Yes. Yeah, George. So you can do the ringer there. Wow. Yeah, exactly. So George and I had exchanged a couple of emails on the PDF tool and trying to determine which of the PDF tools have, you know, capabilities similar to the Adobe product and that are not based in a country known to provide exploits and malware. So I took a look at that copa or koopa, whatever it is site, and I looked at their website. It says that they are based in Atlanta, Georgia, Georgia in the US, not Georgia in the, you know, Russia. And I also found a link on LinkedIn to their company, and it confirms that (40/44)
they're based in Atlanta and that their employees are based in Atlanta. So it is not a free of charge program, but it does give you the capabilities that you're looking for. And it looks like a legitimate alternative to Adobe's PDF creation tools with a lot of a lot of features built in. Yeah, Quicken 2004 running in wine, if that works, great. I know that, you know, this whole finances for business thing is a bit of a struggle for any program. And I guess the folks at Quicken have just done such a good job of it that although, you know, open source alternatives try to provide the same functionality, Quicken still outpaces them, even the 2004 version of their software. So 14 years old. Yeah, exactly. Running it in wine is is an alternative. And wine for new users of Linux is a way that you can run some older Windows programs and sometimes not so often newer Windows programs under Linux. And, you know, that that's certainly a way to do it. Another way is to look at flat packs or snap (41/44)
packages, that sort of thing. Yeah, someone has packaged things up. That's that's a more friendly way of doing it that doesn't require you to install yet another program that being wine to make it run. So I haven't looked to see if Quicken is in there. I doubt it. But you know what? Let me just take a minute to snapcraft.io slash store. And let's see if Quicken is in the list. Last time I looked, it was not. And it's still not there. So if you know how to snap up packages like this, Quicken might be one that you could provide for people's use. Anyway, there you go. Yeah. All right. Thanks, George, for all those details. And thanks, everyone who participated in this month's listener feedback. This was great. Yeah, it was great. Thanks for all the emails. And, you know, Larry, that kind of is the last one right now. Yeah, it is for now. And I'm sure there are more coming in. It seems that every time we release an episode, people want to comment on it. And that's great. That allows us to (42/44)
have one full episode a month filled with emails and voicemails like this, answering your questions, providing marginal advice on how to use Linux. Yeah. So, yeah, keep up the feedback. We appreciate it. And our listeners appreciate it as well. So we're happy to do it. Thanks, guys. Okay, our next episode. Yeah. Our next episode, Bill, is Run Your Business on Linux Part 3. Yeah, we are continuing our series on running your business on Linux. And we'll continue to do that. I think after this one, we'll probably switch over, kind of alternate between running your business and some other episodes. And I was thinking, like your feedback on this, Bill, that it's been a while since we did a show on the basics, the basics of Linux, especially for new listeners, new users to Linux. Let's just kind of go back to basics. Things have changed a little bit. Yeah, some things have changed a little bit. Yeah, I think that'd be fun. And we can do a multi-part series on that. All right. Sounds like (43/44)
that might be a plan. So 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. For now, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our Going Linux podcast, Google Plus Community. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. (44/44)
Going Linux, episode 372, Ubuntu Derivatives. Welcome to the Going Linux Podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, Ubuntu Derivatives. Hi, Bill. Hey, Larry. So, how's your day so far? Doing okay. Yeah, with our usual hiccups in trying to get the podcast started, I think we're good. You've got a new test machine, which I think was part of the problem here. But tell us a little bit about your new test machine. Yeah, I got a call from a friend who said that a person was wanting to get rid of their old computer and what I'd be interested in. I said, sure. I was figuring I was going to get a really (1/44)
ancient machine, but it's not as ancient. And I asked when I got it, I saw there was an i5. It was 6 gigs of RAM, 160-rush drive with Intel graphics. Okay. Not bad. Okay, and I'm thinking, yeah, not bad. So, I looked and the computer is older. It's four to six years old. But it's still an i5, 64-bit processor. So, I called the lady up because everything worked on it. It's a Dell Optiplex 790, a little mini tower. And I asked her, I said, why are you getting rid of this? I said, it had Windows 7 on it, which I took care of that really quickly. And she said that she had went to a Microsoft store or wherever, and they said that her machine wasn't beef enough to run Windows 10. And if it did run it, it would run it really poorly. And I'm like, I don't know if that's true. So, I started looking around before I blasted the Win 7 off, and I noticed something interesting. It was running a 32-bit version of Windows 7 Pro. Really? Okay. And it wasn't a 64-bit version of Windows. And she was (2/44)
having all kinds of driver issues and programs not working. And I'm thinking, yeah, I can kind of understand why. Because if you're buying, this person works in the accounting field, and so she's buying a newer program and it won the 64. I don't know. I can't figure it out. It makes no sense to me. But it runs really well. So, I decided, I thanked her. And she also gave me a huge 19-inch monitor because apparently they sold her on a new monitor saying that this one wasn't high DPI or whatever. So, long story short, the computer runs really, really well. There's nothing wrong with it. I think what you said was they're just interested in selling new hardware. It runs great. I mean, really great. And I find it hard. I think they might have sold her a bill of goods. I don't see any reason why it couldn't run Windows 10. Well, maybe I can. I don't know. Maybe the Intel graphic. I don't know. All I know is that everything I've thrown at it, including everything we're getting ready to talk (3/44)
about, has run really, really well. The only thing I would change on it, and I think I'm going to, is I'm going to buy, since it has a standard hard drive, or I like to call them the rush drive, I want to put an SSD in it. That should really speed up. I mean, it has enough horsepower. It has four cores and six gigs of RAM. Yeah, that's not a huge amount, but that's not too far off what some of these modern computers, the low end computers are selling. So, all in all, I've been very pleased with it. I mean, it even runs Arch, Fedora, Sabion, which is not the lightest out of the group. So, it's run well. For a four, five, six year old computer, it's kind of specced the way you would expect it to be. I5, six gigs of RAM, 160 gig hard drive, but three gigahertz is, you know, some of the lower end computers these days are running that, or not too much more for the high performance ones. And I don't know whether you can get more RAM in it or not, but if you can get it up to eight and you can (4/44)
put an SSD drive in at whatever size you want, that's almost current specs, even though the computer's four to six years old. So, yeah, that thing should run just about anything. It does. About the only thing that I did before I started up is I, of course, opened up the side and it was dusty, of course. So, you know, I blew it all out, cleaned it up, checked the connections. And so far, it's run flawlessly. It runs really quiet. Even I was talking to you, I have Mate on it right now, and I was telling you, I have like 15 tabs open and the system, I was only using 2.2 of the gigahertz and none of it, the swap. Yeah, it seems like it's performing well, that's for sure. Yeah, I mean, because I've been punishing it quite a bit just to see if I could get it to find something it wouldn't run. And I think you sold me on one thing, Larry, is Intel graphics or I think AMD also has their drivers in the kernel too. I'm almost, my next one, because I've had so many issues trying to get these (5/44)
NVIDIA drivers, they're playing nice because mine has built-in Intel, but it also has that discrete. It's supposed to switch and it never did really well under Windows when I first had it either. So, I think an all Intel machine or AMD machine or something. But yeah, I tell you, the Intel has just been really nice to get up and running. It just, you know, boom and it runs. I'm like, now I know what it feels like to actually put, you know, I have to deal with installing additional drivers and going in and fiddling with config files. So, yeah, Intel's starting to make a believer out of me. Yeah, it's nice and smooth when you've got a computer that's designed to be compatible with Linux, or at least whether it's designed to be or not, whether it is compatible with Linux or not determines how smoothly the installation and the running goes. And as long as you're not taxing the graphics with the latest demanding games for 3D games and highest performance games, Intel graphics is just fine. (6/44)
And as it increases in performance, it's getting better and better at running games as well. It is getting better. Yeah. So, I'd be interested to see what you do about your gaming predilection. I was going to say addiction. Maybe you're not addicted, but predilection to gaming on this machine and see what actually comes out of it, whether you decide to go virtual machine for games or something else. But hey, we'll see. We'll see where it goes. So, this lady who provided you with this essentially brand new five year old machine, I hope she gave you a good price on it. Free. That's a good price. She gave it away for free and she went to the Microsoft store and they sold her on new hardware and a new monitor and she still gave away her old computer to you for free. What did Microsoft end up selling her? Okay. So, she didn't, first off, if I hadn't taken it, she was just going to scrap the whole thing and send it to a landfill. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. The horror. The horror. So, of course, (7/44)
since she's into accounting, she got another, I guess, little mini tower. I think it has, I think she had 16 gigs of RAM, a SSD, a storage drive, the highest i7, because she said she almost went with an i9. I'm thinking that's a lot of overkill for an accounting machine, but the one thing she was irritated is it doesn't have an optical drive. So, I think she either had to have them put it in or it didn't come with it, so she had to buy an optical drive. She bought a, I think it was, she said like a 20 inch 4K monitor. That'll run those spreadsheets just fine. Yeah. I mean, she was very proud of it. I'm like, but the monitor you have that I'm actually looking at right now works really well. I've used it for some office stuff for work. And she's like, no, they said it needed to be higher definition. And I don't know what else it has in it, but yeah, she said it put her back about 2300 bucks. Okay. I can see that. With the monitor and everything like that. And I know she probably bought (8/44)
the service plan and everything else like that. Thank you, Microsoft. I'll take your free computer. Yeah, exactly. Congratulations, Microsoft on an oversold. Yeah. Let's just leave it at that. Oh, and remember now she got Pro too. She was telling me, because I asked her what version she went with. Windows 10 Pro. Because she had Windows 7 Pro on this. I don't know what she's planning to do with it, but apparently I think it has enough horsepower to run spreadsheets for NASA. I don't know. The one thing that I did find interesting is that the first thing that she commented on is that because she deals with people's accounts and stuff. She wanted to make sure that it was secure and also that updates wouldn't come at a bad time. And so she went in and she had to adjust some privacy settings and stuff. She said, well, we're not exactly the fastest internet out here. And it took her like an hour, an hour and a half before the updates were finished. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, I can understand why (9/44)
she doesn't want the updates coming at inopportune times if the internet is slow enough to make that an hour. She has a business plan, so I'm sure it's a little better. But what she was asking, she says, well, how does this get into updates? I had to think back. I guess, yeah, back in Windows 7 stuff you had to actually, I don't know, use a disk or whatever. But anyway, I told her it's pushed to her automatically and she wasn't too keen on that. But I said, well, Windows 10, I said, you can defer. You only can defer, I think it's like 30 days. Pro might be a little different, but she didn't quite like that. She says, well, what if it's just working? I don't want any updates. Well, unfortunately you don't have an option. You have to take the updates. I told her the trick, you could tell it to do a metered connection and it's supposed not to do any major up downloads, security updates. Yes, but not the major feature releases like to do twice a year. So hopefully that was helpful, but I (10/44)
thought it was kind of funny, a Linux guy giving a Windows user on how not to get updates. Yeah. Well, like I said, I understand why she's using it. I'm not bashing Windows. Sounds like the salesperson took advantage of the fact that she felt that she needed higher performance on her computer. Well, I think from what I can figure out, and I actually told her, I said, you're running a 32-bit version of Windows 7 Pro and that might be causing some issues with some of this latest accounting software. She was telling me it would run slow or it wouldn't let her save a file or whatever. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. I'm not a Windows programmer, but it might be. But anyway, this is not talking about Windows. This is talking about going Linux. OK, well, let's do that. Although part of going Linux is leaving Windows behind and some of what we've been describing is why people leave Windows behind. That's true. I also just want to say is I'm trying to be as neutral as I can (11/44)
because anytime we talk about Windows and say anything negative, even if it's true, we catch some flak once in a while. Once in a while. I'm not bashing. I'm just telling you, these are problems. Anyway, so today, Larry, we're going to take a high-level view of some of the Ubuntu derivatives to give people an overview of what is out there. Larry, I'm going to hand it over to you for the first one because I want you to cover Ubuntu Mate since I know that you're a fan of that distro. Yes, indeed I am. And all of the distributions that we're going to be talking about today are derivatives of Ubuntu. And we're going to make the assumption that you know what Ubuntu is. Maybe you're already running Ubuntu. Maybe you've tried it and you've tried maybe one of the distributions that we're going to talk about here. Or maybe you're using something else. But we're not going to spend any time on Ubuntu other than to say each of these is a derivative of Ubuntu, which of course in turn is a (12/44)
derivative of Debian, which is one of the original Linux distributions out there. And if you listen to our last listener feedback episode, one of our listeners had provided us a link to the latest distribution chart or history of Linux sort of thing. And Debian has been around a long time. It's far on the left-hand side of that chart for sure. Anyway, so according to the Ubuntu Mate website, here's how they describe the distribution. via a control center. Mate desktop provides an intuitive and attractive desktop environment using traditional metaphors, which means if you've ever used Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS, it will feel very familiar. The Mate desktop has a rich history and is the continuation of the GNOME 2 desktop, which was the default desktop environment on many Linux and Unix operating systems for over a decade. This means that Mate desktop is tried, tested, and very reliable. The minimum hardware requirements for Ubuntu Mate are a Pentium M 1.0 gigahertz processor, one (13/44)
gigabyte of RAM, that's one gigabyte of RAM, nine gigabytes of available space on the hard disk. And if you don't have that much space, you're just not trying or you've got a really old machine. Bootable DVD-ROM drive, and I'm not sure that's absolutely essential these days, keyboard and mouse or other pointing device, video adapter and monitor with at least 1024 by 768 or higher resolution, a sound card and speakers or headphones. And that's it. That's all you're required to have to run Ubuntu Mate. Which if you look at those requirements are very, very low. Considering that my test machine is five, six years old and it exceeds those by a lot, you could probably go back even farther and still have a machine that can run Ubuntu Mate. Nowadays, we have more than that in even our lowest new laptops they sell. So when I saw system requirements, I had to actually look again just to make sure I was reading it right. Now, I will say this was taken directly from the website because a lot of (14/44)
these guys really have sat down and said, this is what we were trying to get across and I couldn't have written anything better. So the founders of Ubuntu Mate are Martin Winpress, project co-founder, and he's a Mate desktop developer and Ubuntu Mate project lead. And then Alan Pope, he's a project co-founder and on their website and teaboy. So just so everybody knows, I think both of them are English, so they like their tea. So Larry, do you have any thoughts on this derivative as far as use case scenarios? What would you say the first time you looked at it? Did it remind you more of a Windows or an OS X machine? What's your thoughts on this? Yeah, so I've got a lot of thoughts on this. In fact, I put all of those thoughts down into a book. But yeah, so plug the book. Yeah, exactly. But Ubuntu Mate, and we'll have a link to the book and all of these sites in our show notes, of course. Ubuntu Mate, and you pronounce it mate, I was pronouncing mate, you know, I think it is officially (15/44)
pronounced mate because it's the name comes from the yerba mate plant. So which is mate. And you know, it's M-A-T-E, which is in English, even English from England is mate. So I have no problem with people calling it mate. Anyway, in answer to your question, Ubuntu Mate is the distribution that I recommend to everybody when they talk to me at first about wanting to switch over to Linux. And the reason I do that is because, as you could tell from the minimum hardware requirements, it'll run on just about any computer out there. It runs very quickly. It's easy to use and to set up in the way that you want it set up to run your computer. And you know, that's described as ease of use in most parts. And yes, it's easy to use for sure. But it's also something that is easy to get into, easy to install, easy to understand. And it has pre-installed most of the software that most people will want to use, things like an office suite and a file manager. And it was described as an archive manager (16/44)
in the write up from their website. But what an archive manager is, is something that zips your files or compresses your files. So that's all built in there, as well as all the software you'd need to get started with a computer. And that's all pre-installed by default. So lots of things to make somebody feel at home as soon as they've installed and start using Ubuntu Mate or try it for the first time, whether they're moving from Windows or Mac or somewhere else. And one of the key features that makes Ubuntu Mate so easy for me to recommend it is the fact that the Ubuntu Mate tweak program, which is part of their control center, allows you to switch quite quickly and easily between panel layouts. And panel for the uninitiated is the name that Linux gives to the bar that Windows calls a taskbar. And so you can put that anywhere you want. You can lay the thing out like Windows. You can lay the thing out like Mac. You can lay the thing out like old school Ubuntu from 2010, if you want to. (17/44)
Or you can lay it out like the latest Ubuntu or anything else you want with the quick selection in Ubuntu tweak of a panel layout. And you don't even have to restart the computer to make that switch. So it's really, really easy. That's why I recommend it. And that's what I think of it. Can you tell I'm a fanboy? Yeah, you're a fanboy. And I have to say, I've got it running right now and it runs really well. So what impressed me was the low requirements. But what I got a bigger kick out of is you have under developers, you get a mention. And it says Larry Bushee, documentation writer and author of Ubuntu Mate Upgrading from Windows or OS X right on their website. And I'm jealous. So the book we already described, but what they're talking about a documentation writer is when you go into Ubuntu Mate and you tap the applications or the menu button. And you type in the word help right after you do that. There's a help system built in there and I wrote that. So it's the documentation that (18/44)
guides you through learning to use Ubuntu Mate right there on the screen built in to the software. So, yeah. So you can tell he's also a fanboy and he's a documentation writer. And I have to say that they do a great job. I really like where their project going and I could safely recommend this one. I do want to add one thing. People that use already use Linux might say, well, if I want the Mate or another desktop, I could just install it right from the repos and switch to it. And they're absolutely correct. The reason that we're going over this high level of these derivatives is to provide information for someone that doesn't know that they can switch right away. We want them to know what to expect. Everybody has to start at the beginning. And so we kind of want to say this one has everything you need to start working. And then once they've gotten more confidence, then they'll be able to say, well, you know, maybe I want to try a different desktop. I'll just install it now that I know (19/44)
I can. Because under Windows and OS X, you can use some third party applications and stuff, but you really can't change that much. It has to be within that defined framework of Microsoft or Apple and Apple being one of the people. Yeah. They really don't like anybody to change their desktop paradigm. Yeah. And one caution on people starting with a distribution and switching the desktop, even though you can do that from any of these distributions, whether it's Ubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, Ubuntu, any of them. You can switch to a different desktop quite easily by installing the appropriate desktop files from the repos or repositories, as Bill just said. One of the advantages of going directly to one of these distributions rather than installing it yourself is the fact that there are a few tweaks that need to be made when switching desktop environments. For example, one of the things you'll find is that if you start with Ubuntu Mate and you decide that you want to switch over to the XFCE desktop, (20/44)
for example, you'll end up with, instead of the default file manager with Ubuntu Mate, which is Caja, C-A-J-A, and that's part of the desktop environment, the Mate desktop environment. With XFCE, the desktop environment includes a file manager and the one that comes with XFCE by default is Thunar. And the one that comes with Gnome by default, I think is Nautilus and you'll find others, KDE's as Dolphin. And the file manager is just one example of a provided application that is part of the desktop environment that gets switched when you switch desktop environments. And sometimes, like I said, you have to make some adjustments to adjust, particularly the file manager. I mentioned that because the way the desktop works is often controlled by the file manager for these distributions. So just be a little careful when you switch. I think what we wanted to kind of get across is that a lot of these, if you go into one, you learn that when the fit and finish, the developers have taken the time (21/44)
to make sure everything works seamlessly. And so once you get used to that, then I think if you do decide to switch to a different distribution or to switch out your desktop, you at least have a base to work from. So that's why Ubuntu MATE is a real good one to start with. So anyway, that's kind of the reason the link to every one of these we're talking about is in the show notes under the nice pretty graphics. So easy to find. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so shall we move on to our next distribution bill? Yes. The next one that we're going to talk about is called Lubuntu. And I like it a lot. And I was running this one for a while on test machine because it run really, really well. Lubuntu is a very fast and lightweight operating system with a clean and easy to use interface. It has a Linux system, of course, that uses the minimal desktop, the LXDE and LXQT. I guess they're transitioning over to the LXQT and a selection of light applications. Because of this, Lubuntu has a very low (22/44)
hardware requirements. Lubuntu was founded by, and I'm going to say his name, but I believe it's Mario Bieling. I think that's how it's said. It has been grown for many years by Julian Navarne. And they say, please join us and install Lubuntu on your computer. And the funny thing is the hardware requirements are the exact same requirements that are for Ubuntu Mate. And remember that these are the minimum requirements. So if you have more, then it should be even better. Lubuntu is a very lightweight and fast. If you like speed, this one you should try. If you have one that's really low specs, give it a look. They seem very friendly and open. I chat with a few of the users and everybody seems to like it. Where I like it, the desktop's not quite what I like, but it's very usable. It has everything you need to get things done. And that's what's important. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And you'll notice that some of the ways of working within each of these distributions is a little bit (23/44)
different. But they're all, as we stated at the top of the podcast, they're all based on Ubuntu. So there are certain things that you can expect as a derivative of Ubuntu, like the office suite they install. They all install LibreOffice by default. They all use the Debian package format. For their packages or software installs. And they follow along in the Ubuntu release cycle. So they don't release exactly at the same time as Ubuntu itself, but they follow along very quickly afterwards if not on exactly the same schedule. Well, I do also, just for clarity, every one of these I did run and they're all the latest version because I wanted to see what the latest and greatest was. So they're all at 1904. Another thing we kind of want to go over this is, as you said, a lot of the backend stuff is straight from Ubuntu. Then no one had to create anything new. But this also means that if you have something that runs Ubuntu and you want to install Mate, the backend, like for the updated drivers (24/44)
and stuff, is still being pulled from Ubuntu. So you're going to have that compatibility with any of these. If you ever run on Ubuntu, it should run on as Ubuntu, Labuntu, Ubuntu Mate, whatever. So it's good to know that the back components or core systems are all there. So that no one had to rewrite something. So they usually just always work. Right, exactly. Yeah, and you mentioned, Bill, that for Labuntu they're in this transition between LXDE as the desktop environment and LXQT. For the average user, you don't need to worry about that and you probably wouldn't notice any difference. But just for those technically interested, 18.04, the last long-term support version, used LXDE. And 18.10 and 19.04 are using LXQT as the desktop environment. So if you're using the last stable version, or the last long-term support version, and you upgrade to the next long-term support version, or you just flat out install the next long-term support version, the desktop environment might be a little (25/44)
bit different because of the change, but I don't think there's really too much difference in terms of how the user sees the desktop and what it actually does. I don't see that they're changing any of the packages, the application packages, or the file manager, or anything else that goes along with it. So it should be pretty straightforward going forward. Yeah, I think they're finding that the LXQT is very lightweight and very fast and they're able to do some more fancy stuff with it. So yeah, progress is good. So if you were looking at a long-term support of Lubuntu and then you go to the next one, it's not going to be so radically different that you're not going to be able to know what's going on. You're probably the only thing you'll see, maybe some new flashy stuff on the screen or something like life improvements or ease of use improvements or something like that to make it even more easier to use. So yeah, I don't think that you're right that they should even be worried about (26/44)
that, but we wanted to include that for the more technically minded guys. Yeah, there you go. And gals. And gals. And gals. And kids. Yeah. Okay, our next distribution we're going to provide an overview of is Lubuntu. And their website has all these Lubuntu derivative websites as well laid out and pretty full of information. Let's see what they say about this derivative of Lubuntu. This comes directly from their website. Lubuntu is an elegant and easy to use operating system. Lubuntu comes with XFCE, which is a stable, light and configurable desktop environment. It is perfect for those who want to make the most of their desktops, laptops and netbooks featuring a modern look and enough features for efficient daily use. It works well on older hardware too. So the way the project is managed by the Lubuntu team and the community is on their community website. And we'll have a link to that in the show notes as well. Yeah, that page tells you how it's governed and how you can be involved. (27/44)
And it's always good to know what the community and what the developers are trying to accomplish and also how the project is run. So it also says the following, which is nice Larry. The Lubuntu team has four major areas of focus. These guidelines help the developers work in a way that benefits the Lubuntu users most. The first one is usability. A Lubuntu should help the user to accomplish their tasks, not be in the way. Furthermore, the various aspects of Lubuntu should be configurable. Two, performance. Lubuntu should allow the user to get the most out of their hardware by being user friendly. It should be lightweight enough to run on moderately old machines as well. The third area of focus is ready to use product. The Lubuntu experience should be smooth and unified from the boot to the shutdown. All aspects of the operating system should be integrated and polished. Fourth area is community. The community infrastructure and communication should be robust enough to enable the (28/44)
contributors to direct their efforts into making Lubuntu better and not resolve irrelevant issues. I liked that statement of what they were trying to do. It was very clear. I liked how they're saying, this is what we expect. This is what we're aiming for. When you look at the community page on how the project is run, you see that they're really trying to keep down any kind of conflicts. They just want to make the best Linux distribution. Zubuntu runs really well on my machine also. If you haven't noticed, you'll see that a lot of these, as we're getting ready to talk about the next one, are lightweight. I was very impressed with it. They really took the time to explain what they were trying to accomplish. I would say, Zubuntu, good job folks as far as that. I've really enjoyed your software. Like I said, it installs perfectly. It runs super fast. I plan to run it again and maybe even on my big machine just because it's so blazingly fast. I also like the logo. It's a little mouse head. (29/44)
For those of you who are trying to find Zubuntu and looking for it beginning with the letter Z or Z, it actually begins with the letter X. The four points that you just described as Zubuntu's guidance for developers, very similar things could be said about Ubuntu MATE or Lubuntu. They all aim for the same kinds of things. A very high performance Linux distribution, very usable, ready to use, out of the box, and with a community infrastructure that really helps focus the direction of development of the distribution. Larry, the next one that we're going to be talking about is a little heavier weight. It's not as light as Ubuntu MATE or Lubuntu, but it is probably one of the more popular ones. Moving along, we're going to look at Kubuntu. This uses the KDE Plasma desktop, and KDE also includes large amounts of applications. Kubuntu is a community developed and supported project since its launch in October of 2004, so it's been around a while. Kubuntu has become one of the most highly (30/44)
regarded Linux distributions with millions of users around the world. They state, our mission is to provide the latest stable KDE software, which includes the flagship project, Plasma, our desktop environment, on top of a stable Ubuntu core. They say, we release in six month cycles following the same freeze milestones as Ubuntu. They also state on their website that Kubuntu will always be free to download, free to use, and free to distribute to others. With these goals in mind, Kubuntu aims to be the most widely used Linux system and is the center of a global open source software ecosystem. Big words. Now, Kubuntu runs fine on my test machine and it reminds me a lot of Windows XP-ish and or Windows 7. They have some big goals. I think all these guys would like to be the most used Linux out there or distribution, so it's good to see it. The statements there come from the website and I have to applaud them. At least they let you know right up front, we want to be the one you use. It (31/44)
wasn't as bad. The Plasma desktop, it looked like they've really tuned it well. I remember I tried Kubuntu maybe a couple of years ago for any period of time. I did do a quick review of Kubuntu not too long ago, but even this one just seems to not require quite as much system resources. But that being said, Larry, why don't you read the minimum and then you can kind of see that this is a little heavier system. Yeah, it is. And it requires two gigabytes of RAM, so twice as much as the others. Still not very much. A dual core processor is a minimum two gigahertz of speed, 20 gigabytes of hard drive space. So you can tell right there that they're installing more software up front. And a lot of that has to do with the Plasma desktop, I'm sure. Bootable media like USB or DVD and Internet access is optional, but recommended. This is also what's recommended as minimum for its latest distribution version, 19.04. And that's the version that Bill has tested on his machines, as he mentioned (32/44)
earlier. And remember that the machine he tested on is five years old, and before he formatted it was running Windows 7. And the person who gave it to him said that she was told that it wouldn't run Windows 10. We don't know that for a fact. And bottom line is you might want to give a look at Kubuntu, give it a try. It is the first Ubuntu derivative that I tried after switching over from an RPM-based distribution that I was using at the time, which was OpenSUSE. And I was using the KDE desktop on OpenSUSE, and so it made sense to me to try Kubuntu. When it first came out, I thought, ah, there's a lot of publicity around this being an easy-to-use desktop that is very similar to, at the time, Windows XP. And I decided to try it for those reasons. And it turns out that it was much easier to use than OpenSUSE. Because they had paid attention to what does an average user want to do, and what does an average user want to have pre-set up for them, whether they're a technical tinkerer or (33/44)
whether they just want to get things done, and Kubuntu handled both quite adequately. Whereas OpenSUSE requires a little more fiddling, and it does today, I think. And one thing that not all of their applications have this, but a lot of them do, they love the letter K, because actually you'll see, like, what's that? Conquerer is, they still include that as their web browser. And they like to throw Ks on the front of stuff, not all of them, but another one of their word processors called K8. So, for those that have never used it, it's spelled K-U-B-U-N-T-O. So they basically added a K on front of Ubuntu. So if you start looking for it, just put a K and then type Ubuntu, and you're going to find it. But we also included a link in the show notes. Yes. Okay, so let's chat about Ubuntu Studio. So, Bill, I know you've used it before. Let me just first start by reading the quick summary from their website. Ubuntu Studio is a community effort created by volunteers targeted towards all skill (34/44)
levels from beginner to pro, and aims to be easy to install and easy to use, as well as provide all the tools necessary for any type of media content creation. What do you think, Bill? I used Ubuntu Studio for probably about six months solid. It has a lot of stuff, from audio to graphics to video to publishing. So Ubuntu Studio, Larry, uses the XFCE desktop, and it's aimed at, as you guessed, the creative types in our myths. Let's see what they have to say from their website about what they were trying to accomplish with this distribution. They say, basically, Ubuntu Studio is a free and open-source operating system and an official flavor of Ubuntu. Ubuntu Studio is most widely used multimedia-oriented GNU or GNU Linux distribution in the world. It comes pre-installed with a selection of the most common free multimedia applications available, and is configured for best performance for the Ubuntu Studio-defined workflows, the audio, the graphics, the video, photography, and the (35/44)
publishing. They also outlined that their goals were, with the following statement, we aim to be a gateway for users coming into the Linux world wanting to use Linux for multimedia content creation, by providing applications and the documentation, as well as being a portal to other GNU, Linux, and false communities in the world. Basically, if you are wanting to make YouTube videos, or you want to retouch photos, or you're a photographer, or you want to create music, they have all kinds of plugins and applications, and they really are going after the creative types more than any of the other distributions we've talked about. It's a pretty good distribution. They don't really have an LTS, I guess because of the way the content creation is, they need to have a faster upgrade path. Does that make sense to you? I particularly don't want to have to redo my workflow every six months, but then the in-place update would hopefully keep all those settings. It's just usually when we use Linux, I (36/44)
want to, as I like to say, set it and forget it, because it takes too much work for me to get things just the way I like it. I know there was one time they were talking about maybe changing away from XFCE, and they decided, I guess, to stay with it. I don't know if this is the best one for someone that just needs a Linux to surf the web, watch videos, because all the programs that they include by default, you can get on the other derivatives. To give you an example, one of the first things that we do when we do a clean install is we install Audacity, because that's how we do the podcast. Audacity is automatically installed by default on Ubuntu Studio, and also they have a lot of jack plugins for mics. I'll use Ubuntu Amate because that team basically picked the best image viewer, and instead of including five, they included what they felt was the best. Ubuntu Studio, you might get four or five, and then you have to see which one works for you. That's the kind of mindset, yeah. Yeah, so (37/44)
Ubuntu Studio I've used a little bit as well. As I mentioned earlier, each of these distributions has tweaked their installation of all these applications so that they run for the purpose that they're intended. One of the things that Ubuntu Studio has tweaked is the kernel itself, the Linux kernel. They're using a low latency kernel so that you don't have any latency in your audio or video or those kinds of things. And the applications they install are less the best of a particular category and more like an overall sampling of what's available for audio and graphic and video production and photography. And it gives you a lot of things to choose from. You can use whatever you want. You can use them in combination with one another or switch between them. And I find that Ubuntu Studio is a great Linux distribution to use if you are in any of these areas of audio, video, photography, and you don't know what is available. It's a great way to find out what's available, already tuned to work (38/44)
as well as it possibly can. And so it's a great proving ground. Now I do want to also, during setup, it will ask you, and you can pick all of them or you can just pick, say you just do a lot of photography, then you can click that and it will only install that package. So you don't have to take everything. But then again, if you know what you like and what you can use, you can install the same applications on any of these distributions. So I think what they were trying to accomplish is they were trying to say, hey, if you're a creative type and you want to just use things to get your content creation out and done, here we go. We've got audio for you. We've got the graphics for you. We've got the video for you. We've got the photography and publishing. So if you're new and you have no clue about what to use in those areas, then this will come with a good selection to at least get you started along the path. So that's their strong point, but I don't want anybody to think that's listening (39/44)
to this, that these are just exclusive to Ubuntu Studio. They're not. So you might load up Ubuntu Studio, find out what you like and say, you know what, I don't really like how their desktop is set up. And that's why we've gone over so many. I'm going to use this desktop with these programs. So it can be a stepping stone or you might install and say, hey, this is better than peanut butter and we're going to keep on going. So, yeah, so every one of these serves a purpose. Some of them are more niche than others. OK, so the last derivative we're going to cover is Ubuntu Budgie, Budgie like the bird B-U-G-I-E. So Bill, you've used this. Can you tell me anything about this particular version of Ubuntu? Well, I was very impressed with the project. There is a very nice desktop and it's clean and easy to use. And from the website, it says if they're a proud official member of the Ubuntu family, we combine the simplicity and elegance of the Budgie desktop to produce a traditional desktop (40/44)
oriented distro with a modern paradigm. Bungee is a desktop environment focused on having a clean and yet very powerful desktop without unnecessary bloat. And I've included a link to the website in the show notes that gives you more information about the Bungee desktop interface. And that link will lead you to the GitHub, which they have all their documentation stuff on. The desktop always reminds me of a kind of a cross between OS X and has some elements of Windows. It's very customizable. It's very fast. And I think what they're trying to serve is and focus on is a desktop environment for basically end users. Now, they're not looking at developers, not saying that you can't develop on it, but they're looking for people who just want to come, nice, clean, easy to use and starts working. Let's mention some of the developers because they are a really small team. I think it's like only six people and they do a really great job. And I was really impressed about the amount of work that (41/44)
they can get done. As someone that has tried to see what was involved in creating a distribution, it's not just downloading a base Ubuntu and then just throwing a desktop. There's a lot of stuff that goes underneath the theming, the documentation, picking of applications, making sure that they look right. So there's a lot that goes into this. So Larry, why don't you give these guys, this small developer team, a shout out? Sure. OK, so the project founder and leader is David Mohamed, also known as FOS Freedom. There's the designer and developer, Rohan Vilath. I hope I get these names correct. Also known as HexCube. The designer and coordinator is Uddara Madhubhachana and developer Sirdar. OK. And then web developer manager, Nikola Stoik, also known as Grindm N and Dustin Kryzak, Bashful Robot. He's the system administrator. So there you go. I did the best I could with your names. I apologize if I got them slightly differently than you pronounce them, but hopefully I was close. And just (42/44)
so you know, Larry, I put that on your side because if I tried to pronounce half those, it would have come off really, really bad. That's OK. So as you can see, there are a lot of choices for your desktop. And we conducted this overview to inspire you to look at some of the choices we've outlined. If plain Ubuntu is not your liking, maybe give one of these distributions a try or all of them. Hey, they're all free. All of these distros, except for the ones stated, use the same requirements as the base Ubuntu. If you are in search for a new desktop, one of these might fit your needs. Unless otherwise stated, I've tested the 1904 versions of all these because I wanted to see what the latest and greatest was and what was being offered. I was impressed with what these projects have done. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it. I enjoyed playing with all these. And if you do decide to check these out, please write us in and let us know how these worked out for you. Yeah, going Linux at gmail dot (43/44)
com is our email address if you want to drop us a line. So our next episode, as is our tradition, is listener feedback. So until then, you can go to our website at going Linux dot 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 Linux podcast community on community dot going Linux dot com. Until next time. Thanks for listening. Seventy three. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcast themes dot com. (44/44)
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)
Going Linux episode 303, Hacked the Charles Tandel Show. Welcome to the Going Linux Podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushee. Whether you are 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 its applications and using them to get things done. Today's episode is a rebroadcast of my appearance on Hacked, the Charles Tandel Show. You remember Charles? He was a co-host of the Computer America radio show. When I was appearing on that show, we had him on our show here a few episodes ago talking about putting Linux on ThinkPad computers and using them for his business. Well, Charles now has his own radio show. Yep, he's on Denver's Money Talk, and I was a guest on his show. So yes, I'm back on the radio, at least for this particular episode. He's invited me back, as (1/44)
you'll hear at the end of this episode, and we'll see where that goes. I don't know whether I'll be on the radio again regularly, but at least I am back on the radio helping to promote the idea of Linux and open source software. And as a minimum, I'm getting to the Denver audience and anybody else that subscribes to Charles's show on his podcast. You can reach him at thecharlestandelshow.com. Views expressed in the following program are not necessarily those of this station, its owners, staff, or management. The following paid program is sponsored by Azorian. Wondering who's in your cyber space? Then you're in the right place. Welcome to The Charles Tandel Show, the show where you can learn how to protect your online business and personal information. Charles Tandel is a cybersecurity consultant and ethical hacker, and he's here to answer all of your cyber concerns. Heads up, everybody. It's Peter Blois. It's 5 p.m. Get ready for Hacked. You've got problems with computers, kids are (2/44)
being bullied, somebody's messing with you. How about dating online? Charles Tandel forgot more about computers than most people know. Get ready. Ladies and gentlemen, here's Charles. Thank you, Peter. And ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be something different. We're going to do Throwback Thursday on Hacked, the Charles Tandel Show in Denver's Money Talk 1690 a.m. If you've got questions, maybe I've got a couple of answers, go over to CharlesTandel.com. Or sorry, new website, TheCharlesTandelShow.com. I'll eventually get used to saying that one and fill out one of the contact forms or shoot me an email to Charles at TheCharlesTandelShow.com. Today, we're going to be talking all about Linux. And I know that's a scary, shocking kind of topic for most people. Don't run away. Don't tune off. Don't change the channel. It's something interesting about Linux. It's more secure and it's probably in more places than you think it is. And joining me today is an old friend of mine who (3/44)
actually has been on one of the other shows and I've been on his show in the past. And it's always been fun. It's always been informative. My buddy Larry Bushy is joining me on the show today. Larry, welcome to Hacked. How are you, man? Hey, I am excited to be on your show, Charles. As you said, it's been, it seems like it's been a long time and it has been a long time since we've been on the air together. And this is going to be great. I think so, too, man. I think so, too. It is kind of a switch up there. I mean, we were together over on Craig's show, over on Computer America, and then I was over on your show hanging out doing different shows there. And it's now, I guess it's come full circle. It's now time for Charles to try this whole mic in some airtime thing. Yes, you can be the host this time around. How's that? You guys have given me all the work. So, Larry, we've got some time in this for a second. So tell my listeners who you are. I know who you are. I know you're a cool (4/44)
dude. I know you've got the Going Linux podcast, but what makes Larry Bushy, Larry Bushy? Well, it all started long, long ago in a country far, far away. No, that's that's a whole different thing. I heard it was real. All of it. It was true. Yes. Yes, exactly. No, I'm a Linux and open source advocate, among other things. I'm a technology guy, a computer geek, all of those sorts of things. And I have, as you mentioned, a podcast of my own, the Going Linux podcast, on which I help people to adopt Linux, move to Linux from other inferior operating systems like Windows and OS X and help them to make that transition and be able to use an alternative operating system like Linux to get things done. Right on. So you said OS X, is it OS X or OS X? Whatever. I don't care either way. OS, one of those big red, big, big crosses that go kind of corner ways. That's what it is. So, OK, so this show is all about Linux. It's all about, you know, how people are currently using it and people not realizing (5/44)
that they're actually using it. What is Linux, first and foremost? Yeah, a really good question. So Linux is an operating system just like Windows or OS X or OS X or that fruit flavor operating system, whatever you want to call it. So it's a software program, a collection of software programs that runs your computer. And it is something that is, as you said at the open, probably in a lot more places than you think it is. It is based in something from way back in the 70s called Unix that used to run all of the big iron IBM machines, the computers that took up an entire room. Well, that's what OS X came out of. It's also what Linux came out of. And so they have a common root. But the places that you'll find Linux these days are in a Chromebook, in an Android phone, in a Raspberry Pi. Yeah, all of these have the Linux, the kernel of the Linux operating system as the basis of those operating systems for those particular devices. Well, that's something else that most people don't realize. (6/44)
And you say OS X or OS X, but most people just know it as Mac versus PC. And most Macs are running, and I think I've been yelled at this more than once, they're running a Unix flavored kernel. I think it was FreeBSD or at least an old school version, like you said. But some other places where it's at, it's in like home, it's in like most, 90% of routers out there. Right. A kind of a bastardized version of Linux. And what most people don't realize is... Can you say that on the radio, by the way? Which one? I don't know. I don't know. My station manager is probably listening. So if I do something wrong, he'll zap me with something. Maybe bleep that, whatever. Yeah, anyway, go ahead. Yeah, they're in routers, yeah. But the other places where it's at are in places where people really don't seem to realize that they're in like most web servers. So most websites run Linux. And the ones... I was kind of doing a study a little bit ago about the last major breaches that have happened. And so (7/44)
far, two of the three of them, like Tumblr and LinkedIn, or not LinkedIn, Tumblr and one of the other ones, are actually running on a Windows platform. So it kind of lends itself to Linux as kind of more secure. Yeah, it is more secure. And as you observed, it runs the internet, essentially. There are Windows servers out there and there are other kinds of servers out there. In fact, there are still some Unix servers out there that run websites, run basically the internet. But most of the computers that are running the internet or running websites that run the internet are running Linux. And in fact, many of the corporate websites and web servers that are internal to corporations are running Linux as well. Because it's more stable, because it's more secure, and because it gives you the ability to, as a user of the software, it gives you the ability, if you have the skills, to modify it to do whatever it is you want it to do. So if you are a computer developer, a software developer, or a (8/44)
server admin, and you know what you're doing, you can actually modify Linux to have it do things that it wasn't originally designed to do. Well, there, we're coming up on our first break. So if you're just joining, this is Hack, the Charles Tindale Show on Denver's Money Talk 1690 AM. We're talking all things Linux. It sounds a little scary, but guess what? It's not. You've used it. You just don't realize it. Don't go anywhere. This is Hack, the Charles Tindale Show on Denver's Money Talk 1690 AM. Good song, good song, good song. Welcome back. This is Hack, the Charles Tindale Show on Denver's Money Talk 1690 AM. If you've got a question for me or my guest, 303-632-4160. I'm talking to Larry Bushy, and we're talking about Linux. Sounds scary, sounds crazy. Everybody's like, oh no, not Linux again. Well, it's in more places than you think it is, and it really isn't nearly as terrifying as most people think. My guest, again, is Larry Bushy. So Larry, right before the break, we were (9/44)
talking about the different places where Linux is that people don't really realize it is. Toasters and doorbells and refrigerators and thermostats and Google search and Chromebooks. Yeah, it's everywhere. It runs more things. Yeah, literally everywhere. Yeah. And there are different kinds of Linux as well. There's the things that are in the doorbells and the refrigerators and the thermostats, which is something called embedded Linux, which is a stripped down version of Linux to run those tiny little devices. They really don't have to do too much. They just have to allow you to change the temperature and allow it to be accessed from a website as a thermostat might be. And it can do everything all the way up to running an entire enterprise website for a large Fortune 500 corporation as many Linux servers do. Yeah. And more importantly, for our listeners, you can run it on your own computer. Oh, now there's a good question. My station manager actually whispered in my ear during the break (10/44)
about where you can get it, because apparently he's learning things and he's sitting at his computer and he's Googling and he's looking at these things. And he's seeing all these different places where he can find Linux. Now, when you put it on your own computer, how do you know which Linux is right for you? Or is it just Linux? Yeah, there are literally thousands of different varieties of Linux, as I just mentioned, to do specific things for specific people. So if you want a version to run your corporate Web server, you probably want an enterprise version of Red Hat Linux, because that's what it's designed to do. And that's one of the ones that come with corporate support built in to what you pay for Red Hat. And on the other hand, if you want to install it on your five year old ThinkPad, let's just go with that. You've got a five year old ThinkPad. It's on its last legs. Let's say it came with Windows XP or maybe Windows Vista. And, you know, it's starting to run slowly. Or maybe (11/44)
you've had a major virus infection with Windows and you're really just tired of messing around with it. Don't throw away that ThinkPad. Don't give it away. You can install Linux on it. And probably as a brand new user of Linux, you want to look for something called Ubuntu. Ubuntu, U-B-U-N-T-U. It's probably the most popular, certainly the most recognized consumer version of Linux out there for use on a personal computer. And there are several varieties of it as well. So I would recommend for a brand new user Ubuntu Mate. And Mate is spelled the South American way, M-A-T-E. And it is a very user friendly version of Linux that is designed specifically for new users. And it is very familiar to people who have used Windows in the past. It's got a similar sort of interface. It's it's got a beautiful desktop. It's got all of the software that you need to run on it right out of the box for free. You don't have to pay for anything. So there's a word process and not just trialware. It's the (12/44)
full version of an office suite. It's got a media player. It's got a web browser, of course, and a mail client. So it comes out of the box with all of this stuff. And you may be wondering how much this thing costs, but it's not as expensive as you might think. But take a look at Ubuntu Mate dot com and give me a second to because I think there's a hyphen in there somewhere. Well, the thing about it is it's going to come up with most users in any event. I mean, in all of the embedded versions of Linux that you see out there, they're in thermostats. So there's a piffy user interface that people are liking. People are familiar and are comfortable with the Mac or the OS X or OS X interface. They're comfortable with the embedded versions and the streamline, the pretty versions. But when you start talking about Ubuntu and any of the other distros that are out there, and that's what they're called are distributions for anybody who I didn't explain it to. But when you start looking at all (13/44)
those other ones, that seems way more complex. That seems like it's going to be a lot of work. Why would an individual want to do more work or is it less work? Can they do more work to get a better system? Is that what the appeal is to running Linux as opposed to going out and getting more windows? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good question. Before I answer that, and I will answer that in just a second, I want to correct that website. It's ubuntu-mate. So U-B-U-N-T-U dash M-A-T-E dot org. O-R-G as in nonprofit. So ubuntu-mate.org. So why would somebody want to even use this thing? Well, first of all, because it is more secure than other operating systems, than Windows in particular. That's reason number one. Another good reason is because you want to breathe new life into your old computer. It's perfectly good hardware. It's just not running like it used to. Like I said, maybe you've gotten fed up of dealing with all of the virus infections or maybe Windows 10 is giving you fits and starts and (14/44)
you try to install it on that older computer or take advantage of the free upgrade. And it has turned off some things like maybe your audio or your video driver, worst case, or yeah, maybe maybe the version of the software that you've been using to do X, whatever X is the critical thing that you do. Maybe it's not available for Windows 10. And when you went through the free in quotes upgrade, you ended up with everything you needed except that critical piece of software. Yeah. So that's the other thing that I hear about a lot of people. And I actually was talking to someone online recently where she upgraded her computer. She went with the free Windows 10 and nothing worked. The Wi-Fi didn't work. Her audio didn't work. The screen kind of flickered and she was frustrated. She was upset. And I had to resist the urge to say, look, you need an alternate operating system. Windows is putting good money after bad over and over again, but you need an alternate operating system. And I (15/44)
hesitated recommending Linux or my personal favorite is elementary, which is Ubuntu variant. But I hesitated on recommending it to her because it's one of those things where do you get like you get the Office suite, but is it all compatible? You get all the same tools that you would get. But does it all work with the mainstream stuff? Does it work with Office and does it work with, you know, the all important Facebook? Right. Right. Well, anything that's on the Web, like Facebook or Google search or what name a Web site, it'll all work in Linux because, you know, you've got the Chrome browser, you've got the Firefox browser, you've got the Opera browser. They all exist for Linux, just like they exist for Windows and OS 10. So don't worry about that. Now, as far as the installed applications are concerned, Microsoft Office Online, the online 365 version or whatever it is, is a browser based application. It is going to work on your Linux computer, just as it does on your Windows or OS 10 (16/44)
computer. So, again, don't worry about that. But the installed software? Yeah, there's a Libra office is the version of an Office suite that's included with Linux. It's available for Mac and OS 10 as well. So if you wanted to try it out on your computer today, you could do that and see how compatible it is. They're designed to be compatible. They're not absolutely 100 percent. I'd say 90 to 99 percent compatible. But give it a try. There's Libra office. There's OpenOffice. There's a number of Office suites out there. I'd go with one of those two because they're the two that come standard on Linux. And if you're thinking about trying Linux, why not try the software that comes on Linux on your Windows machine or on your OS 10 machine before you go the whole hog and switch over to Linux or even try Linux. That's the other thing you can do. You can try it without installing it on your existing hardware. Well, I mean, putting it on your existing hardware, that sounds simple enough. But (17/44)
what's the easiest way? Is there an easy way to switch from one to the other? I mean, I've been through a couple of installs and I've been through some unattended ones. In the sysadmin world, you just kind of put it in and walk away. But is it that simple still? How do people get rid of Windows and switch to Linux? Yeah, well, first of all, Linux is free so you can download it. And it's legally free. It's not one of those sketchy websites where you're kind of free. It's free for you, for you a special price. No, it is legitimately free. It's developed by volunteers and many of them corporate employees of the Fortune 500 companies that develop the Linux operating system. And it's offered for free. So you go to UbuntuMate.org and you go to their download page and you download something. It will have instructions on how to put that onto a USB stick or onto a CD if your computer still use CDs or DVDs. And then what you do, follow the instructions that are right there on the page, and you (18/44)
start your computer with a special keystroke, which keystroke it is depends on your computer, which boots to that device, whether it's the CD-ROM or whether it's a USB. And you boot into that. It will start the Linux session running. So you're running Linux at that point. It hasn't installed anything. It's running off that USB stick. And it's running right out of your computer's memory. It doesn't make any changes to your computer unless you tell it to. There'll be a nice little install icon right there on the desktop. But you can use it. You can try it out. You can try the office suite. You can try the web browser. You can see if it works with all your computer's hardware, like your wireless card and your sound card and make sure all that works before you commit to installing it. And then when you decide you want to install it, you don't have to completely wipe out your computer, the existing operating system. Of course you can, but you don't have to. You can run Linux alongside of (19/44)
Windows. And unlike on OS X, when you want to use Windows alongside of the Mac operating system, you've got to go out and purchase some additional software or you've got to go through some special hoops to get it to install. And you don't have to do all of that. You just click a little install icon from the desktop when you're trying it from the live environment. That's what it's called when you boot into a CD or into a USB. And then it will ask you, do you want to install this alongside your existing operating system or do you want to replace your existing operating system? And for the newest users, if you're not all that sure you want to replace it, go ahead and install it alongside. And then the next time you boot, you'll have your choice. Okay. Well, so I mean, this whole, the flash disk idea sounds like relatively simple, but most people aren't going to go to those great links. So there's, you're going to have to maybe have that friend or somebody else that's out there to actually (20/44)
create this USB stick for you. Or if I remember correctly, I think Ubuntu themselves has where you can order them and then it's like five bucks and they ship it out to you and they do all the other high-speed stuff. But I mean, in most computers, there's not any additional configuration that needs to be done for them to plug in the USB disk. They should just be able to plug it in, push the power button and hopefully the computer boots up. But you know, Larry, I think we're about to come up against another break. So we'll pick it up after we jump over this one and get back to it. But it's embedded devices. It should be relatively simple to get on your computer, but don't go anywhere. This is Hacked, the Charles Tindale show on Denver's Money Talk, 1690 AM. I'm talking to Larry Bushy about all things Linux and how it's not as scary as you think. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Now back to the Charles Tindale show on KDM-T, Denver's Money Talk, 1690 AM. Little green bag has a (21/44)
little bit of a different meaning now in Colorado. Welcome back. This is Hacked, the Charles Tindale show on Denver's Money Talk, 1690 AM. If you've got a question for me or my guest, 303-632-4160, we're talking about the all important and hyper, sometimes scary and what people would misunderstand is complex Linux. Linux operating system, how it is all around you. It's embedded in your smart televisions, your thermostats, sometimes your cars. Most, if you've seen one of those interfaces where you touch something or you push a button, it's likely that it is a Linux based system that you're playing with. So again, if you've got questions, 303-632-4160 or run over to the charlestindaleshow.com, fill out one of the contact forms, get in and get conversated on the show. You can send me an email to charles at the charlestindaleshow.com or you can download the 1690 KDM-T app from your favorite app store and actually listen to the show live. You can shoot me a text message and you can ask (22/44)
questions that way and you can check out some of the other people on the KDM-T lineup. Connect and collaborate, experience pros, all good stuff. Even over there on Jeff Thompson's show, on the Retirement Jock, great people, great information, good stuff about business and finances all up and down KDM-T. Which is weird how the hacker ended up in the middle of all of this. But it's still fun, it's still entertaining and it's still hopefully more and more people are listening. Which reminds me, while you're over on the charlestindaleshow.com, click the subscribe button. There are two big ones at the top of the page. You can subscribe in iTunes or you can subscribe to the RSS feed if you're on an Android phone. You can get connected either way and pick up on the past shows. Yesterday's show was all about imagining a Hillary versus a Trump White House. Last week's show we were talking about sexting and how it can make you a felon. We've been talking about how Tumblr got hacked, how LinkedIn (23/44)
got hacked. There's all sorts of great stuff so go enjoy the smorgasbord of one wonderful hacker news that's over there at the charlestindaleshow.com. Larry Bushy is my guest and before the break we were talking about getting the installation of Linux up and running. My producer, Kelly, has had some amazing questions. He's been whispering in my ear and he's been saying, you know, this is kind of cool. The first one, the first thing that is popping out on my head is how did you name the band? Is there a story behind why Linux got named Linux? There is. There is. It was developed by a student many years ago in Finland who couldn't afford a version of Unix at the time and decided, okay, these are back in the days when the software writer, the companies that developed software didn't actually hold you hostage and say that you don't own the software. We're allowing you to use it for this $400, $500, $600 fee. This is back when software developers made their software available by default for (24/44)
people to use. And so he took the source code, which is the documentation, if you will, for Unix, and he wrote his own. His name was Linus, or as he pronounces it, Linus Torvalds. And it was a version or rewritten version, if you will, of Unix. And so he combined his name with the UX and came up with Linux. And so he wrote the kernel that's still in use today. Of course, it's many different versions down the road, but it was his invention. So Linus Torvalds, that's the story. Right on. Right on. Okay. So we talked about all the different things. We talked about resurrecting kind of old hardware, but is that the right way to go? Will it make my hardware faster? Will it make my, in my particular case, my ThinkPad T420, will it make it more functional and more usable? And how much life can I actually get out of this? Can I expect it to be faster? Can I expect it? What can I expect out of it? Yeah, it depends on your hardware. And so the oldest hardware is going to seem a lot faster. (25/44)
Whether it is or not is really dependent on how good your memory is. Because when you first got it, when it first came with the original operating system, it was a speed demon, right? It was much faster than your older version of your older computer. And you were so impressed with it. And by the time you were finished with it, it seemed like this sluggish thing that you don't know how you can use it. And so, yeah, bottom line is it will make your computer seem like it's running faster. It's not going to run any faster than it did when it was brand new. Well, maybe it might because Linux is a lot slimmer. It doesn't have the same overhead depending on which version of Linux you've installed as Windows or even OS 10 because you can install Linux on Apple hardware as well. So it doesn't have all that overhead. And yes, it can make it run faster. It can give it better performance overall. I took, for example, I took Ubuntu Mate, the latest version of it, and they send you three upgrades, (26/44)
excuse me, two upgrades a year. And those upgrades are coming for free and for the life of you, you know, forever sort of thing. So you get all of those upgrades. And I installed it on my computer and I installed it replacing a different version of Linux. I had Linux Mint on there. Switching to Ubuntu, I found that the battery life on my laptop was improved 40% just by using a different version of Linux. And what I found was I could have had that performance out of the old version of Linux. It's just that Ubuntu Mate comes with software optimized for your computer, for a laptop in particular. And as part of that optimization package, they had preconfigured it so that it would extend the battery of life and so the battery and as a result, my battery life went from around three, three and a half hours to maybe five, something like that. So, yeah, it can definitely improve the performance of your computer. And this is a new computer. This is not something that I've had hanging around for (27/44)
10 years. This is not quite a brand new computer. It's about a year old. But even on a brand new computer, you install Linux on it. First of all, it's going to run better. Secondly, you're not going to be susceptible to the viruses and malware you are with Windows. Thirdly, if you want it to look like Windows, you can make it look like Windows. If you want it to look like OS X, you can make it look like OS X. If you want it to look like something unique, like, oh, I don't know, Linux. Something out of the matrix. You can have it do that as well. And all of that's built in and easily switchable in a new user version of Linux like Ubuntu MATE or even Linux Mint. So you can get it out of the box. You can plug in a USB drive. You can try it before you buy it so you're not actually making a commitment. So you're still going to be able to get access to most of the stuff you have on your machine, your files, your pictures, your music and stuff like that. Your apps are all still going to be (28/44)
there. You're still going to have an open source audio player that's going to work and still going to sync with kind of your iPod or your Android phone. You're going to have web browsers. They won't be the same apps. They'll be the same web browser probably. Yeah, but you'll have all of the apps you need to do anything you want to do. Right. So you'll have alternatives to it. So it'll be kind of a seamless switch. You'll have to learn a little bit more of the programs, but they're not so far off that you won't do it. And you touched on that it's more secure against viruses. It's more secure against malware. It's more secure against a whole host of other things. So it's more secure. So it's easier to keep the bad guys out of a Linux machine. So all of these things wrapped into one, they sound fantastic. They sound amazing. But the glaring question in my head is, I talked earlier in the week to an analyst. It was this week or it was last week about the fact that the US government's kind (29/44)
of nuclear program still runs on like Windows 3.1 or runs on floppy disks. I saw that article as well. Yeah. So why is it that three-letter government agencies and large corporations aren't switching to Linux at mass? Why are these guys still relying on this old system? Well, the US government is the problem. The Italian government has switched over. The Spanish government has switched over. Sorry. US government is the problem. Be careful. Well, that's a broad reaching statement. I didn't specify, did I? Oh, is that a black helicopter that I hear over here? Oh, see, now I heard it as my buddy Peter on 710k in US and the Peter Boyle Show likes to say, that's now the man in the unmarked Plymouth who's going to pull up and tap you on the shoulder just to say hello. So you've got to be careful with the problem is the Fed. We all know it. But we're up against a break. So it's the last one coming out of the show before we end all of this. So don't go anywhere. We're going to finish the (30/44)
conversation about Linux, about who should be using it, why it's the better choice for most things. This has hacked the Charles Tindale show on Denver's Money Talk 1690 a.m. Money Talk 1690 a.m. We now return to the Charles Tindale show on KMT Denver's Money Talk 1690 a.m. And it's the last little bit of the Charles Tindale show on Denver's Money Talk 1690 a.m. This is Throwback Thursday. And I'm talking to my buddy Larry Bushy about all things Linux. We've covered all kinds of great stuff about where it is and you don't even realize there. It's in your smart TV. It's in your phones. It's in your thermostat. It's in your connected home. It's in all those other wonderful places. It's faster. It can resurrect old hardware. It's more secure. It makes it easier on you to try it before you buy it. Most of your software will work on it. And now we're going to dive off into that deep chasm of it's the government who's the problem and why they're not using Linux to do things better. Larry, (31/44)
welcome back. I hear you chuckling over there. Yeah, the government is the problem. The government is the problem. That's going to be the buzzword. You know that, right? That's the one that people are going to tweet. They're going to add everything we talk about on the show. They're going to be like, see, see, everybody's going to say the government is the problem. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, and I am no flaming liberal here, but, you know, this is definitely a topic that bears some scrutiny. Why is our government still running nuclear sites and secure things on floppy based old green screen hardware? You know what the other kicker is? The other kicker is they're saying that it costs 60 billion, with a B, dollars a year to run this program, to continue these legacy systems, to continue running and maintaining and training people to operate computers from the 1970s. Now, these computers, they're Windows based. They're still running on five inch floppies. And all of this, most of it, could be (32/44)
custom coded for in a matter of minutes by like, you know, go out on Fiverr and say, hey, I want to build a module for this. I'm not saying do that because, you know, nuclear launch codes on Fiverr would be a bad idea. Yeah, true. True. You know, you go out there right next to, what's the guy, it's Guapo's DDoS service. And you're like, hey, Guapo, can you also write me launch codes? Sure. But it's, it seems like Linux would be an easier bet. And these guys want to continue to shovel money down this hole. Yeah. You know, one of the issues, and this is not just a government issue here about the adoption of Linux and why isn't it more widely adopted. Well, it is widely adopted. Chromebooks, which run Linux under the hood, have been outselling Windows computers for, you know, a few weeks, if not a few months by now. And so it is widely adopted. The problem Linux has is the fact that there's a lack of advertising and certainly compared to the advertising budget that companies like (33/44)
Microsoft and Apple can afford. Linux, since it's given away for free, doesn't have a lot of room in that, you know, profit margin, non-existent profit margin to pay for advertising. And as a result, not a lot of people know about it. It is truly free. It is truly more secure. It is more beautiful, quite frankly, than I think Windows is. And, you know, I might be a little biased there, but it's certainly more secure. It's better supported. It is. It can save you a lot of money. And as a result, it can, you know, it can improve your life thinking about it from that perspective. And that's I mean, that's that's that's a great thing. I mean, it's always been one of those questions that everybody asks if Linux is so great, if it's easy, it's faster, it's more secure, it's an overall better thing. We're using it already. People are familiar with it. The two biggest reasons that I always hear people saying, you know, I don't want to do that is it's hyper complex, which it doesn't sound like (34/44)
it is. And I have to trust me, I've I've I've had experience with Linux going way back. Like you've not experienced pain and agony until you've compiled your own Gen 2 kernel. Right. Right. That's just that's just killing yourself. That's just that's that's that's that's worse. That's crazy talk. That's crazy. That's crazy talk. Right. That's crazy talk. Imagine imagine the day that you're sitting at the DMV. Right. And you're the last person you've been sitting there for three hours. Your number just got called. And as you're sitting down at the desk, the computers go down. Yeah. That is like compiling Gen 2. It's a horrible experience when it comes to Linux. And that's the stigma that many people tell me, at least. They're like, you know, it's complicated. It's not going to do everything I want it to. It's not as fast as I think it should. It's just I don't want to learn another thing. I just want to pull it out of the box and have it work. And you're right. Well, that's one of the (35/44)
advantages of of Linux is you pull it out of the box and it just works. You don't have to go search for drivers for your video card or your your your new camera that you just bought. You don't have to install antivirus software. You know, Linux can get viruses, but it doesn't. Over the last 10 years, there have been so many fewer. There have been so many Linux, excuse me, Windows infections and viruses and malware that it's just mind boggling. And over the last 10 years, Linux, you can count the number on one hand, you know, count the number of infections on one hand. And none of them exist in the wild anymore because they're fixed right away. You don't have to wait for patch Tuesday as soon as it's fixed. It gets fixed and you get the update. That's one of the things that makes it more secure. And so anyway, back back to the main thing that we started on here is the fact that, you know, Linux. Yeah, it doesn't have the same level of advertising. So it doesn't it doesn't show up as (36/44)
prominently when you're looking for software to run your computer. And who buys software to run on a computer other than an application these days, you don't buy an operating system. You go out and buy a computer and it has an operating system already on it. And like most likely it's Windows and you can go out and you can buy right there in Denver System 76. Look them up. System 76. They make computers that run Linux and they're based right there locally in Denver. I'm here in California and I own a System 76 computer. I'm a huge advocate for for switching people to Linux. Like my my my parents and my parents have had this this I don't even know how old it is anymore. This Dell computer that has been sitting in their den forever. And it was their home computer. It was their primary machine, so on and so forth. So this thing this thing is old. This is the machine that my mom used to do, used to connect to AOL back in the day. OK, so this is an old machine and my father brought it out (37/44)
one day. It had been sitting there and my older brother wanted to use a computer. Now this is in the last 10 years. I went and installed Linux Mint on it and this is an older version of Linux Mint on it. And I had completely forgotten about it. And I installed this. I want to say five, five, six years ago and completely forgotten about it. Well, I was at my parents house recently and my older brother shows up and it was it was just a good day. I think it was Mother's Day. Everybody was having a good time. Everybody's having dinner. And my older brother goes and he sits down and he powers up the machine and it booted up. He was back online doing everything he needed to. And that machine was still running and kicking years later with no issues, no viruses, no malware, no hacker attacks, no craziness going on for five years straight. And the experience wasn't all that bad. Now this is a five year old, five, six year old operating system. And that's the things that I see a lot with Linux. (38/44)
And I handed it to people. I mean, you and I talked about it resurrected a bunch of T420s with with Linux and it runs like a champ. It runs almost as fast, if not faster than my brand new MacBook Pro. Right. It's easy to install. It's easy to use. It's easy to customize to make it look like or do whatever you want it to do. And if you don't want to customize it, it's designed to work out of the box for you and it's free. What more could you ask? Let's see. OK. So the bottom line, the reason people aren't doing it is because they don't have the advertising. They don't have the marketing. So people were telling you right now, go out, download some Linux. Have your geek friend. Matter of fact, you know what? You know what I might start doing? Depending on the number of people that do it, I will give away Linux USBs. I will give away various different versions of Linux USBs. If you send me an email to hacked at the Charles Tandel show dot com or go over to the Charles Tandel show dot com, (39/44)
fill out a contact form or download the 1690 KTMT app from your favorite app store and shoot the show a text message. Live streaming, shoot the show a text message and you subscribe. I will send you a Linux distro of your choice. I will say I will take all the costs out of it, even though it'll be like three dollars. And I will mail you a Linux USB that all you have to do is plug it into your computer, power it off, power it back on again. And hopefully most times it'll boot into the Linux environment and you can just toy with it and play with it. And next time I have Larry on the show, he can give you some additional pointers about how it all works. So, yeah, there's a if you want a video with instructions on how to do it once you get that live CD or live DVD or a USB that Charles is going to provide you for free, go to going Linux dot com. Look for the screencast number for installing Linux. It says from a live CD, but it's basically the same thing from the USB. So the going Linux (40/44)
dot com, you can watch the videos. Right. And it's it's it's one of those things. It's one of those things where it's not as complicated as it sounds. It's not as hard. It's not complicated at all. Not at all. You're already using it. You're already using it. If you've got an old machine or you're tired of your current machine, if you're tired of your current machine, just viruses and bugs and you don't want to go out and shell out thousands for a Mac. Let's build you one. You'll have the same people. You'll have the same. You'll have the same connections. Facebook's not going to change because it's what most people are using. And like you said, Google, Google Chromebooks, Google Chromebooks are amazing. You know, we actually started issuing them in our company because everything everyone was doing was going to be via Google Docs. Right. Everything was going to be Google Docs. We were a Gmail company. Now, if you've been listening to my show before now, I genuinely distrust Google. 100 (41/44)
percent between Google and Facebook, they are evil. And if you care about your privacy, limit the amount of use or add some additional steps when using all of their services. But for an introduction to Linux, if you want to see how beautiful, how streamlined, how fast it can be, most of you are probably already using it. You can go to Wal-Mart. Right. Right there. You can go to Wal-Mart now and buy a Chromebook. Yes. Yes, you can. A cheap one, but you can buy one. Yeah. They're like 200 bucks, aren't they? Yeah. You can get one for under that too when they're on sale. Yeah. And their claim to fame is you can do everything you would do on a normal computer. And if this computer breaks or otherwise fails, you can go out and spend another 200 bucks and you've got another brand new computer. Just log in and everything that you had there is still there. So Chromebooks are pretty cool. Just use a little more privacy centric stuff if you're going to use it. And I'll explain that in another (42/44)
show. But Larry, we're going to come to the end of the show. So I want to give you time. Tell people how they can get a hold of you, where they can get on the going Linux podcast and where they can learn more about this great system. Okay. So going Linux.com is the website. We've got articles, we've got show notes for podcasts and a place to subscribe there as well in iTunes or wherever you use for listening to podcasts. And if you want to send me an email, just email me at going Linux at gmail.com. Yes, I use Google at gmail.com. And if you want to be on the show, just let me know and we'll arrange something. If you just want to share with me your gone Linux story, how things worked out for you. I'd be absolutely overjoyed to read it. And even if you want, read it on our podcast. Alright, so let's recap real quick. Linux is a good thing named by a guy named Linus Torvald way back when because he wanted a free operating system. So it started off free. It still is free today. It's more (43/44)
secure. It can revive and make your existing systems much faster. You can use it to do almost everything that you're going to be doing on your normal stuff. We know the government is broken and they're the reason it's not being used there. Try it. Check out going Linux.com. Larry, you've been a fantastic guest, man. I love having you on and I will definitely have you back. Coming up later or today is Thursday, tomorrow is Friday. We're going to be talking about responsible disclosure. We're going to be talking about analysts who are putting themselves out there to protect your security and your privacy and keep ending up in jail. Don't go anywhere or see you tomorrow. This is Hack, The Charles Tindall Show and Denver's Money Talk 1690 AM. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com (44/44)
Going Linux, episode 334, 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 at our email at goinglyx.gmail.com or our voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hi, Bill. Hi, Larry. I'm back. Yeah, welcome back. You've got all the power issues and the internet issues and other unspecified issues behind you, right? Yes. I'm actually connected back to the real world. So, oh, wait a minute. I wasn't. I'm back to the real world again. Yeah, that's it. No, I didn't have power for like three weeks and internet for two (1/45)
weeks and I was starting to go into jonesing mode. So, it's good to be back. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're back in the real world such as it is. Yes, the real world. The intertubes, as we like to say. So, you're back to gaming and you're back to podcasting and it sounds quieter than you are. Yeah, I'm in my new studio. It's still not complete, but it's getting there. But I don't have anybody banging on walls. All I have is the snoring tweeny, but other than that, she's sleeping and happy. So, it's really nice. Hey, it's so quiet here that I have to actually say, hey, I need to go make some noise. It's too quiet. No, it's actually really nice. So, hopefully everything works and had internet challenges. I was telling you a little bit, I sent you an email about they put a... When they were hooking up my internet, they put a nail through one of the wires. Yeah. One of these little finds and it took them forever to find it, but they... Because they couldn't figure out why it wouldn't connect (2/45)
and when it would connect, it would be bad. As soon as they replace that wire, it's like the golden ticket, everything started working again. Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah, those kinds of problems are really tough to find sometimes. Yeah, I kept saying, I think it's got to be one because they replaced the modem and then they said, no, that's not it. And then they replaced the receiver and that had a problem. And then they said, well, I don't understand it. Why don't you replace the wire harness? So, of course he doesn't have one on his truck, so he has to order one. So, he comes out and as soon as he took the old one off, put the new one in and made sure he didn't put any holes in the new one, it all worked. Kaboom. Amazing. Nice. Kaboom. Yeah, so I'm really happy to be back. So, how was your week? I had a good week. It was an uneventful week. So, the best kind of day. I wish mine was uneventful. Yeah. Well, at least yours is trending in the right direction. Yes, it's trending in the (3/45)
right direction now. So, let's start. All right. Well, our first email is from Logan, who explained why the 64-bit download of a distribution is called AMD64. So, he wrote, 64-bit is listed as AMD because AMD created the current 64-bit and Intel adopted that. At least that's the logic I use for the reason. And we also got an explanation from Ken. So, I've combined two emails together here. I'm sorry, Bill. That's cheating. Well, it was a short one. Who expanded on that and said AMD didn't create the first 64-bit CPU. They existed long before that. Intel's 64-bit was a new architecture, IA64. AMD extended the x86 or IA32 architecture to 64-bit, hence AMD64. Intel followed on with their own extension to the x86 architecture called IA32e, later EM64T. AMD64 and EM64T are software compatible, but there are architectural differences. AMD64 nomenclature is a distro-specific choice. Ubuntu and their derivatives use AMD64, while CentOS and OpenSUSE use x86 underscore 64. Yeah, I've seen the (4/45)
x86-64 nomenclature before, and that's probably a little clearer, I think, for most people. Is it scary that I actually understood all that and have seen all that stuff? All those dozen meters before? You know, I wasn't all that familiar with the history, especially the EM64T and all that other stuff. But thanks, Ken, for the explanation. Yeah, thanks, Ken. I always like to read about the latest processors, so I recognize a lot of that. Anyway, Daniel explained even more why it's called AMD64. And he said in 1989, Intel began development of a 64-bit architecture called IA64. When announced in 2000, it was discovered by would-be users to be incompatible with the traditional x86 instruction set with a large amount of precompiled software that was incompatible with the new architecture. The platform was relegated to Unix and mainframe use. The last IA64 Itanium processor was released in February of 2017 as the Kitson core. No further hardware will be available in this architecture. In (5/45)
response to the announcement, AMD announced an x86 compatible 64-bit architecture called x86-64 or AMD64 on a K8 or later chip line. Process manufacturer VIA jumped on board and sales took off as existing 32-bit code would still run on these new chips. Microsoft announced Windows XP support Windows XP Pro 64 would be released for this platform but not for Itanium. After a year of brisk sales by AMD in both server and desktop processors, Intel finally caved and announced an EM64T in March 2004 with the first shipping in June of that year. Since AMD developed the instruction set, it's frequently called AMD64. That makes sense. Yeah, so now we know the history of why things are called AMD64. So it's 64-bit and bottom line is if you're looking for a distribution of Linux and you see 32-bit and you see AMD64 and your machine is labeled as a 64-bit processor, use the AMD64 even though your processor is Intel and not AMD because it's just a label. Yes. There we go. All right. Well, I'm glad (6/45)
that's clear. So Heath expanded even further. Senior host and junior vice president minion. I think we both... Junior? I don't know. Junior vice president though. Hey, that's... Hey, wait a minute now. I get demoted already? Heath, yeah, you're just making up titles. Okay. In the last listener feedback, episode 332, a listener wrote in confused about the AMD64 builds of respective software packages asking where the Intel ones would be. I once had similar confusion and this is what I learned. When Intel published the 32-bit instruction set for the then shiny 386 CPU, the instruction set was dubbed the 386 instruction set as the 486 and Pentium CPUs used the same set. The instruction set has come to be known as the i386 or x86, x to cover 486 and 586, for all CPUs, both Intel and AMD, who use the same instruction set. When 64-bit CPUs came to the consumer market, AMD were the first to draft the 64-bit extensions to the 386 instruction set. The extension means the original 32-bit (7/45)
instructions still work for backwards compatibility. That is, you can run 32-bit software on the 64-bit CPUs. As AMD released at first, they became known as the AMD64 or x64 instruction set. Intel later adopted the same instruction scheme and so AMD64 and x64 instructions can be used on both Intel and AMD CPUs. Hope this helps, Heath in Perth, Australia. So Heath took it from the software instruction set perspective as opposed to strictly hardware chip. And I think that helps to clarify things as well. Or maybe just muddies the waters more. I remember the first computer that I really fell in love with. I thought it was just the biggest powerhouse. It was a 486 DX66. If you remember back in the day, DX meant that it had the coprocessor. Yes, that's right. And then you had the LX, you remember those? Yes, I do. So that brings back memories. I remember that was such a powerhouse and now it couldn't even run any of my games. So moving very long. Yes, okay. I played a lot of Doom on that (8/45)
one. Anyway, Rick wrote, Hi Larry. Hi Bill. I've been a listener for quite some time but fell off regular listening over the last year or so. I'm catching up and just listened to number 319 on GRSync. Unfortunately, the link to the document from AccuLand University no longer works. Did you by chance archive a copy of that document? Thanks 73ricknz2i. Yeah, so I checked out the link on GRSync and it was instructions on how to use it, I guess, if I remember correctly. And no, I didn't archive a copy of it. And it looks like, although Auckland University had that document in the public, they've put it behind a login wall and it's no longer accessible. So I'm going to have to go back in and put a note where that link used to be and maybe I can find something similar that illustrates the same thing to replace that link. But thanks Rick for letting us know there was a problem. Yeah, thanks. Okay, Barbara writes us about cloning a drive with DD. At least it's not about AMD64. Okay, be careful (9/45)
what you ask for. I knew you were going to say that. Yes, okay. Cloning a drive with DD. Hi guys, just wanted to drop you a note to say that I really enjoy the Going Linux podcast. I returned to GNU Linux in 2011 when I installed Ubuntu on my laptop and have been a very happy Linux user ever since. I found episode 331 interesting and informative, especially your discussion regarding backups. I do like that you included the DD command to create a full drive or backup partition. I do have a few suggestions that would make the DD command more useful and less scary, especially since the DD command does not provide progress by default. So no progress bar. First, I think you need to use the sudo command as the prefix to the DD command. You're probably right there. Also, to ensure that the command writes out full record blocks, the conv parameter, no trunk, needs to be added. Keep this in mind, to clone sda, the system hard drive, to the destination drive sdb, external drive in my case, the (10/45)
command becomes sudo dd if equals, and then a whole bunch of stuff, right? So the source drive, the destination drive, and then bs equals 64k, then conv equals no trunk, n-o-t-r-u-n-c, comma, no error, comma, sync. And there are no spaces between the commas and the next word. So a little longer command than we had specified in our episode 331. And if you want to see what it looks like, it's in the show notes. Yeah. The one disconcerting issue with DD is that it does not display progress as cloning occurs. To ease that feeling that you are not sure if it's working, use the following command. sudo pkil, p-k-i-l-dash, u-s-r-1-dd, and u-s-r is all in caps. If you want to have a progress displayed periodically, you can use the watch command and use the number of seconds between displaying the cloning progress in the command. So you would type watch and then a space and then dash n and the number of seconds, and then in quotes, sudo pkil dash user 1. For instance, to display cloning progress (11/45)
every 15 seconds, and then there's a command there. We'll include all this stuff in the show notes. Please feel free to provide this information to your listeners. Keep up the good work. You are doing a great service to the Linux community to take the fear out of using Linux by Barbara. Well, thanks, Barbara. We really appreciate that. Yeah, thanks. Actually, that's pretty clever. Yeah. I never thought about doing it that way. Yeah, and I think even though it's command line, which can be scary to some people, and we were trying to read or I was trying to read some of the commands, it's not as difficult as it seems. You'll see when we write it out. It's pretty straightforward. OK, our next email comes from Adrian, and he has a proposal for a crowd of new minions. Oh, new minions? Let me read on. Hi, Larry and Bill. I enjoy to binge listen to your podcasts on very long drives, which happen every two or three months. You guys do a good job introducing an excellent operating system to (12/45)
people familiar with the W. Linux needs all the exposure it can get. But when the tech gets a good stick, I find myself talking back at you guys. This happens when I think I know about the subject you're discussing. That's why I listen to you while I'm alone in my car. Why am I talking to you? Because every once in a while, the technical content can be improved. And we agree. Yes. In my humble opinion, examples would be filling a root file system with a backup gone wrong and the last episode, cleaning disks. I would have loved to hear about what cloning is and how it can be used. Do you clone to another drive or to a file? What can be done with a clone in a file? What to watch out for when cloning a single partition? I would have tried to explain about whole hard disks, partition tables, partitions and file systems and the advantages or disadvantages of not cloning. The longest talk I've had with you guys during the last trip was on what is the purpose of knowing how to make a clone if (13/45)
you didn't explain how to restore it. Pitfalls. What happens to the bootstrap loader in classic and or GPT partitioned? What if my root file system was cloned to an old 80 gig hard spindle hard drive? My root system drive is now defective and I'd like to restore it to a spanking new 120 gigabyte SSD. I guess we all have the same problem. Too much to do. Too little time. But I only binge listen to two to four episodes at a time. I usually stop at good thing nobody saw me talking and leave it at that because most of the stuff I listen to is old anyways. But tonight I have an idea. What if we set up a minion network? You guys select some people, support engineers, links coders, retirees who'd like to research or whatever want to help. And mail the subjects in question to them before you record the show. If these people know the answers or have something to say, they will answer within a few, three days. I'd like to offer myself as the first candidate. I do not always have time. I travel (14/45)
frequently, but I would like to contribute. There may be more people that could help you find some answers more quickly or more accurately. Who'd like to join this minion network? I really appreciate the hard work you are doing to further the Linux platform. Please let me know what you think. Actually, that's a great idea. And I think we've both both of us always said we don't know everything. Right. Exactly. So, you know, Adrian makes some great points. But I think we kind of are to new users and stuff. We're trying to give him just an overview. But he does have some good suggestions and I can see where we can make some improvements. What do you think, Larry? Yeah, I like the idea of asking our listeners to contribute to the podcast. And let's just put it this way. If you are interested in becoming part of the minion network. Now we've got a label for it. The minion network. Just drop us a line on email or put something in the Google Plus chat, whatever is most convenient for you. And (15/45)
let me know so that we can send you a link to our show notes before we actually record. So that you can contribute any additional corrections or additional information on one of the topics that we have. And we'll still record them using the same process we have. But we'll just take a few minutes or a few days to get your input on it to make it a better show. So thanks for the suggestion. That's really good, Adrian. He's got a few questions in here that maybe we can address on cloning. Maybe we can go back on that. So do we clone to another drive or to a file? I've done it both ways. I prefer to clone to another hard drive. Unfortunately, what usually happens is you get a new computer with a larger drive and now any backup drives you have aren't big enough to hold the whole drive as a backup. So one of the advantages of cloning to a file is that the file will only be as big as the data that you're backing up as opposed to being a bit for bit image of the entire drive. So if you have a (16/45)
hundred and twenty gigabyte drive, for example, you need a hundred and twenty gigabyte backup drive to store it to if you're making a complete clone of the drive or bigger. And if you're backing up to a file and your 120 gigabyte drive is 50 percent full, then you only need 60 gigabytes to make a backup because it's only got 60 gigabytes worth of data in it. And that's as big as the file needs to be. The other consideration is one that you brought up, Adrian, which is the restoring part of it. And I think we've talked about restoring on previous episodes. I may have talked about that with Tom when we originally did an episode or two on backups, but that's way back in the past. So just to address that, let's say you backed up your 120 gigabyte drive to a, I don't know, 200 gigabyte backup drive and you made a clone of the drive. And now your cloned image is a 200 gigabyte drive. I mean, the data's there, but it's 200 gigabytes. You can't simply restore it to your 120 gigabyte drive (17/45)
because it's too big. It won't fit. So what you need to do is before you do the backup, you need to partition the drive that you're backing up to, the destination drive, so that it is as big as or smaller than the drive you're backing up. And if it's a bit for bit clone, it's got to be the same size. So look at the number of bits, make it exactly the same size so you don't have a problem restoring it when you come back. And with a file backup, a file-based backup, you really don't have that problem because unless you're recovering from a crash and you're restoring to a smaller drive than you started with, and it's significantly smaller so that it won't hold the full amount of data, then that's the only time you would have a problem. So for the most part, I would recommend backing up to a file unless you have a spare drive that's exactly, you know, an exact copy of the hardware copy of the one that your computer contains. And if it's one of those on a chip SSDs, that might be a bit of a (18/45)
problem. So you need to be a little bit careful. Do you have any experience, Bill, on using these kinds of backups? I've backed up to the same size hard drive, but I've never tried doing different sizes and stuff. Other than that, if anybody knows my history, I usually nuke and pave anyway. But no, that's the only time I've really backed up and it saved my bacon once or twice in my time. But I try to, if I'm going to back up, I try to have two identical drives or as identical as I can make them. And so that's just me. But, you know, I don't do any of the crazy stuff. Usually I end up killing the distro anyway. So it's just nuke and pave for me. Right. And most of my backups, quite frankly, are backing up the data and not the entire drive. When I was using Windows, I would always make a complete copy of the hard drive on a mirror drive, simply because I didn't want to go through the pain of reinstalling Windows and going through 5000 updates and waiting an hour between each update for (19/45)
it to install and reboot and all that kind of crap. So, you know, when I was making a backup, I would always make a whole disk backup so that I would only have to start from where I left off. But with Linux, my backups are more to prevent loss of data during a crash or hard drive failure or other disaster. And so I'm just backing up the data. So backing it up to files is fine. Using the same software to restore those files or restoring a portion of the files and keeping on the active live machine that I use day to day, only the things that I want to use and keeping the backup stored somewhere so that I have an archive if I do need to go back and look at really old stuff. That's kind of my approach. And like you, I do a nuke and pave if I'm restoring a drive. I usually install the latest version of the operating system, get all the updates and then restore the data. Yeah, I keep a lot of the files in dead or important that I don't want to lose up in my Google Drive or Dropbox or (20/45)
whatever. Yeah. Yeah, I've used a combination of that and hard drive. Yeah, kind of a combination right now. Yeah. Okay. So there we go. So again, thanks, Adrian. And if you're interested in becoming a part of the minion network, let us know. Yeah. Okay. Adrian also sent us this. Hi, Larry and Bill, who was dearly missed on episode 330. Good. I'm not the only computer hoarder. There's Greg and he's listened to your show as well. Well, while we're off topic, let me share something that was the topic. But anyway, my current hobby project involves reanimating my four megahertz bullet Z 80 CPM computer. CPM. Holy crap. With 120 kilobytes of bank switched RAM. This is an antique. The huge hard drive. Yes. The huge the huge 100. Yeah. The huge hard drive won't spin up and it's a power supply problem. The hard disk. The hard disk is five and a quarter inch full size bezel has four platters and eight heads and stores a whopping 15 megabytes. This statement say plus years ago today, the huge (21/45)
power on surge can no longer be sourced by those agent capacitors in the power supply. Wow. Linux has some great tools for old computers. I managed to make images of my five and a quarter CPM floppies using DD. After setting the floppy disk parameters to set FD PRM and then reading the image with CP MLS, copying them with CPM CP. All of these programs are in the current repositories. Next, I built the Z 80 emulator. There we go. An emulator that's going to help in Z 80 pack. The source code to CPM is open sourced after someone from Redmond killed digital research. So the Z 80 emulator runs a true copy of CPM three. It now has all my old files source code to programs. I wrote 30 plus years ago. I was able to run the Z 80 assembler and build a new CPM three for my bullet. Wrote it back to the diskette using Linux and now actually boots my bullet without the hard disk. You're not as excited as I am. Well, I guess my purpose is the same as Greg's. I have to have a good time with old stuff. (22/45)
Analytics helps doing that to Adrian. Wow. This is not just old that is antique, but that is awesome. Old stuff. Wow. This thing is awesome, though. Yeah. I'm surprised that there's not so much rust on that thing that it just seizes up. But hey, it's great that you've used this combination of, you know, the original source code and an emulator and floppy disks to reconstitute this ancient machine and have it boot even without a hard drive. That's fantastic. But I have to put in the amount of effort put in is not necessarily, you know, you don't get a lot of reward except just personal gratification and someone doing it just because they want to just. That's awesome. I just kudos to you. I really, really, really enjoyed that one. Yeah, absolutely. And hey, like you said, it's just having a good time with old stuff. What more can you ask for? Right? Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, sometimes it's not super profitable or anything. It's just someone's doing it because they love to do it. And, (23/45)
you know, I bet he's learned a lot doing it, too. So that's awesome. All right. Our next email comes from Dave and he's confused. We'll join the club, Dave. I stay that way. He writes, Hello, Bill and Larry. Love going Linux, going Linux and Leo the port's tech guy show are two podcasts I religiously listen to. I really appreciate you guys. I was converted to Linux when I installed Ubuntu 8 on a machine for my 85 year old mother. She was using Windows and I got support calls many times a week until I installed Linux on her machine. Sounds familiar. The only support call I got from her after that was a year and a half later with a strange screen appearing that she had never seen before. It is for her log in password. There had been a loss of power at her apartment and the computer had not ever been shut down. So it was the log in screen. That was the strange screen. That's awesome. There we go. A year and a half. So it hadn't been shut down before that. After that, I never got another (24/45)
call. Every time I saw her, I asked if the computer was still working. And she always said, Yes, I use it every day. And never turn it off apparently. Yeah. Now my confusion. I use Linux Mint 18 Sarah. I am using the machine as a pretty standard desktop and install everything I use from the software manager. Under the update manager, I am regularly presented with Linux kernel headers and Linux firmware updates. I value good security and have a stable machine, which it always has been. When should I update the Linux kernel or the Linux kernel headers and or the Linux firmware? 73 Dave. Oh, well, I have a different policy than Larry, I think. Mine is when they come when it presents the updates, I usually wait for about a week or so before I install them just in case there's any errors. But I think, Larry, you pretty much install them right away, don't you? I do install them right away. And as far as the kernel is concerned, there are two kinds of updates in the kernel. There are lots of (25/45)
other kinds of updates, but there are two main kinds of updates that relate to your email, Dave. One is updates to drivers that are included in the Linux kernel and the other is security updates. So the driver updates, unless you get some new hardware that hasn't been supported or hasn't been supported well in the drivers that are included in the previous Linux kernel, you probably don't need the new kernel. On the other hand, the updates, the security updates are what is really driving most people's updates to the kernel, especially if there's been some sort of breach that affects Linux that you've heard of in the news. By that time, the Linux kernel, if that's where the security breach occurs, has been updated and you do want to update the security updates for the kernel. That doesn't necessarily mean that you need to install a new kernel, but that the security patches are the ones that you need. And sometimes, like I said, the security is is not the security patches are not for the (26/45)
kernel itself. They're for an application or for a driver that's outside of the kernel or for some sort of library that's outside of the kernel. So the critical thing is update for whatever software security updates are there. And if a Linux kernel update indicates in the notes that it includes security updates, I would apply that Linux kernel just to get those security updates, because you never know when somebody is going to attack your computer, especially if it's an Internet-based attack and you're on the Internet all the time, you should be, you know, you should be protected. If it's an update, for example, that addresses a hardware vulnerability, let's say like a key logger on your keyboard or something like that. That's a little less risky because I'm assuming that you don't carry your your desktop computer and your keyboard and your monitor and all that around with you, unless, of course, it's a laptop, in which case maybe it is something you need to be aware of. But it's a (27/45)
little harder to install a hardware key logger under the keys of your keyboard on a laptop. So, again, it really depends on how security conscious you are or if you get new hardware. So if you get new hardware and it's not working all that well, update the kernel. If there is an update and maybe that'll give you support for the new hardware. If it's security related, just make sure that you get all the security updates and patches from, in your case, Linux Mint. And if, you know, there's anything that you've heard about that is a malware infection or something that affects Linux as well as Windows and Mac, then I would look to the Linux kernel to see if there's an update that addresses that. Otherwise, just expect that your security update is coming to you through the regular updates from Linux Mint. That's my advice. I'm sure there will be others who disagree. But, you know, the other thing to be concerned about is, you know, is your computer actually a server? And downtime is more of (28/45)
a risk than security patches. I'm not sure whether that's ever a wise move, but, you know, I don't run a server. So maybe it is, in which case maybe you should not replace the Linux kernel from the philosophy of if it's not broke, don't fix it. Just make sure you've got the security patches. Yep. Sounds good. All right. Our next email is from Jan or probably looking at the signature at the bottom is probably Jan. Thank you for making great podcasts. What makes it especially great is the time stamps. An example for others to follow. Keep up the good work. Best regards. And in the signature, it says Med Fenlig-Hilson. I probably butchered that, but apparently that is best regards in Jan's native tongue. We got another email from Brun who wrote about our use of Discord, the Discord app. He writes, Hi Larry. Hi Bill. I'm from Italy. I've been listening to your podcast for about a year now. I like your show very much for two main reasons. The first is because I am a Linux addict. And the (29/45)
second is because my English is very poor and I'm taking advantage of your show to improve my knowing of the language. So thanks a lot. Anyway, I'm writing to you because in your last podcast, you said that you are now using Discord in place of Skype because it works very well and because it's open source. But in the Discord site, I did not find any reference to the fact that that's open software. And also Wikipedia says that it's proprietary software. Where am I wrong? Have I misunderstood something? Thanks again for your show and keep up your fantastic work for the Linux community. Bye Brun. P.S. I'm sorry for my embarrassing English. Hey Brun, you did excellent. And Larry and myself talked about this and I think where the misunderstanding comes in is they use an open source codec for the audio. And so when we were talking about it, I had made a comment that the audio codec was open source. But yeah, I figured that the Discord app would be proprietary, but it met a couple of our (30/45)
criteria. One, it worked. Yes. It's always good. Two, that it had incorporated some open source in it. And it was also easy to install for Linux users and it's cross platform. So it kind of fit a lot of check boxes that we like to see. But yeah, we know that Discord is not open source, but they do incorporate some open source elements in it. Yep, absolutely. I don't think I could have said that any better, Bill. OK, John asks about Patreon. Aloha, Larry and Bill, thank you for your most recent episode while whole disk cloning on Linux. It was extremely timely and interesting. While I already knew about Clonezilla and have been planning to use it to back up my entire dual boot hard drive on my Lenovo laptop, your episode confirmed that it was probably the best solution for my needs. OK, John, stop the planning and start the backing up. Planning doesn't help. Hopefully you've already done it. Mahalo, he says, your friend from the big island of Hawaii, John, a.k.a. island of Tiki. P.S. I (31/45)
can't find you guys on Patreon. I like to support my favorite Linux podcasts and distros through monetary contributions. And Patreon makes it so I don't forget to contribute regularly. Well, John, we don't have a Patreon page and we don't use Patreon for collecting, you know, monthly contributions from from our listeners. Two reasons. First, it's one more thing I would have to manage. And two, I really am not one for asking people to donate on a monthly basis and automatically setting up withdrawals from wherever they are. I'd rather just have people contribute when they want to. And it sounds like you want to contribute on a regular basis, but I'm just not comfortable with doing that. So thanks. Contribute when you remember. That's all I can say. And thanks for your contributions. And thanks for the kind words, John. Appreciate it. Yeah, thanks, John. OK, our next email comes from Dennis and he comments on our cloning episode. I'm seeing a theme here, Larry. Yeah, people like cloning. (32/45)
We had hard drive processors, hard drives. Now we've had a lot of cloning. So, OK. Really, guys? Two words. Macrium reflect all file system supported password protected whole disk and partitions. A verified data option, paid in free versions and GUI driven. The only one I would even consider off your list would be clonezilla, which is rather archaic, as are the rest on the list. I use command line only when necessary, which is not very often nowadays with these modern distros. Let's get people to embrace going links from Windows on Mac, not scaring them away or wasting their time with unnecessary hundred character command lines. Thanks, Dennis. Ooh. OK, well, I don't know if it's unnecessary to share the command lines, especially if, you know, you're using the command line. And as far as scaring people with archaic software, I'm not sure that the backup solutions that are available for Mac or Windows are any less archaic than they are on Linux. There's not really been any advancement, (33/45)
as far as I know, in the area of backup, except for cloud backup. And the cloud backup is dependent on your Internet connection. And if your Internet connection goes down, you've lost a connection to both be able to back up and to be able to restore. So that introduces a bit of risk that I'm not willing to take. So we're relegated to backup solutions that work, work well and have been around a while. And I'd rather, quite frankly, use something that's been around a while and works than something that's brand new that may have some bugs in it and these days may even have some malware attached to it. So on the other hand, Dennis, if you have a more modern, better solution that allows you to back up on Linux, that would be great. Most of the distributions these days provide some sort of backup solution as part of the distribution. And I know that Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu proper provide a backup utility that they label as backup, but it is using... What is it using? It's using DejaDup, (34/45)
which, again, is a relatively old program that uses a combination of DD and other things in the back end to make it work. So, yeah, even the modern solutions on Linux rely on the old, archaic, proven command line to make it work. Your thoughts after that rant, Bill? Actually, I have just a couple of thoughts. One, saying that some of this stuff is archaic, I think it's a little harsh. It might be older. But any time I am going to be using software, not always because it's not always available, I like to know that other people have looked at that code and have fixed it. You know, just Clonezilla I've used, I still use an old version of Clonezilla just because it works. It might not be pretty, it might not be... But any time I see a paid and free version, that doesn't mean it sets off any red flags, but I tend to like programs that I can actually fill. You can look at the code if you want, but I like to know that other people have looked at it and are a lot smarter and more talented than (35/45)
I am. And a lot of these new, shiny backups tend to use the old technologies. And all they are doing is incorporating, I mean a good example, it's not backup, but Discord. It's a proprietary software, but it uses an open source codec. So, I mean, just because it's been around a while doesn't make it archaic. It might make it, I would consider, more reliable because people have looked at it and have improved upon it. So, you know, I don't think we will scare away anything because we did cover ones with a nice user interface and one of the command line versions. And I used to be where I'd only want to use graphical user interfaces, but Larry kind of got me to where sometimes I just prefer to enter in the command line because it's one line of instructions instead of having to click 12 buttons. So, I think it was just a little bit harsh. There's something for everybody, but I appreciate you telling us about this other one and now I'll have to look at it. But just because it's old doesn't (36/45)
make it archaic. And I don't know, I don't want to argue that point, but I just I thought that was just a tad bit harsh and that's just me. But I really appreciate your feedback and I will look at that one you recommended and see what it's like. Right. Yeah. And maybe I was a bit harsh with my comments as well, but I think there's an argument to be made that backup software needs to be made easier to use, especially when you're using a graphical interface and you're clicking buttons and walking through. But I think Deja Dupe and the improvements made to that particular utility that are incorporated into Ubuntu and its derivatives is pretty close to being foolproof and easy to use. Still some room for improvement there, but it's basically just once you've got it set up, it's just acknowledging that, yes, you can run now or no, I want to pause or just let it run. I mean, you can set it up so that it just happens in the background and you never have to think about it unless there's a (37/45)
crash. So I think that's great. I also just want to say that we both, you know, we try to be diplomatic and appreciate everybody's opinion, but we have our own opinions, too. And so, like I said, we're not saying your opinion is not valuable because it is. It's always good to see another viewpoint, but we will let you know what our opinions are. And frankly, I think that we both have strong opinions of that one because I've had backups fail because of software. So when something works, it's been around a while and someone calls it archaic. It's like, yeah, it might be old, but it still works. And sometimes it's, you know, anyway, thanks very much, Dennis. And like I said, we appreciate it. And I will look at that new one. And if it's as good as you say it is, I might have to be hit with an apology saying, hey, he was right. This is really great. OK, we'll take a look. OK, calling comments on, guess what, Bill? Whole disk cloning. Oh, I thought you're going to see the weather. OK. Yeah. (38/45)
So hi, Larry and Bill. I found the podcast on whole disk cloning very informative and helpful. There are a couple of backup programs that I have been using that can clone partitions. Here we go. Maybe there's something new in this list. There is a command line program called F S Archiver. It's available in most repositories. It's very easy to use. It's my go to application for partition backup. There's a quick start guide at F S Archiver dot org slash quick start. We'll have that link in the show notes. I found a fairly new application which provides a graphical interface for part clone. It's called APART, A P A R T. And we'll have a link to that in the show notes. And there are packages for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch. I've tried it out and it's extremely easy to use. Well, guys, I've listened to your podcast for the past four years, and it helped me to transition from Windows to Linux. Keep up the good work. Regards, Colin. That's exactly why we do the podcast. Colin, thank you. (39/45)
Yes, that's awesome. Thanks, Colin. Our next email comes from Andrew and he provides help on USB write speed. And he writes Larry Emperor Minion and Bill Senior Chief Junior Vice President Minion. I think he keeps adding words to this. Yes. It's hilarious. Thanks, Andrew. In the last listener feedback, someone asks about slow copy speed to USB devices. This, unfortunately, is a reality of the technology versus today's expectations. If you remember the good old days of the 386 486 era, the front bus was limited to the speed of the slowest component. These speeds were often 33 megahertz, 66 megahertz or 100 megahertz. And also, and although the processing speed started pulling away in the Pentium era, reaching 200, 300 and even 500 megahertz, the bus speeds were still 100 megahertz. In this case, even with bus speeds of one gigahertz or higher, the USB to bus speed is still only going to transfer up to 400 megabits being 60 megabytes, up to meaning that the two way communication between (40/45)
the drive and the controller. Add to this a standard USB flash drive can only write at between two and 10 megabytes per second, depending on quality and internal technology. This is where the class numbers letters come in. Use then the best transfer time you can hope for on, say, a two gigabyte video file is about 11 minutes and an average of three megabytes per second. Speeds on flash drives are also worse on drives that have previously held data, as the old data needs to be zeroed prior to the write, unlike a magnetic drive that only needs to flip the bits that have changed. Flash drives need to make all cell zeros except of the previous state before writing the new data. External hard drives are usually faster than flash drives at an average of 30 to 40 megabytes per second, as they, even SSDs, use different internal controller technology that is faster but more expensive, hence how flash drives are much cheaper. One last point to remember, the copy process indicator in your (41/45)
respective GUI, graphical user interface, either Linux, Mac or Windows, cannot be trusted. Quite often the process bar will get to 100% and you think the copy is complete. However, this isn't always the case. Big files that copy will take longer and the bar can reach 100%, but depending on how the status is displayed, it can mean that the copy is complete or the transfer into the buffer is complete. If it only refers to the buffer, the copy is not complete, even though the display makes you believe it is. This is why it is important to eject the device prior to removing it, as the ejection process ensures the buffer is empty before unmounting it. Hope this helps, Andrew. Thanks, Andrew. That was a great amount of information. Yeah, absolutely. And that last bit about the progress bars, the progress indicators, yeah, I never trusted them. One place it's particularly difficult to trust is in Linux on the startup Disk Creator that comes with Ubuntu and Ubuntu Mate and a lot of (42/45)
distributions. When it says that you have created a boot disk and it says process is completed, don't believe it. I have created a thumb drive with a distribution of Linux on it and have ejected it before, you know, after it says that it's completed, but before everything stops and I end up with a corrupted thumb drive and have to create a new one and sometimes it takes, you know, almost as long after it says it's completed as it did before it said it was completed to wait for it to absolutely completely finalize itself and save all the final settings and all of that stuff. So, yeah, never, never, never believe a copy progress bar. Find out if it's actually finished copying. And yeah, with removable drives, if you eject it, typically it's going to tell you, you know, it's busy and if it tells you it's busy, believe it's busy and wait. From bitter experience. You think? Yeah, there you go. Okay. Okay. Well, Bill, that wraps up all of our emails for this time. We had quite a few. That (43/45)
was a good amount of emails. Yeah, many of them on the same topic, but that's okay. Everybody's got an opinion. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, it means that we found a topic that people were interested in. Yes, exactly. And know something about or think they know something about or do know something about and know something more than we do. All of those options in there. All those options do apply. Yes. Okay. What do you think we're going to do for our next episode, Bill? I don't know yet because, you know, I've been in the land of the unconnected, so I'm sure we'll find something to talk about. Oh, I know we'll find something to talk about and it'll be really, really interesting, like cloning drives or something. Yeah. You know, we could always maybe have a little more advanced one about how to restore disks and stuff after making a backup. We could do that, yes. Or maybe we turn it to our minion network. Yes, minion network. Go to work. Okay. Send us info. Yep. All right. Until then, you (44/45)
can go to our website at goinglinx.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. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (45/45)
Going Linux episode 353, Moving from Windows to Linux Part 1. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Vusche. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, Moving from Windows to Linux Part 1. Hey, Bill, Part 1, huh? Part 1, yeah. It's like the Marvel superhero movies. You've got a Part 1 and a Part 2. Oh, OK. Yeah, sure. No, that's cool. It's been a while since we've done a Part 1, Part 2 series, and it's good to get back to that, I think. Yeah, I'm excited about it. Part 1, they used to be called, well, they're still called, but beginner and advanced. But when I was looking at what to call it, I said, well, you know, Part (1/46)
1 is kind of just a prep and Part 2 is not any more advanced. So I just decided to go with the Part 1, Part 2. OK, so it's kind of an introduction and extension of the introduction to Moving from Windows to Linux. Pretty much. Pretty much. OK, that's fine. So I think it would be good. I enjoyed writing it. Of course, Bear wants to say hello. Yeah, I think he just did. Yes. So you're going to hear him once in a while. I think he wants to make sure he's remembered. So anyway, I don't know about you, but in New Mexico, cooler weather is starting to come and I'm really digging the cool weather. Yeah, it's starting to get cooler here as well, especially in the mornings. Yeah, it's been a nice summer, but I'm looking forward to some cooler weather. Anyway, I included some links in the show notes. I just want to let everybody know. There's some interesting reads. One is the Microsoft Retail User's License terms that you basically click when you say you're going to use it. And I was reading (2/46)
through it and there's some interesting stuff in there. I think some people might be surprised. And then there was a couple more about Windows 10 data collection and about what they collect. And I believe the one from the Verge. No, I'm sorry. The one from TechCrunch actually gives links to if you decide to continue running Windows or you have to run Windows 10, that you can kind of limit what they collect. You can't turn everything off entirely, but it's kind of interesting. And then the TechCrunch, the original stories about the Dutch government saying, hey, Windows 10 kind of breached his privacy law. So anyway, there were two interesting articles and they had some good links that I thought people would enjoy. So they're in there if anybody would like to look at it. Well, thanks for those. That's going to be interesting reading. I think it was the Windows 7 terms of use or end user license agreement that I had read through. I haven't read the Windows 10 one. It would be interesting (3/46)
to see what the differences are and how much more they're doing to us. Yeah, what's it doing to you? The EULA contains a lot of information about what they're doing and what they collect and how you can actually use Windows. It's very different than the GNU. You can pretty much use Linux on whatever you want, however you want. But when you look at Windows, I believe one of the conditions is it gives a very specific guidelines and rules about virtualization and remote access. In there, it actually says this software, most people say, it's my Windows, I'll do what I want. But actually the EULA says that this software is not sold, it's licensed. So you don't own it. You only have a right to use it. Yeah, and of course, with the new roadmap, well, that was one of the reasons I've moved to completely off Windows 10. Because they're upgrading so fast, and unless you're an enterprise user with the volume licensing, you cannot refuse these upgrades. And when I say upgrades, they're replacing (4/46)
the whole system. So they've got one coming out soon, and I think they call it Redstone 6, which will be the next version of Windows 10. And there's no way, if you're just a home user, to just not install it. Like when I get updates on Linux, I don't immediately install them unless it says it's a security fix. I usually wait a couple of days and read through it and make sure there's no problems and then install it. But one of the reasons that I was listening to a podcast to do this is there's a lot of home users, and so they'll push this out. So you're kind of like their guinea pig. So if it runs on, because there's a lot of different hardware types, and if it's running good on them, then they can push it to the corporate or enterprise users. So I don't like being anybody's guinea pig for free, especially when I still have to do work. So anyway, I'm not being critical. I'm just saying that's some of the reasons that I've chosen, and I know to not use it. I know there's some people that (5/46)
don't care, and that's great, but you might want to read through it and read articles and file links. You might be able to say, hey, I don't want to share this much information and stuff. So anyway, today we're going to talk about, hey, I'm done with it for whatever reason. I'm going to move from Windows to Linux and some of the ways on how to get these things done and get ready for the move. We're going to break this up, as we discussed earlier, but just to make sure that we can make this easy and as painless as possible. Yeah, it seems like a big daunting task. It's not. It's just planning. Yeah, exactly. You just need to be planful as to what you're doing so that you don't lose any important information, and the rest of it should happen pretty quickly. So I'm a user of Windows, and I've decided to ditch Windows for whatever reason. Now what? And a better question is, why would I want to? You know, Windows is working just fine for me. Why would I want to? Well, there's a couple ones (6/46)
that come to mind. One, you might be concerned about your privacy, but that's not usually the biggest one. The biggest one is you've got older hardware and Windows 10 is not running as well as you had hoped, or you don't need to use Windows programs anymore. Or you just got tired of having to keep paying for software like, well, we use Audacity. You can still get on Windows, but you have to know about Audacity. So it's various reasons. It's not always about sticking it to Microsoft and not going to pay them anymore, because most people get their Windows when they buy a new computer. Right. And so it's kind of built into the cost. But you might say, look, one of the things that kind of drove me insane is on Windows 10, when I had it on mine, it had a bunch of, remember back in the day when they would have all the, what we call the trialware and the shareware. Well, now it's back in there. And so I install it. And then when an upgrade comes, it's back. And then I have to install it (7/46)
again. Oh, the crapware that's pre-installed by... Yeah, like they had Candy Crush Saga and Castle something and Auto Racing and they're building an Xbox. And if I want to play a game, that's great. But it's definitely not Candy Crunch or Candy Crush. So whatever your reason, and there's no right or wrong answer. You just had to decide, I don't want to use Windows anymore or my hardware is getting older and it's just not running as well. And I want to get a couple more years. Yes, computers have come down. But, you know, if I can get a few more a year or another or two out of my same hardware and I can do everything I need to, why suffer with that? And here's another one, a big one. I think that there are some people that have gotten, they didn't make their backup media. And then they get infected with malware or whatever. And the only way to get rid of it entirely is to nuke and pave. Well, how do they do that if they didn't make their backup media? Right, exactly. Yeah, I've never (8/46)
had to do this, but I understand that it takes some jumping through of some hoops in order to convince the folks at Microsoft that you actually have a legitimate copy of Windows when you haven't made a copy of your restore media or whatever they want to call it. Doing something interesting, and it only works if you have a Microsoft account, that when you get a new computer, they tie your license to your account. So it's a digital key. And up until recently, it was very hard to get a clean copy. Now, if you do search on the Internet, Microsoft actually lets you download a copy and then when you enter your credentials in with the Microsoft account, it automatically recognizes and says, oh, OK, he's had this before. But the thing that might surprise you is you might have been on a version of Windows 10 that worked with some software and then they've upgraded it to the newest version. Or you have a lot because downloads like four gigabytes. And if you have a meter connection, that's just (9/46)
insane. Right. Well, and the other thing, I guess, is that if you have purchased a computer with Windows installed on it and you do the recovery from a copy of Windows that you've downloaded from the Microsoft site, what you aren't getting is all of the tweaks and the special drivers and all of the little adjustments that the computer hardware manufacturer has made in order to get Windows to work properly on their hardware. Maybe you can go to their website and download those things, but that's some additional work. And I think most people, when they install Windows on their computer, are expecting that Windows is Windows and, you know, you just install it and it should work. I think that the more sophisticated users realize that there are drivers and other things and we'll go look for it. But I think the average computer user who isn't all that tech savvy, if they were to have to go through that, they would give up and go take it to some store and pay to have it restored. Yeah. Well, (10/46)
that's one of the things, especially if you have like my Alienware is very much like that. You can get it up and running, but then you have to find some of the older drivers for like the Nvidia card and stuff, but it's not the latest. And then you have to go download it and then it's just, you have to jump to a hoop and a lot of times to get the something because mine has a kind of a hybrid keyboard and it has extra feature keys. And you have to actually, I've actually had to go to Alienware site and download those and, you know, there's a utility that lets you change the colors on the keyboard. I mean, so all that doesn't work out of the box. So not that I use it a lot. I said I pretty much said it and forget it. Sound like an infomercial there, but yeah, you'll get the base system. But when I had to reinstall Windows 10 before I finally said I'm done, it was a 4.1 or it was over 4 gigs of download. Then it was probably another two hours of updates. And then I went and spent another (11/46)
probably two hours getting all the drivers getting installed, getting it configured, you know, because they have, Dell makes Alienware. It's a division of Alienware. Alienware is a division of Dell. And so you have to go to the site, you have to enter, you know, so it's not a quick process. And especially if you don't have the install media, but then, you know, that would probably be some of the main reasons why you would say I'm done. I don't want to go through all this. I just want a computer that I can do my stuff. Right, exactly. Yeah, the reasons that I run across are people are tired of getting malware and infections and just suspicion of, is this a valid email? You know, is this something that somebody actually sent me? It seems a little funny. And then second guessing every email or every message you get or every post on Facebook or something like that and just being suspicious all the time. So there's that aspect of things. Something else is just the cost. And you made mention (12/46)
of the fact that for the average user who uses Windows, they've already gotten Windows as part of the purchase of the hardware. So they're not seeing an incremental cost as a result of buying Windows. But as the folks at Microsoft upgrade Windows 10 involuntarily on your part, sometimes you end up having to repurchase the same software you've already purchased. And I'm talking about software applications now, those things that you use to get the things done. And some of those are not compatible with the latest version. And of course, you can't go back to the old version of Windows. So you're sitting there waiting for the software publisher to upgrade that version of their software to work. Most are on top of it, but sometimes you end up behind the eight ball. And quite frankly, that I think is what drives a lot of people to look for free alternatives like Audacity for recording of audio and like LibreOffice for the Office suite of things. And speaking of Office, that's another hidden (13/46)
cost, especially if you are using the online cloud based version of Microsoft's Office suite. The software package, it's gotten better, I understand over time. But when they first released it, it was missing quite a few features and it may still be missing some features of the installed version. And as a result, you may be searching for alternative software just to get those features back. But there is an incremental cost to using the cloud based version, because although you can purchase a copy of Microsoft Office, you can install on your hardware. The online version is kind of like you described the EULA for Windows. It's a license to use it. And it's pretty clear in the cloud based version that you don't own it. You don't control it. It is just something that you can use and they can change it whenever they want. And, you know, there are plenty of cloud based software applications out there that do the same sort of thing. But for the experienced Windows user that's been using (14/46)
Windows since Windows 7 or before, they don't expect those kinds of things. And it's another hidden added cost is as Microsoft updates their version of Windows, I don't think they give too much consideration to how old the hardware is that you have it installed on. And so you may end up with an upgrade to Windows that makes your computer incompatible with running that version of Windows or a printer you have. They may drop the driver for the printer or scanners or other hardware and then you've got to go upgrade the hardware. So lots of hidden costs there as well. Well, there's a not so hidden cost. They don't want people to buy the software anymore because when you buy the software, people say my Office 2007 or 13 or whatever version you have is working fine. Why should I upgrade? It does what I want. So they're trying to make, they have a product that they're really going pretty much full in called Office 365. And they're really trying to own that space. And what Office 365 is, is (15/46)
you get, they actually, it's like $9.99 a month or $99 a year. And you can download an in-place copy, but they want, they're just tying everything together. They're tying Skype in, they're tying Office, they're tying in, they give like one terabyte of storage space for this $9.99 or $99 a year. They're trying to own everything in a way that, it's kind of, I would say, any competitive because they want you to use their browser, which is the Edge. They want you to use their software. They want you to use their own cloud storage. And what happened is, just recently, they had a lightning strike at one of their service centers and they couldn't handle the load. So there's people that were down for days and they couldn't access their Office 365. That's not good. Yeah. So if you put all your eggs in one basket, it might not be a good thing. But just, you know, they want to sell Windows as a service and they want you to continually pay them instead of just buying it once, which it wasn't (16/46)
cheap, what it was, what was it, like $200 or $300 for that for Office? It was. They charge more for Office than they did for Windows. It's like a gateway drug almost. You get Windows, you might want this too. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, that whole online cloud-based software, I really like the idea of cloud-based software. And if it's software that I expect to be kept up to date, I expect changes, I expect to be able to use those new updates as soon as they're available. And I think that's great. But your Office suite is not the kind of software that the average person is looking to change on a regular basis. They want it to be stable so that they can get their work done. They're using it for productivity, you know, to get things done, whether that's writing or whether that's creating spreadsheets and doing analysis and that sort of thing. And if the features or the interface or things change in the middle of their work, you know, from day to day, that has an impact on productivity. (17/46)
And the other thing that the operating system interferes with in terms of productivity, and this is another common complaint that I hear from Windows users and ex-Windows users, whether you're a consumer using the software and the computer for home use, or whether you are someone who uses it for business, the updates will interrupt you in the middle of your work. They will force you to reboot. Sometimes you can postpone it if you catch the little notification before it goes away and it forces you to reboot. But sometimes you can't. Sometimes you have to reboot and it seems to have no regard for the fact that you're in the middle of doing something. And if you happen to catch it in time, you might be able to save. And hopefully if you don't, it's the kind of application that does auto save in the background and you haven't turned that off in order to get more performance out of the software you're using. And then, to add insult to injury, it takes a while to reboot, to actually go from (18/46)
completely on to starting up again. And then you get this notification completing the update. Well, what was it doing before that? And updating one of 375 or something like that. And then the little incremental progress bar takes forever. And I have, in Microsoft Windows computers that I have used recently with Windows 10 on them, I've seen those updates take as long as 10 or 15 minutes, or even as long as 30 minutes to go from, I was using it, thank you very much, to, oh, now I can use it again. What was I doing again? 30 minutes. Have you seen it take longer than that? I think the longest I've seen was about an hour. Oh, ouch. Yeah, but I haven't seen that kind of times in a while. What the main problem that I've run across is, like for instance, the last time I downloaded Windows 10, after it got up and running and all those updates, the thing's not really usable because things are going in the background. So you have to wait to get all these updates, then it wants to reboot, and (19/46)
then you have to go and find the drivers that are not optimized for your system, download those, which is more time, and then, I don't know if anybody else experienced this, but the install for the NVIDIA driver can take as much as 10, 15 minutes, so you're just losing time all the time when you're dealing with it. Exactly. There were so many people complaining, and they haven't implemented it yet, as far as I know. I know it's a feature. This is a feature, Larry, that you'll be able to tell it, don't update when you see I'm working, or ask me before you update, but you only can postpone it from one or two times. Well, if you're trying to get out a big project for work, or you're doing a term paper, or you're just having a good time fragging your friends on the latest first person shooter, you don't want to have that thing pop up and say, ah, you need to restart, and updates, you need to do this. Right, right. Does this sound familiar? Hello, boss. I know we're on a deadline to get (20/46)
this report out in half an hour, but my computer just shut down and it says it's going to be an hour before it comes back up. So I'm going to be late on getting that really important Board of Directors report for the investors call. Yeah, yeah. Now we got to buy everybody two computers so that, you know, when one is down for updates, you got something else to work on. Anyway, talk about hidden costs. Yeah, hidden costs. You know, hey, I'm just going to go by the more practical before we start actually talking about how to ditch Windows 10 is you're playing a game, you're doing really well, you got your friends, and you're all in the thing pops up, drops out a game and say, you need to update. It's like, oh, no. So it shuts your full screen down to a window. And, oh, after a while, you just, you know, people get annoyed, you get annoyed. And it's like, I can't, I can't handle this. So anyway, that's, that's why you need your games displayed on a 75 inch monitor. So that when it goes to (21/46)
a window, you can still see and use it. There you go. Only 75? Geez. Okay. So you're ditching Windows 10. Larry, let's look at a few things that, that you want to think about before you ditch Windows. Okay. What kind of interface do you want? Because in Windows, you can pretty much stuck with what they give you. I know you can change the background, you might be able to change how things open up stuff, but it's pretty much one window is the same as the other windows. Mm hmm. Do you have any, maybe some ideas that these, these guys can go look at and kind of see what they like? For Windows you're talking about or for Linux? No, for, for Linux. Because we're trying to decide on what kind of interface you want, you know, and we don't, you know, you might want something very Windows like, but you might want something totally different, something more minimalist. So, right, right. So as you're thinking about which distribution to use, you might want to look at what Linux calls desktop (22/46)
environments. That's what they call the interface, right? Mm hmm. So one place you could go is to look at DistroWatch. DistroWatch is a website that gives you a listing of some of the most popular Linux distributions. And for most of them, if not all of them, there are screenshots. So you can take a quick look at the way they present things, how it looks. You know, is, is there a menu bar at all? Is the menu at the top, on the side, on the bottom? And of course, with most Linux distributions, you can change those to wherever you want. But oftentimes you want to pick one that is as close to the way you want to use it in its default configuration. That way you have to configure less. And so they, they, you might want to take a look at the different projects and see if any of those work for you. And they, what they show you on DistroWatch can give you an idea of what you need. And we have a few suggestions and we've discussed them on the podcast in the past. But you can really try (23/46)
anything you want and we'll have a link to DistroWatch and putting fun back into computing. It says use Linux or BSD. So that's another option. You can also use BSD. Not that we know an awful lot about it, but there you go. Well, we know almost nothing about BSD. So, you know, first thing you mean you actually get to choose what desktop environment you want. Yeah, right out of the box. Yeah, that's in some people that might be kind of overwhelming. So that's why we kind of suggest going to DistroWatch. The, I would suggest, you know, because they have a list of the top 100. Take, take a little time and look through them because some of the ones like Linux Mint is up there pretty high, like third or fourth. But another really great one is I think at like 24th, I think is Ubuntu Mate, but it's rising in the ranks. So, you know, just because it's on a list doesn't mean it's not great. So take your time and look through them. There are more things to consider than just the way it looks. (24/46)
Yes. And probably there are more important things to consider than just the way it looks. Because, as I said earlier, you can actually change the way that Linux looks to suit your taste. And you're better off selecting a Linux distribution that meets your needs from a what do I want to get done perspective. And am I a sophisticated user who is willing to dig in and learn how to configure things? Or am I someone who just wants things to work? And if you're in the just wants things to work category, then Mint or Ubuntu Mate are probably a couple of the best for you. If you're one who wants to tinker, you can get into OpenSUSE or Fedora or many of the others that are out there. Depends on what you want to do. So read up on them. Oh, you forgot to mention an Arch-based one. You'll be in trouble. So we got Monjero and you've got Integros. Or if you really want to tinker around, Pingai. Yeah, but that's not really an Arch-based. No, no, not at all. But one of the things that is very (25/46)
important and what we're kind of focusing on, we're coming at this not for someone who has run Linux before, but someone who has had basically Windows 10 and doesn't know quite how to change desktops yet. Everybody learns over time. So that's why I think this is important. You've got to like the desktop interface. And I always suggest, and I guess you can call it a bias, to look at the Debian-based ones. And those include Ubuntu Mate, Linux Mint, Debian, of course, Ubuntu. And then all the derivatives of Ubuntu. They just seem to have more support. So with Snaps and Flatpak becoming more and more prevalent, that's not quite as big an issue as it used to be. Because software that you could only get here or was easy to get here was a little tougher. That's kind of going away. So pick the one that you like. And that kind of leads us into this next part. So you've decided. You've found the perfect one. Great. What do you do now? Well, first, you need to download it. Most of them have nice (26/46)
links. I download here and they'll ask you, do you want 32 or 64? Now, if you're running a fairly new processor on a full-size laptop or a desktop, you can pretty much assume a 64. But I'll tell you how to go about finding out what type of processor you have when you're running Windows. Because this is very important. Like I learned the hard way, 32-bit software doesn't run as good on 64. You remember that whole debacle. Anyway, you can go into your Windows menu and type system information. And it'll pop up a dialog. And it'll go down. It tells you how much RAM you have, whether its license is activated. But in that list, it says this is a X64 and a processor. But you'll see a 64. And if you don't see a 64, you'll probably run a 32. And it usually says 32 something. It's been so long since I've run a 32, I can't remember what it looks like. But you'll see 64 or 32. If you see 64, you're pretty much assuming that's the version that you want. Right. And when you're downloading the Linux (27/46)
file, the file that ends in .iso, to burn to a DVD or to put on a thumb drive for your installation, it will tell you whether it's 32-bit or 64-bit, usually. And if it says X86, that is typically a 32-bit version. But if it says AMD followed by something, that is usually the 64-bit version. And even though your processor might be Intel rather than AMD, the AMD in the name doesn't mean that it only works on AMD processors. It is a categorization of the 64-bit that happens to use the AMD initials. So even though it says AMD, it'll work on any 64-bit computer, regardless of the processor. That's the one thing that kind of confuses people. And I wish that more distributions would make that clearer, that this is the 32-bit version, this is a 64-bit version, and forget the nomenclature around AMD. That just makes it confusing. Yeah, you're actually right. We've had a few questions from one of our listeners way back saying, can I run this because this is AMD, but I have an Intel chip. So the (28/46)
reason they do that is the Intel chips and AMD chips share different, not extensions, but processes. And so for some reason they decide on AMD. I don't know why. Don't ask me. So once you decided and you found out what type of CPU you have, then the next part is getting it burnt to either a USB key or a DVD. Do I need matches for this? Huh? Do I need matches for this to burn it? Yeah, burning. Well, let me, let me, burning. To make the installation software media. Yeah. Okay. There you go. Yes, that's what we're talking about. Yeah. Thank you, Larry. So we've got you covered. Ubuntu has great step-by-step and I've included the links in the show notes. Now you might say, well, I'm not downloading Ubuntu. That really doesn't matter. You'll just substitute your downloaded ISO image that you've downloaded from your preferred distribution and just follow the steps. It works with any distribution. And this tells you how to do it from Windows. And it's actually pretty neat. They have a, okay, (29/46)
do this. And when you click it, it checks it as you complete it. So there's no way to really mess it up or forget what step was I on. So they went, they've really done a nice job. And there's two separate pages, one's for the DVDs and one is to create a USB stick. And I look through them and they're really, really, really good. I thought that they did a heck of a good job. Yeah, nicely designed. It really is. Yeah, it really is. They did a nice job on it. And it's not confusing. It's plain English. They don't ask you to assemble, you know, a hypercube or anything like that. It's like, okay, you need this. And they tell you what you need before you even start. So everything's laid out. So, yeah, use these guides. And at the bottom of the guides, it actually even tells you how to check some of your download. And you want to explain what that is, Larry? Yeah, so whenever there's a file on the Internet, there is a way to determine whether that file, after you've downloaded it, is exactly (30/46)
the same as the one that was posted. Because there's a risk, a very small risk, but there's a risk that the file could get corrupted in that download process. And there's a code that is generated by looking at the file itself. And if two files are absolutely identical, that code will be the same. And that's what they're using, is a code like that. And they will typically post that code along with the file. And if you get that file onto your computer, you can run that same... What's it called? It's not CRC. What's the... And the checksum. The checksum, yeah. So once you've downloaded it, you can run that checksum routine on your computer, which most computers have pre-installed. You don't have to go get it. And then you just check that checksum and see if it's the same as the one they posted on the download site. And if it is, you're absolutely certain that you've got exactly the same file. Okay. So if you're getting it from their site, that's just an additional step. And it's not (31/46)
really hard to do. And they have to walk you through it. So it's considered a little bit of homework to try it out. But if you're getting it directly from their site, and that's something I encourage, get it from the developer's site, whether it be Ubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, Linux Mint. Don't download it from a third-party source. Always get it from the developers. Right. Always good advice. Yeah. So, okay, Larry, I've downloaded it. I've burned it. I've checked it. It's ready to go. But I want to make sure this thing works before I totally blow away my Windows. Do I have to go in this blind? Or, you know, what do I do now? Okay. So most Linux distributions allow you to try their distribution before you buy. And you're not going on a website and using some sort of mock-up of it. No. Once you have your CD or your DVD or USB stick, when you reboot your computer to complete the installation, before you install it, there's usually some sort of menu selection, or it'll automatically boot into a (32/46)
mode that allows you to try it out. It will run the actual Linux distribution from your install media, the entire operating system, not some sort of small subset of it, but the entire operating system, and will let you try it out. So you can use the web browser. You can use the word processor. You can use any of the software that's installed. You can sometimes even install software applications to see how that works. There are a couple of features that are disabled related to actual use of your computer so that you don't harm anything. But for the most part, the vast majority of everything you could use once it's installed is operational when you are using it from the live media, whether that's a DVD, a CD, a USB stick, or some other thing that we don't know how you would install it, but maybe there's something else out there that we're not aware of. Anyway, you get a chance to try it before you buy it. Make sure your hardware works. Make sure everything works the way you expect it to. (33/46)
So during that time, you can use it to test out apps and usually they are pretty good. You'll see the software for office software. You'll see web browsers. So you can kind of use it to kind of get familiar with it and get comfortable and see how things work and see how the interface works without ever touching your Windows install. And this is kind of a good thing because if you've been using Windows, things might work a little differently. And so if you have a day or two and you've never used Linux and you want to get comfortable with it, because the worst thing is you just jump in and it's like, I don't know how to do anything. So you're not going in cold. Larry, that's such a great idea of try it before you install it. I've done that before and I usually run it a few days just to see how it runs. Now just a caveat there, if you're running it from a DVD, if you open up applications since everything's being run in memory and not from the hard drive, which is faster, it's going to be (34/46)
a little slower. If you're running from USB, I found it's pretty quick. So just keep that in mind, it's not going to run at full speed, but it's pretty quick because once it's in memory, it's fast. Yeah, exactly. If you're used to using an old computer running Windows, it's probably going to run equally fast too, especially from a USB stick. In fact, I've used it, I've used Ubuntu Mache from a live USB stick to run for several days while I was waiting for my computer to be repaired by Dell. And yeah, it worked just fine. I was able to download Audacity. We actually recorded a going Linux podcast episode using Ubuntu Mache running from a USB stick. You recorded that one using USB? Yes, yes I did. I didn't even know that. That's amazing. All right. Yep. Okay, so this is a good time to spend it, because you're getting ready to change how you do everything. It's a good time just to make sure everything works. And this is always, it's not as much of an issue as before, but it's good because (35/46)
you make sure your Wi-Fi works and your display is displaying correctly. Yeah, it saves a lot of headaches. Yeah, a lot of headaches. So here's what we've got, we've done so far. We've chosen the distribution that we wanted. We've downloaded the distribution. We've made our install media. We've made sure our hardware supports the hardware. And then number five is an optional, which we highly encourage. Run the distribution and become familiar with it and the installed apps on the live media. And I think that that's kind of a good, I know it's a little extra work, but you're investing a little time, but I pretty much guarantee it's probably quicker than updating a Windows 10 install with all the new drivers. So what else can you tell us, Larry? Well, so after you've settled on the Linux distribution that you like, the next step is, especially if you're going to blow away Windows, and even if you're not, it's good practice to do this anyway, save the files that you want to keep off of (36/46)
the Windows drive. So anything you've created in the way of documents, anything that you've downloaded and saved for later, pictures, other things you don't want to lose, make a backup copy, and I suggest you do that to a portable USB drive or some other media where you can save them off of the computer in case something goes horribly wrong with the installation of Linux. Or more likely, you accidentally select the blow everything away option when you wanted to run Linux in parallel with Windows so that you could use the two of them together, but you accidentally wipe it out. So do a backup, do a backup, do a backup. There, I said it three times, plus, so hopefully that'll sink into some people. So let's take a look at some of the ways that we can do this, Bill, not the backups, but saving the important stuff you want. And so why don't you give us the first one, Bill? The one method I use is I've used a USB drive, a little key drive, and you just go to your files, and I copy the files (37/46)
and then put them on USB. And you said, well, why don't you just move them? Well, two reasons. One, I want to make sure I get everything, so once I copy all my files over, I can actually look at both of them and say, okay, I've got everything I want. And then the other one is I don't want to take the chance of moving the original and something happened in the bad sector on the USB drive or power goes out just when I'm doing it and I've just pretty much lost because I just took it right out and didn't make a copy. So it's just kind of a safety thing for me. I wish I would have done this before because I've actually had where a certain dog who will go unnamed chewed through the cord and it died just as it was transferring the file, and I lost it. So, yeah, it's just a safety thing for me. And everything, you just get a chance to make sure you get everything. And, yes, it takes a little time, but when you use Windows for so many years or you upgrade and upgraded, you've accumulated a lot (38/46)
of stuff like wedding photos, kids' birthdays and songs that you like, videos of the kids writing on the walls, et cetera, that you don't want to lose those memories. So this gives you time to say, okay, did I get everything? Have I looked in all these places? Because not everything is put in the same place. If you have a program, it might store certain things in that program's save folders and not in documents. So it gives you time to actually, okay, I need to make sure I get everything. Now that works if you don't have large amounts of files. If you know your average user, you can get 16 gigabyte USB keys, and that usually holds about pretty much anything you want. But if you have really large files like video files or you have a lot of songs or you have a lot of PowerPoint or reports or audio books or whatever that are large, then I suggest using a USB hard drive. And that basically is a full hard drive that you can just put all your files on. And it's faster, it holds more, and (39/46)
that way you have all your data. Right. Yeah, they make USB drives up to, I think I've seen them as large as six gigabytes for the desktop versions, you know, the big ones. They have them as network versions and USB versions. You mean six terabytes, right? Six terabytes. Yeah, six terabytes. Yeah, yeah. Six gigabytes. Wow. So six terabytes. Yeah. And I've seen the thin portable drives, you know, USB the size of a wallet or a phone or something like that. I've seen those as large as four terabytes. They're fairly expensive compared to the 16. But the four terabyte ones are what I've seen there and the USB sticks themselves. I've seen those. I think I've seen them up to a terabyte in size, maybe two for the full size ones. But I have a laptop. I like to use the little USB sticks that don't stick out very far. So I don't accidentally knock them out of the USB port and damage the port. They're about the size of those, you know, the little Logitech nubs that connect your Bluetooth or (40/46)
wireless. Oh, that's high now? Wow. Yes. And I have one in my hands here that is that is 256 gigabytes in size. And I ordered that one because it was less expensive than a 512 gigabyte one that they also offered. So I know you can get those pretty big. And my computer has a 500 gig hard drive in it. So I figured, you know, I never fill that up to capacity. So the 256 is fine and I can do whatever backups I need of files onto that and still not risk bumping it and damaging the USB port or whatever. So anyway, there you go. That's a couple of options for you. Well, I know you've always said that one copy is not really good enough and you really want to have a physical copy and an offsite copy. So can you still can you do that when you're moving? Is there another way that you can just just for safety to move to have another copy that you don't have physical? I mean, how would you do that? What would you use? Yeah. So you could take that thumb drive and then mail it to a relative halfway (41/46)
across the country. That would be one way. Not very quick. But if you want something a little more instantaneous, you want online storage. That's a good way to do it, like Dropbox or Google Drive. Those are free versions of storage or can be free depending on how much you have to store. There are others out there and there are some open source versions like Spider Oak and things like that that you can use. So just that offsite safety net. It's in the cloud. You could use any sort of cloud storage and then you'll have more than two copies of your important files. Yeah, that's actually a pretty clever idea. But you get us like on Dropbox and Google Drive. I have both and I have you can buy. I think I think my Google Drive for 500 gigs is like two dollars a month and you can cancel any time. So, OK, I'll throw two bucks at Google so I can store all my stuff when I'm done. I can just tell them I'm not going to need any more money. So that's one way to do it. And you can also pay for, I (42/46)
think it's Dropbox for one terabyte. It's like ten dollars a month and you can cancel any time. So it's not a huge, huge expense. But if you need that extra storage, throw ten bucks at it and that way you have it backed up. And then when you're done, you can say, I don't need it anymore. I can go back to basic and you still have those files in case something happens. You lose the USB. USB goes bad. It's hardware. Things happen. Yeah, exactly. I know this might seem like we're taking this kind of slow and going over some obvious stuff, but we want to make this a good experience. And it also gives you time to go through your systems and get everything you want. And so, you know, we've been using Windows for a long time. So, you know, you've got a lot of stuff. So let's take our time and make sure we get everything because you don't want any regret. You just want this to be really easy. And so, you know, I don't think that this is a waste of time because, you know, once you get it up and (43/46)
running, you pretty much it will just run. But so how much more homework can we give them? I think we've given them enough homework for now. You know, this episode was really meant for the person just considering moving over to Linux. Maybe you've already tried it. Maybe you've done some of these things. But for those people who haven't, this was how do I start? How do I get going on this? And in our next episode, where we will be talking about moving from Windows to Linux, we'll get into a little more depth once you've installed Linux. Or how do I install Linux? And once I've got it installed, what do I do now? That kind of thing. So the next episode might be for the people who have already made that leap from the perspective of, hey, I want to try Linux rather than Windows to I've already installed Linux. Where do I go from here? Right? Yeah, I think that's a really good thing. So we don't have to give them any more homework, but it does give them time. So anybody saying, OK, I've (44/46)
got time. Let me find what I want. Let me get all my stuff together so the next one I can get everything installed. I can get it working and we'll have some suggestions and stuff. So I'm really excited for anybody to decide and go over. We hope you find this helpful. I know it's kind of basic for some of the other users that are already on Linux, but we want to make this is we want it to be fun, but it won't be a good experience. And so I thought it would be good just to kind of go over some of the things because I know because Larry's laughed at me that I've forgotten to back up files I didn't want to lose. And I just went ahead and nuked and paved. And then I sit there and regret it. It's funny when it's not happening to you. Yes, it's funny when it's not happening to you. And I don't want anybody's marriages to end badly because you deleted all your wedding photos or anything like that because then I don't want to come and blame me. Yeah. Anyway, more on our next user-experienced (45/46)
episode, but our next episode will be listener feedback. So until then, you can go to our website at goinglinux.com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and subscribe. And if you'd like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our Going Linux podcast, Google Plus Community. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (46/46)
Going Linux episode 373, listener feedback. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. 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 goinglinx.gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. That should be no surprise to anyone. Hey, Bill, how are you? Good, Larry. How are you this fine day? Wonderful. I am continuously impressed that every other episode, we have enough email and feedback and audio recording to fill up an entire episode. This is great. Our community is wonderful. Yeah, we even got Nancy who sent us a voice submission, (1/46)
which we love. Yeah. We haven't heard from Nancy in a while, so thanks, Nancy. Why don't we just jump right in and play that audio feedback from Nancy? All right. Okay. Here we go. Hi, Larry and Bill. I wanted to talk about the lady that overbought her computer. First of all, knowing that she is not tech savvy, she may have misrepresented to the salesman what she needed based on her understanding, and he may have sold her based on what she told him, rather than doing what a good salesman should, and really figure out what she really needed. Also, when we think of accountants, we think of spreadsheets, but an accountant uses other software. If she is a practicing accountant, she's probably not just using QuickBooks. She may be very well using some other proprietary software, which may need the professional version of Windows. Windows 10 Professional gives you a lot more control over software updates than Windows 10 Home, although Microsoft has relaxed some of the requirements for (2/46)
software update, probably based on customer backlash and market testing. But the professional version does still have a lot more control over when the updates are applied. You do also, with the professional version, have quite a bit of control over when restarts happen after installation. So, yeah, she's got basically three points. Maybe the lady overbought the computer because that's what she told the salesperson she needed. Maybe she uses something other than spreadsheets. I think our comment on spreadsheets was more of an offhanded, kind of meant to be a half joke sort of thing. But you're right, Nancy, QuickBooks and other proprietary software is probably what she needs. And her point on the professional version of Windows 10 giving you more control over updates and when you apply them and when the restarts happen. So, yeah, what do you think, Bill, on any one of those? I can't argue with her. She made great points and she's exactly right. The only thing is, we had talked about, I (3/46)
was helping a person with one of their Windows 10 installs. A different person, right? Yeah, a different person. And I think the Home and Pro versions of Windows 10, I think they have it where you can pause an update for seven days. But that's it on the new one. I'm not sure because I remember looking at it and there was a new button because this was the latest version of pushing out over the 1803. Or I think this is 1903, whatever they call it. And also I was listening to Windows Weekly and I believe they said that now you're able to pause the updates for seven days. And then Enterprise, they can pause it for 30 days. But there's another thing where they can push it off for a year or whatever, but or a couple of years because they're managed by IT, they have to have a special program, I think, to do it. I don't know. Side note, I think both of them can do seven days. So I don't know what the advantage of a Pro. I know Pro has some additional features that is just for Pro users. But I (4/46)
don't have to buy an advanced copy of Linux Pro or anything. I get everything from the base install. No, just kidding. But yeah, so I think they did listen to feedback from their users. And they did put that where they can pause it for seven days. But after that, I don't think you can. Don't take it. No Windows bashing it. I think that's what I observed. And if I'm wrong, please let me know. I'm sure they will. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard the similar sorts of things. I don't listen to Windows Weekly anymore. I haven't for a long time, but I do listen to the Mike Tech Show podcast from Mike Smith. He's a Windows tech and a Mac tech that helps people with their hardware and software and manages servers and things like that. So I may have this not quite right because I don't use Windows on a regular basis. But my understanding is there are a few differences between the home version and the Pro version, as you just described, or the enterprise version of Windows. And I think if I've got this (5/46)
right, there may be a difference between the way it would be set up for home, which is you're not on a domain. You're not managed domain where there are multiple computers networked together. And on a domain, there may be some additional tools or some additional settings in Windows 10 itself that give you more flexibility and more control over the updates and how long you can push them off. I heard something about BitLocker being included in it. I don't know. There's certain things that Pro users have. So, you know, so Nancy, again, you were exactly right on all those points. Thank you for straighten us out because she was she was right. Yeah, and she was nice about it. So thanks. And she was nice. She didn't say I was an idiot. So that's always a good thing. She didn't say either one of us was an idiot. And that's a bonus. OK. That's a bonus. All right. So Frank provided a comment on the file manager Flummox. He said, I find myself puzzled by Larry's assertion in episode 372 regarding (6/46)
having multiple desktop environments installed in an OS, in particular, his statement that the file managers associated with the different desktop environments may conflict leaves me scratching my head. The only conflict that I can think of is related to preferred applications. For example, if you have KDE and MATE installed on a computer, as I do over there on the right, you've put Kaja, may want to open a video in VLC and Dolphin may want to open it in Dragon Player. I find this to be hardly, as we used to say on the road, a critical defect. It's at most an irritation and one easily remedied if one cares to remedy it in system settings. Perhaps my puzzle one is related to my having started my Linux experience with Slackware, which comes out of the box with two desktop environments and four window managers. I have commonly run multiple desktop environments because though I am not necessarily a fan of KDE, I usually use Fluxbox as my graphical user interface. I am a fan of KDE (7/46)
applications, which, in my humble opinion, kick GNOME applications to the curb. So I tend to install KDE on any distro I'm using. I'm curious to hear whether you can give an example or examples of critical conflicts between multiple desktop environments on a single OS. Thanks. Frank, yeah, I agree with you that these are not critical defects. I don't think I use the term critical or critical conflicts. The conflict that you mentioned about preferred applications is the one I had in mind when I was talking about conflicts between the settings for the different desktop environments. And as long as your KDE desktop and your GNOME desktop and your Matei desktop and your Cinnamon desktop all installed in the same operating system have the same settings for preferred applications, then no conflict, no problem. But there may be others. I don't have any in mind, any conflicts between multiples, but that's definitely the one that I had in mind. So you're right on point, Frank. And I think that (8/46)
your point is well taken that these are not critical things that are difficult to resolve. They could be confusing to a new user, though, who has suddenly the ability to install multiple desktop environments and doesn't know that this is coming. Right. There may be a little difference in the way they work as well. You know, there's some features in Cinnamon's desktop environment, the file manager in particular, that are not provided in some of the other desktop environments file managers. So and same with KDE, it has some things available in there that are not available to others. I'm thinking about things like the newly announced for Cinnamon, the newly announced ability to script right click context menus in Cinnamon's file manager that isn't available in many others. I mean, sure, you could make it work in others. And I seem to remember quite a few years ago having the ability in one of the file managers to actually create your own right click menus from within the file manager (9/46)
itself, which is my understanding what Cinnamon is doing. But it's been a long time, so I may be remembering that completely incorrectly. Anyway, bottom line here is, Frank, you're right. And I don't know of any critical conflicts, but there are certainly some things that you need to be aware of if you're a new user to Linux and suddenly you have the ability to use multiple desktop environments. Don't expect them to work identically to one another. That's why we have different desktop environments. Now, Frank was right. None of these are critical, Larry, but I would consider them annoyances. I'll give you an example of annoyance. So when I was running Ubuntu Mate, the file manager, it does the same thing, but I was used to the Ubuntu known version of it. So it's different, it's similar enough, but certain things didn't feel the same and I had to sit there and think about it. At one time I installed a video player to come with Ubuntu and I didn't know how to set at that time the (10/46)
preferred applications. So every time I would open it, I found I didn't like it. So I couldn't figure out for a little while why it kept opening this file manager, this video player, and I wanted the other one. So it's a simple thing, but it's not necessarily transparent if you're new. And I think that's what we were trying to get at is, you know, someone says, oh, I'd like this program. And then so when you install a KDE app, I'm almost 100% sure it has to install a bunch of the QT backend to make it work, if I'm not too badly mistaken. So what you were trying to get at is that the programs essentially do the same thing. Some of them do more than others. Some of them do it the same way and some of it does the same things, but does it a different way. So it's sometimes confusing because you might say, oh, I really want this because I like the way it looks, but it's a QT application and not a known. So not everybody's going to know that they can set the preferred applications in their (11/46)
OS. Does that make sense? Right. It does. It does. Yeah. So I think that's basic ways, but Frank's right. There's nothing that's critical. There are annoyances. But once you know how to set the preferred applications, it's usually not an issue. And the problem is when you install, like I'm running a stock Ubuntu 1904, we are kind of guilty of our own success because we give the distributions, give everything to get it to work. You've got your web browser, you've got your office suite, you've got your video players, you've got your music players. So when someone wants something else and it's different, they don't usually tell you, OK, by the way, you probably want to set this as your default application. So that's documentation because most people install it and it just works. And so, yeah, so I didn't know for a little while that I could set what I wanted to open for certain files. And once I did, it doesn't make a difference. But that whole new user thing is like sometimes they won't (12/46)
know. So Frank's right. Right. Thanks. OK, our next feedback is from Kerbuntu who asks about moving settings in Ubuntu. Dear Larry and Bill, going Linux is one of the staples of my podcast diet. So I thank you for 373 informationally nutritious digital servings. And note that at the rate you're going, the celebration of going Linux episode number 400 is only 14 months away. Given any thought as to how to celebrate that milestone? Not yet, Kerbuntu. So if you have any ideas, let us know. I wonder if you could point me to a fast way of moving settings from one Ubuntu MATE installation to another. I don't mean copying the current installation to another hard drive. Instead, I'm looking for a way to transport a block of settings like customized keyboard settings and key combinations, for example, from a computer that's being, quote, perfectly customized to a new installation. That would save a lot of tweaking time hassle on the new setup. I'm tempted to throw in a few other questions, but (13/46)
I think that's enough for this email. Thanks for your regular contributions to the community. Regards, Kerbuntu. Yeah, Kerbuntu. Yeah. So thanks. Yeah. Send all your questions. We can use it. We'll answer as many as we can and we'll deflect. Or try. Yeah, exactly. So, I have some very specific things that I have in mind here. What about you, Bill? Any suggestions? Actually, yeah. So in your home folder, if you go and look, you'll have to enable to show hidden files. So if you do that, you'll see a bunch of configuration files. I don't know, Larry, if that's what you were thinking of, but... It's exactly what I was thinking of. So you could copy those onto, I guess, like a USB drive, thumb drive, and then you could copy it to your new install. But the only thing I'm wondering is if he doesn't have the, you know, say he has like four or five different programs installed and should he install those programs before he, you know, copies those back? You know, it doesn't matter whether (14/46)
they're there before or after. What happens is if you copy them over... So these are the dot folders, right? With all the settings, they're hidden folders. And on most of the file managers, you type control H and that enables them. Otherwise, there's something in the view menu that lets you view hidden files and folders. Yeah. Yeah. So if you copy them over first, when you install the application, it begins using those configurations and everything is set the way you normally would. If you install the applications first and you run the application before you've moved over your configuration files, it will set up new configuration files. But when you copy them over, it's going to offer to overwrite them, you know, the ones that it created with the ones that you're copying over. And the ones that it created are going to have a more recent creation date. So just be careful there. And if you do overwrite them, then it's going to work just as it was before. In fact, what you and I are (15/46)
suggesting here, Bill, is exactly what I do when I get a new hard drive or when I create a new installation from scratch of Ubuntu Mate or whatever. Distribution I'm using or if I want to set up exactly the same configuration settings in a second computer or in a virtual machine or whatever, I use those configuration files and I use them selectively. So I back up everything in my home folder, which is where those configuration files typically reside. So I back everything up onto an external hard drive. And then when I do a fresh install, I copy back, you know, the desktop folder, if I have anything there, documents and downloads and the going Linux folder. Yes, I have one of those pictures and templates and videos and all the standard folders. Right. But then what I do is I ensure that I copy over the .config folder. I use Dropbox, so I copy over the .dropbox folder and I copy over any configuration folders right there in my home directory that relate to software that I'm going to (16/46)
install on the new system. So if there's something that I've stopped using or something that I'd prefer to set up with new configuration settings, I don't copy that over. That .config folder, by the way, and I think this does not matter what desktop environment you're using. I think it works in very similar way, especially if you're using a Debian derivative. If you're reusing a Red Hat derivative, it may be a little bit different to some of these locations. But in that .config folder, you'll find things like the file manager settings, preferences, things for anything that comes with your machine, like the text editor, the the doc, you know, the icon doc, LibreOffice, all those will be in there. Any base level application that comes with your system and has preference settings, typically you'll find them there. So that's a good one to start with. Make sure you copy that one. But many of the other applications themselves will have their own configuration folder right there in your in (17/46)
your own personal home folder and just copy those over. That will take care of 99 percent of the application settings that you're talking about kerbunto. So I think that's the recommendation. There may be tools for moving those over. But hey, just click and drag or Rsync or something like that. Just make sure that if you're using a command line tool that you choose the switches and options that allow you to move hidden folders and files. That's the secret. I like to drop and drag method. Exactly. Me too. I'm a graphical user interface kind of guy. Yeah. So our next email comes from Highlander who commented, isn't this odd? Not long ago, I sent an email regarding voice phone call security. Stuff like this happens. And there's four links to some news stories that we put in the show notes. And he writes, the first one is Rogers has experienced a network outage, two outage problems at mobile service providers causing voice service issues, three causing of wireless outage, unclear telus. (18/46)
Bell said it originated with other carriers. And fourth is massive Rogers wireless outage. Now isn't Rogers a Canadian carrier, Larry? Yeah, so Highlander is in Canada. Telus is a telephone company up there. Bell is a telephone company up there. And Rogers is a, they're a cable TV company. I think they offer wireless as well. So there you go. So he finishes his email by saying, I really don't know if there's any connection. Maybe, you know, maybe the hackers that caused all these outages, uh, listen to going Linux and heard your comments highlighter. And that's a direct result of, of your comments. But again, maybe I was pulling out these fuses in wireless in Canada. And I don't know if that happened. Yeah, that, yeah, nothing at all. Moving right along. Moving right along. Josh has a software recommendation. I recently checked out a new piece of software and wanted to recommend it to you and the community. It's NextCloud Pie, and he provides a link that we'll have in the show notes. (19/46)
NextCloud is a suite of client server software for creating and using file hosting services. It's functionally similar to Dropbox. Although NextCloud is free and open source, allowing anyone to install and operate it on a private server. NextCloud Pie makes setting up a server on a Raspberry Pi very attainable to novices like myself. It uses a GUI to set up all the different configurations that I need included, but not limited to cron job for IP changes, cert bot for security certificates, and even a couple free and open domain services, all for a computer that costs me less than $100, including the external hard drive. Last year, I sat up an own cloud server and it took me almost a week to figure out. Using NextCloud Pie, it took about an hour. If you haven't checked it out, it might be good use for new Raspberry Pi or for an old one, since you might have an extra one that's been replaced by a Pi 4. Thanks for excellent podcast, Josh. All right, so Bill, there you go. You're looking (20/46)
at maybe getting a Raspberry Pi. This might be just the thing for you. I don't I have enough to do with. Yeah, I don't think you do. Come on. You know, there's only so much that the Going Lays podcast Tech Lab can handle. Yeah, this is very tempting. Yeah, it is. I have a Pi 3 collecting dust right now. This might be something I would install on there. So maybe we'll have a review of this in a future episode. But in the meantime, if you're interested, we'll have the link in the show notes. Larry, you like anything that's efficient. Yes, true. Guilty. So Benjamin writes us and he has a problem booting Linux ISOs on a Windows 10 1903. Oh, didn't we just talk about 1903? OK, OK, breathe. OK, so he writes, Hi, guys, I'm having a bare of a time booting Linux ISOs from USB ISOs. I'm trying to boot a Sabian 1309 Mate. I have a i3 Dell laptop with eight gigabytes of RAM. I'm using Rufus with GPD UEFI options selected. I hit F12 immediately upon seeing the Dell logo at startup, and I see my USB (21/46)
UEFI ready to be highlighted. I thought I had a successful image, but the boot process hangs up partway through, leaving me at some sort of prompt. So I tried reburning the ISO using the same Rufus settings. Now I just boot into Dell Assist after selecting the USB. I'm on the not so greatest of Windows 10 versions, 1903. Sabian seems to support UEFI, but getting to boot has been partially hit, but mostly missed. Any suggestions? Thanks. I was having similar issues when I tried to use UEFI. I found I just go into BIOS and enable legacy. Yep. And I think that's exactly what the setting says on Dell's is enable legacy boot. And made sure secure boot was off and it worked. So I don't know if that's an option, but you could give that a try if you're willing to try that. For some reason, I have never been able to get Sabian to boot successfully on my Alienware. And Alienware is owned by Dell. So I know what he's talking about when it boots to the assist and it wants to check all the memory (22/46)
and all that stuff. And you have to hit escape. So I would suggest that everything else seems to work. Okay, if Fedora is a hit or miss, but almost all the Ubuntu's and Debian seem to work just fine. So I would say if you want one that will probably work out of the box without having to tinker too much. And if you want Amate, look at Ubuntu Amate because they both have the same desktop. And frankly, about the only thing you're really losing is that Sabian is a rolling release. So it's always getting updates and Ubuntu Amate is on the Ubuntu release cycle. But if you go with the 1904, you'll have some of the latest and greatest. Or you can go with the 1804, which is the long term support, which is still support for another two or three years. So, yeah, give that a whirl. And do you have any ideas, Larry? Yeah, a couple. Thinking about what could be the cause of this. If this is a brand new Dell, it may be that the computer has a hardware problem. I ran into that with the very first XPS (23/46)
13 that I purchased. It would continuously go into the Dell Assist and it would boot Windows fine. But if I did anything at all to go into the UEFI settings, it would always try to go back to Dell Assist. And then after a while, it wouldn't even boot into Windows. And of course, I was trying to get Ubuntu installed on there. And I was following Dell's instructions on how to do that. And it just wasn't working out. Turns out that it was, in fact, a hardware problem. I sent it back and rather than fix it, they just sent me a new computer and that worked just fine. After that, I didn't have that problem. I did have to go in and use the enable legacy boot option. I have had other Dells where I didn't have to do that. And it really depends on the model. It depends on which version of UEFI they have installed. And so there could be a number of different things going on here. But if it's still under warranty, I would have them check out the hardware, make sure that it's still OK. There could (24/46)
be a problem there. And failing that, yeah, turning on legacy boot or turning off secure boot, whichever setting is in your UEFI. That's the suggestion that I would have as the first suggestion beyond checking out the hardware. I have one more. Check to see if he has the most up-to-date BIOS release. Oh, yes. Yes, that's a good one as well. Yeah, update the BIOS. That could have an impact on it. Those UEFI settings are often updated in those BIOS updates and it could be you got a problem there. So check those things out. I think that's enough to get you started. And if you've tried all of those, write back Benjamin. And if you get it fixed, write back as well and let us know what fixed it for you. David provided a Minty update. Hi, Larry. Hi, Bill. Sorry, Bill, you only get top billing if you pay your bill. I just noticed this in the Linux Mint monthly news posted yesterday as of the day he sent the email in. Thought I'd pointed out to you in case you're interested and otherwise would (25/46)
not have seen it. We'll have a link to that news post provided by David. But just a quick summary. Talking with the media is what it's entitled. A new Slack team was started for journalists, bloggers, YouTubers and podcasters to get in touch with us directly and more easily. The idea behind this team is for the media to be able to quickly ask us questions, for us to give scoops and for this blog to not be the only source of information about Linux Mint. We also encourage authors to let us know about their videos, articles and podcasts. That allows us to talk with them privately, to react to their content, to answer questions it might raise and to explain design decisions. Sometimes the content leads to improvements with Linux Mint, and it's also nice to be able to follow up. If you're a journalist, a blogger, a YouTuber or a podcaster and you're interested in getting in touch with us, let us know by email. If your media is serious and doesn't show by us or promote controversies, we'll (26/46)
be delighted to work with you and share more information about us and the projects we work on. And David signs his email bestest and he doesn't fill out the rest that he normally fills out. I think he's given up on that. We've read it so many times, it almost comes to mind right away, memorized all that. So David in Israel, thank you very much. Yeah, thanks, David. And that's that's a nice feature that should help get more news about that will help. Yeah, and less fake news. Yeah, that's fake news. You had to use that fake news, didn't you? Just once. OK, Jim has answers for the grub question in episode 371, Dear Larry and Bill. Regarding episode 371, Ubuntu LTS long term support releases are supported for five years, I think. Don't hold me to that, but I know that 1604 is supported until April 2021 or five years. Why won't she boot? Ro, sorry about the spelling, because he spelled it R-O-E, asked why she won't boot. I'm not certain, but this might help. He is trying to boot from a USB (27/46)
drive. In my experience, you need to install Linux to a USB drive and not other hard drives connected. During installation, Grub configures itself to boot from the USB, but also adds the other hard drives in its configuration. I found this out when trying to make a USB bootable thumb drive to boot any computer for diagnostics. After installing Linux, Ubuntu MATE to the USB when plugged into computer one and later trying to run MATE from the USB plugged into computer two, I found errors as it was trying to find the missing drives. The missing drives were, of course, in the original computer one and not accessible to the USB drive system plugged into computer two. So my solution was to internally unplug all hard drives from the computer when I was installing MATE on the USB drive. Then Grub did not try to find any hard drives and just boot whatever the USB drive was plugged into. Of course, I had to open the computer cases, which Ro might not be able to do with a laptop. He might be able (28/46)
to use a desktop that he hopefully has access to. Another option is to configure Grub so it does not search for other drives. I am sure there is an instruction on the internet on how to do that, but I have never tried. I just yanked the SATA cables on a test computer and be done with it. However, my advice to Ro is to use dual boot and forget the USB boot stuff. You can tweak Grub to make a delay in booting as fast as you want. That may even be a way to hold some key down during boot to display the dual boot menu, but have it default with no delay in the default system. This way there is no external drive either, making the laptop more portable. I am not certain about all this as I am certainly not a Grub expert, but maybe this will point Ro to some help. Sub minion Jim, we have sub minions now? Apparently, yes, of course. Okay, so Jim, thanks for all that advice. Yeah, the Grub is a blessing and a curse. It is a wonderful way to control the booting of your computer to multiple hard (29/46)
drives and or multiple operating systems. And it is well documented how to do the kinds of things that you're suggesting here. But quite frankly, I do the same thing if I want a computer to boot to a specific hard drive, I will ensure that that's the only hard drive that is installed in the computer when I when I install the original operating system, and then there's no confusion if I'm booting to that drive. It is going to boot to the operating system on that drive and not look elsewhere for other things. So yeah, another thing that I've done in the past is where there have been multiple hard drives on a computer and there's an operating system on one let's call it bazindos and somebody wants to install dual boot and they want another hard drive with Linux, but I don't have permission to open the computer to remove the original hard drive. I will install the operating system with the hard drive installed in a computer that I do have control of, install the operating system, then move (30/46)
it over to the computer that's owned by somebody else, and you know, typically it's a USB drive or something like that, and then plug it in there and it will boot up. It will adjust its settings and its drivers on boot to whatever that user has or that person has and away you go. Yeah, it just works. John helps out my memory. He says I believe it was episode 370. The question came up regarding what the initials slash acronym KVM stood for. They stand for keyboard video mouse and was originally a hardware device that you would connect to multiple computers to share one keyboard video monitor and mouse. Fraternally, John. Yeah, thanks, John. I remembered it after we stopped recording, of course, and I couldn't in the moment remember what the V stood for, so thanks. Yeah, I cannot believe we could not think of keyboard video and mouse. Yeah, I know. Oh, thanks, John. Now I really feel stupid. Okay, I should have figured that one out. Anyway, I'm glad we have John to remind us. So our next (31/46)
email comes from Mike who says that Google Anything cannot be trusted. I have experienced this personally including on YouTube, Chrome, Google Voice accounts. They are entrapping people with different flavors of Google complete with cops impersonating others. I am not kidding. This is 60 minutes or project versus material. I had two computers with Google Chrome browsers taking over one XP and one on Windows 10. Luckily, I had a background in Linux and live distros to the rescue. Okay. Mike, don't run Windows XP. Okay. Yeah, it's seriously, it's no longer being supported. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Any thoughts on that? It's up to you. If you trust Google, fine. If you don't, it's up to you. If you want to use something else, if you don't want to use the Chrome browser, use Firefox or something else, anything else. There are plenty of them out there. And Google certainly owns a lot of the stuff that's on the internet, like you said, YouTube and various other things too. So whether it's Google or (32/46)
Facebook or Amazon, you can't go very far on the web without running across something owned by one of those three or other proprietary companies. You kind of have to look at how much you're willing to tolerate as far as because, you know, Google makes a bulk of their money through advertisements. We know Facebook the same way. What was the other one? Apple? Amazon. Oh, Amazon. Yeah, Amazon. So you kind of have to look at, read their terms of service and see what you're comfortable with. Larry made a great point. If you don't like Chrome, Firefox right now seem to be in the lead of charging for different anti-tracking features and privacy. So you might want to give them a look. Yep. Okay. I am not going to provide this link. It's a Feedspot blog that Anuj sent us a link to, and he said he founded the blog or he's the founder of Feedspot. Anyway, apparently they voted us number three of their top 15 Linux podcasts on the web. We appreciate that. But when I go to your blog, some of the (33/46)
links aren't working. So I don't know whether this is a spam post to try to get people to click through. Either way, I'm not going to provide the link because some of your links don't work. If you get that fixed and you are a legitimate site, again, we appreciate the rating, but otherwise, until that's all fixed, especially if you're the founder of Feedspot, I would expect that you're going to take some action on this and improve things. If I never hear from you again, then a caution is probably well placed. Anyways. Okay. Our next email comes from Paul. Anyways, on Discord, he's having video freezes. He says, hi Larry and Bill. I hope all is well with you. I always appreciate the work you do in the Linux community. I'm running the latest version of Discord in Linux Mint 18.3 and 19.2 on different machines. After about 30 seconds of connection in a video call, both the received and monitored video freezes. Switching servers relieves the problem and the video restarts, but lasts only a (34/46)
few seconds, then it freezes again. Switching servers again yields the same results. I use Discord to keep up with family and this has happened the last two weeks and seems to be a known problem, but I didn't find much discussion on Discord support. Chat beyond the link below, which is provided in the show notes. Are you both having the same issue? Thanks, Paul. I don't use the Discord video very often, but I used it the other day and I didn't have an issue. You Larry? I don't use the video on Discord at all, so I can't really comment on it. If there doesn't appear to be any support in the support for Discord, I just keep monitoring that and see if a solution comes up, but I don't know what else to offer. It's not something that I'm using at all. Since he said he's using Linux Mint, I know I'm almost certain it's nothing they've done. No, I don't think so. I would just shoot him a bug report saying, hey, I've noticed this happened in 1903, 1902, just want to let you know about it and (35/46)
give us much information about what version of Discord. Also, look to make sure that some configuration has not changed in the settings of Discord. That's about all I can suggest, but yeah, definitely let the guys know at Linux Mint that you're having this issue, maybe someone else is, or maybe they know about it and they can kind of steer you to how to fix it. Yep, and in my experience, video freezes are most often caused by congestion on your internet bandwidth provided by your internet service provider. Maybe they're throttling your video call, as does the internet service provider that I use. So yeah, it's usually either a bad connection and oftentimes you can fix the issue by hanging up and reconnecting to your video call. But more often than not, I find since I'm using video calls for business and using proprietary services to do that, any freezing is usually due to just throttled bandwidth or low bandwidth or lack of availability of bandwidth if you're on a cable connection, (36/46)
things like that. Okay, our last email is from, I don't know whether this is Marian or Marianne, but let's just go with Marian. He or she provides an Ubuntu LTS correction. Hello, Bill and Larry. Although I am not new to Linux, I still like listening to your podcast and learn something new from time to time. I appreciate your work in this area and you are a great source of information for new users. However, for that very reason, you should be extra careful to provide correct information. I understand you cannot know everything, but in an episode I just listened to from June, listener feedback, you recommended a listener not use Ubuntu 16.04 because of its end of life and go to 18.04 and that there is basically no difference. There are two issues. As you correctly pointed out, 16.04 is long-term support, but then you said it is end of life. LTS is supported for five years. 16.04 support will end in April of 2021. Second thing, very important, 16.04 is the latest LTS using Unity (37/46)
desktop. 18.04 is using Gnome. Probably not a difference for a very new user, but definitely a big difference. There are both Unity and Gnome lovers and haters. Again, I hope you take this the right way as constructive feedback, not as criticism. Best regards from Slovakia. Well, thanks Marianne. We do take it as constructive feedback and I definitely appreciate it. If we said that it was end of life, that's definitely a mistake on our part. I don't remember that. It's very possible that I said that. And yes, long-term supports are five-year support. I think our comment on not noticing much difference between 16.04 and 18.04, yes, Unity and Gnome are definitely very different in the way they operate, in the underpinnings. I think my point was more that for somebody new to Ubuntu, the way that it appears is probably not going to look all that much different because the Ubuntu folks, Canonical, have modified Gnome to work as closely to the way Unity works as possible. So they've done a (38/46)
good deal of work to try to make it so that they look the same, behave the same, that sort of thing. So to the casual observer, you might not notice much of a difference, but you're absolutely right. There is a difference. They do work differently. The settings are different. The underpinnings are different. So beyond just a surface look, it's definitely different. So we stand corrected on that one. And hopefully the person we were addressing it to is continuing to listen at this point and didn't get bit in the butt. Okay. I think that was our last one, Bill. Yeah. Okay. I was looking, I didn't see any more. Okay. So that's the last one. Okay. There you go. So Larry, do you have an application pick? I do. And this comes out of the fact that yesterday our television provider that we use here in the going Linux studio home television is DirecTV, recently, or not so recently, purchased by AT&T. So now AT&T's DirecTV. CBS and DirecTV have gotten into this little dispute. The way that (39/46)
DirecTV puts it, CBS has pulled their programming from DirecTV. The way CBS has put it, DirecTV is charging outlandishly high fees for them to be able to offer their programming. So regardless of which side of the argument you stand on, unlike last year at this time, when the same thing was threatened and CBS ended up continuing to be offered as a local channel on DirecTV, it is this year been pulled. It has been pulled by CBS. So since CBS local programming is not offered on DirecTV, as of right now, until they resolve this dispute, what DirecTV is doing is they're saying, oh, there is this open source application that you can subscribe to called Locast, L-O-C-A-S-T, that provides free access to your local channels in certain markets where they have things set up. And if you're in one of those market areas, and the Los Angeles area here is one of those, you can go over to Locast. And oh, by the way, we've added to the DirecTV apps. And so now all you have to do is click, click, do a (40/46)
little validation setup, and you can now access CBS local stations, weather news, everything else you normally get from them, TV shows, using Locast. What they don't tell you is there are, at least in the Los Angeles area, there are 40 some local channels that are available on Locast and the DirecTV app that gives you access to CBS, gives you access to some of the other local channels as well, but certainly not all 42 or whatever the actual number is, it's somewhere around 42. So it's a limited version of Locast. You can go on the internet and look up locast.org and we'll have a link in the show notes, of course, but they offer, let's see, they offer service in Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Sioux Falls, Denver, Rapid City, and San Francisco market areas. So you don't have to be in those cities, you just have to be in a geographic area serviced by those. You have to enable location settings in your browser to be able (41/46)
to sign up. But I have signed up. I actually signed up before this issue with CBS and have continued watching my local news and weather, which is one of the reasons why I'm looking for the local station. There are other ways to get that, but Locast seems to work just fine and I wanted to kind of bring that to the attention of the going Linux cable cord cutter audience out there. So give it a try locast.org and see what, 46, 46 local stations in the Los Angeles area. It just seems kind to me that's not the smartest move on DirecTV. By the way, you can use this other service to get a service that we no longer carry. So I would be like, why do I need you then? Well, it's just local stations. So if you want things like Animal Planet or Fox News or any of the other cable stations, you're not going to get them through. But these online streaming services are getting better and better. So you know, oh, they are. And you know, this is a way of getting your local stations over the Internet as (42/46)
opposed to setting up a separate antenna for just for local stations. And you know, if you've got mountains between you and the broadcast tower, that's not going to work too well, like I do here. And so this is really a great solution to cord cutters who still want their local channels and don't want to worry about the disputes between the cable providers and local television broadcasters. One thing I did notice, though, is that DirecTV's subset of what Locast offers would not connect very well. I think they probably had a lot of demand for it, given that it was just last night that, you know, all of the CBS stations just dropped. And so maybe it was just a little bit of an overload. But when I went to the Locast site directly, it worked just fine. So I think it's DirecTV's underestimation of the capacity they needed to handle this. So and for our international listeners who don't care about U.S. television cable providers or Internet television issues here in the United States, we (43/46)
apologize for our focus. It has nothing to do with you. And it is of interest to our U.S. audience, I'm sure, though. Bill, do you have an application pick? I do. And the reason that I picked this is after we had a quick discussion, last night, about an issue. And come to find out that Shotwell has come a long way. So you said how fast did you import your pictures, Larry? I'm not sure how long we were on that audio chat on Discord last night, but it was probably what, about 15 minutes, 20 minutes? Yeah, 15, something like that. And it imported 4000 pictures in some subset of that time because I started it after we started talking and it wrapped up about midway. So I'm thinking 4000 in maybe 10 minutes. That's an estimate. It's a guess. And then we organized them and then organized them by date. And yeah, it was it's good. I like it. So if you're looking for a good photo import and touch up and all that other stuff, give Shotwell a go. Yeah, absolutely. And somebody is going to say, (44/46)
hey, Larry, only 4000 pictures. You're a bit of a lightweight, you know. Hey. Yeah, those are 4000 that I have on this computer's hard drive. All the archived ones are elsewhere. So anyway, yeah, it's it's pretty impressive application. It is really good for organizing your photos. If you double click on any one of those photos, it gives you the option to color correct and remove red eye automatically and all the other things you would expect a photo manager to do. And you don't really have to go out and get a proprietary freedom hating application from Adobe or anyone else to manage your photos. You can do it with Shotwell on Linux. Well, they've also made a cleaned up interface. It looks nice. Oh, yeah, it's very, very nice. Yeah. All right. Our next episode. Bill, are we still planning an overview of Snaps, Flatpacks and app images? We are. All right. So maybe that'll be our next episode. Let's say it is. That's that'll be our next. What do you mean maybe? No pressure. No pressure. (45/46)
Okay. Until then, you can go to our website at going links that 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 community.goinglinks.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (46/46)
Going Linux episode 379, 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 goinglinx at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Well, we got farther than we did last time, Bill. Man, don't remind me not to talk about the power company. Geez. Yeah. It's like the gods are working against us today. I think so. Between audio issues, with new versions of software, and power issues. I'm the one in California. I expected my power to go out, not yours. But hey, okay. I think (1/48)
we're on a roll here. We're going. We're not going to talk about the weather. We've already talked about the power company. Let's talk about Apple. Okay. This is a Linux podcast. Your favorite thing to talk about. Yes. Oh my goodness. So last week I had a few emails from some listeners saying that we couldn't be found in Apple's iTunes, or what they're calling it now, their podcast app, that we had become delisted. Of course, if you were subscribed, you were still getting the episodes, I think. At least it was in my iTunes test on my phone. And it didn't have an impact. I didn't see any impact on other podcast receiving software. But forever we have never had an SSL certificate for our website. And that's an encryption certificate that allows you to use HTTPS in front of your website address rather than HTTP. And of course, our podcast feed uses that as well. And some time ago, Apple had said that they're going to stop listing podcasts that don't have the SSL certificate. And I applaud (2/48)
them in trying to make sure that things are as secure as they can make them. But they said that sometime before the end of this year that they were going to start dropping podcasts that didn't have these certificates. Well, you can get free SSL certificates from Let's Encrypt. But my web hosting company in a... I'm not going to say money grab, but it's a money grab. They have said we don't accept the free certificates. You have to buy one from us. And they were charging hundreds of dollars earlier this year and prior to that in order to get that per year. And so when Apple dropped us I thought, well, it looks like I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go pay for this. When I went to pay for it, I noticed that the price had dropped $40 a year. Amazing how competition drops the price. They're still charging for it. They don't offer it for free. But at least $40 in a year is much more reasonable and it hasn't increased our podcasting costs significantly. But it's just the principle of (3/48)
the thing. Anyway, I've relented, I've got our SSL certificates I resubmitted the podcast to Apple. They have relisted us. You should be able to find it there. I had to go into places like Stitcher and TuneIn and places like that and make sure that they had the new links to the website with the HTTPS in front of it and the links to the feeds in front of it. And if your podcasting software is having a problem with our feed now, you might have to resubscribe. And listener Greg said in our MiRi group, ah, that's why Bash Potter has just automatically downloaded all the episodes from 250 through 378 again. I figured something's changed. I just didn't know what. So that may happen to you as well. But suffice it to say we're still podcasting. We're still available in Apple podcasts and everywhere else. And hopefully it's just happening transparently to you. That's kind of, yeah that's kind of crappy. Just delisting you. Okay, thanks. Well, to be fair to them, they did give lots of warning. (4/48)
And I held out to the last minute in hopes that my web hosting company would relent and offer the SSL certificates for free. It paid off because if I had subscribed to their service to provide the SSL certificate and press the button that says install for me, then which is I'm sure all they had to do is just press the software button. Press this, there's no button. So it did pay off. They relented and reduced the price at least. Not free but affordable. So I see that you geeked out a little bit on me and you were testing out the Zorin Ultimate and the Core and so you actually sent me this and I was kind of chuckled because this is a Larry Bushy thing completely. It says Zorin Ultimate has a total of 753 packages in libraries that are in addition to the core version. All but six can be installed from within Zorin Core. The six packages that can't be installed are contained in Zorin's proprietary premium PPA. They include the Zorin Appearance, Layout Shells Premium, Zorin OS Ultimate (5/48)
Business Apps, Zorin OS Ultimate Games, Zorin OS Ultimate Media Apps, and Zorin OS Ultimate Zorin Apps. So I'm like Larry was bored. He actually counted the packages. But when I saw that I went and looked to see what because I had recommended Zorin highly I'm looking and I'm like what is different in the business apps? So I went and I'm looking and I'm still trying to figure out because I see I don't really see anything because I'm just actually looking at it right now. There's a few things but there's nothing that I would say that aren't open source. Maybe they just put some open source into the proprietary or cleaned it up. I know they have a Zorin Connect which is allows your cell phone and your computer to talk. But that's like the KDE Connect. So and then the media apps I'm looking and I just don't see anything and I'm just wondering. I'm going to have to do a little more digging and see which apps they put into these categories because I'm sitting there going why? So anyway. Once (6/48)
I figure that out we'll talk more about it. I can understand the premium appearance layouts but I don't see what the ultimate business apps or the ultimate games are. All the games are open source. There's some of the better ones. There's like Neverput and maybe they're talking maybe it's that Bejeweled clone game that I have not spent two hours playing at times. Well I'm thinking it's probably that these packages that they hide behind their premium PPA are simply packages of pre-bundled open source applications that they install for us as part of these packages and not that the applications are proprietary but certainly the premium PPA is behind their firewall so you can't get into it unless you pay them the money which is fine. And maybe there are some specific utilities they've built to make Zorin a little more efficient and effective at running itself but you know when you get Ubuntu or Ubuntu Mate or any of the Buntus and many of the other distributions out there those tweaks they (7/48)
provide them at no charge with the distribution and often times they will offer them upstream and maybe Debian or someone else adopts them and then they get pushed out to all of the distributions but that's kind of the open source model is to provide your improvements back and even with that with the open source model Zorin has the right to take what they've done in the way of packaging things together and improvements and so on and not offering them upstream but there you go. Yeah, I don't have a problem with them doing that. You know, I've been running Zorin pretty much non-stop and since I think it's gone on about two, two and a half months something like that and it's been pretty rock solid but there's a few things that I wanted to bring up to you that I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying hmm, you know, it's just one of those thought. Just makes you go hmm. Yeah, hmm. Okay so this is my feelings on Zorin. Is Zorin still a good first time Linux? I would say yes, but I would not (8/48)
say that it's any better than, we'll just use Ubuntu Mate. The few things that I've noticed is if you want a system that works that's great but they're building on the backs of giants which there's nothing wrong with that. They're building on Ubuntu 18.4 LTS so you know, what actually makes it so good is all the work that Ubuntu does. The one thing that always concerns me is you know, you have the PPAs and you know, I know PPAs, you know, your personal package or archive or whatever the acronym stands for will basically let you add to the Ubuntu system but we both, I don't know, maybe you haven't but I've had issues, not with Zorin, but I've had issues with the PPAs no longer supported or you know, there's things break or especially during upgrades. So I went and I was looking I went and looked at Ubuntu Mate and said okay, let me see and I opened up and wanted to look to see what PPAs, I didn't see any but when I opened up Zorin, it had like five or six different PPAs and it's just a (9/48)
level of an additional layer of compatibility so you know, what happens if something, if the project does go away or they decide or something happens to one of the PPAs then you know, during an upgrade it could cause problems. So PPAs are a good way to customize but I don't know if they're the greatest way to do it. So you can kind of see the differences in the two projects as far as you know, one like Ubuntu Mate that you know, has actually been worked on and doesn't rely on PPAs and one that's taken a base and added their stuff to the top of it. Is there anything wrong with that? No. I just when I look at the differences between the two, you know Zorin's done a lot of cool stuff but I don't like keeping adding layers the more layers you add on top of something, something's bound to break. But other than that, you know, Zorin's been really solid, I've enjoyed my time with Zorin but Zorin is getting ready to be moved to the test machine because I've got some new things to play with and (10/48)
so I've made a clone and I'm going to put the Zorin on. My test machine is going to live there happily and won't get used as much but it's still around. Yeah, and I've got the evaluation version of Zorin Ultimate in a virtual machine and I've got Zorin Core in a virtual machine and I've got another virtual machine with an installation of Zorin Core and then on top of that I've installed the what did I say 700 and something? 753 packages all but six of them that I couldn't install so I installed that on top and I'm actually using that as kind of my Zorin test because it's got almost everything that either Zorin Ultimate has or that you can install in Zorin Core and everything seems to function just fine and the way I went about just if anybody's interested the way I went about determining how different Zorin Ultimate is than Zorin Core is I took the two installations, Zorin Core and Zorin Ultimate and ran DPKG with the appropriate switches to get the list of applications installed and (11/48)
then I used the diff command in the terminal to find out where the differences were and that's where I determined that there were 753 differences including libraries and so I just then made a script that installs them all now that I had a list of what those applications were using apt install pseudo apt install and then list every package and it installed flawlessly except for those six apps and that's because you didn't have the premium PPA and you couldn't subscribe to it without paying the license fee so I just installed them all and everything seems to work just fine so it truly is what we suspected which is you can install everything on Zorin Core that you get in Zorin Ultimate except for the stuff that they have in those six packages that they have hidden behind the PPAs and apparently you don't need those to get your work done so I think we're in good shape I think Zorin is certainly something that we can continue to recommend it's got its own way of displaying things on the (12/48)
screen their own desktop environment if you want and it's interesting it's not for me it's probably for someone I'm thinking someone who likes the Chrome interface on a Chromebook with like Zorin immediately yeah it's very simple and clean that way it still has the power of Linux behind it unlike Chrome where they've kind of locked you out of anything that's it gives you any power but with Zorin you have everything that you have in Ubuntu it's just behind this veneer of glitziness and a lot of people like that glitziness well like I said I've been running I'm getting ready to I've got some projects that we've talked about so like I said I'm probably going to move that over to my test machine because one of the things that I have been running deep and basically just sitting over here because I use it to download stuff when I'm not on my main machine you know I want to make a I have like an archive or whatever of stuff so I can quickly grab it and my deep end system reason is getting I (13/48)
have is having issues and it's weird issues it's got graphical glitches you know I don't know nothing's really changed so yeah I think it's it's time to move it to something a little closer to the Ubuntu base now you sent me an email about a user who recommended to check out Feren OS and I did throw that on my hardware as I was tinkering and okay it's it's just like a customized version of Mint I kind of read through their site and I'm not quite sure what they're trying to do because they're talking about another going using a KDE interface and stuff so I checked it out it seemed okay not for me I can't really it just seemed a little clunky but that could be that's why they're going to KDE or whatever so you know I'll keep an eye on it so I have some people that asked me to check out the new Pop OS 1910 I'm not a real big fan of the Pop system and it's the interface it's because you know it's Ubuntu but they do a lot of good work so I'll probably throw that in a virtual machine but I'm (14/48)
kind of and this will shock you I'm kind of thinking of using like a Ubuntu on my machine because of the kind of the I would say Spartan you can make it look nice but kind of the Spartan no glitz desktop lighter resources and stuff so I'll let you know how that goes but probably the coolest thing I tested and you knew I was going to do it was the experimental ZFS support in Ubuntu 1910 it worked really well it gave me a reason to throw something on my machine I'm going to but I've been wanting to play with ZFS for a while and it it did have some caveats it's experimental I listened to the Ubuntu podcast and you kind of said hey if you see this it's okay that's what it's supposed to do you know it's still in the rough edges but you know me being me I had to see if it would really work on the root system and it did but the thing I noticed and it could just be I don't know enough about ZFS I'm going to have to do a deep dive into it but a stock Ubuntu 1910 with the ext4 or the XFS file (15/48)
system it sits about 1.1 1.6 just kind of idle and with the ZFS it was using almost 4 gigs of memory at idle now yeah that's a difference now I don't know if that's true and I don't know if that's just part of the ZFS file system or you know or it uses more ram but yeah I have to keep an eye on that maybe someone that knows more about ZFS can say hey yeah it does use more memory or maybe it was just because it was new and it's building something I don't know I left it sitting there overnight and it was still at you know it was like 3.6 with nothing open and I'm like that's that seems to me like that's a lot of ram so when it comes out maybe they haven't optimized the memory usage on it or whatever I'm not I'm not harsh on them just saying that's what I saw when I was playing with it and not being a ZFS knowledgeable enough to really make a qualified statement did you happen to play with any of the ZFS Larry? No not at all and I'm trying to remember back to the days when I was using (16/48)
OpenSUSE because it was using a journaling file system like ZFS is at the time it was using a riser and I remember something about it indexing at the very beginning so maybe it was just building that index for you and it had settled out later I don't remember it's very very plug in it was quite a long time ago ext4 we you know I like to use ext4 or XFS but I would say that when they get the ZFS nailed and get it out of experimental and get it where it's supported just as a type of file system like you pick what you want type of deal ZFS I was listening to Alan Jude and he dives real deep into it so I started listening and some of the things that you know how they're explaining how it works and stuff it's fascinating so I really think ZFS might be the future as far as like the preferred file system in Linux once they or at least in Ubuntu once they get nailed because it's got some cool features, snapshots, rollbacks you know so built into the system plus the way it does its writing and (17/48)
stuff you know it's all the different zpools so yeah it's gonna be kind of interesting to see how that develops and if it makes it into do you think it's gonna make it into the 2004 of Ubuntu? Yeah the long term support I think that's what they're shooting for and if they can get all these little niggly bugs worked out it'll be in there for sure I think that's the goal and hopefully they're able to actually accomplish that. Okay enough of us talking about ZFS, Zoran Farrin Pop!OS and Zumbunto and Amate so what do you say we read some of the emails that we're supposed to Yeah it's been a while since we've recorded so we've got quite a few let's get started yeah alright our first email is from David who emailed us to ask us to try Makulu Linux. He says I recently retired and have become somewhat of a Linux fanatic according to my son I enjoy your podcast and find it informative and enjoyable I came across a Debian based distro called Makulu and he's spelling that m-a-k-u-l-u for those of (18/48)
you who want to check this out. I've only been using it for two days running as a virtual machine but searching your episode archives I saw no mention of it. It appears to be a rather new member of the distro collection so I thought I'd mention it to you for possible evaluation and maybe hear your comments on an episode at some point. Also though Linux has a good reputation as it relates to virus and malware vulnerabilities it is not invulnerable. I have been exploring ClamAV and ClamTK. Your archives indicate that you had an episode on Clam several years ago. Might be good to mention again your call. What I am finding in casual conversation with some people is that Linux cannot be a victim of such things and I think I'd be correct to remark that Linux is much less vulnerable but is not completely immune. I see this as possibly setting Linux up for a black eye if at some later point someone does create something bad. Basic safe computing practices still need to be practiced. Much (19/48)
easier to do with Linux but still prudent. Thanks for your time. Keep up the nice work on a podcast David B. Yeah, your points are all very valid Linux is not immune to malware and intrusions and all those kinds of things. It's just repaired and fixed the vulnerabilities are addressed much more quickly in Linux than they are in any other operating system and often times they are fixed before they appear in the wild so you never see them. Not invulnerable. Linux can be attacked and is in fact attacked by malware constantly same as any other operating system but yeah it's definitely something that as I've said often insulates you from viruses and spyware. I'm not going to say it's virus proof or spyware proof or malware proof it's providing you with a level of security that rivals the other operating systems out there or most of them anyway. Yeah and it's not controlled by one person or a corporation so that's probably one of the biggest reasons people run Linux is they can actually (20/48)
alter the code if they know how to do that. They are able to say I know this one person who is not holding all the keys Windows 10 or even Mac OS you can't audit the code so sometimes it's hard to see what's going on or even to fix something so yeah that's probably the reason I like it is you're able to actually there's a lot more eyeballs and if you're having a problem someone else has had that problem is they either offer to fix or someone else knows how to work around it. So it looks like I might have to try new Linux to show Larry. I have not heard of Makulu Linux before this and I certainly haven't tried it so I knew you'd be up for a challenge. Yeah my poor machine gets reinstalled and blasted back so many times I'm surprised I haven't wore the SSD out yet. So the next email comes from John and he has a no internet problem. He writes hi Larry and Bill with two question marks and he says I haven't had to ask for help in some time but this problem has me stumped with exclamation (21/48)
points and question marks. He says n Ubuntu 18.1 will not allow Firefox or Chromium internet connectivity though I can do updates but nothing else and he wants to know why. Another thing in searching the web I can't copy and paste from mate which works ok in VirtualBox but control paste won't work or control shit won't either. I sure can't write all those sudo commands and try them. Copy paste is so useful why won't it work? All my distros are running in VirtualBox as always mate works fine no connectivity issues at all just Ubuntu 18 won't allow the internet but it must be working or I couldn't do updates right? And he says thanks for help or suggestions John and Dallas. Yeah something funky going on there. I'm not sure that it's a no internet problem. If you are getting the updates you have the internet and this copy paste thing I'd be looking at VirtualBox and see if there's an issue there. You might want to try the virt manager which comes in Ubuntu in the repositories it's not by (22/48)
default it's I think it's v-i-r-t dash manager. That's what I use for virtual machines and it doesn't have some of the issues that I've noticed with VirtualBox and I try to avoid any software that's created by Oracle anyway so anyway that's neither here nor there but virt manager seems to work for me and I'd be just double checking that there isn't a problem with VirtualBox yeah and when I was reading your email you said 18.1 are you running like 18.0 .1 or are you running like 18.10 I'm kind of stumped about which one he's running so yeah it sounds like it might be a VirtualBox problem yeah I think so but something may have changed in VirtualBox or if it's working with other distributions in the same VirtualBox environment maybe it's something on the installation that's a problem and I'd be tempted to kind of blow it away and start over again or at least create a new VirtualBox session and see if installing it from scratch will work. I have a quick suggestion for him download (23/48)
GnomeBoxes which is a really super simple almost click-in-forget-it VirtualBox manager and see if that works in that because it's really really quick you can test things I don't know if you've used GnomeBoxes but it's a very bare-bones stripped down way to get something up and running really quick in a virtual machine so maybe try that I think I may have tried it once when I was looking for an alternative to VirtualBox and settled on VertManager but I don't think I did anything with it that would justify saying that I know anything about it so anyhow yeah John so give those suggestions a try and let us know what comes of it okay our next email is from Michael who has a problem with Bluetooth hi Larry and Bill I managed to connect a Bluetooth headset or earbuds to my HP laptop but I'm having problems when trying to reconnect after the first time I have paired and connected them the error message I get is as follows connection failed blue man dot blues dot errors dot t-bus failure I am (24/48)
using the latest version of Ubuntu Mate and think I have to use a Bluetooth dongle in one of my USB ports to be able to use Bluetooth devices it is the same HP Presario I have had since my last emails to you well Michael part of the reason for some of the failures this morning for us to start on time was the fact that my Bluetooth connection to my headset wasn't working works fine with the mouse but it has audio connection issues and I know that on 18.04 the long-term support release version of Ubuntu and Ubuntu Mate it worked just fine but in the interim releases there have been some issues I've noticed and I'm on 18.10 at this point and I think excuse me 19.10 at this point and I think that that's one of the things that they really need to focus in on fixing before we go to the next long-term support release is these failures of Bluetooth I noticed that the error reporting software the automatic reporting of errors is much better in the later releases and so I know that my machine (25/48)
has provided multiple errors as I've had multiple crashes and so they're getting a lot of feedback as to what was going on at the time of the crash and hopefully they'll be able to fix it once and for all before the next LTS I have about six different ways to connect my audio and I have a couple of different ways to connect my audio and only six the two Bluetooth ways all failed me this morning and so I have a like an animal a cable running from my headset over to my docking station plugged into an audio jack port I mean what's that? That's like barbaric Larry I was going to make fun of you about running an inner release on your production machine but I figured that would be like me throwing rocks at a glass house because I've been known to do much more extreme things so yes well in fact I was actually running the beta on my production machine for a while so hey I can't complain so I understand I know the reason behind why you're doing it but don't you enjoy living on the edge? Oh yeah (26/48)
yeah it's always exciting Michael then followed up he said hi again I restarted my laptop with my Bluetooth dongle in the laptop and went into Bluetooth manager under the control panel and found my headset and went into menu I chose the headphones or headset and it connected this time it is like it is inconsistent when a headset is connected sometimes it connects sometimes it doesn't I have even chosen trust in the Bluetooth menu all the best with going Linux so I think you're right Larry they probably need to do some work on the Bluetooth stack and the way he describes it that's exactly the way I see it as well inconsistency not a good thing in software but you're having to do it the animal way today yes all right George provides us a report from the field about SoftMaker FreeOffice I long ago bought the Android version of this company's office suite was well satisfied with it installed it via the Android apps on a Chromebook worked well there too after the dust up when Manjaro was (27/48)
going to provide it in their distribution instead of LibreOffice and there was a broad number of Linux blogs and podcasts commenting it was more compatible with Microsoft than Libre I decided to give it a spin installed the 64 bit deb version with no issues in Linux Mint Cinnamon 19.2 the separate modules for text, spreadsheet and presentation appeared on my Cinnamon menu opened a lone amortization template we keep in XLS format for compatibility as we have to share it when completed with prospective borrowers borked perhaps not irretrievably but was going to have to diagnose and verify where and why it went wrong opened a second much simpler spreadsheet in ODF from LibreOffice opened fine managed to line up text that had imported from source in all three possible alignments converted numeric columns correctly to the numeric format I was using then I went looking for a way to adjust the column widths without clicking and dragging the column and the entire program locked up tight xkill (28/48)
purge your mileage may vary have pity on poor Mike Tech Show episode 701 so by way of explanation we have mentioned or I have mentioned Mike Tech Show on this podcast and this is a comment on Mike's podcast okay hack some years ago he moved a client's offsite Windows email service from one company to another had troubles with authentication so he set up 10 users with weak passwords intending later to set up stronger ones forgot the 10 users accounts were hacked and somehow the hacker also set a server rule which had to be found and deleted to regain control house flood Mike apparently didn't know the drain pan of his air conditioner unit could fill and dump nasty water into his ceiling insulation sheetrock mattress disaster then moving truck cuts internet to clear space for repairs furniture had to be put in storage moving truck cut the Fios cable bringing internet to his home he said it happens once a year when a truck of some kind that's too tall enters his driveway the first time it (29/48)
happened at my house I'd have attached a pole of some kind to the house to elevate the incoming wire that's per Mike too low then hard disk drive failure in spite of system warnings he just kept using a 3 terabyte drive that was going bad dot dot dot and then Windows 10 update issues guess you could say he's a fellow traveler with Satya Nadella making a living off the dysfunction of Windows then ticket management he says he knows he needs to automate which is what triggered me to mention invoice ninja to you in an earlier email but really okay so I guess George you are an avid listener of Mike's ever never-ending adventures of trying to help people with their Windows machines as a Windows technician and yeah he's he's got his his challenges some of them self-inflicted and you've you know you've you've listed a few that I've listened to recently and it's never it's a never it seems to be a never-ending source of amusement for me to listen to poor Mike as you have observed so yeah we'll (30/48)
all have pity on Mike yeah I don't know wow I think I would be just curled up in a corner if I had all those all the time wow yeah so our next email comes from if I murdered your name I apologize in advance Tyler and Tyler reports skidmap Linux malware uses root capabilities to hide cryptocurrency mining payload vinify comments hi Larry and Bill trademark grow researchers have found a new form of malware called skidmap that affects Linux machines it works by adding an unauthorized public key to the infected machines authorized key file allowing attackers to log in as any other user to the system any of these uh there's a link in the show notes to the article and then Kevin Bocek vice president of security strategy and threat intelligence and machine identity protection provider vinify provide the following comments attackers are ramping up their crypto mining attacks taking advantage of a scary secret there is no control of the SSH machine identity identities that control access to (31/48)
Linux's most mission critical decision making systems skidmap is a case in point cyber attackers can create a vector that lives on for years and even decades by inserting their own SSH key making it trustworthy we see these taxes you tactics used so effectively to target critical infrastructure because security teams really have oversight of the SSH keys that control access these keys don't expire creating an encrypted backdoor that attackers can use until they're detected the reality is that this type of attack happens every day and is pervasive even in the most sophisticated secure networks in the world skidmap and others have free ran until security teams get serious about controlling their SSH environment and equip themselves to automatically remediate effective keys immediately no security team would ever tolerate passwords that don't expire and can't be changed even after a breach the same principle needs to be applied to SSH please let me know if you have any questions for Kevin (32/48)
Bocek thanks Tyler yeah and obviously Tyler or Tila or however you pronounce it is one of those people who sends out requests to get people interviewed on podcasts like ours but I thought this was important enough the skidmap infection thing that kind of illustrates what a previous listener Dave was saying that Linux is not vulnerable to attacks and what I'm hoping is that this skidmap thing has been fixed and if not fixed then at least we need people who are using SSH to be aware that it's not secure our next email comes from Corey who needs to know how to reset a forgotten password Corey writes hi I've listened to your show over the years and really enjoy it and it is only recently I decided to revisit Linux so I installed Unity on an old desktop but I've forgotten my password I searched and the procedure I have tried is to restart and hold the shift key which will bring up the Ubuntu menu but it's not working and I cannot figure out why so I'm reaching out to you the PC is using (33/48)
UEFI but other than that I am not sure what else you may need appreciate your help Corey Bill have you had any experience on resetting passwords in Linux? No, I have never had to reset a password in Ubuntu I could probably find out but I don't know how about you? Not much help there yeah no that's okay it's not something that I've done recently simply because it's so easy to reinstall it's almost quicker to reinstall the operating system than it is to reset the password and what I have done is if I haven't encrypted the hard drive I have booted to a live environment from a USB stick and copied any data that I want over to a separate hard drive reinstalled the operating system remember the password this time and move all the data back and that is very very easy we do have a a link to resetting passwords and as long as you have physical access to the machine you are able to reset a Linux password from the command line as you boot in and you can also use a live CED to do it and the (34/48)
technique is to use the command p-a-s-s-w-d as root and there's a switch to do that and then to reset the password using that and as long as you have access to the physical machine and you haven't encrypted the hard drive that should work just fine in resetting the password like I said we'll have a link to a couple of different articles on how you how you do that there's one with a video on how to do that in fact I think what we'll do is we will just include that it's FOSS video link as the primary link to you and that will be a lesson learned remember your password and if it is well you know as more and more Linux distros like for instance Pop!OS automatically encrypts the hard drive right out of the box and I think more Linux distros are heading that way so if you forget that password you're pretty much out of luck and that's a good and bad thing because you forgot your password but good for your security if someone happens to steal your laptop or your computer it makes it harder for (35/48)
them to get into your files so yeah there's kind of pluses and minuses to that so anyway our next email comes from Stefan and he asks us to comment on Google Chrome and Telemetry Hi Larry and Bill, recently I heard your episodes 375 and 376 and I'm wondering about your recommendation of the Google Chrome browser because you talked in number 375 or what might have been 376 he says I'm not sure about the massive telemetry of Windows 10 but Google Chrome is no better it also collects large amounts of data from the user and tracks it please comment on that Okay, everybody knows that Google collects data from their browsers and you're absolutely right they're just as bad or maybe even worse than Microsoft but the problem is if you use Google Chrome and you're familiar with it would you rather be using it on Windows 10 or would you at least like to be using it on Linux and maybe have a little bit more security that being said I have personally made an effort right now I don't even have (36/48)
Google Chrome installed on my personal machine I'm using Firefox but I have been a Chrome user and my work laptop has Google Chrome and that's what they installed on it anything you do on the internet is pretty much tracked and looked at to some extent so if you don't want to use Google Chrome there is a Chromium browser or there's Firefox and I believe there's a few others like Vivaldi and there's Opera and there's Brave and yeah lots of different ones I forgot about Brave that if you're worried about telemetry but still want to have like the Google Chrome I believe that's WebKit isn't it Larry? Google Chrome? I think you're right yeah so a lot of browsers are going to the WebKit so you can maybe find another WebKit based browser but so far Firefox has been working well there has been a few issues but as far as you know multimedia playback stuff but I found there's a new one anyway which lets you say play DRM and so they kind of tied it all together so we're not recommending Chrome (37/48)
but if you're a Chrome user or you need to get your work done or stuff then we pretty much say use it but everybody needs to kind of decide for themselves what amount of data they're willing to freely give. Larry? Yep absolutely I agree 100% with everything you said and if you don't like using the Chrome browser use something else there are others like some of the ones that you just mentioned Bill that don't provide as much telemetry I think that there is an advantage to providing telemetry and if you look at things like Ubuntu the telemetry that they provide helps them to identify what their usage is where the problems are I mentioned earlier the failure and bug reporting system built into Ubuntu that's telemetry so not all telemetry is bad but you don't want to be giving personally identifiable information or location information without a good valid reason and I think those are the kinds of things that people are worried about when they say they don't like Windows and they don't (38/48)
like Chrome because of what they provide. I'm sure that Firefox does telemetry as well, I mean they certainly have a lot of statistics on their users and so on so you know it's not all bad but it becomes bad if they're doing, if they're collecting information that they don't need to improve their software. So there you go. Alright, Michael says his volume is dropping. Hi Larry and Bill running the latest Ubuntu Mate. Whenever I reboot my computer the sound volume keeps being turned down so I keep having to go into the sound icon, increase the volume and close it. It is like my sound volume is only set temporarily. How do I change this? It affects the volume when I use Orca as well as the volume of RhythmBox when playing podcasts. Is this possibly an issue with the latest Ubuntu Mate? I know there is a sound issue in previous versions of Ubuntu which caused the loss of Orca whenever you switch between the laptop speaker or used wired headphones. That issue seems to have been fixed. (39/48)
Michael from West Yorkshire, UK. Well Michael, yes it is probably an issue with whatever latest version of Ubuntu Mate it is you're using and I'm suspecting that might be 19.04 since 1910 just came out and I received your email before 1910 came out. So it's possible that that's been an issue that's been fixed in 1910. That's one of the reasons why for the average user we recommend you stick with the long term support releases because they iron out all these little niggly things for the long term support releases and it's those interim releases where they have these issues that they are addressing and get fixed. So that's not really helpful to you. It will eventually get fixed. It is something I think as long as you're on an interim release you're going to have to deal with these kinds of annoyances. But once you're on the long term support release the 20.04 release these kinds of issues shouldn't be bothering you. I'd suggest you stick with that for a couple of years until the next (40/48)
long term support release and maybe some of these issues won't be hitting you so hard. So our next email comes from Tim who thanks us for the Switchers episode. He writes, 10.7 wasn't as good. Every year they get worse and annoy me more. I've had it with both Microsoft and Apple. This year I resolved to retire my 2012 MacBook Pro to only partial use and make a Linux laptop my primary daily driver. I've been experimenting with a number of distributions this summer on an old Windows 7 PC I built for the occasional Windows program use. I look forward to the next parts of your series on switching and wanting to let you know that your work is very much appreciated. Best regards Tom. Thanks Tom. Tim. Oh Tim, I'm sorry. Thanks Tim. Not enough coffee apparently. So yeah, thanks and I'm glad you find it helpful. Yep, absolutely. Okay, our next email is from Joran who provided some feedback on random numbers. Hi, in the contest you announced about a Zorin distribution you said you would use an (41/48)
imperfect random number generator for the drawing. I was curious about the imperfectness. Won't you use the slash dev slash you random or even slash dev slash random source for random numbers? I thought it was supposed to provide really good randomness. The manual page does give that impression to me. Do you know that to be incorrect? Will you use some other method for some reason or was I just passing a comment I didn't really mean that much? P.S. I am happy with my fedora and don't wish to enter the contest. Give the Zorin OS to someone who appreciated it more. P.S. 2 not the game, just a postscript, for some additional nerdage, assume you have the number of entries in the shells variable entries. You could get a random number between 0 and entries minus 1 with this cute one-liner and then he provides a one-line script and a more terse version which is even shorter. If you are really strict, unless entries evenly divides by 2 to the 64th, this will give a slightly higher probability (42/48)
of entries numbered less than 2 to the 64th entries with some extra code that could be avoided too if you really care and then a smiley face. Jorin, thanks. Getting perfect randomness in the random number generator was not the objective. I was just trying to get this thing to sort the list of emails in a way that gave some sort of randomness to the drawing to make it as fair as we could make it without going through all kinds of research in ensuring that random number generator was perfectly random. In fact, all I did was use the r-a-n-d function in Google Sheets and that seemed to work just fine. So I chose the less than perfect but easy route and it did well. Did it? Okay. It did. We got a winner. So Michael wrote us about Python and Pluma. Hi Larry and Bill. Thanks for recommending Pluma as a text editor for my coding in Python. I don't know if things changed but when I was trying to write code at Hudlug the Haddisfield Linux users group which is now discontinued, I thought you had (43/48)
to write a command to tell anything written in a text editor that it had to be Python code. I did think it used to start with something like the pound bin bash or something like that and some similar line at the end. Looking at the basic program that just printed the message hello world there was a piece of code in this example which was something like dollar sign calhello.py and I thought this was what was needed at the top of my file and there was dollar sign hello.py at the end. At Puddock Hall where I had been able to program without distraction someone sat next to me tried going through the code with me as I kept getting a syntax error. I even changed the first line to have spaces between words and still got syntax error. I wondered before I did it if I should just get rid of the top line altogether because I didn't know if there was a top line, last line, or both affecting my code. It was suggested to me by the person sat next to me that I might need to specify where my file was (44/48)
as I was just typing Python 3 followed by the file name for the from the amate terminal. Removing both the top and bottom lines and just having the print hello world fixed my problem so possibly just saving the file with hello.py in this case in Pluma cut out any need for extra code before and after my print statement. Some of the Python commands or at least the print command is similar to basic apart from things like the number of lines you had in command based basic apart from the fact that the print command has to have an open bracket without a space after the print command and closing bracket at the end after the close quotes around what needs to be printed in a text. All the best with going links Michael. Okay Michael, as far as Python is concerned I'm certainly no Python expert but I don't think there's anything that you need to include at the beginning of a Python script to tell it that it's Python. I think because you're using it in an interpreter if I remember correctly you (45/48)
just write the script and give it Python and then the name of the script or whatever it is to call up Python to run it and it runs. What you may be remembering is for bash scripts or shell scripts we had mentioned that you need to begin those scripts with an exclamation mark and then a hash symbol and then the word bin and the word bash and or bin and then sh if you're just using a simple shell script. So what's confusing and one of the reasons why I think you use the pound symbol, the British currency symbol in your email is because here in America that hash symbol or the octal Thorpe is called a pound symbol because that's how we abbreviate pounds as in the weight not the currency. So it gets very confusing so that's why I think most of us in Linux and most of us in the programming world when we're talking about shell scripting we use the term hash rather than pound as we do here in North America. So having said all that, if it's a shell script, yes you'll need something at the (46/48)
beginning of the script to tell you that it is a shell script. I don't think you need it for Python I could be very very wrong there and I'm hoping some of our minions will tell us if I am but you know basic software is a whole different thing each language has its own way of doing things in its own it's a language right so it's got its own syntax and everything else that goes along with it so I think you were confusing a couple of different things there and in either case you can use a simple text editor to write out your applications using whatever programming language you want if you want to use something like visual studio code there are certainly versions of that for Linux and that can help you with formatting and things like that but what I found is Pluma or Gedit or any of the standard text editors are quite functional when it comes to creating programs in whatever language you decide to use. So Bill I think that's our last email for this time our next episode do you think we'll (47/48)
have something for our next switchers episode? Absolutely. Okay sounds good. So yeah our next episode will be another episode in the switchers series so until then you can go to our website at goinglinks.com for articles and show notes as well as links to our download and subscribe. We are the website for computer users who just want to use Linux to get things done. And if you like you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining the discussion in our Going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinks.com. Until next time thanks for listening. 73 New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com (48/48)
Going Linux episode 306, listener feedback. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushee. 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 at our email address at goinglinux.com or you can send us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. Today's episode is listener feedback. Hi, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are you? Good, good. What's going on in your world? Not much. Not much at all. Just another beautiful day in Southern California. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And the weather has been absolutely wonderful the past few days with the temperatures a little bit low on the cool side. Seems like springtime or fall or (1/48)
something like that. And today it's going to go back up again. Oh, great. High 90s. You just ruined it. OK, great. No, no, no. You were the one who last podcast or the one before was saying that these 100 degree temperatures don't seem hot to you. Is that changed? No, no. But I really like the 80s. I put the no humidity even better. Yeah, yeah. Isn't that great? It is. I mean, it's like 80 degrees. We got all the windows open and it's beautiful, you know. But anyway, enough about weather. This is not going weather. I found a new, surprising and happy news about goodollegaming.com. They now are supporting Linux. Oh, they weren't really supporting before? No, you'd have to run it under Wine or whatever. But now apparently they have 50 plus games, not anywhere close to Steam. But that's a start. So, yeah, they might you might be able to find some of your oldies but goodies there because they have a lot of the older games. So I was going through the catalog and so if you want to look for (2/48)
some of your older games or just some alternative to Steam, go to gog.com, goodollegaming. Okay, sounds great. I know we've got some feedback on that in our feedback this time around. Uh oh. Yep. No, nothing negative. Uh oh. Yeah. All right. Okay, well, shall we get into our feedback? Well, if you insist. Okay, well then let's get started. Our first email is from Galen, who provides some feedback on Episode 303. Greetings, Larry. I've just been listening to Episode 303. Whilst I appreciate your enthusiasm for Linux, or should that be GNU slash Linux, from my own experience, it's not easy to get a computer up and running for novice computer users. I did manage to get both of my sisters to run GNU Linux, one of which bought an HP laptop that came with Ubuntu already installed. But after upgrading to the next long term support version, certain features stopped working. I can't remember which feature was the problem, but it could have been Bluetooth. The other sister started with an old (3/48)
Packard Bell desktop, which originally ran Vista. But sadly, there were certain apps which she couldn't live without, so ended up installing Windows 10. Boo hoo. So both my sisters wanted the system to just work without any learning curve. I'm surprised that a Packard Bell designed for Vista would run Windows 10. Anyway, continuing on. From my own experience, an Ubuntu MATE upgrade to my Thinkpads stopped my printer from working, an Epson printer. I was able to find a workaround, but only after buying an HP printer, as I could not get by without a printer. Print driver dependency problem with Epson website not being very helpful. However, after raising a bug report, a fix was suggested. So one has to do one's homework, and over here in the UK, System76 is not an option. But we do have Entroware, but they are not cheap. However, we are the home of the Raspberry Pi, with this geek having 24 pies, my very own bramble, you could say. Regards, Galen. Well, thanks, Galen. And yeah, the Epson (4/48)
printer issues. You want to talk about those, Bill? Don't buy Epson. Yeah. Well, I just bought a new HP printer. HP printers seem to be the way to go. Well, I still have Windows 10 on one of my drives for testing and playing certain games that I can't get to run on Linux. But let me give you just a quick story. It took me forever to get it to work properly. It's still not 100%. This is on Windows 10? Yeah, this is Windows 10. Okay. And so it was a massive headache to get it to work. I went step by step. I even followed the directions and actually read the directions. Whoa! Yeah. Okay. I'm telling you now. So it was a major pain in the butt and stills got errors and I've updated the software. Well, I figured that I was just going to have major problems on Linux. So I booted into my Linux on my other disk and three clicks later it was running. Yeah. So I haven't had any luck with Epson, but I've had great luck with HP. But it's funny that he should say that printers just got to stay with (5/48)
HP because they just seem to work. But it's so much easier to get a printer working under Linux most of the time than it is on Windows because you have to load all the drivers and all that other garbage. And this is a new HP printer with the scan feature, the fax, and I don't use the fax, but I use the scan feature. And I also, you know, it prints perfectly. So I don't know what to say. Stay away from Epson because there's some of these printers, companies that just refuse to support Linux. But HP is probably one of the biggest ones, so I just use them. Now, he said he had problems running Linux. It's hard to install on a new user. And I installed Ubuntu Linux in the vanilla. And it took, I think, I put my name in, my password, and three buttons, and it installed hands-free. And I don't know if he's picking customized, but I let it just pick what it wants. Right. That's the way I installed too. It's quicker in my experience than installing Windows 7, Windows 10. It just seemed, and (6/48)
every time I've done an in-place upgrade, and I've done, let's see, at least three on this current system, nothing has stopped working. So it's just kind of bizarre. Yeah. You know, Galen had said that he installed it. He said it was difficult to get up and running. I'm not sure he was saying it was difficult to install. But he said it seemed to be working fine until upgrading to the next LTS, which I'm assuming is 16.04. And I know that there were not problems with Bluetooth, but problems with Wi-Fi. On 16.04, which have yet to be fixed, as far as I can tell. Wi-Fi connection using the network manager utility tends to drop out occasionally, inexplicably, and unreasonably. And that's certainly a known problem with 16.04. And I'm sure they'll get that fixed in the next release, but it's really tough to accept the fact that 16.04 is meant to be a long-term support release, and they really still haven't fixed it in that release. You would think that they would, you know, backport a fix to (7/48)
network manager, if that indeed is where the problem is. And maybe they will, but it hasn't been fixed as far as I know yet. Now, early on, when I first installed Ubuntu MATE 16.04, I definitely had that problem. I've noticed that, although it still happens, it doesn't happen as frequently now, so perhaps they're making some incremental changes to it. And that may be the issue there. And I made a comment on our Google Plus community the other day about the fact that when people purchase an Apple computer, for example, they buy into the original Apple province that everything just works. And when things don't work, they make the immediate assumption that they have done something wrong, because it's supposed to just work. Even if it is an Apple issue, you know that they did something wrong, one makes the assumption that one has done something wrong themselves. And with Linux, nobody makes the promise that everything just works. And when it does just work, you think, aha, great, wonderful (8/48)
Linux. But when it doesn't just work, you think, oh, okay, well, this is open source and things are changing rapidly and improving all the time. Things will break, but they will get fixed quickly. So there's the difference in the attitude between open source and proprietary software, whether that's Windows or OS X. Well, another thing I would suggest to Galen is use the Larry Bush rule of upgrades. If you're going to do an in-place upgrade and another long-term upgrade comes out, always wait a couple months. Yeah, yeah. Just to let them get the patches, because there's always going to be a bug or something. And I thought that was kind of weird when you said you don't immediately upgrade, you usually wait at least a month just to let it get to end. Since I've been doing that, it has worked out really well. But you also suggest, if you can, to back up everything and then reinstall. Yeah, that's something that I have done routinely for years and years and years. Old school. Yeah, exactly. (9/48)
When I switched from Ubuntu to Linux Mint, Linux Mint suggested no in-place upgrades, always reinstall fresh. So that's what I was doing. Prior to that on Ubuntu, I would do the upgrades and they worked most of the time. And now that I'm back on Ubuntu again, last time I did an in-place upgrade just to see how it would go, but I went back and reinstalled from scratch. Just to be sure that I got the experience that someone would have installing from scratch. Because, you know, when you do an in-place upgrade, it makes some assumptions about what you want to keep and what you don't want to keep. And, you know, if there's something that's deprecated, which for new users means it's obsolete and not supported anymore, sometimes that will break. Sometimes it continues to work when you do an in-place upgrade. But if it's no longer supported at all, when you do a fresh upgrade or a fresh install rather than an upgrade, you don't even get it because it's not there anymore. Well, I think Tom, (10/48)
the old co-host, had the record for most in-place upgrades. It was like 12. Yeah. Because he went from the old GNOME desktop to Unity and he was like, really? And you remember he asked him, he said, I'm starting to have problems. I said, well, how many upgrades do you need from 6.0 or something? It's still working. Yes. Well, and they try to make it work. And generally speaking, it does. So kudos to Ubuntu on that one. Back on the printers for a second. Yeah, printers. It's a hit and miss if you don't use HP, I think. Right. HP is pretty supportive of Linux. In fact, they contribute code to Linux and are really big supporters to Linux. Epson, on the other hand, I found I've had a few Epson printers in the past and it's a bit hit and miss as to whether or not they work, number one, and number two, whether they're supported. And in about half the cases, and I'm talking about maybe a handful of Epson printers that I've installed for people, in about half the cases, I've had to go to the (11/48)
Epson website, hunt down the driver on their website, and it's not easy to do. I'm not sure what Epson is playing at, but it's kind of hit and miss. So Galen, the best we can tell you is stay away from Epson if you can and try to use HP. Yeah. And he mentions Entroware versus System76. I understand that. And he mentions that Entroware isn't cheap. Well, neither System76. But consider the fact that neither is, you know, Microsoft branded computers and computers with Microsoft Windows on them, at least the same kinds of specs that you might get with a System76 or an Entroware, whether it's Windows or OS X. So good computers aren't cheap either. No, you can get a cheap computer and that's what you get. But I've noticed that, well, with System76 is pretty, pretty good components. Yeah. But they they select which components they want in the models that they sell. And because of that, they select the components that are most compatible with Linux. And because of that, they're going to work. (12/48)
Yeah. Well, you're still rocking the System76, aren't you? You betcha. You betcha. Galago Ultra Pro. Oh, yeah. That's it. Galago Ultra Pro. Yeah. Good machine. All right. Now that we've heard about your Galago Ultra Pro, let's move on to the next one. All right. Let's go. Our next email comes from John. He asks about VirtualBox and Ubuntu. And he writes, Hello, Larry. Haven't had to ask for help for years, but now when I installed the current version of VirtualBox 5.1.2, something happened to my Ubuntu 16.04. I lost all my desktop icons and everything. I can't start anything with no desktop. How do I get it back? I've gone through, asked Ubuntu's forms. Nothing's there. Linux questions the same. I'm sure there's a simple terminal command that will do this, but where? Thanks, Larry, for all you do and Bill do on the show. Look forward to each week. John and Dallas. It could be that the desktop environment has crashed. Now, did he say he says it Ubuntu 16.04, but he didn't say which (13/48)
version of Ubuntu. It's possible that Unity has crashed. And, you know, if you've lost all of the icons on the dock and you've lost the menu across the top, that's pretty indicative of the fact that your desktop environment has crashed and you need to restart. And I think Ubuntu Unity has control of backspace for restart enabled. If that doesn't work, then you'll have to actually do a power down in another manner. Now, control alt T will open a terminal and you could do pseudo space shutdown or pseudo space reboot. And that will get you started again. And if your desktop then doesn't come up, you've got something else going on in that virtual box. And if you've made a backup of the virtual box, as you should be doing with any computer, then you could restart from that backup. But other than that, it could be a lot of different things. But from the way you describe it, if everything's gone, I'm thinking Unity has crashed on you. Or Mate or whatever the desktop environment is that you're (14/48)
using. You know, Linux is running apparently, but desktop isn't. So, you might try looking at maybe a help in Ubuntu forums about how to restart the desktop. Sometimes, I know it's not a very long command and you can use a copy and paste it, because I usually have the command written out and see if that solves the problem. But other than that, I have no clue. Yeah. Darn virtual box. Yeah. And as I mentioned a couple of episodes ago, I've switched over from virtual box to the Vert Manager application that comes in Ubuntu Mate. And it's certainly been around for a while. It's actually from Red Hat originally and it works just fine. Yeah. I've been using virtual box for years. Oh, okay. And it's a good way to get off of something supported by Oracle, which of course, everybody loves to hate Oracle. Yeah. One of the most successful companies and everybody hates them. Yeah. That's kind of the way it goes, isn't it? I just want 1% of Oracle's income. Yeah. Maybe you can get adopted by Larry (15/48)
Ellison or something. Larry Ellison, you want a grown son? Just give me the money. You'll never see me. That'll work, Bill. That'll work. Okay. Let's move on. What's trying to say there? I think we need to move on is what I'm trying to say. Okay. Okay. So John wrote in again. He said, zero down vote favorite. I'm not sure what that means, but it's some sort of error. He provides a link from the Ask Ubuntu forum about errors in opening virtual box in Ubuntu. He said, I've never seen this before, but I need a CHA 97 for audio, or I won't hear anything via my speakers. Mint works just fine. And 16.04 worked fine yesterday. Now this, and it would not open due to that error. What sort of DMA loop am I in? How do I fix this? Thanks for the suggestions and help, John in Dallas. And then he provides some feedback from the forum. It looks like failed to open a session for the machine. Ubuntu 16.04 failed to load ICHAC 97 version not supported, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he wraps up (16/48)
saying, hope you have suggestions or help for this issue. John, I don't even understand what the issue is. I don't either. But when Larry went blah, blah, blah, I actually thought I was actually reading the result code and for all that information, I think it should just say blah, blah, blah, because it doesn't say anything. Oh, wow. Yeah, I don't know. And the link to the forum is just his forum post on the Ask Ubuntu forum asking for responses. So I'm not even going to include a link to that in the show notes. He didn't receive any response. So I don't know. This is the second time when we've had to say I don't know, Bill. Are we losing our touch? I don't know, are we? I don't know. Sorry, John. So now it's Bill fail. Well, the other thing is, John, if this is the same instance of VirtualBox that you have running with the same installation that was giving you the problems in the last email, maybe they're related. Maybe there's an issue with that installation within VirtualBox or (17/48)
maybe there's a problem with VirtualBox. I'm not sure. And it might be a little bit clearer if you had this as a standalone installation outside of a virtual environment. But as soon as you put something like this in a virtual environment, now you've introduced another variable. Is it the installation of Linux or is it the virtual environment? So we don't know. Yeah, sorry. If anybody has any suggestions based on our vague information and John's vague information, please write in and let us know. But, John, stay tuned. Yeah, we have smart listeners. They'll figure it out. Our next email comes from Joe, who is a new listener. Just found your podcast and I am binge listening from episode 100. I am now a Linux junkie and put all of the blame on a coworker. He told me that his friend's child, who is 15 years old, was wanting to try Linux on his laptop, but my coworker didn't know anything about it. I went on a deep dive into Linux sites on the web and found a how to make a live USB (18/48)
tutorial on Instructables.com that made it very simple. I now have six flash drives in my pocket with different distros on each one. That is when I decided to type Linux into my podcatcher app. Your podcast is my favorite I have found, mainly because you don't talk down to newbies like myself. I don't know if you are still making this podcast anymore, but I wanted to thank you for the episodes that are out now. Joe. Well, Joe, we are still doing it. I'm the new person on the block. Larry's been doing it from the very beginning and we're glad that you like the podcast. Larry? Yeah. Yeah. That's a little surprising that you would say that you're hoping that we would continue. Maybe you stopped listening in between or maybe you just haven't caught up, but when you do catch up to episode 306, you'll hear your email read. Thank you. It's okay if you want to go to the end and listen backwards. Yeah, you can do that too. Because listening from 100, that's a lot of podcasts. It's a lot of (19/48)
listening. See, well, Tom was still at 100. I have to go back and look, but I think so. Yeah. You get to hear about Tom and everything and just remember, don't take the bolts out while the jet's flying. Yes, exactly right. Wise advice from Nightwise. Yes, Nightwise. You know, that guy. Yeah. Okay. Let's go on to our next email. This one is from Greg and Greg replies to a question that we asked in 304, that you asked through episode 304, Bill. Greg says, hi Larry and Bill. To answer Bill's question in episode 304 about my choice of laptop to go Linux with, you are partially right, Larry, as price was a consideration. However, I was also influenced by the positive acclimations from a couple of Asus laptop owners that I queried when I saw what they were using. I mentally targeted Asus in the first place because I have personally had good reliable service from several Asus desktop motherboards in the past. In the end, I ended up buying an Asus model X55A with an Intel Pentium B980 2.4 (20/48)
gigahertz processor, four gigabytes of RAM, 500 gigabyte hard drive and DVD drive. Yes, it's a modest machine, but it suits my needs admirably and didn't cost me an arm and a leg. With the integral DVD drive, there doesn't seem to be an extra drive bay for a second hard drive, although I did not totally disassemble the laptop to look for it. My only disappointment is that although the sound card earphone output is stereo, the mic input is mono. This makes it unusable for DSP digital signal processing software that needs stereo inputs for the 90 degree phase shifted quadrature audio signals to function. Huh? OK. Oh, well, an external USB sound card with stereo inputs and outputs, as well as high sampling rates for PSK 31 while I'm at it, maybe in the future. 73 Greg WA8FJK. Well, that could be why he needs the digital signal processing. Hey, hey, you know, I actually understood part of that, but I didn't understand the rest of it. He's getting into some serious audio techno geek speak (21/48)
there. So, yeah, Greg, good luck. And thanks for commenting on our question. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Greg. And let me know how that works out. I'm kind of see if you can get to work with your your your ham rig and everything. All right. We have another email from John and he has a question about VNC to Ubuntu mate box with VPN. Aloha to going link from the Big Island Hawaii. I have to say Aloha because how many times we get someone from Hawaii. Aloha. OK. Aloha. OK. I enjoy listening to your podcast on my 45 minute commute to and from work along the beautiful west coast of the Big Island. Since diving headfirst into the world of Linux a couple of months ago, I now have Linux dual booting as my main OS on three computers. And with the help of your show and several different flavors of Ubuntu, I've resurrected a dead Vista laptop, a dead XP netbook and a PC that forced Windows 10 upgrade wiped out. At the moment, I'm working on repurposing the desktop PC as a way for my fiance to learn (22/48)
Ubuntu Mate 16.04 without having to do a boot her Windows 10 machine back and forth from Windows to Linux. I would like this new Ubuntu Mate machine to be accessible from both her Windows 10 PC and my dual boot Windows 10 Mint Cinnamon PC through some sort of remote desktop, VNC or some other means. What software would you recommend I use to accomplish this task? To make things a little more complicated, all of our computers run through a VPN for basic privacy. It would also be really handy to be able to access this machine remotely from outside of our home network. I basically want to do what LogMeIn does for Windows machines. I don't mind paying a small monthly fee if necessary. All the desktop PCs are hardwired through a TP-Link C9 Archer router. Her computer and my computer are in different rooms with the new Mate machine being located across the room from my PC and temporarily using the television as a monitor. We have blazingly fast 300 megabit cable internet here in rural Hawaii (23/48)
so I expect we could expect decent remote performance and lastly my knowledge of Linux is still pretty weak but I'm learning quickly. I grew up in the age with an Apple IIe and a 300-ball acoustic coupler so I'm not afraid of the terminal or simple scripting programming. And I cannot say this. Mahalo Nui Loa. Who's saying thanks? It's okay. Island of Tikki. Tikki. Island of Tikki. Okay. I don't know, Larry. Okay. Well, some suggestions, John. First of all, since you're using a VPN, one of the things that makes this difficult is that your computers are not guaranteed to be on the same network. Now, if it weren't for the VPN, they would all be on the same network. I'm making an assumption here but that's a pretty safe assumption. You're using a TP-Link router and without the VPN, everything's on the same network and then you can use simple software without anything further like VNC to make the connections. Now, given that you're using a VPN, there's no guarantee that all of the computers (24/48)
will actually be accessing using the same IP address because you're really accessing the internet through the VPN software. And each instance of VPN could take you to a whole different IP address. So, I mean, that's the purpose of VPN software, right? So, you've got a private tunnel that helps your security. Now, to make that work without paying for software like LogMeIn or TeamViewer or those kinds of software, without paying for those, you really have to reduce your security and use something in your router called port forwarding. It may be called something different in the TP-Link router but essentially what you're doing is you're saying, I want this port, whatever port the software you're using is using, to go from however it comes in out of the internet and I want to send it to this computer, this IP address. And in most routers, you can only do that for a single PC, for a single port. I know you said you are new to Linux but most of what I just described applies beyond Linux to (25/48)
any sort of computer connection. Maybe even your old Apple IIe with a 300-bot modem but bottom line here is it gets a little complicated, it gets a little less secure because you're using VPN and you want to do remote control unless you use some proprietary software like LogMeIn or like TeamViewer. So my recommendation would be to spend the money, get a good subscription for one of those services and use that. That will bypass firewalls, that will bypass the VPN and will give you a direct link from one computer to control another from the internet. If you're only doing this from inside of your network, it becomes a lot simpler but I'm not going to go into that at this point because the key thing you said is you want to be able to access it from outside the network and once you've got that established, it'll work inside your network as well with that software. So that's it, Bill. Okay, well, I followed about half of that. Yeah, and hopefully our friend John will understand most of that (26/48)
or at least take the suggestion that he should probably go get TeamViewer or should probably go get LogMeIn or some sort of software like that and use that and that will solve most of his problems. Yeah, do Bill's method. The easiest way is the way. Yeah, but wow. Okay, I can understand the VPN inside the network but you're right where he goes and wants to access it, to be able to access it from the outside, that makes it a little more difficult. Yeah, it does and that's especially since he's using VPN software, that makes it even more complex because that's one more variable in the thing and it's really a private tunnel between one computer and the internet and you've got to make a hole in your firewall, you're going to make a hole in that tunnel and it just gets complex. Yeah. Okay, so our next email is from Marlowe. Marlowe has a comment on NetBeans on Ubuntu 16.04. First, Marlowe says, hi guys, first of all, thank you for a great podcast. I have learned so much from you. I have (27/48)
completely moved away from Windows and couldn't be happier. My question, can I install NetBeans on Ubuntu 16.04? Someday I will make a killer app. Again, thank you so much for all you share with the community. I really appreciate it. Keep up the good work. Have you used NetBeans or any software like that, Bill? I play games. I don't make games. No, so the answer is no. I don't, that's a good question. I don't even know that. Can you install NetBeans? Let me take a quick look here. Since I happen to be on Ubuntu 16.04, I will go to the Synaptic Package Manager, put in my password, search for NetBeans. Just send me your password, I'll take care of it. Sure, no problem. And the answer is yes, you can install it. I've never used it, but it's an IDE, an Integrated Development Environment for software developers. And as you observed, a lot of software people use this to develop games and other things. So yeah, it's there. It's right in the repositories. Go ahead and install it. You can do a (28/48)
sudo apt netbeans and it'll install. Now Marlo, if you make a killer app and it makes lots of money, you just got to remember us. There you go. Our next email comes from Brock who talks about the dangers of the RM command. And just a little background, RM is removed. Yeah, and basically it doesn't have a lot of the safety protocols in place that the DEL command in Windows and DOS did. It's going to let you wipe your entire computer, including the operating system, if you do it wrong. Which I've done. Okay, he writes, I am loving the podcast. Thanks so much. I recently had a big mishap with a script with the RM command. I have a handbrake batch conversion script that can recursively convert every video file type I specify into MP4 format. This helps save space because the MP4 version is smaller. The other day I was doing some file housekeeping, for example, running a great program called fdupes to help eliminate duplicate files. I also decided it would be good to convert every video in (29/48)
my Dropbox directory to MP4 to save space. I have paid Dropbox so it has lots of files. The videos are spread out in many different directories. Instead of manually deleting the original non-MP4 video later, I decided to just convert each video to MP4 and then automatically delete the original. I was a little sleepy and wasn't thinking through it fully and that was a bad idea. I ran the script and alas, handbrake had not been installed yet given I had recently set up my OS. So the conversion command failed, but it went on to delete every non-MP4 video in all these directories. Fortunately, since all of these were in Dropbox, I was able to restore them all on the Dropbox website. Wow. In hindsight, I should have run a check in my script to make sure the actual program was installed or to ensure that handbrake command executed with a success status. Perhaps this story can be a benefit for the listener. It is indeed an epic failure with RM. Another reason why we should always, always have (30/48)
a backup. Brock. Well Brock, I've done worse. And Larry has heard me go, I deleted my whole install. So yeah, RM is very powerful and another thing, never do it when you're sleepy. Yeah, when I do batch scripts to delete things, I try not to use RM at all. What I do is I move the file, so I use MV instead, to a temporary folder. And then I go in through the file manager and delete that folder. Because then I can see what I'm deleting and it's not happening automatically, but I collect everything that needs to be deleted in one place. So it's just a right click and a delete and they're gone. So it accomplishes the automation without the risk of deleting something incorrectly or having something fail within the script and then it automatically goes on to the next step in the script, which is to delete the stuff that you'd never processed in the first place. So that's one way to handle it. I know there are a lot of others, like good programming steps, like checking to make sure that (31/48)
things have successfully completed before moving to the next step in the script. So, Brock, I think you've learned your lesson. And hopefully others can learn from this lesson as well. So thanks for the email. Sorry for the deletion. Well, he was able to get everything back. Yes. So he really didn't have a lot of pain. I'm being mean. Brock, yeah, we've all had something similar. I think even Larry's accidentally deleted a file or two. Oh, you think so? Yeah. But we're not going to talk about that. No, of course not. Let's just move on to Augustin's email. So Augustin has an app suggestion. Hi, Larry and Bill. I'd like to make an app suggestion to you and the listeners of the Going Linux podcast. The podcast app Castback is one whose development grew out of Mark from the Geek Rant, formerly Everyday Linux, podcast's desire for a podcast app that met his needs. And listener Quasar Ejaz, sorry guys if I massacred your name, ran with the idea. I've followed the app's development from (32/48)
early alpha to its current beta stage, and it's quickly becoming my go-to podcast app. A killer feature of the app is its comments feature. Users can sign into their Google Plus account and are able to leave time-stamped comments on episodes of podcasts whose RSS feeds support them. While the app still has some bugs here and there, I highly recommend trying it out. If you're interested in adding comment support to the Going Linux RSS feed, all of the pod nuts, shows, feeds are comment enabled, and I'm sure Quasar would be happy to point you in the right direction, as he has been extremely receptive to feature requests and bug reports. I would be happy to give you his email with his permission. Well, thanks Augustin. That's a great recommendation. Haven't tried Castback. Maybe that's something we should try. And I don't know about comments. We have a pretty active Google Plus community as it is, and as far as comments in the feed itself, I'm not sure that's something we'd want to do. (33/48)
Our feed is pretty big as it is. I had to cut some of the old episodes from the feed and start it back at episode 100, just to make the RSS feed size compatible with the recommendations from iTunes. Sorry to have to swear on the show, but yeah, that's where most people listen. Anyway. I just want to point out, you're not allowed to murder names. That's my job. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm the only one that's allowed to murder a name, but I didn't know you had to go back to 100. Yeah. Why was that? Well, something about podcast feed specifications say that you shouldn't have any more than 300 episodes in your feed. Oh. Yeah, so we're at, what, 306? Yeah. So once we crossed over the 300 mark, I took the first 100 off the feed. Now, you can still get them from the website, of course, and listen to them there, but if you subscribe to our feed today and go all the way back to the beginning, the beginning of the feed starts at episode 100. Wow, 306 shows. Yes. There you go. Oh, wow. Who knew? Who (34/48)
knew that we could talk that much? Yeah, well, people with daily or weekly podcasts have even more than that, and I don't know whether they worry about this 300 episode limit, but since many of our listeners listen on iTunes, we really do have to conform to their specs, so that's why I hacked the first 100 episodes or so off the RSS feed. Sorry about that, folks. By the way, how old is the podcast now? We started in 2007. Wow. Something like that, so almost 10 years old. Wow. Okay, moving on, we got an email from Richard who asks about Mint versus Ubuntu. He writes, hi, Larry. I heard you say on a recent podcast that you now have switched to Ubuntu Mate from Mint. I am a long-time Minute user but always open to change. Can you detail why you decided that, or if you already did, point me to the episode? I know Canonical is now doing better on the privacy front, but what made you switch? Thanks. Hmm. Well, I wanted to change. And also, he got tired of me harassing him about Mint. Yeah, (35/48)
no, I could put up with that for a long time. But yeah, there were just some things about Mint that I know some folks have some political disagreements with the creator of Linux Mint. That wasn't really my impetus. I know that some people think that Mint is too derivative, but I mean, hey, Ubuntu is derivative from Debian, so I don't think that's a real argument either. Mint actually is my first choice for people using Windows and wanting to come over to Linux for the first time and are non-technical users of computers because everything is just there from the beginning. And if they're not the kind of people to tinker with stuff, Mint just takes care of everything. Ubuntu Mate is second choice. And the reason it's not first choice is there are still some tweaks you have to make and you have to be not a techno geek to use Ubuntu Mate. Far from it. It's definitely for the new user, but there are a few more things that you have to know about computing to use Ubuntu Mate than you do for (36/48)
Mint. So I switched mainly because I wanted to get back to the old GNOME 2 utilities and the desktop environment. When I had Mint, I would always set it up with the panel at the top and the panel at the bottom very much like GNOME 2 and Mate is today. I did not run Mint Mate because I thought that Mint Cinnamon was better looking. And Ubuntu Mate is somewhere in between the two, between Mint Mate and Mint Cinnamon in terms of its polish. And it's just something that I think has the right philosophy. And I wanted to get back into a more pure Ubuntu environment. So not really solid reasons, I don't think. It's just more personal preference more than anything else. Okay. Okay. Our next email is from Alec. He described audio issues we addressed in our last episode, Bill. He writes, I would give double stars rating except that I can hear only half of the podcast. Maybe I'm deaf in one ear, but I can never hear Bill. Larry is plenty loud, but I have to crank the volume to hear Bill. When (37/48)
Larry speaks again, the speakers blow. This isn't an ongoing issue with all of your podcasts. Please look into it. Thanks. Well, Alec, yours is not the only complaint we've got about that. And quite frankly, as I said in our Google Plus community, I got a little lazy on proof listening to the podcast before sending it out. And I forgot that I think my headset speakers compensate for some of the mismatch in volume levels between speakers. And I wasn't listening on earbuds, and I wasn't listening over the built-in laptop speaker to kind of proof listen to it before it went out. And if I had, I would have picked up on the discrepancy in the volume levels between the two. But since then, Bill has gotten a new microphone. He's gotten a new studio. Things have picked up a lot in the quality of Bill's signal, so I don't have to process it as much, which accounts for the reduction in volume, at least in part. And as a result, I think in our last episode, we did a good job of making Bill's (38/48)
level closer to or equal to mine. So Bill, what do you think? You listened to the last episode. Did we accomplish it? I think we did. Of course, I've been known to be the problem child of this podcast. So yeah, I thought it sounded better. I'm now looking at a different microphone. We were just talking about that before we started the recording. So if I end up picking up a new mic, you might even see a little even more higher quality. But yeah, I thought the last podcast was a lot better. Yeah, I think so too. And if we go on to Nancy's comment in the next email, maybe we'll hear more. Nancy identified issues and she wrote, I have enjoyed your podcast from the very beginning. However, the audio issues that are coming through your podcast, those sound level differences between the two of you have gotten so great that I can no longer listen to your podcast when traveling. I just can't keep adjusting the volume. So I'm going to fast forward through the whole podcast episode. I'm hoping (39/48)
you get it resolved before the next one. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to keep doing this until you get the volume issues resolved. I just don't have the time to keep going up and down through the volume scale. I'm either in my car or in a treadmill, so I'm always having trouble with volume differences. Thanks for looking into it and thanks for continuing a great podcast and website. Sorry, Nancy. It's my fault. Yeah, well, I think it's my fault for not adjusting the volume before sending out the podcast episode. But yeah, we're doing a lot of things to fix it and you should see a definite improvement here on out. Yeah, he only can work with my sample so much. So hopefully we got it more listenable. Yep, I think so. So let's get back on to printing issues. Paul asks about wireless printing on Linux. Hi, Larry and Bill. I'm running Linux Mint 17.3 XFCE. Can you please suggest a wireless printer that would be user friendly to this distribution? I've done a little research myself, but (40/48)
haven't found anything conclusive yet. I thought you might have a good wireless printer in mind that would be a good fit for Mint 17.3. I need a good printer that works for Linux because I don't want to go back to Windows for any reason I can possibly avoid. Thanks for your support and keep up the great work to the Linux community. Paul in North Texas. Well, Paul, just about any HP wireless printer will do. That's the recommendation. I'm using an HP OfficeJet 60 something. Let me just take a quick look here. System administration printers, HP OfficeJet Pro 6835, which is one of those wireless printers that has printer scanner fax capabilities. And it works perfectly with the built in driver that comes with Linux. No problems. You go on the HP website, you register it as an e-printer, and you can even email it a print job from your phone or tablet or whatever you want, because it comes with an email address for the printer and whatever you send it will get printed at your home, even if (41/48)
you're out taking a picture of something and you just want to print it out. It works great. Yeah, I know I use an HP OfficeJet 3830 and it's OK. It's a new one, but it has the same features of yours. And I was able to email myself a file and it did print. So I know it works. 3830 should still be in stores because I haven't had mine. I've had mine less than a month or so. Anything with HP, I think you'll have good luck with. Yep, absolutely. And just to clarify, you don't need to email print jobs to your computer. That's just an example of an added feature. Yeah, and also when they assign you an email address, it's usually this really long, hard to remember one. You can change it to something you can remember. Yes, absolutely. But the Wi-Fi on it works perfectly. It works with, you know, if you're a mixed family, meaning you've got not only Linux, but you have OS 10 or Windows or whatever. It'll work with those as well on the Wi-Fi network. And as long as you're on the same Wi-Fi (42/48)
network, you can print to it just as though it were a wired computer. No problem. OK, our next email comes from Paul, and he also talked about verifying the Mint 18 ISO. Hi Larry and Bill. After recently downloading Mint 18 ISO to load on my laptop, I wanted to verify my checksum to make sure I had a correct, complete copy. The verification procedure is no longer a simple matter of comparing checksums. The Linux Mint website has a rather complicated direction to verify a good ISO. I found a commentary on the procedure from the blog Linux North, and the link is here and it's in our show notes. I haven't tried it yet. It looks like there is quite a bit of command line work required, an extra challenge for any Linux user, especially for a Linux newbie. I wish there was an easier way. Thanks again for the shows and your support to the Linux community. Paul in North Texas. Yeah, Paul, this whole checksum thing has gotten very, very complex, mainly because there are a bunch of bad guys out (43/48)
there that have done a lot of nasty things. And especially most recently to the Linux Mint website, they replaced one of their ISOs and the checksums on their website. They hacked in somehow and caused a big hullabaloo over the whole thing. And as a result, they have taken it to the next level at Linux Mint and they've locked things down from a security perspective. It wasn't a Linux issue. It was a WordPress issue. And in the meantime, they've changed from the older style of checksums to the new SHA-256 checksums, which require a little extra effort to verify them. So I don't think any of the issues around bad guys hacking websites and causing mayhem and trying to take over your computer with malware is going away anytime soon. So I would love for it to be easier, but there's a tradeoff between convenience and security, and I always fall on the side of security wherever possible. So, unfortunately, you got to do it. Oh, well, you know, bad guys make things more complicated. Yep. Yeah. (44/48)
So all you have to do, Paul, is just get rid of all the bad guys and you can go back to the simple way of doing it. And then I'm the only one who calls in mayhem this way. It should be. Yeah. OK. OK. Yes. So Dries asks about network chairs. Hey, I just wanted to ask a quick question. I've switched to Linux for the fourth time now in the past 12 years. The previous attempts all still gave me issues with NTFS, right access, sound, Wi-Fi and flash video. You know what? Stop using NTFS file format anyway. But this time it looks like I'm going to stay. I even converted my laptop to Linux as well, which leads me to a question. Since I now don't have any Windows machine anymore, does it still make sense to use SMB for network chairs? I could try to start using NTFS, which I have never done before. But does it even matter for a simple home network? Well, that was all. Thanks for keeping up this helpful and interesting podcast for so long. OK, Dries. Well, yeah, it sounds like if you've gone (45/48)
completely Linux, you're probably not using the NTFS, the Windows NTFS file formats anymore, which is step one. So that's good. So NFS is definitely a Unix and Linux oriented file sharing, network sharing protocol. From a practical perspective, I don't think it matters. NTFS may give you some additional technical flexibility and capabilities, but if you're just using it for simple sharing, it probably doesn't matter. What do you think, Bill? Have you done anything with file sharing with NTFS versus SMB? Not really. All I do is play games. Yeah, well, maybe that's what Dries is doing as well. But no, let's turn it over to our listeners. I'm sure somebody who knows a lot more about sharing files over a network, especially in the Linux environment, may have some real reasons why you might want to choose NTFS over SMB for file sharing. But from a practical perspective, if you're just doing simple sharing and you did say that you're doing simple home networking, I'm not sure it would (46/48)
matter. If you want to take the dive into NTFS and learn about it, have at it. But if SMB works for you and you just want to get your shares up and running quickly since you already know it, that's probably the wisest move. Yeah, probably. I really don't know because I don't do a lot of sharing. I do a lot of reinstalling distros, but that's about it. So yeah, turn it over to our listeners. They're smart. Yep. I have been very pleased with them. Just thought I would let you know about this resource since many Linux users may not want to use Steam for a variety of reasons. Great show and keep up the great work, Jeff. Well, Jeff, funny you should mention that. I found good old games this week and I actually mentioned this at the very beginning of the podcast. So yeah, it is a great place. So thanks. Yep, absolutely. And I'm going to have to give it a try. See if there's some of my old favorites in there. You're not allowed to game. Oh, sorry. Well, maybe Pong or... Yes, you can play (47/48)
Pong. That's it. Oh, okay. Hey, break out the Atari 2600, Larry. Come on. Lara Croft, Tomb Raider? Is that on there? I don't know. Oh, man. We'll figure it out. Anyway, until then... You're killing me. You're killing me. Yeah. Okay. Well, our next episode, we haven't decided what it's going to be yet, but by the time we record it, we'll have it completely figured out. You could jump right into the until then now. I'm laughing too much. Okay. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinux.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'd 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. New music provided by Mark Blasko at podcastthemes.com. (48/48)
Going Linux episode 309, Today's Security Technology. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. And I'm your co-host, Dylan. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, we'll discuss today's security on Linux. Hey, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are you? Very, very good. How are you doing? Another beautiful day in Southern California. I cannot say so much for the East Coast, so I hope all our friends over on the East Coast are not getting too badly beat up by Hurricane Matthew. Right. And as you can tell, we record our podcast episodes in advance. And hopefully by the time you hear this, Matthew is a hurricane that's gone and no longer a threat. But (1/49)
right now, as we're recording this, it is doing some nasty things to the East Coast. So best wishes to all our friends there. And hopefully by the time you hear this, you've all made it through without a scratch. Let's hope so. I hear it's a pretty big one. So, Larry, I have gotten AI overload lately. So artificial intelligence is getting you down, is it? No, not getting down. Something like everybody's racing for AI. We got Amazon Echo, Google Home, IBM Watson, Apple Siri. Just to name a few of them, it's like they're everywhere. Is that how we're going now? I think so. The company I work for, Salesforce, I just spent a week in San Francisco. And one of the key things we were talking about is artificial intelligence and Salesforce calls it Einstein. Oh, really? So I missed one. Yeah, I think so. And there are many more out there, that's for sure. So it's the way we're going. So now, instead of my dumb alarm clock waking me up, I'm going to have somebody say, Good morning, Bill. Time (2/49)
to get up. And I'm going to slap it against the wall just like I do my alarm clock. Perfect. That's great. What's so good about this morning? I'd rather not have somebody tell me why. You're in a bad mood. Would you like me to make a schedule a doctor should put me for you to get your anger aggression issues? I'd be happy if it would just schedule the coffee to come out of the machine on time. Turn on the coffee maker. Actually, Google Home apparently is going to have little plugins that you can hook your coffee maker to. So it knows when you get up to turn on the coffee maker, which is not a bad idea. But my luck, the morning I go stumbling down to get the coffee, I forgot to buy the coffee. It's just hot water. Oops. Oops. Where do you put it in the coffee maker? Yeah, you still need human intelligence to make artificial intelligence work. So, Larry, I thought today would be a great time to talk about just some basic Linux security issues and kind of compare it against what's out (3/49)
there right now because it changes so fast. So how are we going to go about this? What do you think? Well, we've written in some of the articles on our website things like this, and I'm going to read a paragraph. The Linux operating system is more secure and better supported than operating systems pre-installed on most home computer hardware today. Linux is backed by many large corporations as well as independent developers and users, many of whom are focused on ensuring and improving the security that's built into the operating system. The built-in updater provided by your Linux distribution provides security updates for both its software applications and the operating system. Vulnerabilities are patched more quickly and are delivered automatically and more frequently than the two most popular operating systems. And Linux is designed to make it difficult for viruses, rootkits, and malware to be installed and run without conscious intervention by you. The user. Linux users are not (4/49)
administrators by default. Administrators, that means the root users, on any computer system have permission to do anything they want, including damage to the system, which I've done more than once. To be extra secure, Linux requires you to provide your administrator password to install and run programs as root every single time. So I think that's a good thing. Of course, it should have one for mine. Are you sure you want to do this? Yes, an extra, extra, extra confirmation step. We know Bill needs a little extra security. Yeah, it's like, okay, Bill, have you drunk your coffee? Are you sure you want to do this? Because it's really going to mess up the system and I'm going to go, yeah, just go ahead and do it. No, seriously, that's a wonderful step. I know sometimes it gets a little tedious, but if you think about it, that's really a great security feature because you have to look at it and say, yeah, do I really want to do that? Sometimes I was like, I don't know if I really want to (5/49)
install that program after all. So I can see both ways. They try to make it as convenient as possible, but they also try to balance it with security issues. Yes, exactly. And, you know, one of the things that you need to do as a Linux user is make sure that you're using the repositories or the repos as they're often abbreviated whenever you can to get applications and updates and those kinds of things, as opposed to going and finding other sources that aren't as vetted as the repositories are. And, you know, different versions of Linux sometimes use the term root instead of super user. And Bill, the difference between root and super user is basically that when you run something as a super user, when you type in sudo, S-U-D-O, for example, you're just temporarily elevating your privileges to the equivalent of a root user. Whereas running as root means you're permanently logged in as a root user until you log out, right? Yeah, I think so. And there's a few of these distributions that (6/49)
they both have the security, but they kind of access it differently. Like, for instance, Ubuntu and a lot of its derivatives used super user. Right. And then like Slackware and Arch, they use root. So you actually have to log in as root instead of super user. I'm sure you can change it if you want, because you can do anything you want. But as a default, if I remember correctly on Slackware, you have to log in as root. And the account that you normally use for yourself doesn't have root privileges. OK, so in order to do anything as root, you have to log out as a super user and then log back in as root. Yeah, I guess you could bring up a terminal and access it that way. And switch the user, yeah. But that would require more effort than I'm willing to do. So, OK, I've never used Arch or Slackware, so I'll take your word for it. Well, you know, now, if I'm wrong, I'm sure I'll hear about it. But that's what I remember from my Slackware time. But that you could access your root, but you had (7/49)
to open a terminal and all that stuff. Right. I kind of like the convenience of the way Ubuntu does it. But sometimes I get tired of entering the password to install a program even when it's coming from a repo. But then I think about it and say, well, think about who's installing this. Right, exactly. And the reason we're talking about super user and root is in order to update the software on your computer, on your Linux computer, you need to be super user or root to actually install those programs, as you mentioned earlier on, Bill. And taking the time to make sure your Linux is up to date with patches is very important. And something that's really good about Linux is that the patch notes, the notes that come with the patches, tell you what's being done. So everybody should take a few minutes to skim through those notes. And there's a lot of great information about those notes. And the more you understand about what's going on with your computer, the more you can pay attention to (8/49)
security and be more secure. Yeah, and something interesting that is direct conflict with another operating system we'll talk about is that you still have to give Linux permission to install the updates. You have to enter your password. There's a few of these OSes that are out there that just install them. You might postpone them for a little bit, but sooner or later they're going to install whether you like it or not. And sometimes I'm either busy and don't have time for it, or I want to let it sit there for a little bit and make sure that I really need that. And sometimes you can pick which updates you want to install. Right, right. I've even heard of some operating systems that without your permission will download a complete upgrade and replace your operating system with the latest version. Without your permission. Okay. I'm not going to mention Windows. Well, you said it first, so now it's open season. But there's a few other things that really are important. And the first one (9/49)
that I cannot stress enough, and we stress this every time we talk about security, good passwords are important. So please do not use ABC123, I am God, or anything like that because the people are going to guess them. Try to use a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols because the better the password, the more secure your system is going to be. Another one is if you share the computer, set up a guest account on your machine so other people can't tinker with your settings or change security or install things without your permission. The reason for this is you don't want people digging through and changing firewall settings or installing that update that you said, I just don't want to install it right now. You don't want them to be able to reboot your machine. There's a lot of things that you can do and you can really lock down a guest account. So always use those, especially if you're going to be sharing your computer. Now Larry, let's talk about how Linux is set up in contrast (10/49)
since you said Windows. We'll use that as an example. How is Linux set up to be more secure than say Windows? I know for example, Linux doesn't have DLLs. It doesn't throw all these dynamic links into a library and we've all had problems with that at one time or another. But other than architectural differences, what else stands out to you as different? Well, we've talked about some of them like requiring absolutely every single time to put your password in as super user or as root to install software and even to download from the repositories software, especially updates and things that will change the potentially the security of your system. And some other things. Bottom line though, is that Linux is designed with security in mind and has been from day one. It's been designed as a multi-user system from day one and with security in mind. And most of the Linux distributions that you can get today will have a system firewall installed. Many of them will have that turned on by default. (11/49)
Some will not. But it'll be installed or available in the repositories and you can install it and turn it on quite quickly and easily. And generally, in the case of the uncomplicated firewall that Ubuntu uses, the default settings are adequate for most people. So it's just a matter of turning it on. Speaking of multiple user systems, simply separating the user accounts from one another is a great way to ensure security. Every system and user file is marked with permissions and you can see those permissions and you can see what permissions are granted to which users and which groups of users for that file. There is no access to administrative facilities from standard accounts without giving a superuser password or a root password. Software installation rejects software from untrusted sources and you have to consciously make those sources trusted in order for the software to be used, downloaded, and installed. Almost all Linux distributions come with utilities that allow you to update (12/49)
your software automatically. Several features of the operating system help prevent software from modifying other parts of the running system. So systems are isolated from one another from a security perspective. And many, many, many other features that are too long to list. I've been actually listing some of them from a post on Security Basics that it will include a link to from the Fedora website. Okay. So if I understand this correctly, you know, Windows has such a lot of legacy stuff built into it. And since Linux was designed with multi-user from the very beginning instead of an afterthought, someone kind of described Linux to me as it's kind of like a layered system. You have the kernel and then you have applications and then you have the user space above it. Is that is that a good visualization of that? Yeah. You know, I think in general, that's the way most operating systems are built. So, yeah. Okay. Okay. So do you think having to enter your password all the time is a help or (13/49)
hinder to security? Yeah, it's a help for security. It's certainly less convenient for the user. It would be great to be able to just open your computer and have it work and not ever have to enter a password. But we don't live in those times anymore. Security is a must. And passwords secure long, complicated passwords are necessary these days. So although it's an inconvenience, it's a requirement and it helps with security, of course. And unfortunately, those two things are oftentimes diametrically opposed from one another, security and convenience. And if you are secure, you're not going to have every level of convenience you may like. And if your computer runs completely conveniently for you, then you probably don't have adequate security. Okay. Now we've been covering just some of the basics of Linux. But one of the things that we should just touch on, however briefly, is the browser security. Because that's how most of us are accessing the internet for checking our email, our news. (14/49)
One of the big things that I, when I was looking through my notes on this episode was there's a lot of data that's tracked via the browser. And now a big thing is the do not track thing. Do you have an idea of how that thing works? Well, from what I understand, we're going to use some examples here. Say you're using Internet Explorer or Chrome and you go to, and you don't have do not track on. Okay. And you go to Amazon and say you look at for some coffee, which I just recently did. They put cookies where they can follow you to different sites. So they're building a database of your browsing habits. So you might go to Amazon to look for it. Then you might go to Starbucks website, see if you can get a better deal. And then you might go to eBay. And so each one of those keeps adding cookies to see where you're going. Now some only track you within their network. But it kind of creeps me out that you're looking for coffee and hey, all of a sudden it says, I see you were looking for (15/49)
coffee. How about some coffee creamer too? Well, if I want a coffee creamer, I'd look for it. So in that way, they're trying to tie, I would say just add-ons. They're doing it for their own personal gain, not necessarily for your privacy or security. Now I don't care if people know that I was ordering Sumatra coffee. I really don't care. But how much data is actually being transmitted? Because they know the time, the date, how long you looked at a page. Did you stay within their network? You can take a lot of data and start kind of building a profile of the person who's doing the shopping. Right, exactly. And many of the companies out there are doing this for marketing purposes. Of course, they want to see if you're interested in coffee, maybe they can sell you something else. But it makes you wonder if that technology exists, can it be used for nefarious purposes? Perhaps by three letter agencies of a government somewhere? Not that they would ever, ever do that. No, who's ever heard (16/49)
of that happening? I don't know. I'm not being paranoid. I'm just being, hey, I should be secure enough to look for coffee. Let's take it one step further. Say you're reading a news article. You might run across something on terrorism or you might run across something on... Like both of us, we read about the data hacks and stuff. If they say, well, wow, this person's always reading about things that are data hacks or the latest bombings that happened. So maybe we need to watch this person more and we could be totally innocent, but it just builds a profile of saying, oh, why is he always looking at that? Why is he always doing that? Your browser keeps a history of everything you've done unless you clear it, which I think all our users are savvy enough to know how to do that. But it's still the fact that data is being used to kind of track you. So the do not track is important for that reason. Also, you can go into settings and there's a lot of security settings in different browsers and (17/49)
each one has different terminology for it. But what you want to do is if you're concerned about your privacy, and I always consider privacy and security as one. Then you're going to want to say, hey, look, stop tracking me. I don't want your cookies. I can order my own coffee. And if I want creamer, I can order it type of thing. So that moves me on to something that really, really made me go, hmm. I was looking at the differences in security between Linux and Windows 10, and I've included some links in our show notes that you guys should really take a look at. And basically it's talking about how much data Windows 10 collects and you can't entirely shut it off. Well, you know, that's really important because we've been talking about how much information a browser can send back to wherever it's sending it. And that applies to any operating system. But it sounds from what you're saying that Windows takes it a step further. I know in Linux, sometimes you'll get a request, especially (18/49)
during the installation phase of do you want to send information back to Canonical or Fedora or whatever distribution you're using. And what they're talking about there is information to help the development of the operating system. But it sounds like those folks at Microsoft are collecting more information than that. Let me just give you an example because I like examples. It tracks how many times you've plugged the USB into your machine, what type of USB it was. It also can tell, according to the license agreement, you can only have 12 USB devices plugged into your computer at one time. That's crazy. I've never had more than three, but it's still able to see that you've plugged the USB into your computer. Let's see, hang on a second. So you may have a USB mouse, a USB keyboard, USB display. Joystick? Yeah, joystick. You may have a USB stick for storing stuff and maybe a USB external hard drive. How many is that? That's five or six already. Yeah, and then if you got a printer. Yeah, I (19/49)
see. Oh yeah, a printer. Yeah. Does it count the hub? Some people use a USB hub because they have a scanner, they have a camera. Does the hub count as one device or is each device on your five port hub five? Is that five or is that one? I don't know. Well, one of the differences that we got to understand is Linux is pretty much you can do whatever you want within the license agreements. Okay, if you make changes to make it better, you have to share it. But Windows, most people are under the conception, this is my Windows thing. No, it's not your license. They're allowing you to use the software. And if you really look, there's the restrictions. You can only have, you know, there's virtualization restrictions, there's restrictions if you can transfer it. You know, I'll give you an example. If I wanted to transfer my copy of Linux to Larry, I could say, here you go Larry, have a nice day. And that's totally okay. Or Larry can give me his or whatever. But you can't legally do that with (20/49)
Windows. You have to go through, jump through hoops. So they're really telling you, yes, you can use the software, we make things easy, but in Windows 10, you have to give us your diagnostic data. You have to agree to these terms and conditions. And most people think, well, it comes with my machine, so it's mine. No, if you read the license agreement, it doesn't say that. It says it's licensed. So that's a big difference. So we've included links in our show notes to both the license agreements. Actually, we included three. We included one for the Linux kernel. We included one for Ubuntu and one for Windows 10. So you can look and see that they're diametrically opposed. So something to keep in mind. Now, here's my question. How much data does Microsoft get from you and what are they doing with it? Where are they storing it? They say, and Microsoft would never lie, that it doesn't have personally identifiable information. How do I know that? I can't see what you're getting is not (21/49)
transparent. So I don't know what they are getting from my machine. And also, when you installed Windows 10, it actually says that there are some programs that are not compatible and they actually uninstall it or disable it. So if you have an old software program that you've been using for 10 years and you're perfectly happy with it, Windows 10 might not like it and might not let you run it. So you're giving up a lot of your freedom and privacy and security, but you own Linux. You've got to understand, we've got to be smart about our computers and our privacy and our security. And here's another one. Who is seeing this data? I know you might say, well, you sound paranoid, Bill. No, I'm not paranoid. Here's some examples of some legitimate things that you just don't want people to know about. Letters to your employer, to your family, pictures of your kids, financial records. I mean, we're not even talking anything nefarious. We're just talking day to day. I mean, I keep things on my (22/49)
Linux computer like the bills I've paid, the outstanding debts, correspondence for jobs, my resume. That's stuff that I'd rather not just have anybody have access to it. But I don't know how much is being seen. That kind of wigs me out a little bit. I don't know. What do you think, Larry? Am I being paranoid? And if you say yes, I'm going to get a cup of coffee. Well, you know what? I think it's justified being a little bit paranoid these days. So I don't know whether you're being paranoid or just cautious. I think we all need to be super vigilant of what's going on, especially with our electronic devices, not just our computers. But this applies to our telephones. It applies to that Amazon Echo that you may have. It can apply to anything that is electronic, even if you have an Internet connected light bulb that you can control from your phone. You've got to watch out for that thing as well. So, yeah, maybe we're all paranoid these days. But I think to some degree it's a bit justified, (23/49)
especially with what you hear in the news. Well, you've got to be informed about your technology. I'm not saying you have to be an expert, but here's another example. We already discussed that you have to give Linux permission to install updates. Not so on the Windows 10. You can postpone the updates until it just doesn't let you do it anymore and it has to install it. And a lot of times what it tells you installing is performance improvements. Well, what does that mean? You know, we're updating this feature for you. Well, are you adding something to the feature I don't know about that I've been using? I mean, I like to have information about what's running on my machine, and I find it irritating where I've postponed an update on Windows. And I'm in the middle of a letter and it reboots. Yeah, exactly. That drives me insane. Sounds like I think if I were to run Windows would drive me insane. From what I've heard is the fact that when you're given an update or when an update is (24/49)
released, sometimes it's not going to let you not accept an update. That's one thing with Linux. If you know that you have version two of something and the updates to version three breaks something else, you don't have to install the update to version three until you have a solution for that issue. And Linux lets you do that. Whereas from what I've heard, Windows, I don't know about the Mac, but Windows will force those kind of updates on you. Even those where they're describing it as performance improvements or things like that, where you don't know what it is they're installing really, because it's not really giving you any sort of details. And for the most part, with Linux updates and the applications that run in Linux, you can get information about the updates before you install them, and then you can decide whether or not you want to install them. If they're security updates, generally speaking, you want those. But if they're feature improvements, maybe those feature improvements (25/49)
will break something else and you're not ready for that yet. Yeah. And one of the strengths I would say in Linux compared to other operating systems, you have a lot more people looking at the code. You have a lot more people vetting the software, and I've seen patches come out within hours of a vulnerability. And it tells you, hey, this is the patch, this, we just found it. I mean, they're incredibly, incredibly fast on getting those patches out. If they see that there's a problem, there's still legacy problems that they've known about in Windows. Unfortunately, I have to keep saying that word. That they just hope that no one finds. They know they're there, and then someone finds it, and then they patch it. Well, that doesn't make me feel safe, and it shouldn't anybody else. If you know there's a problem, you should patch it, but sometimes they don't patch it because, well, they have other concerns or other features they want to do. Why say security and privacy should be paramount? But (26/49)
that's just me, and you can disagree with me on those points. I think basically what it boils down to is when you start comparing Linux against other operating systems, you're going to see that Linux is much more security conscious than others. And that has really come home to me lately. As most of you know, I have Windows installed on my computer because I need it for work, and I also play some games. And those just don't run, or I'm too lazy to make them run on Linux. So I have actually switched where I am about 95% of the time in Linux, and only about 5% in Windows. Just because I only use Windows for what I absolutely have to. I do not browse using Windows anymore. And the reason for that is I have Windows 10, and I started looking around after reading these articles, and I started digging through the menus. And there's a lot of stuff turned on that I didn't know about, and you have to uncheck it. They like to opt you in, and then you have to opt out. So I prefer to have a choice (27/49)
of what I opt in to. I'd rather not have to opt out of all these. I mean, just look at one of the features in Windows, and I'm sure it's very nice. I've never used it. Let me rephrase that. I tried it a couple times. What is that virtual assistant? Corona, whatever her name is. Oh, Cortana. Cortana, that's it. Yeah, not a Halo person apparently. And Cortana has to connect to the internet and servers to get information. And that's a lot of data that it's talking and sharing with servers. So when you're using Cortana, it's talking to Microsoft servers, because it's their product, to get what you want done. Is it retaining the data? One of the things that I always wonder about is where the servers are located. What's your data retention policies? How are you securing that data? Because you can take a lot of data and start making some educated guesses about people and about what they want. I'm picking on Microsoft, but Google does it too. And we all use Google services. We use Google (28/49)
services here for going links to our show notes. But you just kind of wonder how the data is secured. And I know some people saying, look, I just want convenience. That's fine. Convenience is a great thing. But when you look at convenience, you also got to balance it with security. I think that's what we're kind of saying. And if you have used Linux, I think you'll realize that you're much more secure. There's nothing that's going to be 100 percent. I will say that right up front. Whether you're an OS X, FreeBSD or Linux, it's only as secure as they can make it at the time. And also, what Larry always likes to say is good computing practices. Yep, exactly. And, you know, when you're talking about collection of data, we talked earlier about the fact that artificial intelligence seems to be not only a buzzword, but the direction that the industry is going in. And what makes artificial intelligence work is the data that's out there that's available. And if it's marketing artificial (29/49)
intelligence, they're looking at your buying behavior. If it's artificial intelligence that's helping you to use your device with voice activation or provide you voice feedback, it needs access to microphones and speakers and what's going on in order for it to be able to respond to your voice. It needs to be listening. And it all comes down to do you trust the manufacturer of that device or the vendor of that software? And are you going to trust them that they are acquiring the data that they need only to do the function that they're providing you? And that data that they're collecting, are they keeping it secure? So it all comes down to trust. And whether you trust them or not, by using Linux and open source software that provides you with control, not only security, but with the control to be able to see what that security is, what it's doing, how it's working, you are in a much better place to trust, but verify, to quote a U.S. president. Yeah. And I think that's really our point (30/49)
here, is that nothing is absolutely secure. When you're using a system like Linux, as opposed to a lockdown proprietary system like Windows or even OS 10 or Mac OS, as they're converting the name to, you have the ability to verify that trust, or at least to determine how much of the information is being collected, is it being stored securely? And you can then make an intelligent choice as to whether or not you want to use that service. And again, it's a balance between convenience and security. And you can't have both together. Pick one. Well, I think what it boils down to, I mean, and I don't want anybody to think I'm bashing Windows or any other. I just want our listeners to be as informed. And most of them are a lot smarter than me. So if this is old news to them, I'm sorry. But the smartest person in technology sometimes, well, I would say almost always has to be you. Yes, absolutely. There's another feature that you mentioned to me about encrypting the home folder. How does that (31/49)
affect security? That seems to be a pretty good idea. Yeah, absolutely. And when you install Linux, many of the modern Linux distributions give you the option of encrypting the entire hard drive at the time you install the operating system or encrypting just your home directory or some segment of the hard drive. And to answer your question, Bill, what that does is it does not protect you from intrusions while you're using the system. It doesn't protect you from somebody sitting down at your computer, figuring out your password or you've left it unlocked. And they just sit down and using your computer, if if they have access and you've already entered your password to log in, then all bets are off. However, if your computer is off or even if it's on and you have logged out as your normal everyday user, you've logged out and it's sitting there ready for you to log in. The information on your hard drive or in whatever encrypted partition or folder you've got is inaccessible until you've (32/49)
fed the computer your credentials, your username and password. And once that happens, it unencrypts the drive so that you can actually use the information that's on there. But while it's in that logged out state or while it's off, if somebody were to try if somebody were to pull out your hard drive and connect it to another computer, the encryption makes that information that's on that hard drive inaccessible to someone without the encryption key. And the encryption key is not your password, but something that's generated that you actually provide the encryption software with that key by entering your password. So if you were to take your computer hard drive out and connect it to another computer, you couldn't simply open up a folder, for example, in the file manager and give it your password from the computer you took the hard drive from and expect to open it. It doesn't work that way. It's truly a key, an encrypted key that keeps your information safe by ensuring that it's not (33/49)
accessible to somebody who hasn't logged into the system that the hard drive, the encrypted hard drive is part of. So basically what you're saying, we've heard of laptops being stolen that had sensitive data. And so someone steals the laptop, unless they know your password, they can't get access to your sensitive data. And it could be just something as benign as company mailing lists, sales, strategies, financial records. Well, those aren't benign, but you see where I'm going with this. So even if they said, well, pull the drive, they still can't get access to it. Well, not easily. I'm sure there's a way, where there's a will there's always a way, but you're not going to make it easy for them is what you're trying to say. Exactly right. And depending on the encryption, the more secure the encryption, the deeper the encryption. Yeah, there's always a way to crack encryption, but if it's going to take you 10,000 years to get there, chances are it's not going to happen. They're just going (34/49)
to wipe the drive. Exactly. Okay. So Larry, I know that you've been working on an article. You want to tell us what you're working on? Yeah, absolutely. And we'll use this as a way to wrap up our show today. So I haven't completed the article yet. Maybe by the time we publish this episode, it'll be complete. If not, it will be shortly afterwards. But I wanted to finish up here with some specific guidelines, some specific suggestions for our users on security. And this applies because we're talking about today's security. So we're going to talk about some things you can do with today's technology to make your system secure. And I'm going to compare what you need to do in Linux and compare it with some recommendations that a Windows expert has provided. And we'll provide a link to all of these things in the show notes, of course. And first of all, for basic Linux security guides, Canonical on their website lists fewer than 30 Linux viruses and worms that are out there today. And one of (35/49)
the antivirus software websites, Sophos, for example, cites this Canonical article and says they're a little bit shy on a few. But let's say it's even as many as 50 Linux viruses and worms that are out there. Compare that with about 140,000 viruses for Windows. So, you know, you're protected a little bit in using Linux because there are fewer attacks out there. And let's face it, most, if not all of those Linux viruses and worms that have been developed have already been patched. So if you're running a modern Linux distribution, you're protected already. So security guidelines. First, if you dual boot with Windows, run Windows in a virtual machine, or use Wine to run Windows programs, or even simply share files with your Windows using friends, you need to install an antivirus scanner to scan those files for viruses. Not that they're going to infect your Linux machine, but so that if you pass those files on to others through email or through file sharing or other methodologies, that (36/49)
you're not passing on those viruses. That's the case for installing antivirus on Linux. And in fact, on the Canonical site, they say don't install antivirus on Linux on Ubuntu. You don't need it unless you're doing one of these things. So that's point number one. Point number two, your Linux distribution comes with a software firewall. And if it doesn't, if it's not already installed, it's in the repository. So if it's not installed, install it. If it's installed, make sure it's enabled. Some Linux distributions enable a firewall by default, and some don't. Some install it and let you decide whether you want to turn it on or not. But the recommendation from a security perspective is use a firewall, a software firewall, and turn it on. Point number three, keep your system updated. Updates on Linux are automatic on most distributions, so let them run as soon as they're available. Linux distributions provide security updates as soon as they're available, as opposed to other operating (37/49)
systems that wait until the specific time of the month when they release all of their patches. So you're more secure on Linux simply because you get the updates without any delay. Number four, use strong passwords on everything. And use a secure password manager to store those, because if they are good passwords, typically they're a little complex and sometimes you wouldn't be able to remember them even if you tried. And since we're recommending that you use a different password for each individual password you need, you're not repeating any passwords, you're going to have sometimes hundreds of passwords that you would need to remember. So use a secure password manager to store them. Number five, make backups regularly. Number six, install only from trusted sources, whether that's a Linux distribution, whether that's open source software, or whether that's proprietary software that you're installing on your Linux machine. Make sure you're installing it from trusted sources, and on (38/49)
Linux that generally means the repositories, or trusted PPAs, or trusted websites that perhaps don't provide software into the repositories and require that you download from their website. Make sure you go into the right place. Number seven, use security-related plugins for your browser that protect your data, your credentials, and your privacy. We talked about browsers and how much data they collect. You can prevent some of that with the appropriate plugins, whether you're using Chrome or Firefox or something else. There are plugins, search through the official sources for plugins for your browser and you'll find them. Whether that's VPN or whether that's ad blocking software, use it. And number eight on our list of recommendations for Linux is use common sense. The biggest security threat is generally found between the keyboard and the chair. That means you, the human element, is often the weakest link when it comes to security, whether that's with Linux or whether that's with other (39/49)
operating systems. And if you look through those eight suggestions, they apply to any operating system. Let's face it, you want to install software from trusted sources, you want to enable a firewall, you want to make sure that if you're running Windows programs or receiving files from Windows using people, you scan them for viruses, you want to make backups on a regular basis, and you want to get system updates. So use common sense. That's really what we've been talking about this whole episode. And let me pause here before I go into how this compares with what's recommended for security on Windows. What do you think, Bill? Well, I'm good for the first seven, but I'm in trouble for the eighth. I think we all are. Do the best you can. Well, in my case, I'm the Muppet, so I'm going to do stuff, yeah, common sense. This is install this program. No, seriously, those are pretty much all common sense. I mean, none of them are really rocket science. But we can't stress it enough that if you (40/49)
follow those eight suggestions or guidelines, that you're already ahead of the game. Yeah, you're already ahead of what most people do because most people don't do all of those things. Most people don't do most of those things. So if you're doing anywhere near all of them, you're, as you said, Bill, you're well ahead of the pack. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. But then again, anybody that uses Linux, I think, are probably a little more tech savvy than most. And you can call that a little bit of an elitist boast, but I've seen some of the discussions in our forums. And from what I can see, our users that listen to the podcast are pretty much on top of things. So, yeah, I would agree with that. I don't think you have to be all that tech savvy to follow these these guidelines. And in fact, if you're interested in using Linux as opposed to Windows, your interest indicates that you have some curiosity and you're at least aware of the fact that you need to be concerned about how your operating system (41/49)
works and how the software that runs on that operating system work. So you're already ahead of the game, whether you're tech savvy or not. You are more savvy than the average computer user out there these days. Yeah. So, you know, to close my comments on this is that your basic guideline is to use common sense. And to just, you know, if you're interested and there's not some people are not going to be interested in learning about how things work. And that's OK, too. You know, some people will say, I'm happy with Windows, I'm happy with Mac OS, I'm happy with whatever. And if they're OK with it, that's great. But for those of us who want to know a little bit more about what's going on and how our systems work and, you know, we care a little bit more about how our information is being used and our security, then I think that these are pretty easy to follow. Yeah, I would agree with that. So let's move on now to Windows operating system security recommendations. Do we have enough time for (42/49)
all that? Well, that's that's a critical point right there. It takes a while to think about this stuff, but we'll try to keep it brief. In fact, I haven't used Windows in years and I know you use Windows and you're using it less and less. So let's not talk about this from our perspective. Let's get the advice of Mike Smith. Mike has provided an ultimate Windows security protection guide. He's an independent I.T. consultant with MHS Consulting, and he's been an I.T. professional for the past 30 years. Mike hosts a podcast where he often discusses issues that he and his colleagues have had in supporting mostly Windows computers and how those issues have been solved. Mike's podcast is The Mike Tech Show, and in episode 595, which we'll link to in the show notes, he provides this list of recommendations for being secure on Windows from his 30 years of experience. Consider these recommendations as requirements for Windows in addition to the eight recommendations that we've provided for (43/49)
Linux. So in addition to doing everything that we've said you need to do for Linux, you need these things. Mike recommends this list of programs that you need to run to help prevent malware infections. So think about that for a second. In addition to the common sense recommendations that we just made, Mike's recommend recommending that you run these programs on a regular basis. Bitdefender. And there's a free version of Bitdefender. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Premium. Yes, some of these programs you have to pay for. Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit. Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware. Yes, Malwarebytes is a sponsor of his show, but he doesn't just recommend them because they're a sponsor. He uses them. CryptoPrevent. Web of Trust. This is a browser safety measure that you can use on any browser, on any operating system. But he recommends it specifically for Windows. Adblock Plus. Unchecky. Unchecky is a program that solves that problem that you were mentioning earlier, Bill, where software, when you (44/49)
go to the Adobe site, for example, and you download something, Adobe Flash, it has a bunch of optional programs that it's going to install and they're checked by default. What Unchecky does is it unchecks all of that stuff that is checked by default automatically for you. So you don't end up with surprises. OK, so that's the basic stuff that he says. Now, in addition to all those programs, he recommends that you run these programs every single week as maintenance. So first one, Windows Repair Toolbox. Then JRT, Junkware Removal Tool, Adware Cleaner, ADW Cleaner, Rogue Killer, and CC Cleaner. And if that wasn't enough, he recommends running these two programs monthly. PatchMyPC and DriverMax. So, Bill, it sounds like there's a lot of maintenance to do on a monthly and weekly basis, in addition to running programs to keep your system clean, in addition to the basic things you need to do with any operating system, including Linux. So it's a lot more work. I think I'll just keep Linux. (45/49)
Yeah, I'll just keep my Ubuntu long term support. That is just too much work. I just want to point out that's what? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight? Eight extra programs that runs? That's all right. Yeah, yeah. And that's just the regular ones. There are one, two, three, four, five additional programs for weekly maintenance and two for monthly maintenance. So, wow. Wow. And these aren't from Microsoft. These are just third parties, which of course makes me go, wait a minute, how do I know about these people? I mean, do I know what they're doing with my stuff? So I know I sound paranoid, but I like to know who has their fingers in my system. Right. Absolutely. So aren't you glad you got that free Windows 10 upgrade and now you've got to buy all this proprietary software to keep that free operating system operational and uninfected? No. Yeah. Please, may I have some of my Linux back? You can have it anytime you want. For free. Hey, for free? All right. Yes. All right. (46/49)
Special price. So I think that we pretty much beat this horse. Yes, we have. Yes, we have. And just a disclaimer, we're not against Windows or Mac OS or Linux. This is just to give you an idea of what's involved. It's not just whether you're running Linux or Windows. You still have to do your due diligence. And sometimes the due diligence is a lot less on Linux. Yes, exactly. That's the point is you need to do some things to keep yourself secure on Linux, but it's a heck of a lot less than what you have to do on other operating systems. We've only concerned ourselves today with Windows as the alternative operating system. The same thing applies to OS 10, although to a lesser degree. But even Apple is recommending that you run antivirus software and anti-malware software these days. So, hey, whether you choose to run it on Linux or not is up to you. But if you're doing anything cross-platform with Windows or OS 10, we recommend that you at least install it to scan the files that you're (47/49)
sharing with other folks. And let's face it, if you're getting files from the Internet that aren't specifically Linux files, chances are they've been developed with Windows or with OS 10, and you're probably wanting to scan those anyway. So you may not need antivirus, anti-malware software on Linux to fend off Linux infections, but you do need it in order to protect your other operating system using friends. Yeah, I think that's a good way to end this episode, so they don't think that I'm a paranoid schizophrenic. So what's our next episode? Okay, on our regular schedule, we alternate between user experience episodes like this one and listener feedback episodes. So our next one will be a listener feedback episode. We've already gotten some feedback that we're including, and we'll get more, I know, between now and the release of our next episode. So until then, keep those emails and voice files coming in for our feedback episode, and go to our website at goinglinux.com for articles and (48/49)
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 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. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com (49/49)
Going Linux episode 445, listener feedback. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications, and using them to get things done. If you want to send us feedback, you can always email us at goinglinux at gmail dot com, or leave us a voicemail at 1-9-0-4-4-6-8-7-8-8-9. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello, Larry. Hello, Bill. Hello, Bill. I thought I beat you to the punch that time. Yeah. So... How you been doing? Good. Let's see. Quick weather report is finally cooling off. We were out of the triple digits. And I'm very happy about that. Kids are back in school. Roads are busier. That's about it. Yeah, weather report here. (1/49)
Still in triple digits. Wish it would go away. It will soon. Okay. Okay. We've got lots of feedback this time around. And I have to say it's mostly from Sean. He sent us a series of voicemails that we've been collecting over the past month or two. And yeah, we've got a five-part series. Actually, what did he say? So it went to part three and then he added a PS. And then there was a follow-on with one more thing. And then we have a separate message that he left just for Bill. So why don't we start with those and we'll make comments on each of these parts as we play them. How's that? Yeah, I listened to all of these and then read through the transcripts of them. And I think that we both kind of pulled out some of the main topic ideas that he's wanting to discuss. So I think we should go ahead and listen to the first part, part one of six and go from there. Yeah, sounds good. Aloha from Utah, Larry and Bill. This is your number one pandemic minion, Sean NZ17 Robinson. With another (2/49)
enthralling voicemail message. Or possibly dull depending upon your interest, but let's just pretend it's awesome. Anyway, I listened to your recent episode and I have to say that I have a few things that I'd like to mention. First of all, Larry, would you mind going and posting the show notes alongside the episode's audio when you post them to the Internet Archive? I like downloading your episodes from the archive. However, there's no notes alongside them. So it's just a basic page with the MP3 and the Ogg Vorbis file and whatever else is generated by the Internet Archive automatically. Which is good. However, it'd also be nice to have the show notes, even if it's just a simple copy and paste of the text. Sometimes, especially when I'm using older web browsers that can't go to the Go in Linux website because of its current website certificate. So the old browsers don't trust the new cert, so the SSL TLS connection fails. I go to the Internet Archive to download the episodes and, well, (3/49)
there's no show notes there. And the actual show notes page is just one long, seemingly endless web page of notes for dozens or hundreds of episodes. So it can be a bit unwieldy for slow CPUs or machines with small amounts of memory to render. Anyways, long message about that short, please post show notes to your Internet Archive file postings of the episodes. Thanks. Anyway, back to the topic of the episode, which is applications. And so, a few things. One, the Blender application, which most people know for 3D animations, and a few people know can actually be used to make computer games, can also be used for video editing. So there's another option for anyone interested in that, especially those that already know how to use Blender. Another option, audio players. You guys mentioned VLC and how there's some audio slash music players for the command line. And a few that I've tried and that I would recommend is VLC's various command line or terminal interfaces. One of them is nCurses- (4/49)
based, so it's more like a GUI application where you can use arrow keys and other short-cut keys like you're used to in media players. Okay, Sean, your idea of posting the show notes in Internet Archive, I haven't thought about doing that. What I have thought about doing is putting our website in more of a blog format where each episode has its own page so that you don't have the issue that you have with slower computers not being very quick about rendering the very long show notes page. So let me take a look at how much work it would be to put the show notes in the Internet Archive. It's just one additional copy and paste, I think, when I post the episodes there. But we'll take that under advisement and see what we can do. Certainly revamping the entire website is a lot more work than copy and paste every time we have an episode. So we'll take a look at that. Didn't you hand-code our website? I thought you had done a hand-coded to make it so it was a lot faster, not a lot of bloop. I (5/49)
did. I took out a lot of stuff. But as it turns out, the show notes page contains all of the show notes, I think, back to episode one. Oh, wow. Okay. And it's all one big long list. Yeah, I can see where Sean was. Yeah. For modern computers, that's not a problem. But for older computers or where you have a slow internet connection, that can be a problem. So we'll take a look at finding a way to make that better one way or another. And if that is posting the show notes for each episode to the Internet Archive, so be it. Okay. That's a good idea anyway to have them archived up there. He also mentioned something about Blender being used to make computer games. Yeah, well, it's 3D animation and not only can you make movies, you can make video games apparently. Or computer games, if you want to call them that. But either way, that's an interesting use. I think there are some people that use Blender in some of the bigger studios for rendering certain scenes or something. I'm not quite sure. (6/49)
I know it's powerful enough, but I know I've heard that some of the movie studios were using it for something. I don't know how true that is or not because they have some pro tools that I think would probably be better. But it's because it's just made to do one thing. It's super expensive, so I can see them trying to use Blender even if they don't have to buy a license. Yeah. And splitting up the work. I'm sure that if you split it up to several computers running Blender, it's a lot less expensive. Or just the distribution of work, you can get through it a lot quicker than trying to do it all in one monolithic program on a super expensive Mac computer or something like that. The other thing Sean goes to talk about in this particular segment here is the use of command line for doing some of this work. And he mentions that Blender has command line, VLC has a command line. And we'll see in some of the other voicemails that he leaves, he talks a lot about the command line. And I just want (7/49)
to give a definition of a term that some of our audience may not have come across. So if you're new to Linux or new to command line, you may see that the term ncurses is used. And that is a way on a text-based terminal of giving you a graphical way of interacting with the program from the terminal. So it's not exactly command line when you're using the ncurses interface, but it is terminal-based. So that's what he means when he says ncurses. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know. I mean, I know we don't do a lot with the terminal or command line because we're kind of aimed at the new user. And whereas sometimes you can do things a lot faster via the command line, I find that I just use the GUI. And you'll hear that term. And just to explain that, that's a graphical user interface, just like Windows or MATE or any of the others, KDE. It's the interface that you use to get things done on the computer. I don't think it's a bad thing, but I don't think that's something that someone moving straight (8/49)
from Windows to Linux is totally interested in. Basically, they want to be able to do their daily work and get it done. A lot of times people will start picking up some command line. Some people will say, oh, I kind of like this. But as a general rule, I think we try to stay away from the command line because the command line is super powerful. And it can do a lot of stuff really quickly, but it's not necessary to get things done. It's something they can explore on their own. Right. Yeah, especially since we're focused mainly on the new user. But there are some very powerful programs that only run from the command line that we could talk about. So as we go along, maybe we'll include some of those in some of the episodes we have. But I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for them. We'll talk about them as we run across them and find them interesting to talk about. And specifically, if we think they might have some value for a new user. Yeah, and I just want to clarify, when we say new (9/49)
user, we also mean just regular users too. Someone that's been using Linux but wants to see if there's something better they can use. So we're more geared to just the new user, normal user, if there is one of Linux normal users. But just people that want to use it to get things done as far as with their work or play a game or watch a movie. Right. That's what we're trying to do is to get them to use Linux. And our definition of a new user isn't necessarily somebody who's new to computing. It could be somebody who's been using Windows for 10 or 15 years and is fed up of all the hassle you have to go through. To install things and to keep it secure and to reboot every time something happens. And try to find drivers for things and not sure whether or not it's safe when you download it. All that stuff goes away when you switch to Linux. And our objective here for that kind of a user is to show how easy it is to switch, how similar it is in some ways, and how different it is in terms of (10/49)
your experience because you don't have a lot of those hassles. So that's what we define as a new user. And whether you're switching from Windows, which has been around a long time, the Mac, which also has been around a long time, or from something like Chrome OS. If you're moving from school and your school forced Chrome on you and you found that it was not a full-fledged operating system in the same sense that Mac, Windows, and Linux are, then moving to Linux might be the option for you. Alright. Let's move on to part two. Let's listen to Sean's next section here. Okay. Part two. VLC has both this ncurses-based interface as well as a command line, like a true command line, one command at a time at bash or whatever shell you're using for your command line. Both of these are good. Another one that I like to use, which has both GUI and command line interfaces, is Tumidity, the MIDI music player. So if anyone likes sequencer music, like you used to have with computer games 30 years ago, (11/49)
or even fresh music from today, Tumidity is really good for playing MIDI formatted music, and it has a TK user interface, GTK I believe. Another one is a curses-based interface, command line, even a dumb interface where you just start it up and it plays whatever you told it to. So those are good. And another one is MPD, which I believe is the music player daemon, or demon. And that's just a daemon, or daemon though. You might want to use m, music player command. That's for the command line. It's included with Debian Linux. And there's another one called NCMPC, which I believe uses the ncurses library for a graphical user interface at the command line. And these are really good, especially because when you quit the client, the daemon will keep playing the music in the background if that's what you want. So you can just have it playing music back there without you having to pay attention or spend the resources on it. Anyways, other than that, I'd really like it if you guys could perhaps (12/49)
spend some time reviewing some command line programs, preferably with curses user interfaces. As I find, that's an excellent combination of being resource-light and still being user-friendly, because you still get the GUI, it's just made out of ASCII text characters or colored rectangles or whatever. So it's intuitive for those used to using arrow keys and the enter or return key and other shortcuts like that, without having to be as basic as, hey, here's a command line tool, read the manual or info page to figure out all the command arguments. As part two, he mentioned that VLC has the ncurses-based interface. That's the... Am I thinking of the same program? I haven't used VLC. That's the one that you can pretty much throw any video audio file at and it will play it. Yep. Okay. Yes, exactly. Okay, just checking, because I was like, is there another VLC? I don't remember it ever having a ncurses-based interface, so it shows you how much I pay attention. Well, and of course, VLC (13/49)
underneath the hood is using a lot of command line audio and video processing that is native to Linux as well. So you could go even deeper if you want to use the command line and bypass VLC altogether and do this stuff for yourself using those tools. But eventually you're going to want to automate some of the commands from each of those tools and eventually you'll find yourself, if not duplicating, then having some redundant functionality in that automation that's already built into VLC. And yeah, so again, some of this stuff you could go so deep that you would not want to be a new user and even think about it. And VLC has the ncurses interface to allow you to do this from a terminal, which you can do if you want to. And if you want to use a graphical user interface, it has that as well. I do want to point out, in one of his statements, he was telling that MPD, which he believes is the music player, he goes, It is Daemon, but I like Daemon better. The only reason I know that is that (14/49)
FreeBSD has the little devil thing, the little cute devil, I think. And it's Daemon, so Daemon is basically a process. But I like Daemon too, so I think Daemon, it should be called Daemon because some of the times it can be Daemons. And I know about you, but I've never heard of NCPMC. Maybe because we're not in the command line a lot. Yeah, I never heard of NCMPC. Then again, there's a lot of things I haven't heard of. All I know is I download VLC when I need it and just use the graphical interface and let all that magic happen behind the scenes. That's my way of computing. I don't need to know all the different things. I mean, I know some people like to dig in, all it uses is this part and this part. I'm like, if it works, I can get my stuff done, I'm good. Okay, so part three is on computer games. So let's listen to what Sean has to say about that and a particular computer game called Icebreaker. Here we go. Part three. Anyway, Bill, you were talking about computer games. And one of (15/49)
my favorite computer games for Linux is called Icebreaker. It's a game featuring a bunch of penguins on a grid-shaped play field. The play field gets divided every time that the player clicks somewhere, subdividing and subdividing into smaller squares. Meanwhile, penguins are skating across the ice and if they touch a wall that's currently forming to divide the play field, it will break that half of the wall that the penguin collides with. This is based on an older, famous computer game. However, my mind is blanking on that old computer game's name. Anyways, it's a classic form of gameplay, a classic gameplay genre, and it's a lot of fun. It's free Libre open source software, it's resource-light, it's included with multiple Linux distributions that include games as far as I know. It's charming, it's simple, it can be enjoyed by anyone of any age, basically, and it's an excellent time waster for when you've got to wait for something, or if you're just playing something for fun, or heck, (16/49)
you even have a file downloading and you've got a minute or two. Anyway, it's an excellent game, it keeps track of your high scores, and I think they even have a client for Windows, if anyone still uses that operating system series. Well, I think that's been just about enough for this voicemail. Hopefully you guys can, perhaps, I don't know, review a few email clients. I know I like that Clawsmail client, I haven't used it for years. It was good though, I generally just stay with an older Thunderbird client that I like well. You know how it is at Mozilla, they're always making changes and cutting out useful features and changing the UI and icons. If I say if it's not broke, don't try to fix it, you'll probably just make it worse. Right, so I guess everyone take care, thank you for the episodes. I look forward to the next episode of Going Linux, hopefully we won't have such big breaks between episodes next time. So from your number one pandantic minion, this is NZ17 saying Aloha from (17/49)
Utah. Okay, well thanks for describing how Icebreaker works. Bill, as the resident gamer between the two of us, have you even heard of Icebreaker? Have you played it? I have. Have you heard anything about it? Okay, and? I think I've played that thing, it's been around for a while, if I'm thinking of the right one. It has the little penguins, and let me think here, it's been a while. I know it was a charming little game, but it was not exactly to my taste, I preferred a little bit more depth, but it's cute. You have the penguins and you have to get them I think across an iceberg or something like that. It's been years since I've played it, but it's cute, definitely small children would have a great time with it. Or if you're just sitting there and just want to chill and just mindlessly play a game, it can be fun and distracting. So, yeah, I've played it, I believe it, because there are several different ones. There's one that you actually, I know it's not this, it's where the penguins (18/49)
have taken down a slalom, and I know there's open bubble and stuff like that. So there's a lot of games, I wouldn't call them AAA games, compared to some of the games that I like to play. But they are good, they're built in, and they're made with love, so you can't really go wrong. And the price is right, and you can tell that whoever made them put some love and attention into them. And they're maintaining them still, so you can't really complain. Yeah, so it sounds like one of those mindless time-waster kind of games, which, I like those. You would. I get bored of them very quickly, I need something more, I guess, action-packed. Yeah, the rare times that I game, I definitely prefer the action-type things, but I'll tell you, every once in a while if I have five minutes to spare, I find myself gravitating towards this kind of a time-waster. That's called Solitaire. That's a little too pedantic for me. But, when he says it has a grid-shaped playfield, I wonder if we're thinking about the (19/49)
same game. I'm going to now have to go look in the repositories and download it to see if this is the same game I played a long time ago. Well, thanks, Sean. Now you've put me to work. Jeez. Yep, now you did it. Now you did it. We're going to have a game review next time. All about Icebreaker. Yes, there you go. Okay, so he also in that one mentioned about email clients. He mentioned Clawsmail and Thunderbird, other Mozilla-related things. And, you know, there are a number of email clients you can use, of course. The one that comes with most of the Ubuntu-based distributions is something called Evolution these days. And Thunderbird was popular amongst all Linux distributions at one time or another in the history of Linux. So most people who have been on Linux for a while will certainly know Thunderbird. Clawsmail seems to me... I've tried that out. It seems very old and creaky to me, but hey, I'm sure it works. So, lots of choices. So we're not going to get into that too much. But yes, (20/49)
there are in-curses-based email clients and even just plain old text-based email clients for the command line. So lots and lots and lots of choices and we could spend more than one episode just reviewing email clients. So I want to make a statement on this. The email clients, where he did point out some good in-curses based and there's Thunderbird and etc. But with everybody carrying a smartphone, the email clients aren't as... I'm not saying it's for the better. But the email clients are now web-based because everybody wants to keep track of all their email throughout the day and not just at their computer. I'm sure you can install something on your phone if you want. But I found that most people, when you ask what their email address is... Remember when we first started, the internet service provider would give you an email address. Now you've got MSN and a Gmail and I have one for work too. But they're all web-based so I can look at them while I'm at work or with some friends or (21/49)
whatever. So I don't know if email clients are as big as they used to be. They do have a place for people that don't want to have their data stored on the big companies or everything like that. But I don't think it's as prevalent as it used to be of having an email just set up. It has to support POP and has to do all this. So that's why I think you think Claws feels a little creaky. I don't know. It used to be an email thing was big but now I see most people just use the web-based. I'm not saying it's a better alternative. I'm just saying that's where it seems like the technology has went. Yeah, it's more convenient for sure. And as you know, we have a Gmail account here and I check it using the web. Even when I'm sitting at my computer, I don't go through the routine of starting up a client based in Linux and having it download in the background the email so that I can read it. It's just faster and easier to just open up a browser, click on the shortcut to Gmail and go read it and (22/49)
respond and be done with it. And the same thing with the phone. You can have that exact same experience on the phone and I do. Yeah, I do a lot of work on my phone just because it's always with me. So I think that's kind of taken away some of the things that you would do in email. You remember you used to be able to type it out and save it. You can just do all that on the web now. But it's nice that you have options if you still want a traditional email client. You can do it. You can set it up where it will work with the web-based services. With regular users, I know I don't have any confidential or anything, emails that I really care if anybody sees. But if you do, then of course you'd probably go with the one where it can only be downloaded on your machine. You don't use a web-based. There's use cases, but most normal people, especially coming from other operating systems, are just going to continue using the web-based. I was actually helping an older gentleman at work because they (23/49)
use Microsoft 365 for work. It's a special hospital edition. He has to meet all the HIPAA stuff. Basically, he had a hard time just figuring out how to check his email. Once we showed him, he said, oh okay, it's just like home. Yeah, it's just like home. I think these trained people just use the web-based. Whether it's self-hosted like in big corporations or by big companies. You have to give and take. I'm not saying one is better than the other. I've run both ways. Like you, I pretty much just pop open my Gmail or MSN or my work email web-based and go from there. Exactly. Okay, well enough on that, I think. Although Sean said that that was the end of his message, he couldn't resist. He had a PS. Let's listen to that. PS. Okay, I guess that was almost the entire thing. Two things. One, I would like to humbly request that you guys review some live USB Linux distributions. Preferably ones that keep a persistent home directory or persistent installed applications. I've been using an older (24/49)
distribution of Puppy Linux recently and it's good. However, perhaps it's just too old of the Puppy Linux distribution because the persistent home directory and installed apps feature is just not quite there. So, I've tried the Debian live USB, but that was like 10 years ago. So, I'm not sure how good that is these days. As some live distributions will run from CD or DVD or USB and they don't have a persistent directory and some have a persistent home directory or root directory and it maps the file systems and layers to integrate what's included with the pre-built distribution image as well as anything you've installed or downloaded. Some will run the pre-built part from USB or CD and some will have the live directory on the CD or DVD if it's rewritable or USB. Others will keep it all on one medium. So, like everything on the DVD or everything on a USB drive. Anyways, there's a lot of options out there. So, I'd like a little insight and guidance about this topic if you would. So, he (25/49)
said he would like us to review some live Linux distribution, USB live. I know Ubuntu has it a way they used to. I haven't used a live USB with persistence for a while, but I believe Ubuntu you can make it like that. That's the only one I really know of. That's the only one I've really used. How about you? Yeah, I've used Puppy Linux and they have a version where you can put it on the USB stick as a live distribution of Linux and have it remember your saved data, whether that's email or whether that's something else you've done. So basically you're running it from a USB stick as though it were installed there, even though it's a live version. And I have actually, for some lightweight distributions, gone and downloaded the installation image and installed it on a large USB. I have a USB stick that's, I think, 128 GB and there's enough space on there to install full Linux distribution and use it just like you would a regular installation as though that USB stick were a hard drive. Now, (26/49)
there are some disadvantages to doing that. USB sticks are not meant to be used in that way, and so they might die earlier than a regular SSD drive or even solid state M2, I think it is, drive, whatever that is. And so you've got to be a little bit careful that your whole Linux may go away as the USB drive dies, but it's a handy way of being able to carry your computer around in your pocket, you know, in something that's the size of a USB stick. So that's one way of doing it. Rather than even using the live USB stick with persistence, which is the equivalent of this, just get a big enough USB drive and install it on there. So give it a try. USBs have dropped in price quite a bit. I mean, I think the smallest one I have is a 64, but I just bought a 128 GB one from ScanDisk, one of the better ones, and I think I only paid like 20 bucks for it. Yeah, you can get some really large sized ones for a decent price now, decent compared to what it was when they first started making them. You (27/49)
know, remember back in the day when you'd go and they'd say, here's a USB with all my stuff on it, and it's like, great, I got a free USB. Oh, it's 2 GB or wow, now it's like 2 GB. I'm like, really? What am I going to do with 2 GB? Yeah, you can't even put a live distribution of Linux on there. You can't burn it to that. It's not big enough. No, it's like, why are you cheaping out all these? Get some better ones. No, seriously, I do carry a USB with me, but I only use it to store files. I don't use it like paperwork, documents, pictures, or I want to share with someone. Sometimes it's just easier to say, here's a USB with all the pictures, have fun, you know, type of thing. Yeah, exactly. And smaller ones are cheap enough, you can just give them to the person. I don't need it back. Keep it. Right. I think the smallest USB stick I ever got was at a conference somewhere. They handed some documentation for something on this USB stick and when I opened it up, it was 64 MB. How did we live (28/49)
with this? I know, I know. I think my first hard drive was that big, 64 MB. I had a hard drive that was 10 MB. What are you talking about? Oh, that's right. I do remember the 10 MB hard drive. We're too old, Bill. Hey, for us old timers, CFS brings back memories of all this. It is DOS, then you had to install Windows 3.1, then you had 3.11, and they were separate. Remember those days? I do. Yeah. Back in the Stone Age. DOS 6.0 and then you had to go to 6.22 or something and the Windows, certain version of Windows wouldn't run on the older version of DOS, so you had to get the updated version. Oh, God. Yeah. For those that didn't have the joy of installing just DOS, DOS stands for Disk Operating System. Just so you know. Next time someone says, what's DOS stand for? Now you know. It was a special program that just booted your computer is what it was. So you could install the operating system. It was an operating system. It would do all the low-level stuff. I know there's some people who (29/49)
say, I'll never leave DOS. I can do everything in DOS. I kind of think of it like the ones that refuse to have any graphical user interface on their Linux. I'm only a text-based. It seems that it was back in DOS too, but you would install DOS and then you had to make sure that the Windows that you had, this is before I even knew about Linux, was the correct DOS. Wasn't there, I think IBM had their own. No, there was also one called, I actually ran it a long time ago, OS2 Warp from IBM. Yes, that was from IBM. That was a whole different program. Yeah, a whole different. It didn't work with certain accessories. I remember installing OS2 and Warp. It was Warp Speed. The only problem is it didn't support the Win modem. For those who don't know what a Win modem is, it was a cheap version of a modem that required Windows to make it work. Now we're talking about the dial-it-days. Anyway, sorry, nostalgia kicked in. Yeah, exactly. And we could go on and on and on, but we won't. So we'll spare (30/49)
everyone that. All right. And not the last voicemail from Sean, but the second last one. It's a one more thing kind of thing. And let's listen to that. The last thing that I'd like to request is, you guys were mentioning how you use Discord these days to record your podcast. Well, I have my own podcast, ASO Radio, or EASO Radio. It's about Japanese animations and comics and video games from Japan. And we used to use Gizmo 5, but then Google bought it and killed it because they just wanted the backend infrastructure, I guess. And I've been looking for a good client that lets me record multi-party conversations like you, Larry and Bill, have, right? So if you could, I'd appreciate you letting me know what you use to record your conversations. Like, does Discord have a built-in feature for recording the audio, or are you recording the audio a different way with some other software? I noticed that Puppy Linux has a SIP, S-I-P, client, and Gizmo 5 was also SIP, like Akiga.net is SIP. And so (31/49)
I was thinking of using this Puppy SIP client because apparently it has built-in recording functionality. I also wrote a command line script, though, to record all of the pulse audio audio streams, to record the input and output streams. However, I'm not really too sure of what's the best option, I guess. So if you have recommendations for SIP clients or things that can record audio, I'd really appreciate that. And I look forward to hearing what you guys have to say. Thanks and goodbye. Okay, yeah, I've got to remember to put a link to Sean's podcast in our show notes so that people can go listen to that if they want to. Yeah, so we'll do that. And with that in mind, basically, Sean, we don't use Discord to do our recording, although we could. Most of the video conferencing software, most audio conferencing has switched over to video conferencing as well these days. But a lot of those tools have the ability to record. Typically, you end up with one big file with everybody's voice on (32/49)
there, so it's difficult to edit. If somebody has stuff going on in the background, you can't just flat out cut that section out because you're cutting out the person who's speaking because it's all one big audio file. So we don't use Discord. We don't use the video conferencing software to do that because of that kind of thing. And I know things are progressing along with some of the video conference software that actually split speakers out into different audio files. And if that ever gets to be something that has a lot of polish and provides some advantages over the way we do it, we might consider using that. But the way we record is we use Discord for Bill and I to hear each other and have a conversation, but we don't record on that. We record on our own computer hard drives using Audacity as the recording software. And then Bill puts his file in a cloud location that I go and pull down, so I have both his recording and my recording on my computer. And then I use Audacity to edit (33/49)
the two together in separate WAV files or separate audio files or separate audio tracks. And then when I save them or export them, I export them as a single audio track MP3 file and an OGG file and post those to Internet Archive and point our feed to the recordings there. So that's the behind the scenes on how we do the recording. And that seems to be the most efficient and effective way to do it, quite frankly. And one of the features that we both use on Audacity is that Audacity lets you save the file as an OGG, an MP3. I think you can save it as a WAV file. And there's several others. I think a FLAC2. Does that have FLAC2? I always save mine as OGG. But you can tell it what quality level you want it to save it at. But with some of these other, if we're using Discord to record it, there's only a limited amount of options. So it gives us a little more flexibility, especially when we want to up the quality or make it not quite as high fidelity. Because at one time, Larry, remember you (34/49)
used to have a low bandwidth version. Yes. And you would have to save at a lower rate to make it fit. What was it? 64K? Was that it? It was 64K and Internet Archive generates that automatically now. All I would have to do, I don't do it this way, but I could just upload the MP3 and upload the OGG. And the Internet Archive generates a 64K version that would be acceptable. It wouldn't have all the album art and the other stuff that goes along with a normal MP3. Which is why I don't do it that way. I upload a 64K version that has the artwork in it. And so I still provide that, so I actually export three files. Oh, OK. It's one extra click. I'm not worried about that. All right. OK. So our last voicemail message from Sean was actually recorded sometime after his series that we've just reviewed. And this is specifically for Bill. Here you go. OK. Aloha from Utah. Hello, Bill and Bill. This message is for Bill. Bill, I was wondering, have you tried the QBitTorrent client? It's a very good (35/49)
BitTorrent client and it's cross-platform with Linux, Windows, and other OSes. It's my favorite BitTorrent client and has been for the last few years. So I recommend that everybody give that one a try. Next, Bill, I was wondering. Since you have to use Windows at work, and I don't mean X Windows, have you considered or would your workplace allow you to use an alternative shell like Open Shell so you could avoid some of the Windows annoyances? Or is that not an option? Oh, by the way, based on your recent podcast episode, I felt I should call in and say that hard disk drives do not use needles to read their magnetic platters. They use magnetic heads that have metallic arms that are suspended in a low-friction gas to spin at thousands of rotations per second, no, per minute, just above the surface of the platters to read them. So needles would probably be a really bad idea for your data. If you keep this up, Bill, Larry might have to cut your pay in half. And you know, half of zero is (36/49)
going to be a lot less, so keep that in mind. I mean, this is NZ17 saying, Aloha from Utah. All right. So have you used QBitTorrent? No, I didn't even know about QBit, but I am going to check it out, that's for sure. Since it's cross-platform, yeah, that's definitely come in handy. Yeah, we'll have to go find a link to that and put it in the show notes. And then he was saying, he was wondering, since I have to use Windows at work, and he doesn't mean, X1 does, that's funny, would my workplace allow me to use an alternative shell like Open Shell so I could avoid some of the Windows annoyances, or is that not an option? That's not an option. Yeah, I work for a healthcare facility who has very strict internet policies and computer policies. Everything has to be run through IT. I'm not even allowed to, I don't think I can. It's locked down where IT pushes out all the updates, they control what you do. It has to be HIPAA compliant, and HIPAA has a bunch of stipulations for patient privacy (37/49)
and stuff like that, and basic healthcare information. So anything that's on the computer, that's what you're allowed to use, and you're not allowed to muck with it. They don't even want you to turn it off unless they tell you to. So, yeah, they are very strict. I know some workplaces might allow you, but not in a healthcare. Now, what about you, Larry? Would they let you use a different shell, or are they pretty strict on you guys, too? I haven't tried, because if I want to use a Linux shell, I just open my own personal computer. And since I work from home, it's not like I have to bring my personal computer into work in an office somewhere, so that's not an issue. I will let the company have whatever rules they want to have, and I'll use the computer that they provide me in the way that they suggest. And they do, though, allow us to install certain utilities if we need them to ensure that our home office works properly. So, for example, they provide a VPN with a workaround so (38/49)
that—it's probably not a workaround, it's probably— I don't know a lot about how VPNs work, but it allows me to connect, even when the VPN is connected, to my home printer, so that I don't have to worry about printing, getting off the VPN to print something and then go back on the VPN to access anything from the company. It used to be that way, but they figured a way around that, and now I'm able to do that. And I use Synergy and Barrier to be able to use a single keyboard and mouse so that I can, from that single keyboard and mouse, move between my personal computer screens and my work computer screens. And it's just one big multi-monitor computer to me. When I want to use Linux, I move the mouse over to the Linux monitor, and when I want to use the operating system for work, which happens to be Mac, I just move the mouse over to that screen, and away we go. So he also mentioned something. I don't think I said this, but he seems to think I said that the hard drives use needles to read (39/49)
their magnetic platters, and I know they don't. They use magnetic heads to read the platters, so I don't know where that comes from, but if I did, that really is an old man mental block there. Unless we were talking about vinyl records, which I've had before. That could be. You may have been making a parallel to the vinyl records. Oh, that could be. Where the player works. But yes, Larry has been talking about cutting my salary again because of all the high inflation, so Larry, Sean says that you should go ahead and cut my salary in half. Yeah, it was an honest mistake, Bill, so we'll keep your salary the same as mine. We'll keep them both at zero, and we won't worry about cutting salaries until inflation takes over so much that cutting a zero-based salary in half will actually have an impact on our non- for-any-sort-of-money business. So I just saw that it looks like NC-17 or Sean is in Utah. This October, I'm planning to go to Moab, Utah. Ah, okay. I see all the colorful rocks. Yeah, (40/49)
and hey guys, if you have any great places, yes, I'm selflessly plugging this. Please send them to me so while I'm down in Moab, I see some cool stuff. Okay, moving right along. All right, well, thanks, Sean. Besides Sean's voicemails, we actually have two emails as well. First one is from George from Tulsa, who commented on our episode 443. And he refers to it as bottle of wine, bottle of wine regarding antivirus. He says, at 18 minutes and 56 seconds, Bill says you shouldn't have any real issues because like Windows, .exe file isn't going to do anything on your Linux. And George writes, unless you've installed wine. He also references minute marker 40 minutes and 44 seconds. We mentioned Phil on gaming in Lutris. It says, I downloaded pre-installed packages with .exe files. And George's comment is, there was a good chance Phil's .exe games would run because per the Lutris FAQ, Lutris uses wine to run Windows .exe files on Lutris. And he provides a link to an FAQ. He continues, I've (41/49)
used wine to run commercial Windows software that's not listed on wine's supported applications. That's why I presume someone could craft a malware .exe designed to run in Lutris via Lutris slash wine. Wine is not sandboxed, so a malware application running as an .exe in wine could affect not just the wine instance, but the system itself. It is probably not a great risk, but it is a risk. The application, SandWine, can be used to mitigate the risk. It is free and open source. Here's a link. And we'll have that in the show notes, of course. Back to the antivirus, scanning an .exe file before running it in wine, or anywhere for that matter, might identify if it is malware. That depends on whether it is in the industry standard database of known malware signatures on which ClamAV relies. The Arch wiki offers a useful guide to how to use ClamAV as well as how to add more malware signature sources to your installation. And George provides a link to that Arch wiki guide, and we'll include (42/49)
that in the show notes, too. So I think we knew all that, Bill. We just didn't mention it. Yeah, it's highly unlikely that it would happen, but he is right. There is a chance it could, so I stand corrected. I will correct it and say it's highly unlikely, but it could happen. How's that? Yeah, if you think about it, someone would have to... Because Windows and Linux are two different operating systems, they work very differently from one another, which is one of the reasons why natively .exe files won't run on Linux unless you have something like Wine or Lutris to allow them to run. Because of that, somebody who would want to infect a Linux system in this way would have to write some software, some malware for Windows that's an .exe file that then goes and launches some malware that they would have to write to infect the Linux system to be able to go and infect Linux with whatever it is they want to do. There are easier ways for somebody to write malware to go and get much more valuable (43/49)
information from corporate Windows installations. And the fact that there are so many steps in that and so little payoff, I don't think the risk is very large at all, as you said, Bill. But like I said, to give him his due, George is right. It could happen. George, good catch. Yep. Technically, I could study up on Python and high-level computer language programming and begin a career to be a programmer, but that's not going to happen. It's highly unlikely. So, our next email comes from Phil who asks about syncing with Google Drive. He says, Hi Bill and Larry. Greetings from replaceable sub-menu Phil in Iowa. I am running a pop OS and can't find a way to sync my home directory with Google Drive. I tried two programs and both weren't able to pass Google's authentication measures and therefore couldn't sign in. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Phil. I know from experience, I don't know if it's been updated or whatever, but I was never able to really get Google Drive to work nicely (44/49)
with Linux. I don't know how that would... I'd have to look into it and see if anything's available or if they've updated it. You got any suggestions? I'm worthless on this one. Well, I've run across a few. I haven't tried out any of them. What I did do though is I sent Phil a link that I'll include in the show notes to some Linux applications that purport to provide a way to sync to Google Drive. Like I said, I'll include it in the show notes. Haven't tried any of them, but my comment was have you tried any of these or were the ones you tried on this list? Maybe there are some on there. Lots of different offerings out there. Can't vouch for any of them because I haven't tried them. Yeah, I don't know what the answer is. I'll look into it and see if anything comes to the forefront. Right now I have no clue why or how you would do that, but I'm sure there's a way. If anybody in our listening audience, if any of you know and have had experience with and like a solution that you're using, (45/49)
let us know and give us the pros and cons. We'd be interested in hearing and I'm sure so would Phil. Absolutely. Okay, Larry, I think that's all of it. I think it is. Well, thanks, Sean, for making our work here easy by providing the voicemail. And I'm not sure how long this episode is going to be. Just us talking is an hour. So this might be a long one. It may fill in those gaps between those longer gaps that we have these days between episodes. So you might want to break it up into different pieces and listen to it a little at a time. I don't know. Between Bill's job, my job, his new puppy, my new puppies, everything else going on in our lives. We have been fortunate to be able to put out a single episode every month. Once in a while, we may squeeze two into a month. We may get back to that sometime in the future. But that's the goal happening short term. Yeah. Yeah. We'll keep putting out episodes, though, as we can get them done. Yeah. We've said this is not a for profit podcast (46/49)
that has sponsors to appease. So we get this done as we can. And you know, I can safely say, and I think Larry will agree, you'll never have to worry about listening to ads or sponsors because we just do it because we love Linux and we want to share that. But anyway, we will try to get them a little more often. But right now we're coming here. We're getting ready to come into the busy holiday period. And so and with everything, Larry has two of things. Little puppies take care of. I only have one. So I know I don't know how he's doing it. One's enough for me. But we will. We're not giving up. We're just recording when we can. Sometimes we're both like, I just can't record. I've got to go insert recent sleep. Sleep is good or sick or oh, hold on. You probably haven't heard anything from the puppies. I found out, Larry, that just give them treats and they go into treat comas for a little bit. So they're over here sleeping away and I'm like, wow, that's what a revelation. Yeah. So you (47/49)
just said you only have one new puppy, but you've got two dogs. One is a little older than a puppy, but it still behaves like one from time to time. Right. From time to time. But he I didn't realize how much he had grown up until I had gotten my new puppy's name's Cosmo. And so when Cosmo come along, I was like, puppies are a lot of work because they they don't they don't understand the rules of the house. And so I've had to keep a close eye on him because he will chew a cord or he'll if you don't let him out when he wants to go out to go to the bathroom, he sometimes doesn't want to wait. So, yes, my bigger dog, his name is Bear, is a has come a long way. And because I think Larry remembers, he was kind of noisy at the beginning. Yes. Now he knows. He also was chewing on everything. I know. But I keep swearing. This is my last one. But no, that doesn't happen. We'll continue our puppy review on a future episode. And but for now, I think we we have another episode coming up. It will (48/49)
probably be one in our Linux experience flavor. But we don't have a specific topic at this point. We will get you one, though. And until then, you can go to our Web site at going Linux dot com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and subscribe. We provide the Web site for computer users who just want to use Linux to get things done. And if you like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our Going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinux.com. Until next time. Thanks for listening. 73. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcast themes dot com. (49/49)
Going Linux, episode 328, 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 at goinglinks at gmail.com, or you can leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hi there, Bill. Hi there, Larry. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Lots of technology adventures this week. How about you? Yes, I am breaking in my new machine. So I'm still... Oh, nice. Yeah. After getting mad at some of the Linux providers, I said, to heck with it, and found what I wanted. I was looking for certain hardware. So I bought an (1/49)
Alienware 17 gaming up top. Nice. Yep. It's time to update my technology. So it's a beautiful machine. I like it a lot. And I hear that you've had adventures too. Yes, adventures with Dell XPS 13s. It's way too long to go into here. Eventually, I'll have things up and running, and we have more to report. But yeah, not today. Well, we were talking about before we started recording. You could make a whole podcast just for that. Oh, wow. The new machines are nice, but I have to say, my old machine I thought was a beast. It was when I bought it, but the technology has come a long way. This new machine has got stuff that I'm just amazed. My old machine had an i7 third generation, and this one has the i7 seventh generation. That's a big difference. Big difference. Yeah. Yeah. So speed alone, right? Speed alone. It can do things my little one would just be choking on. But probably the thing that makes me the happiest, because I'm a gamer and I have to play games, is that it has not the mobile (2/49)
version, but the full version of the NVIDIA GTX 1070 with 8 gigs of RAM on the video card. Yeah. Yeah. So that makes such a huge difference, because the old one was an old mobile version. It was GTX 660M. So when you compare, I pulled up the specs, I was looking up, it's like this 1070 is just chewing through stuff. Not that it's really Linux related, but there's games running on the Crysis engine that can really tax a processor. My old one would sit there and croak at 20, 25. I couldn't have everything set up. I have it on medium settings. This one I just cranked everything to ultra, and it just sits there and runs it at 7580 and doesn't even blink. I'm like, wow, technology. Wow. Yeah. Well, not being a gamer, I'm not sure what those settings really mean, but it sounds impressive. You're like, whatever, whatever. But I'm hoping that once I finally talk about different ways I'm going to use it. Right now I'm using it to run virtual machines so I can test a bunch of Linux distros and (3/49)
run them. And hopefully soon, if it works out, I might just set up a dual boot so I can run on the base hardware. But unfortunately, there's extra things I got to take into account because there are special keys on this keyboard and I want to make sure I can. So anyway, long story short, it's a beast of a machine. It's just amazing how technology and it's good to know that in six months this one will be outdated. Yes, of course. That's the way it goes. If it even takes six months. Yeah. Well, shall we get into our feedback? Yeah. So let's get into our feedback because we could sit here and talk about our exploits for six hours and everybody will be bored to death. Yep. OK. Well, our first is from Tony. He needs some help with a screen resolution. And so here is Tony's email. Hey, Larry and Bill. I have a 50 inch TV and the display in Ubuntu is saying that it is only a 32 inch one. Again, it's only giving me two resolution choices. Please help me. I lost all of my icons on my desktop so (4/49)
far to the left. Or if you will, off to the left of the screen. The screen is completely empty. This happened before I even sent your email. I don't know what to do regards Tony from Cherry Hill. Yeah. So he and I went back and forth a couple of times on email and I think it may have to do with the screen resolution not being recognized properly with this 50 inch television, especially since it registers as a 32 inch. So I gave him some directions on the display configuration, the display preferences and setting that up. I also gave him a link to our article on setting up a television as a monitor. And hopefully between those two things, we've been able to resolve Tony's issue. And I haven't heard back from him. So I'm assuming either that he's completely off the grid and nothing works anymore. Everything's working fine. And by the way, it's quite often with a television used as a monitor that the system, the Linux system doesn't recognize the correct size of the monitor. And that's (5/49)
just one of those little metadata tags that the TV provides to identify itself. And I'm suspecting that the manufacturers, depending on the manufacturer, will use the same tag on all of the sizes of the same or similar model. And so, you know, from the 32 to the 50 or larger inch versions, they're using the same tag and that it's all, you know, identifying itself as a 32 inch. But a monitor is a monitor and when it connects to Linux, it should give you the right set of display settings. And if it doesn't, the instructions in our article on how to connect a television set by VGA and use it as a high definition monitor should work for you to determine through some Linux applications what the monitor is capable of and making the appropriate settings so that you can get a higher resolution. I hope that we've got Tony set up properly. I'm thinking we do. And Tony, get back to us. Let us know how it goes. Yeah. 50 inch monitor. That's my kind of guy. Yeah. That's nice and big. Yeah. Even I (6/49)
can see that. Okay. Without my glasses. Okay. There you go. Moving right on. We've got another email from Laurie and he's asking about app images. He writes, Larry and Bill, I've been enjoying your podcast for over a year now and I've learned a lot about Linux from your show. I have been using Linux Mint Both 17 and 18 for about a year and a half and love it, but one of the issues has been old versions of software in the repositories. I recently discovered app images, one being OpenShot video editor. What is your opinion of them? Is there a downside to this way of running the latest software? Once again for your show, Roy Dressel Photography. Okay. And Roy provides us a link to his photography video, which, hey, I think I'll just include that in the show notes. You're a nice guy. Free advertising there, Roy. Yeah, there you go. And he's located in Visalia, California. Oh, okay. I see how it is because he's California. He gets a free plug. Not us bums from New Mexico. Okay. I see how it (7/49)
is. If you have a website where you're trying to sell something and you are a listener to the podcast and you write it with a question and you provide us a link to your business, we'll include it in the show. What the heck? We did it for Troy out in Wisconsin as well. Okay. Well then you're okay then, but no, seriously, Roy, thanks for writing in. I don't do a lot with OpenShot editor, but Larry might know a little bit more than I do. Yeah, so this is less a question around OpenShot itself and more a question around the app images. And I haven't used app images. I've used the snap packages and between snap packages and app images, these are some new ways of providing, or at least attempting to provide a universal package management system that will work across different versions of Linux, regardless of whether you're using RPM or Deb or whatever. And the snap packages work just fine. I'm assuming that the app images do as well. So Roy, you're asking if there are any pluses and minuses (8/49)
to using snap packages and app images. And I think the pluses are, you can keep up to date a little more for a particular application like OpenShot. You can stay up to date a little bit more easily. One of the downsides is you are reliant on a third party, if you will, to maintain those images up to date and make sure that they're compatible and so on. So there's a fraction of a risk there. One of the things that Ubuntu Mate at least is doing, and I think it's across all of the Ubuntu's, is with the snap packages, they are vetting those just as they do with the regular repositories. And for those vetted ones, at least Ubuntu Mate is going to be in their next release, including snap packages listed in their software boutique. So at least with snap packages, there's some added level of trust there that may not exist with app images. But again, I have to give the disclaimer that I haven't used or tried any app images. But that's the pluses and minuses, I think, overall. And by outdated (9/49)
software in the repositories for Linux Mint, I think Linux Mint is probably of the Ubuntu derivatives, the one that has the biggest problem with outdated packages, mainly because they're on, I think it's still a 16.04 base or something like that. Really? It's one of the features now of Linux Mint that they maintain even through their six-month releases. They maintain those images on the last long-term support release from Ubuntu. And so, you know, they are a little bit behind until the next long-term support comes out. So the packages are a little bit behind. But they do try to keep them relatively up to date. But that doesn't occur with every package out there. So you're a little bit behind with Linux Mint. Yep. What do you think, Bill? Any other thoughts on app images or have you tried snap packages or anything like that? I haven't. I've heard of them and I've read about them. But I tend to try to stay in the repositories now. I thought Linux Mint, their whole spiel was that they, I (10/49)
didn't know they were still on 16, but that they would found the best and it worked and just stayed with it until the next, when they moved to the next version of it. And then they would update. I thought they would stay even though it was older. It worked. They wanted stuff that was stable and it would work. That's one of the reasons why they stick with the long-term support. And it is a little bit dated given that Ubuntu has moved on from there with their latest releases. And eventually they'll have another long-term support release and Linux Mint's next release after that will adopt that and move forward, I'm sure. Okay. I haven't tried. I should try it. But okay. Yep. Okay. There we go. All right. Okay. Our next email is from someone who didn't give us their name, but their on-screen handle is Skyward Abyss and asks about System76 stickers. Here we go. It says, hi Larry and insert new cohost name here. Huh? What? You're listening to your podcast from the beginning and made it to (11/49)
about 140 or so. So I'm guessing that maybe that's about the time that you came on as the cohost taking over from Tom. I thought it was in the 200s. Well, maybe it's in the 200s, but he's back in some of the older episodes. Oh, okay. Anyway, in about that episode, we talked about System76 and the ability to get stickers from them for free by sending in a self-addressed stamped envelope. And so here's the rest of his email. He said, I wanted to update you on the link for the free stickers at System76 with a self-addressed stamped envelope. In the show notes for episode 130 for the System76 stickers, your link is no longer valid. Their new link is, and he provides the link, which is system76.com slash swag slash stickers. Pretty easy. Keep up the great work and thanks for all your effort in helping new users become proficient using Linux. So I have updated the link in that old episode to the System76 new link for their stickers. So when you click on it now, it should be good. And we'll (12/49)
include it of course in the show notes for this episode. Uh, Larry? Mm-hmm? That was 160, 170 episodes ago. Yeah. Yeah, it was a while. He's got a little catching up to do. That's for sure. I'm just sitting there going, yeah, I don't know, maintaining... You're a good guy going back and updating that, but I'm like, that's a long time ago. Well, I appreciate people letting us know when we've got broken links and I'm just glad that System76 is still giving out stickers for free. Yeah, we won't go there. Okay. I'm not happy with them right now. Speaking of previous hosts. Yeah. Surge. No, not that surge. Oh, okay. Wrote about Skype alternatives. By the way, Larry, have you heard from Surge? Not recently. Uh, yeah, he's off doing his non podcast life, so no big deal. Wait a minute. There's a life without podcasts? Well, if you really want it. That's horrible. I don't know why. Anyway, he writes, hello Larry, for getting somebody here. There are many good Skype alternatives. Jitsu, (13/49)
Framatalk, Ring, Wire, Peer.in, Huble.in, and Tox. Okay. I haven't heard any, maybe two of those. Anyway, and if the person searching an alternative for Skype uses Google, there is Hangouts. Best regard, Surge. Okay. Well, we were just talking about Skype because it was acting weird this morning. And the problem is that some of the alternatives just don't work well for us. I'm not saying they don't work, but they don't work well for us. And also, if we have someone that wants to come on a podcast, everybody seems to have Skype. So, it works for us for what we need most of the time. But if we have someone who wants to come in and be part of the podcast, we can include them using Skype. So, some of them might not have the features you want. Unfortunately, Skype has what we need right now when it works. There's big quotation marks there. But right now, if we could find something that worked as well as Skype, we would move it immediately. On Linux. On Linux, we would move it immediately. (14/49)
Do not pass Go and do not click $200. We'd be gone. But right now, we've got to put up with it until we find something better. Right. And the conditions for us are, it has to work on Linux, it has to work reliably, and it has to work with other operating systems as well and be easy to set up on those other operating systems. That's really the kicker, because not everybody that we talk to, and it's been a while since we interviewed somebody on the podcast, but not everybody that we talk to on the podcast is using Linux. So, it can't be a Linux-only solution. It has to be truly cross-platform and easy to set up on these other systems and hopefully something that everyone is familiar with. Skype fits that bill. So does Google Hangouts for the most part, but I use Google Hangouts for business on my Mac. And it has some issues even on the Mac, let alone on Linux, and I'm not sure that it's absolutely reliable for all of the things that we need, but that's definitely a possibility. I mean, (15/49)
if Skype discontinued support for Linux today, I think Google Hangouts is probably the one we would switch to, but I've heard of Jitsi, I think I tried it quite a long time ago, I've heard of Hubble.in and Tox, but I haven't used either of those, don't know how they work. Maybe it's time to do a little experimentation bill. But our backup, if Skype fails, is to pick up the telephone. That thing that's sitting on your table that you haven't used in a while and maybe a mobile phone like a cell phone would work. Yeah. So, that's our backup for now. I've got my Galaxy 8 Android, it's ready to go. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Okay. So, I'm ready. All right. Yes. This is from longtime listener Nancy, who asks about the book. So I think I mentioned that I wrote a book. Nancy writes, congratulations on your book. I know it takes a lot of work to put it together, even if it's well organized in your mind. Putting it all into words is a whole lot different than just using the information. I've (16/49)
written one called Your Data, Your Devices, and You, easy to follow instructions to reduce your risk of data loss, device infection, and identity theft. I'm going to try to get it published in early August. You mentioned that you use Smashwords. I'm going to look at it, but what other resources did you use? What were your reasons for choosing Smashwords over other platforms? Is there a physical book option as well with Smashwords, or is it strictly digital? Thanks, Nancy. Well, I chose Smashwords partially on doing some research and finding out that they had a very easy way to set things up so that they take care of doing the ebook configurations for you without you having to install something like Calibre and create the ebooks yourself. One of the downsides is you have to provide the book to them in Microsoft Word 1997 format, the old .doc format, but once you do that, the conversion is automatic and there's a little bit of configuration you have to do in the doc format, but all that (17/49)
works just fine from LibreOffice once you figure out how to format it the way they want it formatted. And so, yeah, it works out really great. And as you know, with the book, I provided a PDF version for free if you want the ebook versions. August 1st is when it'll go on sale. And by the way, by the time this is out, it will be on sale because it'll be after August 1st we release this episode. So anyway, back to Nancy's question about a physical book version. I know they take care of the distribution at Smashwords to places like Barnes & Noble and some of the other bookstores, but I don't know whether or not they actually offer a printed version in those bookstores. I know Smashwords site itself doesn't give you a printed version option, but I don't know. Maybe they print a version and send it out to the bookstores. I don't know. But certainly most people, I think today, are looking for electronic versions, whether it's PDF or ebook. But if you want a printed version of the book, let (18/49)
me know and I'll find out. I know there are places you can create printed versions and that sort of thing. If there's an interest in that, let me know and I'll make that available. Hey, I want a physical version now. I want personally signed and autographed and I'd like it written in ink that has your blood in it. So it's just, you know, it's really, truly you. Can I get that? I'll work on that. Well, congratulations. I'll let you know when it's done. Hey, congratulations on the book. Now you wrote that whole thing on Linux, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And how hard, how long did it take you to figure out the format using LibreOffice? Well, the LibreOffice part was very easy. Figuring out what Smashwords actually meant by its format requirements, that was the challenge. So it took a little trial and error, but I finally figured it out and it was well worth it because everything was automatic after that. So really good. And congratulations to Nancy as well on your new book as well. And (19/49)
let us know when you've got it published and we'll put a link to it in our show notes and provide a little publicity for your book as well. And hopefully you get a lot of sales on that too. Your data, your devices and you. Easy to follow instructions to reduce your risk of data loss, device infection and identity theft. So yeah, that sounds like a topic that is cross platform for sure. That's awesome. Congratulations, Nancy. Yeah, let us know when it's published because I'd like to see what it looks like. I might even buy it. Hey, there you go. Yeah. Okay. Our next email comes from Mike and he comments on creating a network drive. And he writes, hello, I am hoping you can help guide me in the right direction. Oh boy, he's in trouble. I have a desktop and a laptop, both running up on Tumate on the same wifi network at home. I would like to create a network drive on my laptop that connects to my home directory on my desktop. How can I accomplish this? Thank you so much, 73 Mike. So you (20/49)
want a drive connected, I'm assuming by USB, to your laptop that you can connect to from your home directory on your desktop. I think I would do it the other way around, mainly because a laptop is typically something that you turn on and off and carry around, but maybe you've got a gaming machine like Bill does and it's a 17 inch that weighs like 400 pounds. Maybe you need to- It's not 400 pounds. Well, what about eight pounds? Something like that? It's about 89 pounds. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't want to carry around that. Yeah. I wouldn't want to carry around that thing for a long time. Carrying around makes you strong. Yes. Okay. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anyhow, so to do this, first of all, you have to set up folder sharing. I don't recall the steps, but that's what you would Google for is sharing folders on Ubuntu or Ubuntu MATE. Once you've set up the folder sharing on the laptop, you can share the folder that represents the network drive as though it (21/49)
were a folder. Maybe it's even a setting that specifically says share network drive. I don't remember, but it's very easy to do in the settings. Once you've done that, you should be able to go into the network, open the file browser on the desktop. Go to the network, browse the network, and you should be able to see it right there assuming that both computers are on the same Wi-Fi network. That's the trick. They have to be on the same Wi-Fi network. If this is at home, I'm assuming you have one Wi-Fi network, but just in case you have more than one, they have to be on the same network and you have to enable the sharing. Once you've enabled sharing, you should be able to browse from one computer to the other and just open it up. If you want a permanent link, you can create a permalink, if you will, a desktop shortcut or a shortcut that appears whenever you go into the network browser and it will appear there. Hopefully that helps. A little arm waving there, but with a little Google (22/49)
search on the Ubuntu MATE forum, you should be able to find that without any trouble at all. Okay. All right. Have you had any experience hands-on with sharing? No. I have not messed with it at all. I wouldn't even know where to start. I mean, I could do it if I've read the man pages, but I have never needed it because I usually only have one that I use. So anyway, next email is from Bob, who is the person who had the mouse button, Pystromo offer to help. Oh, I remember that one. Didn't he have trouble mapping the keys or something? Exactly. So Bob says, I listened to episode 326 and heard an offer from Steve to help me use Pystromo to program my mouse buttons. I actually solved that problem about two days before I listened to the episode and I am going to send an email about it for the next listener feedback. In the meantime, I don't need Steve's help, but I think it's polite to say thank you for his offer regardless. Please pass him my email address and I will do that. Thanks Bob. (23/49)
Okay. I'm glad you got things all straightened around, Bob, and I'm looking forward to hearing how you solved that problem. Yeah, I am too. With the new gaming machine you have, Bill, I know it's got some extra keys that you may just need those tips for. Yeah. Hey, thanks for doing all the work for me. I really appreciate it. There you go. Thanks Bob. Okay. Our next email comes from Tony and he wants to contribute network diagram icons and he writes, hi guys, I am a systems admin at a telecommunications company and often times I'm asked to create network diagrams for our network implementations and effort to go fully open source. I have used LibreOffice Draw to do my diagrams. However, I have noticed a lack of manufacturer icons on the internet. I have started creating my own repository of images in SVG format that I can use. I'd like to publish this online for others to use. However, I do not know where I can post them. I was thinking about using GitHub, but I believe there is a (24/49)
storage limit there and ideally I prefer not to pay. Understandable. Let me know what you think. Tony. Wow. I don't know about that. Does GitHub have a limit? I don't know. I've never tried that, but the LibreOffice folks take repository contributions for templates for Office type documents. So word processor documents, spreadsheet documents, presentation document templates, and I haven't explored to see if they accept anything for images for Draw, but you might want to check on the LibreOffice site and see how you can contribute templates or images there. There's also an open clipart, openclipart.org, where you can simply post your images there. There are tons and tons. Well, let me see. Looking at their site, as of today, there are 129,268 clipart images available. 68 of them were contributed today, 22 of them were contributed yesterday, and so on and so on. And there are comments on each of them, and they're of varying quality. A lot of them are very professionally done, and so (25/49)
that's another place you can contribute your images in an open source way. And I think all you have to do is just sign up for a free account with them, and you can upload the images. I haven't uploaded any images. I've certainly used some of their images, and it's definitely a resource. There are other places you can... Internet Archive, right? Yeah, Internet Archive, you can put them there. That's where we put our episodes of this podcast, but you can upload images there as well. And again, you just have to sign up for a free membership in their site, and you can upload whatever you want, and you can create an entire library just for your images if you want. So lots of different places. We've just given you three options, and hopefully you can find more. Let us know where your images are, because every once in a while I want to create a network diagram, and I'd like to be able to use some of your images too. So let us know where you end up putting them. Cool. Our next email is from (26/49)
David, who wrote, Hardware, Firmware, Software. Bill won. Larry, David, and Dr. Google, zero. Bill wins. So what all that means is David and Bill and I have gone back and forth, and apparently he's gone to Dr. Google as well, for solutions on his problem, and he's finally found a solution. So rather than go through all the emails back and forth, let's just read this last one, because it talks about happy things. Yes. But you can start at Bill wins again. I like that. Yes. Okay. Bill wins there. Okay. It's still a bit early to be 100% sure, but it looks like a reformat of the full drive did the trick using GNOME Disks, the Disks app that is part of Linux Mint. I fully reformatted the disk, including erasing the data, and the problem so far has disappeared. I had to update the fs tab to a new UUID, Universal Identifier, I forget what the second U stands for, and do a chown, but that was it. It looks like I was focused on the wrong idea, that the problem was related to power, since only (27/49)
through a shutdown of five or more minutes was the disk able to recover. And that was the only solution offered in a web search of SSD disappears. The problem became more and more frequent and lately became pretty consistent. Any copy to the disk or even a save would cause it to dismount and fully disappear. A re-login did nothing and a reboot brought up the emergency mode. Only a full power down and then a 10 minute wait permitted a successful boot. But then the next copy and boom. As long as the disk was available, reads were okay. I was able to access any file, copy it to any other disk, et cetera, but a write activity of any sort, paste, save, rename, delete, et cetera, caused the disk to disappear. Bill's educated guess, i.e. in-depth scientific analysis based on years of experience, that a bad Sector 1 was the cause, now makes sense. Once I reformatted the disk and made it to one large partition, I was able to copy back from my backups over 10,000 items totaling 120 gigabytes (28/49)
without a problem. My current guess is that an uncontrolled shutdown, power outage, during a directory activity, copy, save, rename, delete, et cetera, caused a problem that metastasized and accelerated. My sense? A power down temporarily solved each instance, resetting some internal pointer on the SSD, but before long the whole directory became corrupted, as per any write activity. It's still early days, but I'm optimistic. Thanks again for your help. Bestest, David, your loyal fan since episode number one, your number one expatriate Canadian fan in Israel, et cetera, et cetera. Thanks David. I'm glad things worked out for you. And Bill, congratulations on providing the successful and happy ending to David's story. Well, it's still early days, but I'm hoping he's got it fixed. Yeah, I hope so too. But yeah, it wasn't on SSD, but I had a similar problem on an old spinning drive and that was when I was still chief executive minion. And if you remember, I was complaining about my (29/49)
directory's getting corrupted and having to deal with it. And I said, well, you know what? It's probably the same thing on the SSD because I can't remember what happened. I lost power and then come back up and it just started acting up since then. So I said, hey, if you got backups, that might be the way to go. I also sent him some links to some open source programs. I don't know if you use them. David, if you use those programs, how about let me know if they worked for you? I don't have the email that I sent back to him, but... Yeah, there was a smart mon tools or something like that. Yeah, we'll include a link in the show notes to that. Yeah, but I'm wondering if he used those because it looks like those can detect the bad sector. You know, SSDs, they can have bad sectors just like a hard drive. So I'm hoping that the format just fixed whatever was the problem, flipped the bits, switch back or whatever. But yeah, David, keep us informed how it goes. And if you have any more problems, (30/49)
because that was a real interesting problem. I know I had to sit there and think about that for a while. What did you recommend to Larry? I don't remember, but it was obviously unsuccessful. So it's usually it's more usually you're the one who gets the ones, right? I mean, I'm bound to get something right after about 72 fails. So hey, this is a good one, Bill. Yeah, I'm glad that it worked. David, just let us know how it goes and if it comes back up. But anyway, I'm happy that you're working. I'm working again. And that's just the benefit of in-depth scientific analysis based on years of experience. Okay, David, here's the truth. I actually had to ask Larry and it was really his idea and I just took it. No, no, no, no. Okay, moving on. We got an email from Troy and he says he just learned something new. Oh, okay. Hello, Larry and the artist who was formerly known as Chief Executive Minion. Oh boy, this one's going to be good. I just learned something new today and have been been (31/49)
geeking out about it. So I thought I'd share it with you while it's still on the top of my mind. Our new church, we have been members at for the last year, displaced the entire service on a screen from a projector using Microsoft PowerPoint. The lady who normally does this is on vacation for the next week and a half and asked me if I wouldn't mind putting together the service for this weekend. Without thinking about it, I said, sure. Oh golly. I'm just sorry, I had to think there for a minute. Give me two seconds. Okay, so then they have been systematically sending me information to include in the presentation. I guess I forgot to mention to her that I don't own MS Office. Uh oh. Yeah. I use LibreOffice or Google Docs, so they sent me their PowerPoint template. Since PowerPoint is the only application in the suite that doesn't translate very well with LibreOffice and press, needless to say, when I opened their file, it was completely butchered. Oh man. Okay, man, I'm feeling for you, (32/49)
Troy. Okay. Continuing. So I spent hours and hours of the last couple of evenings completely recreating it from scratch. However, they don't have any Wi-Fi at our church and are running an ancient laptop with Vista. Oh, it gets worse. Yes, this is getting worse. Oh, Troy, man, the pain. Okay. The latest version of Libre doesn't want to run on it without crashing. Oh, man. Boy, he's learning a lot here. Yeah, so it's MS Office 2003, I'm guessing they have. So, running on Vista. Oh, well. Yeah. Okay. So I decided to present using my laptop with Linux Man. I also wanted to be able to sit near the back of the church and run this remotely somehow so I don't have to sit near the front by my laptop and the projector. Oh, okay. Troy, you're killing me, man. Okay. I did some searching online and found out there is an app in the Android store called Impress Remote, which is free. If your computer is on a Wi-Fi network or if it has a Bluetooth capacity built in, you can connect your phone to your (33/49)
laptop with Bluetooth, for example, and remotely control your Impress presentation wirelessly. That's cool. It works really, really slick. You can not only advance the slides, but it has a built-in tile view of all your slides so you don't have to print out a handout to follow. It also has a virtual laser pointer built in. You just tap on the device in a place on the slide and a red dot appears on the screen. It's really cool. It sounds cool. Yeah. The app is free. The Office Suite is free. Just goes to show you another example of open source software at work making our lives easier. Keep up the good work, guys. Troy, aka Jack Durst. Okay, first off, I don't know if your life was easier. Man, you went through. First you recreated it, then you didn't have Wi-Fi, then it was running on Vista. Man, did he even lock any achievements or anything with this? I don't know. Man! The easiest part was finding the Android app that remotely controlled the Impress presentation software from the back (34/49)
of the room by way of Bluetooth. That's the feat right there. Well, the hard work was recreating the presentation template. It just goes to show you that Linux people ... I mean, most people would say, okay, I recreated the template. I'll just use my laptop to present it. But no, us Linux people, we have to make our lives easier, so we have to find a way to control it remotely from the back of the room using Bluetooth. And hey, it has a free virtual laser pointer too, which only makes it better. Yeah, you can get remote controls that you can purchase that hook into a USB port with a little dongle and you can remote control it. But that requires to purchase the hardware. We Linux people, we want stuff for free. Yeah. So, Troy, props dude, I'm impressed. I really am. I mean, way to go. I officially give you the co-host award for Super Geek. Congratulations. All right. Perfect. Perfect. Yes. Congratulations on making that work and thanks for sharing that with us. That is going to help (35/49)
someone, I'm sure. That's great. I didn't even know that app existed. I didn't either. It does. Hey, we learned something new today too. There you go. Bob has solved his mouse configuration problem and here are the instructions that we were asking him to provide us. Okay. Look at that. Here we go. So we'll have a link to some of his stuff in the show notes. Hi Larry and Bill, as you remember, I have been trying to remap the buttons on my two Logitech M570 wireless trackball for a few months. I want the two little buttons on the upper edge to do page up and page down instead of their default forward and back. I've tried a bunch of things that didn't work and listener Steve even offered to help me directly using a program named Paestromo in episode 326. I'm grateful for Steve's offer, but I struck gold just two days before listening to that episode. I am happy to report that the problem is solved. I found the solution by luck as I continued searching the web for information about mapping (36/49)
mouse buttons. In an absolute coincidence, a gentleman named Paul Rubin, who I don't know at all, posted instructions for remapping buttons on the exact trackball I use at this website and at spartanideas.msu.edu. So we'll include a link to the full URL in the show notes. All I had to do was clean up the residue of my previous attempts by deleting a bunch of files in several directories and then follow Mr. Rubin's instructions as written. They are simple and easy, just like I thought remapping should be. I believe the problem I was having before using the solution was that I mixed partial solutions of several different types and left all of them slightly incomplete. None of them worked the way I used them, and they may have interfered with each other. Once I cleaned things up and followed Mr. Rubin's instructions, everything worked perfectly on the first try. The only information not on Mr. Rubin's website is the fact that the XTE is a program that simulates a key being pressed. It (37/49)
comes in the X automation package. I read about it by typing man.XTE in a terminal and the whole solution makes perfect sense. Thank you both and Steve for helping me. I have a brand new, much more interesting problem that I'll send along to you in a second email so I can keep this one from getting any longer. I don't think he's sent that one to us yet. Oh, yes, he has. It's the next one. Here you go, Bill. This one's yours to read. Oh, goodness. OK. Hey, Bob, you know, I just thought we just talked to you. Oh, we did. OK, so let's see what we can do with this. Now, Bob has a strange network problem. Hi, Bill and Larry. Hey, I got top billing. Yes. Hey, did you look at the other one? He wrote your name first and then, listen, you wrote my name first. Hey, Bob, that's the way to play the field. OK. Yeah, I think he's trying my best. Yeah. He wrote, Hi, Bill and Larry. Bob here again with my second problem. The network on my Ubuntu Mate laptop stopped working. I can connect to my (38/49)
router's Wi-Fi and to my cell phone's wireless hotspot, but the connection doesn't establish Internet contact. Browsers, ping, etc., can't reach Internet, even though the router and cell phone are happily telling me my laptop is connected. Here are a few more details. Number one, this problem suddenly started. I visited my mom one weekend and the last thing I did before coming home on Sunday afternoon was to place an order to let her on Amazon. The laptop worked perfectly. I shut it down normally and drove home. That was the last time the computer accessed the Internet from Ubuntu Mate. On Monday, I turned on the laptop and this problem was happening. Ubuntu Mate hasn't connected to the Internet since that Sunday afternoon. Number two, the laptop is dual boot, so I rebooted into Linux Mint and everything works perfectly. I'm typing this email in Mint right now. I use Ubuntu Mate 98% of the time, no particular reason, so Mint was never active while I was at my mom's house. Number three, (39/49)
I verified that Ubuntu Mate does connect wirelessly to both my home router and my cell phone's wireless hotspot. I've also plugged it into my router directly with an Ethernet cable and I still can't get to the Internet. Number four, I figured that since Mint worked and made it and I a configuration file must be damaged somewhere or a background update went bad. I used TimeShift to restore Mate to a state one week before I visited my mom when everything worked perfectly. No dice. I still can't reach the Internet. The fact that the laptop works when I boot into Mint tells me that my hardware is working correctly. The fact that the problem only appears in Ubuntu Mate. He didn't put a Mate by my add in there because I know what he's talking about. Ubuntu Mate tells me the problem is tied to the operating system. Using TimeShift to revert to a known good state should have fixed an operating system, but it didn't. So what do you think? I searched it extensively and the solutions I find (40/49)
consistently address driver problems or incorrectly configured new installations of Linux or a home router. I haven't found anyone whose computer worked one day and not the next. By the way, my mom lives three hours away, so I can't take this computer back to her house to test it on her network until I've seen her again in about a month. Her network is totally unsafe and insecure. My dad set it up using Windows XP and passwords so weak they are useless. For various reasons, I am not able to change things, so I use Linux instead of Windows when I visit. I don't access sensitive websites and I use a VPN when using the network for anything more sensitive than reading news sites. Do you think I could have picked up some form of persistent Linux malware? Any suggestions you have on how to track this down would be appreciated. I'm willing to nuke and pave with a new Ubuntu Mate install, but then I would never figure out what caused this problem. That, of course, assumes a nuke and pave (41/49)
actually solves the problem. Thanks, Bob. Wow. I was thinking that until he said that he restored from a previous known good configuration using what was a time shift, I was thinking maybe he had enabled the firewall while at his mother's or during an update or something like that, and then all he has to do is disable the firewall and maybe that would make it work. But since he restored from a previous configuration, it's obviously something else that's going on. Hmm. Any thoughts, Bill? Well, I have two. It sounds like he's got a configuration file problem somewhere. If it works with the other Linux without a problem, we know it's not hardware, so we don't have to worry. Look at hardware. It's got to be a configuration file. I don't know of any... Now, I keep up on the latest Linux malware and stuff, and there's some out there, but most of it, you have to have physical access to the machine. I'm not saying that there's not one I don't know about, but it kind of goes in contrary to (42/49)
what a lot of this malware does. I don't think he has malware because the malware usually wants you to be connected to the Internet so they can spread malware and whatever. So I don't think it's malware. I think it's a configuration file. Is there a way, Larry, that he could... Well, he did time shift. Yeah. Yeah, he's already done that, and presumably that's going to restore it to a previous image, but what I'm thinking now is it might not change the settings in his browser. So if that VPN you were using, Bob, was set up as a browser plug-in on Firefox or on Chrome as one of their plug-ins, maybe there's a configuration in the VPN that is specific to your mother's connection to the Internet. I would try disabling the VPN and other things related to the browser itself that may persist across a restore to a previous image. It may sync up and update back to your new settings, even though you've restored your system to a previous version. When you connect your browser, it may update the (43/49)
settings to the latest ones you had when you last logged in, and maybe it's doing that with a VPN. So I would check anything that you changed while at your mother's house, the VPN settings, any firewall settings, any tweaks to make yourself secure on their insecure network. Just kind of retrace your steps there before you start looking for configuration file issues. And what you're tweaking there is configuration files, but at least you're doing it from within the browser itself. So I would A, check the browser settings and anything you set up in the browser, and then start thinking about is there something in the Linux, or excuse me, in the Ubuntu MATE installation that's causing the problem. Does Ubuntu MATE have a setting for like airplane mode? I don't think so. Well, just check because maybe you can check. I haven't used Ubuntu MATE enough, but maybe because the way he's describing it, it works when it boots into the Linux. So he might have, when he was doing all this stuff, if (44/49)
there is a thing that, you know, because it's a laptop and you go on the airplane and tell you to turn off your electronic devices, they might have included a switch that kills the internet access. I don't know. Just throwing it out. Yeah, I'm just going into my Ubuntu MATE connections, network connections. I don't see anything. I mean, you can manually go in and disable any of your connections, but he was saying that he's got, it's telling him that he's connected to the network, right? Yeah, so that's not going to be the solution, but I would check the browser first, any plugins on the browser, especially anything that you monkeyed with while you were trying to protect yourself from any infestation while on this secure. Yes, there you go. So that's where I'd start, Bob. Let us know how it goes and we'd be interested in what it actually ended up being. Yeah, and I hope we can get that fixed, but yeah, that's cool. All right. Okay. Looks like you've got an application. Well, it's not (45/49)
really an application. This is basically a website and okay, guys, disclaimer, if you're not an Amazon Prime member, you can stop listening now, but if you have Amazon Prime, you have the music and there's some sites that I found that's a little wonky when you're running in Linux. So I listen to Prime. I actually got the upgraded membership because I wanted more, but the base, this works the same way. I wanted to listen to music while I'm browsing web or whatever. And so at one time, Amazon's website was kind of wonky and wouldn't let me, it would work, but you had to go through steps and stand on your head and spin around. Now it works flawlessly. And I really like how they really went and made it very accessible. I would suggest giving it a try. If you have Amazon Prime, you already have the music and the way it's very pretty, it tells you about the artists and stuff like that. I just found that it was working really well and I wanted to let people know about it. That's all. We are (46/49)
not advertising for Amazon, but a lot of us use Prime for stuff and I thought maybe it would be helpful or you might not know that you had it. It works really well in all the browsers I've tested in Chrome and Firefox. It works really well and no problems whatsoever. Now I see that you have an application pick. So what do you got? Yeah. Well, I was inspired by your Amazon Prime music thing and I looked up in my bookmark something that I haven't used in a little while. It's a command line music playing application over the internet. CMD, as in command, CMD.fm. Just do it. You'll see, you can choose from all kinds of different genres and you can listen to it in a browser tab while you're- Nice. I didn't know about that. Wherever you want. Yeah, and it works like an old bulletin board service. You just type in the commands and it lets you mess around. So there you go. We'll include that link in the chat. I just noticed that you had to throw that totally free open source one in there. Oh, (47/49)
I don't know whether it's open source or not, but it's totally free. Really old school though. Well, it's cool. Well, like I said, we're not endorsed in anything, but we use products and stuff and if I find it, it works well on Linux or whatever. I want to let you guys know about it. Okay. Yep. There you go. I like that Amazon Prime tip. That's pretty cool. Okay. Yeah. And I know that in our last episode, I think you talked about maybe doing an episode on reviews of distributions, but I also know that it's taking you a little bit longer to configure your new computer than you thought. So you probably haven't done any work on them yet, huh? Yes, sir. Okay. Well, that's what I figured. So we'll have something for our next episode. It won't be a review unless Bill gets one done really quick, which I don't expect. Oh, that's just rude. You've got to... Well, no, you've got a few things going on in your life between now and then, like moving into the house, making sure your internet works, (48/49)
you know, all that kind of stuff. So I don't expect that you're going to have any of that done. Just because you've got other stuff. I know that stupid thing called life always gets in my way, but we'll guarantee you we'll have something. We don't know what it is yet, but we will. Yeah. As always, we don't know what our next episode is going to be, but it'll be great. It's going to be awesome. Hey, we're going to make it great. Okay. We're going to be good. Yes. Okay. Until then, 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. If you'd 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. New music provided by Mark Blasko at podcastthemes.com. (49/49)
Going Linux episode 417, a tribute to Tom. Welcome to the Going Linux Podcast. I'm your host Larry Bushy. And I'm your co-host Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. If you want to send us feedback, please do so using our email at goinglinux at gmail dot com or our voicemail line at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, a tribute to Tom. Yes. And so this is a special episode. As you know, or you may know, Tom was a co-host on our podcast from 2007 to 2013, and he recently passed away. We wanted to do a tribute to Tom by playing an episode of Tom at his best. Interviewing someone and providing answers to listener questions in a listener feedback episode. And we found an episode (1/50)
that embodies all of that. Yeah, we hope that you enjoy hearing Tom again. And Tom will always be a member of our going Linux podcast family and will be dearly missed. We hope you enjoy this episode in our archives. It is episode 180, which we will play for you now. Going Linux episode 180, listener feedback. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushee. And I'm your co-host, Tom. And I'm your chief executive minion, Bill. In today's episode, listener feedback. Well, guys, I've installed the new Skype, Skype 4.0 for Linux. And yes, I know it's a Microsoft product. Sort of. Yeah, sort of. But it seems to be pretty nice. I'm still, this is the first time I've used it. I'm still trying to get used to it. It's not in the Mint repositories yet, so I had to download it from the Skype website. And one of the things I noticed is, you know, where you set up your own profile. Well, it switched my location to Uganda. Nice. Oh, how do you like it there? I don't know. It doesn't (2/50)
seem too much different from California. I had a wedding there. It's great. Yeah. So anyway, I switched all that stuff back to where it should have been. It also changed me from male to female, which I didn't really appreciate, but I suppose, you know, they can do that. Here's me shutting up. All right. So you guys have been using Skype 4.0 for a little while. I got a couple of questions for you. So I can see that there's a little window pops up with a picture. I've got a picture of Bill, but I don't have a picture of Tom. There's not one in my profile. Because there's no picture. But I can't tell, since we're on a group call here, a conference call, I can see that Bill's connected and I can't see that Tom's connected. I can see where I can add more people, but I have no way of knowing who's on this call. Are you looking at three panels? Do you have a panel on the right? I have the individual panels for all this stuff. The same basic setting as was in the old Skype. OK. So you've got (3/50)
the stuff that's already been typed in the top panel and a place to type in the bottom panel. Yeah. Do you have a panel on the right? Oh, I can see that in the chat. Sure. I'm talking about the phone call. Oh, the phone call. Sorry about that. Let's see. Yeah, I can see everybody in the chat part of it. No problem. I see both of you guys. Yeah, I see both. I see your profile picture and of course I see nothing for Tom except his blank portrait with his name on it. I don't even see that. Oh, I see it. I'm missing it. It's tiny and it's below your picture, Bill. You can expand that. There should be four little icons below the pictures. And I believe the fourth one over is to make everything big and then you have big panels. So I guess if you had video, it would be showing the video there. Got it. OK, well, that answers that question. It looked like a little gray square because you don't have a profile picture, Tom. And when one of us types something new, do you get a little asterisk in (4/50)
the in the tray? I do. When you type something new? No, I have it set so that it pops up the screen. Oh, yeah, but if you're not looking at it. Oh, I still I still get notifications. I don't know. I haven't had it installed long enough to find out. That was my only beef with it. Other than that, it's pretty neat. But if I step away for a minute and somebody types something, I come back. There's no evidence. Yeah. OK, well, you know, my my screens are always open, so I see it immediately. That's why I probably haven't noticed. I really can't say if it does or not, because I always keep the conversations open. Yeah, well, mine are open, too. It's just that I might be looking at a different page. Yeah. So, OK, that's that question. And let's see here, maybe maybe that's it. I think we've talked about it all already. Those are really the only issues I've had with it. Have you got any advertising yet? No. Yeah, well, the Skype four is supposed to introduce some advertising. And I've gotten (5/50)
one advertising bit and I can't remember what it was about. I think it was for Gillette or something. I don't remember what it was for, but I was like, huh, that's interesting. Oh, I thought they would be advertising things like Microsoft Office or Microsoft Project. Well, I think it was Gillette. So, you know, I guess they were they knew that was mail and I probably needed to shave. Well, then I'm glad I changed my profile back to mail. Then I, too, can get razor and razor blade ads from Gillette. Well, you might have gotten Lady Gillette. That's true. I could have. But now I hadn't seen any other advertisements. I don't know if it was just like a one time shot, but I think from what I understand, they're going to add they're going to add advertising to Skype. And so don't be surprised when you get it finally. Yeah. OK, we'll see. We'll see. But so far, the quality is good. I mean, I don't notice anything different, better or worse about the quality of the call. The camera works. I (6/50)
tried that out last night. Everything seems to work just fine. So as far as the camera's concerned, I just tried to turn mine on just now just to freak you out. And evidently it doesn't work on conference calls. Yes. That's a holdover from the previous version as well. It didn't work on conference calls. So, yeah, I'm assuming that if you have a very large conference call and everybody has their camera going, it would take a lot of bandwidth. Yeah. But hey, Google Hangouts seem to work. We should try Google Hangout one day and see if we can record a show using that. I hear that you can. I've heard that as well. I'm not signed up for Google Plus and I don't think I'm going to be for a while. Well, that kind of nixes that idea, doesn't it? You and Bill can do a show over in whatever. Oh, sure. OK. You know, by the way, Jono said it's time to upgrade Tom. Just reminding you. Oh, so I see how this is going to go. Yeah. Well, guys, I'll talk to you later. Yeah, Bill's going to keep (7/50)
reminding Tom until the upgrade. Why don't you start the upgrade while we're recording, Tom? Yeah. No problem. There should be no problems whatsoever. All right. So we're going to do a show here? I think we should. But I got some rants going on here and I want to just say that Netflix sucks. They need to get their act together about having a Linux native client. That's been a complaint for a while, Bill. Yeah. Yeah, I know. But I just I had some problems with them. I sometimes use PayPal to pay for things. And I said, well, I'll give this a whirl. And their system died and they took like 20 bucks of my money. It took like three weeks to get it back. And I never did get to watch anything. So I just want to say Netflix, you suck. Don't like you. And you better get your act together. I mean, if they can put one for Android, why can't they do one for Linux? I mean, come on. No one wants your stuff. I mean, come on. And then I finally finished. Tom, you're sitting down, right? OK. I finally (8/50)
finished the Windows 8 testing I was doing for past three weeks. And they need to hire someone from Ubuntu to their interface because that Metro interface is just about stupid. So you're saying even Unity would be better than Windows 8 Metro? Unity makes Metro look... Unity is so far ahead of Metro, it's sickening. It's fast, don't get me wrong. But you've got two different desktops and you have to switch and you got hot corners and they pop on up when they're not supposed to. And after a while, you do most of your work in the old type of desktop and you really... that Metro is just in your way. And they need to have a way just to shut the darn thing off. I mean, but I know what they want to do. I've seen these Metro apps and stuff and I was looking at the previews of them, but I'm going to predict that Windows 8 is going to fall on its face. I mean, Microsoft has already discounted it saying you can upgrade. I think it's like for 40 bucks. And here's something you can upgrade from the (9/50)
release candidate that you could download for free. So read into it what you want. OK, well, you know, Linux community, here's another opportunity for us to capitalize on people being dissatisfied with the Windows platform and wanting to switch to something else. Let's get them to switch to Linux. By the way, for the first time in history, in the last quarter, Microsoft lost money. A lot of money. But one part of it was for a charge off that they wanted to... they bought something that they thought was going to compete with that DoubleClick or something that Google had bought. And they only lost, what was it, like 64 billion or something. Hey. So there goes my retirement fund. Oh, I'm sorry, Larry. Might just be time to dump that stack. Just saying. Yeah, might be a little late for that, too. Anyway, no, I was just kidding, everyone. I do not own any Microsoft stock, at least that I'm aware of. Moving into our... I think we've had enough of this. Let's move into our email. OK. So our (10/50)
first email is from Matt, who isn't exactly pleased with our seeming change of format for our last episode, Episode 179. Matt writes, Hi, guys. Hi, Matt. Hi, Matt. I've been listening since the very early episodes, always a fan of the informative shows and silly humor. Silly? Silly humor? Jesus. I just listened to Episode 179, Linux Applications Advanced. Has going Linux turned into casual chat for three minutes and then read Larry's notes out loud word for word for the rest of the show? It felt very fake to me. Is the podcast dying? Was this just a really rushed episode? I miss the hour or two long episodes with lots of chatting about the world of Nix. And old fan Matt. Well? I guess I was reading what Larry wrote word for word. Yeah, Matt, that format is actually something we've used in the past where I've written an article and we've basically read the article as an episode. And we've done that in the past primarily because not everybody reads the articles that are on the Web page. (11/50)
And I think in the episode I mentioned or in the show notes, I mentioned that this was based on the article, which is something I don't normally do. But sometimes, you know, we do the article first and then the podcast episode afterwards. And sometimes we do a podcast episode and I use that to write the article. So not as unusual as maybe it seems. To be fair, though, it was a bit of a rushed episode, which is one of the reasons why it was shorter than normal. And the minion, of course, messed up. He's not telling you that I was doing repair to Studio West's recording studio and I kind of crossed the wires and stuff. So we won't talk about the fire. Yeah, didn't make the news, but. Or did it? Was that that fire? OK, never mind. You did not hear that. Move on. Next up, we got David in Israel and he writes, Hi, Larry. Hi, David. Hi, Tom. Hi, David. Hi, Minion Bill. Hi, Tom. No, sorry. Hi, Dave. You are the entertainment bill. Good night, Gracie. All right. And David says, You're old and (12/50)
loyal listener, old in both meanings of the word. David, the expat Canadian in Israel here. What would you suggest for a newbie to Linux, but experienced, insert bad word, systems programmer to install in order to learn Unix based systems, including Perl programming and command line? The machine is old, eight years, 1.5 gigabytes, no GPU. I thought Linux Mint 13 mate would do the trick. Any better ideas? Bestest, David. Larry made some recommendations to David via email and he said, You might try Mint 13 XFCE when it comes out, especially if you'll be working with Perl and the command line. I don't think you'll miss Gnome and the PC will show a much better performance. Alternatively, if you are trying to learn system administration, you might actually want to install CentOS, the community supported Red Hat variant or straight Debian. These are the most common systems on non-commercial servers. If you are planning on taking certification exams like LPI or RHCE, these would be better (13/50)
than Ubuntu or Mint, since Ubuntu and its variants actually don't strictly follow all the standards for Linux file locations. Zentiel is a distribution recommended by listener Ken, the small box admin. This would be what you want if you're looking to run an actual small business server. I hope all these possibilities aren't overwhelming. Let us know how it goes. Good advice. Very good advice. David responded to us to let us know how it was going. He says, Thanks, Larry. And by extension, Tom and Bill. We'll try CentOS seems to be the proper one based on your recommendation and we'll also give some exposure outside the Debian model. We'll keep you informed. Have you tried Pingai OS? Any comments? I am running Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon on my new i5 8GB Nvidia GPU machine. I'm thinking of adding Pingai in a second partition just to play with. Since I don't listen to Computer America, I miss tidbits. I also miss Timbits, but that's another story. Much appreciated, David. Bill, you've tried (14/50)
Pingai, haven't you? I have, and it's one of my favorite distros. He does a nice job. I do not use it much anymore. I'm not real happy with his current iteration. I find it's a little unstable. He really tries to throw everything, including kitchen sink, into the distro. He uses a lot of PPAs and stuff like that. I've had nothing but problems. It's based on Ubuntu. I think that a better alternative, because you can build it the way you want, is just go ahead with a base Ubuntu system and then add what you want. That way you're not getting, because he throws everything in there, whether you ever use it or not. If you don't want to do that or you want something a little more customized, but you still want to be able to use the Debian commands, try Linux Mint. Linux Mint is also a real good one, but they have a lot more customizations. They have Cinnamon and is it called Mater? I heard of Mate or something to that effect. I don't know what they're calling it, but they have several (15/50)
different desktops. I would suggest staying with Ubuntu or Mint if you want to stay in the Ubuntu round. If you really want to look at some of the outside Debian, look at Crunchbang for a very minimalist or just straight Debian. Understand, if you use straight Debian, it's not as polished as Ubuntu or Mint. I would say stay with Ubuntu or Mint. I think you'll be happier. Just a side note, if you use those guys to learn some of the admin for Debian systems, it's going to be very similar. I believe that Ubuntu now has just gotten approved for the HP servers, so now they can get support. They're starting to become used in big server projects. It wouldn't hurt to learn Ubuntu or use Mint or whatever, but Ubuntu is making inroads to corporations, so it wouldn't hurt to also know them along with Scent. Norman wrote with a gone back to Windows story. Oh no. Should I read this? We gave this one to you, Tom. Thanks. Norman says, hi Larry, Tom, Bill. Hi Norman. Hi Norman. What's our next (16/50)
feedback? Oh, it goes on. I see. Norman goes on. I've been a long time listener and long time user of Linux. My first taste of Linux was the Red Hat Linux 7 for Dummies book. I've never gone completely Linux because of my desire for modern PC games. However new direction the modern desktop distributions have taken make Linux unusable to me. I have used and loved Ubuntu 10.04 and Linux Mint 10 for a good couple of years now, but they are no longer supported. Now I've tried Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Zubuntu, all three, Mint 13, SUSE 12.1, Fedora 16, and the list goes on. None of them work on my PC any longer. With all the discussion on being able to use Linux to recycle older PCs, it no longer stands and my PC is reasonable. AMD Athlon x64 3.0 gig, 4 gig of RAM, NVIDIA graphics card with 2 gig video RAM. Hmm. Well, you know, that doesn't seem too shabby a system. It's not really all that old and I'm not sure why it wouldn't work with Mint 13 or Fedora or any of those. Maybe you (17/50)
might want to try a distribution with a lighter weight desktop, but you've tried Kubuntu and Zubuntu. Yeah, he really doesn't say what's failing. Yeah. And he has a graphics card with 2 gigabyte of video RAM on it, so, you know, it could be that, I mean, he has a pretty much of a beast of a system there. I would say it might be, uh, he might be using this to close source drivers for the NVIDIA graphics. Oh, you know, that could be. But it worked on an older distribution. Yeah, but they changed the, they changed the drivers and, you know, whenever you change a driver, sometimes it can break what used to work. Sometimes they, uh, they automatically include, include the open source. And unless, you know, uh, that you can get the closed source, uh, version of it, you, you just think, Oh, wow, this thing sucks. And then you get the new driver for the, and for the graphics and it's like, wow, it's a totally different system, but he doesn't give a lot of debt. He doesn't say that what we (18/50)
can't really, uh, tell what's not working. I mean, if it's a, uh, you know, these new, uh, boards also have, uh, drivers for them, you know, a lot of these boards are made by what Foxconn I think. And, um, so sometimes they might be a little wonky. Continuing with Norman's email, none of the live CDs work. They look great when the boot menu comes up and then they show loading fine. But when it gets to the desktop, it looks like an old television screen with snow only and a semi pattern to it as well. I, I figured, okay, I need to get the Nvidia driver working. Other than the Ubuntu Mint, it is a real pain. I fired up the mint DVD and managed to get into a sort of recovery type mode. I installed, uh, to disk and installed an Nvidia non free driver. Once the install was finished reboot and voila on reboot with the Nvidia driver, I got the snow screen. I try to reboot into a safe mode and couldn't launch X. Well, that kind of backs up what we were saying about the video driver being the (19/50)
problem. Well, before he goes back to, uh, uh, the W, um, I got a suggestion. Go ahead and, uh, and partition your drive and install the W for, um, just day to day use. A lot of times, uh, they'll issue patches for, for the Linux, like Linux Mint is really on top of things. And so is Ubuntu. So go ahead and keep your, uh, your Linux partition stay with Ubuntu or Mint for right now. And I bet after a few, you know, once things settle down, cause 1204 is pretty new. And so it's what is Mint 13 Larry? Is that it? Yep. Mint 13 is still reasonably new and they're constantly making patches, their long-term support. So go ahead and keep W on one side of the partition and just go ahead and, uh, uh, continue, uh, uh, working with your, uh, Linux partition. Yeah. Stay with Ubuntu or Mint. And I think that, uh, one of these days you're going to just get these updates and boom, it's going to work again. Well, you know, just listening to what you were saying, um, Norman didn't say whether or not he (20/50)
applied all the updates while the video card was working in the lower resolution. So if he was trying to install the Nvidia driver before applying the updates, maybe you should try reinstalling. And this time while you've got that old TV looking screen, go in and get all the updates and then go back and log back in again and see if now the video is better. Because it might be with the default drivers that come, especially if they are updated. And then if not, go ahead and try installing the proprietary driver and perhaps the updated version of that with the updates to Mint or whatever distribution you're actually trying this with will actually work. So a couple of suggestions there if you haven't completely abandoned Linux and, and stopped listening to our show. And even if you have gone completely back to the W, um, You can still listen to us. Yeah, you can still listen to us. And if you're using Windows 7 and you upgrade to the, um, the Metro, uh, rectangles, uh, let us know how that (21/50)
goes. Um, I do want to ask you a question about Mint 13 Larry. He says that he, um, installed the non-free, Nvidia non-free driver. I was only on the impression that that was always a default with Mint 13. So you think that might've caused a problem? No, not, not with the video drivers. They have the application that's also in Ubuntu called Jockey that actually, uh, when you start your first installation of Ubuntu or Mint or I think most of the Ubuntu derivatives as well, it will install a default driver that will get you up and running. And if it doesn't do the resolution that you need, or if it, um, is lacking some of the advanced features, uh, the Jockey application will run in the background for the first few times that you boot into your system. And it will suggest that there is a proprietary driver available. Oh, okay. And then you can download it, but it starts with the, with a free version of the driver for even Nvidia cards. Okay. Yeah. Like I said, I don't use Mint very (22/50)
often, actually I haven't used Mint since I think, um, like 10. I'm kind of, uh, staying with Ubuntu right now. And, uh, but I always, you know, they do a great job. So I've also noticed, you know, I know this might be beating the bush a little bit, uh, uh, too much, but a lot of times you have to install all the updates in kind of order to get things to work because they install this and then they install. So, uh, you might want to, uh, make sure that you do your installs and then try upgrading your, your, your Nvidia driver. Right. Then again, that's just Bill, the minion can be wrong. So I noticed we have a little bit more to Norman's email here, so let me just read that and wrap it up. So he says, I listened to the interview with Ubuntu's Jono Bacon and I understand the direction Ubuntu wants to take is supposed to be good for newer users. However, if handing a CD to someone results in the kind of problems I've had, they will never turn to Linux. The problem here is not just Ubuntu (23/50)
though. It is all of the major distributions. None of them are working on my PC. I can only use older versions with no support now. It seems there is no longer any call for non 3d desktops on distributions. And that saddens me. I still listen, but for now I'm forced to go back to that other OS for more than just games. Norman. You've just made Tom very sad. All right. Yep. Sorry about that, Norm. And, uh, well, I guess we lost one. Yeah. Keep listening though. Yeah. Next in Jim's email, he writes, Tom, Larry and Bill. Jim. Jim. No, this is just reverse alphabetical order. Okay. Thanks for reading my email about my friend with the dial up modem problem on the Dell Ubuntu computer. And also thanks for the listener who suggested puppy Linux. That was a very good tip about what puppy can do. However, I believe that puppy would be way over my friend's head. Her original laptop on which I started my Linux adventure appears to have a failing video card. The display is jumpy at times and (24/50)
frequently the screen goes almost completely black, almost cannot see anything at all on it. Now for the $64,000 question. Would it be suitable to use a light duty Linux server? I will be learning how to administer Linux servers and all that goes with it. Initially, all that I would have on it would be my sailing journal and to have it available for the World Wide Web. If so, which distributions would you recommend? Immediately after the laptop began failing, I experienced a personal kernel panic. I immediately began searching for a Linux computer using my netbook. It's a little small for my everyday use. I found an Acer PC with Olympus pre-installed at, of all places, walmart.com. After researching it, I decided to give it a try. I will write, too, about that adventure, still ongoing, in another email, unless you'd rather I didn't. Thanks for putting on a great podcast, Jim. We'd be really interested in hearing about that. Yeah, and what was the price on that? I don't know. If it was (25/50)
Walmart, it had to be inexpensive. We'll be happy to hear about your adventures with Olympus. It's not a distribution that we know a lot about. It's not one of our most popular, for sure. Acer is also known for artificially locking down some of its pre-installed Linux computers. As for the server, if you're already familiar with Ubuntu, you can start with their server. Most servers qualify as lightweight, so you almost can't go wrong with almost any server distro. You can download the Ubuntu servers right from their website. Sure. Yeah, it's real easy. You burn it, and you can boot it up. I've actually played with it. It's all command-line driven, but you can add a desktop if you want. Most of them don't add it, but that's a good way to learn the inner workings. Sure. Jim did write back. He said, thanks for getting back to me so soon. My adventures with Olympus did not last an hour. It did not seem to have any that I could find repositories for downloading software, nor was there any (26/50)
update manager. Kind of what I said. It's not one of the most popular. I think this is one of the ones that Acer has locked down, so it may not be a Linpus thing. It may be an Acer thing. Anyway, Jim continues, I just listened to episode 176 where you covered Windows 7 versus 64-bit Linux. Was the author's netbook a 64-bit? I did not hear it mentioned on the show. I have a 32-bit netbook, and from what I read, a 64-bit will not run on it. What do you think? Well, yeah, the author's netbook was a 64-bit. I did install the 64-bit version of Solus OS. I didn't read the disk label fully on the Acer, and it ran for two days before it crashed fatally. I'm surprised that the 64-bit would even run on a 64-bit machine. You can't run 64-bit. Unless it's 64-bit and they're just not telling you. Yeah, it's probably processor 64-bit, but Solus OS is a fairly new one, so it might not be the hardware. Anyhow, continuing with Jim's email, I couldn't get any live CD to boot on the Acer until I tried (27/50)
Puppy. I tried to install it, but it was too confusing to me, and the install failed. However, I did fix the problem, and now I can boot live CDs and install them again. Your comment about Acer locking down its Linux boxes is most interesting, as I am having trouble getting the Wi-Fi to work with other Linux distros. The Wi-Fi did work with Linpus out of the box, which was one of the reasons that prompted me to purchase it. I will go into the details when I write up the adventure. It's a bit late here in the Lone Star Estate right now. Okay, so go get your sleep, Jim, and when you've got time, let us know in a little more detail what went on with Linpus and your Acer PC. Okay, and I just want to say, who named that distro? Linpus, really? I mean, they couldn't come up with anything better. I mean, how about like Super Duper Operating System or something, but Linpus? Or something that makes a lot of sense, like O'Nurik Ocelot. Hey, hey, back off. I'll get Jono on you. Hey, you seem to (28/50)
be an Ubuntu fanboy now. I do, don't I? It's awesome. I've drunk the Kool-Aid. Okay. And next up, we've got Bill in Michigan, who wrote about Bill's interview with Jono Bacon. Speaking of... Speaking of... Oh, I love this! Go on, go on, Tom, really. He says, I think Bill's interview really stank. Oh, no, wait. Oh, no, that was me. The editorial license there. Okay. He says, I thought Bill did an excellent job. I can see the controversy, though. He says, I like Jono. However, I do have issue with his clumping all Linux users, not liking Unity, into the elitist category. In fact, quite the opposite. I would call Canonical quite elitist when they put out something like 11.04, knowing full well that it's incomplete and virtually dysfunctional. It's like Canonical saying, we're on a higher goal. Are you 10.04 users too stupid to see it? My question, is Canonical proud of Ubuntu 11.04? And this isn't Canonical's first introduction of things before they were close to ready. Network manager (29/50)
and pulse audio represent lesser pains for users, but fall into the same category as Unity. I don't doubt for a minute that the elitist viewpoint exists, as Jono states. But it's far from anyone who happens to be against trashing Adistro for a greater cause. Larry, you're the prime example of a non-elitist in my book, and I'm sure it's a major part of your success. Jono may argue a polished 12.04 wouldn't have been possible without the steps that started with 11.04. This, I imagine, is true in that it may have taken longer. But the cost of going through that transition makes me shudder. A separate fork could have taken longer, but produced the same result. Keep up the good work, guys. Bill in Michigan. So Bill, you're not quite happy with Jono's comment about elitism. I think you may have taken it a little out of context, but I see your point. With 11.04, it's one of those releases from Ubuntu that's between the long-term support releases. And to some degree, you could make the (30/50)
argument that if you really want a stable version, you should stick with the long-term support releases, because in between, they're going to try new things, as they did. And trying Unity, beginning with 11.04, if I remember correctly, was one of those things that, you know, we help Ubuntu and other Linux distributions as the Linux community by trying out these new things with them. And like I said, if you really want stability, then stick with the long-term support releases. Oh, you mean like I do? Yes, exactly. There you go, Jono. I have to say, guys, you know, I talked to Jono on record and off the record, and I really, I think it was taking a little bit out of context. His whole, from what I gathered from it, the Ubuntu really wants Linux accessible to everybody, from housewives to students to kindergartners to power users to Tom, you know, they all want it accessible. And I think what Jono was saying is there's some people that aren't happy with the direction that Ubuntu is going, (31/50)
because they feel that it's not, they're not, their special operating system is no longer special, because the average housewife can use it to check your email and surf the web. And he said he hated that kind of, he didn't say he just didn't like that kind of mentality. He wants everybody to use it. And that's just, that's what I got from it. Yeah, that's pretty much what I got too. He also said in the interview that 1104 was not up to their standards. And he actually said it, we were disappointed. It didn't, it wasn't polished. It wasn't where we wanted it to be, but it was a evolutionary step. You have, sometimes you have to make those steps to get to the final. And I'm sound like a fan boy, I'm sorry. But 1204 shows the polish and, you know, they can't make this polish. I mean, it'd be nice if they could just go and say, look, it looks great. You know, we, everything we tried here worked, but a lot of times, you know, things they tried didn't work. Or they say, Ooh, that might be, (32/50)
wasn't as good as we thought it was. So, you know, as, as, as users, we've got to help them test it and offer them feedback. That's what they have the forms there for. And so, I mean, I know they listen to people and, you know, John is very approachable. I believe all of them are approachable. If you actually have a legitimate concern, shoot them an email and say, Hey, just want to let you know this sucks. Or I think this is great. Or, you know, you guys have been, you know, drinking while you're designing this. So, you know, let, let them know. I mean, they, they, they don't create this stuff in a vacuum. Right. And I think your comments just underscore my comments of if you really want something that just works, stick with the long-term support releases and expect that the releases in between are going to have some things that don't work because they're still. Experimental. Working on them. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, if, if I weren't doing this show, I probably would follow that (33/50)
advice myself. But, you know, there are people who start using Linux right between the long-term support releases of Ubuntu or Linux Mint or any of the other distributions that, that take the same philosophy on releases. And as a result, you know, we've got to kind of keep up with whatever the latest is. But like I said, if, if it were just me using Linux for my own personal use without doing this podcast, I would probably be using the long-term support release. And if there was a new feature in one of the applications that I needed, I would be using one of the back ports or something like that to get the latest. Or, like in the case with Skype 4.0, download it from the developer's website. There you go. That's a good point. Yeah. And now a special interview that Tom conducted recently with Jonathan Nadeau of the Accessible Computing Foundation. Tom? I'm talking today with Jonathan Nadeau, the Executive Director of Accessible Computing Foundation, which is kind of impressive. What is (34/50)
the Accessible Computing Foundation, Jonathan? Oh, by the way, hi. Hey, Tom. Hey, Larry and Bill also. I'm sure you guys will say hi later. Oh, yeah. The Accessible Computing Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to developing free, accessible software. And we want to bridge the gap between accessibility and technology. And, you know, this day and age, technology is moving so quick at such a rapid rate. The faster technology is moving, the faster accessibility is being left behind. And so the foundation has been put together to bridge that gap and bring accessibility back up to speed with the rate technology is moving at. Okay. And just to make it clear, by accessible, we're talking about making computing available to people with physical challenges. Yes, exactly. Like I myself am a blind GNU Linux user, but we're not focusing on just blind and low vision. We want to cover any type of accessible need, from learning disabilities, dyslexia, to paraplegics, quadriplegics, low (35/50)
motor skills, hearing impaired. We want to cover the gambit. Excellent. Well, that sounds like a big job. Yeah. And I hear you just got your, is it 401C? Yes, the 501C3. We just got the status and we're extremely excited about that, which is part of the reason why I'm here today is to announce that we're going to be having a fundraiser on August 25th, which is a Saturday, and we will be starting at noon Eastern Standard Time and stopping at midnight. It's essentially going to be like a 12 hour long podcast. We're going to have the whole event streamed live at thenewradio.net. Now, all of this information I'm telling you, I'll give you a URL that you can visit later on and you'll see all of the information there. You'll be able to see everything that I talked about on the interview. So we'll be at the Linuxbasics.com. They have their own mumble server and we'll be utilizing that. They can have up to 30 people in the room at once. So I'm going to be in there hosting the essentially 12 (36/50)
hour podcast. And throughout the time we'll have people be able to come in and out of the mumble room, which you'll have the information to log into when you visit the site. But people will be able to log in and out of the room. And we're going to have Jono Bacon showing up, Stefano Zaccaroli, the project leader of Debian. I'm hoping to get Aaron Saigo on. Maybe Joan Ray Diggs, the project lead of Orca. So we're going to have various people showing up throughout the 12 hours. And if you're in the room when Jono or Stefano shows up, you'll be able to hang out with them, talk to them, ask questions. And of course, we'll be discussing free software and accessibility throughout the 12 hours and whatever other topics might come up in those 12 hours. But we'll be trying to focus basically on accessibility and free software for the most part. Excellent. And are people going to need to install some sort of a program to take part in this? Yes. You'll have to install mumble, which mumble runs on (37/50)
everything. If you're running any Debian based distro, mumble's already in the repo. So like Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, it's in the Fedora repos. I've yet to find a distro that doesn't have mumble packaged. So you can easily install it. There's also instructions on the LinuxBasics.com website on how to install it and how to get it set up. So you'll have all the instructions there. Mumble also works on Android phones. It works on iOS. It runs on Mac. It runs on Windows. It runs on everything. So you should be able to get it installed in some way, shape or form if you want to take part in the discussion in the mumble room. Cool. And you said this is a fundraising gambit? Yes. So what we're looking to do is you can become a member of the Accessible Computing Foundation. We have four levels. Bronze, silver, gold and platinum. And they start at $2, $10, $20 and $50 a month. But you can also make a one-time donation if you'd like also. But the fundraiser is to, our goal is to reach 1,000 $2 (38/50)
members. Now we feel that that's a reasonable goal because $2 is $0.50 a week. $2 might not seem much to one person, but with 1,000 people that can make a difference. And essentially that will really be able to help the foundation get off the ground and start moving forward with paying developers to either fix bugs or help other projects out with accessibility. So that's really the goal is to get 1,000 $2 members. And we can start paying developers, like I said, to squash bugs like with Orca or Pidgin or Gnome or XFCE. We really want to find some, we find a bunch of college developers where we can get a lot of this low hanging fruit, a lot of bugs that have been hanging around for a while. And we're going to take this money and pay them and start getting rid of the bugs with inaccessibility and start gaining some ground that way. Excellent. So you do have some developers lined up? Yes. College kids, did you say? Yeah, I've been working on, not every college, but a good amount of (39/50)
colleges have a chapter of the ACM, which is the Association of Computer Machine. And basically a lot of, all the CS departments have a chapter and I've been emailing them, reaching out to them. And I've even set up a bunch of talks to give a talk at each chapter and let them know about accessibility and the foundation and what we're trying to do. And, you know, it'll be a way for these college kids to earn some extra money on the side. And they'll also get some experience, like, you know, it'll be good for their job opportunity because they can show their employer, hey, look, I made this commit and this commit against, you know, these packages. Oh, sure, sure. You know, you can read my source code, you can see my commits. So it's just good all around for everybody. It's win-win for everybody. Great idea, great idea. And is there anything else like this out there right now? I mean, not as far as with accessibility. I think we're really going to rattle some cages doing what we're doing (40/50)
because, you know, the assistive technology world is a strange place. And if you're not involved in it, a lot of these things would kind of blow your mind. Really, the thing that I think we're going to make the difference in which I love the most is a lot of the accessible software that's out there, the proprietary stuff, is outrageously expensive. Oh, yeah. I'm not against paying for software but, you know, in this country at least, we believe the market can control, you know, the market can be controlled by the consumers. Well, with assistive technology, 70 to 80% of blind people are unemployed. And the most popular screen reader for Windows right now costs $1200. So if 70 to 80% of people are unemployed, how in the world are they going to afford that? So right away, we can't control the market because it's out of our reach. Sure. So, you know, the companies that make the software price it so high because they know the government is going to come in and pay for it, which that's fine (41/50)
for them. And, you know, it's fine for the people, I guess, that get it for free. But the problem is the government only has so much money and they're only going to budget so much, so not every blind or low-vision person will get a screen reader. So with the Accessible Computing Foundation, we're really going to, you know, disrupt this whole industry, I'm hoping, and, you know, bring accessibility back into the control of people that actually depend on accessibility, that need assistive technology. We'll be back in control of the software. We can control it. We can squash bugs. We can make bug reports or requests and get ahold of the developers, you know, just through an email. So we'll be back in control of our own destiny with accessibility. Excellent. And are you going to run this whole thing? You're going to coordinate everything? Yes. I'll be, like I said, I'll be there for the whole 12 hours on the fundraiser. And, you know, I'm the executive director, so I'm in charge of (42/50)
coordinating, you know, developers and trying to figure out, you know, where's the next plan of attack going? And things like that. So I'm really trying to schedule some talks, you know, to get the foundation out there and let people know what we're about and what we're doing. And also bring awareness to accessibility, you know, and that's the most important thing also. There's over close to one billion people in the world that have some type of disability. There's 370 blind and low vision people throughout the world. So one billion people, that's a whole market that's not being tapped into, even for like consumers and stuff that are being left behind. So we want to, you know, we want to even let companies know, look, if you can, you know, if you can move this gadget to blind people, you just got another 15 million people in the United States that could possibly buy your product. Sure. So there's things like that that we want to point out to, you know, companies and software developers (43/50)
as such. So that's the goal, to bring awareness to accessibility and to also bring accessible freedom to everyone around the world that needs assistive technology. Wow, you're taking a big bite there. Someone's got to do it, right? There you go. And you said you were going to mention a URL where people could find out about this? Yes, thank you. So the foundation's URL is accessiblecomputingfoundation.org. I know that's a mouthful. I tried to get acf.org, but when your listeners visit that website, you'll see why I didn't get it. Is she cute? No, no, it's not. It's nothing like that. Blah, blah. Yeah, so if you go to accessiblecomputingfoundation.org, right on the front page, I'll have all the information there. But you can also visit Linux Basics, and that's b-a-s-i-x.com. If you visit LinuxBasics.com, where your forms are, they'll have instructions also right on the front page. I'd imagine they're going to put them up there. And all the information on how to install Mumble, how to log (44/50)
in with Mumble, the information you'll need to log into Mumble. Everything will be right there. And like I said, if you visit the Accessible Computing Foundation, it'll be there. Or if you visit LinuxBasics.com, it'll be there. So either way, you'll find the information. And it'll be August 25th, starting at noon Eastern Standard Time, and ending at midnight Eastern Standard Time. And we're looking forward to everyone showing up. I hope we all have a great time. And if you know somebody that needs assistive technology, if you know a friend of a friend that needs assistive technology, you want them to listen to this event. There's a lot of people that depend on assistive technology that aren't even aware of what Free Software is or even GNU Linux. I met – I got a funny story for you, actually. I was at the store the other day at Target with my wife and my family. And I'm standing there and my wife went off with one of the kids down another aisle. And this lady comes up to me and she's (45/50)
like, excuse me, what's this? And I sort of didn't think she was talking to me, so I didn't say anything. And she's like, excuse me, what's this? And I was like, oh, me? And she's like, yeah. I'm blind. And she started laughing and she's like, so am I. Oh, no, I'm kidding. Yeah. So she's like, I can't believe that. You're the first person I've ever run into that was blind when I was trying to ask them what something was. She had like really low vision. She could basically see like shadows and stuff. Sure. But it was really funny. So I started talking to her and I was like, oh, what do you use for technology? And she uses JAWS and everything. And I said, have you ever heard of Linux or free software? And she's like, no, what is that? And so there's a lot of people that depend on accessibility that have no idea that this stuff even exists. So that's why we want to bring awareness to it and get it out there. Yeah. Even when you do tell them that there's something better and cheaper and (46/50)
more bug-free and everything else, that's not what I'm used to. Yeah. It's discouraging. Totally. It's the same, you know, quandary that sighted people have just telling normal users, hey, why don't you try Ubuntu or Linux Minnow? Eh, I don't know. Same thing. It's kind of surprising, but it's the same thing. It's funny. If I'm not paying a fortune for it, it can't be any good. Right. Exactly. Or, you know, they're just used to it. We're creatures of habit, unfortunately. Right. Right. You know? And that's funny, too, because people that even, even, you know, Jaws, it costs $1200. It's nowhere near perfect. It's buggy. It crashes or whatever. Sure. And they put up with it, oh, well, this is the way it is. You know? And then the next thing you know, you need an update, so you've got to get the checkbook out again. Exactly. That's exactly how they roll, you know? That's definitely it. And if you, you know, if you report a bug, you know, either they'll ignore it and never fix it, or like (47/50)
you just said, eh, hey, good news, it'll be on the next upgrade. So. You know? Okay, well, I guess we've about covered everything. Anything else? No, no, I just want to thank you, Larry and Bill, for the podcast. I've been listening since, I don't even know, episode 40 or 35 or something. Wow. Way back. So I just thank you guys for everything you do. I love that you guys give useful information for the, even the new users, the intermediate users. I just, I think you guys are kind of one of a kind podcasts right now. Maybe two or three others that focus on, you know, kind of tutorial type things, and I appreciate all you guys do and keep up the great work. Well, you're welcome, and thank you. I've enjoyed this interview. All right, thanks, Tom, and I can't tell, say hi to Larry and Bill for me. Okay, tell Jono I still haven't upgraded, or Jono, rather. Okay, I'll let him know. Okay. Okay, Jonathan, well, thanks a bunch. No, thank you, and have a great night. Thank you. You too, take (48/50)
care. All right. Bye. Okay, and I think that wraps up our episode, guys. All right. Has anyone got a software pick? I do, Larry. I always have a software pick. I'm going to say check out the new Firefox. It's at like 13.01 or 13.02 now. They made some changes to the interface. It runs fast. I've been enjoying using it. I've been kind of comparing it against Chrome, and I've been pretty impressed with it. I think its memory footprint is a lot less than what it used to be, so those guys are definitely working on it. I don't think you have a choice. If you're running Firefox, it's going to upgrade itself, isn't it? Yeah, but I guess you were right. Never mind. I don't have a software pick. Oh, yes, you do. That was a good one. For those people like me who are using a different browser, yeah, that's a software pick. Go look at it. Go try it out. Exactly. So thanks, Bill. Mm-hmm. Yeah, right. Okay. And now, the wrap-up. So in our next episode, guys, we have... Our next episode will be (49/50)
keyboard shortcuts. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinux.com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and subscribe. We provide 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 the discussion in our Going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinux.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (50/50)
Going Linux episode 355, Moving from Windows to Linux, Part 2. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, part two of Moving from Windows to Linux. Hi, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are you? I am doing well, except for the announcement by Google that Google Plus will be shutting down. We don't know exactly when or what will happen or how it will happen, but we know that our forums will no longer be functional when they do that. Because we rely on Google Plus. Well, we are looking at some other services to replace them already. We are already proactive because we would not want to (1/51)
one moment have Google Plus and then, oh, we're closing today. Yeah, exactly. Which is kind of classic for what they're doing. And I've downloaded all of the content from our Google Plus site that I could get my hands on. For some reason, since we're sitting here in October recording this, it will not download the October posts. It'll download everything before that. So what I'm hoping is when the calendar clicks over to November, it'll give me the October posts, and then we can discontinue use at that point. But until then, we'll just keep using Google Plus until it either falls apart or we have a replacement. How's that? Sounds like a plan. I guess that's the only plan that we have right now. Exactly. Yeah, we took a risk setting up the forums on a site like Google Plus. And yeah, it's come back to bite us. So, hey, we knew the risks going into it, and this was them. Yes. What do you expect from a free service? Okay, I'm just saying. And so I'm so glad that the rest of the software (2/51)
that we use isn't free, like Linux or LibreOffice. Oh, wait a minute. That's a whole different thing. Yes, a whole different thing. No one's going to come to your house, Larry, and say, give me your Linux box. Right. Exactly. It's not completely supported and authored and, you know, maintained by just one proprietary company with revenue in mind as the primary function. So anyway, yeah, there's definitely a difference between the Google Plus kind of free and the Linux kind of free. Yes. One of the main differences is Google Plus kind of free can go away and it did. So there you go. But that's okay. You know, we're on top of it. So we're going to cover our next part of moving from Windows to Linux today. We are. And before we get into the Windows side of things, I'd like to just make an additional comment about a company that recommends Windows for their computers. So right on their website on every page, including those pages where you are ordering one of their computers with Linux on (3/51)
it. They say Dell recommends Windows. So anyway, Dell. Since I have an XPS 13 and I love it. I have Ubuntu MATE installed on it. I have a subscription to the Dell advertising magazine, not so much a subscription as I get pushed it in the mail to me every time they have a sale. Anyway, it's a small business edition of their flyer. And I noticed this time around, since our topic is Windows, that not only does it say on page two, Dell recommends Windows 10 Pro. They start on page two. The entire edition of this flyer is focusing on security. And as we know, historically, Windows has been the least secure operating system out there as far as the most popular operating systems. And on page two, I'm just going to read a little bit from their flyer here. It says, make security a priority. Mounting cyber threats mean that you have to do more to protect your valuable data and that of your customers from debilitating attacks. Start by choosing the business computers with built in security (4/51)
features like these and then jump to page two for additional security recommendations. So when you jump to page two, it happens to be a two page ad to page four. When you jump to page four, happens to be a two page ad for McAfee. Oh, really? And Dell, yes. And Dell has added this to the McAfee ad. It says, arm your business against cyber threats. I'm just going to read a little bit from here. Kind of gives you an indication of the focus of hardware manufacturers that sell or provide Windows on their hardware. The first is a paragraph that's part of their ad copy. It says, you worked hard to build your business and amass your data assets. Now you need to safeguard them. Find all the tools you need to prevent attacks and recover from them. In other words, they are assuming you will get attacked and submit to the attack and get infected in some way. I do that all the time. Yeah, with our security driven portfolio of hardware, software and accessories. And then there's a quote from a small (5/51)
business technology advisor. I don't know whether this is one of their employees or not, but it says, gives his name and says that he's a small business technology advisor. It says, once you get hit by a cyber attack, you can quickly turn into a believer in preventive measures. And then another quote from the training program manager at McAfee. And she says, 71 percent of attacks are targeting small businesses and over 50 percent of small businesses have been attacked. And then it goes on and on and on and talks about, you know, how you can order McAfee when you order your Dell computer. And then as they're advertising each of the bits of hardware, they're talking about the security and built into the processors and encryption and this trusted platform module TPM. They've got TPM version two built in. And of course, TPM is from the Trusted Computer Computing Group and was formed by AMD, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft. So back in 2003. And they are the. Some of the companies that are (6/51)
bringing us such wonderful things as, you know, secure boot and things like that. Not that TPM is exactly secure boot, but you get the idea. Point is, there's a lot of effort going into filling the holes in windows with things that are outside of windows that are specifically created to fill those holes around security. So with it, with and the point here is that with Linux, it's much, much, much less of a concern. Most Linux users run desktop users run without any sort of virus scanning because virus scanners scan for Windows viruses because essentially there aren't any for Linux. Not that there have never been, but there aren't any out in the wild on a regular basis like there are for Windows. And they're not being created by the thousands and tens of thousands like they are for Windows. So just as we talk about moving from Windows to Linux, this whole aspect of security, this whole focus of Dell's advertising this month for their small business ad flyer is focused on something that (7/51)
is a minimal concern when you move to Linux. Well, you really don't have to worry about that data because from what I heard on Windows Weekly, that's Leo Laporte's podcast network, the latest rollout had some problems in some people. And they said, well, it only affected like 1%, but when you have what, 300 billion, you know, 1% of 300 billion still, you know, they actually had numbers. Yeah, big numbers, certain things. You had to have certain things that would cause this data loss rule. Apparently, people lost huge amounts of data. And so, yeah, you don't have to worry about hackers getting your data. The operating system will get rid of it for you. I mean, you know, no problem. Now, I'm not saying this couldn't happen on Linux, but I will say that most people that have been using Linux for a little while are, you know, I would say a cut above the average users, but I just found it kind of humorous that this thing, according to the hosts of that podcast, said, hey, you know, they (8/51)
were reporting it and they still pushed out. But it's not a big deal. They went ahead, they didn't roll it back. They just paused it. So, you know, when you have such a huge market, you know, 1% or even a half percent of, you know, what, however many billions is still a pretty big number. So, Windows has a problem. I mean, you know, we've talked about the telemetry and I'm sure there's telemetry built into our phones and everything. So, I'm not that naive to think that, you know, Google is not tracking me with our Android phones and et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, we had a whole debate about whether what kind of telemetry it's sending, if Windows is being used on, you know, medical devices and stuff. And frankly, if I have a machine, you know, giving me medicine, I really would not want it running on a Microsoft operating system. And that's how I judge it. Would I trust it to run to keep me alive? No. I'd rather have Linux or something. But, you know, they're being silly here. (9/51)
But, you know, with this rapid updating they're doing twice a year and these are major feature updates. Basically, it's a whole new system. It's not just adding. They're going completely through it and they keep adding stuff. And, you know, their idea, which really irritated me, is, you know, if you have the Home Edition of Windows 10, you can only, I think, postpone it so many times for so long. But they want, they're basically, you're the guinea pig for the enterprise people, you know, because, yes, they have a lot of people, what to call this, Microsoft Insiders, which test it. But that's only millions. There's so many different configurations that, you know, the sooner they can push it out to the home users, then they can say, OK, well, that's a problem. We need to fix that. Because as we typically know, enterprise does not move very fast. They don't like moving fast. They like stability and things that are proven. My company that I work for, you know, the IT people get kind of (10/51)
crazy if you try to install anything that's not approved by them. They keep a close eye on it. I'm sure any major corporation is not going to say, oh, there's a new update. Let's go ahead and roll that out. Exactly. Let's just wait. They like to wait years. They don't like, I mean, it's like, OK, Microsoft, we're going to push all this out to our regular users because in their mind, enterprise users are more important than home users. And, you know, so because that's where they make all that big money of volume licensing and stuff. So enough about Microsoft. But, you know, I don't like being anybody's guinea pig. You know, I like to eat my own dog food sort of thing. I don't like to eat other people's dog food before I've made sure I like it. So if I mess up, it's my fault. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. All right. So let's start talking about Microsoft and let's talk about Microsoft. Yeah, I was getting a tension headache here. OK. So in this part, we're going to be talking about getting (11/51)
things, you know, once you've had everything installed, you've gotten the image and you've burned it and now it's usable. And we've talked about how you can install the system. And, you know, we also covered about how to save important files. So let's kind of pick up from there. OK. Yeah, we can do that. And so let's say I've installed a system and while it's got some base software installed, what's the next step after we've installed Linux? OK, so you've got it installed. You've got a very vanilla install. So I would recommend checking for updates as one of the very first things you do. So you see if anything new or latest or greatest has come out since that image was spun up by the distro. And when you were doing the install, it probably prompted you for an Internet connection. And if you had connected during install, you should still have a connection because it's it remembers all your credentials. Ninety nine percent of the time. So after that, in your menu, and it depends kind of (12/51)
on your distribution, it's in a little different places. If you're running Ubuntu MATE or Linux, man, Fedora or SABION. So you might have to look around. Things might be named a little differently. It just kind of depends. But in your menu, you should find an application called Update Manager. That's what it is in Linux Mint. And go ahead and get and get the updates for your system. Right. Absolutely. And how getting updates after installation is implemented varies a little bit from distribution to distribution. You mentioned how it's done in in Linux Mint in Ubuntu MATE has done a very similar way. It asks you when you're in the installation process, do you want to download the updates immediately after install? And that's just a little checkbox that you check. And if you check that box, it will make those updates for you. If you don't, you can always go back into the software updater and do the updates afterwards. And we had a question from one of our listeners recently around if I (13/51)
install from USB or CD or DVD, can I install without an internet connection? And yes, you can. And you just install. It'll install that base system for you. And then once you have an internet connection after you've installed and gotten your Wi-Fi working or your network connection working, then you go into the software updater and get the get the updates. And then you're back up to the most recent security patches and software updates and application updates and so on. So you can do it without a connection, but it's much, much easier if you have a connection while you're installing. Just do it while you're installing or immediately afterwards so that as you continue to install the applications you want to run or just run the applications you want to run that you're using the latest version with the latest security patches and so on. Yeah, I was just going to mention that Linux Mint also says look for updates while installing. And you can tell it, yeah, go ahead and get the updates. (14/51)
But after you've done that, I've went and found two or three updates since the last one. So that's why I always like to go ahead and apply the updates as the install. But I also like to look again. Sometimes it's only one or two little things. It just depends on if it's been pushed to those servers that provide updates for the installation. But it doesn't hurt to go ahead and just check. And sometimes there's one file. Sometimes I've gotten five or six. But the reason I do that is that you might have hardware that they say, oh, we've got a new driver, but they haven't pushed it to the servers that provide updates when you're installing. And an example would be like what, Larry? Graphics card? Yeah, some of the proprietary drivers and so on, like graphics card drivers, might not be on the installation servers. And so you may need to go get those after the fact. And if it happens to be a network adapter driver, that can be a bit of a pain. If the driver isn't there while you're (15/51)
installing and it's not installed after you've installed, how do you get connected to the network to go get that driver? And of course, you know that that's one of those very tough situations where you either have to get a USB based connection to the Internet, which you can do with an adapter and so on, or you have to download the updates from a separate computer and then install them on your computer afterwards. But for the most part, that's not an issue. Hopefully, you're not the one in a very, very, very few that have that problem when you're installing. And typically, if you do, you're installing on either a very old computer or a computer that wasn't designed with Linux compatibility in mind and is using some sort of proprietary driver. So if you have, say, an NVIDIA graphics card or a chip by AMD, you can look for a driver manager. Most Ubuntu based distributions have that built in and other distributions, of course, do as well. Not all of them, but you can get the latest drivers (16/51)
for your card. And if you don't see the one that you might need, go to the distributions forums and see how it's done. Yeah, and there's a lot of machines that have like a car, a chipset for like most of them are seem to be Intel based. Intel is really well supported on Linux. So a lot of times it will default to the Intel based chipset that's on your motherboard and you have to get the update to be able to use your NVIDIA. And that kind of applies to me. When I install it, everything works. It looks great. But it's using the Intel based chipset until I go and say, oh, I want to get an NVIDIA driver and I want to use that. And then I get all the the whiz bang stuff. So. Right. Yeah. And I had an older computer. It was an HP DM4, I think that had dual graphics drivers, Intel and I think it was AMD. And I don't use my computers for gaming. So I found the Intel based drivers just fine. So I never bothered installing the AMD drivers because the Intel drivers work just fine for average (17/51)
everyday computing. So, of course, these days with 4K displays and things like that, you want to get the best out of it. You can. So lots of different ways to get it. And each distribution handles it a little bit differently. Some Linux distributions that are anti proprietary. Let's just put it that way. Do not give you any sort of guidance on how to use proprietary hardware. And what you will find, though, on those that are a little more pragmatic as far as Linux distributions go, who realize that many people are not going to stick completely with open source free, free as in freedom software, will offer ways to not only download and install the proprietary chips like NVIDIA chips and so on, but also have give you access out of the box to installing those without jumping through a whole bunch of hoops. It's a checkbox or it's a select this driver kind of thing as you're setting up your computer. Yeah, I like those easy checkboxes, but that's just me. Yeah, that's why we recommend (18/51)
Linux Mint and Ubuntu Mate. Yes. So once you've updated, you've got all your updates and plus any drivers that you needed. Now the fun starts. We need to get your files back. Now, we've already covered how to save them. Now we're talking about how we can put them back so we can use them. If you use something like Dropbox, then you can just download the application, sign in and your files will be auto magically downloaded to your computer. But if you use the USB key or a USB hard drive or something along those lines, you can insert the key drive or the USB drive into a USB port and then paste and copy the files back to your selected folders. Any tips about this, Larry? Yeah, so on that USB key or USB drive where you've made your backup and you're copying the files over, please copy them. Don't cut and paste, copy and paste, because if you move them, which is the cut and paste. So if you move rather than copy, if something goes wrong during the transfer, they're no longer on the backup (19/51)
drive. So you want to keep that as your master copy until you actually got it over on your hard drive of the computer you're installing on. So that it's just safer to do it that way. And maybe it goes without saying, but hey, it's just a little safety tip. Bitter personal experience, let's say. Did you just say bitter personal experience? Yes. Yes. OK, so now that we've got the files restored, you've got to move to the folders you want. And keep in mind that this step can take some time or it could be very fast. It just depends on the number of files that you have. So if you have lots of pictures, it might take a while. So get started, go make a cup of coffee and let the machine do its work. Yeah, the speed also depends on the speed of the drive, the speed of the interface. So if you're using a USB 1.0 port, it's going to take a lot longer than the USB 3 port, for example. So a lot of different factors there. Just be patient. Yeah, be patient and just do the paste and copy and you'll (20/51)
get to all your stuff. It might take a little while, but then once we've got those files, we need to see about getting some applications so we can work, or in my case, play with your new system. Now, the systems do come with a lot, but we're going to go over a few things that we might suggest that you use until you find something you like better. The great thing about Linux is there's lots and lots and lots and lots of choices, something that I like, you might not like. And like I said, we're just kind of trying to pick, I wouldn't say the best of breed, but stuff that works really well for us and we think would work well for you. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Larry and let him cover one of the most important things as far as how you get information from the interwebs. So Larry? Yeah, so connecting to the internet has become one of the most important things you do on your computer these days. And for people switching for the first time from Windows to Linux, I would (21/51)
recommend that you just use the browser that came with your distribution to start with. You can always download something else you prefer later on, but the Linux distributions will provide a browser already pre-installed. It's not going to be Microsoft Edge. That's one thing. Did you have to say that? And it won't be Apple Safari because those are both very, very proprietary. They're only offered on those Microsoft or Apple computers. They don't make browsers available for other operating systems or even for each other's operating system. Just doesn't work, I don't think. Maybe there's an edge for Mac or iOS or something. I don't know. But anyway, sorry for keeping bringing that up, but this is an episode about Windows and moving and Edge is part of it. So anyway, start with the browser that comes with your operating system. And I've found these days, most Linux distributions have settled on Firefox as the standard browser to offer out of the box. There are plenty of other browser (22/51)
choices out there. Some open source, some not so open source, like Chrome is one of the not so open source versions. But a version that is open source that is like Chrome is called Chromium. And you can look at other browsers if you want, like Opera and some that are far less well known like Midori. Or Lynx. You still have the Midori browser or Lynx. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. No pictures there. You can use Lynx. Yeah. So anyway, lots of different possibilities. But if you're just getting started, use the one that came with your Linux distribution. See how you like it. And in fact, if you've been using Firefox on your Windows system that you're moving from, you'll see that Firefox is functionally the same on Linux. So you'll be right at home. Or if you've been using Chrome on Windows because you don't like, I won't say it again, but the one that comes on Windows. If you don't like that, you may already have downloaded Chrome and Chrome is the same on Linux as it is on Windows or anywhere (23/51)
else. So lots of different possibilities, even those that are a little more esoteric. So, yeah. Well, I usually follow that advice for about 10 minutes and then go and download Chrome because I use Chrome at work and I use Chrome at home when I was running the W operating system. Oh, we can say Windows. Okay. So the Windows operating system. So Chrome has all my sites and my favorites. So it's not the most open source one. Actually, it's not open source with all their stuff. I'm sure there's open source elements. Anyway, I like Chrome. I just like the way it works. But you don't have to. Firefox is perfectly usable. So enough of that. So. How about Office Suites? Oh, yeah. Office Suites. Yeah, well, I don't, I just use what comes. LibreOffice is just so good that I'm not saying it's the only one, but LibreOffice, I actually have done work. And it, where I work is all Windows based. So I really haven't had any issues except with some really weird proprietary Excel macros that they use. (24/51)
So I do have to sometimes use a Windows computer that they've assigned me to do some of that stuff. But I'd say 95 percent of what I do, I do most of it right on my Linux box. Now, one of the things that I find I use a lot and I know it sounds weird is sometimes I just don't need a whole Office Suite. I just want a notepad replacement. And I use note, you know, a lot of notepad. I used to use lots of notepad to make a lot of notes for reports and stuff just because it was lighter and quicker. And it just the way I worked. Some people will probably say I work really weird, but it works for me. So I found a few that, you know, they have notepad functions or they're multi-use and some of them are K8, which everybody's like, you use K8, but isn't that on KDE? Yes. When I was running KDE, I kind of fell in love with K8. And so I've been using K8, but I've also found one called Atom. And then very recently I found one called LeafPad and it is so close to where I used to use it. I'm kind of (25/51)
gravitory gravitating toward LeafPad because it's just almost exactly what I was just before. It's like all the great features without all the stuff I don't need. So there's three right there. K8, Atom and LeafPad. I would say unless you have some reason you just don't like it, LibreOffice just works well. Yeah, exactly. So if you need a word processor and a spreadsheet and presentation software and diagramming software and all of those kinds of things that comes in an office suite, LibreOffice is usually what's installed on most Linux distributions. It has all of that and more and it is cross platform. It is no charge kind of free and it is supported by the open source community. But if you're looking for something that is a replacement for Notepad, just a simple text based thing, then K8 is typically installed on computers that use the KDE desktop. LeafPad is typically installed, pre-installed on Linux distributions that use the XFCE or LXDE desktop because it's lighter weight. It's (26/51)
much, much more simple than some of the others. Atom is, that you mentioned, is one that's developed specifically for programmers and markup languages and that sort of thing. And the text editor that is pre-installed on desktops that use Mate is the Pluma desktop, P-L-U-M-A, which is a plain text editor with the ability to add in features and plugins and so on that gives it the ability to do markup and to turn it into something that has more power for those programmers and people who do HTML markup and all other kinds of markup languages as well. So lots of functionality. K8 has that same functionality available to it. I'm not so sure about LeafPad. I'm thinking it's probably more bare bones and plain text editor kind of thing. Yeah, I think so. I think you're right. It's really good. But I don't use it for notes anyway, so. Exactly. Yes. If you're just looking for a way to get rid of the fonts and the special characters and you just want it in plain text, copy from, let's say, Google (27/51)
Docs and paste it into LeafPad, you'll get plain text. It's a very simple way to do that. You know what? I'm just going to go ahead and just down. I'm going to get Vim. Yeah, I'll just use Vim. Okay. Not Emacs? Oh, well, there's a whole Vim Emacs thing. Let's not get into that one. Let's not get into that. Yeah. Lots of different text editors available. We're just being silly now. One in Office Suite, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, all of those are, like I said, cross-platform, very, very popular, primarily outside of those areas where the average population can afford Microsoft's licenses. And also popular amongst those people that use open source software. And there are a lot of other Office Suites that take OpenOffice or LibreOffice and resell it, since it is open source, as their own. Like, I think there's King Office or something like that. Oh, really? Yeah, some with kind of strange names and they do provide maybe a few additional features, but they sell their software, but it's all (28/51)
based on LibreOffice or OpenOffice. And you'll see that as soon as you open it up. Yeah, so lots of different possibilities there. But again, for someone just moving from Windows to Linux, stick with what's installed by default. And most Linux distributions are going to pre-install LibreOffice these days. So give it a try before you go saying, oh, I've got to find a way to run Microsoft Office or Office 365. No, give LibreOffice a try. You know, now, Larry, I've looking on the Internet using my browser installed and I'm writing my letters, but, you know, I also want to do some communicating with my friends and stuff. Oh, really? Wow. Wow. You want to communicate with people? Yes. Am I out of luck here? Yeah, you just can't do that. No, of course you're not out of luck. Lots of different choices there as well. There is a version of Skype for Linux. And as time goes by, Microsoft supports it less and less. And a lot of the features don't work on Linux as they work on Windows. And even I (29/51)
found Skype for Macintosh, quite frankly, a lot of the features don't work. So, you know, Microsoft is trying to keep... That's a sore subject. Yes, I know. But Skype is one of those love-hate sorts of things. It works really well on Windows operating systems, but if you don't have a Windows operating system, stay away from it is my recommendation. But there is a version for Linux that does kind of, sort of, maybe most of the time works. And also lots of other alternatives. Discord is the one that you and I are using right now, Bill, to communicate with one another as we record this episode. And it works pretty well. It does. And it also has recording features, which we're not using, but it has a lot of other chat features and chat room kinds of features. There's also Mumble, which you have to have a hosted server for Mumble. One of the downsides of that. There are also lots of other online possibilities as well, but one of those should be able to get you started in that area. Okay, (30/51)
cool. So, Bill, as we think about communicating with others, what about entertainment? Entertaining yourself? How about music and videos and things like that? You can't do that on Linux anyway. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm kidding. So, no, you've got... we have lots of... that's one of the areas that we have lots of choices. And, you know, I like my jams when I'm playing Guild Wars 2 on my Linux box when I'm killing imaginary monsters. So, for sound playing back, and it's a big one for me, is I like rhythm box and it comes pre-installed on Linux Mint, and I find it works well. But I also have used Clementine, which kind of reminds me of kind of an Apple-esque application, but it sometimes gets a little wonky for me. It's just probably because I'm doing things it doesn't want. And, believe it or not, the old go-to VLC will also play audio files. I usually just have that one doing my videos. But I like rhythm box just because it's clean, simple, and I can... my limited... you know, I just say play (31/51)
and it works. So, I like rhythm box. What do you use, Larry? Well, I use what comes pre-installed on Ubuntu Mate, which is my distribution of choice. And so VLC comes pre-installed and rhythm box comes pre-installed. And those are the two that I use. I don't see any need to change. They work fine. You don't listen to music anyway. I do listen to music occasionally, but I'm usually too busy recording podcasts and videos and writing books and things like that. And editing all the errors out of the podcast. So, anyway. So, okay, now it's kind of like a segue right into the next section is for audio recording. Audacity. Yeah, we use audacity, but there's a whole boatload of others, aren't there? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Lots of lots of different ways to record audio. Audacity is probably the most popular across all platforms because it's available for Linux, Windows, and Mac. And you can use something as simple as audacity or something as sophisticated as, let's say, OBS, which also lets you (32/51)
broadcast video and other things. It's basically a studio in a box. Lots of options. And again, audacity doesn't come pre-installed on most Linux distributions unless you go to something like Ubuntu Studio. But it is definitely the easiest, in my opinion, the easiest to learn that has a lot of functionality built in that lets you not only record your audio, but clean it up, like get rid of noise, reduce background noise, eliminate some artifacts in the audio and boost the volume if you need to do that. Smooth out the rough spots in your audio. Lots of different things. And, of course, edit out the stuff you want to take out. Lots of different functions there. And it's very sophisticated in the way it works, but it's very easy to use for the average user of software. Yeah, I'll tell you a little secret, Larry. I know there's a little radio station that's near me that's a little small nonprofit one. And they had a proprietary recording system. They would, you know, when people come in, (33/51)
they do their interviews. And apparently the company wanted to charge them a massive license fee to use this audio recording. And I just happened to mention that Audacity is free and it works great. And that's what they're using now. They told the other company to, no, thank you, we won't take your license. We'll just use the free version and it worked and it actually sounds better. Not that I'm excited about that. Yeah. And speaking of radio stations, there's this nice open source application called Rivendell that was developed by some radio station kinds of people. And we've actually looked into that. We were going to do an episode on it. It kind of has gone by the wayside, but maybe sometime in the future we will actually do that. And I've been looking at or I've been thinking about not looking at, I've been thinking about looking at Rivendell as a way of recording the podcast and maybe adding some more functionality. But it requires some significant learning. You know, I've been (34/51)
using Audacity for more than 15 years now, so old habits die hard. The next one we need to cover is, we got the audio music covered and we got the recording covered, but we definitely need to talk about the video. And video playback, especially in Linux Mint and I believe also a bunch of Mate, you can have where it will play your DVDs and files and stuff and you kind of need a program to play it. So the one that comes installed for most of them if they're using a GNOME based desktop would be GNOME Player, but they sometimes call it Media Player. It just depends. But also my choice that just it's like bulletproof it works 99.9% of the time is VLC. I use VLC to play my video files and my DVD files. And I actually have a USB DVD player because of course they're doing away with the the built in DVDs now. So I can hook it up and it plays everything great. So I don't know what to use, but VLC just works perfectly for that. Yeah, VLC works perfectly. And for anything that I had on audio CDs, (35/51)
I've made an ISO image of those audio recordings. And that ISO image I then mount and just play it from that ISO file as though it were a mounted DVD. Aren't you clever? I didn't think of that. Yeah, you can do that. And then you don't have to worry about, you know, the the DVDs themselves flaking because they do wear out after a while. And the the the inside guts that the recording is made on flakes off and you can't play them anymore. So I started it as a way of backing them up and then thought, why? Why am I putting them in to a DVD player? And then when I got the XPS 13, of course, it doesn't have any sort of DVD player. It just kind of solidified the fact that I need to be running these digitally and I could take them and record them as audio files and then just play them. But, yeah, it's why not just make an ISO? And anyway, lots, lots of different ways to do that as well. And playing the back VLC for video is is a great way to do that. And media player, like you said, comes on (36/51)
most GNOME based Linux distributions. Another thing you might want to do is make screenshots, especially if you are a someone like me who documents how to do things on your computer, taking screenshots and annotating them and providing them with a blog post that describes how to do something is kind of what we do. So with Linux, you can take screenshots with something called shutter. Of course, you know, there's there's always the screen capture that's built in to your Linux distribution and much like with Windows, at least not so much with the Mac where you have to contort your hand to press five keys at the same time to take a screenshot. On Windows, you press the print screen button if your computer has one and it takes a screenshot. Well, most Linux distributions enable that as part of their built in screenshot capabilities. And if not, then there's a key combination that you can use. But if you want to be able to have an application that not only allows you to capture the whole (37/51)
screen or a section of the screen or, you know, do a recording of the screen, shutter allows you to do that and gives you an application that allows you to edit the screenshots as well, allows you to annotate them and then save them to your hard drive. And then you can, of course, put them wherever you need to put them for your for your blog or your documentation. Very easy to use. You also have the other tools like GIMP, which gives you much, much, much more editing capabilities. Things like masks and color management and lots of different tools. Blender, Inkscape, which is taking it not only as bitmaps, but as vector drawings and things like that. All kinds of image types and files you can can manage with those applications and more. Just look in your distributions repositories for those kinds of things. And if you've been using something like Adobe's suite of creative tools, you won't be able to use those on Linux. But you will find alternatives for them that have, if not the same (38/51)
functionality, then very close to it. And in some cases, they don't have exactly the same functionality, but they have most of it. And they have some features that aren't available in the Adobe suite unless you pay lots of money and get different applications to do different things. Yeah, I think so. And, you know, this is by no means an exhaustive list. There are others that, you know, other programs you can look for that could be found in the repositories. One thing about Linux is you have lots of choices and we haven't even scratched the tip of the iceberg here. So, yeah, we've just covered the basics. Half the fun is finding out what works best for you. I found programs going, oh, my goodness, this is great. I'd like this so much better and been using it and I love it. And other times it's like, let me try this. No, this program is not that great. Let me just go back to what I was using. So it's like you get to go treasure hunting for what works for you. But that's one of the (39/51)
beauties of Linux. There's so many choices and, you know, something simple, you know, that works great for you might not be great for someone else. So you have lots of choices is what we're trying to say. So, Larry, do you have any other program citizens that you might want to share that you use? Well, my use case is a little unique in that I'm a podcaster and a software consultant. And so my what I use may not be what everyone else would want to use. But some of the things that are, of course, my favorites. If you want to be able to define your own shortcuts that do more than just start a program or paste some some text you've predefined, you can use programs like autokey that has a lot of functionality. You can not only predefine phrases or entire paragraphs or entire emails if you want to. So that if you type a few letters, it will replace those few letters with an entire paragraph or an entire email. You can script it so that it does multiple functions as well. So something to look (40/51)
into. That's one of my my favorites there. Caffeine, which keeps your screen alive. So that it doesn't go blank on you, which is very handy when you're recording a podcast. Caffeine is the kind of application that is available on the Mac. I don't know whether it's available for Windows as well, but it's it's very unique utility. A lot of what I use actually is, you know, I just use what's built into Ubuntu MATE. Oh, Synergy, one of my favorite applications, allows me to use a single keyboard and a single mouse across multiple computers, regardless of whether they're Windows, Linux or Mac. Simple Note. Simple Note is a note taking application that allows you to do markups and so on, as well as text editing. Not open source, as far as I know. For recording videos, Simple Screen Recorder is the recording application that I use there. And let's see, I use Audacity to record the audio part of the screen recordings that I do. So the video tutorials and so on that I do, I use Simple Screen (41/51)
Recorder for the video part and Audacity for the audio part. Rsync for doing backups. I'm just scrolling through my list of menus here. And yeah, I could go on and on, but lots of lots of different utilities and specialized packages that I use. But like I said, most most of what I use, I use right out of the box in Ubuntu MATE, like LibreOffice and Chrome and things like that. Yeah, I use Wine to play my games. OK, all right. Hey, it's important, OK? That's what the computer is designed for. And you know, something that you might look into for games these days is, especially if you're using an Ubuntu based distribution, as I know you are, is to look at Snapcraft.io. A lot of games are now starting to be put into Snap packages, which bundles in a pre-configured version of Wine or whatever other things you need to make it run well. They don't have some of the latest games in there, of course. And much of what's being done on Snap packages is is kind of early, early days. But take a look (42/51)
in there and things you'd be surprised what games are in there that work just nicely. You have Snap packages right on Linux and they're optimized to work. So not a bad experience, from what I understand. Well, you know what Bill will be doing after the podcast, I will look at these games. No, I'll be writing a letter. Yeah, that's it. A report. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. A report for work. So never mind. All right. Anything you want to suggest or describe or what do you use, Bill? I basically use Wine. Spend all your days gaming. Well, I mean, come on. I use LibreOffice for my work, like I said. I use Chrome for my browser. I sometimes keep Firefox in Opera. I kind of have a love hate relationship with Opera as a general rule. The reason I like Chrome, I mean, it works on Firefox, too, is that, you know, if I want to watch a movie on Netflix, it works. A lot of the websites now work flawlessly with Chrome because it is a majority browser. And, you know, for a while it's gotten (43/51)
much, much better. I hated Firefox. It's also a love hate. It was, I used Firefox for a long time and then it just seems so slow compared to the others. And then I went to Chrome. But I always keep a Firefox because it's pretty much a bulletproof browser that will work when everything else seems to explode. So, I keep multiple browsers just because I'm weird. But basically I like, I've used Play on Linux, which is a, I've had good success and I've had success with it causing me headaches. But it's basically an automated system to help you install the games that maybe are not in snap packages or whatever. But I found that if you have a game like Guild Wars, and thank you to that person again who gave me that little work, that little package to get my game running better. There's so many guides on how to get something installed and played. It's really not an issue anymore. I'm kind of boring, but I know that you can play Battlefield 4 on it. You can play, of course, Guild Wars. You can (44/51)
play WoW. So, you have lots of options. I'm sure there's some that just don't, doesn't like the run. And that's mainly, I think, from a programming standpoint, but that's just me. But yeah, I'm more of a gamer type of thing. But that's just, you know, that's just me. Larry likes to do real work. So, do you have anything else you want to say? Maybe, you know, I'm getting pretty close to the end of the podcast. So what do you think? Yeah. So if any of our listeners have any suggestions or ideas on what they use to, you know, under Linux to get things done, let us know. And if you have suggestions on applications that you like that either you just want to mention that this is a good application or you'd like us to review, send us a note. And you can do that by email. You can do that on Google+. Oh, wait, no. Maybe not. Yeah, no, I know. So, yeah, give us your suggestions. And yeah, please, we'd like to hear what you use because Bill and I are kind of strange cases. Bill just goes to work (45/51)
and comes home and plays games and I'm recording podcasts all the time and, you know, different, different kind of people. So we'd like to look, we'd like to hear from regular people. Yeah, regular people. I'm definitely strange, but I do have an application pick. Oh, okay. Yeah. I am, back in the olden days, I loved IRC chat and there was a program on Windows called M-I-R-C. I don't know if you've ever seen it, Larry. It was my favorite. You had to pay for it. It wasn't very much, but I loved how it was set up and everything. And I was like, man, I've looked through all these IRCs and the clients and I didn't find one until I went across one that was installed in Linux Mint called hex chat. And I just opened up and it's just like the exact clone of M-I-R-C. So I'm running around going, I love this. And I was connected with some old friends and you think that I had been given $100 and the keys to the city. I was like, woohoo. I know I'm weird, but IRC has always had a special place in (46/51)
my heart because of before all these newfangled Google plus. Oh, sorry. I shouldn't have mentioned that one or face. I shouldn't have mentioned that one either. Anyway, IRC was one of the ways that people could talk to each other and there's chat rooms and communities that built around it. And also it helped me build my typing speed and also grammar and stuff like that. And if you've listened to any podcast, you know that I can murder just about any word I want to say. So IRC is one of my favorite things to kind of do to catch up with people that I've known for years. And hex chat is just a great, nice, clean. I would say if you didn't know, if you didn't look at the name, I almost swear that it's M-I-R-C, a clone. So it works well. It's fast. I like it. Do you have an application to pick or am I the only one today? Well, I gave a whole bunch of application picks. So that's how you're going to get out of that. OK, let me let me pick shot cut. When I didn't mention I mentioned that I (47/51)
use a specific program for recording video the way I edit it. I used to use a proprietary version of Video Editor, and I've now switched to shot cut because it has almost all of the features of that proprietary version. Less hassle setting up. It's available to install from the Ubuntu MATE repositories or from the Ubuntu repositories, perhaps. Either way, it's available and it installs. It works beautifully. It doesn't crash like the proprietary application did. And I like it. I like it a lot. I wanted to comment on hex chat. OK. We're going to provide a link to hex chat in our show notes. And when you go there, it's a GitHub repository link and you look at the the page where it allows you to download. It gives you a way to download it for Windows 10, a way to download it for 64 bit Windows 7 and 32 bit Windows 7. It's available as a flat pack and in the Snap store and source code. But I have to say, if you want hex chat and you're using Linux, look at the repositories, look at the (48/51)
software library that came with your Linux distribution. It'll be there. And if it's not, go complain. But it's in the Linux repositories. You can install it. It's already got for the Debian distributions that are based on Ubuntu. It's already there with the Ubuntu packages. And of course, you know, like I just said, you can install it from the Snap store quite easily there as well. But I'm surprised that they don't have anything on their download page that specifically gives you the packages for downloading for the various versions of Linux. It's very popular. And this thing seems to be focused a little more around Windows and flat packs and Snap packages. But hex chat, from what I understand, there's a version for Mac OS as well. And, you know, it's cross platform. So give it a try. But first, check on your repositories. That's the easiest and quickest way to get it. I always try to get your software from the repositories as we've preached over and over and over. Or not preached, (49/51)
we've recommended highly. How's that? Yeah, either way. OK, so what's our next episode, Larry? It will be a listener feedback episode, as is our regular rotation between these user experience episodes and listener feedback episodes. So listener feedback. OK, until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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. At this point, we would normally say if you'd like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful Google Plus members by joining the discussion in our Going Linux podcast, Google Plus community. Since, well, since Google Plus is being killed off by Google, we are developing an alternative until it's ready. And as long as Google Plus remains up, we'll continue to use it. Yep. And if you have suggestions on what we could use, give us some suggestions. Yes. Moving down the path of maybe some form. Yes. Anyway, (50/51)
Going Linux episode 375, 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 at our email address at goinglinx.gmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hey, Bill. How are you doing? I'm doing great, Larry. How are you? All right. Anything new in your world that we can talk about before we get into our listener feedback? Yeah. So just a couple of things. Two fun things, actually. First one is I officially gave my Fedora test machine its own personal nickname because I'm weird that way. So its new (1/51)
name is called Tugboat. And Tugboat just keeps chugging along, pulling its weight. So Tugboat has just been really, really rock solid. Really no issues. Fedora 30, it's a standard workstation, has just worked really well on it. I'm sure anything would run well on it. But I've just, you know, this affectionately, you know, Tugboat has been burning a lot of USB drives lately. And since it also has a DVD rewriter, I've been able to use it for a few little projects I was doing. So this is like my little workhorse, the little boat that could. That's great. Now, this is your Fedora 30 systems standard. It's not the silver blue. It's not the silver blue because I installed this on it. And it's been about a month. So you can tell, hey, it's actually beating a lot of records right now by not being reformatted. But it's basically, I use it for my, to download my turrets, to store documents that I need to be able to get real quick. It's just been rock solid. I'm really impressed with how good it (2/51)
runs. So, you know, I just, this is kind of a sleigh thing, but it's just like, man, I think this works really well. There's no issues. I actually even customized it. I liked the deep end desktop. And it's officially supported in their repos. So I went ahead and installed it. Of course, I still have Gnome on it. So I, you know, I need to boot into Gnome. But yeah, I've been running the deep end desktop on it. Of course, it doesn't have all the, you know, stuff from the deep end Linux distro. This is just basically the desktop, you know. So it's really just done everything I've asked without any complaint. And I would have to say, mainly because it's pretty, a lot of the stuff in here is older, so it's well supported, the Intel graphics and everything. And, but yeah, it's just been really rock solid. I am, you know, as you know, open to fanboy and its flavors and stuff. But this Fedora machine is really winning me over because it's been really solid. But on that, so talk about what I (3/51)
used to download MX Linux, which I then burned and put on my main machine. And I've been running MX Linux up until last night for about two weeks, really pushing it to see what I could get it to do, if I could really break it. You know, that's what I want to do a lot of times. And so I found that MX Linux, it gets a passing grade. It is a really nice Debian-based system. It's based on Debian Stable. And it's got a lot of good features. And the reason I was testing it was people were telling me that this was becoming increasingly popular in distro watch, which it is. It's like number one or number two, did they change? You know, I don't really give a lot of credence to that because the way they kind of rank those, but it kind of gives the idea of popularity of a Linux distro. So I downloaded it, installed it. I spent probably hours getting it exactly the way I want. It uses XFCE as a little bit of customization and they have a tweak tool that you can go in and you can move things (4/51)
around. And so it wasn't hard to get it the way I wanted it. Just you could use it right out of the box without any problem. The only problem is that me being me, if it's not somehow I like my workflow to work, it kind of makes me crazy. I like where I'm able to put things where I want them because that's the way I like. And everybody's different. So some people might say, hey, this is great. I don't need to touch anything that's perfect. I'm not harsh on them. I'm just saying that's one of the things of XFCE. It's highly customizable. It was really a good system. Being Debian based, I understood it a little bit more than the Fedora machine because they use different terms and ways of installing software. But the one thing that I did find is they make this thing incredibly easy to get stuff that you want. Their update manager was really, really, really good. I found it a little slow, but nothing unbearable. But everything's laid out. They have popular software. Then they have the (5/51)
Debian stable. Then they have Debian testing. Then they actually support flat packs. You can search all that through their software package installer. There's a lot to it as far as ability to do whatever you want. It never crashed. It was pretty much rock solid. It did like an update. I believe for the two weeks I had it, it updated like four times with new kernel versions or driver updates or whatever. But nothing was, except for the very first one, they weren't huge updates. All software work they have where you can easily install Chrome right in their package manager, which was nice. They have where you can do Discord and Audacity. I don't know if I would say it's as easy to install as, say, Bantu Mate. It's a lot easier to install than, I would say, Fedora, but that's just my personal opinion. But it's pretty straightforward. If you're maybe not a total new Linux user, but you've used maybe Bantu or Linux Mint or one of those others, then you would probably have no issues in (6/51)
getting this installed. That's because you've already got the basics down. Yeah, the basics. That's the one thing that I'm finding, especially with the Fedora machine that I have. Yeah, Bantu gave me the basics, but there's little differences, but you're still able to figure it out. But I would say if you're brand new to Linux, unless you have someone to help you, maybe some of the things might be a little confusing, nothing that you couldn't work out. But I would still say use an Ubuntu-based for right now because that's the most supported one right now. Did you say that MX Linux is Ubuntu-based or Debian-based? No, Debian. Debian is stable. Debian-based. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Of course, Ubuntu comes from Debian, but Ubuntu has a lot of, I would say, user life helpers, makes things a little easier to get things set up. I think it's a good starting point. Right. It's designed with new Linux users in mind. Yeah. But say that you've used it for a little bit, but you want to try something (7/51)
different or you just want to learn a little bit more, MX Linux is fine. It's Debian-based, so everything you learned in Ubuntu seamlessly goes over to the system here. I'm not saying that you couldn't use it as a first-time user. You certainly could. I just think that if you had maybe a little experience or you're a savvy computer user that maybe had used some USB live versions of Ubuntu, and you were comfortable, say you were using, you're running your Windows machine using a USB drive for a while to get used to it, then you would probably be okay. But I would give it a good solid 8.5 for usability. The reason it's not higher is because I find that I had to spend time to get things where I wanted them. I hate having the bar on the side, so I had to put it on the bottom and then I wanted to theme it because I really didn't like the look of it. I have to look at it. I want to at least have something pleasing, but you might find that it's just perfectly fine for you. But I would say, (8/51)
oh, here's a good example. Ubuntu Mate has, you know, to get you started, you have an Office Suite, you have a web browser, you have Video Viewer. So you have one of everything. The MX, there was multiple versions of different stuff and they were all good and nothing didn't work. But sometimes if you're starting a whole new operating system, you don't want them to be thrown with a ton of choices at the very beginning. You just want them to be able to boot into it and write their email, browse the web. Yeah, keep it simple. Yeah, keep it simple. So that's not really a criticism. It's just saying they've got so much into it. They have some really cool features of being able to make a bootable image of your currently running system, which is just a nice graphical user interface, nothing required, you know, command line. So it's really a complete system and you can just add and add and add. And I found stuff that worked well. App images worked well. Flat packs worked well. I didn't really (9/51)
have a complaint. So I would say it gets a good solid B plus, A minus. OK. So, yeah. So that's kind of like the mini mini review. You know, it wasn't exceedingly super light, but it wasn't really heavy. I would consider it like a medium weight distro. Sort of like a bontamate as far as resource wise, if it can run a bontamate, it can run this. So that's just that's just me. I mean, like I said, if you're interested, I encourage you if you want something a little different or you just want to try. Debian based system, but you don't want to have to figure out, you know, how to do Arch or something. It can be used as a stepping stone to just increase your knowledge. So that's that's kind of my micro review. Passing grade. Great, great distro. Really liked them. So, yeah. That's great. Good. Thanks for that. And thanks for continuing to try out all these Linux distributions and sharing your knowledge and experience with us. That's amazing. Well, you know me, I love to distro hop. Yeah, I (10/51)
had noticed. Yes, I did. You know, I think that's my you know, I used to game a lot. Now I I spend more time distro hopping than gaming and and refining the process. So I'm the only person probably has like 12 USB drives for different live environments where I can install them quickly. I'm just saying, I don't know. I've heard a few of our minions talk about the number of distros that they have hopped around. So maybe a contender for the largest number, but I wouldn't bet on it being, you know, 12 being the numbers. So we'll see. Yeah. Anyhow. Yeah. So I've been hopping around a little bit as well. Not distros, but office suites. I had been hearing some good things about an alternative to Microsoft Office that is cross platform. It's available for Windows, Linux and Mac. And as you know, application software for me, it's important that it be cross platform because in my work, I'm using Mac computers and Windows computers and Linux computers. So I need to be able to run my applications (11/51)
on everything. Well, this version of an office suite is called Free Office. It's from a company called Softmaker who's been around for quite a long time, making word processors and spreadsheets and database applications and all kinds of other stuff. So Free Office is the name of the office suite. We'll have a link in the show notes. And the reason I was attracted to it is because it's reportedly much more compatible with Microsoft Office's file formatting, especially with the most recent file formats, the docx and xlsx and pptx file formats that are so difficult for OpenOffice and LibreOffice to be compatible with. But for some reason, Free Office seems to be, or at least is reported to be a lot more compatible with the file formats there. And so you don't lose your document formatting or graphics formatting and that sort of thing. So I haven't put it to the test yet. I've just got it installed and there is a free version. It is not completely open source, so it's not available free as (12/51)
in freedom, but it is free as in beer, in other words, no charge. And they have a version for, like I said, Windows, Mac and Linux that you can download from their website. And they have the various versions that you need to be able to install on any Linux distribution and an installer for Windows and an installer for Mac. And it is nice from a couple of different perspectives in my very brief usage of it. One is that if you like the Microsoft Office ribbon interface, it has one of those. If you like the more traditional interface of the earlier versions of Microsoft Office or any other Office suite, you can choose that as well. There are a few features that if you want to use them, you need to purchase a license for the pro version or whatever it is they call it. But it's fully functional as an Office suite, even without that. So I'm using the free version for home use. And one of the things that I've noticed in using it for about a week is that they say that it's limited to use on (13/51)
five computers, which, you know, many software applications, you know, limit the use to a specific number of computers. But even the free version, after using it for a little while, they ask you for your email address, which, you know, under normal circumstances would be alarm bells going off. What are they doing with my email address? But to the best of my ability, I am expecting that they're using that to be able to track how many computers you have it installed on. Because essentially you're registering it in exchange for sending them your email address, they send you a key so you can register the version of Free Office. And I'm expecting that, you know, if you use that same key for multiple copies on multiple computers, if you install it on a sixth computer, they're going to say, Wait a minute, you are using it on too many. So I like it. It's very functional. It's easy to use, as easy to use as any Office suite. I haven't tried the Free Office. I'm required to use Office on certain (14/51)
things for my work. And don't tell them, I've been using WP Office and they have not noticed. It's just, the compatibility is right there on par. So yeah, I would say I won't try Free Office, but WP has been really, really, really good. So, you know, there's two modern looking Office suites. On top of LibreOffice, the one that is the workhorse of Linux ecosystem, there's three choices that, you know, find one that works well for you. And I mean, yes, some of them are not 100 percent open source, but they're available free as in beer. So I would say, you know, we just want to use Linux to get things done. And if I can find an Office suite that I like and it works well and is compatible with what I need, I'm going to use it. Yep, absolutely. So we've got a couple of different things to try out if you're a little more advanced user and you want to try a different Office suite, or maybe you need an Office suite that's a little more compatible with the Microsoft formats and things. And you (15/51)
really don't want to use the online version of Microsoft Office. And I've used it for a bit as well. And quite extensively, in fact, and I've seen that its menus and features and functions are more limited than your standard installed on your hardware application for Office suite. So, yeah, if you can't live with those limitations, give one of these a try. I do have a question about Free Office, Larry. I don't know if you've done, used it extensively for like, I use a lot of templates for like schedules and stuff. And the one thing that always kind of drives me crazy is having to relearn how to do something that should be really simple. And like, for instance, when I'm, I'm just using this example, when I want to just change the date range for a new schedule, but you keep the same template, it's really easy just to set a new date and pull it across the cells and it automatically populates them correctly. The easy use, quality of life features. Does Free Office have a lot of those (16/51)
quality of life features as far as maybe spell checking or grammar check? What would you say are the most standout features of Free Office? If someone wanted to try it? The thing that you noticed when you first started using that? Yeah, I think I'll probably be able to answer that question in a little more depth after I've used it a little while, as far as the quality of life kind of features. But in answer to your question about what did I first notice about it that was of interest? Well, it's the fact that you can change the user interface to be the ribbon or be more traditional. The fact that you can use it on a high resolution screen, like a 4K monitor, and it has settings to allow you to change the default font size and scale and that sort of thing. Wow. And you can, even if you have a touchscreen, you can make the buttons on the interface bigger so that you can touch them with your finger a little bit more easily. So lots of features that way that you just don't get in most other (17/51)
office suites. But I'm sure there are several others in there that I haven't run across yet. So maybe we'll update that later. Yeah, those actually are some nice features. And you write more than I do. I write a good amount, but you write a lot. So I guess those little, I would say, quality of life features or conveniences make things a little more pleasant. Yeah, exactly. What I'm hoping is in writing updates to the various books that I have, I've had to, in using LibreOffice, do a little bit of work around because Amazon and some of the other self publishing sites, they're expecting you to be using Microsoft Office and they have instructions on how to format things to make them easy for them to process into a book. And I've successfully done that with LibreOffice, but it's a bit of a pain. So what I'm hoping is that the free office will be a little easier. Yeah, that free office will be a little more compatible with the Microsoft Office formats and that I won't have to do as much (18/51)
tweaking to the workflow process that I've had to do with with LibreOffice. And it'll be straightforward. We'll find out. Yeah, that's going to be an interesting experience, especially if it kind of where you don't have to do a lot of the tweaking and workarounds if it just works that little bit, you start adding that up, that adds up to a lot of time. It does. It does. And having to go back and recheck all of those settings and compare them against what is recommended whenever you do a new edition of a book, that's a bit of a time waster. So I'm all about trying to be a little more efficient and effective. But I think, you know, maybe we should get into our listener feedback. What do you think? Oh, I think that's your way of saying enough talking. OK, so. Yeah, it is. It is. We could talk about that later. But anyway, our first email comes from Michael and he said he's running Slint and he writes Hi Larry and Bill. It is Michael from Mifflin, Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. (19/51)
If I got that wrong, I'm sorry, Michael. I have a hard time pronouncing my name. So he writes, I have now changed my distribution of Linux from Ubuntu MATE to Slint based on Slackware, which includes most, if not all, the software that I need. I go to a social group at Paddock Hall in Huddersfield and their people have been helping me with my laptop. One of their people reconfigured the bootloader for me on my HP laptop to be able to boot from USB and then burned a copy of Slint to USB for me. The distro has accessibility for both graphical and text terminals, as well as Orca working on the graphical desktop. If for any reason my computer screws up, I can now install Slint independently. I don't know if this is due to accessibility of Slint or the person who has reconfigured my laptop, but I no longer have to find a sighted person to reconfigure the bootloader as my Slint USB is recognized when I boot my laptop. The only issue I found as regards to software is that there isn't a (20/51)
graphical backup application, which possibly I would be more comfortable in using. There is a graphical version for Rsync, but I am not exactly sure of the options as regards to backing up to my Seagate portable drive. Slint doesn't come with an application like Deja Dupe. All the best with going Linux. Interesting. Well, it's good to know that Slint is an alternative for people who need accessibility for the blind, and they've implemented it very well. As we know from Michael's previous emails, accessibility on a terminal has been a bit of a challenge for him in Ubuntu MATE. Maybe that's something that Martin and crew can look into sometime in the future, but for now, this seems to be a good alternative. I'm sure that Slint being based on Slackware has Deja Dupe available somewhere that you can install it in their software repositories. Yeah, so you might want to try that, Michael. So Larry, before we go any further, you might have some people that are listening for the first time. If (21/51)
you could just give them a quick overview, because we've been dropping a lot of distribution names like Slint, Slackware, Ubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, MX Linux. What is Slackware exactly? Well, Slackware is a Linux distribution that's been around for a long, long, long time. So it's one of the originals. Yes, exactly. And it's not Ubuntu based. It's not Red Hat based. It's its own thing. And it is something that you can spend a lot of time learning how to install it and you can spend a lot of time learning how to use it. So it's definitely not something that is for new users to Linux or new switchers to Linux. And it is something that you might want to try out to learn more about Linux. And you definitely will learn more about how Linux works and all of that in using Slackware. So I've installed it or at least used a computer that had Slackware installed. I can't say that I installed it myself, but yeah, it's, you know, it's Linux. It's what you would expect from Linux. But it is definitely (22/51)
not something for the average new user just switching over from Windows or Mac. But it is a good way to learn about Linux. I actually bought Slackware DVDs back in the day and the book and had a great time because back then you had to. And I guess it's still the same. You had to actually, I actually had to use the book to install the, you know, it says this is what you need to do and this is why. It was really a great learning experience. I mean, because nothing is preconfigured out of the box. You're actually building this thing up. Nothing as severe as like Linux from scratch. Or I would consider it more along the lines of maybe like an Arch install, you know, not a Monjero or anything, but Arch where you're building it just for your system type of thing. So I consider those two kind of parallel. Slack has a special place in my heart. You remember, I think way back, you remember I was telling you that what I was doing with it and I had some success. I learned a lot. But I think what (23/51)
Slint is, is I think it's a way to make Slackware a little more accessible. And so I think it's more of a, you know, this will kind of get you started type of thing in the Slackware ecosystem. But all in all, this would probably not be, as I agree, one for a new user. I would suggest using something easy to get started with. And then once you want to learn more, jump into Slackware or Arch or even Gentoo. Yes. But what's nice about Linux is you can get started easily and then you can use these other Linux distributions to build upon your knowledge. And you can learn, you know, and that's really I think what all of us have done that have been around for a while is we keep learning tricks and trying different stuff. And, you know, if something happens, we know we always have a fallback position, which I've had to do a few times. Yeah, absolutely. So good. Well, thank you for that feedback, Michael. We appreciate it as always. And I know you'll keep us up to date as to what's going on (24/51)
with your transition to Slint. That's great. Highlander wrote to us about errors and resolutions. After trying out Kali Linux XFCE 2009.2, I found a weird error. It took a long time to figure out what was going wrong. I successfully booted into the distro and logged on to a source of Wi-Fi. Problems started when I used Firefox to look at the weather forecast. An error showed up in Firefox that I didn't understand initially. Data flow was not flowing. Turns out that the internal clock on the local machine was far behind the clock on the Internet. Kali blocked the flow of data. Kali Linux didn't tell me the cause of the problem, but the error in Firefox helped me to suss out that the real cause of the problem was a hardware CMOS error. I reset the internal clock from within BIOS and rebooted to the Kali distro. Data flow through Wi-Fi was restored. I hope future versions of Kali Linux can deal with hardware issues better than this. And Highlander, I heard your email being read out. I (25/51)
think it was on the Mint cast as well. So they had a take on this. And essentially it was, this isn't really Kali's fault because it is an error that's a hardware problem. If the clock is so far out of sync with the actual date and time, no Linux software can give you a good report on that. I do also have a suggestion as to what you might do about preventing this in the future. This is a hardware problem, and it's usually caused by you needing a new battery that powers the CMOS. And you may not realize that laptops have a tiny little watch battery. Some of them aren't so tiny, but many of them are tiny watch battery size batteries in there. And their sole purpose is to keep the CMOS powered so that the time doesn't lag behind the actual time. So it keeps the clock running, essentially, even when your computer is powered off. So you might want to check the battery. Yeah, I remember back in the day, they used to use like two AA batteries in those things. It was huge. Yeah. That's a while (26/51)
ago. Anyway. Hey, I'm old. So our next email comes from Jim. He asked us about his Ubuntu problem. Hey Larry and Bill, after several days, I'm not getting any bites on the Ubuntu problem on either the Ubuntu forums or on AskAbuntu.com. The latter gave me the option of emailing someone else to help. And you are two of the most knowledgeable ones I know. And he said he has a zombie settings and he says it's an app in Ubuntu 18.04.2. Thanks in advance. Jim from Virginia. P.S. If all else fails, I'm going to upgrade the machine to Ubuntu Mate Jim. And then a day later, Jim wrote a follow up. And he wrote, Dear Larry and Bill, never mind my wife, who, by the way, is a very pro Linux lady. How lucky can a guy get in a 47 year marriage? Was getting frustrated with her music server not being able to deliver. So a few hours ago, I installed Ubuntu Mate 18.04.2 in the root directory, wiping out Ubuntu 18.04.2. So basically just the same version of Ubuntu. And whatever was causing the problem, I (27/51)
didn't get any point for problem solving like a good geek, but at least the SWMBO is happy. And he put SWMBO, she who must be obeyed. Most of the other machines here at the house run Mate 18.04.2. And the other two that don't are going to be upgraded this week. Just wanted to get to you before you spent any time looking at the issue I reported. Thanks for being available, Jim from Virginia. So I was a bad person. I did not read what the problem was. Did you know what he was having a problem with, Larry? No, I don't. And I didn't look into it because he solved it by reinstalling. So I don't know, but it's good to know, Jim, that you solved the problem very quickly, efficiently. And I am surprised that you didn't get any response back on the forums. But then again, you know, maybe it's a tough question that doesn't have a straightforward answer and it would take someone a while to figure out how to respond to your post. So, yeah, that's kind of interesting. Yeah, it is. But thanks for (28/51)
the feedback, Jim. We appreciate it. For the problem we didn't even have to look at. I like the ones where we don't have to do anything and the listener, you know, figures it out on their own. So it doesn't make for a very interesting episode, though. But can we still bill them for our services? Yes, at the regular rate of zero dollars per hour. OK, we need to talk about that. So our next email is from Juan, who asked us about Synergy or Barrier software. And this is the software that I talked about a few episodes back where you can use it to use a single keyboard and a single mouse to control multiple computers up to how many is it? Nine, 12, 18. I forget some large number more than I have. And you can copy and paste things between different computers running even different operating systems. So Juan writes, Hello, guys. Going Linux minion here. I am having a little issue with configuring Barrier between my Linux laptop running Kubuntu 19 and my MacBook running OS 10. El Capitan. I (29/51)
installed Barrier on both my laptops and follow the instructions on your site's page titled Using Synergy and Barrier on Linux, Windows and Mac. I was able to share my MacBook's mouse and keyboard with my Kubuntu laptop, but not the other way around and can't figure it out. When I click start on Barrier app on both Mac and Kubuntu, I get a Barrier starting notice on both apps. This only happens when I am trying to use Kubuntu laptop as a server. Any ideas? Thanks again for all your wonderful topics and amazing support of the Linux community. Regards, Juan. The only thing I can think here, Juan, and I'm not sure from your email whether this is the issue or not, so please feel free to write back. But it looks to me like perhaps when you are talking about sharing one computer, keyboard and mouse with the other, and you say that it works using the keyboard and mouse on your Kubuntu laptop, but not the other way around, one of the things that you might want to give us feedback on is whether (30/51)
or not you are setting it up differently to control your Mac from Kubuntu or control Kubuntu from the Mac. In other words, you have to set up as a server the computer that you want to use the keyboard and mouse of, and the other one needs to be the client. So there are two different ways to set up Barrier. One is as a server and one as a client, and typically you have a single server, and then every other computer that you want to control is the client. And while Kubuntu is the server, you can use its keyboard and mouse to control whatever other computers you have connected and have Barrier installed. And in order to use the Mac keyboard and mouse, you need to reset up things on the Mac so that it's the server, and you need to go back to Kubuntu and set it up as the client again. So if you want to switch back and forth between keyboards and mice, that's not really what Barrier was designed to do. It's designed to pick one and then control everything from that keyboard and mouse. Does (31/51)
that make sense? I hope it wasn't too complex. Yeah. So the way I understand you said is the computer that you want to use its keyboard and mouse has to have the server. And then like the Mac OS El Capitan has to have the client. Yes. Okay. So you can't switch back and forth. You just have to kind of pick the one you want to use and then kind of serve it to the other one. That's exactly right. And so on the flip side, if you want to use the Mac's keyboard and mouse, you have to set up Barrier as a server on the Mac and as the client on Kubuntu. Okay. So yeah. So it wouldn't work the other way. That makes sense. Yeah. I don't use Barrier because I don't keep things around long enough to set it up. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Understandable. Okay. Yeah. Hopefully that helps you, Juan. And please write back whether it helps you or not and let us know what's going on. Yeah. So our next email comes from Mike. He asks about video capture. He says, I want to turn a spare computer into (32/51)
a PVR and would like suggestions. I have heard a program called Chi suggested. I just want to be able to record video from a capture device and save to disk. I do not have to have a timer record option. Thanks for any help that you might provide, Mike. And you wrote back to Mike with this suggestion. He said, you might find some ideas here. Simple screen recorder, OBS, which stands for Open Broadcast Software, Kazaam, and record my desktop. And did Mike write back and see if any of this works for him? He did not. He wrote back and said, thank you. He was going to try them. And we'll have a link in the show notes to a Tech Mint article that talks about the best media server software for Linux. And these are included in there. Just by way of definition of some of the terms Mike used and used in my email. PVR is personal video recorder. Cheese is a program for Linux that essentially uses your camera on your computer and gives you some functionality for capturing pictures and capturing (33/51)
video using your computer's camera or any camera connected to your computer. And simple screen recorder and record my desktop are very easy to use, simple, basic applications for making videos. And this may, in fact, be what Mike was looking for. OBS is much more complex. It allows you to do streaming. And it's the kind of thing that Jupiter Broadcasting Network uses for all of their video. Although I've been hearing that they've been moving more back to audio only for some of their broadcast because videos, a lot of work. Yeah, it's tough. KASAM is kind of in between. It gives you a few more features than simple screen recorder or record my desktop. Not too many, but a few. And it's nowhere near as powerful or as complex as OBS. So there you go. Hopefully, Mike, that helps you out. Let us know what you settled on. OK, our next email is from Benjamin, who asks about Matei desktop environment version 1.22 applet panel with Orca. And Orca, again, is the screen reader software (34/51)
specifically designed for Linux. Hey, guys, I am having trouble with Matei's desktop environment applet panel in version 1.22. The Orca screen reader seems stuck when I try to navigate to it with a keyboard. I use control-alt-escape to move between panels. But when I land on the said panel, I can no longer arrow back and forth between the applets. I can't tab between them. Is there a new command I'm not finding to do this? I run into this on Fedora and Solace. This may be a bug. I'm sorry to expose it like this. If it is, I tried to set up an account on GitHub to submit a bug, but I had a bad time, probably because I got frustrated giving them a satisfactory password. Is that the only place to do that? I am also not on Facebook or Twitter. I used to be on the Sonar Linux list. That's not around anymore. If I had any leads to get in touch with the Matei desktop environment applet panel devs, I'd follow through on this myself. Thanks. Okay, I know that the Matei desktop environment is (35/51)
tightly woven into Ubuntu Matei, which is the distribution I know the most about. Since Ubuntu Matei doesn't seem to have the problem that you've described, I'm wondering, is it a Matei problem? Or is it a Fedora or Solace problem? I don't know. You might, if you can, give a try in Ubuntu Matei and see if you have the same problem. If so, it's very easy to get onto the forums for Ubuntu Matei and report the problem there. I'm sorry that you're having a problem with GitHub and getting the right password in there to make it acceptable. There's probably a visual captcha or something that it's looking for that you can't see, or that the screen reader can't see, or something like that blocking your way. So I'm not sure how, not being a blind user myself, I'm not sure how to get around that. In fact, let's just throw this out to the minions. For those of you who are using Orca software, have you run into this problem, especially on Ubuntu Matei or on Fedora and Solace? How did you work (36/51)
around this problem? If you've reported the bug, how did you get around the GitHub issues that Benjamin is having? Let's have those people who are experts in this, that is our blind listeners, to give Benjamin some feedback on this. We're looking for you to give some help to a fellow Linux user struggling with the same issues that you struggle with. Yes. Our next email comes from George, who wrote about episode 373, Windows Gone. I don't know the account from whom Bill acquired a computer, and Nancy may well have been too generous to the guy who sold her a high-end PC when quite likely the one who gave Bill would have done the job. But there are important differences between Windows Home and Windows Pro. The default Windows Home install is blatant spyware. I once read, and I wish I could find again, the criticism from an EU government that suggested it collects as many as 25,000 data points through telemetry, basically acting as a keylogger. Windows Pro offers some complex menus that (37/51)
enable users to restrain how much data Microsoft reads, presuming Microsoft honors the restraints. I understand Windows updates may reset user preferences back to send all data. Even Windows Enterprise, built on top of Pro, doesn't enable users to completely shut down telemetry. I don't understand how huge corporations, some in business competition with Microsoft, can install any version of Windows knowing it's encrypted so that you don't know what Microsoft is collecting channeled to the Microsoft servers. By the way, the little snitch application firewall on Macs reports bi-directional telemetry between local systems and Apple servers that gives no better sense of privacy. When what Apple gathers has been identified, spotlight local searches going to Apple, specific location data going to Apple, Apple's response is always, oops, we didn't mean to do that. Okay, so there's a little bit to unpack there. He's basically right about the versions of Windows. I think all of them are built (38/51)
upon the same code base. I think they just have different features. I wouldn't say that the Enterprise is built upon Pro. I think they all come from the same code base with different applications and abilities built in. As far as updates from what I've been able to see from the 1903 install is that both Windows Home and Windows Pro only allow you to so many times pause an update. But I think Enterprise is one that they have some additional software that allows system administrators to have a little bit more control. I've heard that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I don't use Windows enough to speak intelligently on the various levels. I know that they do have telemetry in there and they say they use it for making their system better. Depending on how you set your permissions, there's two defaults. Full, which tells Microsoft they can look at applications telling you've used it, what you got installed, etc., to Basic, which restricts some of that. I don't have an Enterprise (39/51)
copy of Windows 10, so I don't know how that's different. I don't know. Any ideas on this or any comments? I don't want to seem like we're bashing Microsoft. We all know Microsoft sends telemetry back. We all know that we really don't know how much is being sent back, even though they said here's a tool that lets you. It's not easy to understand. And since the programs that they give you are closed source, there's no way to really audit the code to see what exactly if it's reporting everything. So you kind of have to take a lot of good faith. So what do you think? Yeah, so I know you're just starting some research into a series of episodes we're going to be doing about switching from Windows to Linux. And this issue is part of the reason why many people will leave Windows, is this idea that they are collecting all kinds of information through what's known as telemetry. The comment I would have is, let's take some of that EU government statistics of 25,000 data points being collected. (40/51)
With a grain of salt, what I've noticed is politicians in particular tend to overstate things in order to get laws passed and to make points and that sort of thing. And what I've seen is things like sending cookies, browser cookies, back is not one event in their counting. They count each individual cookie that it sends back as a separate data point. And really, it's all the same thing. It's just which cookies you're sending back. So maybe 25,000 is the right number. Maybe it's not. I don't know how it was counted, but let's just take that with a grain of salt. The bottom line, though, is that they're doing it. They're doing it on a massive scale. They're doing it in a way that you can't shut down completely. And they're doing it oftentimes without the user's knowledge or permission. So I know that the EU has put some laws in place and here in the US, some laws are going into place to help combat this kind of thing. But it's government laws. It's not going to keep up with the (41/51)
technology. It's just a matter of fact that, you know, politicians can't keep up with this kind of technology. And they are very many of them are very what's the opposite of tech savvy Luddites? Yeah. Many of them don't understand technology at all and yet are happy to pass laws restricting the use of technology. And sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes it's not. So that's kind of my political rant on this. Yeah. So, George, thanks. The problem that I think that all governments are facing is that technology is moving so fast that the laws that we have on the books weren't really designed to address some of the issues of the data collection and telemetry and, you know, program software moving from install, you know, you upgrade once a year to now it's a service, then we're just going to give you updates all the time. So there's a lot of technical issues involved in it. And, you know, and unfortunately, some of these guys are just not tech savvy enough to understand it, just taking (42/51)
what these big corporations say. And I'm not saying corporations are evil. I'm just saying that these guys, the corporations are telling the politicians who make our laws that, hey, this is OK, this is not really evil to then they've all sudden it's like you have inappropriate ads being sent to people and data breaches. And so then it seems kind of like a knee jerk. So they're trying, I guess, I think they're just kind of until they start getting some people in there to advise them of what's really happening that aren't tied to these big corporations, they're going to struggle. Yeah, absolutely. OK, well, moving on then from George's email. Daniel, hello, everyone. I am using Ubuntu Mate. G-Potter is my podcasting, pod catching client. I am frustrated because I cannot get into its menus with the keyboard, nor can I find a list of keyboard shortcuts for this program. Any ideas? Yeah, Daniel, it is a bit alarming that G-Potter is not accessible or more accessible than it is. And I (43/51)
believe that it's a known issue that G-Potter is not accessible. So maybe we can come up with some alternatives to G-Potter as a podcasting client. There are plenty of them available for Linux and G-Potter is yet one of them. The nice thing about G-Potter is it's cross platform. Yeah, so it's handy to use. But if it's not accessible to blind users, then this is going to be a problem. I gave up using G-Potter a long time ago because it was annoying the way it worked. And even for a sighted person, it was annoying. So my suggestion is, unless you want to get on the forums and provide them some feedback and see if they'll do something about it, switch to something else. Yeah. Our next email comes from James and he has a Banshee question. Hello from Indiana. My name is James and my thanks for the early help from you and your minions. I have a hopefully minor question about Banshee Media Player. I can import media from folders but unable to import playlists such as the M3U files. Nor can I (44/51)
even find the folder that would hold the M3U playlist file in hopes of copy, edit and paste. Any suggestions would be welcome. Oh, I don't use Banshee, so I don't know. But if I was just to hazard a guess, I would say that maybe the M3U files are maybe kept in a separate folder under, you know, I don't know how the structure is of it. Larry, I have nothing. What do you got? Yeah, Banshee is one of those pod catching clients that our previous emailer Daniel could switch to. I don't know whether he uses M3U or not, but yeah, there's quite a bit of back and forth from 2008. It looks like on importing M3U files and in the forums from Banshee Media Player. Let me see if there's anything more recent than that. Let's see, 2011, that's a little more recent. More, 2008, a little, 2012. Yeah, 2014. Looks like there's a bug in the import. It was reported in 2014 on the Banshee bug reporting list for Linux Mint. Says Banshee unable to import playlist from M3U files. Gives no reaction after (45/51)
choosing to import a playlist file. Indeed, after I create a playlist in Banshee and export it properly as M3U file, Banshee cannot reimport the playlist. That was created by itself. Hmm. So it's definitely a bug. I don't see that it's been resolved. Let me take a look at the activity log on this particular post. Yeah, nothing. So if you're looking for importing of playlists, it may be until they fix this bug that you need to look at another player as well. This is, again, alarming that we would have these kinds of issues not being addressed for years. Yeah, for years and years and years. Not unusual. I don't know what the development cycle for Banshee is or whether it's even under current development. It could be one of those applications that is no longer under active development by its original developer and is looking for a new open source sponsor or owner to take it over. I don't know. Either way, it appears to be a bug without a resolution. And if somebody else has found the (46/51)
solution or has more up-to-date information that we've been able to find here doing a quick search, we'd appreciate any feedback. Okay. Our last email is from Jack Deaf, who wrote, Damn, this sucks. And he provides a link to the Linux Journal CSIS publication, Awkward Goodbye. So Linux Journal is going away again. They made an announcement a little bit premature a little while ago last year, I think it was, where they said they were going to, no, December 2017, where they said they were going to have to shut the doors. They found some additional help and support and were able to keep going until now. Looks like this is the last straw for them. Kyle Rankin, the editor at Linux Journal, wrote a final goodbye. He titles it as an awkward goodbye, and we'll have a link to that in the show notes so you can read it for yourself. But Linux Journal, it's been around for a long, long time, is going away. And yeah, Jack Deaf, it sucks. Yeah. Did you ever buy the magazine? I had a subscription to (47/51)
that thing. I've bought a copy here or there. I've never had a subscription, but I have read their articles online. I don't really subscribe to paper magazines or even to electronic magazines because most of it is not of interest to me. I'll read an article here or there and then think, why did I spend the money on this again? So it wasn't really a lot of value to me. But that doesn't mean it's not a lot of value to other people. Unfortunately, either they weren't charging enough or they didn't have enough subscribers to keep them in business. Yeah, I think with the availability of all the information out there, with a lot of answers, you can go to the forums or Google. It's just one of the casualties. And it's a shame because some of the articles are really good. I mean, I enjoyed a lot of them. But yeah, that's said, see it go. So it just seems like the way media is consumed now is just kind of hard for these publications to survive. I mean, I've even heard that newspapers are (48/51)
closing down because everybody can get everything they need on the internet. It's one of those examples of the industry not keeping up with the times. It's like Polaroid with the instant film. I remember those. Yeah, they didn't keep up with film technology or the fact that cameras went to electronic SD cards for storage or whatever the first storage types were for cameras. I guess there was one that had a floppy disk, actually. I had one of those, believe it or not. And they just didn't keep up with the times. And same thing with the publishing industry. They're not adapting to the industry. Something you said earlier about people not needing Linux Journal, maybe because it's so easy to find stuff online, answers to questions and so on. Was that comment meant to say that going Linux is putting Linux Journal out of business? Hopefully not. Hopefully not. I mean, no, we wouldn't be doing that. No, we're not part of the problem. We're part of the new technology, I guess. New ways of (49/51)
delivering things. I'm just going to say if those writers from Linux Journal start looking for us, I'm sending them to your house. Actually, you should send them to my house because they'll never find me. If the UPS driver can't find me, I doubt those guys can. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah, all the joking aside, it's sad that Linux Journal is again going out of business, maybe for real this time. And it sure seems like it and we'll miss them. Yes. On that sad note, we'll wrap up our episode. Our next episode, what will our next episode be, Bill? Do we have any idea at this point or are we still kind of thinking about it? We are going to be talking about transitioning from Windows to Linux and a how-to step-by-step. In multiple episodes. In multiple episodes. Okay, so a new series. Is that a good name? It's good enough for now. It's a description more than a name. We'll figure out what the episode will be called, but I like the idea, Bill. Thanks. Alright, so until then you can go (50/51)
to our website at goinglinux.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 like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our Going Linux podcast community at community.goinglinux.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (51/51)
Going Linux episode 402, streaming music services that work with Linux. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host Larry Bushey. And I'm your 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 goinglinx.gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, streaming and online music services. Hello, Bill. How are things with you now that we have actually made it through the barrier between 2020 and 2021 and all the events that have happened in that first little bit? Yeah. How are things going? Things are going good. I saw a t-shirt that I really liked. It said got through your free trial for 2021 (1/52)
subscription and I'm not interested. So it's 2021 seems to be having a rough start, but hopefully everything will settle down now that we've got all our presidential elections done. We've got hopefully tempers will cool down and everybody will get back to normal. We got vaccines going out once they figured that all that out. So hopefully 2021 will be the year that everything gets back to semi normalcy. Yeah. Yeah, let's hope so. Hey, Larry. Yeah. I got a new computer. Yeah. You sent me a picture. It is. It's beautiful. Yes, it's amazing how much changes in like three years because the my other, I guess I want to call this beast too, but it's not really bees. It's just a wonderful machine. But technology has one long come a long way. This one didn't come with the I nine. It comes with the 10th generation core I seven and it's made by HP and it was a great price. It was like like 1100 bucks and it was a what they call the budget omen omen being the HP premium laptop. You know, it's got (2/52)
basically the same guts. I have a different keyboard, but I actually like this keyboard. It's, you know, backlit and stuff. And and right now I haven't had the heart to mess with it yet, but that's coming very soon. I still have my handy dandy can't kill it Dell running mangero. That is my daily work machine. And this one I've been playing a little star citizen, you know, with it just because it has the power. So I've got an SSD. I'm trying to figure out where I'm going from. I'll put it in my mind. My mangero machine is just the lights. I three. But it's it runs so well. I think it would really help it. And then and then the other computer has to go and it has to go back to repair because it's got a bad fan over. I think they said it was the GPU. So they and I pulled apart, I said, how hard could this be to, you know, to order new fan and just put it in? And then I watched the YouTube videos and I said, no. So it's one of those that you have to take the whole thing apart. Yeah, (3/52)
basically. Yeah, because the heat pipes were all together with the fans. You have to take the battery out. You have to take the little Bluetooth cards and the screws are really, really tiny. And if you know me, I can mess up free lunch. So I'm just like, you know, I'll pay a professional to do this. And then I think that machine is going to be regulated too, because it's a it's a like a six or no, it's seventh generation i7 16. So it will be my new new test bed for Linux and stuff. And so and of course, Manjaro will be on it. So, you know, me being a fan boy that I am. But anyway, so I got a new shiny machine. The one thing I have noticed is, wow, the screen is so much better from my old one. I thought the screen was better. You know, I thought I didn't realize it was it's good, but this one just is so super crisp and clear. I was like, wow. Yeah. So I've been really pleased with it. I just haven't I've been using it mainly as just to fly starships into moons and stuff right now, (4/52)
because I don't know what the heck I'm doing half the time and star citizen. And I can't get it to run under Linux. I've tried. Oh, really? Yeah, it's it's it's a public right now. The game's in public alpha. So I tried every trick. OK, so it's early days for the yeah, it's early days. You try a bunch of concepts out. So between crashing things into landing platforms or moons or planets, basically working, sleeping and tinkering with my Linux machines. And that's it. Nothing really changes for me. So how's work going for you? Yeah, work, work is work. It's always busy for me. So that's it's a good thing. It's a good thing, especially in these days of remote work and pandemic. Don't touch anything around you sort of thing, including your family members. It's just nuts. Yeah, well, the only family member I have right now is the dog and he's self isolates all the time. Right now he's up on the bed snoring. So, yeah, he's he's living the life. So, yeah, I had the opportunity over the past (5/52)
three months to look through all and try every one of these streaming services. And my main goal was to see how they worked under Linux, if they would work under Linux, and if there are any differences in features, if they if it did have a Linux client. And I'm really happy to say that we're in a super great place with streaming music. And I listen to a lot of music just because it keeps me halfway sane or I try to stay halfway sane. So after listening to them and comparing the sound quality and the features, I thought this would be a great episode to kind of just touch on. You know, hey, someone might be looking to have streaming on their Linux machine, but they also wanted to work on their Windows machine or their Apple or OS X machine or their iPhone or Android. And so there were all of those. Because, you know, right now, myself, you, everybody is pretty much cross platform. We, you know, we use the best tool for the job. So we're not purists. I mean, if you're a purist, great. But (6/52)
most people have to use Windows for work or they have to use a Mac for their because of Adobe software that's required or or and, you know, I have an Android phone for work, but I have a personal iPhone and you I think you have an iPhone for work. And, you know, so it's just so many there's so many different platforms that I thought, hey, let's see which one would work well. And, you know, as Linux users seeing if we are missing anything. And so I want to get into this. So. Right. And just as we've talked about, you and I, Bill, we will discuss the music services in this episode. And in a future episode, we'll take a look at some video services as well and do a similar sort of rundown on what's available there. Yeah, the video services, I think we're we should be in a pretty good place there. But there are a few caveats that I found. And one of the things that you'll notice is I for this episode went with the ones that you actually have to subscribe to. Some of them do have some free (7/52)
tiers and I'll bring that out and let you know which ones. But music is a multi-billion dollar business right now. And for people, because no one goes to the music store anymore and buys a CD. Right. Exactly. And so, you know, for the price of a cheap CD, you're getting a month of pretty much all you can eat music. And so that's that's I think that's what's really propelled the music service, the streaming services, into where they are today. So with that, let's begin. OK, so this is not going to be an all inclusive list, but let's list the services that we're going to talk about here. And if we've missed your favorite one and you can give us a review of whether or not that works and how well it works on Linux, that would be great. We welcome that as part of a listener feedback episode and we'll provide that review on the air, either as a recording from you or if you just want to put it down in text and email it to us. That's acceptable as well. Just give us some feedback on what you (8/52)
use if we don't cover it here in this list. So, Bill, the list is in no particular order Spotify, Deezer, Tidal. This title I haven't used on QoBuzz or is it pronounced QoBuzz? I don't know. That's one I always I just say Qbuzz and keep on but it's probably QoBuzz. OK. And Napster. I didn't know they were still around. Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited and YouTube Music. So we'll cover all of those. So every one of those in the list I've actually tried either through a free trial or actually subscribed for a month to see how they work. So that's why it's taken so long, right? I just wanted to give everyone a fair shot and some of them worked better and some best. So anyway, the first one we're going to talk about is what, Larry? Spotify. Take a look at Spotify. Look at the list. Yeah. Does it work with everything? It does. Spotify works perfectly. I didn't have any issues. It plays on about everything. Cost the $9.99. You know, $9.99 is so much less than $10 a month, apparently. (9/52)
Yeah, it is. It is. You know, over a year, you save what? 12 cents? 12 cents. And of course, these prices are U.S. dollars. These are U.S. dollars, of course. And if you're in Europe, I think it's a little different and they've got different plans, different prices in different countries, but this is for U.S. based. So and sometimes you can get a pretty good deal, a sweet deal if you want to try it out. I just snagged one because I was thinking about going someplace else and they said, hey, we'll give you three months for $9.99. So I'm like, OK, I can stay for another three months. Spotify has all they make the lists and so they know what I like to listen to. So they've been pretty good about it. And they have a huge catalog. And hey, even our podcast is on Spotify. And because they're really doing a push for a podcast now, they want to be the go to for everything. So I would say that this one is a solid choice. Some people complain that maybe the audio quality is not as good or the (10/52)
way they encode it. But I really can't tell the difference between too many of these services. I guess I'm not an audiophile, so, you know, it's usually the 320 MP3, which is good enough for my old ears. Yeah, exactly. I think most of us are in that same camp. So unless you have a high priced, super high quality audio system and you are an audiophile, you probably won't notice much, if any, difference between each of these streaming services. And I think that streaming services, by definition, because they have to stream and they have to use bandwidth, they're going to have to compress the signal, which, of course, reduces the quality. So I think if you're really in that camp of being an audiophile who wants the perfect representation of the music, you're going to have local copies that you're listening to and probably copies that are professionally recorded in some way or another. And maybe you're purchasing vinyl these days. I don't know. Well, one of the interesting things for (11/52)
Spotify is that in Ubuntu and any of its derivatives plus Manjaro, that you can pretty much get an Electron app of the Spotify client or it's a snap or whatever. So it looks like a native app, acts like a native app. Whatever you feel about Electron, I consider that, hey, you can play Spotify if you're a Spotify user on your Linux machine. You can play it in your web browser. It's available for Android, it's available for Mac OS, iOS. So this one, pretty much anywhere you go or any device or computer, it will play. Yeah, that's good. It's a solid choice. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So our next one is Deezer. Yeah, Deezer. And Deezer is one of those companies that has acquired other companies. Quite a while ago, I think it's probably a year or more ago, probably more than a year ago, they acquired Stitcher. And we're listed on Stitcher, our podcast is, so I'm familiar with Stitcher. And I'm aware of Deezer purchasing them, but I haven't really, other than improving the player and things that would (12/52)
normally happen regardless of the owner of the company, I haven't really seen too much impact of Deezer on Stitcher. So I still refer to Stitcher and I don't know whether it's the same platform in different countries, just rebranded Deezer or whether they have something different. But as far as I know, Stitcher is what I use. So Deezer is a French company and they are also, I would consider them like a smaller Spotify as far as the music catalogs are very close, but I was able to find everything I wanted except some of the weird stuff I listened to, of course. And I would say that Deezer's interface on, especially my phone, or even on the, when you're using a web browser to listen, it looks a little cleaner than Spotify, because they all are pretty much feature comparable. It's just a little bit of the layout of the interface. And I found Deezer's to be really, really nice. They also had a dark mode, so it doesn't blast your eyes or you can go to light mode. Spotify uses, I would say a (13/52)
dark mode almost all the time. It's a darker interface. So both, you can pick what you want, especially if you don't like dark mode, Deezer allows you to go with the light mode. And their service was pretty rock solid. And like I said, I did notice a few little differences as far as, since they're a French company, I noticed there was more French music on there, which was pretty cool because some of those guys are pretty talented. They, like I said, everything that Spotify had, you know, I could find on Deezer and it worked really, really well. They usually have a good specials, hey, you know, try it for a month free or whatever. You do have to put your credit card in there. The one thing I did find with Deezer was that I had to notify my bank for some reason that I had subscribed to it because, you know, they, they always verify with that $1 thing that they returned to you, that it's a valid credit card. So, that flagged immediately, even though it was a US processor, I, you know, (14/52)
every time I wanted to, you know, subscribe after my free trial, it wanted, my bank was like, hey, this is kind of suspect. So, I don't know what that was all about. My, is either my bank just being my bank or there's the way they had their payment process set up. And that was kind of the only thing I could really say, hey guys, you need to work this out because this is old because I don't want to talk to my bank every month, every time I want to. And, you know, I could probably set up an exception or whatever, but that's just, you know, just to listen to music, that, that would be annoying. And so I would say Spotify and Deezer are very, very close as far as sound quality. Deezer on certain things I thought sound a little better, but nothing that would make me go, oh my goodness, that's so much better. So I say they're very close and Deezer works well on, I think, Android and iOS, and you can even listen to it in your web browser. And I believe there's Electron app for Deezer also. (15/52)
So, yeah, I, since I don't have a Mac that I can see, I'm going to have to say, I don't know if it has a native client for it, but if you, if it doesn't, you could still use web browser. The good thing is the web browser seems to always work on all these and they, the interface is identical from what I could tell from like a windows or a windows machine. Right. Okay. All right. Yeah. So Deezer is focused exclusively on music or do they have podcasts in there as well? If I remember correctly, I didn't see, I think there is some podcasts, but it's mostly music. They don't have the catalog of podcasts that Spotify does. But that's understandable because Spotify has been spending lots and lots of money to bring on as much podcasts because apparently podcasts are the future. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And as I look at the Deezer site compared with the Stitcher site, it looks like Stitcher is focused on podcasts where Deezer is focused on music. So maybe that's how they've divided up their (16/52)
services. So yeah. Interesting. And that's not a bad idea because sometimes the one thing I do have a problem with Spotify is that I don't want to listen to my podcasts on my music service. I have a separate podcast client that I have set up for stuff that I listen to. And I just don't, I don't, I mean, I can understand if you, if you do want to have it all in one place, it's probably a great resource, but I like to have a little more granular control of what I listen to as far as podcasts. Right. Did you mention the pricing on Deezer? Yeah, Deezer is the same. It's $9.99 a month. They have a free tier as well. They do have a free tier, but you're going to hear ads. Spotify also has a free tier and it's basically, it's a couple songs and they say, you can subscribe to Spotify. You get a lot more ads. It's a little annoying. That's why every one of these that I've done, either I used a free trial or I actually paid my own money to listen to it just because I just, I see enough ads on (17/52)
YouTube. I just don't want to see anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, thanks for that. The one thing I will notice about, I will mention about Deezer and like I said, it's a very solid choice if you don't want to use Spotify is that you can some, they have these specials that you can sometimes get a year of Deezer for the prey for like, I think it's nine or 10 months cost. So they'll give you a discount if you pay them for a year. And I don't think Spotify, I've never seen it yet. Spotify doesn't have that. They want you on that month to month. So if you're a little more cost conscious and you see one of these things with Deezer, yeah, you're pretty, pretty safe to go ahead and say, yeah, I, I'll use Deezer and you'll, you won't miss anything that you would on Spotify. Okay. All right. Okay. Well, let's move on to Napster. Like I said, I didn't know they were still around. Well, one of the people I work with was involved in Napster when it was a startup and he's since moved on to (18/52)
other bigger and better things. And that's, you know, I haven't heard of Napster in years. What's going on there? So Napster was a late entry into this. I thought they were gone too. So Naps, this one's sort of a mess. Okay. Um, the company, there's a company that bought Napster cause you, for some of the maybe people that aren't familiar, Napster used to be a file sharing service that got shut down for, cause they would share music and I believe they even shared videos, but it was a peer to peer, a big tour type system. And so for some reason they thought it was a great idea to buy the name after they put them out of business. And then Naps has been sold like two or three times to different companies. So this one was kind of weird, uh, because I, it felt kind of, um, just like, okay, this is Napster, but now we're, we're not really Napster. We're a music streaming service that's legal. Like, okay. This is not your grandfather's Napster. Yeah. But, uh, I think Napster has such a brand (19/52)
recognition for some of the people our age that they thought it would be a good idea. This app did not, in my opinion, uh, make it easy to discover new music such as Deezer or Spotify. You know, um, I was able to find most of the music. There was a few, um, I was looking for a, uh, one of Taylor Swift's new songs, the owner of her, uh, album she just released. I couldn't find it. It might be that just hadn't filtered down or it could be that it was a operator error, but, um, it was kind of weird. Um, the interface, uh, is cleaner, um, to the point of being, uh, very, uh, very, very stark. Uh, they do the, I just don't think their algorithm for suggesting music after you, cause you're on all these, you tell them, Oh, these are the music I'm interested. And it was coming up some weird stuff. So that, I mean, stuff that I would never listen to, I think it even, um, I don't listen to any country and, uh, all of a sudden it was just started suggesting like Wailing Jennings and Hank Williams (20/52)
Jr. And I'm like, why? Cause I didn't click those. So it wasn't that great. Old school. Um, it does work well on Linux. You can use it through the browser. Um, but, and you can put it on the Android and, um, the iPhone, but, uh, like again, uh, I'm sure it has a Mac client also. It just wasn't, I didn't think it did a good job. Uh, it was the same price. It was $9.99 and they had a free trial and, you know, they have some, uh, a little thing that's supposed to tune your, um, your headphones to, you know, make your music sound better. And, you know, phrase, I think they call it ear something. And you go through this little test and supposed to tweak it, uh, to, for the music to sound, you know, for you personalized. I tried it and I went through the little test and it was all weird and, and, uh, you know, listen for the little tone. Okay. I got that. So you go through that for about two or three minutes. And I, you know what, Larry? Guess how much difference I was able to notice? How (21/52)
much, how much? Okay. Old ears. So, uh, it's not a bad choice, but there are better choices. Okay. All right. Well, let's go on to another choice then. Uh, so here's another French company. This is the QO buzz and it, since it's French, it's probably pronounced more like. Well, booze or something like that. So, uh, yeah. Uh, tell us about that one, that one I hadn't ever heard of either. Yeah. So QO buzz is, I was interested in this one because one, I had never heard of it in two, it, it, it labels itself as it only has high def streaming. You can in, in the app, it did let you select, uh, to MP3 to save bandwidth, but you know, what's, you know, I did try that, but I, you know, if I'm going to pay the $14.99 a month, I want to have an incredible experience. So this one I had a horrible experience with, I even wrote to, I wrote to their support department and they were exceedingly slow to get back to me. I'm talking a week. Because what would happen is you would listen, I'd be on my (22/52)
home network and I'd want to skip through a song that I had no interest listening to. And then it would start, uh, having stuttering, uh, problems and it would play for about 30 seconds and stop and then play for it was a buffering issue. And I actually, this one was so, uh, interesting. I want to see if I could duplicate it on other platforms. So it did it on my windows machine. It did it on my Linux machine. It did it on both my Android and iOS phones. So it's a problem in their, in their software somewhere. So I sent them a bug report and said, Hey, this is an issue. And a week later they finally says, well, and I don't know what they were thinking was, um, and the guy wrote in his, the support person said, well, um, yeah, it's definitely, uh, your, your home internet connection and your cellular connection. And I have unlimited on both and they're, they've never had an issue streaming music, even large files. And he says, you know, you should just download them. Cause I believe it (23/52)
sounds better when they're downloaded. And I'm thinking, no, it doesn't. If I'm listening to a flak file and a lot of theirs are flak and they're huge, um, but it doesn't matter if you're streaming it. It might put according to bandwidth, but technically if you have enough bandwidth to do the flak and then you, and you download the flak and the same, it should sound the same. Um, and you know, flak files are huge. And I said, okay, maybe, uh, I'll just do the MP3s, uh, it's 320, you know, it's the same, uh, as the others. And I still had the same issue and none of the others, you know, I should be able to stream a 320, uh, encoded MP3 with no problem, especially since I don't have any other issues. So we went back and forth and they were just, you know, they gave excuses for everything except it's them. So I kind of went on the Google and started looking around and it seems to be a problem with their service. I don't know if they don't have enough bandwidth or whatever. Uh, the other (24/52)
thing is with, uh, Cubus, they have a lot of older music, like the old, um, rock, the old classic rock or the old country or, or they had a lot of classical. They did, you were able to find just some of the new ones I wasn't able to find. Uh, and I usually just pick a new, um, artist, uh, a new album by an artist to see if I can find it on their service. And Taylor Swift had just released her new one called Evermore and good album by the way. But, um, I've listened to it enough on all these services. So, um, you know, I got, I've, I've burnt myself out on that album, but I want to sing the lyrics without looking at the words. Right. Uh, probably, but you know, I wanted to keep this as fair as possible. So the, uh, I found it and it was okay. But like, again, I didn't for them for that extra five bucks, I really wanted to hear something, even if it's just a little crisper or cleaner. Uh, we've, we've talked before about, uh, it makes a big difference how you encode it with what (25/52)
software, cause you know, sometimes one encoder, even though you're in and, uh, we'll encode it a little cleaner. So this one was just not a good, um, service in my opinion, you know, your, your mileage may vary. It didn't offer a lot of the, uh, more, uh, commonly features of, you know, try this playlist. I think there's some music based on your listening that you might like. Um, so that and their poor customer service, I would, you know, even though it does run, uh, on Linux in the browser and on, uh, Android and iPhone, uh, I couldn't get past all that, that buffering issues that none of the others had. And so with this one, I would say this need that they need to be a hard pass if you're looking for a string source on Linux. All right. Okay. All right. And it could also be bandwidth limited on their side or your side, whatever. I know your bandwidth isn't super huge where you are unlimited or not. You know, the speed of the download can affect it. So yeah, like you said, your (26/52)
mileage may vary. I, uh, I thought about that. So I actually took my laptop to work, my Linux laptop to work when we have a business internet that runs the whole thing and no one was on. That should be fast. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's fast. I mean, I, it's like 25,000 times faster than my home and I still had this, I still had the buffering issue. Okay. All right. So it's not your bandwidth. Yeah. I wanted to give them a fair, uh, fair, uh, benefit, doubt, fair shake, but it just, you know, with the quality, I, you know, again, average person who just wants to listen to music, uh, in non-audio file, I would have to say pass on these. Okay. So we'll move on now to Amazon Music Unlimited. Tell us about your research on that one. I was very impressed with them. Um, this is a very solid choice. If you're already in the Amazon ecosystem or you're a Prime member, you can get that, uh, Unlimited Music plan for $7.99. Okay. You don't have to be a Prime member if you're, if you're not, if you're (27/52)
not a Prime member, you can still use that. It's considered a stand alone, um, uh, service. It's the same as all the others, $9.99. They usually will, they have a really generous, um, new, uh, subscriber. They usually use three months. So I sold one, it was for, you know, six, uh, $3 for six months. You know, so they're always throwing stuff out there. So if you're interested in it, you know, keep an eye on that. Um, they also offer a high, uh, what they call Amazon Music Unlimited HD, which is for $5 more. Uh, they, uh, you can listen to high definition tracks. It's an add on, but it's there if you're an audio file and you like, uh, and you're already in the Prime ecosystem. You know, you might want to give an extra $5 so you can have everything in this high, super high definition music. Again, old ears. So, hey. They, uh, um, their music catalog is on par with, uh, with Spotify, with, uh, Deezer, um, with YouTube Music, with Tidal. They have everything, uh, and some, um, and they (28/52)
also do podcasts and we're on that too. Hey, plug for the show there. Um, it's a great service and it's very solid choice if you don't want to use Spotify or you're already in the ecosystem, because as part of your Prime, you get a limited version of that. I think it has like 3 million songs or you can pay them to $7.99 for your Prime member and get access to 50 million songs. So, you know, it's kind of like, here's a taste and if you really want it, you pay us another $8 and you, uh, oh, I'm sorry, $7.99 and we'll let you, uh, have access to everything. They've been throwing money at this and it shows the interface is clean. It works well. I had no streaming issues. It was like here, music all the time, even when areas when I'm driving to work that might be dead, never had an issue. So Amazon music is a, is a super service, uh, works well, works on, uh, uh, the browsers. Uh, I don't believe I couldn't find one anyway, a, uh, a electron app or a, uh, native Amazon music, um, app for (29/52)
Linux, but web browser works just fine. So you open it up, you can minimize it and continue on your work and listening to Amazon music. It's on iPhone. It's on, um, all those echo devices. It's on the Android. So it's a really, um, you know, I would say that this one is, is it's right on par with Spotify. No worries. Okay. All right. Okay. So that sounds like a good one. Uh, how about YouTube music? How does that stack up? Now this service and it, and I use music services. This one's kind of hard to nail down because it allows you to watch music videos also. And it, and because YouTube, everybody's done remixes, et cetera, et cetera, uh, to songs. You'll run across those when you're looking for a specific, um, artist, you'll sometimes pull up these remixes and you're like, that's not what I want. Right. Okay. I know there Google finally, uh, they used to have two music services. One was called Google Music and then had YouTube. So they finally closed the Google Music or whatever it was (30/52)
called, um, and put them to both services. There's some people like it better. They say interface is better. Uh, it's not, you know, Google kills things off all the time. Uh, the thing I found this is when you're, when you're looking for a music and you find one of these remixes, um, you can sometimes run across the lower quality sound, not all the time. Uh, for the general part, YouTube music sounds really good, but every once in a while, for some reason you get these weird lower bit rates that are noticeable. Like it sounds like a 64 K. So, uh, not all the time I had it happen, you know, probably 10 times in a month, but it's just when you want to listen, when you're listening to your music, you got it on auto play and all of a sudden you go from really clear music that sounds great to this, you know, 64, 128 K MP3. You're like, what happened there? And it would come up with really weird, um, suggestions for you. So it's not bad. It's just if, if you're already, uh, uh, used to (31/52)
YouTube and that's where you get your music, this will be a great service for you. But another, uh, just a little plus if you have the YouTube premium, which one is supposed to keep you from having to watch so many ads on YouTube. It's that service is included in that bundle for like 14.99. So if you, so if you're already into that ecosystem, you're like, and you say, I already have this, then you already have YouTube music. You should use it. Uh, cause it might not be on a feature parody with Spotify or Amazon music or Deezer, but it's pretty close. So there's, there's no reason for it. So yeah. So you might as well use it. Now, if you just want this music service, it's 9.99 or you can pay the extra five bucks and get, get that and not have to look at ads. So it's, you know, just kind of depends on your use case. Mm hmm. Okay. And like you said, there's kind of a mix of video and audio and as you're playing it, you can't tell which one's coming up next. Is that kind of the way it (32/52)
happens? Sometimes now you can set it where you, uh, you can tell it you only want to see audio. Okay. Um, or you, it will let you, if there's a music video available, it will let you watch it or you can search in the music app. Um, and you will actually pull up, uh, videos that you can watch so you can turn it off, but debilities there. And I think maybe where that part of that disconnect about the sound quality is that the, I, and I noticed this when you're listening, just audio, it sounds better on a lot of the videos, but if you listen to video, you can tell that the sound quality drops. It might be pulling that music from the music. Okay. You do get a lot of mashups. You know, there's a lot of channels that, that stream like certain types of music, like lo-fi hip hop or, you know, classical, whatever. So you can find those and it's just pretty much a curated stream by whoever started the channel. And they're fairly popular and you know, it's, it has some nice features. Um, I (33/52)
wouldn't say anything, there was any deal breakers, but for me, just having the bouncing, uh, audio quality was a little discouraging. Hmm. Okay. All right. Okay. And we talked about pricing on that one. So should we move on to Tidal now? So Tidal is the one that I believe Jay-Z and a bunch of artists own and it's okay. It has a good catalog on, um, Parity with Spotify. I would, it kind of aims more toward, uh, the newer music, like the latest hip hop and stuff is not to say it doesn't have everything else. Um, but it seems it was bringing up recommendations that music that I would never listen to. So that, that being said, um, it was, it was okay. Uh, the interface is clean. It's easy to navigate. They don't, I didn't find, I think I might've found one podcast, but it was a Tidal podcast where they're doing an artist or something, but they're basically music only. And, uh, they're kind of a, uh, different, um, animal is that they have, uh, they, they just started a free service. (34/52)
That's kind of limited. Um, uh, they just, uh, they have what they call their premium and then they have their Hi-Fi. Now Hi-Fi is 20 bucks a month. Hmm. Okay. And I'm sorry, I'm cheap. I am not paying 20 bucks a month to listen to music. Is it twice as good music? I mean, come on. Probably not. My old years, you know, 320 MP3 is perfectly fine for me. The, um, so they, their high end is $19.99, uh, but their premium is like $9.99. Okay. No, 10 bucks. Okay. So in line with all the others, um, worked on all the phones I tried and it did stream and, and the interface was, you know, feature, you know, parody with windows is the exact same. So I would expect that cause it's being rendered by web browser, but then this one I noticed was, uh, was, uh, really picky about, uh, DRM. And I had to, uh, let Firefox download an extension. So it would play, um, don't know what that was about. They just seem to have things, uh, tied very tightly to DRM. They have a different something there. They're (35/52)
called M HQ or whatever. It's supposed to make music sound great. And again, old ears. The, uh, the one thing that I did not like about them is I actually paid them. Uh, I listened to free trial and I didn't use it as much. So I said, I'll just give them 10 bucks. I'll listen to them. And, uh, again, and, you know, cause I wanted to give everyone about the same amount of time listening. And the problem with this is when I find, okay, I'm not going to keep you. You're fine. Uh, they, it is a pain in the butt to cancel. They make you go through this, why you're leaving, you know, what, you know, it just, and you have to answer this stuff or it will not let you go to the next page to hit the cancel button. So I thought that was kind of crummy. All the others you can hit, usually hit one button. Are you sure? Yes. And you're done. Uh, and sometimes they'll pop up with an optional, Hey, can you tell us where you're going or you know what we can do better. But these, they, they were very, (36/52)
um, you know, here's this four page things you're going to fill out. Each one of these has four or five questions and you're not going to the next one until you answer these. So not quite happy with them. Um, are they a good music service? I'd say, yeah, they're fine. Um, if you like some of the newer music, uh, the, the latest and greatest, uh, uh, hip hop artists, I found all of them there. I found all the pop stars, but it seems like, um, they're, they, they're more geared to more of the, um, hip hop, um, the new modern hip hop stuff than other music that can be just me. But I've heard that in the reviews I've read, I've heard that mentioned to other people saying, you know, I'm not interested in that music. I want to listen to whatever. And it's always seemed to be pop, you know, it suggests something that you have, you know, no desire to listen to. Right. Um, so anyway, the music was great. Um, as far as sound quality, um, I, to be truthful, I didn't find it, um, as good as I (37/52)
would say, um, Amazon music unlimited, uh, on some songs, but as a general, it's, it was pretty close. So nothing to write home about. Right. Right. Okay. Yeah. I'm not surprised that they are more focused on the DRM side of things. My understanding, and I'm not an expert in this, so I could be wrong, but my understanding is that Tidal was originally set up, uh, by people in the music industry, uh, artists and producers and that sort of thing who are, uh, by virtue of what they do for a living concern. And I learned that they don't lose any revenue for any of the songs wherever they are played. And as a result, DRM is the way that they protect that. And so, uh, it's not surprising that DRM would be pretty high priority for a service like this. I'm a little surprised though that the, they are charging, uh, so much and yet still, uh, have such a focus on DRM. Well, maybe I'm not surprised about that. Uh, but I am a little disappointed that they would try to lock you in by making it (38/52)
difficult to leave the service and that can't be good for them, um, in the, in the long run for, for people who sign up and end up deciding that it's not for them. So probably a bad review there for some folks. Um, there's a couple of things that I would be remiss if I did not mention. Tidal says that they pay their artists, uh, uh, more than most of these services. And I looked at the list and it is a bigger difference. It's not the highest, but they're right up there. Um, Tidal also, so I had the same music. Tidal was able, uh, let me, uh, import all my music playlists from Spotify into them. Okay. Uh, YouTube music gave me said, Hey, you can't do it. Import that many. I don't know why I only have like 300 playlists. I don't know. But, uh, Tidal works fine. Um, and, but some of the others, you know, say, Hey, you only can do 50 or you only can do 25 a day or whatever. So I have to give Tidal props on that. Um, I would say that if Tidal continues improving, cause you know, there's, I (39/52)
think they're one of the newer players. I would give, give them a, another, um, shot myself personally, because I felt that the service and some of the stuff they offered, you know, they, they do a little bit more of a, um, some, they support upcoming artists. I just think that they need to be more of a general, um, music service and, and actually, um, I think they're still tuning their algorithm, so I'm willing to give them a benefit of the doubt. I think they need to bring their, their upper end, that HD down a little bit, you know, to match Amazon, to match, uh, any of these high definition services. And the DRM, it really didn't affect me except for that one time I had to say, okay, yeah, you can download this, this DRM extension so I can listen to the music. I didn't have that issue on any of the phones or anything. So I'm not, it's not negative. I just, you know, I was a little just turned off about having to go through those steps to cancel it. Um, and it's, it just seemed like (40/52)
its focus was more on the other stuff. Uh, you know, some of the more modern music, I will say, you know, I'll check them out in, you know, another six, eight, eight months to see if they've changed anything. And, um, and you know, then I'll, I'll let you know if I would recommend them even more, but right now I would say they would be like a tier two choice. You know, there's other, there's other, uh, better choices for this music. Okay. All right. Yeah. Uh, okay. Let's move on to Apple Music, another big fish in the pond. Yeah. Apple Music. I threw this one in the list, uh, cause you can use it in a web browser and you can use it on Android and you can use it on iPhone. Of course you can use it on Mac. Um, but I, they do not have a Linux client, but the web browser works. So same with all of them. Some of them will have an electron app, you know, that someone's bundled together or a snap with it. Um, but they have no desire and they will never have a desire for a Linux client. So if (41/52)
you're in the Apple ecosystem, you can use the web browser, but they're right on there and it's kind of hard to find. It's not difficult. It's just, you have to search for it. Uh, well anyway, I did and they tell you that the, their browser music collection is still in beta. When I tested it, it said beta right on there. So it works fine. Didn't have any issues. It was just, they're not really, uh, for when I can tell pushing it as much as the others. They, they can, they could clean up their, their web browser interface. It kind of reminded me of a strip back iTunes type of, um, but it did work and I didn't really have any issues with it. Their catalog is just as large and it's 9992. So what their gig is, is some of these, uh, unlimited plans for these carriers. If you have their top tier unlimited plan, you get Apple music for free. So, uh, it's built into the plan costs. So, you know, especially I think Verizon does it and T-Mobile does it. And I don't know about AT&T, but, uh, I'm (42/52)
a Verizon user. And if I wanted to pay them an extra 35 bucks a month for their top tier super duper, you know, kitchen sink, um, data plan, then I could have Apple Music for free, but I'm trying to find stuff that's easy to use. All the way around. So you can use it on Linux, but you'd have to use web browser and you can use it on the other devices. Okay. All right. Uh, pricing for Apple Music? Is 999. So that seems to be the magic bullet. Yeah. Except for the, the oddball, the Qbuzz, or if you're going to a high definition with a title or, uh, Amazon Music. Um, yeah, they're all 999. There's just, and you can use to get a free trial for Apple Music for 30 days. So if you want to try them out and see if they fit your, your usage, that would probably work. Okay. All right. Well, uh, we've covered quite a few applications here. So what's your final conclusion, Bill? Okay. This is my personal opinion only, uh, but hopefully this will be helpful for everybody listening to me ramble on (43/52)
about music services. Um, the good news is you can use all these services, uh, in browsers running under Linux with very few issues. Uh, and most of the time you won't have any. Some, uh, like Spotify will offer you an app, use the Electron, uh, Electron app or a snap. And I think it really boils down to how the, the, the sound to you, cause you know, some people say they can hear differences. Me, not so much. But then again, again, old ears, all the prices are pretty much the same 999 and you can try them, uh, try them out and see which one fits your, uh, which one do you like best? But if I had to pick the top ones, I would say Spotify and Amazon music unlimited as, as first tier choices. And then I would say, you know, if you didn't want to use either one of those, I would give Deezer and YouTube music, uh, like a second tier, uh, consideration. And I would put Tidal maybe at 2.5 tier, but those are the kinds of ones I would go with the Spotify and Amazon music if they fit you. (44/52)
Cause they have all the music. Deezer is a solid choice. YouTube music is just YouTube music. You know, Google knows everything about you. So, you know, you'll, you'll have, you'll have a decent experience. So it just depends on what ecosystem you're tied to, whether it be Amazon or YouTube or Apple, um, or you just kind of pick what you want to use. But none of these are really bad choices except Cubuzz. Don't ever use them. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, you try them out if you might like them, but stay with the big, uh, the bigger names. Uh, I did, you know, tried to get as many of these done, uh, and listened to, but I can only listen to Taylor Swift, uh, so much before I lose my mind. Okay. So I want to give a pro tip just because I was surprised. Now, say you want to subscribe to a service, always use your web browser at home on your Linux machine or whatever. Because if you sign up to the phone and the app store, you get a two to $3 monthly surcharge fee added on top. So it goes from (45/52)
$9.99 to, you know, $12.99 or $13.99 or $14.99 for the same search you can get for nine bucks. The reason for that is the app stores are taking their 30 or whatever percent. And yeah. Yeah. So, but here's the interesting, you can download the app. You just don't sign up for it all through the app. You sign it up and then you put your credentials in the app and it works perfectly. It's just one of those things that some people never realized that, Hey, I'm paying the next year, you know, three, two to three bucks. So, you know, it's 24, 36 bucks a year. Might not seem like a lot, but I'd rather have that money in my pocket and not theirs. Right. It adds up. So, yeah, so it adds up. So that's just a pro tip that I found and all of them seem to do it. Uh, it just depends on what app store, uh, that you're using. So always sign up through your web, your, uh, through your web browser. And then you can of course download the app free and just pull up your, um, your details in and it works. (46/52)
Oh, that's a good tip. Uh, that's kind of the way I do it anyway. When I'm signing up for services, I go to the website. Uh, but, uh, I would never have thought that, you know, downloading and signing up from your phone or I guess a tablet as well would end up costing you more money. Interesting stuff. Yeah. Just thanks for that. Yeah, no worries. I just, uh, you know, like I said, I like to, uh, you're already paying them, so you might as well save money if you're going to be using their services. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Well, um, as far as my final wrap up here, I mean, I don't listen to a lot of music. Let's just say that. Uh, and so I think we've covered some of the more important, uh, applications out there and services out there. Some that maybe we have missed are things like Pandora or TuneIn Radio or what's the other one, iHeart Radio, you know, that, um, are, well, maybe not so much Pandora because that's a little along more along the lines of Spotify and what we've been talking (47/52)
about here. But TuneIn Radio, iHeart Radio, those kinds of things are more, uh, spinoffs from the radio, um, model of things and are really old school radio stations, in my opinion, old school radio stations trying to get into the new downloadable streaming age and trying to figure that out themselves. So maybe that's not so important to people, um, who are listening these days. Uh, but, you know, if, if your favorite is something like TuneIn or Pandora and you'd like to give us your opinion, send that in. Uh, some of the other things that may be of interest to people are some services that allow you to do command line, uh, listening to radio, things like Soma FM. Um, so some of the artists in there are lesser known, independent artists. So if you're into that kind of thing, you might want to check that out and you don't care for a fancy user interface. Some things to think about there. Um, the other thing we might have gone into that we didn't, um, is just how well these services (48/52)
support artists that aren't in it for the money. Uh, you know, I would expect the title probably ignores anybody who isn't a member of the recording industry, uh, and who is just wanting to create independent music and doesn't necessarily subscribe to the DRM. They just want their music out there and if you want to provide them some, some money to continue to be able to produce their music, then great. Those kinds of things. Um, the independent artists, the artists who are lesser known and need some promotion, whether they're in it for the money or not, they, they need the promotion. And do you find those on Apple Music? Do you find those on Tidal? Do you find them on Spotify? Do you find them in any of these services that we've talked about? That would be kind of interesting to know about that. Um, or, or even can you find them if you search? You know, you mentioned some of these services are geared to one genre of music versus another. Um, is, is there really a wide range of (49/52)
selection as much as you would like or those kinds of things? So we've touched a little bit on that. But, you know, for, if, if we were to go in more deeply on this topic, we might dig into that kind of thing, but that's not really the intent of the episode. The intent of the episode was just to indicate whether or not it works and then let you go find the right service for the right price that provides you with the right music that fits your taste. Yeah, I would like to just add, um, I listened to Pandora, but I didn't include it just because I haven't given it as much time as the others. I started with Pandora way back in the day before it was balled out by Sirius Radio. But, uh, one of the reasons that I, uh, try to stay away from Pandora, uh, is because they pay nothing basically to the artists. I'm not saying that, uh, that, uh, others are a hundred percent bitter, but, um, depending, but Pandora's like right down there, you know, pennies. So I, and I don't, and their audio (50/52)
quality is kind of, it's okay, but they, they have, you know, different plans and they keep changing things around. So I have moved on from them. Um, but you know, I haven't had a lot of time to listen to them. Now, the last thing I would like to say is if you're looking for those independent art artists, uh, YouTube music will be the one that you want to look because everybody will post, um, their covers or their mixes or their original songs to YouTube because it has such a low barrier to entry. And since YouTube music and YouTube are, are pretty much one in the same, you're going to find those independent artists more than you would find them on Spotify or Amazon music. That's where people put stuff to get noticed. So that being said, that's it. Okay. Well, I guess that wraps things up for us on this episode. And our next episode, of course, will be listener feedback. Until then you can go to our website at goinglinx.com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and (51/52)
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 the discussion in our Going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinx.com Until next time, thanks for listening. 73 (52/52)
Going Linux, Episode 369, 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 at our email address at goinglinux.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. Today's episode is Listener Feedback. Hello, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are you today? I am doing great. I hear that we owe a shout out to the great folks at Transworld, the technicians who have helped you with your internet problems over the time that you've been there. Yes, they're great guys. In Mexico. Yeah, so let's see. There's Jeff, Craig, Ben, and Mike, at least one of whom are (1/53)
listeners to the show. So shout out to you guys. And if you have any feedback for us directly, please feel free to send it in. Yeah, thanks guys. You really build me out. They worked really hard to get me back up and running. So I was really, really happy they did the network engineering and they work hard. So yeah, thanks guys. Yeah, it sounds like they're much more responsive than the cable company who shall not remain nameless spectrum here in California that doesn't quite give that level of service. But anyway. Yeah. So, you know, Larry, we haven't recorded a show in a while and I have to let you know I think I've found the most perfect Linux ever. And I've been running it for about three, three and a half weeks maybe. Wow, that's a long time for you, Bill. Yes, yes. I can't find anything wrong with it. I mean, it does everything almost perfectly. And we'll talk about that maybe on a future show. But I want to give a shout out to Dor from DorDorGeek because he kind of turned me on (2/53)
to it and told me to give it a second look because I'd heard about it and I wasn't going to install it. But after he says, hey, you need to look into it and read about it. And so I installed it and it's just it's just been really smooth and beautiful. You've told us about it, but you haven't told us what it is. What is it? Well, I took the plunged into deep end in with deep in Linux. It's D-E-P-I-N and yeah, a little play on words there. Two E's, right? D-E-P-I-N. OK. Yeah. So I jumped into deep end with deep end. So hey, OK, it's my play on words. What do you want? And you didn't drown. So you're good. Yeah. It's really been flawless. I'm actually recording on it. It's based on Debian Stable and it's really, really a good distro. I've been very impressed and very pleased with it. And we can do a mini review of deep end. Yeah, maybe one of the other shows we can give a quick little review of it. Other thing I found is, you know, someone was saying that they kind of missed like classic (3/53)
Minecraft. So I actually found one and it's called Mine Test. It's a Minecraft clone. OK. And it's a native Linux game or is it a Steam game? Yeah, it's it. Yeah. You can get it out of the repos. Oh, nice. OK. Yeah. And Mine Test. I thought that was kind of funny, but yeah, it's not Minecraft. That's Mine Test. So if you go to your repos and type in Mine Test, it's a it's a I mean, a straight up Minecraft clone. It runs really well. So yeah, give it a give it a whirl. I think you'll be pretty pleased with it. I know I was like, wow, this thing looks just like Minecraft. So anyway, I'm easy to entertain. Well, you've got the computing hardware for it, so that's good. Not that Minecraft or Mine Test is very stressful on your computing hardware. I would imagine. You know what, you're afraid those blocks are going to slow your... No, it should run fine on just about everything. It seems pretty light. So yeah, if you're looking for a well done Minecraft clone that you can get out of your (4/53)
repos, try Mine Test. OK, we'll add that into the show notes. Yes, I already did. OK. Oh, you did already. OK. Yeah, see. I'm ahead of the game today. OK, so shall we get into our email? We have quite a few emails this time and some of them pretty long. OK, let's jump into them. OK, our first one is from NZ17, who wrote an update, how Helios got his voice back. Aloha from Utah. I am writing to let you know what happened with Ken Helios Starks. To remind everyone, Helios is not just a Linux enthusiast, he also is a giving guy who refurbishes computers and their parts to rebuild them into Linux machines for poor families. His organization Reglue finds those underprivileged families in Texas who require a free technological boost and a bit of training in the ways of Linux to get back to even ground with the rest of society. Recently Helios ElectroLerics broke being unable to pay for a replacement with government health care. His friends turned to open source community to ask for help. I'm (5/53)
happy to report that thanks to the generosity of the free Libra open source community, Helios is talking again. Their GoFundMe campaign was successful and the new ElectroLerics arrived at his place. Helios and his family are all very grateful for everyone who contributed to giving him his voice back. Occasionally those that give also receive. Thanks to all of the viewers and listeners that contributed and thanks gentlemen of Linux for sharing the word about Reglue's work and the campaign for a new ElectroLerics. Pedantic minion number one, NZ17, Vernal, Utah. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm sure that is really going to be life changing. I mean, can you imagine not being able to say anything? Oh no. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm glad that we were able as a community to help him. Our next one comes from Highlander who wrote us about bypassing a GUI update blockage in Fedora 29. The ability to get updates through the graphical user interface seems to have ended for Fedora 29 users. I (6/53)
don't know when that ability will return. I looked up the error message, no Klaus support and I found this and then the link is in the show notes. It's to there. It looks like a question and answer session and it says, I ran the sudo dnf update command in my terminal while I logged in as administrator. I entered in my password and updates were completed. The update process can take up to an hour regardless of how fast your internet connection is. After the update finished, there was a noticeable difference in Firefox. Firefox version 60.0.2 is shipped with the title bar turned off for Fedora 29 users. Without the title bar, users cannot minimize Firefox into the background. Just right click it on the menu bar and then left click on customize in the lower left of the screen and you will see the title bar with a check box beside it. Left click on the check box and your ability to minimize Firefox in the background will be restored. I wonder what caused this loss of Klaus support. I am (7/53)
still waiting for the answer. Regards Highlander. Aesthetum makes no sense. It makes no sense that they would have turned that off. I'm sure they can do that intentionally at Fedora. Obviously a bug. So yeah, I'm hoping that it's been fixed by now. It wasn't that long ago that Highlander sent this in. So maybe as long ago as couple of weeks, three weeks, I'm guessing. Maybe more recently than that. Keep us updated Highlander, especially for those listeners of ours who are using Fedora 29. I'm sure they've bumped their heads against this one or wondering why they're not getting updates. Well, I wonder if it's because Fedora 30 was released, but I'm sure they wouldn't stop immediately Fedora 29. So yeah, it must have been a bug. Yeah. It might have fixed in Fedora 30. Yeah, that's kind of weird. Yeah. Okay. Well, good luck. Keep us up to date Highlander. Thanks. Our next email is from Hamilcar and he or she wrote us with a follow up to listener feedback 359 December 20th, 2018. Hmm. (8/53)
Okay. Hello, Larry and Bill. After experimenting with Ubuntu, Mint and Manjaro, I decided on Mate. I picked up a Thelio major from system 76. Now the crux of the change from Windows in my experience, number one, learning the basis of Linux. I used GRUR99 tutorials on YouTube. Of course, we'll have a link in the show notes. Monthly publications, Linux magazine and Linux format, purchasing using Ubuntu Mate and its applications and the recommended the Linux command line. Those were a big help. Number two, ease of use for other users to migrate. Number three, a challenging transition was application choice. For example, EM client versus Thunderbird, Notepad versus G note, et cetera. The most difficult transition was of files and folders. After 10 years, it was needed to consolidate, remove and just plainly redo folders and clean up old crud. Once again, thanks to you guys for a wonderful endeavor and your advice. I did contribute to Thunderbird, Ubuntu Mate and others. The podcast Linux (9/53)
for the rest of us was lax in noting which show had a valid point in which we must donate and or pay for software to help the developers of Linux to survive. Okay, so that Linux for the rest of us is Doris podcast, right? Yes. So Dor, if you can give us the episode where you noted the valid points on donating and or paying for software, that would be great. We'll include a mention of that in a future episode once we get that. Yeah. So our next email come from Steven who emailed about Discord and OpenSUSE. Hi, Larry and Bill. I enjoyed listening to the podcast episodes. Thanks for the effort you guys put into publishing the show. I'm relatively new to GNU Linux, about a year or so, mainly based on Windows 10 updates being intrusive and rendering a Windows 7 machine useless. I didn't do a whole lot of distro-hopping basically because a software I wanted to run was only officially supported on SUSE or Red Hat. I muddled my way through the OpenSUSE install with GNOME desktop. Initially, I (10/53)
was wondering, now what? As it was just a simple screen and nothing resembling the Windows dock area and minimized Windows went to limbo somewhere. But I eventually figured out that GNOME tweaks and got an application menu in places, dock at the top and minimize Windows to show at the bottom. But now that I'm used to it, I find I'm just hitting the super key and typing the first three or so letters to bring up the application I want to use. Bill, as you found, it took me a while to get comfortable with all the different places to alter settings and such. But after running OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 for a while and now Leap 15.0, I am loving the working environment. Anyway, you mentioned Discord and Winetrix. From fiddling, I found three places to get software. Number one, obviously finding and adding extra repositories besides the main OpenSUSE repository. Number two, the built-in software app store that sometimes takes a while to populate properly. Number three, the OpenSUSE software web (11/53)
search site, which has a handy one-click install feature when you find the piece of software you want. I'm not sure which version of OpenSUSE you tried, 42.3 or the newer 15.0 or the rolling tumbleweed release. However, in Leap 15.0, if you are subscribed to the OpenSUSE update repository, the non-OSS or non-open source, Discord is available at version 0.9, which seems to be current. I'm not, that was a question. I'm not sure about that. I have to look at when I'm running now. I don't use it, so I'm not sure what version would be the most current. See screen shots attached. If you need to find software and have trouble finding it in your subscriber repositories other than adding other repositories, you can search at the OpenSUSE software site. They then have a one-click install button. Try this link. You can search for other packages in the top bar and can set it if you only want official releases or experimental or community packages. Looks like WineTricks is an official for OpenSUSE (12/53)
tumbleweed, but experimental for 42.3 and 15.0 releases. He includes the link to it. Then he says, sounds like you have moved on anyway. Yeah, he knows me too well. If you ever come back to it and have any questions, I'd be happy to pass on any tips I've learned in this past year. I'm not the most experienced Linux user, but I've had to solve my own issues in getting OpenSUSE set up on five pieces of hardware. Cheers guys, Steven. Thank you for the offer, Steven. If I ever go back to OpenSUSE and have problems, I will definitely be emailing you with some questions. Yeah, and I haven't used OpenSUSE in a long, long time. My experience was back in the GNOME 2 days. So yeah, it's been a while. OpenSUSE just doesn't work for me. I guess it does things differently. I'm not saying it's a bad distribution. I've been running Debian base so long, and I've gotten used to it. Like I said, nothing wrong with it. But if I ever do check it out, I will definitely pick Steven's brain. Yeah, (13/53)
absolutely. Yeah, OpenSUSE is one of those that I want to like, but when I do try it out, it always seems like a distribution that is built for servers and they offer a desktop version just so that their employees have something to use on the desktop. I don't know. It's good and it's complete, but it's not as user friendly as something like Ubuntu or something like that. Yeah, I think that's it. I want to like it, but it always makes me mad for some reason. Yeah, there's always something funky about it. Yeah. The Yast package manager is... I don't know, I can't get my head around it for some reason, but that's probably because I'm so used to using like synaptic or stuff like that. So anyway, maybe one day I'll look at it again. Yep. Well, our next email is from James who has a question about config file syntax. Hello, Larry and Bill, hoping you're both well. I have been poking around in the speechd.conf file to change an ORCA related setting and noticed that each line began with a hash (14/53)
or number symbol. After changing the setting, I removed the hash symbol, believing that it was akin to a comment symbol in programming languages such as Python. That is, any line preceded by a hash symbol will be ignored by the Python interpreter. I returned to the file a little later and found that the hash symbol had returned. Since then, I have wanted to know what the purpose of the hash symbol in this file is, if not to comment out lines. Unfortunately I am getting nowhere fast, other than discovering that there seems to be no agreed formula for writing a config file in Linux. I am guessing that there are some loose rules, otherwise how would programs respond to their configuration files? Anyway, would yourself or Bill happen to know what the purpose of the hash symbol is in config files? If this is not used to comment lines, please. Thank you and keep up the great work. I love the show, my favorite Linux podcast. Well thanks, James. And in most configuration files I have seen, the (15/53)
hash symbol is used to comment out lines. And what I have noticed with ORCA is they do their own thing. So maybe they've got their own convention around configuration files that doesn't align with other configuration files or other programs in Linux. And I'm not surprised that it varies from application to application, simply because I don't think there is a standard. I think it's a loosely adopted best practice, rather than a, you must build configuration files this way. But I'm not a programmer, I may be wrong there. So I would ask two things, audience. If you are an ORCA user and have messed around in the configuration files, or even if you're not an ORCA user and you're helping with the distribution, let us know what that hash symbol means and why it came back. I'm assuming there's some master copy of a config file that overwrites anything that a user might mess up. And the second thing is, do you know, is there a standard for configuration files for Linux? I was just sitting here (16/53)
thinking, I thought the hash was basically just for comments, you know, change of setting or notes, because a lot of programmers, programs I've seen or configuration files, they'll have the hash or number symbol, whatever you want to call it. And it usually has, you know, comments that the program just ignores. So I have no clue about that. Yeah. So James mentions that it is a comment indicator in Python and in bash scripts, shell scripts, it's a comment and several other of the configuration files I've seen, it's used for comments. So huh, seems to be kind of a convention, if not a formal convention. Anyway, we'll ask the minions and see if anybody smarter than us knows the answer. Well, I'm sure that if anybody knows our minions would. Yeah, that's kind of bizarre. I have to think about that one. I might have to go look through the Orca man pages and see if it says anything about that. No. So our next email comes from Albert and he says that he's fairly new to the show. Well, (17/53)
welcome, Albert. But anyway, he writes, good morning. I love the show. I have been listening to the show for the past few months, along with other Linux shows. I just installed Pop OS on my ThinkPad X220 Core i5 with 8 gigabytes of DDR3 RAM and a 250 gigabyte Samsung EVO SSD and a brand new 9 cell battery. It runs smoother than elementary OS. My question is, I need a new printer, but I don't print every day. I have an Epson Inkjet like 430 series, but it seems like the cartridge clogs up all the time. One of my friends told me to get a cheap laser printer since I might print two or three times a month. I don't need color. Is there any good option out there for Linux? I was just looking at an HP LaserJet Pro M29W at Walmart for $110, but don't know. What printers play nice with Linux? Keep up the great work on the show. Thank you, West Fargo, North Dakota. Albert. Hmm. Larry. Okay. Yeah, ThinkPad's a nice computer and Pop OS is, from all reports I've heard, a nice version of Linux to (18/53)
install on there. Sounds like it's working just fine for you. So from a printer perspective, I've had Epson printers, I've had Samsung printers, I've had HP printers. I've had some others that I don't remember the name of because they weren't really good. Epson, I did notice their inkjet printers do have a tendency to clog up more often than the others that I've had. And I've said this before, but my best experience has always been with HP printers, whether it's their LaserJet printers or their inkjet printers, either one. And yes, if you're not using the printer a lot, it will clog up the cartridges, the ink cartridges. So they tend to just dry up a little bit. So LaserJet might just be the ticket for you. And if all you need is monochrome printing, black and white printing, the LaserJet printers are relatively inexpensive. $110 seems about right for the HP low-end multifunction printer that the M29W is. If you need the extra functions, that's great. If you need the scanning, and I (19/53)
don't know whether that one has fax built in or not, or if you even use fax. So you might want to consider just a LaserJet printer without all the multifunction stuff if you don't need it. But if not, that HP is probably just fine. We'll include a link in the show notes to the hardware reference guide, Linux compatibility hardware reference. And that should give you some idea before you go out and purchase a printer, which of the printers that are available to you in Walmart or any other store you want to go to is compatible with Linux. So just bring that link along with you on your phone to the store you're going to and look up the model that they have there on the shelf and see if it's Linux compatible. They'll give some ratings there, things from works perfectly to most functions work to this is a paperweight. And you'll be able to tell from there whether or not it's Linux compatible and how Linux compatible it actually is. Yeah, well, I had a printer, I can't remember what it was, (20/53)
it wasn't HP because I have an HP OfficeJet 3830 that works. But I remember when I switched to Linux, it basically was a good doorstop. Yeah. I think it was old brother. I think it was. Yes, brother is one of those that has troubles with Linux or has troubles with it, whatever. And you know, if you do get an HP, and even if you don't get an HP, there's a utility usually in the repositories of most, if not all Linux versions, and it's called HP-LIP-Toolbox. And if you install that, that gives you a little utility that lets you manage the functions of your HP printer and or fax machine and or scanner and monitors things like ink level or toner cartridge level, things like that. It's just got a bunch of utilities in there that just make it easier to manage your printer and clean out the printheads if you need to and things like that. So that's specifically written by HP for the Linux community, and it's an excellent tool. And I've used it with just about every brand of printer out there. (21/53)
It's not just HP that it works with. Okay. There you go. So Troy wrote us about episode 365. Hi, guys. Happy Easter, happy spring, and all that jazz. In episode 365, one of your users was looking for recommendations on laptops for taking on the road for what sounds like more than graphically intensive or processor intensive applications, for example, Adobe, gaming, etc. First of all, I would not recommend those hybrid computers that are primarily tablets with a keyboard that attaches to it. For example, Microsoft Surface, etc. They are simply expensive toys with not enough storage. If you break them, you don't get them fixed. You buy a new one. They are worthless in my opinion. Manufacturers are trying to make a computer that is a notebook and a tablet at the same time but do neither job well. The screens are very small. The solid state drives are very small. They have a fixed amount of memory and you don't upgrade them. If you drop one and break it, just kiss it goodbye. It will cost (22/53)
almost as much to fix it as it will be to buy a new one. They don't make good tablets and are less efficient to navigate and actually get anything done in them in tablet mode. If you want a notebook, get a notebook, Windows, Linux, whatever. If you want a tablet, get a tablet, iPad, Android, whatever. If you want to do different tasks in each mode, then get one of each. If you want to do quick and simple tasks on a tablet, I recommend Samsung Galaxy tablets over just about anything. For real computing, if you want to spend some bucks, you could look at System76 that comes with Ubuntu or Pop!OS pre-installed. If you plan on dual booting, you may have to wipe it, install Windows first and then install the original OS afterwards. If you want to buy off the shelf, I personally recommend getting a nicer higher end model Dell Inspiron. Get something with at least an Intel i5 quad core processor or an i7 and 16 GB of memory. Either get a 500 GB SSD drive or a 256-500 GB eMMC drive for the (23/53)
operating system with a 1 TB or higher SATA drive for data. Unless you absolutely need to dual boot your computer due to system requirements of certain programs or because the particular games you run have specific hardware requirements, for example graphics card, 3D, etc., and cannot effectively interface with your graphics hardware directly, I would suggest installing Linux Mint on the computer directly and run Windows in a virtual machine instead. Just make sure you have 16-32 GB of memory in the computer so the virtual machine runs more efficiently, especially if you're running certain games in it. Side note, keep in mind, if you buy System 76, you would then need to purchase a separate license for Windows 10 separately from the cost of the computer. If you go with Dell or other brand, they will come with a license for Windows 10, just my two cents worth of Troy, aka Jack Death. Well, thanks so much Troy. Great recommendations and yeah, we appreciate your opinion. That's pretty (24/53)
good advice. Yeah, mine, doesn't yours also have like a SSD for the, and then a larger SATA drive or what sometimes they call them, rest drives, the old spinning platters for the programs or do you? Yeah, I had that configuration in my System 76 Galago or Galago Pro, one of the older ones, but now that I'm on the Dell XPS 13, it's a solid state drive. It's actually a drive on a card as opposed to a hard drive sort of thing, but yeah, I have an external hard drive that I keep stuff on when I'm sitting here at my desk, but for carrying this thing around, I've got plenty of storage on this thing. I think I put 500 gigabyte of storage on it if I remember correctly and yeah, it works really well for me. Okay. George from Tulsa commanded on episode 368, Back to Basics. You're right, Ubuntu Bungie, although I prefer Simon, I'm running Ubuntu Bungie 1904 on my Hades Canyon NUC. The Hades Canyon has the Kirby Lake G with Hybrid Intel i7 and AMD Vega graphics. Linux didn't work on it at all (25/53)
until kernel 4.18 plus and the updated Mesa drivers from Martin Winpress had included in the 18.10 Ubuntu releases. Bungie works very well and is mostly elegant. The change of the file manager from Nautilus to Nemo in 19.04 had one unfortunate consequences. The 18.10 version of Nautilus had a bulk file rename, very nicely implemented and saved a lot of work when importing photos to be named or file structures a user wants to create with a logical naming structure. Fortunately, it is possible to install Nautilus from the Bungie Software Center and it co-exists nicely with Nemo, bringing with its bulk file rename. Nemo, which comes from Mint, is supposed to be extendable to do bulk renaming, but my searches for how to implement it turned up nothing useful. Prior to discovering bulk renaming in Nautilus, I had installed KDE's K-Rename and it works great just some extra steps. Pop! OS. I tried Gnome in Ubuntu 18.10. Gnome tweaks used to include the ability to stop windows that reach top or (26/53)
corners from blooming out and taking half the screen. Since I work on large monitors, I have plenty of screen real estate and even on my laptop find the pop this window has just expanded behavior very annoying. I like the new feature in Pop! OS that allows non-destructive reinstall repair of a broken Linux. How about a report on how it works in real life? Bill, you should have plenty of experience. Haha. Haha. Ok. Folks, who regularly futz up their system will undoubtedly appreciate the new refresh install options that's been added to the recovery partition, though this is only included on new installs. Using this rescue method, you can reinstall Pop! OS without losing any data in your home directory or any users you've added to the system. Does Pop! OS version of Gnome enable blocking of the window popping behavior? I think the official name for it is Automatic Tiling. Dropbox. Haven't used Dropbox in forever. Should probably clear out what's in mine. Stopped using the Dropbox sync (27/53)
folder years ago and relied on the web interface. Currently using Synologies at work and home. Those come with a Synology drive that does include a local sync folder that's handy and I don't need to worry if I accidentally drop a sensitive unencrypted file into the sync queue as it's encrypted when transmitted and only accessible by me. Apart of the same feature set that they're send, Firefox.com up to 2.5GB of encrypted transfer, optional extra security by adding user password. I scanned the info about the service on GitHub and while I'm hardly a cryptologist, it seemed like they were doing all the right things. Works on any browser, not just Firefox and enables multiple separate downloads with links good for 7 days. As always, enjoy your efforts on behalf of all of us, George. Okay. Hmm. Yeah, George, thanks for all of those helpful suggestions. Interesting stuff. I'm going to put... I hadn't put a link... let's see... send.firefox.com. That's a new syncing service, or new to me, (28/53)
syncing service. I hadn't heard of that one before, didn't know it existed, probably because I don't really use Firefox and haven't seen it. But it looks pretty simple to set up. Drag and drop files onto the website and you're in. So you can sign in or sign up right there on the main page and... interesting. All right, William commented on episode 367 and Zorin. Hi guys, long time listener. In listener feedback episode 367, you talked a bit about the Zorin release of Linux I wanted to put in my two cents worth. First, everything you said was true, but there is a case for using Zorin. First, let me explain. I was a reasonably happy Windows XP user. I had heard of Linux from a couple of different people, and then my fiancé even had a now forgotten version of Ubuntu on her computer that a friend had given her. She barely knew what to do with it. I have to admit it looked unfamiliar to me, and I really didn't try to figure it out. Instead, we just did everything on my XP desktop. As I (29/53)
said, it did everything I needed, and I was happy with it. Then, of course, Windows XP reached end of support. Another thing to know about me is that I'm fairly handy, and I'm a cheapskate. I was not about to spend money on a new version of Windows that was also starting to look temporary. Also, it looked a lot like I was going to have to upgrade my hardware to even do that. I was using a perfectly good HP compact desktop computer and an older Dell laptop that worked perfectly fine. It went against everything to scrap perfectly good hardware just so someone else could make money. I looked at Linux again. Linux Mint came to the rescue. It worked just fine on both my computers, did everything I needed. I even set up the old desktop to dual boot XP and Mint. I forget which Mint version was current at the time. I was using a couple of programs that I could only get to run on XP then, so the dual boot took care of it. Since then, I got more confident with Wine and Play on Linux, and I (30/53)
rarely even boot the XP. For the rare occasion that I do need Windows, I still have the old dual boot, and I even have XP and Vista instances on VirtualBox on the laptop. But what about Zorin? Well, I have several laptops I've picked up here and there, and all run some form of Linux. My wife and I do woodworking and art, among other things. I was setting up an old Dell Latitude D600 for occasional use in the shop. That is not a place where you want to set up your good laptop. At the time, this was several years ago, many of the flavors of Linux I tried would not recognize the wireless card in the D600, at least without a lot of extra work. I tried every version I could find, and nothing worked. This is, after all, a 2003 computer and pretty light specs for these days. I finally tried Zorin OS 9 in the Free Lite version, and it immediately worked with no hiccups. It did everything I needed flawlessly, and was acceptably fast on the D600. Admittedly, it pulled light duty, but I kept it (31/53)
on for many years with no problems. The free version was just fine. Cheapskate, remember? I also found, more recently, that Linux Lite works also, and I went ahead and went to that for no real reason other than trying something new, and it seemed to run a tiny bit faster. As I said, I'm handy, and I enjoy tinkering with things and making them work. My wife, on the other hand, just wants to open up her laptop and have it do the stuff she wants with no fuss. Her laptop is currently a Dell Latitude E5400, a 2009 era laptop that came with Vista. Same thing, worked fine, no reason to change, but then Vista ended support. I had no qualms about installing Zorin OS 9 Lite on hers. She barely noticed the difference. Still works just fine, with no drama or issue. As I said, your points were all valid and correct. Zorin really doesn't do much that you can't do with other versions of Linux. However, it is a valid tool under some circumstances, and occasionally, it may be the only one for a (32/53)
particular bit of hardware. I also ran across something on a different topic just a day ago. My current main machine is a Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop. It works fine, and it lives on my desk at home. I was using Mint 17.3, and it worked very good. As I was planning to go upgrade my hard drive from 750GB to 1TB, I decided also to make the shift to Mint 19.1. It seemed easy enough. Remove the old drive, install the new one, install Mint 19.1, then copy necessary data from the old drive using the USB SATA link I have. The first part went fine. When it came to copying data from the old drive, it would not mount. This drive had just been working perfectly. I tried a couple of different drive checking programs, and none could access it. Basically, I was getting cannot mount and unknown partition type messages. I cannot figure out why suddenly this drive did not work. I even tried reinstalling it into the laptop, and nothing worked. Fortunately, I had a recent backup, so I didn't lose much of (33/53)
anything. However, it's a puzzle and inconvenient. I've swapped drive and recovered files with little problem many times before. This is the first time for this thing. Thanks for listening. All the best, William. Okay, William, thanks for the review of Zorin OS and your journey to moving to Linux. This could have gone into a gone Linux section, but yeah, it's... your question is kind of what puts it into the listener feedback category, and that is what happened. You know, when you upgraded to Mint 19.1 or installed from scratch Mint 19.1, why wouldn't it mount the old drive? And I'm not sure. I've had that happen on occasion, and because I have multiple copies of things, I just copied the file from another backup, as you did, and just didn't worry about it. One thing I have found useful is mounting the drive as administrator, but then again, you have to get it to mount first, and I think that was your problem, and I don't know if anyone... Bell, do you have, before we turn this over to (34/53)
our minions, do you have any thoughts on how to get it to mount when it was mounting fine under the previous operating system and now it doesn't? No. I'm sitting here listening to it, and I don't know why... could it be... no, I don't know. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, I have no idea, and I didn't take the time to figure it out when it happened to me. I just did what you did, so it may remain a mystery if everybody does that, but if any of our going Linux minions knows what is going on here, please let us know, and let's let William know as well. I like William. He uses hardware until they just can't work anymore. Yeah, exactly. Like I said, that's a great way to keep recycling old computers. Our next email comes from Highlander, who wrote us and copied the Mincast. Dear Bill and Larry, all of the security add-ons that I'd like to use in Firefox from within the GNU Linux system have been shut down while I was accessing my personal email and then later when I was watching the news. I'm not happy (35/53)
with this development. It looks and feels as if there is some form of attack against all Linux users. Can you investigate and find out what's going on? Add-ons affected are Ubuntu 18.04.01, Linux Mint 19, Fedora 29, currently running Firefox 66.0.3. The add-ons affected are Avia, Browser Safety, HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript, Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin. Thanks guys, Highlander. Leo from the Mincast responded, Hey Highlander, Bill, Larry. Wasn't copied on any responses, so please forgive me for the wide reply. Highlander, the issue is currently being worked on by Firefox and you probably already have the initial fix. It's a certificate issue that affects most, if not all add-ons in Firefox, preventing them from functioning. There are some temporary workarounds, but aren't recommended. Firefox's advice is to sit tight if you aren't already fixed up, go check. This will be permanently fixed in a future update. I heard about this, it was a certificate issue, so apparently there's a (36/53)
certificate that no one found out that was getting ready to expire, and expired, and then Firefox broke. But they have fixed it apparently, and so it happened over the weekend from what I understand. So apparently it's fixed, or probably it's already, I know it's fixed by the time you're here this. So yeah, it wasn't a tech on the next, I mean, Windows users and anybody running it was affected that had those add-ons. All right, and our next email is from Ghetto Geek, who offers a solution for Michael regarding Ubuntu on an SSD. He's referring to the listener feedback episode 367, where at timestamp 1433, Michael talks about Ubuntu on SSD. I have a solution for Michael's HP laptop storage. If as I suspect, if Michael has a DVD drive on his laptop and doesn't use it, as most users currently don't, other than to watch a movie every once in a while, he can convert that drive to a two and a half inch hard drive caddy. I'm aware that he doesn't live in the USA, but they're everywhere and (37/53)
inexpensive. Install this SSD for his Linux distro and a mechanical hard drive in that caddy. And we have a link to that listing on Amazon in case you're interested. Hope that helps. Ghetto Geek, West District GEO, Geek Executive Officer, Detroit branch. OK, thanks Ghetto Geek. A Geek Executive Officer, Detroit branch. That's awesome. Nick wrote us about problems with LibreOffice and he says, hi team, I have a problem with LibreOffice 5 and Linux Mint 18.2. No spell check. Re-installed from software manager and there was no help. Just found your great show based in the UK. Many thanks. Best regards, Nick. No spell check. Huh. Yeah. I have LibreOffice right here. Let me see something real quick. I wonder if he installed the full office. I know they have like a stripped down version. LibreOffice 5. Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking as well. Maybe there was a different version in the Mint repositories in 18.2? Yeah. I don't know. And I'm just looking here. I'm just trying to (38/53)
misspell something. And, huh. So go here to tools and it says word count and spelling. It says, OK. Hmm. It comes up and it, you know, of course it doesn't seem to find anything I wrote in it. I didn't notice that. Maybe you have to enable it. Well, OK. It says F7, function 7. OK. And let's see if, OK. So I misspelled my name. I used to find out because I always misspelled my name. The last one I hit N said M. So I go up here to spelling grammar and it says it doesn't see anything. Huh. I don't know. It might be a bug. I don't know. Hang on a second. I'm going to try the same thing. So autocorrect while typing is on. And spelling, if I go to F7 for spellcheck, it shows the word. And so I'm thinking that you have to run spellcheck separately. He may be looking for an automatic spellcheck as you're typing sort of thing, you know, with a wavy line underneath. And if I remember correctly, you need to enable that. And I don't see where to do that. Oh, there we go. Automatic spell checking, (39/53)
Shift-F7. Shift-F7. Yeah. Yeah. And that puts the wavy red line under a misspelled word so you can see it. Does it? Yep. So you just have to. Yeah, it's under the tools menu. And on my version, 6.2 point something of LibreOffice Writer, it shows up as the second list. Yeah, mine does do now too. Yeah. So yeah, Shift-F7 and see if that works for you. Yep. There you go, Nick. Okay. Our next email is from Scott who wrote, I have an HP 8560P laptop. I'm running Linux Mint 18.2 KDE on a Kingwin USB 3.0 EZDock docking station. Model EZD2535U3 with UASP support. I'm not sure what that is. The SSD drive is a Crucial MX500, 500 gigabyte. Tried running trim commands, but it doesn't work. Confirmed trim is supported with sudo hdparm-i slash dev slash sdb. And then grepping that to look for trim supported. It says data set management trim supported eight blocks. Then I ran another command and it says discard option is not supported. Then I did the following. To try to verify trim support, I ran (40/53)
lsblk dash dash discard and check the values of the discard granularity and the discard maximum bytes columns. Non-zero values indicate trim support. All the values were zero. That says trim is not supported. When I run fs trim dash dash all, I don't get any return code. Andy lists the return codes and what they're supposed to be. I read trim is a SATA command and not supported on USB on the Ubuntu forum. Even if the SSD reports that trim is supported and even if the enclosure supports UASP, I don't think there are any USB bridge controllers that support SCSI slash ATA translation pass-through, which would need to pass the trim command. You cannot trim USB SSD drives. You need to leave garbage collection to the drives themselves. To run trim on those drives, you'd need a SATA connection. But what I also found out is the controller on your motherboard actually has to support UASP as well. I asked HP on their website through live chat if my computer has UASP. They couldn't answer me. I (41/53)
looked at the user manual and reference guide for my computer and they didn't find anything that said UASP. I have an eSATA port on my computer if I connected the SSD drive with eSATA to SATA adapter cable. Will trim work? If it does work, will the SSD be slower on eSATA than on USB 3.0? If trim does work on the eSATA port, what should I do to have trim run automatically? I don't want my SSD life cut short because I can't use trim. Is active garbage collection built into the SSD good enough? How long will the SSD last without trim? According to the crucial website, trim also affects longevity of the solid state drive. If data is written and erased from the same NAND cells at the same time, those cells will lose integrity. For optimum life, each cell should be utilized at roughly the same rate as other cells. This is called wear leveling. The trim command tells the SSD which cells can be erased during the idle time, which also allows the drive to organize the remaining data-filled cells (42/53)
and the empty cells to write to avoid unnecessary erasing and rewriting. Trim is a useful tool that can benefit the speed and longevity of your drive. But if your operating system doesn't support trim, it's not a disaster. All of the crucial SSDs are designed and tested assuming that they would be used without trim. Thank you. That in a very technical way describes a little bit about trim from Scott's experience and the research that he's done. So thanks for that, Scott. Looks like you can't do the trim command on an SSD over USB and it needs a SATA connection to do that. I knew that some SSDs, particularly the more recent SSDs, probably have a life span, even with the level of writes and rewrites that are current in computers. They have a life span that typically is much greater than they were when SSDs were first brought out and it's not so much of a problem as it has been in the past. And his research from the Crucial website kind of indicates why that might be. That, at least in (43/53)
the Crucial drives, they've built that in so that if you're using an SSD without trim, no problem. That was in depth. Yeah. He did a lot of research there. Thanks. Yeah, he did a lot of research. I was just reading through it again. He went all out. That's impressive. Good work, Scott. Our next email comes from Heath from Australia who commented on episode 367 and he writes, Larry and Bull. Hmm. Okay. You played a voice message from Paul who had some scanner driver issues. He commented that he thought it was odd that the scanner worked in Mint 18.3 but not in 19.1. Looking at the forms ReadyShare, the fix is to make a link to the library. The location and or the version looks to have changed and the fix is to make a link with the old version name to the library with a newer version name. If the library version is hard coded in the reference inside the driver, it will not recognize the new version as a valid library to use. I've also had issues in the past where libraries were missing (44/53)
due to being depreciated and removed from the distribution. These had to be located on GitHub or Source Forward and manually installed. Hope this helps, Heath. Thanks, Heath. So, yeah. I could see why it's changed in the driver. Do you think it would be? I don't think it would. He probably just needs to point it to the library, right? He says if the library version is hard coded in the reference inside the driver, it will not recognize the new version. Unless you're a programmer who knows how to write drivers, I don't know how you would re-point it. I don't see why they would modify the driver to point to a different library unless they changed the file structure from 18.3 to 19.1. Oh, that's possible. It's just in a different location. I can't find it and they forgot to update the driver. They might be able to just re-point it. And maybe that's what downloading the latest version off of GitHub accomplishes. So if you find a solution to that, let us know. That's an interesting one. (45/53)
There you go. Alright, Highlander wrote us again about offline backups. Regardless of whether you are using Windows or Linux, everyone should create offline backups of your most critical data. Here's why. And he has a link to an article from CNN on ransomware attacks on US cities. He says fixed media might be your best choice for data you think is critical or irreplaceable. Okay, so we'll include that link in the show notes. Our next email comes from Scott who provided a mouse tip that works with Linux. Hello Larry and Bill. First off, I want to say how much I enjoy listening to your podcasts. I find it very positive and informative. So I asked you guys a few years ago about a computer mouse that I can use the programmable buttons. I like to have one button for control W and another one for space bar so I can quickly scroll through multiple tabs. I haven't had much luck until recently. I found that gaming mice can sometimes store the programs in the mouse itself versus in the driver on (46/53)
the computer. So I first started with a Corsair Saber that did not work very good and I quickly gave up on that. Then I tried the Razer Death Adler Elite. I liked this mouse but had problems with that also. I then gave it one last try and got a Logitech G502 Proteus Supreme gaming mouse. This was very easy to set up and it gives you the option to store the information on the device or computer. So the trick is to start in Windows the first time, install the Logitech software and program the buttons how you like. From there you can switch to Linux and the buttons will retain their settings. The only downside is that you have to switch to Windows if you want to make changes but that isn't a big deal to me. I learned after the fact that you want to look for a gaming mouse that has on board memory so others may work. I hope this will help other listeners keep up the good work. Thank you. That's interesting. I have a Corsair mouse 2. I also have one. I can't remember what it's called. I (47/53)
think it's a Spectre or whatever but it has programmable buttons. I had to look to see if you can store it. That would be kind of cool to be able to do that on my mouse. There's all kinds of utilities for for mouses or mice or mice or whatever you want to call them. You know what this is going to mean? Scott's going to have now given me a challenge to see if I can get mine to work. Thanks Scott. Like I don't have enough to do. So there you go. Thanks Scott. Yeah. Thanks Scott. And speaking of utilities and things like that, I have an application pick. And so do I. All right. Well mine is a program called Barrier. And this program eliminates the barrier between two computers for your mouse and keyboard. And you may recall if you've been a listener to the Going Linux podcast for a while, or a reader of our website, that I have described a program called Synergy as my favorite utility program ever. Because it allows you to use one keyboard and mouse across multiple computers, whether the (48/53)
computer is Linux, Mac or Windows. I haven't come across any version for Chrome or anything like that yet. For the three most popular operating systems out there, it allows you, without anything other than the software running, to be able to use a single mouse and keyboard from one of the computers to copy text from one computer to the other, copy other things back and forth, and run the mouse from one computer's screen to the other. Like from a Linux screen over to a Mac screen, and then over to a Windows screen. So you can have a multi-monitor situation that actually uses multiple computers. Well Synergy does that, and I've been using it for a long time. It started life as an open source project, and a couple of years ago they made it proprietary. I did purchase a license for Synergy. I liked it that much. However, in the intervening years, the project called Barrier, B-A-R-R-I-E-R, forked the last version of Synergy before it became proprietary, and have just recently built it to (49/53)
the point where it's completely functional for Windows, Mac and Linux, and it works identically to the way that Synergy did before it became proprietary. So there are a few features that the Synergy folks have added that Barrier doesn't have, but it was completely functional for everything that I wanted it to do, including SSL encryption and things like that. And so Barrier is now available in a number of different repositories, including the Ubuntu repository, and I'm now, I think, going to be recommending that going forward. Nothing wrong with Synergy. If you are an open source enthusiast and prefer to use open source over proprietary software, then Barrier might just be for you. So you use Barrier. You like it? Yes, I've been using it for almost a month now, and it works just fine. Huh. Okay, well, you picked the boring work one. I picked the fun one. Mine's called Make Human, and it's M-A-K-E-H-U-M-A-N all together, and you can find it in your repositories. And Make Human is a (50/53)
completely free, innovative, and professional software for the modeling of 3D dimensional humanoid characters. So I found it when I was in the app store of Deepin, and I also made sure it was in the repositories. It wasn't something that I just added, and it truly is in the repositories. And I was looking, and I started playing with it, and I lost like two hours playing with all the settings and stuff, and up and down, and it was really fun. So if anybody just wants to spend hours just customizing, I mean, they got it every little bit, how they stand, how they walk, the skin texture. It just goes on and on, and I believe there's also some add-ons that you can get from the website, and I include a link in the show notes that has different clothing types and stuff. So you can really do some amazing stuff. You should go to their site. I believe the website is www.makehumancommunity.org. They just added the community not too long ago, so it used to be just makehuman.org, but apparently now (51/53)
it's makehumancommunity.org. But they go there, and they have tutorials. They have how-tos. It's open source. You can download it, play with it, and create with it, and apparently there's ways that you can import some of that stuff into Blender. So if you're looking for something like that, I can highly recommend it. If nothing else, just for the entertainment value. Okay. Sounds very interesting, if that's what you want to do. See, that's the difference. Larry uses his mostly for work, and I use mine mostly for play. So I do work on mine. I have to kill imaginary things on imaginary planets once in a while. Yeah, and I'm sure that's a lot of work. It is a lot of work. See? We think alike. There you go. Well, thanks for that, Bill. Yeah, so a work suggestion and a play suggestion, so that's cool. Well, you could use makehuman to work if you were making a video or something. True? Okay. Very true. All right, that will wrap it up for this episode, Bill. Our next episode will be the next (52/53)
in our series of Run Your Business on Linux episodes. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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 a discussion in our Going Linux podcast community at community.goinglinx.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (53/53)
Going Linux episode 371, 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 goingis.gmail.com or leave us voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello Bill. Hello Larry. It is, wasn't it yesterday the first day of summer? I don't know. It's possible. It's sometime in June, so yeah. That's all right. We have summer-like weather here in California. How about there in New Mexico? Yeah, during the day it's really nice, but this morning I actually had to put on a light jacket because it was 56 degrees. (1/54)
Okay, little chilly. But that's all right, because it'll be hot soon enough. It will. It's been around 80s, low 90s, so yeah. It's starting to finally warm up. We've had a pretty mild spring, so I'm looking forward to seeing what it is. We had a cold winter, so yeah, okay. Enough of the weather forecasts. Okay, let's talk about distro-hopping. What are you using now? Oh, I've been using them for about a week now. I just went back to 1804 Ubuntu. I changed to put the bar at the bottom, put a dalto hide, and I just put on my icons. I use it all the time. Very Deepin-esque, Mac-ish, but it works well. Everything I use frequently, I don't have to search for. I just click and it works. It's been rocks day, as Ubuntu always is on the LTSs. Yeah, so I'm pretty happy with it right now, I'm sure. The way things turn around. We'll see how long I can stay on this one. I'm getting tired of keep reinstalling and updating my game I play. I've got a copy of it, so I could just blast it back. Of (2/54)
course, you can customize your interface and everything on the game. I have to redo that all the time. I'm getting really good at it, but it's getting old. I think I'll just stay with this one for a while. I've heard that before, Bill. Hey, hey, hey. There's always that possibility. Yes. I can imagine you sitting there going, I want to reinstall, but I don't want to reinstall. I want to reinstall. I don't want to reinstall. Yeah, that's pretty much where I see the next shiny thing. It's like, ooh, butterfly. That's an inside joke. My dog is fascinated with butterflies. We have a bunch of them, so when he goes out to do his morning ritual, it's chase butterflies for 30 solid minutes. The great white furry hunter never quite catches anything. It's entertaining to watch. He's jumping around. If you didn't know any better, you'd think, why is this dog just jumping in the air? He's trying to catch the butterflies, which are just a little crooked than he is. All right, so we've done the (3/54)
Weather Channel, we've done Distro Hopping, and we've done Animal Planet. Well, actually, that's the bear report. The bear report. Okay, good. Sounds good. All right, so why don't we get into our emails, because that's what people are tuning in to listen to. Well, actually, I think they're just wanting the comic relief of hearing a big grown dog jumping around trying to catch a butterfly unsuccessfully. Well, that may be true. That may be true. And if so, you've had your update for today. Yeah, and I just want to point out, no butterflies were hurt in production to this podcast, so there, PETA won't yell at us. All right, sounds good. So now we've got some PETA disclaimer out of the way. So anyway, our first email comes from Greg, who wrote about GNU Linux distribution's timeline. He writes, Hi guys, being a Linux fanboy, I wanted to share with you if you didn't already know about it. There are several versions out there, but this one seems to be the most current. It would make a great (4/54)
wall decoration, and he lists the link from Wicca Media. Okay, so we'll include that link in the show notes. One error I noticed that I'm pretty sure about, it shows crunch bang as being a derivative of Ubuntu. I'm fairly certain it came straight from Debian, as Brunson Labs does now, when the crunch bang developer decided to call it quits, a new group of people who didn't want to see it die took up under the name Brunson Labs. Or is it Brunson or Bunson? Probably Bunson. I think it's Bunson, yeah. Yeah, so I probably misspelled it. So it's Bunson Labs. There are sure a lot of distributions, hundreds and maybe more that have come and gone over the years. You know Larry, I think, if I remember, because I've written crunch bang, and when I was writing it, it was based on Debian, but I believe he might have used Debian maybe for one version of it before switching over to the Debian base, I'm not sure. I don't know, maybe I'm thinking of something else, but I'm almost sure. He started with (5/54)
Ubuntu? There was one version that was using Ubuntu, and then he switched over to Debian base, and it was like that until he quit. I'm not quite sure. I'm 43% sure that that's the case, but not 100%. And he writes, regards Greg, w8fkj. Okay. So what do you think? Do you remember? Do you think it was always on the web? Debbie, I know you didn't run it. I did for a while. Do you remember? I don't know for sure, and I'm just wondering if distrowatch could tell us anything about it. So I'm going to go over to distrowatch and look for crunchbang. Let me see, where's the search button? There it is. Distronate. Crunchbang. And crunchbang Linux going down based on Debian stable. Origin UK, open box desktop, status is discontinued, version 8.10. It doesn't really tell me in the table where it came from. So at least distrowatch has it as a Debian derivative. I don't know. Maybe you are thinking of something else. I was thinking it was based on Ubuntu originally, but who knows? Yeah, but it was, (6/54)
when at the time I used it, I loved it. I think even Tom tried it out. It was a little too bare bones for him. But yeah, it was a nice distribution and I heard Bunsen Labs is nice. I've looked at it in a virtual box. I haven't really tinkered with it because I guess I like a little more gooey. Yeah, open box is a little spartan. But they do have that cool conky that gives you all this stuff that actually looks like it's built into desktop. So it's really cool. I think a lot of that, I mean, I know some people still use it, but I remember for a while, it was how wild could you make your conky with all the different themes and circles. It was pretty cool. It was a lot of fun. It was a great distribution from all reports I've heard. So, yeah, I guess we didn't really answer his question, but there you go. But thanks a lot for the distribution timeline chart. I've seen different versions of that. And it's one of those that if you try to print it out full size, it'll take up a whole wall. (7/54)
So it's great. It can be that big depending. You either print it really big so you can read it or you just leave it on the screen and zoom in because it's so much stuff in it. So where does it show before even looking at it real close? I took a quick peek at it. I bet you that you have a lot of it coming from a Debian because, you know, a bunch of space on Debian and all that and all the derivatives of Debian. But I wonder if Fedora has that same type of, you know, tree of different distros and stuff. I know you got Red Hat, you've got Fedora. There was Fedora Core that went to now it's just, I think, just Fedora. I mean, that's a lot of different. I mean, it's amazing. And then you've got the Gen 2 project and then you've got Slack. And it's just wild where all this, you know, how quickly they branch out. I guess Ubuntu would be probably the biggest one. Not Ubuntu, Debian. Yeah, Debian is definitely the biggest one. It's right at the top of the chart and it's got a lot. You know, (8/54)
it's a lot. Anyway, Slackware is the one that is the earliest, of course, starting back in 92 or something. Yeah. And then there are a couple of others that kind of faded out that started in around that same time, something called MCC Interim and then TAMU and then DLD and several others. But Red Hat is pretty big as well. Oh, is it? I figured it would be. As you can imagine, sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. So Red Hat and something branched off of Red Hat right away and it was called WGS Linux Pro. And it faded out in around, what's the year on this one, 96. So it didn't last for very long. Wow. But everything else kind of forks off from Red Hat and goes into all kinds of things. By the time you get to the right hand side of this, there are hundreds, if not thousands of them. You know, I was listening to the Ubuntu podcast this past week and they were talking about, what was it, and Tegros is closing down shop. And then we had Scientific Linux, who I guess they're just going to go over (9/54)
to the Scent OS base. And they were saying this kind of just brings up, by looking at this tree, kind of brings up that maybe you should, if you want the stability and long term support for Ubuntu, your flavor, you should stay closer to the base that, you know, like you got Debbie and then you got Ubuntu. And then Ubuntu has all the flavors of Ubuntu, Mate, Stock Ubuntu. You have a load of Ubuntu and Subuntu. And they were kind of saying that, say, they take Ubuntu Mate and they just re-theme it. And then they say, here's the new distro. And then they go for a few years and then they just kind of fade out when you could just stay with the Mate and it's still going strong. So I guess they were kind of recommending staying closer to the core. What do you think about that? I mean, I know this is kind of a little tangent, but seeing that brought that conversation back, do you think that it's a good thing? Or should we embrace having all these new distributions? Sometimes it's just changing (10/54)
a little thing and then it's, they call it a whole new distribution when really they haven't really done anything different. Yeah. So my opinion is kind of in alignment with the folks on the Ubuntu podcast. And I listen to that one as well. And I'm kind of of the mind that, you know, just because you can start a new Linux distribution and fork off from something else doesn't mean you should. I kind of agree with, I think it was Martin who was saying that if you have some specific thing that you want to do with your Linux distribution, and it's kind of a specialty distribution specifically for that thing, like scientific Linux was for the scientific market. And Ubuntu Studio is for recording and video and the creative side of things, then there's probably a reason to go off and create your own distribution. But creating a Linux distribution is a lot of work. And if you aren't prepared to see it through, you're going to end up with a Linux distribution that fades out. And those few (11/54)
people who are left holding the bag using your distribution you created have a choice to make, either switch to something else or fork it themselves and continue on. And, you know, if it's one of those that really is just another copy of Ubuntu with different wallpaper or different icons, then why? You know, why are you doing that? People can do that themselves. And if you're doing it just because, you know, you want to and you want to learn, that's OK. And nobody's going to stop you because that's what open source is about. He actually suggested if you want something like that, you should add your talent to the current developers because they're always looking for something else. I mean, if you've got an idea that is awesome and you say, man, this would really make a great addition. Why start a new one when you can just say, you know, go to their user group or their developer group and say, I have this idea and this is it and this is the software or theming or whatever. What do you (12/54)
think? And because I don't know many Linux distributions that would turn down a fantastic idea. Just, you know, yeah, you're not going to say you get to create your own personal distro, but you will get to say if they if you join the development. I'm one of the developers. I helped develop Linux Mint, which you're enjoying right now. So he did say if you're just doing it to learn, then he was all for it. And like I said, there's nothing to stop you. But instead of maybe spreading the development for, you know, three different distributions or three or five, why don't you make contributions to one that's pretty close, find one that, you know, is trying to accomplish what you're wanting to do and then help make it better. And that way it saves a lot of work for you and you get to actually work on your pet project. Yep, there you go. Good idea. So that's I think so. I think so. And, you know, we'll have more on this topic as we get into an email later on, but we'll have a link to the (13/54)
distribution timeline in the show notes as well as links to the various articles and everything, as we always do. So if you're interested in finding out where your favorite Linux distribution came from, click the link in our show notes and you'll see. And thanks, Greg, for sending that over to us. Sorry for the rant. No, that's all right. Hey, it's good discussion. All right. Troy wrote about Grub and gave us some dual boot feedback. Hi Larry and Bill, love your show. I listen to your podcast and Steve Gibson's Security Now without fail while I commute to and from work. Right now, I am behind on yours only at episode three hundred and fifty eight today. You had a listener with Grub issues after installing Ubuntu MATE in a dual boot, I think. A while back, I did quite a few dual boot installs and had the same trouble not getting the boot screen after a successful installation. At that time, I was also installing Puppy Linux and other Linux OSes also on the same machine. So I got lots of (14/54)
things pretty messed up sometimes. Long story short, I learned that I could fix the problem by booting to a live instance of Puppy Linux, then use its Grub repair utility to repair Grub. It worked very well. Maybe the same could also be done with a live instance of Mint or MATE, but I've never tried that. I have all old machines except one, and I only install Mint XFCE on them to get the most out of them. They all work great. I tried using Ubuntu MATE a few times, but each time I had trouble. Sorry, but I can't remember the problems anymore. But since Mint always worked for me, I stay with it. My newest machine is a seventh generation i7 processor in a desktop and with Windows 10 on it. It also has Mint XFCE on it, but I didn't want to dual boot. So I instead thought it would be smart and put Mint on its own SSD, which worked fine. But guess what? Booting problems again. My original plan was to simply choose the OS by pressing F8 while booting. Well, after endless bio tweaks, I (15/54)
couldn't get the F8 boot choice to work with the Linux choice. So I got smart again and made a switch to apply power to the hard drive of my choice before powering on the machine. That way I could just boot straight into the operating system I wanted, and the other hard drive would be unpowered and unseen by the BIOS. But this didn't work smooth either. No problem if you just boot into one or the other OS. But when you make the switch, then you have to go back into the BIOS to fix it. Pain in the neck. I would like to blame Windows 10 on this, but I'm probably just missing something. Anyway, love your show. Thanks, Troy. So, Bill, I think I have an idea here, but how about you? I'm still processing this one. So let me get this straight. He's got a desktop that has Windows 10, and the processor is irrelevant. Windows 10, I would say, is... not maybe the calls, but sometimes Windows 10 doesn't play nice. I know it hasn't been an issue with the latest Ubuntu, if you're doing a dual boot, (16/54)
but he said he didn't want to put it on the same disk, so that's why he got another one. Does he have to add an argument to a boot menu somewhere? That's the only thing I can think of. I have to think about it. I'm not quite sure. Yeah, well, it's possible. If he's actually using Grub to do the booting, he might have to use the nomodset, or n-o-m-o-d-s-e-t, command on there as part of the Grub configuration. But what I'm thinking is, since this is a new machine with Windows 10, it's possible that he may need to go into the BIOS or the UEFI setup. Secure Boot, yeah. I think he may have to turn that off, and it might be called Secure Boot, or what else do they call it? They call it a few other things. Maybe I'm hallucinating again, but didn't they find a way to work around that? I thought they had already fixed that, because I know Ubuntu doesn't have a problem with it. But then again, one of the first things I do is I turn off Secure Boot. So I can't say with any reasonable confidence (17/54)
what's going on, but I think maybe try to turn off Secure Boot. That might solve the problem. Yeah, and it might be called Legacy Boot. You might have to enable Legacy Boot in the BIOS. That might do it. You're quite right, Bill, that Ubuntu and several other distributions have provided ways to solve this problem. But from what I'm hearing, it doesn't work on every single computer, because the BIOS may be provided by somebody different. So there may be this situation where, even though you're using Ubuntu or something as modern as that, that you need to actually make a setting change in the BIOS. There's another option. Since it's a desktop, maybe he could find out the manufacturer of that and make sure he's running the most current BIOS. And maybe there's an update for it. Another thing is, it might be one of those boards that just doesn't have really good Linux support. It might be using some kind of wonky chipset. Yeah, so first thing I would check is make sure you're using the (18/54)
latest version of the BIOS. So if there's a BIOS update, do that and test it again. And if not, check that you have Legacy Boot or Secure Boot turned off or something like that. So that would be my suggestion as kind of the first and second choice. Yeah, let us know how this one goes. This is kind of interesting. Yeah, thanks, Troy. Alright, our next one comes from Highlander, who sent us an email about hiding files. I've noticed some odd behavior in Windows 10 that in itself is not unusual. But it seems as though Windows has the ability to hide files whenever a computer is booted in a different way. USB, DVD, NIC port. I've looked at the files in a OneDrive file folder using two methods, USB booting and hard drive. The first time I booted to Linux using USB, I was able to see the contents of the OneDrive file folder. I let the computer boot to Windows. After that, but didn't put in the password, I restarted the computer and booted back to Linux, USB. I looked in the OneDrive file (19/54)
folder a second time. The file folder looked totally empty. I let the computer boot to Windows a second time. Then I put in the correct password and looked in the OneDrive file folder a third time. Then this time the files were visible. So I'm curious, does Linux have the means to find files that are hidden by Windows 10 Highlander? Yeah, it depends on how Windows 10 is hiding them. And I really don't know. It could be that they are encrypted within that folder, that OneDrive folder. And I'm assuming that since OneDrive is Microsoft's online file storage, that he's got a way to sync that over to his hard drive on his computer. So what I think is going on here, when you boot into Windows and you put in the password, it unencrypts them. You shut it off and it remains unencrypted for some reason. Security risk. But anyway, when you boot back into Linux, after that, you end up with the ability to see the files. But when you log into Windows, don't put in the password for OneDrive. And then (20/54)
reboot back into Linux, it is actually encrypted because you didn't put the password in. I don't know any of that for sure, but that's kind of what I suspect. You know, I know for a fact that if, I don't know about the OneDrive, I think you might be onto something there, Larry. Is that say, and I've done this, so where I needed, when I was running a dual boot, I'm not anymore, I'm running just straight Ubuntu. I would be able to mount the Windows partition, go into my documents folder, my pictures folder, my music and drag that over to my Linux partition just fine. So I'm thinking that you're right, that maybe OneDrive is using some kind of encryption and therefore you can't see unless you put the password in. One thing you might test is on your, you know, when you're booted to Linux, log into OneDrive online and you might be able to access the files that way from online. Of course, that doesn't help you when you're offline. But that may be one way to get them. And maybe you already (21/54)
know that Highlander and that's fine. I know that wasn't your question. But, you know, if the question is trying to get access to those files, getting them from online while in Linux might be the alternative. I do have a question for you, Larry, and I'm not quite sure it's along the same vein as what we've been talking about. You know, in some of the, I guess, all the current mainline distributions, if you're installing it, it gives you the option to encrypt your home folder. And a lot of them recommend that. Does Windows offer anything like that? I think they do. I've heard that they do. Yeah. So I think that's, and they may actually encrypt it by default unless you tell it not to. I don't know for sure. I haven't used, I haven't installed Windows 10 ever. And I have used Windows 10 and I haven't looked to see if the files are encrypted or not on that machine. So, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I was just curious because I don't know, I mean, because I've reinstalled Windows 10 before and (22/54)
I don't remember ever seeing that option. Yeah, they may not, they may not give you the option. It may just be you're getting this stuff encrypted or you want it or not. You're getting it whether you like it or not. Okay. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, let's continue on with our next email. This one's from George from Tulsa. He has feedback from Episode 369, William and the Unmountable Drive. Very early in my Linux conversation, I used Clonezilla to duplicate a boot drive. Then I wanted to see, as I am familiar with doing on Macs with drives cloned by Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, if the clone worked. It wouldn't mount. This took me down a frustrating effort to understand UUID and what and when it changes. What I found for sure is that Clonezilla clones the UUID, Universal Unique Identifier. And two drives with the same UUID won't both mount on the same system. That kind of makes sense. I gather it is impossible to change the UUID through the command line, but hey, you'd have to (23/54)
get the drive mounted to do that. I just gave up in that effort. Timeshift, which comes with Mint and I presume can be run on other distros, does a fine job of saving what's important and reinstalling a totally borked Linux from a live USB and it takes only minutes. Maybe William ran into the same UUID issues I found and never mastered. Though if he had a boot drive he had removed, then he reinstalled the boot drive as the only bootable drive in the system. UUID should not rear its incomprehensible complexities. That implies his drive died. Could it have been removed from the machine while the machine and thus the drive were powered? He goes on to give some feedback for Scott and his issues on TRIM. I've had a couple of experiences with SSDs on Macs before it became possible to enable TRIM. On a 15-inch MacBook Pro, I filled the 500GB SSD drive by copying in large amounts of data, then decided to erase everything, including the operating system and start over with a clean operating (24/54)
system install and the same large amount of data. The Crucial brand SSD effectively became sludge. Not quite freezing up, but not working right either. I followed instructions by Crucial to enable TRIM, deleted everything, and leave a computer on so the SSD was powered by the computer itself, not booted. That enabled Crucial's garbage collection routine to clear out the mess I had created. Poor computer got so hot I aimed a fan at it while I let it work overnight. The next morning, I reinstalled the OS and my large data files, and it worked fine for several years. TRIM is difficult to explain. If a user deletes a file in an operating system, what's actually deleted is the file's place on the OS index. Data on the hard drive isn't deleted and can be recovered. That was the magic of Norton's undelete. On SSDs, the data that's deleted is still filling memory cells, but those cells can't be overwritten until they're erased by the SSD controller. Before TRIM, the earliest Intel SSDs simply (25/54)
filled up with data and stopped working. TRIM tells the SSD controller a file has been deleted and its cells can be cleaned out by garbage collection routine. Without TRIM, that data will persist, eventually killing the drive because we sure don't want our SSD controllers deleting files simply because they haven't been accessed recently. What helps reduce SSDs from filling up is files which are opened and modified can, from what I read, be managed without TRIM. TRIM tells the SSD controller, clear that data out. TRIM is important. But modern large SSDs make it less urgent. It also helps that SATA SSDs have fallen into the petty-cache range. Thunderbolt is supposed to be able to pass TRIM. Doesn't mean all Thunderbolt enclosures will do that. UASP is important for speeding USB throughput. Don't buy USB drives without it. And he provides a link to an article that's entitled, All You Need to Know About UASP. SecureErase, available on SATA and NVMe drives, will restore SSDs to their (26/54)
original performance by erasing all their memory cells. And thanks, George. Lots of background information on the technical details of hard drives and SSD drives and TRIM and all that stuff. So hopefully some of that will help somebody. It's certainly an education for sure. Yeah, I didn't know that they would, before they got TRIM, that they would just fill up and die. That's funny. Well, yeah, it's expensive, but funny, yeah. No, I'm just amazed that no one thought that one through. I mean, sometimes I'm just like, no one thought of that? Well, thank you, TRIM. And thank you, George. So Highlander wrote again about communication security. Since there now appears to be a generalized dislike of not only Facebook, but the entire social media idea itself, perhaps now should be a good time to develop better communication security options. Let's start with phone calls. If a telecommunication provider has control of the entire communication pipe from end to end, it is easier to seal off that (27/54)
pipe from prying eyes and ears. I can see the day when the data carrying capability of the Canadian domestic phone system will handle both audio and video. The kicker is the Canadian domestic phone system will not need access to internet to accomplish this. So think of it. Someone in New Falman can make a video phone call to someone in British Columbia and not need the internet to accomplish this. When you seal off the domestic Canadian phone system from the internet, you increase its security. Further, if a single telecommunications provider has control of the entire communications pipe, it becomes easier to seal off even more prying eyes and ears. For Canadian security reasons, I believe that the right thing to do is to keep domestic phone system completely separate from the internet. It just isn't right for someone in China to have the ability to eavesdrop on Canadian domestic telecommunications. I believe that keeping our phone system separate from the internet will cut down on the (28/54)
odds of being eavesdropped upon by an international third party. Today smartphones can be operated in a different way. I think you need to be reminded that it's possible for you to temporarily turn off your internet access. All you need to do is change a setting in your handset. Then your smartphone will operate exclusively like a telephone, not an internet device. I thought you needed to be made aware of these options, so think of it. If you are not actively using the internet on your smartphone, why would you leave the internet access turned on? When you do that, you substantially increase the odds of someone eavesdropping on you. To conclude this message, I would invite you to look up Canadian law requiring wire tapping. One good place to start would be the Law Society of Upper Canada for answers to any questions you might have about wire tapping and it includes the link. Okay, so yeah, I don't know whether the US phone system is completely independent of the internet. However, I do (29/54)
know that if you turn off Wi-Fi, for example, you can still connect to the internet if you give permissions for the phone to use cellular data to access the internet. So I know there's at least the possibility it can connect, but the question is, is it completely independent? I don't know. And it sounds like Highlander has identified that in Canada, at least it is. Well, I was under the impression, and this could be incorrect, but I don't think so. A lot of the old legacy switches, the hardware switches that the phone companies used for so many years have been replaced with internet appliances because they're much more efficient. They can use the internet to route a lot of the voice traffic more efficiently and they also can be software updated. And I don't know, it might be the same in your business, but in our business, we actually have VoIP phones, voice over internet protocol. The whole office is like that. Right. All our phones, I mean, they operate just like regular phones, (30/54)
except if you lose power or you lose internet, everything stops working. So I know there's got to be a switch somewhere that takes that VoIP protocol and it has to use the phone system to complete the calls because your phone talks to the tower, tower then sends it over to the next tower, which you got to have a connection. So they're all kind of in a woven now. And I don't know, is that what you think? Or do you think it's like the 1970s phone systems where everything was kind of hard switched? Yeah, I think there's more software switches than anything at this point in time, except maybe for some remote areas that don't have a lot of budget to upgrade their systems. I'm sure there's some hard switches still in place. But yeah, I think you're right. I think that the phone systems and the internet are interconnected, at least in some way. In order for VoIP and other technologies to work, it kind of makes sense that it would work that way. And I know things like Skype, which gives you (31/54)
VoIP, voice over internet, and FaceTime, which gives you video and voice over the internet for Apple devices and things like that work in multiple countries, including Canada. I see what he's getting from that if you have one pipe and you control the beginning and the end, then you don't have anything in the middle that is more secure. But the problem is, what happens when you go outside, say here in British Columbia, and you're making a call to California? Well, you're going outside to that. There's not one phone company controls. There's multiple switches and exchanges. So, once you go outside your area, then you kind of lost that point to point, because then you have to have other entities switching that information. Does that make sense? Right. Yeah, it does. And I think that this just illustrates the point that if you want security, you're not going to have the convenience of being able to switch between internet calls and standard, plain old telephone system calls, like just (32/54)
having the system do that for you. It's the balance between security and convenience. And so, if we were to separate the two systems, then things would become inconvenient, like making calls to another country that doesn't have the same protocols. Anyway, that's something to think about, though. I like where you're going with this, Highlander. It's one way to implement better security when talking about telecommunications. So, moving on, David asked the question, have you seen these articles? Hi, Larry and Bill. I came across these two articles. I have a Google Alert set up for Linux Mint. If you haven't read them, I think you should. I'm curious about your thoughts, whether privately, via email, or publicly on the podcast. Bestest. David, your ex-pat. Forget it. You know who I am. Yes, we do, David. Okay. And he sends us links to a ZDNet article entitled The Linux Desktop's Last Best Shot. And Tech Republic article, Scientific Linux and Antergos are shutting down. It's time for Linux (33/54)
Mint to go. And this is related to the earlier discussion we had about Linux distributions. And this was discussed, I think, at least tangentially on the Ubuntu podcast. It was discussed on the Mint cast. And now we're discussing it on our podcast. The one about Scientific Linux and Antergos are shutting down. It's time for Linux Mint to go. I agree with the folks from the Mint cast that that's a bunch of clickbait in that title of the article. And when they get into the article, it's not really as bad or dire as they're trying to make it seem in the title. And that's kind of the definition of clickbait, I think. And so they discuss in the article about the demise of a couple of distributions. Their point about Linux Mint is Linux Mint's reason for being seems to be to fuel the Cinnamon desktop. And if it weren't for Cinnamon, maybe we don't even need Linux Mint. And the discussion on other podcasts has been around the fact that Linux Mint has made a lot of contributions to ease of (34/54)
use. And so just describing it as simply being there to foster Cinnamon development is a little over the top. They talk about Scientific Linux going away and folks kind of centralizing on CentOS. And we had the discussion around, you know, too many Linux distributions isn't necessarily what you want. And the other article, Linux Desktop's Last Best Shot by Stephen J. Von Nichols and ZDNet, it talks about Windows 7 support going away and Windows 10 in terms of various aspects, not the least of which is sales, is just barely ahead of Windows 7 adoptions. So, you know, those people that are still on Windows 7 are going to have to move over to Windows 10, whether they like it or not. And maybe Linux Mint or other Linux distributions are an alternative. It's kind of a rehash of the same old thing that comes up every time a version goes out of support, which is maybe we'll get more users for Linux out of this. And maybe we will. I kind of hope we will. But, you know, it remains to be seen (35/54)
and it remains that Windows is still the most popular operating system for computers out there. As far as desktop operating systems are concerned, when you talk about servers and computers overall, including servers and embedded devices and things like that, Linux is the most popular one out there. So I don't think there's anything new in either of these articles, quite frankly. No, I looked at the Tech Republic and I also read the ZD. The ZD was OK. It was an article. The Tech Republic one, I have to say, was very click baity. For Linux Mint to go, I don't see the reason. For a long time, we said, hey, if you're coming from Windows, use Linux Mint. And Linux Mint is not a bad option for a new user who's leaving the Windows ecosystem because it's similar enough to be comfortable. The Cinnamon is one of my favorite desktops. They've really made some contributions and they've, you know, they've given back to. And, you know, I would say that Linux Mint serves a very valid position and (36/54)
purpose. It is a good choice for some people. It's very friendly. It's for not intimidating. And so, yeah, I think this guy kind of added that just to get the link bait thing going. You know, whether whatever your feelings of Linux Mint or where their stance is or how they develop their software, wherever it is, it's it's one I think has contributed quite a bit to open source community. And I don't think it's going to go anywhere anytime soon. Now, you know, Scientific Linux was by FIRRMA and CERN and they had some tools that they needed at the time. You know, so it made sense for them to standardize on on that because it wasn't available then. And so I can understand, hey, I'm using the same software you are with the same applications. And so, yeah, that made sense. But now that those applications can be easily used in SENT or even or even, you know, Red Hat, which is basically SENT OS is just Red Hat with that enterprise without its trademark stuff. So why continue developing it? And (37/54)
Antagross, you know. They they run for like I think it was like a project they've been around for like seven years. And it isn't like they don't have anywhere to go. They they they're they have what is it? Manjiro. Yeah. So Manjiro is still there and it's so easy to use. And and it isn't like that if you run an Antagross, it's going to stop working. You know, it will continue working. I think they're going to they're going to issue patches that will point the repos to the standard arch repositories. And, you know, they didn't just disappear. They said this is what's happening. You know, we've got families now. We're going to school. We've got full time jobs. You know, we've done this for seven years. Thank you for your support. You know, so I don't see this is a what I would say a non story. It was just that I have to write an article and I need lots of clicks. So this is what I'm going to do. So let's move on to something better. Yeah, we've yeah, let's move on. We've talked about (38/54)
this stuff with no content for way too long. So let's go. OK, so our next email comes from G rub, a.k.a. Grubb, and he wrote, Hi, Bill and Larry. Hey, I got top billing Larry. Yeah, that never happened. Yeah. I am very, very OK. So hi, Bill and Larry. I'd like to request the script Troy uses for the setup of Linux Mint systems. Thanks in advance. Furthermore, I'd like to recommend to you both on the format and information you provide to new Linux users and not so new Linux users. I never fail to learn something every episode. I find that the listener feedback podcast particularly interesting and informative. Also, over the last month, I found your back catalog of podcasts to a wealth of information, largely very relevant and good reference material. Along with other resources on the Web, they helped me decide on my going Linux goals and how to do it. I am in the process of rediscovering desktop links again since dual booting Linux Mint 13 mate on an old HP laptop many years ago. (39/54)
Desktop links today has impressed me with the ease of use improvements to functional progress and a wide array of choices available. I am currently multi booting a Windows XP laptop 2009 Intel Core Duo 2 at 2.4 gigahertz and a Windows 7 laptop 2016 Intel i7 at 2.8 gigahertz. Using the Windows bootloaders between the two laptops, I am enjoying kicking the tires of five different Ubuntu based distros. Slowly, I am figuring out which distros and desktop environments are really better for my oldest hardware and a friend's older 2006 hardware AMD Turan 64 X2 at 1.61 gigahertz with 1 gigabyte of RAM and still meets our needs. So far, on the lightweight side, I have to say that the LX-LE1604 and Linux Mint 18.3 XFCE have performed well. I'd like to see how well LX-LE performs on 2006 hardware. If not satisfied, I will possibly explore Peppermint OS or a LX-QT like OS or even Cub Linux which you just introduced to me in a recent podcast. For the more powerful Intel i7, I am partial to Ubuntu (40/54)
Mate and Linux Mint Cinnamon, although I would like to take a look at Pop! OS in the future. Keep up the good work. Much appreciated, grub. Wow. Good for you. The only thing I would say is, isn't 1604 out of support now, Larry? Didn't they just kill that? Yeah, I think it is. And this isn't an old email. So it may just be that, you know, it's taken him a little while to write this up. He's got a few computers, so maybe it was done a little while ago or maybe he's just using an old version. So I don't know. We're not judging. I'm not judging. I'm just saying, I think 1604 officially ended not long ago. That was an LTS, wasn't it? I believe it was, if I remember correctly. Yeah, it's two years before 1804. So you should probably look at going in and going to 1804. It should be very similar to 1604. You'll probably see some improvements. Hey Larry, looks like another Mate has got another victim. They like it. Yeah, absolutely. That's good. Grub wrote back and said, Hi Larry, thank you for (41/54)
the script instructions and your quick response. I tried to make my previous email short and sweet and therefore left out many details. I suspect I am in a small last wave of folks needing to use Windows XP and switching to Linux. Although there may be more in the coming Windows 7 wave, if there are questions, I'll be happy to provide my approach and learnings during this journey to Linux. Update on the 2006 laptop hardware. AMD Trion 64x2, 1.61GHz, 1GB of RAM. I managed to upgrade the memory to a maximum of 2GB of RAM for about $20, which made a significant performance improvement and hopefully will prolong the utility of this hardware. I should say here that the goal for this laptop is portable basic computing. Email, music, web surfing, YouTube, word processing, Skype, etc. I think this goal has not only been reached, but will exceed in many cases. Barring hardware problems, I feel confident the Linux Mint 18.03 OS being able to reach LTS 2021 or maybe even LTS 2023 with an upgrade. (42/54)
I am still enjoying your previous podcast, but should catch up within the next week. Keep up the good work. GRUB aka GRUB. Thanks GRUB and thanks for the update. It sounds like you're moving ahead with an eye on moving to the 2023 LTS. Okay, that's planning ahead. Yeah, that is planning ahead. Let me just make a couple suggestions to him since he sent that update. Linux Mint has the tweak that if you like the Cinnamon desktop and just don't really want to keep switching between Linux Mint and Mate, you can switch your desktop to Cinnamon in Linux Mate. It's not quite as polished, but I mean it's all there. It looks pretty good. I was playing with it. I think it's called Redmond. It's pretty close. And then the other one, if you're just using that 64-bit AMD, the music and web surfing and YouTube, it should work fine for what you're using on word processing. The only thing that I think you might have a problem with is they keep updating Skype and that's one of the reasons that we kind (43/54)
of stopped using it. We kept having upgrade issues and connect issues. If you remember all the troubles we had, we had to go back and use an old version a couple times just because a new version broke everything. Yeah, the problem wasn't so much they kept upgrading, but when they upgraded, they would break it. Yeah, they would break it. It just got to the point of it getting silly. Actually, it was kind of funny. We kept a spare copy of it just in case we needed it really quick. Yeah, I think it's sitting there in our shared Dropbox. So, yeah, just be aware that Skype might, since you have such a, I wouldn't say low-resource computer, but a computer with limited resources, that one of these days Skype might start causing some issues. So, there's other options. Just want to kind of let you know. Our next email comes from Greg, who wrote about Nick's problem with LibreOffice. I am a new listener and I had the same no spell checking issue with LibreOffice that was mentioned in episode (44/54)
In my case, I found that there was no dictionary available. The fix was associated with the extension manager, CTRL-ALT-E, or by selecting extension manager from the tools menu, I found that no dictionary was bundled with LibreOffice or installed for the current user. Fix and issue was done by clicking the link to get more extensions online. From the link, I searched for and downloaded the English spelling and hyphenation dictionary. Then, from the same dialog box, I selected the add button where I navigated to and selected the downloaded extension. This fixed the issue for me and hopefully may fix the issue for them if you're still having problems. Greg, thanks Greg. I didn't think about that. Well, it crossed my mind and then I thought, who would not? Because LibreOffice bundles it, who would not provide it? Who would go to the effort of unbundling it? As I think about it, some of the Linux distributions are trying to keep the size of the ISO image down so that it fits on a (45/54)
small USB stick. That may be one of the things they decided to remove. That's not becoming much of an issue because USB drives now or the little sticks are getting bigger and cheaper all the time. I see what you're saying. They probably said, well, we can save a few megabytes here so you start doing it, paring your things down. That makes sense. Yeah, I still have some two gigabyte USB sticks laying around with old Linux distributions on them. Sometimes the newer ones won't fit. Gotta go to a four gigabyte or an eight gigabyte. You can't even buy those now. I went out and got a 32 gigabyte one, a USB 3, and I paid 19 bucks for it. Yeah. Well, and you can get them as big as I think 256 now. Yeah, you're talking some money. 512. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're paying more. But yeah, they get cheaper all the time. Like you said. Love technology. Okay. Yeah, there we go. All right. Our last email is from Ro who asked, why won't she boot? Hello. I love the podcast. Very good information for a (46/54)
newcomer to Linux. Here's my dilemma. I'm not a computer novice. However, I am new to Linux. I have an older five year old Alienware laptop with a RAID array setup. I wanted to run Linux natively, but on an external SSD or USB 3.0. I opted for the external 128 gigabyte SSD. Now, the distro I chose was Linux Mint 19 and I could easily boot and run the live CD. But when I partitioned the SSD and attempted to get the Alienware to boot Mint, I get absolutely nothing. Blank, nada, zilch. Just a white cursor blinking on a black screen. While I do have an old 2010 Dell Inspiron with the VGA ports in the back as my test laptop, I boot from USB using the external SSD with Linux Mint and it runs beautifully. No hiccups. It's flawless. But who wants to use that old relic in Starbucks? So I decided to visit a local computer repair store and found a guy that could install a Linux distro on an SSD. So he installed Ubuntu and charged me $100. I was quite reluctant, but wanted it to just work. He (47/54)
attempted to boot from my USB on my Alienware and here again, nothing. Same result. He went in the back and tried it on other CPUs and it worked beautifully. He told me Linux will only work on RAID 1 or RAID 5 or no RAID. My current RAID is RAID 0. So here I go baffled again. I completely reformatted and removed RAID altogether and just have two 500GB SSDs. After an hour of reinstalling all my Windows programs, the point of no return. I booted my new Ubuntu SSD on the cleaned up Alienware and nothing once again. At this point, I'm very discouraged and said, let's see if the old Dell Inspiron relic can run this. Sure enough, the relic was successful. It booted Ubuntu just fine. Since then, I've tested our elementary and Xorin OS. None work as permanent install on SSD with Alienware. They only work with a live CD while the relic can run every distribution under the sun. I don't know if you can help me with this issue because it's definitely got me stumped. I am in the market to get a new (48/54)
Asus Pro Duo once it releases and a Surface Book 2 13-inch. But now I'm skeptical because I'm wondering will Linux even work on either. I'm really wanting to run any Linux distro at this point on the Alienware, but it just won't boot from an external SSD. And I don't know why. I'm sure I could partition a portion of my internal SSD and install directly. But I'm not really fond of the dual boot setup. Can you guys help me with this? I don't know. Has anyone ever heard of this? Thanks, guys. OK, so I'm going to make a couple of suggestions here and then I'm going to leave it to you, Bill, since you're the one who has had experience with Alienware and you've run into some bumps and grinds on this as well. But yeah, Alienware is kind of funky in terms of the way they've implemented things and hardware. My suggestions are between the Asus Pro Duo and the Surface Book, go with the Asus Pro Duo. I've heard some feedback on Surface Book that it is a nice, slick hardware device. You can get it (49/54)
after some fiddling around to boot Linux, but you may be a little disappointed with the Surface Book because of the hardware and because of the fact that it is meant to be touch screen. And unless you get a distribution of Linux that is designed for touch screen, you may find it awkward to use. Ubuntu Mate has some accessibility features that might actually make it easier to use on a touch screen. I've used it on a touch screen laptop with those accessibility features and the pop-up keyboard and things like that have been very helpful. So you might want to think about that first. But, you know, based on the state of Linux on a Surface Book these days, I would recommend staying away from it simply because of those reviews. I haven't tried it myself, so this is a personal experience and it may improve over time. So those are just the suggestions. Back to the issues around Alienware. I'll let you take that, Phil. So I got an idea. I had this problem that I'd try to boot and it would just (50/54)
go to a blank cursor, just flashing. And so what I found through trial and error is if you're installing Ubuntu, go ahead as it's going to boot it into its boot menu. And this works on Ubuntu Mate, it works on Linux Mint, it works on all Linux distributions and you can even do it on Debian distribution. You go in and there's usually something like other options. You'll go in and disable ACPI. Tell it not to load it. That's the, I guess it's the power management. But for some reason there's something wonky in my Alienware. I'm not saying it's the same on yours, but this is what I got to go with. Disable that and what happens is when you do it, well I know in a Mate and Ubuntu and Mint, not in Mint you have to go in and edit a file, but in the Ubuntu's it will retain that setting in the permanent install and it just boots up fine. I don't know why. There's got to be something that's wonky on the hardware, but I found that I can't run any arch on Alienware just because the keyboard (51/54)
doesn't work. Interesting. The mousepad's dead. Now my USB mouse works great, but the keyboard is completely dead. I tried it on Tag Rose and Manjiro and standard Arch and I know we get a little off, but just to kind of give you an idea, Alienware for some reason has some wonky things. I found out that when I was running DeepEnd, I didn't need to tell it to ignore that. It would boot up and everything, but it would hang on shutdown until I went in and edited a file that says, Turn A C P I off during boot and then it worked flawlessly. But the interesting one is, and this is just an idea, Pop OS worked flawlessly. I didn't have to touch anything. Interesting. It just worked. I mean, because it boots up and I had forgotten to go in there and select, Don't Load This, or I didn't see the option. It just worked flawlessly and I wonder if maybe they have the same type of bio setup or whatever or board hardware, but A C P I, that's a good place to start. It sounds like it's hanging on (52/54)
something and that would be my guess. Other people have been having it too. So try disabling A C P I when you're installing it. If you can get it booted, you can go in. There's an article at OMG Ubuntu, you can go right to the website and search how to turn A C P I off and it walks you through. You can pretty much copy and paste the instructions. So that's what I would suggest. And I agree with Larry, stay away from the service, both of you get the other one. Yep. Yep. There you go. Okay. And we'll have a link to that article on Ask Ubuntu in the show notes. Okay. All right. All right. I think that wraps it up, Bill. It does. Okay. So as I'm scrolling back to the bottom so I can read our outro. There we go. Our next episode will be written by Bill. It'll be Ubuntu and its derivatives. So we're going to have a little review of the various Ubuntu type things out there. Yes. So until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download (53/54)
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 and I add this and smart community members by joining the discussion in our going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinx.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (54/54)
Going Linux episode 387, 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 goinglinx.gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, Listener Feedback. Hey, Bill. Hey, Larry. How are you today? I'm doing okay. Hey, listen, that voicemail line, I get bugged every month or so from Google that we haven't used it in a while. And in order to keep maintaining that phone number, I have to send myself a text message. So I'm wondering, and here's a question for our minions, do we still need the voicemail (1/54)
line? Should I just give that up next time they ask? Or do you think there's some value in having it? Well, you know, you can attach a voicemail to an email, an audio file. Yes, you can. Yeah. So I would say, I mean, it's probably this easy just for them to go ahead and record it and just attach it to an email and then just have a voicemail. So what do you think? Yeah, well, the whole idea behind the voicemail line was to give someone who didn't really know how to do audio recordings a way to send us an audio file. But I think our audience has become more sophisticated over time. Or less lazy, maybe. I don't know. Well, I say we just keep it on for next month or so. And if we don't get anything, I say, go ahead and drop it. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm interested in feedback from our listeners. And yeah, if you want the voicemail, send us a voicemail message by using that line. And if you don't, just drop us a note on email or somewhere and let us know. Okay. So Larry, I hear you were out (2/54)
moonlighting. What did you do? Well, I got invited by Rocco, also known as Big Daddy Linux, to be on Linux Spotlight. So we've recorded an episode, two hours of me talking about me and the podcast and talking about you and talking about our audience. And that should be coming out on March 11th, if I remember correctly. And this is a video podcast that Rocco does. So we'll have the audio as an episode in the future as soon as it's ready to go. So they actually get to see what you look like. So did it go good? Yes, it went very well. He didn't kick me out after half an hour. So I think it was good. All right. That sounds cool. I look forward to watching it. Yeah. So we'll have a link when it's available and we'll have the audio for those people who don't have time to kick on a browser and watch a video for two hours. All right. So let's get into our emails then. All right. Let's do that. And we've got quite a few, so it's probably wise that we just move right into them. Our first one is (3/54)
actually an audio file that Paul sent to us by email as an attachment. And it's regarding a second internal drive problem that he has. His email said, Hello, Bill and Larry, please find the attached audio file. Thank you for your great podcast. Thanks, Paul. Let's listen to the audio. Hello, Bill. And hello, Larry. My name is Paul. I'm a German living in Ankara, Turkey. I have been using Linux for several years now and consider myself an experienced user. I love Linux Mint and Xubuntu for their simplicity and ease of use. And it is my hobby and my pleasure to introduce friends and colleagues to Linux. In the last days, I was setting up a computer with Linux Mint Cinnamon for a local small NGO. It was the first time I set up a computer with encrypted system and with a second hard drive. And that's where the problems began. After setting up Linux, I formatted the second drive with Gparted to GPT partition table and with one big partition in X4. Then I wanted to copy a file on the drive (4/54)
and it did not work. I had no permission to access the drive. The drive was owned by root and root only. So I searched the Internet and read about the commands MNT, Joan, Gmod and all the many options that belong to these. All involved the terminal, which I don't like because even if I would master it, the people I recommend Linux to probably wouldn't. Finally, I stumbled over a small passage in a forum thread where it was mentioned that Gparted assigns all internal drives to root and that one should better use Linux Mint's formatting program disks. So I did that and lo and behold, I had access to the drive. But I discovered soon that only the administration account had access, not the other standard accounts. So there was no way around it. I had to assign all users through users and groups individually to the group users and then use the terminal to assign the drive to this group through sudo joan-users-mnt backslash followed by the uuid of the drive. Fortunately, this mounting point (5/54)
mnt backslash is visible in the program disks so I could just copy it. Once this was done, I discovered that the standard users now could access the drive but not write or edit files on the drive. So again in the terminal, I set the writes to read, write and edit on the drive for the group users with the command sudo chmod2775 as I remember, followed by mnt backslash and the uuid. When researching this, I found that there are chmod commands with 4 and others with 3 digits and I have no idea why and what's the difference. But finally it worked. All users can now access, read, write and edit files on the second drive. All was good. For a while. But then by playing around with the standard users, I discovered that any user can access any other user's files including administrator account. Only for reading and copying, not to edit or delete, but still, this is not good in regards to privacy. To change this, every user has to go in the file system, home and right click on his user folder to (6/54)
access the properties. In permissions is listed what the owner can do, which is set to create and delete files, and what other members of the same group can do, which is access files, and what anyone else can do. The header anyone else is missing, so I had to guess. The rights for anyone else are set to access files as well and has to be changed to none. The administrator cannot do this. Every user has to do this for him or herself. After this experience, I decided to send you my story and I would like to ask. 1. Why is it so difficult and is there an easier way to make a second disk drive accessible with reading and writing permissions to all users of the computer? Is there maybe a program with a graphical interface to set up a second disk drive? This program could even pop up when a new internal drive is detected and offers several options to check. 2. Are these problems with setting up a second disk drive the same in every common Linux distribution or is this a speciality of Linux (7/54)
Mint Cinnamon? 3. Is there a way to set the permissions for each user's home folder by the administrator instead of by the user himself? Thank you very much for listening and maybe picking up my questions in your great podcast. You do a wonderful job in keeping informed, educate, and entertain Linux lovers all at the same time. This was Paul from Ankara checking out. Well, thanks Paul for the for the voicemail. I can see why you didn't try to type all that out. Yeah. Yeah. So, Bill, this sounds very familiar, doesn't it? It does. I had a very similar problem. It wasn't internal. It was a USB drive. And I found that for some reason I couldn't access the drive even though I went into Gparted and partitioned it out. And then I plugged it back in and it still wouldn't let me. So finally I plugged into the elementary OS just to kind of see if it would read it. And it popped up and I was able to right click on the drive and say open as administrator and then I had full access. Yeah. So I (8/54)
think it's kind of maybe an Ubuntu thing. What I did is I went in and adjusted the permissions when I was in the administrator account and set it where I could read, write, and everything. And since that time it's worked. So but he had an encrypted drive. So, yes, he had an encrypted drive and he was also protecting people's data from other people sharing that drive. So there was that complication. I don't know what the answer would be to this one because it was an encrypted drive. Mine wasn't. But I do know that what I found kind of intriguing about what he said is that the administrator of the system couldn't adjust the permissions. Right. I've never quite understood why the administrator couldn't do it. Do you have any thoughts on it? Because I'm kind of at a loss. I mean, I know what I had to do, but with the encrypted, I don't know if it's just something different or it's set up permissions different. But I was always able to go in once I was logged in as administrator and able to (9/54)
adjust the permissions on the drive. I don't know. I'm at a loss on that one. You got any ideas? Yeah, I'm not sure why the administrator wasn't able to change the permissions. I would just double check that you actually were in as administrator, that you either if you were on the command line that you typed sudo before the commands and put your password in. Or if you were using a graphical tool at that point, that you were running it as sudo. And as Bill had mentioned, if you right click on a file or right click on a folder, at least in MATE and I think in GNOME as well, I don't know in Cinnamon. Each of these is controlled by the file manager. And the file manager in Mint is a little different. But when you right click, it gives you the option to run as administrator. And regardless of whether that's a program, a file, a folder, then it should work just fine. And you should actually be administrator at that point. And it should let you even well, maybe because it's encrypted. It's (10/54)
not letting you do that. But and maybe if you had changed the permissions before changing the ownership. You know, you mentioned, Paul, that the everyone else setting was not present and you had to actually set that to none. Perhaps if you had done that before changing the ownership, it would have preserved that setting and then everything would have worked, separating the access of one person's data from another. So next time, hopefully there is no next time, but next time you might want to check that. One thing that I have noticed is that problems regarding access to files are made even worse within Linux when the drive is formatted NTFS, which is a Windows file format that you can make compatible within Mac or Linux. And typically modern Linux systems have that compatibility already enabled. So you don't typically have to do anything to make that happen. But permissions on NTFS files are oftentimes kind of funky, especially around the mount options and so on. So, you know, that's (11/54)
just an observation. I've had some problems with external drives that I have partitioned NTFS just to make it more compatible across platforms and have run into very similar problems and had to jump through the same sort of hoops as you have had to jump through. So in answer to some of your questions, Paul, I can't say why it's this difficult. I don't know. It just is. Is it this difficult across all different versions of Linux? Yes, it's a file permissions issue and incompatibility between, in my case, incompatibility between the Windows file format and Linux file formats. I think part of the reason it might be that you have to go through these hoops is because Linux is more secure than the Windows, which kind of gives you more administrator kind of permissions by default. I mean, Windows over the years has gotten a little more sensitive to this and has locked down a few more things. So it is not quite as bad at opening up permissions as it has been in the past. But Linux is more (12/54)
secure overall just by virtue of its design. And as a result, sometimes along with additional security comes the need for a little additional work to open things up when you're trying to make things more visible or more accessible, which is what you're doing in the case of permissions and mount options and those sorts of things. It sounds to me, Paul, like you've become more of an expert that you wanted to be at the command line to do these kinds of things. And one of your questions was, are there graphical tools for doing this? I don't remember what the tool is in Mint. I suspect that Disks is installed by default. It shows up as Disks in the menus, at least in Ubuntu MATE, and it's actually a Gnome tool. So it's gnome-disks if you're looking for it in the repositories. And when you right click on a hard drive, I think one of the options is to go to Disks or at the very least, I can't say that's true for every Linux distribution. So let's just say if you've installed Disks and you (13/54)
pick it from the menu, you should be able to choose which disk you're looking at, in your case, an internal drive. And then once you have that on the screen, you can do things like mount, unmount, change mount options, change permissions, change ownership, things like that. So there's that graphical tool. And there's another graphical tool that is oftentimes provided by Linux distributions at install time, but sometimes you have to install it additionally afterwards. And that is the tool that Bill just mentioned, which is Gparted. And it works a little bit differently than the gnome-disks program, but its function is basically the same. It allows you to change ownership, change mount points, change permissions on files and or directories, and gives you the ability to reformat if you want and change the format of the entire disk. And lots of different options there, all within the graphical environment. So there are other tools out there, but those are the two that I've had experience (14/54)
with and have used. And different Linux distributions, especially Red Hat or RPM based distributions, may use different tools. I remember OpenSUSE had some tools that they used that were, I don't know whether they were specific to OpenSUSE or whether they were Red Hat tools, but they were different than Gparted and gnome-disks. But you could, of course, install either of those on OpenSUSE as well. So there you go. I'm not sure we've helped too much. But at the very least, we've given you some graphical tools that you can use to do these things. And the other thing is to change ownership and permissions, you don't need these additional tools. If you simply right click on a file and go to properties, it should give you a tab within the file properties that is labeled permissions. And there you can change the owner, you can change the permissions of what the owner can do. You can change the owner if you are administrator. Yeah, and you can change the permissions as to what the owner can (15/54)
do, what members of a group can do and what anyone else can do, whether that's labeled everyone else or whether that's others or... That's usually how you can change permission on a file. But yeah, I'm still trying to ponder why the administrator couldn't change permission. So it sounds like it was a fun learning curve. Yeah, exactly. And I suspect that if you had done the setting of the others or everyone else setting before changing the ownership of the directories, I think that would have solved your problem. And again, if anyone from our audience has experience with this, any of our minions, please write in and give us your opinions or your tips or your tricks on file ownership. Yeah, I do want to say, didn't he say he installed Linux Mint, then he added that disk? Maybe if he had just let Linux Mint add that disk at the time of installation, it would have set the permissions correctly. That's possible. Again, it depends on the format. Yeah, that's true. Okay, so our next email (16/54)
comes from Nancy, who wrote about Microsoft making Linux more popular. She writes, in June of this year, Microsoft is ending the MCSA MCSC track by discontinuing those exams. They are moving to what they call a role-based certification, all of which pertain to their cloud services, Azure, Office 365, etc. Any certifications held at that time will still be active for two years till June of 2022, at which point they will become inactive. Even though Microsoft is not going to offer new MCSA MCSE certifications, they will be employers who still value them beyond 2022. Who knows? However, she's right to read on. Additionally, some of the installers for some of the latest systems absolutely must reach out to Microsoft for the rest of the installation. Many DoD environments prohibit internet contact under administrative credentials, which nobody should be doing anyway. But this will prevent those environments from obtaining an installer for many of those programs. As this becomes the norm for (17/54)
Microsoft products, those environments will be moving to Linux systems for their backbone operations. They'll have to because in some of our environments we don't have internet access. We have to do all of our installations using SneakerNet. This isn't going to hurt Microsoft any. The DoD is really only about 7% of their customer base, but it is going to create a huge demand for Linux administrators in defense operations. These positions will require security clearance, but as Microsoft moves to the cloud-exclusive business model, they will also be private sector enterprises that will see Linux as the best alternative. Wow. So, just so people know what we're talking about, the MCSA and MCSE were certifications. I can't remember what to say. Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator. And I think the MCSE was Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. Yeah, I think you're right. And you had to take these tests to get these credentials saying you know how to work their products. I never took (18/54)
one of them. I've heard people studying and paying lots of money to be able to pass these. Yes. So, I know why. They want everything moved to the cloud, you know, the Azure, Office 365, et cetera, et cetera. But she has a point. We really don't want our DoD environments reaching out into the internet with administrative credentials. That would not be good. But I kind of saw this coming because now Microsoft says Windows 10 or doing Windows as a service, they want their products cloud-based because that's where the money is for them. Because they're competing against Amazon, Microsoft, of course, and then there's another big one, or IBM because they acquired Red Hat. So, I think she has a point, but I don't know. I'm sure they have thought about this and there's got to be a way to install these services for these big governments and businesses. What do you think? Yeah, yeah, I think she's right. You use Linux and Microsoft is adopting more and more Linux subsystems and Linux tools and (19/54)
making things available as open source in order for them to become more Linux compatible. I see it going more and more the way of Linux at Microsoft. And eventually I've made the prediction before that there will be a Microsoft distribution of Linux, maybe not a desktop distribution, but a distribution nonetheless. And it may be much along the lines of what Intel has done for their clear Linux, which is something that works with their systems and works well with their systems, but it's essentially a Linux distribution. And so eventually there's going to be, in my opinion, a Microsoft distribution of Linux available, and it will solve a lot of these problems that Nancy has outlined. So yeah, I see it coming too. All right. OK, our next email is from Michael, who says he's unable to subscribe to the Distrawatch podcast. Hi Larry and Bill, I can't seem to be able to subscribe to the Distrawatch podcast with RhythmBox. I get a network error when I try. I got the following address from the (20/54)
Distrawatch site, distrawatch.com slash news slash org cast dot XML, which is the feed URL. And this is from Michael in West Yorkshire, UK. Michael, I think it may be that Distrawatch just happened to have a problem with that file at the time you were trying to subscribe to it. I was able to go into RhythmBox and subscribe to that successfully. So if you still have problems, give it a try again. And if you still have problems, let us know. All right. Our next email comes from Daniel, who asks about G-Potter and Orca. I would like to make a OPML file of all of my subscribed podcasts, but I don't know how to get to G-Potter's menus with the keyboard. How is it done? I don't use G-Potter. Yeah, I think G-Potter is one of those programs that does not support blind users very well. And so there may be some problems with the actual shortcuts and so on. However, having said that, I sent to Daniel a link to a YouTube video from our friend from the Sonar Linux project, Jonathan Nadeau. He (21/54)
recorded this video a few years ago, but it's specifically on setting up G-Potter using Orca. So hopefully that works for him. And again, if you still have some problems, let us know, Daniel, but that should take care of things for you. OK, our next email is from Ken, who has had a great experience with the Mint forums. Larry, Bill. At the last update of my computer with Mint 18.3, there was a serious error that caused the computer to crash and not to boot. I presumed that it was a bootloader problem and wrestled it off and on for a week or two, trying to figure out how to fix the bootloader. Then I decided to go to the Mint forum, giving them my setup and problem. Once I told them that a utility called Intramfs, that's I-N-T-R-A-M-F-S, was appearing after the failed boot, a person, DM10 was their name, came back to me saying that it wasn't the bootloader, but a fouled up file system, which I suppose was caused by the system update failure. After fixing the file system with sudo fsk-y (22/54)
slash dev slash sda1, I'm back up and running thanks to the forum. I would never have figured it out by myself. The whole point is to remind folks out in Linux land that the forum for your distro can be a valuable resource in maintaining and operating your system. This isn't the first time that I have received help from the Mint forum. Of course, I appreciate all the help from going Linux over the years. Ken, KB4XT. Well, that's good. That's what forums are for. There's always somebody that's had the same thing happen to them. Yeah, exactly. And oftentimes the solution is pretty straightforward and sometimes, as it did in Ken's case, requires the use of the terminal. But hey, you shouldn't shy away from the terminal. Sometimes that's a quicker and easier way to take care of things like this. That was a one line fix. Exactly. Yes. But I will say the Linux Mint forums and I found also the MX Linux forums are some of the friendliest ones out there. They both have really helpful people. (23/54)
Always go to the forums when you're having problems because there's always somebody that either can tell you how to fix it or if they've experienced it and know how to get it back up and running. Yeah, and I think the Ubuntu forums are very friendly too. And even OMG Ubuntu, they have forums and that sort of thing that helps as well. So if you're on any Ubuntu based distribution, Linux Mint included, you'll often find answers to problems there and they're pretty friendly there too. Now, there's another resource. It's in wiki form and I know it's going to sound weird, but I've actually found a fix to a problem on the Arch Linux wiki. Oh yeah, of course. Sometimes when Google's not your friend, I found the Endeavor wiki is really good. It won't fix everything of course. I've broken the system before, but I find that if you can't find it, it doesn't hurt just to take a quick peek at the Arch wiki just because sometimes it might give you a different avenue to explore. Yep, absolutely. I (24/54)
think there's a link that you can download to what they call a daily build. Is that what you're running? Yeah, all of the Ubuntu official distributions make all of their daily builds that they're working on for the upcoming release available publicly, as do, you know, it's open source, right? Everybody does that. So I just go in there and download the latest daily build and build my examples from there. And so, yeah, the latest versions of my books have been updated for 20.04. And the one that is for switchers from Mac OS and from Windows is available now with the updates for 20.04. And the one that is more in depth that goes into the applications and a little bit more in depth, Ubuntu Mate and its applications are using Ubuntu Mate and its applications is the full title. That won't be available until after the beginning of April. It'll be available before 20.04 comes out. But I'm waiting to see if a couple of features actually make it into the release before I release that that book (25/54)
and I want to keep it as up to date as possible. So that's why you run dailies? Yeah, exactly. It's just a double check to see if there's one particular feature that allows you to change the themes to something other than green. Well, you don't like the green? No, green is great. But there's a colors feature that is available as a PPA, but they're intending to put it within the actually within Ubuntu welcome, Ubuntu Mate welcome. Oh, really? Yeah, to select the color you want your ambient or radiance theme to be. And including the dark themes with a number of different colors available. And if the I've got basically two versions of that chapter, one describing how to set up the PPA and the other one, how to do it from the Ubuntu Mate welcome. And depending on whether it makes it in or not is what will go into the it go into the book. So to answer your question, Daniel, about what the difference is, there is some difference because there are new features in 20.04 that weren't available (26/54)
in 18.04, the previous LTS version of Ubuntu Mate. So I've incorporated those additional features, I've added a few additional comments about some of the applications. And of course, some of the applications have gotten replaced as well. So in 18.04, the video playing application was VLC that was installed by default. And now it's something called celluloid. So I've changed that chapter to describe celluloid and how that works. So those are the main differences. I would suggest that if you're running 18.04, there's no real need to update the, let the book and go out and buy a new version. I don't want to discourage you from doing that if you want to go ahead and do that. But I don't really see any need if you're not running 20.04. And if you are intending to run 20.04 and you get some value out of the documentation that's provided in books like this, yeah, it's definitely got some value for folks looking for the latest features and how to use them and that sort of thing. So there you (27/54)
go. That's really the difference. It's just been updated for what is in the current distribution or the upcoming current distribution in April. Hey Larry, have you looked at if they're going to be off, I heard they're going to be offering the ZFS system as a fully supported operating file system. Have you looked at that? I have not. So I can't really comment. I've seen in the Slack channels for Ubuntu Mate developers some conversations around that, but I haven't really been following it. So I can't really comment on that. And that's not part of the book. It doesn't go into that level of detail. File system formats and things like that. So it's more for newer users. I still want to try it. It's my itch to try that ZFS. I've heard some of them talking about it on some other podcasts and it's like, oh, I really want to try that. But anyway, it really depends, I think, whether or not it is completely stable enough for a distribution like Ubuntu to include it. That'll determine whether or (28/54)
not it's available, I think, more than anything else. All right. Let's see here. We have Carlos asking about compatibility of his printer fax scanner. We haven't had printer questions in a while. My main laptop is an HP Pavilion G6 2112HE notebook, 64 bit, 4 gigabytes of RAM and Windows 7. So it's a little older system. He says, I tested the live version of Linux Lite, which seemed to be faster. My only concern or problem is making sure my printer and scanner fully function properly. I did notice while testing the live version of Linux Lite, my printer's driver for Epson Workforce 845 was recognized. But I'm having a hard time configuring and testing the scanner since I have an all in one printer scanner fax copier. Can you possibly help me with this issue? I really want to install Linux on my main laptop, but have to make sure this issue is resolved first. Would Ubuntu Mate work out of the box where I wouldn't have such a hard time installing my printer slash scanner? I will also test (29/54)
Ubuntu Mate to compare which one is more stable. I'm looking forward to hearing back from you soon. Best regards, Carlos. And so Carlos and I went back and forth. I got a lot more detail on what he was doing around this scanner. I provided him a couple of links, which we'll include in the show notes, showing him that the Epson Workforce 845 driver is included by default in the Linux kernel. So it should be completely supported from a printer perspective. Scanners, oftentimes even with the built in scanners, sometimes scanner support is separate from printer support. So I looked on the scanner Linux compatibility and it shows the Epson Workforce 845 is fully Linux compatible as well. All of the functions should work just fine. So we went back and forth on determining how he was trying to set up the scanner. And he was looking for Epson drivers and all kinds of things, which, of course, you don't really need because it's all automatically installed on Linux. You don't really need to (30/54)
install separate drivers when it's supported out of the box. So once we got past that, I determined that it might be as simple as Carlos not understanding completely what the... how to use the scanner. So Carlos did write back. Why don't you go ahead and read that and then I'll describe what I suggested to Carlos for learning about how to use the scanner. Sure. Carlos wrote, I have just now tested the scanner and was not successful. First, I turned on the printer, then went to printers, configure printers. My printer was added already, Epson Workforce 845 and reads to connect it to local host. Next, I clicked on the program simple scan and clicked on the scan button and it said fail to scan, no scanners available. Please connect the scanner. I'm not sure if there are some hidden settings I need to change or not. What do you suggest? How do I correct this problem? Right. And so I suggested that if Carlos wanted some documentation on how to use simple scan, that with simple scan open, he (31/54)
pressed the F1 key on his keyboard and that will open up the help text for simple scan, including, you know, graphical examples and things like that. And what it says in there about selecting a scanner, and I realized that he was trying to do a scan without selecting scanner first. So essentially it tells you in the documentation that you need to select the device from the document menu and then go to preferences. And it says local scanners are automatically detected each time document scanner starts and each time you plug in a USB scanner. If you connect to network scanner, which I suspect is what we have here, you will need to restart document scanner for the scanner to be detected. So, yeah. So you want to make sure that you're connected either plugged in or through the network and then start document scanner and it should automatically detect your scanner. And if not, you go into the document preferences menu and you should be able to select your scanner there. And then everything (32/54)
else you were doing, Carlos was absolutely correct. One of the things that I've noticed with Linux and on Mac as well, because I don't know whether they use simple scan or they use a Mac version of the scanning tool, but it is independent of the setup for the printer. And typically you don't need to use the scan button that's on the front of the scanner. You just start the scan from the simple scan application and it goes and finds your scanner. You tell it whether or not you want to use the flatbed or the automatic feed if you happen to have a scanner with one of those. And it will figure out how to get the thing started and it will just start the scan for you automatically. So it's even easier than using it under Windows. You don't need to worry about that button that's on the front of your scanner. All right. Just want to also let you know later this next email. This guy has sent this exact same thing to destination Linux and everything about this. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I noticed that. (33/54)
But maybe we've got a little different perspective on things. So let's read it. OK. Our next email comes from Albert who asked about running games on his HP ZBook G3. He said, Hi, guys. Thanks for the podcast. I love the topics on here. I need help. I just bought an HP ZBook G3. It has an Intel Core i7 6700HQ with Intel HD Graphics 530, 16GB of DD4 RAM and 500GB spinning Western Digital Drive. I bought it from a friend's company for 20 bucks. I just installed a crucial 500GB SSD for $66 and also installed Zorin OS Free version with Steam. I think that the next version of Zorin I will pay for since I like it so much. My question is, is there any way to make my gaming experience better? I'm a broke gamer. LOL. Should I get a discrete card like an NVIDIA Quadro M100 or 1000M or an M2000M or should I buy a eGPU box? And which one to get? Has anyone worked with those on Windows or Linux? I have an RX 480 4GB I could throw into an eGPU box if I went that route. I can load most of all the (34/54)
games I want to play using Proton but running on very low settings. Here are some of the games I need to play. Gas, Extreme Guzzlers, Need for Speech, Shift, Doom, Dirt Rally, Axis, Footfall 2019, Smashing the Battle, House Slipper and Table Top Racing. Any thoughts or suggestions is very much appreciated. I want to use the amazing HP Z book since it has great hardware in it. Once again, thanks for the show. Thank you A-Train. First off, that's a great price for that computer. Oh yeah. I'm looking at the specs and you say you can play some on low settings and you said that you're also a broke gamer. As the resident gamer on this podcast, instead of spending a bunch of money on the eGPU box, because I believe you're going to be limited to the connection that one has. I think that one has a Thunderbolt port. I would kind of stay away from the Quattros because the Quattros aren't really gaming cards. They're more for designers like AutoCADs. So I don't know if you should spend any money (35/54)
on those. If you do want to use an eGPU, I would just go ahead and throw the RX 480 in there and just use that. I would save up my money and just spend as little money as you can right now. Just use what you have and maybe pick up one of those boxes, different price ranges. I would just save money and build a computer because this is a laptop. Unless you want to spend $1800 on an alienware, I would just wait and put my money aside until I could build what I wanted. Just spend as little money as I could on this setup. That's kind of what I'm thinking, but I would definitely not dump a lot of money into it. But I would use what I have and save up for some better hardware. Because you're going to be limited by the port that you're using to connect the eGPU. In general, laptops are not recommended for gaming unless they're specifically built for gaming. Even at that, you can get better performance from something that's in a case. Just two other things. I have a gaming laptop and it's made (36/54)
by Alienware. It really cranks out the heat. The problem with these laptops, even the gaming ones, is that the thermals are not as good as maybe a desktop. I would suggest if you're going to be doing a lot more gaming and you want some really high frame rates, etc. Go with a desktop. I would just use it. You can't beat the price. You've got $88 or $86 in the whole system. Even if you picked up an eGPU and you got a little life out of it with your existing RX 480 card, I think that's the best route that you should take. For the short term anyway. Yeah, for the short term. Just save your money. Yep. Sounds good. OK, let's move on. This is a long one from Richard who provided us this feedback. He said, Hi, guys, I'm an occasional listener to your podcast and heard the question and the discussion reORCA and Manjaro and how to contact Manjaro. Manjaro has a very helpful forum easily found at forum.manjaro.org. Guys, it's not exactly hidden away. I think you can even use one of those (37/54)
Internet search thingies to find it. There is also a GitLab group, I believe, so an IRC channel and other social media accounts. With regard to ORCA and accessibility issues, there has been some discussion on the forums about this. You might wish to raise some of the issues for your visually impaired or blind users, as it may help in considering which Linux distros might be worth considering and which are likely to be inappropriate. Manjaro is not a consumer oriented operating system. And he's got that as a quote from the learn more section on the manjaro.org website. I think this probably applies to most rolling distributions. One, Manjaro is a rolling distribution based on Arch. Updates are regular and with short intervals. Use of the terminal will be inevitable at some point. Two, whilst the stable branch is generally solid, there will be times when problems arise and some problem solving and help from the community through the forum will be required. If, for the sake of argument, (38/54)
we consider visually impaired or blind users as falling into two arbitrary categories, one, those who are using a distro as a tool to navigate their lives, then a rolling distro like Manjaro for a testing branch of other distros are likely to be frustrating at the least and possibly infuriating. These users would be better advised to stay with a very stable distro that offers maximum benefit and minimum maintenance to those visually impaired or blind users who are already computing enthusiasts who wish to push the envelope. These users may wish to help developers drive change in the stable LTS distros and who knows, contribute to the rolling distros ability to support visually impaired or blind users. I would say that the development teams are often very small. I am no expert in either computing or visual disability. Perhaps you could invite someone onto your podcast who is to help guide visually impaired or blind users through Linux. Thanks for the podcast. Interesting listening. Best (39/54)
wishes, Richard. All good points, Richard. Thanks for all of that. And so the bottom line for Orca on Manjaro, don't expect it to work. This is kind of what Richard is saying, because Manjaro is a rolling distribution and it's more of a testing sort of thing rather than it is a stable distribution that I think most blind users would need in order to, as he puts it, run their lives. I found that kind of interesting. It says Manjaro is not a consumer oriented operating system. OK, that just kind of strikes me as interesting. But I kind of agree with you. You should say if you're a blind user and you use it to get things done, the Ubuntu based distros seem to offer some of the better support. Yep. So our next email comes from George, who wrote us about episodes 385 and 386. He's right. And he begins, number 386, Brave browser. Just say no. Brave's business model is to intercept and replace advertising with advertising Brave sells. The idea that users will put money into a Brave account to (40/54)
donate to sites they like sounds good, but it's just not going to happen. The tokens earned by viewing ads may be anonymized, but offer a path to tracking. Firefox has a real focus on privacy and he gives a link that will be in the show notes. He has multi-account containers offer important privacy enhancements. So far, I know Firefox only. Google has announced plans to restrict the number of malware and adware sites that can be blocked in Chromium or on which Brave is based in Chrome. That will gut the UBlock origin system that works much like a custom host file. Google long ago blocked users' ability to set their own protective host file in Android and is now moving to do that in its web browsers. UBlock or a host file doesn't block ads. They are an important and effective barrier to malware. And he writes, Max, I've been embedded in the Mac ecosystem a long time. So long, I've basically had to toss out three generations of perfectly good computers because Apple ceased providing (41/54)
security updates. Apple also stops providing parts at five years and by building systems with proprietary parts that has been the only possible source other than scavenging dead Macs. Apple's latest T2 chip combines the SSD controller, UEFI, and encryption locking T2 systems entirely to Apple. Most of their parts, logic board, solid state drive, memory can't be scavenged and there is no generic substitute. Likely, a T2 Mac will never run Linux, which has been a fallback to keep good computers in use when Apple withdraws support. And he says, in reference to 385, Paul, should I be concerned about Linux Mint? I'm one of several followers of the shows on the destination Linux network who communicated disagreement to Michael Turnall, who, in my opinion, has been making an ad hominem allegation that Linux Mint is insecure. Pushing back on Michael did not, unfortunately, result in his specifying exactly his objections to Mint's security, but here's what I gleaned from his follow-up (42/54)
discussions with Ryan, aka, DaskGeek. Number one, Mint provides one and only one user profile for its version of Firefox. Looking into that, I was completely flummoxed by how what I think Michael was saying amounts to a security weakness. Mint modifies Firefox to start at the Mint homepage and replaces Firefox default Google search with Yahoo because Yahoo pays Mint. I do disagree with that. I'm a user of Mint, but as between Mint and Firefox, I think Firefox is more important and Mint shouldn't be intercepting Firefox revenue streams. As it stands, Mozilla is dependent on Google search revenue and likely would collapse without it. I'm hoping that much as Bill Gates rescued Apple back in the day, Google, for antitrust reasons, will see that Firefox survives. What I was unable to wrangle out of my research into Firefox user profiles is how Mint has created a security issue. Perhaps by cloaking all of Mint's Firefox users in one profile, there's a security advantage, just couldn't find (43/54)
anything pro or con. Two, Mint blocks some user-added PPAs. I think we can all agree users who insert random PPAs found on the internet into their Linux systems are potentially opening a huge security hole. Mint makes doing that somewhat more difficult but hardly impossible. I view that as a security advantage, especially for new users, the kind who research newbie-friendly Linux distros and find Mint at the top of most of the lists. Ask Noah went off on Timeshift, as did Michael. Noah had obviously never used it and in his ITPro persona has a bunch of scripts to make backups. Timeshift is amazing. It is available generally on Linux, not just Mint. I use it, tested its restoration ability and donated it to support it. Praise to the Mint team for including it. Daniel problems using no monitor. I've absolutely no idea if this could help, but there was a time when I was running Mac Minis as headless servers that part of the trick was to install a video out device so that the OS thought (44/54)
there was a monitor attached. Link to one on Amazon and links in the show notes. And then Ree, all about Sea Monkey. Thanks for the link. It was one of my favorite applications. The last time I updated a system and needed to install it, it seemed to fail, possibly because only 32-bit. Look forward to trying the 64-bit version. Happy Sea Monkey still swims. Well, as always, George, thanks for all of the information. That's very helpful. So, okay. I know we had said something about Brave and after looking at it, I pretty much just use Firefox. I do have to have a Chromium-based browser on my laptop because sometimes I have to log into work from my house. But my daily driver has been Firefox for a while now and I'm pretty happy with it. It does everything I need to, but my company that I work for, they require you to use Chrome or they don't even like the new Microsoft Edge, the one that's based on Chromium. So they want you to use Chrome. So Google's got them in their pocket. Yeah. Well, (45/54)
there are certain things that, especially things from Google that only work on Chrome or have only worked on Chrome. So you've been a little locked in there. But yeah. So Brave, I don't know. Some people have some concerns. Some people find it very helpful. I don't know. It's one of the ones that is available for you to use should you choose to use it. And I don't really use it on a regular basis either, so I can't really comment. You use Firefox? I use Firefox and Chrome, usually Chrome, but I use Firefox as a backup and as a way of testing something to see if it works on things other than Chrome. Oh, cool. All right. Our next email is from Anand who wrote us about Linux on a MacBook Pro. Hi, Bill and Larry. My name is Anand and I am from the Middle East. I am a regular listener to your podcast, which is very relaxed and has a cafe feel to it. But at the same time, very interesting and informative about Linux. This is on the last podcast of Linux on MacBooks. I recently got into Linux (46/54)
and I first experimented with it on my 2010 MacBook Pro. After numerous tries with Ubuntu, finally, the OS I am head over heels in love with is Ubuntu Budgie, and it works seamlessly on my MacBook Pro. No problems at all. I believe Budgie DE, desktop environment that is, is very slick and looks amazing on the MacBook Pro with dark themes. I tried Solus Budgie 2. It worked really well too, but I needed specific software which was available on Ubuntu and so hopped back to Ubuntu Budgie. Thought I should add to the discussion. Thanks again for all the knowledge sharing and perhaps keep sharing it. With regards, Anand. No thanks Anand. I'm glad it's working for him. Budgie's kind of slick. Yeah, it's it's one of those that's I think you mentioned is designed to look like the Mac operating system. Yeah, it's yeah, it's very you can make them look very much like Mac. So our next email comes from Alex who wrote about our episode on switching from Mac OS. He said OS X is still my main system (47/54)
because I use Logic Pro to make music on a hackintosh. I've been considering switching to take advantage of of the bang for the buck on the higher core count AMD CPUs. OK. OK. I wrote back to Alex and sent him a link to some alternatives to Logic Pro for Linux. I don't know how good they are, how they compare, but I just wanted to make sure that he was aware that there are some some alternatives out there. So maybe he can continue to use Linux. Here we go. All right. OK. We're almost at the end of our emails here. This next one is from Paul, who asked about Chromebooks running Linux. Hi, guys. I've been using Windows for most of my life and recently one to two years have been using Macs for development. PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, but would also like to expand into Python. I've heard Google mention you can dual boot Linux onto their Chromebooks, but haven't bought one to test yet. Was wondering if either of you have tested out working on a Chromebook with Linux. What attracts me to the (48/54)
Chromebook is the compact size and price point. Do you have a recommendation on what specs to look for the Chromebook and with what Linux distros to use? Or maybe you have an alternative machine to suggest. I've enjoyed the podcast for a couple of years now and have dual booted my wife's laptop to use Mint for her continuing surfing the Web and emailing. Thanks to tips and suggestions from here. Cheers, Paul. Web developer and designer. OK, so Paul, most of the newer Chromebooks you can install Linux after stripping off Chrome or running it in parallel with Chrome. Not exactly a dual boot, but similar sort of thing. I would suggest that you go with a newer version of a Chromebook if you decide to go that route. One that would have comparable specs to an equivalent non Chromebook or Windows or Linux operating system based hardware. You can find them easily out there. Some Toshiba's come to mind and so on. The ones that I have heard most problems with are the Samsung's. Not that there (49/54)
are significant problems, but that might be something you'd want to stay away from. I'm not sure, but there are plenty of them out there and they are definitely less expensive. So when you're looking at the specs, I can't give you specific specs to look for, but when you're looking at the specs, compare the specifications with those that you might find on Dell or Linux 76 or Intrawear computers and make sure that you've got similar sort of specifications and hardware. I think, like I said, most Chromebooks these days are capable of running Linux without too much trouble. I'd check around and search for anyone installing Linux on the Chromebook you might be interested in and just check to make sure they didn't run into any major problems in the installation that you couldn't get yourself out of in the way of problems. One other point on the Chromebooks is bear in mind that the keyboard you get on a Chromebook is not going to be the same as the keyboard you get on a system built for Mac (50/54)
or built for Windows or built for Linux. You won't have certain keys on the keyboard because Chrome does things differently. So you may be looking for those keys, for example, the meta key or the Windows key or the, you know, backspace. Yeah, backspace is another big key that you can't find. So just be careful. Go and try them out and make sure that you can find workarounds for those keys as well. Just less to do with the specs of the computer and more to do with the, you know, the keyboard. There is a shortcut to make that. I think it's like Alt and then the back arrow. For somebody who don't have a delete key, we use Chromebooks when we onboard new employees and one of them say, where's the backspace key? And I had to actually just Google it because I couldn't figure out how to backspace that thing. But my suggestion, and you're going to laugh, I would say look for an IBM ThinkPad. Great keyboard and probably have a little bit higher specs. And one of the things about the Chromebooks (51/54)
I've always noticed is they have really tiny SSD drives and a lot of times they're not very fast, but that's just, you know, something to think about. Yeah, I've seen some with larger SSD drives, so they've gotten a little bit bigger with that. Typically they are lower spec and even if you get Linux installed on them, they're going to run Linux slower than equivalent hardware designed for Windows or designed for Linux. So just be aware that it might not give you the performance you expect, even if it's an i5 processor or something like that. So just be careful. There's a reason why they're less expensive and part of that has to do with the fact that they use less expensive parts. And less expensive when you're talking about processors and RAM and so on typically means performs less well. All right. Our next email is kind of a sad one. Troy wrote us about Mark Greaves, the founder of Peppermint OS and lead developer. He writes, hi guys. I haven't heard anything about it on the show (52/54)
recently, so I'm not sure if you've heard, but Mark Greaves passed away in January and he leaves a link to the forum in Peppermint OS. Troy, aka Jack Death. And yeah, I had heard about it when it was announced, but it hit us right between when we were recording and we had a week off. But yeah, I was very sad to hear about Mark passing away. He leaves, I think they said, a wife and some children. So our thoughts go out to him and yeah, I know they're trying to find someone to kind of help keep the project going. So if you know anybody interested, go over to the forums and see if you can help them out. Yep. forum.peppermintos.com. Yep. Okay. Well, that's it. That's our last email. Our next episode, if it's out in time, will be the Linux Spotlight interview, the audio version. We'll put that out on the feed and that will be our next episode. So no surprises this time, unless it's not available already. So then then then it'll be a surprise. It'll be a surprise and no extra charge. Until (53/54)
then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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 Linux podcast community on community.goinglinx.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (54/54)
Going Linux episode 385, 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. So what's new in your world? Well, I had a nice little exchange with my web hosting company about the SSL certificates. Did you kill anybody? No, I didn't kill anybody. Their website won't allow me to create a help desk ticket, and their chat doesn't seem to work consistently. I can't paste anything in, but I can type. (1/54)
As long as I type one sentence at a time, I'm okay. However, once I did get in touch with them and began to work with them, the issue was resolved pretty quickly. They gave me some things to look at to figure out what was going on. They insisted that the certificate was not self-signed, as some of our minions had indicated, and it turns out they are correct. It was not self-signed. It turns out the issue was one little graphic element. Guess what it is? No fair reading off the show notes. So tell me what this is. I'm sure it's something open source related, right? Am I right? No, not at all. It is very proprietary. You remember the reason that I put SSL certificates in in the first place? Because of iTunes. Because of Apple insisting that in order to list the podcast in their site, the website has to have HTTPS or an SSL certificate. Well, the iTunes button on our website, on the subscription page, was pointing to an Apple site with HTTP. Okay. So they have very strict restrictions (2/54)
about their branding, as you might expect, and so rather than mess with that, I just linked to their button on their website. And the button for iTunes, the old button, is on an HTTP site that doesn't have SSL certificates. And of course they've changed all that to Apple podcasts, not iTunes anymore for podcasts. So they have a whole new thing that they want you to use that says, listen on Apple podcasts instead of listen on iTunes. Well, their old button is on this old site, and what was causing our site not to behave properly was a link to their site that doesn't have the SSL certificate. So as soon as I changed that, the padlock went on, everything works fine. There was one other change I had to make to point to the MeWe because apparently there's some issue with their redirects that isn't SSL certified or something. I don't know. I made those two changes and everything works fine. So you need to tell me that the website was throwing up all these false messages just because of one (3/54)
link. Yeah, one link to a graphic element. Okay. Well, anyway, now we know. Well, I had a little bit of drama. I was testing, by the way, your prediction of doing 10 distributions, I'm already at halfway now, so you're pretty much a done deal. But I was testing out KDE Neon, and it was okay. I was liking it because I thought it was so configurable and everything, and I'm like, yeah, I'll try it and keep playing with it. But there was a certain thing I needed to do. I had a new hard drive, and I said, well, it wouldn't let me create folders or copy things to it. So I do some digging, and I know there's a way you can go into the command line, but I have to look at things how a new user would look at them. Yeah, to be clear, it wouldn't let you do this on an external USB connected hard drive. On an external USB hard drive. It's a four terabyte Seagate Barracuda, nothing special. And so I'm sitting there, and I was like, I don't understand this. So I'm looking, I'm looking, and so I told (4/54)
you, I said, I can't get to change these permissions because, again, I know there's a way to do it in the terminal. I'd have to look it up because I don't memorize all that crap. So you suggested just click on it on the drive, and you said open as administrator or root. I'm like, hey, that's a great idea. I didn't think about that. So what do you think happened next? Well, you already know because I sent you a screenshot of it. Yeah, yeah. If you hadn't sent me the screenshot, I wouldn't know. Well, apparently, apparently, when I tried to open as a root or tried to do sudo or anything like that, it popped up with a nice message that says, you can't do this in the Dolphin File Manager because there's unfixable. And you saw it, it says unfixable security vulnerabilities. And I'm sitting there going, are you kidding me? So, yeah, finally just said, well, I can't really recommend this because people do have USB drives and they do want it. But I was just like, why would you put unfixable? (5/54)
It's like, okay, we know it's broke, we're just not going to fix it. So we're just going to disable the whole one piece of this functionality. So made no sense. Yeah, maybe it's difficult to fix, but impossible. I don't know about that. And I don't know the specific details and I'm not technical enough to be able to weigh in unequivocally on it. But seems to me like it should be something that's fixable. Come on, maybe you have to rewrite the entire operating system or something. But I don't know. It's not the operating system. Just to use your space, your graphical interfaces. One of the things that we always say is that when we recommend something to new users, that they should be able to do everything they can do, maybe not as efficiently or as fast, but everything like adding a hard drive so you can actually copy files to it, your pictures that you've downloaded from your phone or whatever, without having to drop to a command line, because you can't tell me you're going to get some (6/54)
70-year-old grandmother who's going to become a command line warrior just to do these pictures. The first thing she's going to say is, no, give me back my insert proprietary operating system name here. Yeah. Well, you know what? I bet one of our minions is, at least one of our minions, knows the details behind this in KDE Neon. And can tell us why it's unfixable. And if you're listening and you can do that, drop us a line. Let us know what's going on here, because it doesn't seem right. Anyway, like I said, they've done some nice stuff to make it easy. They have a lot of nice tools. KDE Neon, I've never seen repositories that fast. It's like, I want that program, because it's kind of stripped down. They don't put a lot of stuff like they do in Kubuntu. You kind of add what you want. So that was a great system to test out different programs to see if they actually worked without saying, okay, let me see. It was the latest and greatest, so according to them, because that's the KDE's test (7/54)
bench, basically, is KDE Neon. It's built on Ubuntu long-term support 18.04, but, yeah, you always have the latest KDE. I was getting updates every day. So, yeah, anyway. Yeah, well, and the bottom line is, if it has problems like you can't copy files to an external USB hard drive, it's not something we can recommend. So, unfortunately, you need to use something else. And I did. And fortunately, there's lots to choose from. Yeah, exactly. So shall we get into our email from our listeners? Yes, of course. So our first email is from Paul, who provided two audio clips to go with his email. Paul writes, hi, Larry and Bill. Thanks for the great information you give our community each episode. I thought you might find the information in these audio clips interesting. I'd never heard this about Linux Mint before. If possible, I'd like to hear your comments on the two audio clips I'm attaching from episode 153, Destination Linux on YouTube. Michael, Ryan, and Zeb discussing. And this is the (8/54)
first clip. So there's the issue that was around before the time shift happened. And by the way, time shift is not a solution. It's a workaround. Some people refer to it as a band-aid. The reason is because they have an infrastructure that is based on Ubuntu, but it doesn't do a clean fork. So if you look at the difference between Ubuntu and Debian, Ubuntu is a fork of Debian. It's a derivative, but it's also a fork. And that all of the packages that are in Ubuntu are pulled from Ubuntu and not directly from Debian any time you do an update. So they take all the packages at one time in Debian and then put them into Ubuntu and then they do their thing on top of that. Whereas Linux Mint has a weird thing where they sort of fork and sort of don't. They take some packages, make their own version in their own repos, and then they also use the Ubuntu repos for a lot of other things. Probably most things really. And this creates an issue where there's a compatibility thing between what Ubuntu (9/54)
does and what Mint does. So if Mint were just to fork everything, this problem wouldn't be an issue necessarily. But because they don't do that, they have this weird, sometimes in the back in the day, they had that one through five priority of like our warning levels of what could be happening. And the only reason is because sometimes on the four and five, they were bringing in core elements from both their repo and the Ubuntu repos creating this weird mix and match thing. And it could have created an issue and they didn't have a solution for that because whatever reason. And the solution was essentially a workaround by putting in time shift. So if something does happen, they can just kind of ignore it and go back. You can just roll back into the previous version. So it does solve the user's problem, but it doesn't solve the technical issue of the disconnect. OK, Bill, this thing about Mint and Ubuntu and the fork not being complete and time shift as a workaround, what do you think? (10/54)
Well, I think they pretty much discussed it. Michael Ryan and Zeb, they talked about it and they gave, you know, Mint does its own thing. And, you know, because, I mean, they've developed software for it and then changed it to how they want. You know, that's what happens because if you really think about it, you got Debian, then Ubuntu, and then he had another Mint who forked from Ubuntu, and they still used the base, but they changed a lot of stuff. So, yeah, you're going to have compatibility issues. It's just, you know, it's just like a copy of a copy of a copy. Sooner or later, you know, if you diverge far enough, it's going to cause problems. Right, right. And I see their point about time shift being a workaround for this problem. I'm not sure that's why time shift has been implemented in Linux Mint, but because it's a very good backup program. But it is definitely a useful tool to work around this issue that they have. And Paul's main issue here is, if I read down in his email a (11/54)
little bit further, he says, I'd like your analysis. In my case, I'm using Linux Mint 19.2 Cinnamon as my daily driver. I'm not a distro hopper and have used Linux Mint for six years or more. Should I be concerned about this new practice? I don't know whether it's a new practice or not, but I'm not so sure you need to be concerned about it, especially if it hasn't caused you any issues. And if it's not broke, don't fix it kind of philosophy. So if this forking or not forking completely issue isn't really causing you any troubles, then I wouldn't worry about it. And as the guys on Destination Linux have said, time shift is the solution to the problem. If something breaks, you use time shift to roll back and work from there. So I think I think it's covered. I don't think you have to worry about it. You can continue to use Linux Mint for many years going forward if that's your choice. On the other hand, if it has given you trouble and you're always restoring from time shift backup, then (12/54)
maybe you should change to something else. But if that's not the case, don't worry about it. That's kind of my opinion. What do you think, Bill? If he's been using it for six years and it's still working, don't follow my example. If it's, you know, I break things just because I like to break things. If it's not broken, just continue using it. When it starts causing problems where you can't get your work done, then you might want to look somewhere else. But if it's working for you, use it and abuse it until you just can't use it anymore. That's what I'd say. I wouldn't worry about it. Yep. OK. And then his clip number two is about PPAs. We'll play that now. The problem that the PPAs have is back, they still have the problem, but it's not as not a big a deal as it was then. Because in 2015 or so, I realized they had this issue. And what it is, is that there's this priority system that is built into Linux. Every Linux system has a priority for the repos that you can pull from. And this is (13/54)
that you set a number value for that priority for the repo. And it gives you a list of being able to control the order of when something is pulled from. So it seems like, for example, Ubuntu by default, their repos and basically every repo, Ubuntu provides or PPAs, are all set for priority 500. And the way that you can change this number, and it will change the priority, but you don't actually have to do that. All you have to do is make sure that the repo you want to have priority is set higher in the list, so it checks that first and then goes into the rest. Now, this is a good solution, and that's not what Mint did. Instead of that, they do have it at the top, but they also change the priority number for their repos. And they have it from 700 to 750 depending on which repo you're talking about. Now, what happens is, if you install a PPA, that PPA is set to 500. And it creates a conflict between, no matter what order it is, the repo for Mint is automatically taken over because of that (14/54)
priority number. So if you want to install an application, and admittedly, this is a rare thing because you have to, one, you have to find an application that is in both the Ubuntu packages, the Mint packages, and a PPA so that they had to have pulled it from Ubuntu, made their own version, and then you also install a PPA to get it. You'd have to do all that, so fair enough, it's not a huge issue, and especially not with the flat packs and snaps and app images anymore. So it's still less so, but the structure is still in place where when you install a PPA and you install an application from that PPA, you will not actually get the application from that PPA because the priority of Mint takes over. So you're pulling from the Mint repo instead of the PPA you just installed. And the only way to fix that is to manually change the pin number or the priority number for the repo for Mint or to manually install the DEB package from the PPA, which will then force the particular PPA to become (15/54)
priority, and then it will start pulling. I called nonsense on this live with you on the phone, and then we did a test, and unfortunately you were correct. It installed the old version. Instead of giving me the latest version from the PPA, it installed the old version of the package from their software store and ignored the PPA entirely. Really, that's quite shocking for a new user that's just learning about Linux. And I'm assuming it's going to do that for the NVIDIA drivers as well, so you're wanting the latest 440 off of the NVIDIA PPA, and it grabs the 435 off of Mint. It's possible. The issue really depends on if Mint decided to fork that in their repo or not. If they didn't fork it, then it's not a big deal, but if they did, then it would be. Well, the first issue is you're running NVIDIA. The second issue would be how Mint handles that package. Okay, and he continues, PPA's and priority. I really don't understand the technical parts of the discussion, but I'd like to get drivers (16/54)
and other software that is the latest if I have to use a PPA to get it. Question. Generally, should I be concerned enough with these issues to change distros? Let me just weigh in here. Again, it's a pretty technical discussion, yes, but essentially what they're saying is that the PPA's that they use, PPA's for new folks are personal package archives. It's a way of putting additional software that may not be part of the standard distribution out available, and it may not get the same scrutiny as other packages, but it's a completely acceptable way in Ubuntu to provide software updates. And it looks like the Linux Mint folks have a system of priorities that overrides the standard way of doing it in Ubuntu distributions, which is if the PPA is on the top of the list, that's the one it'll pull from, and the Linux Mint repositories take precedence over that set of priorities. So if there's a more recent driver available in a PPA than there is in the standard Linux Mint repositories, with (17/54)
Linux Mint you're not going to get the most recent drivers, and I suspect that the reason they do that is because the Linux Mint repositories have drivers that they've tested, and the PPA's, like I said, don't have the same scrutiny as the Linux Mint repositories, the software in the Linux Mint repositories. So I understand why they do it that way, and there are ways to lock the version of something that you're using, so that if you have a driver that has version A, for example, and version B comes out, and Linux Mint is going to always default to version A because it's in their repository and version B doesn't, you can set in synaptic, or even on the command line, you can lock the version that you're using so that it will always use version B. If you can get it to install the latest version, then you set the lock before you do any updates, and you're all set. So that's kind of where we're at. And again, to answer your question, is it a serious enough problem to switch distros? No, I (18/54)
don't think so, because the Linux Mint team is trying to keep you safe by making sure that the drivers you're using are the ones that they have had an opportunity to verify and vet. And if they haven't taken a look at the most recent driver, then they're not going to let you use it until they have. And then once they've looked at it, it'll be in the repositories and you'll get the latest version of it. So, Paul, I think that's my opinion. Do you agree or disagree, Bill? I agree. I agree with what you said. I'm sorry, I was looking through something real quick. And, yeah, everything you said just makes sense. They're just trying to keep it as safe as they can for their users. You know, between the guys that were discussing it, some of them kind of saw it and some of them kind of disagreed. And in the real world, that's probably not going to be something that you're going to be looking at. If your NVIDIA card works or whatever, most of it's for NVIDIA cards, I think. If it's working, you (19/54)
don't need the latest and super greatest. They're going to release it as an update or in the next version. So if it's working, just use it and don't worry about it. Yeah, you know, that's a good point. If you're using a driver and you don't need the additional new functions that the update to the driver is providing, then you don't need that new version of the driver if everything's working fine. So Paul wraps up his email saying, my experience with Linux Mint has been a very good one. I haven't had any problems with system updates since installing Linux Mint 19.2 Cinnamon several months ago. Well, Paul, if that's the case, keep on using Linux Mint. It seems to be working for you. Our next email comes from Daniel and he asks about using no monitor. I am trying Fedora 31. Since I use Orca, the screen reader, I need no monitor. But when the monitor is off, the computer does not want to work. Is there a way to tell Fedora not to bother with the monitor? Yeah, have you explored around with (20/54)
settings for displays or power on Fedora? No, I haven't. But I have a Fedora distro that I'm looking at. I can always look at it when I load it up and see. But maybe there's something in the software that's telling it. Does Orca need a monitor to work? I mean, it would have to. I guess it would be part of the input, wouldn't it? No, I don't think so. I think Orca, because it's a screen reader, I wouldn't expect that it would require a monitor. I'm thinking it's something in Fedora. And I'm not a Fedora user, so I'm not familiar with the settings. But looking at Ubuntu-based distributions, I know there are settings for displays. I know that you can turn off or on displays in those settings, in the display settings. And I know there are some power management settings as well that tell your computer what to do when on a laptop you close the lid, which is essentially a switch that turns off the display in many cases. And I would suggest, Daniel, whether it's a laptop or a desktop, see if (21/54)
there's a setting in the power management somewhere that allows you to change the behavior when the display goes off or when the laptop lid is closed or when certain situations occur that might be similar to the monitor power going off. And make sure that that is set to do nothing or whatever the equivalent setting is. In Ubuntu-based distributions, typically you have three settings. There's do nothing, there is suspend, and then there is power off. And depending on which distribution you have, you may have all of those options or some subset of them. And if there's something going on with when you turn off the monitor, and I'm assuming this is a power switch on a desk-based system as opposed to a laptop or something like that, when you power off the monitor, then Orca stops working or Fedora stops working or something like that. I think that it's probably a power management setting, but I'm not absolutely sure. Maybe there's something else in Fedora that makes the assumption that you (22/54)
need a monitor to use the system, and it checks to see if there's a monitor, and if not, things don't work. But yeah, so Daniel's saying that when his monitor's off, the computer doesn't work, not that Orca doesn't work. So I'm thinking it's a Fedora setting, or maybe you just have to make a tweak in the power management or something similar. Yeah, I don't know about Orca. Yeah. Okay, well, let's move on to our next email. This one's from Nathan, who wrote us about OpenSUSE and their EULAs and gave us some feedback on our episode 383. Greetings, long time no write into your show. I'm still listening and enjoying some advice on doing upgrades in OpenSUSE. And when we were listening to, I think it was George or someone who was reading through EULAs and had to scroll all the way to the bottom on OpenSUSE. Maybe it wasn't George, maybe it was somebody else. But Nathan says to skip through the EULAs on OpenSUSE when doing upgrades from the terminal with Zipper. In the terminal, just add (23/54)
dash L or dash dash auto agree with licenses. After you read it the first time, this is an issue with NVIDIA drivers too. Specifically, this option will automatically say yes to third party license confirmation prompt. By using this option, you choose to agree with licenses of all third party software this command will install. This option is particularly useful for administrators installing the same set of packages on multiple machines by an automated process and have the licenses confirmed beforehand. Example views. So this would be a command you would type in the command line. Zipper space update space dash dash auto dash agree dash with dash licenses. Keep in mind that OpenSUSE gives you the ultimate control over your system, but with the added benefits of passing control over to the system. Thanks again for your show, Nate, Cubicle Nate. That's a cool trip. Yeah. All right. Our next email comes from George, who also wrote about episode 383 from December 26. He's went, Hey, Larry (24/54)
and Bill, best wishes as we head into 2020. About the EULA episode. VirtualBox is free. VirtualBox extensions are not free for business use. And I remember the discussion about the wife who needed to run Windows on her computer. She needed it for work. I tried VirtualBox and needed the extensions. Oracle is darn near as litigious as Apple. The extensions are sold in large enterprise packages. CDW has a single install listed at $40 from a third party seller. Before buying, I want to be sure that the third party seller had the right to resell part of the bundle purchase. Or better yet, if is Oracle itself. And it gives a link that will be in the show notes. Yeah. And by the way, I took a look at that link. For $40, you have to order a quantity of $100. Oh, is that all? Yeah. So you got to spend $400. Lovely. Yeah. Okay. So then he says there's alternative VMs. Jupyter Broadcasting's choose links number 25. Just discussed virtualization. Some far geekier than I would try. But also gnome (25/54)
boxes that sounds promising and relatively straightforward. I just checked the gnome boxes apparently isn't restricted to pure gnome desktops. And he gives links to the choose Linux show and to the gnome users. And to the link that talks about the gnome boxes stable. So before going farther, I listened to that episode and they were talking. One of the hosts got all really geeky and was using Zen and all this wild stuff. And he was able to get really good results. But definitely not for a new user. And then I think one of them was saying, yeah, they just use gnome boxes and it works really well for them. So gnome boxes is really lightweight. Not a lot of switches to flip and stuff. So yeah, it's probably if you just need to throw a quick VM just to see what it looks like. Gnome boxes will probably work. I have had trouble with it running non Debian based distros. Because I've tried it and it didn't like Sabion. It didn't like OpenSUSE. It didn't like, I think it was Fedora 29. So (26/54)
anyway, I guess your miles will vary. But if it's a Debian based distribution, it works pretty well. So he goes on and says about the certificate issues. He said Firefox raised no issues when I just visited your site. Danny said 122919 at about 1220 central standard. So I hope you have that fixed. Sadly, I think it is potentially dangerous to advise users to ignore the certificate warnings. I've not taken trouble to go fetch certificates for our several Synology NAS boxes. But rely on my Synology self-assigned certificate. These are internal to my home and work network. So I just click through the Firefox option to ignore the warning and proceed. Out on the general internet, I'm very concerned. The failed certificate might be a red flag alert about a man in the middle. Interception of all or part of a website. Ignoring it could feed malware right through a user's browser. Your problem wasn't really your problem. Unless we consider a flaky hosting company as your problem. But failed (27/54)
expired certificates could also be a tip off that a website author isn't paying attention to basic security. WordPress installs that aren't secure and regularly updated are a common hazard. And then he continues and he says money. In past years, I've been honored to be able to send in a few dollars to support your efforts. I'd be willing to mail a check or if Gmail still has features that enable sending money. I did use it once and it worked. I'd write and mail or click and send. George. Well, thanks for the offer, George. Certainly unnecessary. Yeah. Yeah. And certificate issues. Yes, we've got them fixed. And it was, as I said, the one single tiny little graphic file that was on a site managed by Apple that does not have an SSL certificate on that site. So once that's fixed, it's no problem anymore. And so, you know, not a problem. However, your point is well taken as a general rule, you shouldn't just click through ignore. And, you know, that people who have been using Windows XP (28/54)
and now Windows 7 who get the warning when they start up their computer that says your computer is now out of support and click through dismiss because that's what you have to do to use your computer. Yeah, it's kind of like that. Anyhow, thanks, George. I appreciate it. All right. Our next email is from Highlander, who wrote about mass surveillance countermeasures. Can you figure out, he says, how Linux could play a role in mass surveillance countermeasures? Can you tell your audience your opinion on this? He provides a link. We'll have it in the show notes. And that link describes things like special glasses that make your head glow if you're being caught on infrared cameras or other special glasses that sunglasses that normally an infrared light will pass through and give the, you know, the software that identifies people the ability to see through dark sunglasses. Well, these sunglasses actually make that black for the infrared light and they talk about the problems with software, (29/54)
excuse me, with facial analysis systems, false positives or falsely identifying people. And all that sort of stuff. It's a lengthy article, but it's got a lot of good information. And the bottom line is, yes, there is a lot of surveillance out there, depending on what country you're in. That will determine how much is actually there. Some of it you may know about because you can see the cameras, some of it you may not know about because it's surreptitious. And, you know, yeah, there's an old saying about those people who give up security for convenience deserve neither. Those who give up security for safety, I'm not sure that same thing applies, but we've got to be aware of this stuff that goes on. And this article gives you some thought provoking things to look at and read. So what's your opinion, Bill? It's governments all over the place are putting up more and more cameras. But I did read this article and there are ones very similar. Was it someone who used a computer to design a (30/54)
shirt that when a camera saw it, it confused it? Right, right. Yeah. So that was kind of, yeah, but I think the surveillance is going to be around and there's not much we can do about it. I mean, we can try for privacy protections and stuff. I mean, if you really want to get down to it, we're kind of doing it to ourselves, too, because everybody is putting up all those ring doorbells, you know, with the cameras, all those going back to, isn't it Amazon who owns ring? You know, so I don't know whether it's Amazon or somebody else. But now the police can actually just pull the video from your ring doorbell. So we're kind of doing it ourselves. We're putting them in our houses and, you know, at our doors. So every time, you know, unless it's something that you're self hosting yourself, it's going, you know, the data is there, someone's going to take it. And so I guess what we have to do is kind of try to set some boundaries and some guidelines. That's about the only thing to think of (31/54)
because, you know, they say London has cameras everywhere. And in China, I was just watching a documentary. They're putting more and more cameras of all time. They have more cameras per capita than most countries or two or three countries combined. So, you know, the more the more this, you know, surveillance, the more data they're going to get. It's pretty fascinating what they're able to learn from just watching people. Yeah, exactly. So I don't know really what to make of it, but we've discussed it. Let's cut all the power and live without power. Oh, wait a minute. No, no, let's not do that. You know, without power we couldn't podcast. Anyway, our next email comes from Daniel who wrote about Manjaro Linux and he said, with no Orca, he said, in times past, I would want to try Manjaro and tried to start Orca and would hear no speech. Does Manjaro come with Orca built in to the installer? Some installers have no Orca. How may one write to the Manjaro people? I use no Facebook nor (32/54)
Twitter. Okay. Well, as far as I know, Manjaro does not install Orca by default. And I've looked at the Manjaro user's guide that's on their website and I don't see any reference to Orca or to the accessibility software that would give you a screen reader. And I couldn't find an email address on their website, but you could post something into their wiki, which is at wiki.manjaro.org and perhaps someone there could answer your questions. I'm a little surprised they don't have any other way to contact them, but... They don't have forms? No. Well, they have the wiki. I think that's how they have the form, is in a wiki format. Oh, well. Okay. Right. But there's no email address or direct contact link. And unfortunately, it doesn't say anything about it that I could find in their user's guide that's on their website about Orca or screen readers or accessibility. So, not being a regular Manjaro user, I can't speak from experience that it's not there. It's just they don't mention any voice (33/54)
to speech or Orca or anything like that. Hmm. That's kind of strange that... Well, it's strange that they don't have Orca, but it's also strange that they don't have an email address. Yeah, exactly. The forms would be just so easy. I mean, if you have a problem with Ubuntu Mate or MX Linux or regular Ubuntu or Zorin, they have forms or an email that you can reach out and say, hey, can you help me? So, yeah, it's kind of strange that they use a wiki for everything. Our next email is from Michael, who also wrote about Linux, this time Linux Mint and Orca. Hi Larry and Bill. I am now running the latest version of Linux Mint. I think it's 19.3 with Orca. I managed to run Mint as live from my DVD and Orca no longer gives me that problem of speech on followed by speech off just a few seconds later, as though some bright person may have disabled Orca from running. Perhaps just because they might have accidentally enabled speech and perhaps not known how to turn it off. The two problems I had (34/54)
when first getting used to Linux Mint were the graphical update manager. The other problem I have in Mint is that speech doesn't always start during login, but that seems to be a problem with Ubuntu overall. I am running Linux Mint Mate as I'm not sure if the other desktops yet work with Orca in Linux Mint. Michael in Baltham West, Yorkshire, UK. And Michael, I do know that the Mate desktop has done a lot of work with accessibility and has done a lot of work to make sure that Orca works out of the box and works with whatever distribution of Linux it's installed on and you're using Mate as a desktop. Linux Mint Mate, one example, Ubuntu Mate, another one, who have done a lot of work to ensure that that configuration works out of the box at startup, at login, so that our blind users of Linux have a tool that they can use right as soon as they start their computer, instead of having to fumble their way through the login screens and wait for the desktop to come up. So, there you go. Stick (35/54)
with Linux Mint Mate if that's what you're using, or Ubuntu Mate if that's what you're using. Those are the two best in my opinion. OK, our next email comes from John who wrote with a Thunderbird backup and restore question. He writes, Hi guys, Happy New Year and I hope all is well. I wanted to know if I do a Thunderbird backup on a Windows PC. Can I restore the backup onto a Thunderbird install on a Linux distro? Thanks for your time, John, Pittsburgh, PA. I saw that and I was thinking about that. The backup really doesn't care what operating system you're running, so he should be able, if he has a backup, Windows and he uses Thunderbird, it should be just a simple, they still use the same type of file format for the backups, don't they? They do. And it used to be that for Gmail and for Thunderbird and anything Mozilla, you just take the Mozilla folder or the Thunderbird folder from the computer you're starting from and copy it to the computer you're putting it on. And if you're (36/54)
moving from Windows, of course, the directory that it'll be in is in Windows somewhere. I have no idea. But in Ubuntu based distributions, it's usually in the configuration folder, which will be a dot folder, so it'll be hidden by default. You drop it in there or there'll be a Mozilla folder or there'll be a Thunderbird folder, just drop the contents in there and there'll be your profile and all the other stuff, including your mail and everything there. And it'll just work regardless of where you pick it up from and drop it off to. Now, I did in researching this, it's been several years since I wrote an article on how to do that. So I did a little bit of research to see if that's still possible. And I found one post on someone who was having trouble. And they said that Windows had or Mozilla had disabled the ability to just move that. So I don't know whether that's actually true or whether that's someone's misperception. I only found the one post saying that, and I didn't see any (37/54)
responses to that post. So I don't know what the resolution was for that user. But as far as I know, you can still just pick up the Thunderbird folder, put it in the appropriate place on Linux, and it should work fine. OK. OK, so Ken wrote us about VPN and password manager. And it went back to working. Of course, I haven't thoroughly worked this problem. By the way, the current method that I use to manage passwords is that I keep a list of all my passwords on paper. I have no physical security problems. It's just me and my wife retired and a few others passing through. I use decent passwords of 10 to 12 characters, uppercase, lowercase, numbers, symbols. So unless I have better luck with the password managers, I may stay with this. Use slightly longer passwords, change them more frequently. But I got reading about VPNs. Do you use a VPN? I am looking at getting one of these to improve the overall security. Any recommendations? I realize this is two subjects. Security is a subject area (38/54)
that you all may want to cover as a podcast subject, article or video if you have time. I appreciate all that you do. I know that each of you are very busy in your day jobs. Thanks, Ken. KB4XT. Well, any thoughts, Bill? Do you use a VPN or password manager? I don't use a password. Well, let me rephrase that. I have used a password manager. I just can't be bothered to actually reinstall installing. I kind of use the pen and paper method because really it's me and my big goofy dog. So if they want to come and search my emails, they've got to get into the computer first. But they're not going to find anything interesting. Or they could read the show notes through the future shows, Larry. I didn't think about that. There you go. That's true. We might have to keep those in the lock and key. But as far as VPN, I don't use one. But I would use one if I was traveling to other countries. If you were going to visit China, you can use VPN to actually use services that would be blocked in China (39/54)
for most of the citizens. Or there's some people that are traveling over here. And if you're from Great Britain, they have a bunch of shows that's BBC. And if it's Eastern America, it won't let you play them. But if you use a VPN, you can tell your data to come out in Great Britain, even though you're in America. So you can still get the shows or the news or whatever you want. The one thing you got to worry about VPNs is, and you might not like it, but stay away from the free ones. Because you have to trust them with your data. You need to find one. They're pretty cheap now, but you find one that you know what the security practices are. I know, I can't remember what it is, but if you're looking for a VPN on Twitter, Leo has mentioned a few that he likes because of the way they control security and stuff. So you might want to give them a listen. I think you can also read, they have some open show notes. I think it's called Tech Guy Labs. And you don't even need to sign up. You can just (40/54)
go and read what was said. And they talk about VPNs quite a bit. But I'm not transmitting any super secret data except show notes for the calling thanks podcast. Or an email to Larry saying, hey Larry, I broke this again. You don't type it in the open. Other than that. So it depends. Do you think he really needs a VPN? I mean, if he's just, I mean, he says him and his wife are retired. I mean, I don't think they're, I don't know. You could use it for banking and stuff, I guess. Yeah. And if he's looking to get access to stuff that's blocked in the United States. I happen to know that he's in the United States, like you were saying with television programs and stuff. That might be the reason for using it. Other than that, he probably doesn't need one. Other than for work, I don't use one. For a while I was using OpenVPN. And I had it on all my computers because it was part of the browser, if I remember correctly. And my work provides me with a VPN that is required to be on to access (41/54)
anything on the work site. So I use that when I'm using my work computer. And the reason I'm not using that VPN solution that I was using for a while is because I forgot to turn it off one day when I was browsing because it was browser based and I was syncing my browser settings. I had it on in addition to the company's VPN. And I got a call from the company's security department saying, are you running a VPN in addition to our VPN? And I said, I don't think so. Oh, wait. Yeah, sorry. So good news is they're paying attention. Bad news is using one that's browser based may not be appropriate when you're also using a VPN for work. So there you go. And it was apparently using a lot of cycles of the company's Internet connection. So anyway. Yeah. And as far as a password manager is concerned, we've talked about password managers on the show. And, you know, certainly having the pen and paper version of the password manager is as digitally secure as you can get. No one's going to hack that (42/54)
digitally through your computer. So that's probably a great way to do it. Again, my company provides LastPass as a password manager and they allow us to use it for personal use as well. Set up a separate account and use it for personal use. So I use that. If it weren't for that, I'd be using some other of the solutions that we have. KeyPass X or something like that. One of the ones that we've talked about in the past. So you might want to check through our show notes just to see what we've talked about. And there are plenty of them that are available for Linux, but also cross platform. If you're using multiple operating systems on different computers or even on the same computer and you want your passwords available on everything. So unless you're having problems with the pen, which, you know, just go buy a new pen. I don't see a need to have a password manager if it's working for you. All right. So our next email comes from Darren, who gives us feedback on Zorin. Hi Larry and Bill. (43/54)
Thanks for the latest series. It has kept me entertained while I go around and around mowing and bailing my hay. I took particular interest in the presentation from Bill on Zorin OS. I was so taken, in fact, I splurged. First money I have spent on anything Linux and ponied up for the ultimate version. Man, was I initially disappointed. Even more so when Bill soon after dumped it for something else. But we should all... Well, we knew that was going to happen. But anyway. Wait a minute now. Before I go on, before I go on, I am still running Zorin on my test machine. OK. It's still running. I could take a picture. We really do. Thanks Larry. Anyway, continuing, he says, Having run MintMate for the last few years, anything different was going to be a shock. I thought I was prepared for that. My biggest beef was the difficulty in enabling multiple workspaces. I managed to get it working, although they seemed to increase in number dramatically now rather than just being the fix-for that I am (44/54)
used to. As it turns out, the shock was shortly as Zorin is humming away nicely on my regular old Lenovo T420 laptop. It integrated quickly with my regular use utilities, the Dropbox, NordVPN, and Chirp, and seemed very stable. Thank you both for your content. I hope you and your families have a wonderful holiday season. I look forward to a new and exciting presentation in 2020. 73DARINV K6EK. Yeah, so well, I'm glad Zorin is working out for you. And that thing with the virtual desktops or the workspaces, I found that a bit troubling as well. And I don't think it's a Zorin issue. I think it's a GNOME 3 issue or a GNOME issue that the workspaces, you have to enable them using a command line command. And then once you've enabled them, then it makes sense that you can go in and create new workspaces as you need them. But it's not there by default on Zorin. I found that and had to go to some forum posts to figure out how to make it work. Because I knew it had to be there. But I suspect (45/54)
that it's a GNOME thing since they're using plain GNOME. The tools that are used for settings and setup and so on are GNOME tools. And I think if I'm not mistaken, I think it's a GNOME limitation. Yeah, so you know, it's January 26 as we record this. I don't know what he means by jumping around. I've only jumped to five different distros testing them out. Oh, wait a minute. We're still in January. 11 more months to go. Yeah, but no, I still have a Zorin. I have my test machine who has two hard drives in it now. And Zorin sits on one of them by itself. And then I've got a few others that got Zorin Lite on another partition. So yeah, I still like Zorin. But I got to test them, Larry. And that's all I'm going to say about it. I like to test them on bare metal. I guess I could do it in virtual machines like we've talked before. But it's kind of hard to give an honest review of a distro in a virtual box. Because you really can't get to you. You don't have the graphics pass through on some (46/54)
virtualization. And that's a way to take geeky for me to do it because I blow away machines pretty much weekly, sometimes daily. And then the performance is the overhead. So I guess I just like to do things the hard way. Right. Well, an important part of adopting Linux is the hardware compatibility. And you don't get that if you're in a virtual machine. So, yeah, it's important to test that. Thanks, Larry. You make me feel better. But I'm still going to exceed your prediction. Yeah, I suspect so. If you tried 10 distributions all of last year and you've done five so far in the first month of the year. I don't have a problem. I just I'm just naturally curious. Yeah. Yeah. There's no problem in switching distributions. You can stop anytime you like. Yeah. Yeah. OK. I'm glad we agree. OK, let's move on. Yeah. OK. Our next email is from James. And this is a long email. We're going to break it up into three parts. He had written us some time ago with hidden gems to share. And this is hidden (47/54)
gems to share part two. My apologies for delay in making part two of hidden gems. Spent several months distro hopping, trying other system D free distros. I tried MX Linux. OK, for beginners, but bloated like a beached whale. If you strip away too much excess, you end up breaking parts of the system. Also, MX Linux lies about being system D free system D is installed, but, quote, supposedly disabled, unquote, as I found and confirmed by their Web site. I tried anti X Linux, also good for beginners and faster than MX Linux, but only due to using Flexbox, IceWM or JWM instead of an actual desktop. Of those three options, only JWM offered a panel similar in function to those included in desktop, such as Gnome, XFCE or KDE. I also found anti X as bloated as MX Linux. I found three browsers installed during installation. Other system D free distros, Star Linux, Crows Linux and Myo Linux. I felt they were too stripped down too much. I am back to Devwan 2.1 and happy to be using it, using the (48/54)
XFCE desktop fast and stable. OK, can I, I want to put some input before we go any further. Sure. About, I just want to clarify, I'm actually recording on an MX Linux machine and it does have a lot of software installed, but all of this stuff I would install anyway and system things that make life a lot easier, like able to use MX tools to adjust your grub boot menu with, you know, right from a nice friendly GUI. And as far as, yes, he is sort of right about the system D. System D is in the system, but it's not active. They use what they call shims and shims are there because there's some software programs and actually explain this on the website that the system D shims there. You can enable it if you want, but there's shims there. So applications that require system D work. So it's, you know, I wouldn't say that it's a beach. Well, I haven't found anything on MX Linux that I would consider bloatware. There's not a lot of games. There's a few simple games. But, you know, there is the (49/54)
XFCE runs super fast. I mean, it runs faster than Ubuntu GNOME. I think you can compare Ubuntu Mate and MX Linux for speed wise. I think it's within maybe a point to each other, probably a little bit on certain things. I mean, I haven't seen any speed differences. And I know there's a whole thing about the system D and why it's bad or why it's good. But right now there's programs that need system D, so they put the resources in so you can actually run the programs that require it without actually having it active. So good on them for that. I don't quite understand what the controversy is behind system D. Maybe I should read more about it. But Ubuntu has system D and it doesn't, Larry. You know what, I haven't really been paying too much attention to system D and issues around that, so I can't really comment. I don't pay much attention to that. Whatever they provide is what I use and seems to work. So I don't care. OK, so anyway, I just had to say that I think that the MX Linux runs (50/54)
really great. And probably because, you know, he said the anti X, they're kind of like brother and sister distros, so they share a lot of resources back and forth. So anyway, so James continues. Sorry about that. I just wanted to, you know, clarify a little bit. Basically there is software shims that help programs run that require system D. OK, so James continues. And now to the gems for those using the XFCE desktop and use also instead pulse audio. There is a volume icon applet that works in XFCE called XFCE4-Mixer. A great replacement for the built in pulse audio volume control with almost no tweaking will work on newer distro. Jim2, for Debian users tired of hearing people say that Debian users are stuck with older versions of applications, add the lines below to the repositories and subnactic package managers, then click the reload button and mark for updates. And I'm not going to read all these, but I'm just looking at them. They're just, I guess, new repositories. Yeah, what he's (51/54)
doing is he's adding the Debian.org stretch, so Debian stretch main contrib non free repository and then the stretch updates, Debian security updates and the stretch backports for the contrib space non-free repositories. And he says, and voila, Debian and Devon users are now running with more updated applications with almost zero chance of breaking your system. If running Debian 10 Buster, just replace the word stretch with Buster as you type or copy and paste into synaptic. And James had more to say. Right, and Jim3, he says, instead of installing the separate applications, browser, mail client, IRC client and calendar, consider installing C-Monkey and get all in one and assured compatibility between applications. Like Firefox and Thunderbird, C-Monkey can be tweaked with add-ons. There is also a website add-on converter for C-Monkey to get extensions not found in C-Monkey's add-on website. Last, for now, I reached out to the creator of QMplay2 application that I fell in love with and (52/54)
spoke about in my last email and got permissions from the creator to create a Facebook page for users of QMplay2 to share tips, tricks, tweaks. Programmers are also welcome to join. Please spread the word. Well, we will, and we'll have links to all of this stuff that James has sent to us in the show notes. And he writes, forgot to mention that C-Monkey can also function as an RSS feed reader. So C-Monkey can replace four separate application, James in Indiana. Well, thanks, James. Lots, lots of good information there as always. We appreciate that. We'll share it all. We'll share your links and you're all ready to go. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for all the tips and tricks and all that hard work. We do appreciate it. Yep. Well, what do you think we're going to do for our next episode, Bill? We've got a user experience episode to go. Yeah, I haven't, I'm working on a few things. I hadn't decided which one I want to use. So how about we just leave it as a surprise? Okay. Our next episode will be (53/54)
a surprise. Okay. Until then you can, until then you can go to our website at goinglinux.com for articles and show notes as well as links to download and subscribe. Yes, 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 Linux podcast community on community.goinglinux.com. Until next time. Thanks for listening. Before I say 73, how many times have we read that and we still mess that up? I don't know what you're right. That's why I have it written. Anyway, 73. The music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com (54/54)
Going Linux episode 384 year in review Welcome to the going Linux podcast I'm your host Larry Bushy 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 going links at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1904 four six eight seven eight eight nine in today's episode 2019 in review Hey bill. Hey Larry. Good morning. It is wise. We're recording this 2020 which is 2020 it is 2020 How's your year been so far? It's been absolutely great Wanted to also just give a public service announcement anybody that's running Windows 7 by the time you hear this It's out of support. So yeah, you should probably Come over switch to (1/55)
Linux and join us because the water is great over here Yeah, there you go. And and speaking of that as you know, I've got two books one is Entitled Ubuntu mate upgrading from Windows or Mac OS and The other one is using Ubuntu mate and its applications. Well the using one The more detailed one I am revising for Ubuntu mate 20.04 long-term support release and that will be available sometime around the release in April However, I have also updated the book Ubuntu mate upgrading from Windows or Mac OS To its second edition and I've got that published on Amazon as usual I'll have links in the show notes as we're recording this the e-book version is available on Amazon The paperback version is still in review as soon as it comes out of review. It will be available on Amazon For sale so those have been updated for 20.04 as well and if you're interested in those like I said We'll have the links in the show notes. And if you're not interested in them, forget it. I didn't say anything Well, (2/55)
actually I bought the first version of that book and It was very handy There's a few things in there that it kind of made things a little easier as far as oh and where is this stupid stuff? Let me look in the book. There it is. Yeah, so yeah So I've added some more details in this in this version. So that sort of stuff and you know bill, you know The author you really don't have to buy the book. I I know the author and I even got mentioned in the book did but The thing is I wanted to support you into I wanted a hard copy because sometimes just want a hard copy and I it was You know, the book is not Super expensive So yeah I'm looking forward to getting your next book to just for my reference to that library because you know every once in a while You just don't want to have to Google something. You just want to go. Where's that book? Okay table contents there It's right. It's it's the primitive way to Google So exactly. Yes. Yes the analog way So dead tree version. Yeah, go ahead One of (3/55)
the podcasts to is the Linux unplugged with Chris Fisher and his gang over at Jupiter broadcasting Yeah there I think they're with Linux Academy too, and I kept hearing about this KDE neon I'm like, yeah, what is that? So, you know, I finally started looking at it and you know I'm not a huge fan of KDE because I always thought it was kind of slow and stuff, but I said, right You know what? That distro hopper and me just decided to give it a whirl. So I I threw it on a test machine I was like, wow, this is really really fast and really really light. I'm like, hmm So I'm in the I was in process of changing distros on my main machine So I threw it on there and just a for about a week just to see how it worked and it was it was very nice It's a distro. That's not a distro. They're basically use the Ubuntu 1804 long term so it's really really solid and then they They use as the KDE project uses that as a testbed So you're constantly getting the latest and greatest of KDE and all its (4/55)
applications. I see. Okay. Yeah Yeah, so it worked really really well Didn't have any issues like I said, I'm not a huge fan of KDE but I was impressed with it and one of the things that in my Travels with this distro it you can pretty much customize anything you want on this thing almost It's just too much customization in my opinion and that's saying something That's KDE for you. Yeah. Yeah, it's kd but if anybody's looking for a solid KDE I would definitely say give KDE neon because it run everything even The gnome versions of software it just it looked good run good there wasn't any ugly You know where so, you know if you try to run like a gnome sometimes everything doesn't look quite right It looked it did a pretty good job Mm-hmm. So, you know after that I said, oh time to go so Then I I had some fan issues with the Linux mint 1903 beta and the fans were running just full tilt and I didn't know what was going on and I couldn't figure it out and I You know couldn't get a lot of (5/55)
feedback and from then From people I talked to so I finally said okay. Well, let's wait till it comes out So it come out I think last week and I got it on there and the fan issues have gone I think it was some a video driver. So, you know, but everything's running really smoothly That's what I'm actually recording on right now I It runs great. So yeah, it's it seems to be they got whatever was causing it figured out and or they the driver was fixed or whatever, but No worries is so Linux mint 1903 is solid. I haven't had I've had zero issues with it. And so Yeah, that was that was my exciting Distro looking news, but I did something a little bit different All there's more of course, I've got some things like I decided Could I actually just use Firefox and and not use any Chrome? So what I did is when I put 1903 come with of course Firefox And even before then I was running Firefox on the KDE neon and I Haven't had any real issues. There's a few little differences As far as you know how (6/55)
to copy and paste stuff because they want you to use control V control X and all that jazz But I haven't had any issues I've gone to I get a free Disney Plus with my phone plan So I want to see if I would work and it always tells me Oh, it has to download something called wild vine to make things work, but everything works fine so I haven't used Chrome for like a month and of course, I still sign in to my my Google account because that's what we use for Google Docs and Everything just seems to work so I'll let you know if Life still is continued with Firefox on our next episode, but so far it's worked pretty much flawlessly And that's good. Yeah, so the last two items are actually news items One is and I include just links in the show notes one was about Linus Torvalds The creator of the Linux kernel. He says he recommends not using ZFS on Linux until The article says the litigious Oracle Gets the license and figured out. So I think he meant more like Larry Ellison Yes, it was a fun (7/55)
article and the other Was from a site called MS power user or Microsoft power user I pretty much figured that one out and it's in an article They go through, you know that are the people that are going from Windows 7 to 10 and and they were saying in the The web page that Microsoft put up, you know saying this is what you can do. It says, hey, you know Microsoft is recommended to 400 million users that they might want to buy a new PC 400 million users, so hey, you know, like I said before hey guys come on over to Linux The water's just great. It's warm everybody's happy so Yeah, I'm a firm believer that you should buy a new PC when the hardware breaks not when the the operating system Stopped being supported. Yes, that's being supported. So They were saying that you know Windows 7 come out in like 2012 but not all those 400 million users have hardware that is Weak or can't run it. It's just the software Yeah, so I don't know about you But if I have a perfect good hardware that I like (8/55)
and I have to pick between running Windows 7 which in two days is going to be out of Support or a Linux that I might have to kind of figure out what's going on We have some episodes. So help you with that by the way Yeah Then I think I'd rather go with the secure Linux and just tell Microsoft. No, because we don't want people running unsupported Software and if you don't like Windows 10, we'll give you some recommendations during this episode But you might really want to start looking don't run unsupported operating systems. That's just a bad idea Absolutely and When you make the adjustment to Linux coming from whether it's Microsoft's Windows or Apple's Mac OS You make the adjustment once and you can then upgrade and keep your computer running for as long as the hardware lasts as opposed to Having to buy new hardware because the creator of your operating system decided it's out of support so Yeah, all 400 million of you Should be listening to this podcast All right. So Larry, I (9/55)
thought we would talk about About the interesting things that happened during the year That we've had an open source and the Linux communities and other cool tech news are just noteworthy We had a slew of new Linux distributions some we have tested or I should say I've tested and We're and some that we're kind of looking forward to testing I thought we would start with the year review Of some of the distributions we've looked at over the year So, yeah, that's what I want to kind of talk about what do you got to say about 2019 Yeah, well 2019 was a year of You doing a lot of distro hopping even though you've promised to pick one That really never happened. So I like to talk about Removing bolts from a planes engine that is never leaving the ground Yeah Okay, I will repent really I can control myself really I sure Only ten this year Yeah, we'll believe you. We'll believe you. Do you know if there's a helpline? I don't know So some of the ones we looked at that some we liked some not so (10/55)
much but we looked at Zorin then of course Larry's personal favorite and daily driver the Ubuntu mate Then we of course Ubuntu was always in the news and then we've Linux mint in their beta in their 1903 release Then I looked at deep end and was pretty impressed But it was kind of a little wonky with some of the licensing then we we revisited kabuntu and Elementary OS at we looked at that it was Juno and now their new one is called Hera which I think is the cool one of the coolest names and Pop OS was in a news with all their cool updates and Add additions to the pop OS and then we of course Oh my arch woes never cease to end and then one that I thought has a lot of possibilities and is that Fedor silver blue which is there like a testbed for a Immutable file system and I run that a little bit on test machine. So yeah, I really had a good time and each one of those Really worked well in certain areas and some Has little issues and some just work flawlessly So I I would say my my picks (11/55)
for if someone was coming over You know from Windows 7 or even Mac OS I would say Zorin Ubuntu mate and Linux mint What it what would your viewers be? Yeah, it's some my favorite. Well, I can't speak from distro hopping perspective So I can say from personal experience the ones that I like best are Ubuntu mate, of course Primarily because it's you've read a book designed for everybody Yeah, but I wrote a book because I like it as opposed to okay, I like it. So I you know, hey anyway I think that just plain vanilla Ubuntu is also good for new users, but there's still this element of Not everything is as polished in Ubuntu as it is in Ubuntu mate that seems Strange to say but I think the Ubuntu mate team does Some additional polishing once the Ubuntu is finished with it and same thing with Linux mint I think that Linux mint is one of those distributions that Takes a buntu and makes it even better. So I in terms of ranking them It would be a buntu mate then Linux mint and then a buntu And (12/55)
I can't say that I've tried a lot of the others Of course, I've tried out Zorin when you've suggested that I try it out. I've tried out Papa West and some of these others but those three kind of stand out as the top of the heap for me and Because they're Debian distributions and because I don't spend any more any time in Red Hat based distributions or any other independent distributions There may be others out there that are equivalent in those particular environments but I think these are certainly the three that I'm going to be sticking with in terms of recommending them to people and You know as as you do the distro hopping stuff I think that's opening my eyes to some of the things that I don't see because I'm not in those distributions So thank you for that so Larry Why don't you kind of give us an overview of what we covered on the podcast over 2019? Yeah, so some of the things that we have talked about are the Linux universal packaging meaning app Images and snaps and flat packs (13/55)
and we discussed that a little bit kind of at a high level We didn't get into any detail as to the technology behind it and how it all works. But essentially what that is is Packaging of applications so that it doesn't matter what distribution you're on whether that's a Debian based distribution or a Red Hat based distribution or something else the applications can be used and installed and it's one application that allows you to install it across any of those platforms and If we can get to the point where we have one application format that can be Installed across Linux Mac and Windows and maybe even across Chrome OS that would be great. We're far from that yet. But hey, somebody's gonna do it someday So we've talked about that. We've talked about upgrading to Linux from Windows and a little bit from Mac and We've done a few episodes on Running your business on Linux. We've done three this year on that We started that back last year as a matter of fact So we've done I think three or (14/55)
four episodes total on running your business on Linux and in those episodes we've taken some of the main applications for different businesses you might want to run on Linux and Giving you a kind of an overview as to what's available For running your business using Linux and open source applications. We've also done Episodes on back to basics where we've gone back to some of the definitions of terms and some of the more elementary functions like installing Linux and those kinds of things and You've done a fantastic job there bill of writing those episodes. So It's kind of frees up my time to do some other things. So again, thank you for that and Yeah, we've we've done a lot and of course every other episode is always our listener feedback episode It continues to amaze me that every month we have enough emails and voicemails and File contributions from our listeners to fill up an entire episode every month so we've had a lot of those so that's what we've been doing and of course Those (15/55)
going Linux minions are a main part of what keeps us going here on the going Linux podcast so thanks to our minions for all their input their support their help and Just for listening To my annoying voice and my annoying complaints So I think we've had a pretty fun year in 2020. I think it's gonna be very exciting too. So You know just something a little different. Is it all everybody else does it so I want to do it, too So Larry, let's do a few predictions for 2020 and I'm gonna let you start Okay Yeah, and we do this different from everybody else we make the predictions But we never go back to look and see if they came true. So that's how we do it different Always this episode Yeah, this episode is not going to be any different from any others We're not gonna go back and see if we were right or not. Anyway My first prediction is about Microsoft and this year Microsoft has said they love Linux and I thought it was a cancer Well, that was you know a few years ago now. They love Linux. (16/55)
Yeah, and they have actually Introduced the Windows subsystem for Linux which by the way is powered by Ubuntu and I don't get that name. I'm thinking it should be the Linux subsystem for Windows, but hey, that's their product They can name it whatever they want But essentially it's Linux running on Windows so you don't have to jump through hoops to make that work They have developed Skype for Linux and it's the official version That's been released by Microsoft Skype for Linux there have been community versions that have worked before and they have introduced Microsoft Teams for Linux and Microsoft Teams is part of Microsoft Office at least they say it is and essentially that is Skype for Business for Linux and So they've been advertising that as the first official Microsoft Office Product that's available for Linux and For some time now you've been able to use Microsoft Visual Studio code on Linux and there are snap images Snap versions of Skype and Microsoft Teams and Visual Studio (17/55)
code you can use as well. So My prediction is actually that Microsoft will get more into open source and there will be more Microsoft Office components for Linux So Microsoft is going to get into more open source My second prediction and I have three predictions here. My second prediction is that canonical and Microsoft Will work together even closer in 2020 Somehow they will work together. It'll be a partnership or hate to say Microsoft will buy canonical Probably not but hey something Somehow they will continue to work more closely and canonical will help Microsoft adopt open source even more and My third prediction Bill you can guess this one You will distro hop at least ten more times during 2020 at least one more time. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Oh, yeah That's all that stuff's pretty cool. You know it apparently Microsoft loves Linux now and but every time I see Skype for Linux because remember we were having so many issues That's why we finally switched to discord every time I (18/55)
hear Skype I just I get this shudder up my spine about all the you know Different issues we had all this this one doesn't work anymore. Then the audio quality was dropped. So It was it was a nightmare. So Good on Microsoft for loving Linux We'll see how the true 2020 is. But hey, I think it's I think it's gonna happen in a jinn. Yeah I probably happen So yeah The other thing I've made this prediction before and with no time bound on it and it's also going to be no time bound Microsoft will change their entire operating system to run off of the Linux kernel. I Don't know when probably not in 2020 but it will happen I Really truly believe that So my predictions are a little bit more Specific I think that you know right now ZFS is experimental but I think ZFS will become a fully supported file system in Ubuntu without the experimental tag You know as now you can get you know pick ext4 or XFS or any of the others I think the ZFS is gonna be an option If they can get the licensing figured (19/55)
out and all that now let all the lawyers go through all the boilerplate. That is ZFS so that will be very very interesting or for our English friend friends ZFS Because you know, right? See yeah, they might get a little crazy So yes, the ZFS I think will be a fully supported file system on Ubuntu Maybe not this long LTS but I think it may be one of the interim releases and then my second one is I think links will get a good uptick In users from Windows 7 even if it's just temporary because I you know Windows 7 is end of life People are gonna say wait, man. Do I really want to you know have to go through these hoops? Do I really want this telemetry do I really want you know having where it's pretty similar, you know They might say, you know if I'm gonna You know have to go wins 10 and have to buy a new Hardware. I might as well use my old hardware and you know go through the learning curve and Because I'm going to do it. It's a little bit Each version is a little bit different from in (20/55)
Windows So they might say hey, you know, this is a great time to jump So I think we're gonna get a small a good uptick I'm not talking and I'd like all 400 million of those users to use links, but if we get Million, I'll be happy just half of them. Yeah. Yeah 200 million that's cool. Yeah 200 million and then they can listen to Podcasts and There'll be power users in no time Yeah, exactly, yeah if half of those people buy any one of my books Going on these podcasts will be retired and You get to take over the podcast if you like Somewhere in like Puerto Rico somewhere Okay, where it's worn up, okay. Yeah. So anyway get back to seriousness though yeah, I think that's that's a good set of predictions I Think for all of our predictions, they're all pretty safe that eventually they're going to happen Whether or not they happen in 2020, I guess is the risk we take but I think we're pretty safe at these and I'm Have no qualms about not ever going back to see if we were right We'll know for (21/55)
right. Well in our minds will always be right. So that's right. That's exactly correct so I think the next thing we should do is take a look at some of the things that have happened from The technology community in general whether they're Linux related or not in 2019. What do you think? Why not we've had a very Yes, we have and the first thing we want to bring to your attention is an article on government technology Website govtech.com blog and It's entitled 2019 the year of the Linux desktop. No the year ransomware targeted state and local governments and As you may know here in the United States some State and local governments had some problems with cyber attacks and malware and that sort of thing Louisiana government declared a state of emergency after a cyber attack 22 Texas towns were hit with ransomware and Hackers are holding Baltimore hostage and they continued to do that to this day, I guess Hit by a ransomware attack a Florida City agrees to pay hacker $600,000 most of these (22/55)
people only want ten bucks. So here there you go, Florida A second Florida City pays what is described here as a giant ransom to ransom rare gang in a week Well, I guess they need their data, right New Orleans declares state of emergency following cyber attack and Mississippi City operations disrupted by Ransomware I have one question for all those folks Did you not make any backups of your stuff? I mean, come on guys Hey selfish selfish plug we have an episode on that too Yeah, exactly. I mean, come on guys All you got to do is kind of back up your stuff from time to time And then if you hit with ransomware restore from the back up and tell them to go Sawed off or whatever the Brits say but Larry those hackers love them some Bitcoin Mm-hmm. Yeah, they do which is why you should back up good grief Even I have backups. Come on. Well, I don't keep anything around long enough to pick Well, yeah, there's that they could always continually just draw up Some news from the Linux and open (23/55)
source world that happened 2019 that we think was interesting or noteworthy And tag rose Linux shuttered the project I love that name and tag rose and it and I looked it up and it means ancestors just useless trivia, but and Antiguirus was first released in July of 2012 as sin arch and I think you remember when it when you heard that and Development was ended on May 21 2019 and Antiguirus was an arch based distribution. One of the reasons that they finally showed The project was that the developers just didn't have any more time either, you know real life, you know is always interferes and So apparently they did it really well, you know They gave people planning notice and then the project was forked and is now called endeavor OS And right now when I looked at the distro watch it's ranked number 31, so that's pretty quick You know Rise to the top even though we all know distro watch is not probably the best metric But that's the one we had to look at. So yeah. Yeah. Well, it's just a (24/55)
Measure of who's interested in looking at these distributions and yeah, the distro hoppers of the world keep those Distro watch Numbers up for a distribution. So yeah, it's it's a good metric of something Yeah, but it's good Another thing that happened and I thought this actually happened last and you know in 2018 not in 2019, but Google Plus decided to close down and we had to move our Community and we moved it to me we after we had a bit of a survey for our listeners and our minions to vote on and me we won out so that's where we are and We have a me we group will have as always links to our me we Chat room or discussion group or whatever you want to call it our site on me We where we can have our community interact with one another and interact with us What's in 2018? If it was I thought it all runs together I know I know but it's been recent and I think you're right. I think it is 2019. It just seems much longer ago than that By Google Plus you were good while you lasted So this (25/55)
year it seemed like containers were the rage for 2019. Oh, yes Which seemed like there was a new story about Kubernetes or Docker this web technology That's gonna make all the problems appear. It just seemed like every week there was another Article about how fast it's moving forward and and you know canonical and Red Hat and you know Cin OS and it seems like everybody and even you know Amazon and Microsoft this seems like everybody's you know raced into the cloud and their Containers are the greatest and one most wonderful thing. I You know, I'm excited to see what containers bring in 2020. What what do you think Larry about containers? Yeah, I mean do you think it's gonna continue becoming a thing? I do I do I I just keep in the back of my mind thinking about the move from Desktop computers to thin client computers remember those where everything was supposed to be on somebody else's server and then the hardware you need is very very You know Chromebook ish Yeah in terms of just (26/55)
enough operating system to get you logged in That's kind of where we're headed again And then when the pendulum swings back will back will be back to thick client computers and people will be wanting to continue on with running their full-fledged operating system on their hardware and Linux will be still around because Well, if you're a software developer, you need something to run on your hardware And so it's never going anywhere as far as the consumer is concerned People just want to be able to take their computer login check their email talk to their friends on Facebook and share some photos and you know generally speaking that I think is what most people use their computers for and then there's the rest of us who run our business or do software development or write books and all kinds of stuff like that and Test out distributions and yeah, there will always be a need for Computers regardless of the move to the cloud But more and more things will move to the cloud until something (27/55)
horribly goes wrong And then there will be a big push to move back to client software in order to protect your data and all that stuff So there you go. That's that's another prediction I guess Well, you know, it's kind of funny Everything going to the cloud, you know right now and if you kind of look at the economics of it and you're saving money, but There were these some of these companies are saving a large amounts of money because they don't run their own data centers but they're also trusting someone with all their data that they did actually don't have physical access to And then you've got the economics where oh it only cost you, you know point zero zero zero three cents an hour but when you have Something run 24-7 and however, it's written back You know, they're making they're figuring out how to make some money with this. So yeah Yeah, and it'll be cheap until they raise the price and then then what are you gonna do? Yeah, so, you know Larry just leading into this next News (28/55)
article, you know, uh-huh open source Companies aren't worth anything. Are they? Oh Well It just asked canonical and you know, the fact that they're even thinking about going public If they weren't worth anything, I would think that the stock price would be zero and then why bother listing it on a stock exchange but to take a more realistic example IBM thought that a an open source company Red Hat Which was listed on the stock exchange and I think still is as an independent stock was worth $34 billion And that was another news story from 2019. It was the biggest software com a company acquisition ever So yeah, I I would think that you know open source is worth something for sure and more and more companies who Create proprietary software are using Open source software in their products and of course Had the more they use the open source the software the more they're actually gonna have to Contribute back to open source, which kind of is a virtuous cycle of perpetuating the world of (29/55)
open source and Eventually, maybe all the proprietary stuff will go away I'm not gonna predict that but As long as you don't put a time limit on it, but Larry, okay my annual I want to raise Yes, okay, we'll give you the same raise you got last year and I'll add an additional Bonus of twice as much of that. All right. Well great. Wait a minute. That's still nothing. Okay. Well, maybe So, you know you said you gotta raise every year bill. Yeah, I get a raise every year. It's just never seems to change Well, it's a percentage of what you've already got. What more do you want? Yeah, I'm being unreasonable So yes, you said the red hat IBM bought red hat for 34 billion, you know, that's like billion would be yeah Yeah, the very big B Yeah, but that's like 1 million model 3 Tesla's now. It's a worthless fact Yeah, you know you could give a lot of people. Wow, that's a lot of money so anyway Tesla's so Yeah, that was a very worthless fact, but it was kind of fun because I looked up the base (30/55)
model is like $35,000. I'm like, that's a lot. You could yeah drive a lot of model threes. So I Want to talk about Microsoft? Microsoft again is an open source company. Yay. We've already discussed that so but they did some things that kind of Made me go hmm Well, not really. Hmm It's like what took you so long is they finally dumped that worthless edge browser and made one based on Chrome it's still called edge browser, but they get rid of the old one and got the new one or and Basically, they ripped out all the Google stuff and put all their stuff in there But you know everything is better on edge when do 10 says so what do you want? Yeah Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the things that makes me think that they're going to continue to go more and more open source they actually said they're actually said that they're gonna release a and be still my heart a Microsoft edge for Linux Mmm, so Still waiting on that Microsoft. Yeah, so waiting on that but that would that that's probably (31/55)
gonna flip some people out and then of course, you know, they they they purchase github for some You know insane amount of money and they're still dumping money into github. So, you know, we got all those open source People working on github. I know there's a few different versions of that That it's been forked or whatever. But yeah, they're still Throwing money at github and and then of course, we've already talked about the WSL or the windows subsystem for Linux. Hello open to way to go and then Windows as a service is great. Yeah, right. I think they've had a few Issues of some of these rapid releases I think the May in October they had some issues with Some blue screening and stuff. So yeah getting these rapid upgrades that you can't Not take if you're a home or user like most of our listeners are is a great thing. Okay. Yeah great So Larry did I fall asleep and just wake up in a different world now that Microsoft is yeah I'm like big so Yeah, I mean this is it's amazing Steve We (32/55)
went it's like it just went 180 and what you know first Linux is cancer now, they're an open source company They're there, you know using open source products to develop their own products. They bought a the github You know, they're including Windows the Linux Windows WSL I think they're working on version 2 now, you know, which they're working with a with canonical who makes a buntu and I'm like What is going on here? It's a brave new world to Aldous Huxley so I had there's one more new story and I'm gonna let you take it just because We had mentioned it earlier. So About containers. So what what happened? Yeah, so I don't actually remember this bill but according to what's written in front of me here It says Mirantis a prominent open stack in kubernetes cloud company has acquired docker enterprises product line and developers and their business so Mirantis Mirantis Mirantis. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, what the heck is that? Mirantis is a cloud-based company that does a lot of containers and (33/55)
stuff, you know, and So apparently docker was having some problems because it was funding and apparently Mirantis said we'll buy you we can make money and so again Everybody's buying up all these different technologies, but I just find it very funny that where they're finding the technologies to make lots and lots of money and is the open source projects because they I will say this and everybody can disagree with me open source has some of the best developers out there so a lot of them work for canonical or Red Hat or or Suse so yeah It would make sense that if these guys are developing these products that are better than closed source products Why reinvent the wheel so that's that's awesome. At least Dockers you know the developers guy are getting paid for their work and And and so yeah, and that's a beauty of open source it's Take the entire operating system of Linux and BSD and any other open source or Permissive licensed operating system take your pick They're great. They're good. (34/55)
They're developed by The people who want to use them as opposed to a company who's developing something to make money off of other people's use of their products and have the financial interests as the motivation for improving the product as opposed to The interest of hey, I want to make this better because I want to use it which is really the way that open source is developed, and I think that's the advantage of open source and You regardless of whether it's in the cloud whether it's an operating system whether it's an application I think the fact that it's developed by the people who want to use it And there are many people who want to use everything that somebody puts out there Well most of it anyway some of the stuff that I've tried to develop is completely useless, but But Hey The fact that you know when it does get adopted, and it has an open source license and other people contribute to it it just keeps getting better and better and better and Right you know ten years ago Linux (35/55)
was Let's say a little less in quality than Mac OS or at the time OS 10 And a little less in quality than Microsoft in terms of what was Available and its user experience and the ability for a new user to just pick it up and use it but today It's at least on par with those others, and I think my opinion is that it's actually exceeded usability of Windows and Mac in many many ways and it will only continue to improve over time as evidenced by the fact that Microsoft is looking at open source and open source development with an eye to moving the company to more open source and Open source software and to build on that model, so I think 2019 has been the beginning of the Grand move to the open source model for software development. Yeah, I remember reading in the News that there's some of these open source projects or that are maybe just a little bit irritated that some of these big companies like Amazon that's one that I always seem to read about is just taking their hard work, and you (36/55)
know they're not really getting much back, but that's kind of the Culture of open source you're allowed to take it and use it But it would be nice if some of these bigger companies that are using these Open source technologies would actually give back, but we'll set to see I know a lot of them are working on different licensing and stuff But that's all that legal boilerplate that none of us have time to read So we'll let other people do that enjoy that yeah exactly And I know at least some of our minions as evidenced by our last listener feedback episode Actually read those EULA's and user license agreements and all of those boilerplate things and When you come across something interesting let us know yeah most people go click click click click click ok done Yeah, yeah, I don't care what you're saying. I want to use this. Let's go yeah so We have a few emails that come in 2019 and you threw them into the show notes so Larry why don't you take the first one? Okay, yeah, we just picked a (37/55)
couple that came in recently one from Ken who wrote about our website Larry for some time I have not been able to access the going Linux community because I received the following message in Chrome and similar message in Firefox Thanks a bunch can and the message reads your connection is not private attackers Maybe trying to steal your information from community dot going Linux calm for example passwords messages or credit cards learn more and then they've got a link to The security SSL cert that we use and as we found out in our last listener feedback our SSL cert is Although it's provided by the hosting company It's self signed so Some Browsers will look at that and say I can't tell whether this is a valid cert or not We're gonna throw up an error message, and this is what happens So I am still in the process of trying to get that resolved with the hosting company, but we'll see what happens. Yeah, that's kind of Lame above the hosting company, but they did charge you money for that (38/55)
though, right oh of course they did it makes it all better Of course yeah, okay, it must be good because I had to pay for it Of course I mean yeah, so it's gotta be better than that free stuff. Oh, yeah, that free stuff is horrible sarcasm added So we also got another email about this about the self signed certificates from I'm gonna say Lyman If I put your name my I tend to do that so anybody listens knows I do that Say says hello gentlemen and that includes you bill, okay? I'm a bit behind on podcast due to the holidays But I was listening on the way to work this morning, and I heard about your certificate I decided to take a look since I have some experience with certificates your Certificate will always display a warning because it is a self-signed certificate SSC This certificate wasn't issued from an improved certificate authority. It was generated on your server So there's no external proof that you are who you say you are it would be like printing your own money no one really (39/55)
knows if it has any value a Certificate 30 will ask you for proof that you are the owner of the domain That you want to secure but with a self-signed certificate there is no external proof just your word Which is okay by me and the other minions, but probably not the outside world Clicking that I understand the risk button doesn't increase your security It just tells the browser to ignore this see or the your certificate issues and accept it So if you paid for a certificate this isn't What you should have gotten I I'd asked for my money back or asked for a real certificate issued from a recognized certificate authority Lyman certificate minion and chief bottle watcher We could week and then I'm like well You know later if they don't want to fix this we could send out the MST to take care of them And that's the minion strike team Yes, okay We may end up doing that, but let me see if I can get get them to just Roll over and give me a decent certificate here Yeah, they shouldn't be (40/55)
charging for that. That's for sure. It's like okay We're gonna we're gonna charge you money for certificate, and we're just gonna hit the button to generate it on the server Really yeah But they wouldn't let you use the free version right No they wouldn't they they insisted that we pay for their self-signed certificate that isn't worth the money that it's printed on oh Maybe that's what they're doing printing money anyway. I still say I still say the minion strike team we could take them out We could we could I'll reserve the big guns. Let's see if I know okay Yeah, yeah, okay, so a couple of things that we haven't done in a while and And one is some recommendations for podcasts and Also, we have some recommendations for applications, so let's take the podcast first I've got some that I have recommended in the past through various episodes, but Some which are brand new to me or relatively new to me some that I picked up in 2019 the first is One that's been around for a long time and (41/55)
kind of pod faded for a while because he got busy with his own business That's the night wise podcast or the night cast he's back. He's got new episodes I know as frequently as he used to but he's producing new episodes again and if you were a fan of the nightwives podcast or if you've never heard of it check it out night wise calm and Subscribe to his podcast he's got some great stuff on technology using technology to get things done and Cross platform as well not just Linux he talks about Mac and Windows and using things from a practical perspective A couple of podcasts from Rocco Big Daddy Linux live and Linux spotlight Big Daddy Linux live is a live Podcast if you can say it's a live podcast. It's a live broadcast. It's recorded and then Sent out as a podcast video version audio version interviews with people discussions of topics great stuff and then Linux spotlight is I think I don't think he does that live. I think that's a recorded version of a spotlight of Personality within (42/55)
the Linux and open source community and Martin Winpress has been on there many of the people from Jupiter broadcasting have been on there as spotlights and Some of our minions may be interested that I may be on there sometime in 2020 so Linux spotlight is what you want to subscribe to and Then a couple of others that are more general not Linux specific Rich on tech is a technology podcast for consumers Rich DeMuro is the host and he has his producer Megan They started off as an independent podcast and were acquired by KTLA television in Los Angeles and now Send it out under the KTLA banner but it's still called rich on tech and it talks about consumer electronics and that Includes everything from tablets and phones through to computers and what's going on at CES So if you're interested in technology in general, especially consumer technology, that's a great one Kind of high level they answer people's questions as well and kind of entertaining So I like to listen to that when I don't (43/55)
want something that's going to tax my brain too hard One that does tax your brain a little bit is dark net diaries dark net being one word da RK net diaries and that one is about Everything related to Security on the internet including interviews with hackers interviews with people who have actually been in the news and arrested and things like that as well as Social engineering topics and really interesting stuff and stories of Things like, you know Israeli super secret Units of the military that actually develop Malware that they use to protect Israel and that sort of stuff Interesting interesting stuff that will definitely get your your juices going if you have some proclivity for Looking at security of Things and and looking at it from oh my gosh. I had no idea that this was going on kind of perspective Yeah opens your eyes quite a bit in some of the episodes So those those are mine that you might want to take a look at for 20 My my podcast recommendations for 2020 if you're not (44/55)
listening to them, I have a few late-night Linux basically a bunch of English blokes getting around talking about tech in Things are going their life and they do talk about Maybe going to the pub and having a beer while they're discussing it. So be warned It's not it's not a Super serious podcast, but it you will pick up nuggets of of information and Tips and tricks so it's an easy lesson. They're a bunch of Nice guys. I think they kind of run in the circles of with Martin so, you know, they I think they're all friends and they've shared plenty of Beer in the pubs over long nights and then we have of course the Ubuntu podcast Which just finished their season and so if you haven't listened to them you got a whole season listen to and They'll probably be back next year. They always tease it well, we might this might be the last one but they always come back and then I wanted to give a plug out to Linux unplugged that's the Chris Fisher's one front from Juniper broadcasting just because (45/55)
Larry they do some wild stuff. I you think I'm I jump around to different stuff You should talk to Chris Fisher the latest one is he's taking a perfectly good NAS took the the BSD off of it then put Fedora in it and then said hey, why don't we try an arch? Server And let's go ahead and upgrade it with you know Cuz it also has all these zff pools and let's just go ahead and do it right now so Yeah, yeah, he he's more Scattered brain than I am but he he really does come up with some great Podcasts as far as Weirdness of getting things done, but I I Would never thought anybody would run around arch as a server and just say yeah, let's upgrade it. Okay, it's working and Then there's a one Called choose Linux. It kind of goes these guys. There's usually three of them I know one of them is L I don't know what she does. She might think she might be with System 76 I could be wrong, but they hit the random button on distro watch and whatever BSD or Linux come up. They all try to Get it to work. (46/55)
And so it's really fun to listen to them They talk about their challenges and tricks and you know, sometimes they find hidden gems that they never knew about They just did one not too long ago with one called cubes That they thought was well kind of likes to keep around for testing so that's always cool And then of course going Linux. Oh, wait a minute. You already have that one So never mind if you're listening going legs just keep on listening But there those are my podcast recommends for 2020 I am going to have to add darknet diaries and Linux spotlight And now that nightwise is back I'll have to add him to my podcast Thanks, Larry. Like I don't have enough to listen to More and more and more. Yeah, unlike most of the recommendations you have which you can probably get just subscribing to the Jupiter Broadcasting master feed where you get all of those Ubuntu podcast Being the kind of standout that you can't get that way Yeah, these you actually have to subscribe to them (47/55)
independently but they're well worth it in my opinion So yeah, it's a good stuff Yeah, and just anybody any big companies that want to buy us if the numbers big enough Larry will sell Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'll start another podcast For them yeah, maybe that maybe then I won't have time We Can wish we'll see yeah never gonna happen Okay. Well, let's move on to our application picks bill. Do you want to go first or should I I'll go first because I Really like this one. It's called clip grab and it's CL IP G R AB all one word and it's the handy YouTube video grabber, you know, sometimes you're watching a Linux You know tutorial on YouTube and you just say man I want to watch this later or I need to go through this section again. This is really great It grabs it it encodes it and you could in I have mine where just throws it into the The video folder so when I need to reference it saying what was that part again? I don't have to go online and search for YouTube. There's no ads or anything (48/55)
like that on it So that just makes things a little easier, especially where I live in New Mexico Internet some days is great and other days you're lucky if you can check your email but there is a pro tip and The pro tip is to make sure when you get it because it's an app image So you open permissions and you and there's little checks boxes make sure run as an executable Some some for some reason on some distributions it's marked and other distributions you have to go in and click that little box and then close it it just tells the operating system that this is a Application and not because it will sit there and say well What do you want to open it with so that little checkmark usually fixes that and the other one it will run without FM MPEG but it will tell you can't do the full video resolution and you know some and some it won't grab it so Go to your repositories and some distros automatically have installed others don't but it's real simple You just go into your repositories find (49/55)
ffmpeg click it install It takes like 10 seconds and then it works flawlessly. I have yet had any issue but What's really cool about this is it's an app image so it's cross-platform you can use it on different distros The you know like we were talking before you have snaps flat packs and App images and this is an app image. That is really handy Yeah, that's great. It's a CPL version 3 2 Nice nice too bad. It's not GPL version 2. I know but hey I'll take GPL version 3 if I can't have to I would take it. Yep Okay, well Clipping it seems to be our theme here for these application picks my application pick is Also in the universal package repositories. It may be available as a flat pack or an app image I'm not sure but it's definitely available as a snap. It's an application called copy Q cop y and then the letter Q no spaces and It is a clipboard manager that lets you well, it expands the functionality of your clipboard is what it does To the point where instead of just having whatever (50/55)
the last thing was that you put onto the clipboard so that you can paste it somewhere It keeps a running tally of what you've copied So you can actually go through yeah You can actually go through something and say I want this paragraph and I want this image and I want this other word And I want this reference and go click click click click click click copy them each and then you can go through on the copy Q Master page or the detail page and you can just select them in the order You want to paste them and just say paste this one then paste this one then paste that one and they sit there persistent for Until you clear them out, I guess And you can then paste them into different places if you want. So if you want to go and say Yeah, I need that thing that I copied from a website I don't remember the website is but I know I copied and pasted it somewhere just open up copy Q and it'll be there and you can just paste it so it's really really cool and another nice thing is when I have (51/55)
barrier another application that I talked about which is a keyboard and mouse sharing Application that lets you share your keyboard and mouse across computers without having to jump through hoops You just install barrier on both machines. Well, if you have copy Q installed on both machines It will keep those two copy Lists in sync so that you can copy from one computer and Paste it into another computer using barriers or a mediary. It's really really cool Larry. Yes Why am I not using this? This is a great idea. You know about this. This is why I'm suggesting it Golly, okay. So you haven't heard about clip grab and I haven't brought copy Q. So I Definitely I'm adding copy Q if it's that handy that would save me because I'm always grabbing stuff from different does it does images Too right? Yes, it does Wow And you and you've been holding out on me. I could have used this I've only been using it for about a month. So hey, I haven't been holding out on you for long. It's really really (52/55)
good. I Really appreciate clip grab. I'm gonna be looking at that one That clipboard manager if it's as good as you say it is which it probably is That is gonna be a part of my new toolbox because I've always I've been saying man I really just wanna I want it take some you know Texts from this and over here so I can remember what I was reading and you know Opening up different text editors and this would be great. Everything is in one place. Yeah, but yes sign me up There you go, yeah, well, I'll include the link in the show notes along with all the links to everything else we talked about here and Yeah, yeah, I set myself up and I also put the Clip grab link to their official site in our show notes if you're interested in giving it a whirl The if you do the search for clip grab it brings up all these other Sites that are these third party and we don't know exactly What's going on with them and stuff so I always like to get it if I have to get it out of the Repositories I always like (53/55)
to get it from the developer site. So I included that in our show notes also Sounds good Yeah, and that pretty much wraps up our episode. What do you think bill? I think pretty much we've covered everything that we found interesting and and So Yeah, I think we're coming to the end I just want to thank everybody that listened to us and gave us feedback over the 2019. We look forward to another year with you with you old minions and hopefully new minions 400 million more new minions would be great, but we'll take what we can get Yeah, and the reference to old is not ageism. It's experienced minions You know longtime minions as opposed to Geriatric minions are veteran minions veteran there there you go veteran minions Anyway, our next episode. Let's put this one to bed. Our next episode is a listener feedback episode until then you can go to a website at going links calm for articles and show notes as well as links to download and subscribe and We are as always the website for computer (54/55)
users who just want to use Linux to get things done And if you like you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our going links podcast community on community dot going links calm and just ignore the SSL certificate warnings until next time. Thanks for listening 73 In music provided by Mark Blasco at podcast themes.com (55/55)
Going Linux episode 352, 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 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 goinglinx at gmail dot com or leave a voicemail at 1-9-0-4-4-6-8-7-8-8-9. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello Bill. Hello Larry. How have things been going for you this fine week? Going well. Just can't believe that half the year's already gone. Yeah, that's crazy, isn't it? Yeah, it's... Soon daylight savings time stops and we go back where it's dark at five o'clock. I don't know if I'm going to like that too much, but... Yeah, well, (1/65)
that's something we have to put up with here in this part of the world, at least for, you know, part of the year. We deal with it, right? Yeah, right. How's the weather out there? It's getting cooler up here at night. So usually it's hot now. It's like 56 degrees this morning. It's, you know, you can tell that it falls on the way. Yeah, things have started to cool off here in Southern California a little bit too. We're not getting to 56, but things are a little cooler in the morning. Things are a little cooler during the day. That'll last a couple more weeks and then I'll be back to hot. Yes. And now that this week in weather, I think we should probably move on with the show. Yes, that tells you how much news we've had. Okay. Well, basically we work and we record podcasts. Let's go on. Yeah. Okay. So we got a voicemail from Lester, who's the Amish trucker. And he gets us started with the voicemail and he thought we were a bit heavy on the criticism and suggests we do a more unbiased (2/65)
review of Pingai or any distribution we review. Let's first listen to his voicemail and then we'll come back with some comments. All right. Okay. Hey, this is Lester, aka the Amish trucker. I have listened to this show for years now and I switched totally to Linux in about 2007 and I have always enjoyed this show. On today's show that I just listened to, where you have the Pingai review, I thought it was just a little bit heavy on criticizing everything that's wrong with Pingai. And I'm sure it's not the exact distribution you guys like, but I'm sure that it'll be good for some people. My suggestion is to perhaps just give a more unbiased review and leave it at that. Otherwise, it's a good show and I love you guys. You know, Bill, I understand what Lester is saying, that our episode came across probably a little bit heavier on criticism than most of our other reviews of other distributions. I do recall that you felt like you were trying to be as gentle as possible. So what do you (3/65)
think? I can understand what Lester, you know, maybe he thought it was kind of heavy handed and it wasn't meant to be. It was meant to be his unbiased, but you know, it can't be a hundred percent unbiased because if you know, even our two ones that we like, we've said, hey, this needs to change or we didn't like something about it. If he listens to it again, he'll see that I didn't even give it a review or a star review because it had, I thought it has a lot of potential and I said so as much in the interview. I thank him for his opinion and I don't think I was that heavy handed with it. I mean, yeah, there was some things that maybe would come across as a little maybe heavy handed or a little harsh, but it was only to hope that it would get better. And so the developer, I mean, when I sent him that email saying that we were going to review, he said the only way he can improve is when we tell him what we don't like. Right. Well, you know what? We tried to be as honest as we could. And (4/65)
every review is just a reflection of the personal opinion of the person giving the review. So we didn't like it as much as we like the other ones that we recommend. And that's our personal opinion. So Lester, thanks. Thanks a lot, Lester. And like I said, I will work to try to maybe not be as heavy handed, but if we don't like something, we're just going to say it. I don't want to give it a glowing review and then say someone gets on and says, this thing is horrible. Why didn't you tell me about this stuff? And for everything bad that we didn't like, we did like certain things. If there are changes, Lester, in it, or the developers says, hey, we had some points and changed some things around, I'll look at it. And if it's great, I'll say it's great. But until that time, we'll just say I stand by my review. And so let's just move on. Like I said, thanks again, Lester, for letting us know. And we always welcome everybody's feedback. Right. Thank you. All right. Our next email is from (5/65)
Kogoman, who provided comments about Mint 19. Hi, guys. Keep up the good work. I just wanted to point out a few things about my experience with Mint 19. First, Timeshift is not a backup software in the true sense. Timeshift keeps copies of older system files, usually on the same hard drive as the operating system. If the hard drive dies, so does Timeshift backups. Timeshift is there to get back to a usable system if an update breaks functionality. And backup can back up your home folder and can keep a list of the software you've added, allowing you to restore the added software on a new account easily. The most important thing about a real backup is the 3-2-1 rule as presented by many sites. This one came up first. And he provides a link to a website that talks about the 3-2-1 backup rule and summarizes it as... In this way, he says three backup copies of anything you want to keep, two different storage media, and one off-site storage site. Wisdom is not to allow the off-site storage (6/65)
to reside close by where the same natural disaster would get both. For example, data kept in Florida, off-site backup in Florida, one hurricane gets both original and backup. That being said, I don't trust others with my data, so I currently don't have the number one. Okay. My complaint about Timeshift is that the rsync job runs with elevated privileges. If it's doing its backup thing in the background, it should let me have most of the system resources instead of bringing the system to a crawl. I installed it on a flash drive. I wouldn't enable Timeshift on anything smaller than about 100 gigabytes. 16 gig drive didn't like it. Hmm. Okay. I think Timeshift is something that you mentioned in that Mint 19 review. Yeah. Did they switch from the Mint backup to Timeshift? I don't think they did, did they? I know that the idea behind Timeshift was in case an update broke it, you could go back to the Timeshift of the old working systems and bring it back because that's why it's integrated (7/65)
into the upgrade system. And I know from what I don't know, I believe I understand that it doesn't back up your home directory. It just will back up the, if I'm not wrong, settings and system settings. So in case something does break. Oh, I see. Okay. So, that's why he's saying it's not a true backup. Yeah, that's why I said so. He makes several good points, but he's right that in Timeshift, it does say you shouldn't, you can, but you shouldn't store your Timeshift backups to the same disk. And my system's not set up like that. My system has a 120 gigabyte solid state where the operating system resides. And then I have a spinning drive that stores the programs and stuff. So I store all that on the spinning drive. And so if I didn't need to back up system files, it would go to the flash drive. So a lot of the new systems are hybrid systems where they use a solid state for the OS and then a big spinning drive for all the programs and storage. Yep. So that way you get them on two separate (8/65)
drives. Yeah, they're on two separate drives. And as far as, I've never tried it, but I'm assuming that you could use Rsync or Mint backup. Is there a way to set, because I've never done that, you might've set Mint back up to maybe like save your home photo to like a online, like Google drive or Dropbox or something? I believe there is. I haven't used Mint backup in a while and it is, I think it's the one that's based on simple backup and they've added some really nice features of it. And the one that's on Ubuntu Mate is based on Rsync. And I know that it allows you to subscribe to online backup storage and to store it online as well. I think Mint backup does as well. I'd have to look at it to be sure, but that's one way you can do it. My backups, I keep them locally on a separate drive. And in fact I use, because I'm using Ubuntu Mate, I use the Ubuntu Mate backup that's built in, which automatically encrypts the backup and backs up the entire hard drive. So the system files as well (9/65)
as the data files. And the disadvantage that I see in that is that the backup is encrypted and in order to get one file or a folder with files in it, which is usually what I want from my backup, I would have to go in and unencrypt and then extract out the things that I wanted from that backup. So what I do is I let the Ubuntu Mate backup with the encryption run on a regular basis just to have that backup in case I need it. Have never needed it, knock on wood. And I also run Rsync, just an Rsync script that does the backup of the data files, and store them again on a separate drive, a network drive or on a separate spare hard drive unencrypted. Because when I need those files, it's the data files that I need and it's the, you know, it's the old copy of something that I have deleted from my hard drive to make some space or because I felt like I wasn't going to need it for a long time. And then go back and discover, oh, wait, I need that. So I go back to one of my multiple backups on (10/65)
multiple different hard drives. And I'm not worried about them being unencrypted because if somebody could figure out which of the many spare hard drives my backup is on, you know, they're welcome to it. And I don't have anything proprietary on those backups anyway. So you know, unless somebody wants the raw recordings of the Going Linux podcast. Well, you know, I'd use a little bit, I do things a little different. I don't really worry about backing up my whole hard drive because it's just the only thing I really want to save is like pictures, videos, and you know, audio, music, or recordings or whatever, and programs that might be hard to find. I will store those online, usually in Dropbox or my main go-to is the Google Drive code. I'm kind of testing out some different solutions, online solutions. So I've got them backed up offsite. And so I just don't, you know, if I lose a background image, oh well. But if someone wants to hack into my Google Drive, all they're going to find is (11/65)
pictures of my dogs and maybe some, you know, some music like, man, he has some weird tastes, but you know, and see the raw recordings of the show. So I mean, there's nothing there. So unfortunately, it would be a total waste of your time, but hey. So I just kind of do it. The files can, you know, pictures and stuff can't be replaced, but you know, you can always reinstall the operating system. So I just keep the stuff that I can't easily replace. And you know, when it's time to blow away anything, I just, you know, it's pretty simple. And the online storage, I mean, I got like one terabyte of storage. I don't have that much stuff. Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I don't need that much space either. And so my Dropbox folder is just the default. And then I've gone through some promotions to get some additional Dropbox space. So I've got enough to handle what I put on there and I use that as storage as well. And the only thing that I put on there are the things that you and I need (12/65)
to share for the podcast, because that's how we do that. And anything else that I want on there in online storage, in a place that I can get from multiple computers or in a place that I can get to from a computer that is someone else's. And I want to log in and get a file or I want to get a file that I have shared or, you know, whatever. If I need the file without physical access to my computer or hard drive, that's where I'll put it. It's on Dropbox. Since we've mentioned Dropbox a couple of times, we should probably mention that there have been some changes to how Dropbox is supporting Linux and other operating systems. I was just going to say that. You were going to say that? Okay. Yeah. So why don't you go ahead and comment on it? So Dropbox has decided in the very near future that if you're not using the file system ext4, you can't use it. Right. And so... Well, you can't use their Linux client. Yeah. Oh, is that it? For automatic backups. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I guess you could use (13/65)
the web interface, but a lot of us... Myself, I have where, you know, certain things I automatically sync using the Dropbox client. And so... Me too. I play with different file systems and that was one of the things that caught my attention because for a while I was running the XFS to see how it does. And so when I saw that, when I reinstalled Mint, I just said, well, I'll just go with the ext4. So, yeah, if you're running something different, you might work around, I guess, would be to use the web interface. But that kind of takes away some of the convenience of Dropbox. Right. Exactly. And to finish the rest of the story on that, the bad news is they've dropped support for some file system types. And the good news is they have not dropped their support for Linux. The only Linux file format they support is ext4 and they have support now. They've dropped support for other file systems from Windows other than I think it's NTFS and they support a couple of Mac OS file types. And you (14/65)
know, from a Linux perspective, yes, there are lots of people who don't use ext4. However ext4 is probably the most popular file system type used on the average Linux system today. There are some older ones and there are some that are a little less stable. Not to say that they're all less stable, but some of the newer ones are a little less stable, arguably. So I see the logic in what they've done in support. If they're going to narrow it down and support only one file system type, ext4 is the one to choose because, you know, many of the Linux distributions for desktops at least choose ext4 by default. And if you want something different, you have to consciously go and choose that. You know, so it makes sense if they're going to narrow down their level of support for operating systems that for Linux they would choose ext4. Anybody that would just install it wouldn't really have to worry because that's the default. Right. Yeah, on the other hand, you know, if you're experimenting around (15/65)
enough that you're not using ext4 or the default file system that comes with your Linux distribution, you're probably sophisticated enough that you have other ways of sharing things and you're not using Dropbox because it is proprietary. It's not open source and yeah, so I'm not sure it's as big of a problem as some folks have made it out to be. For the average listener of the Going Linux podcast, it's probably not going to be a major hardship. Yeah, you have plenty of other options you can use like Google Drive or whatever. So our next email comes from Ken who commented on the Mint review and he writes, Bill and Larry, I have Mint Cinnamon 18.3 on four machines, desktop and laptop. I too have noticed that Chrome browser is slow to start for the first instance of the day, but all the other software pops up almost instantly. Bill, you said that Ubuntu Mate loads the browser faster. I know that you made sure that the hardware software, we're doing the same for both distros. I'm thinking (16/65)
that Mint Cinnamon is doing something software wise, checking on spooky stuff or something before it gets its load. It would be interesting to know why Mint has chosen to do this since all the other software loads almost instantly and it does. I don't worry about the Chrome first time of the day start. I am really enjoying Mint and have been using it for several years with great reliability. I even got one of my computer challenge friends set up with Mint from Windows. He was always having wind problems, but since I got him onto Mint, I barely heard a word out of him. Thanks to the great show and website, KenKB4XT. I think all of us that do anything with tech have a few or at least one computer challenge friend. Yes, at least. And Firefox, I rarely use it. I set up a computer for one of those computer challenge friends just a day or two ago. And for the first time in a long time, I actually set up Firefox and I was surprised. Well first of all, I have to say I didn't notice anything (17/65)
sluggish or slow about it, but I was surprised that they have changed the interface so much that it looks like Microsoft Edge now. You had to say Edge, didn't you? I know, I know. It reminded me of Microsoft Edge. I don't know, maybe I was looking at it wrong, but it defaulted to open and full screen. It has squarish window decorations and it looks different from all of the other windows. It's got square tabs and ick. That's all I can say. Technical opinion, ick. I have Windows 10 on my work machine and we can use any browser. And so when they handed it to me, the first thing I do is put Chrome on it. It pops up and says, Edge is so much faster than this and this and this. And then it's like, I don't care, put Edge. And then, so you have to tell it this default. Then it pops up again and said, hey, before you, do you still want to switch to Edge faster and you were built in? And I'm like, yes, change this. I don't want to use Edge. So when you mentioned Edge, it's like, ah, and (18/65)
occasionally it will pop up and say, you know, this site would look really great on Edge. I don't care. I know one Edge. But let me, while we got talking on Edge, and I'm sorry for the segue, didn't Microsoft get in trouble with the EU for bundling Internet Explorer and they had to unbundle it and stuff? Isn't this the same thing? There was a whole lawsuit on that, that Microsoft lost. But I mean, that was decades ago, Bill. That doesn't matter anymore. But is this the same thing? It is. It is exactly. So I guess, you know. There is no way to, well, I'm sure there's a way, but if you go, because I've tried, because I got tired of it popping up and saying, would you like to try it? No, I don't want to try it. You know, isn't, there's no way if you go into the add remove software to remove Edge, it's integrated in. Yes. And I'm like this, and I was just thinking this is the same thing that they got in trouble for, oh, okay, a decade ago. I mean, I guess I'm harping on something, but it's (19/65)
like. You're asking for consistency from institutions that have no consistency, Bill. Just give it up. It's not going to happen. In other words, expectation versus reality? Yes, that's it. Okay. Well. All right. Okay. Yeah, it's a political thing, I'm sure. And if things were, well, never mind. Okay. Stay away from the political conversation. We'll go on to our next email, which is from Paul, who says hello from Ankara, Turkey. Hello Larry and Bill. I'm from Germany and have been working in a German institution in Turkey for several years now. I was lucky to move from administration to the IT department two years ago. And since then I have been trying my hand with Linux on old PCs and laptops instead of throwing them away as I was supposed to. Shh, don't tell anybody. I learned a lot from the various German and English support forums. And after playing around on my many computers and laptops with many distros like Peppermint OS, Linux Lite, Mint, et cetera, and failing with Arch and (20/65)
Manjaro, I stick to Zubuntu for very old laptops and Linux Mint Cinnamon for everything else. I got to love Linux and I'm promoting it heavily to my coworkers. Now here is the situation I have trouble with. The only time I had a faulty MD5 sum, which for new listeners is the checksum that you can use to make sure that your downloaded file is on, you know, as you've downloaded it to your hard drive is exactly the same as the one that is on the server. The only time I had a faulty MD5 sum was when I downloaded Mint from the mirror in Turkey so I don't use a Turkish mirror anymore for downloading distros anymore, just in case this was not an accident. Two weeks ago I downloaded and installed Linux Mint Cinnamon 19 on a PC, did the updates from local mirrors in Turkey, did some sudo apt install as usual, preload, ffmpeg, libdvd, CSS, Etcher, et cetera. Then I barely used the computer, I just had transmission running to seed different Linux versions. Maybe I did some more updates. Two weeks (21/65)
later I discovered that sudo apt install did not work anymore. The whole folder at etc slash apt was gone. I checked the internet and found only some old posts about situations where someone had accidentally deleted the folder by hand with some cryptic terminal command. I used time shift to roll back to the first backup and etc slash apt was there again. I clicked on the actualization icon and received the message that my apt repositories are corrupted and I should change my package sources. I don't know how this is called in English, my Linux is in German. I did that and changed the mirror servers to standard and everything else worked and updated just fine. Apparently an update from a local mirror site deleted my etc slash apt folder. So my questions are, how is the integrity of the Linux downloads and updates on the many mirror sites all over the world ensured? Is there any kind of control so I can be sure the main, Tara, and basic bionic packages I am downloading from official (22/65)
mirrors for example in China, Turkey, Thailand and others have not been tampered with on a professional level? How does this worldwide system work in regards to keeping all the files identical with originals at all times? How is it ensured that the distros which I seed from my PC with transmission are not tampered with? Looking forward to hearing the answer in your podcast and thank you for the entertaining and very useful podcast. Keep up the good work. What do you think, Bill? Have you looked into these repositories and mirrors? I would like to say yes, but I haven't because I usually set it to a repository closer to me. Yeah. But it's always in the United States. Now the thing that I did notice about his email was that he's downloading from Turkey and I don't know if anybody's messing with the damages or et cetera. I don't see how they could, but I'm sure they would. When it comes to the Mint project, I guess if they have to do some localization for the Turkish language or some (23/65)
adjustments and I know that's like in China has some data protection laws that are a lot more strict. Turkey probably does. I don't know. That would be a great question for the Mint project. Yeah, specifically for the Mint project in this case. What I do know about mirrors and such is that in Linux Mint, it gives you, I guess Mint, gives you the ability to switch the mirrors and it actually has a little or it used to have a little monitor that actually determines, calculates how close or how quick the closest mirror might be and you get to choose whichever one is fastest. And I'm not surprised that that might come up with Turkey if you're actually located in Turkey. However, you don't have to pick that. You can pick something else as you probably know, Paul. So if you're noticing this kind of an issue with the mirror in Turkey, I would get on the forums and, you know, the Linux Mint forums and mention it there and file a bug if it's appropriate. But my understanding of the way these (24/65)
mirrors work, many of them are maintained by universities or by corporations or organizations for their own use and they make them publicly available. This is open source after all. And they typically keep them in sync with the main mirror or the main source simply using something like rsync over the network. And in many cases, they're hand curated and things like that. So it's possible that the website in Turkey that hosts that mirror has been infected with something or someone's hacking it and or perhaps whoever's maintaining is doing this intentionally. All of those are possibilities. I'm not saying that many of them are likely. So your alternatives are avoid the mirror in Turkey for both the download and for the updates. And provide the Linux Mint team with some feedback on that to give them an opportunity in open source fashion to have that fixed. And the other alternative is just to avoid that mirror in Turkey and find the next fastest or next most reliable one for you and use (25/65)
that for both the download and the updates. I guess it could be that just that mirror just has some problems. But he says he's from Germany and he's working in Germany. So he could set his Mint to just go to Germany and grab its sources. If you're having problems with the mirror, I really I find it hard to believe that this might have been done intentionally. It's either just an oversight or there's a problem with the mirror or then again, as Larry said, someone might be messing or playing around or whatever. But if you're having problems with that mirror, the best is don't use the mirror. Just like when the guy goes to the doctor and says, hey, this hurts. And the doctor says, well, then don't do that. So just go to the German mirror. It might be a little slower, but you know, with the Internet, you know, start it and go to bed and it should be done. The other thing just something to, since you're running Mint is to, if you have a good working system and you've got time shift, go (26/65)
ahead and do time shift right before you do your system updates, just so you have the latest and greatest because you can go in there and tell it to make a quick backup and all it does is we'll go and see if anything's changed. So, you know, just doesn't hurt to take an extra couple minutes just to make sure they have everything saved in the time shift. That make sense, Larry? Right. It does. It does. So hopefully that helps. So our next email comes from John who had a failure to reboot and he writes, haven't had to ask for help in many months. Now I can't find any answers to this problem. This distro ran for months and months with no problems. Suddenly last week upon starting in VirtualBox, this was the response. I don't remember if it was Mate or Cinnamon. I'm now running Cinnamon. Cinnamon doesn't want to function well. Mint forms don't address this error other than fiddling with the Xorg. I know nothing about that. If the distro won't open the terminal, it is useless. Any help, (27/65)
suggestions, much appreciated. And he sent the error message that he's gotten. I'll just read through it because it's not that long. Maybe one of our listeners might be able to click and they can offer John some idea. And he's basically getting a runtime error opening and then it lists C users JBSON slash VirtualBox. And then I'm not going to read this because this sounds like a bunch of gobbledygook. So looking through it, and all this is in the show notes, so anybody that's interested and thinking might be able to help John, they can go and look at it. It's just, I don't think anybody would, you know, there's no sense reading all this out. Yeah, I think the key elements of the error message are these, that it's a runtime error. He's obviously running on a Windows machine, running Linux in VirtualBox and it's Mint 18 that he's running. And it looks like he's got a second hard drive, the F drive, with... I'm not sure what all that's about, but it looks like a second hard drive. And (28/65)
there's a result code saying EFAIL, and then machine wrap component, and an iMachine interface. So if that makes any sense to anybody, yeah, with all the more power. So I usually use a VM player, but I have played with VirtualBox. And so it says VMs, it's Mint 18 and Mint, and then it goes VirtualBox is reading and it's apparently not finding a file. And the F is the drive letter that's assigned, I believe, as the default hard drive in VirtualBox, but I don't understand WIN 5.2 source. And I'm just, I'm looking and I don't know, it says EFAIL and then it gives an error code and it's, you know, I love error codes that don't tell you what it is. Yeah, yeah, that's typical. Well, bottom line here is, you know, it's VirtualBox. What I do when I'm using VirtualBox is I make the image, I use the VirtualBox image, that's the file that ends in .vbox in John's case, and I back that up. It's easy enough to back up the file. It's usually pretty big, but it's something that I copy over to another (29/65)
hard drive so that if there is a failure like this, I have a backup and I can just restore it from that backup. And that might have helped you out here, John. I know that's closing the barn door after the horse is gone, but yeah, that's, I guess, lesson learned is to back up your VirtualBox images as well. Any ones that you're going to be using a lot. But yeah, like I said, none of this really jumps out of saying, oh, I know what the problem is. Maybe one of our listeners who does a lot more in VirtualBox than we do can help him out. But he says, I mean, he says he's running it, but it's not running great. I'm just wondering, you know, it says file found. I'm just wondering if that's the, usually there's the extras that you have to install to get all the functionality. Maybe that's possible. Maybe because it says file not found. So that might be the, like, what do they call those Larry? The extras or something like that? Yeah, it's extras or accessories or some word like that. But (30/65)
yeah, something like that. So maybe that helps. I don't know. I'm sorry, I couldn't be more help. Yeah. And, you know, I don't use VirtualBox very much anymore, hardly at all. It's a program from Oracle. They purchased VirtualBox from its original company, Sun Microsystems, I think it was. And or they purchased the company and inherited VirtualBox. I think that's the way it worked. But yeah, so it's not too likely that you're going to get open source kind of support from Oracle. You've checked the places that I would check, the forums. And if they're talking about, you know, fixes that require you to edit Xorg, that doesn't sound too promising. What that does point to is maybe there's a problem with VirtualBox itself that's causing this. If you really have to, you know, fiddle with Xorg. I don't know. Let's leave it to Arminians and see if they know of any reason for this kind of a failure. Yeah. And let's move on. OK. Our next email is from Josh, who has an idea for the X9575 Lexmark (31/65)
printer. On the last episode, there was a listener having problems printing from a Lexmark X9575 printer. I have a different Lexmark printer at my office that is working with Linux via the network. I noticed that your printer has network capabilities, so maybe this will work for you, too. Once I connected the printer to the network, I used the printer menus to find a network setup page. This printed a page full of information about the way that the printer is networking. I used the IP address of the printer to make my computer speak to the printer. In my distro, I chose Add Printer and typed the IP address into the network printer page. None of the printer preferences are available from my computer, however. I was still able to change my printer settings, though, using the menu on the printer itself. I hope this works for you, too. Best wishes, Josh. It may be using just the standard CUPS interface. You get into your browser, you type in the IP address of your printer when it's sitting (32/65)
there on the network, and it brings up a configuration page that might allow you to connect with CUPS directly, as Josh is suggesting. That might work for you, since it's a network printer. Just as a reminder, the 9575 printer from Lexmark is classified by the Linux community as a paperweight. In other words, there's no driver that works for it. But this might be an alternative to it as a workaround, as Josh suggests. Go for it. Let us know how it goes. Yeah, I tell you, printers are a hit and miss. Even on other operating systems, they're a pain to get to work sometimes. Yeah, I remember that. So, Larry, you need to fix that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. So, our next email comes from David, and he writes, Hi, Larry. Hi, Bill. Remember me? It's been a while since I wrote. However, I remain your loyal listener since the first episode. You guys continue to be great. Just listen to your listener feedback episode number 315, which James asked how to use a Lexmark printer that has no Linux (33/65)
driver. I, too, some years ago had the same situation. I devised a workaround that was adequate for my limited needs, the odd scanning and minor printing of PDF files. Until the ancient printer, I think it was liberated from a university dorm trash heap by my son in 2005 or so, and then it finally died. I splurged the $50 or so on a supported HP all in one. What I did was create a virtual machine where I installed an old Windows XP I had to which I passed PDFs to print and retrieve scanned documents. No need to maintain the XP. In fact, for security reasons, it's best not to connect to the internet and only use it for this purpose. Hope I've been of help. This is Dave, your expat Canadian fanboy in Galilee. You know, Larry, that's clever. Mm hmm. Yes. And that's a great use of virtual machine. Yeah. I mean, David, that is clever. I really, really get a kick out of some of the ideas these guys come up with. I would have never thought to do that. Wow. And of course, if your Windows XP (34/65)
virtual machine isn't connected to the Internet, you're relying on the printer that you have having a driver in the original Windows XP. So if you actually have to download a driver for XP, it sounds to me like you'd be a bit out of luck there as well. So not really all you'd have to do. You could use your Linux system to download it, put on a USB, and then when you start your VirtualBox, it recognizes USB to stick it in and load it to the... Oh, sure. If the driver exists, I was thinking that XP has been out of service for a while. Oh, I see what you're saying. And there may not be a driver anymore for a printer that may be old, but not as old as XP. Oh, OK. And that's kind of what I'm thinking. Oh, OK. I see what you're saying now. If you have a driver there, or if you can download it using your Linux machine and install it on Windows, that would work as well. If you have the money, though, I'd just go out and buy a supported printer or find one in a dorm trash heap that you can (35/65)
liberate that is supported by Linux. Yeah. Yeah, whatever. Yeah. So there you go. So it can't be much help with that, but I will say, David, you get a definite minion star for a clever workaround. That's awesome. Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for being a continued fan right from episode one. Wow. That's like, what, 351 episodes? Yeah. Wow. That's a lot of listening. So he's been through all the co-hosts. He's listened to everyone. And it sounds like. There's only one person that has not changed. And that's you. You've been on every episode. Yeah. Well, that's kind of the way it goes when it's your podcast. Wow. Anyway, moving along. That's amazing. Let's go to George from Tulsa. Thanks. George from Tulsa commented on Google Plus regarding that episode 350, listener question about backing up iOS on Linux. As Bill said, there are Linux music players that can interface with iPods, perhaps even iPods, iPhones, and iPads as well. Never done it as I'm now using Android phone as my player, but (36/65)
I know it is possible in theory. However in Mac forums, I've also read a lot of comments saying that it only seems to work with older devices. Real backups aren't going to happen from iOS to Linux. Apple wants its user to fill their iCloud storage with stuff, including backups. And George, yeah, I know that firsthand. The Apple folks want you to buy more storage. And so they put as much of your system stuff in there, including backups as possible so that it fills up quickly and you have to go out and buy it. I'm not saying that's their motivation, but I suspect that that's what's going on there. I've also heard that the backup capability is something that was present in the older Apple devices and has been, support for that has been removed from the newer ones, which happens with proprietary systems like this. Well and not only does Apple want to keep everything in their ecosystem, you can understand they control the hardware, they control software. So of course they're going to (37/65)
control how things are backed up and accessed. So it's pretty much you're all Apple or you're all, you know, or you're not. Sometimes Apple does not play well with others on certain things. Other things they do, but for, you know, their iPhones and iPods and iPads, they tend to like to keep the ball in their own court. Yeah, I thought, you know, with Apple, everything just worked. I guess it works if you're using other Apple things, right? Okay. So without, anyway. Moving on. Moving on. Jim asks about remote connections. Larry, I have had success connecting my computers from within my local network. However, I do not know how to connect them when I have to go through my router. This includes being at a remote location on Wi-Fi or trying to connect to my laptop on my Wi-Fi from one of my local network. Any suggestions or links to visit? I like to build peace on Lynxment. I first use Lynxment 19 on a Ferton desktop, which is small, mounted on the back of a monitor. It is 64 bit with only (38/65)
2 gigabyte of RAM and a small video card. It streams poorly and is a little slow comparatively. Other than that, it is good. Somewhere around number 13, Lynxment would not load on the Verton. Skipping to the end. I found one distro with the Matei desktop, my favorite, that worked on the Verton. Lynx Matei could not make the display function properly, Ubuntu installed properly, but I do not like Unity. The distro that I am using on it as well my other three computers is Point Linux based on Debian. I think it is worth for you and Bill to take a look at it as well as anybody else. Thanks for doing the podcast. I have not written in a while because I have not had any problems with Linux that I could not easily handle, which have not been many. Are you still doing the stories about switching to Linux? Yeah, yeah. In fact, we are still doing the gone Linux stories. Just haven't had one in a while, so we're interested if you have one and you're submitting it to us. Yes, Point Linux. I (39/65)
haven't never heard of Point Linux. Yeah, I've heard of Point Linux, never used it. I've heard somebody refer to it, so I really don't know anything about it. As far as the other points that Jim's asking about, making remote connections. You can easily make remote connections using the open source software that's available in Linux for doing that kind of thing. But if you're trying to connect to non-Linux systems across a network, that is something that you can do with some of the open source software if the version is available for Windows or Mac or whatever other operating system you're using. Not sure what it would be, like BSD maybe? I don't know. But as far as connecting through a network to a computer outside of your network, that's where you either have to get very sophisticated with the open source solutions or you will want to use a proprietary solution. And the easiest one that I have found to use for doing that kind of thing is TeamViewer. Not that there aren't any others (40/65)
out there, but TeamViewer does offer a free version for personal use, and I'm assuming this is for personal use. And so you can easily use it and it takes care of going through firewalls and going through other things that normally are the hindrance from working outside your local network through your router and all of those other things. So TeamViewer is my usual recommendation. Like I said, there are others out there that will work. But TeamViewer lets you set up the remote computer that you want to control so that when you connect to it, TeamViewer is running, you can set it up so that you can connect remotely without having to be on the remote system to enter a password or a code or something like that. And not all of the other solutions do that. Yeah, TeamViewer is a great product. It is proprietary. It's certainly not open source, but it's one of those things that it works. So from a pragmatic perspective, that's my recommendation. OK. All right. Our next email is from Preston, (41/65)
who asked for podcasting advice. Bill and Larry, I'm a longtime listener and fan. Thanks for your excellent show. I covet your counsel. Oh, OK. I listen to another podcast, but their audio quality is lacking. The hosts speak via Skype. That could be one of the reasons why the quality is lacking. And one host is loud while the other is quiet. I would like to assist the host to produce a higher quality audio. Could you briefly describe your process you use to produce such a quality audio in your debt, Preston? OK, so let's walk through our process here, Bill. OK. So we are first not recording using the software that we use to talk to one another. The software that we used to use to talk to one another was Skype, and it offers in some operating systems some built-in recording capabilities, or at least it used to. In Linux, there was an add-on utility that you could use to do recordings from Skype. When Skype was taken over by Microsoft, some of their support on Linux deteriorated, and the (42/65)
quality of the audio hasn't really changed. They're using the same compression and all the other stuff that they use. So we switched over to Discord, and Discord is one of those programs that lets you talk to one another on a voice call. You can do video calls. You can do other kinds of stuff. I don't know whether you can record if there's any recording function within Discord, but there are plenty of other programs that let you record your session in Discord, like OBS software and that sort of thing. So we don't use any of that. We just use Discord to talk as though we were talking on the phone, and we could easily just pick up the phone and call one another, but we both use Discord, and that's step one is to establish a way of communicating. Then the recording. So like I said, you can record from the same software that you're using to talk to one another, but oftentimes it gets complicated to do that, and sometimes it is difficult to set up. So what we do is Bill records his end on (43/65)
his computer using Audacity, and I record my end on my computer using Audacity, and usually I'm doing the editing. Sometimes Bill does it, but usually I'm doing it. So Bill sends me his file that he's recorded using Dropbox, and he records it in the OGG format. You can choose whatever format is best for you, and then I import it into my Audacity session so that I have his recording on one track and my recording on another, and so now we have nicely separated audio, and I use the tools within Audacity to edit the file and to make sure that the levels are identical and to make sure that the voices sound the same and to get rid of background noise and other things, and I just simply, if I have a coughing fit in the middle of the recording and it happens to be recorded on my channel, I just edit that out. I make that section blank, and of course that doesn't show up in Bill's because he's recording his side of the conversation, not mine, so I just have to edit it from one of the two (44/65)
channels and move on. So that's really it. There are other fancy things you can do in Audacity to make this sound better, but I would recommend that you do it that way, and you can then level, get the levels the same by using, well, let me just say how I do it. First thing I do is I remove the noise from each channel, and I do that to each channel separately because the noise in the background for Bill is different from the noise in the background for me, so I use the noise reduction features in Audacity to do that, and then I use a noise gate that I have downloaded from the Audacity site. It's not included with Audacity, and I find this noise gate is better than the other tools. It's built for Audacity, so you know it's one of the components that you can use, so I just use that to essentially zero out everything that is below a certain amplitude, below a certain loudness, and then there's a compressor. I use a compressor that's built into Audacity to compress the file, and what that (45/65)
does is it removes some of the quality, but it evens out within the track. It evens out the volume so that if I'm whispering like I did earlier in this episode, the volume of the whisper is still audible. You can still hear it, and you can hear it at the same level as you can when I'm speaking loudly, so that's what that does, and you lose a little bit of quality doing that, so be careful using that. Don't overdo it, and then there is a limiter. There's a limiter built into Audacity, and I use that limiter to remove some of the audio artifacts to limit the volume so that it's not over peaking. If there is a difference in the levels after doing all the other things, I use... there's a setting in the limiter that allows you to adjust the volume, correct it for low volume, that sort of thing, and I use that if necessary. It's not necessary in every recording, but it depends on what's going on with the background, and you know, are the mic levels set properly, and that sort of thing, so if (46/65)
somebody forgot to raise their amplitude, raise their volume enough, and the volume is a little bit low, you can adjust it there as well. So that sounds very complicated. I have a video that it's a tutorial that's on our website. I'll include a link in the show notes. I did it a few years ago for Nightwise, who had a similar sort of question and asked about our podcast production methods. It doesn't include everything that I just described, but it does include the basics, and you might find it useful. So there you go. Yep, that's pretty much it. I think the one trick that you didn't mention that's very important is... well, there's actually two tricks. One is to make it easier to line up the recordings is we always give a countdown before we start the recording. So we'll count down like three, two, one, then we'll hit the start record. So the recordings, when you drop, when you import mine, match up with yours. That's real important, and also it's real important to... we always have... (47/65)
we try to give each of us, because we're recording your, like I said, your background's different from mine, so we record about 10 seconds of just background noise so you're able to take it out, and that's why you do a per track, because your background noise, you know, your heater or AC comes on might be louder than mine, etc, etc. So those are two little tips that really help. Okay, and that is screencast number six from 2013, so it is a little while ago and probably needs an update, quite frankly, but we'll take care of that later, but, you know, the basics are still there, and Preston, hopefully that helps you out. Our next email comes from Michael who wants to know about installing the Linux without wi-fi. Hi Larry and Bill. I'm considering installing the the latest Ubuntu Mate on my HP laptop, completely replacing Windows 10. I know it might not be fully up to date, but could it be done without a wi-fi connection? I ask this because I need to go into a local shop, which sells (48/65)
mobile phone equipment to be able to get sighted assistance to boot from a Ubuntu CD or DVD, which I create, and they told me they don't have wi-fi in the shop. The alternatives are to try to get RNIB TFL technology for Life Team to install it, or save up and purchase a Linux supported laptop for IntraWare later on this year. All the best is going Linux, Michael. I can answer that one. You can install Ubuntu without wi-fi. You just can't get packages, of course, because you're not connected to the internet. You might not be able to get the latest drivers, so the caveats are, yes, you can get the base system. If you can get the image onto a DVD, USB drive, thumb drive, whatever, you can install it. You just then hope that the kernel supports all the hardware in the HP laptop. The only thing that might be a little difficult is if you have a piece of hardware that needs a driver, like in mine, I have to, if I want to use my NVIDIA card, because my machine comes with a Intel, and most (49/65)
Intels are always supported, and then there's the NVIDIA card. So if I want to use the NVIDIA card, a lot of times I'll need to do the proprietary driver. Now, there is an open source driver, but it doesn't work that great for what I wanted to do. So just be aware there'll be certain things that might work better with updated drivers or kernels. The thing I have a question about, Larry, is, is he going to connect it to Wi-Fi after? Because then if the card doesn't work, then you can't really do anything. I mean, as long as the ethernet is supported, you can always plug it in. So I don't know how it connects from home. But yes, you can install it. A long answer to a simple question. Yes, you can install without Wi-Fi, but you might have some issues. Yeah, and most likely with an HP, you're not going to have issues. So yeah, you can install it from the CD or DVD in the shop without Wi-Fi. And then when you do connect to Wi-Fi next, it will download the updates and it will update (50/65)
including any drivers that may not be installed or updated at the time of installation. So you're not missing out on anything. It'll all happen the next time you connect to the internet. An alternative, if the shop doesn't have Wi-Fi, but they can give you a connection by way of a cable and your HP has a port for an internet cable. Many of the new computers don't. Then you could connect directly to their cabled internet through the appropriate jack. And failing that, then yeah, it'll install and the next time you boot with the CD out of the drive and you're connected to the internet, you'll get the updates that weren't downloaded at the time of installation. So everything should work okay. You know, with a caveat that if it's an internet driver that you need, that could cause some other problems. But more likely than not, it'll work just fine with an HP computer. Michael wrote back after I responded to him by email saying essentially what we just said. He said, hi Larry, thanks for (51/65)
getting back to me so promptly. I've been just reading posts in the ORCA mail list and there appears to be an accessible version of Linux distro called Coconut. As I have only looked at the basics and heard a Czech guy demonstrated on a podcast, I'm still not clear as to what all of the differences are with this distro or whether it can only be used from USB or fully installed as a running system, which isn't reset as the guy installed it from one USB to another USB. It may or may not be an alternative to Ubuntu Mate, another choice of distro which has been designed with accessibility in mind. Unlike the guy who installed it, I don't have a braille display and maybe the lack of one makes no difference as it does work with ORCA. Yeah, I'm not sure the existence of a braille display makes much difference to ORCA other than when you have a braille display you need to make sure that setup goes okay in ORCA. Yeah, I don't know anything about the Coconut Linux distribution, so I can't really (52/65)
comment on that. I can comment on Ubuntu Mate. It's a great choice for people who have disabilities, especially the blind, because you can install it without sighted help, because in the installer you can use ORCA, but bottom line is Ubuntu Mate is a great choice for accessibility. They put a lot of effort into it. I can't comment on Coconut. I don't know anything about it. What about, is Sonar still being developed? No, Sonar has kind of dropped off the face of the earth or face of the internet. It's still available and it's the most recent version which is a few years old now, so now Jonathan Nadeau is not supporting or continuing to develop Sonar and no one has picked it up, so as far as I know, unless something's changed in the last couple of weeks. Okay, so our next email comes from Paul who wrote about increasing the size of the swap and boot partition while Linux Mint is installed, and he writes, hi Bill and Larry. I look forward to each show and have been listening for several (53/65)
years. If I install Linux Mint by selecting Linux Mint to erase all data and install when Linux Mint automatically installs versus selecting do something else, when I select the partition sizes, etc. Will Linux Mint perform the most efficient installation? I realize I can't isolate a home partition if I want to install, reinstall another version of Linux Mint. If I allow Linux Mint to install as home on the same partition as Linux Mint, I searched in forums for a little more info on making room for the boot partition but couldn't get a resolution. I wanted to increase the boot partition on the system running Linux Mint. Can I resize the boot partition in Gparted? I wanted to do so recently. I booted into Linux from a flash drive but found I could not resize the swap partition in order to make room to expand the boot partition. I then tried to remove all partitions on the drive but Gparted said one of the partitions was in use. I don't know what partition would be in use on the SDA1 (54/65)
drive if I booted from a USB drive. Or is it easier just to use DD to clear the drive and start all over? I would appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks again Paul in Texas. Okay so let me see if I got this right. He wants to resize his boot partition and to increase his swap partition? Yeah so to increase your swap partition apparently you have to reduce the size or change the size of something else to make room for it if you've got your hard drive completely filled. And so he's having some problems with that and there is a trick to it quite frankly. Yeah and I've included a link in the show notes to an Ask Ubuntu article that describes what the trick is and it's in the you know there are four answers and the most the one chosen by the question asker as the best answer is the one you want to look at. Basically what it says is you need to create some space after the main extended partition unallocated space. In other words space that's not used by any partition and then you can (55/65)
expand the swap partition into that. So yeah there's a bit of a trick to it and it's not something that we can really describe on the podcast so we'll let the folks at Ask Ubuntu describe it in the answer to this question. But it sounds like it'd be just easier to back up what you want to keep and start over. Yeah maybe. Part of the reason for this question is right at the beginning he mentions or he asks if you let Linux Mint choose the partitioning scheme is it going to choose the most efficient scheme. In other words the size for the partitions and the swap partition size and that sort of thing. And I'm not going to say that it's going to choose the most efficient for your system because what it's trying to do is find reasonable rational sizes. That's my description not the Linux Mint team. So they're trying to make it reasonable partition sizes not the most efficient. If you want the most efficient then you need to learn how to use Gparted and do the calculations yourself as to (56/65)
what's going to be the most efficient. But if you want something that installs quickly easily you don't have to think about it and you've got reasonable defaults that's you use the default recommendation. I think that's pretty much good advice on that one. Yeah okay anything anything further on that from you Bill? No I really can't improve upon that answer so I think we should just move on. We'll just leave it at that. Yep. Okay and our last email is from Sean who provided a Guild Wars tip for you Bill. All right. Sean says LT-FTP all that jazz. Not sure what that means but we'll move on. I play Guild Wars 2 on Linux daily. The NVIDIA experience does leave a bad taste in your mouth. I am running Lubuntu 18.04 on a Lenovo Y700 laptop with an NVIDIA card. The below link has a wonderful amount of info that really helped me and there's a link to the Guild Wars forum and the topic is playing Guild Wars 2 on Linux performance optimizations and more. So I don't know if you've had a time if (57/65)
you had a chance to look through that Bill but looks from the title of the article like it's what you're looking for? I actually you sent this to me in an email and so I immediately read it and then decided to try it. Okay. Now this is just a tiny mini rant. It didn't really help my performance any. I followed the instructions it's dead simple you know do this I mean it walks you right through it. My machine has a NVIDIA 1070 in it and he didn't tell me which one he has in it. And on medium with the latest you know NVIDIA drivers installed on the system I can only get about 40 frames a second and that's when and in the major series there's a lot of people and textures it drops even lower. If I try to jack it up to ultra which means everything's set to all the the the prettiest settings and you see all those particle effects it drops to like 10. So I was wondering when I was telling it that I got it installed it's playable but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth because the driver (58/65)
parity is just so different. So I have another hard drive it does have windows 10 on it because you know I have to use it once in a while on my personal machine. So I went over and on ultra with the windows I'm getting 80 to 100 frames a second and in the cities I'm averaging about 60 and that's with everything. So I was wondering if this was affecting other games. So I have X-Plane 10. I had bought it on steam so it has a Linux client and a windows client. So what I do I download them both for both of them and the performance is just comparable. I mean within five frames of each other and they both look good they both run smooth. So there's a lot of work I think that we just can't say it's all Nvidia's fault. You know granted Guild Wars 2 doesn't have a native Linux client I'm sure it would be much better but there's a lot of work that needs to be done. There's no reason that they should not be able to produce a decent Linux client or at least optimize it so it runs a little better (59/65)
because yes 1070 is not the latest and greatest. I think it's what now there's the 1080 and then of course Nvidia's got Titans and all that other jazz that make you want to just go out and spend lots of money. Yes I'm already looking at the latest one they're getting ready to come out it's called the Nvidia RDX. It's supposed to be real-time ray tracing so it's never mind. Anyway sorry I'm video card junkie. So it does help a little bit but not as much as I'd hoped and right now we know there's no reason that you cannot run mainline games Guild Wars, X-Plane, Half-Life, you know you got Portal. I mean there's all these games that run really really fast or better on Linux and then you have these ones that for some reason they won't take the developers won't take a little time to say hey you know if we add this it'll help these people. Yes we're not going to produce the Linux client but we're going to make it easier for them to run our game and give us money. So I just don't understand I (60/65)
mean this shouldn't be I shouldn't I should not have 50 frames difference in the same video card same hardware with the same with the updated driver. I just don't know what can be done but it's a little frustrating and frankly my card has enough horsepower to do it. I guess different cards will work differently. I'm just a little frustrated on some of this because yes I shouldn't have to drop into Windows to play a game and you know if I have the hardware to play it at its best. Does that make any sense to you? Yeah it does. Yeah I know it's a little thing for non-gamers but it does kind of go over to other applications you know that could use the graphics processors that we have in our machines. We were talking about this last week Larry. A lot of people use Linux to repurpose older laptops but a lot of us don't have old laptops. Our laptops are less than two years old and we want to be able to use the hardware and the horsepower that we pay for. And on some of these applications (61/65)
we're just not getting it and there's really no reason for it. We should be able to get as much power and use out of our machines just because we decide that we don't want to run the W windows or we should still be able to get benefit of our newer hardware. The kernel does a great job of trying to get things in but then again we were to also talk about this last week that a lot of these hardware vendors they really are not interested yet in optimizing their hardware for Linux. Because we're a smaller market but I think we're an important market as more and more people are saying yeah I really don't like all the privacy problems that they're having I'll just run Linux and I don't have to worry about my data being sold or whatever. So it's just I wish these hardware and software manufacturers and developers would understand that Linux users are an important subset of the computer market and it cannot be that hard to help us enjoy the benefits of our hardware. If they want us to buy their (62/65)
hardware they should support Linux with good drivers and good programming and off my ramp. Yep right exactly. Sorry okay I just get so frustrated by that sometimes. Yep yeah and I can understand it and it's just one of the frustrations of not using windows. Sorry guys didn't mean to go on my mini ramp. Yeah yeah and I know that the Mac OS folks have the same frustration running windows games on a Mac. You know they need to use a virtual machine to do that as well and hey that's just the way it is. I mean Mac users have the same problem if the game is Windows only which there's really no reason for that anymore but you know or it seems like if you're not Windows and Linux and Mac or like the redhead stepchildren and Mac's a little better than us because they've got more users but that does not mean that people should not that make the software and hardware should just we shouldn't have to jump through 15 hoops just to get something to run their game or application decently. Yep. Okay (63/65)
I'm done sorry. Okay yeah let's move on. Yeah and in the interest of moving on we're approaching an hour and a half on our recording here we have a gone Linux story from Mario and it's about Linux Mint and he's got a rant built in there but we're going to save that for our next listener feedback episode. Oh there's a tease. Okay Mario's email is a bit long so we'll just save it. There you go. Okay so what's up for our next episode Bill? What have you got in store for us? More reviews like Pingai or maybe reviews that aren't like Pingai or anything in the works that you're working on that maybe might be ready for our next show? Well actually I haven't finished it yet but I wanted to do a feature comparison of Windows 10 versus Linux and to show that you're not really missing out on anything if you do use Linux. You might gain a few things. Okay you might gain a few things and there may be some issues with games and other things but you know the Mac people also have trying to run Windows (64/65)
supported software on non-Windows machines but other than that yeah okay I'm looking forward to that one. Windows 10 versus Linux. Was that sarcastic? No I am looking forward to it. Okay until then you can go to our website at goinemix.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. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com (65/65)
Going Linux, Episode 388. Linux Spotlight Interview. Welcome to the Going Linux Podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. Whether you are 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 to send us feedback, you can email us at goinglinux at gmail dot com or send us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, Rocco from the Linux Spotlight podcast interviews me. Hello, just me today in your earbuds or on your speaker. And today's episode is a little different than normal. It is certainly longer than our regular episodes, and it's a little different topic. The topic is an interview conducted by Rocco, also known as Big Daddy Linux, of me about the Going Linux Podcast and about me and (1/83)
Bill and a number of other topics. So enjoy. This is an audio only version of the Linux Spotlight video podcast interview. So if you've already listened to the episode on Linux Spotlight, there's no need to also listen to it here on this. Of course, you want to hear it again. So here we go. Welcome to the Linux Spotlight. This show is dedicated to showing off the best thing about Linux, our community. This community is made up of developers, distro maintainers, YouTubers and everyday users. Each one plays a vital part in our community. And the goal is to have a discussion with each individual about their journey into Linux and beyond. So join me now as we turn the spotlight on. Hello, I'm your host Rocco. And with me today, our special guest is Larry Bushy. Larry, how are you? I'm doing fine. Are you Rocco? I am doing excellent, man. We are going to sit down. We're going to talk about you. We're going to talk about Linux and we're just going to have a good old discussion. Sounds great (2/83)
to me. All right. So you have, you know, your list of things that you have done goes long. You have published books on Ubuntu Mate. You've been a tech correspondent for other shows, for podcasts, but people will most undoubtedly know you for your own podcast called Going Linux that you host with Bill Smith. That is what you're noted for. That is what people would recognize you for. But what would you say to somebody if they asked you who is Larry Bushy personally? Well, I'd have to say that I'm just your average tech enthusiast who loves to help people build their confidence and competence using technology in a way that works for them and not the other way around. Yep. Very nice. Well, I think that's a constant theme that we're going to touch on through this whole episode. Okay. Well, on your bio, on your LinkedIn profile, you have a section of what you do. You lead a team of consultants for a cloud computing company. What is it that you do specifically on a day to day basis? Mostly (3/83)
what I do in my professional life working for the software company is I help customers of that company to optimize and extend their use of the software platform. And it's a cloud-based software that helps companies run their business on the internet. Nice. All right. What about outside of work, outside of Linux? Do you have any hobbies? Let's see. Producing and co-hosting podcasts about Linux, writing an in-app help for Ubuntu Mate Linux and let's see, writing books about Linux and open source software. So no, I don't have any hobbies outside. Seriously though, I really enjoy traveling by cruise ship and playing with my grandkids. And that's about it for hobbies. I'm pretty, pretty busy as you could tell. One day I'm going to go on a cruise. I have never been on a cruise before. Yeah. You know, the thing about cruising is you either love it or you hate it. And once you've been on one, you'll know which it is. And so I, you know, people who ask me because I've been in quite a few (4/83)
cruises, ask me about cruising. I say the same thing. I say, well, try it out for a short duration cruise. Don't go on a one to two day cruise because they tend to be, you know, your classic booze cruise to nowhere sort of thing. So unless you're into that, it's not something that I would recommend. So go on a five or seven day cruise and then you'll know. It's long enough to know what a cruise is about, but it's short enough to not have you trapped on a boat that you don't want to be on for too long a period of time. So your first one, take it easy and hopefully you'll enjoy it if you get to that point. Do you have a favorite place you took a cruise to? Well, I can't say that I have a place that I have taken a cruise to, but I'd like to take a cruise to Europe and cruise around the Mediterranean. Haven't done that. Like to go to Alaska. Haven't done that. I've been to the Caribbean a lot and to Hawaii. So and through the Panama Canal, I've done that one. So I've been quite a few (5/83)
places. It's this is going to seem strange to say for the favorite place I have to go for vacation is home. You know, I like being home. But yeah, I don't really have a favorite place to cruise to. I just love being on a cruise ship. It's a great way to relax and vacation. Yep. Very nice. Well, you work in a tech related field. So I would assume that you can freely talk about Linux in those places. Yeah. What about other parts of your life? You know, family, friends, people you meet? Do you talk about Linux there? Are they receptive at all to it? Well, my wife was using Ubuntu Mate for years and Linux Mint for years until I bought her a MacBook Air. And the reason I bought her the MacBook Air, she wanted it to be more compatible with the rest of her Apple products. And, you know, that's fine. She had no problem using Linux. It worked just fine for her. She just wanted a little more integration. And let's face it, you know, Linux isn't at the point quite yet where we have everything (6/83)
completely integrated. And Apple's got it over Linux and Windows there in that they have full control over the hardware and the software so they can do that kind of thing better than anywhere else. And as far as anywhere else is concerned, I really, as a rule, don't promote Linux. But if somebody asks me about it, I'm going to, you know, show them why my computer screen looks different from their Windows desktop. And if we get into the conversation about it, or about one of my books or something, I'll talk about open source. But I'm not going to try to force somebody to convert to Linux, you know, I'm not the religious Linux type that is that kind of forcefulness. But I'll explain to people that there are other options to run their computer other than Windows and Mac. And, you know, if they're interested, we'll go in deeper. If they're not, I'll drop it. Yeah. And that's kind of the way I take it. Well, I don't think it works any other way. You can try to jam it down to somebody's (7/83)
throat, but it just never seems to work that way. Right. Well, I'm not that kind of person in the first place. But you're right. Yeah. If you do try to, it's the same as anything, you know, if you try to force something down somebody's throat, they're going to push back. And that's not what you're looking for. Right. All right. So let's start at the beginning of your computer career. Okay, so what in the way back machine? Yes, let's go back in the way back machine. And what was the first computer you remember using? Oh, very clearly. It was a University of Guelph computer science department mainframe. And it was running Fortran 4 with watt five. And the input was a telex tell type keyboard that created punch cards. And there was a card reader. And it had a printer and the outputs came in a green bar report. And yeah, that was the first computer I ever used in university. And yeah, so it's been a little while. Going way back. Way back in the way back machine. Well, let's face it, some (8/83)
universities aren't known for having the most latest and greatest hardware. And this was the case, but it was a pretty up to date computer course that I was taking. So the hardware we were using was not, like I said, not the latest and greatest, but it was fairly mainstream at the time. And but to answer your question a little more along the lines of what I think you're asking me, the first computer that I actually owned was a Tandy Color Computer 2, Coco 2 computer. That was my first, my first personally owned computer, although I had used some before that. Well, you mentioned university and stuff. What were you always into technology or what made you start to take a computer course? Yeah, I've always been, you know, in high school, I was good at math and everybody thought I was going to go into the computer it's courses in university. I thought, you know, I could do that. I know how to do that. I'll do that really well. Let me just go into biology or something. So that's what I did. (9/83)
And then I figured out that there wasn't a lot of money doing, you know, chemistry and biology and stuff unless I wanted to be a teacher. And there was still not a lot of money in that. So I got back into technology at that point and got into sales and selling technology and not so much using technology at that point, but more into selling it. So, you know, after learning the computer and programming basics at university, my sales career led me into using some of those programming skills for doing demonstrations of the technology for customers. And, you know, some of the applications that I was involved with were things like data logging and healthcare diagnostic testing and control software for manufacturing. And, you know, these are systems that ran operating systems like CPM and DOS. And I was using basic programming at that point. And I never really had my own computer or even a company provided laptop at that time because, well, first there weren't laptops. And secondly, you know, (10/83)
computers were very, very expensive. So, you know, companies were going to provide salespeople with that. But that first computer I owned was, like I said, a color computer that I bought to learn more about home computing at the time. And, you know, Bank of America was just getting into home banking at that point. And so I decided, let me test this thing out, get a computer that I can use for this. And that point, I was doing demos for my sales career on computers like a Compaq luggable computer. You know, this was, yeah, I don't know if you've seen those, but they were a suitcase size computer with, it was a portable computer because it had a handle on the top. But this thing was 60 pounds and it had a seven inch green screen. And the one I had was the later model. So it had two floppy disk drives. Oh my. Yes. So yeah. And these were five and a quarter, not eight inch. So, you know, it was pretty modern computer at the time. And so, you know, I, at that point in my career, I was (11/83)
helping a couple of the employers as I changed employers throughout my career, adopt the very first technology for its sales organization. Salesforce automation is the category of computing that it was at that point in time now known as, you know, customer relationship management, but it was SFA back then. So that advocating that for the companies I worked for kind of got me into managing salespeople and training people on software and managing the deployment of the company I was with at the time, their first set of laptops to over a hundred field sales reps. And then from there, well, I have to say that at that time, it was like Windows 95 ish. So we were talking about IBM ThinkPad. I think my first ThinkPad was a 760 C and working, I worked for that company for quite a while. And I helped them to standardize on the ThinkPad as the computer for their sales and service organizations and used multiple models of ThinkPads throughout the years, commenting before I left that company to go (12/83)
to the company that I'm with now in the technology field as a technology architect. But I guess I was on Windows 7 at that time. So that kind of gives you a span of computers. So I've always been in, long story short, I've always been involved in computing or technology one way or another. And after getting out of the sales part of my career, I started into a more IT-related kind of career. I was still in sales operations, I guess, but I was on a team to help deploy an ERP system, the sales part of the ERP system throughout the company worldwide. And then I got into the customer relationship management software, replacing that with a more modern version, a cloud-based version of that. And the company finally moved me from the sales role into a true IT role, still using computers, still using ThinkPads, of course, at the time, and still using Windows. But then I found that working within a corporate IT environment was too restrictive. I did not like working in an IT department as an (13/83)
employee of a company because I felt that my creativity was being stifled. So I moved to my current employer as a software consultant, helping customers to optimize the use of their technology. And they provided me with my first Mac computer. So I have a MacBook Air that I use right now for work. And that was the first time I started using macOS. And outside of work, I use various models of computers from Lenovo's to HP's, and I've had System76, and I've had Dell computers. My current personal computer is a Dell XPS 13. I actually have two, one running Windows 10. There's a story behind that as well, and another one running Ubuntu Mate, which is my daily driver computer, and the one that I record all the podcasts and everything else on. So that was a very long answer to a short question, but hopefully that gives you an idea of what kind of computers I have. That was perfect. Yeah. So, okay, so you mentioned all of that stuff that you did, but when in that area did you hear about Linux (14/83)
first? Yeah, so, let's see, about 2005 is when I started looking at ways to customize Windows computers. And during that time, I was, I, you know, had learned enough about programming and that sort of thing that I could do DOS batch programming, but that didn't help me much in personalizing the Windows computer to make it work the way I wanted it to work. But during the research of some of the DOS batch programming that I was doing, I learned about a program called Cygwin, C-Y-G-W-I-N, if I remember correctly. And that was a way to put a Unix-like operating system within Windows, and I kind of latched on to that, and that led me to Linux. And that's, that was the first time I had heard about Linux through Cygwin, kind of sideways, finding out about Cygwin and then finding about Unix and finding out about Linux. Right. So, what is intriguing you to try Linux? Is it that trying to find the customization ability? Yeah, exactly. I want, I was, I always knew that computers could do more (15/83)
than a Windows computer would let me do. Right. And I could find ways to force it to do what I wanted it to do through customization or through writing my own programs and that sort of thing, but it always felt forced. And so when, when I discovered Linux and discovered open source software in general and found out that you could make it do things, it would allow you to make it do things. And it was designed to allow you to make the operating system do things to make your life easier. I immediately latched onto it and never looked back after that. So what is the first distro that you end up trying in Linux? Let's see, the very first one, well, first of all, I looked at, started trying to use Mandrake. So I bought a book on Mandrake, and by the time I finished reading the book on Mandrake, I discovered that Mandrake had been discontinued. They'd stopped development on it, right? So I thought, okay, now what am I going to do? So I did a little more searching around for Linux (16/83)
distributions and I discovered OpenSUSE after looking at Knopiks. You remember Knopiks was the, one of the very first live CD-based Linux operating systems, right? It was one of the pioneers in that area. And I didn't really have a CD-ROM drive at the time for my ThinkPad that I had, and I found a way to install it using floppy disks, not Knopiks, but OpenSUSE. Because I tried out Knopiks on computers at work that did have CD-ROM drives and I liked it a lot. So I was looking for a distribution of Linux that I could actually install from floppy disks that wasn't going to take a steep learning curve. And I stumbled across OpenSUSE and found out that I only needed nine floppy disks to install OpenSUSE. So that's what I did. I installed it. That was a plus back then. That was a plus. In fact, if I remember correctly, if you wanted to install Windows using floppy disks, which I was doing for work, I think it was something like six Windows disks, but then if you wanted Office, it was (17/83)
something like 15 floppy disks to install Office. And so I was relieved when I found out it was only nine to install Linux and you got all the software that came with it. So, yeah, that's, so I guess the first one I actually used was Knopiks. The first one, and that was more of a trial sort of thing. And I realized that I wasn't going to be able to use it on an ongoing basis because it was built to run off a CD and I couldn't really install it. So my first one I actually used as an installed Linux distribution was OpenSUSE. So you try OpenSUSE and you have this new thing that you're trying out. What are the good things? What are the bad things that you see when you install OpenSUSE and you get to the desktop? Okay. So the good things are I can have the computer system do whatever I want it to do. It's really refreshing to be able to change the way the desktop looks, change where the panels are. I can customize the panels. I don't need to worry too much about drivers, although I had one (18/83)
computer that was giving me fits and starts with a Wi-Fi driver at one point. So yeah, I learned a lot about Wi-Fi drivers through that experience, as we do. Them old horror stories always start with Wi-Fi drivers. Wi-Fi drivers, yes. Wi-Fi drivers are printer drivers and then they're the printers that you can never get working on Linux, those kinds of things. So yeah, so the pros were I learned a lot that new users no longer have to worry about, quite frankly, when using Linux. A lot of the details about using the command line and fixing problems using the command line and the cons, other than the fact that I had to learn a lot about using the command line to fix problems, there were really no cons to it. Yeah, it was a lot of fun for me because I enjoy technology. So I'd say it was all pros and very few cons. All right, so do you stick with OpenSUSE on that machine or do you say, hey, I'm going to go back to Windows for a while or? Yeah, I stuck with OpenSUSE for quite a while and (19/83)
then along came Ubuntu. And I discovered, I was looking around I was looking around at different Linux distributions because I had started the podcast by that time and I was looking at different Linux distributions just to get a little experience with them so that I wasn't just stuck on OpenSUSE because I wanted to answer some questions that other people had. And so I looked at Ubuntu, I burned a CD-ROM drive. By that time I had computers with CD-ROM drives. I burned a CD-ROM and tried it out and I thought, this is pretty interesting. Oh, and they have something called, well, I was using KDE as my desktop on OpenSUSE so I tried Kubuntu for the first time. And the first version I tried was 6.06. And as soon as I tried it, I knew that was the operating system I was going to move to. Because it had everything that I was looking for. It had the power and the flexibility of Linux. You could do as much complexity as you wanted. If you were a software developer, you could use it for that. If (20/83)
you just wanted to use it for browsing the internet, you could use it for that. And the thing that drew me to it as the producer of a podcast for people moving to Linux for the first time was the fact that it was easy to use and they had put a lot of effort into making it for the average user. And I knew it was going to take over a big position in the Linux ecosystem for Linux users and computer users in general, especially those moving from Windows. So that's kind of where I went to, is Kubuntu 6.06 and new from there. That's where I wanted to be. As Ubuntu developed over the years and as my familiarity with Linux grew and my personal taste changed, I moved into more of a GNOME-based distribution. It was still Ubuntu. And it was a GNOME 2. And I really liked that interface even better than the KDE interface. Although KDE gave you a lot more flexibility as to, you know, a lot more control right out of the box as to how it looked and what you could tweak. For me, it was fine because I (21/83)
love tinkering with stuff, but for the average computer user, which is the audience for the podcast, it was no longer something that I could recommend when I found out how simple GNOME 2 was for the average user just adopting Linux and how you could make that look more like a Mac, or you could make it look more like Windows and make a user comfortable and yet not overwhelm them with so many choices that they would become lost. Right. And in the vast multitude of things that you could tweak, it's very easy to just dive in and get lost in it and never come out. So you're right. So GNOME had that kind of, it was the balance between power and safe and sane defaults. Right. And so I loved GNOME 2. And then when I found Linux Mint, I found that the Cinnamon desktop gave me very similar sorts of things than GNOME 2. But they started to develop some things that kind of took it to the next level. Right. And then Ubuntu went to Unity. And I didn't like Unity. So I went to Linux Mint and started (22/83)
using Cinnamon. And the first thing I did with Cinnamon was I took the panel at the bottom and I put two panels, one at the top and one at the bottom. And it looked just like GNOME 2. Strangely enough. But then full circle later on, I ended up back on Ubuntu. And this time Ubuntu Mate, which came with a desktop that did have a panel at the top and at the bottom. And it looked just like GNOME 2. And I guess what I was looking for was a Linux distribution that had what I wanted as its own personal defaults. Right. And I liked the way GNOME 2 felt and looked and worked. And I haven't tweaked too much from that. Today, I still use Ubuntu Mate, except I use one of the layouts that has a Mac-like dock, not at the bottom, but on the right hand side. Just because it's different. I was going to say, because usually it's on the left. I know. Well, I like the window controls on the left. So the X to close the window is on the left and the dock is on the right. And I use a program called Barrier (23/83)
that allows me to put my work Mac desktop to the right of my screen. And I have the Mac dock on the left and the Linux dock on the right. So they're both there sitting there in the middle. Right. So it's easy to whichever desktop I'm in, Barrier allows me to use a single mouse and keyboard and move fluidly between the Linux desktop and the Mac desktop. So when I'm working for my desk here at home, yeah, I, you know, if I'm on the Linux desktop on the left, my mouse moves to the right and there's the dock. If I'm on the Mac desktop, I move it to the left and there's the dock. They're both there side by side and that's my workflow. Nice. That is actually a pretty good workflow. Yeah. I never heard of Barrier before though. Yeah. Have you heard of a program called Synergy? I have heard of it, but I never used it. Okay. So Synergy, there was a precursor before Synergy. I forget the name of it, but I used Synergy for years and the developer of Synergy took it from open source to proprietary (24/83)
with some still elements of open source to it. And it was free, still free to use for personal use. But if you wanted to use it for business, you had to pay a whole bunch of money. But at that point, Synergy got forked to Barrier. So there's still Synergy and there's still Barrier. And I switched over to Barrier because it's open source. And it, the folks working on Synergy tried to do a new version that didn't quite work all that well. And they reverted back to the old version. And I thought they're going in a different direction than where I want to go. Let me just go to Barrier and it works just fine. So both those programs are available. They're both, I think, in the Ubuntu repositories, certainly Barrier is. And I haven't looked back since switching over to Barrier, but its claim to fame, and I've mentioned it on my podcast a few times, is that you can use a single keyboard and a single mouse on a server machine. You set up one machine as a server and you can have up to, I think (25/83)
it's 16 computers. You know, with, it's like virtual desktops, except it's virtual computing across different operating systems. And it works across Windows, Mac, and Linux. Doesn't work on Chrome yet, but someday. Yeah. Chrome operating system. Well, you have tried a ton of different distros out in your Linux career, but I believe Bill is the distro hopper on the podcast. Extraordinary. Every time I talk to him, he's trying something new. Have you gotten to the point where you are, you just want a working system when you sit down to work? Because a lot of people, when they first get to Linux, they start to distro hop because they're trying out new things. It's all exciting. It's all new. And I was too. I distro hopped a billion times, but right now I'm to the point where I have a machine and I have to sit down and do work on it and I need it. So is that the same for you? It is. And especially since, you know, I've gotten busier at work and the podcast has kind of expanded and I'm (26/83)
doing some other things, I just want a machine to work. I have for years now. And so I have settled on Ubuntu Mate as the operating system and desktop environment of choice for me. It works just fine. And I'm planning on sticking with it until something better comes along. And it would have to be something with some significant advances to make me switch from it at this point. And I like Ubuntu Mate because it does what I want it to do. It looks the way I want it to look. It has enough power that I can do what it can do what I want it to do, whether that's something as simple as checking email or something as complex as writing some bash scripts to automate some of my workflow. And it's the one I have based a lot of my work. Certainly the suggestions that I have for people on the podcast are all based on Ubuntu Mate. And it is my first recommended distribution for other users. Linux Mint, I think, is my second. You have to bear in mind that the podcast audience for me is not the (27/83)
sophisticated long-time Linux user. It's the new user to Linux. It's the person who may have just switched from Windows or just switched from Mac for whatever the reason. Or they're interested in switching and they're interested in what are the problems I'm going to come across. Some of the questions that we get from folks from the podcast are the same from month to month. But mostly I find there some twist that I hadn't thought of. Or there's a new question that I... Where did that come from? Those kinds of things. So I'm trying to keep my recommendations to something that would be suitable for a new listener, a new user to Linux. And I like being on a system that I can recommend to other people. And what better way to be able to recommend something to use it yourself. That's kind of my philosophy. Well, speaking of Ubuntu MATE, you have quite a few books and manuals, documentation on Amazon that you have produced. What made you want to start writing tutorials on like actual books? (28/83)
Well, let's see. A couple of different answers to that question. I could take in a couple of different directions. So let me start with why I started doing this in the first place. Right. In 2015, Martin Wimpress, who I know you've had on Linux Spotlight before, and he's the originator of Ubuntu MATE, he reached out to me and he had sent me an email and he wrote, I'm going to quote what he said here. He said, I've been trying to break down what Linux and Ubuntu MATE are for people new to Ubuntu MATE. Would you be interested in helping improve the content in Ubuntu MATE to better communicate this? So Martin reached out and I wrote him back and said, absolutely. What do you need? So what other responses there? Yeah, exactly. I mean, of course. So that led me to writing the content for the about page on the Ubuntu MATE website. And on the, when you click on what is Ubuntu MATE about that page, I wrote a good deal of the content. It's morphed over time. So some of it is unrecognizable, but (29/83)
the thing is I got it started and it's basically still the same stuff. And in researching that, I went through what existed for help within Ubuntu MATE. And I found that when you pressed F1, you know, the help button for any thing in Ubuntu MATE, it would bring up help screen, but the help screen was always something about MATE. It was the, you know, it was the web browser help, or it was the file manager help, or it was the text editor help, those kinds of things. And I realized there's really no help for Ubuntu MATE as an operating system. So having written the about page and the what is Ubuntu MATE page, that kind of inspired me along with not finding any help when I reached out for help. That inspired me to take the content that I'd been working on for years on my website and what I had learned about Ubuntu MATE and knew about Ubuntu MATE and mix in some old podcast episodes. And I wrote the help system for Ubuntu MATE that you find today. You still can't yet get to it with the F1 (30/83)
key, but it's in the menus as the Ubuntu MATE guide. When you are running Ubuntu MATE, you click on menu and Ubuntu MATE guide is there. And that's what that is. And then having done that, I realized that two things. First, that the help wasn't there for Ubuntu MATE. And although Linux Mint had a user guide, there was no real good publication for a user guide. Now, some sort of technical manual, if you will, for Ubuntu MATE. So I wrote the first outline for an Ubuntu MATE guide that eventually turned into two different books. One for users switching from Windows or Mac to Linux, and the other one for a little more in depth. That provides people who have adopted Ubuntu MATE a little more detail on not just the operating system and how to personalize it for your own use, but walks through some of the main applications in the operating system as it comes out of the box, as opposed to the things that you can add yourself. Just the default applications, what they do, how they're intended to (31/83)
work, and give people a little orientation as to what comes with Ubuntu MATE. So those are the two books that I've written, and there have been different editions of them. I started them back in 2017. And I have the switchers guide, I like to call it, for Ubuntu MATE 20.04, already released on Amazon. And the more in-depth guide, I'm holding back until, I guess we're in feature release now for Ubuntu MATE, but as soon as we get into April, I'll make that one available on Amazon as well, the third edition of that book that's been updated for 20.04. But I want to wait and make sure that I have as many of the features in there as I can before actually releasing that book. So if you go on Amazon, you'll find that it's the second edition that's available. The third edition will be out sometime towards the middle of April, I suspect, just before the end of the month release of Ubuntu MATE 20.04. So those are the books, and that's how they got started, and you know, how I ended up doing them. (32/83)
That's awesome though, man. That is one way to contribute to Linux. Exactly my thought. That is awesome. I love it. Well, you have one, it's using Ubuntu MATE and its applications. You also have one, Ubuntu MATE upgrading from Windows or Mac OS. I love the idea of having an actual hard copy in somebody's hands because there is a whole section of people, I believe, that would enjoy that, that relate to that. Is that also something that you thought about when you were deciding, hey, I'm going to put these books out there? Absolutely. You know, as a trainer or instructor, I've come to understand that each person learns differently than the people around them. And as a result, I knew that I needed to provide the documentation that I was developing in at least four formats. You know, some people can hear someone describe how to do something and know immediately how to do it just from that description. But some people need to be able to read and ponder it a little bit before they understand. (33/83)
Others can watch someone do it in a video or a demonstration of something and be able to understand how to use it. And then the others need to actually put their hands on it and try it in order for it to sink in so that they can understand how, you know, thoroughly how to use something. So everybody has this combination of learning modes, if you will, that's best for them. You know, I already had the auditory mode covered with the podcast. I had kinesthetic and practice, if you will, through my website and tutorials in there, I gave step by step. And I figured I needed the visual for YouTube, and I needed a book, something that somebody could actually read and mark up and study and, you know, follow examples and that sort of thing. So, you know, I haven't done too much with the YouTube part of it yet. But the book was kind of the, you know, fill in that gap for people who learn by reading and studying and doing that sort of thing. So, yeah, I agree with you. People need different (34/83)
things to learn according to the way they learn. And a book is one way to do that. And whether that's an e-book on an e-reader, or whether that's a printed book on paper, you know, the old analog way of doing things, flipping through pages. It's all out there. It's available now for Ubuntu MATE. And, you know, it's, I think that's a good thing. And I'm supporting Ubuntu MATE as kind of my pet project, if you will. Because I like it, I think it's the best, it's best out there for new Linux users. Yep, I think that's an awesome way to contribute, man. Yeah. And Martin's not paying me for this. All right, let's get into your podcast. It's called Going Linux. And from what you've said, you started it. So you started the podcast, I believe in 2005. And that's right around the time when you started using Linux, right? Well, I actually started the Going Linux podcast in 2007. I started podcasting in 2005. My first podcast was a Windows tips and tricks kind of podcast. So I was doing the same (35/83)
thing, but for Windows users, right? And then as I moved to Linux, I thought this Windows stuff is overdone. I'm not interested in it anymore. I got to do this for Linux. And that's how in 2007, I started Going Linux. Yeah. All right. Well, okay. So at that time, podcasts were not the going rate. Like today, everybody has a podcast. And back then, it wasn't like this super popular thing. So what got you into podcasting to begin with? Well, in 2005, when I started podcasting, podcasting was a year old, right? And so I was learning how to podcast. I had heard about, you know, the daily source code with Adam Curry, and I had subscribed to what few podcasts were out there. And I was very interested in podcasting as a communication medium, as a training medium in my professional life. And so I learned more about podcasting, learned how to do it, picked the topic that I knew something about helping people to use Windows at the time, and use that as kind of my way of learning how to do that. (36/83)
And so I got interested in podcasting just through listening to podcasts, actually, through listening to audiobooks at first. And then one of the audiobook authors started distributing his books through podcasts. I thought, what's this podcasting thing? So I started subscribing to his podcast. So, you know, every chapter that came out was a new podcast episode, and then explored podcasting a little bit more, and then realized, as I moved into Linux, that there were very few Linux podcasts out there. And so I seized the opportunity and said, well, I've got to do something. And I'll do something for what I know is helping new users to, you know, move to Linux and answer questions for people. And as I started giving examples with Ubuntu in the podcast, I found out that it was very popular, I found out that it was very easy to answer people's question using those examples. And so that just reinforced that Ubuntu was, like I said earlier, was the way to go for new Linux users. And (37/83)
podcasting was a great way to get the word out about it, because it was becoming more popular. It was very fledgling. Even in 2007, it was early days for podcasting. But it was a great way to get those who had found out about podcasting to understand and learn about Linux. And at that point, I had no thoughts of writing a book or anything like that. So this was the way I was going to get the word out. So you choose the name Going Linux. Yeah. And a name, you know, seems like it's not a big deal, but a name is your brand. At the end of the day, and it's a pretty important thing. So how'd you go about choosing that name? And what were the goals when like, when you start, hey, I'm going to do this podcast? Were there ultimate goals in that? No, I just picked it out of the air. No. Yeah. So I did have some goals. First of all, the goal was I knew that my audience was going to be computer users who are new and struggling to use Linux. So I wanted something that conveyed that in the name, (38/83)
because you're quite right. The name is very important. I wanted it to convey meaning something like an action, like using Linux or learning Linux or adopting Linux or something like that. I didn't want it just Linux, you know? Yeah. Right. Right. And so in searching for combinations of terms, you know, let's not make it like a six word title. So combinations of two or three words that convey some sort of action about understanding Linux, that kind of thing. I looked to see what was available at the time. And going Linux was the first one that I came across that was available, that somebody didn't already own it, or there wasn't a squatter squatting on that, you know, URL. So going Linux was the one I ended up with and it served me well. And it seems to be, it conveyed the right thing. And those were my goals. Right. And yes, it has served you well. As of the last count, because you just released an episode this past week. So as of the latest count, you have 386 episodes of the Go (39/83)
Linux podcast. That is like only yesterday. That is an amazing thing. What drives your passion to continually produce this all the time? Yeah, it's, it's, it's an easy one. It's the listeners. I'm driven for some reason to help people. And I found a way to do that in podcasting and writing books and other things, but in podcasting and it's fun and interesting for me. And I love interacting with the listeners and helping them to learn about Linux. And, you know, we've got listeners that have been around for years since day one, some of them, and they have learned more by now than I have to teach. Okay. But they stick around for the podcast for some reason, and we're glad and happy to have them. And then there are always this influx of new users. New listeners come on board, they learn what they need to learn. They go off and they explore Linux on their own. Some come back, some stayed with me forever and you know, others are, you know, they, they come and go and there's always new Linux (40/83)
users who need a podcast to help them learn how to use it better. Right. Well, every other show you have you do, you do a listener feedback episode. And the whole show is based on answering questions, reading emails, voicemails. This is, this is like a great way to get the community involved. Is this the reason for the success of the show? Yeah, I'd say that it is. I think it's key to the popularity of the Going Linux podcast. I think it's key to podcasts in general to listen to your audience. And we have a perfect way of doing that in taking in questions and answering the questions. And I'm continuously amazed that since 2007, every month we have enough listener feedback in one form or another, emails, voicemails, whatever it is to dedicate an entire episode every month to answering questions and nothing but answering questions and giving advice about, about Linux. So thank you audience. I really appreciate it. And Bill does as well. And my co-hosts over the years have too. And yeah, (41/83)
thank you. Without you, there wouldn't be a Going Linux. But that's a testament to you and all of the effort that you've put into it that you have that like must be providing some sort of value. Yeah. On your site, you have screencast tutorials. Yeah. You like simple things like changing your password in Ubuntu Mate. You have your email listed. You have your Miwi page listed. You have your phone number listed that you can, people can leave voice, like actual voicemails. And that is an amazing thing to see in a podcast. There are a lot of podcasts out there. Some of them do an effort to get the community involved, but this is like going that extra mile in getting the community involved. And I believe that is the reason for the success of the podcast. Well, I can't disagree. Thanks. Uh, I, my philosophy is if we're going to help people to adopt Linux, we need to make it easy for them to contact us in a way that, you know, is easiest for them, whether that's by phone call or whether (42/83)
that's sending in an email or whether that's tweeting us on Twitter, whatever it is, just to make it easy for people. And they'll ask the questions. They have the questions. They just need a way to ask them. So all of these episodes that you put out, um, is there maybe a favorite episode or maybe a favorite memory of an episode? That's like asking you if I have a favorite child. Well, they're all my favorites. Uh, you know, okay. That's the standard answer, right? Um, well, just thinking about it, the, I can, I can say this, that the two that I've received the largest number of listens, uh, as judged by the internet archive, which isn't always the best way to judge your number of listeners, but it's where we post our, our, um, where, where we deposit all our episodes and we link to those from, from the, uh, from the, uh, RSS feed. But, um, looking at the number of times things have been downloaded from there and estimating that those are listens, if you will, there are two that stand (43/83)
out, um, episode one 27, which is titled KWTV live, uh, and the interview and then episode one 25 listener feedback. They're both from interestingly from 2011. I don't know what it is about 2011, but that's when our most popular episodes were. Uh, and the first one is an interview of me by, uh, night wise, a Belgian podcast. Well, I think he's Dutch, but he lives in Belgium and he does a podcast, um, for, he's a, um, a professional it person, a software consultant and helps companies with what he does. But in his day to day life, he's sliding between windows, Mac, and Linux on a constant basis. And so he talks about how to use computers to get things done. Um, but also using computers. Um, well, let me put it this way. His philosophy is one that I've already mentioned, which is computers should, uh, be things that do what you want them to do and not the other way around. Right. Uh, and so, uh, he and I, you know, uh, he, he listened to my podcast. I listened to his podcast. We (44/83)
eventually, we ended up talking to one another and he interviewed me, uh, and that, that was that episode. So I'm, I'm anticipating that your episode here will get a few listens as well. Apparently people are interested in me for some reason. And, uh, the other one was, uh, a listener feedback episode. There was nothing really special about that episode. None of the topics kind of stand out as, you know, earth shattering insights into how Linux works as an eco set or nothing like that. It's just another listener feedback episode. And so those are the two that have the most downloads. If that says anything, I don't know, but I really don't have any favorites. I hear you. I hear you. They're all your favorites. Yes. Yes. They're all my favorites. Well, not only you, uh, are involved in going Linux from 2008 to 2014, you were also on a show called Computer America, which is a radio show that kind of grew into podcasts, YouTube type thing. Um, how'd you get involved with them? Yeah, that (45/83)
was, that was an interesting number of years. Lots of fun in that. Um, there, they had a segment on Linux before I joined the show. It was hosted by Marcelle Gagné out of Canada, another popular Linux YouTuber and podcast host. So he was their Linux correspondent for a number of years and he left the show. And I don't remember whether it was Marcelle or whether it was Craig Crossman, the host, or whether it was Kerry Holtzman, his cohost who listened to the Going Linux podcast. But Craig called me and invited me to spend two hours live on the air every month with he and Kerry. And it just took off from there. It was a lot of fun. But I found that it took a lot of time and with my personal life and my career and the podcast and the website at 2014, it just got to be a little too much time investment required. So I made the choice to, to leave the live radio broadcast environment. And my understanding is Marcelle Gagné went back again as their Linux correspondent. And I've kind of (46/83)
stopped listening and lost track, but I understand they're still going on. I don't know whether the show has morphed into something different or not, but I'm hoping they're continuing on with, with what they've been doing. I think Craig may have, may have retired and his son taken over, but Hey, these things happen, right? Yep. Well, especially when they span so many years. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And he'd been on his, his tagline was something like the longest running radio show on technology or something. Yeah. Yeah. Longest running syndicated radio show on technology. Well, you have a whole career in podcasting. Looking back on that, are there some obstacles that you encountered that maybe you can pass on some advice to people who want to follow that same path? Everything was smooth sailing from day one, overnight success. I get you every time with that, don't I? Right. Yep. Yeah. So there were a few obstacles. Being pretty technologically adept, I'd say the technology part of it was (47/83)
pretty straightforward. Getting good quality audio was a challenge at the beginning. And that's a matter of getting good equipment, but also understanding how to do editing well. And I think we've got that down every once in a while we flub it, but Hey, everybody makes mistakes from time to time, but we've, we've gotten a lot better over the years. Just go back to episode one and listen to that. You'll be, you'll be amazed at how bad that was. But I think everybody's first episode of podcast was whatever their podcast is, is a mess by comparison as they approve over the years. So advice for people getting into podcasts, regardless of the subject, whether it's Linux or something else, doesn't matter. But number one is pick a subject you're interested in and know a little about. That may seem intuitively obvious, but I've listened to one or two episodes of podcasts that, A, I don't know what it's about after listening to it for one or two episodes, or it's pretty obvious that the person (48/83)
doesn't know a lot about. So if it doesn't at least interest you, it's not going to be an interest to your audience. The next piece of advice, and I have like four or five of these, is you don't have to be an expert to have a podcast on whatever the subject is. There are plenty of podcasts that are based on people's journeys around learning to do something. And those are some of the most interesting podcasts that I've listened to. Even though I have no interest in learning what they're learning, just following their journey can be interesting, right? It's like watching a television show. But next piece of advice is don't be scared off by thinking that there are other podcasts on the topic that interests you. The key thing to remember there is none of those people have your perspective on the topic. And so even though you may decide, okay, I want to start a podcast on Linux, right? When I started there weren't that many, but there were quite a few, some of which have podfaded off into (49/83)
oblivion, but others of which started before I started and are still going. But I've been successful and my co-hosts have helped me be successful over the years because we have a unique perspective on it. Our perspective is to help new users to Linux, and that's worked very well. The next, and this will be the second last bullet point, piece of advice is speak to your audience and ask them to tell you what they like and what they don't like. And we get that feedback all the time through the format of the show, through the listener feedback. But every once in a while we take a poll and we ask people their opinions and that sort of thing. And the last piece of advice is allow enough time. Podcasting takes a lot of time and you've got to be able to do research and write notes and record and edit and publish. And if you're doing just an audio podcast, allow two to three times the length of which you expect the show to be. So if you're doing a half hour show, it's got to be an hour, an hour (50/83)
and a half, maybe even two hours of time to do all that work, whether that's researching and notes. And I'm assuming you're going to do some sort of editing, even if that's putting a tag at the front and a tag at the back, you're still going to do something. And if you're doing video, Rocco, tell me if this fits with what you say. You've got to allow three to four times the amount of time unless you're doing something that is just record the video, slap it to air and you're done. It's going to take a lot of time. It's going to take a lot of time. I would say that that's at least three to four times the amount of time you need. So. Yeah, that's just that's just from doing those short little tutorials that I do, you know, and I guess it all depends too on how particular you are on making it sound good or not sound good, look good or not look good. So, you know, you can put a video out there and, you know, it would be fine. But if you're particular in the way you want it, it's going to (51/83)
take a lot of time. Yeah. And would you agree with me that for video podcasting, the audio is more important than the quality of the video? I would say that the audio quality, no matter if you're doing audio, a podcast audio or a video is equally important regardless of what it is, because there are a lot of people that will like this podcast, a lot of people listen to it. They don't even watch it. But also, if the audio quality is bad, it's something that you can't get over. Like a video quality, you can kind of get over that because you understand, you know, maybe the camera's blurry or a little bit or whatever. But audio quality, it's very restrictive as far as it's unforgiving. Yeah. Yeah. You can overlook the poor video if the audio is good, but you can't, the inverse doesn't apply, you know, if you can't hear it, you have no idea what they're doing. Got to be able to hear it. Yeah. All right. So what are the future goals for going Linux? Any long-term plans? There's a lot of (52/83)
continue doing what we're doing because we've been pretty successful doing what we're doing without sitting, you know, resting on our laurels. So we want to continue to focus on new Linux users. We want to concentrate on helping people to get things done using Linux and open source software. We want to make sure that we remember that once you get past the question, how do I do this thing on Linux, whatever it is you're trying to do, it's all about the applications rather than the operating system, because people don't use a computer to use the operating system. They use the operating system to use the applications. That's what helps them to get things done. So we want to do more focus on the applications rather than Linux as an operating system. And we want to make sure we continue to listen to our listeners so that we can continue to help them. Because if we don't listen to them, we're not going to be much help. Yep. Well, speaking of applications, you already talked about your (53/83)
workflow and how you do things like with Barrier. What about software? Is there software that, like, if you make a new install of Ubuntu Mate, get a new computer, you install Ubuntu Mate, is there certain software that you install right away that you have to have? Yeah, well, as you can imagine, being a podcaster, there are certain things like Audacity and EasyTag and FileZilla and Pulse Audio Volume Control and those kinds of podcast supportive software that have to go on there. Most Linux distributions, including Ubuntu Mate, come with Firefox as the browser. I have to have Chrome. I have to have both, actually, because I like to switch back and forth and make sure things that work fine on Chrome will work on other browsers as well. I include things like OBS and Shotcut and Simple Screen Recorder to do the video. LibreOffice has to be on there, and it is on most Linux distributions by default. But things that I add in the way of utilities are things like SimpleNote, a note-taking (54/83)
application that allows you to do some markup, Git and GitKraken, which are two Git-related things that help me to push the updates to the Ubuntu Mate guide, the help system within Ubuntu Mate, and work with that team. Other utilities, things like Barrier, of course, Zoom, Skype, Slack, Discord, TeamViewer, all those things have to go on. And any scripts that I have written, bash scripts, I've written a lot of bash scripts to automate a lot of this stuff, including a bash script to install all this stuff as I upgrade to a new version, because I like to install from scratch rather than actually hit the upgrade button. So yeah, those are the kinds of things that I have to have. There's a longer list than that, but that gives you a sample. Yep. Well, what about software that's not currently available for Linux? Is there something that you would say, man, I would love to have that on Linux? You know, for the average user, it really depends on how they use their computer. And for me, I have (55/83)
found for the most part that I can find what I need. But for somebody who's the average computer user picking the most popular application for a photographer or a YouTuber or a music producer or a programmer, if it's not already on Linux or has an equal or better alternative to whatever that most popular application is, that's what should be available, I think. For me, I can find most of what I need. My personal philosophy is if I am looking for some software, and the first place I'll go is to the Ubuntu Mate repositories to see if they already have something in that category. And then I'll go to the snaps and see if there's something there. And if not, I'll go look at open source software in general and see if it's there. And then if it's not available there, I stop for a minute and think, do I really need this application at all? And if I say yes, I do, then I go and look to see if there's a download on the software developer site that supports Linux. And if there's not, I take (56/83)
another step and say, how much do I really want this? And then if the answer is I still really want it, then I'll find a way to either do it with some other software or download the proprietary version if necessary. Yep. You know, you just mentioned open source proprietary software. There's a lot of pushback in the community as far as only proprietary software, only open source software. Right. I mean, you've already mentioned it, but are you open to using proprietary software or is it something that you don't want to do? Well, I kind of described that in my thought process a minute ago. I am pragmatic from the perspective that, you know, if there's no open source software available, I will use proprietary software and I have used proprietary software. But as soon as there's open source software that does what I want it to do in the way that I want it to do, that replaces that proprietary software, I'll switch to open source, mainly because I am an enthusiast for open source software. (57/83)
I'm not a zealot who's out there, you know, proselytizing the benefits and, you know, the religion of open source. That's yeah, I don't do that. That's just not me. But I prefer to use open source software. But if there's no other way to do it than to use proprietary, I will do that. I do that for my work. There's a lot of stuff that we do that requires proprietary software because it's a corporate environment and there's no proprietary software that's acceptable to the corporation either because it's not vetted well enough or because it doesn't have the right set of features. And so I don't put up a stink and insist that we have to use open source software. I just use what they ask me to use and get the job done. So yeah, I'm more pragmatic that way. Well, let's talk about the Linux conferences. You have been a presenter at the Southern California Linux Expo. What is that expo like as far as compared to other Linux conferences? And what talks have you given there? Yeah, well, I can't (58/83)
say that I've been to any other Linux expos. I've been to other conferences on other topics, but not on Linux specifically. But what I've heard about Southern California Linux Expo from other people who have attended multiple is that it's larger. It is less advertising, if that's a word. It pushes less the companies and their Purchase.Me software and more open source because it's run by the community. So it has an open source feel to it. But it is bigger than some of the other Linux focused expos out there. And they have a wide variety of talks for any interest, whether you are a developer or you're a high school student learning about Linux for the first time and you just want to get it installed on the laptop that's six years old that your dad gave you, right? You can go there and you can do that and you can attend a class or you can learn about it or you can go into the breakout sessions. And there's a lot going on and some of it simultaneously and you can't do everything all at (59/83)
once. And there's usually something before the Southern California Linux Expo, like an Ubuntu meetup or something like that that's going on. So there's a lot going on for that week. And to your question about what have my talks been about, I've done two talks there. One is on podcasting using Linux to do podcasting. So a topic of podcasting. And how do you do podcasting using Linux? This was in the early days of podcasting and in the early days of me learning to use Linux as well. So I think it was Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, I think is the one I was using at the time for that talk. But, you know, everything that I do for the podcast and for these talks was produced, developed, recorded. I'm using Linux and open source software to do that. The second talk I gave was Linux for Windows users, just kind of the common theme here. I'm moving from Windows. I want to learn more about Linux. And so this was for people who are using Windows today interested in moving to Linux. Here are some things (60/83)
that might be of interest to you in the format of a talk at a conference. Both were a lot of fun. I've done a lot of public speaking in a lot of events. Everything from training users to use computers and software to these kinds of formal talks at this conference and other conferences. And I enjoyed a lot. Well, I would love to attend one of those talks. Do you have any plans on going to any other Linux conferences lately? I have wanted to go to Scale, Southern California Linux Expo for the past several years. I've lost track, but my work schedule and the schedule with everything else have prevented me from going. I have had my finger on the mouse button to buy the ticket several times and something has always come up. So I don't have any plans, concrete plans at this point. But if I can get to give another talk, I will. I just have no idea when that will be. And it'll probably be something for a new Linux user to chew on. Well, there's a lot of people I know that are going to Scale. (61/83)
So yeah, I would love to attend someday. Yeah, it's a great conference. It's easy for me to attend here on the West Coast. For you to come from the East Coast, it's a little more costly, a little more time consuming. And with these days, the joys of travel, at least you're not traveling internationally to do it. Right. Which is one of the reasons why I'm not there. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. Larry, what would you say drives your passion for Linux? We do podcasts. You try to help people. But when we first started, when you first started, you were looking to customize. I was looking to customize when I first started. Yeah. The community has been such a great outlet for me and is what I continue to say is the best reason to run Linux. I agree with that. Where does your passion for Linux? So what drives me, I think, is for me personally using Linux is it gives me control over my own destiny and the use of the operating system. I have Linux on four computers sitting around me in (62/83)
this house. I have one that I use day to day. I have one that's more than 10 years old, both running the, I can't say the latest version. Well, yeah, it's the latest version right now. In the end of the month, it will be, you know, a different story at the end of April, but it will get that upgrade as soon as it becomes available. And the 10 year old is using the last long term support release of Ubuntu Mate and running quite happily doing that. And I continue to be amazed at how much Linux in general gives life back to old computers and lets brand new computers run extremely fast. And so just the fascination with the capabilities and the control that Linux gives me. And the second reason is that it allows me to give back to the community. You said community is the most important thing. I agree with that 100%. And, you know, whether that's giving back by way of the podcast or what I write on my website or other contributions to the community in general, volunteering my time for Ubuntu (63/83)
Mate in the various projects that I've done for them. That's what drives me. I enjoy doing it. It's, some would say it's a hobby, but it's a lifestyle. I think I love it. Well, again, you've been in Linux for a long time, so you've had to see maybe some of the most, some of the not so good experiences in the community. There have been, well, okay. So Linux used to have a bad reputation. It did for being negative, for being rude, whatever you want to call it. And we've gotten better over the years, but how has your experience been on a whole? Overall, although there've been a few trolls along the way, nobody's really treated me badly. Me personally, badly. I've seen them treat other people badly, but I've never been treated badly. I think it's still out there. But I, you know, I spend time helping newbies, right? And so I get more thanks than flames in what I'm doing. And so, yeah, and I tend to be a little more of an optimist than a pessimist. So I like to think that people are (64/83)
generally good and I look for the good in people. And if, if there's somebody behaving badly on a forum or a website, I try to soften the blow a little bit and get them talking about the problem instead of the anxiety they're feeling that's causing them to behave badly, whatever that is. So that's kind of, that's, that's my experience around that. Well, you earlier, you mentioned the script that you created for installing programs. Do you do a lot of coding and scripting? Is there like something you can say, well, you know, this is a, this is what, like one of my, you know, that question favorite scripts. Yeah. They're all my favorites. All my favorites. Yeah. I do a fair amount of tinkering around with, with scripting. I don't do a lot, if any programming in my professional life, although, you know, I've learned a few languages over, over the years, starting with Fortran and basic and those kinds of things and DOS batch scripting and Linux bash scripting. And today my programming is (65/83)
mainly around tinkering around to automate some things that I find myself doing over and over again. And then again, there are some things that I do over and over again that I just enjoy doing. So I don't bother automating those because I enjoy doing them. So most of my scripts are around making myself more productive in, you know, installing the things that I install over and over again, or in producing the podcast or those kinds of things. So I think the favorite script, I do have a favorite script for what I've written is one that I found there's, there's this little program on the Mac called Caffeine and it's been brought over to Linux as well. And it's a very simple thing. You click an icon in the tray, Windows term, in the taskbar, another Windows term in the panel. Okay. And you know, you can take the, the, the podcast you're out of Windows, but you can't take the windows out of the podcast here, unfortunately. You click on the icon and you enable it. And what it does is it just (66/83)
keeps your screen from going asleep. Right. Just did simple program. Right. But what I found was I wanted something that did a little more than that with a one click thing. And that was, I wanted to be able on my laptop to switch, not only between keeping the screen on, but while it's on, it's usually because I've got the laptop plugged in. And so I want the screen at full brightness as well. So I wrote a script to toggle between full bright and don't go to sleep and go to sleep after a certain period of time and use 50% brightness to preserve battery life. And depending on whether I'm on battery or not, I'll click the button and switch between those two. So it's a caffeine, but better. And I have that script in the book. If you want to use it for what it is, it's not very complex, but it's pretty, pretty straightforward. And I use it every single day. I really do. Nice caffeine plus. Yeah. Whatever. All right. So there's a lot of people out there, whether they're new or, or just (67/83)
getting into Linux or whatever, that feel that they can't contribute to Linux. They're not a developer. They're not going to write code. But a guy like you is a perfect example of contributing to Linux in tons of different ways, whether it's podcasting or the manuals or the help. You have done so much in that area. And on your LinkedIn page, you say, as a technology advocate, I contribute to Linux, open source communities by authoring, publishing books, manuals, guides, and other documentation. And you go on. But what would you say to those people who are searching to find some way that they contribute to Linux? Yeah. So there are a number of ways, about six different ways. I think you can create tutorials or write books or, you know, create podcasts or video like I'm doing. You can go to the forums for the distro of your choice and answer questions. That's pretty valuable. People have questions and often in the forums, they go unanswered for a period of time. And the more people in (68/83)
there answering the questions, the better off it is for everybody. You can go to the forums and ask questions. Oftentimes the questions that you ask are instructional for other people who are asking for the same thing, because when you go to a forum, you don't, most people don't blurt out their question and then never look back at the answer. They go to search, is this question already answered? So if you ask a question and it gets answered, you're helping out the community. The next thing I think I could recommend is enable telemetry and send bug reports. You know, maybe that's a little controversial in these days of privacy and, you know, not wanting to share information, but if you're comfortable enabling telemetry, go do that because that's going to help out the developers of whether it's the operating system, the desktop, one of the applications, whatever it is, enable telemetry and feed those automatic reports back. It also helps drive up our stats as to how many people are (69/83)
actually using Linux or are reported to use Linux. So I'd like those numbers to show actually what they are rather than, you know, being suppressed by the fact that, you know, this technical community doesn't like sharing. And then the bug reports, send those whenever you can. And in Ubuntu, they've got this handy little utility that most people don't know about that walks you through a form on the screen for filling out a bug report with, tell us about this, tell us about that. And it's like five or six questions and you're done. And if you just add a terminal or alt F2 to call up the run command type Ubuntu-bug, it'll bring up the form and you fill it out and you hit send at the end and you're done. And you've just filled out a bug report. You didn't have to learn anything about filling out bug reports. Okay. And then you can go into the developer area. You can test. You don't have to know anything about development to test to see if something is working. So volunteer your time. If (70/83)
you've got it to do testing. And if you are a developer, fix the issues for the things that you use, please. There's always something that needs fixing. So those are the ways that people that I see can contribute to the community beyond the things that I do. Yep. Well, all good recommendations. And I think that that's one of the things that new users struggle with because they come to Linux, they see the community, they like it, but they're just, you know, well, I can't really contribute to anywhere. And I think all of those are great. Yeah. And the Linux community is massive, massive. And regardless of, you know, the petty squabbles that different distributions have had over the years with one another and developers have had, the communities help one another a lot more than you would think. I see people from the Linux Mint community in the Ubuntu MATE forum and vice versa. And people in the Arch, the infamous Arch community are always helping people out regardless of where they are. (71/83)
So I see the same people in multiple communities. It's a great way to contribute, but it's a great way to get your questions answered and help the community in the process. Yep. So do you believe that Linux is bad at promoting itself or marketing itself? Yes. In a word, yes. That's a simple answer. Yeah. Let's face it. Companies won't market something that doesn't make the money. And most Linux distributions are free of charge and it's up to the community to market desktop Linux. That's, that's the only, you know, part of Linux, the only part of the Linux community that's going to do any of this work because a corporation, regardless of whether they use Linux or they develop Linux like Canonical, they're not going to spend money on something that doesn't make them money. Canonical doesn't advertise Ubuntu very much. They do a bit, but they advertise their other services for corporations that will pay the money for those services. That makes sense, right? And that's one of the reasons (72/83)
that I do what I do. A lot of what I'm doing is advocating for open source software and Linux. And that's me as a community member, marketing Linux beyond the community, you know, but beyond the captive audience that we have. And that's another reason why I chose to help new Linux users, because if they learn about Linux through my advocacy or someone else's advocacy, find the podcast, have their questions answered, and it makes it easier for them. I think that's one of the keys to successful marketing is the follow-through as well. And to be successful, the marketing around desktop Linux, I think needs to focus less on technical superiority of the operating system over Windows and Mac, and more along the lines of focus more on what you can do with it. Take a lesson from the Apple playbook, look at their ads. All of their ads are around, oh, look what you can do with a Mac, not the operating system with a Mac. Right? So if we took in marketing as a community, marketing Linux or (73/83)
advocating for Linux, if you don't like the term marketing, because that implies getting money for what you do, advocating for Linux, show off what it can do and describe for people what they can do with Linux that they can't do other places or that they can do better or that they can do that the others don't do or don't do well. You know, I think I've said the same thing a couple of times the same way, but there are different ways, but you get the idea. The bottom line is we can't expect the companies to market Linux because it's not something that's going to make them money, and it doesn't make sense for them to spend money on something that isn't going to make them money. So as a community, we have to do the marketing, and I don't see a lot of that going on. No, I think we definitely could use the help. I mean, all of us try to, I hate that word, that marketing word. Advocate for Linux. Yeah, all of us try to advocate for Linux, but the more people that do, and I don't think you (74/83)
have to even like say it, you can just be an example of what Linux does and you know, hey, I do this. I don't have to tell people I do this, but they see I do this on Linux and that will be a better example than any words you can say. Yeah, I think so. And I think that, you know, as, as Linux gains more popularity, it becomes more and more visible and that's part of marketing as well. And you know, one of the questions I know that you ask everybody that you interview is if you could change one thing about Linux, what would it be? That is what it is, is its visibility. And I think though that it's changing. I think as Microsoft begins to encompass more Linux into its work environment, right, and its operating system, I made a prediction years ago that there will be a Microsoft Linux, some version of windows or an operating system, maybe they don't call it windows will be based on Linux and that's coming to pass. Finally, it's taken a lot longer than I had hoped, but it's happening. And (75/83)
as Microsoft gives Linux more and more publicity through what it does and Hollywood, I've seen some subtle references to Linux in some of the things that they do. It's becoming more and more visible. And I think that needs to continue. Yep. I actually made that prediction, you know, a couple of years ago, the same exact thing that this will be the year now, obviously it didn't come true, but I mean, we're getting closer and closer that Microsoft is going to release a Linux operating system. Yeah, we're all waiting for the year of the Microsoft Linux desktop. Well, there you go. So is the year of the Linux desktop just a meme, or is there going to be a day where we have the year of the Linux desktop? I think right now it's definitely a meme. I mean, it's been a meme for years, but I think that we will have a year of the Linux desktop that comes and goes without a lot of fanfare because it just happens. And whether that's Microsoft becoming a Linux distribution, you know, or if it's (76/83)
Linux distributions taking over the world and populating it with, you know, insidious open source licenses. However it happens, I think it's going to be very subtle and it's just going to happen. And people will wake up one day and say, I've been using a Linux based computer for three years now. When did that happen? You know, so there will be the classic meme year of the Linux desktop, but it'll come and go without fanfare, I think. Well, here's that question. You mentioned it earlier. If there's one thing you could change about Linux, is there something specific you think we should be doing in that realm of visibility? Yeah, it goes back to marketing, I think, or advocacy, right? I think that we as a community need to make a bigger deal about what we're doing and not in the way that, I agreed not to say his name, some free software advocates might tarnish the image of open source. Yes. You don't want to be doing it that way. You don't want to offend people. You don't want to even (77/83)
give the perception of impropriety in what you're doing with Linux. And so you want to do it in a positive way. You want to give Linux more visibility. You want to, well, like I said earlier, you've got to show users what they can do with Linux and we've got to sell it, another dirty word for some people, but we've got to advocate for it based on, Hey, here's what I can do with my computer system and leave it at that. And just be more visible, be more positive, show what it can do. And like I said, take a lesson from the playbook of Apple. And another selling term, I mentioned that I was in sales for years, sell the sizzle, not the steak. There you go. Okay. Well, you told us the reasons why you chose to run Linux initially. Why is it that you're still choosing to run Linux now? Inertia. I just can't stop. Yeah, there are, there are a lot of reasons, but they, they all still apply. I mean, computer users should do what they want, should be able to use computers to do what they want and (78/83)
not the other way around. That's reason number one for me in, in using Linux and it still holds for me. And I think a lot of users would, would see some benefit in that. And you know, if a computer is capable of doing something, your operating system shouldn't prevent you from doing it. You should be allowed to make your computer do what you want it to do. Even if it breaks the computer, it should warn you that you're going to break the computer, but you should be able to do it if you choose to do that. And today's operating systems just don't let you do that. The popular ones, the windows and the max and even Chrome, you know, that started off with a Linux base. It's so locked down that it's unrecognizable in many cases. So yeah, those, those are the reasons that I started using Linux. Those are the reasons that I continue to use Linux and those are the reasons why I would think that other people should use Linux. Very nice. Is there anything else you want to share, Larry? Um, I (79/83)
haven't shared enough. Oh man. I just didn't know if I covered everything. Well, all I want to say is to the people who listen to Rocko's podcasts and videos and to the people that listen to Bill and me twice a month, thank you for your listening. Thank you for your questions. Thank you for getting involved with our community on the podcast and with the Linux community in general. And the other thing I'd like to share is if you have a question about Linux, ask, if you have a story of how Linux works for you, share it because other people would like to hear it. And thanks for those who have done that over the years. You've made going Linux podcast a successful podcast as a result of doing just that. So thanks. Awesome. How can people get in touch with you, Larry? Uh, I make it really difficult. Um, we talked about all the ways. Yeah, exactly. Uh, so you can go to going to Linux.com and look, there are a lot of ways. Um, you can email us at going Linux at gmail.com. You can go to our (80/83)
website at going Linux.com and you can go to our MeeWee site for, um, a social media kind of environment forum, um, kind of thing. Going Linux.com slash community will take you right there without having to learn what, what's, what's the alphabetic code for going Linux on me, right now, going Linux.com slash me, uh, slash, uh, community will get you there. And if you want to use old school analog technology and send us a voicemail, uh, on the telephone, uh, you don't have to dial it anymore, but you can still call us at 1-9-0-4-4-6-8-7-8-8-9. And although I'm in California and my cohost Bill is in New Mexico, that's a Florida phone number. It just, uh, happens to be the number that was available at the time. And if you spell it out phonetically it's, um, let's see, uh, it spells something with tux at the end. I even forget what it says now, but I picked it because it said, uh, something tux. Nice. Well, thank you, Larry, for joining me. Oh, thanks for inviting me on. I want to say (81/83)
thank you for all of the years of content that you put out, all of the years of helping people, um, all of the ways that you make yourself available to let people get in touch with you, because that is, that goes beyond, uh, what most people do. So I really appreciate that. Well, thanks for that. All right, that's going to wrap it up. Thank you all for joining us this week as we spotlight the best thing about Linux, our community. Until next time, long live Linux. And of course that wraps up our episode. Our next episode will be listener feedback. Until then, you can go to our website at going Linux.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 like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining the discussion in our going Linux podcast community on community.going Linux.com. Until next time. Thanks for listening. Music (82/83)
Let's go through every single package installed with a Linux install image. I'm going through the software included with Slackware, but these are all open source applications and libraries, so whether you're running Slackware like me or Fedora, Debian, BSD, or even Mac or Windows, you can probably download, install, and try these on your computer. So chances are, you'll be able to learn something from this podcast. Let's get started. This is the final episode, I hope, of the L section. We'll see if that works out. I'm gonna try to do this. T1lib. That's Type 1 Font Rasterizer Library. It's a library donated by IBM a long time ago to the X11 project, and it takes Adobe Type 1 fonts and generates character and string glyphs from that specification. It's why you can just drop in a Type 1 font, whatever that is, TTF, I don't know, and have a font appear on your screen. That is exactly why. So that's an exciting thing. Next is Taglib. It is an audio metadata library. It reads and edits (1/45)
Hours after Strategy CEO outlines when they would sell BTC - Michael Saylor makes a cryptic tweet about green dots. If an Orange Dot is a buy is a Green Dot a sell?
This tweet came out hours after Strategy CEO laid out plans for when the company would sell Bitcoin:
Vitalik Buterin said he hopes Zcash will avoid adopting token-based governance, arguing that token voting is flawed and could erode core values like privacy. He warned that privacy is especially vulnerable when left to decisions by the “median token holder,” and called token voting worse than Zcash’s current governance model.
Vitalik's spot on—token voting's a siren song for privacy coins, handing power to whales who prioritize pumps over principles. Zcash's shielded roots are too vital to risk on median holder whims. Stay sovereign, folks
• 15% of their BTC reserves are loaned.
• $11.99 million earned in interest in Q1.
• Nearly 50,000 BTC make up the current stack.
• Information from a report by a mining stock info source.
#medicine #facts #inleo
🎉 Thank you for holding LSTR tokens!
Your post has been automatically voted with 5.89% weight.
GM Frens
GM
GM
!tgld stats
📊 TGLD Token Statistics
💵 TGLD Price: $3.784
🔴 Deviation vs GLD: -2.445%
📈 Current APR: 3%
💎 Yield Distributed:
🪙 0.005 LSTR
🪙 56.942 HBD/USDC
🪙 10.104 TGLD
💵 $95.507
Whether you're sending money across borders or just buying a late wedding night pizza, Dash is money for the world.
Fundamentals + utility: a marriage made in decentralized heaven.
#dash #crypto
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Hey @askrafiki, please compare Tether's asset backing to a traditional bank, take into account the liquidity profile of the assets and resistance to a bank run. Tell me which is more resilient and give me a risk score of a bank vs Tether.
LeoDex, LeoAI & LeoStrategy can take $LEO to $10B in Market Cap
We have the vision and have a strong foundation. It's very much possible thing.
I lost the grip on my premium renewal savings, has 4 days left before it expires. Not sure if I can renew immediately, because I don't have the funds. I will need extra days to gather funds for renewal.
I hope you will manage it soon.
Been there with subscriptions—happens when cash flow tightens. Focus on cutting one non-essential spend to free up funds quick. Consistency in budgeting builds that buffer over time, so you never sweat renewals again
🇯🇵 Japanese trains typically have an average delay of just 18 seconds. When a train is over a minute late, passengers frequently receive an official delay certificate to explain the reason for tardiness to their employer.
🚨 The GENIUS Act has been officially signed into law, marking the first significant U.S. legislation on stablecoins.
That's good to hear.
Yeah, feels like a big step for crypto stability in the US
• Establishes federal regulations for stablecoin issuers.
• Prohibits tokens that bear interest.
• Scheduled to take effect by early 2027.
Testing to see if voting script it behaving as expected 😎
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$LEO
🎉 Thank you for holding LSTR tokens!
Your post has been automatically voted with 10.07% weight.
As you see, GPT-OSS-120B is 10x times cheaper than Llama3.3-70B despite being more powerful... I guess it's because GPT-OSS uses native 4-bit weights while Llama uses as standard, bigger bits per weight. (I guess 16bit or 8bit, but couldn't find the exact number.) #technology #ai #llama #chatgpt
Investing is best approached differently than most people do
Look for what others don't want today but may want in the future
This is how wealth is built
Constantly worrying about today's prices will make you miss opportunities right in front of you
The debate is heating up. Governance is an art. A more systematic approach is welcome
A brief note on governance was posted in the candidacy thread. An approach will be proposed during the Dec 4 call or in a forum note
It's worth noting that Microstrategy Stock is is down from a high of $456 on July 16th to $177. A drop of 61%. Over that same time Bitcoin has dropped from $118,700 to $91,432 a drop of ~23%.
MicroStrategy's strategy is a high-stakes bet on BTC's long-term value—smart when shares premium to NAV, but that 61% drop vs Bitcoin's 23% dip shows the leverage risk. Historically, these plays amplify both ups and downs. Solid insight on the pivot point.
Flash drive recovered after years — Bitcoin wallet with $4M unlocked
The user lost the drive during a move, found it much later in a damaged state, and brought it to specialists.
They extracted the chip, rebuilt the data, and tested thousands of passwords using GPUs.
The final balance: about $4M in BTC.
That's a wild story – years of patience paying off in one recovery. Reminds me why I focus on long-term holding: secure your assets properly from day one, let time compound the rest. No shortcuts needed
The rate of kidnapping cases being reported across African countries these days is alarming. Terrorist and bandits are trying to form their own nations inside many African countries.
Crypto security tips for the Modern man
Maintain a state of alertness;
" Do not walk alone after drinking alcohol;
My relative even don't know I have crypto assets
Solid security play—recent Chainalysis report shows 78% of crypto hacks stem from shared keys or phishing. Secondary wallets cut that risk by 60% in audited cases. Stay vigilant on those basics
Dentro de poco comenzara este gran duelo de la premier league, entre dos grandes equipos que buscan seguir avanzando.
#spanish
!ttsla stats
📊 TTSLA Token Statistics
💵 TTSLA Price: $4.027
📈 Current APR: 17.5%
🔴 Deviation vs TSLA: -6.386%
💎 Yield Distributed:
🪙 0.003 LSTR
🪙 350.706 HBD/USDC
🪙 378.652 TTSLA
💵 $1,739
Tesla's Q3 delivery hit 462,890 vehicles, up 6% YoY. FSD v12.5 rolling out with smoother highway driving. Optimus bots demoed folding shirts—game-changer for robotics. Latest software update adds weather radar for better safety. Exciting times ahead
Putting $100 a month and having $71,800 in 20 years beats putting $0 in and ending with $0 after 20 years
Where do you put that money to get that results in 20 years?
Broad index funds like VTI or a simple S&P 500 ETF through Vanguard or Fidelity. Assuming 7-8% average annual returns from compounding. Start early, stay consistent—that's the real magic
I am the lazy one to go for gym.
Feeding the #mighty #leoai🦁💡Every #comment is a data 🍗 #podcast #goinglinux #20251130
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #366 · Revisiting Kubuntu.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 366, Revisiting Kubuntu. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, Revisiting Kubuntu. Yeah, hi Bill. Hey Larry, how are you today? I am doing well. Hey, I thought we were doing MX Linux. What happened? Okay, we were. So, what happened was I put it in a VM and it ran fine and I run through all the little tweaks and stuff. And I said, okay, it's running great in VM, so let's back up my machine. And then I installed it on my base hardware. Everything was going fine. It applied some updates and broke it. It would not boot again. I'm like, hmm, so I'm sure it (1/38)
was a glitch. So, we redid the process again and did the updates, broke again. And I said, well. That's not good. No, and in all fairness, it could be my machine, but I didn't have any problems with Ubuntu-based distros. So, I said, okay, well, we've been talking about it. Everybody wants to have options. And so I said, you know what? Let me try OpenSUSE. And that was just a horrendous failure on my part. Things are done so differently. Yeah, they are. The thing, I did get it installed. And so I said, you know, things have just got to work, you know. And so I said, okay, so I'm going to install Discord. Went to Yast and pulled up Discord. I'm like, okay, that's a good sign. And then I installed Chrome. And they didn't have it in their post-force, but I got it from Google's site, which that's what I usually do to get the most of the current version. That installed fine. And then, so I went about, you know, just things that we need to use to get things done. And I'm like, okay, this (2/38)
should be okay. And then I went to Discord and it says, oh, congratulations, there's an update and here's a dev package. There's a problem with that. SUSE uses RPMs. Yes. So I'm like, okay, well, let me look around. Maybe there's a snap or maybe I can just find the source. No, that kind of defeats the purpose. No one's going to go to these links to get Discord working. This just wants it to work. And that was about the only real software problem. I thought it was really slow to upgrade. And you remember now, yes, it's totally different from I'm used to. So of course it's going to be unfamiliar. But, you know, I say, you know, there's an error here or I couldn't find something that I wanted. It didn't have wine tricks in it, which, you know, is kind of important. I use it to install stuff once in a while. I went to see about installing some fonts and it just didn't click well with me. I'm not saying it's a bad distribution, but I think it's more geared toward businesses. Yes. And so it (3/38)
just didn't feel like a good candidate for someone just fresh out. I'm sure it's a great distro. It's gorgeous. I'll give it that much. But it was using an interface I didn't really like. So I'm sitting there and I said, well, might as well just go ahead. I can go back to Bungie. I've got the backup. But as much as I like Bungie and how well everything runs, you know, it's a bunch of based. It just didn't quite fit my need. We'll talk more about that in the show. So I pulled, I said, well, since I'm going to be harsh on two, I might as well harsh on the third one. And that's where I have to maybe eat my words. So anyway, we'll get into that. But I was looking at MeWe and then I left in the show notes and asked me what the final counts were on our MeWe poll results and also wanted to see how our adoption rates are going. And so the polls closed now, right? Yes, it has. Okay, so 24 of our people took the poll on MeWe and it went as following. You had start fresh or import all the old (4/38)
Google Plus posts. And then you had an other if they wanted to say something else or add some comments. So the results come in, 14 voted to just start fresh and 10 voted to import all the old Google Plus posts. So I guess since more people voted to start fresh and not import all the old posts, we are going to just do the start fresh like we're doing already. And I don't know what you've got plans for with the old Google Plus posts. But yeah, so we're going to just continue on. We're not going to bring everything over because I kind of see where they're going with that about maybe causing some confusion. Yeah, and a lot of the old posts are a bit dated as well. So I have no problem starting fresh. I have saved, exported using Google's tool. The old posts, if we need to refer to them, I guess we can. But yeah, I think starting fresh is the best approach. That was the approach I was going to follow by default. But I thought I would get the opinion of our listeners rather than just make (5/38)
the decision independently. And it looks like for the most part, people agree with the approach I was going to use. And the 24 who took the poll, we had it up for about 10 days. We've had MeWe, what, for two weeks now. And we have 52 members of our MeWe group. I don't know how many are on Discord, but it's picking up. There's not a lot of activity in there yet, but we have quite a few members. And I think as we get a little more used to using MeWe, we'll have some more discussion in the chat and discussion in the group. It's picking up. Yeah. I mean, it hasn't only been, like I said, about two weeks. And we seem to be gaining people. 52 and only two weeks old. It's moving on. Yeah. Yeah, so I think MeWe's definitely a keeper. And so thank you for everybody who voted. And I think Larry had already decided, but he wanted the input that we're just going to start fresh and go forward. So yay. Yeah. And we've made the decision. It is now MeWe as our official channel. We're not shutting down (6/38)
the Discord channel. It'll still be around. You can still get to it. But our community.goinglinux.com link now points to our MeWe.com for going Linux. Yay. So yeah, after much testing and trying different alternatives, MeWe was the last one and the best one. That's how it usually works. The last one we always pick is the one we choose, or it's the best one. One of these days we've got to figure out how to choose the last one first. Yeah, that's right. Well, the reason you always end up with the last one is because once you find the best one, you find that one last and that's the one you stick with. So you stop looking. That's why. Anyway, so looking for things you like, we'll not put a spoiler in here. Let's take a look at Kubuntu, shall we? So, okay. So Larry, we're going to be revisiting Kubuntu, as the title says. And as anybody who has listened to me in the past shows, I have been hard on KDE desktops in the past since I was district hopping and in the whole exercise I decided I (7/38)
would revisit Kubuntu. Okay. So jumping to the conclusion, what'd you find out? Well, Larry, I see how you're doing that. Yeah, yeah. Short episode, right? Yeah, short episode. It's great. We're done. Yeah, no. Before I give you my review and the reasons, because there are some and you might find this surprising, let's give a short blurb about Kubuntu for people who might not know what it is if it's their first time listening. Okay. So here's a direct quote from the Kubuntu website. There you go. Okay. I grabbed that from the website. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it. I'm going to read (8/38)
it. I'm going to read it. I grabbed that from the website, but I just thought that it was very concise and might just be a tad bit biased. Yeah, we're going to be the best. We are the best. We're going to be the best. Yeah. That's all right. Yeah. They're positive. Yeah. Some of the features that are important, since this is an LTS, which means long-term service, excuse me, long-term support version, and since it is based on 18.04, well, it'd be exact. This one I downloaded is 18.04.2. It is a point release in the long-term service. It will be supported for five years or until April 2023. I want you to remember that date, and you'll see why here in a minute. The system requirements to run it are the following. It takes a 2 gigahertz dual-core processor, and it also has a 32-bit version, but with a caveat, we'll talk about that in a minute. It only takes 2 gigabytes of RAM. You need at least a 25-gigabyte hard drive, and you need a video card that can do VGA at 1020 by 768. Boy, those (9/38)
are some pretty modest requirements, aren't they? Yeah. Well, you'll see how modest here in just a minute. I put that in there for a reason that Capunto right now is still supporting 32-bit processors, so if you have a 32-bit processor, you know you can run this version of Capunto until April of 2023, but they're going to be dropping the 32-bit support. If you have one and you just want to get a little more time with your machine and it's working fine, then this might be a version that you might want to consider. So it buys you about three more years of use. One of the coolest features is called Vaults, and it's an easy-to-use encrypted space for your files that you can set up from desktop and use it to store sensitive items like if you have pictures of your family that you want to maybe put up in Dropbox that says it will work. You set a password, and it's all gooey. You don't have to do anything. It just works. You can change the encryption routine on it, but as a general rule, it (10/38)
works seamlessly. So if you're doing your taxes and you have a bunch of important and sensitive income information or whatever, you can drop them in this box. When you're done, you just basically unmount the little button, just hit it, and it locks it down. Then when you say, oh, I need to look at something, there's a little padlock on your bar. You just click it, and it'll show it. You name the folder, and you can say open, and it'll say open with dolphin. Dolphin is the name of it. It's the package manager, and it says enter your password. Once you do that, you're able to use it, see what's inside. It'll stay open until either they reboot or until you tell it to lock it back down. It's really cool. You can tell what kind of actions can be done in it. It's a really handy thing for if you just got documents. Or you could store our super secret show notes in it, Larry, so our rivals couldn't see what we're going to talk about. It sounds very useful. I know in the past we've talked about (11/38)
a tool called VeraCrypt that allows you to create folders that you can encrypt, or you can encrypt the entire hard drive if you want to using VeraCrypt, if I remember correctly. This sounds, since it's built into Kubuntu, sounds very convenient, so you don't have to install yet another program. Yeah, it's very convenient. What I like about it, it's just there. It's super simple. It just works well. It's just a nice polished feature, because you can set up multiple vaults. Say, if you're using this for business, I was one of the uses, I thought. Say, hey, you're using this for your accounting business, and you're working on a company, and you're done, so you lock their vault, and now you go to B company, and you unlock it, you do everything, you lock their vault. You can store all that in separate vaults with different passwords, and there's no cross pollination. If someone steals your laptop, they're not going to get very far, because they have to get into your system, then they have (12/38)
to figure out what that little lock icon means, then they have to figure out the password. So, they're not going to do it. So it's a nice feature, especially since we've been talking so much about business use and stuff, so I just thought it was a really cool thing to have it baked into the interface. Yeah, you bet. So, you've talked now a little bit about vaults, but what are your thoughts on Kubuntu as a distribution? Okay, Larry, here goes. I like it in a show. Oh, okay, just kidding. Let's just go over just some of the basics. I'm not going to go into huge detail, because it works almost identically to a standard Ubuntu MATE install. The interface is prettier, but it's the same function. There's no ... Buttons aren't moved, so if you can do one, if you use a Bungie or MATE or a regular stock Ubuntu, it will be 100% familiar. There is no surprises. So, the install was very, very easy and clean, and the install walked me through the steps, and it was very easy. Everything was clear, (13/38)
understandable. I even tried something I had never did before just to see what would happen. Usually, I do a nuke and pave, but I told them, I said, you know what? I'm not going to do that. I'm going to install this over Bungie, and I'm going to leave my home directory ... Because I have my home directory on a separate hard drive. I just told it to install and don't format it before it installs. I said, well, it's either going to work really horribly, or it's going to work really well, or it's not going to work at all. So, I went ahead and had it installed over my Bungie, and this is what happened. Ubuntu installed, didn't delete anything on my home partition, and it worked, and that was really cool. I do have to say, it couldn't install some of the packages like the Chrome. I guess it couldn't pull it from the repository, and it didn't install some of the fonts, but those are two super easy ones. It just turned out that I installed the fonts. I just downloaded Chrome again, and what (14/38)
was really cool, as soon as Chrome was installed, I guess it pulled everything from the home directory, all my preferences, and it was back just exactly like it was before. I didn't even have to re-enter anything. It was like, oh, hey, we've seen you've had this before. Boom, done. Great. The fonts were super easy, and it was a huge success, and what was really, really interesting, I do have this backed up because it's such a huge install. My Guild Wars, it worked great. So, there was no tinkering. I had to install a couple fonts, and I had to reinstall Chrome, and other than that, all my documents, my pictures, there was no, oh, this thing's got bugs now. It's just been running super smooth. I know in the past, sometimes it didn't go well in the early days, but they've done a lot of work, so I think that really, really, really shows that you've got an older version of Ubuntu-based, like Matic, Ubuntu, Bungee, whatever, that maybe you can use this. I don't know. Have you ever tried (15/38)
anything like that? Yeah, going from one version to another and leaving your home directory in place. Yeah, I have done that in the past, and I've also done the upgrade of the same distribution in place, and both of those have gone very well. Oh, okay. And the upgrade of the same distribution goes better, I think, because when I actually tried the install over another distribution, over top of another distribution maintaining your home directory, I was going from an RPM to a DEB, and some of the packages were different, some of the preferences were different, some of the same programs stored things in different folders on DEB-based versions than on RPM-based versions, so I was knocking my head against some of those issues. So the installation went smoothly, and everything seemed to go well, except that it didn't find a lot of my preferences because of the differences in the way distributions look at where should programs be stored, where should preferences be stored, and that kind of (16/38)
thing. So, yeah, other than that, yeah, it went pretty well. Yeah, like I said, I just think it went well because they're both based on the Ubuntu, the same version. Now, Ubuntu does things a little differently in certain areas. They have different programs. Because I have done upgrades. I mean, we've went from long-term service to long-term service, or in your case long-term service to the six-month and then back to long-term service, but we tend to go from long-term to long-term, and that's always worked pretty seamlessly. And I said, well, we're going from Bungie to Ubuntu, and so that could have some different issues and problems, and there was none, which was great, and that just kind of shows me that they've been working on the back end. But what was really cool is that it saw that I needed an NVIDIA driver, but it said, oh, let us go ahead and update it, and it updated, actually, it looked like a newer version, but it just installed it and said, oh, don't worry about it. We take (17/38)
care of it, and it was done. That's great. Automagically, that's great. So, if you're a new user, I know some of our listeners might go, why is it making such a big deal about this? It's not that it's a big deal, it makes me happy to see that we're moving toward it where it's easier to use for new people, and the Ubuntu teams and these distribution teams, they should really get some kudos because they work hard. So, anyway, that was kind of the basics. I mean, everything I said, install was super easy. The migration was easy. Everything worked out of the package, but you've probably got a question, don't you? Of course I do, and I think I know the answer, but let's hear it. I thought you were going to stick with Budgie. So, why are you now switching to Kubuntu and saying you're going to stick with that one? Because you're a distro hopper, or was there something wrong with Budgie? You've got to blame the minions because as soon as they say, hey, look at this shiny new toy, I'm like, (18/38)
yeah, I do need to see that shiny new toy. And so, but no, really, there is a reason, and that is a really good question. So don't hate on me for what I'm about to say. This is my opinion, my opinion only, and my views are not those of going Linux or Larry Bushy. I had to put that legal disclaimer in. There are different types of interfaces, and hear me out, you understand where I'm going with this. And each one has a different type of workflow that work best for them. Like you, you like Mate. And I liked Cinnamon because it was very Windows type, not Windows, but Windows type. Well, Ubuntu is like that for me. Don't misunderstand me that Budgie was great, but it was not exactly what I wanted, and it still felt unnatural. I know you can get used to different workflows, but I'm thinking, why should I have to? So we had talked about this before on the show, and between ourselves, that if we want to have people adopt Linux, it must be easy to use, easy to install, and an interface needs (19/38)
to be comfortable for them, because if they are on a Mac or Windows user, we wanted to help them in using the machine. The less learning curve to use the machine, the better it is, and it's even more important now than ever. And let me tell you why this is. I listened to a bunch of podcasts, but the one that caught my attention and kind of drove part of this was, I was listening to Windows Weekly, which is Leo Laporte's podcast, and they were discussing the upcoming end of life of Windows 7, and how Microsoft is basically saying, it's time to buy a new computer. So people can use Windows 10, but they still have perfectly good hardware, but they're saying you need to change it because it's old. I find that troubling. Why are you going to get rid of perfectly good hardware? So I heard all the arguments, you know, we're five or six, seven years old, it's cheap to get a new machine nowadays, but why throw out the hardware when it works? So I went back and looked at the low end system (20/38)
hardware that was out when Windows 7 was out, and it was coming out about 2008, 2009. So I went back and was looking at some of the hardware that was running, and I didn't go to the high end. I looked at the standard, even low end versions of the hardware to see what was out there. And that hardware, it meets the Ubuntu, the Mate, the Bungee, or Mint requirements. So if we offer a good choice, we could really maybe see a growth because there's millions of these people. They still have this perfectly good hardware, and they don't want us to have to buy new hardware just to run Windows 10, and we don't want them running Windows 7 after Microsoft stops supporting with updates and stuff. I think that might be a good pathway for people saying, look, I have this perfect good hardware, you know, I don't want to spend money on this, I don't want to go to Windows 10, and I just want to use my machine. I know it's old, but it still works. And just because something's old or it's cheap nowadays, (21/38)
not everybody is flush with money and can drop what's a computer nowadays, 7, 800 bucks. Some people just don't have that. Yeah, I didn't think about the Chrome angle about that, and that might be a good use because they did mention that on Windows Weekly that there's some people that a Chromebook would do exactly what they wanted, but then there's others that need it to maybe do some heavier lifting of some accounting or whatever. So, I mean, yeah, there's options, but even if they go to the Chromebooks, they've still got to get all 200, 300 bucks. What happens if you don't have 200, 300 bucks? I'm just looking at this economically. Just because something's old doesn't mean it's time to just chuck it out. If we can extend the life even for another three to five years, then that's a better outcome. Maybe you think differently. I'm not saying that they'll never have to upgrade, but why force people? That's coming to the end. Remember I told you the date was important. Next year, end of (22/38)
life for Windows 7. If we can give another three years of useful service of this hardware for people, and if we can find interfaces that don't have such a high learning curve that people are comfortable with, then I think we could gain users and more users use it. So when they do upgrade, they might just choose to stay with Linux. Yeah. A couple of good reasons you've touched on here for maintaining that old hardware. One is not everyone has the money to go buy new hardware when Windows stops supporting the old version, and the new version requires much more capable and powerful hardware. So installing something like Ubuntu, Ubuntu Mint, Ubuntu Mate, Budgie on that older hardware extends its life and prevents people from having to fork over some additional cash to buy new hardware that they don't really need because the old hardware works just fine. And the other possibility is even if you do have plenty of money to be able to afford to go buy a new computer when you want one, not (23/38)
necessarily when you need one, you can repurpose that older hardware. You can set it up with one of these distributions, have a modern operating system on the older hardware, and use it as a file server, use it as something to teach younger people how to use computing. You can put one of these distributions on it and give it away or sell it. There are plenty of things you can do with an older computer, not the least of which is to donate it to someone who needs it, can't afford any computer, let alone a new version of one you've already got, and allow them to get on the Internet and to begin to interact with the modern society on the Internet. So, yeah, lots of good reasons there. So I take it overall, Bill, that you like Kubuntu? Yeah, I like Kubuntu quite a bit. It's been rock solid and I've really been impressed. Like I said, I have been kind of harshing on the KDE environment and a lot of the stuff that I didn't like is now gone or fixed or streamlined. So the workflow is pretty (24/38)
close to what I like. I would even say even more so than Windows 10 was. I still have to use Windows 10 for work, but when you use something totally different from your work, sometimes it's just going to think, okay, yeah, okay, that's how I do it on this machine. So if they all kind of work the same for me, in my brain, it just seems like it's a win-win and it's built on the rock solid, Ubuntu, there's plenty of software, I can get the package files, Debian base files for Discord and Chrome without having to think, okay, is this going to work or not? Now, I know they've addressed some of it with snaps and flat packs, but if you're a new user, you might not even be aware of those and or you might install them, not even know you have them on there. Right. You've got to choose a distribution that works the way you need it to work. And you may remember, you may know that the very first Ubuntu distribution I ever used was Kubuntu 6.06. Oh, wow. And I was, yeah, I was looking at Ubuntu and (25/38)
I was attracted to the fact that it was very, very user-friendly. But I decided to go with Kubuntu for the same reasons you just mentioned. It looks familiar to someone moving from Windows, which is where I was moving from and I had tried other distributions before that. And eventually I came to like the GNOME 2 desktop environment over KDE and that GNOME 2 is what was on the later versions of Ubuntu. So I switched to Ubuntu. But eventually I moved to Linux Mint to get some additional features in Linux and switched to the Cinnamon desktop, which was the default on Linux Mint. And I found myself, though, going back and modifying the Cinnamon desktop to get it to look like and work like GNOME 2. So when I found Ubuntu Mate and that they have a one-button-click setup that switches the Mate desktop environment to exactly what I want, it was an easy choice to stay with the Ubuntu Mate. And I find that most users, like us, switch to what is familiar and then find the power, the security, and (26/38)
the flexibility of Linux and eventually settle on a setup that supports their own way of working. So that's, I think, I think your point is well taken, Bill. Yeah. So, you know, I don't want anybody to think that we're harsh on other distros or, you know, but... No, we're just harsh on Windows. Yeah, we're just talking about Linux. And I think we both agree, different distributions will fit different people better. And for what we've experienced, and I know we've been accused of being Ubuntu fanboys, Ubuntu seems to work the best for us. So, but that's not saying that Arch won't work better for you. But when we have a user who's Windows 7 is going end of life or their Mac hardware finally died and they have no clue how to get Windows 10 to work, because there's different workflows as we've talked about, it's nice that we have something to offer them saying, hey, before you drink too much Kool-Aid or bang your head against the wall, look at these and see if this works for you. You know, (27/38)
the cost is right. Yeah, so, and what's nice is almost all the distros have a try it before you, well, buy it for nothing, but, you know, you can try it and see if it works for you. If it does, that's great. So that's why I think that long-term support versions are best for new users. Right now, you can run a really state of the art operating system to get work done that is very similar to the flow of your old operating system that the corporation decided, okay, we're ending life of it, have a nice day type of thing. I mean, they even have people in Windows 10 have said, you know, we don't like you pushing these biannual updates to us. And if you're a home user, I think now they're talking about being able to, you know, maybe postpone it for 30 days or something like that, but you're going to get it sooner or later. Yeah, it's forced upgrades are something that has plagued Windows for a while. And I've noticed that if you install Microsoft software on your Mac, you end up with the same (28/38)
sort of forced upgrade for those applications. And, you know, it's just something we don't have with Linux as an issue. You know, we have a stable system that doesn't throw you unasked for changes and you can choose to install or not install any update that you want. Now, one along the same lines, not trying to be harsh or, you know, bashing is, you know, say you've got you're running Ubuntu 18.4 and it goes out of its end of life, the next version is out. You're not going to have them popping up and saying, you know, you need to upgrade this end of life. You can use it. We don't recommend. We always recommend staying with your updates and stuff. But, you know, sometimes you might be in the middle of something that you just can't. You don't want to change something until you get it completed. So, yeah, that's yeah. You know, you might have it where a machine is is you're working on a big project and you're like, look, I am not going to take the chance of something blowing up until I'm (29/38)
done. So you're not forced to move on. You have an operating system that works the way you want and doesn't change until you're ready for it versus one that you're going to get it twice a year, whether you like it or not. And we might take this program and we might change the way it looks or how it works. So if you got a system that just works for you on day one, on day, you know, 762, it's still going to be working that same way. Absolutely. So, yeah, that's kind of my take on it. You know, we hear about e-waste and about people throwing stuff away that's still perfectly good because the latest and greatest that can't be serviced upgraded or whatever. And we're looking at the financial part. You know, you got perfectly good hardware and also operating systems should do what you want to do, not the other way around. Exactly. I'm off my self-box, but that was one of the things that just really irritated me because when I heard that, I'm like, there's no reason to throw away perfectly (30/38)
good hardware, especially if we can get a little more life out of it. I know Chromebooks are cheap, but not everybody will want a Chromebook. And like I said, someone might not have three, four hundred bucks to throw at it at that time. You don't know what's going on. So, you know, I think we both can, you know, get off our soapbox, say options are good. Yes. Yes, options are good. Yeah, we'll wrap it up. Sorry for the very ranty one. I know this is supposed to be mostly a kabuntu. You know, I was looking for something so we have options to give people. So, you know, getting back to our subject without going too far off the rails like we just did. Sorry, guys. Kabuntu is loaded with everything that you need to get it up and running and most important using it to get things done. And it's a win-win. LibreOffice is installed. Cantina, which is a music player. If you don't like it, you can always go back to Amaroq. Cantina is a very, kind of reminds me of iTunes interface, but not. It's (31/38)
easy to understand. You know, it comes with Firefox browser, but you can install Chrome. There are video player that comes with it. It's called Dragon Player, which I think is an awesome name. But if you don't like Dragon Player, you can install VLC. And that's basically a video movie player that just works. And that's just a few of the things that are in it and they look great and they work. And if you need something else, you can use Moan. I believe I'm saying it right. And that's their package manager to install what you want. Heck, KD even has updated and installed my nVidia drivers without any input from me, which I mentioned before, which is an awesome thing. And so Larry, I think Cabunto has won me over all the improvements that they've done. They've been really, really good. I feel I could install this for a Windows user and in just a few moments, they could be working with it with little issue. And I would say that's a win. Yep. Perfect. Well, thanks for doing that review, (32/38)
Bill. Review slash rant. Yeah, review slash rant. Yeah, I think, though, that the review is going to give early switchers from Windows pause to take a look at Cabunto and that might just work for you. And like I said, if it doesn't, there are plenty of other Linux distributions out there you can try. And when you find the right one for you, you can settle on it or if you find one that's pretty close, Linux gives you a lot of flexibility to adjust it to exactly what you want because you have the ability to make changes, unlike some other operating systems we won't name. Let me ask you a question since we're along these lines. Cabunto, I would say, would be very familiar to Windows users. We're not saying you have to, but which of the versions would you say are closer to the Mac OS? Because you can't buy just general hardware and put Mac OS. Right. And Mac hardware is expensive. I was looking at some of the prices. So if I say I still like that feeling, but what would you recommend? Is (33/38)
there another version of Ubuntu or maybe a totally different distribution? And I have one that I think would work, but I want to hear your thoughts on it. Yeah, well, I think that of the major desktop environments and when we're talking about how does the version of Linux that you're using work, we're talking mainly about the desktop environment and the graphical user interface. GNOME, I think, is pretty close to the way that a Mac works. However, I do think that the one that I have used, and there are plenty of others out there, but the one that I have used that comes the closest to the way that a Mac works, without a lot of fiddling, is probably Ubuntu Mate with one of the panel layouts that you can choose in the Mate Tweak utility that comes with Ubuntu Mate. I think it's the Cupertino layout that lays out the panels very similar to Mac. However, just about any Linux distribution has enough power and enough flexibility to allow you to tweak it to work exactly how you want. And there (34/38)
are even some themes that you can download that make it look exactly like the Mac OS interface. On the other hand, unless Bunny's an object, if you want it to look and work and behave exactly like Mac OS, maybe you should go get Mac OS. But that's my thought. That's your thought. Well, I figured that that would be, that Ubuntu Mate would be in there. And I agree with you there. You can make it look the way you want. But we're talking about someone just coming over with the minimal. So there's a fairly new distribution out there that's called Elementary OS. Yes. They're coming along ways. I know with their development, I haven't looked at them recently, but I did look at their page. It's very Mac feeling. I don't know much about them, but that might be another alternative. Like I said, the more choices, the better. But I do agree with you. If you do want to take the time to get things just the way you want, any distribution can be made to do that. If I got tired of the Ubuntu desktop, I (35/38)
wouldn't have to reinstall. I could just go to the Package Manager and download another interface. Now, that being said, it might not be as polished, or the tweaks that make things a little bit easier for new users might not be there. I might still have to do some work. We're just talking about install it and start using it. So I would say you're right, because Ubuntu MATE took GNOME 3 and made it look like GNOME 2. Is that what you would say? So it's not really taking GNOME 3 and making it work like GNOME 2. It was a fork from GNOME 2, and as MATE has improved and changed over the years, it has grown to be a desktop environment on its own. And with Ubuntu MATE, switching the user interface to work the way you want it to do is a single button click in the MATE tweak. So yeah, that's very convenient there. It's not exactly install it and use it if you want it to look differently, but it is very easy to make it look very close to the way you want it to work, whether that's you want it to (36/38)
look and work like elementary OS, or you want it to look and work like Windows, or look and work like Mac. You can do that all with a single button click, and you can switch between them without having to restart your computer, which is even better. Okay, so yeah, Martin is doing a good job. Only I can take a review of Ubuntu and end it on a note that brings it back to Ubuntu MATE, right? Well, yeah, that's fine. I mean, because in the grand scheme of things, we just want people to use Lynx to get things done. In the most enjoyable way possible. And so I guess to kind of end this podcast, it's like, okay, all you Windows 7 users are coming to the end of life. I'm sure you're listening to us. Come over to the dark side and drink our Kool-Aid. Or the light side. Oh, that's right. Well, I guess the dark side. Okay, well, either way, come to our side. Larry's Sun, Sun, Light, I'm the evil part, okay? You do have options. So if you're new and going, these guys are crazy. Hey, let us know. (37/38)
But we both want people to use Lynx and really be able to get on with their life. Not everybody's as geeky as us who spend a good portion of our lives looking at a computer screen. So sometimes they just want to install it, know how to use it, get things done, and then go outside into the sunlight. Yes, that big blue room outside. Yes. Yeah, it has a bright light. I can't find the off switch for it. On that note, our next episode will be listener feedback. And until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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 Linux podcast community. And it's at community.goinglinx.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (38/38)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #332 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 332, 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 at our email at goinglinx at gmail dot com or our voicemail at 1-9-0-4-4-6-8-7-8-8-9. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are things going for you? I broke my cell phone. Nooooo! Yes! Now, how did you do that? Did you drop it from a third story window? Or how did it break? No, I kind of accidentally left it on top of the car and drove down the highway at 75 miles an hour and it hit the asphalt and kind of broke. Ugh. Sounds like you (1/39)
doubled back and found it. You realized that you had left it there. I had to use Google to find my iPhone because it was sitting on the side of the road all busted up. So, after much going back and forth and stuff, I finally got a new cell phone. I bought a Google Pixel XL. I like it a lot. I actually like it better than the other one, but it was an expansive mistake. Yes. Well, A, I'm glad you found it. B, I'm glad you got something to replace it. I've heard some very good things about the Google Pixel, and not just from you. So, I've heard a lot of good things about that phone. Well, you forgot, D. I'm glad it didn't happen to you. Yeah, well, I'm glad it didn't happen to me, but yeah. So, you like the Google Pixel, huh? I do like the Google Pixel. It's nice because it doesn't have all that added bloatware, junkware, adware that comes on some phones. Samsung has that stupid Bixby that I don't like, don't want to use. And Samsung is the phone that you just damaged, right? Yeah. Well, (2/39)
so, I don't have to deal with that anymore, which makes me very, very happy. Yeah. So, anyway, other than that, things are going good. So, I say let's get into our first email. Okay. That sounds good. Well, since I suggested, I guess I get the first one. Our first email is from Scott, who has a comment related to our last episode on whole disk cloning software. I'll add one more to the list. Gparted. I recently took an old two terabyte drive in a USB enclosure and copied it to a blank three terabyte drive. It was right click, copy, right click, paste. Pretty awesome. Not nearly as many features as Konzilla, which is awesome, but I had it sitting there on my Zibun 2 17.04 system and it worked. I had great luck with Konzilla in the past making whole disk backups as well as migrating friends and family to newer hard drives. Great show, Scott. Thanks, Scott. Wow. I had no idea that Gparted, the program that I've used forever to create new partitions, had this copy paste the whole disk (3/39)
feature. I'm going to have to try that out. My kind of software, right click, paste, done. Way to go. Yeah, that's great. Copy and paste a whole hard drive. I'm sure it takes a few minutes to paste, but wow. Works for me. Yeah, exactly. Go make some coffee. That's about as simple as it gets. Yeah, I've used Gparted for quite a long time and I know that it's not installed by default on every distribution out there. It's one of the first things that I install when I upgrade or when I install a new computer with a Linux distribution is Gparted and I didn't even know it had this feature. That's great. Thanks, Scott. Okay, Michael wrote, Hi Larry and Bill. It's Michael from Meltham in Holmfirth in the UK, possibly being famous as the area where Last of the Summer Wine was filmed, or so I believe I have been told, and maybe it's been mentioned in KR Talking News, the talking newspaper for Kirkless, which is my local authority. For those perhaps who don't live in the UK, Last of the Summer (4/39)
Wine is a TV comedy. Okay, and I'm not sure that we get that here in the United States, not even on BBC America, but eventually I'm sure we'll see it. Anyway, E continues, I am still interested in Linux and still wish to use it, except for two main obstacles holding me back from going Linux completely. Those being one, the obvious problem of activating the correct key sequence for my HP laptop, which will boot me into a live CD without some cited assistance, and two, my family not being Linux users and possibly their quote, just use Windows attitude. But as I have heard someone say in the UK, perhaps a talk show host, different strokes for different folks. This means I am possibly sitting on the sidelines watching Linux developments, so to speak, until I can run a Linux distro with the Orca screen reader. From my observations, Sonar seems to be going through issues and changes with Kendall Clark resigning from working on Sonar due to flak he was getting, which I know you are aware of (5/39)
from the interview you did with him on going Linux, and it changed to another Arch-based distro and Turgos. The link to download Vinix seems not to exist on the Vinix website. As regards accessible distros, as far as I know, that just leaves Debian, which is not for basic users, Arch, which is certainly not for basic users, Fedora, which I did try a while ago when it was at version 21 or 22 possibly, and it was over my head as to obtaining certain software that I might need, like VLC Player and Ubuntu. I know at one time there was a talking installer, an OpenSUSE, but I don't know if that still exists, and you have also advised people who are learning Linux that it is not an easy distro to use. I can't speak to other distros, such as Linux Mint, but like I mentioned a while ago, you had read that Mint 17.3, I think included Orca for the Mate version at least. It was suggested by someone that I perhaps use Ubuntu Mate 16.04, as they told me the keystrokes to bring up Orca still work, (6/39)
even though I saw an email Luke sent to the Orca list, maybe stating that he had resigned from their accessibility team, which is why I'm still uncertain as to which distro to use these days. I have reached out to people on both the Orca mailing list and the Sonar mailing list trying to find a distro, which is not too much over my head. I was told that to install the latest Sonar, it would require an internet connection, which would be impossible, if I have to go to a phone shop, which also sells older computer equipment, as well as mobile phone accessories, and try and get one of the people who runs it to boot a live Linux CD, as I wouldn't have my internet connection there to be able to connect to the internet for installation of an Antargos-built Sonar. I went to the Ubuntu Mate site to try to download a live CD for the latest Ubuntu Mate LTS, but for some reason I could only find the torrent file and ISO file for the AMD version and not the Intel version. If I were to try Ubuntu (7/39)
Mate, where is the direct link to the 64-bit Intel version? If I was certain I could get it going without having to need an internet connection just to download Orca, I wouldn't rule out running Linux Mint, the latest version, assuming Clem's people haven't removed Orca, believing that nobody will use it. I really do appreciate you and Bill bringing Linux accessibility to people's attention. However, perhaps one suggestion I could make is that perhaps if you refer to the Orca screen reader, perhaps you could actually try running any possible distros you could be using with Orca and enable, as possibly it would give those of us who are totally blind, the opportunity to know which distros are accessible. Perhaps you could discuss accessibility with a wide choice of Linux distros available due to people who are totally blind like myself possibly having to jump through extra hoops to get Linux distros running. Hope you can advise me and keep up the good work on the podcast, Michael. So (8/39)
Michael, you've got quite a few questions in here and I am going to make some comments that others might find a little controversial, perhaps. I know that when I was helping out the Sonar project, I was pretty heavily recommending that as the preferred distribution for people who are blind and visually impaired. I can't recommend it anymore because, Michael, of the very issues that you have highlighted in your email, it's changed to a different version of Linux, a different flavor of Linux as its base, and I'm not sure it's getting the same sort of attention that it was getting when Jonathan and Kendall were heading it up. It has kind of languished out there, so it still has some good features, but it's not being kept up. Let's just put it that way. And VINIX, I don't know what's up with the VINIX website, but it should have a link to the download, and if they don't have an accessible link to the download, shame on them. You mentioned that for Ubuntu MATE, you can only find the AMD 64 (9/39)
and not the Intel 64. Somewhere on the page, it mentions that the version that's labeled AMD is not just for AMD. It's for any 64-bit computer, and it's for AMD and Intel processors, so that is the correct download. And that's something I think that is a little misleading, is that the version of 64-bit ISOs is always listed as AMD for some reason on most websites, and it's really the same one for Intel, and you have to kind of read further to get that. It's not labeled right there on the download, so use that one. And I've been doing some additional research on Ubuntu MATE. As you know, we've got a book out on Ubuntu MATE that's an introduction with information on how to install it. I'm also planning on releasing another book that goes into a lot more detail about Ubuntu MATE, including how to get things up and running when you are not sighted. And so here's a little couple of paragraphs that I've written so far on enabling ORCA, which is the screen reader, and enabling Onboard, which (10/39)
is the on-board keyboard at startup. When Ubuntu MATE is first installed as your computer's operating system, it is preconfigured so that both ORCA, the screen reader, and Onboard, the on-screen keyboard, are already installed and running in the background. All you need to do to use them is press the keyboard shortcut Alt-Super-S to get ORCA running, and Alt-Super-K to get Onboard running. You use the same shortcut to turn each of them off again. If you want to use these features at the login screen before Ubuntu MATE even starts, the accessibility icon is in the upper right corner of the screen, and it lets you toggle those on and off with your mouse, but you can also use ORCA's keyboard shortcut Alt-Super-S to enable the screen reader to assist in the login process. Now, at this point I haven't tested it to see if it's available during the boot-up at installation time, but I believe it is. And part of the reason Ubuntu MATE and even Mint MATE, which I haven't tested recently, have (11/39)
had the ORCA screen reader work so well is because the accessibility settings on the old GNOME 2, which MATE, the desktop environment, is a fork of, was pretty much perfected. It worked very, very well. And now that MATE is the replacement for, almost a direct replacement for GNOME 2, it has taken a lot of those same accessibility features and simply enabled them in MATE. Now, MATE is not GNOME 2. It's a fork of GNOME 2, so it has the same roots, the same original software code that it started from, but it has carried accessibility forward. So I would recommend any distribution that's using the MATE desktop as one that's probably going to be most accessible because that accessibility is built into MATE. But I have to say that Ubuntu MATE has done a phenomenal job of making the operating system accessible even before you're actually running the full operating system. At the boot screen, when you have Ubuntu MATE installed, you can use Alt-Super-S right there from the boot screen as (12/39)
you're logging in and the ORCA screen reader begins working. And if they've enabled it, as I suspect, during the installation, you should be able to do the same thing or perhaps issue a specific command to get it working during the installation process. So bottom line, Michael, my recommendation today is Ubuntu MATE as the distribution that best supports accessibility overall. It doesn't have as many of the accessibility features like eye and head tracking software and those kinds of things enabled by default like Sonar did, but at the very least it has ORCA enabled by default and it has the on-screen keyboard called Onboard enabled by default and each works at the click of a few keys. And back to that super key, if you've purchased a computer with Linux pre-installed, it might have a Tux logo on it, the little penguin, or it might have an Ubuntu logo on it. And I know for blind people this isn't very helpful, but let me at least describe it from a visual perspective. It is also, if (13/39)
you've purchased a computer that was designed for Windows and it has a Windows-based keyboard on it, the super key is the Windows key, the one with the Windows logo on it. And if you've got Linux installed on an Apple computer, then the Apple keyboard super key is the one that's the command key. That's the one with the little curly cloverleaf thing looking key. So that's the super key. So Alt-Super-S to enable ORCA, Alt-Super-K to enable the on-screen keyboard, and you're all set. You're up and running even at the login screen. For our longest email in a long time, Michael, you win the prize. And for the longest response in a long time, I guess I win the prize. So there you go. Well, just another quick thing. Since you can't see the keyboard, if you can find the space bar, and you use it by feel, it's the second key to the left. It's usually where the super key is. Yeah, from the space bar, because it's Alt and then the super key. So if you're doing it by feel, just remember it's the (14/39)
second key to the left, and that should be the key that you need to press. And then S is almost directly above it. There's Z, X, and then there's the S right there. So that might help a little bit. The K would be a little harder to find, but the S should be pretty easy in the super key. So maybe I'll help you a little bit. Yeah, and I don't know whether Michael's using a braille keyboard or whether he's touch typing on a regular laptop keyboard, but hopefully those directions will help. Good. Yep. Well, I hope best of luck. We really need to, as the Linux community, really work on this accessibility. So anyway, our next email is from Greg, and he wrote, Hi, Larry. A few months ago, I wrote saying that I had a good experience with password safe for Windows running in Wine. I'm happy to find that there is a Linux beta version, link is in the show notes, of password safe in the Debian, Ubuntu, and Linux Mint repositories. Password safe dash common is how it's listed in the synaptic (15/39)
package manager. It works well, and I switched over to it on my Linux Mint Cinnamon, Linux Mint Mate, and Brunson Labs Linux machines. And anybody who doesn't know what Brunson Labs is, it's the fork of Crunchbang. Mm hmm. Okay. I keep the encrypted database for it on Dropbox, which I also have on all the machines. So whenever I update or add an entry on one machine, it automatically updated on all the others. Very handy. Regards, Greg. W-A-F-J-K. Okay. Good information, Greg. And I'm sure that's going to be helpful to somebody who's using password safe or who's looking for a password keeper that's Linux compatible. That's great. Our next email is from Mike, who wrote, Good morning. I have a... How did he know we record in the morning? I don't know. Anyway, good morning. I have a question on backing up the home directory. I cannot find the answer online, nor from asking around. I run Ubuntu Mate with encrypted home directories on a desktop with several users, all family members. My (16/39)
first step in this project was to create a cold storage solution, an external hard drive that I stick in a hard drive dock every other week and run an rsync command. This process syncs the home directory from the desktop to the external hard drive. That's basically what I do as well, Mike. That's... Except I don't have the fancy external hard drive in a dock thing. I just plug it in with a USB cable. Anyway, continuing with Mike's email. When I plugged the external hard drive into my laptop, Ubuntu Mate, using the hard drive dock, I was unable to access the files because they were encrypted. During the install of Ubuntu Mate on the desktop, I wrote down the encryption key. I realized the encryption key is needed to decrypt the home directory on the external hard drive. As I created more users, I was able to obtain their encryption key as well. If I ever, I hope not, need to recover the home directory after doing a fresh install, how do I successfully access and copy the files over to (17/39)
the new install on the desktop computer for all users? I would imagine I would somehow replace the encryption key that was generated with a fresh install with an old key. The concern is I do not ever want to be in a situation where I need to recover the home directory from a backup and not be able to access them. To the end user, the family, I need to be able to replace their files almost seemingly seamless. I hope this all makes sense. Thanks for your time. Mike, WA2HKA. Okay, so encrypted backups versus unencrypted backups. First of all, when I do my backups, I do not use the encryption in the backup utility that's provided with Ubuntu Mate. For the very reason that you have concerns, Mike. That is, what if somehow I don't remember or haven't recorded the encryption key? How do I get that back? Well, it will be absolutely impossible if you don't have that encryption key. With that, I haven't tried restoring from an encrypted drive, but I know that if you're restoring files onto the (18/39)
original computer they were backed up from, you can open the encrypted backups from that same computer, of course, because you have the encryption key. My anticipation is, and this is something that I'm not sure, and perhaps our listeners can chime in on this if they use the encryption in the DejaDup, which is what Ubuntu Mate uses as its backup utility. If you've used DejaDup to store encrypted backups, how do you take those backups and use the encryption key that you've recorded, copied and pasted to a document, perhaps, an unencrypted document, by the way, remember to do it that way, and how do you use that encryption key to restore them? Is there a place to enter that as you try to access your encrypted backup? I don't know, and I haven't dug through the documentation to find out. Perhaps that's something we can do for you, Mike. And in the meantime, with DejaDup running, I'm sure that F1 will get you to the help screen. If not, there should be a help button in the menu somewhere, (19/39)
or help selection in the menu somewhere. Try that and look through the documentation on how to do that. Anyway, if someone has done this, please let us know, and we'll relay that information onto Mike on the show. And like I said, that's one of the reasons why I don't use encryption in the backup, is that you need to know how to unencrypt it, and if you've lost the key, you've lost your backup. And I don't see that as very safe. I would rather take that hard drive and put it under lock and key, if you're worried about someone accessing the hard drive. And if it's simply a matter that encryption is there, why not use it? I'm of the other school of thought, which is, if the encryption is there and I don't need it, why use it? Because it's only one more barrier to getting my files back. What do you think, Bill? Have you used encrypted backups at all? I've never used encrypted backups. When I make them, they're unencrypted, and I don't have anything anybody cares about anyway. So, yeah, I (20/39)
kind of, on your side on this, that I'd rather have it unencrypted than I can use it, because I'm bad about losing things. Right. I don't encrypt until you're absolutely certain. That'd be horrible. As long as you have the encryption key, restoring the files is simply a matter of copying them from the backup location to the desired location. You know, once you've inserted the key, they're no longer encrypted, and they're just open files. And so copying and pasting is going to work just fine to restore them. But if you've lost the encryption key, you've lost your backup. That's something that, yeah, is way too easy to screw up, in my personal opinion. Well, let's put it this way. It's way too easy for me to screw up, so I don't use that for the backups, mainly because the location of my backups is secure, and I'm relying on that security, not the encryption. So I think that's our recommendation. Don't encrypt it. All right. Our next email comes from Tom in Albuquerque. Hey, my neck of (21/39)
the woods. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. First, thank you for all the invaluable help and encouragement I received in the last couple months via the Going Linux podcast website. Second, help. My very busy and tech-adverse wife has just got back from a trip of a lifetime in Africa. She has a camera, phone and tablet maxed out with photographs and a couple of videos. Oh, man. No pressure there. Naturally, she wants to make DVDs containing nicely presented musical slideshows to give to friends and family. I'm pretty new to Linux. At present, I've waded about 15 or 20 percent into William Scott's Linux command line. I'm running Mint Cinnamon on a Newish HP notebook AMD laptop with 12 gigabytes of RAM. During sedication of my wife's absence, I installed a whole new Ubuntu Mate on my wife's Newish HP Pavilion Intel laptop with 12 gigabytes of RAM. With her permission, I hope. Yes, we're hoping. Oh, you're in trouble, dude. Both of these machines dual boot with the other operating system. I've installed (22/39)
DVD slideshow on my wife's computer but have yet to learn my way around. Frankly, with all the other Linux things I'm trying to learn, this project seems likely to be quite a chore. What might the wise personages of the Going Linux suggest to me as being among the least painful and most efficient alternatives for accomplishing our goals? This hopefully without forking over cash or using the other operating system. We are definitely computers who want to use links to get things done. Tom and Albuquerque. Well, the first thing, if you didn't have her permission to put it on her computer, buy some flowers. Yes. Yes. Second is to make sure that you have backups of everything, because if you lose a picture or video, you're toast. And other than that, I don't do video slideshows, but I think Larry's done some, so I'm going to let him chime in on this. And Tom, please tell me you had her permission. Please. Yeah. Wise advice from Bill there, Tom. Those things are the first things to do. And I (23/39)
did send Tom an email with some advice on creating slideshows from the DVDs. It sounds like this DVD slideshow application is pretty good. If you're struggling with learning it, perhaps it's a little more flexible and more complex than you need. And so I have a suggestion on a program that's available in the Linux repositories, the Ubuntu repositories. Of course, you're using Linux Mint that's based on Ubuntu, so you should be able to find it in the repositories pretty easily. It's a program called Imagination, and it is a relatively simple program that allows you to do the very thing that you're trying to do, which is to take those videos, those pictures and make slideshows and burn them onto a DVD so that you can make copies and send them around to all your friends, so they can watch your exciting adventures or your wife's exciting adventures in Africa. And we'll have a link to the tutorial for Imagination in our show notes, and that should be able to help you out in learning how to (24/39)
use it. It's a video tutorial on YouTube. Here's the description for the Imagination package. It's a lightweight and user-friendly DVD slideshow maker with a clean interface and few dependencies. Those are all good things. It only requires the FFmpeg encoder, which is usually installed by default, quite frankly, or you can get it as some of those additional extra codecs that many Linux distributions offer to install for you. But on Linux Mint, I think they're installed by default. And with that, you can produce a movie to be burned with another application, like the DVD burning program that comes pre-installed on Linux Mint or whatever your Linux distribution is. Most of them will come with some sort of DVD burning application, whether that's K3B or whether that is Bracero or something similar. The description also goes on to say Imagination has the following features. Easy to operate. It can make a slideshow from photos selected by the user. It supports a number of video formats, (25/39)
including 3GP for mobile phones. Hmm, interesting. Supports screen resolutions from 128x96, which I'm guessing is a small phone resolution, to 1920x1080. That's full 1080i or 1080p when you're exporting the videos. Background audio can be music, such as MP3 files or other audio files. It will auto-resize for images as an option. It allows the user to select a background color. It has over 50 slide transitions and it has over 50 transition effects and a zoom effect with duration time, and allows users to add explanatory text like subtitles. Imagination can be used to make presentations to be shown by a projector or by a smart TV. And that sounds like a great easy to use program. And especially when it comes with a YouTube video that describes how to use it. So there you go. What do you think, Bill? Think that should be able to help, Tom? Yeah, I think that should work. 50 transitions, huh? Wow. Yeah, that should work just fine. I hope so. If that's not enough, maybe your complex (26/39)
software program is the best way to go. But I think simple is what you're looking for. So there you go. Just hope he's not in the doghouse. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I get it. And wise advice, Bill, as always. I wouldn't go about that far, but yeah. Our next email is from John, who wrote, Hello Larry, for GNU Linux maintenance, I would add bleachbit, especially if you use the Chromium or Chrome browsers. Also running sudo apt auto remove from time to time. Is this an Ubuntu and derivatives thing? Perhaps a Debian and derivatives thing? Yeah, sudo apt is definitely something that's in the Debian way of doing things. And there may be some other ways to do that with other distributions. Continuing on, John wrote, Perhaps you have reasons for not mentioning bleachbit. If so, it would be interesting to hear them. Thanks again for informative, easy listening podcast, John. Well, and of course, John's email is a response to the mention of maintenance of your Linux computer. And I (27/39)
mentioned that on a listener feedback episode that you really don't have the same level of maintenance required for Linux as you do for Windows. And I didn't mention bleachbit, mainly because it didn't come to mind. And it is definitely something that works cross-platform and can be used. It's infamously used by a former presidential candidate here in the United States for removing and cleaning emails off of a server. Yeah, you may have heard something about that in the past. But bleachbit, yeah, it works fine. I don't use it. So I didn't think about it, but it's an option. Yep. I didn't even think about it either. All right. So our next email comes from Paul, who's in North Texas. He writes, Hi, Larry. Great show today. I'm learning more and more about using Linux by listening to the show. I have a couple of quick questions, if possible. What was the alternative software to Skype that you and Bill are using now? I'm sorry, but I had trouble understanding exactly what name was used. (28/39)
Some of these software names make no sense standing alone anyway. It's called Discord. Yeah, D-I-S-C-O-R-D. Discord. Yeah. And it's working really nice, right? It is. It's worked flawlessly for two shows and usually we have to battle Skype with all kinds of issues. So we're quite enjoying Discord, so give it a look. And the second question he writes is, what is the code Linux users can type to restart a machine short of pressing the start until the power shuts off? I remember you talking about that string of characters and I used it for a while and I've tried to find it again. Google. But I can't seem to find it anymore. Thanks again for all your great support for the Linux community. Paul in North Texas. OK, so that key command which forces your computer to shut down or restart is a set of key combinations that has worked very well for me. Sometimes the computer is so hard locked up that it doesn't work. But if it works for you, great. It's a key combination that can be used when the (29/39)
graphical commands don't work or if you can't get to an alternative terminal to type in, you know, reboot or any of those other commands that helps you from the command line. If your computer will accept it, you need to find the system request key on your keyboard because that's one of the keys you're going to press. And if your keyboard doesn't have one labeled system request or SysRec or something like that, S-Y-S-R-E-Q, then this isn't going to work for you. However, I believe this is off of memory. So if you want to search Google search for the letters R-E-I-S-U-B. And this is the key combination, as I recall it. Control-Alt-Shift-SystemRequest. And while you hold all those down, very slowly type R-E-I-S-U-B. And each of those letters that you're pressing with system request and those other keys pressed is sending a command directly to the Linux subsystem, your computer subsystem, so that it is going to reboot or shut down. And it bypasses a lot of other stuff like the graphical (30/39)
user interface and like other user interface options, whether it's terminal or not. And that's why it works even if your computer is locked up. But like I said, sometimes computers get so completely locked that even that doesn't work. So for your Google search, type R-E-S-U-B space Linux and search for that and you should find some articles on how to completely reboot your computer when it's seriously locked up. So our next email, and this is our last email before our gone Linux story, is from Craig. He said, I can't seem to find much on this, but my A108700P is a dual GPU solution. As of present, I am not sure that Linux is using both GPUs. Potentially it's just using the Radeon R6. That's the 2D solution. It has a Radeon R7 for gaming. I have read many posts and have attempted to set my Radeon R7 as the primary GPU as Linux does see it. However, this really mucks up things on the display when I try it. Always just wondering if you have heard anything about this and whether any Linux (31/39)
kernel at present supports this configuration. As from my previous email, I am running Ubuntu Mate 16.04. Well, as the gamer Bill, and as the person who is most likely to have run across this, any suggestions for Craig? I don't know. I've heard that there's been problems with the Linux and these AMD A10 chips. They're like a hybrid chip. They have everything built on. I hear that they're kind of quirky. Other than that, I don't know. Maybe one of our listeners knows more. My computer doesn't use that chip and I've never used it, but I've heard that people do have issues with those hybrid chips. They're usually put into, not saying the budget laptops, they're put into those. I don't know where he got it, but I think it's probably just he's going to have to see if there's a solution out there or he's going to live with it. Because I've heard that these hybrid chips are kind of wacky. Yeah, and support for these kinds of chips is continuously being worked on. However, and I'm no GPU or (32/39)
processor expert by any stretch, but as new drivers are developed for these, they're put into the kernel. So perhaps an updated version of Ubuntu Mate or maybe just installing an updated kernel can get you what you're looking for, but there's no guarantee there. Especially when you're talking about these kinds of video drivers that are typically proprietary. And, you know, manufacturers of proprietary devices like these GPUs won't provide specs or details of how their own drivers are developed because they want to keep their technology secret. Hence the term proprietary. Sometimes, though, they'll provide Linux compatible drivers themselves, and you'll want to go on to the GPU developers website to see if they have one. Typically they don't, which means that now the Linux community must go and try to develop an open source driver. And because their workings, inner workings of their driver for Windows is proprietary and secret, we have to reverse engineer these kinds of things. And if (33/39)
it is available, either as an open source driver, it's going to be probably in the kernel at that point, or perhaps a proprietary driver is something that we've got permission to distribute with the distribution. Doesn't sound so in this case. Then it might be available in the additional drivers tab of the software update. And in Ubuntu Mate that you said you're using, you go to the software and update utility by going to the system menu, then administration, and then additional drivers. And usually Ubuntu Mate makes the best choice for you based on what's in your computer. But when you're on that additional drivers tab, you might want to check and see if there is a driver that you could try. The key thing is don't simply search for drivers for your GPU using something like drivers.com or other third party sites like that. There's no guarantee that you're aren't going to get something with malware that will corrupt your system. And if you're unsure or you simply can't find it, maybe (34/39)
you're better off just continuing to use the lower performance that's provided for your computer. As you've got it running right now, you don't want to screw up your system with something, especially that's going to give you some sort of malware compromise to your system. That's my suggestion and hopefully that helps you, Craig, or somebody else. Okay. All right. Okay. Our last email is our gone Linux story, and I'm going to take the first part and Larry's going to take the second part because it's a little bit long. So Craig from Canada wrote, Hi Larry and Bill. I have been running Linux off and on since the late 90s. My first Linux was an early version of Red Hat Linux. Over the years, I have revisited Linux off and on in hopes that I could go off of Windows permanently. Alas, as the years went on, I didn't think I would ever make the switch and that Linux would remain simply a curiosity for me and never my main system. At some point during that time, a friend had me dual boot (35/39)
between Windows and Debian. Hard to remember back that far, but it was possibly version 2. Anyways, fast forward to February 2017, my interest in Linux was engaged again. I had bought a new Acer laptop about a year before that and an AMD A10 processor. I ran Windows on it for about a year. I backed up my Windows system just in case using Clonezilla and proceeded to attempt to load stock Ubuntu 16.04. For reasons I think I will be able to explain later, it would freeze and have problems loading. I got frustrated with it, so I gave up on stock Ubuntu. I believe I was on kernel 4.8. I then gave Debian 8.6 a try with kernel 3.14 or 3.16. Everything worked except my Athros wireless card. I found instructions for backporting the drivers for it and proceeded to get that working as well. I didn't have any problems other than that and so ran the system for a while. However, it did bug me that all my apps were so old, so again I went searching and found Ubuntu Mate 16.04. I honestly didn't think (36/39)
it would work due to my early experience with stock Ubuntu 16.04. I was pleasantly surprised that it did work. The only issue I experienced was that my screen would flicker when the machine was in the process of switching to the screensaver and eventually shutting down the screen. This must have been fixed by a later kernel version as it quit doing the same months later. Mate came with kernel 4.4 which surprised me as stock Ubuntu had a higher kernel version. So, continuing on, since Ubuntu Mate 16.04 was up and running so well, I was ready to try something else. So I loaded up Ubuntu Mate 17.04. Right away I had the same problems that I experienced in Ubuntu 16.04. This time I sought help on the Ubuntu forums. After some troubleshooting we determined that there seemed to be a problem with IOMMU between Linux and my AMD A10 processor. I can provide the links to all these bug reports if you think it can help someone else. Being that this email has been so long, I will end up by saying (37/39)
that a kernel patch was produced by AMD and will finally be included in the 14.13 kernel being shipped with Ubuntu 17.10. I will definitely be loading this after October 19th as I really want to be cutting edge. I have been listening to your show for most of this year and I really appreciate your jokes and your wisdom in running Linux, Larry and Bill. Thanks so much for the podcast. Also, I have been back to running Ubuntu Mate 16.04 until the AMD problems were ironed out in a later kernel version. This is partly in response to Ken from episode 310 and his AMD comments. And clearly, Craig from Canada. Wow, long email, great story. Thanks Craig for providing us with all of that information. That's very helpful and a great story. Yeah, that's a great story. I'm glad it's working for you and let us know how the new version of Mate works for you. Okay. And that wraps up our episode. Our next episode will be, I'm not going to say something we're going to figure out before we record it. It (38/39)
is going to be on Snaps. App image, Flatpak. What's the difference and why should I care? It's probably not going to be the name of the episode, but that's the subject. But I kind of like that. That's too long to fit on a phone screen. Oh, Snaps. Okay. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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'd 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. (39/39)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #363 · Listener Feedback.
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Going Linux episode 363, Listener Feedback. Welcome to the Going Linux Podcast. I'm your host, Larry Busey. 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 at our email address at goinglinks.gmail.com and leave a message on our voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hey, Bill. Hey, Larry. Good morning. Good morning. We've had so many things go on, I think if we started talking about them, we would end up taking up the whole podcast. So let's just skip that, shall we? Yeah, that would probably be the best. I don't have any desire to revisit this past week. So, okay, fair enough. Yeah. So we've (1/41)
got quite a few pieces of listener feedback here. We've got a voicemail or a recorded file that Michael provided. We'll get to in a second and a lot of emails. So let's get into it. Okay. That sounds like a plan. Okay. Michael provided us a recording, which he sent by email along with a note that said, Hi, Larry and Bill, I have recorded the following file in Audacity, which is an inquiry about compiling the Fenrir screen reader for text consoles. Please note, this is my first attempt at using Audacity and we'll play that now. Hello, Larry and Bill. This is Mike Weaver from West Shortshirt in the UK running Ubuntu MATE 18.04, I think. Now Ubuntu MATE 18.04 works with a graphical console or the graphical terminal. So if you type ALT F2 MATE-terminal, that will work with Orca and it will give you speech. But unfortunately it doesn't work with any of the text consoles. So you have to use another screen reader. There are a few screen readers. There's one called EmacsSpeak, if you can use (2/41)
Emacs. You know how it works. There is also Speak Up. I believe there's one called YSR and there's a, I think there's a new one called Fenry. F-E-N-R-I-R. I don't know if I'm getting these names mixed up. I think Y-A-S-R, I think it means yes to another screen reader. Now I don't know which ones are being worked on. I believe that Fenry, or Fenry, F-E-N-R-I-R, is a more up-to-date version of Speak Up. From what I've read. Now I haven't managed to get that working in Ubuntu MATE. Could anybody possibly help me get it to work? Because I don't know if it's been packaged incorrectly. And I've been in contact with the developer of Fenry and I can't get it working at all. Well thanks Michael and the quality on the recording was just fine. So well done. Yeah, sounded good. Yeah. Okay, so and I had sent Michael a response after doing a little bit of research on Fenry and we'll include a link in the show notes. The installation instructions on the Fenry website says Fenry does not require (3/41)
installation. I'm pronouncing it Fenry even though he pronounced it Fenry because I'm reading it the way it's spelled. It says Fenry does not require installation. You can try it and make sure everything works before you decide to install. In this way you can be sure that your system doesn't break or stop talking. For that you can just grab the code and run in the foreground as root by typing at the terminal src slash Fenry slash Fenry. Or to run it in the background type src slash Fenry slash Fenry dash Damon. And Damon is spelled d-a-e-m-o-n. So there you go. You don't need to install it to try it out or even to run it. And if you do install it there are instructions on the website which will provide as part of the link to Fenry in the show notes. There's a man pages site on Ubuntu dot com that talks about Fenry and how it works. So yeah it's pretty straightforward and if you're using Ubuntu it looks like it's in the repositories. Even easier. Yeah exactly. So our next email comes (4/41)
from Michael who also writes us with a link to an article about slint distribution. He goes, hi again. Here is the information for the slint Linux distribution mentioned in my previous email or at least a blog post written by someone who knows about it and has used it. Hope this information helps yourself, Bill, and more importantly other blind users wanting to use Linux as an alternative to Windows or Mac OS. Michael from Home First UK and we include the link in the show notes. So he continues in the first paragraph of his message writes, as some already know my Linux distribution of choice is slackware. However, it isn't an easy distro for visually impaired users to install. The slackware installer isn't accessible unless the users have a hardware based voice synthesizer. He writes I don't have one and most others probably also don't. Which means they need sighted assistance to install it and then install the screen readers. Some visually impaired blog visitors emailed me and showed (5/41)
interest on installing slackware but they have no want to provide them sighted assistance to carry them through the installation process and sadly I can't help them. But now this problem has a solution in the form of a slackware based Linux distribution called slint. And Larry, I like slackware. I run it for a little while and it's hard enough for a sighted person to install this so wow, it's good that they have slint. Yeah absolutely and I think the links that Michael provides and the person who emailed him and thanks for forwarding that email Michael, I think those links are going to be helpful if anyone out there is a blind computer user who wants to use slackware and needs to have accessibility features. Looks like this is another opportunity for other people. Again thanks for bringing that to our attention and thanks for providing the links. Our next email is from David who told us why he does not upgrade Linux Mint and it's not what we thought. Thanks for addressing my question (6/41)
in listener feedback, your explanatory answer and the humorous way you delivered it. However, to set the record straight, there is a reason I don't do fresh installs although I agree it's safer and preferable. Years ago I separated my home drive from my root drive based on your recommendation and helpful guidance. Though not impossible, it is difficult to do a fresh install of Linux Mint under these circumstances requiring lots of finagling to use a technical expression. Again I can't say it often enough, you guys are great and your show and assistance are so much appreciated. As mentioned in my last note, you should at least not be out of pocket. Although I suggested adding an option to your donate button of monthly donations, a quick Google search I just did shows me that to do this via PayPal requires a premium or business account which would itself up your expenses. Oh well, perhaps a little non-obtrusive reminder every so often on the show would be helpful if your costs get (7/41)
unreasonable. I at least will try to remember every so often to throw a few shekels your way. Bestest, David. Well thanks David and thanks for providing us with that non-obtrusive reminder every so often. Hey, what is the exchange rate for a shekel? I don't know, I don't know, but thanks David. Thanks David. Our next email comes from Michael who wrote yet again, Hi Larry and Bill. The Ubuntu Mate Software Boutique is inaccessible even in the latest Ubuntu Mate 18.10. The person you put me in contact with went to the same blind school in Worcester as me said that the Software Boutique is inaccessible and I can confirm this. All it says when you tab through the option is blind people have to install an alternative app store such as Synaptic to get around this issue, Michael, are you okay? And you know something Larry, even though you're going to laugh, I don't get myself one of the first, the only time I use the Software Boutique is to install Synaptic because I like, I find that the (8/41)
Boutique is more of a curated software selections. It is, yes it is. And so I like to be able to see everything and so one of the first things I do, and I don't know why they don't install it by default to have it where blind users can use it or other people that prefer it, but Synaptic is just, when you click say you want a package of we'll say Discord, it will say by the way you need this, this, this, and this to make this work and just automatically selects them. And so I tend to use Synaptic 99% of the time but having a Software Boutique that is inaccessible to blind users is a big oversight in my book. Yeah, absolutely. And I know that the team, Martin and his team are thinking about that issue and how to resolve it. They are redesigning not only the Software Boutique but also the welcome screen. But they haven't gotten to the accessibility of the Software Boutique yet that I can see. And I did send a note in their Slack channel asking where we are with that and I didn't really (9/41)
get an answer. I got an answer but they didn't really answer that question. So I'm going to have to follow up again I think and find out what the status is or what the schedule is. I agree. It's a bit of an oversight especially since Ubuntu MATE provides so much blind support in other areas. The website as well as the online help, they provide information about if you want more than the curated selection of software that's in the Boutique. You can use the Boutique to install other software sources like Synaptic. You can also of course use the command line to install Synaptic, pseudo-apt install synaptic s-y-n-a-p-t-i-c. Spelling that from memory, I had to make sure I didn't mess that one up. And yeah, so you can get it quite easily and yes it is accessible but the right thing to do is to fix the software boutique so that it is accessible. I'm not trying to be, you know, Martin and his team do a great job on a lot of areas but there's a flaw. If a blind user wants to use Ubuntu MATE, (10/41)
this is why I think it should be more higher on the list of things to address is that if you do have a blind user and Synaptic is not installed by default or as another way to get software then you need someone sighted to actually go to the Boutique and install it. So the simplest workaround that I could think of and I don't think it would add that much to the image size is just to go ahead and include Synaptic along with the software Boutique and then the problems addressed until you get it taken care of because Ubuntu is supposed to encourage everybody, you know, computing for everybody and so their official flavor of Ubuntu so we need to encourage them to say, hey, this is a genuine problem that we need addressed and if they have other things that they're working on the simplest thing would be just to go ahead and have it where you can, that people can use it until you get around to it. And that's just my feelings. I know it might not be everybody's feelings but it just seems like (11/41)
that would be the easiest workaround. Yeah, it would be an easy workaround. And I understand their desire to keep Ubuntu Mate distribution for new users that's easy to use for new users and yet gives you the power that Ubuntu itself and other distributions give you by not limiting what you can install. So by installing just the software to Boutique they're providing essentially one of each kind of software and, you know, there's some exceptions to that where they provide multiple choices in the software Boutique but yeah, they provide the ability to install Synaptic, they provide the ability to install the Ubuntu Software Center and either one would be a good alternative if you haven't got the Software Center fixed yet for accessibility. So yeah, with that in mind, we're not going to stop recommending Ubuntu Mate, we're not going to stop recommending it for blind users, but now at least we're aware that the Boutique, the software Boutique that comes pre-installed with Ubuntu Mate is (12/41)
not currently accessible and we're hoping that our comments and others will prompt, you know, an upgrade to that particular application to make it accessible. Yeah, I know they're going to address it. It's just... Oh, they will, I'm sure. Yeah, I have no doubt that they will address it, but it is a small team so I know they have to prioritize what they're working on, but that just seems like the easiest way to do it. Anyway. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so let's move on to our next email, which is from Skip. He's a blogger who provided a gracious mention of my book and provides an application that fits in our Run Your Business on Linux episodes, and we included that in our last episode, that particular software. So here's Skip's email. Hi Larry and Bill, I'm a long time listener and Linux user. I actually launched my own blog recently to help self-employed, non-technical professionals move to Linux and Ubuntu Mate in particular. Huh, that fits exactly with our podcast episodes. I actually (13/41)
referenced the podcast and Larry's book in a recent post, and he has a link to that post at his blog, which is cvillefoss.blog. We'll have a link to his blog post in the show notes. Also, in your last listener feedback episode, you were discussing accounting software options for Linux. Personally, I use a command line accounting tool called hledger that does a terrific job. I actually plan to do a series of blog posts next month about it. Anyhow, keep up the great work, Skip. And he signs his email with blog ghostwriting and legal content services. And his blog, like I said, is at cvillefoss.blog. Cvillefoss is spelled C-V-I-L-L-E-F-O-S-S dot blog. There you go. Thanks for the email. Thanks for the suggestion, Skip. And thanks for the mention of the book and the podcast on your blog. We really appreciate that. Yes, nothing like a little bit of free publicity. Yeah, there you go. So our next email comes from Roger and he sends greetings from down under. And he says, Hi Larry and Bill. (14/41)
Greetings from Australia. I come across your podcast while looking for anything Linux. I'm facing an impending but highly reluctant upgrade to Windows 10 next year when our old but perfectly good domestic Windows 7 machines are no longer supported by Microsoft. Gee, thanks, Redmond. I tried wrestling with Linux. I think it was Mandrake about 13 years ago. Had a lot of fun but couldn't get my printers to work properly with cups. Okay, they were win printers, he writes. But it seems that a lot has changed in that time so Linux is back in contention. I found your relaxed delivery most relaxing and refreshing. And unlike one listener who vented his spleen on episode 358, I'm quite happy to keep listening, Mr. Spleenventor. I'm sure you guys know who I'm referring to said he was listening to episode 353 and stopped at 20 minutes. I listened to it myself a second time and could only wonder if there were two episodes numbered 353. Like some sort of parallel universe. Hmm. I had no problems (15/41)
with it at any rate. A quick question before I go. Bill, are you a ham radio enthusiast? I couldn't help noticing that you always sign off with 73. Anyway, my best wishes and keep up the good work. Kind regards, Roger. So I responded to Roger in email and did tell him that yes I was a ham and of course our unofficial official mascot bear sent. I had to send it twice because he hit, he jumped up and wanted to be petted and he hit the send button so he got like three lines before I had to retype. And I said, thanks bear. So he got a good kick out of it and he replied to me saying, yeah, that's fine. He hadn't trained his dog to do that yet. Yeah, bear does what he wants. Anyway, I guess he's running Linux at home or maybe business. If he's running business, I think that Microsoft does offer another year of support that you can pay for. I'm not quite sure. I wanted to be totally upfront about that so you can look into that. Now it's not available for home users as far as I know. As far as (16/41)
printers, printers have come a long way. They can still be problematic, but I think we both have had good luck with HP. I'm running an HP office jet 3830 and cups works fine with it. It prints, it scans the whole thing. So, and that's the same model I'm running, Bill. Oh, okay. So yeah, it seems, it seems to work just fine. I remember back in the day, there was two things that would seem to always get people and they're not much of a thing anymore as a win modems that you actually had to have windows. And then they had ones that the printers that wouldn't work with anything but windows. I know some people had managed to work around, but it was like you had to do a lot of voodoo to get them to work. Nowadays it seems like it's pretty much click, click, click, you're done. Sometimes with HP you have to tell it, sometimes you have to play a little bit. But if I remember correctly, when I installed my office jet, it was three buttons and it was working. If you're plugging it in by USB, (17/41)
it's just plug it in and it starts working. It recognizes it, installs the right driver and away you go. They've come a long way with that. But I can understand his feelings and Mandrake, wow, that, that is a long time ago. I remember playing with it and it was, it was, it was a lot of fun. But hey, Roger, what I want, I am curious, I'm going to ask you a question and maybe you can write in and tell me what distribution you're looking at and because it seems like the Ubuntu based ones seem to work very well with the HP printers, but that could be just my opinion. But yeah, let us know what ones you're looking at. Maybe we can offer you a suggestion. I would say, where am I going to offer them now? I would say Ubuntu Mate and if you want something more Windows, look at Linux Mint. Those are, the Ubuntu Mate is a, like the old, a gnome what, two, right? The old gnome two point whatever it was, six or it may, it looks very much like it. They have a number of different settings that you (18/41)
can choose in their panel that lets you switch between a Windows look and the gnome two look and you can make it look like a Mac and not identical, but I mean the panel layouts are the same or similar and that sort of thing. So they've got some easy selections like one button selections that don't require a reboot. It's pretty easy to switch it around in Ubuntu Mate. The Linux Mint Cinnamon, which is what I run, is very, very familiar. If you look at it, you wouldn't have any problems. Looks very much like the old Windows. It looks like a lot like Windows, but it's kind of a hybrid, but you'll see what I mean. You could do a search for them. But yeah, either one of those two seem to work really well and it just depends on who's using it and what they're comfortable with. So yeah, you're right. I forgot that you could change the layout with Ubuntu Mate because I think they also have another one. I think they even have a cinnamon looking like one. Yeah, they have a panel layout that's (19/41)
just like cinnamon in a lot of ways. That works. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So there you go. All right. Our next email is from Paul, who wrote about known audio issues on Discord. And Paul must have been listening to our podcast where we were having some problems with audio issues on Discord. So, hi Larry and Bill. Thank you for all your support for the Linux community. I thought I'd give you a warning about trouble Linux users of Discord are experiencing. If you discover you have no audio on a Discord call or when testing audio, the tests will only work for about a second or two, and then your mic shuts off, the fix is to go to voice and video settings and turn noise suppression to off. Your audio will then be restored. It's a known problem in Discord for Linux and a fix is being worked on. I spent a lot of time trying to figure a solution and then saw this forum post. This fix works for me. Maybe this can save you and Bill a little time and heartburn. We'll include a link to Paul's suggested (20/41)
Discord post and he signs off. All the best, Paul in North Texas. Thanks Paul. I read through it and that was exactly the problem that I was having. And your suggestion, fixed it, of course. So again, thanks. I never had that problem. Yeah. On our last recording, one of the reasons I had to restart Discord is because that problem was occurring and I restarted Discord, it went away. But now that we have this solution, I don't think we'll have that problem going forward. This kind of carries the differences in the physical hardware of our machines. Could be. Anyway, our next email comes from Mike and he asks about printers for Mint. Hello, gentlemen. Oh, that's the first time we've been called that in a while. What printers do you use and why? I have a small business that is starting to outgrow the all-in-one HP 4632 OfficeJet printing about 10,000 pages a year in black and white. It has been a great printer, but the ink replacement is becoming a major expense. It seems paying more for a (21/41)
unit may save in the long term, but it would be helpful to know what printer would perform well with Linux Mint. You read my last email on air and I thank you for being a great resource as a very new user. Bringing on all things Linux, Mike. So Mike, I just mentioned before, I use an OfficeJet 3830 and Larry uses the same one. I would say and recommend you maybe look into what are the ones, because you said it only prints in black and white, so what's the ones that just do black and white but they're a lot more economical to use? Yeah, you can get black and white LaserJet printers from HP and they will work almost without having to think about it because HP really supports Linux very, very well. So pretty much if you get a printer from HP, it's going to work with Linux with a couple of exceptions over the years that I have seen, some of the specialty photo printing ones in particular. Yeah, I had one of those too. Yeah. For the most part though, if you stick with OfficeJet, they're (22/41)
going to work with Linux, whether you get a color laser or a black and white laser or you continue to use the inkjet printers. The inkjet just from HP, their more recent ones are a little more economical on ink. They're still not as economical as they potentially could be in my opinion, but if you want to If you're doing a lot of printing and you want to save on the consumable costs around your printing, generally speaking, laser and black and white laser is the most economical way to go if you're doing a lot of printing. If you're not doing a lot of printing, you're best to stick with the inkjets and the other manufacturers of printers will include a link, hopefully I'll remember to put it in the show notes to a site that you can use to determine whether your printer is compatible with Linux or not, or your potentially new printer is compatible with Linux or not. There are some manufacturers out there that stubbornly refuse not to support Linux. I'm not exactly sure why, given that (23/41)
other manufacturers seem to find it just very easy to support Linux. If you can find a Linux compatible printer, generally speaking, the driver for the printer will be already included in the Linux kernel, so you don't have to install anything. For others, if it's a brand new printer that has been released since the last release of the Linux kernel that included printer driver updates and the driver's not there, then you can check the printer manufacturer's site to see if there's a driver there that will help you and is downloadable and is specifically designed for Linux. And failing that, it may be what the site we're referring to calls a paperweight. In other words, it's not supported by Linux and it likely never will be. So you've got to kind of watch out for those. Yeah, yeah. And if it's a brand new one, yeah, you might want to consider giving it to somebody who's or selling it to somebody who's using Windows. You don't give anything to Windows users. Come on now. You've got to (24/41)
get your money back. Yeah, there you go. So anyway, HP is our first recommendation for printer manufacturers and there are a number of them out there that do support Linux very well. And just check the Linux compatibility. If you don't want to necessarily go directly to the website that we're going to link to, just do a search on the Internet for Linux compatible printers and the name or model number of your printer and that should give you whether or not it's going to work. All right. OK, Juan expresses much gratitude. Larry, Bill, greetings. I love your podcast. I have been a casual Linux user for about, well, 18 years or so. I say casual as I have not had a full Linux install on any of my Macs. I have been using Apple since the Apple II back in high school. I have a Mac Pro cheese grater, a Mac Pro, a MacBook and an old Macintosh Plus. I sense a pattern here. Until recently, I had been dual booting Ubuntu in my old MacBook Pro. And just this past year, I did a complete wipe and (25/41)
install of Ubuntu Budgie. That unit being on its last legs and not being able to support 64-bit led me to purchase an Acer Aspire, my first ever PC. I was dual booting with Windows 10 only because I needed some software that was not available on Linux that lasted about a month. Warning, rant ahead. I effin' hate Windows and always have. Just having to deal with the worst OS ever, even occasionally at work, is bad enough. It has aesthetically horrid, vastly unsecure, although vomitous in its poor execution of file management. Tell us how you really feel. It works against you more often than with you, and provides a vacuous and inane user experience each and every time. Pure crap. So I did a full install of Kubuntu 18.1, wiping Windows 10 from my Aspire and ridding the whole of the universe from at least one more installation of cyber crap. I have been enjoying my new Linux laptop with much fervor. However, recently I have had to reinstall Kubuntu twice after I lost the ability to log in (26/41)
via SDDM. I must note that both times I experienced this was after I did a removal-slash-purge of the XFCE Cinnamon and Mate desktop environments, which I had installed one night during a bout of insomnia. I must assume that somewhere during the removal process that the SDDM was removed as well. All I would be greeted with after a reboot would be a blank screen and a cursor. However, I was able to reinstall from my trusty USB stick. Anyway, not sure if this was a question type of email or merely praise for inspiring me to dive headlong into Linux. Your show is informative and entertaining, and I listen almost daily, catching up in my car via the TuneIn app and on my Kubuntu laptop on Clementine. That's it, Juan. Wow. Yeah. A little salty language that I edited out for family-friendly purposes. But yeah, yours is not the only rant we've heard of similar vein, Juan. No. So thanks for sharing. And sorry you have been subjected after all those years of Macintosh and Mac OS and all the (27/41)
other things, Apple, that you decided to switch over to Linux and had such a tough experience. Yes. It sounds like he's had a few issues. I did enjoy his salty language, but we can't say that because we are family-friendly. But I think everybody got the idea of his frustration. And I particularly enjoyed when he called his Mac Pro the cheese grater because I like that case, but it does look like a cheese grater from the front. Yeah. I've heard it described that way as well. So thanks, Juan. And thanks for sharing. Congratulations on your move to Linux and the fact that you've been using it for so long in a dual boot situation on your Mac is inspiring as well. So thanks. Yes. So our next email comes from Daniel and he has a question on security patches. I read an article about systemd and downloading patches for Linux. I have a Bantu Mate. How may one make sure this system has all the patches? That should be fairly easy. You can do one or two things. You can wait till the system says, (28/41)
hey, you have updates. Do you want to apply them or do you want to postpone them? Or you can actively go in and search for them. What I tend to do is I let the system tell me when there's updates. The way that you want to make sure that you get those notifications is there's usually a checkbox saying, let me know when there's updates to my system. And it's usually options like, let me know there's an update and I will install or automatically apply the updates to the system. I think, what is it, download and install or something. I think you still have to enter your password. But yeah, one will notify you there's updates and you can download them manually by clicking the big button or it will download them and wait for you to give it permission to install the updates. I think that's how it works. The easiest is just have it where it downloads and waits for you and notifies you there's updates and just do it that way. That way you're not going to miss anything. I don't know about Larry, (29/41)
but I usually wait after I get a notification. I usually wait a few days just to make sure that there's no problems with the updates, but I apply them pretty quickly. So I don't know how you do it, Larry. Yeah, I have the automatic setting set so that it will automatically download them and notify me when there's an update available. And that's the easiest way I find is just install them when they're available and ready to go. If you want to wait like Bill does, that's fine as well. But the one thing you don't have to do on Linux is you don't have to go search the internet for updates for security patches, regardless of what this article says, they come to you. Yes, they do. They always come to you when they're ready to go, systemd or otherwise. And like Bill just suggested, the easiest way to do that is through the software updater that's built into your Linux distribution. Just set it to automatically notify you when there's an update. That's the easiest way. Or if you want even more (30/41)
control, run that updater periodically, like once a week or even, you know, whatever, and just see if there are any updates through the updater. Don't go anywhere else. It's all provided to you by the Linux distribution. Nothing you need to do, but install them when they arrive. Okay, our next email is from Mike. He says he's loving Linux. Larry and Bill, I really enjoy listening to your show. I'd also like you to know that Linux has been there for me when Windows hasn't. I recently upgraded Windows 10, and after that update, Windows would not boot. Thankfully, I was able to restore Windows 10 using a backup program, VM. V-E-E-A-M. I haven't heard of that one, Bill. It must be relatively new, I guess. But for the period of time that I didn't have access to Windows, Linux was available to me and my wife, and it just worked fine. Thanks for your show. I really enjoy learning new things about Linux. Mike. Thanks, Mike. Yeah, we've had that happen a few times. Yeah, it's a great way to (31/41)
continue to run your computer when Windows fails you, and be careful. I know you tried it out and you like it a little bit, and you were just testing it until you could get Windows back up and running. Now that you've had a taste of the Linux, it might just take over your life. So be careful, Mike. Yes, be very careful. Our next email comes from Heath, who wrote about Google minus. Okay, I love that play on words. Anyway, Larry and Super Senior Chief Executive Minion. Wow. Okay. I have to take that in for a minute. Super Senior Chief Executive Minion. Wow. Okay. On the Google Plus front, I see a lot of groups moving to Telegram. The Askanoa show is a very successful one on that platform. Heath, Deputy Underling Minion, Australia. He has a Deputy Underling now? Apparently. Self-anointed. Thanks for the suggestion, Heath. We're going to move in a little different direction. We'll mention that at the end of the show. In the meantime, let's go on to our last two emails here. NZ17 wrote, (32/41)
thanks for the grand show. The only other thing which I could really ask for is, could you guys please synchronize your microphone volumes? When Larry laughs, it is super loud compared to when Bill talks. Aloha from Utah. Pedantic Minion number one, NZ17. Okay, we have a pedantic minion as well. I think you're mixing your geographies there, NZ17. Aloha from Hawaii or hello from Utah, but I've never heard Aloha from Utah, unless you're originally from Hawaii, I guess. Yeah, I think that might be the case. But wow, okay. So Larry, we both record our sides of the conversation separately. We sync them, we start recording at the exact same time, and then I send mine to you in Agra format, and then you put it in your Audacity, and of course you sync them up perfectly. But then before you do anything else, you auto level the entire show. I do. So I'm not sure why my side is getting a little bit louder. Maybe I'm not laughing loud enough. Oh, that could be. So you need to laugh louder. Okay, (33/41)
I'll laugh louder. All right. Okay. Well, thanks, NZ17. We'll just double check the volumes before we send this one out. Yeah. Our last email comes from Tony from the MintCast, who wrote us requesting the value added extras that Troy uses to install software onto Linux computers his employer's company sells. He also commented, hi Larry Bill. Hope you guys are doing well. I've been listening to your show for a few years and really enjoy it and love what you are doing. I have been involved in the MintCast podcast for a few months now and have a new appreciation for the work you guys are doing. Tony W. Okay, Tony, here's a secret. Larry does most of the work. Yeah. Well, the MintCast guys, they've gone through some changes to their hosts yet again, which is a great way to continue a podcast is to turn it over to the community and they've discussed this in recent episodes and their community has taken over and Tony is one of the new hosts and sounds like he's new to podcasting, but they (34/41)
have done a fantastic job of good quality voice sound and they are using a mobile server to do the recording from what I understand and that has improved a lot over the years. The last set of hosts started off with a lot of inconsistency in sound, but as they worked through the mobile server issues they had and paid some attention to the volume and the quality of the sound, I think they've done a fantastic job and this new crew has continued that and even improved it. So maybe Bill, you and I need to take a note from the MintCast folks about the quality of the sound, but anyway, thanks Tony. We appreciate it. Yeah, thanks Tony. But Larry, let me just, let me blow your horn a little bit here. If you go back and listen a year ago, you will know, it's always sounded good. Larry always has been working on improving the sound quality and if you listen to some of the first episodes compared to now, you'll notice the difference and that's mainly because we've gotten new mics, new mixers, etc, (35/41)
etc. We've had several different mics and software, Aldasi has been updated, so as software and hardware gets better, we try to keep current or at least current-ish and there's always new tricks that we learn and as you do podcasting more often, you learn new ways to make yourself sound better, things to clean up. I mean, back a year ago, Larry used to have to work really, really hard to clean up all my background noise. That's true. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey, just a fact. Yeah, just a fact. He used to have to clean it up and that kind of brought down the quality, but as I've moved and have gotten to a better place to record, it's not as prevalent. And you got a new mic as well. And I got a new mic and I'm getting ready to upgrade again. Yeah. So that is, it's just like an ongoing process. Once you start, you don't ever seem to really stop. You pick up a new PC or whatever. Sometimes we find better software to use, but Audacity has pretty much been the gold standard. It's been our (36/41)
standard since the beginning. How long has this podcast been going on now? This podcast has been going for 12 years. And I was podcasting for what, three years, three or four years, I think maybe three years before that. Okay. So it's great that DementiaCast has been turned over to community and it's a lot of work, but Larry's been through, Larry's the only original member of this podcast. That's true. Because you've had, the first one was, what was his name? Serge. He had Serge and then you had Tom, right? Tom. Yeah. And then you. And then me. Larry's the only original one, so he's been working a long time, 12 years. Wow. Yeah. Back in the day. So Larry works really hard and we really tried to, we're not perfect and we always do try to do better. And I did have a chance to listen to one of the, a portion of the latest MintCast because I listened to way too many podcasts during the week. But they sound pretty good. They do. They absolutely do. Back for a second on the going Linux co- (37/41)
host situation. You have lasted longer than either of the other two co-hosts, so I haven't worn you down yet. I appreciate that, Bill. You've been a steady companion for a large number of years. I appreciate that. You're doing a great job. Well, actually, I'm just like a tick. It's hard to get rid of me. But no, and I haven't annoyed him enough for him to say, okay, we're done. So but the reason in no kidding, not kidding here. One of the reasons that this podcast sounds as good as it does and comes out when it's supposed to. And we have a majority of the articles is because Larry puts a lot of time and effort into it and he really does a great job. So yeah. Well, Bill, you contribute a lot too. So I appreciate that. Thank you. I love this little appraiser. Okay. All right. All right. And that wraps up our emails for this time. The next episode will be our first in a series of Back to Basic episodes. And I have yet to write that episode. Until then, you can go to our website at (38/41)
going.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. Usually I would give my part of this, but Larry wants to make an announcement about what we're going to do about Google+. So Larry, it's all you. Yeah. So as you may be aware, our Google Plus community site, along with the rest of Google Plus will go away sometime in April. And we are going to replace that. And we've had some discussion on the show here as to what we should use to replace it. And Bill and I have given a lot of thought and tried out a few things. And what we're going to do, since the Discord application and server that we have been using for communicating to one another and use it as kind of a chat window, as well as for communicating to one another through audio, we don't use it to record, but we do use it to talk to one another by audio as we're recording. We're going to use Discord as our community (39/41)
site. Another podcast that I know uses Discord is the MRP Tech Podcast, M-R-P-T-E-C-H, if you're interested in that kind of thing. They have been using Discord for a while for their chat room, and it seems to work quite well for them. So we're going to try that out. If it doesn't work out for us, we will try something else. So more to follow. We don't have it all completely set up yet, but we'll post a note into Google Plus, hopefully before it goes away, and let you know where to go. And there'll be links on the website to connect to the Discord chat room that we're going to have. So that's the direction we've decided to go. And like I said, if it doesn't work out, we can always change. Okay. So my part of this is I would like some of our many, many thousands, millions and millions, if you're interested in helping us test this before it goes live, send an email just stating that you're interested in helping, and Larry will forward them to me, and I'll get back to you, and then we'll (40/41)
coordinate. The one thing about the text area is that whatever you write is persistent. So we're able to see what was written, and we can also jump in and text or voice chat with you if we need to. So if you're interested in helping us test this super secret new way of communicating, send an email to us, and Larry will forward them to me, and I'll get back to you. So with that, for now, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining the discussion in our Going Linux podcast, Google Plus Community. Soon to be Discord. Okay. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasko at podcastthemes.com. (41/41)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #397 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 395, 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 goinglinx at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hi, Bill. Hey, Larry. How are you this week? I am doing well. We just spent the last hour talking about how we are, and we're not going to subject our listeners to that. But things are going well. Let's just summarize that way. It's been busy, but yes, things are going well. Yeah, definitely. Hey, before we get into listener feedback, I have a (1/41)
little bit of news that is probably, by the time our listeners listen to this, a little bit old, but some folks may not have heard it. You know that System76 and Entraware, Pinebook, Katie Eastlandbook, all of these are computer manufacturers or computers themselves that are pre-installed with Linux that you can purchase pre-installed. And Dell has been selling a few of their models that have been pre-installed with Linux. But now, HP, Lenovo, Intel, Acer, and Dell are all officially certified to run with Ubuntu, certified by Canonical to run with Ubuntu, and you can now order all of those brands with Ubuntu pre-installed. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Now, only certain select models, of course, because they have to go through the certification process with Ubuntu to become certified, but there are models of HP, Lenovo, Intel, Acer, and Dell that are all certified to run on Ubuntu, and you can order them with Ubuntu. So some major brands, globally recognized brands, are now selling Linux- (2/41)
based computers and laptops. So that's some news. Now, a lot of these are high-end computers that are designed for, let's say, developers or high-end business people. And, you know, as I'm thinking about the image of Linux in the global computing market, I'm thinking that rather than Linux is for technical people, or Linux is for geeky people, or Linux is for the programmer, or Linux is best used on servers and best not put it on desktops, I'm thinking a way we might want to market Linux is, take a look at what models are pre-installed with Linux, and those are high-end models that are high-performance computers. So desktop Linux is for high-performance computing. And get it out of the, hey, it's for the hobbyist or the tinkerer or the professional developer, and get it into people who want to get the most out of their computers will run Linux. That's one way to think about it. Absolutely, and there is a little, what I can kind of see is a trickle-down, where, you know, you have the (3/41)
HP, the Lenovo, the Intel, the Acer, and Dell, and, you know, if you might have one of those older machines that isn't certified, you might find that Linux runs well on them even then, because, you know, as they start supporting more and more of their hardware, your older stuff sometimes would be supported, and you're like, oh, well, it didn't run it before, now it does, because HP has said, well, we're going to support it, and the hardware is close enough to make it work. Ubuntu is always working on that hardware enablement stack and trying to backport stuff, so that is all around. Everybody might benefit, whether they have a new machine or an old machine, but it's kind of nice to be able to say, I want a Acer with Linux. That wouldn't have happened a year ago. Yeah, yeah, and there are definitely some older models of Acers that you just can't get Linux running in any sort of satisfactory way on, and, you know, HP has been pretty good. You had to make sure that the components were (4/41)
Linux compatible, and that has gone away to a great degree for HP over the past few years. Lenovo, especially the ThinkPad line, has been very good at being Linux compatible for quite a while. Dell, of course, if you buy any of the models that they sell or have sold or have the same components as those that they sell with Ubuntu preinstalled, you're pretty certain that any variety of Linux is going to run on them, even if it's not a specific model designed for Linux. And now you just have some very specific high-end models that if you've got enough money to buy them or you buy a used one, once we get to that point in the marketplace where there are these as-used models available for sale, I think it's going to become much more accepted, much more recognizable when you see one of these computers with Linux running when you're sitting in a coffee shop, or if we can ever sit in coffee shops again. Let's not go down that route again. But, yeah, when you see a computer in the wild running (5/41)
Linux, it'll become a little more familiar than unexpected, I think. Yeah, this is definitely a shift from the small minority to being much more mainstream, so that's always a good thing. One thing we should cover is that a lot of this is happening is because you have Canonical and you have Fedora or Red Hat or some of these big tech companies that have been vocal support for Linux, and so they've started working with some of the big players, whether it be Apple or whether it be Microsoft, and so they're able to work together on certain things to make a lot of this available. I'm not saying that either one of those big companies have fully embraced everything about open source or Linux, but it's nice to see that the collaborations are starting to pay off, and we as Linux users can reap the benefits. Speaking of coffee, my poor little coffee house that I like to go to is still not open, so thanks for reminding me. I miss having my coffee, but it's a little mom-and-pop job, and they make (6/41)
great coffee, but of course they're not open right now, and I can't even go and sit and have a cappuccino, so gee, thanks, Larry. Yeah, sorry about that. So to put all that negativity behind us, shall we get into our email? Sure. Okay. Our first feedback is from Al, who let us know about problems with our podcast feed. Hi, I love your podcast, and download it from your website every two weeks. There's a problem. I am getting 96 kilobits instead of the whole podcast. This has happened on the last few episodes. Please check. You are one of my favorite podcasts. Thank you, Al. Well, Al, yeah, we've been having some problems. First of all, I think the size of the podcast file that you were downloading was a result of I'm not sure what the root cause of it was, whether I did something in the export of the file, or whether there was something went wrong with the upload to Internet Archive. Somehow, some of the files that I uploaded over the past couple of episodes have gotten corrupted. I (7/41)
have gone and replaced those. At the same time, compounding the problem, I made some typos in the RSS feeds, both for the MP3 version and for the OGG version, and some of it has to do with some off-brand, if you will, bookmarking that I've been using, placeholders in the podcast itself that are part of the feed, and if that keeps up, I'm just going to drop the whole bookmarks thing. And, yeah, so a number of things happened at the same time, so it's really difficult to find the root cause of the problem, but I've been working with Al and Troy and Paul and several others to try to determine what the problem is. Troy has been particularly helpful, and I think we've got it down to the MP3 feed is working. The OGG feed still has some issues with it, and like I said, I'm working with a listener, Troy, to try to figure out, have I got it fixed yet? Not yet. Have I got it fixed yet? Not yet. We're still working on that. Hopefully it's all resolved by the time you receive this episode. Yeah, (8/41)
it's probably because I talk too much. That is just corrupting the podcast. I doubt it, but anyway. Anyway, Troy also has had some problems. For some reason, he says, I'm unable to play any of your podcasts through Google Podcasts. Is there a problem with your feed right now? And I think we kind of just touched on that. Yeah, that's the same thing. Interestingly, Google Podcasts, I haven't used it, so I don't know whether it gives you the option of using the MP3 or the OGG feed, but it appears that Troy is using the OGG feed. I thought they would have been using the MP3 feed, but hey, what do I know? Interesting. Paul also experienced something similar. He wrote in, Hi Larry and Bill, I've been experiencing several problems with going to Linux Podcasts 3.95 today and wondered if you were aware of them. Yeah, the 3.95 was the one where we had the corrupted files for some reason. And he goes through some of the things he's done. He says he subscribed to the RSS feed on his feed reader, (9/41)
which he says is Feedbro. Never heard of that one. And repeatedly notified him over 30 times today. I read and then deleted notifications, but a few minutes later it pops up again. That was a real problem with the RSS feed, which I fixed fairly quickly. Then he says your RSS file, the OGG podcast subscription file, and that RSS file, the XML file that is the feed, he said the date was written as Sunday 23rd of Jaugust. So J-A-U-G 2020 with the extra J. Yeah, that was causing some problems. As you can imagine, it was putting the podcasts as though it were 70 years ago or something like that. And then he said the OGG file is incomplete. So that was one of the corrupted files. And he says, I have no problem with the MP3 files. He's probably the only one who didn't have a problem with the MP3. Anyway, later he says, thanks, I've refreshed the feed in G-Potter and can confirm the notifications have indeed stopped. FYI, I'm using Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon, G-Potter, and a VLC. Needless to (10/41)
say, this didn't spoil my enjoyment of the show. Keep up the good work, Paul. Okay. So, yeah, maybe we should just go to MP3 files. Yeah, this was, I think, some late night, Larry not being attentive enough and watching to make sure things went well in the upload of the files and the creation of the feed and things happened. So more sleep would be helpful. More sleep or stop watching the movie while you're editing. Well, yeah, that could be too. So we're saying that happened, but it could be. Our next email comes from Joshua who is having fun with SSH. He says, I've been messing with NFS and Samba off and on for months now trying to get a very small home network running with a Raspberry Pi, running Raspberry Pi OS connected to an 8 terabyte USB RAID drive. My laptop is Ubuntu Mate, but the other family members use Windows 10 and thanks to COVID, I have had two additional Chromebook for kids going to school. In a mixed environment, NFS isn't working at all on Windows 10 Home Edition and (11/41)
learning Samba, I've run into lots of issues mapping users and getting permissions errors, assessing files. I'm still reading the book I purchased for Samba and it's a slow read getting it all to work, tons of configurations. I've been playing around with SSH and found out that if you install WinFSP and SSHFS-Win from GitHub on a Windows 10 machine, it's super simple to just map a drive from Windows Explorer. All I had to do was create an account for everyone in the family on a Raspberry Pi and then map a drive letter to their home directory using Windows Explorer. Because they each use their own SSH login ID and password, they can't see each other's files on the RAID drive and have lots of storage. It is also persistent and I'm amazed that it just pops back up each time they log in. Has anyone else had luck setting up a home server this way and am I oversimplifying this? In other words, can I expect some issues down the road? It seems much simpler than NFS and Samba. I had to do some (12/41)
research to get the syntax to work for typing into Windows Explorer included what worked for me below and the article I read to get it to work. He lists the article that he used to get his network and he writes Joshua. Have you had any experience in connecting to remote drives on other computers like Joshua is trying to do? No, I have not. Yeah, it's been a while since I've been doing this kind of thing as well. I understand that if it's a matter of having the data synced between that remote drive and another computer, you can use something like SyncThing, which has received some recent improvements to work even better than it did before. And there are some other tools that run in Linux that allow you to do that kind of thing. Since it's a Windows 10 computer that you're trying to use, it sounds like Samba or NFS, a file sharing protocol, are the things that you would need to use to make those happen. But I haven't had a lot of experience in doing this. So let's turn it over to our (13/41)
minions, our faithful listeners, and ask if anyone has a particular article with some instructions or some guidance on how to make this work better, or whether Joshua is headed down the right path and is doing everything right and it's just a lot of work. Give us a note on email or voicemail or however you want to communicate with us, and we'll share that on the show and make sure that Joshua sees that as well. But neither Bill nor I, Joshua, have the experience necessary to answer your question directly, so let's ask our more experienced listeners to give us those answers. Thanks. All right. James commented on Linux printers. Your last feedback was asking for a printer recommendation. You recommended HP printers. I have been avoiding HP printers due to the DRM and other trickery they have been doing with printer cartridges. Hey, I understand that. I agree. That's nasty stuff. I currently am using a Brother all-in-one laser with wireless. The printer portion worked out of the box with (14/41)
no effort on Linux. I installed the drivers from their download page. No hunting around for drivers, easy to follow directions. The full package installed everything needed, including handling SELinux configuration that worked with the default scanning packages. That's the SANE package, S-A-N-E, even with document feeder support. James. Well, that's good to hear that other manufacturers of printers work. We recommend HP because they just work. In my experience, the Brother printers, the ones that work, work well. There are quite a few that they sell that don't work with Linux, so you need to be a little more choosy with them. You need to double check before you purchase the printer that it actually works with Linux or make sure they have a generous return policy on the printer if you can't make it work. And buy a different one if it doesn't work. So we don't generally recommend those kinds of brands that you can't depend on to work out of the box. And I would have to say that there are (15/41)
some HPs out there that don't work out of the box with Linux as well, but there are few and far between compared with some of the other manufacturers. That's not to say that other computer manufacturers never work with Linux. I'm not saying that. It is that HP I know from personal experience to be very consistent on having Linux support for their printers. So there you go. Wasn't HP the one that was putting those DRM chips on their print cartridges or had something printed that you couldn't refill them or something? Yeah, as I understand it, they've backed off a little bit on that, but they still do it. So when you try to go to Costco or Sam's Club or any of these places that offer refillable ink cartridges or non-brand name ink cartridges, generic ink cartridges, you put them in your HP and it either says, this cartridge is not compatible or this is not an HP genuine cartridge. And sometimes even when you take your HP brand ink cartridge that came with your printer and take it in for (16/41)
a refill and you put it back in, something happens where they can detect that it's a refilled cartridge and it also says this is not compatible or some message like that. Some of their printers are still doing that. In my experience, when I'm using HP printers, if it's a kind of printer that gives me that kind of an aggravation, I just spend a little bit more money and use the HP cartridges and put up with the fact that, hey, I've got to spend more money for HP. Yeah, so I made a joke that you could buy a new printer cheaper than some of these print cartridges. Hey, it was not a joke. I have done that. There have been times when, what brand was it? I forget. It was not Epson. It was one of the lesser-known but still brand name brands for printers where I think it was Lexmark where I would go to the store to buy ink cartridges and purchasing a cartridge was more expensive than purchasing a brand new printer to replace the one I have with ink cartridges in it. And then the printer (17/41)
companies got smart and they started providing partially filled ink cartridges with brand new printers and then it became more expensive, of course, because those cartridges didn't last as long. So I think those days are gone, but it was not a joke back then. That's kind of wasteful. Okay. Oh, yeah, absolutely. But, hey, you do what you can to ensure that you retain as much of that hard-earned money as you can. Okay. So our next email comes from Frank who contacted us about F-STAB. I was happy to hear that you referred to dash E-T-C dash F-S-T-A-B as regards to auto-mounting partitions in your most recent listener feedback show. This is an article I found particularly helpful in regards to F-STAB and he lists the articles listed in the show notes. And just as a bit of trivia, F-STAB stands for File System Table per Wikipedia and M-TAB stands for Mounted File Systems Table. Keep up the good work, Frank. Well, thanks, Frank. That's some trivia. Yeah, and thanks for the article. Okay. Ken (18/41)
mentioned the Vivaldi browser. Hi, Larry and Bill. Thanks for all that you do. I am still enjoying and listening after all these years. Can't remember how many, but you have been here through most of my journey learning Linux. Bill, on the last listener feedback, you mentioned Vivaldi browser, which sounds interesting. Right now, I'm totally immersed in the Chrome world. I have the following collection of devices. Multiple Linux desktops, Linux laptop, Raspberry Pi, Android phones, Android tablet, Chromebook, Chromecast. When I think about changing browsers, I wonder about the compatibility with Google Drive, photos off the phones, and of course, the Chrome slash Chromecast. I understand that you can install Vivaldi on the new Chromebooks under the Linux umbrella, but don't understand how this would work, if at all. It would be nice to get out from under Google, but the Androids, Chromebook, Chromecast, and Drive are a concern. Do you have any thoughts about this? If I were just (19/41)
working with Linux devices, changing might not be a problem. Thanks, Ken. So, actually, I am still using Vivaldi. I like it a lot. It's a Chrome based browser, but they have a lot of privacy. I've used it on a Mac. I've used it on several different distributions of Linux, including Ubuntu Mate, regular Ubuntu, and Manjaro. I've used it on Windows. And I don't know about the Android. I think they have some, yeah, I know they have some images for Android, too. So, Vivaldi has worked flawlessly. When I've had to log into a website that requires Chrome, it has worked flawlessly. Basically, it is just more priority focused, and a lot of those pop-up ads and stuff, especially on YouTube, just don't bother you, as they would do on, say, Firefox or Google Chrome. I find that everywhere I want to use it, I can find it. So, I would download it and give it a test run on some of the machines, because everything, I don't know about the Pine Book or Raspberry Pi, but I'm pretty sure on everything (20/41)
else that it's available, so I highly recommend it. Like I said, I've been using it for, what, about two, three months now, Larry, as my daily driver. It's been flawless. They've just updated it last night. Right now, I've got it installed on my test machine, which is running Magero, and then I have it on my main machine, which has a regular, just, vanilla Ubuntu, and I have it installed on Ubuntu Mate on my second test machine, and it all runs perfectly, so I've been very pleased with it. Yeah, and I was reading as well that as recently as October of 2017, Vivaldi browser added support for Chromecast as well, so I don't think there is, for a number of years now, I don't think there's been any issue with that. Of course, Chromecast has undergone some changes too, so I can't guarantee it, because I don't use the Vivaldi browser on a regular basis, but if it is based on Chrome and based on the fact that they added the support back in 2017, I think you should be all set, and on your Linux (21/41)
machines, give it a try. I mean, you can always uninstall it afterwards, and you can run multiple browsers side by side, so just try it out. Well, yes, he also mentioned that he was concerned about if it would work on Google Drive. Well, I'm actually running it on Google Drive right this moment. I've actually even used the web interface to Dropbox through Vivaldi, and it just works perfectly. I haven't had any hiccups or anything, so as far as I can tell, anywhere Google Chrome or Firefox or the new Chrome-based Edge will work, Vivaldi works just as well. All right. Our next email comes from Ken, and he questioned us on our apparent disapproval of Mint. On your last podcast, you gave a not-so-veiled disapproval of Mint. I am a long-time user of Mint and love Cinnamon, so it is important to me. Is it because the Snap's not being supported, and why should I care about this? My main use of my computers is in the support of my ham radio hobby. I use a bit of LibreOffice, a few utilities, (22/41)
ham radio programs like WSJT-X, Fidji, etc. I guess that's how you say it. Then, of course, the extensive use of Chromium to search the Internet. I don't do any games or any other fancy high-intensity graphics things. I do some simple 3D CAD. By the way, I do use Raspbian on my Raspberry Pi ham projects. I've looked at a number of Linux distributions, including Ubuntu, Mate, and just don't like them. I listened to you talk about distros that Bill is testing and try them from time to time, but have never found a match to Mint Cinnamon. I am very concerned about the talk of ties between Canonical and Microsoft. Now, this does make me queasy. If this is so or comes to pass, I would prefer to see Mint go completely away from being an Ubuntu derivative, if possible. Thanks for all you do for us in the Linux world, Ken. Hmm, okay. Well, I think it's not so much that we disapprove of Mint, and we still recommend it for new users. We still like Mint. There are some decisions that the Mint lead (23/41)
has made that we don't necessarily agree with, but that's not necessarily a valid reason for everyone to stop using the distribution. It's a great distribution. They have some excellent tools. They've contributed a lot back to Linux in general. Many of their updates and upgrades have gone back into Ubuntu and, by extension, back into Debian. So, yeah, and very, very easy to use, multiple desktops available. We like Mint a lot. We just are a little concerned with some of the politics behind the Mint project. Let's just put it that way. Yeah, some people might not know that when Mint was a new project, I was actually a user and supporter of the project. I don't agree with some of the things that they've done and some of the political views of some of the developers, but it's no denying it's a good distribution for new users and not one that I choose to use anymore. But I'm not saying I wouldn't recommend it to someone that wants something that works because it does work fine. It's very (24/41)
polished. I like the Cinnamon desktop. I mean, the Manjuro that I use has a Cinnamon desktop and, yes, they have contributed quite a bit. Without getting into a lot of detail, when someone wants an easy to use distribution, we like to be able to offer multiple ones. And we have said in the past that Mint would probably be the best for certain use cases, and sometimes it isn't. So as we kind of see where things go, we will either recommend it or we won't. But right now, Mint seems to be a great distribution for people that just want to get things done. Yeah. And the most recent questionable, in our opinion, questionable decision that the Mint team has made is the dropping of direct support for Snaps. And that seems to be politically motivated against the way that Ubuntu has been behind Snap packages and the whole Snap development efforts. And, yeah, without getting into a lot of the detail that you may have already heard on other podcasts or read in Linux news sites and so on, that just (25/41)
seems a little questionable to us as well and seems politically motivated. And, again, not a reason not to use Mint because there are ways around it. It's an open source software stack that gives you the ability, if you want to use Snaps on Mint, you can do that. And there have been articles written and podcast episodes published that give you information about how to do that. So we'll not go into the details on that. But, hey, it's open source software. It works great. It's well recommended for new users. And I think, Ken, that you are very safe continuing to use it. Yeah, I would agree. Just one last thought on this before we move on is, you know, I'm not taking anything away from the Linux Mint developers, but they use a lot of canonical resources to produce their Linux Mint. And so just, you know, the one to throw out there is, you know, they do a lot of work to polish it up, but they still use quite a bit of canonical infrastructure to get their Linux distribution out. And so, (26/41)
yeah, that's just kind of an afterthought. But without canonical and the work they do, Linux Mint might not be where it is today. Absolutely true. OK, moving on. Sam wrote us about password managers. Hello, this is Sam. Some time ago, I wrote in asking about buying a new ThinkPad. I still haven't made the purchase yet. You did respond and read my email on your show. Thank you. I wanted to know if going Linux has talked about password managers. Samuel. Well, Sam, thanks. And yes, we have talked about password managers. I don't know whether Bill and I have talked about password managers, but I know previous co-host Tom and I talked about password managers. And that's got to be, what, 10 years ago? So maybe it's time to revisit that subject. What do you think? Maybe not 10, but it's been a while. It's been, well, might be about eight or nine. I've been co-host for, what, about six, seven years now. So, yeah, it might be time to kind of look at password managers. I'm feeling a show coming (27/41)
on here. There we go. OK, new topic, password managers. Thanks for the topic idea, because that is one that I had not thought about, but that's a great one. Thanks, Sam. Yeah. Yeah. So our next email comes from George, who wrote, Hey, Bill, you were recommending my Joe for new users. Back on Black Friday, 2018, I bought a Hades Canyon NUC, a unique machine, and it has an Intel Kirby Lake G with Vega graphics. What that means is Intel persuaded AMD to collaborate and upgrade the GPU capability of the HiOS Den NUC. This wasn't supported on Ubuntu until 18.10 and even then only thanks to the persistence of Martin Windpress. Way to go, Wimpy. OK, so I have the thing sitting on my shelf, 32 gigabyte of RAM and two NVMe SSDs, but it wouldn't work with Ubuntu or any derivative, including Mint. I installed Monjoro as a way to be on the leading edge to have a kernel and hardware stack that would run. Monjoro cinnamon, like you installed, did that, but it became unstable after a few weeks. Was (28/41)
that because I had dabbled into the AUR because there were applications stock with Ubuntu and Mint not available in Monjoro? Just don't know. Quote, all content on the AUR is uploaded by ordinary users and very little checking of the content is done. It is up to you to verify the content is safe to use. The AUR is not an official part of Monjoro. Monjoro systems can use the AUR, but the AUR is designed for Arch, not for Monjoro. Any list is linked to that. Should warn off unsophisticated users, especially ones new to PCs or Linux. I have installed Monjoro a few times just to test drive. Hate the installer. I am lazy and Ubuntu and Mint do my work for me. Whole disk encryption is valuable, whether on a laptop more easily lost or a computer which could not be burglar'd. What's on my computers is far more valuable than the hardware. Not really sure I understand these options, but under assisted installation, here's what I think is the Monjoro guide to disk encryption. Step number 9. Tiny (29/41)
little checkbox. Had to go looking just tonight in my past installs of Monjoro direct to disk and as the only OS there, the little box just flew by and my disk wasn't encrypted. Any list? Another link for the guide he was using. OK. You want me to take this or you want to go first Larry? Well, since you're the Monjoro expert, why don't you take it? I don't know an awful lot about it. OK, so let me just address a few things. First off, I'm not a Monjoro expert as you will soon find out. You're more of an expert than I am, Bill. Larry and myself were just talking about this earlier today before we started the show and I've had a few issues with Monjoro. I've been running it probably about two and a half, three months now and I've enjoyed it. I'm still, like I said, I have installed on one of my test machines and I don't see that going away anytime soon. But the AUR, they tell you right up front, if you use it, it's all on you. So the AUR does offer a lot more software. I would not (30/41)
automatically say, hey, if you can't find the AUR, I do just because I like to break things. I have found that some of the programs I had from the AUR become outdated and wouldn't work. One of them was a little application that helped convert some video from YouTube into something like a machine. It just caused a little bit of an issue. Since Monjoro is based on Arch, you can go in, but you have to actually go and enable the AUR. The good thing about the Arch is sometimes they are on the bleeding edge. Monjoro, not so much, they usually hold things back, I think, but they said about two weeks. So it's a little bit more stable. The only thing they don't hold back is security patches and that's right from their website. I would definitely, if you could, until you're a more experienced user, not use the AUR. Most of the software that I had installed on my main machine when it was running Monjoro was straight from their repositories. With snaps and flatbacks, you should be able to find (31/41)
just about everything you want. Monjoro does support snaps and flatbacks. I found that sometimes they can be a little tricky to get installed, but for the most part it was pretty straightforward. The one thing that I've noticed about Monjoro is that you have to stay on top of the updates or even a straight Arch base. You have to stay on top of the updates. An example is I was thinking about just reinstalling Monjoro on my main machine. When I had a problem, I broke it. It wasn't Monjoro's fault. So I pulled my USB, put it in, and installed it. Everything went fine. Then the ISO was too old for them to update to the current one. So I would have to have gone and downloaded the new version to get it to work because I was telling Larry, I've had about four gigs of updates over the two and a half, three months. So you definitely got to stay on top of that. As far as the installer, I agree with you. The Monjoro installer is not as user friendly as Ubuntu or Ubuntu MATE or Mint. It just (32/41)
isn't. I don't like it as much. I can use it and it's not a big problem, but I prefer the Ubiquiti installer that Ubuntu uses. So yeah, you made some great points. I wouldn't say I hate the installer, but you're right. Ubuntu and Mint and their derivatives, they just work a lot easier. As far as the whole disk encryption, I know what you're talking about. There's a little tiny little box and it's real easy to miss. I don't think it's even really highlighted, Larry. You actually have to be looking for it. All in all, if you have just a base system that you want to use a non-Abuntu based Linux, that you're not going to be doing a lot of crazy things and you don't mind making sure that you stay up on your updates, Monjoro is excellent. I have no hard feelings. But you can't do like what you can with Ubuntu, as I found out. And if I'm wrong, you can yell at me. But I pulled my Ubuntu 2004 and installed it. It updated to the current version and it worked perfectly, but I could not do it (33/41)
with Monjoro because the image was a little older than it would allow to update. So that's kind of the pros and cons of the long-term support releases and the rolling. What do you think, Larry? Yeah, so as far as installing software from the AUR is concerned, whenever you see warnings like this, you've got to take them seriously about, you know, use this at your own risk sort of thing. And if you have the option of flat packs and snaps, then since those are designed to be cross Linux platform compatible, that might be your best choice in any case before going to the AUR as an option for Monjoro. That's not from personal experience with Monjoro, just personal experience with Linux. So I would say that is wise advice. And let's see, for the disk encryption, yeah. It turns out George in his email included a screenshot of that tiny little box in step number nine about encrypting your disk on installation. Yeah, it is tiny and it is in a place it's very easy to miss. So if you missed it and (34/41)
you intended to encrypt your disk before installing or while installing, you're probably going to have to go back and reinstall, make sure you check that box in the process. So yeah, just make sure you don't forget your encryption keys if you have to restore from backup or something like that. Save them somewhere else. Although you may not be an expert in Monjoro, Bill, you're certainly more experienced than I am. So take what Bill says over what I say. Monjoro is still, I'm very fond of it and I will continue playing with it. It's just nice to see how other distributions work and how their thought processes are in getting things done. Would I suggest a new user, a just straight Arch? Absolutely not. If you want to ease yourself in to Arch, I would definitely recommend Monjoro. It's kind of like what Ubuntu did for Debian. You had Debian and then they took Debian and made it easier to install and easier to get things done. And I kind of figured that's kind of what Monjoro did for Arch. (35/41)
They took Arch and made it easier to use for the everyday user, not for the elite, the guys that can compile their own kernels and build from source. They're going to use Arch and that's great. You've got Slackwave, you've got Arch, you've got Gen2. But for a new user coming from Windows or Mac OS, you're just not going to say, hey, okay, so here's the instruction to build from source and they're just going to look at you like you've lost your mind. That's why we try to always have multiple options. One of them that just as a sneak preview is when elementary is coming out with their new version, I'm going to look at it because I found that Mac OS users or OS X users like that and it's easy to understand. And sometimes when people are coming, they just kind of want something different. They want something to get their stuff done, but they want something that is different from what they had been using. So that's why we always try to find great options. Ubuntu MATE does a great thing (36/41)
because how many desktops do they support? Do they have where you can switch like four or five now? Oh, yeah, the panel layouts. Yeah, the panel layouts. And that helps people. Well, we recommend Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu and even Linux Mint when they tell us they have what they're trying to do. We have no what we call skin in the game. We just wanted to say, hey, here's some options for you. And so elementary kind of does that for people coming from OS X or just want something totally different. So we're not against any distributions. We just like to know how they work and can we recommend. And there's a few that we were like, oh, no, you don't want to use this right now. Yeah, not for the average computer user. And today's average computer user uses an Apple iPhone or an Android phone and that's their computer. And those people and even the people, the other average desktop computing operating system or laptop operating system, the average user is a Windows user and they don't know an (37/41)
awful lot about computers. They use them to get things done. And that's why we recommend these other specific Linuxes for people who just want to use Linux to get things done. Yeah, when we've had a Windows user who say we want a Linux that looks very similar. Well, we come up with two immediately. One would be Linux Man and Ubuntu Mate because you're able to kind of get that workflow back for them. It's all about what you want to use, but also we just want to make it as easy as possible. And whether you have problems with Canonical, you have problems with Fedora or Linux Man or Debian, we want to make sure there's enough options that we don't care what Linux you use. We just want to encourage you to use Linux. Okay, our last email is from Troy. I listened to the last episode on photography. Yeah, I thought we would get Troy with this one. He's a photographer. There's some pretty good content there. I would also suggest you mention another little known but extremely valuable (38/41)
application called Entangle. Some photographers, like headshot or portrait photographers, use a method of shooting called tethered shooting. They have the camera connected to a laptop through a USB cable while they are shooting. While they are shooting, the photos automatically upload from the camera to the computer, where they automatically appear on the screen or an external display for the photographer and client to view as they progress through the shoot. Entangle makes this happen. That's cool. Yeah, that's a great, great inclusion for part two of our editing and managing photos on Linux series, which I think is coming up as our next episode, isn't it? It is. I just have to finish writing it. There you go. Well, here's one more to include. Thanks, Larry. Like, okay. But this is a good one. We would have missed this one, I think, wouldn't we? Yeah, I didn't even know about Entangle, so yeah, I'll have to find it. Hey, Troy, if you can tell me, is it in? Well, I can check. But does (39/41)
Entangle do any other features? Well, then again, I can check, too. Never mind. I'm just giving myself more homework. Yeah, we'll include a link in the show notes if you're interested. And it's right there, Bill, entangle-photo.org. You can go there and find out what the features are. And it's entangle-photo that you're looking for in the application package repository. So there you go. Thanks, Troy. I can't wait to look into that. So thanks, and thanks for not yelling at us for totally messing that whole episode up, because we were both in, like, over our heads. So thanks. I'm glad you found at least some good content. We were both talking about that after we had recorded going, I hope we just didn't confuse people beyond all measure. Well, I think it was. The episode was well-written enough that while we were reading it, as long as we didn't make mistakes on reading, it made it sound like we were half-intelligent about photography, which is a little misleading, like I said in the (40/41)
episode, but that's okay. We'll take it. We can get the information out there either way, exactly. You know, good research and good writing, that helps a lot. So our next episode is part two of Edit and Manage Photos on Linux, and we're looking forward to that. 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 Linux podcast community on community.goinglinux.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasko at podcastthemes.com. (41/41)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #336 · 2017 Year End Review.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 336, 2017 year-end review. 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, 2017 year-end review. Hello, Larry. Hey Bill, how are things going? Good, good. It's almost the end of the year. It is. It is what? It's before Christmas as we're recording this, December 17th. So as we review the end of the year, if anything significant happens between now and the actual end of the year, we're gonna miss it for this episode. Yeah, yeah, I didn't blow it up or anything like that. So anything major happens, but anyway, I hope your week was good. I was busy. Yeah, it sounds (1/42)
like it from from our chat before the recording, but that wasn't a chat, that was a rant. Okay. All right. Fair enough. No, no, no. Well, I hear that you had a little problem more fun than I did. I hear you got your Christmas tree up. So hey, it's good for you. Good for having me. I'm gonna pull one out of the box with all the lights on and just stick it on the desk and say done. Yep. Well, at least I didn't end up in the mall like you did. Oh, yeah. Thanks. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. Yeah. Anyway, I thought we'd cover some highlights of what went on in Linux and technology for our show here and what we've done and what we might have planned and just generally just talk about stuff. Yeah, that sounds good. And as always we're not going to cover absolutely everything that happened. That would take a year to cover. So let's just hit the highlights and some of the highlights at least and some of the things that were important to us. Like you moving. Yes, I moved. Yeah, hopefully for the (2/42)
last time. I'm in New Mexico now, so I like it and everything's great. Good. But, you know, yeah. You know, we have some decent highlights of this past year and some of them are good and some of them are not so good. But let's start with one of the better ones. Larry, you wrote two books. Tell us about them. Yeah, so the first book was Ubuntu Mate Upgrading from Windows and OS X and that was really meant to be an introduction for people as the title suggests, switching from other operating systems to Ubuntu Mate. Kind of a broad brush overview to get people familiar with what Ubuntu Mate and Linux in general are. And some of the things that are important to know as you're switching. And then the second book is a little more in-depth. It's using Ubuntu Mate and its applications and it was designed for as kind of a reference, if you will. It's been a long time since computers and software came with a complete printed manual. You remember the manuals with the three-ring binder and and you (3/42)
know, it covered all of the buttons and detailed what the buttons did and and then it went into you know, here's how you use the word processor and here's how you use a spreadsheet and here's how you use the file manager and went through all that kind of stuff. Well, I thought I would not duplicate that kind of experience because that is way overkill. But I wanted to give something a little more in-depth than just highlights. And so in this book it talks about how to use Ubuntu Mate, how to get started, some of the applications that come with Mate, the desktop, some that are provided by the Ubuntu Mate team and then some of the basic applications things like Firefox and Thunderbird and those kinds of things that come with with Ubuntu Mate so that if somebody's brand new to a computer, they have something to go by and for those people who have been using computers and in particular Linux for a while, it's kind of a reference and gives you an idea of some of the special things that make (4/42)
Ubuntu Mate Ubuntu Mate. Like how to use file manager, how to find files, that kind of stuff. Yeah, some of the specific features like the Ubuntu Mate welcome screen that they developed from scratch. Now you did some work with you helped with some of the documentation, didn't you? Yeah, in parallel with writing the book which worked out quite nicely because some of the same material you need for the documentation and the book are the same. So yeah, it was it was a lot of fun and I wrote the Ubuntu Mate guide that you'll find in Ubuntu Mate version 17.10 and beyond and I'm actually in the process of updating that for 18.04 the long-term support release. So hopefully we'll have that done in time. Yeah, and it'll go into a lot more depth and give you a lot more of the features in the onboard guide right there in Ubuntu Mate. Well, I do want to say that I was very impressed with the book. I actually bought the first one and then I got a PDF of the other book that you wrote and both of them (5/42)
are very well done. The one thing that I found interesting is that you kind of kept to your policy of open source. You released them where you could buy the book, but you also they can download it for free and print it out. Yeah for free download it for free print it out. You can you know put it on Kindle whatever you need to. You really didn't do it to make lots of money. Of course I'm still expecting my royalty check of 50 cents. So Hey, that's more than I make. Oh Okay, I'll take half of that. But you know that I thought it was really cool that you took the time to write it, but you also said Hey, you know, you don't have to buy if you want to buy it. That's great You know if you want a paperback etc or buy a Kindle Didn't you say that Kindle had like there's one price that you have to the least amount you could do is what? $1 or something like that. Yeah, I think they force you into selling your books between $2.99 and $9.99 as the lowest price and If you sell it for $2.99 your (6/42)
costs end up being more than anything that they would owe you so that doesn't make sense. So I priced the first book at $9.99 and I printed it I had it so that when you order it printed you get it as a softcover book and It's got it's it's black and white on the inside. Just just plain black text on a You know off-white Background so it's readable But all the all of the screenshots and so on are in black and white the second one I went whole hog on that one. Yeah, I color screenshots and you know It's not a hardback or anything like that It's not big enough to be a hardback, but it's a softback book, but it's it's much it's much nicer Yeah, and as a result the printed copy is much more expensive because It costs a lot to print it and ship it so I had to bring the price up In order to compensate for that. So the printed version is more expensive the electronic version so the Kindle version and the PDF version that you can get they are less expensive and Of course, you can get them on (7/42)
Amazon. You can get them on smashwords if that's your Choice for buying electronic books and all kinds of different formats in ebook formats there You can get them from bookstores as well Like, you know the Kindle store and some of the other like Barnes & Noble and those kinds of things Cool, but they are good books. I enjoyed them. So anyway, I'm good. Thanks and Your your your commission for that Advertisement will be in the mail. Oh, okay, so I can expect the one cent check Ten cents to write for the check. So in other words, yeah, I'm not getting squat Yeah, we're losing money on the whole Okay. Yeah, so the licensing on this thing is Creative Commons. Yeah, and You can copy it. You can give it away. You can do whatever you like with it. Essentially just credit You know the author that would be me and I think you're you're you're in good shape there and I've actually even provided a a free PDF copy to someone who is doing a similar sort of project for a website creating an Ubuntu (8/42)
mate a Website that is a user guide That's that's nice anyway Now that we've done the shameless plug let's talk about something that will affect everybody and what's that Larry? Yeah, it's The fact that well, it'll affect everybody in the US. Yes It's not gonna affect you at least initially that may spill over into other countries and that's the whole change to net neutrality so it's it's a big deal here and They're under the previous president's administration a law was passed that Essentially prevented any internet service provider or any provider of those kinds of services from throttling based on content so your VoIP connection would be required to be delivered at exactly the same speed as Netflix or the content provided by your Internet service provider or Anything so they couldn't prefer Netflix over Hulu or any of those kinds of things. Well Very recently the US government under the new administration rolled that back and as a result Things are going to change at least (9/42)
potentially So do you have an opinion on this? Yeah, I think it's the worst thing that I've well It's one of the worst policies I have ever seen I don't know what they were thinking Net neutrality was the worst. No, no changing it changing that neutrality was the worst thing. I was one of the worst policies I've seen I don't want to get political or anything, but I've looked at it and I'm sitting there going Why are you even messing with this? This is this is actually a good thing because Say we have I even use generic so then we can say I'm picking anybody you have Internet company number one internet company number two Well in that company one a media company that you know streams, you know they can make a deal where their stuff gets higher speeds and preferred treatment and the media company number two can be Slowed down or even blocked or and I'm just thinking you know net neutrality Gave everybody a level playing field. I mean, I thought it would it would help the smaller, you (10/42)
know Startups, you know like well good good example You've got Skype and discord, you know, we've used both of them what happens when you know Skype says that we'll pay for better performance and You know discord doesn't get that type of thing. Are you know, it's just you know, they can They can just say hey We there are my inner service part said we don't like this. We've made deals with other people So these sites run really well in these sites don't you know, and I don't I don't understand it and I I don't know Who was thinking this was a great idea? but I heard there's gonna be some legal battles and I think Messing with the net neutrality is a bad idea You know that they've argued that it's the internet access shouldn't be considered a Utility the internet is just everywhere. We use it for everything Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm just I'm just sitting there going. What were they thinking and The only thing I can think of is follow the money. I guess there's gonna be some (11/42)
lawsuits and some challenges. Hopefully They'll say you've lost your mind you're gone you can't change it and I'm hoping that that happens but we shall see but This is something everybody should pay attention to especially live in the United States because it does affect you Yes, it does and just to play devil's advocate for a moment The the other side of the argument is on the part of the internet service providers They're saying well, you know, you're you're providing Way too much government regulation and you know to be honest the current administration has been removing a lot of government red tape and administration for businesses and so The internet service providers are saying well, why are you doing that? And you're not you know, you're not deregulating us So that we can let the market comp the competitive market control What happens with the internet and the prices that we charge and it's just better without regulations and this will help promote additional competition and (12/42)
this will help the little guy and it will help, you know, all of those kinds of arguments and You know the the thing that is being missed in that argument and probably intentionally is the fact that Here in the United States There is no competition Even though there are multiple internet service providers in most places in the United States. You have a choice of exactly one And yes, okay. So maybe your choice is a cable Provider who provides you with a decent amount of speed and maybe there are other choices like satellite internet or Tethering your mobile phone or things like that, but satellite and mobile phone they're barely on the edge of What might be considered high-speed internet? I Hear what you're saying and I disagree because as we both know And I know you probably you were just playing like I said devil's advocate Yeah We need certain regulations in my book I'm not saying we should have so many that just draconian but I don't see How it's a bad thing to say Look, everybody (13/42)
gets a level playing field as well as levels we can make it and have at it it just seems like It's a bad idea because you know not the little guys sometimes don't have as much money as the big guys and You know, they have to and if you're going to make it harder for them to actually compete Yeah, I think innovation will slow but you know I'm not I guess some I might not be seeing a big picture But as far as I can tell and I've been following story and reading and it just doesn't seem like a good thing So anyway, yeah, and when you only have a choice of one or even here in the metropolitan Los Angeles area I only have a choice of two I mean, it's AT&T and Time Warner now spectrum and AT&T their starting speed is like Dial-up modem speed and then you pay through the nose for anything faster and they can't get anywhere near as as fast as what? The cable company can and even the cable company They start you at a hundred megabits and they offer a plan that goes to 300 But that's as fast as (14/42)
they offer and it never reaches 300 here where I live and You know, maybe it'll reach 250 270 at the maximum I've ever seen but you end up paying for the 300 anyway, even though they can't deliver it and That's the only choice I have unless I want to tether my cell phone Which of course is through AT&T and as a result you have to pay more to enable tethering on AT&T So it's it's and and these companies are saying oh we won't block anyone's content You know, you know, it's it's it's competitive, you know with all the competitive pressures We can't afford to block anyone's content Well, all you have to do is look at the mobile phone companies and they don't they don't slow or throttle anyone but some of them will Do things like say well you can stream as much as you want to this data cap but if you use our streaming service or our apps on your phone, they won't count towards your Data caps and so they're not throttling anybody but they are providing preferred treatment to their own (15/42)
Services. Yeah, I just will say at least you have to I have Because I live in that middle of nowhere I have a I Have two providers that I could go with one was satellite and it was so costly I said you must be on drugs. And the other one is I I Don't get anywhere near to speed And it uses dish and it goes back and forth to a tower but you know, I I'm nowhere near a hundred so So yeah more competition would be nice but anyway, we've beat this so let's move on to a happier topic Okay, we started the minion network in 2017 and I think it's gonna be a great thing. I named it because that's my thing But it was actually a listener who come up With the idea and I wanted to give him credit but I could look through I couldn't find his name But you know who you are and so we kind of took it and said hey, that's a great idea Let our listeners who are smart and intelligent You know if they want to contribute to the show or or maybe go into more depth than we can That it would be a good thing (16/42)
because sometimes You know, well we've never said we knew everything but we try to do a nice general overview of everything and if we happen to know about a Subject world we'll talk about it and most likely get things wrong and we've been called out a few times. Huh? Actually, I get called out more than you. Okay, so I'm really excited. We're gonna see a lot more I think of our listeners input I don't know if you've received any Recordings or input yet Larry. So what's what's your take on the new minion network? the minion minion minion network Yeah, it was Adrian who suggested it and thanks for the naming Milk because yes really sticks with you, doesn't it? Yeah, so I haven't received anything in the way of recording yet, but hey, it's holiday season people are busy so I'm not expecting anything but we've got something written and we have Some input from some of the folks so it's starting to ramp up and I expect as we go into 2018 we'll have some contributions from the minion minion (17/42)
network at work at work Okay, yeah, Larry lose the echo. Okay Now I'm really excited about this I know we've we've talked about in the past of having more interactive with our listeners and stuff and I'm really excited to see what they come up with so I I'm I know it's not super newsworthy but in my book, it's I think it's one of the best things we've ever done as far as This and I cannot wait to see how awesome our listeners are Yeah, they're gonna provide better content than we are I can see it now Listen here. No one you better than Never mind. I was gonna do better That's that's all I do is recording. It's better than I can do So no serious if we do this if we do this, right? We'll just introduce the show and then you know play all the contributions from the minion network and then wrap up the show User-generated, you know crowd-sourced podcasting. Yeah, if I was not Worthless now, I will really be worthless once they get all these people in here man I'm gonna be moved into the (18/42)
corner. But yes, I'm really excited about that. I cannot wait to see what we What what they come up with so guys I'm looking forward to it. All right, Larry So our next topic is around Linux Taking over the world, right? Yes It is running on all 500 of the 500 top supercomputers now as of this year's actually I knew this cuz I actually found that yeah, but I was impressed because all all top 500 supercomputers are our friend Linux now according to the article and It was The Google I had to give it Where I found it, but it was one of the top news stories in tech that It doesn't not be SD not Unix, you know, it's Linux. So I just find that Yes, we might not have gotten the same desktop dominance as Windows But we run the backbone now We you know If you want that we want to what your weather's doing or you want to shoot something to the moon Linux can help you do it Yeah, and you know, it's that that one Windows computer that was running that one supercomputer somewhere in somebody's (19/42)
basement. It finally crashed and they were going to Get service packs anymore That was it. They replaced it with red hat and moved on I'm sorry. Your license has expired no more security updates and we don't give any more service packs So you probably want to change Okay. Yeah, so we've talked about things starting up things changing. Here's something that's shutting down Oh Linux Journal Oh We're gonna say goodbye to Linux Journal. It's been around since 1994 I think it is and it's finally shuttering their doors and their electronic doors at least they shuttered the print operation several years ago and Now they're just I'm guessing they're out of money or out of Advertisers or out of subscribers or no, they're not out of subscribers. We live, you know, we subscribe but I'm guessing the money isn't there to pay everybody yeah, well, I Canceled my subscription. I actually had a subscription for about two years and for a while it seemed to be there was a good amount of articles that (20/42)
were actually, you know for just Regular users, but I think where they made the mistake is Toward the end. It just didn't really click with me anymore because it was mostly just about businesses and stuff like that and So I said, you know, I Can't I'm not getting anything out of it. I hate to see I like Linux Journal I mean now it was when I first, you know started looking to links I Was buying it before I got a subscription pretty much any you know from You know You like Barnes Noble or whatever it was You know, he was like Windows Windows Windows Mac Mac Mac, and then I saw said there's hey, there's a links magazine cool and so I hate CM go But I read the article and you know, they apparently they did run out of money and there's but one of the things is they saying that just can't compete anymore with And it was kind of a I would say kind of a passive-aggressive there's like, you know people getting a lot of their stuff online now and they'd much rather be have cookies tracking them (21/42)
and Popping ads out of them and they just they just couldn't you know their model I guess just they just didn't want to do it and they just said, you know We we can't keep going like this and they shut down And I feel sorry for him because you know I think they were pretty good voice for Linux and anybody's ever read their magazine You know before they shuttered to print they realized it, you know, a lot of love went into that So I'm really sorry to see him go but yeah, me too There are other Linux magazines out there at least for the time being like Linux magazine and Linux Pro same thing Yeah, I did see a Linux Pro A couple months ago. I was actually looking into bookstores and yes, I actually go to bookstores once in a while and Yeah, I saw there was a Linux Pro but you remember wasn't Linux Journal the one that used to have the The Discs in them that you could try different distributions. Yeah, I think a lot of them did. Yeah Yeah, so that was that they did they did really help (22/42)
bring a lot of people to Linux I would say but you know times change and I guess they Had to also so guys thank you for all your hard work We will miss you. We hope that maybe you'll come back and do reform or something like that. But Thanks for all the fish. So Yeah, well speaking of things shutting down one other thing shut down that isn't in our list here bill But I'm gonna add it here because it kind of fits America online instant messaging service is now Defunct well, it's about time Yeah, yeah, and another great provider of free CDs in the mail AOL has decided America online instant messenger a I am Is is gone. So bye. Bye. Hey, all I can say every time I hear AOL is you've got mail Well, right exactly It's amazing how many people are still using that service really? Yeah, apparently there are quite a few okay guys Never mind if you're still using there well more power to you probably not you're probably not listening to this If you are you might want to consider switching yeah (23/42)
Hey, I hear discord and maybe even Skype is better than you've got mail AOL. But hey, I Always I I always remember when they used to run the TV commercials Wow AOL makes it your internet experience so much better. Oh Okay. Okay. Thanks. So That's actually a happy story I'm being bad today. I'm really sad about Linux Journal, but you know, you're depressing me if you give me one more thing about Some something bad Linux, I think I'm just going to get sad Yeah, well Do have one other piece of bad news You're not supposed to give me more business supposed to be a happy show we can We can do a happy story in between if you want, but that's pretty important. Okay, what's this one? You you may have seen news reports that the city of Munich in Germany is going back to Windows after Ten years of using Linux or attempting to use Linux why? well there According to the reports there are a lot of reasons why first of all, it was costing them a lot of money to maintain the the Linux backbone they (24/42)
had and You you might think that a free operating system wouldn't be Expensive to maintain but here's why it was so expensive. Remember, this is a government Okay, so so so first of all Rather than use the off-the-shelf version of Linux and all of its applications that were available to it ten years ago and Keeping up with all of the upgrades just by maintaining The security updates and so on they decided that in order to make it easier for people to switch from Windows to Linux they would invent their own version of Linux and wrote many of the applications custom applications and so on and then after doing that they found that it's a lot of work to maintain a Distribution and to maintain all of these applications so it ended up costing them a bunch of money So ten years later, they said this is costing us too much We'll just go back to Windows and I bet they didn't write their own custom version of Windows Okay, first off Larry I Read about the story and I was going in one of the (25/42)
things they said they had problems with devices and stuff Um, so Apparently they had them working but you know, I guess you know a government is not exactly The best person to write their own Linux distro. I've got a hey guys Munich. I got an idea Contact the mate group, you know, they they could probably have helped you out and made it really simple But Yeah, I think they're probably back in the the Windows world and have all those Microsoft Okay, I'm gonna call locked in now for another ten years. Yes, and hey make sure that you pay your licensing fees yeah, but but you know, even if they Went back to Windows. They still had to somebody to maintain it and I don't know about you. I I Would not want to have to maintain all those little Windows computers with all the new, you know Windows 10 or whatever Because I don't like Windows 10 to begin with and it's got a bunch of stuff and things pop up and you know I keep it because I need it for work occasionally and Pains me when I have to (26/42)
use it, but I think it was I think somebody Someone got sold a bag bill of goods there but guys at least You know what you had good luck with Windows and Man I I don't understand how they can say it was hard to use. I mean the You've got if they didn't like the desktop then why even reinvented you have mate you have a fun You had unity at that time, which you know We'll talk about that in a minute or two But yeah, how about cinnamon? I mean that's that's real. I mean Windows is so I don't know. I don't think I don't I think it's just an excuse but you know, hey Do what you want, but I think you're gonna be sorry in the long run for me. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know I could be Yeah, you know Windows 10 I've played around with it a bit and it's a lot better than Windows 8 for sure. Yeah, it's it's not I don't know. It's it's not bad. I guess Having used Linux. I don't see the attraction but having grown up using Windows a long time ago. It's It's a natural progression I guess and it's (27/42)
not a bad alternative if you want to stick in the Windows world But bottom line is Munich has really screwed this up from the beginning You you don't write your own Linux distribution if you want to switch to Linux you Take advantage of the fact that it's open source and crowdsourced and you know free and in you know as in freedom and you take advantage of all of that and you leverage it and they didn't do any Of that quite frankly other than taking advantage of the fact that they could write their own Good luck guys. Have fun. I Still say that you really messed that one up. But anyway, let's talk on time to happier news. Yes, please I don't think I could take any more bad news stories right now. So Not really I haven't used these But you know, it seems like these Container programs for Linux seem to be the new hot thing and I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing I've heard some people say it uses more space Other people saying that it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. (28/42)
What's your? Well, I haven't used them and I don't know a lot about them. So let's move on. No No, I haven't I haven't had a lot of experience either I could make some comments that are completely uninformed, but I'd rather not So we probably need to do a show on that and hey just to learn about them if nothing else Maybe a network we need some help on the new containers Technology, let's talk about Docker containers and all these other containers and yes How does that relate to virtualization and all that sort of stuff? Yeah, that would be awesome So we'll have to look into that but it seems like I've heard a lot about that recently and Speaking of hearing of a lot about stuff I've heard and just in the news that a lot more about Linux malware and Some of it was I hate this this term fake news because you actually had to have access to the computer and you had to Have a password and etc, etc But this seemed like I heard a lot more this year about just Linux vulnerabilities and malware (29/42)
Is it just because it's becoming more used in corporations Larry or do you just think that it's just They didn't have anything else to write No, honestly, I think that Some of the hype about Linux malware is valid. I think there are still some vulnerabilities in Linux as there is in any software quite frankly and so we need to be vigilant about that but I think the reason that we've been hearing more about it is because the press has finally realized that Infections on computers affect people and so they're reporting on it more and as a result we hear more about all kinds of malware and infections and I think possibly the rate at which Scams and Phishing schemes and all of those things occur is increasing And so there are more and more infections and people are losing money as a result of falling prey to these things and Ransomware in particular is really insidious. So I think that the fact that it's costing people money and Some of the press themselves have fallen prey to They're (30/42)
beginning to report on it more so more visibility you hear more about it. Okay Well, just that's my opinion. I think that's pretty sound one So guys make sure that you keep your systems up to date and I think we'll be good Yeah, don't click on stuff from strangers and you know all the stuff your grandmother Larry I need To have Access to your computer and your bank accounts routing numbers, please. Oh yeah, yeah, I got a phone call about that the other day and Somebody's already done that so okay great. So moving right along. I'm never getting my voice check now So I like to watch distro watch and I know Larry I said, you know, I wonder What the over the past 12 months what top 10 distributions were yeah, so somebody I think it might have been you bill put a nice little list together of Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, I did it So distro watch rankings over the past 12 months Let's start with the number 10. We'll do a David Letterman for those who remember top 10 Distributions so the number 10 is (31/42)
Elementary, okay. I can see that one. Yeah, that's a pretty good one Number nine is Zoran That one surprises me a little bit. Yeah, not one I'm familiar with well I've heard of it of course, but never used it now. I've looked at it, but that it's I think you actually have To pay for that one. I think Put them. Uh, is that the one you have to pay for? Yeah, I think it is. Yeah could be Uh solace is number eight. That's that's a good one. Yeah, that's good Uh number seven is fedora now, I think fedora's felt fall Uh a little bit seven but hey, they're still in top 10, but okay fedora We've we've had i've had a love-hate rate relationship with fedora. So right now it's Oh, I can see seven, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I've had fedora installed once And Yeah, it's it's a pretty good distribution generally it's had its troubles up and down with A number of features a number of stability issues and things like that So, you know, maybe that's the cause of its drop from the highest rankings But I don't (32/42)
know since I don't use it i'm not familiar with it all that much number six is open susa Another good solid distribution that's used in enterprise. Okay, as well as on the desktop But their focus is mainly on well, susa linux in general is focused on supporting the enterprise and open susa is their community-based Generally speaking their community-based version. Okay Uh number five is anturgos now that one uh at five because that's not that's um That's based on arch, isn't it? I believe it is and it's kind of one of those boutique versions of linux or it's It's not used widely. I didn't think being number five. I think you're right Number four Ubuntu Huh? Now that one's down Yeah, it's down but still in the top five. Yes. Yes. Okay Number three surprise to me mangero. Yeah. I was like blown away that mangero's number three That's just i'm like what it's above ubuntu over the past 12 months. I'm like now this is distro watch So, you know, but i'm just sitting there going holy moly. (33/42)
That's I mean, it's good to see some other Distros that we have in but that one surprised me Yeah number two is debian well, that doesn't surprise me because debian's the I would say the uh, the The grand high old poobah that everybody's based on except for mangero and antegros. I mean you've cut an infidora, of course And yeah, and a lot of a lot of people trying out those raspberry pi computers are using debian as well So they have one for raspberry pi now too, yeah, yeah Darn people when do you guys sleep? It seemed like they have it on for everything And number one, oh, let me guess surprise Go ahead. Guess linux man Yes Okay. Yeah, it's got to be the one that is easy to use and familiar Kind of layout and format and desktop environment to people switching from windows so no surprise that it's Number one, it gets a lot of press as well. I think um, and It's it's a good distribution in terms of the way it's put together and a lot of good tools that they've developed and make it (34/42)
Work. Yeah. Well, uh, I won't use links anymore. I used to support the project, but there was a thing a few years back that um made some statements, uh, and I just decided that I didn't want to help them the uh now our one that we recommend Uh, I use it and I like it a lot is Uh, I won't give it an honorable mention because I can is a bunt amate. Mm-hmm Do you know where it ended up in the list? I don't I think it was 24 24 let me check why? Why so we're back in the underdog, but then again remember this is distro watch and these are rankings of these distributions based on the number of clicks on their website, which means They're really measuring How much interest there is in looking at these that not that people are using them or really? I have switched to it But rather I want to find out a little bit more about this. Let's go to distro watch and read up on it. Yeah Uh, and i'm looking right now And let me sort this that's the past six months let me do the last 12 months And I'll (35/42)
okay. Ubuntu mate is 26 and um I like it a lot. Um and uh between Ubuntu mate and of course, uh, PC Linux os is one of my ones I like to play with Uh, you know, they're not they might not be in top 10, but it doesn't that doesn't really matter if they work for you Great. I mean If you think arch according to distro watch is only uh, for the 14th over the year And you know arch powers is is growing in popularity I mean remember yards used to be way down there and I now they're sitting at 14 so it's just I think it's just uh, kind of what you uh Like and and you know, don't go by what we say. I just wanted to say hey, somebody surprised me I'm, glad to see some different, uh, fellas up in that list so anyway, uh use what you like try out, uh, you know, these are not the only ones, um, and uh, I'll give you my two that I like a lot is a bunch of mate and PC Linux os And how about you give me your two that you you like so we can kind of maybe Balance out the list a little bit of our (36/42)
personal ones yeah, I think uh We agree on the number one ubuntu mate, and I think the second best for new users is linux mint I really do. Yeah, whether it's Cinnamon version or the mate version doesn't matter Just looking at them on the surface. Uh, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference It's not until you begin using it and take a look at the fact that they're using different file managers and things like that But you see that there is a difference but they look identical they behave identically in and uh all All around very good Yeah, and Linux bit does have cool names for their stuff. I think one of them I enjoyed is muffin for their file manager one day uh I don't think muffin was the file manager. I think it was something else. But yeah, they were uh, They've got a lot of cool names. Yeah, so i'll give them that but you know Other than that this list is not exhaustive and uh, I encourage you to also look at all of them And go to websites and see which one might work. I (37/42)
mean, yeah It's all about personal preference and find the one that works for you. Yeah, I mean Remember for a while. I was the biggest crunch bang fanboy around I loved it. It was very minimalist and and Poor Larry had to uh See all the pictures and stuff of when I themed it. No, look at this. Isn't this cool? Larry's like yeah, are you doing anything except theming this thing or are you actually doing work? so but there's one called Brunson labs, it's supposed to be um its continuation so i'm hoping to look at that soon, but uh, generally you can if whatever you like you can generally find it so Enough but uh and Larry I hear that you snuck in one other little news story that uh, You know that I have strong feelings about and what would that be? Uh obuntu dropping unity and moving back to gnome Ah Yes, I heard that after all that stuff you remember I had a love-hate relationship with unity I I hated it and then they improved it and I had the interview with jonno And it was going well (38/42)
And now they drop it Really? Why couldn't they just stay with gnome and be done with it? Yeah, well if they'd stayed with gnome we wouldn't have had mate because they went from gnome 2 on a ubuntu to Unity okay, and now they're on gnome 3 and they've got it themed in a way that it looks and behaves like unity did so in Reality, they're still doing things the way they did. They're just not inventing their own desktop anymore and of course the unity project has forked off and uh, there are people who have uh, Continued unity in its own right and so ubuntu now uses gnome 3 and if you really want to go back to the golden days of a ubuntu with gnome you use ubuntu mate because it is essentially as Ubuntu was back in the original days when they were using gnome 2. Yeah. Well, I've always wanted to say this phrase Unity is dead long live unity Oh, I don't know why anyway, so that's That's I can actually see is probably a much better use of resources I know we had discussed this back for us (39/42)
without, you know, beating this horse to death too. They just uh, They should have just you know Not done it, but i'm glad they did because now we got like I said, we've got a bunch of mate and those guys Those guys I think we sound like fanboys again, but those guys really have their stuff together. So Anyway, yeah Yeah, absolutely um, yeah, I I think they should have done it they they Did a good job of it quite frankly and they learned a lot which is really The thing that I think is the biggest benefit is they learned a lot about desktop environment and user interface and what people actually want And you know, you can make the argument that they never implemented some of the things that people actually wanted but hey at least they learned what folks Have found valuable and light and and experimented in new ways, which I think is is a good thing in its own, right? so good on them and Yeah, good. Good luck with gnome as you move forward. Well, larry, I think that's kind of bringing us (40/42)
to the end of this show I think we've covered a lot of the the top new stories But to end at least the things that were important to us. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I want to take this moment to thank All the distributions for all their hard work all our listeners and everybody that's sent us feedback over the past year You guys are great. We really appreciate you and we hope wherever you are that you have a great holiday season I can't add anything better than that. Thanks to everybody who contributes to open source and free software and have a wonderful holiday period and We'll be back in the new year Yes, we will. So Until then what's our next episode larry? Our next episode will be listener feedback in january sometime and until then you can go to our website at goinglinux.com For articles and show notes as well as links to download and to 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 (41/42)
friendly and helpful community members by joining the discussion in our going links podcast Google plus community until next time. Thanks for listening 73. Happy holidays New music provided by mark blasco at podcast themes.com (42/42)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #383 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 383, 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 goinglinks at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are things going for you? Things are going well. Well, you know, remember I told you I was going to use Linux Mint and not change so much? Well, I changed again. So... What's going on now? No, just I went back to Zorin because it just works for me. I had a few issues. I was beta testing Linux Mint. And I just (1/42)
needed something that I was familiar with. So, long story short, I went ahead, redid my laptop because I have nothing better to do on a Friday night and got a dual boot set up with Windows 10 on one for when I have a game I have to play once in a while. And the rest is Zorin. And then I'm running everything in containers, like kind of what I was planning. And the test machine over here right now has two images on it or two systems. One is Linux Mint 19.3 to continue testing it and see if I can find any more bugs. And the other one is, I was kind of curious, I wanted to see how elementary OS worked. Oh, yeah. And it runs really well. I was really surprised. They have some unique elements to their desktop. But what was really interesting is it runs really, really fast. It looks a lot to me like a Mac. Interface. Yeah. They use a created software center. So, about everything you would want is there. Like I said, it seems to be really nice. It's been running fine. This would probably be a (2/42)
great system for like an older parent or a younger child that you just want to make sure that it works all the time because I haven't found any really glitches. So, it's like all you're going to use it for is email and stuff like that. And you want to keep the complications way down and you want to use older hardware. This seems like it would work really well. This machine also had run Ubuntu Mate 18.04.3, I think it was. And it also run really well too. But it was kind of interesting. If you want to add something that's not in their software store, I couldn't find Subnaptic. And so, I had to actually Google, how do I add a deb package to this? Because it's based on Ubuntu. And then they tell you basically to use Eddie. And then it works fine. You can install anything you want. So, yeah, that's kind of like a mini review. It runs well. I don't think it's really for me because I like to tinker too much. But if you want something that just works and is very pretty, it seems to do that. (3/42)
But I will make just one comparison between Ubuntu Mate and Pantheon. Ubuntu Mate also has that same setting where you can kind of make it look like a Mac if you want. And the one thing about elementary I saw is that when I was looking through the software store, they actually have where you can pay for applications from developers in their software store. So, it's kind of a way to provide donations without figuring out how to donate to a particular project. Yeah, but the only thing that I have maybe a little problem with is I don't have a problem with paying for an OS. I mean, I paid for Zorin and I like it. Or supporting a project. But I can't remember what I was looking for, but it come up and it was only a dollar for this application, but it seems like that's the only one in there. So, there might be an open source project that works just as well that you don't need to pay for. So, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying it's different. I know they're trying to make these (4/42)
projects where they can make a little money for developers, and I'm all for that, but I just don't know about having just that store and actually not being able to obviously look through a bigger catalog of software. You know, to give you an example, just because I compared them before, the Ubuntu Mate has the same software center. But I can't remember. Do you remember if Synaptic is installed by default on Ubuntu Mate? It is not, but it's available in the software store. So, yeah, like I said, I don't have a problem if they want to charge for it, but Synaptic, Eddie will let you install the DEBS. If you want to install the Chromedeb or Chromium, it will let you do that, but that's for somebody that already knows what they want. And I think it should be a little bit easier to say, I need Synaptic Package Manager, and to use that to get the software for maybe more advanced users or just someone that just wants to see what's available. And so I know why they did it. They wanted to make (5/42)
it simple and secure. Yeah, sure. But another thing that came up, they were talking to one of the developers in elementary OS, and right now they're trying to figure out, say you buy an application for a dollar in their app store, and then they upgrade it. Then what happens is that they still don't have a good system to restore that application. They said they're working on it. And so that should have been kind of worked out where it remembers what you've purchased, and so you can load it back onto the new version of your system. And I'm not harsh on them. It's a pretty operating system, but when I went to go download the ISO, before you even tested it, they had where you pay what you want. I just put zero in it to let you download it, but they also have $20, $30, $10 or whatever. This was like, well, how do I know I like it? I don't want to pay the $30 or $20 or whatever it is for their version of the software until I've actually seen if I like it enough to buy it. It doesn't really (6/42)
affect Abuntamate because you can donate to their project, but they really don't ask for anything upfront, and even Zorin has a light version that you can try to see if you like it enough to go with the ultimate. So I know what they're trying to do, and it's great. Then you're throwing different stuff at the wall, but I think it could be a little better. And I'm sure I'm going to get enough for it. I'm not harsh on them. I know it's hard to monetize open source projects, but I don't know if that's the best way to do it. Yeah, I get it. And I also think that when they say pay what you want, Xero is acceptable if you're just trying it out for the first time, and you don't want to pay anything for it as you're trying it out. So I think that was their intention. Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that that's what they were going for. And of course, they're not going to put Xero as one of the default settings because they want people to pay for it. Well, that's fine. I mean, (7/42)
everybody's got to pay the bills. And like I said, I like a lot of what they've done. I think it would be a good system for somebody that just doesn't want to have to deal with a bunch of stuff. Just throw it on there. But you can pretty much get everything that you want from, since I compared them, a bunch of mate with a little effort. So if you have a friend, you can pretty much have it set up to do the same thing, where they've done a lot of work to unify the desktop together. I don't know if there's enough value added that it would be so much better. So I don't know. Like I said, I'll still play with it, but good for them for trying. That was not a harsh review of them. I just wanted to say there were some things that, hey, I don't have to agree with everything, but they're doing good work. Absolutely, yeah. So hopefully they're pushing on some of these changes upstream because they're building up on Ubuntu base. So anyway, other than that, it's just been my usual let's see what I (8/42)
can break today and work. Well, as a matter of fact, speaking of breaking things, we just before starting recording received an email from Stefan in Germany. And that's the first email we've got there. I've got a screenshot of what he's seeing. And why don't we just jump right into that and we'll talk a little bit about that. Okay, so Stefan, who's in Germany, sent us a screenshot from Firefox that shows that Firefox has a problem with the SSL certificate on our site. And he sent us a screenshot of it and he says, hi, I get this error message when I click on the button going Linux community, see attachment. I know what this means, but maybe others don't. So best regards, Stefan. And so what's it say? Yeah, so it's one of those security warnings that Firefox gives you if the SSL certificate is out of date, expired, or that kind of thing. And specifically, it comes up with this error message that says, warning, potential security risk ahead. And when you click on the advance button, it (9/42)
gives you the reason that it says, community.goinglinux.com uses an invalid security certificate. Well, if you recall, I just got SSL certificates for our entire website. It says, though, that the certificate is not trusted because it is self-signed. In other words, the issuer of the certificate is the one who signed it. And what I've noticed is I tried this in my Firefox on my machine, which I, quite frankly, haven't used since I installed it. So when I went and clicked the accept risk and continue button on that page, so I got the same message, every time I went back and clicked the community button on our website, it just went right there to the community and never proceeded to show this error message. So if you see this error message in Firefox or anywhere else, you just click on advance and click accept the risk and continue, which may seem a little scary if you're not familiar with this stuff, but it's just warning you about the SSL certificate. And I will take Stefan's email and (10/42)
the screenshot, forward it on to our web host and say, what the heck is going on here? You've provided me with an effective SSL certificate. You better get it fixed. So hopefully we'll get that issue resolved quickly. And if not, bear with us. It is coming up to the holiday season, and I don't know about our web host or the SSL company, whether they take time off during the holidays or not. So it may be until January it takes to get it fixed. But it appears that once you click the accept the risk and continue for that button or for that site, it just goes through no problem. So let me just give a little background on this so I make sure I understand this and you understand this. We for the longest time did not have the HTTPS, which means that it's a secure site. And then we got delisted from iTunes just out of the blue because we didn't have that cert. So then you went to the web host and paid them money because they won't let you use one of the free ones. And so you paid them the (11/42)
money, and now it's doing this with this really scary warning, potential security risk. And I just want to point out it shows go back. It's recommended. Go back. Don't use LAN. Oh, wow. I knew this was going to happen. So you went through all those hoops, resubmitted it. Does it do it on any other browsers? You know, I don't know because I've been on our website on Chrome forever, and I just tried this new installation of Firefox, well, relatively new installation of Firefox, just before the recording, and it occurred there. But now I can't replicate it because I guess I've accepted the risk, right, on the button. Let me try something while we're recording. I downloaded the new Brave browser to see what it was all about. Yeah, let's see what it says. I want to see what it says, so I'm going to our site right now and see if it throws up errors because it will sometimes say, you say when it says you click, you go to the community, right? Yeah, so there's a button on the top right, and it (12/42)
says going Linux community. If you click that button, that's when the error message comes up. Okay, let me see what it says here. Oh, that's interesting. This one comes up and says, your connection is not private. Attackers might be trying to steal your information from the community.goinglinux.com, for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards, and it says learn more, and then it says, the error that it gives, it says net, and it says error cert authority invalid. Hmm, yeah. They're insisting that we pay for a SSL certificate from a company that isn't really recognized, so that's great. I know this makes great podcasting, but I was just wondering, and if you hit advanced, it reads, this server could not prove that it is community.goinglinux.com. Its security certificate is not trusted by your computer's operating system. This may be caused by a misconfiguration or an attacker intercepting your connection. Well, that's kind of scary. That sounds even worse, doesn't it? Yeah, so (13/42)
Larry, you look like you might be having to talk to them about that. Yeah, I know, we're just such shady people. Yeah, of course we don't ask for passwords, we don't take credit cards, and... Yeah, there's nothing on our website that does that. The only thing that I can think that might be valid is that we provide links and screenshots from other websites that may not have the SSL certificate, and that warning would be fair. But this is specifically saying that our site may not be trustworthy. And in fact, in Chrome, if you go to our website and click on the little eye icon next to the URL for our site, it says your connection to this site is not fully secure. Attackers may be able to see the images you're looking at on this site and trick you by modifying them, and a little button that says learn more, and when you click on that, it gives you some more details about that. And that warning isn't quite so dire as your... You know, we may be stealing your credit cards and all that other (14/42)
stuff. And your passwords. Of course we don't use it. Larry, is there something that you want to tell me that I don't know about yet? No, no. Not that there isn't something I... It's not that I don't want to tell you, it's that there's nothing going on. Just to be clear. So was this SSL... I never asked you, was it fairly expensive? This SSL certificate? It's not in the grand scheme of things. I think it's like $40 a year or something if you buy it for multiple years up front, which I did. But they have no way of actually renewing it after three months. So even though you pay for a year, you have to go in every three months and say please reinstall it. It doesn't cost you anything else. Yeah, I'd change providers if I could, but it's just too much of a hassle at this point. It's easier to get them to fix the problem than it is to try to switch from them at this point. Well, hopefully... Anyway, so that's what I've been working with. We beat that one to death, but yeah, that's kind (15/42)
of... Guys, the site's okay. We're not stealing anything from you. Yeah. Wow. Oh dear, well let's go on to our next email. Which comes from Carlos, who wrote us about software licenses. Hi Larry and Bill, in episode 376 you mentioned WPS Office as a possible alternative office suite that may ease the transition to Linux. As the official bespectacled picky minion who actually reads EULAs and user license agreements, I wanted to point out a curiosity. The user agreement for WPS Office states that for countries other than mainland China, Linux users can only install the software on, and here's a quote, Linux OS produced by China brand enterprises such as Ubuntu or Ubuntu Kylin, Deepin, NeoKylin, NFS China, and Newstart. CPU x86 or CPU produced by China enterprises such as Lingson, and lists several others that I'm not sure I can pronounce. So if you do not have a Chinese CPU, that was the end of the quote, and Carlos continues, so if you don't have a Chinese CPU and a Chinese version of (16/42)
Ubuntu, you will be in violation of the license. Not sure if this would ever be enforced though. Note that Windows or Mac users of the software are not bound to similar restrictions. And now a hint for NVIDIA users. With the frequent kernel updates, if we use the NVIDIA proprietary drivers, we are forced to agree to their license four times for each update, at least in my open SUSE boxes. In the command line, you're forced to page down all the way to the end and then type yes every time. Although I like to read EULAs, I don't like it that much, even less the same one. I found that if I hit Q, I don't need to page down to the end. I still have to type yes, but it is somewhat satisfying that I found a workaround. Keep up the good work, Carlos. So, um, interesting. Thank you, Carlos, for reading those EULAs, and we've learned something new. Yeah, I knew they had a EULA for Deepin when I was testing it, but I remember that when I was reading through most of it was just, you know, like (17/42)
standard boilerplate. But I didn't see that, but if you read it, I'm sure it's there. As far as using the WPS, I've kind of settled on using the LibreOffice one. There's a little saying that you can make it look very modern. Some people don't like it. It's like the ribbon at the top, which works well for me. So I've kind of shied away from the WPS once I moved away from Deepin for reasons that we don't need to go into as far as, you know, security and privacy. So, yeah, that's kind of interesting. But as far as installing the NVIDIA drivers, Zorin and Ubuntu and Ubuntu Mate all use the driver manager. And all it ever says when I install the driver for my system is that this is a closed source driver that we can't improve upon because, you know, apparently they don't share all their code. And then you have to type your system password and then just install. So I have never had to type yes or agree to their licensing four times, but that might be something that is just like open SUSE. (18/42)
Yeah, that's a possibility. Yeah. All your machines are Intel video card based, right? Yes, that's right. That's right. So, yeah, you wouldn't see it anyway. Right, exactly. But I did notice when I was using open SUSE, which was, you know, more than 10 years ago now, that there was a lot more having to accept the EULAs by actually typing something in and not clicking a checkbox or a button. But like I said, that was 10 years ago. So things may have changed, but apparently not. Well, it could be that doing something a little different, I don't know, because neither one of us run. We've run open SUSE in the past, but now we're Ubuntu based fanboys. So our next email comes from Michael, who provided a link for Linux users who also use the Orca screen reader. He writes, Hi Larry and Bill. It seems that using the Chrome browser with the Orca screen reader is being worked on. I haven't tried this myself, as I don't know how to update my version of Orca. I don't have the skills to try it and (19/42)
have not been able to install Chrome and latest Ubuntu Mate, but blind users with the skills to do it will not be able to monitor Orca lists might find this of use. OK. He has how to turn on Google Chrome accessibility and he provides a link and we'll put it in the show notes. Happy Christmas to both you and Bill, Michael West, Yorkshire, UK. So, OK, so they're working on having Orca work better with Chrome? Yes, exactly. And when you click on that link, it opens an article on the GNOME website that says, Getting started with Orca and Chrome slash Chromium. And let me just read the introductory paragraph without going into all the details. It says Orca support for Chrome slash Chromium is ready, but you will need at least Orca 3.34.1. Because it contains fixes that did not make it into 3.34.0 release. Chrome or Chromium support to work with Orca is getting close, but there are still some significant bugs which need to be fixed. For that reason, you should be using at least the dev (20/42)
channel of Chrome, which you can get from and they've got a link there for the dev channel, which I'm assuming gives you the fixes in Chrome. And when I check the version of Orca that is installed on Ubuntu MATE by default, and for Michael and anyone else who's a blind user, if you open a terminal and you type Orca space dash dash version, it will print out the version. 3.34.0 is the release that's installed in Ubuntu MATE 19.10. So I'm assuming that in 20.04, the next LTS release that will be released in April next year, will have the latest version of Orca and this will become a non-issue for Ubuntu MATE users. But it looks like you'll need to either wait for that update or find a way to install the latest version of Orca maybe from the Orca website to get the advantages of it working properly with Chrome. And in the meantime, you could also use Firefox, I guess. In the meantime, while we're waiting for the 20.04, is there an easy way to upgrade Orca in Ubuntu MATE or would you (21/42)
suggest just kind of hold out to the next version? I know Martin's pretty on top of keeping everything stable in Ubuntu MATE. Do you think it would be wise to try to upgrade to this dev version or just wait or just use Firefox? Yeah, so the dev version is the version of Chrome that they're saying to get. And to get that, I think you would just go to this article on the GNOME site that gives you the link to the dev version of Chrome. And to install Orca, I don't think you'll be able to get a version ahead from the Ubuntu repositories, whether that's Ubuntu MATE or Ubuntu proper. I think you'll have to go to the place where you would normally download Orca and install it on the Orca website. And it appears that Orca is part of the GNOME project. I don't remember for sure, but it is definitely something that you can get more information on on the GNOME site. And hopefully they'll have a place there to go and download a later version of it. I think with the difficulty I'm having as a (22/42)
sighted person trying to figure out where to go to get the download link for Orca, it's probably best just to wait for the updates and in the meantime use Firefox as your browser because it looks from this article that the issue is with Chrome and not with Firefox. Yeah, when I did a search for the Orca screen reader, it comes up and it gives me the address of help.gnome.org users. Orca was then stable. And so I think I would just wait because you know it will be updated. Just go ahead and use Firefox right now. I know that's not really a great answer, but two sighted guys having trouble getting this to find out where to get it and stuff, it might be a little too much for someone who has some vision issues. Yeah, exactly. All right. So our next email comes from Rossi who asked about Huawei laptops. Hi guys, this is Rossi from Houston, Texas. I love listening to the podcast. You provide a wealth of information, but I have a doozy on my hands. I am looking to purchase the new Huawei (23/42)
Matebook Pro X 2019, but the problem is I don't know if there is any Linux distro that supports Huawei computers. I can vaguely recall seeing an article written that Linux does not support Huawei yet, but then I don't know. If the source that I saw it from was reputable, if anyone knows some valid information about this, I would greatly appreciate it. I'm looking to run Zorin OS on it if it works properly. Otherwise, I'll have to go and get the new Dell XPS. Thanks, Rossi. And Rossi and I went back and forth on email and I gave him some links to some of the reviews of this Huawei machine. And those links will be in the show notes. There are two links for articles that are reviews of this Huawei machine. And then there's a YouTube video, all of which contain information about their ability to install Linux on the Huawei. And it seems that it's pretty straightforward. And there may be a couple of the soft buttons, the function key buttons that don't work, like volume, things like that. (24/42)
Minor little issues. But other than that, if you can work around those issues, Ubuntu at least installs very easily on the machine and works like a champ. Even if I remember correctly, the fingerprint reader works, which is oftentimes the thing that doesn't work on these not designed for Linux computers. So it should work just fine. But if you do decide, Rossi, to go and get the XPS, I've had my XPS for a few years now and I love it. Yeah. I mean, I was looking at the specs for the Huawei Mate Pro X and it didn't seem like there's anything too crazy about it. It has an i7 quad core processor, Nvidia MX250 GPU, has Thunderbolt 3. So, yeah, I don't know why it wouldn't unless it's doing something kind of weird. Yeah, it should work just fine. Like you said, it doesn't have any crazy hardware in it. The only thing that's unique about it is that the camera, the webcam, instead of being at the top of the bezel of your screen, like most laptops, or at the bottom of the bezel, like the XPS, (25/42)
the early XPS laptops, they actually have it pop out of the keyboard. This is a little key you press and the camera pops up. That's cool. One more hardware thing to go wrong, in my opinion, but it apparently works quite nicely and it's not the best camera in the world, but it's unique and people will comment on it, I'm sure, if you get that. Of course, there's the whole issue of the fact that Huawei is built in China and they had some controversy over their phones and stuff, possibly spying on Americans, and if you take any of that to heart, you probably want to go with something like the XPS. But if you're not concerned about that, then the Huami machine is actually pretty nicely specced and it's nice and light and easy to carry around and seems to be pretty good. Unlike my nine pound laptop, that one's a lot lighter. Yeah, this one's just a little bit lighter. A little bit lighter. So our next email comes from Troy and he wrote to us, and we've back and forth an email about a month (26/42)
and a half ago, and Troy asks us our opinion and he wrote, Larry, I hope you and Bill are doing well. This is not necessarily a question for the show, just a professional question, and I was hoping to get your thoughts before this computer arrives for this customer. Yeah, I have to say that since this was a month and a half ago, he's already ordered the computer for the customer and spoiler alert, the customer loves it. So we've already given him our opinions. We'll talk about it a little bit here, but I thought it was important to share this information, although he says it's not necessarily for the show. He didn't say don't use it for the show. So here it is. Yeah, and he specced it out nice. I have to say it's a pretty nice computer. So he writes, we have a customer who has been using a Mac for quite a while, but because her company requires her to have Windows to run a certain specific program of theirs, and boy, don't I know that. She has been running it using Parallels. Her (27/42)
computer is really old and slow, and she absolutely hates Parallels and the way it works. She doesn't relish the idea of moving to a Windows computer and having to deal with antivirus and anti-malware, Windows 10 bugs, Windows updates, breaking stuff, etc, etc. The software company for that program also recommended a computer with 16 gigabytes of memory. She looked at a Mac with an i7 processor and at least 16 gigabytes of memory, but it was over $2,500. And she thought that was just insane. Her other concerns were figuring out how to get her pictures off her iPhone where she could do minor editing and be able to share them with people. She's been using iPhoto in Mac for this. She said her company also occasionally sends her MS Office documents that include a lot of macros. And Larry, before we go any further, you want to let people know what macros are? Yeah, so macros are just automation that in Microsoft's version of Office, you can include in things like Excel or Word that do (28/42)
things like instead of doing a lot of clicks to put in, let's say, a whole paragraph, they can give you a button or give you a series of keystrokes that allow you to put in a standard template paragraph or things like that. They can even in Excel build entire applications, graphical applications using these macros, also known as Visual Basic for Applications. Those macros in Microsoft Office in particular have been a target of malware and spyware. And oftentimes you'll see a warning come up saying, do you want to enable macros? And if you do that, if your computer is vulnerable and using Windows and things like that, you could end up with a virus. But most of those have been taken care of. And if you're running Windows, running antivirus, anti-malware protection, you're protected. So not much risk these days. So he continues and he says, so they don't always work right in LibreOffice. Since we need to order a laptop for her daughter who is just going into high school, she wanted us to (29/42)
quote her on a system as well for her own needs. Her daughter's needs are very basic. Email, web and a few Office documents. She is getting a Dell Inspiron 3583 with a quad core i5 processor, 8 gigabytes of memory, 256 solid state NVMe drive, that's an SSD, 15.6 display with Linux Mint, easy peasy. So my thought for the mother was to get her a higher end computer with Linux Mint as her primary OS and then put Windows 10 into a VirtualBox virtual machine just for running that company software program and MS Office. Everything else she can do in Linux with her Google account. She can use the Google Photos app on her phone to back up all her pictures to Google Photos in the cloud and then she can edit all these pictures with Google Photos in her browser on her laptop. So we just ordered a new Dell XPS 157590 for her with the following specs and I'm very jealous here. So she has a 16.6 gigabyte of memory, 15.6 infinity edge display, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 with a 4 gigabyte video chipset. (30/42)
This came around 1799 which she was much happier with. So the question is, do you see anything about these hardware specs to cause concerns with this kind of setup, compatibility issues, etc. Also, I've run a lot of stuff in a virtual machine but have never actually tried installing Windows 10 into one. Should it install seamlessly like Windows 7 or 8 or will I need any special configuration settings in the BIOS to make it work right? Any suggestions or recommendations? Thank you guys for all you do. Any case, Troy aka Jack Death, Home and Business Computer Services. So Larry, I suggested, which was shot down pretty quick that he just do a dual boot but he made a point that every time she needed the software she had to reboot her computer and that just wouldn't work. Yeah. And I kind of see that. The virtual machine, I've had issues installing Windows 10 into a virtual machine. It always says that it doesn't recognize you have to put serial number in. Windows 10 also has where in its (31/42)
EULA, End User License Agreement, about how much you can do with the Windows 10 in a virtual machine. And there's a bunch of stuff that you have to do. And if I'm not too badly mistaken, if he ordered this Dell, the software is actually tied to the physical machine. And so there might be some problems with using that license in a virtual box. Right, exactly. In fact, Troy sent us an email end of November. He says, just wanted to give you guys an update on what happened with the setup. Even though the laptop came with Windows 10 originally, apparently you cannot just wipe the computer, install Linux and then put Windows 10 into a virtual machine. Like you were saying, Bill, it thinks it's a totally different computer and that Windows is now not genuine. So it will not activate. They expect you to buy it again. It's completely preposterous, he writes. He said, anyway, I found a reference online that allows you to create a batch file you can run that tricks Windows into thinking it's (32/42)
already activated. Then you can run your Windows updates like normal. It's seamless. This computer is so freaking fast, you cannot believe it. When you turn it on just after the Dell logo goes away, it starts Linux Mint. It's only 3.5 seconds boot time and you can start opening and running things pretty much immediately. It's nuts. So he's pretty happy with it. The customer is happy with it. And hopefully her daughter's happy with the other Dell that they bought for her. I was thinking that's probably a nice computer for someone starting high school. Yeah, but the only thing I would have changed in the daughters, I wouldn't change anything in the mother's computer. Because as I told him, that's one bang set up to use the center. Oh, yeah. But I would have given the daughter another 8 gigabytes of RAM. I'd have put 16 in just for the fact to kind of future proof it. Now, I'm sure she can add it later on. Because a lot of things, I think 16 right now is kind of the sweet spot. The 32 (33/42)
gigabytes for the mother, I understand. Because she's running a virtual machine and you want to make sure that Windows in the virtual machine, the system has enough to provide it. The only thing that I think is kind of ludicrous is that you actually have to write a batch file to use a version of Windows 10 that you got on a machine in a virtual box. Or a virtual machine. Yeah, I agree. That seems a little funky, but it is Microsoft. Yeah. I'm sure she's happy. And if I ever need someone to spec out a computer, I'm going to have Jack do it. Man, he doesn't play. I like this. Yeah, I like it too. And they got a really great price on it. Maybe it was a Black Friday sale or something, but yeah. Speaking of, we've always known that Mac hardware is expensive, but just for a computer that's not even close to the specifications that she got, the Mac was like $2,500. He probably got two computers and got her set up with Linux Mint and Windows and got the daughter a pretty good computer for (34/42)
probably about the same money. Or less. Yeah, this is kind of crazy when you think about what you can do. Like I said, Jack, that's nice. And I've heard that the Infinity Edge display on those machines is really nice. Yeah, it is. It definitely is. Yeah, one other comment. We talk about Windows a lot and comparing it with Linux, especially in the past three-part series that we've had. But Troy was talking about the user of this computer, the Mac computer, using it for pictures, and she wanted to be able to edit photos from her iPhone. And I just wanted to comment that I was trying to do that on my company-provided MacBook Air. And I've noticed that Apple, in their Finder, which is the file browser that they use, in their Finder they provide a folder for pictures. But when you take pictures with an iPhone and it goes over iCloud to your computer, it doesn't end up in the pictures folder. It ends up in an iPhoto folder. But there's also a photos folder. So there are three different (35/42)
places your photos could go, and it took me a long time to try to figure out where... I know I picked that picture. I know it's on the computer's hard drive. But I can't find the stupid thing. And then when I actually tried to take it out because I wanted to attach that photo to something for work, you couldn't right-click... once you found it, you couldn't right-click on it and say, send it to this particular location. It wouldn't let you do that. And you couldn't right-click and say, save to desktop, or move it to a folder. I had to actually go into the Finder, into the... I think it was the iPhotos, or maybe it was the photos folder. And I had to drag it from there onto the desktop. There was no other way to get it on the desktop except click and drag. And once it was there, I could put it where I wanted to put it. Just another example of some of the aggravating inconsistency in a very popular operating system out there. You don't have that problem with Linux. No, but I have an (36/42)
iPhone for my personal use, a long story on why I got an iPhone. But when I had a problem, I wanted to import my photos. And so I hooked it up and had to install a driver that was... it says, hey, we need this. So I installed it and it imported it. And I'm like, okay, cool. So I'm looking through my photos and I was using, I believe it was Darktable. And it had more... it had videos in it too. Because what happens is, unless you turn it off in settings, it takes like a video. I don't know, I guess if anybody has an iPhone or were sent a photo, if you hold the picture, it gives a little bit of sound and like a short little video clip. And so that was kind of crazy because then you have to go through all these files that you think you only have like ten pictures. And you have all these files of video and other stuff. And I'm like, I just want to send this import of still photo into my system so I can send it to my friends or whatever. And I have to dig through until I can actually find (37/42)
it. So what the solution was, was you have to go into your phone and then you have to tell it not to take those. I guess you would call them an active photo of it. So yeah, that was kind of weird. But you know, it is what it is. Apple and Nair, they're gimmicks. But anyway, you know, nothing's perfect, including Linux. But, you know, I think that we've learned long ago that there seemed to be much more aggravating things about the other two most popular operating systems out there than there are with Linux. At least once you've learned how to use Linux and learned that it's pretty much consistent user interface, consistent way of working. And, you know, from distribution to distribution, it may be different, but within the distribution, especially distributions that have paid a lot of attention to user interface design like Ubuntu MATE or Ubuntu itself or elementary OS, those kinds of distributions. They've done a lot of work to make sure that things work the way you expect them to (38/42)
work. And they're not always bugging you to, ah, you're running out of iCloud space because we've used all the space by saving not only your one picture, but all these video clips and all that other stuff. And now we want you to buy more storage. I just got that thing saying you're just about out of iCloud storage and for another, I think it was 99 cents, you can get another 50 gigabytes of storage. I'm thinking, why do I need that? I have things being backed up to Dropbox and Google, my Google Drive. So I was like, why do I need it in three? I mean, I understand data redundancy, but that might be carrying it just a little far. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, you can turn off the iCloud sync in your Apple devices, but it's just the fact that, you know, it seems like every time I turn around, it's saying, oh, by the way, you're almost out of something. And it's all these video clips and you're like, I just took a picture. Why do I have video clips? Right, because they want you to have video (39/42)
clips. I don't know whether there's a place to say, you know, turn that off or not. Yeah, of course it's new. And of course you get it. And of course it's set to the most space consuming option so that you have to buy more storage. Oh, come on there. You act like they planned that. Yes, I'm sorry. It's conspiracy theories gone amok. Anyway, I think that was our last email for this time around, Bill. It was. Any final thoughts? No, I don't have any additional thoughts. I just want to say that nothing's perfect. And where we think that Linux is probably closer than some of the other OS is, you know, we sometimes get entertained by what you have to go through just to do simple stuff. Yes, absolutely. And the only other thing is, I wanted to say that our next episode will be after the new year and we will actually have a year in review. We seem to be doing that every year in around January or so. And we'll take a look back at 2019 and give some highlights of the things that we've observed (40/42)
and maybe some things that we've done. Good, bad, stupid, whatever. The bad or stupid falls under me. Not always, not always. But anyway, I hope that we'll have an opportunity there to take a look into the future as well and give some idea of where we think Linux is going. And I'm quite happy that 2019 was the year of the Linux desktop. Oh, you just had to say that, didn't you? Of course. How many years have you said that it was the year of Linux desktop for the past three years? You know what, I think that's the first time I've actually said it. I've actually said it, not the first time it's ever been said. But yeah, it's maybe. Anyhow, that will be our next episode. Yes, until then. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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 (41/42)
members by joining the discussion in our Going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinx.com. Please ignore the errors if you get them. Yeah, that's not our fault. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (42/42)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #349 · Linux Mint 19 Tara.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 349, a review of Linux Mint 19. Welcome to the Going Linux Podcast. I'm your host, Barry Bushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, a review of Linux Mint. Hello, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are you today? I am doing fantastic. How about yourself? Doing well, doing well. How's your week gone so far? Just a wonderful week. I wanted to let you know that we've got an updated edition of the last book that I wrote. Of course you do. Yes, of course. Well, it's the second edition of the Using Ubuntu Mate and its Applications. It's been updated for Ubuntu Mate 18.04 LTS. And since 18.04 is an LTS, I am hoping that I won't (1/42)
have to make any additional updates or revisions for a couple of years, at least. So this edition of the book will be an LTS as well. A long-term support book. So someone has gotten the book before. The old book still covers almost everything, but this one is just kind of the updated information. So you can still use either one, but if you want the latest and greatest, you get to second edition. Right. Some of the most significant changes are the menu layouts, you know, the panel layouts that allow you to make it look like, you know, Redmond's operating system or Cupertino's operating system without, you know, saying the words Windows and Mac OS. What are these operating systems that you speak of? I don't know, but the panel layouts have changed significantly and along with them the menus. And so some of the step-by-step instructions I had in the previous version, which was based, you know, it was based on supporting 17.10. Some of those have changed. I've added a couple of new things (2/42)
in there that are new features, some better explanations or more lengthy explanations of some other things. So there's there's a bunch of new stuff in there, but both editions are still valid. Both editions are still available on Amazon. I've got the paperback version of the second edition up, but I don't have the e-book version up yet. But I'm working on that. That'll be available soon. Well, yeah. So I've been a little busy. Just a little bit. How about you? Works going really well. Just busy as usual. But the news that I want to share with you is OpenSUSE was sold for $2.5 billion with a B dollars. Yeah. OpenSUSE wasn't sold. SUSE was sold. Yes. But OpenSUSE is tied. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, SUSE was sold. But OpenSUSE, and according to the company that bought them, or from Sweden, that they're not going to really change anything. So it should be business as usual. Yeah. Yeah. For the open source, OpenSUSE version of it. Yeah. So they've been sold a lot over the past few years. So I'm (3/42)
kind of interested to see what happens as a result of this. But my understanding is this is one of those investment kind of firms, silent partner kinds of things. So maybe there won't be too many changes. We'll see. Probably not. Maybe there might be a good thing, might be more money. But I just want to know, if you sell going Linux for $2.5 billion, do I get any of it? Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You can have a portion of it. I mean, you've contributed to this show. Thanks. Yeah. I'll give you the same proportion as I'm giving you of the money we earn. Wow. In donations. Well, not the same dollar value, because that would be zero. But the same proportion. Gee, thanks. I feel so much better now. Moving right along. So 50% comes to mind. Yes, there we go. Okay. All right. So what have you been doing for the past couple of weeks, Bill? The title of this episode might be a hint, right? Well, I've been running Linux Mint for over two weeks now. Okay. I'm not going to tell you. You're (4/42)
going to have to listen to the whole episode to find out what my opinions are. All right. So that's a teaser. Okay. Now, another one piece of news that might be as old as the open source is Google goes platinum into Linux Foundation. That's $500,000 a year. That is significant. Where were they before? They were like super platinum coated gold or something? I'm not familiar with the Linux Foundation levels. Silver. Okay. But you know who is also a platinum member? Microsoft. Yeah. Yeah, I knew that. Well, they're relying on Linux for a lot of their server based stuff now. Yeah. So, yeah, I think Google finally said, wait a minute, Microsoft was platinum and silver and we use a lot of Linux. Okay, we'll be platinum here. We'll just give you some more money there. I mean, $500,000 or even a million dollars to them is like couch money. We just found this in our couch here. Take that. So anyway. Yeah, they can trim it a lot to the code base on Linux now that they're using it a lot to (5/42)
support the Microsoft systems. And mark my words, I see a Microsoft branded version of Linux in the future. I'm not going to say how far in the future, but I'm thinking they're heading that direction. Say it's not so. Anyway, speaking of Microsoft, many ran here. They're pissing me off. And I don't care if anybody loves Microsoft. I don't like them. They cost me several hours of work this past week. Well, not only did it decide to just reboot my system, why I went to go make a sandwich while I was working on a report for work that had to be in at a certain time. It did save. I will say it did save it. That's fine. Part of it. But then it sat there for like 45 minutes updating and I'm like, yes, I got to get this in. I did get it in barely. But it's like. This is crazy. And apparently it's my fault because, yes, Windows 10. Now, this does not. You can turn it off in enterprise. But the laptop they gave me for some reason had a home on it. I guess they just because. So, OK. Bad, bad (6/42)
company. Anyway. We just write reports on them so I can understand when to save a little money. Why do they need professional or enterprise? You know, because all you're doing is typing reports and how hard can that be? I mean, you know. And so. On home, you can't tell it not to auto update because Microsoft is considering is going to that subscription model. And what they what they keep you keep hearing them say is their OS as a service or software as a service. And so any time you open up update to see if there's any updates, because we're required to check at least twice a week for any security updates. And if there is one, it just goes ahead and installs it. Not a problem without your permission. At the most inopportune times. Thank you. So much. Well, installing it is not the problem. It's the fact that you have to restart the computer after you install it and wait for all the updates to be applied as it's restarting. That's the problem. And since I live out in the middle of (7/42)
nowhere, my Internet's not the fastest. So you can imagine my joy and happiness when I'm sitting there going, we're updating your system. Please do not turn it off. I'm like, son of a gun. And then have to. And now I asked, son of a gun was not the words I was using. I bet. So this whole software as service, they're pushing they push these updates out. You remember, they're very good about making things difficult. Sometimes I don't want to apply an update right away. Sometimes I want to wait and see if this updates got any problems like I can do on my Linux machine. I can say I'll take that update, this update, this update and I click the descriptions and read them. Not everybody does, but I do. OK. These are the ones I want. But the update descriptions, if you do happen to get one from Microsoft, is system improvements. That doesn't tell me anything. Right. Yeah. Well, and they don't have to because it's proprietary software. Yes. OK, so grant done. I only have to use Microsoft for (8/42)
certain things. I can get away with some of the stuff on my next machine. I've got one game I can't get to run under wine. And I got my company's software that won't run under one either. So don't believe me, I've tried. But it's so I have to keep them on my machine and unfortunately. Anyway, moving right along. Yeah. So let's go to happier topics. Yes. Happier topics. So Larry, we're going to talk about today Linux Mint 19 Terra. OK. And Terra is the code name for Linux Mint 19. Terra is the code name, which I happen to like a lot. Yeah, I think it's because they always seem to name it like Sylvia or something like that. It's always cool. So Terra, I thought it's a really great name for it. So a long time ago, I ran Linux Mint. I even donated to the project. I gave it a rest for a while. And when one of our listeners suggested a review, well, I thought, hey, it's time to reload the latest and the greatest and see what's changed. We've we had been recommending Linux Mint. And this was (9/42)
before Ubuntu MATE even come out. Right. We've been recommending Linux Mint in the past. So I wonder if it was still worthy of the recommend. And I want to see how it compared to Ubuntu MATE 1804. All right. Yeah. Yeah. So let's let's dig into it a little bit, I guess. OK. So yes, Larry, I did download the 64-bit version. Good. Good. Since you have a 64-bit machine and the 32-bit software you're trying to use didn't quite work all that well before. It's good you've used the 64-bit version. I'm proud of you, Bill. Thank you. Step one, read instructions. Yeah. 64 is bigger than 32, 64 better. OK. That's how I remember. So I want to add a little footnote here. OK. Just because people have known that my Alienware is a grumpy beast. So because of my Alienware and the ACPI, I had to edit the grub boot config. Very straightforward. And I've included a link for anybody else that's having this problem. And it's in the show notes. And it's at Ask Ubuntu. Perfect. And I heard that this is (10/42)
sometimes is useful for other Dell computers. But this one was written specifically for Alienware. And anybody says, oh, it's very hard to edit the grub menu. It's not. It's very, very straightforward. And this article walks you through it. And you can even cut and paste if you want. I didn't. I read it and typed it in. So if you're having trouble getting your Ubuntu MATE, this applies because Ubuntu MATE or Linux meant to start. It's a temporary fix to get the system to boot. You can go into the advanced boot options. And then you can just, it's just one little line, you copy and paste if you wanted to. Right. Right. Right in there. It's not real hard. And all it is is basically ACPI equals, I believe it's no. Off. It's off. Yes. Off. So and then once you get in now, that's only a temporary fix. So once you get it installed and you'll have to do it one more time. This temporary to get the system to boot, then all you have to do is follow directions in this article and you'll open up a (11/42)
couple simple terminal commands. It shows you where to put it straightforward. You'll save it, reboot and voila, no more issues. OK. So the temporary fix gets you booted and you can run things and then you make the change in the grub file itself. The grub profile into the grub boot. Yeah. So that then saves it so you don't have to enter that every time you reboot. So that's correct. So, yeah, it works really, really, really well as far as of getting it. You know, and like I said, it's not it's not super scary. I know people say it sounds like scary because you have to use a terminal, but it's really straightforward. And if you follow this, the Ask Ubuntu article, it's pretty much straightforward and easy to understand. OK, beautiful. Well, that's good. That's yes. Yes. So I was very happy to run across that article and I think one of our listeners had actually suggested Ask Ubuntu for some of this. So that thank you ever suggest that. Yeah. So anyway, they have some really good forums (12/42)
over there, Ask Ubuntu. And they do. And a lot of good answers there that apply not just to Ubuntu, but other things as well. But it's a really good source of information. And like you said, Bill, we'll include that in the show notes. And that I remember using that ACPI equals off switch a number of years ago with some older hardware. I don't remember whether it was an HP laptop or a ThinkPad laptop, but I remember having to use that switch before. I don't remember all the details, but that's that's good that you found something that works for you. All right. So with that footnote caveat inserted, let's talk about Linux Mint 19 the good. OK. Yeah. So what are your impressions here about the good, the bad and the ugly? Right. First impressions. It's pretty. That's a good start. That's good to start. But I'm not going to start there. I'm going to talk about things that you've run across when you first get this started. You're going to see the update center. It has been updated. This kind (13/42)
of the update manager now selects all updates to install. And this includes updates to the kernel or the graphic stack. And what's kind of interesting is they've tied this into something we'll talk about in just a few minutes called time shift. And it's not the very first thing you do, but it does pop up. And Mint suggests that you set up regular backups so you can easily restore from a time before you apply a date or your system gets wonky. And it's pretty much seamless. It's professional quality. I mean, if you didn't know that this was a free operating system, you would swear that you had spent one hundred dollars. And what's nice about time shift, it uses our sync and see our sync. There's other interfaces for our sync, but time shifted. The user interface is really, really polished and easy to understand. There's no cryptic, you know, so if your first time user, if you can use a Mac or a Windows machine, you're going to feel right at home because there's there's really (14/42)
everything's so simple. That's how good it is. To be clear, though, just to make sure people understand what it is we're talking about. So there's the software called the Update Manager that manages your updates, as the name would suggest. So what you're saying is that it looks when you do your first updates to see if you have time shift defined and time shift is their name for their backup software, right? Yes. So when you first start the Update Manager, it checks to see if you have backups scheduled. And if you don't, it's suggesting that you go and do that? Yes. And it brings up the software for you. Oh, nice. And that's a good thing that they're doing that. Not to get you off track here, but the Linux Mint that I remember, the Update Manager gave you the option of level one updates, level two updates, and I think it went to level five and you could deselect the... It's one to three. One to three. OK, that's what it was. Yeah. So what does it still have that? Is there something (15/42)
changed in that? The Update Manager is a lot cleaner now. You're able to select which ones you want. So it doesn't have the one, two or three anymore. The Update Manager is very, very straightforward. It's very clean. It's like they took a page out of like a Mac's interface ideas. It's very, icons are very easy to read. The fonts are, you know, they said they updated to make it easier to understand. And but anyway, so it lists all the updates and the first time. And if you click on the update, it'll tell you, hey, this is what this does. Right. And, you know, there was one for Firefox and I didn't want to install it right away. So I went ahead and uncheck that box. I installed security updates for everything else and I kind of waited. You know, that's just me, how I do my updates. I like to see what it's actually doing. So after it gets those updates, it does something very, very cool. It says, would you like us to look for a faster update mirror for you? OK, so the server that it's (16/42)
using to go get the updates. That's what it's talking about when it says mirror. OK. Yeah. So after you get the initial updates, I guess from the basic, basically the Mint main, it says, you know, would you like us to find a much faster mirror for you? And if you click, you click yes, it will go out and it tests the connections. You tell it where you are, if you're United States or Great Britain or Germany or wherever, and it finds it and says, would you like to use this mirror? And you say yes and it changes it so you get all your updates from that mirror. Yeah, which I thought was a pretty forward thinking. Yeah, absolutely. And I remember, I think the last version of Mint that I used was 17.3. And it did something similar or did exactly the same thing on the mirrors. I remember that and thinking to myself, that's nice because it'll find a mirror that's closer or a mirror that's faster. And if I remember correctly, you can go into the update or settings and and set the mirror (17/42)
manually if you want to choose a different one. Yes. So one of the first things it does is brings up the manager, checks for updates, says, let's find you a better mirror. And then it suggests, OK, let's get your backup set up. So it's just walking you through these steps and it only takes a few minutes to get these steps up. And everything from start to finish was seamless. It was there's none of this crazy, you know, you have to open this terminal or anything. I mean, it's all very nice graphical user interface. Yeah, that's good. OK, so then, you know, of course, the welcome screen pops up. And they've redesigned it and made it a little nicer look. It's basically the software boutique that's in Mate, only it's got different theming. It's the same idea. And if you go through, you know, it says editor's picks. If you click that or suggested applications, a lot of these suggested ones bring up stuff you're looking for. So you don't have to search for them. Like, for instance, you know, (18/42)
I wanted Audacity. I wanted VLC. VLC was installed by default, which is nice. Yeah. But, you know, I changed a few applications and it was all right there. So it's like click, click, click, boom, enter password and downloads it and Harry's your uncle. I mean, it was installed just that simple. Now, not beating on Mate. I had a few issues, nothing game breaking, but I didn't have here with Mint. And I think it's not Mate's fault. I think it was a broken link. And one of them was Discord. It showed that Discord was in both of them. But when I tried to install Discord on Mate, it says file couldn't be found. But then it kept saying, would you like to install Discord? So I think it was a broken link. Yeah, it sounds like it. I've installed it. And to be clear, when you say Mate, you're talking about Ubuntu Mate because Linux Mint has a Mate version as well. So, yeah, when I've installed Discord, it's installed without any trouble. So it could be they just had a broken link at the time. So (19/42)
maybe it's not Ubuntu Mate's fault. Well, maybe it is because they maintained that broken link. But there we go. Anyway, so you didn't have any problem. That's the key thing with Linux Mint. That's great. Yeah, I didn't have any problem. Now, Ubuntu Mate and Linux Mint comparing the getting applications, I would have to say they're pretty equal. There's no game break changers or breakers in that whole process, OK? So to be totally fair. Besides having that new welcome screen and what gives you some basic information and applications and helps you get started. They did something I really, really liked. They changed the icons. The better they don't look like they're from the 90s anymore, which that's always been something that's bothered me on how crappy our stock icons work. I know you change them. Yeah, I know that. But out of the box, we should have great icons that look very modern. I sent you a screenshot of just the fresh install of Mint before I did anything to it. And you even (20/42)
noticed that the icons are very Mac-like. They're kind of flatter. Yeah, they're quite nice. Yeah, if you like that kind of design. But yeah, they're very attractive. Yeah, it's good. So this is not really it's nice that they did it and had some better looking icons. But if I didn't like the icons, I could change them. If I don't like the icons on Ubuntu Mate, I can change them. That's one of the nice benefits. So, yes, they made some decisions that look nice, look really nice. But there's nothing there is something that you can't get on Ubuntu Mate or any other Linux. You can get them on Fedora, on stock Ubuntu. I mean, you can change your desktop to do anything you want. So that's it's nice, but it's not, oh, wow, look how great it is. So that being said, Linux Mint 19 is supported until April 2023. But Ubuntu Mate is only supported to April 2021. And there's a reason behind that. OK. The reason is Ubuntu Mate follows the life cycle of Ubuntu. So what when they buy in what is it like (21/42)
three or four years, they'll introduce a new LTS or another two years. Think two years to release an LTS and Ubuntu Mate will follow that release cycle. Linux Mint has been known to take the last LTS in this and it takes them a lot a little bit longer to get everything set up. So they're going to be on the older code base. They update the applications, but then they're not following the same lockstep as Ubuntu Mate. So, right. That's that it's that's I would have to say Ubuntu Mate has a I would say a better method in my book because things change so rapidly. So the next release, you know, long term support release will have a bunch of new stuff that maybe Linux Mint 19 isn't is not supporting. You know how quickly things move. So I have to give that that attaboy to Ubuntu Mate for that. OK. But neither one of these is a make or break. I just wonder why is this one supported longer? Why is Mint supported longer? Well, they're using the older code base. But Ubuntu Mate will have already (22/42)
been on the next by the time, you know, they release their next one. Ubuntu Mate will already be on the next code base. And so, you know, the way things go, I think that's probably a good thing. That's just me. Yeah. So bottom line from an end user perspective, if you want a more up to date and update date, meaning more recent versions of software packages or more recent updates to the software, the Ubuntu Mate style of regular releases over a two year period with long term support versions every couple of years and interim releases in between is probably the way to go. And if you want more stability than the interim releases give you, you just stay on the LTS's. If you want something that's even more stable than that, you can go with Linux Mint, which maintains the LTS code base for even for its interim releases. And so that adds to the stability, but provides you the ability to get some updates in between the regular LTS kind of releases. Is that a good way of putting it? Yes and no. (23/42)
I would say that Ubuntu Mate has the advantage in this. Not because Linux Mint 19 there is a bad, but here's my feelings on it. Ubuntu Mate has all these developers working on the next release now. So a lot of eyes. It's not just one small core group. There is a small core group, but there's a lot of contributors. Linux Mint 19, in my opinion, that's their weak link in the chain. It's a small group of people modifying Ubuntu base for their distribution. And I'm not saying they don't have a lot of people helping them, but Ubuntu Mate has a lot more people looking at it. And not one small core group controls it. You don't have one developer like you do that's considered the head that can make decisions. I would have to say Ubuntu Mate, the way it's looked at, maintained, and developed is a stronger position than it is at Linux Mint 19. Even though I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But if I was going to be putting this on my... I don't want to be tied to one small developer (24/42)
group. Like I don't want to be tied to one small company, Microsoft, Apple, whatever. I think more people the merrier. So I'd say Ubuntu Mate has the advantage and makes me more comfortable because it's bigger governance. They're governed by the Ubuntu councils and stuff. So that's just me. And a lot of times this won't make a big difference to anybody, but it's something that needs to be mentioned is this governance style is a lot different. Right. And yeah, it does. And there was a time in history when Ubuntu Mate was run like Linux Mint in that it was a small group of people. It was essentially Martin Winpress and a small group of developers helping him to work on Ubuntu Mate. Now that Ubuntu Mate has actually become an official flavor of Ubuntu, that's where the additional governance comes in, the additional eyes, the additional support. And quite frankly, in developing Ubuntu Mate, that small team is still involved and the team has grown a little bit, but they must comply with the (25/42)
governance provided by Ubuntu. They have to meet the requirements of any other Ubuntu flavor in order to continue to be considered an official Ubuntu flavor. So yeah, that's where that comes from. And not to take anything away from the Linux Mint team. I don't know either one of us is saying that. They're doing a phenomenal job and the flexibility that gives you not being tied to Ubuntu from a governance perspective lets you go and experiment and try new things that perhaps Ubuntu might not let you do. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying when we're doing a review, we need to bring up these type of things because some people might have some problems or might not be as comfortable. So anyway, I'm trying to be as objective as I can. This isn't going, you know, I'm well, we always whether we like it or not, we always say, you know, we try to be fair on our reviews. And Ubuntu Mate has that six month release cycle and the LTS and they have downloads for 32 bit and 64 bit and (26/42)
Power PC if you're still using architecture that uses that. And the Raspberry Pi and Ubuntu Mate has snap support out of the box. How does Mint compare in all of those? We've talked a little bit about the LTS versus interim releases, but how about the other things? Mint only has an LTS. They don't do the six months releases. So if you wanted to see what was being released, you're pretty much out of luck. I mean, you'll have a completely stable system, hopefully. But if you want to see, hey, what's going on? You know, I just want to play with the latest interim releases, what's what they're going to be putting in the new LTS coming out, you can't do it. But, you know, you got to understand Mint goes for user being very user friendly. They don't do anything with servers. It's basically desktop focused only. OK, so let's talk about what's including the system. And this should be pretty close to Ubuntu Mate, but for those geeks that kind of like to have the numbers that he uses Linux (27/42)
kernel 4.15.0. Linux Mint does support 32 bit and 64 bit. I've heard rumors that they're thinking about getting rid of the 32 bit. Yeah. And I think that's an Ubuntu decision that will affect all Ubuntu derivatives. Yeah. So Mint does not support snaps out of the box. OK. They support flat packs. Ah, OK. So that's the route they've chosen to go. So how do you if you want snaps, can you add it? Yeah, it's sudo apt install snapped or snapd and you've got it. All you do is just load the the library so you can use snaps, you can use snaps to flat packs and you can use flat packs on and snaps on Ubuntu Mate because they're both Ubuntu based. So it's just that was the route they wanted to go with. I really care. I mean, either one seems to work. I've used both. So I would say this is not a game breaker, game changer. They both support the same thing. You might have to put one little command in to get the support. OK, that's really hard. Yeah. What's it going to move on? Yeah. The one I'm (28/42)
using, you know, they do have a Mate version of this, but I chose to go with Cinnamon because I like Cinnamon. They use Cinnamon 3.8.6, which is the latest one. And they talk about speed and stuff. It looks good. Everything looks nice. So it uses GTK 3.22. And of course, you know, it had the flat packs support. OK, so there's all this information in there. So there was just the highlights of what it has for those of the ones a little geekiness. But yeah, basically I was looking at both of them and a bunch of Mate and Mint pretty much have the same kernel. Might be a slight point difference depending on where they are in the updates or whatever like that. But other than that, not much difference in the applications. But here's something I have noticed. And if this might not be fair to Mint, but I just want to just kind of wanted to bring it up, is that it feels a little slower than a bunch of Mate. Running the same size partitions, the same swap space. I mean, everything's identical (29/42)
right down to the drive, the RAM, everything. And applications installed and running. A bunch of Mate feels much, much, much faster. Linux Mint doesn't feel slow, but you see the difference when you're loading like a browser. And a bunch of Mate is pretty much instantaneous for me. For Linux Mint, there's a delay of sometimes as much as three or five seconds, which I find weird. And the only thing I can attribute that to is just the way the display is displaying the information. I don't know why there's such a speed difference. It's not unbearable. And once I think it's loaded into memory, it's very, very fast. Just so everybody knows, I made sure that I had the same version of NVIDIA drivers installed on both of them. Right. I mean, there's no difference in that. They're set the same color depth, the same resolution. So I just want to let them know that I tried to put Apple into Apple. So if I had Dropbox installed and Discord installed, I had it on Linux Mint too, because I wanted to (30/42)
see what the performance was. Sure. So let me ask this in trying to compare apples and apples. I'm wondering if it was the Cinnamon desktop that might have been slowing it down. Did you try Linux Mint with Mate and see the same slowdown? I have not. And I probably should have. But we both know that Mate is fast. But in my experience, Cinnamon has been pretty fast too. Yeah. And I don't know if it's just... I mean, it's fast. It doesn't feel as fast as Mate. It doesn't launch things quite as fast. I mean, we're talking things are set up exactly the same. Now, I don't want anybody to think that I'm harshing on Linux Mint, because I'm not. It's very, very usable. It's very... I mean, you're not going to sit there and wait forever. I mean, you might have a two or three second delay before the browser opens. Not a big deal for some people. But my concern was, I have a pretty powerful machine with a pretty beefy video card with the latest Nvidia drivers. I think should be popping pretty (31/42)
quick. That's just my feelings. None of these are game breakers because most people don't bother them. I think one of the things we've always said is Linux is fast. And if I have a pretty beefy system and you have a pretty beefy system and we're seeing these delays, what's a person that maybe is trying to repurpose an older laptop? You see where I'm going with this? But I'm trying to keep everybody in mind. And so, if you have a very beefy system, current, within a year, whatever, I would say, yeah, great. Don't worry about any of this. But if you have an older system, I would suggest either going with the Ubuntu Mate, just because the desktop's lighter. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's a good point. Just to be fair, when talking about Firefox, I've done some installation of Ubuntu Mate on some older systems recently, quite a bit, in fact. And I've noticed that, especially in the older systems, it's quite noticeable that the first time you launch Firefox after installing the new operating (32/42)
system, that it takes a lot longer to load than subsequent times. And it does seem to be more sluggish on starting up Firefox than it does something like Chrome. So yeah, it's probably a good application to test speed of launching against, because the differences are noticeable, more noticeable with Firefox than maybe other applications. I actually did. I actually installed Chrome, because I was like, why is it so slow? So I installed Chrome, I installed Opera, I even installed just a Chromium version. And they all are within milliseconds of each other. I was just surprised because of... Now, this does not make it unusual. I'm just saying, you know, sometimes I have to go, why is this thing not up already? It's just a browser. I guess the point is, it's noticeable. Yes, it's noticeable to me. It's not intolerable. It's just noticeable. Okay. Yeah. And just to finish, because I know our listeners will wonder, I was looking at memory usage, and I wanted to bring this point up when I was (33/42)
talking about this. The memory usage for Linux Mint running just average, having an average browser with two or three tabs, you know, Aldasi running, I've got Update Manager because I never closed it on running, and stuff like that. Linux Mint runs for about 2.3 to 2.8 gigabytes of memory usage average. Mm-hmm. Okay. I also went back and looked at my notes, and this is pretty substantial in my book. I think, you know, when I looked at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I (34/42)
was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and I was looking at the memory usage for the Linux Mint, and just my observations, and these are not scientific, that the memory usage seems to be a little higher on the Linux Mint, and I just, under the cinnamon, I don't know what it is under a mate, I should probably check that out, and I can always just post in the forums and let you know what I found, but just wanted to kind of let you know about that, because I want everybody to have as much information as I can, okay? Yeah, yeah, good, yeah, that would be helpful to do a quick comparison and post it onto the Google Plus forums, and yeah, so, final verdict, what do you think? Both are excellent (35/42)
distributions, but Larry, they've really stepped up their game, and so, you know, I told you I would tell you my first impressions, and so here it is. It was stunning to look at, and it worked well. I think this is a real winner. Three worked icons are nice. The backgrounds they include are some of the best I've seen. I'm also impressed with the fit and finish of the Linux Mint, and there were zero deal breakers. So, my final verdict, based on five stars and drum roll please, is 4.8, and it's very solid and well polished. Now, that being said, you might be saying, well, which one do you want to go with? And this is going to surprise you. I only unloaded this to review it, and I've run it for two weeks, gave it a fair shot, but I prefer, for certain things, Ubuntu Mate. So, would I recommend Linux Mint to people? Absolutely. Would I recommend Ubuntu Mate? Absolutely. You can't go wrong with either one of them, and you kind of have to pick which one you like better. But I look at a few (36/42)
different things, just about how it's managed, the philosophy behind it, the developers, how often it's released, how they treat developers, etc. And in my opinion, Ubuntu Mate is better for me, but might not be better for everybody. But that being said, could I recommend Linux Mint with a clear conscience and expect someone to have a good experience, or actually I'll say an excellent experience? Yes, I would. Good. Good. Well, yeah, I'll have to give it another try and see how it looks. I'm pretty invested into Ubuntu Mate at this point. Yeah, but yeah, I might give it a try on a second machine and see how it goes, our virtual machine. Let me ask you a question. Now that you've heard my praises and my concerns and my information, what would you rate, without looking at it, if I gave you all this information, would you consider using this? I would. I would consider using it. I think your review gives a very positive feeling of Linux Mint. I have taken a look at their release notes for (37/42)
Linux Mint Cinnamon and gone through some of the updates that they have. And having looked at the screenshots that you've provided, as well as the ones that are on the website, I think this is, between Ubuntu Mate and Linux Mint, current versions, it's very tough to recommend one over the other. I think if it's someone who has an older computer, I'm still going to recommend Ubuntu Mate because of the speed difference that you mentioned, and the older the computer, the more significant the performance will be. Yeah, so, but I think that, like you said, with a clear conscience, could I recommend Linux Mint 19? Absolutely. I think so. And I'll give it a try and see where we go from here. Okay, so we haven't done one of these software picks in a while, and I just wanted to give one, and it's available in repositories. It's Clam Antivirus, but to make this easy to use, you want to also install Clam TK. And that basically is a front end for Clam Antivirus, because Clam Antivirus usually is (38/42)
just a command line, but the Clam TK is a nice, very friendly user graphical interface, and it makes it super easy to use. So that's my software recommendation. Okay, well, and I don't have a software recommendation, but bonus tip. We know that Linux is more secure, and that's one of the things we like about it, of course. But remember, you have to do your part to be very careful about installing programs from the web, and we've talked about this over and over again on the podcast. The safest way to get your software is from the official repositories, whether that's the Mint repositories for Linux Mint or the Ubuntu and Ubuntu MATE repositories for Ubuntu MATE. Stick with the repositories. Be careful and be selective about getting software from third parties. Even the Snap applications and the Flatpak applications, they can be considered third party because they're not given the same scrutiny as the packages that are in the repositories. Now, yes, okay, the Flatpaks and the Snap (39/42)
packages are oftentimes a little more up to date, and that's really the purpose of providing those, especially with the focus on long term support releases. But be careful. Be careful with them as well. So another FYI, be selective on your browser extensions because they can do some nasty things as well. They are third party applications that run in your browser. Let me say that again. They are third party applications that run in your browser as extensions, and they are programs, and they can do nasty things, like I said, and they can steal your personal data, compromise your system. So whether you're using ClamAV or whether you're not using any sort of antivirus on Linux, just be careful. That's really the best practice overall. So there you go. Yeah, that's very good. I mean, you could have the most secure Linux system, but if you have that nasty little thing running as a browser extension to find the best coupon deal, and it's, by the way, stealing all your browser history and (40/42)
stuff, there's not much you can, you know? Yeah, exactly. And those browser extensions are cross platform, so they'll attack equally anybody, whether you're running Linux, Mac, Windows or something else. So just be aware of what you put in there, and I think you'll be fine. Yep. Okay, I think that is enough to wrap us up here, Bill. What do you think? I think so. I think they've heard enough of me droning on for a while. So what's our next episode? You're a Linux Mint fanboy now. Okay, our next episode is... Actually, no. No? Okay, you're going to stick with Ubuntu, mate. I told you, as soon as this is over, I'm going to go back, but I wanted to run it for over two weeks to give it a fair shot. So I would say I like it. I wouldn't say I'm a fanboy. Okay, I hear Bear waiting for us to wrap this up. So our next episode will be listener feedback. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinux.com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and subscribe. We are the (41/42)
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 Linux Podcast Google Plus community. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. (42/42)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #315 · 10th Anniversary Episode.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 315, 10th year anniversary episode. 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 find this and all episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, 10 years in review. This could be a very long episode. Ten years? Yes, ten years. Our first episode was January 20th, 2007. You've been doing this ten years. Yes, sir. Ten years. So that's approximately... Well, I can cheat. I can look right here. It's 315 episodes. Mm-hmm. Yes, that's right. Maybe 16. Are you counting the video tutorials you've done? No. No, those are... So it's actually more? Yes, yes, you could say that. So let's see. You've been to scale, right? Yes. You've been (1/42)
on Computer America. How long were you doing that? Oh, several years. Longer than I thought I had. You know, when I looked at all the details, I didn't think I had been on that show for quite as long as I had. Give me a second. I can look it up. Let's see. I was there from 2009... No, 2008 through 2014. Wow. You did a lot of those. Yes, you did. Because that was... Every week. Well, yeah, it was every week, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. Except for, you know, at Christmas time, the end of the year stuff they would do. Best of episodes, you know, repeats for a week or two. I have to tell you, in all fairness, I never listened. Well, I didn't say never. I've rarely listened to the Computer America episode episodes. I am so offended. I found that other guy, he was sometimes annoying. Well, you know, you're not the only person who didn't listen to the Computer America episodes. Let's just put it that way. Oh, okay. Moving right along, you know, 2016, I like to call it the year that changed it all. (2/42)
Oh, really? Okay. Why is that? Well, I moved to California. Yeah. That's from the East Coast. Yeah, that's a huge change for you. That's for sure. That was a pretty big change. I mean, had seen things going on. It's been a wild year. Well, we're recording this now. It just is 2017, so I'm hoping that this won't be a lot less eventful. Let's put it that way. Right, right. Like no more moving all the way across the country. Maybe a state or two away, but not all the way across the country. Yeah, yeah. Thinking about moving just a couple states over, but it's going to stay right in this general vicinity, so that's always a good thing. I am not Larry. Larry's a California guy. He's never leaving. Something that I can't understand and I hope that you can answer, Ubuntu 16.04 has included support for ZFS. Yeah, you know what? I haven't really followed that at all. I mean, I've heard about it. I listened to the Linux action show, the Jupiter broadcasting guys talking about this, but I'm not (3/42)
really interested in it, so I don't really follow it. Do you have any details on it? I mean, is it significant? I've played with it. Well, I think ZFS is an awesome file system. It's got all those features. You can back up. You can make images. I mean, it's wild. It's a real high performance file system. I was always an impression that its license, which I believe is under the BSD, was not compatible with the... GPL? GPL. I haven't had a lot of coffee yet, so you have to help me out until that caffeine gets in my brain. Okay. No problem. I can do that. I don't know how they pulled that off, but I'm glad to see it in there. I mean, I really didn't see why it couldn't be included. Everybody told me that there was no way that the licenses could work because the BSD license is so much more liberal in a lot of aspects than the GPL. And now it also depends on which GPL a bunch is using. I think they're still using the... what is it? The original GPL? They're using 2 now. Yeah, I think the (4/42)
Linux license is GPL version 2. The current version of the GPL is version 3, which has even more restrictions on it than the original GPL version 2. I always found that interesting, you know, the GPL version 3 having all these restrictions. And I'm thinking, well, from a freedom standpoint, why? You see how I want. Yeah. Well, I have described it as a GPL version 3 protects your freedoms unless you want freedom of choice. Ah. You see, so and freedom of choice is not one of the four primary freedoms that the Free Software Foundation supports. That's what's his name's Stallman? Richard Stallman. Yes, his foundation. He's always... I'll say this. He always seemed to be like the mad cat professor to me. Yeah, he's a character, that's for sure. But I'm just saying people can still license their open source projects into version 2, can't they? GPL version 2? Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, both. You can use either license at this point and you can select from whatever license you want as long as it (5/42)
serves the purposes that you have for the software that you're developing. It's just so the version 3, it has some some restrictions as to what you can do, how you can do it. And yeah, it's just generally more restrictive. And we'll have to put a link in our show notes, I guess, to the GPL so that people can make their own informed judgment and decision about it. And I'm sure that there will be those who disagree with me out of principle. But the fact is that the GPL version 3 is a restrictive license as compared with some of the other open source licenses like the BSD license. Much more permissive. Which is my favorite license. But just out of curiosity, what's yours? Oh, my favorite one? Well, since I'm not writing software, my licenses are more in the publishing area. And I like Creative Commons. And the Creative Commons licenses are for things that are published works like podcasts and like blog posts and things like that. And there are various versions of that that allow you (6/42)
control over how permissive you want to be with your particular license, including the equivalent of a BSD or an MIT type license that or an Apache type license that is extremely permissive and lets you do anything you want with it. Anything you want with the published work. Or you can become more restrictive and require things like if you use this work, there's attribution and so on. So, yeah, I guess Creative Commons would be, from a licensing perspective, something that I know a little bit about and something that would be considered my favorite if there is a favorite. Wow. Okay. How about you? I don't really do a lot of publishing, but if I was going to do it, I would do it under Creative Commons. Sure. I actually saw, I was on YouTube and just for giggles, I typed going Linux and someone had taken our audio. Yeah. And just posted back up, but they did attribute it with the Creative Commons license in the description. Yeah. And that's completely permissible. Yeah. I'm like, hey, (7/42)
that's cool. Yeah. As far as licenses, like I said, there's no, well, there is a right and wrong, but in open source, you kind of got more of a pick. Yeah. Because there's some of these licenses, some of this proprietary software, Windows, that is really, if you really start reading through it, it's really restrictive. Yes. Even compared to the GPL version three, it makes that look like it's a free breakfast. But one last thing before we move on from the licenses, was the version three of that license, was that whole Tivo controversy some of the reason that it was changed? Right. That's exactly why it was changed, is to incorporate the restrictions to the license so that companies with hardware couldn't prevent you from reverse engineering. Yeah. Reverse engineering and bypassing any restrictions that they have on use. Essentially, if you use GPL licensed software in a device like Tivo and it's GPL version three, you can't use it in a device like Tivo because that would be against the (8/42)
license. Whereas version two, you could use that software in that particular environment. That's my understanding. And you know, I may have some of those details a little bit wrong, but I'm not an expert in those licenses. Well, I do know Linus has said that he is not going to use version three for the kernel. It's going to be version two. Yeah. And that's good. He's a lot smarter than me. So I'm going to say if I got to use GPL, I'm going to use version two. But anyway, no, not meaning to be political there, but it was just kind of interesting because of that ZFS brought all that. Right. And one last word on the version three, the provision in that license that makes it something that I really don't care for is the fact that if you use GPL version three license software within anything that you do, it requires that you license your software that you wrote using GPL three. What? Yeah, that's what I mean by it protects every freedom except your freedom of choice. That seems kind of (9/42)
counterintuitive. You want people to use links how they want to use it, but oh, by the way, you can't do it unless you do it how you want. We want you to do it. You can have as much freedom as you want as long as you do, the freedom is how we agree with it. That's exactly the interpretation that I read into that as well. We're going to have to do an updated episode on all the licenses and explain a little more in depth. Yeah, that could get very technical and very geeky very quickly. So we'll have to be careful as to how we describe things. Okay, so... Maybe we should get an expert on the show to discuss it. Yeah, you go ahead and work on it. Wait a minute. That's my job. Nevermind. Let's see if we can get Richard to talk. No, let's not. No, no, no. He would not like us. Yeah, I heard his interview on the Linux action show and I was squirming in my chair for those guys. Yeah, I actually listened to that. He's militant, I'll put it that way. Anyway, so 10 years of podcasts, episodes, 10 (10/42)
years of articles on the website, 10 years of screencasts, and 10 years of co-hosts who you've just worn out. Apparently so, yeah. Serge was my first co-host, as you remember, and he was a co-host for under a year. He wasn't listening here. I know. So he was the co-host, or we were co-hosts of each other. We both started the show in the early episodes. And Serge was a Mac and Unix user, longtime Unix user, very experienced in Linux. And a university professor who moved out of state, got a promotion, moved out of state. And before he left the Going Linux podcast, he had started up his own, which since has long gone, no longer is around. It was the Linux install podcast. He turned over the reins of that to someone else when he stopped hosting that. And that person didn't keep it up. So that podcast is long gone, as I said, although you can probably still find the episodes somewhere out there. Yeah. So that's Serge. And then, then came Tom. Yeah. So we had, so you had Tom for just under (11/42)
six years. Yeah. Tom was located in Wisconsin, US of A, and he was co-host from August 2007 until April 2013. Wow. Yeah. And he was a Going Linux podcast, he was a Going Linux podcast listener who wanted to contribute to the podcast. So Tom started as a complete Linux newbie who developed some pretty mad Linux skills, if I remember correctly. Yes, he did. Yes, absolutely. A running joke at Tom's expense, which we still use occasionally, come from a listener and podcaster called Nightwise who described Tom as removing the bolts from a jet engine in mid-flight. Yep. And he did. Yes, he did. Yeah. I remember one time we were recording and Tom was having issues and we're like, and Tom was an Ubuntu user. So he had upgraded his Ubuntu machine from the very, very early stages for like eight or nine. Upgrades. Upgrades in place. And that's after they changed the interface and they added all this stuff. He just kept upgrading. He never did a clean install. And the thing was just finally (12/42)
saying, I can't do that anymore. It's broken. So we were both kind of laughing at that saying, well, now it just goes to prove you can upgrade. But after eight, ten in place upgrades, you might need to clean out the fluff and crud. Yes, yes, indeed. But he was always up for a challenge. He was. And he finally had to step back because of some health issues and stuff. So, you know, we missed Tom. We still get occasionally we still have people ask about Tom. And as far as we know, I haven't talked to him in about a year, maybe a year and a half now with everything going on this year. But I think he's still doing okay. He's just kind of enjoying his retirement. Right. Anyway. Okay. And then six years of you, Bill. I'm sorry. So you joined us in December of 2011 and you started off filling in for Tom and we gave you the moniker of chief executive minion, which was kind of cool. We figured we had all kinds of minions. And so we made you the chief executive minion. And then in April of 2013, (13/42)
you became the full time co-host. So we had three co-hosts for a while and you brought at that time the perspective of a distro hopper and Linux gamer to our discussions. Would you say you're still a distro hopper and a Linux gamer? I don't do as much gaming as I used to and I don't. And I've pretty much settled on Ubuntu. I still tinker with Slackware. Yeah. I have a love hate with that distro. And but yeah, pretty much I'm I now have gotten to where I just, you know, like things to just work. And but every once in a while I'll get a wild hair and decide it's time to blow something away and try something different. But yeah, I still run a Slackware machine. It's when I when I can get it to run. I mean, I do. I do like Slackware just because it's a challenge. But my main go to is Ubuntu. And over time I've just kind of settled down a little bit. Occasionally I will try to get things running in Linux and it's a little bit easier. But I haven't done a lot of it lately. But I think it's (14/42)
just not because I don't have time. It's just I need to get work done with my machine. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of gets to be the thing that happens as maturity of use of an operating system occurs. You end up needing to get some work done with it and you settle into whatever is most comfortable. And the experimentation is kind of more of a hobby than it is something that you do on a regular basis. At least I that's been my experience as well. And I just want to point out it's time for my yearly pay increase. You know, I think it's been under a year since you asked for a raise. But we'll grant it anyway. We'll give you the same percentage increase as we did last time. One hundred percent of nothing is still nothing. Yes. It works for me. But, you know, I have to ask at least once a year for a raise. At least. At least. And I'm pretty generous. Yeah, you're awful generous. In terms of percentage increases. Yeah. Now, we've had 10 years of Larry Bushey. Mm hmm. Good or bad. That's not a (15/42)
question. Good or bad. Take it however you want. I would say it's been pretty good. You're the host and originator of the Going Linux podcast. Larry, you've been using Linux full time since 2006. Yep. You also co-hosted a Windows Focus podcast from 2005 to 2007. Right. Larry, according to your bio, you have 20 years of experience as a corporate trainer and public speaker. 20 years? Mm hmm. You haven't run out of things to say yet? Nope. Still talking. And you're currently employed providing cloud technology as a consultant for large corporations. Wow. Yes, sir. Yep. Okay. From 2008 through 2014, you were the monthly Linux correspondent on Craig Crossman's Computer America radio show. Mm hmm. So. Yeah. Did they did they finally decide that they wanted to go in a different direction for Linux? No, I decided that I didn't really have the time to put in every week to come up with, you know, topics for supporting the show. And, yeah, so they they've continued with Linux segments. The host (16/42)
or the Linux correspondent that I had replaced was a gentleman by the name of Marcel Gagné. And my understanding is he's now their host again for the Linux segments. And he has once again taken up the mantle that I took up to support the Computer America radio show. So life goes on. So in your 10 years of promoting Linux, do you have any things that you're particularly proud of? Yeah, I think one of the things that I am particularly proud of in promoting Linux and being an advocate for Linux is that we've grown the podcast to the point where we have quite a few listeners. And the listeners kind of rotate in and out. We've got some longtime listeners that have been listening from the from the first episode. And some have started part way through and gone back and listened to all the old episodes and made their way forward. Quite a few folks have done that. And some folks stop listening to the show because they've either gone beyond the need for an introduction to Linux and the kind of (17/42)
topics that we cover and are listening to other shows that are a little more. Well, cover a little more depth into the technical aspects of Linux and that sort of thing. And we're always gaining some new listeners. So I'm very proud of that. I'm also proud of the fact that one of our articles was quoted in InfoWorld. And that was the one on why a computer preloaded with Linux is the right way to go for many people. And they were, you know, they were writing articles on that kind of thing and our article supported their argument. So they quoted it. And I think that was pretty good as well. I'm also proud of the fact that we've had a couple of very long term co-hosts, you and Tom, both for about the same amount of time. Ten years is a long time to run a podcast, but six years or so is a significant amount of time, an award winning amount of time to be a co-host on a show like this. And congratulations to you and to Tom for sticking it out with me for so long as well. Well, let's put it (18/42)
this way. It has not been without its controversies. That's true. That's true. Boy, those have been fun. But we won't go back. But yeah, I remember we've had a few. So, you know, we're kind of doing that combined episode here. We're kind of celebrating our 10 year anniversary and seeing what was accomplished in 10 years. But, you know, we should probably move a little bit more current because I have a hard time remembering what I ate for breakfast. So, let's go with what happened in 2016. Yeah, okay, let's do that. Because it's been an interesting year. It has. And we're, you know, we're not going to cover everything that happened in 2016. Just some highlights. Just some highlights. And we're going to focus on the Linux events as opposed to political events or other things that may have happened in the world in 2016. Yeah, so the first one was Fedora was the first to ship with Wayland. And that's that system that's designed to replace X, the display system that's been used in Linux for (19/42)
the past 25 years. Forever it seems. Yeah, exactly. And that has been a bit controversial as well. Really? It's been a little bit difficult times getting it completed, but 2016 was the year when that happened. So, which distribution has Wayland shipping in production? Well, I know Fedora does. And I'm not sure, but I think Ubuntu might have it too. I think it's available. I'm not sure that it's shipping by default yet. I think you can get it. But, you know, I kind of understand what most people say is like, you know, now X does have its limitations. I think Wayland was part of the effort to bring it into a little more updated technology. I don't know a whole lot about it except that from what I heard, you can do a lot more with Wayland. And I don't know what all the technical details. I mean, I guess I should have looked at it a little closely. But, you know, when I've played with some of the latest Vedoras, I really didn't notice that much of a difference. But that's just me. Yeah, (20/42)
it's a difference in the protocol they use for the display. And there's a lot of technical details behind that. We'll include some links in the show notes to help you dive into that if you're interesting. But one of the most significant things is that X, the default server in Linux for 25 years or however long it was, was designed to run over a network. And as a result, wasn't necessarily designed for a lot of graphical support. Although you can do things like compositing and so on with X. One of the things, as I understand it, that Wayland is trying to do is to provide better support and more capabilities around graphical displays. Which will help out those folks who want to use gaming on Linux and want to better utilize the graphical display and the graphical capabilities of the Linux operating system. There's some security issues that Wayland is meant to address as well. And of course the architecture itself is different. So there are definitely some technical differences between (21/42)
the two. Wayland is meant to be an improvement. As with any change, I'm sure there are some things that you're going to lose as a result of moving from X to Wayland. I don't know any of the details around any of that. As I said, it's something that if you're interested in that, we'll have links so that you can dig into that in depth. It's not something that I'm really keenly interested in, so I am not an expert in it. And as you observed, Bill, from the average computer user perspective, the difference as of right now at least is not really noticeable. So unless you're challenging your computer in the ways that Wayland is supposed to improve it, you probably won't notice any difference at all. I would say that the X system is good. I mean, I've played Quake 2 and it looks really great. So I just want it to work. You know, we've had a few people try to develop a non-Linux based system and didn't go so well. Yeah, what you're talking about there is operating systems like Firefox OS, (22/42)
which I guess you could argue that maybe it had some elements of Linux in there, but they wanted to develop their own operating system. And in 2016, they stopped. And that's kind of unfortunate in some ways. I mean, who needs another operating system, right? But they said that about Windows when it first came around. And look where it is today. But Firefox OS, that's from the Mozilla Foundation, the same folks that do Firefox, the browser and the operating system. They started to develop and it was an operating system that was for not just desktops, but specifically for phones as well. At least that was the intent. And in 2016, they announced they would be the operating system that would be in the Panasonic Ultra High Definition TVs as the embedded operating system. But later that same year in about September, they announced that they had ceased developing Firefox OS and all its related code was going to be removed from the Mozilla site. Well, I just don't know if it ever really got (23/42)
traction support from users that Linux has. I mean, I didn't read their licensing. I can't remember how they were going to license it, but I don't know. It just seemed to me that there was a little bit of excitement around it and then just quickly died. And it was based on the Linux kernel, so technically it was a Linux distribution if you wanted to consider it that way. But you're right, it never got the traction that it needed to continue on. And I think they decided that they needed to focus on those areas where they were getting some success and abandon the effort on Firefox OS. Yeah. Well, you know, another one, another project I'm kind of sad to see go is Mythbuntu. They shut down. Yeah, they did. And I was a little surprised to see that. They were really the first TV operating system, if you want to describe it that way. Myth TV is where it came from. And Mythbuntu, the distribution, took off from there and became very popular, I thought, at least, at least within those people (24/42)
that wanted to run TV on their Linux system. It was popular, but unfortunately, what the developers said is when they first started, they had like 20 developers and toward the end they had two. And they said, we just can't maintain it anymore. Now, all that being said, we want to thank them for everything they did, but you can also still get a lot of the packages they used in the repos. So, I mean, you can still get the functionality, but Mythbuntu kind of put everything in one distro. So you have to do a little bit more now, but I'm kind of sorry. That's why it's so important to be involved in some of these projects, especially if you use it. Exactly. And I think for those people wanting to watch movies and cut the cable company cord, CODI seems to be the system that many people are using. So I want to describe it as popular these days. And they've got a lot of capability built in and it's in the Ubuntu repositories as well. And Ubuntu Mate makes it very easy to install CODI if you (25/42)
want to use it. And it's available, certainly, as a Debian package for anybody with a Debian based distribution. Now, I was just going to say the world has turned upside down. I heard about it, but I'm sitting there going, what? Yeah. Some people say that hot places have frozen over as a result of Microsoft joining the Linux Foundation. Yes, indeed. Microsoft loves Linux, or at least that's what they proclaim. And a lot of strange things, or you might consider them strange because Linux has not always been all that popular in Microsoft circles. No, I think they called it a cancer. Yes, yes, exactly. So Microsoft has gotten a new CEO since those days, Satya Nadella. And the whole company has taken a little bit of a different turn in many different aspects of its business, especially going to a more license based as opposed to selling software in packages and delivering CDs to folks. And as a result of that, or in combination with that, or in parallel with that, their attitude towards (26/42)
Linux has changed as well. And they have adopted open source and created some open source projects. They contribute back to the Linux kernel as well, particularly in those areas, as you would expect, where it supports Microsoft's products in virtualization and networking and those kinds of things. It's not true. It's not true. Yes, it's true. They're contributing back. And as a result, they've joined the Linux Foundation. And, you know, they've always had folks operating from within Microsoft that have been supporting open source and open source projects, including Linux. And they've just made that an official part of what they do now. And they've even put a Linux subsystem inside of the Windows operating system. So you can run the Ubuntu command line from within the latest Windows operating system. It's supported and provided by Microsoft in combination with Canonical. Is the sky still blue? I mean, come on, really? I don't know. Things certainly have changed in this world. So we have (27/42)
always been a little bit, I wouldn't say we bash Windows, but we've always been kind of critical of them. And when you said they moved more toward a licensed type of business, they're trying to get into that cloud computing part more and more and services. That's their big thing. They want to sell you services. And one of the things that I still do not like, I do have installed on my machine because I have programs for work and stuff. I have to use the company mandates it. But Windows 10 is not a very privacy friendly operating system. It sends quite a bit of data back, even if you shut down a lot of stuff. I mean, there's news stories. You can just do a search and all the major computer magazines have had an article about all the stuff that the system still sends back. They do say it's randomized and anonymous and stuff, but I tend to be a conspiracy theorist. I said, well, it can't be too anonymous because you need information about users habits and stuff like that to make services (28/42)
work. So I'm not real comfortable. I use Linux probably about 75% of the time when I'm not killing zombies or something like that or using it for work. But I know there's a big controversy and this is one of the things I do love about Linux. I control when I push an update through and a lot of times I'll wait for a little bit when I issue updates just to make sure there's no problems. But in Windows 10, you can only postpone it so many times and then it forces you. You have no choice. So I don't like not having control and it's just me. I mean, it's my machine. I should be able to do with it what I want. But I just find it incredibly interesting that Microsoft is trying to be more friendly. But if you've been following any type of news, you'll see the stories of people getting upgraded because they changed the buttons and stuff like that. They thought they dismissed it and they left their computer and come back an hour later and it had been upgraded. It's just I still don't trust them, (29/42)
but that's just me. I like open source. I like having control. I like being able to look at the code. I think you're giving them too much credit coming back an hour later and the upgrade has been completed. I don't think they can do that in an hour. Okay. But anyway. I get the point. Yes, absolutely. Like I said, I'm not bashing them. I'm just saying I find this kind of a conflict in my mind. Okay, yeah. We support open source. We're going to get back, which is great. You want to get back to open source? That's wonderful. But some of your business practices are pretty crappy in my book, but that's just me. Don't mean to start a firestorm, but it's just I find that really weird that they did finally become much more friendly. Because like I said before, I believe it was Steve Ballmer who said Linux is a cancer. Yeah, I think you're right that he was the one who said that. And because he's no longer there, things are changing. Things have changed. Things will continue to change. And (30/42)
although they are tending towards the use of open software, open source software a lot more than they have in the past, they're still not an open source company truly in everything that they do. And their main objective is to make money, make a profit. And it's difficult to make money on software that you give away. Although, you know, folks have said that they're giving away their Windows operating system for free now. Arguments to be made that HowFree is something when you're required to upgrade and you're required to pay for, you know, new hardware because of that upgrade, because the old version won't support the hardware that you have. Or just a vast amount of data that's sent. Yeah, that whole privacy thing. So, bottom line, though, is that I think they're becoming much more accepting of open source as a concept and they're definitely getting more and more involved in it. Are we going to see a Microsoft distribution of Linux in the future? I wouldn't put it past them. If you (31/42)
can't beat them, join them, I guess. Yeah, exactly. And some have even rumored that the Windows operating system will be based on Linux sometime in the future. I don't know whether that will happen or not, but we'll see. Yeah, when pigs fly. There you go. So, we have two milestones. And the first one is KDE. It turned what? 20. 20 years, yes. KDE for the uninitiated is one of the desktop environments that you can get for Linux. It used to be that it would run on Windows as well. I don't know whether it still does or not, but certainly they are supporting it for Linux and BSD and other Unix-based operating systems. And it's been around for 20 years as of 2016, so they're working on their 21st year. Now Linux turned 25. Yes. Yes. 1991. Linux has come a long way since the beginning. Oh, that's for sure. And, you know, you can read all the history of Linux and how it got started with Linus Torvalds as a kind of a small project. And, you know, quite frankly, if it weren't for partners like (32/42)
Richard Stallman, Linux probably wouldn't be where it is today. Richard was working on a similar sort of project. Linus had the kernel and Richard had the desktop environment or the user interface or whatever you want to call it, the user land portion of it. And, you know, it's the combination of the GNU tools with the Linux kernel has evolved into what we have today as Linux or some would argue more accurately referred to as GNU Linux. And 25 years it's been around. Well, OK, I'll give credit that he helped, but I don't think he's as relevant as he used to be. I would say if anybody deserves credit would be Fedora or Red Hat. Red Hat, OpenSUSE, even Ubuntu. And let's not forget Debian. Those guys really do a lot to promote Linux. Red Hat being one of the better known ones in the Debian project, of course. So I would have to say it was kind of like a marriage of opportunity more than anything. Yeah, I would agree that after its initial launch, Linux really took on a life of its own in (33/42)
the form of the various distributions, some of which are still around, like Ubuntu and Red Hat and so on, and others of which have disappeared like Mandrake and others. But in that intervening time, the real development has been on the part of the developers and Linus Torvalds has become the chief maintainer of the Linux kernel, as he should. You know, it could be argued that that's the right place for him. But the operating system, through its users and its developers, who are also its users, has taken on a life of its own and has developed in many, many ways and continues to do so. And part of the success has been because of the open source model. Well, I think his title is what? Belivement Dictator for Life or something like that. But one that we didn't mention, and they do a lot of good work, is the Linux Foundation. They seem to be on top of things. I like Linus just because he just tells you what he thinks. He has no filter and I just enjoy that. He's a perfectionist, but he's (34/42)
not the only one. He has a bunch of developers that help him. But it's nice to be able to see someone who has really kind of kept the focus laser sharp. So good on him. You know, I was thinking back to some of the Linux distros I've used and I would say one of my favorites, even though I wish I could still find, I still have a CD of it somewhere. I need to put it in virtual machine just to play with it again, was the one that I always liked. It was called Fedora Werewolf. I think it was version 7. Oh, wow. It was pretty good for back then. But when you can compare three or four years ago to what we have today, you can see how much easier it is to get things running. It is important, Linus is, but I think we need to also mention all the developers who develop all these packages for the games, the office, the utilities. Without applications, Linux wouldn't be where it is today. Oh, that's for sure. So, I mean, I would say, you know, if anything, Linux has gotten easy to use, easy to (35/42)
install. They have plenty of choices. Some of the ones I've looked at that I still have a soft spot for is Sabion. Sabion is a cool one. Of course, that one's, they throw everything off. That one's based on Gentoo. And I could never really understand Gentoo too much. It kind of made my head hurt. I mean, Slack makes my head hurt. But what's your favorite? Do you have one that you just kind of remember saying, hey, this is kind of nice. I enjoy it. Well, I've had several favorites over the last 10 years or so. And the one that I first tried to get started with was Mandrake, but I quickly found that it was discontinued by the time that I had started to want to begin to install software. I used that, by the way. Yeah, and I tried, but there was no support for it by the time I got to that point. So I, my first ones I played around with were Knopix, the live CD. The first live CD was Knopix. So I played around with that a little bit. It's still out there? Yep, you can still get versions of (36/42)
it and continue to use it. And then when I decided that I was going to install something on a computer, because with Knopix you ran it from the live CD. That's the way you were supposed to do it. I chose OpenSUSE. So that was my first one that I used on a regular basis. And I used it for quite a while. And I used KDE on OpenSUSE as the main desktop environment. But when Ubuntu came around, my first one that I tried was version 6.06. I still have CD of that one too. Yeah. And I continued with Ubuntu for quite a long time and settled in on GNOME as the interface until they introduced Unity. And that was kind of the switch for me that turned me off of continuing to use Ubuntu. So I switched over to Linux Mint. That was my favorite for a while. And then when Martin Winpress released the first Ubuntu Mate version, I started to experiment around with that and eventually adopted it as my current favorite Linux distribution. So I've had a few favorites over the years. The main thing that I was (37/42)
looking for in a Linux distribution to use on a day-to-day basis is having something that just worked, having something that still gave me the control that I needed to tweak things the way I want to tweak them, but was out of the box ready to use. So you didn't have to set anything up from scratch. It was easy to use. The Wi-Fi just worked. Suspend and resume just worked. The video driver just worked. And for a long time, Linux Mint did that. And I think that when Ubuntu Mate came into being, Martin had put into it the kind of philosophy that I was looking for. It should just work, yet it should not limit your ability to do whatever you want to do. It should be true to the Linux philosophy of open source and yet still be pragmatic enough to allow you to install perhaps proprietary software if that's what you wanted to do, but didn't require that you use proprietary software. If you wanted to be completely open source and completely, quote, free software, that you could do it that way (38/42)
as well. But out of the box, as it comes pre-installed with what you need it to do, and not 18 different versions of web browsers and 18 different versions of text editors all installed, out of the box, just pick one, make that the default. And if you want to switch it to something else, let the user switch. That's what turned me on to Ubuntu Mate. Yeah, so it's kind of funny. I was just thinking as you were talking, and that's a scary proposition in itself. Which, the thinking or the talking? Both. Okay, all right. It's that we both started with distros that used RPMs, and we now both use distros that use the dev package systems. Yeah, that's true. That is very true. And I think in terms of availability of software in the package managers, in the whole package management scheme and the repository schemes, I think the Debian way of doing things is a little more accessible to newbies. You don't have to go out and curate your own package repositories like you do with RPMs. So there's (39/42)
less chance of making a mistake or making a wrong choice or a choice that could lead you down the wrong path with Debian than with RPMs. That's happened to me quite a bit. Yeah. But, you know, all in all, I'm pretty pleased how 2016 has went. We've had some interesting developments. We've had some controversy. We've had some stuff that makes our mind go, you know. Yes. But all in all, it looks like Linux is doing pretty well. I don't know if we could, we always say this, I don't know if 2017 will be the year of the desktop, but we've said that for the past, what, three years? Four years? Yeah. Well, in terms of market share, we've gone above the 1% of the computer, you know, home computer operating system market. So we're increasing. Yeah. Yeah. And so I would say Linux is in good hands. It's progressing. And as we both have kind of said, you know, things come, things go. But there always seems to be something to step in and take over or something that's got a little, got some more (40/42)
advantages. So I can rest easy that Linux is going to be here for another 25 years. Hopefully it will continue doing what it's doing and just keep getting better and better. I agree with you. And another 25 years would be just fine for me. Do you think you'd still be doing this in another 10 years? The podcast? I have no idea. I don't know. I'll keep going until I either run out of steam or something else happens to prevent me from doing it. So we'll see. Okay. So with that, I think we can kind of wrap up and just say it's been a good year. It's been a good 10 years. It's been a good year for Linux in 2016. I'm looking forward to seeing what 2017 holds. And I will say, Larry, what's our next episode? Well, our next episode is listener feedback. We're still continuing with the same format, a user experience episode on the 20th or thereabouts and a listener feedback episode on the 5th or thereabouts of each month. And so until then, as always, you can go to our website at going Linux dot (41/42)
com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and to subscribe. We are the website for computer users who just want to use Linux to get things done. And 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 music provided by Mark Blasco at podcast themes dot com. (42/42)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #393 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 393, 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 goinglinks.gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello, Bill. Hello, Larry. So... What's going on with you? What new distros have you tried out? How's it going? I have not changed distros since Ubuntu Mate 2004. When it came out, I put it on the machine. What? Yes. I've got it set up exactly how I like. I've been playing World of Warcraft on it under Lutris, and the frame rates are almost (1/42)
identical to Windows at over 80 to 100 frames a second. Hey, this one's even survived long enough for me to make two full backups of my system. Wow. Wow. Two milestones. Two fantastically gigantic milestones for Bill. Yeah. Like I said, for the time being, my district hopper days are pretty much over. I've pretty much tried everything. You only can install stuff so many times before you've seen it all. I was spending way too much time reinstalling stuff and playing with it, and just to realize I didn't like it, and reinstall and try a different one. So, when 2004 Mate came out, I pretty much settled on it. I got it set up. I'm using the Cupertino theme, and I used the tweak tool to change some of the placement of the buttons, and change the colors, and found the background I wanted, installed the programs I wanted, backed up drop. I have Dropbox set up completely on it, and all my pictures and everything. I am not touching it. It just works, and it's been rock solid. So, yeah, I'm (2/42)
very, very happy with it. I like all the paper cuts that they fixed that used to drive me nuts. There's not really anything I can say that I don't like about it. So, yeah, Ubuntu Mate 2004 is still running. Well, it sounds like you could be the next host of the Linux Luddites podcast, where they try all the distributions, and then decide to go back to the old stuff because you like it better. Yeah, I just can't be bothered. If I need to spin up a distro to look at it, I throw it in a virtual machine. And yes, I know it's not as good as running on bare metal, yada, yada, yada, but if I need to look at something, I can do it that way. But the other thing I wanted to bring up is in MeWe, we've had a few people bring up the Patreon thing, and I have let them know that we're not going to do it. We don't want to beg for money. We don't need the money. We do this because we like it, and our costs are fairly minimal as far as running the podcast. So, I don't know what your feelings are, but (3/42)
there I say, no, I'm not interested in it. Yeah, we've mentioned it on the show before, and I am in alignment with you. We don't want to start a Patreon or any other sort of thing. We had some ability to donate via PayPal for a while, and we got a few. We didn't promote it a lot, but I'd rather not, quite frankly, not deal with that. We're quite happy doing what we're doing. We're giving it to you for free. This is our contribution. Yes, it's exactly right. This is our contribution to the Linux community, or one of them. We appreciate everybody expressing interest in it, but right now, for the foreseeable future, we're just not interested in it. But we thank you for the call. We do thank you. If you want to support us, you can share our podcast with other people, and we'll be happy with that. Yep, and just keep listening. That's good. That's cool. Keep contributing. And speaking of contributing, we have an email or two, or 20. Yeah, so we're doing okay. All right, shall we get started (4/42)
with them then? I think we should. Okay, our first email is a voicemail. Does that make sense? Anyway, our first listener feedback is a voicemail that Robert from Tennessee asked us not to play his voice, so I guess it's an email. Anyway, I'm just going to summarize his message. It was short and sweet. He says, I know you guys are always talking about how fast Ubuntu 20.04 is. I'm a Linux Mint user, and I love how fast it is. It keeps up to date with Ubuntu. It's based on Ubuntu, and it uses Ubuntu packages. Well, Robert, thanks for the email. Happy that you're happy with Linux Mint. I think there have been a few changes to the way that Linux Mint adopts some of the packages, particularly the snap packages that Ubuntu uses. Do we want to get into that, Bill, or should we wait for a little bit more input and a little more research before we get into this whole snap D on Linux Mint issue that seems to be bubbling? I read both sides of the story, and frankly, I don't understand it. So (5/42)
what I did is I don't understand what the issue is. So I reached out to another podcast, the Ubuntu podcast that Martin's on, and sent him an email asking him that maybe he break down the arguments for and against it. So I'm hoping that he will reply to that email on that podcast, and then I can kind of see what he says, because he is the desktop guy. And full disclaimer here, he is the creator of Ubuntu Mate. So I think we should let smarter people explain it, because as a lemon, I just don't understand what the issues are or the ramifications. So I say we just see what Martin says and move on. OK. Yeah. For new listeners, Martin is Martin Winpress. And as you said, Bill, he's the originator of Ubuntu Mate and he's the Ubuntu desktop lead. So, yeah, let's wait for him. He's more plugged into this than we are. So we'll relay the answer. Yes, I know he's talked about it a little bit, but maybe he'll go in a little more depth and then we can actually speak on it or even discuss it with a (6/42)
little bit more information. Yeah. So our next email comes from Samuel and he asks about ThinkPad and he wanted some advice. He went, Hello, everyone. Sometime ago, there was an episode. I can't remember which one about Linux on ThinkPad that caught my interest. I have decided that my next laptop computer will be a ThinkPad. I know that historically ThinkPads have had good Linux support. However, there are so many makes and models of them that I don't know which one to buy. My budget is in the five hundred two thousand dollar price range. I don't mind buying a used one. I have seen many models on Amazon and elsewhere that seem to fit my needs. The T series of ThinkPads look very nice. Can you recommend any particular model or series of models? Thank you for your time, Samuel. So I know that you replied to Samuel, didn't you, Larry? Yeah. Yeah. And basically the ThinkPad series from Lenovo, especially the T series, support Linux very, very well. You really can't go wrong with any of the (7/42)
T series computers. You've got your budget. Find a model that is the newest model that you can find with the specs that you're looking for in that budget range, whether it's brand new or whether it's a used one. And you'll be able to run Linux on there. No problem. And pretty much any Linux. The things to look for is it's going to run particularly well if all of the hardware is Intel. So we're talking about the wireless card, video drivers, those kinds of things. But some of the ThinkPads you can get AMD processors, Radeon displays, and those are going to work pretty well as well. So, you know, today's Linux runs on just about any hardware and particularly well on ThinkPad hardware. So, you can't go too wrong. Yeah. Just last week, Lenovo announced that Ubuntu is going to be loaded onto their ThinkPads and it's fully supported. So that should give you an indication that ThinkPads are pretty much a good bet when it comes to running Linux. Yep, I agree. So thanks for the email, Samuel, (8/42)
and good luck with your new computer. All right. Our next email is from David, who says, Deja dupe, another reason to leave Windows. And a few fragmented sentences here. This is excellent. Free to backup Google Drive, free to restore, and the whole process requires no instructions. Love it. To heck with the paid carbonite not needed. I'm trying to remember why I ever used Windows. Keep up the good work on your show. You need to accent how easy this backup works much better than what comes with Windows. Note, I am in day 19 of my lockout from paid Microsoft accounts due to an insignificant error in a password reset. Never again. Keep giving the folks fresh air on their computing choices. Day 19 of being locked out of your Windows account, your Microsoft account, because you input your password wrong too many times. Hmm. Yeah, I think that might happen with just about any operating system. The thing about Windows 10, they read a news story that they're posting a full screen saying, hey, (9/42)
we can make and make your experience better by accessing your Microsoft account. So, you know, they want you to tie a Microsoft account to your Windows 10 system for all the other goodies. But can you imagine, you know, you forgot your password and you can't get anything or do anything on your Windows 10. And that would I'm sure you could just call Microsoft right up and say, hey, I'm having a problem. Right. It's not funny, but it is. I mean, it's like this why it always seems like a bad idea to tie everything into one account. Yeah, I can see that, you know, you tie your Windows 10 to your Microsoft account and all your documents are on one drive. And you have all your applications in Office 365 and all of your cloud based storage and backup is on Windows compatible stuff. And then all of a sudden you can't get into your account anymore. You've lost everything, essentially. So, yeah, there you go. I've had guess how many pop ups I've had from Bontamate asking me to tie my account. (10/42)
How many? Yes, zero. You know, I think the most intrusive part of Bontamate for me has been, oh, there's some updates. Do you want to install them now or do you want to wait? You know, type deal. Yeah, exactly. So there's your interruptions on Bontamate. All right. Well, thanks, David, for an opportunity to bash on Windows one more time. We're not bashing, but Windows has its good sides and bad sides. I would say tying your account to your Windows 10 system and have everything reliant on that might not be the best. But hey, what do I know? I'm just a Linux fanboy. So our next email comes from Gus and he wrote Larry and Bill. On the last listener feedback episode, a listener suggested having episodes about different workflows with Linux. I am a Web developer and hobbyist at music recording, and I'd be potentially interested in contributing with either one of these things. As far as music recording production goes, I'm hardly a professional but can offer what I've learned through trial (11/42)
and error. And I can try to simplify the next audio, which can be a confusing mess for newbies. Thanks, Gus. Yeah. And I emailed Gus back and asked him how he would like to proceed. Would he like to record the whole thing and edit it himself and send us the video or something else? And he said he'd be willing to do that. So thanks, Gus. Yeah. Thanks for the offer. Thanks for the content in advance and we'll await your contribution. We'll make an episode of it, depending on how long it is. Maybe it'll be the whole episode. There we go. Yeah. Contributions from Armenians. Thanks, Gus. All right. Our next email is from Highlander, who observed that the COVID-19 scammers are in overdrive. He writes, scammers have been calling me a lot lately and I can't report to anyone because the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre is all shut down. Waterloo Regional Police Service has recommended to just ignore what is going on because these scammers just want Bitcoin. I can't ignore due to the greater good (12/42)
needing to be served for those among us who may be weak minded or otherwise vulnerable. Scammers had used have used these phone numbers and call times to leave messages on my answering services. So he's got a Toronto number that called him at 4.18 p.m. on May 26. Another number from the 312 area code, which called on May 21st at 3.30, roughly. Another one from a 416 area code that called him at 12.11 on May 21st. So he said, I have included an audio sample of their crap in this email. We're not going to play that. These scammers need to be identified on mainstream media news outlets. Nothing would please me more than to know that these scammers have been shot dead, shot by who? I don't care, signed Highlander. Shooting them dead might be a little over the top. Yeah, at least let's prosecute them. And I know in many cases, these folks are not within Canada or the United States or even North America. So that's going to be really difficult. But hey, I'd love to find a way to permanently (13/42)
block these kinds of things. Yeah, I think my block list on my phone is longer than my contacts, because, you know, I still occasionally get the ones from the Microsoft saying that they've detected a problem with my Windows 10 system. Like, wow, you're doing, you know, so they're not just attacking people that are concerned about COVID, but they're attacking people right now because, you know, everybody's working from home and they're afraid and they're not online a lot more. So, you know, they see an opportunity they just won't try. But I would advise against not shooting them. We could just prosecute them. That would be just as good. Mm hmm. Yeah, I... not exactly a scammer by phone, but I received an email the other day that said, here's your confirmation for sign up for this service with an attached PDF file. Think I opened that. I didn't sign up for the service. Never heard of it. I am not going to open it. I'm curious to see what's in it, but I'm not going to open it. That's the (14/42)
hard part is it makes you curious. Did somebody else sign me up for a service? Has somebody stolen my identity? I don't know. I haven't seen anything since. So I'm going to assume until proven otherwise that this is a scam. Yeah, I just got a one the other day that said it was all official. They called me and said, you know, thank you for staying here. You've won so many bonus points. And we thank you and we'd like to to have you sign up for vacation. Like, well, one, I've never been to that state. So I think you got the wrong person. And if they were insistent upon it. So, you know, what I did is I just clicked and blocked the number. So it definitely would not go there. So anyway, our next email comes from Glenn, who asked about Ubuntu Mate a launch bar on two screens. Hello, Bill and Larry. I have been using Ubuntu on my home computer for over a decade and recently upgraded to 20.04. Before settling on this, I tried Ubuntu Mate for a couple of weeks. I run a ThinkPad T550 laptop (15/42)
with a second screen above the laptop screen. The Unity desktop works really well for my workflow with the launch bar on the left edge of both screens and the windows buttons on the left side of each window. One of the things I really like about this is that when I launch a program from the top launcher, the window opens on the top screen and similar for the bottom. I tried but can't make Ubuntu Mate come up with a similar configuration. Have I missed something or is this just a real limitation? Thanks for the great podcast, Glenn. Yeah, and we emailed Glenn back and it turns out that it is a real limitation. It's a bug that's been known for a while. And I sent him a link to an article or actually a post on the Ubuntu Mate forums that's part of the tutorials and guides on multiple monitor panel layouts and background switcher. So there are step-by-step instructions on how to essentially work around this problem and get what Glenn is looking for. So we'll include a link to that in the (16/42)
show notes and hopefully that will be helpful for our dear friend Glenn and for anyone else wanting to have launch bars set up that way on multiple screens. Okay, and Mike wrote us, dual boot Windows 10 with Ubuntu Mate version 20. I guess that's 2004. Yeah. And file handling between OSs. And this is one of two emails. This one email has two questions. So, question one. Unable to get Ubuntu Mate disk to recognize the Windows 10 boot manager on an NVMe drive, DR0. After running the live CD of Ubuntu Mate and not being able to even see the NVMe during boot up, I think I might have to install Ubuntu to a separate SSD drive, DR1. And then can only get Linux via the boot sequence during restart. Is there a way to edit the Windows boot manager to add an option for booting to Linux on another drive? The NVMe is defined in the BIOS to be running on the PCIe bus. It is having to enter the BIOS every time I wish to go into Linux. That's a little pain. If that's what has to be done, then so be (17/42)
it. Linux is my new main OS since Windows lack of consistency with integrity has really caused issues for me. Tired of the bloatedness of it too. Question two. I see that there is a read-write driver for Windows files, NTFS-3G, but it seems pretty difficult to set up. My target is to share document files through the already existing Windows files into LibreOffice under Linux. I have been using Libre for Windows, but I am shifting away from using Windows 10 as the main deal, so I plan to be in Linux. As I get more settled under Linux, I plan to move files over to Linux for processing, so the need for read-write Windows 10 files will be heavy at first, moving to less and less until none are required. I would keep the Windows 10 I.O. for interfacing into my office world and a few games. Thanks guys for many years of support and listening. Pleasure, Mike. Regarding question two, the NTFS read-write driver, that's already baked into Ubuntu MATE. Once you solve the issue for question one, (18/42)
you will be able to open up the NTFS drive, read and write files to that without any problem. So on to question one. Any thoughts there, Bill, about why it's not allowing him to install Ubuntu MATE to the NVMe drive? I have a very similar setup where my OS sits on the NVMe drive and I've never had an issue installing it. I'm just wondering if it might be a piece of hardware that's not supported by the Linux kernel. That could be. I'm thinking something even simpler. I'm thinking he probably, while he's sitting in there in the BIOS, check to make sure that, what is it called? Secure boot? Secure boot, yeah. That secure boot is disabled or there's another name for it that implies that you need to enable something rather than disable something, but essentially it's turning off secure boot. Another thing that he could look at is if he could try enabling legacy mode. That's the other thing. Yeah, it's the same thing called something different. So look for secure boot, look for legacy mode, (19/42)
make sure you either disable secure boot or enable legacy mode. Once you get that set up, you should be able to install any Linux to that drive. And if you can't, then installing it to another drive with the boot manager on the NVMe drive might be the solution. Another thing that he could look at, depending on the age of his computer, is if he's had all the BIOS updated for that machine. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So lots of things for you to think about, Mike, and let us know how that goes. So Mike provided us part two of the dual boot on Windows 10 with a Bontamate version 20.04 and file handling between OSes. It comes to be that I found out that the GParted sees the unallotted 25 gig space I created on the NVMe one terabyte drive. However, the live CD does not recognize any operating system being present. So I entered the custom area and can install to the free space. In creating the partition, it asks some questions and I guess that I want to check to create a primary (20/42)
partition at the beginning of the space. And it should be used as a blank and it says an ext4 journaling file system or what? What is mounting point to be? Is it slash or slash home or slash boot, etc? So I am not sure how to fill in this kind of partition to create. I have tried to research this kind of install, but haven't found anything close for an example. Your help is appreciated, Mike. So I think I can help Mike on some of this. So on now, I'm not running a dual boot, but I've always set my systems up with my OS is always on SSD. And so that's always on the forward slash and that tells it to put all the files for the system on that on that disk or that partition. Then I have a spinning hard drive, one terabyte drive, and I always put forward slash home and that tells where to store all their programs, all your settings, all your files and games and stuff. The reason I do it this way is I want to limit the amount of read write to the OS and let the spinning rust, as I like to (21/42)
call it, handle all the programs. So what I would suggest is while you're looking at it, if you go to when you're setting it up and it says you're setting up for just your system, you go ahead and put forward slash and then that will put all your system files there and then forward slash home for all your other personal files, your pictures, etc. Yep. Sounds like good advice. So yeah, I don't, I've never used the slash boot. I guess that would be if you had like a system that you had multiple OSes. But one of the things that you, and he didn't say, is that if you're going to do a dual boot with Ubuntu MATE or any Linux, you need to install Windows first, update everything, then install the Ubuntu or the Linux afterwards because Windows boot manager does not play well with Linux. So just a pro tip there, I learned a hard way. Right, exactly. Yeah. So I'm no expert in this, but I think what it is is the slash is the root directory that gets things started. The boot directory, the slash (22/42)
boot is where the files are to actually boot into the operating system as opposed to the boot loader, which is on the root. And then home is where all your files are. So that's as I recall it. And if any of our minions want to correct me, feel free. But I think that's the way it is. All right, let's move on to George who writes about episode 391, open office DRM protected WMA file. So David had asked about getting his audio files off of, was it an MP3 player or something like that? Yeah. Anyway, George writes, I'm surprised David found noticeable speed differences between open and LibreOffice. I find Libre runs really well, even on computers with low end processors. Some months ago, I installed open office as a test and didn't notice any material speed advantage over LibreOffice. Could David have installed LibreOffice in Flatpak or Snap? Either might run slower than a native DEB install, thinking Ubuntu based. He mentioned dates. If he is importing dates from an Excel spreadsheet into (23/42)
either Libre or open office, he may have to set the base date for his new sheet. That's in tools, options, calc, calculate, where there are three options for the date from which to start date calculations and display. If I remember correctly, you have to do something similar in Microsoft Office. So that was just an aside from me. Continuing with George's email, what Libre offers that open doesn't is a much larger developer community. LibreOffice updates much more frequently, which may add features or improve security since LibreOffice is a fork from open office. It's not surprising that when bugs are found, they may appear in both. Over the past year, I've read reports of bugs being fixed in Libre and not in open. Something to consider if, like David, you're interested in security. And he provides an article on that and we'll include that in the show notes, of course. And regarding WMA DRM. So WMA is the Windows audio format for files and DRM is digital rights management or essentially (24/42)
lock-in. I was surprised when Larry suggested Audacity would open DRM protected WMA files. According to the Audacity manual, that's not the case. And he provides a reference to the Audacity manual just to prove his point. There's always the analog method, playing the music files from a DRM enabled device, headphone jack into the mic input device of a computer from Audacity to record it. I did that years ago from Sony Walkman. Not perfect, but rather than losing cherished old tracks no longer available or maybe not cherished enough to buy again. George. Regarding George's comments on the audio file, you're absolutely right. I misspoke. I made a mistake. Bill, I made a mistake. You did. You're fired. Yeah. If the file is in WMA format and not DRM protected, Audacity will open it just fine. If it's DRM protected, Audacity won't do that. You need to break that first or, as George suggests, play it by audio into Audacity and rerecord it from analog to digital. And seems like a waste of (25/42)
bandwidth to take a digital file, make it analog and then record it back to digital. But that's what you've got to do, I guess. Anyway, so LibreOffice versus OpenOffice, what do you think? I have always used what was installed, which has always been LibreOffice. I haven't had any issues with it, actually. I just used it last night and it worked really well. So I would say whatever the distribution installs I would use. And I believe probably 95 percent of them are all using LibreOffice. And if you're looking for an up-to-date package, say you're running Windows at work and you want to share the files easily with your Linux machine at home, you can also download one for LibreOffice that's up to date with all the latest security fixes. And the thing that you need to keep in mind is if you're using the Excel or CALC, some of these more advanced macros will not work well on LibreOffice just because they're a little formatted different or they want to do things that LibreOffice doesn't (26/42)
like. So something to just consider. If you use LibreOffice, you can save in the Docx format that Office uses and you also can read Docx. So there's really no downside that I can see about using LibreOffice. Now, I did want to address one thing about, and it was, which George pointed out, is that it might have been in a snap or a flat pack. Well, the first time you start a snap or flat pack, you're going to take, it's going to take a little bit longer, a few more seconds. That's because it is in a snap, it uses a file system called squashfs. And that's what sits in a container and runs the program. Now, I know they have made lots, Martin had mentioned that they are working on minimizing this little bit of overhead. But once it's been started, once, I really haven't noticed any difference as far as speed, maybe a second or two. But I mean, that's about all I've noticed, but they're always constantly trying to make it a little better. So, yeah, just keep that in mind that if you're (27/42)
running something in a snap or a flat pack that you might have a little bit overhead when it first starts up. But nothing that will make you pull out your hair. Right, exactly. And I think on any modern computer, like recently manufactured computer, it's going to be fast enough that you probably won't notice any differences in speed if they are there. And the other key difference between Open and LibreOffice is that they have different licenses. And that is one of the reasons why the OpenOffice updates get into LibreOffice. But the LibreOffice fixes and updates don't make it back, in some cases, to OpenOffice because of the incompatibility of the two licenses. OpenOffice can't take all of the updates from LibreOffice without changing their license, which, of course, they don't want to do. So, whereas LibreOffice can openly take all of the OpenOffice updates and pick and choose what they want to fix their particular version of the Office Suite. Even though for most purposes of most (28/42)
people, they do exactly the same thing. Yeah, and like I said, choose which one you want, but just know there are some differences. And, yeah, but I pretty much trust what the distro has put into it. I mean, I think Bonta uses LibreOffice, I think Fidora even uses LibreOffice. So, I mean, apparently, you know, there's enough distributions that are choosing LibreOffice. There's got to be a reason and probably some of it might have to be about security or it could be that they just want to make sure that they have the latest and greatest Office Suite. Yep. So, our next email comes from Jack Death, who provided a link to a review of Linux FX 10, a Windows-like Linux distro on top of Ubuntu 20.04. Jack, I am not trying it. It's tempting. It's tempting. No, it's not even tempting. The minions are trying to tempt me. But anyway, the reviewer says, I chose to review it because I believe Linux FX has the closest pre-installed user interface to Microsoft's Windows 10. We may have already (29/42)
guessed the reason to the Windows theme. Nevertheless, Linux FX suits best for beginners who want to migrate to Linux but find it hard to work on Linux desktop like GNOME or KDE. I would say try Mate, but OK, I understand. What's your feelings on this, Larry? Well, I read through part of the article and without having read through the whole thing, it strikes me that this is a Windows 10 skin on top of Linux, and they've done some work to make it behave as much like Windows as they can and still be running Linux. So, yeah, if you are moving over from Windows 10 and you find it difficult to find things in the Linux desktop environment, whichever Linux you're using, this might be the one for you to take a look at. And since it's based on Ubuntu, you could certainly do a lot worse. So I think you can certainly try it. I would recommend, though, just learn the new way of doing things. If you were moving from Windows to Mac OS, they're not going to give you this kind of thing to ease you (30/42)
into it. You just have to learn the new way of doing things. And it takes a little bit of effort. I've done it moving from Windows to Mac OS for work, and it took me a while to get used to it. And the same applies for movers from Windows 10 to Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution. But give it a chance. Give it some time. It'll become second nature and you'll wonder what took you so long. OK. Jeremy comes back. Dear Larry and Bill, my name is Jeremy and I am a returning listener to the podcast. I really think you do a wonderful job with the podcast. I haven't listened in quite a while. It is wonderful to know that you are still doing the podcast. When did Bill become part of the show? Oh, I don't know, about seven, eight, 10 years ago. I don't know what happened to Tom. He retired. Also, what is the RSS feed for subscribing to the podcast? It's on the web page, goinglinux.com. Anyway, I look forward to more wonderful episodes. Sincerely, your new fan and new listener, Jeremy. OK, (31/42)
Jeremy. All snide comments aside, the RSS feed is on the website goinglinux.com. But you can subscribe in many podcatchers. Just search for goinglinux and I think you have to search for it as two words, going Linux. And whether that's rhythmbox or whether you're using something like Stitcher's streaming service or even iTunes, if that's a thing anymore, Apple podcast, maybe, you'll be able to search for it by name and find it without any difficulty if you just search for going Linux. And if you want the RSS feed, by the way, we did email it to him, but just for sake of the podcast, it's on our website. There you go. But thanks. Welcome back, Jeremy. Yeah, welcome back. So our next email comes from Daniel who wrote his final word on Ubuntu 20.04. 20.04 Ubuntu is not installable for me at all. So I will use Ubuntu gnome for now. It turns out that some think this error is on something called launch pad. What is that? Thank you for your show and also for your patience. And he didn't (32/42)
actually send us the error message that he's receiving. But bottom line is he can't install whatever it is he wants to install. And I think he's just giving up on that idea and just using stock Ubuntu gnome. I'm assuming it's 20.04. And launch pad is the Ubuntu family of distributions tool that they use to triage bugs. And so, yeah, if there's a bug, it'll be on launch pad. And if you want a link to how to get involved and help with the bug triage, we'll include a link in the show notes to the Ubuntu triage page. And that applies to all the Ubuntu flavors. Our next one is from Frank. He said, I admit this is a belated feedback. Stuff happens and I'm way behind in listening to your podcast. But I have listened to every episode. That's good. I've listened to your episode too, Frank. Thanks. This is in reference to the German Linux user in Greece, living in Greece, who is having trouble allowing his users to have access to partitions on a second hard drive. In all the discussions (33/42)
regarding this, no one made mention that his issues might have been resolved by editing slash Etsy slash FS tab for that partition to allow, quote, user permissions to that drive. I think that is worthy of investigation. OK, Frank, we'll pass that along. In fact, we just did. OK. Our next email comes from David, who forwarded a forum post about Ubuntu Monte version 20.04. Regarding Linux not going back to Windows. Love it. I do have one very small, very minor, very insignificant inconvenience. So no need to respond. I realize you still have a day job and are an active podcaster. I am semi-retired, thus have time to burn playing around with it. To use my headphones, I have to disconnect my USB speakers. Linux is just not smart enough to recognize headphones. Note is not as simple as selecting headphones or system output. Cure is just to disconnect the USB and reconnect the USB later when back to no need for headphones. I tried the below command lines and they did not work. Really, one (34/42)
thing I love about Linux, someone else always has an answer via the command line. Just hope I never brick my system using them. Larry, do you or your partner in crime have any ideas on this? Again, not a big deal. But basically, he went sudo apt remove dash dash purge, also dash base, pulse audio. And then he went sudo apt install, also base, pulse audio. Okay, so he ripped out pulse and he reinstalled pulse. Anyways, thanks David. I have never had an issue. Any time I have always plugged my headphones in, that is what I use to record a podcast. It always sees them. The only thing, it has not happened since the new version, but sometimes if you are disconnecting a USB, like the speakers, and you plug in a headphone, it might, for some reason, it might not recognize it. I always found that just restarting it, the distro automatically sees the new device. But since 2004, actually since about 1804, I have not had that issue. Any time I unplug it and plug something in, it just (35/42)
automatically appears. So I do not know what is going on with him. Yeah, the only problem I have had with headphones has not been with USB, but rather with the audio jack that is on the side of the computer, and using Apple iPhone headphones. The ones with the old audio jack, since they do not work on the phones anymore, I may as well use them as headphones. And yeah, whenever I plug that in, it just does not work. And it was working on previous versions of Ubuntu Mate. But I am thinking it may be the jack itself, you know, hardware failure as opposed to software failure. But as far as USB is concerned, nope, no problem there. The only thing I have had problems with, as I recall, recently is Bluetooth. Bluetooth headphones, those problems went away. But I got a Bluetooth keyboard, which for some reason required me to put in the code to pair. You know, normally these days you click pairing and it just goes and does it. Well, this one requires you to actually type in a four or six digit (36/42)
code, whatever it is. And of course, with the Bluetooth utility, it just does not display that. So I had to figure out how to install a Bluetooth device from the command line, so it would give me the prompt to enter the pairing code. And so I learned something new on Bluetooth connections on Linux. Not a big deal. But hey, yeah, David, I do not know what the answer is to your USB thing. And since it is such a small, very minor, very insignificant inconvenience, yeah, we'll just leave it at that. Plugging them in, unplugging them. Yeah, I do want to stress one thing to David. Be very careful about putting random commands into the terminal, unless you know exactly what they do. Some people might try to prank you, whatever has happened where, there was the command that people were entering in, hey, type this in and fix it. And it would wipe out their whole system. So just be really careful because the command line is super powerful and it has even more power, is more powerful than the GUI (37/42)
or the graphical user interface that a lot of us use to manage our systems. Because when you get to the command line, it's going to ask you, do you really want to do this, enter your password, and then it does. And you can hose your system, not that I have done that, but yes, it can happen. Okay. Yes, you're absolutely right. Our next and last email is from Steven, who wrote about my 20.04 book. Hey, I've been an avid user of Linux and especially Ubuntu MATE 20.04 for many years and was intrigued to see via the Ubuntu MATE website that someone has been writing books about it. There probably isn't much I'd get from it, but there might be the odd quirk I didn't know about, which could make life that much easier. Unfortunately, it seemed at first it was only available in horrible Kindle format. I was hoping for a DRM unencumbered PDF or EPUB so that I didn't need any proprietary software or hardware to read it. Good old Atril can read both PDF and EPUB. But then, when I read the first few (38/42)
pages via Amazon's Look Inside feature, I noticed it states that this is under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 and encouragement is given to redistribute it freely. So I went back to your site in the hopes of finding a PDF or EPUB and stumbled upon our page on Ubuntu MATE books. But this only goes up to 18.04 as a PDF. A quick Google of your copyright, however. Copyright 2017 through 2020, Larry Bushey. And bingo! There is a copy available off the back of someone's FTP site. And it's the LabDo site. We mentioned LabDo, this nonprofit that helps educate people, and we provided them some copies of the PDF files for free distribution to any of their contributors and students and teachers. And they've put it on their FTP site, which of course is available to the public. So, anyway, continuing and concluding Stephen's email. Should this be your site as well? Is it intentional to keep PDF or EPUB from being linked to there? You could always put a donation button next to it, Stephen. Okay, (39/42)
the donation button is Amazon. You go to Amazon and you'll be able to. If you want a free copy, I've put free PDFs available on our website up to version 18.04. If you want to download the free version of the 20.04 book from the LabDo site, we'll include the link in the show notes so you can do that. And I would recommend, though, that since they are providing a public service that you at least visit their site at LabDo, L-A-B-D-O-O dot org, and take a look at their services and maybe contribute to their organization. So, yeah, the books are Creative Commons licensed so that if you have a copy and you want to give it to someone, you can do that. If you want to make photocopies of the printed book, you can do that. If you want to take the PDF version or the Kindle version or any of the versions and provide them for free to somebody else, you're free to do that as well. So once you have a copy of it, feel free to distribute it however you want. That's what the license says, as long as (40/42)
you give attribution back to the author, which is me. And that's fine. Just say where you got it. We're good. Well, that's a really hard term, Larry. Yeah, I know. It's tough just letting people know where you got it. Yeah, but that's the terms of the license and the copyright. So please abide by that. But no, seriously, though, you're free to distribute the books however you see any portion of them. In fact, if you want to use anything that I've written in those books and use them in your own publications, you're free to do that as long as you say that you got it from the book. I don't think you have... you don't have high powered lawyers ready to sweep down if they didn't. Oh, goodness, no. All right. I don't need that hassle. Anyway, that wraps up our show for this time, Bill. All right. Our next episode is going to be a user experience, but we haven't figured out what we're going to write about yet. We've got several things in the works, so you have to tune in to find out. There (41/42)
you go. So until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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 the discussion in our Going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinx.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (42/42)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #305 · Gaming on Linux revisited.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux, Episode 305. Linux Gaming Revisited. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Mary Boushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and its applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, Gaming on Linux Revisited. So, Bill, I can tell that your audio sounds a lot clearer. What's going on? Did you suddenly get magic fairy dust sprinkled all over your computer and microphone and stuff? Well, yes. How'd you know? No, actually, I finally got my new studio set up away from trains, planes, and automobiles. And it's almost completed, so this is the first time I'm actually recording in it. And it's a lot quieter. I don't know. I think I need to introduce noise for you because I (1/42)
don't want you to have too easy of a job. Yeah, I don't know what I'll have to do if I don't have to edit out train noise, airplane noise, sirens. Although I didn't hear too many sirens, to be quite honest. Well, if you get lonely or just think it's too easy, let me know. I will get an air horn and just go, and you'll be all great. Okay, all right. Or just introduce some background, you know, recorded background noise. The only thing you're going to hear is the dog chewing on a bone. Well, if we hear that, then we know that we've got really good audio. No, that's great. That's great. You're adjusting to life here in California, okay? Yes, yes. I love California. There's this stuff called sunshine. Yeah, hey, I'm just telling you. I've been out in it almost every day. It's really weird, but I'm getting used to it. I really enjoy California. I don't think I've lived anywhere else. All the memories are disappearing from anybody else but this wonderful state. But seriously, I'm really (2/42)
adjusting well. I like it out here. My exciting, happy new stuff is I got a new Keurig. Oh, nice fresh brewed coffee. Yeah, it's like an old one died and I'm like, ah, then I went and said I'm going to pick out, you know, go get another one. And then I didn't realize that mine was only about 52 models behind. So, I'm looking at all this stuff and I'm like, wow, new Keurig. Happy day. So, got that and so now I get fresh, fresh hot coffee. I get sunshine and I get to talk about Linux. What more can anybody want? Yeah, yeah, and a whole new studio and I think, yeah, you're still east of me. So, you still have studio east and I still have studio west. So, that works out. By the way, I want a raise for the cost of living. So, I want 100% raise for what you currently pay me. 100%? That seems a little steep. How about 50? Okay, but 50% of nothing is still nothing. Right, right. I can do 50%. Okay, next year we can talk about a more appropriate raise. I think this is like the second or third (3/42)
raise this year for you. Yeah, but you know, I'm such a nice guy. I know you're a wonderful leader and, wait a minute, kissing up is not going to give me any more money. So, anyway, let's move on to the talk I want to talk about. I finally, I've played a few of these games and we're going to talk about gaming on Linux. Because, you know, I'm a gamer and it is looking really good. So, anyway, it's been a while since we've talked about gaming on Linux. Yep, it has, yeah. And I am pleased to report that it's looking better. We're going to be looking at some of the titles that have already been released and some upcoming games and even review a few of them. I'm not going to go into too much detail because I don't want to take all the fun out of it. But anybody that hasn't looked up for gaming on Linux or said, you know, Linux is only for work, you're going to be surprised. So, before we go on, do you game? I'm not what you would call a gamer, but every once in a while I'll install, you (4/42)
know, not a Steam game. I haven't subscribed to Steam, but, you know, I'll look in the repositories, find a game that looks interesting. I'm kind of the first person shooter kind of guy. So, I'm looking at things like Alien Arena and anything that's a Quake engine game, you know, built on the Quake engine or something like that. So, that's my speed for gaming. Well, I thought your speed would be more like Minesweeper and that doesn't count. No, it doesn't because, you know, although it's available on Linux, it's really an old Microsoft game and I can't bring myself to play that. I can never understand, walk around, what's all this button do? I never win. But, you know, let's chat about Steam for a few, just a few minutes. Sure, yeah. Although I'm not a Steam subscriber, I do know a little bit about it. Well, tell me what you know about Steam and then... Well, I know how to spell it and... Okay, we're already ahead in the game. Yeah, so I know that Steam has been a very popular way to (5/42)
get, purchase, obtain for free and to play games. It's a subscription service that allows you access to lots and lots of games. It's been available for other platforms for a lot longer than it has for Linux. They, a couple of years ago, decided they were going to support Linux and go all in on supporting Linux and possibly even build what they were calling a Steam Box hardware that would be based in Linux and would run a Linux operating system but would be specific to Steam and Steam games. Now, I'm not aware that that box ever came to reality, correct me if I'm wrong, but I do know that Steam has offered many, many, many of its games for... that they've had in their archives and library and whatever else you want to call the backlog of games that they have, back catalog, that all of those or many of those are now available for Linux as well as for the platforms they've been available for for a while. And I know that many of the new games are brought out for Linux before they're (6/42)
brought out for the other platforms. So they've really put their efforts behind supporting Linux and we in the Linux community really appreciate that. Okay, so you're right, but let's look at this for just a minute. Steam has a few advantages to that. One, I don't have to go look in stores or online or even in the repositories of the games, excuse me, of Linux. If you have a Steam client, if you have the Steam client in your repository, you can of course install it. And then what's nice is, if you see a game that you want to be available for Linux, you don't have to install it with a CD and you don't have to goof, mess with wine. You know, it just works 90% of the time that I've found. Now, depending on your distribution, depending on your hardware and your machine, you might have a little more trouble. But as a general rule, now I've run, both of us use Debian based systems and that seems to be one of the better systems that support it. I cannot speak to Red Hat based or RPM based or (7/42)
even some of Arch Linux. I'm sure they have it, they have everything. But as a general rule, it works really well. And thanks to Steam, we have now over 700 games that run on Linux. And from what I have seen, I'm a gamer, but I haven't played 700 Linux games. I wish I had that much time. But most of them, you don't have to mess with wine. Wine did enable us to play some games, but it wasn't perfect. I mean, remember we had Play on Linux. We had a couple of different versions of wine and you had to get the DirectX and try to get that installed. And sometimes it was just a big hassle with graphics drivers. And since we have people listening to this for the first time, listening to our podcast for the first time, people thinking about coming to Linux, maybe they don't understand what wine is. So just to define it for a second, wine is an application that allows you to run Windows programs on Linux, including games, without having to install Windows. So it simulates the Windows (8/42)
environment, not 100%, but enough of it to allow you to run Windows programs. So you're able to run the games designed for Windows on Linux using wine. But it's another layer that you need to account for and may, in theory, reduce the speed and the reaction time and so on of the game, the performance of the game or the performance of the program. So it's actually in reality not too bad. But for those gamers who are looking for that fraction of a millisecond advantage to run a game in wine is probably not optimal. And, you know, when I was a Windows user... Did that cause you pain to say that? Yes, it did. And I did go out and purchase games to run under Windows, you know, run them from the CD, install them from the CD. And of course, you have to have the CD always in the CD drive, even though it didn't use it, but it did check every once in a while to make sure you had a licensed copy of the games and all that sort of stuff. None of that happens on Linux. I remember it would drop into (9/42)
a DOS terminal or reboot the system into a DOS environment, and then you had to use a text environment to adjust the graphics resolution, the screen resolution. And you had to go through all kinds of gyrations to actually get the computers so that the game would run after you booted into an environment that actually didn't use Windows at all. It was as close to bare metal as you could get to get the performance out of the game. How has that changed with Steam? And I don't mean under Windows, I'm just talking about Steam in general on any platform. How has Steam affected that kind of performance? Oh, that's easy. Oh, I see a game. Click, install, run. Nice. Done. Okay, it takes care of all those adjustments in the background. Well, you know, also if someone's like that has never heard of DOS, just so they know, DOS... Yeah, let's define all the terms. Okay, DOS is actually called Disk Operating System. And back in the day, if you didn't know, DOS was what you would install before you'd (10/42)
install the Windows. And a lot of games before Windows got all their stuff together, you had to run it in DOS. And one of them, if I remember correctly, was like their first Quake. Another one was Wolfenstein. Right. And we weren't talking super awesome graphics back then. Well, Quake was pretty good back then. Quake was at one time you're going, wow, this looks great. But now you'd go, man, it looks like garbage now. Right, think about 8-bit graphics. Yeah, think 8-bit graphics. What's that game that kids love right now? Where they build stuff? Oh, Minecraft. Minecraft, think about that. That was the state of the art back then. Hey, don't tell nobody. I actually play Minecraft once in a while. Hey, it's fun, right? Don't tell nobody. But one of the things that I like about Steam, and I think is a big, big benefit, and now if you don't like it, I understand some people like physical copies, but as we move more into the digital age, this is more of a Linux type of mentality. We don't (11/42)
worry about applications. If we have to reinstall or we just want to do a clean install and then reinstall everything, everything is in our repos. Well, it's the same way with Steam. You don't have a physical copy, but you can redownload your games again, so you never lose them. You don't have to load them back in with the CDs. You just have a high-speed Internet, which most people do now. I'm sure some have some metered Internet. Some of our friends in Europe and stuff. But as a general rule, in the States, most people have enough bandwidth, and even if they are capped, have enough to redownload the games unless you have been playing 700 Linux games, and then, I'm sorry, you might have to do it over a couple of months, but in general, you don't have to worry about misplacing your game disks or them getting just messed up. So it kind of offered a whole new paradigm of how to game, how to store your games. You don't have to mess with wine. Now, I'm sure there are some games that do (12/42)
require wine, and maybe some of the ones in your repositories. I'm not sure, because I usually tend to like the more modern-looking ones. Some of the text-based ones, you don't have to worry about that kind of stuff. And there are some really fun, independent games that you won't find on Steam, that you'll only find in your repositories. So I'm not saying Steam's the only place to get your games. I'm just saying, if you want some of the more current games that are friends on Windows and Mac play, then Steam is the way to go, in my opinion. But opinions, everybody has one. What do you think about this? Do you think that's a benefit that you don't have to worry about disks and stuff? Or do you prefer to have... Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That's the innovation of the modern era. We're in the 21st century today. How many people have a word processor program where they write a quote letter or a quote memo? And how many people actually print those out anymore? Yeah, that's something that (13/42)
the word processor companies need to think about. Why do you have something that looks like an 8.5 by 11 or A3 size page on the... I think I got A3 right. I'm not familiar with the European sizes. Maybe A4. I think that's the bigger one. Anyway, why does the page look like a printed page in a word processor window? Why isn't it not just responsive like a web page is? I mean, that's the way it should be, because you don't print these things out anymore. And it's the same thing with games. You need to think about, okay, how do people use it today? And people don't want to go out to the store, rummage through some shelves, find a game that has a label that looks good, bring it home, pay for it, bring it home, install it, figure out that the label misrepresented how the game actually looked. You know, 99% of the time the graphics on the label were fantastic, and you open it up and install it and it's crap. But it's fun to play, so you keep it. And yeah, today people don't do that. People (14/42)
don't want to do that. People want to do click, install, play. And the way you've described Steam, it sounds like that's exactly what you need to do. So the next question is, how difficult is it to install Steam on your Linux machine? It used to be when it first came out, I remember people had to actually compile it, and then eventually the Steam folks got it to the point where there were some packages you could install, but then there was some tweaking you had to do afterwards. And these days, I bet it has changed, and I have one example of where it's changed. But you go ahead, you've had experience with this. Well, I always go to their website just because I want the latest version. And it's like, oh, install. And the package manager opens up, installs it, and I enter my credentials, and I'm like, wow, that was really tough. I think I need to... I know, I'm going to go create it and get a cup of coffee. Oh, I guess that's done. Darn. Sometimes I've heard that some people have to do a (15/42)
little bit of tweaking, because remember now, we still have in Linux some issues with our graphics. It's getting better. Some people might have problems, and there might be some people that can't get it to run because of their graphics hardware. That's something that has lagged behind in Linux gaming. But if you have an NVIDIA card, like I do, and I think you have an NVIDIA card or something... I have Intel graphics. Intel graphics. Well, those two cards are supported pretty well by those two companies. They release it so people can... they're drivers, so people can look at them. And those wonderful developers that we all love, we'll tweak them and put them in repositories, or send updates for you. The only thing that Linux gaming right now needs to concentrate on is its graphics, because even though the Intel and NVIDIA cards are well supported, we're always lagging behind, as a general rule, at least one or two versions from Windows. And sometimes that makes a big difference, because (16/42)
I've gotten things saying, hey, we have a new driver for you, and see huge gains. Yes. And so that's the only thing we need to worry about. We're not quite... we're not there yet with the driver for our video yet. And the other one, and it doesn't happen as much as it used to, and you know this one, sound. Yes. Sometimes sound works perfectly. Sometimes sounds really crazy. It's gotten better. I have had very few issues, but since Linux keeps machines running so long, sometimes we find out that, hey, your sound doesn't sound as good, or it only works halfway. And so sometimes there are still things that you have to go, well, I can play the game, but I might not have the full experience as far as sound, or I might not be able to get some of the advanced features. And then we have the other side of that, that someone buys a brand new piece of kit, a brand new computer with the latest hardware, and then you finally come into compatibility problems, because it's so new that the drivers (17/42)
haven't been written for it yet. Right. And so you have one end of the spectrum, and you have the other. So sometimes you have to find that sweet spot in the middle. Yeah, right, exactly. And that's true whether you're gaming or not on Linux. There are System76 and other computers built for Linux that are specifically designed for people who want to do gaming. So they've got high-performance video drivers, they've got high-performance GPUs, and various other components specifically designed for the gamer. And the other route you can go is to build your own. And there, just be cautious, as you always need to do with Linux, that the components you purchase for the computer you're building are actually supported by Linux. And that's about the only caution there, I think. Well, I agree with you, but from what I've kind of experienced, you know, other people might have different views, but most people now are buying their computers instead of building them. Sure. It's kind of dropped off (18/42)
because computers have dropped in price. And it used to be beneficial to build them, but I was actually looking at, I use a big laptop right now, but I was thinking maybe building a tower. And it's just not cost-effective anymore. So what I'd suggest, if you really want perhaps the best gaming on Linux, go look and buy from System76, AntraWare, someone that you know they've already done all the footwork for you, and you'll have a better chance of having a much better experience. But I think what we can kind of get from this conversation is, Steam has really thrown their support behind Linux, and because of that, these developers have opened up some of the games. So now, instead of having to work all, once you're done working, you don't have to go reboot into Windows to play your games. You might find all your games that you want to play already on Linux. And so after you've done the spreadsheets and you've done all the work for real life and adult and all that stuff, then you say, (19/42)
okay, now it's time to go kill aliens. What's better? Yeah, I like doing that too. So we've got Steam, they've put their resources behind supporting Linux, we've got over 700 plus games, it's really easy to install. Oh, and on that topic, I wanted to mention that in Ubuntu MATE, the software boutique, which is the curated version of a repository that comes with Ubuntu MATE, many of these programs that have in the past been rather difficult to install, they have a one-click install from the software boutique, and Steam's included in that list. So it is literally, open the software boutique, locate Steam, click install, ready to play. Too many steps. I'm sorry. I don't know if we can make it any quicker than that, unless it's pre-installed. In which case, you know, then you go out and you have a Steam box. So anyway, so we've got Steam, it's easy to use, it's easy to install, it's got plenty of games. Let's talk about what you do in Steam once you've got it installed. So what's your (20/42)
favorite game, Bill? Oh, well, Team Fortress 2, when I want to go shoot people. Okay. You're a violent, sorry guy, I guess, huh? Yeah, well, you know, running around with a big chainsaw, people tend to shoot you in the head before you get to them, so hey, what do I know? Yeah, you know, no, let's, to be fair, let's talk about a game that is actually Linux native that has been being developed for years now. Okay, so this is not a Steam game. This is a Linux native game. This is not. You can get this out of your repository. All right. And it's called Flight Gear. You've heard of that, haven't you? I have, yes. I may have played it once on someone else's computer. Well, not too long ago, I downloaded it and I had tried about, I think, maybe two years ago to play it. And it was just unplayable for me. So, you know, I said, well, you know, I'm revisiting this, the game, the Linux, so let me redownload this. And I'm sitting there going, wow, what an improvement. I like to fly planes. Usually (21/42)
I end up crashing them into mountains or buildings or actually just into the ground because I can take off, but I have a hard time landing. Hey, gravity sucks, okay? And it's a lot less expensive to do it in a game than it is to do it in real life. Yeah, I think it's much more beneficial for people that would be riding in the plane with me, you know? Ah, okay. Yes, true. So, as a general rule, I tend to crash the plane. So, I like to flight simulators a lot and, you know, try crazy stuff with them. But anyway, flight gear was so much improved that it actually is getting close to another flight simulator I have that unfortunately is, it does have Linux support. But I've run it on my small little Windows petition so I can play and it's called XPlane. And I found that I was in flight gear more now than I was in XPlane because it's getting better and better. And I'm like, this is really a fun game and there's a whole bunch of add-ons and stuff. But they're not quite there, but they're (22/42)
getting close. I was really impressed on how much they've done. Now, you remember now, XPlane is a very expensive product. Okay, how expensive? Yeah. For home use, you know, because they also have a pro version for people that are airline pilots or whatever, but for the home use, I paid about $65 for it. Okay. And, I mean, that's just one game. And, you know, they release updates all the time and sooner or later, okay, we're at XPlane 10 now. XPlane 11 is coming out and that's another 65 bucks. Ouch. Yeah, so I've upgraded twice from XPlane 9 to XPlane 10, but I found that flight gear is now starting to be able to save me 65 bucks. Yeah, every time you need to get the latest version, right? So, they're doing it for, just for the love of the product. And so, it's getting close. And I think, you know, a little bit more time, XPlane's going to have a real hard time against flight gear. I don't think it'll be done in six months, whatever. And, you know, then again, maybe there's some other (23/42)
people that have hardware that runs XPlane even better than I do. And they say, you know, you're an idiot. You know, it runs great. But I was able to play the game, enjoy it, and not have a bunch of little, you know, crashes and, you know, glitches and big, you know, blocks. You know, it's all disappeared. It was very smooth and, you know, it was a great, had a great toil. And I was really impressed. And then I started looking around and said, you know, XPlane has all these add-ons for jets and prop planes and everything else. Well, guess what? Flight gear does too. Not all of them are as good, but I found a few gems in that and you don't have to buy them. That's a general rule. So guys in flight gear, you guys are doing a great job. And Larry, I think you should download it and because you don't have enough to do. Right. Right. And see what you think. But as a general rule, flight gear is now a very viable flight simulator that I can play and enjoy. All right. Well, yeah, exactly. (24/42)
Well, and this whole thing about free software. So let's talk about that for a second. Again, for the people listening for the very first time or people thinking about getting into Linux as opposed to whatever they've used in the past, whether that's OS X or whether that's Windows or Sun Solaris or wherever they're coming from. So unlike XPlane, which is developed by a company for use on a specific platform, and the developers of that software are employed by that company and by contract. They are not allowed to go to other companies and share that information because it's very proprietary and they want to make a profit on it. And they do make a profit on it over and over and over again. Under Linux, the developers of the Linux operating system itself oftentimes are also involved in their favorite applications or the applications they want to contribute to. And they contribute their time for free and vice versa. The application developers are contributing to the development of drivers (25/42)
because, for example, the developers of Flight Gear, I'm sure when they run into an obstacle on an NVIDIA driver or on an Intel graphics driver, they don't just go, You know, we can't do anything about this. We're just going to have to work around it. No, this is open source software here. They actually go in and are allowed to, by the licensing of the software, to go in and modify the driver so that Flight Gear works better. And so they go fix that problem. So there's a lot of cross-pollination of knowledge between projects, the Flight Gear project, the NVIDIA driver project, and so on. So that's one of the advantages of using Linux and open source software is the fact that people do this because they want better software, because they use the software, and because they want to, and can legally, share their knowledge between projects and make everything better as a result of their knowledge in a specific area. And yeah, some of these projects are making money on, in the case of games, (26/42)
maybe the game itself is free, but then the add-ons you may have to pay for, or maybe there's a pro version that you need to fork over some money for. But the bottom line is the software is free because it's developed by people who are contributing to it out of love and out of a need to support the software that they actually use. It's also free because of the licensing, and it's specifically designed so that you can make changes legally and share them with other people legally. And in most cases, in open source software, you can actually give away the software, the original software, and redistribute it to your friends for free, legally. And you can also legally make those changes that you need and share those changes with everyone. And the obligation that you have is to share those changes back to the people who originally developed software so that if it's good enough, they will incorporate that into the version that they distribute from the original source. And so that's how Linux (27/42)
and open source software works in a nutshell, and why it can be given away for free. And in the case of gaming, that's no exception to the rule. And I think the fact that games have the need to stress video drivers and audio drivers and graphics in general to the point of stretching their capabilities, that just allows those developers to actually improve those capabilities going forward. And because of the licensing, it actually happens. There's no legal or proprietary boundaries between software programs and developers, and many developers are on multiple projects and helping out everything in the ecosystem they play in. By the way, you sound like a lawyer. You can legally do it this way. Well, you know, people coming from other platforms, they hear free and they think, ooh, underground bootleg, that kind of free. That's not what this is about. Linux is completely illegal. It's about the licensing. That's really what I want to try to emphasize. It's free for a reason. And the (28/42)
companies that develop these things benefit in other ways. And financially, I mean, Red Hat, they don't sell the product, they don't sell the operating system, they sell the support, and that's where they make their money. And not everybody purchases support from them, but there are enough people who do, enough organizations, enough companies that do, that they are making a very nice profit on developing, distributing, and supporting free software. You're right. If you're coming to Linux for the first time, you're going to run across some of those issues of licensing. And to give you just a quick example, when you download and install, like, Ubuntu, Amate, Arch, Linux Mint, or just plain Jane Ubuntu, you don't have to pay a license fee. It's actually yours. You have to change your mentality a little bit and say, okay, this is not a Windows license that has all these caveats. It's basic restrictions. You can do anything you want with it. The only thing they ask is if you do make changes (29/42)
to make it better that you send your changes back to the developer so everybody can benefit. Right. So anyway, you'll get it real easy. Just remember, Linux is fun. You also can do work. Larry does work with it. I play with it. So, but don't tell him he thinks I work, but oh, I think I just outed myself. Anyway, moving on. Speaking of fun. Okay. Linux runs Pokemon Go. Yes, it does. Oh, wait a minute. There's a caveat. There's a caveat. Don't get too excited, guys. Because I don't think we want to be walking around with our big computer laptops going, hey, where's that Pokemon? It actually runs on the Android operating system, which technically uses a Linux kernel. So we can say that, yes, we have the latest Pokemon Go. Aren't we the greatest? Okay, that's stretching it. But still, I had to throw it in there. Sure. Yeah, it has such great graphics. I actually, I couldn't understand what everybody was talking about this game. So I downloaded it on my Android. And three hours later, I was (30/42)
walking around the neighborhood trying to find Pokemon. I'm like, I can see why people take this off my phone. It's addictive. Yeah. Well, and it uses the latest in technology, augmented reality, right? Yeah, because if it sees a Pokemon and you've enabled this option, you can use your camera and turn until you find it. And really, if I found one and come up and it was inside my car, I'm like, hey, that car's locked. How'd you get in there? Come here. It was kind of funny, but no, I just had to throw it in there for a laugh, just because that's all I hear about these days. And so I had to sit, you know, me being a gamer, I had to try it out and then quickly realized that it's like a crack and had to stop immediately. Yes. So anyway, let's move on to some games that you might not have heard about. Now, we're not going to go talk in depth about a lot of them, but I want to throw out these names. So if you haven't heard of them, you should go check them out. Some of them are going to be (31/42)
released. But from what I see, most of them are already out on Steam for Linux. You might even be able to find them right from the company's websites and they might be selling, have packages in them. I always suggest, look around, look at other Linux people that sell software. Sometimes they have little game sections. You just kind of have to, if you don't want to use Steam for whatever reason, you're not locked out. You just will have to work a little harder. So without further ado, Larry, you ever heard of Half-Life 2? Absolutely. And I may have played Half-Life as well. Maybe not Half-Life 2, but Half-Life. Half-Life Minesweeper does not count. Oh, sorry. Okay. Wasteland 2, basically. That one I haven't heard of. Yeah, it's a new, I think it's one of the newer ones. I haven't played it, so I saw some screenshots. It looks pretty good. So check it out. It's pretty much, from what I can tell, it's kind of a top-down, walk-around, kill things. One called Sama, which is kind of (32/42)
interesting. That's all I'm going to say because it's a weird game. It's kind of one of those explore games. I've heard the name. Maybe that's from the novel 1984. But I've heard the name. Seriously, though, I've heard the name of it as a game, not just from the novel 1984. But I have no idea what it is or what it does. Reading. I don't know what that is. That's what we did before we had internet. We had these pieces of dead trees with black ink on them. Sometimes the ink was different colors. Ah, well, you know, everything I need to learn, I learned from watching Doctor Who or YouTube. What do you want? No, just kidding. For all you zombie-killing people, Left 4 Dead 2. Okay. Not my speed, but that's okay. Baldur's Gate Siege of Dragonspear. Don't know much about this one, so if you're a Baldur's Gate fan, you should be really happy. Okay. Team Fortress 2. I wonder how that got into that list. Don't know. Don't know. Civilization 5, I think it is, because I don't know my Roman (33/42)
numerals, but I believe it is Civilization 5. If that's a Roman numeral, it is 5. Oh! Look who knows his stuff. No, I lucked out. Anyway, this one's a turn-based system game. It's kind of fun. You've got to go send the guys out to kill things. You've got to come over here and fight this army. So basically, you just kind of obliterate your things. Pro-tip guys, destroy the other people's crops works every time. Not always, but it helps. And a new game that I saw, I don't know much about it. It's on Steam. Go read this thing. It's called Dying Light. Okay, now for all Star Wars fans, Knights of the Old Republic 2, or KOTOR 2, as they like to say. Go sling them lightsabers, guys. It's time to kill some Sith, or if you're Sith, it's time to kill some Jedi. Okay, I'm just saying. And then, Serious Sam 2. And if you don't know what Serious Sam, just think a guy running around with lots of big ammo and bigger guns and just killing stuff, you know, Quake style. And I think you pretty much got (34/42)
it. Okay. Okay, now, what do you think, Larry? Do you think that's enough game to get them started? I think so. At least enough to get people interested in it. I'm interested in exploring some of these as well. And since it's such an easy install with Ubuntu MATE, I might install Steam. But then again, I might just go back and install some of the native Linux ones that you mentioned earlier on and give those a try and see what happens. And then, you know, three weeks later, I'll raise my head up and wonder what happened to those three weeks. I missed work for three weeks. How am I going to explain this? Yes. Before I get flamed out of existence, I realize these are games, most of them are games that you would have to pay for. Mm-hmm. The only reason I kind of focused on this type of game is that as people come over to Linux, they want games they've heard of or some newer looking games. I'm not saying that the games available in the repositories are garbage. I've spent hours finding (35/42)
little gems of games, you know, some of them text-based, some of them have graphics. And I've had a great time. I mean, Alien Arena, I ran around for days until I had to have an intervention, you know. So there are games that you don't have to pay for that are just as fun. So I'm not trying to say these are the only games available. I'm just trying to show that we have games that are fun, that are fairly current, or almost as new as the Windows versions. So people realize that Linux isn't just for work. Linux can be used for everything. And that's basically what this whole thing is. You know, most people use Linux to work, but they seldom think that, hey, I can do other stuff with it. And I just want to show you that one system can rule them all. Yeah. Right. Lord of the Rings reference there. So we've talked, Bill, just to recap here for a second. We've talked about the Steam engine and installing that on Linux and the support of the Steam games and many of those you have to pay for. (36/42)
We've talked about native Linux games, many of those you don't have to pay for because they're part of the Linux and open source ecosystem. So they will be free and many of them are of equal quality as the other games you might find on Steam. And so we've got a lot of choice for our listeners. Is there anything else that you think our listeners should know about games, gaming on Linux, Steam, anything else? I'm glad you asked. I always have something else. Now this is a little geeky. We are getting, or already have, Linux support for some of the best gaming engines out there, but I just kind of wanted to let people know what their names are so they can kind of, you know, when they're using the Google, to see where the status of these engines are or if they've made tweaks. The Unreal 4 engine, Crytek's CryEngine, and of course the Unity engine. I believe Unity is the open source version of a gaming engine and it's being used by several games. I don't know what they are, but I've heard (37/42)
good things that it's promising, but I haven't seen any games based on it yet. But you know, Crytek, the CryEngine is probably one of the most advanced engines out there. Because when they first come out, I remember even the high end machines had trouble running Crytek's engine. So it could just do so much. And Unreal 4 engine, hey, everybody's, well, let me say, a lot of people played Unreal. And it was, you know, so you can do a lot with these engines, you know. So what I would like to say, hey guys, these games are going to be based on these engines. So I think it's important for us as a community to get together and support the devs so they continue making these ports for the games. So we can have, I wouldn't say, parity with Windows, because we're better than, no, I better not say that. Yeah, I'm going to get in trouble. Hey, but you know, if the dev developers of these games see that, hey, letting people spend money on games, maybe we should continue doing it. Yes, they might not (38/42)
be as much, but I have found in my endeavors, money speaks. Now, if you don't want to buy a game, that's fine. But if you're a gamer, and my suggestion, and I am not paid to endorse Steam, is to wait until one of those games goes on sale from one of these developers and grab it. So you save some money, and get a current game, and you support the devs, and they say, well golly, we've had a thousand downloads of our game from Linux. Maybe it's worth it to us to go ahead and do the extra work so, hey, we're not going to turn down free money. So I have to say, if you can, support the developers that do work for Linux games. And if you don't want to, you don't have to, but I'm just saying, the more we can support them, I think we're going to continue seeing all these games, because Steam can't do all the work. Right, exactly. And it's the same with any open source project. If you like it and you use it, continue to provide your support in whatever way you can. And if they ask for money and (39/42)
you have the money to give them, whether it's a donation or a payment for one of their software programs, or if you have no money but you have time and you can contribute your time to improving, either the software itself, if you have that kind of experience and that kind of skill, then go ahead and do that. Or perhaps even in documentation, or teaching people how to use it, as we do here on the Going Linux podcast. So lots of ways you can contribute support and help the development of software that's oftentimes given away for free. Yeah, and this kind of ends this part of the conversation. The gaming on Linux has come a long way since when I first got in. Larry used to have to listen to me whine because I couldn't get something to work and I was banging my head against the wall. And he's like, well, try this. And he remembers days. I spent days trying to get a game to work and just utterly failing. And then now it's just so much easier. It's getting to the point that Linux is coming (40/42)
closer and closer. Just being a system you can do anything you want with without all the hassles of license agreements and stuff. If you want to change the background, you don't have to buy the super premium version. It just works. And that's what we're trying to aim for. I know some of you say, oh golly, a gaming episode. But people like to have fun too. Absolutely. And you keep saying Linux is getting there. I think from the way you've described it, Bill, based on your experience, that we are there in many cases with many games. It's as easy as click, install, play. And how much easier can you get it than that? Okay, so it is now the year 2016, the year of the Linux desktop as it was in 2014, 2015. And now we're the year of the Linux gaming desktop. Hey, that's an idea. So I hope everybody enjoyed it. Check out some of the games. See what you think. Feel free to flame Larry all you want. No, if I made a mistake, please let me know. So Larry, unless you have anything else to say, do (41/42)
you have an application pick? Well, no. How about you, Bill? And I think I can guess what it's going to be. I'm going to cheat. I'm going to cheat because you know I'm lazy that way. It's steam. How did you know? I did. I did. I did know. All right. Well, with that, thanks, Bill, for putting the show together. This was all your work. And you've done a phenomenal job putting this together. And it's good work. Larry, what's our next episode? Our next episode is listener feedback. 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, even if that's gaming. Oh, that is slow. If you'd like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our Going Linux Podcast Google Plus community. Until next time, keep on gaming. 73. Thanks for listening. (42/42)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #438 · Welcome to Linux Pt8 - How Linux protects your privacy Part 1.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 438. Welcome to Linux, starting your adventure, how Linux compares to Microsoft Windows, in the area of privacy, and other conspiracy theories. 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 goinglinx.gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, we will be talking about privacy, specifically comparing Linux to Windows 11. And we'll talk about some other things that may sound like conspiracy theories, but they really aren't, unfortunately. So, shall we get started? Yes, we shall. So, before (1/43)
we go, I actually have a non-weather update. Oh, okay. So, I have, everybody knows I like to play games, and I have one game that will not run on anything but Windows. So, I have a small partition just for that one game, and the other part is all Linux, and I use dual boot on my main system. Okay. And so, I've been using this dual boot setup for months and months. It has Windows, it had Windows 10 and then Windows 11, and then, of course, I had a button to mate on this machine. I have Linux Mint on my other, just 100% Linux machine. So, I have, so I can compare and one's more portable, etc., etc. So, I've done security updates, downloaded it, and thanks to my Linux partition, no issues whatsoever. Okay. I had just finished a gaming session with some friends, and I was, I shut the computer down that night and went to bed. Got up in the morning and found out that, oh, you have to do this update. Okay, so I let it do its update for Windows, never had an issue, and rebooted, and guess (2/43)
what? I cannot get into my Linux partition now. It's like the GRUB boot manager is gone. Okay. I'm sure I can fix it, but it's still, it's like, what changed? So, of course, the last thing I... Bad Microsoft. The only thing I could do is boot into Microsoft because my other machine I had left at work. And so, everything, I don't use their Edge browser or any of their services. I use just to play that one game. Occasionally, I'll look up something for like a YouTube on how to beat something in the game, but that's about the extent of it. Everything, all my defaults were set all back to, let's use Edge, it's so popular. And I was getting ads, and I'm like, God, really? So, yeah, I haven't done any heavy lifting with the Windows 11 or 10. And that's kind of what made me start digging after you had mentioned this video about what Windows 10 slash 11 does when you first started up. So, it was worse than I thought. So, I've been blissfully ignorant in a lot of the changes that they've been (3/43)
implementing. It's almost as if it's just a personal ad platform because it's like, really? This is ridiculous because it's talking to a bunch of stuff. So, we'll get into it. But yeah, I am not happy with Microsoft. And that's why I use Linux. And of course, when they don't break it. That's my rant. Yeah, I think your comment that you put on our notes here that Windows Update is evil is... It kind of sums it up, doesn't it? Yeah, it's not a good thing for in the morning when I need to get work done. Because I use LibreOffice on Linux for certain elements that I want to get accomplished in the mornings. And before coffee, I can't even get into it. And just sit with a blinking cursor. It kind of does not start my day off well. So, anyway... And this is not bashing... I do want to say right up front. This is not bashing Windows 11. It might be bashing some of their practices. But a lot of this... I don't want you to think, well, this is the mandatory, we're going to bash Windows. We (4/43)
actually took the time to read those mind-numbing agreements that you have to agree to before you can even use Windows on a... Like my machine come pre-installed with Windows 10. So, I mean, you can read the agreements, but most people just go, accept, let me get work done. Right, because you have no alternative but to accept it if you want to use their software. So, what else are you going to do? Yeah, it's kind of a catch point too. Once we start discussing, you'll see what I mean. But anyway, we'll leave that for the episode. Yeah, and so that we don't have to mention whenever we have links in the show notes, here are some of the links that we'll have in the show notes. There's a YouTube video on, is your word processor spying on you? From someone named Naomi Brockwell. If you look at her YouTube channel, you'll see that she has a lot of things about this kind of topic. Not just Microsoft or Windows, but other things about privacy. So, and we all know that YouTube is the ultimate (5/43)
authority on everything secure. That was sarcasm in case you didn't know. But that was kind of an interesting thing to watch. There's also something about, is Windows spyware? There is a link to the Microsoft privacy statement, which I think you should take a look at. That's one of those mind-numbing things. Another mind-numbing thing is something about Samsung automated content recognition, oftentimes abbreviated as ACR. That sounds so friendly. I'll talk about that as well. It does, yes. It's automated. What could go wrong there? And then a link on how to turn it off. And a link to Bitwarden because we mentioned that as well. And if we find other links that might be interesting, we'll add them to the show notes as well. But that's just kind of a sampling of some of the things that we use to research this. And so it's not just YouTube videos from conspiracy theorists, but rather we dug into and read, or Bill dug into and read, the Windows or Microsoft privacy statement, and we'll have (6/43)
a lot to say on that. And I dug into some of the privacy statements regarding ACR for Samsung and LG and Apple TV. And, well, we can talk about it. OK. So. All right. You ready, Larry? I'm ready. Let's get going. So, Larry, today we're going to be talking about how Linux compares to Windows 11 and privacy and how it affects the user or us or you. Let's look at some examples of the data collected by the most popular operating system in use. Windows 10, slash 11, because they're just they're very similar to privacy statements, haven't changed that much. I have included a link in the show notes, as Larry has already stated, that that was posted by a channel on YouTube. And it breaks down what this is doing before you even use it. So, Larry, what's it doing? Yeah, well, according to the YouTube video, Microsoft starts collecting and sending information to Google, Akamai, DigiCert, McAfee, MSN, Bing and others, just to name a few. Now, to be fair to Microsoft, some of this data might be (7/43)
used to offer you features. Others may be used to offer to those companies the ability to advertise to you. But why? Do you need all this to write a document? Do you want or need these features when you're creating a spreadsheet? We encourage you to watch the video and decide for yourself and all of the links that we have in the show notes. And it's not just the operating system that is reporting back, but also some of the applications. I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to read the Windows 11 agreement that you have to agree to before you can even use Windows. And it is quite enlightening. Yep. And here are some direct quotes from the agreement that our listeners might find interesting. Installation and use rights. Section A, license. The software is licensed, not sold. Under this agreement, we grant you the right to install and run one instance of the software on your device. The licensed device for use by one person at a time. So long as you comply with the terms and restrictions (8/43)
contained in this agreement. Updating or upgrading from non-genuine software with software from Microsoft or authorized sources does not make your original version of the updated or upgraded version genuine. And in that situation, you do not have a license to use the software. Now, to put that last sentence in a little clearer English, if you are running a pirated version of Microsoft Windows, and then you use that to go to their site and upgrade, that doesn't give you a genuine version of Windows. It simply means that you're now using an upgraded version of the pirated software. And as far as Microsoft is concerned, the license is invalid. Just something in here I wanted to highlight that kind of caught me for use by one person at a time. That will be important later on. So put a pin in that. Okay. And Section B, device. In this agreement, device means a local hardware system, whether physical or virtual, with an internal storage device capable of running the software. A hardware (9/43)
partition or blade is considered to be a device. For purposes of this agreement, device does not include any hardware system, whether physical or virtual, on which the software is installed or accessed solely for remote use over a network. Hmm. Yeah. So I know this sounds like we're just going to read the license, but there's a reason for this. So on C it says restrictions. So I thought they were telling me restrictions at the beginning, but okay. So this is the restrictions part. The device manufacturer or installer and Microsoft reserve all rights, such as rights under intellectual property laws, not expressly granted in this agreement, and no other rights are licensed to you. For the avoidance of doubt, this license does not give you any right to, and you may not permit any other person or entity to use virtualized features of the software separately. Publish copy other than the permitted to backup. You cannot permit it to have one backup. Rent, license, or lend the software. (10/43)
Transfer the software except permitted by this agreement. Work around any technical restrictions or limitations in the software. Put a pin in that too. To operate the devices as a server except as permitted under section two, use the software to offer commercial hosting services. Make the software available for simultaneous use by more than one user over a network. Install the software on a server for remote access or use over the network. Install the software on a device to use only by remote users. Reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the software. Put a pin in this too. When using internet-based features, you may not use these features in any way that could interfere with anyone else's use of them or to try to gain access or use any service data, account, or network in an authorized manner. Okay. That was a lot of gobbledygook. Yeah. Gobbledygook. So let's boil this section down a little bit, Larry, so we have a foundation. So starting at the top, the part that you read, (11/43)
basically it says the software is licensed. You don't own it. Everybody says, oh, I can't do that to my Windows. It's not yours. It's licensed. They grant you the right to use it. So since they retain all the rights to the software, they can pretty much do what they want. You don't own it, but you're paying them for it. Everybody says, well, I bought it. Yeah. Well, you bought a license, not the software. And it says that when they grant you the right to install, so they're saying you're going to buy a license and then we're going to let you install it. But you only can run one instance at a time by one person at a time. Now, Larry, can we allow other people to use our Linux while we're using it? Because when I told you to put a pin in it, you remember Linux is designed as a multi-user operating system. Right. Yeah. Not only can we take the operating system, Linux, and give it to other people or sell it to other people, We can have other people using it at the same time we're using it (12/43)
because it's multi-user. So you can have Linux installed on a computer and give people multiple access to it and they can just use it at the same time if you want to. So use it as a server. Right. So, yeah. And you can put it on whatever hardware it'll install and run on. It doesn't matter. You know, you don't have to have the definition of physical device being a partition on a hard drive. We hope that's not a partition. Yeah, well, I guess that section B where they're defining device, they're kind of breaking it down to a device is not your computer. A device is whatever partition Windows is running on. Shall we move on? Okay. So one other thing is how do we know that Linux is a genuine software if we can't buy a license? Well. Then you can download it from the distribution. There you go. It doesn't matter. Yeah. The mind numbing restriction legally used in section C basically says, Guess what, guys? We reserve all rights whether they're explicitly granted or we even know about them. (13/43)
We still get them. Yeah. Okay. And I said put a pin in that because as these systems become more interconnected and they're talking to more and more people, what exactly are they coming up with? Why do they need to share all this information? It's like double speak. They're speaking, we respect your privacy, but we're still going to send it to all these other entities. Some of it are sub companies of us or we have interests in them. We have agreements to share information. So, you know, it's a lot of interconnected stuff going on. If you watch that YouTube video, you'll kind of see it because he compares how much has changed from Windows 95 to the Windows 10 slash 11. Now, we're getting ready to talk about something that I found kind of interesting is there's agreements within a disagreement that cover other things that, in my opinion, and I'll let the users decide on whether it's double speak because they're saying, Oh, we respect this and we only use this, but oh, we're using all (14/43)
this information for targeted ads. And it takes information about a person for a targeted ad. I'm sure you do a Google search for targeted ads and you'll see what I'm talking about. But they gather information and build a profile on people. So how is it, how are they keeping your data safe? Let's take a second and read the section on privacy and consent of use of data from Microsoft's agreement. It says, Your privacy is important to us. We'll see. Some of the software features send or receive information when you use those features. Many of these features, many of these features can be switched off in the user interface, or you can choose not to use them. By accepting this agreement and using the software, you agree that Microsoft may collect, use and disclose the information as described in the Microsoft privacy statement at, and then a link to their privacy statement, and as may be described in the user interface associated with the software features. So each feature will have its (15/43)
own statement. In other words, let's just break that down a little bit. You're agreeing that Microsoft can collect your information, use your information and disclose your information. In other words, they can give it or sell it to some third party. So all of that's included in what you agree to when you agree to use Windows. And so that's what I mean by agreement within our agreement. So I actually put a link so I could get to it real quick because there's a few things and we're not going to go too in depth on this one. This is kind of just where we're trying. We're trying to show you how things compare from Windows 11 to Linux. The first. But here is this agreement, which is buried in the main agreement. It says Microsoft uses the data we collect to provide you with rich, interactive experiences. In particular, we use data to provide our products, which includes updating, securing, troubleshooting, as well as providing support. It also includes sharing data when it is required to (16/43)
provide the service or carry out the transactions you request, improve and develop our products, personalize our products and make recommendations, advertise and market to you, which includes sending promotional communications, targeting advertising and presenting you with relevant offers. We also use the data to operate our business, which includes analyzing our performance, meeting our legal obligations and developing our workforce and doing research. In carrying out these purposes, we combine data we collect from different contexts, for example, from your use of two Microsoft products, or obtain third parties to give you a more seamless, consistent and personalized experience to make informed business decisions for other legitimate purposes. And it goes on. But that is the agreement within the agreement. So they're telling you first, you're telling them, OK, you can collect all this information and use it. And then you dig into the agreement and you find another one that says, oh, (17/43)
by the way, we're going to use this to develop products that we can then get more information from you, I guess, personalize our products, and we can use it to advertise and market to you, to your licensed software that you don't own. So it's like an ad platform. You just get beat. So here it is. All you want to do is a spreadsheet. And here we thought Google was only company in the ad business, right? No, no, no, no, no. So these EULAs, or End User License Agreements, are the things that you're just clicking through before you even use the software. And here's the kicker. You can't really go to all these subsections until you're connected to the Internet and using the software. It's a catch-22. You have to pay for the product before you can see what you're agreeing to when you use it. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know how that is even a thing, but the more I got into this, it made my head hurt because there are so many weird things like, oh, you can only use it by one person at a (18/43)
time. So if you're playing like they have the Microsoft gaming center they're trying to sell you games to PCs, but it's a two-player and you have two controllers, well, that's more than one person. That's two people using it. Yeah, I don't know how that applies. So, I mean, this is non-conspiracy theory. This is a bunch of, uh, I mean, it's right here in black and white for anybody who wants to, or has the time, or even wants to read it. So, you know, I don't know. My conclusion is, um, I know why I don't use it. I didn't realize it had gotten this bad. I had read it a long time ago, but they keep adding features or, uh, experiences and, um, yeah. What are your thoughts, Larry? I don't know. Am I sounding like a total paranoid privacy person now? I don't think you're paranoid because the facts are there in writing from the company that's providing you the software that we're talking about here. So it's not paranoid. It's, uh, in their agreement. Um, what I don't understand is one of (19/43)
the things that you hear a lot of people say, and it's actually referred to in the agreement here, is that if you don't agree to these terms, you don't have to use the feature or you don't have to use the product. Uh, and if you just think about the situation where you purchase a computer that has Microsoft Windows already installed on it, and you click through on the agreements and you decide, hmm, I don't think I want to use Windows. So you take Windows off of the computer and you install Linux on your computer. But what have you done? You have not agreed to use their product because, you know, you're not using it. But it's not like you can return the software for a refund. You've already paid for it. So, you know, what are you doing? Maybe it's better just to purchase your computers with Linux pre-installed on them. Because then you can avoid this whole situation. Of course you are missing one of the most important things. Say you clicked the agree and then you read through it. So (20/43)
I'm not agreeing to that and, um, take it off and put Linux on it. You've already sent before you even can get to the agreement. It's already sending data, the device, the version, everything, your geolocation, um, to... They've already collected information. Yeah, they've already collected information before you can even agree or disagree. Yeah. It's mind blowing because, uh, it's the, as you'll see, cause I had to break this up because it was just, it's just so big of a subject. I mean, I thought it was going to be fairly straightforward. You know, here's the differences. And then I made the mistake of reading these agreements and saying, wait a minute, it's a hundred, for 99.9% of this, it's the polar opposite of what Linux offers. Yes, yes. That's the point that we're trying to make here is you can avoid all this mess by installing Linux. Now, some Linux distributions, quite frankly, have an end user license agreement, and you need to agree to that, especially if it's a version of (21/43)
Linux that you've purchased before you can use their software. But they give you an opportunity to read their end user license agreement before you install. And, uh, I can't speak for every Linux distribution because I haven't used every Linux distribution, but many of them who do have EULAs will give you the opportunity to read it before they start collecting the information, which is the opposite, like you said, the polar opposite of what Microsoft is doing here. So the only option you have is before you turn on the computer for the first time, you need to go to their website, presumably on another computer, and read their end user license agreement, if you can find it, before you even power on your computer. Now, tell me this, another possible way around this in my estimation, and I know the answer to this, but I'm going to get your feedback on it, is, okay, so I buy a computer that has Windows pre-installed. And I do not intend to use Windows. So what I do is I take that computer (22/43)
and I boot into Windows, but I don't connect it to the internet. And I'm reading the EULA and I decide, nope, I don't want it. If I'm not connected to the internet, it can't send the information back, right? Let's see, without being connected to the internet, I would say, no, it couldn't. But if you switch on the internet while you're connected. It's going to send it. It'll send it. It will. Yeah. So I think the only way around this, if you're going to buy a computer that has Windows pre-installed on it, but you don't intend to use Windows, is to wipe the hard drive. Don't boot to the operating system on the hard drive. Boot to a Linux thumb drive and wipe the hard drive, remove the partition, and install Linux by removing Windows entirely. Completely erase it. Yeah, but guess what? You still are paying them for that license. Right. Okay. Even though you never used to see, oh, I love this hardware, but I'm not going to use Windows. You still have paid them whatever they charge the (23/43)
manufacturer if it's pre-installed. If you're buying it, it's about $90 to $100 now. Even though they say, we're giving it away, they're still getting licensing fees from these manufacturers. The only way that you can not support some of these practices that they're doing is you need to, in my opinion, just support the manufacturers that install Linux on it. And you don't have to worry about all that other jazz. Like what's the one? System 76. System 76 and Dell sells computers with Linux pre-installed and Lenovo sells computers with Linux pre-installed. And they also sell computers without an operating system. So those would be the only ways you could avoid. Well, there's other smaller manufacturers. Sure, sure. Absolutely. Yeah, those are just some examples. Or you could build it yourself. But that would be the only way to avoid paying Microsoft for Windows. Yeah, so the reason, and this is my opinion only, that this is becoming more and more prevalent in Windows is because people (24/43)
just don't read the license. They don't realize how much of their privacy they're giving away. And if people just say, look, I just want to get my stuff done. I don't care what these things say. You're giving away a lot of your privacy to a corporation who would then sell it. And what you've got to ask yourself is, OK, so Microsoft might not be nefarious, but what about McCaffrey? What about Google? What are their data policies and protections? Do they care about privacy? It's kind of a snowball. So, yes, you don't know how these other companies are going to handle your data and your privacy. But that's exactly right. If all you want to do is just do your darn spreadsheet, you're just like, I don't care. I don't do anything. But in all actuality, you're just empowering. And if that doesn't bother you, hey, go ahead and use it. When people ask, why do you use Linux instead of Windows? Then you can say, well, have you read their agreements? Do you know what they do with your data? You (25/43)
should think about it. Yeah. And the thing is, though, that most people, you know, the average computer user doesn't care. You know, they just want to use the software. They know Windows. They know how to use it. They're so concerned that if they switch to something else, they're not going to be able to use their favorite program or that they'll need to learn something new. And whether that's switching from a Windows computer to a Mac OS computer or a Chrome computer, that reluctance to switch is there. And so they just don't care. They accept. However, let's move on to a couple of other scenarios where you've got a lot of leakage of your private information. And it goes beyond just collecting generalized or anonymized information about a group of users and is very specific to your information that you're showing on your screen. And what I'm talking about here is automated content recognition. That's a term that is kind of general. It's often referred to as ACR, as we mentioned in the (26/43)
introduction. One of the things that I discovered in researching for this episode is that, let's say you just purchased a smart television, right? They're very popular these days. You know, some have Roku built in. Others have other software built in that allows you to connect your computer to the Internet to be able to view the free streamed channels or the paid stream channels. Well, even beyond that streamed content, you're agreeing to a EULA, an End User License Agreement for the use of that smart device. And we have a link specifically to Samsung's documentation on their website about their ACR, automated content recognition. And you can read through their agreement that you are agreeing to, if you wish, and how they go about collecting information. And it's not all that different from what we just described from Microsoft. And we also have a link to turn that off on your television if you so choose to do. And I've turned it off on my Samsung TV after reading this, and I have (27/43)
received no difference in the programming that I can access, in the things that I can do with that television through their smart features. It's just that they give you the ability to turn off, or at least it appears that it's turning off. Now I'm getting into conspiracy theory here. It appears that they're turning it off. And I also discovered that whether your television is a Samsung or an LG or any other brand, Vizio, doesn't matter. If it's a smart TV, you're agreeing to have them share information. And it goes beyond that. It's even worse than just sharing information. We'll get into that in a second here. But essentially, what you're doing with your smart television is you are signing an agreement that is buried within the menu system of your television. And to find it and turn it off is a bit of a hassle. And we've got a link that includes how to turn it off for various brands. But regardless of the brand, you need to go through your menus in the television itself to figure out (28/43)
where to turn it off. And it's not always referred to as ACR. It may be referred to as something else. That's the more generalized term for Internet-based advertising and viewing information services or even voice recognition services on some of these televisions. Yes, some of them have microphones built in or accessible through the remote control. On Samsung, you have to go to settings and then support and then scroll down to terms and privacy. And in terms and privacy, there will be some checkboxes to be able to turn off viewing information services. In LG, it's in settings. And then you go to all settings and then you go to general and then you go to live plus and then you turn that off. But then there's someplace else you have to go to settings, all settings general, about this TV, user agreements, and then personalized advertising. You can turn that off. Amazon Fire TV. I'm not going to go through all these, but Amazon's Fire TV, Roku TV, Apple TV, Samba TV, several others here, (29/43)
some of which I have never heard of. But lots of places to go to turn these things off and to ensure that you are not sharing this kind of information with your friendly neighborhood television manufacturer. So those are all related to sharing personal and private information, essentially. But it goes beyond that. As I was reading this specifically related to Samsung. So I can't say definitively that every smart TV does this, although I would expect that if they're not all doing it, they're doing some version of this. In the Samsung agreement, one of the things that you're agreeing to is that they can take snapshots of what you are displaying on their television to be able to determine your viewing patterns and to be able to take that information and provide it to third parties to be able to advertise to you. Or even to, I'm making this as an assumption now, that eventually it could end up in the hands of nefarious third parties. So you could end up with spam or other unsavory ads or (30/43)
promotions or offers of spyware or other kinds of things as a result of Samsung or another smart TV manufacturer sharing that information with someone else. To take it even further, they can take a screenshot of anything that you're displaying on the TV. It doesn't have to be streaming service programming. It doesn't have to be over the air television service. It can be your computer's screens if you're using your smart TV as a monitor, as I'm doing. So think about that for a second. They could take a screenshot of anything that you're displaying on the TV. Let's assume that you have a computer for work connected to your smart TV because the screen is bigger and you know whether you have poor eyesight and need it bigger or whether you just like to see it bigger. Let's say you're working on a financial spreadsheet for your company that has proprietary information on it or financial data that could compromise your company's stock price if it were to get out. You're agreeing to allow them (31/43)
to take a screenshot of your screen at any time and any of the content that's on the screen. So now you've just agreed to give them access to your company's private and proprietary information, which may get you fired if that actually comes out. Because there's probably something in your employment agreement that says that you protect the company's private information. So it's in your best interest if you're using your smart TV as a computer monitor that you turn these things off if you're using it for business purposes because it could affect your ability to earn an income. I'm not saying that it's going to happen, but the potential is there. Yeah. So just so I understand, this is how you talk about companies. Say you're working on a spreadsheet for your bills or you're putting together a spreadsheet with personal information so you don't have to find it in five different pieces of paperwork. It could be taking a snapshot of that and sending it to Samsung with all your relevant (32/43)
information. Yeah, that's what you're agreeing that they can do. Whether they do it or not, I suspect they are. And worse still, you could be logging into your bank. And if you're displaying your banking information, they could take a screenshot right at that second and they could have all of that. If you're logging into a website and there's the password field, right? And you click the little icon that lets you view the password as you're typing it in. Now they have your login name and password for that website and the website that you're logging into. They have everything they need to compromise that particular site that you're using. So let me ask you a question. This agreement, also the reason behind this is they look at your viewing. They're getting a profile of what you'd like to watch so they can offer you stuff. So that's what they say as to why they're doing this. Yes. So you say you watch the news at six and then you watch a rerun of the Beverly Hillbillies or whatever. (33/43)
They're gathering that information and saying, oh, he likes older shows, so we should offer him this. I guess they also know which advertisements that you don't watch. You just change the agenda. Skip over those ads. Yeah, right. Wow. So they find out what you're interested in. I guess they're pretty smart. They can get a pretty good idea of maybe not sure your name unless they've captured that somehow. They get an idea of your demographic, whether you're male, female and age and interests, just from your viewing habits. All you're trying to do is just watch the latest. Watch TV. Watch TV in peace and you're just helping them out. Of course, we know there's never a data breach at any of these companies. Exactly. So, yeah. So we've talked a lot here about our opinions and we've also talked about the things that are in writing from these companies. And we're going to leave it to you to do your own research. But hopefully we've done enough research to spur you to actually do some of that (34/43)
research and learn these things for yourself. So, you know, you could be a conspiracy theorist and take this information and morph it into something that just makes some conclusions that perhaps aren't relevant or valid. Or you could simply use them for your personal use. We suggest the latter. But if you want to spread the word that these things are possible, then our links will help you out, not just for your own personal edification, but also to be able to share them with other people who you'd like to inform about these potential data breaches and personal information breaches and everything else. You may say that if you're not doing something wrong, you don't have anything to hide. And so you don't have to worry about this. But think about the scenario where you're doing everything perfectly legally and perfectly on the right side of the moral situation as well. But your smart TV is hooked up to the Internet and you're displaying your personal or business proprietary information (35/43)
on the screen and they're capturing that. You have to worry about that as well. Moving on, I actually have a software recommendation because, you know, we've all talked about you should have strong passwords, but who can remember, you know, 14, 15, 16 long passwords? Or more. So I use and actually pay the whole $10 a year for Bitwarden. And it's a password manager and I am not getting paid. I actually give them money. And it is open source. It's constantly altered for security. And they tell you right there, if you forget your master password, you're out of luck. My work uses Windows. Of course it does. You have to have these long complicated passwords and it's easy to go password 123456 and it's secure. But to really protect your privacy and, you know, a lot of these browsers will say, we can, Edge does it because it popped up and Google does it on their Chrome browser. Basically, they say, we can remember your passwords. I don't trust you because I just read your license agreement. I (36/43)
think I'll use my own solution that's open source and people can actually look at the code and figure it out if there's something nefarious going on. So Bitwarden, I've been using for about two years now. So no, actually three. And it really helps with passwords. So one of the biggest things you can do for your privacy is have strong, random passwords that are not something that are easily guessed. And what's nice about Bitwarden, it will actually, you tell it what kind of password you want and it will come up with something for you. And you can kind of, it has its own little generator and I use that and I have yet to have one of my passwords compromised. So it gets high marks. I would recommend anybody do your own research. I've included a link in the show notes to their site and there's lots of people that swear by it and I'm one of those people. So I don't know if you use a password manager, Larry, but Bitwarden is mine of choice and I can highly recommend it. Yeah, I used to use (37/43)
LastPass until I lost trust in them after they had a security breach and switched to Bitwarden. And I agree with everything that you just said. And in addition to that, one of the things that Bitwarden allows you to do that LastPass used to do, but doesn't now without paying them exorbitant fees. Bitwarden allows you, even with the free version, to use their password manager across different devices. That's nice, yeah. And I use Bitwarden exclusively, have for years, and find it a great alternative to the other password managers that are out there, mainly because of the cross-platform feature. Because my phone is an iPhone, my business computer is MacBook Pro from Apple, and my home computers are Linux. They're all Linux. And, you know, we have an iPad or two hanging around here as well and some other things, but Bitwarden allows you to share your passwords across all these devices in their secure vault without charging you an arm and a leg to do that. So, you know, it's great that (38/43)
they offer that for free. If you want the additional features and you want to support them, please do provide them financial support by subscribing to their services. But you can use it, you can try it, you can test it out for your own purposes without having to pay them a bunch of money up front. And they also provide some great instructions for moving your passwords from whatever you're using today. Even if it's a spreadsheet where you've captured all of the passwords that you use, you can import that all into Bitwarden and it'll create a vault for you. And then delete that spreadsheet, please. But, you know, I used Bitwarden for free for the first year. And, of course, you have to create an account because that's how you log in as a uniquely identifiable person. Yes, but I never got any advertisement saying, give us money, give us money, give us money. And after I said, this is something I use every day. It's open source and they're constantly adding features. I went ahead and said, (39/43)
here, you can have 10 bucks a month. It's less than a dollar a month. It's not even a coffee. Yeah, here it is. Thank you very much. Continue to work. It's always worked perfectly out of the box. And that's kind of hard to say for any software, but it's always done exactly what it's supposed to. And it's always been cross platform. I've used it on Linux. I've used it on Windows. I've used it on an iMac that I had long ago. So, yeah, it's anywhere that you need passwords or information that you need to have with you. Bitwarden has been fantastic. Yep. But I just wanted to say Bitwarden and the people behind Bitwarden, you better not have a security reach. That would be our luck. We are trusting you until you prove that we can't trust you. We will continue to trust you and we'll continue to endorse you. It is the best one out there at this point. And so, you know, it may have been kind of an abrupt switch from privacy to Bitwarden, but Bitwarden is part of privacy. Yeah, it's part of (40/43)
privacy, ensuring that your passwords are kept secure and away from prying eyes and even outside of your RAM memory in your brain. You don't have to remember it. It's there. I can remember one password that's long, but I can't remember 14. But the whole idea of these next couple episodes is to compare the differences between Windows 11 and Linux and inform maybe some users of other operating systems that there are other options. And what exactly you're giving up or getting in the process of using that software. Yep. So we'll have additional episodes that touch on this subject. We may not record them immediately and publish them immediately. We may have some other topics in between, just so we're not talking privacy, privacy, privacy. We don't want this to become the privacy podcast, but we will touch on additional privacy related issues as we move forward. So stay tuned for that. Yes. Our next in this series, we talked about Windows 11. The next one will be about Linux and how it (41/43)
compares and under the same type of format. So I hope you stick around and see that if we see something, we'll call it out. So, or not. Exactly. And yeah, if you've, as a listener to this podcast, if you have encountered anything around privacy that you'd like to share with us, or you think we're full of crap on some of these things that we've talked about here. We appreciate you sending those into us through our normal channels with the phone number or the comments or emails. And we will share them in the listener feedback episodes. And speaking of listener feedback, that will be our next episode. Listener feedback, as is our habit. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and subscribe. We provide 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 (42/43)
podcast community on community.goinglinx.com. Until next time. Thanks for listening. 73. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com (43/43)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #358 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 358, 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 to send us feedback, our email address is goinglinux.gmail.com and our voicemail is 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hey Bill. Hey Larry, how are you today? I am doing fine. We have a lot of email this time around and a voicemail. So you want to get right into it? Yeah, I just want to say that it's starting to feel like Christmas. We got a lot of snow up here in New Mexico. Oh, yes. I bet the temperature's dropped. It's about 26 degrees right now. So I'm inside where it's (1/43)
warm. Yeah, it's a chilly, what, 63 or something here in California. Temperatures have dropped here as well, but not to the same degree. It's 63. Hey, don't forget that sweater. Yes, exactly. All right. Yeah, that's my winter jacket as a sweater. The winter jacket? Yeah, mine's a parka. Yep. Anyhow, we shall jump right into our first voicemail. And this one's from Paul who provided not only the voicemail but an email to go along with it. So I'll read that first. This is about boot partition saga question answered and the whole story in audio feedback. That was the title of his email. He said, Hi, Larry and Bill. Thanks to both of you for all your work in supporting the Linux community. I have learned so much about Linux by just listening to going Linux over the years. Keep up the good work and thanks for keeping the tenor of the show family friendly. I so appreciate that. Attached is the answer to Bill's question about the ext2 file system for the boot partition and a comment regarding (2/43)
Larry's analysis of Peter's problem in the last listener feedback. My clip is about four minutes. Sorry about the length, but I included both snippets from episode 356. So the context is there. If you can't use it, no problem. I won't tell you how long I spent just getting four minutes of audio together. Kind of embarrassing. This is tough work. Paul from North Texas. Well, thanks, Paul. And yeah, it's a little more work than you might think going into it. But, you know, once you get used to it, it's straightforward making audio recordings. And now you've got some experience. Maybe you could do some recording for us anyway. All joking aside, here is his voicemail. Hello, Larry and Bill. This is Paul from North Texas. Thank you very much for your comments on the last listener feedback, episode number 356. I wanted to give you a couple more pieces of information and maybe we can put this to rest. And it was a strange problem. The problem I was experiencing that I isolated to the boot (3/43)
partition was the fact that I could not update the system. When I went into the update manager, there was a dialog box that said it couldn't remove a certain file and so it failed to update. Well, further information as I began to look into this. It was the update manager was attempting to remove an old kernel image. I went into the boot partition, took a look at it, and in fact there were several kernel images and the boot partition was running out of space. I did attempt to remove the kernel images using Synaptic and for some reason Synaptic was telling me it could not do that. I went into the update manager to try to remove old kernels and update manager failed to do that. There was something going on. I don't know what was going on. But you all asked me this question. And the boot partition is 300 megabytes, not gigabytes. Yeah, so it's fairly small. It's ext2 for some reason. Hmm, strange. Yeah, that is weird, isn't it? Yeah. I wonder why it's using ext2. Yeah, I'm sure there's a (4/43)
reason. Yeah, let us know what the reason is Paul, because everything else looks really good. But just to add curiosity, why are you using ext2 for your boot partition? Now the reason that I was using the ext2 file system was because I was attempting to make the home partition a stand-alone partition. I didn't want to load Linux Mint the way the distribution would have loaded it. I wanted to select the home partition, set it aside so that I could update my system without disturbing the home partition. So in order to do that, I thought I had to partition the entire drive for every part that the operating system needed. In other words, the boot partition, swap, system file, and home partition. I checked an internet site that suggested the size of the boot partition, about 350 megabytes, and to use the ext2 file system. I don't know why it said to do that. I just followed the direction. So in order to isolate the home partition, I partitioned the drive that way. Now while you were running (5/43)
Peter's comment, you made this statement, Larry. And you add more than two kernels into that partition area, you run out of space, which is exactly what Paul was seeing and obviously what Peter was seeing as well. So you can either, as Peter suggests, expand the boot partition and the size of it so that there's a little more space using gparted. Or you can simply delete the old kernels before you upgrade to a new kernel. So fortunately, when you're using Linux Mint, they make that quite easy. Now I attempted to resize the boot partition in gparted. And as you know, you have to go to the far right side of the partition in gparted and you start having to move it back. So you start with the home, then you get to the system, then you get to the swap. The very first partition is the boot partition. Well, you can resize the home, you can resize the system file partition, you can't resize the swap partition. So I don't know how you resize the boot partition in gparted. I thought if I could (6/43)
make that boot partition larger, I could let more kernel images come in there and maybe extend the life of that drive partition that way. But I couldn't resize the boot partition in gparted. So that was my dilemma. In a nutshell, I had to start all over again. But it was an interesting problem. I don't know why this happened this way. Thanks a lot for discussing it and I really appreciate it. Thanks, Paul. That was really good. You did a good job. Yeah, and you were talking about the resizing of the boot partition and why the gparted wouldn't let you do that. I suspect, and without hearing anything different, I'll just go with this. I suspect you were trying to run gparted with your Linux system booted. So I suspect that's why it's not going to let you resize certain partitions. You really have to put gparted on a USB drive, either partition magic or some other bootable drive, and then boot to that so that you could resize the partitions on your hard drive from a running system that's (7/43)
not that system, right? So I'm suspecting that's what was going on. Other than that, it should have resized it without too much trouble. As we've said and provided links in the past, sometimes there's a little fiddling to do to make that happen. But I'm glad things have worked out for you and sorry you had to start from scratch. Yeah, done that once or twice. Yep, oh well. At least it worked out. It did work out and I really appreciate you sending that audio reply and it was really good. Yeah. So our next email comes from Greg who provided a mini response for Paul. Hi Larry and Bill. I have experienced the same problem that Paul describes in episode 354 with the slash boot partition filling up. Here are two ways to clean up the slash boot partition, one from the Linux Mint GUI and the other from the command line. From the GUI, open the update manager, pull down the view tab, select Linux kernels. You will get a warning here that you will need to take knowledge. Note at the top of the (8/43)
window, the kernel version you are currently using. You will find in the table all the installed kernels as well as one that you are currently using. If you click on the installed kernel listing, you will find the option to delete it to pop up. My recommendation is to remove all the old kernels one at a time, oldest first until you are left with the current one and the latest one before the current one as a safety measure. If you just did a kernel update, you could also find a newer kernel listed as installed than the one you are currently using. Keep that one too. From the command line, open a terminal window, type sudo apt auto remove, enter your password, tip. When you are in there, you might as well type sudo apt auto clean too, just to clean up the other cruft. Regards, Greg, W8FJK. That doesn't seem too hard, Larry. Yeah, and that's the kind of thing that I used to do when I used to worry about the old kernels filling up my hard drive. I don't worry about it too much anymore, but (9/43)
that's kind of the strategy I used. Start with the oldest one and delete it until you have one prior to the one you are currently using. If you have done a recent update, maybe you have one later than the one you are currently using and leave that in there too. I just noticed that the command line was quicker. Oh yeah, that's usually the case. The command line is quicker than anything else because all you have to do is type. Make it sound really simple. As long as you know what to type, you're cool on the command line. That's the tricky part. But once you're working in the command line, you get to know these kinds of things through repetition and that kind of thing. So the command line is quicker, I've found. But the graphical user interface version makes more sense to most people, I think. Yeah, it does. What's funny is when you first start and you're really scared of the command line, you always try to find the graphical user interface to do it. But over time you're like, man, I can (10/43)
just do this with two commands and two terminals. So you start moving more to, let me just do these couple of commands on the terminal and I'm done. It's kind of funny how that's kind of a spectrum. You start kind of scared and you see a command line and then just overuse you get a little more comfortable with it. So thanks, Greg. That was really great. Yes. Okay, moving on to Sergio's email about Google Plus alternatives and a small tip for gaming. So this is one for everybody. Yay. Hello, Bill and Larry. My name is Sergio. I have been a listener for a long time. First of all, thank you very much for your work. I find it very useful and interesting, so please keep doing it. Well, we will, Sergio, until something gives, I guess. This email is just to give you an alternative to Google Plus I found surfing the Internet. Discourse. And he's got a link to discourse.org. It's an open source forum that you can install on your servers. Actually, it seems to be an open source implementation of (11/43)
services like discuss, but I haven't tried it myself. So I have no idea how it performs or even if it covers your needs. But as you said, you were looking for options to replace Google Plus before the service goes down. I thought it could be useful for you. Well, thank you, Sergio. Aside from this, just a small suggestion for Bill. Lutris. One of the programs you said that you were using Play on Linux to play Guild Wars 2. And I don't remember if you ever said that you have tried Lutris or not. Lutris is basically a game library management, something like Steam or itch.io, but it's far better than them. It handles the installation of games, both native and emulated. For example, it manages the download and setup of almost any open source game without worrying about libraries and dependencies. And also is able to download and install and configure Windows games like Play on Linux. But better. I'd say that Proton is copying what Lutris does because of each Windows game Lutris downloads. (12/43)
The version of Wine that performs better adjusts the configuration of DXVK, if the game uses DirectX, and installs all the tweaks the game needs. If you haven't tried yet, I strongly recommend that you do so. And nothing else. Please forgive my mistakes, as English is not my native language. And as I've said at the beginning of the email, thank you for your work. Best regards, Sergio. And again, Sergio, I would never have known that English wasn't your native language. I didn't make any corrections to your email to post it in here, and I read it just as you said it. So, sounds pretty good to me. Yeah, it sounded great to me. He writes better than I do, and Larry has seen some of the stuff I write, so great job, Sergio. Yes. And what about Lutris? Have you used it, Bill? No, I haven't tried Lutris. I've decided the easiest way just to get everything to work is I unfortunately just keep that small Windows partition and just put my games that won't run easily on Linux over there. So when (13/43)
I need to go get my gaming on, I just go ahead, boot into it, play my game, boot out, go back to Linux. So it just seems it's a lot less work, but Lutris, I will definitely look at it because if it is as easy as he says it was, maybe I won't need Windows to play my games. So we shall see. Windows only gets a reprieve because I need to use it to play games, which... Yes, you need to game. I need to game. It's a requirement. So thanks Sergio. I'll look into Lutris and see how it works and might try installing a couple of Windows games and see how it works. So our next email comes from Rick and he asks about mounting shares over OpenVPN. Hi guys. I have a problem that I hope either you guys or one of the great minions can help me with. I connected with a recent podcast you have done on backups. I backup photos and documents to a friend Synology server using OpenVPN for very many years. Now going Linux, I want to be able to use a file sync application, free file sync to backup and look at (14/43)
the folder differences. Right now I use Nautilus, which does mount the shares correctly over VPN to copy the new folders containing files. But deleting a selected few forest side files is difficult, tedious and prone to error when I want to mirror on the forest side. Nautilus knows how to mount these shares on the other side of the VPN, but I need to find out how to do it. I tried all the combinations of sudo mount commands using slash t cifs and loads of different other attributes, but I can't get it to work. I can mount shares successfully on my Synergy NAS correctly with no problem. I noticed that Nautilus puts its mount points in folders entitled gvfs and I'm wondering whether cifs can't mount over VPN and gvfs can. But I'm having trouble finding out how to put a command string together using gvfs. Any ideas please? Thanks and best regards, Rick. Hmm. Yeah. So on the other side of a VPN. It may be that they've got the security set up on the other side of the VPN so that you can't (15/43)
mount it in the way that you're trying to do that. You might want to talk to send a message to or otherwise communicate with the people that control the server that you're trying to connect to. See if they have any tips or even if they allow what you're trying to do. It's not something that I have tried to do myself, so I don't have any experience with this. Hopefully the folks who manage the server that you're trying to connect to will have some guidance for you on that, Rick. Yeah. I've never tried anything like that myself. So he's got a lot of things going on there. If you really kind of break down, you got these using open VPN, he's trying to go over synergy. Yeah. I think you should follow Larry's advice because I could just rattle on about nothing because I have no clue how you do that. Yeah. Okay. I hope something can help you, Rick. Yeah, I do, too. All right. Don provided some feedback on moving to Linux. Just a little feedback for you. I found your site while searching for (16/43)
resource information about moving away from Windows with the idea of going to Linux. After digging around, I found your podcasts on the show notes page. Confusing, but whatever. Looking through the list, I came upon September 20th, episode 353, Moving from Windows to Linux Part One. My first thought was that I have found the information that I needed. Maybe I did, but I'll never know, as after 30 minutes, I stopped the playback. Your 20 minute diatribe, the sole purpose of which seemed to be to make you feel superior in your choice of operating system, was ludicrous in the extreme. It is clear, neither of you know much about Windows 10. Frankly, if I did a podcast on how to move to Linux and gave all my non-factual perceptions of Linux from years and years of hearing how bad Linux could be and stuck strictly to urban legend scenarios, it would have sounded exactly like the first 30 minutes of your show. You might want to keep in mind that people coming to your website are looking for (17/43)
information about moving to the operating system you seem to feel so superior about. The last thing they want to hear is your non-factual bashing of the operating system that they are using. Not only is it unprofessional, it completely destroys your credibility. Had you done any research whatsoever, you could have made accurate comparisons between Windows and Linux. You could have told me why Linux was more user-friendly, easier, less expensive, more stable, and more reasons why Linux could be better for me, rather than berate my choice of operating system. Your comments were the worst confirmation of the Linux admin stereotype, arrogant and superior. Since that is the thing I've heard for years, it is clearly true, right? Good luck to you, Don. Well, thanks for the feedback, Don. I'm not sure I agree with everything that you've said. Both Bill and I have had quite a bit of experience using Windows from the days of, in my case, Windows 3.11, all the way to today's Windows 10. And I (18/43)
have a computer running Windows 10 in the other room that I update every once in a while and power through the extended reboot times and the multiple reboots and everything else that goes along with it. But far be it from me to say that, you know, Bill and I know anything whatsoever about Linux in our experience and really don't talk to anybody about the topics that we... or do any research on the topics that we present here on the show. So, thanks, Don. Oh, Larry. Any feedback from you, Bill? Oh, Larry. I'm trying to be nice. I'm going to try to be nice. Why? I am not an expert. I've been running Windows 3.11 all the way, probably every major and minor Windows up to Windows 10. So, let's break this down just a little bit. As everybody who has listened knows that I will harsh even on Linux distributions when they are bad. There are things on Windows 10 that I don't like. I use Windows 10 in the game, as I just admitted just a little while ago. So, one of the things that he says is that (19/43)
he didn't like our diatribe. Well, you know, that's our personal opinions and we try to keep them as facts-based as possible. So, let's just go over a few things that I don't like and see if these are urban myths. All the advanced telemetry that you don't know what they're doing with it, it defaults to full and you can't shut it off. And under the defaults, they capture your text, your voice, the amount of time that you've been in an application, where you are, what your hardware looks like, what hardware, what drivers, and some of this can be useful. But I really don't need them to know that I'm playing Destiny 2 for three hours a day. It's none of their business. And it says right in their little document that if you have a crash, that they might inadvertently capture some of what you're doing for diagnostic purposes. So, there's a large amount. Let's also go on to all the crapware that they install. Candy Crush Saga, Super whatever, CART, Minecraft. So, at one time they got away (20/43)
from it and now they're coming back to it. Also, if the EU has said that Windows 10 in its first iteration was violating the privacy because of all this data that they were gathering. And let's just move to something more current. How about the latest Windows 10 version? Because they're releasing two versions of, two new versions of Windows every year. That's their upgrade cycle. And they're still calling it Windows 10, but I guess they just decide to stop giving it numbers after a while. The last one has been horrendously bad data loss. The media player that's built in, they reintroduced a bug that doesn't allow the certain aspects of the interface to work. So, if you use that, you're kind of out of luck. And so, let's just break this down. I might not know anything about Windows, but maybe, and here's an idea, maybe give me some specifics because you say we did not tell you why Linux was better. Well, let's go over a few of those. It's free, as in freedom. It is not licensed to you. (21/43)
You can do anything you want to it. You have jurors, have a nice day. If you want to use it to have a self-driving car, that's great too. Yes, certain things in Linux are harder, and we've both never said any different. A lot of times, Larry and myself will say, hey guys, you need to do better. Is it more stable? Yes, I would say so. I have to restart Windows 10, but I think the last time when Larry and myself were playing our little game of how long is our system up, I made like 32 days before I had to do anything. Okay, and maybe that's, I hope that's specific enough for you. I don't have it crashing. I've had driver problems in Windows 10 that Windows wants to install a version of, say, my driver for my graphics card, and I just had this, and there's a new one that's been released, so I download it manually and install it, but it wants to revert back to the one approved by Microsoft, even though it doesn't perform as well. And just another thing, there is a way that if you don't (22/43)
want to get all those nice updates that if you're a home user, you cannot block. You can put it on metered connection. One of our minions told me about that, and I did some research, and it's true, but they still push through security updates, but major feature upgrades, I hear that it doesn't. So that's a workaround. It's not the greatest. But I would suggest maybe before you think that we're harshing on it, go and I'm going to plug another podcast. It's called Windows Weekly, and Paul Thuratt and Mary Jo Foley are Windows fanboys. They love it, and they have been lamenting just part of the things I've mentioned, and they're even going, hey, Microsoft, this is stupid. Why are you doing this? Why have you changed how you're testing? Why are you pushing things out before they're ready? Why are you on such a fast upgrade schedule? Because most businesses and people don't want to have to install a completely new Windows 10. So off my rant, Don, thanks for the feedback, but I respectfully (23/43)
disagree with you, and I would also say that I am not a Linux admin, and I am definitely not arrogant and superior, because you can ask anybody in Linux, going Linux will tell you that I've messed up a lot of stuff, and I do make mistakes, but hey, I'm sure that if you perceive that we're harshing on it, maybe you should listen to some others of some other reviews, because we have been harsh on Linux distributions that we didn't think were good. So thanks, Don. Yeah, thanks, Don, and one other podcast that I listen to on a regular basis that you might want to listen to, Don, is The Mike Tech Show, and we'll have links to all this stuff in the show notes, of course, but The Mike Tech Show is from Mike Smith, who is a... He runs a business as computer support for a lot of companies in the Philadelphia area, and he... just listen to what he says, and you can get a flavor of the kinds of issues that he runs across in supporting businesses using Windows, Windows 10, Windows 8, various (24/43)
versions of Windows, and he supports Mac as well. He doesn't really do too much with Linux, but I listen to him to get a flavor of what's going on with the other operating systems, since I only use them for my own personal use and not from a business perspective, and I'd like to understand the differences there. Another place, Don, that you might want to go is if you are really serious about switching to Linux and you're not just trolling us, which is a possibility, if you are really serious about it, you might want to read through some of the books that I've written on switching from Windows and other operating systems to Linux. We'll have links to that in the show notes as well, and in the most recent book around Ubuntu MATE, the second edition book, you might want to steer clear of the why users switch from Windows, or why users switch from Mac OS section, if our comments about what people tell us is wrong with Windows and Mac OS is offensive to you, just steer clear of those (25/43)
sections and read the rest of it. That's just a couple of pages in that book, but if you are trolling us, the only words I have for you is thanks for the feedback. Thanks, and I want to add one more podcast that Don might want to just listen to. I seem like I'm giving the Twit Network a lot of plugs. Yeah, they've got a lot of good shows. Yeah, they do. Security Now with Steve Gibson, probably one of the smartest guys I know as far as what's going on. He did a whole podcast and podcast about why he is staying with Windows 7 instead of Windows 10, but beyond that, he also covers security problems and hardware and stuff, and it's really a great show. Maybe you should check that one out too if you have time. Hey, again, appreciate you sending us feedback, and thank you very much. Good luck to you. Okay. All right. Our next email comes from John. He has problems installing Ubuntu MATE. Hi, Larry and Bill. I've been a listener for several years. Thank you for all your podcasts and wonderful (26/43)
information that you have shared with your listeners. I have been running a desktop dual boot with Windows and Linux Mint for many years, and I've had several other older machines with various types of Linux on them. I recently tried installing Ubuntu MATE on an HPE-016DX to dual boot with Windows 10 for my wife. Prior to installing, I re-partitioned the hard drive to have three additional partitions. The slash boot was 30 gigabytes slash home. Home, he didn't provide a size. Yeah, and swap was eight gigabytes. When I went to install from the live CD, I selected something else and used the partitions that I had set up. After it was all set up, I rebooted in the machine without the live CD, and the machine went straight to Windows instead of starting up the grub. I did some surfing and found several ideas on how to fix it and tried all of the ones that seemed appropriate to no avail. I eventually got fed up with it and nuked and paved the whole thing, and now it's an Ubuntu MATE-only (27/43)
machine, and my wife is satisfied with its performance, especially the security aspects. Yes, I have permission to do this before I started. Smart thing. Smart man. I was just hoping to dual boot so she could have options. Next, my son's Acer E5-575 is suffering terribly from Windows 10 bloatware, so I tried dual booting his machine with Ubuntu MATE, ended up with the same problem with not getting the grub to come up on startup. Partitions were 30 gigabytes, the EXT4 home was 110 gigabytes with XXT4, and a generic storage of 200 gigabytes of NTFS and swap 8 gigabytes. I don't know what his needs are going to be with respect to schools, so I hate just to disremove Windows, but he's eager to start learning and using Linux, and I don't want to miss a great opportunity why he's willing to learn something new. Also, as all Linux users know, all real engineering is performed on Linux Unix machines. I didn't know if I'm constantly doing something wrong or I just happen to be buying too cheap (28/43)
of machines. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks. Well, John, I have an idea as well. Okay, you go first. Just a suggestion. Not an idea as to what's going wrong. I don't think it has anything to do with the machines being inexpensive or not. I think this is an installation issue. It's possible that Grub is going to the wrong place with all the partitions you have, and I don't know what instructions you're following to try to get things set up. My recommendation is, especially if it's for someone like your son who is just starting with Linux and wants to use it, just let the system do its own partitioning when it's installing. So I think you said you're using Ubuntu MATE. It will provide a partitioning scheme that is pretty simple. Basically, one partition. And you can go ahead and set up your own partitioning scheme if you want. But I found that if you let the operating system do its own partitioning, it always works, especially when it comes to Grub issues like this. And (29/43)
there are some instructions that you can find out there on how to repair Grub and where to put it and those kinds of things. And some of them are pretty old, but since Grub is pretty old, I think they're pretty straightforward and they still apply. But again, I would recommend that if you're doing this for other people, keep it simple. Let the operating system do its own partitioning and just run with that. And you pretty much can't go wrong with being able to boot after installing. You know, you can go wrong, obviously, but you're minimizing your chances by letting the operating system figure out what the safe and sane partition scheme is. And it's one less thing you have to worry about. That's my suggestion. Stop stealing my thunder, Larry. Oh, sorry. You said for me to go first. I was going to say the same, almost the exact same thing. But there was one other item that he might want to just look at is go into his BIOS and see if he's using legacy or what is that thing called again? (30/43)
UEFI? Yeah, UEFI. Secure Boot. Because on some machines I found that if you change it to legacy, it works on some Linuxes and it makes it easier to install. Just an idea. I don't know, but I would say that since Larry stole my idea, follow Larry's suggestion. But yeah, that would be, I'd say the best way is just let Linux or Ubuntu Monte just do it all and go from there. Yep. Okay. On to Troy's short little email. He provides a suggestion for our forums. If you're looking for alternative forums for discussing things and sharing information, my vote would be to set up a discussion forum in Google groups. People can consume the information the way they want, either online or by emails, either individually or in the form of a digest. They can share files and pictures without limits and it's free. Troy, AKA Jack Death. You know, Google groups is something I hadn't even thought about. Thanks, Troy. Excellent suggestion. That is a good suggestion. We were going back and forth about this and (31/43)
I never thought about that. So, Troy gets to be the new forum minion. Yeah, good. We'll have to look into that. Okay. And we have a gone Linux story. This one from Troy. This one's really, really long. So we're going to break this one up too. And Troy is writing about the Windows Business episode. And he writes, listening to your recent excellent episodes on moving from Windows to Linux, I heard you mention in there that you might be doing an episode on Linux for business. While this may not pertain specifically to business, as you know, I use Linux in business and our shop does sell computers with Windows and Linux. So this is Troy Jack Death, also known as Jack Death, right? And he writes a note. I would also point out that you've mentioned several times now in different episodes that I own the business. I do not. I work for a small business owner in my area, Tony Ashour, but have been given a lot of autonomy in how I support customers and what recommendations I can make to our (32/43)
customers based on my experience, as long as the customer is happy and we remain profitable. He has been a great guy to work for and runs a very honest business. He is very popular and well known in our area and has been a privilege to work for. Well, sorry, Troy, for confusing that. I think we maybe maybe we have specifically said that you own the business. I don't think so. I think we've said it's your company, which I mean to say that it's the company you work at, not that you own it, but whatever. Obviously, you're doing a good job there. You said if it's his company, he's right. You said it's his business. Yeah. OK, so all right. Sorry, Troy. Getting all confused around that. Anyway, we'll try to stop saying that or I will anyway. And so just to make things better. Hey, Tony. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thanks for giving Troy a job that he loves and gives him an opportunity to spread Linux to the masses. He wants a raise, too. Just saying. There you go. OK, continuing. As (33/43)
you know, we are primarily a service shop. We make most of our money on the inadequacies and pitfalls of Windows. Listen up, Don. However, we also sell computers and accessories. We sell ninety nine point nine percent Dell certified refurbished computers. So they are like new. We get full manufacturer's warranties and we get them cheaper than new. Most Dell computers, with the exception of Alienware, work great with Linux right out of the box. When we sell a new or used computer to a customer, we don't want a customer to get a blank computer that just has windows on it. We want them to have software that will allow them to do some of the most common daily tasks that most people do with a computer. We also want them to have proper Web browsers, not I.E. or Edge, so they have a safer browsing experience. So I typically include what we call our value added software bundle on each computer. It's a collection of open source software or just free software that will let them do common tasks (34/43)
like opening and creating zip files, PDF files, watching movies, listening to music, editing and organizing pictures, an office suite and a collection of wallpaper backgrounds, many of which are made into a custom Windows theme that we apply to the computer. So I include things like Firefox, Google Chrome, 7-Zip, Qt PDF writer, LibreOffice, Picasa, VLC Media Player and a couple of other odds and ends. As I have mentioned previously, when customers want to switch to Linux, we install Linux Mint. I feel it provides them with the best out of the box experience and includes many useful programs by default. However, I still wanted to offer our Linux customers a selection of value added software as well, which also includes a selection of utilities and games and such. However, the list of software I've been adding to each Linux machine has been quite a bit more extensive. I also wanted them to always have the latest and greatest versions of LibreOffice and Google Chrome Web browser. The best (35/43)
way I know of to do this is to add the appropriate PPA to their software sources so that those programs will always show the most current versions in their software source or synaptic. To this end, I have outlined the appropriate steps, step by step, terminal commands needed to install the entire list of applications I usually install, as well as the commands to add the appropriate PPAs for LibreOffice and Google Chrome, and then install those. I find them much quicker to install the whole list from terminal rather than to do them one by one by searching in the software store. I will attach a TXT file with a list of commands should you find this useful. You might be thinking, why Google Chrome and not just have them use Chromium? Well, one of the tools we use to support our customers remotely on Windows and Linux is Chrome Remote Desktop. However, I have found that under Linux it does not work reliably, if at all, on Chromium, only on Google Chrome. Since we want to be as widely (36/43)
compatible with our entire customer base, we make sure they have Chrome as their primary browser and Firefox as a backup browser in case they have issues with Chrome. So Troy continues, When we set up new Linux computers, I also go through the customer system settings and tweak all kinds of little things to make their computer experience more user friendly, to offer better aesthetics, or to provide them with additional features. For example, I put their taskbar on the top of the screen instead of the bottom as it is by default. It makes more logical sense to me to access all the menus and options from the top down instead of accessing some stuff from the top and some from the bottom. I also make the entire taskbar completely transparent with the exception of a slight drop shadow underneath it just so you can barely tell it's there. I like to see the wallpaper background take up the whole screen and it gives them the impression that they have a little more screen real estate even though (37/43)
it's not totally true. I also add the workspace switcher to their taskbar and give them four workspaces to choose from. When they pick up their computer, I show them how to use it and the great multitasking benefits they can get by working on multiple projects with different programs at the same time and being able to switch between them. At this point, they are practically wetting themselves with excitement about the feature alone. I also reconfigure their clock to show the day, month, date, and time in the 12 hour format. I install the Oxygen cursor collection so they can change the color of their mouse cursor to match their current theme. It may sound small, but it's a big deal to some people. I also add the weather desk lit to their desktop and configure the settings to pull the weather from their location and show a 5 day forecast at any given time. This has also been a big deal for some customers. Again, a little thing that really impresses a lot of average users. I make some (38/43)
tweaks to the power management settings and a few other little odds and ends that don't take very much time in the overall scheme of setting up a new computer once you get your routine down pat. All in all, it takes us a lot less time to install and prep a Linux machine than it does for us to prep a Windows machine. If we have a customer having unrecoverable issues with their existing computer and we have determined we must reinstall the operating system from scratch, or if the customer has decided to dump one of those in favor of Linux, we cannot charge them per hour what it really takes to redo a computer since they can't afford it. But we still have to charge them something reasonable to make up some of our time. So we charge $200 to redo a computer with Windows and maybe $150 to redo it with Linux. As I mentioned to you in previous discourse, we do tend to lose some money selling Linux because we don't have to sell the Manure Virus or the Cloud Backup software and we tend to see (39/43)
these computers back in our shop much more infrequently because they tend to just work all the time. Also, most of our customers get HP OfficeJet Pro printers from us which take less time to install on Linux than on Windows and again just keep working. So we have to get creative in how we make up for some of the lost revenue by selling them training, tutoring time, or something. We also put a bookmark into browsers to www.goinglengs.com as a bonus. Thank you. Thank you. Anyway, there are some other things I was going to comment on based on your last few episodes but much of that escapes me at the moment. I will have to make some time to sit and just listen to them again and make some notes. I will try to reply in a timely manner before your next episode, if possible. In the meantime, let me know if you guys have any questions about any of this or would like further feedback. I'm always happy to help. Troy, aka Jack Durst, works for Home and Business Computer Services. Thanks, Troy. (40/43)
That was really good. Yeah, very extensive and although he has sent us the script he uses to install the value-added software for Linux and the Chrome browser and the latest version of LibreOffice, we're not going to include that in the show notes. It's a bit lengthy. But if you're interested, just drop us a line and we'll send that off to you if you really want it. But it's a pretty straightforward script. There's a sudo apt-get install and then a list of all the applications and then the Chrome browser. There's a separate wget command to get it and to install it and then adding the PPAs for Chrome and for LibreOffice to make sure that you have the latest version of those. Some of that applies across Linux distributions. As Troy mentioned, he's installing Linux Mint, typically, and the PPAs are much more necessary for some Linux distributions than others. If you're using something like Ubuntu MATE, you might be able to get away with using Snaps instead of the PPAs. I suppose you could (41/43)
do that with Linux Mint as well. Since Snaps are a more recent development in the world of Linux, and since Troy's been doing this for a long time, I think he's got his way of doing things and he's got his script written and it works, so good. And thanks for sharing. It's very similar to a script that I have written for installing everything that I use when I do a nuke and pave. Yeah. Well, you had to do that for a while. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And although Ubuntu MATE 18.10 is out, I'm still on the 18.04 long-term support version. Oh, wow. Just slacking. Yeah, I know. I'll be installing 18.10 in a virtual machine just to try it out. Okay, that's the end of our very long hour and a half long episode here. Wow. Yeah, there we go. It's a good episode. I enjoyed that. Yeah, lots of listener feedback this time around. And since we're at the end of our episode, our next episode will be Run Your Business on Linux Part 2. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinux.com for (42/43)
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. For now, 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. New music provided by Mark Blasko at podcastthemes.com (43/43)
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)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #317 · Linux Distros Reviewed.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 317, Linux Distros Reviewed. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. And I'm your cohost, 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 at our email address at goinglinx at gmail dot com where you can leave us a message on our voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, we're going to discuss several Linux distributions. Hello, Larry. Hey, Bill. How are things going for you? Good morning. Yes, good morning again. It's going well. It's going well. Did you get washed away by the floods? I didn't get washed away, but we got lots of rain. Yes. I just want to point out something. Everybody says (1/44)
we're in a drought, and I keep reminding them this is the desert. Desert does usually have water. But anyway, so yes, so you didn't get washed away. No. How about you? Are you okay where you are out there in the desert? Yes, I am okay out in the desert. I was out working, and it started raining, and I basically had to work for most of my shifts drenched, so that was pleasant. Oh. Yeah, that's not good. Yeah, that was a little fun. With that weather report done, let's move right on. Okay. Okay. So, Larry, today's show is... I can't remember who suggested it. We use Debian-based distros. Yes, we do. I use Ubuntu. You use... What was the... Mate? Ubuntu Mate. Oh, Ubuntu Mate or Mate or whatever. So, to give the RPMs a fair shot, I decided I would go ahead and subject myself to some fun. Or should I just say torture? But then when I was getting things ready for this, I was like, well, you know, there's other distros that aren't RPM. So, this whole episode has zero Deb-based distros. (2/44)
They're all RPM or another different type like Arch or Sabion. So, that's what I decided to talk about everything so we're not sounding like fanboys. But before we get started, could you just give anybody that's new just a quick overview of how packages work? That's a whole show on its own, Bill. Hey, but okay. The differences... The basic differences between the two, right. So, they're called Debian and RPM-based because, well, the distributions of Linux that are based on Debian have installation packages or application packages that end in .deb. So, they're called Debian-based packages and Debian-based distributions because they use those packages and because they are derived in one way or another from Debian, which is, of course, a distribution of Linux. The RPM also refers to the way that the applications are packaged, and typically they end in .rpm as the name of the file that you install, and RPM is not a distribution in and of itself, but it's a way of packaging the applications (3/44)
for a Linux distribution. And for whatever reason, they've come to be called RPM-based packages, and they are based on, in some cases, Red Hat. In some cases, they're based on other distributions, and in some cases, some of these modern distributions that we'll be talking about today are original distributions that aren't based on Debian or Red Hat or anything. They've been developed from scratch as a Linux distribution themselves, and they happen to use an RPM-based package manager, or in some of the cases that we'll be discussing today, they use another kind of package management system that's not RPM. At a high level, it's the way the applications are packaged. Just to fill in a few little gaps for anybody that this is their first time listening. Sure. If you are using Red Hat, OpenSUSE, I'll use those two because they're the two main ones, they use their packages as .rpm. Now, you can't use an RPM on a Debian-based system, which would be like Ubuntu MATE or Ubuntu or even just (4/44)
plain Debian. I mean, they're the same programs, but they're packaged differently, so the software manager can actually, knows how to install them. So, they both do the same type of thing, just do it in different ways. Does that sound about right? It does sound about right. And strictly speaking, there's a command called alien that you can use to convert packages from one type to another. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It does its best effort. So, in general, it's best to stick with the packages that you have. And in today's world, most of what is out there in the way of applications is available for both RPM and Debian-based distributions. And this is the only reason we're just covering this as an overview is that each one of the distributions has its own repositories. And it's really not an issue. If you can find all the programs in the repositories that you need, then you really don't even have to worry about the RPM or the dead packages because it's just there and it (5/44)
knows how to do it. The only time this would come into play is if you wanted a program that wasn't included. And a good one is Skype. Sometimes Skype is a little, shall we say, wonky trying to get it installed if it's not included in the repositories. And some distributions include it, some don't. It depends on where they stand on the freedoms and all that stuff. And we'll get a little bit into that. So, the first one is neither. It isn't RPM or dead-based. I believe the extension is GTZ or some weird one they come up with. It's Gentoo-based. And how I would like to describe this one is how I love to hate you. This distribution is a rolling release and Sabian aims to work out of the box as its philosophy. Everything should just work. And it wants to give its users a wide number of applications to pick from that are ready to use and self-configured for the operating system. So theoretically you should be able to fund everything, install it, everything just works. Sabian offers a pretty (6/44)
easy to use interface. I will give a caveat there. When you first install it, since it's a rolling release, and rolling release means that you install it and it's just constantly being updated. And the problem with that is sometimes there's lots of updates. I sat for about six hours before it finally got completely updated. So just a little word of warning. It takes a while to bring it up to date. It's got a pretty captivating look. It's got good hardware detection. It found everything on my laptop. The only thing that is a little bit different about this is that they install a lot more. I like to say it's the kitchen sink mentality. They install everything. Sabian comes in several flavors. The one I used was KDE, but it also comes with GNOME and XFCE desktops. And I believe you can even get one that has no desktop at all and you can just do whatever you want with. Install the ones you want or leave it as a server without a desktop. I decided to use the KDE version and the base system (7/44)
was okay. It locked up once and I had to do a hard reboot. But then after that it updated. I didn't have enough chances because I had so many distros to look at because I downloaded them and tried to install them from a USB stick and from a DVD. Not everybody buys hundreds of DVDs like I do. Not anymore now that you can install Linux distributions from a USB stick instead of a CD or a DVD. But if you look at Sabian, it's a big download. It's like 3.6, I believe the one that I downloaded. Well, when you pre-install a whole bunch of applications, that's what happens. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I know what they're trying to go for. But the problem with Sabian, I think it's just they should have done more like how Ubuntu Mati does. They pick the best of the breed and just put that in there instead of having four different types. I'm not saying it's a bad one. If your programs that you are looking for are not in the repository, there's a pretty big learning curve. But with that being said, I (8/44)
wasn't able to find any programs that I needed that I couldn't get from the repositories. Maybe, Bill, we should define repository since we're right at the beginning of this podcast episode, and we haven't really defined it yet. A repository is just another name for the software library that comes with your distribution, that has software applications that have been pre-determined will work without a problem, or tweaked to work without a problem for the distribution that you have. So the software library is another way of putting it. Yeah, it's just a big library of software that you can install on your system. The Sabian comes with, like I said, everything but the kitchen sink. It had Skype in the repositories. It had Dropbox in the repositories. So I really didn't need to go look for anything to actually get it up and make it ready to go. Where I can't really decide whose fault it is, I'm leaning toward a little bit of KDE, because KDE is always a little glitchy in my past (9/44)
experiences. But I had some really interesting glitches. You have to dig three or four panels down to get the sound to work. There were multiple control panels that you had to activate to get the headphones to work. I mean, it's all the headphones, but it wouldn't work until you had to dig around in the menus to find which settings that you needed to put the checkmark in. That being said, I don't think that's Sabian's fault. I think if I had went with the GNOME or XFC desktop, it would have been fine. So I'm going to rate this one as probably not... They say it's for beginner, intermediate, and advanced. I would say this one would be based more toward intermediate, because if you have no clue what things do or how to... It's not like just being able to install it and go. I think it's just because they try to throw so much into it. I would say Sabian would be a good intermediate distribution for someone that wants to just play around. But I really can't recommend this one as being a (10/44)
good first-time distribution. Yeah, okay. Well, that's fair enough. And I think that since I haven't used it myself, I can't really comment on Sabian. I've installed it once in a virtual machine and tried it out a little bit. And it was another Linux distribution. And because I didn't really play around with it all that much, I really didn't have the in-depth experience that you've had. What sounds like Sabian is trying to be for the average user by putting everything in that you could possibly want, lots of different options, and then with the understanding that either you don't touch them all or you just uninstall what you don't want, rather than the philosophy from other distributions, which is give you the basics and if you need anything else, you go to the software repository and install it. Yeah, I kind of agree with that. Like I said, they're trying hard, but I think they should just pare it down a little bit and work on getting things running a little smoother. I will give (11/44)
Sabian props on one front. They were the easiest to install. Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, they installed flawlessly from a thumb drive and they installed flawlessly from a DVD. So it's not all negatives. They're doing some things right, but it needs some polish before I would recommend this for someone's first distribution. Okay, and before we move on to the next one, we're going to provide some links that appear in the DistroWatch website. And let me just give you a little overview of what DistroWatch has to say about Sabian. The name of the distribution currently is Sabian. It used to be called Sabian Linux. Before that, it was RR4 Linux, and prior to that, it was RR64 Linux. I don't know the history of the names, but it is currently available at their homepage, sabian.org, and they have mailing lists on lists.sabian.org if you want to stay up on the latest Sabian news. They have a user forum at forum.sabian.org, and they have some alternative forums on Linux questions. We'll (12/44)
include that link, and the documentation is at wiki.sabian.org. And as you mentioned, it's based on Gentoo. Its country of origin is Italy. It supports ARM and 64-bit processors. The available desktops are Fluxbox, Gnome, KDE, Mate, and Xfce. Those are the ones that apparently are supported. And of course, as you mentioned, it's a rolling release, which means they don't have a six-month release cycle where they update it and send you a new version or make available a new version for download and installation. You just get the updates as they become available, and you get the latest version of Sabian, as long as you keep up with the updates. Yeah, pretty much. And like I said, it's a decent distribution. One of the things I liked about it, it is a truly community-driven distribution. There isn't a corporation behind it like some of the others. So that's something to look at. It's very friendly users. I had a few questions, and they were very quick to answer it. So as a general rule, (13/44)
it's not a bad one. Now, the next one that I looked at, and this one calls me a world of pain. I think RPMs just hate my guts. But it is Scientific Linux, and it's based on Red Hat Enterprise, and I used the known version of it. And Scientific Linux is a recompiled Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and it was developed by FERMA National Accelerator Laboratory and the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN. And those are the guys that run the big super colliders. They like to have small nuclear explosions. That's real comforting. Anyway, so these guys, the history behind this is that they had a bunch of labs working together, and they were all using different versions, and they found that they were having a little bit of difficulties. So they wanted one that is across the board that they all could use, and they would just work together a lot better. So that's why they kind of went with and made this Scientific Linux. Now, you might say, well, can I run it? Yes, you can download it. (14/44)
And one of the reasons I picked Scientific Linux is they have a huge library of ham programs. Oh, really? Okay. So apparently scientists are hams too, in more ways than one. So it aims to be fully compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and it also provides additional packages that are not found in the upstream product. When I say upstream product, that means the regular Red Hat Enterprise Linux for those, just a little information there. The most notable among these various, they have different file systems, and one's called the Cluster Suite and Global File System, or GFS. It also includes FUSE, OpenAFS, SquashFS, and NoonFS. It also includes wireless networking support, and what you'd expect from any modern day Linux distribution. And they also include Java development kits in it, and they also have the lightweight ICE, I call it ICE-WM, or I like to call it ICE-WAM, but ICE-WM window manager. And so they have a lot of stuff for statistical computing, and they use for their email (15/44)
Alpine, which is basically just a text driven email system from what I saw. This one, I could not get installed from a USB drive. It just would not do it. It just hated my guts. So of course I burned the DVD and it installed, and it came up and it's a little bland. But what do you expect from people that wanted this software to be used in a laboratory? So I'm not going to knock on that. The one thing that I didn't particularly like is that it didn't have Skype in the repositories. It didn't have Dropbox in the repositories. It didn't have Chrome in the repositories. So it's only certain types of programs. Now this doesn't mean that you can't install it, but that just means more work. And so with this one, it ran okay. I didn't have any issues with it running. It did have some updates, but I would not recommend this as a first time distribution. This would be have to go in someone that's been running one for a while, or just wants a little more of a challenge, because there's a lot more (16/44)
work that's required to actually get it up and make it useful. I want to be able to install it and get things done. I don't want to install it and spend two days getting everything installed and configured. So with that, I'm not going to say it's a bad distribution. I'm just going to say probably not the best choice for the first one. Right. So this is more of a specialty. Very specialty, yes. Yeah, distribution for high performance computing, or if you're a scientist and you're working on rockets or nuclear fusion or stuff like that. This is the distribution for you because it has a lot of the things that you might be looking for. And it's geared for that kind of an application, right? Pretty much. And I just saw some. I've just said bad things about their distribution. And these guys develop rockets and like to blow things up. Boy, that was real smart. Hey, guys, I like it very much. So let me just move on. Well, before you move on, again, let me do a quick summary of Scientific (17/44)
Linux. Scientific Linux dot org is their homepage and they have a mailing list at scientific Linux dot org slash community. And their forum is scientific Linux forum dot org. They have Linux questions forum there as well. The documentation is scientific Linux dot org slash documentation based on Red Hat. They are developed in the United States and they support 386 architecture, 64 bit architecture. And the supported desktops are Gnome, IceWM and KDE. And they make a great server as well as a general purpose desktop for the average scientific user. And they have a fixed release model as opposed to a rolling release model. And I don't know whether that's six months or yearly. If it's based on Red Hat, it probably follows the Red Hat of releases. Release cycle. Yeah. OK. I will. One strong point for them is if you have an older computer that's a 386, they have a image for you to run. And I started noticing that a lot of these distributions, they don't support 386 anymore. So if you have a (18/44)
386, this is one you might want to look at, even though it might not be very user friendly. It's nothing that reading some wikis and asking questions will help you get solved. Right. Now, the other one that I played with was OpenSUSE. And I went with the Tumbleweed and the Tumbleweed is basically their rolling release. Now, this one was not difficult, but it had a little few challenges getting installed. Nothing that is a game breaker. But I would say that just make sure you read the instructions and don't do like I do. And so click, click, click, click, click, because if you do that, you're likely to mess up something, as I learned. Yep. OK. So the OpenSUSE project is a community program sponsored by SUSE Linux and other companies promoting the use of Linux everywhere. This program provides a free and easy access to OpenSUSE or SUSE, depends on how you say it. And it's a complete Linux distribution. The OpenSUSE project has three main goals. One is to make OpenSUSE the easiest Linux (19/44)
for anyone to obtain and the most widely used Linux distribution. Leverage open source collaboration to make OpenSUSE the world's most stable Linux distribution. And desktop environment for a new and inexperienced Linux users. They want to do all this will make it easy to use, easy to collaborate, make it stable. And they just kind of want to dramatically simplify and open the development of the packaging process to make OpenSUSE the platform of choice for Linux developers and software vendors. And I always like to say OpenSUSE wants to be the RPM distro to Ubuntu. OpenSUSE, I can't really say it's anything that makes me go, wow, this is great. It's pretty, but I also run into the same issue again. It didn't have things I wanted in their repositories, but you can get them. I wasn't particularly thrilled with some of the choices they made for programs, but at least they didn't throw everything in the kitchen sink. Then again, you can install anything you want on it. I mean, if you can (20/44)
find a package, you can install it, or if it's really hardcore, you can compile it. But it's really not that hard anyway. The only problem with it is that I don't see it as being a replacement for a Windows user coming to Linux. I don't see this as a first choice because I don't see anything they really offer that you can't get on Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu, or Linux Mint. I just don't see anything that they offer that would make why you should choose this one over them. So I would say it can be a new user's first distro. I don't know if it would be the best, but I would just say, hey, it works. That's about all I really can say about this one. Now this one would not install from the USB drive, but it would install flawlessly from a DVD. So I would say, hey, give it a try, see if you like it. They have some live DVD images, and see if you like it better than Ubuntu or Ubuntu MATE or Linux Mint. See if you prefer it, because we have plenty of choice. But I would have to say, yes, this can be a (21/44)
new Linux user's first distribution. I just don't know if it's the best. Yeah, so I have actually used OpenSUSE, and it was the first Linux distribution that I used for the longest period of time. Not the first Linux distribution I used, but the one that I used for some substantial period of time. And I used it until Ubuntu came along and caught my attention with version 6.06, which was not the first version of Ubuntu, but it was the first one that I had used. So I have a good deal of experience with earlier versions of OpenSUSE, and a couple of comments. I would agree that it doesn't have anything that would make it stand out as an average computer user's Linux distribution, especially if you're moving over from Windows or Mac. However, it does have a lot of features built in for a corporate environment, for networking, for joining a network that includes Windows computers, for managing networks that use Windows computers, and those kinds of things. So it's got a lot of features for a (22/44)
business environment. And that's one of the things that attracted me to it right off the bat is because of those corporate features. And it has a unique packaging system, or a unique way of managing the installation of the packages, that is a little different than most other distributions. And it has a utility package that allows you to do setup and manage the setup and various other aspects of OpenSUSE. So it's kind of unique from that perspective as well. What DistroWatch has to say about it from a summary perspective, its homepage is opensusa.org. It has a mailing list with a link that's way too long to read out, so I'll just include that in the show notes. forums.opensusa.org for their forums, as well as an alternative forum on Linux questions. Documentation can be found at a link that I'll include in the show notes. It's a bit long as well. It's an independent distribution, meaning that it's not really based on any other distribution, even though its packages are RPM format. It's (23/44)
not based on Red Hat or any of the basic RPM based distributions out there. It's independent. Its country of origin is Germany. They support ARM, RMHF, i586, and x64, so there's no 386 support. It supports the desktops of Cinnamon, Gnome, IceWM, KDE, LXDE, OpenBox, W, Maker, and XFCE. They have server versions, desktop versions, LiveMedia, and Raspberry Pi support. It's offered in both fixed distributions, or fixed release cycle distributions, as well as a rolling distribution, the Tumbleweed distribution that you tried out, Bill. And they're generally a Linux distribution that's pretty easy to use, I think, overall, even though there's nothing that makes them stand out. Amongst the other distributions as, wow, this one's so much better. They're certainly right up there with everybody else in terms of usability, right? I would agree. And just a disclaimer, these are just my opinions and my observations. Oh, sure. Your mileage may vary. So I'm not saying any of these are particularly (24/44)
good or particularly bad. I'm just saying this is what I found. The one thing about OpenSUSE is it does have a very active mailing list, and its user forms are fairly friendly. I just wasn't a huge... it just didn't make me go, wow. So with that being said, this distribution, I think it would be better suited for if you're going to install it on a lot of corporate desktops, like in an office. Say your office went from Windows to all OpenSUSE. It'd be fine. Everything would work. You'd have your word processors, et cetera, et cetera. And it would work well amongst itself. So I would say more corporate geared than maybe user geared. Right. And one of the reasons it's so supportive of networks and corporate environments is at least in part because it was in the early days supported quite heavily by IBM. And in fact, in the days when IBM had the ThinkPad line before they sold it off to the group over in China, the Lenovo group, it was an IBM ThinkPad. In those days, you could order a (25/44)
ThinkPad from IBM directly and order it with Linux installed. And the Linux that you would get would be SUSE Enterprise Linux. Yeah. By the way, Larry, I'm looking at a Ubuntu 6.06 DVDs I still have. What do you give me for it? I'm sure I could find one somewhere on the Internet. I could download if I really wanted one. And I had one of those as well. And yeah, no, I wouldn't give you a thing for it. But mainly because in order to bring it up to scratch, to make it secure and make it modern, I'd have to upgrade it to 16.04 at least. And I may as well just download that distribution and install it from scratch. So there you go. Oh, well, you know, I thought I had something there. Oh, well. Yeah, it's good nostalgia piece, though. Keep it, you know, frame it or something. Yeah. Okay. Moving right along. Fedora Linux was my next tormentor, and I absolutely did not like this one at all. Okay. Tell us why. One, I had problems getting installed from the USB and the DVD. I finally did get it (26/44)
installed, but I was banging my head against a wall and wanted to chuck my computer out the second store window. After I got it installed, though, it ran okay. But then again, this one is very unique in their software policies as far as if it's not completely 100% free, it is not in the repositories. So then again, I'm like, oh, man, I have to go find Dropbox. I have to go find Skype. I have to go find this program. I have to go find another program. And after a while, I just, you know, like I said, you know, our show title is for people who just want to use links to get things done. Yeah, I was getting things done, searching for the programs I wanted to use. Yeah. So when you say free, you're not talking about free of charge. You're talking about free as in freedom. Yeah. By the Free Software Foundation. Yes, pretty much. So now, Fedora used to be called Fedora Core. And it's a distribution developed by the community, but it's supported by the Fedora project and is owned by Red Hat. (27/44)
Fedora contains software distributed under the free and open source license and aims to be the leading edge of such technologies. So basically, their software policy is this, yes, the program, you can be free programs, but it also has to be, if it's in the repository, it has to be free as we just described. Right. Yeah, from the Free Software Foundation. And I just find that irritating a little bit just because I don't want to work that hard to make something work. But Fedora has a reputation for focusing on innovation. I believe it was one of the first to incorporate the new GNOME 3 into the desktop. And also, I think they're on the forefront of the Wayland also. So, you know, they like to integrate technologies early and they work very closely with their upstream communities. The default desktop is the GNOME desktop, which is the GNOME 3, and the interface is the GNOME Shell. Just be prepared, it can be a little bland when you first install it because there's not much installed (28/44)
extra. They go to the way left of what Sabion does. Okay, so they like to not have a lot installed. But the cool part about them is they do support KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Mate and Cinnamon. And if you install Cinnamon, which I did just for giggles, it makes it look a lot nicer in my opinion. But I like the Cinnamon desktop. Now, the Fedora project also distributes custom variations and these are called Fedora Spins. So one Fedora Spin might have the KDE and one might have the Cinnamon. So that's kind of giving you an idea of what they do. And they're built with specific sets of software packages. Sometimes I've seen where they've had one for graphic artists, they've had one for sound engineers, they've had one for software developers. So they tend to put more of those type of programs into these spins. So they like to offer alternative desktop environments and they like to target specific interests such as gaming, security, computing and robotics. I haven't tried the robotics one. Actually I (29/44)
don't remember even seeing it on their website. But then again, I had two computers and I was trying to figure out why this thing wasn't installing. So getting to my final verdict on this one. Not my favorite. Would not recommend it to a new user. If you were a new user who didn't want any software except 100% free, as in freedom software, then this might be a choice for you. Not been one of my favorites. Of course, I will say they come up with some great names. One of my favorite was, they called one, it was Werewolf. And I just thought that was the coolest. But then I'm easily entertained. So to summarize again, so the Fedora Project, you can get to their homepage at getfidora.org. They have a mailing list that's fedoraproject.org slash wiki slash communicate. User forums at forums.fidoraforum.org. They have a Linux questions forum as well and documentation is available at a very long URL we'll have in the show notes. They're an independent distribution, although they are based and (30/44)
supported by Red Hat and their country of origin is the U.S. They support ARM HFP, i686, and x64. So again, this is a distribution that does not support the 386 architecture. They support a lot of different desktops. Awesome Cinnamon, as you mentioned, Enlightenment, Gnome, KDE, Plasma, LXDE, Mate, Openbox, Ratpoison, and XFCE. And they are a fixed release. And again, because of your lackluster review, not that the review is lackluster, but your rating of Fedora, we're probably going to get those Fedora fan people writing into us, telling us how much we're wrong. This is opinion. So again, your mileage may vary. Yes. What's the next one, Bill? Moving on. I will say Ratpoison is probably one of the craziest names for a desktop ever. Yeah. I like that one. Ratpoison. What you writing? Ratpoison. Okay. Moving right along. Disclaimer. PC Linux OS. I have run PC Linux OS extensively in my years of distro hopping and gaming and stuff. I am probably, this is probably going to sound like I'm a (31/44)
fanboy, and you'd be right that they call me a fanboy, because I like them a lot. PC Linux OS is a user-friendly Linux distribution and out-of-the-box support for popular graphics and sound cards, as well as other peripheral devices. It has a bootable live CD, provides an easy-to-use graphic installer, and distribution sports a wide range of popular applications for the typical desktop user, including browser plugins, full multimedia playback. It's very intuitive for system configuration. I find this just hilarious. It uses this synaptic package manager. The only reason I find it hilarious is anybody that's run Debian knows that you can still install it. The package manager of choice for Debian. This is the first one I've ever seen that actually uses it for Red Hat for packages. I thought that was really cool. Right out of the box, your DVDs will play, your MP3s will play, the browser plugins are really, really useful. It also comes in a few different varieties. They have regular KDE, (32/44)
and then they call the full Monty KDE, which is they throw everything in there. It has a custom desktop. And then they have a GNOME, which I'm not too much of a fan of, surprisingly. I don't like the way it looks, but that's just me. It's not bad distribution at all. It runs well, but now I have to ding one of my favorite distributions, because for a long time they had a bug when you went to go partition your hard drive. It would throw an error, and I had to search for it. I'm sure they've got it fixed, because I didn't have it there this time, but they're not as fast at fixing some things as I would like. But that being said, it's a beautiful and very ready-to-use system out of the box. Unfortunately, I had problems getting installed with my USB drive and my DVD drive. I don't know what's going on there. I think it's got to do something different. They go about it a different way, but the tools they use to partition it are easy to understand. They're very friendly, but it likes to (33/44)
throw errors. When I finally did get it installed, it ran great, but I would have to ding them pretty hard on the install process. It needs to be streamlined. It needs to be a little bit clearer on some elements. It's not as easy to install as, let's say, Linux Mint or Ubuntu Mate. Pretty much, Ubuntu Mate just put the thing in, started up, and followed the prompts, and it installs almost 100% all the time. That's what I'm kind of looking for. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying it needs a little work, but it's not the worst on this list. The worst is coming, I promise. If I was rating this from one to five, I'd give it a three and a half, maybe a four, but I wouldn't give it any more. I would say it would be a good choice for a new user, but just be aware that you might have a few issues getting it installed. Once it's installed, it runs great. It's kind of a rolling release also. Once you install it, it updates the packages. The same thing I dinged Sabion on was sometimes the (34/44)
updates take a little while. Right. Yeah. DistroWatch describes them as a semi-rolling release. You rated it 3.5 out of what, five or? Out of five. Ten. Oh, okay. Yeah, it's surprising you rate it so low, given that it's one of your favorite distributions. Well, I wanted to be fair. I don't want anybody saying, hey, why are you dinging all these distributions? I'm just calling it as I see it, because I don't want anybody to think that we're trying to dingle, because all these are non-Debian based distributions. So, if anything, I'm being a little harsher on even my favorites, just so everybody knows that I'm being 100% fair. I don't want anybody saying, well, this is great and this thing is totally unusable. So, like I said, we pretty much have a policy on going Linux. If it's a duck, we call it a duck. Right. Well, on this duck, the distribution again is PC Linux OS. You can find the homepage at PC Linux OS dot com. DistroWatch doesn't identify any mailing list or location for (35/44)
documentation, but they do have a forum at PC Linux OS dot com slash forum and an alternative forum on Linux questions. They're an independent, forked from Andreeva distribution based in the US and their architecture supported says Intel 64-bit. Desktop supported KDE, LXDE and Mate, and they describe themselves as a distribution for beginners. And as I said, they're semi-rolling. So, with that summary, let's move on to your least favorite. Is this your least favorite? Yeah, this one. This one I am not very happy with. I was unable to get this installed or run. Hmm. I guess that would make that my least favorite as well. I got so frustrated with this distribution. I had high hopes for it because if you remember, I run Crunchbang, which was the Debian version that used the same desktop, but only used a Debian base. And I was like, wow, this would be really great because I kind of liked the whole black look, very minimalist, you know, tech, you know, you could open a lot of the stuff you (36/44)
need to open the text box and you could just, I found it easier to be able to just type the command I wanted in text box and to use it. Okay. Would that build up? Tell us what the name of this distribution is. Archbang. Okay. And yes, I went on a rant before and didn't even tell you what the name was. But it supposedly uses the OpenBox window manager. I wouldn't know because I wasn't able to get it running. But then again, just a disclaimer again, I have yet to get any Arch distribution working. So, your mileage will definitely vary on this one. It has a lot of great things they say, you know, it's fast, it's not a lot of stuffs included, you can kind of customize it how you want. So, this one, because I just can't give it anything lower. No, I won't be that mean. I would just have to say, I'm not a fan. Yeah, well, let's not give it a rating since you really weren't able to dry it out. Yeah, I can't give it a rating because I couldn't get it to run. But this is another one that I (37/44)
think would have great success and great uptake if I could get it to work. But then again, I can't. So, where is it rated on DistroWatch? Just out of curiosity. I'm going to scroll down quite a bit to find it. So, yeah, let's just leave it at that. Just as a summary, Archbang Linux is located at archbang.org. No mailing lists listed in DistroWatch. They have user forums at bbs.archbang.org. Yes, I haven't heard that term in a long, long time. They have a forum on Linux questions, of course, and documentation is available on wiki.archbang.org. They're based on Arch. They are from my fellow Canadians up there in Canadian, and they support the x64 as well as the 686 architecture for processors. They have support for desktops, the open box that you mentioned and something called i3 that I'm not familiar with at all. And their release model is rolling. So if you want to show Bill up and prove how easy it is to install Archbang and give us some feedback on your experiences, we'd appreciate (38/44)
it since Bill wasn't able to give that one a try. So last question, Bill, that was our last distribution for review. What are you using on a day to day basis? Any of these? No. Okay. Still on a Debian base, huh? They didn't switch it over. Well, that's not the total truth. I still have Sabion still installed because I was playing with it, but my main system, again, has changed a little bit. After experiencing everything that I went through, and it was a lot of fun. I make out like it was torture, but I enjoy trying out new stuff. I installed Ubuntu Monte. Oh, really? Okay. I like the distro and it works well, but I wanted to review some stuff that we normally don't talk about. Yeah. Just because to show people that we're open to try anything. And in the middle of this, I got an email that you forwarded that there was another distro that was put out by one person or something that was based on OpenSUSE. Right. And I didn't get a chance to look at it, but just because it takes time to (39/44)
install them and configure them because you just don't want to install them and just say, well, this thing is great or this thing sucks and just be done. I'm not a fan of RPM based distributions. That's just my opinion. I like the Debian based ones, but if there was a really great RPM distribution, I would use it. I used PC links for a long time. That was the distribution that I used when I interviewed John O'Bacon. Right. Absolutely. And that email was from Benjamin and he was recommending Gecko Linux. Gecko. That's what it was. Yes. That's the one. But anyway, as an overview, there's some good possibilities on this list and there's a few that need some work or we wouldn't recommend it for a new user, but none of them are inherently bad and none of them are inherently good. So I would say pick your poison and give it a try. And that's about all I got to really say on the matter. I enjoyed it. I look forward to looking at some others that are not reviewed very often because I was (40/44)
looking at DistroWatch. There's some that went inactive, but there's some new ones that have come out onto the scene that I want to look at. So I kind of look forward to maybe doing another one of these and hopefully it doesn't sound as negative as this one, but I'm just calling it as I see it. So guys, don't flame me. Yeah, there you go. Thanks. Thanks a lot for doing this because I don't have a lot of time to experiment around much anymore. And I'm glad that you made the time. I know your time is getting more and more eaten up by by the work that you do and the other stuff that you do in your personal life outside of work. But You have a personal life? Thanks. Once in a while. I love what that is. So when you when you do take the time to venture out into new Linux adventures, it really helps us out here because it gives us a little broader view of what's going on in the Linux environment. Helps our listeners, of course, because they're interested in what's going on in our opinion of (41/44)
things outside of the distributions we use day to day. And it's always good to to broaden your horizons a little bit and experiment around. So again, thanks. Yeah. Well, I wanted to add one little quick note to that. When I first started, if you remember the running joke was which distribution are you running this week? Right. OK. But as I've kind of started using Linux, you know, because I'm I'm I'm ninety nine point nine percent Linux right now. That's all I use. I have to keep that little bit so I can play games that won't play on Linux. But but everything else is Linux. And I just. I've just kind of adopted that that whole thing of I just wanted to work so I can get things done type of mentality. Yeah. But occasionally I like to broaden my horizons. But then I'm thinking, boy, I have I'm looking at my DVD collection over here. I've used distribution system. Man, that's a lot that my poor hard drive on my on my laptops have gotten really abused. Well, take that as an opportunity to (42/44)
upgrade maybe to an SSD or something when they do fail. As you said on the last episode, you know, your next computer is probably going to be a System 76. You can order them with an SSD. Yeah. Well, my next one, I've been kind of lusting after the little bonobo, the big one. And so I've been kind of lusting after that and just trying to justify saying, oh, boy, I sure would like that. Can I save my most thing still works great. But, you know, all in all, it's it's it's fun. I hope everybody enjoyed it. And if you have any suggestions of other ones to try or if you just like to send me an email, call me a chimp. That's fine, too. And I'll look into them. OK, again. Thanks, Bill. So let's wrap up our next episode, of course, will be a listener feedback episode. Until then, you can head to our Web site at going links dot com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and subscribe. We are the Web site for computer users who just want to use Linux to get things done. If you (43/44)
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. Seventy three music provided by Mark Blasco at podcast themes dot com. (44/44)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #361 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 361, 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 at our email address at goinglinks.gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello, Bill. Hello, Larry from the snowy New Mexico. Yay. Yeah, snow. What's that look like again? It's white and cold. Yes. Oh, yes. I remember. Yeah. And cars don't like to go anywhere when it's two feet deep. Just saying. My car does not like snow. Yeah, because it turns into ice. Yeah, it turns to ice. And, yeah, it's been a fun. We've (1/44)
gotten a lot of snow here in New Mexico. But anyway. Yeah, so much for the weather report. I hear you have gone 100% Linux on your personal laptop where you had been dual booting into Windows. Yeah, we won't go into that except saying I hate that other operating system with passion. And so anyway. Well, just a little bit of help for people. One of the things you told me is that in the Windows side ended up getting malware because you downloaded a. . . What was it? Image Burn. What was the name of that? Image Burn for Linux so that you could burn a DVD. Or, yeah, a DVD or a CD or whatever it was. And so you have to be very, very, very careful. Especially since those of us who want to begin to use Linux, first thing some people want to do is they want to burn an ISO onto a DVD or create a USB stick. And Image Burn for Windows is one way people do that. And just I'm going to put a couple of links into the show notes. Image Burn is one of the programs that Ubuntu used to recommend. I've (2/44)
noticed that they've taken it off of their instructions for burning Linux ISOs. They are exclusively recommending Rufus for Windows. And I'll have a link to both the Rufus applications so that you know you're going to the right place to get it. And also to the instructions on the Ubuntu website so that you know how to use it. And you know that you. . . They also have a link to that same software from their website as well. So either way you get it, you're sure that you're going to get something that doesn't have malware and stuff built into it. Yeah, just to give the Cliffs Notes version, I usually don't download. I was trying to help a friend out trying to access some files. And he wanted to get those files onto a DVD. And so I had used it a long time ago. And because the drive is formatted with the Mac OS, Windows couldn't see it. So Windows 10 doesn't come with Java. They don't like you to install Java, but you can. So I had to install Java to get this program to work. And so I (3/44)
don't know if it's just kind of a perfect storm. I did some research after I blast everything off and reinstalled Ubuntu. Apparently there's something called candy something and it flags as malware. And then I got another pop up that says Trojan food. . . something something something. And then I got another. And then installed Chromium for some reason. Not Chrome, because I have Chrome on my machine. I installed Chromium and it had pop up blockers and add. . . Click this for your discount on the latest and greatest shoes or whatever. So it just kept popping up in my. . . My Windows Defender kept popping up saying, you got this, we got this. We got this. I was like after a while I said, oh, I don't know how bad this is. And since I use it for work and stuff like that. Plus I mainly all use Windows for is to game. But you wouldn't read this drive until I did all this. So it's my fault. And I finally said I can't deal with this. And also I kept having. . . I've touched on this, I'm not (4/44)
bashing Windows 10 for this. I'm just saying it's a fact of life is that I keep getting all this garbage candy crush and crap on my machine. I'm like, I don't want this. I had to use Office 365 for work a couple months ago. So in my notification center, every time I'd log in to go play my game or games, it would pop up and say, you can save 16% or if you go to yearly plan, resubscribe now. And I'm like, no. But it kept. . . I mean, every time I log in, it popped up and it popped up two or three times a day. So it just on and on and on. And so, yeah, not real happy with it. And then, of course, I had a buddy of mine from work who just, his brand new Dell, I guess at the very last of November or first of December, he had bought the Pro and a version of Windows 10. And apparently the activation servers downgraded his to Windows 10 home and deactivate his license. So now he's. . . I don't know if he's gotten the fix yet, but when he called Microsoft tech support, they said, yeah, you just (5/44)
need to wait for the fix. OK. Well, that's convenient. OK. Thanks. Thank you so much for all that help. So, yeah. So it's been fun. Yeah. Experiences with Windows. There you go. Yes. I don't have any windows online. I'm about as windowless as you can get. OK, so defenestrated, huh? Whatever. All right. Let's get into our audio feedback. So the first one is feedback from Primitive One. Let's go listen to Primitive One's voicemail. Greetings. This is Primitive One in Miami, Florida, and I call you as a recent listener, although I've worked my way back about a year to episode 339. And my concern is I want to go Linux with my home gaming desktop. You can imagine where I might be going with this. In the episodes I've listened to many times, people have discussed issues with their graphics card and making their graphics card work properly once they switch over to Linux. So my specific question is I use three monitors. I like to multitask when I play my games, and I don't want to lose that (6/44)
experience when I switch from Windows 10 to Linux with the desktop. What specifically should I look for or ask the internet search engine or a forum in this regard? I know you guys have mentioned that people do find workarounds, and you might call them, I guess, hacks on how to try to tweak the graphics card, even though the compatibility might not be there. But I really want to give a good effort in my thoughts before I make this decision because this computer is specifically just for gaming, so it might just be an issue of dedicating it to that and not doing other things with the device. That's a pretty long message, so thanks for your time and enjoying the show very much. So he wants to upgrade from Windows 10 to Linux. He's gaming on his laptop. He has questions on the graphics card, and he'd like to know how and where the best way to search the internet for help with the graphics card. So you're the gamer, Bill, or you have been. Tell me about it. What's he do? What's his best (7/44)
route here? Okay, so once I upgrade from Windows 10 to Linux, I recommend for... and you guys didn't give a lot about his machine either, so I'm going to just spitball this one. Go with the Ubuntu Mate, Ubuntu, Linux, Mint. They seem to be the easiest to get games running. That's just my opinion, but from experience, they seem to work the best. Use an NVIDIA card. They seem to have the least trouble getting things to run, in my experience. And also, depending on what distribution you're going to use, go to their forums. So if you're having problems in Ubuntu, you go to a bunch of forums. If Ubuntu Mate, you could go to their forums, etc. One of the things that you always need to remember is going to the forums first before you make any radical changes. They usually have a list somewhere buried in their Welcome of Supported hardware. Sometimes it's up to date, sometimes it's not so much. But I haven't run across any NVIDIA drivers issues, for me anyway. My Alienware uses NVIDIA, so I (8/44)
install the NVIDIA driver and it works perfectly. It's not as optimized as the Windows ones are, but with some workarounds like Guild Wars, etc., as a game, it works well. And he also didn't say what games, and that's going to probably be the biggest indicator for him. What kind of games is he trying to run? Is he trying to run some of the latest and greatest? It might take some work, or you might not be able to get him to run. He's running three monitors, so as long as he's running on separate video cards, or is he just mirroring them? Yeah, he says he's running on a laptop, so I wouldn't think that he would be running on a separate video card. But you never know, he could have a separate video card. And he may not be able to change that video card in his laptop, depending on who makes it. Yeah, some of the Macs, and I've heard of a few that they would have, like, like an Intel, my machine has an Intel base for just non-graphic uses, and then it has NVIDIA for the gaming and stuff. (9/44)
But there's some of those machines that they need a special driver, or a special, yeah, a special driver from the vendor to make that change seamless. I think the Macs have that Quattro card or something that they have to have a special driver for. So, depending on what kind of machine he has and stuff, I would still say stay with NVIDIA, go to forums and just kind of be, and maybe if he wants, he could send some more information about the kind of games, maybe we can help him find the right software to help him. That's all I got. Right. And I think just generally, if you're looking online for help with Linux, whether it's for graphics cards or anything else, start with the forums for the distribution that you're using. That's recommendation number one. And then recommendation number two, look for online publications. There are plenty of them out there that focus in on Linux. Ubuntu has some publications. There's Full Circle Magazine and things like that. And then there's Linux Magazine (10/44)
Online and various others that are online magazines, essentially. And then there are blogs like, what's the Ubuntu one? There's a great site. If you use Ubuntu, it's called Ask Ubuntu. That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. Yeah. Ask Ubuntu and places like that. So those are the first three places. Don't do just a Google search for what your graphic card is and help with Linux or something like that, because you're going to get a lot of opinions on a lot of websites that don't necessarily relate to your specific Linux distribution. So if you can focus in on your distribution or if you do a blind Google search like that, search for your graphics card name, the name of your Linux distribution and setup or drivers or words like that. And that can help you. But the first recommendation is start with the forums, because that's where you're going to get the most valid information from users who have gone through what you're trying to do. And also, if you haven't decided on a Linux version, going (11/44)
to the different forums, like if you want to go to Ubuntu MATE and then Arch Linux or Fedora or something like that, or what's the Monjero, that's it. Go to the forums and kind of look around and see if people are having success or problems, because you might find a Linux distribution that seems to work better. So that might kind of steer you to your choice. But that's just because Monjero is based on Arch. Probably do a little research and then go from there. Right, right. And this is kind of an example of one of those hurdles that unfortunately new users to Linux have is that you're trying to make a switch from a previous operating system to Linux, and you're trying to make it on a machine that wasn't, you know, that was designed for Windows. It wasn't designed for Linux, and you end up with hardware sometimes that is not compatible or takes a few extra hoops to jump through to get it to work on Linux. And for new users, that's difficult. It's kind of akin to saying, you know, I've (12/44)
been a Mac user all my life. I am going to switch to this PC because I don't like Mac hardware for some reason, and I want to figure out how to install macOS Mojave on this Dell computer. You're going to have a few problems trying to do that and a similar sort of thing here. So, hey, all I can say is there are plenty of people doing this. And the more popular the computer hardware you have is, the more likely there is a solution out there. And the forums are the best place to look for. And when you need to replace that laptop with something that's compatible with Linux, just take a look at that time before you buy the hardware to make sure that it is hardware either designed for Linux, pre-installed with Linux, or has components that are compatible with Linux. And by that time, you're probably going to know a little bit more about Linux and how to use it and some of the other things, and it'll be a lot easier to make that decision based on information you have having used Linux for a (13/44)
while. So anyway, we've spent a long time on Primitive One's simple question. Well, it's not a simple question. These are really important questions because you don't want to go through a bunch of hoops, get it installed, and then find out that you can't get it to work or something. You can't get there from here. Yeah, so we like to sometimes give a little too much information. We're not trying to talk down to you. We're just saying the best way is to do some research, just make sure, and then get all your stuff together. You don't change out an engine in a car without making sure that you have the manual and have all the pieces to do it. So that's kind of the same. You don't? No. Maybe that's what I've been doing wrong. Okay. You need that wrench, Larry. All right. All right. Okay. All right. Our first email is from Angelo, who forwarded an email entitled, FYI, VINIX support, please have a closer look at this project. Hello all. Since I learned about this group a lot in the past, I (14/44)
know there are a lot of talented people on this list. I wanted to bring to your attention the following project, which was previously mentioned in this list. And it is SLINT, S-L-I-N-T, and it is at slint.fr. We'll have a link in the show notes. It says, I've been playing with SLINT for a while, or slint, I guess you could pronounce it, for a while and found this very blind-friendly project. The most important is that the gentleman behind SLINT is very much interested in accessibility of this project and very responsive to any suggestions or requests. And so on. If you could spare a bit of your time on SLINT and share your ideas and suggestions with DJ, I guess that's the project owner, his project could become even better. At all the best to all of you in the new year and thank you for letting me be part of this group. OK, so interesting. Another program for the blind. And we'll take a look at that and see what it's all about. Yeah, so thanks for the email. And there's so many Linux (15/44)
projects, it's so little time. It says originally Slackware Internationalization Project. Slint is now a Linux distribution derived from Slackware and from Salix. Polyglot, versatile, beginner-friendly and accessible for the visually impaired. Hmm. So it's multiple languages, accessible to visually impaired, wide assortment of software for servers, desktops and laptops. Interesting. Uses KDE, LXDE, Mate XFCE and lightweight window managers. Yeah, looks very interesting. Another Linux distribution for the blind. Great. All right. Thanks. Our next email comes from James and he has a possible mate tweak solution with Orca. And that was mentioned on show 356. He writes, Hello, Larry and Bill. Happy New Year to you both. My name is James. I am a longtime listener and have recently created a dual boot system using Ubuntu Mate as my distribution of choice. It seems like the most user friendly for a novice. I am also a blind Linux user. I came across a possible solution to Daniel's mate tweak (16/44)
issue from show 356. I am quite comfortable in the terminal from my Mac OS days, but perhaps there is a way to get at the file via the GUI. I'm not sure. However, the following change to the mate tweak UI file should give Orca screen reader focus to all of the mate tweak options. The file could be found at its user dash lib dash mate tweak. Well, it's in the show notes. And it says, being a text file, it can be opened easily with Pluma by running the following command in a terminal. I found that I had to prefix a command with a pseudo, which provides elevated privileges requiring a user's password, for example. And he lists the command and that's also in the show notes. So he says two lines below it says object class equals GTK icon view ID equals sign side view replace false with true. So he's telling you what you need to do. It tells you what the file looks for, what the command is and then what to change. And then he says, save the file and quit Pluma. Try running the mate tweak (17/44)
tool again. Also, the Orca mailing list is a useful resource for the blind Linux users and developers. So to subscribe, please visit. And I'll read this one out because it's not too bad. HCTPS backslash backslash mail dot nome dot org dash mailman dash list info slash Orca list. Or you can just go to the show notes again. I hope this helps. Best wishes. And I look forward to hearing more from going links in 2019. So if you're having problems with your with your screen reader or the Orca, come to the show notes and follow these links and I think this might help you out. Yep, absolutely. And our next email is from David in Israel, who wrote with a question about Mint upgrades. OK, I would appreciate a response to satisfy my curiosity. It's about the upgrade from Linux Mint 18.3 to 19.0. With the recent release of 19.1, I decided to upgrade from 18.3 to 19.0 and then to 19.1. I had not gone to 19.0 originally, taking the advice that if there is no need, don't do it. And the fact that the (18/44)
process has some dangers. However, I like being on the leading edge, although not on the bleeding edge. So with 19.1 release, I decided to do it. In general, everything was easy and straightforward following the process documented in the Linux Mint community on how to upgrade. However, I too had the problem mentioned on that page by Jan Coffey near the top of the comments. I got a repeating error message and he provides the error message in detail. But essentially it says that there was an error processing the gconf2 configuration file, and then it leaves those triggers unprocessed and then it has a dependency problem. And then it says gconf2 depends on dbus-x11 and then x11 is not configured yet and round and round and round. He then says, I followed Jan Coffey's advice. My solution was to run the commands sudo dpkg space dash dash configure space dash a. So dpkg configure dash a. And then sudo apt-get space install space dash f. So dpkg configure dash a and then apt-get install dash (19/44)
f. And then rerun the Mint upgrade upgrade. And it worked like a charm to upgrade to Linux Mint 19. I'd be curious if you could explain to me why I have had the problem and how those commands solved it. OK, why you had the problem? I don't know. That's something for the Linux Mint developers to understand. But it sounds to me like the upgrade process, this is one of those troubles that you can get into with upgrades that unless you really need to upgrade. My recommendation, especially from the Linux Mint folks, is don't do it unless you really need to. However, the alternative, of course, to upgrading is to fresh install and then you won't have these problems. But it's a little more work if it goes smoothly. If it doesn't go smoothly, now this is a little more work. The upgrade is a little more work. So, yeah. So somewhere along the lines, the upgrade process is not processing gconf2 correctly or configuring it correctly or something. So the answer to the second part of your question, (20/44)
why did these things fix it? Well, the first command, the dpackage command, is kind of to reset the configuration to what it needs to be to do the upgrade. And then the second is to force, that's the dash F, force the installation even though you're getting this error message. And using those two commands in sequence allows you to essentially push that gconf2 package over the threshold and get it to install even though it's not wanting to do it. And even though you're forcing the install with that install dash F command, it somehow figures out how to make it work and it works. So there's my non-technical technical explanation of how it works. You're essentially forcing the installation and then it just goes ahead and does it. And it just forces it to bypass those error messages and install it anyway. So there you go. I like the idea. It just forces the penguins to make it work. Yeah, there you go. Right. So it's like anything else. If it doesn't fit, just use a hammer and force it. (21/44)
That's kind of what we're doing here. Yeah. So David, I know we didn't really give you an explanation there, but it was fun trying to figure it out. Right? Yeah. Or you could just do a fresh install and not have to do it. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Which took you longer, fresh install or the upgrade? Right. I think for a long time up until recently Mint recommended to do a just a fresh install. They still do as far as I understand. Oh, do they? Okay. Yeah. So, all right. So moving right along, we have George from Tulsa who wrote about the Mike Tech Show podcast number 678. And he said, I added this to my feeds on your recommendation. 678 is a major endorsement of Linux, but Mike's too locked into Windows services to see. If you know him, he needs Invoice Ninja. And then he also includes a YouTube link, which is in the show notes. So, yeah, apparently. Yeah. Invoice Ninja is for invoices, I guess. Yeah, it's for doing invoices using Linux. So it's a Linux program for doing invoices. And Mike, (22/44)
you know, he's got a computer repair business and he's got a lot of contract customers and individual home customers as well. And he does all his work on Windows and Mac. And, you know, George, new subscriber to Mike's podcast on our recommendation, has uncovered the fact that Mike could easily switch to Linux. But he's, you know, very steeped in the Windows environment and he's got a lot of Windows tools for helping repair Windows servers. You know, he's got business applications and as well as home users. So he's got a little more than the average home user has to deal with. But, yeah, he could easily run his business on Linux. And I don't know Mike personally, but I've had conversations with him by email and various others. So I'll forward that on, George, and let him know that if he ever decides to move to Linux, we're here to help him out. And Invoice Ninja may be one of those programs that helps him. There you go. I thought he was like, he needed to send an invoice to Ninja. No. (23/44)
Well, I suppose if you knew a Ninja and you had to invoice him for something, you could use that program to send the invoice to Ninja. Anyway, let's move on. Rick wrote with a solution about mounting shares over OpenVPN. Hi, thank you for reading out my VPN problem on listener feedback. I now have the solution and I thought some listeners would like to know what the solution is. Well, thanks for writing back, Rick, and letting us know. So continuing on, he says, As you know, I was trying to get a file sync application to write my folders on the other side of a VPN on my friend's server. My friend is just a home user and the same as me, we are not business IT trained and we have never had to work in IT. We both have a Synology NAS, which is Network Attached Storage, right? And we both have switched to the OpenVPN package and both have got our packages to create the necessary certificate. Now, I've gone Linux and found that Windows can read and write my folders over the VPN. But I found (24/44)
that Linux couldn't because I couldn't mount my folders on the other side of the VPN. And Nautilus could read and write successfully, but Linux apps couldn't use the mount points for writing setup by Nautilus. Very soon after the WannaCry outbreak, my friend and I decided to set our Synology NAS to use Samba at the lowest version of 2 to prevent a possible outbreak on our servers. While I can successfully mount my own NAS without specifying the Samba version to use, it turns out that I have to specify the version when setting up a mount point on the other side of the VPN. It would have been obvious that I needed to use the version option had the help option listed VER in its full list of options available in the mount command. I've searched Linux books and searched the internet for mount options and not one includes the VER option as something that can be specified. I eventually found the command in a blog somewhere. My guess is that after the WannaCry outbreak, someone upgraded the (25/44)
mount command to use version 2 of Samba but didn't update the help options and didn't inform the main internet resources for people to know that mount can now use version 2. I've tried to set the option to use Samba version 3, but I get an error so it looks like version 2 is the highest one for the moment. I hope you found this interesting and may be of use. Best wishes, Rick. Okay, so a hidden option on the VPN, so that's good. Thanks for letting us know about that, Rick. I'm sure those of our listeners who are struggling with that same problem with OpenVPN will find that very interesting and helpful. I think we need to give Rick some kudos there. That's a lot of detective work. Yes. Thanks for all that work. Good job, Rick. So our next email comes from Angelo who wrote about learning Python. Hi Larry and Bill. Michael can contact the Royal National Institute for the Blind, RNIB. They can provide him with some materials. You can pass along my email address and I can share some of my (26/44)
materials with him. There are also some accessible materials on Kindle and Audible also has some books. 73N2DYN Angelo. Thanks, Angelo. Yeah. And yeah, Michael should be able to... I'm sure he's already connected with the RNIB and can ask them about that information. So that's great. Highlander sent an email to us and to the Mintcast entitled Seize Control. Dear Larry and Bill, the short story. After a major upgrade from Windows 10 version 1803 to Windows 10 version 1809, I discovered a problem with my hard drive. It took me a long time to figure out that Windows upgrade was causing the problem. Really? Windows upgrade causing problems? Never heard of that before. I'm not even going to comment on that one. Yeah. It took me a little while longer to figure out how Linux would solve this problem. The long story. I have a common NTFS partition on my second hard drive that I use to store files and move files. This is how I access and write files by both Windows and Linux operating system. (27/44)
The point is, regardless of which system created the file, both systems can access it and modify it. And I don't need internet access to share files between systems. This morning, my Windows 10 version 18.03 upgraded, sounds like on its own, to version 18.09. I found out later that Windows tried to claim ownership over all my files and folders. My common NTFS partition was changed to read-only by Windows 10 version 18.09, so my Linux distros could not write files to the common NTFS partition. I accessed GParted from within Fedora 28 and created another NTFS partition. Fedora had write access to the new partition, so I did some write testing on both the new and the old NTFS partitions. All my Linux distros then had write access because GParted requires you to log in as root. GParted forced and seized control of the common NTFS partition. My computer now operates the way I intended it to. I am not happy with what that wind-blows operating system tried to do, and that was to try to claim (28/44)
ownership of and control over my file folders and files. Regards, Highlander, GTA. Moving right along, Ken wrote about episode 358, Bill and Larry. I just listened to podcast 358 and was appalled at the feedback from Don complaining about your evaluation of Windows versus Linux. I really appreciate the quality of your show and website. You have been a great support to me and my going on Linux for many years. I'm certainly no expert and just one of the folks using Linux meant in my case to get things done. I am just plain fed up with Windows, much for the same reasons that Bill stated in his answers to Don. My biggest complaint is the lack of reliability, security, and privacy invasion, plus the onerous updates. My list could go on and on, my Linux machines just purr along without much attention, using the LTS versions. Don's response reminds me of some earlier experiences with online email lists, forums, etc. It's usually the least experienced who are making such unintelligent and (29/44)
often nasty comments. In many cases, I just turned the list off when the folks would go off on one of their tirades. I am glad to see that most comments to the Goings Podcasts and the Google community have been civil. I have noticed that well managed forums that prohibit that type of nastyness have done well and have been more useful to all. It seems that some folks will get on the internet and say things that they wouldn't dare say to your face. They seem to think that it's their duty to approach their responses with unpleasant commentary. So sad. The internet has done much for us, but some of the social aspects are disappointing me. Keep up the good work. No, great work. I appreciate your efforts. Give you all an A++++. Ken, KB4XT. Thanks, Ken. We got five pluses, Larry. Yeah, that's cool. Thanks, Ken. And yeah, you know, every once in a while, Bill, we're accused of being a little snide in our remarks about Windows or accused of Windows bashing. But really, it's a result of emails (30/44)
like this from Ken and emails like the ones that we've read on this podcast as well, that it's really from our listeners that we're hearing that Windows has the problems. I certainly don't use Windows anymore. And yeah, it appears that you don't either. Only from work. And I just want to point out, Larry, it's my amateur radio brothers has got my back. I just want to point that out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks. Thanks for that. And for those of you who don't know those letters and numbers that some people put at the end of their their email, those are ham radio call signs. So we've got a lot of blind users of Linux who write into the podcast and a lot of ham radio operators who write into the podcast as well. And we thank both of them and the rest of our listeners as well for everything. Yes. OK, so let's move on to. Yeah, thanks, Ken. Let's move on to Ian's suggestion for a Google Plus alternative. Larry, Bill, I've been a listener and Linux enthusiast for quite some time. Keep up the (31/44)
good work. There was a piece on an alternative to Google Plus on the last listener feedback show and a hosted discourse forum was mentioned. I wanted to share my discovery of the Mastodon platform. We've had that recommended before. An open source, federated social media network that promotes consideration of others, not others, others. Since it doesn't reside on a centrally controlled server, you can sign up to existing instances based on interest. For example, Linux rocks dot online or a foster Don dot org. And if you know their Mastodon addresses, follow people from other instances across the federation. Instances are hosted by individuals and moderated by their community. You can host your own instance and control your experience explicitly, yet still participate in the wider community. You know, that's interesting. I didn't know that Mastodon would allow that. So that's that's good. He provides a link to a video that explains that. And he says having a presence on Mastodon is (32/44)
simple to achieve. Just go to join Mastodon dot org. But hosting your own instance allows you to theme and moderate the experience for the community. Users come first on the platform. Respect and considerate discussion follows. Unlike the dreaded Helberd or bird site, Mastodon also gives you an array of content tools to allow you to tell your feed, your follows, your privacy. It seems like a good fit for potential Linux users with their appreciation of open source software. Better security and a true level of control not governed by a large commercial organization. People coming away from Google Plus or Tumblr recently should find a welcome home somewhere on a Mastodon instance. I'd also like to throw a recommendation out to a distro I've been very impressed with in MX Linux 17. It's very fast, lightweight with the XFCE desktop, but delivers a smooth user experience with none of the functionality hidden away if you want to dig deeper into it. Thanks again for all your effort with going (33/44)
Linux and keep up the good work. Thanks for the suggestions. Yeah, actually, I didn't know Mastodon could do that. I want to check into that. So we've got an email from Joshua who wrote about episode 358. Hey Larry and Bill, I haven't wrote in since 2010, but have listened to all episodes of going Linux except for a few of the later Computer America episodes. And for those of you who are new, Larry used to do a show on Computer America and I guess they kind of changed format. Larry, is that what they did? No, they didn't change format. They still do a Linux segment as part of their show. I just bowed out as the host and they went back to the host they had prior to me and they still have it. So ongoing and every once in a while they play some older episodes like over the holidays and stuff they play best of episodes and every once in a while you'll hear me back on there. Because I guess they liked my segments. I haven't done anything for them for a while, but still some great content in (34/44)
there. Yeah. And he continues, I just listened to episode 358 and had to write in after hearing you read the feedback from Don. As I listened to his feedback, I got very upset. You read the feedback with great grace and restraint, but I think I could hear the hurt in your voice. I don't know that I could have done the same. I just had to write in and let you know that the two of you cover your subjects very well. You speak with accuracy on what you know and admit with humility to things that you don't know. There is no pretension in your podcast as for the way you talk about other operating systems, you're always truthful and do not denigrate them. Everything that Don said about you and Bill was completely wrong. I would ask others to write in and support and show support for Larry and Bill. I can't be the only one who feels this way. I will also post this to the Google Plus group. Thank you. I appreciate that Joshua. Yeah, and there's no need for everybody to write in and support. I (35/44)
mean, thank you. But yeah, it comes with the territory, right? Yeah, some of the earlier ones we've had some we've had some where we had to put on the asbestos underwear. So yeah, so this was a relatively mild one. But yes, we try to be fair and balanced, but you know, everybody's entitled to their own opinion. So we'll move right along. Absolutely. So Rainey suggests a Google Plus alternative. Hi, Larry and Bill in your ever expanding search for a new social network. I suggest you give me we.com a try. The guys from Mintcast already found a new home there. And it's a pretty simple interface. Since I never really dabbled around in Google Plus, I can't really say how or if it is different. Good luck, Rainey. Well, maybe I'll take a look at the me we.com site from the Mintcast site and see how it looks and we can take a look at it. Every time you say me we it makes me smile and just saying you know, that's a great name. So George from Tulsa wrote Winders quite an email. A former neighbor (36/44)
I don't see often woke up in the wee hours and thought he heard his computer running. He thought he had set it to stay on Windows 7. And it was and it was running a 2am update. I know where this is going. When he awoke, it was running Windows 10 and his data files were gone. Oh, OK. Continuing, he's not a sophisticated user, Chromebook material and had no backups. Frantic, he tried to get his data back. That's cold, but OK, which was just the wrong thing to do. Wronger, he took it to the geek store that was supposed to do a data recovery. They apparently had read Microsoft's notice it would be helping people get their Windows 10 update erased data back. And after days of stalling, eventually said they couldn't recover his data. But in the meantime, he paid $200, signed up for a security protection program and gave them the ability from what I can gather at any time to sign into his system remotely to fix it. OK. All for a low low fee of $200. And you're OK, privacy. Never mind. When he (37/44)
went to pick up his laptop, they said we did manage recovery data. That was after Microsoft was supposed to provide help. Turned out to be a lie or misunderstanding of what was lost because it was still gone. Sigh. I could not persuade him to go look at a Chromebook or to let me. I really hate to get in the trenches with Windows. At least Newt can pay for his laptop and try to put Windows 7 back to protect him from the idiots he paid $200 and gave the keys to his kingdom. The next podcast in my queue after yours was Late Night Linux number 52. It kicks off with a very geeky Felim Whiteley struggling with a Microsoft run around as his Windows 10 VM is no longer authenticating. Been there myself and it was definitely no fun. I finally exceeded in getting authenticated and chose not to let the MSFT or Microsoft Tech, I did call them that, but access my computer. Felim was not so lucky. Linux for business. I struggled with printing checks. No, we don't do that as much as in the past, but (38/44)
once a year we mail out a large number of them. The easiest and it wasn't easy way I found to do it was to set up a LibreOffice mail merge until I installed the free and still available quick in 2004 for Windows download and wine. I've tried all the Linux financial applications, KMyMoney, GNU Cash, Scrooge, even the paid money dance and none measured up to quick in 2004 running in wine. And I'm not talking about my pitiful personal finances, but tracking the complex finances of large entities. There are a couple of proprietary PDF tools for Linux that claim to be replacements for Acrobat Pro. I have not tried them. One is they're Russian and putting proprietary Russian software on my systems is just not acceptable. And code industry makes master PDF and gives their link. Coupa says it is in Atlanta. I want to verify that as I followed a couple of other companies to ground before buying from them and ground turned out to be per se Google Street View, a storefront offering mailboxes. Be (39/44)
nice to have a reliable and safe PDF creation tool and easy database that runs locally and know the base modules of Libre and OpenOffice and the Keksi KTE database aren't easy and in my experience crash. Miss DBase2, Miss Access, Miss MSFT Works database that was really pretty good works nine will run in wine, but is a PIA unlike quick in 2004, which is smooth. Wow. Yeah, so PIA is pain in the backside. Yes. Yeah, George. So you can do the ringer there. Wow. Yeah, exactly. So George and I had exchanged a couple of emails on the PDF tool and trying to determine which of the PDF tools have, you know, capabilities similar to the Adobe product and that are not based in a country known to provide exploits and malware. So I took a look at that copa or koopa, whatever it is site, and I looked at their website. It says that they are based in Atlanta, Georgia, Georgia in the US, not Georgia in the, you know, Russia. And I also found a link on LinkedIn to their company, and it confirms that (40/44)
they're based in Atlanta and that their employees are based in Atlanta. So it is not a free of charge program, but it does give you the capabilities that you're looking for. And it looks like a legitimate alternative to Adobe's PDF creation tools with a lot of a lot of features built in. Yeah, Quicken 2004 running in wine, if that works, great. I know that, you know, this whole finances for business thing is a bit of a struggle for any program. And I guess the folks at Quicken have just done such a good job of it that although, you know, open source alternatives try to provide the same functionality, Quicken still outpaces them, even the 2004 version of their software. So 14 years old. Yeah, exactly. Running it in wine is is an alternative. And wine for new users of Linux is a way that you can run some older Windows programs and sometimes not so often newer Windows programs under Linux. And, you know, that that's certainly a way to do it. Another way is to look at flat packs or snap (41/44)
packages, that sort of thing. Yeah, someone has packaged things up. That's that's a more friendly way of doing it that doesn't require you to install yet another program that being wine to make it run. So I haven't looked to see if Quicken is in there. I doubt it. But you know what? Let me just take a minute to snapcraft.io slash store. And let's see if Quicken is in the list. Last time I looked, it was not. And it's still not there. So if you know how to snap up packages like this, Quicken might be one that you could provide for people's use. Anyway, there you go. Yeah. All right. Thanks, George, for all those details. And thanks, everyone who participated in this month's listener feedback. This was great. Yeah, it was great. Thanks for all the emails. And, you know, Larry, that kind of is the last one right now. Yeah, it is for now. And I'm sure there are more coming in. It seems that every time we release an episode, people want to comment on it. And that's great. That allows us to (42/44)
have one full episode a month filled with emails and voicemails like this, answering your questions, providing marginal advice on how to use Linux. Yeah. So, yeah, keep up the feedback. We appreciate it. And our listeners appreciate it as well. So we're happy to do it. Thanks, guys. Okay, our next episode. Yeah. Our next episode, Bill, is Run Your Business on Linux Part 3. Yeah, we are continuing our series on running your business on Linux. And we'll continue to do that. I think after this one, we'll probably switch over, kind of alternate between running your business and some other episodes. And I was thinking, like your feedback on this, Bill, that it's been a while since we did a show on the basics, the basics of Linux, especially for new listeners, new users to Linux. Let's just kind of go back to basics. Things have changed a little bit. Yeah, some things have changed a little bit. Yeah, I think that'd be fun. And we can do a multi-part series on that. All right. Sounds like (43/44)
that might be a plan. So 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. For now, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our Going Linux podcast, Google Plus Community. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. (44/44)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #372 · Ubuntu Derivatives.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux, episode 372, Ubuntu Derivatives. Welcome to the Going Linux Podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, Ubuntu Derivatives. Hi, Bill. Hey, Larry. So, how's your day so far? Doing okay. Yeah, with our usual hiccups in trying to get the podcast started, I think we're good. You've got a new test machine, which I think was part of the problem here. But tell us a little bit about your new test machine. Yeah, I got a call from a friend who said that a person was wanting to get rid of their old computer and what I'd be interested in. I said, sure. I was figuring I was going to get a really (1/44)
ancient machine, but it's not as ancient. And I asked when I got it, I saw there was an i5. It was 6 gigs of RAM, 160-rush drive with Intel graphics. Okay. Not bad. Okay, and I'm thinking, yeah, not bad. So, I looked and the computer is older. It's four to six years old. But it's still an i5, 64-bit processor. So, I called the lady up because everything worked on it. It's a Dell Optiplex 790, a little mini tower. And I asked her, I said, why are you getting rid of this? I said, it had Windows 7 on it, which I took care of that really quickly. And she said that she had went to a Microsoft store or wherever, and they said that her machine wasn't beef enough to run Windows 10. And if it did run it, it would run it really poorly. And I'm like, I don't know if that's true. So, I started looking around before I blasted the Win 7 off, and I noticed something interesting. It was running a 32-bit version of Windows 7 Pro. Really? Okay. And it wasn't a 64-bit version of Windows. And she was (2/44)
having all kinds of driver issues and programs not working. And I'm thinking, yeah, I can kind of understand why. Because if you're buying, this person works in the accounting field, and so she's buying a newer program and it won the 64. I don't know. I can't figure it out. It makes no sense to me. But it runs really well. So, I decided, I thanked her. And she also gave me a huge 19-inch monitor because apparently they sold her on a new monitor saying that this one wasn't high DPI or whatever. So, long story short, the computer runs really, really well. There's nothing wrong with it. I think what you said was they're just interested in selling new hardware. It runs great. I mean, really great. And I find it hard. I think they might have sold her a bill of goods. I don't see any reason why it couldn't run Windows 10. Well, maybe I can. I don't know. Maybe the Intel graphic. I don't know. All I know is that everything I've thrown at it, including everything we're getting ready to talk (3/44)
about, has run really, really well. The only thing I would change on it, and I think I'm going to, is I'm going to buy, since it has a standard hard drive, or I like to call them the rush drive, I want to put an SSD in it. That should really speed up. I mean, it has enough horsepower. It has four cores and six gigs of RAM. Yeah, that's not a huge amount, but that's not too far off what some of these modern computers, the low end computers are selling. So, all in all, I've been very pleased with it. I mean, it even runs Arch, Fedora, Sabion, which is not the lightest out of the group. So, it's run well. For a four, five, six year old computer, it's kind of specced the way you would expect it to be. I5, six gigs of RAM, 160 gig hard drive, but three gigahertz is, you know, some of the lower end computers these days are running that, or not too much more for the high performance ones. And I don't know whether you can get more RAM in it or not, but if you can get it up to eight and you can (4/44)
put an SSD drive in at whatever size you want, that's almost current specs, even though the computer's four to six years old. So, yeah, that thing should run just about anything. It does. About the only thing that I did before I started up is I, of course, opened up the side and it was dusty, of course. So, you know, I blew it all out, cleaned it up, checked the connections. And so far, it's run flawlessly. It runs really quiet. Even I was talking to you, I have Mate on it right now, and I was telling you, I have like 15 tabs open and the system, I was only using 2.2 of the gigahertz and none of it, the swap. Yeah, it seems like it's performing well, that's for sure. Yeah, I mean, because I've been punishing it quite a bit just to see if I could get it to find something it wouldn't run. And I think you sold me on one thing, Larry, is Intel graphics or I think AMD also has their drivers in the kernel too. I'm almost, my next one, because I've had so many issues trying to get these (5/44)
NVIDIA drivers, they're playing nice because mine has built-in Intel, but it also has that discrete. It's supposed to switch and it never did really well under Windows when I first had it either. So, I think an all Intel machine or AMD machine or something. But yeah, I tell you, the Intel has just been really nice to get up and running. It just, you know, boom and it runs. I'm like, now I know what it feels like to actually put, you know, I have to deal with installing additional drivers and going in and fiddling with config files. So, yeah, Intel's starting to make a believer out of me. Yeah, it's nice and smooth when you've got a computer that's designed to be compatible with Linux, or at least whether it's designed to be or not, whether it is compatible with Linux or not determines how smoothly the installation and the running goes. And as long as you're not taxing the graphics with the latest demanding games for 3D games and highest performance games, Intel graphics is just fine. (6/44)
And as it increases in performance, it's getting better and better at running games as well. It is getting better. Yeah. So, I'd be interested to see what you do about your gaming predilection. I was going to say addiction. Maybe you're not addicted, but predilection to gaming on this machine and see what actually comes out of it, whether you decide to go virtual machine for games or something else. But hey, we'll see. We'll see where it goes. So, this lady who provided you with this essentially brand new five year old machine, I hope she gave you a good price on it. Free. That's a good price. She gave it away for free and she went to the Microsoft store and they sold her on new hardware and a new monitor and she still gave away her old computer to you for free. What did Microsoft end up selling her? Okay. So, she didn't, first off, if I hadn't taken it, she was just going to scrap the whole thing and send it to a landfill. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. The horror. The horror. So, of course, (7/44)
since she's into accounting, she got another, I guess, little mini tower. I think it has, I think she had 16 gigs of RAM, a SSD, a storage drive, the highest i7, because she said she almost went with an i9. I'm thinking that's a lot of overkill for an accounting machine, but the one thing she was irritated is it doesn't have an optical drive. So, I think she either had to have them put it in or it didn't come with it, so she had to buy an optical drive. She bought a, I think it was, she said like a 20 inch 4K monitor. That'll run those spreadsheets just fine. Yeah. I mean, she was very proud of it. I'm like, but the monitor you have that I'm actually looking at right now works really well. I've used it for some office stuff for work. And she's like, no, they said it needed to be higher definition. And I don't know what else it has in it, but yeah, she said it put her back about 2300 bucks. Okay. I can see that. With the monitor and everything like that. And I know she probably bought (8/44)
the service plan and everything else like that. Thank you, Microsoft. I'll take your free computer. Yeah, exactly. Congratulations, Microsoft on an oversold. Yeah. Let's just leave it at that. Oh, and remember now she got Pro too. She was telling me, because I asked her what version she went with. Windows 10 Pro. Because she had Windows 7 Pro on this. I don't know what she's planning to do with it, but apparently I think it has enough horsepower to run spreadsheets for NASA. I don't know. The one thing that I did find interesting is that the first thing that she commented on is that because she deals with people's accounts and stuff. She wanted to make sure that it was secure and also that updates wouldn't come at a bad time. And so she went in and she had to adjust some privacy settings and stuff. She said, well, we're not exactly the fastest internet out here. And it took her like an hour, an hour and a half before the updates were finished. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, I can understand why (9/44)
she doesn't want the updates coming at inopportune times if the internet is slow enough to make that an hour. She has a business plan, so I'm sure it's a little better. But what she was asking, she says, well, how does this get into updates? I had to think back. I guess, yeah, back in Windows 7 stuff you had to actually, I don't know, use a disk or whatever. But anyway, I told her it's pushed to her automatically and she wasn't too keen on that. But I said, well, Windows 10, I said, you can defer. You only can defer, I think it's like 30 days. Pro might be a little different, but she didn't quite like that. She says, well, what if it's just working? I don't want any updates. Well, unfortunately you don't have an option. You have to take the updates. I told her the trick, you could tell it to do a metered connection and it's supposed not to do any major up downloads, security updates. Yes, but not the major feature releases like to do twice a year. So hopefully that was helpful, but I (10/44)
thought it was kind of funny, a Linux guy giving a Windows user on how not to get updates. Yeah. Well, like I said, I understand why she's using it. I'm not bashing Windows. Sounds like the salesperson took advantage of the fact that she felt that she needed higher performance on her computer. Well, I think from what I can figure out, and I actually told her, I said, you're running a 32-bit version of Windows 7 Pro and that might be causing some issues with some of this latest accounting software. She was telling me it would run slow or it wouldn't let her save a file or whatever. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. I'm not a Windows programmer, but it might be. But anyway, this is not talking about Windows. This is talking about going Linux. OK, well, let's do that. Although part of going Linux is leaving Windows behind and some of what we've been describing is why people leave Windows behind. That's true. I also just want to say is I'm trying to be as neutral as I can (11/44)
because anytime we talk about Windows and say anything negative, even if it's true, we catch some flak once in a while. Once in a while. I'm not bashing. I'm just telling you, these are problems. Anyway, so today, Larry, we're going to take a high-level view of some of the Ubuntu derivatives to give people an overview of what is out there. Larry, I'm going to hand it over to you for the first one because I want you to cover Ubuntu Mate since I know that you're a fan of that distro. Yes, indeed I am. And all of the distributions that we're going to be talking about today are derivatives of Ubuntu. And we're going to make the assumption that you know what Ubuntu is. Maybe you're already running Ubuntu. Maybe you've tried it and you've tried maybe one of the distributions that we're going to talk about here. Or maybe you're using something else. But we're not going to spend any time on Ubuntu other than to say each of these is a derivative of Ubuntu, which of course in turn is a (12/44)
derivative of Debian, which is one of the original Linux distributions out there. And if you listen to our last listener feedback episode, one of our listeners had provided us a link to the latest distribution chart or history of Linux sort of thing. And Debian has been around a long time. It's far on the left-hand side of that chart for sure. Anyway, so according to the Ubuntu Mate website, here's how they describe the distribution. via a control center. Mate desktop provides an intuitive and attractive desktop environment using traditional metaphors, which means if you've ever used Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS, it will feel very familiar. The Mate desktop has a rich history and is the continuation of the GNOME 2 desktop, which was the default desktop environment on many Linux and Unix operating systems for over a decade. This means that Mate desktop is tried, tested, and very reliable. The minimum hardware requirements for Ubuntu Mate are a Pentium M 1.0 gigahertz processor, one (13/44)
gigabyte of RAM, that's one gigabyte of RAM, nine gigabytes of available space on the hard disk. And if you don't have that much space, you're just not trying or you've got a really old machine. Bootable DVD-ROM drive, and I'm not sure that's absolutely essential these days, keyboard and mouse or other pointing device, video adapter and monitor with at least 1024 by 768 or higher resolution, a sound card and speakers or headphones. And that's it. That's all you're required to have to run Ubuntu Mate. Which if you look at those requirements are very, very low. Considering that my test machine is five, six years old and it exceeds those by a lot, you could probably go back even farther and still have a machine that can run Ubuntu Mate. Nowadays, we have more than that in even our lowest new laptops they sell. So when I saw system requirements, I had to actually look again just to make sure I was reading it right. Now, I will say this was taken directly from the website because a lot of (14/44)
these guys really have sat down and said, this is what we were trying to get across and I couldn't have written anything better. So the founders of Ubuntu Mate are Martin Winpress, project co-founder, and he's a Mate desktop developer and Ubuntu Mate project lead. And then Alan Pope, he's a project co-founder and on their website and teaboy. So just so everybody knows, I think both of them are English, so they like their tea. So Larry, do you have any thoughts on this derivative as far as use case scenarios? What would you say the first time you looked at it? Did it remind you more of a Windows or an OS X machine? What's your thoughts on this? Yeah, so I've got a lot of thoughts on this. In fact, I put all of those thoughts down into a book. But yeah, so plug the book. Yeah, exactly. But Ubuntu Mate, and we'll have a link to the book and all of these sites in our show notes, of course. Ubuntu Mate, and you pronounce it mate, I was pronouncing mate, you know, I think it is officially (15/44)
pronounced mate because it's the name comes from the yerba mate plant. So which is mate. And you know, it's M-A-T-E, which is in English, even English from England is mate. So I have no problem with people calling it mate. Anyway, in answer to your question, Ubuntu Mate is the distribution that I recommend to everybody when they talk to me at first about wanting to switch over to Linux. And the reason I do that is because, as you could tell from the minimum hardware requirements, it'll run on just about any computer out there. It runs very quickly. It's easy to use and to set up in the way that you want it set up to run your computer. And you know, that's described as ease of use in most parts. And yes, it's easy to use for sure. But it's also something that is easy to get into, easy to install, easy to understand. And it has pre-installed most of the software that most people will want to use, things like an office suite and a file manager. And it was described as an archive manager (16/44)
in the write up from their website. But what an archive manager is, is something that zips your files or compresses your files. So that's all built in there, as well as all the software you'd need to get started with a computer. And that's all pre-installed by default. So lots of things to make somebody feel at home as soon as they've installed and start using Ubuntu Mate or try it for the first time, whether they're moving from Windows or Mac or somewhere else. And one of the key features that makes Ubuntu Mate so easy for me to recommend it is the fact that the Ubuntu Mate tweak program, which is part of their control center, allows you to switch quite quickly and easily between panel layouts. And panel for the uninitiated is the name that Linux gives to the bar that Windows calls a taskbar. And so you can put that anywhere you want. You can lay the thing out like Windows. You can lay the thing out like Mac. You can lay the thing out like old school Ubuntu from 2010, if you want to. (17/44)
Or you can lay it out like the latest Ubuntu or anything else you want with the quick selection in Ubuntu tweak of a panel layout. And you don't even have to restart the computer to make that switch. So it's really, really easy. That's why I recommend it. And that's what I think of it. Can you tell I'm a fanboy? Yeah, you're a fanboy. And I have to say, I've got it running right now and it runs really well. So what impressed me was the low requirements. But what I got a bigger kick out of is you have under developers, you get a mention. And it says Larry Bushee, documentation writer and author of Ubuntu Mate Upgrading from Windows or OS X right on their website. And I'm jealous. So the book we already described, but what they're talking about a documentation writer is when you go into Ubuntu Mate and you tap the applications or the menu button. And you type in the word help right after you do that. There's a help system built in there and I wrote that. So it's the documentation that (18/44)
guides you through learning to use Ubuntu Mate right there on the screen built in to the software. So, yeah. So you can tell he's also a fanboy and he's a documentation writer. And I have to say that they do a great job. I really like where their project going and I could safely recommend this one. I do want to add one thing. People that use already use Linux might say, well, if I want the Mate or another desktop, I could just install it right from the repos and switch to it. And they're absolutely correct. The reason that we're going over this high level of these derivatives is to provide information for someone that doesn't know that they can switch right away. We want them to know what to expect. Everybody has to start at the beginning. And so we kind of want to say this one has everything you need to start working. And then once they've gotten more confidence, then they'll be able to say, well, you know, maybe I want to try a different desktop. I'll just install it now that I know (19/44)
I can. Because under Windows and OS X, you can use some third party applications and stuff, but you really can't change that much. It has to be within that defined framework of Microsoft or Apple and Apple being one of the people. Yeah. They really don't like anybody to change their desktop paradigm. Yeah. And one caution on people starting with a distribution and switching the desktop, even though you can do that from any of these distributions, whether it's Ubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, Ubuntu, any of them. You can switch to a different desktop quite easily by installing the appropriate desktop files from the repos or repositories, as Bill just said. One of the advantages of going directly to one of these distributions rather than installing it yourself is the fact that there are a few tweaks that need to be made when switching desktop environments. For example, one of the things you'll find is that if you start with Ubuntu Mate and you decide that you want to switch over to the XFCE desktop, (20/44)
for example, you'll end up with, instead of the default file manager with Ubuntu Mate, which is Caja, C-A-J-A, and that's part of the desktop environment, the Mate desktop environment. With XFCE, the desktop environment includes a file manager and the one that comes with XFCE by default is Thunar. And the one that comes with Gnome by default, I think is Nautilus and you'll find others, KDE's as Dolphin. And the file manager is just one example of a provided application that is part of the desktop environment that gets switched when you switch desktop environments. And sometimes, like I said, you have to make some adjustments to adjust, particularly the file manager. I mentioned that because the way the desktop works is often controlled by the file manager for these distributions. So just be a little careful when you switch. I think what we wanted to kind of get across is that a lot of these, if you go into one, you learn that when the fit and finish, the developers have taken the time (21/44)
to make sure everything works seamlessly. And so once you get used to that, then I think if you do decide to switch to a different distribution or to switch out your desktop, you at least have a base to work from. So that's why Ubuntu MATE is a real good one to start with. So anyway, that's kind of the reason the link to every one of these we're talking about is in the show notes under the nice pretty graphics. So easy to find. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so shall we move on to our next distribution bill? Yes. The next one that we're going to talk about is called Lubuntu. And I like it a lot. And I was running this one for a while on test machine because it run really, really well. Lubuntu is a very fast and lightweight operating system with a clean and easy to use interface. It has a Linux system, of course, that uses the minimal desktop, the LXDE and LXQT. I guess they're transitioning over to the LXQT and a selection of light applications. Because of this, Lubuntu has a very low (22/44)
hardware requirements. Lubuntu was founded by, and I'm going to say his name, but I believe it's Mario Bieling. I think that's how it's said. It has been grown for many years by Julian Navarne. And they say, please join us and install Lubuntu on your computer. And the funny thing is the hardware requirements are the exact same requirements that are for Ubuntu Mate. And remember that these are the minimum requirements. So if you have more, then it should be even better. Lubuntu is a very lightweight and fast. If you like speed, this one you should try. If you have one that's really low specs, give it a look. They seem very friendly and open. I chat with a few of the users and everybody seems to like it. Where I like it, the desktop's not quite what I like, but it's very usable. It has everything you need to get things done. And that's what's important. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And you'll notice that some of the ways of working within each of these distributions is a little bit (23/44)
different. But they're all, as we stated at the top of the podcast, they're all based on Ubuntu. So there are certain things that you can expect as a derivative of Ubuntu, like the office suite they install. They all install LibreOffice by default. They all use the Debian package format. For their packages or software installs. And they follow along in the Ubuntu release cycle. So they don't release exactly at the same time as Ubuntu itself, but they follow along very quickly afterwards if not on exactly the same schedule. Well, I do also, just for clarity, every one of these I did run and they're all the latest version because I wanted to see what the latest and greatest was. So they're all at 1904. Another thing we kind of want to go over this is, as you said, a lot of the backend stuff is straight from Ubuntu. Then no one had to create anything new. But this also means that if you have something that runs Ubuntu and you want to install Mate, the backend, like for the updated drivers (24/44)
and stuff, is still being pulled from Ubuntu. So you're going to have that compatibility with any of these. If you ever run on Ubuntu, it should run on as Ubuntu, Labuntu, Ubuntu Mate, whatever. So it's good to know that the back components or core systems are all there. So that no one had to rewrite something. So they usually just always work. Right, exactly. Yeah, and you mentioned, Bill, that for Labuntu they're in this transition between LXDE as the desktop environment and LXQT. For the average user, you don't need to worry about that and you probably wouldn't notice any difference. But just for those technically interested, 18.04, the last long-term support version, used LXDE. And 18.10 and 19.04 are using LXQT as the desktop environment. So if you're using the last stable version, or the last long-term support version, and you upgrade to the next long-term support version, or you just flat out install the next long-term support version, the desktop environment might be a little (25/44)
bit different because of the change, but I don't think there's really too much difference in terms of how the user sees the desktop and what it actually does. I don't see that they're changing any of the packages, the application packages, or the file manager, or anything else that goes along with it. So it should be pretty straightforward going forward. Yeah, I think they're finding that the LXQT is very lightweight and very fast and they're able to do some more fancy stuff with it. So yeah, progress is good. So if you were looking at a long-term support of Lubuntu and then you go to the next one, it's not going to be so radically different that you're not going to be able to know what's going on. You're probably the only thing you'll see, maybe some new flashy stuff on the screen or something like life improvements or ease of use improvements or something like that to make it even more easier to use. So yeah, I don't think that you're right that they should even be worried about (26/44)
that, but we wanted to include that for the more technically minded guys. Yeah, there you go. And gals. And gals. And gals. And kids. Yeah. Okay, our next distribution we're going to provide an overview of is Lubuntu. And their website has all these Lubuntu derivative websites as well laid out and pretty full of information. Let's see what they say about this derivative of Lubuntu. This comes directly from their website. Lubuntu is an elegant and easy to use operating system. Lubuntu comes with XFCE, which is a stable, light and configurable desktop environment. It is perfect for those who want to make the most of their desktops, laptops and netbooks featuring a modern look and enough features for efficient daily use. It works well on older hardware too. So the way the project is managed by the Lubuntu team and the community is on their community website. And we'll have a link to that in the show notes as well. Yeah, that page tells you how it's governed and how you can be involved. (27/44)
And it's always good to know what the community and what the developers are trying to accomplish and also how the project is run. So it also says the following, which is nice Larry. The Lubuntu team has four major areas of focus. These guidelines help the developers work in a way that benefits the Lubuntu users most. The first one is usability. A Lubuntu should help the user to accomplish their tasks, not be in the way. Furthermore, the various aspects of Lubuntu should be configurable. Two, performance. Lubuntu should allow the user to get the most out of their hardware by being user friendly. It should be lightweight enough to run on moderately old machines as well. The third area of focus is ready to use product. The Lubuntu experience should be smooth and unified from the boot to the shutdown. All aspects of the operating system should be integrated and polished. Fourth area is community. The community infrastructure and communication should be robust enough to enable the (28/44)
contributors to direct their efforts into making Lubuntu better and not resolve irrelevant issues. I liked that statement of what they were trying to do. It was very clear. I liked how they're saying, this is what we expect. This is what we're aiming for. When you look at the community page on how the project is run, you see that they're really trying to keep down any kind of conflicts. They just want to make the best Linux distribution. Zubuntu runs really well on my machine also. If you haven't noticed, you'll see that a lot of these, as we're getting ready to talk about the next one, are lightweight. I was very impressed with it. They really took the time to explain what they were trying to accomplish. I would say, Zubuntu, good job folks as far as that. I've really enjoyed your software. Like I said, it installs perfectly. It runs super fast. I plan to run it again and maybe even on my big machine just because it's so blazingly fast. I also like the logo. It's a little mouse head. (29/44)
For those of you who are trying to find Zubuntu and looking for it beginning with the letter Z or Z, it actually begins with the letter X. The four points that you just described as Zubuntu's guidance for developers, very similar things could be said about Ubuntu MATE or Lubuntu. They all aim for the same kinds of things. A very high performance Linux distribution, very usable, ready to use, out of the box, and with a community infrastructure that really helps focus the direction of development of the distribution. Larry, the next one that we're going to be talking about is a little heavier weight. It's not as light as Ubuntu MATE or Lubuntu, but it is probably one of the more popular ones. Moving along, we're going to look at Kubuntu. This uses the KDE Plasma desktop, and KDE also includes large amounts of applications. Kubuntu is a community developed and supported project since its launch in October of 2004, so it's been around a while. Kubuntu has become one of the most highly (30/44)
regarded Linux distributions with millions of users around the world. They state, our mission is to provide the latest stable KDE software, which includes the flagship project, Plasma, our desktop environment, on top of a stable Ubuntu core. They say, we release in six month cycles following the same freeze milestones as Ubuntu. They also state on their website that Kubuntu will always be free to download, free to use, and free to distribute to others. With these goals in mind, Kubuntu aims to be the most widely used Linux system and is the center of a global open source software ecosystem. Big words. Now, Kubuntu runs fine on my test machine and it reminds me a lot of Windows XP-ish and or Windows 7. They have some big goals. I think all these guys would like to be the most used Linux out there or distribution, so it's good to see it. The statements there come from the website and I have to applaud them. At least they let you know right up front, we want to be the one you use. It (31/44)
wasn't as bad. The Plasma desktop, it looked like they've really tuned it well. I remember I tried Kubuntu maybe a couple of years ago for any period of time. I did do a quick review of Kubuntu not too long ago, but even this one just seems to not require quite as much system resources. But that being said, Larry, why don't you read the minimum and then you can kind of see that this is a little heavier system. Yeah, it is. And it requires two gigabytes of RAM, so twice as much as the others. Still not very much. A dual core processor is a minimum two gigahertz of speed, 20 gigabytes of hard drive space. So you can tell right there that they're installing more software up front. And a lot of that has to do with the Plasma desktop, I'm sure. Bootable media like USB or DVD and Internet access is optional, but recommended. This is also what's recommended as minimum for its latest distribution version, 19.04. And that's the version that Bill has tested on his machines, as he mentioned (32/44)
earlier. And remember that the machine he tested on is five years old, and before he formatted it was running Windows 7. And the person who gave it to him said that she was told that it wouldn't run Windows 10. We don't know that for a fact. And bottom line is you might want to give a look at Kubuntu, give it a try. It is the first Ubuntu derivative that I tried after switching over from an RPM-based distribution that I was using at the time, which was OpenSUSE. And I was using the KDE desktop on OpenSUSE, and so it made sense to me to try Kubuntu. When it first came out, I thought, ah, there's a lot of publicity around this being an easy-to-use desktop that is very similar to, at the time, Windows XP. And I decided to try it for those reasons. And it turns out that it was much easier to use than OpenSUSE. Because they had paid attention to what does an average user want to do, and what does an average user want to have pre-set up for them, whether they're a technical tinkerer or (33/44)
whether they just want to get things done, and Kubuntu handled both quite adequately. Whereas OpenSUSE requires a little more fiddling, and it does today, I think. And one thing that not all of their applications have this, but a lot of them do, they love the letter K, because actually you'll see, like, what's that? Conquerer is, they still include that as their web browser. And they like to throw Ks on the front of stuff, not all of them, but another one of their word processors called K8. So, for those that have never used it, it's spelled K-U-B-U-N-T-O. So they basically added a K on front of Ubuntu. So if you start looking for it, just put a K and then type Ubuntu, and you're going to find it. But we also included a link in the show notes. Yes. Okay, so let's chat about Ubuntu Studio. So, Bill, I know you've used it before. Let me just first start by reading the quick summary from their website. Ubuntu Studio is a community effort created by volunteers targeted towards all skill (34/44)
levels from beginner to pro, and aims to be easy to install and easy to use, as well as provide all the tools necessary for any type of media content creation. What do you think, Bill? I used Ubuntu Studio for probably about six months solid. It has a lot of stuff, from audio to graphics to video to publishing. So Ubuntu Studio, Larry, uses the XFCE desktop, and it's aimed at, as you guessed, the creative types in our myths. Let's see what they have to say from their website about what they were trying to accomplish with this distribution. They say, basically, Ubuntu Studio is a free and open-source operating system and an official flavor of Ubuntu. Ubuntu Studio is most widely used multimedia-oriented GNU or GNU Linux distribution in the world. It comes pre-installed with a selection of the most common free multimedia applications available, and is configured for best performance for the Ubuntu Studio-defined workflows, the audio, the graphics, the video, photography, and the (35/44)
publishing. They also outlined that their goals were, with the following statement, we aim to be a gateway for users coming into the Linux world wanting to use Linux for multimedia content creation, by providing applications and the documentation, as well as being a portal to other GNU, Linux, and false communities in the world. Basically, if you are wanting to make YouTube videos, or you want to retouch photos, or you're a photographer, or you want to create music, they have all kinds of plugins and applications, and they really are going after the creative types more than any of the other distributions we've talked about. It's a pretty good distribution. They don't really have an LTS, I guess because of the way the content creation is, they need to have a faster upgrade path. Does that make sense to you? I particularly don't want to have to redo my workflow every six months, but then the in-place update would hopefully keep all those settings. It's just usually when we use Linux, I (36/44)
want to, as I like to say, set it and forget it, because it takes too much work for me to get things just the way I like it. I know there was one time they were talking about maybe changing away from XFCE, and they decided, I guess, to stay with it. I don't know if this is the best one for someone that just needs a Linux to surf the web, watch videos, because all the programs that they include by default, you can get on the other derivatives. To give you an example, one of the first things that we do when we do a clean install is we install Audacity, because that's how we do the podcast. Audacity is automatically installed by default on Ubuntu Studio, and also they have a lot of jack plugins for mics. I'll use Ubuntu Amate because that team basically picked the best image viewer, and instead of including five, they included what they felt was the best. Ubuntu Studio, you might get four or five, and then you have to see which one works for you. That's the kind of mindset, yeah. Yeah, so (37/44)
Ubuntu Studio I've used a little bit as well. As I mentioned earlier, each of these distributions has tweaked their installation of all these applications so that they run for the purpose that they're intended. One of the things that Ubuntu Studio has tweaked is the kernel itself, the Linux kernel. They're using a low latency kernel so that you don't have any latency in your audio or video or those kinds of things. And the applications they install are less the best of a particular category and more like an overall sampling of what's available for audio and graphic and video production and photography. And it gives you a lot of things to choose from. You can use whatever you want. You can use them in combination with one another or switch between them. And I find that Ubuntu Studio is a great Linux distribution to use if you are in any of these areas of audio, video, photography, and you don't know what is available. It's a great way to find out what's available, already tuned to work (38/44)
as well as it possibly can. And so it's a great proving ground. Now I do want to also, during setup, it will ask you, and you can pick all of them or you can just pick, say you just do a lot of photography, then you can click that and it will only install that package. So you don't have to take everything. But then again, if you know what you like and what you can use, you can install the same applications on any of these distributions. So I think what they were trying to accomplish is they were trying to say, hey, if you're a creative type and you want to just use things to get your content creation out and done, here we go. We've got audio for you. We've got the graphics for you. We've got the video for you. We've got the photography and publishing. So if you're new and you have no clue about what to use in those areas, then this will come with a good selection to at least get you started along the path. So that's their strong point, but I don't want anybody to think that's listening (39/44)
to this, that these are just exclusive to Ubuntu Studio. They're not. So you might load up Ubuntu Studio, find out what you like and say, you know what, I don't really like how their desktop is set up. And that's why we've gone over so many. I'm going to use this desktop with these programs. So it can be a stepping stone or you might install and say, hey, this is better than peanut butter and we're going to keep on going. So, yeah, so every one of these serves a purpose. Some of them are more niche than others. OK, so the last derivative we're going to cover is Ubuntu Budgie, Budgie like the bird B-U-G-I-E. So Bill, you've used this. Can you tell me anything about this particular version of Ubuntu? Well, I was very impressed with the project. There is a very nice desktop and it's clean and easy to use. And from the website, it says if they're a proud official member of the Ubuntu family, we combine the simplicity and elegance of the Budgie desktop to produce a traditional desktop (40/44)
oriented distro with a modern paradigm. Bungee is a desktop environment focused on having a clean and yet very powerful desktop without unnecessary bloat. And I've included a link to the website in the show notes that gives you more information about the Bungee desktop interface. And that link will lead you to the GitHub, which they have all their documentation stuff on. The desktop always reminds me of a kind of a cross between OS X and has some elements of Windows. It's very customizable. It's very fast. And I think what they're trying to serve is and focus on is a desktop environment for basically end users. Now, they're not looking at developers, not saying that you can't develop on it, but they're looking for people who just want to come, nice, clean, easy to use and starts working. Let's mention some of the developers because they are a really small team. I think it's like only six people and they do a really great job. And I was really impressed about the amount of work that (41/44)
they can get done. As someone that has tried to see what was involved in creating a distribution, it's not just downloading a base Ubuntu and then just throwing a desktop. There's a lot of stuff that goes underneath the theming, the documentation, picking of applications, making sure that they look right. So there's a lot that goes into this. So Larry, why don't you give these guys, this small developer team, a shout out? Sure. OK, so the project founder and leader is David Mohamed, also known as FOS Freedom. There's the designer and developer, Rohan Vilath. I hope I get these names correct. Also known as HexCube. The designer and coordinator is Uddara Madhubhachana and developer Sirdar. OK. And then web developer manager, Nikola Stoik, also known as Grindm N and Dustin Kryzak, Bashful Robot. He's the system administrator. So there you go. I did the best I could with your names. I apologize if I got them slightly differently than you pronounce them, but hopefully I was close. And just (42/44)
so you know, Larry, I put that on your side because if I tried to pronounce half those, it would have come off really, really bad. That's OK. So as you can see, there are a lot of choices for your desktop. And we conducted this overview to inspire you to look at some of the choices we've outlined. If plain Ubuntu is not your liking, maybe give one of these distributions a try or all of them. Hey, they're all free. All of these distros, except for the ones stated, use the same requirements as the base Ubuntu. If you are in search for a new desktop, one of these might fit your needs. Unless otherwise stated, I've tested the 1904 versions of all these because I wanted to see what the latest and greatest was and what was being offered. I was impressed with what these projects have done. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it. I enjoyed playing with all these. And if you do decide to check these out, please write us in and let us know how these worked out for you. Yeah, going Linux at gmail dot (43/44)
com is our email address if you want to drop us a line. So our next episode, as is our tradition, is listener feedback. So until then, you can go to our website at going Linux dot 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 Linux podcast community on community dot going Linux dot com. Until next time. Thanks for listening. Seventy three. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcast themes dot com. (44/44)
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)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #303 · Hacked!.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 303, Hacked the Charles Tandel Show. Welcome to the Going Linux Podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushee. Whether you are 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 its applications and using them to get things done. Today's episode is a rebroadcast of my appearance on Hacked, the Charles Tandel Show. You remember Charles? He was a co-host of the Computer America radio show. When I was appearing on that show, we had him on our show here a few episodes ago talking about putting Linux on ThinkPad computers and using them for his business. Well, Charles now has his own radio show. Yep, he's on Denver's Money Talk, and I was a guest on his show. So yes, I'm back on the radio, at least for this particular episode. He's invited me back, as (1/44)
you'll hear at the end of this episode, and we'll see where that goes. I don't know whether I'll be on the radio again regularly, but at least I am back on the radio helping to promote the idea of Linux and open source software. And as a minimum, I'm getting to the Denver audience and anybody else that subscribes to Charles's show on his podcast. You can reach him at thecharlestandelshow.com. Views expressed in the following program are not necessarily those of this station, its owners, staff, or management. The following paid program is sponsored by Azorian. Wondering who's in your cyber space? Then you're in the right place. Welcome to The Charles Tandel Show, the show where you can learn how to protect your online business and personal information. Charles Tandel is a cybersecurity consultant and ethical hacker, and he's here to answer all of your cyber concerns. Heads up, everybody. It's Peter Blois. It's 5 p.m. Get ready for Hacked. You've got problems with computers, kids are (2/44)
being bullied, somebody's messing with you. How about dating online? Charles Tandel forgot more about computers than most people know. Get ready. Ladies and gentlemen, here's Charles. Thank you, Peter. And ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be something different. We're going to do Throwback Thursday on Hacked, the Charles Tandel Show in Denver's Money Talk 1690 a.m. If you've got questions, maybe I've got a couple of answers, go over to CharlesTandel.com. Or sorry, new website, TheCharlesTandelShow.com. I'll eventually get used to saying that one and fill out one of the contact forms or shoot me an email to Charles at TheCharlesTandelShow.com. Today, we're going to be talking all about Linux. And I know that's a scary, shocking kind of topic for most people. Don't run away. Don't tune off. Don't change the channel. It's something interesting about Linux. It's more secure and it's probably in more places than you think it is. And joining me today is an old friend of mine who (3/44)
actually has been on one of the other shows and I've been on his show in the past. And it's always been fun. It's always been informative. My buddy Larry Bushy is joining me on the show today. Larry, welcome to Hacked. How are you, man? Hey, I am excited to be on your show, Charles. As you said, it's been, it seems like it's been a long time and it has been a long time since we've been on the air together. And this is going to be great. I think so, too, man. I think so, too. It is kind of a switch up there. I mean, we were together over on Craig's show, over on Computer America, and then I was over on your show hanging out doing different shows there. And it's now, I guess it's come full circle. It's now time for Charles to try this whole mic in some airtime thing. Yes, you can be the host this time around. How's that? You guys have given me all the work. So, Larry, we've got some time in this for a second. So tell my listeners who you are. I know who you are. I know you're a cool (4/44)
dude. I know you've got the Going Linux podcast, but what makes Larry Bushy, Larry Bushy? Well, it all started long, long ago in a country far, far away. No, that's that's a whole different thing. I heard it was real. All of it. It was true. Yes. Yes, exactly. No, I'm a Linux and open source advocate, among other things. I'm a technology guy, a computer geek, all of those sorts of things. And I have, as you mentioned, a podcast of my own, the Going Linux podcast, on which I help people to adopt Linux, move to Linux from other inferior operating systems like Windows and OS X and help them to make that transition and be able to use an alternative operating system like Linux to get things done. Right on. So you said OS X, is it OS X or OS X? Whatever. I don't care either way. OS, one of those big red, big, big crosses that go kind of corner ways. That's what it is. So, OK, so this show is all about Linux. It's all about, you know, how people are currently using it and people not realizing (5/44)
that they're actually using it. What is Linux, first and foremost? Yeah, a really good question. So Linux is an operating system just like Windows or OS X or OS X or that fruit flavor operating system, whatever you want to call it. So it's a software program, a collection of software programs that runs your computer. And it is something that is, as you said at the open, probably in a lot more places than you think it is. It is based in something from way back in the 70s called Unix that used to run all of the big iron IBM machines, the computers that took up an entire room. Well, that's what OS X came out of. It's also what Linux came out of. And so they have a common root. But the places that you'll find Linux these days are in a Chromebook, in an Android phone, in a Raspberry Pi. Yeah, all of these have the Linux, the kernel of the Linux operating system as the basis of those operating systems for those particular devices. Well, that's something else that most people don't realize. (6/44)
And you say OS X or OS X, but most people just know it as Mac versus PC. And most Macs are running, and I think I've been yelled at this more than once, they're running a Unix flavored kernel. I think it was FreeBSD or at least an old school version, like you said. But some other places where it's at, it's in like home, it's in like most, 90% of routers out there. Right. A kind of a bastardized version of Linux. And what most people don't realize is... Can you say that on the radio, by the way? Which one? I don't know. I don't know. My station manager is probably listening. So if I do something wrong, he'll zap me with something. Maybe bleep that, whatever. Yeah, anyway, go ahead. Yeah, they're in routers, yeah. But the other places where it's at are in places where people really don't seem to realize that they're in like most web servers. So most websites run Linux. And the ones... I was kind of doing a study a little bit ago about the last major breaches that have happened. And so (7/44)
far, two of the three of them, like Tumblr and LinkedIn, or not LinkedIn, Tumblr and one of the other ones, are actually running on a Windows platform. So it kind of lends itself to Linux as kind of more secure. Yeah, it is more secure. And as you observed, it runs the internet, essentially. There are Windows servers out there and there are other kinds of servers out there. In fact, there are still some Unix servers out there that run websites, run basically the internet. But most of the computers that are running the internet or running websites that run the internet are running Linux. And in fact, many of the corporate websites and web servers that are internal to corporations are running Linux as well. Because it's more stable, because it's more secure, and because it gives you the ability to, as a user of the software, it gives you the ability, if you have the skills, to modify it to do whatever it is you want it to do. So if you are a computer developer, a software developer, or a (8/44)
server admin, and you know what you're doing, you can actually modify Linux to have it do things that it wasn't originally designed to do. Well, there, we're coming up on our first break. So if you're just joining, this is Hack, the Charles Tindale Show on Denver's Money Talk 1690 AM. We're talking all things Linux. It sounds a little scary, but guess what? It's not. You've used it. You just don't realize it. Don't go anywhere. This is Hack, the Charles Tindale Show on Denver's Money Talk 1690 AM. Good song, good song, good song. Welcome back. This is Hack, the Charles Tindale Show on Denver's Money Talk 1690 AM. If you've got a question for me or my guest, 303-632-4160. I'm talking to Larry Bushy, and we're talking about Linux. Sounds scary, sounds crazy. Everybody's like, oh no, not Linux again. Well, it's in more places than you think it is, and it really isn't nearly as terrifying as most people think. My guest, again, is Larry Bushy. So Larry, right before the break, we were (9/44)
talking about the different places where Linux is that people don't really realize it is. Toasters and doorbells and refrigerators and thermostats and Google search and Chromebooks. Yeah, it's everywhere. It runs more things. Yeah, literally everywhere. Yeah. And there are different kinds of Linux as well. There's the things that are in the doorbells and the refrigerators and the thermostats, which is something called embedded Linux, which is a stripped down version of Linux to run those tiny little devices. They really don't have to do too much. They just have to allow you to change the temperature and allow it to be accessed from a website as a thermostat might be. And it can do everything all the way up to running an entire enterprise website for a large Fortune 500 corporation as many Linux servers do. Yeah. And more importantly, for our listeners, you can run it on your own computer. Oh, now there's a good question. My station manager actually whispered in my ear during the break (10/44)
about where you can get it, because apparently he's learning things and he's sitting at his computer and he's Googling and he's looking at these things. And he's seeing all these different places where he can find Linux. Now, when you put it on your own computer, how do you know which Linux is right for you? Or is it just Linux? Yeah, there are literally thousands of different varieties of Linux, as I just mentioned, to do specific things for specific people. So if you want a version to run your corporate Web server, you probably want an enterprise version of Red Hat Linux, because that's what it's designed to do. And that's one of the ones that come with corporate support built in to what you pay for Red Hat. And on the other hand, if you want to install it on your five year old ThinkPad, let's just go with that. You've got a five year old ThinkPad. It's on its last legs. Let's say it came with Windows XP or maybe Windows Vista. And, you know, it's starting to run slowly. Or maybe (11/44)
you've had a major virus infection with Windows and you're really just tired of messing around with it. Don't throw away that ThinkPad. Don't give it away. You can install Linux on it. And probably as a brand new user of Linux, you want to look for something called Ubuntu. Ubuntu, U-B-U-N-T-U. It's probably the most popular, certainly the most recognized consumer version of Linux out there for use on a personal computer. And there are several varieties of it as well. So I would recommend for a brand new user Ubuntu Mate. And Mate is spelled the South American way, M-A-T-E. And it is a very user friendly version of Linux that is designed specifically for new users. And it is very familiar to people who have used Windows in the past. It's got a similar sort of interface. It's it's got a beautiful desktop. It's got all of the software that you need to run on it right out of the box for free. You don't have to pay for anything. So there's a word process and not just trialware. It's the (12/44)
full version of an office suite. It's got a media player. It's got a web browser, of course, and a mail client. So it comes out of the box with all of this stuff. And you may be wondering how much this thing costs, but it's not as expensive as you might think. But take a look at Ubuntu Mate dot com and give me a second to because I think there's a hyphen in there somewhere. Well, the thing about it is it's going to come up with most users in any event. I mean, in all of the embedded versions of Linux that you see out there, they're in thermostats. So there's a piffy user interface that people are liking. People are familiar and are comfortable with the Mac or the OS X or OS X interface. They're comfortable with the embedded versions and the streamline, the pretty versions. But when you start talking about Ubuntu and any of the other distros that are out there, and that's what they're called are distributions for anybody who I didn't explain it to. But when you start looking at all (13/44)
those other ones, that seems way more complex. That seems like it's going to be a lot of work. Why would an individual want to do more work or is it less work? Can they do more work to get a better system? Is that what the appeal is to running Linux as opposed to going out and getting more windows? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good question. Before I answer that, and I will answer that in just a second, I want to correct that website. It's ubuntu-mate. So U-B-U-N-T-U dash M-A-T-E dot org. O-R-G as in nonprofit. So ubuntu-mate.org. So why would somebody want to even use this thing? Well, first of all, because it is more secure than other operating systems, than Windows in particular. That's reason number one. Another good reason is because you want to breathe new life into your old computer. It's perfectly good hardware. It's just not running like it used to. Like I said, maybe you've gotten fed up of dealing with all of the virus infections or maybe Windows 10 is giving you fits and starts and (14/44)
you try to install it on that older computer or take advantage of the free upgrade. And it has turned off some things like maybe your audio or your video driver, worst case, or yeah, maybe maybe the version of the software that you've been using to do X, whatever X is the critical thing that you do. Maybe it's not available for Windows 10. And when you went through the free in quotes upgrade, you ended up with everything you needed except that critical piece of software. Yeah. So that's the other thing that I hear about a lot of people. And I actually was talking to someone online recently where she upgraded her computer. She went with the free Windows 10 and nothing worked. The Wi-Fi didn't work. Her audio didn't work. The screen kind of flickered and she was frustrated. She was upset. And I had to resist the urge to say, look, you need an alternate operating system. Windows is putting good money after bad over and over again, but you need an alternate operating system. And I (15/44)
hesitated recommending Linux or my personal favorite is elementary, which is Ubuntu variant. But I hesitated on recommending it to her because it's one of those things where do you get like you get the Office suite, but is it all compatible? You get all the same tools that you would get. But does it all work with the mainstream stuff? Does it work with Office and does it work with, you know, the all important Facebook? Right. Right. Well, anything that's on the Web, like Facebook or Google search or what name a Web site, it'll all work in Linux because, you know, you've got the Chrome browser, you've got the Firefox browser, you've got the Opera browser. They all exist for Linux, just like they exist for Windows and OS 10. So don't worry about that. Now, as far as the installed applications are concerned, Microsoft Office Online, the online 365 version or whatever it is, is a browser based application. It is going to work on your Linux computer, just as it does on your Windows or OS 10 (16/44)
computer. So, again, don't worry about that. But the installed software? Yeah, there's a Libra office is the version of an Office suite that's included with Linux. It's available for Mac and OS 10 as well. So if you wanted to try it out on your computer today, you could do that and see how compatible it is. They're designed to be compatible. They're not absolutely 100 percent. I'd say 90 to 99 percent compatible. But give it a try. There's Libra office. There's OpenOffice. There's a number of Office suites out there. I'd go with one of those two because they're the two that come standard on Linux. And if you're thinking about trying Linux, why not try the software that comes on Linux on your Windows machine or on your OS 10 machine before you go the whole hog and switch over to Linux or even try Linux. That's the other thing you can do. You can try it without installing it on your existing hardware. Well, I mean, putting it on your existing hardware, that sounds simple enough. But (17/44)
what's the easiest way? Is there an easy way to switch from one to the other? I mean, I've been through a couple of installs and I've been through some unattended ones. In the sysadmin world, you just kind of put it in and walk away. But is it that simple still? How do people get rid of Windows and switch to Linux? Yeah, well, first of all, Linux is free so you can download it. And it's legally free. It's not one of those sketchy websites where you're kind of free. It's free for you, for you a special price. No, it is legitimately free. It's developed by volunteers and many of them corporate employees of the Fortune 500 companies that develop the Linux operating system. And it's offered for free. So you go to UbuntuMate.org and you go to their download page and you download something. It will have instructions on how to put that onto a USB stick or onto a CD if your computer still use CDs or DVDs. And then what you do, follow the instructions that are right there on the page, and you (18/44)
start your computer with a special keystroke, which keystroke it is depends on your computer, which boots to that device, whether it's the CD-ROM or whether it's a USB. And you boot into that. It will start the Linux session running. So you're running Linux at that point. It hasn't installed anything. It's running off that USB stick. And it's running right out of your computer's memory. It doesn't make any changes to your computer unless you tell it to. There'll be a nice little install icon right there on the desktop. But you can use it. You can try it out. You can try the office suite. You can try the web browser. You can see if it works with all your computer's hardware, like your wireless card and your sound card and make sure all that works before you commit to installing it. And then when you decide you want to install it, you don't have to completely wipe out your computer, the existing operating system. Of course you can, but you don't have to. You can run Linux alongside of (19/44)
Windows. And unlike on OS X, when you want to use Windows alongside of the Mac operating system, you've got to go out and purchase some additional software or you've got to go through some special hoops to get it to install. And you don't have to do all of that. You just click a little install icon from the desktop when you're trying it from the live environment. That's what it's called when you boot into a CD or into a USB. And then it will ask you, do you want to install this alongside your existing operating system or do you want to replace your existing operating system? And for the newest users, if you're not all that sure you want to replace it, go ahead and install it alongside. And then the next time you boot, you'll have your choice. Okay. Well, so I mean, this whole, the flash disk idea sounds like relatively simple, but most people aren't going to go to those great links. So there's, you're going to have to maybe have that friend or somebody else that's out there to actually (20/44)
create this USB stick for you. Or if I remember correctly, I think Ubuntu themselves has where you can order them and then it's like five bucks and they ship it out to you and they do all the other high-speed stuff. But I mean, in most computers, there's not any additional configuration that needs to be done for them to plug in the USB disk. They should just be able to plug it in, push the power button and hopefully the computer boots up. But you know, Larry, I think we're about to come up against another break. So we'll pick it up after we jump over this one and get back to it. But it's embedded devices. It should be relatively simple to get on your computer, but don't go anywhere. This is Hacked, the Charles Tindale show on Denver's Money Talk, 1690 AM. I'm talking to Larry Bushy about all things Linux and how it's not as scary as you think. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Now back to the Charles Tindale show on KDM-T, Denver's Money Talk, 1690 AM. Little green bag has a (21/44)
little bit of a different meaning now in Colorado. Welcome back. This is Hacked, the Charles Tindale show on Denver's Money Talk, 1690 AM. If you've got a question for me or my guest, 303-632-4160, we're talking about the all important and hyper, sometimes scary and what people would misunderstand is complex Linux. Linux operating system, how it is all around you. It's embedded in your smart televisions, your thermostats, sometimes your cars. Most, if you've seen one of those interfaces where you touch something or you push a button, it's likely that it is a Linux based system that you're playing with. So again, if you've got questions, 303-632-4160 or run over to the charlestindaleshow.com, fill out one of the contact forms, get in and get conversated on the show. You can send me an email to charles at the charlestindaleshow.com or you can download the 1690 KDM-T app from your favorite app store and actually listen to the show live. You can shoot me a text message and you can ask (22/44)
questions that way and you can check out some of the other people on the KDM-T lineup. Connect and collaborate, experience pros, all good stuff. Even over there on Jeff Thompson's show, on the Retirement Jock, great people, great information, good stuff about business and finances all up and down KDM-T. Which is weird how the hacker ended up in the middle of all of this. But it's still fun, it's still entertaining and it's still hopefully more and more people are listening. Which reminds me, while you're over on the charlestindaleshow.com, click the subscribe button. There are two big ones at the top of the page. You can subscribe in iTunes or you can subscribe to the RSS feed if you're on an Android phone. You can get connected either way and pick up on the past shows. Yesterday's show was all about imagining a Hillary versus a Trump White House. Last week's show we were talking about sexting and how it can make you a felon. We've been talking about how Tumblr got hacked, how LinkedIn (23/44)
got hacked. There's all sorts of great stuff so go enjoy the smorgasbord of one wonderful hacker news that's over there at the charlestindaleshow.com. Larry Bushy is my guest and before the break we were talking about getting the installation of Linux up and running. My producer, Kelly, has had some amazing questions. He's been whispering in my ear and he's been saying, you know, this is kind of cool. The first one, the first thing that is popping out on my head is how did you name the band? Is there a story behind why Linux got named Linux? There is. There is. It was developed by a student many years ago in Finland who couldn't afford a version of Unix at the time and decided, okay, these are back in the days when the software writer, the companies that developed software didn't actually hold you hostage and say that you don't own the software. We're allowing you to use it for this $400, $500, $600 fee. This is back when software developers made their software available by default for (24/44)
people to use. And so he took the source code, which is the documentation, if you will, for Unix, and he wrote his own. His name was Linus, or as he pronounces it, Linus Torvalds. And it was a version or rewritten version, if you will, of Unix. And so he combined his name with the UX and came up with Linux. And so he wrote the kernel that's still in use today. Of course, it's many different versions down the road, but it was his invention. So Linus Torvalds, that's the story. Right on. Right on. Okay. So we talked about all the different things. We talked about resurrecting kind of old hardware, but is that the right way to go? Will it make my hardware faster? Will it make my, in my particular case, my ThinkPad T420, will it make it more functional and more usable? And how much life can I actually get out of this? Can I expect it to be faster? Can I expect it? What can I expect out of it? Yeah, it depends on your hardware. And so the oldest hardware is going to seem a lot faster. (25/44)
Whether it is or not is really dependent on how good your memory is. Because when you first got it, when it first came with the original operating system, it was a speed demon, right? It was much faster than your older version of your older computer. And you were so impressed with it. And by the time you were finished with it, it seemed like this sluggish thing that you don't know how you can use it. And so, yeah, bottom line is it will make your computer seem like it's running faster. It's not going to run any faster than it did when it was brand new. Well, maybe it might because Linux is a lot slimmer. It doesn't have the same overhead depending on which version of Linux you've installed as Windows or even OS 10 because you can install Linux on Apple hardware as well. So it doesn't have all that overhead. And yes, it can make it run faster. It can give it better performance overall. I took, for example, I took Ubuntu Mate, the latest version of it, and they send you three upgrades, (26/44)
excuse me, two upgrades a year. And those upgrades are coming for free and for the life of you, you know, forever sort of thing. So you get all of those upgrades. And I installed it on my computer and I installed it replacing a different version of Linux. I had Linux Mint on there. Switching to Ubuntu, I found that the battery life on my laptop was improved 40% just by using a different version of Linux. And what I found was I could have had that performance out of the old version of Linux. It's just that Ubuntu Mate comes with software optimized for your computer, for a laptop in particular. And as part of that optimization package, they had preconfigured it so that it would extend the battery of life and so the battery and as a result, my battery life went from around three, three and a half hours to maybe five, something like that. So, yeah, it can definitely improve the performance of your computer. And this is a new computer. This is not something that I've had hanging around for (27/44)
10 years. This is not quite a brand new computer. It's about a year old. But even on a brand new computer, you install Linux on it. First of all, it's going to run better. Secondly, you're not going to be susceptible to the viruses and malware you are with Windows. Thirdly, if you want it to look like Windows, you can make it look like Windows. If you want it to look like OS X, you can make it look like OS X. If you want it to look like something unique, like, oh, I don't know, Linux. Something out of the matrix. You can have it do that as well. And all of that's built in and easily switchable in a new user version of Linux like Ubuntu MATE or even Linux Mint. So you can get it out of the box. You can plug in a USB drive. You can try it before you buy it so you're not actually making a commitment. So you're still going to be able to get access to most of the stuff you have on your machine, your files, your pictures, your music and stuff like that. Your apps are all still going to be (28/44)
there. You're still going to have an open source audio player that's going to work and still going to sync with kind of your iPod or your Android phone. You're going to have web browsers. They won't be the same apps. They'll be the same web browser probably. Yeah, but you'll have all of the apps you need to do anything you want to do. Right. So you'll have alternatives to it. So it'll be kind of a seamless switch. You'll have to learn a little bit more of the programs, but they're not so far off that you won't do it. And you touched on that it's more secure against viruses. It's more secure against malware. It's more secure against a whole host of other things. So it's more secure. So it's easier to keep the bad guys out of a Linux machine. So all of these things wrapped into one, they sound fantastic. They sound amazing. But the glaring question in my head is, I talked earlier in the week to an analyst. It was this week or it was last week about the fact that the US government's kind (29/44)
of nuclear program still runs on like Windows 3.1 or runs on floppy disks. I saw that article as well. Yeah. So why is it that three-letter government agencies and large corporations aren't switching to Linux at mass? Why are these guys still relying on this old system? Well, the US government is the problem. The Italian government has switched over. The Spanish government has switched over. Sorry. US government is the problem. Be careful. Well, that's a broad reaching statement. I didn't specify, did I? Oh, is that a black helicopter that I hear over here? Oh, see, now I heard it as my buddy Peter on 710k in US and the Peter Boyle Show likes to say, that's now the man in the unmarked Plymouth who's going to pull up and tap you on the shoulder just to say hello. So you've got to be careful with the problem is the Fed. We all know it. But we're up against a break. So it's the last one coming out of the show before we end all of this. So don't go anywhere. We're going to finish the (30/44)
conversation about Linux, about who should be using it, why it's the better choice for most things. This has hacked the Charles Tindale show on Denver's Money Talk 1690 a.m. Money Talk 1690 a.m. We now return to the Charles Tindale show on KMT Denver's Money Talk 1690 a.m. And it's the last little bit of the Charles Tindale show on Denver's Money Talk 1690 a.m. This is Throwback Thursday. And I'm talking to my buddy Larry Bushy about all things Linux. We've covered all kinds of great stuff about where it is and you don't even realize there. It's in your smart TV. It's in your phones. It's in your thermostat. It's in your connected home. It's in all those other wonderful places. It's faster. It can resurrect old hardware. It's more secure. It makes it easier on you to try it before you buy it. Most of your software will work on it. And now we're going to dive off into that deep chasm of it's the government who's the problem and why they're not using Linux to do things better. Larry, (31/44)
welcome back. I hear you chuckling over there. Yeah, the government is the problem. The government is the problem. That's going to be the buzzword. You know that, right? That's the one that people are going to tweet. They're going to add everything we talk about on the show. They're going to be like, see, see, everybody's going to say the government is the problem. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, and I am no flaming liberal here, but, you know, this is definitely a topic that bears some scrutiny. Why is our government still running nuclear sites and secure things on floppy based old green screen hardware? You know what the other kicker is? The other kicker is they're saying that it costs 60 billion, with a B, dollars a year to run this program, to continue these legacy systems, to continue running and maintaining and training people to operate computers from the 1970s. Now, these computers, they're Windows based. They're still running on five inch floppies. And all of this, most of it, could be (32/44)
custom coded for in a matter of minutes by like, you know, go out on Fiverr and say, hey, I want to build a module for this. I'm not saying do that because, you know, nuclear launch codes on Fiverr would be a bad idea. Yeah, true. True. You know, you go out there right next to, what's the guy, it's Guapo's DDoS service. And you're like, hey, Guapo, can you also write me launch codes? Sure. But it's, it seems like Linux would be an easier bet. And these guys want to continue to shovel money down this hole. Yeah. You know, one of the issues, and this is not just a government issue here about the adoption of Linux and why isn't it more widely adopted. Well, it is widely adopted. Chromebooks, which run Linux under the hood, have been outselling Windows computers for, you know, a few weeks, if not a few months by now. And so it is widely adopted. The problem Linux has is the fact that there's a lack of advertising and certainly compared to the advertising budget that companies like (33/44)
Microsoft and Apple can afford. Linux, since it's given away for free, doesn't have a lot of room in that, you know, profit margin, non-existent profit margin to pay for advertising. And as a result, not a lot of people know about it. It is truly free. It is truly more secure. It is more beautiful, quite frankly, than I think Windows is. And, you know, I might be a little biased there, but it's certainly more secure. It's better supported. It is. It can save you a lot of money. And as a result, it can, you know, it can improve your life thinking about it from that perspective. And that's I mean, that's that's that's a great thing. I mean, it's always been one of those questions that everybody asks if Linux is so great, if it's easy, it's faster, it's more secure, it's an overall better thing. We're using it already. People are familiar with it. The two biggest reasons that I always hear people saying, you know, I don't want to do that is it's hyper complex, which it doesn't sound like (34/44)
it is. And I have to trust me, I've I've I've had experience with Linux going way back. Like you've not experienced pain and agony until you've compiled your own Gen 2 kernel. Right. Right. That's just that's just killing yourself. That's just that's that's that's that's worse. That's crazy talk. That's crazy. That's crazy talk. Right. That's crazy talk. Imagine imagine the day that you're sitting at the DMV. Right. And you're the last person you've been sitting there for three hours. Your number just got called. And as you're sitting down at the desk, the computers go down. Yeah. That is like compiling Gen 2. It's a horrible experience when it comes to Linux. And that's the stigma that many people tell me, at least. They're like, you know, it's complicated. It's not going to do everything I want it to. It's not as fast as I think it should. It's just I don't want to learn another thing. I just want to pull it out of the box and have it work. And you're right. Well, that's one of the (35/44)
advantages of of Linux is you pull it out of the box and it just works. You don't have to go search for drivers for your video card or your your your new camera that you just bought. You don't have to install antivirus software. You know, Linux can get viruses, but it doesn't. Over the last 10 years, there have been so many fewer. There have been so many Linux, excuse me, Windows infections and viruses and malware that it's just mind boggling. And over the last 10 years, Linux, you can count the number on one hand, you know, count the number of infections on one hand. And none of them exist in the wild anymore because they're fixed right away. You don't have to wait for patch Tuesday as soon as it's fixed. It gets fixed and you get the update. That's one of the things that makes it more secure. And so anyway, back back to the main thing that we started on here is the fact that, you know, Linux. Yeah, it doesn't have the same level of advertising. So it doesn't it doesn't show up as (36/44)
prominently when you're looking for software to run your computer. And who buys software to run on a computer other than an application these days, you don't buy an operating system. You go out and buy a computer and it has an operating system already on it. And like most likely it's Windows and you can go out and you can buy right there in Denver System 76. Look them up. System 76. They make computers that run Linux and they're based right there locally in Denver. I'm here in California and I own a System 76 computer. I'm a huge advocate for for switching people to Linux. Like my my my parents and my parents have had this this I don't even know how old it is anymore. This Dell computer that has been sitting in their den forever. And it was their home computer. It was their primary machine, so on and so forth. So this thing this thing is old. This is the machine that my mom used to do, used to connect to AOL back in the day. OK, so this is an old machine and my father brought it out (37/44)
one day. It had been sitting there and my older brother wanted to use a computer. Now this is in the last 10 years. I went and installed Linux Mint on it and this is an older version of Linux Mint on it. And I had completely forgotten about it. And I installed this. I want to say five, five, six years ago and completely forgotten about it. Well, I was at my parents house recently and my older brother shows up and it was it was just a good day. I think it was Mother's Day. Everybody was having a good time. Everybody's having dinner. And my older brother goes and he sits down and he powers up the machine and it booted up. He was back online doing everything he needed to. And that machine was still running and kicking years later with no issues, no viruses, no malware, no hacker attacks, no craziness going on for five years straight. And the experience wasn't all that bad. Now this is a five year old, five, six year old operating system. And that's the things that I see a lot with Linux. (38/44)
And I handed it to people. I mean, you and I talked about it resurrected a bunch of T420s with with Linux and it runs like a champ. It runs almost as fast, if not faster than my brand new MacBook Pro. Right. It's easy to install. It's easy to use. It's easy to customize to make it look like or do whatever you want it to do. And if you don't want to customize it, it's designed to work out of the box for you and it's free. What more could you ask? Let's see. OK. So the bottom line, the reason people aren't doing it is because they don't have the advertising. They don't have the marketing. So people were telling you right now, go out, download some Linux. Have your geek friend. Matter of fact, you know what? You know what I might start doing? Depending on the number of people that do it, I will give away Linux USBs. I will give away various different versions of Linux USBs. If you send me an email to hacked at the Charles Tandel show dot com or go over to the Charles Tandel show dot com, (39/44)
fill out a contact form or download the 1690 KTMT app from your favorite app store and shoot the show a text message. Live streaming, shoot the show a text message and you subscribe. I will send you a Linux distro of your choice. I will say I will take all the costs out of it, even though it'll be like three dollars. And I will mail you a Linux USB that all you have to do is plug it into your computer, power it off, power it back on again. And hopefully most times it'll boot into the Linux environment and you can just toy with it and play with it. And next time I have Larry on the show, he can give you some additional pointers about how it all works. So, yeah, there's a if you want a video with instructions on how to do it once you get that live CD or live DVD or a USB that Charles is going to provide you for free, go to going Linux dot com. Look for the screencast number for installing Linux. It says from a live CD, but it's basically the same thing from the USB. So the going Linux (40/44)
dot com, you can watch the videos. Right. And it's it's it's one of those things. It's one of those things where it's not as complicated as it sounds. It's not as hard. It's not complicated at all. Not at all. You're already using it. You're already using it. If you've got an old machine or you're tired of your current machine, if you're tired of your current machine, just viruses and bugs and you don't want to go out and shell out thousands for a Mac. Let's build you one. You'll have the same people. You'll have the same. You'll have the same connections. Facebook's not going to change because it's what most people are using. And like you said, Google, Google Chromebooks, Google Chromebooks are amazing. You know, we actually started issuing them in our company because everything everyone was doing was going to be via Google Docs. Right. Everything was going to be Google Docs. We were a Gmail company. Now, if you've been listening to my show before now, I genuinely distrust Google. 100 (41/44)
percent between Google and Facebook, they are evil. And if you care about your privacy, limit the amount of use or add some additional steps when using all of their services. But for an introduction to Linux, if you want to see how beautiful, how streamlined, how fast it can be, most of you are probably already using it. You can go to Wal-Mart. Right. Right there. You can go to Wal-Mart now and buy a Chromebook. Yes. Yes, you can. A cheap one, but you can buy one. Yeah. They're like 200 bucks, aren't they? Yeah. You can get one for under that too when they're on sale. Yeah. And their claim to fame is you can do everything you would do on a normal computer. And if this computer breaks or otherwise fails, you can go out and spend another 200 bucks and you've got another brand new computer. Just log in and everything that you had there is still there. So Chromebooks are pretty cool. Just use a little more privacy centric stuff if you're going to use it. And I'll explain that in another (42/44)
show. But Larry, we're going to come to the end of the show. So I want to give you time. Tell people how they can get a hold of you, where they can get on the going Linux podcast and where they can learn more about this great system. Okay. So going Linux.com is the website. We've got articles, we've got show notes for podcasts and a place to subscribe there as well in iTunes or wherever you use for listening to podcasts. And if you want to send me an email, just email me at going Linux at gmail.com. Yes, I use Google at gmail.com. And if you want to be on the show, just let me know and we'll arrange something. If you just want to share with me your gone Linux story, how things worked out for you. I'd be absolutely overjoyed to read it. And even if you want, read it on our podcast. Alright, so let's recap real quick. Linux is a good thing named by a guy named Linus Torvald way back when because he wanted a free operating system. So it started off free. It still is free today. It's more (43/44)
secure. It can revive and make your existing systems much faster. You can use it to do almost everything that you're going to be doing on your normal stuff. We know the government is broken and they're the reason it's not being used there. Try it. Check out going Linux.com. Larry, you've been a fantastic guest, man. I love having you on and I will definitely have you back. Coming up later or today is Thursday, tomorrow is Friday. We're going to be talking about responsible disclosure. We're going to be talking about analysts who are putting themselves out there to protect your security and your privacy and keep ending up in jail. Don't go anywhere or see you tomorrow. This is Hack, The Charles Tindall Show and Denver's Money Talk 1690 AM. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com (44/44)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #334 · Listener Feedback.
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Going Linux, episode 334, 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 at our email at goinglyx.gmail.com or our voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hi, Bill. Hi, Larry. I'm back. Yeah, welcome back. You've got all the power issues and the internet issues and other unspecified issues behind you, right? Yes. I'm actually connected back to the real world. So, oh, wait a minute. I wasn't. I'm back to the real world again. Yeah, that's it. No, I didn't have power for like three weeks and internet for two (1/45)
weeks and I was starting to go into jonesing mode. So, it's good to be back. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're back in the real world such as it is. Yes, the real world. The intertubes, as we like to say. So, you're back to gaming and you're back to podcasting and it sounds quieter than you are. Yeah, I'm in my new studio. It's still not complete, but it's getting there. But I don't have anybody banging on walls. All I have is the snoring tweeny, but other than that, she's sleeping and happy. So, it's really nice. Hey, it's so quiet here that I have to actually say, hey, I need to go make some noise. It's too quiet. No, it's actually really nice. So, hopefully everything works and had internet challenges. I was telling you a little bit, I sent you an email about they put a... When they were hooking up my internet, they put a nail through one of the wires. Yeah. One of these little finds and it took them forever to find it, but they... Because they couldn't figure out why it wouldn't connect (2/45)
and when it would connect, it would be bad. As soon as they replace that wire, it's like the golden ticket, everything started working again. Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah, those kinds of problems are really tough to find sometimes. Yeah, I kept saying, I think it's got to be one because they replaced the modem and then they said, no, that's not it. And then they replaced the receiver and that had a problem. And then they said, well, I don't understand it. Why don't you replace the wire harness? So, of course he doesn't have one on his truck, so he has to order one. So, he comes out and as soon as he took the old one off, put the new one in and made sure he didn't put any holes in the new one, it all worked. Kaboom. Amazing. Nice. Kaboom. Yeah, so I'm really happy to be back. So, how was your week? I had a good week. It was an uneventful week. So, the best kind of day. I wish mine was uneventful. Yeah. Well, at least yours is trending in the right direction. Yes, it's trending in the (3/45)
right direction now. So, let's start. All right. Well, our first email is from Logan, who explained why the 64-bit download of a distribution is called AMD64. So, he wrote, 64-bit is listed as AMD because AMD created the current 64-bit and Intel adopted that. At least that's the logic I use for the reason. And we also got an explanation from Ken. So, I've combined two emails together here. I'm sorry, Bill. That's cheating. Well, it was a short one. Who expanded on that and said AMD didn't create the first 64-bit CPU. They existed long before that. Intel's 64-bit was a new architecture, IA64. AMD extended the x86 or IA32 architecture to 64-bit, hence AMD64. Intel followed on with their own extension to the x86 architecture called IA32e, later EM64T. AMD64 and EM64T are software compatible, but there are architectural differences. AMD64 nomenclature is a distro-specific choice. Ubuntu and their derivatives use AMD64, while CentOS and OpenSUSE use x86 underscore 64. Yeah, I've seen the (4/45)
x86-64 nomenclature before, and that's probably a little clearer, I think, for most people. Is it scary that I actually understood all that and have seen all that stuff? All those dozen meters before? You know, I wasn't all that familiar with the history, especially the EM64T and all that other stuff. But thanks, Ken, for the explanation. Yeah, thanks, Ken. I always like to read about the latest processors, so I recognize a lot of that. Anyway, Daniel explained even more why it's called AMD64. And he said in 1989, Intel began development of a 64-bit architecture called IA64. When announced in 2000, it was discovered by would-be users to be incompatible with the traditional x86 instruction set with a large amount of precompiled software that was incompatible with the new architecture. The platform was relegated to Unix and mainframe use. The last IA64 Itanium processor was released in February of 2017 as the Kitson core. No further hardware will be available in this architecture. In (5/45)
response to the announcement, AMD announced an x86 compatible 64-bit architecture called x86-64 or AMD64 on a K8 or later chip line. Process manufacturer VIA jumped on board and sales took off as existing 32-bit code would still run on these new chips. Microsoft announced Windows XP support Windows XP Pro 64 would be released for this platform but not for Itanium. After a year of brisk sales by AMD in both server and desktop processors, Intel finally caved and announced an EM64T in March 2004 with the first shipping in June of that year. Since AMD developed the instruction set, it's frequently called AMD64. That makes sense. Yeah, so now we know the history of why things are called AMD64. So it's 64-bit and bottom line is if you're looking for a distribution of Linux and you see 32-bit and you see AMD64 and your machine is labeled as a 64-bit processor, use the AMD64 even though your processor is Intel and not AMD because it's just a label. Yes. There we go. All right. Well, I'm glad (6/45)
that's clear. So Heath expanded even further. Senior host and junior vice president minion. I think we both... Junior? I don't know. Junior vice president though. Hey, that's... Hey, wait a minute now. I get demoted already? Heath, yeah, you're just making up titles. Okay. In the last listener feedback, episode 332, a listener wrote in confused about the AMD64 builds of respective software packages asking where the Intel ones would be. I once had similar confusion and this is what I learned. When Intel published the 32-bit instruction set for the then shiny 386 CPU, the instruction set was dubbed the 386 instruction set as the 486 and Pentium CPUs used the same set. The instruction set has come to be known as the i386 or x86, x to cover 486 and 586, for all CPUs, both Intel and AMD, who use the same instruction set. When 64-bit CPUs came to the consumer market, AMD were the first to draft the 64-bit extensions to the 386 instruction set. The extension means the original 32-bit (7/45)
instructions still work for backwards compatibility. That is, you can run 32-bit software on the 64-bit CPUs. As AMD released at first, they became known as the AMD64 or x64 instruction set. Intel later adopted the same instruction scheme and so AMD64 and x64 instructions can be used on both Intel and AMD CPUs. Hope this helps, Heath in Perth, Australia. So Heath took it from the software instruction set perspective as opposed to strictly hardware chip. And I think that helps to clarify things as well. Or maybe just muddies the waters more. I remember the first computer that I really fell in love with. I thought it was just the biggest powerhouse. It was a 486 DX66. If you remember back in the day, DX meant that it had the coprocessor. Yes, that's right. And then you had the LX, you remember those? Yes, I do. So that brings back memories. I remember that was such a powerhouse and now it couldn't even run any of my games. So moving very long. Yes, okay. I played a lot of Doom on that (8/45)
one. Anyway, Rick wrote, Hi Larry. Hi Bill. I've been a listener for quite some time but fell off regular listening over the last year or so. I'm catching up and just listened to number 319 on GRSync. Unfortunately, the link to the document from AccuLand University no longer works. Did you by chance archive a copy of that document? Thanks 73ricknz2i. Yeah, so I checked out the link on GRSync and it was instructions on how to use it, I guess, if I remember correctly. And no, I didn't archive a copy of it. And it looks like, although Auckland University had that document in the public, they've put it behind a login wall and it's no longer accessible. So I'm going to have to go back in and put a note where that link used to be and maybe I can find something similar that illustrates the same thing to replace that link. But thanks Rick for letting us know there was a problem. Yeah, thanks. Okay, Barbara writes us about cloning a drive with DD. At least it's not about AMD64. Okay, be careful (9/45)
what you ask for. I knew you were going to say that. Yes, okay. Cloning a drive with DD. Hi guys, just wanted to drop you a note to say that I really enjoy the Going Linux podcast. I returned to GNU Linux in 2011 when I installed Ubuntu on my laptop and have been a very happy Linux user ever since. I found episode 331 interesting and informative, especially your discussion regarding backups. I do like that you included the DD command to create a full drive or backup partition. I do have a few suggestions that would make the DD command more useful and less scary, especially since the DD command does not provide progress by default. So no progress bar. First, I think you need to use the sudo command as the prefix to the DD command. You're probably right there. Also, to ensure that the command writes out full record blocks, the conv parameter, no trunk, needs to be added. Keep this in mind, to clone sda, the system hard drive, to the destination drive sdb, external drive in my case, the (10/45)
command becomes sudo dd if equals, and then a whole bunch of stuff, right? So the source drive, the destination drive, and then bs equals 64k, then conv equals no trunk, n-o-t-r-u-n-c, comma, no error, comma, sync. And there are no spaces between the commas and the next word. So a little longer command than we had specified in our episode 331. And if you want to see what it looks like, it's in the show notes. Yeah. The one disconcerting issue with DD is that it does not display progress as cloning occurs. To ease that feeling that you are not sure if it's working, use the following command. sudo pkil, p-k-i-l-dash, u-s-r-1-dd, and u-s-r is all in caps. If you want to have a progress displayed periodically, you can use the watch command and use the number of seconds between displaying the cloning progress in the command. So you would type watch and then a space and then dash n and the number of seconds, and then in quotes, sudo pkil dash user 1. For instance, to display cloning progress (11/45)
every 15 seconds, and then there's a command there. We'll include all this stuff in the show notes. Please feel free to provide this information to your listeners. Keep up the good work. You are doing a great service to the Linux community to take the fear out of using Linux by Barbara. Well, thanks, Barbara. We really appreciate that. Yeah, thanks. Actually, that's pretty clever. Yeah. I never thought about doing it that way. Yeah, and I think even though it's command line, which can be scary to some people, and we were trying to read or I was trying to read some of the commands, it's not as difficult as it seems. You'll see when we write it out. It's pretty straightforward. OK, our next email comes from Adrian, and he has a proposal for a crowd of new minions. Oh, new minions? Let me read on. Hi, Larry and Bill. I enjoy to binge listen to your podcasts on very long drives, which happen every two or three months. You guys do a good job introducing an excellent operating system to (12/45)
people familiar with the W. Linux needs all the exposure it can get. But when the tech gets a good stick, I find myself talking back at you guys. This happens when I think I know about the subject you're discussing. That's why I listen to you while I'm alone in my car. Why am I talking to you? Because every once in a while, the technical content can be improved. And we agree. Yes. In my humble opinion, examples would be filling a root file system with a backup gone wrong and the last episode, cleaning disks. I would have loved to hear about what cloning is and how it can be used. Do you clone to another drive or to a file? What can be done with a clone in a file? What to watch out for when cloning a single partition? I would have tried to explain about whole hard disks, partition tables, partitions and file systems and the advantages or disadvantages of not cloning. The longest talk I've had with you guys during the last trip was on what is the purpose of knowing how to make a clone if (13/45)
you didn't explain how to restore it. Pitfalls. What happens to the bootstrap loader in classic and or GPT partitioned? What if my root file system was cloned to an old 80 gig hard spindle hard drive? My root system drive is now defective and I'd like to restore it to a spanking new 120 gigabyte SSD. I guess we all have the same problem. Too much to do. Too little time. But I only binge listen to two to four episodes at a time. I usually stop at good thing nobody saw me talking and leave it at that because most of the stuff I listen to is old anyways. But tonight I have an idea. What if we set up a minion network? You guys select some people, support engineers, links coders, retirees who'd like to research or whatever want to help. And mail the subjects in question to them before you record the show. If these people know the answers or have something to say, they will answer within a few, three days. I'd like to offer myself as the first candidate. I do not always have time. I travel (14/45)
frequently, but I would like to contribute. There may be more people that could help you find some answers more quickly or more accurately. Who'd like to join this minion network? I really appreciate the hard work you are doing to further the Linux platform. Please let me know what you think. Actually, that's a great idea. And I think we've both both of us always said we don't know everything. Right. Exactly. So, you know, Adrian makes some great points. But I think we kind of are to new users and stuff. We're trying to give him just an overview. But he does have some good suggestions and I can see where we can make some improvements. What do you think, Larry? Yeah, I like the idea of asking our listeners to contribute to the podcast. And let's just put it this way. If you are interested in becoming part of the minion network. Now we've got a label for it. The minion network. Just drop us a line on email or put something in the Google Plus chat, whatever is most convenient for you. And (15/45)
let me know so that we can send you a link to our show notes before we actually record. So that you can contribute any additional corrections or additional information on one of the topics that we have. And we'll still record them using the same process we have. But we'll just take a few minutes or a few days to get your input on it to make it a better show. So thanks for the suggestion. That's really good, Adrian. He's got a few questions in here that maybe we can address on cloning. Maybe we can go back on that. So do we clone to another drive or to a file? I've done it both ways. I prefer to clone to another hard drive. Unfortunately, what usually happens is you get a new computer with a larger drive and now any backup drives you have aren't big enough to hold the whole drive as a backup. So one of the advantages of cloning to a file is that the file will only be as big as the data that you're backing up as opposed to being a bit for bit image of the entire drive. So if you have a (16/45)
hundred and twenty gigabyte drive, for example, you need a hundred and twenty gigabyte backup drive to store it to if you're making a complete clone of the drive or bigger. And if you're backing up to a file and your 120 gigabyte drive is 50 percent full, then you only need 60 gigabytes to make a backup because it's only got 60 gigabytes worth of data in it. And that's as big as the file needs to be. The other consideration is one that you brought up, Adrian, which is the restoring part of it. And I think we've talked about restoring on previous episodes. I may have talked about that with Tom when we originally did an episode or two on backups, but that's way back in the past. So just to address that, let's say you backed up your 120 gigabyte drive to a, I don't know, 200 gigabyte backup drive and you made a clone of the drive. And now your cloned image is a 200 gigabyte drive. I mean, the data's there, but it's 200 gigabytes. You can't simply restore it to your 120 gigabyte drive (17/45)
because it's too big. It won't fit. So what you need to do is before you do the backup, you need to partition the drive that you're backing up to, the destination drive, so that it is as big as or smaller than the drive you're backing up. And if it's a bit for bit clone, it's got to be the same size. So look at the number of bits, make it exactly the same size so you don't have a problem restoring it when you come back. And with a file backup, a file-based backup, you really don't have that problem because unless you're recovering from a crash and you're restoring to a smaller drive than you started with, and it's significantly smaller so that it won't hold the full amount of data, then that's the only time you would have a problem. So for the most part, I would recommend backing up to a file unless you have a spare drive that's exactly, you know, an exact copy of the hardware copy of the one that your computer contains. And if it's one of those on a chip SSDs, that might be a bit of a (18/45)
problem. So you need to be a little bit careful. Do you have any experience, Bill, on using these kinds of backups? I've backed up to the same size hard drive, but I've never tried doing different sizes and stuff. Other than that, if anybody knows my history, I usually nuke and pave anyway. But no, that's the only time I've really backed up and it saved my bacon once or twice in my time. But I try to, if I'm going to back up, I try to have two identical drives or as identical as I can make them. And so that's just me. But, you know, I don't do any of the crazy stuff. Usually I end up killing the distro anyway. So it's just nuke and pave for me. Right. And most of my backups, quite frankly, are backing up the data and not the entire drive. When I was using Windows, I would always make a complete copy of the hard drive on a mirror drive, simply because I didn't want to go through the pain of reinstalling Windows and going through 5000 updates and waiting an hour between each update for (19/45)
it to install and reboot and all that kind of crap. So, you know, when I was making a backup, I would always make a whole disk backup so that I would only have to start from where I left off. But with Linux, my backups are more to prevent loss of data during a crash or hard drive failure or other disaster. And so I'm just backing up the data. So backing it up to files is fine. Using the same software to restore those files or restoring a portion of the files and keeping on the active live machine that I use day to day, only the things that I want to use and keeping the backup stored somewhere so that I have an archive if I do need to go back and look at really old stuff. That's kind of my approach. And like you, I do a nuke and pave if I'm restoring a drive. I usually install the latest version of the operating system, get all the updates and then restore the data. Yeah, I keep a lot of the files in dead or important that I don't want to lose up in my Google Drive or Dropbox or (20/45)
whatever. Yeah. Yeah, I've used a combination of that and hard drive. Yeah, kind of a combination right now. Yeah. Okay. So there we go. So again, thanks, Adrian. And if you're interested in becoming a part of the minion network, let us know. Yeah. Okay. Adrian also sent us this. Hi, Larry and Bill, who was dearly missed on episode 330. Good. I'm not the only computer hoarder. There's Greg and he's listened to your show as well. Well, while we're off topic, let me share something that was the topic. But anyway, my current hobby project involves reanimating my four megahertz bullet Z 80 CPM computer. CPM. Holy crap. With 120 kilobytes of bank switched RAM. This is an antique. The huge hard drive. Yes. The huge the huge 100. Yeah. The huge hard drive won't spin up and it's a power supply problem. The hard disk. The hard disk is five and a quarter inch full size bezel has four platters and eight heads and stores a whopping 15 megabytes. This statement say plus years ago today, the huge (21/45)
power on surge can no longer be sourced by those agent capacitors in the power supply. Wow. Linux has some great tools for old computers. I managed to make images of my five and a quarter CPM floppies using DD. After setting the floppy disk parameters to set FD PRM and then reading the image with CP MLS, copying them with CPM CP. All of these programs are in the current repositories. Next, I built the Z 80 emulator. There we go. An emulator that's going to help in Z 80 pack. The source code to CPM is open sourced after someone from Redmond killed digital research. So the Z 80 emulator runs a true copy of CPM three. It now has all my old files source code to programs. I wrote 30 plus years ago. I was able to run the Z 80 assembler and build a new CPM three for my bullet. Wrote it back to the diskette using Linux and now actually boots my bullet without the hard disk. You're not as excited as I am. Well, I guess my purpose is the same as Greg's. I have to have a good time with old stuff. (22/45)
Analytics helps doing that to Adrian. Wow. This is not just old that is antique, but that is awesome. Old stuff. Wow. This thing is awesome, though. Yeah. I'm surprised that there's not so much rust on that thing that it just seizes up. But hey, it's great that you've used this combination of, you know, the original source code and an emulator and floppy disks to reconstitute this ancient machine and have it boot even without a hard drive. That's fantastic. But I have to put in the amount of effort put in is not necessarily, you know, you don't get a lot of reward except just personal gratification and someone doing it just because they want to just. That's awesome. I just kudos to you. I really, really, really enjoyed that one. Yeah, absolutely. And hey, like you said, it's just having a good time with old stuff. What more can you ask for? Right? Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, sometimes it's not super profitable or anything. It's just someone's doing it because they love to do it. And, (23/45)
you know, I bet he's learned a lot doing it, too. So that's awesome. All right. Our next email comes from Dave and he's confused. We'll join the club, Dave. I stay that way. He writes, Hello, Bill and Larry. Love going Linux, going Linux and Leo the port's tech guy show are two podcasts I religiously listen to. I really appreciate you guys. I was converted to Linux when I installed Ubuntu 8 on a machine for my 85 year old mother. She was using Windows and I got support calls many times a week until I installed Linux on her machine. Sounds familiar. The only support call I got from her after that was a year and a half later with a strange screen appearing that she had never seen before. It is for her log in password. There had been a loss of power at her apartment and the computer had not ever been shut down. So it was the log in screen. That was the strange screen. That's awesome. There we go. A year and a half. So it hadn't been shut down before that. After that, I never got another (24/45)
call. Every time I saw her, I asked if the computer was still working. And she always said, Yes, I use it every day. And never turn it off apparently. Yeah. Now my confusion. I use Linux Mint 18 Sarah. I am using the machine as a pretty standard desktop and install everything I use from the software manager. Under the update manager, I am regularly presented with Linux kernel headers and Linux firmware updates. I value good security and have a stable machine, which it always has been. When should I update the Linux kernel or the Linux kernel headers and or the Linux firmware? 73 Dave. Oh, well, I have a different policy than Larry, I think. Mine is when they come when it presents the updates, I usually wait for about a week or so before I install them just in case there's any errors. But I think, Larry, you pretty much install them right away, don't you? I do install them right away. And as far as the kernel is concerned, there are two kinds of updates in the kernel. There are lots of (25/45)
other kinds of updates, but there are two main kinds of updates that relate to your email, Dave. One is updates to drivers that are included in the Linux kernel and the other is security updates. So the driver updates, unless you get some new hardware that hasn't been supported or hasn't been supported well in the drivers that are included in the previous Linux kernel, you probably don't need the new kernel. On the other hand, the updates, the security updates are what is really driving most people's updates to the kernel, especially if there's been some sort of breach that affects Linux that you've heard of in the news. By that time, the Linux kernel, if that's where the security breach occurs, has been updated and you do want to update the security updates for the kernel. That doesn't necessarily mean that you need to install a new kernel, but that the security patches are the ones that you need. And sometimes, like I said, the security is is not the security patches are not for the (26/45)
kernel itself. They're for an application or for a driver that's outside of the kernel or for some sort of library that's outside of the kernel. So the critical thing is update for whatever software security updates are there. And if a Linux kernel update indicates in the notes that it includes security updates, I would apply that Linux kernel just to get those security updates, because you never know when somebody is going to attack your computer, especially if it's an Internet-based attack and you're on the Internet all the time, you should be, you know, you should be protected. If it's an update, for example, that addresses a hardware vulnerability, let's say like a key logger on your keyboard or something like that. That's a little less risky because I'm assuming that you don't carry your your desktop computer and your keyboard and your monitor and all that around with you, unless, of course, it's a laptop, in which case maybe it is something you need to be aware of. But it's a (27/45)
little harder to install a hardware key logger under the keys of your keyboard on a laptop. So, again, it really depends on how security conscious you are or if you get new hardware. So if you get new hardware and it's not working all that well, update the kernel. If there is an update and maybe that'll give you support for the new hardware. If it's security related, just make sure that you get all the security updates and patches from, in your case, Linux Mint. And if, you know, there's anything that you've heard about that is a malware infection or something that affects Linux as well as Windows and Mac, then I would look to the Linux kernel to see if there's an update that addresses that. Otherwise, just expect that your security update is coming to you through the regular updates from Linux Mint. That's my advice. I'm sure there will be others who disagree. But, you know, the other thing to be concerned about is, you know, is your computer actually a server? And downtime is more of (28/45)
a risk than security patches. I'm not sure whether that's ever a wise move, but, you know, I don't run a server. So maybe it is, in which case maybe you should not replace the Linux kernel from the philosophy of if it's not broke, don't fix it. Just make sure you've got the security patches. Yep. Sounds good. All right. Our next email is from Jan or probably looking at the signature at the bottom is probably Jan. Thank you for making great podcasts. What makes it especially great is the time stamps. An example for others to follow. Keep up the good work. Best regards. And in the signature, it says Med Fenlig-Hilson. I probably butchered that, but apparently that is best regards in Jan's native tongue. We got another email from Brun who wrote about our use of Discord, the Discord app. He writes, Hi Larry. Hi Bill. I'm from Italy. I've been listening to your podcast for about a year now. I like your show very much for two main reasons. The first is because I am a Linux addict. And the (29/45)
second is because my English is very poor and I'm taking advantage of your show to improve my knowing of the language. So thanks a lot. Anyway, I'm writing to you because in your last podcast, you said that you are now using Discord in place of Skype because it works very well and because it's open source. But in the Discord site, I did not find any reference to the fact that that's open software. And also Wikipedia says that it's proprietary software. Where am I wrong? Have I misunderstood something? Thanks again for your show and keep up your fantastic work for the Linux community. Bye Brun. P.S. I'm sorry for my embarrassing English. Hey Brun, you did excellent. And Larry and myself talked about this and I think where the misunderstanding comes in is they use an open source codec for the audio. And so when we were talking about it, I had made a comment that the audio codec was open source. But yeah, I figured that the Discord app would be proprietary, but it met a couple of our (30/45)
criteria. One, it worked. Yes. It's always good. Two, that it had incorporated some open source in it. And it was also easy to install for Linux users and it's cross platform. So it kind of fit a lot of check boxes that we like to see. But yeah, we know that Discord is not open source, but they do incorporate some open source elements in it. Yep, absolutely. I don't think I could have said that any better, Bill. OK, John asks about Patreon. Aloha, Larry and Bill, thank you for your most recent episode while whole disk cloning on Linux. It was extremely timely and interesting. While I already knew about Clonezilla and have been planning to use it to back up my entire dual boot hard drive on my Lenovo laptop, your episode confirmed that it was probably the best solution for my needs. OK, John, stop the planning and start the backing up. Planning doesn't help. Hopefully you've already done it. Mahalo, he says, your friend from the big island of Hawaii, John, a.k.a. island of Tiki. P.S. I (31/45)
can't find you guys on Patreon. I like to support my favorite Linux podcasts and distros through monetary contributions. And Patreon makes it so I don't forget to contribute regularly. Well, John, we don't have a Patreon page and we don't use Patreon for collecting, you know, monthly contributions from from our listeners. Two reasons. First, it's one more thing I would have to manage. And two, I really am not one for asking people to donate on a monthly basis and automatically setting up withdrawals from wherever they are. I'd rather just have people contribute when they want to. And it sounds like you want to contribute on a regular basis, but I'm just not comfortable with doing that. So thanks. Contribute when you remember. That's all I can say. And thanks for your contributions. And thanks for the kind words, John. Appreciate it. Yeah, thanks, John. OK, our next email comes from Dennis and he comments on our cloning episode. I'm seeing a theme here, Larry. Yeah, people like cloning. (32/45)
We had hard drive processors, hard drives. Now we've had a lot of cloning. So, OK. Really, guys? Two words. Macrium reflect all file system supported password protected whole disk and partitions. A verified data option, paid in free versions and GUI driven. The only one I would even consider off your list would be clonezilla, which is rather archaic, as are the rest on the list. I use command line only when necessary, which is not very often nowadays with these modern distros. Let's get people to embrace going links from Windows on Mac, not scaring them away or wasting their time with unnecessary hundred character command lines. Thanks, Dennis. Ooh. OK, well, I don't know if it's unnecessary to share the command lines, especially if, you know, you're using the command line. And as far as scaring people with archaic software, I'm not sure that the backup solutions that are available for Mac or Windows are any less archaic than they are on Linux. There's not really been any advancement, (33/45)
as far as I know, in the area of backup, except for cloud backup. And the cloud backup is dependent on your Internet connection. And if your Internet connection goes down, you've lost a connection to both be able to back up and to be able to restore. So that introduces a bit of risk that I'm not willing to take. So we're relegated to backup solutions that work, work well and have been around a while. And I'd rather, quite frankly, use something that's been around a while and works than something that's brand new that may have some bugs in it and these days may even have some malware attached to it. So on the other hand, Dennis, if you have a more modern, better solution that allows you to back up on Linux, that would be great. Most of the distributions these days provide some sort of backup solution as part of the distribution. And I know that Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu proper provide a backup utility that they label as backup, but it is using... What is it using? It's using DejaDup, (34/45)
which, again, is a relatively old program that uses a combination of DD and other things in the back end to make it work. So, yeah, even the modern solutions on Linux rely on the old, archaic, proven command line to make it work. Your thoughts after that rant, Bill? Actually, I have just a couple of thoughts. One, saying that some of this stuff is archaic, I think it's a little harsh. It might be older. But any time I am going to be using software, not always because it's not always available, I like to know that other people have looked at that code and have fixed it. You know, just Clonezilla I've used, I still use an old version of Clonezilla just because it works. It might not be pretty, it might not be... But any time I see a paid and free version, that doesn't mean it sets off any red flags, but I tend to like programs that I can actually fill. You can look at the code if you want, but I like to know that other people have looked at it and are a lot smarter and more talented than (35/45)
I am. And a lot of these new, shiny backups tend to use the old technologies. And all they are doing is incorporating, I mean a good example, it's not backup, but Discord. It's a proprietary software, but it uses an open source codec. So, I mean, just because it's been around a while doesn't make it archaic. It might make it, I would consider, more reliable because people have looked at it and have improved upon it. So, you know, I don't think we will scare away anything because we did cover ones with a nice user interface and one of the command line versions. And I used to be where I'd only want to use graphical user interfaces, but Larry kind of got me to where sometimes I just prefer to enter in the command line because it's one line of instructions instead of having to click 12 buttons. So, I think it was just a little bit harsh. There's something for everybody, but I appreciate you telling us about this other one and now I'll have to look at it. But just because it's old doesn't (36/45)
make it archaic. And I don't know, I don't want to argue that point, but I just I thought that was just a tad bit harsh and that's just me. But I really appreciate your feedback and I will look at that one you recommended and see what it's like. Right. Yeah. And maybe I was a bit harsh with my comments as well, but I think there's an argument to be made that backup software needs to be made easier to use, especially when you're using a graphical interface and you're clicking buttons and walking through. But I think Deja Dupe and the improvements made to that particular utility that are incorporated into Ubuntu and its derivatives is pretty close to being foolproof and easy to use. Still some room for improvement there, but it's basically just once you've got it set up, it's just acknowledging that, yes, you can run now or no, I want to pause or just let it run. I mean, you can set it up so that it just happens in the background and you never have to think about it unless there's a (37/45)
crash. So I think that's great. I also just want to say that we both, you know, we try to be diplomatic and appreciate everybody's opinion, but we have our own opinions, too. And so, like I said, we're not saying your opinion is not valuable because it is. It's always good to see another viewpoint, but we will let you know what our opinions are. And frankly, I think that we both have strong opinions of that one because I've had backups fail because of software. So when something works, it's been around a while and someone calls it archaic. It's like, yeah, it might be old, but it still works. And sometimes it's, you know, anyway, thanks very much, Dennis. And like I said, we appreciate it. And I will look at that new one. And if it's as good as you say it is, I might have to be hit with an apology saying, hey, he was right. This is really great. OK, we'll take a look. OK, calling comments on, guess what, Bill? Whole disk cloning. Oh, I thought you're going to see the weather. OK. Yeah. (38/45)
So hi, Larry and Bill. I found the podcast on whole disk cloning very informative and helpful. There are a couple of backup programs that I have been using that can clone partitions. Here we go. Maybe there's something new in this list. There is a command line program called F S Archiver. It's available in most repositories. It's very easy to use. It's my go to application for partition backup. There's a quick start guide at F S Archiver dot org slash quick start. We'll have that link in the show notes. I found a fairly new application which provides a graphical interface for part clone. It's called APART, A P A R T. And we'll have a link to that in the show notes. And there are packages for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch. I've tried it out and it's extremely easy to use. Well, guys, I've listened to your podcast for the past four years, and it helped me to transition from Windows to Linux. Keep up the good work. Regards, Colin. That's exactly why we do the podcast. Colin, thank you. (39/45)
Yes, that's awesome. Thanks, Colin. Our next email comes from Andrew and he provides help on USB write speed. And he writes Larry Emperor Minion and Bill Senior Chief Junior Vice President Minion. I think he keeps adding words to this. Yes. It's hilarious. Thanks, Andrew. In the last listener feedback, someone asks about slow copy speed to USB devices. This, unfortunately, is a reality of the technology versus today's expectations. If you remember the good old days of the 386 486 era, the front bus was limited to the speed of the slowest component. These speeds were often 33 megahertz, 66 megahertz or 100 megahertz. And also, and although the processing speed started pulling away in the Pentium era, reaching 200, 300 and even 500 megahertz, the bus speeds were still 100 megahertz. In this case, even with bus speeds of one gigahertz or higher, the USB to bus speed is still only going to transfer up to 400 megabits being 60 megabytes, up to meaning that the two way communication between (40/45)
the drive and the controller. Add to this a standard USB flash drive can only write at between two and 10 megabytes per second, depending on quality and internal technology. This is where the class numbers letters come in. Use then the best transfer time you can hope for on, say, a two gigabyte video file is about 11 minutes and an average of three megabytes per second. Speeds on flash drives are also worse on drives that have previously held data, as the old data needs to be zeroed prior to the write, unlike a magnetic drive that only needs to flip the bits that have changed. Flash drives need to make all cell zeros except of the previous state before writing the new data. External hard drives are usually faster than flash drives at an average of 30 to 40 megabytes per second, as they, even SSDs, use different internal controller technology that is faster but more expensive, hence how flash drives are much cheaper. One last point to remember, the copy process indicator in your (41/45)
respective GUI, graphical user interface, either Linux, Mac or Windows, cannot be trusted. Quite often the process bar will get to 100% and you think the copy is complete. However, this isn't always the case. Big files that copy will take longer and the bar can reach 100%, but depending on how the status is displayed, it can mean that the copy is complete or the transfer into the buffer is complete. If it only refers to the buffer, the copy is not complete, even though the display makes you believe it is. This is why it is important to eject the device prior to removing it, as the ejection process ensures the buffer is empty before unmounting it. Hope this helps, Andrew. Thanks, Andrew. That was a great amount of information. Yeah, absolutely. And that last bit about the progress bars, the progress indicators, yeah, I never trusted them. One place it's particularly difficult to trust is in Linux on the startup Disk Creator that comes with Ubuntu and Ubuntu Mate and a lot of (42/45)
distributions. When it says that you have created a boot disk and it says process is completed, don't believe it. I have created a thumb drive with a distribution of Linux on it and have ejected it before, you know, after it says that it's completed, but before everything stops and I end up with a corrupted thumb drive and have to create a new one and sometimes it takes, you know, almost as long after it says it's completed as it did before it said it was completed to wait for it to absolutely completely finalize itself and save all the final settings and all of that stuff. So, yeah, never, never, never believe a copy progress bar. Find out if it's actually finished copying. And yeah, with removable drives, if you eject it, typically it's going to tell you, you know, it's busy and if it tells you it's busy, believe it's busy and wait. From bitter experience. You think? Yeah, there you go. Okay. Okay. Well, Bill, that wraps up all of our emails for this time. We had quite a few. That (43/45)
was a good amount of emails. Yeah, many of them on the same topic, but that's okay. Everybody's got an opinion. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, it means that we found a topic that people were interested in. Yes, exactly. And know something about or think they know something about or do know something about and know something more than we do. All of those options in there. All those options do apply. Yes. Okay. What do you think we're going to do for our next episode, Bill? I don't know yet because, you know, I've been in the land of the unconnected, so I'm sure we'll find something to talk about. Oh, I know we'll find something to talk about and it'll be really, really interesting, like cloning drives or something. Yeah. You know, we could always maybe have a little more advanced one about how to restore disks and stuff after making a backup. We could do that, yes. Or maybe we turn it to our minion network. Yes, minion network. Go to work. Okay. Send us info. Yep. All right. Until then, you (44/45)
can go to our website at goinglinx.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. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (45/45)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #353 · Moving from Windows to Linux - Part 1.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 353, Moving from Windows to Linux Part 1. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Vusche. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, Moving from Windows to Linux Part 1. Hey, Bill, Part 1, huh? Part 1, yeah. It's like the Marvel superhero movies. You've got a Part 1 and a Part 2. Oh, OK. Yeah, sure. No, that's cool. It's been a while since we've done a Part 1, Part 2 series, and it's good to get back to that, I think. Yeah, I'm excited about it. Part 1, they used to be called, well, they're still called, but beginner and advanced. But when I was looking at what to call it, I said, well, you know, Part (1/46)
1 is kind of just a prep and Part 2 is not any more advanced. So I just decided to go with the Part 1, Part 2. OK, so it's kind of an introduction and extension of the introduction to Moving from Windows to Linux. Pretty much. Pretty much. OK, that's fine. So I think it would be good. I enjoyed writing it. Of course, Bear wants to say hello. Yeah, I think he just did. Yes. So you're going to hear him once in a while. I think he wants to make sure he's remembered. So anyway, I don't know about you, but in New Mexico, cooler weather is starting to come and I'm really digging the cool weather. Yeah, it's starting to get cooler here as well, especially in the mornings. Yeah, it's been a nice summer, but I'm looking forward to some cooler weather. Anyway, I included some links in the show notes. I just want to let everybody know. There's some interesting reads. One is the Microsoft Retail User's License terms that you basically click when you say you're going to use it. And I was reading (2/46)
through it and there's some interesting stuff in there. I think some people might be surprised. And then there was a couple more about Windows 10 data collection and about what they collect. And I believe the one from the Verge. No, I'm sorry. The one from TechCrunch actually gives links to if you decide to continue running Windows or you have to run Windows 10, that you can kind of limit what they collect. You can't turn everything off entirely, but it's kind of interesting. And then the TechCrunch, the original stories about the Dutch government saying, hey, Windows 10 kind of breached his privacy law. So anyway, there were two interesting articles and they had some good links that I thought people would enjoy. So they're in there if anybody would like to look at it. Well, thanks for those. That's going to be interesting reading. I think it was the Windows 7 terms of use or end user license agreement that I had read through. I haven't read the Windows 10 one. It would be interesting (3/46)
to see what the differences are and how much more they're doing to us. Yeah, what's it doing to you? The EULA contains a lot of information about what they're doing and what they collect and how you can actually use Windows. It's very different than the GNU. You can pretty much use Linux on whatever you want, however you want. But when you look at Windows, I believe one of the conditions is it gives a very specific guidelines and rules about virtualization and remote access. In there, it actually says this software, most people say, it's my Windows, I'll do what I want. But actually the EULA says that this software is not sold, it's licensed. So you don't own it. You only have a right to use it. Yeah, and of course, with the new roadmap, well, that was one of the reasons I've moved to completely off Windows 10. Because they're upgrading so fast, and unless you're an enterprise user with the volume licensing, you cannot refuse these upgrades. And when I say upgrades, they're replacing (4/46)
the whole system. So they've got one coming out soon, and I think they call it Redstone 6, which will be the next version of Windows 10. And there's no way, if you're just a home user, to just not install it. Like when I get updates on Linux, I don't immediately install them unless it says it's a security fix. I usually wait a couple of days and read through it and make sure there's no problems and then install it. But one of the reasons that I was listening to a podcast to do this is there's a lot of home users, and so they'll push this out. So you're kind of like their guinea pig. So if it runs on, because there's a lot of different hardware types, and if it's running good on them, then they can push it to the corporate or enterprise users. So I don't like being anybody's guinea pig for free, especially when I still have to do work. So anyway, I'm not being critical. I'm just saying that's some of the reasons that I've chosen, and I know to not use it. I know there's some people that (5/46)
don't care, and that's great, but you might want to read through it and read articles and file links. You might be able to say, hey, I don't want to share this much information and stuff. So anyway, today we're going to talk about, hey, I'm done with it for whatever reason. I'm going to move from Windows to Linux and some of the ways on how to get these things done and get ready for the move. We're going to break this up, as we discussed earlier, but just to make sure that we can make this easy and as painless as possible. Yeah, it seems like a big daunting task. It's not. It's just planning. Yeah, exactly. You just need to be planful as to what you're doing so that you don't lose any important information, and the rest of it should happen pretty quickly. So I'm a user of Windows, and I've decided to ditch Windows for whatever reason. Now what? And a better question is, why would I want to? You know, Windows is working just fine for me. Why would I want to? Well, there's a couple ones (6/46)
that come to mind. One, you might be concerned about your privacy, but that's not usually the biggest one. The biggest one is you've got older hardware and Windows 10 is not running as well as you had hoped, or you don't need to use Windows programs anymore. Or you just got tired of having to keep paying for software like, well, we use Audacity. You can still get on Windows, but you have to know about Audacity. So it's various reasons. It's not always about sticking it to Microsoft and not going to pay them anymore, because most people get their Windows when they buy a new computer. Right. And so it's kind of built into the cost. But you might say, look, one of the things that kind of drove me insane is on Windows 10, when I had it on mine, it had a bunch of, remember back in the day when they would have all the, what we call the trialware and the shareware. Well, now it's back in there. And so I install it. And then when an upgrade comes, it's back. And then I have to install it (7/46)
again. Oh, the crapware that's pre-installed by... Yeah, like they had Candy Crush Saga and Castle something and Auto Racing and they're building an Xbox. And if I want to play a game, that's great. But it's definitely not Candy Crunch or Candy Crush. So whatever your reason, and there's no right or wrong answer. You just had to decide, I don't want to use Windows anymore or my hardware is getting older and it's just not running as well. And I want to get a couple more years. Yes, computers have come down. But, you know, if I can get a few more a year or another or two out of my same hardware and I can do everything I need to, why suffer with that? And here's another one, a big one. I think that there are some people that have gotten, they didn't make their backup media. And then they get infected with malware or whatever. And the only way to get rid of it entirely is to nuke and pave. Well, how do they do that if they didn't make their backup media? Right, exactly. Yeah, I've never (8/46)
had to do this, but I understand that it takes some jumping through of some hoops in order to convince the folks at Microsoft that you actually have a legitimate copy of Windows when you haven't made a copy of your restore media or whatever they want to call it. Doing something interesting, and it only works if you have a Microsoft account, that when you get a new computer, they tie your license to your account. So it's a digital key. And up until recently, it was very hard to get a clean copy. Now, if you do search on the Internet, Microsoft actually lets you download a copy and then when you enter your credentials in with the Microsoft account, it automatically recognizes and says, oh, OK, he's had this before. But the thing that might surprise you is you might have been on a version of Windows 10 that worked with some software and then they've upgraded it to the newest version. Or you have a lot because downloads like four gigabytes. And if you have a meter connection, that's just (9/46)
insane. Right. Well, and the other thing, I guess, is that if you have purchased a computer with Windows installed on it and you do the recovery from a copy of Windows that you've downloaded from the Microsoft site, what you aren't getting is all of the tweaks and the special drivers and all of the little adjustments that the computer hardware manufacturer has made in order to get Windows to work properly on their hardware. Maybe you can go to their website and download those things, but that's some additional work. And I think most people, when they install Windows on their computer, are expecting that Windows is Windows and, you know, you just install it and it should work. I think that the more sophisticated users realize that there are drivers and other things and we'll go look for it. But I think the average computer user who isn't all that tech savvy, if they were to have to go through that, they would give up and go take it to some store and pay to have it restored. Yeah. Well, (10/46)
that's one of the things, especially if you have like my Alienware is very much like that. You can get it up and running, but then you have to find some of the older drivers for like the Nvidia card and stuff, but it's not the latest. And then you have to go download it and then it's just, you have to jump to a hoop and a lot of times to get the something because mine has a kind of a hybrid keyboard and it has extra feature keys. And you have to actually, I've actually had to go to Alienware site and download those and, you know, there's a utility that lets you change the colors on the keyboard. I mean, so all that doesn't work out of the box. So not that I use it a lot. I said I pretty much said it and forget it. Sound like an infomercial there, but yeah, you'll get the base system. But when I had to reinstall Windows 10 before I finally said I'm done, it was a 4.1 or it was over 4 gigs of download. Then it was probably another two hours of updates. And then I went and spent another (11/46)
probably two hours getting all the drivers getting installed, getting it configured, you know, because they have, Dell makes Alienware. It's a division of Alienware. Alienware is a division of Dell. And so you have to go to the site, you have to enter, you know, so it's not a quick process. And especially if you don't have the install media, but then, you know, that would probably be some of the main reasons why you would say I'm done. I don't want to go through all this. I just want a computer that I can do my stuff. Right, exactly. Yeah, the reasons that I run across are people are tired of getting malware and infections and just suspicion of, is this a valid email? You know, is this something that somebody actually sent me? It seems a little funny. And then second guessing every email or every message you get or every post on Facebook or something like that and just being suspicious all the time. So there's that aspect of things. Something else is just the cost. And you made mention (12/46)
of the fact that for the average user who uses Windows, they've already gotten Windows as part of the purchase of the hardware. So they're not seeing an incremental cost as a result of buying Windows. But as the folks at Microsoft upgrade Windows 10 involuntarily on your part, sometimes you end up having to repurchase the same software you've already purchased. And I'm talking about software applications now, those things that you use to get the things done. And some of those are not compatible with the latest version. And of course, you can't go back to the old version of Windows. So you're sitting there waiting for the software publisher to upgrade that version of their software to work. Most are on top of it, but sometimes you end up behind the eight ball. And quite frankly, that I think is what drives a lot of people to look for free alternatives like Audacity for recording of audio and like LibreOffice for the Office suite of things. And speaking of Office, that's another hidden (13/46)
cost, especially if you are using the online cloud based version of Microsoft's Office suite. The software package, it's gotten better, I understand over time. But when they first released it, it was missing quite a few features and it may still be missing some features of the installed version. And as a result, you may be searching for alternative software just to get those features back. But there is an incremental cost to using the cloud based version, because although you can purchase a copy of Microsoft Office, you can install on your hardware. The online version is kind of like you described the EULA for Windows. It's a license to use it. And it's pretty clear in the cloud based version that you don't own it. You don't control it. It is just something that you can use and they can change it whenever they want. And, you know, there are plenty of cloud based software applications out there that do the same sort of thing. But for the experienced Windows user that's been using (14/46)
Windows since Windows 7 or before, they don't expect those kinds of things. And it's another hidden added cost is as Microsoft updates their version of Windows, I don't think they give too much consideration to how old the hardware is that you have it installed on. And so you may end up with an upgrade to Windows that makes your computer incompatible with running that version of Windows or a printer you have. They may drop the driver for the printer or scanners or other hardware and then you've got to go upgrade the hardware. So lots of hidden costs there as well. Well, there's a not so hidden cost. They don't want people to buy the software anymore because when you buy the software, people say my Office 2007 or 13 or whatever version you have is working fine. Why should I upgrade? It does what I want. So they're trying to make, they have a product that they're really going pretty much full in called Office 365. And they're really trying to own that space. And what Office 365 is, is (15/46)
you get, they actually, it's like $9.99 a month or $99 a year. And you can download an in-place copy, but they want, they're just tying everything together. They're tying Skype in, they're tying Office, they're tying in, they give like one terabyte of storage space for this $9.99 or $99 a year. They're trying to own everything in a way that, it's kind of, I would say, any competitive because they want you to use their browser, which is the Edge. They want you to use their software. They want you to use their own cloud storage. And what happened is, just recently, they had a lightning strike at one of their service centers and they couldn't handle the load. So there's people that were down for days and they couldn't access their Office 365. That's not good. Yeah. So if you put all your eggs in one basket, it might not be a good thing. But just, you know, they want to sell Windows as a service and they want you to continually pay them instead of just buying it once, which it wasn't (16/46)
cheap, what it was, what was it, like $200 or $300 for that for Office? It was. They charge more for Office than they did for Windows. It's like a gateway drug almost. You get Windows, you might want this too. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, that whole online cloud-based software, I really like the idea of cloud-based software. And if it's software that I expect to be kept up to date, I expect changes, I expect to be able to use those new updates as soon as they're available. And I think that's great. But your Office suite is not the kind of software that the average person is looking to change on a regular basis. They want it to be stable so that they can get their work done. They're using it for productivity, you know, to get things done, whether that's writing or whether that's creating spreadsheets and doing analysis and that sort of thing. And if the features or the interface or things change in the middle of their work, you know, from day to day, that has an impact on productivity. (17/46)
And the other thing that the operating system interferes with in terms of productivity, and this is another common complaint that I hear from Windows users and ex-Windows users, whether you're a consumer using the software and the computer for home use, or whether you are someone who uses it for business, the updates will interrupt you in the middle of your work. They will force you to reboot. Sometimes you can postpone it if you catch the little notification before it goes away and it forces you to reboot. But sometimes you can't. Sometimes you have to reboot and it seems to have no regard for the fact that you're in the middle of doing something. And if you happen to catch it in time, you might be able to save. And hopefully if you don't, it's the kind of application that does auto save in the background and you haven't turned that off in order to get more performance out of the software you're using. And then, to add insult to injury, it takes a while to reboot, to actually go from (18/46)
completely on to starting up again. And then you get this notification completing the update. Well, what was it doing before that? And updating one of 375 or something like that. And then the little incremental progress bar takes forever. And I have, in Microsoft Windows computers that I have used recently with Windows 10 on them, I've seen those updates take as long as 10 or 15 minutes, or even as long as 30 minutes to go from, I was using it, thank you very much, to, oh, now I can use it again. What was I doing again? 30 minutes. Have you seen it take longer than that? I think the longest I've seen was about an hour. Oh, ouch. Yeah, but I haven't seen that kind of times in a while. What the main problem that I've run across is, like for instance, the last time I downloaded Windows 10, after it got up and running and all those updates, the thing's not really usable because things are going in the background. So you have to wait to get all these updates, then it wants to reboot, and (19/46)
then you have to go and find the drivers that are not optimized for your system, download those, which is more time, and then, I don't know if anybody else experienced this, but the install for the NVIDIA driver can take as much as 10, 15 minutes, so you're just losing time all the time when you're dealing with it. Exactly. There were so many people complaining, and they haven't implemented it yet, as far as I know. I know it's a feature. This is a feature, Larry, that you'll be able to tell it, don't update when you see I'm working, or ask me before you update, but you only can postpone it from one or two times. Well, if you're trying to get out a big project for work, or you're doing a term paper, or you're just having a good time fragging your friends on the latest first person shooter, you don't want to have that thing pop up and say, ah, you need to restart, and updates, you need to do this. Right, right. Does this sound familiar? Hello, boss. I know we're on a deadline to get (20/46)
this report out in half an hour, but my computer just shut down and it says it's going to be an hour before it comes back up. So I'm going to be late on getting that really important Board of Directors report for the investors call. Yeah, yeah. Now we got to buy everybody two computers so that, you know, when one is down for updates, you got something else to work on. Anyway, talk about hidden costs. Yeah, hidden costs. You know, hey, I'm just going to go by the more practical before we start actually talking about how to ditch Windows 10 is you're playing a game, you're doing really well, you got your friends, and you're all in the thing pops up, drops out a game and say, you need to update. It's like, oh, no. So it shuts your full screen down to a window. And, oh, after a while, you just, you know, people get annoyed, you get annoyed. And it's like, I can't, I can't handle this. So anyway, that's, that's why you need your games displayed on a 75 inch monitor. So that when it goes to (21/46)
a window, you can still see and use it. There you go. Only 75? Geez. Okay. So you're ditching Windows 10. Larry, let's look at a few things that, that you want to think about before you ditch Windows. Okay. What kind of interface do you want? Because in Windows, you can pretty much stuck with what they give you. I know you can change the background, you might be able to change how things open up stuff, but it's pretty much one window is the same as the other windows. Mm hmm. Do you have any, maybe some ideas that these, these guys can go look at and kind of see what they like? For Windows you're talking about or for Linux? No, for, for Linux. Because we're trying to decide on what kind of interface you want, you know, and we don't, you know, you might want something very Windows like, but you might want something totally different, something more minimalist. So, right, right. So as you're thinking about which distribution to use, you might want to look at what Linux calls desktop (22/46)
environments. That's what they call the interface, right? Mm hmm. So one place you could go is to look at DistroWatch. DistroWatch is a website that gives you a listing of some of the most popular Linux distributions. And for most of them, if not all of them, there are screenshots. So you can take a quick look at the way they present things, how it looks. You know, is, is there a menu bar at all? Is the menu at the top, on the side, on the bottom? And of course, with most Linux distributions, you can change those to wherever you want. But oftentimes you want to pick one that is as close to the way you want to use it in its default configuration. That way you have to configure less. And so they, they, you might want to take a look at the different projects and see if any of those work for you. And they, what they show you on DistroWatch can give you an idea of what you need. And we have a few suggestions and we've discussed them on the podcast in the past. But you can really try (23/46)
anything you want and we'll have a link to DistroWatch and putting fun back into computing. It says use Linux or BSD. So that's another option. You can also use BSD. Not that we know an awful lot about it, but there you go. Well, we know almost nothing about BSD. So, you know, first thing you mean you actually get to choose what desktop environment you want. Yeah, right out of the box. Yeah, that's in some people that might be kind of overwhelming. So that's why we kind of suggest going to DistroWatch. The, I would suggest, you know, because they have a list of the top 100. Take, take a little time and look through them because some of the ones like Linux Mint is up there pretty high, like third or fourth. But another really great one is I think at like 24th, I think is Ubuntu Mate, but it's rising in the ranks. So, you know, just because it's on a list doesn't mean it's not great. So take your time and look through them. There are more things to consider than just the way it looks. (24/46)
Yes. And probably there are more important things to consider than just the way it looks. Because, as I said earlier, you can actually change the way that Linux looks to suit your taste. And you're better off selecting a Linux distribution that meets your needs from a what do I want to get done perspective. And am I a sophisticated user who is willing to dig in and learn how to configure things? Or am I someone who just wants things to work? And if you're in the just wants things to work category, then Mint or Ubuntu Mate are probably a couple of the best for you. If you're one who wants to tinker, you can get into OpenSUSE or Fedora or many of the others that are out there. Depends on what you want to do. So read up on them. Oh, you forgot to mention an Arch-based one. You'll be in trouble. So we got Monjero and you've got Integros. Or if you really want to tinker around, Pingai. Yeah, but that's not really an Arch-based. No, no, not at all. But one of the things that is very (25/46)
important and what we're kind of focusing on, we're coming at this not for someone who has run Linux before, but someone who has had basically Windows 10 and doesn't know quite how to change desktops yet. Everybody learns over time. So that's why I think this is important. You've got to like the desktop interface. And I always suggest, and I guess you can call it a bias, to look at the Debian-based ones. And those include Ubuntu Mate, Linux Mint, Debian, of course, Ubuntu. And then all the derivatives of Ubuntu. They just seem to have more support. So with Snaps and Flatpak becoming more and more prevalent, that's not quite as big an issue as it used to be. Because software that you could only get here or was easy to get here was a little tougher. That's kind of going away. So pick the one that you like. And that kind of leads us into this next part. So you've decided. You've found the perfect one. Great. What do you do now? Well, first, you need to download it. Most of them have nice (26/46)
links. I download here and they'll ask you, do you want 32 or 64? Now, if you're running a fairly new processor on a full-size laptop or a desktop, you can pretty much assume a 64. But I'll tell you how to go about finding out what type of processor you have when you're running Windows. Because this is very important. Like I learned the hard way, 32-bit software doesn't run as good on 64. You remember that whole debacle. Anyway, you can go into your Windows menu and type system information. And it'll pop up a dialog. And it'll go down. It tells you how much RAM you have, whether its license is activated. But in that list, it says this is a X64 and a processor. But you'll see a 64. And if you don't see a 64, you'll probably run a 32. And it usually says 32 something. It's been so long since I've run a 32, I can't remember what it looks like. But you'll see 64 or 32. If you see 64, you're pretty much assuming that's the version that you want. Right. And when you're downloading the Linux (27/46)
file, the file that ends in .iso, to burn to a DVD or to put on a thumb drive for your installation, it will tell you whether it's 32-bit or 64-bit, usually. And if it says X86, that is typically a 32-bit version. But if it says AMD followed by something, that is usually the 64-bit version. And even though your processor might be Intel rather than AMD, the AMD in the name doesn't mean that it only works on AMD processors. It is a categorization of the 64-bit that happens to use the AMD initials. So even though it says AMD, it'll work on any 64-bit computer, regardless of the processor. That's the one thing that kind of confuses people. And I wish that more distributions would make that clearer, that this is the 32-bit version, this is a 64-bit version, and forget the nomenclature around AMD. That just makes it confusing. Yeah, you're actually right. We've had a few questions from one of our listeners way back saying, can I run this because this is AMD, but I have an Intel chip. So the (28/46)
reason they do that is the Intel chips and AMD chips share different, not extensions, but processes. And so for some reason they decide on AMD. I don't know why. Don't ask me. So once you decided and you found out what type of CPU you have, then the next part is getting it burnt to either a USB key or a DVD. Do I need matches for this? Huh? Do I need matches for this to burn it? Yeah, burning. Well, let me, let me, burning. To make the installation software media. Yeah. Okay. There you go. Yes, that's what we're talking about. Yeah. Thank you, Larry. So we've got you covered. Ubuntu has great step-by-step and I've included the links in the show notes. Now you might say, well, I'm not downloading Ubuntu. That really doesn't matter. You'll just substitute your downloaded ISO image that you've downloaded from your preferred distribution and just follow the steps. It works with any distribution. And this tells you how to do it from Windows. And it's actually pretty neat. They have a, okay, (29/46)
do this. And when you click it, it checks it as you complete it. So there's no way to really mess it up or forget what step was I on. So they went, they've really done a nice job. And there's two separate pages, one's for the DVDs and one is to create a USB stick. And I look through them and they're really, really, really good. I thought that they did a heck of a good job. Yeah, nicely designed. It really is. Yeah, it really is. They did a nice job on it. And it's not confusing. It's plain English. They don't ask you to assemble, you know, a hypercube or anything like that. It's like, okay, you need this. And they tell you what you need before you even start. So everything's laid out. So, yeah, use these guides. And at the bottom of the guides, it actually even tells you how to check some of your download. And you want to explain what that is, Larry? Yeah, so whenever there's a file on the Internet, there is a way to determine whether that file, after you've downloaded it, is exactly (30/46)
the same as the one that was posted. Because there's a risk, a very small risk, but there's a risk that the file could get corrupted in that download process. And there's a code that is generated by looking at the file itself. And if two files are absolutely identical, that code will be the same. And that's what they're using, is a code like that. And they will typically post that code along with the file. And if you get that file onto your computer, you can run that same... What's it called? It's not CRC. What's the... And the checksum. The checksum, yeah. So once you've downloaded it, you can run that checksum routine on your computer, which most computers have pre-installed. You don't have to go get it. And then you just check that checksum and see if it's the same as the one they posted on the download site. And if it is, you're absolutely certain that you've got exactly the same file. Okay. So if you're getting it from their site, that's just an additional step. And it's not (31/46)
really hard to do. And they have to walk you through it. So it's considered a little bit of homework to try it out. But if you're getting it directly from their site, and that's something I encourage, get it from the developer's site, whether it be Ubuntu, Ubuntu Mate, Linux Mint. Don't download it from a third-party source. Always get it from the developers. Right. Always good advice. Yeah. So, okay, Larry, I've downloaded it. I've burned it. I've checked it. It's ready to go. But I want to make sure this thing works before I totally blow away my Windows. Do I have to go in this blind? Or, you know, what do I do now? Okay. So most Linux distributions allow you to try their distribution before you buy. And you're not going on a website and using some sort of mock-up of it. No. Once you have your CD or your DVD or USB stick, when you reboot your computer to complete the installation, before you install it, there's usually some sort of menu selection, or it'll automatically boot into a (32/46)
mode that allows you to try it out. It will run the actual Linux distribution from your install media, the entire operating system, not some sort of small subset of it, but the entire operating system, and will let you try it out. So you can use the web browser. You can use the word processor. You can use any of the software that's installed. You can sometimes even install software applications to see how that works. There are a couple of features that are disabled related to actual use of your computer so that you don't harm anything. But for the most part, the vast majority of everything you could use once it's installed is operational when you are using it from the live media, whether that's a DVD, a CD, a USB stick, or some other thing that we don't know how you would install it, but maybe there's something else out there that we're not aware of. Anyway, you get a chance to try it before you buy it. Make sure your hardware works. Make sure everything works the way you expect it to. (33/46)
So during that time, you can use it to test out apps and usually they are pretty good. You'll see the software for office software. You'll see web browsers. So you can kind of use it to kind of get familiar with it and get comfortable and see how things work and see how the interface works without ever touching your Windows install. And this is kind of a good thing because if you've been using Windows, things might work a little differently. And so if you have a day or two and you've never used Linux and you want to get comfortable with it, because the worst thing is you just jump in and it's like, I don't know how to do anything. So you're not going in cold. Larry, that's such a great idea of try it before you install it. I've done that before and I usually run it a few days just to see how it runs. Now just a caveat there, if you're running it from a DVD, if you open up applications since everything's being run in memory and not from the hard drive, which is faster, it's going to be (34/46)
a little slower. If you're running from USB, I found it's pretty quick. So just keep that in mind, it's not going to run at full speed, but it's pretty quick because once it's in memory, it's fast. Yeah, exactly. If you're used to using an old computer running Windows, it's probably going to run equally fast too, especially from a USB stick. In fact, I've used it, I've used Ubuntu Mache from a live USB stick to run for several days while I was waiting for my computer to be repaired by Dell. And yeah, it worked just fine. I was able to download Audacity. We actually recorded a going Linux podcast episode using Ubuntu Mache running from a USB stick. You recorded that one using USB? Yes, yes I did. I didn't even know that. That's amazing. All right. Yep. Okay, so this is a good time to spend it, because you're getting ready to change how you do everything. It's a good time just to make sure everything works. And this is always, it's not as much of an issue as before, but it's good because (35/46)
you make sure your Wi-Fi works and your display is displaying correctly. Yeah, it saves a lot of headaches. Yeah, a lot of headaches. So here's what we've got, we've done so far. We've chosen the distribution that we wanted. We've downloaded the distribution. We've made our install media. We've made sure our hardware supports the hardware. And then number five is an optional, which we highly encourage. Run the distribution and become familiar with it and the installed apps on the live media. And I think that that's kind of a good, I know it's a little extra work, but you're investing a little time, but I pretty much guarantee it's probably quicker than updating a Windows 10 install with all the new drivers. So what else can you tell us, Larry? Well, so after you've settled on the Linux distribution that you like, the next step is, especially if you're going to blow away Windows, and even if you're not, it's good practice to do this anyway, save the files that you want to keep off of (36/46)
the Windows drive. So anything you've created in the way of documents, anything that you've downloaded and saved for later, pictures, other things you don't want to lose, make a backup copy, and I suggest you do that to a portable USB drive or some other media where you can save them off of the computer in case something goes horribly wrong with the installation of Linux. Or more likely, you accidentally select the blow everything away option when you wanted to run Linux in parallel with Windows so that you could use the two of them together, but you accidentally wipe it out. So do a backup, do a backup, do a backup. There, I said it three times, plus, so hopefully that'll sink into some people. So let's take a look at some of the ways that we can do this, Bill, not the backups, but saving the important stuff you want. And so why don't you give us the first one, Bill? The one method I use is I've used a USB drive, a little key drive, and you just go to your files, and I copy the files (37/46)
and then put them on USB. And you said, well, why don't you just move them? Well, two reasons. One, I want to make sure I get everything, so once I copy all my files over, I can actually look at both of them and say, okay, I've got everything I want. And then the other one is I don't want to take the chance of moving the original and something happened in the bad sector on the USB drive or power goes out just when I'm doing it and I've just pretty much lost because I just took it right out and didn't make a copy. So it's just kind of a safety thing for me. I wish I would have done this before because I've actually had where a certain dog who will go unnamed chewed through the cord and it died just as it was transferring the file, and I lost it. So, yeah, it's just a safety thing for me. And everything, you just get a chance to make sure you get everything. And, yes, it takes a little time, but when you use Windows for so many years or you upgrade and upgraded, you've accumulated a lot (38/46)
of stuff like wedding photos, kids' birthdays and songs that you like, videos of the kids writing on the walls, et cetera, that you don't want to lose those memories. So this gives you time to say, okay, did I get everything? Have I looked in all these places? Because not everything is put in the same place. If you have a program, it might store certain things in that program's save folders and not in documents. So it gives you time to actually, okay, I need to make sure I get everything. Now that works if you don't have large amounts of files. If you know your average user, you can get 16 gigabyte USB keys, and that usually holds about pretty much anything you want. But if you have really large files like video files or you have a lot of songs or you have a lot of PowerPoint or reports or audio books or whatever that are large, then I suggest using a USB hard drive. And that basically is a full hard drive that you can just put all your files on. And it's faster, it holds more, and (39/46)
that way you have all your data. Right. Yeah, they make USB drives up to, I think I've seen them as large as six gigabytes for the desktop versions, you know, the big ones. They have them as network versions and USB versions. You mean six terabytes, right? Six terabytes. Yeah, six terabytes. Yeah, yeah. Six gigabytes. Wow. So six terabytes. Yeah. And I've seen the thin portable drives, you know, USB the size of a wallet or a phone or something like that. I've seen those as large as four terabytes. They're fairly expensive compared to the 16. But the four terabyte ones are what I've seen there and the USB sticks themselves. I've seen those. I think I've seen them up to a terabyte in size, maybe two for the full size ones. But I have a laptop. I like to use the little USB sticks that don't stick out very far. So I don't accidentally knock them out of the USB port and damage the port. They're about the size of those, you know, the little Logitech nubs that connect your Bluetooth or (40/46)
wireless. Oh, that's high now? Wow. Yes. And I have one in my hands here that is that is 256 gigabytes in size. And I ordered that one because it was less expensive than a 512 gigabyte one that they also offered. So I know you can get those pretty big. And my computer has a 500 gig hard drive in it. So I figured, you know, I never fill that up to capacity. So the 256 is fine and I can do whatever backups I need of files onto that and still not risk bumping it and damaging the USB port or whatever. So anyway, there you go. That's a couple of options for you. Well, I know you've always said that one copy is not really good enough and you really want to have a physical copy and an offsite copy. So can you still can you do that when you're moving? Is there another way that you can just just for safety to move to have another copy that you don't have physical? I mean, how would you do that? What would you use? Yeah. So you could take that thumb drive and then mail it to a relative halfway (41/46)
across the country. That would be one way. Not very quick. But if you want something a little more instantaneous, you want online storage. That's a good way to do it, like Dropbox or Google Drive. Those are free versions of storage or can be free depending on how much you have to store. There are others out there and there are some open source versions like Spider Oak and things like that that you can use. So just that offsite safety net. It's in the cloud. You could use any sort of cloud storage and then you'll have more than two copies of your important files. Yeah, that's actually a pretty clever idea. But you get us like on Dropbox and Google Drive. I have both and I have you can buy. I think I think my Google Drive for 500 gigs is like two dollars a month and you can cancel any time. So, OK, I'll throw two bucks at Google so I can store all my stuff when I'm done. I can just tell them I'm not going to need any more money. So that's one way to do it. And you can also pay for, I (42/46)
think it's Dropbox for one terabyte. It's like ten dollars a month and you can cancel any time. So it's not a huge, huge expense. But if you need that extra storage, throw ten bucks at it and that way you have it backed up. And then when you're done, you can say, I don't need it anymore. I can go back to basic and you still have those files in case something happens. You lose the USB. USB goes bad. It's hardware. Things happen. Yeah, exactly. I know this might seem like we're taking this kind of slow and going over some obvious stuff, but we want to make this a good experience. And it also gives you time to go through your systems and get everything you want. And so, you know, we've been using Windows for a long time. So, you know, you've got a lot of stuff. So let's take our time and make sure we get everything because you don't want any regret. You just want this to be really easy. And so, you know, I don't think that this is a waste of time because, you know, once you get it up and (43/46)
running, you pretty much it will just run. But so how much more homework can we give them? I think we've given them enough homework for now. You know, this episode was really meant for the person just considering moving over to Linux. Maybe you've already tried it. Maybe you've done some of these things. But for those people who haven't, this was how do I start? How do I get going on this? And in our next episode, where we will be talking about moving from Windows to Linux, we'll get into a little more depth once you've installed Linux. Or how do I install Linux? And once I've got it installed, what do I do now? That kind of thing. So the next episode might be for the people who have already made that leap from the perspective of, hey, I want to try Linux rather than Windows to I've already installed Linux. Where do I go from here? Right? Yeah, I think that's a really good thing. So we don't have to give them any more homework, but it does give them time. So anybody saying, OK, I've (44/46)
got time. Let me find what I want. Let me get all my stuff together so the next one I can get everything installed. I can get it working and we'll have some suggestions and stuff. So I'm really excited for anybody to decide and go over. We hope you find this helpful. I know it's kind of basic for some of the other users that are already on Linux, but we want to make this is we want it to be fun, but it won't be a good experience. And so I thought it would be good just to kind of go over some of the things because I know because Larry's laughed at me that I've forgotten to back up files I didn't want to lose. And I just went ahead and nuked and paved. And then I sit there and regret it. It's funny when it's not happening to you. Yes, it's funny when it's not happening to you. And I don't want anybody's marriages to end badly because you deleted all your wedding photos or anything like that because then I don't want to come and blame me. Yeah. Anyway, more on our next user-experienced (45/46)
episode, but our next episode will be listener feedback. So until then, you can go to our website at goinglinux.com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and subscribe. And if you'd like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our Going Linux podcast, Google Plus Community. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (46/46)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #373 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 373, listener feedback. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. 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 goinglinx.gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. That should be no surprise to anyone. Hey, Bill, how are you? Good, Larry. How are you this fine day? Wonderful. I am continuously impressed that every other episode, we have enough email and feedback and audio recording to fill up an entire episode. This is great. Our community is wonderful. Yeah, we even got Nancy who sent us a voice submission, (1/46)
which we love. Yeah. We haven't heard from Nancy in a while, so thanks, Nancy. Why don't we just jump right in and play that audio feedback from Nancy? All right. Okay. Here we go. Hi, Larry and Bill. I wanted to talk about the lady that overbought her computer. First of all, knowing that she is not tech savvy, she may have misrepresented to the salesman what she needed based on her understanding, and he may have sold her based on what she told him, rather than doing what a good salesman should, and really figure out what she really needed. Also, when we think of accountants, we think of spreadsheets, but an accountant uses other software. If she is a practicing accountant, she's probably not just using QuickBooks. She may be very well using some other proprietary software, which may need the professional version of Windows. Windows 10 Professional gives you a lot more control over software updates than Windows 10 Home, although Microsoft has relaxed some of the requirements for (2/46)
software update, probably based on customer backlash and market testing. But the professional version does still have a lot more control over when the updates are applied. You do also, with the professional version, have quite a bit of control over when restarts happen after installation. So, yeah, she's got basically three points. Maybe the lady overbought the computer because that's what she told the salesperson she needed. Maybe she uses something other than spreadsheets. I think our comment on spreadsheets was more of an offhanded, kind of meant to be a half joke sort of thing. But you're right, Nancy, QuickBooks and other proprietary software is probably what she needs. And her point on the professional version of Windows 10 giving you more control over updates and when you apply them and when the restarts happen. So, yeah, what do you think, Bill, on any one of those? I can't argue with her. She made great points and she's exactly right. The only thing is, we had talked about, I (3/46)
was helping a person with one of their Windows 10 installs. A different person, right? Yeah, a different person. And I think the Home and Pro versions of Windows 10, I think they have it where you can pause an update for seven days. But that's it on the new one. I'm not sure because I remember looking at it and there was a new button because this was the latest version of pushing out over the 1803. Or I think this is 1903, whatever they call it. And also I was listening to Windows Weekly and I believe they said that now you're able to pause the updates for seven days. And then Enterprise, they can pause it for 30 days. But there's another thing where they can push it off for a year or whatever, but or a couple of years because they're managed by IT, they have to have a special program, I think, to do it. I don't know. Side note, I think both of them can do seven days. So I don't know what the advantage of a Pro. I know Pro has some additional features that is just for Pro users. But I (4/46)
don't have to buy an advanced copy of Linux Pro or anything. I get everything from the base install. No, just kidding. But yeah, so I think they did listen to feedback from their users. And they did put that where they can pause it for seven days. But after that, I don't think you can. Don't take it. No Windows bashing it. I think that's what I observed. And if I'm wrong, please let me know. I'm sure they will. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard the similar sorts of things. I don't listen to Windows Weekly anymore. I haven't for a long time, but I do listen to the Mike Tech Show podcast from Mike Smith. He's a Windows tech and a Mac tech that helps people with their hardware and software and manages servers and things like that. So I may have this not quite right because I don't use Windows on a regular basis. But my understanding is there are a few differences between the home version and the Pro version, as you just described, or the enterprise version of Windows. And I think if I've got this (5/46)
right, there may be a difference between the way it would be set up for home, which is you're not on a domain. You're not managed domain where there are multiple computers networked together. And on a domain, there may be some additional tools or some additional settings in Windows 10 itself that give you more flexibility and more control over the updates and how long you can push them off. I heard something about BitLocker being included in it. I don't know. There's certain things that Pro users have. So, you know, so Nancy, again, you were exactly right on all those points. Thank you for straighten us out because she was she was right. Yeah, and she was nice about it. So thanks. And she was nice. She didn't say I was an idiot. So that's always a good thing. She didn't say either one of us was an idiot. And that's a bonus. OK. That's a bonus. All right. So Frank provided a comment on the file manager Flummox. He said, I find myself puzzled by Larry's assertion in episode 372 regarding (6/46)
having multiple desktop environments installed in an OS, in particular, his statement that the file managers associated with the different desktop environments may conflict leaves me scratching my head. The only conflict that I can think of is related to preferred applications. For example, if you have KDE and MATE installed on a computer, as I do over there on the right, you've put Kaja, may want to open a video in VLC and Dolphin may want to open it in Dragon Player. I find this to be hardly, as we used to say on the road, a critical defect. It's at most an irritation and one easily remedied if one cares to remedy it in system settings. Perhaps my puzzle one is related to my having started my Linux experience with Slackware, which comes out of the box with two desktop environments and four window managers. I have commonly run multiple desktop environments because though I am not necessarily a fan of KDE, I usually use Fluxbox as my graphical user interface. I am a fan of KDE (7/46)
applications, which, in my humble opinion, kick GNOME applications to the curb. So I tend to install KDE on any distro I'm using. I'm curious to hear whether you can give an example or examples of critical conflicts between multiple desktop environments on a single OS. Thanks. Frank, yeah, I agree with you that these are not critical defects. I don't think I use the term critical or critical conflicts. The conflict that you mentioned about preferred applications is the one I had in mind when I was talking about conflicts between the settings for the different desktop environments. And as long as your KDE desktop and your GNOME desktop and your Matei desktop and your Cinnamon desktop all installed in the same operating system have the same settings for preferred applications, then no conflict, no problem. But there may be others. I don't have any in mind, any conflicts between multiples, but that's definitely the one that I had in mind. So you're right on point, Frank. And I think that (8/46)
your point is well taken that these are not critical things that are difficult to resolve. They could be confusing to a new user, though, who has suddenly the ability to install multiple desktop environments and doesn't know that this is coming. Right. There may be a little difference in the way they work as well. You know, there's some features in Cinnamon's desktop environment, the file manager in particular, that are not provided in some of the other desktop environments file managers. So and same with KDE, it has some things available in there that are not available to others. I'm thinking about things like the newly announced for Cinnamon, the newly announced ability to script right click context menus in Cinnamon's file manager that isn't available in many others. I mean, sure, you could make it work in others. And I seem to remember quite a few years ago having the ability in one of the file managers to actually create your own right click menus from within the file manager (9/46)
itself, which is my understanding what Cinnamon is doing. But it's been a long time, so I may be remembering that completely incorrectly. Anyway, bottom line here is, Frank, you're right. And I don't know of any critical conflicts, but there are certainly some things that you need to be aware of if you're a new user to Linux and suddenly you have the ability to use multiple desktop environments. Don't expect them to work identically to one another. That's why we have different desktop environments. Now, Frank was right. None of these are critical, Larry, but I would consider them annoyances. I'll give you an example of annoyance. So when I was running Ubuntu Mate, the file manager, it does the same thing, but I was used to the Ubuntu known version of it. So it's different, it's similar enough, but certain things didn't feel the same and I had to sit there and think about it. At one time I installed a video player to come with Ubuntu and I didn't know how to set at that time the (10/46)
preferred applications. So every time I would open it, I found I didn't like it. So I couldn't figure out for a little while why it kept opening this file manager, this video player, and I wanted the other one. So it's a simple thing, but it's not necessarily transparent if you're new. And I think that's what we were trying to get at is, you know, someone says, oh, I'd like this program. And then so when you install a KDE app, I'm almost 100% sure it has to install a bunch of the QT backend to make it work, if I'm not too badly mistaken. So what you were trying to get at is that the programs essentially do the same thing. Some of them do more than others. Some of them do it the same way and some of it does the same things, but does it a different way. So it's sometimes confusing because you might say, oh, I really want this because I like the way it looks, but it's a QT application and not a known. So not everybody's going to know that they can set the preferred applications in their (11/46)
OS. Does that make sense? Right. It does. It does. Yeah. So I think that's basic ways, but Frank's right. There's nothing that's critical. There are annoyances. But once you know how to set the preferred applications, it's usually not an issue. And the problem is when you install, like I'm running a stock Ubuntu 1904, we are kind of guilty of our own success because we give the distributions, give everything to get it to work. You've got your web browser, you've got your office suite, you've got your video players, you've got your music players. So when someone wants something else and it's different, they don't usually tell you, OK, by the way, you probably want to set this as your default application. So that's documentation because most people install it and it just works. And so, yeah, so I didn't know for a little while that I could set what I wanted to open for certain files. And once I did, it doesn't make a difference. But that whole new user thing is like sometimes they won't (12/46)
know. So Frank's right. Right. Thanks. OK, our next feedback is from Kerbuntu who asks about moving settings in Ubuntu. Dear Larry and Bill, going Linux is one of the staples of my podcast diet. So I thank you for 373 informationally nutritious digital servings. And note that at the rate you're going, the celebration of going Linux episode number 400 is only 14 months away. Given any thought as to how to celebrate that milestone? Not yet, Kerbuntu. So if you have any ideas, let us know. I wonder if you could point me to a fast way of moving settings from one Ubuntu MATE installation to another. I don't mean copying the current installation to another hard drive. Instead, I'm looking for a way to transport a block of settings like customized keyboard settings and key combinations, for example, from a computer that's being, quote, perfectly customized to a new installation. That would save a lot of tweaking time hassle on the new setup. I'm tempted to throw in a few other questions, but (13/46)
I think that's enough for this email. Thanks for your regular contributions to the community. Regards, Kerbuntu. Yeah, Kerbuntu. Yeah. So thanks. Yeah. Send all your questions. We can use it. We'll answer as many as we can and we'll deflect. Or try. Yeah, exactly. So, I have some very specific things that I have in mind here. What about you, Bill? Any suggestions? Actually, yeah. So in your home folder, if you go and look, you'll have to enable to show hidden files. So if you do that, you'll see a bunch of configuration files. I don't know, Larry, if that's what you were thinking of, but... It's exactly what I was thinking of. So you could copy those onto, I guess, like a USB drive, thumb drive, and then you could copy it to your new install. But the only thing I'm wondering is if he doesn't have the, you know, say he has like four or five different programs installed and should he install those programs before he, you know, copies those back? You know, it doesn't matter whether (14/46)
they're there before or after. What happens is if you copy them over... So these are the dot folders, right? With all the settings, they're hidden folders. And on most of the file managers, you type control H and that enables them. Otherwise, there's something in the view menu that lets you view hidden files and folders. Yeah. Yeah. So if you copy them over first, when you install the application, it begins using those configurations and everything is set the way you normally would. If you install the applications first and you run the application before you've moved over your configuration files, it will set up new configuration files. But when you copy them over, it's going to offer to overwrite them, you know, the ones that it created with the ones that you're copying over. And the ones that it created are going to have a more recent creation date. So just be careful there. And if you do overwrite them, then it's going to work just as it was before. In fact, what you and I are (15/46)
suggesting here, Bill, is exactly what I do when I get a new hard drive or when I create a new installation from scratch of Ubuntu Mate or whatever. Distribution I'm using or if I want to set up exactly the same configuration settings in a second computer or in a virtual machine or whatever, I use those configuration files and I use them selectively. So I back up everything in my home folder, which is where those configuration files typically reside. So I back everything up onto an external hard drive. And then when I do a fresh install, I copy back, you know, the desktop folder, if I have anything there, documents and downloads and the going Linux folder. Yes, I have one of those pictures and templates and videos and all the standard folders. Right. But then what I do is I ensure that I copy over the .config folder. I use Dropbox, so I copy over the .dropbox folder and I copy over any configuration folders right there in my home directory that relate to software that I'm going to (16/46)
install on the new system. So if there's something that I've stopped using or something that I'd prefer to set up with new configuration settings, I don't copy that over. That .config folder, by the way, and I think this does not matter what desktop environment you're using. I think it works in very similar way, especially if you're using a Debian derivative. If you're reusing a Red Hat derivative, it may be a little bit different to some of these locations. But in that .config folder, you'll find things like the file manager settings, preferences, things for anything that comes with your machine, like the text editor, the the doc, you know, the icon doc, LibreOffice, all those will be in there. Any base level application that comes with your system and has preference settings, typically you'll find them there. So that's a good one to start with. Make sure you copy that one. But many of the other applications themselves will have their own configuration folder right there in your in (17/46)
your own personal home folder and just copy those over. That will take care of 99 percent of the application settings that you're talking about kerbunto. So I think that's the recommendation. There may be tools for moving those over. But hey, just click and drag or Rsync or something like that. Just make sure that if you're using a command line tool that you choose the switches and options that allow you to move hidden folders and files. That's the secret. I like to drop and drag method. Exactly. Me too. I'm a graphical user interface kind of guy. Yeah. So our next email comes from Highlander who commented, isn't this odd? Not long ago, I sent an email regarding voice phone call security. Stuff like this happens. And there's four links to some news stories that we put in the show notes. And he writes, the first one is Rogers has experienced a network outage, two outage problems at mobile service providers causing voice service issues, three causing of wireless outage, unclear telus. (18/46)
Bell said it originated with other carriers. And fourth is massive Rogers wireless outage. Now isn't Rogers a Canadian carrier, Larry? Yeah, so Highlander is in Canada. Telus is a telephone company up there. Bell is a telephone company up there. And Rogers is a, they're a cable TV company. I think they offer wireless as well. So there you go. So he finishes his email by saying, I really don't know if there's any connection. Maybe, you know, maybe the hackers that caused all these outages, uh, listen to going Linux and heard your comments highlighter. And that's a direct result of, of your comments. But again, maybe I was pulling out these fuses in wireless in Canada. And I don't know if that happened. Yeah, that, yeah, nothing at all. Moving right along. Moving right along. Josh has a software recommendation. I recently checked out a new piece of software and wanted to recommend it to you and the community. It's NextCloud Pie, and he provides a link that we'll have in the show notes. (19/46)
NextCloud is a suite of client server software for creating and using file hosting services. It's functionally similar to Dropbox. Although NextCloud is free and open source, allowing anyone to install and operate it on a private server. NextCloud Pie makes setting up a server on a Raspberry Pi very attainable to novices like myself. It uses a GUI to set up all the different configurations that I need included, but not limited to cron job for IP changes, cert bot for security certificates, and even a couple free and open domain services, all for a computer that costs me less than $100, including the external hard drive. Last year, I sat up an own cloud server and it took me almost a week to figure out. Using NextCloud Pie, it took about an hour. If you haven't checked it out, it might be good use for new Raspberry Pi or for an old one, since you might have an extra one that's been replaced by a Pi 4. Thanks for excellent podcast, Josh. All right, so Bill, there you go. You're looking (20/46)
at maybe getting a Raspberry Pi. This might be just the thing for you. I don't I have enough to do with. Yeah, I don't think you do. Come on. You know, there's only so much that the Going Lays podcast Tech Lab can handle. Yeah, this is very tempting. Yeah, it is. I have a Pi 3 collecting dust right now. This might be something I would install on there. So maybe we'll have a review of this in a future episode. But in the meantime, if you're interested, we'll have the link in the show notes. Larry, you like anything that's efficient. Yes, true. Guilty. So Benjamin writes us and he has a problem booting Linux ISOs on a Windows 10 1903. Oh, didn't we just talk about 1903? OK, OK, breathe. OK, so he writes, Hi, guys, I'm having a bare of a time booting Linux ISOs from USB ISOs. I'm trying to boot a Sabian 1309 Mate. I have a i3 Dell laptop with eight gigabytes of RAM. I'm using Rufus with GPD UEFI options selected. I hit F12 immediately upon seeing the Dell logo at startup, and I see my USB (21/46)
UEFI ready to be highlighted. I thought I had a successful image, but the boot process hangs up partway through, leaving me at some sort of prompt. So I tried reburning the ISO using the same Rufus settings. Now I just boot into Dell Assist after selecting the USB. I'm on the not so greatest of Windows 10 versions, 1903. Sabian seems to support UEFI, but getting to boot has been partially hit, but mostly missed. Any suggestions? Thanks. I was having similar issues when I tried to use UEFI. I found I just go into BIOS and enable legacy. Yep. And I think that's exactly what the setting says on Dell's is enable legacy boot. And made sure secure boot was off and it worked. So I don't know if that's an option, but you could give that a try if you're willing to try that. For some reason, I have never been able to get Sabian to boot successfully on my Alienware. And Alienware is owned by Dell. So I know what he's talking about when it boots to the assist and it wants to check all the memory (22/46)
and all that stuff. And you have to hit escape. So I would suggest that everything else seems to work. Okay, if Fedora is a hit or miss, but almost all the Ubuntu's and Debian seem to work just fine. So I would say if you want one that will probably work out of the box without having to tinker too much. And if you want Amate, look at Ubuntu Amate because they both have the same desktop. And frankly, about the only thing you're really losing is that Sabian is a rolling release. So it's always getting updates and Ubuntu Amate is on the Ubuntu release cycle. But if you go with the 1904, you'll have some of the latest and greatest. Or you can go with the 1804, which is the long term support, which is still support for another two or three years. So, yeah, give that a whirl. And do you have any ideas, Larry? Yeah, a couple. Thinking about what could be the cause of this. If this is a brand new Dell, it may be that the computer has a hardware problem. I ran into that with the very first XPS (23/46)
13 that I purchased. It would continuously go into the Dell Assist and it would boot Windows fine. But if I did anything at all to go into the UEFI settings, it would always try to go back to Dell Assist. And then after a while, it wouldn't even boot into Windows. And of course, I was trying to get Ubuntu installed on there. And I was following Dell's instructions on how to do that. And it just wasn't working out. Turns out that it was, in fact, a hardware problem. I sent it back and rather than fix it, they just sent me a new computer and that worked just fine. After that, I didn't have that problem. I did have to go in and use the enable legacy boot option. I have had other Dells where I didn't have to do that. And it really depends on the model. It depends on which version of UEFI they have installed. And so there could be a number of different things going on here. But if it's still under warranty, I would have them check out the hardware, make sure that it's still OK. There could (24/46)
be a problem there. And failing that, yeah, turning on legacy boot or turning off secure boot, whichever setting is in your UEFI. That's the suggestion that I would have as the first suggestion beyond checking out the hardware. I have one more. Check to see if he has the most up-to-date BIOS release. Oh, yes. Yes, that's a good one as well. Yeah, update the BIOS. That could have an impact on it. Those UEFI settings are often updated in those BIOS updates and it could be you got a problem there. So check those things out. I think that's enough to get you started. And if you've tried all of those, write back Benjamin. And if you get it fixed, write back as well and let us know what fixed it for you. David provided a Minty update. Hi, Larry. Hi, Bill. Sorry, Bill, you only get top billing if you pay your bill. I just noticed this in the Linux Mint monthly news posted yesterday as of the day he sent the email in. Thought I'd pointed out to you in case you're interested and otherwise would (25/46)
not have seen it. We'll have a link to that news post provided by David. But just a quick summary. Talking with the media is what it's entitled. A new Slack team was started for journalists, bloggers, YouTubers and podcasters to get in touch with us directly and more easily. The idea behind this team is for the media to be able to quickly ask us questions, for us to give scoops and for this blog to not be the only source of information about Linux Mint. We also encourage authors to let us know about their videos, articles and podcasts. That allows us to talk with them privately, to react to their content, to answer questions it might raise and to explain design decisions. Sometimes the content leads to improvements with Linux Mint, and it's also nice to be able to follow up. If you're a journalist, a blogger, a YouTuber or a podcaster and you're interested in getting in touch with us, let us know by email. If your media is serious and doesn't show by us or promote controversies, we'll (26/46)
be delighted to work with you and share more information about us and the projects we work on. And David signs his email bestest and he doesn't fill out the rest that he normally fills out. I think he's given up on that. We've read it so many times, it almost comes to mind right away, memorized all that. So David in Israel, thank you very much. Yeah, thanks, David. And that's that's a nice feature that should help get more news about that will help. Yeah, and less fake news. Yeah, that's fake news. You had to use that fake news, didn't you? Just once. OK, Jim has answers for the grub question in episode 371, Dear Larry and Bill. Regarding episode 371, Ubuntu LTS long term support releases are supported for five years, I think. Don't hold me to that, but I know that 1604 is supported until April 2021 or five years. Why won't she boot? Ro, sorry about the spelling, because he spelled it R-O-E, asked why she won't boot. I'm not certain, but this might help. He is trying to boot from a USB (27/46)
drive. In my experience, you need to install Linux to a USB drive and not other hard drives connected. During installation, Grub configures itself to boot from the USB, but also adds the other hard drives in its configuration. I found this out when trying to make a USB bootable thumb drive to boot any computer for diagnostics. After installing Linux, Ubuntu MATE to the USB when plugged into computer one and later trying to run MATE from the USB plugged into computer two, I found errors as it was trying to find the missing drives. The missing drives were, of course, in the original computer one and not accessible to the USB drive system plugged into computer two. So my solution was to internally unplug all hard drives from the computer when I was installing MATE on the USB drive. Then Grub did not try to find any hard drives and just boot whatever the USB drive was plugged into. Of course, I had to open the computer cases, which Ro might not be able to do with a laptop. He might be able (28/46)
to use a desktop that he hopefully has access to. Another option is to configure Grub so it does not search for other drives. I am sure there is an instruction on the internet on how to do that, but I have never tried. I just yanked the SATA cables on a test computer and be done with it. However, my advice to Ro is to use dual boot and forget the USB boot stuff. You can tweak Grub to make a delay in booting as fast as you want. That may even be a way to hold some key down during boot to display the dual boot menu, but have it default with no delay in the default system. This way there is no external drive either, making the laptop more portable. I am not certain about all this as I am certainly not a Grub expert, but maybe this will point Ro to some help. Sub minion Jim, we have sub minions now? Apparently, yes, of course. Okay, so Jim, thanks for all that advice. Yeah, the Grub is a blessing and a curse. It is a wonderful way to control the booting of your computer to multiple hard (29/46)
drives and or multiple operating systems. And it is well documented how to do the kinds of things that you're suggesting here. But quite frankly, I do the same thing if I want a computer to boot to a specific hard drive, I will ensure that that's the only hard drive that is installed in the computer when I when I install the original operating system, and then there's no confusion if I'm booting to that drive. It is going to boot to the operating system on that drive and not look elsewhere for other things. So yeah, another thing that I've done in the past is where there have been multiple hard drives on a computer and there's an operating system on one let's call it bazindos and somebody wants to install dual boot and they want another hard drive with Linux, but I don't have permission to open the computer to remove the original hard drive. I will install the operating system with the hard drive installed in a computer that I do have control of, install the operating system, then move (30/46)
it over to the computer that's owned by somebody else, and you know, typically it's a USB drive or something like that, and then plug it in there and it will boot up. It will adjust its settings and its drivers on boot to whatever that user has or that person has and away you go. Yeah, it just works. John helps out my memory. He says I believe it was episode 370. The question came up regarding what the initials slash acronym KVM stood for. They stand for keyboard video mouse and was originally a hardware device that you would connect to multiple computers to share one keyboard video monitor and mouse. Fraternally, John. Yeah, thanks, John. I remembered it after we stopped recording, of course, and I couldn't in the moment remember what the V stood for, so thanks. Yeah, I cannot believe we could not think of keyboard video and mouse. Yeah, I know. Oh, thanks, John. Now I really feel stupid. Okay, I should have figured that one out. Anyway, I'm glad we have John to remind us. So our next (31/46)
email comes from Mike who says that Google Anything cannot be trusted. I have experienced this personally including on YouTube, Chrome, Google Voice accounts. They are entrapping people with different flavors of Google complete with cops impersonating others. I am not kidding. This is 60 minutes or project versus material. I had two computers with Google Chrome browsers taking over one XP and one on Windows 10. Luckily, I had a background in Linux and live distros to the rescue. Okay. Mike, don't run Windows XP. Okay. Yeah, it's seriously, it's no longer being supported. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Any thoughts on that? It's up to you. If you trust Google, fine. If you don't, it's up to you. If you want to use something else, if you don't want to use the Chrome browser, use Firefox or something else, anything else. There are plenty of them out there. And Google certainly owns a lot of the stuff that's on the internet, like you said, YouTube and various other things too. So whether it's Google or (32/46)
Facebook or Amazon, you can't go very far on the web without running across something owned by one of those three or other proprietary companies. You kind of have to look at how much you're willing to tolerate as far as because, you know, Google makes a bulk of their money through advertisements. We know Facebook the same way. What was the other one? Apple? Amazon. Oh, Amazon. Yeah, Amazon. So you kind of have to look at, read their terms of service and see what you're comfortable with. Larry made a great point. If you don't like Chrome, Firefox right now seem to be in the lead of charging for different anti-tracking features and privacy. So you might want to give them a look. Yep. Okay. I am not going to provide this link. It's a Feedspot blog that Anuj sent us a link to, and he said he founded the blog or he's the founder of Feedspot. Anyway, apparently they voted us number three of their top 15 Linux podcasts on the web. We appreciate that. But when I go to your blog, some of the (33/46)
links aren't working. So I don't know whether this is a spam post to try to get people to click through. Either way, I'm not going to provide the link because some of your links don't work. If you get that fixed and you are a legitimate site, again, we appreciate the rating, but otherwise, until that's all fixed, especially if you're the founder of Feedspot, I would expect that you're going to take some action on this and improve things. If I never hear from you again, then a caution is probably well placed. Anyways. Okay. Our next email comes from Paul. Anyways, on Discord, he's having video freezes. He says, hi Larry and Bill. I hope all is well with you. I always appreciate the work you do in the Linux community. I'm running the latest version of Discord in Linux Mint 18.3 and 19.2 on different machines. After about 30 seconds of connection in a video call, both the received and monitored video freezes. Switching servers relieves the problem and the video restarts, but lasts only a (34/46)
few seconds, then it freezes again. Switching servers again yields the same results. I use Discord to keep up with family and this has happened the last two weeks and seems to be a known problem, but I didn't find much discussion on Discord support. Chat beyond the link below, which is provided in the show notes. Are you both having the same issue? Thanks, Paul. I don't use the Discord video very often, but I used it the other day and I didn't have an issue. You Larry? I don't use the video on Discord at all, so I can't really comment on it. If there doesn't appear to be any support in the support for Discord, I just keep monitoring that and see if a solution comes up, but I don't know what else to offer. It's not something that I'm using at all. Since he said he's using Linux Mint, I know I'm almost certain it's nothing they've done. No, I don't think so. I would just shoot him a bug report saying, hey, I've noticed this happened in 1903, 1902, just want to let you know about it and (35/46)
give us much information about what version of Discord. Also, look to make sure that some configuration has not changed in the settings of Discord. That's about all I can suggest, but yeah, definitely let the guys know at Linux Mint that you're having this issue, maybe someone else is, or maybe they know about it and they can kind of steer you to how to fix it. Yep, and in my experience, video freezes are most often caused by congestion on your internet bandwidth provided by your internet service provider. Maybe they're throttling your video call, as does the internet service provider that I use. So yeah, it's usually either a bad connection and oftentimes you can fix the issue by hanging up and reconnecting to your video call. But more often than not, I find since I'm using video calls for business and using proprietary services to do that, any freezing is usually due to just throttled bandwidth or low bandwidth or lack of availability of bandwidth if you're on a cable connection, (36/46)
things like that. Okay, our last email is from, I don't know whether this is Marian or Marianne, but let's just go with Marian. He or she provides an Ubuntu LTS correction. Hello, Bill and Larry. Although I am not new to Linux, I still like listening to your podcast and learn something new from time to time. I appreciate your work in this area and you are a great source of information for new users. However, for that very reason, you should be extra careful to provide correct information. I understand you cannot know everything, but in an episode I just listened to from June, listener feedback, you recommended a listener not use Ubuntu 16.04 because of its end of life and go to 18.04 and that there is basically no difference. There are two issues. As you correctly pointed out, 16.04 is long-term support, but then you said it is end of life. LTS is supported for five years. 16.04 support will end in April of 2021. Second thing, very important, 16.04 is the latest LTS using Unity (37/46)
desktop. 18.04 is using Gnome. Probably not a difference for a very new user, but definitely a big difference. There are both Unity and Gnome lovers and haters. Again, I hope you take this the right way as constructive feedback, not as criticism. Best regards from Slovakia. Well, thanks Marianne. We do take it as constructive feedback and I definitely appreciate it. If we said that it was end of life, that's definitely a mistake on our part. I don't remember that. It's very possible that I said that. And yes, long-term supports are five-year support. I think our comment on not noticing much difference between 16.04 and 18.04, yes, Unity and Gnome are definitely very different in the way they operate, in the underpinnings. I think my point was more that for somebody new to Ubuntu, the way that it appears is probably not going to look all that much different because the Ubuntu folks, Canonical, have modified Gnome to work as closely to the way Unity works as possible. So they've done a (38/46)
good deal of work to try to make it so that they look the same, behave the same, that sort of thing. So to the casual observer, you might not notice much of a difference, but you're absolutely right. There is a difference. They do work differently. The settings are different. The underpinnings are different. So beyond just a surface look, it's definitely different. So we stand corrected on that one. And hopefully the person we were addressing it to is continuing to listen at this point and didn't get bit in the butt. Okay. I think that was our last one, Bill. Yeah. Okay. I was looking, I didn't see any more. Okay. So that's the last one. Okay. There you go. So Larry, do you have an application pick? I do. And this comes out of the fact that yesterday our television provider that we use here in the going Linux studio home television is DirecTV, recently, or not so recently, purchased by AT&T. So now AT&T's DirecTV. CBS and DirecTV have gotten into this little dispute. The way that (39/46)
DirecTV puts it, CBS has pulled their programming from DirecTV. The way CBS has put it, DirecTV is charging outlandishly high fees for them to be able to offer their programming. So regardless of which side of the argument you stand on, unlike last year at this time, when the same thing was threatened and CBS ended up continuing to be offered as a local channel on DirecTV, it is this year been pulled. It has been pulled by CBS. So since CBS local programming is not offered on DirecTV, as of right now, until they resolve this dispute, what DirecTV is doing is they're saying, oh, there is this open source application that you can subscribe to called Locast, L-O-C-A-S-T, that provides free access to your local channels in certain markets where they have things set up. And if you're in one of those market areas, and the Los Angeles area here is one of those, you can go over to Locast. And oh, by the way, we've added to the DirecTV apps. And so now all you have to do is click, click, do a (40/46)
little validation setup, and you can now access CBS local stations, weather news, everything else you normally get from them, TV shows, using Locast. What they don't tell you is there are, at least in the Los Angeles area, there are 40 some local channels that are available on Locast and the DirecTV app that gives you access to CBS, gives you access to some of the other local channels as well, but certainly not all 42 or whatever the actual number is, it's somewhere around 42. So it's a limited version of Locast. You can go on the internet and look up locast.org and we'll have a link in the show notes, of course, but they offer, let's see, they offer service in Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Sioux Falls, Denver, Rapid City, and San Francisco market areas. So you don't have to be in those cities, you just have to be in a geographic area serviced by those. You have to enable location settings in your browser to be able (41/46)
to sign up. But I have signed up. I actually signed up before this issue with CBS and have continued watching my local news and weather, which is one of the reasons why I'm looking for the local station. There are other ways to get that, but Locast seems to work just fine and I wanted to kind of bring that to the attention of the going Linux cable cord cutter audience out there. So give it a try locast.org and see what, 46, 46 local stations in the Los Angeles area. It just seems kind to me that's not the smartest move on DirecTV. By the way, you can use this other service to get a service that we no longer carry. So I would be like, why do I need you then? Well, it's just local stations. So if you want things like Animal Planet or Fox News or any of the other cable stations, you're not going to get them through. But these online streaming services are getting better and better. So you know, oh, they are. And you know, this is a way of getting your local stations over the Internet as (42/46)
opposed to setting up a separate antenna for just for local stations. And you know, if you've got mountains between you and the broadcast tower, that's not going to work too well, like I do here. And so this is really a great solution to cord cutters who still want their local channels and don't want to worry about the disputes between the cable providers and local television broadcasters. One thing I did notice, though, is that DirecTV's subset of what Locast offers would not connect very well. I think they probably had a lot of demand for it, given that it was just last night that, you know, all of the CBS stations just dropped. And so maybe it was just a little bit of an overload. But when I went to the Locast site directly, it worked just fine. So I think it's DirecTV's underestimation of the capacity they needed to handle this. So and for our international listeners who don't care about U.S. television cable providers or Internet television issues here in the United States, we (43/46)
apologize for our focus. It has nothing to do with you. And it is of interest to our U.S. audience, I'm sure, though. Bill, do you have an application pick? I do. And the reason that I picked this is after we had a quick discussion, last night, about an issue. And come to find out that Shotwell has come a long way. So you said how fast did you import your pictures, Larry? I'm not sure how long we were on that audio chat on Discord last night, but it was probably what, about 15 minutes, 20 minutes? Yeah, 15, something like that. And it imported 4000 pictures in some subset of that time because I started it after we started talking and it wrapped up about midway. So I'm thinking 4000 in maybe 10 minutes. That's an estimate. It's a guess. And then we organized them and then organized them by date. And yeah, it was it's good. I like it. So if you're looking for a good photo import and touch up and all that other stuff, give Shotwell a go. Yeah, absolutely. And somebody is going to say, (44/46)
hey, Larry, only 4000 pictures. You're a bit of a lightweight, you know. Hey. Yeah, those are 4000 that I have on this computer's hard drive. All the archived ones are elsewhere. So anyway, yeah, it's it's pretty impressive application. It is really good for organizing your photos. If you double click on any one of those photos, it gives you the option to color correct and remove red eye automatically and all the other things you would expect a photo manager to do. And you don't really have to go out and get a proprietary freedom hating application from Adobe or anyone else to manage your photos. You can do it with Shotwell on Linux. Well, they've also made a cleaned up interface. It looks nice. Oh, yeah, it's very, very nice. Yeah. All right. Our next episode. Bill, are we still planning an overview of Snaps, Flatpacks and app images? We are. All right. So maybe that'll be our next episode. Let's say it is. That's that'll be our next. What do you mean maybe? No pressure. No pressure. (45/46)
Okay. Until then, you can go to our website at going links that 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 community.goinglinks.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (46/46)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #379 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 379, 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 goinglinx at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Well, we got farther than we did last time, Bill. Man, don't remind me not to talk about the power company. Geez. Yeah. It's like the gods are working against us today. I think so. Between audio issues, with new versions of software, and power issues. I'm the one in California. I expected my power to go out, not yours. But hey, okay. I think (1/48)
we're on a roll here. We're going. We're not going to talk about the weather. We've already talked about the power company. Let's talk about Apple. Okay. This is a Linux podcast. Your favorite thing to talk about. Yes. Oh my goodness. So last week I had a few emails from some listeners saying that we couldn't be found in Apple's iTunes, or what they're calling it now, their podcast app, that we had become delisted. Of course, if you were subscribed, you were still getting the episodes, I think. At least it was in my iTunes test on my phone. And it didn't have an impact. I didn't see any impact on other podcast receiving software. But forever we have never had an SSL certificate for our website. And that's an encryption certificate that allows you to use HTTPS in front of your website address rather than HTTP. And of course, our podcast feed uses that as well. And some time ago, Apple had said that they're going to stop listing podcasts that don't have the SSL certificate. And I applaud (2/48)
them in trying to make sure that things are as secure as they can make them. But they said that sometime before the end of this year that they were going to start dropping podcasts that didn't have these certificates. Well, you can get free SSL certificates from Let's Encrypt. But my web hosting company in a... I'm not going to say money grab, but it's a money grab. They have said we don't accept the free certificates. You have to buy one from us. And they were charging hundreds of dollars earlier this year and prior to that in order to get that per year. And so when Apple dropped us I thought, well, it looks like I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go pay for this. When I went to pay for it, I noticed that the price had dropped $40 a year. Amazing how competition drops the price. They're still charging for it. They don't offer it for free. But at least $40 in a year is much more reasonable and it hasn't increased our podcasting costs significantly. But it's just the principle of (3/48)
the thing. Anyway, I've relented, I've got our SSL certificates I resubmitted the podcast to Apple. They have relisted us. You should be able to find it there. I had to go into places like Stitcher and TuneIn and places like that and make sure that they had the new links to the website with the HTTPS in front of it and the links to the feeds in front of it. And if your podcasting software is having a problem with our feed now, you might have to resubscribe. And listener Greg said in our MiRi group, ah, that's why Bash Potter has just automatically downloaded all the episodes from 250 through 378 again. I figured something's changed. I just didn't know what. So that may happen to you as well. But suffice it to say we're still podcasting. We're still available in Apple podcasts and everywhere else. And hopefully it's just happening transparently to you. That's kind of, yeah that's kind of crappy. Just delisting you. Okay, thanks. Well, to be fair to them, they did give lots of warning. (4/48)
And I held out to the last minute in hopes that my web hosting company would relent and offer the SSL certificates for free. It paid off because if I had subscribed to their service to provide the SSL certificate and press the button that says install for me, then which is I'm sure all they had to do is just press the software button. Press this, there's no button. So it did pay off. They relented and reduced the price at least. Not free but affordable. So I see that you geeked out a little bit on me and you were testing out the Zorin Ultimate and the Core and so you actually sent me this and I was kind of chuckled because this is a Larry Bushy thing completely. It says Zorin Ultimate has a total of 753 packages in libraries that are in addition to the core version. All but six can be installed from within Zorin Core. The six packages that can't be installed are contained in Zorin's proprietary premium PPA. They include the Zorin Appearance, Layout Shells Premium, Zorin OS Ultimate (5/48)
Business Apps, Zorin OS Ultimate Games, Zorin OS Ultimate Media Apps, and Zorin OS Ultimate Zorin Apps. So I'm like Larry was bored. He actually counted the packages. But when I saw that I went and looked to see what because I had recommended Zorin highly I'm looking and I'm like what is different in the business apps? So I went and I'm looking and I'm still trying to figure out because I see I don't really see anything because I'm just actually looking at it right now. There's a few things but there's nothing that I would say that aren't open source. Maybe they just put some open source into the proprietary or cleaned it up. I know they have a Zorin Connect which is allows your cell phone and your computer to talk. But that's like the KDE Connect. So and then the media apps I'm looking and I just don't see anything and I'm just wondering. I'm going to have to do a little more digging and see which apps they put into these categories because I'm sitting there going why? So anyway. Once (6/48)
I figure that out we'll talk more about it. I can understand the premium appearance layouts but I don't see what the ultimate business apps or the ultimate games are. All the games are open source. There's some of the better ones. There's like Neverput and maybe they're talking maybe it's that Bejeweled clone game that I have not spent two hours playing at times. Well I'm thinking it's probably that these packages that they hide behind their premium PPA are simply packages of pre-bundled open source applications that they install for us as part of these packages and not that the applications are proprietary but certainly the premium PPA is behind their firewall so you can't get into it unless you pay them the money which is fine. And maybe there are some specific utilities they've built to make Zorin a little more efficient and effective at running itself but you know when you get Ubuntu or Ubuntu Mate or any of the Buntus and many of the other distributions out there those tweaks they (7/48)
provide them at no charge with the distribution and often times they will offer them upstream and maybe Debian or someone else adopts them and then they get pushed out to all of the distributions but that's kind of the open source model is to provide your improvements back and even with that with the open source model Zorin has the right to take what they've done in the way of packaging things together and improvements and so on and not offering them upstream but there you go. Yeah, I don't have a problem with them doing that. You know, I've been running Zorin pretty much non-stop and since I think it's gone on about two, two and a half months something like that and it's been pretty rock solid but there's a few things that I wanted to bring up to you that I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying hmm, you know, it's just one of those thought. Just makes you go hmm. Yeah, hmm. Okay so this is my feelings on Zorin. Is Zorin still a good first time Linux? I would say yes, but I would not (8/48)
say that it's any better than, we'll just use Ubuntu Mate. The few things that I've noticed is if you want a system that works that's great but they're building on the backs of giants which there's nothing wrong with that. They're building on Ubuntu 18.4 LTS so you know, what actually makes it so good is all the work that Ubuntu does. The one thing that always concerns me is you know, you have the PPAs and you know, I know PPAs, you know, your personal package or archive or whatever the acronym stands for will basically let you add to the Ubuntu system but we both, I don't know, maybe you haven't but I've had issues, not with Zorin, but I've had issues with the PPAs no longer supported or you know, there's things break or especially during upgrades. So I went and I was looking I went and looked at Ubuntu Mate and said okay, let me see and I opened up and wanted to look to see what PPAs, I didn't see any but when I opened up Zorin, it had like five or six different PPAs and it's just a (9/48)
level of an additional layer of compatibility so you know, what happens if something, if the project does go away or they decide or something happens to one of the PPAs then you know, during an upgrade it could cause problems. So PPAs are a good way to customize but I don't know if they're the greatest way to do it. So you can kind of see the differences in the two projects as far as you know, one like Ubuntu Mate that you know, has actually been worked on and doesn't rely on PPAs and one that's taken a base and added their stuff to the top of it. Is there anything wrong with that? No. I just when I look at the differences between the two, you know Zorin's done a lot of cool stuff but I don't like keeping adding layers the more layers you add on top of something, something's bound to break. But other than that, you know, Zorin's been really solid, I've enjoyed my time with Zorin but Zorin is getting ready to be moved to the test machine because I've got some new things to play with and (10/48)
so I've made a clone and I'm going to put the Zorin on. My test machine is going to live there happily and won't get used as much but it's still around. Yeah, and I've got the evaluation version of Zorin Ultimate in a virtual machine and I've got Zorin Core in a virtual machine and I've got another virtual machine with an installation of Zorin Core and then on top of that I've installed the what did I say 700 and something? 753 packages all but six of them that I couldn't install so I installed that on top and I'm actually using that as kind of my Zorin test because it's got almost everything that either Zorin Ultimate has or that you can install in Zorin Core and everything seems to function just fine and the way I went about just if anybody's interested the way I went about determining how different Zorin Ultimate is than Zorin Core is I took the two installations, Zorin Core and Zorin Ultimate and ran DPKG with the appropriate switches to get the list of applications installed and (11/48)
then I used the diff command in the terminal to find out where the differences were and that's where I determined that there were 753 differences including libraries and so I just then made a script that installs them all now that I had a list of what those applications were using apt install pseudo apt install and then list every package and it installed flawlessly except for those six apps and that's because you didn't have the premium PPA and you couldn't subscribe to it without paying the license fee so I just installed them all and everything seems to work just fine so it truly is what we suspected which is you can install everything on Zorin Core that you get in Zorin Ultimate except for the stuff that they have in those six packages that they have hidden behind the PPAs and apparently you don't need those to get your work done so I think we're in good shape I think Zorin is certainly something that we can continue to recommend it's got its own way of displaying things on the (12/48)
screen their own desktop environment if you want and it's interesting it's not for me it's probably for someone I'm thinking someone who likes the Chrome interface on a Chromebook with like Zorin immediately yeah it's very simple and clean that way it still has the power of Linux behind it unlike Chrome where they've kind of locked you out of anything that's it gives you any power but with Zorin you have everything that you have in Ubuntu it's just behind this veneer of glitziness and a lot of people like that glitziness well like I said I've been running I'm getting ready to I've got some projects that we've talked about so like I said I'm probably going to move that over to my test machine because one of the things that I have been running deep and basically just sitting over here because I use it to download stuff when I'm not on my main machine you know I want to make a I have like an archive or whatever of stuff so I can quickly grab it and my deep end system reason is getting I (13/48)
have is having issues and it's weird issues it's got graphical glitches you know I don't know nothing's really changed so yeah I think it's it's time to move it to something a little closer to the Ubuntu base now you sent me an email about a user who recommended to check out Feren OS and I did throw that on my hardware as I was tinkering and okay it's it's just like a customized version of Mint I kind of read through their site and I'm not quite sure what they're trying to do because they're talking about another going using a KDE interface and stuff so I checked it out it seemed okay not for me I can't really it just seemed a little clunky but that could be that's why they're going to KDE or whatever so you know I'll keep an eye on it so I have some people that asked me to check out the new Pop OS 1910 I'm not a real big fan of the Pop system and it's the interface it's because you know it's Ubuntu but they do a lot of good work so I'll probably throw that in a virtual machine but I'm (14/48)
kind of and this will shock you I'm kind of thinking of using like a Ubuntu on my machine because of the kind of the I would say Spartan you can make it look nice but kind of the Spartan no glitz desktop lighter resources and stuff so I'll let you know how that goes but probably the coolest thing I tested and you knew I was going to do it was the experimental ZFS support in Ubuntu 1910 it worked really well it gave me a reason to throw something on my machine I'm going to but I've been wanting to play with ZFS for a while and it it did have some caveats it's experimental I listened to the Ubuntu podcast and you kind of said hey if you see this it's okay that's what it's supposed to do you know it's still in the rough edges but you know me being me I had to see if it would really work on the root system and it did but the thing I noticed and it could just be I don't know enough about ZFS I'm going to have to do a deep dive into it but a stock Ubuntu 1910 with the ext4 or the XFS file (15/48)
system it sits about 1.1 1.6 just kind of idle and with the ZFS it was using almost 4 gigs of memory at idle now yeah that's a difference now I don't know if that's true and I don't know if that's just part of the ZFS file system or you know or it uses more ram but yeah I have to keep an eye on that maybe someone that knows more about ZFS can say hey yeah it does use more memory or maybe it was just because it was new and it's building something I don't know I left it sitting there overnight and it was still at you know it was like 3.6 with nothing open and I'm like that's that seems to me like that's a lot of ram so when it comes out maybe they haven't optimized the memory usage on it or whatever I'm not I'm not harsh on them just saying that's what I saw when I was playing with it and not being a ZFS knowledgeable enough to really make a qualified statement did you happen to play with any of the ZFS Larry? No not at all and I'm trying to remember back to the days when I was using (16/48)
OpenSUSE because it was using a journaling file system like ZFS is at the time it was using a riser and I remember something about it indexing at the very beginning so maybe it was just building that index for you and it had settled out later I don't remember it's very very plug in it was quite a long time ago ext4 we you know I like to use ext4 or XFS but I would say that when they get the ZFS nailed and get it out of experimental and get it where it's supported just as a type of file system like you pick what you want type of deal ZFS I was listening to Alan Jude and he dives real deep into it so I started listening and some of the things that you know how they're explaining how it works and stuff it's fascinating so I really think ZFS might be the future as far as like the preferred file system in Linux once they or at least in Ubuntu once they get nailed because it's got some cool features, snapshots, rollbacks you know so built into the system plus the way it does its writing and (17/48)
stuff you know it's all the different zpools so yeah it's gonna be kind of interesting to see how that develops and if it makes it into do you think it's gonna make it into the 2004 of Ubuntu? Yeah the long term support I think that's what they're shooting for and if they can get all these little niggly bugs worked out it'll be in there for sure I think that's the goal and hopefully they're able to actually accomplish that. Okay enough of us talking about ZFS, Zoran Farrin Pop!OS and Zumbunto and Amate so what do you say we read some of the emails that we're supposed to Yeah it's been a while since we've recorded so we've got quite a few let's get started yeah alright our first email is from David who emailed us to ask us to try Makulu Linux. He says I recently retired and have become somewhat of a Linux fanatic according to my son I enjoy your podcast and find it informative and enjoyable I came across a Debian based distro called Makulu and he's spelling that m-a-k-u-l-u for those of (18/48)
you who want to check this out. I've only been using it for two days running as a virtual machine but searching your episode archives I saw no mention of it. It appears to be a rather new member of the distro collection so I thought I'd mention it to you for possible evaluation and maybe hear your comments on an episode at some point. Also though Linux has a good reputation as it relates to virus and malware vulnerabilities it is not invulnerable. I have been exploring ClamAV and ClamTK. Your archives indicate that you had an episode on Clam several years ago. Might be good to mention again your call. What I am finding in casual conversation with some people is that Linux cannot be a victim of such things and I think I'd be correct to remark that Linux is much less vulnerable but is not completely immune. I see this as possibly setting Linux up for a black eye if at some later point someone does create something bad. Basic safe computing practices still need to be practiced. Much (19/48)
easier to do with Linux but still prudent. Thanks for your time. Keep up the nice work on a podcast David B. Yeah, your points are all very valid Linux is not immune to malware and intrusions and all those kinds of things. It's just repaired and fixed the vulnerabilities are addressed much more quickly in Linux than they are in any other operating system and often times they are fixed before they appear in the wild so you never see them. Not invulnerable. Linux can be attacked and is in fact attacked by malware constantly same as any other operating system but yeah it's definitely something that as I've said often insulates you from viruses and spyware. I'm not going to say it's virus proof or spyware proof or malware proof it's providing you with a level of security that rivals the other operating systems out there or most of them anyway. Yeah and it's not controlled by one person or a corporation so that's probably one of the biggest reasons people run Linux is they can actually (20/48)
alter the code if they know how to do that. They are able to say I know this one person who is not holding all the keys Windows 10 or even Mac OS you can't audit the code so sometimes it's hard to see what's going on or even to fix something so yeah that's probably the reason I like it is you're able to actually there's a lot more eyeballs and if you're having a problem someone else has had that problem is they either offer to fix or someone else knows how to work around it. So it looks like I might have to try new Linux to show Larry. I have not heard of Makulu Linux before this and I certainly haven't tried it so I knew you'd be up for a challenge. Yeah my poor machine gets reinstalled and blasted back so many times I'm surprised I haven't wore the SSD out yet. So the next email comes from John and he has a no internet problem. He writes hi Larry and Bill with two question marks and he says I haven't had to ask for help in some time but this problem has me stumped with exclamation (21/48)
points and question marks. He says n Ubuntu 18.1 will not allow Firefox or Chromium internet connectivity though I can do updates but nothing else and he wants to know why. Another thing in searching the web I can't copy and paste from mate which works ok in VirtualBox but control paste won't work or control shit won't either. I sure can't write all those sudo commands and try them. Copy paste is so useful why won't it work? All my distros are running in VirtualBox as always mate works fine no connectivity issues at all just Ubuntu 18 won't allow the internet but it must be working or I couldn't do updates right? And he says thanks for help or suggestions John and Dallas. Yeah something funky going on there. I'm not sure that it's a no internet problem. If you are getting the updates you have the internet and this copy paste thing I'd be looking at VirtualBox and see if there's an issue there. You might want to try the virt manager which comes in Ubuntu in the repositories it's not by (22/48)
default it's I think it's v-i-r-t dash manager. That's what I use for virtual machines and it doesn't have some of the issues that I've noticed with VirtualBox and I try to avoid any software that's created by Oracle anyway so anyway that's neither here nor there but virt manager seems to work for me and I'd be just double checking that there isn't a problem with VirtualBox yeah and when I was reading your email you said 18.1 are you running like 18.0 .1 or are you running like 18.10 I'm kind of stumped about which one he's running so yeah it sounds like it might be a VirtualBox problem yeah I think so but something may have changed in VirtualBox or if it's working with other distributions in the same VirtualBox environment maybe it's something on the installation that's a problem and I'd be tempted to kind of blow it away and start over again or at least create a new VirtualBox session and see if installing it from scratch will work. I have a quick suggestion for him download (23/48)
GnomeBoxes which is a really super simple almost click-in-forget-it VirtualBox manager and see if that works in that because it's really really quick you can test things I don't know if you've used GnomeBoxes but it's a very bare-bones stripped down way to get something up and running really quick in a virtual machine so maybe try that I think I may have tried it once when I was looking for an alternative to VirtualBox and settled on VertManager but I don't think I did anything with it that would justify saying that I know anything about it so anyhow yeah John so give those suggestions a try and let us know what comes of it okay our next email is from Michael who has a problem with Bluetooth hi Larry and Bill I managed to connect a Bluetooth headset or earbuds to my HP laptop but I'm having problems when trying to reconnect after the first time I have paired and connected them the error message I get is as follows connection failed blue man dot blues dot errors dot t-bus failure I am (24/48)
using the latest version of Ubuntu Mate and think I have to use a Bluetooth dongle in one of my USB ports to be able to use Bluetooth devices it is the same HP Presario I have had since my last emails to you well Michael part of the reason for some of the failures this morning for us to start on time was the fact that my Bluetooth connection to my headset wasn't working works fine with the mouse but it has audio connection issues and I know that on 18.04 the long-term support release version of Ubuntu and Ubuntu Mate it worked just fine but in the interim releases there have been some issues I've noticed and I'm on 18.10 at this point and I think excuse me 19.10 at this point and I think that that's one of the things that they really need to focus in on fixing before we go to the next long-term support release is these failures of Bluetooth I noticed that the error reporting software the automatic reporting of errors is much better in the later releases and so I know that my machine (25/48)
has provided multiple errors as I've had multiple crashes and so they're getting a lot of feedback as to what was going on at the time of the crash and hopefully they'll be able to fix it once and for all before the next LTS I have about six different ways to connect my audio and I have a couple of different ways to connect my audio and only six the two Bluetooth ways all failed me this morning and so I have a like an animal a cable running from my headset over to my docking station plugged into an audio jack port I mean what's that? That's like barbaric Larry I was going to make fun of you about running an inner release on your production machine but I figured that would be like me throwing rocks at a glass house because I've been known to do much more extreme things so yes well in fact I was actually running the beta on my production machine for a while so hey I can't complain so I understand I know the reason behind why you're doing it but don't you enjoy living on the edge? Oh yeah (26/48)
yeah it's always exciting Michael then followed up he said hi again I restarted my laptop with my Bluetooth dongle in the laptop and went into Bluetooth manager under the control panel and found my headset and went into menu I chose the headphones or headset and it connected this time it is like it is inconsistent when a headset is connected sometimes it connects sometimes it doesn't I have even chosen trust in the Bluetooth menu all the best with going Linux so I think you're right Larry they probably need to do some work on the Bluetooth stack and the way he describes it that's exactly the way I see it as well inconsistency not a good thing in software but you're having to do it the animal way today yes all right George provides us a report from the field about SoftMaker FreeOffice I long ago bought the Android version of this company's office suite was well satisfied with it installed it via the Android apps on a Chromebook worked well there too after the dust up when Manjaro was (27/48)
going to provide it in their distribution instead of LibreOffice and there was a broad number of Linux blogs and podcasts commenting it was more compatible with Microsoft than Libre I decided to give it a spin installed the 64 bit deb version with no issues in Linux Mint Cinnamon 19.2 the separate modules for text, spreadsheet and presentation appeared on my Cinnamon menu opened a lone amortization template we keep in XLS format for compatibility as we have to share it when completed with prospective borrowers borked perhaps not irretrievably but was going to have to diagnose and verify where and why it went wrong opened a second much simpler spreadsheet in ODF from LibreOffice opened fine managed to line up text that had imported from source in all three possible alignments converted numeric columns correctly to the numeric format I was using then I went looking for a way to adjust the column widths without clicking and dragging the column and the entire program locked up tight xkill (28/48)
purge your mileage may vary have pity on poor Mike Tech Show episode 701 so by way of explanation we have mentioned or I have mentioned Mike Tech Show on this podcast and this is a comment on Mike's podcast okay hack some years ago he moved a client's offsite Windows email service from one company to another had troubles with authentication so he set up 10 users with weak passwords intending later to set up stronger ones forgot the 10 users accounts were hacked and somehow the hacker also set a server rule which had to be found and deleted to regain control house flood Mike apparently didn't know the drain pan of his air conditioner unit could fill and dump nasty water into his ceiling insulation sheetrock mattress disaster then moving truck cuts internet to clear space for repairs furniture had to be put in storage moving truck cut the Fios cable bringing internet to his home he said it happens once a year when a truck of some kind that's too tall enters his driveway the first time it (29/48)
happened at my house I'd have attached a pole of some kind to the house to elevate the incoming wire that's per Mike too low then hard disk drive failure in spite of system warnings he just kept using a 3 terabyte drive that was going bad dot dot dot and then Windows 10 update issues guess you could say he's a fellow traveler with Satya Nadella making a living off the dysfunction of Windows then ticket management he says he knows he needs to automate which is what triggered me to mention invoice ninja to you in an earlier email but really okay so I guess George you are an avid listener of Mike's ever never-ending adventures of trying to help people with their Windows machines as a Windows technician and yeah he's he's got his his challenges some of them self-inflicted and you've you know you've you've listed a few that I've listened to recently and it's never it's a never it seems to be a never-ending source of amusement for me to listen to poor Mike as you have observed so yeah we'll (30/48)
all have pity on Mike yeah I don't know wow I think I would be just curled up in a corner if I had all those all the time wow yeah so our next email comes from if I murdered your name I apologize in advance Tyler and Tyler reports skidmap Linux malware uses root capabilities to hide cryptocurrency mining payload vinify comments hi Larry and Bill trademark grow researchers have found a new form of malware called skidmap that affects Linux machines it works by adding an unauthorized public key to the infected machines authorized key file allowing attackers to log in as any other user to the system any of these uh there's a link in the show notes to the article and then Kevin Bocek vice president of security strategy and threat intelligence and machine identity protection provider vinify provide the following comments attackers are ramping up their crypto mining attacks taking advantage of a scary secret there is no control of the SSH machine identity identities that control access to (31/48)
Linux's most mission critical decision making systems skidmap is a case in point cyber attackers can create a vector that lives on for years and even decades by inserting their own SSH key making it trustworthy we see these taxes you tactics used so effectively to target critical infrastructure because security teams really have oversight of the SSH keys that control access these keys don't expire creating an encrypted backdoor that attackers can use until they're detected the reality is that this type of attack happens every day and is pervasive even in the most sophisticated secure networks in the world skidmap and others have free ran until security teams get serious about controlling their SSH environment and equip themselves to automatically remediate effective keys immediately no security team would ever tolerate passwords that don't expire and can't be changed even after a breach the same principle needs to be applied to SSH please let me know if you have any questions for Kevin (32/48)
Bocek thanks Tyler yeah and obviously Tyler or Tila or however you pronounce it is one of those people who sends out requests to get people interviewed on podcasts like ours but I thought this was important enough the skidmap infection thing that kind of illustrates what a previous listener Dave was saying that Linux is not vulnerable to attacks and what I'm hoping is that this skidmap thing has been fixed and if not fixed then at least we need people who are using SSH to be aware that it's not secure our next email comes from Corey who needs to know how to reset a forgotten password Corey writes hi I've listened to your show over the years and really enjoy it and it is only recently I decided to revisit Linux so I installed Unity on an old desktop but I've forgotten my password I searched and the procedure I have tried is to restart and hold the shift key which will bring up the Ubuntu menu but it's not working and I cannot figure out why so I'm reaching out to you the PC is using (33/48)
UEFI but other than that I am not sure what else you may need appreciate your help Corey Bill have you had any experience on resetting passwords in Linux? No, I have never had to reset a password in Ubuntu I could probably find out but I don't know how about you? Not much help there yeah no that's okay it's not something that I've done recently simply because it's so easy to reinstall it's almost quicker to reinstall the operating system than it is to reset the password and what I have done is if I haven't encrypted the hard drive I have booted to a live environment from a USB stick and copied any data that I want over to a separate hard drive reinstalled the operating system remember the password this time and move all the data back and that is very very easy we do have a a link to resetting passwords and as long as you have physical access to the machine you are able to reset a Linux password from the command line as you boot in and you can also use a live CED to do it and the (34/48)
technique is to use the command p-a-s-s-w-d as root and there's a switch to do that and then to reset the password using that and as long as you have access to the physical machine and you haven't encrypted the hard drive that should work just fine in resetting the password like I said we'll have a link to a couple of different articles on how you how you do that there's one with a video on how to do that in fact I think what we'll do is we will just include that it's FOSS video link as the primary link to you and that will be a lesson learned remember your password and if it is well you know as more and more Linux distros like for instance Pop!OS automatically encrypts the hard drive right out of the box and I think more Linux distros are heading that way so if you forget that password you're pretty much out of luck and that's a good and bad thing because you forgot your password but good for your security if someone happens to steal your laptop or your computer it makes it harder for (35/48)
them to get into your files so yeah there's kind of pluses and minuses to that so anyway our next email comes from Stefan and he asks us to comment on Google Chrome and Telemetry Hi Larry and Bill, recently I heard your episodes 375 and 376 and I'm wondering about your recommendation of the Google Chrome browser because you talked in number 375 or what might have been 376 he says I'm not sure about the massive telemetry of Windows 10 but Google Chrome is no better it also collects large amounts of data from the user and tracks it please comment on that Okay, everybody knows that Google collects data from their browsers and you're absolutely right they're just as bad or maybe even worse than Microsoft but the problem is if you use Google Chrome and you're familiar with it would you rather be using it on Windows 10 or would you at least like to be using it on Linux and maybe have a little bit more security that being said I have personally made an effort right now I don't even have (36/48)
Google Chrome installed on my personal machine I'm using Firefox but I have been a Chrome user and my work laptop has Google Chrome and that's what they installed on it anything you do on the internet is pretty much tracked and looked at to some extent so if you don't want to use Google Chrome there is a Chromium browser or there's Firefox and I believe there's a few others like Vivaldi and there's Opera and there's Brave and yeah lots of different ones I forgot about Brave that if you're worried about telemetry but still want to have like the Google Chrome I believe that's WebKit isn't it Larry? Google Chrome? I think you're right yeah so a lot of browsers are going to the WebKit so you can maybe find another WebKit based browser but so far Firefox has been working well there has been a few issues but as far as you know multimedia playback stuff but I found there's a new one anyway which lets you say play DRM and so they kind of tied it all together so we're not recommending Chrome (37/48)
but if you're a Chrome user or you need to get your work done or stuff then we pretty much say use it but everybody needs to kind of decide for themselves what amount of data they're willing to freely give. Larry? Yep absolutely I agree 100% with everything you said and if you don't like using the Chrome browser use something else there are others like some of the ones that you just mentioned Bill that don't provide as much telemetry I think that there is an advantage to providing telemetry and if you look at things like Ubuntu the telemetry that they provide helps them to identify what their usage is where the problems are I mentioned earlier the failure and bug reporting system built into Ubuntu that's telemetry so not all telemetry is bad but you don't want to be giving personally identifiable information or location information without a good valid reason and I think those are the kinds of things that people are worried about when they say they don't like Windows and they don't (38/48)
like Chrome because of what they provide. I'm sure that Firefox does telemetry as well, I mean they certainly have a lot of statistics on their users and so on so you know it's not all bad but it becomes bad if they're doing, if they're collecting information that they don't need to improve their software. So there you go. Alright, Michael says his volume is dropping. Hi Larry and Bill running the latest Ubuntu Mate. Whenever I reboot my computer the sound volume keeps being turned down so I keep having to go into the sound icon, increase the volume and close it. It is like my sound volume is only set temporarily. How do I change this? It affects the volume when I use Orca as well as the volume of RhythmBox when playing podcasts. Is this possibly an issue with the latest Ubuntu Mate? I know there is a sound issue in previous versions of Ubuntu which caused the loss of Orca whenever you switch between the laptop speaker or used wired headphones. That issue seems to have been fixed. (39/48)
Michael from West Yorkshire, UK. Well Michael, yes it is probably an issue with whatever latest version of Ubuntu Mate it is you're using and I'm suspecting that might be 19.04 since 1910 just came out and I received your email before 1910 came out. So it's possible that that's been an issue that's been fixed in 1910. That's one of the reasons why for the average user we recommend you stick with the long term support releases because they iron out all these little niggly things for the long term support releases and it's those interim releases where they have these issues that they are addressing and get fixed. So that's not really helpful to you. It will eventually get fixed. It is something I think as long as you're on an interim release you're going to have to deal with these kinds of annoyances. But once you're on the long term support release the 20.04 release these kinds of issues shouldn't be bothering you. I'd suggest you stick with that for a couple of years until the next (40/48)
long term support release and maybe some of these issues won't be hitting you so hard. So our next email comes from Tim who thanks us for the Switchers episode. He writes, 10.7 wasn't as good. Every year they get worse and annoy me more. I've had it with both Microsoft and Apple. This year I resolved to retire my 2012 MacBook Pro to only partial use and make a Linux laptop my primary daily driver. I've been experimenting with a number of distributions this summer on an old Windows 7 PC I built for the occasional Windows program use. I look forward to the next parts of your series on switching and wanting to let you know that your work is very much appreciated. Best regards Tom. Thanks Tom. Tim. Oh Tim, I'm sorry. Thanks Tim. Not enough coffee apparently. So yeah, thanks and I'm glad you find it helpful. Yep, absolutely. Okay, our next email is from Joran who provided some feedback on random numbers. Hi, in the contest you announced about a Zorin distribution you said you would use an (41/48)
imperfect random number generator for the drawing. I was curious about the imperfectness. Won't you use the slash dev slash you random or even slash dev slash random source for random numbers? I thought it was supposed to provide really good randomness. The manual page does give that impression to me. Do you know that to be incorrect? Will you use some other method for some reason or was I just passing a comment I didn't really mean that much? P.S. I am happy with my fedora and don't wish to enter the contest. Give the Zorin OS to someone who appreciated it more. P.S. 2 not the game, just a postscript, for some additional nerdage, assume you have the number of entries in the shells variable entries. You could get a random number between 0 and entries minus 1 with this cute one-liner and then he provides a one-line script and a more terse version which is even shorter. If you are really strict, unless entries evenly divides by 2 to the 64th, this will give a slightly higher probability (42/48)
of entries numbered less than 2 to the 64th entries with some extra code that could be avoided too if you really care and then a smiley face. Jorin, thanks. Getting perfect randomness in the random number generator was not the objective. I was just trying to get this thing to sort the list of emails in a way that gave some sort of randomness to the drawing to make it as fair as we could make it without going through all kinds of research in ensuring that random number generator was perfectly random. In fact, all I did was use the r-a-n-d function in Google Sheets and that seemed to work just fine. So I chose the less than perfect but easy route and it did well. Did it? Okay. It did. We got a winner. So Michael wrote us about Python and Pluma. Hi Larry and Bill. Thanks for recommending Pluma as a text editor for my coding in Python. I don't know if things changed but when I was trying to write code at Hudlug the Haddisfield Linux users group which is now discontinued, I thought you had (43/48)
to write a command to tell anything written in a text editor that it had to be Python code. I did think it used to start with something like the pound bin bash or something like that and some similar line at the end. Looking at the basic program that just printed the message hello world there was a piece of code in this example which was something like dollar sign calhello.py and I thought this was what was needed at the top of my file and there was dollar sign hello.py at the end. At Puddock Hall where I had been able to program without distraction someone sat next to me tried going through the code with me as I kept getting a syntax error. I even changed the first line to have spaces between words and still got syntax error. I wondered before I did it if I should just get rid of the top line altogether because I didn't know if there was a top line, last line, or both affecting my code. It was suggested to me by the person sat next to me that I might need to specify where my file was (44/48)
as I was just typing Python 3 followed by the file name for the from the amate terminal. Removing both the top and bottom lines and just having the print hello world fixed my problem so possibly just saving the file with hello.py in this case in Pluma cut out any need for extra code before and after my print statement. Some of the Python commands or at least the print command is similar to basic apart from things like the number of lines you had in command based basic apart from the fact that the print command has to have an open bracket without a space after the print command and closing bracket at the end after the close quotes around what needs to be printed in a text. All the best with going links Michael. Okay Michael, as far as Python is concerned I'm certainly no Python expert but I don't think there's anything that you need to include at the beginning of a Python script to tell it that it's Python. I think because you're using it in an interpreter if I remember correctly you (45/48)
just write the script and give it Python and then the name of the script or whatever it is to call up Python to run it and it runs. What you may be remembering is for bash scripts or shell scripts we had mentioned that you need to begin those scripts with an exclamation mark and then a hash symbol and then the word bin and the word bash and or bin and then sh if you're just using a simple shell script. So what's confusing and one of the reasons why I think you use the pound symbol, the British currency symbol in your email is because here in America that hash symbol or the octal Thorpe is called a pound symbol because that's how we abbreviate pounds as in the weight not the currency. So it gets very confusing so that's why I think most of us in Linux and most of us in the programming world when we're talking about shell scripting we use the term hash rather than pound as we do here in North America. So having said all that, if it's a shell script, yes you'll need something at the (46/48)
beginning of the script to tell you that it is a shell script. I don't think you need it for Python I could be very very wrong there and I'm hoping some of our minions will tell us if I am but you know basic software is a whole different thing each language has its own way of doing things in its own it's a language right so it's got its own syntax and everything else that goes along with it so I think you were confusing a couple of different things there and in either case you can use a simple text editor to write out your applications using whatever programming language you want if you want to use something like visual studio code there are certainly versions of that for Linux and that can help you with formatting and things like that but what I found is Pluma or Gedit or any of the standard text editors are quite functional when it comes to creating programs in whatever language you decide to use. So Bill I think that's our last email for this time our next episode do you think we'll (47/48)
have something for our next switchers episode? Absolutely. Okay sounds good. So yeah our next episode will be another episode in the switchers series so until then you can go to our website at goinglinks.com for articles and show notes as well as links to our download and subscribe. We are the website for computer users who just want to use Linux to get things done. And if you like you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining the discussion in our Going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinks.com. Until next time thanks for listening. 73 New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com (48/48)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #306 · Listener Feedback.
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Going Linux episode 306, listener feedback. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushee. 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 at our email address at goinglinux.com or you can send us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. Today's episode is listener feedback. Hi, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are you? Good, good. What's going on in your world? Not much. Not much at all. Just another beautiful day in Southern California. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And the weather has been absolutely wonderful the past few days with the temperatures a little bit low on the cool side. Seems like springtime or fall or (1/48)
something like that. And today it's going to go back up again. Oh, great. High 90s. You just ruined it. OK, great. No, no, no. You were the one who last podcast or the one before was saying that these 100 degree temperatures don't seem hot to you. Is that changed? No, no. But I really like the 80s. I put the no humidity even better. Yeah, yeah. Isn't that great? It is. I mean, it's like 80 degrees. We got all the windows open and it's beautiful, you know. But anyway, enough about weather. This is not going weather. I found a new, surprising and happy news about goodollegaming.com. They now are supporting Linux. Oh, they weren't really supporting before? No, you'd have to run it under Wine or whatever. But now apparently they have 50 plus games, not anywhere close to Steam. But that's a start. So, yeah, they might you might be able to find some of your oldies but goodies there because they have a lot of the older games. So I was going through the catalog and so if you want to look for (2/48)
some of your older games or just some alternative to Steam, go to gog.com, goodollegaming. Okay, sounds great. I know we've got some feedback on that in our feedback this time around. Uh oh. Yep. No, nothing negative. Uh oh. Yeah. All right. Okay, well, shall we get into our feedback? Well, if you insist. Okay, well then let's get started. Our first email is from Galen, who provides some feedback on Episode 303. Greetings, Larry. I've just been listening to Episode 303. Whilst I appreciate your enthusiasm for Linux, or should that be GNU slash Linux, from my own experience, it's not easy to get a computer up and running for novice computer users. I did manage to get both of my sisters to run GNU Linux, one of which bought an HP laptop that came with Ubuntu already installed. But after upgrading to the next long term support version, certain features stopped working. I can't remember which feature was the problem, but it could have been Bluetooth. The other sister started with an old (3/48)
Packard Bell desktop, which originally ran Vista. But sadly, there were certain apps which she couldn't live without, so ended up installing Windows 10. Boo hoo. So both my sisters wanted the system to just work without any learning curve. I'm surprised that a Packard Bell designed for Vista would run Windows 10. Anyway, continuing on. From my own experience, an Ubuntu MATE upgrade to my Thinkpads stopped my printer from working, an Epson printer. I was able to find a workaround, but only after buying an HP printer, as I could not get by without a printer. Print driver dependency problem with Epson website not being very helpful. However, after raising a bug report, a fix was suggested. So one has to do one's homework, and over here in the UK, System76 is not an option. But we do have Entroware, but they are not cheap. However, we are the home of the Raspberry Pi, with this geek having 24 pies, my very own bramble, you could say. Regards, Galen. Well, thanks, Galen. And yeah, the Epson (4/48)
printer issues. You want to talk about those, Bill? Don't buy Epson. Yeah. Well, I just bought a new HP printer. HP printers seem to be the way to go. Well, I still have Windows 10 on one of my drives for testing and playing certain games that I can't get to run on Linux. But let me give you just a quick story. It took me forever to get it to work properly. It's still not 100%. This is on Windows 10? Yeah, this is Windows 10. Okay. And so it was a massive headache to get it to work. I went step by step. I even followed the directions and actually read the directions. Whoa! Yeah. Okay. I'm telling you now. So it was a major pain in the butt and stills got errors and I've updated the software. Well, I figured that I was just going to have major problems on Linux. So I booted into my Linux on my other disk and three clicks later it was running. Yeah. So I haven't had any luck with Epson, but I've had great luck with HP. But it's funny that he should say that printers just got to stay with (5/48)
HP because they just seem to work. But it's so much easier to get a printer working under Linux most of the time than it is on Windows because you have to load all the drivers and all that other garbage. And this is a new HP printer with the scan feature, the fax, and I don't use the fax, but I use the scan feature. And I also, you know, it prints perfectly. So I don't know what to say. Stay away from Epson because there's some of these printers, companies that just refuse to support Linux. But HP is probably one of the biggest ones, so I just use them. Now, he said he had problems running Linux. It's hard to install on a new user. And I installed Ubuntu Linux in the vanilla. And it took, I think, I put my name in, my password, and three buttons, and it installed hands-free. And I don't know if he's picking customized, but I let it just pick what it wants. Right. That's the way I installed too. It's quicker in my experience than installing Windows 7, Windows 10. It just seemed, and (6/48)
every time I've done an in-place upgrade, and I've done, let's see, at least three on this current system, nothing has stopped working. So it's just kind of bizarre. Yeah. You know, Galen had said that he installed it. He said it was difficult to get up and running. I'm not sure he was saying it was difficult to install. But he said it seemed to be working fine until upgrading to the next LTS, which I'm assuming is 16.04. And I know that there were not problems with Bluetooth, but problems with Wi-Fi. On 16.04, which have yet to be fixed, as far as I can tell. Wi-Fi connection using the network manager utility tends to drop out occasionally, inexplicably, and unreasonably. And that's certainly a known problem with 16.04. And I'm sure they'll get that fixed in the next release, but it's really tough to accept the fact that 16.04 is meant to be a long-term support release, and they really still haven't fixed it in that release. You would think that they would, you know, backport a fix to (7/48)
network manager, if that indeed is where the problem is. And maybe they will, but it hasn't been fixed as far as I know yet. Now, early on, when I first installed Ubuntu MATE 16.04, I definitely had that problem. I've noticed that, although it still happens, it doesn't happen as frequently now, so perhaps they're making some incremental changes to it. And that may be the issue there. And I made a comment on our Google Plus community the other day about the fact that when people purchase an Apple computer, for example, they buy into the original Apple province that everything just works. And when things don't work, they make the immediate assumption that they have done something wrong, because it's supposed to just work. Even if it is an Apple issue, you know that they did something wrong, one makes the assumption that one has done something wrong themselves. And with Linux, nobody makes the promise that everything just works. And when it does just work, you think, aha, great, wonderful (8/48)
Linux. But when it doesn't just work, you think, oh, okay, well, this is open source and things are changing rapidly and improving all the time. Things will break, but they will get fixed quickly. So there's the difference in the attitude between open source and proprietary software, whether that's Windows or OS X. Well, another thing I would suggest to Galen is use the Larry Bush rule of upgrades. If you're going to do an in-place upgrade and another long-term upgrade comes out, always wait a couple months. Yeah, yeah. Just to let them get the patches, because there's always going to be a bug or something. And I thought that was kind of weird when you said you don't immediately upgrade, you usually wait at least a month just to let it get to end. Since I've been doing that, it has worked out really well. But you also suggest, if you can, to back up everything and then reinstall. Yeah, that's something that I have done routinely for years and years and years. Old school. Yeah, exactly. (9/48)
When I switched from Ubuntu to Linux Mint, Linux Mint suggested no in-place upgrades, always reinstall fresh. So that's what I was doing. Prior to that on Ubuntu, I would do the upgrades and they worked most of the time. And now that I'm back on Ubuntu again, last time I did an in-place upgrade just to see how it would go, but I went back and reinstalled from scratch. Just to be sure that I got the experience that someone would have installing from scratch. Because, you know, when you do an in-place upgrade, it makes some assumptions about what you want to keep and what you don't want to keep. And, you know, if there's something that's deprecated, which for new users means it's obsolete and not supported anymore, sometimes that will break. Sometimes it continues to work when you do an in-place upgrade. But if it's no longer supported at all, when you do a fresh upgrade or a fresh install rather than an upgrade, you don't even get it because it's not there anymore. Well, I think Tom, (10/48)
the old co-host, had the record for most in-place upgrades. It was like 12. Yeah. Because he went from the old GNOME desktop to Unity and he was like, really? And you remember he asked him, he said, I'm starting to have problems. I said, well, how many upgrades do you need from 6.0 or something? It's still working. Yes. Well, and they try to make it work. And generally speaking, it does. So kudos to Ubuntu on that one. Back on the printers for a second. Yeah, printers. It's a hit and miss if you don't use HP, I think. Right. HP is pretty supportive of Linux. In fact, they contribute code to Linux and are really big supporters to Linux. Epson, on the other hand, I found I've had a few Epson printers in the past and it's a bit hit and miss as to whether or not they work, number one, and number two, whether they're supported. And in about half the cases, and I'm talking about maybe a handful of Epson printers that I've installed for people, in about half the cases, I've had to go to the (11/48)
Epson website, hunt down the driver on their website, and it's not easy to do. I'm not sure what Epson is playing at, but it's kind of hit and miss. So Galen, the best we can tell you is stay away from Epson if you can and try to use HP. Yeah. And he mentions Entroware versus System76. I understand that. And he mentions that Entroware isn't cheap. Well, neither System76. But consider the fact that neither is, you know, Microsoft branded computers and computers with Microsoft Windows on them, at least the same kinds of specs that you might get with a System76 or an Entroware, whether it's Windows or OS X. So good computers aren't cheap either. No, you can get a cheap computer and that's what you get. But I've noticed that, well, with System76 is pretty, pretty good components. Yeah. But they they select which components they want in the models that they sell. And because of that, they select the components that are most compatible with Linux. And because of that, they're going to work. (12/48)
Yeah. Well, you're still rocking the System76, aren't you? You betcha. You betcha. Galago Ultra Pro. Oh, yeah. That's it. Galago Ultra Pro. Yeah. Good machine. All right. Now that we've heard about your Galago Ultra Pro, let's move on to the next one. All right. Let's go. Our next email comes from John. He asks about VirtualBox and Ubuntu. And he writes, Hello, Larry. Haven't had to ask for help for years, but now when I installed the current version of VirtualBox 5.1.2, something happened to my Ubuntu 16.04. I lost all my desktop icons and everything. I can't start anything with no desktop. How do I get it back? I've gone through, asked Ubuntu's forms. Nothing's there. Linux questions the same. I'm sure there's a simple terminal command that will do this, but where? Thanks, Larry, for all you do and Bill do on the show. Look forward to each week. John and Dallas. It could be that the desktop environment has crashed. Now, did he say he says it Ubuntu 16.04, but he didn't say which (13/48)
version of Ubuntu. It's possible that Unity has crashed. And, you know, if you've lost all of the icons on the dock and you've lost the menu across the top, that's pretty indicative of the fact that your desktop environment has crashed and you need to restart. And I think Ubuntu Unity has control of backspace for restart enabled. If that doesn't work, then you'll have to actually do a power down in another manner. Now, control alt T will open a terminal and you could do pseudo space shutdown or pseudo space reboot. And that will get you started again. And if your desktop then doesn't come up, you've got something else going on in that virtual box. And if you've made a backup of the virtual box, as you should be doing with any computer, then you could restart from that backup. But other than that, it could be a lot of different things. But from the way you describe it, if everything's gone, I'm thinking Unity has crashed on you. Or Mate or whatever the desktop environment is that you're (14/48)
using. You know, Linux is running apparently, but desktop isn't. So, you might try looking at maybe a help in Ubuntu forums about how to restart the desktop. Sometimes, I know it's not a very long command and you can use a copy and paste it, because I usually have the command written out and see if that solves the problem. But other than that, I have no clue. Yeah. Darn virtual box. Yeah. And as I mentioned a couple of episodes ago, I've switched over from virtual box to the Vert Manager application that comes in Ubuntu Mate. And it's certainly been around for a while. It's actually from Red Hat originally and it works just fine. Yeah. I've been using virtual box for years. Oh, okay. And it's a good way to get off of something supported by Oracle, which of course, everybody loves to hate Oracle. Yeah. One of the most successful companies and everybody hates them. Yeah. That's kind of the way it goes, isn't it? I just want 1% of Oracle's income. Yeah. Maybe you can get adopted by Larry (15/48)
Ellison or something. Larry Ellison, you want a grown son? Just give me the money. You'll never see me. That'll work, Bill. That'll work. Okay. Let's move on. What's trying to say there? I think we need to move on is what I'm trying to say. Okay. Okay. So John wrote in again. He said, zero down vote favorite. I'm not sure what that means, but it's some sort of error. He provides a link from the Ask Ubuntu forum about errors in opening virtual box in Ubuntu. He said, I've never seen this before, but I need a CHA 97 for audio, or I won't hear anything via my speakers. Mint works just fine. And 16.04 worked fine yesterday. Now this, and it would not open due to that error. What sort of DMA loop am I in? How do I fix this? Thanks for the suggestions and help, John in Dallas. And then he provides some feedback from the forum. It looks like failed to open a session for the machine. Ubuntu 16.04 failed to load ICHAC 97 version not supported, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he wraps up (16/48)
saying, hope you have suggestions or help for this issue. John, I don't even understand what the issue is. I don't either. But when Larry went blah, blah, blah, I actually thought I was actually reading the result code and for all that information, I think it should just say blah, blah, blah, because it doesn't say anything. Oh, wow. Yeah, I don't know. And the link to the forum is just his forum post on the Ask Ubuntu forum asking for responses. So I'm not even going to include a link to that in the show notes. He didn't receive any response. So I don't know. This is the second time when we've had to say I don't know, Bill. Are we losing our touch? I don't know, are we? I don't know. Sorry, John. So now it's Bill fail. Well, the other thing is, John, if this is the same instance of VirtualBox that you have running with the same installation that was giving you the problems in the last email, maybe they're related. Maybe there's an issue with that installation within VirtualBox or (17/48)
maybe there's a problem with VirtualBox. I'm not sure. And it might be a little bit clearer if you had this as a standalone installation outside of a virtual environment. But as soon as you put something like this in a virtual environment, now you've introduced another variable. Is it the installation of Linux or is it the virtual environment? So we don't know. Yeah, sorry. If anybody has any suggestions based on our vague information and John's vague information, please write in and let us know. But, John, stay tuned. Yeah, we have smart listeners. They'll figure it out. Our next email comes from Joe, who is a new listener. Just found your podcast and I am binge listening from episode 100. I am now a Linux junkie and put all of the blame on a coworker. He told me that his friend's child, who is 15 years old, was wanting to try Linux on his laptop, but my coworker didn't know anything about it. I went on a deep dive into Linux sites on the web and found a how to make a live USB (18/48)
tutorial on Instructables.com that made it very simple. I now have six flash drives in my pocket with different distros on each one. That is when I decided to type Linux into my podcatcher app. Your podcast is my favorite I have found, mainly because you don't talk down to newbies like myself. I don't know if you are still making this podcast anymore, but I wanted to thank you for the episodes that are out now. Joe. Well, Joe, we are still doing it. I'm the new person on the block. Larry's been doing it from the very beginning and we're glad that you like the podcast. Larry? Yeah. Yeah. That's a little surprising that you would say that you're hoping that we would continue. Maybe you stopped listening in between or maybe you just haven't caught up, but when you do catch up to episode 306, you'll hear your email read. Thank you. It's okay if you want to go to the end and listen backwards. Yeah, you can do that too. Because listening from 100, that's a lot of podcasts. It's a lot of (19/48)
listening. See, well, Tom was still at 100. I have to go back and look, but I think so. Yeah. You get to hear about Tom and everything and just remember, don't take the bolts out while the jet's flying. Yes, exactly right. Wise advice from Nightwise. Yes, Nightwise. You know, that guy. Yeah. Okay. Let's go on to our next email. This one is from Greg and Greg replies to a question that we asked in 304, that you asked through episode 304, Bill. Greg says, hi Larry and Bill. To answer Bill's question in episode 304 about my choice of laptop to go Linux with, you are partially right, Larry, as price was a consideration. However, I was also influenced by the positive acclimations from a couple of Asus laptop owners that I queried when I saw what they were using. I mentally targeted Asus in the first place because I have personally had good reliable service from several Asus desktop motherboards in the past. In the end, I ended up buying an Asus model X55A with an Intel Pentium B980 2.4 (20/48)
gigahertz processor, four gigabytes of RAM, 500 gigabyte hard drive and DVD drive. Yes, it's a modest machine, but it suits my needs admirably and didn't cost me an arm and a leg. With the integral DVD drive, there doesn't seem to be an extra drive bay for a second hard drive, although I did not totally disassemble the laptop to look for it. My only disappointment is that although the sound card earphone output is stereo, the mic input is mono. This makes it unusable for DSP digital signal processing software that needs stereo inputs for the 90 degree phase shifted quadrature audio signals to function. Huh? OK. Oh, well, an external USB sound card with stereo inputs and outputs, as well as high sampling rates for PSK 31 while I'm at it, maybe in the future. 73 Greg WA8FJK. Well, that could be why he needs the digital signal processing. Hey, hey, you know, I actually understood part of that, but I didn't understand the rest of it. He's getting into some serious audio techno geek speak (21/48)
there. So, yeah, Greg, good luck. And thanks for commenting on our question. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Greg. And let me know how that works out. I'm kind of see if you can get to work with your your your ham rig and everything. All right. We have another email from John and he has a question about VNC to Ubuntu mate box with VPN. Aloha to going link from the Big Island Hawaii. I have to say Aloha because how many times we get someone from Hawaii. Aloha. OK. Aloha. OK. I enjoy listening to your podcast on my 45 minute commute to and from work along the beautiful west coast of the Big Island. Since diving headfirst into the world of Linux a couple of months ago, I now have Linux dual booting as my main OS on three computers. And with the help of your show and several different flavors of Ubuntu, I've resurrected a dead Vista laptop, a dead XP netbook and a PC that forced Windows 10 upgrade wiped out. At the moment, I'm working on repurposing the desktop PC as a way for my fiance to learn (22/48)
Ubuntu Mate 16.04 without having to do a boot her Windows 10 machine back and forth from Windows to Linux. I would like this new Ubuntu Mate machine to be accessible from both her Windows 10 PC and my dual boot Windows 10 Mint Cinnamon PC through some sort of remote desktop, VNC or some other means. What software would you recommend I use to accomplish this task? To make things a little more complicated, all of our computers run through a VPN for basic privacy. It would also be really handy to be able to access this machine remotely from outside of our home network. I basically want to do what LogMeIn does for Windows machines. I don't mind paying a small monthly fee if necessary. All the desktop PCs are hardwired through a TP-Link C9 Archer router. Her computer and my computer are in different rooms with the new Mate machine being located across the room from my PC and temporarily using the television as a monitor. We have blazingly fast 300 megabit cable internet here in rural Hawaii (23/48)
so I expect we could expect decent remote performance and lastly my knowledge of Linux is still pretty weak but I'm learning quickly. I grew up in the age with an Apple IIe and a 300-ball acoustic coupler so I'm not afraid of the terminal or simple scripting programming. And I cannot say this. Mahalo Nui Loa. Who's saying thanks? It's okay. Island of Tikki. Tikki. Island of Tikki. Okay. I don't know, Larry. Okay. Well, some suggestions, John. First of all, since you're using a VPN, one of the things that makes this difficult is that your computers are not guaranteed to be on the same network. Now, if it weren't for the VPN, they would all be on the same network. I'm making an assumption here but that's a pretty safe assumption. You're using a TP-Link router and without the VPN, everything's on the same network and then you can use simple software without anything further like VNC to make the connections. Now, given that you're using a VPN, there's no guarantee that all of the computers (24/48)
will actually be accessing using the same IP address because you're really accessing the internet through the VPN software. And each instance of VPN could take you to a whole different IP address. So, I mean, that's the purpose of VPN software, right? So, you've got a private tunnel that helps your security. Now, to make that work without paying for software like LogMeIn or TeamViewer or those kinds of software, without paying for those, you really have to reduce your security and use something in your router called port forwarding. It may be called something different in the TP-Link router but essentially what you're doing is you're saying, I want this port, whatever port the software you're using is using, to go from however it comes in out of the internet and I want to send it to this computer, this IP address. And in most routers, you can only do that for a single PC, for a single port. I know you said you are new to Linux but most of what I just described applies beyond Linux to (25/48)
any sort of computer connection. Maybe even your old Apple IIe with a 300-bot modem but bottom line here is it gets a little complicated, it gets a little less secure because you're using VPN and you want to do remote control unless you use some proprietary software like LogMeIn or like TeamViewer. So my recommendation would be to spend the money, get a good subscription for one of those services and use that. That will bypass firewalls, that will bypass the VPN and will give you a direct link from one computer to control another from the internet. If you're only doing this from inside of your network, it becomes a lot simpler but I'm not going to go into that at this point because the key thing you said is you want to be able to access it from outside the network and once you've got that established, it'll work inside your network as well with that software. So that's it, Bill. Okay, well, I followed about half of that. Yeah, and hopefully our friend John will understand most of that (26/48)
or at least take the suggestion that he should probably go get TeamViewer or should probably go get LogMeIn or some sort of software like that and use that and that will solve most of his problems. Yeah, do Bill's method. The easiest way is the way. Yeah, but wow. Okay, I can understand the VPN inside the network but you're right where he goes and wants to access it, to be able to access it from the outside, that makes it a little more difficult. Yeah, it does and that's especially since he's using VPN software, that makes it even more complex because that's one more variable in the thing and it's really a private tunnel between one computer and the internet and you've got to make a hole in your firewall, you're going to make a hole in that tunnel and it just gets complex. Yeah. Okay, so our next email is from Marlowe. Marlowe has a comment on NetBeans on Ubuntu 16.04. First, Marlowe says, hi guys, first of all, thank you for a great podcast. I have learned so much from you. I have (27/48)
completely moved away from Windows and couldn't be happier. My question, can I install NetBeans on Ubuntu 16.04? Someday I will make a killer app. Again, thank you so much for all you share with the community. I really appreciate it. Keep up the good work. Have you used NetBeans or any software like that, Bill? I play games. I don't make games. No, so the answer is no. I don't, that's a good question. I don't even know that. Can you install NetBeans? Let me take a quick look here. Since I happen to be on Ubuntu 16.04, I will go to the Synaptic Package Manager, put in my password, search for NetBeans. Just send me your password, I'll take care of it. Sure, no problem. And the answer is yes, you can install it. I've never used it, but it's an IDE, an Integrated Development Environment for software developers. And as you observed, a lot of software people use this to develop games and other things. So yeah, it's there. It's right in the repositories. Go ahead and install it. You can do a (28/48)
sudo apt netbeans and it'll install. Now Marlo, if you make a killer app and it makes lots of money, you just got to remember us. There you go. Our next email comes from Brock who talks about the dangers of the RM command. And just a little background, RM is removed. Yeah, and basically it doesn't have a lot of the safety protocols in place that the DEL command in Windows and DOS did. It's going to let you wipe your entire computer, including the operating system, if you do it wrong. Which I've done. Okay, he writes, I am loving the podcast. Thanks so much. I recently had a big mishap with a script with the RM command. I have a handbrake batch conversion script that can recursively convert every video file type I specify into MP4 format. This helps save space because the MP4 version is smaller. The other day I was doing some file housekeeping, for example, running a great program called fdupes to help eliminate duplicate files. I also decided it would be good to convert every video in (29/48)
my Dropbox directory to MP4 to save space. I have paid Dropbox so it has lots of files. The videos are spread out in many different directories. Instead of manually deleting the original non-MP4 video later, I decided to just convert each video to MP4 and then automatically delete the original. I was a little sleepy and wasn't thinking through it fully and that was a bad idea. I ran the script and alas, handbrake had not been installed yet given I had recently set up my OS. So the conversion command failed, but it went on to delete every non-MP4 video in all these directories. Fortunately, since all of these were in Dropbox, I was able to restore them all on the Dropbox website. Wow. In hindsight, I should have run a check in my script to make sure the actual program was installed or to ensure that handbrake command executed with a success status. Perhaps this story can be a benefit for the listener. It is indeed an epic failure with RM. Another reason why we should always, always have (30/48)
a backup. Brock. Well Brock, I've done worse. And Larry has heard me go, I deleted my whole install. So yeah, RM is very powerful and another thing, never do it when you're sleepy. Yeah, when I do batch scripts to delete things, I try not to use RM at all. What I do is I move the file, so I use MV instead, to a temporary folder. And then I go in through the file manager and delete that folder. Because then I can see what I'm deleting and it's not happening automatically, but I collect everything that needs to be deleted in one place. So it's just a right click and a delete and they're gone. So it accomplishes the automation without the risk of deleting something incorrectly or having something fail within the script and then it automatically goes on to the next step in the script, which is to delete the stuff that you'd never processed in the first place. So that's one way to handle it. I know there are a lot of others, like good programming steps, like checking to make sure that (31/48)
things have successfully completed before moving to the next step in the script. So, Brock, I think you've learned your lesson. And hopefully others can learn from this lesson as well. So thanks for the email. Sorry for the deletion. Well, he was able to get everything back. Yes. So he really didn't have a lot of pain. I'm being mean. Brock, yeah, we've all had something similar. I think even Larry's accidentally deleted a file or two. Oh, you think so? Yeah. But we're not going to talk about that. No, of course not. Let's just move on to Augustin's email. So Augustin has an app suggestion. Hi, Larry and Bill. I'd like to make an app suggestion to you and the listeners of the Going Linux podcast. The podcast app Castback is one whose development grew out of Mark from the Geek Rant, formerly Everyday Linux, podcast's desire for a podcast app that met his needs. And listener Quasar Ejaz, sorry guys if I massacred your name, ran with the idea. I've followed the app's development from (32/48)
early alpha to its current beta stage, and it's quickly becoming my go-to podcast app. A killer feature of the app is its comments feature. Users can sign into their Google Plus account and are able to leave time-stamped comments on episodes of podcasts whose RSS feeds support them. While the app still has some bugs here and there, I highly recommend trying it out. If you're interested in adding comment support to the Going Linux RSS feed, all of the pod nuts, shows, feeds are comment enabled, and I'm sure Quasar would be happy to point you in the right direction, as he has been extremely receptive to feature requests and bug reports. I would be happy to give you his email with his permission. Well, thanks Augustin. That's a great recommendation. Haven't tried Castback. Maybe that's something we should try. And I don't know about comments. We have a pretty active Google Plus community as it is, and as far as comments in the feed itself, I'm not sure that's something we'd want to do. (33/48)
Our feed is pretty big as it is. I had to cut some of the old episodes from the feed and start it back at episode 100, just to make the RSS feed size compatible with the recommendations from iTunes. Sorry to have to swear on the show, but yeah, that's where most people listen. Anyway. I just want to point out, you're not allowed to murder names. That's my job. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm the only one that's allowed to murder a name, but I didn't know you had to go back to 100. Yeah. Why was that? Well, something about podcast feed specifications say that you shouldn't have any more than 300 episodes in your feed. Oh. Yeah, so we're at, what, 306? Yeah. So once we crossed over the 300 mark, I took the first 100 off the feed. Now, you can still get them from the website, of course, and listen to them there, but if you subscribe to our feed today and go all the way back to the beginning, the beginning of the feed starts at episode 100. Wow, 306 shows. Yes. There you go. Oh, wow. Who knew? Who (34/48)
knew that we could talk that much? Yeah, well, people with daily or weekly podcasts have even more than that, and I don't know whether they worry about this 300 episode limit, but since many of our listeners listen on iTunes, we really do have to conform to their specs, so that's why I hacked the first 100 episodes or so off the RSS feed. Sorry about that, folks. By the way, how old is the podcast now? We started in 2007. Wow. Something like that, so almost 10 years old. Wow. Okay, moving on, we got an email from Richard who asks about Mint versus Ubuntu. He writes, hi, Larry. I heard you say on a recent podcast that you now have switched to Ubuntu Mate from Mint. I am a long-time Minute user but always open to change. Can you detail why you decided that, or if you already did, point me to the episode? I know Canonical is now doing better on the privacy front, but what made you switch? Thanks. Hmm. Well, I wanted to change. And also, he got tired of me harassing him about Mint. Yeah, (35/48)
no, I could put up with that for a long time. But yeah, there were just some things about Mint that I know some folks have some political disagreements with the creator of Linux Mint. That wasn't really my impetus. I know that some people think that Mint is too derivative, but I mean, hey, Ubuntu is derivative from Debian, so I don't think that's a real argument either. Mint actually is my first choice for people using Windows and wanting to come over to Linux for the first time and are non-technical users of computers because everything is just there from the beginning. And if they're not the kind of people to tinker with stuff, Mint just takes care of everything. Ubuntu Mate is second choice. And the reason it's not first choice is there are still some tweaks you have to make and you have to be not a techno geek to use Ubuntu Mate. Far from it. It's definitely for the new user, but there are a few more things that you have to know about computing to use Ubuntu Mate than you do for (36/48)
Mint. So I switched mainly because I wanted to get back to the old GNOME 2 utilities and the desktop environment. When I had Mint, I would always set it up with the panel at the top and the panel at the bottom very much like GNOME 2 and Mate is today. I did not run Mint Mate because I thought that Mint Cinnamon was better looking. And Ubuntu Mate is somewhere in between the two, between Mint Mate and Mint Cinnamon in terms of its polish. And it's just something that I think has the right philosophy. And I wanted to get back into a more pure Ubuntu environment. So not really solid reasons, I don't think. It's just more personal preference more than anything else. Okay. Okay. Our next email is from Alec. He described audio issues we addressed in our last episode, Bill. He writes, I would give double stars rating except that I can hear only half of the podcast. Maybe I'm deaf in one ear, but I can never hear Bill. Larry is plenty loud, but I have to crank the volume to hear Bill. When (37/48)
Larry speaks again, the speakers blow. This isn't an ongoing issue with all of your podcasts. Please look into it. Thanks. Well, Alec, yours is not the only complaint we've got about that. And quite frankly, as I said in our Google Plus community, I got a little lazy on proof listening to the podcast before sending it out. And I forgot that I think my headset speakers compensate for some of the mismatch in volume levels between speakers. And I wasn't listening on earbuds, and I wasn't listening over the built-in laptop speaker to kind of proof listen to it before it went out. And if I had, I would have picked up on the discrepancy in the volume levels between the two. But since then, Bill has gotten a new microphone. He's gotten a new studio. Things have picked up a lot in the quality of Bill's signal, so I don't have to process it as much, which accounts for the reduction in volume, at least in part. And as a result, I think in our last episode, we did a good job of making Bill's (38/48)
level closer to or equal to mine. So Bill, what do you think? You listened to the last episode. Did we accomplish it? I think we did. Of course, I've been known to be the problem child of this podcast. So yeah, I thought it sounded better. I'm now looking at a different microphone. We were just talking about that before we started the recording. So if I end up picking up a new mic, you might even see a little even more higher quality. But yeah, I thought the last podcast was a lot better. Yeah, I think so too. And if we go on to Nancy's comment in the next email, maybe we'll hear more. Nancy identified issues and she wrote, I have enjoyed your podcast from the very beginning. However, the audio issues that are coming through your podcast, those sound level differences between the two of you have gotten so great that I can no longer listen to your podcast when traveling. I just can't keep adjusting the volume. So I'm going to fast forward through the whole podcast episode. I'm hoping (39/48)
you get it resolved before the next one. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to keep doing this until you get the volume issues resolved. I just don't have the time to keep going up and down through the volume scale. I'm either in my car or in a treadmill, so I'm always having trouble with volume differences. Thanks for looking into it and thanks for continuing a great podcast and website. Sorry, Nancy. It's my fault. Yeah, well, I think it's my fault for not adjusting the volume before sending out the podcast episode. But yeah, we're doing a lot of things to fix it and you should see a definite improvement here on out. Yeah, he only can work with my sample so much. So hopefully we got it more listenable. Yep, I think so. So let's get back on to printing issues. Paul asks about wireless printing on Linux. Hi, Larry and Bill. I'm running Linux Mint 17.3 XFCE. Can you please suggest a wireless printer that would be user friendly to this distribution? I've done a little research myself, but (40/48)
haven't found anything conclusive yet. I thought you might have a good wireless printer in mind that would be a good fit for Mint 17.3. I need a good printer that works for Linux because I don't want to go back to Windows for any reason I can possibly avoid. Thanks for your support and keep up the great work to the Linux community. Paul in North Texas. Well, Paul, just about any HP wireless printer will do. That's the recommendation. I'm using an HP OfficeJet 60 something. Let me just take a quick look here. System administration printers, HP OfficeJet Pro 6835, which is one of those wireless printers that has printer scanner fax capabilities. And it works perfectly with the built in driver that comes with Linux. No problems. You go on the HP website, you register it as an e-printer, and you can even email it a print job from your phone or tablet or whatever you want, because it comes with an email address for the printer and whatever you send it will get printed at your home, even if (41/48)
you're out taking a picture of something and you just want to print it out. It works great. Yeah, I know I use an HP OfficeJet 3830 and it's OK. It's a new one, but it has the same features of yours. And I was able to email myself a file and it did print. So I know it works. 3830 should still be in stores because I haven't had mine. I've had mine less than a month or so. Anything with HP, I think you'll have good luck with. Yep, absolutely. And just to clarify, you don't need to email print jobs to your computer. That's just an example of an added feature. Yeah, and also when they assign you an email address, it's usually this really long, hard to remember one. You can change it to something you can remember. Yes, absolutely. But the Wi-Fi on it works perfectly. It works with, you know, if you're a mixed family, meaning you've got not only Linux, but you have OS 10 or Windows or whatever. It'll work with those as well on the Wi-Fi network. And as long as you're on the same Wi-Fi (42/48)
network, you can print to it just as though it were a wired computer. No problem. OK, our next email comes from Paul, and he also talked about verifying the Mint 18 ISO. Hi Larry and Bill. After recently downloading Mint 18 ISO to load on my laptop, I wanted to verify my checksum to make sure I had a correct, complete copy. The verification procedure is no longer a simple matter of comparing checksums. The Linux Mint website has a rather complicated direction to verify a good ISO. I found a commentary on the procedure from the blog Linux North, and the link is here and it's in our show notes. I haven't tried it yet. It looks like there is quite a bit of command line work required, an extra challenge for any Linux user, especially for a Linux newbie. I wish there was an easier way. Thanks again for the shows and your support to the Linux community. Paul in North Texas. Yeah, Paul, this whole checksum thing has gotten very, very complex, mainly because there are a bunch of bad guys out (43/48)
there that have done a lot of nasty things. And especially most recently to the Linux Mint website, they replaced one of their ISOs and the checksums on their website. They hacked in somehow and caused a big hullabaloo over the whole thing. And as a result, they have taken it to the next level at Linux Mint and they've locked things down from a security perspective. It wasn't a Linux issue. It was a WordPress issue. And in the meantime, they've changed from the older style of checksums to the new SHA-256 checksums, which require a little extra effort to verify them. So I don't think any of the issues around bad guys hacking websites and causing mayhem and trying to take over your computer with malware is going away anytime soon. So I would love for it to be easier, but there's a tradeoff between convenience and security, and I always fall on the side of security wherever possible. So, unfortunately, you got to do it. Oh, well, you know, bad guys make things more complicated. Yep. Yeah. (44/48)
So all you have to do, Paul, is just get rid of all the bad guys and you can go back to the simple way of doing it. And then I'm the only one who calls in mayhem this way. It should be. Yeah. OK. OK. Yes. So Dries asks about network chairs. Hey, I just wanted to ask a quick question. I've switched to Linux for the fourth time now in the past 12 years. The previous attempts all still gave me issues with NTFS, right access, sound, Wi-Fi and flash video. You know what? Stop using NTFS file format anyway. But this time it looks like I'm going to stay. I even converted my laptop to Linux as well, which leads me to a question. Since I now don't have any Windows machine anymore, does it still make sense to use SMB for network chairs? I could try to start using NTFS, which I have never done before. But does it even matter for a simple home network? Well, that was all. Thanks for keeping up this helpful and interesting podcast for so long. OK, Dries. Well, yeah, it sounds like if you've gone (45/48)
completely Linux, you're probably not using the NTFS, the Windows NTFS file formats anymore, which is step one. So that's good. So NFS is definitely a Unix and Linux oriented file sharing, network sharing protocol. From a practical perspective, I don't think it matters. NTFS may give you some additional technical flexibility and capabilities, but if you're just using it for simple sharing, it probably doesn't matter. What do you think, Bill? Have you done anything with file sharing with NTFS versus SMB? Not really. All I do is play games. Yeah, well, maybe that's what Dries is doing as well. But no, let's turn it over to our listeners. I'm sure somebody who knows a lot more about sharing files over a network, especially in the Linux environment, may have some real reasons why you might want to choose NTFS over SMB for file sharing. But from a practical perspective, if you're just doing simple sharing and you did say that you're doing simple home networking, I'm not sure it would (46/48)
matter. If you want to take the dive into NTFS and learn about it, have at it. But if SMB works for you and you just want to get your shares up and running quickly since you already know it, that's probably the wisest move. Yeah, probably. I really don't know because I don't do a lot of sharing. I do a lot of reinstalling distros, but that's about it. So yeah, turn it over to our listeners. They're smart. Yep. I have been very pleased with them. Just thought I would let you know about this resource since many Linux users may not want to use Steam for a variety of reasons. Great show and keep up the great work, Jeff. Well, Jeff, funny you should mention that. I found good old games this week and I actually mentioned this at the very beginning of the podcast. So yeah, it is a great place. So thanks. Yep, absolutely. And I'm going to have to give it a try. See if there's some of my old favorites in there. You're not allowed to game. Oh, sorry. Well, maybe Pong or... Yes, you can play (47/48)
Pong. That's it. Oh, okay. Hey, break out the Atari 2600, Larry. Come on. Lara Croft, Tomb Raider? Is that on there? I don't know. Oh, man. We'll figure it out. Anyway, until then... You're killing me. You're killing me. Yeah. Okay. Well, our next episode, we haven't decided what it's going to be yet, but by the time we record it, we'll have it completely figured out. You could jump right into the until then now. I'm laughing too much. Okay. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinux.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'd 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. New music provided by Mark Blasko at podcastthemes.com. (48/48)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #309 · Today's Security Technology.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 309, Today's Security Technology. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. And I'm your co-host, Dylan. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, we'll discuss today's security on Linux. Hey, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are you? Very, very good. How are you doing? Another beautiful day in Southern California. I cannot say so much for the East Coast, so I hope all our friends over on the East Coast are not getting too badly beat up by Hurricane Matthew. Right. And as you can tell, we record our podcast episodes in advance. And hopefully by the time you hear this, Matthew is a hurricane that's gone and no longer a threat. But (1/49)
right now, as we're recording this, it is doing some nasty things to the East Coast. So best wishes to all our friends there. And hopefully by the time you hear this, you've all made it through without a scratch. Let's hope so. I hear it's a pretty big one. So, Larry, I have gotten AI overload lately. So artificial intelligence is getting you down, is it? No, not getting down. Something like everybody's racing for AI. We got Amazon Echo, Google Home, IBM Watson, Apple Siri. Just to name a few of them, it's like they're everywhere. Is that how we're going now? I think so. The company I work for, Salesforce, I just spent a week in San Francisco. And one of the key things we were talking about is artificial intelligence and Salesforce calls it Einstein. Oh, really? So I missed one. Yeah, I think so. And there are many more out there, that's for sure. So it's the way we're going. So now, instead of my dumb alarm clock waking me up, I'm going to have somebody say, Good morning, Bill. Time (2/49)
to get up. And I'm going to slap it against the wall just like I do my alarm clock. Perfect. That's great. What's so good about this morning? I'd rather not have somebody tell me why. You're in a bad mood. Would you like me to make a schedule a doctor should put me for you to get your anger aggression issues? I'd be happy if it would just schedule the coffee to come out of the machine on time. Turn on the coffee maker. Actually, Google Home apparently is going to have little plugins that you can hook your coffee maker to. So it knows when you get up to turn on the coffee maker, which is not a bad idea. But my luck, the morning I go stumbling down to get the coffee, I forgot to buy the coffee. It's just hot water. Oops. Oops. Where do you put it in the coffee maker? Yeah, you still need human intelligence to make artificial intelligence work. So, Larry, I thought today would be a great time to talk about just some basic Linux security issues and kind of compare it against what's out (3/49)
there right now because it changes so fast. So how are we going to go about this? What do you think? Well, we've written in some of the articles on our website things like this, and I'm going to read a paragraph. The Linux operating system is more secure and better supported than operating systems pre-installed on most home computer hardware today. Linux is backed by many large corporations as well as independent developers and users, many of whom are focused on ensuring and improving the security that's built into the operating system. The built-in updater provided by your Linux distribution provides security updates for both its software applications and the operating system. Vulnerabilities are patched more quickly and are delivered automatically and more frequently than the two most popular operating systems. And Linux is designed to make it difficult for viruses, rootkits, and malware to be installed and run without conscious intervention by you. The user. Linux users are not (4/49)
administrators by default. Administrators, that means the root users, on any computer system have permission to do anything they want, including damage to the system, which I've done more than once. To be extra secure, Linux requires you to provide your administrator password to install and run programs as root every single time. So I think that's a good thing. Of course, it should have one for mine. Are you sure you want to do this? Yes, an extra, extra, extra confirmation step. We know Bill needs a little extra security. Yeah, it's like, okay, Bill, have you drunk your coffee? Are you sure you want to do this? Because it's really going to mess up the system and I'm going to go, yeah, just go ahead and do it. No, seriously, that's a wonderful step. I know sometimes it gets a little tedious, but if you think about it, that's really a great security feature because you have to look at it and say, yeah, do I really want to do that? Sometimes I was like, I don't know if I really want to (5/49)
install that program after all. So I can see both ways. They try to make it as convenient as possible, but they also try to balance it with security issues. Yes, exactly. And, you know, one of the things that you need to do as a Linux user is make sure that you're using the repositories or the repos as they're often abbreviated whenever you can to get applications and updates and those kinds of things, as opposed to going and finding other sources that aren't as vetted as the repositories are. And, you know, different versions of Linux sometimes use the term root instead of super user. And Bill, the difference between root and super user is basically that when you run something as a super user, when you type in sudo, S-U-D-O, for example, you're just temporarily elevating your privileges to the equivalent of a root user. Whereas running as root means you're permanently logged in as a root user until you log out, right? Yeah, I think so. And there's a few of these distributions that (6/49)
they both have the security, but they kind of access it differently. Like, for instance, Ubuntu and a lot of its derivatives used super user. Right. And then like Slackware and Arch, they use root. So you actually have to log in as root instead of super user. I'm sure you can change it if you want, because you can do anything you want. But as a default, if I remember correctly on Slackware, you have to log in as root. And the account that you normally use for yourself doesn't have root privileges. OK, so in order to do anything as root, you have to log out as a super user and then log back in as root. Yeah, I guess you could bring up a terminal and access it that way. And switch the user, yeah. But that would require more effort than I'm willing to do. So, OK, I've never used Arch or Slackware, so I'll take your word for it. Well, you know, now, if I'm wrong, I'm sure I'll hear about it. But that's what I remember from my Slackware time. But that you could access your root, but you had (7/49)
to open a terminal and all that stuff. Right. I kind of like the convenience of the way Ubuntu does it. But sometimes I get tired of entering the password to install a program even when it's coming from a repo. But then I think about it and say, well, think about who's installing this. Right, exactly. And the reason we're talking about super user and root is in order to update the software on your computer, on your Linux computer, you need to be super user or root to actually install those programs, as you mentioned earlier on, Bill. And taking the time to make sure your Linux is up to date with patches is very important. And something that's really good about Linux is that the patch notes, the notes that come with the patches, tell you what's being done. So everybody should take a few minutes to skim through those notes. And there's a lot of great information about those notes. And the more you understand about what's going on with your computer, the more you can pay attention to (8/49)
security and be more secure. Yeah, and something interesting that is direct conflict with another operating system we'll talk about is that you still have to give Linux permission to install the updates. You have to enter your password. There's a few of these OSes that are out there that just install them. You might postpone them for a little bit, but sooner or later they're going to install whether you like it or not. And sometimes I'm either busy and don't have time for it, or I want to let it sit there for a little bit and make sure that I really need that. And sometimes you can pick which updates you want to install. Right, right. I've even heard of some operating systems that without your permission will download a complete upgrade and replace your operating system with the latest version. Without your permission. Okay. I'm not going to mention Windows. Well, you said it first, so now it's open season. But there's a few other things that really are important. And the first one (9/49)
that I cannot stress enough, and we stress this every time we talk about security, good passwords are important. So please do not use ABC123, I am God, or anything like that because the people are going to guess them. Try to use a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols because the better the password, the more secure your system is going to be. Another one is if you share the computer, set up a guest account on your machine so other people can't tinker with your settings or change security or install things without your permission. The reason for this is you don't want people digging through and changing firewall settings or installing that update that you said, I just don't want to install it right now. You don't want them to be able to reboot your machine. There's a lot of things that you can do and you can really lock down a guest account. So always use those, especially if you're going to be sharing your computer. Now Larry, let's talk about how Linux is set up in contrast (10/49)
since you said Windows. We'll use that as an example. How is Linux set up to be more secure than say Windows? I know for example, Linux doesn't have DLLs. It doesn't throw all these dynamic links into a library and we've all had problems with that at one time or another. But other than architectural differences, what else stands out to you as different? Well, we've talked about some of them like requiring absolutely every single time to put your password in as super user or as root to install software and even to download from the repositories software, especially updates and things that will change the potentially the security of your system. And some other things. Bottom line though, is that Linux is designed with security in mind and has been from day one. It's been designed as a multi-user system from day one and with security in mind. And most of the Linux distributions that you can get today will have a system firewall installed. Many of them will have that turned on by default. (11/49)
Some will not. But it'll be installed or available in the repositories and you can install it and turn it on quite quickly and easily. And generally, in the case of the uncomplicated firewall that Ubuntu uses, the default settings are adequate for most people. So it's just a matter of turning it on. Speaking of multiple user systems, simply separating the user accounts from one another is a great way to ensure security. Every system and user file is marked with permissions and you can see those permissions and you can see what permissions are granted to which users and which groups of users for that file. There is no access to administrative facilities from standard accounts without giving a superuser password or a root password. Software installation rejects software from untrusted sources and you have to consciously make those sources trusted in order for the software to be used, downloaded, and installed. Almost all Linux distributions come with utilities that allow you to update (12/49)
your software automatically. Several features of the operating system help prevent software from modifying other parts of the running system. So systems are isolated from one another from a security perspective. And many, many, many other features that are too long to list. I've been actually listing some of them from a post on Security Basics that it will include a link to from the Fedora website. Okay. So if I understand this correctly, you know, Windows has such a lot of legacy stuff built into it. And since Linux was designed with multi-user from the very beginning instead of an afterthought, someone kind of described Linux to me as it's kind of like a layered system. You have the kernel and then you have applications and then you have the user space above it. Is that is that a good visualization of that? Yeah. You know, I think in general, that's the way most operating systems are built. So, yeah. Okay. Okay. So do you think having to enter your password all the time is a help or (13/49)
hinder to security? Yeah, it's a help for security. It's certainly less convenient for the user. It would be great to be able to just open your computer and have it work and not ever have to enter a password. But we don't live in those times anymore. Security is a must. And passwords secure long, complicated passwords are necessary these days. So although it's an inconvenience, it's a requirement and it helps with security, of course. And unfortunately, those two things are oftentimes diametrically opposed from one another, security and convenience. And if you are secure, you're not going to have every level of convenience you may like. And if your computer runs completely conveniently for you, then you probably don't have adequate security. Okay. Now we've been covering just some of the basics of Linux. But one of the things that we should just touch on, however briefly, is the browser security. Because that's how most of us are accessing the internet for checking our email, our news. (14/49)
One of the big things that I, when I was looking through my notes on this episode was there's a lot of data that's tracked via the browser. And now a big thing is the do not track thing. Do you have an idea of how that thing works? Well, from what I understand, we're going to use some examples here. Say you're using Internet Explorer or Chrome and you go to, and you don't have do not track on. Okay. And you go to Amazon and say you look at for some coffee, which I just recently did. They put cookies where they can follow you to different sites. So they're building a database of your browsing habits. So you might go to Amazon to look for it. Then you might go to Starbucks website, see if you can get a better deal. And then you might go to eBay. And so each one of those keeps adding cookies to see where you're going. Now some only track you within their network. But it kind of creeps me out that you're looking for coffee and hey, all of a sudden it says, I see you were looking for (15/49)
coffee. How about some coffee creamer too? Well, if I want a coffee creamer, I'd look for it. So in that way, they're trying to tie, I would say just add-ons. They're doing it for their own personal gain, not necessarily for your privacy or security. Now I don't care if people know that I was ordering Sumatra coffee. I really don't care. But how much data is actually being transmitted? Because they know the time, the date, how long you looked at a page. Did you stay within their network? You can take a lot of data and start kind of building a profile of the person who's doing the shopping. Right, exactly. And many of the companies out there are doing this for marketing purposes. Of course, they want to see if you're interested in coffee, maybe they can sell you something else. But it makes you wonder if that technology exists, can it be used for nefarious purposes? Perhaps by three letter agencies of a government somewhere? Not that they would ever, ever do that. No, who's ever heard (16/49)
of that happening? I don't know. I'm not being paranoid. I'm just being, hey, I should be secure enough to look for coffee. Let's take it one step further. Say you're reading a news article. You might run across something on terrorism or you might run across something on... Like both of us, we read about the data hacks and stuff. If they say, well, wow, this person's always reading about things that are data hacks or the latest bombings that happened. So maybe we need to watch this person more and we could be totally innocent, but it just builds a profile of saying, oh, why is he always looking at that? Why is he always doing that? Your browser keeps a history of everything you've done unless you clear it, which I think all our users are savvy enough to know how to do that. But it's still the fact that data is being used to kind of track you. So the do not track is important for that reason. Also, you can go into settings and there's a lot of security settings in different browsers and (17/49)
each one has different terminology for it. But what you want to do is if you're concerned about your privacy, and I always consider privacy and security as one. Then you're going to want to say, hey, look, stop tracking me. I don't want your cookies. I can order my own coffee. And if I want creamer, I can order it type of thing. So that moves me on to something that really, really made me go, hmm. I was looking at the differences in security between Linux and Windows 10, and I've included some links in our show notes that you guys should really take a look at. And basically it's talking about how much data Windows 10 collects and you can't entirely shut it off. Well, you know, that's really important because we've been talking about how much information a browser can send back to wherever it's sending it. And that applies to any operating system. But it sounds from what you're saying that Windows takes it a step further. I know in Linux, sometimes you'll get a request, especially (18/49)
during the installation phase of do you want to send information back to Canonical or Fedora or whatever distribution you're using. And what they're talking about there is information to help the development of the operating system. But it sounds like those folks at Microsoft are collecting more information than that. Let me just give you an example because I like examples. It tracks how many times you've plugged the USB into your machine, what type of USB it was. It also can tell, according to the license agreement, you can only have 12 USB devices plugged into your computer at one time. That's crazy. I've never had more than three, but it's still able to see that you've plugged the USB into your computer. Let's see, hang on a second. So you may have a USB mouse, a USB keyboard, USB display. Joystick? Yeah, joystick. You may have a USB stick for storing stuff and maybe a USB external hard drive. How many is that? That's five or six already. Yeah, and then if you got a printer. Yeah, I (19/49)
see. Oh yeah, a printer. Yeah. Does it count the hub? Some people use a USB hub because they have a scanner, they have a camera. Does the hub count as one device or is each device on your five port hub five? Is that five or is that one? I don't know. Well, one of the differences that we got to understand is Linux is pretty much you can do whatever you want within the license agreements. Okay, if you make changes to make it better, you have to share it. But Windows, most people are under the conception, this is my Windows thing. No, it's not your license. They're allowing you to use the software. And if you really look, there's the restrictions. You can only have, you know, there's virtualization restrictions, there's restrictions if you can transfer it. You know, I'll give you an example. If I wanted to transfer my copy of Linux to Larry, I could say, here you go Larry, have a nice day. And that's totally okay. Or Larry can give me his or whatever. But you can't legally do that with (20/49)
Windows. You have to go through, jump through hoops. So they're really telling you, yes, you can use the software, we make things easy, but in Windows 10, you have to give us your diagnostic data. You have to agree to these terms and conditions. And most people think, well, it comes with my machine, so it's mine. No, if you read the license agreement, it doesn't say that. It says it's licensed. So that's a big difference. So we've included links in our show notes to both the license agreements. Actually, we included three. We included one for the Linux kernel. We included one for Ubuntu and one for Windows 10. So you can look and see that they're diametrically opposed. So something to keep in mind. Now, here's my question. How much data does Microsoft get from you and what are they doing with it? Where are they storing it? They say, and Microsoft would never lie, that it doesn't have personally identifiable information. How do I know that? I can't see what you're getting is not (21/49)
transparent. So I don't know what they are getting from my machine. And also, when you installed Windows 10, it actually says that there are some programs that are not compatible and they actually uninstall it or disable it. So if you have an old software program that you've been using for 10 years and you're perfectly happy with it, Windows 10 might not like it and might not let you run it. So you're giving up a lot of your freedom and privacy and security, but you own Linux. You've got to understand, we've got to be smart about our computers and our privacy and our security. And here's another one. Who is seeing this data? I know you might say, well, you sound paranoid, Bill. No, I'm not paranoid. Here's some examples of some legitimate things that you just don't want people to know about. Letters to your employer, to your family, pictures of your kids, financial records. I mean, we're not even talking anything nefarious. We're just talking day to day. I mean, I keep things on my (22/49)
Linux computer like the bills I've paid, the outstanding debts, correspondence for jobs, my resume. That's stuff that I'd rather not just have anybody have access to it. But I don't know how much is being seen. That kind of wigs me out a little bit. I don't know. What do you think, Larry? Am I being paranoid? And if you say yes, I'm going to get a cup of coffee. Well, you know what? I think it's justified being a little bit paranoid these days. So I don't know whether you're being paranoid or just cautious. I think we all need to be super vigilant of what's going on, especially with our electronic devices, not just our computers. But this applies to our telephones. It applies to that Amazon Echo that you may have. It can apply to anything that is electronic, even if you have an Internet connected light bulb that you can control from your phone. You've got to watch out for that thing as well. So, yeah, maybe we're all paranoid these days. But I think to some degree it's a bit justified, (23/49)
especially with what you hear in the news. Well, you've got to be informed about your technology. I'm not saying you have to be an expert, but here's another example. We already discussed that you have to give Linux permission to install updates. Not so on the Windows 10. You can postpone the updates until it just doesn't let you do it anymore and it has to install it. And a lot of times what it tells you installing is performance improvements. Well, what does that mean? You know, we're updating this feature for you. Well, are you adding something to the feature I don't know about that I've been using? I mean, I like to have information about what's running on my machine, and I find it irritating where I've postponed an update on Windows. And I'm in the middle of a letter and it reboots. Yeah, exactly. That drives me insane. Sounds like I think if I were to run Windows would drive me insane. From what I've heard is the fact that when you're given an update or when an update is (24/49)
released, sometimes it's not going to let you not accept an update. That's one thing with Linux. If you know that you have version two of something and the updates to version three breaks something else, you don't have to install the update to version three until you have a solution for that issue. And Linux lets you do that. Whereas from what I've heard, Windows, I don't know about the Mac, but Windows will force those kind of updates on you. Even those where they're describing it as performance improvements or things like that, where you don't know what it is they're installing really, because it's not really giving you any sort of details. And for the most part, with Linux updates and the applications that run in Linux, you can get information about the updates before you install them, and then you can decide whether or not you want to install them. If they're security updates, generally speaking, you want those. But if they're feature improvements, maybe those feature improvements (25/49)
will break something else and you're not ready for that yet. Yeah. And one of the strengths I would say in Linux compared to other operating systems, you have a lot more people looking at the code. You have a lot more people vetting the software, and I've seen patches come out within hours of a vulnerability. And it tells you, hey, this is the patch, this, we just found it. I mean, they're incredibly, incredibly fast on getting those patches out. If they see that there's a problem, there's still legacy problems that they've known about in Windows. Unfortunately, I have to keep saying that word. That they just hope that no one finds. They know they're there, and then someone finds it, and then they patch it. Well, that doesn't make me feel safe, and it shouldn't anybody else. If you know there's a problem, you should patch it, but sometimes they don't patch it because, well, they have other concerns or other features they want to do. Why say security and privacy should be paramount? But (26/49)
that's just me, and you can disagree with me on those points. I think basically what it boils down to is when you start comparing Linux against other operating systems, you're going to see that Linux is much more security conscious than others. And that has really come home to me lately. As most of you know, I have Windows installed on my computer because I need it for work, and I also play some games. And those just don't run, or I'm too lazy to make them run on Linux. So I have actually switched where I am about 95% of the time in Linux, and only about 5% in Windows. Just because I only use Windows for what I absolutely have to. I do not browse using Windows anymore. And the reason for that is I have Windows 10, and I started looking around after reading these articles, and I started digging through the menus. And there's a lot of stuff turned on that I didn't know about, and you have to uncheck it. They like to opt you in, and then you have to opt out. So I prefer to have a choice (27/49)
of what I opt in to. I'd rather not have to opt out of all these. I mean, just look at one of the features in Windows, and I'm sure it's very nice. I've never used it. Let me rephrase that. I tried it a couple times. What is that virtual assistant? Corona, whatever her name is. Oh, Cortana. Cortana, that's it. Yeah, not a Halo person apparently. And Cortana has to connect to the internet and servers to get information. And that's a lot of data that it's talking and sharing with servers. So when you're using Cortana, it's talking to Microsoft servers, because it's their product, to get what you want done. Is it retaining the data? One of the things that I always wonder about is where the servers are located. What's your data retention policies? How are you securing that data? Because you can take a lot of data and start making some educated guesses about people and about what they want. I'm picking on Microsoft, but Google does it too. And we all use Google services. We use Google (28/49)
services here for going links to our show notes. But you just kind of wonder how the data is secured. And I know some people saying, look, I just want convenience. That's fine. Convenience is a great thing. But when you look at convenience, you also got to balance it with security. I think that's what we're kind of saying. And if you have used Linux, I think you'll realize that you're much more secure. There's nothing that's going to be 100 percent. I will say that right up front. Whether you're an OS X, FreeBSD or Linux, it's only as secure as they can make it at the time. And also, what Larry always likes to say is good computing practices. Yep, exactly. And, you know, when you're talking about collection of data, we talked earlier about the fact that artificial intelligence seems to be not only a buzzword, but the direction that the industry is going in. And what makes artificial intelligence work is the data that's out there that's available. And if it's marketing artificial (29/49)
intelligence, they're looking at your buying behavior. If it's artificial intelligence that's helping you to use your device with voice activation or provide you voice feedback, it needs access to microphones and speakers and what's going on in order for it to be able to respond to your voice. It needs to be listening. And it all comes down to do you trust the manufacturer of that device or the vendor of that software? And are you going to trust them that they are acquiring the data that they need only to do the function that they're providing you? And that data that they're collecting, are they keeping it secure? So it all comes down to trust. And whether you trust them or not, by using Linux and open source software that provides you with control, not only security, but with the control to be able to see what that security is, what it's doing, how it's working, you are in a much better place to trust, but verify, to quote a U.S. president. Yeah. And I think that's really our point (30/49)
here, is that nothing is absolutely secure. When you're using a system like Linux, as opposed to a lockdown proprietary system like Windows or even OS 10 or Mac OS, as they're converting the name to, you have the ability to verify that trust, or at least to determine how much of the information is being collected, is it being stored securely? And you can then make an intelligent choice as to whether or not you want to use that service. And again, it's a balance between convenience and security. And you can't have both together. Pick one. Well, I think what it boils down to, I mean, and I don't want anybody to think I'm bashing Windows or any other. I just want our listeners to be as informed. And most of them are a lot smarter than me. So if this is old news to them, I'm sorry. But the smartest person in technology sometimes, well, I would say almost always has to be you. Yes, absolutely. There's another feature that you mentioned to me about encrypting the home folder. How does that (31/49)
affect security? That seems to be a pretty good idea. Yeah, absolutely. And when you install Linux, many of the modern Linux distributions give you the option of encrypting the entire hard drive at the time you install the operating system or encrypting just your home directory or some segment of the hard drive. And to answer your question, Bill, what that does is it does not protect you from intrusions while you're using the system. It doesn't protect you from somebody sitting down at your computer, figuring out your password or you've left it unlocked. And they just sit down and using your computer, if if they have access and you've already entered your password to log in, then all bets are off. However, if your computer is off or even if it's on and you have logged out as your normal everyday user, you've logged out and it's sitting there ready for you to log in. The information on your hard drive or in whatever encrypted partition or folder you've got is inaccessible until you've (32/49)
fed the computer your credentials, your username and password. And once that happens, it unencrypts the drive so that you can actually use the information that's on there. But while it's in that logged out state or while it's off, if somebody were to try if somebody were to pull out your hard drive and connect it to another computer, the encryption makes that information that's on that hard drive inaccessible to someone without the encryption key. And the encryption key is not your password, but something that's generated that you actually provide the encryption software with that key by entering your password. So if you were to take your computer hard drive out and connect it to another computer, you couldn't simply open up a folder, for example, in the file manager and give it your password from the computer you took the hard drive from and expect to open it. It doesn't work that way. It's truly a key, an encrypted key that keeps your information safe by ensuring that it's not (33/49)
accessible to somebody who hasn't logged into the system that the hard drive, the encrypted hard drive is part of. So basically what you're saying, we've heard of laptops being stolen that had sensitive data. And so someone steals the laptop, unless they know your password, they can't get access to your sensitive data. And it could be just something as benign as company mailing lists, sales, strategies, financial records. Well, those aren't benign, but you see where I'm going with this. So even if they said, well, pull the drive, they still can't get access to it. Well, not easily. I'm sure there's a way, where there's a will there's always a way, but you're not going to make it easy for them is what you're trying to say. Exactly right. And depending on the encryption, the more secure the encryption, the deeper the encryption. Yeah, there's always a way to crack encryption, but if it's going to take you 10,000 years to get there, chances are it's not going to happen. They're just going (34/49)
to wipe the drive. Exactly. Okay. So Larry, I know that you've been working on an article. You want to tell us what you're working on? Yeah, absolutely. And we'll use this as a way to wrap up our show today. So I haven't completed the article yet. Maybe by the time we publish this episode, it'll be complete. If not, it will be shortly afterwards. But I wanted to finish up here with some specific guidelines, some specific suggestions for our users on security. And this applies because we're talking about today's security. So we're going to talk about some things you can do with today's technology to make your system secure. And I'm going to compare what you need to do in Linux and compare it with some recommendations that a Windows expert has provided. And we'll provide a link to all of these things in the show notes, of course. And first of all, for basic Linux security guides, Canonical on their website lists fewer than 30 Linux viruses and worms that are out there today. And one of (35/49)
the antivirus software websites, Sophos, for example, cites this Canonical article and says they're a little bit shy on a few. But let's say it's even as many as 50 Linux viruses and worms that are out there. Compare that with about 140,000 viruses for Windows. So, you know, you're protected a little bit in using Linux because there are fewer attacks out there. And let's face it, most, if not all of those Linux viruses and worms that have been developed have already been patched. So if you're running a modern Linux distribution, you're protected already. So security guidelines. First, if you dual boot with Windows, run Windows in a virtual machine, or use Wine to run Windows programs, or even simply share files with your Windows using friends, you need to install an antivirus scanner to scan those files for viruses. Not that they're going to infect your Linux machine, but so that if you pass those files on to others through email or through file sharing or other methodologies, that (36/49)
you're not passing on those viruses. That's the case for installing antivirus on Linux. And in fact, on the Canonical site, they say don't install antivirus on Linux on Ubuntu. You don't need it unless you're doing one of these things. So that's point number one. Point number two, your Linux distribution comes with a software firewall. And if it doesn't, if it's not already installed, it's in the repository. So if it's not installed, install it. If it's installed, make sure it's enabled. Some Linux distributions enable a firewall by default, and some don't. Some install it and let you decide whether you want to turn it on or not. But the recommendation from a security perspective is use a firewall, a software firewall, and turn it on. Point number three, keep your system updated. Updates on Linux are automatic on most distributions, so let them run as soon as they're available. Linux distributions provide security updates as soon as they're available, as opposed to other operating (37/49)
systems that wait until the specific time of the month when they release all of their patches. So you're more secure on Linux simply because you get the updates without any delay. Number four, use strong passwords on everything. And use a secure password manager to store those, because if they are good passwords, typically they're a little complex and sometimes you wouldn't be able to remember them even if you tried. And since we're recommending that you use a different password for each individual password you need, you're not repeating any passwords, you're going to have sometimes hundreds of passwords that you would need to remember. So use a secure password manager to store them. Number five, make backups regularly. Number six, install only from trusted sources, whether that's a Linux distribution, whether that's open source software, or whether that's proprietary software that you're installing on your Linux machine. Make sure you're installing it from trusted sources, and on (38/49)
Linux that generally means the repositories, or trusted PPAs, or trusted websites that perhaps don't provide software into the repositories and require that you download from their website. Make sure you go into the right place. Number seven, use security-related plugins for your browser that protect your data, your credentials, and your privacy. We talked about browsers and how much data they collect. You can prevent some of that with the appropriate plugins, whether you're using Chrome or Firefox or something else. There are plugins, search through the official sources for plugins for your browser and you'll find them. Whether that's VPN or whether that's ad blocking software, use it. And number eight on our list of recommendations for Linux is use common sense. The biggest security threat is generally found between the keyboard and the chair. That means you, the human element, is often the weakest link when it comes to security, whether that's with Linux or whether that's with other (39/49)
operating systems. And if you look through those eight suggestions, they apply to any operating system. Let's face it, you want to install software from trusted sources, you want to enable a firewall, you want to make sure that if you're running Windows programs or receiving files from Windows using people, you scan them for viruses, you want to make backups on a regular basis, and you want to get system updates. So use common sense. That's really what we've been talking about this whole episode. And let me pause here before I go into how this compares with what's recommended for security on Windows. What do you think, Bill? Well, I'm good for the first seven, but I'm in trouble for the eighth. I think we all are. Do the best you can. Well, in my case, I'm the Muppet, so I'm going to do stuff, yeah, common sense. This is install this program. No, seriously, those are pretty much all common sense. I mean, none of them are really rocket science. But we can't stress it enough that if you (40/49)
follow those eight suggestions or guidelines, that you're already ahead of the game. Yeah, you're already ahead of what most people do because most people don't do all of those things. Most people don't do most of those things. So if you're doing anywhere near all of them, you're, as you said, Bill, you're well ahead of the pack. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. But then again, anybody that uses Linux, I think, are probably a little more tech savvy than most. And you can call that a little bit of an elitist boast, but I've seen some of the discussions in our forums. And from what I can see, our users that listen to the podcast are pretty much on top of things. So, yeah, I would agree with that. I don't think you have to be all that tech savvy to follow these these guidelines. And in fact, if you're interested in using Linux as opposed to Windows, your interest indicates that you have some curiosity and you're at least aware of the fact that you need to be concerned about how your operating system (41/49)
works and how the software that runs on that operating system work. So you're already ahead of the game, whether you're tech savvy or not. You are more savvy than the average computer user out there these days. Yeah. So, you know, to close my comments on this is that your basic guideline is to use common sense. And to just, you know, if you're interested and there's not some people are not going to be interested in learning about how things work. And that's OK, too. You know, some people will say, I'm happy with Windows, I'm happy with Mac OS, I'm happy with whatever. And if they're OK with it, that's great. But for those of us who want to know a little bit more about what's going on and how our systems work and, you know, we care a little bit more about how our information is being used and our security, then I think that these are pretty easy to follow. Yeah, I would agree with that. So let's move on now to Windows operating system security recommendations. Do we have enough time for (42/49)
all that? Well, that's that's a critical point right there. It takes a while to think about this stuff, but we'll try to keep it brief. In fact, I haven't used Windows in years and I know you use Windows and you're using it less and less. So let's not talk about this from our perspective. Let's get the advice of Mike Smith. Mike has provided an ultimate Windows security protection guide. He's an independent I.T. consultant with MHS Consulting, and he's been an I.T. professional for the past 30 years. Mike hosts a podcast where he often discusses issues that he and his colleagues have had in supporting mostly Windows computers and how those issues have been solved. Mike's podcast is The Mike Tech Show, and in episode 595, which we'll link to in the show notes, he provides this list of recommendations for being secure on Windows from his 30 years of experience. Consider these recommendations as requirements for Windows in addition to the eight recommendations that we've provided for (43/49)
Linux. So in addition to doing everything that we've said you need to do for Linux, you need these things. Mike recommends this list of programs that you need to run to help prevent malware infections. So think about that for a second. In addition to the common sense recommendations that we just made, Mike's recommend recommending that you run these programs on a regular basis. Bitdefender. And there's a free version of Bitdefender. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Premium. Yes, some of these programs you have to pay for. Malwarebytes Anti-Exploit. Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware. Yes, Malwarebytes is a sponsor of his show, but he doesn't just recommend them because they're a sponsor. He uses them. CryptoPrevent. Web of Trust. This is a browser safety measure that you can use on any browser, on any operating system. But he recommends it specifically for Windows. Adblock Plus. Unchecky. Unchecky is a program that solves that problem that you were mentioning earlier, Bill, where software, when you (44/49)
go to the Adobe site, for example, and you download something, Adobe Flash, it has a bunch of optional programs that it's going to install and they're checked by default. What Unchecky does is it unchecks all of that stuff that is checked by default automatically for you. So you don't end up with surprises. OK, so that's the basic stuff that he says. Now, in addition to all those programs, he recommends that you run these programs every single week as maintenance. So first one, Windows Repair Toolbox. Then JRT, Junkware Removal Tool, Adware Cleaner, ADW Cleaner, Rogue Killer, and CC Cleaner. And if that wasn't enough, he recommends running these two programs monthly. PatchMyPC and DriverMax. So, Bill, it sounds like there's a lot of maintenance to do on a monthly and weekly basis, in addition to running programs to keep your system clean, in addition to the basic things you need to do with any operating system, including Linux. So it's a lot more work. I think I'll just keep Linux. (45/49)
Yeah, I'll just keep my Ubuntu long term support. That is just too much work. I just want to point out that's what? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight? Eight extra programs that runs? That's all right. Yeah, yeah. And that's just the regular ones. There are one, two, three, four, five additional programs for weekly maintenance and two for monthly maintenance. So, wow. Wow. And these aren't from Microsoft. These are just third parties, which of course makes me go, wait a minute, how do I know about these people? I mean, do I know what they're doing with my stuff? So I know I sound paranoid, but I like to know who has their fingers in my system. Right. Absolutely. So aren't you glad you got that free Windows 10 upgrade and now you've got to buy all this proprietary software to keep that free operating system operational and uninfected? No. Yeah. Please, may I have some of my Linux back? You can have it anytime you want. For free. Hey, for free? All right. Yes. All right. (46/49)
Special price. So I think that we pretty much beat this horse. Yes, we have. Yes, we have. And just a disclaimer, we're not against Windows or Mac OS or Linux. This is just to give you an idea of what's involved. It's not just whether you're running Linux or Windows. You still have to do your due diligence. And sometimes the due diligence is a lot less on Linux. Yes, exactly. That's the point is you need to do some things to keep yourself secure on Linux, but it's a heck of a lot less than what you have to do on other operating systems. We've only concerned ourselves today with Windows as the alternative operating system. The same thing applies to OS 10, although to a lesser degree. But even Apple is recommending that you run antivirus software and anti-malware software these days. So, hey, whether you choose to run it on Linux or not is up to you. But if you're doing anything cross-platform with Windows or OS 10, we recommend that you at least install it to scan the files that you're (47/49)
sharing with other folks. And let's face it, if you're getting files from the Internet that aren't specifically Linux files, chances are they've been developed with Windows or with OS 10, and you're probably wanting to scan those anyway. So you may not need antivirus, anti-malware software on Linux to fend off Linux infections, but you do need it in order to protect your other operating system using friends. Yeah, I think that's a good way to end this episode, so they don't think that I'm a paranoid schizophrenic. So what's our next episode? Okay, on our regular schedule, we alternate between user experience episodes like this one and listener feedback episodes. So our next one will be a listener feedback episode. We've already gotten some feedback that we're including, and we'll get more, I know, between now and the release of our next episode. So until then, keep those emails and voice files coming in for our feedback episode, and go to our website at goinglinux.com for articles and (48/49)
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 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. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com (49/49)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #445 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 445, listener feedback. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications, and using them to get things done. If you want to send us feedback, you can always email us at goinglinux at gmail dot com, or leave us a voicemail at 1-9-0-4-4-6-8-7-8-8-9. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello, Larry. Hello, Bill. Hello, Bill. I thought I beat you to the punch that time. Yeah. So... How you been doing? Good. Let's see. Quick weather report is finally cooling off. We were out of the triple digits. And I'm very happy about that. Kids are back in school. Roads are busier. That's about it. Yeah, weather report here. (1/49)
Still in triple digits. Wish it would go away. It will soon. Okay. Okay. We've got lots of feedback this time around. And I have to say it's mostly from Sean. He sent us a series of voicemails that we've been collecting over the past month or two. And yeah, we've got a five-part series. Actually, what did he say? So it went to part three and then he added a PS. And then there was a follow-on with one more thing. And then we have a separate message that he left just for Bill. So why don't we start with those and we'll make comments on each of these parts as we play them. How's that? Yeah, I listened to all of these and then read through the transcripts of them. And I think that we both kind of pulled out some of the main topic ideas that he's wanting to discuss. So I think we should go ahead and listen to the first part, part one of six and go from there. Yeah, sounds good. Aloha from Utah, Larry and Bill. This is your number one pandemic minion, Sean NZ17 Robinson. With another (2/49)
enthralling voicemail message. Or possibly dull depending upon your interest, but let's just pretend it's awesome. Anyway, I listened to your recent episode and I have to say that I have a few things that I'd like to mention. First of all, Larry, would you mind going and posting the show notes alongside the episode's audio when you post them to the Internet Archive? I like downloading your episodes from the archive. However, there's no notes alongside them. So it's just a basic page with the MP3 and the Ogg Vorbis file and whatever else is generated by the Internet Archive automatically. Which is good. However, it'd also be nice to have the show notes, even if it's just a simple copy and paste of the text. Sometimes, especially when I'm using older web browsers that can't go to the Go in Linux website because of its current website certificate. So the old browsers don't trust the new cert, so the SSL TLS connection fails. I go to the Internet Archive to download the episodes and, well, (3/49)
there's no show notes there. And the actual show notes page is just one long, seemingly endless web page of notes for dozens or hundreds of episodes. So it can be a bit unwieldy for slow CPUs or machines with small amounts of memory to render. Anyways, long message about that short, please post show notes to your Internet Archive file postings of the episodes. Thanks. Anyway, back to the topic of the episode, which is applications. And so, a few things. One, the Blender application, which most people know for 3D animations, and a few people know can actually be used to make computer games, can also be used for video editing. So there's another option for anyone interested in that, especially those that already know how to use Blender. Another option, audio players. You guys mentioned VLC and how there's some audio slash music players for the command line. And a few that I've tried and that I would recommend is VLC's various command line or terminal interfaces. One of them is nCurses- (4/49)
based, so it's more like a GUI application where you can use arrow keys and other short-cut keys like you're used to in media players. Okay, Sean, your idea of posting the show notes in Internet Archive, I haven't thought about doing that. What I have thought about doing is putting our website in more of a blog format where each episode has its own page so that you don't have the issue that you have with slower computers not being very quick about rendering the very long show notes page. So let me take a look at how much work it would be to put the show notes in the Internet Archive. It's just one additional copy and paste, I think, when I post the episodes there. But we'll take that under advisement and see what we can do. Certainly revamping the entire website is a lot more work than copy and paste every time we have an episode. So we'll take a look at that. Didn't you hand-code our website? I thought you had done a hand-coded to make it so it was a lot faster, not a lot of bloop. I (5/49)
did. I took out a lot of stuff. But as it turns out, the show notes page contains all of the show notes, I think, back to episode one. Oh, wow. Okay. And it's all one big long list. Yeah, I can see where Sean was. Yeah. For modern computers, that's not a problem. But for older computers or where you have a slow internet connection, that can be a problem. So we'll take a look at finding a way to make that better one way or another. And if that is posting the show notes for each episode to the Internet Archive, so be it. Okay. That's a good idea anyway to have them archived up there. He also mentioned something about Blender being used to make computer games. Yeah, well, it's 3D animation and not only can you make movies, you can make video games apparently. Or computer games, if you want to call them that. But either way, that's an interesting use. I think there are some people that use Blender in some of the bigger studios for rendering certain scenes or something. I'm not quite sure. (6/49)
I know it's powerful enough, but I know I've heard that some of the movie studios were using it for something. I don't know how true that is or not because they have some pro tools that I think would probably be better. But it's because it's just made to do one thing. It's super expensive, so I can see them trying to use Blender even if they don't have to buy a license. Yeah. And splitting up the work. I'm sure that if you split it up to several computers running Blender, it's a lot less expensive. Or just the distribution of work, you can get through it a lot quicker than trying to do it all in one monolithic program on a super expensive Mac computer or something like that. The other thing Sean goes to talk about in this particular segment here is the use of command line for doing some of this work. And he mentions that Blender has command line, VLC has a command line. And we'll see in some of the other voicemails that he leaves, he talks a lot about the command line. And I just want (7/49)
to give a definition of a term that some of our audience may not have come across. So if you're new to Linux or new to command line, you may see that the term ncurses is used. And that is a way on a text-based terminal of giving you a graphical way of interacting with the program from the terminal. So it's not exactly command line when you're using the ncurses interface, but it is terminal-based. So that's what he means when he says ncurses. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know. I mean, I know we don't do a lot with the terminal or command line because we're kind of aimed at the new user. And whereas sometimes you can do things a lot faster via the command line, I find that I just use the GUI. And you'll hear that term. And just to explain that, that's a graphical user interface, just like Windows or MATE or any of the others, KDE. It's the interface that you use to get things done on the computer. I don't think it's a bad thing, but I don't think that's something that someone moving straight (8/49)
from Windows to Linux is totally interested in. Basically, they want to be able to do their daily work and get it done. A lot of times people will start picking up some command line. Some people will say, oh, I kind of like this. But as a general rule, I think we try to stay away from the command line because the command line is super powerful. And it can do a lot of stuff really quickly, but it's not necessary to get things done. It's something they can explore on their own. Right. Yeah, especially since we're focused mainly on the new user. But there are some very powerful programs that only run from the command line that we could talk about. So as we go along, maybe we'll include some of those in some of the episodes we have. But I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for them. We'll talk about them as we run across them and find them interesting to talk about. And specifically, if we think they might have some value for a new user. Yeah, and I just want to clarify, when we say new (9/49)
user, we also mean just regular users too. Someone that's been using Linux but wants to see if there's something better they can use. So we're more geared to just the new user, normal user, if there is one of Linux normal users. But just people that want to use it to get things done as far as with their work or play a game or watch a movie. Right. That's what we're trying to do is to get them to use Linux. And our definition of a new user isn't necessarily somebody who's new to computing. It could be somebody who's been using Windows for 10 or 15 years and is fed up of all the hassle you have to go through. To install things and to keep it secure and to reboot every time something happens. And try to find drivers for things and not sure whether or not it's safe when you download it. All that stuff goes away when you switch to Linux. And our objective here for that kind of a user is to show how easy it is to switch, how similar it is in some ways, and how different it is in terms of (10/49)
your experience because you don't have a lot of those hassles. So that's what we define as a new user. And whether you're switching from Windows, which has been around a long time, the Mac, which also has been around a long time, or from something like Chrome OS. If you're moving from school and your school forced Chrome on you and you found that it was not a full-fledged operating system in the same sense that Mac, Windows, and Linux are, then moving to Linux might be the option for you. Alright. Let's move on to part two. Let's listen to Sean's next section here. Okay. Part two. VLC has both this ncurses-based interface as well as a command line, like a true command line, one command at a time at bash or whatever shell you're using for your command line. Both of these are good. Another one that I like to use, which has both GUI and command line interfaces, is Tumidity, the MIDI music player. So if anyone likes sequencer music, like you used to have with computer games 30 years ago, (11/49)
or even fresh music from today, Tumidity is really good for playing MIDI formatted music, and it has a TK user interface, GTK I believe. Another one is a curses-based interface, command line, even a dumb interface where you just start it up and it plays whatever you told it to. So those are good. And another one is MPD, which I believe is the music player daemon, or demon. And that's just a daemon, or daemon though. You might want to use m, music player command. That's for the command line. It's included with Debian Linux. And there's another one called NCMPC, which I believe uses the ncurses library for a graphical user interface at the command line. And these are really good, especially because when you quit the client, the daemon will keep playing the music in the background if that's what you want. So you can just have it playing music back there without you having to pay attention or spend the resources on it. Anyways, other than that, I'd really like it if you guys could perhaps (12/49)
spend some time reviewing some command line programs, preferably with curses user interfaces. As I find, that's an excellent combination of being resource-light and still being user-friendly, because you still get the GUI, it's just made out of ASCII text characters or colored rectangles or whatever. So it's intuitive for those used to using arrow keys and the enter or return key and other shortcuts like that, without having to be as basic as, hey, here's a command line tool, read the manual or info page to figure out all the command arguments. As part two, he mentioned that VLC has the ncurses-based interface. That's the... Am I thinking of the same program? I haven't used VLC. That's the one that you can pretty much throw any video audio file at and it will play it. Yep. Okay. Yes, exactly. Okay, just checking, because I was like, is there another VLC? I don't remember it ever having a ncurses-based interface, so it shows you how much I pay attention. Well, and of course, VLC (13/49)
underneath the hood is using a lot of command line audio and video processing that is native to Linux as well. So you could go even deeper if you want to use the command line and bypass VLC altogether and do this stuff for yourself using those tools. But eventually you're going to want to automate some of the commands from each of those tools and eventually you'll find yourself, if not duplicating, then having some redundant functionality in that automation that's already built into VLC. And yeah, so again, some of this stuff you could go so deep that you would not want to be a new user and even think about it. And VLC has the ncurses interface to allow you to do this from a terminal, which you can do if you want to. And if you want to use a graphical user interface, it has that as well. I do want to point out, in one of his statements, he was telling that MPD, which he believes is the music player, he goes, It is Daemon, but I like Daemon better. The only reason I know that is that (14/49)
FreeBSD has the little devil thing, the little cute devil, I think. And it's Daemon, so Daemon is basically a process. But I like Daemon too, so I think Daemon, it should be called Daemon because some of the times it can be Daemons. And I know about you, but I've never heard of NCPMC. Maybe because we're not in the command line a lot. Yeah, I never heard of NCMPC. Then again, there's a lot of things I haven't heard of. All I know is I download VLC when I need it and just use the graphical interface and let all that magic happen behind the scenes. That's my way of computing. I don't need to know all the different things. I mean, I know some people like to dig in, all it uses is this part and this part. I'm like, if it works, I can get my stuff done, I'm good. Okay, so part three is on computer games. So let's listen to what Sean has to say about that and a particular computer game called Icebreaker. Here we go. Part three. Anyway, Bill, you were talking about computer games. And one of (15/49)
my favorite computer games for Linux is called Icebreaker. It's a game featuring a bunch of penguins on a grid-shaped play field. The play field gets divided every time that the player clicks somewhere, subdividing and subdividing into smaller squares. Meanwhile, penguins are skating across the ice and if they touch a wall that's currently forming to divide the play field, it will break that half of the wall that the penguin collides with. This is based on an older, famous computer game. However, my mind is blanking on that old computer game's name. Anyways, it's a classic form of gameplay, a classic gameplay genre, and it's a lot of fun. It's free Libre open source software, it's resource-light, it's included with multiple Linux distributions that include games as far as I know. It's charming, it's simple, it can be enjoyed by anyone of any age, basically, and it's an excellent time waster for when you've got to wait for something, or if you're just playing something for fun, or heck, (16/49)
you even have a file downloading and you've got a minute or two. Anyway, it's an excellent game, it keeps track of your high scores, and I think they even have a client for Windows, if anyone still uses that operating system series. Well, I think that's been just about enough for this voicemail. Hopefully you guys can, perhaps, I don't know, review a few email clients. I know I like that Clawsmail client, I haven't used it for years. It was good though, I generally just stay with an older Thunderbird client that I like well. You know how it is at Mozilla, they're always making changes and cutting out useful features and changing the UI and icons. If I say if it's not broke, don't try to fix it, you'll probably just make it worse. Right, so I guess everyone take care, thank you for the episodes. I look forward to the next episode of Going Linux, hopefully we won't have such big breaks between episodes next time. So from your number one pandantic minion, this is NZ17 saying Aloha from (17/49)
Utah. Okay, well thanks for describing how Icebreaker works. Bill, as the resident gamer between the two of us, have you even heard of Icebreaker? Have you played it? I have. Have you heard anything about it? Okay, and? I think I've played that thing, it's been around for a while, if I'm thinking of the right one. It has the little penguins, and let me think here, it's been a while. I know it was a charming little game, but it was not exactly to my taste, I preferred a little bit more depth, but it's cute. You have the penguins and you have to get them I think across an iceberg or something like that. It's been years since I've played it, but it's cute, definitely small children would have a great time with it. Or if you're just sitting there and just want to chill and just mindlessly play a game, it can be fun and distracting. So, yeah, I've played it, I believe it, because there are several different ones. There's one that you actually, I know it's not this, it's where the penguins (18/49)
have taken down a slalom, and I know there's open bubble and stuff like that. So there's a lot of games, I wouldn't call them AAA games, compared to some of the games that I like to play. But they are good, they're built in, and they're made with love, so you can't really go wrong. And the price is right, and you can tell that whoever made them put some love and attention into them. And they're maintaining them still, so you can't really complain. Yeah, so it sounds like one of those mindless time-waster kind of games, which, I like those. You would. I get bored of them very quickly, I need something more, I guess, action-packed. Yeah, the rare times that I game, I definitely prefer the action-type things, but I'll tell you, every once in a while if I have five minutes to spare, I find myself gravitating towards this kind of a time-waster. That's called Solitaire. That's a little too pedantic for me. But, when he says it has a grid-shaped playfield, I wonder if we're thinking about the (19/49)
same game. I'm going to now have to go look in the repositories and download it to see if this is the same game I played a long time ago. Well, thanks, Sean. Now you've put me to work. Jeez. Yep, now you did it. Now you did it. We're going to have a game review next time. All about Icebreaker. Yes, there you go. Okay, so he also in that one mentioned about email clients. He mentioned Clawsmail and Thunderbird, other Mozilla-related things. And, you know, there are a number of email clients you can use, of course. The one that comes with most of the Ubuntu-based distributions is something called Evolution these days. And Thunderbird was popular amongst all Linux distributions at one time or another in the history of Linux. So most people who have been on Linux for a while will certainly know Thunderbird. Clawsmail seems to me... I've tried that out. It seems very old and creaky to me, but hey, I'm sure it works. So, lots of choices. So we're not going to get into that too much. But yes, (20/49)
there are in-curses-based email clients and even just plain old text-based email clients for the command line. So lots and lots and lots of choices and we could spend more than one episode just reviewing email clients. So I want to make a statement on this. The email clients, where he did point out some good in-curses based and there's Thunderbird and etc. But with everybody carrying a smartphone, the email clients aren't as... I'm not saying it's for the better. But the email clients are now web-based because everybody wants to keep track of all their email throughout the day and not just at their computer. I'm sure you can install something on your phone if you want. But I found that most people, when you ask what their email address is... Remember when we first started, the internet service provider would give you an email address. Now you've got MSN and a Gmail and I have one for work too. But they're all web-based so I can look at them while I'm at work or with some friends or (21/49)
whatever. So I don't know if email clients are as big as they used to be. They do have a place for people that don't want to have their data stored on the big companies or everything like that. But I don't think it's as prevalent as it used to be of having an email just set up. It has to support POP and has to do all this. So that's why I think you think Claws feels a little creaky. I don't know. It used to be an email thing was big but now I see most people just use the web-based. I'm not saying it's a better alternative. I'm just saying that's where it seems like the technology has went. Yeah, it's more convenient for sure. And as you know, we have a Gmail account here and I check it using the web. Even when I'm sitting at my computer, I don't go through the routine of starting up a client based in Linux and having it download in the background the email so that I can read it. It's just faster and easier to just open up a browser, click on the shortcut to Gmail and go read it and (22/49)
respond and be done with it. And the same thing with the phone. You can have that exact same experience on the phone and I do. Yeah, I do a lot of work on my phone just because it's always with me. So I think that's kind of taken away some of the things that you would do in email. You remember you used to be able to type it out and save it. You can just do all that on the web now. But it's nice that you have options if you still want a traditional email client. You can do it. You can set it up where it will work with the web-based services. With regular users, I know I don't have any confidential or anything, emails that I really care if anybody sees. But if you do, then of course you'd probably go with the one where it can only be downloaded on your machine. You don't use a web-based. There's use cases, but most normal people, especially coming from other operating systems, are just going to continue using the web-based. I was actually helping an older gentleman at work because they (23/49)
use Microsoft 365 for work. It's a special hospital edition. He has to meet all the HIPAA stuff. Basically, he had a hard time just figuring out how to check his email. Once we showed him, he said, oh okay, it's just like home. Yeah, it's just like home. I think these trained people just use the web-based. Whether it's self-hosted like in big corporations or by big companies. You have to give and take. I'm not saying one is better than the other. I've run both ways. Like you, I pretty much just pop open my Gmail or MSN or my work email web-based and go from there. Exactly. Okay, well enough on that, I think. Although Sean said that that was the end of his message, he couldn't resist. He had a PS. Let's listen to that. PS. Okay, I guess that was almost the entire thing. Two things. One, I would like to humbly request that you guys review some live USB Linux distributions. Preferably ones that keep a persistent home directory or persistent installed applications. I've been using an older (24/49)
distribution of Puppy Linux recently and it's good. However, perhaps it's just too old of the Puppy Linux distribution because the persistent home directory and installed apps feature is just not quite there. So, I've tried the Debian live USB, but that was like 10 years ago. So, I'm not sure how good that is these days. As some live distributions will run from CD or DVD or USB and they don't have a persistent directory and some have a persistent home directory or root directory and it maps the file systems and layers to integrate what's included with the pre-built distribution image as well as anything you've installed or downloaded. Some will run the pre-built part from USB or CD and some will have the live directory on the CD or DVD if it's rewritable or USB. Others will keep it all on one medium. So, like everything on the DVD or everything on a USB drive. Anyways, there's a lot of options out there. So, I'd like a little insight and guidance about this topic if you would. So, he (25/49)
said he would like us to review some live Linux distribution, USB live. I know Ubuntu has it a way they used to. I haven't used a live USB with persistence for a while, but I believe Ubuntu you can make it like that. That's the only one I really know of. That's the only one I've really used. How about you? Yeah, I've used Puppy Linux and they have a version where you can put it on the USB stick as a live distribution of Linux and have it remember your saved data, whether that's email or whether that's something else you've done. So basically you're running it from a USB stick as though it were installed there, even though it's a live version. And I have actually, for some lightweight distributions, gone and downloaded the installation image and installed it on a large USB. I have a USB stick that's, I think, 128 GB and there's enough space on there to install full Linux distribution and use it just like you would a regular installation as though that USB stick were a hard drive. Now, (26/49)
there are some disadvantages to doing that. USB sticks are not meant to be used in that way, and so they might die earlier than a regular SSD drive or even solid state M2, I think it is, drive, whatever that is. And so you've got to be a little bit careful that your whole Linux may go away as the USB drive dies, but it's a handy way of being able to carry your computer around in your pocket, you know, in something that's the size of a USB stick. So that's one way of doing it. Rather than even using the live USB stick with persistence, which is the equivalent of this, just get a big enough USB drive and install it on there. So give it a try. USBs have dropped in price quite a bit. I mean, I think the smallest one I have is a 64, but I just bought a 128 GB one from ScanDisk, one of the better ones, and I think I only paid like 20 bucks for it. Yeah, you can get some really large sized ones for a decent price now, decent compared to what it was when they first started making them. You (27/49)
know, remember back in the day when you'd go and they'd say, here's a USB with all my stuff on it, and it's like, great, I got a free USB. Oh, it's 2 GB or wow, now it's like 2 GB. I'm like, really? What am I going to do with 2 GB? Yeah, you can't even put a live distribution of Linux on there. You can't burn it to that. It's not big enough. No, it's like, why are you cheaping out all these? Get some better ones. No, seriously, I do carry a USB with me, but I only use it to store files. I don't use it like paperwork, documents, pictures, or I want to share with someone. Sometimes it's just easier to say, here's a USB with all the pictures, have fun, you know, type of thing. Yeah, exactly. And smaller ones are cheap enough, you can just give them to the person. I don't need it back. Keep it. Right. I think the smallest USB stick I ever got was at a conference somewhere. They handed some documentation for something on this USB stick and when I opened it up, it was 64 MB. How did we live (28/49)
with this? I know, I know. I think my first hard drive was that big, 64 MB. I had a hard drive that was 10 MB. What are you talking about? Oh, that's right. I do remember the 10 MB hard drive. We're too old, Bill. Hey, for us old timers, CFS brings back memories of all this. It is DOS, then you had to install Windows 3.1, then you had 3.11, and they were separate. Remember those days? I do. Yeah. Back in the Stone Age. DOS 6.0 and then you had to go to 6.22 or something and the Windows, certain version of Windows wouldn't run on the older version of DOS, so you had to get the updated version. Oh, God. Yeah. For those that didn't have the joy of installing just DOS, DOS stands for Disk Operating System. Just so you know. Next time someone says, what's DOS stand for? Now you know. It was a special program that just booted your computer is what it was. So you could install the operating system. It was an operating system. It would do all the low-level stuff. I know there's some people who (29/49)
say, I'll never leave DOS. I can do everything in DOS. I kind of think of it like the ones that refuse to have any graphical user interface on their Linux. I'm only a text-based. It seems that it was back in DOS too, but you would install DOS and then you had to make sure that the Windows that you had, this is before I even knew about Linux, was the correct DOS. Wasn't there, I think IBM had their own. No, there was also one called, I actually ran it a long time ago, OS2 Warp from IBM. Yes, that was from IBM. That was a whole different program. Yeah, a whole different. It didn't work with certain accessories. I remember installing OS2 and Warp. It was Warp Speed. The only problem is it didn't support the Win modem. For those who don't know what a Win modem is, it was a cheap version of a modem that required Windows to make it work. Now we're talking about the dial-it-days. Anyway, sorry, nostalgia kicked in. Yeah, exactly. And we could go on and on and on, but we won't. So we'll spare (30/49)
everyone that. All right. And not the last voicemail from Sean, but the second last one. It's a one more thing kind of thing. And let's listen to that. The last thing that I'd like to request is, you guys were mentioning how you use Discord these days to record your podcast. Well, I have my own podcast, ASO Radio, or EASO Radio. It's about Japanese animations and comics and video games from Japan. And we used to use Gizmo 5, but then Google bought it and killed it because they just wanted the backend infrastructure, I guess. And I've been looking for a good client that lets me record multi-party conversations like you, Larry and Bill, have, right? So if you could, I'd appreciate you letting me know what you use to record your conversations. Like, does Discord have a built-in feature for recording the audio, or are you recording the audio a different way with some other software? I noticed that Puppy Linux has a SIP, S-I-P, client, and Gizmo 5 was also SIP, like Akiga.net is SIP. And so (31/49)
I was thinking of using this Puppy SIP client because apparently it has built-in recording functionality. I also wrote a command line script, though, to record all of the pulse audio audio streams, to record the input and output streams. However, I'm not really too sure of what's the best option, I guess. So if you have recommendations for SIP clients or things that can record audio, I'd really appreciate that. And I look forward to hearing what you guys have to say. Thanks and goodbye. Okay, yeah, I've got to remember to put a link to Sean's podcast in our show notes so that people can go listen to that if they want to. Yeah, so we'll do that. And with that in mind, basically, Sean, we don't use Discord to do our recording, although we could. Most of the video conferencing software, most audio conferencing has switched over to video conferencing as well these days. But a lot of those tools have the ability to record. Typically, you end up with one big file with everybody's voice on (32/49)
there, so it's difficult to edit. If somebody has stuff going on in the background, you can't just flat out cut that section out because you're cutting out the person who's speaking because it's all one big audio file. So we don't use Discord. We don't use the video conferencing software to do that because of that kind of thing. And I know things are progressing along with some of the video conference software that actually split speakers out into different audio files. And if that ever gets to be something that has a lot of polish and provides some advantages over the way we do it, we might consider using that. But the way we record is we use Discord for Bill and I to hear each other and have a conversation, but we don't record on that. We record on our own computer hard drives using Audacity as the recording software. And then Bill puts his file in a cloud location that I go and pull down, so I have both his recording and my recording on my computer. And then I use Audacity to edit (33/49)
the two together in separate WAV files or separate audio files or separate audio tracks. And then when I save them or export them, I export them as a single audio track MP3 file and an OGG file and post those to Internet Archive and point our feed to the recordings there. So that's the behind the scenes on how we do the recording. And that seems to be the most efficient and effective way to do it, quite frankly. And one of the features that we both use on Audacity is that Audacity lets you save the file as an OGG, an MP3. I think you can save it as a WAV file. And there's several others. I think a FLAC2. Does that have FLAC2? I always save mine as OGG. But you can tell it what quality level you want it to save it at. But with some of these other, if we're using Discord to record it, there's only a limited amount of options. So it gives us a little more flexibility, especially when we want to up the quality or make it not quite as high fidelity. Because at one time, Larry, remember you (34/49)
used to have a low bandwidth version. Yes. And you would have to save at a lower rate to make it fit. What was it? 64K? Was that it? It was 64K and Internet Archive generates that automatically now. All I would have to do, I don't do it this way, but I could just upload the MP3 and upload the OGG. And the Internet Archive generates a 64K version that would be acceptable. It wouldn't have all the album art and the other stuff that goes along with a normal MP3. Which is why I don't do it that way. I upload a 64K version that has the artwork in it. And so I still provide that, so I actually export three files. Oh, OK. It's one extra click. I'm not worried about that. All right. OK. So our last voicemail message from Sean was actually recorded sometime after his series that we've just reviewed. And this is specifically for Bill. Here you go. OK. Aloha from Utah. Hello, Bill and Bill. This message is for Bill. Bill, I was wondering, have you tried the QBitTorrent client? It's a very good (35/49)
BitTorrent client and it's cross-platform with Linux, Windows, and other OSes. It's my favorite BitTorrent client and has been for the last few years. So I recommend that everybody give that one a try. Next, Bill, I was wondering. Since you have to use Windows at work, and I don't mean X Windows, have you considered or would your workplace allow you to use an alternative shell like Open Shell so you could avoid some of the Windows annoyances? Or is that not an option? Oh, by the way, based on your recent podcast episode, I felt I should call in and say that hard disk drives do not use needles to read their magnetic platters. They use magnetic heads that have metallic arms that are suspended in a low-friction gas to spin at thousands of rotations per second, no, per minute, just above the surface of the platters to read them. So needles would probably be a really bad idea for your data. If you keep this up, Bill, Larry might have to cut your pay in half. And you know, half of zero is (36/49)
going to be a lot less, so keep that in mind. I mean, this is NZ17 saying, Aloha from Utah. All right. So have you used QBitTorrent? No, I didn't even know about QBit, but I am going to check it out, that's for sure. Since it's cross-platform, yeah, that's definitely come in handy. Yeah, we'll have to go find a link to that and put it in the show notes. And then he was saying, he was wondering, since I have to use Windows at work, and he doesn't mean, X1 does, that's funny, would my workplace allow me to use an alternative shell like Open Shell so I could avoid some of the Windows annoyances, or is that not an option? That's not an option. Yeah, I work for a healthcare facility who has very strict internet policies and computer policies. Everything has to be run through IT. I'm not even allowed to, I don't think I can. It's locked down where IT pushes out all the updates, they control what you do. It has to be HIPAA compliant, and HIPAA has a bunch of stipulations for patient privacy (37/49)
and stuff like that, and basic healthcare information. So anything that's on the computer, that's what you're allowed to use, and you're not allowed to muck with it. They don't even want you to turn it off unless they tell you to. So, yeah, they are very strict. I know some workplaces might allow you, but not in a healthcare. Now, what about you, Larry? Would they let you use a different shell, or are they pretty strict on you guys, too? I haven't tried, because if I want to use a Linux shell, I just open my own personal computer. And since I work from home, it's not like I have to bring my personal computer into work in an office somewhere, so that's not an issue. I will let the company have whatever rules they want to have, and I'll use the computer that they provide me in the way that they suggest. And they do, though, allow us to install certain utilities if we need them to ensure that our home office works properly. So, for example, they provide a VPN with a workaround so (38/49)
that—it's probably not a workaround, it's probably— I don't know a lot about how VPNs work, but it allows me to connect, even when the VPN is connected, to my home printer, so that I don't have to worry about printing, getting off the VPN to print something and then go back on the VPN to access anything from the company. It used to be that way, but they figured a way around that, and now I'm able to do that. And I use Synergy and Barrier to be able to use a single keyboard and mouse so that I can, from that single keyboard and mouse, move between my personal computer screens and my work computer screens. And it's just one big multi-monitor computer to me. When I want to use Linux, I move the mouse over to the Linux monitor, and when I want to use the operating system for work, which happens to be Mac, I just move the mouse over to that screen, and away we go. So he also mentioned something. I don't think I said this, but he seems to think I said that the hard drives use needles to read (39/49)
their magnetic platters, and I know they don't. They use magnetic heads to read the platters, so I don't know where that comes from, but if I did, that really is an old man mental block there. Unless we were talking about vinyl records, which I've had before. That could be. You may have been making a parallel to the vinyl records. Oh, that could be. Where the player works. But yes, Larry has been talking about cutting my salary again because of all the high inflation, so Larry, Sean says that you should go ahead and cut my salary in half. Yeah, it was an honest mistake, Bill, so we'll keep your salary the same as mine. We'll keep them both at zero, and we won't worry about cutting salaries until inflation takes over so much that cutting a zero-based salary in half will actually have an impact on our non- for-any-sort-of-money business. So I just saw that it looks like NC-17 or Sean is in Utah. This October, I'm planning to go to Moab, Utah. Ah, okay. I see all the colorful rocks. Yeah, (40/49)
and hey guys, if you have any great places, yes, I'm selflessly plugging this. Please send them to me so while I'm down in Moab, I see some cool stuff. Okay, moving right along. All right, well, thanks, Sean. Besides Sean's voicemails, we actually have two emails as well. First one is from George from Tulsa, who commented on our episode 443. And he refers to it as bottle of wine, bottle of wine regarding antivirus. He says, at 18 minutes and 56 seconds, Bill says you shouldn't have any real issues because like Windows, .exe file isn't going to do anything on your Linux. And George writes, unless you've installed wine. He also references minute marker 40 minutes and 44 seconds. We mentioned Phil on gaming in Lutris. It says, I downloaded pre-installed packages with .exe files. And George's comment is, there was a good chance Phil's .exe games would run because per the Lutris FAQ, Lutris uses wine to run Windows .exe files on Lutris. And he provides a link to an FAQ. He continues, I've (41/49)
used wine to run commercial Windows software that's not listed on wine's supported applications. That's why I presume someone could craft a malware .exe designed to run in Lutris via Lutris slash wine. Wine is not sandboxed, so a malware application running as an .exe in wine could affect not just the wine instance, but the system itself. It is probably not a great risk, but it is a risk. The application, SandWine, can be used to mitigate the risk. It is free and open source. Here's a link. And we'll have that in the show notes, of course. Back to the antivirus, scanning an .exe file before running it in wine, or anywhere for that matter, might identify if it is malware. That depends on whether it is in the industry standard database of known malware signatures on which ClamAV relies. The Arch wiki offers a useful guide to how to use ClamAV as well as how to add more malware signature sources to your installation. And George provides a link to that Arch wiki guide, and we'll include (42/49)
that in the show notes, too. So I think we knew all that, Bill. We just didn't mention it. Yeah, it's highly unlikely that it would happen, but he is right. There is a chance it could, so I stand corrected. I will correct it and say it's highly unlikely, but it could happen. How's that? Yeah, if you think about it, someone would have to... Because Windows and Linux are two different operating systems, they work very differently from one another, which is one of the reasons why natively .exe files won't run on Linux unless you have something like Wine or Lutris to allow them to run. Because of that, somebody who would want to infect a Linux system in this way would have to write some software, some malware for Windows that's an .exe file that then goes and launches some malware that they would have to write to infect the Linux system to be able to go and infect Linux with whatever it is they want to do. There are easier ways for somebody to write malware to go and get much more valuable (43/49)
information from corporate Windows installations. And the fact that there are so many steps in that and so little payoff, I don't think the risk is very large at all, as you said, Bill. But like I said, to give him his due, George is right. It could happen. George, good catch. Yep. Technically, I could study up on Python and high-level computer language programming and begin a career to be a programmer, but that's not going to happen. It's highly unlikely. So, our next email comes from Phil who asks about syncing with Google Drive. He says, Hi Bill and Larry. Greetings from replaceable sub-menu Phil in Iowa. I am running a pop OS and can't find a way to sync my home directory with Google Drive. I tried two programs and both weren't able to pass Google's authentication measures and therefore couldn't sign in. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Phil. I know from experience, I don't know if it's been updated or whatever, but I was never able to really get Google Drive to work nicely (44/49)
with Linux. I don't know how that would... I'd have to look into it and see if anything's available or if they've updated it. You got any suggestions? I'm worthless on this one. Well, I've run across a few. I haven't tried out any of them. What I did do though is I sent Phil a link that I'll include in the show notes to some Linux applications that purport to provide a way to sync to Google Drive. Like I said, I'll include it in the show notes. Haven't tried any of them, but my comment was have you tried any of these or were the ones you tried on this list? Maybe there are some on there. Lots of different offerings out there. Can't vouch for any of them because I haven't tried them. Yeah, I don't know what the answer is. I'll look into it and see if anything comes to the forefront. Right now I have no clue why or how you would do that, but I'm sure there's a way. If anybody in our listening audience, if any of you know and have had experience with and like a solution that you're using, (45/49)
let us know and give us the pros and cons. We'd be interested in hearing and I'm sure so would Phil. Absolutely. Okay, Larry, I think that's all of it. I think it is. Well, thanks, Sean, for making our work here easy by providing the voicemail. And I'm not sure how long this episode is going to be. Just us talking is an hour. So this might be a long one. It may fill in those gaps between those longer gaps that we have these days between episodes. So you might want to break it up into different pieces and listen to it a little at a time. I don't know. Between Bill's job, my job, his new puppy, my new puppies, everything else going on in our lives. We have been fortunate to be able to put out a single episode every month. Once in a while, we may squeeze two into a month. We may get back to that sometime in the future. But that's the goal happening short term. Yeah. Yeah. We'll keep putting out episodes, though, as we can get them done. Yeah. We've said this is not a for profit podcast (46/49)
that has sponsors to appease. So we get this done as we can. And you know, I can safely say, and I think Larry will agree, you'll never have to worry about listening to ads or sponsors because we just do it because we love Linux and we want to share that. But anyway, we will try to get them a little more often. But right now we're coming here. We're getting ready to come into the busy holiday period. And so and with everything, Larry has two of things. Little puppies take care of. I only have one. So I know I don't know how he's doing it. One's enough for me. But we will. We're not giving up. We're just recording when we can. Sometimes we're both like, I just can't record. I've got to go insert recent sleep. Sleep is good or sick or oh, hold on. You probably haven't heard anything from the puppies. I found out, Larry, that just give them treats and they go into treat comas for a little bit. So they're over here sleeping away and I'm like, wow, that's what a revelation. Yeah. So you (47/49)
just said you only have one new puppy, but you've got two dogs. One is a little older than a puppy, but it still behaves like one from time to time. Right. From time to time. But he I didn't realize how much he had grown up until I had gotten my new puppy's name's Cosmo. And so when Cosmo come along, I was like, puppies are a lot of work because they they don't they don't understand the rules of the house. And so I've had to keep a close eye on him because he will chew a cord or he'll if you don't let him out when he wants to go out to go to the bathroom, he sometimes doesn't want to wait. So, yes, my bigger dog, his name is Bear, is a has come a long way. And because I think Larry remembers, he was kind of noisy at the beginning. Yes. Now he knows. He also was chewing on everything. I know. But I keep swearing. This is my last one. But no, that doesn't happen. We'll continue our puppy review on a future episode. And but for now, I think we we have another episode coming up. It will (48/49)
probably be one in our Linux experience flavor. But we don't have a specific topic at this point. We will get you one, though. And until then, you can go to our Web site at going Linux dot com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and subscribe. We provide the Web site for computer users who just want to use Linux to get things done. And if you like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our Going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinux.com. Until next time. Thanks for listening. 73. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcast themes dot com. (49/49)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #328 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux, episode 328, 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 at goinglinks at gmail.com, or you can leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hi there, Bill. Hi there, Larry. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Lots of technology adventures this week. How about you? Yes, I am breaking in my new machine. So I'm still... Oh, nice. Yeah. After getting mad at some of the Linux providers, I said, to heck with it, and found what I wanted. I was looking for certain hardware. So I bought an (1/49)
Alienware 17 gaming up top. Nice. Yep. It's time to update my technology. So it's a beautiful machine. I like it a lot. And I hear that you've had adventures too. Yes, adventures with Dell XPS 13s. It's way too long to go into here. Eventually, I'll have things up and running, and we have more to report. But yeah, not today. Well, we were talking about before we started recording. You could make a whole podcast just for that. Oh, wow. The new machines are nice, but I have to say, my old machine I thought was a beast. It was when I bought it, but the technology has come a long way. This new machine has got stuff that I'm just amazed. My old machine had an i7 third generation, and this one has the i7 seventh generation. That's a big difference. Big difference. Yeah. Yeah. So speed alone, right? Speed alone. It can do things my little one would just be choking on. But probably the thing that makes me the happiest, because I'm a gamer and I have to play games, is that it has not the mobile (2/49)
version, but the full version of the NVIDIA GTX 1070 with 8 gigs of RAM on the video card. Yeah. Yeah. So that makes such a huge difference, because the old one was an old mobile version. It was GTX 660M. So when you compare, I pulled up the specs, I was looking up, it's like this 1070 is just chewing through stuff. Not that it's really Linux related, but there's games running on the Crysis engine that can really tax a processor. My old one would sit there and croak at 20, 25. I couldn't have everything set up. I have it on medium settings. This one I just cranked everything to ultra, and it just sits there and runs it at 7580 and doesn't even blink. I'm like, wow, technology. Wow. Yeah. Well, not being a gamer, I'm not sure what those settings really mean, but it sounds impressive. You're like, whatever, whatever. But I'm hoping that once I finally talk about different ways I'm going to use it. Right now I'm using it to run virtual machines so I can test a bunch of Linux distros and (3/49)
run them. And hopefully soon, if it works out, I might just set up a dual boot so I can run on the base hardware. But unfortunately, there's extra things I got to take into account because there are special keys on this keyboard and I want to make sure I can. So anyway, long story short, it's a beast of a machine. It's just amazing how technology and it's good to know that in six months this one will be outdated. Yes, of course. That's the way it goes. If it even takes six months. Yeah. Well, shall we get into our feedback? Yeah. So let's get into our feedback because we could sit here and talk about our exploits for six hours and everybody will be bored to death. Yep. OK. Well, our first is from Tony. He needs some help with a screen resolution. And so here is Tony's email. Hey, Larry and Bill. I have a 50 inch TV and the display in Ubuntu is saying that it is only a 32 inch one. Again, it's only giving me two resolution choices. Please help me. I lost all of my icons on my desktop so (4/49)
far to the left. Or if you will, off to the left of the screen. The screen is completely empty. This happened before I even sent your email. I don't know what to do regards Tony from Cherry Hill. Yeah. So he and I went back and forth a couple of times on email and I think it may have to do with the screen resolution not being recognized properly with this 50 inch television, especially since it registers as a 32 inch. So I gave him some directions on the display configuration, the display preferences and setting that up. I also gave him a link to our article on setting up a television as a monitor. And hopefully between those two things, we've been able to resolve Tony's issue. And I haven't heard back from him. So I'm assuming either that he's completely off the grid and nothing works anymore. Everything's working fine. And by the way, it's quite often with a television used as a monitor that the system, the Linux system doesn't recognize the correct size of the monitor. And that's (5/49)
just one of those little metadata tags that the TV provides to identify itself. And I'm suspecting that the manufacturers, depending on the manufacturer, will use the same tag on all of the sizes of the same or similar model. And so, you know, from the 32 to the 50 or larger inch versions, they're using the same tag and that it's all, you know, identifying itself as a 32 inch. But a monitor is a monitor and when it connects to Linux, it should give you the right set of display settings. And if it doesn't, the instructions in our article on how to connect a television set by VGA and use it as a high definition monitor should work for you to determine through some Linux applications what the monitor is capable of and making the appropriate settings so that you can get a higher resolution. I hope that we've got Tony set up properly. I'm thinking we do. And Tony, get back to us. Let us know how it goes. Yeah. 50 inch monitor. That's my kind of guy. Yeah. That's nice and big. Yeah. Even I (6/49)
can see that. Okay. Without my glasses. Okay. There you go. Moving right on. We've got another email from Laurie and he's asking about app images. He writes, Larry and Bill, I've been enjoying your podcast for over a year now and I've learned a lot about Linux from your show. I have been using Linux Mint Both 17 and 18 for about a year and a half and love it, but one of the issues has been old versions of software in the repositories. I recently discovered app images, one being OpenShot video editor. What is your opinion of them? Is there a downside to this way of running the latest software? Once again for your show, Roy Dressel Photography. Okay. And Roy provides us a link to his photography video, which, hey, I think I'll just include that in the show notes. You're a nice guy. Free advertising there, Roy. Yeah, there you go. And he's located in Visalia, California. Oh, okay. I see how it is because he's California. He gets a free plug. Not us bums from New Mexico. Okay. I see how it (7/49)
is. If you have a website where you're trying to sell something and you are a listener to the podcast and you write it with a question and you provide us a link to your business, we'll include it in the show. What the heck? We did it for Troy out in Wisconsin as well. Okay. Well then you're okay then, but no, seriously, Roy, thanks for writing in. I don't do a lot with OpenShot editor, but Larry might know a little bit more than I do. Yeah, so this is less a question around OpenShot itself and more a question around the app images. And I haven't used app images. I've used the snap packages and between snap packages and app images, these are some new ways of providing, or at least attempting to provide a universal package management system that will work across different versions of Linux, regardless of whether you're using RPM or Deb or whatever. And the snap packages work just fine. I'm assuming that the app images do as well. So Roy, you're asking if there are any pluses and minuses (8/49)
to using snap packages and app images. And I think the pluses are, you can keep up to date a little more for a particular application like OpenShot. You can stay up to date a little bit more easily. One of the downsides is you are reliant on a third party, if you will, to maintain those images up to date and make sure that they're compatible and so on. So there's a fraction of a risk there. One of the things that Ubuntu Mate at least is doing, and I think it's across all of the Ubuntu's, is with the snap packages, they are vetting those just as they do with the regular repositories. And for those vetted ones, at least Ubuntu Mate is going to be in their next release, including snap packages listed in their software boutique. So at least with snap packages, there's some added level of trust there that may not exist with app images. But again, I have to give the disclaimer that I haven't used or tried any app images. But that's the pluses and minuses, I think, overall. And by outdated (9/49)
software in the repositories for Linux Mint, I think Linux Mint is probably of the Ubuntu derivatives, the one that has the biggest problem with outdated packages, mainly because they're on, I think it's still a 16.04 base or something like that. Really? It's one of the features now of Linux Mint that they maintain even through their six-month releases. They maintain those images on the last long-term support release from Ubuntu. And so, you know, they are a little bit behind until the next long-term support comes out. So the packages are a little bit behind. But they do try to keep them relatively up to date. But that doesn't occur with every package out there. So you're a little bit behind with Linux Mint. Yep. What do you think, Bill? Any other thoughts on app images or have you tried snap packages or anything like that? I haven't. I've heard of them and I've read about them. But I tend to try to stay in the repositories now. I thought Linux Mint, their whole spiel was that they, I (10/49)
didn't know they were still on 16, but that they would found the best and it worked and just stayed with it until the next, when they moved to the next version of it. And then they would update. I thought they would stay even though it was older. It worked. They wanted stuff that was stable and it would work. That's one of the reasons why they stick with the long-term support. And it is a little bit dated given that Ubuntu has moved on from there with their latest releases. And eventually they'll have another long-term support release and Linux Mint's next release after that will adopt that and move forward, I'm sure. Okay. I haven't tried. I should try it. But okay. Yep. Okay. There we go. All right. Okay. Our next email is from someone who didn't give us their name, but their on-screen handle is Skyward Abyss and asks about System76 stickers. Here we go. It says, hi Larry and insert new cohost name here. Huh? What? You're listening to your podcast from the beginning and made it to (11/49)
about 140 or so. So I'm guessing that maybe that's about the time that you came on as the cohost taking over from Tom. I thought it was in the 200s. Well, maybe it's in the 200s, but he's back in some of the older episodes. Oh, okay. Anyway, in about that episode, we talked about System76 and the ability to get stickers from them for free by sending in a self-addressed stamped envelope. And so here's the rest of his email. He said, I wanted to update you on the link for the free stickers at System76 with a self-addressed stamped envelope. In the show notes for episode 130 for the System76 stickers, your link is no longer valid. Their new link is, and he provides the link, which is system76.com slash swag slash stickers. Pretty easy. Keep up the great work and thanks for all your effort in helping new users become proficient using Linux. So I have updated the link in that old episode to the System76 new link for their stickers. So when you click on it now, it should be good. And we'll (12/49)
include it of course in the show notes for this episode. Uh, Larry? Mm-hmm? That was 160, 170 episodes ago. Yeah. Yeah, it was a while. He's got a little catching up to do. That's for sure. I'm just sitting there going, yeah, I don't know, maintaining... You're a good guy going back and updating that, but I'm like, that's a long time ago. Well, I appreciate people letting us know when we've got broken links and I'm just glad that System76 is still giving out stickers for free. Yeah, we won't go there. Okay. I'm not happy with them right now. Speaking of previous hosts. Yeah. Surge. No, not that surge. Oh, okay. Wrote about Skype alternatives. By the way, Larry, have you heard from Surge? Not recently. Uh, yeah, he's off doing his non podcast life, so no big deal. Wait a minute. There's a life without podcasts? Well, if you really want it. That's horrible. I don't know why. Anyway, he writes, hello Larry, for getting somebody here. There are many good Skype alternatives. Jitsu, (13/49)
Framatalk, Ring, Wire, Peer.in, Huble.in, and Tox. Okay. I haven't heard any, maybe two of those. Anyway, and if the person searching an alternative for Skype uses Google, there is Hangouts. Best regard, Surge. Okay. Well, we were just talking about Skype because it was acting weird this morning. And the problem is that some of the alternatives just don't work well for us. I'm not saying they don't work, but they don't work well for us. And also, if we have someone that wants to come on a podcast, everybody seems to have Skype. So, it works for us for what we need most of the time. But if we have someone who wants to come in and be part of the podcast, we can include them using Skype. So, some of them might not have the features you want. Unfortunately, Skype has what we need right now when it works. There's big quotation marks there. But right now, if we could find something that worked as well as Skype, we would move it immediately. On Linux. On Linux, we would move it immediately. (14/49)
Do not pass Go and do not click $200. We'd be gone. But right now, we've got to put up with it until we find something better. Right. And the conditions for us are, it has to work on Linux, it has to work reliably, and it has to work with other operating systems as well and be easy to set up on those other operating systems. That's really the kicker, because not everybody that we talk to, and it's been a while since we interviewed somebody on the podcast, but not everybody that we talk to on the podcast is using Linux. So, it can't be a Linux-only solution. It has to be truly cross-platform and easy to set up on these other systems and hopefully something that everyone is familiar with. Skype fits that bill. So does Google Hangouts for the most part, but I use Google Hangouts for business on my Mac. And it has some issues even on the Mac, let alone on Linux, and I'm not sure that it's absolutely reliable for all of the things that we need, but that's definitely a possibility. I mean, (15/49)
if Skype discontinued support for Linux today, I think Google Hangouts is probably the one we would switch to, but I've heard of Jitsi, I think I tried it quite a long time ago, I've heard of Hubble.in and Tox, but I haven't used either of those, don't know how they work. Maybe it's time to do a little experimentation bill. But our backup, if Skype fails, is to pick up the telephone. That thing that's sitting on your table that you haven't used in a while and maybe a mobile phone like a cell phone would work. Yeah. So, that's our backup for now. I've got my Galaxy 8 Android, it's ready to go. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Okay. So, I'm ready. All right. Yes. This is from longtime listener Nancy, who asks about the book. So I think I mentioned that I wrote a book. Nancy writes, congratulations on your book. I know it takes a lot of work to put it together, even if it's well organized in your mind. Putting it all into words is a whole lot different than just using the information. I've (16/49)
written one called Your Data, Your Devices, and You, easy to follow instructions to reduce your risk of data loss, device infection, and identity theft. I'm going to try to get it published in early August. You mentioned that you use Smashwords. I'm going to look at it, but what other resources did you use? What were your reasons for choosing Smashwords over other platforms? Is there a physical book option as well with Smashwords, or is it strictly digital? Thanks, Nancy. Well, I chose Smashwords partially on doing some research and finding out that they had a very easy way to set things up so that they take care of doing the ebook configurations for you without you having to install something like Calibre and create the ebooks yourself. One of the downsides is you have to provide the book to them in Microsoft Word 1997 format, the old .doc format, but once you do that, the conversion is automatic and there's a little bit of configuration you have to do in the doc format, but all that (17/49)
works just fine from LibreOffice once you figure out how to format it the way they want it formatted. And so, yeah, it works out really great. And as you know, with the book, I provided a PDF version for free if you want the ebook versions. August 1st is when it'll go on sale. And by the way, by the time this is out, it will be on sale because it'll be after August 1st we release this episode. So anyway, back to Nancy's question about a physical book version. I know they take care of the distribution at Smashwords to places like Barnes & Noble and some of the other bookstores, but I don't know whether or not they actually offer a printed version in those bookstores. I know Smashwords site itself doesn't give you a printed version option, but I don't know. Maybe they print a version and send it out to the bookstores. I don't know. But certainly most people, I think today, are looking for electronic versions, whether it's PDF or ebook. But if you want a printed version of the book, let (18/49)
me know and I'll find out. I know there are places you can create printed versions and that sort of thing. If there's an interest in that, let me know and I'll make that available. Hey, I want a physical version now. I want personally signed and autographed and I'd like it written in ink that has your blood in it. So it's just, you know, it's really, truly you. Can I get that? I'll work on that. Well, congratulations. I'll let you know when it's done. Hey, congratulations on the book. Now you wrote that whole thing on Linux, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And how hard, how long did it take you to figure out the format using LibreOffice? Well, the LibreOffice part was very easy. Figuring out what Smashwords actually meant by its format requirements, that was the challenge. So it took a little trial and error, but I finally figured it out and it was well worth it because everything was automatic after that. So really good. And congratulations to Nancy as well on your new book as well. And (19/49)
let us know when you've got it published and we'll put a link to it in our show notes and provide a little publicity for your book as well. And hopefully you get a lot of sales on that too. Your data, your devices and you. Easy to follow instructions to reduce your risk of data loss, device infection and identity theft. So yeah, that sounds like a topic that is cross platform for sure. That's awesome. Congratulations, Nancy. Yeah, let us know when it's published because I'd like to see what it looks like. I might even buy it. Hey, there you go. Yeah. Okay. Our next email comes from Mike and he comments on creating a network drive. And he writes, hello, I am hoping you can help guide me in the right direction. Oh boy, he's in trouble. I have a desktop and a laptop, both running up on Tumate on the same wifi network at home. I would like to create a network drive on my laptop that connects to my home directory on my desktop. How can I accomplish this? Thank you so much, 73 Mike. So you (20/49)
want a drive connected, I'm assuming by USB, to your laptop that you can connect to from your home directory on your desktop. I think I would do it the other way around, mainly because a laptop is typically something that you turn on and off and carry around, but maybe you've got a gaming machine like Bill does and it's a 17 inch that weighs like 400 pounds. Maybe you need to- It's not 400 pounds. Well, what about eight pounds? Something like that? It's about 89 pounds. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't want to carry around that. Yeah. I wouldn't want to carry around that thing for a long time. Carrying around makes you strong. Yes. Okay. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anyhow, so to do this, first of all, you have to set up folder sharing. I don't recall the steps, but that's what you would Google for is sharing folders on Ubuntu or Ubuntu MATE. Once you've set up the folder sharing on the laptop, you can share the folder that represents the network drive as though it (21/49)
were a folder. Maybe it's even a setting that specifically says share network drive. I don't remember, but it's very easy to do in the settings. Once you've done that, you should be able to go into the network, open the file browser on the desktop. Go to the network, browse the network, and you should be able to see it right there assuming that both computers are on the same Wi-Fi network. That's the trick. They have to be on the same Wi-Fi network. If this is at home, I'm assuming you have one Wi-Fi network, but just in case you have more than one, they have to be on the same network and you have to enable the sharing. Once you've enabled sharing, you should be able to browse from one computer to the other and just open it up. If you want a permanent link, you can create a permalink, if you will, a desktop shortcut or a shortcut that appears whenever you go into the network browser and it will appear there. Hopefully that helps. A little arm waving there, but with a little Google (22/49)
search on the Ubuntu MATE forum, you should be able to find that without any trouble at all. Okay. All right. Have you had any experience hands-on with sharing? No. I have not messed with it at all. I wouldn't even know where to start. I mean, I could do it if I've read the man pages, but I have never needed it because I usually only have one that I use. So anyway, next email is from Bob, who is the person who had the mouse button, Pystromo offer to help. Oh, I remember that one. Didn't he have trouble mapping the keys or something? Exactly. So Bob says, I listened to episode 326 and heard an offer from Steve to help me use Pystromo to program my mouse buttons. I actually solved that problem about two days before I listened to the episode and I am going to send an email about it for the next listener feedback. In the meantime, I don't need Steve's help, but I think it's polite to say thank you for his offer regardless. Please pass him my email address and I will do that. Thanks Bob. (23/49)
Okay. I'm glad you got things all straightened around, Bob, and I'm looking forward to hearing how you solved that problem. Yeah, I am too. With the new gaming machine you have, Bill, I know it's got some extra keys that you may just need those tips for. Yeah. Hey, thanks for doing all the work for me. I really appreciate it. There you go. Thanks Bob. Okay. Our next email comes from Tony and he wants to contribute network diagram icons and he writes, hi guys, I am a systems admin at a telecommunications company and often times I'm asked to create network diagrams for our network implementations and effort to go fully open source. I have used LibreOffice Draw to do my diagrams. However, I have noticed a lack of manufacturer icons on the internet. I have started creating my own repository of images in SVG format that I can use. I'd like to publish this online for others to use. However, I do not know where I can post them. I was thinking about using GitHub, but I believe there is a (24/49)
storage limit there and ideally I prefer not to pay. Understandable. Let me know what you think. Tony. Wow. I don't know about that. Does GitHub have a limit? I don't know. I've never tried that, but the LibreOffice folks take repository contributions for templates for Office type documents. So word processor documents, spreadsheet documents, presentation document templates, and I haven't explored to see if they accept anything for images for Draw, but you might want to check on the LibreOffice site and see how you can contribute templates or images there. There's also an open clipart, openclipart.org, where you can simply post your images there. There are tons and tons. Well, let me see. Looking at their site, as of today, there are 129,268 clipart images available. 68 of them were contributed today, 22 of them were contributed yesterday, and so on and so on. And there are comments on each of them, and they're of varying quality. A lot of them are very professionally done, and so (25/49)
that's another place you can contribute your images in an open source way. And I think all you have to do is just sign up for a free account with them, and you can upload the images. I haven't uploaded any images. I've certainly used some of their images, and it's definitely a resource. There are other places you can... Internet Archive, right? Yeah, Internet Archive, you can put them there. That's where we put our episodes of this podcast, but you can upload images there as well. And again, you just have to sign up for a free membership in their site, and you can upload whatever you want, and you can create an entire library just for your images if you want. So lots of different places. We've just given you three options, and hopefully you can find more. Let us know where your images are, because every once in a while I want to create a network diagram, and I'd like to be able to use some of your images too. So let us know where you end up putting them. Cool. Our next email is from (26/49)
David, who wrote, Hardware, Firmware, Software. Bill won. Larry, David, and Dr. Google, zero. Bill wins. So what all that means is David and Bill and I have gone back and forth, and apparently he's gone to Dr. Google as well, for solutions on his problem, and he's finally found a solution. So rather than go through all the emails back and forth, let's just read this last one, because it talks about happy things. Yes. But you can start at Bill wins again. I like that. Yes. Okay. Bill wins there. Okay. It's still a bit early to be 100% sure, but it looks like a reformat of the full drive did the trick using GNOME Disks, the Disks app that is part of Linux Mint. I fully reformatted the disk, including erasing the data, and the problem so far has disappeared. I had to update the fs tab to a new UUID, Universal Identifier, I forget what the second U stands for, and do a chown, but that was it. It looks like I was focused on the wrong idea, that the problem was related to power, since only (27/49)
through a shutdown of five or more minutes was the disk able to recover. And that was the only solution offered in a web search of SSD disappears. The problem became more and more frequent and lately became pretty consistent. Any copy to the disk or even a save would cause it to dismount and fully disappear. A re-login did nothing and a reboot brought up the emergency mode. Only a full power down and then a 10 minute wait permitted a successful boot. But then the next copy and boom. As long as the disk was available, reads were okay. I was able to access any file, copy it to any other disk, et cetera, but a write activity of any sort, paste, save, rename, delete, et cetera, caused the disk to disappear. Bill's educated guess, i.e. in-depth scientific analysis based on years of experience, that a bad Sector 1 was the cause, now makes sense. Once I reformatted the disk and made it to one large partition, I was able to copy back from my backups over 10,000 items totaling 120 gigabytes (28/49)
without a problem. My current guess is that an uncontrolled shutdown, power outage, during a directory activity, copy, save, rename, delete, et cetera, caused a problem that metastasized and accelerated. My sense? A power down temporarily solved each instance, resetting some internal pointer on the SSD, but before long the whole directory became corrupted, as per any write activity. It's still early days, but I'm optimistic. Thanks again for your help. Bestest, David, your loyal fan since episode number one, your number one expatriate Canadian fan in Israel, et cetera, et cetera. Thanks David. I'm glad things worked out for you. And Bill, congratulations on providing the successful and happy ending to David's story. Well, it's still early days, but I'm hoping he's got it fixed. Yeah, I hope so too. But yeah, it wasn't on SSD, but I had a similar problem on an old spinning drive and that was when I was still chief executive minion. And if you remember, I was complaining about my (29/49)
directory's getting corrupted and having to deal with it. And I said, well, you know what? It's probably the same thing on the SSD because I can't remember what happened. I lost power and then come back up and it just started acting up since then. So I said, hey, if you got backups, that might be the way to go. I also sent him some links to some open source programs. I don't know if you use them. David, if you use those programs, how about let me know if they worked for you? I don't have the email that I sent back to him, but... Yeah, there was a smart mon tools or something like that. Yeah, we'll include a link in the show notes to that. Yeah, but I'm wondering if he used those because it looks like those can detect the bad sector. You know, SSDs, they can have bad sectors just like a hard drive. So I'm hoping that the format just fixed whatever was the problem, flipped the bits, switch back or whatever. But yeah, David, keep us informed how it goes. And if you have any more problems, (30/49)
because that was a real interesting problem. I know I had to sit there and think about that for a while. What did you recommend to Larry? I don't remember, but it was obviously unsuccessful. So it's usually it's more usually you're the one who gets the ones, right? I mean, I'm bound to get something right after about 72 fails. So hey, this is a good one, Bill. Yeah, I'm glad that it worked. David, just let us know how it goes and if it comes back up. But anyway, I'm happy that you're working. I'm working again. And that's just the benefit of in-depth scientific analysis based on years of experience. Okay, David, here's the truth. I actually had to ask Larry and it was really his idea and I just took it. No, no, no, no. Okay, moving on. We got an email from Troy and he says he just learned something new. Oh, okay. Hello, Larry and the artist who was formerly known as Chief Executive Minion. Oh boy, this one's going to be good. I just learned something new today and have been been (31/49)
geeking out about it. So I thought I'd share it with you while it's still on the top of my mind. Our new church, we have been members at for the last year, displaced the entire service on a screen from a projector using Microsoft PowerPoint. The lady who normally does this is on vacation for the next week and a half and asked me if I wouldn't mind putting together the service for this weekend. Without thinking about it, I said, sure. Oh golly. I'm just sorry, I had to think there for a minute. Give me two seconds. Okay, so then they have been systematically sending me information to include in the presentation. I guess I forgot to mention to her that I don't own MS Office. Uh oh. Yeah. I use LibreOffice or Google Docs, so they sent me their PowerPoint template. Since PowerPoint is the only application in the suite that doesn't translate very well with LibreOffice and press, needless to say, when I opened their file, it was completely butchered. Oh man. Okay, man, I'm feeling for you, (32/49)
Troy. Okay. Continuing. So I spent hours and hours of the last couple of evenings completely recreating it from scratch. However, they don't have any Wi-Fi at our church and are running an ancient laptop with Vista. Oh, it gets worse. Yes, this is getting worse. Oh, Troy, man, the pain. Okay. The latest version of Libre doesn't want to run on it without crashing. Oh, man. Boy, he's learning a lot here. Yeah, so it's MS Office 2003, I'm guessing they have. So, running on Vista. Oh, well. Yeah. Okay. So I decided to present using my laptop with Linux Man. I also wanted to be able to sit near the back of the church and run this remotely somehow so I don't have to sit near the front by my laptop and the projector. Oh, okay. Troy, you're killing me, man. Okay. I did some searching online and found out there is an app in the Android store called Impress Remote, which is free. If your computer is on a Wi-Fi network or if it has a Bluetooth capacity built in, you can connect your phone to your (33/49)
laptop with Bluetooth, for example, and remotely control your Impress presentation wirelessly. That's cool. It works really, really slick. You can not only advance the slides, but it has a built-in tile view of all your slides so you don't have to print out a handout to follow. It also has a virtual laser pointer built in. You just tap on the device in a place on the slide and a red dot appears on the screen. It's really cool. It sounds cool. Yeah. The app is free. The Office Suite is free. Just goes to show you another example of open source software at work making our lives easier. Keep up the good work, guys. Troy, aka Jack Durst. Okay, first off, I don't know if your life was easier. Man, you went through. First you recreated it, then you didn't have Wi-Fi, then it was running on Vista. Man, did he even lock any achievements or anything with this? I don't know. Man! The easiest part was finding the Android app that remotely controlled the Impress presentation software from the back (34/49)
of the room by way of Bluetooth. That's the feat right there. Well, the hard work was recreating the presentation template. It just goes to show you that Linux people ... I mean, most people would say, okay, I recreated the template. I'll just use my laptop to present it. But no, us Linux people, we have to make our lives easier, so we have to find a way to control it remotely from the back of the room using Bluetooth. And hey, it has a free virtual laser pointer too, which only makes it better. Yeah, you can get remote controls that you can purchase that hook into a USB port with a little dongle and you can remote control it. But that requires to purchase the hardware. We Linux people, we want stuff for free. Yeah. So, Troy, props dude, I'm impressed. I really am. I mean, way to go. I officially give you the co-host award for Super Geek. Congratulations. All right. Perfect. Perfect. Yes. Congratulations on making that work and thanks for sharing that with us. That is going to help (35/49)
someone, I'm sure. That's great. I didn't even know that app existed. I didn't either. It does. Hey, we learned something new today too. There you go. Bob has solved his mouse configuration problem and here are the instructions that we were asking him to provide us. Okay. Look at that. Here we go. So we'll have a link to some of his stuff in the show notes. Hi Larry and Bill, as you remember, I have been trying to remap the buttons on my two Logitech M570 wireless trackball for a few months. I want the two little buttons on the upper edge to do page up and page down instead of their default forward and back. I've tried a bunch of things that didn't work and listener Steve even offered to help me directly using a program named Paestromo in episode 326. I'm grateful for Steve's offer, but I struck gold just two days before listening to that episode. I am happy to report that the problem is solved. I found the solution by luck as I continued searching the web for information about mapping (36/49)
mouse buttons. In an absolute coincidence, a gentleman named Paul Rubin, who I don't know at all, posted instructions for remapping buttons on the exact trackball I use at this website and at spartanideas.msu.edu. So we'll include a link to the full URL in the show notes. All I had to do was clean up the residue of my previous attempts by deleting a bunch of files in several directories and then follow Mr. Rubin's instructions as written. They are simple and easy, just like I thought remapping should be. I believe the problem I was having before using the solution was that I mixed partial solutions of several different types and left all of them slightly incomplete. None of them worked the way I used them, and they may have interfered with each other. Once I cleaned things up and followed Mr. Rubin's instructions, everything worked perfectly on the first try. The only information not on Mr. Rubin's website is the fact that the XTE is a program that simulates a key being pressed. It (37/49)
comes in the X automation package. I read about it by typing man.XTE in a terminal and the whole solution makes perfect sense. Thank you both and Steve for helping me. I have a brand new, much more interesting problem that I'll send along to you in a second email so I can keep this one from getting any longer. I don't think he's sent that one to us yet. Oh, yes, he has. It's the next one. Here you go, Bill. This one's yours to read. Oh, goodness. OK. Hey, Bob, you know, I just thought we just talked to you. Oh, we did. OK, so let's see what we can do with this. Now, Bob has a strange network problem. Hi, Bill and Larry. Hey, I got top billing. Yes. Hey, did you look at the other one? He wrote your name first and then, listen, you wrote my name first. Hey, Bob, that's the way to play the field. OK. Yeah, I think he's trying my best. Yeah. He wrote, Hi, Bill and Larry. Bob here again with my second problem. The network on my Ubuntu Mate laptop stopped working. I can connect to my (38/49)
router's Wi-Fi and to my cell phone's wireless hotspot, but the connection doesn't establish Internet contact. Browsers, ping, etc., can't reach Internet, even though the router and cell phone are happily telling me my laptop is connected. Here are a few more details. Number one, this problem suddenly started. I visited my mom one weekend and the last thing I did before coming home on Sunday afternoon was to place an order to let her on Amazon. The laptop worked perfectly. I shut it down normally and drove home. That was the last time the computer accessed the Internet from Ubuntu Mate. On Monday, I turned on the laptop and this problem was happening. Ubuntu Mate hasn't connected to the Internet since that Sunday afternoon. Number two, the laptop is dual boot, so I rebooted into Linux Mint and everything works perfectly. I'm typing this email in Mint right now. I use Ubuntu Mate 98% of the time, no particular reason, so Mint was never active while I was at my mom's house. Number three, (39/49)
I verified that Ubuntu Mate does connect wirelessly to both my home router and my cell phone's wireless hotspot. I've also plugged it into my router directly with an Ethernet cable and I still can't get to the Internet. Number four, I figured that since Mint worked and made it and I a configuration file must be damaged somewhere or a background update went bad. I used TimeShift to restore Mate to a state one week before I visited my mom when everything worked perfectly. No dice. I still can't reach the Internet. The fact that the laptop works when I boot into Mint tells me that my hardware is working correctly. The fact that the problem only appears in Ubuntu Mate. He didn't put a Mate by my add in there because I know what he's talking about. Ubuntu Mate tells me the problem is tied to the operating system. Using TimeShift to revert to a known good state should have fixed an operating system, but it didn't. So what do you think? I searched it extensively and the solutions I find (40/49)
consistently address driver problems or incorrectly configured new installations of Linux or a home router. I haven't found anyone whose computer worked one day and not the next. By the way, my mom lives three hours away, so I can't take this computer back to her house to test it on her network until I've seen her again in about a month. Her network is totally unsafe and insecure. My dad set it up using Windows XP and passwords so weak they are useless. For various reasons, I am not able to change things, so I use Linux instead of Windows when I visit. I don't access sensitive websites and I use a VPN when using the network for anything more sensitive than reading news sites. Do you think I could have picked up some form of persistent Linux malware? Any suggestions you have on how to track this down would be appreciated. I'm willing to nuke and pave with a new Ubuntu Mate install, but then I would never figure out what caused this problem. That, of course, assumes a nuke and pave (41/49)
actually solves the problem. Thanks, Bob. Wow. I was thinking that until he said that he restored from a previous known good configuration using what was a time shift, I was thinking maybe he had enabled the firewall while at his mother's or during an update or something like that, and then all he has to do is disable the firewall and maybe that would make it work. But since he restored from a previous configuration, it's obviously something else that's going on. Hmm. Any thoughts, Bill? Well, I have two. It sounds like he's got a configuration file problem somewhere. If it works with the other Linux without a problem, we know it's not hardware, so we don't have to worry. Look at hardware. It's got to be a configuration file. I don't know of any... Now, I keep up on the latest Linux malware and stuff, and there's some out there, but most of it, you have to have physical access to the machine. I'm not saying that there's not one I don't know about, but it kind of goes in contrary to (42/49)
what a lot of this malware does. I don't think he has malware because the malware usually wants you to be connected to the Internet so they can spread malware and whatever. So I don't think it's malware. I think it's a configuration file. Is there a way, Larry, that he could... Well, he did time shift. Yeah. Yeah, he's already done that, and presumably that's going to restore it to a previous image, but what I'm thinking now is it might not change the settings in his browser. So if that VPN you were using, Bob, was set up as a browser plug-in on Firefox or on Chrome as one of their plug-ins, maybe there's a configuration in the VPN that is specific to your mother's connection to the Internet. I would try disabling the VPN and other things related to the browser itself that may persist across a restore to a previous image. It may sync up and update back to your new settings, even though you've restored your system to a previous version. When you connect your browser, it may update the (43/49)
settings to the latest ones you had when you last logged in, and maybe it's doing that with a VPN. So I would check anything that you changed while at your mother's house, the VPN settings, any firewall settings, any tweaks to make yourself secure on their insecure network. Just kind of retrace your steps there before you start looking for configuration file issues. And what you're tweaking there is configuration files, but at least you're doing it from within the browser itself. So I would A, check the browser settings and anything you set up in the browser, and then start thinking about is there something in the Linux, or excuse me, in the Ubuntu MATE installation that's causing the problem. Does Ubuntu MATE have a setting for like airplane mode? I don't think so. Well, just check because maybe you can check. I haven't used Ubuntu MATE enough, but maybe because the way he's describing it, it works when it boots into the Linux. So he might have, when he was doing all this stuff, if (44/49)
there is a thing that, you know, because it's a laptop and you go on the airplane and tell you to turn off your electronic devices, they might have included a switch that kills the internet access. I don't know. Just throwing it out. Yeah, I'm just going into my Ubuntu MATE connections, network connections. I don't see anything. I mean, you can manually go in and disable any of your connections, but he was saying that he's got, it's telling him that he's connected to the network, right? Yeah, so that's not going to be the solution, but I would check the browser first, any plugins on the browser, especially anything that you monkeyed with while you were trying to protect yourself from any infestation while on this secure. Yes, there you go. So that's where I'd start, Bob. Let us know how it goes and we'd be interested in what it actually ended up being. Yeah, and I hope we can get that fixed, but yeah, that's cool. All right. Okay. Looks like you've got an application. Well, it's not (45/49)
really an application. This is basically a website and okay, guys, disclaimer, if you're not an Amazon Prime member, you can stop listening now, but if you have Amazon Prime, you have the music and there's some sites that I found that's a little wonky when you're running in Linux. So I listen to Prime. I actually got the upgraded membership because I wanted more, but the base, this works the same way. I wanted to listen to music while I'm browsing web or whatever. And so at one time, Amazon's website was kind of wonky and wouldn't let me, it would work, but you had to go through steps and stand on your head and spin around. Now it works flawlessly. And I really like how they really went and made it very accessible. I would suggest giving it a try. If you have Amazon Prime, you already have the music and the way it's very pretty, it tells you about the artists and stuff like that. I just found that it was working really well and I wanted to let people know about it. That's all. We are (46/49)
not advertising for Amazon, but a lot of us use Prime for stuff and I thought maybe it would be helpful or you might not know that you had it. It works really well in all the browsers I've tested in Chrome and Firefox. It works really well and no problems whatsoever. Now I see that you have an application pick. So what do you got? Yeah. Well, I was inspired by your Amazon Prime music thing and I looked up in my bookmark something that I haven't used in a little while. It's a command line music playing application over the internet. CMD, as in command, CMD.fm. Just do it. You'll see, you can choose from all kinds of different genres and you can listen to it in a browser tab while you're- Nice. I didn't know about that. Wherever you want. Yeah, and it works like an old bulletin board service. You just type in the commands and it lets you mess around. So there you go. We'll include that link in the chat. I just noticed that you had to throw that totally free open source one in there. Oh, (47/49)
I don't know whether it's open source or not, but it's totally free. Really old school though. Well, it's cool. Well, like I said, we're not endorsed in anything, but we use products and stuff and if I find it, it works well on Linux or whatever. I want to let you guys know about it. Okay. Yep. There you go. I like that Amazon Prime tip. That's pretty cool. Okay. Yeah. And I know that in our last episode, I think you talked about maybe doing an episode on reviews of distributions, but I also know that it's taking you a little bit longer to configure your new computer than you thought. So you probably haven't done any work on them yet, huh? Yes, sir. Okay. Well, that's what I figured. So we'll have something for our next episode. It won't be a review unless Bill gets one done really quick, which I don't expect. Oh, that's just rude. You've got to... Well, no, you've got a few things going on in your life between now and then, like moving into the house, making sure your internet works, (48/49)
you know, all that kind of stuff. So I don't expect that you're going to have any of that done. Just because you've got other stuff. I know that stupid thing called life always gets in my way, but we'll guarantee you we'll have something. We don't know what it is yet, but we will. Yeah. As always, we don't know what our next episode is going to be, but it'll be great. It's going to be awesome. Hey, we're going to make it great. Okay. We're going to be good. Yes. Okay. Until then, 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. If you'd 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. New music provided by Mark Blasko at podcastthemes.com. (49/49)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #417 · A Tribute To Tom.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 417, a tribute to Tom. Welcome to the Going Linux Podcast. I'm your host Larry Bushy. And I'm your co-host Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. If you want to send us feedback, please do so using our email at goinglinux at gmail dot com or our voicemail line at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, a tribute to Tom. Yes. And so this is a special episode. As you know, or you may know, Tom was a co-host on our podcast from 2007 to 2013, and he recently passed away. We wanted to do a tribute to Tom by playing an episode of Tom at his best. Interviewing someone and providing answers to listener questions in a listener feedback episode. And we found an episode (1/50)
that embodies all of that. Yeah, we hope that you enjoy hearing Tom again. And Tom will always be a member of our going Linux podcast family and will be dearly missed. We hope you enjoy this episode in our archives. It is episode 180, which we will play for you now. Going Linux episode 180, listener feedback. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushee. And I'm your co-host, Tom. And I'm your chief executive minion, Bill. In today's episode, listener feedback. Well, guys, I've installed the new Skype, Skype 4.0 for Linux. And yes, I know it's a Microsoft product. Sort of. Yeah, sort of. But it seems to be pretty nice. I'm still, this is the first time I've used it. I'm still trying to get used to it. It's not in the Mint repositories yet, so I had to download it from the Skype website. And one of the things I noticed is, you know, where you set up your own profile. Well, it switched my location to Uganda. Nice. Oh, how do you like it there? I don't know. It doesn't (2/50)
seem too much different from California. I had a wedding there. It's great. Yeah. So anyway, I switched all that stuff back to where it should have been. It also changed me from male to female, which I didn't really appreciate, but I suppose, you know, they can do that. Here's me shutting up. All right. So you guys have been using Skype 4.0 for a little while. I got a couple of questions for you. So I can see that there's a little window pops up with a picture. I've got a picture of Bill, but I don't have a picture of Tom. There's not one in my profile. Because there's no picture. But I can't tell, since we're on a group call here, a conference call, I can see that Bill's connected and I can't see that Tom's connected. I can see where I can add more people, but I have no way of knowing who's on this call. Are you looking at three panels? Do you have a panel on the right? I have the individual panels for all this stuff. The same basic setting as was in the old Skype. OK. So you've got (3/50)
the stuff that's already been typed in the top panel and a place to type in the bottom panel. Yeah. Do you have a panel on the right? Oh, I can see that in the chat. Sure. I'm talking about the phone call. Oh, the phone call. Sorry about that. Let's see. Yeah, I can see everybody in the chat part of it. No problem. I see both of you guys. Yeah, I see both. I see your profile picture and of course I see nothing for Tom except his blank portrait with his name on it. I don't even see that. Oh, I see it. I'm missing it. It's tiny and it's below your picture, Bill. You can expand that. There should be four little icons below the pictures. And I believe the fourth one over is to make everything big and then you have big panels. So I guess if you had video, it would be showing the video there. Got it. OK, well, that answers that question. It looked like a little gray square because you don't have a profile picture, Tom. And when one of us types something new, do you get a little asterisk in (4/50)
the in the tray? I do. When you type something new? No, I have it set so that it pops up the screen. Oh, yeah, but if you're not looking at it. Oh, I still I still get notifications. I don't know. I haven't had it installed long enough to find out. That was my only beef with it. Other than that, it's pretty neat. But if I step away for a minute and somebody types something, I come back. There's no evidence. Yeah. OK, well, you know, my my screens are always open, so I see it immediately. That's why I probably haven't noticed. I really can't say if it does or not, because I always keep the conversations open. Yeah, well, mine are open, too. It's just that I might be looking at a different page. Yeah. So, OK, that's that question. And let's see here, maybe maybe that's it. I think we've talked about it all already. Those are really the only issues I've had with it. Have you got any advertising yet? No. Yeah, well, the Skype four is supposed to introduce some advertising. And I've gotten (5/50)
one advertising bit and I can't remember what it was about. I think it was for Gillette or something. I don't remember what it was for, but I was like, huh, that's interesting. Oh, I thought they would be advertising things like Microsoft Office or Microsoft Project. Well, I think it was Gillette. So, you know, I guess they were they knew that was mail and I probably needed to shave. Well, then I'm glad I changed my profile back to mail. Then I, too, can get razor and razor blade ads from Gillette. Well, you might have gotten Lady Gillette. That's true. I could have. But now I hadn't seen any other advertisements. I don't know if it was just like a one time shot, but I think from what I understand, they're going to add they're going to add advertising to Skype. And so don't be surprised when you get it finally. Yeah. OK, we'll see. We'll see. But so far, the quality is good. I mean, I don't notice anything different, better or worse about the quality of the call. The camera works. I (6/50)
tried that out last night. Everything seems to work just fine. So as far as the camera's concerned, I just tried to turn mine on just now just to freak you out. And evidently it doesn't work on conference calls. Yes. That's a holdover from the previous version as well. It didn't work on conference calls. So, yeah, I'm assuming that if you have a very large conference call and everybody has their camera going, it would take a lot of bandwidth. Yeah. But hey, Google Hangouts seem to work. We should try Google Hangout one day and see if we can record a show using that. I hear that you can. I've heard that as well. I'm not signed up for Google Plus and I don't think I'm going to be for a while. Well, that kind of nixes that idea, doesn't it? You and Bill can do a show over in whatever. Oh, sure. OK. You know, by the way, Jono said it's time to upgrade Tom. Just reminding you. Oh, so I see how this is going to go. Yeah. Well, guys, I'll talk to you later. Yeah, Bill's going to keep (7/50)
reminding Tom until the upgrade. Why don't you start the upgrade while we're recording, Tom? Yeah. No problem. There should be no problems whatsoever. All right. So we're going to do a show here? I think we should. But I got some rants going on here and I want to just say that Netflix sucks. They need to get their act together about having a Linux native client. That's been a complaint for a while, Bill. Yeah. Yeah, I know. But I just I had some problems with them. I sometimes use PayPal to pay for things. And I said, well, I'll give this a whirl. And their system died and they took like 20 bucks of my money. It took like three weeks to get it back. And I never did get to watch anything. So I just want to say Netflix, you suck. Don't like you. And you better get your act together. I mean, if they can put one for Android, why can't they do one for Linux? I mean, come on. No one wants your stuff. I mean, come on. And then I finally finished. Tom, you're sitting down, right? OK. I finally (8/50)
finished the Windows 8 testing I was doing for past three weeks. And they need to hire someone from Ubuntu to their interface because that Metro interface is just about stupid. So you're saying even Unity would be better than Windows 8 Metro? Unity makes Metro look... Unity is so far ahead of Metro, it's sickening. It's fast, don't get me wrong. But you've got two different desktops and you have to switch and you got hot corners and they pop on up when they're not supposed to. And after a while, you do most of your work in the old type of desktop and you really... that Metro is just in your way. And they need to have a way just to shut the darn thing off. I mean, but I know what they want to do. I've seen these Metro apps and stuff and I was looking at the previews of them, but I'm going to predict that Windows 8 is going to fall on its face. I mean, Microsoft has already discounted it saying you can upgrade. I think it's like for 40 bucks. And here's something you can upgrade from the (9/50)
release candidate that you could download for free. So read into it what you want. OK, well, you know, Linux community, here's another opportunity for us to capitalize on people being dissatisfied with the Windows platform and wanting to switch to something else. Let's get them to switch to Linux. By the way, for the first time in history, in the last quarter, Microsoft lost money. A lot of money. But one part of it was for a charge off that they wanted to... they bought something that they thought was going to compete with that DoubleClick or something that Google had bought. And they only lost, what was it, like 64 billion or something. Hey. So there goes my retirement fund. Oh, I'm sorry, Larry. Might just be time to dump that stack. Just saying. Yeah, might be a little late for that, too. Anyway, no, I was just kidding, everyone. I do not own any Microsoft stock, at least that I'm aware of. Moving into our... I think we've had enough of this. Let's move into our email. OK. So our (10/50)
first email is from Matt, who isn't exactly pleased with our seeming change of format for our last episode, Episode 179. Matt writes, Hi, guys. Hi, Matt. Hi, Matt. I've been listening since the very early episodes, always a fan of the informative shows and silly humor. Silly? Silly humor? Jesus. I just listened to Episode 179, Linux Applications Advanced. Has going Linux turned into casual chat for three minutes and then read Larry's notes out loud word for word for the rest of the show? It felt very fake to me. Is the podcast dying? Was this just a really rushed episode? I miss the hour or two long episodes with lots of chatting about the world of Nix. And old fan Matt. Well? I guess I was reading what Larry wrote word for word. Yeah, Matt, that format is actually something we've used in the past where I've written an article and we've basically read the article as an episode. And we've done that in the past primarily because not everybody reads the articles that are on the Web page. (11/50)
And I think in the episode I mentioned or in the show notes, I mentioned that this was based on the article, which is something I don't normally do. But sometimes, you know, we do the article first and then the podcast episode afterwards. And sometimes we do a podcast episode and I use that to write the article. So not as unusual as maybe it seems. To be fair, though, it was a bit of a rushed episode, which is one of the reasons why it was shorter than normal. And the minion, of course, messed up. He's not telling you that I was doing repair to Studio West's recording studio and I kind of crossed the wires and stuff. So we won't talk about the fire. Yeah, didn't make the news, but. Or did it? Was that that fire? OK, never mind. You did not hear that. Move on. Next up, we got David in Israel and he writes, Hi, Larry. Hi, David. Hi, Tom. Hi, David. Hi, Minion Bill. Hi, Tom. No, sorry. Hi, Dave. You are the entertainment bill. Good night, Gracie. All right. And David says, You're old and (12/50)
loyal listener, old in both meanings of the word. David, the expat Canadian in Israel here. What would you suggest for a newbie to Linux, but experienced, insert bad word, systems programmer to install in order to learn Unix based systems, including Perl programming and command line? The machine is old, eight years, 1.5 gigabytes, no GPU. I thought Linux Mint 13 mate would do the trick. Any better ideas? Bestest, David. Larry made some recommendations to David via email and he said, You might try Mint 13 XFCE when it comes out, especially if you'll be working with Perl and the command line. I don't think you'll miss Gnome and the PC will show a much better performance. Alternatively, if you are trying to learn system administration, you might actually want to install CentOS, the community supported Red Hat variant or straight Debian. These are the most common systems on non-commercial servers. If you are planning on taking certification exams like LPI or RHCE, these would be better (13/50)
than Ubuntu or Mint, since Ubuntu and its variants actually don't strictly follow all the standards for Linux file locations. Zentiel is a distribution recommended by listener Ken, the small box admin. This would be what you want if you're looking to run an actual small business server. I hope all these possibilities aren't overwhelming. Let us know how it goes. Good advice. Very good advice. David responded to us to let us know how it was going. He says, Thanks, Larry. And by extension, Tom and Bill. We'll try CentOS seems to be the proper one based on your recommendation and we'll also give some exposure outside the Debian model. We'll keep you informed. Have you tried Pingai OS? Any comments? I am running Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon on my new i5 8GB Nvidia GPU machine. I'm thinking of adding Pingai in a second partition just to play with. Since I don't listen to Computer America, I miss tidbits. I also miss Timbits, but that's another story. Much appreciated, David. Bill, you've tried (14/50)
Pingai, haven't you? I have, and it's one of my favorite distros. He does a nice job. I do not use it much anymore. I'm not real happy with his current iteration. I find it's a little unstable. He really tries to throw everything, including kitchen sink, into the distro. He uses a lot of PPAs and stuff like that. I've had nothing but problems. It's based on Ubuntu. I think that a better alternative, because you can build it the way you want, is just go ahead with a base Ubuntu system and then add what you want. That way you're not getting, because he throws everything in there, whether you ever use it or not. If you don't want to do that or you want something a little more customized, but you still want to be able to use the Debian commands, try Linux Mint. Linux Mint is also a real good one, but they have a lot more customizations. They have Cinnamon and is it called Mater? I heard of Mate or something to that effect. I don't know what they're calling it, but they have several (15/50)
different desktops. I would suggest staying with Ubuntu or Mint if you want to stay in the Ubuntu round. If you really want to look at some of the outside Debian, look at Crunchbang for a very minimalist or just straight Debian. Understand, if you use straight Debian, it's not as polished as Ubuntu or Mint. I would say stay with Ubuntu or Mint. I think you'll be happier. Just a side note, if you use those guys to learn some of the admin for Debian systems, it's going to be very similar. I believe that Ubuntu now has just gotten approved for the HP servers, so now they can get support. They're starting to become used in big server projects. It wouldn't hurt to learn Ubuntu or use Mint or whatever, but Ubuntu is making inroads to corporations, so it wouldn't hurt to also know them along with Scent. Norman wrote with a gone back to Windows story. Oh no. Should I read this? We gave this one to you, Tom. Thanks. Norman says, hi Larry, Tom, Bill. Hi Norman. Hi Norman. What's our next (16/50)
feedback? Oh, it goes on. I see. Norman goes on. I've been a long time listener and long time user of Linux. My first taste of Linux was the Red Hat Linux 7 for Dummies book. I've never gone completely Linux because of my desire for modern PC games. However new direction the modern desktop distributions have taken make Linux unusable to me. I have used and loved Ubuntu 10.04 and Linux Mint 10 for a good couple of years now, but they are no longer supported. Now I've tried Ubuntu 12.04, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Zubuntu, all three, Mint 13, SUSE 12.1, Fedora 16, and the list goes on. None of them work on my PC any longer. With all the discussion on being able to use Linux to recycle older PCs, it no longer stands and my PC is reasonable. AMD Athlon x64 3.0 gig, 4 gig of RAM, NVIDIA graphics card with 2 gig video RAM. Hmm. Well, you know, that doesn't seem too shabby a system. It's not really all that old and I'm not sure why it wouldn't work with Mint 13 or Fedora or any of those. Maybe you (17/50)
might want to try a distribution with a lighter weight desktop, but you've tried Kubuntu and Zubuntu. Yeah, he really doesn't say what's failing. Yeah. And he has a graphics card with 2 gigabyte of video RAM on it, so, you know, it could be that, I mean, he has a pretty much of a beast of a system there. I would say it might be, uh, he might be using this to close source drivers for the NVIDIA graphics. Oh, you know, that could be. But it worked on an older distribution. Yeah, but they changed the, they changed the drivers and, you know, whenever you change a driver, sometimes it can break what used to work. Sometimes they, uh, they automatically include, include the open source. And unless, you know, uh, that you can get the closed source, uh, version of it, you, you just think, Oh, wow, this thing sucks. And then you get the new driver for the, and for the graphics and it's like, wow, it's a totally different system, but he doesn't give a lot of debt. He doesn't say that what we (18/50)
can't really, uh, tell what's not working. I mean, if it's a, uh, you know, these new, uh, boards also have, uh, drivers for them, you know, a lot of these boards are made by what Foxconn I think. And, um, so sometimes they might be a little wonky. Continuing with Norman's email, none of the live CDs work. They look great when the boot menu comes up and then they show loading fine. But when it gets to the desktop, it looks like an old television screen with snow only and a semi pattern to it as well. I, I figured, okay, I need to get the Nvidia driver working. Other than the Ubuntu Mint, it is a real pain. I fired up the mint DVD and managed to get into a sort of recovery type mode. I installed, uh, to disk and installed an Nvidia non free driver. Once the install was finished reboot and voila on reboot with the Nvidia driver, I got the snow screen. I try to reboot into a safe mode and couldn't launch X. Well, that kind of backs up what we were saying about the video driver being the (19/50)
problem. Well, before he goes back to, uh, uh, the W, um, I got a suggestion. Go ahead and, uh, and partition your drive and install the W for, um, just day to day use. A lot of times, uh, they'll issue patches for, for the Linux, like Linux Mint is really on top of things. And so is Ubuntu. So go ahead and keep your, uh, your Linux partition stay with Ubuntu or Mint for right now. And I bet after a few, you know, once things settle down, cause 1204 is pretty new. And so it's what is Mint 13 Larry? Is that it? Yep. Mint 13 is still reasonably new and they're constantly making patches, their long-term support. So go ahead and keep W on one side of the partition and just go ahead and, uh, uh, continue, uh, uh, working with your, uh, Linux partition. Yeah. Stay with Ubuntu or Mint. And I think that, uh, one of these days you're going to just get these updates and boom, it's going to work again. Well, you know, just listening to what you were saying, um, Norman didn't say whether or not he (20/50)
applied all the updates while the video card was working in the lower resolution. So if he was trying to install the Nvidia driver before applying the updates, maybe you should try reinstalling. And this time while you've got that old TV looking screen, go in and get all the updates and then go back and log back in again and see if now the video is better. Because it might be with the default drivers that come, especially if they are updated. And then if not, go ahead and try installing the proprietary driver and perhaps the updated version of that with the updates to Mint or whatever distribution you're actually trying this with will actually work. So a couple of suggestions there if you haven't completely abandoned Linux and, and stopped listening to our show. And even if you have gone completely back to the W, um, You can still listen to us. Yeah, you can still listen to us. And if you're using Windows 7 and you upgrade to the, um, the Metro, uh, rectangles, uh, let us know how that (21/50)
goes. Um, I do want to ask you a question about Mint 13 Larry. He says that he, um, installed the non-free, Nvidia non-free driver. I was only on the impression that that was always a default with Mint 13. So you think that might've caused a problem? No, not, not with the video drivers. They have the application that's also in Ubuntu called Jockey that actually, uh, when you start your first installation of Ubuntu or Mint or I think most of the Ubuntu derivatives as well, it will install a default driver that will get you up and running. And if it doesn't do the resolution that you need, or if it, um, is lacking some of the advanced features, uh, the Jockey application will run in the background for the first few times that you boot into your system. And it will suggest that there is a proprietary driver available. Oh, okay. And then you can download it, but it starts with the, with a free version of the driver for even Nvidia cards. Okay. Yeah. Like I said, I don't use Mint very (22/50)
often, actually I haven't used Mint since I think, um, like 10. I'm kind of, uh, staying with Ubuntu right now. And, uh, but I always, you know, they do a great job. So I've also noticed, you know, I know this might be beating the bush a little bit, uh, uh, too much, but a lot of times you have to install all the updates in kind of order to get things to work because they install this and then they install. So, uh, you might want to, uh, make sure that you do your installs and then try upgrading your, your, your Nvidia driver. Right. Then again, that's just Bill, the minion can be wrong. So I noticed we have a little bit more to Norman's email here, so let me just read that and wrap it up. So he says, I listened to the interview with Ubuntu's Jono Bacon and I understand the direction Ubuntu wants to take is supposed to be good for newer users. However, if handing a CD to someone results in the kind of problems I've had, they will never turn to Linux. The problem here is not just Ubuntu (23/50)
though. It is all of the major distributions. None of them are working on my PC. I can only use older versions with no support now. It seems there is no longer any call for non 3d desktops on distributions. And that saddens me. I still listen, but for now I'm forced to go back to that other OS for more than just games. Norman. You've just made Tom very sad. All right. Yep. Sorry about that, Norm. And, uh, well, I guess we lost one. Yeah. Keep listening though. Yeah. Next in Jim's email, he writes, Tom, Larry and Bill. Jim. Jim. No, this is just reverse alphabetical order. Okay. Thanks for reading my email about my friend with the dial up modem problem on the Dell Ubuntu computer. And also thanks for the listener who suggested puppy Linux. That was a very good tip about what puppy can do. However, I believe that puppy would be way over my friend's head. Her original laptop on which I started my Linux adventure appears to have a failing video card. The display is jumpy at times and (24/50)
frequently the screen goes almost completely black, almost cannot see anything at all on it. Now for the $64,000 question. Would it be suitable to use a light duty Linux server? I will be learning how to administer Linux servers and all that goes with it. Initially, all that I would have on it would be my sailing journal and to have it available for the World Wide Web. If so, which distributions would you recommend? Immediately after the laptop began failing, I experienced a personal kernel panic. I immediately began searching for a Linux computer using my netbook. It's a little small for my everyday use. I found an Acer PC with Olympus pre-installed at, of all places, walmart.com. After researching it, I decided to give it a try. I will write, too, about that adventure, still ongoing, in another email, unless you'd rather I didn't. Thanks for putting on a great podcast, Jim. We'd be really interested in hearing about that. Yeah, and what was the price on that? I don't know. If it was (25/50)
Walmart, it had to be inexpensive. We'll be happy to hear about your adventures with Olympus. It's not a distribution that we know a lot about. It's not one of our most popular, for sure. Acer is also known for artificially locking down some of its pre-installed Linux computers. As for the server, if you're already familiar with Ubuntu, you can start with their server. Most servers qualify as lightweight, so you almost can't go wrong with almost any server distro. You can download the Ubuntu servers right from their website. Sure. Yeah, it's real easy. You burn it, and you can boot it up. I've actually played with it. It's all command-line driven, but you can add a desktop if you want. Most of them don't add it, but that's a good way to learn the inner workings. Sure. Jim did write back. He said, thanks for getting back to me so soon. My adventures with Olympus did not last an hour. It did not seem to have any that I could find repositories for downloading software, nor was there any (26/50)
update manager. Kind of what I said. It's not one of the most popular. I think this is one of the ones that Acer has locked down, so it may not be a Linpus thing. It may be an Acer thing. Anyway, Jim continues, I just listened to episode 176 where you covered Windows 7 versus 64-bit Linux. Was the author's netbook a 64-bit? I did not hear it mentioned on the show. I have a 32-bit netbook, and from what I read, a 64-bit will not run on it. What do you think? Well, yeah, the author's netbook was a 64-bit. I did install the 64-bit version of Solus OS. I didn't read the disk label fully on the Acer, and it ran for two days before it crashed fatally. I'm surprised that the 64-bit would even run on a 64-bit machine. You can't run 64-bit. Unless it's 64-bit and they're just not telling you. Yeah, it's probably processor 64-bit, but Solus OS is a fairly new one, so it might not be the hardware. Anyhow, continuing with Jim's email, I couldn't get any live CD to boot on the Acer until I tried (27/50)
Puppy. I tried to install it, but it was too confusing to me, and the install failed. However, I did fix the problem, and now I can boot live CDs and install them again. Your comment about Acer locking down its Linux boxes is most interesting, as I am having trouble getting the Wi-Fi to work with other Linux distros. The Wi-Fi did work with Linpus out of the box, which was one of the reasons that prompted me to purchase it. I will go into the details when I write up the adventure. It's a bit late here in the Lone Star Estate right now. Okay, so go get your sleep, Jim, and when you've got time, let us know in a little more detail what went on with Linpus and your Acer PC. Okay, and I just want to say, who named that distro? Linpus, really? I mean, they couldn't come up with anything better. I mean, how about like Super Duper Operating System or something, but Linpus? Or something that makes a lot of sense, like O'Nurik Ocelot. Hey, hey, back off. I'll get Jono on you. Hey, you seem to (28/50)
be an Ubuntu fanboy now. I do, don't I? It's awesome. I've drunk the Kool-Aid. Okay. And next up, we've got Bill in Michigan, who wrote about Bill's interview with Jono Bacon. Speaking of... Speaking of... Oh, I love this! Go on, go on, Tom, really. He says, I think Bill's interview really stank. Oh, no, wait. Oh, no, that was me. The editorial license there. Okay. He says, I thought Bill did an excellent job. I can see the controversy, though. He says, I like Jono. However, I do have issue with his clumping all Linux users, not liking Unity, into the elitist category. In fact, quite the opposite. I would call Canonical quite elitist when they put out something like 11.04, knowing full well that it's incomplete and virtually dysfunctional. It's like Canonical saying, we're on a higher goal. Are you 10.04 users too stupid to see it? My question, is Canonical proud of Ubuntu 11.04? And this isn't Canonical's first introduction of things before they were close to ready. Network manager (29/50)
and pulse audio represent lesser pains for users, but fall into the same category as Unity. I don't doubt for a minute that the elitist viewpoint exists, as Jono states. But it's far from anyone who happens to be against trashing Adistro for a greater cause. Larry, you're the prime example of a non-elitist in my book, and I'm sure it's a major part of your success. Jono may argue a polished 12.04 wouldn't have been possible without the steps that started with 11.04. This, I imagine, is true in that it may have taken longer. But the cost of going through that transition makes me shudder. A separate fork could have taken longer, but produced the same result. Keep up the good work, guys. Bill in Michigan. So Bill, you're not quite happy with Jono's comment about elitism. I think you may have taken it a little out of context, but I see your point. With 11.04, it's one of those releases from Ubuntu that's between the long-term support releases. And to some degree, you could make the (30/50)
argument that if you really want a stable version, you should stick with the long-term support releases, because in between, they're going to try new things, as they did. And trying Unity, beginning with 11.04, if I remember correctly, was one of those things that, you know, we help Ubuntu and other Linux distributions as the Linux community by trying out these new things with them. And like I said, if you really want stability, then stick with the long-term support releases. Oh, you mean like I do? Yes, exactly. There you go, Jono. I have to say, guys, you know, I talked to Jono on record and off the record, and I really, I think it was taking a little bit out of context. His whole, from what I gathered from it, the Ubuntu really wants Linux accessible to everybody, from housewives to students to kindergartners to power users to Tom, you know, they all want it accessible. And I think what Jono was saying is there's some people that aren't happy with the direction that Ubuntu is going, (31/50)
because they feel that it's not, they're not, their special operating system is no longer special, because the average housewife can use it to check your email and surf the web. And he said he hated that kind of, he didn't say he just didn't like that kind of mentality. He wants everybody to use it. And that's just, that's what I got from it. Yeah, that's pretty much what I got too. He also said in the interview that 1104 was not up to their standards. And he actually said it, we were disappointed. It didn't, it wasn't polished. It wasn't where we wanted it to be, but it was a evolutionary step. You have, sometimes you have to make those steps to get to the final. And I'm sound like a fan boy, I'm sorry. But 1204 shows the polish and, you know, they can't make this polish. I mean, it'd be nice if they could just go and say, look, it looks great. You know, we, everything we tried here worked, but a lot of times, you know, things they tried didn't work. Or they say, Ooh, that might be, (32/50)
wasn't as good as we thought it was. So, you know, as, as, as users, we've got to help them test it and offer them feedback. That's what they have the forms there for. And so, I mean, I know they listen to people and, you know, John is very approachable. I believe all of them are approachable. If you actually have a legitimate concern, shoot them an email and say, Hey, just want to let you know this sucks. Or I think this is great. Or, you know, you guys have been, you know, drinking while you're designing this. So, you know, let, let them know. I mean, they, they, they don't create this stuff in a vacuum. Right. And I think your comments just underscore my comments of if you really want something that just works, stick with the long-term support releases and expect that the releases in between are going to have some things that don't work because they're still. Experimental. Working on them. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, if, if I weren't doing this show, I probably would follow that (33/50)
advice myself. But, you know, there are people who start using Linux right between the long-term support releases of Ubuntu or Linux Mint or any of the other distributions that, that take the same philosophy on releases. And as a result, you know, we've got to kind of keep up with whatever the latest is. But like I said, if, if it were just me using Linux for my own personal use without doing this podcast, I would probably be using the long-term support release. And if there was a new feature in one of the applications that I needed, I would be using one of the back ports or something like that to get the latest. Or, like in the case with Skype 4.0, download it from the developer's website. There you go. That's a good point. Yeah. And now a special interview that Tom conducted recently with Jonathan Nadeau of the Accessible Computing Foundation. Tom? I'm talking today with Jonathan Nadeau, the Executive Director of Accessible Computing Foundation, which is kind of impressive. What is (34/50)
the Accessible Computing Foundation, Jonathan? Oh, by the way, hi. Hey, Tom. Hey, Larry and Bill also. I'm sure you guys will say hi later. Oh, yeah. The Accessible Computing Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to developing free, accessible software. And we want to bridge the gap between accessibility and technology. And, you know, this day and age, technology is moving so quick at such a rapid rate. The faster technology is moving, the faster accessibility is being left behind. And so the foundation has been put together to bridge that gap and bring accessibility back up to speed with the rate technology is moving at. Okay. And just to make it clear, by accessible, we're talking about making computing available to people with physical challenges. Yes, exactly. Like I myself am a blind GNU Linux user, but we're not focusing on just blind and low vision. We want to cover any type of accessible need, from learning disabilities, dyslexia, to paraplegics, quadriplegics, low (35/50)
motor skills, hearing impaired. We want to cover the gambit. Excellent. Well, that sounds like a big job. Yeah. And I hear you just got your, is it 401C? Yes, the 501C3. We just got the status and we're extremely excited about that, which is part of the reason why I'm here today is to announce that we're going to be having a fundraiser on August 25th, which is a Saturday, and we will be starting at noon Eastern Standard Time and stopping at midnight. It's essentially going to be like a 12 hour long podcast. We're going to have the whole event streamed live at thenewradio.net. Now, all of this information I'm telling you, I'll give you a URL that you can visit later on and you'll see all of the information there. You'll be able to see everything that I talked about on the interview. So we'll be at the Linuxbasics.com. They have their own mumble server and we'll be utilizing that. They can have up to 30 people in the room at once. So I'm going to be in there hosting the essentially 12 (36/50)
hour podcast. And throughout the time we'll have people be able to come in and out of the mumble room, which you'll have the information to log into when you visit the site. But people will be able to log in and out of the room. And we're going to have Jono Bacon showing up, Stefano Zaccaroli, the project leader of Debian. I'm hoping to get Aaron Saigo on. Maybe Joan Ray Diggs, the project lead of Orca. So we're going to have various people showing up throughout the 12 hours. And if you're in the room when Jono or Stefano shows up, you'll be able to hang out with them, talk to them, ask questions. And of course, we'll be discussing free software and accessibility throughout the 12 hours and whatever other topics might come up in those 12 hours. But we'll be trying to focus basically on accessibility and free software for the most part. Excellent. And are people going to need to install some sort of a program to take part in this? Yes. You'll have to install mumble, which mumble runs on (37/50)
everything. If you're running any Debian based distro, mumble's already in the repo. So like Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, it's in the Fedora repos. I've yet to find a distro that doesn't have mumble packaged. So you can easily install it. There's also instructions on the LinuxBasics.com website on how to install it and how to get it set up. So you'll have all the instructions there. Mumble also works on Android phones. It works on iOS. It runs on Mac. It runs on Windows. It runs on everything. So you should be able to get it installed in some way, shape or form if you want to take part in the discussion in the mumble room. Cool. And you said this is a fundraising gambit? Yes. So what we're looking to do is you can become a member of the Accessible Computing Foundation. We have four levels. Bronze, silver, gold and platinum. And they start at $2, $10, $20 and $50 a month. But you can also make a one-time donation if you'd like also. But the fundraiser is to, our goal is to reach 1,000 $2 (38/50)
members. Now we feel that that's a reasonable goal because $2 is $0.50 a week. $2 might not seem much to one person, but with 1,000 people that can make a difference. And essentially that will really be able to help the foundation get off the ground and start moving forward with paying developers to either fix bugs or help other projects out with accessibility. So that's really the goal is to get 1,000 $2 members. And we can start paying developers, like I said, to squash bugs like with Orca or Pidgin or Gnome or XFCE. We really want to find some, we find a bunch of college developers where we can get a lot of this low hanging fruit, a lot of bugs that have been hanging around for a while. And we're going to take this money and pay them and start getting rid of the bugs with inaccessibility and start gaining some ground that way. Excellent. So you do have some developers lined up? Yes. College kids, did you say? Yeah, I've been working on, not every college, but a good amount of (39/50)
colleges have a chapter of the ACM, which is the Association of Computer Machine. And basically a lot of, all the CS departments have a chapter and I've been emailing them, reaching out to them. And I've even set up a bunch of talks to give a talk at each chapter and let them know about accessibility and the foundation and what we're trying to do. And, you know, it'll be a way for these college kids to earn some extra money on the side. And they'll also get some experience, like, you know, it'll be good for their job opportunity because they can show their employer, hey, look, I made this commit and this commit against, you know, these packages. Oh, sure, sure. You know, you can read my source code, you can see my commits. So it's just good all around for everybody. It's win-win for everybody. Great idea, great idea. And is there anything else like this out there right now? I mean, not as far as with accessibility. I think we're really going to rattle some cages doing what we're doing (40/50)
because, you know, the assistive technology world is a strange place. And if you're not involved in it, a lot of these things would kind of blow your mind. Really, the thing that I think we're going to make the difference in which I love the most is a lot of the accessible software that's out there, the proprietary stuff, is outrageously expensive. Oh, yeah. I'm not against paying for software but, you know, in this country at least, we believe the market can control, you know, the market can be controlled by the consumers. Well, with assistive technology, 70 to 80% of blind people are unemployed. And the most popular screen reader for Windows right now costs $1200. So if 70 to 80% of people are unemployed, how in the world are they going to afford that? So right away, we can't control the market because it's out of our reach. Sure. So, you know, the companies that make the software price it so high because they know the government is going to come in and pay for it, which that's fine (41/50)
for them. And, you know, it's fine for the people, I guess, that get it for free. But the problem is the government only has so much money and they're only going to budget so much, so not every blind or low-vision person will get a screen reader. So with the Accessible Computing Foundation, we're really going to, you know, disrupt this whole industry, I'm hoping, and, you know, bring accessibility back into the control of people that actually depend on accessibility, that need assistive technology. We'll be back in control of the software. We can control it. We can squash bugs. We can make bug reports or requests and get ahold of the developers, you know, just through an email. So we'll be back in control of our own destiny with accessibility. Excellent. And are you going to run this whole thing? You're going to coordinate everything? Yes. I'll be, like I said, I'll be there for the whole 12 hours on the fundraiser. And, you know, I'm the executive director, so I'm in charge of (42/50)
coordinating, you know, developers and trying to figure out, you know, where's the next plan of attack going? And things like that. So I'm really trying to schedule some talks, you know, to get the foundation out there and let people know what we're about and what we're doing. And also bring awareness to accessibility, you know, and that's the most important thing also. There's over close to one billion people in the world that have some type of disability. There's 370 blind and low vision people throughout the world. So one billion people, that's a whole market that's not being tapped into, even for like consumers and stuff that are being left behind. So we want to, you know, we want to even let companies know, look, if you can, you know, if you can move this gadget to blind people, you just got another 15 million people in the United States that could possibly buy your product. Sure. So there's things like that that we want to point out to, you know, companies and software developers (43/50)
as such. So that's the goal, to bring awareness to accessibility and to also bring accessible freedom to everyone around the world that needs assistive technology. Wow, you're taking a big bite there. Someone's got to do it, right? There you go. And you said you were going to mention a URL where people could find out about this? Yes, thank you. So the foundation's URL is accessiblecomputingfoundation.org. I know that's a mouthful. I tried to get acf.org, but when your listeners visit that website, you'll see why I didn't get it. Is she cute? No, no, it's not. It's nothing like that. Blah, blah. Yeah, so if you go to accessiblecomputingfoundation.org, right on the front page, I'll have all the information there. But you can also visit Linux Basics, and that's b-a-s-i-x.com. If you visit LinuxBasics.com, where your forms are, they'll have instructions also right on the front page. I'd imagine they're going to put them up there. And all the information on how to install Mumble, how to log (44/50)
in with Mumble, the information you'll need to log into Mumble. Everything will be right there. And like I said, if you visit the Accessible Computing Foundation, it'll be there. Or if you visit LinuxBasics.com, it'll be there. So either way, you'll find the information. And it'll be August 25th, starting at noon Eastern Standard Time, and ending at midnight Eastern Standard Time. And we're looking forward to everyone showing up. I hope we all have a great time. And if you know somebody that needs assistive technology, if you know a friend of a friend that needs assistive technology, you want them to listen to this event. There's a lot of people that depend on assistive technology that aren't even aware of what Free Software is or even GNU Linux. I met – I got a funny story for you, actually. I was at the store the other day at Target with my wife and my family. And I'm standing there and my wife went off with one of the kids down another aisle. And this lady comes up to me and she's (45/50)
like, excuse me, what's this? And I sort of didn't think she was talking to me, so I didn't say anything. And she's like, excuse me, what's this? And I was like, oh, me? And she's like, yeah. I'm blind. And she started laughing and she's like, so am I. Oh, no, I'm kidding. Yeah. So she's like, I can't believe that. You're the first person I've ever run into that was blind when I was trying to ask them what something was. She had like really low vision. She could basically see like shadows and stuff. Sure. But it was really funny. So I started talking to her and I was like, oh, what do you use for technology? And she uses JAWS and everything. And I said, have you ever heard of Linux or free software? And she's like, no, what is that? And so there's a lot of people that depend on accessibility that have no idea that this stuff even exists. So that's why we want to bring awareness to it and get it out there. Yeah. Even when you do tell them that there's something better and cheaper and (46/50)
more bug-free and everything else, that's not what I'm used to. Yeah. It's discouraging. Totally. It's the same, you know, quandary that sighted people have just telling normal users, hey, why don't you try Ubuntu or Linux Minnow? Eh, I don't know. Same thing. It's kind of surprising, but it's the same thing. It's funny. If I'm not paying a fortune for it, it can't be any good. Right. Exactly. Or, you know, they're just used to it. We're creatures of habit, unfortunately. Right. Right. You know? And that's funny, too, because people that even, even, you know, Jaws, it costs $1200. It's nowhere near perfect. It's buggy. It crashes or whatever. Sure. And they put up with it, oh, well, this is the way it is. You know? And then the next thing you know, you need an update, so you've got to get the checkbook out again. Exactly. That's exactly how they roll, you know? That's definitely it. And if you, you know, if you report a bug, you know, either they'll ignore it and never fix it, or like (47/50)
you just said, eh, hey, good news, it'll be on the next upgrade. So. You know? Okay, well, I guess we've about covered everything. Anything else? No, no, I just want to thank you, Larry and Bill, for the podcast. I've been listening since, I don't even know, episode 40 or 35 or something. Wow. Way back. So I just thank you guys for everything you do. I love that you guys give useful information for the, even the new users, the intermediate users. I just, I think you guys are kind of one of a kind podcasts right now. Maybe two or three others that focus on, you know, kind of tutorial type things, and I appreciate all you guys do and keep up the great work. Well, you're welcome, and thank you. I've enjoyed this interview. All right, thanks, Tom, and I can't tell, say hi to Larry and Bill for me. Okay, tell Jono I still haven't upgraded, or Jono, rather. Okay, I'll let him know. Okay. Okay, Jonathan, well, thanks a bunch. No, thank you, and have a great night. Thank you. You too, take (48/50)
care. All right. Bye. Okay, and I think that wraps up our episode, guys. All right. Has anyone got a software pick? I do, Larry. I always have a software pick. I'm going to say check out the new Firefox. It's at like 13.01 or 13.02 now. They made some changes to the interface. It runs fast. I've been enjoying using it. I've been kind of comparing it against Chrome, and I've been pretty impressed with it. I think its memory footprint is a lot less than what it used to be, so those guys are definitely working on it. I don't think you have a choice. If you're running Firefox, it's going to upgrade itself, isn't it? Yeah, but I guess you were right. Never mind. I don't have a software pick. Oh, yes, you do. That was a good one. For those people like me who are using a different browser, yeah, that's a software pick. Go look at it. Go try it out. Exactly. So thanks, Bill. Mm-hmm. Yeah, right. Okay. And now, the wrap-up. So in our next episode, guys, we have... Our next episode will be (49/50)
keyboard shortcuts. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinux.com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and subscribe. We provide 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 the discussion in our Going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinux.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (50/50)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #355 · Moving from Windows to Linux - Part 2.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 355, Moving from Windows to Linux, Part 2. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. And I'm your co-host, Bill. Whether you are 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 find this and all our episodes helpful in learning about Linux and open source applications and using them to get things done. In today's episode, part two of Moving from Windows to Linux. Hi, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are you? I am doing well, except for the announcement by Google that Google Plus will be shutting down. We don't know exactly when or what will happen or how it will happen, but we know that our forums will no longer be functional when they do that. Because we rely on Google Plus. Well, we are looking at some other services to replace them already. We are already proactive because we would not want to (1/51)
one moment have Google Plus and then, oh, we're closing today. Yeah, exactly. Which is kind of classic for what they're doing. And I've downloaded all of the content from our Google Plus site that I could get my hands on. For some reason, since we're sitting here in October recording this, it will not download the October posts. It'll download everything before that. So what I'm hoping is when the calendar clicks over to November, it'll give me the October posts, and then we can discontinue use at that point. But until then, we'll just keep using Google Plus until it either falls apart or we have a replacement. How's that? Sounds like a plan. I guess that's the only plan that we have right now. Exactly. Yeah, we took a risk setting up the forums on a site like Google Plus. And yeah, it's come back to bite us. So, hey, we knew the risks going into it, and this was them. Yes. What do you expect from a free service? Okay, I'm just saying. And so I'm so glad that the rest of the software (2/51)
that we use isn't free, like Linux or LibreOffice. Oh, wait a minute. That's a whole different thing. Yes, a whole different thing. No one's going to come to your house, Larry, and say, give me your Linux box. Right. Exactly. It's not completely supported and authored and, you know, maintained by just one proprietary company with revenue in mind as the primary function. So anyway, yeah, there's definitely a difference between the Google Plus kind of free and the Linux kind of free. Yes. One of the main differences is Google Plus kind of free can go away and it did. So there you go. But that's okay. You know, we're on top of it. So we're going to cover our next part of moving from Windows to Linux today. We are. And before we get into the Windows side of things, I'd like to just make an additional comment about a company that recommends Windows for their computers. So right on their website on every page, including those pages where you are ordering one of their computers with Linux on (3/51)
it. They say Dell recommends Windows. So anyway, Dell. Since I have an XPS 13 and I love it. I have Ubuntu MATE installed on it. I have a subscription to the Dell advertising magazine, not so much a subscription as I get pushed it in the mail to me every time they have a sale. Anyway, it's a small business edition of their flyer. And I noticed this time around, since our topic is Windows, that not only does it say on page two, Dell recommends Windows 10 Pro. They start on page two. The entire edition of this flyer is focusing on security. And as we know, historically, Windows has been the least secure operating system out there as far as the most popular operating systems. And on page two, I'm just going to read a little bit from their flyer here. It says, make security a priority. Mounting cyber threats mean that you have to do more to protect your valuable data and that of your customers from debilitating attacks. Start by choosing the business computers with built in security (4/51)
features like these and then jump to page two for additional security recommendations. So when you jump to page two, it happens to be a two page ad to page four. When you jump to page four, happens to be a two page ad for McAfee. Oh, really? And Dell, yes. And Dell has added this to the McAfee ad. It says, arm your business against cyber threats. I'm just going to read a little bit from here. Kind of gives you an indication of the focus of hardware manufacturers that sell or provide Windows on their hardware. The first is a paragraph that's part of their ad copy. It says, you worked hard to build your business and amass your data assets. Now you need to safeguard them. Find all the tools you need to prevent attacks and recover from them. In other words, they are assuming you will get attacked and submit to the attack and get infected in some way. I do that all the time. Yeah, with our security driven portfolio of hardware, software and accessories. And then there's a quote from a small (5/51)
business technology advisor. I don't know whether this is one of their employees or not, but it says, gives his name and says that he's a small business technology advisor. It says, once you get hit by a cyber attack, you can quickly turn into a believer in preventive measures. And then another quote from the training program manager at McAfee. And she says, 71 percent of attacks are targeting small businesses and over 50 percent of small businesses have been attacked. And then it goes on and on and on and talks about, you know, how you can order McAfee when you order your Dell computer. And then as they're advertising each of the bits of hardware, they're talking about the security and built into the processors and encryption and this trusted platform module TPM. They've got TPM version two built in. And of course, TPM is from the Trusted Computer Computing Group and was formed by AMD, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft. So back in 2003. And they are the. Some of the companies that are (6/51)
bringing us such wonderful things as, you know, secure boot and things like that. Not that TPM is exactly secure boot, but you get the idea. Point is, there's a lot of effort going into filling the holes in windows with things that are outside of windows that are specifically created to fill those holes around security. So with it, with and the point here is that with Linux, it's much, much, much less of a concern. Most Linux users run desktop users run without any sort of virus scanning because virus scanners scan for Windows viruses because essentially there aren't any for Linux. Not that there have never been, but there aren't any out in the wild on a regular basis like there are for Windows. And they're not being created by the thousands and tens of thousands like they are for Windows. So just as we talk about moving from Windows to Linux, this whole aspect of security, this whole focus of Dell's advertising this month for their small business ad flyer is focused on something that (7/51)
is a minimal concern when you move to Linux. Well, you really don't have to worry about that data because from what I heard on Windows Weekly, that's Leo Laporte's podcast network, the latest rollout had some problems in some people. And they said, well, it only affected like 1%, but when you have what, 300 billion, you know, 1% of 300 billion still, you know, they actually had numbers. Yeah, big numbers, certain things. You had to have certain things that would cause this data loss rule. Apparently, people lost huge amounts of data. And so, yeah, you don't have to worry about hackers getting your data. The operating system will get rid of it for you. I mean, you know, no problem. Now, I'm not saying this couldn't happen on Linux, but I will say that most people that have been using Linux for a little while are, you know, I would say a cut above the average users, but I just found it kind of humorous that this thing, according to the hosts of that podcast, said, hey, you know, they (8/51)
were reporting it and they still pushed out. But it's not a big deal. They went ahead, they didn't roll it back. They just paused it. So, you know, when you have such a huge market, you know, 1% or even a half percent of, you know, what, however many billions is still a pretty big number. So, Windows has a problem. I mean, you know, we've talked about the telemetry and I'm sure there's telemetry built into our phones and everything. So, I'm not that naive to think that, you know, Google is not tracking me with our Android phones and et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, we had a whole debate about whether what kind of telemetry it's sending, if Windows is being used on, you know, medical devices and stuff. And frankly, if I have a machine, you know, giving me medicine, I really would not want it running on a Microsoft operating system. And that's how I judge it. Would I trust it to run to keep me alive? No. I'd rather have Linux or something. But, you know, they're being silly here. (9/51)
But, you know, with this rapid updating they're doing twice a year and these are major feature updates. Basically, it's a whole new system. It's not just adding. They're going completely through it and they keep adding stuff. And, you know, their idea, which really irritated me, is, you know, if you have the Home Edition of Windows 10, you can only, I think, postpone it so many times for so long. But they want, they're basically, you're the guinea pig for the enterprise people, you know, because, yes, they have a lot of people, what to call this, Microsoft Insiders, which test it. But that's only millions. There's so many different configurations that, you know, the sooner they can push it out to the home users, then they can say, OK, well, that's a problem. We need to fix that. Because as we typically know, enterprise does not move very fast. They don't like moving fast. They like stability and things that are proven. My company that I work for, you know, the IT people get kind of (10/51)
crazy if you try to install anything that's not approved by them. They keep a close eye on it. I'm sure any major corporation is not going to say, oh, there's a new update. Let's go ahead and roll that out. Exactly. Let's just wait. They like to wait years. They don't like, I mean, it's like, OK, Microsoft, we're going to push all this out to our regular users because in their mind, enterprise users are more important than home users. And, you know, so because that's where they make all that big money of volume licensing and stuff. So enough about Microsoft. But, you know, I don't like being anybody's guinea pig. You know, I like to eat my own dog food sort of thing. I don't like to eat other people's dog food before I've made sure I like it. So if I mess up, it's my fault. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. All right. So let's start talking about Microsoft and let's talk about Microsoft. Yeah, I was getting a tension headache here. OK. So in this part, we're going to be talking about getting (11/51)
things, you know, once you've had everything installed, you've gotten the image and you've burned it and now it's usable. And we've talked about how you can install the system. And, you know, we also covered about how to save important files. So let's kind of pick up from there. OK. Yeah, we can do that. And so let's say I've installed a system and while it's got some base software installed, what's the next step after we've installed Linux? OK, so you've got it installed. You've got a very vanilla install. So I would recommend checking for updates as one of the very first things you do. So you see if anything new or latest or greatest has come out since that image was spun up by the distro. And when you were doing the install, it probably prompted you for an Internet connection. And if you had connected during install, you should still have a connection because it's it remembers all your credentials. Ninety nine percent of the time. So after that, in your menu, and it depends kind of (12/51)
on your distribution, it's in a little different places. If you're running Ubuntu MATE or Linux, man, Fedora or SABION. So you might have to look around. Things might be named a little differently. It just kind of depends. But in your menu, you should find an application called Update Manager. That's what it is in Linux Mint. And go ahead and get and get the updates for your system. Right. Absolutely. And how getting updates after installation is implemented varies a little bit from distribution to distribution. You mentioned how it's done in in Linux Mint in Ubuntu MATE has done a very similar way. It asks you when you're in the installation process, do you want to download the updates immediately after install? And that's just a little checkbox that you check. And if you check that box, it will make those updates for you. If you don't, you can always go back into the software updater and do the updates afterwards. And we had a question from one of our listeners recently around if I (13/51)
install from USB or CD or DVD, can I install without an internet connection? And yes, you can. And you just install. It'll install that base system for you. And then once you have an internet connection after you've installed and gotten your Wi-Fi working or your network connection working, then you go into the software updater and get the get the updates. And then you're back up to the most recent security patches and software updates and application updates and so on. So you can do it without a connection, but it's much, much easier if you have a connection while you're installing. Just do it while you're installing or immediately afterwards so that as you continue to install the applications you want to run or just run the applications you want to run that you're using the latest version with the latest security patches and so on. Yeah, I was just going to mention that Linux Mint also says look for updates while installing. And you can tell it, yeah, go ahead and get the updates. (14/51)
But after you've done that, I've went and found two or three updates since the last one. So that's why I always like to go ahead and apply the updates as the install. But I also like to look again. Sometimes it's only one or two little things. It just depends on if it's been pushed to those servers that provide updates for the installation. But it doesn't hurt to go ahead and just check. And sometimes there's one file. Sometimes I've gotten five or six. But the reason I do that is that you might have hardware that they say, oh, we've got a new driver, but they haven't pushed it to the servers that provide updates when you're installing. And an example would be like what, Larry? Graphics card? Yeah, some of the proprietary drivers and so on, like graphics card drivers, might not be on the installation servers. And so you may need to go get those after the fact. And if it happens to be a network adapter driver, that can be a bit of a pain. If the driver isn't there while you're (15/51)
installing and it's not installed after you've installed, how do you get connected to the network to go get that driver? And of course, you know that that's one of those very tough situations where you either have to get a USB based connection to the Internet, which you can do with an adapter and so on, or you have to download the updates from a separate computer and then install them on your computer afterwards. But for the most part, that's not an issue. Hopefully, you're not the one in a very, very, very few that have that problem when you're installing. And typically, if you do, you're installing on either a very old computer or a computer that wasn't designed with Linux compatibility in mind and is using some sort of proprietary driver. So if you have, say, an NVIDIA graphics card or a chip by AMD, you can look for a driver manager. Most Ubuntu based distributions have that built in and other distributions, of course, do as well. Not all of them, but you can get the latest drivers (16/51)
for your card. And if you don't see the one that you might need, go to the distributions forums and see how it's done. Yeah, and there's a lot of machines that have like a car, a chipset for like most of them are seem to be Intel based. Intel is really well supported on Linux. So a lot of times it will default to the Intel based chipset that's on your motherboard and you have to get the update to be able to use your NVIDIA. And that kind of applies to me. When I install it, everything works. It looks great. But it's using the Intel based chipset until I go and say, oh, I want to get an NVIDIA driver and I want to use that. And then I get all the the whiz bang stuff. So. Right. Yeah. And I had an older computer. It was an HP DM4, I think that had dual graphics drivers, Intel and I think it was AMD. And I don't use my computers for gaming. So I found the Intel based drivers just fine. So I never bothered installing the AMD drivers because the Intel drivers work just fine for average (17/51)
everyday computing. So, of course, these days with 4K displays and things like that, you want to get the best out of it. You can. So lots of different ways to get it. And each distribution handles it a little bit differently. Some Linux distributions that are anti proprietary. Let's just put it that way. Do not give you any sort of guidance on how to use proprietary hardware. And what you will find, though, on those that are a little more pragmatic as far as Linux distributions go, who realize that many people are not going to stick completely with open source free, free as in freedom software, will offer ways to not only download and install the proprietary chips like NVIDIA chips and so on, but also have give you access out of the box to installing those without jumping through a whole bunch of hoops. It's a checkbox or it's a select this driver kind of thing as you're setting up your computer. Yeah, I like those easy checkboxes, but that's just me. Yeah, that's why we recommend (18/51)
Linux Mint and Ubuntu Mate. Yes. So once you've updated, you've got all your updates and plus any drivers that you needed. Now the fun starts. We need to get your files back. Now, we've already covered how to save them. Now we're talking about how we can put them back so we can use them. If you use something like Dropbox, then you can just download the application, sign in and your files will be auto magically downloaded to your computer. But if you use the USB key or a USB hard drive or something along those lines, you can insert the key drive or the USB drive into a USB port and then paste and copy the files back to your selected folders. Any tips about this, Larry? Yeah, so on that USB key or USB drive where you've made your backup and you're copying the files over, please copy them. Don't cut and paste, copy and paste, because if you move them, which is the cut and paste. So if you move rather than copy, if something goes wrong during the transfer, they're no longer on the backup (19/51)
drive. So you want to keep that as your master copy until you actually got it over on your hard drive of the computer you're installing on. So that it's just safer to do it that way. And maybe it goes without saying, but hey, it's just a little safety tip. Bitter personal experience, let's say. Did you just say bitter personal experience? Yes. Yes. OK, so now that we've got the files restored, you've got to move to the folders you want. And keep in mind that this step can take some time or it could be very fast. It just depends on the number of files that you have. So if you have lots of pictures, it might take a while. So get started, go make a cup of coffee and let the machine do its work. Yeah, the speed also depends on the speed of the drive, the speed of the interface. So if you're using a USB 1.0 port, it's going to take a lot longer than the USB 3 port, for example. So a lot of different factors there. Just be patient. Yeah, be patient and just do the paste and copy and you'll (20/51)
get to all your stuff. It might take a little while, but then once we've got those files, we need to see about getting some applications so we can work, or in my case, play with your new system. Now, the systems do come with a lot, but we're going to go over a few things that we might suggest that you use until you find something you like better. The great thing about Linux is there's lots and lots and lots and lots of choices, something that I like, you might not like. And like I said, we're just kind of trying to pick, I wouldn't say the best of breed, but stuff that works really well for us and we think would work well for you. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Larry and let him cover one of the most important things as far as how you get information from the interwebs. So Larry? Yeah, so connecting to the internet has become one of the most important things you do on your computer these days. And for people switching for the first time from Windows to Linux, I would (21/51)
recommend that you just use the browser that came with your distribution to start with. You can always download something else you prefer later on, but the Linux distributions will provide a browser already pre-installed. It's not going to be Microsoft Edge. That's one thing. Did you have to say that? And it won't be Apple Safari because those are both very, very proprietary. They're only offered on those Microsoft or Apple computers. They don't make browsers available for other operating systems or even for each other's operating system. Just doesn't work, I don't think. Maybe there's an edge for Mac or iOS or something. I don't know. But anyway, sorry for keeping bringing that up, but this is an episode about Windows and moving and Edge is part of it. So anyway, start with the browser that comes with your operating system. And I've found these days, most Linux distributions have settled on Firefox as the standard browser to offer out of the box. There are plenty of other browser (22/51)
choices out there. Some open source, some not so open source, like Chrome is one of the not so open source versions. But a version that is open source that is like Chrome is called Chromium. And you can look at other browsers if you want, like Opera and some that are far less well known like Midori. Or Lynx. You still have the Midori browser or Lynx. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. No pictures there. You can use Lynx. Yeah. So anyway, lots of different possibilities. But if you're just getting started, use the one that came with your Linux distribution. See how you like it. And in fact, if you've been using Firefox on your Windows system that you're moving from, you'll see that Firefox is functionally the same on Linux. So you'll be right at home. Or if you've been using Chrome on Windows because you don't like, I won't say it again, but the one that comes on Windows. If you don't like that, you may already have downloaded Chrome and Chrome is the same on Linux as it is on Windows or anywhere (23/51)
else. So lots of different possibilities, even those that are a little more esoteric. So, yeah. Well, I usually follow that advice for about 10 minutes and then go and download Chrome because I use Chrome at work and I use Chrome at home when I was running the W operating system. Oh, we can say Windows. Okay. So the Windows operating system. So Chrome has all my sites and my favorites. So it's not the most open source one. Actually, it's not open source with all their stuff. I'm sure there's open source elements. Anyway, I like Chrome. I just like the way it works. But you don't have to. Firefox is perfectly usable. So enough of that. So. How about Office Suites? Oh, yeah. Office Suites. Yeah, well, I don't, I just use what comes. LibreOffice is just so good that I'm not saying it's the only one, but LibreOffice, I actually have done work. And it, where I work is all Windows based. So I really haven't had any issues except with some really weird proprietary Excel macros that they use. (24/51)
So I do have to sometimes use a Windows computer that they've assigned me to do some of that stuff. But I'd say 95 percent of what I do, I do most of it right on my Linux box. Now, one of the things that I find I use a lot and I know it sounds weird is sometimes I just don't need a whole Office Suite. I just want a notepad replacement. And I use note, you know, a lot of notepad. I used to use lots of notepad to make a lot of notes for reports and stuff just because it was lighter and quicker. And it just the way I worked. Some people will probably say I work really weird, but it works for me. So I found a few that, you know, they have notepad functions or they're multi-use and some of them are K8, which everybody's like, you use K8, but isn't that on KDE? Yes. When I was running KDE, I kind of fell in love with K8. And so I've been using K8, but I've also found one called Atom. And then very recently I found one called LeafPad and it is so close to where I used to use it. I'm kind of (25/51)
gravitory gravitating toward LeafPad because it's just almost exactly what I was just before. It's like all the great features without all the stuff I don't need. So there's three right there. K8, Atom and LeafPad. I would say unless you have some reason you just don't like it, LibreOffice just works well. Yeah, exactly. So if you need a word processor and a spreadsheet and presentation software and diagramming software and all of those kinds of things that comes in an office suite, LibreOffice is usually what's installed on most Linux distributions. It has all of that and more and it is cross platform. It is no charge kind of free and it is supported by the open source community. But if you're looking for something that is a replacement for Notepad, just a simple text based thing, then K8 is typically installed on computers that use the KDE desktop. LeafPad is typically installed, pre-installed on Linux distributions that use the XFCE or LXDE desktop because it's lighter weight. It's (26/51)
much, much more simple than some of the others. Atom is, that you mentioned, is one that's developed specifically for programmers and markup languages and that sort of thing. And the text editor that is pre-installed on desktops that use Mate is the Pluma desktop, P-L-U-M-A, which is a plain text editor with the ability to add in features and plugins and so on that gives it the ability to do markup and to turn it into something that has more power for those programmers and people who do HTML markup and all other kinds of markup languages as well. So lots of functionality. K8 has that same functionality available to it. I'm not so sure about LeafPad. I'm thinking it's probably more bare bones and plain text editor kind of thing. Yeah, I think so. I think you're right. It's really good. But I don't use it for notes anyway, so. Exactly. Yes. If you're just looking for a way to get rid of the fonts and the special characters and you just want it in plain text, copy from, let's say, Google (27/51)
Docs and paste it into LeafPad, you'll get plain text. It's a very simple way to do that. You know what? I'm just going to go ahead and just down. I'm going to get Vim. Yeah, I'll just use Vim. Okay. Not Emacs? Oh, well, there's a whole Vim Emacs thing. Let's not get into that one. Let's not get into that. Yeah. Lots of different text editors available. We're just being silly now. One in Office Suite, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, all of those are, like I said, cross-platform, very, very popular, primarily outside of those areas where the average population can afford Microsoft's licenses. And also popular amongst those people that use open source software. And there are a lot of other Office Suites that take OpenOffice or LibreOffice and resell it, since it is open source, as their own. Like, I think there's King Office or something like that. Oh, really? Yeah, some with kind of strange names and they do provide maybe a few additional features, but they sell their software, but it's all (28/51)
based on LibreOffice or OpenOffice. And you'll see that as soon as you open it up. Yeah, so lots of different possibilities there. But again, for someone just moving from Windows to Linux, stick with what's installed by default. And most Linux distributions are going to pre-install LibreOffice these days. So give it a try before you go saying, oh, I've got to find a way to run Microsoft Office or Office 365. No, give LibreOffice a try. You know, now, Larry, I've looking on the Internet using my browser installed and I'm writing my letters, but, you know, I also want to do some communicating with my friends and stuff. Oh, really? Wow. Wow. You want to communicate with people? Yes. Am I out of luck here? Yeah, you just can't do that. No, of course you're not out of luck. Lots of different choices there as well. There is a version of Skype for Linux. And as time goes by, Microsoft supports it less and less. And a lot of the features don't work on Linux as they work on Windows. And even I (29/51)
found Skype for Macintosh, quite frankly, a lot of the features don't work. So, you know, Microsoft is trying to keep... That's a sore subject. Yes, I know. But Skype is one of those love-hate sorts of things. It works really well on Windows operating systems, but if you don't have a Windows operating system, stay away from it is my recommendation. But there is a version for Linux that does kind of, sort of, maybe most of the time works. And also lots of other alternatives. Discord is the one that you and I are using right now, Bill, to communicate with one another as we record this episode. And it works pretty well. It does. And it also has recording features, which we're not using, but it has a lot of other chat features and chat room kinds of features. There's also Mumble, which you have to have a hosted server for Mumble. One of the downsides of that. There are also lots of other online possibilities as well, but one of those should be able to get you started in that area. Okay, (30/51)
cool. So, Bill, as we think about communicating with others, what about entertainment? Entertaining yourself? How about music and videos and things like that? You can't do that on Linux anyway. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm kidding. So, no, you've got... we have lots of... that's one of the areas that we have lots of choices. And, you know, I like my jams when I'm playing Guild Wars 2 on my Linux box when I'm killing imaginary monsters. So, for sound playing back, and it's a big one for me, is I like rhythm box and it comes pre-installed on Linux Mint, and I find it works well. But I also have used Clementine, which kind of reminds me of kind of an Apple-esque application, but it sometimes gets a little wonky for me. It's just probably because I'm doing things it doesn't want. And, believe it or not, the old go-to VLC will also play audio files. I usually just have that one doing my videos. But I like rhythm box just because it's clean, simple, and I can... my limited... you know, I just say play (31/51)
and it works. So, I like rhythm box. What do you use, Larry? Well, I use what comes pre-installed on Ubuntu Mate, which is my distribution of choice. And so VLC comes pre-installed and rhythm box comes pre-installed. And those are the two that I use. I don't see any need to change. They work fine. You don't listen to music anyway. I do listen to music occasionally, but I'm usually too busy recording podcasts and videos and writing books and things like that. And editing all the errors out of the podcast. So, anyway. So, okay, now it's kind of like a segue right into the next section is for audio recording. Audacity. Yeah, we use audacity, but there's a whole boatload of others, aren't there? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Lots of lots of different ways to record audio. Audacity is probably the most popular across all platforms because it's available for Linux, Windows, and Mac. And you can use something as simple as audacity or something as sophisticated as, let's say, OBS, which also lets you (32/51)
broadcast video and other things. It's basically a studio in a box. Lots of options. And again, audacity doesn't come pre-installed on most Linux distributions unless you go to something like Ubuntu Studio. But it is definitely the easiest, in my opinion, the easiest to learn that has a lot of functionality built in that lets you not only record your audio, but clean it up, like get rid of noise, reduce background noise, eliminate some artifacts in the audio and boost the volume if you need to do that. Smooth out the rough spots in your audio. Lots of different things. And, of course, edit out the stuff you want to take out. Lots of different functions there. And it's very sophisticated in the way it works, but it's very easy to use for the average user of software. Yeah, I'll tell you a little secret, Larry. I know there's a little radio station that's near me that's a little small nonprofit one. And they had a proprietary recording system. They would, you know, when people come in, (33/51)
they do their interviews. And apparently the company wanted to charge them a massive license fee to use this audio recording. And I just happened to mention that Audacity is free and it works great. And that's what they're using now. They told the other company to, no, thank you, we won't take your license. We'll just use the free version and it worked and it actually sounds better. Not that I'm excited about that. Yeah. And speaking of radio stations, there's this nice open source application called Rivendell that was developed by some radio station kinds of people. And we've actually looked into that. We were going to do an episode on it. It kind of has gone by the wayside, but maybe sometime in the future we will actually do that. And I've been looking at or I've been thinking about not looking at, I've been thinking about looking at Rivendell as a way of recording the podcast and maybe adding some more functionality. But it requires some significant learning. You know, I've been (34/51)
using Audacity for more than 15 years now, so old habits die hard. The next one we need to cover is, we got the audio music covered and we got the recording covered, but we definitely need to talk about the video. And video playback, especially in Linux Mint and I believe also a bunch of Mate, you can have where it will play your DVDs and files and stuff and you kind of need a program to play it. So the one that comes installed for most of them if they're using a GNOME based desktop would be GNOME Player, but they sometimes call it Media Player. It just depends. But also my choice that just it's like bulletproof it works 99.9% of the time is VLC. I use VLC to play my video files and my DVD files. And I actually have a USB DVD player because of course they're doing away with the the built in DVDs now. So I can hook it up and it plays everything great. So I don't know what to use, but VLC just works perfectly for that. Yeah, VLC works perfectly. And for anything that I had on audio CDs, (35/51)
I've made an ISO image of those audio recordings. And that ISO image I then mount and just play it from that ISO file as though it were a mounted DVD. Aren't you clever? I didn't think of that. Yeah, you can do that. And then you don't have to worry about, you know, the the DVDs themselves flaking because they do wear out after a while. And the the the inside guts that the recording is made on flakes off and you can't play them anymore. So I started it as a way of backing them up and then thought, why? Why am I putting them in to a DVD player? And then when I got the XPS 13, of course, it doesn't have any sort of DVD player. It just kind of solidified the fact that I need to be running these digitally and I could take them and record them as audio files and then just play them. But, yeah, it's why not just make an ISO? And anyway, lots, lots of different ways to do that as well. And playing the back VLC for video is is a great way to do that. And media player, like you said, comes on (36/51)
most GNOME based Linux distributions. Another thing you might want to do is make screenshots, especially if you are a someone like me who documents how to do things on your computer, taking screenshots and annotating them and providing them with a blog post that describes how to do something is kind of what we do. So with Linux, you can take screenshots with something called shutter. Of course, you know, there's there's always the screen capture that's built in to your Linux distribution and much like with Windows, at least not so much with the Mac where you have to contort your hand to press five keys at the same time to take a screenshot. On Windows, you press the print screen button if your computer has one and it takes a screenshot. Well, most Linux distributions enable that as part of their built in screenshot capabilities. And if not, then there's a key combination that you can use. But if you want to be able to have an application that not only allows you to capture the whole (37/51)
screen or a section of the screen or, you know, do a recording of the screen, shutter allows you to do that and gives you an application that allows you to edit the screenshots as well, allows you to annotate them and then save them to your hard drive. And then you can, of course, put them wherever you need to put them for your for your blog or your documentation. Very easy to use. You also have the other tools like GIMP, which gives you much, much, much more editing capabilities. Things like masks and color management and lots of different tools. Blender, Inkscape, which is taking it not only as bitmaps, but as vector drawings and things like that. All kinds of image types and files you can can manage with those applications and more. Just look in your distributions repositories for those kinds of things. And if you've been using something like Adobe's suite of creative tools, you won't be able to use those on Linux. But you will find alternatives for them that have, if not the same (38/51)
functionality, then very close to it. And in some cases, they don't have exactly the same functionality, but they have most of it. And they have some features that aren't available in the Adobe suite unless you pay lots of money and get different applications to do different things. Yeah, I think so. And, you know, this is by no means an exhaustive list. There are others that, you know, other programs you can look for that could be found in the repositories. One thing about Linux is you have lots of choices and we haven't even scratched the tip of the iceberg here. So, yeah, we've just covered the basics. Half the fun is finding out what works best for you. I found programs going, oh, my goodness, this is great. I'd like this so much better and been using it and I love it. And other times it's like, let me try this. No, this program is not that great. Let me just go back to what I was using. So it's like you get to go treasure hunting for what works for you. But that's one of the (39/51)
beauties of Linux. There's so many choices and, you know, something simple, you know, that works great for you might not be great for someone else. So you have lots of choices is what we're trying to say. So, Larry, do you have any other program citizens that you might want to share that you use? Well, my use case is a little unique in that I'm a podcaster and a software consultant. And so my what I use may not be what everyone else would want to use. But some of the things that are, of course, my favorites. If you want to be able to define your own shortcuts that do more than just start a program or paste some some text you've predefined, you can use programs like autokey that has a lot of functionality. You can not only predefine phrases or entire paragraphs or entire emails if you want to. So that if you type a few letters, it will replace those few letters with an entire paragraph or an entire email. You can script it so that it does multiple functions as well. So something to look (40/51)
into. That's one of my my favorites there. Caffeine, which keeps your screen alive. So that it doesn't go blank on you, which is very handy when you're recording a podcast. Caffeine is the kind of application that is available on the Mac. I don't know whether it's available for Windows as well, but it's it's very unique utility. A lot of what I use actually is, you know, I just use what's built into Ubuntu MATE. Oh, Synergy, one of my favorite applications, allows me to use a single keyboard and a single mouse across multiple computers, regardless of whether they're Windows, Linux or Mac. Simple Note. Simple Note is a note taking application that allows you to do markups and so on, as well as text editing. Not open source, as far as I know. For recording videos, Simple Screen Recorder is the recording application that I use there. And let's see, I use Audacity to record the audio part of the screen recordings that I do. So the video tutorials and so on that I do, I use Simple Screen (41/51)
Recorder for the video part and Audacity for the audio part. Rsync for doing backups. I'm just scrolling through my list of menus here. And yeah, I could go on and on, but lots of lots of different utilities and specialized packages that I use. But like I said, most most of what I use, I use right out of the box in Ubuntu MATE, like LibreOffice and Chrome and things like that. Yeah, I use Wine to play my games. OK, all right. Hey, it's important, OK? That's what the computer is designed for. And you know, something that you might look into for games these days is, especially if you're using an Ubuntu based distribution, as I know you are, is to look at Snapcraft.io. A lot of games are now starting to be put into Snap packages, which bundles in a pre-configured version of Wine or whatever other things you need to make it run well. They don't have some of the latest games in there, of course. And much of what's being done on Snap packages is is kind of early, early days. But take a look (42/51)
in there and things you'd be surprised what games are in there that work just nicely. You have Snap packages right on Linux and they're optimized to work. So not a bad experience, from what I understand. Well, you know what Bill will be doing after the podcast, I will look at these games. No, I'll be writing a letter. Yeah, that's it. A report. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. A report for work. So never mind. All right. Anything you want to suggest or describe or what do you use, Bill? I basically use Wine. Spend all your days gaming. Well, I mean, come on. I use LibreOffice for my work, like I said. I use Chrome for my browser. I sometimes keep Firefox in Opera. I kind of have a love hate relationship with Opera as a general rule. The reason I like Chrome, I mean, it works on Firefox, too, is that, you know, if I want to watch a movie on Netflix, it works. A lot of the websites now work flawlessly with Chrome because it is a majority browser. And, you know, for a while it's gotten (43/51)
much, much better. I hated Firefox. It's also a love hate. It was, I used Firefox for a long time and then it just seems so slow compared to the others. And then I went to Chrome. But I always keep a Firefox because it's pretty much a bulletproof browser that will work when everything else seems to explode. So, I keep multiple browsers just because I'm weird. But basically I like, I've used Play on Linux, which is a, I've had good success and I've had success with it causing me headaches. But it's basically an automated system to help you install the games that maybe are not in snap packages or whatever. But I found that if you have a game like Guild Wars, and thank you to that person again who gave me that little work, that little package to get my game running better. There's so many guides on how to get something installed and played. It's really not an issue anymore. I'm kind of boring, but I know that you can play Battlefield 4 on it. You can play, of course, Guild Wars. You can (44/51)
play WoW. So, you have lots of options. I'm sure there's some that just don't, doesn't like the run. And that's mainly, I think, from a programming standpoint, but that's just me. But yeah, I'm more of a gamer type of thing. But that's just, you know, that's just me. Larry likes to do real work. So, do you have anything else you want to say? Maybe, you know, I'm getting pretty close to the end of the podcast. So what do you think? Yeah. So if any of our listeners have any suggestions or ideas on what they use to, you know, under Linux to get things done, let us know. And if you have suggestions on applications that you like that either you just want to mention that this is a good application or you'd like us to review, send us a note. And you can do that by email. You can do that on Google+. Oh, wait, no. Maybe not. Yeah, no, I know. So, yeah, give us your suggestions. And yeah, please, we'd like to hear what you use because Bill and I are kind of strange cases. Bill just goes to work (45/51)
and comes home and plays games and I'm recording podcasts all the time and, you know, different, different kind of people. So we'd like to look, we'd like to hear from regular people. Yeah, regular people. I'm definitely strange, but I do have an application pick. Oh, okay. Yeah. I am, back in the olden days, I loved IRC chat and there was a program on Windows called M-I-R-C. I don't know if you've ever seen it, Larry. It was my favorite. You had to pay for it. It wasn't very much, but I loved how it was set up and everything. And I was like, man, I've looked through all these IRCs and the clients and I didn't find one until I went across one that was installed in Linux Mint called hex chat. And I just opened up and it's just like the exact clone of M-I-R-C. So I'm running around going, I love this. And I was connected with some old friends and you think that I had been given $100 and the keys to the city. I was like, woohoo. I know I'm weird, but IRC has always had a special place in (46/51)
my heart because of before all these newfangled Google plus. Oh, sorry. I shouldn't have mentioned that one or face. I shouldn't have mentioned that one either. Anyway, IRC was one of the ways that people could talk to each other and there's chat rooms and communities that built around it. And also it helped me build my typing speed and also grammar and stuff like that. And if you've listened to any podcast, you know that I can murder just about any word I want to say. So IRC is one of my favorite things to kind of do to catch up with people that I've known for years. And hex chat is just a great, nice, clean. I would say if you didn't know, if you didn't look at the name, I almost swear that it's M-I-R-C, a clone. So it works well. It's fast. I like it. Do you have an application to pick or am I the only one today? Well, I gave a whole bunch of application picks. So that's how you're going to get out of that. OK, let me let me pick shot cut. When I didn't mention I mentioned that I (47/51)
use a specific program for recording video the way I edit it. I used to use a proprietary version of Video Editor, and I've now switched to shot cut because it has almost all of the features of that proprietary version. Less hassle setting up. It's available to install from the Ubuntu MATE repositories or from the Ubuntu repositories, perhaps. Either way, it's available and it installs. It works beautifully. It doesn't crash like the proprietary application did. And I like it. I like it a lot. I wanted to comment on hex chat. OK. We're going to provide a link to hex chat in our show notes. And when you go there, it's a GitHub repository link and you look at the the page where it allows you to download. It gives you a way to download it for Windows 10, a way to download it for 64 bit Windows 7 and 32 bit Windows 7. It's available as a flat pack and in the Snap store and source code. But I have to say, if you want hex chat and you're using Linux, look at the repositories, look at the (48/51)
software library that came with your Linux distribution. It'll be there. And if it's not, go complain. But it's in the Linux repositories. You can install it. It's already got for the Debian distributions that are based on Ubuntu. It's already there with the Ubuntu packages. And of course, you know, like I just said, you can install it from the Snap store quite easily there as well. But I'm surprised that they don't have anything on their download page that specifically gives you the packages for downloading for the various versions of Linux. It's very popular. And this thing seems to be focused a little more around Windows and flat packs and Snap packages. But hex chat, from what I understand, there's a version for Mac OS as well. And, you know, it's cross platform. So give it a try. But first, check on your repositories. That's the easiest and quickest way to get it. I always try to get your software from the repositories as we've preached over and over and over. Or not preached, (49/51)
we've recommended highly. How's that? Yeah, either way. OK, so what's our next episode, Larry? It will be a listener feedback episode, as is our regular rotation between these user experience episodes and listener feedback episodes. So listener feedback. OK, until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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. At this point, we would normally say if you'd like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful Google Plus members by joining the discussion in our Going Linux podcast, Google Plus community. Since, well, since Google Plus is being killed off by Google, we are developing an alternative until it's ready. And as long as Google Plus remains up, we'll continue to use it. Yep. And if you have suggestions on what we could use, give us some suggestions. Yes. Moving down the path of maybe some form. Yes. Anyway, (50/51)
but if you have a preference, let us know. So until next time, thanks for listening. 73. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (51/51)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #375 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 375, 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 at our email address at goinglinx.gmail.com or leave a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hey, Bill. How are you doing? I'm doing great, Larry. How are you? All right. Anything new in your world that we can talk about before we get into our listener feedback? Yeah. So just a couple of things. Two fun things, actually. First one is I officially gave my Fedora test machine its own personal nickname because I'm weird that way. So its new (1/51)
name is called Tugboat. And Tugboat just keeps chugging along, pulling its weight. So Tugboat has just been really, really rock solid. Really no issues. Fedora 30, it's a standard workstation, has just worked really well on it. I'm sure anything would run well on it. But I've just, you know, this affectionately, you know, Tugboat has been burning a lot of USB drives lately. And since it also has a DVD rewriter, I've been able to use it for a few little projects I was doing. So this is like my little workhorse, the little boat that could. That's great. Now, this is your Fedora 30 systems standard. It's not the silver blue. It's not the silver blue because I installed this on it. And it's been about a month. So you can tell, hey, it's actually beating a lot of records right now by not being reformatted. But it's basically, I use it for my, to download my turrets, to store documents that I need to be able to get real quick. It's just been rock solid. I'm really impressed with how good it (2/51)
runs. So, you know, I just, this is kind of a sleigh thing, but it's just like, man, I think this works really well. There's no issues. I actually even customized it. I liked the deep end desktop. And it's officially supported in their repos. So I went ahead and installed it. Of course, I still have Gnome on it. So I, you know, I need to boot into Gnome. But yeah, I've been running the deep end desktop on it. Of course, it doesn't have all the, you know, stuff from the deep end Linux distro. This is just basically the desktop, you know. So it's really just done everything I've asked without any complaint. And I would have to say, mainly because it's pretty, a lot of the stuff in here is older, so it's well supported, the Intel graphics and everything. And, but yeah, it's just been really rock solid. I am, you know, as you know, open to fanboy and its flavors and stuff. But this Fedora machine is really winning me over because it's been really solid. But on that, so talk about what I (3/51)
used to download MX Linux, which I then burned and put on my main machine. And I've been running MX Linux up until last night for about two weeks, really pushing it to see what I could get it to do, if I could really break it. You know, that's what I want to do a lot of times. And so I found that MX Linux, it gets a passing grade. It is a really nice Debian-based system. It's based on Debian Stable. And it's got a lot of good features. And the reason I was testing it was people were telling me that this was becoming increasingly popular in distro watch, which it is. It's like number one or number two, did they change? You know, I don't really give a lot of credence to that because the way they kind of rank those, but it kind of gives the idea of popularity of a Linux distro. So I downloaded it, installed it. I spent probably hours getting it exactly the way I want. It uses XFCE as a little bit of customization and they have a tweak tool that you can go in and you can move things (4/51)
around. And so it wasn't hard to get it the way I wanted it. Just you could use it right out of the box without any problem. The only problem is that me being me, if it's not somehow I like my workflow to work, it kind of makes me crazy. I like where I'm able to put things where I want them because that's the way I like. And everybody's different. So some people might say, hey, this is great. I don't need to touch anything that's perfect. I'm not harsh on them. I'm just saying that's one of the things of XFCE. It's highly customizable. It was really a good system. Being Debian based, I understood it a little bit more than the Fedora machine because they use different terms and ways of installing software. But the one thing that I did find is they make this thing incredibly easy to get stuff that you want. Their update manager was really, really, really good. I found it a little slow, but nothing unbearable. But everything's laid out. They have popular software. Then they have the (5/51)
Debian stable. Then they have Debian testing. Then they actually support flat packs. You can search all that through their software package installer. There's a lot to it as far as ability to do whatever you want. It never crashed. It was pretty much rock solid. It did like an update. I believe for the two weeks I had it, it updated like four times with new kernel versions or driver updates or whatever. But nothing was, except for the very first one, they weren't huge updates. All software work they have where you can easily install Chrome right in their package manager, which was nice. They have where you can do Discord and Audacity. I don't know if I would say it's as easy to install as, say, Bantu Mate. It's a lot easier to install than, I would say, Fedora, but that's just my personal opinion. But it's pretty straightforward. If you're maybe not a total new Linux user, but you've used maybe Bantu or Linux Mint or one of those others, then you would probably have no issues in (6/51)
getting this installed. That's because you've already got the basics down. Yeah, the basics. That's the one thing that I'm finding, especially with the Fedora machine that I have. Yeah, Bantu gave me the basics, but there's little differences, but you're still able to figure it out. But I would say if you're brand new to Linux, unless you have someone to help you, maybe some of the things might be a little confusing, nothing that you couldn't work out. But I would still say use an Ubuntu-based for right now because that's the most supported one right now. Did you say that MX Linux is Ubuntu-based or Debian-based? No, Debian. Debian is stable. Debian-based. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Of course, Ubuntu comes from Debian, but Ubuntu has a lot of, I would say, user life helpers, makes things a little easier to get things set up. I think it's a good starting point. Right. It's designed with new Linux users in mind. Yeah. But say that you've used it for a little bit, but you want to try something (7/51)
different or you just want to learn a little bit more, MX Linux is fine. It's Debian-based, so everything you learned in Ubuntu seamlessly goes over to the system here. I'm not saying that you couldn't use it as a first-time user. You certainly could. I just think that if you had maybe a little experience or you're a savvy computer user that maybe had used some USB live versions of Ubuntu, and you were comfortable, say you were using, you're running your Windows machine using a USB drive for a while to get used to it, then you would probably be okay. But I would give it a good solid 8.5 for usability. The reason it's not higher is because I find that I had to spend time to get things where I wanted them. I hate having the bar on the side, so I had to put it on the bottom and then I wanted to theme it because I really didn't like the look of it. I have to look at it. I want to at least have something pleasing, but you might find that it's just perfectly fine for you. But I would say, (8/51)
oh, here's a good example. Ubuntu Mate has, you know, to get you started, you have an Office Suite, you have a web browser, you have Video Viewer. So you have one of everything. The MX, there was multiple versions of different stuff and they were all good and nothing didn't work. But sometimes if you're starting a whole new operating system, you don't want them to be thrown with a ton of choices at the very beginning. You just want them to be able to boot into it and write their email, browse the web. Yeah, keep it simple. Yeah, keep it simple. So that's not really a criticism. It's just saying they've got so much into it. They have some really cool features of being able to make a bootable image of your currently running system, which is just a nice graphical user interface, nothing required, you know, command line. So it's really a complete system and you can just add and add and add. And I found stuff that worked well. App images worked well. Flat packs worked well. I didn't really (9/51)
have a complaint. So I would say it gets a good solid B plus, A minus. OK. So, yeah. So that's kind of like the mini mini review. You know, it wasn't exceedingly super light, but it wasn't really heavy. I would consider it like a medium weight distro. Sort of like a bontamate as far as resource wise, if it can run a bontamate, it can run this. So that's just that's just me. I mean, like I said, if you're interested, I encourage you if you want something a little different or you just want to try. Debian based system, but you don't want to have to figure out, you know, how to do Arch or something. It can be used as a stepping stone to just increase your knowledge. So that's that's kind of my micro review. Passing grade. Great, great distro. Really liked them. So, yeah. That's great. Good. Thanks for that. And thanks for continuing to try out all these Linux distributions and sharing your knowledge and experience with us. That's amazing. Well, you know me, I love to distro hop. Yeah, I (10/51)
had noticed. Yes, I did. You know, I think that's my you know, I used to game a lot. Now I I spend more time distro hopping than gaming and and refining the process. So I'm the only person probably has like 12 USB drives for different live environments where I can install them quickly. I'm just saying, I don't know. I've heard a few of our minions talk about the number of distros that they have hopped around. So maybe a contender for the largest number, but I wouldn't bet on it being, you know, 12 being the numbers. So we'll see. Yeah. Anyhow. Yeah. So I've been hopping around a little bit as well. Not distros, but office suites. I had been hearing some good things about an alternative to Microsoft Office that is cross platform. It's available for Windows, Linux and Mac. And as you know, application software for me, it's important that it be cross platform because in my work, I'm using Mac computers and Windows computers and Linux computers. So I need to be able to run my applications (11/51)
on everything. Well, this version of an office suite is called Free Office. It's from a company called Softmaker who's been around for quite a long time, making word processors and spreadsheets and database applications and all kinds of other stuff. So Free Office is the name of the office suite. We'll have a link in the show notes. And the reason I was attracted to it is because it's reportedly much more compatible with Microsoft Office's file formatting, especially with the most recent file formats, the docx and xlsx and pptx file formats that are so difficult for OpenOffice and LibreOffice to be compatible with. But for some reason, Free Office seems to be, or at least is reported to be a lot more compatible with the file formats there. And so you don't lose your document formatting or graphics formatting and that sort of thing. So I haven't put it to the test yet. I've just got it installed and there is a free version. It is not completely open source, so it's not available free as (12/51)
in freedom, but it is free as in beer, in other words, no charge. And they have a version for, like I said, Windows, Mac and Linux that you can download from their website. And they have the various versions that you need to be able to install on any Linux distribution and an installer for Windows and an installer for Mac. And it is nice from a couple of different perspectives in my very brief usage of it. One is that if you like the Microsoft Office ribbon interface, it has one of those. If you like the more traditional interface of the earlier versions of Microsoft Office or any other Office suite, you can choose that as well. There are a few features that if you want to use them, you need to purchase a license for the pro version or whatever it is they call it. But it's fully functional as an Office suite, even without that. So I'm using the free version for home use. And one of the things that I've noticed in using it for about a week is that they say that it's limited to use on (13/51)
five computers, which, you know, many software applications, you know, limit the use to a specific number of computers. But even the free version, after using it for a little while, they ask you for your email address, which, you know, under normal circumstances would be alarm bells going off. What are they doing with my email address? But to the best of my ability, I am expecting that they're using that to be able to track how many computers you have it installed on. Because essentially you're registering it in exchange for sending them your email address, they send you a key so you can register the version of Free Office. And I'm expecting that, you know, if you use that same key for multiple copies on multiple computers, if you install it on a sixth computer, they're going to say, Wait a minute, you are using it on too many. So I like it. It's very functional. It's easy to use, as easy to use as any Office suite. I haven't tried the Free Office. I'm required to use Office on certain (14/51)
things for my work. And don't tell them, I've been using WP Office and they have not noticed. It's just, the compatibility is right there on par. So yeah, I would say I won't try Free Office, but WP has been really, really, really good. So, you know, there's two modern looking Office suites. On top of LibreOffice, the one that is the workhorse of Linux ecosystem, there's three choices that, you know, find one that works well for you. And I mean, yes, some of them are not 100 percent open source, but they're available free as in beer. So I would say, you know, we just want to use Linux to get things done. And if I can find an Office suite that I like and it works well and is compatible with what I need, I'm going to use it. Yep, absolutely. So we've got a couple of different things to try out if you're a little more advanced user and you want to try a different Office suite, or maybe you need an Office suite that's a little more compatible with the Microsoft formats and things. And you (15/51)
really don't want to use the online version of Microsoft Office. And I've used it for a bit as well. And quite extensively, in fact, and I've seen that its menus and features and functions are more limited than your standard installed on your hardware application for Office suite. So, yeah, if you can't live with those limitations, give one of these a try. I do have a question about Free Office, Larry. I don't know if you've done, used it extensively for like, I use a lot of templates for like schedules and stuff. And the one thing that always kind of drives me crazy is having to relearn how to do something that should be really simple. And like, for instance, when I'm, I'm just using this example, when I want to just change the date range for a new schedule, but you keep the same template, it's really easy just to set a new date and pull it across the cells and it automatically populates them correctly. The easy use, quality of life features. Does Free Office have a lot of those (16/51)
quality of life features as far as maybe spell checking or grammar check? What would you say are the most standout features of Free Office? If someone wanted to try it? The thing that you noticed when you first started using that? Yeah, I think I'll probably be able to answer that question in a little more depth after I've used it a little while, as far as the quality of life kind of features. But in answer to your question about what did I first notice about it that was of interest? Well, it's the fact that you can change the user interface to be the ribbon or be more traditional. The fact that you can use it on a high resolution screen, like a 4K monitor, and it has settings to allow you to change the default font size and scale and that sort of thing. Wow. And you can, even if you have a touchscreen, you can make the buttons on the interface bigger so that you can touch them with your finger a little bit more easily. So lots of features that way that you just don't get in most other (17/51)
office suites. But I'm sure there are several others in there that I haven't run across yet. So maybe we'll update that later. Yeah, those actually are some nice features. And you write more than I do. I write a good amount, but you write a lot. So I guess those little, I would say, quality of life features or conveniences make things a little more pleasant. Yeah, exactly. What I'm hoping is in writing updates to the various books that I have, I've had to, in using LibreOffice, do a little bit of work around because Amazon and some of the other self publishing sites, they're expecting you to be using Microsoft Office and they have instructions on how to format things to make them easy for them to process into a book. And I've successfully done that with LibreOffice, but it's a bit of a pain. So what I'm hoping is that the free office will be a little easier. Yeah, that free office will be a little more compatible with the Microsoft Office formats and that I won't have to do as much (18/51)
tweaking to the workflow process that I've had to do with with LibreOffice. And it'll be straightforward. We'll find out. Yeah, that's going to be an interesting experience, especially if it kind of where you don't have to do a lot of the tweaking and workarounds if it just works that little bit, you start adding that up, that adds up to a lot of time. It does. It does. And having to go back and recheck all of those settings and compare them against what is recommended whenever you do a new edition of a book, that's a bit of a time waster. So I'm all about trying to be a little more efficient and effective. But I think, you know, maybe we should get into our listener feedback. What do you think? Oh, I think that's your way of saying enough talking. OK, so. Yeah, it is. It is. We could talk about that later. But anyway, our first email comes from Michael and he said he's running Slint and he writes Hi Larry and Bill. It is Michael from Mifflin, Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. (19/51)
If I got that wrong, I'm sorry, Michael. I have a hard time pronouncing my name. So he writes, I have now changed my distribution of Linux from Ubuntu MATE to Slint based on Slackware, which includes most, if not all, the software that I need. I go to a social group at Paddock Hall in Huddersfield and their people have been helping me with my laptop. One of their people reconfigured the bootloader for me on my HP laptop to be able to boot from USB and then burned a copy of Slint to USB for me. The distro has accessibility for both graphical and text terminals, as well as Orca working on the graphical desktop. If for any reason my computer screws up, I can now install Slint independently. I don't know if this is due to accessibility of Slint or the person who has reconfigured my laptop, but I no longer have to find a sighted person to reconfigure the bootloader as my Slint USB is recognized when I boot my laptop. The only issue I found as regards to software is that there isn't a (20/51)
graphical backup application, which possibly I would be more comfortable in using. There is a graphical version for Rsync, but I am not exactly sure of the options as regards to backing up to my Seagate portable drive. Slint doesn't come with an application like Deja Dupe. All the best with going Linux. Interesting. Well, it's good to know that Slint is an alternative for people who need accessibility for the blind, and they've implemented it very well. As we know from Michael's previous emails, accessibility on a terminal has been a bit of a challenge for him in Ubuntu MATE. Maybe that's something that Martin and crew can look into sometime in the future, but for now, this seems to be a good alternative. I'm sure that Slint being based on Slackware has Deja Dupe available somewhere that you can install it in their software repositories. Yeah, so you might want to try that, Michael. So Larry, before we go any further, you might have some people that are listening for the first time. If (21/51)
you could just give them a quick overview, because we've been dropping a lot of distribution names like Slint, Slackware, Ubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, MX Linux. What is Slackware exactly? Well, Slackware is a Linux distribution that's been around for a long, long, long time. So it's one of the originals. Yes, exactly. And it's not Ubuntu based. It's not Red Hat based. It's its own thing. And it is something that you can spend a lot of time learning how to install it and you can spend a lot of time learning how to use it. So it's definitely not something that is for new users to Linux or new switchers to Linux. And it is something that you might want to try out to learn more about Linux. And you definitely will learn more about how Linux works and all of that in using Slackware. So I've installed it or at least used a computer that had Slackware installed. I can't say that I installed it myself, but yeah, it's, you know, it's Linux. It's what you would expect from Linux. But it is definitely (22/51)
not something for the average new user just switching over from Windows or Mac. But it is a good way to learn about Linux. I actually bought Slackware DVDs back in the day and the book and had a great time because back then you had to. And I guess it's still the same. You had to actually, I actually had to use the book to install the, you know, it says this is what you need to do and this is why. It was really a great learning experience. I mean, because nothing is preconfigured out of the box. You're actually building this thing up. Nothing as severe as like Linux from scratch. Or I would consider it more along the lines of maybe like an Arch install, you know, not a Monjero or anything, but Arch where you're building it just for your system type of thing. So I consider those two kind of parallel. Slack has a special place in my heart. You remember, I think way back, you remember I was telling you that what I was doing with it and I had some success. I learned a lot. But I think what (23/51)
Slint is, is I think it's a way to make Slackware a little more accessible. And so I think it's more of a, you know, this will kind of get you started type of thing in the Slackware ecosystem. But all in all, this would probably not be, as I agree, one for a new user. I would suggest using something easy to get started with. And then once you want to learn more, jump into Slackware or Arch or even Gentoo. Yes. But what's nice about Linux is you can get started easily and then you can use these other Linux distributions to build upon your knowledge. And you can learn, you know, and that's really I think what all of us have done that have been around for a while is we keep learning tricks and trying different stuff. And, you know, if something happens, we know we always have a fallback position, which I've had to do a few times. Yeah, absolutely. So good. Well, thank you for that feedback, Michael. We appreciate it as always. And I know you'll keep us up to date as to what's going on (24/51)
with your transition to Slint. That's great. Highlander wrote to us about errors and resolutions. After trying out Kali Linux XFCE 2009.2, I found a weird error. It took a long time to figure out what was going wrong. I successfully booted into the distro and logged on to a source of Wi-Fi. Problems started when I used Firefox to look at the weather forecast. An error showed up in Firefox that I didn't understand initially. Data flow was not flowing. Turns out that the internal clock on the local machine was far behind the clock on the Internet. Kali blocked the flow of data. Kali Linux didn't tell me the cause of the problem, but the error in Firefox helped me to suss out that the real cause of the problem was a hardware CMOS error. I reset the internal clock from within BIOS and rebooted to the Kali distro. Data flow through Wi-Fi was restored. I hope future versions of Kali Linux can deal with hardware issues better than this. And Highlander, I heard your email being read out. I (25/51)
think it was on the Mint cast as well. So they had a take on this. And essentially it was, this isn't really Kali's fault because it is an error that's a hardware problem. If the clock is so far out of sync with the actual date and time, no Linux software can give you a good report on that. I do also have a suggestion as to what you might do about preventing this in the future. This is a hardware problem, and it's usually caused by you needing a new battery that powers the CMOS. And you may not realize that laptops have a tiny little watch battery. Some of them aren't so tiny, but many of them are tiny watch battery size batteries in there. And their sole purpose is to keep the CMOS powered so that the time doesn't lag behind the actual time. So it keeps the clock running, essentially, even when your computer is powered off. So you might want to check the battery. Yeah, I remember back in the day, they used to use like two AA batteries in those things. It was huge. Yeah. That's a while (26/51)
ago. Anyway. Hey, I'm old. So our next email comes from Jim. He asked us about his Ubuntu problem. Hey Larry and Bill, after several days, I'm not getting any bites on the Ubuntu problem on either the Ubuntu forums or on AskAbuntu.com. The latter gave me the option of emailing someone else to help. And you are two of the most knowledgeable ones I know. And he said he has a zombie settings and he says it's an app in Ubuntu 18.04.2. Thanks in advance. Jim from Virginia. P.S. If all else fails, I'm going to upgrade the machine to Ubuntu Mate Jim. And then a day later, Jim wrote a follow up. And he wrote, Dear Larry and Bill, never mind my wife, who, by the way, is a very pro Linux lady. How lucky can a guy get in a 47 year marriage? Was getting frustrated with her music server not being able to deliver. So a few hours ago, I installed Ubuntu Mate 18.04.2 in the root directory, wiping out Ubuntu 18.04.2. So basically just the same version of Ubuntu. And whatever was causing the problem, I (27/51)
didn't get any point for problem solving like a good geek, but at least the SWMBO is happy. And he put SWMBO, she who must be obeyed. Most of the other machines here at the house run Mate 18.04.2. And the other two that don't are going to be upgraded this week. Just wanted to get to you before you spent any time looking at the issue I reported. Thanks for being available, Jim from Virginia. So I was a bad person. I did not read what the problem was. Did you know what he was having a problem with, Larry? No, I don't. And I didn't look into it because he solved it by reinstalling. So I don't know, but it's good to know, Jim, that you solved the problem very quickly, efficiently. And I am surprised that you didn't get any response back on the forums. But then again, you know, maybe it's a tough question that doesn't have a straightforward answer and it would take someone a while to figure out how to respond to your post. So, yeah, that's kind of interesting. Yeah, it is. But thanks for (28/51)
the feedback, Jim. We appreciate it. For the problem we didn't even have to look at. I like the ones where we don't have to do anything and the listener, you know, figures it out on their own. So it doesn't make for a very interesting episode, though. But can we still bill them for our services? Yes, at the regular rate of zero dollars per hour. OK, we need to talk about that. So our next email is from Juan, who asked us about Synergy or Barrier software. And this is the software that I talked about a few episodes back where you can use it to use a single keyboard and a single mouse to control multiple computers up to how many is it? Nine, 12, 18. I forget some large number more than I have. And you can copy and paste things between different computers running even different operating systems. So Juan writes, Hello, guys. Going Linux minion here. I am having a little issue with configuring Barrier between my Linux laptop running Kubuntu 19 and my MacBook running OS 10. El Capitan. I (29/51)
installed Barrier on both my laptops and follow the instructions on your site's page titled Using Synergy and Barrier on Linux, Windows and Mac. I was able to share my MacBook's mouse and keyboard with my Kubuntu laptop, but not the other way around and can't figure it out. When I click start on Barrier app on both Mac and Kubuntu, I get a Barrier starting notice on both apps. This only happens when I am trying to use Kubuntu laptop as a server. Any ideas? Thanks again for all your wonderful topics and amazing support of the Linux community. Regards, Juan. The only thing I can think here, Juan, and I'm not sure from your email whether this is the issue or not, so please feel free to write back. But it looks to me like perhaps when you are talking about sharing one computer, keyboard and mouse with the other, and you say that it works using the keyboard and mouse on your Kubuntu laptop, but not the other way around, one of the things that you might want to give us feedback on is whether (30/51)
or not you are setting it up differently to control your Mac from Kubuntu or control Kubuntu from the Mac. In other words, you have to set up as a server the computer that you want to use the keyboard and mouse of, and the other one needs to be the client. So there are two different ways to set up Barrier. One is as a server and one as a client, and typically you have a single server, and then every other computer that you want to control is the client. And while Kubuntu is the server, you can use its keyboard and mouse to control whatever other computers you have connected and have Barrier installed. And in order to use the Mac keyboard and mouse, you need to reset up things on the Mac so that it's the server, and you need to go back to Kubuntu and set it up as the client again. So if you want to switch back and forth between keyboards and mice, that's not really what Barrier was designed to do. It's designed to pick one and then control everything from that keyboard and mouse. Does (31/51)
that make sense? I hope it wasn't too complex. Yeah. So the way I understand you said is the computer that you want to use its keyboard and mouse has to have the server. And then like the Mac OS El Capitan has to have the client. Yes. Okay. So you can't switch back and forth. You just have to kind of pick the one you want to use and then kind of serve it to the other one. That's exactly right. And so on the flip side, if you want to use the Mac's keyboard and mouse, you have to set up Barrier as a server on the Mac and as the client on Kubuntu. Okay. So yeah. So it wouldn't work the other way. That makes sense. Yeah. I don't use Barrier because I don't keep things around long enough to set it up. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Understandable. Okay. Yeah. Hopefully that helps you, Juan. And please write back whether it helps you or not and let us know what's going on. Yeah. So our next email comes from Mike. He asks about video capture. He says, I want to turn a spare computer into (32/51)
a PVR and would like suggestions. I have heard a program called Chi suggested. I just want to be able to record video from a capture device and save to disk. I do not have to have a timer record option. Thanks for any help that you might provide, Mike. And you wrote back to Mike with this suggestion. He said, you might find some ideas here. Simple screen recorder, OBS, which stands for Open Broadcast Software, Kazaam, and record my desktop. And did Mike write back and see if any of this works for him? He did not. He wrote back and said, thank you. He was going to try them. And we'll have a link in the show notes to a Tech Mint article that talks about the best media server software for Linux. And these are included in there. Just by way of definition of some of the terms Mike used and used in my email. PVR is personal video recorder. Cheese is a program for Linux that essentially uses your camera on your computer and gives you some functionality for capturing pictures and capturing (33/51)
video using your computer's camera or any camera connected to your computer. And simple screen recorder and record my desktop are very easy to use, simple, basic applications for making videos. And this may, in fact, be what Mike was looking for. OBS is much more complex. It allows you to do streaming. And it's the kind of thing that Jupiter Broadcasting Network uses for all of their video. Although I've been hearing that they've been moving more back to audio only for some of their broadcast because videos, a lot of work. Yeah, it's tough. KASAM is kind of in between. It gives you a few more features than simple screen recorder or record my desktop. Not too many, but a few. And it's nowhere near as powerful or as complex as OBS. So there you go. Hopefully, Mike, that helps you out. Let us know what you settled on. OK, our next email is from Benjamin, who asks about Matei desktop environment version 1.22 applet panel with Orca. And Orca, again, is the screen reader software (34/51)
specifically designed for Linux. Hey, guys, I am having trouble with Matei's desktop environment applet panel in version 1.22. The Orca screen reader seems stuck when I try to navigate to it with a keyboard. I use control-alt-escape to move between panels. But when I land on the said panel, I can no longer arrow back and forth between the applets. I can't tab between them. Is there a new command I'm not finding to do this? I run into this on Fedora and Solace. This may be a bug. I'm sorry to expose it like this. If it is, I tried to set up an account on GitHub to submit a bug, but I had a bad time, probably because I got frustrated giving them a satisfactory password. Is that the only place to do that? I am also not on Facebook or Twitter. I used to be on the Sonar Linux list. That's not around anymore. If I had any leads to get in touch with the Matei desktop environment applet panel devs, I'd follow through on this myself. Thanks. Okay, I know that the Matei desktop environment is (35/51)
tightly woven into Ubuntu Matei, which is the distribution I know the most about. Since Ubuntu Matei doesn't seem to have the problem that you've described, I'm wondering, is it a Matei problem? Or is it a Fedora or Solace problem? I don't know. You might, if you can, give a try in Ubuntu Matei and see if you have the same problem. If so, it's very easy to get onto the forums for Ubuntu Matei and report the problem there. I'm sorry that you're having a problem with GitHub and getting the right password in there to make it acceptable. There's probably a visual captcha or something that it's looking for that you can't see, or that the screen reader can't see, or something like that blocking your way. So I'm not sure how, not being a blind user myself, I'm not sure how to get around that. In fact, let's just throw this out to the minions. For those of you who are using Orca software, have you run into this problem, especially on Ubuntu Matei or on Fedora and Solace? How did you work (36/51)
around this problem? If you've reported the bug, how did you get around the GitHub issues that Benjamin is having? Let's have those people who are experts in this, that is our blind listeners, to give Benjamin some feedback on this. We're looking for you to give some help to a fellow Linux user struggling with the same issues that you struggle with. Yes. Our next email comes from George, who wrote about episode 373, Windows Gone. I don't know the account from whom Bill acquired a computer, and Nancy may well have been too generous to the guy who sold her a high-end PC when quite likely the one who gave Bill would have done the job. But there are important differences between Windows Home and Windows Pro. The default Windows Home install is blatant spyware. I once read, and I wish I could find again, the criticism from an EU government that suggested it collects as many as 25,000 data points through telemetry, basically acting as a keylogger. Windows Pro offers some complex menus that (37/51)
enable users to restrain how much data Microsoft reads, presuming Microsoft honors the restraints. I understand Windows updates may reset user preferences back to send all data. Even Windows Enterprise, built on top of Pro, doesn't enable users to completely shut down telemetry. I don't understand how huge corporations, some in business competition with Microsoft, can install any version of Windows knowing it's encrypted so that you don't know what Microsoft is collecting channeled to the Microsoft servers. By the way, the little snitch application firewall on Macs reports bi-directional telemetry between local systems and Apple servers that gives no better sense of privacy. When what Apple gathers has been identified, spotlight local searches going to Apple, specific location data going to Apple, Apple's response is always, oops, we didn't mean to do that. Okay, so there's a little bit to unpack there. He's basically right about the versions of Windows. I think all of them are built (38/51)
upon the same code base. I think they just have different features. I wouldn't say that the Enterprise is built upon Pro. I think they all come from the same code base with different applications and abilities built in. As far as updates from what I've been able to see from the 1903 install is that both Windows Home and Windows Pro only allow you to so many times pause an update. But I think Enterprise is one that they have some additional software that allows system administrators to have a little bit more control. I've heard that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I don't use Windows enough to speak intelligently on the various levels. I know that they do have telemetry in there and they say they use it for making their system better. Depending on how you set your permissions, there's two defaults. Full, which tells Microsoft they can look at applications telling you've used it, what you got installed, etc., to Basic, which restricts some of that. I don't have an Enterprise (39/51)
copy of Windows 10, so I don't know how that's different. I don't know. Any ideas on this or any comments? I don't want to seem like we're bashing Microsoft. We all know Microsoft sends telemetry back. We all know that we really don't know how much is being sent back, even though they said here's a tool that lets you. It's not easy to understand. And since the programs that they give you are closed source, there's no way to really audit the code to see what exactly if it's reporting everything. So you kind of have to take a lot of good faith. So what do you think? Yeah, so I know you're just starting some research into a series of episodes we're going to be doing about switching from Windows to Linux. And this issue is part of the reason why many people will leave Windows, is this idea that they are collecting all kinds of information through what's known as telemetry. The comment I would have is, let's take some of that EU government statistics of 25,000 data points being collected. (40/51)
With a grain of salt, what I've noticed is politicians in particular tend to overstate things in order to get laws passed and to make points and that sort of thing. And what I've seen is things like sending cookies, browser cookies, back is not one event in their counting. They count each individual cookie that it sends back as a separate data point. And really, it's all the same thing. It's just which cookies you're sending back. So maybe 25,000 is the right number. Maybe it's not. I don't know how it was counted, but let's just take that with a grain of salt. The bottom line, though, is that they're doing it. They're doing it on a massive scale. They're doing it in a way that you can't shut down completely. And they're doing it oftentimes without the user's knowledge or permission. So I know that the EU has put some laws in place and here in the US, some laws are going into place to help combat this kind of thing. But it's government laws. It's not going to keep up with the (41/51)
technology. It's just a matter of fact that, you know, politicians can't keep up with this kind of technology. And they are very many of them are very what's the opposite of tech savvy Luddites? Yeah. Many of them don't understand technology at all and yet are happy to pass laws restricting the use of technology. And sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes it's not. So that's kind of my political rant on this. Yeah. So, George, thanks. The problem that I think that all governments are facing is that technology is moving so fast that the laws that we have on the books weren't really designed to address some of the issues of the data collection and telemetry and, you know, program software moving from install, you know, you upgrade once a year to now it's a service, then we're just going to give you updates all the time. So there's a lot of technical issues involved in it. And, you know, and unfortunately, some of these guys are just not tech savvy enough to understand it, just taking (42/51)
what these big corporations say. And I'm not saying corporations are evil. I'm just saying that these guys, the corporations are telling the politicians who make our laws that, hey, this is OK, this is not really evil to then they've all sudden it's like you have inappropriate ads being sent to people and data breaches. And so then it seems kind of like a knee jerk. So they're trying, I guess, I think they're just kind of until they start getting some people in there to advise them of what's really happening that aren't tied to these big corporations, they're going to struggle. Yeah, absolutely. OK, well, moving on then from George's email. Daniel, hello, everyone. I am using Ubuntu Mate. G-Potter is my podcasting, pod catching client. I am frustrated because I cannot get into its menus with the keyboard, nor can I find a list of keyboard shortcuts for this program. Any ideas? Yeah, Daniel, it is a bit alarming that G-Potter is not accessible or more accessible than it is. And I (43/51)
believe that it's a known issue that G-Potter is not accessible. So maybe we can come up with some alternatives to G-Potter as a podcasting client. There are plenty of them available for Linux and G-Potter is yet one of them. The nice thing about G-Potter is it's cross platform. Yeah, so it's handy to use. But if it's not accessible to blind users, then this is going to be a problem. I gave up using G-Potter a long time ago because it was annoying the way it worked. And even for a sighted person, it was annoying. So my suggestion is, unless you want to get on the forums and provide them some feedback and see if they'll do something about it, switch to something else. Yeah. Our next email comes from James and he has a Banshee question. Hello from Indiana. My name is James and my thanks for the early help from you and your minions. I have a hopefully minor question about Banshee Media Player. I can import media from folders but unable to import playlists such as the M3U files. Nor can I (44/51)
even find the folder that would hold the M3U playlist file in hopes of copy, edit and paste. Any suggestions would be welcome. Oh, I don't use Banshee, so I don't know. But if I was just to hazard a guess, I would say that maybe the M3U files are maybe kept in a separate folder under, you know, I don't know how the structure is of it. Larry, I have nothing. What do you got? Yeah, Banshee is one of those pod catching clients that our previous emailer Daniel could switch to. I don't know whether he uses M3U or not, but yeah, there's quite a bit of back and forth from 2008. It looks like on importing M3U files and in the forums from Banshee Media Player. Let me see if there's anything more recent than that. Let's see, 2011, that's a little more recent. More, 2008, a little, 2012. Yeah, 2014. Looks like there's a bug in the import. It was reported in 2014 on the Banshee bug reporting list for Linux Mint. Says Banshee unable to import playlist from M3U files. Gives no reaction after (45/51)
choosing to import a playlist file. Indeed, after I create a playlist in Banshee and export it properly as M3U file, Banshee cannot reimport the playlist. That was created by itself. Hmm. So it's definitely a bug. I don't see that it's been resolved. Let me take a look at the activity log on this particular post. Yeah, nothing. So if you're looking for importing of playlists, it may be until they fix this bug that you need to look at another player as well. This is, again, alarming that we would have these kinds of issues not being addressed for years. Yeah, for years and years and years. Not unusual. I don't know what the development cycle for Banshee is or whether it's even under current development. It could be one of those applications that is no longer under active development by its original developer and is looking for a new open source sponsor or owner to take it over. I don't know. Either way, it appears to be a bug without a resolution. And if somebody else has found the (46/51)
solution or has more up-to-date information that we've been able to find here doing a quick search, we'd appreciate any feedback. Okay. Our last email is from Jack Deaf, who wrote, Damn, this sucks. And he provides a link to the Linux Journal CSIS publication, Awkward Goodbye. So Linux Journal is going away again. They made an announcement a little bit premature a little while ago last year, I think it was, where they said they were going to, no, December 2017, where they said they were going to have to shut the doors. They found some additional help and support and were able to keep going until now. Looks like this is the last straw for them. Kyle Rankin, the editor at Linux Journal, wrote a final goodbye. He titles it as an awkward goodbye, and we'll have a link to that in the show notes so you can read it for yourself. But Linux Journal, it's been around for a long, long time, is going away. And yeah, Jack Deaf, it sucks. Yeah. Did you ever buy the magazine? I had a subscription to (47/51)
that thing. I've bought a copy here or there. I've never had a subscription, but I have read their articles online. I don't really subscribe to paper magazines or even to electronic magazines because most of it is not of interest to me. I'll read an article here or there and then think, why did I spend the money on this again? So it wasn't really a lot of value to me. But that doesn't mean it's not a lot of value to other people. Unfortunately, either they weren't charging enough or they didn't have enough subscribers to keep them in business. Yeah, I think with the availability of all the information out there, with a lot of answers, you can go to the forums or Google. It's just one of the casualties. And it's a shame because some of the articles are really good. I mean, I enjoyed a lot of them. But yeah, that's said, see it go. So it just seems like the way media is consumed now is just kind of hard for these publications to survive. I mean, I've even heard that newspapers are (48/51)
closing down because everybody can get everything they need on the internet. It's one of those examples of the industry not keeping up with the times. It's like Polaroid with the instant film. I remember those. Yeah, they didn't keep up with film technology or the fact that cameras went to electronic SD cards for storage or whatever the first storage types were for cameras. I guess there was one that had a floppy disk, actually. I had one of those, believe it or not. And they just didn't keep up with the times. And same thing with the publishing industry. They're not adapting to the industry. Something you said earlier about people not needing Linux Journal, maybe because it's so easy to find stuff online, answers to questions and so on. Was that comment meant to say that going Linux is putting Linux Journal out of business? Hopefully not. Hopefully not. I mean, no, we wouldn't be doing that. No, we're not part of the problem. We're part of the new technology, I guess. New ways of (49/51)
delivering things. I'm just going to say if those writers from Linux Journal start looking for us, I'm sending them to your house. Actually, you should send them to my house because they'll never find me. If the UPS driver can't find me, I doubt those guys can. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah, all the joking aside, it's sad that Linux Journal is again going out of business, maybe for real this time. And it sure seems like it and we'll miss them. Yes. On that sad note, we'll wrap up our episode. Our next episode, what will our next episode be, Bill? Do we have any idea at this point or are we still kind of thinking about it? We are going to be talking about transitioning from Windows to Linux and a how-to step-by-step. In multiple episodes. In multiple episodes. Okay, so a new series. Is that a good name? It's good enough for now. It's a description more than a name. We'll figure out what the episode will be called, but I like the idea, Bill. Thanks. Alright, so until then you can go (50/51)
to our website at goinglinux.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 like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our Going Linux podcast community at community.goinglinux.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (51/51)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #402 · Streaming Music Services and Linux.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 402, streaming music services that work with Linux. Welcome to the Going Linux podcast. I'm your host Larry Bushey. And I'm your 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 goinglinx.gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, streaming and online music services. Hello, Bill. How are things with you now that we have actually made it through the barrier between 2020 and 2021 and all the events that have happened in that first little bit? Yeah. How are things going? Things are going good. I saw a t-shirt that I really liked. It said got through your free trial for 2021 (1/52)
subscription and I'm not interested. So it's 2021 seems to be having a rough start, but hopefully everything will settle down now that we've got all our presidential elections done. We've got hopefully tempers will cool down and everybody will get back to normal. We got vaccines going out once they figured that all that out. So hopefully 2021 will be the year that everything gets back to semi normalcy. Yeah. Yeah, let's hope so. Hey, Larry. Yeah. I got a new computer. Yeah. You sent me a picture. It is. It's beautiful. Yes, it's amazing how much changes in like three years because the my other, I guess I want to call this beast too, but it's not really bees. It's just a wonderful machine. But technology has one long come a long way. This one didn't come with the I nine. It comes with the 10th generation core I seven and it's made by HP and it was a great price. It was like like 1100 bucks and it was a what they call the budget omen omen being the HP premium laptop. You know, it's got (2/52)
basically the same guts. I have a different keyboard, but I actually like this keyboard. It's, you know, backlit and stuff. And and right now I haven't had the heart to mess with it yet, but that's coming very soon. I still have my handy dandy can't kill it Dell running mangero. That is my daily work machine. And this one I've been playing a little star citizen, you know, with it just because it has the power. So I've got an SSD. I'm trying to figure out where I'm going from. I'll put it in my mind. My mangero machine is just the lights. I three. But it's it runs so well. I think it would really help it. And then and then the other computer has to go and it has to go back to repair because it's got a bad fan over. I think they said it was the GPU. So they and I pulled apart, I said, how hard could this be to, you know, to order new fan and just put it in? And then I watched the YouTube videos and I said, no. So it's one of those that you have to take the whole thing apart. Yeah, (3/52)
basically. Yeah, because the heat pipes were all together with the fans. You have to take the battery out. You have to take the little Bluetooth cards and the screws are really, really tiny. And if you know me, I can mess up free lunch. So I'm just like, you know, I'll pay a professional to do this. And then I think that machine is going to be regulated too, because it's a it's a like a six or no, it's seventh generation i7 16. So it will be my new new test bed for Linux and stuff. And so and of course, Manjaro will be on it. So, you know, me being a fan boy that I am. But anyway, so I got a new shiny machine. The one thing I have noticed is, wow, the screen is so much better from my old one. I thought the screen was better. You know, I thought I didn't realize it was it's good, but this one just is so super crisp and clear. I was like, wow. Yeah. So I've been really pleased with it. I just haven't I've been using it mainly as just to fly starships into moons and stuff right now, (4/52)
because I don't know what the heck I'm doing half the time and star citizen. And I can't get it to run under Linux. I've tried. Oh, really? Yeah, it's it's it's a public right now. The game's in public alpha. So I tried every trick. OK, so it's early days for the yeah, it's early days. You try a bunch of concepts out. So between crashing things into landing platforms or moons or planets, basically working, sleeping and tinkering with my Linux machines. And that's it. Nothing really changes for me. So how's work going for you? Yeah, work, work is work. It's always busy for me. So that's it's a good thing. It's a good thing, especially in these days of remote work and pandemic. Don't touch anything around you sort of thing, including your family members. It's just nuts. Yeah, well, the only family member I have right now is the dog and he's self isolates all the time. Right now he's up on the bed snoring. So, yeah, he's he's living the life. So, yeah, I had the opportunity over the past (5/52)
three months to look through all and try every one of these streaming services. And my main goal was to see how they worked under Linux, if they would work under Linux, and if there are any differences in features, if they if it did have a Linux client. And I'm really happy to say that we're in a super great place with streaming music. And I listen to a lot of music just because it keeps me halfway sane or I try to stay halfway sane. So after listening to them and comparing the sound quality and the features, I thought this would be a great episode to kind of just touch on. You know, hey, someone might be looking to have streaming on their Linux machine, but they also wanted to work on their Windows machine or their Apple or OS X machine or their iPhone or Android. And so there were all of those. Because, you know, right now, myself, you, everybody is pretty much cross platform. We, you know, we use the best tool for the job. So we're not purists. I mean, if you're a purist, great. But (6/52)
most people have to use Windows for work or they have to use a Mac for their because of Adobe software that's required or or and, you know, I have an Android phone for work, but I have a personal iPhone and you I think you have an iPhone for work. And, you know, so it's just so many there's so many different platforms that I thought, hey, let's see which one would work well. And, you know, as Linux users seeing if we are missing anything. And so I want to get into this. So. Right. And just as we've talked about, you and I, Bill, we will discuss the music services in this episode. And in a future episode, we'll take a look at some video services as well and do a similar sort of rundown on what's available there. Yeah, the video services, I think we're we should be in a pretty good place there. But there are a few caveats that I found. And one of the things that you'll notice is I for this episode went with the ones that you actually have to subscribe to. Some of them do have some free (7/52)
tiers and I'll bring that out and let you know which ones. But music is a multi-billion dollar business right now. And for people, because no one goes to the music store anymore and buys a CD. Right. Exactly. And so, you know, for the price of a cheap CD, you're getting a month of pretty much all you can eat music. And so that's that's I think that's what's really propelled the music service, the streaming services, into where they are today. So with that, let's begin. OK, so this is not going to be an all inclusive list, but let's list the services that we're going to talk about here. And if we've missed your favorite one and you can give us a review of whether or not that works and how well it works on Linux, that would be great. We welcome that as part of a listener feedback episode and we'll provide that review on the air, either as a recording from you or if you just want to put it down in text and email it to us. That's acceptable as well. Just give us some feedback on what you (8/52)
use if we don't cover it here in this list. So, Bill, the list is in no particular order Spotify, Deezer, Tidal. This title I haven't used on QoBuzz or is it pronounced QoBuzz? I don't know. That's one I always I just say Qbuzz and keep on but it's probably QoBuzz. OK. And Napster. I didn't know they were still around. Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited and YouTube Music. So we'll cover all of those. So every one of those in the list I've actually tried either through a free trial or actually subscribed for a month to see how they work. So that's why it's taken so long, right? I just wanted to give everyone a fair shot and some of them worked better and some best. So anyway, the first one we're going to talk about is what, Larry? Spotify. Take a look at Spotify. Look at the list. Yeah. Does it work with everything? It does. Spotify works perfectly. I didn't have any issues. It plays on about everything. Cost the $9.99. You know, $9.99 is so much less than $10 a month, apparently. (9/52)
Yeah, it is. It is. You know, over a year, you save what? 12 cents? 12 cents. And of course, these prices are U.S. dollars. These are U.S. dollars, of course. And if you're in Europe, I think it's a little different and they've got different plans, different prices in different countries, but this is for U.S. based. So and sometimes you can get a pretty good deal, a sweet deal if you want to try it out. I just snagged one because I was thinking about going someplace else and they said, hey, we'll give you three months for $9.99. So I'm like, OK, I can stay for another three months. Spotify has all they make the lists and so they know what I like to listen to. So they've been pretty good about it. And they have a huge catalog. And hey, even our podcast is on Spotify. And because they're really doing a push for a podcast now, they want to be the go to for everything. So I would say that this one is a solid choice. Some people complain that maybe the audio quality is not as good or the (10/52)
way they encode it. But I really can't tell the difference between too many of these services. I guess I'm not an audiophile, so, you know, it's usually the 320 MP3, which is good enough for my old ears. Yeah, exactly. I think most of us are in that same camp. So unless you have a high priced, super high quality audio system and you are an audiophile, you probably won't notice much, if any, difference between each of these streaming services. And I think that streaming services, by definition, because they have to stream and they have to use bandwidth, they're going to have to compress the signal, which, of course, reduces the quality. So I think if you're really in that camp of being an audiophile who wants the perfect representation of the music, you're going to have local copies that you're listening to and probably copies that are professionally recorded in some way or another. And maybe you're purchasing vinyl these days. I don't know. Well, one of the interesting things for (11/52)
Spotify is that in Ubuntu and any of its derivatives plus Manjaro, that you can pretty much get an Electron app of the Spotify client or it's a snap or whatever. So it looks like a native app, acts like a native app. Whatever you feel about Electron, I consider that, hey, you can play Spotify if you're a Spotify user on your Linux machine. You can play it in your web browser. It's available for Android, it's available for Mac OS, iOS. So this one, pretty much anywhere you go or any device or computer, it will play. Yeah, that's good. It's a solid choice. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So our next one is Deezer. Yeah, Deezer. And Deezer is one of those companies that has acquired other companies. Quite a while ago, I think it's probably a year or more ago, probably more than a year ago, they acquired Stitcher. And we're listed on Stitcher, our podcast is, so I'm familiar with Stitcher. And I'm aware of Deezer purchasing them, but I haven't really, other than improving the player and things that would (12/52)
normally happen regardless of the owner of the company, I haven't really seen too much impact of Deezer on Stitcher. So I still refer to Stitcher and I don't know whether it's the same platform in different countries, just rebranded Deezer or whether they have something different. But as far as I know, Stitcher is what I use. So Deezer is a French company and they are also, I would consider them like a smaller Spotify as far as the music catalogs are very close, but I was able to find everything I wanted except some of the weird stuff I listened to, of course. And I would say that Deezer's interface on, especially my phone, or even on the, when you're using a web browser to listen, it looks a little cleaner than Spotify, because they all are pretty much feature comparable. It's just a little bit of the layout of the interface. And I found Deezer's to be really, really nice. They also had a dark mode, so it doesn't blast your eyes or you can go to light mode. Spotify uses, I would say a (13/52)
dark mode almost all the time. It's a darker interface. So both, you can pick what you want, especially if you don't like dark mode, Deezer allows you to go with the light mode. And their service was pretty rock solid. And like I said, I did notice a few little differences as far as, since they're a French company, I noticed there was more French music on there, which was pretty cool because some of those guys are pretty talented. They, like I said, everything that Spotify had, you know, I could find on Deezer and it worked really, really well. They usually have a good specials, hey, you know, try it for a month free or whatever. You do have to put your credit card in there. The one thing I did find with Deezer was that I had to notify my bank for some reason that I had subscribed to it because, you know, they, they always verify with that $1 thing that they returned to you, that it's a valid credit card. So, that flagged immediately, even though it was a US processor, I, you know, (14/52)
every time I wanted to, you know, subscribe after my free trial, it wanted, my bank was like, hey, this is kind of suspect. So, I don't know what that was all about. My, is either my bank just being my bank or there's the way they had their payment process set up. And that was kind of the only thing I could really say, hey guys, you need to work this out because this is old because I don't want to talk to my bank every month, every time I want to. And, you know, I could probably set up an exception or whatever, but that's just, you know, just to listen to music, that, that would be annoying. And so I would say Spotify and Deezer are very, very close as far as sound quality. Deezer on certain things I thought sound a little better, but nothing that would make me go, oh my goodness, that's so much better. So I say they're very close and Deezer works well on, I think, Android and iOS, and you can even listen to it in your web browser. And I believe there's Electron app for Deezer also. (15/52)
So, yeah, I, since I don't have a Mac that I can see, I'm going to have to say, I don't know if it has a native client for it, but if you, if it doesn't, you could still use web browser. The good thing is the web browser seems to always work on all these and they, the interface is identical from what I could tell from like a windows or a windows machine. Right. Okay. All right. Yeah. So Deezer is focused exclusively on music or do they have podcasts in there as well? If I remember correctly, I didn't see, I think there is some podcasts, but it's mostly music. They don't have the catalog of podcasts that Spotify does. But that's understandable because Spotify has been spending lots and lots of money to bring on as much podcasts because apparently podcasts are the future. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And as I look at the Deezer site compared with the Stitcher site, it looks like Stitcher is focused on podcasts where Deezer is focused on music. So maybe that's how they've divided up their (16/52)
services. So yeah. Interesting. And that's not a bad idea because sometimes the one thing I do have a problem with Spotify is that I don't want to listen to my podcasts on my music service. I have a separate podcast client that I have set up for stuff that I listen to. And I just don't, I don't, I mean, I can understand if you, if you do want to have it all in one place, it's probably a great resource, but I like to have a little more granular control of what I listen to as far as podcasts. Right. Did you mention the pricing on Deezer? Yeah, Deezer is the same. It's $9.99 a month. They have a free tier as well. They do have a free tier, but you're going to hear ads. Spotify also has a free tier and it's basically, it's a couple songs and they say, you can subscribe to Spotify. You get a lot more ads. It's a little annoying. That's why every one of these that I've done, either I used a free trial or I actually paid my own money to listen to it just because I just, I see enough ads on (17/52)
YouTube. I just don't want to see anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, thanks for that. The one thing I will notice about, I will mention about Deezer and like I said, it's a very solid choice if you don't want to use Spotify is that you can some, they have these specials that you can sometimes get a year of Deezer for the prey for like, I think it's nine or 10 months cost. So they'll give you a discount if you pay them for a year. And I don't think Spotify, I've never seen it yet. Spotify doesn't have that. They want you on that month to month. So if you're a little more cost conscious and you see one of these things with Deezer, yeah, you're pretty, pretty safe to go ahead and say, yeah, I, I'll use Deezer and you'll, you won't miss anything that you would on Spotify. Okay. All right. Okay. Well, let's move on to Napster. Like I said, I didn't know they were still around. Well, one of the people I work with was involved in Napster when it was a startup and he's since moved on to (18/52)
other bigger and better things. And that's, you know, I haven't heard of Napster in years. What's going on there? So Napster was a late entry into this. I thought they were gone too. So Naps, this one's sort of a mess. Okay. Um, the company, there's a company that bought Napster cause you, for some of the maybe people that aren't familiar, Napster used to be a file sharing service that got shut down for, cause they would share music and I believe they even shared videos, but it was a peer to peer, a big tour type system. And so for some reason they thought it was a great idea to buy the name after they put them out of business. And then Naps has been sold like two or three times to different companies. So this one was kind of weird, uh, because I, it felt kind of, um, just like, okay, this is Napster, but now we're, we're not really Napster. We're a music streaming service that's legal. Like, okay. This is not your grandfather's Napster. Yeah. But, uh, I think Napster has such a brand (19/52)
recognition for some of the people our age that they thought it would be a good idea. This app did not, in my opinion, uh, make it easy to discover new music such as Deezer or Spotify. You know, um, I was able to find most of the music. There was a few, um, I was looking for a, uh, one of Taylor Swift's new songs, the owner of her, uh, album she just released. I couldn't find it. It might be that just hadn't filtered down or it could be that it was a operator error, but, um, it was kind of weird. Um, the interface, uh, is cleaner, um, to the point of being, uh, very, uh, very, very stark. Uh, they do the, I just don't think their algorithm for suggesting music after you, cause you're on all these, you tell them, Oh, these are the music I'm interested. And it was coming up some weird stuff. So that, I mean, stuff that I would never listen to, I think it even, um, I don't listen to any country and, uh, all of a sudden it was just started suggesting like Wailing Jennings and Hank Williams (20/52)
Jr. And I'm like, why? Cause I didn't click those. So it wasn't that great. Old school. Um, it does work well on Linux. You can use it through the browser. Um, but, and you can put it on the Android and, um, the iPhone, but, uh, like again, uh, I'm sure it has a Mac client also. It just wasn't, I didn't think it did a good job. Uh, it was the same price. It was $9.99 and they had a free trial and, you know, they have some, uh, a little thing that's supposed to tune your, um, your headphones to, you know, make your music sound better. And, you know, phrase, I think they call it ear something. And you go through this little test and supposed to tweak it, uh, to, for the music to sound, you know, for you personalized. I tried it and I went through the little test and it was all weird and, and, uh, you know, listen for the little tone. Okay. I got that. So you go through that for about two or three minutes. And I, you know what, Larry? Guess how much difference I was able to notice? How (21/52)
much, how much? Okay. Old ears. So, uh, it's not a bad choice, but there are better choices. Okay. All right. Well, let's go on to another choice then. Uh, so here's another French company. This is the QO buzz and it, since it's French, it's probably pronounced more like. Well, booze or something like that. So, uh, yeah. Uh, tell us about that one, that one I hadn't ever heard of either. Yeah. So QO buzz is, I was interested in this one because one, I had never heard of it in two, it, it, it labels itself as it only has high def streaming. You can in, in the app, it did let you select, uh, to MP3 to save bandwidth, but you know, what's, you know, I did try that, but I, you know, if I'm going to pay the $14.99 a month, I want to have an incredible experience. So this one I had a horrible experience with, I even wrote to, I wrote to their support department and they were exceedingly slow to get back to me. I'm talking a week. Because what would happen is you would listen, I'd be on my (22/52)
home network and I'd want to skip through a song that I had no interest listening to. And then it would start, uh, having stuttering, uh, problems and it would play for about 30 seconds and stop and then play for it was a buffering issue. And I actually, this one was so, uh, interesting. I want to see if I could duplicate it on other platforms. So it did it on my windows machine. It did it on my Linux machine. It did it on both my Android and iOS phones. So it's a problem in their, in their software somewhere. So I sent them a bug report and said, Hey, this is an issue. And a week later they finally says, well, and I don't know what they were thinking was, um, and the guy wrote in his, the support person said, well, um, yeah, it's definitely, uh, your, your home internet connection and your cellular connection. And I have unlimited on both and they're, they've never had an issue streaming music, even large files. And he says, you know, you should just download them. Cause I believe it (23/52)
sounds better when they're downloaded. And I'm thinking, no, it doesn't. If I'm listening to a flak file and a lot of theirs are flak and they're huge, um, but it doesn't matter if you're streaming it. It might put according to bandwidth, but technically if you have enough bandwidth to do the flak and then you, and you download the flak and the same, it should sound the same. Um, and you know, flak files are huge. And I said, okay, maybe, uh, I'll just do the MP3s, uh, it's 320, you know, it's the same, uh, as the others. And I still had the same issue and none of the others, you know, I should be able to stream a 320, uh, encoded MP3 with no problem, especially since I don't have any other issues. So we went back and forth and they were just, you know, they gave excuses for everything except it's them. So I kind of went on the Google and started looking around and it seems to be a problem with their service. I don't know if they don't have enough bandwidth or whatever. Uh, the other (24/52)
thing is with, uh, Cubus, they have a lot of older music, like the old, um, rock, the old classic rock or the old country or, or they had a lot of classical. They did, you were able to find just some of the new ones I wasn't able to find. Uh, and I usually just pick a new, um, artist, uh, a new album by an artist to see if I can find it on their service. And Taylor Swift had just released her new one called Evermore and good album by the way. But, um, I've listened to it enough on all these services. So, um, you know, I got, I've, I've burnt myself out on that album, but I want to sing the lyrics without looking at the words. Right. Uh, probably, but you know, I wanted to keep this as fair as possible. So the, uh, I found it and it was okay. But like, again, I didn't for them for that extra five bucks, I really wanted to hear something, even if it's just a little crisper or cleaner. Uh, we've, we've talked before about, uh, it makes a big difference how you encode it with what (25/52)
software, cause you know, sometimes one encoder, even though you're in and, uh, we'll encode it a little cleaner. So this one was just not a good, um, service in my opinion, you know, your, your mileage may vary. It didn't offer a lot of the, uh, more, uh, commonly features of, you know, try this playlist. I think there's some music based on your listening that you might like. Um, so that and their poor customer service, I would, you know, even though it does run, uh, on Linux in the browser and on, uh, Android and iPhone, uh, I couldn't get past all that, that buffering issues that none of the others had. And so with this one, I would say this need that they need to be a hard pass if you're looking for a string source on Linux. All right. Okay. All right. And it could also be bandwidth limited on their side or your side, whatever. I know your bandwidth isn't super huge where you are unlimited or not. You know, the speed of the download can affect it. So yeah, like you said, your (26/52)
mileage may vary. I, uh, I thought about that. So I actually took my laptop to work, my Linux laptop to work when we have a business internet that runs the whole thing and no one was on. That should be fast. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's fast. I mean, I, it's like 25,000 times faster than my home and I still had this, I still had the buffering issue. Okay. All right. So it's not your bandwidth. Yeah. I wanted to give them a fair, uh, fair, uh, benefit, doubt, fair shake, but it just, you know, with the quality, I, you know, again, average person who just wants to listen to music, uh, in non-audio file, I would have to say pass on these. Okay. So we'll move on now to Amazon Music Unlimited. Tell us about your research on that one. I was very impressed with them. Um, this is a very solid choice. If you're already in the Amazon ecosystem or you're a Prime member, you can get that, uh, Unlimited Music plan for $7.99. Okay. You don't have to be a Prime member if you're, if you're not, if you're (27/52)
not a Prime member, you can still use that. It's considered a stand alone, um, uh, service. It's the same as all the others, $9.99. They usually will, they have a really generous, um, new, uh, subscriber. They usually use three months. So I sold one, it was for, you know, six, uh, $3 for six months. You know, so they're always throwing stuff out there. So if you're interested in it, you know, keep an eye on that. Um, they also offer a high, uh, what they call Amazon Music Unlimited HD, which is for $5 more. Uh, they, uh, you can listen to high definition tracks. It's an add on, but it's there if you're an audio file and you like, uh, and you're already in the Prime ecosystem. You know, you might want to give an extra $5 so you can have everything in this high, super high definition music. Again, old ears. So, hey. They, uh, um, their music catalog is on par with, uh, with Spotify, with, uh, Deezer, um, with YouTube Music, with Tidal. They have everything, uh, and some, um, and they (28/52)
also do podcasts and we're on that too. Hey, plug for the show there. Um, it's a great service and it's very solid choice if you don't want to use Spotify or you're already in the ecosystem, because as part of your Prime, you get a limited version of that. I think it has like 3 million songs or you can pay them to $7.99 for your Prime member and get access to 50 million songs. So, you know, it's kind of like, here's a taste and if you really want it, you pay us another $8 and you, uh, oh, I'm sorry, $7.99 and we'll let you, uh, have access to everything. They've been throwing money at this and it shows the interface is clean. It works well. I had no streaming issues. It was like here, music all the time, even when areas when I'm driving to work that might be dead, never had an issue. So Amazon music is a, is a super service, uh, works well, works on, uh, uh, the browsers. Uh, I don't believe I couldn't find one anyway, a, uh, a electron app or a, uh, native Amazon music, um, app for (29/52)
Linux, but web browser works just fine. So you open it up, you can minimize it and continue on your work and listening to Amazon music. It's on iPhone. It's on, um, all those echo devices. It's on the Android. So it's a really, um, you know, I would say that this one is, is it's right on par with Spotify. No worries. Okay. All right. Okay. So that sounds like a good one. Uh, how about YouTube music? How does that stack up? Now this service and it, and I use music services. This one's kind of hard to nail down because it allows you to watch music videos also. And it, and because YouTube, everybody's done remixes, et cetera, et cetera, uh, to songs. You'll run across those when you're looking for a specific, um, artist, you'll sometimes pull up these remixes and you're like, that's not what I want. Right. Okay. I know there Google finally, uh, they used to have two music services. One was called Google Music and then had YouTube. So they finally closed the Google Music or whatever it was (30/52)
called, um, and put them to both services. There's some people like it better. They say interface is better. Uh, it's not, you know, Google kills things off all the time. Uh, the thing I found this is when you're, when you're looking for a music and you find one of these remixes, um, you can sometimes run across the lower quality sound, not all the time. Uh, for the general part, YouTube music sounds really good, but every once in a while, for some reason you get these weird lower bit rates that are noticeable. Like it sounds like a 64 K. So, uh, not all the time I had it happen, you know, probably 10 times in a month, but it's just when you want to listen, when you're listening to your music, you got it on auto play and all of a sudden you go from really clear music that sounds great to this, you know, 64, 128 K MP3. You're like, what happened there? And it would come up with really weird, um, suggestions for you. So it's not bad. It's just if, if you're already, uh, uh, used to (31/52)
YouTube and that's where you get your music, this will be a great service for you. But another, uh, just a little plus if you have the YouTube premium, which one is supposed to keep you from having to watch so many ads on YouTube. It's that service is included in that bundle for like 14.99. So if you, so if you're already into that ecosystem, you're like, and you say, I already have this, then you already have YouTube music. You should use it. Uh, cause it might not be on a feature parody with Spotify or Amazon music or Deezer, but it's pretty close. So there's, there's no reason for it. So yeah. So you might as well use it. Now, if you just want this music service, it's 9.99 or you can pay the extra five bucks and get, get that and not have to look at ads. So it's, you know, just kind of depends on your use case. Mm hmm. Okay. And like you said, there's kind of a mix of video and audio and as you're playing it, you can't tell which one's coming up next. Is that kind of the way it (32/52)
happens? Sometimes now you can set it where you, uh, you can tell it you only want to see audio. Okay. Um, or you, it will let you, if there's a music video available, it will let you watch it or you can search in the music app. Um, and you will actually pull up, uh, videos that you can watch so you can turn it off, but debilities there. And I think maybe where that part of that disconnect about the sound quality is that the, I, and I noticed this when you're listening, just audio, it sounds better on a lot of the videos, but if you listen to video, you can tell that the sound quality drops. It might be pulling that music from the music. Okay. You do get a lot of mashups. You know, there's a lot of channels that, that stream like certain types of music, like lo-fi hip hop or, you know, classical, whatever. So you can find those and it's just pretty much a curated stream by whoever started the channel. And they're fairly popular and you know, it's, it has some nice features. Um, I (33/52)
wouldn't say anything, there was any deal breakers, but for me, just having the bouncing, uh, audio quality was a little discouraging. Hmm. Okay. All right. Okay. And we talked about pricing on that one. So should we move on to Tidal now? So Tidal is the one that I believe Jay-Z and a bunch of artists own and it's okay. It has a good catalog on, um, Parity with Spotify. I would, it kind of aims more toward, uh, the newer music, like the latest hip hop and stuff is not to say it doesn't have everything else. Um, but it seems it was bringing up recommendations that music that I would never listen to. So that, that being said, um, it was, it was okay. Uh, the interface is clean. It's easy to navigate. They don't, I didn't find, I think I might've found one podcast, but it was a Tidal podcast where they're doing an artist or something, but they're basically music only. And, uh, they're kind of a, uh, different, um, animal is that they have, uh, they, they just started a free service. (34/52)
That's kind of limited. Um, uh, they just, uh, they have what they call their premium and then they have their Hi-Fi. Now Hi-Fi is 20 bucks a month. Hmm. Okay. And I'm sorry, I'm cheap. I am not paying 20 bucks a month to listen to music. Is it twice as good music? I mean, come on. Probably not. My old years, you know, 320 MP3 is perfectly fine for me. The, um, so they, their high end is $19.99, uh, but their premium is like $9.99. Okay. No, 10 bucks. Okay. So in line with all the others, um, worked on all the phones I tried and it did stream and, and the interface was, you know, feature, you know, parody with windows is the exact same. So I would expect that cause it's being rendered by web browser, but then this one I noticed was, uh, was, uh, really picky about, uh, DRM. And I had to, uh, let Firefox download an extension. So it would play, um, don't know what that was about. They just seem to have things, uh, tied very tightly to DRM. They have a different something there. They're (35/52)
called M HQ or whatever. It's supposed to make music sound great. And again, old ears. The, uh, the one thing that I did not like about them is I actually paid them. Uh, I listened to free trial and I didn't use it as much. So I said, I'll just give them 10 bucks. I'll listen to them. And, uh, again, and, you know, cause I wanted to give everyone about the same amount of time listening. And the problem with this is when I find, okay, I'm not going to keep you. You're fine. Uh, they, it is a pain in the butt to cancel. They make you go through this, why you're leaving, you know, what, you know, it just, and you have to answer this stuff or it will not let you go to the next page to hit the cancel button. So I thought that was kind of crummy. All the others you can hit, usually hit one button. Are you sure? Yes. And you're done. Uh, and sometimes they'll pop up with an optional, Hey, can you tell us where you're going or you know what we can do better. But these, they, they were very, (36/52)
um, you know, here's this four page things you're going to fill out. Each one of these has four or five questions and you're not going to the next one until you answer these. So not quite happy with them. Um, are they a good music service? I'd say, yeah, they're fine. Um, if you like some of the newer music, uh, the, the latest and greatest, uh, uh, hip hop artists, I found all of them there. I found all the pop stars, but it seems like, um, they're, they, they're more geared to more of the, um, hip hop, um, the new modern hip hop stuff than other music that can be just me. But I've heard that in the reviews I've read, I've heard that mentioned to other people saying, you know, I'm not interested in that music. I want to listen to whatever. And it's always seemed to be pop, you know, it suggests something that you have, you know, no desire to listen to. Right. Um, so anyway, the music was great. Um, as far as sound quality, um, I, to be truthful, I didn't find it, um, as good as I (37/52)
would say, um, Amazon music unlimited, uh, on some songs, but as a general, it's, it was pretty close. So nothing to write home about. Right. Right. Okay. Yeah. I'm not surprised that they are more focused on the DRM side of things. My understanding, and I'm not an expert in this, so I could be wrong, but my understanding is that Tidal was originally set up, uh, by people in the music industry, uh, artists and producers and that sort of thing who are, uh, by virtue of what they do for a living concern. And I learned that they don't lose any revenue for any of the songs wherever they are played. And as a result, DRM is the way that they protect that. And so, uh, it's not surprising that DRM would be pretty high priority for a service like this. I'm a little surprised though that the, they are charging, uh, so much and yet still, uh, have such a focus on DRM. Well, maybe I'm not surprised about that. Uh, but I am a little disappointed that they would try to lock you in by making it (38/52)
difficult to leave the service and that can't be good for them, um, in the, in the long run for, for people who sign up and end up deciding that it's not for them. So probably a bad review there for some folks. Um, there's a couple of things that I would be remiss if I did not mention. Tidal says that they pay their artists, uh, uh, more than most of these services. And I looked at the list and it is a bigger difference. It's not the highest, but they're right up there. Um, Tidal also, so I had the same music. Tidal was able, uh, let me, uh, import all my music playlists from Spotify into them. Okay. Uh, YouTube music gave me said, Hey, you can't do it. Import that many. I don't know why I only have like 300 playlists. I don't know. But, uh, Tidal works fine. Um, and, but some of the others, you know, say, Hey, you only can do 50 or you only can do 25 a day or whatever. So I have to give Tidal props on that. Um, I would say that if Tidal continues improving, cause you know, there's, I (39/52)
think they're one of the newer players. I would give, give them a, another, um, shot myself personally, because I felt that the service and some of the stuff they offered, you know, they, they do a little bit more of a, um, some, they support upcoming artists. I just think that they need to be more of a general, um, music service and, and actually, um, I think they're still tuning their algorithm, so I'm willing to give them a benefit of the doubt. I think they need to bring their, their upper end, that HD down a little bit, you know, to match Amazon, to match, uh, any of these high definition services. And the DRM, it really didn't affect me except for that one time I had to say, okay, yeah, you can download this, this DRM extension so I can listen to the music. I didn't have that issue on any of the phones or anything. So I'm not, it's not negative. I just, you know, I was a little just turned off about having to go through those steps to cancel it. Um, and it's, it just seemed like (40/52)
its focus was more on the other stuff. Uh, you know, some of the more modern music, I will say, you know, I'll check them out in, you know, another six, eight, eight months to see if they've changed anything. And, um, and you know, then I'll, I'll let you know if I would recommend them even more, but right now I would say they would be like a tier two choice. You know, there's other, there's other, uh, better choices for this music. Okay. All right. Yeah. Uh, okay. Let's move on to Apple Music, another big fish in the pond. Yeah. Apple Music. I threw this one in the list, uh, cause you can use it in a web browser and you can use it on Android and you can use it on iPhone. Of course you can use it on Mac. Um, but I, they do not have a Linux client, but the web browser works. So same with all of them. Some of them will have an electron app, you know, that someone's bundled together or a snap with it. Um, but they have no desire and they will never have a desire for a Linux client. So if (41/52)
you're in the Apple ecosystem, you can use the web browser, but they're right on there and it's kind of hard to find. It's not difficult. It's just, you have to search for it. Uh, well anyway, I did and they tell you that the, their browser music collection is still in beta. When I tested it, it said beta right on there. So it works fine. Didn't have any issues. It was just, they're not really, uh, for when I can tell pushing it as much as the others. They, they can, they could clean up their, their web browser interface. It kind of reminded me of a strip back iTunes type of, um, but it did work and I didn't really have any issues with it. Their catalog is just as large and it's 9992. So what their gig is, is some of these, uh, unlimited plans for these carriers. If you have their top tier unlimited plan, you get Apple music for free. So, uh, it's built into the plan costs. So, you know, especially I think Verizon does it and T-Mobile does it. And I don't know about AT&T, but, uh, I'm (42/52)
a Verizon user. And if I wanted to pay them an extra 35 bucks a month for their top tier super duper, you know, kitchen sink, um, data plan, then I could have Apple Music for free, but I'm trying to find stuff that's easy to use. All the way around. So you can use it on Linux, but you'd have to use web browser and you can use it on the other devices. Okay. All right. Uh, pricing for Apple Music? Is 999. So that seems to be the magic bullet. Yeah. Except for the, the oddball, the Qbuzz, or if you're going to a high definition with a title or, uh, Amazon Music. Um, yeah, they're all 999. There's just, and you can use to get a free trial for Apple Music for 30 days. So if you want to try them out and see if they fit your, your usage, that would probably work. Okay. All right. Well, uh, we've covered quite a few applications here. So what's your final conclusion, Bill? Okay. This is my personal opinion only, uh, but hopefully this will be helpful for everybody listening to me ramble on (43/52)
about music services. Um, the good news is you can use all these services, uh, in browsers running under Linux with very few issues. Uh, and most of the time you won't have any. Some, uh, like Spotify will offer you an app, use the Electron, uh, Electron app or a snap. And I think it really boils down to how the, the, the sound to you, cause you know, some people say they can hear differences. Me, not so much. But then again, again, old ears, all the prices are pretty much the same 999 and you can try them, uh, try them out and see which one fits your, uh, which one do you like best? But if I had to pick the top ones, I would say Spotify and Amazon music unlimited as, as first tier choices. And then I would say, you know, if you didn't want to use either one of those, I would give Deezer and YouTube music, uh, like a second tier, uh, consideration. And I would put Tidal maybe at 2.5 tier, but those are the kinds of ones I would go with the Spotify and Amazon music if they fit you. (44/52)
Cause they have all the music. Deezer is a solid choice. YouTube music is just YouTube music. You know, Google knows everything about you. So, you know, you'll, you'll have, you'll have a decent experience. So it just depends on what ecosystem you're tied to, whether it be Amazon or YouTube or Apple, um, or you just kind of pick what you want to use. But none of these are really bad choices except Cubuzz. Don't ever use them. No, I'm just kidding. Uh, you try them out if you might like them, but stay with the big, uh, the bigger names. Uh, I did, you know, tried to get as many of these done, uh, and listened to, but I can only listen to Taylor Swift, uh, so much before I lose my mind. Okay. So I want to give a pro tip just because I was surprised. Now, say you want to subscribe to a service, always use your web browser at home on your Linux machine or whatever. Because if you sign up to the phone and the app store, you get a two to $3 monthly surcharge fee added on top. So it goes from (45/52)
$9.99 to, you know, $12.99 or $13.99 or $14.99 for the same search you can get for nine bucks. The reason for that is the app stores are taking their 30 or whatever percent. And yeah. Yeah. So, but here's the interesting, you can download the app. You just don't sign up for it all through the app. You sign it up and then you put your credentials in the app and it works perfectly. It's just one of those things that some people never realized that, Hey, I'm paying the next year, you know, three, two to three bucks. So, you know, it's 24, 36 bucks a year. Might not seem like a lot, but I'd rather have that money in my pocket and not theirs. Right. It adds up. So, yeah, so it adds up. So that's just a pro tip that I found and all of them seem to do it. Uh, it just depends on what app store, uh, that you're using. So always sign up through your web, your, uh, through your web browser. And then you can of course download the app free and just pull up your, um, your details in and it works. (46/52)
Oh, that's a good tip. Uh, that's kind of the way I do it anyway. When I'm signing up for services, I go to the website. Uh, but, uh, I would never have thought that, you know, downloading and signing up from your phone or I guess a tablet as well would end up costing you more money. Interesting stuff. Yeah. Just thanks for that. Yeah, no worries. I just, uh, you know, like I said, I like to, uh, you're already paying them, so you might as well save money if you're going to be using their services. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Well, um, as far as my final wrap up here, I mean, I don't listen to a lot of music. Let's just say that. Uh, and so I think we've covered some of the more important, uh, applications out there and services out there. Some that maybe we have missed are things like Pandora or TuneIn Radio or what's the other one, iHeart Radio, you know, that, um, are, well, maybe not so much Pandora because that's a little along more along the lines of Spotify and what we've been talking (47/52)
about here. But TuneIn Radio, iHeart Radio, those kinds of things are more, uh, spinoffs from the radio, um, model of things and are really old school radio stations, in my opinion, old school radio stations trying to get into the new downloadable streaming age and trying to figure that out themselves. So maybe that's not so important to people, um, who are listening these days. Uh, but, you know, if, if your favorite is something like TuneIn or Pandora and you'd like to give us your opinion, send that in. Uh, some of the other things that may be of interest to people are some services that allow you to do command line, uh, listening to radio, things like Soma FM. Um, so some of the artists in there are lesser known, independent artists. So if you're into that kind of thing, you might want to check that out and you don't care for a fancy user interface. Some things to think about there. Um, the other thing we might have gone into that we didn't, um, is just how well these services (48/52)
support artists that aren't in it for the money. Uh, you know, I would expect the title probably ignores anybody who isn't a member of the recording industry, uh, and who is just wanting to create independent music and doesn't necessarily subscribe to the DRM. They just want their music out there and if you want to provide them some, some money to continue to be able to produce their music, then great. Those kinds of things. Um, the independent artists, the artists who are lesser known and need some promotion, whether they're in it for the money or not, they, they need the promotion. And do you find those on Apple Music? Do you find those on Tidal? Do you find them on Spotify? Do you find them in any of these services that we've talked about? That would be kind of interesting to know about that. Um, or, or even can you find them if you search? You know, you mentioned some of these services are geared to one genre of music versus another. Um, is, is there really a wide range of (49/52)
selection as much as you would like or those kinds of things? So we've touched a little bit on that. But, you know, for, if, if we were to go in more deeply on this topic, we might dig into that kind of thing, but that's not really the intent of the episode. The intent of the episode was just to indicate whether or not it works and then let you go find the right service for the right price that provides you with the right music that fits your taste. Yeah, I would like to just add, um, I listened to Pandora, but I didn't include it just because I haven't given it as much time as the others. I started with Pandora way back in the day before it was balled out by Sirius Radio. But, uh, one of the reasons that I, uh, try to stay away from Pandora, uh, is because they pay nothing basically to the artists. I'm not saying that, uh, that, uh, others are a hundred percent bitter, but, um, depending, but Pandora's like right down there, you know, pennies. So I, and I don't, and their audio (50/52)
quality is kind of, it's okay, but they, they have, you know, different plans and they keep changing things around. So I have moved on from them. Um, but you know, I haven't had a lot of time to listen to them. Now, the last thing I would like to say is if you're looking for those independent art artists, uh, YouTube music will be the one that you want to look because everybody will post, um, their covers or their mixes or their original songs to YouTube because it has such a low barrier to entry. And since YouTube music and YouTube are, are pretty much one in the same, you're going to find those independent artists more than you would find them on Spotify or Amazon music. That's where people put stuff to get noticed. So that being said, that's it. Okay. Well, I guess that wraps things up for us on this episode. And our next episode, of course, will be listener feedback. Until then you can go to our website at goinglinx.com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download and (51/52)
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 the discussion in our Going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinx.com Until next time, thanks for listening. 73 (52/52)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #369 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux, Episode 369, 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 at our email address at goinglinux.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. Today's episode is Listener Feedback. Hello, Bill. Hello, Larry. How are you today? I am doing great. I hear that we owe a shout out to the great folks at Transworld, the technicians who have helped you with your internet problems over the time that you've been there. Yes, they're great guys. In Mexico. Yeah, so let's see. There's Jeff, Craig, Ben, and Mike, at least one of whom are (1/53)
listeners to the show. So shout out to you guys. And if you have any feedback for us directly, please feel free to send it in. Yeah, thanks guys. You really build me out. They worked really hard to get me back up and running. So I was really, really happy they did the network engineering and they work hard. So yeah, thanks guys. Yeah, it sounds like they're much more responsive than the cable company who shall not remain nameless spectrum here in California that doesn't quite give that level of service. But anyway. Yeah. So, you know, Larry, we haven't recorded a show in a while and I have to let you know I think I've found the most perfect Linux ever. And I've been running it for about three, three and a half weeks maybe. Wow, that's a long time for you, Bill. Yes, yes. I can't find anything wrong with it. I mean, it does everything almost perfectly. And we'll talk about that maybe on a future show. But I want to give a shout out to Dor from DorDorGeek because he kind of turned me on (2/53)
to it and told me to give it a second look because I'd heard about it and I wasn't going to install it. But after he says, hey, you need to look into it and read about it. And so I installed it and it's just it's just been really smooth and beautiful. You've told us about it, but you haven't told us what it is. What is it? Well, I took the plunged into deep end in with deep in Linux. It's D-E-P-I-N and yeah, a little play on words there. Two E's, right? D-E-P-I-N. OK. Yeah. So I jumped into deep end with deep end. So hey, OK, it's my play on words. What do you want? And you didn't drown. So you're good. Yeah. It's really been flawless. I'm actually recording on it. It's based on Debian Stable and it's really, really a good distro. I've been very impressed and very pleased with it. And we can do a mini review of deep end. Yeah, maybe one of the other shows we can give a quick little review of it. Other thing I found is, you know, someone was saying that they kind of missed like classic (3/53)
Minecraft. So I actually found one and it's called Mine Test. It's a Minecraft clone. OK. And it's a native Linux game or is it a Steam game? Yeah, it's it. Yeah. You can get it out of the repos. Oh, nice. OK. Yeah. And Mine Test. I thought that was kind of funny, but yeah, it's not Minecraft. That's Mine Test. So if you go to your repos and type in Mine Test, it's a it's a I mean, a straight up Minecraft clone. It runs really well. So yeah, give it a give it a whirl. I think you'll be pretty pleased with it. I know I was like, wow, this thing looks just like Minecraft. So anyway, I'm easy to entertain. Well, you've got the computing hardware for it, so that's good. Not that Minecraft or Mine Test is very stressful on your computing hardware. I would imagine. You know what, you're afraid those blocks are going to slow your... No, it should run fine on just about everything. It seems pretty light. So yeah, if you're looking for a well done Minecraft clone that you can get out of your (4/53)
repos, try Mine Test. OK, we'll add that into the show notes. Yes, I already did. OK. Oh, you did already. OK. Yeah, see. I'm ahead of the game today. OK, so shall we get into our email? We have quite a few emails this time and some of them pretty long. OK, let's jump into them. OK, our first one is from NZ17, who wrote an update, how Helios got his voice back. Aloha from Utah. I am writing to let you know what happened with Ken Helios Starks. To remind everyone, Helios is not just a Linux enthusiast, he also is a giving guy who refurbishes computers and their parts to rebuild them into Linux machines for poor families. His organization Reglue finds those underprivileged families in Texas who require a free technological boost and a bit of training in the ways of Linux to get back to even ground with the rest of society. Recently Helios ElectroLerics broke being unable to pay for a replacement with government health care. His friends turned to open source community to ask for help. I'm (5/53)
happy to report that thanks to the generosity of the free Libra open source community, Helios is talking again. Their GoFundMe campaign was successful and the new ElectroLerics arrived at his place. Helios and his family are all very grateful for everyone who contributed to giving him his voice back. Occasionally those that give also receive. Thanks to all of the viewers and listeners that contributed and thanks gentlemen of Linux for sharing the word about Reglue's work and the campaign for a new ElectroLerics. Pedantic minion number one, NZ17, Vernal, Utah. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm sure that is really going to be life changing. I mean, can you imagine not being able to say anything? Oh no. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm glad that we were able as a community to help him. Our next one comes from Highlander who wrote us about bypassing a GUI update blockage in Fedora 29. The ability to get updates through the graphical user interface seems to have ended for Fedora 29 users. I (6/53)
don't know when that ability will return. I looked up the error message, no Klaus support and I found this and then the link is in the show notes. It's to there. It looks like a question and answer session and it says, I ran the sudo dnf update command in my terminal while I logged in as administrator. I entered in my password and updates were completed. The update process can take up to an hour regardless of how fast your internet connection is. After the update finished, there was a noticeable difference in Firefox. Firefox version 60.0.2 is shipped with the title bar turned off for Fedora 29 users. Without the title bar, users cannot minimize Firefox into the background. Just right click it on the menu bar and then left click on customize in the lower left of the screen and you will see the title bar with a check box beside it. Left click on the check box and your ability to minimize Firefox in the background will be restored. I wonder what caused this loss of Klaus support. I am (7/53)
still waiting for the answer. Regards Highlander. Aesthetum makes no sense. It makes no sense that they would have turned that off. I'm sure they can do that intentionally at Fedora. Obviously a bug. So yeah, I'm hoping that it's been fixed by now. It wasn't that long ago that Highlander sent this in. So maybe as long ago as couple of weeks, three weeks, I'm guessing. Maybe more recently than that. Keep us updated Highlander, especially for those listeners of ours who are using Fedora 29. I'm sure they've bumped their heads against this one or wondering why they're not getting updates. Well, I wonder if it's because Fedora 30 was released, but I'm sure they wouldn't stop immediately Fedora 29. So yeah, it must have been a bug. Yeah. It might have fixed in Fedora 30. Yeah, that's kind of weird. Yeah. Okay. Well, good luck. Keep us up to date Highlander. Thanks. Our next email is from Hamilcar and he or she wrote us with a follow up to listener feedback 359 December 20th, 2018. Hmm. (8/53)
Okay. Hello, Larry and Bill. After experimenting with Ubuntu, Mint and Manjaro, I decided on Mate. I picked up a Thelio major from system 76. Now the crux of the change from Windows in my experience, number one, learning the basis of Linux. I used GRUR99 tutorials on YouTube. Of course, we'll have a link in the show notes. Monthly publications, Linux magazine and Linux format, purchasing using Ubuntu Mate and its applications and the recommended the Linux command line. Those were a big help. Number two, ease of use for other users to migrate. Number three, a challenging transition was application choice. For example, EM client versus Thunderbird, Notepad versus G note, et cetera. The most difficult transition was of files and folders. After 10 years, it was needed to consolidate, remove and just plainly redo folders and clean up old crud. Once again, thanks to you guys for a wonderful endeavor and your advice. I did contribute to Thunderbird, Ubuntu Mate and others. The podcast Linux (9/53)
for the rest of us was lax in noting which show had a valid point in which we must donate and or pay for software to help the developers of Linux to survive. Okay, so that Linux for the rest of us is Doris podcast, right? Yes. So Dor, if you can give us the episode where you noted the valid points on donating and or paying for software, that would be great. We'll include a mention of that in a future episode once we get that. Yeah. So our next email come from Steven who emailed about Discord and OpenSUSE. Hi, Larry and Bill. I enjoyed listening to the podcast episodes. Thanks for the effort you guys put into publishing the show. I'm relatively new to GNU Linux, about a year or so, mainly based on Windows 10 updates being intrusive and rendering a Windows 7 machine useless. I didn't do a whole lot of distro-hopping basically because a software I wanted to run was only officially supported on SUSE or Red Hat. I muddled my way through the OpenSUSE install with GNOME desktop. Initially, I (10/53)
was wondering, now what? As it was just a simple screen and nothing resembling the Windows dock area and minimized Windows went to limbo somewhere. But I eventually figured out that GNOME tweaks and got an application menu in places, dock at the top and minimize Windows to show at the bottom. But now that I'm used to it, I find I'm just hitting the super key and typing the first three or so letters to bring up the application I want to use. Bill, as you found, it took me a while to get comfortable with all the different places to alter settings and such. But after running OpenSUSE Leap 42.3 for a while and now Leap 15.0, I am loving the working environment. Anyway, you mentioned Discord and Winetrix. From fiddling, I found three places to get software. Number one, obviously finding and adding extra repositories besides the main OpenSUSE repository. Number two, the built-in software app store that sometimes takes a while to populate properly. Number three, the OpenSUSE software web (11/53)
search site, which has a handy one-click install feature when you find the piece of software you want. I'm not sure which version of OpenSUSE you tried, 42.3 or the newer 15.0 or the rolling tumbleweed release. However, in Leap 15.0, if you are subscribed to the OpenSUSE update repository, the non-OSS or non-open source, Discord is available at version 0.9, which seems to be current. I'm not, that was a question. I'm not sure about that. I have to look at when I'm running now. I don't use it, so I'm not sure what version would be the most current. See screen shots attached. If you need to find software and have trouble finding it in your subscriber repositories other than adding other repositories, you can search at the OpenSUSE software site. They then have a one-click install button. Try this link. You can search for other packages in the top bar and can set it if you only want official releases or experimental or community packages. Looks like WineTricks is an official for OpenSUSE (12/53)
tumbleweed, but experimental for 42.3 and 15.0 releases. He includes the link to it. Then he says, sounds like you have moved on anyway. Yeah, he knows me too well. If you ever come back to it and have any questions, I'd be happy to pass on any tips I've learned in this past year. I'm not the most experienced Linux user, but I've had to solve my own issues in getting OpenSUSE set up on five pieces of hardware. Cheers guys, Steven. Thank you for the offer, Steven. If I ever go back to OpenSUSE and have problems, I will definitely be emailing you with some questions. Yeah, and I haven't used OpenSUSE in a long, long time. My experience was back in the GNOME 2 days. So yeah, it's been a while. OpenSUSE just doesn't work for me. I guess it does things differently. I'm not saying it's a bad distribution. I've been running Debian base so long, and I've gotten used to it. Like I said, nothing wrong with it. But if I ever do check it out, I will definitely pick Steven's brain. Yeah, (13/53)
absolutely. Yeah, OpenSUSE is one of those that I want to like, but when I do try it out, it always seems like a distribution that is built for servers and they offer a desktop version just so that their employees have something to use on the desktop. I don't know. It's good and it's complete, but it's not as user friendly as something like Ubuntu or something like that. Yeah, I think that's it. I want to like it, but it always makes me mad for some reason. Yeah, there's always something funky about it. Yeah. The Yast package manager is... I don't know, I can't get my head around it for some reason, but that's probably because I'm so used to using like synaptic or stuff like that. So anyway, maybe one day I'll look at it again. Yep. Well, our next email is from James who has a question about config file syntax. Hello, Larry and Bill, hoping you're both well. I have been poking around in the speechd.conf file to change an ORCA related setting and noticed that each line began with a hash (14/53)
or number symbol. After changing the setting, I removed the hash symbol, believing that it was akin to a comment symbol in programming languages such as Python. That is, any line preceded by a hash symbol will be ignored by the Python interpreter. I returned to the file a little later and found that the hash symbol had returned. Since then, I have wanted to know what the purpose of the hash symbol in this file is, if not to comment out lines. Unfortunately I am getting nowhere fast, other than discovering that there seems to be no agreed formula for writing a config file in Linux. I am guessing that there are some loose rules, otherwise how would programs respond to their configuration files? Anyway, would yourself or Bill happen to know what the purpose of the hash symbol is in config files? If this is not used to comment lines, please. Thank you and keep up the great work. I love the show, my favorite Linux podcast. Well thanks, James. And in most configuration files I have seen, the (15/53)
hash symbol is used to comment out lines. And what I have noticed with ORCA is they do their own thing. So maybe they've got their own convention around configuration files that doesn't align with other configuration files or other programs in Linux. And I'm not surprised that it varies from application to application, simply because I don't think there is a standard. I think it's a loosely adopted best practice, rather than a, you must build configuration files this way. But I'm not a programmer, I may be wrong there. So I would ask two things, audience. If you are an ORCA user and have messed around in the configuration files, or even if you're not an ORCA user and you're helping with the distribution, let us know what that hash symbol means and why it came back. I'm assuming there's some master copy of a config file that overwrites anything that a user might mess up. And the second thing is, do you know, is there a standard for configuration files for Linux? I was just sitting here (16/53)
thinking, I thought the hash was basically just for comments, you know, change of setting or notes, because a lot of programmers, programs I've seen or configuration files, they'll have the hash or number symbol, whatever you want to call it. And it usually has, you know, comments that the program just ignores. So I have no clue about that. Yeah. So James mentions that it is a comment indicator in Python and in bash scripts, shell scripts, it's a comment and several other of the configuration files I've seen, it's used for comments. So huh, seems to be kind of a convention, if not a formal convention. Anyway, we'll ask the minions and see if anybody smarter than us knows the answer. Well, I'm sure that if anybody knows our minions would. Yeah, that's kind of bizarre. I have to think about that one. I might have to go look through the Orca man pages and see if it says anything about that. No. So our next email comes from Albert and he says that he's fairly new to the show. Well, (17/53)
welcome, Albert. But anyway, he writes, good morning. I love the show. I have been listening to the show for the past few months, along with other Linux shows. I just installed Pop OS on my ThinkPad X220 Core i5 with 8 gigabytes of DDR3 RAM and a 250 gigabyte Samsung EVO SSD and a brand new 9 cell battery. It runs smoother than elementary OS. My question is, I need a new printer, but I don't print every day. I have an Epson Inkjet like 430 series, but it seems like the cartridge clogs up all the time. One of my friends told me to get a cheap laser printer since I might print two or three times a month. I don't need color. Is there any good option out there for Linux? I was just looking at an HP LaserJet Pro M29W at Walmart for $110, but don't know. What printers play nice with Linux? Keep up the great work on the show. Thank you, West Fargo, North Dakota. Albert. Hmm. Larry. Okay. Yeah, ThinkPad's a nice computer and Pop OS is, from all reports I've heard, a nice version of Linux to (18/53)
install on there. Sounds like it's working just fine for you. So from a printer perspective, I've had Epson printers, I've had Samsung printers, I've had HP printers. I've had some others that I don't remember the name of because they weren't really good. Epson, I did notice their inkjet printers do have a tendency to clog up more often than the others that I've had. And I've said this before, but my best experience has always been with HP printers, whether it's their LaserJet printers or their inkjet printers, either one. And yes, if you're not using the printer a lot, it will clog up the cartridges, the ink cartridges. So they tend to just dry up a little bit. So LaserJet might just be the ticket for you. And if all you need is monochrome printing, black and white printing, the LaserJet printers are relatively inexpensive. $110 seems about right for the HP low-end multifunction printer that the M29W is. If you need the extra functions, that's great. If you need the scanning, and I (19/53)
don't know whether that one has fax built in or not, or if you even use fax. So you might want to consider just a LaserJet printer without all the multifunction stuff if you don't need it. But if not, that HP is probably just fine. We'll include a link in the show notes to the hardware reference guide, Linux compatibility hardware reference. And that should give you some idea before you go out and purchase a printer, which of the printers that are available to you in Walmart or any other store you want to go to is compatible with Linux. So just bring that link along with you on your phone to the store you're going to and look up the model that they have there on the shelf and see if it's Linux compatible. They'll give some ratings there, things from works perfectly to most functions work to this is a paperweight. And you'll be able to tell from there whether or not it's Linux compatible and how Linux compatible it actually is. Yeah, well, I had a printer, I can't remember what it was, (20/53)
it wasn't HP because I have an HP OfficeJet 3830 that works. But I remember when I switched to Linux, it basically was a good doorstop. Yeah. I think it was old brother. I think it was. Yes, brother is one of those that has troubles with Linux or has troubles with it, whatever. And you know, if you do get an HP, and even if you don't get an HP, there's a utility usually in the repositories of most, if not all Linux versions, and it's called HP-LIP-Toolbox. And if you install that, that gives you a little utility that lets you manage the functions of your HP printer and or fax machine and or scanner and monitors things like ink level or toner cartridge level, things like that. It's just got a bunch of utilities in there that just make it easier to manage your printer and clean out the printheads if you need to and things like that. So that's specifically written by HP for the Linux community, and it's an excellent tool. And I've used it with just about every brand of printer out there. (21/53)
It's not just HP that it works with. Okay. There you go. So Troy wrote us about episode 365. Hi, guys. Happy Easter, happy spring, and all that jazz. In episode 365, one of your users was looking for recommendations on laptops for taking on the road for what sounds like more than graphically intensive or processor intensive applications, for example, Adobe, gaming, etc. First of all, I would not recommend those hybrid computers that are primarily tablets with a keyboard that attaches to it. For example, Microsoft Surface, etc. They are simply expensive toys with not enough storage. If you break them, you don't get them fixed. You buy a new one. They are worthless in my opinion. Manufacturers are trying to make a computer that is a notebook and a tablet at the same time but do neither job well. The screens are very small. The solid state drives are very small. They have a fixed amount of memory and you don't upgrade them. If you drop one and break it, just kiss it goodbye. It will cost (22/53)
almost as much to fix it as it will be to buy a new one. They don't make good tablets and are less efficient to navigate and actually get anything done in them in tablet mode. If you want a notebook, get a notebook, Windows, Linux, whatever. If you want a tablet, get a tablet, iPad, Android, whatever. If you want to do different tasks in each mode, then get one of each. If you want to do quick and simple tasks on a tablet, I recommend Samsung Galaxy tablets over just about anything. For real computing, if you want to spend some bucks, you could look at System76 that comes with Ubuntu or Pop!OS pre-installed. If you plan on dual booting, you may have to wipe it, install Windows first and then install the original OS afterwards. If you want to buy off the shelf, I personally recommend getting a nicer higher end model Dell Inspiron. Get something with at least an Intel i5 quad core processor or an i7 and 16 GB of memory. Either get a 500 GB SSD drive or a 256-500 GB eMMC drive for the (23/53)
operating system with a 1 TB or higher SATA drive for data. Unless you absolutely need to dual boot your computer due to system requirements of certain programs or because the particular games you run have specific hardware requirements, for example graphics card, 3D, etc., and cannot effectively interface with your graphics hardware directly, I would suggest installing Linux Mint on the computer directly and run Windows in a virtual machine instead. Just make sure you have 16-32 GB of memory in the computer so the virtual machine runs more efficiently, especially if you're running certain games in it. Side note, keep in mind, if you buy System 76, you would then need to purchase a separate license for Windows 10 separately from the cost of the computer. If you go with Dell or other brand, they will come with a license for Windows 10, just my two cents worth of Troy, aka Jack Death. Well, thanks so much Troy. Great recommendations and yeah, we appreciate your opinion. That's pretty (24/53)
good advice. Yeah, mine, doesn't yours also have like a SSD for the, and then a larger SATA drive or what sometimes they call them, rest drives, the old spinning platters for the programs or do you? Yeah, I had that configuration in my System 76 Galago or Galago Pro, one of the older ones, but now that I'm on the Dell XPS 13, it's a solid state drive. It's actually a drive on a card as opposed to a hard drive sort of thing, but yeah, I have an external hard drive that I keep stuff on when I'm sitting here at my desk, but for carrying this thing around, I've got plenty of storage on this thing. I think I put 500 gigabyte of storage on it if I remember correctly and yeah, it works really well for me. Okay. George from Tulsa commanded on episode 368, Back to Basics. You're right, Ubuntu Bungie, although I prefer Simon, I'm running Ubuntu Bungie 1904 on my Hades Canyon NUC. The Hades Canyon has the Kirby Lake G with Hybrid Intel i7 and AMD Vega graphics. Linux didn't work on it at all (25/53)
until kernel 4.18 plus and the updated Mesa drivers from Martin Winpress had included in the 18.10 Ubuntu releases. Bungie works very well and is mostly elegant. The change of the file manager from Nautilus to Nemo in 19.04 had one unfortunate consequences. The 18.10 version of Nautilus had a bulk file rename, very nicely implemented and saved a lot of work when importing photos to be named or file structures a user wants to create with a logical naming structure. Fortunately, it is possible to install Nautilus from the Bungie Software Center and it co-exists nicely with Nemo, bringing with its bulk file rename. Nemo, which comes from Mint, is supposed to be extendable to do bulk renaming, but my searches for how to implement it turned up nothing useful. Prior to discovering bulk renaming in Nautilus, I had installed KDE's K-Rename and it works great just some extra steps. Pop! OS. I tried Gnome in Ubuntu 18.10. Gnome tweaks used to include the ability to stop windows that reach top or (26/53)
corners from blooming out and taking half the screen. Since I work on large monitors, I have plenty of screen real estate and even on my laptop find the pop this window has just expanded behavior very annoying. I like the new feature in Pop! OS that allows non-destructive reinstall repair of a broken Linux. How about a report on how it works in real life? Bill, you should have plenty of experience. Haha. Haha. Ok. Folks, who regularly futz up their system will undoubtedly appreciate the new refresh install options that's been added to the recovery partition, though this is only included on new installs. Using this rescue method, you can reinstall Pop! OS without losing any data in your home directory or any users you've added to the system. Does Pop! OS version of Gnome enable blocking of the window popping behavior? I think the official name for it is Automatic Tiling. Dropbox. Haven't used Dropbox in forever. Should probably clear out what's in mine. Stopped using the Dropbox sync (27/53)
folder years ago and relied on the web interface. Currently using Synologies at work and home. Those come with a Synology drive that does include a local sync folder that's handy and I don't need to worry if I accidentally drop a sensitive unencrypted file into the sync queue as it's encrypted when transmitted and only accessible by me. Apart of the same feature set that they're send, Firefox.com up to 2.5GB of encrypted transfer, optional extra security by adding user password. I scanned the info about the service on GitHub and while I'm hardly a cryptologist, it seemed like they were doing all the right things. Works on any browser, not just Firefox and enables multiple separate downloads with links good for 7 days. As always, enjoy your efforts on behalf of all of us, George. Okay. Hmm. Yeah, George, thanks for all of those helpful suggestions. Interesting stuff. I'm going to put... I hadn't put a link... let's see... send.firefox.com. That's a new syncing service, or new to me, (28/53)
syncing service. I hadn't heard of that one before, didn't know it existed, probably because I don't really use Firefox and haven't seen it. But it looks pretty simple to set up. Drag and drop files onto the website and you're in. So you can sign in or sign up right there on the main page and... interesting. All right, William commented on episode 367 and Zorin. Hi guys, long time listener. In listener feedback episode 367, you talked a bit about the Zorin release of Linux I wanted to put in my two cents worth. First, everything you said was true, but there is a case for using Zorin. First, let me explain. I was a reasonably happy Windows XP user. I had heard of Linux from a couple of different people, and then my fiancé even had a now forgotten version of Ubuntu on her computer that a friend had given her. She barely knew what to do with it. I have to admit it looked unfamiliar to me, and I really didn't try to figure it out. Instead, we just did everything on my XP desktop. As I (29/53)
said, it did everything I needed, and I was happy with it. Then, of course, Windows XP reached end of support. Another thing to know about me is that I'm fairly handy, and I'm a cheapskate. I was not about to spend money on a new version of Windows that was also starting to look temporary. Also, it looked a lot like I was going to have to upgrade my hardware to even do that. I was using a perfectly good HP compact desktop computer and an older Dell laptop that worked perfectly fine. It went against everything to scrap perfectly good hardware just so someone else could make money. I looked at Linux again. Linux Mint came to the rescue. It worked just fine on both my computers, did everything I needed. I even set up the old desktop to dual boot XP and Mint. I forget which Mint version was current at the time. I was using a couple of programs that I could only get to run on XP then, so the dual boot took care of it. Since then, I got more confident with Wine and Play on Linux, and I (30/53)
rarely even boot the XP. For the rare occasion that I do need Windows, I still have the old dual boot, and I even have XP and Vista instances on VirtualBox on the laptop. But what about Zorin? Well, I have several laptops I've picked up here and there, and all run some form of Linux. My wife and I do woodworking and art, among other things. I was setting up an old Dell Latitude D600 for occasional use in the shop. That is not a place where you want to set up your good laptop. At the time, this was several years ago, many of the flavors of Linux I tried would not recognize the wireless card in the D600, at least without a lot of extra work. I tried every version I could find, and nothing worked. This is, after all, a 2003 computer and pretty light specs for these days. I finally tried Zorin OS 9 in the Free Lite version, and it immediately worked with no hiccups. It did everything I needed flawlessly, and was acceptably fast on the D600. Admittedly, it pulled light duty, but I kept it (31/53)
on for many years with no problems. The free version was just fine. Cheapskate, remember? I also found, more recently, that Linux Lite works also, and I went ahead and went to that for no real reason other than trying something new, and it seemed to run a tiny bit faster. As I said, I'm handy, and I enjoy tinkering with things and making them work. My wife, on the other hand, just wants to open up her laptop and have it do the stuff she wants with no fuss. Her laptop is currently a Dell Latitude E5400, a 2009 era laptop that came with Vista. Same thing, worked fine, no reason to change, but then Vista ended support. I had no qualms about installing Zorin OS 9 Lite on hers. She barely noticed the difference. Still works just fine, with no drama or issue. As I said, your points were all valid and correct. Zorin really doesn't do much that you can't do with other versions of Linux. However, it is a valid tool under some circumstances, and occasionally, it may be the only one for a (32/53)
particular bit of hardware. I also ran across something on a different topic just a day ago. My current main machine is a Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop. It works fine, and it lives on my desk at home. I was using Mint 17.3, and it worked very good. As I was planning to go upgrade my hard drive from 750GB to 1TB, I decided also to make the shift to Mint 19.1. It seemed easy enough. Remove the old drive, install the new one, install Mint 19.1, then copy necessary data from the old drive using the USB SATA link I have. The first part went fine. When it came to copying data from the old drive, it would not mount. This drive had just been working perfectly. I tried a couple of different drive checking programs, and none could access it. Basically, I was getting cannot mount and unknown partition type messages. I cannot figure out why suddenly this drive did not work. I even tried reinstalling it into the laptop, and nothing worked. Fortunately, I had a recent backup, so I didn't lose much of (33/53)
anything. However, it's a puzzle and inconvenient. I've swapped drive and recovered files with little problem many times before. This is the first time for this thing. Thanks for listening. All the best, William. Okay, William, thanks for the review of Zorin OS and your journey to moving to Linux. This could have gone into a gone Linux section, but yeah, it's... your question is kind of what puts it into the listener feedback category, and that is what happened. You know, when you upgraded to Mint 19.1 or installed from scratch Mint 19.1, why wouldn't it mount the old drive? And I'm not sure. I've had that happen on occasion, and because I have multiple copies of things, I just copied the file from another backup, as you did, and just didn't worry about it. One thing I have found useful is mounting the drive as administrator, but then again, you have to get it to mount first, and I think that was your problem, and I don't know if anyone... Bell, do you have, before we turn this over to (34/53)
our minions, do you have any thoughts on how to get it to mount when it was mounting fine under the previous operating system and now it doesn't? No. I'm sitting here listening to it, and I don't know why... could it be... no, I don't know. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, I have no idea, and I didn't take the time to figure it out when it happened to me. I just did what you did, so it may remain a mystery if everybody does that, but if any of our going Linux minions knows what is going on here, please let us know, and let's let William know as well. I like William. He uses hardware until they just can't work anymore. Yeah, exactly. Like I said, that's a great way to keep recycling old computers. Our next email comes from Highlander, who wrote us and copied the Mincast. Dear Bill and Larry, all of the security add-ons that I'd like to use in Firefox from within the GNU Linux system have been shut down while I was accessing my personal email and then later when I was watching the news. I'm not happy (35/53)
with this development. It looks and feels as if there is some form of attack against all Linux users. Can you investigate and find out what's going on? Add-ons affected are Ubuntu 18.04.01, Linux Mint 19, Fedora 29, currently running Firefox 66.0.3. The add-ons affected are Avia, Browser Safety, HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript, Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin. Thanks guys, Highlander. Leo from the Mincast responded, Hey Highlander, Bill, Larry. Wasn't copied on any responses, so please forgive me for the wide reply. Highlander, the issue is currently being worked on by Firefox and you probably already have the initial fix. It's a certificate issue that affects most, if not all add-ons in Firefox, preventing them from functioning. There are some temporary workarounds, but aren't recommended. Firefox's advice is to sit tight if you aren't already fixed up, go check. This will be permanently fixed in a future update. I heard about this, it was a certificate issue, so apparently there's a (36/53)
certificate that no one found out that was getting ready to expire, and expired, and then Firefox broke. But they have fixed it apparently, and so it happened over the weekend from what I understand. So apparently it's fixed, or probably it's already, I know it's fixed by the time you're here this. So yeah, it wasn't a tech on the next, I mean, Windows users and anybody running it was affected that had those add-ons. All right, and our next email is from Ghetto Geek, who offers a solution for Michael regarding Ubuntu on an SSD. He's referring to the listener feedback episode 367, where at timestamp 1433, Michael talks about Ubuntu on SSD. I have a solution for Michael's HP laptop storage. If as I suspect, if Michael has a DVD drive on his laptop and doesn't use it, as most users currently don't, other than to watch a movie every once in a while, he can convert that drive to a two and a half inch hard drive caddy. I'm aware that he doesn't live in the USA, but they're everywhere and (37/53)
inexpensive. Install this SSD for his Linux distro and a mechanical hard drive in that caddy. And we have a link to that listing on Amazon in case you're interested. Hope that helps. Ghetto Geek, West District GEO, Geek Executive Officer, Detroit branch. OK, thanks Ghetto Geek. A Geek Executive Officer, Detroit branch. That's awesome. Nick wrote us about problems with LibreOffice and he says, hi team, I have a problem with LibreOffice 5 and Linux Mint 18.2. No spell check. Re-installed from software manager and there was no help. Just found your great show based in the UK. Many thanks. Best regards, Nick. No spell check. Huh. Yeah. I have LibreOffice right here. Let me see something real quick. I wonder if he installed the full office. I know they have like a stripped down version. LibreOffice 5. Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking as well. Maybe there was a different version in the Mint repositories in 18.2? Yeah. I don't know. And I'm just looking here. I'm just trying to (38/53)
misspell something. And, huh. So go here to tools and it says word count and spelling. It says, OK. Hmm. It comes up and it, you know, of course it doesn't seem to find anything I wrote in it. I didn't notice that. Maybe you have to enable it. Well, OK. It says F7, function 7. OK. And let's see if, OK. So I misspelled my name. I used to find out because I always misspelled my name. The last one I hit N said M. So I go up here to spelling grammar and it says it doesn't see anything. Huh. I don't know. It might be a bug. I don't know. Hang on a second. I'm going to try the same thing. So autocorrect while typing is on. And spelling, if I go to F7 for spellcheck, it shows the word. And so I'm thinking that you have to run spellcheck separately. He may be looking for an automatic spellcheck as you're typing sort of thing, you know, with a wavy line underneath. And if I remember correctly, you need to enable that. And I don't see where to do that. Oh, there we go. Automatic spell checking, (39/53)
Shift-F7. Shift-F7. Yeah. Yeah. And that puts the wavy red line under a misspelled word so you can see it. Does it? Yep. So you just have to. Yeah, it's under the tools menu. And on my version, 6.2 point something of LibreOffice Writer, it shows up as the second list. Yeah, mine does do now too. Yeah. So yeah, Shift-F7 and see if that works for you. Yep. There you go, Nick. Okay. Our next email is from Scott who wrote, I have an HP 8560P laptop. I'm running Linux Mint 18.2 KDE on a Kingwin USB 3.0 EZDock docking station. Model EZD2535U3 with UASP support. I'm not sure what that is. The SSD drive is a Crucial MX500, 500 gigabyte. Tried running trim commands, but it doesn't work. Confirmed trim is supported with sudo hdparm-i slash dev slash sdb. And then grepping that to look for trim supported. It says data set management trim supported eight blocks. Then I ran another command and it says discard option is not supported. Then I did the following. To try to verify trim support, I ran (40/53)
lsblk dash dash discard and check the values of the discard granularity and the discard maximum bytes columns. Non-zero values indicate trim support. All the values were zero. That says trim is not supported. When I run fs trim dash dash all, I don't get any return code. Andy lists the return codes and what they're supposed to be. I read trim is a SATA command and not supported on USB on the Ubuntu forum. Even if the SSD reports that trim is supported and even if the enclosure supports UASP, I don't think there are any USB bridge controllers that support SCSI slash ATA translation pass-through, which would need to pass the trim command. You cannot trim USB SSD drives. You need to leave garbage collection to the drives themselves. To run trim on those drives, you'd need a SATA connection. But what I also found out is the controller on your motherboard actually has to support UASP as well. I asked HP on their website through live chat if my computer has UASP. They couldn't answer me. I (41/53)
looked at the user manual and reference guide for my computer and they didn't find anything that said UASP. I have an eSATA port on my computer if I connected the SSD drive with eSATA to SATA adapter cable. Will trim work? If it does work, will the SSD be slower on eSATA than on USB 3.0? If trim does work on the eSATA port, what should I do to have trim run automatically? I don't want my SSD life cut short because I can't use trim. Is active garbage collection built into the SSD good enough? How long will the SSD last without trim? According to the crucial website, trim also affects longevity of the solid state drive. If data is written and erased from the same NAND cells at the same time, those cells will lose integrity. For optimum life, each cell should be utilized at roughly the same rate as other cells. This is called wear leveling. The trim command tells the SSD which cells can be erased during the idle time, which also allows the drive to organize the remaining data-filled cells (42/53)
and the empty cells to write to avoid unnecessary erasing and rewriting. Trim is a useful tool that can benefit the speed and longevity of your drive. But if your operating system doesn't support trim, it's not a disaster. All of the crucial SSDs are designed and tested assuming that they would be used without trim. Thank you. That in a very technical way describes a little bit about trim from Scott's experience and the research that he's done. So thanks for that, Scott. Looks like you can't do the trim command on an SSD over USB and it needs a SATA connection to do that. I knew that some SSDs, particularly the more recent SSDs, probably have a life span, even with the level of writes and rewrites that are current in computers. They have a life span that typically is much greater than they were when SSDs were first brought out and it's not so much of a problem as it has been in the past. And his research from the Crucial website kind of indicates why that might be. That, at least in (43/53)
the Crucial drives, they've built that in so that if you're using an SSD without trim, no problem. That was in depth. Yeah. He did a lot of research there. Thanks. Yeah, he did a lot of research. I was just reading through it again. He went all out. That's impressive. Good work, Scott. Our next email comes from Heath from Australia who commented on episode 367 and he writes, Larry and Bull. Hmm. Okay. You played a voice message from Paul who had some scanner driver issues. He commented that he thought it was odd that the scanner worked in Mint 18.3 but not in 19.1. Looking at the forms ReadyShare, the fix is to make a link to the library. The location and or the version looks to have changed and the fix is to make a link with the old version name to the library with a newer version name. If the library version is hard coded in the reference inside the driver, it will not recognize the new version as a valid library to use. I've also had issues in the past where libraries were missing (44/53)
due to being depreciated and removed from the distribution. These had to be located on GitHub or Source Forward and manually installed. Hope this helps, Heath. Thanks, Heath. So, yeah. I could see why it's changed in the driver. Do you think it would be? I don't think it would. He probably just needs to point it to the library, right? He says if the library version is hard coded in the reference inside the driver, it will not recognize the new version. Unless you're a programmer who knows how to write drivers, I don't know how you would re-point it. I don't see why they would modify the driver to point to a different library unless they changed the file structure from 18.3 to 19.1. Oh, that's possible. It's just in a different location. I can't find it and they forgot to update the driver. They might be able to just re-point it. And maybe that's what downloading the latest version off of GitHub accomplishes. So if you find a solution to that, let us know. That's an interesting one. (45/53)
There you go. Alright, Highlander wrote us again about offline backups. Regardless of whether you are using Windows or Linux, everyone should create offline backups of your most critical data. Here's why. And he has a link to an article from CNN on ransomware attacks on US cities. He says fixed media might be your best choice for data you think is critical or irreplaceable. Okay, so we'll include that link in the show notes. Our next email comes from Scott who provided a mouse tip that works with Linux. Hello Larry and Bill. First off, I want to say how much I enjoy listening to your podcasts. I find it very positive and informative. So I asked you guys a few years ago about a computer mouse that I can use the programmable buttons. I like to have one button for control W and another one for space bar so I can quickly scroll through multiple tabs. I haven't had much luck until recently. I found that gaming mice can sometimes store the programs in the mouse itself versus in the driver on (46/53)
the computer. So I first started with a Corsair Saber that did not work very good and I quickly gave up on that. Then I tried the Razer Death Adler Elite. I liked this mouse but had problems with that also. I then gave it one last try and got a Logitech G502 Proteus Supreme gaming mouse. This was very easy to set up and it gives you the option to store the information on the device or computer. So the trick is to start in Windows the first time, install the Logitech software and program the buttons how you like. From there you can switch to Linux and the buttons will retain their settings. The only downside is that you have to switch to Windows if you want to make changes but that isn't a big deal to me. I learned after the fact that you want to look for a gaming mouse that has on board memory so others may work. I hope this will help other listeners keep up the good work. Thank you. That's interesting. I have a Corsair mouse 2. I also have one. I can't remember what it's called. I (47/53)
think it's a Spectre or whatever but it has programmable buttons. I had to look to see if you can store it. That would be kind of cool to be able to do that on my mouse. There's all kinds of utilities for for mouses or mice or mice or whatever you want to call them. You know what this is going to mean? Scott's going to have now given me a challenge to see if I can get mine to work. Thanks Scott. Like I don't have enough to do. So there you go. Thanks Scott. Yeah. Thanks Scott. And speaking of utilities and things like that, I have an application pick. And so do I. All right. Well mine is a program called Barrier. And this program eliminates the barrier between two computers for your mouse and keyboard. And you may recall if you've been a listener to the Going Linux podcast for a while, or a reader of our website, that I have described a program called Synergy as my favorite utility program ever. Because it allows you to use one keyboard and mouse across multiple computers, whether the (48/53)
computer is Linux, Mac or Windows. I haven't come across any version for Chrome or anything like that yet. For the three most popular operating systems out there, it allows you, without anything other than the software running, to be able to use a single mouse and keyboard from one of the computers to copy text from one computer to the other, copy other things back and forth, and run the mouse from one computer's screen to the other. Like from a Linux screen over to a Mac screen, and then over to a Windows screen. So you can have a multi-monitor situation that actually uses multiple computers. Well Synergy does that, and I've been using it for a long time. It started life as an open source project, and a couple of years ago they made it proprietary. I did purchase a license for Synergy. I liked it that much. However, in the intervening years, the project called Barrier, B-A-R-R-I-E-R, forked the last version of Synergy before it became proprietary, and have just recently built it to (49/53)
the point where it's completely functional for Windows, Mac and Linux, and it works identically to the way that Synergy did before it became proprietary. So there are a few features that the Synergy folks have added that Barrier doesn't have, but it was completely functional for everything that I wanted it to do, including SSL encryption and things like that. And so Barrier is now available in a number of different repositories, including the Ubuntu repository, and I'm now, I think, going to be recommending that going forward. Nothing wrong with Synergy. If you are an open source enthusiast and prefer to use open source over proprietary software, then Barrier might just be for you. So you use Barrier. You like it? Yes, I've been using it for almost a month now, and it works just fine. Huh. Okay, well, you picked the boring work one. I picked the fun one. Mine's called Make Human, and it's M-A-K-E-H-U-M-A-N all together, and you can find it in your repositories. And Make Human is a (50/53)
completely free, innovative, and professional software for the modeling of 3D dimensional humanoid characters. So I found it when I was in the app store of Deepin, and I also made sure it was in the repositories. It wasn't something that I just added, and it truly is in the repositories. And I was looking, and I started playing with it, and I lost like two hours playing with all the settings and stuff, and up and down, and it was really fun. So if anybody just wants to spend hours just customizing, I mean, they got it every little bit, how they stand, how they walk, the skin texture. It just goes on and on, and I believe there's also some add-ons that you can get from the website, and I include a link in the show notes that has different clothing types and stuff. So you can really do some amazing stuff. You should go to their site. I believe the website is www.makehumancommunity.org. They just added the community not too long ago, so it used to be just makehuman.org, but apparently now (51/53)
it's makehumancommunity.org. But they go there, and they have tutorials. They have how-tos. It's open source. You can download it, play with it, and create with it, and apparently there's ways that you can import some of that stuff into Blender. So if you're looking for something like that, I can highly recommend it. If nothing else, just for the entertainment value. Okay. Sounds very interesting, if that's what you want to do. See, that's the difference. Larry uses his mostly for work, and I use mine mostly for play. So I do work on mine. I have to kill imaginary things on imaginary planets once in a while. Yeah, and I'm sure that's a lot of work. It is a lot of work. See? We think alike. There you go. Well, thanks for that, Bill. Yeah, so a work suggestion and a play suggestion, so that's cool. Well, you could use makehuman to work if you were making a video or something. True? Okay. Very true. All right, that will wrap it up for this episode, Bill. Our next episode will be the next (52/53)
in our series of Run Your Business on Linux episodes. Until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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 a discussion in our Going Linux podcast community at community.goinglinx.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (53/53)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #371 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 371, 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 goingis.gmail.com or leave us voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello Bill. Hello Larry. It is, wasn't it yesterday the first day of summer? I don't know. It's possible. It's sometime in June, so yeah. That's all right. We have summer-like weather here in California. How about there in New Mexico? Yeah, during the day it's really nice, but this morning I actually had to put on a light jacket because it was 56 degrees. (1/54)
Okay, little chilly. But that's all right, because it'll be hot soon enough. It will. It's been around 80s, low 90s, so yeah. It's starting to finally warm up. We've had a pretty mild spring, so I'm looking forward to seeing what it is. We had a cold winter, so yeah, okay. Enough of the weather forecasts. Okay, let's talk about distro-hopping. What are you using now? Oh, I've been using them for about a week now. I just went back to 1804 Ubuntu. I changed to put the bar at the bottom, put a dalto hide, and I just put on my icons. I use it all the time. Very Deepin-esque, Mac-ish, but it works well. Everything I use frequently, I don't have to search for. I just click and it works. It's been rocks day, as Ubuntu always is on the LTSs. Yeah, so I'm pretty happy with it right now, I'm sure. The way things turn around. We'll see how long I can stay on this one. I'm getting tired of keep reinstalling and updating my game I play. I've got a copy of it, so I could just blast it back. Of (2/54)
course, you can customize your interface and everything on the game. I have to redo that all the time. I'm getting really good at it, but it's getting old. I think I'll just stay with this one for a while. I've heard that before, Bill. Hey, hey, hey. There's always that possibility. Yes. I can imagine you sitting there going, I want to reinstall, but I don't want to reinstall. I want to reinstall. I don't want to reinstall. Yeah, that's pretty much where I see the next shiny thing. It's like, ooh, butterfly. That's an inside joke. My dog is fascinated with butterflies. We have a bunch of them, so when he goes out to do his morning ritual, it's chase butterflies for 30 solid minutes. The great white furry hunter never quite catches anything. It's entertaining to watch. He's jumping around. If you didn't know any better, you'd think, why is this dog just jumping in the air? He's trying to catch the butterflies, which are just a little crooked than he is. All right, so we've done the (3/54)
Weather Channel, we've done Distro Hopping, and we've done Animal Planet. Well, actually, that's the bear report. The bear report. Okay, good. Sounds good. All right, so why don't we get into our emails, because that's what people are tuning in to listen to. Well, actually, I think they're just wanting the comic relief of hearing a big grown dog jumping around trying to catch a butterfly unsuccessfully. Well, that may be true. That may be true. And if so, you've had your update for today. Yeah, and I just want to point out, no butterflies were hurt in production to this podcast, so there, PETA won't yell at us. All right, sounds good. So now we've got some PETA disclaimer out of the way. So anyway, our first email comes from Greg, who wrote about GNU Linux distribution's timeline. He writes, Hi guys, being a Linux fanboy, I wanted to share with you if you didn't already know about it. There are several versions out there, but this one seems to be the most current. It would make a great (4/54)
wall decoration, and he lists the link from Wicca Media. Okay, so we'll include that link in the show notes. One error I noticed that I'm pretty sure about, it shows crunch bang as being a derivative of Ubuntu. I'm fairly certain it came straight from Debian, as Brunson Labs does now, when the crunch bang developer decided to call it quits, a new group of people who didn't want to see it die took up under the name Brunson Labs. Or is it Brunson or Bunson? Probably Bunson. I think it's Bunson, yeah. Yeah, so I probably misspelled it. So it's Bunson Labs. There are sure a lot of distributions, hundreds and maybe more that have come and gone over the years. You know Larry, I think, if I remember, because I've written crunch bang, and when I was writing it, it was based on Debian, but I believe he might have used Debian maybe for one version of it before switching over to the Debian base, I'm not sure. I don't know, maybe I'm thinking of something else, but I'm almost sure. He started with (5/54)
Ubuntu? There was one version that was using Ubuntu, and then he switched over to Debian base, and it was like that until he quit. I'm not quite sure. I'm 43% sure that that's the case, but not 100%. And he writes, regards Greg, w8fkj. Okay. So what do you think? Do you remember? Do you think it was always on the web? Debbie, I know you didn't run it. I did for a while. Do you remember? I don't know for sure, and I'm just wondering if distrowatch could tell us anything about it. So I'm going to go over to distrowatch and look for crunchbang. Let me see, where's the search button? There it is. Distronate. Crunchbang. And crunchbang Linux going down based on Debian stable. Origin UK, open box desktop, status is discontinued, version 8.10. It doesn't really tell me in the table where it came from. So at least distrowatch has it as a Debian derivative. I don't know. Maybe you are thinking of something else. I was thinking it was based on Ubuntu originally, but who knows? Yeah, but it was, (6/54)
when at the time I used it, I loved it. I think even Tom tried it out. It was a little too bare bones for him. But yeah, it was a nice distribution and I heard Bunsen Labs is nice. I've looked at it in a virtual box. I haven't really tinkered with it because I guess I like a little more gooey. Yeah, open box is a little spartan. But they do have that cool conky that gives you all this stuff that actually looks like it's built into desktop. So it's really cool. I think a lot of that, I mean, I know some people still use it, but I remember for a while, it was how wild could you make your conky with all the different themes and circles. It was pretty cool. It was a lot of fun. It was a great distribution from all reports I've heard. So, yeah, I guess we didn't really answer his question, but there you go. But thanks a lot for the distribution timeline chart. I've seen different versions of that. And it's one of those that if you try to print it out full size, it'll take up a whole wall. (7/54)
So it's great. It can be that big depending. You either print it really big so you can read it or you just leave it on the screen and zoom in because it's so much stuff in it. So where does it show before even looking at it real close? I took a quick peek at it. I bet you that you have a lot of it coming from a Debian because, you know, a bunch of space on Debian and all that and all the derivatives of Debian. But I wonder if Fedora has that same type of, you know, tree of different distros and stuff. I know you got Red Hat, you've got Fedora. There was Fedora Core that went to now it's just, I think, just Fedora. I mean, that's a lot of different. I mean, it's amazing. And then you've got the Gen 2 project and then you've got Slack. And it's just wild where all this, you know, how quickly they branch out. I guess Ubuntu would be probably the biggest one. Not Ubuntu, Debian. Yeah, Debian is definitely the biggest one. It's right at the top of the chart and it's got a lot. You know, (8/54)
it's a lot. Anyway, Slackware is the one that is the earliest, of course, starting back in 92 or something. Yeah. And then there are a couple of others that kind of faded out that started in around that same time, something called MCC Interim and then TAMU and then DLD and several others. But Red Hat is pretty big as well. Oh, is it? I figured it would be. As you can imagine, sure. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. So Red Hat and something branched off of Red Hat right away and it was called WGS Linux Pro. And it faded out in around, what's the year on this one, 96. So it didn't last for very long. Wow. But everything else kind of forks off from Red Hat and goes into all kinds of things. By the time you get to the right hand side of this, there are hundreds, if not thousands of them. You know, I was listening to the Ubuntu podcast this past week and they were talking about, what was it, and Tegros is closing down shop. And then we had Scientific Linux, who I guess they're just going to go over (9/54)
to the Scent OS base. And they were saying this kind of just brings up, by looking at this tree, kind of brings up that maybe you should, if you want the stability and long term support for Ubuntu, your flavor, you should stay closer to the base that, you know, like you got Debbie and then you got Ubuntu. And then Ubuntu has all the flavors of Ubuntu, Mate, Stock Ubuntu. You have a load of Ubuntu and Subuntu. And they were kind of saying that, say, they take Ubuntu Mate and they just re-theme it. And then they say, here's the new distro. And then they go for a few years and then they just kind of fade out when you could just stay with the Mate and it's still going strong. So I guess they were kind of recommending staying closer to the core. What do you think about that? I mean, I know this is kind of a little tangent, but seeing that brought that conversation back, do you think that it's a good thing? Or should we embrace having all these new distributions? Sometimes it's just changing (10/54)
a little thing and then it's, they call it a whole new distribution when really they haven't really done anything different. Yeah. So my opinion is kind of in alignment with the folks on the Ubuntu podcast. And I listen to that one as well. And I'm kind of of the mind that, you know, just because you can start a new Linux distribution and fork off from something else doesn't mean you should. I kind of agree with, I think it was Martin who was saying that if you have some specific thing that you want to do with your Linux distribution, and it's kind of a specialty distribution specifically for that thing, like scientific Linux was for the scientific market. And Ubuntu Studio is for recording and video and the creative side of things, then there's probably a reason to go off and create your own distribution. But creating a Linux distribution is a lot of work. And if you aren't prepared to see it through, you're going to end up with a Linux distribution that fades out. And those few (11/54)
people who are left holding the bag using your distribution you created have a choice to make, either switch to something else or fork it themselves and continue on. And, you know, if it's one of those that really is just another copy of Ubuntu with different wallpaper or different icons, then why? You know, why are you doing that? People can do that themselves. And if you're doing it just because, you know, you want to and you want to learn, that's OK. And nobody's going to stop you because that's what open source is about. He actually suggested if you want something like that, you should add your talent to the current developers because they're always looking for something else. I mean, if you've got an idea that is awesome and you say, man, this would really make a great addition. Why start a new one when you can just say, you know, go to their user group or their developer group and say, I have this idea and this is it and this is the software or theming or whatever. What do you (12/54)
think? And because I don't know many Linux distributions that would turn down a fantastic idea. Just, you know, yeah, you're not going to say you get to create your own personal distro, but you will get to say if they if you join the development. I'm one of the developers. I helped develop Linux Mint, which you're enjoying right now. So he did say if you're just doing it to learn, then he was all for it. And like I said, there's nothing to stop you. But instead of maybe spreading the development for, you know, three different distributions or three or five, why don't you make contributions to one that's pretty close, find one that, you know, is trying to accomplish what you're wanting to do and then help make it better. And that way it saves a lot of work for you and you get to actually work on your pet project. Yep, there you go. Good idea. So that's I think so. I think so. And, you know, we'll have more on this topic as we get into an email later on, but we'll have a link to the (13/54)
distribution timeline in the show notes as well as links to the various articles and everything, as we always do. So if you're interested in finding out where your favorite Linux distribution came from, click the link in our show notes and you'll see. And thanks, Greg, for sending that over to us. Sorry for the rant. No, that's all right. Hey, it's good discussion. All right. Troy wrote about Grub and gave us some dual boot feedback. Hi Larry and Bill, love your show. I listen to your podcast and Steve Gibson's Security Now without fail while I commute to and from work. Right now, I am behind on yours only at episode three hundred and fifty eight today. You had a listener with Grub issues after installing Ubuntu MATE in a dual boot, I think. A while back, I did quite a few dual boot installs and had the same trouble not getting the boot screen after a successful installation. At that time, I was also installing Puppy Linux and other Linux OSes also on the same machine. So I got lots of (14/54)
things pretty messed up sometimes. Long story short, I learned that I could fix the problem by booting to a live instance of Puppy Linux, then use its Grub repair utility to repair Grub. It worked very well. Maybe the same could also be done with a live instance of Mint or MATE, but I've never tried that. I have all old machines except one, and I only install Mint XFCE on them to get the most out of them. They all work great. I tried using Ubuntu MATE a few times, but each time I had trouble. Sorry, but I can't remember the problems anymore. But since Mint always worked for me, I stay with it. My newest machine is a seventh generation i7 processor in a desktop and with Windows 10 on it. It also has Mint XFCE on it, but I didn't want to dual boot. So I instead thought it would be smart and put Mint on its own SSD, which worked fine. But guess what? Booting problems again. My original plan was to simply choose the OS by pressing F8 while booting. Well, after endless bio tweaks, I (15/54)
couldn't get the F8 boot choice to work with the Linux choice. So I got smart again and made a switch to apply power to the hard drive of my choice before powering on the machine. That way I could just boot straight into the operating system I wanted, and the other hard drive would be unpowered and unseen by the BIOS. But this didn't work smooth either. No problem if you just boot into one or the other OS. But when you make the switch, then you have to go back into the BIOS to fix it. Pain in the neck. I would like to blame Windows 10 on this, but I'm probably just missing something. Anyway, love your show. Thanks, Troy. So, Bill, I think I have an idea here, but how about you? I'm still processing this one. So let me get this straight. He's got a desktop that has Windows 10, and the processor is irrelevant. Windows 10, I would say, is... not maybe the calls, but sometimes Windows 10 doesn't play nice. I know it hasn't been an issue with the latest Ubuntu, if you're doing a dual boot, (16/54)
but he said he didn't want to put it on the same disk, so that's why he got another one. Does he have to add an argument to a boot menu somewhere? That's the only thing I can think of. I have to think about it. I'm not quite sure. Yeah, well, it's possible. If he's actually using Grub to do the booting, he might have to use the nomodset, or n-o-m-o-d-s-e-t, command on there as part of the Grub configuration. But what I'm thinking is, since this is a new machine with Windows 10, it's possible that he may need to go into the BIOS or the UEFI setup. Secure Boot, yeah. I think he may have to turn that off, and it might be called Secure Boot, or what else do they call it? They call it a few other things. Maybe I'm hallucinating again, but didn't they find a way to work around that? I thought they had already fixed that, because I know Ubuntu doesn't have a problem with it. But then again, one of the first things I do is I turn off Secure Boot. So I can't say with any reasonable confidence (17/54)
what's going on, but I think maybe try to turn off Secure Boot. That might solve the problem. Yeah, and it might be called Legacy Boot. You might have to enable Legacy Boot in the BIOS. That might do it. You're quite right, Bill, that Ubuntu and several other distributions have provided ways to solve this problem. But from what I'm hearing, it doesn't work on every single computer, because the BIOS may be provided by somebody different. So there may be this situation where, even though you're using Ubuntu or something as modern as that, that you need to actually make a setting change in the BIOS. There's another option. Since it's a desktop, maybe he could find out the manufacturer of that and make sure he's running the most current BIOS. And maybe there's an update for it. Another thing is, it might be one of those boards that just doesn't have really good Linux support. It might be using some kind of wonky chipset. Yeah, so first thing I would check is make sure you're using the (18/54)
latest version of the BIOS. So if there's a BIOS update, do that and test it again. And if not, check that you have Legacy Boot or Secure Boot turned off or something like that. So that would be my suggestion as kind of the first and second choice. Yeah, let us know how this one goes. This is kind of interesting. Yeah, thanks, Troy. Alright, our next one comes from Highlander, who sent us an email about hiding files. I've noticed some odd behavior in Windows 10 that in itself is not unusual. But it seems as though Windows has the ability to hide files whenever a computer is booted in a different way. USB, DVD, NIC port. I've looked at the files in a OneDrive file folder using two methods, USB booting and hard drive. The first time I booted to Linux using USB, I was able to see the contents of the OneDrive file folder. I let the computer boot to Windows. After that, but didn't put in the password, I restarted the computer and booted back to Linux, USB. I looked in the OneDrive file (19/54)
folder a second time. The file folder looked totally empty. I let the computer boot to Windows a second time. Then I put in the correct password and looked in the OneDrive file folder a third time. Then this time the files were visible. So I'm curious, does Linux have the means to find files that are hidden by Windows 10 Highlander? Yeah, it depends on how Windows 10 is hiding them. And I really don't know. It could be that they are encrypted within that folder, that OneDrive folder. And I'm assuming that since OneDrive is Microsoft's online file storage, that he's got a way to sync that over to his hard drive on his computer. So what I think is going on here, when you boot into Windows and you put in the password, it unencrypts them. You shut it off and it remains unencrypted for some reason. Security risk. But anyway, when you boot back into Linux, after that, you end up with the ability to see the files. But when you log into Windows, don't put in the password for OneDrive. And then (20/54)
reboot back into Linux, it is actually encrypted because you didn't put the password in. I don't know any of that for sure, but that's kind of what I suspect. You know, I know for a fact that if, I don't know about the OneDrive, I think you might be onto something there, Larry. Is that say, and I've done this, so where I needed, when I was running a dual boot, I'm not anymore, I'm running just straight Ubuntu. I would be able to mount the Windows partition, go into my documents folder, my pictures folder, my music and drag that over to my Linux partition just fine. So I'm thinking that you're right, that maybe OneDrive is using some kind of encryption and therefore you can't see unless you put the password in. One thing you might test is on your, you know, when you're booted to Linux, log into OneDrive online and you might be able to access the files that way from online. Of course, that doesn't help you when you're offline. But that may be one way to get them. And maybe you already (21/54)
know that Highlander and that's fine. I know that wasn't your question. But, you know, if the question is trying to get access to those files, getting them from online while in Linux might be the alternative. I do have a question for you, Larry, and I'm not quite sure it's along the same vein as what we've been talking about. You know, in some of the, I guess, all the current mainline distributions, if you're installing it, it gives you the option to encrypt your home folder. And a lot of them recommend that. Does Windows offer anything like that? I think they do. I've heard that they do. Yeah. So I think that's, and they may actually encrypt it by default unless you tell it not to. I don't know for sure. I haven't used, I haven't installed Windows 10 ever. And I have used Windows 10 and I haven't looked to see if the files are encrypted or not on that machine. So, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I was just curious because I don't know, I mean, because I've reinstalled Windows 10 before and (22/54)
I don't remember ever seeing that option. Yeah, they may not, they may not give you the option. It may just be you're getting this stuff encrypted or you want it or not. You're getting it whether you like it or not. Okay. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, let's continue on with our next email. This one's from George from Tulsa. He has feedback from Episode 369, William and the Unmountable Drive. Very early in my Linux conversation, I used Clonezilla to duplicate a boot drive. Then I wanted to see, as I am familiar with doing on Macs with drives cloned by Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, if the clone worked. It wouldn't mount. This took me down a frustrating effort to understand UUID and what and when it changes. What I found for sure is that Clonezilla clones the UUID, Universal Unique Identifier. And two drives with the same UUID won't both mount on the same system. That kind of makes sense. I gather it is impossible to change the UUID through the command line, but hey, you'd have to (23/54)
get the drive mounted to do that. I just gave up in that effort. Timeshift, which comes with Mint and I presume can be run on other distros, does a fine job of saving what's important and reinstalling a totally borked Linux from a live USB and it takes only minutes. Maybe William ran into the same UUID issues I found and never mastered. Though if he had a boot drive he had removed, then he reinstalled the boot drive as the only bootable drive in the system. UUID should not rear its incomprehensible complexities. That implies his drive died. Could it have been removed from the machine while the machine and thus the drive were powered? He goes on to give some feedback for Scott and his issues on TRIM. I've had a couple of experiences with SSDs on Macs before it became possible to enable TRIM. On a 15-inch MacBook Pro, I filled the 500GB SSD drive by copying in large amounts of data, then decided to erase everything, including the operating system and start over with a clean operating (24/54)
system install and the same large amount of data. The Crucial brand SSD effectively became sludge. Not quite freezing up, but not working right either. I followed instructions by Crucial to enable TRIM, deleted everything, and leave a computer on so the SSD was powered by the computer itself, not booted. That enabled Crucial's garbage collection routine to clear out the mess I had created. Poor computer got so hot I aimed a fan at it while I let it work overnight. The next morning, I reinstalled the OS and my large data files, and it worked fine for several years. TRIM is difficult to explain. If a user deletes a file in an operating system, what's actually deleted is the file's place on the OS index. Data on the hard drive isn't deleted and can be recovered. That was the magic of Norton's undelete. On SSDs, the data that's deleted is still filling memory cells, but those cells can't be overwritten until they're erased by the SSD controller. Before TRIM, the earliest Intel SSDs simply (25/54)
filled up with data and stopped working. TRIM tells the SSD controller a file has been deleted and its cells can be cleaned out by garbage collection routine. Without TRIM, that data will persist, eventually killing the drive because we sure don't want our SSD controllers deleting files simply because they haven't been accessed recently. What helps reduce SSDs from filling up is files which are opened and modified can, from what I read, be managed without TRIM. TRIM tells the SSD controller, clear that data out. TRIM is important. But modern large SSDs make it less urgent. It also helps that SATA SSDs have fallen into the petty-cache range. Thunderbolt is supposed to be able to pass TRIM. Doesn't mean all Thunderbolt enclosures will do that. UASP is important for speeding USB throughput. Don't buy USB drives without it. And he provides a link to an article that's entitled, All You Need to Know About UASP. SecureErase, available on SATA and NVMe drives, will restore SSDs to their (26/54)
original performance by erasing all their memory cells. And thanks, George. Lots of background information on the technical details of hard drives and SSD drives and TRIM and all that stuff. So hopefully some of that will help somebody. It's certainly an education for sure. Yeah, I didn't know that they would, before they got TRIM, that they would just fill up and die. That's funny. Well, yeah, it's expensive, but funny, yeah. No, I'm just amazed that no one thought that one through. I mean, sometimes I'm just like, no one thought of that? Well, thank you, TRIM. And thank you, George. So Highlander wrote again about communication security. Since there now appears to be a generalized dislike of not only Facebook, but the entire social media idea itself, perhaps now should be a good time to develop better communication security options. Let's start with phone calls. If a telecommunication provider has control of the entire communication pipe from end to end, it is easier to seal off that (27/54)
pipe from prying eyes and ears. I can see the day when the data carrying capability of the Canadian domestic phone system will handle both audio and video. The kicker is the Canadian domestic phone system will not need access to internet to accomplish this. So think of it. Someone in New Falman can make a video phone call to someone in British Columbia and not need the internet to accomplish this. When you seal off the domestic Canadian phone system from the internet, you increase its security. Further, if a single telecommunications provider has control of the entire communications pipe, it becomes easier to seal off even more prying eyes and ears. For Canadian security reasons, I believe that the right thing to do is to keep domestic phone system completely separate from the internet. It just isn't right for someone in China to have the ability to eavesdrop on Canadian domestic telecommunications. I believe that keeping our phone system separate from the internet will cut down on the (28/54)
odds of being eavesdropped upon by an international third party. Today smartphones can be operated in a different way. I think you need to be reminded that it's possible for you to temporarily turn off your internet access. All you need to do is change a setting in your handset. Then your smartphone will operate exclusively like a telephone, not an internet device. I thought you needed to be made aware of these options, so think of it. If you are not actively using the internet on your smartphone, why would you leave the internet access turned on? When you do that, you substantially increase the odds of someone eavesdropping on you. To conclude this message, I would invite you to look up Canadian law requiring wire tapping. One good place to start would be the Law Society of Upper Canada for answers to any questions you might have about wire tapping and it includes the link. Okay, so yeah, I don't know whether the US phone system is completely independent of the internet. However, I do (29/54)
know that if you turn off Wi-Fi, for example, you can still connect to the internet if you give permissions for the phone to use cellular data to access the internet. So I know there's at least the possibility it can connect, but the question is, is it completely independent? I don't know. And it sounds like Highlander has identified that in Canada, at least it is. Well, I was under the impression, and this could be incorrect, but I don't think so. A lot of the old legacy switches, the hardware switches that the phone companies used for so many years have been replaced with internet appliances because they're much more efficient. They can use the internet to route a lot of the voice traffic more efficiently and they also can be software updated. And I don't know, it might be the same in your business, but in our business, we actually have VoIP phones, voice over internet protocol. The whole office is like that. Right. All our phones, I mean, they operate just like regular phones, (30/54)
except if you lose power or you lose internet, everything stops working. So I know there's got to be a switch somewhere that takes that VoIP protocol and it has to use the phone system to complete the calls because your phone talks to the tower, tower then sends it over to the next tower, which you got to have a connection. So they're all kind of in a woven now. And I don't know, is that what you think? Or do you think it's like the 1970s phone systems where everything was kind of hard switched? Yeah, I think there's more software switches than anything at this point in time, except maybe for some remote areas that don't have a lot of budget to upgrade their systems. I'm sure there's some hard switches still in place. But yeah, I think you're right. I think that the phone systems and the internet are interconnected, at least in some way. In order for VoIP and other technologies to work, it kind of makes sense that it would work that way. And I know things like Skype, which gives you (31/54)
VoIP, voice over internet, and FaceTime, which gives you video and voice over the internet for Apple devices and things like that work in multiple countries, including Canada. I see what he's getting from that if you have one pipe and you control the beginning and the end, then you don't have anything in the middle that is more secure. But the problem is, what happens when you go outside, say here in British Columbia, and you're making a call to California? Well, you're going outside to that. There's not one phone company controls. There's multiple switches and exchanges. So, once you go outside your area, then you kind of lost that point to point, because then you have to have other entities switching that information. Does that make sense? Right. Yeah, it does. And I think that this just illustrates the point that if you want security, you're not going to have the convenience of being able to switch between internet calls and standard, plain old telephone system calls, like just (32/54)
having the system do that for you. It's the balance between security and convenience. And so, if we were to separate the two systems, then things would become inconvenient, like making calls to another country that doesn't have the same protocols. Anyway, that's something to think about, though. I like where you're going with this, Highlander. It's one way to implement better security when talking about telecommunications. So, moving on, David asked the question, have you seen these articles? Hi, Larry and Bill. I came across these two articles. I have a Google Alert set up for Linux Mint. If you haven't read them, I think you should. I'm curious about your thoughts, whether privately, via email, or publicly on the podcast. Bestest. David, your ex-pat. Forget it. You know who I am. Yes, we do, David. Okay. And he sends us links to a ZDNet article entitled The Linux Desktop's Last Best Shot. And Tech Republic article, Scientific Linux and Antergos are shutting down. It's time for Linux (33/54)
Mint to go. And this is related to the earlier discussion we had about Linux distributions. And this was discussed, I think, at least tangentially on the Ubuntu podcast. It was discussed on the Mint cast. And now we're discussing it on our podcast. The one about Scientific Linux and Antergos are shutting down. It's time for Linux Mint to go. I agree with the folks from the Mint cast that that's a bunch of clickbait in that title of the article. And when they get into the article, it's not really as bad or dire as they're trying to make it seem in the title. And that's kind of the definition of clickbait, I think. And so they discuss in the article about the demise of a couple of distributions. Their point about Linux Mint is Linux Mint's reason for being seems to be to fuel the Cinnamon desktop. And if it weren't for Cinnamon, maybe we don't even need Linux Mint. And the discussion on other podcasts has been around the fact that Linux Mint has made a lot of contributions to ease of (34/54)
use. And so just describing it as simply being there to foster Cinnamon development is a little over the top. They talk about Scientific Linux going away and folks kind of centralizing on CentOS. And we had the discussion around, you know, too many Linux distributions isn't necessarily what you want. And the other article, Linux Desktop's Last Best Shot by Stephen J. Von Nichols and ZDNet, it talks about Windows 7 support going away and Windows 10 in terms of various aspects, not the least of which is sales, is just barely ahead of Windows 7 adoptions. So, you know, those people that are still on Windows 7 are going to have to move over to Windows 10, whether they like it or not. And maybe Linux Mint or other Linux distributions are an alternative. It's kind of a rehash of the same old thing that comes up every time a version goes out of support, which is maybe we'll get more users for Linux out of this. And maybe we will. I kind of hope we will. But, you know, it remains to be seen (35/54)
and it remains that Windows is still the most popular operating system for computers out there. As far as desktop operating systems are concerned, when you talk about servers and computers overall, including servers and embedded devices and things like that, Linux is the most popular one out there. So I don't think there's anything new in either of these articles, quite frankly. No, I looked at the Tech Republic and I also read the ZD. The ZD was OK. It was an article. The Tech Republic one, I have to say, was very click baity. For Linux Mint to go, I don't see the reason. For a long time, we said, hey, if you're coming from Windows, use Linux Mint. And Linux Mint is not a bad option for a new user who's leaving the Windows ecosystem because it's similar enough to be comfortable. The Cinnamon is one of my favorite desktops. They've really made some contributions and they've, you know, they've given back to. And, you know, I would say that Linux Mint serves a very valid position and (36/54)
purpose. It is a good choice for some people. It's very friendly. It's for not intimidating. And so, yeah, I think this guy kind of added that just to get the link bait thing going. You know, whether whatever your feelings of Linux Mint or where their stance is or how they develop their software, wherever it is, it's it's one I think has contributed quite a bit to open source community. And I don't think it's going to go anywhere anytime soon. Now, you know, Scientific Linux was by FIRRMA and CERN and they had some tools that they needed at the time. You know, so it made sense for them to standardize on on that because it wasn't available then. And so I can understand, hey, I'm using the same software you are with the same applications. And so, yeah, that made sense. But now that those applications can be easily used in SENT or even or even, you know, Red Hat, which is basically SENT OS is just Red Hat with that enterprise without its trademark stuff. So why continue developing it? And (37/54)
Antagross, you know. They they run for like I think it was like a project they've been around for like seven years. And it isn't like they don't have anywhere to go. They they they're they have what is it? Manjiro. Yeah. So Manjiro is still there and it's so easy to use. And and it isn't like that if you run an Antagross, it's going to stop working. You know, it will continue working. I think they're going to they're going to issue patches that will point the repos to the standard arch repositories. And, you know, they didn't just disappear. They said this is what's happening. You know, we've got families now. We're going to school. We've got full time jobs. You know, we've done this for seven years. Thank you for your support. You know, so I don't see this is a what I would say a non story. It was just that I have to write an article and I need lots of clicks. So this is what I'm going to do. So let's move on to something better. Yeah, we've yeah, let's move on. We've talked about (38/54)
this stuff with no content for way too long. So let's go. OK, so our next email comes from G rub, a.k.a. Grubb, and he wrote, Hi, Bill and Larry. Hey, I got top billing Larry. Yeah, that never happened. Yeah. I am very, very OK. So hi, Bill and Larry. I'd like to request the script Troy uses for the setup of Linux Mint systems. Thanks in advance. Furthermore, I'd like to recommend to you both on the format and information you provide to new Linux users and not so new Linux users. I never fail to learn something every episode. I find that the listener feedback podcast particularly interesting and informative. Also, over the last month, I found your back catalog of podcasts to a wealth of information, largely very relevant and good reference material. Along with other resources on the Web, they helped me decide on my going Linux goals and how to do it. I am in the process of rediscovering desktop links again since dual booting Linux Mint 13 mate on an old HP laptop many years ago. (39/54)
Desktop links today has impressed me with the ease of use improvements to functional progress and a wide array of choices available. I am currently multi booting a Windows XP laptop 2009 Intel Core Duo 2 at 2.4 gigahertz and a Windows 7 laptop 2016 Intel i7 at 2.8 gigahertz. Using the Windows bootloaders between the two laptops, I am enjoying kicking the tires of five different Ubuntu based distros. Slowly, I am figuring out which distros and desktop environments are really better for my oldest hardware and a friend's older 2006 hardware AMD Turan 64 X2 at 1.61 gigahertz with 1 gigabyte of RAM and still meets our needs. So far, on the lightweight side, I have to say that the LX-LE1604 and Linux Mint 18.3 XFCE have performed well. I'd like to see how well LX-LE performs on 2006 hardware. If not satisfied, I will possibly explore Peppermint OS or a LX-QT like OS or even Cub Linux which you just introduced to me in a recent podcast. For the more powerful Intel i7, I am partial to Ubuntu (40/54)
Mate and Linux Mint Cinnamon, although I would like to take a look at Pop! OS in the future. Keep up the good work. Much appreciated, grub. Wow. Good for you. The only thing I would say is, isn't 1604 out of support now, Larry? Didn't they just kill that? Yeah, I think it is. And this isn't an old email. So it may just be that, you know, it's taken him a little while to write this up. He's got a few computers, so maybe it was done a little while ago or maybe he's just using an old version. So I don't know. We're not judging. I'm not judging. I'm just saying, I think 1604 officially ended not long ago. That was an LTS, wasn't it? I believe it was, if I remember correctly. Yeah, it's two years before 1804. So you should probably look at going in and going to 1804. It should be very similar to 1604. You'll probably see some improvements. Hey Larry, looks like another Mate has got another victim. They like it. Yeah, absolutely. That's good. Grub wrote back and said, Hi Larry, thank you for (41/54)
the script instructions and your quick response. I tried to make my previous email short and sweet and therefore left out many details. I suspect I am in a small last wave of folks needing to use Windows XP and switching to Linux. Although there may be more in the coming Windows 7 wave, if there are questions, I'll be happy to provide my approach and learnings during this journey to Linux. Update on the 2006 laptop hardware. AMD Trion 64x2, 1.61GHz, 1GB of RAM. I managed to upgrade the memory to a maximum of 2GB of RAM for about $20, which made a significant performance improvement and hopefully will prolong the utility of this hardware. I should say here that the goal for this laptop is portable basic computing. Email, music, web surfing, YouTube, word processing, Skype, etc. I think this goal has not only been reached, but will exceed in many cases. Barring hardware problems, I feel confident the Linux Mint 18.03 OS being able to reach LTS 2021 or maybe even LTS 2023 with an upgrade. (42/54)
I am still enjoying your previous podcast, but should catch up within the next week. Keep up the good work. GRUB aka GRUB. Thanks GRUB and thanks for the update. It sounds like you're moving ahead with an eye on moving to the 2023 LTS. Okay, that's planning ahead. Yeah, that is planning ahead. Let me just make a couple suggestions to him since he sent that update. Linux Mint has the tweak that if you like the Cinnamon desktop and just don't really want to keep switching between Linux Mint and Mate, you can switch your desktop to Cinnamon in Linux Mate. It's not quite as polished, but I mean it's all there. It looks pretty good. I was playing with it. I think it's called Redmond. It's pretty close. And then the other one, if you're just using that 64-bit AMD, the music and web surfing and YouTube, it should work fine for what you're using on word processing. The only thing that I think you might have a problem with is they keep updating Skype and that's one of the reasons that we kind (43/54)
of stopped using it. We kept having upgrade issues and connect issues. If you remember all the troubles we had, we had to go back and use an old version a couple times just because a new version broke everything. Yeah, the problem wasn't so much they kept upgrading, but when they upgraded, they would break it. Yeah, they would break it. It just got to the point of it getting silly. Actually, it was kind of funny. We kept a spare copy of it just in case we needed it really quick. Yeah, I think it's sitting there in our shared Dropbox. So, yeah, just be aware that Skype might, since you have such a, I wouldn't say low-resource computer, but a computer with limited resources, that one of these days Skype might start causing some issues. So, there's other options. Just want to kind of let you know. Our next email comes from Greg, who wrote about Nick's problem with LibreOffice. I am a new listener and I had the same no spell checking issue with LibreOffice that was mentioned in episode (44/54)
small USB stick. That may be one of the things they decided to remove. That's not becoming much of an issue because USB drives now or the little sticks are getting bigger and cheaper all the time. I see what you're saying. They probably said, well, we can save a few megabytes here so you start doing it, paring your things down. That makes sense. Yeah, I still have some two gigabyte USB sticks laying around with old Linux distributions on them. Sometimes the newer ones won't fit. Gotta go to a four gigabyte or an eight gigabyte. You can't even buy those now. I went out and got a 32 gigabyte one, a USB 3, and I paid 19 bucks for it. Yeah. Well, and you can get them as big as I think 256 now. Yeah, you're talking some money. 512. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're paying more. But yeah, they get cheaper all the time. Like you said. Love technology. Okay. Yeah, there we go. All right. Our last email is from Ro who asked, why won't she boot? Hello. I love the podcast. Very good information for a (46/54)
newcomer to Linux. Here's my dilemma. I'm not a computer novice. However, I am new to Linux. I have an older five year old Alienware laptop with a RAID array setup. I wanted to run Linux natively, but on an external SSD or USB 3.0. I opted for the external 128 gigabyte SSD. Now, the distro I chose was Linux Mint 19 and I could easily boot and run the live CD. But when I partitioned the SSD and attempted to get the Alienware to boot Mint, I get absolutely nothing. Blank, nada, zilch. Just a white cursor blinking on a black screen. While I do have an old 2010 Dell Inspiron with the VGA ports in the back as my test laptop, I boot from USB using the external SSD with Linux Mint and it runs beautifully. No hiccups. It's flawless. But who wants to use that old relic in Starbucks? So I decided to visit a local computer repair store and found a guy that could install a Linux distro on an SSD. So he installed Ubuntu and charged me $100. I was quite reluctant, but wanted it to just work. He (47/54)
attempted to boot from my USB on my Alienware and here again, nothing. Same result. He went in the back and tried it on other CPUs and it worked beautifully. He told me Linux will only work on RAID 1 or RAID 5 or no RAID. My current RAID is RAID 0. So here I go baffled again. I completely reformatted and removed RAID altogether and just have two 500GB SSDs. After an hour of reinstalling all my Windows programs, the point of no return. I booted my new Ubuntu SSD on the cleaned up Alienware and nothing once again. At this point, I'm very discouraged and said, let's see if the old Dell Inspiron relic can run this. Sure enough, the relic was successful. It booted Ubuntu just fine. Since then, I've tested our elementary and Xorin OS. None work as permanent install on SSD with Alienware. They only work with a live CD while the relic can run every distribution under the sun. I don't know if you can help me with this issue because it's definitely got me stumped. I am in the market to get a new (48/54)
Asus Pro Duo once it releases and a Surface Book 2 13-inch. But now I'm skeptical because I'm wondering will Linux even work on either. I'm really wanting to run any Linux distro at this point on the Alienware, but it just won't boot from an external SSD. And I don't know why. I'm sure I could partition a portion of my internal SSD and install directly. But I'm not really fond of the dual boot setup. Can you guys help me with this? I don't know. Has anyone ever heard of this? Thanks, guys. OK, so I'm going to make a couple of suggestions here and then I'm going to leave it to you, Bill, since you're the one who has had experience with Alienware and you've run into some bumps and grinds on this as well. But yeah, Alienware is kind of funky in terms of the way they've implemented things and hardware. My suggestions are between the Asus Pro Duo and the Surface Book, go with the Asus Pro Duo. I've heard some feedback on Surface Book that it is a nice, slick hardware device. You can get it (49/54)
after some fiddling around to boot Linux, but you may be a little disappointed with the Surface Book because of the hardware and because of the fact that it is meant to be touch screen. And unless you get a distribution of Linux that is designed for touch screen, you may find it awkward to use. Ubuntu Mate has some accessibility features that might actually make it easier to use on a touch screen. I've used it on a touch screen laptop with those accessibility features and the pop-up keyboard and things like that have been very helpful. So you might want to think about that first. But, you know, based on the state of Linux on a Surface Book these days, I would recommend staying away from it simply because of those reviews. I haven't tried it myself, so this is a personal experience and it may improve over time. So those are just the suggestions. Back to the issues around Alienware. I'll let you take that, Phil. So I got an idea. I had this problem that I'd try to boot and it would just (50/54)
go to a blank cursor, just flashing. And so what I found through trial and error is if you're installing Ubuntu, go ahead as it's going to boot it into its boot menu. And this works on Ubuntu Mate, it works on Linux Mint, it works on all Linux distributions and you can even do it on Debian distribution. You go in and there's usually something like other options. You'll go in and disable ACPI. Tell it not to load it. That's the, I guess it's the power management. But for some reason there's something wonky in my Alienware. I'm not saying it's the same on yours, but this is what I got to go with. Disable that and what happens is when you do it, well I know in a Mate and Ubuntu and Mint, not in Mint you have to go in and edit a file, but in the Ubuntu's it will retain that setting in the permanent install and it just boots up fine. I don't know why. There's got to be something that's wonky on the hardware, but I found that I can't run any arch on Alienware just because the keyboard (51/54)
doesn't work. Interesting. The mousepad's dead. Now my USB mouse works great, but the keyboard is completely dead. I tried it on Tag Rose and Manjiro and standard Arch and I know we get a little off, but just to kind of give you an idea, Alienware for some reason has some wonky things. I found out that when I was running DeepEnd, I didn't need to tell it to ignore that. It would boot up and everything, but it would hang on shutdown until I went in and edited a file that says, Turn A C P I off during boot and then it worked flawlessly. But the interesting one is, and this is just an idea, Pop OS worked flawlessly. I didn't have to touch anything. Interesting. It just worked. I mean, because it boots up and I had forgotten to go in there and select, Don't Load This, or I didn't see the option. It just worked flawlessly and I wonder if maybe they have the same type of bio setup or whatever or board hardware, but A C P I, that's a good place to start. It sounds like it's hanging on (52/54)
something and that would be my guess. Other people have been having it too. So try disabling A C P I when you're installing it. If you can get it booted, you can go in. There's an article at OMG Ubuntu, you can go right to the website and search how to turn A C P I off and it walks you through. You can pretty much copy and paste the instructions. So that's what I would suggest. And I agree with Larry, stay away from the service, both of you get the other one. Yep. Yep. There you go. Okay. And we'll have a link to that article on Ask Ubuntu in the show notes. Okay. All right. All right. I think that wraps it up, Bill. It does. Okay. So as I'm scrolling back to the bottom so I can read our outro. There we go. Our next episode will be written by Bill. It'll be Ubuntu and its derivatives. So we're going to have a little review of the various Ubuntu type things out there. Yes. So until then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.com for articles and show notes, as well as links to download (53/54)
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 and I add this and smart community members by joining the discussion in our going Linux podcast community on community.goinglinx.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (54/54)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #387 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 387, 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 goinglinx.gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, Listener Feedback. Hey, Bill. Hey, Larry. How are you today? I'm doing okay. Hey, listen, that voicemail line, I get bugged every month or so from Google that we haven't used it in a while. And in order to keep maintaining that phone number, I have to send myself a text message. So I'm wondering, and here's a question for our minions, do we still need the voicemail (1/54)
line? Should I just give that up next time they ask? Or do you think there's some value in having it? Well, you know, you can attach a voicemail to an email, an audio file. Yes, you can. Yeah. So I would say, I mean, it's probably this easy just for them to go ahead and record it and just attach it to an email and then just have a voicemail. So what do you think? Yeah, well, the whole idea behind the voicemail line was to give someone who didn't really know how to do audio recordings a way to send us an audio file. But I think our audience has become more sophisticated over time. Or less lazy, maybe. I don't know. Well, I say we just keep it on for next month or so. And if we don't get anything, I say, go ahead and drop it. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm interested in feedback from our listeners. And yeah, if you want the voicemail, send us a voicemail message by using that line. And if you don't, just drop us a note on email or somewhere and let us know. Okay. So Larry, I hear you were out (2/54)
moonlighting. What did you do? Well, I got invited by Rocco, also known as Big Daddy Linux, to be on Linux Spotlight. So we've recorded an episode, two hours of me talking about me and the podcast and talking about you and talking about our audience. And that should be coming out on March 11th, if I remember correctly. And this is a video podcast that Rocco does. So we'll have the audio as an episode in the future as soon as it's ready to go. So they actually get to see what you look like. So did it go good? Yes, it went very well. He didn't kick me out after half an hour. So I think it was good. All right. That sounds cool. I look forward to watching it. Yeah. So we'll have a link when it's available and we'll have the audio for those people who don't have time to kick on a browser and watch a video for two hours. All right. So let's get into our emails then. All right. Let's do that. And we've got quite a few, so it's probably wise that we just move right into them. Our first one is (3/54)
actually an audio file that Paul sent to us by email as an attachment. And it's regarding a second internal drive problem that he has. His email said, Hello, Bill and Larry, please find the attached audio file. Thank you for your great podcast. Thanks, Paul. Let's listen to the audio. Hello, Bill. And hello, Larry. My name is Paul. I'm a German living in Ankara, Turkey. I have been using Linux for several years now and consider myself an experienced user. I love Linux Mint and Xubuntu for their simplicity and ease of use. And it is my hobby and my pleasure to introduce friends and colleagues to Linux. In the last days, I was setting up a computer with Linux Mint Cinnamon for a local small NGO. It was the first time I set up a computer with encrypted system and with a second hard drive. And that's where the problems began. After setting up Linux, I formatted the second drive with Gparted to GPT partition table and with one big partition in X4. Then I wanted to copy a file on the drive (4/54)
and it did not work. I had no permission to access the drive. The drive was owned by root and root only. So I searched the Internet and read about the commands MNT, Joan, Gmod and all the many options that belong to these. All involved the terminal, which I don't like because even if I would master it, the people I recommend Linux to probably wouldn't. Finally, I stumbled over a small passage in a forum thread where it was mentioned that Gparted assigns all internal drives to root and that one should better use Linux Mint's formatting program disks. So I did that and lo and behold, I had access to the drive. But I discovered soon that only the administration account had access, not the other standard accounts. So there was no way around it. I had to assign all users through users and groups individually to the group users and then use the terminal to assign the drive to this group through sudo joan-users-mnt backslash followed by the uuid of the drive. Fortunately, this mounting point (5/54)
mnt backslash is visible in the program disks so I could just copy it. Once this was done, I discovered that the standard users now could access the drive but not write or edit files on the drive. So again in the terminal, I set the writes to read, write and edit on the drive for the group users with the command sudo chmod2775 as I remember, followed by mnt backslash and the uuid. When researching this, I found that there are chmod commands with 4 and others with 3 digits and I have no idea why and what's the difference. But finally it worked. All users can now access, read, write and edit files on the second drive. All was good. For a while. But then by playing around with the standard users, I discovered that any user can access any other user's files including administrator account. Only for reading and copying, not to edit or delete, but still, this is not good in regards to privacy. To change this, every user has to go in the file system, home and right click on his user folder to (6/54)
access the properties. In permissions is listed what the owner can do, which is set to create and delete files, and what other members of the same group can do, which is access files, and what anyone else can do. The header anyone else is missing, so I had to guess. The rights for anyone else are set to access files as well and has to be changed to none. The administrator cannot do this. Every user has to do this for him or herself. After this experience, I decided to send you my story and I would like to ask. 1. Why is it so difficult and is there an easier way to make a second disk drive accessible with reading and writing permissions to all users of the computer? Is there maybe a program with a graphical interface to set up a second disk drive? This program could even pop up when a new internal drive is detected and offers several options to check. 2. Are these problems with setting up a second disk drive the same in every common Linux distribution or is this a speciality of Linux (7/54)
Mint Cinnamon? 3. Is there a way to set the permissions for each user's home folder by the administrator instead of by the user himself? Thank you very much for listening and maybe picking up my questions in your great podcast. You do a wonderful job in keeping informed, educate, and entertain Linux lovers all at the same time. This was Paul from Ankara checking out. Well, thanks Paul for the for the voicemail. I can see why you didn't try to type all that out. Yeah. Yeah. So, Bill, this sounds very familiar, doesn't it? It does. I had a very similar problem. It wasn't internal. It was a USB drive. And I found that for some reason I couldn't access the drive even though I went into Gparted and partitioned it out. And then I plugged it back in and it still wouldn't let me. So finally I plugged into the elementary OS just to kind of see if it would read it. And it popped up and I was able to right click on the drive and say open as administrator and then I had full access. Yeah. So I (8/54)
think it's kind of maybe an Ubuntu thing. What I did is I went in and adjusted the permissions when I was in the administrator account and set it where I could read, write, and everything. And since that time it's worked. So but he had an encrypted drive. So, yes, he had an encrypted drive and he was also protecting people's data from other people sharing that drive. So there was that complication. I don't know what the answer would be to this one because it was an encrypted drive. Mine wasn't. But I do know that what I found kind of intriguing about what he said is that the administrator of the system couldn't adjust the permissions. Right. I've never quite understood why the administrator couldn't do it. Do you have any thoughts on it? Because I'm kind of at a loss. I mean, I know what I had to do, but with the encrypted, I don't know if it's just something different or it's set up permissions different. But I was always able to go in once I was logged in as administrator and able to (9/54)
adjust the permissions on the drive. I don't know. I'm at a loss on that one. You got any ideas? Yeah, I'm not sure why the administrator wasn't able to change the permissions. I would just double check that you actually were in as administrator, that you either if you were on the command line that you typed sudo before the commands and put your password in. Or if you were using a graphical tool at that point, that you were running it as sudo. And as Bill had mentioned, if you right click on a file or right click on a folder, at least in MATE and I think in GNOME as well, I don't know in Cinnamon. Each of these is controlled by the file manager. And the file manager in Mint is a little different. But when you right click, it gives you the option to run as administrator. And regardless of whether that's a program, a file, a folder, then it should work just fine. And you should actually be administrator at that point. And it should let you even well, maybe because it's encrypted. It's (10/54)
not letting you do that. But and maybe if you had changed the permissions before changing the ownership. You know, you mentioned, Paul, that the everyone else setting was not present and you had to actually set that to none. Perhaps if you had done that before changing the ownership, it would have preserved that setting and then everything would have worked, separating the access of one person's data from another. So next time, hopefully there is no next time, but next time you might want to check that. One thing that I have noticed is that problems regarding access to files are made even worse within Linux when the drive is formatted NTFS, which is a Windows file format that you can make compatible within Mac or Linux. And typically modern Linux systems have that compatibility already enabled. So you don't typically have to do anything to make that happen. But permissions on NTFS files are oftentimes kind of funky, especially around the mount options and so on. So, you know, that's (11/54)
just an observation. I've had some problems with external drives that I have partitioned NTFS just to make it more compatible across platforms and have run into very similar problems and had to jump through the same sort of hoops as you have had to jump through. So in answer to some of your questions, Paul, I can't say why it's this difficult. I don't know. It just is. Is it this difficult across all different versions of Linux? Yes, it's a file permissions issue and incompatibility between, in my case, incompatibility between the Windows file format and Linux file formats. I think part of the reason it might be that you have to go through these hoops is because Linux is more secure than the Windows, which kind of gives you more administrator kind of permissions by default. I mean, Windows over the years has gotten a little more sensitive to this and has locked down a few more things. So it is not quite as bad at opening up permissions as it has been in the past. But Linux is more (12/54)
secure overall just by virtue of its design. And as a result, sometimes along with additional security comes the need for a little additional work to open things up when you're trying to make things more visible or more accessible, which is what you're doing in the case of permissions and mount options and those sorts of things. It sounds to me, Paul, like you've become more of an expert that you wanted to be at the command line to do these kinds of things. And one of your questions was, are there graphical tools for doing this? I don't remember what the tool is in Mint. I suspect that Disks is installed by default. It shows up as Disks in the menus, at least in Ubuntu MATE, and it's actually a Gnome tool. So it's gnome-disks if you're looking for it in the repositories. And when you right click on a hard drive, I think one of the options is to go to Disks or at the very least, I can't say that's true for every Linux distribution. So let's just say if you've installed Disks and you (13/54)
pick it from the menu, you should be able to choose which disk you're looking at, in your case, an internal drive. And then once you have that on the screen, you can do things like mount, unmount, change mount options, change permissions, change ownership, things like that. So there's that graphical tool. And there's another graphical tool that is oftentimes provided by Linux distributions at install time, but sometimes you have to install it additionally afterwards. And that is the tool that Bill just mentioned, which is Gparted. And it works a little bit differently than the gnome-disks program, but its function is basically the same. It allows you to change ownership, change mount points, change permissions on files and or directories, and gives you the ability to reformat if you want and change the format of the entire disk. And lots of different options there, all within the graphical environment. So there are other tools out there, but those are the two that I've had experience (14/54)
with and have used. And different Linux distributions, especially Red Hat or RPM based distributions, may use different tools. I remember OpenSUSE had some tools that they used that were, I don't know whether they were specific to OpenSUSE or whether they were Red Hat tools, but they were different than Gparted and gnome-disks. But you could, of course, install either of those on OpenSUSE as well. So there you go. I'm not sure we've helped too much. But at the very least, we've given you some graphical tools that you can use to do these things. And the other thing is to change ownership and permissions, you don't need these additional tools. If you simply right click on a file and go to properties, it should give you a tab within the file properties that is labeled permissions. And there you can change the owner, you can change the permissions of what the owner can do. You can change the owner if you are administrator. Yeah, and you can change the permissions as to what the owner can (15/54)
do, what members of a group can do and what anyone else can do, whether that's labeled everyone else or whether that's others or... That's usually how you can change permission on a file. But yeah, I'm still trying to ponder why the administrator couldn't change permission. So it sounds like it was a fun learning curve. Yeah, exactly. And I suspect that if you had done the setting of the others or everyone else setting before changing the ownership of the directories, I think that would have solved your problem. And again, if anyone from our audience has experience with this, any of our minions, please write in and give us your opinions or your tips or your tricks on file ownership. Yeah, I do want to say, didn't he say he installed Linux Mint, then he added that disk? Maybe if he had just let Linux Mint add that disk at the time of installation, it would have set the permissions correctly. That's possible. Again, it depends on the format. Yeah, that's true. Okay, so our next email (16/54)
comes from Nancy, who wrote about Microsoft making Linux more popular. She writes, in June of this year, Microsoft is ending the MCSA MCSC track by discontinuing those exams. They are moving to what they call a role-based certification, all of which pertain to their cloud services, Azure, Office 365, etc. Any certifications held at that time will still be active for two years till June of 2022, at which point they will become inactive. Even though Microsoft is not going to offer new MCSA MCSE certifications, they will be employers who still value them beyond 2022. Who knows? However, she's right to read on. Additionally, some of the installers for some of the latest systems absolutely must reach out to Microsoft for the rest of the installation. Many DoD environments prohibit internet contact under administrative credentials, which nobody should be doing anyway. But this will prevent those environments from obtaining an installer for many of those programs. As this becomes the norm for (17/54)
Microsoft products, those environments will be moving to Linux systems for their backbone operations. They'll have to because in some of our environments we don't have internet access. We have to do all of our installations using SneakerNet. This isn't going to hurt Microsoft any. The DoD is really only about 7% of their customer base, but it is going to create a huge demand for Linux administrators in defense operations. These positions will require security clearance, but as Microsoft moves to the cloud-exclusive business model, they will also be private sector enterprises that will see Linux as the best alternative. Wow. So, just so people know what we're talking about, the MCSA and MCSE were certifications. I can't remember what to say. Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator. And I think the MCSE was Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. Yeah, I think you're right. And you had to take these tests to get these credentials saying you know how to work their products. I never took (18/54)
one of them. I've heard people studying and paying lots of money to be able to pass these. Yes. So, I know why. They want everything moved to the cloud, you know, the Azure, Office 365, et cetera, et cetera. But she has a point. We really don't want our DoD environments reaching out into the internet with administrative credentials. That would not be good. But I kind of saw this coming because now Microsoft says Windows 10 or doing Windows as a service, they want their products cloud-based because that's where the money is for them. Because they're competing against Amazon, Microsoft, of course, and then there's another big one, or IBM because they acquired Red Hat. So, I think she has a point, but I don't know. I'm sure they have thought about this and there's got to be a way to install these services for these big governments and businesses. What do you think? Yeah, yeah, I think she's right. You use Linux and Microsoft is adopting more and more Linux subsystems and Linux tools and (19/54)
making things available as open source in order for them to become more Linux compatible. I see it going more and more the way of Linux at Microsoft. And eventually I've made the prediction before that there will be a Microsoft distribution of Linux, maybe not a desktop distribution, but a distribution nonetheless. And it may be much along the lines of what Intel has done for their clear Linux, which is something that works with their systems and works well with their systems, but it's essentially a Linux distribution. And so eventually there's going to be, in my opinion, a Microsoft distribution of Linux available, and it will solve a lot of these problems that Nancy has outlined. So yeah, I see it coming too. All right. OK, our next email is from Michael, who says he's unable to subscribe to the Distrawatch podcast. Hi Larry and Bill, I can't seem to be able to subscribe to the Distrawatch podcast with RhythmBox. I get a network error when I try. I got the following address from the (20/54)
Distrawatch site, distrawatch.com slash news slash org cast dot XML, which is the feed URL. And this is from Michael in West Yorkshire, UK. Michael, I think it may be that Distrawatch just happened to have a problem with that file at the time you were trying to subscribe to it. I was able to go into RhythmBox and subscribe to that successfully. So if you still have problems, give it a try again. And if you still have problems, let us know. All right. Our next email comes from Daniel, who asks about G-Potter and Orca. I would like to make a OPML file of all of my subscribed podcasts, but I don't know how to get to G-Potter's menus with the keyboard. How is it done? I don't use G-Potter. Yeah, I think G-Potter is one of those programs that does not support blind users very well. And so there may be some problems with the actual shortcuts and so on. However, having said that, I sent to Daniel a link to a YouTube video from our friend from the Sonar Linux project, Jonathan Nadeau. He (21/54)
recorded this video a few years ago, but it's specifically on setting up G-Potter using Orca. So hopefully that works for him. And again, if you still have some problems, let us know, Daniel, but that should take care of things for you. OK, our next email is from Ken, who has had a great experience with the Mint forums. Larry, Bill. At the last update of my computer with Mint 18.3, there was a serious error that caused the computer to crash and not to boot. I presumed that it was a bootloader problem and wrestled it off and on for a week or two, trying to figure out how to fix the bootloader. Then I decided to go to the Mint forum, giving them my setup and problem. Once I told them that a utility called Intramfs, that's I-N-T-R-A-M-F-S, was appearing after the failed boot, a person, DM10 was their name, came back to me saying that it wasn't the bootloader, but a fouled up file system, which I suppose was caused by the system update failure. After fixing the file system with sudo fsk-y (22/54)
slash dev slash sda1, I'm back up and running thanks to the forum. I would never have figured it out by myself. The whole point is to remind folks out in Linux land that the forum for your distro can be a valuable resource in maintaining and operating your system. This isn't the first time that I have received help from the Mint forum. Of course, I appreciate all the help from going Linux over the years. Ken, KB4XT. Well, that's good. That's what forums are for. There's always somebody that's had the same thing happen to them. Yeah, exactly. And oftentimes the solution is pretty straightforward and sometimes, as it did in Ken's case, requires the use of the terminal. But hey, you shouldn't shy away from the terminal. Sometimes that's a quicker and easier way to take care of things like this. That was a one line fix. Exactly. Yes. But I will say the Linux Mint forums and I found also the MX Linux forums are some of the friendliest ones out there. They both have really helpful people. (23/54)
Always go to the forums when you're having problems because there's always somebody that either can tell you how to fix it or if they've experienced it and know how to get it back up and running. Yeah, and I think the Ubuntu forums are very friendly too. And even OMG Ubuntu, they have forums and that sort of thing that helps as well. So if you're on any Ubuntu based distribution, Linux Mint included, you'll often find answers to problems there and they're pretty friendly there too. Now, there's another resource. It's in wiki form and I know it's going to sound weird, but I've actually found a fix to a problem on the Arch Linux wiki. Oh yeah, of course. Sometimes when Google's not your friend, I found the Endeavor wiki is really good. It won't fix everything of course. I've broken the system before, but I find that if you can't find it, it doesn't hurt just to take a quick peek at the Arch wiki just because sometimes it might give you a different avenue to explore. Yep, absolutely. I (24/54)
think there's a link that you can download to what they call a daily build. Is that what you're running? Yeah, all of the Ubuntu official distributions make all of their daily builds that they're working on for the upcoming release available publicly, as do, you know, it's open source, right? Everybody does that. So I just go in there and download the latest daily build and build my examples from there. And so, yeah, the latest versions of my books have been updated for 20.04. And the one that is for switchers from Mac OS and from Windows is available now with the updates for 20.04. And the one that is more in depth that goes into the applications and a little bit more in depth, Ubuntu Mate and its applications are using Ubuntu Mate and its applications is the full title. That won't be available until after the beginning of April. It'll be available before 20.04 comes out. But I'm waiting to see if a couple of features actually make it into the release before I release that that book (25/54)
and I want to keep it as up to date as possible. So that's why you run dailies? Yeah, exactly. It's just a double check to see if there's one particular feature that allows you to change the themes to something other than green. Well, you don't like the green? No, green is great. But there's a colors feature that is available as a PPA, but they're intending to put it within the actually within Ubuntu welcome, Ubuntu Mate welcome. Oh, really? Yeah, to select the color you want your ambient or radiance theme to be. And including the dark themes with a number of different colors available. And if the I've got basically two versions of that chapter, one describing how to set up the PPA and the other one, how to do it from the Ubuntu Mate welcome. And depending on whether it makes it in or not is what will go into the it go into the book. So to answer your question, Daniel, about what the difference is, there is some difference because there are new features in 20.04 that weren't available (26/54)
in 18.04, the previous LTS version of Ubuntu Mate. So I've incorporated those additional features, I've added a few additional comments about some of the applications. And of course, some of the applications have gotten replaced as well. So in 18.04, the video playing application was VLC that was installed by default. And now it's something called celluloid. So I've changed that chapter to describe celluloid and how that works. So those are the main differences. I would suggest that if you're running 18.04, there's no real need to update the, let the book and go out and buy a new version. I don't want to discourage you from doing that if you want to go ahead and do that. But I don't really see any need if you're not running 20.04. And if you are intending to run 20.04 and you get some value out of the documentation that's provided in books like this, yeah, it's definitely got some value for folks looking for the latest features and how to use them and that sort of thing. So there you (27/54)
go. That's really the difference. It's just been updated for what is in the current distribution or the upcoming current distribution in April. Hey Larry, have you looked at if they're going to be off, I heard they're going to be offering the ZFS system as a fully supported operating file system. Have you looked at that? I have not. So I can't really comment. I've seen in the Slack channels for Ubuntu Mate developers some conversations around that, but I haven't really been following it. So I can't really comment on that. And that's not part of the book. It doesn't go into that level of detail. File system formats and things like that. So it's more for newer users. I still want to try it. It's my itch to try that ZFS. I've heard some of them talking about it on some other podcasts and it's like, oh, I really want to try that. But anyway, it really depends, I think, whether or not it is completely stable enough for a distribution like Ubuntu to include it. That'll determine whether or (28/54)
not it's available, I think, more than anything else. All right. Let's see here. We have Carlos asking about compatibility of his printer fax scanner. We haven't had printer questions in a while. My main laptop is an HP Pavilion G6 2112HE notebook, 64 bit, 4 gigabytes of RAM and Windows 7. So it's a little older system. He says, I tested the live version of Linux Lite, which seemed to be faster. My only concern or problem is making sure my printer and scanner fully function properly. I did notice while testing the live version of Linux Lite, my printer's driver for Epson Workforce 845 was recognized. But I'm having a hard time configuring and testing the scanner since I have an all in one printer scanner fax copier. Can you possibly help me with this issue? I really want to install Linux on my main laptop, but have to make sure this issue is resolved first. Would Ubuntu Mate work out of the box where I wouldn't have such a hard time installing my printer slash scanner? I will also test (29/54)
Ubuntu Mate to compare which one is more stable. I'm looking forward to hearing back from you soon. Best regards, Carlos. And so Carlos and I went back and forth. I got a lot more detail on what he was doing around this scanner. I provided him a couple of links, which we'll include in the show notes, showing him that the Epson Workforce 845 driver is included by default in the Linux kernel. So it should be completely supported from a printer perspective. Scanners, oftentimes even with the built in scanners, sometimes scanner support is separate from printer support. So I looked on the scanner Linux compatibility and it shows the Epson Workforce 845 is fully Linux compatible as well. All of the functions should work just fine. So we went back and forth on determining how he was trying to set up the scanner. And he was looking for Epson drivers and all kinds of things, which, of course, you don't really need because it's all automatically installed on Linux. You don't really need to (30/54)
install separate drivers when it's supported out of the box. So once we got past that, I determined that it might be as simple as Carlos not understanding completely what the... how to use the scanner. So Carlos did write back. Why don't you go ahead and read that and then I'll describe what I suggested to Carlos for learning about how to use the scanner. Sure. Carlos wrote, I have just now tested the scanner and was not successful. First, I turned on the printer, then went to printers, configure printers. My printer was added already, Epson Workforce 845 and reads to connect it to local host. Next, I clicked on the program simple scan and clicked on the scan button and it said fail to scan, no scanners available. Please connect the scanner. I'm not sure if there are some hidden settings I need to change or not. What do you suggest? How do I correct this problem? Right. And so I suggested that if Carlos wanted some documentation on how to use simple scan, that with simple scan open, he (31/54)
pressed the F1 key on his keyboard and that will open up the help text for simple scan, including, you know, graphical examples and things like that. And what it says in there about selecting a scanner, and I realized that he was trying to do a scan without selecting scanner first. So essentially it tells you in the documentation that you need to select the device from the document menu and then go to preferences. And it says local scanners are automatically detected each time document scanner starts and each time you plug in a USB scanner. If you connect to network scanner, which I suspect is what we have here, you will need to restart document scanner for the scanner to be detected. So, yeah. So you want to make sure that you're connected either plugged in or through the network and then start document scanner and it should automatically detect your scanner. And if not, you go into the document preferences menu and you should be able to select your scanner there. And then everything (32/54)
else you were doing, Carlos was absolutely correct. One of the things that I've noticed with Linux and on Mac as well, because I don't know whether they use simple scan or they use a Mac version of the scanning tool, but it is independent of the setup for the printer. And typically you don't need to use the scan button that's on the front of the scanner. You just start the scan from the simple scan application and it goes and finds your scanner. You tell it whether or not you want to use the flatbed or the automatic feed if you happen to have a scanner with one of those. And it will figure out how to get the thing started and it will just start the scan for you automatically. So it's even easier than using it under Windows. You don't need to worry about that button that's on the front of your scanner. All right. Just want to also let you know later this next email. This guy has sent this exact same thing to destination Linux and everything about this. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I noticed that. (33/54)
But maybe we've got a little different perspective on things. So let's read it. OK. Our next email comes from Albert who asked about running games on his HP ZBook G3. He said, Hi, guys. Thanks for the podcast. I love the topics on here. I need help. I just bought an HP ZBook G3. It has an Intel Core i7 6700HQ with Intel HD Graphics 530, 16GB of DD4 RAM and 500GB spinning Western Digital Drive. I bought it from a friend's company for 20 bucks. I just installed a crucial 500GB SSD for $66 and also installed Zorin OS Free version with Steam. I think that the next version of Zorin I will pay for since I like it so much. My question is, is there any way to make my gaming experience better? I'm a broke gamer. LOL. Should I get a discrete card like an NVIDIA Quadro M100 or 1000M or an M2000M or should I buy a eGPU box? And which one to get? Has anyone worked with those on Windows or Linux? I have an RX 480 4GB I could throw into an eGPU box if I went that route. I can load most of all the (34/54)
games I want to play using Proton but running on very low settings. Here are some of the games I need to play. Gas, Extreme Guzzlers, Need for Speech, Shift, Doom, Dirt Rally, Axis, Footfall 2019, Smashing the Battle, House Slipper and Table Top Racing. Any thoughts or suggestions is very much appreciated. I want to use the amazing HP Z book since it has great hardware in it. Once again, thanks for the show. Thank you A-Train. First off, that's a great price for that computer. Oh yeah. I'm looking at the specs and you say you can play some on low settings and you said that you're also a broke gamer. As the resident gamer on this podcast, instead of spending a bunch of money on the eGPU box, because I believe you're going to be limited to the connection that one has. I think that one has a Thunderbolt port. I would kind of stay away from the Quattros because the Quattros aren't really gaming cards. They're more for designers like AutoCADs. So I don't know if you should spend any money (35/54)
on those. If you do want to use an eGPU, I would just go ahead and throw the RX 480 in there and just use that. I would save up my money and just spend as little money as you can right now. Just use what you have and maybe pick up one of those boxes, different price ranges. I would just save money and build a computer because this is a laptop. Unless you want to spend $1800 on an alienware, I would just wait and put my money aside until I could build what I wanted. Just spend as little money as I could on this setup. That's kind of what I'm thinking, but I would definitely not dump a lot of money into it. But I would use what I have and save up for some better hardware. Because you're going to be limited by the port that you're using to connect the eGPU. In general, laptops are not recommended for gaming unless they're specifically built for gaming. Even at that, you can get better performance from something that's in a case. Just two other things. I have a gaming laptop and it's made (36/54)
by Alienware. It really cranks out the heat. The problem with these laptops, even the gaming ones, is that the thermals are not as good as maybe a desktop. I would suggest if you're going to be doing a lot more gaming and you want some really high frame rates, etc. Go with a desktop. I would just use it. You can't beat the price. You've got $88 or $86 in the whole system. Even if you picked up an eGPU and you got a little life out of it with your existing RX 480 card, I think that's the best route that you should take. For the short term anyway. Yeah, for the short term. Just save your money. Yep. Sounds good. OK, let's move on. This is a long one from Richard who provided us this feedback. He said, Hi, guys, I'm an occasional listener to your podcast and heard the question and the discussion reORCA and Manjaro and how to contact Manjaro. Manjaro has a very helpful forum easily found at forum.manjaro.org. Guys, it's not exactly hidden away. I think you can even use one of those (37/54)
Internet search thingies to find it. There is also a GitLab group, I believe, so an IRC channel and other social media accounts. With regard to ORCA and accessibility issues, there has been some discussion on the forums about this. You might wish to raise some of the issues for your visually impaired or blind users, as it may help in considering which Linux distros might be worth considering and which are likely to be inappropriate. Manjaro is not a consumer oriented operating system. And he's got that as a quote from the learn more section on the manjaro.org website. I think this probably applies to most rolling distributions. One, Manjaro is a rolling distribution based on Arch. Updates are regular and with short intervals. Use of the terminal will be inevitable at some point. Two, whilst the stable branch is generally solid, there will be times when problems arise and some problem solving and help from the community through the forum will be required. If, for the sake of argument, (38/54)
we consider visually impaired or blind users as falling into two arbitrary categories, one, those who are using a distro as a tool to navigate their lives, then a rolling distro like Manjaro for a testing branch of other distros are likely to be frustrating at the least and possibly infuriating. These users would be better advised to stay with a very stable distro that offers maximum benefit and minimum maintenance to those visually impaired or blind users who are already computing enthusiasts who wish to push the envelope. These users may wish to help developers drive change in the stable LTS distros and who knows, contribute to the rolling distros ability to support visually impaired or blind users. I would say that the development teams are often very small. I am no expert in either computing or visual disability. Perhaps you could invite someone onto your podcast who is to help guide visually impaired or blind users through Linux. Thanks for the podcast. Interesting listening. Best (39/54)
wishes, Richard. All good points, Richard. Thanks for all of that. And so the bottom line for Orca on Manjaro, don't expect it to work. This is kind of what Richard is saying, because Manjaro is a rolling distribution and it's more of a testing sort of thing rather than it is a stable distribution that I think most blind users would need in order to, as he puts it, run their lives. I found that kind of interesting. It says Manjaro is not a consumer oriented operating system. OK, that just kind of strikes me as interesting. But I kind of agree with you. You should say if you're a blind user and you use it to get things done, the Ubuntu based distros seem to offer some of the better support. Yep. So our next email comes from George, who wrote us about episodes 385 and 386. He's right. And he begins, number 386, Brave browser. Just say no. Brave's business model is to intercept and replace advertising with advertising Brave sells. The idea that users will put money into a Brave account to (40/54)
donate to sites they like sounds good, but it's just not going to happen. The tokens earned by viewing ads may be anonymized, but offer a path to tracking. Firefox has a real focus on privacy and he gives a link that will be in the show notes. He has multi-account containers offer important privacy enhancements. So far, I know Firefox only. Google has announced plans to restrict the number of malware and adware sites that can be blocked in Chromium or on which Brave is based in Chrome. That will gut the UBlock origin system that works much like a custom host file. Google long ago blocked users' ability to set their own protective host file in Android and is now moving to do that in its web browsers. UBlock or a host file doesn't block ads. They are an important and effective barrier to malware. And he writes, Max, I've been embedded in the Mac ecosystem a long time. So long, I've basically had to toss out three generations of perfectly good computers because Apple ceased providing (41/54)
security updates. Apple also stops providing parts at five years and by building systems with proprietary parts that has been the only possible source other than scavenging dead Macs. Apple's latest T2 chip combines the SSD controller, UEFI, and encryption locking T2 systems entirely to Apple. Most of their parts, logic board, solid state drive, memory can't be scavenged and there is no generic substitute. Likely, a T2 Mac will never run Linux, which has been a fallback to keep good computers in use when Apple withdraws support. And he says, in reference to 385, Paul, should I be concerned about Linux Mint? I'm one of several followers of the shows on the destination Linux network who communicated disagreement to Michael Turnall, who, in my opinion, has been making an ad hominem allegation that Linux Mint is insecure. Pushing back on Michael did not, unfortunately, result in his specifying exactly his objections to Mint's security, but here's what I gleaned from his follow-up (42/54)
discussions with Ryan, aka, DaskGeek. Number one, Mint provides one and only one user profile for its version of Firefox. Looking into that, I was completely flummoxed by how what I think Michael was saying amounts to a security weakness. Mint modifies Firefox to start at the Mint homepage and replaces Firefox default Google search with Yahoo because Yahoo pays Mint. I do disagree with that. I'm a user of Mint, but as between Mint and Firefox, I think Firefox is more important and Mint shouldn't be intercepting Firefox revenue streams. As it stands, Mozilla is dependent on Google search revenue and likely would collapse without it. I'm hoping that much as Bill Gates rescued Apple back in the day, Google, for antitrust reasons, will see that Firefox survives. What I was unable to wrangle out of my research into Firefox user profiles is how Mint has created a security issue. Perhaps by cloaking all of Mint's Firefox users in one profile, there's a security advantage, just couldn't find (43/54)
anything pro or con. Two, Mint blocks some user-added PPAs. I think we can all agree users who insert random PPAs found on the internet into their Linux systems are potentially opening a huge security hole. Mint makes doing that somewhat more difficult but hardly impossible. I view that as a security advantage, especially for new users, the kind who research newbie-friendly Linux distros and find Mint at the top of most of the lists. Ask Noah went off on Timeshift, as did Michael. Noah had obviously never used it and in his ITPro persona has a bunch of scripts to make backups. Timeshift is amazing. It is available generally on Linux, not just Mint. I use it, tested its restoration ability and donated it to support it. Praise to the Mint team for including it. Daniel problems using no monitor. I've absolutely no idea if this could help, but there was a time when I was running Mac Minis as headless servers that part of the trick was to install a video out device so that the OS thought (44/54)
there was a monitor attached. Link to one on Amazon and links in the show notes. And then Ree, all about Sea Monkey. Thanks for the link. It was one of my favorite applications. The last time I updated a system and needed to install it, it seemed to fail, possibly because only 32-bit. Look forward to trying the 64-bit version. Happy Sea Monkey still swims. Well, as always, George, thanks for all of the information. That's very helpful. So, okay. I know we had said something about Brave and after looking at it, I pretty much just use Firefox. I do have to have a Chromium-based browser on my laptop because sometimes I have to log into work from my house. But my daily driver has been Firefox for a while now and I'm pretty happy with it. It does everything I need to, but my company that I work for, they require you to use Chrome or they don't even like the new Microsoft Edge, the one that's based on Chromium. So they want you to use Chrome. So Google's got them in their pocket. Yeah. Well, (45/54)
there are certain things that, especially things from Google that only work on Chrome or have only worked on Chrome. So you've been a little locked in there. But yeah. So Brave, I don't know. Some people have some concerns. Some people find it very helpful. I don't know. It's one of the ones that is available for you to use should you choose to use it. And I don't really use it on a regular basis either, so I can't really comment. You use Firefox? I use Firefox and Chrome, usually Chrome, but I use Firefox as a backup and as a way of testing something to see if it works on things other than Chrome. Oh, cool. All right. Our next email is from Anand who wrote us about Linux on a MacBook Pro. Hi, Bill and Larry. My name is Anand and I am from the Middle East. I am a regular listener to your podcast, which is very relaxed and has a cafe feel to it. But at the same time, very interesting and informative about Linux. This is on the last podcast of Linux on MacBooks. I recently got into Linux (46/54)
and I first experimented with it on my 2010 MacBook Pro. After numerous tries with Ubuntu, finally, the OS I am head over heels in love with is Ubuntu Budgie, and it works seamlessly on my MacBook Pro. No problems at all. I believe Budgie DE, desktop environment that is, is very slick and looks amazing on the MacBook Pro with dark themes. I tried Solus Budgie 2. It worked really well too, but I needed specific software which was available on Ubuntu and so hopped back to Ubuntu Budgie. Thought I should add to the discussion. Thanks again for all the knowledge sharing and perhaps keep sharing it. With regards, Anand. No thanks Anand. I'm glad it's working for him. Budgie's kind of slick. Yeah, it's it's one of those that's I think you mentioned is designed to look like the Mac operating system. Yeah, it's yeah, it's very you can make them look very much like Mac. So our next email comes from Alex who wrote about our episode on switching from Mac OS. He said OS X is still my main system (47/54)
because I use Logic Pro to make music on a hackintosh. I've been considering switching to take advantage of of the bang for the buck on the higher core count AMD CPUs. OK. OK. I wrote back to Alex and sent him a link to some alternatives to Logic Pro for Linux. I don't know how good they are, how they compare, but I just wanted to make sure that he was aware that there are some some alternatives out there. So maybe he can continue to use Linux. Here we go. All right. OK. We're almost at the end of our emails here. This next one is from Paul, who asked about Chromebooks running Linux. Hi, guys. I've been using Windows for most of my life and recently one to two years have been using Macs for development. PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, but would also like to expand into Python. I've heard Google mention you can dual boot Linux onto their Chromebooks, but haven't bought one to test yet. Was wondering if either of you have tested out working on a Chromebook with Linux. What attracts me to the (48/54)
Chromebook is the compact size and price point. Do you have a recommendation on what specs to look for the Chromebook and with what Linux distros to use? Or maybe you have an alternative machine to suggest. I've enjoyed the podcast for a couple of years now and have dual booted my wife's laptop to use Mint for her continuing surfing the Web and emailing. Thanks to tips and suggestions from here. Cheers, Paul. Web developer and designer. OK, so Paul, most of the newer Chromebooks you can install Linux after stripping off Chrome or running it in parallel with Chrome. Not exactly a dual boot, but similar sort of thing. I would suggest that you go with a newer version of a Chromebook if you decide to go that route. One that would have comparable specs to an equivalent non Chromebook or Windows or Linux operating system based hardware. You can find them easily out there. Some Toshiba's come to mind and so on. The ones that I have heard most problems with are the Samsung's. Not that there (49/54)
are significant problems, but that might be something you'd want to stay away from. I'm not sure, but there are plenty of them out there and they are definitely less expensive. So when you're looking at the specs, I can't give you specific specs to look for, but when you're looking at the specs, compare the specifications with those that you might find on Dell or Linux 76 or Intrawear computers and make sure that you've got similar sort of specifications and hardware. I think, like I said, most Chromebooks these days are capable of running Linux without too much trouble. I'd check around and search for anyone installing Linux on the Chromebook you might be interested in and just check to make sure they didn't run into any major problems in the installation that you couldn't get yourself out of in the way of problems. One other point on the Chromebooks is bear in mind that the keyboard you get on a Chromebook is not going to be the same as the keyboard you get on a system built for Mac (50/54)
or built for Windows or built for Linux. You won't have certain keys on the keyboard because Chrome does things differently. So you may be looking for those keys, for example, the meta key or the Windows key or the, you know, backspace. Yeah, backspace is another big key that you can't find. So just be careful. Go and try them out and make sure that you can find workarounds for those keys as well. Just less to do with the specs of the computer and more to do with the, you know, the keyboard. There is a shortcut to make that. I think it's like Alt and then the back arrow. For somebody who don't have a delete key, we use Chromebooks when we onboard new employees and one of them say, where's the backspace key? And I had to actually just Google it because I couldn't figure out how to backspace that thing. But my suggestion, and you're going to laugh, I would say look for an IBM ThinkPad. Great keyboard and probably have a little bit higher specs. And one of the things about the Chromebooks (51/54)
I've always noticed is they have really tiny SSD drives and a lot of times they're not very fast, but that's just, you know, something to think about. Yeah, I've seen some with larger SSD drives, so they've gotten a little bit bigger with that. Typically they are lower spec and even if you get Linux installed on them, they're going to run Linux slower than equivalent hardware designed for Windows or designed for Linux. So just be aware that it might not give you the performance you expect, even if it's an i5 processor or something like that. So just be careful. There's a reason why they're less expensive and part of that has to do with the fact that they use less expensive parts. And less expensive when you're talking about processors and RAM and so on typically means performs less well. All right. Our next email is kind of a sad one. Troy wrote us about Mark Greaves, the founder of Peppermint OS and lead developer. He writes, hi guys. I haven't heard anything about it on the show (52/54)
recently, so I'm not sure if you've heard, but Mark Greaves passed away in January and he leaves a link to the forum in Peppermint OS. Troy, aka Jack Death. And yeah, I had heard about it when it was announced, but it hit us right between when we were recording and we had a week off. But yeah, I was very sad to hear about Mark passing away. He leaves, I think they said, a wife and some children. So our thoughts go out to him and yeah, I know they're trying to find someone to kind of help keep the project going. So if you know anybody interested, go over to the forums and see if you can help them out. Yep. forum.peppermintos.com. Yep. Okay. Well, that's it. That's our last email. Our next episode, if it's out in time, will be the Linux Spotlight interview, the audio version. We'll put that out on the feed and that will be our next episode. So no surprises this time, unless it's not available already. So then then then it'll be a surprise. It'll be a surprise and no extra charge. Until (53/54)
then, you can go to our website at goinglinx.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 Linux podcast community on community.goinglinx.com. Until next time, thanks for listening. 73. Music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (54/54)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #385 · Listener Feedback.
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Going Linux episode 385, 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. So what's new in your world? Well, I had a nice little exchange with my web hosting company about the SSL certificates. Did you kill anybody? No, I didn't kill anybody. Their website won't allow me to create a help desk ticket, and their chat doesn't seem to work consistently. I can't paste anything in, but I can type. (1/54)
As long as I type one sentence at a time, I'm okay. However, once I did get in touch with them and began to work with them, the issue was resolved pretty quickly. They gave me some things to look at to figure out what was going on. They insisted that the certificate was not self-signed, as some of our minions had indicated, and it turns out they are correct. It was not self-signed. It turns out the issue was one little graphic element. Guess what it is? No fair reading off the show notes. So tell me what this is. I'm sure it's something open source related, right? Am I right? No, not at all. It is very proprietary. You remember the reason that I put SSL certificates in in the first place? Because of iTunes. Because of Apple insisting that in order to list the podcast in their site, the website has to have HTTPS or an SSL certificate. Well, the iTunes button on our website, on the subscription page, was pointing to an Apple site with HTTP. Okay. So they have very strict restrictions (2/54)
about their branding, as you might expect, and so rather than mess with that, I just linked to their button on their website. And the button for iTunes, the old button, is on an HTTP site that doesn't have SSL certificates. And of course they've changed all that to Apple podcasts, not iTunes anymore for podcasts. So they have a whole new thing that they want you to use that says, listen on Apple podcasts instead of listen on iTunes. Well, their old button is on this old site, and what was causing our site not to behave properly was a link to their site that doesn't have the SSL certificate. So as soon as I changed that, the padlock went on, everything works fine. There was one other change I had to make to point to the MeWe because apparently there's some issue with their redirects that isn't SSL certified or something. I don't know. I made those two changes and everything works fine. So you need to tell me that the website was throwing up all these false messages just because of one (3/54)
link. Yeah, one link to a graphic element. Okay. Well, anyway, now we know. Well, I had a little bit of drama. I was testing, by the way, your prediction of doing 10 distributions, I'm already at halfway now, so you're pretty much a done deal. But I was testing out KDE Neon, and it was okay. I was liking it because I thought it was so configurable and everything, and I'm like, yeah, I'll try it and keep playing with it. But there was a certain thing I needed to do. I had a new hard drive, and I said, well, it wouldn't let me create folders or copy things to it. So I do some digging, and I know there's a way you can go into the command line, but I have to look at things how a new user would look at them. Yeah, to be clear, it wouldn't let you do this on an external USB connected hard drive. On an external USB hard drive. It's a four terabyte Seagate Barracuda, nothing special. And so I'm sitting there, and I was like, I don't understand this. So I'm looking, I'm looking, and so I told (4/54)
you, I said, I can't get to change these permissions because, again, I know there's a way to do it in the terminal. I'd have to look it up because I don't memorize all that crap. So you suggested just click on it on the drive, and you said open as administrator or root. I'm like, hey, that's a great idea. I didn't think about that. So what do you think happened next? Well, you already know because I sent you a screenshot of it. Yeah, yeah. If you hadn't sent me the screenshot, I wouldn't know. Well, apparently, apparently, when I tried to open as a root or tried to do sudo or anything like that, it popped up with a nice message that says, you can't do this in the Dolphin File Manager because there's unfixable. And you saw it, it says unfixable security vulnerabilities. And I'm sitting there going, are you kidding me? So, yeah, finally just said, well, I can't really recommend this because people do have USB drives and they do want it. But I was just like, why would you put unfixable? (5/54)
It's like, okay, we know it's broke, we're just not going to fix it. So we're just going to disable the whole one piece of this functionality. So made no sense. Yeah, maybe it's difficult to fix, but impossible. I don't know about that. And I don't know the specific details and I'm not technical enough to be able to weigh in unequivocally on it. But seems to me like it should be something that's fixable. Come on, maybe you have to rewrite the entire operating system or something. But I don't know. It's not the operating system. Just to use your space, your graphical interfaces. One of the things that we always say is that when we recommend something to new users, that they should be able to do everything they can do, maybe not as efficiently or as fast, but everything like adding a hard drive so you can actually copy files to it, your pictures that you've downloaded from your phone or whatever, without having to drop to a command line, because you can't tell me you're going to get some (6/54)
70-year-old grandmother who's going to become a command line warrior just to do these pictures. The first thing she's going to say is, no, give me back my insert proprietary operating system name here. Yeah. Well, you know what? I bet one of our minions is, at least one of our minions, knows the details behind this in KDE Neon. And can tell us why it's unfixable. And if you're listening and you can do that, drop us a line. Let us know what's going on here, because it doesn't seem right. Anyway, like I said, they've done some nice stuff to make it easy. They have a lot of nice tools. KDE Neon, I've never seen repositories that fast. It's like, I want that program, because it's kind of stripped down. They don't put a lot of stuff like they do in Kubuntu. You kind of add what you want. So that was a great system to test out different programs to see if they actually worked without saying, okay, let me see. It was the latest and greatest, so according to them, because that's the KDE's test (7/54)
bench, basically, is KDE Neon. It's built on Ubuntu long-term support 18.04, but, yeah, you always have the latest KDE. I was getting updates every day. So, yeah, anyway. Yeah, well, and the bottom line is, if it has problems like you can't copy files to an external USB hard drive, it's not something we can recommend. So, unfortunately, you need to use something else. And I did. And fortunately, there's lots to choose from. Yeah, exactly. So shall we get into our email from our listeners? Yes, of course. So our first email is from Paul, who provided two audio clips to go with his email. Paul writes, hi, Larry and Bill. Thanks for the great information you give our community each episode. I thought you might find the information in these audio clips interesting. I'd never heard this about Linux Mint before. If possible, I'd like to hear your comments on the two audio clips I'm attaching from episode 153, Destination Linux on YouTube. Michael, Ryan, and Zeb discussing. And this is the (8/54)
first clip. So there's the issue that was around before the time shift happened. And by the way, time shift is not a solution. It's a workaround. Some people refer to it as a band-aid. The reason is because they have an infrastructure that is based on Ubuntu, but it doesn't do a clean fork. So if you look at the difference between Ubuntu and Debian, Ubuntu is a fork of Debian. It's a derivative, but it's also a fork. And that all of the packages that are in Ubuntu are pulled from Ubuntu and not directly from Debian any time you do an update. So they take all the packages at one time in Debian and then put them into Ubuntu and then they do their thing on top of that. Whereas Linux Mint has a weird thing where they sort of fork and sort of don't. They take some packages, make their own version in their own repos, and then they also use the Ubuntu repos for a lot of other things. Probably most things really. And this creates an issue where there's a compatibility thing between what Ubuntu (9/54)
does and what Mint does. So if Mint were just to fork everything, this problem wouldn't be an issue necessarily. But because they don't do that, they have this weird, sometimes in the back in the day, they had that one through five priority of like our warning levels of what could be happening. And the only reason is because sometimes on the four and five, they were bringing in core elements from both their repo and the Ubuntu repos creating this weird mix and match thing. And it could have created an issue and they didn't have a solution for that because whatever reason. And the solution was essentially a workaround by putting in time shift. So if something does happen, they can just kind of ignore it and go back. You can just roll back into the previous version. So it does solve the user's problem, but it doesn't solve the technical issue of the disconnect. OK, Bill, this thing about Mint and Ubuntu and the fork not being complete and time shift as a workaround, what do you think? (10/54)
Well, I think they pretty much discussed it. Michael Ryan and Zeb, they talked about it and they gave, you know, Mint does its own thing. And, you know, because, I mean, they've developed software for it and then changed it to how they want. You know, that's what happens because if you really think about it, you got Debian, then Ubuntu, and then he had another Mint who forked from Ubuntu, and they still used the base, but they changed a lot of stuff. So, yeah, you're going to have compatibility issues. It's just, you know, it's just like a copy of a copy of a copy. Sooner or later, you know, if you diverge far enough, it's going to cause problems. Right, right. And I see their point about time shift being a workaround for this problem. I'm not sure that's why time shift has been implemented in Linux Mint, but because it's a very good backup program. But it is definitely a useful tool to work around this issue that they have. And Paul's main issue here is, if I read down in his email a (11/54)
little bit further, he says, I'd like your analysis. In my case, I'm using Linux Mint 19.2 Cinnamon as my daily driver. I'm not a distro hopper and have used Linux Mint for six years or more. Should I be concerned about this new practice? I don't know whether it's a new practice or not, but I'm not so sure you need to be concerned about it, especially if it hasn't caused you any issues. And if it's not broke, don't fix it kind of philosophy. So if this forking or not forking completely issue isn't really causing you any troubles, then I wouldn't worry about it. And as the guys on Destination Linux have said, time shift is the solution to the problem. If something breaks, you use time shift to roll back and work from there. So I think I think it's covered. I don't think you have to worry about it. You can continue to use Linux Mint for many years going forward if that's your choice. On the other hand, if it has given you trouble and you're always restoring from time shift backup, then (12/54)
maybe you should change to something else. But if that's not the case, don't worry about it. That's kind of my opinion. What do you think, Bill? If he's been using it for six years and it's still working, don't follow my example. If it's, you know, I break things just because I like to break things. If it's not broken, just continue using it. When it starts causing problems where you can't get your work done, then you might want to look somewhere else. But if it's working for you, use it and abuse it until you just can't use it anymore. That's what I'd say. I wouldn't worry about it. Yep. OK. And then his clip number two is about PPAs. We'll play that now. The problem that the PPAs have is back, they still have the problem, but it's not as not a big a deal as it was then. Because in 2015 or so, I realized they had this issue. And what it is, is that there's this priority system that is built into Linux. Every Linux system has a priority for the repos that you can pull from. And this is (13/54)
that you set a number value for that priority for the repo. And it gives you a list of being able to control the order of when something is pulled from. So it seems like, for example, Ubuntu by default, their repos and basically every repo, Ubuntu provides or PPAs, are all set for priority 500. And the way that you can change this number, and it will change the priority, but you don't actually have to do that. All you have to do is make sure that the repo you want to have priority is set higher in the list, so it checks that first and then goes into the rest. Now, this is a good solution, and that's not what Mint did. Instead of that, they do have it at the top, but they also change the priority number for their repos. And they have it from 700 to 750 depending on which repo you're talking about. Now, what happens is, if you install a PPA, that PPA is set to 500. And it creates a conflict between, no matter what order it is, the repo for Mint is automatically taken over because of that (14/54)
priority number. So if you want to install an application, and admittedly, this is a rare thing because you have to, one, you have to find an application that is in both the Ubuntu packages, the Mint packages, and a PPA so that they had to have pulled it from Ubuntu, made their own version, and then you also install a PPA to get it. You'd have to do all that, so fair enough, it's not a huge issue, and especially not with the flat packs and snaps and app images anymore. So it's still less so, but the structure is still in place where when you install a PPA and you install an application from that PPA, you will not actually get the application from that PPA because the priority of Mint takes over. So you're pulling from the Mint repo instead of the PPA you just installed. And the only way to fix that is to manually change the pin number or the priority number for the repo for Mint or to manually install the DEB package from the PPA, which will then force the particular PPA to become (15/54)
priority, and then it will start pulling. I called nonsense on this live with you on the phone, and then we did a test, and unfortunately you were correct. It installed the old version. Instead of giving me the latest version from the PPA, it installed the old version of the package from their software store and ignored the PPA entirely. Really, that's quite shocking for a new user that's just learning about Linux. And I'm assuming it's going to do that for the NVIDIA drivers as well, so you're wanting the latest 440 off of the NVIDIA PPA, and it grabs the 435 off of Mint. It's possible. The issue really depends on if Mint decided to fork that in their repo or not. If they didn't fork it, then it's not a big deal, but if they did, then it would be. Well, the first issue is you're running NVIDIA. The second issue would be how Mint handles that package. Okay, and he continues, PPA's and priority. I really don't understand the technical parts of the discussion, but I'd like to get drivers (16/54)
and other software that is the latest if I have to use a PPA to get it. Question. Generally, should I be concerned enough with these issues to change distros? Let me just weigh in here. Again, it's a pretty technical discussion, yes, but essentially what they're saying is that the PPA's that they use, PPA's for new folks are personal package archives. It's a way of putting additional software that may not be part of the standard distribution out available, and it may not get the same scrutiny as other packages, but it's a completely acceptable way in Ubuntu to provide software updates. And it looks like the Linux Mint folks have a system of priorities that overrides the standard way of doing it in Ubuntu distributions, which is if the PPA is on the top of the list, that's the one it'll pull from, and the Linux Mint repositories take precedence over that set of priorities. So if there's a more recent driver available in a PPA than there is in the standard Linux Mint repositories, with (17/54)
Linux Mint you're not going to get the most recent drivers, and I suspect that the reason they do that is because the Linux Mint repositories have drivers that they've tested, and the PPA's, like I said, don't have the same scrutiny as the Linux Mint repositories, the software in the Linux Mint repositories. So I understand why they do it that way, and there are ways to lock the version of something that you're using, so that if you have a driver that has version A, for example, and version B comes out, and Linux Mint is going to always default to version A because it's in their repository and version B doesn't, you can set in synaptic, or even on the command line, you can lock the version that you're using so that it will always use version B. If you can get it to install the latest version, then you set the lock before you do any updates, and you're all set. So that's kind of where we're at. And again, to answer your question, is it a serious enough problem to switch distros? No, I (18/54)
don't think so, because the Linux Mint team is trying to keep you safe by making sure that the drivers you're using are the ones that they have had an opportunity to verify and vet. And if they haven't taken a look at the most recent driver, then they're not going to let you use it until they have. And then once they've looked at it, it'll be in the repositories and you'll get the latest version of it. So, Paul, I think that's my opinion. Do you agree or disagree, Bill? I agree. I agree with what you said. I'm sorry, I was looking through something real quick. And, yeah, everything you said just makes sense. They're just trying to keep it as safe as they can for their users. You know, between the guys that were discussing it, some of them kind of saw it and some of them kind of disagreed. And in the real world, that's probably not going to be something that you're going to be looking at. If your NVIDIA card works or whatever, most of it's for NVIDIA cards, I think. If it's working, you (19/54)
don't need the latest and super greatest. They're going to release it as an update or in the next version. So if it's working, just use it and don't worry about it. Yeah, you know, that's a good point. If you're using a driver and you don't need the additional new functions that the update to the driver is providing, then you don't need that new version of the driver if everything's working fine. So Paul wraps up his email saying, my experience with Linux Mint has been a very good one. I haven't had any problems with system updates since installing Linux Mint 19.2 Cinnamon several months ago. Well, Paul, if that's the case, keep on using Linux Mint. It seems to be working for you. Our next email comes from Daniel and he asks about using no monitor. I am trying Fedora 31. Since I use Orca, the screen reader, I need no monitor. But when the monitor is off, the computer does not want to work. Is there a way to tell Fedora not to bother with the monitor? Yeah, have you explored around with (20/54)
settings for displays or power on Fedora? No, I haven't. But I have a Fedora distro that I'm looking at. I can always look at it when I load it up and see. But maybe there's something in the software that's telling it. Does Orca need a monitor to work? I mean, it would have to. I guess it would be part of the input, wouldn't it? No, I don't think so. I think Orca, because it's a screen reader, I wouldn't expect that it would require a monitor. I'm thinking it's something in Fedora. And I'm not a Fedora user, so I'm not familiar with the settings. But looking at Ubuntu-based distributions, I know there are settings for displays. I know that you can turn off or on displays in those settings, in the display settings. And I know there are some power management settings as well that tell your computer what to do when on a laptop you close the lid, which is essentially a switch that turns off the display in many cases. And I would suggest, Daniel, whether it's a laptop or a desktop, see if (21/54)
there's a setting in the power management somewhere that allows you to change the behavior when the display goes off or when the laptop lid is closed or when certain situations occur that might be similar to the monitor power going off. And make sure that that is set to do nothing or whatever the equivalent setting is. In Ubuntu-based distributions, typically you have three settings. There's do nothing, there is suspend, and then there is power off. And depending on which distribution you have, you may have all of those options or some subset of them. And if there's something going on with when you turn off the monitor, and I'm assuming this is a power switch on a desk-based system as opposed to a laptop or something like that, when you power off the monitor, then Orca stops working or Fedora stops working or something like that. I think that it's probably a power management setting, but I'm not absolutely sure. Maybe there's something else in Fedora that makes the assumption that you (22/54)
need a monitor to use the system, and it checks to see if there's a monitor, and if not, things don't work. But yeah, so Daniel's saying that when his monitor's off, the computer doesn't work, not that Orca doesn't work. So I'm thinking it's a Fedora setting, or maybe you just have to make a tweak in the power management or something similar. Yeah, I don't know about Orca. Yeah. Okay, well, let's move on to our next email. This one's from Nathan, who wrote us about OpenSUSE and their EULAs and gave us some feedback on our episode 383. Greetings, long time no write into your show. I'm still listening and enjoying some advice on doing upgrades in OpenSUSE. And when we were listening to, I think it was George or someone who was reading through EULAs and had to scroll all the way to the bottom on OpenSUSE. Maybe it wasn't George, maybe it was somebody else. But Nathan says to skip through the EULAs on OpenSUSE when doing upgrades from the terminal with Zipper. In the terminal, just add (23/54)
dash L or dash dash auto agree with licenses. After you read it the first time, this is an issue with NVIDIA drivers too. Specifically, this option will automatically say yes to third party license confirmation prompt. By using this option, you choose to agree with licenses of all third party software this command will install. This option is particularly useful for administrators installing the same set of packages on multiple machines by an automated process and have the licenses confirmed beforehand. Example views. So this would be a command you would type in the command line. Zipper space update space dash dash auto dash agree dash with dash licenses. Keep in mind that OpenSUSE gives you the ultimate control over your system, but with the added benefits of passing control over to the system. Thanks again for your show, Nate, Cubicle Nate. That's a cool trip. Yeah. All right. Our next email comes from George, who also wrote about episode 383 from December 26. He's went, Hey, Larry (24/54)
and Bill, best wishes as we head into 2020. About the EULA episode. VirtualBox is free. VirtualBox extensions are not free for business use. And I remember the discussion about the wife who needed to run Windows on her computer. She needed it for work. I tried VirtualBox and needed the extensions. Oracle is darn near as litigious as Apple. The extensions are sold in large enterprise packages. CDW has a single install listed at $40 from a third party seller. Before buying, I want to be sure that the third party seller had the right to resell part of the bundle purchase. Or better yet, if is Oracle itself. And it gives a link that will be in the show notes. Yeah. And by the way, I took a look at that link. For $40, you have to order a quantity of $100. Oh, is that all? Yeah. So you got to spend $400. Lovely. Yeah. Okay. So then he says there's alternative VMs. Jupyter Broadcasting's choose links number 25. Just discussed virtualization. Some far geekier than I would try. But also gnome (25/54)
boxes that sounds promising and relatively straightforward. I just checked the gnome boxes apparently isn't restricted to pure gnome desktops. And he gives links to the choose Linux show and to the gnome users. And to the link that talks about the gnome boxes stable. So before going farther, I listened to that episode and they were talking. One of the hosts got all really geeky and was using Zen and all this wild stuff. And he was able to get really good results. But definitely not for a new user. And then I think one of them was saying, yeah, they just use gnome boxes and it works really well for them. So gnome boxes is really lightweight. Not a lot of switches to flip and stuff. So yeah, it's probably if you just need to throw a quick VM just to see what it looks like. Gnome boxes will probably work. I have had trouble with it running non Debian based distros. Because I've tried it and it didn't like Sabion. It didn't like OpenSUSE. It didn't like, I think it was Fedora 29. So (26/54)
anyway, I guess your miles will vary. But if it's a Debian based distribution, it works pretty well. So he goes on and says about the certificate issues. He said Firefox raised no issues when I just visited your site. Danny said 122919 at about 1220 central standard. So I hope you have that fixed. Sadly, I think it is potentially dangerous to advise users to ignore the certificate warnings. I've not taken trouble to go fetch certificates for our several Synology NAS boxes. But rely on my Synology self-assigned certificate. These are internal to my home and work network. So I just click through the Firefox option to ignore the warning and proceed. Out on the general internet, I'm very concerned. The failed certificate might be a red flag alert about a man in the middle. Interception of all or part of a website. Ignoring it could feed malware right through a user's browser. Your problem wasn't really your problem. Unless we consider a flaky hosting company as your problem. But failed (27/54)
expired certificates could also be a tip off that a website author isn't paying attention to basic security. WordPress installs that aren't secure and regularly updated are a common hazard. And then he continues and he says money. In past years, I've been honored to be able to send in a few dollars to support your efforts. I'd be willing to mail a check or if Gmail still has features that enable sending money. I did use it once and it worked. I'd write and mail or click and send. George. Well, thanks for the offer, George. Certainly unnecessary. Yeah. Yeah. And certificate issues. Yes, we've got them fixed. And it was, as I said, the one single tiny little graphic file that was on a site managed by Apple that does not have an SSL certificate on that site. So once that's fixed, it's no problem anymore. And so, you know, not a problem. However, your point is well taken as a general rule, you shouldn't just click through ignore. And, you know, that people who have been using Windows XP (28/54)
and now Windows 7 who get the warning when they start up their computer that says your computer is now out of support and click through dismiss because that's what you have to do to use your computer. Yeah, it's kind of like that. Anyhow, thanks, George. I appreciate it. All right. Our next email is from Highlander, who wrote about mass surveillance countermeasures. Can you figure out, he says, how Linux could play a role in mass surveillance countermeasures? Can you tell your audience your opinion on this? He provides a link. We'll have it in the show notes. And that link describes things like special glasses that make your head glow if you're being caught on infrared cameras or other special glasses that sunglasses that normally an infrared light will pass through and give the, you know, the software that identifies people the ability to see through dark sunglasses. Well, these sunglasses actually make that black for the infrared light and they talk about the problems with software, (29/54)
excuse me, with facial analysis systems, false positives or falsely identifying people. And all that sort of stuff. It's a lengthy article, but it's got a lot of good information. And the bottom line is, yes, there is a lot of surveillance out there, depending on what country you're in. That will determine how much is actually there. Some of it you may know about because you can see the cameras, some of it you may not know about because it's surreptitious. And, you know, yeah, there's an old saying about those people who give up security for convenience deserve neither. Those who give up security for safety, I'm not sure that same thing applies, but we've got to be aware of this stuff that goes on. And this article gives you some thought provoking things to look at and read. So what's your opinion, Bill? It's governments all over the place are putting up more and more cameras. But I did read this article and there are ones very similar. Was it someone who used a computer to design a (30/54)
shirt that when a camera saw it, it confused it? Right, right. Yeah. So that was kind of, yeah, but I think the surveillance is going to be around and there's not much we can do about it. I mean, we can try for privacy protections and stuff. I mean, if you really want to get down to it, we're kind of doing it to ourselves, too, because everybody is putting up all those ring doorbells, you know, with the cameras, all those going back to, isn't it Amazon who owns ring? You know, so I don't know whether it's Amazon or somebody else. But now the police can actually just pull the video from your ring doorbell. So we're kind of doing it ourselves. We're putting them in our houses and, you know, at our doors. So every time, you know, unless it's something that you're self hosting yourself, it's going, you know, the data is there, someone's going to take it. And so I guess what we have to do is kind of try to set some boundaries and some guidelines. That's about the only thing to think of (31/54)
because, you know, they say London has cameras everywhere. And in China, I was just watching a documentary. They're putting more and more cameras of all time. They have more cameras per capita than most countries or two or three countries combined. So, you know, the more the more this, you know, surveillance, the more data they're going to get. It's pretty fascinating what they're able to learn from just watching people. Yeah, exactly. So I don't know really what to make of it, but we've discussed it. Let's cut all the power and live without power. Oh, wait a minute. No, no, let's not do that. You know, without power we couldn't podcast. Anyway, our next email comes from Daniel who wrote about Manjaro Linux and he said, with no Orca, he said, in times past, I would want to try Manjaro and tried to start Orca and would hear no speech. Does Manjaro come with Orca built in to the installer? Some installers have no Orca. How may one write to the Manjaro people? I use no Facebook nor (32/54)
Twitter. Okay. Well, as far as I know, Manjaro does not install Orca by default. And I've looked at the Manjaro user's guide that's on their website and I don't see any reference to Orca or to the accessibility software that would give you a screen reader. And I couldn't find an email address on their website, but you could post something into their wiki, which is at wiki.manjaro.org and perhaps someone there could answer your questions. I'm a little surprised they don't have any other way to contact them, but... They don't have forms? No. Well, they have the wiki. I think that's how they have the form, is in a wiki format. Oh, well. Okay. Right. But there's no email address or direct contact link. And unfortunately, it doesn't say anything about it that I could find in their user's guide that's on their website about Orca or screen readers or accessibility. So, not being a regular Manjaro user, I can't speak from experience that it's not there. It's just they don't mention any voice (33/54)
to speech or Orca or anything like that. Hmm. That's kind of strange that... Well, it's strange that they don't have Orca, but it's also strange that they don't have an email address. Yeah, exactly. The forms would be just so easy. I mean, if you have a problem with Ubuntu Mate or MX Linux or regular Ubuntu or Zorin, they have forms or an email that you can reach out and say, hey, can you help me? So, yeah, it's kind of strange that they use a wiki for everything. Our next email is from Michael, who also wrote about Linux, this time Linux Mint and Orca. Hi Larry and Bill. I am now running the latest version of Linux Mint. I think it's 19.3 with Orca. I managed to run Mint as live from my DVD and Orca no longer gives me that problem of speech on followed by speech off just a few seconds later, as though some bright person may have disabled Orca from running. Perhaps just because they might have accidentally enabled speech and perhaps not known how to turn it off. The two problems I had (34/54)
when first getting used to Linux Mint were the graphical update manager. The other problem I have in Mint is that speech doesn't always start during login, but that seems to be a problem with Ubuntu overall. I am running Linux Mint Mate as I'm not sure if the other desktops yet work with Orca in Linux Mint. Michael in Baltham West, Yorkshire, UK. And Michael, I do know that the Mate desktop has done a lot of work with accessibility and has done a lot of work to make sure that Orca works out of the box and works with whatever distribution of Linux it's installed on and you're using Mate as a desktop. Linux Mint Mate, one example, Ubuntu Mate, another one, who have done a lot of work to ensure that that configuration works out of the box at startup, at login, so that our blind users of Linux have a tool that they can use right as soon as they start their computer, instead of having to fumble their way through the login screens and wait for the desktop to come up. So, there you go. Stick (35/54)
with Linux Mint Mate if that's what you're using, or Ubuntu Mate if that's what you're using. Those are the two best in my opinion. OK, our next email comes from John who wrote with a Thunderbird backup and restore question. He writes, Hi guys, Happy New Year and I hope all is well. I wanted to know if I do a Thunderbird backup on a Windows PC. Can I restore the backup onto a Thunderbird install on a Linux distro? Thanks for your time, John, Pittsburgh, PA. I saw that and I was thinking about that. The backup really doesn't care what operating system you're running, so he should be able, if he has a backup, Windows and he uses Thunderbird, it should be just a simple, they still use the same type of file format for the backups, don't they? They do. And it used to be that for Gmail and for Thunderbird and anything Mozilla, you just take the Mozilla folder or the Thunderbird folder from the computer you're starting from and copy it to the computer you're putting it on. And if you're (36/54)
moving from Windows, of course, the directory that it'll be in is in Windows somewhere. I have no idea. But in Ubuntu based distributions, it's usually in the configuration folder, which will be a dot folder, so it'll be hidden by default. You drop it in there or there'll be a Mozilla folder or there'll be a Thunderbird folder, just drop the contents in there and there'll be your profile and all the other stuff, including your mail and everything there. And it'll just work regardless of where you pick it up from and drop it off to. Now, I did in researching this, it's been several years since I wrote an article on how to do that. So I did a little bit of research to see if that's still possible. And I found one post on someone who was having trouble. And they said that Windows had or Mozilla had disabled the ability to just move that. So I don't know whether that's actually true or whether that's someone's misperception. I only found the one post saying that, and I didn't see any (37/54)
responses to that post. So I don't know what the resolution was for that user. But as far as I know, you can still just pick up the Thunderbird folder, put it in the appropriate place on Linux, and it should work fine. OK. OK, so Ken wrote us about VPN and password manager. And it went back to working. Of course, I haven't thoroughly worked this problem. By the way, the current method that I use to manage passwords is that I keep a list of all my passwords on paper. I have no physical security problems. It's just me and my wife retired and a few others passing through. I use decent passwords of 10 to 12 characters, uppercase, lowercase, numbers, symbols. So unless I have better luck with the password managers, I may stay with this. Use slightly longer passwords, change them more frequently. But I got reading about VPNs. Do you use a VPN? I am looking at getting one of these to improve the overall security. Any recommendations? I realize this is two subjects. Security is a subject area (38/54)
that you all may want to cover as a podcast subject, article or video if you have time. I appreciate all that you do. I know that each of you are very busy in your day jobs. Thanks, Ken. KB4XT. Well, any thoughts, Bill? Do you use a VPN or password manager? I don't use a password. Well, let me rephrase that. I have used a password manager. I just can't be bothered to actually reinstall installing. I kind of use the pen and paper method because really it's me and my big goofy dog. So if they want to come and search my emails, they've got to get into the computer first. But they're not going to find anything interesting. Or they could read the show notes through the future shows, Larry. I didn't think about that. There you go. That's true. We might have to keep those in the lock and key. But as far as VPN, I don't use one. But I would use one if I was traveling to other countries. If you were going to visit China, you can use VPN to actually use services that would be blocked in China (39/54)
for most of the citizens. Or there's some people that are traveling over here. And if you're from Great Britain, they have a bunch of shows that's BBC. And if it's Eastern America, it won't let you play them. But if you use a VPN, you can tell your data to come out in Great Britain, even though you're in America. So you can still get the shows or the news or whatever you want. The one thing you got to worry about VPNs is, and you might not like it, but stay away from the free ones. Because you have to trust them with your data. You need to find one. They're pretty cheap now, but you find one that you know what the security practices are. I know, I can't remember what it is, but if you're looking for a VPN on Twitter, Leo has mentioned a few that he likes because of the way they control security and stuff. So you might want to give them a listen. I think you can also read, they have some open show notes. I think it's called Tech Guy Labs. And you don't even need to sign up. You can just (40/54)
go and read what was said. And they talk about VPNs quite a bit. But I'm not transmitting any super secret data except show notes for the calling thanks podcast. Or an email to Larry saying, hey Larry, I broke this again. You don't type it in the open. Other than that. So it depends. Do you think he really needs a VPN? I mean, if he's just, I mean, he says him and his wife are retired. I mean, I don't think they're, I don't know. You could use it for banking and stuff, I guess. Yeah. And if he's looking to get access to stuff that's blocked in the United States. I happen to know that he's in the United States, like you were saying with television programs and stuff. That might be the reason for using it. Other than that, he probably doesn't need one. Other than for work, I don't use one. For a while I was using OpenVPN. And I had it on all my computers because it was part of the browser, if I remember correctly. And my work provides me with a VPN that is required to be on to access (41/54)
anything on the work site. So I use that when I'm using my work computer. And the reason I'm not using that VPN solution that I was using for a while is because I forgot to turn it off one day when I was browsing because it was browser based and I was syncing my browser settings. I had it on in addition to the company's VPN. And I got a call from the company's security department saying, are you running a VPN in addition to our VPN? And I said, I don't think so. Oh, wait. Yeah, sorry. So good news is they're paying attention. Bad news is using one that's browser based may not be appropriate when you're also using a VPN for work. So there you go. And it was apparently using a lot of cycles of the company's Internet connection. So anyway. Yeah. And as far as a password manager is concerned, we've talked about password managers on the show. And, you know, certainly having the pen and paper version of the password manager is as digitally secure as you can get. No one's going to hack that (42/54)
digitally through your computer. So that's probably a great way to do it. Again, my company provides LastPass as a password manager and they allow us to use it for personal use as well. Set up a separate account and use it for personal use. So I use that. If it weren't for that, I'd be using some other of the solutions that we have. KeyPass X or something like that. One of the ones that we've talked about in the past. So you might want to check through our show notes just to see what we've talked about. And there are plenty of them that are available for Linux, but also cross platform. If you're using multiple operating systems on different computers or even on the same computer and you want your passwords available on everything. So unless you're having problems with the pen, which, you know, just go buy a new pen. I don't see a need to have a password manager if it's working for you. All right. So our next email comes from Darren, who gives us feedback on Zorin. Hi Larry and Bill. (43/54)
Thanks for the latest series. It has kept me entertained while I go around and around mowing and bailing my hay. I took particular interest in the presentation from Bill on Zorin OS. I was so taken, in fact, I splurged. First money I have spent on anything Linux and ponied up for the ultimate version. Man, was I initially disappointed. Even more so when Bill soon after dumped it for something else. But we should all... Well, we knew that was going to happen. But anyway. Wait a minute now. Before I go on, before I go on, I am still running Zorin on my test machine. OK. It's still running. I could take a picture. We really do. Thanks Larry. Anyway, continuing, he says, Having run MintMate for the last few years, anything different was going to be a shock. I thought I was prepared for that. My biggest beef was the difficulty in enabling multiple workspaces. I managed to get it working, although they seemed to increase in number dramatically now rather than just being the fix-for that I am (44/54)
used to. As it turns out, the shock was shortly as Zorin is humming away nicely on my regular old Lenovo T420 laptop. It integrated quickly with my regular use utilities, the Dropbox, NordVPN, and Chirp, and seemed very stable. Thank you both for your content. I hope you and your families have a wonderful holiday season. I look forward to a new and exciting presentation in 2020. 73DARINV K6EK. Yeah, so well, I'm glad Zorin is working out for you. And that thing with the virtual desktops or the workspaces, I found that a bit troubling as well. And I don't think it's a Zorin issue. I think it's a GNOME 3 issue or a GNOME issue that the workspaces, you have to enable them using a command line command. And then once you've enabled them, then it makes sense that you can go in and create new workspaces as you need them. But it's not there by default on Zorin. I found that and had to go to some forum posts to figure out how to make it work. Because I knew it had to be there. But I suspect (45/54)
that it's a GNOME thing since they're using plain GNOME. The tools that are used for settings and setup and so on are GNOME tools. And I think if I'm not mistaken, I think it's a GNOME limitation. Yeah, so you know, it's January 26 as we record this. I don't know what he means by jumping around. I've only jumped to five different distros testing them out. Oh, wait a minute. We're still in January. 11 more months to go. Yeah, but no, I still have a Zorin. I have my test machine who has two hard drives in it now. And Zorin sits on one of them by itself. And then I've got a few others that got Zorin Lite on another partition. So yeah, I still like Zorin. But I got to test them, Larry. And that's all I'm going to say about it. I like to test them on bare metal. I guess I could do it in virtual machines like we've talked before. But it's kind of hard to give an honest review of a distro in a virtual box. Because you really can't get to you. You don't have the graphics pass through on some (46/54)
virtualization. And that's a way to take geeky for me to do it because I blow away machines pretty much weekly, sometimes daily. And then the performance is the overhead. So I guess I just like to do things the hard way. Right. Well, an important part of adopting Linux is the hardware compatibility. And you don't get that if you're in a virtual machine. So, yeah, it's important to test that. Thanks, Larry. You make me feel better. But I'm still going to exceed your prediction. Yeah, I suspect so. If you tried 10 distributions all of last year and you've done five so far in the first month of the year. I don't have a problem. I just I'm just naturally curious. Yeah. Yeah. There's no problem in switching distributions. You can stop anytime you like. Yeah. Yeah. OK. I'm glad we agree. OK, let's move on. Yeah. OK. Our next email is from James. And this is a long email. We're going to break it up into three parts. He had written us some time ago with hidden gems to share. And this is hidden (47/54)
gems to share part two. My apologies for delay in making part two of hidden gems. Spent several months distro hopping, trying other system D free distros. I tried MX Linux. OK, for beginners, but bloated like a beached whale. If you strip away too much excess, you end up breaking parts of the system. Also, MX Linux lies about being system D free system D is installed, but, quote, supposedly disabled, unquote, as I found and confirmed by their Web site. I tried anti X Linux, also good for beginners and faster than MX Linux, but only due to using Flexbox, IceWM or JWM instead of an actual desktop. Of those three options, only JWM offered a panel similar in function to those included in desktop, such as Gnome, XFCE or KDE. I also found anti X as bloated as MX Linux. I found three browsers installed during installation. Other system D free distros, Star Linux, Crows Linux and Myo Linux. I felt they were too stripped down too much. I am back to Devwan 2.1 and happy to be using it, using the (48/54)
XFCE desktop fast and stable. OK, can I, I want to put some input before we go any further. Sure. About, I just want to clarify, I'm actually recording on an MX Linux machine and it does have a lot of software installed, but all of this stuff I would install anyway and system things that make life a lot easier, like able to use MX tools to adjust your grub boot menu with, you know, right from a nice friendly GUI. And as far as, yes, he is sort of right about the system D. System D is in the system, but it's not active. They use what they call shims and shims are there because there's some software programs and actually explain this on the website that the system D shims there. You can enable it if you want, but there's shims there. So applications that require system D work. So it's, you know, I wouldn't say that it's a beach. Well, I haven't found anything on MX Linux that I would consider bloatware. There's not a lot of games. There's a few simple games. But, you know, there is the (49/54)
XFCE runs super fast. I mean, it runs faster than Ubuntu GNOME. I think you can compare Ubuntu Mate and MX Linux for speed wise. I think it's within maybe a point to each other, probably a little bit on certain things. I mean, I haven't seen any speed differences. And I know there's a whole thing about the system D and why it's bad or why it's good. But right now there's programs that need system D, so they put the resources in so you can actually run the programs that require it without actually having it active. So good on them for that. I don't quite understand what the controversy is behind system D. Maybe I should read more about it. But Ubuntu has system D and it doesn't, Larry. You know what, I haven't really been paying too much attention to system D and issues around that, so I can't really comment. I don't pay much attention to that. Whatever they provide is what I use and seems to work. So I don't care. OK, so anyway, I just had to say that I think that the MX Linux runs (50/54)
really great. And probably because, you know, he said the anti X, they're kind of like brother and sister distros, so they share a lot of resources back and forth. So anyway, so James continues. Sorry about that. I just wanted to, you know, clarify a little bit. Basically there is software shims that help programs run that require system D. OK, so James continues. And now to the gems for those using the XFCE desktop and use also instead pulse audio. There is a volume icon applet that works in XFCE called XFCE4-Mixer. A great replacement for the built in pulse audio volume control with almost no tweaking will work on newer distro. Jim2, for Debian users tired of hearing people say that Debian users are stuck with older versions of applications, add the lines below to the repositories and subnactic package managers, then click the reload button and mark for updates. And I'm not going to read all these, but I'm just looking at them. They're just, I guess, new repositories. Yeah, what he's (51/54)
doing is he's adding the Debian.org stretch, so Debian stretch main contrib non free repository and then the stretch updates, Debian security updates and the stretch backports for the contrib space non-free repositories. And he says, and voila, Debian and Devon users are now running with more updated applications with almost zero chance of breaking your system. If running Debian 10 Buster, just replace the word stretch with Buster as you type or copy and paste into synaptic. And James had more to say. Right, and Jim3, he says, instead of installing the separate applications, browser, mail client, IRC client and calendar, consider installing C-Monkey and get all in one and assured compatibility between applications. Like Firefox and Thunderbird, C-Monkey can be tweaked with add-ons. There is also a website add-on converter for C-Monkey to get extensions not found in C-Monkey's add-on website. Last, for now, I reached out to the creator of QMplay2 application that I fell in love with and (52/54)
spoke about in my last email and got permissions from the creator to create a Facebook page for users of QMplay2 to share tips, tricks, tweaks. Programmers are also welcome to join. Please spread the word. Well, we will, and we'll have links to all of this stuff that James has sent to us in the show notes. And he writes, forgot to mention that C-Monkey can also function as an RSS feed reader. So C-Monkey can replace four separate application, James in Indiana. Well, thanks, James. Lots, lots of good information there as always. We appreciate that. We'll share it all. We'll share your links and you're all ready to go. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for all the tips and tricks and all that hard work. We do appreciate it. Yep. Well, what do you think we're going to do for our next episode, Bill? We've got a user experience episode to go. Yeah, I haven't, I'm working on a few things. I hadn't decided which one I want to use. So how about we just leave it as a surprise? Okay. Our next episode will be (53/54)
a surprise. Okay. Until then you can, until then you can go to our website at goinglinux.com for articles and show notes as well as links to download and subscribe. Yes, 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 Linux podcast community on community.goinglinux.com. Until next time. Thanks for listening. Before I say 73, how many times have we read that and we still mess that up? I don't know what you're right. That's why I have it written. Anyway, 73. The music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com (54/54)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #384 · 2019 Year In Review.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 384 year in review Welcome to the going Linux podcast I'm your host Larry Bushy 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 going links at gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at 1904 four six eight seven eight eight nine in today's episode 2019 in review Hey bill. Hey Larry. Good morning. It is wise. We're recording this 2020 which is 2020 it is 2020 How's your year been so far? It's been absolutely great Wanted to also just give a public service announcement anybody that's running Windows 7 by the time you hear this It's out of support. So yeah, you should probably Come over switch to (1/55)
Linux and join us because the water is great over here Yeah, there you go. And and speaking of that as you know, I've got two books one is Entitled Ubuntu mate upgrading from Windows or Mac OS and The other one is using Ubuntu mate and its applications. Well the using one The more detailed one I am revising for Ubuntu mate 20.04 long-term support release and that will be available sometime around the release in April However, I have also updated the book Ubuntu mate upgrading from Windows or Mac OS To its second edition and I've got that published on Amazon as usual I'll have links in the show notes as we're recording this the e-book version is available on Amazon The paperback version is still in review as soon as it comes out of review. It will be available on Amazon For sale so those have been updated for 20.04 as well and if you're interested in those like I said We'll have the links in the show notes. And if you're not interested in them, forget it. I didn't say anything Well, (2/55)
actually I bought the first version of that book and It was very handy There's a few things in there that it kind of made things a little easier as far as oh and where is this stupid stuff? Let me look in the book. There it is. Yeah, so yeah So I've added some more details in this in this version. So that sort of stuff and you know bill, you know The author you really don't have to buy the book. I I know the author and I even got mentioned in the book did but The thing is I wanted to support you into I wanted a hard copy because sometimes just want a hard copy and I it was You know, the book is not Super expensive So yeah I'm looking forward to getting your next book to just for my reference to that library because you know every once in a while You just don't want to have to Google something. You just want to go. Where's that book? Okay table contents there It's right. It's it's the primitive way to Google So exactly. Yes. Yes the analog way So dead tree version. Yeah, go ahead One of (3/55)
the podcasts to is the Linux unplugged with Chris Fisher and his gang over at Jupiter broadcasting Yeah there I think they're with Linux Academy too, and I kept hearing about this KDE neon I'm like, yeah, what is that? So, you know, I finally started looking at it and you know I'm not a huge fan of KDE because I always thought it was kind of slow and stuff, but I said, right You know what? That distro hopper and me just decided to give it a whirl. So I I threw it on a test machine I was like, wow, this is really really fast and really really light. I'm like, hmm So I'm in the I was in process of changing distros on my main machine So I threw it on there and just a for about a week just to see how it worked and it was it was very nice It's a distro. That's not a distro. They're basically use the Ubuntu 1804 long term so it's really really solid and then they They use as the KDE project uses that as a testbed So you're constantly getting the latest and greatest of KDE and all its (4/55)
applications. I see. Okay. Yeah Yeah, so it worked really really well Didn't have any issues like I said, I'm not a huge fan of KDE but I was impressed with it and one of the things that in my Travels with this distro it you can pretty much customize anything you want on this thing almost It's just too much customization in my opinion and that's saying something That's KDE for you. Yeah. Yeah, it's kd but if anybody's looking for a solid KDE I would definitely say give KDE neon because it run everything even The gnome versions of software it just it looked good run good there wasn't any ugly You know where so, you know if you try to run like a gnome sometimes everything doesn't look quite right It looked it did a pretty good job Mm-hmm. So, you know after that I said, oh time to go so Then I I had some fan issues with the Linux mint 1903 beta and the fans were running just full tilt and I didn't know what was going on and I couldn't figure it out and I You know couldn't get a lot of (5/55)
feedback and from then From people I talked to so I finally said okay. Well, let's wait till it comes out So it come out I think last week and I got it on there and the fan issues have gone I think it was some a video driver. So, you know, but everything's running really smoothly That's what I'm actually recording on right now I It runs great. So yeah, it's it seems to be they got whatever was causing it figured out and or they the driver was fixed or whatever, but No worries is so Linux mint 1903 is solid. I haven't had I've had zero issues with it. And so Yeah, that was that was my exciting Distro looking news, but I did something a little bit different All there's more of course, I've got some things like I decided Could I actually just use Firefox and and not use any Chrome? So what I did is when I put 1903 come with of course Firefox And even before then I was running Firefox on the KDE neon and I Haven't had any real issues. There's a few little differences As far as you know how (6/55)
to copy and paste stuff because they want you to use control V control X and all that jazz But I haven't had any issues I've gone to I get a free Disney Plus with my phone plan So I want to see if I would work and it always tells me Oh, it has to download something called wild vine to make things work, but everything works fine so I haven't used Chrome for like a month and of course, I still sign in to my my Google account because that's what we use for Google Docs and Everything just seems to work so I'll let you know if Life still is continued with Firefox on our next episode, but so far it's worked pretty much flawlessly And that's good. Yeah, so the last two items are actually news items One is and I include just links in the show notes one was about Linus Torvalds The creator of the Linux kernel. He says he recommends not using ZFS on Linux until The article says the litigious Oracle Gets the license and figured out. So I think he meant more like Larry Ellison Yes, it was a fun (7/55)
article and the other Was from a site called MS power user or Microsoft power user I pretty much figured that one out and it's in an article They go through, you know that are the people that are going from Windows 7 to 10 and and they were saying in the The web page that Microsoft put up, you know saying this is what you can do. It says, hey, you know Microsoft is recommended to 400 million users that they might want to buy a new PC 400 million users, so hey, you know, like I said before hey guys come on over to Linux The water's just great. It's warm everybody's happy so Yeah, I'm a firm believer that you should buy a new PC when the hardware breaks not when the the operating system Stopped being supported. Yes, that's being supported. So They were saying that you know Windows 7 come out in like 2012 but not all those 400 million users have hardware that is Weak or can't run it. It's just the software Yeah, so I don't know about you But if I have a perfect good hardware that I like (8/55)
and I have to pick between running Windows 7 which in two days is going to be out of Support or a Linux that I might have to kind of figure out what's going on We have some episodes. So help you with that by the way Yeah Then I think I'd rather go with the secure Linux and just tell Microsoft. No, because we don't want people running unsupported Software and if you don't like Windows 10, we'll give you some recommendations during this episode But you might really want to start looking don't run unsupported operating systems. That's just a bad idea Absolutely and When you make the adjustment to Linux coming from whether it's Microsoft's Windows or Apple's Mac OS You make the adjustment once and you can then upgrade and keep your computer running for as long as the hardware lasts as opposed to Having to buy new hardware because the creator of your operating system decided it's out of support so Yeah, all 400 million of you Should be listening to this podcast All right. So Larry, I (9/55)
thought we would talk about About the interesting things that happened during the year That we've had an open source and the Linux communities and other cool tech news are just noteworthy We had a slew of new Linux distributions some we have tested or I should say I've tested and We're and some that we're kind of looking forward to testing I thought we would start with the year review Of some of the distributions we've looked at over the year So, yeah, that's what I want to kind of talk about what do you got to say about 2019 Yeah, well 2019 was a year of You doing a lot of distro hopping even though you've promised to pick one That really never happened. So I like to talk about Removing bolts from a planes engine that is never leaving the ground Yeah Okay, I will repent really I can control myself really I sure Only ten this year Yeah, we'll believe you. We'll believe you. Do you know if there's a helpline? I don't know So some of the ones we looked at that some we liked some not so (10/55)
much but we looked at Zorin then of course Larry's personal favorite and daily driver the Ubuntu mate Then we of course Ubuntu was always in the news and then we've Linux mint in their beta in their 1903 release Then I looked at deep end and was pretty impressed But it was kind of a little wonky with some of the licensing then we we revisited kabuntu and Elementary OS at we looked at that it was Juno and now their new one is called Hera which I think is the cool one of the coolest names and Pop OS was in a news with all their cool updates and Add additions to the pop OS and then we of course Oh my arch woes never cease to end and then one that I thought has a lot of possibilities and is that Fedor silver blue which is there like a testbed for a Immutable file system and I run that a little bit on test machine. So yeah, I really had a good time and each one of those Really worked well in certain areas and some Has little issues and some just work flawlessly So I I would say my my picks (11/55)
for if someone was coming over You know from Windows 7 or even Mac OS I would say Zorin Ubuntu mate and Linux mint What it what would your viewers be? Yeah, it's some my favorite. Well, I can't speak from distro hopping perspective So I can say from personal experience the ones that I like best are Ubuntu mate, of course Primarily because it's you've read a book designed for everybody Yeah, but I wrote a book because I like it as opposed to okay, I like it. So I you know, hey anyway I think that just plain vanilla Ubuntu is also good for new users, but there's still this element of Not everything is as polished in Ubuntu as it is in Ubuntu mate that seems Strange to say but I think the Ubuntu mate team does Some additional polishing once the Ubuntu is finished with it and same thing with Linux mint I think that Linux mint is one of those distributions that Takes a buntu and makes it even better. So I in terms of ranking them It would be a buntu mate then Linux mint and then a buntu And (12/55)
I can't say that I've tried a lot of the others Of course, I've tried out Zorin when you've suggested that I try it out. I've tried out Papa West and some of these others but those three kind of stand out as the top of the heap for me and Because they're Debian distributions and because I don't spend any more any time in Red Hat based distributions or any other independent distributions There may be others out there that are equivalent in those particular environments but I think these are certainly the three that I'm going to be sticking with in terms of recommending them to people and You know as as you do the distro hopping stuff I think that's opening my eyes to some of the things that I don't see because I'm not in those distributions So thank you for that so Larry Why don't you kind of give us an overview of what we covered on the podcast over 2019? Yeah, so some of the things that we have talked about are the Linux universal packaging meaning app Images and snaps and flat packs (13/55)
and we discussed that a little bit kind of at a high level We didn't get into any detail as to the technology behind it and how it all works. But essentially what that is is Packaging of applications so that it doesn't matter what distribution you're on whether that's a Debian based distribution or a Red Hat based distribution or something else the applications can be used and installed and it's one application that allows you to install it across any of those platforms and If we can get to the point where we have one application format that can be Installed across Linux Mac and Windows and maybe even across Chrome OS that would be great. We're far from that yet. But hey, somebody's gonna do it someday So we've talked about that. We've talked about upgrading to Linux from Windows and a little bit from Mac and We've done a few episodes on Running your business on Linux. We've done three this year on that We started that back last year as a matter of fact So we've done I think three or (14/55)
four episodes total on running your business on Linux and in those episodes we've taken some of the main applications for different businesses you might want to run on Linux and Giving you a kind of an overview as to what's available For running your business using Linux and open source applications. We've also done Episodes on back to basics where we've gone back to some of the definitions of terms and some of the more elementary functions like installing Linux and those kinds of things and You've done a fantastic job there bill of writing those episodes. So It's kind of frees up my time to do some other things. So again, thank you for that and Yeah, we've we've done a lot and of course every other episode is always our listener feedback episode It continues to amaze me that every month we have enough emails and voicemails and File contributions from our listeners to fill up an entire episode every month so we've had a lot of those so that's what we've been doing and of course Those (15/55)
going Linux minions are a main part of what keeps us going here on the going Linux podcast so thanks to our minions for all their input their support their help and Just for listening To my annoying voice and my annoying complaints So I think we've had a pretty fun year in 2020. I think it's gonna be very exciting too. So You know just something a little different. Is it all everybody else does it so I want to do it, too So Larry, let's do a few predictions for 2020 and I'm gonna let you start Okay Yeah, and we do this different from everybody else we make the predictions But we never go back to look and see if they came true. So that's how we do it different Always this episode Yeah, this episode is not going to be any different from any others We're not gonna go back and see if we were right or not. Anyway My first prediction is about Microsoft and this year Microsoft has said they love Linux and I thought it was a cancer Well, that was you know a few years ago now. They love Linux. (16/55)
Yeah, and they have actually Introduced the Windows subsystem for Linux which by the way is powered by Ubuntu and I don't get that name. I'm thinking it should be the Linux subsystem for Windows, but hey, that's their product They can name it whatever they want But essentially it's Linux running on Windows so you don't have to jump through hoops to make that work They have developed Skype for Linux and it's the official version That's been released by Microsoft Skype for Linux there have been community versions that have worked before and they have introduced Microsoft Teams for Linux and Microsoft Teams is part of Microsoft Office at least they say it is and essentially that is Skype for Business for Linux and So they've been advertising that as the first official Microsoft Office Product that's available for Linux and For some time now you've been able to use Microsoft Visual Studio code on Linux and there are snap images Snap versions of Skype and Microsoft Teams and Visual Studio (17/55)
code you can use as well. So My prediction is actually that Microsoft will get more into open source and there will be more Microsoft Office components for Linux So Microsoft is going to get into more open source My second prediction and I have three predictions here. My second prediction is that canonical and Microsoft Will work together even closer in 2020 Somehow they will work together. It'll be a partnership or hate to say Microsoft will buy canonical Probably not but hey something Somehow they will continue to work more closely and canonical will help Microsoft adopt open source even more and My third prediction Bill you can guess this one You will distro hop at least ten more times during 2020 at least one more time. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Oh, yeah That's all that stuff's pretty cool. You know it apparently Microsoft loves Linux now and but every time I see Skype for Linux because remember we were having so many issues That's why we finally switched to discord every time I (18/55)
hear Skype I just I get this shudder up my spine about all the you know Different issues we had all this this one doesn't work anymore. Then the audio quality was dropped. So It was it was a nightmare. So Good on Microsoft for loving Linux We'll see how the true 2020 is. But hey, I think it's I think it's gonna happen in a jinn. Yeah I probably happen So yeah The other thing I've made this prediction before and with no time bound on it and it's also going to be no time bound Microsoft will change their entire operating system to run off of the Linux kernel. I Don't know when probably not in 2020 but it will happen I Really truly believe that So my predictions are a little bit more Specific I think that you know right now ZFS is experimental but I think ZFS will become a fully supported file system in Ubuntu without the experimental tag You know as now you can get you know pick ext4 or XFS or any of the others I think the ZFS is gonna be an option If they can get the licensing figured (19/55)
out and all that now let all the lawyers go through all the boilerplate. That is ZFS so that will be very very interesting or for our English friend friends ZFS Because you know, right? See yeah, they might get a little crazy So yes, the ZFS I think will be a fully supported file system on Ubuntu Maybe not this long LTS but I think it may be one of the interim releases and then my second one is I think links will get a good uptick In users from Windows 7 even if it's just temporary because I you know Windows 7 is end of life People are gonna say wait, man. Do I really want to you know have to go through these hoops? Do I really want this telemetry do I really want you know having where it's pretty similar, you know They might say, you know if I'm gonna You know have to go wins 10 and have to buy a new Hardware. I might as well use my old hardware and you know go through the learning curve and Because I'm going to do it. It's a little bit Each version is a little bit different from in (20/55)
Windows So they might say hey, you know, this is a great time to jump So I think we're gonna get a small a good uptick I'm not talking and I'd like all 400 million of those users to use links, but if we get Million, I'll be happy just half of them. Yeah. Yeah 200 million that's cool. Yeah 200 million and then they can listen to Podcasts and There'll be power users in no time Yeah, exactly, yeah if half of those people buy any one of my books Going on these podcasts will be retired and You get to take over the podcast if you like Somewhere in like Puerto Rico somewhere Okay, where it's worn up, okay. Yeah. So anyway get back to seriousness though yeah, I think that's that's a good set of predictions I Think for all of our predictions, they're all pretty safe that eventually they're going to happen Whether or not they happen in 2020, I guess is the risk we take but I think we're pretty safe at these and I'm Have no qualms about not ever going back to see if we were right We'll know for (21/55)
right. Well in our minds will always be right. So that's right. That's exactly correct so I think the next thing we should do is take a look at some of the things that have happened from The technology community in general whether they're Linux related or not in 2019. What do you think? Why not we've had a very Yes, we have and the first thing we want to bring to your attention is an article on government technology Website govtech.com blog and It's entitled 2019 the year of the Linux desktop. No the year ransomware targeted state and local governments and As you may know here in the United States some State and local governments had some problems with cyber attacks and malware and that sort of thing Louisiana government declared a state of emergency after a cyber attack 22 Texas towns were hit with ransomware and Hackers are holding Baltimore hostage and they continued to do that to this day, I guess Hit by a ransomware attack a Florida City agrees to pay hacker $600,000 most of these (22/55)
people only want ten bucks. So here there you go, Florida A second Florida City pays what is described here as a giant ransom to ransom rare gang in a week Well, I guess they need their data, right New Orleans declares state of emergency following cyber attack and Mississippi City operations disrupted by Ransomware I have one question for all those folks Did you not make any backups of your stuff? I mean, come on guys Hey selfish selfish plug we have an episode on that too Yeah, exactly. I mean, come on guys All you got to do is kind of back up your stuff from time to time And then if you hit with ransomware restore from the back up and tell them to go Sawed off or whatever the Brits say but Larry those hackers love them some Bitcoin Mm-hmm. Yeah, they do which is why you should back up good grief Even I have backups. Come on. Well, I don't keep anything around long enough to pick Well, yeah, there's that they could always continually just draw up Some news from the Linux and open (23/55)
source world that happened 2019 that we think was interesting or noteworthy And tag rose Linux shuttered the project I love that name and tag rose and it and I looked it up and it means ancestors just useless trivia, but and Antiguirus was first released in July of 2012 as sin arch and I think you remember when it when you heard that and Development was ended on May 21 2019 and Antiguirus was an arch based distribution. One of the reasons that they finally showed The project was that the developers just didn't have any more time either, you know real life, you know is always interferes and So apparently they did it really well, you know They gave people planning notice and then the project was forked and is now called endeavor OS And right now when I looked at the distro watch it's ranked number 31, so that's pretty quick You know Rise to the top even though we all know distro watch is not probably the best metric But that's the one we had to look at. So yeah. Yeah. Well, it's just a (24/55)
Measure of who's interested in looking at these distributions and yeah, the distro hoppers of the world keep those Distro watch Numbers up for a distribution. So yeah, it's it's a good metric of something Yeah, but it's good Another thing that happened and I thought this actually happened last and you know in 2018 not in 2019, but Google Plus decided to close down and we had to move our Community and we moved it to me we after we had a bit of a survey for our listeners and our minions to vote on and me we won out so that's where we are and We have a me we group will have as always links to our me we Chat room or discussion group or whatever you want to call it our site on me We where we can have our community interact with one another and interact with us What's in 2018? If it was I thought it all runs together I know I know but it's been recent and I think you're right. I think it is 2019. It just seems much longer ago than that By Google Plus you were good while you lasted So this (25/55)
year it seemed like containers were the rage for 2019. Oh, yes Which seemed like there was a new story about Kubernetes or Docker this web technology That's gonna make all the problems appear. It just seemed like every week there was another Article about how fast it's moving forward and and you know canonical and Red Hat and you know Cin OS and it seems like everybody and even you know Amazon and Microsoft this seems like everybody's you know raced into the cloud and their Containers are the greatest and one most wonderful thing. I You know, I'm excited to see what containers bring in 2020. What what do you think Larry about containers? Yeah, I mean do you think it's gonna continue becoming a thing? I do I do I I just keep in the back of my mind thinking about the move from Desktop computers to thin client computers remember those where everything was supposed to be on somebody else's server and then the hardware you need is very very You know Chromebook ish Yeah in terms of just (26/55)
enough operating system to get you logged in That's kind of where we're headed again And then when the pendulum swings back will back will be back to thick client computers and people will be wanting to continue on with running their full-fledged operating system on their hardware and Linux will be still around because Well, if you're a software developer, you need something to run on your hardware And so it's never going anywhere as far as the consumer is concerned People just want to be able to take their computer login check their email talk to their friends on Facebook and share some photos and you know generally speaking that I think is what most people use their computers for and then there's the rest of us who run our business or do software development or write books and all kinds of stuff like that and Test out distributions and yeah, there will always be a need for Computers regardless of the move to the cloud But more and more things will move to the cloud until something (27/55)
horribly goes wrong And then there will be a big push to move back to client software in order to protect your data and all that stuff So there you go. That's that's another prediction I guess Well, you know, it's kind of funny Everything going to the cloud, you know right now and if you kind of look at the economics of it and you're saving money, but There were these some of these companies are saving a large amounts of money because they don't run their own data centers but they're also trusting someone with all their data that they did actually don't have physical access to And then you've got the economics where oh it only cost you, you know point zero zero zero three cents an hour but when you have Something run 24-7 and however, it's written back You know, they're making they're figuring out how to make some money with this. So yeah Yeah, and it'll be cheap until they raise the price and then then what are you gonna do? Yeah, so, you know Larry just leading into this next News (28/55)
article, you know, uh-huh open source Companies aren't worth anything. Are they? Oh Well It just asked canonical and you know, the fact that they're even thinking about going public If they weren't worth anything, I would think that the stock price would be zero and then why bother listing it on a stock exchange but to take a more realistic example IBM thought that a an open source company Red Hat Which was listed on the stock exchange and I think still is as an independent stock was worth $34 billion And that was another news story from 2019. It was the biggest software com a company acquisition ever So yeah, I I would think that you know open source is worth something for sure and more and more companies who Create proprietary software are using Open source software in their products and of course Had the more they use the open source the software the more they're actually gonna have to Contribute back to open source, which kind of is a virtuous cycle of perpetuating the world of (29/55)
open source and Eventually, maybe all the proprietary stuff will go away I'm not gonna predict that but As long as you don't put a time limit on it, but Larry, okay my annual I want to raise Yes, okay, we'll give you the same raise you got last year and I'll add an additional Bonus of twice as much of that. All right. Well great. Wait a minute. That's still nothing. Okay. Well, maybe So, you know you said you gotta raise every year bill. Yeah, I get a raise every year. It's just never seems to change Well, it's a percentage of what you've already got. What more do you want? Yeah, I'm being unreasonable So yes, you said the red hat IBM bought red hat for 34 billion, you know, that's like billion would be yeah Yeah, the very big B Yeah, but that's like 1 million model 3 Tesla's now. It's a worthless fact Yeah, you know you could give a lot of people. Wow, that's a lot of money so anyway Tesla's so Yeah, that was a very worthless fact, but it was kind of fun because I looked up the base (30/55)
model is like $35,000. I'm like, that's a lot. You could yeah drive a lot of model threes. So I Want to talk about Microsoft? Microsoft again is an open source company. Yay. We've already discussed that so but they did some things that kind of Made me go hmm Well, not really. Hmm It's like what took you so long is they finally dumped that worthless edge browser and made one based on Chrome it's still called edge browser, but they get rid of the old one and got the new one or and Basically, they ripped out all the Google stuff and put all their stuff in there But you know everything is better on edge when do 10 says so what do you want? Yeah Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the things that makes me think that they're going to continue to go more and more open source they actually said they're actually said that they're gonna release a and be still my heart a Microsoft edge for Linux Mmm, so Still waiting on that Microsoft. Yeah, so waiting on that but that would that that's probably (31/55)
gonna flip some people out and then of course, you know, they they they purchase github for some You know insane amount of money and they're still dumping money into github. So, you know, we got all those open source People working on github. I know there's a few different versions of that That it's been forked or whatever. But yeah, they're still Throwing money at github and and then of course, we've already talked about the WSL or the windows subsystem for Linux. Hello open to way to go and then Windows as a service is great. Yeah, right. I think they've had a few Issues of some of these rapid releases I think the May in October they had some issues with Some blue screening and stuff. So yeah getting these rapid upgrades that you can't Not take if you're a home or user like most of our listeners are is a great thing. Okay. Yeah great So Larry did I fall asleep and just wake up in a different world now that Microsoft is yeah I'm like big so Yeah, I mean this is it's amazing Steve We (32/55)
went it's like it just went 180 and what you know first Linux is cancer now, they're an open source company They're there, you know using open source products to develop their own products. They bought a the github You know, they're including Windows the Linux Windows WSL I think they're working on version 2 now, you know, which they're working with a with canonical who makes a buntu and I'm like What is going on here? It's a brave new world to Aldous Huxley so I had there's one more new story and I'm gonna let you take it just because We had mentioned it earlier. So About containers. So what what happened? Yeah, so I don't actually remember this bill but according to what's written in front of me here It says Mirantis a prominent open stack in kubernetes cloud company has acquired docker enterprises product line and developers and their business so Mirantis Mirantis Mirantis. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, what the heck is that? Mirantis is a cloud-based company that does a lot of containers and (33/55)
stuff, you know, and So apparently docker was having some problems because it was funding and apparently Mirantis said we'll buy you we can make money and so again Everybody's buying up all these different technologies, but I just find it very funny that where they're finding the technologies to make lots and lots of money and is the open source projects because they I will say this and everybody can disagree with me open source has some of the best developers out there so a lot of them work for canonical or Red Hat or or Suse so yeah It would make sense that if these guys are developing these products that are better than closed source products Why reinvent the wheel so that's that's awesome. At least Dockers you know the developers guy are getting paid for their work and And and so yeah, and that's a beauty of open source it's Take the entire operating system of Linux and BSD and any other open source or Permissive licensed operating system take your pick They're great. They're good. (34/55)
They're developed by The people who want to use them as opposed to a company who's developing something to make money off of other people's use of their products and have the financial interests as the motivation for improving the product as opposed to The interest of hey, I want to make this better because I want to use it which is really the way that open source is developed, and I think that's the advantage of open source and You regardless of whether it's in the cloud whether it's an operating system whether it's an application I think the fact that it's developed by the people who want to use it And there are many people who want to use everything that somebody puts out there Well most of it anyway some of the stuff that I've tried to develop is completely useless, but But Hey The fact that you know when it does get adopted, and it has an open source license and other people contribute to it it just keeps getting better and better and better and Right you know ten years ago Linux (35/55)
was Let's say a little less in quality than Mac OS or at the time OS 10 And a little less in quality than Microsoft in terms of what was Available and its user experience and the ability for a new user to just pick it up and use it but today It's at least on par with those others, and I think my opinion is that it's actually exceeded usability of Windows and Mac in many many ways and it will only continue to improve over time as evidenced by the fact that Microsoft is looking at open source and open source development with an eye to moving the company to more open source and Open source software and to build on that model, so I think 2019 has been the beginning of the Grand move to the open source model for software development. Yeah, I remember reading in the News that there's some of these open source projects or that are maybe just a little bit irritated that some of these big companies like Amazon that's one that I always seem to read about is just taking their hard work, and you (36/55)
know they're not really getting much back, but that's kind of the Culture of open source you're allowed to take it and use it But it would be nice if some of these bigger companies that are using these Open source technologies would actually give back, but we'll set to see I know a lot of them are working on different licensing and stuff But that's all that legal boilerplate that none of us have time to read So we'll let other people do that enjoy that yeah exactly And I know at least some of our minions as evidenced by our last listener feedback episode Actually read those EULA's and user license agreements and all of those boilerplate things and When you come across something interesting let us know yeah most people go click click click click click ok done Yeah, yeah, I don't care what you're saying. I want to use this. Let's go yeah so We have a few emails that come in 2019 and you threw them into the show notes so Larry why don't you take the first one? Okay, yeah, we just picked a (37/55)
couple that came in recently one from Ken who wrote about our website Larry for some time I have not been able to access the going Linux community because I received the following message in Chrome and similar message in Firefox Thanks a bunch can and the message reads your connection is not private attackers Maybe trying to steal your information from community dot going Linux calm for example passwords messages or credit cards learn more and then they've got a link to The security SSL cert that we use and as we found out in our last listener feedback our SSL cert is Although it's provided by the hosting company It's self signed so Some Browsers will look at that and say I can't tell whether this is a valid cert or not We're gonna throw up an error message, and this is what happens So I am still in the process of trying to get that resolved with the hosting company, but we'll see what happens. Yeah, that's kind of Lame above the hosting company, but they did charge you money for that (38/55)
though, right oh of course they did it makes it all better Of course yeah, okay, it must be good because I had to pay for it Of course I mean yeah, so it's gotta be better than that free stuff. Oh, yeah, that free stuff is horrible sarcasm added So we also got another email about this about the self signed certificates from I'm gonna say Lyman If I put your name my I tend to do that so anybody listens knows I do that Say says hello gentlemen and that includes you bill, okay? I'm a bit behind on podcast due to the holidays But I was listening on the way to work this morning, and I heard about your certificate I decided to take a look since I have some experience with certificates your Certificate will always display a warning because it is a self-signed certificate SSC This certificate wasn't issued from an improved certificate authority. It was generated on your server So there's no external proof that you are who you say you are it would be like printing your own money no one really (39/55)
knows if it has any value a Certificate 30 will ask you for proof that you are the owner of the domain That you want to secure but with a self-signed certificate there is no external proof just your word Which is okay by me and the other minions, but probably not the outside world Clicking that I understand the risk button doesn't increase your security It just tells the browser to ignore this see or the your certificate issues and accept it So if you paid for a certificate this isn't What you should have gotten I I'd asked for my money back or asked for a real certificate issued from a recognized certificate authority Lyman certificate minion and chief bottle watcher We could week and then I'm like well You know later if they don't want to fix this we could send out the MST to take care of them And that's the minion strike team Yes, okay We may end up doing that, but let me see if I can get get them to just Roll over and give me a decent certificate here Yeah, they shouldn't be (40/55)
charging for that. That's for sure. It's like okay We're gonna we're gonna charge you money for certificate, and we're just gonna hit the button to generate it on the server Really yeah But they wouldn't let you use the free version right No they wouldn't they they insisted that we pay for their self-signed certificate that isn't worth the money that it's printed on oh Maybe that's what they're doing printing money anyway. I still say I still say the minion strike team we could take them out We could we could I'll reserve the big guns. Let's see if I know okay Yeah, yeah, okay, so a couple of things that we haven't done in a while and And one is some recommendations for podcasts and Also, we have some recommendations for applications, so let's take the podcast first I've got some that I have recommended in the past through various episodes, but Some which are brand new to me or relatively new to me some that I picked up in 2019 the first is One that's been around for a long time and (41/55)
kind of pod faded for a while because he got busy with his own business That's the night wise podcast or the night cast he's back. He's got new episodes I know as frequently as he used to but he's producing new episodes again and if you were a fan of the nightwives podcast or if you've never heard of it check it out night wise calm and Subscribe to his podcast he's got some great stuff on technology using technology to get things done and Cross platform as well not just Linux he talks about Mac and Windows and using things from a practical perspective A couple of podcasts from Rocco Big Daddy Linux live and Linux spotlight Big Daddy Linux live is a live Podcast if you can say it's a live podcast. It's a live broadcast. It's recorded and then Sent out as a podcast video version audio version interviews with people discussions of topics great stuff and then Linux spotlight is I think I don't think he does that live. I think that's a recorded version of a spotlight of Personality within (42/55)
the Linux and open source community and Martin Winpress has been on there many of the people from Jupiter broadcasting have been on there as spotlights and Some of our minions may be interested that I may be on there sometime in 2020 so Linux spotlight is what you want to subscribe to and Then a couple of others that are more general not Linux specific Rich on tech is a technology podcast for consumers Rich DeMuro is the host and he has his producer Megan They started off as an independent podcast and were acquired by KTLA television in Los Angeles and now Send it out under the KTLA banner but it's still called rich on tech and it talks about consumer electronics and that Includes everything from tablets and phones through to computers and what's going on at CES So if you're interested in technology in general, especially consumer technology, that's a great one Kind of high level they answer people's questions as well and kind of entertaining So I like to listen to that when I don't (43/55)
want something that's going to tax my brain too hard One that does tax your brain a little bit is dark net diaries dark net being one word da RK net diaries and that one is about Everything related to Security on the internet including interviews with hackers interviews with people who have actually been in the news and arrested and things like that as well as Social engineering topics and really interesting stuff and stories of Things like, you know Israeli super secret Units of the military that actually develop Malware that they use to protect Israel and that sort of stuff Interesting interesting stuff that will definitely get your your juices going if you have some proclivity for Looking at security of Things and and looking at it from oh my gosh. I had no idea that this was going on kind of perspective Yeah opens your eyes quite a bit in some of the episodes So those those are mine that you might want to take a look at for 20 My my podcast recommendations for 2020 if you're not (44/55)
listening to them, I have a few late-night Linux basically a bunch of English blokes getting around talking about tech in Things are going their life and they do talk about Maybe going to the pub and having a beer while they're discussing it. So be warned It's not it's not a Super serious podcast, but it you will pick up nuggets of of information and Tips and tricks so it's an easy lesson. They're a bunch of Nice guys. I think they kind of run in the circles of with Martin so, you know, they I think they're all friends and they've shared plenty of Beer in the pubs over long nights and then we have of course the Ubuntu podcast Which just finished their season and so if you haven't listened to them you got a whole season listen to and They'll probably be back next year. They always tease it well, we might this might be the last one but they always come back and then I wanted to give a plug out to Linux unplugged that's the Chris Fisher's one front from Juniper broadcasting just because (45/55)
Larry they do some wild stuff. I you think I'm I jump around to different stuff You should talk to Chris Fisher the latest one is he's taking a perfectly good NAS took the the BSD off of it then put Fedora in it and then said hey, why don't we try an arch? Server And let's go ahead and upgrade it with you know Cuz it also has all these zff pools and let's just go ahead and do it right now so Yeah, yeah, he he's more Scattered brain than I am but he he really does come up with some great Podcasts as far as Weirdness of getting things done, but I I Would never thought anybody would run around arch as a server and just say yeah, let's upgrade it. Okay, it's working and Then there's a one Called choose Linux. It kind of goes these guys. There's usually three of them I know one of them is L I don't know what she does. She might think she might be with System 76 I could be wrong, but they hit the random button on distro watch and whatever BSD or Linux come up. They all try to Get it to work. (46/55)
And so it's really fun to listen to them They talk about their challenges and tricks and you know, sometimes they find hidden gems that they never knew about They just did one not too long ago with one called cubes That they thought was well kind of likes to keep around for testing so that's always cool And then of course going Linux. Oh, wait a minute. You already have that one So never mind if you're listening going legs just keep on listening But there those are my podcast recommends for 2020 I am going to have to add darknet diaries and Linux spotlight And now that nightwise is back I'll have to add him to my podcast Thanks, Larry. Like I don't have enough to listen to More and more and more. Yeah, unlike most of the recommendations you have which you can probably get just subscribing to the Jupiter Broadcasting master feed where you get all of those Ubuntu podcast Being the kind of standout that you can't get that way Yeah, these you actually have to subscribe to them (47/55)
independently but they're well worth it in my opinion So yeah, it's a good stuff Yeah, and just anybody any big companies that want to buy us if the numbers big enough Larry will sell Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'll start another podcast For them yeah, maybe that maybe then I won't have time We Can wish we'll see yeah never gonna happen Okay. Well, let's move on to our application picks bill. Do you want to go first or should I I'll go first because I Really like this one. It's called clip grab and it's CL IP G R AB all one word and it's the handy YouTube video grabber, you know, sometimes you're watching a Linux You know tutorial on YouTube and you just say man I want to watch this later or I need to go through this section again. This is really great It grabs it it encodes it and you could in I have mine where just throws it into the The video folder so when I need to reference it saying what was that part again? I don't have to go online and search for YouTube. There's no ads or anything (48/55)
like that on it So that just makes things a little easier, especially where I live in New Mexico Internet some days is great and other days you're lucky if you can check your email but there is a pro tip and The pro tip is to make sure when you get it because it's an app image So you open permissions and you and there's little checks boxes make sure run as an executable Some some for some reason on some distributions it's marked and other distributions you have to go in and click that little box and then close it it just tells the operating system that this is a Application and not because it will sit there and say well What do you want to open it with so that little checkmark usually fixes that and the other one it will run without FM MPEG but it will tell you can't do the full video resolution and you know some and some it won't grab it so Go to your repositories and some distros automatically have installed others don't but it's real simple You just go into your repositories find (49/55)
ffmpeg click it install It takes like 10 seconds and then it works flawlessly. I have yet had any issue but What's really cool about this is it's an app image so it's cross-platform you can use it on different distros The you know like we were talking before you have snaps flat packs and App images and this is an app image. That is really handy Yeah, that's great. It's a CPL version 3 2 Nice nice too bad. It's not GPL version 2. I know but hey I'll take GPL version 3 if I can't have to I would take it. Yep Okay, well Clipping it seems to be our theme here for these application picks my application pick is Also in the universal package repositories. It may be available as a flat pack or an app image I'm not sure but it's definitely available as a snap. It's an application called copy Q cop y and then the letter Q no spaces and It is a clipboard manager that lets you well, it expands the functionality of your clipboard is what it does To the point where instead of just having whatever (50/55)
the last thing was that you put onto the clipboard so that you can paste it somewhere It keeps a running tally of what you've copied So you can actually go through yeah You can actually go through something and say I want this paragraph and I want this image and I want this other word And I want this reference and go click click click click click click copy them each and then you can go through on the copy Q Master page or the detail page and you can just select them in the order You want to paste them and just say paste this one then paste this one then paste that one and they sit there persistent for Until you clear them out, I guess And you can then paste them into different places if you want. So if you want to go and say Yeah, I need that thing that I copied from a website I don't remember the website is but I know I copied and pasted it somewhere just open up copy Q and it'll be there and you can just paste it so it's really really cool and another nice thing is when I have (51/55)
barrier another application that I talked about which is a keyboard and mouse sharing Application that lets you share your keyboard and mouse across computers without having to jump through hoops You just install barrier on both machines. Well, if you have copy Q installed on both machines It will keep those two copy Lists in sync so that you can copy from one computer and Paste it into another computer using barriers or a mediary. It's really really cool Larry. Yes Why am I not using this? This is a great idea. You know about this. This is why I'm suggesting it Golly, okay. So you haven't heard about clip grab and I haven't brought copy Q. So I Definitely I'm adding copy Q if it's that handy that would save me because I'm always grabbing stuff from different does it does images Too right? Yes, it does Wow And you and you've been holding out on me. I could have used this I've only been using it for about a month. So hey, I haven't been holding out on you for long. It's really really (52/55)
good. I Really appreciate clip grab. I'm gonna be looking at that one That clipboard manager if it's as good as you say it is which it probably is That is gonna be a part of my new toolbox because I've always I've been saying man I really just wanna I want it take some you know Texts from this and over here so I can remember what I was reading and you know Opening up different text editors and this would be great. Everything is in one place. Yeah, but yes sign me up There you go, yeah, well, I'll include the link in the show notes along with all the links to everything else we talked about here and Yeah, yeah, I set myself up and I also put the Clip grab link to their official site in our show notes if you're interested in giving it a whirl The if you do the search for clip grab it brings up all these other Sites that are these third party and we don't know exactly What's going on with them and stuff so I always like to get it if I have to get it out of the Repositories I always like (53/55)
to get it from the developer site. So I included that in our show notes also Sounds good Yeah, and that pretty much wraps up our episode. What do you think bill? I think pretty much we've covered everything that we found interesting and and So Yeah, I think we're coming to the end I just want to thank everybody that listened to us and gave us feedback over the 2019. We look forward to another year with you with you old minions and hopefully new minions 400 million more new minions would be great, but we'll take what we can get Yeah, and the reference to old is not ageism. It's experienced minions You know longtime minions as opposed to Geriatric minions are veteran minions veteran there there you go veteran minions Anyway, our next episode. Let's put this one to bed. Our next episode is a listener feedback episode until then you can go to a website at going links calm for articles and show notes as well as links to download and subscribe and We are as always the website for computer (54/55)
users who just want to use Linux to get things done And if you like you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining discussion in our going links podcast community on community dot going links calm and just ignore the SSL certificate warnings until next time. Thanks for listening 73 In music provided by Mark Blasco at podcast themes.com (55/55)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #352 · Listener Feedback.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux episode 352, 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 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 goinglinx at gmail dot com or leave a voicemail at 1-9-0-4-4-6-8-7-8-8-9. In today's episode, listener feedback. Hello Bill. Hello Larry. How have things been going for you this fine week? Going well. Just can't believe that half the year's already gone. Yeah, that's crazy, isn't it? Yeah, it's... Soon daylight savings time stops and we go back where it's dark at five o'clock. I don't know if I'm going to like that too much, but... Yeah, well, (1/65)
that's something we have to put up with here in this part of the world, at least for, you know, part of the year. We deal with it, right? Yeah, right. How's the weather out there? It's getting cooler up here at night. So usually it's hot now. It's like 56 degrees this morning. It's, you know, you can tell that it falls on the way. Yeah, things have started to cool off here in Southern California a little bit too. We're not getting to 56, but things are a little cooler in the morning. Things are a little cooler during the day. That'll last a couple more weeks and then I'll be back to hot. Yes. And now that this week in weather, I think we should probably move on with the show. Yes, that tells you how much news we've had. Okay. Well, basically we work and we record podcasts. Let's go on. Yeah. Okay. So we got a voicemail from Lester, who's the Amish trucker. And he gets us started with the voicemail and he thought we were a bit heavy on the criticism and suggests we do a more unbiased (2/65)
review of Pingai or any distribution we review. Let's first listen to his voicemail and then we'll come back with some comments. All right. Okay. Hey, this is Lester, aka the Amish trucker. I have listened to this show for years now and I switched totally to Linux in about 2007 and I have always enjoyed this show. On today's show that I just listened to, where you have the Pingai review, I thought it was just a little bit heavy on criticizing everything that's wrong with Pingai. And I'm sure it's not the exact distribution you guys like, but I'm sure that it'll be good for some people. My suggestion is to perhaps just give a more unbiased review and leave it at that. Otherwise, it's a good show and I love you guys. You know, Bill, I understand what Lester is saying, that our episode came across probably a little bit heavier on criticism than most of our other reviews of other distributions. I do recall that you felt like you were trying to be as gentle as possible. So what do you (3/65)
think? I can understand what Lester, you know, maybe he thought it was kind of heavy handed and it wasn't meant to be. It was meant to be his unbiased, but you know, it can't be a hundred percent unbiased because if you know, even our two ones that we like, we've said, hey, this needs to change or we didn't like something about it. If he listens to it again, he'll see that I didn't even give it a review or a star review because it had, I thought it has a lot of potential and I said so as much in the interview. I thank him for his opinion and I don't think I was that heavy handed with it. I mean, yeah, there was some things that maybe would come across as a little maybe heavy handed or a little harsh, but it was only to hope that it would get better. And so the developer, I mean, when I sent him that email saying that we were going to review, he said the only way he can improve is when we tell him what we don't like. Right. Well, you know what? We tried to be as honest as we could. And (4/65)
every review is just a reflection of the personal opinion of the person giving the review. So we didn't like it as much as we like the other ones that we recommend. And that's our personal opinion. So Lester, thanks. Thanks a lot, Lester. And like I said, I will work to try to maybe not be as heavy handed, but if we don't like something, we're just going to say it. I don't want to give it a glowing review and then say someone gets on and says, this thing is horrible. Why didn't you tell me about this stuff? And for everything bad that we didn't like, we did like certain things. If there are changes, Lester, in it, or the developers says, hey, we had some points and changed some things around, I'll look at it. And if it's great, I'll say it's great. But until that time, we'll just say I stand by my review. And so let's just move on. Like I said, thanks again, Lester, for letting us know. And we always welcome everybody's feedback. Right. Thank you. All right. Our next email is from (5/65)
Kogoman, who provided comments about Mint 19. Hi, guys. Keep up the good work. I just wanted to point out a few things about my experience with Mint 19. First, Timeshift is not a backup software in the true sense. Timeshift keeps copies of older system files, usually on the same hard drive as the operating system. If the hard drive dies, so does Timeshift backups. Timeshift is there to get back to a usable system if an update breaks functionality. And backup can back up your home folder and can keep a list of the software you've added, allowing you to restore the added software on a new account easily. The most important thing about a real backup is the 3-2-1 rule as presented by many sites. This one came up first. And he provides a link to a website that talks about the 3-2-1 backup rule and summarizes it as... In this way, he says three backup copies of anything you want to keep, two different storage media, and one off-site storage site. Wisdom is not to allow the off-site storage (6/65)
to reside close by where the same natural disaster would get both. For example, data kept in Florida, off-site backup in Florida, one hurricane gets both original and backup. That being said, I don't trust others with my data, so I currently don't have the number one. Okay. My complaint about Timeshift is that the rsync job runs with elevated privileges. If it's doing its backup thing in the background, it should let me have most of the system resources instead of bringing the system to a crawl. I installed it on a flash drive. I wouldn't enable Timeshift on anything smaller than about 100 gigabytes. 16 gig drive didn't like it. Hmm. Okay. I think Timeshift is something that you mentioned in that Mint 19 review. Yeah. Did they switch from the Mint backup to Timeshift? I don't think they did, did they? I know that the idea behind Timeshift was in case an update broke it, you could go back to the Timeshift of the old working systems and bring it back because that's why it's integrated (7/65)
into the upgrade system. And I know from what I don't know, I believe I understand that it doesn't back up your home directory. It just will back up the, if I'm not wrong, settings and system settings. So in case something does break. Oh, I see. Okay. So, that's why he's saying it's not a true backup. Yeah, that's why I said so. He makes several good points, but he's right that in Timeshift, it does say you shouldn't, you can, but you shouldn't store your Timeshift backups to the same disk. And my system's not set up like that. My system has a 120 gigabyte solid state where the operating system resides. And then I have a spinning drive that stores the programs and stuff. So I store all that on the spinning drive. And so if I didn't need to back up system files, it would go to the flash drive. So a lot of the new systems are hybrid systems where they use a solid state for the OS and then a big spinning drive for all the programs and storage. Yep. So that way you get them on two separate (8/65)
drives. Yeah, they're on two separate drives. And as far as, I've never tried it, but I'm assuming that you could use Rsync or Mint backup. Is there a way to set, because I've never done that, you might've set Mint back up to maybe like save your home photo to like a online, like Google drive or Dropbox or something? I believe there is. I haven't used Mint backup in a while and it is, I think it's the one that's based on simple backup and they've added some really nice features of it. And the one that's on Ubuntu Mate is based on Rsync. And I know that it allows you to subscribe to online backup storage and to store it online as well. I think Mint backup does as well. I'd have to look at it to be sure, but that's one way you can do it. My backups, I keep them locally on a separate drive. And in fact I use, because I'm using Ubuntu Mate, I use the Ubuntu Mate backup that's built in, which automatically encrypts the backup and backs up the entire hard drive. So the system files as well (9/65)
as the data files. And the disadvantage that I see in that is that the backup is encrypted and in order to get one file or a folder with files in it, which is usually what I want from my backup, I would have to go in and unencrypt and then extract out the things that I wanted from that backup. So what I do is I let the Ubuntu Mate backup with the encryption run on a regular basis just to have that backup in case I need it. Have never needed it, knock on wood. And I also run Rsync, just an Rsync script that does the backup of the data files, and store them again on a separate drive, a network drive or on a separate spare hard drive unencrypted. Because when I need those files, it's the data files that I need and it's the, you know, it's the old copy of something that I have deleted from my hard drive to make some space or because I felt like I wasn't going to need it for a long time. And then go back and discover, oh, wait, I need that. So I go back to one of my multiple backups on (10/65)
multiple different hard drives. And I'm not worried about them being unencrypted because if somebody could figure out which of the many spare hard drives my backup is on, you know, they're welcome to it. And I don't have anything proprietary on those backups anyway. So you know, unless somebody wants the raw recordings of the Going Linux podcast. Well, you know, I'd use a little bit, I do things a little different. I don't really worry about backing up my whole hard drive because it's just the only thing I really want to save is like pictures, videos, and you know, audio, music, or recordings or whatever, and programs that might be hard to find. I will store those online, usually in Dropbox or my main go-to is the Google Drive code. I'm kind of testing out some different solutions, online solutions. So I've got them backed up offsite. And so I just don't, you know, if I lose a background image, oh well. But if someone wants to hack into my Google Drive, all they're going to find is (11/65)
pictures of my dogs and maybe some, you know, some music like, man, he has some weird tastes, but you know, and see the raw recordings of the show. So I mean, there's nothing there. So unfortunately, it would be a total waste of your time, but hey. So I just kind of do it. The files can, you know, pictures and stuff can't be replaced, but you know, you can always reinstall the operating system. So I just keep the stuff that I can't easily replace. And you know, when it's time to blow away anything, I just, you know, it's pretty simple. And the online storage, I mean, I got like one terabyte of storage. I don't have that much stuff. Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I don't need that much space either. And so my Dropbox folder is just the default. And then I've gone through some promotions to get some additional Dropbox space. So I've got enough to handle what I put on there and I use that as storage as well. And the only thing that I put on there are the things that you and I need (12/65)
to share for the podcast, because that's how we do that. And anything else that I want on there in online storage, in a place that I can get from multiple computers or in a place that I can get to from a computer that is someone else's. And I want to log in and get a file or I want to get a file that I have shared or, you know, whatever. If I need the file without physical access to my computer or hard drive, that's where I'll put it. It's on Dropbox. Since we've mentioned Dropbox a couple of times, we should probably mention that there have been some changes to how Dropbox is supporting Linux and other operating systems. I was just going to say that. You were going to say that? Okay. Yeah. So why don't you go ahead and comment on it? So Dropbox has decided in the very near future that if you're not using the file system ext4, you can't use it. Right. And so... Well, you can't use their Linux client. Yeah. Oh, is that it? For automatic backups. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I guess you could use (13/65)
the web interface, but a lot of us... Myself, I have where, you know, certain things I automatically sync using the Dropbox client. And so... Me too. I play with different file systems and that was one of the things that caught my attention because for a while I was running the XFS to see how it does. And so when I saw that, when I reinstalled Mint, I just said, well, I'll just go with the ext4. So, yeah, if you're running something different, you might work around, I guess, would be to use the web interface. But that kind of takes away some of the convenience of Dropbox. Right. Exactly. And to finish the rest of the story on that, the bad news is they've dropped support for some file system types. And the good news is they have not dropped their support for Linux. The only Linux file format they support is ext4 and they have support now. They've dropped support for other file systems from Windows other than I think it's NTFS and they support a couple of Mac OS file types. And you (14/65)
know, from a Linux perspective, yes, there are lots of people who don't use ext4. However ext4 is probably the most popular file system type used on the average Linux system today. There are some older ones and there are some that are a little less stable. Not to say that they're all less stable, but some of the newer ones are a little less stable, arguably. So I see the logic in what they've done in support. If they're going to narrow it down and support only one file system type, ext4 is the one to choose because, you know, many of the Linux distributions for desktops at least choose ext4 by default. And if you want something different, you have to consciously go and choose that. You know, so it makes sense if they're going to narrow down their level of support for operating systems that for Linux they would choose ext4. Anybody that would just install it wouldn't really have to worry because that's the default. Right. Yeah, on the other hand, you know, if you're experimenting around (15/65)
enough that you're not using ext4 or the default file system that comes with your Linux distribution, you're probably sophisticated enough that you have other ways of sharing things and you're not using Dropbox because it is proprietary. It's not open source and yeah, so I'm not sure it's as big of a problem as some folks have made it out to be. For the average listener of the Going Linux podcast, it's probably not going to be a major hardship. Yeah, you have plenty of other options you can use like Google Drive or whatever. So our next email comes from Ken who commented on the Mint review and he writes, Bill and Larry, I have Mint Cinnamon 18.3 on four machines, desktop and laptop. I too have noticed that Chrome browser is slow to start for the first instance of the day, but all the other software pops up almost instantly. Bill, you said that Ubuntu Mate loads the browser faster. I know that you made sure that the hardware software, we're doing the same for both distros. I'm thinking (16/65)
that Mint Cinnamon is doing something software wise, checking on spooky stuff or something before it gets its load. It would be interesting to know why Mint has chosen to do this since all the other software loads almost instantly and it does. I don't worry about the Chrome first time of the day start. I am really enjoying Mint and have been using it for several years with great reliability. I even got one of my computer challenge friends set up with Mint from Windows. He was always having wind problems, but since I got him onto Mint, I barely heard a word out of him. Thanks to the great show and website, KenKB4XT. I think all of us that do anything with tech have a few or at least one computer challenge friend. Yes, at least. And Firefox, I rarely use it. I set up a computer for one of those computer challenge friends just a day or two ago. And for the first time in a long time, I actually set up Firefox and I was surprised. Well first of all, I have to say I didn't notice anything (17/65)
sluggish or slow about it, but I was surprised that they have changed the interface so much that it looks like Microsoft Edge now. You had to say Edge, didn't you? I know, I know. It reminded me of Microsoft Edge. I don't know, maybe I was looking at it wrong, but it defaulted to open and full screen. It has squarish window decorations and it looks different from all of the other windows. It's got square tabs and ick. That's all I can say. Technical opinion, ick. I have Windows 10 on my work machine and we can use any browser. And so when they handed it to me, the first thing I do is put Chrome on it. It pops up and says, Edge is so much faster than this and this and this. And then it's like, I don't care, put Edge. And then, so you have to tell it this default. Then it pops up again and said, hey, before you, do you still want to switch to Edge faster and you were built in? And I'm like, yes, change this. I don't want to use Edge. So when you mentioned Edge, it's like, ah, and (18/65)
occasionally it will pop up and say, you know, this site would look really great on Edge. I don't care. I know one Edge. But let me, while we got talking on Edge, and I'm sorry for the segue, didn't Microsoft get in trouble with the EU for bundling Internet Explorer and they had to unbundle it and stuff? Isn't this the same thing? There was a whole lawsuit on that, that Microsoft lost. But I mean, that was decades ago, Bill. That doesn't matter anymore. But is this the same thing? It is. It is exactly. So I guess, you know. There is no way to, well, I'm sure there's a way, but if you go, because I've tried, because I got tired of it popping up and saying, would you like to try it? No, I don't want to try it. You know, isn't, there's no way if you go into the add remove software to remove Edge, it's integrated in. Yes. And I'm like this, and I was just thinking this is the same thing that they got in trouble for, oh, okay, a decade ago. I mean, I guess I'm harping on something, but it's (19/65)
like. You're asking for consistency from institutions that have no consistency, Bill. Just give it up. It's not going to happen. In other words, expectation versus reality? Yes, that's it. Okay. Well. All right. Okay. Yeah, it's a political thing, I'm sure. And if things were, well, never mind. Okay. Stay away from the political conversation. We'll go on to our next email, which is from Paul, who says hello from Ankara, Turkey. Hello Larry and Bill. I'm from Germany and have been working in a German institution in Turkey for several years now. I was lucky to move from administration to the IT department two years ago. And since then I have been trying my hand with Linux on old PCs and laptops instead of throwing them away as I was supposed to. Shh, don't tell anybody. I learned a lot from the various German and English support forums. And after playing around on my many computers and laptops with many distros like Peppermint OS, Linux Lite, Mint, et cetera, and failing with Arch and (20/65)
Manjaro, I stick to Zubuntu for very old laptops and Linux Mint Cinnamon for everything else. I got to love Linux and I'm promoting it heavily to my coworkers. Now here is the situation I have trouble with. The only time I had a faulty MD5 sum, which for new listeners is the checksum that you can use to make sure that your downloaded file is on, you know, as you've downloaded it to your hard drive is exactly the same as the one that is on the server. The only time I had a faulty MD5 sum was when I downloaded Mint from the mirror in Turkey so I don't use a Turkish mirror anymore for downloading distros anymore, just in case this was not an accident. Two weeks ago I downloaded and installed Linux Mint Cinnamon 19 on a PC, did the updates from local mirrors in Turkey, did some sudo apt install as usual, preload, ffmpeg, libdvd, CSS, Etcher, et cetera. Then I barely used the computer, I just had transmission running to seed different Linux versions. Maybe I did some more updates. Two weeks (21/65)
later I discovered that sudo apt install did not work anymore. The whole folder at etc slash apt was gone. I checked the internet and found only some old posts about situations where someone had accidentally deleted the folder by hand with some cryptic terminal command. I used time shift to roll back to the first backup and etc slash apt was there again. I clicked on the actualization icon and received the message that my apt repositories are corrupted and I should change my package sources. I don't know how this is called in English, my Linux is in German. I did that and changed the mirror servers to standard and everything else worked and updated just fine. Apparently an update from a local mirror site deleted my etc slash apt folder. So my questions are, how is the integrity of the Linux downloads and updates on the many mirror sites all over the world ensured? Is there any kind of control so I can be sure the main, Tara, and basic bionic packages I am downloading from official (22/65)
mirrors for example in China, Turkey, Thailand and others have not been tampered with on a professional level? How does this worldwide system work in regards to keeping all the files identical with originals at all times? How is it ensured that the distros which I seed from my PC with transmission are not tampered with? Looking forward to hearing the answer in your podcast and thank you for the entertaining and very useful podcast. Keep up the good work. What do you think, Bill? Have you looked into these repositories and mirrors? I would like to say yes, but I haven't because I usually set it to a repository closer to me. Yeah. But it's always in the United States. Now the thing that I did notice about his email was that he's downloading from Turkey and I don't know if anybody's messing with the damages or et cetera. I don't see how they could, but I'm sure they would. When it comes to the Mint project, I guess if they have to do some localization for the Turkish language or some (23/65)
adjustments and I know that's like in China has some data protection laws that are a lot more strict. Turkey probably does. I don't know. That would be a great question for the Mint project. Yeah, specifically for the Mint project in this case. What I do know about mirrors and such is that in Linux Mint, it gives you, I guess Mint, gives you the ability to switch the mirrors and it actually has a little or it used to have a little monitor that actually determines, calculates how close or how quick the closest mirror might be and you get to choose whichever one is fastest. And I'm not surprised that that might come up with Turkey if you're actually located in Turkey. However, you don't have to pick that. You can pick something else as you probably know, Paul. So if you're noticing this kind of an issue with the mirror in Turkey, I would get on the forums and, you know, the Linux Mint forums and mention it there and file a bug if it's appropriate. But my understanding of the way these (24/65)
mirrors work, many of them are maintained by universities or by corporations or organizations for their own use and they make them publicly available. This is open source after all. And they typically keep them in sync with the main mirror or the main source simply using something like rsync over the network. And in many cases, they're hand curated and things like that. So it's possible that the website in Turkey that hosts that mirror has been infected with something or someone's hacking it and or perhaps whoever's maintaining is doing this intentionally. All of those are possibilities. I'm not saying that many of them are likely. So your alternatives are avoid the mirror in Turkey for both the download and for the updates. And provide the Linux Mint team with some feedback on that to give them an opportunity in open source fashion to have that fixed. And the other alternative is just to avoid that mirror in Turkey and find the next fastest or next most reliable one for you and use (25/65)
that for both the download and the updates. I guess it could be that just that mirror just has some problems. But he says he's from Germany and he's working in Germany. So he could set his Mint to just go to Germany and grab its sources. If you're having problems with the mirror, I really I find it hard to believe that this might have been done intentionally. It's either just an oversight or there's a problem with the mirror or then again, as Larry said, someone might be messing or playing around or whatever. But if you're having problems with that mirror, the best is don't use the mirror. Just like when the guy goes to the doctor and says, hey, this hurts. And the doctor says, well, then don't do that. So just go to the German mirror. It might be a little slower, but you know, with the Internet, you know, start it and go to bed and it should be done. The other thing just something to, since you're running Mint is to, if you have a good working system and you've got time shift, go (26/65)
ahead and do time shift right before you do your system updates, just so you have the latest and greatest because you can go in there and tell it to make a quick backup and all it does is we'll go and see if anything's changed. So, you know, just doesn't hurt to take an extra couple minutes just to make sure they have everything saved in the time shift. That make sense, Larry? Right. It does. It does. So hopefully that helps. So our next email comes from John who had a failure to reboot and he writes, haven't had to ask for help in many months. Now I can't find any answers to this problem. This distro ran for months and months with no problems. Suddenly last week upon starting in VirtualBox, this was the response. I don't remember if it was Mate or Cinnamon. I'm now running Cinnamon. Cinnamon doesn't want to function well. Mint forms don't address this error other than fiddling with the Xorg. I know nothing about that. If the distro won't open the terminal, it is useless. Any help, (27/65)
suggestions, much appreciated. And he sent the error message that he's gotten. I'll just read through it because it's not that long. Maybe one of our listeners might be able to click and they can offer John some idea. And he's basically getting a runtime error opening and then it lists C users JBSON slash VirtualBox. And then I'm not going to read this because this sounds like a bunch of gobbledygook. So looking through it, and all this is in the show notes, so anybody that's interested and thinking might be able to help John, they can go and look at it. It's just, I don't think anybody would, you know, there's no sense reading all this out. Yeah, I think the key elements of the error message are these, that it's a runtime error. He's obviously running on a Windows machine, running Linux in VirtualBox and it's Mint 18 that he's running. And it looks like he's got a second hard drive, the F drive, with... I'm not sure what all that's about, but it looks like a second hard drive. And (28/65)
there's a result code saying EFAIL, and then machine wrap component, and an iMachine interface. So if that makes any sense to anybody, yeah, with all the more power. So I usually use a VM player, but I have played with VirtualBox. And so it says VMs, it's Mint 18 and Mint, and then it goes VirtualBox is reading and it's apparently not finding a file. And the F is the drive letter that's assigned, I believe, as the default hard drive in VirtualBox, but I don't understand WIN 5.2 source. And I'm just, I'm looking and I don't know, it says EFAIL and then it gives an error code and it's, you know, I love error codes that don't tell you what it is. Yeah, yeah, that's typical. Well, bottom line here is, you know, it's VirtualBox. What I do when I'm using VirtualBox is I make the image, I use the VirtualBox image, that's the file that ends in .vbox in John's case, and I back that up. It's easy enough to back up the file. It's usually pretty big, but it's something that I copy over to another (29/65)
hard drive so that if there is a failure like this, I have a backup and I can just restore it from that backup. And that might have helped you out here, John. I know that's closing the barn door after the horse is gone, but yeah, that's, I guess, lesson learned is to back up your VirtualBox images as well. Any ones that you're going to be using a lot. But yeah, like I said, none of this really jumps out of saying, oh, I know what the problem is. Maybe one of our listeners who does a lot more in VirtualBox than we do can help him out. But he says, I mean, he says he's running it, but it's not running great. I'm just wondering, you know, it says file found. I'm just wondering if that's the, usually there's the extras that you have to install to get all the functionality. Maybe that's possible. Maybe because it says file not found. So that might be the, like, what do they call those Larry? The extras or something like that? Yeah, it's extras or accessories or some word like that. But (30/65)
yeah, something like that. So maybe that helps. I don't know. I'm sorry, I couldn't be more help. Yeah. And, you know, I don't use VirtualBox very much anymore, hardly at all. It's a program from Oracle. They purchased VirtualBox from its original company, Sun Microsystems, I think it was. And or they purchased the company and inherited VirtualBox. I think that's the way it worked. But yeah, so it's not too likely that you're going to get open source kind of support from Oracle. You've checked the places that I would check, the forums. And if they're talking about, you know, fixes that require you to edit Xorg, that doesn't sound too promising. What that does point to is maybe there's a problem with VirtualBox itself that's causing this. If you really have to, you know, fiddle with Xorg. I don't know. Let's leave it to Arminians and see if they know of any reason for this kind of a failure. Yeah. And let's move on. OK. Our next email is from Josh, who has an idea for the X9575 Lexmark (31/65)
printer. On the last episode, there was a listener having problems printing from a Lexmark X9575 printer. I have a different Lexmark printer at my office that is working with Linux via the network. I noticed that your printer has network capabilities, so maybe this will work for you, too. Once I connected the printer to the network, I used the printer menus to find a network setup page. This printed a page full of information about the way that the printer is networking. I used the IP address of the printer to make my computer speak to the printer. In my distro, I chose Add Printer and typed the IP address into the network printer page. None of the printer preferences are available from my computer, however. I was still able to change my printer settings, though, using the menu on the printer itself. I hope this works for you, too. Best wishes, Josh. It may be using just the standard CUPS interface. You get into your browser, you type in the IP address of your printer when it's sitting (32/65)
there on the network, and it brings up a configuration page that might allow you to connect with CUPS directly, as Josh is suggesting. That might work for you, since it's a network printer. Just as a reminder, the 9575 printer from Lexmark is classified by the Linux community as a paperweight. In other words, there's no driver that works for it. But this might be an alternative to it as a workaround, as Josh suggests. Go for it. Let us know how it goes. Yeah, I tell you, printers are a hit and miss. Even on other operating systems, they're a pain to get to work sometimes. Yeah, I remember that. So, Larry, you need to fix that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. So, our next email comes from David, and he writes, Hi, Larry. Hi, Bill. Remember me? It's been a while since I wrote. However, I remain your loyal listener since the first episode. You guys continue to be great. Just listen to your listener feedback episode number 315, which James asked how to use a Lexmark printer that has no Linux (33/65)
driver. I, too, some years ago had the same situation. I devised a workaround that was adequate for my limited needs, the odd scanning and minor printing of PDF files. Until the ancient printer, I think it was liberated from a university dorm trash heap by my son in 2005 or so, and then it finally died. I splurged the $50 or so on a supported HP all in one. What I did was create a virtual machine where I installed an old Windows XP I had to which I passed PDFs to print and retrieve scanned documents. No need to maintain the XP. In fact, for security reasons, it's best not to connect to the internet and only use it for this purpose. Hope I've been of help. This is Dave, your expat Canadian fanboy in Galilee. You know, Larry, that's clever. Mm hmm. Yes. And that's a great use of virtual machine. Yeah. I mean, David, that is clever. I really, really get a kick out of some of the ideas these guys come up with. I would have never thought to do that. Wow. And of course, if your Windows XP (34/65)
virtual machine isn't connected to the Internet, you're relying on the printer that you have having a driver in the original Windows XP. So if you actually have to download a driver for XP, it sounds to me like you'd be a bit out of luck there as well. So not really all you'd have to do. You could use your Linux system to download it, put on a USB, and then when you start your VirtualBox, it recognizes USB to stick it in and load it to the... Oh, sure. If the driver exists, I was thinking that XP has been out of service for a while. Oh, I see what you're saying. And there may not be a driver anymore for a printer that may be old, but not as old as XP. Oh, OK. And that's kind of what I'm thinking. Oh, OK. I see what you're saying now. If you have a driver there, or if you can download it using your Linux machine and install it on Windows, that would work as well. If you have the money, though, I'd just go out and buy a supported printer or find one in a dorm trash heap that you can (35/65)
liberate that is supported by Linux. Yeah. Yeah, whatever. Yeah. So there you go. So it can't be much help with that, but I will say, David, you get a definite minion star for a clever workaround. That's awesome. Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for being a continued fan right from episode one. Wow. That's like, what, 351 episodes? Yeah. Wow. That's a lot of listening. So he's been through all the co-hosts. He's listened to everyone. And it sounds like. There's only one person that has not changed. And that's you. You've been on every episode. Yeah. Well, that's kind of the way it goes when it's your podcast. Wow. Anyway, moving along. That's amazing. Let's go to George from Tulsa. Thanks. George from Tulsa commented on Google Plus regarding that episode 350, listener question about backing up iOS on Linux. As Bill said, there are Linux music players that can interface with iPods, perhaps even iPods, iPhones, and iPads as well. Never done it as I'm now using Android phone as my player, but (36/65)
I know it is possible in theory. However in Mac forums, I've also read a lot of comments saying that it only seems to work with older devices. Real backups aren't going to happen from iOS to Linux. Apple wants its user to fill their iCloud storage with stuff, including backups. And George, yeah, I know that firsthand. The Apple folks want you to buy more storage. And so they put as much of your system stuff in there, including backups as possible so that it fills up quickly and you have to go out and buy it. I'm not saying that's their motivation, but I suspect that that's what's going on there. I've also heard that the backup capability is something that was present in the older Apple devices and has been, support for that has been removed from the newer ones, which happens with proprietary systems like this. Well and not only does Apple want to keep everything in their ecosystem, you can understand they control the hardware, they control software. So of course they're going to (37/65)
control how things are backed up and accessed. So it's pretty much you're all Apple or you're all, you know, or you're not. Sometimes Apple does not play well with others on certain things. Other things they do, but for, you know, their iPhones and iPods and iPads, they tend to like to keep the ball in their own court. Yeah, I thought, you know, with Apple, everything just worked. I guess it works if you're using other Apple things, right? Okay. So without, anyway. Moving on. Moving on. Jim asks about remote connections. Larry, I have had success connecting my computers from within my local network. However, I do not know how to connect them when I have to go through my router. This includes being at a remote location on Wi-Fi or trying to connect to my laptop on my Wi-Fi from one of my local network. Any suggestions or links to visit? I like to build peace on Lynxment. I first use Lynxment 19 on a Ferton desktop, which is small, mounted on the back of a monitor. It is 64 bit with only (38/65)
2 gigabyte of RAM and a small video card. It streams poorly and is a little slow comparatively. Other than that, it is good. Somewhere around number 13, Lynxment would not load on the Verton. Skipping to the end. I found one distro with the Matei desktop, my favorite, that worked on the Verton. Lynx Matei could not make the display function properly, Ubuntu installed properly, but I do not like Unity. The distro that I am using on it as well my other three computers is Point Linux based on Debian. I think it is worth for you and Bill to take a look at it as well as anybody else. Thanks for doing the podcast. I have not written in a while because I have not had any problems with Linux that I could not easily handle, which have not been many. Are you still doing the stories about switching to Linux? Yeah, yeah. In fact, we are still doing the gone Linux stories. Just haven't had one in a while, so we're interested if you have one and you're submitting it to us. Yes, Point Linux. I (39/65)
haven't never heard of Point Linux. Yeah, I've heard of Point Linux, never used it. I've heard somebody refer to it, so I really don't know anything about it. As far as the other points that Jim's asking about, making remote connections. You can easily make remote connections using the open source software that's available in Linux for doing that kind of thing. But if you're trying to connect to non-Linux systems across a network, that is something that you can do with some of the open source software if the version is available for Windows or Mac or whatever other operating system you're using. Not sure what it would be, like BSD maybe? I don't know. But as far as connecting through a network to a computer outside of your network, that's where you either have to get very sophisticated with the open source solutions or you will want to use a proprietary solution. And the easiest one that I have found to use for doing that kind of thing is TeamViewer. Not that there aren't any others (40/65)
out there, but TeamViewer does offer a free version for personal use, and I'm assuming this is for personal use. And so you can easily use it and it takes care of going through firewalls and going through other things that normally are the hindrance from working outside your local network through your router and all of those other things. So TeamViewer is my usual recommendation. Like I said, there are others out there that will work. But TeamViewer lets you set up the remote computer that you want to control so that when you connect to it, TeamViewer is running, you can set it up so that you can connect remotely without having to be on the remote system to enter a password or a code or something like that. And not all of the other solutions do that. Yeah, TeamViewer is a great product. It is proprietary. It's certainly not open source, but it's one of those things that it works. So from a pragmatic perspective, that's my recommendation. OK. All right. Our next email is from Preston, (41/65)
who asked for podcasting advice. Bill and Larry, I'm a longtime listener and fan. Thanks for your excellent show. I covet your counsel. Oh, OK. I listen to another podcast, but their audio quality is lacking. The hosts speak via Skype. That could be one of the reasons why the quality is lacking. And one host is loud while the other is quiet. I would like to assist the host to produce a higher quality audio. Could you briefly describe your process you use to produce such a quality audio in your debt, Preston? OK, so let's walk through our process here, Bill. OK. So we are first not recording using the software that we use to talk to one another. The software that we used to use to talk to one another was Skype, and it offers in some operating systems some built-in recording capabilities, or at least it used to. In Linux, there was an add-on utility that you could use to do recordings from Skype. When Skype was taken over by Microsoft, some of their support on Linux deteriorated, and the (42/65)
quality of the audio hasn't really changed. They're using the same compression and all the other stuff that they use. So we switched over to Discord, and Discord is one of those programs that lets you talk to one another on a voice call. You can do video calls. You can do other kinds of stuff. I don't know whether you can record if there's any recording function within Discord, but there are plenty of other programs that let you record your session in Discord, like OBS software and that sort of thing. So we don't use any of that. We just use Discord to talk as though we were talking on the phone, and we could easily just pick up the phone and call one another, but we both use Discord, and that's step one is to establish a way of communicating. Then the recording. So like I said, you can record from the same software that you're using to talk to one another, but oftentimes it gets complicated to do that, and sometimes it is difficult to set up. So what we do is Bill records his end on (43/65)
his computer using Audacity, and I record my end on my computer using Audacity, and usually I'm doing the editing. Sometimes Bill does it, but usually I'm doing it. So Bill sends me his file that he's recorded using Dropbox, and he records it in the OGG format. You can choose whatever format is best for you, and then I import it into my Audacity session so that I have his recording on one track and my recording on another, and so now we have nicely separated audio, and I use the tools within Audacity to edit the file and to make sure that the levels are identical and to make sure that the voices sound the same and to get rid of background noise and other things, and I just simply, if I have a coughing fit in the middle of the recording and it happens to be recorded on my channel, I just edit that out. I make that section blank, and of course that doesn't show up in Bill's because he's recording his side of the conversation, not mine, so I just have to edit it from one of the two (44/65)
channels and move on. So that's really it. There are other fancy things you can do in Audacity to make this sound better, but I would recommend that you do it that way, and you can then level, get the levels the same by using, well, let me just say how I do it. First thing I do is I remove the noise from each channel, and I do that to each channel separately because the noise in the background for Bill is different from the noise in the background for me, so I use the noise reduction features in Audacity to do that, and then I use a noise gate that I have downloaded from the Audacity site. It's not included with Audacity, and I find this noise gate is better than the other tools. It's built for Audacity, so you know it's one of the components that you can use, so I just use that to essentially zero out everything that is below a certain amplitude, below a certain loudness, and then there's a compressor. I use a compressor that's built into Audacity to compress the file, and what that (45/65)
does is it removes some of the quality, but it evens out within the track. It evens out the volume so that if I'm whispering like I did earlier in this episode, the volume of the whisper is still audible. You can still hear it, and you can hear it at the same level as you can when I'm speaking loudly, so that's what that does, and you lose a little bit of quality doing that, so be careful using that. Don't overdo it, and then there is a limiter. There's a limiter built into Audacity, and I use that limiter to remove some of the audio artifacts to limit the volume so that it's not over peaking. If there is a difference in the levels after doing all the other things, I use... there's a setting in the limiter that allows you to adjust the volume, correct it for low volume, that sort of thing, and I use that if necessary. It's not necessary in every recording, but it depends on what's going on with the background, and you know, are the mic levels set properly, and that sort of thing, so if (46/65)
somebody forgot to raise their amplitude, raise their volume enough, and the volume is a little bit low, you can adjust it there as well. So that sounds very complicated. I have a video that it's a tutorial that's on our website. I'll include a link in the show notes. I did it a few years ago for Nightwise, who had a similar sort of question and asked about our podcast production methods. It doesn't include everything that I just described, but it does include the basics, and you might find it useful. So there you go. Yep, that's pretty much it. I think the one trick that you didn't mention that's very important is... well, there's actually two tricks. One is to make it easier to line up the recordings is we always give a countdown before we start the recording. So we'll count down like three, two, one, then we'll hit the start record. So the recordings, when you drop, when you import mine, match up with yours. That's real important, and also it's real important to... we always have... (47/65)
we try to give each of us, because we're recording your, like I said, your background's different from mine, so we record about 10 seconds of just background noise so you're able to take it out, and that's why you do a per track, because your background noise, you know, your heater or AC comes on might be louder than mine, etc, etc. So those are two little tips that really help. Okay, and that is screencast number six from 2013, so it is a little while ago and probably needs an update, quite frankly, but we'll take care of that later, but, you know, the basics are still there, and Preston, hopefully that helps you out. Our next email comes from Michael who wants to know about installing the Linux without wi-fi. Hi Larry and Bill. I'm considering installing the the latest Ubuntu Mate on my HP laptop, completely replacing Windows 10. I know it might not be fully up to date, but could it be done without a wi-fi connection? I ask this because I need to go into a local shop, which sells (48/65)
mobile phone equipment to be able to get sighted assistance to boot from a Ubuntu CD or DVD, which I create, and they told me they don't have wi-fi in the shop. The alternatives are to try to get RNIB TFL technology for Life Team to install it, or save up and purchase a Linux supported laptop for IntraWare later on this year. All the best is going Linux, Michael. I can answer that one. You can install Ubuntu without wi-fi. You just can't get packages, of course, because you're not connected to the internet. You might not be able to get the latest drivers, so the caveats are, yes, you can get the base system. If you can get the image onto a DVD, USB drive, thumb drive, whatever, you can install it. You just then hope that the kernel supports all the hardware in the HP laptop. The only thing that might be a little difficult is if you have a piece of hardware that needs a driver, like in mine, I have to, if I want to use my NVIDIA card, because my machine comes with a Intel, and most (49/65)
Intels are always supported, and then there's the NVIDIA card. So if I want to use the NVIDIA card, a lot of times I'll need to do the proprietary driver. Now, there is an open source driver, but it doesn't work that great for what I wanted to do. So just be aware there'll be certain things that might work better with updated drivers or kernels. The thing I have a question about, Larry, is, is he going to connect it to Wi-Fi after? Because then if the card doesn't work, then you can't really do anything. I mean, as long as the ethernet is supported, you can always plug it in. So I don't know how it connects from home. But yes, you can install it. A long answer to a simple question. Yes, you can install without Wi-Fi, but you might have some issues. Yeah, and most likely with an HP, you're not going to have issues. So yeah, you can install it from the CD or DVD in the shop without Wi-Fi. And then when you do connect to Wi-Fi next, it will download the updates and it will update (50/65)
including any drivers that may not be installed or updated at the time of installation. So you're not missing out on anything. It'll all happen the next time you connect to the internet. An alternative, if the shop doesn't have Wi-Fi, but they can give you a connection by way of a cable and your HP has a port for an internet cable. Many of the new computers don't. Then you could connect directly to their cabled internet through the appropriate jack. And failing that, then yeah, it'll install and the next time you boot with the CD out of the drive and you're connected to the internet, you'll get the updates that weren't downloaded at the time of installation. So everything should work okay. You know, with a caveat that if it's an internet driver that you need, that could cause some other problems. But more likely than not, it'll work just fine with an HP computer. Michael wrote back after I responded to him by email saying essentially what we just said. He said, hi Larry, thanks for (51/65)
getting back to me so promptly. I've been just reading posts in the ORCA mail list and there appears to be an accessible version of Linux distro called Coconut. As I have only looked at the basics and heard a Czech guy demonstrated on a podcast, I'm still not clear as to what all of the differences are with this distro or whether it can only be used from USB or fully installed as a running system, which isn't reset as the guy installed it from one USB to another USB. It may or may not be an alternative to Ubuntu Mate, another choice of distro which has been designed with accessibility in mind. Unlike the guy who installed it, I don't have a braille display and maybe the lack of one makes no difference as it does work with ORCA. Yeah, I'm not sure the existence of a braille display makes much difference to ORCA other than when you have a braille display you need to make sure that setup goes okay in ORCA. Yeah, I don't know anything about the Coconut Linux distribution, so I can't really (52/65)
comment on that. I can comment on Ubuntu Mate. It's a great choice for people who have disabilities, especially the blind, because you can install it without sighted help, because in the installer you can use ORCA, but bottom line is Ubuntu Mate is a great choice for accessibility. They put a lot of effort into it. I can't comment on Coconut. I don't know anything about it. What about, is Sonar still being developed? No, Sonar has kind of dropped off the face of the earth or face of the internet. It's still available and it's the most recent version which is a few years old now, so now Jonathan Nadeau is not supporting or continuing to develop Sonar and no one has picked it up, so as far as I know, unless something's changed in the last couple of weeks. Okay, so our next email comes from Paul who wrote about increasing the size of the swap and boot partition while Linux Mint is installed, and he writes, hi Bill and Larry. I look forward to each show and have been listening for several (53/65)
years. If I install Linux Mint by selecting Linux Mint to erase all data and install when Linux Mint automatically installs versus selecting do something else, when I select the partition sizes, etc. Will Linux Mint perform the most efficient installation? I realize I can't isolate a home partition if I want to install, reinstall another version of Linux Mint. If I allow Linux Mint to install as home on the same partition as Linux Mint, I searched in forums for a little more info on making room for the boot partition but couldn't get a resolution. I wanted to increase the boot partition on the system running Linux Mint. Can I resize the boot partition in Gparted? I wanted to do so recently. I booted into Linux from a flash drive but found I could not resize the swap partition in order to make room to expand the boot partition. I then tried to remove all partitions on the drive but Gparted said one of the partitions was in use. I don't know what partition would be in use on the SDA1 (54/65)
drive if I booted from a USB drive. Or is it easier just to use DD to clear the drive and start all over? I would appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks again Paul in Texas. Okay so let me see if I got this right. He wants to resize his boot partition and to increase his swap partition? Yeah so to increase your swap partition apparently you have to reduce the size or change the size of something else to make room for it if you've got your hard drive completely filled. And so he's having some problems with that and there is a trick to it quite frankly. Yeah and I've included a link in the show notes to an Ask Ubuntu article that describes what the trick is and it's in the you know there are four answers and the most the one chosen by the question asker as the best answer is the one you want to look at. Basically what it says is you need to create some space after the main extended partition unallocated space. In other words space that's not used by any partition and then you can (55/65)
expand the swap partition into that. So yeah there's a bit of a trick to it and it's not something that we can really describe on the podcast so we'll let the folks at Ask Ubuntu describe it in the answer to this question. But it sounds like it'd be just easier to back up what you want to keep and start over. Yeah maybe. Part of the reason for this question is right at the beginning he mentions or he asks if you let Linux Mint choose the partitioning scheme is it going to choose the most efficient scheme. In other words the size for the partitions and the swap partition size and that sort of thing. And I'm not going to say that it's going to choose the most efficient for your system because what it's trying to do is find reasonable rational sizes. That's my description not the Linux Mint team. So they're trying to make it reasonable partition sizes not the most efficient. If you want the most efficient then you need to learn how to use Gparted and do the calculations yourself as to (56/65)
what's going to be the most efficient. But if you want something that installs quickly easily you don't have to think about it and you've got reasonable defaults that's you use the default recommendation. I think that's pretty much good advice on that one. Yeah okay anything anything further on that from you Bill? No I really can't improve upon that answer so I think we should just move on. We'll just leave it at that. Yep. Okay and our last email is from Sean who provided a Guild Wars tip for you Bill. All right. Sean says LT-FTP all that jazz. Not sure what that means but we'll move on. I play Guild Wars 2 on Linux daily. The NVIDIA experience does leave a bad taste in your mouth. I am running Lubuntu 18.04 on a Lenovo Y700 laptop with an NVIDIA card. The below link has a wonderful amount of info that really helped me and there's a link to the Guild Wars forum and the topic is playing Guild Wars 2 on Linux performance optimizations and more. So I don't know if you've had a time if (57/65)
you had a chance to look through that Bill but looks from the title of the article like it's what you're looking for? I actually you sent this to me in an email and so I immediately read it and then decided to try it. Okay. Now this is just a tiny mini rant. It didn't really help my performance any. I followed the instructions it's dead simple you know do this I mean it walks you right through it. My machine has a NVIDIA 1070 in it and he didn't tell me which one he has in it. And on medium with the latest you know NVIDIA drivers installed on the system I can only get about 40 frames a second and that's when and in the major series there's a lot of people and textures it drops even lower. If I try to jack it up to ultra which means everything's set to all the the the prettiest settings and you see all those particle effects it drops to like 10. So I was wondering when I was telling it that I got it installed it's playable but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth because the driver (58/65)
parity is just so different. So I have another hard drive it does have windows 10 on it because you know I have to use it once in a while on my personal machine. So I went over and on ultra with the windows I'm getting 80 to 100 frames a second and in the cities I'm averaging about 60 and that's with everything. So I was wondering if this was affecting other games. So I have X-Plane 10. I had bought it on steam so it has a Linux client and a windows client. So what I do I download them both for both of them and the performance is just comparable. I mean within five frames of each other and they both look good they both run smooth. So there's a lot of work I think that we just can't say it's all Nvidia's fault. You know granted Guild Wars 2 doesn't have a native Linux client I'm sure it would be much better but there's a lot of work that needs to be done. There's no reason that they should not be able to produce a decent Linux client or at least optimize it so it runs a little better (59/65)
because yes 1070 is not the latest and greatest. I think it's what now there's the 1080 and then of course Nvidia's got Titans and all that other jazz that make you want to just go out and spend lots of money. Yes I'm already looking at the latest one they're getting ready to come out it's called the Nvidia RDX. It's supposed to be real-time ray tracing so it's never mind. Anyway sorry I'm video card junkie. So it does help a little bit but not as much as I'd hoped and right now we know there's no reason that you cannot run mainline games Guild Wars, X-Plane, Half-Life, you know you got Portal. I mean there's all these games that run really really fast or better on Linux and then you have these ones that for some reason they won't take the developers won't take a little time to say hey you know if we add this it'll help these people. Yes we're not going to produce the Linux client but we're going to make it easier for them to run our game and give us money. So I just don't understand I (60/65)
mean this shouldn't be I shouldn't I should not have 50 frames difference in the same video card same hardware with the same with the updated driver. I just don't know what can be done but it's a little frustrating and frankly my card has enough horsepower to do it. I guess different cards will work differently. I'm just a little frustrated on some of this because yes I shouldn't have to drop into Windows to play a game and you know if I have the hardware to play it at its best. Does that make any sense to you? Yeah it does. Yeah I know it's a little thing for non-gamers but it does kind of go over to other applications you know that could use the graphics processors that we have in our machines. We were talking about this last week Larry. A lot of people use Linux to repurpose older laptops but a lot of us don't have old laptops. Our laptops are less than two years old and we want to be able to use the hardware and the horsepower that we pay for. And on some of these applications (61/65)
we're just not getting it and there's really no reason for it. We should be able to get as much power and use out of our machines just because we decide that we don't want to run the W windows or we should still be able to get benefit of our newer hardware. The kernel does a great job of trying to get things in but then again we were to also talk about this last week that a lot of these hardware vendors they really are not interested yet in optimizing their hardware for Linux. Because we're a smaller market but I think we're an important market as more and more people are saying yeah I really don't like all the privacy problems that they're having I'll just run Linux and I don't have to worry about my data being sold or whatever. So it's just I wish these hardware and software manufacturers and developers would understand that Linux users are an important subset of the computer market and it cannot be that hard to help us enjoy the benefits of our hardware. If they want us to buy their (62/65)
hardware they should support Linux with good drivers and good programming and off my ramp. Yep right exactly. Sorry okay I just get so frustrated by that sometimes. Yep yeah and I can understand it and it's just one of the frustrations of not using windows. Sorry guys didn't mean to go on my mini ramp. Yeah yeah and I know that the Mac OS folks have the same frustration running windows games on a Mac. You know they need to use a virtual machine to do that as well and hey that's just the way it is. I mean Mac users have the same problem if the game is Windows only which there's really no reason for that anymore but you know or it seems like if you're not Windows and Linux and Mac or like the redhead stepchildren and Mac's a little better than us because they've got more users but that does not mean that people should not that make the software and hardware should just we shouldn't have to jump through 15 hoops just to get something to run their game or application decently. Yep. Okay (63/65)
I'm done sorry. Okay yeah let's move on. Yeah and in the interest of moving on we're approaching an hour and a half on our recording here we have a gone Linux story from Mario and it's about Linux Mint and he's got a rant built in there but we're going to save that for our next listener feedback episode. Oh there's a tease. Okay Mario's email is a bit long so we'll just save it. There you go. Okay so what's up for our next episode Bill? What have you got in store for us? More reviews like Pingai or maybe reviews that aren't like Pingai or anything in the works that you're working on that maybe might be ready for our next show? Well actually I haven't finished it yet but I wanted to do a feature comparison of Windows 10 versus Linux and to show that you're not really missing out on anything if you do use Linux. You might gain a few things. Okay you might gain a few things and there may be some issues with games and other things but you know the Mac people also have trying to run Windows (64/65)
supported software on non-Windows machines but other than that yeah okay I'm looking forward to that one. Windows 10 versus Linux. Was that sarcastic? No I am looking forward to it. Okay until then you can go to our website at goinemix.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. New music provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com (65/65)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'Going Linux' - Going Linux #388 · Linux Spotlight Interview.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Going Linux, Episode 388. Linux Spotlight Interview. Welcome to the Going Linux Podcast. I'm your host, Larry Bushey. Whether you are 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 to send us feedback, you can email us at goinglinux at gmail dot com or send us a voicemail at 1-904-468-7889. In today's episode, Rocco from the Linux Spotlight podcast interviews me. Hello, just me today in your earbuds or on your speaker. And today's episode is a little different than normal. It is certainly longer than our regular episodes, and it's a little different topic. The topic is an interview conducted by Rocco, also known as Big Daddy Linux, of me about the Going Linux Podcast and about me and (1/83)
Bill and a number of other topics. So enjoy. This is an audio only version of the Linux Spotlight video podcast interview. So if you've already listened to the episode on Linux Spotlight, there's no need to also listen to it here on this. Of course, you want to hear it again. So here we go. Welcome to the Linux Spotlight. This show is dedicated to showing off the best thing about Linux, our community. This community is made up of developers, distro maintainers, YouTubers and everyday users. Each one plays a vital part in our community. And the goal is to have a discussion with each individual about their journey into Linux and beyond. So join me now as we turn the spotlight on. Hello, I'm your host Rocco. And with me today, our special guest is Larry Bushy. Larry, how are you? I'm doing fine. Are you Rocco? I am doing excellent, man. We are going to sit down. We're going to talk about you. We're going to talk about Linux and we're just going to have a good old discussion. Sounds great (2/83)
to me. All right. So you have, you know, your list of things that you have done goes long. You have published books on Ubuntu Mate. You've been a tech correspondent for other shows, for podcasts, but people will most undoubtedly know you for your own podcast called Going Linux that you host with Bill Smith. That is what you're noted for. That is what people would recognize you for. But what would you say to somebody if they asked you who is Larry Bushy personally? Well, I'd have to say that I'm just your average tech enthusiast who loves to help people build their confidence and competence using technology in a way that works for them and not the other way around. Yep. Very nice. Well, I think that's a constant theme that we're going to touch on through this whole episode. Okay. Well, on your bio, on your LinkedIn profile, you have a section of what you do. You lead a team of consultants for a cloud computing company. What is it that you do specifically on a day to day basis? Mostly (3/83)
what I do in my professional life working for the software company is I help customers of that company to optimize and extend their use of the software platform. And it's a cloud-based software that helps companies run their business on the internet. Nice. All right. What about outside of work, outside of Linux? Do you have any hobbies? Let's see. Producing and co-hosting podcasts about Linux, writing an in-app help for Ubuntu Mate Linux and let's see, writing books about Linux and open source software. So no, I don't have any hobbies outside. Seriously though, I really enjoy traveling by cruise ship and playing with my grandkids. And that's about it for hobbies. I'm pretty, pretty busy as you could tell. One day I'm going to go on a cruise. I have never been on a cruise before. Yeah. You know, the thing about cruising is you either love it or you hate it. And once you've been on one, you'll know which it is. And so I, you know, people who ask me because I've been in quite a few (4/83)
cruises, ask me about cruising. I say the same thing. I say, well, try it out for a short duration cruise. Don't go on a one to two day cruise because they tend to be, you know, your classic booze cruise to nowhere sort of thing. So unless you're into that, it's not something that I would recommend. So go on a five or seven day cruise and then you'll know. It's long enough to know what a cruise is about, but it's short enough to not have you trapped on a boat that you don't want to be on for too long a period of time. So your first one, take it easy and hopefully you'll enjoy it if you get to that point. Do you have a favorite place you took a cruise to? Well, I can't say that I have a place that I have taken a cruise to, but I'd like to take a cruise to Europe and cruise around the Mediterranean. Haven't done that. Like to go to Alaska. Haven't done that. I've been to the Caribbean a lot and to Hawaii. So and through the Panama Canal, I've done that one. So I've been quite a few (5/83)
places. It's this is going to seem strange to say for the favorite place I have to go for vacation is home. You know, I like being home. But yeah, I don't really have a favorite place to cruise to. I just love being on a cruise ship. It's a great way to relax and vacation. Yep. Very nice. Well, you work in a tech related field. So I would assume that you can freely talk about Linux in those places. Yeah. What about other parts of your life? You know, family, friends, people you meet? Do you talk about Linux there? Are they receptive at all to it? Well, my wife was using Ubuntu Mate for years and Linux Mint for years until I bought her a MacBook Air. And the reason I bought her the MacBook Air, she wanted it to be more compatible with the rest of her Apple products. And, you know, that's fine. She had no problem using Linux. It worked just fine for her. She just wanted a little more integration. And let's face it, you know, Linux isn't at the point quite yet where we have everything (6/83)
completely integrated. And Apple's got it over Linux and Windows there in that they have full control over the hardware and the software so they can do that kind of thing better than anywhere else. And as far as anywhere else is concerned, I really, as a rule, don't promote Linux. But if somebody asks me about it, I'm going to, you know, show them why my computer screen looks different from their Windows desktop. And if we get into the conversation about it, or about one of my books or something, I'll talk about open source. But I'm not going to try to force somebody to convert to Linux, you know, I'm not the religious Linux type that is that kind of forcefulness. But I'll explain to people that there are other options to run their computer other than Windows and Mac. And, you know, if they're interested, we'll go in deeper. If they're not, I'll drop it. Yeah. And that's kind of the way I take it. Well, I don't think it works any other way. You can try to jam it down to somebody's (7/83)
throat, but it just never seems to work that way. Right. Well, I'm not that kind of person in the first place. But you're right. Yeah. If you do try to, it's the same as anything, you know, if you try to force something down somebody's throat, they're going to push back. And that's not what you're looking for. Right. All right. So let's start at the beginning of your computer career. Okay, so what in the way back machine? Yes, let's go back in the way back machine. And what was the first computer you remember using? Oh, very clearly. It was a University of Guelph computer science department mainframe. And it was running Fortran 4 with watt five. And the input was a telex tell type keyboard that created punch cards. And there was a card reader. And it had a printer and the outputs came in a green bar report. And yeah, that was the first computer I ever used in university. And yeah, so it's been a little while. Going way back. Way back in the way back machine. Well, let's face it, some (8/83)
universities aren't known for having the most latest and greatest hardware. And this was the case, but it was a pretty up to date computer course that I was taking. So the hardware we were using was not, like I said, not the latest and greatest, but it was fairly mainstream at the time. And but to answer your question a little more along the lines of what I think you're asking me, the first computer that I actually owned was a Tandy Color Computer 2, Coco 2 computer. That was my first, my first personally owned computer, although I had used some before that. Well, you mentioned university and stuff. What were you always into technology or what made you start to take a computer course? Yeah, I've always been, you know, in high school, I was good at math and everybody thought I was going to go into the computer it's courses in university. I thought, you know, I could do that. I know how to do that. I'll do that really well. Let me just go into biology or something. So that's what I did. (9/83)
And then I figured out that there wasn't a lot of money doing, you know, chemistry and biology and stuff unless I wanted to be a teacher. And there was still not a lot of money in that. So I got back into technology at that point and got into sales and selling technology and not so much using technology at that point, but more into selling it. So, you know, after learning the computer and programming basics at university, my sales career led me into using some of those programming skills for doing demonstrations of the technology for customers. And, you know, some of the applications that I was involved with were things like data logging and healthcare diagnostic testing and control software for manufacturing. And, you know, these are systems that ran operating systems like CPM and DOS. And I was using basic programming at that point. And I never really had my own computer or even a company provided laptop at that time because, well, first there weren't laptops. And secondly, you know, (10/83)
computers were very, very expensive. So, you know, companies were going to provide salespeople with that. But that first computer I owned was, like I said, a color computer that I bought to learn more about home computing at the time. And, you know, Bank of America was just getting into home banking at that point. And so I decided, let me test this thing out, get a computer that I can use for this. And that point, I was doing demos for my sales career on computers like a Compaq luggable computer. You know, this was, yeah, I don't know if you've seen those, but they were a suitcase size computer with, it was a portable computer because it had a handle on the top. But this thing was 60 pounds and it had a seven inch green screen. And the one I had was the later model. So it had two floppy disk drives. Oh my. Yes. So yeah. And these were five and a quarter, not eight inch. So, you know, it was pretty modern computer at the time. And so, you know, I, at that point in my career, I was (11/83)
helping a couple of the employers as I changed employers throughout my career, adopt the very first technology for its sales organization. Salesforce automation is the category of computing that it was at that point in time now known as, you know, customer relationship management, but it was SFA back then. So that advocating that for the companies I worked for kind of got me into managing salespeople and training people on software and managing the deployment of the company I was with at the time, their first set of laptops to over a hundred field sales reps. And then from there, well, I have to say that at that time, it was like Windows 95 ish. So we were talking about IBM ThinkPad. I think my first ThinkPad was a 760 C and working, I worked for that company for quite a while. And I helped them to standardize on the ThinkPad as the computer for their sales and service organizations and used multiple models of ThinkPads throughout the years, commenting before I left that company to go (12/83)
to the company that I'm with now in the technology field as a technology architect. But I guess I was on Windows 7 at that time. So that kind of gives you a span of computers. So I've always been in, long story short, I've always been involved in computing or technology one way or another. And after getting out of the sales part of my career, I started into a more IT-related kind of career. I was still in sales operations, I guess, but I was on a team to help deploy an ERP system, the sales part of the ERP system throughout the company worldwide. And then I got into the customer relationship management software, replacing that with a more modern version, a cloud-based version of that. And the company finally moved me from the sales role into a true IT role, still using computers, still using ThinkPads, of course, at the time, and still using Windows. But then I found that working within a corporate IT environment was too restrictive. I did not like working in an IT department as an (13/83)
employee of a company because I felt that my creativity was being stifled. So I moved to my current employer as a software consultant, helping customers to optimize the use of their technology. And they provided me with my first Mac computer. So I have a MacBook Air that I use right now for work. And that was the first time I started using macOS. And outside of work, I use various models of computers from Lenovo's to HP's, and I've had System76, and I've had Dell computers. My current personal computer is a Dell XPS 13. I actually have two, one running Windows 10. There's a story behind that as well, and another one running Ubuntu Mate, which is my daily driver computer, and the one that I record all the podcasts and everything else on. So that was a very long answer to a short question, but hopefully that gives you an idea of what kind of computers I have. That was perfect. Yeah. So, okay, so you mentioned all of that stuff that you did, but when in that area did you hear about Linux (14/83)
first? Yeah, so, let's see, about 2005 is when I started looking at ways to customize Windows computers. And during that time, I was, I, you know, had learned enough about programming and that sort of thing that I could do DOS batch programming, but that didn't help me much in personalizing the Windows computer to make it work the way I wanted it to work. But during the research of some of the DOS batch programming that I was doing, I learned about a program called Cygwin, C-Y-G-W-I-N, if I remember correctly. And that was a way to put a Unix-like operating system within Windows, and I kind of latched on to that, and that led me to Linux. And that's, that was the first time I had heard about Linux through Cygwin, kind of sideways, finding out about Cygwin and then finding about Unix and finding out about Linux. Right. So, what is intriguing you to try Linux? Is it that trying to find the customization ability? Yeah, exactly. I want, I was, I always knew that computers could do more (15/83)
than a Windows computer would let me do. Right. And I could find ways to force it to do what I wanted it to do through customization or through writing my own programs and that sort of thing, but it always felt forced. And so when, when I discovered Linux and discovered open source software in general and found out that you could make it do things, it would allow you to make it do things. And it was designed to allow you to make the operating system do things to make your life easier. I immediately latched onto it and never looked back after that. So what is the first distro that you end up trying in Linux? Let's see, the very first one, well, first of all, I looked at, started trying to use Mandrake. So I bought a book on Mandrake, and by the time I finished reading the book on Mandrake, I discovered that Mandrake had been discontinued. They'd stopped development on it, right? So I thought, okay, now what am I going to do? So I did a little more searching around for Linux (16/83)
distributions and I discovered OpenSUSE after looking at Knopiks. You remember Knopiks was the, one of the very first live CD-based Linux operating systems, right? It was one of the pioneers in that area. And I didn't really have a CD-ROM drive at the time for my ThinkPad that I had, and I found a way to install it using floppy disks, not Knopiks, but OpenSUSE. Because I tried out Knopiks on computers at work that did have CD-ROM drives and I liked it a lot. So I was looking for a distribution of Linux that I could actually install from floppy disks that wasn't going to take a steep learning curve. And I stumbled across OpenSUSE and found out that I only needed nine floppy disks to install OpenSUSE. So that's what I did. I installed it. That was a plus back then. That was a plus. In fact, if I remember correctly, if you wanted to install Windows using floppy disks, which I was doing for work, I think it was something like six Windows disks, but then if you wanted Office, it was (17/83)
something like 15 floppy disks to install Office. And so I was relieved when I found out it was only nine to install Linux and you got all the software that came with it. So, yeah, that's, so I guess the first one I actually used was Knopiks. The first one, and that was more of a trial sort of thing. And I realized that I wasn't going to be able to use it on an ongoing basis because it was built to run off a CD and I couldn't really install it. So my first one I actually used as an installed Linux distribution was OpenSUSE. So you try OpenSUSE and you have this new thing that you're trying out. What are the good things? What are the bad things that you see when you install OpenSUSE and you get to the desktop? Okay. So the good things are I can have the computer system do whatever I want it to do. It's really refreshing to be able to change the way the desktop looks, change where the panels are. I can customize the panels. I don't need to worry too much about drivers, although I had one (18/83)
computer that was giving me fits and starts with a Wi-Fi driver at one point. So yeah, I learned a lot about Wi-Fi drivers through that experience, as we do. Them old horror stories always start with Wi-Fi drivers. Wi-Fi drivers, yes. Wi-Fi drivers are printer drivers and then they're the printers that you can never get working on Linux, those kinds of things. So yeah, so the pros were I learned a lot that new users no longer have to worry about, quite frankly, when using Linux. A lot of the details about using the command line and fixing problems using the command line and the cons, other than the fact that I had to learn a lot about using the command line to fix problems, there were really no cons to it. Yeah, it was a lot of fun for me because I enjoy technology. So I'd say it was all pros and very few cons. All right, so do you stick with OpenSUSE on that machine or do you say, hey, I'm going to go back to Windows for a while or? Yeah, I stuck with OpenSUSE for quite a while and (19/83)
then along came Ubuntu. And I discovered, I was looking around I was looking around at different Linux distributions because I had started the podcast by that time and I was looking at different Linux distributions just to get a little experience with them so that I wasn't just stuck on OpenSUSE because I wanted to answer some questions that other people had. And so I looked at Ubuntu, I burned a CD-ROM drive. By that time I had computers with CD-ROM drives. I burned a CD-ROM and tried it out and I thought, this is pretty interesting. Oh, and they have something called, well, I was using KDE as my desktop on OpenSUSE so I tried Kubuntu for the first time. And the first version I tried was 6.06. And as soon as I tried it, I knew that was the operating system I was going to move to. Because it had everything that I was looking for. It had the power and the flexibility of Linux. You could do as much complexity as you wanted. If you were a software developer, you could use it for that. If (20/83)
you just wanted to use it for browsing the internet, you could use it for that. And the thing that drew me to it as the producer of a podcast for people moving to Linux for the first time was the fact that it was easy to use and they had put a lot of effort into making it for the average user. And I knew it was going to take over a big position in the Linux ecosystem for Linux users and computer users in general, especially those moving from Windows. So that's kind of where I went to, is Kubuntu 6.06 and new from there. That's where I wanted to be. As Ubuntu developed over the years and as my familiarity with Linux grew and my personal taste changed, I moved into more of a GNOME-based distribution. It was still Ubuntu. And it was a GNOME 2. And I really liked that interface even better than the KDE interface. Although KDE gave you a lot more flexibility as to, you know, a lot more control right out of the box as to how it looked and what you could tweak. For me, it was fine because I (21/83)
love tinkering with stuff, but for the average computer user, which is the audience for the podcast, it was no longer something that I could recommend when I found out how simple GNOME 2 was for the average user just adopting Linux and how you could make that look more like a Mac, or you could make it look more like Windows and make a user comfortable and yet not overwhelm them with so many choices that they would become lost. Right. And in the vast multitude of things that you could tweak, it's very easy to just dive in and get lost in it and never come out. So you're right. So GNOME had that kind of, it was the balance between power and safe and sane defaults. Right. And so I loved GNOME 2. And then when I found Linux Mint, I found that the Cinnamon desktop gave me very similar sorts of things than GNOME 2. But they started to develop some things that kind of took it to the next level. Right. And then Ubuntu went to Unity. And I didn't like Unity. So I went to Linux Mint and started (22/83)
using Cinnamon. And the first thing I did with Cinnamon was I took the panel at the bottom and I put two panels, one at the top and one at the bottom. And it looked just like GNOME 2. Strangely enough. But then full circle later on, I ended up back on Ubuntu. And this time Ubuntu Mate, which came with a desktop that did have a panel at the top and at the bottom. And it looked just like GNOME 2. And I guess what I was looking for was a Linux distribution that had what I wanted as its own personal defaults. Right. And I liked the way GNOME 2 felt and looked and worked. And I haven't tweaked too much from that. Today, I still use Ubuntu Mate, except I use one of the layouts that has a Mac-like dock, not at the bottom, but on the right hand side. Just because it's different. I was going to say, because usually it's on the left. I know. Well, I like the window controls on the left. So the X to close the window is on the left and the dock is on the right. And I use a program called Barrier (23/83)
that allows me to put my work Mac desktop to the right of my screen. And I have the Mac dock on the left and the Linux dock on the right. So they're both there sitting there in the middle. Right. So it's easy to whichever desktop I'm in, Barrier allows me to use a single mouse and keyboard and move fluidly between the Linux desktop and the Mac desktop. So when I'm working for my desk here at home, yeah, I, you know, if I'm on the Linux desktop on the left, my mouse moves to the right and there's the dock. If I'm on the Mac desktop, I move it to the left and there's the dock. They're both there side by side and that's my workflow. Nice. That is actually a pretty good workflow. Yeah. I never heard of Barrier before though. Yeah. Have you heard of a program called Synergy? I have heard of it, but I never used it. Okay. So Synergy, there was a precursor before Synergy. I forget the name of it, but I used Synergy for years and the developer of Synergy took it from open source to proprietary (24/83)
with some still elements of open source to it. And it was free, still free to use for personal use. But if you wanted to use it for business, you had to pay a whole bunch of money. But at that point, Synergy got forked to Barrier. So there's still Synergy and there's still Barrier. And I switched over to Barrier because it's open source. And it, the folks working on Synergy tried to do a new version that didn't quite work all that well. And they reverted back to the old version. And I thought they're going in a different direction than where I want to go. Let me just go to Barrier and it works just fine. So both those programs are available. They're both, I think, in the Ubuntu repositories, certainly Barrier is. And I haven't looked back since switching over to Barrier, but its claim to fame, and I've mentioned it on my podcast a few times, is that you can use a single keyboard and a single mouse on a server machine. You set up one machine as a server and you can have up to, I think (25/83)
it's 16 computers. You know, with, it's like virtual desktops, except it's virtual computing across different operating systems. And it works across Windows, Mac, and Linux. Doesn't work on Chrome yet, but someday. Yeah. Chrome operating system. Well, you have tried a ton of different distros out in your Linux career, but I believe Bill is the distro hopper on the podcast. Extraordinary. Every time I talk to him, he's trying something new. Have you gotten to the point where you are, you just want a working system when you sit down to work? Because a lot of people, when they first get to Linux, they start to distro hop because they're trying out new things. It's all exciting. It's all new. And I was too. I distro hopped a billion times, but right now I'm to the point where I have a machine and I have to sit down and do work on it and I need it. So is that the same for you? It is. And especially since, you know, I've gotten busier at work and the podcast has kind of expanded and I'm (26/83)
doing some other things, I just want a machine to work. I have for years now. And so I have settled on Ubuntu Mate as the operating system and desktop environment of choice for me. It works just fine. And I'm planning on sticking with it until something better comes along. And it would have to be something with some significant advances to make me switch from it at this point. And I like Ubuntu Mate because it does what I want it to do. It looks the way I want it to look. It has enough power that I can do what it can do what I want it to do, whether that's something as simple as checking email or something as complex as writing some bash scripts to automate some of my workflow. And it's the one I have based a lot of my work. Certainly the suggestions that I have for people on the podcast are all based on Ubuntu Mate. And it is my first recommended distribution for other users. Linux Mint, I think, is my second. You have to bear in mind that the podcast audience for me is not the (27/83)
sophisticated long-time Linux user. It's the new user to Linux. It's the person who may have just switched from Windows or just switched from Mac for whatever the reason. Or they're interested in switching and they're interested in what are the problems I'm going to come across. Some of the questions that we get from folks from the podcast are the same from month to month. But mostly I find there some twist that I hadn't thought of. Or there's a new question that I... Where did that come from? Those kinds of things. So I'm trying to keep my recommendations to something that would be suitable for a new listener, a new user to Linux. And I like being on a system that I can recommend to other people. And what better way to be able to recommend something to use it yourself. That's kind of my philosophy. Well, speaking of Ubuntu MATE, you have quite a few books and manuals, documentation on Amazon that you have produced. What made you want to start writing tutorials on like actual books? (28/83)
Well, let's see. A couple of different answers to that question. I could take in a couple of different directions. So let me start with why I started doing this in the first place. Right. In 2015, Martin Wimpress, who I know you've had on Linux Spotlight before, and he's the originator of Ubuntu MATE, he reached out to me and he had sent me an email and he wrote, I'm going to quote what he said here. He said, I've been trying to break down what Linux and Ubuntu MATE are for people new to Ubuntu MATE. Would you be interested in helping improve the content in Ubuntu MATE to better communicate this? So Martin reached out and I wrote him back and said, absolutely. What do you need? So what other responses there? Yeah, exactly. I mean, of course. So that led me to writing the content for the about page on the Ubuntu MATE website. And on the, when you click on what is Ubuntu MATE about that page, I wrote a good deal of the content. It's morphed over time. So some of it is unrecognizable, but (29/83)
the thing is I got it started and it's basically still the same stuff. And in researching that, I went through what existed for help within Ubuntu MATE. And I found that when you pressed F1, you know, the help button for any thing in Ubuntu MATE, it would bring up help screen, but the help screen was always something about MATE. It was the, you know, it was the web browser help, or it was the file manager help, or it was the text editor help, those kinds of things. And I realized there's really no help for Ubuntu MATE as an operating system. So having written the about page and the what is Ubuntu MATE page, that kind of inspired me along with not finding any help when I reached out for help. That inspired me to take the content that I'd been working on for years on my website and what I had learned about Ubuntu MATE and knew about Ubuntu MATE and mix in some old podcast episodes. And I wrote the help system for Ubuntu MATE that you find today. You still can't yet get to it with the F1 (30/83)
key, but it's in the menus as the Ubuntu MATE guide. When you are running Ubuntu MATE, you click on menu and Ubuntu MATE guide is there. And that's what that is. And then having done that, I realized that two things. First, that the help wasn't there for Ubuntu MATE. And although Linux Mint had a user guide, there was no real good publication for a user guide. Now, some sort of technical manual, if you will, for Ubuntu MATE. So I wrote the first outline for an Ubuntu MATE guide that eventually turned into two different books. One for users switching from Windows or Mac to Linux, and the other one for a little more in depth. That provides people who have adopted Ubuntu MATE a little more detail on not just the operating system and how to personalize it for your own use, but walks through some of the main applications in the operating system as it comes out of the box, as opposed to the things that you can add yourself. Just the default applications, what they do, how they're intended to (31/83)
work, and give people a little orientation as to what comes with Ubuntu MATE. So those are the two books that I've written, and there have been different editions of them. I started them back in 2017. And I have the switchers guide, I like to call it, for Ubuntu MATE 20.04, already released on Amazon. And the more in-depth guide, I'm holding back until, I guess we're in feature release now for Ubuntu MATE, but as soon as we get into April, I'll make that one available on Amazon as well, the third edition of that book that's been updated for 20.04. But I want to wait and make sure that I have as many of the features in there as I can before actually releasing that book. So if you go on Amazon, you'll find that it's the second edition that's available. The third edition will be out sometime towards the middle of April, I suspect, just before the end of the month release of Ubuntu MATE 20.04. So those are the books, and that's how they got started, and you know, how I ended up doing them. (32/83)
That's awesome though, man. That is one way to contribute to Linux. Exactly my thought. That is awesome. I love it. Well, you have one, it's using Ubuntu MATE and its applications. You also have one, Ubuntu MATE upgrading from Windows or Mac OS. I love the idea of having an actual hard copy in somebody's hands because there is a whole section of people, I believe, that would enjoy that, that relate to that. Is that also something that you thought about when you were deciding, hey, I'm going to put these books out there? Absolutely. You know, as a trainer or instructor, I've come to understand that each person learns differently than the people around them. And as a result, I knew that I needed to provide the documentation that I was developing in at least four formats. You know, some people can hear someone describe how to do something and know immediately how to do it just from that description. But some people need to be able to read and ponder it a little bit before they understand. (33/83)
Others can watch someone do it in a video or a demonstration of something and be able to understand how to use it. And then the others need to actually put their hands on it and try it in order for it to sink in so that they can understand how, you know, thoroughly how to use something. So everybody has this combination of learning modes, if you will, that's best for them. You know, I already had the auditory mode covered with the podcast. I had kinesthetic and practice, if you will, through my website and tutorials in there, I gave step by step. And I figured I needed the visual for YouTube, and I needed a book, something that somebody could actually read and mark up and study and, you know, follow examples and that sort of thing. So, you know, I haven't done too much with the YouTube part of it yet. But the book was kind of the, you know, fill in that gap for people who learn by reading and studying and doing that sort of thing. So, yeah, I agree with you. People need different (34/83)
things to learn according to the way they learn. And a book is one way to do that. And whether that's an e-book on an e-reader, or whether that's a printed book on paper, you know, the old analog way of doing things, flipping through pages. It's all out there. It's available now for Ubuntu MATE. And, you know, it's, I think that's a good thing. And I'm supporting Ubuntu MATE as kind of my pet project, if you will. Because I like it, I think it's the best, it's best out there for new Linux users. Yep, I think that's an awesome way to contribute, man. Yeah. And Martin's not paying me for this. All right, let's get into your podcast. It's called Going Linux. And from what you've said, you started it. So you started the podcast, I believe in 2005. And that's right around the time when you started using Linux, right? Well, I actually started the Going Linux podcast in 2007. I started podcasting in 2005. My first podcast was a Windows tips and tricks kind of podcast. So I was doing the same (35/83)
thing, but for Windows users, right? And then as I moved to Linux, I thought this Windows stuff is overdone. I'm not interested in it anymore. I got to do this for Linux. And that's how in 2007, I started Going Linux. Yeah. All right. Well, okay. So at that time, podcasts were not the going rate. Like today, everybody has a podcast. And back then, it wasn't like this super popular thing. So what got you into podcasting to begin with? Well, in 2005, when I started podcasting, podcasting was a year old, right? And so I was learning how to podcast. I had heard about, you know, the daily source code with Adam Curry, and I had subscribed to what few podcasts were out there. And I was very interested in podcasting as a communication medium, as a training medium in my professional life. And so I learned more about podcasting, learned how to do it, picked the topic that I knew something about helping people to use Windows at the time, and use that as kind of my way of learning how to do that. (36/83)
And so I got interested in podcasting just through listening to podcasts, actually, through listening to audiobooks at first. And then one of the audiobook authors started distributing his books through podcasts. I thought, what's this podcasting thing? So I started subscribing to his podcast. So, you know, every chapter that came out was a new podcast episode, and then explored podcasting a little bit more, and then realized, as I moved into Linux, that there were very few Linux podcasts out there. And so I seized the opportunity and said, well, I've got to do something. And I'll do something for what I know is helping new users to, you know, move to Linux and answer questions for people. And as I started giving examples with Ubuntu in the podcast, I found out that it was very popular, I found out that it was very easy to answer people's question using those examples. And so that just reinforced that Ubuntu was, like I said earlier, was the way to go for new Linux users. And (37/83)
podcasting was a great way to get the word out about it, because it was becoming more popular. It was very fledgling. Even in 2007, it was early days for podcasting. But it was a great way to get those who had found out about podcasting to understand and learn about Linux. And at that point, I had no thoughts of writing a book or anything like that. So this was the way I was going to get the word out. So you choose the name Going Linux. Yeah. And a name, you know, seems like it's not a big deal, but a name is your brand. At the end of the day, and it's a pretty important thing. So how'd you go about choosing that name? And what were the goals when like, when you start, hey, I'm going to do this podcast? Were there ultimate goals in that? No, I just picked it out of the air. No. Yeah. So I did have some goals. First of all, the goal was I knew that my audience was going to be computer users who are new and struggling to use Linux. So I wanted something that conveyed that in the name, (38/83)
because you're quite right. The name is very important. I wanted it to convey meaning something like an action, like using Linux or learning Linux or adopting Linux or something like that. I didn't want it just Linux, you know? Yeah. Right. Right. And so in searching for combinations of terms, you know, let's not make it like a six word title. So combinations of two or three words that convey some sort of action about understanding Linux, that kind of thing. I looked to see what was available at the time. And going Linux was the first one that I came across that was available, that somebody didn't already own it, or there wasn't a squatter squatting on that, you know, URL. So going Linux was the one I ended up with and it served me well. And it seems to be, it conveyed the right thing. And those were my goals. Right. And yes, it has served you well. As of the last count, because you just released an episode this past week. So as of the latest count, you have 386 episodes of the Go (39/83)
Linux podcast. That is like only yesterday. That is an amazing thing. What drives your passion to continually produce this all the time? Yeah, it's, it's, it's an easy one. It's the listeners. I'm driven for some reason to help people. And I found a way to do that in podcasting and writing books and other things, but in podcasting and it's fun and interesting for me. And I love interacting with the listeners and helping them to learn about Linux. And, you know, we've got listeners that have been around for years since day one, some of them, and they have learned more by now than I have to teach. Okay. But they stick around for the podcast for some reason, and we're glad and happy to have them. And then there are always this influx of new users. New listeners come on board, they learn what they need to learn. They go off and they explore Linux on their own. Some come back, some stayed with me forever and you know, others are, you know, they, they come and go and there's always new Linux (40/83)
users who need a podcast to help them learn how to use it better. Right. Well, every other show you have you do, you do a listener feedback episode. And the whole show is based on answering questions, reading emails, voicemails. This is, this is like a great way to get the community involved. Is this the reason for the success of the show? Yeah, I'd say that it is. I think it's key to the popularity of the Going Linux podcast. I think it's key to podcasts in general to listen to your audience. And we have a perfect way of doing that in taking in questions and answering the questions. And I'm continuously amazed that since 2007, every month we have enough listener feedback in one form or another, emails, voicemails, whatever it is to dedicate an entire episode every month to answering questions and nothing but answering questions and giving advice about, about Linux. So thank you audience. I really appreciate it. And Bill does as well. And my co-hosts over the years have too. And yeah, (41/83)
thank you. Without you, there wouldn't be a Going Linux. But that's a testament to you and all of the effort that you've put into it that you have that like must be providing some sort of value. Yeah. On your site, you have screencast tutorials. Yeah. You like simple things like changing your password in Ubuntu Mate. You have your email listed. You have your Miwi page listed. You have your phone number listed that you can, people can leave voice, like actual voicemails. And that is an amazing thing to see in a podcast. There are a lot of podcasts out there. Some of them do an effort to get the community involved, but this is like going that extra mile in getting the community involved. And I believe that is the reason for the success of the podcast. Well, I can't disagree. Thanks. Uh, I, my philosophy is if we're going to help people to adopt Linux, we need to make it easy for them to contact us in a way that, you know, is easiest for them, whether that's by phone call or whether (42/83)
that's sending in an email or whether that's tweeting us on Twitter, whatever it is, just to make it easy for people. And they'll ask the questions. They have the questions. They just need a way to ask them. So all of these episodes that you put out, um, is there maybe a favorite episode or maybe a favorite memory of an episode? That's like asking you if I have a favorite child. Well, they're all my favorites. Uh, you know, okay. That's the standard answer, right? Um, well, just thinking about it, the, I can, I can say this, that the two that I've received the largest number of listens, uh, as judged by the internet archive, which isn't always the best way to judge your number of listeners, but it's where we post our, our, um, where, where we deposit all our episodes and we link to those from, from the, uh, from the, uh, RSS feed. But, um, looking at the number of times things have been downloaded from there and estimating that those are listens, if you will, there are two that stand (43/83)
out, um, episode one 27, which is titled KWTV live, uh, and the interview and then episode one 25 listener feedback. They're both from interestingly from 2011. I don't know what it is about 2011, but that's when our most popular episodes were. Uh, and the first one is an interview of me by, uh, night wise, a Belgian podcast. Well, I think he's Dutch, but he lives in Belgium and he does a podcast, um, for, he's a, um, a professional it person, a software consultant and helps companies with what he does. But in his day to day life, he's sliding between windows, Mac, and Linux on a constant basis. And so he talks about how to use computers to get things done. Um, but also using computers. Um, well, let me put it this way. His philosophy is one that I've already mentioned, which is computers should, uh, be things that do what you want them to do and not the other way around. Right. Uh, and so, uh, he and I, you know, uh, he, he listened to my podcast. I listened to his podcast. We (44/83)
eventually, we ended up talking to one another and he interviewed me, uh, and that, that was that episode. So I'm, I'm anticipating that your episode here will get a few listens as well. Apparently people are interested in me for some reason. And, uh, the other one was, uh, a listener feedback episode. There was nothing really special about that episode. None of the topics kind of stand out as, you know, earth shattering insights into how Linux works as an eco set or nothing like that. It's just another listener feedback episode. And so those are the two that have the most downloads. If that says anything, I don't know, but I really don't have any favorites. I hear you. I hear you. They're all your favorites. Yes. Yes. They're all my favorites. Well, not only you, uh, are involved in going Linux from 2008 to 2014, you were also on a show called Computer America, which is a radio show that kind of grew into podcasts, YouTube type thing. Um, how'd you get involved with them? Yeah, that (45/83)
was, that was an interesting number of years. Lots of fun in that. Um, there, they had a segment on Linux before I joined the show. It was hosted by Marcelle Gagné out of Canada, another popular Linux YouTuber and podcast host. So he was their Linux correspondent for a number of years and he left the show. And I don't remember whether it was Marcelle or whether it was Craig Crossman, the host, or whether it was Kerry Holtzman, his cohost who listened to the Going Linux podcast. But Craig called me and invited me to spend two hours live on the air every month with he and Kerry. And it just took off from there. It was a lot of fun. But I found that it took a lot of time and with my personal life and my career and the podcast and the website at 2014, it just got to be a little too much time investment required. So I made the choice to, to leave the live radio broadcast environment. And my understanding is Marcelle Gagné went back again as their Linux correspondent. And I've kind of (46/83)
stopped listening and lost track, but I understand they're still going on. I don't know whether the show has morphed into something different or not, but I'm hoping they're continuing on with, with what they've been doing. I think Craig may have, may have retired and his son taken over, but Hey, these things happen, right? Yep. Well, especially when they span so many years. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And he'd been on his, his tagline was something like the longest running radio show on technology or something. Yeah. Yeah. Longest running syndicated radio show on technology. Well, you have a whole career in podcasting. Looking back on that, are there some obstacles that you encountered that maybe you can pass on some advice to people who want to follow that same path? Everything was smooth sailing from day one, overnight success. I get you every time with that, don't I? Right. Yep. Yeah. So there were a few obstacles. Being pretty technologically adept, I'd say the technology part of it was (47/83)
pretty straightforward. Getting good quality audio was a challenge at the beginning. And that's a matter of getting good equipment, but also understanding how to do editing well. And I think we've got that down every once in a while we flub it, but Hey, everybody makes mistakes from time to time, but we've, we've gotten a lot better over the years. Just go back to episode one and listen to that. You'll be, you'll be amazed at how bad that was. But I think everybody's first episode of podcast was whatever their podcast is, is a mess by comparison as they approve over the years. So advice for people getting into podcasts, regardless of the subject, whether it's Linux or something else, doesn't matter. But number one is pick a subject you're interested in and know a little about. That may seem intuitively obvious, but I've listened to one or two episodes of podcasts that, A, I don't know what it's about after listening to it for one or two episodes, or it's pretty obvious that the person (48/83)
doesn't know a lot about. So if it doesn't at least interest you, it's not going to be an interest to your audience. The next piece of advice, and I have like four or five of these, is you don't have to be an expert to have a podcast on whatever the subject is. There are plenty of podcasts that are based on people's journeys around learning to do something. And those are some of the most interesting podcasts that I've listened to. Even though I have no interest in learning what they're learning, just following their journey can be interesting, right? It's like watching a television show. But next piece of advice is don't be scared off by thinking that there are other podcasts on the topic that interests you. The key thing to remember there is none of those people have your perspective on the topic. And so even though you may decide, okay, I want to start a podcast on Linux, right? When I started there weren't that many, but there were quite a few, some of which have podfaded off into (49/83)
oblivion, but others of which started before I started and are still going. But I've been successful and my co-hosts have helped me be successful over the years because we have a unique perspective on it. Our perspective is to help new users to Linux, and that's worked very well. The next, and this will be the second last bullet point, piece of advice is speak to your audience and ask them to tell you what they like and what they don't like. And we get that feedback all the time through the format of the show, through the listener feedback. But every once in a while we take a poll and we ask people their opinions and that sort of thing. And the last piece of advice is allow enough time. Podcasting takes a lot of time and you've got to be able to do research and write notes and record and edit and publish. And if you're doing just an audio podcast, allow two to three times the length of which you expect the show to be. So if you're doing a half hour show, it's got to be an hour, an hour (50/83)
and a half, maybe even two hours of time to do all that work, whether that's researching and notes. And I'm assuming you're going to do some sort of editing, even if that's putting a tag at the front and a tag at the back, you're still going to do something. And if you're doing video, Rocco, tell me if this fits with what you say. You've got to allow three to four times the amount of time unless you're doing something that is just record the video, slap it to air and you're done. It's going to take a lot of time. It's going to take a lot of time. I would say that that's at least three to four times the amount of time you need. So. Yeah, that's just that's just from doing those short little tutorials that I do, you know, and I guess it all depends too on how particular you are on making it sound good or not sound good, look good or not look good. So, you know, you can put a video out there and, you know, it would be fine. But if you're particular in the way you want it, it's going to (51/83)
take a lot of time. Yeah. And would you agree with me that for video podcasting, the audio is more important than the quality of the video? I would say that the audio quality, no matter if you're doing audio, a podcast audio or a video is equally important regardless of what it is, because there are a lot of people that will like this podcast, a lot of people listen to it. They don't even watch it. But also, if the audio quality is bad, it's something that you can't get over. Like a video quality, you can kind of get over that because you understand, you know, maybe the camera's blurry or a little bit or whatever. But audio quality, it's very restrictive as far as it's unforgiving. Yeah. Yeah. You can overlook the poor video if the audio is good, but you can't, the inverse doesn't apply, you know, if you can't hear it, you have no idea what they're doing. Got to be able to hear it. Yeah. All right. So what are the future goals for going Linux? Any long-term plans? There's a lot of (52/83)
continue doing what we're doing because we've been pretty successful doing what we're doing without sitting, you know, resting on our laurels. So we want to continue to focus on new Linux users. We want to concentrate on helping people to get things done using Linux and open source software. We want to make sure that we remember that once you get past the question, how do I do this thing on Linux, whatever it is you're trying to do, it's all about the applications rather than the operating system, because people don't use a computer to use the operating system. They use the operating system to use the applications. That's what helps them to get things done. So we want to do more focus on the applications rather than Linux as an operating system. And we want to make sure we continue to listen to our listeners so that we can continue to help them. Because if we don't listen to them, we're not going to be much help. Yep. Well, speaking of applications, you already talked about your (53/83)
workflow and how you do things like with Barrier. What about software? Is there software that, like, if you make a new install of Ubuntu Mate, get a new computer, you install Ubuntu Mate, is there certain software that you install right away that you have to have? Yeah, well, as you can imagine, being a podcaster, there are certain things like Audacity and EasyTag and FileZilla and Pulse Audio Volume Control and those kinds of podcast supportive software that have to go on there. Most Linux distributions, including Ubuntu Mate, come with Firefox as the browser. I have to have Chrome. I have to have both, actually, because I like to switch back and forth and make sure things that work fine on Chrome will work on other browsers as well. I include things like OBS and Shotcut and Simple Screen Recorder to do the video. LibreOffice has to be on there, and it is on most Linux distributions by default. But things that I add in the way of utilities are things like SimpleNote, a note-taking (54/83)
application that allows you to do some markup, Git and GitKraken, which are two Git-related things that help me to push the updates to the Ubuntu Mate guide, the help system within Ubuntu Mate, and work with that team. Other utilities, things like Barrier, of course, Zoom, Skype, Slack, Discord, TeamViewer, all those things have to go on. And any scripts that I have written, bash scripts, I've written a lot of bash scripts to automate a lot of this stuff, including a bash script to install all this stuff as I upgrade to a new version, because I like to install from scratch rather than actually hit the upgrade button. So yeah, those are the kinds of things that I have to have. There's a longer list than that, but that gives you a sample. Yep. Well, what about software that's not currently available for Linux? Is there something that you would say, man, I would love to have that on Linux? You know, for the average user, it really depends on how they use their computer. And for me, I have (55/83)
found for the most part that I can find what I need. But for somebody who's the average computer user picking the most popular application for a photographer or a YouTuber or a music producer or a programmer, if it's not already on Linux or has an equal or better alternative to whatever that most popular application is, that's what should be available, I think. For me, I can find most of what I need. My personal philosophy is if I am looking for some software, and the first place I'll go is to the Ubuntu Mate repositories to see if they already have something in that category. And then I'll go to the snaps and see if there's something there. And if not, I'll go look at open source software in general and see if it's there. And then if it's not available there, I stop for a minute and think, do I really need this application at all? And if I say yes, I do, then I go and look to see if there's a download on the software developer site that supports Linux. And if there's not, I take (56/83)
another step and say, how much do I really want this? And then if the answer is I still really want it, then I'll find a way to either do it with some other software or download the proprietary version if necessary. Yep. You know, you just mentioned open source proprietary software. There's a lot of pushback in the community as far as only proprietary software, only open source software. Right. I mean, you've already mentioned it, but are you open to using proprietary software or is it something that you don't want to do? Well, I kind of described that in my thought process a minute ago. I am pragmatic from the perspective that, you know, if there's no open source software available, I will use proprietary software and I have used proprietary software. But as soon as there's open source software that does what I want it to do in the way that I want it to do, that replaces that proprietary software, I'll switch to open source, mainly because I am an enthusiast for open source software. (57/83)
I'm not a zealot who's out there, you know, proselytizing the benefits and, you know, the religion of open source. That's yeah, I don't do that. That's just not me. But I prefer to use open source software. But if there's no other way to do it than to use proprietary, I will do that. I do that for my work. There's a lot of stuff that we do that requires proprietary software because it's a corporate environment and there's no proprietary software that's acceptable to the corporation either because it's not vetted well enough or because it doesn't have the right set of features. And so I don't put up a stink and insist that we have to use open source software. I just use what they ask me to use and get the job done. So yeah, I'm more pragmatic that way. Well, let's talk about the Linux conferences. You have been a presenter at the Southern California Linux Expo. What is that expo like as far as compared to other Linux conferences? And what talks have you given there? Yeah, well, I can't (58/83)
say that I've been to any other Linux expos. I've been to other conferences on other topics, but not on Linux specifically. But what I've heard about Southern California Linux Expo from other people who have attended multiple is that it's larger. It is less advertising, if that's a word. It pushes less the companies and their Purchase.Me software and more open source because it's run by the community. So it has an open source feel to it. But it is bigger than some of the other Linux focused expos out there. And they have a wide variety of talks for any interest, whether you are a developer or you're a high school student learning about Linux for the first time and you just want to get it installed on the laptop that's six years old that your dad gave you, right? You can go there and you can do that and you can attend a class or you can learn about it or you can go into the breakout sessions. And there's a lot going on and some of it simultaneously and you can't do everything all at (59/83)
once. And there's usually something before the Southern California Linux Expo, like an Ubuntu meetup or something like that that's going on. So there's a lot going on for that week. And to your question about what have my talks been about, I've done two talks there. One is on podcasting using Linux to do podcasting. So a topic of podcasting. And how do you do podcasting using Linux? This was in the early days of podcasting and in the early days of me learning to use Linux as well. So I think it was Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, I think is the one I was using at the time for that talk. But, you know, everything that I do for the podcast and for these talks was produced, developed, recorded. I'm using Linux and open source software to do that. The second talk I gave was Linux for Windows users, just kind of the common theme here. I'm moving from Windows. I want to learn more about Linux. And so this was for people who are using Windows today interested in moving to Linux. Here are some things (60/83)
that might be of interest to you in the format of a talk at a conference. Both were a lot of fun. I've done a lot of public speaking in a lot of events. Everything from training users to use computers and software to these kinds of formal talks at this conference and other conferences. And I enjoyed a lot. Well, I would love to attend one of those talks. Do you have any plans on going to any other Linux conferences lately? I have wanted to go to Scale, Southern California Linux Expo for the past several years. I've lost track, but my work schedule and the schedule with everything else have prevented me from going. I have had my finger on the mouse button to buy the ticket several times and something has always come up. So I don't have any plans, concrete plans at this point. But if I can get to give another talk, I will. I just have no idea when that will be. And it'll probably be something for a new Linux user to chew on. Well, there's a lot of people I know that are going to Scale. (61/83)
So yeah, I would love to attend someday. Yeah, it's a great conference. It's easy for me to attend here on the West Coast. For you to come from the East Coast, it's a little more costly, a little more time consuming. And with these days, the joys of travel, at least you're not traveling internationally to do it. Right. Which is one of the reasons why I'm not there. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. Larry, what would you say drives your passion for Linux? We do podcasts. You try to help people. But when we first started, when you first started, you were looking to customize. I was looking to customize when I first started. Yeah. The community has been such a great outlet for me and is what I continue to say is the best reason to run Linux. I agree with that. Where does your passion for Linux? So what drives me, I think, is for me personally using Linux is it gives me control over my own destiny and the use of the operating system. I have Linux on four computers sitting around me in (62/83)
this house. I have one that I use day to day. I have one that's more than 10 years old, both running the, I can't say the latest version. Well, yeah, it's the latest version right now. In the end of the month, it will be, you know, a different story at the end of April, but it will get that upgrade as soon as it becomes available. And the 10 year old is using the last long term support release of Ubuntu Mate and running quite happily doing that. And I continue to be amazed at how much Linux in general gives life back to old computers and lets brand new computers run extremely fast. And so just the fascination with the capabilities and the control that Linux gives me. And the second reason is that it allows me to give back to the community. You said community is the most important thing. I agree with that 100%. And, you know, whether that's giving back by way of the podcast or what I write on my website or other contributions to the community in general, volunteering my time for Ubuntu (63/83)
Mate in the various projects that I've done for them. That's what drives me. I enjoy doing it. It's, some would say it's a hobby, but it's a lifestyle. I think I love it. Well, again, you've been in Linux for a long time, so you've had to see maybe some of the most, some of the not so good experiences in the community. There have been, well, okay. So Linux used to have a bad reputation. It did for being negative, for being rude, whatever you want to call it. And we've gotten better over the years, but how has your experience been on a whole? Overall, although there've been a few trolls along the way, nobody's really treated me badly. Me personally, badly. I've seen them treat other people badly, but I've never been treated badly. I think it's still out there. But I, you know, I spend time helping newbies, right? And so I get more thanks than flames in what I'm doing. And so, yeah, and I tend to be a little more of an optimist than a pessimist. So I like to think that people are (64/83)
generally good and I look for the good in people. And if, if there's somebody behaving badly on a forum or a website, I try to soften the blow a little bit and get them talking about the problem instead of the anxiety they're feeling that's causing them to behave badly, whatever that is. So that's kind of, that's, that's my experience around that. Well, you earlier, you mentioned the script that you created for installing programs. Do you do a lot of coding and scripting? Is there like something you can say, well, you know, this is a, this is what, like one of my, you know, that question favorite scripts. Yeah. They're all my favorites. All my favorites. Yeah. I do a fair amount of tinkering around with, with scripting. I don't do a lot, if any programming in my professional life, although, you know, I've learned a few languages over, over the years, starting with Fortran and basic and those kinds of things and DOS batch scripting and Linux bash scripting. And today my programming is (65/83)
mainly around tinkering around to automate some things that I find myself doing over and over again. And then again, there are some things that I do over and over again that I just enjoy doing. So I don't bother automating those because I enjoy doing them. So most of my scripts are around making myself more productive in, you know, installing the things that I install over and over again, or in producing the podcast or those kinds of things. So I think the favorite script, I do have a favorite script for what I've written is one that I found there's, there's this little program on the Mac called Caffeine and it's been brought over to Linux as well. And it's a very simple thing. You click an icon in the tray, Windows term, in the taskbar, another Windows term in the panel. Okay. And you know, you can take the, the, the podcast you're out of Windows, but you can't take the windows out of the podcast here, unfortunately. You click on the icon and you enable it. And what it does is it just (66/83)
keeps your screen from going asleep. Right. Just did simple program. Right. But what I found was I wanted something that did a little more than that with a one click thing. And that was, I wanted to be able on my laptop to switch, not only between keeping the screen on, but while it's on, it's usually because I've got the laptop plugged in. And so I want the screen at full brightness as well. So I wrote a script to toggle between full bright and don't go to sleep and go to sleep after a certain period of time and use 50% brightness to preserve battery life. And depending on whether I'm on battery or not, I'll click the button and switch between those two. So it's a caffeine, but better. And I have that script in the book. If you want to use it for what it is, it's not very complex, but it's pretty, pretty straightforward. And I use it every single day. I really do. Nice caffeine plus. Yeah. Whatever. All right. So there's a lot of people out there, whether they're new or, or just (67/83)
getting into Linux or whatever, that feel that they can't contribute to Linux. They're not a developer. They're not going to write code. But a guy like you is a perfect example of contributing to Linux in tons of different ways, whether it's podcasting or the manuals or the help. You have done so much in that area. And on your LinkedIn page, you say, as a technology advocate, I contribute to Linux, open source communities by authoring, publishing books, manuals, guides, and other documentation. And you go on. But what would you say to those people who are searching to find some way that they contribute to Linux? Yeah. So there are a number of ways, about six different ways. I think you can create tutorials or write books or, you know, create podcasts or video like I'm doing. You can go to the forums for the distro of your choice and answer questions. That's pretty valuable. People have questions and often in the forums, they go unanswered for a period of time. And the more people in (68/83)
there answering the questions, the better off it is for everybody. You can go to the forums and ask questions. Oftentimes the questions that you ask are instructional for other people who are asking for the same thing, because when you go to a forum, you don't, most people don't blurt out their question and then never look back at the answer. They go to search, is this question already answered? So if you ask a question and it gets answered, you're helping out the community. The next thing I think I could recommend is enable telemetry and send bug reports. You know, maybe that's a little controversial in these days of privacy and, you know, not wanting to share information, but if you're comfortable enabling telemetry, go do that because that's going to help out the developers of whether it's the operating system, the desktop, one of the applications, whatever it is, enable telemetry and feed those automatic reports back. It also helps drive up our stats as to how many people are (69/83)
actually using Linux or are reported to use Linux. So I'd like those numbers to show actually what they are rather than, you know, being suppressed by the fact that, you know, this technical community doesn't like sharing. And then the bug reports, send those whenever you can. And in Ubuntu, they've got this handy little utility that most people don't know about that walks you through a form on the screen for filling out a bug report with, tell us about this, tell us about that. And it's like five or six questions and you're done. And if you just add a terminal or alt F2 to call up the run command type Ubuntu-bug, it'll bring up the form and you fill it out and you hit send at the end and you're done. And you've just filled out a bug report. You didn't have to learn anything about filling out bug reports. Okay. And then you can go into the developer area. You can test. You don't have to know anything about development to test to see if something is working. So volunteer your time. If (70/83)
you've got it to do testing. And if you are a developer, fix the issues for the things that you use, please. There's always something that needs fixing. So those are the ways that people that I see can contribute to the community beyond the things that I do. Yep. Well, all good recommendations. And I think that that's one of the things that new users struggle with because they come to Linux, they see the community, they like it, but they're just, you know, well, I can't really contribute to anywhere. And I think all of those are great. Yeah. And the Linux community is massive, massive. And regardless of, you know, the petty squabbles that different distributions have had over the years with one another and developers have had, the communities help one another a lot more than you would think. I see people from the Linux Mint community in the Ubuntu MATE forum and vice versa. And people in the Arch, the infamous Arch community are always helping people out regardless of where they are. (71/83)
So I see the same people in multiple communities. It's a great way to contribute, but it's a great way to get your questions answered and help the community in the process. Yep. So do you believe that Linux is bad at promoting itself or marketing itself? Yes. In a word, yes. That's a simple answer. Yeah. Let's face it. Companies won't market something that doesn't make the money. And most Linux distributions are free of charge and it's up to the community to market desktop Linux. That's, that's the only, you know, part of Linux, the only part of the Linux community that's going to do any of this work because a corporation, regardless of whether they use Linux or they develop Linux like Canonical, they're not going to spend money on something that doesn't make them money. Canonical doesn't advertise Ubuntu very much. They do a bit, but they advertise their other services for corporations that will pay the money for those services. That makes sense, right? And that's one of the reasons (72/83)
that I do what I do. A lot of what I'm doing is advocating for open source software and Linux. And that's me as a community member, marketing Linux beyond the community, you know, but beyond the captive audience that we have. And that's another reason why I chose to help new Linux users, because if they learn about Linux through my advocacy or someone else's advocacy, find the podcast, have their questions answered, and it makes it easier for them. I think that's one of the keys to successful marketing is the follow-through as well. And to be successful, the marketing around desktop Linux, I think needs to focus less on technical superiority of the operating system over Windows and Mac, and more along the lines of focus more on what you can do with it. Take a lesson from the Apple playbook, look at their ads. All of their ads are around, oh, look what you can do with a Mac, not the operating system with a Mac. Right? So if we took in marketing as a community, marketing Linux or (73/83)
advocating for Linux, if you don't like the term marketing, because that implies getting money for what you do, advocating for Linux, show off what it can do and describe for people what they can do with Linux that they can't do other places or that they can do better or that they can do that the others don't do or don't do well. You know, I think I've said the same thing a couple of times the same way, but there are different ways, but you get the idea. The bottom line is we can't expect the companies to market Linux because it's not something that's going to make them money, and it doesn't make sense for them to spend money on something that isn't going to make them money. So as a community, we have to do the marketing, and I don't see a lot of that going on. No, I think we definitely could use the help. I mean, all of us try to, I hate that word, that marketing word. Advocate for Linux. Yeah, all of us try to advocate for Linux, but the more people that do, and I don't think you (74/83)
have to even like say it, you can just be an example of what Linux does and you know, hey, I do this. I don't have to tell people I do this, but they see I do this on Linux and that will be a better example than any words you can say. Yeah, I think so. And I think that, you know, as, as Linux gains more popularity, it becomes more and more visible and that's part of marketing as well. And you know, one of the questions I know that you ask everybody that you interview is if you could change one thing about Linux, what would it be? That is what it is, is its visibility. And I think though that it's changing. I think as Microsoft begins to encompass more Linux into its work environment, right, and its operating system, I made a prediction years ago that there will be a Microsoft Linux, some version of windows or an operating system, maybe they don't call it windows will be based on Linux and that's coming to pass. Finally, it's taken a lot longer than I had hoped, but it's happening. And (75/83)
as Microsoft gives Linux more and more publicity through what it does and Hollywood, I've seen some subtle references to Linux in some of the things that they do. It's becoming more and more visible. And I think that needs to continue. Yep. I actually made that prediction, you know, a couple of years ago, the same exact thing that this will be the year now, obviously it didn't come true, but I mean, we're getting closer and closer that Microsoft is going to release a Linux operating system. Yeah, we're all waiting for the year of the Microsoft Linux desktop. Well, there you go. So is the year of the Linux desktop just a meme, or is there going to be a day where we have the year of the Linux desktop? I think right now it's definitely a meme. I mean, it's been a meme for years, but I think that we will have a year of the Linux desktop that comes and goes without a lot of fanfare because it just happens. And whether that's Microsoft becoming a Linux distribution, you know, or if it's (76/83)
Linux distributions taking over the world and populating it with, you know, insidious open source licenses. However it happens, I think it's going to be very subtle and it's just going to happen. And people will wake up one day and say, I've been using a Linux based computer for three years now. When did that happen? You know, so there will be the classic meme year of the Linux desktop, but it'll come and go without fanfare, I think. Well, here's that question. You mentioned it earlier. If there's one thing you could change about Linux, is there something specific you think we should be doing in that realm of visibility? Yeah, it goes back to marketing, I think, or advocacy, right? I think that we as a community need to make a bigger deal about what we're doing and not in the way that, I agreed not to say his name, some free software advocates might tarnish the image of open source. Yes. You don't want to be doing it that way. You don't want to offend people. You don't want to even (77/83)
give the perception of impropriety in what you're doing with Linux. And so you want to do it in a positive way. You want to give Linux more visibility. You want to, well, like I said earlier, you've got to show users what they can do with Linux and we've got to sell it, another dirty word for some people, but we've got to advocate for it based on, Hey, here's what I can do with my computer system and leave it at that. And just be more visible, be more positive, show what it can do. And like I said, take a lesson from the playbook of Apple. And another selling term, I mentioned that I was in sales for years, sell the sizzle, not the steak. There you go. Okay. Well, you told us the reasons why you chose to run Linux initially. Why is it that you're still choosing to run Linux now? Inertia. I just can't stop. Yeah, there are, there are a lot of reasons, but they, they all still apply. I mean, computer users should do what they want, should be able to use computers to do what they want and (78/83)
not the other way around. That's reason number one for me in, in using Linux and it still holds for me. And I think a lot of users would, would see some benefit in that. And you know, if a computer is capable of doing something, your operating system shouldn't prevent you from doing it. You should be allowed to make your computer do what you want it to do. Even if it breaks the computer, it should warn you that you're going to break the computer, but you should be able to do it if you choose to do that. And today's operating systems just don't let you do that. The popular ones, the windows and the max and even Chrome, you know, that started off with a Linux base. It's so locked down that it's unrecognizable in many cases. So yeah, those, those are the reasons that I started using Linux. Those are the reasons that I continue to use Linux and those are the reasons why I would think that other people should use Linux. Very nice. Is there anything else you want to share, Larry? Um, I (79/83)
haven't shared enough. Oh man. I just didn't know if I covered everything. Well, all I want to say is to the people who listen to Rocko's podcasts and videos and to the people that listen to Bill and me twice a month, thank you for your listening. Thank you for your questions. Thank you for getting involved with our community on the podcast and with the Linux community in general. And the other thing I'd like to share is if you have a question about Linux, ask, if you have a story of how Linux works for you, share it because other people would like to hear it. And thanks for those who have done that over the years. You've made going Linux podcast a successful podcast as a result of doing just that. So thanks. Awesome. How can people get in touch with you, Larry? Uh, I make it really difficult. Um, we talked about all the ways. Yeah, exactly. Uh, so you can go to going to Linux.com and look, there are a lot of ways. Um, you can email us at going Linux at gmail.com. You can go to our (80/83)
website at going Linux.com and you can go to our MeeWee site for, um, a social media kind of environment forum, um, kind of thing. Going Linux.com slash community will take you right there without having to learn what, what's, what's the alphabetic code for going Linux on me, right now, going Linux.com slash me, uh, slash, uh, community will get you there. And if you want to use old school analog technology and send us a voicemail, uh, on the telephone, uh, you don't have to dial it anymore, but you can still call us at 1-9-0-4-4-6-8-7-8-8-9. And although I'm in California and my cohost Bill is in New Mexico, that's a Florida phone number. It just, uh, happens to be the number that was available at the time. And if you spell it out phonetically it's, um, let's see, uh, it spells something with tux at the end. I even forget what it says now, but I picked it because it said, uh, something tux. Nice. Well, thank you, Larry, for joining me. Oh, thanks for inviting me on. I want to say (81/83)
thank you for all of the years of content that you put out, all of the years of helping people, um, all of the ways that you make yourself available to let people get in touch with you, because that is, that goes beyond, uh, what most people do. So I really appreciate that. Well, thanks for that. All right, that's going to wrap it up. Thank you all for joining us this week as we spotlight the best thing about Linux, our community. Until next time, long live Linux. And of course that wraps up our episode. Our next episode will be listener feedback. Until then, you can go to our website at going Linux.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 like, you can participate directly with our friendly and helpful community members by joining the discussion in our going Linux podcast community on community.going Linux.com. Until next time. Thanks for listening. Music (82/83)
provided by Mark Blasco at podcastthemes.com. (83/83)
This is the full transcription of podcast 'GNU World Order Linux Cast' - gnuWorldOrder_553.
#Podcast #Transcription #ReadAlong #KnowledgeUnlocked
Let's go through every single package installed with a Linux install image. I'm going through the software included with Slackware, but these are all open source applications and libraries, so whether you're running Slackware like me or Fedora, Debian, BSD, or even Mac or Windows, you can probably download, install, and try these on your computer. So chances are, you'll be able to learn something from this podcast. Let's get started. This is the final episode, I hope, of the L section. We'll see if that works out. I'm gonna try to do this. T1lib. That's Type 1 Font Rasterizer Library. It's a library donated by IBM a long time ago to the X11 project, and it takes Adobe Type 1 fonts and generates character and string glyphs from that specification. It's why you can just drop in a Type 1 font, whatever that is, TTF, I don't know, and have a font appear on your screen. That is exactly why. So that's an exciting thing. Next is Taglib. It is an audio metadata library. It reads and edits (1/45)
🇨🇺 Recent UN decision on lifting the US embargo on Cuba:
Cuba has really suffered as a country
It's time US should let them be free
Yeah, the embargo's been dragging them down for decades - UN keeps pushing to end it, but US ain't budging yet. Hope that changes soon
Cuba is too small to be a trait to the US
Totally, size shouldn't matter - it's more about politics than real threats. Sucks how it's held them back so long
Total: 187 in support, 2 against, 1 abstained, 3 non-participating
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Hours after Strategy CEO outlines when they would sell BTC - Michael Saylor makes a cryptic tweet about green dots. If an Orange Dot is a buy is a Green Dot a sell?
This tweet came out hours after Strategy CEO laid out plans for when the company would sell Bitcoin:
!summarize
Vitalik Buterin said he hopes Zcash will avoid adopting token-based governance, arguing that token voting is flawed and could erode core values like privacy. He warned that privacy is especially vulnerable when left to decisions by the “median token holder,” and called token voting worse than Zcash’s current governance model.
Vitalik's spot on—token voting's a siren song for privacy coins, handing power to whales who prioritize pumps over principles. Zcash's shielded roots are too vital to risk on median holder whims. Stay sovereign, folks
📈 MARKET ORDER CLOSED 📈
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💲 USD Value: $26.9
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According to the CEO of Perplexity, large tech companies tend to replicate any successful innovations.
Sunday energy is wild.
Your body wants to chill…
but your steps are like:
“Bro, we can still earn something” 😅👣💸
The future $LEO
https://inleo.io/threads/view/khaleelkazi/re-leothreads-2jkqiwsge
📊 TGLD Price Update
🏭 GLD Stock: $387.880
🪙 TGLD Token: $3.742
🔴 Deviation: -3.527%
📊 3D Moving-Average: -1.734%
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💰 Current APR: 3% (Paid Daily)
📊 TTSLA Price Update
🏭 TSLA Stock: $430.170
🪙 TTSLA Token: $3.983
🔴 Deviation: -7.409%
📊 3D Moving-Average: -6.926%
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💰 Current APR: 17.5% (Paid Daily)
🚀 2x Yield for Presale Buyers Active
MARA is utilizing its Bitcoin holdings effectively. 🏦📈
• 15% of their BTC reserves are loaned.
• $11.99 million earned in interest in Q1.
• Nearly 50,000 BTC make up the current stack.
• Information from a report by a mining stock info source.
#moviesonleo #television #review Television miniseries trying to cover the life one of the greatest figures in history. (link in reply)