LINUX Unplugged

Latest Episodes:

396: How Linux Got to Mars Mar 09, 2021

Show notes

Tim Canham, the Mars Helicopter Operations Lead, shares Linux’s origins at JPL and how it ended up running on multiple boxes on Mars.

Plus the challenges Linux still faces before its ready for mission-critical space exploration.

Special Guest: Tim Canham.

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Debian running on Rust coreutils — tldr: uutils/coreutils is now available in Debian, good enough to boot a Debian with GNOME, install the top 1000 packages, build Firefox, the Linux Kernel and LLVM/Clang.
uutils/coreutils — An attempt at writing universal (as in cross-platform) CLI utilities in Rust.
Steam Link now available on Linux — Special thanks to Collabora for helping make this possible.
Steamlink Repo
Steam Link on Flathub
Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games to Run on Linux — Proton has been receiving many updates in the past few months as well, with the introduction of the Soldier Linux runtime container and Proton Experimental on top of the regular Proton releases.
Diversity, Flexibility, and Linux: Prioritizing Generous Transfer | Linode
JB Telegram
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NASA’s Perseverance Drives on Mars’ Terrain for First Time — NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover performed its first drive on Mars March 4, covering 21.3 feet (6.5 meters) across the Martian landscape. The drive served as a mobility test that marks just one of many milestones as team members check out and calibrate every system, subsystem, and instrument on Perseverance.
[Video] Cassini Burns into Saturn After Grand Finale
Curiosity — NASA’s Mars Exploration Program
nasa/fprime — A flight software and embedded systems framework.
Wind River VxWorks RTOS
Field-programmable gate array - Wikipedia
JPL CubeSat ASTERIA — ASTERIA (Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics) was a technology demonstration and opportunistic science mission to conduct astrophysical measurements using a CubeSat.
Pick: ocenaudio — Easy, fast and powerful audio editor.
Pick: nativefier — Make any web page a desktop application.
Linux Action News 179 — Canonical reveals long-term Ubuntu plans that you might have missed, and the "double ungood" warning from Linus this week.
Post-show Pick: Jellyfin 10.7.0 — Note: Non-reversible database changes. Ensure you back up before upgrading.

395: The Waybig Machine Mar 02, 2021

Show notes

It's our worst idea yet. We share the password to our brand-new server and see who can own the box first. Whoever wins gets a special prize.

Plus how Archive.org uses Linux, and more.

Special Guests: Brent Gervais, Carl George, and Neal Gompa.

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tsukae — Show off your most used shell commands
GNOME Shell X11Gestures Wxtension — Enable GNOME Shell multi-touch gestures on X11 with this extension.
TouchEgg — Touchégg is an app that runs in the background and transform the gestures you make on your touchpad or touchscreen into visible actions in your desktop.
Apple Touch Bar Linux Driver Hopes For Upstream In 2021 — Sent out on Saturday by independent developer Ronald Tschalär was the latest reverse-engineered, open-source driver code that gets the Touch Bar and ALS support working for MacBook Pro 13,* / 14,* / 15,* models.
Internet Archive Infrastructure — Jonah Edwards breaks down how the Internet Archive works, behind the scenes.
jupiterbroadcasting.com/telegram
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liamg/traitor — Automatic Linux privesc via exploitation of low-hanging fruit e.g. gtfobins.
Don't expose the Docker socket (not even to a container) — Docker primarily works as a client that communicates with a daemon process (dockerd). Typically that socket is a UNIX domain socket called /var/run/docker.sock. That daemon is highly privileged; effectively having root access. Any process that can write to the dockerd socket also effectively has root access.
Feedback: Minecraft Bedrock Bridge
GeyserMC — Enable clients from Minecraft Bedrock Edition to join your Minecraft Java server.
Feedback: Audio Hardware
Feedback: Episode 394
Feedback: Arch Discussion

394: Tempted But the Truth is Discovered Feb 23, 2021

Show notes

After all these years, what's made us stick with Linux?

Plus the commitment just made by the GNOME team, and some new tools that are changing our game.

Special Guest: Drew DeVore.

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Nvidia is nerfing its new RTX 3060 for Ethereum cryptocurrency mining — Nvidia is purposefully making its new RTX 3060 graphics cards less efficient to mine Ethereum cryptocurrency. New drivers that will accompany the release of the GPUs later this month will reduce the hash rate of Ethereum mining by around 50 percent, using software detection for cryptocurrency mining.
Linux has made it to Mars — “It’s kind of an open-source victory, because we’re flying an open-source operating system and an open-source flight software framework and flying commercial parts that you can buy off the shelf if you wanted to do this yourself someday.”
Linux Action News 177 — We share some exclusive details about the Linux-powered gear that just landed on Mars, and the open-source frameworks that make it possible.
[Video] NASA’s Perseverance Rover Sends New Video and Images of the Red Planet
Introducing Flatpak Builds - Open Build Service — OBS now supports building flatpak bundles, so you can build your own!
Minecraft Bedrock Launcher on Flathub — The project runs the native libraries from the Android version directly on your computer.
GNOME Shell + Mutter 40 Beta Released With Wayland Improvements, Overview Redesign — GNOME 40 beta is coming together with the GNOME Shell and Mutter components having seen new releases on Monday.
GNOME Shell 40 and multi-monitor — Multi-monitor has come up a fair bit in conversations about the GNOME Shell UX updates that are coming in GNOME 40. There’s been some uncertainty and anxiety in this area, so we wanted to provide more detail on what the multi-monitor experience will exactly be like, so people know what to expect.
PipeWire 0.3.22 Released With Many Improvements — PipeWire 0.3.22 was released this week with a whole lot of work in trying to see that Fedora 34 this spring can ship with it in use by default.
PipeWire 0.3.22 Release
Jupiter Broadcasting Telegram Channel
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Feedback: Giving up on daily driver? — Do you sometimes wonder if it's time to give up on a Linux desktop as your daily driver?
KXStudio — KXStudio is a collection of applications and plugins for audio production.
Ubuntu Studio — A free and open operating system for creative people.
ycollet/linuxmao audio packages Copr
Drew's fedora Proaudio Copr
yabridge — A modern and transparent way to use Windows VST2 and VST3 plugins on Linux.
ocenaudio — Easy, fast and powerful audio editor.
Audacity — Free, open source, cross-platform audio software for multi-track recording and editing.
Avid Pro Tools
SonoBus — SonoBus is an easy to use application for streaming high-quality, low-latency peer-to-peer audio between devices over the internet or a local network.
PipeWire — It provides a low-latency, graph based processing engine on top of audio and video devices that can be used to support the use cases currently handled by both pulseaudio and JACK.
ardour — the digital audio workstation
Airwindows Plugins
Calf Studio Gear - GNU/Linux Audio Plug-Ins
Linux Studio Plugins Project
ReaPlugs for REAPER
SWS / S&M Extension for REAPER
Ultrasound — High-end podcasting for everyone.
Pick: Proton-Caller — Run any Windows program through Valve's Proton.

393: Perfecting Our Plasma Feb 16, 2021

Show notes

Something special has been achieved this week, a new benchmark in the desktop experience. We dig in.

And why everyone will be looking for an open-source LastPass alternative.

Special Guests: Brent Gervais, Neal Gompa, and Philip Muller.

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AmpliPi - Home Audio System — Kickstarter — One thing that sets apart the AmpliPi design is that we have made it open source, from the software, to the firmware, to the schematics. The REST API and Web App are written in Python and run on a Raspberry Pi 3+ Compute Module.
The Coder — The Coder is made from 100% cotton terry velour for soft, cozy wear. Embroidered on the left chest with a classic white on black Coder Radio logo.
Windows Refund Day — For those who hadn't heard the story, February 15th 1999 was windows refund day. It was a worldwide day when open source OS users went to microsoft's offices to return their unused licenses of windows that they were forced to acquire since they were bundled with the machine they bought.
VLC 4.0 is coming later this year with a new UI, focus on online video and security — The new version will also focus more on playing videos from the Internet, relying on extensions to find third-party content. The team is also working on a version of VLC that will work inside the browser (based on WebAssembly).
The Movie Database (TMDb)
Facebook’s Linux Desktop Choice Is Fedora But Ramping Up CentOS Stream — Among the reasons Facebook is now pursuing CentOS Stream on the desktop is to serve as a stable rolling-release, binary compatibility, punctual security updates, and its close relationship with Fedora.
Changes to LastPass Free - The LastPass Blog — Starting March 16th, 2021, LastPass Free will only include access on unlimited devices of one type, Desktop or Mobile.
KeePass Password Safe
Bitwarden Open Source Password Manager | Bitwarden
1Password Linux
Manjaro Linux on Twitter — We updated #PlasmaMobile to the latest #Plasma 5.21 stable release. This comes with the latest 5.10 LTS kernel and updated development packages. Checkout the latest software by @kdecommunity powered by @ManjaroLinuxARM for your #Pinephone!
Manjaro on Shells.com
JupiterBroadcasting Telegram Group
The Opinion Dominion Episode 28 — A wild Chris Fisher appears… for an interview.
All Jupiter Broadcasting Shows
Plasma 5.2 — Apart from the numerous improvements in stability, there are quite a few Plasma components that are getting much better support in Wayland. KRunner, for example, is now able to list all open windows in Wayland, a new component in the panel’s system tray informs you of the keyboard layout, and we now support features required for GTK 4, so all GTK 4 applications will now work.
M.2 Enclosure for SATA NGFF SSD
Feedback: Arch Upgrade Tips
Feedback: Arch on the laptop of Chris’ son
SonoBus — SonoBus is an easy to use, open-source, application for streaming high-quality, low-latency peer-to-peer audio between devices over the internet or a local network.

392: Dad's Deployments Feb 09, 2021

Show notes

Which distro is best for friends and family? We have a unique take on this common question.

Plus new insights into the future of CentOS, and Chris falls in love with a 14-inch screamer.

Special Guest: Carl George.

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The unanswered question at CentOS community Q&A: How can we trust you now? — The CentOS board conducted a public Q&A just ahead of last week's FOSDEM 2021 open source conference – and there was an awkward silence when someone asked whether changing the end-of-life (EOL) date for a released project is something that might happen again.
Events/Dojo/FOSDEM2021 - CentOS Wiki
CentOS Dojo 2021: Board of Directors - YouTube
Ubuntu Backports a Major App Update to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS — Ubuntu 20.04 LTS shipped with Thunderbird 68.x but this version is no longer supported upstream. This leaves Ubuntu developers will a problem: backport individual security fixes to Thunderbird 68, or port the newer (and still-supported) Thunderbird 78 to LTS users?
Subscribe to Coder Radio
Jupiter Broadcasting Telegram Channel
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EndeavourOS Issues First 2021 Release For Easy-To-Use Arch-Based Linux Distro — For those that have been meaning to try out an Arch Linux based distribution that is easy-to-use and not time consuming with sensible defaults, EndeavourOS is out with its first new spin since 2021 -- and in fact their first fresh ISO release since September.
Our first release of 2021 has arrived – EndeavourOS
ASUS - ROG Zephyrus G14 14" Ultra-Slim Gaming Laptop
Linux on Laptops: ASUS Zephyrus G14 with Ryzen 9 4900HS | Ars Technica
AUR: snap-pac-grub — Pacman hook to update GRUB entries for grub-btrfs after snap-pac made snapshots.
Feedback: Browser Sync
xBrowserSync — Browser syncing as it should be: secure, anonymous and free!
Feedback: Gaming on Wayland
A free, open-source future for Mailspring - Information - Mailspring Community — Today, I am excited to announce that I am open-sourcing mailsync - the C++11 core of Mailspring that performs email sync - under the same GPLv3 license used by the rest of the app, making Mailspring entirely free software.
Pick: ht — Yet another HTTPie clone, written in Rust.
PIck: fddf — Fast data dupe finder, written in Rust.
Pick: bottom — Yet another cross-platform graphical process/system monitor, written in Rust.

391: GNOME 40ified Feb 02, 2021

Show notes

We try out GNOME 40 and its new workspace layout. Who we think this works well for, and who might want to avoid it.

Plus Wimpy, Ubuntu's Desktop lead, chats with us about his future after Canonical.

Special Guests: Carl George and Martin Wimpress.

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VideoLAN is 20 years old!
Refreshing the Ubuntu Desktop Installer — We have started working on the new desktop installer, and plan to have a preliminary version ready for testing in the 21.10 release; due in October 2021. This paves the way to transitioning to the new installer for the next LTS release, which will be 22.04, due for release in April 2022.
Martin 🙂 Wimpress on Twitter — I’ll soon⏳be leaving Canonical. I’m very excited to be joining the fine people @SlimDevOps😃Despite the change, I’ll continue to lead @ubuntu_mate; it’s my passion💖project. Naturally, I’ll remain an enthusiastic #Ubuntu & Snapcraft community contributor💪
Slim.ai
OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6T seeing work for mainline Linux kernel support — Thanks to the existing minimal mainline support for the platform, features like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and 3D Acceleration are already working at the current stage of development.
All Jupiter Broadcasting Shows
Unplugged Hangout Stream Live 1-26-2021 - JupiterTube
GNOME 40 Approaches Its UI Freeze, Easy Means To Start Testing It — GNOME Shell recently merged its new horizontal workspaces, among other changes. The official GNOME Shell & Mutter development blog put out a new post on Monday highlighting their latest efforts. They are working to get the remaining big items in place over the next two weeks before the freeze and then an “intense period of polishing and bug fixing.”
Another Shell UX Update – GNOME Shell & Mutter
Welp, Ubuntu 21.04 Won’t Ship with GNOME 40 or GTK4 — Ubuntu devs cite the redesign of GNOME Shell in GNOME 40 and its potential impact on GNOME extensions (of which Ubuntu ships a few by default) and the Yaru GTK theme as reason to “stick” to GNOME 3.38 this cycle.
Triple Buffering Likely Not Landing Until GNOME 42
Ubuntu 21.04 Will Use Wayland By Default
Quick Demo: Gnome 40 Multi-monitor Demo - JupiterTube
Carl George on Twitter — I’ve been a @gnome fan/apologist for a long time. Dynamic virtual workspaces spanned across multiple horizontally arranged monitors are so damn wonderful to use. Productive. Efficient. Spatial.
Carl's Workspace Layout Drawing
Feedback: Chromium Woes
Feedback: Ventoy
UGREEN M.2 Enclosure for SATA NGFF SSD
Silicon Power 256GB A55 M.2 SSD
Pick: Ticker — Terminal stock ticker with live updates and position tracking

390: Eating the License Cake Jan 26, 2021

Show notes

Successful open-source projects all seem to struggle with one major gorilla. Who it is, and what their options are now.

Special Guests: Drew DeVore and Jonathan Corbet.

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Security Disclosure 2: vulnerabilities in custom integrations HACS, Font Awesome and others - Home Assistant — Multiple custom integrations were found that allowed an attacker to steal any file without logging in. Previously implemented fixes were not sufficient.
FEDORA-2021-48866282e5 — security update for chromium — Fedora Updates System — I gave a lot of thought to whether I wanted to continue to maintain the Chromium package in Fedora, given that many (most?) users will be confused/annoyed when API functionality like sync and geolocation stops working for no good reason. Ultimately, I decided to continue for now, because there were at least some users who didn't mind, and if I stopped, someone else would start over and run blindly into this problem.
Introduction to Elasticsearch - YouTube
Stepping up for a truly open source Elasticsearch | AWS Open Source Blog — In order to ensure open source versions of both packages remain available and well supported, including in our own offerings, we are announcing today that AWS will step up to create and maintain a ALv2-licensed fork of open source Elasticsearch and Kibana.
AWS, as predicted, is forking Elasticsearch | ZDNet
All Jupiter Broadcasting Shows
Jellyfin 10.7.0 Release Changelog — SyncPlay for TV shows and Music, significantly improved web performance, an upgrade to .NET SDK 5.0 for improved performance in the backend, and more!
Jellyfin 10.7.0 RC3
LWN.net - Wikipedia
Welcome to LWN.net [LWN.net]
Jonathan Corbet - Faces of Open Source
Pick: polybar — A fast and easy-to-use status bar
Pick: dust — A more intuitive version of du in rust
Pick: Waybar — Highly customizable Wayland bar for Sway and Wlroots based compositors.

389: Harder Butter Faster Stronger Jan 19, 2021

Show notes

We showcase a tool that will change your Linux game.

Plus our thoughts on the recent Btrfs FUD, a bunch of feedback, and a handy pick.

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[ANNOUNCE] nano-5.5 is released
Ubuntu 21.04 Will Finally Stop Making New Home Directories World-Readable — Ubuntu 21.04 will do away with the existing practice on Ubuntu Linux systems of making new user home directories world-readable.
Linux 5.10.8 Kernel Released - Finally Fixes That Btrfs Performance Regression — Linux 5.10.8 is out today as the latest stable release for the Linux 5.10 LTS series. Making this point release notable is that it finally addresses the 5.10 Btrfs performance regression.
All Jupiter Broadcasting Shows
Ventoy — An open-source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files.
Ventoy on GitHub
Feedback: openSUSE and FOSS Adventures
Feedback: Neon Success Story
Feedback: Next Tuesday
Feedback: ThinkPad X12 Detachable
ThinkPad X12 Detachable | Windows Tablet | Lenovo US
Feedback: Google forms?!
Feedback: System76 Prediction
Pick: PGHoard — pghoard is a PostgreSQL backup daemon and restore tooling that stores backup data in cloud object stores.

388: Waxing On With Wendell Jan 12, 2021

Show notes

Wendell joins the show to cover the state of graphics on Linux, and what Intel has in store for the future.

Plus why we're excited about PeerTube again, some feedback, and more.

Special Guest: Wendell Wilson.

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Linux Action News 171 — We explain the recent Qt upset, and then go hands-on with the new PeerTube release. Plus Wendell from Level1Techs joins us to discuss his thoughts on porting Linux to the Apple M1.
Our new PeerTube instance
Coder Radio 395 — Their lives change forever when they meet a handsome, tormented, laptop.
Level1Linux: We’re ready for One GPU – Two OSs. Intel Xe, SR-IOV and thoughts on VMs
Intel Xe MAX Needs Two Linux Kernels For Now - Meaning You Need To Use A GPU-Accelerated VM — The good news is the Xe MAX graphics can be used for a GPU-accelerated Linux virtual machine. The bad news is the Xe MAX support doesn't yet allow for dGPU usage by the host outside of a virtual machine context as it needs "two different [Linux] kernels" for operation in conjunction with the integrated graphics.
Intel GVT-g - ArchWiki — Intel GVT-g is a technology that provides mediated device passthrough for Intel GPUs (Broadwell and newer). It can be used to virtualize the GPU for multiple guest virtual machines, effectively providing near-native graphics performance in the virtual machine and still letting your host use the virtualized GPU normally.
Dell XPS 13 Laptop | Dell USA
All Jupiter Broadcasting Shows
openSUSE Feedback — I'd like to make an argument about Yast. OpenSuse definitely should be clearer in who it is intended for. But here is my humble opinion. It is not for folks who have been using Linux for years.
openSUSE/opi: OBS Package Installer (CLI) — Search and install almost all packages available for openSUSE and SLE.
openSUSE Docs Telegram Channel
Richard Brown on Twitter
Feedback: Try Alpine! — Overall, Alpine is a small, simple distro with a lot of tricks up its sleeves. It's definitely worth a look!
Pick: GPU-Viewer for Linux — This project aims to capture all the important details of glxinfo, vulkaninfo and clinfo in a GUI. The project is being developed using python 3 pygobject with GTK3.
New Core Contributor Promo Code — 2021