Episode 064 – The New Studio
Podcast: Play in new window
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Downloads:
MP3 format (for Freedom Haters!)
OGG format (for Freedom Lovers!)
Total Running Time: 1:19:28
Un-edited Live session – http://youtu.be/gqWv8b31LbA
Contact Us:
show (at) smlr.us or the Contact us page
Summary
Kernel News: Mat
Time:8:48
Distro Talk: Tony
Time: 11:33
Mary Distro Review
Time: 21:19
Tech News:
Time: 27:47
Convention Scene:
Time: 1:03:12
Is it Alive? – Mary
Time: 1:05:54
Listener Feedback
Time: 1:11:38
Outtro Music
Time: 1:14:33
Intro:
Tony Bemus, Mat Enders, and Mary Tomich
Intro Sound bite by Mike Tanner
Kernel News: Mat
Time:8:48
Kernel News
Release Candidate:
No rc
Mainline:
3.7
Stable Updates:
None
Kernel Developer Quote:
Comes from Linus himself:
“Shut up, Mauro. And I don’t _ever_ want to hear that kind of obvious garbage and idiocy from a kernel maintainer again. Seriously. I’d wait for Rafael’s patch to go through you, but I have another error report in my mailbox of all KDE media applications being broken by v3.8-rc1, and I bet it’s the same kernel bug. And you’ve shown yourself to not be competent in this issue, so I’ll apply it directly and immediately myself. WE DO NOT BREAK USERSPACE! Seriously. How hard is this rule to understand? We particularly don’t break user space with TOTAL CRAP. I’m angry, because your whole email was so _horribly_ wrong, and the patch that broke things was so obviously crap. … The fact that you then try to make *excuses* for breaking user space, and blaming some external program that *used* to work, is just shameful. It’s not how we work,”
–Linus Torvalds
Distro Talk: Tony
Time: 11:33
- 12-23 – Slax 7.0.1 – Slackware-based live CD
- 12-24 – Manjaro Linux 0.8.3 – Arch-based distribution with a choice of Cinnamon 1.6.7, KDE 4.9.4, MATE 1.4.2 and Xfce 4.10 desktops
- 12-25 – Finnix 107 – bootable Linux CD distribution for system administrators, based on Debian’s testing branch
- 12-26 – NetBSD 6.0.1 – first security and bug-fix update of the project’s 6.0 branch
- 12-28 – Calculate Linux 13 – Gentoo-based distribution for desktops and servers
- 12-30 – Toorox 01.2013 “KDE” -Gentoo-based distribution and live CD featuring the KDE 4.9.4 desktop environment
- 12-30 – GParted Live 0.14.1-6 – the specialist Debian-based live CD designed for data rescue and disk partitioning tasks
Distro of the Week: Tony
- Debian – 1130
- Fedora – 1134
- Ubuntu – 1409
- Mageia – 1891
- Mint – 4200
Mary Distro Review
Time: 21:19
There was no distro review this week, due to the holiday!
Tech News:
Time: 27:47
Has Linux Already Won
If you face the fact that the desktop PC is not the top dog in consumer computing then you also have to realize that most consumer computing devices are running Android. This is not some fanciful prediction it is already reality. Here are the numbers direct from Goldman Sachs:
“consumer compute market (1.07bn devices) is led by Android at 42% share, followed by Apple at 24%, Microsoft at 20% and other vendors at 14%.”
There was world shaking explosion no huge fanfare, but quietly and in hundreds of millions of smartphones, tablets, and PCs Linux has captured the top spot in the OS battle.
10 Best Linux & Open Source Podcasts
That is according to Rebecca “Ruji” Chapnik. a freelance creator of miscellanea, including but not limited to text and images. You can find her experiments at rujic.net and her comics at dondepresso.rujic.net.
1. GNU World Order
By an Apple user gone Linux. Klaatu is highly technical and thorough when discussing a topic or responding to listener feedback. It’s not just another Linux podcast filled with half-relevant rants; though some such podcasts have gained huge following.
2. Sourcetrunk
By Dimitri Larmuseau an IT professional working for the newspaper industry. Sourcetrunk is dedicated to introducing you to the latest exciting open source software. Any download junkie with an open source bent ought to listen to it.
3. Hacker Public Radio
Hacker Public Radio is a community-produced podcast run by Ken Fallon. Any member of the community can contribute an episode, the only requirement being that it is of interest to hackers.
4. Linuxbasix
By Steve McLaughlin, the Door2Door Geek. Don’t be fooled by the name; this is not just a podcast for n00bs. While the hosts of Linuxbasix don’t assume too much about their listeners’ skill levels – and they make sure to explain difficult concepts in their Newbie Corner section.
5. Kernel Panic Oggcast
Kernel Panic episodes are unedited recordings of the Kernel Panic live show, which broadcasts on Saturdays at 10pm EST. Running time is on the long side, usually exceeding 110 minutes. The show offers a lively mix of news and discussion – most often related to Linux, occasionally not.
6. The Linux Action Show
The Linux Action Show (LAS) from Jupiter Broadcasting lives up to its name: It’s full of Linux action, sans fluff. LAS is not as high-tech as GNU World Order or Linuxbasix. It focuses more on news and reviews of software and distros.
7. The Command Line Podcast
The Command Line Podcast, hosted by hacker Thomas Gideon (a.k.a. “cmdln”), is a mix of news casts and feature casts about security, hacking, and the politics of freedom. Thomas Gideon accompanies his podcast with an excellent blog.
8. Surprisingly Free
Surprisingly Free is for all you copyright and net neutrality nerds. The official website describes it as “a weekly podcast featuring in-depth discussions with an eclectic mix of authors, academics, and entrepreneurs at the intersection of technology, policy, and economics.” Surprisingly Free is full of relevant information for anyone concerned with open source and the openness of information in general.
9. Radio Berkman
Radio Berkman, brought to you by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, is essential listening for those interested in technology activism. The episodes often discuss open source software, hardware, and movements.
10. CBC Spark
Spark is owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and hosted by Nora Young. The production style is more polished than that of the other podcasts I’ve described here, and its focus is not exclusively Linux and open source. Spark will appeal to anyone with an insatiable curiosity about the present and future of technology.
The only thing I have to say in conclusion is “Hey what about the Sunday Morning Linux Review”.
Linux Distros And SecureBoot
If you were wondering what the different distributions were doing with regard to secureboot. Here is brief rundown of some of the major distributions:
Ubuntu 12.10 x86_64 ships an older version of Shim that’s been signed by Microsoft, so it should work out-of-the-box for most people.
Fedora 18 isn’t being released until early 2013, but it will have a Shim signed by Microsoft and it’s newer than what’s found in Ubuntu 12.10.
Sabayon now supports UEFI Secure Boot out of the box.
SUSE will be using a Microsoft-signed Shim, but there isn’t a released version.
Debian just picked up UEFI support into its installer but doesn’t have SecureBoot handling for now.
The Linux Foundation still has yet to obtain their key. It is hung up somewhere in the process with Microsoft.
FSF Trying To Stop Secureboot With Petition
The FSF (Free Software Foundation) is asking for donations and signatures on a pledge, not to purchase or recommend any computer hardware that uses secureboot or any other type of restricted boot in the hope that they can stop UEFI secureboot and other “restricted boot” systems from becoming the norm. The pledge is entitled “Stand up for your freedom to install free software.” They have over 40,000 signatures and the support of 50 organizations. Besides asking for more signatures, they’re also attempting to get people to donate at least $50 USD to the FSF in order to further their cause of stopping Secure Boot.
I believe this is a noble gesture, but totally misguided. There is no way this going to get MS to back down. I believe they are just using this hot button issue as a fund raiser.
Kevin O’Brien – Publicity Director, Ohio LinuxFest
As we plan for the 2013 event we want to make this even bigger and better
than last year. And we think the best way to do that is with the ideas of
our friends in the Open Source community. So we have put up a very brief
survey (Really! it is only 2 questions). This will be open for the next two
weeks to gather as many good ideas as possible, then we will take the top
ideas and put them out for a vote to see which are the most popular. Winner
gets a free T-shirt, but the real payoff is that you just may help make
Ohio LinuxFest the best event ever.
Promote the use of free software in our schools
http://wh.gov/Rz6C
A New Project To Run Mac OS X Binaries On Linux
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI0Njc
Netbook market to end at the end of 2012
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20121226PD222.html
KDE Korner
KDE display management to get a boost with Kscreen
There’s an improvement coming for the KDE screen manager. This tool handles external monitors when plugged into your laptop. As someone who uses this configuration at time, I can tell you that KDE sometimes didn’t get the job done, especially when I tried to set up and extended desktop. The displays tended to stay in the clone configuration. Gnome’s tools, via Ubuntu, handled external monitors properly and I tended to boot to Ubuntu when I planned to use an external monitor. The new KDE Display Configuration tool will auto-detect an external monitor being attached to the laptop and by default set it up in an “extended to the right” configuration. If that is not quite what you wanted, you can change it using the display button on your laptop or going into the configuration panel and making the change there. According to one of the developers, the laptop display button will allow you to toggle through the display options: from right-extended, to clone, extend to left, etc. The system tray will have an icon that when clicked will open a small window with the available options (all iconified). You click on your preference and it’s done. This tool also will remember profiles for different monitors my making use of the Extended display identification data (EDID), a unique identifier for each monitor.
The tool also will detect when the laptop lid is closed and shift the display to the external monitor.
I am very excited about this improved utility. Videos by the developers demonstrating these improvements are embedded in the article below.
This week the first testing release of Plasma Active for the Nexus 7.
The release candidate for digiKam Software Collection 3.0.0 is out..
For those of you who don’t use it (and I am in that category, too), digiKam is a cross-platform, digital photo management application. It uses tagging which allows you to find them regardless of the folder they’re in. The features in digiKam are very robust—and it makes use of kipi plugins
http://www.digikam.org/node/678
Taking KDE 4.10 for a test drive
http://community.kde.org/Getinvolved/Quality/Beta/4.10/Installing
Some KDE Utilities you might not be aware of:
System Activity – a KDE task manager (“CTRL + ESC”)
KDE has a nifty utility for monitoring processes and the amount of resource they’re consuming. I may have known about this years ago, but completely forgot about its availability. There are several helpful aspects about this utility: a) Tool-tip-like bubbles will appear for each column, to provide additional information, such as number of threads, Parent Process and ID. Normally I hate tool-tip bubbles but in this case they don’t appear until you over over an entry for a short period of time and it actually contains helpful information; b) Processes can be filtered to only display system processes for example, programs, user processes, etc.
KDE’s web site has user documentation about this handy utility.
http://userbase.kde.org/System_Activity#Introduction
KDE Info Center
The KDE Information Center, aka KinfoCenter, provides users with a centralized overview of the system and desktop environment. This utility is not available in the KDE System Settings area but if you happen to look through the available items in the System category in the launcher menu, you may find it there.
The KinfoCenter is comprised of several modules each of which focuses on a specific aspect of your computer. Although each module is a separate application, the information center brings them together in a single location.
You can find this helpful tool one of three ways:
- Launcher: Select Applications → System → Info Center
- Krunner (Alt+F2): Type kinfocenter, and press Enter.
- CLI: Type kinfocenter &
http://docs.kde.org/stable/en/kde-workspace/kinfocenter/index.html
Linux Convention Scene – January 2013
Time: 1:03:12
linux.conf.au
28 Jan – 2 Feb, 2013
Canberra Australia
linux.conf.au is one of the foremost open source conferences in the world, and is considered the most prestigious in the southern hemisphere.
===========
2013 North America FUDCon
18–20 Jan 2013.
Lawrence, Kansas,
FUDCon is the Fedora Users and Developers Conference, a major free software event held in various regions around the world, usually annually per region. FUDCon is a combination of sessions, talks, workshops, and hackfests in which contributors work on specific initiatives. Topics include infrastructure, feature development, community building, general management and governance, marketing, testing and QA, packaging, etc.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Lawrence_2013
Is it Alive (or is it Deja vu?) ?
Time: 1:05:54
During this segment of the show, I challenge Mat and Tony to identify whether a Linux Distro is alive or dead? This week is twist week when I challenge Mat and Tony with distros from previous shows. We’ll see if they
The items for the December 30, 2012 show, the last show for 2012, are:
====================================
Open Filer
Openfiler is a network storage operating system, fronted by a web based management user interface. With the features we built into Openfiler, you can take advantage of file-based Network Attached Storage and block-based Storage Area Networking functionality in a single cohesive framework.
MAT: Alive
TONY: Alive
VERDICT: ALIVE
===================================
Puredyne
Puredyne is the USB-bootable GNU/Linux operating system for creative multimedia.
MAT: Dead
TONY: Alive
VERDICT: ALIVE
==================================
Tuquito
Tuquito is a Ubuntu-based distribution and live CD made in Argentina. It features automatic hardware detection, excellent support for scanners, web cams and digital cameras, and compatibility with MS Office file formats. It is designed for beginners and intermediate Linux users.
Mat: Dead
Tony: Dead
Verdict: ALIVE
=====================
Kurumin Linux
Kurumin Linux was a Brazilian run-from-CD Linux distribution based on Knoppix. Its main features were excellent hardware auto-detection, support for Brazilian Portuguese and small size.
Mat: Dead
Tony: Alive
Verdict: DEAD
=====================
Bonzai Linux (formerly miniwoody)
Bonzai Linux was a kde-centric distribution based on the Debian stable branch. Also called Debian on a diet.
Extra credit: From what country did the Bonzai project originate?
Mat: Alive (Japan)
Tony: ALIVE (Japan)
Verdict: DEAD (Germany)
Mat Won
Listener Feedback:
show (at) smlr.us or 313-626-9140
Time: 1:11:38
HPR New Year 24 Hour Broadcast:
http://hackerpublicradio.org/
12:00 noon UTC
Outtro Music
Time: 1:14:33
This content is published under the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.