0:00

Building a very reliable Linux box still is

0:02

a hard thing to do and I don't

0:05

mean to take away from how great the steam

0:07

deck is But

0:09

it hasn't been a solid experience

0:11

for me I

0:13

the first time ever I've had I have

0:16

it hooked up to a 4k television and I dropped down

0:18

to desktop mode and Man, the thing

0:20

just went wonky. It just it just felt

0:22

like the entire experience degraded and I've

0:25

had other issues where I go to launch a

0:27

game and I've been using the controller to navigate

0:29

the entire interface to launch The game and then

0:31

I the game starts And

0:34

I got no controller It's

0:36

and there's just drift in the config and in

0:38

the setup and anything that's in the user area

0:40

I'm just I'm not really satisfied with with it

0:43

as far as an appliance goes It doesn't feel

0:45

as consistent as say the Nintendo switch Or

0:48

say an Xbox. I don't know. Maybe

0:50

my expectations are too high Yeah,

0:52

was it always born to be a little

0:54

bit of a cliche and we should be impressed it gets

0:56

to I don't know What would you say? Ninety ninety

0:58

percent eighty percent? Yeah 85

1:00

yeah, how often do you actually use it

1:03

these days? I usually about once

1:05

on the weekend Right.

1:07

So just enough where you're not really you don't you have a

1:09

budgeted time to tweak anything or like get it working And

1:11

you just you do want it to be an appliance where you

1:14

can just pick it up play a game for a couple hours

1:16

And then go about your day Yeah And you

1:18

know so this weekend of course the reason why it's on my

1:20

mind is this weekend a little extra time

1:23

With my daughter and we

1:25

spent the entire time troubleshooting issues.

1:27

No And

1:30

I just thought I know I could do

1:32

better I can build a desktop PC that is

1:35

bigger better stronger more stable I

1:38

think it's in part There's just config

1:40

drift and things in there that

1:42

kind of come along and there's all thought there's lots

1:44

of little updates here That you don't really have any

1:46

control over So I propose to

1:49

build it better Hello

2:02

friends and welcome back to your weekly

2:04

Linux such-a-l. My name is Chris. My

2:06

name is Len. And my

2:08

name is Brent. Hello gentlemen. Well coming up

2:10

in the show today, we're going to share

2:12

one simple rule for a stable Linux desktop.

2:15

Plus, I'll talk a little about the new rig, the

2:17

little hardware I just got and what I picked. I'll

2:20

round it out with some great boost and picks and

2:22

a lot more. So before we go any

2:24

further, let's say time appropriate greetings to our

2:26

Mumble Room. Hello virtual lugs. Hello. Hello.

2:30

Hello. Hello. Thank you

2:32

for hanging out with us. We've been chatting on the

2:34

live stream today. We got a

2:36

little batch up there, a smaller batch up there in quiet

2:38

listening today, but it's nice to see everybody here. They're

2:41

getting a low latency feed right off the

2:43

mixer using all free software, listening

2:46

on a Sunday morning over at JBLive.tv. And

2:50

a big good morning to our friends at Tailscale. tailscale.com/Linux

2:54

Unplugged. Thank you

2:57

to Tailscale for sponsoring this episode of the Unplugged program. It

3:00

is programmable networking that is private and

3:03

secure by default. If you

3:05

go to tailscale.com/Linux Unplugged, you can try

3:07

it for free on 100 devices. It's

3:10

not a limited time deal. It's just

3:12

for up to 100 devices. I

3:14

use Tailscale for everything and I

3:16

haven't hit my 100 device limit. And

3:19

it's perfect in the enterprise too and

3:21

greatly reduces complexity. And

3:23

it's all protected by

3:26

a wire guard. tailscale.com/Linux

3:29

Unplugged. Now we

3:31

have a little bit of self

3:33

info for you. Now we are not going to

3:35

be at the Southeast Linux Fest, but

3:38

our buddy Noah Wilby from the Ask Noah program.

3:41

And he is, I guess it's Pinky's.

3:43

Yeah, he's got

3:45

a meetup scheduled at Pinky's Westside Grill,

3:48

Friday, June 7th at 6pm local time. So

3:51

if you're going to be there itself, I think Alex is trying to

3:53

make it too. So you could probably go

3:55

say hi to Alex from Self Hosted. So go

3:57

to Pinky's at 6pm on June 7th and go say hi.

4:00

I don't know it for us. And report back. Yeah.

4:03

Let us know how it goes. Okay.

4:06

I have to build myself. Yes, have to. I'll

4:08

get to why. A new desktop.

4:12

And I want this to do kind of a

4:14

specific job. And I would

4:16

like this to be the last desktop configuration

4:18

for this specific job that I ever

4:21

create. I'd like this to

4:23

go across multiple generations of hardware. And

4:27

my idea for that is one

4:29

simple rule is keep it as

4:32

specific and minimal as

4:34

possible. And I mean, only

4:36

install the things I absolutely need. Build

4:38

it from the ground up. Choose

4:41

carefully every package that gets installed. And

4:44

the reason why I'm doing this is I'm trying to reduce

4:46

the complexity. And I'm trying to reduce

4:48

the maintenance surface. And

4:50

I tested a lot of different setups over

4:52

the last about week and a half. And

4:55

at first, started with XFCE.

4:58

Really? Yeah. Wow. Can

5:02

you dive into that a little bit? Well

5:04

low resources for one. Known

5:06

to be minimal. Has worked and will continue to

5:08

work probably forever. And you

5:10

know, we discovered here at the studio

5:13

that we have an old 1804 machine. But

5:16

the login manager is running around doing

5:18

just all kinds of stuff in the

5:20

background. Just basically eating away at back

5:22

end process. And you know,

5:24

there's things that when you install certain types of desktop

5:26

environments that kind of come pre-set up. There

5:29

can be things like the login manager that you don't

5:31

think about that actually do take quite a bit of

5:33

resources even when you're just logged into the desktop. So

5:36

this kind of stuff has been on my mind because

5:38

I'm trying to create a really low latency audio workstation.

5:41

I want it to be as lean and

5:43

mean as possible. So I tried

5:45

XFCE but the issue there really is

5:47

that I kept installing a whole bunch

5:49

of stuff to get everything

5:51

I wanted. I wanted a better terminal. I

5:54

wanted a better file manager to

5:56

make XFCE actually meet whatever your

5:58

minimum requirements You know minimal

6:00

for the system, but still like actually usable and

6:02

enjoyable to use by you. Yeah, I'm not on

6:05

a desert island Yeah,

6:07

I don't I don't need to suffer here So

6:11

ultimately I tried

6:13

gnome for a bit but Actually

6:16

same problem Ultimately,

6:18

I considered hyperland Considered

6:20

I3 too because again, this is very appliance in

6:22

nature. I ended up with plasma Decided

6:26

to use plasma and Katie a plasma desktop

6:28

All right, what okay one version though because

6:30

we've had a big new one. Did you

6:32

go for the six series or almost almost?

6:34

Yeah, almost I almost did you know what

6:36

but I wanted I wanted stable

6:38

and I wanted you know

6:41

kind of tried and true something I could use for a while

6:43

and 527 is just plasma 527

6:46

is in such a great place. It still

6:48

has that modern feeling. It's feature complete

6:51

It's stable and it's still getting patches, you

6:53

know for security and whatnot I bet there's

6:55

plenty of plasma listeners out there the audience

6:57

who are still using 527 doesn't join it,

6:59

too yeah, and the reality is that when

7:01

you install plasma first of all, it's it's

7:03

pretty reasonable on resources and It

7:06

comes with a suite of top grade

7:08

tooling that really has gotten good and

7:11

I see people and I'm happy for them I'm

7:13

not taking away from them. I see people out there. They're always talking

7:15

about you know, I'm trying out you launcher I'm trying out this launcher

7:17

and trying out that launcher Or

7:19

hey, you know, there's this GPU accelerated terminal emulator. I've

7:21

seen this one to that one People

7:23

talk about a lacrity and warp and those are all fine for

7:25

people You know and I see lots

7:27

of sweet VS code setups and I've definitely tricked out

7:30

my VS code setups in the past but

7:32

the reality is K-runner is

7:34

the best launcher and it's built-in Console,

7:38

it's the best Linux terminal terminal emulator. It's

7:41

built-in and Kate Kate

7:44

is the goat I Kate

7:46

is so great I mean,

7:48

I knew this you know this everybody knows this about Kate

7:50

But I just decided I was gonna give it a try

7:52

so I didn't have to install VS code Oh,

7:54

man, so good tiny footprint native

7:57

app does a great job syntax highlighting

7:59

for nix-confident For everything I use.

8:01

Sedate, Milton. Consul. I.

8:04

Completely agree. I deeply love Kate

8:06

for many, many years now, so

8:09

he appeared you're talking my language,

8:11

Yancey Install Plasma. And. You

8:13

get all these great first class tools. That.

8:15

Worked together and save time. And

8:17

as I found that depends on plasma just

8:19

stop the stuff and we never bird watching

8:22

some another saw he developments trends in Jersey

8:24

and the like kind a custom mighty environment

8:26

that I hacked or Martin had set up

8:28

is in case of Plasma so. If

8:30

it works from you know, making linux run

8:33

on. Apple. Silk and I'm probably works

8:35

for you at of in your next could figure

8:37

out here. You know it's really sweet it's I'm

8:39

I've never really been a big fan of. Terminal.

8:42

Council in the Text editor. But.

8:44

You make a change to the can fag hag? Yeah.

8:46

and then you do a quick rebuilds if it works

8:48

or not right there you know, in the same window.

8:51

It. It's actually really nice. I'm and

8:53

isn't it kind of a sweet spot where it's

8:55

like you know has enough teachers can't we get

8:57

you can kind of make your own and at

9:00

configure it but it also that mean it isn't

9:02

the complexity of be a goat or even the

9:04

runway complicated like a difference of the for. And.

9:07

It matches the rest of my desktop, which matters a

9:09

lot or get to that the moment. But if that

9:11

is another thing that just looks, it's a native Applications

9:13

looks, right? So. I need

9:15

to replace my think that it's kind of come to accept

9:17

it. I haven't. I haven't. Thinkpad. Floating

9:20

around. someone. studio gone. As

9:22

far as eight maybe another dimension like it's

9:24

shifted time realities? I don't have. Multiple people

9:26

have tried to find the saying I guy.

9:28

last time I was there are three times.

9:30

spent many many many minutes looking in every

9:32

nook and cranny and ethics. I don't know

9:34

where. this thing with. Y'all. Remember when.

9:37

Lenovo, Announced the very first Fedora think

9:39

pads. Like. The I think has been x

9:42

one carbon. So. I snack. I snagged one

9:44

up like I do in a guy coming got

9:46

my first one and I I liked it a

9:48

lot. And. It became my home computer.

9:51

And. The reason why became a home? Computers: Great similar

9:53

computer. You know it's one of those you could

9:55

stick between the couch cushions. When.

9:57

You sit down like use my computer, get to

9:59

work. So I love you for that. And

10:02

then I decided. I wanted West as help or

10:04

something. And I brought it to the

10:06

studio. And. I've never seen it

10:08

again. Just got multiple

10:10

sweeps have been conducted as point by you

10:12

via other helpers and then I'm going to

10:14

put point fingers by think maybe some family

10:16

members were helping us tidy up the studio

10:18

and things got play somewhere I don't. But.

10:21

I've been waiting. It's been about nine months others and it's

10:23

been a. And. It has not a

10:25

shockingly time I thought just you know,

10:27

purer sort of. Statistics and have

10:29

been around the studio or never ever would find

10:31

it or you you know packet of the Rv

10:34

to drive in or out at anything. Right

10:36

and. In a couple of episodes, I'll

10:39

be out in the woods for over a

10:41

week. Working. From home. For.

10:43

The first time since the road trip where

10:45

I swore I'd never do a show from

10:48

the Rv again A remember that our bad

10:50

investment one hundred taxes either so this is

10:52

too frustrating and oh, you're doing too much

10:54

stuff and some for. And.

10:57

It was really hard to troubleshoot and I just said I'm not

10:59

going to do this again, I'm just going. Scan

11:01

always gonna go into the studio. But.

11:03

You know for mental health I want to get out in

11:05

the woods game and I want about the for longer than

11:08

a week and I want to build a still do the

11:10

shows So I'm kind of starting my work from home set

11:12

up over from just scratched just starting over. And.

11:14

I just don't think there's a laptop.

11:17

And I want to spend my hard earned money on.

11:19

right? Now it's some just. There's.

11:22

Maybe one I'm not aware of, or maybe one that I need

11:24

to try. but. In I'd

11:26

like something that's about thirteen inches or

11:28

fourteen inches that of or screen. As

11:31

I could have a dedicated Gp you. And

11:34

I don't necessarily want for case screen and

11:37

laptops were intoxicated. Want to to case green

11:39

at that size? I'm not sure though. They

11:42

just a lot of little things that I wanna be of

11:44

do with it. I have a question for you Chris When's

11:46

the last time you felt this feeling of like not really

11:48

having hardware your that excited about? Because if you like. In.

11:51

The last couple years we've been excited about

11:53

different ones like the Devil Honor and we.

11:58

Are happen pretty. over the years or is

12:00

this a kind of a new feeling? Yeah, we were spoiled

12:03

there for a little bit, weren't we? Oh

12:05

yeah. Yeah. Even the XPSs were

12:07

pretty exciting there for a while. Yeah,

12:09

and now it feels like, yeah,

12:11

you're right. Just not this quite,

12:14

my hope, I think my dream machine

12:16

would be a framework-style

12:19

machine that has modular GPU,

12:22

but I don't want it 16 inches and I don't want loud fans.

12:25

I don't mind having loud fans when the GPU's connected, but I

12:27

wanna be able to disconnect it and have it be a quiet

12:29

laptop. So this is just nothing that really fits,

12:31

I think, what I'm looking for right now and

12:34

I don't have a huge budget to spend on this.

12:37

So I want something that's kind of modern, that's gonna be

12:39

bulletproof with Linux that I could use for production

12:41

purposes and as a work machine. That's

12:44

a lot to ask. Maybe

12:47

it shouldn't be, but. It turns out, I

12:49

felt like it was and then the other, there's probably a

12:51

lot of ways you can solve all these kinds of problems.

12:55

And I thought, should

12:57

I give consideration to something like a Mac Studio,

12:59

since a portion of this is

13:01

going to be audio production,

13:04

and I am going to be running on battery

13:06

for that week, and I gotta manage it, managing

13:09

600 amp hours for

13:12

eight days is gonna be tricky. And

13:15

I don't know what kind of solar power I'm gonna get

13:17

from that. So something that doesn't sip a lot of power,

13:20

even when it's, especially on idle, if it's just sitting there

13:22

not doing much, I'd like it to just sip, sip, sip,

13:24

sip the power. That matters a

13:26

lot, almost more than the performance. But

13:29

you know, both Windows Co-Pilot PCs,

13:31

those are calling them, and

13:33

something like the Mac Studio, they're

13:35

all gonna suffer more and more and more

13:37

from this thing that I always like to

13:40

harp on about, which is strategy

13:42

tax. And it's only getting worse this

13:45

year. It's about to get a lot worse. I'm gonna play

13:47

this for you. Listen to this, this is Sache Nadella, and

13:51

he's describing how it's a

13:53

whole new way to think about Windows and

13:55

how they're integrating it. They're gonna rebuild everything

13:57

from the ground up. We have 40 plus

13:59

eight. AI models that are local

14:03

on Windows machines that then are being

14:05

used by a variety of experiences that

14:07

we have built into Windows, starting with

14:10

this photographic memory feature called Recall, which

14:12

is just phenomenal. And

14:14

of course, Copilot is built in to

14:17

Windows. And Copilot is just not an

14:19

app. It's sort of a shell affordance

14:21

that's going to be there assisting you

14:23

as you be showed a demo of

14:25

somebody playing Minecraft and me just sharing

14:27

my Minecraft screen with Copilot. And Copilot

14:29

helps me finally be as competitive with my daughter

14:31

on Minecraft that I always dreamed

14:33

of. And then

14:35

of course, the third parties. Adobe showed

14:37

how they're bringing all of what they

14:39

do to Copilot plus PCs and many,

14:42

many more other developers. So it's an exciting

14:45

day for us to have a complete rethink

14:47

on the full stack of Windows for the

14:49

AI age. Very exciting. 40

14:52

LLMs baked into Windows. All

14:54

these vendors excited about it. I guess

14:56

it's something that they mentioned them as

14:58

local LLMs. I agree. But somehow

15:00

I still don't quite trust it. Like that

15:02

doesn't mean they're open source or open in

15:04

any aspect to LLMs. The problem is I

15:08

just want my computer to do what I need

15:10

my computer to do. I don't want it running

15:12

all this different stuff. And

15:15

I mean, I like LLMs. That's fine. I

15:17

don't want a bunch of background processes.

15:19

You know, I was looking at the

15:21

Mac that I have. And

15:24

it's shocking how bad it is now. It's worse

15:26

than Windows XP where you have all these disparate

15:28

updaters, lots of background jobs

15:30

running on a generic process IDs, eating

15:32

lots of CPU and disk running all

15:34

the time. Such a mess. And

15:37

it's I mean, unless you're an expert, it gets pretty difficult

15:39

to tell. Like, I mean, some of the Apple built in

15:41

utilities are clearly named and some of them are like unique

15:43

style, a couple of letters that are running. You have to

15:45

go look up like, oh, wait, no, that is a that's

15:47

a core piece of the system. Why is it taking 10%

15:49

of the CPU? I don't know. And it's

15:52

just so much you have to unwind now. And it's just

15:54

getting worse. So on Windows, you know, for a

15:56

production system, do we really want this

15:59

thing screenshotting? You know

16:01

like the Reaper recording window

16:03

recording waveforms all the time like you know if you

16:05

think about it It's just ridiculous for production use for

16:08

actual getting work done. It's more

16:10

disk space. It's gonna waste its IO Privacy

16:13

concerns more background tasks

16:15

or you know best case

16:17

scenario more stuff you got to disable

16:20

so this is the strategy tax that I'm always talking about

16:22

and Windows and Mac

16:24

OS are only going to get worse They're

16:27

never going to get better because

16:29

they are there to serve the

16:31

overall companies wider ambitions now and

16:34

the desktop market is just part of an overall

16:38

more ambitious broader strategy and So

16:40

I think it was pretty obvious. I Was

16:43

going to go Linux, but how to

16:45

get to something that is so rock-solid It doesn't give

16:47

me issues is the bit that I want to

16:49

talk about next And every time I

16:51

build a system, and I bet this is true for

16:53

all of you listening It's really about learning from my

16:55

past mistakes every Linux box. I set up. I'm incorporating

16:57

the lessons. I learned From a

17:00

previous install, and I'm trying to bring all of

17:02

that to bear So I would

17:04

ask out there boost in with the mistakes

17:06

You've made when you set up a Linux

17:08

box big small doesn't matter just like any

17:11

of them like for example One

17:13

that I still get wrong When I

17:15

use like automated installers for example ext4

17:18

Yes, yes that does happen And

17:22

too small of boot partitions. Oh,

17:24

yeah, so many things used to just like 512 megs That's

17:27

fine. You're like I have a 2 terabyte disk.

17:29

Why just give it a couple gigs. I don't

17:31

care Yeah, I just recently on one of my

17:33

test go-arounds did the auto install and 200 megabyte

17:37

Filled that up in like 30 minutes. Yeah, it

17:39

was ridiculous So like I just

17:41

what I'm thinking is I think

17:44

we could make an episode dedicated to the mistakes. We've all

17:46

made I'm sure we have a long list and

17:48

help the folks that are tired of the strategy

17:50

tax biting them jumping from Windows or Mac OS

17:54

as those load as those get loaded up with crap and we're

17:56

about to have WWDC where Apple's gonna show us

17:58

all the crap. They're about to load everything up We're

18:01

seeing folks like DHH, the CEO of

18:03

37signals, a lifelong Mac user, switch to

18:05

Linux and make Linux the default platform

18:07

at 37signals. So

18:10

I'd say boost in and welcome them in a helpful way and

18:12

share some of the various screw-ups that you've made when you set

18:14

up a Linux box. Maybe

18:16

we could cover those and help other

18:18

people avoid those mistakes because

18:20

I knew going forward, what

18:23

I wanted was a

18:25

very minimal, viable production

18:27

system built to be job-specific. No

18:30

background tasks that are doing anything that I don't

18:32

know about except for what's required for the job

18:35

at hand. Number one requirement

18:37

right there. And I want something

18:39

reproducible so I can just roll this build forward

18:41

so I don't have to ever figure this out

18:44

again. It's time to test

18:46

this theory. It

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19:03

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19:50

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19:53

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19:55

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20:10

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20:12

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20:14

collide.com/Unplugged. Okay,

20:19

so I know after the scramble of

20:21

Linux Fest Northwest as we were setting

20:23

up Rigs, throwing computers all around, borrowing

20:25

PCs, I'm pretty sure you

20:27

ended up with some hardware laying around, right?

20:30

Yeah, shout out to Olympia Mike who sent us

20:32

one of those older model B-Link devices, which was

20:34

my notes PC for a long time. It

20:37

worked great. And then this scramble for Linux Fest,

20:39

we grabbed it and we used it as a

20:41

production machine and all the gear we used for

20:43

our live Linux Fest episode ended up in my

20:45

RV. And so

20:47

this little B-Link box, little Intel Celeron,

20:49

8 gigs of RAM, 256 gigabyte SSD, no

20:55

USB-C, so just USB-A ports. Classic.

20:57

Yeah, when I was like, okay,

20:59

I could use this, because if

21:01

this, I can roll the hardware config, if

21:03

I can roll this config forward, idea works,

21:06

then I should be able to set just about

21:08

everything else up on this device, this older slower

21:11

one, and if it checks out and it works

21:13

at testing, I'll get a

21:15

newer device and I'll just move the

21:17

config and test the theory. And

21:19

so I plugged away, getting this thing all set up,

21:21

and it definitely struggled. Like, you know, even like Firefox,

21:25

like four or five tabs in element chat running. Oh

21:27

no. It was like rough. Before I

21:29

even ran any production. It

21:33

wasn't good. It wasn't really good, but it did

21:35

impress me in some ways. It was

21:37

tiny, smaller than the NUC ever was. It's smaller

21:39

than a Mac Mini by a lot. And

21:42

it's low power, lowish power,

21:44

which is big, and it's quiet. It's

21:47

really quiet. So after getting the

21:49

config built out and tested on there, and

21:52

because I knew I was going to be moving it, it

21:54

also forced me to follow better practices.

21:57

So I did as much as I

21:59

could. my Nix configuration by

22:01

defining the stuff as best I could there

22:04

knowing that work would then move to the new device.

22:06

Right. That way you didn't have to

22:08

do custom Nix end stuff or manually download things.

22:10

You could just rebuild the system

22:13

with the updated config and be done, or

22:15

at least as close as possible to done.

22:17

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

22:20

So I bought one of their, there was a lightning

22:22

deal. It's still a great deal. But I bought one

22:24

of their newer B-Link devices. I don't know if it's

22:26

their highest end. It might be like their mid system,

22:28

but for what I needed, it's 330 bucks. They

22:32

had an $80 off deal right now. They have a $20

22:34

off deal. So it's still a pretty good deal. It's

22:37

the B-Link mini PC with a AMD Ryzen 7

22:39

5700U. It's

22:42

got 16 gigabytes of RAM and a one

22:44

terabyte SSD. And

22:47

it also adds a display port. So instead

22:49

of just HDMI out, it adds a display

22:51

port and a USB-C port. So it has

22:53

the same amount of USB-A. And

22:57

now USB-C port added as well. And of course

22:59

you're stepping up from a Celeron to a

23:01

Ryzen that could go up to 4.3 gigahertz, has eight cores

23:03

and 16 cores. Yeah, from a Celeron to an AMD Ryzen

23:05

7 5700U. I hope they

23:07

have an upgrade. Yeah, that's better. Yeah.

23:10

I didn't do extensive testing, but I installed Prey

23:13

and I installed Star

23:15

Trek game. I installed a couple of games over Steam and

23:18

my screen rises to 1080p and they played great.

23:21

How was the cooling situation in

23:23

this little box with that CPU? You

23:26

know, I never heard it. I do have it down on

23:28

the floor, but I never once have heard the machines, either

23:30

one of them, even when I'm pushing them. I

23:32

bet if I got my ear down there when I had the games going,

23:34

you must hear something. But that's all

23:36

I'm looking for is I don't think it'll ever be picked up

23:38

on mic. And the Linux support, I'm

23:41

going to hope slash assume it's relatively

23:43

first class here. So the

23:45

Linux support is fantastic. It does ship with

23:47

Windows 11. Oh,

23:50

licensed and everything? I think yeah.

23:52

Okay. Probably some home version or

23:54

something. Well, now we can have you try

23:56

out. No, wait, that was only the recall stuff only works

23:58

on special hardware. That'd

24:00

be so great if I got a refund from Microsoft.

24:04

But you know, this thing, this thing's, when you

24:06

take the 20 bucks off, this thing's like $300, I don't

24:08

think there's a lot of profit in there for Windows. But

24:11

I don't, it doesn't matter, I ripped it all off and I have, put

24:14

nix on there. But you know what

24:16

I discovered is VS Code

24:19

is a surprising pain in the butt on

24:21

nixOS. You really have two or

24:23

three routes you can go. You

24:25

can install VS Code VHS or

24:27

FHS, I should say VS Code,

24:30

FHS and that kind of

24:32

fakes VS Code out into thinking it's in a

24:34

regular Linux environment. And that one you can install

24:36

some extensions and stuff. You can install

24:38

VS Code where it's kind of more aware of where it's

24:40

at, but you won't be able to install any plugins. You

24:43

could do VS Code with certain extensions pre-installed and then you

24:45

can also define more extensions in your config, but then you

24:47

have to define it all in your config. You

24:49

can do the flat pack route, but then you have basically

24:51

all the same limitations as the FHS version. Yeah,

24:54

it's one of those tricky apps to really

24:56

sort of confine in a way where you

24:59

just take for granted so much that this

25:01

editor has access to its local plugins directory

25:04

as well as kind of any libraries

25:06

or languages or systems or whatever is on

25:08

your file system. And then when you try

25:10

to do it, especially with flat pack, but

25:12

then even with nix, things get

25:14

confusing. Yeah, and then you're really

25:16

cruising for a bruisin when you want to

25:18

do something like edit your config files and

25:21

have sudo escalate and actually work and

25:23

all that kind of stuff. It's

25:26

a PETA on nix and I thought, okay,

25:28

I could do this. You know, I could

25:30

go find some example configs on GitHub and

25:33

whatnot. But if I'm going

25:35

to put the work into making VS Code actually

25:37

function for me the way I want,

25:39

what if I just put that same time and effort into K8?

25:43

And that was really my sort of light bulb moment when it

25:45

come to K8. Now on

25:47

a nix box, because this is a very lean system,

25:49

I have my config linked in the show notes. And

25:52

this is, you know, I just I

25:54

only add that what I have to. So I did not have

25:57

all of the policy kit stuff installed. So

26:00

once you add all the policy kit stuff you

26:02

need you can actually have Kate edit system files

26:04

and It works so

26:07

nice And I

26:09

decided even later on I made it so you don't

26:11

have to have a password for pseudo because this again

26:13

It's just a little production box It's an

26:15

out Kate doesn't even prompt me when I have to save

26:17

my config files that are you know like the next config

26:20

it Just saves that's kind of nice especially

26:22

when you are trying to write you mentioned you were trying

26:24

to do this in a more declarative And reproducible way so

26:26

you do want low friction to make sure that instead of

26:28

just like you know Quickly installing

26:30

something with things have you are actually going back

26:32

to the config and updating it and rebuilding the

26:34

system So not having to fuss around

26:36

with like having to enter it twice because you forgot to

26:38

pseudo That's probably a big help it

26:41

yes I'm testing stuff out a lot at this

26:43

point in time, but what's so great right is

26:45

I figured that out and solve that on the

26:47

previous Celeron hardware and

26:50

so when I when I got this new machine, and

26:52

I got just a real base system installed I SSHed

26:55

in drop the config and

26:58

the hardware config on this machine Change

27:01

the host name and

27:03

rebuild and I had

27:05

everything It was incredible

27:07

so like getting so when I opened up

27:09

Kate it could edit my files it could

27:11

save it didn't prompt me for My password

27:14

it was so great I

27:17

if you have even if you're on genome

27:19

you should really consider giving Kate a go

27:22

it is so so so fantastic and Really

27:26

really appreciated just just the actual like investment

27:28

to get that where it needed to be

27:30

I think I'm probably set now for a

27:32

while. I think it's Kate for me

27:34

I think I switched from VS code which is huge

27:36

had you used Kate much before this Like

27:39

a quick place when I need like just plain text

27:41

to like store something like a buffer almost But

27:43

Brent you you've been a Kate user, right? I've

27:46

been like a every single day multiple times

27:48

a day for almost everything Kate user for

27:50

since and you just you've been you've been

27:52

Holding out on us. What's going on here?

27:55

No, I keep I keep dropping my Kate. Love

27:57

is just you guys aren't listening I think no

28:00

I've heard you, I've heard you. It's just I was so deep

28:02

in the VS code. I had it real dialed in. Oh, I

28:04

thought you were gonna say Nana. Ha ha

28:06

ha ha ha ha. You

28:09

will appreciate that this Lean Mean Build does

28:11

have Neovim installed. And I'll set up. And

28:13

LazyVim. So

28:16

the other thing that I solved on the Celeron box,

28:18

which is so neat too because it's an Intel system,

28:21

I was able to solve Slack

28:23

on Wayland and now getting Slack Wayland native.

28:25

There's just a little quick couple of lines

28:28

you can add to your Nix config and

28:30

Slack works great on Wayland. And

28:32

I was able to solve that on the previous machine. And

28:34

it just ports right over. Oh, so

28:36

great. But the

28:39

big surprise, I

28:42

win a different direction for the look and

28:44

feel. And it matters enough that I think I should

28:46

mention it. What do you mean? I mean, like, you're

28:50

going with like dark mode plasma? What are you talking

28:52

about? Yeah, usually I

28:54

want something that depends on the screen and all

28:56

that. You know, you should go with the dark

28:59

mode, breeze dark. And then sometimes there's like sweet

29:01

plasma. So there's a couple of different user-submitted themes.

29:04

I had a wild hair and I sorted by

29:06

highest rated. And

29:08

I noticed that some of the

29:10

highest rated plasma themes are

29:13

all very retro desktop environments.

29:16

Like old Unix desktop environments. And

29:18

one of them, called Reactionary,

29:22

looks just like Windows 7. Oh

29:25

no. You're really going where I

29:27

think you're going. I did it.

29:30

I did it. And

29:33

it's glorious. I love it

29:35

so much. It's clean. It's

29:37

crisp. Surprising, like

29:39

all the cute elements and everything in the

29:41

plasma desktop look fantastic in this old Windows

29:43

7 style. Oh my gosh.

29:45

I'm looking at some pictures that you've sent us. I

29:50

love dolphin and this does not make dolphin shine, but

29:52

I get why you like it. I mean, it really

29:54

is. It's clean. It's simple. The

29:57

taskbar still kind of feels plasma-y, but the wind of

29:59

decorations is so cool. Are very. Classic

30:02

windows, Yeah. There it

30:04

is very much as still a plasma

30:06

taskbar. I don't compromise their but I'll

30:08

I'll throw our offer a link in

30:10

the show. Notes: For. To the album

30:12

I put a couple screenshots of that I

30:14

know managed to something about it. sick leave

30:16

low resources to so the window to see

30:18

like they really snap your brains already internalized

30:20

like what this looks like for him. So.

30:23

right? Of. Center impressive because

30:25

it's. Really consistent like I

30:27

thought it would be like a would apply

30:29

the same and a few places the for

30:32

the most part it look a little shaky

30:34

but I can see why this is rated

30:36

highly if if like a little nostalgia this

30:38

thing to ease. I always liked the blue

30:40

that they've used in Windows Seven Two. Am

30:43

and they really nailed that are like that.

30:45

like the screenshot of Consul if I didn't

30:47

put the plasma bar in the bottom. I.

30:50

Just screenshot of the Consul You would think

30:52

that was Cmd that he actually I've worked yet

30:54

elected you back board to. Accept

30:56

that are a little either. Yes, I

30:59

got wine. I'm running Cmd Celiac see

31:01

and hear stories about this is probably

31:03

fits perfect for any wine absentee run.

31:06

Yeah. Really Yeah, really, you're right, I

31:08

should try that. That's a great point. I

31:10

was just blown away that this is the

31:13

the look I'm in. I'm always very much

31:15

try to make things look as absolutely modern

31:17

as possible and I generally think seems that

31:19

try to make the linux desktop look like

31:22

another O s specially mackerel as always look

31:24

a little cheap and low rent and I've

31:26

never worked for me. So. When

31:28

I installed reactionary. And

31:31

I just I leaned into i Love It

31:33

So much so I I put a challenge

31:35

out there to you listener if you're on

31:37

plasma. Install. Reactionary for a

31:39

couple a days and you know, just given a

31:41

gap you maybe have to be of a certain

31:43

age. I don't know. There's

31:45

something so special. Very. Happy.

31:48

With. Them. Are like all things mix.

31:51

There. Of course. Is. An

31:53

audio production module that I found. And.

31:55

It's called Muse next. And

31:57

it provides a set of simple high level can. options

32:01

to turn your workstation into more of

32:03

an audio workstation including like

32:05

some real-time stuff if you want it

32:08

optimizing certain things about devices

32:11

adjusting various low-level system settings so

32:14

I of course installed this oh I'm

32:16

gonna have to try this I

32:18

think we should add this to our list for

32:21

when we rebuild the studio systems it

32:24

activates the CPU frequency governor to be

32:26

like performance mode always it

32:29

sets swapping is to 10 it'll

32:31

tweak just a couple of sensible audio

32:33

device udev rules and then it

32:36

sets like a global environment variable for where

32:38

to put plugins whoo nice so

32:40

you just get basically like dot VST in

32:42

your home directory and you can just if

32:44

you drop things and not VST you

32:47

now have this as like a environment variable

32:49

as to where VST plugins live kind

32:51

of paper over some of the custom nixos stuff and

32:53

make it just work like you expect yeah

32:56

it also it you can enable

32:58

the RTC QS command line utility

33:01

and it's kind of like an audit of your system it'll

33:03

go through and analyze your

33:05

various state of your box

33:08

and tell you where maybe latency is being introduced or

33:10

maybe maybe where something isn't quite right yeah you might

33:12

like this friend you might take a look at this

33:14

is brilliant well the one thing that always kept me

33:17

from these real-time kernels is like the hundred steps you

33:19

have to do to like oh yeah you got to

33:21

remember to do this and oh that affects this other

33:23

thing and you have to go do that too but

33:25

these modules just kind of take

33:28

care of everything for you for someone like

33:30

me who like is technical

33:32

enough to be dangerous but you know not technical

33:34

enough to solve all these things it's absolutely

33:36

perfect so gosh I like this a

33:39

lot I was very impressed and

33:41

again my config is in the show notes you can

33:43

see how I'm incorporating this and then you will put

33:45

a link to the music project so you can also

33:47

see they have several ways you can install this including

33:49

the flake oh yeah channel or mm-hmm this was so

33:51

great right I mean it's just like an XOS module so

33:53

if you're already using XOS as long as you get this

33:55

onto your system somehow whether that's a flake or Get

33:58

clone or whatever you know, It handles

34:00

and in all the options for it and there's

34:02

a community this discussing what's the best option and

34:05

this hardware works best in this way and. And.

34:07

There then incorporating that stuff and it's stuff that. I'm.

34:10

Ten gently aware of but I wouldn't necessarily

34:12

know what to tweak. So. To

34:14

have the think they have your back and cycling Forgot that

34:16

song for it. You. Have to say and

34:18

I've mentioned this before about a mix

34:20

oh us Modules is that. Of. For

34:22

me, the biggest benefit

34:25

is dislikes. Known good. default

34:27

settings are like best practices are built

34:29

in and that is just priceless. For

34:31

someone who's just getting into it or

34:33

learning or like you just don't have

34:35

time for it or you just want

34:37

the best is like the entire community

34:39

is building those best practices for everybody

34:41

to benefit from and that to me

34:43

that's just still an amazing thing. I'm

34:45

impressed to see here that a music's

34:47

I mean was last updated five days

34:49

ago, has plenty commits and thirty four

34:51

different contributors. Again, the does. The really

34:53

does seem to be a community here.

34:56

Yeah. It's so great and

34:58

again. I set it up on

35:00

the celeron feeling first. Tried.

35:02

All out on this I knew this machine

35:04

was going away. tried it all out there

35:07

a hammered out what works figured out and

35:09

i me I spend I spend like a

35:11

date with noting if I make this change.

35:14

How does a drop my latency in return? Audio back

35:16

to the studio. I. Was doing a full

35:18

round trip. I even had a livestream. a couple

35:20

points during the week where I was. Checking.

35:23

The entire round trip based on if I

35:25

make these modifications were added. It sounds what

35:27

does it do and. Being. Able

35:29

to work all of that out while the hardware is

35:31

been sent. was in the mail. He

35:34

looks at a it arrives at. I just bring

35:36

it home. Unplug. Everything from the

35:38

one bailing plug everything in a new

35:40

bailing put a us be some drive

35:43

ins that says really it's really something.

35:46

And. It if what I what I really

35:48

internalized his crate him as configurations just

35:50

moves forward forever. Regardless, Of

35:52

what hardware put it on today. Maybe a couple

35:54

things tweak if I go from Intel day of

35:56

the. but for them are you know him? videotape?

35:58

Rise in Md? Hear your hardware in fact needs

36:00

to change a little bit. but in a feather

36:03

packaged stuff? That's just that's just a words and

36:05

all the services and it's It's just a purpose

36:07

built. Audio. Workstation Confect.

36:10

It's. Been slightly optimized your pipe

36:12

wires in there with jackets emulation

36:14

enabled. Wire. Plumber set up

36:17

your that kind of stuff just been slightly

36:19

optimized. To. Do audio production but

36:21

also here to little desktop machine and get

36:23

some work done during the day and you

36:25

know needs Makes it super easy. So like

36:27

on whatever random linux machine I could go

36:29

build than try out of the m of

36:31

your whole experience here without committing to anything.

36:33

Absolutely. That. Maybe it's a

36:35

good starting point for our audio system that we want to

36:38

build. I'm. When.

36:40

I when i really kind of

36:42

one emphasize is. What?

36:44

I what I what I'm doing here is

36:46

trying to keep it simple but also. I.

36:49

Didn't overbilled the machine. I.

36:51

Like it at something I would have done in the past

36:54

is I probably would have gone for a more powerful computer.

36:57

And. Exist just a line of thinking

36:59

I had to dismiss. but it was like,

37:01

you know would be nice to have his

37:03

humor ports. Maybe. Even Pc

37:05

I slots right like I started started thinking about

37:07

like it with i'm gonna spend the Money like

37:09

maybe I should make sure it's gonna be really

37:11

powerful and I don't know the syllabus to really

37:13

going to be fast enough for me some really

37:15

really particular. And I talked myself

37:17

out of it. And. I I got

37:19

something that literally is just you know.

37:21

It's a nice sensible step up from

37:23

the previous machine. It adds one more

37:25

port L A, but it, yeah, it's

37:27

it's. It's. Enough. And.

37:29

It's simple. And it's quiet.

37:32

And. It's tucked away. And. The configure

37:35

is also the same thing. It's simple.

37:37

It's. Quiet and it's all tucked away and it just gets out

37:39

of my way. And. the systems only

37:42

doing the task of him and seems like it some

37:44

nice to and that to got the can fix off

37:46

that can live i mean it's it's it's i'll get

37:48

up nancy just pull it down every need and then

37:50

you know that the box was as you say you

37:53

can have found the right spec level up where it's

37:55

easy to deploy easy to get of you think i

37:57

saw the amazon and like prime one day shipping or

37:59

something And you know, it's like a

38:01

reasonable enough expense that you're not you

38:03

have to like budget six months out for this Huge

38:06

new rebuild you can kind of like pick one of these

38:08

up without having to worry too much about it And

38:10

they do throw it on sale from time to time They

38:13

definitely do it's funny cuz the

38:15

night I was thinking about I go to Amazon lightning deal

38:20

The lightning deal though Doesn't

38:22

have the same speedy shipping as

38:24

when it's not the lightning deal So if you want it quick,

38:27

you got to get it. They sell the $20 off coupon Yeah,

38:30

there you have it That's the new setup and I'd love to get your tips

38:32

if you want to take a look at my config in the show notes and

38:35

Boosting the suggestions or things I should tweak or add

38:38

I'd love to hear it because this might be

38:40

a good starting point for us to start building

38:42

our audio workstations in the studio So love

38:45

your eyeballs on it either way Linux

38:50

unplugged comm slash Membership we have

38:52

eight redemptions left of the promo

38:54

code may I guess it's kind

38:56

of makes sense maze almost over

38:58

It'll take three dollars off a

39:00

month Forever if you get

39:02

the unplugged core contributor membership, or if you

39:04

get the signal membership, which is for all

39:07

the shows There's like

39:09

eight redemptions left You

39:11

can go at limit you can get it go go get

39:13

it is what I'm saying at Linux unplugged comm slash membership

39:16

Then use the promo code may I'll try to remember to also

39:18

just put a direct link in the show notes Eight

39:21

redemptions left. Thank you everybody

39:23

who took advantage of this promo code You know

39:25

we we kind of been nipped by

39:27

the market right the ad winter is nipped the

39:30

unplugged podcast this spot right here

39:32

should be a regular ad and It's

39:35

not so we're like, you

39:38

know a wagon missing a wheel But like

39:40

the members came together formed like

39:42

a trust wheel Attached themselves to

39:44

the wagon and now like we're still

39:46

going down the road It's

39:49

sometimes a little lumpy and bumpy, but

39:51

it's better than it ever has been So

39:53

thank you members. We really appreciate that

39:55

Linux unplugged comm slash membership. There

39:58

are just a handful eight for

40:00

promo code MAY, which takes

40:03

three freaking dollars a month off. That's how

40:05

you know it's an ad winter. Because

40:07

it's not a limited time thing. It's like forever. That's

40:11

why there's only eight redemptors left. And it's for both the

40:14

main signal, you know, for all the shows, or

40:17

for the court contributor, where either way, whichever

40:20

one you get, do me

40:22

a solid and just take a listen to the members

40:24

bootleg feed. The ad

40:26

feed's nice because you don't have to hear this crap, but

40:28

I mean it's not crap. It's pristine

40:30

chef's kiss quality stuff. But

40:33

my point is there's a lot more, a

40:36

lot more show. Like we put content in

40:38

other places too that we try to make it

40:40

great for the members. So if you signed

40:42

up, go listen to that bootleg feed at least

40:44

once. You know, maybe on a road trip. I don't

40:46

know. It's kind of long. Alright, linuxunplug.com/membership.

40:49

Promo code MAY.

40:54

And now it is time for the boost.

40:58

Ah, the boost. I really miss the boost. And

41:01

this week, week, week? Week?

41:03

I don't know. This is a good May.

41:05

And I feel like my being gone means

41:09

more boost came in. I'm not sure how I

41:11

feel about that. But we did get a baller

41:13

boost here. Yeah, we did. No second best comes

41:15

in with 555,555 sets. Hey,

41:20

which last up? Monster

41:23

boost. How

41:28

about that? Hey guys, swan boost from the

41:30

kids table. Swan boost.

41:32

Oh, I see. It's all fives or swans.

41:35

Did you guys know? That really

41:37

is. Did you guys know that real

41:39

player is still a thing and still

41:42

makes a version for linux. Last

41:44

updated February of 24. You

41:47

can even pay for it still if you're feeling nostalgic. $24.99

41:49

for express or $39.99 for plus. When

41:55

I saw that, I just laughed and thought, I need to boost the guys about

41:57

this. They

42:00

still real network still has an office

42:03

like downtown Seattle What

42:06

although I I went to their website and

42:08

the first thing that they were pitching was

42:11

greater visibility greater confidence Safer for

42:13

security AI powered facial recognition for

42:15

security professionals. Oh, of course They

42:17

do have real player as one

42:19

of their four products here, but

42:21

it's just one So which

42:24

one are you gonna get are you gonna get the plus

42:26

or the express version? Oh, they have real player

42:28

mobile to can you not get it? Oh, you

42:30

can get free. Oh But it's

42:32

got in product ads. I see Okay

42:35

audio only downloads you don't get in the free version either I'm

42:38

just trying to think of what the use case is Oh gosh,

42:40

they're still using the same logo

42:42

for real to the best video

42:44

Downloader just got better download or

42:46

stream from YouTube Vimeo TikTok Facebook

42:49

Instagram and thousands of websites Mmm

42:52

interesting. I'm gonna argue my pick coming up is

42:54

better. But thank you. No second best. That's That's

42:57

a very generous boost. We really really appreciate it

42:59

too. And I will mention these

43:02

generous boost go a long ways right now because we are down

43:04

a sponsor in the show and So

43:06

no second best you you're basically our

43:08

sponsor this week. Really appreciate it. Thank you very much

43:11

And the baller boost don't stop today

43:13

hybrid sarcasm came in with 250 thousand

43:15

cents Oh

43:22

With some feedback to you Chris, don't

43:25

you dare take away my boost sound effects?

43:29

All right, you know and he put some

43:31

real stats on the line for that statement, too We

43:33

tested it and right so last week in

43:35

the show you tested sort of minimal boost

43:37

sound effects And I guess we're getting feedback

43:39

on how that what I think so. I

43:42

think so I would call last

43:44

week more selective sound effects I know you tried

43:46

for none, but you couldn't help yourself Now

43:50

rotted mood came in with 50,000 sats

43:52

another impressive boost I

43:54

hoard that which will

43:56

kind covered Absolutely saying

43:58

hi all I had to disappear

44:01

there for a while to deal with,

44:03

quote, real life, getting caught up

44:05

in all JB shows now and hope everyone is well.

44:08

Oh, there's also like a Spock kind of salute

44:10

in there. Live long and prosper. It

44:12

is very nice to hear from you. Yes. I

44:15

hope you live long and prosper. And

44:17

as the wise Mr. Spock says, you're doing a good

44:19

job. You're doing a good job. Thanks for checking in.

44:22

And your Hudson comes in with 30,000 sass. All

44:26

right. All right, too. Oh, how

44:29

about this? I passed my Linux Foundation certified

44:31

sysadmin exam this week. So to celebrate,

44:33

here's some sats. Thanks for keeping

44:35

the shows alive. I wouldn't have been able to do without

44:37

all the knowledge these shows have provided over the years. Dan,

44:40

congratulations. Awesome. Do we get an

44:43

applause for Dan, everyone? Yeah, we

44:45

do. We do, absolutely. And you

44:47

know, I think he must be out following

44:49

that. He says, Dan is here for every single

44:52

show in the mumble room, but not this

44:54

week. I hope he's

44:56

having a great time. Dan, congratulations. Really

44:58

great to hear. Cultivator comes

45:00

in with 10,112 sats. It's

45:03

over 9,000! Listening

45:07

live on Fountain for the first time, well,

45:09

I plant my corn. Just

45:11

after hearing an old office hours

45:13

on this feed with Chris talking

45:15

about his corn. Yep. Yep,

45:18

I remember that. I am not

45:20

doing 90% as much corn this year. You

45:24

know, it's so rainy here right now. It's like

45:27

a tease. We started planting and then just the

45:29

rains came too. That's fine. You can

45:31

get some from Cultivator, right? Yeah, maybe. I'd

45:34

love to get some, you know, some of some sats for it. Thank

45:36

you, Cultivator. Appreciate the boost. Magnolia

45:39

Mayhem boosted in 7777, which I must mean something,

45:41

right? Make

45:45

it show. Make it show. Show

45:48

speed listening for me has a huge margin

45:50

depending on my interest in the show, how

45:53

slow they talk, and how easy they are

45:55

to understand. Shows that I like with hosts

45:57

that talk fast and don't have thick accents

45:59

or bad equipment are usually

46:01

around 1.25, but something

46:04

like Lex Friedman can get as high as 3.1 times. No,

46:09

I am not kidding, he says. Most

46:12

shows sit between 1.8 and 1.9. That's

46:15

very specific. Whoa. I'm

46:17

kidding. They seem like very well tested and calibrated speed. I mean,

46:19

3.1, 1.8 to 1.9. Wow.

46:23

Yeah, I wonder when he listens to a podcast, he starts listening, he's like, hey,

46:25

this is 1.8. This is a 1.9-er, you

46:27

know? Wow,

46:30

the Lex Friedman at 3.1. I

46:33

guess that would make it like a 45-minute show. So

46:35

there's that. That helps.

46:37

Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow. VT52 comes

46:39

in with 4,455 sets. Coming

46:42

in hot with the booth. Alex

46:45

mentioned how there were many nines we self-hosters

46:47

hit. Reminds me that I just hit my

46:49

five nines. Impressive, given how much I like

46:51

to tinker. I got a NixOS

46:53

pick for you. It's called NH. And

46:56

it's a wrapper around the standard NixOS

46:58

rebuild command and others. Gives

47:01

you a much more understandable output when rebuilding

47:03

and can even let you know what actually

47:05

is going to change, e.g. some packages going

47:07

from this version to that version. It

47:10

of course is in Nix packages. And it's up on GitHub

47:12

too. Again, it's called NH on

47:14

ViperML's GitHub. That looks fun. We're going

47:17

to definitely have to try this. Plus,

47:19

it's a sneaky little Rust pick. Oh,

47:21

it is really? Yeah. You

47:23

know, somebody should put it in there. Put it in

47:25

there, because we love the Rust. Also,

47:27

congrats, V.T. I feel like you have a very

47:30

reliable hope lab. Gene

47:33

Bean comes in with a ROWA duct. Oh,

47:36

Chris, you're correct. I'm on iOS.

47:39

But back when I was using Android,

47:42

I too had rotation lock on. I'm

47:44

really surprised it is still needed so bad over

47:46

there. I would have thought they'd have

47:48

addressed that one by now. Brent, did you get to

47:51

weigh in on the rotation lock stuff on Android? Do

47:53

you have orientation lock on all the time? We talked

47:55

about it previously. I lock that thing like 98% of

47:57

the time. It's only whenever

47:59

I'm... I seem to be showing somebody like photos

48:01

of my cats that I seem to turn it off.

48:04

But other than that, it's on. I

48:06

decided to turn it off after last

48:08

episode. Whoa. And I've been going lock

48:10

free for the week. What? It's not

48:13

bad, actually. It really hasn't been bad. I actually did

48:15

the same thing. Really? And how's

48:17

it gone for you? Yeah, not bad. I will

48:19

say on the flip side, with it on, at some

48:21

point in Android, I forget which version, they added the

48:23

little like, it detects when you try to lock it

48:25

and gives you the option to still rotate it. That

48:27

is really solid. That's been a nice middle ground. Yeah.

48:30

That kind of makes me lean towards going back to orientation

48:32

lock because you can always just bust out with that. You

48:35

just got to keep your eye out for that little button. And

48:37

then it'll, thank you for the boost. Todd from

48:39

Northern Virginia comes in with 11,101 sats. This

48:43

old duck still got it. Oh, feels

48:45

classy. He says, I hesitate

48:47

to admit it, but my listening speed is

48:50

set to 2.0 with silent skipping enabled. Please

48:52

don't tell Adam Curry. Oh, we won't.

48:54

Wow, though. So you're listening

48:57

to us at 2.0? Wow. Could

49:01

you imagine? I think we need

49:03

to speak slower to make sure

49:05

Todd doesn't miss anything. That's

49:08

a very good idea.

49:13

Yes. Wait,

49:15

that doesn't work. I'm so

49:17

surprised by all this advanced

49:20

playing because I have

49:23

heard from some folks who use dynamic

49:25

accessibility features and are used to having

49:27

screen readers and stuff like that with

49:29

really, really fast listening times. But

49:31

Chris, I'm exactly like you. I find

49:34

my comprehension and everything goes down past, I

49:36

don't know, 1.3, 1.4, something like

49:38

that. Generally.

49:41

I have like two modes. If I'm

49:43

really listening, the speed can be helpful because

49:46

it's like I don't get bored. I have to really focus

49:48

and maybe I retain more. But

49:50

I just feel anxious. It

49:52

gets me feeling like the people I'm

49:54

listening to are anxious, especially with this

49:56

got silent stuff. That really makes

49:58

it seem like it's a rushed conversation. I'm

50:01

curious if anyone because almost well every

50:03

single one of these is about speeding

50:05

up But does anyone slow anything down?

50:07

Yeah, where are our zero point seven

50:09

gang? In

50:13

fergot with 5,000 sats is I'm chipping in late to

50:15

say that I listen at 1x only I

50:18

like to listen to you guys on my way to

50:20

work while walking my dog JP

50:22

feels like home to me and home should be relaxing.

50:24

So one dot exit is See

50:27

that's smart You

50:30

know, I have a confession that

50:32

I haven't been ready to share for the

50:34

last couple of weeks Oh, I'm deeply ashamed

50:36

by it. Here we go and

50:39

it has to do with speeds

50:41

so as

50:45

Everyone might know we use Reaper

50:47

quite a bit and I've been used it to record

50:51

the podcast recently since oh You

50:54

know audacity caused me to screw

50:56

up a recording maybe a

50:58

month or so back So but I previously

51:00

has been using Reaper exclusively for playing drums

51:03

and recording stuff there and like practicing songs

51:06

so I had Here

51:09

it goes you guys are gonna give me such a hard time I

51:12

Had my playback speed at like point nine

51:15

to because it's way easier to learn a

51:17

song a little slower And then wrap your

51:19

speed up and I don't know for whatever

51:21

reason the template that I had for doing

51:23

recordings had point

51:25

nine speed Like blocked

51:27

into the template So the first

51:30

couple episodes a few weeks

51:32

back that I recorded with Reaper. I May

51:35

have sent drew like exports with point

51:37

nine No,

51:44

no, I figured it out after Noticing

51:47

and then I didn't think I should say anything

51:49

because I felt so embarrassed by even now like

51:51

washing and stuff. I feel so So

51:54

I apologize to everyone for the last couple

51:56

weeks who received my voice like just a

51:58

little slower than it is is in real

52:00

life and that if I caused you to go

52:03

you know higher than one time speed I apologize.

52:05

This explains it! We have fixed it. This is

52:07

what's happened! Everybody had to up it.

52:10

Hashtag blame Brent. Well

52:12

Zach Attack comes in with 7,777 SATs.

52:17

I am programmed in multiple techniques. I guess

52:19

I'm an old man I play back at

52:22

just good old 1x. There you go. Also

52:24

thank you for the nix coverage as I've

52:26

been wondering what was happening over there. I

52:29

always value that Jupiter team's insights on these matters.

52:32

And just to further the fedora atomic

52:34

discussion, Ublue's aurora image

52:36

is pretty darn slick

52:39

and may actually replace

52:41

Monjaro on my desktop.

52:44

You know that's our first boost about the nix

52:46

coverage. We got a boost here

52:48

from vomit farts for 3,000 satoshis. Okay what

52:50

does vomit

52:53

farts have to say? Vomit farts

52:56

did not need to write a message for

52:58

us to enjoy this boost but I just

53:00

wanted to say keep up the good work. Oh

53:03

okay so maybe that was also some feedback

53:05

on the nix coverage perhaps.

53:08

Oh they did boost in for our

53:10

563 the episode we did talk about

53:12

the yeah community issues. Thank you vomit

53:14

farts. Yeah thank you farts. Appreciate it.

53:17

Nick zip comes in with 5,000 SATs. That's

53:19

not possible nothing to do that. This boost

53:22

cleans me out until I can get Fort

53:24

nix set up on my O-Droid. Up

53:27

until now I've relied on sending my Albie account

53:29

SATs from a hardware wallet. That

53:31

hasn't been available for a while so I wanted to

53:33

pass along that part and thanks to you guys I

53:36

got my technician's ham license. Boom!

53:38

Technician's ham license. In the bag.

53:41

I'd hope to see some of you at Sci-Fi or

53:44

a happy hour this year. It is

53:46

in your backyard after all. Sci-pi. Oh there's

53:48

a little Sci-pi Python conference going on around

53:50

here huh? I have to

53:52

look into that. Thank you Nick zip. Appreciate

53:55

that. Oh yes Sci-pi 2024

53:57

is coming to the Tacoma Convention center

54:00

in July. I have

54:03

no Tacoma policy but that's great. Deckbot

54:08

comes in with 2001 stats.

54:11

All right I hear you guys

54:14

like Linux challenges you know, nyx

54:16

tumbleweed, graphene, slackware, 32-bit. What

54:18

do you think about putting System D back

54:21

into Devlon? For

54:23

extra Greek, for extra geek cred

54:25

don't add Debian to your app

54:28

sources. I

54:30

will allow using a BBA but not

54:32

from a Devlon upstream or analog so

54:34

not from Debian or Ubuntu but if

54:36

you want to use nyx or Fedora

54:39

or even packaging your own devs that's

54:41

all fair game. Huh.

54:43

Wow. This is kind of clever. I do

54:46

love this idea of putting System D back into

54:48

Devlon. Wes and I have

54:51

as of last week heavily

54:53

heavily modified the Ubuntu 18.04 machine

54:56

we use for recording. You

54:59

know you can do a lot with

55:01

nyx and we needed to get a

55:03

newer version of an application but that

55:05

newer version of the application also required

55:07

a newer version of Jack Audio.

55:09

It required a new version of glibc. It required

55:11

a bunch of new packages and it was just

55:14

not ready for 18.04.

55:16

18.04 wasn't ready for it. But Wes

55:18

you stood up basically like a parallel nyx

55:20

environment that does have these new dependencies. It

55:22

does have all this stuff. Sure does and

55:25

thankfully the interface has been stable enough that

55:27

it just kind of works with the rest

55:29

of the system so far. Yep. So

55:32

you know after that experience makes me think maybe we

55:35

could pull this off. But do you

55:37

think that approach would work as well for something so

55:39

like deeply integrated like System D? Yeah I bet it'll

55:41

be a bit harder. Yeah for

55:43

sure. Yeah the temptation

55:45

would just be to nyxify the entire thing. What

55:48

point does it become nyx? I've got to think about

55:52

a deck bot because there is some execution there. If anybody

55:54

wants to iterate on this idea please boost in and give

55:56

us some thoughts because that does seem kind of fun. It

55:58

mostly just seems like a competition where we eat really just

56:00

mess up our dev1 systems report back and

56:02

we broke it pretty much. Distro

56:06

Stew boosted in with 11,111 Satoshis. I'd

56:12

not thought much about the hosting costs of

56:14

a Distro until NixCon when they showed their

56:16

sheer cost of hosting the repos. Many

56:19

thousands of dollars a month on S3. So

56:23

I have some questions. Number one, how

56:25

will Nix fare if they do fork?

56:27

Will the new fork have the resources and

56:29

donations to fund that? Question

56:31

number two, how do most projects

56:33

handle these costs? Number three, what

56:37

happens if donations dry up? And number

56:39

four, can this somehow be supported by

56:41

the community via mirrors or torrents so

56:44

we don't need to completely rely on

56:46

centralized hosting? I'll

56:48

take a couple of those from the bottom. Four, can this

56:51

be somehow supported by the community? You

56:53

know, maybe, but there'd be a lot of technology

56:55

that have to be created, including probably changes to

56:57

how the package manager works. What

56:59

happens if donations dry up? That is a serious concern. It's

57:02

something that the foundation is constantly thinking

57:04

about. Although we are seeing, hopefully, as

57:08

more folks deploy Nix in more places that

57:10

you then have more spots

57:12

with vested interests that are motivated to help this thing

57:15

keep going. What

57:20

do you think? You got any thoughts on the fork question? Like how

57:22

will other forks handle this? Would they have

57:24

the resources? Do you have thoughts on that? I think it ends

57:26

up kind of depending on what

57:30

the forks are and of which components,

57:32

because you've got Nix, the tool, the

57:35

build tool, the package manager, the

57:37

language, and then you've got Nix

57:39

packages, which is kind of separate, and then you've got kind

57:41

of Nix OS on top of all of that. So

57:44

I think we've seen forks that focus a little bit

57:46

more on like the Nix layer. I

57:49

do think it would probably be quite challenging to

57:51

try to stand up and

57:53

fully support a parallel Nix packages.

57:55

I mean, at the end of the day, if you're

57:57

willing to build everything or have your own, you So

58:00

cash internally for a company or

58:02

for your own home lab. You can build

58:04

the whole Nix system, especially just for your architectures.

58:07

And it will all still work. You just won't

58:09

get public binary caching, and that kind of changes

58:11

the usability for a lot of folks who don't

58:13

want to build everything. Yeah, and Nix's

58:16

storage situation is a little more extreme

58:18

than, say, Debian. Even though Debian has

58:21

a ton of packages, Nix is storing a ton of iterations. Right.

58:23

They're trying to keep things as reproducible as possible,

58:26

which means not only keeping the recipes, the derivations,

58:28

but they also have a whole bunch of historic

58:30

build inputs and outputs that are living in that cache. Yeah.

58:33

Yeah. So it's a big job. I

58:36

mean, there's things they could do to kind of tidy

58:38

it down a bit, but then the users lose some

58:40

of that reproducibility in theory. So it's

58:42

a lie in their trying to walk. Great

58:45

questions. Thank you for that boost. Nev

58:48

comes in with 2000 sats. I

58:50

heard you guys were talking about playback speeds. Well,

58:52

I only listen at 1x, but

58:55

sometimes for some shows about trading card games

58:57

and Goldfish, I have to step it up

58:59

to 1.25x. Wait,

59:01

wait, wait, wait, wait. So there are shows about

59:03

Goldfish specifically? Can you send those in? Yeah,

59:06

I got here a Goldfish podcast. Although I don't

59:08

know trading card games. Is this like a subtle

59:10

dig over at Coda Radio? I think

59:14

you might be right.

59:17

Thank you, Nev. I'm

59:20

very fascinated by the playback speed. I think that particular

59:22

setup makes some sense to me. Well,

59:25

one final boost on that. Sam H comes

59:27

in with a row of ducks. I

59:30

mostly listen at 1.25x,

59:32

but I might go up to 1.5 for something

59:34

long or down to 1x to make

59:37

sure I catch everything. Or

59:39

if I'm running low on JB podcasts and need to

59:41

stretch them out. Also,

59:43

just reporting that I generally enjoy the boost

59:45

sound effects. Hey, that's a

59:47

great little tidy boost. Thank you very much. Appreciate

59:50

that feedback. Thank you, everybody who

59:52

boosted it. And we do have that 2000 sack cutoff to

59:54

read it on air just for time. We had 26 boosters,

59:57

so we do get all of those boosts. We really appreciate it.

1:00:00

And this week we stacked an absolutely

1:00:02

incredible and extremely grateful 963,433 sats. Whoa.

1:00:15

Thank you everybody. You

1:00:18

know, this show has been kind of limping along because

1:00:20

of the ad winter, but there are weeks like this

1:00:22

that I feel like, even regardless of

1:00:24

what happens with the advertising market, the show's always going to

1:00:27

go on. If you'd like to boost in,

1:00:29

get your message right on the air and support the show,

1:00:31

go get a new podcast app at podcastapps.com. This

1:00:34

show is adding more and more podcasting 2.0 features.

1:00:37

This feed is now podcasting 2.0 enabled, so there's

1:00:39

lots of nice stuff you can get, including built-in

1:00:41

live streams and more. So

1:00:43

go check them out. podcastapps.com.

1:00:45

We love Fountain and Podverse and Castamatic.

1:00:47

Those are like our top three. We

1:00:50

totally recommend them. Thank you everybody who also streams

1:00:52

your sats as you listen. Those come right in

1:00:54

and we see those as well. And of

1:00:56

course, a big shout out to our members who

1:00:58

are also participating in Value for Value with

1:01:00

their monthly contribution. We really appreciate all of

1:01:03

you. That was a great week. Thank

1:01:05

you very much. Now

1:01:08

I have a pick that I think might be a little better

1:01:10

than RealPlayer. It's called

1:01:12

GridPlayer. It is a simple

1:01:15

VLC-based media player that does side-by-side videos

1:01:17

and it will go up to as

1:01:19

many as your system can handle. Now

1:01:22

you're thinking, Chris, what would you use this for? Well,

1:01:24

if you've got any security cameras, you

1:01:26

could create yourself like a quad box

1:01:29

of cameras. But also, the gosh

1:01:31

darn thing supports Streamlink with

1:01:33

YouTube DLP. Ooh.

1:01:35

Uh-huh. Ooh. So this

1:01:37

morning, just for funsies, I threw in like

1:01:39

four news live streams and just had four

1:01:42

boxes and you can just mute and unmute which one you

1:01:44

want, etc. There's lots of little playback

1:01:46

controls. And it's anything

1:01:49

VLC can play. I like

1:01:51

this. Easily swap videos with drag and

1:01:53

drop. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's

1:01:56

just really neat. And it's just like a little Python app. It works

1:01:58

on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Ooh. Trust

1:02:00

VLC under the hood, right? So, I'm

1:02:04

pretty sure it's on FlatHub. It is. FlatHub

1:02:07

snaps, there's an app image. If

1:02:09

it's just a Python app, I bet we can get this in package

1:02:11

for Nix. It's pretty cool. And

1:02:14

it's just really simple. It is what it says

1:02:16

on the tin. But I actually

1:02:18

find this really great because we've got, you know,

1:02:20

in Jup's, we've got these privacy

1:02:22

screens that go down. And

1:02:24

so I can't really see what's going on around the rig. But

1:02:26

when I was working the other day, I just pulled up the

1:02:28

camera feeds, put them in the little quad box and I could

1:02:31

see what was going on even though I had all the privacy

1:02:33

screens down while I was working. It was pretty

1:02:35

neat. And then I, you know, this morning, put

1:02:37

the news feeds in there, watching the live

1:02:39

news and then just muting and unmuting the ones I was interested

1:02:41

in and muting the other ones when they go to commercials. It's

1:02:43

just super fun. I don't know, it makes

1:02:45

me feel like a big shot. So check it out as Grid Player. Yeah,

1:02:48

it's packaged up in a lot of different ways. We'll put a

1:02:50

link to the GitHub up in there.

1:02:53

You know, I mean, it's a minimal viable

1:02:55

system with a couple of extra nice things in there.

1:02:58

You know, I did put video playback in there. I

1:03:01

tried to not install VLC.

1:03:04

You know, first I installed MPV. Uh-huh. Yeah.

1:03:08

A couple other apps. But VLC, it's

1:03:10

so handy because, you know, you get those menus

1:03:12

where you can choose the audio device and easy

1:03:15

to put URLs in there for streaming. It's just,

1:03:17

VLC is just such a great app. I was

1:03:19

like, okay. It really is like, yeah, if you're

1:03:21

doing targeted stuff, there's obviously things that are more

1:03:23

efficient or, you know, better in a ton of

1:03:25

different ways. But for one tool

1:03:28

you could install and kind of just know it's probably

1:03:30

going to play that. Yeah. It's

1:03:32

hard to beat. Yeah. So

1:03:34

I got VLC on there and Grid Player. So I mean,

1:03:36

it's not like nothing extra on there, but it's still pretty

1:03:38

tight. Overall, from what you get from like a Linux system,

1:03:41

it's pretty good. So check out that config. I

1:03:43

have it in the show notes. Also don't forget, we want you to boost

1:03:45

in and share some of the various mistakes you've made when

1:03:48

setting up your Linux box. Boys,

1:03:50

you should brainstorm a few. If we get some good ones boosted

1:03:52

and I think we could do a segment on it. Heck yes.

1:03:55

Own a few of those mistakes, let's say. And of

1:03:57

course, you can always join us live. We are live

1:03:59

each Sunday. See you next week. Same

1:04:02

bad time, same bad station.

1:04:04

Come on in around noon

1:04:06

Pacific, 3pm Eastern, time at

1:04:08

jupyterbroadcasting.com/calendar. And if you have a

1:04:10

podcasting 2.0 app, you'll see when we're pending, and then you'll

1:04:12

see when we go live. You can just tune right in

1:04:14

right there in your list of podcasts. Pretty

1:04:16

easy. Links to what we talked about

1:04:18

today, those are over

1:04:21

at linuxunplugged.com/564. Good

1:04:23

stuff in there. You'll also find our feedback form

1:04:26

over there. Links to the Mumble Show, our Matrix

1:04:28

Chat, which is going 24-7, all of that. It's

1:04:30

on our website. How about that?

1:04:34

linuxunplugged.com. And there's a

1:04:36

whole bunch of great shows over at

1:04:38

jupyterbroadcasting.com. Fresh coders and self-hosting

1:04:40

and more. Thanks so much for joining us. See you

1:04:42

right back here. Sunday! Transcribed

1:04:58

by https://otter.ai Edited

1:05:28

by https://otter.ai