Linux Voice Podcast

In this episode: Scandal at SourceForge. Confusion at Kubuntu. Fanfare for Fedora but Misery for Mandriva. Plus fabulous finds, neurotic neurons and missives from the masses.

In this episode: A cheaper Pi, an even cheaper alternative, and Firefox now includes added DRM. We've got some ace Finds, an even more awesome Neurons section and the most divisive Voice of the Masses ever (not really).

In this episode: Two major Linux distributions have been released. Microsoft is doing lots of things related to Linux (and open source) and there's a new release of KDE. We've got some epic finds to share, a single neuron and the famously good natured Voice of the Masses.

In this episode: Linux Mint has a new sponsor. Freya has been released, there's a new beta of Thunderbird and brief SSL woes for Manjaro. Microsoft enters Core OS territory and Debian has a new project lead. We've also got some lovely Finds and a super-positive Voice of the Masses.

In this episode: Microsoft's adding ODF support to Office. The BBC is giving away bits of silicon to schools. Android apps will soon run on Linux and LibreOffice will run from the cloud. We've got some awesome Finds, a couple of Neurons and a life-affirming Voice of the Masses.

In this episode: VMware has waded into a lawsuit with the Software Freedom Conservancy. Lenovo has been spying on its Windows users. There are now over 1,000 Linux games on Steam and relax, the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology has said Tor can't be stopped. We've got even more news, lots of discoveries, a couple of Neurons to vocalise and a divisive Voice of the Masses.

In this episode: There are two new major Linux-related pieces of hardware, Raspberry Pi 2 and the Ubuntu Phone. CrunchBang may yet live, and GnuPG is now well funded. We've got some great discoveries, we discuss how Free Software should be funded and there's even a Neuron to vocalise.

News:

CrunchBang Linux is no more, but it lives on as CrunchBang++. The future of GnuPG is now secure, thanks to over 220698 Euros in community donations. There's a new Raspberry Pi, and it's much faster than the old one. And Canonical has launched the long awaited Ubuntu Phone with the Bq Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition, and there are rumours of a more powerful Meizu MX4 edition to come.

Finds of the Fortnight:

From our #linuxvoice IRC channel on Freenode:

james_olympus This isn't really a find because it's been on the Raspberry Pi blog, but thought I'd mention it: http://www.raspberrypi.org/emulation-on-raspberry-pi-2/

Nanu_Phoenix> You asked me to remind you about the Marmite Easter eggs...

Vocalise Your Neurons:

Huge thanks to Ricardo for his thoughts. If you'd like yours read out next time, email them to [email protected].

Voice of the Masses: What's the best way to fund Free Software?

In this episode: There's yet another serious Linux vulnerability to contend with, but there are new Linux machines from Dell. Bodhi Linux is making a return and there's a new version LibreOffice, including a version for Android. We've got lots of tasty Finds and a Voice of the Masses about old hardware.

News:

The glibc GHOST buffer overflow vulnerability is remotely triggerable and potentially a serious threat to your servers. Here's the Super Mario World exploit being performed on a real SNES (rather than an emulator). Dell has updated and expanded its Linux-running Developer Edition range. Bodhi Linux has returned from the abyss, bringing with it a release candidate of 3.0. LibreOffice 4.4 has been released, and there's now a beta version, of sorts, for Android.

Finds of the Fortnight:

From our #linuxvoice IRC channel on Freenode:

Umm... Quodlibet sucks less than Rhythmbox, Banshee etc. Does that count? And its companion tagging app, ExFalso, is teh smartness..

Here's a newbie-friendly one: To get Your Picture Here in the login session "greeter", put a 96x96 pixel PNG file called .face in your home dir. Maybe that's for a newb section in the mag; not really a "find".

For the keyboard-centric anti-mousing fanatic, Conkeror is a web browser based on the same XulRunner engine that Firefox uses. Very efficient. Runs some but not all Firefox plugins -- basically the ones that don't assume Firefox presentation widgets are always present. Very Emacs-y in conception and implementation, including being customizable and even reprogrammable at runtime, using standard JavaScript.

RFC 1149 IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers.

Graham:

Head tracking with OpenTracker and LinuxTrack.

PaperWorks is an open source Evernote/Google Keep note taking platform.

Andrew:

Valve had an in-house economist who is now Greece's new Finance Minister.

Ben:

linux.conf.au 2015 has put all its talks online.

Daala is a completely open and uniquely engineered (by Mozilla and Xiph.Org Foundations) video codec that even has its own Javascript implementation.

Evolve OS's beta Budgie desktop is looking rather good.

Mike:

Lille is actually a rather nice French town.

vsch, a git wrapper that allows you to have several git repositories in a single directory - very useful for your home directory.

Vocalise Your Neurons:

New Year apathy means we have no neurons. But if you'd like yours read out next time, email them to [email protected].

Voice of the Masses: What's your oldest machine running Linux?

In this episode: We look at the results from the latest Arch user survey, hear about the first x86 HDMI dongle PC we can think of, and there are two Tizen news items (remember Tizen?). We've got some tasty finds, thanks to the community, and a Voice of the Masses with a slightly political edge.

News:

Gnome usage has just edged out KDE in the latest Arch user survey. x86-based Intel Compute sticks have been announced. The long-rumours Tizen phones have finally been released in the form of the . And Tizen is also making its way to Samsung's latest smart TVs.

Finds of the Fortnight:

From our #linuxvoice IRC channel on Freenode:

I have found out that Creme Eggs are now sold in boxes of 5 and the chocolate has changed, which is OUTRAGEOUS but not really Linux related.

My Find of the Fortnight is cheese on toast with a layer of Marmite on the bread before the cheese.

related find: cheese on toast with a layer of mayonnaise and mustard!

I love cheese on toast with a layer of wholegrain mustard & tomato puree, I'll have to try mayonnaise. :)

My foody related find of the fortnight previous to this fortnight, is to throw some cinnamon stick in the grinder when grinding my coffee beans, it makes for a lovely cuppa!

actual find: notmuch mail [notmuchmail.org] - it's a thing for tagging your email and then being able to search it very easily - it deals with vast quantities of email quite happily.

another actual find: fasd [https://github.com/clvv/fasd] remembers where you've been in your filesystem and then allows you to jump to locations really easy. e.g. typing `z lv` would drop me straight into /home/steve/Documents/lv/ if I've been there recently/frequently.

Find: MHDDFS - https://romanrm.net/mhddfs Join multiple File systems to for a single larger FS.

Graham:

Dexed, an open source recreation of Yamaha's famous 1980s FM synthesizer.

Andrew:

£7 for the CamJam EduKit.

Ben:

A vertical mouse could help painful wrists.

Don't trust anyone, even your VPN provider.

Vocalise Your Neurons:

Due to Mike's absence, we didn't have any neurons in this episode, but if you'd like yours read out next time, email them to [email protected].

Voice of the Masses: How can we educate politicians?

In this episode: In our last podcast of the year, we get together to talk about the Pirate Bay, new cloud stuff from Canonical (and an imminent new phone!) and getting a Raspberry Pi into to space. We've got some ace finds, a neuron and the Voice of the Masses.

News: The Pirate Bay is no longer. Fedora 21 has been released. Canonical has released Snappy Ubuntu Core. Raspberry Pis are going into proper space. Microsoft fights the US government for Irish data.

Finds of the Fortnight:

Andrew:

There is a Mormon temple in Harrogate, Yorkshire.

LibreOffice is a recognised format for the UK's new VAT reporting scheme.

The Raspberry Pi Robotics Challenge competition was rather good.

Mike:

What is the most expensive human-made thing?

Barbie couldn't exist as a human being.

Graham:

Pydio 6.0 is another open source Dropbox file sharing and sync alternative.

wicd is a Curses interface and daemon for configuring wifi networks.

Ben:

Seafile is an alternative to OwnCloud.

Piwik is great for web logging, but GoAccess is a good companion for log file analysis.

Voice of the Masses: What was your FOSS highlight of 2014?