LINUX Unplugged - 536: Plasma Power-Ups

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

The problem with GNOME's great news, plus our first look at Plasma 6. Then, the surprising place NixOS is getting adopted.

They're calling it Vega. Amazon plans to make their own Linux-based OS to replace Android. Yeah, not just replace it, but, you know, get away from the fact that they're struggling with the bloat of Android. I like that framing. I mean, part of me wants to see it because the Fire tablets, I've got a few of them. They're okay, especially if you get some of the newer ones. But, man, Android does feel like a pig on there. I think it's starting with the TVs.

No, no, no. We've already got WebOS. Just use WebOS. I mean, it's in that flavor, maybe not actually, but in the name because it's powered by React native. So, you know, JavaScript developers can finally reach the TV. Oh, God. Hello, friends, and welcome back to your weekly Linux talk show.

My name is Chris. My name is Wes. And my name is Brent. Hello, gents. Coming up on the show today, we're going to look into the brief future of desktop Linux and take a little snapshot of how Plasma 6 is coming along and share you some of the interesting bits that are coming up that we're excited about. And then, the very surprising place that's seen some NixOS adoption. I was shocked. I had a great opportunity to chat with a few folks, and I'll share that experience with you on the show today. So before we go any further, let's say good morning to our friends over at Tailscale. Tailscale is a mesh VPN protected by WireGuard. WireGuard. We love it. It's going to change your networking game. I sync all of my private data over Tailscale now.

Nothing goes over the public internet. It's like I've built my own decentralized web on my own little land. Yeah, I'm disappointed. You got a lot harder to hack after that. Yeah, sorry about that. So go say good morning and try it for free on 100 devices while you support the show. Go to tailscale.com slash Linux Unplugged. And it is fantastic to welcome back the Mumble Room. Time-appropriate greetings, Virtual Lug.

Hello. Hello, Chris. Hello. Hello. Hello. Wow. Great showing. Huge group up in the quiet listening, too. Look, Chris. Hello. Hello. Hello. Wow. Great showing. Huge, huge group up in the quiet listening, too.

Look at that. They have hands. Aha. Aha. Oh, yeah. We're back in the studio. I'm really feeling the vibe right now. It is so nice to be back and just have, like, buttons and, like, levers and sliders and stuff.

Oh. And so many screens. So many screens. The tuxes are going right now. I don't know much. I don't have to say it over and over again. I just want you to go vote. So I'm saying it now.

I should come up with a better, more motivational plug. But, you know, we want this to represent the best opinion and the largest cross section of our audience as possible. That only works if you go vote. Yeah. The, you know, the least input we have on it, the better. That only works if you go vote. Yeah. The, you know, the least input we have on it,

the better. Tuxes Todd party for that. Hey, have we, uh, this year described what the tuxes are? I feel like we've just been referring to them as just the tuxes. Go vote and find out. Yeah.

You do get a sense if you go look at it, it does answer that in a way, you know, cause people, you know, with the context of being what it is and all, but you can, uh, think of it as the premier award show for our favorite voted by our audience

open source projects for the year. We talk a lot of things, a lot of stuff on this show, but which ones really stood out and made a year out of it. That's for the audience to decide. And then once a year, annually, we hold the tuxes. It's a special edition of the show and we announced the winners and something kind of's a special edition of the show, and we announce the winners. And something kind of special. After you go vote, the show mascot, the Golden Dragon, has made a I voted in the Tuxies sticker. Wait, what? Yep, for five bucks on his website.

So the profits go to the Golden Dragon, but he's a great community member, and he's going to kick us back a little bit in the boost. So we'll get a cut of the action. I like this method, right? Because we don't have time to do this. He's great with this stuff and he'll kick a little value back to the show if you pick one up. So we'll put a link to the I voted in the 2023 tuxes with look at what a dapper. I'm really this is impressive. That's a dapper tux. I love that suit.

I want I wish I looked that good. You know, I think you could pull it off. Yeah.. I wish I looked that good. You know? I think you could pull it off. Yeah. Maybe with a top hat. Maybe. We'll put a link to the I voted in the 2023 Tuxes sticker if you want to grab yourself one. It could be a fun way to, I don't know, make something more out of this, I guess. All right.

Let's talk a little news. There is some things going on this week that we wanted to have a chance to chat with you all about. And I think the thing to start with this week is the really big news for the Gnome Foundation. The Gnome desktop has been recognized as a public interest infrastructure project. That means they have qualified for about a million euros in funding from the Sovereign Tech Fund. That will go in directly to the project to fund certain developments and things like that. We can get into that in a moment, but just at a high level, what an absolute fantastic opportunity for the Genome Project, right?

I mean, yeah, nice recognition and a great investment to keep up all the great stuff they are already doing. It's interesting to, I guess we'll dive into some of the stuff that they're specifically targeting. But I feel like we haven't seen just a nice positive story like this for maybe too long. So let's just be happy. I noticed some people were saying, well, what about like the European desktop, KDE? Why aren't they getting these kind of things? But maybe we'll just stay on the happy side and ignore those questions. I mean, it's fair. I looked a little bit,

I think anybody could probably do a little bit more research and learn more, but I looked a little bit into the Sovereign Tech Fund. They started in October of 2022. They've been financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. They're incubated at something called Spring GMBH. So it kind of gives you an idea of where they're based out of. They have about 11.5 million in euros available for operational funding in 2023. It's run by two individuals, although I think the decision process is done by a committee. It's primarily operating under a grant from the German government. Then they kind of look at different open source projects that they want to spend money with.

There are some on there that you would recognize. Hey, look at that curl. Love to see that. WireGuard. OpenSSH. Yeah, a lot of good stuff. Yocto. Yeah. So they've been spreading the funding around. I would imagine though, so you got a lot of projects you want to support.

You got 11 million euros to work with. Maybe you only do one desktop project I suppose we don't even know if KDE applied necessarily you probably have to know this exists as an option and applied and whatever else I'm pretty pleased to see where the money is actually going in the past you'd see a scenario where

maybe Genome would have 700,000 going in and 400,000 or more of it would be going towards outreach and social projects, which are good but not always directly development-related. And in this case, these investments actually all seem to be pretty much directly development-related. Improving the current state of accessibility, that is clearly going to require a lot of code. A new prototype of accessibility stack as well. Yeah, I think the combination there, the investment, and

I mean, we've already kind of, it comes up a lot that, at least on the Linux desktop, GNOME's kind of the sometimes your best bet for some of those accessibility features, so I'd probably just keep doubling down on that investment already. Yeah, and then some, looks like some options and configuration ability for home encryption,

modernizing GNOME secret storage. That also seems like a really good thing. I like the expand and broaden free desktop API. So that at least maybe somewhat appeases Brent. If we get some investment in stuff that isn't just for GNOME, assuming that other desktops implement whatever things they approve, of course, but you know,

the option is there. Yeah. At least we'll be the option is there. Yeah. At least we'll be a free desktop API in standard. I think that's probably a good thing. I can't – here is my kind of steel man side of this, the negative side of this in my – so I think maybe it's not so much that one project is getting money and another project isn't because that does just kind of happen from time to time. I think it is – it perpetuates a problem that is just going to

get worse over time. By not solving this problem now, we are going to have a real doozy one day. And this may not really be an issue, but I believe as time goes on, the probability of a lot of the Western countries having a significant recession increases. Germany just recently announced they are officially in a recession. Germany is the economic powerhouse of the European Union. And now they are in recession. And Germany is the government that is funding the sovereign tech fund. If Western governments slide into recession, and they may or may not but the probability is

increasing funding like this starts to dry up they're not just going to have nearly 12 million euros to throw around these types of projects are going to get starved so we'll either see a reduction or an elimination in these funding programs which means a reduction or elimination in free software funding. And I maintain that until we have free software primarily funded by the individual and the direct consumer of the software, and as long as we rely on large corporations and large governments to fund this software development, then we are essentially relying on subsidized free software. And as long as we are relying on subsidized free software, it will eventually come to an end because everything that's subsidized will eventually come to an end.

That is the economics of the situation. And if we proceed to slide into recession, we will likely have that very situation materialize. And I feel like we're just still hooked on the good stuff. Like so many people don't see this, yet they clearly will criticize Mozilla for being dependent on Google for their funding. And yet we don't see this, yet they clearly will criticize Mozilla for being dependent on Google for their funding. And yet we don't see the exact situation that is playing across so much of free software right now. We're blind to it, even though it is exactly the Mozilla-Google situation. And until we solve that problem, we are going to pay greatly one day, because if most of the Western economies go into recession, then most of the western economies go into recession then most of the

western governments are going to not be able to fund this kind of stuff all around the same time and in the exact same time we've also seen a dramatic reduction in sponsorships of free software and advertising based free software and all advertising in general i feel like a real problem is brewing here and while i while I'm really glad that they got this funding, I think the long-term problem here isn't solved. And I don't want them not to get them. And of course, I'm glad, but I just, man, I wish the Linux community could pull their head out of their ass and realize what a great free ride they've gotten and the privilege they have for not having to think

about the economics of software development. They have been extremely privileged and that has blinded them to a problem that we have been discussing since the very beginning of Linux Action Show and is only getting worse. And I just, nobody sees it. And it drives me crazy. And I, I know that it is also at the same time a very positive story. So I don't want to be such a downer about it. But my god, have we got to solve this problem. Isn't that just – aren't they kind of separate in a way? I mean I think you're just arguing don't be reliant on this.

Like you're going to need that funding. And I suspect – I think the positive side is we should be doing this and while our governments have money, I like the idea that they should be some of the funders of this because it is a common economic – it is the kind of thing that we can easily allocate resources for as a collective. I think too. It's like I feel like the probability of this going away is getting higher. I'm not saying this guy's falling, but looking at this, if the economic powerhouse of the European Union has officially entered recession, then how likely is it that the other economies are also going to go into recession? If you have multiple recessions happening at the same time, it's extremely likely that they're going to cut

funding extraneous projects like this. Or at least if they want to be fiscally responsible they should so it's like yeah i mean i really feel like the community needs to have a very honest conversation that developers have got to eat um and it's like yeah we're not solving that still and when we do see funding it's like the only funding we're seeing is like this stuff and i'm glad i'm grateful for it i would like to have both i wouldn't want this to go away. Yeah. I would like to have this and for the actual projects to be funded by the users

that are using the projects. Right? Like that would be, in my preference, that would be a larger source of funding would be the users. Yeah, a stable backdrop. But this doesn't, you know,

this kind of stuff doesn't go away. Yeah, right. And like you're saying, right? I mean, like in terms of planning, that's kind of how you'd want to do it anyway because you don't know. I've got this grant for this time. I can aim it at these specific projects. But that doesn't pay the like every month bills in perpetuity. Yeah, you don't know what it means for 2024 or 2025 or however the funding works out.

But at the same time, at least you got a year or something, right? Like that's huge at the same time. So it's really good to see. And I think looking at the projects that the Sovereign Tech Fund has chosen to support, they seem like really great projects. Like you mentioned, Curl and WireGuard are on the list for God's sake. Yeah. I think also, you know, they call out some folks here at the bottom in the announcement, Tobias Bernard and Sonny Piers for organizing and managing this. And I imagine there's a fair amount, you know, any of this kind of stuff. There's also all the overhead that goes with, like, applying for these things, receiving them, complying, whatever, like, reports and updates need to go out

as, you know, as part of the process. All of which aren't necessarily bad in terms of transparency and oversight, but if you just have, you know, like you're saying, sort of a better backdrop of funding from the users, maybe that stuff that, you know, that kind of stuff can be optimized away, or at least somewhat.

I'm curious how you feel the foundations fit into this picture, Chris, because aren't places like the Linux Foundation, or at least Free Software Foundation, they're trying to increase the longevity of free and open-source software development. Are they succeeding? Are they just failing? Is it more complex? As time goes on, I feel like what the Linux Foundation is doing

is consolidating commercial control and picking winners and losers in free software. I mean, if you just look at the results, there definitely have been projects that get funding, but then we could do a story once a month, at least about a developer who burns out because their project, even though millions of users were using it as some sort of dependency, never got any support. The Linux Foundation simply cannot scale to that level because it can only be a constrained set of people that are picking and choosing what gets financing in a system like that. There's only going to be so many projects in their purview and there's only going to be so much budget. And if you look at the actual money they spend on free software and Linux, it's like 3% of their

budget. So it just isn't going to work at the level we need it to work now. When you think of all of the software that's on your system, not saying every single piece of that should make like, you know, some, somebody's not gonna make a full-time living, but there has to be some sort of exchange of value there to keep these people going, to keep the software funded, to keep that whole ecosystem robust enough where people are willing to constantly deal with the changing nature of Linux and free software in general. I mean, I just feel like the history of what we see with software development, it just makes this painfully obvious what I'm saying. It's just painfully obvious.

And I think the reason why I'm a little extra worked up about it right now is because the probability of economic headwinds is exponentially growing over the last just couple of weeks. Like if you're watching the larger macro picture, the situation in the Western governments fiscally has gotten a lot worse in just the last couple of weeks. So the probability is increasing. So my concern is increasing. I wonder if this will just unfortunately have to be something where, you know, as that comes to pass, if it does, you know, do Linux desktop users just need to see the worst, you know, oh, you know, I'm not seeing the feature improvements I used to be seeing. I'm not, you know.

I think maybe, too, there's a free software open source mindset shift that needs to take place. One of the reasons I went to adopting Bitcoin this year is because Bitcoin is free software. But yet, I think over the years, Linux users have developed tunnel vision as to what we kind of think of free software and open source. I think it's mostly we think of Linux and then the ancillary projects around it that we run on our Linux boxes. And then things outside of that world don't really get the same kind of interest or attention or care or consideration, even if they are actually free software. And I think you can see this with some of the large language model development we're seeing and the complete blind spot that so many Linux users have. You can see it with the different cryptocurrency developments and how so many Linux users have no idea what's going on there, even though this has

been one of the most significant developments in the last 13 years of technology. And you can see it over and over again in those communities as well. People that are deep into those other communities don't actually see Linux as really sort of the same thing. And I think until we have a mindset that we have a wider encompassing mindset of what is free software, we're going to have a really hard time funding it. I think it's like multiple problems, right? It's like privilege of never really having to care how Linux was funded or how the software got on your computer. You just had the privilege of getting the ISO. I mean, that's massive, right?

If you even had to pay $100 to get that ISO, you'd be thinking a lot more about where that software comes from and how it's made. a hundred bucks to get that ISO, you'd be thinking a lot more about where that software comes from and how it's made. And then I think we've had the privilege of, at least in the last decade or so, we have existed in an era of very large corporations spending money to have their backs scratched and resulting in code that we all get to use. And we've had governments, especially in the West, that have been printing money money and so they can fund any little political pet project that comes up with zero consequence because they have unlimited cash and so they have been able to fund all kinds of things that wouldn't normally get funding and all of that's coming to a slowdown at the same time so it just feels like a real transition we're going through and how do we maintain the quality of software when even companies like red hat are de-investing in projects like the end of the

evolution back end for the gnome desktop is going to have ramifications for anyone that uses the gnome online accounts feature i think the other component here is over time right like it's kind of different than some of the early days where like when linux was a you know just a sort of newer thing you know maybe you're running on the, you wouldn't trust it in production just yet. We're really relying on a lot of this open source software. That's what I'm feeling. You know, in governments, in businesses and in a lot of our personal lives, at least. Linode.com slash unplugged.

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And I guess the alpha is out this week. So the alpha is out. It has the latest version of Qt, which is Qt 6, which is the framework that Plasma's built on. Now, you gents have lived through mega releases before. I have not. So this is kind of new and exciting for me. I wrote down some notes here, but you'll correct me, right? So Plasma 6, as I mentioned, so I guess it'll feature Qt 6.6. Coming with that is a few other KDE sort of umbrellas. So Gear 6.0 and the frameworks as well. And so they're calling it a mega release because all of these things will release at the very same time. And in theory, there's a lot of development work to move to that new framework. theory there's a lot of development work to move to that new framework yeah i mean uh cute six came out just for context in 2020 december 2020 okay uh major overhaul moved to a new c plus plus

minimum version they switched to the cmake build system new graphics architecture a bunch of modules a minute like there was there was a lot of changes which i think is why it's where like you know cute six is at the 0.6 release, and we're just getting the Plasma version. And I think that maybe underscores some of the stuff we're going to get into about what you will and won't see that's changed, because just getting what was working with 5 working on 6 is a lot of work by itself. That is the work. So that's what we've got to appreciate about Plasma 6, is what these two just described is the work of Pl by itself. That is the work. So that's what we got to appreciate about Plasma 6, is what these two just described is the work of Plasma 6. So you're not going to install Plasma

6 one day and be like, holy crap, everything's different. Look at this new menu. Look at this new widget over here. That's not going to be Plasma 6. I mean, those things may roll out over the lifetime of Plasma 6. But yeah, just, and we knew when Qt 6 came out, we knew that was going to be a massive amount of work. And I think that's why it's been since 2020 and we're only really kind of seeing us get there now. The actual achievement will be to kind of keep the existing experience functional. Right. Do you kind of mostly not notice except for the good bits that have changed? Yeah. If you don't notice, I feel like it's a success, right?

Now, that said, I think you will see a little bit of improvement with the Breeze theme. They have worked. Yeah. If you don't notice, I feel like it's a success, right? Now, that said, I think you will see a little bit of improvement with the Breeze theme. They have worked that in. And I kind of wish there was something kind of whiz-bangy

because that's always what gets users to really adopt. Maybe you do that in Plasma 6.1 when you've kind of nailed things down. And then you introduce

something kind of whiz-bang new looking. And that really, then all the distros move over or something like that, right? And you can see it, especially if the sort of initial release is, hey, we got it all working. And then after that, you can start taking advantage of some of the new things that the updated framework allows you to do. So we have some milestones coming up.

Yeah, the beta releases as well. You know, you're saying there's no whiz-bang features, but I feel like there's still an opportunity. So there are a couple betas. I guess the first beta, we're in alpha right now, so if you want to play with it, things are going to break. That's just how it goes. But if you want to wait just a couple weeks for maybe a more stable experience, the end of November we'll see the very first beta release, and there will be a second one closer to Christmas. So just in time for, I don't know, maybe you've got time off,

or that's really what you want for Christmas. If you're wondering about the final release, Plasma 6 is scheduled for February 28th of next year. So it's going to be a while. There's a lot of work to do still, I would imagine, but a lot of bugs for a Brent to find. So, but if you're interested, I would say go out and grab it. You can get it KD Neon's Unstable branch.

You can play with it, right? We did. And I think it's true. It just kind of works from what I noticed. And there's a few little tiny differences, but nothing like huge and major, which I think is a good thing, right? But I'm hoping they will find a little feature or two to throw into these betas. We'll see. We'll see. And I'm sure we'll report on that as well. As a Plasma connoisseur, Brent, what are you looking forward to in Plasma 6? You know, I probably should have thought of

that question and seen it coming. You know, I don't think I've had any really strong desires for features that I've been sorely lacking. I know for you, Chris, given the amount of extensions that you're installing on GNOME, often it's nice to see those things come natively, which you've seen in the last couple of weeks. But I think you might've stumped me on this one. Oh, oh, I have one. Okay. So I noticed that one of the new features that are already out there is in KRunner. You can reorganize the search results. So whenever you type for a file or something, maybe you want the files to always show up at the top. Again, it's a small thing, but it's like a life improvement, right?

Especially because KRunner is pretty darn handy, and I imagine there's quite a few-Runner power users out there who would appreciate just that kind of detail. A couple things I'm looking forward to. I mean, we've mentioned recently that it's going to default to Wayland. I think that's just a good milestone. HDR-capable gaming is going to be there. That's going to be just so awesome to see. And then I think the other thing that I'm probably the most looking forward to would be just the work that's going into the settings panel to kind of rework it a little bit.

The printer area has gotten some love. And I guess I guess I need to play with this. Everything they write is now one dialogue in there. So they've changed the way it kind of lay. I don't know. I got to play with the layout. But it looks like they're improving that. And then last but not least, the situation with flat packs is a little better in Plasma 6 too.

So I kind of been relying more on flat packs. So that'll be nice to see when we get there yeah i wanted to play with that unfortunately discover crashes when i try to launch it at least in the test system i got installed i'll give it time i do like the task the new task switcher that's pretty nice uh although i one of the entries i see is the wayland to x recording bridge i don't know quite what that's about uh it doesn't actually pop up anything when I select it. So you can tell it's definitely an alpha, but I've been impressed by how much it has remained the same.

Yeah, just getting to that bar, if it wasn't for the Breeze update, you wouldn't really notice a difference when you just load it. It's kind of wild. I guess I have one wish, and there's something I'm kind of worried about. I want to see it land in the LTS coming up of Kubuntu 24.04.

But it feels like that date we saw, February 28th, and I guess the Ubuntu feature freezes are usually around that time. So I worry maybe Plasma 6 won't land in that LTS and then it'll be a full, what, two years before that lands in there. That gets me worried. Yeah, but see, that kind of goes with what I was saying. I agree, but these moments have definitely happened before in plasma past.

And ultimately what you really want is for people to have a really solid experience with one of the most commonly recommended Plasma distros. So Kubuntu kind of plays an important role, I think, in the Plasma desktop ecosystem. And what they could do is ship 5.27.whatever it is at that point, which is an LTS release and very solid right now. it is at that point, which is an LTS release and very solid right now. And they could ship a very, very solid but still very good version of Plasma on top of an Ubuntu LTS, which is also in theory going to be extremely stable and reliable. And the combination makes for such a solid, safe recommendation to new Plasma users that I think the downside of not getting Plasma 6 is worth it

because in the next LTS cycle or in one of the interim releases, they could switch to Plasma 6 and work it out before the LTS release and then maybe even ship Plasma 6.1 in that next LTS release, right? So you have those interim releases after this really solid LTS is out, which can be made available for five years. And then in that five-year window, in the interim releases, you hash out the migration to 6. And then ideally, if you had Chris's wish list, with the next LTS, 6.1 Plasma Desktop ships on Kubuntu. And it's yet another really solid recommendation, and it's going to be a great experience because they've had those interim releases to work it out yeah plus brent you can just run neon right well i chris actually that's a really good point i think i was looking at this as too narrow a time focus because from

what i looked at plasma 5 came out in 2014 of july so it's been around a while so i'm thinking oh it's you know they're gonna miss it by a month, the release deadline. But there are many LTSs to come in Six's life. And, but I wanted to find out from you guys, you know, maybe you lived through the transition from four to five. And I want to know how that went. Do you remember what it was like? That was surprisingly, I think, pretty good. The rough one was three to four. I think the project internalized some scars with the three to four transition. And it was a different, again, a new version of Qt and all of that. And a lot of things were very unstable.

So when it was time for version five of Plasma, I feel like the project was a lot more intentional about making it a smooth transition. like the project was a lot more intentional about making it a smooth transition. And that same lesson learned from four to five is what's guided the five to six transition we're seeing now. Collide.com slash unplugged. If you're in IT, if you have to focus on security, I have got a glass of cold water while you're in that desert, my friend. It's just not really gotten any better. The main problem, the one that drove me out of IT, is end users that accidentally bring on compromised systems.

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Make sure you have this antivirus installed first. Here's where you get that. And that solves the problem for the end user really quickly, and it keeps it out of the hands, out of the hair of IT. It really is pretty great. So go experience the solution. They got a demo for you over at collide.com slash unplugged. That's K-O-L-I-D-E dot com slash unplugged. Go in there and watch, and that supports the show too.

And you can really see how Collide is just a seamless operation. It slides right in, starts solving problems. K-O-L-I-D-E dot com slash unplugged. K-O-L-I-D-E dot com slash unplugged. All right. As a dad of three, I feel like I can safely make fun about this. But let me ask you, too, what would you rather have if you could pick? Would you rather have on your flight back from El Salvador a toddler that's COVID coughing in the seat in front of you with every single breath? The poor thing. It was a sick kid.

Or a screaming baby in the seat in front of you that just is not having it and just cannot be comforted. Which would you prefer? I feel like maybe you had both. Yeah, not a lot of good options there. I guess I'll go with option B just because I don't want to get sick. Yeah. But it also sounds miserable. What about you, Brent?

You know, both sound awful for the child. But I'm going to choose B as well because I feel like it's short-term consequences versus potential long-term consequences for everybody. Yeah, I definitely indeed had both. That was quite the—we had two flights, so I had an opportunity to enjoy both. I will argue I think it's better than a young toddler behind you kicking your seat the whole flight, because at least you can like plug your ears with multiple things, right? That's true. I've been there though. I know how it feels for the parents. Oh man. And I almost, I almost got up and fought for the parent at just at a brief moment when we landed in SeaTac,

we had to like hang out on the tarmac for a while and that's the worst they want you to stay in your seat and they want you to stay buckled and this the only thing that would kind of chill this baby out would be if dad or mom could walk and bounce it a little bit and so we got about a 15 minute window where we're just hanging on the tarmac and so the dad gets up and starts doing the thing and the stewardess comes up and just with like no empathy tells him sir when we are on the ground before we reach the gate you will be in your seat and i just i almost got i almost got like he has been on this flight trying to trying to get this poor kid to stop crying this entire time the only thing that and we're not moving and if we do move

it's not like the pilot like just slams the thing into full throttle and we all get thrown back, right? And it's not like there's turbulence on the ground. So really this rule is so important that this poor, suffering dad and child can't just sit here and bounce lightly. And it's not like he's pacing. He's just kind of up in his spot. Poor dad. Anyways, I had a really interesting experience while in El Salvador. I realized when I started feeling better, like, I got to figure out the Linux scene here. I got to figure

out what's going on because I want to know, you know, from like, is there any Linux at all? Because I hadn't seen anything, but there's not a lot of technology to be seen. But I did end up bumping into two different groups that were actually both using NixOS in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. One individual that I spoke to, Rene Salamanca, was the GOAT of our conference. He really ran the AV and kept the conference and our track just really, really, really going smooth and just constantly anticipating problems and solving them before they came up. And he was there early and there late to make sure that everybody's ready to go. So like we showed up late, well, not late, but we showed up on time and the speaker,

the first speaker showed up really early and Renee was already there and had them all taken care of. That's great. Which, uh, by the way, he mentioned that he is available as a virtual assistant if anybody wants to hire him. So if you want, if you want somebody in El Salvador, he speaks English and, uh and is a hard worker, let me know and I'll put you in contact with him and I have his resume. But I talked to him about a project that he and his buddy are working on. I think I told you guys a little bit about it,

but it's this work platform they're building and the back end all runs on NixOS. And I asked, why Nix? Why did you guys pick Nix OS? And he put me in touch with an individual named Jay, who's also been working on projects with a group of students. And they're all using Nix OS. And so it's kind of become like this. So they're all recommending Nix to each other. You get to build in a little pool of Nix users and folks that can support other people learning and using Nix.

I'm like, where does this come from? So I was talking to Jay, because it was really his students that got the ball rolling, and he says they started with Debian. Okay, so that makes sense, right? That's how a lot of stuff goes. And they liked it, and they used that for a while, but they kept looking for ways

to make the system more reproducible so they could do quick recovery, or they could just give somebody something to run run and they would have a complete ready-to-go system because they wanted to build little systems that could work at small businesses as like maybe a bitcoin node so they could do they could run their own node for the business uh or like a little small business server that or a desktop because they really don't have anything some of them have phones but they've gone from – they went from no technology to cell phones, and now they're getting NICs.

And this group of students, as part of their classwork, goes out and does these deployments for businesses using like rebuilt computers. Oh, neat. And so they wanted a way to be able to recover business systems really quickly so like a student could go out who was like new in the program and could just get the system up and running really quick and so they over their own little course of discovery found the nix bitcoin project for the node aspect of what they wanted to do then from that figured out what nix was

and now are using nix for all of this for the desktops they're doing for the nodes they're doing for the little business servers that they're building. Wow. And Jay said, when I was talking to him, he was like, yeah, I was pretty skeptical at first. What is this weird niche distro? That's what he said. He's like, I was shocked when I looked up.

It's like you've been around for 12 years? I was like, I didn't, I had never heard of this. But he said the results were clear. The students liked it. And so they've been going out and deploying it. So then they kind of, through that network, have been recommending it to other people. So that's how Rene found out about it. And the project they're building for that work platform is using Nix. an influential Bitcoiner and he created the next Bitcoin project and he did a good job early on promoting it in El Salvador, the talks and there and help set it up for people. And I'll put a

link to one of his talks in there. And as a result, it really just kind of catched on like they needed this. They were looking for this solution. Uh, they were, and it just sort of fit, try to put yourself in my shoes. I'm there in El Salvador. It's not a very advanced country in a lot of ways. You don't see very much technology. You see mobile phones, that's it. And when I asked Rene, do you know anybody using Linux? And at first I thought, is he going to even know what I'm talking about?

And then I was like, no, he's just going to tell me Windows. And when he said yes, and then I – and imagine when I asked the distro and he said, Nix OS. That's just wild. Imagine that. I, and the Bitcoin dad and I were standing there, he was with me. He was like, no way. Like, we're just like, that's incredible. Then working it back. It makes sense.

But it took me a minute. I was going to give you a hard time for ruining our no Nix November, but it's kind of not your fault. You didn't expect this, right? Oh, did we officially do that? Okay. Starting now. Starting now. Well, I don't kind of not your fault. You didn't expect this, right? Oh, did we officially do that? Okay, starting now. Starting now. Well, I don't know if we did officially. Yeah, I don't think we did,

but maybe, okay. I was going to say I would be more shocked if this, if Nick's, I mean, part of it, I'm sure, is a little bit of the fact that we keep looking for it now, but, like, Nick's just keeps popping up over and over in all kinds of places. It is.

Like, it's been the year of Knicks. Ask not what your podcast can boost for you, but what you can boost for your podcast. Thank you so much, everybody, who takes a minute to support the show with a boost. Each individual production can be supported by using a new podcast app and boosting in. And deleted is our baller this week

with a big old boost 98 303 sets now he's encouraging me to check exactly which processor i have here because he says the original core duo was a 32-bit processor i think mine's the quad but i will try to double check that because if i already have a 32-bit cpu here i'm good to go chances are high i think additionally says for the 32-bit challenge i don't consider spinning rust a requirement ssds were available although the prices were ridiculous if you can put a sata ssd into whatever 32-bit system you end up with you have my blessing i just want the challenge to be about testing 32-bit hardware, not suffering with spinning rust.

Well. I like that. Okay. I like that feedback. You know, I had it pointed out to me in Matrix, too, that we could each just try to source our own 32-bit system. I don't know exactly how we would do that. See, I was trying to just find a common one or something, but I feel like we're close. Maybe we should shut up about it and wait because I think we're so close I don't want to spoil anything. I've got mine.

Okay. All right. I'm going to spoil anything. I've got mine. Okay. All right. I'm going to double check what I got. Let's see. Shout out to Bear, by the way. He sent me a box of track paper for the dot matrix. No way. What?

Yeah. So we got a box of paper now. And I'm going to get it set up. It's going to be great. Nev Boosin with 45,895 sats. I hoard that which your kind covet. It's going to be great. Nev Boosen with 45,895 sats. I hoard that which your kind covet. Fun for a space enthusiast less than 20 miles from me.

Here's the zip code. And so that's, I guess, 45895, which is a zip code in Ohio, it looks like. Hello, Ohio. Near Botkins and St. Mary's. Oh, yeah. Okay, look at this. He sent us his NixConfig. And also NixConfig.

I love this. This is my favorite thing. This is my favorite current trend on the show. Also, Nev suggests that any U.S. state that's not currently called Ohio, specifically Washington, must now be called future Ohio territory. Is that a declaration of war? Yeah, I think it might be. I think we might lose, too. I have to be honest. Oh, he's using MTR and GNU PG.

Good boy. He's got Steam installed, and he's SSH-ing into his box. I'm looking at his next config right now. And guess what? He's using Flakes. So what's he doing here with his garbage collection? He's doing garbage collection and then the dates is a time, 5 o'clock. So is he just doing automatic garbage collection at 5 a.m. every day?

When do you do it? I do it after like the 30th install or something. Like after the 30th or something. I kind of do it that way. And his channel version is at 21.11 in his next campaign. That's great. I could look at those all day long. Yeah, thanks, Nev.

Rustic Castaversa came in with 40,000 sats, simply saying, I see you, Brent. Let's get it going. what's going on over here i i don't know what this is about i think you do i think you do it's gonna come to you when we're not when we're not live and then you're not gonna tell us and then you'll play like you don't know still that's what i think's gonna happen isn't that what he's gonna do that? That's what he's going to do. User Eric the Red comes in with a row of McDuck's 22,222 sets. Things are looking up for old McDuck. He says it'd be fun to have a NixOS tips and tricks segment. If others are interested, thanks for the shows.

Oh, yeah, we could do that every week pretty easily. But I feel like people would get mad at us. They already do. I want to say I had a pretty, did I mention last week, I can't remember, that I had a neat experience where I bought something and it was essentially a row of McDucks. That's great, yeah. For the price. It was like breakfast or something.

You know, we'll I don't know if we're going to do a next tip section, although I would actually at a higher level really like more feedback on if it's too much Nix or not enough. I still think that's just a signal we'd like to get from you guys. I think maybe this trend of sharing Nix configs

could serve as somewhat of a sort of sidestep answer to that, because I am 100% sure. I haven't taken as much look as I want, but I'm collecting these links. I'm sure there are some great things I'll start doing. I'm looking at them and then grabbing ideas, and I bet a lot of the listeners are too, because we'll put them in the show notes,

unless you tell us not to. That is probably almost better than anything we could do on the show, in a way, because the work's already done there. VT52 boots in with $16,384. Good customers are as rare as platinum. That's for sure. Treasure them. And this is a follow-up about us talking about our Proxmox hesitation.

And VT writes, My issue is with the product's promise. Come learn this cool tool. There's a nice interface. And since it works at a higher level of abstraction than your old tools, you get more done in less time. It's a good pitch, but suffers in that the abstraction

is leaky and incomplete. You don't get to ignore the underlying OS. And as JWZ famously said, now you have two problems. VT, you did it. You nailed it. I was trying, I knew it. I knew there was a more intelligent way

to say what I was trying to communicate. And you did it. Thank you. It is exactly that. You got two problems now, because you have the abstracted layer you gotta learn, and then you also from time to time still have the actual underlying OS. You don't just get to ignore it.

That's it. That's so damn good, VT. So damn good. Thank you for the boost. I really appreciate that. Marchi boosted in a set of space balls, Satoshiis. So the combination is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That's the stupidest combination

I ever heard in my life! Sorry to hear you were unwell and about the bad timing, Chris. I hope the El Salvador trip is all fun from here on. P.S. This is a zip code boost. Take the first three numbers, multiply by nine, convert to hex, and then forget all about them and read this zip code boost. Take the first three numbers, multiply by nine, convert to hex, and then forget all about them and read this zip code, BS16.

Oh, Margie, I love that. I love that you did it. That's so great. So you brought the map. You're on it, Wes. Yeah, BS16 is somewhere in Bristol in the UK. Emerson's Green Ore, but I really hope it's this one, and I'm sure it's pronounced differently, but Puckle Church.

Hello, Puckle Church. Thank you for boosting in, Margie. That's so great. I already missed it. For anybody out there that has a CPAP, you know this experience I'm about to explain. It's probably going to sound kind of gross. So a CPAP, when you put it on, you don't realize it, but it has the smell of whatever place you're at.

And if you're just at that place all the time, that's what the place smells like. And you don't even notice it. But when you travel with your CPAP and then you put it on again at the next place, it smells like the previous place. And it's the weirdest visceral memory, right? So last night, I wake up in San Salvador at 4 a.m. We got in around 8 p.m. And I went to bed around midnight, which would be like 3 a.m. San Salvador time. So it was a long day.

And I was ready to just pass out. But I put the old CPAP on, fired it up, and I got blasted with the Airbnb. And I was like, I was back in San Salvador in the Airbnb, and I just laid there for a while. I go, yeah, this is great. It was a great experience. And it made me miss it. I was nostalgic for it.

I would love to go back. I don't know about the process of getting there. I sure do hate that. But it was a really enjoyable experience. I'll probably always remember it fondly, even though I got so sick. How was it finding some breathing water? So that's harder, although you can order a lot of things from the pharmacy and just have them brought to you by courier. Like Hedia, she bought insulin while we were there.

She didn't really need it, but it's the same brand. It's the same exact product, but it's $80 versus $600 here in the States. And they'll deliver it to you. So she's like, well, let's see if we can get you some distilled water. Well, no place, no grocery store has distilled water. And the only place that has distilled water is the pharmacy. So we ordered it from the pharmacy, but it comes in an IV bag. And like, you don't just like pop the bottom of the IV bag off and just start filling.

Like it doesn't work like that. So we had to like slice it open and then pour it into another bottle and then I use that. But it was pretty funny. It's like a lot of packaging for just a little bit of water too. I guess there's not a lot of CPAPs down there. Darvlin comes in with 3,000 sats. Well, of course the International Space Station runs Debian and needs an OS that just works and doesn't get in the way of important work. So thank you for coming in with the answer.

We had a few other people write in, too, that, yeah, to answer last week's question, the International Space Station does indeed run Debian. And that's pretty – I think that makes a lot of sense. Although, are they running scientific Linux and CentOS and RHEL down on the ground and dabbing it up in space? Someone better tell them about Nix. Dexbot comes in with 2,000 cents. Alert! Alert! Tuxes.party seems to have lapsed. It just goes to a parked domain page for me.

This was the boost that alerted me to this. Thank you so much, Dexbot. I was out and about and I pulled up the old boost dashboard just to check on things and saw this and, yeah, you know, I guess we must have registered a couple years around this time and of course if it's going to expire. That's when it's going to expire is when

I'm in San Salvador and I'm not really paying attention to anything and the show's gone out late that week already as it is, so it's like we're already just sort of out of sour so of course that's when it's gonna do it so i popped on there real quick did the old renew seems to be working now yeah professional operation sultros came in with 5 000 sats hey i noticed chris is obsessed with using idioms for everything so i wrote him this chris a linux user through and through, likes to kick the tires of any new distro,

ensuring it's not all hat and no cattle before he goes whole hog and integrates it into his daily grind. Chef's kiss. That is beautiful. Yeah, there's a bit of an old philosophy in broadcast about, you know, tell them what you tell them and then bring it home for them, right? And make a sandwich.

I think it's pretty. It's a golden rule. SamSquatch comes in with 10,000 sats using Castomatic. What problem does Flake solve? I've just been using regular configs. They're all short and they seem simpler so far. Also, take care of your health, Chris. Hope you're doing okay.

Thank you, Sam Squanch. Wes, why the hell do I need flakes? I mean, if you're just using NixOS and you're happy with the regular configs, there's probably no reason that you strictly need it. Flakes provide a more standardized schema, so you have inputs and outputs, which makes reusability and interoperability a much better story. So if you're trying to use stuff outside of Nix packages or building your own things, I think Flake's add a lot. Would this be a fair, simpler way to say it is you could

kind of make your own packages in a way, like say you had something on GitHub, you could pull that in using a Flake and you could just have it sort of, quote unquote, packaged for yourself. You don't have to have some maintainer putting it in the next repo. Yeah, yeah. And it allows a lot of workflows like that in a much more flexible way than you get with the sort of standard environment. Additionally, depending on how you feel about channels or if you need finer grained control of some versions, you want to like call some things out and like freeze those or jump them ahead. Flakes can also make that a little bit easier, think yeah that's a good point all i really heard west say just there was if you want your next hipster badge then flakes is the way to go

sure is okay all right that's fair karen bug comes in with 4,686 cents. Hmm, 686. Hmm. Starts with a question, what is Podman? It is a alternative to Docker that you might say is almost even more native to Linux in a sense. And I think one of the probably standout features is that when a lot of people are running Docker as root,

Podman came along and offered an option that didn't require you to run it as root to get some of that functionality. Didn't have to run as root. You didn't have to have this demon running in the background all the time. You can just kind of, you know, lightweight containers.

I believe Red Hat still remains the predominant sponsor and contributor to Podman as well. And then a second bit of this boost, funny how I actually got distressed almost when the episode didn't show up as soon as I am used to. I guess that means we're doing something right. Yeah, thanks. That's appreciated. Zack Attack boosts in with 6,543 sets.

I might have mistyped. I'm using Vert Manager for my dual monitor Windows VM, which really, really helps when I have to do work. As for Virtual Machine, I mostly use it to run Kali Linux to do network assessments. Easy to set up, easy to get going. Well, that's great to know. Vert Manager is even a better option than having to use VBox. I also used to use a little bit of Vert Manager on my Linux desktop and laptops to do network assessments.

I think it was – we didn't call it Kali back then. I forget. It wasn't BlackRock Linux, was it? Yeah, what was it? Somebody boost in and remind me what it was. Boyce79 comes in with 9,566 sats using the Fountain app. He says, here's a zip code boost, multiply it by five, and then add

four. This is where I do most of my Linux work. What do you mean? Are you a contractor? Are you like a contract Linux guy? What are you doing, boy? Are you going around moving? What are you doing? Businesses? Oh, okay. Right. He says, I currently use two clusters

of Proxmox servers to PixieBoot, CloneZilla, and store images with CephFS. Ooh. Yeah, that's nice. I was disappointed about your experience with Proxmox, but I understand your point of simplicity and your setup. Also, I love the Windows episode. In Linux, I would like to see PowerShell scripting to work with Active Directory in Linux for adding modifications of user accounts and whatnot. Keep up the good work, guys. Well, thank you, boys.

That's a fantastic boost. I am really envious of your setup. I think if I was using Proxmox in like a serious capacity of providing services for clients or for a business, I think that's a really nice setup, and I would be a lot more serious about investing in learning Proxmox.

Yeah, it's just not our use case right now. Oh, yeah. We've got a zip code here in a fun little town. Looks like it's 47834 if I'm doing the math right of multiply by 5 and add 4. And that looks to be a zip code near Brazil,

Indiana. Hello, Brazil, Indiana. Thank you for boosting in, Boise. Appreciate that. Magnolia Mayhem boosts in with $18,023. Starts with a little joke of Mayhem saying, y'all stay safe in El Salvador, quitchmark? And then Chris ejects his stomach lining. This is what I get for suggesting things. Yeah, it's your fault. And speaking of bad suggestions,

friendly reminder that I have a dual CPU rack mount that I'm pretty sure is 32-bit and I'm doing nothing with. A weird rich guy gave it to me when he found out I was going to college for IT, but I'm working two different jobs right now, so it's just sitting in my closet. I'd love to see it go to some good use. I also have an old single core 32-bit notebook netbook that someone gave me for a deployment back in 2013 that i haven't touched since 30 okay so it

is a server that would work as kind of like if we did a timeshare system yeah so the tricky bit is how do we get it um shipping the netbook wouldn't be too hard but the biggin might be a challenge oh i bet it's big. If there's enough community capacity, I do think I have an idea, though. Okay. My bad idea is doing a kind of pony express, where JB listeners drive part of the way across the U.S.,

handing it off as it makes its way northwest. As crazy as the idea is, enough interest might make it happen. Visibility aside, doing a distributed travel log would be a really cool content. We could document the travel and handovers from person to person. I could personally get as far north and west as Arkansas or Louisiana. So like 5% of the way there.

If there's anybody who could take over from there, hit me up in Matrix. I'd love to make this happen if the guys want this whole thing. That'd be pretty great. I don't know. You know, maybe like we could go, we'd have to take two tricks. Make it part of the way. Oh my god. Alright, let's make it happen then.

I would love to do a big server because I'd love it to be the same hardware. So we'd all have the same... My concern is that it's going to be a lot of problem solving for edge cases with each individual piece of hardware before we get to the Linuxing. Because they're all going to be old, weird pieces of hardware. Yeah, true.

But we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Init 6 came in with 4,444 sets. Is that like a new kind of duck or something? Could be like a row of McDucks. Quacka quacka, it's a treasure. Yippee! You know, I did find like a code guide for all the boosts. I just have to link it again.

Maybe we can integrate that into our little script. Oh! And it says, I really get your talk about Bitcoin and sats now as my bank started blocking some of the services like MoonPay and for some reason Prussia 3D, even though I definitely have money. Anyway, any tips on where to start getting more into sats and where to buy as a European? If someone has tips, but it's not relevant to the show, I'd be happy to receive them as a DM in it six in matrix. So I did follow up with a knit on matrix. Um, and I was just looking now he's in the Bitcoin, uh, and alt coins discussion room, uh, chatting with some fellow Europeans. So I think he's getting further answers, but we landed on hodl hodl, which is a KYC service

that you can do over there, do peer toto-peer transfers and i think that's probably a good way for him to go but i'm always interested if there's some exchanges people love that they feel safe even if they do have kyc i'd like to know about them thank you everybody who boosted in this week we stacked 300 135 sats across 19 boosters not bad at all considering it's been like three days since we recorded the last episode. So I'm very much thankful, everybody. Thank you for supporting the show. If you'd like to boost in and get your message read on the show, we do a 2,000-sat cutoff,

although we welcome all the boosts when we do read all of them and save them in each week's doc. You can get a new podcast app at podcastapps.com, and then you top those apps off with some sats and you can boost in. Or if you want to keep your current podcast app and you'd like to boost them from a website, just get Albie, getalbie.com, and then you can boost from like the Podcast Index or Fountain has a way to boost and Podverse has a way to boost from the web. We'll put links to that in the show notes. That's a great way to support each individual production because this is a value-for-value show.

So if you got some value out of our conversation earlier or made you think about something or even got you a little fired up and you just want to keep that kind of thing around please consider supporting it with a boost or by becoming a member at unpluggedcore.com we don't really know what the situation looks like next year but we want to keep the show around and we always want the audience to be the largest customer and so if you get something from the show give a little something back you can do that with treasure time or talent whichever works best for you that's just what ask. And we thank everybody who does support the show each and every week, right here, right now. This is your moment that we're thinking about you. Also, shout out to our sat streamers

who stream while they listen. We really do appreciate that too. And we see you. It's one of my favorite things to see coming in on that dashboard. I've really had a great idea for a pick this week. I don't know if it's so much a piece of software, but maybe a lifestyle. Oh, I like that. This is one that I've been thinking about sharing for a while because I don't think it gets much attention. And I also tried it a year ago and had a very bad time with it. But I think now is now is the time. So I want to bring attention to KD's Plasma activities. I've been using them for about six months now, I think. And if you don't know what they are, I don't blame you because they're very well hidden in Plasma's interface. They're kind of like virtual desktops, but to a whole other level. So you could see them

as almost like a superset of virtual desktops. So with activities, you change your entire context. And I'll explain that a little bit, but I want to find out, have either of you played with this at any point? Wes, Chris? Yeah, actually, way back in the day, I had Chris set me up a Plasma desktop when we got our workstation laptops from Linux Academy. And Activities was one of the first things he showed me. And I've been using them. I think I only have two, maybe three set up. But, you know, they're not like a critical part of the workflow. But they're something I definitely appreciate in Plasma.

I think I've diminished my use of them over time. But I used to have like a recording activity and then like everything else. That makes sense. Yeah. That kind of stuff. And I found that to be pretty useful because it's not just like a few small changes. It feels like an almost entirely different Plasma environment. You can really make a difference for each activity. And as Brent was saying, I mean, you can't get, you know, each activity has its own set of virtual desktops. It's like, you's like you're not giving up on stuff. You just get a whole new environment.

Yeah. I don't know why I kind of stopped using it. It seems really useful, but it might just be the complexity and it's not necessary for what I need to do. You know what? The two functions I've really appreciated and the reason I've stuck with them is, number one, I have an activity for like my JB stuff, which I mostly use when we're recording. And the reason for that is I have set that activity to never go to sleep and to leave the screens on at all times. Uh, cause Chris, I don't know if you've been on location and you're recording a show and

you know, you've been talking for a while and then the monitor goes to sleep because I don't know, uh, that is the most frightening experience ever. So I specifically have this activity avoid that for me. That is the most frightening experience ever. So I specifically have this activity. Avoid that for me. That's a great idea. Yeah. You can do individual power settings. Yeah. And screen sleep, locking or not locking. Yeah. Another feature I have appreciated is, is having various app icons in the panel. So for each activity, I can have different ones. So for instance, you might find that useful. I do for like when I'm at work, which I'm not really physically at work, but with activities, I can like change my virtual context and have the links to applications that I need only in that context, which for me has been actually quite helpful from a, uh, like a life

work balance standpoint. I have accomplished that in the past by having different computers in different rooms of my apartment or whatever, but this is just a virtual way of doing it, which I've quite appreciated, actually. I would say if you're looking into activities, there's not much documentation at all. A lot of the articles written about activities are like 10 plus years old. Activities first showed up in KD4. And I mean, they're still around. And from what I can tell, you know, I had a bad experience a year ago and now I'm having a better experience. So there's still some, there must be some work going on with it. But I did link to a video from our friend Nico who just kind of runs you through what activities can do and how they can be helpful.

So if you feel like trying it, I feel like you might just have a good time. So give it a try. I appreciate the reminder to give it a go again because I can't honestly tell you why I haven't been using it recently. And this machine here is a great Plasma system. I'm not switching from Plasma anytime soon on this computer, so I might as well embrace that kind of stuff. Man, I could even have activities for different shows if I really thought about it. It's nice, too. I like the feeling.

I mean, you get this with virtual desktops, but because of the integration with the other settings, it sort of feels like what you can do a subset with virtual desktops, but activities is sort of the abstraction that was meant to be for this. And I like the freedom of just, it really feels like you can leave stuff in that other activity. And, you know, as long as it's not eating

all your CPU or whatever. But pop over, you can do work. And then at the end of the day, you've still got like the articles you wanted to read from before. I know there's a thousand ways to sync and save those, but just having it left right there. It's like your state remains.

Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it. All right, guys,'s like your state remains. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly it. All right, guys. You talked me into it. You know, the real key for me to make it stick was I did some key bindings for each activity. So if I do super one, it's like just general. If I do super two, then that brings me to my JB, like always on environment. And so I have, I don't know, four activities set up,

one for drumming, one for work stuff. That was the real key because switching between them if you need to is super easy. What's he going to put in that? We don't want to know. There's some things we don't. I feel like the future for Plasma is really bright. I am not only excited about Plasma 6,

but I'm still kind of excited about 5.27. .8 is a really great release. .9, I'm sure. It's just at a great spot. They started this new endeavor when they got 5 to a really, really solid space. And if you ended up on 5.27 for the next couple of years, I think you'd be doing just fine. And it's going to be a great option going forward. I'd like to know, though.

Maybe this is something you could boost in. What motivates you to try out a new desktop environment? You know, if you've been a Genome user for a while, what would motivate you to try Plasma? Does it actually require some kind of disaster? Or is it something else? What motivates you to try it? Let me know. Now, next week, we're going to be fiddling with our live time. I presume we'll be live. It's not 100% guaranteed. But we're going to be fiddling with our live time i presume we'll be live it's not 100 guaranteed but we're going to be recording a little early to accommodate editor drew um we'll probably be doing that friday or saturday we just haven't quite nailed it down yet so when we do know if we are going to be live we'll put it at jupiter broadcasting.com calendar so that way you can

join us you can hang out in that virtual lug which is a great way to get a low latency opus stream of the show but also chime in share your thoughts, hang out with us in the before and afters of the show. Help us build the show. And I'm going to give one more plug to the members version because when you become a member at unpluggedcore.com you get the bootleg version of the show if you like and

there's some great stories especially when one of us is traveling like you'll always hear some of the real highlights in the members version it's just kind of stuff that maybe we don't put in the show for runtime and to keep the show really focused on the Linux stuff. But there's some really good stuff in the members version of the show. And if you want that, you want a little extra shows, sometimes double the show, unpluggedcore.com. That really also means a lot to us. That is a great way for us to project ongoing what our run will be. Thank you, everybody, though, who takes time to listen, share the show.

We really appreciate you tuning in. Even if we're not live at our regular time, I guarantee you we'll be in that RSS feed back at the regular time, as you expect. I apologize about the delay. See you next week. Same bad time, same bad station. And, of course, links to what we talked about today are at Linux Unplugged slash 536. You can head on over to jupiterbroadcasting.com. There's a self-hosted over there with an interview from Paulus from the Home Assistant project.

By the way, Home Assistant number two open source project on GitHub again. So you can find that over on self-hosted. Coder Radio is killing it. And of course, that's every week at jupiterbroadcasting.com as well. I'll leave it there, though. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you right back here next Tuesday, as in Sunday. Thank you.