LINUX Unplugged - Episode 117: Does Slack MatterMost? | LUP 117

Episode Date: November 4, 2015

New Desktop Environment updates grab our attention & the trend to move open source projects towards Slack has us concerned. Plus how the VW emissions issue is great for hackers, an OggCamp recap & we light a candle for Fedora 23.

So there's someone in the staging area, Marks, M-A-R-X. He's from Ubuntu Podcast. He's also a prior Ogg Camp organizer, and he's the guy that has a Steam controller and did our review and everything. That's wonderful. Will you pull him in there, Wes?

Yeah. I assume he probably has a working mic. I assume he probably has a working mic. I assume he probably does. Oh, I should start the show. He has an SM58 and a mixer, yeah. Chatroom, please bang suggest our show underscore. Okay, I should probably... Hello, Mark.

Hello, Mark. Hello, Mark. Hello, Mark. So, Mark, you had a chance, sounds like, to try the Steam Controller out. What do you think? Did better than we did. Yeah, you got farther than I did. What do you think of it did better than we did. Yeah, it got farther than I did. What do you think of it?

I'm really enjoying it. I've tried it with games with quite a few different controller schemes, and I found, yeah, it's generally really successful. Have you tried it with Alien Isolation? No, I've not got that yet. I'm scared to buy it because with games like that, I tend to waste my money

because I play for about an hour and then I'm just too scared to carry on. Yeah, that's probably my... I literally bought it because I've heard from a few people that it works out of the box with The steam controller, so I thought okay. This is the one to try it on it looks really visually impressive impressive, but no I tried I just tried it a few minutes ago and No dice so okay, so what's the experience like you you get a game? And it has controller support, and if it just has controller support, you just start playing immediately? Well, if it's got Xbox controller support, yeah, you just tell it to emulate a gamepad, and it works as an Xbox controller would. If it's got Steam controller support, like Portal 2 does, then it's even better because actually in-game it tells you to press the Steam controller buttons rather than the Xbox controller buttons, and that's really nice.

I wonder if that would have worked for this one. It seems like for me, it's like in a matter of months, a lot of little issues I ran into are just going to be totally solved because there'll probably just be just a couple of updates to some of these games. Like take Race the Sun, for example.

It seems crazy that it doesn't have controller support yet. Yep. But you give it a couple of weeks. I was playing that at Mark's house yesterday. It works fine. Okay, good. So when I went in there, it says it doesn't have controller support in the big picture mode, and that you have to...

That's the kind of support I'm talking about. Not that it doesn't work, I just mean that you have to... More integration. I've played a ton of Race to the Sun with the Steam controller, but I had to use a community config. And that's not such a bad solution it's kind of nice that valve set it up but it can especially be maybe be a good first wave to you until that how do you know but how do you know it's a good scheme you just sit there and try like four or five of them yeah

that's my criticism they need a like rating system so the best ones propagate to the top but other than that well you You can tell how many people are using it, but just because it's popular doesn't... That's not a horrible indicator. At least something, though. Yeah, go for the second most popular. I would like somebody that needs to upgrade controller schemes for players that have

actually beat the game. Oh. So you just want the macro that will walk you through the game. Oh. So you just want the macro that will walk you through the game. You know, I don't know why I even bother with this controller stuff, because the mouse and keyboard can't be beat anyways, and I shouldn't bother. Because you can hook up a mouse and keyboard

to a Steam machine, too. So, challenge accepted. For what? You use a keyboard and a mouse, and I'll use a controller, and see you win. Have I tried replacing the batteries? Oh, I should try that, huh? See, that's

the thing, you guys, is that the Steam controller is working in big picture mode and in the Steam overlay, and it does work in games when I go in there and manually map the buttons. It doesn't... What doesn't seem to be happening is if I select a controller config, it doesn't... The game doesn't seem to be happening is if i select a controller config it doesn't the game doesn't seem to be aware of any controller configure button layout that i've

selected and they and most games are telling me i don't have a controller connected even though i'm navigating the rest of your mode and the rest of the ui with the controller so are you on the steam beta i don't know what i'm on actually i could check but i i don't i could be that does sound like something i would do. It does sound like... Yeah, I've noticed the beta updates are coming almost daily on the Steam client lately, and the release notes almost always have, you know, fix this to Steam Controller, add this to Steam Big Picture mode.

So they're iterating very quickly right now. Yeah, you know what? That is actually a good point, is I should check for updates. That is probably something I haven't done for a few days on this, for more than a few days on this machine. Yeah, the beta checkbox is really easy to find in the account settings.

I haven't really, haven't had any I'm not currently participating, but I don't think I've really done updates either, so. Well, you'll probably find when you're, when controller recognizes your you've got buttons but not the actual controller mapping i found before i had the steam overlay turned on uh it just uses the mapping that the steam interface uses which is completely useless for

any game so yeah there is something going on there where it's it's picking up that you've got the controller in steam but it's not applying it in the game yeah okay well this is linux unplugged episode 117 for november 3rd 2015 welcome to linux unplugged your weekly lin Linux talk show that just threw out its no beer rule that it just made 10 minutes ago right before the show started. My name is Chris. My name is Wes. Hey there, Wes. You know, it is a tasty beer, too. Thank you for bringing these in.

That's my job, tempt you to break your rules. You're a good man. I appreciate that. Well, it's a good show to break the rules on. Coming up on this week's episode of The Unplugged Show, I tried out Ubuntu Mate 15.10 over the weekend. Going to give you my follow-up on that. We're also going to hopefully hear a little bit of how Odd Camp went,

and then we're going to get into some new desktop updates and some really great follow-up, especially for those of you that are looking to do some notes in plain text and have a nice way to organize them. We're going to talk a little about the Cinnamon desktop as well, and then we're going to look at the Volkswagen situation one more time because there is another big update there, and it has caused a whole new round of mainstream press to say,

this is why proprietary software is bad. It's amazing. It's hard to believe, but... We have a showcase in the show notes, and we'll talk a little bit about that later in the show. And then last, but not least today, as we're recording this very show, Fedora 23

hit the internets. The new Fedora is out. We're going to have our review on Sunday's Linux Action Show live on Friday. But we're going to cover what's new, how you can get it, and some of the things that we as a group are looking forward to for Fedora 23. Big release with GNOME 3.18 in it.

Oh, fancy. Yes, very fancy. Very fancy. So we have some follow-up and some things to get into, but before we go any further, I've got to bring in our virtual lug. Time-appropriate greetings, Mumble Room. Oh, boy.

Hello. I got the chat on you. Hello. Hey there. Hello. It's a big turnout today, too, so that's really cool. That's great to have you. Now, I hope some of you are also breaking the no beer rule that was implemented 10 minutes ago and then also—

Shattered. Shattered two minutes ago. I hope you're breaking that right now with me. So I have one bullet point in the show notes for this very, very important bit of follow-up this week. We have assembled a crack team of on-the-scene reporters from Ogg Camp 2015. And I'm hoping that – I know Popey's here. I believe Mark is here from the – some other podcast, I'm told. Actually, all these guys from some other podcast, I'm told.

Although those are probably rumors. They're probably not even in the U.S., and they're going to give us a roundup of what happened at Ogg Camp, so who should I give the floor to first? I think you should hand on to Mark first, because I understand Popey's having difficulty with his PC. Well, you know what? That's so funny, since he was giving me a hard time running Arch

before the show started. Isn't that appropriate? Filthy rumor. Filthy, filthy rumor. I actually think we should give it to Mark, too, though, since Mark made the special trip here. It's his first time here, so why not throw him under the bus right away? That only seems fair. That's our policy.

Yeah, that's the... So nice of you. Yeah, so Mark, welcome to Linux Unplugged. And tell us a little bit, for those who didn't listen last week, what is OggCamp and how the heck did it go? Well, OggCamp is, we call it a free culture on conference. So it's an event that's been running for the past six or seven years. I've lost count now. But basically we hire at a venue and then we convince a bunch of people to somehow turn up and come up with a schedule and give a load of talks about anything from, well, anything community driven really so we have people talking about raspberry pies we have people talking about

running in parks at the weekend we had panel discussions we had some live podcast recordings hardware hacking all sorts wow that is like a pick your choice there's going to be something there to delight any geek that would listen to this show, I think. I love the generality, you know, like it's not so constrained. You can kind of just come and share the cool thing you're doing. Yeah. And so I bet there's a lot of Linux that works up in that crowd that comes up. So how did it go? Was it a good event? Was there a good turnout? Did you enjoy yourself? I heard rumors of shouting, etc.

Shouting was mainly in the evenings. We went to some really cool venues in liverpool which were converted warehouses um and being a bunch of geeks rather than getting up and dancing of course we wanted to stand around and talk about geeky things all evening and they kept on turning the music up so uh by by the mornings we were a little bit hoarse that's hardcore we're still recovering the reason i think system d is actually a good idea. I can see it. Oh, you were there. Yeah, that's exactly what it was like. Interspersed with, I'd like another beer.

So how does it compare to last year? Is that like Odd Camp 14 and 13? Oh, that's a good question. So Odd Camp 13 was at the same venue. It was probably comparable, actually. I mean, we had some different things going on in terms of exhibitors but we had um you know um a similar sort of variety of talks last year was in a different venue and had um probably more of a focus on the the sort of exhibition space as well um there was some really cool like we had a load of hack spaces there last year this year we

had uh we had a few sort of hardware things and we had uh the ubuntu stall and the fedora stall across from each other in the in the exhibition space but we also had uh we also had an intro where exhibiting which was really cool with their ubuntu laptops that they're selling now yeah i saw a few pictures online of those uh and i did i also see a fedora laptop there too uh you might have done we didn't have anything to do with that right yeah yeah no i did i did i made peace with my fedora brethren and uh they were running uh fedora 23 and gnome 3 on a large a large uh panel and then on a laptop they were running uh fedora demonstrating their alternate spins and they had

the mate desktop running there so uh i decided to uh to make my peace with fedora and introduce myself to john archer and he's a lovely bloke that's right i had uh i had the the ubuntu stand immediately opposite fedora stand and partway through the day we uh we exchanged uh merchandise stickers and pens and badges and things. We played a game of football in no man's land. Nice. Very good. So it sounds like an event that was well attended. Popey, how did the live tracker end up working out?

I checked it at one point, but I couldn't tell if it was working or not. Yeah, it was kind of hit and miss. We had an Ubuntu phone polling our position to the website, and various people would tell us every so often when it was broken, which was usually because I'd poorly written the code on the phone, and it would run out of memory as it was logging far too excessively. That was my fault. That's actually pretty neat still, though.

But this is not indicative of other apps' performance. Right, yeah. Yeah. Oh, you got that undercurrent. Well done. Yeah, Poby's code is not. of other apps performance right yeah yeah oh you've got that undercurrent yeah poppy's code is not yeah exactly a little disclaimer that's still a neat thing though i like that i think very cool i think uh uh we should seriously come up with a a legitimate live tracker app for ubuntu phone and then in a future road trip when i go somewhere i'll use that to track where i'm going. Because I have this Silver Cloud thing for now, but I can swap that out anytime.

Anytime. Alright, so Wimpy and Popey or Mark, anything else from Oddcam? It sounds like it was a pretty fun event. I kind of want to go there. Yeah, me too. Yeah. One of the cooler hardware hacks that I saw was a Nerf gun range which someone had set up. There was, a few years ago, someone had built

a Minecraft crane, which picked up boxes and made them into sort of Minecraft style objects. And the same guy had brought the boxes along, made these sensors which you put inside. So if you shot them with a Nerf gun, it activated the sensor. And then you had that hooked up to this RFID tag system to identify who you were. And it tracked your score and tweeted you. Wow.

And there was a prize for the three top scores. The prizes were won by these three kids who discovered an exploit in the system and managed to get themselves scores of about half a billion compared to my 16,000. Is there a, you know, a lot of times when I attend a conference like this, even when there's like, you know, everything from software to hardware and community and just the open culture itself is really the highlight. A lot of times though you can't help but walk away and go, boy, I kind of feel like there was an overarching theme or an elephant in the room. And is there one like that at Ogg Camp? Is there like something is really kind of the buzz this year or there feels like a bubble or a trend that you observed

or is it really pretty dispersed? There was one that emerged as a theme. It wasn't planned, but there was a lot of discussion about online privacy. Yeah, I was wondering. That was the topic for the panel discussion and Linux Voice also recorded a live podcast

on the second day and that was also their discussion piece for the audience yeah that makes sense i was that's actually that was when i asked the question that was in the back of in the back of my mind mark were you gonna chime in with something too oh i was i was going to say exactly what martin just said actually. Privacy and online. And is it from the state, or is it just privacy in general? If you abstract it out from there, is it Snowden-type stuff, or what is it, the overall theme? That was kind of what came out. We were talking about whether the cloud is a good thing or a bad thing, basically,

and then we moved on to basically do people care about what happens to their data online? And should they care? And can we make them? That was where it all really went. But it does seem like we care as a community, the people that the average Linux user does care. And also, the average Linux user seems to be better positioned than most users to do something about it, either from a technical knowledge set or by the very fact that they're using an open system.

And so it does seem to be coming up more and more at these conferences because we're the type of user to think about this kind of thing. We're also the kind of user that is willing to live with password managers and dual – two-factor authentication. And we're also the kind of user that cares about these kinds of things. So it's a really interesting cross-section that I find when I go to these kinds of conferences. So that's interesting that it came up there. So, yeah, one of the talks that is typical for talks to get composed as a result of a conversation the night before. And that was, you know, typical of Odd Camp this year. And John Spriggs did a piece about Squirrel,

S-Q-R-L, which is a two-factor authentication protocol. Yeah, Gibson's thing, right? Is that his thing? Yes. Really? Yeah, I know, which is why I was surprised. John did specifically say focus on the protocol and not who came up with it.

Yeah, well, I mean, that is very true, right? I mean, if the code is good code, John did specifically say that focus on the protocol and not who came up with it. Yeah. Well, I mean, that is very true, right? I mean, if the code is good code, then that's – and if it's a good protocol, then that's – And it's open and we can take it. Yeah. So is this – so, okay. Be honest with me. Now, be honest with me.

Is this something that I should try to make it to next year? Because it's a big commitment. I would have to fly out there, lots of money, etc, etc. Does that seem like I mean, really, come on, how many people are we talking? 350 to 400. Oh, that's a really nice sweet spot.

I like that size. You get more than 2,000 and it's just crazy. You would really enjoy it. That's all I'll say, regardless of how big the audience is. You would definitely enjoy it oh that oh that's all i'll say regardless of how big the audience is you would definitely enjoy it oh yeah yeah and although it's a two although it's a two-day event so there's the the saturday and the sunday this time there's actually like four days packed into that because there's the main events that happen during the day and then there's the evening events

that start at about six o'clock in the evening and go on to about midnight or 2 o'clock in the morning. So there's sort of like four events over those two days. Oh, that is fun. I like that. And the social track is as good as the sort of the event itself. You know, that is always so true, especially when it's around 300, 400 people. Because when you get bigger than that, it's just too much white noise. Literally.

Now, is there a spot I can park the rover? The UK rover. Yeah, I'm going to, yeah. Well, I mean, hmm, a UK, dedicated UK rover? Yeah, right, right. Oh, that's interesting. Our roads are quite narrow. And you might have heard that we actually drive on the correct side of the road.

Oh, I am worried about that. Yeah, that is going to change my world if i have to go over there well uh i i thank you guys for coming in here give me the update that is really cool any other things you want to mention about the uh about odd camp 15 before we soldier on i know i i think it's um it's one of those things that at the end of the uh at the end of the sunday we all get together. As the guys said, there's multiple things to get involved with. And the very final thing on the Sunday is a few relaxing beers where we discuss what we're going to do next year. And so we'll keep you informed about what's going to happen next year and when it will be and where it will be. So you can plan your flight and everything.

Yeah, do let me know. And, you know, it's funny. And I know I make this point too often. But even as we sit here with a virtual lug, which is pretty awesome, like the Mumble and Google Hangouts and all this stuff are pretty damn good tools to connect with people, and we can have really great conversations. But there is just, there is something about when you go to an event like this and everybody there speaks your language, they know what a kernel is. They know what a cloud computer really is. When I'm talking about the cloud, they know I'm really talking about somebody else's server at a data center. And you all are on the same page.

And if you walk around in your life and you're like kind of the technical person in your family, like you're the person that fixes things in your family or you're in the tech department at your work, you kind of – you almost lose touch with how amazing it is to be around other people that value the same things you value and appreciate the same things that you appreciate and also want to maybe even debate the nuance with you. And to do that in person, Mumble really does a great job of this. You know, IRC and Hangouts do a great job of this. But nothing does it like in person.

It's a huge increase in bandwidth. The social stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's a huge increase in bandwidth between two people or a whole group of people. And it is really exciting. And what you realize is we're not as bad as that BSD community makes us look. Exactly. Right? We're not. We're

nice people. Yeah, we are. With good software. So that's what I take away every time. All right. So I just wanted to really quickly do a little follow-up from Sunday's Linux Action Show. We got an email in asking how Noah and I manage our notes. And I said, well, I always do plain text files and I try to write them in Markdown. And that's kind of my base requirements. Well, we got a great recommendation. And I'm sorry I did not grab the name of the Reddit user who submitted it. But it is a QO Notes. It's an open source notepad for Linux and those other desktops that works together with

the notes application of OwnCloud. It's a desktop app, though. So this is what's really cool is it's a desktop application that it's a GTK app from what I can tell that has markdown support and it has a change tracking, use your own notes. You can sync them over to other devices. You can then log into your own cloud instance and edit them with a local own cloud app. But even if you're on like an iOS device, you can – if you have own cloud and access like to the file system, you can just edit it with any markdown editor. Like it is not locked to own cloud. So this is really, really cool. And I've made a big stink about own cloud before.

Have you caught that? Just a little bit. Yeah, I basically bailed on own cloud. You certainly texted a few months ago. Disappointed. Yeah. Basically, I just pushed it to the limits with way too much data and I bailed. But I only bailed and I

don't think I made this point very clear. I only bailed for file sync. I'm still using own cloud. And that's one area where it has the most competition, I would say. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. And honestly, I think sync thing does a better job. I would say. Right. Yeah, I would agree. And honestly, I think SyncThing does a better job. I would agree with that. Yeah.

But I'm still using it for CardDAV and KelDAV. So you have a Nexus 5. Are you all in on the Google? At the moment, my main counter is I do have an own cloud instance that needs to be updated. But I've been pressed with it in the past. Have you considered trying to transition from Google services to own cloud, or is it just not worth it? No, I think it's totally worth it.

I need to move email. Email is the one thing. And then I think I would consider moving the rest of my investment. So it's funny you say that because I went the opposite route. I moved my calendar and my address book, and I haven't moved email yet. And so this is why, for me, I kind of like this QO Notes because I still have an own cloud instance sitting around that I could use to sync my notes. But on the back end, it's all just text files too or markdown files, which are text files. Exactly.

I love the text files. This is a really cool recommendation. Yeah, QO Notes, and it is, as you probably guessed, it is an own cloud app. But it really is just a matter of syncing with text files. And also with TextToDo was another recommendation that came in a lot. And if you haven't caught this Sunday's Linux Action Show, the question was, how do we manage our to-dos? And I said, text files. How do you manage your to-do list?

Text files, and I use TaskWarrior for a lot of my work stuff. What? Yes. TaskWarrior? Is this a desktop Android app? CommandLine. I believe they have some I believe they have some UIs. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Did you just change my life?

Anybody that my mom reviews TaskWarrior? TaskWarrior? Hold on. Hold on. Yeah, I've used it. This is a command line to do. This sounds like Linux Action Show app pick material to me. You jerk, Wes. How have you been sitting on this and not telling me there is a to-do app for the command line? Wait until you find out that you can run your own server, sync server, on a DigitalOcean droplet.

Oh, I'm very excited. Alright, so this is how you do it? Yeah. Okay, okay. Now, for everybody Naturally. Hold on, before Wes goes any further, everybody listening, we're going to play a little game. If Chris makes this his ad pick on Linux Action Show, we're all going to pretend

like we didn't already hear about this. Alright, so tell me about this, because I'm very excited. So you use TaskWarrior with a DigitalOcean droplet, and you go to the command line to set your to-dos? Yeah. Yeah, and it really is just like a CLI interface, you know, like task, add, and then you can specify, like, project, you know, project at work or, you know, home life or whatever. And then an arbitrary string. And they have, you know, you can set priorities. You can set due dates. And then just task sync, and then an arbitrary string. And they have, you know, you can set priorities, you can set due dates, and then just task

sync, and it syncs up. There's an Android app called Mirakel, which does task, but it integrates with the Task Warrior server. Oh, okay. So you can have the same thing on your phone, but without the command line. Okay. All right. So now, what's the server setup like?

Is it like, so on the scale of a Quazzle client to, I don't know, Smokeping, how difficult is it to set up? I would say similar to Quazzle. You don't need a database backend or anything. Or Quazzle server, yeah. Right. No database, so you don't have to set up a database server or anything like that. You do have to set up some private key infrastructure. Okay.

But it's really not that bad. It's mostly, you know, you pretty much just assemble. You have to set up a few configs and set the right config file so that it allows the Miracle app from your Android phone. But once you've got that in place, it really just works. That's funny. So here's another option. Basically, there's a command line tool called to-do.txt.

Yeah. Yeah, I've seen that one before as well. Yeah. Right. And it's a command line tool called to-do.txt. Yeah, from GCP. Right, and it's a bash script, so essentially it does the same stuff that TaskWarrior does, but TaskWarrior is a lot more robust in features. So if you've ever used to-do.txt, it's very similar in the way that it handles

tasks. I mean, the main thing about to-do.txt is you've got to provide your own sync mechanism. Oh, right. Right, so you have to do sync thing or really Dropbox is what I think it... Well, no, if you do the main thing about to-do.txt is you've got to provide your own sync mechanism. Oh, right. Right. So you have to do sync thing, or really Dropbox is what I think it – if you're going to use it – Well, no. If you do the same thing that Task Warrior does where you put it on a server, you can do the same thing with to-do.txt, put it on a server, and then just – Oh, see, so what I'm thinking about – so, I mean, when I say that, what I'm talking about is from the perspective of mobile applications. The mobile apps that use to-do.txt have always – they always want Dropbox.

Right. apps that use to do dot text have always they always want dropbox right except actually there's this awesome app i found because i i built my own to do dot text app uh like structure because i don't like the basic structure i wanted to have like a massive customization where one to do dot text file is not enough for me so i currently have like 30 that's really not yeah damn dude damn dude that's impressive. I built my own bash script, too, to manage all of them, too, so it has automatic archiving from a huge list of things. Anyway, I'm actually going to be releasing it at some point, probably.

Well, come on. Hurry up, Rotten. Well, I made it for myself, and then I told people about it, and they were like, oh, wow, that's cool. We should give it to me. I'm like, I didn't make it for everybody, so it's complicated. That's what Linus said about Linux. That's what he said about Git, and it's still true. Well, the other thing is that the reason I brought that up is because I did this.

I wanted to find a mobile version, and it's called SimpleTask. I did this, I wanted to find a mobile version and there's this, it's called SimpleTask and it has SimpleTask Cloud and there's SimpleTask Cloudless. So if someone doesn't want a cloud storage, they can use any sync

they want and sync it to their phone directly. So I have like a custom sync thing set up for that. But there's also the cloud version you can choose whatever cloud you want you don't actually have to be stuck to dropbox okay yeah huh so so there's to do dot text and task warrior as two follow-ups to the email we got in the linux action show on sunday and uh the task warrior thing is really that's fascinating to me i'm going to check

that out i like that a lot now um no yeah go no, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, the to do not text thing. Um, if someone wants a GUI, uh, that go for it app, that was a pick a couple of weeks ago or a few weeks ago. Uh, that one is, uh, compatible with to dot tech. So you could have command line and you can also have a nice GUI if you want it. I don't mean to make Popey our token Ubuntu phone guy, but I was just going to throw this your way, Popey, because whenever we're talking about a task management app or a calendar management app, I always think, well, what if I want to bail from Android? What if I want to bail from iOS?

What are you using, Popey, when you're using your Ubuntu phone? What are you using in that environment for task management to do? Or it doesn't even have to be to-do lists, even just setting reminders and things like that. What are you using? So that's a great question. And the reason I use the app I use is because I always used Evernote in the past. So I use Evernote on the desktop and Evernote on the web. And we have a notes client that can optionally sync to Evernote.

So I just synchronize all my notes with Evernote and then I've got those local. But there's at least three task managers in the Ubuntu store. So, you know, if you don't want to use that one, there are lightweight ones. There's HTML5 ones. Or you could just go and get the task binary stick it on your phone and open that in a terminal if you really wanted to yeah you know that's but i i want to talk about that that's the elephant in the room for me for all of this and this is something i don't say usually well i've mentioned it before but for me if if i want to if i want something and i don't want to forget it for a really long time, and I'll give you an example. Like when I know I'm going to need to know the VIN number of my truck for probably about eight, nine years.

That's probably how long I'll own that truck. And that's how long I own my last truck. And so there are many times when you're getting insurance or you're setting things up that you need to recall the VIN number of your vehicle. You want it easily accessible. So for that kind of info, like that really long-term, remember forever kind of stuff, I am still today using Evernote. And I'm just choosing to use it from a smart device. Although, to be fair, the kind of stuff like that,

which I would think is slightly private, like, I don't know, VIN number of vehicles vehicles probably not that bad because it's probably visible but i don't know what you mean like i have like i have all i have other information in there that is like kind of i'm not super comfortable with it being with a third party right so for those i have a gpg encrypted text file on my local machine which is backed up in various places but no you know it's gpg encrypted so i feel okay about that and obviously the phone, you can use GPG on that.

I was going to say, I keep a lot of stuff in text files with SyncThing as it is now. Since I started playing with PaaS, I started realizing why don't I just do this more often? Just encrypt this stuff and then sync it everywhere and I don't care because I'm using GPG and I trust GPG. And SyncThing has encryption as well

in transit. Yeah, but I fundamentally trust GPG. Yes, I do as well. SyncThing, their encryption I'm sure is great. It's just like a, eh, okay, we're good. At least it's not plain text. Exactly. So you get me. You get me.

All right, Mumbler, any other thoughts on that topic before we move on? Yes, I do. Yeah. On the subject of notes, I've actually been looking, and I don't even know if this exists, for an application that you type everything in Markdown for the notes and everything. And it looks like Gnode or Zim and has support to sync to a Google Drive or Dropbox so that maybe later at some point you can access those notes on your Android device. Yeah, but you can basically accomplish that today just using gedit or kt or whatever, kwrite or whatever, and just saving it to a Dropbox or a sync thing or a BitTorrent sync folder and then pulling that up on your mobile device.

Is there a good mobile Markdown editor? Oh, yeah, a lot. I assume there must be. Yeah, lots. I can't remember off the top of my head for Android because I haven't been using it for a while, but yeah, there are a lot. There are a lot. There are amazing editors for Markdown on Android.

But no, the reason that I'd like something like Zim or Gnode is because of how the notebooks and whatnot are organized. It's a super very nice format. Yes, yeah. or organized. It's a super very nice format. Yes, yeah. Having that sort of meta organization with tags and categories

and subcategories is really nice. And that's what Evernote provides. And it kills me. It freaking kills me. Just like, and I don't want to go on anymore on this, but just like we're seeing more and more open source projects

take on Slack and use Slack. Antegros is my favorite, or Antegros? How do I say it? Wimpy, can you? Antegros. Antegros is switching from IRC to Slack. Oh, really?

Well, sort of. Well, okay. Go ahead. Correct me. It's not switching. It's both have using both uh i'm the split up for yeah it's splitting i'm the lead op for the irc for intercos and the developers prefer to use slack so there's a a weird split right now but yeah they uh it is a Slack thing that they prefer Slack. So it has become – They listed some really good reasons on their Google Plus page.

And also, you know what? I'm going to say it. Jupyter Broadcasting has started using Slack. But there is a blog post at drewdevvault.com saying, you know, please don't use Slack, FOSS Projects. And I want to dig into that because I'm going to be honest. We have started using Slack here at Jupyter Broadcasting, and I have felt like a bastard for the last two weeks we've been using it. It has been driving me absolutely crazy, and I want to talk about that with you guys.

First, though, I want to mention Linux Academy. Go to linuxacademy.com to get the Linux Unplugged discount and support the show. Even if you're just checking them out and want to browse around, linuxacademy.com slash unplug supports this show. Go there and try them out. And then while you're there, do the tour. Take the tour. I invite you because I think it's going to blow your mind. It's kind of amazing, actually. Finally, an educational resource that is really actually focused and dedicated to Linux and open source and all the technology around that, including even like AWS and all of the major technology stacks like Red Hat, OpenStack. It is really fantastic. They have step-by-step video courses, and they are really good with

instructor help available when you need it. You can download the study guides. They're comprehensive. You can listen to them in the shower like Listener Seth if you want, and they come with their own servers, which is not just nice, but the way they have done it, it's like, oh, yeah, they realize you're a Linux user. The way they set up the SSH, the way you can get into and control the system, the way you get complete control over it, and seven Plus distros to choose from. And you choose the distro, the courseware, and the virtual servers they spin up on demand automatically match that choice.

You get to keep track of your progress as you go along, and they're rolling out new features. Rather than just checking how you did after you're all done and waiting for the feedback after you do something, they're now allowing you to perform exercises and give you immediate real-time feedback. You could have done it this way. You could have answered it this way. You could have used this command.

They have scenario-based courses. That way you actually deploy and work with the technology in real-time in production. So when you go to actually do it in production, in your production, when you're getting paid for it, it's not the first time you've worked with it. That is serious peace of mind. And they also now have a new professional development certification platform I invite you to go check out. If you've decided the route for you is to expand your skill set, to make you more employable, to make you a little more competitive, if you just want to challenge yourself, these are all good reasons to go to linuxacademy.com.

And by the way, they also have time availability planners. You can tell how much time you have if you're busy. And as a father of three and somebody who hosts 12 shows a week, trust me. Oh, actually this week I'm not hosting 12 shows. I take that back. But I'm still hosting like seven shows a week. Scrupulously honest hosting seven shows a week. Right, right.

There's six shows maybe. I don't know. Who knows? Maybe I'll just cancel one of them randomly. But still, trust me, I know what it's like to feel very busy. I really do. And that's why their availability planner is freaking awesome. I love it.

Plus, they have live sessions you can attend. They have a community that is stacked full of Jupyter Broadcasting members to help you when you need a little bit of boost. And they have live sessions with those Q&A. I really think that's a valuable thing. Graded server exercises are really great. And then last but not least, I've got to say, I think those nuggets. The. I really think that's a valuable thing. Graded server exercises are really great. And then last but not least, I got to say, I think those nuggets. The name is funny.

It's a nugget. Tasty nuggets. You put that in some honey mustard, Wes, and I'm good to go. Good to go. A little honey mustard with your nuggets. I don't care about pink slime. You know what? I'm still here.

After years and years of pink slime, I'm still here. But let me tell you something. That's not what nuggets are about at Linux Academy. Kind of wish they were, but it's not. What are they? No, no. In fact, it's just like you go deep dive into a particular topic. Something like, you know, I don't know, an SSH tunnel for like a few minutes or something really massive for like 60 minutes.

But it's a deep dive into a singular topic. LinuxAcademy.com slash unplugged. Go check it out. It's really great. LinuxAcademy.com slash unplugged. And a big thank you to Linux Academy for sponsoring the Unplugged program. Okay. Now, feel free to let me hear it, but am I the biggest hypocrite in the world by hosting two Linux podcasts a week and then planning for them in Slack? And I'll tell you, I've gotten a lot of emails because I haven't really talked about it in Linux Action Show or Linux Unplugged, but I have talked about it in Coder Radio. And in Coder Radio, I've been getting consistent emails about Mattermost and other alternatives to Slack. also seen a post from a lot of different people about Slack, including this one over at

drewdevvault.com, where he says, don't use Slack. It's closed source, has only one client. Well, not really. That's not true. It's a walled garden, requires users to have different tabs open for each project, and requires hacks to do open registration. He says, go with IRC, which I say IRC is not an open source product. It is a protocol. It does not compete with Slack or things like Mattermost. But let me have it. Am I a huge hypocrite?

Am I a jerk for hosting the Linux Action Show and then using Slack to plan it? I wish I could comment, but since I'm helping plan on Slack. And you use Slack for work too. I do use Slack for work. I'm torn. Yeah Slack. And you use Slack for work, too. I do use Slack for work. I'm torn. Yeah. Go ahead, Paul. Part of me says, yes, you gigantic hypocrite.

You should be using other things. But the fact is you're using the best tool for the job. And for you, that tool is the best tool for the job. And IRC works and is is relatively robust uh you know if you we we often have problems can we use irc a lot in canonical and we use free node and we have our own internal private irc server and when one goes down we switch to the other uh and and then when slack goes down what do you you do? You'll probably switch to something else, whether it be IRC or Telegram or something else. So I don't know. I'm torn because

I also use non-free stuff. I use Telegram, which open source client, but closed backend. So I'm in the same position. I'm pragmatic about these things. Yeah, I find this to be an interesting trend that's developing. And I think you could also say the same thing would apply to Google Docs or Office 365 or Basecamp or Wunderlist or anything, really. Debian shouldn't use Wunderlist to plan their tasks, right? Anyways, it is something that's – Well, that's because it's owned by Microsoft. Yeah, there's that. Anyways, it is something that's – Well, that's because it's owned by Microsoft.

Yeah. There's that. It is – the reason why I brought it up on Linux Unplugged is – because we're trying to solve something where you have people all over the world. And the things we work on, they absolutely without a doubt take a week. Every single show from the moment we go off the air, everybody that walks away from the show starts thinking about the next show. As soon as you're done, you go, oh, geez, well, wow, I'm done with 117, but oh, my God, now I have to do 118. Yeah, you open the net for the next one. Right.

So Slack gives us a place for all of us who are doing that to dump those things when they come up and plan for the next thing. And then we start and we pick up momentum as that show gets closer. and plan for the next thing. And then we start, and we pick up momentum as that show gets closer. And the reason why it's a little better than IRC is it allows for additional functionality that's kind of nice to have. And it also gives you something that is very, very valuable. A, it's set up, ready to go right now. I just want to start, I just want to do a brain dump.

I do not want to start setting up software. I want to do a brain dump. It gives me that immediately. and I think that's important. B or 2, whatever, it has large user adoption, kind of like Skype or Google Docs. Wes already had an account. Rotten Corpse already had an account. Right. I don't have to have a new client.

I don't have to. Yeah. So we have people in the – we have people ready to start – already can just get going without that, quote-unquote, friction. That was a nice thing to have. And then, you know, number three or C, whatever, that was really kind of great about Slack is it just isolates it. It's all of that stuff in one space where IRC now can be dedicated to other things. This is dedicated to those things.

And if I do not, as a person who sometimes has to be able to step away and have, for God's sakes, two hours that don't involve work, it is so nice to know that I can open up Telegram or I can open up my IRC client and there will not be 35 questions about work. If I want to find that, I go into Slack. And so it also gives separation and space. And the thing is Slack just gives that immediately. So the idea was does this concept actually add value as an organizational tool? I think the answer to that is yes. Slack does seem to demonstrate there's value there. So now as somebody who is an open source advocate, my question is, well, now can I replace that functionality with Mattermost and can I convince the team to switch? It's not really my job, though,

to make Mattermost more competitive. Now, the Jupyter Broadcasting team is pretty much ready to switch to something that is more open than the alternative. Like, we were all using Viber for a while to do team messaging. And as soon as I said, you know what, Telegram looks like a way better solution. And, you know, the protocol's open, the client's open. I'm said, you know what, Telegram looks like a way better solution and the protocol is open, the client is open. I'm using a totally open client right now. Let's go to Telegram. Everybody switched to Telegram immediately, even if it didn't do absolutely everything Viber did. Like it didn't do stickers and all that stupid crap at the time.

It added that stuff later. And everybody switched. So the Jupyter Broadcasting team and probably a lot of open source project teams are a little more willing to switch before others would. So I can probably get Mattermost set up in a droplet up on DigitalOcean ready to go and say yeah, it doesn't do everything Slack does. Yeah, sorry

it won't quite integrate with Dropbox. Yeah, you can't write the bot that we wanted to write but you can move over to Mattermost and it's going to be a pretty solid collaboration tool because we've bored the idea out without having to spend two days setting up the server first. That's true. But you've already said that you've switched from IRC to Viber

and from Viber to Telegram and now from Telegram to Slack. I wouldn't say switched because they're all, with the exception of Viber, we did totally replace telegram and vibe like vibra was totally replaced by telegram but irc is still used as a secondary tool like right right i doubt you'll make that go away because there's loads of us sat here lurking in the irc channel unless you know i mean even from like a production standpoint like we have back we have back-end channels that aren't public that we're still using right and that's what i mean the the

kind of people who sit in those channels are the kind of people who will continue to sit in those channels but i don't know it seems like you don't have that much of a problem switching from one system to another and when you said that um yeah slack was easy because other people were already on it that's just first mover advantage and the network effect because they were the not IRC, but something like IRC communication method. Mattermost is the free software option. So in the same way that Windows has got first-mover advantage against Linux,

and Linux is the free software advantage, you should be choosing Linux over Windows in the same way that you should choose choosing linux over windows in the same way you should choose matter most over slack i uh i i suppose i see your point there and it means that when matter most is ready or when we're ready wouldn't be it wouldn't be a hard transition to switch yeah we do have that advantage yeah not everybody does though right yeah i think the the the main to pick away from this is that with matter most there's a lot more setup issues that you have to deal with. So if you're just trying to test to see if the concept of Slack

or Mattermost will work, it would make more sense to try out Slack first just because it's a lot easier barrier to entry. If you re-listen to exactly what Rotten just said and replace what he said about Slack and Matt's most with windows and Linux, where he said, you're right. Yeah. He said,

yeah, Linux is harder to set up. And that's why you're currently using slack. And, and what I think the answer there is though, is myself out now. No, no,

no. I think what the, what the answer there is, is, uh, and I, in quarter radio this week, I linked to, and it talked a little bit about,

there is a guide now that makes setting up a Docker container with Mattermost on a DigitalOcean droplet a pretty straightforward process. So it's getting to the point now where if you are a little technically inclined and you are okay spending a few minutes doing stuff, you can deploy Mattermost now. And that's about... I would bet you $5 that if you told one of your minions you wanted to switch to Mattermost, by the time you wake up and have done your hair in the morning, someone will have it running.

Sir, how long do you think it takes me to do my hair? Well, I added that in. An hour and a half, that's my bet. Really? You know, it's funny, actually's it's funny you say that because so i have a girlfriend and i had to meet her family right because that's the thing you do and uh i met her sister and her sister's like i really like your hair and i'm like okay that's awkward but thank you and she's like does it how long does it take you in the morning i'm like what and i i never i stopped and thought about it like do people actually think it takes me like, what? And I stopped and thought about it.

Do people actually think it takes me a while to do this? It does look, as a guy, it does look high maintenance, Chris. It really does. Now, Popey, what I have to assure you is what I have done is I have routinated and I have laser factored, as any male would, his hair, this hairstyle. It is the laziest approach possible. It is so funny. Like, okay, here's another story.

No shit. And then we'll move on. The first, like one of the first times I ever like worked with Noah on location, we go to a Denny's and we sit down, his wife is there and we're having dinner and he goes, okay, so tell me how you do your hair. I'm like, what? Tell me how you do your hair. I'm like, what are you talking about?

Like, I get out of the shower and then i grab the comb and i like comb it the way i wanted to comb it and every now and then every now and then i'll put like i have like this uh this coconut stuff i'll put in there and that's it that's it i get it from the grocery store you haven't you've you've completely left out what time you get out of the shower what time you get out of the bathroom after you've done your hair. That's the crucial thing. Sir, your fantasy aside, it is literally, here is literally the trick. You just do it. You do it before it dries.

So no, actually, Popey, what he left out is that he conjures black magic. Yeah, right. Okay. All right. Fine. I'll tell you about some black magic. That is Cinnamon 2.8, which was released today. And of course, you're going to see it soon in Linux Mint 17. Okay. All right. Fine. I'll tell you about some black magic. That is Cinnamon 2.8, which was released today. And, of course, you're going to see it soon in Linux Mint 17.3.

Rosa, planned for release at the end of November. It has better sound applets. And, man, I've got to tell you, I've been using Ubuntu Mate this weekend. It's nice. But that looks way better. Yeah, that's pretty slick. I love you, Wimpy, but that does look really good. All right.

All right, I've got my Rhino hijack on. So a lot of nice improvements to this new version of Cinnamon. The new workspace switcher is super, super slick, and it harkens back to basically what you get from GNOME 2 or a desktop, Mate now. The system tray has got a lot of improvements. The window list is really slick with the really nice tightened window thumbnails. Visual improvements all throughout, including better support for high DPI. And they did a little magic to make sure that if you hook up a 4K television,

which are notoriously horrible at telling the operating system what they do, much, much improved support for that, including high DPI, which is, I mean, I got to say it again, including high DPI. I mean, I got to say it again, including high DPI. I got to say it one more time, high DPI. I have one machine with high DPI and I feel like I'm constantly suffering. A couple other things were changed. Cinnamon now supports a microphone mute buttons. The cinnamon setting statement is more robust than before. And X-Rander support was significantly improved. Many bug fixes were ported from Gnome Shell,

as a matter of fact. Also, speaking of interesting things imported into the project, Cinnamon 2.8 also supports Qt 5 applications, which now look more native and use the GTK theme that you've selected.

I don't know exactly how that's pulled off, but I find it to be fascinating. Yeah, I'm curious to see what that looks like. Also, performance improvements throughout. Now, you use Mint, don't know exactly how that's pulled off, but I find it to be fascinating. I'm curious to see what that looks like. Also, performance improvements throughout. Now, you use Mint, don't you? I'm still using Mint at work with the Cinnamon desktop.

And how many times does the Cinnamon desktop crash? Very rarely. Really? Good, good, because last time I tried it, it was crashing. And the only time I've actually had a crash in the past six months was due to an AMD graphics card issue. Are you going to go to the next Mint, or what are you going to do? You know, I haven't decided that yet. I'm kind of looking to see how the next Fedora release comes out. Oh, find out.

Yeah. All right, so one last desktop release. While on the other end of the low-resources desktop, LXDE has a big update. LXDE 0.10 is out. This release, they say they focused on cleanup and polishing and quality of life improvements with over 400 issues fixed and dozens of new translations. They also

gained two new frameworks, Solid, which replaces LibXQT mount, and some custom power management code and LibKScreen, which replaces the X-Render calls and is Wayland Forward compatible. Hey, that's nice to hear. Actually, I don't know why they didn't put this front and center because

the issue, or the number one update that I like is their new LXQT sudo, which makes that, like when you launch something and it needs your sudo password, much nicer dialogue in this release. That would have been one of my front and center features, but yeah, that is in this new release

as well. Also, new file manager improvements, better support for the trash can, whatever the hell that is. And get ready for this, Wes. Search functionality. Good old search functionality. Geez, that one beer that turned into two beers has made me all kinds of sloppy.

But congratulations to LXDE. Oh, this was also really good. Some other really important new updates to the new release, version 0.10.0 features. Everybody for this, Wes. Replaces all instances of LX lowercase x, lowercase t. So it's L lowercase x, lowercase t, but upper L and Q. Now everything is uppercase. They've replaced all instances with that, with LXQ and then a lowercase t. upper l and q now everything is uppercase they've replaced all instances with

that with lxq and then a lowercase t that's important for consistency so so from right so i'm going to write this down right now so that way i remember it right now so it's uppercase l x okay q and then a lowercase t perfect excellent work got it as as of 0.10.0 that is officially the way you are supposed to say that. I don't even know, Wes. I don't even know, but I just want to make sure we get that right. In fact, wasn't there also, speaking of feedback, before we wrap up feedback, there was feedback on how to pronounce Matej, speaking of our Slack chat.

And Wimpy, can you tell me, apparently I've been saying it wrong again. Do you know about this, Wimpy? Am I a jackass? No, you're very close this time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I pronounce it Marte.

Marte. Marte. And I don't know that I've got the correct sort of Spanish accent. So M-A-H-T-A-Y. Yeah, mate. Like latte. I was told the easiest way to remember is it's mate like latte. Yeah, I was told that too, but that didn't seem to stick for some reason.

Damn it, I hate that. Maybe you should say it slower. Mate is technically, you can say it because people pronounce yerba mate with yerba mate as well. But mate is the... Also, while I'm doing pronunciations, Yaume actually pronounced Xiaome. Xiaome. Xiaome.

Xiaome. I believe. Xiaome. Damn it. Which one of those 12 is the right one? You guys get to guess. You know what? I hate all of you guys. This is naked.

I hate all of you guys. What about Huawei? It's pronounced like Huawei. It's Huawei is how you pronounce it. But this feedback right here says huawei look right there on the screen see this is part of the problem before you hate me and judge

me for how i pronounce things do understand i have i have hundreds of different versions look right there that says huawei now you're adding something embrace it huawei embrace it it'll it's your quirk chris people will will love it i bet you don't know they don't love it that that finnish um phone manufacturer the correct way that a finnish person would say it you know the one yalla no the the old one that used to make phones oh uh no i don't know hold on actually no hold on hold on, hold on, hold on. No, hold on, I do. No, I do.

Nokia. No, no, that's not it. No, no, that's not it. No, go ahead, Wes. You tell Tim your time. Go ahead, try it. I don't know. Nokia.

Nokia. Nokia? Nokia. Nokia. Nokia. Nokia. Nokia. Nokia.

Nokia. Nokia. Nokia. Nokia. Nokia. Nokia. Nokia. Nokia.

Nokia. Nokia. Nokia. That's how we roll. All right, fine. We know what you're saying. Just to have a little bit of interesting fun, Chris, the name of the music player I just posted in the IRC, how do you say that? Let's see here.

Oh, geez. Come on, Rod. That's designed to fail right there. It is. That is. That's sweet. Wow. That is. Oh It is. Wow.

Oh, wow. Okay, so thank you, everybody. I'm sorry for my horrible pronunciations, but you know what? I'll tell you what I can pronounce, and I can pronounce it real good. You know what that is? That's DigitalOcean. Head over to DigitalOcean.com right now

and use our promo code of Ultimate Power, D-O-Unplugged. D-O-Unplugged will give you a $10 credit over at DigitalOcean.com with their $5 rate. You can try it out for two months. For absolutely free. Two months for absolutely free.

You know what? DigitalOcean is super flexible, super simple. Because they're using Linux for all of their virtualization. KVM is the engine and they all sit on top of SSDs. You can get started in less than 55 seconds and pricing plans start at only $5 a month. That's nuts. That's hard to $5 a month. That's nuts. That's hard to believe.

Hold on. That's nuts. $5? That's like less than a single beer if you go out. That's how much that, for $5 a month, you get 512 megabytes of RAM? It's like a cup of coffee. Yeah. Or you know what?

Like, less than, it's actually even less than a burger from Wendy's. Yep. That is something. $5 a month will get you 512 megabytes of RAM, 20 gigabyte SSD, one CPU, and a terabyte of transfer. Yeah, that's right. A terabyte of transfer. If you go over to DigitalOcean 2, use the promo code DEOMPLUG right now, and you won't even have to put in a credit card. They have a very, very solid interface.

It's really intuitive and easy to use, and you can replicate it on a larger scale with their straightforward API. Very intuitive control panel. I love it. And they've got a brand new data center in Toronto, and they've also just rolled out floating IPs. I think this is going to take it up to the next level for them. This is really going to bring you up. Because if you grow, if you're going to need to move things around,

this is a no-brainer. Floating IPs, you can read about it over at DigitalOcean. Plus, I think it's a great strategy. I mean, I don't really need everything in my life to be high availability, but now that I can, that's going to probably pick up a few more droplets just to have them on standby. If I was doing VC talk

and I was down at Olympic, yeah, we have an on-demand Linux infrastructure that we just deploy servers on-demand. Oh, yeah? What's your cost on that? It's pretty low. It's like $5 a machine. No! Yeah, it's like $5 a machine. And then, you know, it just goes up to like $10 from there. And sometimes we

even... You know what? I've even figured out a way to deploy the machine two months for free. No! Yeah, two months for free. No! Yes, I use the promo code DL1plugged. DigitalOcean.com use the promo code DL1plugged. Go try them out. They got CoreOS, they got Pandora, they got Ubuntu.

They even got FreeBizzle. I don't know why you'd want to use it as a server. Because everybody knows FreeBSD makes the best desktop out there. So you could try that. But use the promo code DLUnplugged. And really, what I would do, screw that CentOS and screw that Ubuntu. It's between you and me, Wes. Yep. CoreOS.

Yep, CoreOS. Seriously. CoreOS. I'm putting my money. If there was CoreOS stock, I would be buying it right now. I'm just saying. Just saying. But you can do whatever.

If you want to do Ubuntu LTS and have five years of patches and have tons of easy access to tutorials and community, that's fine. That'd be fine. You could try that too, DO Unplugged. But I'm just saying, they also have a lot of really good community tutorials. DigitalOcean.com, use the promo code DO Unplugged, and a big thank you to DigitalOcean for sponsoring the Unplugged program. All right, Wes.

Now, you know me. I'm not like some hardcore advocate about free software. I don't sit here and tell you that everything must be free and that if you don't make free software— I think that we should all make those businesses fail. But I'll tell you, something's got me fired up, real fired up recently, and I'm not even a driver or an owner of a Volkswagen. But this whole Volkswagen scandal is ridiculous, and I want to talk about proprietary software in devices not only our lives depend on, but are just really integrated in our day-to-day lives. But first, if you're not familiar with the Volkswagen stuff because all you care about is technology and you're not actually following the news, no judgment. This story, this clip will bring you up to speed.

Volkswagen cheated on emissions tests again, says the EPA. This time about 10,000 VW, Porsche, and Audi diesel engine cars are implicated. They're all installed with software that makes the cars emit less pollution during tests. When driving on real roads, the cars emit nine times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide. So this software, I'm going to stop it right there, this software is specifically designed by Volkswagen that when it is in test mode, it alters the way the engine performs. And when you're not in test mode, nine times of some of the most poisonous types of gases come out of the tailpipe of these diesel vehicles. Which causes respiratory problems. In September, emissions cheating was exposed in 11 million other VW cars worldwide.

None of the cars have been recalled in the U.S. and are still safe to drive. The company could owe the EPA billions of dollars in fines, including nearly $400 million associated with the latest batch of cars. The latest batch of cars includes Porsches, Audis. I mean, we're talking, you know, high-end vehicles. And this has caused the mainstream press like Cars.com and the New York Times and a bunch of others that are running pieces that are basically saying that proprietary software is the blame. They say outright fraud is possible because of proprietary software. And I think this is remarkable. They say it's a bad situation to get far, far worse.

You throw a perfectly good phone away after two or three years because the component goes bad. But because the manufacturer refuses to provide parts and code updates, really. As the driver of an old but beloved car that owns its latest 50,000 miles to the abilities of mechanics who understand the engine's technology, which is a huge, great point, by the way. They say, they go on to point out that a day is coming when great cars get scrapped because the automaker decided it was time to force me to buy a new one. This is Andy Anaco writing for Cars.com. In that same report, you know, he touches on the same thing we were talking about the other week, you know, with Apple users not owning their software, only licensing it.

Here we see that more and more carpet companies, in this case General Motors, lawyers have defended the practice that you don't own the General Motors software in your car. They do. Yeah. You have no right to play with it or tinker it or make sure that it's not polluting more than you think. Right. Nine times more than they say it is. You go in to get it tested, and it's then polluting nine times more than you thought it was. You go in to get it tested. Yep.

I hope they're revising the tests here as well. Maybe something you stick in the tailpipe while it drives around. Pronoun. You had a comment about proprietary software by law. Go ahead. software by law. Go ahead. Yes, I think some law entity in Europe actually had a law that you have to put proprietary software on cars

so they can't be hacked. Huh. That is horrible, and obviously this would be an underscoring reason why that would be a bad idea. Wimpy, what do you have here from the podcast on Season 8 season eight, episode 34 of the Ubuntu podcast?

Sorry, that was the wrong link. Oh. It's the one after that about the Librarian of Congress. Oh, yes. Yeah, from the EFF. Yes. And actually, this is kind of where it's going. We kind of touched on this last week.

Yeah, good point. But there's a particular point in there about how this affects car security research, repair, and modification what did you catch um that they've recognized the need for vehicle owners to circumvent access restrictions in order to repair yeah define tinker yeah and one of the things in this vw case is that you're not able to actually determine what the proprietary software is doing or not doing with regard to these test emission levels and how the car is being tuned is because it's DRM protected. And because of the DMCA, you're not allowed to, you know, hack it.

But under this provision, you now are. This is a big deal. Yeah. This is a really big deal. And it is the Librarian of Congress has extended this DMCA, I guess, exemption to also phones and tablets too. And I wonder if this whole Volkswagen catastrophe isn't partly responsible for this. It seems to be turning the tide in at least some of the public perception. So here is now – I just – I don't want to be like this guy.

But I just want to put this out there. So let's be realistic. The industry is what it is they're not going to be it's not going to be kumbaya open source blah blah blah it's going to be at best people reverse engineering and figuring things out this software this stuff is literally going to affect our lives it is the stuff that runs our cars the stuff that runs the trains the stuff that runs the drones the stuff that runs our cars, the stuff that runs the trains, the stuff that runs the drones, the stuff that runs all of this. Chris, just imagine for a second if SISA or TTP was in full effect, the person that would have found this bug in the Volkswagen software would be going to jail.

Right. And North Ranger, you also kind of wanted to play on the DMCA laws. Well, yeah. I mean, what Wimpy pointed out with the exemption granted by the US Library of Congress still doesn't fix, I wouldn't call it a loophole, it's a big catch with the DMCA, is that the Library of Congress exemption only allows individuals to bypass circumvention in things like cars and video games with servers. It's still a criminal act to distribute tools to break those. Right, that's a good point. Wimpy actually has a really good point about how this could be a great opportunity

to explain it to regular users about why DRM and DMCA stuff is so bad. Go ahead, Wimpy. Well, you know, normally we associate DRM with content. And if you try and explain why DRM is bad because it protects video or music content to, you know, your friends and family outside of the open source world, that's a difficult sell. But if you explain this story, that the software, automotive software is DRM protected, and maybe tuning the car differently for its test cycle than when it's on the road, but nobody can prove that because it's DRM protected, it's a better way to explain why DRM is a bad thing and we shouldn't have it. Yeah, boy, isn't that a good point?

And why not having insight into the software is not a good thing. And I think that is – Yeah, and I think we are seeing so much – and we have some links in the show notes. We're seeing a lot of people report on this. It's kind of encouraging in a way. I wonder – so here's my question, Wes. And is this crazy? I have a feeling I'm going to say yes.

All right. As I wait for this stuff to shake out, is it that unreasonable for me to just avoid all of these things, avoid the automated cars, avoid all of this stuff and just say, as a person who is a privacy advocate, as somebody who wants to know how my stuff works, as somebody who wants to have control and oversight, is it reasonable for me to say I am just not going to participate for the next few years in this next way? Is that actually seriously reasonable? Because what that would mean would be I can't buy a car after a certain amount of time. I was going to say, how are you going to manage this? Right.

So is it – Are you going to be stuck with outdated products? So here's what – here's why this question fascinates me it seems like people who are are extremely interested in the cutting edge what's what's really going to happen next but but very informed on it are going to have to face the question if they want to participate. If you know how unreliable software and technology is, you're going to be pretty uncomfortable with the direction things are going. Yes. And you have to ask yourself,

am I going to be one of the first in this first generation who buys into this? Or am I going to let a generation of products pass me by? Because this is finally getting to the point where now your life is on the line. I feel like at the end of the day, I'm probably somebody who wants to just take that risk. But is it unreasonable to say, I'm going to let it just pass? Is that just get off my lawn? No, I don't think it's unreasonable. I think it depends on your priorities.

You're in a little bit of a tighter spot in that you report on the tech news. But for someone who's not that involved, who doesn't need to have an understanding of the latest and greatest and maybe doesn't have a lot of workflows they're looking to change, I think that maybe for the next five, ten years you can get away with it. We'll see what it looks like at that point. Yeah. Let it play out for a bit. It's kind of like you can kind of – I mean, I don't know. Boy, it is. For me, it seems like.

We're definitely coming to that crossroads, though. Yeah, and it seems like if you're an advocate of open source and open standards, this is not a great time that we're going into for you. But I hate that to be a downer. So let me tell you about something that makes me feel really good. That's my mobile service provider, Ting. I mean it, too, because Ting is great. It's mobile that finally puts you in the position of power. If you're so sick and tired of all these different companies running you over and taking advantage of you and milking you, check out Ting.

Go to Linux.Ting.com. You know what I mean, right? I sure do. Yeah, like all of the mobile companies out there. And I have to be honest with you. I am getting so freaking burned by some of them. Even the ones that – I'm the un-carrier. Yes.

And then let me completely screw up net neutrality for you. And let me be the un-carrier and completely usher in the era of where pro services pay to be completely unrated. They're selling the public on it and then the tech savvy of us are screwed. I hate that. And then you have, on the other end, you have the duopoly, right? On the other end,

you have the duopoly and it is just the worst. Ting is mobile, it makes sense. Here's why it's great. Flat $6 a month and then you just pay for what you use. You want three phones? It's $6 for each phone.

It's not a complicated thing. And here's the nice thing too. Like if a couple of those phones aren't going to get a lot of usage, then they don't cost you very much. And if you're even, I don't know, a tiny bit Wi-Fi savvy, you can really go nuts with the savings. Three lines, $40 a month. That's what I'm paying. Linux.ting.com, it'll take $25 off your first device or it'll give you a $25 service credit. I want you to try them out and click that savings calculator. They got a lot of stuff over at Ting. Try them out.

They got a GSM and CDMA network. I think this is a ridiculous deal, though. The LG G Flex 2, it's got that curve to it. I like some curves, Wes. Yeah, I do too. Yeah. LG Flex 2 has got the curves for $237. Chips tomorrow.

No contract. No early termination fee. You own that phone. $6 a month for what you use. And then just your usage on it. $237. And it's like that's not for like a two-year contract. That's just an unlocked phone that you own.

You pay for what you use. They have CDMA and GSM too. So if you've got a GSM device or a CDMA device, you might be able to bring it over to the Ting network. And they have a whole range of devices that'll work. This is one suggestion. I'm putting this out there because the LG G Flex 2 is a really nice phone, and for $237

on the Ting network, that's a great value. That's just exactly it. That's just a really great value. Also, I would say go check out the Ting blog. If you've been kind of pondering the idea of what you can get by, do you need a good – you want like that sweet spot, an Android device that gets updates, decent performance, but doesn't cost $600.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Well, they've got a Ting blog by Andrew over there. Go to – well, no, go to linux.ting.com and click on the blog. That way we get credit. He's been trying out the Moto E 2nd Gen for a month and writing about it. He's looking for basically a sub $200 perfect Android phone. And he's been blogging about his

experience. Linux.ting.com. Go try them out. It's mobile that really does make sense. Linux.ting.com also supports the Unplugged show and keeps us going. So a big thank you to Ting for sponsoring Linux Unplugged. Linux.Ting.com. Go try them out. They are on a mission to make mobile make sense.

Linux.Ting.com. Thanks, Ting. All right. So today, do you feel it? Do you smell it? Well, that might be something else. No, the other thing you smell is Fedora 23 released today. Anybody in the Mumble room actually have it installed as we speak?

Is that actually a thing? Don't let us down. Come on, anybody, anybody, anybody. Just one. No, no, no, okay. It's for people who like to mess with computers. Maybe we just aren't the right crowd. No, we're not talking to the right people.

These guys in here, they don't like to mess with computers. There's all the software you'd want is free and available on the Linux platform. But they don't care about that in the mumble room. Most of the web runs on servers powered by Linux. Oh, okay. Tyler's... Yeah, go ahead.

If it's any consolation, I actually was going to be running it, but I woke up late this morning. Well, that's fair. Tyler in the chat room says he's way... He's, you know what, Fedora, he's... Nah, that's not his thing. He's going for an open SUSE leap tomorrow. Yeah, I can understand that. I actually have it downloaded upstairs. He's way – he's – you know what? Fedora, he's – nah, that's not his thing. He's going for an open SUSE leap tomorrow. Yeah.

I can understand that. I actually have it downloaded upstairs. I was like, well, I'll do the torrent. I'm going to help contribute to seeding the Fedora 23 download. It downloaded in like, I don't know, 45 seconds. It was ridiculously fast. I've been also following like the RPM Fusion drama. Supposedly, RPM Fusion repos are good to go, but the website

hasn't been updated, so people are super confused at this point. And also, Fedly isn't updated for Fedora 23, so people are super hurt about that. People really depend on those extras. Yeah. But I'm looking at Fedora 23 workstation, and I think the thing that jumps out about, to me, is

GNOME 3.18. I kind of ding some of the other distros, like Leap's coming out about to me is GNOME 3.18. I kind of ding some of the other distros, like Leap's coming out tomorrow, shipping with GNOME 3.16. That was interesting six months ago. But in today's time, 3.18 is much more interesting, and guess what? Fedora 23 ships with that. You see, that's the

difference. You see how they do that? That's the difference, you guys. That's the difference. They've actually got the current GNOME. I know. It's crazy. So they've also got, along with that, that means they've got Google Drive support baked into the new Files Manager. Also, the new Copy Dialog Box, which is a total ripoff of the Plasma Copy Dialog Box, just saying, is also included now in Files. LibreOffice 5 is shipping with Fedora Workstation 23, which is

great. The new Calendar application, which has been getting worked on for a long time, used to be called California, but now it's just called Calendar, because California didn't make any sense. And it is now shipping in Fedora Workstation as default. The Builder ID also shipping with code

auto-completion for Python. Oh, that's exciting. I've been thinking about giving to give that guy a try. It is very nice. Also, their Markdown support is very nice. Yes, so I'm looking. And the biggest feature, which I don't know if I'll be able to try between now and Friday, but I'll give it a go, is firmware updates via GNOME software. Which device are you going to try to brick?

Yeah, right? I think this one, the one you're sitting at. Oh, yeah. Why not, right? Yeah. Then also Wayland is rocking in Fedora 23. Oh, that sounds really fun to try. It's funny because people are like, oh, Fedora 23, online.

And I'm looking at going, whatever. It's shipping with GNOME 3.18. It's got the best Wayland support out of the box of any distro, and it's looking really tight. So I'm looking forward to really giving it a go. Also, they produce very nice images, I must say. Like their ISOs, they've got the multi-boot all set up very nicely. Whenever I get a Fedora ISO, I frequently use it as kind of a helper toolkit because I just know it's going to load on a number of systems. And it always looks nice and comes up with a beautiful GNOME desktop.

I agree with you there. I do. I do. All right. So before we go on, anybody in the Mumba Room, any thoughts on Fedora 23 before we wrap up the show today? Going once. I'm going to go twice on that. Hey, by the way, also, just as a point of reference, in the show notes there's been – I've noticed in different forums, message threads, things like that, and in our IRC room.

Depending on how you upgrade to Fedora 23 from Fedora 22, you're having different levels of success. So I've got the official best methods to upgrade from Fedora 22 to 23 in the show notes. Oh, look at how much brighter, prettier 23 looks in that picture. Yeah. You see what they did is they took 22. They took the same exact thing but they made it darker. Yeah. You don't want to but they made it darker. Yeah. You don't want to be on the dark one.

No, I want to be on the one that they turned the exposure brightness up. 23, that's the good one. That's the one that's got the higher exposure setting. Wes, you have astutely noticed exactly the same exact thing that I noticed

when I linked to this thing. It's like, oh, they're obviously like, this is the dim one. It's no good. No good. No good. It's when I get into this thing. It's like, oh, they're obviously like, this is the dim one. It's no good. No good. It's old and busted. But what if we are creatures of darkness? Ooh, in the night we

lurk. Many Linux users are also creatures of darkness. Yes, this is true. We'll hang out in Fedora 22 land for a while. Alright, that brings us to the end of this week's episode of Linux Unplugged. Thank you for tuning in on a Tuesday. Did you know we did this show on a Tuesday? You might be listening on demand.

You might not have any idea. Go to jupiterbroadcasting.com slash calendar. That frickin' daylight savings. It's the worst. Hate it, Wes. We should just make the calendar UTC only. Well, we just automatically adjust to your contrived time zone, you hairless monkey. Over at jupiterbroadcasting.com slash calendar.

Go to jplive.tv to watch us live. Linux action show at reddit.com for feedback, topic suggestions, and more. Also, jupiterbroadcasting.com slash contact to send us in some emails. But you know what? Better than all of that S, join us in our virtual lug. Yeah, come be here. Right? It's a ton of fun.

I mean, how many other podcasts out there are like, yeah, if your mic checks out, you can join us and just like share your opinion. You know what? Yell at us. Tell us we're wrong. Don't know what we're talking about. Well, I don't know. Or come and give us compliments.

That's what we prefer. That'd be good too. Whatever. We're open. JBLive.TV. Then do a bang mumble to get that info and join us live. JupiterBroadcasting.com slash calendar for that. Thanks for joining us.

See you back here next tuesday everybody bye man that was a lot of show. Yeah. And Wes will attest, I was, what's the appropriate term? Because I don't want to say balls deep. I was deep into something before the show started. Yeah, you were getting taken care of business. You might say life-changing business.

Yes. Before the show started. You nailed it. You buttoned of business. You might say life changing business. Yes. Before the show started. You nailed it. You transitioned right into a perfect show. And you know what? It's funny because I showed up, Wes, and I, you know, literally today, minutes before we go on air, my life is changing. And I show up, we do a show. So same old, same old. Mark shows up. Mark's never been here before.

Mark shows up. He does a show, right? And then I go to jbtitles.com and you know what I see, Wes? 14 titles. I showed up. You showed up. Mark showed up. Where's the chatroom at? Where are the titles?

Absolutely unbelievable. Unbelievable. Maybe slacking off is the appropriate title. Or at least the meta title. Wow. For the chatroom. Or at least the meta title. Wow. For the chat room. Because everybody else showed up. Everybody else showed up.

You know what? I'm going to go get a beer. I'm going to grab a beer. There goes the no beer rule. I'm throwing it out. I'm grabbing a beer. That was a stupid rule. Ouch.

Oh, wait. He can still hear that. Wes, I left one beer for you. Well, I added some more. I saw rule. Ouch. Oh, wait. He can still hear that. Wes, I left one beer for you. Well, I added some more. I saw that. Okay. You're a good man, Wes. You come bearing gifts.

You got to grease the JB wheels. That's true. All right. How's our join queue doing? Boy, still... All right. Okay. I think Rotten's on top of it.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, I'm looking forward to chatting with you guys about Odd Camp. Okay. So let me open up this beer. I never did ask Chris which of the Minnesota brews he liked most. Huh. You know, now that I'm looking back at it,

I don't know if I can pull them all out individually anymore. I don't know if I recall. Actually, they were all really good. Yeah, those were pretty strong. Volkswagen cheated on emissions. Sorry about that. It's okay. I don't think the mumbler could even hear it.

Yeah, we did. Oh, you did hear that? I forget that video is autoplay in the horrible world we live in. We can hear everything. It's too late. We can hear everything. Oh, okay. All right, well, that's fine.

What you got there? Porter Stout IPA? I'm not going to dignify that with an answer. Actually, it is an Imperial IPA. It's a Pyramid Outburst, a dry-hopped Indian pale ale. The Pyramid Brewing Company is, I believe, in our neck of the woods. Isn't that correct, Wes? Yeah, they're from Portland, Oregon, as a matter of fact.

So this is a beer right out of Portland, Oregon, a local beer for us. And I've seen the Pyramid Brewery before. Oh, very nice. Yeah, I haven't gone in, but I've seen it before. So I'll give it a—and you've already been drinking this. I have been. It's all about the Oregon beers. We make the best beers down here.

Well, I don't know if that's necessarily true. I mean, you're implying that Washington would not make a better beer. I happen to disagree, but I mean, I think we can be beer brethren. We can be beer buddies. Brothers in beer. Yeah, but I mean, you can't beat Washington beer. Come on.

Let's be honest. I think Washington beer is like some of the best in the nation. Yeah, that's true. You know what? I'll take you up on that challenge. Give me a beer and I'll go find it for you. Hmm. Well, no, hold on now. I would have to defer to your local expertise. Yeah, true.

That's the only way to make it fair. Yeah. And, you know, I feel like, you know, here's the problem is I feel like that question literally changes season to season. changes season to season so uh i would have to go on a all all-star brewery tour to entertain the current best beer to get it to you so you would be asking me to basically go drink a lot of beer this sounds like a whole new show a lot of tasty beer and uh yeah so yeah okay all right well we'll see about that i think that doesn't sound like a problem chris