LINUX Unplugged - Episode 126: Mycroft Action Show | LUP 126

Episode Date: January 6, 2016

Straight from the horse's mouth, we get updates on the code drop coming from the Mycroft project. Plus some details about our SCALE plans & NVIDIA's Linux powered CES demo.Plus Chris owns up to his 2015 predictions & more!

Big CES week. And Michael over at Pharonix said not as big of a deal for Linux as it was last year, and he may or may not be right. But I was sure spotting a lot of Linux in NVIDIA's live demo. So NVIDIA today announced the PX2, which is the second generation of what they call their computer super – their mini supercomputer for a car. That's what they call it. And it's a big, massive NVIDIA box that is liquid cooled for this new version, the PX2. It's a big box with an ODB2 connector, and it's meant to go in your computer and power these self-driving cars. And we talked a little bit about it. Popey

and I did today, actually, in Tech Talk Today. Like, one of the nice things is it can process 2,800 images a second. Wowee. Yeah, it's got eight teraflops of processing, 12 CPU cores, and it is a pretty neat beast. And we talked more details in Tech Talk, but check out the demo here, how cool this is, and then I want to show you where the Linux is involved.

Like you were saying, there's millions of points per second coming in. We can't just throw all of this at the driver as they're going down the road. They won't understand what's happening. So we need to distill and refine the localization of where the vehicle is into both the lane. The HERE HD maps help us draw these lanes perfectly. Every vehicle that's coming past that's noticed by the LiDAR or by the cameras cameras refined and placed properly in their lanes. So all of these cars that I see around us right now, they're real cars.

I mean, they're not some kind of imaginary cars. They're real cars that we've detected. And we know where they are in 3D space. We know how fast they're traveling. We know how fast we're traveling relative it. And we know what lanes they're in now because we've identified everybody. We've localized everybody. Yep. And we know the path that we're because we've identified everybody. We've localized everybody. Yep.

And we know the path that we're going to be taking, optional paths that we might be taking. All of this information we can present in a very refined fashion so that somebody can relax, have a serene ride down the road. But how do we know that this isn't just a mock-up, some kind of a demo? Well, you know, I think one of the best things that we can see is actually what it looks like going down the road with real information. So if we look at it with the video. Unfortunately, we don't have a windshield in front of you, but let's put a virtual windshield up here.

So this is the actual information driving down 101 with the vehicles passing. All of this is being computed in real time. This is not a video down below. Look at that. It just changed lanes. The car in front of me just changed lanes. Two cars just come up next to us.

We don't need rear view mirrors anymore. All right. So that's a little bold there. Just get rid of them. Yeah. Just a little more. There's just no reason to ever have to look around you. Yeah.

You can just loop there is all it's doing right there. And because our sensors are so robust and because we have so many redundant sensors, it is possible for us to detect all of these different cars. And we talked more about the image processing and recognition in tech talk. But if you look at the presentation during the presentations, one of the things you would have noticed showing up on screen over and over again, Popey, do you know what it is? Did you catch it? Oh, I know this. What is it? What is it? What is it?

No, no, I don't. Oh, you don't? Oh, well, it's Fedora. No, actually, it's lots of Ubuntu. There are demos like last year run on Ubuntu. The machines are running Ubuntu. It's Ubuntu all over the place. All right, they're up on stage during the video presentation at CES.

You knew that because they did it last year and the year before. But I still think it's pretty damn cool. It is cool. This self-driving supercomputer car thingy. You know it's cool because of that leather jacket. That leather jacket, it was one of the best investments that CEO has ever made. That dude wears it up on stage every single event. And you know what?

I like him. He seems like a CEO that actually knows his stuff. So you've got to respect that. Now you come to say it. seems to kind of actually he seems like a ceo that actually knows his stuff so you gotta actually now you come to say it i can't think of any uh car automation demos that i've seen in the last year or two that don't have a buntu on them somehow at some point in the development right yeah like either the computers that are connecting to the in-car system or the computers are developing the sensors yeah in fact when i think you know what what? It's almost, it would be more shocking if they were doing it on Windows.

That's what we'd be talking about. Wow, now that is your story right there, everybody. This is Linux Unplugged, episode 126 for January 5th, 2016. 16. Welcome to Linux Unplugged, your weekly Linux talk show that's for people who like to mess with computers. My name is Chris. And my name is Wes. Hey there, Wes. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you, Chris.

Oh, thank you. You know, after today's episode, I'm going to go ride a horse. Really? Yeah, happy birthday. It's my daughter, Abby. She turned five today. Happy birthday, Abby. Yeah, so after this, we're going to go ride horses. That sounds great.

Yeah. Hopefully it's not raining. Great. It sounds great. No, it's indoors. Oh, okay. I thought, come on. So you're not much of an equestrian there, Chris?

No. Well, I used to be back in the day. Long story. Make sure someone films this, and I think it would make great Patreon content. All right. Well, coming up on today's episode, hopefully we've got some great content for you. We're going to get an update from the Mycroft Project straight from Ryan's mouth, a.k.a. the horse's mouth. Also, later on in the show, every single year, this chap out there puts out the big list

of all of the things that are super wrong in Linux. Major Linux problems on the desktop. The 2016 edition is out, and the list is extensive, to say the least. We're going to go through the list. Wes and I read the whole dang thing. We picked out the important bits that we need to respond to, and we're going to do it right here in the show with the whole

virtual lug. There are some pain points the guys got us on. Oh, yeah. For sure. And they're helpful observations. And you know, if you're thinking about switching to Linux, there are probably things you should know about going in. So we're going to talk about that. But there's also a few points that kind of misses the mark on. Kind of misses the mark on. And then, towards the

end of the show, I'm going to do it. I'm going to own up to what I thought was going to happen in 2015. We made our predictions of Linux Action Show episode 345. I hope you looked this scared during it. I know. And I went through and pulled out some of the predictions I made. And now I'm going to play them back and see how I did for 2015.

Ooh. Yeah. I just get to watch. Yeah. It's going to be a little painful for me. But you know what? It's on record, so I got to do it. It's not like I can hide it.

So I'll go through it. We'll do it. But, you know, Wes, before we get into all of that stuff, you and I, just a moment, before the lug comes in here, let's take a moment and talk about this rather outstanding beer you brought in today. Oh, do you like it? I do. You know, this is like we're going to call this the Beer is Tasty segment because you

brought in a beer last week and this week, and I think it's worth talking about. You brought in the Sierra Nevada Celebration, and it's a fresh, fresh IPA. And I was looking on Beer Advocate it's got a BA score of 93 which is pretty amazing 6.8% by volume

yeah yeah and you know it's that 6.8 is kind of high for a beer it's kind of high I like a little

you know the higher it's definitely hoppy it's pretty good so what do you think I like it I like it but you know

it is hoppy but it doesn't have too much of the bitter hop finish right it has a nice you know it's there it's tasty yeah there is a bit of a finish that's not too cloying yeah it is hoppy, but it doesn't have too much of the bitter hop finish. Right. It has a nice, you know, it's there.

It's tasty. Yeah, there is a bit of a finish that's not too cloying. Yeah, it stays on the tongue, but not too bad. Yeah. So there you go. If you're listening to this episode and you have a Sierra, you should crack one open. It's a crucial element that makes this show work. And also makes me a little belchy sometimes, but I'll try to avoid that.

I got a mute switch right here. Maybe I can take advantage of that. Hey, let's get into our updates of the week. And to do that, let's bring in our virtual lug. Time-appropriate greetings, Mumbaroom. Hello, world. Hello. Hey, everybody.

So it's here, the final episode of The World Without Linux put out by the Linux Foundation. It's finally arrived, and I haven't seen it yet. I've been saving it. Oh, I haven't seen it either. We've watched like three or four of these on the show, and this is a series to market Linux at the Linux Foundation, you know, the people behind a lot of great initiatives and the funders of Linus Torvald's paycheck and Greg and others that are super important to Linux Kernel.

They have been putting these videos out to help the average person understand what the world would be like if Linux didn't exist. So let's watch it and then do a little mystery science theater on it. Ow! didn't exist. So let's watch it and then do a little mystery science theory on it. Hello and welcome home to Freeburger, where the message of the day is free. Oh, hey, Annie. Sam, what's up? I didn't know you worked here. Yeah, I started here in 91 just as a hobby. Nothing professional, but here I still am. I do it just for fun. Anyways, what can I get you? Wow, this menu is huge. What's good here? Well, I like the Sloppy Joe Distro, the Pseudo Menudo, the Wild Cherry Binary, mmm, bomb, the Raspberry Pie, the Sous Say Sou souffle, oh, the Helsinki drinky. You should

get that on the side. And, of course, there is the world-famous free burger and kernel fries. Uh, what are kernel fries? Oh, they're just like regular fries, only monolithic. Uh, yeah. So, where are your ingredients sourced from? Actually, thousands of chefs from around the world

contribute ingredients and recipes, so the menu is constantly evolving and getting better. You should try the gooey chocolate chip cookie. It's bran-ga-noo to the menu. Wait, what? You mean bran-new? No, bran-ga-noo. What's ga-noo?

Beats me. I thought you ga-noo. Just kidding. I don't know. They just make me say it. I'll just have the free burger and kernel fries. Oh, and I need that to go. So you want that in a container?

I guess. So how much do I owe you? Nothing. It's free. What? Seriously? Yeah. The owners give everything away for free. And since so many people around the world contribute, the recipes are free for everyone to check out, too. It's pretty cool. That's why they call it free burger, dude.

Oh, right. Hey, Linus! Wait, is it Linus? Anyway, I need you to release a free burger and Colonel Fries! And make it snappy! Ah, users are so demanding. Hey, that's really him, isn't it? And it says I'd rather be diving on his shirt.

A world with Linux is hard to imagine. Thanks to the hundreds of thousands of new individuals and companies who support Linux, we don't have to. Hashtag world with Linux is hard to imagine. Thanks to the hundreds of thousands of individuals and companies who support Linux, we don't have to. Hashtag world without Linux. Let's see. There's also the Bash Sour Mash, the Config Pig. There's the Shells and Cheese, Echo Prosecco. Very smooth. Or you can get the CD Paranoia with a side of chow and down.

If you're thirsty, there's grep juice. For sweets, we've got gummy boots, jelly beans, cinnamon buns, yum extenders, ice cream sandwich, gingerbread. You could have some java with gnome foam if you're into that. All right. That was a pretty good one. That was the best one, wasn't it? That probably was the best one. They saved the best for last.

And they got a Linus. I wonder, though. I feel like a lot of those jokes you'd already have to know and like Linux to understand. That didn't seem like a world without Linux, did it? Well, or at least it doesn't work as well. Look at you calling out the premise. I mean, I'm glad they're making it. I like the catchy music.

That was playing to the bass, wasn't it? Right, which is fine. I feel played, too, which makes me feel good. But I don't think I could show that to my parents. Java with known foam could be a title, Jumba. You should bang suggest Yeah. I don't think I could show that to my parents. Java with GNOME foam could be a title, Jumba. You should bang suggest that. I don't know. What do you guys think in the mumble room?

That was a valiant effort, right? I think they did pretty good. And I'm imagining how they did this, and I think it was probably a worthwhile effort. Yeah, definitely. It's sort of the Linux old school, doesn't it? Yeah. Right.

I think it's the least worst one so far. Yeah. That's kind of you. Reminds me of watching a Quentin Tarantino movie for all the references. Oh, just in the sense of making callback references or in the sense of like Kill Bill cutting off heads? Oh, okay. All right.

Yeah, okay. Yeah. ImaCon doesn't like it. You guys are a bunch of critics. You know, the Linux crowd is a hard crowd. It's a hard crowd. We're not a nice community. Oh, yes, we are.

We are. In fact, if you want to prove it, just attend scale. You'll actually see how nice we are. It's just we're much nicer in person. And that's the truth of it. So we're going to scale. And I'm crapping my pants as I talk about this. It is not something I intended to do.

Damn it, Chris. And I know I'm sorry about that. It's kind of smelly. I have to be here for the rest of the show. Go on. You know, I'm not like Mr. Fancy Pants Popey in the mumble room here where my company will send me. You know? Well, you are your company.

Yeah, exactly. And I just, the thing is, I have to be there. I have to go. And not only not only because I think it's extremely relevant for two, at least of the shows on the network, if not three shows on the network. But really, there is something to what Wes just said, that joke you just made about how we're kind of a rough community. you just made about how we're kind of a rough community. I was looking back at some of the stuff we did to do the last retrospective of 2015, and it just kept coming up over and over again, like community drama and community issues. And then I was doing the retrospective on LUP. Same thing. All of this crap about how the kernel mailing list is handling interacting with people.

There was a period of time in the Debian community during the systemd stuff. Excuse me. It is like – it is a bad – we have a bad stereotype going now. It is like – it's kind of getting – it's like – boy, I don't – I like – I don't know if I should say this. But like you know how there's communities online that are known for being kind of a hard community to get into? That's the Linux community. We're that community now. And it's totally unfounded because I think – I mean I think there are legitimate problems like there are in any large-scale community.

FreeBSD … Some people have a bad time but that doesn't mean it's the majority. Right. Even the gentlemen, as they like to call themselves, over at FreeBSD are going through this right now. The FreeBSD Foundation just released a statement about harassment. There's back and forth going on. If you want to follow that drama, you can try to look into it. There's back and forth going on. If you want to follow that drama, you can try to look into it.

No community is isolated from this because these are worldwide communities that are – it's not just gender issues. It is complete and different culture issues. There are different cultures working together that see things completely differently. And so there are flare-ups that happen and the thing is they happen out in the public because these are open mailing lists, not behind some closed commercial private meeting where everybody can yell at each other and nobody ever knows about it. I think Greg Cage touched on that very well in that same retrospective. Yeah, and that's why I actually chose – one of the reasons I chose that clip because I felt like it addressed that issue at a meta level. And so I don't know how else to say this, but if you don't go to these events in person, you don't get to see the other side of the coin. You only get to read the online experience,

which is very, very skewed because there's some money to be made in the headlines and to generate clicks. And people love Trump. Yeah. So you just, if you can, I really think, you know, going to an event like this,

it's a special experience. There's not a lot of things that, if you're as if you can, I really think going to an event like this is – it's a special experience. There's not a lot of things that – if you're as passionate about Linux, even half as passionate about Linux as we are – You're listening to this show, so you probably are. It is really a unique and fun experience. And I think LinuxFest Northwest, I just love it. It feels organic and genuine, and I've never been to a scale before. I've literally been avoiding it for the entire run of the show. But I'm going to go to my first scale, and I don't know what it's going to feel like.

I'm going to tell you, but I don't want to get there, but I don't know yet. But there are a lot of events that go on in the industry, and these are some of the events that are really the good ones. And if you're passionate about Linux, it's a pretty cool opportunity. And we have a promo code Last40. We don't get any kickback for that at all. There's no financial agreement for that. It's just they know we're going to be talking about scale and they want to get more people there and they gave us a promo code Last40.

And I guess I get the distinction of having sent some people if you use that promo code. So I guess in that sense, it helps the esteem of the show. But I don't get any money for it. Last 40, you get a 40% discount. And it's January 21st to the 24th. And there's a couple of days there where Ubicon will be overlapping scale. It's going to be a track at scale that you can attend. You can go to both.

Ubicon is free. They'd like you to register, though. We'll have links in the show notes to do that. And we're planning to do a tentative brunch on Friday. Brunch, you say? I do. An action power brunch, actually. I've already set up the meetup. So we're starting to organize now. I just kind of plugged in a temporary location, which may or may not be the final location. So if you want to join us, go to meetup.com slash jupiterbroadcasting. Here's why. This is why we're doing this.

There's only going to be a short period of time where both Noah and I are at scale. I'm coming in to cover Ubicon and the first couple of days of scale, and then I'm leaving on Friday. And I'm going to try like hell to get back here by Sunday. I don't know if it's possible. That is a mad dash. It might not work. I don't know what's going to happen. So I'm going to try to get back here by Sunday. I don't know if it's possible. I'm going to try. That is a mad dash. It might not work. I don't know what's going to happen.

So I'm going to try to get back here by Sunday and do last from here with Noah doing it live from scale. So Noah's going to be there from Friday to Sunday to cover the latter half. And I think it's going to be big on the weekend. But the only day both Noah and I are going to be there is Friday, so far, as is planned. So we're scheduling a meetup in the kind of morning

before scale really kicks off. The idea being people always got stuff going on in the evening. Right. So anyways, and I'm going to be leaving. So I just put the meetup link in the chat room. It's also in the show notes. And Mr. Popey, rumor has it there's also kind of like a little gathering before Ubicon kicks off on Wednesday. Do you know anything about that?

Maybe. I've kind of? Maybe. I've kind of messed up. I'm getting out there really early. I'm getting on the, I think I'm leaving here on the 18th. So I'm going to be there around and about like a tourist. On Tuesday? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah. So I may or may not. So here's what I'm planning to do is I'm planning to leave on the 16th and take one of the most beautiful drives in the United States of America is Highway 101 because from Washington to California, it's the coast the entire way. I would recommend. Yeah. And I've just been people I've been reading people talking about on blogs.

It's beautiful. Yeah. And lots of like really nice, you know, small towns and stuff like that. So I'm planning to take that drive down to California. So we'll get some more Rover Log. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And I'll probably arrive on the night of the 19th or the 20th. I'm not sure.

I'm not quite sure when I'll arrive because I'm going to take my time getting down there. And then I'm going to haul balls getting back. You've seen it all before. Yeah. Yeah. So I'd love to have you guys at the – anybody that's attending, you too, Popey, anybody who's attending, I'd love to have you at the brunch, if you can make it. And we may change all the details.

All the details may change depending on Noah's flight, because he hasn't locked in flights yet, because his wife's birthday is right in there. But right now, it's tentatively scheduled for Friday the 22nd at 9.30 a.m. And I just figured we'd do lunch at a cafe right by the, look, I found a nice cafe right by the event center, the convention center. But if people have a better suggestion, they're more familiar with the area, I'm all ears. So there is a Linux Action Show subreddit thread where we're already organizing. And P4P3R has been kicking ass.

He's been updating it with new details as I release them. So hopefully he'll update the post with a link to the meetup. I would prefer that this be where the discussion is had. I don't really check the meetup forms very often because, honestly, I've got to check all these different places and I'm driving. So it's not super convenient to check the crappy meetup page. So if you want to have a – so we can organize and discuss right here in the subreddit. And this is a great thread that's already going. And if you can attend, just join the meetup.

Otherwise, you get to just watch from afar as we kill ourselves to get this content to you. Hey, you know what I should do is I should mention we have a shirt that we're selling. Teespring – it's funny. You see, I didn't even plan for this, but teespring.com slash last400. You're a natural side, I'm just finishing up a divorce, which— I've heard those make you more wealthy. Is that accurate, Chris? You know, because I have three kids and they're staying with Ange in that house,

I'm giving them everything. So I'm moving out on my own and I have, I literally am buying everything from toothbrushes on up. And so I can't really personally afford to finance this. Traditionally in the past, whatever the gap is, I just pay for personally, is how

I've done it for 10 years now. I can't really afford to do that anymore and not for a while. So the idea is we have a couple of things that are coming up is I'd love to celebrate last 400 at that brunch, that power brunch we have is I'd love to have cameras there. I'd love to be able to afford to bring the gear there to record it. But in order to just get to scale, we're going to need to get funding. And then to be able to do something like the last 400 video, I want to make a video for last 400 while we're all at scale.

That's my intention. And I would like to get all of that funded as much as we can without it going on my credit card. That's the base. I mean, I'm just being 100% honest with you. The idea was this is something that we recognize we want to do. And I believe there is long-term value to the open source community by going there and documenting it the way that our shows do it. So I think there is value to the open source community by going there and document it the way that our shows do it. So I think there is value to the open source community, and I think it's also value to the show

to make the show something that continues to be relevant and covers relevant Linux things. And so what this, what I, at the end of it all, is what I wanted to do was, once again, when we can, have you guys help us out, but also get something in the process. And these are all very nice items. They're not

cheap. We don't make a huge margin on them. The quality is very good. We've worked with Teespring now for years. So we have a relationship with them that allows us to call them up and say, hey, this doesn't work for us. You've got to fix this. And they've been very responsive. I really like the spot we're in now because now we're able to really do some great stuff. The one thing we don't have the leverage to do, which means the guys in the EU get a better deal, is over at teespring.com slash last400eu. We have a t-shirt. We have a hoodie. But they also have a tote bag.

Oh, I want that tote bag. I think I'm going to buy one. Maybe two. I actually told Ange today to get me like three different ones because, you know, we can order from the EU. We just have to pay more in shipping. Right. But the EU guys don't have to so at teespring.com slash last 400 eu you get the eu shipping because they have a different they have a different uh like um uh

they they set up another shop over there so they do the printing locally um topeg topeg at conferences is a no-brainer it's a no-brainer so that is we we are like you need to bring that to the us so we've been we're already talking to them. They're like, yeah, we can't do it for this campaign. Anyways, I would love to get your support, and I'd like you to get something too. These shirts are great. These hoodies are killer. We have a bunch of different colors.

We've got the ladies' fitted tee. And what we're going to do is – so right now we've probably sold 26 or so and a few other on the EU side. We're getting close to covering the gas to get down there, which is great. But we're not really covering any shipping to get the equipment, the big equipment from NOAA, and we're not really covering anything to really do at the party. But we're getting close to covering the gas, which is great. But we definitely are not there. So we could use a lot more support.

And really, I appreciate the fact that I can just sit here and tell you guys honestly why I'm doing it. I hope that you understand that from a business standpoint, this is sort of our best way to keep doing this in a way that allows us to sustainably produce these shows. Because if I overextend for events as they come up, that's not a sustainable approach. You could put the network in jeopardy. up, that's not a sustainable approach. You could put the network in jeopardy.

Yeah. But at the same time, I also – and I am willing to consider – I am definitely willing to – and I don't – this is not like you have to do this or else. I am willing to consider that maybe the better option is to go to a commercial sponsor and have them just sponsor the hell out of an event. But I don't know. I don't know if it is or not and I'm willing to experiment with it. But I don't know. I don't know if it is or not, and I'm willing to experiment with it. But I also really like the idea of, as best we can, crowdsourcing it because not only does that save me time when having to line up deals, but it also just sort of lets you guys know I'm going there really for you not to go promote somebody else.

Anyways, teespring.com slash last400 or patreon.com slash today. And don't forget meetup.com slash jupiterbroadcasting for the meetup. And I got a link to the Ubicon stuff where they say Wednesday, January 20th, one night before the event, there'll be a meeting around 1900 for an informal gathering to get to know each other. And I have a link to the whole Ubicon conference schedule

in the show notes if you guys are going to be able to attend both. And it looks like there's going to be a Thursday night party. Which I don't know if I'm registered for. Popey, you and I need to talk. Maybe you can get me in contact with somebody to make sure I'm already in for all this stuff, okay? Because I want to go to that Thursday party. Maybe after the show you and I can wink-wink. Ooh.

Party? That sounds good. Get drunk with Mark Shuttleworth, right? Yep. Right? Plus, you know, Popey's drinking that watered-down beer over there. So when you're here drinking the Sierra, what is it here? Celebration. Yeah.

Yeah. You know he's going to get a little tipsy. So you're going to have to coax me off of a dry January first, which won't be that hard, to be honest. Dry January? Tell us more. Have you never heard of this? Oh, it's just like, you know, stop drinking for a month after the excess

of Christmas. Oh, really? Oh, well, I don't think that'll be too hard. No, it won't. It really won't. It doesn't count if you're in another country, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, first of all, it's a way different area code, so that doesn't count. And second of all, it's like the end of January, so you pretty much did it.

Just have to make sure nobody tells my wife, all right? No problem. As long as she doesn't listen to the show, we're good, which I think we're probably good. Everyone tweet at the real Popey. I thought you had to drink to recover from Christmas and the time you spent with the family and everything. Popey, all you have to do is just think of a line that the wife will buy. I don't know if she has any anti-American sentiment in her, but just say, honey, I was down there around all those Yankees.

It was just the worst. They smell bad. They don't drink any tea and they drive on the wrong side of the road like a bunch of assholes. I needed something to soothe my nerves. Have you been listening in to my conversations with my wife? That's exactly what I would say. So there you go.

You got problem solved. I'm a problem solver. People ought to consult me for relationship counseling. As somebody who's going through divorce, I think I could make some money at that. Let me tell you something. All right. Let me tell you another way. Maybe it's not the counseling. Here's a way you could save some money. Switch to Ting. That would probably be a better way. Maybe it's not the counseling. Here's a way you could save some money. Switch to Ting.

That would probably be a better way. Maybe my counseling skills should wait, and you should just switch to Ting. This would be a good time to do it at the beginning of the year. Linux.Ting.com. That's where you go to support this here show. Also get yourself a discount off some Ting gear, which is all unlocked and you own, or get a credit if you bring a device. And they have a lot of devices because they have a CDMA and GSM network that you get to pick from. And some of these devices, like the Nexus Eye devices and

some of the nicer ones, they have the capability of running on CDMA or GSM. Now that's cool. Now you can get kind of picky. Now you can sort of say, well, I mean, for me, when I'm out in the rover and I go somewhere over the weekend, sometimes I have better CDMA coverage and sometimes I have better GSM coverage. It just depends on the location. So I can be kind of savvy about that. And Ting has an incredible dashboard that lets you manage all of this stuff. It works on all of your devices, but it's actually good. It's actually useful.

I don't really know how else to describe it. It is, you know, you can go in there and you can set nicknames for your devices. You can go in there and set alerts and you can set maximum thresholds. You can turn off individual level services that allows you to really get granular control over your account. You can do things like transfer to another line from the control panel itself. You don't even have to call customer service. But it's not to get you to avoid using customer service because they have fanatical customer service that sticks with you until the problem is solved. So it's a really nice setup.

So go to linux.ting.com to see more. They have great devices at great prices, and they also have a great blog. We covered this in Linux Action Show this Sunday. Kyra just posted her top five apps over the last 12 months. Pretty good video. And they also have done some recent holiday cord cutter posts that are really useful if you need to cut the cord.

And they've also even got the sports, which I know, Wes, you're a big sports guy. It's hard to find those college football playoff games on the internet. Sports ball. You know, I actually got a couple of good ideas from reading the blog post, even though I'm not a sports guy.

Because I'm really interested in getting live TV on the internet and things like that. And that was actually a good post for that. IPTV, the future. Yeah. You know, it generally seems like they're made up of people like us. They really are. They really are. Which is awesome.

It is kind of cool. And, you know, because they're owned by 2Cows, which has been around forever. And they're like one of the original internet companies that figured out how to survive the dot-com boom and do things right. And so there are certain things that they just really – like they just follow by law. It's just like their own personal law. Linux.ting.com. Go there, support the show, and get $25 off your first unlocked device and go own it. Linux.ting.com. And a big thank you to Ting for sponsoring Linux Unplugged.

I love it. All right, Ryan, I hope you are back here, sir, because I would love to talk to you about what's going on at the Mycroft project. Ryan, did he make it back? No. Oh, yeah. Oh, sorry. There you go.

Okay, Ryan, go ahead. Yeah, I'm here and I've got a lot to talk about. Well, now hold on. Let's tease it a little bit. So Ryan emails me, and we're talking back and forth about a couple things that you guys will probably hear about more down the road. And there was a tease that there might be something landing that people, a tangible thing people can go get their hands on online and look at and sort of maybe even contribute

to. I don't want to say any more. I'm excited already. But I'm just saying something interesting could be dropping very soon from the Minecraft project. You think I've teased properly, Ryan? Yeah, that's perfect. Okay, so what's going on? Tomorrow at 3 o'clock p.m. Central Standard Time.

I don't know what it is in UTC. We are releasing the Adapt Intent Parser, we are releasing the Adapt Intent Parser, which is our software library that we use to convert natural language into machine-readable data structures. So what that means... So it's the Intent Parser, you said? Yeah, that's right. And this is kind of some of the secret sauce of Mycroft,

so we're really releasing probably one of our most powerful tools right out of the gate. Ryan, I might have you check your input a little bit because you're clipping a little bit. I think this sounds like, and I'm going to ask you if I'm right or not, but this sounds like this is sort of like the critical decision maker piece that once I've been given input, I have to decide what the intent of that input was. Are they looking to do a thing?

Are they asking about a thing? Do I have that right? That's exactly correct. What it does is it looks at your sentence or your query and parses it and it decides what the person is trying to do and then turns it into an action or turns it into at least a JSON little data set that an application can use to take an action. That kind of seems like that's a core thing that makes Siri and Google Now useful is they know when I say, what's the weather like today? They're able to grab the context out of that and say, well, today is this, like they get the intent of what I'm doing.

Like that seems like a, that seems like the thing that makes these things actually smart. Yeah, that's right. And since we had, actually we uh began after the kickstarter we had received a lot of attention and josh and i uh the founders had uh we had a what we call mycroft legacy now and uh we were using a variety of tools in order to perform this action and then sean fitzgerald who was formerly one of the developers at siri and on the amazon echo okay came over and he brought this with him oh wow earlier version of this yeah and he was like hey i've been working on this i was going to open source it um but it seemed like it would be a good fit for your guys's project considering i had

spoken on multiple occasions about wishing that i didn't have to rely on outside APIs to do this type of task. Ah, so this is huge in the sense, too, that you're now less reliant on third-party services? Yeah, that's right. And so we immediately, once I realized what he'd brought with him, I was like, we need to put some resources into this and get this as polished as we can and then share it with the world. And so we've put some polish on it. It's still early days, but our release is in July of everything. And so we're just opening it up now so the community can get in there and hack it and use it for other things other than you know what we've used it for i actually got some ideas laid out here because i wanted to share them with your audience because i'm really excited for people to use it yeah what is that could you tell us what

what's the license going to be what is it written in oh it's going to be uh it's python it's all written in python great it's being released under the LGPL version 3. Awesome. Wow. We were originally going to release it under the GPL version 3, but we realized that some people wouldn't be able to use it in their applications because of the nature of the GPL. So Google Unlimited sort of negated that? Yeah.

And so the LGPL can be with with other licenses a lot easier and that was a conversation that that i had with the community on mostly on google plus i i just asked i was like you know hey we're going to release this this new project i want to know what you guys think we should release it under and uh the overwhelmingly they said interesting lgpl so not to get too down into the weeds, Ryan, but does this intent parser kick in before or after a call out to a remote service? Where does this fall in sort of the decision chain that a Mycroft device follows? So right now what happens is it kind of depends on the device because Adapt sometimes has to live on our servers with our testing

with really small embedded devices that don't have any real processing power on board. But it's super lightweight. We've run it on the original Raspberry Pi, the B+. And it was just fine. It was fast and responsive. And it lives on our current Mycroft stack. If you're using the embedded device, so if you're using the Mycroft unit that we raise money for in the Kickstarter, it actually does live locally. So the, so the query goes out, um, the STT, whatever we're using for STT in this case,

you know, be with AI or Google STT would come back with the text, so what you said, and then the Adapt Intent Parser sitting on the unit would look at it and turn it into actionable data, which then Mycroft would take the next action, whether that be calling out to an API to get the weather or casting something to the Chromecast. So now, this piece has sort of been pre-developed. Are you concerned at all about anybody that's going to claim, you know, things like intellectual property patents or anything like that? Is this a minefield for you guys or is this, are you feeling safe?

We're feeling pretty safe. It's a different approach than uh what so there's two things there a there's nothing like this out there that's open source right now um which is just a giant hole that's that's missing in the world and uh yeah and it could be used for so many other things than what we're using it for like chat bots uh you know i actually keep thinking of studio automation tasks that i could use yeah and robots and video games video games would be so cool if you could like type something to a character and have them understand what your you know your intent um and uh or like a phone system or analysis of large amounts of data like

you know if you were analyzing a whole bunch of Twitter, a whole bunch of tweets, you know, this could pick out, you know, various things about what they're doing. You mean there's wide applications outside of even AI device or devices like this there, you mean there could be server side background analysis applications for something like this. That's exactly right. And so I, and, and to answer your question, because I kind of sidestepped there, we're not worried about copyright infringing or anything like that

because we kind of have so many people now from backgrounds who have worked on projects like this before that a lot of people say that our approach is a lot different than those of the other existing companies and that they don't think that it's really necessarily going to be a problem. But we'll see. I mean, we'll see. It seems like one of the things, Ryan, that has always struck me about these personal assistants,

be it Amazon Echo and today, I talked about it in Tech Talk today, Ford announced they're looking to integrate with the Amazon Echo so that way you can give it commands from your car. It seems like what you really need for these things to ever be useful is ubiquity. So like I would need one in my home. I would need one in my office. I might need one in my car. And I would maybe need one in different areas of my house.

And I think the only way to truly make that possible is to have the device be different types of devices for different scenarios. Maybe in my studio, it's all running on a computer. Maybe in my RV, it's on a little Mycroft appliance box. And in my kitchen, it's a Mycroft appliance box. But maybe in my studio, it's something that's on just a Raspberry Pi that I've implemented myself. It seems like the ability to have the stuff behind this, the open source software behind this, run on a server in a different form of implementation actually gives the possibility of true ubiquity in this kind of artificial assistant.

So I don't have to have just my phone. I don't have to have just the Mycroft device. I don't have to be in just this room. And if I have even a little DYI inspiration, I could roll it myself or somebody could make a product that does it. I could even have it running on my server that's checking my email in some degree. It seems to me that open source isn't just a licensing thing, but it actually makes like this truly an Internet of Things capable device or set of software. Yeah, you nailed it on the head.

The idea where a lot of people are too siloed in their thinking about what this type of technology means and where it's going to live. Mycroft, the thing that I keep saying in is is mycroft is not just going to live on the mycroft unit mycroft in in the world that that we envision lives on the computer it lives on the phone it lives on the freaking dishwasher maybe it's on a droplet and working on something i gave it you know like yeah exactly and and these parts in in the thing that was the most frustrating when we took up this task was none of this was there. There were some applications that are coming out, we've found ourselves having to tackle various parts of this project, which is fine.

They need to be tackled. And so this is one part. The Adapt engine is one part. So I guess in day-to-day, here's to bring it all to a sort of like a point, a relevant point, is I could see myself having a Mycroft AI unit in my kitchen and then I go upstairs to work in my office and instead of having another hardware that I spent $100 or $200 or whatever it is, I have Mycroft on the desktop. And it also is using my desktop mic and it is also aware of the same things my kitchen version is. But in the kitchen, I have a self-contained appliance unit and up in my office where I have my nice powerful desktop, I'm just running the Mycroft software. Does that seem like a feasible implementation to you?

Yes, it does. In fact, I'm running it on my desktop right now. So what else can you tell us about that? Well, we did release a video just a couple days ago about mycroft on the desktop but the uh but the other thing is i yesterday or was it the day before i don't know aaron's sitting next to me he knows i'm sure i launched every application i could on my computer via mycroft and my fan was like kicking up and making all sorts of noise because i didn't close any of them. I just kept asking him to open more and more and more. And it was crazy

what accuracy was and I realized, like, yes, you could just go and pick through your applications and open that random one, but it is so convenient. Are you using Minecraft on an Oryx Pro? There is, yeah, there's an Oryx Pro next to me that has it on it.

What's a mitochondria? Mitochondria. An organelle containing enzymes responsible for producing energy. Hey, Minecraft, what is 31 divided by 6? 5.16 repeating. It kind of sounds like Wimpy. Are you telling me, are you telling me that System76 gave you Oryx Pros for this video? Are you telling me that? Because I wanted Oryx Pro real bad.

They didn't give us one. That's Aaron's. I got back from System76 and I was talking about what the nice build quality was and everything. He broke down and bought it in a frenzy. I want one so bad I was about to get super jelly.

You know what? I gotta say I want to be first in line if they're giving them away. All right. I want to say one thing about the Oryx Pro real quick. Yeah, okay. The keyboard on that is the best keyboard I've ever used. Yeah. Just saying. I just put, yeah, I got to use it for one night and I fell in love.

So I'm inferring from the video here that this is a working thing. Is this something I can get my hands on yet? Not yet, April. April is when, I mean, you, maybe we can work something out, but like I keep saying, we're really just trying to ensure that our first, each of these projects around Mycroft, we're trying to make as solid as possible before we release it to be contributed to because part of that is not does this run well, but it's what's it look like when someone wants to contribute back to this project? Are they able to do that in an easy way?

Do they have the documentation they need do they have the tools they need in order to develop for it and so um people just want me a lot of people ask me like to just throw everything out there in one big release party but i'm like you know if i throw it out there without enough documentation this is actually a problem that people aren't used to dealing with this artificial intelligence or in the event of like natural language processing. And so I've tried. I've set people in front of it and said like, hey, you know, look at this. And they're like, I don't I'm not familiar with any of these terms.

I don't know how any of this works. And it's because it's because we're, we're used to creating applications where you point and grunt, right. You know, you're not used to parsing what people say. Is this your way of letting, letting me know that you're not going to bring a demo unit to scale? I am bringing a demo. Nice. All right. Nice. Yes, I was hoping so. I want to see it. Yeah, I've heard you're giving out demos, and I'm hoping to see one at Skyline.

Just watch Chris's hands. He will steal it. Ryan, what is your hope? I mean, aren't you at least a little concerned that the noise of the convention floor will make the audio interaction impossible with the thing? So I'm concerned about that, but I'm also planning on... I already talked to Jono because I gave him a demo earlier today,

and we talked about stealing a side room in order to show people so that we weren't... Because, yes, just like when you're talking to a person, if lots of people are yelling around it, you know, sometimes it picks you up, sometimes it's like, hey, I don't know what to say. That's got to be the worst case scenario, a convention floor for a device. So if it even works at all there, probably. Make sure you grab me or Noah and let's get a little video of it because that would be amazing when we're down there.

So, Ryan, what else do we need to talk about today? Because I feel like there's other things, but nothing comes to the top of my head. Well, I just really want to remind people that what's coming out tomorrow, Adapt and TempParser, and we are so excited to see what people will be using Adapt for, what ideas they have. Right now, I've been spending all day working on the documentation, trying to make it as easy as possible for people to get up and use it for something. And if you start with this and you really gain an understanding of this,

you'll be able to, on day one, probably write various skills for Mycroft. So it's not a waste of time to pop in and learn a little bit about this. And what I want to see are really, really intelligent IRC bots. Like, that seems like a perfect match for this. It does. It really does. JBot gets an upgrade in 2016. Yeah.

And, you know, like I said, robots would be a really good match for this. And video games. Video games are the clearest one to me because you could have characters who understand, you know, the simplest of phrases. This very well may be the originator of the intent and parser for the frickin holodeck. Yeah. Right.

Oh, I know what we should talk about, Chris. Yeah. And I haven't committed to this, but, uh, it's in the back of your mind,

something you got kicking around. Yeah. I keep, I shouldn't commit to things on, on the air with you. this isn't a commitment. This is, this is, this is a a commitment. This is a brainstorming session. Oh, a brainstorming session.

So I told Chris this so everybody knows that we should totally pimp the RV with Mycroft units. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The Rover's got to be upgraded with Mycroft AI. I'm not kidding. That's got to happen. I just don't. But not just one.

Not just one. You don't want the unit at the front of the RV. You got to have one in the back where the business is too. And in the bathroom too. Oh, yeah. Just everywhere. That's a good point. You basically nailed the three sound isolation zones where I would need mic coverage.

So can you hook Mycroft up to accelerometers and things like that so it can say to Chris in the middle of the night, stay calm, it's just an earthquake? Well, you know, this is something that we don't talk about enough anymore. But remember, the actual units themselves are, with the exception of the raspberry pi which you know some people are like that's not open hardware but the the unit itself is completely open you you can pop it open um there's a raspberry pi in there and there's an arduino's and there's you know all everything's exposed all the ports are exposed so you can hack on it if you want to and add whatever it is that actually in the rover could be a useful feature that could be a very useful feature uh somebody somebody asked in uh in chat and i just wanted to tell them you you do not need a mycroft

unit in order to use mycroft on the desktop right so that but i would still encourage anybody who's who's been on the edge um to order a mycroft unit because it supports the development effort. Yeah. But anyone who has the ability to install Debian packages should be able to run Mycroft on their desktop. Cool. Now, Wimby, you said a question. Go ahead.

Yeah. We've obviously heard quite a lot about Mycroft over the last six to nine months. I was just curious how much time you'd been working on it prior to the Kickstarter. I started working on Mycroft. Mycroft probably was born in January of 2015. I think that sounds right. of 2015 i think that sounds right and uh then then that was josh montgomery the ceo at the time him and i um i actually hung out at his makerspace and what he what had happened is he'd seen a um really simple like ai at another makerspace it was all like you just said a specific word and it just had a pre-selected like uh action

that it took and so he started we started geeking out about you know geek things and he started he started telling me about this and i was like and we were like you know maybe we can make this that would be so awesome if there was if the maker space that we you know hang out and had this in every room and you could say like hey mycroft where that we you know hang out and had this in every room and you could say like hey mycroft where's this you know do this play this music and uh and so it was originally named scarlet though um after scarlet johansson and i'm all now i'm in love now now you sold me and then uh over time um when we started playing with uh our early code we were like this is actually really awesome we should make a product out of this and that's where that was kind of born so I got on around

March or April and so it's been worked on since January 2015 and then the Kickstarter was of course I think around September I kind of that was so there was so much going on at that point uh with mycroft that my mind has kind of like blocked out all of that but uh but yeah it the anybody who thinks you just throw up a kickstarter and your and money rolls in is just wrong anyway so you're saying the device was inspired by the movie her no not necessarily have you seen that movie the the ai voiced by scarlett johansson it was it was inspired by many things yeah i know i'm just well do you know the namesake right of mycroft no i don't oh you did i think you told me but i don't remember it's named after the ai and uh the moon is a harsh mistress. Right, okay. It's also the name of Sherlock Holmes' brother.

Yeah, right, right, right. Anyway, so yeah, we've been working on it for, well, it's January now, so a full year. That's remarkable progress. Yeah, it's actually pretty neat to see. Yeah, really good momentum. Yeah, and I mean, especially if you're ready to show a device at scale.

That's pretty cool. I'm excited to see that footage. Yeah, and I mean, especially if you're ready to show a device at scale. That's pretty cool. I'm excited to see that footage. Yeah, I'm really excited to share it. So where do I go right now? I know I go to Mycroft AI for the project. If I wanted to jump in with the funding, where else could I go? Let me post a link. It's Indiegogo.

You can preorder on Indiegogo. They have a nice preorder system. I'm going to post a link in the chat. And if you can can preorder on Indiegogo. They have a nice preorder system. I'm going to post a link in the chat. Sure. And if you can post it in the show notes, that would be awesome. No problemo. Yeah, I think this is really neat. And one of the things I like about it is I would like to have a hardware device.

I genuinely think that's neat. But I also love the idea of just turning all of my Linux desktops into something that contributes to this thing. Like they could all be tied into the same information sources and I have the same kind of functionality on my desktop that I could have in, say, my kitchen or the rover, it would really be pretty unique. And like VR and other things that are really kind of developing right now, I would love to see Linux really have something here for this. And what Mycroft, to me to me in my estimation is it's putting

us kind of ahead of the overall competition because the competition can't offer what my craft can offer and it's powered by linux so this is this is the one to get behind in my opinion yeah and let me tell you guys something that's really exciting i we uh we updated uh so everything that mycroft can do is called a skill and we updated our skill framework um right before christmas and so on december 24th we're getting ready to head up to my parents house and i've got the mycroft code base open and i said i'm i'm just going to see with the new because it looked really simple the new skill framework i'm like i'm gonna see how quickly i can create a skill i created a skill in 15 minutes and that was with me having not touched the skill the new skill framework like i'm granted i'm somewhat familiar with you know how how these things are developed and everything but um sean and jonathan two of

our developers had really headed up the new skill framework and i just sat down looked at another skill it was based on the new framework and wrote one in 15 minutes that's great it was uh it was a pokedex so if you played pokemon you could say like what does the pokedex say about this pokemon and it would tell you and so it was seemed like an easy target and so and i was going up to visit my little brother-in-law he's like 13 and so it seemed like an easy target. And I was going up to visit my little brother-in-law. He's like 13. And so it was nice to be able to show him that. But just when I did that, I thought, holy crap.

Like, our own project surprised me because I thought, if I could do this in 15 minutes, people can do amazing things. Like, there's so much out there that can be done, and that's why we're so excited. We're trying to get this stuff ready as quickly as we can to get it out there and get people having fun with it. It's probably worth mentioning, too. If you go to the Indiegogo page, you can just chip in at $5 or $10. You get a sticker, $30, and you get the dev kit. You don't have to go all the way in.

If you can't afford to get a hardware device, but you still think this is a great idea, there's a $5 and $10 and $30. We don't want the open source desktop to be left in the wayside with Cortana and Siri. Screw Cortana. Screw Cortana. Can I share something else that was really awesome?

There's so much. I just need like, we need a Mycroft action show. We very well might one day. Yeah. Okay. So the other thing that we got running really well was up until just last week, I think of the week before, we had run Mycroft on a Ubuntu phone emulator. And so we finally got two Ubuntu phones and we got Mycroft running on a Ubuntu phone emulator. And so we finally got two Ubuntu phones

and we got Mycroft running on the Ubuntu phones. Cool. So I was getting upset because I knew it could text because the other phone was able to text people by saying, hey, Mycroft, text so-and-so. This is awesome. You know, text that message to them. Yeah. And so I was sitting there and people by saying, hey, Mycroft, text so-and-so, this is awesome. You know, text that message to them. And so I was sitting there and I was like,

hey, Mycroft, text Aaron, you know, this is awesome. And then I didn't do anything and I was like, hey, Mycroft, text Aaron, this is awesome. And so I was getting really pissed. And so I looked in the logs and it's like, you haven't put any contacts in the phone. I don't have anybody named Aaron to send a message to. And so, but it was, it's just so awesome that the tech is that it's so awesome using Ubuntu with like,

whether it be on the desktop or on the phone with a, uh, personal assistant. I mean, it's just, yeah, it's, it's, it's just scaling. I think that a lot of people are going to appreciate having that option on the Linux desktop and also having the ability to add things that are specific to you. Right. And if it got really crazy big one day, somebody could make an Android app. Somebody could, you know, I mean, it could be on all the platforms. Yeah, Aaron's writing an in-map skill. Nice.

There you go. So I think North Ranger sort of summarizes it a lot. And it really, for me, North Ranger, I don't know about you, but it comes down to the fact that Mycroft doesn't have sort of an overall multinational corporate strategy tax where Cortana has the tax of whatever Microsoft intends to do with their Bing and Azure and the entire Microsoft Windows ecosystem. And Google obviously wants to keep using Google search. They want to be able to mine your data for advertising. Siri locks you into the Apple platform.

Mycroft doesn't have that baggage. And I don't know about you, North Ranger, but I think that's maybe its most attractive feature. What do you think? I totally agree. Having something that both individuals who'd want to add their own skills, you know, and it's attractive. Mycroft is an attractive system for that. And, you know, if it takes off, I'd love to see, you know, outside companies, see outside companies publishing their own MyCrop skills and not have to feel like they're giving away their secret sauce to Google or Amazon or whoever. Yeah, exactly.

M. Hall wants help, Ryan, installing it at scale. So you're going to be doing a little tech support while you're down at scale with Mr. Hall. That sounds good. Yeah. So anyway. What to be doing a little tech support while you're down at scale with Mr. Hall. That sounds good. Yeah. So anyway. What could be better? Keep your eyes peeled for Adapt getting released tomorrow. If you are not already following us on Twitter, it's at Mycroft underscore AI.

And if you're on Google+, it's plus Mycroft A dot I. Yeah. And you can find us. If you search, you can find us and maybe we can get into the show notes. Yep. Yep. I'll have it linked. I'll have that linked up in the show notes for you because I think it's worth checking

out. And, you know, Ryan, I really appreciate you coming on the show and sharing this with us. It is extremely fascinating to follow this as you're working on it. So it really means a lot to you coming in and chat about it with us. I love coming in chatting about this stuff. Well, thank you, sir. Thanks. Stick around if you want to, because after I go through and own up to my 2015 predictions later on in the show,

I'm going to open up the floor to some predictions, and I'd like to hear some of yours. So stick around if you can. And before we get into the rest of the show, I'm going to take a moment and thank Linux Academy, sponsors of the Unplugged show now, for a long time. And I think that's because this is an obvious fit. It's kind of a no-brainer, actually. This is a resource created for Linux users by Linux users who give a shit about open source. And if that sounds like somebody that is in line with the things that you care about,

that might be why it's such a great fit. Maybe that just has something to do with it. I don't quite know. But go over to LinuxAcademy.com slash Unplugged and take advantage of our discount That might be why it's such a great fit. Maybe that just has something to do with it. I don't quite know. But go over to linuxacademy.com slash unplugged and take advantage of our discount and go check out the Linux Academy. They really – I mean, I joke. I'm having fun with you here, but let's be serious. This Linux enthusiast got together with educators and developers, and they made the Linux Academy platform for people who know what Linux is,

know what all of the different stuff in the stack is that you need to learn, and they know they need a good place to go to learn it from people who actually care. So they've got over 2,000 video courses you can take with instructor help when you need it, downloadable comprehensive study guides, 7 plus Linux distributions you get to choose from. It automatically adjusts the courseware and the virtual machines that you can SSH into

from your favorite SSH client and do it like a boost, which is nice, right in with your existing workflow. They have the entire AWS stack. If you want to get into the Red Hat certified courseware, they've got that. If you want to learn like the Ubuntu LAMP stack, they've got that. If you want to go into Nginx or Python or Ruby, if you want to go into Android development, if you want to go into virtualization and containerization, they have all of it. This is something that they've been really good at, is they watch what's going on because they're into it just like we are, and then they pull the trigger on the stuff they know that's really going to be the long-term stuff that's going to add value to your life to

learn. They have scenario-based labs, so you get real hands-on experience. So you're actually working with this stuff, so when you go to do it in person, it's not the first time you've ever done it. When you're actually doing it, getting paid for it, it gives you that kind of confidence in their lab servers. And then have that instructor help. That to me, that to me seems like the big differentiator because these topics are not like learning After Effects where there's tens and thousands of After Effects guys out there that they could go contract. It's not tightening the bolts on your sink, that there's tons and tons and tons of ways to get instructions and help on that with experts that can help you.

It is working with a Red Hat server. It's setting up AWS and working with S3. These are a little more esoteric, more complicated types of questions. And they have instructor help when you need it. They have graded server exercises. You log into a lab. You perform a specific task. And then they'll automatically grade your actions so you can see how well you did.

This is really nice. Talk about the kind of experience you get from something like that. And remember, it's choosing from the distro that you've selected. That's pretty cool, too. And imagine the amount of work they have to do to make that work. That's the thing. That's the thing that we thought about doing for HowToLinux, and we're like, we don't have a staff of a bajillion. We could never do it.

Right. You have to pick one. LinuxAcademy.com slash unplugged. Go check them out. They just recently revamped their backend distribution infrastructure. Whole new CDN. HTML 5 players throughout, so it works on all your good devices. It really is a great resource.

You can support the show by going to linuxacademy.com slash unplugged. And a big thank you to Linux Academy for sponsoring. Thank you. The Unplugged Program. Okay, Wes. So every year this guy comes along now with his big old list of crap that don't work on the Linux desktop. And this is the major Linux problems for 2016 edition. And this is

as put a regularly updated article of all of the things that are wrong with Linux distributions. Now Wes, did you get a chance by any chance to go through this long list of items and did you get a sense of this person's intent when you went through this list?

Yes. I think the intent is good. I think it's a helpful catalog. I think there are some items where it reads more emotionally or more heat of the moment than it could. I think there are some items that are either dated or I think a lot of it also draws attention to this fails in some cases. And it's important that we note that, right? Because any failure is important, but it also kind of, I think, lot of it also draws attention to this fails in some cases. And it's important that we note that, right?

Because any failure is important. But it also kind of, I think, highlights some things where it's like, well, you may have that problem. But 90% of people do not. I think what it really lacks is a real sense of any statistics and a larger context. Do you have a sense if this person is experienced with Linux or with other operating systems? Do you have a sense if they have a good technical capability? Yes, I would say it does. It sounds like someone who's been in the trenches using a Linux desktop for a long time and continues to do so. I know a lot of people who have jumped that ship. Now they're on the Mac. Now they use Windows because they have

games. This person sounds like someone who's put up with a lot and who's run the full gamut of working or not. In fact, he says here, I want to make one thing crystal clear. Windows in some regards is even worse than Linux and it's definitely not ready for the desktop either. Right. And I think a lot of these too are how you define that ready for the desktop because there's some of these where it's like, well, if ready for the desktop is you need it to work reliably, 100% production machine with this specific equipment. Maybe it won't. Is it ready for your grandmother's computer to browse the web and write up a word? Yeah, maybe it is. Right, and those are two different interpretations of the desktop.

So here's where he starts. Open source NVIDIA driver is much slower, up to five times, than its proprietary counterpart due to improperly working power management. And the AMD and Intel graphic drivers can significantly be slower than the proprietary counterparts. This is a huge issue, he says. And I think this is a prime example of what you were just saying. Those of us that would be using, in my estimation, the open source NVIDIA driver could give really no crap about the performance. We just really want to be able to hook up a projector, hook up an external monitor, hook up our TV or just run our single monitor.

And as long as the windows render properly and if there is some sort of desktop effect, it is within appropriate response time, they're happy. That's the baseline all they need from the open source driver. Those of us who want every bit of performance out of our GPU we can, we're already compelled to run the proprietary driver for other reasons. So this right off the surface is it's not taking into context this complaint. And I would also – I could take a moment and mention that the graphics situation is not necessarily much better on the Mac. The Mac has horrible GPU drivers. So –

And in some cases, the open source – like I know like the open source AMD graphics, while they may not be great currently for 3D, the 2D stuff is great. They support multiple monitors flawlessly. So I think his first complaint sort of puts into context what you're saying with the overall issue we take with the article is it's sort of – it blurs the lines between different use cases and it just tries to take – Linux is a very flexible operating system that can work in a lot of different scenarios, and some scenarios have different requirements. Right. Some of those requirements are directly at odds. If it works well in one scenario, maybe it can't. Yeah. All right.

So Mumble Room, as we go through these, feel free to chime in as you like. That was our first one. But here's some other ones in here that, you know what, they ring a little true. Let's talk about the audio subsystem. Let's start with my favorite one because it affects the mumble room. No reliable echo cancellation. If you use a normal microphone and speakers, in many cases, you won't be able to use Skype and VoIP services normally. Windows, Android, and macOS all implemented voice echo cancellation on a system level.

There's a solution for pulse audio and hopefully be enabled by default in the future. This is legitimately something that is kind of a pain in the ass on Linux. Are you familiar with that solution? I am not. I am not. The solution is don't use speakers, use headphones. That's the solution.

Because even voice cancellation, echo cancellation isn't that great on the other platforms either. Just don't use Hangouts or Mumble with a microphone and open speakers. Use a headset or something like that. Which is what many professional broadcasters would be doing anyway. Yeah. All right. No reliable sound system. No reliable unified audio mixing implemented

in all modern OSs except for Linux. Many old and or proprietary applications still open audio output exclusively, causing major user problems and headache. Too many layers of abstraction lead to situations where the user cannot determine why audio input output doesn't work. Also kernel drivers, also library connected to DMX, connected to the Pulse audio server, then the also library, then the Pulse backend, then the application.

That's six layers of redirection. And then you add the seventh layer in the case of KDE because they have phonon. That seventh layer really is killer sometimes, too. Yeah. Six seems to work. It's like a dip, man. The seven-layer dip,

nothing bothers my gut except for the cheese on the top. It's that seventh layer that actually bothers my gut, damn it. You know, it's funny because as somebody who is sitting in front of two Linux computers right now doing an audio podcast, I'm not really having a lot of audio issues with these machines. It really is only under KDE that I ever have problems. Otherwise, I really like Pulse Audio actually. Yeah, I used it as like an RTP source to play to some other speakers.

Yeah. It was two clicks of the config and it was playing so as an end user uh if you remove plasma desktop from the equation i actually don't feel like these are legitimate complaints because they're not they don't really impact the end user and there are definitely people who have weird pulse situations especially on older districts yeah mumble room feel free to disagree but uh in my estimation this is kind of a non-issue for the average user. Unless you got three or four sound cards... Or you need it to not be mixed at the end. You know, you need

direct output to the card, then you might have to do some work around. But for people who just want to listen to their YouTube video and have it play at the same time as another sound, it works great. We got no disagreement from the Lug. So we move on. I would say a unified control panel for all distros of Linux would be better.

Proof of control. Because sometimes when we have issues staging people, and sometimes they don't know their own control panel, and you're on a different distro, and then you have to try to find some example. And it really doesn't help. Yeah, that is a good point. That is a good point. Even here on my little Mint

laptop, they have native sound settings. You know, Cinnamon, which is different. I like Pavo Control more so that's what I use. Yeah, that's a good point. That is well received. Okay, so I don't really have a response to it other than it makes remote support scenarios a little more difficult. Right.

This was a point that he made almost five times in the article over and over again. And I'm really curious to see what the Mumba Room says about this one. As he puts it, an insane number of regressions in the Linux kernel when with every new Linux kernel release, hardware can stop working inexplicably. Incomplete drivers, playback regressions on audio,

all kinds of problems. He pounds this issue throughout the entire article. Kernel regressions all the time. Kernel regressions all the time. Kernel regressions all the time. Insane amounts of bugs introduced with every kernel version. That really happens. No, that happens all the time for me.

All the time. Really? Okay. In what use case scenario are you experiencing regressions all the time? Tell me. Typically the AMD open source driver. Because it seems like they rewrite significant parts of it every single major release. But that's not really the Linux kernel, right? That's the driver.

But it's shipped with the kernel, right? It's the open source driver that ships with the kernel. It's a module that ships with it. So are most of the other devices that he would talk about here. Okay. All right. I think by reading this entire article, I grok he's kind of talking about audio devices. I almost get the sense that he's an audio engineer

that works with some Linux systems by reading this article because he gets into the specifics about, like, the bit rates on Linux audio and stuff that I do kind of agree with that seems like you would only know of unless you professionally work with it. And so I could see sound devices breaking on him. I guess I was just surprised because I pretty much, I am running current Linux kernels on four out of six

machines I use regularly. And it also seems like another one where at least the one you were just reading there, like if you follow the link, it's a Datamation article that has some other people talking about a few quotes from some kernel developers, and it doesn't even talk about regressions for like the majority

of that article. So I'm willing to believe that there about regressions for like the majority of that article. So I'm willing to believe that there are regressions. But to say that so strongly and then not have any sort of like what are the numbers? How many companies are affected? And here's where I think this blog post goes way down into the weeds because if you just back up for a second, you realize that's why there's things like Ubuntu 14.04 that Mint 17.3 that you are running your laptop on right now is based on. It is not experiencing these regressions because this is being managed at the distribution level. And if you're in the enterprise where these things really matter, you're likely running Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu LTS, or CentOS. You also can afford to have QA teams that can review these things. True.

that can review these things. True. But even if you didn't have a single tester before you just randomly installed a kernel update on a production machine, if you're running it in a business scenario, in most cases, you're using an LTS-style release. Hell, there's even Arch machines. You can have an LTS kernel on an Arch machine.

So this feels like a false argument because if the scenario in which you are so dependent on the kernel support of your hardware, that scenario is not one in which you would be also installing every single kernel update that comes up. The two just things are completely incongruent. It doesn't match up. No, I don't think so. I think you should be able to expect upstream does a decent job testing the software they write. You shouldn't have to rely on a distribution to test all your software. You shouldn't rely on Red Hat to test that the kernel works.

I agree. Because I've had a lot of esoteric hardware where it just does not work correctly with a major update. And I mean, even on point releases, they break things like the ButterFS bug that they introduced in like 3.19.1. They got me. It wasn't in 3.19.0. Yeah, but my point is that these

things do happen. It is a reality, and anybody that is administering these systems is aware of the reality because these are people that are – their jobs are on the line for managing these systems. And so they have to work in the reality of – in the context of the situation. So they're not deploying these kernel updates on these massively critical machines. It's just not – it's just not something that's commonly done. It's not a shortcoming, right? It sucks when you're going to test these things and you have to weed through all these weird issues in your lab.

I agree. I agree. It sucks. But it's one of the main points of his articles as the drawback to Linux. I don't think it's a drawback because the fundamental way that Linux is deployed and distributed is essentially built to mitigate these potential issues. No, I don't think it's a drawback, but I think it's something that needs to be worked on because I don't think they do enough regression testing. And I think it could be a lot better. No, I don't think it's a drawback, but I think it's something that needs to be worked on because I don't think they do enough regression testing.

And I think it could be a lot better. Yeah, I know. I agree there too. But the thing is, that is, well, I mean. I guess that's what I was saying is that there's a lot of nuance there that is covered in that. Well, maybe instead of funding a blockchain replacement, they should be funding more kernel testing over at the Linux Foundation. And there's a Hacker News article or discussion, which maybe we should link to.

Oh, yeah. They have some good discussions about what current test frameworks are used by the kernel and what they do. Anything that jumped out at you? I just remember seeing a lot of the – Because that Hacker News thread seemed overly hostile to me. There are some hostile sentiments in there for sure. There are some nice ones too, but yeah, it was just like a whole bunch of people like, yeah, that's why I switched to the

Mac. And I was like, I don't want to read that. It's getting disappointing. And you know what? They're all going to come back. They'll all be back. They only switched to the Mac, but they finally have the same regressions, right? I think I updated to a minor point release on Yosemite or something, and my Wi-Fi driver broke pretty horribly.

And this is their hardware. This expensive Mac Pro that is not the trash can model, but it was the last one they released before the trash can. You know, the one that's actually a decent desktop. The one that actually has PCI Express slots that you can

use and stuff and drive slides. It's kernel panic before the last two Linux unplugs. Maybe it's when I come over. All I'm saying is anybody who actually uses Mac OS X under production load where your CPUs are running at higher than 70% for more than, say, 90% of the machine's day, anybody who uses a Mac under those conditions knows that it is one of the weakest operating systems out there.

It eats itself constantly. It has one of the worst file systems in the history of desktop computing. And on top of all of that, the expensive hardware has such a premium around it that all of the accessory manufacturers also get to add a premium to hook crap up to these expensive machines. It is infuriating. The Mac platform – this is what gets me about this Hacker News thread, and we should link to it now that I'm ranting about this. You can go read and see why I'm ranting about this, the arrogance of these people, the supposed superiority of their operating system,

it makes me laugh because it is all about what the different work case is and how there's just simply some tools that work for some people better and other tools that work for other people better. And that's really what it comes down to. And when you read this guy's article, every single one of these issues that we highlighted here is a use case that is edge. And there are legitimate ones like X.org allows applications to exclusively grab keyboard and mouse input. If such applications misbehave, you're left with a system you cannot manage. A lot of us have experienced this at some point or another.

But again, it is an edge use case. And so when I read these things, I read these rants, I just – I walk away from something that doesn't feel productive. It feels more nitpicky for nitpick's sake. What I would like to see from this article in 2017 is a refinement of what we argue about because there are issues in here that in my case are worth highlighting. Like I've run into this one. In most cases, kernel crashes are invisible if you're running an X session. Moreover, KMS prevents the kernel from switching to plain 640x480 or 80x25 text in VGA mode to give you an error message because KMS is all locked up.

Very incomplete hardware support for sensors too. Yeah, I've seen that. You know, you might have a machine on a modern laptop that has 50 sensors and HWinfo is only detecting maybe 20 of them, maybe 12 of them. It's a weak point of Linux. Power management. This isn't in his article, but Pharonix took a look at power management for Linux 2014 versus 2015.

his article, but Pharonix took a look at power management for Linux for 2014 versus 2015. And we are worse at power management at the end of 2015 than we were at the end of 2014. We use more battery power. So there are obvious areas. But what he ends up doing is nitpicking in a way that feels unproductive and also so esoteric and specific that it doesn't feel like there's any action we can take on these. And I think part of it too is kind of where it lacks context, like with the regressions. Like regressions are bad, but how do the rates of the Linux kernel versus other kernels that are updated as much, that make as much project, that support as much new hardware as that does? Sure.

That's a great question. Yeah. Yeah. as that does. Sure, that's a great question. Yeah, and it is, and almost in all of these through this whole thing, I have to resist the urge to say, well, but Windows does it this way, well, but the Mac does it this way

because there's nothing perfect out there. Not at all. And I think we could all agree that no desktop is perfect. Basically, whatever desktop you spend the most time on sucks. And I think this just needs a little bit more context so that we, like, a lot of those are completely legitimate points that should be fixed. But we have limited work hours.

And so I think that maybe this article needs a little bit context of which are the most important. Which one of these should we really be pushing towards in the next year? That would be more helpful. It also needs to not be so contradictory. At the top of the article, he bangs on about not bringing Android into the equation. Right. And then winds on about how Android UI becomes unresponsive if you do certain IO-intensive operations. Good point. It's like, okay, well, you can't say you can't talk about android as a plus point and then draw

draw on it as as a negative way android yeah it's that's nuts there's another interesting one in here i quite like this one um which i agree with um x or x or x org is largely outdated yeah unsuitable and even terribly insecure for modern PCs and applications. And you could change one word in that sentence. Windows is largely outdated, unsuitable, and even terribly insecure for modern PCs and applications. That's true. Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah, you could also say this about... That's comparing the display server with fundamentals of... You could also say that about Mac OS X. Somebody just ran the numbers, right? And in 2015, the Mac OS X had the most vulnerabilities out of any desktop operating system. Now, some of that was open source packages. Some of it wasn't. But you can pick and choose this data any way you want.

You could then say the Mac OS was the most insecure operating system of 2015. It would be a bullshit statement. But you could say that based on the data you could say xorg's architecture is inherently insecure you could also claim that windows architecture is inherently insecure yeah that's a great point wimpy did anybody else in the mom room have any points they wanted to make from this article before we wrap up and we'll have the full thing linked in the show notes if you guys at home want to read it can we not do this one next year maybe not you know i i kind of like the thing i like doing is uh the reason why i like covering it is uh this article manages to get quite a bit of traction online and every year

it's gotten more and it's less don't you think that's his agenda though don't you think he just loves trolling the linux community i mean some of the hyperlinks in this article are links to bugs that he's raised on the lkml and has have been closed yeah and then he reopens every year and he's beginning to wind up people with every year these things being reopened some of his citations are his own yeah bullshit bugs this But see, this is the inevitable problem, is as this gets more attention, it almost feels like we are ignoring it if we don't respond to it, because essentially, the way it is written and structured, that almost just gives it credibility right there, unfortunately. Like when you read something like this online, and you see something that's sourced like

this, you don't even start clicking links. You go, oh, this guy's really sourced his stuff. He really knows what he's talking about. And so it generates a 100-comment deep hacker news thread that's an entire attack on Linux, right? And it gets linked all over the hell over Twitter and Reddit and Facebook. And it starts generating this buzz of this is why it's still not the year of the desktop Linux. And then that's the headline that runs is it's not the year of the desktop Linux. It's got all of these issues.

That's the headline that runs is it's not the year of the desktop Linux. It's got all of these issues. And I just feel like – and it really hits that crowd of people too who use Linux on the server but just don't think that they can use it on the desktop. And I feel like that rubs at least me and some people in our community just like – So I kind of feel like it is sort of our duty to sort of respond to it and say, no, no. This guy is blowing some of these things out of proportion. He's citing himself as Wimpy just pointed out. He's citing Datamation articles that kind of refer to regressions in the Linux kernel. And some of these are extremely niche use cases that don't affect regular day-to-day users, which he's supposedly writing this for. So I think that's worth mentioning.

I don't want to give it necessarily any more credibility than it deserves, though. So I don't – like we didn't cover it in Lass's news, for example. We almost did and I thought we had a discussion behind the scenes about running it as news in Linux Action Show and we decided this is more of something we feel like as a community

we should respond to in Unplugged. We moved it down to the Unplugged show in the sense of not to demote the status of it but just to recognize what it really is. Right. It's really kind of a conversation piece. I actually feel like it's a more honest Linux sucks. Blaster says he feels like it's a less honest.

I feel like it's a more because it is at least – it is appropriately updated and it is also cited, which is really nice. Yeah. The citing often is himself or data animation articles, but the citing is done. Right. So it seems like it's sort of – it's a different spin on that sort of this is what's wrong and that's what plays well on the internet. Right. And I think – I don't think it's at all ironic that that website is running on Linux.

Well, the guy obviously uses Linux, right? I mean, you read the article. The guy obviously is a Linux user. That's the thing. And so these continue to generate discussion. And he managed this year and last year to get a hell of a lot of traffic to discuss it. So, yeah, I find it to be fascinating. I find it to be fascinating because it is like geeks can argue about this kind of thing forever.

The edge cases are I guess where all of the discussion is. And it's a lot of work. But you find these articles. It really gets your blood boiling. And you know you're engaged. And it's like you have to put in some thought. Like why is that so wrong? Well, like the stuff – like I think his PowerPoint – or his PowerPoint.

I think his PowerPoints were really where he goes into X.org. That is kind of X.org. We all acknowledge that. Yeah, and then at the same time, we all know we've got our solutions in the works too. And he harps on Flash. It is kind of getting tiring actually now that I think about it. The whole thing is just getting kind of old. the way I think about it.

It is, the whole thing is just getting kind of old. And it's getting less and less relevant as the strategy tax of the big platforms becomes more and more apparent on the Mac and Windows. Right. So yeah, maybe next year we don't cover it. I don't know. Let's hope we don't even have to. Yeah.

It does feel like it's sort of, it does feel like it's something of a bygone era. I'll tell you what's not of a bygone era. That's our friends over at DigitalOcean. Head over to DigitalOcean.com and get yourself a Linux rig up on their awesome servers, all running KVM, sitting on top of Linux boxes with SSD drives, 40 gigabit e-connectors, and guess what? A $10 promo code when you use D-O unplugged.

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that's a big deal do the terabyte transfer there you go I just did it again you get a terabyte of transfer with a $5 RIC. I just don't even know. That's insane. That's great.

As somebody who used to have to do co-load servers, that really blows my mind. And they got data center locations in New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Amsterdam, London, Germany, and Toronto. So you can go have your server chill with Alan Jude. Hey, hey. Yeah, Netflix and chill with Alan Jude. That's what I hear you do up in Toronto. They have a great interface. It's very simple and intuitive.

And that's kind of my nice way of saying it's better than any other virtualization management platform. Way, way better than anything VMware could ever dream of, which is pathetic. It is really good. It's better than any other service provider out there. And then to sort of put a little sprinkling on top of that tasty muffin, you know, because muffins with sprinkles are better. Ooh, they are. Just ask my five-year-old.

They gave you a great API. Really straightforward. They've just recently updated it. Well, not recently. They updated it last year now, because this is 2016. It allows you to replicate the functionality of their control panel on a larger scale, and so there's a bunch of really nice open source code written around that API to manage droplets. It's nice.

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You got Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, CoreOS, FreeBizzle. Is that what I see? FreeBSD right in the corner there? Yeah, yeah. That Alan Jude. He's a campaigner. Yep. He's a campaigner. Let's see what we've got him because it's running under KVM. Yeah, that's true. That's true.

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And a big thank you to DigitalOcean for sponsoring the Unplugged program. And thanks, you guys out there, for keeping the show going into 2016 and keep us going. Everyone get more droplets for 2016. DEO Unplugged. All right. Everyone get more droplets for 2016. DL Unplugged. All right.

So in episode 345 of the Linux Action Show, I busted out my predictions. Now, traditionally in the big show, what we do is we own up to our predictions from last year and we make our new predictions. But since we had a host change up from Matt to Noah, I decided it wasn't really fair to make Noah own up to Matt's predictions and vice versa. That would have been funny, though. What I did is I pulled out a few of my predictions, and I'm going to own up to them in this episode. We start with a clean slate on last week, and then we'll do this own-up thing next year. Watching this,

you know what? I came away realizing I didn't like the way I did this format last time. You know, it really sucks to watch yourself and then be like, you know what? I don't like the way I did this format last time. You know, it really sucks to watch yourself and then be like, you know what? I don't like the way I did that. So having watched this again, I've decided I probably wouldn't do the format like this. So now I'm going to – now I know. Now I know.

You know what I mean? Like going forward, I'm going to do this right. But what I will do here is I'm going to play – I pulled out one, two, three, four predictions that I made, and I'm going to see how I did. And I'll link to the full episode if you want to watch all of them. But I want to start with this one that I think I got half right. I kind of made the mistake of making like two predictions in one here, but I'm going to play it for you.

And this is about Debian and how I thought that in 2015 they'd have a new feature come to Debian that would be a big hit. Hold on. That was my cue, but then I don't hear nothing. I hear nothing. Hold on. See Debian come up with a PPA-like solution for 2015. You know, like honestly, one of the reasons I will go with Ubuntu over Debian is for PPAs.

Yeah. But I would like them to not just carbon copy the concept. Because it's not a great system. It's not. I mean, even with PPA Manager, while that's a huge help, it's more of a Pac-Man-like situation would be ideal. I would love – so obviously the Debian PPA thing, that didn't work out. That didn't happen. I thought for sure it would too. And then there was even discussions in the mailing list about implementing a PPA thing, that didn't work out. That didn't happen. I thought for sure it would, too.

And then there was even discussions in the mailing list about implementing a PPA-like system. Yeah, there was a lot of news about it. It got close. My prediction got real close. But it didn't quite work out. And then I kind of threw in this other prediction. Love, love to see more distros work with the OpenSUSE build service in 2015. That would be cool.

Although, yeah, it's a good idea, but their stuff is... It's not going to happen, is it? There still misses stuff. When I've tried using it in the past, it does still miss some things. That's the right idea. I want to put a stake in the ground right here. My prediction for OpenSUSE build service and for Copper

is more of the same. And I think that was kind of true. I mean, they grew more, but it was just sort of more steady, more of the same. And I think that was kind of true. I mean they grew more, but it was just sort of more steady, more of the same. Nothing really broke through as like a big like, oh, we're switching over to this. Do you think I kind of got that last part right? I definitely didn't get the PPA thing right. Unfortunately, no.

But yeah, I mean I do think at least marginally more are using the build service. It's a great resource. I wish that more people would use it. I hope that's another repeat, let's just say. I hope that continues. All right. So then I made a prediction about Docker and how it might affect the Linux Action Show. I think containers will continue to see huge adoption.

It's going to blow up. Yeah. Docker's going to do great. Rocket's going to do great. We're going to come up with a lot of great new uses. great. Rocket's going to do great. We're going to come up with a lot of great new uses. You're going to see probably your humble host here on

the Linux Action Show say, here is a project. It's super cool, and you can do it in a container on your distribution right now. And we'll stop saying things like, this only works on Ubuntu. This only works on SUSE. This only works on Arch. That is going to go away. A little bit.

So, you know what? And it did kind of work out that way. Not completely as I thought, but I know off the top of my head we talked about SmokePing and MB last year. At the end of the episode, we're like, all right, go get this Docker container and you can use it. It came up a couple of times. But I saw you kind of go iffy. What was I iffy on, do you think? Oh, just don't know.

I feel like Rocket from CoreOS has not delivered as much as... Yeah, you're right. It really hasn't, has it? Rocket hasn't been, like, huge. They're there. I mean, I appreciate it. I like CoreOS, but... Yeah. Pocket Casey points out that ownCloud is using the OpenSUSE build service. In fact, I was going to talk about that today in the episode. I just forgot.

MB was for a while. Yeah. JossBlog is like, don't use your native distro repo packages. Use the build service packages. So there's been some movement there, but I just attribute it at the same steady pace. I don't think the OpenSUSE build service or Copper has had a breakout. Like when I install Fedora, I still find Copper not nearly competitive at all with the AUR.

Right. And that's kind of my benchmark for both those things. All right. So I have one I'm saving towards the end, but I got one more. And I'm curious. I think this one is iffy. I want to know what you think, Wes. I made a prediction about FreeBSD kicking Linux in the booze.

It's in large-scale production, enterprise-grade. People are going to look at theux stack as a whole and look at virtualization they're going to look at containerization and they're going to look at the file system and i predict that linux over 2015 will lose a lot of installations to FreeBSD. I think 2015 will be the year that the Linux community recognizes the amount of heat that the FreeBSD project and all of the people around FreeBSD are bringing. So I was supposing that FreeBSD would see a lot more market adoption. I don't know how to measure that now in looking back at it, but it does seem like a lot more VPS providers have started offering FreeBSD. FreeNAS has gotten a lot more mindshare and a lot more market.

Noah just shared a story on Linux Action Show this Sunday about a client that wasn't even willing to consider Linux anymore. They wanted FreeNAS and CFS. What do you think? I think a lot of the SystemD stuff, I think there's a certain set of... On the Linux side, I think some of the SystemD

fallout there have been more Linux power users who have been exploring FreeBSD. I think it still is the king in terms of easy open source secure data storage. I know it still is the king in terms of easy open source, you know, secure data storage. But I'm not sure. I know from our emails that come into TechSnap,

a lot of people have been switching in our audience. Right. So I know, and you know, the BSD Now show has grown a ton in the last year. The BSD Now show really grew a lot last year. It was a big year for the BSD Now show. So, yeah, I kind of think that did actually happen. If I go by those metrics.

I think it does deserve to be recognized because FreeBSD is a great open source project. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like it deserves more recognition in the container space for jails. And I feel like there's like the privileged admins and developers who do use it. But I feel like there's been so much further hype in the Linux community that that shift has not happened. Go ahead, Ryan. So I'm not really sure that even though there is a lot of interest in BSD and especially among those who are really technical and like to explore this technology as far as they can

and be kind of on the cutting edge. I think that we have to ask, at what expense? Is it at Linux's expense? No. I mean, Linux may be losing these users, but many are coming to take their place. That's a great way to put it. That's a great way to put it. There's so much momentum behind Linux

and people that want to be creators and people that want to be on the cutting edge, there's so much momentum there that it's a drop in the bucket, right? Yeah, and I was just going to say, I got the opportunity to talk to somebody who works for one of my former employers. And when I worked there,

it was completely a microsoft shop they were microsoft like platinum partner whatever the highest was and they would not really deploy anything i maintained like three linux servers that i had to beg to get in there and uh i just had a conversation with uh one of the guys who works there and and now they you know have open stack deployed it's pretty much all linux where cool where uh windows was king before you know and and so i think about that and i think yeah you know people might be moving over to to bsd you know to try some of these technologies that they they're interested in but there there are so many people continuing to come

to linux because it's kind of becoming the de facto. The part that jumps out at me at the prediction is at the end there I said by the end of 2015, we're going to recognize the heat that FreeBSD is bringing. And I think now if you look back at Canonical preemptively announcing plan support for ZFS, I think that is sort of a recognition of the demand for some of the features set there. Wimpy, you say more it's like you see FreeBSD going in for specific tasks, not really replacing Linux, but more like complementing it. Tell me more about that. Yeah, well, yes, replacing Linux, but not entirely. So, you know, the things that I do, I've been deploying PFSense for firewalls because if you're going for a full-on open source solution

in my opinion there isn't a linux-based firewall that can compete with pf sense right and in terms of doing um big file servers if you're not doing you know um clusters clustered storage like um seph or cluster fs then zfs is really the only game in town unless you really pay through the nose from uh something uh from emc for example so i've been deploying bsd in those scenarios for file servers and for firewalls but the the rest of the Linux infrastructure has remained. So all of the big compute and data science stuff still runs on Linux. It's now just using TrueNAS in this case,

or FreeNAS. Sure, as the back end. And ZFS as the back end, and then PF in front of it all. Yeah. But I think you're right. I think with ubuntu adopting zfs in 1604 and also uh some of the debian uh derivatives so open media vault for

example where zfs is now an option i think you were right in your predictions that this year is the year that Linux is going to sort of embrace ZFS and ZFS will be the future of, you know, enterprise scale storage on Linux. And then you can layer all of the clustering file systems on top of that. So don't go away because this last prediction, I think I kind of got right and I think what I got wrong was Ubuntu Mate edition wasn't at the forefront of my vocabulary at the time. But essentially, I think what I was trying to say in my last prediction for 2015. Right. Here's what I think. I think 2015 will be the year that the bet that Mint took with their multi-year release and that Ubuntu is taking with the, let's not focus on a Unity 7.

Let's just make it better. Right. I think 2015 is the year that that check is due. Like that payment needs to be made. And 2015 is going to come along and I'm not trying to brag, but guys like me on Arch and Gnome 3 and the rolling releases like KDE 5, SUSE Tumbleweed, Fedora,

we are going to have such awesome desktops that's so much far and above what the commercial competitors are going to do that I suspect that where Linux's genuine gains are is in that geek, that enthusiast. When we did HowToLinux in 2014, and Chase was sort of like the ideal Windows switcher. He was a Windows power user.

He liked to tweak Windows. He was ready to do more. And what he found was those old desktops were not very appealing to him. They weren't customizable enough. They weren't customizable enough. They weren't new enough. And I think in reality, you have more people switching to Linux that are savvy than you do that new mythical user.

Over 2015, I think it's still going to be more of us, more geeks, more enthusiasts switching to Linux. And because of that, I think things like Plasma 5 and GNOME 3 will be way better received because you're getting a modern experience.

You can still customize it. You don't feel like you're taking a step back. But I think in terms of raw numbers and organic adoption, things like the Mate project or Trinity, other classic desktop sort of paradigms, I think that's where the most growth will happen. I think a lot of it's going to be Ubuntu-based. Last year, I thought it was going to be Arch-based. I think this year it's going to be Ubuntu-based. Maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe it's going to be Fedora-based.

I think a lot of it's going to be traditional Mate edition style, Ubuntu-based growth. But I think for power users, enthusiasts, the people that are watching this show, those of us who work in IT, those of us who are just like Windows power users that are switching to something else. I would agree. We're going to look for the more modern stuff and a lot of the power user growth is going to happen there. So I think I got it right. The base usage growth, the granite growth was in the – like Ubuntu Mate. And then people had to get like with the Raspberry Pi grabbing the Ubuntu Mate edition. And then the people with powerful computers, more of us adopted Plasma 5 and GNOME 3 this year.

That's sort of the long version of – that's a short version of a long thing I just said. But I think – I don't know, Wimpy, your thoughts being Mr. Ubuntu Mate over there. What do you think? I don't know. I know. It was a long way to get to it, watching that back. But I think essentially it seems like Ubuntu Mate really, really came into its own in 2015. Like it really became recognized. It existed in 2014.

But 2015, I mean, it became a serious contender. April, when the official version came, the official, you know, when we became part of the Ubuntu family, that really did jump on quite considerably. Things have calmed down a bit now. People are used to the fact that it's there and it's part of the furniture. So it's a bit more calm. I don't really know how to gauge because I've got no insight to how popular the other distributions are. I'm just pleased that I've made something that so many people, and there are a lot of people that are downloading it. Yeah, but you can just tell as somebody who's been in the Linux community for a while when a distribution moves up to the forefront and sort of gains mindshare. And yours has very quickly.

Yeah, maybe. I think, yes, it's clearly popular. I can't gauge how popular exactly versus the others. That's very difficult to do. But generally there's a lot of interest around it and that's very pleasing for me. It started off as a bit of fun and it's become a bit more than that. But, yeah, it's been a very enjoyable journey and we'll make it continue. A very enjoyable journey and we'll make it continue.

Now, Ryan is a crazy SOB and he thinks that those blokes over at Canonical are going to actually make an Ubuntu vanilla desktop that's going to get all the buzz. Ryan, share your wisdom with me. So as somebody who spent a considerable amount of time using the Ubuntu phone here in the last, I don't know, probably month and a half and just played around with unity 8 a bit i gotta say that if the desktop unity 8 desktop doesn't make a big splash then the apps that the community has created for that desktop that seem to fit in so well in that desktop and scale you know as your screen size does that i think will swing the pendulum back the other way because if you think about it, the Unity 7 was just really iterative almost for the past like two years. You know, it's just been, you know, bug fixes

and the occasional I would consider minor feature, and I'm sure somebody could debate me on that, but especially this year, it kind of, they just kind of polished and fixed bugs, and I was using GNOME 3 quite a lot until I played around with Ubuntu phone and then Unity ate some, and I realized that they've actually got something really interesting

there and if I were going to predict I would say that there's going to be some renewed interest when they really push that to the forefront. Is this an official Ryan prediction for 2016? Because we've been writing it down.

I'm willing to put my stamp on that. I've got another one if I can share it. Yeah, go ahead. So I've been saying this forever, and I know I'm sure Canonical doesn't like this when I spread these rumors, but I really think that we will see

some Canonical partnerships, and I don't have any privileged information or anything, but I just think that I was looking at the stats of their cloud, how many deployments Ubuntu has in the cloud, and I don't feel like somebody who has so many, even on their competitors, well, not really, they would say not a competitor, but Azure, on the Microsoft platform, they have significant market share.

That's not, I don't think that's, I think what you want about Canonical, but that's not something they can ignore. These companies like Amazon and Microsoft. And so I would be really interested to see what happens with that company, like Unity 8.5, Unity 8.7, something like that. I really hope that... Can I... Go ahead. Sorry, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, the thing that I think about is this year, it wasn't just Ubuntu, but people who, and we talk about the year of the Linux desktop every year. And I'm not saying it's the year of the Linux desktop, but the barriers to get there every year, I think it's impossible for it to drop down again.

I think Linux, the desktop is going to remain this niche thing. And we've kind of got the users we're going to have and you know it's just going to be the tinkers the hackers and uh the really um uh explorative curious power users but then something like steam drops or you know even more applications go to the web or you know know, somebody implements, like, for instance, I've got Spotify on my Linux rig. Yeah, yeah. And each time one of these things happen, somebody else is going to be talking to me. A new category of user can move over.

Right. Exactly. I put, you know, months ago, I put my lady friend on the Ubuntu Mate desktop. And really, Spotify was probably the final app that made it doable. Not a single functionality or feature is missing anymore for her. Not a single thing. There's nothing that she needs her computer for that the Ubuntu Mate desktop is not providing. And maybe a stable Unity 8 could provide something of the reference platform that Ubuntu kind of already is, but in better form.

I like it, Ryan. That's good stuff. I talked about this at System76, but I have a Yoga 2 laptop that I take around with me. And Unity 8 would be so cool if when I flip it back to tablet mode right now it it just kills the keyboard and switches to yeah pulling up the online keyboard which is fine you know it allows me to just sit there and read a web page or or something but it but wouldn't it be so cool since they have like the the tablet interface and the phone interface versus the the you know desktop interface if when I did that, it actually switched to a complete touch-centric experience because when I want to read,

I want to just be able to flip through the stuff with my hands, sitting there relaxed on the couch or whatever. And consolidating that device seems pretty nice because I have all my files and I wouldn't be using some kind of sync service to go through the tablet. I agree. That's the dream the that's the dream that's the dream ryan and then uh and then then you tie it all together with a little mycroft here and there and uh boy that's a happy world after all

yeah then i don't even have to touch it yeah anymore i can just say things to it yeah yeah i love it i love i love the fact that you're talking about the opposite way that you know whenever we're talking about convergence, we talk about how you take a phone out of your pocket and you plug your keyboard and mouse and it turns into a desktop. You want to go the other way. You want to take a desktop and turn it into a tablet. Oh, for me too. The fact that it should be able to do both of those is, yeah.

Yeah. I would say I fall in that category too. That's exactly how I think about it. Well, guys, I look forward to seeing both of you at scale. Don't forget, if you're curious about scale, we got links in the show notes. We also got links

to all the MyCraft stuff. MyCraft stuff is going on including the Indiegogo campaign and the community. As well, we have links to that episode of the Linux Action Show

if you want to see all of the predictions of Matt and mine. It's a whole bunch of stuff in the show notes this week. A whole bunch of stuff. Don't miss it. That's right.

And you know, you could be here live to take in all of it and actually get even more show. A whole bunch of stuff. Don't miss it. That's right. And you know, you could be here live to take in all of it and actually get even more show. You get some of it. Way more show. You get some of it. We include some of it but not all of it. Especially the really dirty parts. What? Let's just say pants were involved.

Yes. Alright, so that brings us to the end of this week's episode of Linux Unplugged. We do this live on Tuesdays over at jblive.tv. Go to jupyterbroadcasting.com slash calendar to get that in your local time zone. LinuxActionShow.reddit.com for topics and feedback into this here show. I'd love to get your feedback there.

And of course, join us live next week so you can be in the mumble room and take part of our virtual lug. Thanks so much for tuning in, and we'll see you right back here next Tuesday. now we're all done i think it's time for a little uh mycroft and chili that's a good show thank you everybody, everybody, for making it out. That was an awesome show, guys. Did you see my BSD and Chill image? Yeah, I did.

That's perfect. Yeah, that's great. BSD and Chill. I guess it's like now it's funny. Now that I did the whole, now that I totally didn't get the whole Netflix and Chill reference, now I'm seeing like even Ted Cruz is making references to Netflix and chill. I am an old man when Ted Cruz has got a meme faster than I do. All right, jbtitles.com.

Let's go vote. Speaking of which, my wife is actually chilling here. I had the headphones unplugged for a little bit, and she was listening to you. What did she think? She liked the show? Hold on. Java with gnome foam was kind of good. Oh, right. Titles.

Mycroft Action Show, that's not bad. Master Clickbaiting. That's good, too. Here she is. I'm going to let her tell you in her own words. Hello, Ryan's wife. Hello. Hello, Chris. Hello, what's wife. Hello. Hello, Chris. Hello, what's your name?

Hello. Hi. Misha. Hi. So what did you think of the show today? What did you think of the show today? I actually didn't hear the show today. I was working,

but I actually hear your various shows quite often because Ryan listens while he's in the shower and has it over a big speaker. I'll consider it. That's nice. That's good. Yes. That's good.

Yes. So I stay quite informed on Linux news. Oh, good. I listen in my fortress of solitude. Right. So while you're having shower thoughts, I understand. While you're having shower thoughts. That's pretty good.

It's the best time. All right. So give me your feedback. This is your chance to give me any feedback, any improvements you'd like me to make. Go ahead. I'll note them down right here. I've got a piece of paper. I'll note them down right here. I've got a piece of paper. Oh, okay.

Maybe more... I don't know. I don't know. Really? I guess that's good. Complimentary. Yeah, something involving magic would be great. More magic. Okay, I'll write magic. More magic.

Purple elephants. Okay, these are all. Yeah, more magic. Purple elephants. Okay, these are all things I can work on. Purple elephants. Okay, thank you. That's solid feedback. The thing I wonder about, Chris, because she gets to listen to you on Linux Action Show,

Linux Unplugged, and Coder Radio mostly. My question is, I know you have the women's, I'm blanking on the name, but I have women's tech radio. And I'm curious, like, do you know how much of your audience as maybe a percentage or as a number is women? Do you have any idea on that? I don't think I have any current numbers, but I don't think it's a huge... I don't think it's more than about 6% or 7%,

but I'm not sure. And how many of them are forced to listen by their showering husbands? I'm going to have to try that. Do those count? Do those count? Maybe that could be a new marketing approach. Spread the word via the shower.

Get those... Tell those sponsors, like, you know, if you're at, if you're trying to hit, you know, this demographic, women who are forced to listen to their husband's podcast. Right. You know, then you never know. Like, we could have Ting and then we could have, I don't know, what's a brand that wouldn't offend every woman that listens to this if I said it I feel like I can focus on the shower related products, too That could be a new category like you know Yeah, oh yeah

It's a video show just chest up Chris showering no shampooing his hair no more no more shower talk I don't know. I actually I would like to know what what hair products he uses all right He doesn't cut you guys off. This is ridiculous. This is Washington water. End of discussion right there. End of discussion. Just had my first day at my new job today, and I'm super excited.

Oh, congratulations. How did it go? Yeah, great. Like-minded people. Fabulous. All the right things. Lots of Debian, lots of Ubuntu, lots of open source. Yeah, really?

That sounds wonderful. So are you saying Ubuntu and Debian on the desktop? What are you saying? Debian for server infrastructure and Ubuntu on the desktop. Nice. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Get in.

Get in? What the heck? That's such an old man thing to say. No, it's very British. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. It sounds old.