LINUX Unplugged - Episode 143: Can't Contain Linux | LUP 143

Episode Date: May 4, 2016

Your marvelous container powered future, what happens when your favorite open source project takes its ball and goes closed source? Subsonic is going closed source, we discuss alternative options, how we feel as donors & the bigger picture in all of this. Hands on with the HTC Vive under Linux, DuckDuckGo supporting their favorite open source, the goals for Ubuntu 16.10 & much more!

So don't tell Noah, but I'm kind of becoming more of a Cody guy and less of a Plex guy and less of an MB guy. I just have such a crappy internet connection at home that having local media is not only is it way faster to play and makes fast forward and rewind possible, but I can do full resolution video like Blu-ray quality video and it plays. I just and Cody is so great. Kodi's awesome. When you have multiple audio sources in a file or subtitles or anything, and you just want to quickly use the remote to turn it on or switch audio tracks, it's so good at that. And the playback is so flawless with Kodi.

That's awesome. I am such a huge fan of Kodi. And I kind of had moved away for a while because I was using Plex and having what central storage, but that does, that only works when you have a really fast connection. And when you live in society, yeah, exactly.

Wes, I just wanted to say thank you to Cody and the Cody folks. I am really looking forward to Cody 17 when it comes out. Have you tried that MB plugin? Not, not that it might not work for you now. No, you know,

I use that. I still have. Tell me about that. Well, because it just makes Kodi's library basically transparent to the MB back-end store. What I haven't tried is using that and having your own local files. That'd be interesting, because then you could have your local

stuff, and if you got back on the network, you'd have the full MB. So I have that set up with some friends, and they stream it over the network, so then it doesn't tax my MB server. They just, the Kodi plays it locally. And you know what all those files are, Wes? All those files are freaking DRM-free that way.

Yes, they are. We are celebrating International Day against DRM May 3rd, 2016. Oh, yeah, here comes the weaponized lawnmower. It's coming again, Wes. Do you hear it? I've closed the windows. Battened down the hatches. I've battened down the hatches. I took out the fan.

We still have a weaponized lawnmower out there. So today is the 10th international day against DRM. And you, Wes, need to take a few steps to take actions against DRM. Are you ready? Are you ready? Here we go. Take a selfie. My beautiful face.

Yeah, okay. So we need to take a selfie. Okay. So are you taking a selfie My beautiful face Yeah okay So we need to take a selfie Okay So are you taking a selfie Wes? So this is This is what it says Effective by design.org Take a selfie

And sign the petition Envision a future victory Against DRM So this is something You can So while you're taking a selfie I want you to envision A future without DRM

This is how you can help me You look really good there Wes You can add your graphics To your social media profile Or your blog in the future without DRM. This is how you can help me. You look really good there, Wes. You can add your graphics to your social media profile or your blog. You could submit a DRM horror story to the EFF. You could make a blog post or a video or a song. Or you could share their DRM-free living guide with your friends.

Those are statements that you can take for actions against now that this is less stupid than telling everyone to go and ddos the apple store okay all right okay that was years past yeah this is a this is a a positive campaign raising awareness you know i i could get behind this i'm i'm not sure what my my anti-DRM face is going to be that I'm going to pull when I do my selfie, but I'll have a good go. I have a recommendation. Shave your mustache. Definitely. There you go.

Yeah, that's all you need. Oh, it's a little breezy in here. It is a little breezy. It's a little breezy. I just don't know about this defective by design. It just seems like it's been a bit of a snoozer from day one. It's never for 10 years now. It's failed to really get my interest.

I do support it in principle. Yeah? Maybe I will post something. So hang on. Let me get this straight. You want me to shave my mustache so that I look like an Amish person? Right. Is that what you want? Right, yes, yes.

Yes, ideally. I'm watching. Okay, that sounds like a great idea. You're watching. Wimpy's watching the playback right now. This is Linux Unplugged, episode weekly Linux talk show that already has your gift picked out for Mother's Day. Yes, it's almost Mother's Day. My name is Chris.

My name is Wes. Here's your official reminder before the weekend, everybody. Hello, Wes. Guess what? We've secretly made a big show for 143. Coming up on this week's episode of the Unplugged program, we have some fascinating open source updates from funding to projects that are missing deadlines and targets. Oh, I'm not saying anything.

I'm not saying anything as well as some great updates. Another look at VR under Linux. We're going to discuss Subsonic going to closed source after years of open source. Yes, yes. And then don't tune out. We're actually not done talking about Ubuntu 16.4. No way. But don't worry.

We wouldn't be doing it for a third week in a row unless we actually thought there was something genuinely worth your time to talk about. So you'll just have to trust us. Coming up in a little bit. Yes, and yes, it's true. I am mustache-free this week. That's me brushing where the mustache once was. It's unpleasant, but he's still handling it. We're going to power through it.

And to help us, Mr. Wes brought us some extremely unique and delicious beers from Diamond Knot Brewery, a place special in my heart. I did not know this. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. I'm drinking the Binnacle Ale, the Summer Ale. I think that's how you say it. I believe so.

And you'll be drinking... The Brown Ale. The Brown Ale. Now, why is Diamond Knot near and dear to my heart? Now, we're going to get into all the Linux-y stuff first. But before we do that, I want to go back in time, if we can, just really quickly. A different time in Chris's life. You know what's crazy about this?

It was May 7th that we released this. It was probably about May 3rd in 2010 that I shot this video. So think about this, Wes. You brought me a beer almost like on the six-year anniversary since I shot this video. That is kind of remarkable. Here we are at the Diamond Knot Brewery, the very place we are drinking these beers from. For beers tasty, which you may recall from days past. Hold on. Sorry. Hold on.

Where we're at right now is the very highest point. We can look down at all the people of what we're getting into today. Dance, Wes? Yeah, yeah. So there's, if you're watching the video version, a little tourie of their brewery, which is nice. One of their breweries. They brew in many locations now. And the beard on this guy we're about to talk to. Oh, what's that in your hand?

Oh, that is a delicious burski. All right, so here we are. We are still here at Diamond Knot, and we've got Pat. Now, Pat's the guy you want to talk to at Diamond Knot. Hey, Pat. Because he knows all about the different beers. He is, I kid you not, the brewmaster. I want that title.

What does a brewmaster do at Diamond Knot? Makes all bow to me. That's pretty rad. Nice, dude. So tell us a little bit. Actually, we're kind of in a, maybe for you, kind of an older location. These are still in production, but this... I spent my first five years in this tiny space alone.

This was a fun episode. So as brewmaster, I'm responsible basically for all beer operations here at Diamond Knot. So we do a series of interviews with these guys, find out about the brews they make. And if you guys are curious, I will put a link to this old shenanigans in the show notes. It is actually pretty cool to go behind the scenes and see all the different stuff they do. Yeah, it really is. Old episode of Beer is Tasty. And we do an interview with the brewmaster from the very place that we're drinking beer from today.

So that's pretty cool there, Wes. Thanks for bringing in the good old Diamond Knot Brewery. That's a fun one. All right, so let's not go any further without bringing our virtual lug. Time-appropriate greetings, mum-a-room. Hello. Whiskey. Time-appropriate greetings.

Hello. Time-appropriate greetings. Hello, hello, hello. Yes, yes, whiskey. So coming up, you guys, we have much to talk to, but I wanted to, before we get into the super, super, yes, whiskey. So coming up, you guys, we have much to talk to, but I wanted to – before we get into the super, super heavy stuff, I did want to maybe discuss really quickly DuckDuckGo. I'm personally a fan of DuckDuckGo. I like kind of what they're about.

They've worked with JB in the past. And so I wanted to just mention that they're still out there. They're still out there contributing to open source software, and they've made some pretty big contributions recently, including some serious cash to some of our favorite open source projects and some important ones like SecureDrop. My name is Gabriel Weinberg, and I'm the founder of DuckDuckGo. You know, six years ago, when DuckDuckGo was just me and the servers were still in my basement, I started donating to free and open source projects

that I depended on every day. A lot of these projects were like DuckDuckGo in that they were labors of love by just a few people working in their spare time. I wanted them to know how important their projects were to me and to lend a little financial support where I could. So we've got $25,000 for the Freedom of Press Foundation for SecureDrop, which is a secure way for people to communicate leaks and stuff like that. $25,000 to the Freenet Project. $25,000 to the OpenBSD Foundation. Cryptek Project gets $25,000. The Tor Project gets $25,000.

Fight for the Future gets $25,000. Open Source Technology Innovation Fund for VeriCrypt, I guess, $25,000. That's interesting. Yeah, I thought so. A couple other ones. GPG Tools for GPG Mail, $25,000. A couple other ones in here. Pretty neat, Wes.

That's a lot of money. Good old DuckDuckGo. Just a reminder, if you haven't used them recently for your search. Go send a few searches their way. I imagine Popey's probably exhausted. However, I don't see him in the screenshot here. So maybe not. I imagine he was sitting in and watching Baked Breath.

But Michael, a librarian over at Pharonix, is bringing us the latest from the Ubuntu online summit for Ubuntu 16.10. 16.10, Wes. The future. Get off your 16.04 high horse. Fine. Well, it's another setback for Unity 8 and Mirror, Michael writes. It's been confirmed that the Unity 8 desktop and the Mirror display server will not be the default for the desktop spin in Ubuntu 1610.

Yakety yak. That's a fun name. Unity 8 and Mirror will be available as opt-in features for users wanting to upgrade their desktop. But Unity 7 and X.Org will be the default for 16.10. So, disappointed, Wes? I mean, I still want to try it. I'm curious to see when it lands.

Maybe it makes sense to be in the next, you know, big update. But I'm not that surprised. to be in the next, you know, big update, but... I don't know. I'm not that surprised. Poby, was it ever, I mean, maybe, was it ever really planned that 1610 would be where MIR would land by default? Was that ever really a thing? I don't think so.

It's a setback, Poby. It's a setback. Is it? Or is it just a really good idea to not dump stuff on people when it's not ready yet? Exactly. Which we learn from, we learned from past experience. See also Pulse Audio and Unity 7.

Yeah. We've learned this. You know what would be a setback is it being a bomb and people hating it. That would be a bit of a setback. Yeah. However, I do appreciate Larbal tuning in and following this stuff at the same time. So I don't want to give him too much crap because I am actually glad he's reporting on it. There's not a lot of original reporting in the same time. So I don't want to give him too much crap because I am actually glad he's reporting on it. There's not a lot of original reporting

in the Linux community, so it's actually nice to see some getting done. I don't know, a setback? Well, you can read it both ways. Either people want stuff to land like, come on, you need to have this stuff ready. I want to see it now. And then when we land it like now,

they're upset because it's crap or it's not finished or there's something wrong with it yeah and then it's like okay well what we'll do is we'll wait until it's ready oh no that's a setback you should have landed it now when i asked you i think so move your entitlement and shove it somewhere else i think where i where i kind of connect with it is that, well, once we finally switch over to X, that's going to be solved. Once we finally get to Y, that won't be a problem anymore. And where I felt like that came up a lot was Michael Dominick's recent Tryout Linux series that he's really done for like the last five weeks of Coda Radio, where he was trying out, you know, I'm going to create an app and do this. I'm going to move over to Linux. And there's a lot of questions.

It's like, yeah, yeah, I know that's a little weird right now. But when Unity 8 ships and there's like an officially blessed like sort of UI look that things are supposed to have and there's like a clear path for distributing software and there's these snap packages to make it easy for you to be in control of updates for your user base, like you're going to love it. And so there's like all this pent up anticipation for a payoff that we've all been waiting for now since Mirror was announced. And so it's a setback in that, oh, we have to wait longer.

That's how it's a setback. Yeah, you don't get your new toys right away. They're going to be available for testing, but they won't be available for general availability. And if there's a setback, that's what it is. And I don't think it's a big deal. There was also at the UDS. I don't know. I didn't actually get a chance to watch it before the show. But Michael says that there was more talk about conversions, apps, Ubuntu discourse closing unless Microsoft steps in, and handling legacy apps with Mirror and Snappy.

And in regards to Ubuntu Touch, it looks like there's consideration of skipping CyanogenMod 5 and going right to CyanogenMod 7. It's not necessarily if there's anything in Android 6 everybody's excited about. It's more that there's things in kernel 4.4 that everyone's excited about. Interesting. And I don't know, Poby, if you have any information on this, this is the thing I'm the most interested in, is I don't really understand the relationship between Canonical and UNAV, but it sounds like UNAV is going to be the way you get navigation under Ubuntu Touch,

and there's more discussions. It already is. Right. It already is a default app on the phone. It's a community-maintained app, and we had a session where we discussed the future plans, and Neklesh and Marcos showed off some of the stuff they've got in development for the next release.

Yeah, you sure did. There's your mug right there when I go to the UNAV plan. Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah, you look at that stash your mug right there when I go to the UNAV. Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah, you look at that stash. You got way too much facial hair on your face. Let me tell you. So anything of interest to know? Is there new developments coming with UNAV?

Or just a better integration? I don't come here for my Linux users. I come here for advice on my facial hair. I know that. I know that. And your smell. You're doing good on that front. So what can you tell us about the UNAV stuff?

Because as somebody who seriously would be considering Ubuntu Touch, good navigation is a pretty essential feature for me. Especially if somebody likes to drive around. The stuff we were talking about for the next release was more to do with making the app work well on tablets and using the space well on a tablet. Rather than just having one giant map and then when you click on something, it takes over the whole screen. Having a split screen user interface where you have like a tab down the right hand side with your list of restaurants and then marks plotted on the left hand side showing the map.

Kind of split screen like you've seen on some of our other applications, that kind of thing. It's early days, but it's quite nice. Yeah, I love doing nav on tablet when I can. It's so much nicer than on the phone. All right, well, before we get totally off of Ubuntu Mobile a touch, and before we get into Mr. Skooky Sprite's HTVive experience under Linux, something caught my attention. I don't know what this all means, but the title is Plasma Mobile, a new base system. At the last academy, the Plasma team revealed their first prototype of a new Plasma Mobile.

Now I know what you've all been thinking. Finally, another rebuilt mobile platform based on Linux that nobody will use. Finally. Well, Plasma Mobile is designed to work with any existing operating stack, so they're hoping, since it works with any OS stack out there, you'll pick it up pretty quick. And so far, they've based it on reference images that were based on Ubuntu Touch, using an Android system inside an LXE container to make use of Android hardware abstraction layer.

Their initial touch base was Ubuntu 15.04. Eventually, their images started to diverge from Ubuntu Touch. For example, they upgraded the libhybris to an upstream version because libhybris or whatever it is is too much, too old for their context. They also got to a newer QT version. They

upgraded Ubuntu 16.04 for the base and they've integrated some neon packages. To simplify things further, they wanted to experiment to see if they could get their own operating system stack that can run on mobile devices. After they looked at their requirements, they have a base system of Cyanogen with ASAP-based

Android, or AOSP, and the Ubuntu Neon system inside a cheroot or container. So this is the new Plasma mobile stack, based on top of the hard work of Ubuntu Touch. Two things surprise me about this story. Number one, that they're sort of Plasma Mobile Stack, based on top of the hard work of Ubuntu Touch. Hey, hey.

Two things surprised me about this story. Number one, that they're sort of starting over again with their Plasma Mobile base. Number two is they're sort of unceremoniously using Ubuntu Touch. And I find that ironic because I just remember some of the biggest pushback came from the Plasma group about Canonical going off and doing their own thing. And here they are now using it as a base. Are you seeing the irony there, Wes? I do see some irony there. And they're like, but we've totally diverged.

We're no longer using Ubuntu base, well, except for 6.04 and Neon packages. But other than that, we're no longer using Ubuntu as a base. I don't know. Maybe I'm being too hard, but that was just sort of the wharf I got off this. Does anybody in the mobile room have thoughts on this story? Another mobile platform, guys. Yeah, I'd be curious to talk to someone who likes it, has tried it. Yeah.

But now it's new again. Can you hear the plane crash? Yeah. I just, I mean, I'm a fan? Yeah. I'm a fan of it. I'm a fan of people creating things with their passion. It would be interesting if it was on multiple types of devices and you could just be like, hey, I got a new device

and the KDE mobile stuff works. A Plasma mobile works great. Well, devices are limited to you because that's the problem I have with so many mobile stuff coming up. It doesn't support a simple tablet that have, so I can't try it. Well, you know, being based on CyanogenMod and AOSP. Hopefully that will help.

Yeah. And they're using LXC for Android. This is LXC. It's very interesting. Funny that we're going to be talking about that later today. Okay, so apparently not a lot of comments, but they have proof of concept working on a Nexus device. So if you are curious about it, they do have it up and running.

Using Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu Touch Base, and some of the Neon packages. They talk about moving quick, right? Talk about moving super quick. So a couple of weeks ago, we had a chance to talk about the HTC Vive. You know, that's the VR solution that has Valve's cooperation. The creators of SteamOS, you may remember them. Do you remember Valve? Oh, yeah.

They make that Debian-based app. Yes, right. And so we all thought that if they were going to release a VR solution, theirs would have the best likelihood of supporting Linux. I mean, it's from Valve. Because you want to use it with your Steam machine. Their very own platform is SteamOS. So none of us were willing to put our money where our mouth was and actually try it. We're cheapskates.

Yeah, we're just not crazy enough. But Mr. Skooky Sprite did just that. He went out there, put his money where his mouth was, and got himself an HTC Vive, set it all up, connected it to his Linux box, and here's to report how it went. But first, before we get off mobile, let's talk about Ting, sponsor of the Linux Unplugged program. Linux.ting.com. Go there right now, won't you? Linux.ting.com.

I tell you what I did, and I think this might be a great way for you to go. Get yourself a Nexus device from Google Play. Just do it. Don't play. Go get it from Play. Don't think about it. Just do it. Don't play. Go get it from Play. Don't think about it. Just order it. Here's why.

If you're going to get yourself a mobile device, you know, I'm getting messages right now that are pretty funny. I love this Nexus 5 because I have been able to experiment with it the heck out of this thing. And Ting is just like, oh, you want a mobile service provider? Yeah, you just pop the SIM card in. It's mobile on demand. It's no contract, no determination fee. You only pay for what you use. So I'm sitting here on Wi-Fi right now.

I got Noah to set up a 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi network while he was here with his fancy Ubiquiti routers that he likes so much. I won't touch them. They're freedom-hating. But he loves them. So he set up a 5 gigahertz network. I put the Nexus 5 on that, the 5X. I rolled back to Android M. Ting was honey badger about the

entire process. They were totally cool. They have such a great service. And they have CDMA and GSM. So if you have a device that does both, you can pick and choose. Or if you have one that's compatible with the network, you can bring it over to Ting and get a $25 service credit. I got three devices on my line. I'm paying like this. This is

including Linux Fest. Including the Linux Fest stuff, $40. That is impressive. Yeah, it's really great. Super nice dashboard. They have all kinds of devices from the Kyocera Dera, which starts at like $47. How do you even say that again, Chris? Kyocera Dera.

Ooh. Kyocera Dera. Yeah. XT. Also, the LG 450 starts at $58. These are just really nice feature phones that have a battery that lasts a week. You just want a phone that lasts a week. Then they've got things like the LG Volt 2, $66.

Motorola E, $74. Apple Internet Phone 4, $87. No contract, no early termination fee. You only pay for what you use. Unlocked, you own these devices. LG K7, just added to the Ting Store, $143. Ancetel OneTouch Idol 3, $178. Under $200 for a nice Android device. They go all the way up to the Samsung latest, the Motorola X.

The Moto X, that's a nice phone. That is a nice phone. Internet phone 5S, still a pretty good phone. Samsung's, the latest Samsung. Oh, what's that one right there? That 6P. That is a nice phone. Internet phone 5S, still a pretty good phone. Samsung's, the latest Samsung. Oh, what's that one right there? Ooh. That 6P. Look at that 6P.

Yeah, totally. I know, right? They also just added the Galaxy S7. They've got all the great devices with no contract, no early termination fee, fanatically good customer support, unlimited devices on one account, no mysterious line items, no add-on charges, no contracts, no other termination fee. You just pay for what you use.

You get started by going to linux.ting.com. Also, check out their blog. They always have great app picks and stuff. And they're doing a giveaway of the Galaxy Note 5. Yeah. Linux.ting.com. Thank you, Ting, for sponsoring the Unplugged program. All right, Mr. Sprite, Mr. Skooky, Mr. Ryder,

tell me about your experiences with HTC Vive. Do you mind telling us how much you spent? Just sort of starting from there, how much you spent, how long the setup took, all of that? You know, Chris, I'm not sure you can see the incandescent rage that is fueling me at this moment, but those I've had interactions with in real life have been like, what's wrong with you? I'm like, it's a Vive!

Okay, yeah. So my Vive arrived yesterday. It took about two and a half hours to set up. Now, hold on there. Hold on there. Two and a half hours. And it's not like Skooky Sprite is some slouch here. It's not like...

So what takes two and a half hours wow and it's not like skooky sprite is some slouch here it's not like no so what what who what takes two and a half hours to set up about it okay well one of the great strengths i think about the vive as a device is that it gives quote-unquote full room you know virtual reality so that means that you have to set up two base stations that are ideally positioned higher than you standing that have unimpeded line of sight between each other and that means like either you're drilling stuff into walls or you're jury rigging as i did jury rigging a bunch of tripods and stuff right that's how i would think you'd have to do is put them up on a bunch of tripods. Yeah, pretty much. And so that is – the cool thing is those don't have to actually be wired to the computer. But they do each have their own separate power adapters. So it was a challenge. And is this Windows-only software to configure them?

Like where do you start running the limitations here? Okay. Windows-only software to configure them? Like, where do you start running the limitations here? Okay, so yesterday, I mean, I was so pumped. Especially, like, I was like, okay, this is great. Like, I'll be able to, you know, have a whole week with this before I talk about it in the podcast. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I cleared my entire afternoon. And so I started setting it up. And I'm just so pumped.

I'm like, finally. Because, I mean, I had an Oculus SDK an Oculus SDK too long before they dropped support for it blah blah blah so I was super super pumped about this and I'm setting it up and it's taking longer and longer and I get it all set up and the cables are just enormous and it's a big

big nightmare and that's when I realize oh wait I haven't checked to see if this actually supports linux because i'm having some problems you know getting the the display to work correctly and i'm like oh well let's just go to the support site and there's nothing for linux so then i'm like okay fine i'll go to steam vr you SteamVR, that's Valve, that's Steam. That's SteamOS! That's gotta work. Linux!

Yeah, that's Windows only 2 now. Can you believe that? So not only do you have to have at least a decent modern graphics, you have to have a nice CPU. But so what?

I mean, realistically, you got to have a minimum $1,000 PC to run this thing, right? Well, yeah. Okay, so you want to know, my pre-order or whatever, which I placed in like the 8th of the month, like two months ago.

So it took forever to get here. I think it was like $950 all told. Not including the computer? No, of course not. Oh, right. Wow. Dude, are you kidding? I got like 28 terabytes in this center here that I built.

Yeah, this is a winner. This is a real winner. Well, no. Here's the thing. Okay, so the Oculus doesn't include any control surfaces. This control – the Vive has these two really interesting, innovative little paddle sticks that you hold, and they're actually really cool. It was very depressing when I had to pack it all up and file for a return yesterday after just deploying it. But Linux support – here's the bottom line.

They say that Linux support is coming now. Meanwhile, they had promised Linux support from day one, and they were very open about that in both their marketing and in their media campaign. And then they just rolled back on it on evidently the 22nd of last month after they had shipped my unit. And I was the last person to hear about it. That's a bummer. And do you feel like, I mean, a Linux setup, Linux support aside, a two-hour setup with these things you have to put up on tripods

or mount to your wall. Chris, are you kidding me? You know as well as I do that virtual reality is absolutely unbelievable it's going to be the next transformative technology for the next three years it's going to be a multi-billion dollar marketplace you know blah blah blah blah you're telling me i don't know i thought so but then wimpy started to convince me that virtual reality is a hoax and now you give me this story about a two-hour setup they don't even support their own platform i mean forget the two-hour setup that's the even support their own platform i mean forget the two

hour setup that's the big thing and like the biggest thing that really depressed me about this and i i you know because i i i had to do i need i need some official quotes from htc and valve and so i was you know calling the pr people um this morning uh the most depressing thing to me is that it shows first of all even forgetting lin, it just shows like a total – I would not be confident in investing in this platform even if I didn't run Linux now because like, oh, well, you can't even, like you said, develop for your own freaking platform. You know? Wow, that's amazing. Wimpy, you must be listening to this. Do you hear this and think to yourself, this is exactly what you're saying.

This is never going to be a consumer platform? Well, kind of. I mean, it's very early days at the moment. But certainly the barrier to entry in terms of the technology you need once you've got your bridle is expensive. Bridle. Whippy, have you ever actually sat down with uh any sort of virtual reality headset i have okay cool so all right fine then that's all i need to know then i will respect respectfully disagree with you i've i've i've used three different generations of um virtual reality

headsets and other equipment and the graphics get better and nothing else about it is any more convincing or compelling than the very first iterations i saw in the 80s i you see i totally disagree because i was there in the 90s um and because i live in vegas and we had uh we had the best arcades back then and we had some pretty compelling virtual reality stuff We had the best arcades back then, and we had some pretty compelling virtual reality stuff. And so I wrote it all off until the Oculus Rift, which blew my mind. Like, awe for the awesome was just incredible, I thought. Now, I think that eventually it will work for some games, but I think we're going to get a lot of rubbish games with rubbish implementations of VR. And I've used 3D TV as an example of why VR isn't going to work.

And it's more to do with the fact that you have to have something on your head. And this is worse than 3D TV, because you have to have something on your head with a multitude of cables coming out of it. Yeah, that is problematic. Yeah, that's a big deal. Because it's not really virtual reality. You're just tethered to a computer somewhere.

It's just ridiculous. Well, but that's one of the... A lot of issues that people, general consumers, just won't get over. They won't get over the cost. They won't get over the inconvenience. And they won't get over the average implementation of games. And more importantly, I think that the games are going to try and play to the VR capabilities in the same way you get now. 3D, yeah.

3D, 3D movies for 3D, yeah. Yeah, totally. But by the same token, every new medium, every new – especially in terms of the history of video games, has come with the same set of challenges. And generally speaking, the new and better looking and more immersive technology has always won out, at least over the last 30 years, in my opinion. And I do agree, it's a big pain in the ass. But one of the cool things about the Vive that I really liked and was really hopeful about is this full-scale, room-scale virtual reality.

Like if you've seen the video of the chick using Google's Tilt Brush to paint in 3D, when you actually end up using that application with the Vive, it's really impressive, except for the fact that it was on Windows, so I packed it up and it's being returned. And the reason for that is we all know how long that to-do list is when Linux support is on that to-do list. That to-do list never gets done. Those features never get implemented. Five years later, if you're lucky, they'll add Linux support.

And I, for one, I mean, like I was comfortable taking – paying my money, taking my chances with the Oculus SDK 2 because I wanted to develop for it specifically. And I was like, OK, fine. Linux support is spotty, whatever. And then eventually, six months later, they had the balls to come out and say, you know what? We're dropping this. We just want to do Windows stuff, which was OK. I mean, I paid my money.

I totally, I totally. Yeah, that's kind of what I thought. These guys sold me this unit, not just like is rumored marketing, but one of the key selling points was this is being developed in, not just developed, but this is totally the partnership of Steam and Valve and HTC for Linux. Day one, Linux support. They dropped that. I mean, what am I going to wait two weeks until I can't return it and then find out six months later that they're not going to have Linux, you know, at all? I mean, because I don't have time to play anything on Windows. I have to. Yeah, I agree. Right. I play

15 games a week for my podcast. So it's like, wow, you know, like I have no time for anything other than games that run on Linux. And the other thing that's depressing about it, though, is that I think this was a big moment for Linux from a hardware perspective to hit a general consumer market that actually has money. Video games are money. That's why Steam is such a big deal. Blah. It leverages the market share, makes FOSS and supporting free and open source products and hardware more important for graphics card manufacturers and stuff like that. And this is a big failure. When I see this too, I see it as a sort of a huge disappointment.

But one that – here's where I'm going to get my temperature from, Skuki, and this is what I want to ask you. How much of the like configuring or aligning or calibrating or whatever you want to call it, how much of the setup of the devices requires a Windows application? How much is – Basically all of it. You can't – So they're going to have to recreate all of that. They would theoretically have to redo all of that as Linux software to set this up.

Well, hang on a second. The thing is, and they've been saying this for two years almost, that they were going to hit the street. It's not that they canceled Linux support. It's just that now it's on the to-do list, and they decided to do that two weeks ago after they've been shipping units to people. So theoretically, it's still coming. But no, it's theoretically it's still coming, but no, and I've it's almost impossible you need either HTC to, and I think it's legally complex for them

I haven't gotten an official quote from them just yet, but I should at 4 o'clock this afternoon. Anyway, it's legally complicated for them because of their partnership with Steam and Valve. It's legally complicated for them to of their partnership with Steam and Valve. It's legally complicated for them to release their own Linux drivers because they're kind of tied at the hip is my understanding.

Makes me sad. If SteamVR can't run Linux, then HTC Vive can't run Linux, which doesn't make any sense to me because SteamVR is supposed to be built inside of SteamOS and that's supposed to be there. I hate it when Wimpy's right, but right now Wimpy's right. So, yeah. Okay. All right.

So, your closing thoughts, Mr. Wimpy? I told you so. Well said. Uh-oh. Hold on, guys. The weaponized lawnmower is on its way back. Well, Skooky, thank you for giving it a shot and letting us know how it went. If people want to find your podcast where you talk about Linux gaming, where would they find it?

Bestlinuxgames.com. Hey-oh! And if you want to stick around towards the end, I wouldn't mind at the end of the show, maybe we could talk a little Tomb Raider. Oh, cool. Oh, yes. It's awesome. New Tomb Raider came out for Linux, and I want to give you my thoughts on it. That's awesome. New Tomb Raider came out for Linux, and I want to give you my thoughts on it.

Before we jump into more stuff, I did want to mention briefly that OpenWRT got forked by some of its own developers, which is always actually, I think, kind of a good thing in a way. It means drama, but it also means the people with the new project. There's some passion there. Exactly. And they're calling it LEDE. It appears to be a move by new project leaders. It's a group of OpenWRT developers announced LEDE.

Their fork of the project consists of a spinoff of OpenWRT with many of the same goals. It's, by the way, LEDE, short for Linux Embedded Development Environment. Brilliant, really. It'll continue to focus on being a great embedded Linux distribution with a predictable release cycle and transparent decision making. Hmm. I think that could go a long way. That's really one of the big limitations in that community right now, I think, is there's a lot of, especially on the DGWRT side, there's a lot of things that are up in the air

or a lot of you get your information from a forum post. And they say, look, we just looked at doing this because the core developer count was super low, unreliable infrastructure, and there was a lack of communication. No hard feelings. I mean it sounds like maybe some, but I mean it doesn't sound like it's like a big dramatic thing. So LED recently announced.

You can find out more. We'll have a link in the show notes if you guys want to check that out. Now, a question came in that struck me yesterday that I thought, well, let's just briefly touch on it in the show. Yeah. XMetal points out we have LEDE, LXDE, LXLE, and LXQT. And don't forget, later today we're going to talk about LXCE or LXE. Right, LXCE. Yeah.

And LXD. Uh-oh. Weaponized lawnmower is back. Do you hear it? Do you hear it? Weaponized lawnmower. Okay. Do you hear it? Do you hear it? Weaponized lawnmower. Okay. So Tetra wrote into the show and wanted to know about our power management solutions.

And the reason why this struck me, Wes, it struck me deep. The reason why it struck me deep and hard was because it turned out to be the first bit of feedback I read right after my battery died. My battery died. Oh, boy. I couldn't work for like two hours. I got plugged back in, and I go to read this, and that's the question. It's what's your power management strategy?

And I thought, well, how freaking – what is it? What is it called? Serendipitous? What's it called? Serendipitous? Okay. How freaking serendipitous is it that my battery dies and I open up my laptop, I go to get it working again, and this is what I see?

Clearly, you need a better solution. Yes, sir. There you go right there, Wes. So we're going to talk about that here on the show in just a moment. I want to find out what our virtual lug does, maybe what the chat room does. But first, I'm going to tell you what I do, and that is DigitalOcean. Head over to DigitalOcean.com and use our special promo code, D-O-Unplugged. I love that promo code.

All one word, Wes. It's lowercase. Just put it together. D-O-Unplugged. I love that promo code. All one word, Lewis. It's lowercase. Just put it together. D-O-Unplugged gives you a $10 credit. Now, DigitalOcean is a simple cloud hosting provider dedicated to offering you the most intuitive way for you to get a super badass rig in the cloud in no time. Less than 55 seconds, you'll have the machine spun up. And if you only want to spend $5 a month, DigitalOcean's got you covered with 512 megabytes

of RAM, a 20 gigabyte SSD, one CPU, and a terabyte of transfer. Now, we've been using DigitalOcean droplets as our go-to Linux infrastructure on demand. We need a system. We just go to DigitalOcean. Fit it up. When it came time to increase our infrastructure for LinuxFest Northwest to make it possible to do what we needed to do, DigitalOcean. It was a no-brainer. And I'll be honest with you. One of the things I've done to make

my management a little easier is I've added Noah's SSH key to my DigitalOcean profile. So now, when I want to collaborate on a droplet with Noah, I can just add his key as a checkbox to any droplet I'm creating. Add my key, and I can add Rikai's key. Boom, boom, boom. Now we all have SSH logged into the new droplet I've

created. There's so many nice things about the DigitalOcean UI. You should totally check it out. They also have a great API. If you want to take advantage of some OSS code built around that API or you want to write some yourself, they have a really nice interface. But on top of that, they got locations. New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Amsterdam, London, Toronto, Germany, all up in that business. Go get yourself a super fast, super fast droplet.

And they start at $5 a month. And they got Ubuntu, they got Debian, they have Fedora, they have CentOS, CoreOS. And then you look at those hourly pricing. Oh, man. That is really slick. You can get a nice rig for like a couple hours. Yeah, and you want to do something for a little while, no big deal. You know, if you have a horribly slow connection like I do at home, sometimes I'll spin up a DigitalOcean droplet to download my distro of choice over torrent.

And then I'll just suck it down over WGIT later on. Last night it was like 80 degrees in Seattle. Yes. I didn't want my fan to kick on, but I wanted to compile a kernel. Boom, DigitalOcean will do it for you. Seriously. It's nice. Also, they have one-click deployments of software just ready to go.

And they have fantastic, fantastic documentation. Probably one that we've almost taken for granted, how to install the LAMP stack, Apache MySQL PHP on Ubuntu 16.04. How to install NGINX, MySQL, and PHP. The LIMP stack, LIMP stack, L-E-M-P, LIMP stack, which is NGINX on Ubuntu. Yeah, you should go for that. How to install WordPress on Ubuntu.

What's new in Ubuntu in 16.04? How to use NGINX and Let's Encrypt together. An introduction to configuration management. You can go from zero to Linux Admin Hero. Or you know what? It's not just Linux. It's also FreeBSD, too. I know.

That's one of their more trickier things. They also have extremely good documentation on FreeBSD. But all the different distros. I mean, everything they support. It's a really great, great service. And you can use our promo code DEOUNPLUGGED to get a $10 credit, try out their $5 rig. Two months for free at DigitalOcean.com. Big thanks, DigitalOcean, for sponsoring the Unplugged program.

Okay, Wes. I've talked about Subsonic before. In fact, Subsonic, when people would come to me and they'd say, hey, Chris, what are you doing for media streaming? Hey, Chris, what are you doing? How do you listen to those sweet tunes? Yeah, exactly. Or what are you doing for podcast management? Oh.

And this was a big one. And man, did I love it, dude. I would have Subsonic centrally download my podcasts, and then I would listen to them. Oh, man, Subsonic was a great way to essentially set up like Plex for your audio. And I had it installed, loved it, used the web UI, used all the different apps built off of it. Well, we have a little breaking news right here on the Unplugged program. Subsonic is going closed source. Starting with 6.0,

Subsonic will no longer be open source. The main reason, according to one of the developers, is that the source code now contains software license codes that they purchased. Literally what they said. Software license codes

that I have purchased that shouldn't be used by fork projects. Now, Subsonic West is one of these projects that has sort of been slowly moving towards this position for a while. It's one of these things that if you've been following the project, you kind of suspected this was coming. And it does happen from time to time in open source. And a couple of first reactions come to me like, well, who the hell are you? How dare you? Of course, they're the developers and

creators. They get to do whatever they like. Yeah, that's exactly who the hell they are. And then my other reaction is, well, screw you. I'll go find something else. Forking subsonic bots. Anybody in the mumber room a subsonic user before I move on from that? Because I think that's kind of a big deal. If you've been dependent on this open source project that's been around for years

and years, all of a sudden, closed source. Yeah, it sucks. But I do understand with the complexities, especially licensing open source and keeping things free in open source is more difficult now than it's ever been. Keeping straight all the licenses of the stuff that you actually use to assemble your product. Anyway, Subsonic looked heavy-handed to me anyway, but it still sucks. It was efficacious. Yeah. Now, Wimpy, you're a Subsonics user and donator. Tell me about Subsonics.

Well, there are several tools like this, but I've had good success with Subsonic over the years. And once you start building up your library, I've got not a DigitalOcean droplet, but a VPS somewhere that runs my subsonic stuff, and it acts as off-site backup for our music, and it's my on-the-internet streaming service. So subsonics is, is it a fork of subsonic?

No, sorry, subsonic is what I'm using at the moment oh okay yeah and so i understand there are forks of something yes but i haven't and i got a couple of that i'll talk about so you you are using the project that has now gone closed source in the new version uh no i haven't upgraded to the new version and how do you feel about this i mean this is something the only reason i ask you is because you know as, as longtime Linux users, from time to time this happens. Do you just roll with the punches when something like this happens? Or are you outraged and ready to take to the streets with pitchforks and fire? I'm not outraged.

I'm a little bit disappointed because I thought the reason I was donating to this project was in order to keep it open source. And now I've ended up funding a proprietary project. So I'm not super enthusiastic about that. Whoops. This is my complaint right here. You just – yeah. I will be looking elsewhere in due course. What about if it just remains free?

Skooky, is that all it really takes? As long as it stays free, then you're good? I'm talking free as in freedom, not free as in beer. I have no problem paying for anything like a service or like a podcast, like Unfilter or whatever, or NPR, or any sort of software solution that's efficacious. I have no problem paying for it so long as it's free. I mean it has to be – free as in freedom, not free as in beer. So like Wimpy just touched on, there are several alternatives. Now, Subsonic kind of – it gives you a centralized on-your-land Spotify using your own library if you will.

It also – it works with multiple media formats. It could also do some transcoding. It is in a lot of ways a lot like Plex, too. It could go out and get metadata information, centralized playlists. So in that sort of same vein, MadSonic is one that I've heard a lot. MadSonic is a web-based media streamer. It's a fork of SubSonic. It is based on some Java.

It runs on Linux. And one of the nice things about it, if you have constrained bandwidth, you can set upper limits on the music and it can re-encode some of the music for you if you want to stream, which is kind of nice. That is very nice, especially on, you know, you're on the bus or whatever.

And it's supposed to be easy to use. If you have, you know, 100,000 files in your music library, you're not going to have any problems. It's G to use. If you have 100,000 files in your music library, you're not going to have any problems. It's GPLed. And so this is madsonic.org. You can find it at beta.madsonic.org. But you know what? I'm going to tell you about the one that kind of caught my attention.

The one that I kind of liked was Cherry Music. Ooh. Yeah, same thing. It's pretty cherry. GPL, easy to set up, get it to go, blazingly fast search. They've got apps that work with it. It'll automatically go get the cover art. Super quick setup, which I think is really nice.

I might stand this up pretty soon here. That looks awesome. Yeah, it does. Here, I'll show you a few screenshots. So this is Cherry Music, kind of the same deal. For those of you that are familiar with Subsonic, the functionality will look familiar. Oh, the screen. Oh, there it goes.

But the UI is a little nicer. So this is a really easy way to have, like, if you want to have a bunch of your audio music on a central file server, but then have everyone have the same playlist throughout the house. This was always a problem that Angela and I had, is we had the same music library a lot of the time, where she'd have, like, well, actually, actually for a long time she had her own library, I had my own library we had our own playlists and all this and then we wanted to like, well we're going to have people over, let's have a

playlist that plays in the living room. Okay, well whose computer, you know, and it was just like Now you're choosing between them. Yeah, and so all the energy and effort goes into one spot and that's why we set up Subsonic and we're able to have like party mix playlists and like Christmas playlists and she could go set it up on the thing and then I would just play it.

That's awesome. It was a very nice setup. Plus you're taking advantage of the centralized network storage at that point and you're just throwing this on top of it. So Cherry Music, which I like a lot. The URL is a little weird. So I'll just – you'll have to go find the link in the show notes. But I like that one. Amachi?

Apanchi? Inigogos? Ampachi? Ampachi. Ampachi.org. A- go-go says it's uh patchy and patchy and patchy dot org a m p a c h e dot org uh and also it looks like uh rika is recommending uh sirenza which is another one there boy there's a few of these cherry music's the one i picked but it looks like if you're uh if you're in the chat room you could totally score some links for a couple other alternatives as well i'm going through all of them right now. There's a whole bunch in here. I like that one. You know, I should also mention, like Grandel is mentioning in the chat room, Plex is aggressively going after this category too.

Plex is aggressively going after music. So this is another – I was about to say, yeah. This is bad timing on Subsonic's part because Plex is attempting to go this way too. And so many people have Plex at their house already. Well, the Sorenson looks nice. This looks really nice, Rikai. Good find.

That does look like a good one. And Ampichi. Ampichi or whatever. It looks really good too. Ooh, with visualizers, Wes. Look at that. Hey, hey. Hey, what's up?

What's up? You get those visualizers. Yeah. So I guess I wanted to end just a quick note on – I don't know about you. You know what? I'll ask Wimpy because Wimpy has actually donated money. So let's ask Wimpy. Wimpy, did you have a sense this was coming?

Because I'll be honest. I had a sense this was coming watching the subsonic project. I just – I had a feeling they were going this direction. Did you have that same feeling even, even as a donator? Yeah. What was it? What was it that sort of set off your spider sense, if you will? Um, it's the fact that when you install it, you have to put a license in to use it fully.

You know, it's, it's sort of very heavily in it influences you to you know donate in order to get a key you know to um to use the product completely and it nags you and it felt like it was going this route and some of the wording on the website um sounded a bit plaintive, you know, about, you know, not getting the appropriate donations for the number of people using it. And I just sort of got a sense that it was on its way. So, yeah, I'm not surprised. And I also am a Plex subscriber as well. But in my opinion, Plex isn't really there for music playback just yet.

It's improved significantly in the last year or so, but it is not a good music manager and playlist organizer and player at all. I agree. Yeah, that's essentially my assessment of it too. So before we move, I did want to mention just really briefly the power management strategies. Is it still a thing in 2016 to go through a bunch of hoops to set up the perfect power management? And I ask you as someone who has sort of taken a backseat to this recently. I don't bother doing things like installing and configuring TLP.

I don't really consider watching PowerTop to see what's eating up all of my battery. watching Power Top to see what's eating up all of my battery. I just assume that in 20-frickin'-16, I can install a modern operating system and not have to worry about power management. But maybe I'm wrong, and I'll start, Wimpy, with you. It sounds like you still think TLP is worth loading on if you have a laptop, correct? Yeah, it's installed by default in Ubuntu.

Mate has been for several releases now. Now, what do you notice the difference? I mean, it must be a huge difference to make it default. Personally, I've noticed a significant difference in the power savings that combined with, you know, managing your screen brightness appropriately because that can make a big difference. Yeah. But there was another podcaster recently installed Ubuntu Mate on their main laptop. have recently installed Ubuntu Mate on their main laptop. I won't say what distribution they replaced,

but they were quoting a two-hour battery life improvement as a result of installing Ubuntu Mate. And the only significant difference there is that it comes pre-installed with TLP. And on some of my older computers, I can definitely measure the improvement in hours rather than minutes. Skooki, you said yes, definitely, if you're using Arch. Why do you say that? Oh, well, okay. So about three years ago, I don't know if you remember this,

but I got a Galago Ultra Pro from System76, and I slapped and there it goes. I still run Arch on that. It's great. It's awesome. But in order to get anything other than like literally basic basic i think we're talking like i would get like an hour and 15 minutes out of the battery until you had to you had to go through the whole the whole arch um horrific uh documentation

you know that whole hour and a half long wall of text to configure everything appropriately. But now I get four, four and a half hours. It's an older laptop, but it's still awesome. OK, Popey, I'm turning to you because I'm hoping you're going to tell me, I do nothing. I install Ubuntu and I use it like a regular user and I get great battery life. Is that true? Or does Popey jump through hoops to get good battery life?

So I recently had to reinstall on my new laptop and I just installed it and I didn't do anything at all. However, I have somewhat worked around the issue because my laptop has two batteries, one internal and one external, and I bought a second battery. So in the event that my power dies, I can just swap out the battery while I'm running and not have a problem. So I've kind of worked around the problem. So you're kind of like, I am sort of like that because with the Bonobo,

the battery life was going to be two and a half hours, three hours, regardless after a couple of years, right? It's a big desktop killer with a small, and I just got – I just became honey badger about the battery. But here I am with the Apollo now. It was Skylake and I'm getting almost six hours without a lot of effort. And I'm starting to think, all right, well, maybe if I dial this in a little bit – because I was in the middle of an awesome Minecraft mod exploration with the kids last night and

then my battery died. And my dad – my son was like, dad, why didn't you bring your power cord? I'm like, well, I – Normally I don't need it. I didn't plan on running Java, son. I mean – Right? Oh, my God.

Do you ever just run PowerTop and change all the configurables? Yeah. And see, that is the other thing is I have in the past. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is CNN Breaking News. Wimpy, you're telling me seven hours and 30 minutes on your Apollo? Yes, comfortably. And so, okay.

All right, there you go. I got to do it. If I could get another hour and a half out of my machine. Yeah. Holy smokes. I will say I also was a half out of my machine, holy smokes. I will say I also was using that Apricity OS, which based on Arch for a while, they have TLP installed by default. And that also I've noticed has run for quite a long time. All right.

I'm going to put – See, you're looking at the Arch. You pretty much just install it and start it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. You have no excuse. I will give it a go. I'm going to put the link in the show notes if you guys are curious about that.

I will toss it in there. So it sounds like TLP in 2016, still worth doing. Not that I didn't think it was. I'm just a little disappointed. Is that weird? I just wish that stuff... I guess I look at the freaking MacBook with the single USB port that supposedly

gets 12 years of battery life and you breathe on it and it gets another two hours of battery life just by breathing on it. I look at that, and I go, man, I wish we had something kind of similar to that under Linux. But then with the Apollo, I get so damn close. It just seems like it might be worth a little bit. And the TLP setup requires no config. All right, well, there you go.

So there you go. That seems like the way to go. I'll have to report back next week, see how long you can go. Yeah. There you go. That seems like the way to go. I'll have to report back next week, see how long you can go. Yeah. You know, I was also considering for a little while doing battery life tests more like standardized. But to me, it also seems like it's so dependent on your workload. Like your screen brightness is a huge part of it. So it feels like a little bit of black magic.

Like people can talk big, but you have to put in a fair bit to like get a workload that you can use as an example consistently. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. OK. And you know what? If those of you out there in the audience have experimented a little bit with TLP and your different experience, I would like to know. I would like to know what you have seen out there. So links to everything we've talked about so far including Cherry Music, MadSonic, TLP, and all that stuff

over at jupiterbroadcasting.com. Just go look for episode 143 of the Unplugged program. We are about to talk a little bit about Linux containers. Yes, Linux containers, everybody. Hello, everybody. And how they can be relevant to you and I.

Wes, you are a soldier, sir. You have experimented and gone off and upgraded a bunch of your servers to Ubuntu 16.04. That's right. You've begun experimenting with Linux containers. So before we get to all of that, I want to mention Linux Academy. If I say the word container and you go, I don't actually know what that means. If that thought has crossed the back of your head, maybe you should check out Linux Academy. Linuxacademy.com slash unplugged.

Go there to take advantage of the unplugged discount and support this show. Linux Academy, here's what you need to know. This is the essentials. Created by people that love Linux and want to spread the word. They wanted a platform, so they went and found a great group of developers and enthusiasts. They came together. They created the Linux Academy. They now have 2,379 self-paced courses. They came together. They created the Linux Academy.

They now have 2,379 self-paced courses, comprehensive study guides you get to download. You can be like a Skooky Sprite there and listen in the shower and download them. I love that story. And, you know, Seth might have been the first person to tell me that he listens in the shower, but he was certainly not the last person to tell me that, which I think is kind of funny. They have scenario-based labs, which will put you right in the middle of everyday common tasks. They have nuggets that will go deep into one single topic. It might last about two minutes.

It might be an hour. It depends on the topic. They have live events. They have instructor mentoring, which is huge. They'll teach you how to use all of the technology around Linux, the essentials, the advanced topics, and the stuff that will make you money on Linux, the stuff you can use to improve your career, the stuff you can use to charge clients, the stuff you can use to better your knowledge set, linuxacademy.com slash unplugged.

Graded server exercises will give you real results. It's nice. Seven plus distros to choose from. They're always updating the content. I talked about containers kind of jokingly, but seriously, I can't envision a better resource to learn more about containers. They are passionate about this stuff. They were writing up courseware on Docker while other people were joking about it.

They understand where things are going because they are so enthusiastic about this. And they have a great, great set of courseware on containers. Now, we're about to get into containers. And if anything we talk about intrigues you, go check them out at linuxacademy.com slash unplugged. All right, Mr. West. So you said to me, OK, Chris, I know we've talked about Ubuntu 16.04 a lot, but let's be real. We've mostly focused on the desktop where we've trashed on it a little bit. Plus, I mean, does anyone even use Linux on the desktop? I don't know.

No, I kid, obviously. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. But, you know, there's a whole other element of the Ubuntu server. The server where it's actually hugely successful. So have you used it at all? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Andre, wait, do I have any local 16.04 servers? No. No, I don't. I only have DigitalOcean droplets. But we've got a handful of them now. And I don't really have anything to say. I guess that's a good thing. Yeah, they just freaking run.

We've set up software on them. We have some 14.04 droplets we want to move to 16.04 because we... I'll tell you one... Okay, okay, okay. I'll tell you one thing that I have noticed. Okay. It is a pain in the ass now to like... It is a major pain in the ass to write knit scripts for Upstart. And it's like the last thing I

want to do. It's the last thing anybody on the JB crew wants to do is learn Upstart at this point. Oh my gosh, yes. Who wants to learn Upstart? It's going... It's dead. Yeah, exactly. And here's the other thing, is that tons of the projects I've been using for a while now have systemd init scripts. Yep, they come, they're right there. Yes, yes, yes.

So, that is sort of the nicest thing about 16.04, is now I can use those examples and things, but that's pretty much the entire summary of my review from the servers. It works, I don't really have any complaints. And it does everything I expect, which, by the way, exactly what I want on my server. It just it.

Yeah, it's consistent. So you, however, you, however, have had a bit of a bigger route. I'm in the weird position of like, I mean, I use Arch for a lot of things. That's the most what I'm most familiar these days with. I know how to bend it to my will, get whatever I need to do done with it. I'm in the position where I'm considering switching to Ubuntu for a lot of my larger server uses. Mostly because

of LexD, as they call it, which is LexD 2.0 was just released, and that's their container lighter visor, they jokingly call it. And it's meant to be a new way to interact with the Linux container or Lexi subsystem and the infrastructure they've set up. So if you're not familiar, you can go to linuxcontainers.com, I believe.

Yeah, linux.org, linuxcontainers.org. .org, yeah. Backslash LXD, backslash try. Try-it, which we will have a link in the show notes. And you can give it a try right now. Now, hold on. When you say give it a try, you mean I can go to a webpage and I can spin up a LXDE container

in real time? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it right now. Are you ready? You want to do it? Okay, here we go. So, I am at linuxcontainers.org slash LXDE slash try-it. Again, link in the show notes. Yeah, where's the FPV6 connectivity, Chris? At the studio. I know, right?

So, I'm going to say I've accepted the terms of service because, of course, I do. They're pretty reasonable. Now, they are going to start the container on the fly. Now, because we just gave out the URL, it's going to get slow here. But before it gets slow, you can see right here, Wes, right here, boom! I got a console. I got an LXDE container. I'm now root inside a container nested inside an LXDE install, which is sort of like LXDE

inception. Yes, right. What am I seeing here, Wes? What am I seeing? You're seeing they ran LXDE install, which is sort of like LXDE Inception. Yes, right. What am I seeing here, Wes? What am I seeing? You're seeing they ran LXDExec container name bash, and it just gets you executed as root inside the container a bash shell. This is pretty cool. This is a

pretty cool way to do it. Yeah, it's pretty neat. So one of the neat things is they've... LXDE was pretty complicated to use. It's really neat to use if you've ever tried it, if you need system-level containers. But there's a lot of things to learn and a lot of configuration things to set up. Sure.

LXD, it's a lot simpler, and so you can kind of just get an image going, and they have default profiles set up. So the default one, it runs as an unprivileged container, meaning that it actually runs in a user namespace, so that root in the container is no longer root on your host. It's actually matched to like UID 1 million or something like that. So hopefully that gets you some added security.

But it also has like default profiles. If you want to run Docker in there, you just change your container to be on the Docker profile and they tweak some of the security settings and the like nesting settings so that you can run Docker inside your container. Huh. So you're just starting to play with this but how's the workflow but is it pretty easy to use so lxc used kind of a template workflow so you'd use something like pack strap or bootstrap or whatever to like get your container implemented on the machine you're

running it on uh lexd uses an image-based format so you actually just have like a tar.gz of your container root file system. And it also takes great advantage of ZFS. It's awesome. So like, you know, in 16.04, you just install the UserLand tools. The kernel module is built for you. You just load that up. It has a do-sudo LXD in it, and it'll walk you through

it. It'll even set you up like a loopback mounted ZFS file system if you want, right? So that's what I'm using on the laptop here. Or if you want to have, you know, you have actual like pool of disk to use, you can use that or use one that you already have. And so what that means is when you want to use like a new, they give you some image servers by default with the, like, you know, Ubuntu 16.04 container image. You can just pull that down. But once you have that image, every new container you start, it's just a copy on write copy of that, right? So it's basically free except for what you change it.

That's slick. And all, again, super easy to set up. And I've already set up like an Arch version. So they have like Alpine. They have Fedora. So you're saying you have, okay, so for example, if I were to do this on a droplet, I could have an Ubuntu 16.04 droplet, but in the container run Arch. Yep, absolutely. So they don't have one provided on there.

They have like an images.linuxcontainers.org where they have like Fedora, Quora, like lots of pre-built stuff for you, but Arch wasn't one of them. But you just take a, you know, you make a reasonable Arch file system, you package it up in a tar, and it's really easy to get it as your own.

And then you can, the other neat thing is it's a network. It's all done over a REST API. That's how the client talks to it. That's how you can talk to it. They have Python bindings. And it also talks over the network, so I can have a server here and then a server on a droplet somewhere, and I can go make myself a new image, have containers

here, and if I make a container I really like here, I can just push it over to the server and it will run there. That is nice. You can even snapshot up here, then if I make a container I really like here, I can just push it over to the server and it will run there. That is nice. You can even snapshot up here, then push the snapshot up to the server. I'm really excited. I might have to change a lot of my infrastructure to use this now. That is super, super neat. And sounds

like it didn't take a ton of time to figure out how to get down. I'm consistently surprised with how easy it is. Huh. I gotta play with that. Cool. Okay, so the chat room's been talking about a topic, Wes, that I want to cover before I get to my Lara Croft review. Because there has been something we have done a few times on this show is we've given Mr. Leo Laporte a hard time. It's for people who like to mess with computers. About his Linux coverage.

And so I feel like it's only fair when Leo sits down and does his homework and does a pretty good job at that, that we give it some attention. So I want to just play a moment from the recent – the new screensavers on some help he gave on Linux. On the line. Let's do it. On the line with us right now. I don't know your name. Who is this? Jason. Jason is on the line.

Hi, Jason. Where are you calling from? Hi, Leo. Calling from Manhattan, Kansas. Nice to talk to you. There he is. So, Jason, tell us your question. Well, I've been a long-time Linux user.

I grew up calling it Linux. I know. A lot of people did. Yeah. But I've got a handful of older computers. Netbooks, we're talking Core 2 Duos, nothing really older than that. I've tried some of the slimmed-down versions of Linux, either Lubuntu or LXDE, even Puppy Linux.

Now, Puppy's a little too techy. I'd like something, a slimmed-down version that'll run well, looking to run Flash, DVDs. Flash? Flash, I know. Still trying will run well. Looking to run Flash, DVDs. Flash? Flash, I know. Still trying to run YouTube. Well, you don't need YouTube. It doesn't need Flash anymore.

Oh, that's true. You're right. Yeah. I'm hoping that, by the way, who needs Flash? Twit.tv still runs Flash. Because we use a player. We don't have control of it that plays back Ustream and BitGravity, and they're using Flash.

Although they're moving away from it, as our providers do. I'm hoping we won't see Flash much longer. It's dying, as everybody knows. As it should. I'm looking for suggestions for something else that's maybe not something else, but a different spin of Linux that works well with older hardware, but not too techy. Something that I can put on it and basically hand to my mom. There's the kicker.

Unfortunately, this is almost a contradiction in terms, right? I think this is kind of non-intuitive, but I've always said that the more a person is a novice, the better the computer they need, not the vice versa. The vice versa. He's been talking about Linux a lot. He goes into a whole description here about Cinnamon. He does a whole...

Professor Leo. He gets all... We use this kind of generic term Linux for... Oh, the chalkboard sounds nice. ...something that's really so much more. The only thing that's Linux is the stuff way down here. This is the kernel. And that's the stuff that Linus Torvalds wrote

back in 1994 or 92 when he was a graduate student in Finland. I feel like I'm in school. What's nice about – I know. And you know what's funny about this? And I'll leave the link in the show notes if you guys want to watch the whole thing. What's funny about this is it tells me two things about Linux adoption. Number one, we are so screwed.

And number two, it's great to have Leo as an advocate. Yeah, it is. The first thing it tells me is, and I'm not joking when I say this, you need a frickin' whiteboard if you're a Windows or Mac user to figure out, or I'm sorry, a chalkboard in this case, how to use Linux.

Like, Leo talks about the fact that he has a dozen thumb drives with different Linux distros on there. He talks about trying Debian. He talks about trying Mint. He talks about trying Xubuntu and Unity. And he talks about trying Antigross. He has gone through a

sludge of crap to get to where he's at now. It's too much. Right. You can't expect the average savvy Windows users to do what he's done. So anyways, it's interesting. And I'm glad he's trying it. And it's a good advocate. Yeah, he actually seems to know what he's talking about. I'm impressed.

Yeah, yeah. Now maybe he could play with LXDE and LXD or LXC, not LXDE, and tell us what he thinks. Yeah. I'm excited to buy that, Wes. Okay, so let's get to it. I've been teasing it all episode. Tomb Raider is finally here for Linux. The 2013 edition of Tomb Raider

is available for Linux, and I had a chance to give it a try, and I got to say, I'm not too disappointed. If you're watching here, Wes, this was something I played a little bit earlier on the live stream. This was me playing a little tomb raider and uh the graphics are pretty good now you're if you're watching this back on the video version you're watching an encoding of an encoding so you know

that the graphics are going to be what they are uh careful but i'll tell you this game is fun first of all it's very immersive the only the one downside i'll have is there's a lot of quick time events like this right here right you're running around all of a sudden it just takes over and maybe you just watch you have like a token key you have to press from time to time Sam? Roth? Can anyone hear me?

But they do a good job of making Laura Croft feel like a real character. That's awesome. Yeah, and I'll tell you, Wes, I have a special connection. Ooh! Look at that. It's very painful. Yeah, they are violent with Laura in this game. They get really rough with her. Look at Laura.

Laura. They are really rough with her. I think it's Laura. Laura. They are really rough with her, like, ridiculously so. But, you know, when I first played Tomb Raider, it was when I had a Matrox video card. Ooh, Matrox. I haven't heard that name for a while. I know, and I popped in four megabytes of VRAM. I had a grand total from two megabytes to four megabytes, and my two megabyte upgrade came with a Tomb Raider CD.

Oh, very cool. Yeah, that was my first tomb raider experience so now the original tomb raider yeah so even though it's a 2013 game it's still very fun for me to be able to try it and it supports linux now the graphics are great yeah it looks beautiful and um yeah sorry the the actress who does the voice work for lara croft keely hawes uh was recently on a tv program talking about this you know and uh the work that she had to do and how much work that she did in in this new lara croft thing and she talked about the fact that her son loves to play the game and uh it's a bit weird for her to hear her own voice screaming out at her son. But it's awesome.

Yeah, it is very cool to see these great games coming to Linux. And, yeah, it's maybe not the best game ever, but I've really enjoyed playing it. So if you're looking to buy a Steam game... How are the system requirements, Chris? Well, you've got to have... That's actually one of the nice things I like about it. While you do have to have a decent system,

Wes, they have a built-in benchmark. Oh, nice. So here, I'll launch it right now. So you can get a sense of if it's going to work on your rig. And I know how nice of a machine you have now. Oh! I don't know, Mr. Skooky Sprite, have you had a chance to try out the new Tomb Raider? You know, doing your best Linux games podcast,

you've got to be trying these things, right? Are you kidding? chance to try out the new tomb raider you know doing your best linux games podcast you got to be trying these things right are you kidding i beat it uh in the first in the first in the first 14 hours of it coming out for linux uh it like launched on steam at like 11 o'clock at night yeah i was just going to bed and i'm like oh tomb raider okay well i better probably play this and then i played it in one 10-hour sitting. Oh, boy. And then I had meetings that morning, and three hours later, I finished it off 10 hours later. I think it's awesome. It's one of the best adventure games I've ever played, and it's easily the best-looking game I've ever played on Linux.

So I'm running the benchmark right now, which you say, benchmark's not so accurate, is it? Oh, God, no. On mine, it says the average frame rate is like 222 frames per second or something like that it's just out of control it's like it's it's old and weird so what i think it is is i actually think that uh i don't i get like 80 or something i can't remember i'm benchmarking right now i'll tell you in a second but i think the game still has some glitches under linux there's a There's a few performance glitches here and there.

I'll get one benchmark for the frame rate, and then I end up with a completely different thing during gameplay. But as you watch this benchmark, you can see they add cool effects and stuff. It's pretty nice. Go ahead, Scooby. One of the things that's weird, because the second I beat it, I started playing it again because that's how much I enjoyed it on hard. And this time, I had some problems with janky camera angles in the

my first 20 hours of the game. And it seems like either they push an update to it or something, but I have not had any camera problems. And especially if you run it on normal instead of like high to like the settings, it makes a big difference in the performance

because it cuts down on the reflections, I think. Yeah, I agree with you. The benchmark is a little crazy. So I just got on the benchmark. I got 80.6 minimum as my minimum frames per second. Nice. And I got max of 170.3 with an average. Yeah, that's not happening.

That's crazy. That's totally crazy. That's so ridiculous. Is it like during the menus? Yes. That's totally crazy. That's so ridiculous. Is it like during the menus? Yeah. Yes. Well, it's like they do like this cool panorama view where they load more and more stuff.

So you'd think it'd be accurate. But it's got to be like some sort of best case scenario. I don't know. A couple other just quick notes. Steam Sync works. So I played it for a little bit on my computer upstairs. It's able to resume right away. Oh, I love that. Yeah.

Also, Linux Gamecast and The Linux Gamer gave some great reviews of this game. I'll have links to those in the show notes. And Mr. Skooky Sprite, again, give people a plug where they can find your podcast. I assume you'll be talking about this. Oh, yeah. No, I already reviewed it on Saturday. Atta boy. BestLinuxGames.com.

BestLinuxGames.com. I will have a link to that as well in the show notes. So that way you guys can follow the reviews of all of that. I'm excited to see a good game come out because this was like one of my first like I built a PC and then I upgraded from two megabytes of RAM to four megabytes and got Tomb Raider. So, yeah. Right. That was that was a big deal for me. I really thought that was huge.

Anyways, that'll that'll pretty much wrap us up for this week's episode of the Unplugged program. If you want to give us some feedback, please do. Please do. LinuxActionShow.reddit.com is where you go or JupyterBroadcasting.com slash contact. Mumbroom, is there anything else that the collective hive mind wants to cover before we wrap up on this week's episode? Going once. Going once. Going twice. I've never installed GNU slash Linux.

Oh, and there you have it. There you have it. RMS runs GNU slash K Windows. Thank you for joining us on this week's episode of the Unplugged program. We do it over at jblive.tv. Go to jupiterbroadcasting.com slash calendar to find out when it's live in your local time zone. Like we said earlier, linuxactionshow.reddit.com is where you go. Now, that virtual log, that's powered by Mumble, open source software.

Yes, it is. And you can find out more about it by doing Bang Mumble in our IRC room, which is irc.geekshed.net. If you stream this on YouTubeLive.tv, join us on JBLive.tv next week. We'd love to see you there. Okay, everybody. Thanks so much for tuning in to this week's episode of Unplugged. And we'll see you right back here next Tuesday. Thank you. Hot tip from crack editor Rikai. It looks like the Steam controller is on sale right now.

Have you ever given that another chance? You know, I should, huh? Especially with newer kernels. 40% off. It seems like it might be worth time to give that another chance? You know, I should, huh? Especially with newer kernels? 40% off. It seems like it might be worth time to give it another chance. That's a good deal. That is a good deal.

So, you know, when I shaved the stash on Sunday, I didn't think about how the children would react. Oh, right. That's a big deal. I remember when my dad shaved his beard as a young child. Yes. It's like, who are you?

It is actually a big deal. And I totally didn't think about that. Because I remember when my dad had a beard and then went to no beard. It's a big, yeah. It was a big deal. And so I got, so I shaved on Sunday afternoon, right? And then I saw the kids Monday. And I got to tell you, the reaction was not good.

No. Abby told me it was dumb. Oh, wow. That's cold. But you know. Abby told me it was dumb. That's cold. But you know what Dylan told me? Dad, my dream is to grow a beard and a mustache. How could you shave it? So how did you explain?

Did you tell him? Uncle Noah did too well. And then my youngest said, Daddy, did you do that for Noah? And I said, yes, Bella. I did it for Noah. I hate Noah now. He took the beard away. Do you know what Bella said?

It's okay, Daddy. I still like your hair. I love my kids, dude. So perfect. So it was like, yeah, okay, good, good. That makes me feel better. But all of them unanimously agreed, I got to grow it back. I got to grow it back. Or you could shave, go totally clean.

Go all the way. Yeah. I don't think so. Oh, man. You know, I'm a geek because I totally love this post. And this was clickbait for Linux users. If I was a Linux fish, I would be cut, filleted, and served on a alder wood platter right now. Because TechMint totally got me with 20 funny commands for Linux. Okay. All right. Let's do it real fast. So first of all, did you know that there's something called, there's a package called SL? Do you know about SL? Oh yeah. You do? You do know about it? Steam locomotive. Oh, look at you. Alright.

So let's, I'm going to do a Packer search for SL right now. I absolutely never install it, but I am familiar. So, oh boy, there's a whole bunch of stuff. I don't, of course, a whole bunch of OpenSSL stuff came up when I searched for that. That was a horrible idea. What was I thinking? Of course, this is a total, absolute, and complete, look at this list, dude. This list is

20 pages long. Okay, you know what I'm going to do, just for sake of content, I'm going to just install SL and see what we get. Because why not, right? Let's just find out. Well, I've got my container right here. Alright, so now I'm installed on my machine. I'm going to run SL. Are you ready? So, first of all, I want to launch it in a terminal window.

So, hold it. Here we go. Let's go find out what SL is. SL. It's Steam locomotive. Look at that. Isn't that beautiful? That actually is really cool. That is really cool.

So there is this post over at TechBint about the 20 awesome Linux commands. You know what? Hold on a second. Telnet. I don't even know if I have Telnet installed. Telnet and then blinkinglights.nl. Let's see. Oh, classic. Oh, I do have Telnet installed.

All right. So here we go. So what do I do, Wes? Do you know what I do after this point? Just watch. Just watch. Just stand by and watch? Okay.

I'm watching. I maximize. Maybe I don't need to maximize. Hmm. So this is supposed to be the 20th century. Oh, yeah. I'm watching. I maximize. Maybe I don't need to maximize. Hmm. So this is supposed to be the 20th century. Oh, yeah. Here we go. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

Yeah, it's Star Wars. It's Star Wars in the terminal. Oh, yeah. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it was Star Wars in the terminal. Oh, what's this one? Command Toilet.

I don't think I've heard of that one before. Oh, are you serious? Number nine. Hold on. hold on. Scroll your ass down there. Okay, Toilet. Install Toilet. Alright, do you think Toilet's a package in art? Let's find out.

It's a package everywhere. It's been around for years and years and years. How come I don't know about it? This is what I'm asking myself. How do you not know all of these? I know. This list is, not only is it horrible, obvious clickbait, but it is totally old command. Like some of them are like message of the day. Like, okay, I know about message of the day.

Yeah. All right. Okay. All right. I'm installing Toilet right now. All right. And I'm going to run Toilet. I've never had a Toilet command.

Hold on. I don't want to run it in GWAC. I want to give Toilet its own dedicated terminal. So let me open up its own dedicated GNOME terminal just for Toilet. Okay. Alright. Here we go. Tab completing Toilet. Are you ready, Wes?

I've never been more ready. What happens when you run it? You have to give it some text. Oh, okay. Fart. Oh, okay. Soart. Oh, okay. So that's all it does? Is it just... Do toilet dash dash gay.

And then the piece of text. It's much nicer. Dash dash gay? And then do I do the text on the same command line, or do I wait for it? Yeah, do toilet dash dash gay space. Hello world or something. Okay, all right. Hello.

Do I need to use quotes? No. Hello world. Okay. Oh, now that is great. Look I need to use quotes? No. Hello world. Okay. Oh, now that is great. Look at it. It's a rainbow. And if you do toilet dash dash gay dash dash IRC, hello world, then it gives you all the

ANSI codes that you can paste into IRC. You know, I think I have seen this before now that I see it. How did I not know about this? This is so wonderful. Thank you, Popey. You're welcome. I like that Popey is our official expert on the toilet command. Thank you,

Zara. Of course. There's a snap package in the store for toilets. Oh, beautiful.