LINUX Unplugged - Episode 17: Swap It Outta Here | LUP 17

Episode Date: December 4, 2013

Do you run without swap? This week we reach into the topic grab bag and debate to swap or not to swap, the reasons long timer Linux users are switching to BSD, and what’s wrong with our Sailfish OS ...coverage.Plus we’ll some perspective from a new Linux user on what she ran into, your emails, and more!

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is Linux Unplugged, Episode 17 for December 3rd, 2013. Hi everyone, and hello planet Earth! Your weekly Linux talk show welcomes you to the closing act of 2013. Pour yourself a cold one! And join us around the penguin-shaped table. My name is Chris. My name is Matt. Hey Matt, here we are, episode 17. It's the final hours of 2013. And it's been a big year, Matt.
Starting point is 00:00:53 Oh, it's been huge. I guess this was supposed to be the year of Steam. But now that we're coming to an end, the only thing I can think about is Bitcoin. Oddly enough, yeah, I can understand. Yeah, well, yeah, recently Bitcoin has been sitting above $1,000 right now on Bitstamp, which is where you could actually cash out today if you wanted to. The price is $10.45. Other exchanges have it higher.
Starting point is 00:01:13 Those exchanges are full of crap. And I think it's interesting because I have to hold myself back. I don't want to talk about it in the Linux Unplugged show, Matt, but it's all I'm thinking about. Oh, yeah? All right. So, you know, this week, Matt, I had a grab bag. Called it Dev Random because I'm funny like that. And I had several topics I wanted to dig into, sort of suss out, and I wanted to start with
Starting point is 00:01:34 some of our follow-up this week. But before we get into that follow-up, I wanted to ask you, have you opened the boxes yet, Matt? I have. I have. I did my... Usually when I get a review item, and this is something I've done for probably over 10 years, is I get a review item,
Starting point is 00:01:48 I pop it out of the box, I plug it in, make sure everything's working, looks good, drool for a while, cry myself, then I cry myself to sleep when I put it back in the box. Yesterday, Matt got three boxes from System76 on his doorstep. You got the Leopard Extreme in there, and you got two laptops. You got the new
Starting point is 00:02:03 Kudu laptop and their Ultra Pro laptop. Can't wait to try those things out. They're just gorgeous, gorgeous machines. Is the Leopard Extreme heavy? What's it look like, Matt? Is it nice? I remember carrying it in the last time, and yeah, it has some weight to it. That is solid hardware.
Starting point is 00:02:19 You're going to be showing up on Sunday with a car full of gear. That's going to be awesome. Can't wait to try that out. And we even got a little bit of extra time to try these things out. I'm going to be banging on Elevator Extreme for like a week solid, so we'll have an extended report on how that thing performs on the big show.
Starting point is 00:02:34 Well, speaking of the big show, so this week, I want to talk about Sailfish OS and the Yalophone as sort of a follow-up. I don't know how many of you out there, if any of you out there listen to Unplugged and don't listen to the Linux Action Show. You're a crazy son of a bitch if you do that.
Starting point is 00:02:50 What's the matter with you? But one of the things that happened, the biggest thing that happened, we talked about Mint 16, Mate and Cinnamon Edition, of the latest release from the Linux Mint project. You would think that would be the thing that dominates the dialogue from the Linux Action Show audience. No.
Starting point is 00:03:08 No, pretty much everybody was talking about our coverage of Yala OS, or the Yala Phone and Sailfish OS. And so Kyle wrote in to the Linux Action Show, and I broke in to the Linux Action Show's house. I ripped open their
Starting point is 00:03:23 little sack they have hanging on their refrigerator that holds the Linux Action Show's house. I ripped open their little sack they have hanging on their refrigerator that holds the Linux Action Show feedback, and I stole it for this show. And so we're going to read Kyle's email, even though it was directed to the Linux Action Show. We're going to break all the rules and tie the knots together and cover it here. He writes, Hi, Chris. I'm sure you got more than a few of these emails this week, but hear me out. I was interested to hear what you and Matt might have had to say about Yala's launch of their new phone and OS on this week's show, and I was disappointed to see you dismiss it out of hand. You spend numerous segments and even a whole Linux Unplugged and Coder Radio talking about Canonical's dismal mobile efforts,
Starting point is 00:03:59 and when similar small groups of devs not only creates a 1.0 version of their Linux-based OS, small groups of devs not only creates a 1.0 version of their Linux-based OS, but actually ships it on non-Vaporware phone, you blow it off like it's no big deal, and don't even bother to research some basic facts about it. Sailfish OS does run Android apps. In fact, he linked us to some demos online that show that. And it will run on Android hardware in the future. This is actually one of their main strategies for expansion into China.
Starting point is 00:04:27 The device has only been out for a few days, and already community members have got Google Play Store support up and running on it. This is exciting and just the sort of thing to expect from an enthusiastic Linux community. In fact, smack the table, JAL's efforts to provide open source compatibility for Android hardware helped out Ubuntu Mobile's efforts and represent a real contribution to the open source community. Furthermore, the MakePlay Live project you got so excited about is using Mer, which Sailfish OS is also based on, and which Jala is dedicated to supporting in a similar way to how the Linux kernel gets contributions. There was a developer-oriented talk by one of the Yala devs
Starting point is 00:05:06 on a subreddit a while back that outlined how Sailfish OS is just one aspect of their broader plans for MER, which sounds very exciting in terms of spreading Linux adoption through devices like the Improv. Sorry if I came across as a bit of a fanboy that Matt's always telling to settle down. I know I've probably been in damage control mode
Starting point is 00:05:22 since Amazon... I know you've probably been in damage control since Amazon dropped their bomb on you and you haven't had much time to research the topic, but I think you might want to give y'all a second look. At the very least, I hope you review Sailfish OS once it hits the Nexus 5. On another note, I can't afford to buy a new t-shirt with the cost of the international shipping, but I will start a subscription on filter next week. I hope you get over the financial problems on Amazon that they've dumped on you.
Starting point is 00:05:44 Continue making great content for the community. Thanks. Best, Kyle. So, interesting points, Matt. What are your thoughts? Well, so here's the deal. We never said, and it's interesting how if you're not really enthusiastic in a positive way, you're automatically negative. There can never be a gray area. And I noticed that because that's not what happened. What actually did happen is that, as he pointed out, it's very early on. So at this moment in time, until I have something in front of me that I can really hold on to, like say, oh, I don't know, Firefox OS, you know, that I can actually have an opinion on, we're at a meh moment right now because there's nothing to really, to judge. It sounds cool, but Firefox OS
Starting point is 00:06:19 actually addresses a specific need. It brings low-end smartphones, you know, accessible smartphones to people that might not otherwise be in the Android market. If I understand the other side of this argument, what their point is, here's what they would say to that. They would say, hey, dude, look, Sailfish OS is coming from the folks that made
Starting point is 00:06:38 me go, Nokia, we've got industry ties, we've got a proven track record, we've got a community that's already built, we are here, we are the proven recipe, and we've just shipped. And meanwhile, you're talking about Firefox OS and Ubuntu Touch. I'm talking about something I can install on a phone and see right now. Now, again, I've not researched this heavily. So if I can do that today, I'm excited. If I can't, I will be excited tomorrow. When Kyle says, yo, dog, you're going to be able to install it on Nexus 5, I think to myself, actually, that's when it crosses the line from interesting concept to practical product. There you go.
Starting point is 00:07:13 And it might be a limitation in just the fact that there's a lot of things to focus on these days. Sure. And so unless you can actually play with it, it just maybe doesn't spark that interest internally. But I go back to that I think my senses from the Linux Action Show audience and the Linux Unplugged audience is there's just straight up mobile exhaustion. Like Android didn't just kind of pull ahead. Android dominated everybody like in a major way. And not necessarily in a positive way it just it just kind of happened it's kind of like when you spill something all over your keyboard it's there it you know what i mean it makes the deployment and the adoption rate of windows
Starting point is 00:07:54 look quaint oh yeah and so i think in in in that shadow it's hard to conjure up any genuine excitement because it just seems like it honestly seems like cavemen going up against the United States government. Oh, I wouldn't go that far. I think that once we – again, going back to – as you pointed out, once we have something tangible in our hands, I can experience the performance of those Android apps running on this. I can experience the flow of the phone. Then I can make an educated judgment based on that experience. But we're not there yet. He's asking me to be excited about nothing. But okay, let's say six months down the road, I can buy a Nexus 5 and guaranteed I hook it up to the USB port of my computer. I flip a few buttons and I can install Sailfish OS on it.
Starting point is 00:08:39 Sure. I'm still probably not going to do it. I mean, I might do it in the sense of try it out, give it a go, try it for a couple of weeks. But the reality is I want applications that are on Android. I want – We do. If I'm going to have a mobile device, I want badass mapping. I want Waze, right? I want to have all of these things that are just now come to be expected on a mobile device.
Starting point is 00:09:04 I want Netflix on all of these things that are just now come to be expected on a mobile device. I want Netflix on a mobile device for that 15 minutes where we have to wait for something. And oh my god, I got to do something to inoccupy my two kids who are running around like crazy. Let's put SpongeBob on the phone for 15 minutes. And it gives me a better peace of mind. I want that on my mobile device. Can they offer that? I don't think so. And if they can, how long do they care? But do we know? But do we know yet? I mean, that's just it is, I mean, and I'm not
Starting point is 00:09:28 defending the email, but I'm just saying, I honestly don't know. I mean, perhaps possibly, maybe it addresses something in a fashion we haven't experienced yet. If it does, that's cool. But yeah, I mean, for myself, I just, I, because I think those are valid points, but I think at the end of the day, until it's in my hands for in my universe, in my world, it's theory. That doesn't mean it's theory for the developer. It just means for the end user it is. Here's what they have to do. They have to make it good enough and I think they're actually, I think this is why people are really excited about Yala and Sailfish OS is I think
Starting point is 00:09:54 they are on the verge, like out of the gate. Out of all the projects, out of the gate. Because Ubuntu Touch has a bunch of phony icons that don't do anything and they're relying on their community who doesn't really care. has a bunch of phony icons that don't do anything, and they're relying on their community who... Doesn't really care. Right, to make core functions of their operating system.
Starting point is 00:10:11 So Yala comes along, and they have Sailfish OS, and it's a 1.0. It's a straight-up respectable 1.0. And I think these people are like, hey, you assholes, this is almost getting good enough. And I'm not saying you have to replace Android one-to-one for somebody like me to switch because I will jump when it's – all I got to do is I just got to change a few habits. I got to twist my arm a little bit, but, man, I'll switch to get off of Android. Android's doable, but you guys – I've documented the copious amount of problems I had with Android.
Starting point is 00:10:45 Well, and see, that's just it. And I'm holding out hope, and I would love to see this. I would love to see it to where it provides me the same seamless experience, potentially even a better experience than what Android does. And that includes not only it runs Android apps, but if it runs them at native speeds, performance, feel. I don't want to feel like I'm running wine or something. I want it to feel good. If it does that, it very well may. I don't know. If it does, performance, feel. I don't want to feel like I'm running wine or something. I want it to feel good. If it does that, it very well may. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:11:07 If it does, that's awesome. But until I see it, I have no opinion because I can't judge it. So I want to make sure I stress that I do believe we need something like this. So I got the Nexus 5. Sure. It's an amazing piece of hardware. It really is great. But there's a creepy factor to every time I get a new Android device, more and more is proprietary.
Starting point is 00:11:31 It's closed up. Like now the photo management application that shipped with the Nexus 5 is Google Plus photos. Your photo gallery is now integrated in with Google Plus, and they've deprecated the original gallery app. And it's just abandonware. It's just totally abandoned. It totally sucks. is now integrated in with Google+, and they've deprecated the original gallery app, right? And it's just abandonware. It's just totally abandoned. It totally sucks. And so as somebody who is cognizant of these types of deficiencies, this bothers me, and it makes me want to switch.
Starting point is 00:11:56 I don't think it'd ever make Joe User want to switch. And this is where the fundamental lack of enthusiasm comes from for me, is how can I get excited about something that 70 of our audience will likely never use uh the same could be said for desktop linux five years ago though and so i would say that you know that that was the argument of well it's just a hobby operating system when obviously it's not it's it's a very core experience for a number of people myself included yourself included so i i'm gonna be i'm gonna go out on the optimistic level of,
Starting point is 00:12:25 if it can in fact provide me with what I'm looking for, I will be its biggest advocate. If it doesn't, I won't care. So you're in a wait-and-see approach. I'm a wait-and-see guy. And I don't get too bent into licensing. I prefer open source licensing, but it's not a lifestyle for me. I'm not a developer. I have a preference, but I'm not married to it. You have more security in products that use an open source license. Right. Absolutely. I would prefer that. Absolutely. Hands down. We'll even take a hit on, you know, uh, user experience to a degree within reason. Yeah, certainly. Or the amount of hoops you might have to jump. Oh yeah. Yeah. I, that's where I fall down too. And
Starting point is 00:12:59 yeah, we'll see. We'll see. You know, all companies go through their rockstar moment and then they fade and, and, and maybe as that happens to Google, Android, more and more people look for alternatives. And by that point, these operating systems and these devices will be at a stage where they've had enough R&D and development and progress for that they're ready to pick up that slack. And that would be amazing. and that would be amazing. So, you know, as, as Sailfish OS comes out for other, for other devices that I can get my hands on, I'm totally going to check it out. I'm keeping my mind open, but I'll be honest. Um, I couldn't, I couldn't push myself to research the Yala announcement enough to like know it in and out. Like I researched it enough to know what the important moments were and, and, and highlight some of those important stories in the show notes. So folks wanted to go look in the show notes of last week's Lass. They could go get that info.
Starting point is 00:13:49 However, myself, I was like – I more wanted to cover it in the show just to document the important moment for the project itself and not much more than that. And that really seemed to bother people. Not much more than that. And that really seemed to bother people. Well, and it's comical because, again, we're victims of a – we as the Linux community tend to – we're almost religious about things. And sometimes that's not – I'm going to be brutally honest. It's stupid.
Starting point is 00:14:18 It's really annoying. And quite frankly, it's a real turnoff to people that aren't Linux people. Yeah, we got an email about that this week. I'm calloused enough to where I – it's fine, whatever. But regular people are looking at this thinking, wow, you people are nuts. So, I mean, for me, I need something tangible. I'm about user experiences, and that includes the benefits of the open source licensing because there are tangible benefits to that. So, I mean, I put that in the same bucket.
Starting point is 00:14:38 But a great analogy is looking at the difference between the Steam box. We're all really excited about that. You ask my 17-year-old nephew what he's excited about, who was really excited about Steam Box last week until he saw a trailer for Killzone for the PlayStation 4. He couldn't give a rat's butt about Steam Box anymore because something visually tangible is in front of him that he'd be like, ooh, drool.
Starting point is 00:14:58 And that's what Android's got over these other operating systems. I think we're going to have to overcome that. Good point. All right, well, so Kyle, when he wrote in, mentioned the shirt drive and the problems we've been having with Amazon. So I got a little update. We had a lot of people say,
Starting point is 00:15:13 hey guys, love the shirt, don't want a long sleeve t-shirt, I want a hoodie. So we added a hoodie. So if you go to teespring.com slash Jupiter 2014, you can grab a hoodie. This is helping us get to our 2014 goal or at least helping us get through 2013.
Starting point is 00:15:26 This is a logo we'll be rolling out in 2014. So now we've got a hoodie available. We've got a woman's tee also if you want to get one for your lady. So that's all in the same addresses before just in the pull-down? Yep, just in the pull-down. And now it all goes towards the goal.
Starting point is 00:15:41 319 out of 499. That's a great... Oh, it just went up to 319. Did you see a change? You know what? You know what? I'll tell you something, Matt. I'll tell you something.
Starting point is 00:15:48 The bulk of that is the Linux Action Show audience. Now, there's a good mix of Coder Radio in there too. Sure, sure. The bulk of it is the Linux Unplugged and Linux Action Show audience that have, right here alone, have almost got us to 320 shirts. I'd love to see that flip over to 320, 325 during the show. The goal here is we have commissioned a new logo for the Jupiter Broadcasting Network.
Starting point is 00:16:13 We were planning to roll this out in about March of 2014. Yeah, you know, it was one of those things, like we were really proud of ourselves because we were working way ahead of the game. We had secrets we were going to roll out in months. And I was like, yeah, this is awesome. We're ruling. And then we had a falling out with Amazon.
Starting point is 00:16:32 And the way that a lot of people contribute and support our network was removed. Now, what we're trying to do is close that financial gap. I sold some Bitcoin so that way we can keep the lights on. But we are definitely still hurting. And this shirt we've launched over at teespring.com slash jupiter14. This is an effort for us to continue to fund the network through the remainder of 2013 and also to get you guys a little bit of swag so that way you got yourself something. Maybe you want to give it up for the holidays or something like that.
Starting point is 00:16:59 And that new logo is so gorgeous. Display it, right? Just display it. So based on your popular demand, we now have a hoodie. How awesome is that? That is fantastic. No, it's definitely been very popular, and I think it makes sense. I think people see the value in not only participating in the program itself by helping to support it through buying this,
Starting point is 00:17:20 but I think they also value the fact that, hey, I get to represent. Yeah, dude. People really get that. You know what? That new logo looks good on black like that, hey, I get to represent. Yeah, dude. You know what? That new logo looks good on black like that. It looks excellent. It pops like crazy. It's awesome. Yeah. So thank you, everybody who has already picked up a shirt.
Starting point is 00:17:36 And if you haven't gotten one yet, go to teespring.com slash jupiter2014. We're trying to get to 500 shirts. We're not there yet. And if we don't get to 500 shirts, we won't – none of them will ship. You won't get charged. Don't worry. You won't get billed.
Starting point is 00:17:50 But none of them will ship. So hopefully we can, and that will help us fund the remainder of the year. And thank you, everybody. All right. Yeah, I think it's also worth mentioning too. A lot of people have the mindset of, well, I might do it later, but someone undoubtedly will buy it. Every single purchase helps make this happen, so definitely jump on. We have an email.
Starting point is 00:18:08 So there's a few recurring topics that we've talked about. Like on TechSnap, one of them is drive fragmentation. On this show, it's the whole philosophy of to swap or not to swap. I've got an email about that that I want to touch on here in just a second. But first, we should probably thank our first sponsor of the Unplugged show, and that, my friends, is Ting ting ting is mobile that makes sense my mobile service provider and matt's mobile service provider and they freaking rock so ting what's great about them no contracts no early termination fees and pay for what you use pay for what you use messages
Starting point is 00:18:40 megabytes minutes all that they all get added up at the end of the month. Whatever you just use, that's what you pay for. Flat dollars, six months per line, and just whatever you need on top of that. That's great if you sometimes use the phone, sometimes you don't use the phone. And every Ting service includes hotspot and tethering, caller ID, voicemail, and their amazing Ting dashboard. But something that was pointed out to me in the Linux Action Show subreddit this week that we don't mention is Ting also doesn't have roaming charges. There's no additional charges
Starting point is 00:19:09 for voice roaming within the US. As long as you have a CDMA signal, you should be fine. The Ting network has agreements in place with Verizon that allows you to roam over the Verizon network and use that service and you don't get dinged for it. It's one of the really nice little perks among the many other things with Ting. Now, of course, the average Ting bill is around $33 per month. Think about that. $33 per month is the average Ting bill. And that's your smartphone with data, text messaging, all of that contract free with no early termination fees. Now, I just got my Nexus 5 on the Ting network. Ting has a bunch of really great devices at all ranges of prices. Right now, if you go to linux.ting.com, that's right, linux.ting.com, that'll take $25 off your first month of service if you already have a
Starting point is 00:19:55 Sprint-compatible device. If you don't have a Sprint-compatible device, they'll give you $25 off your first device. When you buy this device, you own this device. They're not leasing it to you on like a house on a mortgage where you pay into it every single month. And after two years, you now own a completely out of date smartphone. No, no. Like a computer, when you buy it, you own it. And this is as an active consumer, as people out there who are aware of the differences in that kind of setup, this is something I think we can all elect to be involved in, is let's change the dynamic of the mobile market because it's obvious the mobile devices,
Starting point is 00:20:30 even if you don't think they're that hot, are going to play a huge role in the computing platform going forward. And the problem is the cards are stacked against us right now. Ting is changing all of that, and they're doing it in a very dynamic way. It's starting with no contracts, starting with no early termination fees, and starting with the fact that you own your phone and then they price it at a rate that is absolutely reasonable and not only that but if you're in a
Starting point is 00:20:52 contract right now and you want to get out of that contract ting has an early termination relief program where they will pay up to 75 per line that you need to cancel that's huge people because you can start saving right now if you switch to ting and you can get started by going to linux.ting.com. Man, I love Ting. I've been using them for a while. And as a longtime customer now, I got to tell you, that dashboard, that dashboard, Matt, it's like nothing anybody else has. And I know that as a Ting customer, when you signed up, when I handed that note to you and said, Matt, have at it, tell me what you think, that dashboard was it, wasn't it? That was awesome.
Starting point is 00:21:26 It was really this big point for me. And I still use it frequently because there are times to where like if I'm not going to be using the phone for a while or maybe I just don't need any – I know I'm not going to be getting any important calls. I'll literally just go ahead and toggle it off. I can keep the phone calls from coming in completely by using the dashboard. So cool. This is a great point. So as – back when I was in IT, I would have a several different
Starting point is 00:21:47 Blackberry, this was back before Android and iOS had really taken off. I would have several different Blackberry devices and one Windows mobile device. And I never
Starting point is 00:21:55 used the Windows mobile device. I was down with Blackberry, man. I was a Blackberry guy. But I only needed one, right? But the company I worked for, they had to pay for all three lines all the time every single month. And then when another tech needed to try something out for their client, there's no transferring.
Starting point is 00:22:12 Unless you want to call the Verizon rep and ask them after you explain to them what it is you're even trying to do. Ting does it all through their dashboard within a couple of clicks unless you get right back to work. It's so awesome. So go get started by linux.ting.com. And by the way, you need to order your device by December 13th if you just want to get FedEx Ground or December 19th for FedEx Express in order to guarantee delivery by December 23rd.
Starting point is 00:22:33 So if you're giving somebody the gift of Ting for the holidays, get your order in before December 13th for the cheap shipping or December 19th for the express shipping to get that guaranteed by December 23rd. So a huge thank you to Ting for sponsoring Linux Unplugged. Love those guys. for the express shipping to get that guaranteed by December 23rd. So a huge thank you to Ting for sponsoring Linux Unplugged. Love those guys.
Starting point is 00:22:51 Okay, Matt. So I want to cover this email that came in from Bab because it's a topic that we talk about a lot. No, it's all good. Oh, it's good. No, it's good. I felt like this was going on. I'm about to get three protocols. Actually, I think we do have one of those at the end of the show.
Starting point is 00:23:05 Oh, you got to have one. I haven't had one because otherwise, what's the point? I tell you what, we got one that's going to get people really fired up next. Yeah. OK, but this one comes in from Bob. It's safe territory. We're not going to get anybody too upset. He says, hi, guys.
Starting point is 00:23:17 Just a quick note. Chris Muse that maybe the day is near that you could run with a machine without a swap partition. Well, this intrigued me, and for the last year, I've been running my 8GB laptop with no swap partition and have not noticed any issues even when giving it a pretty thorough workout. In fact, it worked so well that I honestly forgot about it. One thing that had bugged me, though, was that the Hibernate hasn't been an option on Ubuntu for me. I just assumed it was a config issue or the hardware not being supported. I found out I could run pm-hibernate command, but it would just simply not hibernate hasn't been an option on Ubuntu for me. I just assumed it was a config issue or the hardware not being supported. I found out I could run pm-hibernate command, but it would just simply not hibernate.
Starting point is 00:23:50 My frustration boiled over today, and I went digging for clues. It looks like it may just simply be a case that a swap partition is required for hibernate to work as where the memory image is written out before the machine shuts down. I G-O-L'd, that's groaned out loud, when I found this out. I'm not yet, I cannot yet confirm this is my issue, but I thought I'd share experiences for the benefit of all. Bab. Yeah, that is true. That is true.
Starting point is 00:24:14 Interesting. That is the downside to running without swap. And, you know, I have a swap. All my machines have swap right now. Do you do swap partitions still? I do. I mean, and honestly, it's just a legacy habit. I mean, it's almost like building machines and putting a floppy drive in it.
Starting point is 00:24:30 You do something like out of habit, thinking, why the hell am I putting this thing in here? Actually, Matt, I don't mean to age you, but it's now CD-ROMs, Matt. It's not floppy drives anymore. What? It's CD-ROMs now, yeah. Well, I've got my cassette tape drive sitting right here. It works. It's magnetic media. media is the future.
Starting point is 00:24:46 God. Why hibernate when you can just either suspend or boot? I mean, what kind of system takes that long to boot anymore? I don't know. I put it out to the mumble room if anybody in here has a strong feeling on swap partitions. Anybody in the mumble room running swap free these days?
Starting point is 00:25:02 Yes, kind of. I use swap files instead. Can I jump in quickly? You only need swap if you're using a laptop and you want to put it into Hibernate. If you've got more than two gigs of RAM, you do not need swap. Swap is only used for
Starting point is 00:25:18 hibernation. Well, what about crashing? That's not true. That's completely incorrect. Here we go! And it's on! I actually need a swap partition. Let's say you've got three gigs of RAM. What swap use for?
Starting point is 00:25:32 I use a swap partition in order to compile my kernel. Usually I don't have five or six gigs partitioned or put on my rig, so I use a swap file. I knew this would be a hot topic. I have 12 gigs of swap even on machines that have 144 gigs of RAM. Yeah, I do too.
Starting point is 00:25:51 You have no swap at all. The only negative thing I add is you can't hibernate. That's it. No, there's no negative things. First of all, if you don't have any swap space, as soon as you're out of memory, the kernel either has to start killing random processes or panic. There's no other option.
Starting point is 00:26:06 If you have even a little bit of swap... It's not an issue anymore. 500 gigs of RAM for a 500 gig swap I think should be enough. Just as a safety. I mean it's 500 gigs. You only have a boot partition or a swap file. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:26:21 Oftentimes you'll make the swap only 512 megabytes or something, which is just enough so that really inactive stuff can get out of your way because free RAM is wasted RAM. So you use as much of your RAM as you can for your file system cache and things like that. So if a program is completely idle, why have it wasting memory that could be being used for cache if you could swap it out? This is my philosophy too.
Starting point is 00:26:47 I guess having even just that little bit means that a program can be swapped out. Right, but if the program is always idle and its memory is not in use then it's even worse than just wasting it. So you may as well just write it to the disk even if it's slow. It's not being used. Who cares if it's
Starting point is 00:27:02 slow? The important thing is that a lot of applications will adjust their behavior based on memory pressure. For example, the ZFS file system will free up some RAM when there's memory pressure. But for those couple of seconds while that's happening, there's nowhere for the program to go. Whereas if you have even just a little bit of swap,
Starting point is 00:27:24 most of the time, you'll know that you'll need a swap partition. Otherwise, you'll never know. Your Firefox profile's being used. So it's good that you're storing it in RAM, right? Right, but that's good because it's actually fast then. But that doesn't change the argument
Starting point is 00:27:40 about using swap. Why do we need a swap if you've got more than 4 gigs of RAM? Because it's using more than 4 gigs of RAM. I regularly use more than 4 gigs of RAM just browsing. You may not use more than 4 gigs of RAM, but there do exist people who use more than 4 gigs of RAM. All right, there you go. So you can see, I did that as a pure demonstration that this is not a cut and dry topic, right? That was Chris making a point right there.
Starting point is 00:28:07 I think there's no total right answer other than you should use some swap unless you're somebody who thinks you shouldn't. And that's really the way to leave it. And it's so funny because you can see how fired up people are, which moves us perfectly to our next email from Michael who says, It's time to move on. Get ready for this. This is going to play right into Alan's cards, Matt. So if any of those BSD guys are listening, maybe they could just skip ahead a couple of minutes.
Starting point is 00:28:31 He says, hi, Chris and Matt. Longtime viewer of Linux Action Show and a short time viewer of Linux Unplugged since it's, well, new. Put both your flame suits on, boys, because I'm about to get some backlash from the listeners about this. I'm done with Linux. I'm done with Linux.
Starting point is 00:28:46 I'm done with the Linux community especially. I found Slackware in 2002 and I immediately fell in love. I was an everyday Windows user and thought of a virus-free system and that seemed amazing to me. I learned that right away more learning was required. No problem. I'm a math geek so I should be able to figure out all of this Linux stuff with no problem, right?
Starting point is 00:29:06 Well, long story short, I've been on Linux for about 10 years. I loved it at first, but there were always little things that bothered me. I didn't think that there was anywhere else to go, though. I didn't want to get a Mac, and I certainly didn't want to go to Windows again. The community of Linux users was driving me crazy. With their irrational views and immature ways of expressing those views. I have yet to meet a chill Linux guy. Now, hold on.
Starting point is 00:29:30 I think you and I are pretty chill Linux guys. I was going to say, I'm literally the most, oh, man. I mean, yeah. Because, I mean, it's like not only do I run like every operating system there is in my office, but, yeah, go ahead. Keep going. No, okay. All right. So he says, funny enough, I found out about an alternative through Jupyter Broadcasting.
Starting point is 00:29:48 Hearing Alan talk about BSD on TechSnap made me very curious, as I'm sure it has a lot of other Linux guys. I tried it out and everything seemed basically the same. I didn't even have to learn much of anything except a different device name or something. He says, I used the system to build and install ports. I explored and getting actively involved in the mailing list and forms. Studying and passing on my own limited knowledge to those who could benefit from it. I pursued my new journey in other open source software world,
Starting point is 00:30:15 learned the differences in BSD and GNU licensing, and the fragmented nature of Linux distributions, realizing the FreeBSD community was more mature and well distributed about industry, education, and research. distributions, realizing the FreeBSD community was more mature and well distributed about industry, education, and research. Everything steered me towards working with and on BSD, even though I expect some of the listeners to get upset about this email in typical Linux fashion. Well, so here's the thing.
Starting point is 00:30:39 I've actually had fair dealings with both communities, mostly with Linux community, but with the BSD community as well. And I'm going to go out on a limb and actually agree with him that, truth be told, at the end of the day, when you look at hard numbers of my own personal experiences, I can't speak for other people out there, there's a vast maturity difference.
Starting point is 00:30:57 It's pretty significant. Let me ask you that, though. I don't get as much monkey poop slinging with the BSD guys. Is it that? Oh, yeah. BSD guys. Is it that? Oh, yeah. It's ridiculous. Is it that it's a more narrow spectrum on the conversation?
Starting point is 00:31:14 The BSD guys, the ones I dealt with, they don't give a flying crap if I'm on board or not. They're just there to answer questions to be polite about it. They're not fanboys. You don't think it's a factor of a smaller community that's more focused? Do you think it's the fact that the people there are there to get some work done? Yeah. I mean, that was, again, everybody's experience is going to vary. I'm going to get flamed no matter how I put this, but my,
Starting point is 00:31:27 my personal experience is just that when I asked stupid BSD questions as a newbie, I didn't feel like I was going to be punished like you do with the arch forums. Okay. That is interesting. Yeah. Sometimes like,
Starting point is 00:31:37 or even the Ubuntu forum, when you mentioned I'm using your to install a VLC and then like 10 people pound on you. Oh, you should be using the BSD. You guys didn't drop links in a post. That's my number one pet peeve. It's like, look, they're asking a dumb question that's fair.
Starting point is 00:31:50 Answer the question, then mention, hey, by the way, use the search feature. Don't be a douchebag and put a link in there. That's like all aspects. All right, Mumble Room. I'm going to give points to BSD guys. What do you think, Mumble Room? Why is the BSD community generally considered more civil and calm
Starting point is 00:32:04 than the Linux community? Anybody have any? Because less fragmentation. The average age is 10 years older. Less fragmentation. The average age of a FreeBSD developer is 10 years older than a Linux developer. Yeah, that's there too. I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing or whatever, but that shows that BSD, yeah, it does help.
Starting point is 00:32:22 good thing or a bad thing or whatever, but that shows that BSD, yeah, it does help. I think that shows that FreeBSD has a more technically oriented, more server-oriented user base than Linux, which obviously is on the desktop. I don't know. It might be
Starting point is 00:32:38 a wash there, but I definitely think the age thing probably plays a component. I'm 40 years old. The guys I'm dealing with are probably 40 and up. Poby, what do you think? So you're sitting from the perspective of Canonical, who's probably plays a component. I'm 40 years old. The guys I'm dealing with are probably 40 and up. You know. Popey, what do you think? So you're sitting from the perspective of Canonical, who's, you know, sees a huge Linux user base. What do you think?
Starting point is 00:32:54 Right. I don't speak for all of Canonical. I know, but I'm curious because you have a unique perspective on this as somebody who's involved in a very large Linux project. Personal experience. So yeah, we have, like, you we have a fairly significant community, and like any community, we have people who are objectionable and
Starting point is 00:33:11 say things that are unsavory and are unpleasant to people. Same as any other community. Same as Windows and OS X fans and iPad fans and whoever. I don't think it's necessarily unique to the Linux community that you get doofuses that make other people feel
Starting point is 00:33:27 uncomfortable. I think that's just people being dicks and they're dicks wherever they are. See, that's the thing. Hold on here. I'd like to point out two dicks. He felt the need to write a letter saying that, well, a bunch of dicks went because he's switching to previous dicks.
Starting point is 00:33:43 It's exactly the same thing. Okay. Seriously, it's the sameucky. It's a ducky. Okay. Seriously, it's the same thing. He's doing it too. Again, there you go. It's all anecdotal
Starting point is 00:33:52 at this point anyway that this is true. The claim is all anecdotal. It's not like we actually have data for this. then you look at the fragmentation.
Starting point is 00:34:00 The Arch forums, sorry, just one thing. The Arch forums are not representative of the entire Linux community. Neither are the Ubuntu forums. I was using polar opposite ends
Starting point is 00:34:09 of the spectrum. I was comparing Ubuntu community to the Arch forum community. And they're definitely, it runs hot and cold. Depends on the time of day, the time, you know, what it looks like outside, what the weather is, whether someone's pissed off, whatever. Yeah, so I've always assumed it's been a volume, just because there's
Starting point is 00:34:25 more people in a community, there's more chances for jackasses. But I was looking at, like, if I was literally take a checkbox and go yes and no for everyone it was awesome and everyone it was no, I was running averages. And so for my averages, that was my experience. I think the problem is you get people
Starting point is 00:34:41 who leave a community feel so angry that they have to in the same way that when someone unfollows a celebrity on Twitter, they'll announce to the world, that's it, I'm unfollowing you. Or they'll leave a post on a blog saying, that's it, I'm switching to Arch. People feel the need to have their voice heard even if it's a negative one and and yeah and declare when they're leaving and they're going away and throwing their toes at the path that's a good point in a way i think it's a way of natural progression all of us usually start upon linux because it's the largest and most common to start on most of the time it's usually a choice to change to a bsd base based on what we know and what we consider to be what rubs us right and what floats our boat yeah it might be why the way of uniting together under the bsd umbrella will be a little bit more civil
Starting point is 00:35:31 versus the linux yeah there's just as much fanboys them over there because they always because i mean they just like pretty bsd right or pc bsd but then at the same time they talk a bunch of crap and whatever about people who use Linux, or whatever, anything. It's the same exact thing. Yeah, they do that. I look at it every day on TechSense, or every week. Well, I look at it like this.
Starting point is 00:35:56 I think guys like Alan, who have a very set of practical expectations from the software they use... Okay, here's my background. Before I was even doing the Linux Action Show, I was using Linux, of course, but I definitely experimented with some FreeBSD file servers because at the time, there was a bug that dramatically affected Linux's performance with Adaptec SCSI cards, and FreeBSD did not suffer from this same bug. And I got massive better multi-user performance
Starting point is 00:36:24 from a FreeBSD server than I did a Linux server. So I started deploying FreeBSD in quite a bit, actually the job done. But where, for me, I started to have some problems, it started to fall down, was this was really early on in the Sombud project developing their WinBind technology, where you could actually bind to an Active Directory, import the Active Directory NTIDs as UIDs, and actually set file permissions based on entries in the Active Directory. And this became an absolutely mission-critical function of our file servers because this was during the transition from NT4 to Active Directory. And the only place I could get that initially was on SUSE Enterprise Linux.
Starting point is 00:37:17 And so we ended up going that route. And I found it interesting, though, that I was very happy with FreeBSD, but then as I needed something that was really kind of emerging, I ended up having to go back to linux and that's always kind of kept me there well that's weird because sam would be in the port street so it'd be just as updated on freebsd as it would anywhere else unless you're talking about development that is only happening on i don't remember what the details were actually to be honest with you because it was so early on that there were so many bugs but i I find it to be more like... Because Samba's actually developed on FreeBSD.
Starting point is 00:37:48 Here's what I find it to be like. It's like there is a definite range of crossover where both operating systems can do the same tasks, serve a web page, handle a print job, whatever it is. I can't think of anything that either of them can't do.
Starting point is 00:38:04 Right. Well, there's other ranges. Come on, let's be fair. There's other ranges where you start to get more into the desktop spectrum where there is some rationale behind using Linux. And there's other areas where there's some rationale behind using BSD. And I think what happens is, as people make the transition and whatever kind of requirements they have, when BSD fills those, they're kind of surprised all of a sudden. They're like, wait a minute, this whole thing's been out there this whole time? And it's this one cohesive system that's done by this group and it all makes sense and it's well documented?
Starting point is 00:38:34 It's rational? This is so awesome. And people are like, holy shit, this has been here the whole time? And there's this massive realization about it. And I think as a lot of people out there, they come to this realization, they're like, holy crap, and they make this move just like our writer here has done, Michael. But at the same time, I've been that person who's made that switch on my router and on my file server, and I've been like, it's awesome. But I haven't been able to make that switch in other areas that I use. So at the end of the day, I think Linux is a little more
Starting point is 00:39:07 diverse in the sense that you have a larger range of users from like, you know, people who just want to play Minecraft to people like Alan who are building like these crazy, amazing infrastructures on Scale Engine. And there's just this, there's this like, this is crazy range of users. And that's, I sometimes leads to all this public drama. And there's all of this – I think the GPL also adds to a little bit more of this advocate mindset. I think the BSD license is a little more practical in some senses, and the GPL is a little more advocate-based. And I think that also is a base of some of the attitude maybe. Well, I think – no, GPL is great.
Starting point is 00:39:44 I think it's awesome. But there are headaches with it at times as well. It really just depends on what your goals are. From an idealistic point of view, it's wonderful. It's great. But it's not always the most practical thing in the world. And I guess best examples of that is you don't really ever see a whole ton of monetized, open source desktop applications for home users.
Starting point is 00:40:05 I know it's like a niche within a niche within a niche, but I'm kind of putting that out there as to where with a closed source license, that's readily possible because no one's going to take your code and run with it unless they've hired it. So I think there's facets like that, but where it's like you have maybe the BSDs to where maybe people would see that as more of a,
Starting point is 00:40:22 it's just less, well, quite frankly, it's less verbiage in the license itself really. It's just – it's almost – I hate to say it, but it's almost easier to understand. You pretty much know where you stand. So there's advantages there. I'm not saying one is better than another. I'm just saying I think they serve different purposes, and so they probably appeal to different people. As far as BSD itself, I don't have a ton of experience using it.
Starting point is 00:40:44 I just had good experiences with the community. Have you ever tried out PC BSD? I have. I was actually an early tester way back in the day. I love the PBIs. I still do. Oh, yeah, yeah. We've talked about that.
Starting point is 00:40:56 Yeah, I really, really do. I still think they nailed it. Port system is awesome on its own anyway. But that's just a no-brainer. But no, I mean it has its advantages. It definitely interacts with your hardware differently as far as detection. It's less about bleeding edge, more about
Starting point is 00:41:10 stability. Yeah, it definitely kind of feels like an old, comfy chair that you know how it's going to work. You don't have to cross your fingers. It has some certain advantages, but it doesn't mean that PCBSD was perfect. It definitely had some challenges along the way, but I think it's interesting to watch, and it's a hell of a great alternative.
Starting point is 00:41:26 If Linux isn't your bag and you want to try something else, I really recommend checking it out, certainly. You know, we're just scratching the surface. We're all over the place. If you want to get in deep on BSD, go listen to BSD Now. It comes out every Friday on the Jupyter Broadcasting Network. You heard from Alan. He's my co-host on TechSnap. He's the host of TechSnap.
Starting point is 00:41:44 And also Chris Moore, the creator of PCBSD. He co-hosts that with Alan, and they do it every week live on Wednesdays. It comes out for download on Fridays over at jupiterbroadcasting.com. BSD Now just had an interview with this guy. He's not only one of the founders of the FreeBSD project. I believe he also was one of the co-creators of SysInstall, but also the inventor of Ports, which is amazing. Yeah, his name is Jordan Hubbard, and they did an interview with him on last week's BSD. Now, if you guys want to go check that out.
Starting point is 00:42:18 All right, Alan. Boy, see, now I'm in tech snap mode. Do what happens. And I've been upgraded. I see. Now I'm in tech snap mode. Do what happens. And I've been upgraded. So look, I thought we'd, last week when we were gearing up for our Linux Mint review,
Starting point is 00:42:30 one of the things, because people always kick around, like Linux Mint is the perfect distro for new users, right? So I brought the wife in and I said, okay, honey, here's Linux Mint, have at it. So I'm going to bring her in in just a second to get her opinion on Linux Mint and kind of share some of her thoughts on some of the things she ran into. But before we get to that, I want to say thank our second sponsor this week. And that is DigitalOcean. DigitalOcean is a simple cloud hosting provider dedicated to offering the most intuitive and easy to spin up cloud server. And it is crazy easy. Users can create a cloud server in 55 seconds and pricing plans start only $5 per month for 512 megs of RAM, a 20 gigabyte SSD, one CPU, and one terabyte of transfer. DigitalOcean has data centers in New York, San Francisco, and Amsterdam. The interface is simple. They got a control panel that is amazing. Power users can replicate at a large scale, and they even have a straightforward API. I've got an Archbox running over on DigitalOcean at $5 per month that distributes all of the content for Unfilter supporters
Starting point is 00:43:31 and also some additional content for just fans of the Unfilter show. I have all of that running through a $5 a month DigitalOcean instance. And I'm looking at this Archbox. I'm like, damn, son, I've got more resources available to me. this Archbox, I'm like, damn, son, I got more resources available to me. And I'll tell you, that SSD, it really actually, even on a system that's up in the cloud, makes a big difference, not only do updates just rock on that thing, but anytime I'm interacting with it, IO contention is never a problem for me. And maybe I sound a bit like a jerk here, but I hate waiting on my disk. I do not spend time getting memory
Starting point is 00:44:06 and CPU to only wait on the damn disk. And SSDs solve that problem. When you combine that with DigitalOcean's incredible connection, it has been rocking. I downloaded the Unfilter Supporter Show using BitTorrent Sync at two megabytes a second from my DigitalOcean VPS. And I got to tell you, that's just the peak of what it is. I've seen 10 megabytes a second. I've seen more coming out of that thing. It's awesome. And by the way, DigitalOcean is offering a fantastic deal for listeners of Linux Unplugged. If you'd like to try out DigitalOcean for two months, because they're going to give you a $10 credit. And if you get the $5 server like I've got, it's going to get you two months
Starting point is 00:44:40 when you use our special promo code LinuxUnplugged December. Linux Unplugged December will get you a $10 credit on a DigitalOcean account that you can go try out. DigitalOcean has these droplets. It's all based on KVM virtualization. They deploy to these SSD drives with their amazing hardware that's all backed up by RAID storage, ECC RAM, and these droplets let you spin up a server in no time. You can pre-pick from Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu, several others. You can have them pre-configured with the LAMP stack. You can have them pre-configured with Docker. You're ready to go. They got a flexible API, and they even have, if you can believe this, hourly pricing. So if you just need to test
Starting point is 00:45:21 something for a little bit on the public web, you can throw it up on a DigitalOcean VPS, take advantage of their hourly pricing, bang on it for a while because it's up on the web, it's public, it's got one terabyte of transfer, it's got these SSD storage, so you can have hundreds of people bang on it to actually get real world testing and only pay what you use for like, you know, what, a half hour? That's nothing. In fact, I was just talking with Michael Dominick from our Coda Radio program. He had a project over the last week where he spun up 10 DigitalOcean servers for a little while. He ended up spending like 17 cents. It's crazy. Their web administration panel is awesome.
Starting point is 00:45:53 But DigitalOcean also offers a vast collection of tutorials in their community section on their website. Users can submit articles to that section. And if DigitalOcean publishes it, you'll get paid $50 per published piece. So we'll have a link for that in the show notes. Go check out DigitalOcean. We have a brand new promo code. It's going to get you a $10 credit on DigitalOcean service. That's Linux Unplugged December. Brand new code. Go over there, try it out. You guys, there's so many things. Here's like a little taste of, I've been thinking about setting up an XMPP server on DigitalOcean, a Zimbra server on DigitalOcean. I've already got BitTorrent Sync and a web server on DigitalOcean.
Starting point is 00:46:30 I'm even thinking about taking, maybe a Saigo in the chat room could help me on the pronunciation, Quazzle, the KDE, the awesome KDE IRC client, and putting the Quazzle client on my DigitalOcean VPS. That way I'm just always logged into the Jupyter Broadcasting IRC chat, and I can connect from my front end on my KDE desktop. It's just so many things you can do. And at $5 per month to have an awesome Linux-powered VPS in the cloud that you get root access to, oh man, go check out DigitalOcean and use the promo code
Starting point is 00:47:00 LinuxUnpluggedDecember to take advantage of that two-month offer. It's so great. A lot of people out there have been trying this out, and their support is fantastic. So go try it out. DigitalOcean.com, LinuxUnpluggedDecember. And thanks to Digital Unplugged for sponsoring Linux Unplugged. Did I say Digital Ocean Unplugged? It kind of fits.
Starting point is 00:47:18 Hey, that works for me. These guys are awesome. So, Matt, let's bring the wife in here. Andrew, are you with us? Are you here there, Andrews? All right. So over the last week, I had you try out Mint here and there, Spotty, and I wanted to bring you into the show. Did you get a completely new Linux user's perspective on Mint? Did you think, was Linux Mint the distro, like if you were going to switch, could I put a Linux Mint computer in front of you and have you actually be successful? Well, only if you actually like set it up for everything that I would use it for first. Yeah. Because I tried their app store and it just really didn't do it for me. Yeah. So
Starting point is 00:47:59 what was the problem there? Because I mentioned a little bit on last, but I don't know if I gave it its due. Well, basically, I mean, it's great that it's broken down into like five or six main categories, I think, or maybe there were like 10. Anyway, it was good the way they had internet, photo, whatever. But after looking at like the photo things, that's where I went first, since I'm so photo centered. I was really discouraged. It looked like I would need to have like minimum five programs just to import a picture or try out a lot of different programs just to see, you know, what would be the best to import pictures. Yeah, that was you kind of felt like there was like, you could string several
Starting point is 00:48:38 programs together to get what you wanted. But you wanted you wanted to like plug the camera in one program comes up and takes care of all of the things you needed. Yeah. And it's not that that wasn't there, but you just didn't find it in the App Store. Well, I definitely didn't. The descriptions are very technical. And I think I'm a little better than the average user, but I'm still an average user. So having that it says, I know what a GUI is, that's great.
Starting point is 00:49:02 That's kind of what I would expect as a typical user. Yeah, they all kind of advertise the GUI aspect. Now, there was a little bit of a bumpy road. So what I have, when I'm testing out a distro and I want to try it on full hardware acceleration, I don't want to use virtualization, I have this external USB 3 hybrid drive. It's like SSD. It's like a 32 gigabyte SSD and a one terabyte hard drive spinning drive. And that's what I load the distros on. And then the Bonobo lets you
Starting point is 00:49:33 choose what device you want to boot from. So I just choose the external USB device and I boot from that. And so here I am. I'm like, here you go, wife. I'm going to give you this Bonobo. And you just sit down here and you use Linux Mint. And Ange is like, oh, cool. I'm going to get to use your System76. And then what happened, Ange? Okay. So this is great. So he's like, all right, here you go. And he turns it around. And I'm sitting pretty much where Chase does when they do unfilter. So they face each other. And yeah. And I go to click on something and nothing happens. So I try the corners. And I'm not watching because the screen isn't facing me at this point. So I'm just like, I'm figuring like she's making mistakes.
Starting point is 00:50:09 Yeah. And I double click the computer icon and the whole screen freaks out. And I don't know what's going on. And I was asking him like, how do I do anything? Because I didn't have a... Oh gosh, all I can think of is calling it a start bar. What is it called when it's on Linux? You can call it the start menu. Everybody knows what you're talking about. Okay. Well, that menu wasn't even there.
Starting point is 00:50:32 And so when I asked, what do I do and what do I even do, he scoffed. I was like, well, okay. So then I turned it towards him and he was like, what did you do? And he's like, oh, he had unplugged the hard drive before he turned around the laptop. So her first experience with Linux Mint 16 was total crash fest because me being the dumbass, I'm turning around the laptop. I'm like, well, we don't need to have all these things connected
Starting point is 00:50:56 as I'm moving the machine. So I unplugged the USB devices. And then, of course, the USB device was the actual operating system's hard drive. Right, Ro. Yeah, so then he got it up and running. And I like oh good as a start bar that's good that's a good start and um and he said well you know do something so i went to digitalblasphemy.com from the suggestions and um on twitter i got a new background which surprisingly felt just normal
Starting point is 00:51:23 like i did that without any problems. Just right-clicked the right resolution, set as background, just like Windows, just like Mac. Super easy. And then let's see, what was the other thing I tried? Oh, I did the sticky note. That was good. Oh, yeah, you liked that.
Starting point is 00:51:37 In fact, you wanted me to add that to your Mac. I remember that. Yeah, because I never like, okay, well, I, on my Mac, I have a really old version of Office for Mac. And it's slower than molasses. And I don't like text edit because of the lack of formatting. So I need something where I can just throw stuff temporarily so that I can keep it there and then get it later. well so uh so your your overall i guess your encapsulated it was yeah i could use it but you didn't feel like now did you feel like do you feel like that would be the case if i gave you windows today i'd have to completely set it up for you is that any different than if you were switching to windows no no or i mean uh the answer is i think i could be just fine on windows surprisingly do you think you could be just fine on mint, surprisingly. Do you think you could be just fine on Mint?
Starting point is 00:52:26 No, because I don't know if you recall, but you're like, go find a program. So I went to Firefox and I typed photo programs for Mint. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Windows 7 versus Windows 8. Which one would you feel more comfortable with? Oh, I don't even want to look at Windows 8. Good answer. Good answer.
Starting point is 00:52:46 Good answer. I was a big fan of Windows 2000. I didn't even like XP. So, no, I don't even want to try 8. No. It's pretty bad. Yeah. Well, thank you for trying that.
Starting point is 00:53:00 You were a good guinea pig. And I think in the future I might have you try Elementary OS and see what you think about it. And maybe we'll have you come back on Linux Unplugged and share your thoughts. That would make Ryan516 happy. Yeah, well, you're a Mac user, and Elementary OS is the closest sort of Mac OS experience, I think, on Linux right now,
Starting point is 00:53:17 without being just a rip-off theme. They really try. I think Pair OS might be fun, just to see how different it is os yeah yeah yeah that'd be my choice okay all right well thanks ang yep no problem all righty thank you so uh matt we got one more little bit of uh email i wanted to get to uh before we go actually wasn't even an email i keep calling that because we've gotten so much email recently but this was actually a subreddit post and i'll read, and then we'll jump into the Mumble group and see what the guys think.
Starting point is 00:53:46 But he says, hello, I got a show idea for you. Tiling window manager roundup. I feel the Linux Action Show has not showcased many tiling window managers. They can be really customizable and, in turn, boost your productivity when it comes to certain tasks. I personally run an i3WM setup, and although I sometimes use KDE No Man's Cinnamon, I always keep coming back to good old i3. My main suggestion is go over to reddit.com slash r slash unixporn. They regularly will show off how beautiful
Starting point is 00:54:17 a Tiling Window Manager can be, both new and old. So he wanted us to take the Tiling Window Manager challenge. And I got to say, man, I just... Are you as excited as I am? So he wanted us to take the Tiling Window Manager Challenge. And I got to say, man, I just – Are you as excited as I am? Yeah, I think so. For me, I think it's worth doing. I think in fairness, despite what we might feel. We need – because remember the Arch thing?
Starting point is 00:54:39 Oh, that stupid Arch crap. That was me. I was Mr. Oh, Arch is stupid. I will never use Arch. And now I'm basically using arch yeah so based on that even though even though i've tried it and i was never impressed with it i have to eat my own dog food and actually at least try it then i can dog on it but matt katie is so nice i'm liking katie these days all right so i gotta let's let's jump in the mumble room is uh let's ask theble room. Guys, what do you think?
Starting point is 00:55:05 Do Matt and Chris have to take the Tiling Window Manager Challenge? It would definitely be interesting. If you do it, you've got to do all of them, and there's about 11. I don't want to do all of them. I want to narrow it down to one or two. I'm sure there's more than 11. We've talked about Awesome and Window, and we've done Awesome and Ex-Nomad on the show before.
Starting point is 00:55:30 And both times I felt like I was just doing a fan service. Because to me, I feel like I'm compromising a modern desktop experience. I come from the 80s, people, where we didn't have desktops. And goddammit, we finally have desktops. And I want the best possible desktop possible. And why the hell would I go back to a tiling window manager? Windows 1.0 was a
Starting point is 00:55:52 tiling window manager. Yeah, exactly. That puts it in perspective. 3.1 sort of was, too. See, the thing about tiling window managers, I think if you're going to do it, you don't need to do all, like, 25,000 of them. You only really need to do a dynamic tiling window manager,
Starting point is 00:56:11 which would be I3. I3, yeah. And then you need to do, because most of the others are all forks of DWM, like even Awesome is just a fork of DWM. So I'd probably do I3, Awesome, and Exmonad, because those three seem to be the three main ones. You have to spend
Starting point is 00:56:30 at least a month or two with each one to really learn them. That's not going to happen. You need to just use the rat poison. I use my fling with Xmonad and i3. And then I'll go surf YouTube with links.
Starting point is 00:56:46 To me, tiling window monitors are just not... TTY4, TTY4. Tiling window monitors are for pretentious idiots who just want to feel cool about using and can be... Ouch. Not at all. That is exactly what I completely agree. Okay, all right.
Starting point is 00:57:01 So there we go. I think the links and YouTube thing may have been a little much. I think we got to try out I3. I think we got to try out I3. I think we got to try out I3. That would be fair because we can settle on one and really put it through its paces. This is the one that we always – everybody keeps coming back to I3. This is the one we hear the most about these days. And we've done Xmonad.
Starting point is 00:57:15 We've done Awesome Window Manager on the last show. Maybe it's time to try out I3. Now, I'm not saying immediately because we got a lot of stuff lined up on the big show. But maybe the end of the year. I'd say that once we get through our big stuff i think you know once we're looking for topics i think it's a great i think it's a it's a fair thing i mean you know we we tried arch it worked out who knows maybe we'll have a a passing uh affinity maybe you know what matt you're right you're right i i said the same thing about arch and now here i am running arch everywhere it just allows us to at least we can for myself i can speak intelligently and be like Matt, you're right. I said the same thing about Arch, and now here I am running Arch everywhere.
Starting point is 00:57:49 It just allows us to at least – for myself, I can speak intelligently and be like, you know what? I really love it because of blank or I really hate it because of blank. I can actually point to something directly versus just – No, no, no. I don't want to try it. That kind of thing. Although I'm going to tell you one of the reasons I like Arch is because I get the most current KDE anywhere. Right? Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:58:03 And that's a benefit we weren't even aware. We're really fully rationalizing that we missed. the most current KDE anywhere. Right? Yeah, yeah. And that's a benefit we weren't even aware of. We're really fully rationalizing that we missed. We heard it, but we never really materialized in front of us, I guess. What I'm going to do is I'm going to set up an i3 desktop that is powered on the back end by KWIM, right? Oh, there you go. I see where you're going with this.
Starting point is 00:58:17 I will have wobbly windows, although I will never get wobbly windows. But I know it's there. I know it's there. If I ever needed it, I know it's there. Um, look before we run this week, it is getting close to the holiday season. And I,
Starting point is 00:58:30 I've gotten a lot of crap from our, from our very own mumble room about talking about steam and humble too much. But I don't know if you're like me every now and then around the holiday season, I get the gaming itch. Even if I don't have the time, it's like baked into my brain. It's time to game. And there's a new Humble Bundle,
Starting point is 00:58:46 which we will probably talk about on last, but it'll be several days into it. Now it's just launched. There is a new Humble Bundle out and there's a couple of games on there that make the entire thing worth it. Serious Sam 3, BFE, and Natural Selection 2, which Natural Selection 2 is that game
Starting point is 00:59:02 where you get to play as the human or the alien. That's the one I like. 13 days left on this humble bundle. All's I'm saying is I want all of you to go over there and dominate this thing for Linux again. Let's just go over there and remind them why they go through all the effort on porting some of this S to Linux, because
Starting point is 00:59:18 if you look at this lineup, one, two, three of the games are not available for Linux. This is not a trend we can allow, my friends. And the trend must be our friend, so therefore we must go over to Humble Bundle and use our Linux dollars, or Linux bitcoins, as it were,
Starting point is 00:59:36 to own this chart so we can show them that it's still worth their effort to port to Linux, and the entire damn thing is worth it for Natural Selection 2. Sanctum 2 is also in there. Magicka, plus all the DLC for Magicka is in there. Orcs Must Die 2
Starting point is 00:59:50 is a community favorite, but it is not available to Linux, and those bastards must fix that. So go over there and buy that sucker, so that way the next time a developer gets in there without a Linux version, Humble Bundle kicks them in the nuts. So the only way it's going to happen is if we vote with our wallet. And I don't know.
Starting point is 01:00:05 I get a little fired up. Let's see. How are we doing right now? Let's see. Okay. Okay, Matt. You ready? Average purchase price, $3.89.
Starting point is 01:00:13 Okay. Okay. Average Windows price, $3.92. Average Mac price, $4.29. Average Linux price. You ready for it? I'm ready. $4.85.
Starting point is 01:00:28 Hello, everybody. That's right. That's right. I don't know. I'm just thinking. Howdy. Those are some good games. Too bad I own all of them already.
Starting point is 01:00:35 Right? It's like, oh, wow. Yeah, that's the only thing. It's humble bundles. It's getting a little harder for them to have the exclusives, but that's understandable. That's okay. That's totally cool. All right, man.
Starting point is 01:00:43 Well, we have a really big Linux action show coming up on Sunday. Man, I got more stuff we could dig through. But I wanted to just, before we run, I wanted to give people a little heads up. The holidays are cometh. So Matt and I are going to do a little double recording on Tuesday the 17th. So not next week, but the following week, we're going to do two Linux unplplugs back-to-back, starting at 12 p.m. Pacific. And that will probably go from about 12 p.m. Pacific to about 3.30 p.m. Pacific. And that will be our live show for the 24th, too.
Starting point is 01:01:15 So we won't have a live show. That second episode will be released on the 24th. That way we can take the holiday week off. So if you'd like to join us for a special long edition, we're going to need your help out there, too. We're going to need you in the mumble room. We're going to need your emails. So if you've been waiting to email Linux Unplugged, now's the time. Go over to Jupyter Broadcasting, click that
Starting point is 01:01:34 contact link, and choose Linux Unplugged from the drop-down, because we need your emails. We need your feedback. You fuel the show, and on Tuesday the 17th, without you, we will have no show so we need your feedback and we need you in the mumble room join us live normally we're live
Starting point is 01:01:50 on a 2pm on Pacific but on that Tuesday the 17th we'll be starting at 12pm Pacific over at jblive.tv don't forget you can always get a hold of us on the subreddit over at linuxactionshow.reddit.com we check that out for stories we should follow for the show your feedback threads threads, and all that kind of stuff.
Starting point is 01:02:07 Hey, Matt, have a great week. I'll see you on Sunday for some hardware reviews, all right? All right. See you then. All right, everyone. Well, thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of Linux Unplugged. We'll see you right back here next week. you

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