LWDW 184: Dropping Systemd

System76 has a fancy new firmware updater, Knoppix drops systemd, using AirDrop with Linux, and a CutiePi open-source tablet.


Timestamps:
06:28 Knoppix drops systemd
09:38 No i686 Repositories for Fedora 31
11:53 Slackware Patreon
14:23 System76 firmware updater
16:28 Kdenlive 19.08
19:58 OBS 24 RC1
22:43 anime 4K
25:28 Khara moving to Blender
27:38 Open Source AirDrop
29:23 Intel De-noiser
31:03 DistroTest
34:33 Open source Raspberry Pi tablet
37:23 Emails


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System76 Firmware updater 

  • All that fuss about LVFS and now here we are.
  • I bet that GNOME person feels real smug right about now.
  • The Firmware Manager supports checking and updating firmware from LVFS and system76-firmware services, is Wayland-compatible, and provides both a GTK application and library.
  • Way to go to System76 for making it platform agnostic via a GTK app that will also work in all window managers.

 

Knoppix drops SystemD

  • Is systemd a hot wet stinky mess? Yes. 
  • Is init? 
  • That’s debatable, don’t pretend it isn’t. 
  • I still keep rc.local around despite using systemd, it’s easier for me to manage.
  • I’ve voiced my quibbles about systemd becoming the svchost.exe of Linux many times.

 

No i686 Repositories for Fedora

  • Don’t panic, yet. 
  • Multiarch is still very much a thing. 
  • You Pentium 4 is safe, for now. 
  • Since most distros are dropping their dedicated i686, x86(_32), or 32bit repos and isos, this was inevitable.
  • As long as the multilibs stay, I’m alright!

 

Open Source AirDrop

  • Pretty sure it wouldn’t kill Apple to allow trusting specific devices through AirDrop locally, but that’s not going to happen.
  • You’ll probably will always have to set it to “Public” or whatever it is.
  • It is wonderful to have an Open Source alternative to Apple’s AirDrop.
  • OpenDrop doesn’t support multiple file sending like AirDrop.

 

Anime 4K

  • GLSL shaders for MPV are now available.
  • Results may vary but if you like your old anime with a side of crisp.
  • MPV and its Mplayer roots have always been a great way to play Anime video files with subtitles alla MKV.
  • MPV is usually my first go to when something manages to throw VLC for a loop.

 

Web based distro hop

  • Several months ago when I found out about DistroTest and it was fairly new, I went to the website to test running a distro and it gave me an error.
  • Their servers were inundated with requests because so many people found out about it at once and wanted to test running live distros online.
  • Now it works great, and I just ran several of my favorite distros, including Damn Small Linux and CRUX without a hitch!
  • And it even runs on mobile.
  • The mouse does lag, but that is expected, because you are viewing the distros via a  QEMU hosted window with VNC through a web browser.
  • If you are curious about a different distro and want to give a quick spin but can’t spare the time to load a VM or flash a USB live session, this is what you need!

 

Khara moving to Blender

  • 3DSM is $1,545.00/year. 
  • Blender, free. 
  • And it works on something other than Windows.
  • And Blenders Grease Pencil which integrates 2D animation with 3D is an animators dream and an industry standard first!  As Khara states:
    • ”We finally got a 3D creation tool like paper and pencil”
  • Having both 3D and 2D integrated makes the workflow much easier because you don’t have to transition between several programs and convert to several different file formats, which is the bane of an animator’s existence with files that don’t convert correctly.
  • Many more animation studios are going to follow suit.

 

Intel De-noiser (MFoxDogg)

  • And speaking of the bane of an animator’s existence, such as myself or Mfoxdogg, this gets rid of the noise, or what I like to call the Moiré pattern, most commonly seen in animation renders of ray traced or path traced lifelike scenes and objects.
  • Intel’s Open Image Denoise is an open source library of high-performance, high-quality denoising filters for ray traced rendered images and animations.
  • It significantly reduces render time using AI.

 

Kdenlive 19.08

  • Full editing with keyboard shortcuts is the big seller here. 
  • Support for channels and sample rates for audio capture. 
  • Still going to need OpenCL or CUDA acceleration before I can go back. 
  • The UI and usability are there but without that accelerated timeline and rendering grunt it’s like having an Aston Martin powered by a 3 cylinder diesel.
  • Nice, now when you view thumbnails of clips in the Project Bin you can play them back by hitting shift.
  • Adjust the speed of a clip by pressing CTRL + dragging a clip in the timeline.
  • An open source video editing alternative that uses GPU rendering, albeit experimental, is Shotcut.
  • Shotcut isn’t as powerful as Kdenlive but has come a long way, and the GPU rendering works well.

 

OBS 24 RC1

  • Can we get a Linux browser?
  • I know it’s doable, running a plugin version right now. 
  • It, it has issues. 
  • The ability to pause and resume a recording.
  • Using GPU hardware decoding for media sources fixed.
  • Being able to use the GPU to handle any media you’re playing through OBS while the processor is handling the recording/streaming is very good to have.
  • It can lower the bitrate instead of dropping frames if your network goes to poop.
  • And while there is no browser capture on Linux by default, they do introduce some more stuff relating to it.

 

Slackware Patreon 

  • Awesome, so happy Slackware founder Patrick Volkerding started a Patreon to raise funds to keep Slack going!
  • I remember there was concern that the project might have to end unless funds were raised to keep it going.
  • This was the first Linux distro I installed and cut my teeth on back in 1993 and is how I learned Linux.
  • I am a Patron now, but have donated money to Slack in years past, and for a donation of $1 or more, you should do the same.
  • If even the old school of Linux are adopting Patreon, I think there is clearly a need for developers to get paid.
  • I support this!

Slice of Pi

Piblet

  • We’ve seen this attempted many times!
  • This one is based on a custom PCB base that holds the Pi3 compute module.
  • You can get a PCB similar to this for around $130 (exVAT)

Feedback

Files sharing

  • TherinS, i have used OpenRazer https://openrazer.github.io extensively, actually a few years, for my Razer BlackWidow RGB keyboard I used to use.  And it worked very well with Ubuntu with a little effort. I used it in Fluxbox and Wmaker without a hitch.
  • I see that OpenRazer now supports the Tartarus gaming keypad.
  • OpenRazer allows you to use the command line or GUI as well.
  • Thank you for the Dukto suggestion!  We will have to check it out.
  • https://www.msec.it/blog/dukto/
  • https://github.com/TherinS
  • As a test, you could try to sudo chmod 660 /dev/uinput
  • If that lets you rebind keys, then you can have a look at creating a udev rule to set those permissions for your usergroup only:
    • edit /etc/udev/rules.d/99-nostromo.rules
    • Add KERNEL==”uinput”, SUBSYSTEM==”misc”, MODE=”0660″, GROUP=”input”
    • And then reboot.
  • If that doesn’t work, you could try applying those permissions to /dev/uhid instead.

 

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