LWDW 190: Boots And Pies

MATE 19.10 Beta is ready for testing! Microsoft is bringing Edge to Linux, Kernel 5.4 gets locked down, and a smoking $2 PoE solution for your Raspberry Pi.


Timestamps:
04:01 Kernel lockdown
07:41 Systemd-managed home folders
11:11 Ubuntu MATE 19.10
15:26 Warp VPN
19:26 Deck Deck GO
21:13 E OS for android
24:15 m68k GCC
28:20 Microsoft Edge on Linux
31:17 Windows virtual desktop
35:11 Shameless self promotion
39:16 Best Raspberry Pi cameras
41:57 $2 Pi PoE


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Colour key – Venn Jill Pedro

Kernel 5.4 Lockdown

  • What does this mean for home users? Not much. 
  • It’s something that can live in the background doing its thing until it causes an issue. 
  • This has been talked about for years, since 2010, and now has come to fruition.
  • This goes a long way in hardening Linux from arbitrary code execution from malicious code supplied by userland processes.
  • And will keep Linux as one of the most secure operating systems in the world.
  • Creating a lockdown mode to separate the Kernel from current running processes is good for security!
  • It will likely introduce weirdness and loss of performance in its early days implementation, but I do like the idea behind it.

 

D for directories 

  • Having your home folder in an encrypted container on your laptop is an excellent idea, and yet another way to make Linux even more secure.
  • Good thing nobody uses SSH these days. 
  • While I agree most people will not run into that issue I am hard-wired to think of the time it’s needed. 
  • And that time will be mission critical. 
  • Don’t break userspace. 
  • So, this will be a systemd module, right? Like JournalD, CoreDumpD, etc.?
  • I can just uninstall it, right?
  • Because I will need to SSH into my system at some point.

 

Mate 19.10

  • Ubuntu MATE 19.10 Beta has been released and Martin Wimpress, Wimpy, is asking for Beta testers!
  • The notification center now offers a “do not disturb” feature as well as the ability to blacklist notifications.
  • Evolution is replacing Thunderbird as the default mail client because it has better desktop integration with notifications, the calendar and LibreOffice.
  • GNOME MPV replaces VLC as the default media player because it has better desktop integration.
  • There is a new desktop magnifier for the visually impaired, called Magnus that replaces the one that came with Compiz.  I have tested it and it works great Wimpy!
  • Compiz and Compton have been removed from the default Ubuntu MATE install.
  • And, like we talked about two weeks ago, the Mate NVIDIA Optimus GPU switcher is now included.
  • “The theme of this release is to address as many “paper-cut” issues as possible”
    • Yes, please!
  • I do like the work on the compositor. It’s using XPresent to get rid of tearing and lower frametimes.
  • Would be great to see DRI3 also become the default!

 

Warp VPN

  • For Android and iOS only, currently.
  • Though, given that the Android version will work on ChromeOS, I wouldn’t say it’ll be too long before we see someone getting this to work on regular Linux.

 

Deck Deck GO

  • We all hate having to make slideshows, right?
  • When you do, something that often comes up is “can it run” on the presentation system. 
  • DeckDeckGo aims to solve that by 1. Being open source and 2. Making it presentable and editable via the web. 
  • Even fridges have javascript enabled web browsers now.
  • This will hopefully make proprietary stuff look that much more pointless.
  • Every publication is published as a standalone app.
  • It can be remote controlled by your phone.

 

E for Android 

  • The great thing about /e/ is that it REPLACES Google apps with open source ones out of the box, which makes it easier for new users to switch over and not have to do the research to find alternative apps.
  • Using the Lineage codebase and cherry picking the the hot new AOSP stuff as it comes is a very good idea!
  • I remember a small ROM for my old Tegra 3 Asus TF300 that did this with Cyanogen at the time.
  • It was a shame it kinda died after the dev lost interest, but it was a really nice ROM.

 

Save m68k

  • Why?
  • Remember, “because I want it” is a valid answer. 
  • Thati said, this is a solid way to go about keeping the architecture around… for now. 
  • There is a BountySource campaign for collecting money to finance the modernization of the Motorola 68k backend in the GCC.
  • GCC stands for GNU Compiler Collections which is used to compile mainly C and C++ language.
  • If the m68k is not converted from CC0 to MODE_CC it will be removed from the next version of the GCC v.11.
  • My Mac Classic, Amiga and Atari computers will sigh in relief if the bounty is reached..
  • Using the 68000 architecture is a great way to learn low level programming and assembly, is easy to master and was ahead of its time.
  • I learned to program on these machines.
  • Retro computing and its history is extremely important to keep alive for generations to come!
  • And the m68k architecture is still used today in embedded systems.
  • But does it HAVE to be GCC?
  • There are other C compilers out there.
  • Some of them would probably be very happy to support the 68K implementation.

 

Edge on Linux

  • We have talked about this coming . . . Microsoft bringing the Edge web browser to Linux.  So it begins!
  • And the devs need your help.
  • There is a short “Web Development on Linux Survey” that you can fill out asking everything from what distros you use for web development and testing to what you use web browsers on Linux for. 
  • Difficulty: Nobody uses Edge on Windows. 
  • Will I try it, yeah. Use it, nope. 
  • And that’s not out of MS hatred it’s simply because there are far superior option available. 
  • I have already called Edge landing on Linux before 2020 sp lets see if that pans out. 
    • At this rate, there will most likely be a beta available in the coming months.

 

Future of Windows

  • I threw this in for the Windows loving crowd who tune in from time to time. 
  • This is your future and you would do well to realize it. 
  • Microsoft hiding local accounts in Win10 is not an accident. 
  • We have been saying this here on LWDW for a long time, Microsoft is becoming a services company, and is one of the reasons they have been investing so heavily in Azure.
  • Azure is their Office 365 distribution system, and now it will be their Windows desktops as well.

Slice of Pi

Camera Pi 

  • 1080p for local video under $40 and Pi compatible!
  • The Raspberry Pi Camera Module V2, 8 Megapixel 1080p, works quite well as long as you have good lighting.  We used at our LinuxChix LA Booth at SCaLE 17x for our RasPi photo booth :-D

 

Poor man’s PoE

  • A very reliable (albeit non-standard) form of PoE that works great until something goes up in smoke.
  • This might work well in a pinch but spend the $20 and get the HAT.
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