LWDW 225: Peppermint Snap

The 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 is here! Lenovo brings Linux to the ThinkPad, Mint 20 disables Snap, and Snakeware wants to Python your desktop.

Special tanks to:
Aldius (Yoga pants & UPS)


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Timestamps:
03:20 Tuxedo launches new Ryzen laptops
08:05 Lenovo brings Linux to the ThinkPad
11:45 Linux 5.7 change log
14:55 Mins removes Snap
22:00 Linux Lite 5.0
26:25 E-paper Tablets
30:35 Snakeware
34:35 Microsoft gets got
40:57 Shameless self promotion
42:37 Yoga pants
45:52 8GB Pi


Colour key: Venn Pedro Jill

The other Ryzen Laptop

  • This is the actual laptop, not the desktop replacement we talked about 2 weeks ago.
  • It comes with a Ryzen 5 3500U and a 91Wh battery.

 

Having Dell’s Cake and Eating it too

  • It’s not just Fedora!
  • Lenovo will be bringing the red fedora and the purple and orange debian respin we all know and love not just to their P series thinkpads but also thinkstations.
  • Offering a preloaded Fedora image, wow. 
  • Don’t want to be tech support for that.
  • This is huge and so exciting and means more adoption of Linux on the desktop!
  • And it is not just one or 2 models of laptops or computers, but all their workstations.
  • In April when we talked about Lenovo having Fedora preinstalled and supported on their laptops, Lenovo had hinted at more Linux distributions coming to their computers.

 

Linux 5.7

  • Last Sunday Linux kernel 5.7 was released, and it includes lots of important updates.
  • As we have been talking about coming here on LWDW, the new exFAT driver from Samsung is included in this release.
  • This more modern exFAT driver replaces the existing Microsoft one which was older.
  • Linux 5.7 also introduces thermal pressure checking to the task scheduler, which improves performance when CPUs are overheating.
  • ACPI support for USB interface devices, so you can now perform power management and monitor the status of USB devices on Linux.

 

PepperMint Snap

  • Play stupid games with stupid prizes. 
  • No more surprise Snap when you go to install Chromium on Mint.
  • Keep in mind this was done to make Chromium easier to maintain. 
  • They really should update their Debian based version. 
  • You know what, just install Debian and be done with it. 
  • The chromium-browser.deb that apt installs being turned into a metapackage for snap and the Chromium snap is not cool.
  • I had mentioned it the last time we addressed snaps on the podcast.
  • Canonical, I’m talking to you now, do you remember the Unity DE? Do you remember upstart? Do you remember Mir?
  • Those all had one thing in common with snaps, and it’s you forcing them down people’s throats.
  • Stahp!
  • I am really not thrilled with running Chromium as a snap, but understand the reasons behind it.
  • I have been switching to Chrome on the computers I run Chromium on for this reason and use Vivaldi and Brave as my default Chromium experience.

 

Linux Lite 5

  • Proper UEFI support, newer version of Whisker, screensavers!
  • One of my favorite light Linux distros just got a major release, Linux Lite 5.0!
  • Supports HiDPI Settings in the Settings menu.
  • Lite Welcome screen and Lite User Manager now updated to GTK3 and Python3.
  • And Chrome replaces Chromium in the Lite Software center, and I am sure for reasons we talked about earlier.

 

Epaper (RTheren)

  • Hey, it runs Gnome so that’s impressive on its own. 
  • There is a market for Epaper tablets for browsing but good luck finding one. 
  • So what’s the catch? Price & getting stabby with an iron. 
  • I have always wanted one of these, but ouch, the price!
  • The reMarkable 1 when it was launched in 2017 was $599.
  • But now the reMarkable 1 is just $299!
  • Also, the new reMarkable 2 is available for preorder at just $399.

 

Hissss!

  • Drawing windows directly to the framebuffer with Python for fun and… what’s that smell?
  • Yeah! That games bit. Are they just using something like Xephyr to run X in a window and that’s where the games live?
  • I like that approach, but that’s probably not how they’re doing it.
  • There’s a decided lack of Python in Xephyr.
  • This is brilliant, and since Python is one of the easiest languages to learn and great for beginners, and advanced users alike, this distro is simple to contribute to.
  • There have been other framebuffer window systems, like Winnie released in 2013, but it is not currently active.
  • I have always been fascinated by the capabilities of the framebuffer, and have spent many hours watching mplayer videos in it.
  • Having a GUI work in it is amazing!
  • Wrong, this is just wrong …I approve. 

 

Winging it

  • The Register with the hot takes!
  • Pennywise posted the update after Microsoft’s acknowledgment to our Discord
  • Microsoft got caught using bad open source business practices.
  • And needs to give Keivan Beigi credit, where credit is due.
  • I do understand why the name is WinGet though and not “Microsoft AppGet”, because that sounds too much like apt-get.
  • Worse case: MS brought the dude in to pick his brain under the guise of getting hired.
  • Best case: MS brought the dude in and went yeah, no. 
  • I know nobody wants to hear that but I’ve been on the hiring side and have done just that. 
  • I’ll go out on a limb and say it was a little of both. 
  • When a company wants to have a multi-hour chat about things you are working on that’s called consulting. 
  • Do what I do, bill them for it, hard

Slice of Pi

8GB RasPi is here! (strider)

  • 64bit Raspbian is the bigger news.
  • And it is no longer called Raspbian, but Raspberry Pi OS.
  • And some of the new features in both the 64bit and 32bit Raspberry Pi OS are:
    • There is a new Bookshelf application for viewing the whole catalog of PDFs from the Raspberry Pi Press, including their free books and magazines, The MagPi, HackSpace and Wireframe.
    • A new Magnifier app for the visually impaired custom made for the Pi.
    • And when you launch Chromium on a new image there is a short questionnaire on what users are doing with their RasPis.
    • https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/latest-raspberry-pi-os-update-may-2020/
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