LWDW 227: A Case For Snaps

Pedro gets most of his Pinebook Pro! Dealing with SystemD in 2020, Haiku beta 2 is out, and Ubuntu wants to transform your Pi.

Special tanks to:
RTheren (tools for Pedro)

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Timestamps:
06:21 Simple Tasks
08:46 SystemD in 2020
15:26 Haiku 2
20:46 System76 Serval
26:18 Shipping elementary OS
29:53 Web based transcoding
23:58 PsychOS
40:08 Shameless self promotion
43:18 Ubuntu Appliances
48:43 Emails

Colour key: Venn Pedro Jill

Simple on & off

Lifehack: Get a busted DSLR, capture card, and a fan.
That thing is only on when I take the time to set it up.
For those privacy minded people with older laptops who don’t want to go poking around in BIOS.
That said, it’s also far easier than going to poke around in the BIOS to find the toggles.
Simple Tasks lets you manage your webcam and microphone with this simple taskbar app for Gnome etc., and make it easier to turn on and off your webcam or microphone.
This is much less effort than unplugging the USB cable for your webcam from your computer.
And it isn’t easier than muting your mic in pavucontrol, but more convenient!

SystemD is still rubbish

systemd is 10 years old and most people don’t really care as long as it works.
But someone needed an idea for an article so let’s pretend this is still an active, heated issue.
If you didn’t grow up with it you don’t like it.
If you only have to tango with it on occasion you really don’t like it.
Is it too big? Probably.
Does it do too much? Kinda.
Is it going anywhere? Nope, not a chance.
SystemD holdouts are the same as Pulseaudio holdouts.
I can run a system that does not make use of systemd much like I’m able to listen to music using ALSA.
You know what bugs me about systemd?
I tell my computer to shutdown and the process is delayed by 90 excruciating seconds because “screw you, that’s why”
Dear distro developers, if a process doesn’t quit gracefully in 10 seconds, on a Ryzen 7 3700X and an NVME SSD, 80 seconds more won’t make a difference.
Just kill it!
The default timeout is always the first thing I change in modern Linux installs because “ain’t nobody got time fo’ that”
Venn is right about if you didn’t grow up with it you don’t like it.
I definitely feel more pure using AntiX and Devuan.
And still enjoy taking Knoppix for a spin.
And there is a reason why free of systemd distros just run faster, especially on older machines.
Dave Mckay, this is a great article. It is in-depth, articulate, and easy to read about the history and current state of systemd.

Haiku 2

Our resident OS hipster put it on his laptop.
I keep having flashbacks to 1995/6.
It’s fast, it tears like there’s no tomorrow, and it doesn’t like the touchpad of my Lenovo B50-80.
USB mouse works beautifully
They do need some Firefox up in this business.
Their browser makes Midori look competent by comparison.
Many years ago, when I first took Haiku for a spin, I was excited by the future of this independent BeOS like OS.
It is so nice to see Haiku’s continued development.
I have enjoyed talking to the developers at SCaLE over the years.

Linux Desktop Up

Wow, Linux now accounts for 3.17% of all desktop operating systems in May and is up from 2.87% in April!
As I talked about last month, Linux desktop usage has been increasing since the pandemic.
People are home playing with an OS they have been curious about, and using the desktop of the OS they use at work.
Also, the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS was released and accounts for a large part of its growth at 2.11%.
And isn’t it nice that NetMarkerShare doesn’t roll the Chrome OS market share into the Linux figure.
0.3 is a rounding error.
An earlier revision of this article said Linux marketshare was at 3.7%, rather than 3.17%.

System 76 AMD laptops

We’ve seen that one before!
I guess Tuxedo just barely beat them to the punch, on this one.
But yeah, this is the Tuxedo XA15 with a Serval WS System76 sticker on it.
They seem to have also limited the hardware configurations on theirs a bit.
I suppose a bit of QA and implied certification of parts and specific configurations might make the case for some people.
$2,018 for a system that I could configure to run Davinci resolve acceptably.
Still need something for dedicated workstations in their lineup.
$2,063 for a system that I could render with Blender and Maya on, not bad!

Elementary OS shipping

StarLabs and “Laptop with Linux” are two retailers officially endorsing Elementary.
I can’t really speak to the OS itself much, it feels similar to Deepin for me.
It’s pretty but they seem to be set on their ways and the distro ends up making me want to install Gentoo instead, just so I feel like I do have a choice.

Browser transcoding

That’s an odd idea that I want to like?
It’s using web assembly to do all the computation locally so there is no need to upload files.
No support for AV1 or VP9 at the moment.
I guess this could eventually be handy if you are using something that does not support Handbrake, or ffmpeg.
And because it is using FFMPEG it should be much faster than the other online YouTube/video upload etc. convertors.

Psycho the OS

PsychOS Linux is a 32-bit free of systemd Devuan based distro for us retro computer collectors!
It includes all the software you need just in case you don’t have internet access for your old computer and a great package manager called RetroGrab for installing Linux and DOS software!
Their website is PsychOSdelic!
- https://psychoslinux.gitlab.io/index_mobile.html
When testing the distro I wished I had a blank DVD-R, but only had a CD-R available, so couldn’t put it on one of my older i586 machines.
So looking forward to PsychOS486 for i486 which I am sure will be a lot smaller!
And the upcoming FreeDOS version called “PsychDOS” sounds like fun.
I’m gonna have to try it…
That’s certainly an appropriate website.
Not a big fan of the RGB black cursor on a dark background but hey! We’re not here for form, we’re here for function.
3.8GB iso took a solid minute and a half to download.
- Hey man, it’s retro.
It’s always interesting to see what kids think the 80’s looked like.
That’s what advertisers thought the 80’s looked like.