LWDW 235: Tears And Xruns

Libreoffice 7.0 gets super Vulkan powers! DistroWatch makes it easy to compare packages, Have I Been Pwned goes open-source, and Microsoft wants to party like it’s 2001.


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Timestamps:
04:01 Distrowatch Distro compare
08:16 KDE Neon 20.04
10:41 Vulkan powered Office
13:16 Pinta 5 year update cycle
16:36 Auto-cpufreq
22:06 Open sourcing Have I been Pwned
26:01 Radeon 20.30
28:41 Pocket P.C. open-sourced
33:01 Forever Edge
36:31 Shameless self promotion
38:36 Zero Terminal V3
42:26 Emails


Distro package version check 

  • This is a great use of all the valuable information Distrowatch has been gathering on distros since 2001!
  • It’s fun to see just how note out of date Debian Stale is compared to Arch. 
  • Debian testing is another story.

 

KDE Neon 20.04

  • That was earlier than I expected!
  • KDE version itself stays the same, it’s just a change of base.
  • Might have to wait until Thursday to update, on accounts of possible breakage.
  • Cool, the install ISOs now use the Calamares installer instead of Ubuntu’s Ubiquity.

 

Libreoffice 7.0

  • The ability to use digital signatures for documents now is huge!
  • This allows the Real Estate, law, government and security industries to start using LibreOffice instead of MS Office.
  • It now has OpenPGP based encryption of XML documents.
  • And these important features are required for LibreOffice to be taken seriously in big business.
  • Vulkan GPU-based acceleration for better performance.
  • That’s just neat. 
  • If even LibreOffice has Vulkan, game developers don’t have an excuse anymore.

 

Pinta 1.7 (RTheren)

  • For those users who find GIMP a bit too complex, and Windows Paint classic a bit too simple.
  • Pinta 1.7 has been released, after five long years!
  • Now supports tabs for multiple canvases.
  • Has a new smooth erase tool.
  • You can hold the shift key in the transform tool to rotate in fixed increments.
  • If the Stable Builds PPA has issues connecting, use the Daily Builds PPA for Ubuntu in the releases link above.
  • I used to use Paint.NET in Windows because it was the happy medium between GIMP and Paint.
  • Pinta is very much the open sauce version of Paint.NET and I’m glad it’s getting updated

 

Auto CPU-Freq

  • The example chosen already requires manual intervention since most distros default to either ondemand or powersave out of the box.
  • Heck, in Ubuntu you’ll need to manually disable the systemd managed ondemand.service to get any other governor to stick.
  • Still the idea here is sound.
  • If you’re plugged in you get performance, if you’re not you get auto-cpu-freq deciding on what’s what depending on the battery, power usage, and system load.
  • You can run it in a monitor mode, or a “live” mode that is temporary until you reboot the computer.

 

Have I been Pwned

  • Aww man, that’s going to put a damper on the conspiracy theories. 
  • Have I Been Pwned allows you to search across multiple data breaches to see if your email address has been compromised.
  • I do occasionally check my email addresses.
  • Open sourcing will make Have I Been Pwned even more secure, transparent and more robust.

 

AMD GPU update

  • Now it’s time to update my CentOS render box to test the new drivers on my FirePro GPU.
  • Now with full support for Ubuntu 20.04.1.
  • I don’t think you need GIMP help files installed. 
    • I even searched through the install instructions and didn’t see it.

 

Pocket P.C. Open Sourced

  • Was this based on the defunct Pocket CHIP?
    • It was based on the GR8 CHIP Pro, yes
  • It’s that Nintendo 2DS looking PC we talked about a while back.
  • Does this mean they met their goal and are now confident on the product that they can release the code?
  • Or, given they’re still taking pre-orders, are they just hoping this will provide a shot of development directly to the vein?
  • Pocket P.C. has taken feedback from the community on the keyboard layout for their latest version of Popcorn.
  • I am still hoping that the keys are’nt squishy rubber.

 

Edgy 

  • Remember a few weeks back when I said it worries me everytime MS does something good?
  • Member, because the stupid was soon to follow. 
  • Behold the stupid. 
  • Not Linux related but keep that in mind next time you get the MS warm and fuzzies. 
  • It’s the whole Internet Exploder vs Netscape all over again!
  • Microsoft, won’t you ever learn? :-(
  • And to those people complaining about Snap updates . . .
  • Does Microsoft need a reason to launder some money?
  • Because they should know this is just going to get them into another anti-trust with the EU.

Slice of Pi

Zero Pi 


Feedback

Browsin 

 

Jack setup

  • Here in an excellent tutorial:
  • You’re attempting to do realtime audio on a netbook. 
  • All you will get for your efforts are xruns galore. 
  • The big kicker is using a USB MIC since that is exposed as a second interface and Jack simply will not run 2 interfaces without much hack and even then you will get clock drift making both interfaces unusable. 
  • That’s why you can only see one device at a time. 
  • Using a loopback module is probably your best bet. 
  • What you need to create is a mix-minus, or use software with echo cancelation. 
  • Most mixers have FX/Aux sends just for that. 

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