LWDW 283: Twitch Gets A Linux Tag

Twitch gets a Linux tag! Edge overtakes Firefox, reverse engineering the PineCone, pure-rust Tor implementations, and streaming Raspberry Pi games to the Gameboy Advance with a link cable.

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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
03:43 Linux tag on Twitch
06:13 Ubuntu 21.10 progress
09:08 Freeing the PineCone
13:58 Expressive Animator
17:38 A pure-Rust Tor implementation
21:33 Edge overtakes Firefox
28:58 A looks at Microsoft’s Linux distro
33:38 Gameboy remote play with Pi


Linux tag on Twitch

https://twitch.uservoice.com/forums/310210-discover/suggestions/41458552-linux-tag

  • After what seems like eleventy years Twitch finally did it. 
  • You can now add the Linux tag to your streams. 
  • Now we need to start the petition for a Linux category. 

 

Ubuntu 21.10 progress (RTheren)

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2021/07/ubuntu-21-10-release-features

  • Ubuntu 21.10 ‘Impish Indri’ will be released on October 14, 2021, and here is a progress report of new features thus far. 
  • Ubuntu 21.10 will probably ship with GNOME 41, since it is released in September.
  • Ubuntu will still use the Ubuntu Dock on the left side of the screen, instead of at the bottom like GNOME 40.
  • Wayland will be enabled by default for NVIDIA drivers users.
  • Yaru light theme by default.
  • I am going to install it when it comes out or at least after the feature freeze.
  • I want to know how many extensions they’re using this time around, just to be able to use GNOME 41 as the default.

 

Freeing the Pinecone 

https://www.pine64.org/2020/10/28/nutcracker-challenge-blob-free-wifi-ble/

https://lupyuen.github.io/articles/wifi

https://lupyuen.github.io/articles/pinecone

  • Pine64’s effort to open source Bluetooth and WiFi will also be great for the RISC-V community and adoption. 
  • Having a completely open sauce wireless comms stack would be awesome!
  • But the FCC might not like it.
  • So, we’ll keep having to swap the proprietary bits for open sauce ones either on our end, or if Distro developers are feeling particularly adventurous.
  • Part of the Nutcracker challenge. 
  • Working towards a blob-free PineCone. 
  • Lee has done a lot of legwork toward creating a Open Source WiFi Driver for BL602. 

 

Expressive Animator 

https://github.com/ExpressiveSuite/ExpressiveAnimator

https://www.expressivesuite.com/products/expressive-animator.html

  • There is a new 2D motion graphics and vector animation program available for Linux, Expressive Animator!
  • It is currently under development, and not all the features work yet, but will in the future..
  • And it works in the Chrome or Microsoft Edge browser, or as a standalone application for Linux via NPM or Yarn.
  • I tested the browser preview and it does work great in the Chrome browser.
    • I was able to add star shapes, animate their positions, transform them via scale and rotate, change their opacity, and change their colors easily with an animated color cycle.
    • The playback of the animation was smooth.
    • It is very stable.
    • And you can save your file locally.
  • It is so nice to have a 2D vector motion graphics option that is open source that you can use on Linux.
  • There are no other Adobe After Effects alternatives on Linux that are open source, other than Natron, which I use and love.
  • Expressive Animator is more for animation so far, than 2D post production effects.
    • Blender, Natron, Nuke and Houdini come to mind. 
    • This is not designed to tango with any of the above.
  • Hmmm, NPM.
    • A whole lot of this. 
    • I tinkered with the web demo and that’s it until some packages pop up. 
  • I’ll defer to Jill on this one, because I’d really rather not.
  • Until it has support for SVG import and export there is not much you can do with it. 
  • But keep an eye on it because we do need a Tux Pain equivalent for 2D animation.

 

Rusty Tor (RTheren) 

https://blog.torproject.org/announcing-arti

  • Coding Tor in Rust can make it even more secure, and will probably have the result of making the software even faster. 
  • These are some of the reasons why Rust is being suggested for Linux Kernel development. 
  • Rust might be close to surpassing Ruby at this point.

 

Edging out Firefox 

https://www.techradar.com/news/microsoft-edge-just-left-a-serious-rival-in-its-dust

  • I was sad to hear this, because now the top 3 browsers are Chromium or WebKit based, but it was expected.
  • Especially since it was rolled out to millions of people via a Windows 10 update since June.
  • And, the Microsoft Edge web browser is actually quite good, responsive, and works beautifully on Linux.
  • I suppose it was inevitable.
  • It’s hard to compete against the browser that’s installed by default in the highest share operating system.
  • Things have come full circle. 
  • IE was so bad Firefox was able to come in and eat away its market share. 
  • We’re talking so bad people went out and installed a new browser bad. 
  • Then Firefox became bloated and stagnant. 
  • This allowed Google to launch Chrome, a browser that (le gasp) didn’t support plugins. 
  • Plugins or not Firefox was such a bad experience at the time people jumped shipped to Chrome, myself included. 
  • Firefox has been trying to course correct but it’s been slow going. 
  • Now Chromium based Edge sits in third position, behind only Chrome (65.27%) and Safari (18.34%).  

 

CBL-Mariner

https://blog.jreypo.io/2021/07/09/a-look-into-cbl-mariner-microsoft-internal-linux-distribution/

  • Morbid curiosity got the best of someone. 
  • Very close to PhotonOS and not necessarily recommended for general use.
  • Was SONiC a little too tightly integrated to Azure that they needed a slightly more generalized one for prototyping?

Slice of Pi

Gameboy Pi

https://github.com/rodri042/gba-remote-play

  • Has anyone made a proper wireless link for the GBA yet?
  • And no, I don’t mean the official one that requires you to breach social distancing.
  • Useful? No. 
  • Neat? You betcha. 
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