Signal disappears from the Snap store, Nitrux 2.5 is ready for public consumption, XFCE 4.18 is looking slick, and NanoPi R6S is full of holes.
Listen:
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
08:50 Signal Snaps back
15:52 Nitrux 2.5
23:36 XFCE 4.18 preview
35:36 NonoPi R6S
Signal Snap Snafu
https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/what-happened-to-signal-desktop/32119
https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/what-happened-to-signal-desktop/32119/4
https://github.com/snapcrafters/signal-desktop/issues/70#issuecomment-1287951961
https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/what-happened-to-signal-desktop/32119/15
https://snapcraft.io/signal-desktop
- The snap has been gone for almost a month, with seemingly no information given to the maintainer.
- The initial response was a shrug “Snap Store administrators had to remove the snap in accordance with our policies”
- Turns out this was a DMCA takedown request from Signal.
- Then the post blew up on Hacker News and it looks like Signal backed off and the app has been reinstated.
- The Snap packager has said he changed nothing. It was simply reinstated.
- This is something people need to think about when using “unofficial” anything.
- Signal is well within their rights to take issue when someone repackages and distributes their application be it Snap, Flatpak, etc.
- Signal distributes a *.deb and provides support for that only.
- They don’t want to deal with support issues from unofficial versions.
- The good news is that Canonical has updated their contact policy so the next time someone smites an unofficial repackaged Snap from orbit the maintainer will be notified.
- The Signal phone app recently had a major change…it no longer allows you to use it as your default SMS app for text. In fact it is getting rid of SMS completely.
Nitrux 2.5 (Jellybean)
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/11/03/nitrux_25/
https://nxos.org/changelog/release-announcement-nitrux-2-5-0/
- Nitrux OS is one of the most innovative and beautiful Debian based distros available, and Nitrux version 2.5 has just been released.
- This distro is free of systemd, is based on AppImages, and has its own awesome desktop, the NX Desktop.
- Nitrux OS 2.5 has the latest Linux kernel 6.0, and uses tech from KDE 5.26.2.
- Their NX Desktop is an overlay on KDE Plasma and MauiKit apps.
- Nitrux OS includes a whole library of its own apps, built using the MauiKit framework, which includes one of my favorite file managers, the Maui Index file manager.
- The NX Software Center contains plenty of AppImage-packaged software, including things like Skype and Google Chrome.
- And there are pre-loaded tools to install Steam, the itch.io games store, the Bottles wrapper for WINE and an Nvidia driver installer.
- Back in 2020 when the distro was released, I had Nitrux installed on one of my laptops.
- Thank you to my brother Jellybean in chat for letting us know about the Nitrux update.
- A distro build with AppImages sounds a lot like Fedora Silverblue, a distro made with Flatpaks.
- Thing is, Nitrux predates Silverblue by a full year.
- Using OpenRC, a service manager maintained by the Gentoo developers is interesting.
XFCE 4.18
https://www.debugpoint.com/xfce-4-18-features/
- The best desktop manager created in the history of ever is getting ready for an update.
- The Xfce 4.18 final release is expected between December 15 and December 29, 2022.
- New “Keep panel above windows” option to, well, keep panels above windows.
- You can change fonts in the clock applet, yay?
- Thunar has the reload icon replaced with search.
- And a new “Recent” item added to places.
- Wayland migration work for Xfce desktop core and native apps started.
- It’s only 10 years away.
- Like most XFCE updates you shouldn’t notice it and that’s a good thing.
- Oh sweet! One of my favorite updates is simple but solves an annoying problem, you can now change the font style and size in the Xfce clock applet!
- There are four clock layouts: date only, time only, date and time & time and date
- Thunar has a new bookmark menu in the sidebar.
- And has a new split view option for easily dragging and dropping.
- Also there is a new image preview of image files, where you can change the settings to embedded or standalone preview.
- It is really nice to see Thunar getting so much love, and getting much needed updates that bring it features that most modern file managers have.
Slice of Pi
Tri Pi
https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=289
- NanoPi R6S is the latest SBC from FriendlyELEC.
- Comes in case and no case variants.
- 8GB RAM
- Three ethernet ports.
- Two ports operate at up to 2.5 Gbps, with the third capable of supporting up to a 1 Gbps connection.
- Octo-core Rockchip.
- 32 GB of eMMC flash storage.
- USB Type-C port for power, and a full-sized HDMI 2.1 port.
- Runs Android 12, Debian 10, and FriendlyCore Focal Lite and Friendly WRT 22.03.
- $119 and in stock is the 0_o part of the equation.
- I’m curious how the SBC landscape will look in another decade.
- It was back in 2012 when the first RasPi was released and we bought them like candy.
- They were cheap and you could do a lot of neat things with them.
- A lot of kids bought them and now those kids are working at companies making decisions and recommendations on what hardware to buy.
- We’re deep into year three of Raspberry Pi 4 being unavailable and the next generation is having to look elsewhere.
- FriendlyELEC has just announced the NanoPi R6S, a new single-board computer that is based on the Rockchip RK3588S SoC.
- And one of the unique features of this single board computer, is that it has three ethernet ports. There are 3 holes!
- Supposedly, two ports operate at up to 2.5 Gbps, with the third capable of supporting up to a 1 Gbps connection.
- The NanoPi R6S has 8 GB of LPDDR4x RAM running at 2,133 MHz and 32 GB of eMMC flash storage.
- Also, the NanoPi R6S utilizes the Rockchip RK3588S, a chipset with four ARM Cortex-A76 cores clocked at up to 2.4 GHz, plus four Cortex-A55 cores limited to 1.8 GHz.
- At launch, the NanoPi R6S supports Android 12 and Linux distributions, including Debian 10, FriendlyCore Focal Lite and Friendly WRT 22.03.
- And it will retail for US $119, but if you want the aluminum enclosure included it will cost US $139.
