LWDW 362: Raspberry Pi Powered Pinchy Puppers

OSX flavoured BSD, reasonably priced Ubuntu Pro, blending Arch Linux, and the world’s first Raspberry Pi powered robotic dog with an arm.


Listen:


Subscribe Google Podcasts | Spotify | Apple | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | More


Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
09:42 ARCH all the things with blendOS
15:22 Ubuntu Pro is live and a good deal?
22:34 OSX lookalike helloSystem
35:34 Pi powered robo doge!


blendOS

https://twitter.com/RudraSaraswat1/status/1618675644975689728?t=fP72C6rAVdKgvkwNQExcbA&s=19

https://9to5linux.com/first-look-at-blendos-a-blend-of-arch-linux-fedora-linux-and-ubuntu

https://blendos.co/

  • Oh, this is all kinds of neat but I have to ask, why?
  • Is it for the funsies or does blendOS fill a niche?
  • There is a new, unique Linux operating system called blendOS that you can try out!
  • Rudra Saraswat, the maintainer of Ubuntu Unity and the Unity desktop environment, stated in a Tweet:
    • “I’ve created blendOS, an immutable desktop operating system that seamlessly blends all your Linux distros together (thus killing distrohopping ;) ).  Experience the future!”
  • blendOS is an immutable operating system built around Distrobox and uses the GNOME desktop environment.
  • blendOS is based on Arch Linux and GNOME on Wayland, but it lets you use apps from other popular distributions, such as Fedora Linux or Ubuntu.
  • This is possible because you can use the native package managers from Arch Linux, pacman, which is included by default, Fedora Linux dnf, and Ubuntu apt, which are included as containers using Distrobox/Podman.
  • The live ISO image is very basic and only includes a few packages as it’s designed mainly to let you install the distribution on bare metal.
  • blendOS also comes with out-of-the-box support for sandboxed Flatpak apps, which you can easily install directly from the Flathub Store app, which is a Web App that puts the Flathub website on your desktop.

Ubuntu Pro

https://ubuntu.com/pro/

  • It’s official, Ubuntu Pro is now a thing. 
  • $25 per year for security updates and $150 for full support. 
  • Well, $150 for MF support. 
  • It’s $300 for 24/7. 
  • This includes phone and ticket support. 
  • That breaks down to $1.21 a day for dull desktop support. 
  • There are 2 options for Pro:
    • Pro (Infra-Only) Main: 10 years
      • 2,300 packages in the Ubuntu Main repo supported for 10 years.
    • Pro Main + Universe: 10 years
      • 2,300 packages in the Ubuntu Main repo included in Infra-only, plus an additional 23,000+ packages in the Ubuntu Universe repository for 10 years.
  • Anyone can use Ubuntu Pro for free on up to 5 machines, or 50 if you are an official Ubuntu Community member.

helloSystem 0.8.0

https://github.com/helloSystem/hello

  • Say hello to a new operating system!
  • helloSystem is a desktop system for creators with a focus on simplicity, elegance, and usability.
  • Its design follows the “Less, but better” philosophy.
  • It is intended as a system for “mere mortals”, welcoming to switchers from the Mac.
  • And it looks almost exactly like older macOS X, like Snow Leopard with the aqua theme.
  • FreeBSD is used as the core operating system, and it has shortcut links to download lots of graphics and multimedia apps:  Blender, GIMP, Inkscape, Krita, OBS Studio… but some of these links don’t work yet.
  • helloSystem 0.8.0 is out now and is based on the FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE and includes these new features:
    • Pre-installed VirtualBox guest additions
    • An improved Linux subsystem
    • And support for some applications packaged in the AppImage cross-distro format.
    • MIDI controllers connected by USB are available to ALSA MIDI apps.
    • GPU acceleration is enabled for WebEngine based browsers such as Falkon which comes pre-installed.
    • Also, you can Install a Debian Linux runtime which is now easy, with easy access from the menu, and some bugs are fixed. 
    • This release features Debian 11 bullseye runtime.
  • So I installed the latest experimental version 0.8.0, and wow, that was the fastest and easiest FreeBSD install I have ever had!
    • It just took less than 5 minutes in a virtual machine with GNOME Boxes.
    • And I was greeted with a really beautiful welcome screen on first boot, and I got startled by the nice music playing with the welcome screen.
    • The devs have worked really hard to make this so easy to install, and with all the bells and whistles that macOS users are used to…except that this OS installs in just a few mins!
    • For a distro that is still in development, it is really polished.
    • I am so impressed by helloSystem, that I just installed it bare metal on one of my old 2015 iMacs, and it is working beautifully!
  • The kinds of people attracted to MACs don’t know or want to know how to install an OS. 
  • Welcome to my “if it looks like thing it needs to work like thing” segment. 
  • That said, this is BSD. 
  • It has been tested on an Acer Revo RL85 and Dell Inc. OptiPlex 780
  • Not all networking devices may be supported by FreeBSD yet. In those cases, you may want to consider using a USB based networking devices.
  • Please refer to FreeBSD Hardware Compatibility for more information on individual components.

Slice of Pi

Pi Dog

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/xgorobot/xgo-2-worlds-first-raspberry-pi-robotic-dog-with-an-arm

  • Intelligent, agile, and open-sourced. 
  • Introducing the first RasPi powered robo doge with an, arm?
  • That’s right, fido can give you a pinch. 
  • AI quadruped robot with 12 degrees of freedom and a gripper powered by Raspberry CM4. 
  • Gesture commands, dancing, tracking, and self stabilization. 
  • Everything you need to help find Sarah Connor. 
  • Comes in three models, Mini, Lite, and XGO-Mini. $4,7,800. 
  • Estimated shipping in Apr. 
  • You’re going to need at least 11 of them to take down a full sized adult. 
  • And now you can have your very own mini version of the creepy Boston Dynamics dog, but this one is cuter with a nice LCD face ;-)
  • This is a great use of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4.
0 Comments

Leave Your Reply