LWDW 364: Verified Flatpaks and rebuilding Thunderbird

Verified Flatpaks are in the works! Davinci Resolve vs AMD GPUs on Linux, Installing Debian on the StarFive VisionFive 2, and rebuilding the Thunderbird interface from scratch.

Listen:

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
04:52 Verified Flatpak
08:45 Rebuilding Thunderbird
24:48 Davinci Resolve on AMD GPU Linux
35:36 StarFive VisionFive vs Debian

Verified Flat

https://news.itsfoss.com/verified-flatpak-apps/

Now, the verified apps can be seen on Flathub’s beta platform.
70 apps have been added to the verified list on the beta platform.
Developers will have to link their account with ghub or lab in order to get verified.
Problem is, Jim from Guitar Center can verify he created the FlatSnapImage of CuCmee if he was the one putting it on github.
Verified Flatpak apps are coming soon, and Flatpak apps now have a verified badge icon, but only on the beta portal for now.
This is a great idea, especially with the greater adoption of Flatpak apps.
Flathub and Flatpak packages are the future of Linux apps, according to many people, and GNOME is continuing to invest heavily in it.
And they have some big plans to improve it too.
Verification is a way to actually properly distinguish official apps from community builds, and will be quite important for so many reasons, like for security, privacy…
And is a way to process and verify apps from first-party teams.
I have been hearing news of this since the end of last year, when the Flathub code was merged in the main branch on their GitHub page.
And GNOME wants to give developers a way to collect donations and subscriptions too, which is also important to help make it more sustainable.
Firefox, Converter, Bottles, AbiWord, OBS Studio and HexChat are just a few of the verified apps already available.

Thunderbirb makeover

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/02/the-future-of-thunderbird-why-were-rebuilding-from-the-ground-up/

https://developer.thunderbird.net/planning/roadmap

The Thunderbird email client has a major announcement:
Thunderbird is almost 20 years old, and they have decided to rebuild the Thunderbird user interface from scratch.
And as the developers get closer to this year’s release of Thunderbird 115 “Supernova”, they were hearing a certain question more and more often:
- “Why does Thunderbird look so old, and why does it take so long to change?”
Thunderbird is undergoing a massive rework from the ground up to get rid of the technical and interface debt accumulated over the past 10 years.
Simply “adding stuff on top” of a crumbling architecture is not sustainable, and they can’t keep ignoring it.
I just installed the February 13th 111 nightly and tested it out with my LinuxGameCast email.
It booted very quickly, and I think the layout looks nice and modern.
I really like the UI of the Calendar tab, and the tabbed layout in general.
But, I see why Venn isn’t a fan of it, because when I set up my Gmail account, it did seem a bit cumbersome to navigate.
But this is a work in progress, and I hope these things will be improved.
Email desktop clients are not a growth market.
That said, I love you Thunderbird project so I have to say…
Please stop.
The new UI in nightly caused me to revert to stable.
Why change something that works?
UI isn’t a fashion show. I’d much rather have a UI that looks older but is comfortable to use than something trendy.
The way the folders are condensed makes Google accounts impossible to check without everything being expanded.
Unified mailbox does not solve the issue.
The type of people who need a dedicated desktop email client in 2023 need just that, a dedicated desktop email client.
No calendar, no messaging, no insert poorly implemented feature here.
People need proper Exchange support.
Trying claws.

Resolve on AMD

https://linuxgamecast.com/2023/02/davinci-resolve-on-linux-amd-gpu-drivers/

Installing AMD binary drivers on Linux has been a joke since ATI days.
Not funny ha ha, but funny OMGWTFBBQ.
That’s why I wanted to see what it was like in 2023.
Difficulty multiplier: APU and Davinci Resolve.
Before we get started, yes, someone has it working on Arch, well, they did.
This is going to show you how to configure a workstation using Ubuntu LTS.
You have to pick from 3 supported distros and that’s on AMD, not Resolve.

Slice of Pi

Risky Debian

https://www.cnx-software.com/2023/02/12/starfive-visionfive-2-sbc-review-debian-12/

100% ready for production!
The StarFive VisionFive 2 was a quad-core RISC-V SBC kickstarted last year.
Debian “12” images are available.
Getting the critter rot boot is an adventure that requires updating the SPL and U-boot bootloader.
First boot took about 3 minutes.
Nvme works but it’s 100BM slow.
Audio works 3.5 not HDMI.
Documentation is hard to track down since it’s scattered across message boards in eng and chinese.
Old school developer board but only $70.
StarFive VisionFive 2 should be viewed as a RISC-V development board at this stage.
Since Linux RISC-V is still pretty new, especially from a video/graphics point of view, it should be expected