Linux After Dark

Having been given an Asus Eee PC netbook back, Joe wonders what to do with this ancient 32-bit machine. Plus the oldest machines we currently have in production. Batocera       Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

We are joined by Florian Beijers who is a full time screen reader user to talk about how the accessibility experience differs on various operating systems and Linux desktop environments, and what open source software devs could be doing better.   Florian’s links: Mastodon YouTube channel Twitch IC_Null Twitch LinkedIn       Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes   1Password Extended Access Management: Secure every sign-in for every app on every device. Support the show and check it out at 1password.com/linuxafterdark       See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Gary is organising OggCamp this year, so we wonder what makes the perfect Linux and open source event. Plus why we don’t use multiple partitions for home and swap etc. Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

How we make our Web experiences better with various plugins, websites and services. Plus the ethics of blocking ads, bypassing paywalls, and supporting creators.   uBlock Origin archive.is Better Twitter Shut Up DF YouTube Youtube-shorts block Consent-O-Matic Privacy Guides Pi-hole Quad9 SponsorBlock         Kolide Kolide ensures that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta. Visit kolide.com/linuxafterdark to learn more.       Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Is Linux hard to use? It turns out the answer is both “yes, absolutely” and “not at all!”         Kolide Kolide ensures that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta. Visit kolide.com/linuxafterdark to learn more. Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Dalton asks us when consumer computers peaked which stirs up a debate about various generations of XPS and ThinkPad laptops, trackpads vs trackpoints, P-cores and E-cores, and more. Plus follow-up on the devices and software we trust.       Kolide Kolide ensures that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta. Visit kolide.com/linuxafterdark to learn more.       Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Also check out Hybrid Cloud Show – the new podcast in the Late Night Linux Family.   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

We are joined by Jorge Castro for an update on the world of what used to be called immutable Linux. Jorge doesn’t really like that word. He prefers “composable” Linux. Whatever you want to call it, we’re talking about an image-based approach to desktop Linux – built with cloud native technologies – that allows you to build and deploy anything from the ultimate developer workstation to a basic Chromebook-like experience for a non-technical relative.   Bazzite Universal Blue Project Bluefin Install Collector on Linux Project Bluefin and the future of operating systems CNCF Landscape       Kolide Kolide ensures that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta. Visit kolide.com/linuxafterdark to learn more.       Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Also check out Hybrid Cloud Show – the new podcast in the Late Night Linux Family.   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Ubuntu is nearly 20 years old so we wanted to see how the first versions compare with the upcoming LTS. Unfortunately installing Warty turned out to much harder than we thought it would be. Dalton talks us through his adventure with a turn of the century Mac, Gary had a much easier time with an x86 PC, Joe’s laptop wasn’t quite old enough, and Chris found some surprising aspects of virtualising it. Dalton’s blog post about installing Warty on an ancient Mac       Kolide Kolide ensures that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta. Visit kolide.com/linuxafterdark to learn more.       Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.    

We wonder what old concepts in the Linux and open source world are due for a comeback.       Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Gary’s recent (mostly) good experience with an Arm Chromebook makes us wonder about the current state of proper Linux on Arm laptops. Plus follow up on why the Wyse 5070 has some limitations, but is still a great little x86 box. Chris mentioned a FOSDEM talk         Kolide Kolide ensures that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta. Visit kolide.com/linuxafterdark to learn more.       Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Gary’s recent trip to FOSDEM made him wonder if the type of Linux user who goes to FOSS events has changed. Has the demographic shifted more towards “normal” people who use Linux as a tool rather than something to tinker with? Plus more on planned obsolescence, and a quick prediction about the Apple Vision Pro.       Kolide Kolide ensures that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta. Visit kolide.com/linuxafterdark to learn more.       Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

We come up with our FOSS extremes. The funniest, the coolest, the cleverest, the most useful, the dullest, the most exciting, the most dangerous and problematic, the [something]est open source software. Projects we mentioned: alsamixer Glow Apache nginx HAProxy Redis VLC Kodi Nextcloud Coreutils Audacity Asahi Immich antennapod UniversalBlue       Kolide Kolide ensures that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta. Visit kolide.com/linuxafterdark to learn more.       Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes   See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

How do we decide which devices and which software we trust?         Kolide Kolide ensures that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta. Visit kolide.com/linuxafterdark to learn more.       Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

We look back at what we wanted to happen in the Linux and FOSS world in 2023, and talk about what we want to happen in 2024.       Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

The child’s toy that Chris hacked makes us remember the various other proprietary hardware and software that we’ve taken control of using free and open source software. Plus our mixed feelings about doing an accessibility challenge. Lunii       See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

When the Raspberry Pi 5 was announced, we all said that most people would probably be better off repurposing an x86 thin client so we bought some dirt cheap new in box Dell Wyse 5070 machines to see if we were right. Spoiler: we were. Dalton’s post about trying to break Synology RAID Parky Towers   Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Our memories of early positive experiences show us how communities have changed over the years, and the best ways to keep the experience positive these days. Late Night Linux Family communities Practical ZFS   Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Half of us constantly change our hardware and software setups, and the other half like to keep things as constant as possible. Are we changing things to avoid personal technical debt, or are we just bored? Plus more on locking down phones.   Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

It’s the spinning rust challenge! We try installing and running our operating systems on mechanical hard drives and learn that Linux is much less painful than Windows on a spinning disk.   Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes       See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.  

The vast majority of desktop computer users in the world use a Windows-like interface, so why do all the major distros ship GNOME which is totally different? It can’t just be because of accessibility and inertia, can it? Plus more on government attacks on end to end encryption.     HelloFresh With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Get 50% plus free shipping at hellofresh.com/50linuxafterdark using the promo code 50linuxafterdark       See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Something has gone wrong with the timeline and all software is free and open source. What does that world look like? Plus more on biometrics and desktop scaling.   Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.  

What hardware we recommend for desktop Linux users in 2023. Is it really as simple as buying a 5 year old ThinkPad?       HelloFresh With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Get 50% off plus 15% off the next 2 months at hellofresh.com/50linuxafterdark using the promo code 50linuxafterdark     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Governments around the world are trying to undermine end-to-end encryption. Are they going to get away with forcing in backdoors, and what does it mean for open source? Plus what we stubbornly refuse to use our computers and phones for. Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes.     Factor Factor’s fresh, never frozen, meals are ready in just 2 minutes, so all you have to do is heat them up and enjoy. Go to factormeals.com/lad50 and use code lad50 to get 50% off.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

The bits of Linux and open source software that we regret putting off trying, and what made us wait. From the security and complexity of containers to the hype of ZFS and WSL. Plus why we still haven’t embraced Nix. Support us on Patreon for ad-free episodes that are sometimes a day or so early.     HelloFresh With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Get 50% off and free shipping at hellofresh.com/50linuxafterdark using the promo code 50linuxafterdark     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

All four of us have been Ubuntu users for a long time but we’ve been dabbling with different distros to see how they compare. Fedora, Debian, and openSUSE all have their appeal, but are we likely to switch permanently? Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes.     Factor Factor’s fresh, never frozen, meals are ready in just 2 minutes, so all you have to do is heat them up and enjoy. Go to factormeals.com/lad50 and use code lad50 to get 50% off.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

What ever happened to convergence? The dream of having one computing device just never came true, and we get to the bottom of it. Plus how to avoid drama in open source projects.       HelloFresh With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Get 50% off and free shipping at hellofresh.com/linuxafterdark50 using the promo code linuxafterdark50     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

The things we feel like we are missing in Linux, and what we miss from Linux when we use proprietary platforms. We mentioned Dalton’s tool called Boomstick.     HelloFresh With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Get 50% off and free shipping at hellofresh.com/linuxafterdark50 using the promo code linuxafterdark50     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

The oldest machines we’d be willing to daily drive including a ThinkPad with Libreboot, the ways that old laptops are sometimes better, and why Microsoft’s silly Windows 11 requirements are great for the second hand Linux-friendly laptop market. Plus why we missed the climate change aspect of speculation about the future.       HelloFresh With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Get 16 free meals plus free shipping at hellofresh.com/linuxafterdark16 using the promo code linuxafterdark16   Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 100 devices.           See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Dalton spent 3 hours having fun playing with open source DJ software Mixxx, and wonders if the rest of us have had a similar amount of fun with FOSS. Plus a great idea for a challenge, and one that’s a terrible idea.   Check out the new LNL show called Ask The Hosts. The first episode is available on Patreon now.       Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 100 devices.         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

We try to imagine what the future holds for our young kids, and realise how much the tech world has changed since we were young. Plus building a dirt cheap NAS, and more.     ServerMania ServerMania offers a wide range of fully customizable dedicated, cloud, colocation, and IP Transit services, and free initial consultations. Go to servermania.com/lad and use the promo code linuxafterdark to get 15% off dedicated servers – recurring for life.   HelloFresh With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Get 16 free meals plus free shipping at hellofresh.com/linuxafterdark16 using the promo code linuxafterdark16   Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 100 devices.           See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

The times we’ve spent far too long troubleshooting simple problems – from permissions issues to unplugged cables and CDs in the wrong slots. Plus Dalton realises that he’s a happy Btrfs user.       ServerMania ServerMania offers a wide range of fully customizable dedicated, cloud, colocation, and IP Transit services, and free initial consultations. Go to servermania.com/lad and use the promo code linuxafterdark to get 15% off dedicated servers – recurring for life.   Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 100 devices.         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Whether the idea of “lightweight Linux” is outdated, your feedback about taming Windows and workspaces, a quick look at Bodhi, and digital waste – all the useless data that sits on hard disks and is never even accessed. We mentioned Linux Matters and Linux Lads Episode 100.       ServerMania ServerMania offers a wide range of fully customizable dedicated, cloud, colocation, and IP Transit services, and free initial consultations. Go to servermania.com/lad and use the promo code linuxafterdark to get 15% off dedicated servers – recurring for life.   Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 100 devices.         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Windows is much better and so much worse than Joe remembers, and it makes him very grateful for desktop Linux. Plus what preparation (if any) we’ve made for our untimely demise. simplewall     Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 20 devices.         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

As companies tighten their belts during these uncertain times, could there be a silver lining for open source and self-hosting? Plus our brief thoughts on workspaces.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

A year on from our episode about Ubuntu, we still have concerns about the direction of the project. Or should we just call it a product at this point? Plus your feedback about challenges, and Raspberry Pi alternatives.   Our previous episode about Ubuntu zimaboard         Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 20 devices.         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

We are joined by Jorge Castro to talk about immutable filesystem Linux distros. Check out his project uBlue and his YouTube Channel.   Corrections from Jorge: “I mentioned hyperreal when I really meant to say Hyprland, and one is a person working on a ublue, the other is a wayland compositor.”       Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 20 devices.         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

What counts as a boutique distro, and do we recommend them? Plus Gary tells us about his experiences at the recent Fosdem conference.       Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 20 devices.           See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

It’s the nested virtualisation challenge! How many levels of VMs can we get running at once? Plus we get the inside story from Lenovo about running Linux on their Arm ThinkPad.   Challenge Red Hat article about nested virtualisation   Linux on Lenovo’s Arm ThinkPad Mark Pearson from Lenovo joins us to talk about running Linux on their X13s ThinkPad. Lenovo forum Linux section Instructions for flashing and installing the Debian installer on the X13s         Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 20 devices.         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Who has the most compute cores, how many are we actually using, and how many of them are running Linux? We finally find out who has the biggest stack of laptops in our core index challenge. Plus Dalton tells us about hacking a Wii U with open source software.       Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 20 devices.         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

We look back at what we wanted to happen in 2022, and look forward to what we want to see in 2023.   Episode 8 where we talked about our 2022 hopes         Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 20 devices.         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

It’s almost impossible to buy a Raspberry Pi for a reasonable price at the moment so we talk about alternatives, why a lot of Pi users would be better off with a cheap low-power x86 machine, and why sometimes the Pi makes the most sense.       See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

With the holiday season upon us, we talk about all the tech that we have to have with us when we travel.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

The Linux setups from the past that we miss the most, and why they are all ones that gave us the freedom to tinker and learn.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Why do we stick with Linux and FOSS, even when our faith is tested?       See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

It’s our Halloween Spooktacular! What scares us about Linux, what we find spooky, and what seems like witchcraft.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Is FOSS the ultimate lifeboat? If things go wrong with a tech stack, can you always just fall back on FOSS?     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Our worst Linux cock-ups, and what we learned from them.         See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Where do we draw the line when it comes to our ethics and our ability to put food on the table?       See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

If we could go back in time, what advice would we give our younger, less experienced counterparts about Linux and FOSS?       See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

How efficient are our whole setups – including servers, client machines, and VPSs? Could we be doing more to save energy and money?       See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.