CCJam 56 – Aphemia

In episode 56 of CCJam, Dave features the music of UK rock band Aphemia.

They are from Derby here in the UK, with an industrial/electronic, progressive rock sound, combining influences such as Nine Inch Nails, Celldweller, Disturbed and Muse. They recently released their latest EP “Terminus”.

You can download Aphemia’s music from Spotify, Google Play, Bandcamp, Amazon, and pretty much anywhere else you can buy and download music.

And of course you can find them over on their Facebook page

The tracks included on this episode are:

  • The Time Is Now (feat DMT The Rapper)
  • Chemical, from their 2017 EP “Terminus”
  • Bedding music: Deeper Than You, from their 2012 album “Your World”

Please note: although the music of Aphemia is not released under a Creative Commons (or other free culture) licence, the band has given their explicit permission for their music to be featured on this episode of CCJam. Many thanks to the band.

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The Binary Times – Software Freedom Day Special

Software Freedom Day Special – In this episode we talk about software freedom day, what is open source and free software, why would you want to use it. We also talk about open communications and the Librem 5 smartphone, have a listen.

Software Freedom Day – Woohoo!

    In their contribution towards the celebration of <a href="https://www.softwarefreedomday.org/">Software Freedom Day</a>, the guys talk about <a href="http://www.freeopensourcesoftware.org/index.php?title=Main_Page">Free and Open Source Software</a>, have their say as to <a href="https://www.softwarefreedomday.org/about/why-foss">Why use Free Software?</a>, chat about the impact free and open source projects like <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/">Mozilla</a> have had and are having and how <a href="https://ubuntu-mate.org/">Ubuntu MATE</a> and <a href="https://linuxmint.com/">Linux Mint</a> are great introductions to free software, inform us of a great tip for using <a href="https://duckduckgo.com/">duckduckgo</a>, and finally tell us about the <a href="https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/">librem 5</a> crowdfunding campaign and why it is such an important project to back.
    Happy Software Freedom Day!

CCJam 55 – Rubbish Rabbits

In episode 55 of CCJam, Kevie introduces the listeners to Russian rock band Rubbish Rabbits.  After discovering them on their Jamendo page, Kevie scoured the web but couldn’t find much about the band, outside of the fact that they have a VK page.  The tracks included in this episode are:

The post CCJam 55 – Rubbish Rabbits appeared first on CCJam.

The Binary Times – Series 2 Episode 4

Series 2 Episode 4 – In this episode we talk about Marks foray into the Python programming language, more Ubuntu Mate goodnes, Wayne plays with Gpiozero library, Command Line Linux tools and another epic Irish saying, have a listen.
00:24 Wayne introduces the show once again with a weather update for Bristol while Mark tells us it’s a bit muggy in Kilkishen
01:13 Mark tells us he’s been working his way through Python Crash Course by Eric Matthes and is chomping at the bit to get to the projects. Wayne finds programming is something that you have to do on a regular basis or forget about it, Mark thinks that’s much like everything, and that’s why the show notes are a good reminder to us all!
03:38 Mark continues to tell us he installed Linux Mint 18.2 on his Dad’s PC. He didn’t install Ubuntu MATE on the PC due to his Dad already using and preferring Linux Mint on a Dell laptop that he has. He goes on to offer a tip on synchronising gmail contacts with Thunderbird and that is an add-on called gcontactsync and also that the default address book is called abook.mab and it can be found in the hidden Thunderbird profile folder.
08:30 This brings up a conversation on Outlook and Office 365, how Thunderbird might be used as the email client instead of Outlook and the pros and cons of such a move. Mark suggests Evolution might be a better fit due to its groupware capabilities. Mark goes on to suggest Kolab Now as a replacement for Office 365. The guys try to drum up some support for their patreon account for when Wayne relies entirely on his podcasting career for his income.
16:00 Wayne changes topic to talk about his latest Raspberry Pi adventures, in which he and his son built the laser trip wire project to prank Wayne’s partner!
18:25 Mark tells us that stack skills have a Raspberry Pi Mastery bundle course available now for $31, though there are plenty of other free resources available on the net.
19:02 Wayne tells us about Ben Nuttal’s gpiozero library. He goes on to tell us about a keynote that Ben Nuttal made at pycon russia last year that is well worth a watch.
22:19 The guys discuss the end of systemau, “An Australian Technology podcast with a linux bent.”
25:18 Mark moves on to the “So you’ve installed Ubuntu MATE, now what” section with a discussion of what other applications you should install. Applications mentioned are Google Chrome (Firefox is the preferred browser of both the guys), Gimp , Inkscape and MyPaint. Mark tells us how much he likes the Ubuntu MATE Software Boutique and goes on to say that the accessories section is well worth a look. Mark tried the Mutiny panel from the MATE Tweak Tool but he experienced a crash so reverted to the MATE panel. He expects to try it again in 17.10. The guys ponder the best way forward for Mark’s main desktop, fresh install or further tweaking.
38:02 Mark kicks off Under the Hood with a discussion on htop and top. Wayne installs htop on everything, as well as vim-gui-common. Mark also mentions nmon, a nice cli tool which gives a graphical representation of various system elements
40:29 Wayne has an Under the Hood too, more vim tips.
Vim provides the :s (substitute) command for search and replace;

The :substitute command searches for a text pattern, and replaces it with a text string.
There are many options, but these are what you probably want:
:s/foo/bar/g
Find each occurrence of ‘foo’ (in the current line only), and replace it with ‘bar’.

:%s/foo/bar/g
Find each occurrence of ‘foo’ (in all lines), and replace it with ‘bar’.

:%s/foo/bar/gc
Change each ‘foo’ to ‘bar’, but ask for confirmation first.
44:30 Irish saying of the podcast: Cén t-Am É? or what time is it?

The Binary Times – Series 2 Episode 3

Series 2 Episode 3 – In this episode we talk about Marks Ubuntu phone debacle, thoughts on learning linux command line, more Ubuntu MATE goodness, Command Line Linux tools and another epic Irish saying, have a listen.
00:25 Intro to Series 2 Episode 3 begins with a chat about the meteor shower last night.Clear skies made for some great viewing and possibly good pictures.
01:42 Mark begins his linux escapades for the last two weeks by telling us that his ubuntu phone crashed. He took this opportunity to reflash his phone with the ubports image. Wayne points out that necessity is often the mother of all getting things done that you need to do. Deadlines work!
06:30 Mark tells us that he’s been working on the Series 1 binary times CD. He took the advice of Wayne and some of the guys at a music meetup in Mallow to come up with the final result, which will be available to buy or as a perk for our patrons over on patreon. The CD sleeve and CD label were produced with LibreOffice Draw and the CDs produced using Brasero or K3b.
08:35 Wayne has been keeping an eye on the omgubuntu website, run by Joey Sneddon, and came across an article on the release of 16.04.3. He noticed that on one of the machines he upgraded the fans are running quite a bit more and there were some display issues with multiple screens. Unfortunately he discovered these issues after autoremoving the previous kernels… Wayne is looking for some advice on going back to an earlier kernel. Wayne and Mark bemoan fan noise.
16:36 Wayne goes on to tell us about another omgubuntu article, and that is Ubuntu Mate 17.10 alpha 2 has been released. Mark really wants to install Mutiny, Wayne tells us how. Wayne is chuffed that he’s influenced Mark to use Mate. He goes onto clarify that in the last episode he was talking about synapse and not snaps. The guys struggle to think of a simple subject.
22:52 Wayne concludes his what has he been doing in his really exciting linux adventures by talking about Samba and chown. The guys discuss modern methods of finding out information related to linux.
31:35 Wayne turned on the Rod of Doom! Mark wants to do that project.
32:56 Mark begins Under the hood with ! commands:
!* – Execute the command with the arguments passed to the previous command.
!^ – Execute the command with the first argument of the last executed command.
!$ – Execute the command with the last argument of the last executed command.
!?keyword?! – Executes a command from the Bash history for the first pattern match of the specified keyword.
The guys discuss the dangers of the last command and how using ! seems to be frowned upon anyway, so use with caution! Both agree sudo !! is quite a useful command when used with respect.
36:15 Wayne talks about wget and how useful it is.
wget –recursive –no-clobber –page-requisites –html-extension –convert-links –restrict-file-names=windows –domains website.org –no-parent www.website.org/tutorials/html/
–recursive – download the entire Web site.
–domains website.org – don’t follow links outside website.org.
–no-parent – don’t follow links outside the directory tutorials/html/.
–page-requisites – get all the elements that compose the page (images, CSS and so on).
–html-extension – save files with the .html extension.
–convert-links – convert links so that they work locally, off-line.
–restrict-file-names=windows – modify filenames so that they will work in Windows as well.
–no-clobber – don’t overwrite any existing files (used in case the download is interrupted and resumed).
Wayne finishes with lshw commands:
lshw -c disk – detailed disk information
lshw -short – shortened version (quite useful)
lshw -sanitize – remove sensitive info such as UUIDs and IP addresses, serials etc…
43:25 Irish saying for the podcast – Tá mé go maith.

The Binary Times – Series 2 Episode 2

Series 2 Episode 2 – In this episode we talk about general tech opinions, What to do after installing Ubuntu MATE, Command Line Linux tools and another epic Irish saying, have a listen.
00:24 Intro to Series 2 Episode 2 finds Mark congratulating Wayne on a great start and our podcasters are living in dull and murky places. The guys really get into their weather!
01:45 Mark’s installed Ubuntu Mate 17.04 64 bit on a 3GB RAM Core 2 Duo which didn’t recognise True OS as a valid operating system and completed a course in Cisco Unified Communications Manager. He tells us that CUCM sits on top of a modified Red hat enterprise linux and that administration of the system is achieved through modifying options in webpages made by different factions in Cisco. He tells us of, in his opinion, the superiority of the MX-One and the ability to administer the system from the command line.
08:40 Wayne has been doing alot of modular sysnthesis, which can be described as using specialized software modules in various ways to modify or process a parameter of an audio signal such as, for example, the frequency or ampiltude. Wayne admits to using Ableton to achieve this, and this leads to a conversation on building things in Open Source and the difference between ideas people and doers and the concept of inspiration vs. perspiration.
14:49 Mark mentions that Sysadmin’s day (28th July) was his last day at work til September as he is taking some work / life balance leave for himself to learn some Blender, Python, Kali, Squid Proxy server, read some books while also doing some cool stuff with the kids using Khanacademy. Maybe relax a bit too.
18:00 Wayne introduces our New Section, “So you’ve installed Ubuntu Mate, now what?” The guys talk about a few things that you do once you’ve installed Ubuntu Mate. The Welcome screen gets first mention, and how easy it makes Ubuntu Mate for new users to use. Getting started is the first place you would want to go to in the Welcoms screen, and the guys discuss the various options within. Mark mentions enabling DRM in firefox too (Menu / Preferences/Content/Play DRM content). Wayne goes on to say that you can start a terminal using CTRL-ALT-T and typing sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade OR sudo apt dist-upgrade (the difference between the two can be found here). Wayne finishes the section with a discussion on synapse, when once installed is a handy utility invoked by hitting CTRL-SPACE which allows you to search for installed applications simply by typing the name. Synapse is one of the must have apps/packages for new Ubuntu Mate installations. To finally finish Mark mentions the software boutique and admires how it is laid out.
36:00 Mark goes on to tell us all that Ubuntu 16.10 is no longer supported, advises that a link will be available in the show notes on how to upgrade to 17.04 and introduces Under the Hood with the following command which will tell you the date when your system is no longer supported:
ubuntu-support-status
38:30 Wayne talks about two things for Under the Hood:
Using Grub 2 to change which OS is the default to boot into:
sudo cp /etc/default/grub /etc/default/grub.bak
sudo vim /etc/default/grub
GRUB_DEFAULT=0 (change this to entry you want to default boot ie 5 = sixth entry)
Second Under the hood, from Going Linux podcast, episode #327:
inxi -F
inxi -Frmxx
Mark follows up with another grub trick and that is to turn off the quiet splash in grub.

45:38 Irish saying of the podcast, An té nach bhfuil láidir, ní foláir dó bheith glic, or he who is not strong must be clever, a fitting Sysadmin Day’s quote.

The Binary Times – Series 2 Episode 1

Series 2 Episode 1 – The new series kicks off with a bang, why install Ubuntu MATE, Open Source software, attitudes and accessibility, iproute2 tools, Command Line Linux tools and another epic Irish saying, have a listen.
00:24 Intro to the first episode of our second season and the guys have decided to keep the weather thing going, despite its Bristol murkiness and Kilkishen dullness.
01:17 Mark’s been busy during the long break between seasons with linuxy stuff and due to some user feedback has prepared some show notes (he still hasn’t shaved yet)! He’s glad to know that people are listening and enjoying and getting something out of the podcast as well.
02:16 Wayne tries to tell us that’s he’s not been up to much linuxy type stuff though we all know he’s been hacking away as per usual! The guys discuss FOSS Talk Live and Ogg Camp and the implausibility of them attending.
03:38 What have we got for today’s show? Mark would like to talk about the Ubuntu Hour held in Ennis, why we should be using Free Software and how to install Ubuntu Mate.It all sounds good to Wayne.
04:08 Mark talks about the Ubuntu hour held on Independence Day, 4th July, in the West County Hotel in Ennis. A good time was had by all. One of the things they managed to do while chatting was install Ubuntu Mate 32 bit edition. They discovered the first hurdle of changing OS and that was changing the boot order in BIOS.
10:18 Mark recommends Ubuntu Mate as a good distro for newcomers to start with, and recommends looking at what is Ubuntu Mate as an explanation of what is Ubuntu Mate and why to use it.
11:28 Wayne jumps in before Mark carrys on into his next segment with some good points on his own experiences with Ubuntu Mate. He points out that Ubuntu Mate is good for new users and experienced users alike due to its versatility. The fact that people Wayne has helped migrate to using Ubuntu Mate haven’t been asking loads of questions is seen by both as a good sign in the ease of use. Mark advises that another easy to use distro is Linux Mint.
14:47 In the first place, why use Free Software in the first place? Mark talks about the importance of Free Software to maintain your Freedom and Privacy and points to some links worth looking at. Wayne talks about his transistion to Free Software. Ableton have no future plans to port their software to Linux and a Free and Open Source license. The discussion continues around the benfits of Free Software and why people continue to not break bad old habits with proprietary software and formats.
25:11 With the benefits of Free Software done with, Wayne takes the opportunity to thank our first Patron on Patreon. Thank you kind gentleman for your patronage!
26:14 Wayne asked his partner for feedback on her Ubuntu Mate experience compared to Windows. Interesting feedback followed. The convenience debate continues. Wayne remains liberated and turning heads with the car he drives. Mark’s car’s cheating. To sum up: Use Free and Open Source Software!
34:14 Under the Hood. Wayne starts off with a beautiful one: Shift+Page up and Shift+Page Down to scroll up and down through terminal output. Mark digresses with dmeg -h producing human readable date and time output and telling us that he changed his main desktop to Kubuntu.
38:09 Wayne’s second under the hood tackles the ip command and iproute2 networking utilities. He points out that netstat has been replaced with ss. Of note, netstat reads from /proc, the ss command gets information directly from kernel space, meaning ss can be faster and provides more info.

ss -a (all)

ss -t (tcp sockets) or ss -ta (all tcp sockets)

ss -u (udp)

ss -w (raw sockets)

ss -x (unix domain)

ss -d (dhcp)

ss -s (summary of socket info)

ss -p (process)

ss -t4, -t6 (see ipv4 or ipv6 sockets)

ss -t6a (see all ipv6 sockets)

ss state (established (show all established sockets)

ss -t state (tcp can be in many states, ie established, syn-sent, syn-recv, closed, close-wait, etc

ss -tan (translates port service name to a number ie 22 instead of ssh)

ss -lt (show listening tcp ports) or

ss -ltn

If you see a *:5355 it shows that this port is listening on all interfaces on your system

If you see a 127.0.1.1:53 shows that this port is listening on 127.0.1.1

ss -ot (get timer information for tcp ports)

ss -t dst :443 (show all tcp socktets with a destination of 443)

ss -t src :22 (show all tcp sockets with a source port of 22)

ss -ti dst :443 (more information about tcp 443 destination socket)

42:17 Mark’s simple but good one:

sudo apt install –install-recommends [package you want to install]

sudo apt install –install-recommends -f [package you want to install] forces the install of packages. Use with caution!

45:28 Wayne hands over the Irish saying to Mark who was in flying Irish form earlier, we quickly see he’s kinda crashed and burned. We do get two sayings out of him because of this though:

Ní neart go cur le chéile – there’s strength with friends ie. unity is strength

Níl saoi gan locht – there’s not a wise man without a fault!

The Binary Times – Series 1 Episode 12

Series 1 Episode 12 – Mark removes Unity and installs KDE on his Ubuntu installation, Wayne updates Skype, the future of Ubuntu, installing Lynx on servers, Command Line Linux tools and another epic Irish saying, have a listen.
00:24 Intro to the final episode of Season One, where the guys managed to talk about not talking about the weather!
01:22 Mark talks about doing linuxy type stuff. He has an old PC with an Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB RAM and a 120GB hard drive running ubuntu and unity. Unity is quite slow and unresponsive on it so he started up a command line interface with ctrl alt F2 and typed in sudo apt remove unity* followed by sudo apt install plasma-desktop and finally after looking up what to do, typed sudo apt install kubuntu-desktop. He also had to enable the kubuntu backports to get the 5.8 LTS version of the KDE desktop, which he thought was a bit strange. He did this with the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade
He’s loving his kubuntu desktop and once he’s tested it a bit more plans to move his main desktop over to it.
Mark goes on to tell us that he has installed Chakra os and it’s nice and KDE isn’t as heavy as people think.

08:34 Mark goes on to tell us about KDE-neon and KDE in general in his own inimical style. He suggests looking up the sites to get a better explanation.
10:49 Mark announces that due to feedback on the show he’s organised an Ubuntu Hour on the 4th of July, independence day, at the West County Hotel in Ennis. Mark also wants to play with Ubuntu Mate over the weekend in preparation for the Ubuntu Hour.
11:37 Wayne tells us that he uses Ubuntu Mate but has also tried Gnome 3 though not successfully.
14:52 The conversation veers towards Wayne’s CEO’s experience with Ubuntu Mate and how Wayne is trying to convince him to choose GIMP over Photoshop. The conversation starts to go down the rabbit hole as Wayne and Mark discuss the pros and cons of proprietary software and formats.
21:31 Wayne pulls it back by announcing that Skype 4.3 for Linux is no longer supported from today (1st July). He suggests that you should upgrade to Skype beta. you can do this with the following commands:
dpkg –get-selections | grep ‘skype’
output is skype-bin:i386
sudo apt-get –purge remove skype-bin:i386
Wayne also suggests using Ctrl – to zoom out in Skype.
24:17 Mark advises people should start using Wire.
25:15 Wayne talks about his interest in Electronics and how he has enhanced the Rod of Doom. He also talks about Ben Eater and how he built an 8 bit computer. Mark mentions the keyboardio but doesn’t think he’ll be getting one because of the steep price tag.
28:52 Wayne responds to some feedback with advice on how to install linux on a mac.
31:21 Under the Hood. Mark talks about KDevelop 5.1, which has vim key bindings.
32:31 Wayne talks about using lynx with vi key bindings. To get it working you need to do the following:
lynx https://thebinarytimes.net
press o for options.
press the down arrow 14 times, or until you land on ‘VI keys’
press the right arrow, then down arrow, then right arrow again (to switch on ‘VI keys’).
press the right arrow 11 times, or until you get to ‘save options to disk’
press right arrow key to put an X in the box there.

press the up arrow key 3 times, or until you get to ‘save changes’ and press enter.
lynx will always open up in VI mode from now on.
34:20 Wayne talks about Samba and setting up network shares in Ubuntu.
36:50 The guys discuss the highlights of their first season.
40:06 Mark moves the conversation onto UBPorts and tells Wayne that there is an image available for the Samsung Galaxy S3.The conversation moves onto apps and uappexplorer and the openstore.
Irish Saying to end Season One: Slán go fóill!

The Binary Times – Series 1 Episode 11

Series 1 Episode 11 – Mark installs OBS, Wayne roots his phone with CM13, Code Academy, simple Nginx commands, basic VIM usage , Command Line Linux tools and another epic Irish saying, have a listen.
00:24 Intro to our eleventh episode, the penultimate episode of season 1! Weather is as always the first thing we chat about. Very Irish!
01:15 With the weather out of the way, Mark tells us he went to Insomnia (Note: the link goes to the main festival in the UK rather than the Irish one, the Irish one is 404 at the moment). Mark noticed that the only mic available for sale was the blue yeti. Beware of convention pricing! 🙂 Mark also admits to still buying music, Thurston Moore’s Rock and Roll Conciousness, and goes on to tell us he bought Hearts of Iron IV, a fantastic RTS game covering operational to strategic warfare set in World War II, interesting to the likes of Mark who grew up playing board war games, not so much Wayne, despite Mark’s best efforts!
04:40 Linuxy wise, Mark tells us he’s only recently installed OBS Studio, a free and open source software application for video / audio recording and live streaming. Wayne wonders if it is available as a snap, Mark thinks it is not (Note: it is not available as a snap in the uappexplorer site). Mark found it easy to use and had managed to create stuff within half an hour, a win for any creative software. Perfect for all the live streams he’ll be doing when he gets his fibre broadband in six to eight weeks time!
10:55 Wayne has been playing with his Samsung Galaxy S3s! Solving continual restarts meant hacking two broken 3s together and installing cyanogenmod 13. Wayne discovered the value of good quality data cables through all this, and both of us bemoan the state of phone manufacturers updates.
17:52 Wayne’s been studying mysql and python on Codecademy. Mark’s been reading Python Crash Course and Essential System Administration, 3rd Edition over breakfast, many more breakfasts filled with the wonders of sys admin methinks! Wayne makes the point that you need to have a project to make coding interesting.Mark mentions Automate the Boring Stuff with Python as a good example of doing rather than just reading.
22:21 Wayne responds to one of our listeners regarding how he got Filezilla to work. Hard Reboots work, but don’t solve the underlying problem and it’s not really a solution for mission critical data servers.
25:38 Wayne talks about his nextcloud setup and syncing between it and his clients on his Ubuntu Mate PC and phone.
30:04 Under the Hood sounds good is our new tagline! Wayne talks about nginx
nginx -v version information
nginx -V enhanced version information with compiler options
Wayne goes on to give us some keystroke VIM tips:
o – enters insert mode in a new empty line below the current one.
O – does the same above the current line.
A – appends at the end of the line you’re on.
# – Find the previous instance of the item under the cursor.
* – Find the next instance of the item under the cursor.
Mark wonders where the keys are on the keyboard…
37:51 Wayne does a glancey type review on Pro Vim from the recent Humble Book Bundle Linux & Open Source. He needs to look at it again when he has time.
39:12 Mark tries hard to finish a sentence to participate in Under the Hood. He fails to find his Under The Hood tip and this leads the discussion onto Plex, free software, Openelec and Kodi. Mark laments the harassment Kodi developers have to deal with and the death of the Ubuntu phone.
46:35 Irish saying for the podcast is Níl fhios agam. What does that mean? Níl fhios agam!

The Binary Times – Series 1 Episode 10

Series 1 Episode 10 – A variey of topics discussed this fortnight, Environmental Impacts of recycling computers, SSH Issues and resolutions, Ubuntu server keyboard config help , more Humble Bundle book offerings, beginners guide to snap packages , Command Line Linux tools and another epic Irish saying, have a listen.
00:24 Intro to our tenth episode, or should that be our 1010 episode?! Weather is a mixed bag, and Wayne’s been busy
01:56 Item One on Wayne’s list: more fun with ssh and nginx acting as a reverse proxy, while filezilla doesn’t feel like fun at all! Mark concludes that a restart is the quickest way to cure all evils.
07:16 Wayne’s discovered VMs are amazing, and that a simple command to reconfigure a keyboard from the command line is sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

08:25 Mark’s been doing a bit of keyboard work himself, and passes on this gem: when you want to turn the LED lights on in your daughter’s new CIT Storm keyboard, type xset led on in the terminal, which he will probably set to come on at startup, as the keys are hard to make out without the led backlighting. As an aside Mark tells us that his son is now back to using Windows 10, and yes, he did make him sit down and read the Insider Windows 10 EULA, which he was ok with…
11:42 What else has Wayne been up to? Wayne’s been web trawling and came across these handy basic security tips. The article concludes with the pronouncement that the greatest security risk generally lies between the keyboard and the chair, with which they both agree and come up with seperate TLAs, Wayne’s being PICNIC while Mark’s is PEBKAC (which Mark wrongly remembers as ILBKAC while he continually pronounces it as IBDIC, probably mixed memories of EBCDIC!
14:03 Wayne reports in on his CEO’s experience with Ubuntu MATE on the Toshiba Satellite and HP mini – All good! Wayne argues this is good for the environement while Mark counter argues against older tech as it is not as power efficient so using older tech saves on recycling (good) but uses more power (bad). Mark talks about the real price of cheap electronics and how we’re not doing things the right way. The conversation diverges from tech talk altogether as all things green become the topic until the guys decide to pull it back to tech. Before that happens, Mark mentions the pending apocalypse and they both agree tech may save us from our destruction.
20:44 Wayne brings it back – he tells us about GIMP save for web plugin (there’s also a deb package). Mark loves the GIMP but hates the name, it’s one of those indispensable graphics manipulation tools along with inkscape and krita. Mark then talks about the benefits of relying on donations compared to crowdfunding. Mark’s used inkscape to create safety posters, and Libre Office Draw to modify pdfs.
27:08 Wayne moves the conversation onto Snap packages. Key points he’s picked up:
Snap packages provide you with the latest version of the software.
(sudo snap refresh [package name] – upgrades a package to its latest version)
Snap packages do not have root access to the entire system.
With Snaps you dont have to worry about dependencies.
Removing a Snap package doesnt leave a lot of crap behind.
Developers can use an application called snapcraft to turn their applications into a snap.
Mark thinks it’ll be a good thing for Distros if Snaps take off as it will allow Distro maintainers to concentrate on core distro stuff rather than packaging loads of applications. Mark goes on to mention Mark Shuttleworth’s Youtube video apt-get and docker had a baby.
35:19 Wayne sneakily moves on to Under The Hood.
snap find : To list the available packages (only shows promoted and public snaps)
To list all snaps:
snap install uappexplorer-cli
uappexplorer-cli –type snap
Other commands include:
sudo snap install [package name] : To install a package
sudo snap list : To view all the installed snap packages
sudo snap changes : To view a list of logged actions
sudo snap refresh [package name] : To upgrade a package to its latest version
sudo snap refresh hello –beta : If you know there is a beta version available
sudo snap revert : To rollback to previous versions
sudo snap remove : To uninstall a package
The commands can be found in this Joe Collins Video – An introduction to Snap packages for linux
Wayne finishes his key points with the following:
A snap is a squashfs, Read Only, bind-mounted in /snap/[snap_name]/[version]
Each time you upgrade a snap, a new version directory is created
Snap Apps processes are isolated from each other and isolated from the system

43:06 Mark asks Wayne what network commands he uses, he’s fishing for ifconfig and ip. Time is running long though, so he’s going to leave describing the differences til the next podcast.
46:04 Time for the Humble Bundle Book Bundle Shoutout, this time it’s for the Linux & Open Source Humble Book Bundle, including loadsa goodies like Pro Vim and others.
49:24 Irish saying for the podcast is “Tá mé go maith, go raibh maith agat, agus tú féin” (I’m well, thanks for asking, and you?)