not all change is progress
April 13, 2015
Direct download links:
MP3 &
Ogg
Back with more news, reviews and general grumpiness, this time out the Luddites looked at several flavours of Ubuntu which promise to transform the Raspberry Pi into a functional desktop machine, and Jesse had a bone to pick with Jony Ive.
0:07:10 News
Politicking
UK’s Plans to Regulate Bitcoin Revealed in Treasury
Report, whereas
Australia decides it’s not worth the cost
UK IP Chief Wants ISPs to Police Piracy Proactively
Hollywood star Stallone thanks police after man arrested at
Leeds workplace in movie piracy probe
Hate DRM? Tell the world on May 6th
Porn websites will be blocked unless they introduce age
controls, Tories say
Microsoft adds ODF 1.2 to Office 365 to adhere to government
demands
Infamous “podcasting patent” knocked out
Oddments
Firefox 37 released, with
begging and
opportunistic encryption; oops,
maybe not
Coherent UNIX clone goes Open Source
Lots of
Ubuntu tablets hit the street; general
European retail availability of bq Ubuntu phone
Ubuntu
versions of Dell XPS 13 available
Ubuntu MATE on hardware
The Shape of Things to Come
GNOME 3.16 runtime SDK
Microsoft unveils Hyper-V Containers and Nano Server, a tiny
version of Windows Server
Security Gubbins
Google Chrome will banish Chinese certificate authority for
breach of trust, Apple
not so much
China’s Man-on-the-Side Attack on GitHub; China’s
Great Cannon
Linux Foundation to Host Open Encryption Project
0:55:20 Ubuntu on the Raspberry Pi
Intrigued whether Ubuntu might offer better performance than Raspbian, Joe lost countless hours of his life spinning up basic Ubuntu 14.04, a 14.10 image and the well regarded Ubuntu MATE 15.04 community edition.
1:14:39 Feedback
A huge thank you to marmai for the Flattr, and to all of our Monthly Supporters for keeping the lights on. As we mentioned on the show, all donations really are used to make the show better for you, the listener. We think that we’re holding up our end of the value-for-value bargain pretty well, but always welcome ideas on how we can improve as well as funding.
PhilNC and John Horan both picked up on the topic of Secure Boot and, in John’s case, ran quite far with it – thanks, guys.
John Montgomery got in touch with a pragmatic view regarding browser media consumption; and a post by our very own Jesse on G+ again prompted a brief digression into the differences between products and projects.
Charles S and Ivor O’Connor offered differing views on the
latest ruse to force out Linus new kernel Code of
Conflict.
Ronald Houk, Patrick Hogan, Charles, Zachary Robbins and SonOfNed all enjoyed our interview with Doug Hill; and Cathryne, Campbell Barton, Isaac Carter and Will offered further thoughts arising from the piece. Ivor O’Connor was the sole obvious dissenting voice who got in touch regarding the interview – and this is as good a time as any to remind everyone that we do welcome all feedback, whether positive or less so. Finally, and in response to Doug’s lack of a prescriptive way forward, Torin Doyle and Glen Skiner both suggested a technocratic resource based economy model – so I guess Doug didn’t win them over, either?
1:38:37 Over a Pint
The topic of choice was back to the fore, prompted by Jesse bristling at Jony Ive’s suggestion that designers know better than consumers when it comes to design.
So then M$ puts ODF support only into Office 365 to make the UK gov put all their internal data on servers their closest 5-eyes-buddy has direct access to? :D
I don’t trust Docker & LXC for secure isolation yet. Not
so long ago best practice was to run each docker
container on another VM to provide secure isolation.
If I had provide a host for Docker containers to run on I
would rather go with Joyent’s Triton providing a Docker
API for managing LX-branded Zones on SmartOS.
And, of course, DTrace on s/t that thinks it’s a Linux ;)
Yep,from what I’ve read in the (German) c’t magazine
about sound on the raspi2 you’ll get better /usable sound
from a USB sound device for 5 bucks.
They said the board has no proper D/A converter. If you
use HDMI for sound the converter sits at the receiving
end and you won’t have hissy sound.
As you mentioned the financing issues in Free software
(related activities), I really don’t feel like what
Firefox does is overly intrusive, and it was maybe a bit
rich (no pun intended) for you to ask them to not mention
it in the programme and only on the website.
Speaking of the donations to LL, two friendly suggestions
came to my mind. First, have you considered donating a
percentage of it to the Free software projects you use in
making it? And second, would you think it worthwhile to
publish what you use it for in the style of this:
http://tdtrs.co.uk/transparency?
And as a sidenote about the containers and security etc, I suppose you agree with this sentiment: https://twitter.com/sadserver/status/587840646968250368
I have had problems with the spam software on this site rejecting two posts without waiting a few hours. Hopefully that is fixed.
Thank you for not making me sound like an idiot. I appreciate that.
There were not a whole lot of stark commentary in this episode. But there were a few subtle yet profound remarks. One that I think is a great idea. Somebody should start making windows and mac GUI clones. It may not be possible to map some GUIs to reflect all versions of Windows and Mac but in some cases it could be very close. I understand North Korea has a Linux GUI that looks very much like the Macs. Perhaps a list of possible mappings could be made. Then those wanting the equivalent of Windows 7 would know all they have to do is install any Linux that runs XFCE and then install the xfce2w7 repository and they would be at home. I suspect a W7 and OSX mirroring would increase Linux usage tremendously.
I think there are already distros that are very much like Windows (listen to our review of ZorinOS in epi #21) and as for a mac clone, look no further than the abuse Elementary gets for being so like it;
http://www.macworld.com/article/2048021/if-i-had-to-leave-the-mac-id-switch-to-elementary-os.html
http://www.itworld.com/article/2704327/is-elementary-os-too-much-like-apple-s-os-x-operating-system.html
I was thinking even more so. An OS that offered the all Apple and Microsoft desktop GUIs. So an option to select from the W3.0, W3.1, W3.11, W95, NT3.1, NT3.5, NT3.51, NT4.0, W98, WME, W2000, XP, Vista, W7, W8, and the OSX 10.0 to 10.10 versions much like we do with say KDE and XFCE. (Log out, select desktop, log back in.)
Many people rely on muscle memory and vague memories. They have a very hard time learning new desktops. An OS taking account of these human limitations by offering the desktop UI they are familiar with on whatever hardware would be devastating for Apple and Microsoft. Elementary OS is great. So too is KDE and XFCE. However why keep spending so much energy reinventing the wheel? I think you guys touched upon the best solution and it needs to be expanded upon!
We touched upon the best solution? Remind me what that was again!?
Also anyone who still has muscle memory from using desktops Win98 and before has the most incredible memory ever! However on a more serious point the initial screen can look exactly the same as XP in Linux if you want it to by changing background, colour of toolbar, fudging the ‘start’ icon etc. But as soon as you scratch under the facade in order to change options, setup wifi, use any programs or whatever you would very quickly realise you aren’t in Windows. So refacing Linux to look like something it doesn’t help in my opinion – taking inspiration from good design is fine – but trying to fool people into thinking they’re using windows isn’t going to work.
1:56:20 to 1:58:00 you guys hit on this wonderful idea.
It boggles my mind when I find 48,000 computers at some company, say like TEPCO in Japan of the Fukushima nuclear disaster fame, are still using XP. I suspect that if companies like these are given a version of Linux that looks identical to XP. The surface to me goes as deep as the file manager, the start menu, the control panel, and for the most part the layout of the dialog boxes. Maybe even some packaged applications with wine so they can continue to use the version of IE they used to have. These people have muscle memory that allows them to do basic things that can be mimicked. Perhaps though they would all work better. As in the USB stuff now works, the WiFi mysteriously works, etc..
I’m not sure we want undiscriminating users moving to Linux desktop systems in droves. I think we want the users with curiosity and initiative. And my hunch is that Linux is attracting those people. I wouldn’t fret too much about desktop market share.
“The user gets used and the worker gets worked.” is something I mutter to myself all the time. I think people are alienated from their technology in the same way that they are often alienated from their work.
Oh dear, now my Marx is showing.
I ran across this xkcd comic that makes me feel a little silly about my earlier comment.
How is it XKCD always has an answer to life’s conundrums!? Hadn’t seen that one, but it’s a good-un.
As for your view on users coming over in droves, would it be fair to say you’re being a bit elitist? The “I use Linux because it puts me in a superior position to the crowd” view is a common one, and while all Linux users suffer from it to a larger or lesser extent (I know I do) I see how it permeates away from external to internal elitism, and hence the internal fights we see within the ecosystem. Too often I see this hierarchy: I run Ubuntu < I run Debian < I run Arch < I win with quiet BSD superiority. I don't think distros like Gentoo or Arch will twist and reform to attract noobs, instead Ubuntu, Mint and Elementary et al will become more polished to enable more users to jump on board. As long as those improvements are pushed upstream, or the knowledge shared, then it will improve the whole ecosystem, no?
It’s wise to be wary of becoming insular and elitist.
So by “undiscriminating users”, I mean the people who could be best served by a curated computing platform like ChromeOS. The average consumer is a terrible system administrator. I think all of the unsupported XP machines out there demonstrate this. There’s definitely room for a Linux desktop that is locked down, runs a restricted set of applications, and updates seamlessly and silently. This exists in the form of ChromeOS. Shuttleworth probably has something like this in mind. It would be nice to have a switch on my Chromebook to turn it into full apt/yum system. The level of adoption is really up to the OEMs. Naturally, I want adoption high because that improves hardware support for all of us.
On the other hand, I don’t think I’d classify a curated computing platform as a “real” Linux desktop system. I think it’s up to Linux to carry the flag for general purpose computing. The Linux desktop as it is now is by and for engineers, academics and tinkerers. And I think that’s a big part of what makes it self-perpetuating.
A good show – Thanks.
Desktop – To customise or not – I prefer Mint Mate – I
then customise it to what I want including blue icons and
two Panels. KDE is too flamboyant for me.
RPI – I agree Joe, the sound quality is B A D – too much
hiss. However, it’s a useful box to play with.
Win7 – It’s there for the two apps I need (a decent OCR
and SatNav updates).
Chrome-book – Great for surfing and emailing. My wife
thinks it’s ideal for her needs.
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