Podcast Season 1 Episode 3
Podcast RSS feeds: Ogg Vorbis, MP3 and Opus.
Title: The Fellowship of the Ring
In this episode: Fedora 20 is out. A beta of SteamOS has been released and OwnCloud 6 comes out of beta. We’ve got some great discoveries, a real challenge report and the hugely enjoyable Voice of the Masses. Plus, we’re joined by a special mystery guest.
Many thanks to the White Hart Inn, Calne, for allowing us to record the podcast in their pub (and for turning off Sade).
What’s in the show:
- News:
There have been many awesome releases over the last couple of weeks: Fedora 20 has been released, and makes ARM7 a primary architecture. A beta version of SteamOS, the gaming operating system put together by Valve, has been released. OwnCloud 6 has also been released, and includes document editing ‘in the cloud’. Google’s takeout now includes mbox as an export format for GMail. South Korea may switch to Ubuntu after the EOL of Windows XP. Munich has successfully completed its transition to Linux. And Linux Voice hits its 90k target. - Things we found out in two weeks:
- Graham:
- SteamOS is great, even on low powered hardware, if you enjoy indie games.
- Ben:
- Discoveries of the year: Raspberry Pi, OwnCloud and CyanogenMod.
- Back in the day, you could broadcast games from casette on the radio.
- Mike:
- We’ve got the Lear-Siegler ADM-3A terminal to thank for ‘~’ as a shortcut for ‘home’ in the Linux terminal.
- Andrew:
- Google’s Nexus 5 is alright and scary in equal measure.
- There’s a long barrow near Turkdean that was talked about at the beginning of an Indiana Jones movie.
- Canonical has never paid for a magazine advertisement until now.
- Graham:
- The Part Where People Ask Us To Do Things:
- Thanks for your challenge Bob! Let us know your challenge ideas for the next podcast – email mike@linuxvoice.com.
- Voice of the Masses: What is Biggest event/story/project of 2013?
Presenters: Ben Everard, Andrew Gregory, Graham Morrison and Mike Saunders.
(we wedge open the squeaky door after about 17 minutes, so it’s worth persevering if you find this annoying)
Download as high-quality Ogg Vorbis (60MB)
Download as low-quality MP3 (81MB)
Download the smaller yet even more awesome Opus file (25MB)
Duration: 1:12:10
Theme Music by Brad Sucks.
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About The Author
Ben Everard
Ben Everard is the co-author of Learning Python with the Raspberry Pi and hacks hardware projects held together with a big dollop of Linux and Free Software glue. He's @ben_everard on Twitter.
Calne? Avebury? The Fosse? These are all awesome places in an awesome county that only awesome people grow up in 😉
Really looking forward to Steam boxes coming out in the early part of 2014. Running a huge library of Steam games off a Linux box with a swanky controller sounds like a great proposition compared to throwing money hand over fist at closed alternatives built by Microsoft, Sony & Nintendo. Consoles these days seem to be shoddily built and over-priced; I have a Sega Megadrive (probably older than me) that still works, but since 2007 I've had two XBOX360s die on me!
Also, if it helps on Nexus 5 I've found Nova Launcher makes the whole OS feel much more usable, and there are some really nice power user tools like Tasker & Terminal IDE that are well worth a look (though I imagine you can probably get them on Cyanogen Mod too).
And finally, there will be a natively installed copy of Linux on this newfangled Apple toy laptop I seem to have bought. Will initially be experimenting with LMDE, but if that doesn't seem to work too well Mint 16 will be running as my main OS 🙂
I love the idea that it should be possible to build a cheap and quiet SteamOS-based PC, with perhaps some clever switching between the UI and something like XBMC (you can switch to the Gnome desktop now, and there’s a desktop account pre-configured with the default SteamOS installation). It won’t play the latest games of course, but it will make a fantastic machine for the living room.
Bob, it will be interesting to see how you get on installing Linux on your MBA. As it was Linus’ preferred laptop for travelling, it ought to work well!
Great podcast (minus the squeaky coffin).
I smiled when you mentioned about recording computer programs over the air via radio. Back in the 80's not sure if it was the Micro Live or a spin off show, you could "download" programs whilst the end credits played, by recording onto a cassette recorder. God knows what that sounded like.
Looking forward to the magazine.
bought myself a raspberry-pi and the hdmi-vga adaptor for Christmas, just waiting for a decent book by somebody 😉
Re Broadcasting software on the airwaves. I did recall such software being transmitted with the viewer being asked to plug in their tape machine at a certain point. "The Chip Shop" is cited here http://archive.retro-kit.co.uk/bbc.nvg.org/history.php3.html. Here is a reference to the broadcasting times for Basicode http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jg27paw4/yr09/yr09_03.htm#Radio and here is image flyer for the porgram http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/large/PRODPIC-21276.jpg
Back in the early to mid 1980's BBC Radio London transmitted really geeky material in the mid week evenings, be it a HiFi programme that sent an audio oscillator sweep right up to 20kHz down its brand new digital link to the mono transmitter on a hill in Kent, (which lit up my stereo pilot light on my FM Tuner) and a Home Computing program for Spectrums, Commodores and also for my (then new) Dragon 32.
With the Computing Show a short program was sent over the transmitter for us to record at home and then run later on our machines at the end of each proramme. There was certainly one for the Dragon 32 as I remember being disappointed at its contents compared to what I was already writing for myself and, what was then available commercially.
It is quite possible the tape of the transmitted computer program is still in the plastic bag in the shed with the rest of my Dragon 32 stuff. I know the computer was still working a couple of years ago when I fired it up, out of curiosity, and saw the Microsoft Basic Interpreter start screen! Whether the cassette tapes have survived will be another thing!
Well I can't see anyone doing anything like this again, except on broadband.
The BBC Micro could download software through the teletext lines on the BBC with some tuner hardware.
I have a slightly vague memory of attempting to download software with a light pen held against a flashing dot on the screen.
Hi still have the cheese wedge teletext decoder for the BBC (not that it works any more what with there not being a teletex service), I did briefly download software from it using the *telsoft command from the teletext rom. However shortly after I started using it the telsoft service was discontinued.
Suggestion: to avoid the awkward contortions of naming podcast segments ever so slightly different from the LF podcast try this: Finds of the Fortnight. A touch snappier than Things We Found Out in a Week/the Last Two Weeks/Three Weeks or However Long It's Been – Feels Like Ages. Marvellous work you fellas. Cracking!
In Australia, they (the government) have recently taken away the analog TV spectrum, presumably because the digital spectrum is providing better content – pshaw!
What I wonder is whether this will shut down private/enterprise broadcasters (dare I say pirate) which will prevent such miscreants as Michael Moore from providing quality content aimed directly at them.
Not sure pirate TV broadcasting is much of a thing TBH, the availability of video streaming over the internet has made broadcast entirely optional as a channel.
It seems that transmitting your files using your sound card is relatively easy. Just read this:
http://awesomegeekblog.blogspot.com.es/2009/04/file-transfer-over-sound-card.html
I have not tried it. Although I remember trying to load in my old Commodore VIC-20 a program transmitted by a Spanish radio in 1985 or 1986.
Excellent Podcast as usual, looking forward to the new magazine too. I'm a web developer running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS at work and Mint 12 (cinnamon) on my old 2004 Acer laptop – still working. I'm looking to upgrade both as they're no longer supported. After seeing #! supporting your indigogo I downloaded the live version and was quite impressed, clean, quick and dual-monitors worked straight away. Could your challenge be to install #!, find out compatibility with things like Steam and write an article about what someone switching from Ubuntu/Mint might encounter.
Following this podcast I'll give that a try – I always liked the idea of Mint Debian but also found it a little daunting.
Keep up the great work.
so happy with the podcasts, i bought a lifetime subscription, i know the magazine will be awesome! are we allowed to use that word?
Awseome is an awesome word. Use it awesomely.
Welcome back, Graham!
Posting this while at work (yes, on christmas day!). Had an idea for challenge of the fornight / you dare us etc etc.
Get Mir or Wayland running and tell us if it really does make moving windows around nicer, that tearing artefacts are really gone, and whether it is the future of our desktops.
Great to have Graham back. Such soothing dulcet tones.