Joyous Solstice, Marcel Gagné’s Cooking With Linux For December!

COMPUTER AMERICA; ALL LINUX SHOW

A Joyous Solstice to you all! It’s the end of the world as we know it . . .

Introduction

Before we get started, you should really follow my YouTube channel, my personal Websites, and if you are curious, my Flipboard magazines where you can follow the things that catch my attention.

Subscribe to Marcel’s YouTube channel where you can view the latest editions of the Cooking With Linux show.
https://www.youtube.com/user/freethinkeratlarge/ 

You might also want to support Marcel’s video habits on Patreon.
https://patreon.com/marcelgagne 

“Cooking With Linux” on Flipboard https://flipboard.com/@wftl/cooking-with-linux-oun4gv1ly 

My own site is http://marcelgagne.com where I talk about whatever comes into my head, including Linux and Open Source software. If you just want the Linux and Open Source stuff, head over tohttp://cookingwithlinux.com .

Today’s Wine

While I realize that it’s winter as I write this, the inspiration for today’s wine comes from the heart of summer. Last year, while spending a week away at a cottage we rented, I discovered Cupcake Vineyards’ “Red Velvet Cupcake” wine. This is an awesome wine with dark berry flavors, including black cherry and raspberry. There’s even a little bit of mocha//chocolate in there somewhere. It’s dry, full bodied, and smooth on palate. Enjoy!

News. Rumors. Conspiracy Theories

Microsoft ditches current Edge browser and moves to Chromium.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3326521/browsers/microsoft-edge-chromium-macs.html

Millenials and Open Source . . . don’t know and don’t care

https://www.itprotoday.com/programming-languages/millennials-and-open-source-dont-know-dont-care

The Linux.org website gets hacked and defaced, sort of . . .

https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/78791/hacking/linux-org-defacement.html

NASA uses KDE Linux desktops

Oh, and have a Christmas present from https://durian.blender.org/ 

Today’s Featured Topic

Let’s talk about the end of the world for Christmas!

The world faces a host of existential crises, from global climate change, to bio-engineered super bugs, to robots and artificial intelligence, to that old favorite, global thermonuclear war. Frankly, from where I’m standing, things look pretty grim. Even if you just think about the environment and forget all those other possible end-of-the-world scenarios, climate scientists tell us we’ve got maybe a dozen good years before things take a turn for the worst.

Distribution Focus

Today, I want to tell you about something old and something new. Yeah, I know, it’s Christmas, not a wedding, but work with me here.

The latest incarnation of Linux Mint, version 19.1, named “Tessa”, has been released just in time for Christmas. This is a modern, easy as pie, Linux distribution with everything you’d expect for the casual desktop user, regardless of where they came from, whether it’s Windows, Mac, or even another Linux.

You can download the latest version at https://linuxmint.com.

And now, let’s step back into the past, sort of. This is also a modern distribution in that it’s currently being developed and distributed, but it sure feels like a blast from the past. It’s called Lunar Linux and you can get it from https://lunar-linux.org where you’ll find images compressed using the xz format. Consequently, your first step is to unxz the file.

unxz lunar-1.7.0-x86_64.iso.xz

Lunar boots using a classic text screen into an installation somewhat reminiscent of Slackware, with it’s blue text screen but each item invites you to take “one step forward”. If you mess up, you can take one step back.

Yes, this is a classic “Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy” distribution, as Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus would say. And messy you will get. Once you boot and log in to root, the first thing you’ll do is build your X environment from scratch.

        lin XOrg7

That command will start a dialogue asking you to choose the various installation components. Stay with me. This is actually fun.

It may seem weird in this shiny new, AI at your service, world, but there’s something strangely fun about this one.

Other Stuff

Let’s talk about stuff and things. Maybe.

How about a look back at 2018 in Linux and Open Source and some predictions for 2019. Microsoft goes Linux on the desktop, for good.

I continue to do my regular Tuesday “Cooking with Linux (without a net)” every Tuesday at 12 Noon eastern time.

Until next time . . . A votre santé! Bon appétit!

— Marcel GagnéPublished by Google DriveReport Abuse–Updated automatically every 5 minutes