TuxJam

It is time for our annual list of things we really want for Christmas things we want geeks throughout the world to receive for Christmas. Partners, friends and relatives of geeks take note! TuxJam will return to its usual format for a December Christmas show.

Stocking Fillers (below £10)

• Ticket to Ride Ultimate Train set No2 (Multicolor 3D print) – Al
• Tux Pin Badge – Kevie
• Tiny 2350 – Andrew
• Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W – Dave
• Linux computer sticker – Kevie
• Wireless Retro Telephone Handset Receiver – Dave

Low price (£10-£25)

• Ransom Notes – Dave
• Shadows and Gestures by Robert Lloyd Parry – Andrew
• Battery Storage Case with Tester – Al
• NES Cartridge Drinking Flask – Kevie
• Tabletop Fire Bowl – Dave
• Sea harrier over the Falklands by Cmdr “Sharkey” Ward – Andrew

Mid range (£25-£100)

• USS Enterprise Advent Calendar – Dave
• Mini Projector – Kevie
• Electric socks – Andrew
• INIU Power Bank – Al
• Atari 3D Joystick Decanter Set – Dave
• Dune Imperium Uprising Board Game – Kevie

High End (over £100)

• Razer Anzu Smart Lenses – Kevie
• CyberAxon D3: 13-in-1 Multifunctional Stream Control Dock – Al
• Star Wars Death Star Wall Panel Light – Dave
• Dwarf 3 Smart Telescope – Andrew

WOW, you REALLY love them (£silly money)

• SmartSpa – Kevie
• The Self-Contained Hootenanny – Dave
• Lego Millennium Falcon – Andrew
• https://hyperlaps.io/en/ – Video – Al

Festive Creative Commons tracks played on this episode:

1. Flashinmusic – Deck the halls and rock
2. Softwire – Next Christmas
3. piccadillyCircus – Silent Night
4. Vince Costa – Home Before Christmas
5. Mapa – Christmas Choir

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This episode may not be live as in TuxJam 115 from Oggcamp but your friendly foursome of Al, Dave (thelovebug), Kevie and Andrew (mcnalu) are very much alive to treats of Free and Open Source Software and Creative Commons tunes.

We start, as always, with our roundup of recent releases from the watch of the distros and then move on to try out two applications.

First up, Andrew and Kevie find out how much duplicated data is clogging up their hard drives using the command line tools fdupes.

Next, at the more visual and non-command-liney end of the software spectrum, Dave and Al try out Immich (say it out loud) which is a self-hosted video and photo management solution.

Following a round of feedback we close out the show. Our next edition which will be our annual Gifts for Geeks, so rein in your reindeer until then Santa! Please do contact us if you have any comments on what we’ve said or indeed any suggested geeky gift ideas.

Come and join us to celebrate the winter solstice at our online podcrawl on Saturday 21 December 2024 at 18:00 UTC.

Creative commons tunes played in this episode are:

1. John Covert – Still 21
2. Liz Sumner – Firm Thighs
3. Donny Boi – When I Get There
4. The Moose – Let’s Get Out

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With the group meeting up together for the first time in person, it was decided that a live recording would be an appropriate venture. With the quartet squashed around a table and a group of adoring fans crowded into a room at the Pendulum Hotel in Manchester, the discussion turns to TuxJam reviews that become regularly used applications, what we enjoyed about OggCamp 2024 and for the third section the gang put their reputation on the line and allow open questions from the sea of dedicated fans.

Despite this being a live recording, it wouldn’t be the same if TuxJam didn’t have the usual mix of Creative Commons tracks:

• Radio Nowhere – Molotov Heart
• Tony Petersen – Lucky One
• LukHash – Walkman
• Hanneke van Proosdij – Soeur Monique

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The FOSSy foursome of Al, Andrew, Dave and Kevie return for another bout of linuxy software spiced with creative common tunes.

We begin as always with a round-up of recent releases from distrowatch. Next we review Waydroid which allows you to efficiently run an Android environment if you happen to be running Wayland. Then we take a look at Pachli which is an Android client for Mastodon forked from the Tusky/Husky codebase.

We finish up with a round-up of feedback and offer up a couple of dates that you might want to pop into your diary:

• Podcrawl Late Summer 2024 on Saturday 31 August from 18:00 UK time (BST).
• OggCamp 2024 on Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 October 2024, Manchester UK.

Perhaps you would like some TuxJam merch? Thanks to the talents of our very own Kevie we now have designs in our Redbubble shop.

Songs

1. Leeona – Taste
2. Arrow & Olive – Whisky Woman
3. CJ Redan – Cabin Fever
4. Infraction – Retro Games

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Al, Dave, Andrew and Kevie brave heat and cold and everything in between to bring you free bits and bytes and CC tunes. We start off with our usual roundup of recent releases on distrowatch.

We only have one item for review in this show: the Ultramarine distro based on Fedora. Dave and Al look at the version that runs on regular PCs whereas Kevie and Andrew try out the images provided for 64 bit Raspberry Pis.

We finish up with a brief round-up of feedback and how to contact us.

Music licensed under some kind of Creative Commons license played in this show are:

1. Eversame – warmth of your snow
2. Richard Shekari – Amazing
3. Mahidevran – Empty Ocean
4. Mystic Crock – Crossing Styx

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Don’t dial 112 but deign to digest our dalliance with Dillo and entertain our engagement with Entroware. Kevie, Dave (aka thelovebug), Andrew and Al are back with another helping of free and open source software peppered with Creative Commons musical goodness.

As ever, we begin with a nose around recent releases on distrowatch.com with a few having a distinctly ARMy aroma.

Dave and Andrew then discuss there experiences with Proteus laptops from the UK company Entroware. Andrew’s laptop was purchased earlier this year and Daves’ a couple of years ago and so the chipset revisions and specs do differ:

Andrew’s 15″ Proteus £1648.96 including shipping and VAT

• Processor: Core i7-1360P, 13th Gen 12 cores
• Memory: 64GB DDR5 4800MT/s
• Storage: 4TB PCIe NVMe SSD

Daves’s 15″ Proteus

• Processor: Core i7-1165G7, 11th Gen 4 cores
• Memory: 32GB
• Storage: 1TB SSD

Al and Kevie then take a look at venerable no-frills, and somewhat retro Dillo web browser which has had a release after almost a decade of inactivity. Note that the official Dillo website is not dillo.org at present but dillo-browser.github.io for reasons explained here.

We finish with a review of the recent Podcrawl and a round-up of feedback since the last episode.

Creative commons tracks played in this episode include:#

• Swiss Portrait – Always
• Western Jaguar – Repossess
• Dr Groove Gang – Sweet Soul Musik
• Like a Song – YONDER BREAKS 

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Our quadriga of Al, Andrew, Dave and Kevie begin with their usual round-up of recent releases from distrowatch but then go off-piste from our usual format. There’s no distro review in this episode but we split into two teams to look at the Mealie self-hosted service and the unofficial Android client for it called Mealient. We finish up with a round-up of feedback received since the last episode.

Along with the usual mix of Creative Commons music:

• Crazy Evolution – Final Exams
• Fruhstick – Angel
• Caleb Lemond – A Road In The Country
• Arom – Si

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TuxJam’s quartet of Al, Kevie, Dave (aka thelovebug) and Andrew (aka mcnalu) return to bring you picks from the world of free and open source software peppered with creative commons tunes. And, no, we have not become slaves to AI – Artifical Intelligence – but are grateful to Al, our newest co-host, for suggesting both reviews in this show. As usual, we begin with our usual round-up from recent releases mentioned on distrowatch.com.

We then take a look at the resurrection of the venerable Damn Small Linux which first appeared back in 2005. Originally this packed a lean but functional linux distro into a mere 50MB which could be put on credit card sized CDs or USB thumb drives back then. These days such a small distro wouldn’t be as useful so the limit has been increased to 700MB. We take a look at DSL 2024RC1.

Have you ever dreamt of simulating electrical circuits using free and open source software that you don’t need to compile or even install? If you have you might want to seek professional help, but dream no more, such a thing exists in the form of circuitjs: a menu-driven, point, click and drag app that runs in your browser.

We finish up with feedback we have received. Please do leave feedback either by commenting here or using the various methods list here.

Creative commons licensed tunes played in this episode are:

• Forget The Whale – Without You
• Mahidevran – Drifter
• Weathered Pages – Don’t Give Up
• Koresma – Drift Away

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New host Al has the previous co-hosts – Dave (aka thelovebug), Kevie and Andrew (aka mcnalu) on probation.

We start with our usual round-up of distrowatch.com which ranges from so easy to chaos (well, Kaos).

In this episode, prompted by a suggestion from Els Mussols, the guys look at a variety of Android based RSS reader apps,including ttRSS, Nextcloud News, and from F-Droid: Feeder, Read You, and Nunti.

Dave and Kevie review their new toys, the 8BitDo Pro Controller.

Are those Dave’s or Kevie’s hands in the picture? ?

We love feedback and suggestions of what to look at next so do get in touch with us or just leave a comment on this post.

And of course all this chat is spiced with a mix of Creative Commons music:

• Davide Bozzaro – Let’s Surf – Surf Rock
• The Devil Music Co – Second Star To The Right
• Drybone Allstars – It Could Have Been Me
• LessXmore – Sky

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The usual trio of Kevie, Andrew (when tore himself away from his telescope) and Dave are joined by Al, from the Admin Admin podcast, and have a show dedicated to retro gaming.

We start with our useful roundup from distrowatch.

Al and Dave review the Data frog handheld game console. Here’s a link to a GitHub repo with a whole raft of information relating to the console.

Andrew talks about his recent fun in playing around with Defender, built from the original assembly source code.

Kevie created a Pi powered retro gaming console, that was heavily inspired by the SNES. 

The links for the parts and total costs involved in this project was:

• SuperPi Case: £22.50
• Retroflag Controller (x2): £27
• Pi 4 Model B: £75
• Heatsinks: £3.50
• 30mm Fan: £3
• Power Supply: £9
• HDMI Adapter: £4
• 64GB MicroSD Card: £7.50
• Total price: £151.50

Along with the usual mix of Creative Commons Music:

• Suzy E – Never look back
• Morrisframe – Larger Than Life
• Matthew Mike Cole – The Wheels on the Bus
• KERRY – Get me a doctor
• Prettyhowtown – Hydrogen Beta (original version)

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