Author: Kevie Macphail

Our freedom loving trio of Dave (aka thelovebug), Kevie and Andrew (aka mcnalu) begin 2021’s run of TuxJam with what they thought would be a shorter than usual episode. As usual, they proved themselves wrong.

First up is a roundup of new releases reported on distrowatch.com which prompted discussions which will be followed up in future episodes or perhaps on Hacker Public Radio.

We do not review a distro in this episode but take a look at the cute pixel art game Android game Xeonjia which Kevie discovered when trying to entertain himself on a long ferry crossing. We then take a look at radio streaming android app Transistor.

We finish with a few words on the latest podcrawl jitsi or jitcrawl podsi or jitpod crawlsi that took place in December. We air the idea of having it quarterly close to the solstices and equinoxes with a mooted next date of 20th March 2021. Do let us know what you think about that in comments, by email or via social media.

All this along with the usual mix of CCmusic:

Jon Worthy – Happy to See You
Flashinmusic – My Happy Walk
Whacko Sacco – How Can I Win
DeepDaikon & Yubatake – Town from Xeonjia

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After a long and strange year people are looking forward to Christmas 2020 and none more so than your TuxJam hosts, Kevie, Dave and Andrew.

In this episode we begin with our usual round up of distrowatch and then we review a distro and an app with a vaguely festive theme. The GNU/linux distro is Pop!_OS which is based on Ubuntu. The app is for android and is Tux Rider which will be familiar to anyone who has played Tux Racer on the linux desktop. We then review a good amount of feedback and announce the results of Andrew’s “guess my shopping list” from last week’s show. (And no, Chalkahlom, 50% of his list is not alcoholic drinks!)

Creative Commons tracks:

Jingle Bells – Anup

Linda Heins – O Little Town of Bethlehem

Vitne – Winter Love Song

Wood Hitch – Auld Lang Syne (Don’t Waste My Time)

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The Earth completes another orbit and Christmas is approaching once again. There are many shopping days remaining, each filled with 86,400 seconds in which you can click on the perfect gift for your geek. Guided by TuxJam’s special seasonal show you literally have no excuse!

Items marked with * involve extra costs outside the US.

Stocking Filler (under £10):

• Micro SD card filled with podcasts (find out what your geek is into)
• Spaceballs The Face Mask
• Pibow Coupe 4 (£9)
• Bearables Bear Kit (£9)
• Sandisk 64GB Cruzer Blade USB Drive – £7.79 (Amazon)
• Raspberry Pi Zero W – from £9.30 (Pimoroni)
• Raspberry Pi Zero W Starter Kit – £37.50 (Pimoroni)

Low (£10-25):

• Mario Pipe Can Holder (£17)
• SanDisk Clip Jam (£21)
• Computer Clock module kit ($34.99*)
• Willful T1 Headphones (£19.99)
• Linux-themed t-shirts – £15-£20 (Amazon)
• Cordwood Puzzles
  Puzzle One – £15.90 (Pimoroni)
  Puzzle Too – £15.90 (Pimoroni)
  Puzzle Three – £15.90 (Pimoroni)

Mid (£25-100):

• Make up a collage of things that your geek is into and put it in a custom frame which displays their username (difficult to price)
• Swiss Army knife Workchamp (£90)
• 6502 computer kit ($84.95*)
• CAMRA Membership – £26.50-£31.50 (CAMRA)
• 3D Printing Pen – £35.99 (Amazon)
• Raspberry Pi 400 Personal Computer Kit – UK – £93.90 (Pimoroni)

High (100+)

• Ledger Nano X (£110)
• GTRacing Gaming Chair (£180)
• FairPhone 3+ (£425)
• Complete 8-bit breadboard computer kit bundle ($279.96*)

• Picade – desktop retro arcade machine
  10″ display – £225 (Pimoroni)
  8″ display – £165 (Pimoroni)
  Console – £75 (Pimoroni)

Wow! You really love them!!!

(or wish to blast them into space)

• AT-AT BBQ
• Thermal IR camera (£37,605.50+free delivery!)

• Commercial space flights with netflights.space
  Around the ISS – £250k/pp
  To the moon and back – £85m/pp
  To Mars – £500m/pp

Along with a mix of Creative Commons Christmas tracks:

• Radical Boy – Merry Christmas Everyone
• Pet Rock – Walking in the Air
• Lee Rosevere – I’m Giving You My Cold for Christmas
• Sean T Wright – Silent Night
• Evan NG – O Come All Ye Faithful (featuring Benjamin Ding)

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Podcrawl Glasgow 2020 was due to take place on Saturday 1st August. However, the recent pandemic due to COVID-19, limitation on travel and the requirement for social distancing meant that it was not practical. However all is not lost as the TuxJam crew got together and decided to try out a virtual podcrawl using the Jitsi platform. In this short episode we preview, as best we can, the podcrawl including giving people details on how to join in.

For more information, check out the Podcrawl Jitsi webpage.

The tracks included in this episode are:

• Black Bones – Drink Up Me
• MateysTorridon – Drinking Away (Thanks to the band for allowing us to play their track)

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With normal service resumed the usual crew of Andrew, Dave and Kevie take a look at Gentoo-based distro Redcore Linux. We also take a look at two useful applications: SimpleTask (F-Droid) and Standard Notes (F-Droid) on Android.

The CCmusic included in this episode is:

• Jasmine Jordan – Smile
• Funky Stereo – I Want
• Julandrew – Get Back In Line
• David Ryan – Good News Good Day
• Spin Wires – Secret Beers

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With the majority of the world affected by the Coronavirus/COVID19 and many of us in lock-down, the TuxJam crew decided to talk about the geeky things that they are doing to pass the time. So in a break from the traditional format, the usual suspects were joined by Wayne, Yannick and (briefly) Caroline from the OSPN’s other shows, and the reviews were left on the shelf for a month to make room for a more discursive episode.

But TuxJam wouldn’t be the same without the music (we need some form of consistency), the tracks included on this show:

• Songwriterz – I’m Happy (acoustic version)
• Barefoot McCoy – Summer In My Soul
• Explosive Ear Candy – Miracles Like You
• Alex Cohen – Good Ole Times

Please note that this show was recorded after COVID19 guidelines were issued. It is a virtual round table, none of the hosts were even within a two mile radius of each other and therefore more than the recommended distance of two meters apart. The beer consumed was from different mug, tankards, glasses, cans or bottles. No communal cups were used in the making of this podcast.

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Dave (aka TheLoveBug) rejoins Kevie and Andrew (aka mcnalu) for our ninth square-numbered episode of TuxJam, and our third that is a square of a square. We begin with our usual round-up of recent releases of lesser known linuxes on distrowatch.

We then take a look at a distro that’s back from a four year hiatus, Simplicity Linux, which is unusual in several ways such as in not using systemd.

Next up is Librera which is a versatile e-reader app for Android available from both Google Play and F-Droid, and in PRO and non-PRO flavours.

If gaming on Linux is of interest then you might like to hear our thoughts on Lutris, which aims to make it easy to play all FOSS games on linux, and windows ones too if you are so inclined.

We finish up with feedback and if you have any to give us do get in touch or leave us a comment on this post.

Creative Commons licensed tracks play in this episode:

• Mijax – The Dream Girl
• Wes Anderson – Moments in Time
• Bert Jerred – Gassoline
• Daniel Guzman – Sometimes Things Go Wrong
• Myke Clements – The King Is Here

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In this episode Kevie and Andrew are delighted to be joined by Ken Fallon. Dave was MIA but will return. After the usual round-up of lesser-known releases on distrowatch, Ken and Andrew discuss their experience at FOSDEM 2020 and the stand they ran for the nascent Free Culture Podcasts project along with other Hacker Public Radio stalwarts Beni and JWP. Andrew’s sort-of-live-off-the-cuff thoughts on his first FOSDEM can be heard in HPR show 3010. Andrew and Kevie press gang Ken into looking at the FOSS Civ-V-like game Unciv and rather unique application Track & Graph.

Tunes played in this episode, all licensed under a Creative Commons license:

• Bert Jerred – Book of Memories
• DeZeL – sunset
• Myke Clements – Can’t Stop Now
• Josh Woodward – Beyond the Sky
• Nick Gordy – Asteroid

NOTE: It seems that some ISPs flag archive.org as having adult content and this can cause problems accessing our audio. As a temporary workaround for our listeners who are affected by this, you can download the audio from this alternative location.

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For the last time this decade, your troublesome trio aim to inform, entertain and annoy you, and each other, with a cavalcade of Creative Commons tunes and Free and Open Source Software. Dave (aka thelovebug), Andrew (aka mcnalu) and Kevie begin with their usual roundup of lesser known distro releases from distrowatch and then continue to blather on in festive mood ending.

It’s no fun being broke or lost at any time of the year but it’s especially irksome at Christmas. So we take a look at two apps for android that will keep you right. Budget Watch will help you keep your spending within its budget, and OpenMultiMaps will guide you if you lose your way. Thanks are due to Thomas for recommending OpenMultiMaps to us.

We are delighted to have quite a bit of feedback to respond to including some tweets from the dev of FerenOS which we reviewed in TuxJam 77.

Creative commons tunes played are:

• Marco Buono – Dear Santa lyrics
• Micaroni and Vulcano – Christmas Every Day
• Aryeh Frankfurter – The Sound Of Sleat Christmas Day i’da Morn’ 
• FTM – Merry Christmas
• Pepper Coyote – Auld Lang Syne

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Is there a geek in your family? The answer must be yes, at the very least there’s you! Why else would you be reading this? If your family or friends need ideas, then point them here or plunder our list if they too are geeks.

Your hosts Kevie, Dave (aka thelovebug) and Andrew (aka mcnalu) offer up a spectrum of gifts from the cheap and safe, to the weird and downright bizarre along with a few that cost mega-bucks.

Being based in the UK we looked at prices in GBP (£) but it is only a rough guide so you can view the ranges below in Euros or USD ($).

Stocking filler (under 10):

Brown paper bag insulated lunch bag

Clothes peg clip light

PCB coaster

Tux Penguin Cookie Cutter

Penguin USB Stick

Low (10-25):

Buy merchandise from the official stores eg:

• Opensuse
• Linux Mint

Air quality, pressure, temp, humidity sensor for RPi

Inky pHat

SoloKeys (or from 13-37.org or 1bitsquared.de)

Mid range(25-100):

Mayflash F300 Arcade Fight Joystick

Wonderboom 2

Tree New Bee

PCBWay.com

Ubercorn – 16×16 LED array for RPi

8BitDo SF30 PRO Bluetooth Gamepad (full collection at Pimoroni)

Raspberry Pi 4B 4GB

High priced (100+):

Nike Self Tying Laces

Lego Wind Turbine

Hybrid Smartwatch HR Collider

Smart Belt

Creality Ender 3 3D Printer (significantly cheaper on Banggood app)

GPD Micro PC

Wow you really love them:

HP Spectre X350 15

Dell XPS 13 Laptop 7390

Custom guitar

Festive Creative Commons music tracks:

Ralph G – When the Snow Falls

Thicker Than Water – Joy To The World

The Willows – Winter Wonderland

Virtual Choir – Silent Night

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