TuxJam

TuxJam 77 – Fiddling with Feren & Fedilab

The clocks have changed and the leaves are falling from the trees and the cold, waning days mean that your TuxJam hosts are like three squirrels searching for some Free and Open Source Software to see them through winter. Well, perhaps that’s not quite what squirrels do, and we need more than FOSS to survive, but your hosts Kevie, Dave and Andrew are a bit nuts.

We begin with a quick look of distrowatch and then move on to looking at the Feren OS GNU/linux distro and then the Fedilab Android app. We finish up with feedback including some which came from Andrew and Dave’s attendance at OggCamp 2019.

Music we played in this show; each licensed under one of the Creative Commons licenses:

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TuxJam 76 – Pondering Podcrawl

The summer is over, the nights are getting longer, the wind and rain are increasing, but that simply means that TuxJam is back after a summer break. Grab your beverage of choice and sit in your favourite chair beside the fire and listen to the gang as Andrew, Dave and Kevie team up for another show.

In this episode we take a look back at Podcrawl Glasgow and give our thoughts on the sixth incarnation of the event, where we visited some of the usual haunts and also tried out a brand new (and very geeky themed) bar. We take a look at Android app Bierverkostung, which we all personally tested on Podcrawl. Outside of beer talk, we also take a look at OSMTracker for Android. We actually have some feedback for this show, it’s a Christmas miracle (in September).

As if this was not enough we also throw in the usual mix of CCmusic for good measure:

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TuxJam 75 – Beer goggles

The usual geekoloid trio are back – Kevie, Dave (ask thelovebug) and Andrew (aka mcnalu) – riding a raft of free and open source goodness on the white waters of Creative Commons licensed tunes.

As usual we scour distrowatch.com for recent and less well-known distro releases and then go on to recount our experiences with AVLinux which specialises in audio and video production. We had intended to review a distro named after a beer but the only one we found was Stella and we had zero luck with it. (TBH, us real ale quaffing snobs find it hard to get on with Stella Artois the drink.)

And if you can make it to Glasgow on the last Saturday of July, we would be delighted to welcome you to this year’s Podcrawl Glasgow. If you cannot make it in person, why not drink along with us and join in our live review of a beer app called Bierverkostung (it’s German for Beer Tasting – might it literally mean beer works tongue?). More details in due course.

Creative Commons and other tracks played in this episode:

Sean Michael 93 – It’s 5 O’clock Somewhere
Wooden Horse – Summer Beer Blues
Drinking Away by Torridon (Special thanks to Kenny for allowing us to play this)

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TuxJam 74 – Every Rosa Has It’s Thorn

We return to a full strength trio with Kevie rejoining Dave (ask thelovebug) and Andrew (aka mcnalu) for another helping of free and open source goodness washed down with Creative Commons licensed tunes.

We begin with our usual look at quirkier releases on distrowatch.com and then recount our experiences with Russian Linux distro called Rosa, originally a Mandriva fork, but now a distro in its own right. NOTE: this other Rosa Linux site offers only older versions than the recently released version 11, which caused us some confusion. We then discuss our experiences with KDE music player Elisa. Finally we have our roundup of feedback and mention of this year’s Podcrawl Glasgow which is on the last Saturday in July.

Creative Commons tracks played in this episode:

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TuxJam 73 – Doing the low-level motion

Here is another helping of TuxJam with Dave (aka thelovebug), Andrew (aka mcnalu) and… an empty chair! Worry, not Kevie is just busy and will be back next time. Our depleted duo will do their best to take you on another tour of free and open source software and creative common tunes. We start, as always, with a glance down the latest releases on distrowatch.

Andrew and Dave take a look at MikeOS and MichalOS. MikeOS is a lovingly crafted and documented operating system which demonstrates that it is still possible to go low level and hug your hardware. If you seek a book on assembler then you might like to grab this Humble Book Bundle: Linux by Wiley. Hurry though as it ends 25 March 2019.

Next up, Andrew recounts his experience with the motion detection software called Motion on the Raspberry Pi. Want an inexpensive security or wildlife imaging station over which you have maximum control? Look no further.

But please do listen further and hear Dave’s review of OwnTracks which not only helps you track your position with GPS but also keeps track of your data and keeps it out of the mysterious clouds controlled by big companies such as Google.

Finally we were delighted to get this detailed Twitter response from Haiku developer @waddlesplash with answers to points we raised in TuxJam 72. Although couched in admirably polite terms he is quite rightly suggesting that your hosts could have benefited from a bit more RTFM.

Songs played in this episode

Dr Groove Gang – Concrete Jungle
bARTek – Walking K (feat. Ashes and Dreams)
Quentin Hannappe – The World Is Yours
Haka – Down On My Knees
SadMe – Forest

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TuxJam 72 – Poetically different

Your hosts Kevie, Dave (aka the lovebug) and Andrew (aka mcnalu) return after a Christmas of excessive beer. Not that they were drinking excessively just building up a backlog of mail order beer.

We begin with our usual round-up of lesser known recent releases on distrowatch and then take a c

loser look at two Free and Open Source (FOSS) offerings.

Haiku is a non-Linux, open source operating system aimed at personal computing. It’s based on the now defunct BeOS but has now become a lightning fast OS in it own right with a retro-appearance and interestingly different UI.

DroidShows is an Android app that allows you to keep track of your favourite TV shows.

We had some feedback from Marshall Cleave, known as Timttmy, and Andrew gives us an update regarding a present he wrote to Santa for (and also mentioned on Gifts for Geeks)

Tracks for tonight’s show:

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TuxJam 71 – Christmas Pop!

Sadly the snow around the Glasgow area made travelling difficult so with Andrew MIA, Dave and Kevie pick up the slack and press on with the second of the Christmas themed TuxJam episodes.

With this being the season of giving and good will, we get a user submitted review of Pop!_OS by Yannick.

After a bit of a disaster during an earlier recording of TuxJam, which resulted in the death of Kevie’s previous computer chair, he was forced to purchase a new gaming chair. After 7 weeks, Kevie shares his thoughts on the Intey Gaming Chair.

As 2018 draws to a close we look back over the items we have reviewed in the last 12 months of the year and discuss what we still use; splitting this up into three categories: distros, desktop apps and phone apps.

Despite Andrew’s absence from the live show, he still managed to make his presence known with some audio that he recorded and kindly sent in via email (one section was cheekly added in using Audacity, but we have to admit that we hadn’t actually spoke to him directly).

Along with a mix of Christmas themed CCmusic Tracks:

If you would like to contact any of us then our various accounts are:

Andrew:

Dave:

Kevie:

email to the show directly on tuxjam@otherside.network

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TuxJam 70 – Gifts for Geeks 2018

The season is upon us where you need to buy gifts. If you have to buy a gift for a geek than the trio of TuxJam geeks are here to help. If you are a geek yourself then you might want to share this with your confused nearest and dearest to guard against further socks, ties and cufflinks (aside from geeky themed ones of course) filling your stocking.

Stocking Fillers (under £10)

Balloon Boat Racer
Stellarium mobile
Motherboard chopping board (extra wide stocking required!)
Henry Screen Cleaner

Low price (£10-25)

Middle of the road (£25-100)

High end (over £100)

Solstice Clock
Flavourly Beer Club
Picade
Samson Q2U Dynamic USB Microphone Podcasting Pack and Accessory Bundle with Boom Arm + Headphones + Pop Filter + Fibertique Cloth
Recapped BBC model B or similar era original 8-bit computer – many available on ebay (second hand of course!)

You Really love them (something silly that is way more than a present should ever cost)

Christmas CCmusic tracks:

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TuxJam 69 – Tuxy McJamface

Your creative, common, free and open hosts of Tuxjam, Kevie, Dave (aka thelovebug) and Andrew (aka mcnalu) return for another tour of software and tunes. We start, as always, with a glance down the latest releases on distrowatch.

In an attempt to inject brevity into the show we tried only review two items this month:

Ubuntu based KDE distro KDE Neon
ebook reader for Android Booky McBookface

But we managed instead to talk longer about fewer things with Dave doing an excellent Columbo impersonation with several “one more thing”s about KDE Neon.

The following CCmusic tracks were not harmed in the making of this episode:

We close the show with a brief roundup of feedback. Any that you may have is always welcome, email us direct should you have any advice, tips, questions or simply want to say hi.