 from the arch repose because it doesn't even have that feature. No, OK, so now I'm going to go ahead and go live and relive. And I'm going to have to. The next task for me is going to be. Opening up audacity and making sure audacity actually works. I I hope it does be be terrible if it didn't. Testing one, two, three testing one, two, three. You are coming through a loud and clear online. And it. All right, and it is working just fine in audacity. OK, I just need to make sure that that's recording in mono. Good. Excellent. Cool. So if anybody's actually watching this nonsense, if we could get some nays or nays in the chat, that'd be appreciative. Yes, Linux gamer says yay already before I even asked the question. So let's thank you, Linux gamer. And just let you guys know that I'm watching the chat in OBS. So there's going to be even more of a delay than there usually is. So that's a thing. Audio is a yay. Perfect. Perfect. It's a good thing it's working because we just spent the last, I don't know, half an hour getting it set up. Yeah, I mean, I will say it's not uncommon in our podcast for us to have spent a ridiculous amount of time on audio before we go live. Because that happens quite frequently. Well, see, the thing is we would not have to do that if we didn't hop so often. If you and I didn't hop to different districts often, we just stayed where it's working. We wouldn't have to do that so well. And I mean, also too, like that is also like something that like, I guess we should probably like talk about like more, like since we both do YouTube, we're more inclined to try new things like maybe not fully hop, but like you're more likely to see us on different stuff frequently. I feel like there's a lot of people that try and follow like what like they're like the people they watch on YouTube, like you try and follow like I know there's plenty of people that try and follow like what Derek's using or you know, you like the Linux experiment, whatever they're showing off. They try and like keep up to date with what they're using. Don't do that. Don't do that. That's no, no, no, no. Trying something out is a very different than hopping. And we try not to hop that much. I mean, and by we, I mean, Matt, not me, I hop ridiculous. He tries to hop as much as possible. First of all, Pringle nuts, fantastic username. I'm just going to put this out there. He says Tyler looks different. Like, yes, because Tyler's on vacation. Yes, we are, we are down at Panama City. We're actually going to be leaving out either later on tonight, which is we probably won't, but we might. It'll probably be tomorrow like morning-ish. We're going to head back home, but it's been great. Spent like pretty much the entire week down here since like, I think we got down here Saturday morning. So yeah, it's been a really fun time. It is happy. I brought all my stuff so I could do the podcast. That's kind of awesome. I honestly thought that when you said you were on vacation that we'd be taking the week off. I was like, yes, a day, a week off. And Tyler was like, no, man, we got this. Like, damn, I get to sit all this shit up, but it's okay. This way it's done and we want to do it next week. So I don't think that's how it works. Well, it should be. It definitely should be how it works. Next week will be your turn. Next week will be your turn to sell this shit. Well, hopefully everyone's been doing good and not hopping a ridiculous amount, just enjoying using what you're using. I have some stories to tell, but I'll wait until we're hit and record because I have stories to tell not necessarily good stories. Yeah. Maybe. Hopefully. Come on. You can sprinkle in one good story in there. Well, it turns it turns the ends turning that and turns out okay, but it begins a little rocky. All right. I think now that we know that the audio is working and the video is working and everything is doing okay. Now, for those of you watching live, if you notice that Tyler freezes, it's because I switched away from that workspace accidentally. Let me know if that happens because the way X or like the way Xorg says if you switch away from it, a streaming video from OBS, it just freezes. He just got to switch back to switch back to that workspace. I know you'll come back live. I will try not to switch away from that workspace. Anyways, so I'm going to go ahead. You ready to go Tyler? I am. We'll get you done. So you can go back to the beach. Oh, I am not worried. Apparently there's a storm rolling in. I noticed the quotation marks there. Yeah, I've been looking out the window. I don't see a storm, but they tell me there's a storm coming. So I'll take their word for it. Okay, I'm going to hit record in OBS or in audacity and I hit record in OBS. You can do the claps however you like. All right. All right. I don't know how in the world I'm going to do. Actually, you know what? I know exactly what I'm going to do. All right. You put the microphone in your mouth and just clap. Sorry. No, I'm just going to clap with my leg. Okay. Three, two, one. Good enough for me. Ah, that did not feel good, but. He did the job. I just had a picture of you getting up turning around smacking your ass. Oh, God. That would have been hilarious. I could have and there would be a lot of people that thought the stream just messed up. Like there's some type of video glitch going on. It's it's no longer a podcast about Linux. It's turned into God. Damn. Oh, man. That was good. Oh, we're we're to listen. Oh yeah, you got it. You saw it. We're to listen to the podcast. You are listening to the podcast, my friend. This is the podcast. You have arrived at the podcast. This is the podcast. So such as it is. I mean, this is the best way to listen to it live. Oh, definitely. Well, I mean, granted, the pre-show does stay up on YouTube. So people can catch this later. So if you're watching this afterwards, don't stop watching now because it just gets better. That's very true. We always start out on the low and it just gets more ridiculous as we go on. It's just, I mean, to honest, the podcast hasn't even started. I've already spilled my drink on me. So I mean, this is definitely going to be a good one. It's it's it's definitely going to be good. Okay. Let's go ahead and get started here. I think we I think I have everything I need to do to of course, I haven't looked at the. Yay or nay on saving the news items for last week and doing a Q&A instead. Oh, I say we do a Q&A instead. All right. You hear that chat? If you have questions that you would like us to answer, leave them in the chat below in the chat. Mention me. I think it'd be probably easier if you mentioned me, just at Lenox cast doing a at Lenox cast and will highlight me in the chat and that way I can find them. Don't leave them right now. Yeah, I would say like get like wait, wait until we start giving out the contact info and that's probably the best time to start dropping your questions. Yeah, because I don't think I don't know how far back we can actually scroll in the chat. So wait about 10, 15 minutes when we do the contact information, then you can start asking your questions and we'll do a Q&A instead of doing the news this week. Because frankly, the links are there, but I haven't clicked on yet. So I have no clue. I don't even know what I chose because they chose it last week. So it's so funny because I clicked on your link and I was like, oh, oh, this is interesting because I did not I didn't expect you to have a link just just and since it just in case we're not going to even mention what the links are or or anything it met had a Lenox mitt article and I was like, oh, like I just did expect Matt to bring up Lenox mitt. I was like, oh, interesting. I bet he chose this last week. I did and I have no clue what is I have no I don't remember like at all. So, okay, let's go ahead and get started. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Lenox cast. I'm your host Matt. And I'm Tyler. Yes, he is. He's Tyler. He's on vacation. That's the reason why he doesn't have his normal background and but he's not anywhere to be seen. But yo if you think Tyler on like normal time is relaxing relaxing. He's on vacation. So there's no rules. He's in Florida. So Tyler gone wild. It's basically what we've seen here. I don't want I don't want to get into that. I was like, do they still make those notes? That's like that's such a 90s thing. I don't even know. Anyways, movie making clear that is something that Matt will check out on his own to free time. I'm making a note. I'm going to get in Google keep and check out. Does Rose gone wild still? No, anyways, um, you should run a poll like before you actually do anything. You should definitely run a poll to see how many people believe it doesn't exist anymore because I would I would definitely vote on that because I don't think it exists anymore. I would put money that it's not and you're right. I really don't want to go look at it right now. Here's on screen. I'm so getting demonetized and having my channel pulled and all that shit. I mean, we just not do that for now. Anyway, so this is the next cast. We talk about Linux things. Usually it does usually not start out that way, but it's because you I have some kind of ridiculous thing to say at the beginning and for whatever reason always comes back down to porn. I don't know. It doesn't really. I if you this is your first time watching the podcast or listening to the podcast. I apologize. It is usually better than this. So anyways, we talk about Linux things. That's usually what we do. We've never gone on a tangent in our entire lives, which is blatantly untrue because we've already gone on one that has to be a record by the way that has to like literally we started the show off with a tangent. So that has to be a good a record. I'm surprised somebody in the chat hasn't gone and searched for the thing we're just asking about. You guys are supposed to be my Google while I'm doing this by the way. All of a sudden there's silence in the chat. There's no one there. I'm like we all we know what you're doing now. Anyways, Tyler, my friend, you're on vacation, but I'm going to ask you this question. Anyways, what have you been up to in the last week? You done anything? Linuxy? Actually, yes. I actually met a guy at a bar the other night who works as an admin doing. Well, I mean, he runs like red hat machines and it was really interesting to talk like just talk like Linux and we also talk because I mean, I very much enjoy open BSD and so we talked about that for a little while, which was very weird. I did not expect to meet someone randomly at a bar and talk like Unix for a while. Like that was not something I expected to happen on the vacation, but that was it was really nice, but pretty much other than that, there has been almost nothing happened with my computer. I brought it with me on the trip just in case I like any of my cousins because we got a big family and so just case any of the younger ones wanted to play games, which had ended up being a great bring because there was kids that wanted to play games and so I just set them up with an Xbox controller and let them go ham at the computer. But yeah, like I've done mostly nothing with my computer. It's just been a lot of beach time. I would be honestly significantly disappointed with you if you said, oh, yeah, I've been playing dead, whatever that side is it does that was that the name you know, I've been playing dead signed the family's out there on the bitch, but I'm in here just nerden away on the computer. I've been very disappointed you well, I also will not lie. I did load up dead side one night. I was very I came I came back up to the condo from the beach pretty wasted and sat down and I was like, you know what dead side sounds fun. I loaded up and played some dead side and it was actually funny because I ended up having a conversation with someone on Discord talking about dead side and like Linux compatibility because they were super, super interested in the game, but they were like, if it doesn't have Linux, I'm not buying it. I'm like, it don't and in that case don't buy it because it's literally just one option and I don't I don't understand how any game like they we've done more research into the game and they have easy anti cheat compatibility for like Linux, Proton, Steam Deck, all that stuff like it's it's enabled in the client for the game. The only reason it doesn't work is because server side it's not enabled. So literally this is the problem with the game. It's super complex to press two buttons instead of one. That's the whole problem with Linux support. It's really upsetting because I love the game. I really do. Some people won't. It's a survival game, but you might. Okay. I'm glad you had to play some, I guess my fish tanks aquatics has gone and answered the question. Girls gun wild ended in 2011. Over 300 movies. Darn. And there's some lonely bastard out there like, yeah, I own them all like they got collecting Pokemon cards, but it's instead as the girl gone wild. Let's be honest. That is the saddest collection ever. Like, you know, like some people have some like really cool collections. They can show off to their friends. If that's your collection, please for the love of God, not show it off to anybody. Well, you know, the Pokemon card collector and the magic the gathering card collector are exactly the type of people who would collect the girls gone wild because obviously. Oh God. I promise that's the last dimension of it. Anyways, thanks for the answer there. You too, Bruce. Thanks for that. There's gonna come a time in like 10 years that the kids won't even know what girls gone wild is, right? Because it would be it'll have faded out of the, the, you know, the zeitgeist. Anyways, moving on. So my week. All right. So some of this is bleeding from last week. So. Oh, I don't know. Like Tuesday or Wednesday last week. Firefox started messing up on my computer. And for whatever reason, like half the screen in Firefox was just a blank white bar. And I thought it was a extension problem and it was it ended up being an extension problem. But because I dis I disabled dark reader because I thought it was dark reader and it will, you know, so I did disabled dark reader and it went away, but then it came back and so I disabled them Vixen and it came back after that. So I decided I was going to switch to brave or more. I decided I was going to switch to Microsoft Edge. I stayed there for about 30 minutes went to brave after that and let's be honest. Hold on. I do have to stop you here. You went to edge and you left edge. Why? Um, because my screen wouldn't go to sleep. That's when the problem started when because my screens like my computer stays on basically all the time because it acts as a file server for all the computers in my house and overnight I get backups to this computer, right? So, but I don't want the monitors to be on all the time when I walk away. I want them to go to sleep for whatever reason when I installed Edge, my screen started to stay on all the time. So I switched to brave and at the same time that happened, I also uninstalled SDDM from my computer and decided I was going to start using s started start X and it worked fine. But when you pull all SDDM from a plasma installation, it's not a good idea. Okay. It's fine if you've if you've installed SDDM, you can uninstall it all you want because you it's just stuff, but plasma relies on it when they build it together for whatever reason. And I didn't understand that because I was a dumbass. So the moment I uninstalled SDDM, that installation of Arch just started crapping out. There was random things that just didn't work because dependencies were no longer there that it was expecting to be there. So I was like, well, obviously I'm a dumbass. So I reinstalled Arch and this time I went with vanilla Arch. I used Arch installed and their new Arch install script. And the thing is is at that point, I needed to do a video that night and trying to get everything working from vanilla Arch all in one night is just impossible because you have to all these dependencies and stuff that I mean, setting up Arch is like a three week process because as you as you start using your computer, you always have to go, oh, I need this, I need this, I need this, you know, all throughout you just find things that you're missing. And so you install them, but I needed to do a video that night. So I ended up did end up doing a video and like I made a video about this. I called it Linux sucks and it was just a it was a pain in the ass. The problem is, is that none of the things that happened to me over that 24 hour period where Arch crapped out on me twice where Arch's fault, like everything there was purely my fault. Like first of all, it was the SDDM thing. And the thing is, is like my monitor still would not go to sleep because I was using Brave and the thing. So, so whatever reason, there's something there with a Chromium based browser because both Edge and Brave or Chromium based that keeps my monitors alive and I don't know what. And I didn't think it was brave because at one point I killed Brave completely dead, like completely dead and my monitor still wouldn't go to sleep. I don't know what's going on. And the thing is that followed me to Fedora. So I thought, well, maybe I'm having a hardware problem, right? Whatever. I've just been dealing with that problem now for two weeks. So I installed Fedora and Fedora treated me really well for a whole week and it was still treating me really well last night when I decided I was going to try the KDE spin. I wanted to see if the KDE spin would solve a couple of my problems because one of the things that I was having problem with in the GNOME version is that when you have the GNOME version, it uses the GTK file picker everywhere, even in QT apps, right? And the GTK file picker is the worst thing ever invented. It gets so bad and it is so buggy. Like you can't name a file when you start typing in the name of a file. It brings up the search. So I had to just type in the name of the file I wanted to save in search, cut it, paste it back into the proper text field and then save the file. It was annoying as fuck. I dealt with it for a week and I would have continued to deal with it. But I wanted to see if the KDE Plasma spin of Fedora would solve the problem. It did. And also last night I said, fuck you, Bray. And I mean, don't go me wrong. I made a video about this. Bray was fine. It's a good browser. I disabled all the crypto nonsense, but the Bray was fine, but I decided I was switching back to Firefox and I switched back to Firefox and wouldn't you know now my screens will go to sleep? Two weeks, dude. Two weeks, three distros and I finally turned out it was Bray or at least a Chromium based browser because it turns out that Bray has a demon that runs in the background. Even when Bray is closed. Oh, there's a, it's called the Bray demon and I don't know what it does. I don't know why it's running all the time. The minute you open Bray for the first time, this demon starts with your machine every single time and if you kill it, it literally bleeds everything, every part of your profile, like every single part of your profile is gone because at one point I found that demon running in H top and I killed it. And when I opened up Brave again, everything was gone. I get started on me completely fresh. It was really weird and I don't know why I did that. It's just really stupid, but the it did do it. But once I uninstalled Brave and went back to Firefox, I haven't had a single problem. My screen is going to sleep. They just go to sleep when they're supposed to. So yeah, and like I said, the issue is gone with Firefox too. No. Because it was it was Vim Vixen. It was Vim Vixen causing the problem. It was an extension problem. Like I said at the beginning, I didn't think it was an extension problem because when I when I disabled dark reader and it went away and then I disabled Vim Vixen and it went away, I figured it couldn't possibly be two extensions causing the same problem. It turns out it was just Vim Vixen causing the problem. But because I do my little brain couldn't handle the fact that I disabled two extensions and, you know, the problem only went away with both of them. It was really weird. But I'll have to find a different Vim plug-in for Firefox. I probably surfing keys is what do you use? Do you use one of those Vim things in browser? What's wrong with you? You know, fucking savage. Look, dude, when I'm in a browser, I'm in a browser man, like I'm just but being able to scroll with J and K. Oh, it's okay. I mean, look, it is good. Being able to GG to go to the top or capital G to go to the bottom. Yes. But it that is one of those things where like genuinely I find more use out of that when I'm in something like Q browser where the entire browser is built around that like in mind, like it's more to you're you're not you're not given as many nearly like opportunities to click on shit in the browser. That's where I find it like really useful and stuff. I don't to me like it if I'm just in something like Edge or like, you know, it's just a regular old gooey like Chromium browser like I'll just click around because I mean it's just meant for that. Plus also like it to me like the extension like solution for Vim keys and stuff is I don't know. I've never I've never liked it. I don't like running a lot of extensions. So if I have the option of not running them, I'll just I'll just not and that's probably that's probably the biggest reason of why I don't use them. I'd probably enjoy them like from time to time, but I don't know once you use it. You won't stop using it. It's just so that good. But anyways, like I'm missing it. I got four times this morning. I've hit GG to go to the top and it does nothing. I'm like, why isn't this working? See, that's my problem when I start using Q browser as my main browser. If I sit down on anyone else's computer, I'm constantly doing that stuff from hitting shortcut keys and I'm like, why the hell isn't this working? It's like when the power goes out and the first thing you do when you walk in the bathroom is flip the white switch on. Even though you know the power has been out for like days, you seriously like we will like a few years ago, we had like a gigantic ice storm and we lost power for like six days. It didn't matter that was like day six. Every time I walked into the into the toilet flip that white switch on, even though I knew that there was no power in there. Like it's done. Like it's just that habit that you have. It's just, you know, it's not something that you can't get rid of. Anyway, so moving on to the contact information chat. If you have questions now is a good time to ask them. We're going to move on to a quick Q&A here in a minute. But first question first contact information. The first thing we should talk about is the linuxcast.org which is the website. Now it looks basically the same as it did three weeks ago, but it's completely different because J dog who I still can't pronounce his name. So I'm sorry, J dog. He's never taught me. So he needs to teach me how to say his name. But anyways, J dog went through and spent his harder time to completely redo the website so that is easy for me to update. So I can update it with markdown files. All I do is have to run a script type in a password and it uploads it to the server and that's all I have to do. I don't have to do any HTML. None of this stuff. It is fantastic. Now I'm still having a problem where the old site keeps popping up for some reason. I don't know what's going on there. I have to fix that. But if you if you do manage to catch the new site, it is really good and it should mean that I blog more and keep it more updated because it's easier for me. It's when it's hard for something hard for me to do something or not hard, but tedious. I tend to, you know, not do it. So anyways, that is done and he used the 11 to blog platform. So it's really good. Anyways, so check that out. The next cast.org you can follow me on Twitter at the next cast. Tyler is available on YouTube at youtube.com slash Zanny og. He's also on Odyssey. He has a discord server. There's a store link there somewhere. You can follow find all of the links to all of my social networks. Most is Tyler stuff at the links cast.org slash contact. You can subscribe to the next cast at youtube.com slash the next cast. Make sure you do that because that is something that really does help the channel. We're fastly approaching 20,000 subscribers, which is just I mean, seriously, what the hell just grows my mind. And the next couple months will be there and it's just nuts. I can I can very well remember because it was like not even two years ago when I was so happy when my video went to like 50 views. I was like my video got 50 views. Like holy crap. My video got 50 views. I got I thought I went I mean I might as well been Mr. Beast and how excited I was that that video got 50 views. And I can I can remember when I had 50 subscribers and I was like 50 subscribers. It was amazing. And yesterday. Yes. The last two videos I have that I recorded on the channel, both of them got 3000 views. And I was like, man, those videos sucked. I go into the first like it's it's like Horlicks. How dare those videos tank like that? Like, oh man. But anyway, so if you have subscribed, thank you so very much and we'll I should mention patreon.com slash the next cast if you want to support the channel. So a Q's and A's do we have Q's and A's? We have questions, I believe. So how is your experience with Fedora? Other than installing software because you need to make a video about that. So I guess I could answer that I've had a really good time with Fedora. I've had to build more software than I ever had to before, but that's mostly because I usually let they you are do it for me right now. I don't have they you are. So there have been things that I've had to install. I've been discovering the COPR, which is like a PPA system for Fedora. It is okay. It's where I got I3 gaps from. It's where I got a clip clip clip menu from. So those two things at least were there, which were good. It's not nearly as big as they you are. I don't anybody who says it is is just wrong. But it actually is not as bad as I thought it was. But yeah, Fedora has been very good to me. I know I've received Tyler. You're the one that hops more than anybody I know. And when you say you're going to stay on a Linux distribution, I laugh at you because I know for sure that you're not going to stand that Linux distribution. But the thing is, is like I use Linux distributions for a long, a long time, like months and months on end. Like I can stick on a Linux distribution really well. But the amount of snarky comments that I got on the video I made about switching to Fedora. Is ridiculous. My community has no faith in me at all. What's the weather? There was some guy says, oh, yeah, well, that's going to last about 24 hours. Like, come on. I like, I would at least give it 36 hours. Here's the thing. All I'm going to say is guilty by association. People see me and they're like, there is no way like as soon as you start picking up or showing signs that you might have a habit like me of switching to different stuff. People immediately go. Yeah, he's full blown. Like he'll be switching every three days now. Yeah, I mean, here's the thing too. A lot of people try Fedora and don't stick on it. Like that is super common. I don't think it has anything to do with Fedora. I just think like Fedora is one of those distributions that when you're distro hopping, it's very common that that's one of the distros that you choose in your distro hop. So like, I think a lot of people see Fedora as something that you try. It's good. But then there are other options that you probably end up on because I mean, most people I know when they distro hop or they're trying Linux distros try at least like six. Like they, I mean, they try a good handful and I mean, I really like Fedora, but I can also see other people preferring Arch because they are like there's there's you literally have so many different options of what to end up on. I see people being like, oh, you're trying this one. Well, just wait till you try this one and that'll be the one that you stick on this. I mean, everybody's got their distro of choice. Like the thing that I was worried about switching Fedora is pipe wire like I every time I've tried pipe where every single time it screwed me over now far two weeks in I haven't had any problems other than the damn output not being able to be set as default. Like I want to set my headphones as the default output, but every time it just switches back, which is done. But other than that pipe wire is trading well. Now that being said, I'm going to find some wood knock on because I know for damn sure that if I don't, it's going to screw up the minute I start trying to record a video. So yeah, Fedora has been good. Now somebody asked why Microsoft Edge? I like vertical tabs. That's really the only reason why. Also, my cheeks are red because I'm embarrassed. That's what happens when I get onto a live podcast. When I was in college, when I had to stand up in front of the class to give a presentation or something. My cheeks were always as red. It's because when I stand up in front of people, which is basically what I'm doing now, I get flustered. So there you go. There's your explanation for that. Let's see if we have another question here. Hold on a second. Tyler, I'll let the dog out of my room. Come on. Oh, you're all good. Someone asked if a friend asks, will you recommend them a distribution or just a desktop environment just so they can choose a distro that fits that environment? No. If a friend asks me and I'm going to assume this is like a friend who's like not super like techie, like not super into computers, I'm just going to recommend them some good starter distributions. Like, I mean Ubuntu is still in there. Dora, Linux Mint. Um, I'm just going to give them distros like that, not based off of desktop environment because if you give them a few choices of distros that are good to start at, um, most likely they're going to in the process of trying those few distros, try out a few desktop environments. And yeah, that's probably what you want them to be doing anyway, because really in all honesty, desktop environments have no bearing on like the actual distro is more important. If you enjoy the distro more than you can always change out the desktop environment with distros really the only thing that changes is the package manager, right? I mean, really? Yeah, um, well, I mean, it depends like because I mean we, uh, that's like one of those things that we'd like to say because it's easy, but it's not entirely true. Like there is definitely more selling points to some distros like rather than others. And it's not always just package like package managers or, um, like the way in which packages are distributed. Like a lot of the times there's just some nice quarks to some distributions, like Linux Mint has like a lot of sensible choices made by default that most people are going to want and most people aren't going to find excessive, like you're, I don't, I don't think many people load into Linux Mint and go, this has so much stuff. I can't believe like it's a pretty reasonable system for an average user. So I mean, it's just it, it's different with every distro. I just think as long as you give someone who's like new, a few different distro choices. Beyond that, it doesn't matter and desktop environments are definitely not going to be the one that like really sticks someone to something. Like you might have your preferred desk desktop environment, but I don't think everybody looks at a desktop environment and goes, this is the reason I'm here. Like it might look good and it might like be really nice and you enjoy using it, but if the underlying distro is crap or difficult to work with, hard to get support for stuff like that. Yeah, then then the whole desktop environment's ruined. Yeah, I agree. Santos asks, it might be a stupid question, but does it really matter what size keyboard you need with Linux? I don't, I mean, I have a 75% keyboard. I don't know if that's what you're talking about, but I don't think so. I've had everything for like right now. I think I have a 65% keyboard all the way up to just a regular like real warriors or those that use like 30% keyboards. Yeah. All they have is the letters. There's a couple of YouTubers out there that will that do custom keyboards like that. They print themselves and there's one guy. He created a 16 key keyboard and I was like 16 keys. There's 26 letters in the alphabet. Some of the things not the same there, but he does everything on layers and it works for him. Like I could never do that. Yeah. Hamoti asks, are you sure you're not allergic to Tyler? Pretty sure. You might be, you never know. How do you see Ubuntu's future? Will they keep using Snaps or will they change? Do you think they'll ever abandon Snaps, Tyler? No, no. I'm right with it. See, the thing about Canonical, and we've talked about this before, they are a very stubborn company. They stuck with Unity and Ubuntu mobile for a lot longer than they should have because that thing was a flop right out of the gate. Like seriously, nobody bought an Ubuntu phone. Even like the vast majority of Linux nerds didn't buy an Ubuntu phone. It's just like you remember Firefox OS like Firefox had its own phone for like a half a minute. Firefox abandoned that thing like instantaneously. They were smart about it. Yeah, like let's just get out. Like they saw the writing on the wall. Like there's no way this thing is going to be doing good. Like nobody bought it and it was like the Facebook phone. Like the Facebook phone existed for like half a minute to Canonical stuck with the Ubuntu mobile and stuff like that for a long while and a lot longer than they should have and same thing with Unity. They're very, very stubborn. Now they do abandon things eventually, but they always come back to them. So like, I don't know if you guys know this, but they've done Unity three times. They did it for a while. They abandoned it. They did it for a while. They abandoned it. They did it for a while and then they use it and now they've abandoned it again. So it's possible that someday they might decide to do Unity again. I mean, it's possible. Same thing with like their display manager. They came out with they developed something called the mirror. It was supposed to replace Xorg, right? Nobody uses it. Not a soul in the entire universe outside of Canonical uses mirror. Probably. I'm sure I'm going to get that in one comment. Like I use mirror. Okay, good. Good, good for you. But most people, like most people don't even know what the hell it's called or what it is. And but they still develop it like it's still in development and nobody uses it, right? They've actually transitioned it to doing something different. Now it's not going to be the same thing as it used to be, but you know, the point remains is that they don't like that once they set their mind on something, they really do like to, you know, stick with it. So I don't see them bending snaps ever because they they really like snaps. I mean, like really like it. Well, and I mean also because it's one of those things to where it's kind of a smart. I don't really think business move, but it is kind of a smart business move because like if snaps become the most prevalent way that software is distributed on Linux, then Ubuntu and canonical stays relevant. Like I don't think it's like a money move or like anything like that. Like it's just one of those things is a smart business move. Like you you stay relevant. I mean, if you're the one to created snaps and snap is snaps becomes the way that everyone just distribute software than you stay in the conversation constantly. I think that's a good business move, but also like I don't know. I don't think snaps are really going to be the way that most people go with software distribution. At the same time, do I think canonical believes different? Hell, yeah, and I think they're probably going to stick with it for a long time. Well, as long as their enterprise users continue to use snaps, they're going to continue to develop and of course they're going to use snaps because they come built in with their thing when something comes built in with a piece of software that you've chosen to use. So when you choose, if an enterprise has chosen to use Ubuntu on their servers, they're going to use the tools that are installed on there because they're going to be especially if you you're paying canonical for support, you're going to use the thing that canonical will give you support for, which is snaps. So snaps first and foremost aren't enterprise project, product project. Therefore, they're going to they're here to stay. Now, whether or not they'll stay on the desktop, I think they will for quite a while, but you know, I just think that they're too stubborn and there's going to be enough people using them and they'll continue to use them. So one person asked, do we still need to install Nvidia drivers? The news was confusing answers. That is yes. Yes, they did open source some stuff, but it's going to be years before that gets actually implemented into the kernel. So you still need to install the drivers. Well, and I mean, in even a lot of cases for AMD, you still need to install a driver, like a user space driver, not always, not with like gen two. I believe you don't you don't have to like all of those packages are included in the base system and all of that. But for most systems, yeah, you're still going to need to install a driver. But yeah, like I know a lot of people were confused about that because it was kind of confusing. Well, the news outlets didn't help. Like, oh my God, Nvidia is an opening source in the driver like first of all, no, they did not open source the drivers. The vast majority of their stuff is still absolutely proprietary and is going to remain proprietary probably forever. Okay. What they open source was the same stuff that AMD has open sourced is the kernel blobs. That's what they've open sourced. But even then, even though they have done that, that doesn't mean they're in the kernel yet. Like plus people who have compiled them and use them say they're like really, really not stable. So it's going to take a while for that kind of stuff to to I've heard at least two years. So don't go being happy about it yet. I mean, it was a good first step. We talked about it on the podcast. I think it's a good first step, but it's not like just calm down about it. Like it's it's okay. We're still going to need to be having their proprietary drivers. If you want like DLSS, if you want ray tracing, all that stuff, you have to have the driver. Same thing with AMD. If you want to do that stuff there, you have to install the the radiant driver, right? Anyway, so that's the Q&A section. We'll probably do that every other week. If you want to, if you are watching in this afterwards and you'd like to have a us answer a question, you can send that to us at email at the linuxcast.org. The email link will be in the video description as well. If you need to get that. So we'll take things over email as well, not just the chat. So anyways, moving on to the main topic, which is is linux too customizable? So I rice a lot, Tyler, like a lot. Like I rice. Here's the thing that's true about me. I change races more than you change distros. I guarantee that that's true. Sometimes I use three to sometimes I use three races in the same day. So I've definitely done that with distros. So yeah, that's the thing is that I had that's the reason why I went and created like a whole bunch of races for I three and then I have a script that I can just change between them. Like I do super RR key chord. Of course, I had to use a key chord. But you know, you know, I do that and Rofi pops up with all of my races. I select what I want. It changes it. It's amazing. It's so good. And that's the reason why I can use so many races. But the question is, is see if I can say the word is one more time. Is Linux to customizable? Is there are there too many options on Linux for new users to be comfortable? What do you think? I think it's an interesting question and kind of a loaded one too. Because technically speaking, no, it's not too customizable. I mean, and an open and free operating system probably can't have enough options. Like if you're truly allowed to do anything with it, then a lack of options is a problem. Now, if you're looking at it through the lens of does it have too many options for a new user? Maybe because to a new user, especially when you're talking about all that they can do with them, you can easily overwhelm a person just by describing how many options there are in the Linux kernel. Like as soon as you start talking about, oh, yeah, they're easily like five thousand different options. Like you're like, wait, five thousand and I can all choose them. Oh, yeah, yeah, like you can manually change every single one. It's fine. And most people do it like not not everybody, but a lot of Linux users mess with their kernel or at least have at once. Like, but the thing is, is like, I don't I don't think that's too customizable. That's just yes, it can be overwhelming to some people, but I don't I don't think there's a lack of customizability and I don't think it's too much. We've we've got a lot and I don't think we need less. And I also don't don't really think the argument should be like, is it too much for a new user? Because if you're making a Linux distro for a new user, your goal should be to make most of those options already chosen, like you choose sensible defaults and then let somebody else when they're ready or even want to change it. That's one of the things I think Linux Mint does very well. They do make default choices for new users and decisions for new users with regards to customize customizability and the way the system set up in a pretty good way and it works out for most new users. Does Arch have too many options for a new user? Probably like probably I don't think most people who are new Linux users need to be deciding like do you want pulse or pipe wire? And then you take that even further like does Gen2 have too many options for everyone? The answer to that is yes. Yeah, like no one's saying he's, I mean, Gen2 is great. Don't get me wrong, but it's definitely not for everyone. I think that's the underlying thing of everything you just said is that the answer to the question is obviously no, it's not too customizable, but there are certain situations where it's better for a new user to experience Linux where there aren't as many choices. So, but that's the reason why Linux is great, right? Because there are those distros there's or those desktop environments, even if we just want to boil it down to that there's like GNOME exists in the world. Unfortunately, it's here. I'm sorry. I just not unfortunately, I was just joking, but GNOME exists for good reason. They have a vision of how they want to present a desktop environment, right? And you don't have any options unless you are technologically minded enough to change those to, you know, actually customize things. So you get into going to vanilla GNOME. That's what you're going to get right out of the box. Like the extension app doesn't even isn't even installed by default on the door. You have to install that right? You have to install GNOME tweaks. If you want to do those things, so you have to know those things exists. Most people like aren't going to know those things exist. So they just use GNOME for a while. And if they are curious enough, then they start branching out into other options that have more customizable options. So I think that the underlying thing of this whole conversation is that Linux is broad enough that it can offer solutions to every problem when it comes to the audience that it's seeking. So you have new users who are probably better off with fewer options. Not always. I mean, sometimes there's just nerds out there who love all the options. Like, I know when I first started using Linux, I adored KDE because it gave me all the options plus more options. And I mean, not everybody's like that. So there's the reason why Brody Robertson had a video early, I think a few days ago where he was talking. I think it was him. Maybe it wasn't. He was talking about are there too many distros and we've talked about this before in the pockets are there too many distros and I think that the answer kind of goes into this is that they're the reason why there are so many distros is because it's great. A great thing for people to have the options to choose how much customizability they want if you are like super nerd and you love getting into the nitty gritty of building your own kernel and choosing, you know, all the use flags you could possibly want and all this stuff. Gentoo is fantastic, right? It gives you all of the options you could literally ever want. You compile everything if that is still not enough options for you. If you still don't have enough choice with Gentoo, there's Linux from scratch. You know, I mean, you could literally go down all the way to there if you want to. Don't do that unless you don't value your time, I guess, but you know, that is an option. But then that's one end of the spectrum. You go to the other end of the spectrum, you have things like a boom to and Linux Mint and stuff like that. But even those have customizable options that you can choose, but they're much more limited and superficial. So you can change like the in the new boom to you can change the accent color. You know, I mean, you have those options, but you don't have the option to I mean, Ubuntu doesn't even offer the option of choosing what kernel you're going to use. You use whatever kernel they push to you, you know, whatever version of Ubuntu you're using. That's the line of kernel you're going to get. You know what I mean, you don't I mean, you can obviously change to a different kernel, but you have to be knowledgeable enough to know that they don't provide a front end for doing that. So it just feels to me that the best answer to the question is that is Linux too customizable? No, but also yes, because it can be for someone. Just like you said, so some for new users, some people don't want all the options. That's the reason why Katie is not for everybody. You know, there's a reason why a lot of people don't like Katie is because it just offers too many options for them. And when you have more options, not only does it overwhelm and confuse people, but it has the more potential to break like give gives you more places to mess things up. So it's just, you know, one of those things where it's just there's a there's a there's a flavor for everybody. You know, yeah, and I think that some of that's like a lot of the times like when you're talking about is Linux too customizable. It's such a broad question because like Linux in of itself is not too customizable because most of the time anyway, you're getting a customized version of Linux already. Like you could customize it more, but it's probably already chosen for you. Like most distros that you're going to choose are already they have a distro kernel like it's compiled with options at the district distro maintainers choose like a lot of the times like Linux is not really going to be the thing that's too customizable. It's probably the components of Linux like and what you're using because if you do have too many options for your like for you like you personally don't like the amount of options like Katie is a great example of that because they do have just an insane amount of options and they half the time can't even decide where in the hell they should put it and Katie is one of those things where like you might enjoy that level of customization but also if it's not for you there's multiple other big desktop environments that you could go to like there's so many different options to go to for more or less customizability it's I mean especially like with now like with elementary OS like if you want just a decent and obviously I think objectively their desktop looks decent it might not be your favorite but it's definitely clean they've got a clean user user interface and they don't they don't give you a lot of options like elementary OS is not one of those hyper customizable distros unless you really really want to and I I think that's good. There should be there should be both those options. They take the closeness like the closed garden the walled garden of Gnome and take it even further because they have way fewer customize customization options than even well I was going to say that used to be true like it used to be true the fedora or that elementary OS was way more tight fisted in terms of customization than Gnome was but actually it's not even true anymore because they offer like accent colors so that act like I know Gnome is going to have that pretty soon if they don't already but you know they had a elementary house had at first the thing is right is that there are those distros like the offer that experience if that's what you want the biggest problem we have is pointing people to those distros so discoverability how do you discover what distribution is actually right for you and Tyler knows the answers better than everybody the best way to find the best distro for you is to hop as many times as possible literally get yourself a couple of usb keys and get really good at using at your or DD if you really want to get dangerous you know or some kind of other program burn yourself some isos and hop to everyone you don't even have to install them just use the live environment if that's what you want to do you know see how it works I mean I highly recommend recommend to install it but if you if you get into elementary western live environment and absolutely hate the aesthetic there's no sense in installing it you know what I mean you know you know try for a little while if you like it enough to install it install it spend a couple days in it spend a few hours and I know when I first started Linux like I hopped three or four times in the first day you know it's just that I think that everyone unless unless you hit the jackpot right on the head you know when you when you start destroy you tried then if you're not in that situation you should absolutely hop as many times as possible that's how you you know that's how you learn and experience new things now a lot of that it's just going to be like you might switch between I don't know kaboom to and Lubuntu or something like that which is I mean to us Linux guys it seems kind of dumb because you're just switching between a boom to you're using the same distribution you're just using a different desktop environment but for most new users they don't know you can install different desktop environment you have to hop distros I know that that's what I thought to begin with but you know it's just you have the opportunity there to learn as much as possible even if you just are hopping between desktop environments or whatever you end up doing that's the best way to to find that actually actual you know your home and eventually usually that hopping slows down until you find a place where you really enjoy now if you're Tyler you just continue to hop forever and ever and ever yeah you just have fun with it yeah roll the dice that's that's the thing is is that sometimes if you become a nerd it's just kind of fun to hop to something new I know a lot of people and I think I'm one of those people I think you're probably one of those people the installing Linux is actually kind of fun okay I guess installing Linux is fun so even if you know even if you like last week when I was I didn't hop I just reinstalled Arch that was entertaining for me it's a nerd I can't count I got to use the Arch install script for the first time of course I had a good time so you know I think Gloseck said to use Ventoy I would not recommend Ventoy for a new user would you it's touch and go like Ventoy can be really awesome and then it can also cause issues where some ISO's just don't work yeah so I've only think I have successfully used Ventoy like one time and then every time like either they can't see the ISO's that are on there or I get errors when I've installed something because of weird corruption or something I know it's I know it's never worked all that well for me maybe it's just because I'm a dumbass possible maybe I'm just doing something wrong no because I mean also I've used Ventoy for a long time without any problems and then I've also used it and had issues and that's when I stopped using it because it was just I mean I did I even did an update to the drive and it's still some ISO's that I knew were perfectly fine weren't working it was just it was weird so I mean that's why that's why I say it's touch and go like I mean I really like Ventoy like when it works it's freaking awesome you can just get a USB drive the idea behind it is just like sign me up please you know so good right in practice not necessarily great for new users I don't think you can cause issues so you're not you're not a new user though of course it's use it you use all the time you're a nerd of some variety of course you're going to be fine with it but new users probably not really the main point is is Ventoy is awesome and if you're going to be distro hopping you probably should at least give it a try but I wouldn't recommend Ventoy to somebody who's just trying Linux for the first time ever as the solution to try a few different ones only because it could cause an issue itself and I mean Linux is going to get blamed for that shit exactly like I mean if you're going to blame Linux for something I'd rather it be something that was actually Linux's fault not just Ventoy decided to shit the bed that day personally I would prefer to do that yeah yeah that's exactly true alright so that is the yes close like you have the nerd badge like everybody I think everybody who's in the in the chat right now gets a nerd a nerd badge you showed up to a Linux podcast I mean there doesn't there's not much more nerdy in the world than showing up to a podcast about Linux I'm just I mean the only it could be more nerdy if the podcast was about like BSD or Unix or you know whatever so we could get more nerdy but Linux is about as far as I'm willing to go in the nerdom anyways so that is the main topic moving on to the thingies of the week so we call these thing the thingies of the week because we don't have a better name for them but really it's a good name so the thingies of the week Tyler your thingy of the week mine is dark rear and I hope I hope some some of you in chat or watching you afterwards haven't heard of this fantastic extension if you haven't go ahead and install it it's fantastic it will make all sites look nice and readable and not blow out your eye sockets with white so it's awesome you can also theme it to a common thing is when people install the extension they don't there's like you'll see people referencing how you can change the font and colors online if you install it and you don't have those options when you open up the dark reader extension it just open it up there's like an option for like dev tools you click that and it'll load up this little like window and you just click preview the design and then close the window or apply or whatever like close the window and then you'll have the options to do all the dev stuff where you change hex color values because that's super developing like yummy yummy we all know as soon as your kid finds out how to use hex codes he's hacking the NSA right exactly that's how it works dark reader is amazing and it is good and everyone should late themes should just not exist it's gonna put that out there okay first of all I just I was giggling in the background there for a minute because I was thinking back to our conversation at the beginning of this we're talking about I was like just imagine you know you have a father who's in the Linux stuff so he listens to podcasts on the way to taking his like maybe eight year old son to school or preschool or whatever and he like daddy what's girl what's girls gone wild I could just that's alright I just could I like I couldn't imagine that like that's hilarious I'm sorry I said I was gonna know I wasn't gonna say it again but I know it's more than a reason that popped in my head like you know that's gonna happen so full circle full circle yeah anyway so my thingy of the week I'm on a quest to find a replacement for them not in terms of like doing coding or whatever that I still you also use them for that because them is awesome for that it just doesn't really work well for my writing because I have deal with really large files and new in this case is really slow when it comes to large files it just is I can't help it at least it is for me but anyway so I've been trying to find a good markdown editor and I don't need all the features that obsidian has like obsidian has like this knowledge graph and all this stuff like that I don't need any I just need a markdown editor so I've tried mark text that's really good I made a video about that so then somebody recommended my pick of the week this week which is ghostwriter ghostwriter is pretty damn good when it comes to actually just being a markdown editor it does all the stuff you would normally need it has not as many options as mark text does but it has all the options you could pop you really need and it does this really cool thing where when you sit down for a session of writing it actually begins timing you so it can kind of keep track of your word count per minute which is cool and keeps on a track of how many words you've written from them the start of your session which is I mean is great as it's just a neat little tool I don't know how accurate it is but it seems to work really well so that yeah that's ghostwriter it is available as a flat pack and probably in the war and stuff so that's how I got was was the flat pack so anyways good morning answer have you heard about e-max ghost like your band yes I've heard about e-max I've used e-max I don't want to use didn't you just hear me say that obsidian has too many options for me you think that e-max does not like isn't one of those things is just too many options for me like I don't need all that stuff it's just it's too much for me and it's not as if it hurts anything to have it on the system it's just I don't know I there's something about me that if if something has a whole bunch of options I feel like I have to use them and if I'm not using them it feels like I'm you know neglecting it or something I don't know just be careful like I I hear like public perception can really turn on you once you kick somebody who's preaching the good word of e-max out of town bad things happen I wasn't actually going to be involved so if I haven't banned Peter and Josh from trolling me about e-max and I'm not worried about it like seriously Josh has been commenting on my videos since the beginning like basically since the beginning and every single one of his comments I'm pretty sure every single one of his comments is either about e-max or gentoo yeah I'm pretty sure he will join gaming streams like where I'm playing dead side with a few people on discord and he'll just pop into be like hey so just want to talk to you guys for a minute about it's either gentoo or e-max every time this doesn't look like a gentoo stream. Oh Josh we love you buddy. All right anyway so that is it for this for this week coming up next week I have no clue we're going to talk about I have no clue there are topics there I haven't chosen one so you'll just have to tune in next week to figure out find out what we're going to talk about it's going to be something cool it's going to be something interesting we'll have a fantastic conversation we record this live every Friday around three o'clock p.m. Eastern time it's usually a little bit later than that about 315 or so whatever is usually when we finally hit the live button we're actually pretty on time this week so we're doing pretty good anyways you can watch this podcast live at youtube.com slash the linux cast if you don't catch it live the replay is on does stay on youtube and the timestamps are eventually added on so somebody asked me. Why are there no timestamps usually takes me I get up out of my chair away from this computer for about two hours afterwards and then I come back and I will put the timestamps and so usually around eight o'clock p.m. Eastern time is when the timestamps appear so if you don't want to watch the pre show and you still want to catch it on youtube you can do so the timestamps will be there eventually so just know that if you don't want to watch the youtube thing they are on available on anchor which distributes it to Spotify Apple all those things so we're there. Those are usually the edited things so that's where all the edits actually happen so you'll get better audio things like that so anyways before I go I should take one think I'm a curtain you want to I had I did actually so good until that moment there when I decided I was going to be no blue anyways. Thank you to all you all the patrons out there who support me I don't have the graphic here to show your names I've totally forgot about that so thanks everybody who supports me on patreon youtube patreon.com slash the next cast if you want to support me there we'll see you next week.