Linux Matters

It’s Season Nine Episode Forty-Four of the Ubuntu Podcast! Alan Pope, Mark Johnson, Martin Wimpress and Laura Cowen are connected and speaking to your brain.

The same line up as last week are here again for another episode, but this is the last Ubuntu Podcast for Laura ever! :-(

In this week’s show:

• We discuss what we’ve been upto recently:
  • Playing with a Thinkpad 755c and two Raspberry Pi 3 projects.
  • Nextcloud using Ubuntu Core and Raspbbery Pi 3
  • Retropie with two 8Bitdo NES30 Pro wireless controllers all tucked in a SNES 3D Printed case and CRT scannline sharders to complete the retro look.
• We discuss our 2016 predictions and create new ones for the coming year.

• Multiple devices from various tier-1 vendors will ship with Ubuntu Snappy by default.
• github will significantly downsize their ~600 workforce to a much smaller number, and may also do something controversial to raise funds.
• Microsoft will provide a Linux build of another significant application, possibly Exchange or SharePoint
• Donald Trump won’t last a year as president

• There will be no new Ubuntu phone on sale in 2017
• The UK government will lose a court case related to the Investigatory Powers Act
• This time next year, one of the top 5 distros on Distrowatch will be a distro that isn’t currently in the top 20.
  Current top 20: Mint, Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, elementary, Manjaro, Fedora, Zorin, CentOS, deepin, Arch, Antergos, PCLinuxOS, Mageia, Ubuntu MATE, Solus, LXLE, Lite, ReactOS, Slackware

• Ubuntu 17.10 will be able to run Mir using the proprietary nvidia drivers and Steam will work reliably via XMir. It will also be possible to run Mir in Virtualbox.
• A high profile individual (or individuals) will fall victim to one of the many privacy threats introduced as a result of the Investigatory Powers Bill. Intimate details of their online life will be exposed to the world, compiled from one of more databases storing Internet Connection Records. The disclosure will possibly have serious consequences for the individuals concerned, such as losing their job or being professionally discredited.
• The hype surrounding VR will build during 2017 but Virtual Reality will continue to lack adoption. Sales figures will be well below market projections.

• Someone, probably RedHat, will buy Docker.
• People will whinge some more about the term ‘serverless computing’ instead of embracing it as great computing experience because IT’S WHAT CLOUD COMPUTING PRETENDED IT WOULD BE (and there’s a daft term).
• I will finish my PhD. I will finish my PhD. I will finish my PhD….

• Jon Spriggs says:
  • Kubuntu moves into the top 5 of distrowatch or is disbanded.
  • An independent review of systemd identifies an NSA backdoor
  • Podcasts who use Telegram as their community conversation system move to using Matrix/Riot
• SuperEngineer says: I predict there will be Ubuntu podcasts in 2017 but there will be a frightening change in cataloguing them from S09 to S10
• Amicable WereZonkey says: I predict ubuntu 17.10 will be called Affable Axlotl
• Ryan Murphy says: I predict Mycroft will get to the point where it’s ready to ship with 18.04, in 2017. @popey will have mixed feelings.
• Raymond says:
  • Solus to get into the top 10 on distrowatch.
  • Data breach in a bigger linux community (forum) or other distro infrastructure of top ten distros.
  • Linux Luddites make a come back.
  • Wimpy and Ikey will combine to make Solus MATE the #1 distro
  • Method Dan will start a new version of Linux Outlaws
• Dalton Durst says:
  • UBports gets the Fair Phone 2 to daily driver status
  • Users get more security conscious when a large commerce website gets hacked leading to clear consequences for them
• Jelmer Prins says: Trump does someting stupid It’s a sure bet :p
• Jay says: in the UK someone will be arrested for something trivial e.g. using a VPN or watching ‘unusual’ content. General public won’t understand, care or listen when their techie friends try to explain it. The cycle of blissful ignorance will continue.
• Luke WH says: Apple discontinue the Macbook Air citing ‘touch screen is the future – buy an iPad pro, it’s our best iPad pro yet!’
• Matthias Ritter says: At least one company releases at least one Ubuntu Phone within the year 2017. Hope never dies.
• Marius Quabeck says: There will be at least 3 new manufacturers of laptops/desktops who will ship ubuntu MATE in 2017
• Moritz says: Ubuntu Mate with Brisk Menu will get a lot of positive press.
• Padraic Stack ‏says:
  • Ubuntu Touch development will slow massively
  • The move to snaps will mean current Ubuntu Touch devices become obsolete.
• Andrew Hayzen says: At least one proprietary vendor will use snaps to allow use of their application or service in Ubuntu.
• shemaiah says: Microsoft gets hacked leading to all windows 10 cloud connected devices be compromised. Thanks so leading to a major boat for Linux distributions.
• Alex says:
  • Windows kernel is open sourced
  • Apple will announce a big push towards open source with the new iphone.
• AndyT says:
  • Raspberry Pi Zeros will remain hard to get hold of in any quantity
• Robert says:
  • Apple will spin off Mac as its own company, thereby justifying the fact the iPhone needs adapters to connect to the computer

Most of these came from via the Ubuntu Podcast Telegram group.

• We share a Command Line Lurve:
  • inotifywait – wait for changes to files using inotify

inotifywait efficiently waits for changes to files using Linux’s inotify(7) interface. It is suitable for waiting for changes to files from shell scripts. It can either exit once an event occurs, or continually execute and output events as they occur.

• And we go over all your amazing feedback – thanks for sending it – please keep sending it!

• This weeks cover image is taken from Wikimedia.

That’s all for this week! If there’s a topic you’d like us to discuss, or you have any feedback on previous shows, please send your comments and suggestions to show@ubuntupodcast.org or Tweet us or Comment on our Facebook page or comment on our Google+ page or comment on our sub-Reddit.

• Join us in the Ubuntu Podcast Chatter group on Telegram