Adopting a distro like it’s a religion is stupid. That’s one of many hard lessons we take away from Texas Linux Fest this week; we’ll share some of the best.

Plus some old friends visit the show, reading eBooks on Linux, and a new Ryzen handheld.

Special Guests: Alan Pope, Alex Kretzschmar, Brent Gervais, and Martin Wimpress.

Support LINUX Unplugged

Links:

• Ctrl Shift Face - YouTube — Now, here’s another reminder that the tools to craft deepfakes are widely available for just about anyone with the right skills to use: the manipulated videos posted on YouTuber Ctrl Shift Face are particularly creepy.
• The Smach Z AMD+Linux Gaming Handheld Might Actually Ship This Year - Phoronix — Smach Z is expected to make its formal debut next week at the E3 gaming conference next week. The Smach Z in its current form is using an AMD Ryzen Embedded V1605B SoC with Vega graphics and still appears to be running Linux. The base model has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage for $629~699 USD but goes up to around $989~1099 for 16GB RAM / 256GB storage.
• PeerTube Release v1.3.0 — Be part of a network of multiple small federated, interoperable video hosting providers. Follow video creators and create videos. No vendor lock-in. All on a platform that is community-owned and ad-free.
• Phoronix Turns 15 Years Old Next Week So Here's Something Special — The 5th of June marks 15 years since the start of Phoronix.com and 11 years since the Phoronix Test Suite 1.0 release, so let's celebrate!
• Jim Kopps on Twitter — I would be interested in @ChrisLAS and the Jupiter crew's opinion of this. For the record, it has been my opinion since the first "year of the Linux desktop" what seems like fifty years ago: "The current situation with dozens of distributions, each with different rules, each with different versions of different libraries, some with certain libraries missing, each with different packaging tools and packaging formats ... that basically tells app developers "go away, focus on platforms that care about applications."
• The Linux desktop's last, best shot | ZDNet — Sure, Linux will continue to dominate the end-user experience, thanks largely to Android and Chrome OS, but the traditional desktop? I fear only Linux power users, developers, and engineers will continue to be its users.
• FOSS Talk Live 2019 — FOSS Talk Live is back for 2019! It is happening on the 8th June at The Harrison near King's Cross in London.
• The Friday Stream Episode 5: Junk Yard Sale — Chris and Brent are back from their buddies trip to Portland and share a few stories, but the big surprise comes when Chris’ wife joins to share big life-changing news.
• Redesigned Hands-On Labs Interface & 2 New Courses – Linux Academy Weekly Update — After returning from the holiday weekend, we are ready to show off the new Hands-On Labs interface along with a ton of new hands-on labs and two new courses.
• UnOfficial Hacker Family Dinner - Bsides San Antonio | Meetup — Join us for a meet and greet with fellow Bsides San Antonio attendees. There will be good food, good friends, and we hope some good conversation.
• Back to the Basics: Linux Permissions 101 | Meetup — Join Alex Juarez (Rackspace) and Ell Marquez for an introduction to Linux permissions! Whether you are brand new or have been doing Linux for a while or even professionally there will be something for you.
• New Mobile Video Player Experience and Fire TV — A new video player and all the new features that come with it. While they’re not ready for release yet, I’m happy to be able to share more details about all of the exciting work going on!
• LINUX Unplugged Article - Texas Linuxfest 2019 — Our journey to Texas Linuxfest (TXLF) began Friday afternoon with a five-hour drive from the Texas coast north to the hill country. The plan was to rendezvous at Hard Eights BBQ from 6:30 to 8:00. Since we had to make a five-hour journey it had us arriving a little later to the meetup. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot that smell of slow-smoked Texas BBQ slapped me right in the face, and I knew I had arrived; Google did not even have to tell me.
• Thomas Cameron on Twitter — Cloud dude. Linux advocate. Open Source evangelist. Amazonian.
• Foliate — A simple and modern eBook viewer
• TXLF19 Keynote: Linux State of the Union - YouTube