The child’s toy that Chris hacked makes us remember the various other proprietary hardware and software that we’ve taken control of using free and open source software. Plus our mixed feelings about doing an accessibility challenge. Lunii       See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

When the Raspberry Pi 5 was announced, we all said that most people would probably be better off repurposing an x86 thin client so we bought some dirt cheap new in box Dell Wyse 5070 machines to see if we were right. Spoiler: we were. Dalton’s post about trying to break Synology RAID Parky Towers … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 58"

Our memories of early positive experiences show us how communities have changed over the years, and the best ways to keep the experience positive these days. Late Night Linux Family communities Practical ZFS   Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes         See our contact … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 57"

Half of us constantly change our hardware and software setups, and the other half like to keep things as constant as possible. Are we changing things to avoid personal technical debt, or are we just bored? Plus more on locking down phones.   Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 56"

It’s the spinning rust challenge! We try installing and running our operating systems on mechanical hard drives and learn that Linux is much less painful than Windows on a spinning disk.   Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes       See our contact page for ways … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 55"

The vast majority of desktop computer users in the world use a Windows-like interface, so why do all the major distros ship GNOME which is totally different? It can’t just be because of accessibility and inertia, can it? Plus more on government attacks on end to end encryption.     HelloFresh With HelloFresh, you get … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 54"

Something has gone wrong with the timeline and all software is free and open source. What does that world look like? Plus more on biometrics and desktop scaling.   Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 53"

What hardware we recommend for desktop Linux users in 2023. Is it really as simple as buying a 5 year old ThinkPad?       HelloFresh With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep.  Get 50% off plus 15% off the next 2 months at hellofresh.com/50linuxafterdark using the … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 52"

Governments around the world are trying to undermine end-to-end encryption. Are they going to get away with forcing in backdoors, and what does it mean for open source? Plus what we stubbornly refuse to use our computers and phones for. Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes.   … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 51"

The bits of Linux and open source software that we regret putting off trying, and what made us wait. From the security and complexity of containers to the hype of ZFS and WSL. Plus why we still haven’t embraced Nix. Support us on Patreon for ad-free episodes that are sometimes a day or so early. … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 50"

All four of us have been Ubuntu users for a long time but we’ve been dabbling with different distros to see how they compare. Fedora, Debian, and openSUSE all have their appeal, but are we likely to switch permanently? Support us on Patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes.     … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 49"

What ever happened to convergence? The dream of having one computing device just never came true, and we get to the bottom of it. Plus how to avoid drama in open source projects.       HelloFresh With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep.  Get 50% off … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 48"

The things we feel like we are missing in Linux, and what we miss from Linux when we use proprietary platforms. We mentioned Dalton’s tool called Boomstick.     HelloFresh With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep.  Get 50% off and free shipping at hellofresh.com/linuxafterdark50 using the … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 47"

The oldest machines we’d be willing to daily drive including a ThinkPad with Libreboot, the ways that old laptops are sometimes better, and why Microsoft’s silly Windows 11 requirements are great for the second hand Linux-friendly laptop market. Plus why we missed the climate change aspect of speculation about the future.       HelloFresh … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 46"

Dalton spent 3 hours having fun playing with open source DJ software Mixxx, and wonders if the rest of us have had a similar amount of fun with FOSS. Plus a great idea for a challenge, and one that’s a terrible idea.   Check out the new LNL show called Ask The Hosts. The first … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 45"

We try to imagine what the future holds for our young kids, and realise how much the tech world has changed since we were young. Plus building a dirt cheap NAS, and more.     ServerMania ServerMania offers a wide range of fully customizable dedicated, cloud, colocation, and IP Transit services, and free initial consultations. … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 44"

The times we’ve spent far too long troubleshooting simple problems – from permissions issues to unplugged cables and CDs in the wrong slots. Plus Dalton realises that he’s a happy Btrfs user.       ServerMania ServerMania offers a wide range of fully customizable dedicated, cloud, colocation, and IP Transit services, and free initial consultations. … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 43"

Whether the idea of “lightweight Linux” is outdated, your feedback about taming Windows and workspaces, a quick look at Bodhi, and digital waste – all the useless data that sits on hard disks and is never even accessed. We mentioned Linux Matters and Linux Lads Episode 100.       ServerMania ServerMania offers a wide … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 42"

Windows is much better and so much worse than Joe remembers, and it makes him very grateful for desktop Linux. Plus what preparation (if any) we’ve made for our untimely demise. simplewall     Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 41"

As companies tighten their belts during these uncertain times, could there be a silver lining for open source and self-hosting? Plus our brief thoughts on workspaces.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

A year on from our episode about Ubuntu, we still have concerns about the direction of the project. Or should we just call it a product at this point? Plus your feedback about challenges, and Raspberry Pi alternatives.   Our previous episode about Ubuntu zimaboard         Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 39"

We are joined by Jorge Castro to talk about immutable filesystem Linux distros. Check out his project uBlue and his YouTube Channel.   Corrections from Jorge: “I mentioned hyperreal when I really meant to say Hyprland, and one is a person working on a ublue, the other is a wayland compositor.”       Tailscale Tailscale … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 38"

What counts as a boutique distro, and do we recommend them? Plus Gary tells us about his experiences at the recent Fosdem conference.     Tailscale Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 37"

It’s the nested virtualisation challenge! How many levels of VMs can we get running at once? Plus we get the inside story from Lenovo about running Linux on their Arm ThinkPad.   Challenge Red Hat article about nested virtualisation   Linux on Lenovo’s Arm ThinkPad Mark Pearson from Lenovo joins us to talk about running … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 36"

Who has the most compute cores, how many are we actually using, and how many of them are running Linux? We finally find out who has the biggest stack of laptops in our core index challenge. Plus Dalton tells us about hacking a Wii U with open source software.     Tailscale Tailscale is a … Continue reading "Linux After Dark – Episode 35"