622: Omarchy Hits Different

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:11):
Hello friends and welcome back to your weekly Linux talk show. My name is Chris.
My name is Wes.
And my name is Brent.
Hello gentlemen, this is episode 622 and coming up on this episode,
there is a big trend sweeping over desktop Linux. It's really exciting.
We're going to dig into that and take a look at it. Then we'll round out the

(00:32):
show with some great boosts,
some picks, and a lot more we are
not live this week but we are doing it from the great north it is canada broadcast
day it's canada day on the show i'm over at brent's house up in uh his lovely
lovely property in the bc area what do you call this general area is it like
the the kootenai area or the kootenani area or something the kootenai there.

(00:56):
Are the kootenai's up here.
Which kind of extend.
Down into the u.s as well but this region is specifically called the east kootenai's So.
I'm in the East Kootenays, been exploring the East Kootenays with Brent and
his family, and it's been absolutely terrific here on a family road trip.
So, of course, also I have the classic, since I didn't do a show for a week
and I'm on a road trip, I have a cold, so I apologize if I sound a little funky.

(01:17):
But it's pretty exciting. I think the first time I've ever done the show from Canada.
High altitude podcasting.
Yeah, we're at like 3,200 feet. We usually are at sea level when we do the show.
That's why we sound different, right?
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A big trend has been sweeping over Linux in the last week or two.
And it's really exciting to watch because it's coming really from the work of one individual.

(03:30):
And it's, I mean, not to minimize the work that all of the desktop developers
and all the distro developers do that make all of this possible.
But every now and then, somebody with some influence comes along and reaches
a new audience, kind of breaks into a new demographic.
And this is really exciting to watch. And we've talked about DHH before.

(03:51):
He's created the Omicube project.
He's extremely prolific in the Ruby community. Their company is 32 Signals,
right, Wes? And they make the Basecamp product.
Yeah, Basecamp and also, hey, the email system now.
Right. And it was a little bit ago in episode 566, Chef's Choice Ubuntu,

(04:12):
we talked about Omicube, where he had created a spin of Ubuntu,
targeted at developers, maybe coming from the Mac.
And it was an interesting product project and it got it got some attention and it got some users,
and he's he's continued his journey because he's a 25 year mac user who's really

(04:33):
kind of realized recently that for the type of work he does maybe there's other
options out there besides mac and windows and so we saw the first versions of
this with omacube and it seemed nice we liked it Obviously,
it was an Ubuntu base with some things that could be improved.
It was a GNOME desktop experience. It was fine.
It didn't rock us. It didn't disappoint us. We thought it was a good first attempt.

(04:57):
And I think like many of us, DHH has continued this Linux journey.
You find your footing in Linux, and then you kind of expand out from there.
Maybe you start with an Ubuntu or a Mandrake, and then you try out a Fedora, or you try out Arch.
I wonder, too, you know, before this, DHH kind of famously moved a lot of his
companies off the cloud and doing more, like, dedicated server hosting.

(05:19):
So I wonder, too, if there's some empowerment on that side leading,
like, hmm, with a little polish and making a couple custom tools,
I can really get this Linux thing to wherever I need it.
Yeah, I bet. I bet that sort of was an eye-opener. And I think,
too, when you start playing with Linux, when you've been, say,
a Windows user or a Mac user for a long time,
if it works for you and you stick with it, you kind of discover there's this

(05:41):
whole world of stuff out there, all these desktop environments,
all these distros you can play with.
And it gets really tempting, and you just kind of want to keep playing.
And you discover things that might be even better than what you started with.
And I suspect for DHH and the way he works, he discovered Arch and Hyperland,
and it kind of unlocked something in his brain.
And from that discovery process, he puts it, he just sort of went all in.

(06:03):
And he's taken about 60 hours of research and testing of different setups to
try to make like this ultimate, better than a Mac replacement for a developer workstation.
And he's compiled all of that into essentially a script you can run on a base
Archbox and create his next project, which is Oma Archie or Oma Archie.

(06:24):
So you had Oma Cube and now we have Oma Archie. And this is an Arch-based system
that uses Hyperland for the desktop environment.
They describe it as a very opinionated Arch Hyperland setup by DHH,
which we will talk about that.
But on X, he recently wrote, OmaArch is ready. It's Hyperland plus Arch,
and it's never been so easy.

(06:46):
Everything comes pre-configured, pre-installed, and with six beautiful themes
in the box. This is the smoothest and most pleasant operating system I've ever had under my fingers.
Wow.
Coming in hot in classic dhh style
you it's kind of great i mean regardless of the claims and if you agree and
if you like his style and setup it's just wonderful to watch someone be excited

(07:07):
about linux i mean we obviously all are in the audiences but the amount we still
all come at when we go to meetups and like look other nerds they like what we
like i'm getting strong vibes with that again here and i'm just here for it.
Yeah i have to say it's nice for a change to see someone just purely excited
about linux we see a lot of people complaining or whatever that something's

(07:27):
not working or their project is going in a direction they don't like but,
i've mostly just seen like pure joy about the discovery of linux and it is so nice i'll.
Tell you there's a meta theme that is unraveling here that i really like that
i'm seeing just sort of like play out because oma archie seems to be hitting
different than omacube did it's making even a bigger splash and it seems to

(07:50):
be catching an eye of a larger wave of users,
And I find this to be remarkable because Omicube is focused at first-timers,
people that are just coming to Linux.
And Oma Archie is theoretically targeted at more advanced users,
people already familiar with Linux.
However, we have been monitoring multiple reports across different social media

(08:11):
networks of people who I would describe as brand new to Linux that are choosing
to go straight to the Arch-based system, Oma Archie.
Here, Evelyn Perkins I'm sorry, I'm probably getting that wrong On X wrote, alright,
Oma Archie is quite something It's been a while since I've last used Linux As
a daily driver, but Oma Archie Is a breeze, it's snappy, it's intuitive And

(08:32):
it's a joy to use Sure, I had some personal tweaks here and there,
like adding Ghostry And it's a dream machine now,
Tahilas said on X I'm a designer using Macs
for the past 14 years I have no Linux experience I decided to jump straight
into Oma Archie And I'm loving it i've already made a small theme for myself
and i've added some key binds and i'm using s-a-t-t-y to emulate clean shot

(08:54):
i've replaced dropbox with own cloud on way bar etc wow.
Brand new people that already feel comfortable like swapping parts out and stuff
like that to make it their own.
I find this to be really interesting they were not intimidated by the fact that
it's described as the more technical version in fact dhh himself says go to

(09:15):
omacube don't use omargy This is too hard.
And they went, okay, I want the hard one. I want the one that doesn't look anything
like what I'm used to using.
And DHH was interviewed recently. We'll put a link to the interview.
And he has some thoughts on why that might be and why Alma Archie,
that we're using Hyperland that doesn't look anything like a Mac or doesn't

(09:35):
look anything like Windows,
might be drawing more people in than the desktops that look like something they're familiar with.
And I think in this attention culture that we're in, How do you grab someone?
You can try to grab them with lofty visions of open source and why it's better
to own your operating system. And it totally gets some folks.
And then there's an even larger group of people who just go like,

(09:57):
yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get it that someday.
But if you can hook them with some sizzle and you can hook them with,
wait, wait, what's this?
This is really cool. This looks amazing. This looks different.
It works different. I think that might actually be more compelling,
more convincing than going like, oh, no, no, it's super easy.

(10:17):
You're going to get exactly what you already had.
I've come to the conclusion that maybe we've been going around this a bit the back way.
We've been trying to make it oh so easy, oh so the same.
And in an attempt of that, we've kind of just lost sight of why would someone even do it then?
Why would they do it? They do it for the lofty ideals and you're going to get

(10:40):
some hardcore folks with that.
This is, there's something else here, and I can feel it.
He's right. What he can feel is that Linux distributions for far too long have
been focused on this mythical new user that does not exist.
Our next layer of demographic are these web developers and software developers,

(11:00):
Ruby developers, and Python developers that are on Macs and that are on Windows.
But they know how to use their computer. They know how to do a config file.
They're not scared of this stuff. In fact, some of them probably know more about
this stuff than us Linux users do.
DHH wrote, Mainstream Linux distros have been focused for too long on being
as similar to Windows and Mac as possible to ease adoption.

(11:23):
I've come to believe this isn't the way.
Linux needs to embrace its own aesthetic, its own ethos, unapologetically.
Lean into Rice and Tuohys.
Did you say Tuohys?
Tuohys! that's another thing that's happening here is
there's this movement of maybe you don't need some perfect graphical desktop
application that matches your desktop environment maybe all you need is a terminal

(11:48):
and a tui and maybe these tuis do just enough they're simple they're powerful
they're not confusing they're not getting constantly redesigned a.
Simpler aspect of the of the theming right like just by picking a consistent
color scheme not necessarily consistent like uh you know window toolkit or framework
you can have that kind of uh simpler version of the same thing that we've come

(12:11):
to expect but with a lot less work.
Bren are you surprised at the reports we're seeing of folks that you know 20
year mac user 25 mac 25 year mac user five years on windows after leaving the
mac and now i'm sick with windows these reports were seen i think our instinct
would have been to send them to gnome or plasma i.
Mean that has been the traditional path is send

(12:33):
them to a place where there's tons of support right you
can find documents on anything that goes wrong on
those platforms tons of people who are happy with those platforms it's well
understood etc etc etc so i am pleasantly surprised that hype a project like
hyperland which i don't know seems like it has an extra difficulty to get into

(12:56):
because it's like super custom very
opinionated, etc. It's tiling out of the box.
Well, you have to be opinionated. You need to be opinionated.
That's always been my problem with Hyperland is I don't have an opinion.
I need somebody to show me what it's capable of and then I'll develop an opinion.
Which is where this fits perfectly, doesn't it? And that was my challenge when
we came to Hyperland when we explored it a little while ago was I didn't even know where to start.

(13:18):
And yet this seems like it's really attracting a lot of people who have the
same goals as someone like DHH to just kind of step in, try it, and work from there.
Wes, do you think maybe it's because it's a different kind of simple,
right? It's not simple in how you change a setting or how you navigate it necessarily,
but it's simple in its scope.

(13:39):
It's simple in what it's trying to accomplish, right? When you look at Gnome
and Plasma and they're trying to recreate a full desktop, these are complex,
complicated pieces of software.
Hyperland is more modern. It's a lot more minimal. It's not trying to do as
much. You bring your own apps you're already familiar with.
So maybe it's a different kind of simplicity that's appealing to this user-based type?

(14:01):
Yeah. I mean, it's a tool you can learn, and the surface area isn't that large.
And when you pair it with something like Omarchi, that's already kind of put
the pieces together that you were going to have to discover, right?
One of the big problems in this part of it is sort of like, okay,
well, the whole idea is I put together the pieces I want and I customize them.
But like what, as you're saying, what even are the options that I can do?

(14:24):
Especially if you're not familiar with the idea of different desktop environments
to begin with. So if you're coming into an environment that has like, oh, here's Bluetooth.
Yes, you can see where your Wi-Fi is. Yes, you can easily launch apps.
Yeah so you can get to a terminal really quick then on
top of that it's yes there's a learning curve but it's
kind of like the vi key bindings learning curve
where it really pays off where

(14:47):
once you know it and if you are a person who uses a
computer for work and like actually have stuff to
get done and sometimes dealing with the
window manager or just like getting stuff going or
arranged or in the right place on your desktop is that all
slowing you down i mean you should watch dhh work on this thing because and
this isn't right this isn't new to linux users or tiling window manager this

(15:10):
but just you can see them fly through it and that's a super satisfying thing
and it rewards the work you put in in a way that other systems don't necessarily there's.
Another thing that strikes me about all of this what we're
seeing succeed here isn't a
corporate backed distro and it isn't a corporate backed desktop
the biggest corporate backer arch

(15:33):
linux has is valve and they're very much focused in their own domain in their
own specific niche and uh vaxry certainly doesn't have a corporate sponsor it's
dhh is probably one of his largest supporters now so it's to me remarkable that
these two combinations are seeming to be a winning recipe here.

(15:54):
And I just, I want to reflect on that for a moment that it's not a corporate
back distro and it's not a corporate back desktop.
It's like a celebrity back distro.
Well, what I mean is, um,
You know, Arch is winning hearts and minds over Ubuntu,
and I'm not trying to carve Ubuntu out, but when you think about the Steam Deck

(16:18):
and how they switched from a Steam runtime based on Ubuntu and for the Steam
Deck switched to an Arch base, that was a big moment.
And Valve seems very excited and interested in Arch.
And now you see the same thing happening with DHH. He started with Ubuntu,
and now he's found Arch, and he's very excited about Arch.
And these new people they're bringing over, they love the AUR and stuff.

(16:41):
They're loving having everything available at the command line to install.
And that's how they're able to build these scripts to build out Omar Archie
and whatnot is because of the AUR.
And I just find it, Arch is doing something right. It seems to be appealing
to more and more types of users even though it doesn't have a CEO telling it
these are our top KPIs for the next quarter.

(17:02):
Do you think you can put your finger on what it is about Arch other than the AUR that...
Um be causing this trajectory.
I mean i think part of it like you touched on it's simple
and it's darn fast right plus you
pair that with the existing arch wiki so there's sort of
instructions for what you need to do and when you actually need to

(17:24):
do something it's easy and it's
simple and it's and it's fast like it just does not get into your way
and i think while other systems that
you come into might have like oh you you feel that more like
everything is more completely solved or like the edge cases are
really covered but to like understand how
to tweak it or modify it there's a lot more you have to learn and

(17:44):
i think in this case again it's like you're going
to get rewarded because there's not that much happening with
arch and most of it is really just packaging upstream stuff and so
once you've seen it strung together and you've got instructions for
how to modify it or tweak it right like the aur and
package builds work because they're also very simple it's basically
a bash script with some you know a bunch of helpers to
make it easy and a whole lot of recipes you can copy and

(18:08):
arch you know with their keep it simple stupid
sort of mentality i mean you know i like
more niche things like nix and very opinionated and
philosophical sometimes but like arch is just very
pragmatic right they don't have thoughts on purity that are going to get in
the way of you running running whatever random thing you download that's why
half the you know um package builds out there are extracting app images or deb's

(18:32):
and you could pretty much get them to work on arch so i think it's just a very
compatible hackable ecosystem as well i.
Wonder if the pace of development of arch and also it's like lean towards modern
software like quick updates and updates you can get right away is part of the
reason as well especially for developers.
Right you do get good hardware enable with that right you.

(18:55):
Get latest kernel stuff i think that makes it special you're trying to run it
on like a new framework or a new B-Link kind of thing.
And then you combine that with the AUR, it's a nice package.
In fact, it was really, really nice, I have to say, revisiting Arch this week
when we gave it a go, which we did, and we'll share our thoughts on that.
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Well, as you heard there, we gave Omarchi a try this week.
Now, we saw that there are some suggestions DHH gives for Linux hardware that
might work really well for this.
And works really well for other Linuxes, too. So he suggested things like the

(21:37):
B-Link, which we've had our eye on for a while. There's one sitting right here
in front of me. The Framework, he also likes.
But he also recommends like Mini's Forum stuff, System76, Tuxedo Computers.
But the main one that he recommends is the b-links in the framework 13 and also
i guess he's got a desktop he likes a lot so we did the right thing this week
and uh pulled out the old odroid h4 plus that i've had collecting dust here

(22:02):
from building a project server and uh we threw it on that.
This thing it's such a nice little machine the odroid
is such a great small size and brent has a mini itx adapter for it so it's like
a little computer that uh just you know it's gonna be great for a nas we'll
talk about that more later um and we did talk a little bit in self-host 138
i think dhh would like the o droid h4 if you looked at it it's essentially an

(22:27):
all intel system that's silent,
um it just requires a little diy uh but of course arch is a total breeze to
install on that thing it's absolutely no problem and maybe we should start there
arch has gotten way nicer to install,
You just, when it boots up now, because that was one of the things I was wondering, by the way.
It's like, how are all these guys that have never ran Linux getting going on Arch so easily?

(22:51):
Well, because all you got to do now is type in Arch installer,
and you get a quite nice NCurses installer that walks you through all the basic
questions and manages to give you a pretty powerful setup.
This is not your grandpappy's Chris Lass Arch, no, no.
This was the first time you used that installer, Chris. And throughout the process,
you were like, wait wait wait wait this is so easy.

(23:13):
I loved it i loved it and i'm so it doesn't need to be
graphical it doesn't need to be it just needs to be competent and
and just enough and so i got you know a
really nice butterfs with sub volume set up uh the
networking was all set up and uh it was just a minimal mvp install of arch which
is all you really need because once you have a basic arch install or you can

(23:33):
do it from an existing arch but once you have a basic arch install you just
you know do the right thing and w get that script throw it right into bash and
uh it should be safe No problem at all.
One little note here while you're installing that I thought was interesting
was that Omarchi requires disk encryption.
That's just as it's designed. And I thought, you know, me and encryption,

(23:54):
I think that's a really nice thing.
Because why not use it everywhere? So I thought that was a nice,
you know, this is a, I don't know, I'm doing air quotes distro because are we calling it that yet?
But it's a distro that is opinionated. And I like this opinion.
It's not a distro yet.
I think he mentioned it is a goal. It's tricky.
I wonder if there's some issues with software distribution because he's distributing

(24:16):
a lot of different types of software and technically you're running the script
and pulling those things down.
So there may be a difference there in distribution.
I don't use encryption by default unless it's a very specific system,
but the logic makes sense here.
They set up auto-login by default and so they just want the system to be a little more protected.
I think it works too in the sense that the systems I don't care about having

(24:38):
auto-login on are also the ones I don't care about encryption on and sort of vice versa.
Yeah, that's probably true. It's worth 10 minutes reading through the manual.
They've set up a nice, simple manual that gives you kind of the overview of
the tools they've selected. Again, it's opinionated.
And the key bindings that are set up, and there's a lot of them.
And some of the defaults that you should know about and the way to execute applications.

(25:00):
So the manual, it's lean, mean, and great.
So I want to give a big plug for that. We'll have links to that in the show
notes because you're going to need that.
You are, because you really can't do anything until you know at least some of
the keyboard shortcuts, because by default, you can't actually click on anything
to get much to happen besides, I don't know, maybe setting up Bluetooth.
Yeah, there's a couple of icons you can click to get like, you know, Btop and whatnot.

(25:21):
But it is a keyboard first environment. It's meant for you to embrace the keyboard.
Obviously, you can use the mouse inside your applications and whatnot,
but manipulating the windows, launching applications, changing their location,
all their size, all of that, it's meant to be done with the keyboard.
So you want to just take a minute to go over those.
You know i was hesitant to be just thrown into hyperland

(25:42):
by default like this because the last time we tried hyperland i
kind of bounced off it pretty pretty hard but coming back to the manual again
it's a actually one of the best introductions i've seen to hyperland and like
how to come to a tiling window manager like this and not bounce off it immediately
and so i would argue it was one of

(26:03):
the best descriptions of how to embrace Hyperland and that style of dealing
with applications and moving Windows around.
So I would, even if you're not gonna use this, if you're interested in Hyperland
and finding success with Hyperland, it's a good place to start.
Yeah, it gives you an idea of what you can do with it. And that was what I really
appreciated about this is it gave me a sense of, oh, okay, so this is how I

(26:26):
could configure Hyperland.
And boy, it is smooth. It is really nice.
I liked a lot of the options. Using LazyVim, I think it's nice. It's a nice touch.
Having NeoVim set up in their TUIs like LazyDocker and whatnot and LazyGit are
included. I think that's really great to see.

(26:46):
Some of the design seems like it's really more focused at people coming from
Macs. You noticed the Chrome zoom issue?
Oh, I did.
Yeah, that's, I think, because a lot of people that are coming from Macs that
are high DPI. And so some of these things just expect you to have a pixel double display.
You mean the display I plugged into the O-Droid is not compatible with that?
No. See, some of those things didn't quite work right.

(27:08):
You can tell because they also ship the specific Apple display brightness control utility.
Yes. Yeah, Wes, so there's an element of this that I'm sure they've received
a lot of feedback about because they have an FAQ on the website that's like,
how do I remove the software I don't use?
There's a lot that gets included that I don't use from, you know,

(27:29):
just a whole litany of things.
I'm wondering how you felt about that as somebody who usually,
you know, is very specific, has very specific control over the software that goes on their machine.
How do you, how do you feel about that process?
Yeah, it's not necessarily my favorite out of the box. I think it is very much
optimized for like, this is the machine I use for my corporate development work, right?
Where I need Zoom because I do Zoom meetings and one password to log

(27:52):
into my company's account and you know a bunch of things
like that so for my personal development work
yeah not exactly optimized but i will say right
like at the end of the day this is just a series of pretty
nice bash scripts with different
you know essentially modules for the different components so uh not only can
you of course rely on you know pac-man and yay to remove things at that level

(28:16):
if you'd like to after the fact you could definitely fork it and comment things
out or add on stuff that you want to install that doesn't get included by default.
Yeah, it is a bash script. And so you could just modify the bash script. And...
I'm just going to take a moment. We'll just go down this lane just for a moment.
This is where you begin to go, oh, if DHH understood what Nix was,

(28:39):
we wouldn't be doing this with Bash.
And DHH does not understand what Nix is. He posted on social media,
he said, quote, I don't think Nix OS is for me.
Where I think Nix can fit in supremely well is for isolated development environments.
Basically what DevM is doing.
So he seems to maybe grasp like, five

(29:00):
percent of it but it hasn't clicked and i
i only bring this up because out of all of
the people out there where nix is a good use case people building
systems like this have got to be at the absolute top of
the list right like i'm i'm number 25 on
the list and i'm very satisfied when i use it he should be
like number one or two on the list so i really do hope that his journey continues

(29:22):
and that after he you know has exhausted his excitement with arch he does take
another look at nixos because if he distributed this as a module where i could
just turn certain things on or off it would be absolutely chef's kiss perfect.
Yeah it would take hackability and shareability i
think to the next level and then one thing too is it would be kind of maybe

(29:44):
an optimization in the sense that the plus side
to having everything be separate bash scripts is like i said
right it's pretty easy to modify in terms of just disabling them removing them
adding stuff to it the downside is they each
just run right like it goes through and does each of the bash scripts
that it needs to do and that means each one of those doesn't have any idea about
which other ones are running and it doesn't do anything fancy like compile the

(30:07):
total list of packages to install after running all them so what actually happens
is each module does its own like pac-man and yay build which doesn't make anything
faster it also makes me wonder like how well does Is this more,
how much item potency can you bake in in terms of like changes or updates?
Is it going to be easier to just pave an arch system and install a newer version

(30:28):
if there's radical changes versus be able to involve a place? I don't know.
Right. How does it deal with AUR rot and things like that, too, are a question.
But, you know, when we were going through it, a couple of things aired out.
And it made me realize, too, if this was a Nix process, it would build.
And it would verify it builds before it actually implemented. and

(30:48):
that would also mean that all of the updates the DHH
ships would be atomic and would be built and then you
people would switch over to them and so system system updates going forward
would be more reliable for all the OMA Archie or OMA Nix users so the the two
things that I missed setting up is that it doesn't it like Wes said each individual
component and process isn't really aware of the other so there isn't like a

(31:10):
global check and build that verifies everything's working and everything's available.
And then there isn't this sort of atomic update and check down the road as they
issue more updates. And they've already done a round of updates.
And one of the things too, that as a system builder, if DHH is listening to
this, they recently just switched from VLC to MPV. Great choice.
With Nix, when you switch to MPV, it was like VLC never existed on that system.

(31:36):
Like it was never there. It was never in the DNA of the system at all.
It's gone. And if you change out any other component, it's like that as well.
It's very clean. It's surgical. And the one thing you will find with Arch over
time, you might not want to remove a lot of software.
As you start uninstalling things on Arch, as you have more things installed,
it will start to get a little gamey with you. And you'll have to start answering

(32:01):
questions and doing some dances.
Those scenarios do not, will not, cannot exist in Nix. It's very clean.
Because you're building essentially a new state. One that VLC never existed, now MPP exists.
And so that is built like it was always that way. And it's so elegant.
And especially when you're distributing software. Okay.

(32:21):
End of the Nix diversion. I just, I had to make that point if you're building
a system. It seems like the way to go. But, that aside.
I thought, really well put together system if I just took off things like I
don't need Zoom. I don't need a couple of other things.
And I do like a couple of things that were included. Like the Web2 app,
I think, is a really nice addition.

(32:43):
It's essentially, I think it's a bash script that creates a local-looking application
out of a website. It creates a .desktop launcher.
It downloads a PNG icon. It looks really great.
It was also extremely easy to
use. I made a little web app out of the JB website in about three minutes.
And this has been a feature you've been asking for, Chris, for years now.

(33:05):
Yeah. So I think it's, I don't know. So I'm not saying all the additions are bad.
I think some of them are actually really great. Wes, what about anything you
saw that you're like, oh, I don't know if this is going to work or anything
you thought was really nice to see added?
I thought it was interesting that they're using Mise as a mise en place, which is,
not really a Nix alternative, not really a brew alternative,

(33:29):
but is specifically targeted at developers.
And maybe you've seen things like RBN, basically, hey, I'm working on different
projects, and they each need a slightly different version of Python or Ruby or Node.js.
And the kind of thing that like
your, you know, the system package manager isn't really optimized for.
And so Mies has got all of that, including included also as like Elixir,

(33:52):
there's a wide language support so it can install those things and manage them
per project for you and it can also handle environmental variables secrets and
it's got a task runner kind of like just or make all built into um one little app.
That is a pretty clever inclusion i like

(34:12):
that um the other there's other just small things
that they've done so they have super keys to go right
to a music player so super m launches spotify i'd probably
swap that out to something else uh super t launches
your activity monitor super g launches
signal super d launches lazy docker super o launches obsidian there's a lot

(34:34):
of little things you can map to these hotkeys and once you learn this i would
love like some sort of printout of all of this you really can move on the system
so i'd say probably after two hours of playing with it i felt like i wasn't
even going to my mouse and then,
i was in a chat and i realized that they have mapped uh hotkeys for emojis yeah.
So useful yeah.

(34:54):
Yeah and so they use the cap locks key cap locks ms is a smile right or like
cap lock key and then m h is a heart emoji lock yeah it's yeah caps lock is
now the emoji lock key basically it's so fun you'll.
Also notice that when you uh when you get installed it asks for your name and
email because that is also set up with an auto-completion key,

(35:17):
which I think maybe says something about DHH's general workflows.
I think a lot of this, I'm like, I think I got a lot of impressions of his workflow
through this, actually.
I do want to add really quick that the Wofi, the launcher, is very nice.
And, you know, with the rest of the theming, which DHH did a great job with,
it really integrates nicely.
I mean, you don't need it a ton once you learn all the shortcuts or add your

(35:39):
own, but as a fallback, that's just right there.
I mean, it's, you know, giving krunner a good run for its money yeah i agree.
One thing i'm enjoying about these like hyper
opinionated versions of linux is that we
get a little tiny peer into how someone uses their computer and you know that's
one of my favorite things like just watching west solve a problem is a very

(35:59):
different way than i would approach it and you learn new things so like these
little shortcuts for instance is like oh wait i can integrate that into my computing
life And my lifestyle gets better.
And so I hope we get to see more of these from more people. Like there are lessons
learned on how to do this maybe a little bit better.
Or that will be more well supported in the future you know when you think we're

(36:22):
trying it today but what happens six months down the road when this is like
crufty and stuff but but i want to get more like insights into how people are
using their computers it.
Is it is out of all of the you know distro isn't it yet but out of all of the
custom linux desktop setups it's the one where i feel like you're the most connected
with its creator and you have the most insight into how he uses his computer.

(36:43):
And I think A, DHH is a well-known figure in the Mac community,
the Mac development community.
And B, since he's a 25 plus year Mac user, he's probably just by osmosis shaped
the way he sort of views his workflow.
And that I imagine is true for a lot of other developers that have been on the
Mac workflow for a long time.
So because he was sort of a Mac native creating a Linux workflow,

(37:06):
I think he's created something that appeals to so many of those same
people like i i saw i saw on reddit somebody that
uh you know they have a mac studio and they
went out on amazon and for like the cost of
the upgrade of ram on their mac studio they bought an entire b-link computer
amazing the entire computer hooked it up to their apple display and put omar

(37:26):
g on there and they're using that now and they they got it you know they spent
they spent all that money they spent like you know several grand on a mac studio
and now they're using like a 600 dollar b-link.
It kind of breaks down the value proposition of the apple ecosystem a bit doesn't it.
Yeah i mean i i hope apple's paying attention well
actually i don't i don't i i
like it and i what's also what's so great about it is it's winning because it's

(37:52):
not competing on apple same terms right like what you're seeing here the framework
that's an anti-macbook the b-link it's an anti-mac right you can open up those
b-links you can put your own memory and you can You can put your own hard drive in.
You can put multiple hard drives in them. They're the ant, and they're cheap.
They're as much as component upgrades for an entire Mac. So like they're the anti-Mac, right?

(38:13):
The Hyperland interface and all of this stuff that they're installing.
It's so anti-Apple. There's no App Store involved. There's no Gatekeeper at
all. It's all free software. It's all maintained and getting updated.
It's the antithesis of the Mac in its interface and how you use it, how it's distributed.
And yet it's winning. That's what's brought these people over.

(38:34):
We have created, well, not we, the world of free software. And then DHH has
brought it all together and created something that's like the anti-Mac.
And that's what's appealing to these people.
Well, I wonder if they're realizing that they've reached the limits of what
the Mac is offering them,
much like I did when I moved to Linux, and then seeing like,
oh, wait, if I just have a little bit of a learning curve, like you do on any

(38:55):
new pieces of hardware or software that you use, you get a whole new set of superpowers. Yeah.
You got to go into it accepting the premise it's going to be different and that
you're not looking for one-to-one replacements. But if you're lucky,
you may find something that's even better, that's even more efficient,
that helps you get work done.
So, man, it's exciting to watch.

(39:16):
And I was excited when Omicube came out. And it's nice to see this hasn't faded,
this passion and this drive.
And then when he does this, you see this whole wave of people.
I mean, we could sit here and I could read you 30 different posts that I collected
over the last week and a half of people talking about switching.
It's just absolutely bonkers. So great work from DHH.
I thought it was interesting watching him comment on it and just that one of

(39:39):
the things that stood out for him is he got excited seeing stuff on Unix porn and people's setup,
and seeing that like the potential was there, sort of acknowledging all that
Linux could do and seeing like, oh, this really just needs more visibility and
a bit of the stumbling blocks removed.
And he sort of saw himself as being in a perfect position to solve both of those.

(40:01):
And then goes and pours, what'd you say, 60 plus hours of work into that.
And I think kind of hit it out of the park.
Unraid.net slash self-hosted. Unraid is a powerful, easy-to-use operating system
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It makes the most out of your hardware, no matter what you have on hand.

(40:24):
Really, the possibilities are limitless with Unraid. You hear us talk about
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(40:47):
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Including sharing amongst multiple VMs and making templates for those VMs really easy.
Obviously, they support things like XFS and ZFS if you want to do some fancy
ZFS file system stuff. In fact, one of the things I think is really useful is

(41:11):
they will import your existing ZFS pool from, say, like a FreeNAS or Ubuntu or Proxmox.
That is really nice. It also makes it really simple to get Windows going in a VM.
If you want something that maybe you have one Windows box on your network that's
just contained in a VM and then you want remote access to it.
And maybe it has access to a GPU that you also put in your Unraid.
You can start playing around with that too. And of course, all of the Steam

(41:33):
Valve streaming stuff, absolutely there's applications for that.
Jellyfin, Plex, NextCloud, Home Assistant, it's all there. And I think what's
really great about Unraid is they're built on top of modern Linux.
So that means like with the most recent version, great wireless support right out of the box.
They're not doing that thing where they ship like some super ancient kernel

(41:54):
and they just like apply all their crazy out-of-band patches on top of that.
They're really smart about this. And they have a real revenue model here that
makes the development of this actually sustainable.
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(42:17):
a system that you can rely on that's built well, doesn't have all these crazy,
crazy, crazy layers of stuff in between there.
It all just makes sense with good common sense stuff you can deploy on your
own when you need to, like, you know, standard troubleshooting skills backed
by a great community, something I don't really mention enough.
They have such a great active community over there as well. So go check it out. Support the show.

(42:40):
Get it for free for 30 days. No credit card required. It's Unraid.
Unleash your hardware at unraid.net slash unplugged.
Well, Chris, you've now spent a week up north. I'm wondering,
do you have any observations, perhaps, that have occurred to you,
or any oddities you'd like to share with the show?

(43:00):
You know, Wes, I don't know if this is uncouth, but we came straight to Brent's
family property, met the family, and I gotta say, Wes, all these Canadians look
alike to me. They, I mean, almost identical.
It's really something. So there's that. That's been strange.
Like, it's hard to tell them apart. I have to be honest with you.
That sounds offensive, but in this case, I think it's actually true.

(43:22):
You know something's been on my mind during our travels here because you know
as always you take some time off and then like a whole bunch of stuff goes on
and uh in the last week or so one of the largest youtubers in the world pewdiepie
discovered arch discovered graphene os
discovered self-hosting and you know sovereignty and data and things like that

(43:44):
and of course we just talked about dhh and discovering arch linux and hyperland
and things like that i guess i thought Nobody was ever going to talk about these
things but us and the Linux community in general.
Because it just seemed like these topics that we've been talking about for four
or five years, we're just never going to break into the next echelon of community and conversation.

(44:04):
The next wider group of users.
And then PewDiePie comes along and he manages to make a successful video around
graphing OS and Arch and rising his setup.
And it made me realize that we were early by years to some of these things.

(44:26):
We were so early that it's to our deficit. It's to our own self-harm.
Because we talk about these things before they're
interesting to a wider population which because what it means is we're
making things that for an audience that is that is smart enough to
understand and appreciate why talking about these things before

(44:48):
everybody else is important and that's what made me
realize how much this show is going
to only live or die on support from
this audience because we are making a show for such a niche like
i i we talk about things so early so ahead of the rest of the mainstream that
i actually just thought the rest of the mainstream was never going to talk about
these things because it's been years and i just thought okay well this is just

(45:11):
to our little circle this is
just for us to know but no it does eventually break through we were just,
early which means you as a listener were early which means we're making content
for a very select group of people and that group of people if they want to keep
it going we need their support so i'm so grateful for our members who do support
this show some of you signed up after our member special preview last week.

(45:34):
We could use some more. I think that promo is still going from last week.
And then, of course, we have folks that boost us and support each individual episode. And...
This is a very unique product in this sense. And that's what I realized.
When we start seeing PewDiePie and these others talk about this stuff,
we were so, so early that only a few of you weird ones got it and have listened

(45:56):
and supported us. And I'm very grateful. Thank you, everybody.
And we do have some boost to get into in that regard because you can support
each episode with an entirely open stack using peer-to-peer software with a boost.
And Fountain FM has had some major improvements.
Totally new playback UI, brilliant refactoring of the library,

(46:19):
architecture tweaks that save battery life.
And now if you're a premium member too, you can have one open up right to your
library, not the home feed.
And they're making it easier and easier to boost for first timers and long timers.
So if you've ever thought about trying out Fountain FM and you want all the,
you know, the transcripts, the chapters and all that stuff and the boosting,
it's a great time to boost and try out Fountain.

(46:41):
And we have a boost from Mr. Turd Ferguson, who is our baller booster this week.
44,880 sats says, I hope you enjoyed the week off. Did you do anything fun? Yes. We went swimming.
We went hiking. Well, not much hiking, but we had to hike to go swimming.

(47:03):
He says, if you guys were traveling back to the 80s and could only bring one
piece of modern technology, which would you bring with you?
Ooh.
Wow.
At first I thought cell phone, but it's kind of pointless because you wouldn't
have a way to charge it necessarily.
Yeah, then I thought laptop, but internet is not really widely distributed or anything like that.

(47:24):
Like there's no data. There'd be no cellular data. so there's really no point
in having a cellular phone, or a lap, well maybe a laptop,
What would you do with it?
Would you bring your ASP32s?
Yeah, but there's no Wi-Fi to connect to.
Oh, yeah. God, I keep forgetting that.
Yeah, I think you guys are forgetting that this is as much a smuggling operation as anything else.
So if you do bring a laptop, right, you can include the Linux kernel source

(47:47):
code on that laptop, as well as maybe some minor stock price, you know, data.
And then you'll be able to be the creator of Linux. And then,
Chris, you can, you know, approve whatever you want for the kernel.
You're right. That's how I get BcacheFS in earlier. I like this,
Biff. That's a good plan.
In fact, that's how you could just, you could become Sneaky the top contributor.

(48:08):
You know, or like the Bitcoin white paper, you stick that on the laptop too.
Ooh.
I think the play though is more like a Star Trek villain play where you want
to like accumulate a piece of technology that you can like reverse engineer
over your lifetime and just keep getting rich and rich and rich as you like,
you know, reveal one more piece of like a robot hand or like a chip or something

(48:32):
like that you know what i'm saying like that's the move so when i'm thinking
about that kind of thing i'm almost wondering like,
what about a uh like an automobile like a modern day automobile because they
got computers they got combustion you know like parts in there for the engine
like there's stuff in there that you can get rich off for the rest of your life so as.
You were saying that i was imagining like the mars rover and the mars helicopter.

(48:53):
Because they.
Got some fancy stuff.
In there I'm thinking that's the way to go. It's like a whole vehicle.
Because these things are basically cars on computers now, right? So that's my thinking.
Thank you, Turd. Appreciate the boost.
Otter Brain boosts in with 10,000 sats.

(49:14):
Inspired by the two-week challenge, I took a deep dive into NeoVim configuration on NixOS.
Really, a rabbit hole of telescope, tree sitter, and lap.
I eventually discovered NixVim. Wes, have you seen this?
Greatly simplified and tidied up my configuration. I mean, Helix is great too,

(49:34):
but I really get that little squirt of dopamine customizing a tool.
Is there a name for this condition?
Yeah, what is that? When you're on that, yeah, I love that.
That dialed in ever so right.
The dopamine configuration.
I have not yet tried Nixvim.
Wes, you know about it, but Brent, you know about it too. You both,
you guys have seen it, but don't use it? Like, come on.
Well, during the TUI challenge, I, as you know, tried to dive into learning

(49:59):
Vim and I decided, well, like these NeoVim people must know what they're doing,
so I'm going to dive in there.
Maybe they have some sane defaults and then immediately ran into,
oh yeah, I got to customize this thing.
And so I did find Nixvim and I thought, it sounds amazing. like exactly the
thing we want to get and would make this much easier if you happen to be on Nix OS.

(50:20):
But then I spent about another 30 minutes deciding that I was just going down
a massive rabbit hole and I was going to very quickly lose the TUI challenge
doing this. But I did put a little note.
I just choose to use a desktop OS that isn't so complicated.
It needs its own Vim editor. That's all. So I don't have that problem.
Interesting.
Yeah, I'm trying to, I've so far avoided a complicated NeoVim setup.

(50:44):
I'm partially afraid of that exact reason, Brent. But yeah, I do think NyxVim
would be what I would use were I or to eventually go down that path.
We did see a couple notes from listeners who were doing the Tui Challenge after
our episode who also mentioned that NyxVim was a nice place to land.
Well, we received a row of ducks from a dude trying stuff.

(51:07):
Howdy, y'all, from the big TX, medium-time listener, first-time booster.
Hey, thank you!
So, sort of some newbie questions about the show here. First one,
why does Brent hate building computers?
Do you hate building computers, Brent?
I think there might be a little clip of me suggesting I might.
I think you love building computers. Can we get that?

(51:28):
Well, you know, you and I built a computer together this morning.
That's true, we did.
And it was a computer, I have to admit, I tried to build previously and forgot
that I needed to buy a hard drive and memory for it.
So it's been sitting like literally on my tea station for the last four months, maybe.

(51:49):
Did you see the ending here? P.S. You all got me to watch baseballs. Oh, that's so great.
The whole show is just for that.
So, thank you, by the way, for the first-time boost. Always appreciate that.
There's a last question here if you want to see if you can answer it, Chris.

(52:09):
I don't know if you know this one. Why don't we go through all of them?
Why is Tuesday, why is it a Tuesday on a Sunday?
So the show used to be on Tuesdays. And, you know, they used to end the show
See You Next Tuesday. And I always liked that better than See You Next Sunday.
So I just wanted to keep it. And so it's a Tuesday on a Sunday.
I'm glad that you watch baseballs.
If anyone else has any other questions on what the heck we're doing over here, please send them in.

(52:35):
It can be a little weird at first, I suppose. Thank you for the boost.
Nice to hear from you, a dude trying stuff. Podbun comes in with a row of ducks.
I've moved to Linux Mint from Nix due to issues with NVIDIA drivers.
I wanted to play games and it refused to work. I'm listening to episode 616 on June 27th.
On the 27th, June shot. Oh, it's July now. Oh, my gosh.

(52:56):
Yeah, episode 616 was From Boston to Bootsy. So that's our Boston episode.
Doing a little time travel check-in. Thank you, Podbun. I always appreciate that.
I'm sorry to hear you had NVIDIA drivers, but if Linux has been solved before,
I suppose that's always a positive.
It's frustrating when you go to play the game and the driver isn't working and
you just want to play the game. I understand, Podbun.

(53:18):
Jordan Bravo boosts in with 4,444 sats.
Pewdiepie just released a video about degoogling he's using arch graphene os
nextcloud self-hosting and more i don't normally watch his channel but it's
great to see these topics get some more widespread exposure.
I agree i was i was uh you know going on about how they're late and where we

(53:42):
were blah blah early like that made it sound negative i am actually really glad
that uh this is getting wider attention i actually kind of given up the on the
idea that it would i agree.
Can i just say i think this solidifies one of my predictions from earlier in.
The year i think you're probably right damn it i hate that i hate that too mr.
Bravo goes on to say if a graphene project dies i would probably go with another

(54:04):
privacy focused android such as calyx or maybe even a linux phone there's just
no way i could put up with the creepy surveillance of a stock android and unfortunately
ios is just too restrictive for my liking.
Yeah there's that i.
Would agree with all of that.
Yeah yeah that that app store control with apple is really a problem there was
even just a slightly more complicated third-party way for me to distribute my

(54:27):
own apps i'd feel a lot better yeah i agree i think yeah we should really give
calyx a try graphene os goes away thank you jordan appreciate that.
Well rotted mood boosted in 10 000 sats,
This one's very simple. One character. Just an emoji of the Vulcan salute.

(54:49):
Ha ha. Thank you for the value, Rotted Mood. And of course, hope you live long and prosper.
Pickle Arts comes in with 4,444 sats.
Listening to episode 615 right now, future check-in from A1A, Canada.
A1A. Do we have a map for that one?

(55:10):
Do we have? Is that a... Also, thank you for the check-in. Thank you for the
time travel check-in. I appreciate that.
Yes, it is.
Is that a map thing? Because I know you both have maps. Oh, my gosh. Look at... Oh, whoa!
Wes, while you're trying to, you know, unfold that to the right sector,
I think having an A1A postal code is like, you're at the top, right?
You've got the very first postal code in the, like, at the top of the list.

(55:32):
I think... I don't know where this is, but I think it's amazing.
That's where they started.
I'm getting jealous.
I'm a little jealous. Whoa, Wes, careful.
Oh, the corner's sharp.
Yeah, I know. You guys went to Canada, but I've been investing in new maps, so hey, hey.
Clearly.
Is that a backroads map book?
So where is he, Mr. Maps?
Well, the Canadian postal code region A1A is located in Newfoundland, in Labrador.

(55:57):
Specifically within St. John.
Ah!
Can I just say it's very strange that we start our postal codes from right to
left, it seems. Why is it way up in the right? Shouldn't it be up in the left?
I've been asking this every day.
We'll get the answer at some point.
I don't know if we will i.
Think i blend history i'm just gonna say that.

(56:17):
I like that i like that all right well that's fun thank you and hey proper proper
for this is canada day on the show so perfect and.
Actually if you just say it a1a it's got canada all over it.
A1a hey a1a hey a1a hey a1a all
right all right we had our fun thank you picolars nice to hear from you.

(56:38):
Marcel comes in with 5000 sets.
Hey, Marcel.
Oh, Marcel's following up. We asked folks to share their electronics projects,
and Marcel shares github.com slash you'd better run.
It's an ESP8266-based e-paper screen that shows me how much time I have to catch the bus.

(57:02):
That sounds so useful.
That's great. Another project is an autonomous robot I helped make for a robotics competition.
It runs NixOS, by the way, and although it wasn't supposed to have ESPs, only some custom PCBs.
We had to add one at the last minute because of some hardware problems.
So we used the ESP to bridge USB to CAN bus.

(57:23):
Well, really USB to UR to SBI to CAN. Wow, you are doing some things,
Marcel. Thank you for writing in.
That's so awesome. So the You Better Run thing is so great. He's got it in a
picture frame and he's got the e-ink display inside the picture frame.
And then it's just got the in-the-city and out-of-city different times at the
different stops. It's simple and also very, very useful. That's an awesome use.

(57:46):
Thank you, Marcel. We'll put those links in the show notes. That's too good.
I love that it's elegant. I mean, it's like a minimal display,
but with the picture frame, there's something artsy about it. Great.
Yeah.
Marcel also included a little YouTube link here of the Eurobot Germany finals
first round where this thing is included.

(58:07):
Marcel, when I met you, why didn't you mention any of this? This sounds right
up our alley Thanks for sending it in Well Gene Bean boosted in a row of ducks,
Stumbled across this tonight and thought it might fit into Linux Unplugged or
maybe even that Twib show.
Or maybe a little bit of both. The tech seems very Linux Unplugged,
but Cashew sounds very Twib.

(58:29):
They seem to have recently restored around Nostra 2, so Cashew may not be part
of it any longer. I just can't tell.
And he links us to a little GitHub here for Tollgate.
Tollgate. You got to pay the toll to get on the Wi-Fi. It enables Wi-Fi routers
to accept Bitcoin payments for internet access. It allows the users with a router
and an internet connection to operate as an internet service provider.

(58:51):
Hmm. They say one of the reasons mesh networks haven't been widely adopted is
the infrastructure operators didn't have a simple permissionless way to transfer
the operating cost of the infrastructure to users.
But thanks to Bitcoin and eCash, Tollgate operators can transfer the cost of
the internet gateway to users of the access point in a granular matter.
So you kind of like stream sats. This is actually what you do.

(59:13):
You stream sats while you use it. like a small amount, 200 sats a minute or
something like that, while you use the Wi-Fi.
Fascinating. And it's specifically designed for open WRT routers,
so that's a pretty great building block.
I would way rather use something like this than, you know, oh,
spend $40 and you get 24 hours of Wi-Fi or something like that. I hate that in the hotel.

(59:36):
So this is a really cool idea. Thanks, Tollgate.
You've got to pay the toll to get on the Wi-Fi. Thanks, Gene Bean.
Thank you, everybody, who boosted it. We didn't have an absolutely outrageous
week this week, and we would love to try to see to get these numbers up a bit.
We had 31 of you stream those sats as you listen, so your streamers collectively stacked 46,420 sats.

(59:57):
Not too bad at all. Thank you, everybody, who just sats that thing on stream
and lets them go as you listen to the podcast. It means a lot to us.
And then, of course, when you combine that with our boosters,
everybody who sent a message into the show, we stacked a grand total of 131,654 sats this week.

(01:00:20):
If you haven't tried out Fountain FM yet, it is getting so great.
They've really been working on that and making it a great package.
And it makes it really simple to boost. Of course, you can keep your podcast
app and you can boost with something like the Breeze app, which is a lightning
node in your pocket. You can find that at B-R-E-E-Z.
It's just the Breeze app. It's really simple. And again, thank you to our members

(01:00:42):
who also support us. We really appreciate all of you.
Now we got two picks before we wrap up our special Canada episode.
And the first one you've been playing with this morning, and it's making some waves online.
It's the Gemini command line, an open source AI agent that brings Google's Gemini AI to the terminal.

(01:01:03):
What do you think of it so far, Wes?
Okay, so the front end is Apache 2.0 licensed, so it is open source.
Obviously, the back end is powered by Gemini, so that comes with all the usual caveats.
But it's pretty slick and it's a perfect fit for this episode
because out of the box it comes with themes
and it looks really nice as a 2i interface

(01:01:24):
i sent you a couple pictures they've got some on their github as well
it's already in nix i'm sure it's in a bunch of other places
otherwise you can have installation instructions as well and
it makes it quite easy to get started interfacing with
gemini and not only is it
just like a chatbot interface right but it's an agent in the sense that it can
access with your permission your local file system so i was able to have it

(01:01:47):
quickly write me a script to tell brent a secret message it not only spit out
the code for that right but it saved a file it made the file executable and
then it even ran the file all from the same little tui interface and.
It does it looks like it's it's built to run on omarchie like it just looks
right at home with the theming and the terminal and all of that it's it's pretty great,

(01:02:08):
it's neat to see it on the command line honestly.
It doesn't feel like a it doesn't feel like a google product in a good way.
Yeah you wouldn't even know it's it's worth it's a
wild it's a wild future we live in all right and then not one
but yes folks two picks this week and this one is sniffnet comfortably monitor
your internet traffic you can say sniffnet is a technical tool but at the same

(01:02:30):
time it strongly focuses on the overall user experience most of the network
analyzers out but they're rather cumbersome to use where SniffNet's Cornerstone
is to be usable and easy for everyone.
It's Apache licensed and it is written in Rust.
Yeah, boy, is it written in Rust. 98.7% Rust, according to GitHub here.
I don't even know what toolkit it's using.

(01:02:51):
It's kind of got a custom looking UI, but it has a very nicely developed UI.
Yeah. Oh, and I guess it's available for Windows and Mac OS as well.
You can choose a network adapter. You can set a set of filters.
You can view overall statistics about your net traffic. You can have real-time
charts about the intensity of the traffic generated.
It's a great way to keep an eye on your network even when the thing's minimized.

(01:03:13):
You can export and import PCAP reports. It identifies 6,000 upper-layer services,
protocols, even Trojans and Worms. It just identifies them in the internet traffic.
It really is a cool app. this is like the kind of tooling that,
uh, I used to actually use professionally just to analyze and discover networks

(01:03:34):
and kind of learn what they're about.
And I think people should probably run these on their home network about once
a year and just kind of see what's going on.
I'm just noting Chris, that you're visiting here, the great white North and
my wireless networks and such.
And all of a sudden your pick is this sniffer.
I couldn't, uh, couldn't, uh, I don't know why that came up. I just, uh,

(01:03:55):
Your Wi-Fi working better today, though, right?
Oh, it seems quite fast. Like double the speed I've seen previously.
So you let me know if there's any other weirdness going on.
Yeah, well, don't worry. It's all taken care of now.
Thanks.
Yeah, it's a nice little app. Of course, we'll link to it in the show notes
at linuxonplugged.com slash 622.
I'd be curious to know if anybody out there has actually tried the Gemini command line.

(01:04:15):
Or if our audience is too afraid of it. Are you too afraid? Does it scare you
because it's Google and it's AI?
Or are you actually using it out there? or you like wes and you're just out
there abusing it making it do horrible things i.
Would love to know what he's done to this thing up to now.
Yeah yeah i do like that you can have it just go and look at stuff and build
and then i assume if it fails it figures out from there i mean it's pretty useful actually.

(01:04:36):
Yeah and you can you know it can it can handle bigger code
bases do things beyond gemini's already quite generous one million token context
window it can you know you can feed it in sketches or pdf so like anything gemini
can do you're unable to do on top of it just but like tied in more to your local
file system and it can also talk to things like other mcp servers and stuff too useful.

(01:04:59):
Let us know if you give omarchie a try you can
find it at omarch y.org and we'd love to know what you think of the hyperland
setup and all of that kick the tires get a blank arch install and run the script
and give it a go you can try it in a vm i don't think you're going to get the
same experience but it will run in a vm and report in boost in and let us know what you think of it.

(01:05:21):
It's probably not going to be for most experienced Linux users because of some
of the choices that have been made, but it's beautiful.
There is a lot of great ideas in there.
We would love, love, love to have you try it and report back to the show.
Give it a try. Kick the tires.
I think that's it from our Canada special show.
Should we hit the hot tub next, Chris?
Yeah, you got anything for us to eat before we hit the hot tub?

(01:05:42):
You've got to have a snack before we get in the hot tub.
We got moose steak sitting in the fridge waiting for us.
Of course we do. We will be back in the studio next week, live at our regular
time to make it a Tuesday on a Sunday.
Of course, you can tune in at jblive.tv or jblive.fm.
The time is at jupiterbroadcasting.com slash calendar, or it's posted early

(01:06:04):
in a podcasting 2.0 app for you.
We'd love it when you join us. We have that mumble room, that matrix,
all of it. It gives it a real nice live vibe.
And of course, you can catch the release version all cleaned up by editor Drew
at linuxunplugged.com.
We have the RSS feed posted there. And if you're a member, be sure you're checking
out the bootleg or the ad-free version We've got a couple of extra special things just for you Alright,

(01:06:25):
thank you so much for joining us on this week's episode of the Unplugged program
And we'll see you right back here next Tuesday As in Sunday!

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