Episode 242: Debian on the Fly

A new version of Slax is out this week, and they might just be onto something really unique. We take this Debian powered, Fluxbox running, net bootin distro for a test drive.

Plus Google moves to block GApps on “uncertified devices”, Red Hat turns 25, a new Wayland contender, a few app picks, and much more.

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Links:

• Red Hat at 25 — A lot has changed since 1993
• Red Hat Summit 2018 — The Grammy Award-winning band Weezer will be performing at this year’s Red Hat Summit party. Join us for a night of food, drinks, and music, at the San Francisco Armory at 7:00 p.m.
• Google now blocks GApps on uncertified devices, but lets custom ROM users be whitelisted — arlier this week, we received an anonymous tip from a person claiming to be within the industry. This person, who said they worked for an OEM/ODM, notified us that Google has started entirely locking out newly built firmware from accessing Gapps.
• Microsoft Open-Sources WSL Sample To Let More Linux Distributions Run On Windows — The WSL-DistroLauncher is what is now open-source and is a C++ code-base offering a launcher that can be customized for particular distributions for the steps to get to a log-in shell, running commands, and setting configuration values.
• Wayfire — 3D wayland compositor
• People Are Using Old Laptop Batteries to Build Their Own Versions of Tesla's Powerwall — Consumers have constructed their own powerwalls by utilizing old, recycled batteries from laptops.
• Rant launches Eric Raymond's next project: open-source the UPS — ESR opened up the work-in-progress on GitLab: the Upside project is currently defining requirements and developing a specification for a “high quality UPS that can be built from off-the-shelf parts in any reasonably well-equipped makerspace or home electronics shop”.
• Eric S. Raymond / upside · GitLab
• Hyper™ — JS/HTML/CSS Terminal
• Upterm — A terminal emulator for the 21st century.
• MP4Tools — MP4Tools is a collection of cross-platform free tools to manipulate MP4 files.
• Slax Linux — Despite its small size, Slax provides nice graphical user interface and the only two programs everyone really needs: a Web browser and a Terminal.
• Debian-Based Slax 9.4 Linux OS Adds Easier App Install Method, More Improvements — According to the developer, Slax will now show launchers for not-installed apps, which, when clicked, they will fetch and install the respective application from the official software repositories. The first such app installer are available for the VLC Media Player and VoteCoin anonymous cryptocurrency wallet.
• Slax 9.4 Released With Updated Debian Packages, One-Click-To-Install Launchers — Besides syncing against Debian stable, Slax 9.4 adds RFKILL support for toggling WiFi/Bluetooth connections