Croc-a-doodle-don't
August 2, 2024
Hello!
It's been a busy week for me, so this will be likely be short and late.
I say that, and then will likely ramble on for hours.
Sorry.
-[ Create ]-
snap refresh
It's been a long time coming, but I've finally stepped further towards automating myself out of existence with more GitHub actions. Many moons ago I started publishing a bunch of snaps. This all started when I worked on the Snap Advocacy Team at Canonical. I still (trying to) keep most of them up to date.
Originally I had some code inside the snap which looked for new releases of the upstream project, compared that with what's in the store, and then used a git checkout to grab the right release before building it in Launchpad and publishing in a channel the store.
Most of the time it's fine, and all I need to do is test the build then promote it to the stable channel. So far, so straightforward. It's a bit messy though, having some shell script in the middle of the build yaml, monkeying with the source checkout.
So I have finally started migrating them all to a simple yaml that runs daily (or on demand) to look for new upstream releases. If one is available, it nudges the version field in the snapcraft.yaml, which triggers a build.
It's a little change, but makes things a bit more consistent with other snaps, especially those published by Snapcrafters. I've done a few, mainly the ones that change most often, and will do the rest over the coming weeks.
Maybe I should automate the migration...
Triple-headed Video Monster
Last week I mentioned doing some live streaming to YouTube and Twitch. This week I had a play with my Owncast instance.
Via stream-sprout I sent video to all three platforms simultaneously. I was quite surprised that it worked at all, let alone well. There were reports of some audio differences between platforms, and owncast itself suggested there were some possible video glitches. I need to test some more, clearly!
I talked a bit about this setup on Linux Matters episode 36, which will be out on 20th August, and a bit earlier if you're a Patreon Supporter ;).
One think I haven't tested is streaming while out-and-about, from a phone to my channels. I wonder if that works!?
apt install incus
At work this week, I stumbled onto an issue report on Syft that piqued my interest due to the mention of Incus, the fork of LXD.
The issue triggered me to install Incus on my ThinkPad T450 running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. I'm familar with LXD having used it for years now, so using Incus was just a matter of remembering to type incus and not lxc in a terminal. No biggie.
Anyway, I spent an hour sat on the sofa, before I went to work, reproducing the issue and finding the answer to their question.
Any ordinary person would likely respond: "It's fixed in Syft v1.6.0", and that would be enough.
Me, I went for this lot. I was very nearly late for an appointment after getting so engrossed in capturing the data to put in that reply. I learned stuff, and finally got Incus installed.
I also enjoyed the 'thrill of the chase' in finding the answer.
-[ Consume ]-
AuLoNoPoLiMo
I think I may have overdosed on podcasts a bit lately. I tend not to listen to them during the day, because I can't focus on work while someone is talking. But I often listen at bed time, while cooking, doing housework, or during the ~20-30 minute commute each way on work-days.
This week I started listening to music rather than podcasts on my commute. It's made quite the difference to my mood in the morning and evening. I feel a lot better, and don't have the mental baggage of whatever else is happening in the world.
I am going to stick with this for a bit, and cull the podcasts I never really listened to. My time is precious, so a show is going to have to be really good to get on the playlist. In fact, I'm going to Select-All-and-Delete every subscription from my device right now and declare August as my "no podcast" month.
Narrator: "Alan would later find out it's surprisingly difficult to 'select all and delete' every podcast from his iPhone. Further, once he removed them all, the application continues to offer episodes to listen to, refusing to allow an empty playback section for the purposes of an inaugural newsletter application screenshot media upload."
This scheme needs a snappy name, of course. I'm inspired by "NaNoWriMo" (National Novel Writing Month), but I'm not so egotistical to believe I can name a "National" thing.
So, with that in mind, I'm calling this August Local No Podcast Listening Month, or "AuLoNoPoLiMo" (pronounced Oh-Low-No-Poh-Lee-Moh, obviously).
Proper trips off the tongue, does that.
Music, Maestro, Please
This week I have mostly been re-listening to songs from the distant past (insert skull emoji or whatever means "Oh god, I'm old!" these days, because I can't keep up!).
Here's three albums from my youth, in current rotation, that I can listen to over and again.
-[ Comment ]-
Today's learnings lessons
TP.EXE
Like I said, sorry. I was fifty percent right.
Thanks for reading.
-- popey
You are receiving this email because you have been subscribed to the popey newsletter. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
Newsletters may contain 'smart' Amazon links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
© Copyright 2024 Alan Pope. All rights reserved
EOF