RHEL 8 Release Date Update # 2 -> Chasing Perfection

RHEL 8 Beta has been released and my take on this is presented in this blog post --> https://aajkyakaroon.blogspot.com/2018/11/rhel-8-beta-half-baked-release.html

Please remember -> This blog post is just my speculation.

Something is amiss with RHEL 8. RedHat is chasing perfection or may be the current technology stack that RedHat wants is just not ready yet.

Some of the technologies that RedHat wants to include in RHEL 8 are (from my understanding):

• DNF 3
• GNOME 3.30 / 4
• GIMP 2.12 / 3.0
• Pipewire
• Silverblue
• Removal of Python 2 entirely
• Latest and greatest Wayland

DNF 3 development has just started in March 2018 according to the article on https://rpm-software-management.github.io/
What will DNF 3 give that DNF 2 does not give? Frankly, the answer is what we all want to hear. Better performance, consistency, save the world, and this is just the tip of the ice berg. And, we definitely want to whole ice berg, don't we?

Why (always) the next GNOME. Because, even in GNOME 3.26 the remote desktop capability is not enabled by default (on Wayland). This is the biggest bottleneck in releasing an enterprise OS.
When will GNOME have this capability. The answer is always the next one. And when the next one arrives, the answer will still be the next one. I hope they get it right before GNOME 4, otherwise, as many have stated, GNOME 3 series is just a pile of hot *sauce*.
Who gave these people a million dollars? Hmm, beats me, cough RedHat cough.

But, this capability is tied to the Pipewire back-end. Pipewire is an under development multimedia wizard that will handle all video and audio use cases. The first priority is for video since we already have PulseAudio/Jack/ALSA for audio. In the future, Pipewire will replace these audio middleware and be an all encompassing technology for all things multimedia. The current state of this project is written in this article -> https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2018/01/26/an-update-on-pipewire-the-multimedia-revolution-an-update/ (homepage for the article is https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/)

Oh, and the remote desktop capability in RHEL is also tied to Wayland. Because, RedHat has its heart set for using Wayland and no other.
Now, Wayland does not specifically state the way that can be used to enable remote desktop capability. Why? I do not know. May be Wayland can go different Ways. Wayland does not care which Way you take to get from point A to point B. Just pick a Way man.
So the good fellows at RedHat have chosen to dig holes, I mean Pipes, I mean, they chose to carve their own way and made Pipewire. So, at the moment, Pipewire is the only way that remote desktop capability can be achieved using Wayland in all Desktop Environments. Even the folks at KDE are using Pipewire to implement remote desktop.
The maturity of Wayland and Pipewire is the main bottleneck in implementing foolproof remote desktop capability.

RHEL 8 is also targeting a full transition to Python 3 and a full removal of Python 2. Well this cannot be done if they choose to include the current GIMP 2.10 version. The 2.10 version is still dependent on Python 2 and the GIMP devs have stated that it will require at least till the next version to be fully free of Python 2. What will be the next fully Python 3 GIMP version, I do not know, may be 2.12 or 3.0.

Silver bullet, oh I mean Silverblue will be the silver bullet that RedHat hopes will kill all the werewolves of package management. So, why all this work on DNF 3? Hmm, covering all bases I see. Flatpak all the way is the RedHat answer to Windows 95 in 2019/2020. So, we really are around 25 years behind the proprietary world. Who knew.
I always thought that GNU/Linux package management was the superior way of sharing open source software. Oh, now I get it, rpm and apt is not helping the proprietary software gain ground in GNU/Linux. So we just bend over and present our "better" side to them.
So, get ready for one off software products from the leading proprietary software makers that will not get updated or patched ever again. You know, the same as Windows 95 to Windows 10. We will become so privileged.

So, when will RHEL 8 be released. When the stars will align and the Sun and Moon are dancing. Well, obviously when all the technology is matured to a point where they can be included in a Fedora release. But, when will that happen. Well, Fedora 28 is gone and Fedora 29 is due sometime in the last months of this year (30 October 2018 - from https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/29/Schedule) I am more inclined to say Fedora 30 will be the one that may have all the technology stack included. What is the release date for Fedora 30? From this page -> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/30/Schedule the date is in May 2019

In conclusion, RHEL 8 alpha/beta will arrive after Fedora 30, may be somewhere in 2019 and we may get to see the Sun, I mean RHEL 8, may be in 2019, if we are lucky, or most likely in 2020.

My Peppermint OS Upgrade to Version 8

I had been using Peppermint OS version 7 for the past little more than a year and I just decided this last week to upgrade my setup to version 8.

Peppermint 7 cannot be "upgraded" to version 8 but we require a new install. This made me curious to try a few other alternatives as well.

I downloaded 4 distros:

• Manjaro XFCE 17.1.9 64bit
• MX Linux 17.1 17-Apr-2018 64bit
• Linux Mint 18.3 XFCE 64bit
• Peppermint OS 8 Respin-2 64bit.

I "burned" these distros in 4 different DVDs. As you can see in my choices above, I had selected the distros that have nearly identical user interface. My HP Notebook has low end hardware that has a low end Pentium processor with no other graphics card. But, the notebook uses proprietary Broadcom Wireless drivers.

Before I jot down my experiences with these distros, let me first state what I like about Peppermint 7: Firstly I like the low requirements and snappy performance. The screenshot scripts based on the Scrot application. These scripts can be replicated in the other distros manually. I do not like the XFCE 4 Screenshot utility - it just gets in the way and does not help in getting a quick screenshot. I also like the familiarity of the debian based package installation. The tiny things, like single click to select, double click to open; the dark theme, and more.

I thought of seeing and comparing these 4 live distros.

First I tried Manjaro. The interface is very good. The system is quick. The software installation was not too hard for someone like me who has been accustomed to the apt commands. But, the problem was that there was no way that I could figure out how to install the proprietary Broadcom Wireless drivers. Maybe this requires a more in-depth search and digging into the forums. So a no go on Manjaro at this time.

Then, I tried Linux Mint. I was a Linux Mint user for quite a few years previously. So, this new 18.3 version was very familiar. But what did not work was proper dark theme integration. I thought that the dark theme was one of the appeals of the Linux Mint 18 series. But, the XFCE version does not get proper dark theme integration. May be after XFCE is fully ported to the new GTK version, we will see proper support for dark themes.

Next, I tried MX Linux. This one surprised me. A very easy application management interface helps in installing popular apps. Just select the app and click install. The conky script adds character to the desktop. The dark theme is perfect. I changed the screenshot thingy to the Peppermint script - just for the Print screen button and it worked as it should have. Wireless worked out of the box. So all was good. MX Linux also has updated LibreOffice. So I decided to install this distro.
But I just could not figure out the Partitioning tool given in the installer - GParted. This just seems archaic and is just not intuitive. I was not able to do anything in GParted. May be the MX Linux team should use an established installer to appeal more to common folks like me. So a no go.

Back around to Peppermint OS for me. The version 8 is more snappier, more 'darker' - in a good way. Every thing is where it was - the screenshot scripts - the dark theme with a nice upgrade - apt package management - proprietary drivers - everything. So, this is now what runs my HP Notebook.

Just a little help for those like me: You definitely need a separate home partition. This will help in keeping your files safe in cases of OS upgrades/re-installation. My hard drive now has these partitions:

• 250 MB EFI (The recommended size is 100-250 MB. I think 100 MB is more than enough if you have just one or at max two OS on your system)
• 8192 MB Swap Space (I have this at double of RAM size - Same as RAM size will also suffice)
• 26624 MB Root partition (You could make this a little less - I think 15-20 GB is enough)
• The rest of space is the Home partition.

Peppermint OS is a good option for low resource systems. Good proprietary driver support. Amazing dark theme. Gives a clean interface and it just works.

Calculate an ideal 'Streaming Media' company's revenue in India - Part 1

Note: The contents of this blog post is just my speculation.

Streaming media companies have started to make a presence in India. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Jio Cinema/TV, Hotstar, and others have caught a follow ship among the people. Some are tied to an already monetized service while others charge a monthly/yearly fee.

What has made these streaming media companies to come to India? For me the answer is Jio. Jio was the disruptive force that was required to speed up the penetration on broadband data in India. After Jio, many of its competitors also provided the 1 GB per day data at nominal prices which seemed never possible in India before the entry of Jio.

For how much time does a 1 GB data last per day. Well, if we consider a low video quality stream takes around 150 to 170 MB per hour, then the 1 GB will last around 6 hours. 6 * 60 * 30 = 10800 minutes per month. Considering that most people will not view 6 hours of content every day and many would want to view at a medium to high video quality, lets consider an average value of half these minutes per month. Say 5000 minutes per month.

Lets put a value to these minutes. Say INR 0.02 per minute. 5000 * 0.02 = INR 100 per month. In India, I think the market for a streaming media company can go to anywhere from 30 lakhs to 1 crore people for a mass appeal company. Lets consider the higher value of 1 crore subscribers.

So, 1 cr * INR 100 = INR 100 crores per month before taxes. Say the streaming media company takes a cut of 30 percent, then the company stands to get INR 30 crores and the remaining INR 70 crores per month are for the content creators.

Lets talk about the content creators and subscribers. Suppose a subscriber likes to watch content of only 2 content creators, suppose abc and xyz. Then from his/her subscription amount of 100, 30 will go to the streaming media company and the remaining 70 will be given to the 2 content creators in proportion to the time the subscriber spent on the 2 contents.

------------------------------
Please find the Part 2 of this article here: https://aajkyakaroon.blogspot.com/2019/02/calculate-ideal-streaming-media.html

Alternative Apps to popular (and deemed dangerous) apps in Android

Major news websites are reporting that the Government of India have listed 42 Chinese Android Apps as 'Dangerous'. One such news article would be this --> https://www.gadgetsnow.com/slideshows/42-chinese-apps-listed-as-dangerous-by-the-government/photolist/61867919.cms

The 'Dangerous' Apps list:

Weibo	Mi Community (Xiaomi)	Wonder Camera
WeChat	DU recorder	ES File Explorer
SHAREit	Vault-Hide	Photo Wonder
Truecaller	YouCam Makeup	QQ International
UC News	Mi Store (Xiaomi)	QQ Music
UC Browser	CacheCleaner DU apps studio	QQ Mail
BeautyPlus	DU Battery Saver	QQ Player
NewsDog	DU Cleaner	QQ NewsFeed
VivaVideo QU Video Inc	DU Privacy	WeSync
Parallel Space	360 Security	QQ Security Centre
APUS Browser	DU Browser	SelfieCity
Perfect Corp	Clean Master - Cheetah Mobile	MailMaster
Virus Cleaner (Hi Security Lab)	Baidu Translate	Mi Video Call (Xiaomi)
CM Browser	Baidu Map	QQ Launcher

Lets find Safe alternatives for all of these apps.

Please Note: I will be updating this post with more alternatives as I find them.

Browsers:
The Dangerous Apps: UC Browser, APUS Browser, CM Browser, DU Browser
Alternatives: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Firefox Focus, Lightning Web Browser

Communication:
The Dangerous Apps: Weibo, WeChat, Mi Community (Xiaomi), QQ International, Mi Video Call (Xiaomi)
Alternatives: Wire Secure Messenger, Telegram, Signal Private Messenger, Ring (GNU Ring)

News:
The Dangerous Apps: UC News, NewsDog, QQ NewsFeed
Alternatives: Dailyhunt (Newshunt) News, Cricbuzz, Cricinfo, NDTV, TOI, ET

Email:
The Dangerous Apps: QQ Mail, MailMaster
Alternatives: K-9 Mail, Google Inbox, Yahoo Mail

File Manager:
The Dangerous Apps: ES File Explorer
Alternatives: Amaze File Manager, Simple File Manager

Camera/Image Manipulation:
The Dangerous Apps: BeautyPlus, YouCam Makeup, Wonder Camera, Photo Wonder, SelfieCity
Alternatives: Open Camera, Candy Camera (- selfie, beauty camera, photo editor), Pixlr – Free Photo Editor, PhotoFunia, Snapseed

Security/Utilities:
The Dangerous Apps: Virus Cleaner (Hi Security Lab), Vault-Hide, CacheCleaner DU apps studio, DU Cleaner, DU Privacy, 360 Security, Clean Master - Cheetah Mobile, QQ Security Centre, DU Battery Saver
Alternatives: Cache Cleaner (Frozen Developers), KeePassDroid, Prey Anti Theft: Find My Android & Mobile Security, ML Manager: APK Extractor, BatteryBot Battery Indicator

File Sharing:
The Dangerous Apps: SHAREit
Alternatives: Files Go (Currently this is a Beta software), TrebleShot - File Share

Launcher:
The Dangerous Apps: QQ Launcher
Alternatives: KISS Launcher, Google Now Launcher

Video Editing:
The Dangerous Apps: VivaVideo QU Video Inc, DU recorder
Alternatives: Quik (– Free Video Editor for photos, clips, music), Magisto Video Editor & Maker, Adobe Premiere Clip, ScreenCam Screen Recorder

Audio/Video Players:
The Dangerous Apps: QQ Music, QQ Player
Alternatives: VLC for Android, Saavn, Gaana, Hungama

Syncing:
The Dangerous Apps: WeSync
Alternatives: Syncthing, Google Photos, Google Drive

Caller ID:
The Dangerous Apps: Truecaller
Alternatives: Phone 2 Location - Caller ID Mobile Number Tracker

Map:
The Dangerous Apps: Baidu Map
Alternatives: MapmyIndia Map (Nearby, GPS Navigation & Traffic), Google Maps, HERE WeGo - Offline Maps & GPS, Google Street View

Store/Shopping:
The Dangerous Apps: Mi Store (Xiaomi)
Alternatives: Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon

Translation:
The Dangerous Apps: Baidu Translate
Alternatives: Google Translate, QuickDic restored, DictionaryForMIDs

Happy Diwali

To those who celebrate the festival of Diwali and to those who just enjoy some festivities around them, I wish you a very Happy Diwali.

Diwali is the time to remember the victory of Good over Evil, but in present times it has just become a reason to light up fire crackers. Although, I am not against having some fun, I would most definitely advice people to be sensitive to others.

There are many people around us that suffer due to these fire crackers. The loud sounds, the smoke, the residual papers and filth, all contribute to the pollution that are caused by many fire crackers.

A novel way, to at least minimize the pollution, is to use paper poppers. A casual search on the Internet got me to this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXXsYA7Sgdc

In the video, the author shows how to make a simple paper popper. You can use any paper lying around in your house, like newspaper, magazine or any other paper to minimize the use of new paper to make the paper popper.

Have a safe and pollution free Diwali.

RHEL 8 Release Date Update

Again, stating the obvious -> This blog post is just my speculation.

Edit -> An update on this blog post is at http://aajkyakaroon.blogspot.com/2018/06/rhel-8-release-date-update-2-chasing.html

An update on my previous post regarding my speculation on RHEL 8. Well, August has gone and no signs of RHEL 8, even in an alpha/beta version. So, what went wrong with my previous speculation. The answer is Remote Desktop Capability.

Well, Gnome <3.26, on Wayland, lacks the ability to connect to a remote desktop! This will be a major drawback for any enterprise OS. Hence, the wait in releasing/finalizing RHEL 8. They are waiting for Gnome 3.26 to be released and incorporated in a Fedora release. Then they would base the RHEL 8 to that Fedora release.

So when would a Fedora release have Gnome 3.26? This would be the upcoming Fedora 27 that is to be released on, tentatively, 24 October 2017. This date can also change, as all the other recent Fedora release date have changed. In addition, I do not think that they would release RHEL 8 as soon as Fedora 27 is in the market. Maybe they would wait for Fedora 28 and then release RHEL 8. Fedora 28 is scheduled on, tentatively, 1 May 2018.

So, I would take the mid of 2018 to be the release of beta version of RHEL 8 and maybe end of 2018 or somewhere in the beginning of 2019 to be the actual release date of RHEL 8.

This will result in the largest gap we have seen between two major releases of RHEL.

As mentioned in the top of this post, an update on this blog post is available at (RHEL 8 Release Date Update # 2 -> Chasing Perfection) http://aajkyakaroon.blogspot.com/2018/06/rhel-8-release-date-update-2-chasing.html

RHEL 8 will have Linux Kernel 4.9, Flatpak, Gnome 3.22 - with a release date in Feb 2018

Edit: Follow up articles: A more in-depth article is at: http://aajkyakaroon.blogspot.com/2018/06/rhel-8-release-date-update-2-chasing.html and an older one here: http://aajkyakaroon.blogspot.com/2017/09/rhel-8-release-date-update.html

Stating the obvious -> This blog post is just my own speculation.

RHEL 7 / CentOS 7 was a very good release and it got a software bump with its 7.2 point release. On release RHEL 7 had Gnome version 3.8 (from Fedora 19) and with RHEL 7.2 that got bumped to Gnome 3.14 (from Fedora 21).

It has already been more than 3 years since the release of RHEL 7. How time flies. And, it is showing its old age already. One major technology lacking in RHEL 7 is Flatpak. Even though the Flatpak technology has been made by the RedHat people, it still wont be included in RHEL 7 (in my opinion) since Flatpak requires at least a kernel version greater than 4.0 and RHEL 7 is stuck at kernel version 3.10. And, there has been no precedence where RHEL has been updated with a new kernel version.

So, RHEL 7 is already obsolete for people wanting to work with Flatpak. God bless that it is about time for a RHEL refresh. Now my speculations:

RHEL 8 will be based on Fedora 25 (why not Fedora 24, well because Fedora 25 was released just 5 months after Fedora 24 was released. Fedora 25 supports the latest version of Flatpak. Currently as of this writing, Fedora 24 supports Flatpak version 0.8.7 and Fedora 25 supports Flatpak version 0.9.6 - the latest version of Flatpak as of this writing is 0.9.6)

RHEL 8 will have Linux Kernel version 4.9. The 4.9 version is the latest, (as of this writing) long term kernel. The kernel in Fedora 25 is 4.8 which has proved to be extremely useful in clearing out many problems in wireless connectivity and more. The 4.9 kernel will be a better fit as it is a  long term kernel.

RHEL 8 will have Gnome 3.22 on release and maybe upgraded to 3.24 in a future point release. Fedora 25 has Gnome 3.22 and Fedora 26 has Gnome 3.24, these seem the most acceptable path at the moment to me.

Release date of RHEL 8? Hmm, maybe by the turn of next year, i.e. around February 2018 would be a nice bet. The last two major releases of RHEL 6 and RHEL 7 took ~ 3 yr 8 month and 3 yr 7 month respectively from their previous releases. I would think this is a good timeframe to speculate.
RHEL 7 was released on 10 Jun 2014, adding the timeframe we get a Feb 2018 date. Also from beta to a full release RHEL takes almost 6 months. So, be prepared for a beta release of RHEL 8 in August 2017.