AlmaLinux With Tristan Théroux

In this week's episode we've got a great interview with Tristan Théroux from AlmaLinux. I met Tristan at the AlmaLinux booth during SIGGRAPH and was really impressed with the cool stuff that the whole AlmaLinux community is doing. So I brought him on to share that fun stuff with you!

03/09/202652:08

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Résumé de l'épisode

Host Jason Van Gumster discusses the AlmaLinux operating system with Tristan Terreault, focusing on its role as a stable, nonprofit alternative for the VFX and media entertainment industries. They explore challenges creatives face when migrating to Linux, including tool compatibility and specialized hardware drivers.

À retenir 1AlmaLinux is a nonprofit foundation, meaning it cannot be bought or sold and reinvests all assets back into the community.

À retenir 2The Media and Entertainment SIG is developing a creative installer and a specialized ISO to simplify Linux migration for freelancers and small studios.

AlmaLinux prioritizes ABI compatibility with Red Hat while often patching critical regressions, such as glibc issues, faster than upstream.

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Adapted from “AlmaLinux With Tristan Théroux” by Jason van Gumster, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This transcript was generated by speech recognition and the summary and chapters by AI, so they can contain errors. BestPodcast is not affiliated with the creator. These adaptations are available under the same license.

The Open Source Creative Podcast, episode 60. Alma Linux with Tristan Terreault. Um we're going to toast marshmallows, are we? Good thing.

That's better. This is the Open Source Creative Podcast, a podcast where I ramble on about creativity, process, and open source software. I'm Jason Van Gumster, your host and driver on the road to creative freedom. This week, I'm talking with I'm going to mess up his name. I I can't I can't not mess up his name. Uh Tristan Terreault from Alma Linux. And I had the the pleasure of meeting Tristan at SIGGRAPH this past year, and we had a good conversation about all sorts of cool things and basically invited him on the show, and now I get to share him with you guys, and we get to talk about all sorts of fun things ranging about, you know, what is Alma Linux, the challenge of having uh creatives using, you know, an open source operating system when some applications don't always work there, how to get some of those applications to work, and those sort of

things. So it's a really really fun conversation and super cool guy to talk to. And again, uh if you're if, you know, this is the Open Source Creative. This is about using open source tools, and that doesn't just mean the applications, right? It doesn't just mean using things like Krita or Blender or GIMP or Inkscape or Scribus or Audacity, uh any these tools for any sort of creative production. It's it's it also goes to your your whole tech stack, right? You you get a certain level of uh freedom and independence by using as much open source as possible.

Now, you don't have to be and I say it in the episode, you don't have to be like me and use all open source tools. A lot of the times that's not practical. You're if especially if you're working with an employer or doing those sort of things, and you have uh sort of a dedicated tech stack that they're uh requiring you to work on. But where you can, there are definite advantages to doing so, and that's some of the stuff that we we talk about. So, yeah, rather than rambling about it here, how about we actually get into the interview and let you can hear yourself from him.

All right. Hello, everybody. We are on again, and now I have a cool guest. We have Tristan Terreault, which I have totally butchered his last name, but he's going to say it correctly now and and help help me help me help me, please. Uh yeah, Tristan Terreault. Uh French name, used to it. It's fine. Always the same thing with everyone. Uh yeah, I'm with the Alma Linux OS Foundation. I am the SIG lead for the media and entertainment uh SIG. Um I we've been active for 2 years now, uh and it was an initiative that launched actually from SIGGRAPH.

Um I'm also a sysadmin of my day work. But, yeah, that's uh that's it. Cool. Well, and so I I met you, or we met at this SIGGRAPH, because I don't think you were if you were at some of the previous ones, I I we just didn't cross paths. Um Yeah, we were at Denver and Vancouver also. So we just didn't cross paths or if so, really briefly, I'm pretty sure. And I mean, in this year, Alma Linux was the only Linux booth. In previous years, Ubuntu showed up, but this year it was it was it was just you guys.

I actually I I gave a whole episode talking about my impressions of SIGGRAPH. I I'd be curious to know your impressions. Um it so SIGGRAPH is always a nice show for connecting with people, connecting with old friends, um things like that, and have good discussions normally in anything general, either from Linux side, sysadmin side, technology, new VFX things, it's amazing. This year, for my personal perspective, fell really short. Mm. Um on the event size itself. Uh you were in Vancouver last year. It was what uh 14 rows wide.

Uh there was the experience exhibit. There was table that this year was what five rows if I recall well. And they were short rows, all right? Like they were not long rows. Um we've seen expo exposure closer booth on the Thursday. Wow. Like the morning they were like, we're out. They're just closing shop. Uh if I recall well, HP booth at 8:00 a.m. was already with only one workstation left under booth. Wow. So, I mean, that's all it felt really small. It brought us to have deeper conversation with the people that we needed to have conversation with, but at the same time, we feel like it was lacking that momentum of like having a lot of people and coming and just could not stop.

In Vancouver, we could not stop to go eat at one point. Like it was ridiculous. Right. Um you've seen bubble heads this year, and uh last year in Vancouver, if you recall, there was a line of an hour and a half every time before we get did the giveaway. Right. So, I mean, the craziness of SIGGRAPH was not there. Um but it was still a good event. Uh felt the discussion was weird, too. But, yeah, again, it was a good event, but at the same time, weirdly shaped with the event with the organizer.

We'll see how it goes. Um Next year is Anaheim. So, Yeah, so it's it's it's basically still in Los Angeles. So, Yeah, that that's the feeling we all have, and if we recall well, 3 years ago the talk was about doing uh west central east, and going back and forth like this, going, you know, Canada, US, and things like that. I don't know where this went south, but it did went south. Yeah. Um I mean, this year we were as a proud Canadian, we were only 400 Canadian from the stats we received.

Right. Last year in Vancouver, we were way more. Right. Like way more. We had European coming in, we had some people from Mexico, things like that. This year, not so much. Felt really Yeah, I mean, really American. And they like they have they've been as far east as Boston. Um but that was once, and that was quite some time ago. Um but oh well. So, actually, I should I should probably back up, and um for for for for folks who don't know, maybe we should explain what Alma Linux is.

Because because right, yeah, because Alma Linux didn't really Alma Linux didn't actually show up on anybody's radar until it Red Hat fucked up. Um so let's let's go into that. Sure. So, Alma Linux did not exist before Red Hat actually shut down CentOS to brought it into CentOS Stream. For people that doesn't know the whole ecosystem and are not Linux savvy, the ecosystem used to be uh Fedora with bleeding edge, then was pretty much just, you know, Red Hat uh and CentOS Stream, and CentOS directly.

They decided to do a shift where it's now Fedora, CentOS Stream, Red Hat, and then there's like a bunch of others going downstream for the free versions. Then they also announced that they would not disclose their open source code uh openly, also like this, the images of that. So, we had to find a way to get the same code without breaching their code of conduct and being banned from the ecosystem. Um Alma Linux was one to say, all right, well, we'll just pull upstream then. So, we're not um one to one clone anymore from Red Hat, which means just like CentOS used to be, which is a free version of Red Hat.

Uh we're now the free version of Red Hat, but we're ABI compatible, which means we're pulling the same code as we're not from CentOS Stream, but are able to patch things faster than Red Hat sometimes. Mm. Um the best example where I actually became really active with Alma Linux was with the glibc regression in COD 2022, 2023. Don't quote me on the data, right? Um but where glibc did um an update, and there was a regression where every software in VFX would stop working. Every one of them.

Mm. And like it took a couple of weeks of debugging, finding out what it was. We reached out at that point to Rocky Linux, Alma Linux, and Red Hat. And Alma Linux was just like, all right, hold my beer, we'll fix this. And if I recall well, in a week we had the beta versions released, and in 3 weeks we had the full version publicly released, ahead of Red Hat. Red Hat took 3 months. Mm. And Rocky still pulling from Red Hat code means they're always 3 month behind, and they publish this 3 months behind Red Hat.

So, that means that if we would have still been with Rocky at that point, it would have been 6 months before they patched it, unless we kind of pulled it from upstream. and do some monkey things. Um so, yeah, that's pretty much why Alma Linux was chosen in the media industry widely. We've seen adoption from major studio from um I can name drop some, but Cine IMPORTANT VFX, Nuke, Lightwave Media from the one I can tell, um are using Alma Linux exclusively for their OS and render farms.

Um but we're also use uh with other sphere. We've learned that uh Lockheed Martin uses Alma Linux exclusively for their simulation farm, which, you know, is actually impressive when you look at it. Uh we have CERN. If you don't know about CERN, go look it up. But CERN is one of the major uh user of Alma Linux and sponsor of Alma Linux also. So, when you have those big people using us, it is, you know, something incredible, and it's a growing community. Right. Yeah, because I mean, at when that all went down, everyone's like, all right, so our choices are so born from that was Rocky and Alma.

And some folks tried the scientific, but that stopped being maintained, right? I don't think yeah, so it it got killed last year, actually. Right. So, and the big difference is, and this is me putting my personal hat at this point, um Alma Linux is a nonprofit. We cannot be bought or sold. We are a foundation, which means that if anything is not done, everything of our assets has to be given back to another nonprofit. We live through sponsorships with people giving us money to continue living and continue to pay the developers and engineers and things like that.

Um I myself um I volunteer 99.9% of the time. Mm. Um the only way I can get to speak about it, travel about it, go to events is because I have sponsors that endorse me to do this, uh or my day job employer. Right. Um on the Rocky side, if you look at it, and I'm going to be the bad guy here again, but Rocky is a for-profit company owned by CIQ, which is owned by Greg, the previous owner of CentOS. Um he is is all about money, and he from what we hear is paying his way through things.

Mm. You want to be there? Yeah, I'll drop 50k. No worries with that. I mean, it's if you have that kind of money, it's fine. We don't. We live through sponsorships. So, we have less exposure at one point, but we see that the word to mouth actually pays more than the initial payment that Rocky did in the sponsors, and you know, uh media exposure, things like that. So, in the end, it pays more for us. Right on. Well, and I guess this is where again, this is the Open Source Creative Podcast.

So, the you know, there are my entire pipeline is open source. And I and I'm not I'm not on Alma. I'm on I'm an Arch guy. But, uh It's fine. I mean, we're all Linux. We're all good. We're all friends. We're all friends until somebody says something, and then then then there's a fight. But we have we're friends afterwards. So, it's good. Yeah, yeah. It's always fun. But, I guess there are, you know, it's it's weird. There's there's this whole the the space of like I want to use open source tools and but a lot of folks don't necessarily push themselves down to the OS level.

Um and I guess this is where this is where I would say throw your pitch out. Convince there's an individual out there that's like, you know, what? They keep telling me about this Linux thing. Why why would I do that to myself? Oh God, the million reasons I have. Um if we uh so I have two visions of this. The vision I have for the media and entertainment vision is the one that we have tried to showcase at the Alma Linux Day, Los Angeles, which you were attending, and that we've so shown, and we had amazing feedback from it.

So, to help people get on Linux more easily, and now I'm not talking about, you know, Disney or Pixar, things like that, I'm talking more freelancers, students, small studios. Um we've heard their complaint that it was too difficult for them to migrate from Windows or Mac OS to that. And because they don't have the full IT team to do this, they don' have a 20 guy IT team to be like, yeah, it's done, 2 hours, we're good. No, no, no, it's more than that. Um so, we developed two things.

The first thing is we developed the creative installer, which is a small GUI app that lets you install any, I'll say any, this is a vague thing, but most of the open source or most used VFX animations, uh post-production apps, uh with a one-click installer. So, it's pretty much what do you want? Here it is. It's it's there for you. The second phase of this was to actually do a version uh for VFX, which is going to be called, and we're still discussing the names, don't it's going to be the creative ISO of Alma Linux or something like that.

We're not don't again, the name may change, but it's the same mission. It's to have a version of Alma Linux pre-built with the desktop, every package, every libraries, the Nvidia driver is going to be a specific version with which is pre-built inside of it. The other one for AMD and Intel is going to be another version. So, it's two ISO. So, you can install it and start working directly. You won't need to go dive deep dive in to find out to install the Nvidia drivers and things like that.

Um And is that So, that oh go on. Yeah. No, no, no, go ahead, go ahead. Well, is that is that taxed to the the VFX platform spec, or are you sort of It is. Okay. It is for now. We're trying to push them forward, meaning the VFX platform is amazing, but is and we have discussion with them like, buddy, we're like six versions behind now. We need to go forward. And they understand it, but we see both point of view. And I think we're they're seeing that we our help they might be able to go a bit faster in the cadence without saying we're going to always be bleeding edge, but maybe keep going forward.

So, that's for the VFX part of things. Okay. Well, and I should probably back up and I should for for the handful of folks that probably don't know. Cuz I I have a I have a tendency to like oh, everybody obviously knows what I'm talking about here. So, True. Yeah, yeah. VFX platform is a and you can also correct me if I'm totally off base on this. It's a it's a specification of applications, mostly libraries, uh that a bunch of studios have agreed, this is what our baseline is.

And not just studios, but also tool makers. So, Yeah. Autodesk and Maxon or not Autodesk Maxon yeah, but SideFX and these companies, they're like, we want to be able to have a a a firm support base upon which to build our our applications so that they work for VFX work. And also some it's not just important at the application level, it's especially important um for like pipeline TDs who are trying to glue all these different applications together, and you know, v just to let everybody know, VFX platform took I don't want to say 3 or 4 years to get off Python 2.

Um it took it took I did three. Python three is still moving paces. Yeah, I mean, until this year, it was still you should start looking to move away from CentOS 7. Oh jeez. Right. And we've learned that, yeah, many studios just migrated from CentOS 7 to Alma 8 or Alma 9, and they just did because it takes them a while to migrate things because it is a sensitive glue, I'll call it like this, cuz the thing is, like you said, there's pieces of Python between Houdini, the animators, and all that that they the pipeline devs does some pipelines or some small in-house app, and they're like, yeah, it's not going to work.

You need to rebuild everything. That's why the VFX Reference Platform was built is to be like, this is what you're supposed to be on for this year. So, get ready for this. Work on your migration toward that specific build number. Um and yeah, we've seen a bit that that's pretty much, yeah. That's pretty much covers it. Well, and I guess going back to the other side of it, and like VFX platform is is a good baseline, and it's it's it's built for these large studios that have Yeah.

we'll say an enormous amount of I'm going to say inertia, but everybody really knows it's technical debt. Um But, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um but freelancers and and and independents don't don't necessarily have that problem. So, No. I guess my question for you would be that I guess partially of a challenge on that is that does that mean even if Alma Linux is focused on VFX platform or at least tacked to it for the for that particular thing that's how is that still okay for a freelancer?

Are they are they going to fall behind? No, because if they follow let's say through the ISO our ISO it's going to keep the cadence of going forward every minor release. Um we're not forcing you to do it. So what we always recommend to do and to doc is to have one machine upgrade with the minor version and see how it goes because we never know. We do test things but one point there's always one scenario where it goes south. Um that's one of the things.

The second thing is as we know most of the VFX industry relies on RPM Fusion repos which are always late to the party as of recently. So normally it takes about lot the fastest we've had was a month. The slowest we've had is six months for them to sync up with the minor release. So this means you won't be able to upgrade anyway until this is fixed. So it's going to slow you down to upgrade to the latest and greatest and you can always be one minor version behind two minor version behind I would say it's fine.

Further than that it's up to your risk assessment. Right. But then yeah. So you can I don't see an issue with them. Um they wouldn't see an issue if they're not you know really far back or really forward with fiddle raw bleeding like the bleeding edge version of everything. Um last she do I worked with full-time. We were always I'll say latest and greatest. I had an amazing pipeline dev. I cannot take him enough for everything he did but he was always the pilot and he be like we'll do it.

And he would break things and report it to the vendors and things like that. So he he thrived to do this. So we were kind of the guinea pig for the whole industry at that point. And it was actually fun because we would test every new release ahead of time. So that's I'm not alone. There's other studios do it this so yeah for for everyone at home they can do it. It's not something hard. Um and everything about in VFX I mean there's this can do it.

They just need to install the normal ISO and just thrive with it or you can use the VFX ISO which is going to be easier for them and still thrive with it. It's it's not going to hurt them to have more package installed and financially Right. Well and it's going to be I think I think the the my biggest I think the biggest people thinking I'm thinking about right now are those folks in the Blender community like the the latest one just came out and so you're going to for that though it's you're not going to pull it from the distro you're going to run with the flat pack wrap image or or whatever you have from there.

Uh depending. So we'll go with the recommended versions of the software install specs meaning there's some apps they say you know what use it through flat pack. It's easier at that point. I'm like all right you do what you do what you have to do. Others is through DNF. So it's just like Blender is in DNF. You can start Blender through DNF. It my script does it for you and I actually did a drop down to see which version do you want. Because we all know something is going to break at one point and be like I need to go back and you can go back to that version.

Um there's also guided workflow. Let's say you want to install DaVinci Resolve. Well this one is a bit more complicated but my tool actually opens up the web page for you and say go download it and then it prompts you to have where is the damn file you just downloaded and it does the rest for you. Right. So the goal is to empower users to start working right away and not try to figure out the why it's not working. Well and I guess that's the other like that's the other if we're going back to talking about migrating to to Linux from from another operating system.

Um you know you don't you don't have to be like me and take your whole open source stack. You can you can pick and now you're not going to be able to run your Adobe stuff. Sorry. But no no no. But that that doesn't that doesn't limit you're not there's you're not entirely limited still right because the the whole reason for this is that it does also run proprietary tools. So you can still take advantage of them. Um for instance um Maya or Houdini which actually I have a fun story about about Houdini that is worth sharing I guess I think.

I'm going to let you do it because I'm going to I'm going to botch it. So Houdini is always a picky software just like Maya or even Nuke at this point. They all have their quirks. They have their doubts. set it on point and it's all for different jobs. But Houdini what came to us this year at the Alma Linux booth saying I will actually week we went to see them and be like could we have a license to you know showcase it in the booth and they're like yeah sure.

They gave us a free license for the show. It was amazing. What we did not tell them was we're going to install it on Alma Linux 10 which is for people that aren't that know about it. Alma Linux 10 is the new generation of workstation in Linux general with the display stack I'll say it nicely is through Wayland. Wayland has been out for way too long and they finally ripped off the band-aid of the thing we're going Wayland. Like X has done his job. Let's put it to death now.

And it's fine like it's well it's time like it there' is always time when you say enough is enough. And Houdini is not technically supporting Wayland yet because it's too modern. You need to rebuild the whole stack and things like that. There's some hiccups here and there. And in the booth it was just like wow it works. And I had nothing funky to do except for the license server but that's another story. Um the only difference we did and they were kind of amazed is if we go back about years let's go Centos 7 and even Centos 6 at this point into the VFX industry or even in Linux in general there was a major shift to KDE.

Mhm. Uh which is a flavor of a desktop you know know it. Um the two major are KDE and Gnome which is GDM the short version. Just for the short names. Um when Centos 7 came out GDM was kind of the new shift because KDE kind of went down for personal reasons and things like that. As of Alma Linux 8 KDE said all right let's you know what let's let's just dive back a step look at our code and then go forward. They rebuilt everything from scratch.

Um and from Alma Linux 10 we decided to shift over to KDE for multiple reasons such as they support HDR VRR and Gnome does Right. They support in Fedora with the bleeding edge version that you'll get in five years. Uh but that's why we did it on KDE and doing it through KDE the screen manager Houdini worked flawlessly. There was no dependency through Gnome that would fail or something on Wayland. It just KDE was just like yeah let's do it. Um and yeah the Houdini people could not believe it.

There they still reached out last week like tell us what you did. I did nothing. I actually I what I did to prove it to them is I install a new VM in my lab and I actually install the ISO recording the whole thing downloaded the the Houdini 22 inside of it installed it and sent it down to like you did something. I'm like I did not buddy. But yeah so there's and this is through the initiatives of the Alma Linux community and SIGs and there's other SIGs in the ecosystem.

I'm just part of the MNS SIGs for for personal reasons. But the community behind the Alma Linux team is actually amazing. You have a question you can ask it and someone will come out and be like oh hold my beer. I'll I'll I'll get your information. There is a limit to everything. There's sometimes people will tell you to go read because we have a tendency nowadays to you know ask and ask and ask and ask. Um if you want to dive into Linux and you encounter an issue go check on Google first is my first answer always like go go search first trying to find out a little bit before kind of posting into any question in the chat because one point people will be like can you just go read for a bit.

And it's not mean it's just like try to be autonomous at that point a little bit. But yeah community is amazing for this. Like just do the Houdini stuff. We have other stuff coming up but it's yeah this is the power of Linux right now is it's a community against Windows. And this this is this is actually good news for me because I have uh I have I also have not yet pushed myself over to Wayland for a lot of those reasons. But things most things that I use seem to seem to work there now I think.

So I'm I may have to I don't know when I'm going to find time to do it but I may have to rip out and do the do a dance. Good thing is if you go with KDE actually you can say it's going to be X Wayland. So if an app doesn't technically work fully with Wayland right now you can just tell it to work with X and it's going to be like yeah so I'm on Wayland through X emulated. So I'm So it's working. So I I'm full disclosure I am also an enlightenment nerd.

So Respect respect. I've been using this this desktop for for uh longer than I than I've I've I've I've I've found a way to tune it to work exactly the way that I like and it's it's hard to pull myself away from it. I've I've seen some really cool things. I mean actually I just recently installed uh KDE connect for interacting with my phone right I had like now I'm like kicking myself why I hadn't why hadn't I done that sooner because it's I thought for my head I thought there was going to be so many more dependencies on KDE to to run that and it doesn't.

And I'm I'm an idiot for for thinking that it did and not even checking. So And if you've used GDM recently you know that to have it more friendly in the UI you need to actually install 20 extensions of Gnome to make it you know look better you know what I mean? Yeah. The the default Gnome is in my personal opinion a tablet version. Right. It's like a app drawer it's the KDE default display looks like a Windows. Right. So for someone that shifts over it's not something like super new or discouraging.

For Mac OS user it's a bit different. Yeah. Right right. But still like it's it's you get used to it quickly more easily than to going to GDM the default flavor of right now. Yeah and I mean that that actually that's why I I I did I did Gnome for for for a bit but when their opinions about user experience started dramatically differing from mine to the point where I couldn't where I was spending more time working around their way of working to get to the way that I wanted to work it's like I'm I'm this this is this is where we part ways.

Uh and so enough is enough. Yeah. But I mean that's that's also one of the advantages of being on a platform like this is that I I'm not bound to somebody's opinion about you know Mac OS is my is the is like the whipping boy for my friend this one is like I'm not bound to their designers opinion on how an interface is supposed to work. I can build it myself and really tune it the way I want. Now I might run into some issues with HDR displays and stuff like that if I just if I use something esoteric like enlightenment.

But um I also have been using it long enough that I'm I know the difference between when when it's worth my time to work around it and when it's not. And so when I when I see the bridge I'm like all right I can I can pass on that. If I'm like if I'm recommending this to anybody else I'm absolutely saying use use something like my family all runs Pop OS. And so they're it's all Gnome but they don't they don't need much more than that.

So it works it works out just fine. Now somebody's jumping in doing heavy creative work I might I would I would consider KDE more now especially because of how heavily uh all these applications are using the cute libraries and and those sort of things. Um Yep. A couple of years ago I'd say no because KDE introduced quite a lot of overhead to a machine but um yeah. Yeah. They went back on their word and said yeah we we agreed that was too much and they kind of reworked everything and it's now great.

Um and even if you're personal and just want to tinker around you want something easier because if you don't want to have let's say you want to game on your desktop because you know this app is way too much. And you just want to start with something easy. Um I would actually recommend instead of Pop OS go with Nobara and OBARA. It's a it's actually funny this is was built by a guy from Red Hat that built this for his dad to game with it on Linux.

Oh nice. It is a fully GUI like you need a driver it's a one click install it's amazing. Um it's based on Fedora so it's bleeding edge for gaming and everything like that. Honestly I'm now on Fedora for like time for my personal rig but like I game on it for everything and it's fine except some EA games because of easy anti-cheat but that's yeah another fight for another day. Uh but yeah I mean it is this is the way and with the recent change we've seen um yesterday I actually had to do my machine my main rig is dual boot with Windows for some sometimes I'm like yeah okay I need to go on Windows.

I haven't started the Windows partition in eight months now. Nice. I said no I I need to go in yesterday so I booted it up. One of the worst mistakes I've ever made in my life. The moment it booted it was like hey you have an update. Want me to do it? Yes I'm doing it. All right do it. Then it fre- finally booted up for like the sixth reboot went inside of it and while I was working in the program I had to work in decided hey I had another update by the way I'm shutting down right now.

Oh jeez. It did this three times in my face. I was so done. I was with my friend online because we were going to the same project and I was like I'm about to freaking make that app work on Linux. Trust me I will make it work. It it will it will not but I was going to I was um this proved to me how invasive Windows is. It's not like hey I have an update you want to do it now or want to do it later like even if you say do it later they have a hard timeline.

It's like I'll do it later but like in three hours. Right. It's not like Linux is like you have an update. You want to do it now? Stay there. It's fine. It doesn't matter. Right. You do it when you have the time for it and when you want to do it not being enforced down the throat of you have an update. The second part I'm afraid scared for people right now and I'm telling them a lot is actually the age verification stuff. Mm. For me from what I've heard through multiple countries that all country that there's a right now.

Um Windows will start to enforce age verification at login if it's a new computer it's going to be at set up. If it's already in use it's going to be like just a prompt and it would be a face voice and also an ID needed to be presented to the camera to confirm it's you. And then what would happen is it would monitor at all time the voice and the face of the people logged in to be sure it's you.

On my personal security T side of things I'm like this is against everything we've worked toward. Right. It means they are spying on you at all time hearing what you say seeing what you do seeing you pick your nose at this point. Like it's this no but like the Right. And I'm like where does this data go? Right. Where what Because it's not running on it's not running local to do that. Uh uh uh it all goes to the cloud. And I'm like okay I mean this is what scares me and I tell more and more people like you might want to look alternative right now.

Because if this really goes in and goes as bad as it's being described right now I I can perceive a shift a big shift coming towards Linux or even Mac OS at that point. Right. Because Mac OS said we'll do the age verification. That is it. Right. That's all they're going to do and I'm I mean it's a check box. I I kind of understand I don't agree with it but I understand why. Um Linux said we're we're not going to talk for now. Well I we'll see how how it goes and we'll Well I mean I can I can see this is this is my problem is I can see the argument because the argument is like people are not like the the running argument is that people are not going to work in their own self-interest to maintain a secure environment and therefore certain things need to be uh put in place to

protect them from themselves. That's that's the argument. Uh and I I on the one hand I I understand where that's coming from but I'm also an optimist at some level and it's like you know what I I I I see the the mindset of people are lazy and stupid. So we need to help work around that but at the same time I'm also of the mind that people may be lazy and stupid but they can also be educated. They can also be taught. Yeah. They can also Yeah.

You know we don't You have to be taught to brush your teeth. But once you realize the benefit of brushing your teeth you you you do the thing right? I'm my I mean my 12 year old my 12 year old notwithstanding I'm still working with him on that one but it's that's part of his learning process right? I mean Well yeah. You can have some hiccups here and there but I mean I get your point. The thing is for me that law was actually started started because because meta Meta and other major brand decided that the you know the pop up that is this are you agent loss or whatever I don't want to go into that too deep was not enough.

Mm. And this is why they just push it on the hardware slash OSI be like they'll do it they'll deal with it. Right. And I'm like for me it's worth fixing an issue from the websites. Right. And this that correlation it's exactly what you say I'm not why fix something or put a gateway of something rather than teaching people how to use it properly. Um the most funny story about this is it's been three years with a million X about Siggraph and every year and quote me on this I post a two step talk and workshop at Siggraph.

The talk is intended for the students and teachers. They're not everyone else can attend but the main scope of that talk and workshop is to dance and teachers because every year we hear the same thing what is Linux. Right. And I'm like okay the students and teacher does not even know their stack. They don't know they just say oh I opened the app you know it's an orange logo. I'm like Houdini they're like yeah. All right so they don't even know what the app name is they just know the icon at this point.

For me this is exactly what you're telling me it's it's a regression we need to teach that to people and some teacher agree with it some don't but funny enough every year Siggraph has declined us. Hmm. Saying this talk and workshop is to market yish. So so this all right so this is a problem I had and I brought this up in in my my recap of Siggraph is that uh I used to go to the the educators forum. Mm-hmm. Every time and because I mean whether I was whether I was actively teaching at the time or not it's just it's it's good to see where the where where things are coming in and how teaching methodologies and what not are happening.

Yeah. But in Vancouver and this year there was a whole day of the educator forum that was specifically looked like it was specifically dedicated to software applications like there was like Nvidia and Epic topic talking about Unreal and Autodesk kind of thing and like like this is the come pitch to educators session so so for them to also say that a session from a Linux is is inappropriate when they have that whole chain

and that's the point I mean the talk itself was you know why you should look into Linux just a bit like what we're doing it now and it was you know open talk why my human the good the bad you know the the thing like that. The workshop though was actually something I worked hard on. It was not come see how to install Linux it was come learn how to dual boot your machine. We're providing the machine for you and if you're a student I was able to make a deal with a reseller of refurbished workstations and we would give those workstations to the students when they leave.

Well that'd be cool. So the deal was I'm teaching you how to do it you're actually doing it live with us you're learning how it works you know how to dual boot and things like that so you can redo it if ever we're giving you the old documentation and the DNL so in paper and you also have the PDF version in the email later on plus you're leaving with a workstation. Right. I to this day after two years posting this you know talk I still don't understand why and where this is too marketing.

Right right. I I I it's not a sales pitch it's I'm giving shit at this point. Uh well you know maybe maybe maybe Anaheim will be will be the the the turning point on that. I wish. We we can hope and dream and and keep up with that. Um Yeah. Actually you guys were also involved with with um because it was also happening just before is the open source days stuff and um again I gave I gave my impressions on this in an earlier episode I'd love to get what your thoughts are overall.

Open Source Days is how could I say this uh it's a nice day but if you're not a pipeline dev or a director it's a long day. Long day really it's really technical. You see what I mean like okay so um this year I had to leave midday for personal reasons which you know but did the I listened to the first half of the day because it was amazing to hear David the CEO of Open Source Days talk about what they're going through and things like that and change coming up and things like that showcase some of the work the industry has done was amazing every year you have some splendid you know visual effect from recent show and you're like wow if you're in Vancouver you saw the movie made with Blender if I remember well I forgot the name it was beautiful um and then you have some vendor coming in the scene

talking about their topic and you're like this is going to be long um there was there was complain this year and last year about this where and I heard about it because I was straight up with the guy David and I was like um where the the vendors go on the stage and actually talk about a show that was done with that software and they barely showcase the show it's more like the deep dive in about 20 minutes the whole stack of the software. Right. It's not the place for that.

Right right. It's that day for me is a day of being grandiose just like show show me what you got. Right. Show show me what was done this year show me the big stuff show me the big names this is is the it's the opening ceremony for me and I always loved it for that. Then again time are changing we'll see how it goes. Right. Um hated the space though honestly I hated the space the physical space hated it completely. It's a it's a I mean it's the the the bottom floor no not the bottom like the third floor on a the hotel that that sitting right there.

Second basement something like that I it was so weird like you need to go up down it was like 20 minutes away from the venue. Getting to the space like it was actually it was literally across the street from the space but in order to get there from the from the convention center it was literally across the street but in order to get there you had to like you ran a lap you ran a center yeah you ran a when you went into the Hilton or was it the Marriott whatever there was no indication.

Right. It was just like fan your way in find it. Yeah. That's it yeah. I mean we'll see again um The upside is that all of those presentations were recorded I think it's on it's on the ASWF YouTube site so yeah there's that is good yeah. Yeah. So cool um I think that that covers most so my next my next thing is going to be what did I not talk about that you that that you feel is important to to share. For me this year we've seen an amazing um surge of interest at the Amal Linux Days that we've done and you were attending.

What we kind of see and it's weird it's we've seen about the same amount of people joining this year as last year. Last year in Vancouver won't lie the Amal Linux in Vancouver was an amazing venue it was into the um University uh for artists in Vancouver it's amazing the venue was beautiful but it was about 45 minutes from the venue. So attendance was not the greatest plus every year we're fighting with Digipro. Right. Which if you don't know Digipro is going to cost you a liver to attend and it's all technical it's all technical pipeline devs.

Yes it is. Only this it's amazing for them but you know there's other things. So we always do fight with Digipro for that day it's always on a Saturday before Siggraph it's Amal Linux Day whatever the CD is so next year's going to be Anaheim. The goal of that day is to showcase what was discussed and what initiatives came out of um the full year after Siggraph. And this year was actually a turning point for me where I've seen interest good discussion coming out from this we've had vendors coming to us.

My goal is to get more people involved next year and get more people in that room. I don't I understand some might want to go to Digipro because they have you know some things over there but the more people we can get this year there the more it's going to be amazing and get more things done actually we need people to actually join our SIG if they're into entertainment or just join the Amal Linux chat to just you know start and see what's going on and join the ecosystem.

Um we need volunteers that's all we need honestly but yeah for for me the only thing we did not talk was Amal Linux Day and that we need to make it bigger and louder honestly I don't like again I said we're a non-profit at Amal Linux I don't have um money to showcase it in a billboard. If anyone has money to showcase it in a billboard please reach out to me more than happy to do it but honestly that's it's worth talking about honestly it's been amazing and I think that you enjoyed it most likely that's how we connected and yeah we need this to be bigger actually yeah.

And we'll have to talk later because I I've I've found some some fun things that can be done with digital billboards at a surprisingly reasonable cost so we'll we'll have to have a talk all right yeah yeah let's I've been looking into this for for my own personal projects and stuff and just some of them are sometimes I just need to sell stuff but that's that's a separate conversation for a separate thing but um if if in this course of this of this discussion somebody listens and says you know what I'm going to give Amal Linux a try where do where do they go how do they do that what's the easiest way for them to get started?

They go to so there's two things if you just want information first amalinux.org if you want to join the chat it's chat.amalinux.org you'll need to create an account with the OSI Foundation um and by creating an account you also become a member once you're a member you're allowed to vote for the board members and initiatives. We're a non-profit that's how we rule that's how it was dictated so it's pretty much everyone votes for the next board members the election are coming up sadly if you're joining now you're too late to vote for the elections but yeah that's how they start that's how they is going to move forward and yeah thank you for having me I appreciate it.

And to actually start using Amal Linux just download the ISO and play with it is there a is there an easier way? Yeah so there's two ways you can either go with a ISO it's at the amalinux.org you can go into the download section download it I I recommend the KDE version if you want to be on the safe side download Amal Linux 9 if you want to be adventurous go with Amal Linux 10 for day to day use you won't see any difference with 10 and 9 well you you will but nothing that major so why if you want to do something specific like VFX stick with 9 for now unless you're adventurous uh if you want to test it out before going forward download the live ISO a live ISO permits you to actually install the ISO into a USB key there's a whole guide on this if you are not familiar with

this process and once you boot onto the live ISO you can actually test out the Linux distro of Amal Linux live without actually installing it. And then if you like it you can install it and yeah it's that's the process that we offer. Cool and I'll put I'll put links to all of that in the show notes I just got to remember to do that. Yeah thanks I appreciate it. If anybody needed to get in touch with you because they like you and like what you're talking about where would they where would they do that?

Either LinkedIn Tristan Cheru or you might put my link because the name itself they can be like what or and you can reach out to me either in the chat or directly at personal email Tristan at cheru.dev or you can reach out to me to amalinux Tristan at amalinux.org. Cool and I will put all that in there as well fantastic. Because otherwise my name is always a mix-up. Thanks for showing up thanks for thanks for coming and and talking with us and um yeah I'm I'm I'm going to I'm going to switch over to Wayland or at least play with it and see what I see what I can figure out.

If you want next time we can if you ever invite me again I can actually showcase a creative installer live into the podcast and showcase every open source app we've just added and things like that so. Oh that'd be fantastic cool we'll have to we'll have to schedule that out. Fantastic. All right thanks Jason. Take care. And that's the show. Told you really good interview really fun conversation to have and I'm happy to have had Tristan on and I'm looking forward to maybe we can we can have him have him on again especially if you guys like hearing what he has to say we can talk about some more details about getting some of these applications running maybe maybe we'll even try and do a screen share sort of thing.

We'll see how that works out because I mean mostly this podcast is still an audio podcast we do have the video bit on it and I'm trying to share some of that more but um maybe maybe there's room for for screencasting visually things that you can watch and do those sorts of fun stuff. So think about it we'll we'll sort of get that sort that stuff sussed out. Oh I did want to bring up another thing is that in September I will be at BCON the Blender Conference in Amsterdam I will be there.

Maybe you will too so that's at the end of September September 23rd to 25th I think of um if I'm wrong it'll be in the show notes with the right date but I'm pretty sure 23rd to 25th of September I will be there for that and hanging out and I think I'm going to have at least a special interest group of people talking about if you've made something in Blender add-ons assets courses some funky geometry node thing that works really cool but you're trying to figure out how to sell that then I could probably help you with that not just I'm going to give basically what I'm going to be talking about a bit at BCON but I can also if you want if you're interested in that now reach out try and find me and I can help you with that before that.

In any case that's the show and now that I've said all that stuff it's time to get to work.

Captain Black the XR-53 calling from Mars I locked myself in the cockpit. I I can't take off or fire the guns and they're coming for me now.

And this is the last job.

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