December 9 2025 Wayland, Tasmota, Dyalog APL, Python: the documentary

Steve said he had managed to get a Thinkpad on eBay to replace an earlier one for a very reasonable price.

Brian asked what would happen to X applications once Wayland takes over and John said that xwayland allows them to run under Wayland. He added that, a few years ago, a friend had had problems with his desktop computer and swapping to Wayland had solved them all; at that time John’s desktop computer would not run Wayland but does now. Steve said that would have been down to different video chips; everything works fine in EndeavourOS.

Brian mentioned that he had been using a command beginning source and Steve commented that he could use . instead because dot is an alternative to source.

David noted that the Spitting Image videos have been moved off Youtube and are now available from https://spittingimageofficial.com/video/.

Steve showed a Tasmota plug with a power monitor which he had acquired as the new Sonoff units are no longer compatible with Tasmota; it can flash updates over USB and can interact via MQTT.

He noted that ESPHome is very much intertwined with Home Assistant.

Darren shared the new release of version 20 of Dyalog APL illustrating how it could generate and manipulate ranges.

John shared an example of APL which he had copied for an assignment in 1987 and Darren was able to explain it and correct one of the operators.

Darren is doing relatively little at the OU this academic year but next academic year will be doing his final year project: comparing Python and Dlang.

In response to a question about systemd-homed (using systemd to manage Home directories), it was noted that some distributions have said that they will not use it.

Darren mentioned that he had had problems booting one laptop and it was suggested that he try SuperGrub2 or rEFInd.

Bernie mentioned that Python: The documentary is out.

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