My first impressions of the Magewell USB Capture 4K Plus

Since Wayland's support for video screen capture is horrible (in my experience anyway) I've been hunting for a better solution. I recently decided that perhaps an external HDMI capture device would do what I was looking for.

After I read "[I tested 4 "Linux-compatible" USB 3.0 HDMI capture cards](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/c5s5ml/i_tested_4_linuxcompatible_usb_30_hdmi_capture/)", I decided I would try the ClonerAlliance Flint 4KP. Unfortunately, that device completely failed to work in all respects. It would pass through 4K. And it wouldn't capture at all with V4L.

Someone in that post mentioned Magewell, so I looked over their product selection. The [Magewell USB Capture 4K Plus](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0754C5XLW) looked like it would fit the bill. I realized that for USB C 3.1 Gen 1 (aka 5gps), 4P + 60 fps + full color would be a stretch as far as bandwidth was concerned, so I was only looking to get full color with 1080p at 30fps, which was pretty conservative. But, 4K pass-through was an absolute must.

And this little unassuming device delivered. It works flawlessly, though there is a slight delay (about 200-500ms) between the image on my screen and the image captured through the USB port. I didn't get a chance to test it's audio capabilities, but the devices I needed if I wanted to use it show up in PulseAudio and obs, so I have no doubt they'll work.

It also looks like I have enough bandwidth with my setup to capture at 4K with 30fps or reduced color, or maybe both. I may try that out if I use it for making coding tutorial videos. But, all the options show up in V4L and I have no doubt they'll work flawlessly if my motherboard has the necessary USB bandwidth.

The device is advertised as being a 24/7 device. And it doesn't get especially hot when in use, nor does it have any fans. So that seems like it would be the case. It definitely does have air vents though, so I wouldn't put it in a confined space with no airflow.

All in all, this device isn't flashy or fancy. It just works, and does what I don't think any other device on the market does. Few devices vendors put in the attention to detail necessary to make drivers for standard hardware work out of the box with no tweaks. Magewell does, and makes it well worth the price tag.

https://redd.it/c992l0
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Xbox one controller isnt working with Linux

Controller is blinking but never stops blinking and doesnt work. I switch to windows and it works just fine. How do i fix this?? :( i want to play certain games on Linux with the controller. Im using Linux Mint. Help would be greatly appreciated!

https://redd.it/c99u66
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Building Careers and Companies with Open Source with Miguel de Icaza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApLBy0AJBEw

https://redd.it/c9a8q1
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[Podcast - FLOSS for Science] EP019 The Road Ahead for Scientific Linux
https://flossforscience.com/podcast/season-2-episode-7

https://redd.it/c9a5o2
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What's a decent email client (with calendar) that can handle multiple gmail and office365 accounts?

I see a few threads [1](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/93csc4/anyone_working_on_a_good_email_client_for_linux/), [2](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/8b0211/top_6_desktop_email_clients_for_linux/), [3](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/99jpbz/what_email_client_do_you_use/), [4](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/7kc64o/which_offline_email_client_to_use_in_2018/) already but they're a year old so I figured I'd make another thread for 2019.

I've been using Thunderbird but I hate the way it looks and I have no idea why but it keeps messing up my office365 accounts where it'd ask me for the pw every time I open it up. And it keeps combining my two office365 accounts into a single inbox.

I'd love to try a new modern looking client that can handle office365 accounts well, not just for mail but for calendar as well since that's for school/work stuff.

https://redd.it/c9b5zu
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SSD reads before and after flashing Middleton BIOS

Tossed a cheap $17 Kingston SSD into my beloved T61. Specs below.

[Before BIOS update](https://i.redd.it/jl5vdat27e831.png)

[After BIOS update](https://i.redd.it/c6qgmnq57e831.png)

[T61 specs](https://i.redd.it/7en5v686ge831.png)

https://redd.it/c9awcv
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How's your holiday been? (Don't worry not asking for help)
https://redd.it/c99dps
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Wayland rant

Ok, so I hate Wayland, I really do. This post sums up my reasons.

1. Input and keyboard layouts -- in Wayland, input and keymaps are set by your WM or DE. That's stupid! On X you have a single command - setxkbmap - it works on all window managers and DE's. But no! Why would Wayland have sane input management! Setting shortcuts for switching between Colemak and Czech keyboard? Impossible!

2. Support -- Nvidia not supported at all. Wayland is in many cases just not working properly, and it even has issues on my Intel laptop!

3. No window managers -- dwm? bspwm? openbox? Well sorry, but Wayland has no alternatives! The only thing that works on Wayland is Gnome - but it's even slower than on Xorg!

4. "It's the future." -- Nope. It's broken fundamentally. After 11 years of development. Wayland may be the future, but a very distant one. It still sucks after all the developement!

5. It's not a display server -- While X is a full server, providing input and output, Wayland is like half a display server, where the other half is the WM/DE. That makes many things behave differently in different WMs/DEs.


So, why don't we just use a stable and actually functional server, you know, X. Wayland sucks, and the whole idea behind it's technical state is totally wrong! So, no, thanks, I'll use X like a sane person.

(I'm ready for the hate on my opinion btw.)

https://redd.it/c99ios
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Alternative Phone OS
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/jul/04/can-i-buy-a-phone-that-does-not-use-anything-from-google-or-apple?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Ftechnology%2Faskjack%2F2019%2Fjul%2F04%2Fcan-i-buy-a-phone-that-does-not-use-anything-from-google-or-apple

https://redd.it/c9db8s
@r_linux

Linux system collapsing in DELL Laptop

After I bought my DELL inspiron 15 3000 series I tried installing [Elementary OS](https://elementary.io) distro on it, and it worked like a charm for 2 weeks at least, but after that the desktop environment collapsed for no reason and it just gave me a black screen with a cursor, i tried re-installing the pantheon DE ( default of eOS ) but the WI-FI didn't work so I moved to windows for a while, and after 2 months I decided to install Ubuntu 18.04, but the same thing happened, it worked for a couple of weeks than everything started glitching and I couldn't even boot eventually, I'm pretty sure now that the fault is in my Laptop, but I'm curious if it was a problem in the BIOS settings or in the hardware itself ?

https://redd.it/c9dwjw
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Mozilla nominated as the "Internet Villain" by the UK ISP Association
https://twitter.com/ISPAUK/status/1146725374455373824

https://redd.it/c9dwho
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A humble review for Michael W Lucas' SSH Mastery
https://lockywolf.wordpress.com/2019/07/04/review-for-ssh-mastery-by-michael-w-lucas/

https://redd.it/c9esuu
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Support for shell components landed in Mir
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/support-for-shell-components-landed-in-mir/11688

https://redd.it/c9e47n
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File transfer via keyboard (Linux host)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKKkOPhnDHg

https://redd.it/c9fuhe
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Stock standard Debian/Gnome with a 4g card installed
https://redd.it/c9gbrn
@r_linux

Consider Renaming GIMP To A Less Offensive Name (#3617) · Issues · GNOME / GIMP
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/issues/3617

https://redd.it/c9gvgf
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Reproducible Builds in June 2019
https://reproducible-builds.org/reports/2019-06/

https://redd.it/c9gln3
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Weekend Fluff / Linux in the Wild Thread - July 05, 2019

Welcome to the weekend! This stickied thread is for you to post pictures of your ubuntu 2006 install disk, slackware floppies, on-topic memes or more.

When it's not the weekend, be sure to check out r/WildLinuxAppears or r/linuxmemes!

https://redd.it/c9ih0r
@r_linux

The Right to Read - Richard Stallman
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

https://redd.it/c9j347
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Evolution of the x86 context switch in Linux
https://www.maizure.org/projects/evolution_x86_context_switch_linux/index.html

https://redd.it/c9ixoe
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Getting SVP to work with mpv in Linux (Manjaro, Arch-based)

I'm making this post in hopes that some people find it via SEO. I had some trouble getting SVP to work, so I want to list the exact steps I took.

They more or less mirror a mix of the instructions on

the Arch wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mpv#SVP_4_Linux_(SmoothVideoProject)

and the SVP wiki: https://www.svp-team.com/wiki/SVP:Linux

This is on:

- Manjaro 18.0.4, an Arch-based distro

- Linux kernel 5.1

- KDE 5.59.0/Plasma 5.16.2

- Nvidia GPU with proprietary driver `linux51-nvidia` (the driver for the 5.1 kernel, called simply `video-nvidia` by `mhwd` and designated 430.26 in output of `pamac info linux51-nvidia`)

Package names are exact and not from AUR unless specified.

1. Uninstall `mpv` if present

2. Install `vapoursynth`

3. Install `mediainfo`

4. Install `lsof` if absent

5. Install the OpenCL, "ICD" drivers: `ocl-icd`, `opencl-headers`, and `opencl-nvidia` (Note: oddly, `opencl-nvidia` did not show up in Pamac's GUI for me; I installed it via CLI with `pamac install opencl-nvidia`)

6. Install `mpv-git` **from AUR** (Note: may need to install `vulkan-headers` dependency, which is *not* from the AUR)

7. Install `svp` **from AUR**

8. Close everything and run SVP to profile performance; when it's done, it'll just tersely close

9. Make mpv use SVP! Add an SVP profile and a preset for to `~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf` (see 📄 below)

10. Verify it works by opening a file with mpv and add SVP to autostart programs! 🥳

📄 `~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf`

profile=svp # Enable svp by default, here in the "top-level" of mpv.conf

# Keep within screen bounds; if window larger than W%xH% of screen, resize to W%xH%
autofit-larger=100%x100%

[svp] # SVP profile
# Everything below here only applies to this profile until another profile is declared!

input-ipc-server=/tmp/mpvsocket # Receives input from SVP
hr-seek-framedrop=no # Fixes audio desync
resume-playback=no # Not compatible with SVP

# These are are for hardware (GPU?) decoding.
# According to the Arch wiki,
# "hardware decoding is discouraged by mpv developers and is not likely to make
# a significant difference in performance."
# Still: slightly better performance for 4K videos if enabled, apparently.
hwdec=auto-copy
hwdec-codecs=all

# Can fix stuttering in some cases, in other cases probably causes it. Try it if you experience stuttering.
#opengl-early-flush=yes

Notes:

- It seems to work for both 60 Hz and 144 Hz monitors. Note that the extra frames aren't reported by mpv itself (e.g., if you ask it to show framerate, the OSD will still say "23.998" or whatever the native video framerate is).

- Video artifacts are expected.

- Slower seek response is expected (e.g., clicking the seekbar to go halfway into a video takes a full second with SVP on rather than instant with it off).

- The SVP Control Panel might come up as a blank window; moving it to a different monitor makes it render.

- I've found some significant, *unexpected* problems so far (*both of which are fixed by running at a FIXED FRAMERATE via a created profile; see* 🔷 *below*):

🔴 Normally, in Windows 10, moving a video window from a 60 Hz to a 144 Hz monitor causes a brief "hickup" of video followed by a switch in SVP's framerate to the new monitor's refresh rate. Here in Linux, it results in CPU 100% spiking and a breakdown of the framerate. Opening the video in a console gives some error output when this happens:

Audio/Video desynchronisation detected! Possible reasons include too slow
hardware, temporary CPU spikes, broken drivers, and broken files. Audio