
SUDO Show 77, “The Promotion Paradox,” is all about what happens when the best nerd in the room gets handed a calendar full of 1:1s, budgets, and “peopleware” instead of terminals and tickets. Bill, Neal, and Noel swap stories about micromanagers, open office nightmares, open source maintainers, and why learning to lead humans is way harder—and ultimately more rewarding—than just being the fastest person at fixing servers.
Show Links:
The Manager’s Path – Camille Fournier
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-managers-path/9781491973882/
An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management – Will Larson
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45303387-an-elegant-puzzle
Linus Torvalds & Dirk Hohndel – Open Source Summit North America 2026 keynote
https://youtu.be/fi29pfLcW4I
Connect with the Hosts:
Bill - @ctlinux on Mastodon
Neal - @[email protected] on Mastodon
Noel - https://github.com/noelmiller
Jun 9
1 hr 3 min

SUDO Show 76, “ABCs of CVEs,” breaks down how modern Linux vulnerabilities go from scary headlines to real-world fixes. Bill, Neal, and Brandon start with conferences and Neal’s new Framework 13 Pro running Fedora, then dive into AI‑assisted security research and what tools like Claude and others are actually doing in the CVE pipeline. Neal walks through recent high‑profile issues like Pack2TheRoot in PackageKit, the copy.fail kernel optimization bug, and the Dirty Frag vulnerability, explaining how disclosure, embargoes, and coordination really work from a distro maintainer’s perspective. Brandon then focuses on CVE patching best practices, testing and release strategies, tools like Foreman and Uyuni for managing updates, and how to interpret CVSS scores and risk without panicking, before the crew wraps with advice for new grads who want to get into security without setting their hair—or their clusters—on fire.
Show Links:
Foreman – https://theforeman.org/
Uyuni – https://www.uyuni-project.org/
Pack2TheRoot – Linux local privilege escalation write‑up
https://github.security.telekom.com/2026/04/pack2theroot-linux-local-privilege-escalation.html
copy.fail – kernel copy‑on‑write vulnerability
https://copy.fail/
Dirty Frag – universal Linux LPE PoC
https://github.com/V4bel/dirtyfrag#dirty-frag-universal-linux-lpe
Connect with the Hosts:
Bill - @ctlinux on Mastodon
Neal - @[email protected] on Mastodon
Noel - https://github.com/noelmiller
May 14
51 min

SUDO Show 75, “I Don’t Know How to Make Coffee,” is a full‑on April Fools special where “business meets Linux” takes a back seat to pranks, retro war stories, and questionable life choices. Bill, Neal, and Noel start with open source airplanes, HDMI‑to‑floppy adapters, and whether airplane wings actually flap, then quickly descend into cargo‑class containers, VM‑matrix jokes, and vintage Linux desktop pain with FVWM95 and XFree86. From decaf‑only coffee stunts, BashRC logout traps, PC speaker torture, and ping‑flooded LAN parties to PACMAN.BAT in the school lab, Gentoo use‑flag accidents, OpenStack root‑password “oops” moments, and a threat to invent Fedora.js, they share their most devious tech and non‑tech pranks. Along the way, they talk MSP coffee culture, two‑pots‑a‑day network engineering, Kubernetes as “all YAML,” and close by reminding you not to try any of this at work—no matter how good that April Fools itch feels.
Show Links:
FVWM95 – https://fvwm95.sourceforge.net/
ReactOS – https://reactos.org/
Kata Containers – https://katacontainers.io
podman – https://podman.io
Chapters:
00:00:00 Intro – Off the Rails April Fools
00:00:55 Open Source Airplanes and HDMI-to-Floppy
00:01:50 Do Airplane Wings Flap?
00:04:28 Cargo Class and the VM Matrix
00:05:22 Best Tech and Non-Tech Pranks
00:08:49 FVWM95, XFree86, and Fake Windows Desktops
00:14:22 ReactOS and Retro Linux Adventures
00:15:01 Going Vintage in the Future
00:18:09 Bill’s Decaf Coffee and BashRC Pranks
00:19:56 PC Speaker Torture and Random Beeps
00:20:58 Old-School LAN Parties
00:23:05 Ping-Flood LAN Parties and ZipSlack
00:24:21 PSA System Rollback – April Fools
00:25:58 Noel’s PACMAN.BAT and Lab Ban
00:32:02 Linux ISOs and School Network Quotas
00:35:07 Office Built from Old Optiplex Cases
00:39:28 First Home PCs and Gateway Cow Boxes
00:42:06 Serial Mice Still in Production
00:42:56 Gentoo Use Flags and history
00:46:22 OpenStack Cluster and Lost Root Password
00:48:41 Ranking Pranks and Coffee + Desktop Combo
00:50:45 Noel Hates Coffee
00:52:26 MSP Coffee Culture and “I Don’t Know How to Make Coffee”
00:55:51 Weaponized Iced Coffee
00:58:52 /30 Subnets per Phone and Two Pots of Coffee
01:01:10 No Rails
01:02:06 May Your BBQ Sauce Be Watery
01:03:36 Kubernetes Is All YAML
01:04:04 Fedora.js
01:04:57 Disclaimer – Do Not Try This at Work
01:06:01 Ball Pits, Ball.js, and Bouncy Balls
01:07:29 Outro – Where Business Meets Terrible Jokes
Connect with the Hosts:
Bill - @ctlinux on Mastodon
Neal - @[email protected] on Mastodon
Noel - https://github.com/noelmiller
Apr 1
1 hr 7 min

Moving to the cloud was easy; getting out is the hard part. In SUDO Show 74, Bill, Neal, and Noel dig into “The Great Cloud Breakup” and why more teams are rethinking cloud‑first dogma as exit fees rise and data residency laws go live across the US, EU, UK, and beyond. They talk through how modern Linux, NVMe‑over‑Fabrics, and on‑prem hardware make repatriation realistic again, spotlight rclone and Nick Craig‑Wood for making data movement sane, and share hard‑won stories about ugly data transfers and hybrid architectures. The episode wraps with a tongue‑in‑cheek “repatriate AWS onto three Raspberry Pis” action item and a NetHogs quick fix you can run today to catch chatty services before egress fees blow up your budget.
Show Links:
Red Hat - https://www.redhat.com
rclone - https://rclone.org
rclone (commercial) - https://rclone.com
restic backup - https://restic.net
Oxide Computer Company - https://oxide.computer/
nethogs (NetHogs) - https://github.com/raboof/nethogs
Chapters:
00:00:00 Intro – The Great Cloud Breakup
00:02:11 Standup – Data Residency Laws and Exit Fees
00:06:36 Are We Ready to Repatriate? Linux and NVMe-over-Fabrics
00:15:37 Where Are the Future Jobs?
00:23:29 Supporter Spotlight – rclone and Nick Craig-Wood
00:30:17 Bill’s Nightmare Data Transfer Story
00:36:11 Main Topic – The Great Cloud Breakup
01:12:31 Action Item – Repatriate AWS onto MicroShift (on Three Pis)
01:14:12 Quick Fix – NetHogs to Catch Chatty Services
01:17:13 Looking Forward to the Next Episode
01:18:32 Outro – Where Business Meets Linux
Connect with the Hosts:
Bill - @ctlinux on Mastodon
Neal - @[email protected] on Mastodon
Noel - https://github.com/noelmiller
Feb 26
1 hr 20 min

SUDO Show 73 revisits the classic “Career Pipeline” topic with a fresh panel and an updated roadmap for building a Linux and open source career today. Bill, Neal, and Noel start with the “Wayland-only” future of the Linux desktop, spotlight Red Hat’s work on fwupd and the Linux Vendor Firmware Service, then dive into education, certifications, homelabs, open source contributions, and soft skills that turn curiosity into real-world tech jobs. They wrap up with a practical systemd-analyze “quick win” you can run right now to understand and improve your system’s boot performance.
Show Links:
Red Hat – Company site:
https://www.redhat.com
fwupd project:
https://fwupd.org
LVFS (Linux Vendor Firmware Service):
https://fwupd.org/lvfs
CompTIA A+ Certification:
https://www.comptia.org/en-us/certifications/a/
AWS Certification:
https://aws.amazon.com/certification/
RHCSA Training and Certification:
https://www.redhat.com/en/services/certification/rhcsa
SUSE SCA (SLES 15):
https://www.suse.com/training/exam/sca-sles-15/
Linux Professional Institute (LPIC):
https://www.lpi.org
systemd-analyze documentation:
https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd-analyze.html
Commands discussed:
systemd-analyze – “Odometer” (total boot time)
systemd-analyze blame – “Leaderboard” (slowest services)
systemd-analyze critical-chain – “Timeline” (dependency chain)
systemd-analyze critical-chain --system
systemd-analyze plot > boot.svg – “Visualizer” (boot chart)
Jan 15
1 hr 27 min

Bill, Brandon and Neal have a discussion around AI.
00:00 Intro
01:08 AI Models and Jobs
07:52 Biased AI Training
10:47 Hardware for AI
12:42 Does the GPU matter?
15:03 ARM or RISC-V?
17:25 AI Terminology
20:28 AI and Open-Source
26:53 Citing Sources and Ethics
34:58 Open Washing
41:04 Outro
Jan 9, 2025
41 min

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nxo45zMY0Q
Brandon has a conversation about OpenStack with Kevin Carter, Product Director of OpenStack Solutions at Rackspace.
Check out Rackspace’s press release on RackSpace OpenStack Enterprise:
Launch of Rackspace OpenStack Enterprise
Rackspace.com
00:00 Intro
02:28 OpenStack: The Elevator Pitch
04:49 Kevin's OpenStack History
08:51 Cloud Repatriation or VMWare Price Hikes?
18:51 Large Company Migration to OpenStack
25:07 Rackspace OpenStack Products
28:50 Open Source First
31:16 Resurgence of other projects
34:28 WrappupSpecial Guest: Kevin Carter.
Sep 26, 2024
35 min

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWeQ-U8k69Q
Bill, Brandon and Neal discuss the recent IPO of Raspberry PI company.
00:00 Intro
02:11 Raspberry Pi: From Hobbyist Device to Everywhere
12:56 Opensource Ideology and Raspberry Pi
18:04 From Foundation to Company
31:19 Path to Continued Sucess
38:50 Future of Pi Hardware
44:00 Personal Pis
49:14 Outro
Sep 12, 2024
49 min

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs9nwHaTFgU
A episode that should have been published earlier in the year (Blame Brandon). We discuss the fun that Neal had during another conference tour in Europe including FOSDEM, CentOS Connect and others.
00:00 Intro
03:19 Most Interesting Talk
10:39 Best Booth
13:47 Thank a Developer
16:04 Accessibility
23:29 SUDO Show Challange
25:44 CentOS Connect
27:58 CentOS Hyperscale SIG
30:03 Neal Talks on Hyperscale SIG Update
31:15 CentOS VS Fedora Server
36:14 To Be Continued
37:57 CentOS Can Count
40:21 The Next Version of CentOS
43:02 Outro
Aug 14, 2024
43 min
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