This week, Linux Out Loud chats about geek gift ideas.
Welcome to episode 43 of Linux Out Loud. We fired up our mics, connected those headphones as we searched the community for themes to expound upon. We kept the banter friendly, the conversation somewhat on topic, and had fun doing it.
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:59 FLL Update
00:06:00 Internet Upgrade
00:13:18 Christmas Lights
00:22:55 Gifts for Geeks
00:53:45 New Toy
00:56:59 Retro LAN
01:05:02 Retro Tech Table
01:09:49 Close
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Matt (Twitter @MattTDN)
Wendy (Mastodon @WendyDLN)
Anxious to know how the Cricut works out for you.
I went the Silhouette Cameo route for a cutter, and it has worked seamlessly! Inkscape has an extension (Extension > Export > Send to Silhouette) and it just works.
I’ve not tried to use it as a plotter, but as a cutter, I’ve had very little issues that aren’t inherent to using vinyl and cutters in general.
I don’t know if the Silhouette Inkscape extension supports the Cricut, but since it basically converts your SVG paths to gcode (pen up, left, right, feed, pen down, etc) it just might work.
I paid for the TuxPlot software and used that for years, but the developer moved on to other things, and it only works with Ubuntu 18.04. It had some nice features (preview, test, vinyl thickness, etc. etc) but the Inkscape extension seems to produce a much sharper resolution of cut.
Keep us posted in future podcasts, as the Cricut line of cutters are quite popular, and much translates between the two brands.
The Inkscape extension you’re looking for should be:
inkscape-silhouette_1.27-1_all.deb
You’ll find it on gitHub: Releases · fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette · GitHub
NOTE: I’m still using *_1.19-1_all.deb as Mint 20 is still on Inkscape 0.92, but if you’re using the newer release of Inkscape, you’ll probably want the newer *_1.27-a_all.deb version.
You and a few others saying how easy it is to use a Silhouette Cameo on Linux makes me wish I had looked into them more before I bought the Cricut. I am using it, but not in a clean manner. There is app and device jumping in order to get stuff sent to the cutter.
Inkscape to Design Space (in a Bottle), then I have to send it from my Android tablet.
Continue the discussion at forum.tuxdigital.com