openSUSE Leap 42.1 Milestone 1

Installation took about half an hour, and after rebooting into it (save for the in-between GRUB update step in Manjaro), I opened up terminal and looked for updates, to which there was none.

I then searched for VLC and also found nothing, double checking with a search of "h264", which obviously yielded nothing.

To summarise: it is much too early for me to test Leap. In other words, I should wait until it's out before an actual test.

I can't really say much else, just because there isn't really anything to talk about with Leap - GNOME 3.16.x is GNOME. I am literally throwing my hands into the air because I have nothing (XD).

I think it'll be mature around November, so I'll wait a few months before I test it again (hopefully I remember on my own).

openSUSE Tumbleweed Part 4 / openSUSE Leap 42.1 Milestone 1 / Manjaro Part 2.75

I'll apologise ahead of time for bouncing between Tumblweed, Leap, and Manjaro; I'll try to make it evident which I am talking about.

So far I've installed and updated Tumbleweed and at the moment I'm waiting for the other packages to install (VLC, K3B, etc).

It does seem like I would have gone with Tumbleweed had I thought about it, but since I haven't been able to preform any real testing, I can't say anything for sure right now.

Also, while I was browsing around yesterday, I saw the upcoming release of openSUSE is called "Leap" which will have the SUSE Linux Enterprises (SEL) at its core and allow security updates directly from them. In other words, I have another version of openSUSE to test out once it's downloaded and I've finished my testing for Tumbleweed.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention with the first Manjaro Linux post is that I figured out what the weird "fourth" button (the one second from the left) on the volume/user/etc menu is. It's meant for devices with accelerometers, in other words, it's to allow/lock screen orientation. I figured this out when I updated from GNOME 3.14.x to 3.16.2, as the circular arrow was replaced with a tilted rectangle with a curved arrow, and when I clicked on it, the arrow became a padlock. Mystery solved.

Back to Tumbleweed, I just tried a video file in VLC and it gave me the error message that it could not decode h264; I looked in zypper and found there weren't any h264 codecs at all. Looks like I'm going to have to add the repository from Packman and test again.

When I booted into Manjaro, I saw that I had GNOME 3.16.2 and not 3.16.3 that I updated to on Melty, which gave me problems. As much as I wanted to update it and test to see if it broke on Triela, the Tumbleweed testing came first (kinda hard to update GRUB if the target system isn't usable. Sure I could use mhwd-chroot and do it, but that requires booting into a live version of Manjaro to do - so why take the risk if it will just complicate things?

Tried VLC again in Tumbleweed with the same message, but this time, h264enc was in the repository. Oh how long it's been since I've had to do this sort of thing... I should pull up caf's guide, but at the same time, I don't really want to. Luckily, it worked without any problems.

Decided to try an mp3 and I'm glad I did, as supposedly the plugin wasn't installed, though zypper tells me something different, I decided to install gstreamer-0_10-plugins-fluendo_mp3, but it didn't seem to help, so I tried removing pullin-fluendo-mp3 which also didn't work. I then noticed that gstreamer-0_10-plugins-fluendo_mp3 replaced gstreamer-0_1-fluendo_mp3, so i reinstalled gstreamer-0_1-fluendo_mp3, but that also didn't work.

I decided to used caf4926's guide (from 12.3, but it's not like the packages are any different), and after getting it all installed, I was able to get mp3 playback.

So yes, Tumbleweed is quite viable, but as I mentioned twice before now, I'd rather yaourt than have to go through the trouble doing it "manually" (plus, I'd probably have to put some extra effort into FreeFileSync, since it's meant for 13.2 atm). So with this, I conclude Tumbleweed's test, and now I move onto updating Manjaro.

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It took a bit longer than I wanted for Manjaro to update, but I was able to reboot back into it without any problems. What's weird is that the screen orientation button has reverted to the circular arrow... Since I know what it is, it won't bother me any.

I suppose I'll stick with GNOME on Triela for now, since I don't feel like going through all the hassle to reinstall/reconfigure Manjaro... I might be able to install XFCE and remove GNOME (I found instructions for going from XFCE to GNOME on Manjaro's wiki), but I think a reinstall would be less of a headache to be honest.

Tomorrow I will test openSUSE Leap 42.1 Milestone 1, since I'm still waiting on the download.

openSUSE Tumbleweed Part 3.5 / Manjaro Linux Part 2.5

With my Manjaro Linux post, I got a comment on Google+ (because I have blogger set up to post the blog entry to G+ once it's posted) asking why I didn't try openSUSE Tumbleweed. I explained to him breifly of the issues I had before and told him that I will give Tumblweeed another try since it's been quite a few months when I last tried it.

At this moment I already have downloaded and burned the Live GNOME Tumbleweed (x86_64) to a DVD+RW and plan on doing a test install on Triela's testbed partition tomorrow after work.

I'm thinking that the VLC codecs are going to be a problem again, but it is part of my test procedures, so we will see what happens.

If the test's successful, will I move to Tumbleweed from Manjaro? As much as I would like to, I'll probably be sticking with Manjaro because of the Arch Linux User Repository (AUR), which allows me to build FreeFileSync, Skype, and Atom (text editor) from source. With Tumbleweed (and even openSUSE), they would be .rpm files I'd have to download and "install" - with the exception of FreeFileSync, as it's able to run on it's own without installation.

So even though I'm quite set on Manjaro, I will keep my word and try Tumbleweed out.

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One thing that I forgot to mention with my previous post is that I've gotten quite used to pacman and yaourt in terminal, confirming my theory that learning pacman would be fairly easy to learn since it's similar to zypper (yaourt works the same as pacman, but it's for building packages from the AUR).

Manjaro Linux Part 2

Last night I decided to forego the installation of Manjaro onto Melty, which went well until I rebooted after getting the updates. I reinstalled 3 more times after that, doing different things to try to figure out the problem, which was most likely GNOME 3.16.x. Being tired from spending approximately seven hours with it, I grabbed the Manjaro XFCE disk before getting some sleep.

This morning, I stuffed the ISO onto my Linux stick, but somehow the kernel was missing, even after trying writing the ISO again along with trying it on the Dell. I ended up just booting into Windows and using Unetbootin to write it to another flash drive, which tested well on the Dell (GRUB was just a bit strange with "Default" as the first option which didn't seem to do anything).

Installation went just fine, but that obviously wasn't the issue, and while I let it update, I kept system configurations to a minimum, so that if it did break, I wouldn't have lost too much time.

As the screen went from the Manjaro splash screen (which is similar to Ubuntu's, but with green dots instead of orange ones) to XFCE desktop, I held my breath a bit as I hoped that it would be fine, but expecting it to break at the same time. Fortunately, nothing happened and I was greeted by the desktop and panel.

I began installing other programs and getting the settings configured, and tried the XFCE theme I usually use for Pi2, Taiga, and Sae-chan, which made me very slightly cringe as it was a light theme. When I was able to, I began looking for the authors of the theme to see if they had anything dark, and I was able to come across it somehow (I was between DeviantArt, Google, and xfce-look.org).

I first grabbed Ambiance Blackout Flat since it was what I was looking for and RAVEfinity was definitely reliable, since they made the pink Radiance theme that I use for Pi2, Taiga, and Sae-chan. I then grabbed Vivacious Colors and Vibrancy Colors GTK icon themes, seeing that I wanted something else besides the "M(something)-circle" icon theme that was default upon installation - it's an interesting set, but I wanted something that was a bit easier to see against a dark theme (though the default theme was dark anyway).

I really liked the application icons of Vivacious, but liked the folder colours of Vibrancy, so I decided to hack the two together and it worked out okay.... Until I cleaned up the lot of extra themes, which ended up breaking the icon theme without my knowledge. After "finishing" with that, I decided to look at Ambiance & Radiance Flat, since it was essentially an "updated" version of the Radiance theme (I like flat themes, and I don't know why). I took a quick look with Melty and didn't really notice much different, but got everything packed away and uploaded to the Pi2 and the NAS before downloading it to Sae-chan to install it.

It was when I watched the scrollbar flatten that I noticed the difference, and when I looked at the icon theme change, the folders worked, but not the application icons. I then looked on Melty and noticed that the application icons weren't like I remember them. While trying to figure out what went wrong, I found that Vivacious actually did have extra folder colours, but as an add-on pack, so I downloaded it and gave it a test, which didn't make any difference to the icon theme I hacked together (this is technically a good thing), but the application icons were still not there.

It took quite some time, but I found a note in small print on the Vivacious Colors page:

(!) Folder Color Add-on Requires Main Theme to work!

Oh. That explains why the application icons disappeared. I downloaded the main theme again and extracted the "Vibrancy-Colors" folder to where I needed them (in the light/dark XFCE themes I was building and on Melty, so that the theme wasn't broken any longer), double checked the theme, and repackaged the themes yet again.

Unfortunately, it didn't make any difference on Sae-chan, so I just let it be and shut her down, but at the least, I was finally done with the theme.

I finished the rest of the setup, which was just my usual bout with commonly-used applications and their settings.

As to why I haven't a problem with GNOME 3.16.x on Triela but on Melty, I haven't a clue, but I don't mind XFCE at all, since I've already been using it for quite some time. I'm thinking that Lie-chan won't have any problems either, but it's too early to say as I haven't taken the time to update her yet.

Will I be switching from GNOME 3 to XFCE entirely? I can't say, but I think the window managers I used will more than likely be splintered if I don't go with one or the other... Now that I think about it though, I might go with XFCE because the theming is a lot simpler than GNOME (the theme I use for GNOME is a tad bit broken and the XFCE theme is solid, not to mention the "Smallscreen" window border is much thinner than the one I hacked together).

Things I've learned:

• A good testing involves updating all the packages before drawing conclusions on usability
• Keep configurations to a bare minimum during a full testing phase
• Look for and read the fine print on themes
• I like RAVEfinity a lot more than I thought I did? (XD)

Manjaro Linux

Recently I've gotten fed up with having to test/install new versions of openSUSE (and/or debian), and decided to take a look at true rolling releases, but unfortunately it came down to Arch and Gentoo. Since I had a bit of experience with Gentoo, I wanted to avoid it, as nice as it would've been for the machine to run a kernel compiled for it, and so I ended up taking a look at Arch Linux. Unfortunately, Arch Linux isn't much different, and while I wouldn't mind going through all the steps, I also had to think about how many machines I would need to install on (about 6-8), and while the time it takes to install on each machine differs, it's a lot of man-hours I'm not willing to put in while I'm working full-time.

Eventually I looked around, and on a forum, someone else asked a similar question (they were looking for something Arch-like, but simpler), and I ended up checking out one of the two suggestions, which was Bridge Linux. Bridge Linux broke itself on the test hard drive after installing, so it was quickly ditched and so I checked out the other suggestion of Manjaro Linux.

Manjaro was a bit wonky when I tried to put it on a USB drive, so I ended up just writing it onto a DVD+RW instead. The initial test worked well, though during installation on the test drive, the screen turned off and locked, and something glitched out, which resulted in a broken picture. Luckily I was able to reboot and get into the system, but sometimes I'd get the "No operating system" message from BIOS, which was fixed by recycling the power (I think that drive has a faulty MBR or something, would explain why my friend had problems with it).

On the test partition of Triela's actual drive, I decided to not install GRUB2 from Majaro, seeing as that I didn't want to change the options from Manjaro if I were to ditch it, but I wasn't able to boot into Manjaro, so I had to do it anyway (without reinstalling Manjaro).

There were a lot of surprises with Manjaro, one being that I am able to use the user repository for Arch Linux (Arch User Repository or AUR for short), which allowed me to build and install Skype, FreeFileSync, and Atom (text editor) from the package manager. Another surprise was that I wasn't able to find the proper config file for the NTP hosts that Manjaro uses to update the time, so I'm not able to add a custom server (at least for the moment). I was surprised that I had used pacman before (probably for Sabayon), and after looking at the help, it seems that it's quite similar to zypper in simplicity, so it shouldn't be too hard to learn (compared with apt-get for Debian which becomes apt-cache for when you want to search for something...). A very nice surprise was that Manjaro doesn't make Triela idle hot like openSUSE does.

I tested Rhythmbox out and found that the random-crashing problem still exists, though (if I remember correctly) I don't think it had to do with cairo this time, so I decided to stick with Clementine as I have been.

After completing all the necessary tests on the test partition, I backed up all the files I needed to back up in the home folder of openSUSE before I went through with the install of Manjaro.

So far the only issue I've ran into with Manjaro on Triela is that Firefox would glitch GNOME out, but usually only for a second, but I found that it was just kernel 4.1.2-x that was causing the problem and just downgraded to 4.0.x instead.

For Lie-chan, I found that (for whatever reason) GRUB2 from Manjaro and the GPT partitioning table don't play along nicely (I wasn't able to boot into Manjaro at all), and so I had to change the partition table back to MBR (losing the copy of my music library in the process) and reinstall. So far, Lie-chan only has an initial installation (with the keyring being the only upgrade I think) and I haven't been able to test out VLC on her like I normally do (the video file I use for testing also got wiped), but I'll eventually get around to getting her up to date and fully tested. So far the only issue with Manjaro on Lie-chan is with the Sound Blaster sound card, but it might just be the fact that I haven't updated yet - we shall see.

I definitely will migrate my x64 computers (and maybe Ziggy though he's x86) eventually, but it'll be a slow processes.

As far as the 2(DrivePi) and Sae-chan goes, I'll probably sit through the Arch Linux installation with each of them, since I probably don't have much of alternative for them.

I may still test openSUSE from this point forward, but by no means will I have an installation of it that I will frequently use. As I make the transition to Manjaro, I will (figuratively) say my farewells to openSUSE. openSUSE has been good to me over these past 5-6 years, but it's time I move onto a true rolling distribution, so I'm not installing the new version of openSUSE every release cycle.

Fun fact: the distributions I've stuck with for a good amount of time all have a green theme to it (Linux Mint, openSUSE, and now Manjaro)... Maybe something trying to tell me something. (XD)

Website Adertisments Part 2

About a couple weeks ago, I wrote about blocking website advertisements, and about a week ago, I came across another article on it (Why Adblocking is the New Speeding).

I only wanted to revisit this because the author makes a very valid point:

.... Like pretty much everyone else on the outside three lanes of the four-lane motorway, I was over the speed limit.
And what happened? Nothing. I carried on going above the speed limit. Many of us that day were breaking the law. And nothing exceptional happened. No police stopped us. We broke the social compact – the one about obeying most laws – without compunction. None of the people on that motorway that day had an accident there, so is speeding harmless?
It’s also a fact that around one-third of car accidents can be ascribed to excessive speed. Going too fast is highly correlated with accidents.
Yet we ignore it. And we speed. ....

  Just like speeding, people that block ads are going to continue to block ads because there isn't really much immediate consequence to do so.

Similarly, there’s no retribution for adblocking. Nothing happens when you do it, except you get a better experience. Ditto for speeding: you get where you’re going sooner.

The only thing I disagree with this statement is that for speeding, you do get where you're going sooner (results differ a bit depending on distance if you're doing it on the highway or in the city), but the main consequence is that your gas mileage becomes worse above a certain speed (supposedly it's above 55mph, but I think it depends on other things, really). But it is what you intentionally give up to get where you want to sooner.

That was all that I wanted to revisit this topic for.