14 March 2016
Updates
I was going to post an entry or two, but remembered I needed to fix the theme (which still needs to be fixed). Hopefully I'll get everything fixed and up to date soon.
01 January 2016
Three-month Absensce / Screenshot Program
I've been fairly busy at home with other things and haven't quite had the motivation to update, especially when I've a thing or two pending on several almost-completed projects. In that meantime, I've started some new projects and written a couple stories.
The past month and a half have been really busy for me, since I've been helping move buildings at work, so I've been fairly exhausted. I also spent most of my time after work in December making some gifts for some close friends as well as several postcards to them and others. I'm not entirely operational at work yet, but I'm slowly getting to a mostly-operational state.
I'm hoping to get the blog updated with all the projects within the next month or two (hopefully not longer than that) but please bear with me if I happen to be absent with posts again.
For a while I've been using Shutter as my screenshot program, but for whatever reason, it can't get the saved settings and resets everything to default, which is annoying. I tried figuring out what was wrong with it yesterday morning, but eventually I figured it'd be better to just find something else.
I tried
I then browsed through a list on Arch's wiki, and went with
Now when I hit Print Screen, it saves it as "YYYY-MM-DD_HH:MM:SS.png" and puts it in
The past month and a half have been really busy for me, since I've been helping move buildings at work, so I've been fairly exhausted. I also spent most of my time after work in December making some gifts for some close friends as well as several postcards to them and others. I'm not entirely operational at work yet, but I'm slowly getting to a mostly-operational state.
I'm hoping to get the blog updated with all the projects within the next month or two (hopefully not longer than that) but please bear with me if I happen to be absent with posts again.
For a while I've been using Shutter as my screenshot program, but for whatever reason, it can't get the saved settings and resets everything to default, which is annoying. I tried figuring out what was wrong with it yesterday morning, but eventually I figured it'd be better to just find something else.
I tried
xfce4-screenshooter, but I didn't like that it brings up a dialogue window after getting the screenshot. I think I figured out how to save it to ~/Pictures but I wanted a simplistic filename, which I didn't feel like figuring out how to do (I'm sure there's a way, but I didn't care to look).I then browsed through a list on Arch's wiki, and went with
scrot next, which did what I wanted it to do, and eventually after a bit of tinkering, it became the perfect replacement.Now when I hit Print Screen, it saves it as "YYYY-MM-DD_HH:MM:SS.png" and puts it in
~/Pictures like I want. Shutter is nice, but sometimes simplicity is the best solution.
03 October 2015
Smartphones
As I stated in my previous post, I would be talking about the Nexus 5x.
This isn't going to be so much about the phone itself, but more about the crappy experience I've gone through these past few months that lead me to buying three phones within 6 months.
Since I bought my Galaxy Nexus a few months before the Nexus 4 was released, I had hung onto it for quite a number of years (especially when I was unemployed for almost two years). When I got my job earlier this year, I knew I was going to need some sort of upgrade, since the Galaxy Nexus was being really sluggish.
Since the Nexus One, I stuck with keeping it stock and unrooted until I got a newer phone. My friend/co-worker said that he read about a cache filling up that causes smartphones to be sluggish and it can only be cleared if the phone's rooted (factory data reset would also work). I didn't want to tinker with my phone any, so I just dealt with it while looking at some new phones. I also wanted to upgrade because the Galaxy Nexus was "3.5G" and not true 4G.
The first phone I found was Alcatel's Idol 3 (or whatever it is, I'm too lazy to look up the correct name right now), which I thought was a very nice phone for the price (though reviews said that the interface was a bit iffy).
I stuck with the phone as the "phone-to-get" until I saw news of ASUS's ZenFone 2 - the top model being $50 USD more than the Idol 3 and having better specs. I was quite ecstatic, but the large screen was the main drawback for me.
I kept up with upcoming phones until the ZenFone 2 was released, and I bought my first one. I liked it quite a bit (save for the large screen, but at least ASUS has a "One Hand" feature that remedies that, though slightly awkward to use sometimes) and I used it no differently than my Galaxy Nexus.
That was the problem.
When I was putting my phone back into my bag, I kinda spun it in my hand to re-orient it to slide it into the bag in the correct orientation (I like keeping my things oriented in certain ways for efficiency), but this time, out of the numerous times I've done it, the phone slides out of my hand and falls onto a large, sealed, lead-based battery. I'm talking about ones that are about the size that would go into the average sedan.
It fell (long) edge-first onto the terminal of the battery, bounced, hit the wall, and into a metal box. I'm not sure if there was a grimace on my face, but I was definitely cringing - the first non-Otterbox case I use and I drop it onto a battery. I didn't even see that it hit the terminal, but when I pulled the phone out of the metal box, and saw the shatter pattern, I immediately was upset the half-second between that and turning the screen on to see about 1/6 of the screen not working.
It was still useable, but I put it into a thick, plastic bag to keep the glass shards from going everywhere, and at some point I took the case off while keeping it in the bag (which became a bad idea because it scratched the glass of the camera glass).
How did I know it landed on the battery terminal? There was a dent in the plastic bezel, even though the case was some sort of plastic rubber stuff (I wish I could describe it better). At the least, the case prevented a much worse damage, but still didn't protect my phone like I wanted.
I panicked, and bought a new ZenFone 2, but since Amazon didn't recognise my sign in, they disabled my account. I had to make a new password and re-enter my credit card info before I was able to redo the order.
At some point afterwards, I was talking with my friend/co-worker about it and he was suggesting I see if I could get the screen repaired. At this point, I hadn't calmed down yet, so I ignored his suggestion then.
When I got home, I then looked at replacement screens, which was $30-50 USD, and I first went with the cheaper option after cancelling the order for the new ZenFone 2. When the screen was out for delivery, I decided to go ahead and disassemble my phone, so that it'd be ready.
It didn't even cross my mind to backup my data at all.
I reached the point of no return when I removed the screen and digitizer assembly from the plastic, as I had to pretty much break the screen even more to get it out.
Bad became worse when I got the replacement screen, as it was for the model before my phone (ZE550ML... or was it CL?) and (probably) wasn't compatible with my phone (the backlight came on, but no image). I returned it and went with the slightly more expensive option, but had to wait at most a month for it be delivered from Hong Kong.
I had no choice but to go back to the Galaxy Nexus.
(Also, I'll mention now I had problems booting correctly, but I was unaware at that time.)
After waiting about two or three weeks, I try again, but I had the same problem, where the backlight would turn on, but not give me an image at all. (Also, the phone itself was turning on just fine, but again, I was unaware.) I stuffed the parts into anti-static bags (the replacement screen going back into the packaging it came in) and just set it to the side.
I tried to continue using the Galaxy Nexus, but eventually I broke again, as Google Play Newsstand crashed without warning (I had the problem before getting the ZenFone 2), and ordered another ZenFone 2.
While getting apps installed to the new ZenFone 2 (via Google Play Store web-version), I noticed that there were two ZenFone 2 entries, and it didn't take me too long to figure out that one of them was the screen-less ZenFone2 (which made it much easier to make a near facsimile of it).
When I took a closer look somewhere with the device info, it said that it was last used 14 or 16 July, which is when I last tried to get the screen to work. I was happy that the motherboard was fine, but still upset that I can't get into it to get my stuff off of it.
Since my new ZenFone 2, I've been a lot more careful about handling it, along with trying out a couple other cases that I think (or thought) would offer better protection. I now keep some sort of positive contact (be it the fairly grippy sides or the screen and the case backing) when I remove/insert it from/into my bag.
My friend/co-worker told me that he had to root his ZenFone 2 to be able to write to the SD card, and that was one of the things I did when I got my new ZenFone 2. (I apologise for the lack of chronology.) I uninstalled all the bloatware and went to do the system update (after installing all the apps I had). Bad idea.
The ZenFone 2 took too long to get past the loading screen, so I turned it off, but when I tried to turn it back on again, the screen didn't come on at all. That is when I found that I did what I wasn't supposed to do. Eventually I found some restore images, including one for the latest update. Once I got the ZenFone 2 to turn on properly (two vibrates and not one, and without having anything plugged into the micro USB port... I think?), I was able to apply the image and proceed to set up my phone and reinstall my apps again.
The problem I've been having now is that I get an error every time I try to apply an OTA update... (Well, the first one actually worked, but nothing after that.) While I should've updated manually, I haven't had the patience to do it, especially considering the experience I've been having when straying from the Nexus line of phones.
One of the updates to ASUS's power saver app somehow changed my battery mode setting from "balanced" to "smart saving" without my knowledge or consent, which screwed up how my timer app worked - I use a timer app to know when to take lunch and when to clock out of work, otherwise I'd lose track of time and who knows how over I'd be.
It took a while to figure out that it was that along with the power saver app that really fucked things up. I even tried switching timer apps because I thought the app wasn't working.
I think it was a couple Fridays ago when my alarm didn't go off and I was woken my my dad about 10 minutes before I was supposed to leave the house. When I returned home, I found that something got screwed up and the alarm didn't fire off. Eventually I fixed it (not sure how), but I started becoming really aggravated with the ZenFone 2.
It was earlier this week when I had another OTA update (which failed, needless to say), and I don't remember what else set me off, but I snapped this past Thursday night and pre-ordered the Nexus 5x.
While the ZenFone 2 is the best specifications for the price, and I do like the ASUS launcher a bit more than the stock (being able to hide bloatware or folder apps to get to apps not on the home screen(s) quicker), but the reliability is poor... Yes my base system's not up-to-date, but it should still be just as reliable.
Honestly, with how much money I've spent this year on phones, I should've just bought a Nexus 6 and dealt with its large size.
I was considering the Nexus 6p, and while I would like to go back to an AMOLED screen, I don't really need the specs and I don't want a "phablet" (I've already learned this too well with the ZenFone 2).
I wanted a somewhat high-spec phone originally because of the app-crashing issues that I had with the Galaxy Nexus, but considering I'm using Ting as my cellular provider (pay-per-use), I've learned to use my phone less and less. The only thing I'd need performance for is to be able to play some graphics-heavy games - that is, when I actually do play them.
When I get my Nexus 5x, I'll be backing up my ZenFone 2 on Melty before doing anything else. I'll also swap the motherboard from the screen-less ZenFone 2 to the newer one and praying I can get what I need off of it.
Before the two ZenFone 2 phones (I'm really getting sick of typing "ZenFone 2"), I only had the Nexus One and Galaxy Nexus, so I've always had the base-line Android experience. To a point it feels a bit foolish of me to stray from it, while chasing something I didn't need at all. (At this point I also remember that I wanted something that was x64 compatible for some slight future-proofing, though it was mainly ARM64 that I was looking for.) I think I've learned my lesson after spending how much I've spent across three smartphones (two and a half?).
Things I've learned:
This isn't going to be so much about the phone itself, but more about the crappy experience I've gone through these past few months that lead me to buying three phones within 6 months.
Since I bought my Galaxy Nexus a few months before the Nexus 4 was released, I had hung onto it for quite a number of years (especially when I was unemployed for almost two years). When I got my job earlier this year, I knew I was going to need some sort of upgrade, since the Galaxy Nexus was being really sluggish.
Since the Nexus One, I stuck with keeping it stock and unrooted until I got a newer phone. My friend/co-worker said that he read about a cache filling up that causes smartphones to be sluggish and it can only be cleared if the phone's rooted (factory data reset would also work). I didn't want to tinker with my phone any, so I just dealt with it while looking at some new phones. I also wanted to upgrade because the Galaxy Nexus was "3.5G" and not true 4G.
The first phone I found was Alcatel's Idol 3 (or whatever it is, I'm too lazy to look up the correct name right now), which I thought was a very nice phone for the price (though reviews said that the interface was a bit iffy).
I stuck with the phone as the "phone-to-get" until I saw news of ASUS's ZenFone 2 - the top model being $50 USD more than the Idol 3 and having better specs. I was quite ecstatic, but the large screen was the main drawback for me.
I kept up with upcoming phones until the ZenFone 2 was released, and I bought my first one. I liked it quite a bit (save for the large screen, but at least ASUS has a "One Hand" feature that remedies that, though slightly awkward to use sometimes) and I used it no differently than my Galaxy Nexus.
That was the problem.
When I was putting my phone back into my bag, I kinda spun it in my hand to re-orient it to slide it into the bag in the correct orientation (I like keeping my things oriented in certain ways for efficiency), but this time, out of the numerous times I've done it, the phone slides out of my hand and falls onto a large, sealed, lead-based battery. I'm talking about ones that are about the size that would go into the average sedan.
It fell (long) edge-first onto the terminal of the battery, bounced, hit the wall, and into a metal box. I'm not sure if there was a grimace on my face, but I was definitely cringing - the first non-Otterbox case I use and I drop it onto a battery. I didn't even see that it hit the terminal, but when I pulled the phone out of the metal box, and saw the shatter pattern, I immediately was upset the half-second between that and turning the screen on to see about 1/6 of the screen not working.
It was still useable, but I put it into a thick, plastic bag to keep the glass shards from going everywhere, and at some point I took the case off while keeping it in the bag (which became a bad idea because it scratched the glass of the camera glass).
How did I know it landed on the battery terminal? There was a dent in the plastic bezel, even though the case was some sort of plastic rubber stuff (I wish I could describe it better). At the least, the case prevented a much worse damage, but still didn't protect my phone like I wanted.
I panicked, and bought a new ZenFone 2, but since Amazon didn't recognise my sign in, they disabled my account. I had to make a new password and re-enter my credit card info before I was able to redo the order.
At some point afterwards, I was talking with my friend/co-worker about it and he was suggesting I see if I could get the screen repaired. At this point, I hadn't calmed down yet, so I ignored his suggestion then.
When I got home, I then looked at replacement screens, which was $30-50 USD, and I first went with the cheaper option after cancelling the order for the new ZenFone 2. When the screen was out for delivery, I decided to go ahead and disassemble my phone, so that it'd be ready.
It didn't even cross my mind to backup my data at all.
I reached the point of no return when I removed the screen and digitizer assembly from the plastic, as I had to pretty much break the screen even more to get it out.
Bad became worse when I got the replacement screen, as it was for the model before my phone (ZE550ML... or was it CL?) and (probably) wasn't compatible with my phone (the backlight came on, but no image). I returned it and went with the slightly more expensive option, but had to wait at most a month for it be delivered from Hong Kong.
I had no choice but to go back to the Galaxy Nexus.
(Also, I'll mention now I had problems booting correctly, but I was unaware at that time.)
After waiting about two or three weeks, I try again, but I had the same problem, where the backlight would turn on, but not give me an image at all. (Also, the phone itself was turning on just fine, but again, I was unaware.) I stuffed the parts into anti-static bags (the replacement screen going back into the packaging it came in) and just set it to the side.
I tried to continue using the Galaxy Nexus, but eventually I broke again, as Google Play Newsstand crashed without warning (I had the problem before getting the ZenFone 2), and ordered another ZenFone 2.
While getting apps installed to the new ZenFone 2 (via Google Play Store web-version), I noticed that there were two ZenFone 2 entries, and it didn't take me too long to figure out that one of them was the screen-less ZenFone2 (which made it much easier to make a near facsimile of it).
When I took a closer look somewhere with the device info, it said that it was last used 14 or 16 July, which is when I last tried to get the screen to work. I was happy that the motherboard was fine, but still upset that I can't get into it to get my stuff off of it.
Since my new ZenFone 2, I've been a lot more careful about handling it, along with trying out a couple other cases that I think (or thought) would offer better protection. I now keep some sort of positive contact (be it the fairly grippy sides or the screen and the case backing) when I remove/insert it from/into my bag.
My friend/co-worker told me that he had to root his ZenFone 2 to be able to write to the SD card, and that was one of the things I did when I got my new ZenFone 2. (I apologise for the lack of chronology.) I uninstalled all the bloatware and went to do the system update (after installing all the apps I had). Bad idea.
The ZenFone 2 took too long to get past the loading screen, so I turned it off, but when I tried to turn it back on again, the screen didn't come on at all. That is when I found that I did what I wasn't supposed to do. Eventually I found some restore images, including one for the latest update. Once I got the ZenFone 2 to turn on properly (two vibrates and not one, and without having anything plugged into the micro USB port... I think?), I was able to apply the image and proceed to set up my phone and reinstall my apps again.
The problem I've been having now is that I get an error every time I try to apply an OTA update... (Well, the first one actually worked, but nothing after that.) While I should've updated manually, I haven't had the patience to do it, especially considering the experience I've been having when straying from the Nexus line of phones.
One of the updates to ASUS's power saver app somehow changed my battery mode setting from "balanced" to "smart saving" without my knowledge or consent, which screwed up how my timer app worked - I use a timer app to know when to take lunch and when to clock out of work, otherwise I'd lose track of time and who knows how over I'd be.
It took a while to figure out that it was that along with the power saver app that really fucked things up. I even tried switching timer apps because I thought the app wasn't working.
I think it was a couple Fridays ago when my alarm didn't go off and I was woken my my dad about 10 minutes before I was supposed to leave the house. When I returned home, I found that something got screwed up and the alarm didn't fire off. Eventually I fixed it (not sure how), but I started becoming really aggravated with the ZenFone 2.
It was earlier this week when I had another OTA update (which failed, needless to say), and I don't remember what else set me off, but I snapped this past Thursday night and pre-ordered the Nexus 5x.
While the ZenFone 2 is the best specifications for the price, and I do like the ASUS launcher a bit more than the stock (being able to hide bloatware or folder apps to get to apps not on the home screen(s) quicker), but the reliability is poor... Yes my base system's not up-to-date, but it should still be just as reliable.
Honestly, with how much money I've spent this year on phones, I should've just bought a Nexus 6 and dealt with its large size.
I was considering the Nexus 6p, and while I would like to go back to an AMOLED screen, I don't really need the specs and I don't want a "phablet" (I've already learned this too well with the ZenFone 2).
I wanted a somewhat high-spec phone originally because of the app-crashing issues that I had with the Galaxy Nexus, but considering I'm using Ting as my cellular provider (pay-per-use), I've learned to use my phone less and less. The only thing I'd need performance for is to be able to play some graphics-heavy games - that is, when I actually do play them.
When I get my Nexus 5x, I'll be backing up my ZenFone 2 on Melty before doing anything else. I'll also swap the motherboard from the screen-less ZenFone 2 to the newer one and praying I can get what I need off of it.
Before the two ZenFone 2 phones (I'm really getting sick of typing "ZenFone 2"), I only had the Nexus One and Galaxy Nexus, so I've always had the base-line Android experience. To a point it feels a bit foolish of me to stray from it, while chasing something I didn't need at all. (At this point I also remember that I wanted something that was x64 compatible for some slight future-proofing, though it was mainly ARM64 that I was looking for.) I think I've learned my lesson after spending how much I've spent across three smartphones (two and a half?).
Things I've learned:
- Don't get blind-sided by price-performance ratio
- It's better to stick with what works sometimes, as pricey as it may be
- Handle large phones cautiously
Updates / Pi2 / Dell / Lie-chan / Mei-chan
I first will apologise for not posting in almost two months; it's been a bit rough on me when the screen on my first ZenFone 2 cracked and I tried to replace it myself without backing the data up first - I "lost" quite a number of project pictures.
About a month afterwards, I bought another one because I wasn't able to stand the Galaxy Nexus, and I've been fine with it ever since (just handling very gingerly), but it still irks me that I have numerous pictures I'm unable to access.
Besides the loss of motivation to update because of that, I've just been somewhat busy with work and sometimes coming home fairly exhausted.
Today was a bit different though, because I had planned on working with the Pi2 a bit, because Raspbian Jessie was released. I also wanted to try Tumbleweed again, because I couldn't remember if I tried using YaST2's software management to install XFCE, which didn't turn out.
After initial testing, everything seemed a bit nicer, so I pulled off some files (mainly just
I had gotten everything set up and changed the "pi" username, and started running into trouble when trying to get it to boot into XFCE with auto-login.
I tried quite a number of things, and the closest I got left me with a "file/directory does not exist" error (because
I'm done with the Pi2 for now, but I really hope I can migrate to a true rolling release distro at some point.
I ordered the Pentium D 945 a few days ago and got it yesterday. I put it into the Dell after finishing with the Pi2 and immediately noticed a difference in speed during POST; it also was evident that the CPU was no longer the bottleneck for 64-bit. I ordered 4 x 1 GB of RAM last week, which will be here sometime next couple weeks or something. Altogether, about $30 USD to max the Dell out, which isn't bad at all. Hopefully I remember to update the machine reference page after writing here.
Last week (or maybe earlier this week?) I decided to tinker around with Lie-chan, since she's not really being used right now and I had found a way to possibly get the Sound Blaster Audigy SE card working in Manjaro. I don't remember too much of the specifics, but it involved setting the default card by hand, which made the sound work pretty much perfectly with VLC, but not G(something) music player. I then found that I had to make a configuration file to copy the sound from the front speakers to the rear speakers and to the subwoofer, and luckily, the post also explained how it worked, so I copied the sound from the front speakers to the centre (just like the subwoofer) because the centre's tweeters are better than any of the other speakers.
I'm quite happy with the results, since I don't have to have GNOME 3 and XFCE in Tumbleweed and mess around with the YaST2 sound setting to get the card to read properly or whatever it was.
With Mei-chan, I finally got her the pair of blu-ray burners, did the massive near-300 data-disk DVD copy-job, cleaned up the files/folders, and got the burning projects lined up and saved in K3b.
What I had forgotten was another large project (about 44GB) that was on Melty, which I transferred this past Thursday after work, burning the first blu-ray before going to bed (which wasn't the best idea).
Yesterday after work, I burned the second disk of that project and got an I/O error, which made me suspicious (though I should've been when the first disk technically erred out but was still readable except for the last file). I then found that I was supposed to use
After burning the first disk again, it finished and verified with no problems (albeit faster as well), which made me wonder why
I've got other projects that I have pictures for, but I probably won't be getting around to that until I get my Nexus 5x. (More on this in the next post.)
An upcoming project is to get the Banpi to Tumbleweed - I know I'll only have cli, but since I haven't a need for a graphical manager, I should be fine (it's only a matter of figuring out how to configure
Things I've learned:
About a month afterwards, I bought another one because I wasn't able to stand the Galaxy Nexus, and I've been fine with it ever since (just handling very gingerly), but it still irks me that I have numerous pictures I'm unable to access.
Besides the loss of motivation to update because of that, I've just been somewhat busy with work and sometimes coming home fairly exhausted.
Today was a bit different though, because I had planned on working with the Pi2 a bit, because Raspbian Jessie was released. I also wanted to try Tumbleweed again, because I couldn't remember if I tried using YaST2's software management to install XFCE, which didn't turn out.
After initial testing, everything seemed a bit nicer, so I pulled off some files (mainly just
vsftpd.conf) and overwrote whatever Raspbian I originally had with the newer version.I had gotten everything set up and changed the "pi" username, and started running into trouble when trying to get it to boot into XFCE with auto-login.
I tried quite a number of things, and the closest I got left me with a "file/directory does not exist" error (because
/home/pi was no longer there). While I tried to look for a fix, I gave up and went with my original thought of creating a symbolic link, which worked (though not the best fix).I'm done with the Pi2 for now, but I really hope I can migrate to a true rolling release distro at some point.
I ordered the Pentium D 945 a few days ago and got it yesterday. I put it into the Dell after finishing with the Pi2 and immediately noticed a difference in speed during POST; it also was evident that the CPU was no longer the bottleneck for 64-bit. I ordered 4 x 1 GB of RAM last week, which will be here sometime next couple weeks or something. Altogether, about $30 USD to max the Dell out, which isn't bad at all. Hopefully I remember to update the machine reference page after writing here.
Last week (or maybe earlier this week?) I decided to tinker around with Lie-chan, since she's not really being used right now and I had found a way to possibly get the Sound Blaster Audigy SE card working in Manjaro. I don't remember too much of the specifics, but it involved setting the default card by hand, which made the sound work pretty much perfectly with VLC, but not G(something) music player. I then found that I had to make a configuration file to copy the sound from the front speakers to the rear speakers and to the subwoofer, and luckily, the post also explained how it worked, so I copied the sound from the front speakers to the centre (just like the subwoofer) because the centre's tweeters are better than any of the other speakers.
I'm quite happy with the results, since I don't have to have GNOME 3 and XFCE in Tumbleweed and mess around with the YaST2 sound setting to get the card to read properly or whatever it was.
With Mei-chan, I finally got her the pair of blu-ray burners, did the massive near-300 data-disk DVD copy-job, cleaned up the files/folders, and got the burning projects lined up and saved in K3b.
What I had forgotten was another large project (about 44GB) that was on Melty, which I transferred this past Thursday after work, burning the first blu-ray before going to bed (which wasn't the best idea).
Yesterday after work, I burned the second disk of that project and got an I/O error, which made me suspicious (though I should've been when the first disk technically erred out but was still readable except for the last file). I then found that I was supposed to use
cdrecord and not cdrkit, but because the article/post was somewhat old, cdrecord is no longer its own package - it's now included with cdrtools.After burning the first disk again, it finished and verified with no problems (albeit faster as well), which made me wonder why
cdrkit hasn't been depreciated if it can't handle blu-rays.I've got other projects that I have pictures for, but I probably won't be getting around to that until I get my Nexus 5x. (More on this in the next post.)
An upcoming project is to get the Banpi to Tumbleweed - I know I'll only have cli, but since I haven't a need for a graphical manager, I should be fine (it's only a matter of figuring out how to configure
transmission-cli). With that, I'll be able to do a headless system and save myself the bluez headache (along with removing the bluetooth adapter).Things I've learned:
cdrkitis junk for blu-ray burning.- I can configure the sound card to work properly in Manjaro.
- Try the simpler way to fix a problem before the more complicated ways.
05 August 2015
Manjaro Part 3 / openSUSE Tumbleweed Part 5
On Friday (31 July), GNOME began glitching out on Triela, so I just dealt with it until Saturday morning, which I reinstalled Manjaro with XFCE instead (I couldn't find a good GNOME-to-XFCE guide at all). It only took about 3-4 hours to get it all back to the way I had it before (mind you that building from AUR depends on the package, and
I mentioned in a previous post that I installed Manjaro on Lie-chan and that the sound card didn't work right. I updated Manjaro and nothing changed.
I tinkered a lot and while the on-board sound worked fine, the front speakers were dead (I had killed the front channel with ESD via headphones a long time ago) with the only work around being to plug the front speakers into the side channel and set up for 7.1 sound, which would just make things screwy when trying to watch something that has 5.1 audio.
I did as much as I could until I decided to just go back to openSUSE, opting for Tumbleweed. After installation, I tried to install XFCE and switch over to it, but couldn't get it to work. I then (using
I eventually looked around to figure out how to set up automatic login, but was unable to, then noticing that
I decided to download the net install and just reinstall Tumbleweed again with XFCE to make things much easier, and since the net install ISO wasn't very large, I was able to install once it was downloaded and burned.
It did have to download about two gigabytes of data (even opting out of LibreOffice to save time, and also forgetting that Tumbleweed only has "Fresh" and not "Still"), and it kinda sucked to sit through it while I was somewhat exasperated and tired from working on Lie-chan from about 10:00 (this was this past Saturday, the 1st); it was probably around 20:00 when I was waiting on the install.
After installation, I dug around for the 13.2 multimedia and codec guide thingy by caf4926, eventually having to "activate" my SUSE account to get into the forums to look at the 13.1 guide. I don't remember How I got to the 13.2 version, but I copied the packages for later reference (if/when needed), so I wouldn't have to deal with the crap again.
Once it was pretty much ready, I went to bed and continued with it when I was able to the next day.
Since XFCE settings differ a lot from GNOME's, there wasn't really any way to adjust the sound card besides YAST, which made things weird once I got the card configured properly in YAST (opting for "advanced" config instead of "quick" or "normal"). Eventually I found that I just choose the proper output in VLC before figuring to select the proper output in VLC's settings.
By this time, I'm somewhat tired after messing around with it all, and since it was about thirty Celsius in the room, I just turned Lie-chan off, not wanting to forego watching what I was originally wanting to watch early Saturday morning.
So what was supposed to be a quick update (probably about thirty minutes to an hour), turned out to be a sixteen-hour, semi-gruelling process of tinkering/installing/updating/configuring.
Lie-chan will be one of few Tumbleweed installations (the Pi2 will have Tumbleweed once tested, and Banpi will be tough because the GPU isn't supported by the kernel), as almost everything else will be Manjaro.
FreeFileSync decided to go with MegaUpload (or similar host) instead of SourceForge and FOSSHub, so the AUR entry for it is broken and I'm not able to compile it at all. I'll eventually see what happens, as I'm not using it right now and I have other ways of syncing (though it's a more time-consuming way).
For those wondering, yes I did write the first paragraph later, and that was because I remembered it after finishing about Lie-chan. I didn't feel like fixing the rest of the post to make up for it, so deal with it. (XD)
So I won't be saying goodbye to openSUSE at all, but I definitely won't be using any more versions (11.3 to 13.2 is a fairly decent run, I'd say).
atom-editor usually takes a while to build).I mentioned in a previous post that I installed Manjaro on Lie-chan and that the sound card didn't work right. I updated Manjaro and nothing changed.
I tinkered a lot and while the on-board sound worked fine, the front speakers were dead (I had killed the front channel with ESD via headphones a long time ago) with the only work around being to plug the front speakers into the side channel and set up for 7.1 sound, which would just make things screwy when trying to watch something that has 5.1 audio.
I did as much as I could until I decided to just go back to openSUSE, opting for Tumbleweed. After installation, I tried to install XFCE and switch over to it, but couldn't get it to work. I then (using
init 3) uninstalled GNOME and rebooted to the xdm login screen. I logged in without any real regards to it and was able to get into XFCE just fine.I eventually looked around to figure out how to set up automatic login, but was unable to, then noticing that
xdm was installed and not lightdm (which is usually default for XFCE), so I (again, via init 3) uninstalled xdm and installed lightdm instead - ending up at command line.I decided to download the net install and just reinstall Tumbleweed again with XFCE to make things much easier, and since the net install ISO wasn't very large, I was able to install once it was downloaded and burned.
It did have to download about two gigabytes of data (even opting out of LibreOffice to save time, and also forgetting that Tumbleweed only has "Fresh" and not "Still"), and it kinda sucked to sit through it while I was somewhat exasperated and tired from working on Lie-chan from about 10:00 (this was this past Saturday, the 1st); it was probably around 20:00 when I was waiting on the install.
After installation, I dug around for the 13.2 multimedia and codec guide thingy by caf4926, eventually having to "activate" my SUSE account to get into the forums to look at the 13.1 guide. I don't remember How I got to the 13.2 version, but I copied the packages for later reference (if/when needed), so I wouldn't have to deal with the crap again.
Once it was pretty much ready, I went to bed and continued with it when I was able to the next day.
Since XFCE settings differ a lot from GNOME's, there wasn't really any way to adjust the sound card besides YAST, which made things weird once I got the card configured properly in YAST (opting for "advanced" config instead of "quick" or "normal"). Eventually I found that I just choose the proper output in VLC before figuring to select the proper output in VLC's settings.
By this time, I'm somewhat tired after messing around with it all, and since it was about thirty Celsius in the room, I just turned Lie-chan off, not wanting to forego watching what I was originally wanting to watch early Saturday morning.
So what was supposed to be a quick update (probably about thirty minutes to an hour), turned out to be a sixteen-hour, semi-gruelling process of tinkering/installing/updating/configuring.
Lie-chan will be one of few Tumbleweed installations (the Pi2 will have Tumbleweed once tested, and Banpi will be tough because the GPU isn't supported by the kernel), as almost everything else will be Manjaro.
FreeFileSync decided to go with MegaUpload (or similar host) instead of SourceForge and FOSSHub, so the AUR entry for it is broken and I'm not able to compile it at all. I'll eventually see what happens, as I'm not using it right now and I have other ways of syncing (though it's a more time-consuming way).
For those wondering, yes I did write the first paragraph later, and that was because I remembered it after finishing about Lie-chan. I didn't feel like fixing the rest of the post to make up for it, so deal with it. (XD)
So I won't be saying goodbye to openSUSE at all, but I definitely won't be using any more versions (11.3 to 13.2 is a fairly decent run, I'd say).
28 July 2015
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).
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).
27 July 2015
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
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
Tried VLC again in Tumbleweed with the same message, but this time,
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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