Random Musings on the New Year and Changes

Change has always been viewed as an alteration.  For those who cherish the status quo, this alteration is a great source of anxiety, a life-disrupting experience that epitomizes the full meaning of the word problem.  Those who are dissatisfied with the current state of events, however, embrace change and preach that it is an opportunity to reach new heights, an open road leading to unknown happiness and fulfillment.

I suspect that we human beings have a misconception of change.  We tend to see it as something unexpected, an unforeseeable collision in our otherwise peaceful existence that forces us to adapt or succumb.  This is wrong; change is happening constantly around us: it is the normal condition of the universe.  We cling to the illusion of permanence and choose to reduce change to something that occurs randomly or periodically, as with the end of a year.

With the dying of my reliable Epson Stylus TX-200 printer, I was slapped by a

Epson Stylus TX 200

situation long-forgotten: Linux-compatible hardware is sometimes difficult to find.  My all-in-one printer had been with me almost since I migrated to Linux in 2009 and never did I think about what kind of replacement I had to get if it happened to fail.

True, replacing a printer is not a catastrophe, much less when the loyal device malfunctioned during vacation time, exactly two weeks after the work-related pressure had already dissipated.  So, after checking the availability of Linux drivers, I bought an Epson XP 231 as the successor of the venerable TX-200. Drunk with the wine of naivety, I expected the road to configure this new printer to be a smooth path.

Epson XP 231

I stumbled at each step.  While I can print in two of the three main distros that I regularly use, I had to battle and managed to get the scanner to work in one, OpenMandriva Lx 3.1.  No success in Mageia 5 or PCLinuxOS yet.

Although the printer tossed me into a tar pit, this post is not about printers, but about change... And change is happening, placing me in a position to make decisions on matters I had either postponed or refused to consider.  For instance, Mageia will have to release its 6th iteration one day, and this new version will feature Plasma 5, which I do not particularly like because it removed a feature that I grew to love: the ability to have different wallpapers on each workspace.  No, KDE developers, "ACTIVITIES" DO NOT FULFILL THE SAME PURPOSE!

Come Mageia 6 and I will have to wave farewell to KDE 4.  OpenMandriva has been training me on the ways of Plasma 5, so I will only have to forget about the wallpapers, just like I had to forget about GRUB when GRUB 2 came along.  Who knows, maybe a new secret feature of Plasma 5 will make me love the DE, just like when I grew to love the ROSA SimpleWelcome screen in Mandriva 2011...

Mageia 6 Sta1 has been on my laptop since September (for testing).  When Mageia 6 is finally released, I will have an additional partition on my HD if I replace my current Mageia 5 install.

Maybe, with 2017 knocking on the door, it is time to get a Fedora?

Those Meaningful Gifts... Thanks, OpenMandriva!!

Yesterday, I read an email coming from the mail list of OpenMandriva.  It was an announcement about an unexpected release: The community had been working on a surprise and released OpenMandriva Lx 3.01 as a Christmas gift.

News of the kind always stirs some excitement in me. How can I forget that it was Mandriva the distro that made me fully commit to Linux in 2009?

This time was a bit different, however.  Do not get me wrong; my interest in OpenMandriva has not waned over the years despite the fact that I also use Mageia 5 and PCLinuxOS daily for my computing needs.  What happened is that, exactly one week ago, my EPSON Stylus TX 200 all-in-one printer died and I had been on the market trying to find a good replacement.

I eventually bought an EPSON XP-231 because it is advertised to have full Linux support but, so far, I have not managed to get it to work properly in Mageia (scanner problems) and PCLinuxOS (both printer and scanner problems) because of the drivers.  Therefore, my investment on the new hardware was beginning to look like a relatively expensive mistake.

Then OpenMandriva Lx 3.01 came and saved the day.

The XP-231 was not easy to get to work, to be honest, but I eventually got it to print and scan appropriately in OpenMandriva Lx 3.01.

Oh, and I must add that this release also corrected a bug that prevented me to run Insync, a program that I became fond of.

All I can say is that I am thankful for the hard work of the folks at OpenMandriva, who gave me this wrappingless Christmas gift...

And wrappingless gifts, I have learned, tend to be the most meaningful ones! 

After a long wait, Mageia was released! Well, sort of...

I visited Distrowatch today and read that there was a new release of Mageia. 

This was not Mageia 6 with Plasma 5, but an updated version of Mageia 5, Mageia 5.1, which includes all the updates of more of a year's time.

I was not disappointed.  Mageia 5 works fine with my systems and, to be honest, I am not a great fan of Plasma 5...

Playing Terrordrome on OpenMandriva Lx 3.0

Today, as my daughter was watching YouTube videos, she found one about a fighting game called Terrordrome. This is a fighting game with a retro look that features several characters of horror films, such as Chucky, Pinhead, Jason, and Pumpkinhead.

I found it sort of cute and looked for it.  Much to my surprise, it is free and it provides a Linux installer via Wine here.

After downloading it (it is rather large, 1Gb), I installed it and played it.  It works perfectly.

Of course, my daughter came to play with Chucky, her favorite character, and won pretty much every single match against me.
 

It was fun because the game incorporates special moves based on the movies and there are sounds that come from the films, too (careful with Chucky's swearing!).

A New Tool for LibreOffice

Tony Get, my colleague, showed me an interesting tool available in Android: it's an app to turn your Android device into a remote control to work with your LibreOffice Impress presentations.  It is called Impress Remote and it is very easy to use.

Once downloaded, all you have to do is open an Impress presentation on your computer and make sure of two things:

1.  That the computer and the phone are paired (bluetooth)
2.  That the presentation can work with a remote (to enable this feature, go to the tools menu in Impress->options->libreoffice impress->general->enable remote)

That is all.  If the devices are correctly paired, you are going to see the slide on your cellphone and the notes (if any) and you can navigate the slides from the cellphone.

The app works perfectly with Mageia 5.




The app has some other options, such as the possibility to connect your cellphone to your computer using a Wifi connection.  I did not test that feature, though.

At last I meet you, OLPC XO!

Last Monday, I went with my wife and my 6-year-old daughter, Eimi, to an activity in a school.  The idea was to let parents know about this new educational optionl and its advantages for children who are about to start their elementary school life.

At the beginning, I was not very interested because we had already made arrangements for our daughter to go to an educational institution near home.

The principal was talking while the parents listened and the children made an effort to stay quiet.  I was growing tired, and so were the bunch of kids sitting on the chairs.  The principal was highlighting how they incorporate technology in the teaching of the subjects, but I was not convinced...

Then, she pulled out a little green laptop and all the children became alive again as if by magic. I have only seen technology cause such interest on children once: the day when my then 3-year-old daughter saw PicarOS for the first time.

I myself straightened my back when I recognized the OLPC XO laptop!

With that simple device, the principal captivated the audience; children and parents were under her spell as she described how the young students experience education for the future with a device designed exclusively for them.


It turns out that, in this humble school, children learn with Sugar OS, not just Windows.  And they also learn robotics.

One of the teachers tells the children about the OLPC XO laptop

After the tour and the activities, I asked Eimi what she thought about the school.  She was delighted and wanted to come to this new institution.  My wife and I agreed, so we did the paperwork and now Eimi will be going to a school that might be a bit further from home, but where she feels happier and my wife and I will be more satisfied.

The Blog of Helios: Of Life, Linux and Karma Angels

This is perhaps one of the most beautiful stories I have read in the Linux community. The Blog of Helios: Of Life, Linux and Karma Angels

Steam woes in OpenMandriva.... Again!

Steam updated today and, as a nasty surprise, I hit the same problem I had before with it.

I tried the solution here, but it was not working this time: the code reverted to its original form, preventing the Steam runtime to work.

Then, I realized that I was including the brackets in the code.... Stupid mistake. 

>tar --blocking-factor=${BF}  -xf "$2" -C "$3" |
>zenity --progress --auto-close --no-cancel --width 400 --text="$1"

I removed them and, voila, Steam unpacked the runtime and opened the user interface.

tar --blocking-factor=${BF}  -xf "$2" -C "$3" |
zenity --progress --auto-close --no-cancel --width 400 --text="$1"

Steam crashing in Openmandriva LX 3.0? Try this solution

I have been using Openmandriva LX 3.0 for some time now and I am very happy with it.  Since I installed it, this distro has fulfilled most of my requirements as a non-technical Linux user.

I did find a big problem, though.  The Steam client refused to work, complaining about Steam runtime not working and missing dependencies.  Even when I located the missing dependencies, nothing worked.

Yes, I know that some would call this a show-stopper.  However, I decided to go to the forums to ask for help.  The community is the power of Linux.

My cry for help was received promptly and courteously.  They suggested me to file a bug, and so I did.

Today, I got a response with the solution.  Now, Steam is working again!  This is how you do it (thanks to drosdeck for the help):

1. First, one has to make hidden files visible. Open Dolphin and go to the menu View.  Check the box "Hidden files".
2. Go to the hidden folder .local.  Once inside of it, move to "share" and "Steam".
3. Locate the file steam.sh and right click on it.  From the pop up menu, select Open with / Kwrite (root).
4. The system is going to ask you for your root password.  Type it and Kwrite will display the contents of the file.
5. Use the menu Edit and select Find from the drop down menu. In the search space, type tar -- 
6. You will be taken to a section that reads:

   >tar --blocking-factor=${BF} --checkpoint=1
   >--checkpoint-action='exec=echo $TAR_CHECKPOINT' -xf "$2" -C "$3" | zenity
   >--progress --auto-close --no-cancel --width 400 --text="$1"

7. Carefully delete the above section and paste this instead:

   >tar --blocking-factor=${BF}  -xf "$2" -C "$3" |
   >zenity --progress --auto-close --no-cancel --width 400 --text="$1"

8. Click on the icon Save and close the program.  That is all.  If the problem you had with Steam was like mine, the client should be working now. 

Big thanks to the guys at Openmandriva for taking the time to help me with this.  You all rock!

So long, Firefox Hello!

After updating my PCLinuxOS install, I noticed that the icon of Firefox Hello had changed: it was read and displayed a message reading "Error!"

I thought it was a simply login failure, so I logged in and the icon went green, as normal.  However, I noticed that Hello did not display the "Start a conversation" window, but one that read "browse this page with a friend".

A bit confused, I called Megatotoro, who read this statement from Mozilla to me.  Apparently, I had missed the fact that Mozilla is discontinuing Hello starting from Firefox 49.  Current Firefox version is 48, so...

Although I did not use the functionality much, I consider that it was convenient and had a lot of potential, in particular when users do not want to use Microsoft's Skype, Google's Handouts, or Facebook chat, I guess.

Mozilla, in its brief statement, thanks Hello supporters and points them to other providers:

"Here are a few alternatives to Hello. We hope you’ll find one you’ll like:

• Talky: Provides both video and screen sharing using WebRTC.
• Cisco Spark: Create rooms for video calling, group messaging and sharing.
• Appear.in: Group video calling for up to eight people.
• Jitsi Meet: Group video calling and screen sharing using WebRTC"

I visited the links to Talky, Cisco Spark, and Jitsi Meet, but saw nothing.  Appear.in looked interesting, though.  I will give it a try soon, but one question bothers me... I have seen many other instances in which a service is free and, as soon as a sizable user base is acquired, they start charging for whatever service they were giving.

I fear this will be the future of this interesting WebRTC technologies...

How to type in Japanese in OpenMandriva Lx 3.0

OpenMandriva Lx 3.0 comes with built in Japanese support via Fcitx, the Input Method Editor (IME).   You can see Fcitx on the task bar (it is a keyboard icon).  However, you cannot type in Japanese until you activate it.

Fcitx's icon

To activate Japanese IME in OpenMandriva Lx 3.0, you first need to get Anthy from the repos using OMCC.

/Once Anthy is installed, open the Fcitx configuration application by typing "input" on the search field of the KickOff menu:

Once there, deactivate the box "Only show current language."  This action will show all the available languages.  Locate entries for "Japanese" and select Anthy.  Click on the arrow pointing to the right to add Anthy as an alternative input method.

Then click "Apply" and "OK" to leave.  That is all.


On the task bar, locate the keyboard icon (Fcitx) and right click on it.  Follow the menu to select "Input Method" and select Anthy.

You will see that the keyboard icon changes to Anthy's icon.

Now you can type in Japanese on LibreOffice Writer.  :)