Solution on Blogarious

Xfce4 4.20 upgrade issue on font size

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

With the recent upgrade of Xfce4 4.20, I was facing the font size issue on my laptop. I am using icewm . And the upgrade causes my fonts become too small. But some applications are too big, like Brave and FreeFileSync. I spent some time to fix this. And this is my final solution,

Allow xfsettingsd at startup,

xfsettingsd --daemon -D

And use xfce4-appearance-settings, at the Fonts > DPI, enable Custom and set the value to 120 as in .Xresources . The effect is immediate. This solves the font size for all applications.

Android playing iOS MOV video

Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I am using an Android phone, specifically Vivo. I found that when I play the MOV video transferred from iOS, only sound is able to be played properly but the picture is not showing.

None of the solutions from the Internet helped me to solve my problem. After trial and error, I found that the MOV file can be converted to MP4 format using ffmpeg with some parameters. Eg,

fmpeg -i input.MOV -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -vf "scale=720:1280,fps=29" -ac 1 -x264opts "ref=0:cabac=0:b_pyramid=0:bframes=0" -profile:v baseline -pix_fmt yuv420p output.mp4

Based on my experience, the most crucial parameter is “-pix_fmt yuv420p”, so the MP4 video is 8-bit depth.

Switching from Openbox to IceWM

Sun, 19 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Bye-bye Openbox, welcome IceWM.

Due to the recent upgrade of glib2 on Arch Linux, it crashes my Openbox when I am running Wine or Proton. Downgrade to 2.74.6 is not a solution, because Nemo, Caja, Nautilus are using 2.76.0.

As a result, I have to find an alternative. From Wikipedia, I found that LXDE can be configured with other window manager rather than Openbox, eg Fluxbox, IceWM, or Xfwm.

I tried Xfwm, but it fails to run. Probably needs extra configuration, but I didn’t continue trying. I tried Fluxbox long time ago, can’t remember the feature. Then I found that, compare to Openbox, IceWM is still in development. Hence I decided to try IceWM.

Twitter interests deselection bookmarklet

Sun, 13 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I like to use Twitter, but the new Topics and Interests feature of Twitter is damn annoying. It keep showing something I am not interested of.

I looked for the solution from Internet, and finally I come out with this bookmarklet, which can be used in Settings > Privacy and Safety > Content You See > Interests.

javascript:(async()=>{const sleep=ms=>new Promise(r=>setTimeout(r,ms));const inputs=document.querySelectorAll('section[aria-label="Section details"] input:checked');for(let i=0;i<inputs.length;i+=1){const rand=Math.floor(Math.random()*2e3);await sleep(9e3+rand);const input=inputs[i];input.click()}})();

After trigger the bookmarklet, just leave the page there, it will slowly deselect one by one.

Not able to boot

Sun, 03 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, I failed to boot into my laptop. I was shocked.

home contains a file system with errors, check forced.
home: Inode 12976129 seems to contain garbage.
home: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
        (i.e., without -a or -p options)
fsck failed with exit status 4.

Then not able to mount the home partition, I was prompted to login as root. However, I was too nervous, I forgot what is my root password.

Reviving Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (GT-P7500)

Sun, 03 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 many many years ago. But recently, I am trying to revive it so that, it will be a possible solution to allow my son to watch cartoon on an old tablet, in future.

Reviving this Galaxy Tab (P7500) takes me so much time to try out those custom ROMs and the apps. But it is an interesting experience.

I tried several ROMs, flashed with TWRP.

Solution on Evernote login issue

Tue, 09 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I faced the login issue with Evernote since around two weeks ago. It leads me to a blank page, with the HTTP status code 418. There is similar issue reported here. I made the bug report, but the issue not yet solved. Looks like it happened in Malaysia and Vietnam according to the forum. Suggested solution in the forum was to use VPN.

This is how I solved the issue as a temporary solution to login.

Microsoft To Do

Sat, 18 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In my previous post, I mentioned I migrated Wunderlist to Microsoft To Do.

However, there are two annoying things. Firstly, do not expect there will be Chrome App version of Microsoft To Do similar to Wunderlist and Google Keep, because Chrome Apps is going to be discontinued.

Secondly, I frequently experienced To Do web page doesn’t load properly, either stuck at the loading page, or the tasks not showing or showing partially.

LightDM background image

Sun, 20 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Recently my old laptop, due to some unknown configuration, it shows a background image in the LightDM login. It is annoying, and it is user specific. Meaning, if I choose another user, the background image will be changed to black background.

Searched for the solution on Internet, most of links are about gsettings, or edit the image in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf. But none of the related to my issue.

Finally, I found the solution. The problem is not LightDM itself, but related to AccountsService.

Dell Vostro 5459 hibernation

Sat, 11 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In the previous post (1 year ago), I mentioned the hibernation issue. I believed that it was related to the NVidia graphic card. Related forum can be found here.

But these few days, I notice that whenever I shut down the laptop, it will show the systemd messages. Previously, if I did suspend my laptop, then resume, then shut down will show only black blank screen, until the power off. I believe that the graphic card issue is being fixed with the recent update.

Linux no sound after boot into Windows

Fri, 14 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Just now was trying to boot into Windows, by plugged in the HDMI cable, which supports for video only. But then, I rebooted into Linux without plugged out the HDMI cable. Then, it caused no sound in Linux.

Try 1: I killed the pulseaudio, then delete the ~/.config/pulse, and rebooted Linux. Failed.

Try 2: Run alsamixer, turned on everything, and do Try 1 again. Failed.

Then I guessed it was caused by the HDMI cable, which the Windows may assume there is audio, then caused my computer somehow ouptut the audio through the HDMI, even I rebooted into Linux.

Cloud9

Thu, 21 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Cloud9 is a web-based IDE good for collaboration and online development. You can store your large project on the remote server, and use any computer including netbook with a web browser to develop your system.

Now, the problem I faced when using C9 on my Chromium. Firstly, the address bar, tabs, and bookmarks occupy some space in the window. This results a non-editor look and feel. This makes me feel lacking of something. Secondly, the worst part is the shortcut key like Ctrl+W. By pressing this shortcut key, it will invoke the web browser closing window instead of the C9 shortcut key. Meaning, the shortcut key of the web browser has higher precedence than C9 itself.

External HDD struggling

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I have an HP 1T external HDD. It is dying. Sh*t!

So, I made my final struggling onto it. Though it is not 100% work as planned, I still have around 320G usable space.

Symptoms

Firstly, I found that some files cannot be deleted, I had no choice but plug out the USB cable manually. Try to chkdsk with Windows since it is NTFS partition, but the chkdsk stopped and no response during the progress. Then I know, these were the bad signs. So, have to avoid using it and get a new HDD, and move whatever files able to be moved.

Search song that plays on your computer (Linux)

Tue, 31 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Since I am working as freelance developer, I spent most of my “otaku” time with Animenfo Radio. Now, when listening with some nice songs you like, and you would like to know what the song is, then you can use Shazam to detect it. But using Shazam requires you to turn on your volume and use your mobile phone to detect it.

What if, you are listening the songs with your ear-phone?

MIUI 7 Google Calendar sync problem

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, I found that, the calendar item (agenda) created in MIUI 7 Calendar does not sync to my Google Calendar. Then I ignore it.

And until today, I found that, the agenda from Google Calendar does not sync to MIUI7 Calendar too. Then this will be serious. So, I search around the forum, and finally get this solution.

Install Google Calendar! This will solve the calendar syncing problem. Enjoy!

Xfce4 Power Manager, NVIDIA, Nouveau backlight issue

Sun, 08 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I move back to use my (around) 4 years old laptop, HP Pavilion dv3. It has NVIDIA graphic card. But since I (re-)installed Arch Linux 64 bit on it, I failed to run the X11 with the proprietary NVIDIA driver. As a result, I used the Nouveau module instead. Then, I tried several times and finally successfully run the X11 with NVIDIA driver.

To use the Nouveau module, in the mkinitcpio.conf, we have to add in “nouveau” module, then build the initramfs (refer to wiki page). And use the “Xorg -configure” to generate the xorg.conf.

MIUI upgrade

Wed, 28 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Today I just upgraded the MIUI to version 7. Actually, it prompted for the upgrade since some times last week. But I failed to upgrade, expected to be server problem.

So, today I determined to find the solution for manual upgrade. The upgrade version is MIUI 7.0.5.0. I visited the official site and searched the ROM, but the official site does not have this ROM. As a result, just did a search, and found the target ROM in the MIUI official forum. Then everything becomes easy now.

LibreOffice Writer table tips

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Preface

LibreOffice Writer is better than Microsoft Word. If you are a web developer, you should understand that there are class and style. Using LibreOffice is tended to using class-like style, instead of direct formatting, which causes a lot of inconsistent, troublesome, and time consuming modification throughout the word processing. And this is happened when the newbies are using Microsoft Word to create templates for the advanced user like me, and causes me full of trouble as being tortured.

WINE and CDemu

Thu, 26 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Previously I posted about installing software/game with different CD/DVD ISO images in WINE. But this method does not work in some installation ISO images. Because these installation will detect for the CD/DVD. The method above does not solve the problem because the installation does not detect the CD/DVD.

Recently, I found a better solution. It is CDemu. It is similar to DAEMON Tools in Windows. It will emulate the optical disc drive in Linux. As a result, it will produce /dev/sr0, /dev/sr1, and so on. Because it is a virtual CD/DVD, thus we have to load the image. It can be easily loaded by using gcdemu.

JDownloader 2 BETA Japanese font

Mon, 23 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Previously I was reluctant to use JDownloader 2 BETA version. The main reason is that I will see boxes when the files contain Japanese characters. But this problem solved now.

As I am using Arch Linux, the JDownloader 2 is installed at /opt/JDownloader. We have to create two files:

/opt/JDownloader/translations/org/jdownloader/gui/translate/GuiTranslation.en_custom.lng
/opt/JDownloader/translations/org/appwork/swing/synthetica/LanguageFileSetup.en_custom.lng

The GuiTranslation.en_custom.lng is a copy of GuiTranslation.en.lng. So that the interface is still using English language. Then LanguageFileSetup.en_custom.lng is a copy of LanguageFileSetup.ja.lng. So that the font is using Japanese language font instead.