GNU/Linux? Why not!

Fix for Crackling Sound in Headphones?

Fri, 02 Apr 2021 23:37:20 +0200

Randomly — I mean, it can not do it for weeks but then it will start doing it randomly for hours or days — any sound played through one of the two headphones I use will be ruined by crackling noise. Of course, it it only happens with the headphones I prefer to use when I listen to music, the one that uses a standard wired/jack connector.

Configuring nano

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 20:48:27 +0100

Nano can be configured. That shouldn’t have come as a surprise but it surprised me nonetheless. I mean, I often use nano but never cared much about it: I only use it to do quick edits in a config file or stuff like that, when I don’t want to wait for a more heavy text editor to start — nano is fast and, well, it’s always there.

Freshness

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 20:14:10 +0100

Speaking of “fresh”, we should avoid thinking of packages in terms of groceries. That is a pernicious metaphor. Programs remain relevant for as long as they work and receive security fixes (where appropriate). The criterion for evaluating a program is not its recency or the hype around it, but its serviceability.

USB Audio Volume Too loud or Muted?

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 17:37:05 +0100

I just installed a USB speaker that lsusb identifies as a GEMBIRD Honk HK-5002 USB Speaker. It’s plug-and-play, and it works — not a great sound quality for music, but this is not what I want to use it for — save that the sound is either too loud (crackling and distorted) or, as soon as I try to lower the volume, it is muted.

The Emacs Noob: My (Second) First Encounter with Org-Mode

Sat, 06 Feb 2021 04:46:56 +0100

When you are doing research on org-mode for notes taking in the middle of a sleepless night, to accidentaly realize, reading someone else commenting on Linuxfr.org, you had forgotten everything about your true first encounter with Org-Mode, dating back… 2011. Beside my failing memory, what strikes me the most reading this short note, is the reason I was as enthusiastic as I was hesitant to fully commit to Org-Mode back then is the exact same reason I am still hesitant and enthusiastic today, after my recent rediscovery of Org-Mode:

The Emacs noob: Typewriter Mode

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 09:34:55 +0100

Many Markdown text editors under macOS or iOS come with a neat feature that lets you set the caret at a fixed position on screen, most often in the middle of the screen. This feature tries to emulate the way old mechanical typewriters used to work — it was the sheet of paper that was moving up or down, not the caret.

Why bother?

Visual Representation of Disk Usage in the Terminal

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

du is the usual command to show disk usage in a terminal, printing a list of all files and folders and subfolders the folder you ran it in contains. A barely readable list — to my noob’s eyes at least. ncdu (NCurses Disk Usage) turns it into something much more useful, imo, putting forward the biggest folders first in a simplified way:

Can't change LightDM Logon Screen Keyboard Layout?

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 14:04:28 +0100

Switching keyboard from French to US was easy (one just need to change the layout in Settings->Keyboard) save for one tiny, tiny little issue — frankly, an absolutely insignificant detail: LightDM, Manjaro’s logon screen mind you, persisted in forcing me to use a French keyboard to login. The bastard. Solution? Open /etc/X11/xorg.

Durgod K320 TKL Keyboard

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 09:21:19 +0100

I received it yesterday from banggood.com — ordered on Dec 19th, on sale at ~90€ — but I only unboxed and started playing with it this morning. And does this keyboard feels great to type on. It uses USB-C (comes with both USB-C/USB-C and USB-C/USB-A cables). It uses Cherry MX brown switches (other options available).

The Emacs Noob: Always Display Inline Images in Org Files

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 13:36:25 +0100

Here is the first post of what could easily become a series around Emacs, as I’ve recently began using it. What is Org-Mode? At its core, Org-Mode is an extension that adds todo capabilities to Emacs, but it is much more than that: an agenda, a tool to create slides for presentations, an outliner, a tool to take and organize notes.

Disabling Baloo under Manjaro Xfce

Sun, 27 Dec 2020 08:32:46 +0100

Baloo — no, not this Baloo — is an indexing service that seems to come with some KDE apps on your system, whether you use KDE desktop environment or not. As far as I can tell, it was installed when I decided to try Dolphin, KDE’s file explorer. The problem I have with Baloo is not that it’s a KDE service.

London

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 19:19:34 +0100

London (William Blake) I wander thro' each charter’d street, Near where the charter’d Thames does flow. And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe. In every cry of every Man, In every Infants cry of fear, In every voice: in every ban, The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

Long Day

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 21:54:44 +0100

Today was a long day.

Oblique Strategies

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 10:00:52 +0100

Oblique Strategies (subtitled Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas) is a card-based method for promoting creativity jointly created by musician/artist Brian Eno and multimedia artist Peter Schmidt, first published in 1975 (…) Each card offers a challenging constraint intended to help artists (particularly musicians) break creative blocks by encouraging lateral thinking.

Display the Date in XFCE Vertical Panel

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 06:04:45 +0100

Edit Jan. 2021: Orage Clock is not supported anymore since the release of Xfce 4.16. No More date in the Panel, for me. I like to have my Panel (XFCE’s version of macOS Menubar and Windows Taskbar) on the left of my screen, vertically. It saves some screen real estate and let me see more of what I’m actually working on — the text I’m writing or reading.

Caractères typographiques et majuscules accentuées sous Linux

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 05:43:21 +0100

C’est une de ces ‘petites’ choses qui rend le Mac si agréable à utiliser pour un auteur: la plupart des caractères spéciaux sont accessibles via un raccourci clavier. Les caractères spéciaux? Ben oui, ces trucs tout con mais indispensables ou presque quand tu écris en french: É, È, À etc. Le tiret cadratin — ce tiret plus long que le modeste signe moins (-) — que l’on utilise pour marquer les lignes de dialogues dans un récit ou pour marquer une incise dans une phrase.

Adding a WiFi 6 PCI Card to the Linux Desktop

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 11:46:15 +0100

The Linux noob I am was worried about this. Doing some preparatory online reading did nothing to reassure me either. It looked like there was no macOS It Just Works! ™ magic and no Windows .exe to install the required driver and I was getting the impression one was supposed to purchase only a carefuly handpicked Linux-compatible card, and then was required to know exactly which driver to install by hand, while wishing for the best.

The Most Basic and Useful Advice Ever for Better Ebook Cover Design

Sat, 21 Nov 2020 10:41:56 +0100

You’re selfpublishing and you’re designing your own covers too, crafting each one with the same love and patience you put into its story? Great. The sad thing is that none of your potential readers will look at your cover this way. None will be savouring every fine little detail you added and knowingly be appreciative of the subtle color choices you’ve made.

The Right Dark Theme

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Discussing accessibility with a friend, I realized how difficult it can be for someone with a ‘normal’ eyesight to understand the importance of a good (dark) theme for users that do not have a ‘normal’ eyesight, and what a difference an apparently insignificant change in color can make. Every single one of us will have his/her own idea of what is a ‘good theme’.

PC Dusting (& help saving the planet)

Sun, 13 Sep 2020 23:45:30 +0200

Yesternight, my normally dead-silent desktop noisily me reminded me it was overdue for its more-or-less annual dusting. Its fans were roaring and whirling. So, early this morning I dusted the PC. Frankly, I have no excuse for not doing it more often. But I just don’t care very much about hardware, I just want it to work in silence and as long as it is silent…

Change Xfce Grab∕Alt Key

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

By default, Xfce has a “grab key” that you can use to, well, grab a window and move it around. By default, it is the ALT. Which can be a problem with certain apps, like Inkscape, to access some of their tools or options. You can quickly change the grab key — or turn it off, if you don’t need it all.

Setting a true dark mode for Inkscape

Sat, 29 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

TL;DR: See the section “Dark theme” below, to get to the how-to. The self-published author’s life, ep. 2: an app or two for creating covers I have started using Inkscape to design my ebook covers. Using a vector drawing app for that job is nothing new, since I was already using, and still uses, Affinity Designer (Affinity’s alternative to Adobe Illustrator) under Windows and macOS.

Un café, Linux, LibreOffice Writer, le Mac et moi sommes dans un bateau... (ou Comment réafficher les titres disparus dans le navigateur de documents de Writer)

Fri, 28 Aug 2020 15:36:28 +0200

TL;DR: Si vous voulez juste savoir comment réafficher vos titres qui ont disparu du navigateur de document de Writer, voyez à la fin de l’article la secion “Réactiver l’affichage des titres dans le navigateur”. Sinon, installez-vous confortablement. Vous prendez bien un café? La vie trépidante de l’auteur Aujourd’hui, après deux jours d’écriture intensive partagés entre macOS et iOS, j’avais prévu de me remettre à travailler sur mon desktop sous Manjaro Linux, dans LibreOffice Writer, avec pour objectif d’écrire deux chapitres au moins.

List Recently Opened Files in Xfce

Fri, 24 Jul 2020 09:03:20 +0200

Recent files in Xfce’s Panel You can add functionalities to Xfce’s Panel (it’s taskbar) by adding Items to it: sound control, network applet, list of opened windows, cpu temp, fan speed, quick user switch, and so on they’re all items. Many are preinstalled but I could not find one to list recently opened files.

LibreOffice Writer: Clutter Free Dark Mode

Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

LibreOffice Writer can use a dark theme — both for its UI and for the document itself: It can also look much less cluttered (see ‘Hide the clutter’, below). The way it handles a dark theme is not the same wether you’re using Windows, macOS, or Linux. Support is the worst for Windows and macOS where LibreOffice doesn’t seem to recognize either of their dark themes, which doesn’t make for a great experience.

LibreOffice: Backup Up and Share Your User Profile

Sun, 19 Jul 2020 08:50:15 +0200

Like Microsoft Word, LibreOffice is quite messy to configure: some settings and options are hidden in odd places and menus, while others are using unexpected names. There is nothing complex in configurating it but there is nothing straightforward either. And it always ends up being time-consuming to make it look and act like you want it to.

A Quick One-Line Backup

Fri, 17 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Because hardware can fail, because software is buggy, and because I am me and I do a lot of mistakes, I do backups. Even more here, as a new user under Linux: I know I’ll break things up. There are some great dedicated tools to do backups. Like Deja Dup Backup Tool (deja-dup) to automate backups of your home directory, or any other folder — incremental backups, with optional encryption and a list of included/excluded files and folders — and TimeShift that is like Apple’s Time Machine but for the system (not for your files), making it dead easy to restore your installation to any point in time.

Installing Microsoft Fonts on Manjaro/Linux

Sun, 12 Jul 2020 09:18:31 +0200

(Microsoft fonts are available through the AUR repository, not the main one. If it is not already the case, you’ll need to activate AUR in the Remove/Add Software: click the 3 dots menu and select Preferences, click the AUR tab and activate it. You’re good to go, search for te packages and install/build them with a couple clicks.

Foliate: Library, OPDS Catalogs, and Annotations Export

Wed, 08 Jul 2020 08:44:29 +0200

Switching to Manjaro Unstable got me many updates. Among which Foliate, the ebook viewer I already mentioned, that has been upgraded to version 2.4.0. And this is a great update to an already excellent app, adding: Connection to catalogs, through OPDS. And that include your own Calibre server (with or without authentification), if you’re using one.

Gimp and its thumbnails

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

My problem Like most complex image editing programs, Gimp uses its own file format (.xcf) when saving an image, and it lets you export to any of the more common file formats when you need it. All serious apps do the same: Photoshop uses .psd, Affinity Photo uses .afphoto, and so on.

Manjaro Unstable? It's stable

Sat, 04 Jul 2020 13:56:00 +0200

Manjaro comes in three branches: stable (it’s as stable as it’ll ever be, but apps are not the most recent and updates are not as frequent), testing (interesting only if you want to contribute to Manjaro by testing the newest stuff and reporting bugs), and unstable. Unlike its name suggests, unstable seems to be stable enough to be used on a daily basis — as far as I can tell after four days of using it — but you expose yourself to occasional bugs even if I not had a single one, so far ;)

Colored Borders in Xfce

Sun, 28 Jun 2020 12:03:43 +0200

By default, I find Xfce’s windows borders very hard to resize: they’re barely visible and they are too thin. Alas, Xfce lacks an option to easily change that. The idea probably being that you should instead use the many keyboard shortcuts to move and/or resize your window. They work well, and you can customize them if you want.

Watching/Listening to YouTube in the shell

Sat, 27 Jun 2020 20:06:33 +0200

I’ve only started using it but there is no turning back: mpv, a command line multimedia player, is a much better player than any of the more fancy ones I’ve ever used, on any platform. Not only is it good for video, but for audio too. It lets me precisely control the speed of the video/audio, precisely navigate within the video/audio or in a list ot those (it can be used to manage playlists, even on-the-fly lists).

Configuring a Canon All-in-One Printer and Scanner

Fri, 26 Jun 2020 16:45:19 +0200

I seldom print anything — because of my bad eyesight — I scan more often. For both tasks, I use a Canon Pixma MG6200, an all-in-one that works through WiFi and USB (I use it WiFi only). I also use a SnapScan Fujitsu, but I haven’t yet tried to use it under Manjaro.

Foliate, the ebook reader for Linux

Thu, 25 Jun 2020 20:54:04 +0200

Beside writing, the thing I do the most on a computer is reading ebooks, in PDF or epub formats. For PDF, I use Manjaro’s Document Viewer (a fork of Evince?). It’s lightweight and fast, it comes with basic annotation tools (notes and highlighter), and it has the inverted colors mode — turning black text white, and white background black — that I need in order to be able to read any text, because of my very poor eyesight.

Why Linux Manjaro?

Sat, 20 Jun 2020 18:52:35 +0200

I’ve Installed Manjaro, a GNU/Linux distribution on my ThinkPad X220. Why Manjaro and not another Linux? I wanted a beginner-friendly Arch-based distro, and Manjaro more than fit the bill. And I liked how it looks. Why Linux? I have no issue with Windows 10, on the contrary it has helped me get my work done.

Contact

Wed, 03 Jun 2020 02:13:50 +0000

Contact Email: david@davidbosman.fr Secure Email: david.bosman@protonmail.com Mastodon: @DavidBosman@mamot.fr Twitter: @david_bosman

Who am I?

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 02:13:50 +0000

I speak French and I (try to) write this blog in English — why not? I‘m a geek, a reader, and a writer. I’m Belgian, bald, and bearded. I have been living in France since the early 2000. I like tea and coffee. I was born in the 70s. I’m not single, my spouse and I have been living together for more than twenty years and counting.

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Disclaimer: some settings have more or less serious security implciations. So, if you intend to use this post as a guide please read it in full before starting using it and keep in mind it is a simplified and partial explanation: take the time to read the full documentation. SyncThing allows one to do two kind of secure syncing: