tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69160085351712970712024-03-08T08:14:57.212-08:00Tech ThoughtsViews on all things tech relatedCarl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.comBlogger254125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-39513139281993062032024-03-06T14:35:00.000-08:002024-03-08T08:14:15.112-08:00Upgrading to KDE Plasma 6.0 - a rocky start for KDE Neon User Edition<p>When I read about the first stable release of KDE Plasma 6, I thought I'd probably just wait awhile until I try it, but of course I forgot that KDE Neon User Edition would get it so soon. Well, the update happened and the first thing I noticed, on my main desktop machine, was that for some reason the onscreen keyboard came up on the login screen, large and covering half the screen! To fix this I found a solution on a forum, which entails editing <i>sddm.conf </i>like so:</p><p><span><span><i>sudo nano /etc/sddm.conf</i></span></span></p><p><span>and then add </span></p><p><span><span><i>InputMethod=</i></span></span></p><p>Save and exit and the onscreen keyboard shouldn't appear again on the login screen. Also it's a rather basic login screen for some reason, no matter which theme I choose. </p><p>Then I noticed that Wayland was set as default again, after I tried to login and it wouldn't work. Nvidia is the reason for this, but thankfully X11 is still an option and that works. Then on the first few logins I noticed a lot of little errors I think some parts hadn't updated, so a quick trip to Discover, the package manager to make sure everything got updated was needed. And then a day or so after i updated, there was some major bug fixes, which has made things better but i am still getting the odd Plasma crash, usually after logging in and opening Chrome for the first time. Right now the desktop seems to have has settled down and actually feels a bit snappier than Plasma 5 was. I am still getting the occasional error and a few graphical glitches, black screens occasionally., </p><p>KDE Activity manager constantly crashed with the "kactivitymanager closed unexpectedly" error.until I found a solution, Navigate to <i>~/.local/share/kactivitymanagerd/resource</i>s and delete <i>database</i>, <i>database-shm</i> and <i>database-wal</i>. You will lose your favourites in the KDE menu but at least the annoying kactivitymanager won't keep crashing! Amother odd thing is that the Print Screen key does not open Spectacle anymore. </p><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGO8CsEdg9_KU-DkGHNa_aLiRqMR3bq9sKnoZavHFsUl9a-36bw-VcbWPtxRtNTNvzDIuFmKODUd-4FtLgv7IQVKDudq0vOfu_eW78-vR_WBCQ8zledr2exqHoJwBh1n-zsA8jEDZBhyphenhyphenxUU7Sty07fwiP1YMgxT-IufOTCYrtfyq88gKw8YtKZL0UzcmA/s1921/Screenshot_20240303_005002.png"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGO8CsEdg9_KU-DkGHNa_aLiRqMR3bq9sKnoZavHFsUl9a-36bw-VcbWPtxRtNTNvzDIuFmKODUd-4FtLgv7IQVKDudq0vOfu_eW78-vR_WBCQ8zledr2exqHoJwBh1n-zsA8jEDZBhyphenhyphenxUU7Sty07fwiP1YMgxT-IufOTCYrtfyq88gKw8YtKZL0UzcmA/w591-h360/Screenshot_20240303_005002.png" width="591" /></a></div><p>Another minor issue is that since Plasma 6 is qt6 based, so Latte Dock no longer works, and will never be updated since it's been abandoned by the lead developer. A shame because it's been my favourite OSX-style dock for years. For now I have added another KDE panel, auto-hiding, and using the new floating panel feature. It's not exactly pretty, but it's functional. I shall miss the magnification effect from Latte, and I can't seem to get the panel to go translucent, even though I have set it to. Floating panels are default now, but to me they look odd on the normal panels so I have disabled them for those. Another minor niggle is that Dolphin always opens without the sidebar even though I closed it with it open. It used to remember my choice. </p><p>On my main laptop, a T430s Thinkpad, the update installed more smoothly, there was no <i>kactivitymanager</i> errors but still have the same basic login screen and had to disable the onscreen keyboard like with my desktop machine. No graphical issues of course, because it's got Intel graphics. One thing I have noticed changed is that when I close the lid then open it again, the keyboard backlight now goes off instead of remembering which setting it was on. My laptop does not have the Dolphin sidebar issue though.</p><p>The KDE Neon developer blog has put up an <a href="https://blog.neon.kde.org/2024/03/02/megarelease-teething-problems/">apology</a> for the number of issues with KDE Neon User Edition. Apparently the testing and unstable versions have been running more smoothly. Hopefully they'll send out more fixes soon.</p><p>You can read more about what's new in KDE Plasma 6 <a href="https://kde.org/announcements/megarelease/6/">on the KDE website</a>. </p>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-53833532791727881222023-09-19T18:29:00.132-07:002023-10-04T16:28:43.880-07:00From KDE Neon to Manjaro KDE on my Acer Chromebook 14<p>So, I only had KDE Neon on my Acer Chromebook 14 CB3-431 for a short time but there was no way round the performance issues with YouTube at 1080p. You can't really install another DE on Neon because the way it's built it would break it trying to install Lubuntu or other desktops. I decided to install Manjaro KDE, since it is running so well on my old Dell Vostro. Also, on Manjaro (and Arch) it has the most supported desktops, either unofficially or through the community, so if I need to choose a different desktop, that's lighter on resources, it's easy enough to switch between them...or so I thought... </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCl0YiJBxmVZ_IRQd0EcVMy4qgfYuWnce_400fSY2pEsTxxYp6QaHz3PXPir3OBBnaRoMdP2JhDI2tCdsku3s6ATjWp_6e7zlv0rw817Ja1XtouHUgjY6HdeccYx8EbErr-5_X129wvN3VqSPol75Zkbh5pAjrnVtD_G9V8YvnRCVH9mEbzMiccrinSf4/s1920/Screenshot_20230919_181013.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCl0YiJBxmVZ_IRQd0EcVMy4qgfYuWnce_400fSY2pEsTxxYp6QaHz3PXPir3OBBnaRoMdP2JhDI2tCdsku3s6ATjWp_6e7zlv0rw817Ja1XtouHUgjY6HdeccYx8EbErr-5_X129wvN3VqSPol75Zkbh5pAjrnVtD_G9V8YvnRCVH9mEbzMiccrinSf4/w400-h225/Screenshot_20230919_181013.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>As with KDE Neon, I used my Dell Vostro laptop to put the Manjaro KDE ISO onto a USB stick using OpenSuse Image Writer. Installing was a <i>Breeze</i>, just a USB boot and install from the live desktop as with Neon, since the tricky bit of replacing the bootloader on my Chromebook was already done as per my previous post. And, also as before, the first thing I did after install was set shortcuts for the Display brightness in KDE Settings, and set it to Breeze Dark theme so I wasn't half blinding myself on every boot! I also set all the other shortcuts again while I was there. And yet again re-adding the Leave option to the right-click desktop menu. I am not going to install too much, as it only has a 32GB onboard eMMC, and there's currently only about 8GB left. As with KDE Neon, all the hardware works fine, including sound, trackpad, suspend and resume, webcam, etc. Also one quick fix that needs doing on Manjaro is getting ssh enabled, since for some reason when you install the service it isn't enabled by default, and I found a fix <a href="https://linuxhint.com/fix-ssh-connection-refused-error-manjaro/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZModn5_1jp5Vx3jEDEHc_JAAatt2rXPAPO_6q4wSjR5kRRsXPeyaNDjeBaDaMNFYKp--dc0yoSE_y9gD7WuouFeRaeUkSaLV9xe1rhB6q-c2aPal6UMH9FZ8jAcOjTcaa-WL6egBqfEZ59JjvD5PblZW9PCNeNLF0F0j17f-o6I3JNvIgLh5XqY4n95s/s1920/Screenshot_20230919_202431.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZModn5_1jp5Vx3jEDEHc_JAAatt2rXPAPO_6q4wSjR5kRRsXPeyaNDjeBaDaMNFYKp--dc0yoSE_y9gD7WuouFeRaeUkSaLV9xe1rhB6q-c2aPal6UMH9FZ8jAcOjTcaa-WL6egBqfEZ59JjvD5PblZW9PCNeNLF0F0j17f-o6I3JNvIgLh5XqY4n95s/w400-h225/Screenshot_20230919_202431.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>Then I installed Google Chrome using <a href="https://linuxhint.com/install-google-chrome-manjaro/">this tutorial</a> (I used the second option of installing it using the AUR Helper, yay, which can be installed from the package manager if required) and made sure that YouTube played 1080p without stuttering or stopping completely, which it did just fine. Hurrah! I also installed any updates available through Manjaro's package manager. After a reboot for the kernel update, I then installed my favourite apps again, such as Audacious, GIMP, Filezilla, etc, though I didn't have to install VLC this time since it was already there. I have found that if I want to watch YouTube videos with as little jitter as possible, it's best to only have YouTube open, and absolutely no Facebook tabs! Facebook uses way too much memory and CPU. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaZQjTLWg9pQP50fqnyXJvszOI310BeXst1kRjK5qMLv5YQ_Hzo5i6aDzsT45gVICmLNEO04yM4XzltaSJ-lJbkGmL_U-dSuDPoVsqM5w82VXWVBPDDsM3C7X0-G1eXmSESNzE2gRnnT__y2haN3KN7yAOeORTCa3J4QzeoRs0nqXpj9gEGyvvWVxHphI/s1920/Screenshot_20230919_191449.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaZQjTLWg9pQP50fqnyXJvszOI310BeXst1kRjK5qMLv5YQ_Hzo5i6aDzsT45gVICmLNEO04yM4XzltaSJ-lJbkGmL_U-dSuDPoVsqM5w82VXWVBPDDsM3C7X0-G1eXmSESNzE2gRnnT__y2haN3KN7yAOeORTCa3J4QzeoRs0nqXpj9gEGyvvWVxHphI/w400-h225/Screenshot_20230919_191449.png" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>I also tried to install Lxqt desktop, just to see if I could save some resources, using <a href="https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Install_Desktop_Environments">these instructions</a>, with no success, it does not load the whole desktop, just openbox itself, and caused a very slow boot too for some reason. I then tried Fluxbox desktop but the extra packages listed on that tutorial were unavailable to install and I couldn't get any apps to run. And on the reboot, it failed to boot. So very frustrating. So it turns out switching desktops on Manjaro is not as easy as I thought! I then had to reinstall and setup everything again.... It's a good job installing is so quick! So if you do want to try other desktops with Manjaro, it's best to just download the specific ISO for that desktop. </p><p>So Manjaro is now running fine again. I could have used Google's ChromeOS Flex to extend the life of this Chromebook but I don't really want to go back to ChromeOS after the flexibility and freedom of running Linux on it. It has a nicer screen for photo editing than my Thinkpad so that's what it will get used for, when not using my main desktop. The only slight downside is the lack of storage space, have to be careful not to use too much of the 15GB or so left on the drive. I have put a little USB stick in the side just in case I need it. I'll keep Manjaro KDE on it for as long as it continues to work well on it. Feel free to suggest any other distros that might suit it better. </p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif0Pe5u6XnxRavCAUntbrDWILFrBbgpEhoL7fgwV03B4dQHnHj2V-f_RaVE7NniKKGmp2GkunpbxpIyYIzMhEtSZLUJSvRcNgQwTTUJiw75wJLR5yiZziKeM8pVFaLkM1CTwylVQVqYo2wMUZpRSs6XrdvRQ0S-eTIHGPVXf9kbmPTzSgavp_V80NDXdg/s1920/Screenshot_20230920_022607.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif0Pe5u6XnxRavCAUntbrDWILFrBbgpEhoL7fgwV03B4dQHnHj2V-f_RaVE7NniKKGmp2GkunpbxpIyYIzMhEtSZLUJSvRcNgQwTTUJiw75wJLR5yiZziKeM8pVFaLkM1CTwylVQVqYo2wMUZpRSs6XrdvRQ0S-eTIHGPVXf9kbmPTzSgavp_V80NDXdg/w428-h241/Screenshot_20230920_022607.png" width="428" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /></div>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-35637472341400639462023-09-17T17:38:00.238-07:002023-09-19T08:47:22.922-07:00Installing a full Linux distro on my Acer Chromebook 14 CB-431<p> So I was having trouble with my Chromebook. When editing photos with Google Photos it would slow down then freeze. After testing in another user account with no extensions or add-ons, it still had the same issue. I then went last resort and <i>powerwashed</i> it. This is simple and quick way of wiping back to factory settings....and then I decided to install a full Linux distro on it.... </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTzfVgZVXOhTykGvQ5DvLOUWpbVMy13qNGyKycssQUqqNncw_4rVFcDL8cpXPrzYhRvcfSCCM8QpJb8CySKvoznPomnqdovmXU-L7C3-aun50AnXL2AqYCjkRV_McyvVqCxSW-7fJrVsQjR7OHlnVn_JYZIOFK7Gf8_eytDQUQ9hh7Ctt-ZBLW0AIygl4/s1600/IMG_20170626_175024611.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="866" data-original-width="1600" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTzfVgZVXOhTykGvQ5DvLOUWpbVMy13qNGyKycssQUqqNncw_4rVFcDL8cpXPrzYhRvcfSCCM8QpJb8CySKvoznPomnqdovmXU-L7C3-aun50AnXL2AqYCjkRV_McyvVqCxSW-7fJrVsQjR7OHlnVn_JYZIOFK7Gf8_eytDQUQ9hh7Ctt-ZBLW0AIygl4/w400-h216/IMG_20170626_175024611.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>My Acer Chromebook 14 has been End of life for awhile now, (it was released in 2016) which means no more fixes for issues, and no new features. I'd already removed the hardware write protection screw inside the base in preparation for possibly putting Linux on it awhile ago, I had just put off doing it until now. Luckily there's very useful guides on the Arch Linux Wiki on how to put Linux on a Chromebook. I used the guide for my specific model, <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Acer_Chromebook_14_CB3-431_(Edgar)" rel="nofollow">here</a>. It is a CB3-431, 4GB RAM, 1080P screen version (Acer also did a 2GB, 720p screen version). </p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHaAaK3WGm6JDT7tWub6_rsHeJZEecBHNzkYXpJXJDCrDy8VvZWeMxoj234XT38HP2fnqyyVrtc5hHS6PUJ-oCDNZ1zlX4vXX4_mjv3-YgG-LmI9kc479eduAIT8Yza8i_QyIiWS3Zs2_VdRP4IkjsmFkqFNAJARzW3RmbgDU0sDglHBI2Larce2Sh-HY/s4032/original_9ac268c7-a144-40be-b292-a817e67f7ff1_PXL_20230918_152819062.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHaAaK3WGm6JDT7tWub6_rsHeJZEecBHNzkYXpJXJDCrDy8VvZWeMxoj234XT38HP2fnqyyVrtc5hHS6PUJ-oCDNZ1zlX4vXX4_mjv3-YgG-LmI9kc479eduAIT8Yza8i_QyIiWS3Zs2_VdRP4IkjsmFkqFNAJARzW3RmbgDU0sDglHBI2Larce2Sh-HY/w400-h300/original_9ac268c7-a144-40be-b292-a817e67f7ff1_PXL_20230918_152819062.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>There's a couple of different options on the Arch Wiki, and I chose the Coreboot route. Linux only, no dual boot. After installing the custom bootloader, I went ahead with installing Linux as normal, wiping all the internal 32GB storage. I used my favourite distro, KDE Neon, which is basically Kubuntu LTS but with the latest version of KDE. I wrote the ISO to a USB stick using OpenSuse Image Writer, which worked perfectly, it's the first time I've ever used it. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLglJOt7NtB_-czMquDe7I5S6qKwTiFW0ocEciPRfh4YadZ78AoylxKPH2B6lPlu7QLIHdBTRTaws2MIjIyjoyT6Y2M01F_tPodZZHXKc9S3zSmdIpyeztKU87iOWUd_6m9zIftZNj25ws1B5fPQIeZ6h_uOBb2yL14oamLR8WNI7JTbnyAOSoJuon5hs/s4032/PXL_20230918_151547514.NIGHT.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLglJOt7NtB_-czMquDe7I5S6qKwTiFW0ocEciPRfh4YadZ78AoylxKPH2B6lPlu7QLIHdBTRTaws2MIjIyjoyT6Y2M01F_tPodZZHXKc9S3zSmdIpyeztKU87iOWUd_6m9zIftZNj25ws1B5fPQIeZ6h_uOBb2yL14oamLR8WNI7JTbnyAOSoJuon5hs/w400-h300/PXL_20230918_151547514.NIGHT.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>After a normal uneventful install, KDE Neon used just under half of the Acer's 32GB internal storage. It still boots pretty quickly. The main thing I noticed after logging in for the first time, was the display was on full brightness and of course in ChromeOS the Brightness keys are on what would be the normal F keys in Linux. You can use change shortcuts in KDE settings, and create custom ones. For Brightness Up and Down I used Ctrl + F6 and F7. For for the Volume keys I used Ctrl + Shift + F8 and F9 (which were the Volume keys in ChromeOS). The Fullscreen key is F4 so I added Ctrl and Shift for that too. There's a smaller number of F keys to standard so I had to choose another shortcut key for my favourite drop-down terminal emulator, Yakuake. As expected, the Google/Search key becomes the Super Key aka The "Windows key". </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz3H8Q2rudwkVeBt3-qYR73K8LV8bOcb20lnZ0haqKDKhgTOEMUluTDQLR1ZoZwsaJ3K8TAp-Gj5qxZhNPUe_0olscjH-DfBc9TWZRZU8Iqha_KVRif1ImXnhy703DUo8F2VEVw4oi5e5sFeFinDFaQ-UNQ4ir19lVW8DbjQeY3iEQA6ZCMAhTIVGBOuo/s1920/Screenshot_20230918_164659.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz3H8Q2rudwkVeBt3-qYR73K8LV8bOcb20lnZ0haqKDKhgTOEMUluTDQLR1ZoZwsaJ3K8TAp-Gj5qxZhNPUe_0olscjH-DfBc9TWZRZU8Iqha_KVRif1ImXnhy703DUo8F2VEVw4oi5e5sFeFinDFaQ-UNQ4ir19lVW8DbjQeY3iEQA6ZCMAhTIVGBOuo/w400-h225/Screenshot_20230918_164659.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Some of the fixes on the Arch wiki were not needed, such as those for the sound and touchpad. The trackpad seems to work fine, though right clicking only works with the default setting, clicking on the bottom right corner of the trackpad, instead of the two finger clicks that I am used to. Just a case of getting used to that, along with the new keyboard shortcuts. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiqEO98FYYqAYOIS5iwts6ZpBnmmVM_0t5lGUIdj_VeN7RmoFGAOmZD5rc4ZBOK48wqyeZnFui8zNo9v3eMRu0UAXhm65HugUJCocXd_UpM7yntHz6WTwQWOYh29wL2O-Ik_mgGqEaaj3YnzDffUXN32lHI1BhGHuteIV1Q3SFc328N3lQopvShP5Pkrc/s1425/Screenshot_20230918_170251.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="858" data-original-width="1425" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiqEO98FYYqAYOIS5iwts6ZpBnmmVM_0t5lGUIdj_VeN7RmoFGAOmZD5rc4ZBOK48wqyeZnFui8zNo9v3eMRu0UAXhm65HugUJCocXd_UpM7yntHz6WTwQWOYh29wL2O-Ik_mgGqEaaj3YnzDffUXN32lHI1BhGHuteIV1Q3SFc328N3lQopvShP5Pkrc/w428-h258/Screenshot_20230918_170251.png" width="428" /></a></div><p>The sound works out the box and one advantage of running Linux on this Chromebook is you can increase the Volume beyond 100%, which you cannot do on ChromeOS, as the audio was far too quiet, in headphones or from the speakers on this machine. I used to have to use a Chrome extension called Volume Master to boost the volume on ChromeOS, but its downside was that YouTube couldn't run fullscreen while it was in use. Although having said that, sometimes after boosting the audio for some time, it sometimes goes to just playing a tone. Another option I can now use is a USB audio interface, like my M-Audio M-Track Solo, which is something else I couldn't use with ChromeOS. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDTS8DIu9-Cx64bwHTgd2_yIHAqwnPvYFYheMxWQ6H2MTZYG3eYYNt_DjxzytdpxJA1nlSPDdXqHDOsRiCnFIKYzPaofXD-doC--5Dk2bagsqLBp2RnSBdVe4cxXfERQNtlLle5zgtHG_lHDDV13jyzXxSCcVAYnBCY25Ttw0VnsWUHbv9kupN9dARvc/s3519/PXL_20230918_151413358.NIGHT.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2639" data-original-width="3519" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPDTS8DIu9-Cx64bwHTgd2_yIHAqwnPvYFYheMxWQ6H2MTZYG3eYYNt_DjxzytdpxJA1nlSPDdXqHDOsRiCnFIKYzPaofXD-doC--5Dk2bagsqLBp2RnSBdVe4cxXfERQNtlLle5zgtHG_lHDDV13jyzXxSCcVAYnBCY25Ttw0VnsWUHbv9kupN9dARvc/w400-h300/PXL_20230918_151413358.NIGHT.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>After all the main tinkering, it was just a case of installing all my usual favourite apps, such as VLC, Audacious, Cantata, FIlezilla etc. And finally, bringing back the <a href="https://all-tech-thoughts.blogspot.com/2022/08/how-to-bring-back-leave-option-in.html">Leave option</a> in the Desktop right click menu and <a href="https://all-tech-thoughts.blogspot.com/2021/04/how-to-get-rid-of-system-upgrade-in.html">removing the silly offline updates</a> feature. Performance is fairly snappy on first impression, considering it only has 4GB RAM. Lm-sensors reports the normal temperatures as 45 Deg C at idle, rising to just under 50 under heavier loads. Suspend and Resume work fine and battery life doesn't seem to be impacted. It does struggle with 1080P YouTube in Chrome, but it plays a little bit smoother in Firefox. I'm not using Latte Dock as I would usually, because that uses more resources than it should. KDE isn't as heavy as it used to be but I might have to install a distro with a lighter or minimal desktop environment.</p><p> I've been impressed with the full 1080P screen on the Acer ever since I first got it, and KDE looks fantastic on it. I have always preferred to edit photos in Google Photos on the Chromebook instead of on the dull screen on my Thinkpad T430s, the colours are more accurate. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikBrt6wBi44RrLGaJtjlixVj3I3_lCyf_VV5XM3tLvnT2FRcY7SQGZKIVVoW3CzYFjOUfX8r9fAAUq4dchjBf8gUYB4abeHlwZ3rs3tXe6pFjv73L0dGJi5k1qtkJJnmyJ2Wlie_MHEMHZIIQPYZdPOLW_GPpSbP6JDgVT9EfS0AX5D1xgyW3Kv5ZKZhg/s1920/Screenshot_20230918_165005.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikBrt6wBi44RrLGaJtjlixVj3I3_lCyf_VV5XM3tLvnT2FRcY7SQGZKIVVoW3CzYFjOUfX8r9fAAUq4dchjBf8gUYB4abeHlwZ3rs3tXe6pFjv73L0dGJi5k1qtkJJnmyJ2Wlie_MHEMHZIIQPYZdPOLW_GPpSbP6JDgVT9EfS0AX5D1xgyW3Kv5ZKZhg/w400-h225/Screenshot_20230918_165005.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>So far, I am pleased with full Linux on my Acer 14, and I am not missing running ChromeOS yet. It can't run Android apps the same way as ChromeOS did, but that's something I rarely did. They often felt a bit awkward on the desktop. It boots pretty fast, getting to the logon screen not much slower than ChromeOS did. I only wish it had a backlit keyboard, but then at the price it was originally that was to be expected. Installing Linux has basically extended the life of this Chromebook and I'll keep using Linux on it until the device dies, which will probably be whenever the 32GB eMMC onboard storage is dies. It is soldered to the main board so it's not really upgradeable/replaceable. Until then, this Acer will get plenty of use, probably mostly YouTube and Google Photos when I am away from my main desktop. I just have to decide whether to stick with KDE Neon or switch to a lighter weight distro. </p>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-4327692688449318942023-07-25T12:45:00.002-07:002023-10-14T13:39:14.765-07:00Rant: Google Has Ruined Google Photos On The Desktop<p> It's not often I complain about free services, but Google Photos used to be good, other than the occasional glitch it was very useful. That is until very recently when Google made the web app more like the mobile app, including making the image <i>Aspect</i> tool more like the Android app, which is mildly annoying to use with a mouse. And with every single image I have to choose the aspect ratio, otherwise it stays on Free! It used to stick to whichever aspect was used last. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixuRmjhlmGTE1knLkvCjE3Tz5xXPEkHbQQGjTE-MNlQjDjCLFzmWxScwKQAJuVtDG-Jg4s14MsCjSZKZzsf01oPnQx8uX8hZGzf-5_ZrCx5fRDf3atVaw-BRnqeDV6H9PzKg4mZBZ4oxqT2TaqjqShetVuWyNCI8fwYCOm9CGBDsr3mTtwpqf46S6jaOY/s1920/Screenshot_20230725_192908.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixuRmjhlmGTE1knLkvCjE3Tz5xXPEkHbQQGjTE-MNlQjDjCLFzmWxScwKQAJuVtDG-Jg4s14MsCjSZKZzsf01oPnQx8uX8hZGzf-5_ZrCx5fRDf3atVaw-BRnqeDV6H9PzKg4mZBZ4oxqT2TaqjqShetVuWyNCI8fwYCOm9CGBDsr3mTtwpqf46S6jaOY/w400-h225/Screenshot_20230725_192908.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Oh and putting every quick edit tool behind a Google One paywall is annoying too, particularly when those same tools are available in the mobile app for nothing. The <i>Enhance</i> button usually makes photos far too cool by lowering the <i>Warmth</i> level for some silly reason.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH4O_7IEjdF-a_mMzHCX56sWePbZXQuCx9zorS4NVSiQG5BFY5eHqaV_Q8tdBvaWp1IND6n15JgJTHLacIsCJPcuJYoBEN5RZCVUcu26RSs5ILgNI7kg1go6FRZp1WyQQXTLE5GaxN3QBxm3rhPwZ_frvANker3rkrzJ_vdheE9plzpSdzGYqjuXgVwdQ/s1920/Screenshot_20230725_192727.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH4O_7IEjdF-a_mMzHCX56sWePbZXQuCx9zorS4NVSiQG5BFY5eHqaV_Q8tdBvaWp1IND6n15JgJTHLacIsCJPcuJYoBEN5RZCVUcu26RSs5ILgNI7kg1go6FRZp1WyQQXTLE5GaxN3QBxm3rhPwZ_frvANker3rkrzJ_vdheE9plzpSdzGYqjuXgVwdQ/w400-h225/Screenshot_20230725_192727.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>But no, that is not the most egregious change. No, that prize goes to the removal of Copy and Paste between images. You used to be able to edit one image to how you wanted it, <i>CTRL+C</i> the changes, then move left or right, without clicking <i>Done</i>, to the next image and then <i>CTRL+V</i> those image settings. I could get through dozens of images in no time at all with this method, with maybe a slight alteration to the settings throughout. But no, now you cannot move to the next image without clicking Save. So that's one hurdle to productivity, and you cannot copy and paste, so that slows me down even more! Just why were these removed? Does Google even use their own software? This is just the worst change to Google Photos I have ever encountered! And they still have not fixed odl bugs like after archiving an image, the web app refuses to move to the direction of the next image, so i have to go back out to all images and in again. I shall now continue editing today's photos, which will take about 4 times longer than it did before! </p><p>/<i>Rant endeth</i>. </p><p><b>Update 14/10/2023:</b></p><p>Copy and paste of edits is back, but you still can't move form image to image without exiting edit mode.</p>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-19852351647052358222023-07-13T09:17:00.001-07:002023-07-13T09:17:00.139-07:00Linuxiversary... Three Years With LinuxMint.<p>Today is my third ‘linuxaversary’, that’s three years using Linux full time, leaving a twenty year relationship with Apple behind in 2020 and what a journey it has been.</p><p>I wrote an article on the <a href="http://all-tech-thoughts.blogspot.com/2021/07/linuxiversary-one-year-with-linuxmint.html" target="_blank">first anniversary</a> and on the <a href="http://all-tech-thoughts.blogspot.com/2022/07/linuxiversary-two-years-with-linux-mint.html" target="_blank">second anniversary</a> and I have to say this year has been a lot better.</p><p>While I had played with Linux while still in the Mac world, jumping in to it full time for all my computing needs was a daunting task. I had to make sure it was capable of doing everything I needed – and I was fairly up to speed with it - with as little down time as possible. I’d already been using a lot of cross platform open source apps on my Mac so it was mainly the OS swap I had to cope with.</p><p>The first year was a steep learning curve. While Mac and Linux are quite similar, there was still a lot to learn and a handful of times I did question whether I had done the right thing. I get very frustrated when I can’t do something or work something out. The second year was a lot smoother, I had settled in quite well, with only a few minor issues which were easily fixed. This last year has been a breeze, an absolute joy to use and now I cannot see myself using anything else.</p><p>Linux Mint Cinnamon is my distro of choice and is fantastic. I have run it on a few different laptops over the last few years but currently (and for quite a while now) I am using it on a Dell Latitude E7250 – a rather modest fifth gen i5 machine, maxed with an mSATA drive and 16GB of RAM. It more than copes with my daily life – which consists of web browsing and video editing.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfg9OdiZkt9B5Iyy7Qrcom18q-Mykkjz3nF_-F1U-3jNBpHVlaP5yYWzenMq8nDSkCMmv2z0co09AQWcx8tUIf8N9v3_Cr4V7nxyF1ATWV7TNPBG8433QZBJMfiISKzbHAaao8U1TZgKrVjlqofuOif6VBPuCQuE8PsEBif_v0ExDSzzVXTS2WCzmbdC4/s800/Screenshot%20from%202023-07-12%2009-30-45.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="800" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfg9OdiZkt9B5Iyy7Qrcom18q-Mykkjz3nF_-F1U-3jNBpHVlaP5yYWzenMq8nDSkCMmv2z0co09AQWcx8tUIf8N9v3_Cr4V7nxyF1ATWV7TNPBG8433QZBJMfiISKzbHAaao8U1TZgKrVjlqofuOif6VBPuCQuE8PsEBif_v0ExDSzzVXTS2WCzmbdC4/s320/Screenshot%20from%202023-07-12%2009-30-45.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>Linux and the choice of desktop environments have come a long way in the last ten years. Very rarely would the average user need to dip in to terminal and a lot more software is cross platform and if not there are software managers – like App Stores – where even a non-technically mind person can browse and install what they need. I certainly think in terms of Linux Mint and Ubuntu they are easier, less complicated, less intrusive and far more stable than running Windows.</p><p>That is the beauty of Linux. There are distros suited for everyone – new users, pro users and those with specific needs. And while Mac and Windows really need modern hardware to function fully, Linux can be tailored to run on modern hardware as well as less capable hardware and even very low end kit – depend on which distro and desktop environment you choose – making it fantastic for just about everyone.</p><p>So I am happy. I won’t be writing an anniversary article next year. I have reached that point from initially switching where I had minor hiccups and learning new Linux related things daily, to just being able to use my laptop for what I need without anything getting in the way. After all, I just want to get done what I need to. But if I need to I can comfortably install new software, dip in to Terminal and fix any issues – although finger crossed I haven’t had any in the last year – without it eating up an entire afternoon.</p><p>On a small side note, for anyone who relies on Windows software – there is always the option to run some of these inside Linux. I do a lot of gaming on portable devices and I like to mod them or run hacked games which need specific small piece of software or patching tools, which are generally developed for Windows only and I have had great success running these using WINE – which is a great tool (available for Mac as well as Linux) which adds a compatibility layer and emulates the Windows environment (although it does stand for Wine Is Not an Emulator) allowing a lot of Windows only software to run.</p><p>So I am going to finish this article (and mini series) with one piece of advice. If you are fed up with the constant chase of new hardware with Apple, or hate the intrusiveness and downright awkwardness of Windows, you should give Linux a serious thought. There is a distro and a desktop environment to suit everyone's needs and while it might be a little more complicated initially – if you don’t rely on Mac or Windows only software – then I highly recommend giving Linux some consideration.</p><p><i data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #c8c3bc; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at <a data-darkreader-inline-color="" href="http://twitter.com/simonroyal" style="--darkreader-inline-color: #6ea3cf; color: #6699cc; text-decoration-line: none;">twitter.com/simonroyal</a></i></p>Simon Royalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15004143767222498320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-89093175068312482852023-07-12T11:59:00.000-07:002023-07-12T11:59:05.953-07:00Shotcut Video Editor: How To Create a Simple YouTube Video With a Still Image <p>Here's just a quick and simple tutorial on how to make a basic video from a still image and some audio. I usually make these simple videos for uploading my own music to YouTube. I used to use web apps or command line stuff for this but i find it a lot easier, better, to use a decent video editor. Shotcut can usually be found in your Linux distro's package manager if it's not installed already. I am using KDE so i usually use Discover to install Shotcut. That usually works best though if there's an issue you could also try the Appimage, or, as a last resort, the Flatpak or Snap packages but they won't integrate as well with your distro. Shotcut is also available for Mac and Windows.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNxvOSb95jFPuz1QeDwrf7XgbowuusxIJQJpdYsV7s79hsi2mU3CQiYBH4Oa1R1toD3ZuLmNj1oNNPxDUpv9VSdXiUlsjERAWcaEuWvN5fI27PYt7K4vMDveqjdb4fWrz9g1h9f4wshsZSsLoyHyS8pltlwAOOW5Bt4ZqItb_dhVQMRvKnTuwh0EFJa24/s1378/Screenshot_20230712_194110.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="1378" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNxvOSb95jFPuz1QeDwrf7XgbowuusxIJQJpdYsV7s79hsi2mU3CQiYBH4Oa1R1toD3ZuLmNj1oNNPxDUpv9VSdXiUlsjERAWcaEuWvN5fI27PYt7K4vMDveqjdb4fWrz9g1h9f4wshsZSsLoyHyS8pltlwAOOW5Bt4ZqItb_dhVQMRvKnTuwh0EFJa24/w400-h233/Screenshot_20230712_194110.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>1. Click <i>Timeline</i>, if the Timeline is not showing. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZhJW8_-wxp90Q83LG6ViguODh_V6r-_G2RDq46dm3zw1MIvtweaGCE7PZI9GxRBPEt-qtTcPWYxdHNPvHYkFvrZ5o5hdwhr8lB4Zdniu8OKN_2czbf2RvJ_z0sgM4vRiYH8V4bqzTP5nVGu0Wc0bilT6tShn2i_YeLsmOsFaf8kydITrxCkbDFimztRA/s1030/Screenshot_20230712_192456.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="142" data-original-width="1030" height="55" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZhJW8_-wxp90Q83LG6ViguODh_V6r-_G2RDq46dm3zw1MIvtweaGCE7PZI9GxRBPEt-qtTcPWYxdHNPvHYkFvrZ5o5hdwhr8lB4Zdniu8OKN_2czbf2RvJ_z0sgM4vRiYH8V4bqzTP5nVGu0Wc0bilT6tShn2i_YeLsmOsFaf8kydITrxCkbDFimztRA/w400-h55/Screenshot_20230712_192456.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>2. Right click on the Timeline, select Track Operations and then choose select Add Audio Track (or use the keyboard shortcut)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwjumAyiofW77t94ISiP1g_4YIZfNS-Wm6iMa_FBCGac-rkjoAluhsyv8-RP8UE3p6m-OU7tBJYTbb09ctwOn8J0C6QyBRV7Kyvc3RbtKoQkoxEleWfO99Fyrsy39dAoZlSVUHWzp654doTkjDeZgo2YeXEWcsYydcsapaOztPp4tP_u8xBu1P5M0fPz8/s632/Screenshot_20230712_192723.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="335" data-original-width="632" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwjumAyiofW77t94ISiP1g_4YIZfNS-Wm6iMa_FBCGac-rkjoAluhsyv8-RP8UE3p6m-OU7tBJYTbb09ctwOn8J0C6QyBRV7Kyvc3RbtKoQkoxEleWfO99Fyrsy39dAoZlSVUHWzp654doTkjDeZgo2YeXEWcsYydcsapaOztPp4tP_u8xBu1P5M0fPz8/s320/Screenshot_20230712_192723.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>3. Drag an audio file onto that track, so now you should have an audio file in like so:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX5HkoEcKkfTxsAiVm2ONs4XtZJpH-9YEZEP1_o8brCs12WpF6jIfvFVaRCAJdNzFdlnqkVCvF4H5pqShoMoXQexyldYroudHXWW2bLz_h1ApXofC1lzqSlwOgnzy9eLKpuORK8wlWgS50wAdsPIhxILidt0s9uP-dsG2TS-hMOa5REz0QUBJA_goovOE/s715/Screenshot_20230712_192926.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="245" data-original-width="715" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX5HkoEcKkfTxsAiVm2ONs4XtZJpH-9YEZEP1_o8brCs12WpF6jIfvFVaRCAJdNzFdlnqkVCvF4H5pqShoMoXQexyldYroudHXWW2bLz_h1ApXofC1lzqSlwOgnzy9eLKpuORK8wlWgS50wAdsPIhxILidt0s9uP-dsG2TS-hMOa5REz0QUBJA_goovOE/s320/Screenshot_20230712_192926.png" width="320" /></a></div><p>4. Right click on the Timeline, select Track Operations and then choose select Add Video Track</p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO-ZWxp_2BVGZldplWrbdT1yvOZPVoNDWq6qYwRr-iNsS7OxDnAcWQXe6M8atbV5sEs5iNDom5uARus6_0j0TlL4JVDboXwb0DbDeKyChQRy3kGXZ6d1dznn-KFnLKvxM3vwf-KqqqcxOJmP03k4i0jyq8mzh5ag3Pg-J_ZJ6gyOCoUcAdFgWLuW5NApE/s645/Screenshot_20230712_192743.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="645" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO-ZWxp_2BVGZldplWrbdT1yvOZPVoNDWq6qYwRr-iNsS7OxDnAcWQXe6M8atbV5sEs5iNDom5uARus6_0j0TlL4JVDboXwb0DbDeKyChQRy3kGXZ6d1dznn-KFnLKvxM3vwf-KqqqcxOJmP03k4i0jyq8mzh5ag3Pg-J_ZJ6gyOCoUcAdFgWLuW5NApE/s320/Screenshot_20230712_192743.png" width="320" /></a></div><p>5. Drag an image from the file manager onto the Timeline, Hover over the edge of the image in the TImeline, drag so it fills the whole line, making sure it lines up with the audio track at both ends. You may also like to experiment with adding effects - click on the image or audio and then click <i>Filters</i>, click the plus symbol and choose some suitable effect, I often use the Fade Out Video and Fade Out Audio filters, </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOhVydpIHzBJhrHW6LQaZb7Re9MhxikOpdhr8LsX5DpnmqyzaJcvoY2DlfaP7IWYvOJbzQedfAxtVz0FvDk7r1J-XHvzbxw4bP5DSBEqjz9P8kQL0xclxtWaO1p62F7GrhXlgGQbhqbT0E8sTb7-aBGcBXFY5DwZnEX5pvQjnmZKwcOz-vJ-_zwxpVDJE/s714/Screenshot_20230712_193155.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="714" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOhVydpIHzBJhrHW6LQaZb7Re9MhxikOpdhr8LsX5DpnmqyzaJcvoY2DlfaP7IWYvOJbzQedfAxtVz0FvDk7r1J-XHvzbxw4bP5DSBEqjz9P8kQL0xclxtWaO1p62F7GrhXlgGQbhqbT0E8sTb7-aBGcBXFY5DwZnEX5pvQjnmZKwcOz-vJ-_zwxpVDJE/w400-h201/Screenshot_20230712_193155.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>6. Click Export File, choose a name and press enter to save it. By default it saves as an H.264/AAC MP4 video, which is suitable for Youtube. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Vc8keEh2mUJVBN5E9mr66QerjauWGC_vA14RznWRoMDUSvuN-Bm3BPqK73itJ1blZuV2HFp2-m2FTx5CQhoV2o-k4x1504dN49MlbAXDb0Os8vwAqerQjnImK4T1FZpeH__IzLPcSV99M38lLwEXiy5_Y_v1sjAUmFfdPwH01rkGnaarGE6SescKjbo/s456/Screenshot_20230712_193328.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="456" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Vc8keEh2mUJVBN5E9mr66QerjauWGC_vA14RznWRoMDUSvuN-Bm3BPqK73itJ1blZuV2HFp2-m2FTx5CQhoV2o-k4x1504dN49MlbAXDb0Os8vwAqerQjnImK4T1FZpeH__IzLPcSV99M38lLwEXiy5_Y_v1sjAUmFfdPwH01rkGnaarGE6SescKjbo/w400-h299/Screenshot_20230712_193328.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>And that's it, just drag the resultant file into Youtube's upload box and it should work just fine. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoRbQn4JYEL-R5GXeCZ8_QRvYYEfp8fRvOcjucDi1w1q_piy5vWWuMxuK1_wAZBm-nG4Y6sgMpRGC_sm87SQtL21l4625TYBwIk4H_gj8GONL5c72jbfpfDkNyeHESHZ9e2Tb4jDA1cDLKjG07BY6Eilf4px0oBDOnVFaJ-NUpcXV_sjsHBmJvwe79/s1920/Screenshot_20230105_185310.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1019" data-original-width="1920" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoRbQn4JYEL-R5GXeCZ8_QRvYYEfp8fRvOcjucDi1w1q_piy5vWWuMxuK1_wAZBm-nG4Y6sgMpRGC_sm87SQtL21l4625TYBwIk4H_gj8GONL5c72jbfpfDkNyeHESHZ9e2Tb4jDA1cDLKjG07BY6Eilf4px0oBDOnVFaJ-NUpcXV_sjsHBmJvwe79/w400-h213/Screenshot_20230105_185310.png" width="400" /></a></div><a href="https://youtu.be/vIiyds7RXVI" target="_blank"><br /></a><p><a href="https://youtu.be/vIiyds7RXVI" target="_blank">Here's a YouTube upload of mine</a> that I made using Shotcut. </p>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-62916285140471369982023-02-28T12:09:00.001-08:002023-03-01T17:55:05.525-08:00Returning to Music Player Daemon - Cantata vs Mpdevil<p>A while ago I tried Music Player Daemon (MPD) with my music, but found it wouldn't see half my collection and I gave up on it. That was a long time ago so I recently decided to try it again to see if it had improved and also I have recently been getting annoyed with usual music players, Clementine and Strawberry. Clementine is basically no longer maintained but it's one of few players that can cope with 80 thousand tracks! And it has a nice Android app to control it from my phone. But it's got some annoying bugs that will never be fixed so I have been trying to look for alternatives. Strawberry is a fork of Clementine but doesn't fix the bugs that bother me and there's no Android app for it, so I decided to give MPD another go since I haven't tried MPD for years.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgziwfEuagca0XdrUMWFms2-Ystu1yrvaoXpnjdWAGUeTSUNt_Xy8DBJLwpfK5krZbu7cD-vZrnJyFzclFqZI9b2DZmj0VHXNAglGLMl5H4Tn_qe-0acEkLhl6_XAy4MnOYzyHKyehagiwhUGvLK3tzoiKyYl-II3kzYcgSh4Wf9QzjT25e06UgVHc9/s876/Screenshot_20230221_173254.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="876" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgziwfEuagca0XdrUMWFms2-Ystu1yrvaoXpnjdWAGUeTSUNt_Xy8DBJLwpfK5krZbu7cD-vZrnJyFzclFqZI9b2DZmj0VHXNAglGLMl5H4Tn_qe-0acEkLhl6_XAy4MnOYzyHKyehagiwhUGvLK3tzoiKyYl-II3kzYcgSh4Wf9QzjT25e06UgVHc9/w594-h354/Screenshot_20230221_173254.png" width="594" /></a></div><br />This time when I installed MPD, I made sure it ran properly as my user rather than its own user, with the config in my Home folder. And this time it seems to see all my collection, and has clearly improved since I last tried it. I used the brilliant guide on the <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Music_Player_Daemon" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Arch wiki</a> and adapted it for KDE Neon (a distro of sorts based on Kubuntu but with latest KDE). Most of the guides I used before were for Ubuntu but usually they would create an MPD user, which is where the problems had begun. Apart from setting the music directory, I have enabled Replaygain for audio normalisation. The sound was also distorting slightly on my desktop machine without Replaygain enabled. I haven't yet worked out how to make MPD run on startup in KDE, I usually just run it in my favourite drop-down terminal, Yakuake. <i>Edit: you can set mpd to run automatically by adding it as a service with this command: systemctl --user enable mpd.service</i><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcJltXGVc2qY_HJ1R7r9HS20OFsm7v4RhqkfRYj4e-iwz7eCC0ElEKHaqO2q8GIf97vW6VHdH9e5eR1qrkdWQIOWbqFIpg0gU6OY6qAEnRDyamG1-q7BPs7OYzk8s9fwsIoCX5LlPVYmBC9Pd4n_uPAqhG9dzR35C_ZbUF44g02nDSoTo9fmVxEq83/s876/Screenshot_20230221_174115.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="876" height="353" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcJltXGVc2qY_HJ1R7r9HS20OFsm7v4RhqkfRYj4e-iwz7eCC0ElEKHaqO2q8GIf97vW6VHdH9e5eR1qrkdWQIOWbqFIpg0gU6OY6qAEnRDyamG1-q7BPs7OYzk8s9fwsIoCX5LlPVYmBC9Pd4n_uPAqhG9dzR35C_ZbUF44g02nDSoTo9fmVxEq83/w595-h353/Screenshot_20230221_174115.png" width="595" /></a></div><p>The great thing about MPD is it runs in the background consuming very little resources, and then you control it with a front-end of your choice, either lightweight or heavy and control it from anywhere on the local network. At first it had problems choosing the right soundcard, as I use a USB interface, but changing it to use Pulseaudio instead of ALSA fixed that. One slight annoyance with MPD is it does not remember the previously played track or playlist the next time MPD is started.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM-pKJcGEAlhT4wXtBSowKKDhQhJNBzn_38q7NGDIN0MUHvr-sbEW7ywJpJ11kLbcRoD7ZmoV5BTnM81YzCBTy3voumjbJFt6kg14l8gReI9MLSxkxOINJ8Cc_OPYfTFkJmz9sTufwwn7di0Z1CvR4kSJtUN-UV3_RBNAy3k_DC7yS_1CcsPJBQWIV/s1200/Screenshot_20230116_230330.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="815" data-original-width="1200" height="409" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM-pKJcGEAlhT4wXtBSowKKDhQhJNBzn_38q7NGDIN0MUHvr-sbEW7ywJpJ11kLbcRoD7ZmoV5BTnM81YzCBTy3voumjbJFt6kg14l8gReI9MLSxkxOINJ8Cc_OPYfTFkJmz9sTufwwn7di0Z1CvR4kSJtUN-UV3_RBNAy3k_DC7yS_1CcsPJBQWIV/w604-h409/Screenshot_20230116_230330.png" width="604" /></a></div><p>This time round, after looking round at other front-ends, I ended up choosing Cantata as it seemed to be the best of thea KDE friendly apps, it works well apart from the 16,000 track limit on playlists is a bit annoying. I have now got into a habit of just listening to albums in full or all of one artist etc, whereas in Clementine I would just have all my 80,000+ in a single playlist on Shuffle! </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjqNTo5qBkjYMz5mMl17k-m0mMIweWupOcDVR2swHTLT3Ps922xhiYuDgpC82TAcuvtncvZ9sxn-qrF3KCEEQzgMXK_GSQSbGDjd7TQJ4UdO4ZbRl132_DM-sXzMKSbfmbvGqc9aLaywb0DcahT0NScjkJJqSnsSf3gUpmDkQxFghuewh2QApxeW2A/s1105/Screenshot_20230221_163237.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="766" data-original-width="1105" height="421" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjqNTo5qBkjYMz5mMl17k-m0mMIweWupOcDVR2swHTLT3Ps922xhiYuDgpC82TAcuvtncvZ9sxn-qrF3KCEEQzgMXK_GSQSbGDjd7TQJ4UdO4ZbRl132_DM-sXzMKSbfmbvGqc9aLaywb0DcahT0NScjkJJqSnsSf3gUpmDkQxFghuewh2QApxeW2A/w606-h421/Screenshot_20230221_163237.png" width="606" /></a></div><p>I then discovered Mpdevil, which although a fairly simple player, it looks more modern than Cantata. I have Mpdevil running nicely on my main desktop and my main laptop, both are running KDE Neon (a distro based on Kubuntu but with the very latest KDE version). I also have MPD on my old Dell Vostro, which runs Manjaro,</p><p>One very noticeable difference between the two is that Cantata has a "locate in Library" option in the right click menu whereas Mpdevil only has the option of "Show" which locates the track in the file manager which is far less useful to me. I usually want to find the album a track is from and play it. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFjS47i_IEgcVmxiMokpJe4mlPCyT1AMGbLU82Xw5nNyuCdYGqHI-Srbh6nmQHIQ7F1hbry_A_BFAG7BTfKW0daXbG8WS3aGulkaY_T6CwKt7YjqduCvthnZXtuaFeUnHSvDlk9j5m1APuzCpjaSD-cey6PkkLxAQ0_2bf-6E3wROTe-v_6-XhG1J7/s448/Screenshot_20230221_163051.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFjS47i_IEgcVmxiMokpJe4mlPCyT1AMGbLU82Xw5nNyuCdYGqHI-Srbh6nmQHIQ7F1hbry_A_BFAG7BTfKW0daXbG8WS3aGulkaY_T6CwKt7YjqduCvthnZXtuaFeUnHSvDlk9j5m1APuzCpjaSD-cey6PkkLxAQ0_2bf-6E3wROTe-v_6-XhG1J7/w400-h400/Screenshot_20230221_163051.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mpdevil 'Show' which opens a location in a file manager</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXZ1kO70jfYLh6MG6S7D5se329iTc1pTtAh_2DU4hQSM4mqw_qrSWPyxo2PPoOF0ryJRJrYLlOad5p4uNsfT01bHhBesGmtQSRnRx5jNkQZaQqWVl1lGcAT4rkin3YhocD9e-L0dmD0c8JgrT8RUUUuHHc2OjL1CJ0lLEBMDMbU6ShxUrBFXCOfOFk/s517/Screenshot_20230221_163548.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="339" data-original-width="517" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXZ1kO70jfYLh6MG6S7D5se329iTc1pTtAh_2DU4hQSM4mqw_qrSWPyxo2PPoOF0ryJRJrYLlOad5p4uNsfT01bHhBesGmtQSRnRx5jNkQZaQqWVl1lGcAT4rkin3YhocD9e-L0dmD0c8JgrT8RUUUuHHc2OjL1CJ0lLEBMDMbU6ShxUrBFXCOfOFk/w400-h263/Screenshot_20230221_163548.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Cantata 'Locate In Library' which shows where the track is in the app.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>One other thing I really like in Cantata is it's easier to find and switch between MPD servers in the settings with it's Discover button. It isn't as simple to do that with Mpdevil. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMY0-hE77nL5be4-pnaXSsmMiwn-1P4vNlt6UZotPnO5kNXCqw7-r0L8HnKrT4RbruZjo92tTe0PtvbkG8bi_5nniyFOfK32XILgjnLrEASefXg6aEq09Whz2yScCA0YCFbe2uCYjPFVyIh7U49-KH4UXsVJ6q7iS2pNl7oxFUK7iCOy81R8UxdfSM/s884/Screenshot_20230221_174907.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="884" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMY0-hE77nL5be4-pnaXSsmMiwn-1P4vNlt6UZotPnO5kNXCqw7-r0L8HnKrT4RbruZjo92tTe0PtvbkG8bi_5nniyFOfK32XILgjnLrEASefXg6aEq09Whz2yScCA0YCFbe2uCYjPFVyIh7U49-KH4UXsVJ6q7iS2pNl7oxFUK7iCOy81R8UxdfSM/w400-h326/Screenshot_20230221_174907.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>Mpdevil is basically a more minimal player, it lacks Last.fm support and, as far as i can tell, doesn't fetch missing covers, whereas Cantata has both of those features. As far as I know, there isn't an easy way to get Scrobbling in the MPD backend itself so it's useful to have that in the front-end. If you want a great looking player and don't need advanced features, mpdevil does the job fine but if you need the advanced features, Cantata does a better job, so I will stick with Canatata for now. I am open to suggestions though for an even better KDE-friendly MPD client. </p><p><br /></p>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-24509285499170104322023-01-17T07:33:00.005-08:002023-01-17T07:48:30.816-08:00I got a Dell Vostro 3300 for a bargain price and it works just fine after a few upgrades.<p> A charity I used to volunteer from put a Dell Vostro 3300 on their eBay and idly just put the minimum bid on, 20 quid, thinking I would probably not get it, got outbid once, but then put a bid on an hour before it ended, won it with that 22 quid bid, absolute bargain! It's got a 2.27Ghz i3 CPU, and arrived with a single 2GB RAM stick and 320GB HDD installed. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia_6oIsvPXsNs-rEkGIGfu2-ZeNWZaI6_i5Hif442TFeqaIbia548lOyvLSJAvUYhAdqSiBL2ShzCtJOJWTC3mHEt5uN0byP29LL0-8CCS1mEQ4zVAL9_j7v9ZVUXrigE7krxf8luqLOuBYxfGtWgDAmOM0-buuE0MDG5nylr8bjlkmVxayp4Fp7gi/s3362/PXL_20230116_152318416.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2521" data-original-width="3362" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia_6oIsvPXsNs-rEkGIGfu2-ZeNWZaI6_i5Hif442TFeqaIbia548lOyvLSJAvUYhAdqSiBL2ShzCtJOJWTC3mHEt5uN0byP29LL0-8CCS1mEQ4zVAL9_j7v9ZVUXrigE7krxf8luqLOuBYxfGtWgDAmOM0-buuE0MDG5nylr8bjlkmVxayp4Fp7gi/w640-h480/PXL_20230116_152318416.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>There's just two screws to remove to release the bottom panel to access Memory and hard drive and two screws to release the HDD. There's a Windows 7 COA under the battery but I doubt I will ever need that. I run Linux on all my laptops.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh78_htZJ3O2i5LggiDxzKWxnVlM_KcSKJIXBFkzMJZOvdBJ6PPxWomK3Z55nNRRk6of6jBAh4zOvtSDCSvbe6M-yHBxA21InE5lUfOtiRXde8KlqReWWe2ZxUF5GHPUCpO8WpiCjpCyvEgHPmiBgdy5_GhSeDPjG4kMOteL_ttPllzTfq_LwDwQqW7/s4032/PXL_20230116_171044000.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh78_htZJ3O2i5LggiDxzKWxnVlM_KcSKJIXBFkzMJZOvdBJ6PPxWomK3Z55nNRRk6of6jBAh4zOvtSDCSvbe6M-yHBxA21InE5lUfOtiRXde8KlqReWWe2ZxUF5GHPUCpO8WpiCjpCyvEgHPmiBgdy5_GhSeDPjG4kMOteL_ttPllzTfq_LwDwQqW7/w640-h480/PXL_20230116_171044000.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">I then did a bit of musical chairs with parts in my other laptops. I took 8GB of RAM from a poorly Thinkpad X201 and put that in my 2012 Macbook Pro (been meaning to do that for a while) and put the MBP's original 4GB in the Vostro. Then I replaced the 320GB hard drive in the Vostro with the SSD from my Dell Latitude E6500, which has Manjaro KDE on. The E6500 is one of the oldest laptops I have in use and is a bit tatty, so the Vostro makes a good replacement for it. I won't bin the E6500, it'll go on the spares shelf. Once the SSD was in and everything put back properly, it booted up the Manjaro KDE install with no issues. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdKr9-Z4t1XmZEd32e0Hmc07nI9TZtsjCFQLyAwIFPI56X82QeXfd5qifWTQJ_SiG3fakoLM47z2GOgSna0Jcg04QTW1mYdUZ4QnUkH0K6qS17gdC3E371mhz3X2J9TRNdlbU66LBrm0e5Mr0-L6PdmAqIw8SnfH-cziewnyBYQxFx2h2b8Bxjjpsk/s3249/PXL_20230116_152525508.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2437" data-original-width="3249" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdKr9-Z4t1XmZEd32e0Hmc07nI9TZtsjCFQLyAwIFPI56X82QeXfd5qifWTQJ_SiG3fakoLM47z2GOgSna0Jcg04QTW1mYdUZ4QnUkH0K6qS17gdC3E371mhz3X2J9TRNdlbU66LBrm0e5Mr0-L6PdmAqIw8SnfH-cziewnyBYQxFx2h2b8Bxjjpsk/w640-h480/PXL_20230116_152525508.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p>The only slightly annoying downgrade from my other laptops, but particularly the E6500, is it only has VGA out rather than DisplayPort. There's an eSATA port which I doubt I will ever use, 2 USB 2.0 ports (one either side) and an Ethernet port. The trackpad is good, just as good as the one on my ThinkPad T430s and the keyboard is decent (though has no back light, like the Thinkpad does, though Dell did have one as an option on a slightly better spec model). </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVOtNx2KlffW5mH6U-d45Fr37SnkvrE3x0j5X735P4IKsWzhARxtF2rqwMETlU6j-zdZrfz3stMqKYHhAt4JpHW3KIlZjmdSc5QwMvpj2B1Yt9Wrq_tZ4L-1BSZILDJK6pKtzfS1twKMTKmHjz1i1W-FYbVct-VRy3oowph4gKutAh4Hfn2Mzxe-gC/s3760/PXL_20230117_150359757.NIGHT.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3760" data-original-width="2820" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVOtNx2KlffW5mH6U-d45Fr37SnkvrE3x0j5X735P4IKsWzhARxtF2rqwMETlU6j-zdZrfz3stMqKYHhAt4JpHW3KIlZjmdSc5QwMvpj2B1Yt9Wrq_tZ4L-1BSZILDJK6pKtzfS1twKMTKmHjz1i1W-FYbVct-VRy3oowph4gKutAh4Hfn2Mzxe-gC/w480-h640/PXL_20230117_150359757.NIGHT.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><p>The Vostro has a reasonably decent 13.3 inch anti-glare screen with a default resolution of 1366x768, which is a bit low compared to the 14 inch on the Thinkpad T430s, which runs at a very nice 1600x900 resolution. The Vostro was basically a midway point between the consumer garbage Inspiron range and the Latitude business range, so this laptop doesn't quite have the best components compared to Latitudes but is still a solid machine. In terms of other specs, it has a slightly slower i3 M350 CPU than the <span data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-color: #e8e6e3; color: black; white-space: pre-wrap;">i5-3320M in the Thinkpad and a few less ports, and no USB 3. There's an SD card slot but no Express Card slot to add more ports. O</span>verall, it's a handy little laptop, especially for just 20 quid! It runs Manjaro KDE perfectly fine, and is a useful replacement for the E6500, so I am pleased with it.</p>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-37761971405385818272023-01-02T08:32:00.000-08:002023-01-02T08:32:29.655-08:00 Samsung Galaxy A12… It’s Quite Good, But It’s A Samsung<p>After my recent debacle with my Motorola Moto G22 and the retailer agreeing to take it back, I was left in a familiar position of not having a phone to use. I was in need of one quickly, so rather than spend money and take a punt on a used one I remembered my daughter had her old handset sitting in a draw.</p><p>The only problem was, it is a Samsung Galaxy A12. I have never been a fan of Samsung phones because of the overly-skinned UI. Admittedly, since the says of the S2 and S3 (and the TouchWiz interface) Samsung has scaled it back a bit. The newer One UI isn't too bad. It is one of the reasons I preferred Motorola phones, because of their near vanilla Android – but beggars cannot be choosers.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha_eO-e0bFDP-ZZpCBvHiGq0Myo-O5FxXQBKSAb2FuRhk2I6sScnnHEXoPK55B1Gxl0WTUEfvo_fuXatmLlO_HrvRmPvQ7wwOUA1yeKGhNMQn4BaGqEu7s4uzX08P6XlRukm-fAnHZarOMoR5m4xJZiwfXin-JzFZmqlGh1bkCO80Z1NyXpj8GKdO6/s240/Galaxy-a12-logo.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="70" data-original-width="240" height="70" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha_eO-e0bFDP-ZZpCBvHiGq0Myo-O5FxXQBKSAb2FuRhk2I6sScnnHEXoPK55B1Gxl0WTUEfvo_fuXatmLlO_HrvRmPvQ7wwOUA1yeKGhNMQn4BaGqEu7s4uzX08P6XlRukm-fAnHZarOMoR5m4xJZiwfXin-JzFZmqlGh1bkCO80Z1NyXpj8GKdO6/s1600/Galaxy-a12-logo.png" width="240" /></a></div><p>So, I set about moving everything over from the Moto G22 to the Galaxy A12. I used the Samsung Switch tool which took a little while to get working, but it did its job and 2 hours later the A12 had an almost identical feel to my G22 – minus a few apps that didn’t come across. At least it pulled call history and text messages across, something previous phone moves never did.</p><p>Spec wise, the Galaxy A12 (released in 2020) is still pretty decent featuring a MediaTek Helio P35 octa core processor, PowerVR GPU, 4GB RAM, 64GB internal storage, fingerprint sensor, MicroSD card slot and 3.5” headphone socket, plus a 6.5” screen, 5000mAh battery and running Android 11.</p><p>I have to be honest. I was hoping not to like it, not to expect it to perform well and just to use it short term until I found something else. However, spending the next few hours finalising apps and logging in to them, this thing didn’t miss a beat, sometimes with 6 or 7 apps open at once.</p><p>OK, the elephant in the room was the Samsung UI, which as I have already said is seriously scaled back from the overly kid like and totally different feel from older Samsung Android phones. Yes, it has a different look to stock Android but it still felt familiar. There are a few things I have yet to get used to such as the different placement of the three buttons at the bottom of the screen.</p><p>Overall I have been quite impressed. I still have a few niggles about the UI, but performance and battery life have been superb – especially considering this is also a budget handset, it was released two years ago and my teenage daughter has used it for a year.</p><p>One addition point to make is it was released in 2020 shipping with Android 11, got the update to 12 and Samsung has announced it will get 13 in the near future. In contrast my Moto G22 released in 2022 has Android 12 but won't be getting 13.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlV3Khf-jq_D-VdPss2bn8fz0v3lkPWpUczTP3-gKyBDcNfHdGMp-OEa8TaVdrrx2Iist3c9ty2k2ywpeolXk6epDT7fOQhBdFgh5PTq8gLwv_HEFRnei7FgRpfjTm0GjmXtfUg-Qn70uy4K-5RDxYEEA_QjV2Qi4fA63UgmtGumi11CxpWiMJv9XX/s601/81A3nwwKt2S._AC_SX466_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="466" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlV3Khf-jq_D-VdPss2bn8fz0v3lkPWpUczTP3-gKyBDcNfHdGMp-OEa8TaVdrrx2Iist3c9ty2k2ywpeolXk6epDT7fOQhBdFgh5PTq8gLwv_HEFRnei7FgRpfjTm0GjmXtfUg-Qn70uy4K-5RDxYEEA_QjV2Qi4fA63UgmtGumi11CxpWiMJv9XX/w155-h200/81A3nwwKt2S._AC_SX466_.jpg" width="155" /></a></div><p>I might just cut my losses, save some money and keep this Samsung. It does what I need and it does it very well and it is just laying in a drawer not being used, but it is a Samsung.</p><p><i data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #c8c3bc; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at <a data-darkreader-inline-color="" href="http://twitter.com/simonroyal" style="--darkreader-inline-color: #6ea3cf; color: #6699cc; text-decoration-line: none;">twitter.com/simonroyal</a></i></p>Simon Royalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15004143767222498320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-91987344182627269722022-12-31T11:31:00.001-08:002022-12-31T11:31:22.572-08:00 Bad Moto: The Motorola Moto G22<p>A few months ago my beloved Motorola Moto G10 started having microphone issues, so I looked around at what budget Motorola phones were on the market and the G22 looked a good spec phone for its price.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Xh_xDsfXMJKMGsUIQzAdODRN5-CbEioX6IQ9zAqRSsr5e4ejdoEt0IzMkQdA4Mi0kzO_5UWrJzpiz4zGIU-9OyrX95BAV9FG79V0tDJf87XWTzL5ud3Io4ivqZw0Fg2Vy28Ood0qby3ezpX5OJ5HUweoEWUkBVmPZA9SlOVA0FU0xtzLqgw7wagE/s2560/motorola-logo-new.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="2560" height="73" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Xh_xDsfXMJKMGsUIQzAdODRN5-CbEioX6IQ9zAqRSsr5e4ejdoEt0IzMkQdA4Mi0kzO_5UWrJzpiz4zGIU-9OyrX95BAV9FG79V0tDJf87XWTzL5ud3Io4ivqZw0Fg2Vy28Ood0qby3ezpX5OJ5HUweoEWUkBVmPZA9SlOVA0FU0xtzLqgw7wagE/s320/motorola-logo-new.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>I am not a heavy user, mainly calls, social media, listening to music and shooting youtube videos. I’m not a gamer. The octa-core processor, 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage seemed decent enough, but perhaps I should have read some more reviews before purchasing one – well two actually as my wife got one too.</p><p>I have never had any performance issues with Motorola phones. I switched to Android about 7 years ago and have had several Moto G handsets in that time. They have all been solid work horses with excellent battery life.</p><p>However, it was a very different picture with the Moto G22. From the moment it was out of the box and setting it up, it just felt different. The screen was unresponsive, going through the menu and set up was delayed and I seemed to be in an update loop for a while.</p><p>Once set up, the problems got worse. Opening one app was fine, however trying to do two or more things on it at once just brought the whole phone to a crawl. I was willing to let this slide, perhaps it was just busy doing a lot in the background – so I thought I would give it a day or so.</p><p>Even after a few days, nothing improved – in fact the problems got worse.</p><p>Firstly, there is no fast charging on this phone. Something I thought was a little odd in 2022. But the bigger problems were the glitches in the operating of the phone itself. Apps would freeze or quit and on numerous occasions the phone dialer would open to a white screen so you couldn’t make a call and randomly throughout the day the keyboard wouldn’t pop up while writing a message or trying to do a Google search. Even a reboot didn’t always resolve it.</p><p>With all these issues I decided to contact where I bought it from, but was told because it was used I couldn’t return it. So I decided I would have to grin and bear it and thought maybe a software update would resolve the main issues at some point.</p><p>A month in to using it and the problems had not gone away. Not being able to make a call or reply to a message when needed has caused no end of problems over the past few weeks.</p><p>My wife was experiencing the same issues, so I knew it wasn’t a problem with just my handset.</p><p>So I decided to contact the retailer I bought it from again and this time I got a bit further. I was told to speak to Motorola – which I did via live chat – and within minutes I was told to return both handsets, so that was progress.</p><p>At least I won’t have to suffer these issues any longer, but a phone with these performance issues and horrendous bugs should not be allowed on the market.</p><p>Looking around at tech review sites and personal reviews, most have had similar problems with a lot of the issues being put down to the severely under-powered Helio chip, just not being able to cope with even the most basic of tasks.</p><p>I have never had an issue with any Motorola handset I have had in the past, all exceeded my expectations and outperformed some high end phones.</p><p>I just can’t believe a phone with this many issues which performs so badly could ever get released. Did nobody at Motorola notice it in production or testing?</p><p>Has it put me off going down the Motorola Moto route in the future? I have to say it has.</p><p><i data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #c8c3bc; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at <a data-darkreader-inline-color="" href="http://twitter.com/simonroyal" style="--darkreader-inline-color: #6ea3cf; color: #6699cc; text-decoration-line: none;">twitter.com/simonroyal</a></i></p>Simon Royalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15004143767222498320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-62844817823214304102022-11-08T16:39:00.003-08:002022-11-08T16:39:45.212-08:00From a 2006 Macbook to a 2012 Macbook Pro, what a difference!<div>So, I got a mid-2012 MacBook Pro as a birthday present, yes I know what you're thinking, I'm a Linux man, why have a Mac? Well, right now, making music on Linux is tricky, the JACK control system is a pain to setup, still. I've always made music on a Mac, from my old PowerPC Macs - Powermac G4s, iBook G4 and Powerbook G4s - then eventually to my old white 2006 MacBook (which I got in 2016) and now this Macbook Pro. I still occasionally use a Powermac G4 MDD for older PowerPC-only music software. I have a whole bunch of tools and plugins I have collected over the years. This is the first time I have had a reasonably quick Mac that can run a recent version of Mac OS (and can be made to run the latest, Ventura), and up to date apps too. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcbf476dv1cqNy_06tLI7EMuIbC4vogUzVU5qQY2qt-Dk3i_9OTrXP7fM20_AO64LLpPlueOYdHCVAAuhUUa0fNvEl-oqL5gxgw00sFvGOJLmX_f-qD1lFkqEXHsYVLqKlK-HtiA0o9wOwDWILIOfUE_H6bpQfwpoSnuSntVEP17rkodbeJqZOf_Gr/s4032/PXL_20221026_122828370.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcbf476dv1cqNy_06tLI7EMuIbC4vogUzVU5qQY2qt-Dk3i_9OTrXP7fM20_AO64LLpPlueOYdHCVAAuhUUa0fNvEl-oqL5gxgw00sFvGOJLmX_f-qD1lFkqEXHsYVLqKlK-HtiA0o9wOwDWILIOfUE_H6bpQfwpoSnuSntVEP17rkodbeJqZOf_Gr/w400-h300/PXL_20221026_122828370.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>The mid 2012 is still the best choice on a budget, since it, if I remember rightly, was the last to have upgrade-able RAM, up to 16GB na done of the most repairable before everything became soldered and glued together. Mine currently has 4GB but it's still usable for what I want to use it for, Garageband and plugins. And that's pretty much all I plan to use it for, and for any other occasion where I can't find a way to run something on Linux. This MBP is in good condition, other than the rubber feet need sticking on a bit more firmly, they keep falling off! There's no obvious scratches or dents. It came with a replacement 60W PSU which works fine. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOpDYIXM5Z9eTkRbkO2IxNvrBSuP3AAdCwkqbz_Mf2L-XNhJK3Eb4t8yXa3NUiO0lGq-GsSC_OtWyW8XrzngOHchbsn9nfOwhEVNbw7zf-rB_FhJ7pm_rimu4UchB6e6SLTFMYuItMIoe-TP5qe6cicd54m63TCbhuL1xWVx1lUOZZsXz8dm34HiPc/s4032/PXL_20221026_121144164.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOpDYIXM5Z9eTkRbkO2IxNvrBSuP3AAdCwkqbz_Mf2L-XNhJK3Eb4t8yXa3NUiO0lGq-GsSC_OtWyW8XrzngOHchbsn9nfOwhEVNbw7zf-rB_FhJ7pm_rimu4UchB6e6SLTFMYuItMIoe-TP5qe6cicd54m63TCbhuL1xWVx1lUOZZsXz8dm34HiPc/w400-h300/PXL_20221026_121144164.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>The Macbook Pro came with Mojave installed on a 500GB hard drive, but I decided to upgrade it to an SSD and dual boot two Mac OS versions, Mojave and Catalina, so I can run older 32bit apps that Catalina cannot run. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCHIlrP_IiI04b8ylSNn6GTwqOhaNrJ4NYKrCvQFhJyJik0qfaIGhQxspLlqf5Hau-XgBzJWDHqr2Gi_K6MmBpTNlA3_FrIPXKrWpdGeUf2cGnTpvSKWT8RNAolFhpd2nAwRQrDKRZu38Y1-NpEbaDkQknGTM2TSIhKCEBa5z0ktXdzwNW0Y38e0rN/s4032/PXL_20221026_190616641.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCHIlrP_IiI04b8ylSNn6GTwqOhaNrJ4NYKrCvQFhJyJik0qfaIGhQxspLlqf5Hau-XgBzJWDHqr2Gi_K6MmBpTNlA3_FrIPXKrWpdGeUf2cGnTpvSKWT8RNAolFhpd2nAwRQrDKRZu38Y1-NpEbaDkQknGTM2TSIhKCEBa5z0ktXdzwNW0Y38e0rN/w400-h300/PXL_20221026_190616641.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>I took the SSD out of my old 2006 Macbook, which was already in two partitions (I had it dual booted for awhile but then stuck with just Lion and a data partition), and put it in the MBP. Then I attached the original HDD via USB and booted off it to install the two Mac OS versions on the SSD, including transferring settings and data off it.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnBc8YkDVNkohypRpQ7yoRJbEcIrwyGXb6LA0-Y0twP5qDzsZed-XFyzxzgWUe4-X24WGjqKPg-9LsM4meFaqM7iJRMr4clWvvj9NNV3bT9RucCKJdvuBxeHW2CPg2fUaV49V9WYbpF_5xTiyGtoeiRZiKZMoq8BvjW8RFeiy04kdFByKIAXfUVReW/s3612/PXL_20221026_191739576.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2928" data-original-width="3612" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnBc8YkDVNkohypRpQ7yoRJbEcIrwyGXb6LA0-Y0twP5qDzsZed-XFyzxzgWUe4-X24WGjqKPg-9LsM4meFaqM7iJRMr4clWvvj9NNV3bT9RucCKJdvuBxeHW2CPg2fUaV49V9WYbpF_5xTiyGtoeiRZiKZMoq8BvjW8RFeiy04kdFByKIAXfUVReW/w400-h324/PXL_20221026_191739576.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>The guts of the machine are accessed from underneath, by undoing a bunch of screws and taking the base off, I followed the guide on iFixit. I did also try putting the RAM from my old Thinkpad X201 in it, but it didn't seem to be compatible. One day I will get two decent 8GB sticks to max it out. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSv3PNbuJGUje3PsCcyEqeOwFKgo57ftTbOdgW4InMQDEt5uwKDsv6Y1s9fgy-ORdfhXFKJHtzhxwpCVOModVZqkV2i_oGLiCgdKgXy2Fo_wrNWw-Nafa-sdVVzvV1q0ur49f45196_YS6cIIPaKtn16XLGLpSTLkGyBnxJ_i1B4XcxIOXDTCi6L6q/s4032/PXL_20221026_191746305.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSv3PNbuJGUje3PsCcyEqeOwFKgo57ftTbOdgW4InMQDEt5uwKDsv6Y1s9fgy-ORdfhXFKJHtzhxwpCVOModVZqkV2i_oGLiCgdKgXy2Fo_wrNWw-Nafa-sdVVzvV1q0ur49f45196_YS6cIIPaKtn16XLGLpSTLkGyBnxJ_i1B4XcxIOXDTCi6L6q/w400-h300/PXL_20221026_191746305.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>The only thing I am not keen on, hardware wise, is the glossy screen (apparently they can be replaced with a matte one but I am not bothered <i>enough</i> to do that). The keyboard is decent enough and it's the first Mac I have had with one that is backlit, as is my Thinkpad T430s too. I now miss having that whenever I use a laptop without it, such as my old Acer Chromebook 14.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn4sw_PgWa6Xy12qtgu3ZnW87Mkv8nt28RhfO3rTuB6NKT0XdVeqej2HMMMP1YFhWzoH_tbXP2fyCyLbn4vfcVrkcjLQkJYzBCjlcp4Elup7yIiaGxF0drOhNpPxgw4haA36CfhB2LY7B2xGDFYIFQUCwfkQWcxjsu80eEAEA4Sy_2fHxLcUnBL7UC/s520/PXL_20221026_133057332-removebg-preview.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="520" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn4sw_PgWa6Xy12qtgu3ZnW87Mkv8nt28RhfO3rTuB6NKT0XdVeqej2HMMMP1YFhWzoH_tbXP2fyCyLbn4vfcVrkcjLQkJYzBCjlcp4Elup7yIiaGxF0drOhNpPxgw4haA36CfhB2LY7B2xGDFYIFQUCwfkQWcxjsu80eEAEA4Sy_2fHxLcUnBL7UC/w400-h280/PXL_20221026_133057332-removebg-preview.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>The MBP feels slightly heavier than my Thinkpad T430s, due to the metal body, which takes a bit of getting used to when sat on my lap. It has almost the same CPU (2.5 GHz i5 instead of 2.6 GHz) and the same Intel 4000 graphics as my T430s. Naturally the Thinkpad has more ports, it's a bit annoying having only 2 USB ports on this MBP. I usually have USB MIDI keyboard, M-Audio M-Track Solo external soundcard/input box and a mouse plugged in. I prefer the precision of a decent mouse over a trackpad. I've actually been lazily using an old Apple keyboard as USB hub! I should find or buy a proper hub sometime, though I'm sure I have one somewhere... </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVgMEfJcoi3Bj1G8rcRjI5DvrhnJpBUbl8aA4hC9WaTCLvjbSwUY_bm9VtK16FrU2Aa3cox0a-JPt358cuo23Ehk1IyHbsy1Z08hybR3vzAj4OMWUtmZnHt_zN1440OTCtuH_foe5fmlis4Mx59N-1ew2iU-evxXmZL_TJvDr3ITXArVIau4V_RQyy/s4032/PXL_20221108_201453880.NIGHT.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVgMEfJcoi3Bj1G8rcRjI5DvrhnJpBUbl8aA4hC9WaTCLvjbSwUY_bm9VtK16FrU2Aa3cox0a-JPt358cuo23Ehk1IyHbsy1Z08hybR3vzAj4OMWUtmZnHt_zN1440OTCtuH_foe5fmlis4Mx59N-1ew2iU-evxXmZL_TJvDr3ITXArVIau4V_RQyy/w400-h300/PXL_20221108_201453880.NIGHT.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>I am not that keen on the Apple App Store, it feels kind of bloated and there's a load of paid for apps, including a "Pro" version of FileZilla that I didn't even know existed. Apparently it has a paid cloud service and other cloud plugins. The free version is not on the store but can be downloaded from their website. I've also removed a lot of apps off the Dock I don't plan to use like Apple Maps, Music etc, all I plan to use it for is music production. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEx5FyG9mg2sjU1CUEeR7oWelfvXJyhgXvbFBNJTxHAiWApKsyiKO2qhh3lj1wVEBWp3cTO4IJEDaO5M6JOq8k6qpG3o8vg8aBmZM2kwYAoPsN6EDHBu5ye1GGeb9eWHAtibkZF-8lzTOcx-IclVemq8sJ8VUFf7Bg3Xj1m8va9v-MkAXKJ9n--5Nk/s1280/Screenshot%202022-11-04%20at%2000.55.58.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1280" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEx5FyG9mg2sjU1CUEeR7oWelfvXJyhgXvbFBNJTxHAiWApKsyiKO2qhh3lj1wVEBWp3cTO4IJEDaO5M6JOq8k6qpG3o8vg8aBmZM2kwYAoPsN6EDHBu5ye1GGeb9eWHAtibkZF-8lzTOcx-IclVemq8sJ8VUFf7Bg3Xj1m8va9v-MkAXKJ9n--5Nk/w400-h250/Screenshot%202022-11-04%20at%2000.55.58.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>Although Garageband is right there in the App Store, it wouldn't let me download and install because Catalina is not new enough for the latest version. The newest version requires Monterey. I found version 10.3.1 elsewhere to download, to use on both Catalina and Mojave. A dual boot is a little inconvenient when you can't easily share stuff between them, particularly with file encryption enabled on Catalina. And I am still not really keen on Finder, it's a poor file manager compared to the powerful Dolphin on KDE that I am used too. Also, out the box, I miss certain open source tools, like wget on the command-line. To do ad that, you need to install MacPorts, which requires Xcode, which I can't install from the App Store because, yet again, Catalina is apparently not new enough! The newest version it can run is 12.4, old versions can be downloaded manually from the Apple developer site, it is a 10.86GB download.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwn1__sLV3lZcSQg-TOT7hm9iusxnSMGBcZnnxUULMW51alMKgWfe3aHJEm3HXXlLzSWChaIw9KIXxdEWrUmiaQPsltxugnI4JfXxnxqcMh4xltEOrZ6UYMvWWhQ7t23e9ABUazVeznh9MGRH6xIblNnOwMYVJXZkspB85A-QIPvmR6Dj1PtrBC8Tl/s1280/Screenshot%202022-11-04%20at%2000.35.30.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1280" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwn1__sLV3lZcSQg-TOT7hm9iusxnSMGBcZnnxUULMW51alMKgWfe3aHJEm3HXXlLzSWChaIw9KIXxdEWrUmiaQPsltxugnI4JfXxnxqcMh4xltEOrZ6UYMvWWhQ7t23e9ABUazVeznh9MGRH6xIblNnOwMYVJXZkspB85A-QIPvmR6Dj1PtrBC8Tl/w400-h250/Screenshot%202022-11-04%20at%2000.35.30.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>It's nice to finally have a fairly up to date version of Mac OS that has the dark theme that older versions didn't have. I am not so keen on how Disk Utility seems to have been dumbed down compared to the version in Lion that I was used to. Also, I chose to have two Mac OS versions so I could still run old 32 bit apps, but sadly Native Instruments B4 just does not show up as an instrument in Garageband, though it will run as a standalone app. it seems Native Instruments moved on and want you to buy their Komplete software and plugins. The organ emulator built into Garageband just doesn't match the B4. I can't seem to find any advanced settings for it. On the plus side, the newer Garageband has better drums, and generally better built-in instruments, I particularly like the Mellotron sounds they've added. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ3XmftoI00tQ-8oGbI-uZ6y4rTZ9cDxKiXlYBdHHRD5HvRjPQamUftFFn28sEQaLuUVEshCvJXm5vhPLkTVAFmdVvFoLDhHw51Ko0yxcpCNuEBDhjz6NnqBhwTkxRu66WcDszd82BaHR0Qc2niQMK3CPYJQzxrAG2sxMT1bCanuK00o2GtgWmOKU-/s1280/Screenshot%202022-11-08%20at%2000.56.40.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1280" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ3XmftoI00tQ-8oGbI-uZ6y4rTZ9cDxKiXlYBdHHRD5HvRjPQamUftFFn28sEQaLuUVEshCvJXm5vhPLkTVAFmdVvFoLDhHw51Ko0yxcpCNuEBDhjz6NnqBhwTkxRu66WcDszd82BaHR0Qc2niQMK3CPYJQzxrAG2sxMT1bCanuK00o2GtgWmOKU-/w400-h250/Screenshot%202022-11-08%20at%2000.56.40.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>I couldn't use this Macbook Pro for everything, but it's fine just for music production. Mac OS is just too restrictive for me, it feels like a straitjacket compared with the freedom of Linux, particularly KDE Plasma desktop. If I don't like the default theme on KDE, then I'll change it, change the icons, change the titlebar theme, or even swap out KDE for something else if I want to. Whereas on Mac OS there's two themes (light and dark), a single set of icons and that horrible file manager, Finder. And as mentioned before, I really like Dolphin file manager on KDE and I don't like basic file managers like Nautilus and Nemo on Linux which are too similar in dumbness to Finder. Having said that, this 2012 Macbook Pro should hopefully perform its one job of making music for a good few years, particularly if I max out the RAM to 16GB and, at some point, use Open Core Legacy Patcher to make it run Monterey and/or Ventura. What I replace with it after that I don't know, but I'll use this until it dies, so watch this space! </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><i>You can find my music on my <a href="https://audius.co/Tigeronthelawn">Audius page</a>.</i></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> </div>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-44788550386904393882022-11-01T16:17:00.005-07:002022-11-01T17:16:35.394-07:00Windows Phone In 2022... Could I Use One?<p>I am having issues with my Android phone, audio in calls keeps cutting out, so I wanted a cheap phone to test if it was a network issue or a phone issue and I thought it would be a great opportunity to revisit Windows Phone, which I enjoyed a few years back, but the lack of app support became a bit of an issue.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLTVEfhgNMRxAksct8FhZfxe8Bzbn_eKwUkdEAVyy9m0WGPljw8b4YkFii9D_XGE-oYv1q1xl_eH1huOxSXk1Sz-Ui1weHICFaEUI02hGdAudc3qSDcfkSFBZLCIeZkl40FHQs6sVoAP_7e0AWzR93E3IH1wmuPBroHhsWitp5sj1m9EFIZdqfxRek/s5000/Windows_Phone_Logo.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1396" data-original-width="5000" height="89" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLTVEfhgNMRxAksct8FhZfxe8Bzbn_eKwUkdEAVyy9m0WGPljw8b4YkFii9D_XGE-oYv1q1xl_eH1huOxSXk1Sz-Ui1weHICFaEUI02hGdAudc3qSDcfkSFBZLCIeZkl40FHQs6sVoAP_7e0AWzR93E3IH1wmuPBroHhsWitp5sj1m9EFIZdqfxRek/s320/Windows_Phone_Logo.png" width="320" /></a></div><p>However I have toyed with the idea of ditching the smartphone, so maybe going with one with a little less app support might be a happy medium. Windows Phone handsets have always been pretty decent and I thought the Metro UI was a unique take on a smartphone OS. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Di__bKVwtTE2oSHAz1yPioTr0Ib3u9MrG7menzpQlqLwwfJ3hEFfeQgSx9SPSZzyAxL6RO-K9QrAvdQwwz9PzXWsjy_sovx2QPJ8-mhfxQWdDE7Ek4hs6uvNBwKaRlB8oYAtvWGih8sSCqSuD06-clIdS3DJ9UaOE0fZQDl0396HzXfEA5TabWO9/s500/HTC-logo-500x281.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="500" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Di__bKVwtTE2oSHAz1yPioTr0Ib3u9MrG7menzpQlqLwwfJ3hEFfeQgSx9SPSZzyAxL6RO-K9QrAvdQwwz9PzXWsjy_sovx2QPJ8-mhfxQWdDE7Ek4hs6uvNBwKaRlB8oYAtvWGih8sSCqSuD06-clIdS3DJ9UaOE0fZQDl0396HzXfEA5TabWO9/w200-h113/HTC-logo-500x281.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>So I ordered an HTC 8x which I had a few years back (a dual core with 1GB RAM, 16GB storage, 4.3” screen with Windows 8.1, released in 2012) It was a fantastic looking phone. However before it has even arrived I was looking in to what I wouldn't be able to use it for – I felt like I was already setting myself up for a fall.</p><p>My Motorola Moto G10 does everything. It really is - like for most people - a mini computer, key to everyday life.</p><p>So let's start with how my daily phone usage goes. First up is calls, obviously as it's a phone and a Windows Phone will do that as well as text messaging. </p><p>In terms of social media most apps that did support Windows Phone now don't, with a few exceptions or third party tools, but don't expect a full experience. WhatsApp is definitely a no no and one that I use daily, Facebook and Messenger can be done as well as Telegram, via third party app and I think Instagram and Twitter can have web shortcuts.</p><p>Then it comes down to the app you wouldn’t think of straight away but you would miss not having. Not having my banking apps means I can't check my balances or manage my accounts.</p><p>There are some apps or services that can be accessed by a web interface, so you could use store cards, bonus cards and food delivery services that way, but it is a pain unless you can pin shortcuts to your home screen.</p><p>Although I am not sure how a Windows Phone browser can cope with modern browsing and services.</p><p>Gaming is not an issue for me. I don't game on my phone so the lack of mainstream games on Windows Phone isn’t an issue.</p><p>Taking pictures and shooting videos will be fine, just like any platform it all depends on the handsets as to the quality of the cameras, but even back in 2012, mobile phone cameras were pretty decent. It’s when you want to do something with those pictures – such as upload them to social media – or those videos – such as upload them to YouTube – that you will have issues, or just not find it as easy as a supported OS.</p><p>The lack of built in Google support – which I think was Google's deliberate way of stifling the growth of Windows Phone can be an issue. No native YouTube or Google Maps really was a hindrance for me back then – and having been invested in Android and the Google ecosystem the last few years, it wasn’t going to be easy.</p><p>I take a picture currently on my Android phone and it automatically uploads to Google Photos which I can access anywhere. I take a video and I can upload direct to YouTube.</p><p>You should be able to sync your Google account which should retrieve your Gmail and your Google contacts but that will be something I have to try.</p><p>As far as I can tell - as my phone hasn't arrived yet - the App Store is still up and running, but it's tricky finding items that will install and run on Windows Phone – especially one running Windows Phone 8 instead of Windows 10 Mobile.</p><p>I could have listed third party apps for some of the services I mentioned above, but I need to check them out before I recommend them.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh63hDaJDiamZ4DD9-a9qG_aHAa0zn03bnBCxJacdx_4USbgW8VWJDlJ_UHZCLaY0SnKr8LCmpzblXaRjIWvCqFA-5w9tI0oSOUzeCPtQv5EtcW-l-tloDYejMEm2ANpoQCMCJtOU_dP0bZRuZXUq1vh7YEayWuI5RkSGyieFgTwIYOjY7a93NkOgP/s1500/81jEt5MRLjL._AC_SL1500_.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1154" data-original-width="1500" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh63hDaJDiamZ4DD9-a9qG_aHAa0zn03bnBCxJacdx_4USbgW8VWJDlJ_UHZCLaY0SnKr8LCmpzblXaRjIWvCqFA-5w9tI0oSOUzeCPtQv5EtcW-l-tloDYejMEm2ANpoQCMCJtOU_dP0bZRuZXUq1vh7YEayWuI5RkSGyieFgTwIYOjY7a93NkOgP/w200-h154/81jEt5MRLjL._AC_SL1500_.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><p>There will be a part two to this article, where I have set up the phone and used it for a while. Depending how I get on with not having access to everything like I would on Android will depend how long I use it. Or I could surprise myself and it could be the break I need from having everything at my fingertips.</p><p>Watch this space.</p><p></p><div class="post-footer" data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #a8a095; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></div><p></p><div class="post-body entry-content" data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" id="post-body-5921701698068156461" itemprop="description articleBody" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #c8c3bc; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.4; orphans: 2; position: relative; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; width: 618px; word-spacing: 0px;"><p><i data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #c8c3bc; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at <a data-darkreader-inline-color="" href="http://twitter.com/simonroyal" style="--darkreader-inline-color: #6ea3cf; color: #6699cc; text-decoration: none;">twitter.com/simonroyal</a></i></p><div style="clear: both;"></div></div>Simon Royalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15004143767222498320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-59217016980681564612022-09-03T15:41:00.001-07:002022-09-03T16:12:43.236-07:00 Upgrading the mSATA Drive In My Dell Latitude E7250<p>I have had my Dell Latitude E7250 for just under a year. It is a great little fifth gen i5 laptop with 8GB RAM and a 13” screen and more than copes with everything I throw at it.</p><p>I’m not a gamer, but it handles the video editing using Kdenlive, image editing using GIMP and writing work using LibreOffice very well and anything else I choose to run.</p><p>It’s only caveat is the 128GB internal storage it came with, normally this wouldn’t be a problem – just open it up and replace it with something a bit larger – however, this laptop doesn’t take a standard SATA drive – it uses the smaller mSATA.</p><p>This brought about a number of problems. Firstly, mSATA drives are a bit pricier than standard SATA SSDs and a bit harder to get hold of. I did toy with the idea of replacing the whole laptop with something a bit quicker that took standard drives, but I really didn’t need to, so splashed out and replaced the 128GB mSATA drive that was in it with a 256GB mSATA drive.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHHzZAegZXlKy6zbgeWAOGxsGIMgHHh8RLzWkraPb9IL8pMNHXNLMNQGYPfEcsPNp6wJNUB_NhXT213KRCPNqVXAdk0x7QTU9C90u4HT5DRM24mj9VTzI8tUO85wTlxWBGtrw0IpWpUhSLGO6BV6_JP23vSZiFaLihQ0xzFxuKJZyezeNAwTWb8mRz/s4000/IMG_20220902_170555165.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHHzZAegZXlKy6zbgeWAOGxsGIMgHHh8RLzWkraPb9IL8pMNHXNLMNQGYPfEcsPNp6wJNUB_NhXT213KRCPNqVXAdk0x7QTU9C90u4HT5DRM24mj9VTzI8tUO85wTlxWBGtrw0IpWpUhSLGO6BV6_JP23vSZiFaLihQ0xzFxuKJZyezeNAwTWb8mRz/s320/IMG_20220902_170555165.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>The second problem is that I have a number of external enclosures, but I don’t have one for an mSATA. How was I going to transfer my existing info from one drive to another?</p><p>I had decided I wanted to do a fresh install. I use Linux Mint and had done a number of system upgrades and thought it was about time to do a fresh install of Linux Mint 21 Cinnamon, to help clear out anything unwanted. But it still left what to do with all my files.</p><p>I could have just hooked up a large flash drive or connected one of the many spare laptop hard drives in a case – but I didn’t really think of that until later. Instead I opted to buy an mSATA USB enclosure.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYbq1JVj7jmojmyVL738SXYZBiD2tpX4VZD9LeRkNDAFG90s4258eoyw9FdNKLH_Uc4LR-pFdmr6yGNAT9x_iJWsVIrKFtE9JlSsIiJIXBjWIM9A1Z36WM_J4HEabzCxSBz6v1rZVAjtHEgyXamWgnF7Ajq4H7sHRhEX55HdZOh2hH8yuqsyOuFFsB/s4000/IMG_20220902_154638962_HDR.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYbq1JVj7jmojmyVL738SXYZBiD2tpX4VZD9LeRkNDAFG90s4258eoyw9FdNKLH_Uc4LR-pFdmr6yGNAT9x_iJWsVIrKFtE9JlSsIiJIXBjWIM9A1Z36WM_J4HEabzCxSBz6v1rZVAjtHEgyXamWgnF7Ajq4H7sHRhEX55HdZOh2hH8yuqsyOuFFsB/s320/IMG_20220902_154638962_HDR.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>So I made sure my Linux Mint 21 USB installer was ready, I removed the battery, took the inspection panel off the bottom of my Latitude, removed the old mSATA, popped the new one in and put the panel back on.</p><p>Then it was simply a case of booting from the USB installer and installing Linux Mint 21 on the fresh drive. I love installing Linux. It is so straight forward. Run the installer, tell it where you want it, include any updates and within 15 minutes you are staring at a fresh ready-to-go install. I then ran the Mint Updater to pull in any straggler updates which was about 700MB, which I decided to do over Ethernet as it's more reliable and quicker and then it was all done.</p><p>I put the old mSATA drive in the tiny little mSATA USB enclosure and copied across all the files I wanted to keep. That was very fast. It was copying at over 200mbs.</p><p>Everything is working fine and I just have the annoying task of getting everything how I like it and installing the few apps I need – but this is done easily via the Synaptic Package Manager.</p><p>My old 128GB drive was getting a bit tight, with only about 20GB free. After clearing up, a fresh install and only moving the stuff I wanted on to my new 256GB drive I have about 170GB free – more than enough for me.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNbxfTuF6at3a2qmoU1MPyqabuwENOCuyzc4J5O-JIVUlSaAOUH-Ysm2yQCeFA1DhgrIPDfkcQefT93QCFo0OVbHb-D6F_mm2dvpPB9myGaC0u2CGXipQiJGBlK5r__Qm07OwKieuEQKVlceJF0jAcc6L_bqZiLJQeyg9-BlVDf5FL8lFSrIOks4cn/s208/Screenshot%20from%202022-09-03%2022-32-34.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="144" data-original-width="208" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNbxfTuF6at3a2qmoU1MPyqabuwENOCuyzc4J5O-JIVUlSaAOUH-Ysm2yQCeFA1DhgrIPDfkcQefT93QCFo0OVbHb-D6F_mm2dvpPB9myGaC0u2CGXipQiJGBlK5r__Qm07OwKieuEQKVlceJF0jAcc6L_bqZiLJQeyg9-BlVDf5FL8lFSrIOks4cn/s1600/Screenshot%20from%202022-09-03%2022-32-34.png" width="208" /></a></div><p>What I will do with the old 128GB SSD I do not know? Do I keep it in the tiny enclosure and use it as a back up drive? I use a 64GB Sandisk Cruzer Micro USB flash drive for that, it’s so small it's almost flush with the USB port – just to keep a few things off the main drive in case of a disaster – with everything else held in a Dropbox folder for ultra safety.</p><p>Or do I sell it on and recoup some of the money I spent on the larger drive?</p><p>I am glad I kept the laptop and just changed the drive. I love everything about the relatively small and thin Dell Latitude E7250, which still has an amazing battery life and is super comfortable to use.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyLoxDI68ELCD765k4UjzqIsXQ2AHs9cIVuowObKV3zylbDcS5Xh9ijmnBPHLOvlfSbu4POH-_tdtiW_B-hoNpOBwkIh73UqYQx9tn8Z0-rOKPXPd1083k0-QjLH_POOOHyzxrJj1ZA7_aTxxo_F_ilcVeRnAHSjRqPvxpeyVwleWXUIJehVmHVyzI/s4000/IMG_20211018_215405669_HDR.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyLoxDI68ELCD765k4UjzqIsXQ2AHs9cIVuowObKV3zylbDcS5Xh9ijmnBPHLOvlfSbu4POH-_tdtiW_B-hoNpOBwkIh73UqYQx9tn8Z0-rOKPXPd1083k0-QjLH_POOOHyzxrJj1ZA7_aTxxo_F_ilcVeRnAHSjRqPvxpeyVwleWXUIJehVmHVyzI/s320/IMG_20211018_215405669_HDR.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><p>That is me sorted for a while, with a decent laptop and now decent storage size.</p><p><i data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #c8c3bc; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at <a data-darkreader-inline-color="" href="http://twitter.com/simonroyal" style="--darkreader-inline-color: #6ea3cf; color: #6699cc; text-decoration-line: none;">twitter.com/simonroyal</a></i></p>Simon Royalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15004143767222498320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-46893768663210702242022-08-08T18:10:00.003-07:002022-08-08T18:11:49.977-07:00How To Bring Back The "Leave" Option in the KDE Desktop Right Click Menu <p> About a month or so ago, a KDE update removed the "<i>Leave</i>" option in the right click menu on the desktop for what I see as no sensible reason. It does not exactly take up much space! I have years of muscle memory of using it and it took me a little time Googling with the right search terms to find a solution, so I thought I would make a little post so more people know how to get it back. </p><p><br /></p><p>Right click the desktop... </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjKULd-s0fxM9RPmvao0Gvv2tAHIE8AAmfsgG7DzM_jf9syqbguzdfQn94l9I3i4JVEqTBYgx0KS-Zw1JoSgzfbcSsjAmkmV3wnJ6650sKHpWeigNyxIXJ7A3HqCDTcPGll9HDxqAoSmcsqdyJEkZwdB3JEl3XPn2nsTwAa3gU41ER5an2ZB_f9QJ_/s503/Screenshot_20220809_015109.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="503" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjKULd-s0fxM9RPmvao0Gvv2tAHIE8AAmfsgG7DzM_jf9syqbguzdfQn94l9I3i4JVEqTBYgx0KS-Zw1JoSgzfbcSsjAmkmV3wnJ6650sKHpWeigNyxIXJ7A3HqCDTcPGll9HDxqAoSmcsqdyJEkZwdB3JEl3XPn2nsTwAa3gU41ER5an2ZB_f9QJ_/w400-h313/Screenshot_20220809_015109.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>Choose <i>"Configure Desktop and Wallpaper Settings"</i>....</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhosspY-_BF3m8HSm8QHZ61xecf4Ww285owlYu6zkhtPz1vz6vBovWLBh9o1b57hx_tAdcjMXC3i9nkTD3kW0lxt5b8wuJlaK4ziB4m8FEcPMt70dV_iOHhzvMBMkoQPG21-x_DsFYuDCPJ_k3eRQ7I0vaY2bofakhwqpRagpO2QDvTivvnVp65sfBh/s850/Screenshot_20220809_015404.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="717" data-original-width="850" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhosspY-_BF3m8HSm8QHZ61xecf4Ww285owlYu6zkhtPz1vz6vBovWLBh9o1b57hx_tAdcjMXC3i9nkTD3kW0lxt5b8wuJlaK4ziB4m8FEcPMt70dV_iOHhzvMBMkoQPG21-x_DsFYuDCPJ_k3eRQ7I0vaY2bofakhwqpRagpO2QDvTivvnVp65sfBh/w400-h338/Screenshot_20220809_015404.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>Select <i>Mouse Options</i> and click the <i>configure</i> button, </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMzgZ-nI5JsgZ6V9znia2zKfofyJozL4HfRqMZu4Xa4ZzKIm-Ul2DHbfo4vqC6JKK7MBACFz7BqbJ2Fb5zpXS1bavixyL2BUJLZhe0Y94v_sWy-Y4Msx4pi7mMy1OS-BslM2mQ8YIAqWNuJYJJiwasjEAhp28nK-UtwJPeAlnaUYiHuIsBlDLV0sQF/s811/Screenshot_20220809_015613-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="641" data-original-width="811" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMzgZ-nI5JsgZ6V9znia2zKfofyJozL4HfRqMZu4Xa4ZzKIm-Ul2DHbfo4vqC6JKK7MBACFz7BqbJ2Fb5zpXS1bavixyL2BUJLZhe0Y94v_sWy-Y4Msx4pi7mMy1OS-BslM2mQ8YIAqWNuJYJJiwasjEAhp28nK-UtwJPeAlnaUYiHuIsBlDLV0sQF/w400-h316/Screenshot_20220809_015613-1.png" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>...then click the <i>Leave</i> checkbox and you're done! I suppose it's simple when you know how, but still, it's just baffling as to why it was removed, anyway thanks to Steve Bolduc's <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/vviy4m/how_to_restore_the_desktop_right_click_leave/">Reddit post</a> for the video of the solution, but some people, including myself, find it easier to follow written instructions with images.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE64s8vQWF9vAA4D9Tdz0mVvcqhdav_NL2oTWLj3In0r_Qr0izZZiWNS14NKI9VdqV9dLOCBf5JyAm1-KzQHv-zSEnau95HjcGJkrqdXdR1TJeFQWWUWrtH6MGGamKnVYVpuiPPqKRoxlJSieatmkTVMwBT5q58VwLhv-3paOWMqPj_CCks_WNcppG/s506/Screenshot_20220809_015854.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="506" height="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE64s8vQWF9vAA4D9Tdz0mVvcqhdav_NL2oTWLj3In0r_Qr0izZZiWNS14NKI9VdqV9dLOCBf5JyAm1-KzQHv-zSEnau95HjcGJkrqdXdR1TJeFQWWUWrtH6MGGamKnVYVpuiPPqKRoxlJSieatmkTVMwBT5q58VwLhv-3paOWMqPj_CCks_WNcppG/w400-h333/Screenshot_20220809_015854.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-27579258665685028022022-07-28T16:38:00.000-07:002022-07-28T16:38:00.718-07:00Old But Gold: Lenovo Thinkpad T430s <p>I was getting tired of using the battered old Dell Latitude E6500 as my main laptop, and my Thinkpad X201 needs the fan replacing, so that's out of action, so I needed another laptop to use. Thankfully I managed to pick up a very tidy Lenovo Thinkpad T430s for a good price. It's in excellent condition for its age. It has a nice bright screen with no marks on it, an apparently not very old battery, and a replacement power supply, though I do have a Lenovo one that fits from my oldest dead Thinkpad. It has a very durable magnesium alloy and carbon-reinforced plastic construction. The screen bezels might be considered chunky but it helps with the durability. The T430 has a quad core i5-3320M CPU, 8GB RAM, and Intel HD 4000 graphics, 2 USB3 ports, one USB2 port, SD card reader, Mini Displayport, Gigabit Ethernet, a DVD-RW drive and came with a 500GB hard drive with Windows 10 installed, but that was the first thing to be ditched. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheo1E9EOb5xO6TfyQz1HtRPmFfLezxlcSzhwKrFKJZTinT3t_PUJVrNroexmKo21PJGLsdq40zGulBNKBpEqNOamni1lQ1yiYaMrgJCImWRYVBxSX5m_eQ6iEq8g9QbBHhqt5n98nXcsSV2IyFGBmLQlaSUOfK6Ei19rfnTStRoyBnEKSKAMT_IXKQ/s4032/PXL_20220722_135744733.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheo1E9EOb5xO6TfyQz1HtRPmFfLezxlcSzhwKrFKJZTinT3t_PUJVrNroexmKo21PJGLsdq40zGulBNKBpEqNOamni1lQ1yiYaMrgJCImWRYVBxSX5m_eQ6iEq8g9QbBHhqt5n98nXcsSV2IyFGBmLQlaSUOfK6Ei19rfnTStRoyBnEKSKAMT_IXKQ/w400-h300/PXL_20220722_135744733.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Getting the Thinkpad up and running with Linux was as simple as swapping out the 500GB hard drive for the SSD from my old Thinkpad X201. It's just a case of removing the X201's little caddy and rubber mounts and putting the rubber mounts of the T430s on. The DVD drive can be replaced with an Ultrabay battery or second SSD/hard drive.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuo6h4h2Y-GCnf4P6ZA6th1YqPVQL3bta-4x4SPZL0NkGbQGEv6otw1QlZi3MlS3h_GCa60RHL_anpzJz5GjXPmmLB50q8Y83dMa9ikMsl3qfVqLQjqSFILEv0dGkYAui9wnU7KWg9xc9dzBY31QVVV1FsERMmGc3ZARXHFZN5whu96RxS-D_zecMH/s4032/PXL_20220722_150441090.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuo6h4h2Y-GCnf4P6ZA6th1YqPVQL3bta-4x4SPZL0NkGbQGEv6otw1QlZi3MlS3h_GCa60RHL_anpzJz5GjXPmmLB50q8Y83dMa9ikMsl3qfVqLQjqSFILEv0dGkYAui9wnU7KWg9xc9dzBY31QVVV1FsERMmGc3ZARXHFZN5whu96RxS-D_zecMH/w400-h300/PXL_20220722_150441090.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Once installed, the outer panel screwed back on, KDE Neon booted up and was ready to use. I then installed all the updates it had missed while being offline. </p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-oRMij5m4LhfbMY7H-LFnKDORez4zsukj93fiQwbcJrsCzA9Aj1q9x4M_0xL8qqZS6Wof9g2piGLeN_jw27NNhBhKgno2EI42ZGeXlMG3icuKfn-_5SR6eeEfIohMAxSFda1XEGZWARwZ-K0O8Rzdk-5BH9ARoiRC5gP7wOJmoBIsvFQpXtZotk6p/s3545/PXL_20220722_151340526.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2659" data-original-width="3545" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-oRMij5m4LhfbMY7H-LFnKDORez4zsukj93fiQwbcJrsCzA9Aj1q9x4M_0xL8qqZS6Wof9g2piGLeN_jw27NNhBhKgno2EI42ZGeXlMG3icuKfn-_5SR6eeEfIohMAxSFda1XEGZWARwZ-K0O8Rzdk-5BH9ARoiRC5gP7wOJmoBIsvFQpXtZotk6p/w400-h300/PXL_20220722_151340526.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>The T430 has a nice bright screen and a great keyboard to type on with its island keys. It's also the first laptop I have had with a back-lit keyboard (Fn key + Space to turn it on and off). The textured touchpad takes a little getting used to, though I do tend to prefer a mouse on older laptops. It supports multi-touch gestures like pinch to zoom, in Linux you press Control while pinching. The keyboard layout is a little different to my older Thinkpads, and my Dell Latitude, with a smaller rectangular Return key, which also takes a bit of getting used to. Of course being a Thinkpad has the Track Point, or Nipple Mouse as I like to call it, but I always disable it, I have never got the hang of using them.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnZ4vxYPBeH341cphkZ77USSHPcmGWi7qb47_VpBm7MXJePqG7BVdLkm4THJzi_Rt1FFLbj_TZ277NJJR5fhe9_jovpgkcr1_yMqFRokzXEeKYhxYMqdyx4bdI70QNWEB72LoYzthT2Ucq2Hwg041zIWViH-UIRVrwlnYAJW3Qp3kxFvDgkgiJFwiA/s3695/PXL_20220722_135807163.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2771" data-original-width="3695" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnZ4vxYPBeH341cphkZ77USSHPcmGWi7qb47_VpBm7MXJePqG7BVdLkm4THJzi_Rt1FFLbj_TZ277NJJR5fhe9_jovpgkcr1_yMqFRokzXEeKYhxYMqdyx4bdI70QNWEB72LoYzthT2Ucq2Hwg041zIWViH-UIRVrwlnYAJW3Qp3kxFvDgkgiJFwiA/w400-h300/PXL_20220722_135807163.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Thinkpads are well known for being Linux-friendly (though I am not sure about the latest ones), so it's no surprise that everything works out the box - shortcut keys, graphics etc. The keyboard layout was not set right on the first boot, likely because I had swapped the drive from another machine, but it's easy to change that in KDE settings, to generic US layout. Even the grainy built-in 720P 1.3MP webcam works out the box, I installed <i>kamoso</i> to test it out, which is in the 'buntu repos. Bluetooth also works perfectly out of the box with KDE.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz03_ITAji8YfqohMFj2-xIvKyql4w1k6TZE5o9_Bolo7UtgpAa4X1UhCVzNfTG8z66FTYrY1Dt1oNLxwLe7bDk0ASUWSbhJPnTxOOIriZlJRPYPWRJAIwZ-lNlIk4FfIzplVfOfpLws4XM3PGB3JGaXNXh1ANAhUBflhgSGQ6D4Mkn-nEM6uTfve0/s4032/PXL_20220725_021325981.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz03_ITAji8YfqohMFj2-xIvKyql4w1k6TZE5o9_Bolo7UtgpAa4X1UhCVzNfTG8z66FTYrY1Dt1oNLxwLe7bDk0ASUWSbhJPnTxOOIriZlJRPYPWRJAIwZ-lNlIk4FfIzplVfOfpLws4XM3PGB3JGaXNXh1ANAhUBflhgSGQ6D4Mkn-nEM6uTfve0/w400-h300/PXL_20220725_021325981.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>I got just a little over 2 hours battery life with heavy usage - Facebook, lots of YouTube video playing - with the screen at 50% brightness. That's not bad for an old battery, though when new it would have lasted around 5 hours. The only slight oddity is sometimes when the battery is really low, and you plug the charger in, KDE sometimes reports that it is not charging, when it actually is, eventually after a moment or two it shows as charging. The optical bay can be replaced with an Ultrabay battery that apparently adds around 3 hours of usage.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVPbaF_3Eag9cSB1o6m_4XdoW8UG4ba0IU9NVR81HWyUGIQz4xnCc_xpAXw6XaAMm04nyzgtMdTzYxtxHhG8Fgm0iX3SbUkJKOf20WFNAGRS_brpobWtD2HxEcSv2uOKj6y4rvGslS6olm1fAF0QJIms-h1mqNZVmNkyL3uOk3O3_-UP4QTes-iow1/s275/Screenshot_20220725_032032.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="144" data-original-width="275" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVPbaF_3Eag9cSB1o6m_4XdoW8UG4ba0IU9NVR81HWyUGIQz4xnCc_xpAXw6XaAMm04nyzgtMdTzYxtxHhG8Fgm0iX3SbUkJKOf20WFNAGRS_brpobWtD2HxEcSv2uOKj6y4rvGslS6olm1fAF0QJIms-h1mqNZVmNkyL3uOk3O3_-UP4QTes-iow1/s1600/Screenshot_20220725_032032.png" width="275" /></a></div><p>If you find that under heavy usage the temperature go up to 75°C, it may help to place the T430 on a flat hard surface, rather than directly on top of your lap, I find it goes back to around 40 to 50°C depending on usage. It may also be worth cleaning out the fan too. It's got a bit warm a few times with YouTube, not helped by the hot weather at the moment. I already had <i>Thinkfan</i> installed to control fan speeds, and the config is very similar to the X201, there's a <a href="https://ivan.reallusiondesign.com/thinkpad-t430-ubuntu-fan-control/">how to here</a> to set it up. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6un5U_9AEr-hmERGNMhlF7dLgGrX3CmfxMD-OubxLSCNoJwzTso5UtzkxZC5EEu6pu70TCaTfv09eKnWr5s23gVoi4RaMilLhD5Tv4Q1W0RfPHH1kfVLoQuCxKFriIK-neANBKawnb7x9XpO81WBKmCx6Em0bDBck7NSJh_e0FAWv_fabhGPC9NXz/s4032/PXL_20220722_135831804.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6un5U_9AEr-hmERGNMhlF7dLgGrX3CmfxMD-OubxLSCNoJwzTso5UtzkxZC5EEu6pu70TCaTfv09eKnWr5s23gVoi4RaMilLhD5Tv4Q1W0RfPHH1kfVLoQuCxKFriIK-neANBKawnb7x9XpO81WBKmCx6Em0bDBck7NSJh_e0FAWv_fabhGPC9NXz/w400-h300/PXL_20220722_135831804.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Another slightly annoying thing I have discovered is that there's an admin BIOS password on this T430s, which is always a hazard when buying secondhand laptops, you can get in without entering a password but you won't be able to change certain settings. Without the admin password you cannot change anything in the "Security" section of the BIOS apart from you can add a hard disk password. and you cannot change anything in the "Startup" section apart from Boot Mode (Quick or Diagnostics). If you need to choose a boot device though you can press F12 when starting up and choose what you want. The one thing I want to change at some point is enabling hardware virtualisation (Intel VT). There are a few workarounds <a href="https://htr3n.github.io/2019/06/t430s-supervisor-password-removal/">as detailed here</a>, but you should be very careful to follow them correctly for fear of bricking the laptop. Right now I really cannot be bothered to go through all that hassle until I absolutely have to. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7tZ4Roo640ORzF6MafIaajjW2m1Ixst0NRgUF8vpMumaWpL-cjm6czKRHPiFY6n__S_9CYE1WPRrxGUv1WPMeilJwZhwfNbiG6xYYAhVVV0eAF-wiV4x_K-IyXE034Mu9umsShTfuS6YRa8-snRJAGcIYibRndmRgZUjY0iWfXQhP3wAJlHAsBODs/s4032/PXL_20220725_015426999.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7tZ4Roo640ORzF6MafIaajjW2m1Ixst0NRgUF8vpMumaWpL-cjm6czKRHPiFY6n__S_9CYE1WPRrxGUv1WPMeilJwZhwfNbiG6xYYAhVVV0eAF-wiV4x_K-IyXE034Mu9umsShTfuS6YRa8-snRJAGcIYibRndmRgZUjY0iWfXQhP3wAJlHAsBODs/w400-h300/PXL_20220725_015426999.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Apart from the odd minor niggle, I am pretty happy with this old Thinkpad. It's amazing how compact and fairly lightweight the T430s is (compared to a beast like my Latitude E6500), but still has a decent number of ports and room for a DVD bay too. And I prefer the size of the 14 inch screen on this to the 12.1 inch of the X201, that's a bit too small for my liking. 14 inch is the sweet spot for me. I love how snappy this laptop feels with KDE Neon, compared with my old Latitude E6500 and even my Chromebook. It's very quick to boot and I like how when it dims the screen after I have left it for a bit, it also turns the keyboard back-light off until I start using it again. The trackpad beneath the spill-resistant keyboard could be a bit better, but it's often that way on older laptops, I've been spoilt by the excellent trackpad on my Acer Chromebook 14. The T430s keyboard is superb to type on though. The T430s is a pretty sturdy laptop, and pretty quick considering it was released back in June 2012, 10 years ago at the time of writing, and I hope it will last me a few more years without going wrong, but only time will tell. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqIhAp9eIj4k4-nBDB7sIMMxCbIbFVKcGYPsSpEwcp0el8RQJznlivMdwi-fEDbVX9VvDj8MKRky6r5ruZVzBeD-Niaz8CMEkxZtEGrWwOqxcgN03PIcTxmDsHizeSogceEnVLSqqXejoGUo-j_J0DkMzLg9zXF03D-IxaBcNbP2hO9Uvt6duj2-Z8/s1600/Screenshot_20220726_011226.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqIhAp9eIj4k4-nBDB7sIMMxCbIbFVKcGYPsSpEwcp0el8RQJznlivMdwi-fEDbVX9VvDj8MKRky6r5ruZVzBeD-Niaz8CMEkxZtEGrWwOqxcgN03PIcTxmDsHizeSogceEnVLSqqXejoGUo-j_J0DkMzLg9zXF03D-IxaBcNbP2hO9Uvt6duj2-Z8/w400-h225/Screenshot_20220726_011226.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-19787755954127578982022-07-27T16:13:00.000-07:002022-07-27T16:13:02.080-07:00Goodbye Endeavour Linux, Hello Manjaro!<p><b>Goodbye Endeavour!</b></p><p>After a surprisingly long stint of usage with Endeavour Linux on my Dell Latitude E6500, one night the streaming app, the one I specifically installed Endeavour for, <i>Mkchromecast</i>, stopped working for no obvious reason. It's an old app that hasn't been updated since 2017 so I suppose it's easily broken if something else changes. Also I was getting tired of the distro for a few other things, and felt it getting a little sluggish. Anyway, I went looking for other Arch-based distros, since <i>mkchromecast</i> only seems to work on them, it doesn't work properly on my favourite Linux flavour, KDE Neon, which is Ubuntu based. I was looking at easy to install and use variants of Arch, since I just wanted to quickly get the next distro installed and use it as quickly as possible. </p><p><b>Hello Manjaro!</b></p><p>I have tried Manjaro before but it was a long time ago, a long time before KDE 5 came out, so it was an opportunity to see if it has improved since then. Naturally I chose the KDE variant, which is currently on version 5.24.6, though it also comes in Gnome and XFCE official flavours. There are also community flavours including Budgie and Cinnamon desktops. I used Balena Etcher to pop the KDE edition onto a USB stick for installation. The Manjaro installer is pretty neat apart from one thing, it does not have an easy way to make a dual partition setup, with a separate /home partition. I tried to create it manually but when I clicked next it came up with some warning about creating an 8MB blank boot partition for GPT, in the end I gave up and stuck with a single partition. </p><p>Apart from that slight annoyance, the install went smoothly, and I was greeted by a Manjaro-ised KDE desktop with it's green accents and icons, which I am really not keen on. Of course the great thing about KDE is it's so customisable. I switched the theme to Breeze Dark and installed Papirus icons from the handy Pamac graphical package manager that comes with Manjaro. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy35fiUcGTkb2WUREIbizHH1A74mnKNbVeis-oOVTojnuJ1Jrrx7VATFR8YimoFsNVB4H6jcqutv7Ce5g0PHUCi3tUIKATGwCsSs4c83bQRmzoeuyC8adEfp0TzLCpTwxjles55YpGEIrBKHYS1roxoZRy1KeTag4TugFByBMLO4msz0rvo9xBYXEQ/s1280/Screenshot_20220721_235049.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1280" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy35fiUcGTkb2WUREIbizHH1A74mnKNbVeis-oOVTojnuJ1Jrrx7VATFR8YimoFsNVB4H6jcqutv7Ce5g0PHUCi3tUIKATGwCsSs4c83bQRmzoeuyC8adEfp0TzLCpTwxjles55YpGEIrBKHYS1roxoZRy1KeTag4TugFByBMLO4msz0rvo9xBYXEQ/w400-h250/Screenshot_20220721_235049.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>It's also nice that my favourite terminal app, Yakuake (a Quake style terminal emulator) was already installed, (all i had to do was add it to Autostart) as was VLC. I then installed all my favourite tools, including GIMP, K3B, Clementine music player, qbittorrent, Soundkonverter, Filezilla and Latte Dock. Manjaro has some neat touches like in the terminal it shows how long a task took to complete on the bottom right-hand side. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPTkzd8twUbd6VXF32PKH-AMsf6VIg3vPNM4qjz3ptNTO1JuavWMgrkPMsFRNDQuFG6obOarDK8MoJlCwG1_fppvbwAECrCnmkPj592i0KEzoBUtUFGj0P86JnbUPMEDL9jc7iAw1khiXgN1_ACnJZ5UVCf_oG9A2ZbBV3YzluDyMLqxkOjjKJzNeU/s1109/Screenshot_20220721_235508.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="110" data-original-width="1109" height="64" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPTkzd8twUbd6VXF32PKH-AMsf6VIg3vPNM4qjz3ptNTO1JuavWMgrkPMsFRNDQuFG6obOarDK8MoJlCwG1_fppvbwAECrCnmkPj592i0KEzoBUtUFGj0P86JnbUPMEDL9jc7iAw1khiXgN1_ACnJZ5UVCf_oG9A2ZbBV3YzluDyMLqxkOjjKJzNeU/w640-h64/Screenshot_20220721_235508.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />Installing Chrome on Arch-based distros is still a bit of a faff, there are a couple of different ways, both requiring copy and pasting a bunch of commands, I used this howto <a href="https://linuxhint.com/install-google-chrome-manjaro/">here</a>. Installing Dropbox also required a little tinkering too, similar to Endeavour, and I used <a href="https://techviewleo.com/install-dropbox-on-arch-manjaro-garuda-endeavouros/">this installation tutorial</a>. <span style="font-family: inherit;">Next up I installed Mkchromecast (with</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #e8e6e3; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>yay -S mkchromecast)</i></span> and then eventually realised it </span><span data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #e8e6e3; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: inherit;">will</span><span data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #e8e6e3; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: inherit;"> not work without also installing </span><span data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #e8e6e3; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: inherit;"><i>python-pychromecast</i> and now it works a treat, much to my relief.</span><div><br /></div><div>There is one elephant in the room though, Manjaro's <a href="https://manjarno.snorlax.sh/">track record for security</a> is not great, and they keep back packages in the distro for two weeks, which can cause issues with the very up to date packages in AUR. So far I haven't had any serious issues, and everything seems to be running fine so far, but we'll see! I am open to suggestions of other distros that Mkchromecast will run on. My Dell Latitude E6500 is basically a dedicated player/server casting to a bunch of Chromecasts, main laptop duties have gone to my newly acquired Lenovo Thinkpad T430s.<br /><p></p><p><span data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #e8e6e3; background-color: white; color: black; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p></div>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-25798143052544850662022-07-13T03:00:00.001-07:002022-07-13T03:00:00.214-07:00 Linuxiversary… Two Years With Linux Mint<p>Today marks two years of me using Linux full time, this time last year I was still getting used to the switch from a life time of using a Mac (over 20 years to be more precise), but a further twelve months on and I am feeling much more at home.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGF4w0Wqkl2p6agr-MfWK-BVXniA2m9aE2X2fw58uyQv7G8z0wfr--w56dUCIW8IOdBEV6fIaMr_cijmrbE9nT_cKG75b6muKD_sBoKmBQuy1FLB83sN9TCfcOspmpvL94JgLCZGgyzyNnNlhd69d9YhdfDWN30ekNr0_1QSx7_Qc8BcfcXNH_CicA/s1060/linuxmint-logo-new-black.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="1060" height="77" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGF4w0Wqkl2p6agr-MfWK-BVXniA2m9aE2X2fw58uyQv7G8z0wfr--w56dUCIW8IOdBEV6fIaMr_cijmrbE9nT_cKG75b6muKD_sBoKmBQuy1FLB83sN9TCfcOspmpvL94JgLCZGgyzyNnNlhd69d9YhdfDWN30ekNr0_1QSx7_Qc8BcfcXNH_CicA/s320/linuxmint-logo-new-black.png" width="320" /></a></div><p>I have settled in to the operating system – Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon at present – and while I used a lot of open source and cross platform apps prior to moving to Linux I have really embraced them and any additional ‘non Apple’ alternatives I needed. I even find myself loading up the Terminal and typing in commands without that dreaded fear of messing something up.</p><p>Don’t get me wrong I am no Linux genius, but my friend, fellow Linux user and owner of this blog will attest that I have asked far less questions in the last year.</p><p>I have upgraded my laptop once again since my last article going from my Lenovo ThinkPad X201 to a Dell Latitude E7250, the jump in specs is superb and a noticeable difference in performance, but you would expect that going from a second gen i5 to a fifth gen i5.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZgnhp5DPAkmXdNvCWWyWvGux3Kkf56bLJ1JeouzCRLh1GrUeRiI0yn79-4FYrQ5nLP8ns6G9eXZ_zEosKv77iH2Cys2fryqddD3_42bc9_p4TxXPraAeOt2-TFKD5phmFM5M5lJ2sH2H-wmEAbjQEasN42-F6Qa4qT2DwScuSjaVWypTO2vk9LuQQ/s4000/IMG_20211019_142343045.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZgnhp5DPAkmXdNvCWWyWvGux3Kkf56bLJ1JeouzCRLh1GrUeRiI0yn79-4FYrQ5nLP8ns6G9eXZ_zEosKv77iH2Cys2fryqddD3_42bc9_p4TxXPraAeOt2-TFKD5phmFM5M5lJ2sH2H-wmEAbjQEasN42-F6Qa4qT2DwScuSjaVWypTO2vk9LuQQ/s320/IMG_20211019_142343045.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>Never have I felt so comfortable using an operating system as I do in Linux Mint. I have dabbled with it over the years either dual booting alongside Mac OS or virtually using VirtualBox, so I wasn’t a complete novice when I ditched the entire Apple world and set off using Linux full time.</p><p>Linux has come a long way over the years and it isn’t as scary or different – it is very user friendly and so far I haven’t had any hardware that won’t work on it – which was always a problem in the past. Even most software – except major developers like Adobe – are pushing the Linux platform.</p><p>So happy Linuxiversary to me – and here's to many more years of enjoyable computing.</p><p><i data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #c8c3bc; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at <a data-darkreader-inline-color="" href="http://twitter.com/simonroyal" style="--darkreader-inline-color: #6ea3cf; color: #6699cc; text-decoration-line: none;">twitter.com/simonroyal</a></i></p>Simon Royalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15004143767222498320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-16861460953268252092022-06-18T13:56:00.003-07:002022-06-18T13:56:49.304-07:00Portable Dreams... YouTube Channel For Older Portable & Handheld Gaming<p>I have had a YouTube channel for over a decade and it has gone through various topics and changes, but the last 18 months I have revamped it and honed in on my passion for portable and handheld gaming. The biggest change is a recent rename to ‘<a href="http://www.youtube.com/portabledreams" target="_blank">Portable Dreams</a>’ to give it a bit of branding.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipnEz4VA6gnEgCRbruP4NCLFyfTCqhZHGpMWUxwdSa3oLWGbXQbDFJ5AY5pOKCrfElFie-csf0gevHbTIweoXhW-j1X_g00hwJu8tAnCIcQc1iep5IMqWqU8orPt9yUhm-rhUlGze-YcJIRhQWLwanOxB4uGZOCGHjXF82Ws9bj8K6jVD82XChjG3E/s1366/Screenshot%20from%202022-06-18%2011-58-21.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipnEz4VA6gnEgCRbruP4NCLFyfTCqhZHGpMWUxwdSa3oLWGbXQbDFJ5AY5pOKCrfElFie-csf0gevHbTIweoXhW-j1X_g00hwJu8tAnCIcQc1iep5IMqWqU8orPt9yUhm-rhUlGze-YcJIRhQWLwanOxB4uGZOCGHjXF82Ws9bj8K6jVD82XChjG3E/s320/Screenshot%20from%202022-06-18%2011-58-21.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>I am a big fan and a collector of Nintendo DS consoles, with the majority of my videos focusing on these wonderful Nintendo portables – which is my main passion – but I do also talk about the Sony PSP, Sony PS Vita and even the NeoGeo Pocket range.</p><p>I have always been a fan of handheld games machines. Growing up I immersed myself in my GameBoy – it was just mine and I could shut the world out. That is what I like about portable consoles, there is no sharing. It might sound selfish but it was a way of escaping.</p><p>I carried this through into the Nintendo DS era and just loved them. I love older consoles, I’m not really into the latest systems. I wouldn’t class myself as a retro fan either – although I do play a lot of GameBoy and GameBoy Color games - just a fan of older consoles. The Nintendo DS hasn’t reached retro stage just yet.</p><p>So my channel covers console reviews, fixes to common issues, mods, tips, emulation, general talk, game reviews and homebrew.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQVPSKhUgU-yTMsx_egiGT1uWehH5dBROPX6OpjtQ-IaVWOOgvW2jlagFFZdgassm0fNQ9khXh7nzLiAvLR7vD1uzGMs0aO2YyC_dtjPho1xwBW7sky-zVQfZIt6Y-4kvIGHqix5GAGKo6giuDsH9s4xTgtGrb9O8G_IVFl3cQsdFLSnS3Sb9xxGlo/s1366/Screenshot%20from%202022-06-18%2011-58-46.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQVPSKhUgU-yTMsx_egiGT1uWehH5dBROPX6OpjtQ-IaVWOOgvW2jlagFFZdgassm0fNQ9khXh7nzLiAvLR7vD1uzGMs0aO2YyC_dtjPho1xwBW7sky-zVQfZIt6Y-4kvIGHqix5GAGKo6giuDsH9s4xTgtGrb9O8G_IVFl3cQsdFLSnS3Sb9xxGlo/s320/Screenshot%20from%202022-06-18%2011-58-46.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>So if you share an interest, are just curious or want to support a growing channel, then check out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/portabledreams" target="_blank">Portable Dreams</a>.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTqkSKlTQ3lCd_5FnpiuDLhVyiE3t_UNSLa2aY77vX0MA0kNnX3C5DHpMviWJ5W8fTxlWIbabF5KzWeRcfD64NEMug_TSJtQkXWuEMkIfUVHel9IUZOi2GDvyzEhiFOkAB5mCp1jvPxNNR0cnUUxPvClfgYaA18kLrU4u2ZeW8BiEE5oyhwdc13pOg/s2000/Logo-PD.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="2000" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTqkSKlTQ3lCd_5FnpiuDLhVyiE3t_UNSLa2aY77vX0MA0kNnX3C5DHpMviWJ5W8fTxlWIbabF5KzWeRcfD64NEMug_TSJtQkXWuEMkIfUVHel9IUZOi2GDvyzEhiFOkAB5mCp1jvPxNNR0cnUUxPvClfgYaA18kLrU4u2ZeW8BiEE5oyhwdc13pOg/w193-h193/Logo-PD.png" width="193" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #c8c3bc; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at <a data-darkreader-inline-color="" href="http://twitter.com/simonroyal" style="--darkreader-inline-color: #6ea3cf; color: #6699cc; text-decoration-line: none;">twitter.com/simonroyal</a></i></div>Simon Royalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15004143767222498320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-31851930433447875242022-05-09T17:24:00.005-07:002022-05-09T17:24:48.776-07:00HARDWARE REVIEW: M-Audio M-Track Solo USB Audio InterfaceI had a few issues with my old Digidesign Mbox2 FireWire input boxes (I have two) and decided that I needed an upgrade to a modern USB device, and having looked at all the options, an M-Audio M-Track Solo seemed decent bang-per-buck at around £40. There's also the slightly larger Duo for about £10 more. <div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Features:</b></div><div><br /></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>48 kHz audio resolution </li><li>Mac, PC or iOS compatible</li><li>Single Combo Crystal Preamp with phantom power</li><li>Switchable Line / Instrument input for guitar or microphone. </li><li>2-channel recording - use both line inputs simultaneously </li><li>Powered by USB</li><li>Zero-latency monitoring of the input signal through both the main RCA outputs and 1/8” headphone outputs</li><li>USB/Direct switch adjusts the balance between the direct inputs and playback from computer software.</li></ul><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7THpCU1hork_ed8u8R0jvPbyHBHQ-MPzRPfa9VQSxzCzqt_vcTOVT88EDLpyuMqyrea-3dVg3pzKOBvr0bMQNn_ew7NJGz6mHk0XMg5iEdapkYxqyb1wbjCjfba8Hl5VYMj76kPsK6sw/s1600/1650591073027134-0.png" width="400" />
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</div><br /><div>Inside the box there's just the box itself, a USB cable and the instruction manual. It's bus powered so there's no need for a power supply, which makes things simple and portable. Although it says on the box it comes with various software, there's no disc in the box, you have to go to the website and download it yourself by registering the device. Sadly I cannot use any of the included apps as I only have Mac OS Lion on my old white Macbook and these require a much more recent version. It's plug 'n' play, so should be no need to install a driver on most modern operating systems. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj80BUxeKaCbw5RtupFSOAbx9sLhtx2aEwyfqE2Gqq24L_iPqFJrm5kzcFV5WxDNmX1OsSsAGOGb9IpD2rjLLMQZlsNz5ggaan_l52yoR8PSjCKMNndDsaVWXwyGIlE98IgH-YkVOW5zZOUh1D0YFKMqncC5E7wim5t11Mf6LyEdvnfFHTneSvg10tP/s4032/PXL_20220415_182720042.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj80BUxeKaCbw5RtupFSOAbx9sLhtx2aEwyfqE2Gqq24L_iPqFJrm5kzcFV5WxDNmX1OsSsAGOGb9IpD2rjLLMQZlsNz5ggaan_l52yoR8PSjCKMNndDsaVWXwyGIlE98IgH-YkVOW5zZOUh1D0YFKMqncC5E7wim5t11Mf6LyEdvnfFHTneSvg10tP/w400-h300/PXL_20220415_182720042.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>When I first tried the M-Track, I had it working in Amplitube (a virtual guitar amp) but then spent ages trying to work out why I wasn't getting input audio in Garageband, despite setting it as the input device in Audio Settings in Mac OS. After much faffing about, I discovered that the issue was that each time Garageband makes a new track, it chooses the first input on the box, which is the mic input, when I almost always want the guitar/line input. Now I just have to remember to select the second input in the advanced section when creating a new track. </div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpyoOrxDR-D6CpatQoMZjKxPD1VNQRNxbTLcBbDDB9pRkUGkqqImFCbd36-1e_Xy3gU0KYVGyxDsv8CRqPQHJsWaQX3q3FFeRH-kRjFBmyEGicDMwmgUnulNWv6nT4B_HkDBAuxcLSYxTFQejXrRe4Fs-hr8_athrHrIkXAsf_T6Ppu0VXRvoFziOz/s1280/Screen%20Shot%202022-05-03%20at%2020.50.09.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1280" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpyoOrxDR-D6CpatQoMZjKxPD1VNQRNxbTLcBbDDB9pRkUGkqqImFCbd36-1e_Xy3gU0KYVGyxDsv8CRqPQHJsWaQX3q3FFeRH-kRjFBmyEGicDMwmgUnulNWv6nT4B_HkDBAuxcLSYxTFQejXrRe4Fs-hr8_athrHrIkXAsf_T6Ppu0VXRvoFziOz/w400-h250/Screen%20Shot%202022-05-03%20at%2020.50.09.png" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>I also tried the M-track on Linux, specifically KDE Neon, and although Plasma desktop automatically switches the audio output to the box, it does not seem to pick the right input, so even when you choose the box as the input source, there's no way to choose between the mic and guitar/line inputs in KDE's Audio settings. I have not tried it in Windows because I don't use it for anything but a few games. It will also work with an Android phone, but I have not tried that yet, as I need to get a USB C OTG cable for my Pixel 4a. Be aware though that, since it's USB powered, it will probably chew up a fair bit of battery power. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSpQDda-9WK6WIi4Rz3l78qDiZAEhCJ2G6OzpJYbN_kBx9HfPt8KZ2xWW5qZQ4du2atuDL4n0W2ajmrhxUKqdOTghkDOMBNX5Kzgf6RU22-zJ5Z4kYne0khabmZXOWsS-nnFFCdD9DJYPfW_RgqeWoShJwjRfHRWGvubxkPoXVh_r8TeXOaRnI8gDp/s4032/PXL_20220415_184736940.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSpQDda-9WK6WIi4Rz3l78qDiZAEhCJ2G6OzpJYbN_kBx9HfPt8KZ2xWW5qZQ4du2atuDL4n0W2ajmrhxUKqdOTghkDOMBNX5Kzgf6RU22-zJ5Z4kYne0khabmZXOWsS-nnFFCdD9DJYPfW_RgqeWoShJwjRfHRWGvubxkPoXVh_r8TeXOaRnI8gDp/w400-h300/PXL_20220415_184736940.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div>So far then, the M-Track Solo has performed well, there's no lag, unlike the old cheapo USB device I had before and input audio is decent quality, nice and clear, so I am quite pleased with it, it's a good device for the price and compact enough to carry in my bag if I need to. </div></div>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-27159529736340190862022-05-04T18:09:00.000-07:002022-05-04T18:09:04.045-07:00REVIEW: Stainless Steel Metal Watch Strap Wristband Bracelet For Xiaomi Mi Band 4Having been through several of the original rubbery Mi Band straps, and a few of the third party straps, the last of which broke in several places, I decided to get a metal watch strap for my gen 4 Mi Band.<div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDzoJ_8_5r26vojRDBfkq8Uas_mqk4pOIkMBLLrYPaNIc5JIJtUWhYE3KV2TqwLDzHFgUpnn0Nr1ZrwE0ryl0tkFz85wxPP5Dno-4JiOTuEfMaV79L-oKessxoWjRJx92Lcbrq3Z9XUOo/s1600/1650591012606334-0.png" width="400">
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</div><br></div><div><br></div><div>There are plenty on eBay end i chose one reasonably priced, at £9.76. It was from a UK seller though i suspect they just order from China anyway, but I digress... I chose a blue metal strap, but there are several colours to choose from, including just plain metal.</div><div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidLSHVPr-BI0zBStyHLACAxqqw1eYx8zFncdazDSti30Iyn9j4YDiUT94AigAyezq4UWmqYHnkhSraq4K8RuDyboAK4nJCR5KrAGk3naBQKUnlJFpQZnHbSNa1z5z6WxJFAqjqMZRrdUG8hSzNdlJvLlSYHd_v3Q8iPEonAEHildER6QMMFkQ9wFrR/s4032/PXL_20220405_112725836.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidLSHVPr-BI0zBStyHLACAxqqw1eYx8zFncdazDSti30Iyn9j4YDiUT94AigAyezq4UWmqYHnkhSraq4K8RuDyboAK4nJCR5KrAGk3naBQKUnlJFpQZnHbSNa1z5z6WxJFAqjqMZRrdUG8hSzNdlJvLlSYHd_v3Q8iPEonAEHildER6QMMFkQ9wFrR/w400-h300/PXL_20220405_112725836.jpg" width="400"></a></div><br><div><br></div><div>Upon arrival, opening the package, which was packed reasonably, it came with a little tool to remove the pins so you can take links out to fit smaller wrists. The tool instantly broke, being made from cheap plastic. Never mind, I went the less hassle but more costly route of going to a shop in town that does it for you, that cost £10 but that includes a bit of after care, you can go back to get it sorted again if needed within about 3 weeks. I had 3 links taken out to fit my wrist. </div><div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz-90MweRi6vih8HRbaB-OCKVGfwgCQHluHyxGs7dM1omCLLLw3srJlbE4BP_gdCkQybc07dP44-g1OXc5yrN6tkwzWoJI-VW1sAClNOYeidrSymDSGXFRx3XTx2r-yvjq1p_vpTnV3clYkNmSHC0j3r6Sibu5OOX2QidnHNOV8Lu-3u96RkeR8S1y/s4032/PXL_20220405_145651991.NIGHT.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz-90MweRi6vih8HRbaB-OCKVGfwgCQHluHyxGs7dM1omCLLLw3srJlbE4BP_gdCkQybc07dP44-g1OXc5yrN6tkwzWoJI-VW1sAClNOYeidrSymDSGXFRx3XTx2r-yvjq1p_vpTnV3clYkNmSHC0j3r6Sibu5OOX2QidnHNOV8Lu-3u96RkeR8S1y/w400-h300/PXL_20220405_145651991.NIGHT.jpg" width="400"></a></div><br><div>The other slight issue is that the watch would not stay in place in the strap, until I used my pliers to gently bend the edge in so it gripped the watch a bit better, but it is still easy to remove to charge the device when needed. </div><div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQdLybJ4TFgcDj6SPDbPL1Aku8q5XfGDKfh-ByxZE8GmHwW3NO7U8yapoeJv4SZFGwWyNHL3LJuiC31WNbkNrO3D5iVbBp6fh6Lmeoit6tOs9NQrYAAyoY5pBFmvt019VnK-FEr6zR0kW9pyzObePy4GjZ2J_nmMQQXvfmM1gHoT2zjMKBTpTqNfXi/s4032/PXL_20220405_145820183.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQdLybJ4TFgcDj6SPDbPL1Aku8q5XfGDKfh-ByxZE8GmHwW3NO7U8yapoeJv4SZFGwWyNHL3LJuiC31WNbkNrO3D5iVbBp6fh6Lmeoit6tOs9NQrYAAyoY5pBFmvt019VnK-FEr6zR0kW9pyzObePy4GjZ2J_nmMQQXvfmM1gHoT2zjMKBTpTqNfXi/w300-h400/PXL_20220405_145820183.jpg" width="300"></a></div><br><div>It's been a few weeks since I had the links taken out and have got used to it being on my wrist, as always it takes a bit of time to get used to, until I get to the stage of my wrist feeling a bit naked without it on. </div><div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCdaa1uEnYQhJo31F_Y49vnihD7lyjeSCeEwIJ2KlAFr-cc9WnvxAmWWdaa02n1ClYrjilHicVJNpy4iNiwOxCrq2ChabhRNfriTcq3iIzKV8_TwCdDLut8qRATLcH4y8tTPN9aU4oHsekWgNImokLzFbflWsNRwrQHhHv_WBfoBL8OHwjZKrX5ueZ/s4032/PXL_20220405_145758727.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCdaa1uEnYQhJo31F_Y49vnihD7lyjeSCeEwIJ2KlAFr-cc9WnvxAmWWdaa02n1ClYrjilHicVJNpy4iNiwOxCrq2ChabhRNfriTcq3iIzKV8_TwCdDLut8qRATLcH4y8tTPN9aU4oHsekWgNImokLzFbflWsNRwrQHhHv_WBfoBL8OHwjZKrX5ueZ/w400-h300/PXL_20220405_145758727.jpg" width="400"></a></div><br><div> </div><div>At first I was not sure if I would recommend this strap but as long as you are prepared to live with a slightly bent edge on one side and the slight fiddly setup, it's decent enough, and it was cheap to buy, even after spending a bit of money getting it fitted, though if you have the right tool you could probably do that yourself anyway. </div><div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDMUPW64lnXHhhT4U8Vvywam2kcpvLsGm7PGiY_kAGXLBLafSGT_kYKBVdYQYo4IPj-ngF8-U7j4xiB6lJQzf3XRftbTQ9lfrqsyGeVcJ2EQvBbtGDgwh0PXfbQy3gc4qufGyuGgmCW4FdQf-V6If82ogp46csFOTS6zJ5YA4hTaZPbGjvxFCO56wE/s2117/PXL_20220408_115025588.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2117" data-original-width="1587" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDMUPW64lnXHhhT4U8Vvywam2kcpvLsGm7PGiY_kAGXLBLafSGT_kYKBVdYQYo4IPj-ngF8-U7j4xiB6lJQzf3XRftbTQ9lfrqsyGeVcJ2EQvBbtGDgwh0PXfbQy3gc4qufGyuGgmCW4FdQf-V6If82ogp46csFOTS6zJ5YA4hTaZPbGjvxFCO56wE/w300-h400/PXL_20220408_115025588.jpg" width="300"></a></div><br><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-82379129202081705942022-05-02T18:46:00.024-07:002022-05-17T16:43:09.078-07:00Hello Endeavour Linux! Goodbye Endeavour Linux?<p>I finally got round to trying Endeavour Linux on one of my laptops, a Dell Latitude E6500. I have read good things about Endeavour, it often tops "best Arch based distro" lists and has some neat features. Things started out well with the installer working very well, choose a desktop to install and it gets on with it very quickly and efficiently. Upon first boot you are greeted with the Welcome Launcher with its useful tasks and suggestions....</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmzPirwMA1idZ3mH_EFZ2mdj_LoTY32AGe-oQeAevoN9hQRASV_-wbzfwJIljSKIPOpzGloggjZ0257T4HQ_sFUlc2wNxj8Jy94lifjRKcypg0m9v1w-UUVEA9Gp_y1tCHBcjZKBlwhEut5GDm_SHltnJbK_K8XTEjl7DpCm3ruFGd1F2Bw25KTHGH/s770/Screenshot_20220503_022543.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="524" data-original-width="770" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmzPirwMA1idZ3mH_EFZ2mdj_LoTY32AGe-oQeAevoN9hQRASV_-wbzfwJIljSKIPOpzGloggjZ0257T4HQ_sFUlc2wNxj8Jy94lifjRKcypg0m9v1w-UUVEA9Gp_y1tCHBcjZKBlwhEut5GDm_SHltnJbK_K8XTEjl7DpCm3ruFGd1F2Bw25KTHGH/w400-h272/Screenshot_20220503_022543.png" width="400"></a></div>However, when I then wanted to setup KDE Connect, that's when the problems began, followed by hours upon hours of Googling! In Debian and Ubuntu based distros, I've never had an issue with KDE Connect, it just works, picking up local devices and connecting fine, but not on Endeavour. I tried changing firewall settings, and tried disabling the firewall completely through various methods. <div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKypTmO6gqzP_PTYwRv6miYuK9qWC0-R5LrfQUyaSC9X6Ets1RUQMZ2OX8mCpkuFvhLz9VB3m23b_LjojekZWI0bn02ZlqWpPtnmgrPjJwwRnLssTskD_k-vDACoSOtYIbfY9buloXftc-tBz4QNdtvxKBfvK_tPK9y67W1hKpKcjwuVlEFRJ3wK51/s1150/Screenshot_20220503_024057.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="839" data-original-width="1150" height="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKypTmO6gqzP_PTYwRv6miYuK9qWC0-R5LrfQUyaSC9X6Ets1RUQMZ2OX8mCpkuFvhLz9VB3m23b_LjojekZWI0bn02ZlqWpPtnmgrPjJwwRnLssTskD_k-vDACoSOtYIbfY9buloXftc-tBz4QNdtvxKBfvK_tPK9y67W1hKpKcjwuVlEFRJ3wK51/w640-h466/Screenshot_20220503_024057.png" width="640"></a></div><div><div>So far I have learnt a lot about how to use the 'yay' and 'pacman' commands to install and remove software and have installed a lot of my favourite apps such as Filezilla, Strawberry music player, net-tools, yakuake etc. Using yay to install apps from AUR is useful for installing stuff that can't be had through pacman but I can't seem to get Webmin to install and run properly. <i>Update - to get Webmin working I have had to install from the tar.gz file using the instructions <a href="https://www.webmin.com/tgz.html">here</a>.</i> I've always found it easy to get webmin onto a Debian based machine. I cannot work out why else KDE Connect won't find any other devices. I am afraid that for me, is it curtains for Endeavour Linux? </div><div><br></div><div><b>Update</b>: I have found out that Endeavour Linux uses <i>Firewalld</i> for its firewall, and I have found the <a href="https://www.incredigeek.com/home/allow-kde-connect-through-firewall/?utm_source=pocket_mylist">solution here</a>, thanks to user "FaulesArschloch" on Reddit. </div><div><br></div><div>Run these commands to allow KDE Connect through the Firewall:</div><div><br></div><div><div><i><span> </span>sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-port=1714-1764/tcp</i></div><div><i><span> </span></i><i>sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-port=1714-1764/udp</i></div><div><i><span> </span>sudo systemctl restart firewalld.service</i></div></div><div><br></div><div>Or alternatively just disabled the Firewall with </div><div><br></div><div><i><span> </span>sudo systemctl stop firewalld.service</i></div><div><br></div><div>And you can also remove it completely with</div><div><br></div><div> <i>yay -R firewalld</i> <br></div><div><span><br></span></div><div>That also fixed the issue with <i>mkchromecast </i>not finding my Chromecasts too, but <i>Gnomecast</i> still doesn't find any Chromecasts, that's if it launches at all. Also BTW, as a sidenote, the equivalent to <i>build-essential</i> on Arch is <i>base-devel,</i> useful if you need to build apps from source. </div><div><br></div><div>Apart from <i>pacman</i> and installing from aur using <i>yay</i>, you can also install flatpak for even more apps, install flatpak with <i>yay -S flatpak</i>. I found flatpak was useful for installing the ProjectM visualisation app (it's similar to Milkdrop) as for some reason the version from other sources doesn't seem to work, but the flatpak version worked straight away. If you need a flatpak installed app to access part of the filesystem outside of its sandbox, you can use Flatseal, instructions for that are <a href="https://docs.usebottles.com/flatpak/expose-directories">here</a>.</div><div><br></div><div>Another app I use a lot is Dropbox, there's no package on their site but you can make your own using <a href="https://linuxhint.com/install-dropbox-arch-linux/">these instructions</a> and you'll need to import the gpg key from <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/dropbox#pinned-676597">here</a>.</div><div><br></div><div>Also, another slight niggle is every other boot, the login screen is at the wrong resolution, leaving black bars either side. Nothing major, just slightly irritating. </div><div><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN6EgxmRFnJHrtNPzHZMk3ByzB2FN4y9-YS2Q9viAfkKwX7UwaqVFs-nLKSYAr_WhG6fSQ7NdMx7D78tG37NYzyvEWAjQQCZ6Rsa8Bzz_eOOiiB_DlVQOQJBm6tjHzZjvHcJTgtlxg1-n2XqPAdcItncVFkZXSx1cwb-Ua80KkP4sDzqI2rcIjXZK5/s1280/Screenshot%202022-05-11%2016:14:36.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1280" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN6EgxmRFnJHrtNPzHZMk3ByzB2FN4y9-YS2Q9viAfkKwX7UwaqVFs-nLKSYAr_WhG6fSQ7NdMx7D78tG37NYzyvEWAjQQCZ6Rsa8Bzz_eOOiiB_DlVQOQJBm6tjHzZjvHcJTgtlxg1-n2XqPAdcItncVFkZXSx1cwb-Ua80KkP4sDzqI2rcIjXZK5/w400-h250/Screenshot%202022-05-11%2016:14:36.png" width="400"></a></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Although I have fixed a fair few issues with Endeavour, I am still not that entirely happy with the distro yet, particularly as if I reinstall I will have to go through all these tweaks to get things perfect again. I am still having issues with Gnomecast, though at least Mkchromecast works decently well. I will persevere for now but if I cannot get everything to work, I will either pick another distro to try or go back to KDE Neon on this laptop. </span></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div><div> <p></p></div></div></div>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-32439615815650821632022-01-18T14:16:00.002-08:002022-01-18T14:16:17.567-08:00REVIEW: 6S Foldable Wireless Stereo Headphones <p>My old small foldable headphones recently stopped working properly, and they were getting tatty, so I quickly looked for a suitable replacement set. These 6S foldable headphones were highly rated on Amazon so I went for them. I chose them as they have USB C charging, wired and Bluetooth (5.0) modes and were cheap at just 22 quid. They can also play music from an SD/TF card of up to 32GB, and have an FM tuner too, though I doubt I will use that. They have a claimed playing time of 10 to 12 hours. My pair are black and gold but they're also available in other colours. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQM3HG3T0lqpgDfnOlDOcz84PjSqeyE19XJlZZ21sOa7HTxhVOAaNmU0YbQTUfThkDueOLNS14PjW4FIM2U23_V3HGGmhwF9JiCgL-ZcPEVHhsPGFA6Mc716oe6Bovljie7bUEl4e5RwQC1pm8HCRgdZNGSPFDCSBEbTwwk4k21_XLgIjtBqzce0d4=s3475" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2606" data-original-width="3475" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQM3HG3T0lqpgDfnOlDOcz84PjSqeyE19XJlZZ21sOa7HTxhVOAaNmU0YbQTUfThkDueOLNS14PjW4FIM2U23_V3HGGmhwF9JiCgL-ZcPEVHhsPGFA6Mc716oe6Bovljie7bUEl4e5RwQC1pm8HCRgdZNGSPFDCSBEbTwwk4k21_XLgIjtBqzce0d4=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>Upon unboxing, it took me a few moments to find the USB C port, it's discreetly placed on the side of the left headphone can. Inside the box there is a small instruction manual, a USB C lead and a reasonably long 3.5mm jack-to-jack audio lead (with inline button) to use them in wired mode. Being USB C, I can also charge them with my phone charger, which is handy, as it means I only have to carry one charger with me. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjFN-5-Ht4nG8S7E8-xcU9JAEcURrCQHpZn6wr_D71f9RMoBW2RUtVWbAfbayQXELH2qX0fn63Lo-V7XXUVDBa-V1oW74VHTEz29kYk63KWcx5sS_F2uZuWOGXRbGNHh26e895r7e9zOXLinbM_REYdAzJA2ZQW2h0gi4oH4BrH5jLE7wp9ZujQVOK_=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjFN-5-Ht4nG8S7E8-xcU9JAEcURrCQHpZn6wr_D71f9RMoBW2RUtVWbAfbayQXELH2qX0fn63Lo-V7XXUVDBa-V1oW74VHTEz29kYk63KWcx5sS_F2uZuWOGXRbGNHh26e895r7e9zOXLinbM_REYdAzJA2ZQW2h0gi4oH4BrH5jLE7wp9ZujQVOK_=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>On the left can they have the Power button, Play/Pause/Call Control button, 'M' button (short press to change EQ mode, long press to switch between Bluetooth, FM and SD/TF card) and forward and back buttons. The SD/TF card slot is on the shoulder of the can and the headphone jack on the base of it.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-8w6f6yR6C4eEFyS0FVNMHlYW5A6u2BF0r8_IJPhjkIj4ClaP3XET0bPSgWHA-TNkBBOGJJCGc3-UYBIZtu00Z5sOUEdyWNHfajsz0jiUYmKuJBvDVt8xLgn6kkQ6B21m_Zewz4wmSEzoY0QJVobsxYZxkfgyG-0QQIBzCzq44kFvpADUqpBj3pLv=s3334" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2501" data-original-width="3334" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-8w6f6yR6C4eEFyS0FVNMHlYW5A6u2BF0r8_IJPhjkIj4ClaP3XET0bPSgWHA-TNkBBOGJJCGc3-UYBIZtu00Z5sOUEdyWNHfajsz0jiUYmKuJBvDVt8xLgn6kkQ6B21m_Zewz4wmSEzoY0QJVobsxYZxkfgyG-0QQIBzCzq44kFvpADUqpBj3pLv=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><p>The 6S fold up to a fairly compact size. Not sure how long the hinges will last, they open and close with a hard click sound each time. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEixw_zuwnwRYJZoHbYqqK-_NptktnP5LcHEuQ9e-kEVl11VBIQglQhGFudsGMbkO-pZG59-SXcYqR-PnttJ_YrTobJZMfQIAup5KCq4gt5TGJQzrTwAwbA5NOUxbcKQr2I_VAxNV6CEZ1aIjOmHs12Ai6Fm37SqLTHAEygXWdLifV8D7yuz3MQTq2wS=s4032" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEixw_zuwnwRYJZoHbYqqK-_NptktnP5LcHEuQ9e-kEVl11VBIQglQhGFudsGMbkO-pZG59-SXcYqR-PnttJ_YrTobJZMfQIAup5KCq4gt5TGJQzrTwAwbA5NOUxbcKQr2I_VAxNV6CEZ1aIjOmHs12Ai6Fm37SqLTHAEygXWdLifV8D7yuz3MQTq2wS=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><p>They are fairly comfortable to wear for an hour or two, but the only adjustment is the sliders for the band on them, so it may not suit everyone, and they really could do with a bit more padding at the top where it sits on your head. Wearing a hat underneath them might be a good idea... </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiaNQc4aweUNiXzZh4I1Oa_23gJNDdnO09tCrvwBOtQiUPVT8uZH8gZp_eRdYl8gd4rpYK9OBXka_Sf23CKrfDuPYu2PK84gYvb_Zwb4tkwx2y7ePUMVb4btObCu3HYG976ac4G3TA8M4_pO5Zb3hxPHn-d6TtyzmVWAveovECPI-avkGN2kggwT_wD=s3264" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiaNQc4aweUNiXzZh4I1Oa_23gJNDdnO09tCrvwBOtQiUPVT8uZH8gZp_eRdYl8gd4rpYK9OBXka_Sf23CKrfDuPYu2PK84gYvb_Zwb4tkwx2y7ePUMVb4btObCu3HYG976ac4G3TA8M4_pO5Zb3hxPHn-d6TtyzmVWAveovECPI-avkGN2kggwT_wD=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></div><p>When you turn them on for the first time they go into pairing mode and they pair just like any other Bluetooth headphones. I had no issues pairing them to my Pixel 4a. A voice announces "power on" and "power off". </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEie1X0tbPw3wPvs0qCaF4tvysEGR3ykQYUxKSQO6pW2V5z3rCCXfiHL7pZjc6e_dxDugrNw_yl7MfzyOg02AKqD_kgLejej2Yl616xe9fIsQ4TTboaYaU68-zxNEwHdzTSdLZTgzfJ67kglbHf1Antn1gUTlPQno_JmmxU8psOXqf5tkbGA2bJIR5ZG=s2340" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2340" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEie1X0tbPw3wPvs0qCaF4tvysEGR3ykQYUxKSQO6pW2V5z3rCCXfiHL7pZjc6e_dxDugrNw_yl7MfzyOg02AKqD_kgLejej2Yl616xe9fIsQ4TTboaYaU68-zxNEwHdzTSdLZTgzfJ67kglbHf1Antn1gUTlPQno_JmmxU8psOXqf5tkbGA2bJIR5ZG=w296-h640" width="296" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>They have plenty of bass and are very loud, both in Bluetooth and wired modes, which is great. In wired mode they are louder than my budget JBL cans that I use on my workstation PCs. Even when not playing music the shape of them blocks out other sound to a certain extent.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg664cXyflpVJ6Fh0-4Ye7dzTKMfakhiwxlQUNvA9szLVVLSP18MdXTsRfg3Xar7NOx7jCyfGHwAO602uhEoZuSsuDWIzmNMevYwypIwxNW-veX5JJ0XK-5xcysCc45wkEwsWcFfM-faKtezafAA9ETOf_cd1-FZ4WYyTsdebVkQ0in3FfWl3_AXibq=s3689" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2767" data-original-width="3689" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg664cXyflpVJ6Fh0-4Ye7dzTKMfakhiwxlQUNvA9szLVVLSP18MdXTsRfg3Xar7NOx7jCyfGHwAO602uhEoZuSsuDWIzmNMevYwypIwxNW-veX5JJ0XK-5xcysCc45wkEwsWcFfM-faKtezafAA9ETOf_cd1-FZ4WYyTsdebVkQ0in3FfWl3_AXibq=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p><b>Conclusion</b></p><p>So, overall these are a reasonably decent set of foldable Bluetooth headphones that have a bonus of wired and SD card modes too. Decent enough sound quality, plenty of bass and also nice and loud! They fold up to a handy size and can be used wired if the battery runs out while I am out. And I can charge them with a USB C lead and portable battery pack if I want to. For £22 on Amazon, they're worth keeping in my rucksack for when they're needed. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiRtsDZ9GCtvOPx1GyB-ENPuMc9FuhwT3NvBCdy5CrIfBLO0Sr34jGsqjUTft9wRVLHW0TSC0qrylXuKxIIWarxyejVMH2A_SHGoO0cuYSfLQa7IauQsLZfGvf32BQplPJRjEBQl0slH3B6HhMS-X4uf1zR0Dgv3BEPFSMUjP8TgoRMe_mOnZsdsd3q=s4032" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiRtsDZ9GCtvOPx1GyB-ENPuMc9FuhwT3NvBCdy5CrIfBLO0Sr34jGsqjUTft9wRVLHW0TSC0qrylXuKxIIWarxyejVMH2A_SHGoO0cuYSfLQa7IauQsLZfGvf32BQplPJRjEBQl0slH3B6HhMS-X4uf1zR0Dgv3BEPFSMUjP8TgoRMe_mOnZsdsd3q=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p> </p>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-88604793469769848892022-01-16T17:25:00.000-08:002022-01-16T17:25:09.176-08:00 My Nintendo DS Collection… Obsession.<p>I have always been a portable gaming fan. My first console was a Nintendo GameBoy and I loved it. From GameBoy to GameBoy Color to GameBoy Advance and then to the amazing Nintendo DS Lite. The DS range brought a new era of gaming to the handheld market. Over the years I have owned multiple Nintendo DS Lite consoles and it is by far the platform I have used the most over the past 15+ years. I have owned several Sony PSPs and a PS Vita – but the DS line is where my love is.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/znOo1d75NBc" width="320" youtube-src-id="znOo1d75NBc"></iframe></div><p>After realising just how expensive the PS Vita and games where I decided to part with it and buy a Nintendo 3DS and it was a fantastic decision. Over the past 18 months my passion and collection has grown immensely. </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhrHBXdpk5lThCjjFIMHPMpCDYnWFSDFlvCSc9S5ohrZqsu7ggQlGZdLHeSHf4jzgynBz8OZN4n6w_egsiroAVsA2o-W-B60sqD1aOZ_zVdeQnqJiYDbt0FIveZXYbuDXbyWAk5YBTrDDufTcZut-U-W3kIC2a1JcIfXZ4-0D9gByvmC3uhQPZJOcIC=s1280" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="198" data-original-width="1280" height="50" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhrHBXdpk5lThCjjFIMHPMpCDYnWFSDFlvCSc9S5ohrZqsu7ggQlGZdLHeSHf4jzgynBz8OZN4n6w_egsiroAVsA2o-W-B60sqD1aOZ_zVdeQnqJiYDbt0FIveZXYbuDXbyWAk5YBTrDDufTcZut-U-W3kIC2a1JcIfXZ4-0D9gByvmC3uhQPZJOcIC=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>The Nintendo 3DS is a fantastic console with its increased hardware and new range of games it offers so much more than the DS range. Don’t get me wrong I love the DS games, but its hardware – in true Nintendo style – isn’t there to be a powerhouse, instead to be a handheld with amazing battery life. It is predominantly a 2D console although it does have some impressive 3D titles (such as Dementium, COP The Recruit and Metroid Prime Hunters). Plus the Nintendo 3DS is backward compatible with DS games – making it an awesome console. </p><p>The Nintendo 3DS introduced the Circle Pad but it only had one, making 3D games and first person shooters difficult to play. This was rectified with the ‘New’ range which added a second pad in the form of the C-Stick, and I bought a New Nintendo 2DS XL. It has all the features of the new range, just without the stereoscopic 3D – plus it has the larger screens.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AoEqxgVsY54" width="320" youtube-src-id="AoEqxgVsY54"></iframe></div><p>The New Nintendo 2DS XL is a fantastic console, which not only added new buttons but also drastically increased processing power, system RAM and video RAM and it easily my best console.</p><p>But that doesn’t mean I have abandoned older models. Recently I bought my wife a Nintendo DSi XL as she wanted a handheld console with larger screens and I fell in love with it. Shortly after I picked up a regular Nintendo DSi – a console I hadn’t seen the point in before as it didn’t offer that much over the Nintendo DS Lite, however the small changes it did bring make it a better gaming experience, especially these days.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6TB6kuQgTQk" width="320" youtube-src-id="6TB6kuQgTQk"></iframe></div><p>And finally – for now – I purchased a console I have wanted for a long time, the original Nintendo DS, the ‘phat’ model that started it all. I have no need for one, I have plenty of other DS consoles I could play on, but I just wanted an original model to add to my collection, to sit on my shelf and look good.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0FiA3IET0vw" width="320" youtube-src-id="0FiA3IET0vw"></iframe></div><p>I am considering looking out for a an original Nintendo 2DS – the wedge shaped one – or a New Nintendo 3DS just to add further to my collection, but only if I can find them at a decent price.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k7QWZ6moJLU" width="320" youtube-src-id="k7QWZ6moJLU"></iframe></div><p>My <a href="https://www.youtube.com/simonroyal" target="_blank">YouTube channel</a> is dedicated to portable and older gaming – as well as other tech – and it has become a hub for all my DS content over the last year or so.</p><p>The Nintendo DS range – with all its variants – is where I love to be. I spend just as much time talking about and creating video about as I do playing on this wonderful range of portable consoles. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifh_SFN2nBknxZHrhcMgTl81EAt9G9wn3Hbr2FxZIj29dVOKmm5t7lOTQLKYUE-BRCPf8TxGuw22qYARrLvHWNN4G8yKjhWogW9eT74reOctSS8HAMQW6UKcPTGtN5PCskygoN2Z1yClQ2YkDFzN0tt7fohvvFSheTRNdoD0u4ELSeQ6oDkjoC08cW=s4000" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifh_SFN2nBknxZHrhcMgTl81EAt9G9wn3Hbr2FxZIj29dVOKmm5t7lOTQLKYUE-BRCPf8TxGuw22qYARrLvHWNN4G8yKjhWogW9eT74reOctSS8HAMQW6UKcPTGtN5PCskygoN2Z1yClQ2YkDFzN0tt7fohvvFSheTRNdoD0u4ELSeQ6oDkjoC08cW=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><i data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #c8c3bc; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at <a data-darkreader-inline-color="" href="http://twitter.com/simonroyal" style="--darkreader-inline-color: #6ea3cf; color: #6699cc; text-decoration-line: none;">twitter.com/simonroyal</a></i></p>Simon Royalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15004143767222498320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-79052249930314564632022-01-15T16:18:00.000-08:002022-01-15T16:18:10.066-08:00Goodmans True Wireless Earphones Pro Review. B&M Exclusive.<p>I have had a love hate relationship with wireless earphones for a long time. I love the idea of them, but being small the batteries aren’t big meaning battery life isn’t great. I don’t like going out only to find the battery has run out.</p><p>However, wired earphones aren’t always practical, the cable gets caught on things or gets tangled in clothing.</p><p>So I bought some <a href="https://youtu.be/tpFkZdFYjpg" target="_blank">Goodmans True Wireless Earphones Pro</a> from my local B&M Store. At £15 for a recognised brand I thought it was worth a look – and the specs looked pretty decent.</p><p>Like most mini wireless ‘stick’ earphones they come in their own charging case – charging the case rather than the earphones themselves. So I opened the box, popped the earphones in the case and started charging them. They use USB-C which I was pleased to see. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjaPZTZubQZQupVo5IjsGKp3RDgxr1sym-8wKZGm8rXYZeIr1NsfTGpVXE2jmdUTc-K3ajB34ofYzm8cBk4a44MnPtHswOXiyMfce1tfa7OBFhZd4ww52v-AsCAwlbQvbs1z9mvzeoYe_7kGRE18S533spfKq6LIzOHbBVMnHrKM2nz2VlBw65UTMNh=s4000" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjaPZTZubQZQupVo5IjsGKp3RDgxr1sym-8wKZGm8rXYZeIr1NsfTGpVXE2jmdUTc-K3ajB34ofYzm8cBk4a44MnPtHswOXiyMfce1tfa7OBFhZd4ww52v-AsCAwlbQvbs1z9mvzeoYe_7kGRE18S533spfKq6LIzOHbBVMnHrKM2nz2VlBw65UTMNh=s320" width="320" /></a></div><p>The build quality seems good for both the earphones and case. The earphones seem a little chunky, but fit in my ears well and are comfortable. I suppose the size is to accommodate the 40mAh battery in them, which should last 5 hours on a single charge. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiPVXQjiwiY15nfHFYFpvHGJVzzHqQgJ21RvQXBStiexGwjdnlRwZVrjzNdAh-WBzYRraohjOA_zGUFqE_g7ytW0qW2IemZ10uY0ILW95im2JCjHC5n9nacI_nAmSynolNVcdh8_MYIWekOj3xuyDx1sYSBONJytiiHCSIow9OXvESZp7aWjaPdqp7A=s3264" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiPVXQjiwiY15nfHFYFpvHGJVzzHqQgJ21RvQXBStiexGwjdnlRwZVrjzNdAh-WBzYRraohjOA_zGUFqE_g7ytW0qW2IemZ10uY0ILW95im2JCjHC5n9nacI_nAmSynolNVcdh8_MYIWekOj3xuyDx1sYSBONJytiiHCSIow9OXvESZp7aWjaPdqp7A=s320" width="240" /></a></div><p>The box states 20 hours, but that is with the case. When you have finished or if they run out of battery you pop the earphone back in the case and it charges them for you – given that the case has a 300mAh battery the case should charge the earphones two or three times. This is great if you are out and need to charge them.</p><p>The other thing I like about them is, if you use both they automatically sync to each other and can be used as a pair. However, you can use one at a time – popping just one back in the case will turn it off and start charging it – while allowing you to use the other one.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiYXMnKrnR5xqLycrKkGHSSy9-SM25W93uNWtU6oB5CiUFA0JMWhaZIP_YnirRqgSibvZ9D44OCgp2e2j5b-21cM-hytGbPuwUDNLWKerSXqriFokoDvzLOfgP8E_wVFMZH_23mAWbrNuc6Xwn9zXRTUwPa-0-pGO91TlOGNjam8oUrLoDm3iKcnPiM=s4000" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiYXMnKrnR5xqLycrKkGHSSy9-SM25W93uNWtU6oB5CiUFA0JMWhaZIP_YnirRqgSibvZ9D44OCgp2e2j5b-21cM-hytGbPuwUDNLWKerSXqriFokoDvzLOfgP8E_wVFMZH_23mAWbrNuc6Xwn9zXRTUwPa-0-pGO91TlOGNjam8oUrLoDm3iKcnPiM=s320" width="240" /></a></div><p>Pairing was easy. I just set my phone to search and it picked them up straight away. Sound quality is pretty decent too, with great volume and a good amount of bass. Listening to music through them was a joy. </p><p>Call quality was a mixed bag. On my first call the recipient struggled to hear me – however I was beside a busy road, with a covid mask on and a beanie hat over them. Further calls inside my house had no issues.</p><p>You can also use them for your voice assistant. I know they aren’t going to be the best – but I didn’t fancy spending fortune. I have seen others brands and models priced at up to £180.</p><p>I have been very impressed. I like the audio quality, I like the battery life and I like the way they are charged in the case. For the price I think they are great value for money.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tpFkZdFYjpg" width="320" youtube-src-id="tpFkZdFYjpg"></iframe></div><p>For a <a href="https://youtu.be/tpFkZdFYjpg" target="_blank">full video review</a>, check out my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/simonroyal" target="_blank">YouTube channel</a> for older and portable gaming as well as tech videos such as this one.</p><p><i data-darkreader-inline-bgcolor="" data-darkreader-inline-color="" style="--darkreader-inline-bgcolor: #181a1b; --darkreader-inline-color: #c8c3bc; background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px;">Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at <a data-darkreader-inline-color="" href="http://twitter.com/simonroyal" style="--darkreader-inline-color: #6ea3cf; color: #6699cc; text-decoration-line: none;">twitter.com/simonroyal</a></i></p>Simon Royalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15004143767222498320noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6916008535171297071.post-71652120623552536252021-11-10T08:59:00.005-08:002022-01-17T16:33:55.864-08:00Installing KDE Neon on a Lenovo Thinkpad X201<p>I recently acquired a Lenovo Thinkpad X201 from Tech Thoughts contributor Simon Royal, as he has upgraded to a newer and quicker Dell Latitude. This is only the second Thinkpad I have owned, the first being a <a href="https://all-tech-thoughts.blogspot.com/2020/07/resurrecting-my-lenovo-thinkpad-w500.html" target="_blank">W500</a> that had a failed discrete graphics chip, so it sits on a shelf as spares. The X201 reminds me of a smaller version of that, much lighter, and significantly more powerful, having a second gen Intel i5 M520, 2.4ghz quad core CPU instead of a Core 2 Duo and has Intel GMA integrated graphics. Being a little 12.1 inch laptop, it's much lighter than either the W500 or my old E6500 Latitude.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOgHZkvXhY1ayVFGtgczm_A2BcplEjDBQuRCasvDwwHiIIfIaCUAR6saZH7gX4chF_I2rJkbnRCBMbcVlF1pAG_-tuJeDFJBle-LVIBzc0RA8mFiiS76MSRaPvYc3hdzsWi2wuKLi5QiY/s2048/PXL_20211026_141101916.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOgHZkvXhY1ayVFGtgczm_A2BcplEjDBQuRCasvDwwHiIIfIaCUAR6saZH7gX4chF_I2rJkbnRCBMbcVlF1pAG_-tuJeDFJBle-LVIBzc0RA8mFiiS76MSRaPvYc3hdzsWi2wuKLi5QiY/w400-h300/PXL_20211026_141101916.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>The great thing about these old Thinkpads (and Dell Latitudes) is they are easy to upgrade and replace components, Simon fitted 8GB RAM and a 128GB SSD. And also of course, like the Dell, they run Linux like a champ! </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-UoSqswx6nBESZvDiDQQGk7O_MYdWyNy77sbZBNZxR_ALmNpHuMbnpznhhMYk419bq0zPf_HDGPSbz3V15S1CFvAc9RmW6uwdhloOdNziQsD-eoqki-pRFBvMWc_nTfdTDW7qMkLVlTY/s2048/PXL_20211026_135707143.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-UoSqswx6nBESZvDiDQQGk7O_MYdWyNy77sbZBNZxR_ALmNpHuMbnpznhhMYk419bq0zPf_HDGPSbz3V15S1CFvAc9RmW6uwdhloOdNziQsD-eoqki-pRFBvMWc_nTfdTDW7qMkLVlTY/w400-h300/PXL_20211026_135707143.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><b>Installing KDE Neon</b></p><p>I downloaded my distro of choice, the latest version of KDE Neon User Edition, and flashed it to a memory stick using Etcher. After setting the boot device to USB in the BIOS, it was just a case of installing in the usual way from the live CD installer, which took no time at all.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlN043uMyRkq4oaWIwxRbYboYZr3ydr7SU4QsmDC-AfNffSUa7QmQY2yLhOmEL-ZI1YWwGgFz9Ocvo5VTeBw0sE-DimlOvDlHDic5uAJQb8dDvyAptjAKYG1uRQ0pIDsDM3FUrM1USpck/s1280/Screenshot_20211026_180302.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1280" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlN043uMyRkq4oaWIwxRbYboYZr3ydr7SU4QsmDC-AfNffSUa7QmQY2yLhOmEL-ZI1YWwGgFz9Ocvo5VTeBw0sE-DimlOvDlHDic5uAJQb8dDvyAptjAKYG1uRQ0pIDsDM3FUrM1USpck/w400-h250/Screenshot_20211026_180302.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>On first boot I was impressed how snappy this thing runs! Neon runs much better on this than my older Dell Latitude E6500. It's a definitly a step up from the older machine. The first thing I did after logging in was disable the silly update on reboot thing that KDE has now, as I detailed in a <a href="https://all-tech-thoughts.blogspot.com/2021/04/how-to-get-rid-of-system-upgrade-in.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">previous blog post</a>, and immediately switched to Breeze Dark theme. Next I removed snapd and installed Synaptic package manager because Discover is infuriating! </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1qJ-Q_f89psJyoYZ3yOnUIaiFNbBeBPIil2u_WEOI1aqKujk0qC-FdxM8g03OxPTPa9RiTux5-aft9sr3I85r_bjzt_m2ERATg8vVLX1JtMqfoRobQt4ZzkCgpQ1N-xhfF5kNqcjficI/s1280/Screenshot_20211026_184418.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1280" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1qJ-Q_f89psJyoYZ3yOnUIaiFNbBeBPIil2u_WEOI1aqKujk0qC-FdxM8g03OxPTPa9RiTux5-aft9sr3I85r_bjzt_m2ERATg8vVLX1JtMqfoRobQt4ZzkCgpQ1N-xhfF5kNqcjficI/w400-h250/Screenshot_20211026_184418.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>I then installed all my most used apps, such as Google Chrome, Filezilla (FTP client), Soundkonverter etc, and most importantly GIMP. I mostly use my Chromebook for general browsing the net and stuff but GIMP takes a while to start and still does not work properly in Linux on my Chromebook, copy and paste does not work properly for me, so this is one reason why I like having a 'proper' Linux running laptop to hand, with more storage and proper filesystem etc. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4aA9oraigtltAFjYN6lm6mJnajJE3O9I7v4_1eZy9sshGcwAK0acKMwjhjaKCNBOGRKtQLwYbuRRCnvr7aA2SqwCWOrcffvZPoYFqIxDvuhG7EjjmUblZN2iVsYRXdDQx7rxa4JOCX2Q/s1280/Screenshot_20211101_153825.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1280" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4aA9oraigtltAFjYN6lm6mJnajJE3O9I7v4_1eZy9sshGcwAK0acKMwjhjaKCNBOGRKtQLwYbuRRCnvr7aA2SqwCWOrcffvZPoYFqIxDvuhG7EjjmUblZN2iVsYRXdDQx7rxa4JOCX2Q/w400-h250/Screenshot_20211101_153825.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>As with all my KDE installs, I use Latte Dock and Papirus icons and Breeze Dark is my preferred desktop theme, and I configured KDE Connect to sync with my phone and other computers. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGwrsg9d0FppY7w6__rjI1jnH2MiPVcTTtL1aEt9H03_x6QnIQviPD4AiQ04MbAhwFZPXAA8gnmxuGF6CynlMNgdNacuwa1VQ6r5vdgCR9Rp4Sd1aMmluc6JL-f4Q5C21t6RvjDRvn-DQ/s1280/Screenshot_20211110_154858.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1280" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGwrsg9d0FppY7w6__rjI1jnH2MiPVcTTtL1aEt9H03_x6QnIQviPD4AiQ04MbAhwFZPXAA8gnmxuGF6CynlMNgdNacuwa1VQ6r5vdgCR9Rp4Sd1aMmluc6JL-f4Q5C21t6RvjDRvn-DQ/w400-h250/Screenshot_20211110_154858.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>There was a brief hold-up when Launchpad was down for several minutes so I had to wait a bit before I could install Strawberry music player via their PPA. Strawberry is a fork of Clementine, which has not been updated in years. Strawberry is great for large collections and has transcoding and good tag editing support. <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWrLimgKB4JRFdFAm-PcGudB3BQou-VzP4H8NkZ1M1LGOh-UNk9o4f6xWI-ctCKP15-QuBYfclhqXmgOCePz9lY0CLadHKTvDoa9JJ8jrP6tde9VdLoe2HnrsK9UcIJwy22Xcmodd8Sdk/s1280/Screenshot_20211101_153102.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1280" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWrLimgKB4JRFdFAm-PcGudB3BQou-VzP4H8NkZ1M1LGOh-UNk9o4f6xWI-ctCKP15-QuBYfclhqXmgOCePz9lY0CLadHKTvDoa9JJ8jrP6tde9VdLoe2HnrsK9UcIJwy22Xcmodd8Sdk/w400-h250/Screenshot_20211101_153102.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>The X201 has the old ThinkLight that lights up the keyboard somewhat, before backlit keyboards became common. It's not quite as good as backlit keyboard but still better than no illumination at all, which none of my other working laptops have, including my Acer Chromebook 14. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbp1J56ak9SawZFTsO2B-W6GWFP_AlsZ9HCTaZbnAbkwn6qWX-xvhC1aJbhOJb12qgldqlofN30PpntqkXlivX6qiFT-6WtjRCTsOkjs4LskSpnds8yXQg_5iY6p-BV7fXmr4FxhnnZG8/s2048/PXL_20211101_153704911.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbp1J56ak9SawZFTsO2B-W6GWFP_AlsZ9HCTaZbnAbkwn6qWX-xvhC1aJbhOJb12qgldqlofN30PpntqkXlivX6qiFT-6WtjRCTsOkjs4LskSpnds8yXQg_5iY6p-BV7fXmr4FxhnnZG8/w400-h300/PXL_20211101_153704911.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>The keyboard is a small but very usable classic Thinkpad design, it's nice to type on, though let down by the very small trackpad, one downside of tiny laptops. It's wide enough but not deep enough so two finger scrolling is more awkward, compared with the large trackpads on larger or more modern laptops, like my Chromebook, so I mostly use a USB mouse. I prefer using a mouse for image editing anyway.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgppyg6UDfgvPnhGUZthff3dm5NFde64C7-oMYzWxaZPJFqdrL2QtMxnpp8v7onaDnh-Hgh5fBVjkpakxX7NtdPpKgza-4A5WfP93Q4KWV4tSOV-0OrYXH4dkgeG1IUhdjYk2LzzLT5yEU/s2048/PXL_20211101_153433512.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgppyg6UDfgvPnhGUZthff3dm5NFde64C7-oMYzWxaZPJFqdrL2QtMxnpp8v7onaDnh-Hgh5fBVjkpakxX7NtdPpKgza-4A5WfP93Q4KWV4tSOV-0OrYXH4dkgeG1IUhdjYk2LzzLT5yEU/w400-h300/PXL_20211101_153433512.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>I disabled the Nipple Mouse (TrackPoint) in the BIOS as I have never got on with it all and it stops me accidentally moving the mouse when catching it while typing. The screen is not bad but not quite as nice as my Dell, and whoever first purchased it specced the lower screen resolution version too, it's typical for a base spec business grade laptop. It does go quite bright if you want it to but I tend to have it less than half brightness. I've also found its SD card reader (located at the front of the X201) very useful for my old camera SD cards. Unlike most of my older laptops, it can support the larger size SD cards. </p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD3BhlfBLvgyAyw9M1DkYGUaQfKSt1CbivalRMyKcVygRdS7ax-lUXSEdev8dbTJg5-7Kz9iT5uSzWLAGVEiGtPzs_oBYU9HGhLtj7efgxRfdn5v8V2ztEk5sp_pMy19nxNdj-FAdvMYo/s2048/PXL_20211101_153450059.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD3BhlfBLvgyAyw9M1DkYGUaQfKSt1CbivalRMyKcVygRdS7ax-lUXSEdev8dbTJg5-7Kz9iT5uSzWLAGVEiGtPzs_oBYU9HGhLtj7efgxRfdn5v8V2ztEk5sp_pMy19nxNdj-FAdvMYo/w400-h300/PXL_20211101_153450059.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>I mostly use the X201 for a bit of browsing and making memes in GIMP while relaxing on the sofa, plus other stuff that is not possible (or very difficult) with a Chromebook, such as a bit of audio transcoding with Soundkonverter, and it performs just fine at those tasks. At times lately it actually feels snappier than my Chromebook, probably helped by the 8GB RAM, compared with only 4GB on my Acer Chromebook 14. Obviously with it's 4 cores it performs audio conversion significantly faster than my old C2D Dell Latitude, so overall I really am quite pleased with it, it's a fine little machine for its age. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSJ3MpZnq7aGS1X_VcGcNmeblAsNoB5DNiMhpU4CYK4Kcueo-NSscSYa_FE18sj6fO8GCfEjN_3ovUbJ6W2BampFd1CG9bB43uHT1JJG2QFbsqSUNjwyefGvzm7QxJhQgtLM9aCCFzGoc/s2048/PXL_20211101_153720422.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSJ3MpZnq7aGS1X_VcGcNmeblAsNoB5DNiMhpU4CYK4Kcueo-NSscSYa_FE18sj6fO8GCfEjN_3ovUbJ6W2BampFd1CG9bB43uHT1JJG2QFbsqSUNjwyefGvzm7QxJhQgtLM9aCCFzGoc/w400-h300/PXL_20211101_153720422.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><b>Update 18/01/2021</b> - I found that occasionally I have been getting the dreaded <i>Fan Error</i> preventing it form booting, so I think it could do with a clean, though that is quite a fiddly process of removing a dozen screws, keyboard and other bits. I am hoping i have alleviated the issue somewhat by installing and configuring <a href="https://gist.github.com/Yatoom/1c80b8afe7fa47a938d3b667ce234559#file-thinkfan-conf">Thinkfan</a>, which should keep the temperatures in check too. I also found <a href="https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=119546">this forum post</a> here helpful </p>Carl Draperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09177915812566292083noreply@blogger.com0