28th Ocrober 2024

I've been messing around with LLMs on the m93p and also on the Surface Pro for a while.  A few minutes ago I remembered that both Opera and my Office Suite (SoftMaker Office) have their own built-in AI, so I decided to have a quick play with Opera's 'Aria' AI.

One thing I didn;t realise was that Aria has a Text to Image function.
No, that's another thing I had played with in depth when I accidentally discovered 'Perchance AI' some time ago.  The results were pretty 'out there', but I managed some really nice Desktop Wallpapers for my systems.

So I fired up Opera and did this quick test:

The text of the BASH script was:

#!/bin/bash # Set the output file name output_file="combined.mp3" # Concatenate all .mp3 files in the current directory for file in *.mp3; do # Append each file to the output file cat "$file" >> "$output_file" done echo "All .mp3 files have been combined into '$output_file'."

I tested the BASH script and it worked perfectly.  I'm not suggesting I would use AI to write all my scripts, but it might be worth testing it on a few Pyton and other scripts just out of curiosity, because it came up with a result immediately.

At any rate, for anyone running Linux, and I guess other Operating Systems as well, it is worth knowing that ARIA in Opera works fine and as well as being an interesting novelty for creating computer wallpaper or cartoons, it can actually be used for a certain amount of work (with caveats).

Since I use Opera on my Android Mobile, I really must have a look and see if the current version of Opera on Android also has ARIA AI.

The Surface Pro LINUX experiment continues Part 2

 It has been a while since I updated this. I played around with a few Linux distros that should have worked on the Surface Pro 3, but I kept coming back to Mint Cinnamon because it had two things that worked pretty well out of the box.

A good deal of this experimenting involved some tiny USB sticks, well, more like USB ‘Buttons’ of various capacities from 64GB to 256GB. The focus was on creating ‘Persistent’ Live Bootable USB drives, so I could properly test each distro and save my work between sessions including enything I had modified.

Both Surface Pros had Windows already installed, the 8/64GB Surface Pro 3 had WIndows 10, and the 8/256GB Surface Pro 3 was running Windows 11 Pro, so I liked the Persistent Live thing because I could easily swap between Tablets and compare the performance of the different RAM in the tablets running each Distribution.

Originally I liked Kubuntu for the way it just felt and looked nice on the Surface Pro. The big annoyances were the crappy On-Screen keyboard and the fact that if I disconnected the Keyboard/Cover to use the tablet standalone, I had to go in manually and select the orientatin of the screen every time I wanted to swap from Portrait to landscape or back.
That function was enabled by default in Mint Cinnamon.
I also ran a few other distros on the Surface with varying results, but it kept coming down to Cinnamon or Plasma.

When my mind was almost made up to stick with Cinnamon because of the screen rotation, Neon had just moved from Alpha to beta, and I had downloaded a copy. On a whim I tried Neon 6 Beta on the Surface Pro, about when Neon was transitioning from Plasma 5.27 into Plasma 6.
Everything was running beautifully and I liked the newer Plasma style better than Kubuntu’s. The trouble was – that stupid lack of autorotate of the screen was still a pain.

Now, one of the beautiful things about Beta testing is that the whole point of the testing is to try to run a new Distro or App on as many devices as possible. So I filed a bug report about it. In the meantime I had found a way to make the screen rotate automatically, so while I was at it, I sent the details about how I was making it happen and asked if this could be implemented before Plasma 5.27 actually released as Plasma 6.
One other beauty of having a go at testing a Beta is that some developers actually read requests and suggestions. Within a few days I had an acknowledgement, and in the next Beta it was operational.

That experience sort of sealed the rest of the search for a Linux Surface Tablet OS.
I’ve been using Neon 6 since that time and it has got better and better. It is one of the best discoveries I’ve ever made in more than 20 years of using Linux as my daily Operating System.

 

(Neon 6.2.2 on a Surface Pro 3 with 8/256GB at October 26 2024)

 Now there is only a single hurdle. Most Linux distros are moving from X11 display for graphics, to Wayland.
One of my major uses for a Linux Tablet is as a terminal into my various other Linux computers that run on my home network.
Also, as I think I’ver written before, I use VNC – Virtual Network Computing, rather than traditional networking. That means I can basically ‘Remote Control’ various other computers from my Surface Tablet. I have a single %% inch LED Monitor, with several computers connected to it using HDMI.
All can be controlled using a single Mouse and Keyboard without having to change or switch anything.

I use the Virtual Desktop function built into Linux to simply open each remote computer’s desktop in whichever other computer, in this case, the Surface pro tablet.
I can also remote into any other computer from my main one viewin them in the same way, on a Virtual Desktop.
Mouse and Keyboard control move from one to another automatically as soon as I move the mouse cursor into the Window of the other machine on its Virtual Desktop. It sounds a lot more complicated than it is.

And the problem?

I use an App called NoMachine to run my VNC. NoMachine does NOT play nice with Wayland just yet.
For now I gan easily get around that by simply log in each machine into a Plasma (X11) session, but eventually if Neon drops X11 support I’l be stuffed. For now KDE has plans to keep supporting X11 for legacy systems.

One last thing. I was so pleased with the way Neon 6 / Plasma 6 works on the 8/256GB Surface Pro 3 that I wiped Windows 11 (which I was updating, but never using) and installed Neon 6 to the internal NVMe.

KDE Plasma Neon and Kubuntu - Randomly Change the Colour of the Prompt and following Text each time Konsole starts

To Start Konsole Terminal so the Colour of the Prompt (and the text you type after it) Change at each time it is Opened:

Open Konsole

Right Click Toobar > Configure Toolbars

Make sure you have Main Toolbar selected (NOT Session Toolbar)

You may have to use the field to choose Main . .

On Left choose ‘Activate Menu’ and drag it into the Right pane

Click Activate menu

Choose Settings > Edit Current Profile

Choose Appearance> Linux Colors >

Click then Choose Edit Button at Right Top

Just below the Colour Block Tick [*] Randomly adjust colors for each session

Click Apply then Ok

When that closes click Ok again

Close Konsole and open and close it a couple of times to confirm that the PROMPT and subsequent Text colours change each time.

The Surface Pro LINUX Experiment continues

 It is now March 2024 and a lot has been happening with the Surface Pro 3 LINUX thing.  
Among the big things has been that Linux Mint is now at v 21.3, and Mint 21.2 Cinnamon works more or less perfectly on the Surface 3, so I will soon get Cinnamon 21.3 set up on it.

The biggest news however, is that I have finally managed to work out how to best set up a Persistent-Live USB Flash Drive with the right partitioning space.
The less exciting news is that I cannot get a USB stick over 64GB to boot.  A 64GB stick set at 90% for Persistence however, gives me about 45GB of user space for files and Apps.

That's not too bad considering that the Surface Pro 3 has its MicroSD card slot still available, and that takes (so far) a 256GB card.

And just like that another month has passed.
I got Mint 21.3 installed 'Live - Persistent' and for some reason mkusb only gives me a 4GB writable partition and the 45Gb space is now Read Only.  That sucks.  
To top that off, the same thing is happening with some other distros, and even worse, Kubuntu 24 is now out, and that won't boot to a live 'parsistent' desktop at all.

Neither would KDE neon 6.  
The last really successful Neon 6 I had runnign Persistent Live was one of the ver first 'Beta 2' releases.  Those would still boot to X11.  Later releases of Neon 6 started ONLY booting to Wayland, and the most recent ones don;t even seem to have an X11 option 'if' I manage to get them to log out.

In desperation i tried Ventoy and followed the instructions carefully - and that failed, so I followed the instructions for a slightly different setup and that also failed.

It 'seems' something has chnaged in the 'Installers' of some distros neither mkusb nor Ventoy seem to like it.  Once I get over the frustration I will experiment more. 

The last 'Perfect' Persistent-Live'installations I have are Cinnamon 21.2 and KDE neon 6 Beta 2.  It now seems I deleted the ISO files for those early Betas.  There were so many of them, and the way thngs were going I decided I would not need them.

If it was not for needing X11 to run NoMachine properly I would not bother, because the Live Persistent USB drives run pretty well perfectly on the Surface Pro.

So where am I now?

I still have two Live Persistent USB drives running Mint Cinnamon 21.2, so the obvious decision is not to modifyt those in any way - but keep them as failsafes.

My project this week will be to try creating a couple of 64GB Live Persistent USB drives using the most recent Mint Cinnamon 21.3

Mint Cinnamon has so far proved to be pretty robust, and while I prefer the 'look and feel' of Plasma 6 on the Surface Pro, Cinnamon still 'just works'.

Making MInt Mobile - Updated November 2023

 The Surface Pro experiment has worked out better than I though it would.
A few things stand out from the experience so far. 

 
First, using 'mkusb' to create the Persistent Bootable USB Flashdrive I am using to run Linux on the Surface Pro 3 worked very well.
Second, Mint Cinnamon is preferable for running Linux on a Surface that is to be used a lot in Tablet mode, because it automatically rotates the screen orientation - once it is enabled, while Kubuntu must be changed manually each time you reorient the tablet.

There are some other observations.  While Mint Cinnamon is the best for Tablet mode, KDE is adequate once I got used to the manual orientation thing.
I personally like the Plasma Desktop of Kubuntu better than the Cinnamon Desktop, but that's probably because I use Plasma on my Mint 21.2 Desktop daily.

As far as using the Surface Pro with its Microsoft Surface Keyboard/Cover as a Laptop replacement goes, it is only the battery life that lets it down.  
With everything set OFF or as low as possible it is sometimes possible to eke 4 hours out of the battery - but unlikely.
That's with Bluetoofh OFF, WiFi OFF and Screen Brightness down to 5%, and avoiding running anything like watching a Video.
That said, while Windows often reports something like 10 hours at the start of a session (on either the 4/64GB Surface or the 8/256GB one), it rarely ever delivers more than 4 hours - so I can;t blame Linux.
It is pretty easy to see why Microsoft had to introduce the Surface Go into the mix.

I haven't found a way to run the Surface 3 off a power bank, but I am one of the luckly people.  With two Surface tablets, I could take both with me for the day, and by saving my work and shutting down, then swapping the USB Flash drives, I could run one for 3 to 4 hours, then get another 3 to 4 out of the second Surface.  With luck the first could be on charge for an hour, which is all it takes to recharge fully anyway.

Making Mint Mobile

 For a long time I've wanted a Linux Tablet.  Something that got me away from Android and Apple tablets, but still reasonably secure.  Recently I was given a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet, and the I was lucky enough to acquire another.  That meant I could play around with an idea I had wondered about for some time.  Originally the plan was to simply replace Windows.  But that would lose a few advantages Windows can actually have running the Surface, including losing access to the camera and sacrificing battery life etc.

The Surface tablets have a microSD slot.  Because Raspberry Pi runs quite successfully from a MicroSD card only, I hoped a Surface Pro could be booted from one as well.

A little searching suggested they are not designed in such a way the they can run like that.  So I started experimenting with booting from a flash drive in the USB port.  

...  To be continued ...

A couple of suggestions from my friends at Bargaintech:   https://www.ebay.com.au/usr/bargain.tech?_trksid=p4429486.m3561.l2559  who successfully put L:inux on a number of their rescued New and Near new Laptops  brought me back to the idea of trying Mint Cinnamon on the Surface Pro 3.

I tried booting both Kubuntu and Cinnamon from a live Fashdrive (used these days to install Linux on a computer) and it worked.  

The next thing was to install Linux, Kubuntu on one Surface and Cinnamon on the other.  But which would go on what?  And what about my licenced Windows 10 on the 4/64GB Surface, and Windows 11 Pro on the 256GB device? 
I thought about it for a while and decided I could live boot whichever version of Linux I wanted at any time on the device I wanted to use on the day.
That of course meant that each time I booted into a Live USB drive I had to set up locality (Location, Time and Date etc.) and any Theming I changed.  Also I could not install Apps, which meant no VPN, one of the reasons I wanted the tablet in the first place.

Enter the idea of a Persistent Live Bootable Flash Drive.
I had heard of this idea, but never needed it.  So into the Net I dived and came out wet and happy.  There are a few ways to skin this particular cat, bnt I chose to use something called 'mkusb'.

**
**

I booted each OS in turn on separate machines, made enough changes to each, installed some Apps, created a couple of documents on both saved to the Flash Drives and to the Documents folders of the Windows installations on both Surface Pros, then shut them down.

I swapped the Flash drives and booted the tablets again.  All the changes I made were kept and the documents were all spot on as well.  I did the same again on both.  Just made enough changes that I would klnow they had been changed, and tested saving documents to all logical places.
As a last test I booted both tablets into their Windows again, then repeated it all over using the Flash drives.

One last swap and boot and it was proved.  The Persistent drives were doing their work.  There was no noticeable difference in performance between running the Surface Pro 3 on Windows or Linux, and I still can;t make up my mind if I prefer working in KDE (Kubuntu) which I have always preferred since my Mandrake Linux days around the turn of the Century, or if I can get used to Cinnamon.  

Kubuntu running on the Surface Pro 3 in Landscape mode (Swapping to Portrait must be done manually each time in Settings):

The USB Flashdrive is pretty unobtrusive and creating a Persisten Live installation on it means I can run any debian or Ubuntu based Linux, keeping any changes I make as well as any documents I want to keep portable - or unplug, reboot and run Windows.

Kubuntu running OpenOffice in Landscape Mode on the Surface Pro 3

Because I prefer working with Kubuntu, I would be prepared to live without using the Surface Pro in Portrait mode.  My intention was to use it mostly as a limited Laptop / Notebook most of the time anyway, and I love the way Kubuntu works, and that its floating Keyboard on the screen 'just works'.

Cinnamon on the other hand has an interface that is not so intuitive for me, but once I got the hang of it again after all these years of using Xfce and KDE, I could see myself enjoying some features, including that there's a setting to Disable the Screen Autorotation Lock.  Once I did that the display moved between Landscape and Portrait mode as I rotated the Surface tablet.

I initially installed Kubuntu and Cinnamon onto separate 64GB USB Flashdrives that are so physically small that they are barely noticeable plugged into the USB port.  I chose 64GB because, well, that was all I had available at the local Officeworks store.

I wondered if it would work on a flashdrive with more storage.  A quick search on the Net suggested the Surface 3 can handle 256GB, and as it happened, Amazon Prime days arrived with the tiny Sandisk drives I am using on special.  I ordered 3 for the same price delivered, as I was paying for a single 64GB unit.  No prizes for guessing what I did.

I watched the tracking with interest, because they shipped from Japan.  And they arrived in only a few days, well before their suggested date.  And they were in Japanese Sandisk packaging.  Surely a good omen.

Unfortunateky, while Kubuntu and Cinnamon will install on these drives and work perfectly on various computers - they simply refuse to play nicely with the Surface Pro 3.

I will wait until Amazon Prime has the 128GB version of this Sandisk unit on super special, and repeat the test.  It will still be cheaper than buying a single drive here.

Once that was sorted, the last hurdle was Battery Life!
Microsoft seem to have worked out the wrinkles in power management of the Surface Pro 3 pretty well, although some of the 'Power remaining' predictions, while they look great when I first saw them, are very optimistic in practice.  A '10 hours remaining' quickly turns into '3 hours and 50 minutes remaining' within half an hour or so.

However, even that is better than either Kubuntu or Cinnamon, where '4 hours 30 minutes remaining' becomes '2 hours 40 minutes' after 30 minutes of use.

I installed TLP, but if anything all it does is make the predicted time shorted - but more accurate.  All the above is with the screen turned down to 5% brightness, Blue Teeth OFF, and WiFi running.  Also they are NOT when watching video.  I have a feeling the Surface Pro 'might' make it through a movie if it started at 100% battery charge.

SOMETHING TO NOTE !!!
When shutting the Persistent Live Flashdrive, the usuall prompt will appear onthe screen saying to remove the boot media and press Enter.  

Simply pressing ENTER at this prompt has been shutting the Surface Pro 3 with no problems at all so far.  It jsut scrolls the message as it goes through what seems to be a 'normal' shurdown.
And there's no risk of losing the Flashdrive - because it stays plugged in, ready for booting again.

Microsoft's own App shows the tablets have 94% and 98%  Battery Health, which is probably not too bad for their age - and of course I have no idea exactly when they were originally sold nor how they were used.

Overall, my first month with the Surface Pro 3 tablets has been an interesting one, and one where I have learned quite a bit more about Linux, as well as experienced Windows 10 and Windows 11, and learned again why it was so important to move to Linux back in the 1990s.  I've never, ever seen so many suspected malware threat warnings as I have in this last month, whever Windows and I are no the Internet.
I'm still looking for a decent Free Anti-Virus program to replace the one I am testing out now.

--  to be continued  --

MInt 21.2 and I have finally worked out a compromise

 MInt 21.2 and I have finally worked out a compromise.  Mint 21.2 has been rock solid since it was released, and all the mods I did to Xfce, exploring its theming / styling were more or less working - but not quite.

The whole Theming adventure over the last couple of years has kept me busy, but really it was all related to the fact that no matter what I did, I could not get Linux Mint to look and feel the way I 'like' my OS to look and behave.  A lot of that is the restlessness I have felt with Mint since the Team dropped support for KDE and stopped releasing a Mint KDE version.

I could get most of my Mint Xfce looking fairly consistent using a combination of drastic mods to GTK themes and tweaking Qt stuff, but there was something missing in the hybrid approach.  Eventually I remembered Kubuntu Backports and stuff suddenly began falling into place.

Now I have a more or less Integrated Mint KDE designed just the way 'I' like it.  And I while Mint is considering releasing an 'Edge' ISO with the hot new 6.2 Linux Kernel, I'm currently running comfortably on the 6.5.3 Kernel. 
Not only that, but my KDE is at 5.25 and Plasma Frameworks is sitting at 5.98.
I don't think I will get up to KDE 6 until Mint 22 comes out some time around the middle of next year, but that doesn't matter.

As usual I am making the most of the ability for many KDE Apps to be themed with a bit of Transparency, and I am also pleased that while LibreOffice doesn't yet have a Qt version, it does have KDE Integrations, which adds a Qt level to the Theming engine somehow, so it is more or less the same thing.

LibreOffice manages this far better than almost any other Non Qt App I have seen so far and I am impressed.

The one big thing I am not using in KDE, as I usually don't, is the Kwin Window Manager.  
Because I create my KDE version on top of Mint Xfce, I tend to use Compiz for Window Management.  It doesn't matter that Compiz is 'Old Hat'.  Many of us still prefer its maturity, and we will miss it once Wayland takes over Window Management in most Linux Desktop Environments.  Compiz just has so many day to day things that are handy, quite apart from its 'tricks'.  Like the Compiz Cube - one of many different ways to switch Workspaces. 
Wayland has something similar, but without some of the pretty bits . .
I happen to like this Compiz idea of a 'Cube'  :-)

Pretty bits aside though, what I like most about Mint with KDE is that Mint has a history of being remarkably well built and Stable.  KDE is also very stable, especially the Kubuntu base that I use to get my KDE.  But I prefer the way Mint does stability.

Linux Mint 21.2 with Xfce 4.18 - plus my own little spin on the thing. Mint 21.2 KdXfce (or XfcKde - take your pick)

 It's probably way past time I did an update here.  A lot has been happening in my life, including changing some of my computers, catching a dose of CoVid, a couple of other health dramas and various other glitches.  

On top of that Google has had a major glitch with the Blogger platform that saw them sending out emails advising people that the code on the pages of Blogger posts was formatted incorrectly or some other such rubbish.  This on 'Blogger', where of course, they themselves provide all the code and we just type content and pop in a few photographs etc using their tools!

So I just haven't been in the mood for messing around with their rubbish.  However this site still pops up when people do a search on certain topics, so I'll do some more updates.

A month or more ago when the Xfce people advised that Xfce 4.18 was ready, I managed to install it on Mint 21.1 and test it in anticipation of Mint 21.2 using 4.18.   About the same time the Minit team announced it would indeed be in 21.2, so I was happy to find a couple of useful items in the new Xfce 4.18.

Most were not all that exciting, but the big one for me was the return of panel 'Profiles', allowing users to easily backup their Panel layout.

At first glance this is not a big deal unless you screw up your panel and have to recover it, but think about it for a moment.  You can set up a number of different panel layouts with different Icons and Apps ready for quick use - and switch between them quickly when you want to work on specific projects.

It is a bit like a poor man's Plasma Activities, albeit without the way Activities can save all the open Apps for a session.  So, the ability to rescue a lost panel is certainly a great idea, and it was briefly available previously.  However, although I haven't tested it for that particular porpoise, the ability to set up a number of Panel Profiles and quickly switch between them could be fantastic, either for specific projects, for Multimedia or for enabling specific Panel layouts to be applied by different users sharing a computer.

The other main focus of my recent activities has been swapping my main daily machines around.  The Lenovo m93p Tiny is now my secondary computer accessed through NoMachine VNC, and the Lenovo m900 Tiny has become the main system.

It sort of made sense, because although the m93p has a higher Turbo speed, the m900 is newer and a little faster in other ways.  

Both systems were updated to 16GB RAM and 2TB SSDs as well, and both are now connected to a bank of mixed external SSDs and magnetic drives via some Powered Hubs.  That allows 18 external drives to be hooked up through hubs while another 20 or so TB of drives can be swapped in through the USB3 ports if needed.

I've got Mint 21.2 running KDE 5 nicely, and switched out Plasma's Kwin Windows Manager for Compiz - which performs so much better than anything else, at least until Wayland matures enough for daily use (hopefully some time this century).

 Mint 21.2 Xfce with KDE 5 running Compiz on the Lenovo m900 Tiny:

 

And again:

Mint 21.2 Xfce with KDE 5 running Compiz on the Lenovo m993p Tiny in NoMachine VNC:

Ditto:

Below, the Lenovo m900 Tiny as it is currently:

So far it is all pretty well bullet proof.  About the only disappointment is that switching the Window Manager from Kwin to Compiz means I lose Plasma's 'Activities', and even though most people don;t use them, I used to find them useful.

I did notice however, that the m93p, when it was started today, opened up with a particular set of Apps I'd left open when I shut it down yesterday, opened up with each App where I'd left it and with the data intact - even though I hadn't saved it.  that was as soon as I switched to Compiz (using the Fusion-Icon).
I haven't seen that happen before, so it bears looking into. 

Linux Mint and retired iPhone 5 - Adding Music

 A while ago someone gave me their old iPhone 5 and suggested it might be useful to replace an iPod touch I have had for about ten years and that I haven't used much because its battery doesn't last as long as it used to and I didn't think it had Bluetooth connectivity.  

These days I run my audio for all my computers via a Logitech Bluetooth Adapter, and since I have all the computers running on a single Monitor and all controlled from a single keyboard and mouse, it is simply a matter of scrolling across to a computer and switching it to the Bluetooth Adapter.

Of course, in the process of messing around with stuff we discovered that 1) the iPhone only had about 1.6GB storage free, and 2) the old iPod does in fact have Bluetooth.

I also discovered that there is almost no way to access a folder on the iPhone from Linux Mint, to easily copy mp3 files across (the only files that are small enough to be much use).

Then I read about an iPhone App called Evermusic.  Evermusic was supposed to be an 'Offline Music Player' and there's a Free version with some functions limited, and a Pro version that costs $14.99.  Initial impressions suggest I might be parting with some cash shortly :-)

Evermusic surprised me because a couple of interesting dialogs popped up immediately after install offering to help me set up any cloud/online accounts I have that contain Music.  For the moment I skipped that and the next thing it showed me was computers connected to my local wireless network.

I tapped one of them and it asked for my login and password.  I answered with that computer's network credentials and the next screen showed all the shared folders on that computer.
I navigated to a folder that had music in it, then remembered I have limited space on the iPhone and changed to a folder with MP3 files.

The music player screen opened to a list of songs.  I chose one and tapped and it began playing.

Next I opened Settings on the iPhone and turned Bluetooth on, the iPhone found my Logitech Adapter, I connected to it, and the iPhone is playing music across Bluetooth.

A little looking around and I discovered that if I tap on the three dots  ...  at the right end of any song in the list, I can download it.  A little more poking around and I realised I can tap 'Select All'  and download all the songs in a folder once it is opened for playing.
I can't download a complete folder, but it seems that might be an option on the paid version.

For now though, I have a cheap music player and one more iPhone saved from scrap!

BLOGGER Seems to be working on Mobiles Again!

 Since my post in April, I haven't had a chance to do anything with the blogs again.  However I checked the Isla Blog just now and it seems the problem has been fixed - or resolved itself.  

I have not edited a blog since the post about the resizing problem, but I'm happy to report that ALL of our Blogger posts ARE WORKING, and scaling properly to mobile devices again !     :-)

Linux Mint 20.1 Xfce and VNC

 Since I closed my computer business in 2007 and started spending all my time concentrating on learning how to live with recovering from all the injuries, then two lots of open heart surgery and a couple of brain injures, so much has happened.  Now that I reached retirement age, I have other challenges.

Cyclone Ului in 2010 and Cyclone Debbie in 2017 destroyed my yachts in Shute Harbour, and with them, the part time live aboard lifestyle i was enjoying.  Changes in my personal life as well as Australian Government legislation changes, followed by the 2017 medical emergency and surgery meant my retirement plan, to live on the resort I helped set up in the Philippines, is no longer viable.  

Now I'm relegated to living in what used to be my computer workshop and classroom.  While I have always had computers (since the 1970s) I have rarely been interested in them as anything more than a work tool.
Now I am beginning to 'enjoy' aspects of computing that I previously only bothered with for 'work'.

This blog is testament to my keeping computers around, and to my still experimenting with different aspects of the things.  However over the last week I have done something I never bothered to do when I was working.  
I set up a Home Network.  Not only that, instead of having several computers on one desk, each with its own dedicated tasks and its own monitor, I have three computers connected to one monitor (a 55 inch TV) by a different HDMI port each.

I didn't bother with a network, because as before, I didn;t need one.  I could do everything from one computer.  The m93 has become my everyday computer because the i5 processor is a little more powerful and responsive than the Brix' Celeron.  The Raspberry Pi was just there because, well, it's a Raspberry Pi.

Last week, the Realtek sound chip in the m93p lost a channel.  I liesten to music a lot.  Like, 'all the time'.  I have several mp3 devices, some hooked up to dedicated speaker systems.  But having the m93 unable to play music or show a video irked me.

Obviously I could play music on the BRIX or the Pi, but then I had to switch HDMI ports every time I wanted to adjust the volume.  Something had to change.  

I remembered VNC.  If I set the BRIX up as a VNC Server, I could view and control it through a window in one of the Virtual Desktops (Workspaces) in the m93p.  That would allow me to control the volkume, and the playlist etc. from the m93p, without the hassle of grabbing the remote and swapping HDMI inputs to the screen, and grabbing another keyboard and mouse to drive the BRIX.

It should have been dead easy.

It wasn't.

Linux has plenty of VNC server programs available.  It also has a number of VNC viewers.  I installed several servers one at a time on the BRIX, and viewers, one at a time on the m93p to test each server.  The viewers on the m93p were not seeing any of the servers I installed on the BRIX,  

Then while I had the tigerVNC-scrapin-server  running on the BRIX, and I installed a remote viewer I had not noticed in the repositories, called    'vinagre'   on the m93p.

Immediately it recognised the IP address I typed in as the Host, as the BRIX, and opened a window to its Desktop.

I installed tigerVNC-scraping-server on the Pi as well, and that was also immediately found and opened.

In the next post, I'll try to lay out the steps I went through to set this up.

LIBRE OFFICE and that annoying Lock File problem

 For years now users on the Libre Office forums have been discussing a problem where some kind of lock file issue prevents LibreOffice saving, or in some cases even opening files.

This is not limited to a certain type of file, but I first came across it with LibreOffice .odt (text) files when I tried to save one and was told that LibreOffice could not get access to permissions to lock usage of ...   or some rubbish warning along those lines.

Later I got a similar warning when I tried to open an existing LibreOffice document.

Now, when this happened some years ago, i managed to clear the problem by finding and deleting the offending ~lock  file in my /home/Documents directory.  This year however, and perhaps it can be blamed on Covid, I could not clear the problem.  I tried every trick I know and then stalked the LibreOffice and other forums, only to find that there is no known solution. 
Basically, if it happens to you, you 'might' be able to clear it by finding and deleting the offending lock file, but otherwise, you're stuffed.

So I found a couple of work-arounds.  None are perfect, but one way or another they work.

All Linux distributions regardless of their Desktop Environment have a couple of programs for Text editing (Abiword) and Spreadsheeting (Gnumeric).  

The one that might be noticed though is LibreOffice Impress (Presentation Manager).  There are some options in the repositories, but one I have always had access to was Calligra Stage - part of the old KDE KOffice Suite.

For that matter, Calligra Words and Calligra Sheets are also good replacements for LibreOffice, although they have a bit of a learning curve due to their unusual implementation of some common functions.
That said though, they are excellent.

So between AbiWord, Gnumeric, Calligra Words, calligra Sheets and Calligra Stage, I had all my requirements covered.

Then I remembered a program I use on my Android Tablets that I chose because it is almost identical to LibreOffice in looks and function.
That program is SoftMaker Office.  It can be downloaded from:

SoftMaker Office Home Page

The Download page is here:

DOWNLOAD SOFTMAKER OFFICE for Linux

The Current version (2021) is NOT Free.  It costs about $64 one time payment, but divided by a year that's about One Dollar a week.  That's pretty cheap for commercial software, and the charge includes appropriate on-going updates.  Instructions are on the site are provided to set the PPA for updates.

However, there are a couple of previous versions, with the latest of these the 2018 version available HERE:

The 2018 version has TextMaker (Writer equivalent) and PlanMaker (Calc equivalent) plus Presentations (the Presentation manager). 
This is Free to download and use, but requires a Product Key.  I cannot remember how I got the product key, but SoftMaker emailed one to me.

SoftMaker Office early versions Download

I'm going to hit PUBLISH, but I intend getting back to this to add some images and further comments.

There is one more useful link on the SoftMaker website:

Tips & tricks: Installing SoftMaker Office 2021 for Linux

My 2018 version of SoftMaker Office is Free to use, although it did require email registration.

If for some reason you cannot get SoftMaker Office to send you a registration Product Key, Calligra Stage works nicely as a Presentation Manager, and calligra Words with Calligra Sheets, teamed with Abiword and Gnumeric will get you out of trouble.

Desktop Publishing is covered nicely by Scribus !