Elementary OS and Apps

Just a note about the odd looking screenshot.  I usually have one image spread across two monitors.  In this shot I have the same image on each screen, but the screens are each of vastly different size and resolution.  that's why the odd black sectio top and bottom.  :-)

A little further into usage of Elementary OS Freya and I am discovering more good bits.  One f the best bits of news is that as far as I recall, so far not one of my computers running Elementary OS has crashed.  Crashing on relatively old computers was one reason I moved away form KDE and Mint KDE.  Even XFCE was causing problems and Gnome.  Well I just had problems working wit it.  But so far Elementary has coexisted nicely with the various things I have changed to make it 'mine'.

I wrote previously about myt dislike for some aspects of the Plank dock, and that I have installed Docky.  One thing Docky gave me was the ability to scroll through my desktops using the mousewheel.  A neat thing about Elementary is that because it is using its own window manager and other bits, there is a small but devoted team writing applications just for it.  One of the Elementary App sites is here:
https://quassy.github.io/elementary-apps/apps/

And one of those Apps is a simple workspace switcher for the wingpanel indicator.  Now, this indicator is missing possibly the most useful component.  The ability to switch desktops with the mousewheel.  But on the other hand, what it does is let me swap between a fixed number of desktops, and dynamically added desktops.  While I wasn't a fan of dynamic desktops before Elementary Freya, I am now.

In the picture at the top of the page you might just be able to make out the workspace indicator (showing Workspace 1).  Here's a close up of the Workspace Indicator App.

And here it is open for switching to the next dynamically created work space.

 Here is the App with the preferences window open.

You can rename workspaces to reflect what you are doing on them at any given time.  So maybe Workspace 1 could be called 'Browsing', Workspace 2 might be called 'Graphics' and so on.  And of course, switch dynamic workspaces on or off.

As  mentioned.  It would be nice to be able to simply scroll the mouse wheel on the App and switch workspaces. 
But I'm sure the developer has either thought of that already and has a good reason not to implement it, or that I can make a few tweaks to the code myself.

Until then, it serves as a reminder of what workspace I am actually on at the moment, and as a way to set the workspaces to a definite number and rename them if I am doing say, web work on one and graphics work on another.
Finally, here's the link directly to the home page for this handy little tool.
http://dysonsimmons.com/indicator-workspaces/

Elementary OS Freya and Docky - (by Ross Devitt)

I like Docky better than Plank.  And I do all sorts of things to Docky including making my own custom additions with their own icons to make it do stuff, because, well, it is simple.

But no matter that I have used it for years, occasionally I will find something it does that I simply didn;t know.  And a few minutes ago I found one trick.

I like to have the icons ZOOM larger as I move the mouse over them.  The normal way to change the zoom amount is to go into Docky Settings and select a dock, then adjust the zoom amount for that dock.  You can zoom up to 400% above the base icon size you have chosen.

Today I discovered quite accidentally that scrolling the mouse wheel over an icon on Docky while holding down the CTRL key will also allow you to change the zoom size.

No only that, but I can zoom far further than 400% as you can see in the screen shot!  Obviously this is a ridiculous amount of zoom, but there are times when I do adjust the zoom amount and this is a nice easy way to do it without going into settings.

Elementary across two monitors - Docky zoomed on primary screen with CTRL and mouse wheel
Wallpaper - One of the wallpapers that comes with Elementary OS

Elementary OS Freya - Desktop Switching with Two Monitors

Elementary OS Freya on Two Screens - Dolphin File Manager - and KIM (Right Click Image Menu)
Wallpaper - The Rocks - Nara Inlet, Whitsundays, Queensland Australia

Another one of my little annoyances with Elementary OS Freya has been solved.  I use two monitors and I often have related tasks across two screens on each workspace.  So my main workspace for example might be running my web browser on one screen, and either a video or a music player on the other.

Then I might switch to another workspace where I do my writing in Libre.  A third workspace might have whatever graphics I am working on, so GIMP or XARA or Inkscape might be on one screen along with Libre Office Draw, and my file manager and perhaps an image viewer on another screen.

The default setup with Elementary OS Freya was driving me nuts, because when I switched workspaces, only the primary display switched.  

Now, there are advantages to this, and one of them is that I can leave something like my to do list open all the time.  bt that can easily be accomplished by right clicking the title bar and choosing 'Always on visible workspace'.

Our friends at Reddit.com however have discovered the solution, and I'll paraphrase their answer here, because I am sure to forget it myself some time.

That behavior changed on Freya.  You can set it with dconf-editor. 

Go to org.gnome.mutter and uncheck workspaces-only-on-primary.

If you are using Elementary OS Freya and don;t see dconf-editor you should be able to find it in Software Sources, alternatively Google it and install it.

Once installed, if it doesn;t show in your menu, simply type dconf into the search box in your menu and it should appear.

Obviously if you want to switch back to having only the main screen swapping workspaces, just go into dconf-editor and check the box again.

Elementary OS Freya - Not Enough Apps? - (by Ross Devitt)

I've been reading views and even the very few complaints about Elementary OS, however most are positive comments.  In fact, it was a user review that caused me to try it in the first place.  There seems to be only a couple of things people are not satisfied with.

Elementary OS Freya with Conky Clock running in corner of second monitor
Wallpaper - Hill Inlet, Whitsundays, Queensland Australia

One is that there are not enough Applications built into it.  I noticed that too.  One reviewer was surprised that there's no native system monitor.  Another wondered why Libre Office and Firefox or Chrome are not installed as part of the default suite.  More users are concerned that only a few settings can easily be tweaked.

I thought about this, and realised one of the refreshing things about Elementary OS is that I don't have to delete a lot of stuff to replace it with things I like.  The developers have worked hard on what is essentially a new Operating System 'based on' Ubuntu, rather than simply adding a theme to an existing distribution.

To that end it seems they took a fairly new window manager, then wrote enough code around it that Gala has become a new window manager in its own right, with the advantage of still falling back to code that is compatible with the rest of Ubuntu.  So nothing actually breaks, but the user gains from this. They wrote their own 'shell', Pantheon, and again, it makes a pleasant experience.  It is interesting to see some of the big Linux Distros looking seriously at incorporating Pantheon and Gala.

However when it comes to Applications they seem to have decided on enough functions for a beginner to get the job done on basic installation, then leaving the end user who knows enough, to add and remove what they want.

So there's a basic Music Player and a basic Video Player which both work well.  The one thing I liked about the Video Player was that it has a working repeat function, something often either missing or not working in some other light weight players.

The Midori browser complies with modern web standards and is fast.  It also has a Private Browsing mode that doesn't load your system up with redundant tracking data as well as the normal browsing mode.  If you want to slow your system down, just add one ot the big browsers, like Firefox, Chrome or Opera.

I think the one big omission is the lack of an Office Suite.  There might be an argument that the Elementary OS team is building their own, but this is unlikely.  It would also be a stupid waste of resources.  There is little to be gained from trying to compete with something like Libre Office.  As cute as the Gnome and KDE office suites are, they simply don't come close to Libre.  I can see why someone would develop Calligra for example, as a hobby.  But for serious use?  Not really.  Although with a bit of work, the Caligra Writing program might be a reasonable standalone Desktop Publisher, as Microsoft Office was.  Bearing in mind that MS Office was never really as good as its DOS predecessor Express Publisher, which it seemed to more or less mimic. 

So in my personal opinion the one big thing missing from Elementary OS is Libre Office.  And fixing that is as simple as opening the Software Centre and clicking a couple of times!

Elementary OS - FREYA Workspace Switching with mouse wheel (by Ross Devitt)

Elementary OS Freya on Twin Monitors with Workspace Switcher selected on DOCKY
Wallpaper - Sunset at Islaverde Tropical Friendly Resort - Batangas, Philippines

(Ross Devitt)

I'm well into my Elementary OS usage now, and while I like it better every day there are some things about it that are simply annoying.  The main one is being able to switch the workspace using my mousewheel.

So because I always have two Linux operating systems installed I've been installing others where I'd had my XFCE installation to compare and see just how much this really means to me.

I tried KDE with Plasma 4.x again, and the newest KDE with Plasma 5, which happens to be so cumbersome it is horrible despite all the things I like about KDE.  I tried the new Chalet OS, which is kind of cutesy but has its own set of problems.  I tried Mint Mate and Cinnamon and remembered why I never use them.  Until it began breaking things Mint KDE was my favourite.

So I'm back now to TWO installations of Elementary OS Freya.  One with everything tweaked, and one to experiment on.

So, about the workplace switching, and the topic of this post.  In an earlier post I pointed out that the Elementary dock, called Plank, is based on Docky.  So it was not a big deal to install Docky and write some .desktop files to drag to docy so I had my own icons to launch whatever I want.

This morning I remembered a Workspace Switching 'docklet' in Docky.  Because I've always been able to switch workspaces in the past by scrolling the mousewheel I never found it useful.

When you click the Workspace Icon in Docky you are presented with a list of available workspaces and you simply click the one you want.  And Elementary being what it is, dynamically adds workspaces as you want, and deletes each space when all programs on that space have been closed.

 But, as well as being able to show a list of Workspaces to choose with a click, this clever little Docky Docklet allows you to simply scroll the mousewheel over it and it will scroll through the workspaces.

And it has one big advantage over scrolling the mousewheel on the desktop.  You don;t have to change out of full screen mode to get a clear spot to scroll!

Elementary OS Freya - Part 3 Viber running on 32 bit Linux

Viber for Windows running in ElementaryOS Freya on my Dual Monitor system with ViberStart and ViberKill added to Docky **  Wallpaper - Henning Island Whitsundays QLD

 
It had to happen!  I use Viber a hell of a lot and while the Viber people have released the 64 bit packages for Linux, it is a pain to get it working on 32 bit Linux.  Since I had already made Viber for Windows run on Mint, I decided to see if it would run in Elementary.  The good news was, it did.  The bad news I suppose is that I need to post the method here and bore people with details.

In the past I had used WINE to install Viber and it used to run, but somewhere in a recent release of either Linux or Viber for Window, the excutable would install, the come up with errors every time it ran.

A couple of weeks ago however I remembered PlayOnLinux and decided to see if it was good for more than games.  It is in pretty well all repositories, so I just installed it and opened it.

So here is a rather lengthy diatribe on getting it set up.  There are no messy configurations to do and no extra dll files and stuff to find as I had to in Wine.  You simply follow what is written here and it should all work.

Where you see the path /home/YOUR-USER-NAME/.PlayOnLinux/  Simply change 'YOUR-USER-NAME' to whatever is the username for that home folder. 

So an example if your logged in user is robert would be to change:

/home/YOUR-USER-NAME/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/_/drive_c/users/YOUR-USER-NAME/Local Settings/Application Data/Viber/Viber.exe

to :
/home/robert/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/_/drive_c/users/robert/Local Settings/Application Data/Viber/Viber.exe

ANOTHER WARNING that will be mentioned again below. 

When you get to either entering a command in a Terminal to start Viber, watch out for spaces and backslashes in the path.  If they are not in the right place - it won't work!

OK  HERE GOES:

Install PlayOnLinux

Download Viber for Windows.
Install the ViberSetup.exe or Viber.exe (whatever whatever it was called) using PlayOnLinux.


Open PlayOnLinux.  It was in the Applications Menu, Games, PlayOnLinux.

On the right, choose Install a Program.
When the Install Menu opens, look at the bottom and click on Install a non-listed program.  (If you don't see an option to Install a non-listed program, open and close a few of the Install options.  It will turn up at the bottom of one of them eventually as a line of text link)

The Manual Installation dialog will open, click Next
If you have NOT used PlayOnLinux before, click on install a program in a new virtual drive
Type in a name for your new virtual drive WITH NO SPACES

Now, Mr Intelligence here forgot to type in a name, so I ended up with a virtual drive called "_" 

NOTE !!!  Don't skip typing in a NAME for the virtual drive.    

Click Next and Follow the rest of the prompts


Yep, so my drive is in a folder called 'underscore'.
In the examples below I used 'NAME-OF-VIRTUAL-DRIVE'  to represent whatever you call your PlayOnLinux virtual drive when asked.

You should be asked if you want to Use another version of Wine. Configure Wine or Install some libraries.  You can skip this and click Next.

Once you get through this stuff you should be asked to Please select the install file to run.
Click Browse and find the installation file wherever you downloaded it. 
In my case, in a folder called Software Downloaded/Viber
Click the Viber.exe file and wait.

It 'SHOULD" install to the following directory - but it could take some finding. 
Do a search for Viber.exe in your file manager and you should find it in something like this below  NOTE the dot before PlayOnLinux - it is a Hidden Folder so if you go looking for it, select Show Hidden Files in your File Manager:  

/home/YOUR-USER-NAME/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/NAME-OF-VIRTUAL-DRIVE/drive_c/users/YOUR-USER-NAME/Local\ Settings/Application\ Data/Viber/Viber.exe

Find executable and open with PlayOnLinux and SAVE the association Always Open This Type etc..
Once it has opened, you will be asked to provide your phone number.  A pin code will be sent to your mobile.
Enter the pn and Viber should open.  If you already have Viber on a device, you shoudl see your contacts.
Once you verify it is working, close Viber and close PlayOnLinux.

NOTE playonlinux Terminal command is in LOWER case, even though the folder name is mixed upper and lower case.



Then use this command in a terminal to start Viber. 

playonlinux /home/YOUR-USER-NAME/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/NAME-OF-VIRTUAL-DRIVE/drive_c/users/ross/Local\ Settings/Application\ Data/Viber/Viber.exe

Viber for Windows does not like to shut down in Linux so I Kill Viber with this (I made an executable script).
In my Mint 17 if I don;t kill Viber Process after I close the actual Viber Program, my monitors shut down and they don't want to start again.
---------------
!#/bin/bash
   # a simple script to kill the processes in memory at the same time as killing Viber for Windows
   # By Ross Devitt
   # Kills Wine version of Viber.
   # I found I need it because Viber causes monitor power save mode to cut in and shuts doem my screens.
pkill Viber.exe     # Kills Viber
pkill playonlinux   # Kills PlayOnLinux
pkill python        # Kills Python to stop PlayOnLinux restarting itself over and over
pkill explorer.exe  # Kills the Windows bits
 
---------------

Once that is done you should be able to use the command in a script, a link or a launcher.
I opened my /home/me/Desktop folder and Right Clicked in the folder and created a 'Link ro Application'
then I just pasted this into the Command box on the Application tab:

playonlinux /home/YOUR-USER-NAME/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/NAME-OF-VIRTUAL-DRIVE/drive_c/users/YOUR-USER-NAME/Local\ Settings/Application\ Data/Viber/Viber.exe

Next I changed the icon for the Viber icon and put VIBER in the Name field.  I left the Work path empty.

I hope this helps a few people who want to use Viber in 32 bit Elementary OS Freya or otehr 32 bit Linux Distros.



Remember - there IS a working 64 bit Viber for Linux, but it is a pig to set up in 32 bit distros.

This post might seem to have too much detail, but it is easy to miss things so there are lots of reminders in there.

Have fun with ElementaryOS and Viber.


RossD.

Elementary OS Freya - Part 2

Elementary OS Freya across 2 monitors using Docky instead of Plank
Wallpaper - Henning Island - Whitsundays Queensland Australia

After installing Elementary OS on my multimedia computer on Sunday, then yesterday deciding I liked it enough to try it on my main desktop, I'm already finding the experience enlightening.  Docky is installed and available on either screen.

There doesn't seem to be a way to extend the panel at the top across the right screen, but that is not an issue.  Simply opening settings, clicking on 'Display' and clicking the star in the top left of one the screens shown will swap that screen to become the primary monitor.

The main advantage I can see for using Plank as the dock is that it uses far less memory than Docky, but it is simply not as configurable or versatile.

My initial plan was to use Freya to test and swap back to XFCE for regular tasks until I had set up things like my Brother printers and scanners, along with configuring my VPN.  But all that was achieved in such a short time, I just forgot to open XFCE once I had repaired GRUB after the Elementary installation.

Which I suppose might be the topic for another post.  Because Freya wrecked my GRUB configuration and it was annoying to fix.  If it happens to you, do a search for a tool called     '   grub-customizer   '      and there's a link I will dig up to help manually edit /etc/default/grub.   It was pretty straight forward, and was caused my my manual partitioning because I have several operating systems installed.  If I had to guess, I  think I probably accidentally installed GRUB to the wrong MBR.

I mentioned earlier that I first installed Elementary OS on my multimedia computer.  This is a five year old Lenovo AMD computer that was leftover when I closed my computer businesses following serious injuries in an accident in 2004.  I was left with a lot of fairly expensive equipment that was too good to throw away but not good enough to sell.

Five years on, the junk heap has become a source of all sorts of innovation.  Connected to a cheap ($190 - Chinese) TV, I could ditch the video player and adding my old Logitech speakers I suddenly had cinema sound.  Now with the National Broadband Network connected at 25mbps/5mbps I have streaming YouTube whenever I want it on a 32 inch TV.

I had tried several different Linux distros and desktops but Freya is the first I have really liked for this purpose.  On the Multimedia sustem I have left Plank as the dock simply 'because' it uses minimal memory.

Elementary OS Freya - Part 1

I've just started using a new Linux Distro that impressed me so much I have installed it as my secondary OS.  However, I seem to be using it far more than my primary one.

I've enjoyed KDE for years, with my current favourite being the Mint variety,  and I love the way I can set it up in so many ways with themes and tools.  But I also run XFCE because it is faster and very configurable once you get to know it.

But Elementary OS is in a class of its own when it comes to simple.  It installs pretty well as a bar bones OS, but in a beautifully themed way.  I have to admit it screwed up my GRUB menu and I will make a separate post on how to fix that, because I've had that happen often enough with side by side installations of other distros. 

Elementary OS Freya is available here:  http://elementary.io/  and the first thing to do after installation is to open a terminal and issue the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mpstark/elementary-tweaks-daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install elementary-tweaks

That will add a means to configure various parts of Freya because Elementary takes minimal to new lows.   Now when you open the Settings Menu there will be an entry in the top row (personal) called tweaks.

I added LibreOffice, Openshot, Firefox, PlayOnLinux, Dolphin, OpenVPN and the Gnome configuration too for openvpn, VLC, SMPlayer, Geeqie, Xsane, Gimp, Xara Extreme, ImageMagick and a few other odd dthings I use in my day to day life that I can't remember for the moment.

One interesting thing about Elementary OS Freya was that it found a heap of software already on my system and put it in the menu under 'Other'.  That is not too unusual, most other distros do that.  What I didn;t expect was for quite a lot of them to actually start, without having to install them, while others did not.  So for example, Shape Collage showed in the menu but did not start, but one of the best Drag and Drop website editors ever, QNEWB did run.

Installing my VPN provider onto OpenVPN took all of 2 minutes to add one server.  I have yet to add the other 20 or so.

I have a two monitor system with one being a Samsung TV connected to the DVI out, and the other a VGA LED monitor connected to VGA out.  Freya picked up both and configured them without any input from me.

The desktop is clean and simple and one thing it lacks is the ability to extend the dock or the panel across two screens, or even to have a separate panel or dock on each monitor.  Easy fixed:       sudo apt-get install docky 

In System Settings > Applications  a simple couple of mouse clicks made Dolphin my default File manager and Firefox my default Browser.  Then I did the same to make LibreOffice my default Text Editor.  I realised Geary was my only real option for email, but I use Gmail, so I installed Gnome Gmail from the Software Centre an set that as Email Default.

Ok, Enough form the moment.  Part 2 will be in the next few days I think.

Cheers,

RossD

FTP uploads and downloads in LINUX the Easy way

Something many Linux users either don't know, or forget is that years ago we didn't have fancy specialised programs to manage file transfers across a network.  We either did it from the command line or later, within a file browser.  But once the Internet came of age, specialised programs proliferated.

In Linux, one of the most popular is FileZilla.  It makes managing websites easy and is great to use.  But once in a while I am on another computer that does not have Filezilla or another similar program.  Now, it is easy to log into my server using a web browser to download files, and it is also possible to use a browser to upload files,  But what about editing them?

Here's the trick, for relatively new Linux users.  Your ordinary every day file manager, Dolphin, Thunar, Nautilus (or whatever it is called now) and the others, can access your web server anywhere in the world as long as you know your login ID and password.

Now, if as I do, you have a dual monitor setup you have a distinct advantage, because you can open the local files you are working on in a window on one screen and the folder you are working on at the remote server in another screen.  Of course, you can also split the file manager window itself, or tile yoour file managers on one screen.  I just find it convenient to keep the server on one screen and the local computer on another screen.

Although I use Mint 17 XFCE at present on my main computer I have made Dolphin (the file manager from KDE) my default file manager.  I just prefer the way it looks and feels.  So I will use Dolphin as my example.  Other file managers may have different keyboard short cuts but the commands will be in a menu somewhere.

I open Dolphin to my local working directory with the files for the website I am working on.  There are always two directories (folders) for any currently active web site.  One has an exact copy of the website as it is, once it is proven to be working correctly.  The other is my 'working' folder, where I make and test changes before I upload.

So I open the /home/my websites/current website working/  folder in Dolphin.  These are my local files.

Then I open a new Dolphin window.  In this new window I can either use the View menu to find 'Location bar > Editable location, or I can hit the F6 key.  Either will open an 'address bar' in Dolphin.  In that window I type Without The Quotes:
'ftp://mywebsitename.com'
A few moments late a dialog will ask for my Login and Password.  Enter those correctly and you now have access to your server just as if it was on your local computer.

Drag and drop between both open windows or a split window in your file browser works exactly as it does on your own computer.
You can click on an image in your file manager's server window and it will open in your default image viewer.  Right click a html file and select open with, to edit the file in your text editor.

Now, a word of WARNING here.  Editing files directly on a server is NEVER a good idea.  I only mention it because it is possible.

But for simply uploading and downloading files and for quickly viewing images to make sure they are correct it is great.
One other thing.  File Preview will work.  So unlike most FTP programs, if you use your browser for your FTP work, you can see the images in the folders on the server as thumbnails.

Ross Devitt

Viber on 32 bit Linux in 2015

Viber is available for Linux in 64 bit Deb and RPM packages, but not in 32 bit.  There are some work arounds for running the 64 bit packages in 32 bit, but I can never get the things to run.

I tried installing the Windows exe file using Wine, but that failed as well.  At the time of writing, 11th April 2015, Viber is at about V5.1.something.  This is what I did to get it runnng on Mint 17 XFCE 4.12.  I have not tested it with video or voice, as I didn;t have an active web cam.  But I did test it in chat, and it was fine.  I don't use a cam, so I cannot help there.

This is long winded, but it should work.  Watch for the 'backslash and space' in any Windows (Wine) paths where folder names have spaces.  Miss one and nothing works.  If Viber won;t run, chances are you got one wrong, so step throud using cd folder and ls each one as you go until you fine one that won;t open.  Then check if there's a space.  Remember Windows is a BACK slash and a Space.
So: /Folder/Another Folder/Application  would be written in a command or script as:   /Folder/Another\ Folder/Application

OK  Here Goes:
Install PlayOnLinux

Download Viber for Windows.
Install the ViberSetup.exe or Viber.exe (whatever whatever it was called) using PlayOnLinux.

Now that's not as easy as it sounds, but on Mint 17 XFCE 4.12 this is what I think I did:

Open PlayOnLinux.  It was in Menu, Games, PlayOnLinux.
On the right, choose Install a Program.
When the Install Menu opens, look at the bottom and click on Install a non-listed program
The Manual Installation dialog will open, click Next
If you have NOT used PlayOnLinux before, click on install a program in a new virtual drive
Type in a name for your new virtual drive WITH NO SPACES
Click Next and Follow the rest of the prompts
Now, Mr Intelligence here forgot to type in a name, so I ended up with a virtual drive called "_"
Yep, my drive is in a folder called 'underscore'.
You should be asked if you want to Use another version of Wine. Configure Wine or Install some libraries.
I messed around configuring Wine, but I suspect I may not have had to.
Once you get through this stuff you shoud be asked to Please select the install file to run.
Click Browse and find the installation file wherever you downloaded it. 
In my case, in a folder called Software Downladed/Viber
Click the Viber.exe file and wait.

It 'SHOULD" install to the following directory - but it could take some finding. 
Do a searh for Viber.exe in your file manager and you should fine it in something like this below:  

/home/ross/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/_/drive_c/users/ross/Local Settings/Application Data/Viber/Viber.exe

Find executable and open with PlayOnLinux and SAVE the association Always Open This Type etc..
Once it has opened, you will be asked to provide your phone number.  A pin code will be sent to your mobile.
Enter the pn and Viber should open.  If you already have Viber on a device, you shoudl see your contacts.
Once you veryfy it is working, close Viber and close PlayOnLinux.

Then use this command in a terminal to start Viber.  NOTE playonlinx Terminal command is in LOWER case.

playonlinux /home/ross/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/_/drive_c/users/ross/Local\ Settings/Application\ Data/Viber/Viber.exe

Viber for Windows does not like to shut down in Linux so I Kill Viber with this (I made an executable script).
In my Mint 17 if I don;t kill Viber Process after I close the actual Viber Program, my monitors shut down and they don't want to start again.
---------------
#!/bin/bash
pkill Viber.exe
# Kills Wine version of Viber.
# Needed for now because Viber causes monitor power save mode to cut in.
---------------

I tried adding pkill playonlinux, but while it kills the process it doesn't seem to close the PlayOnLinux window :-(

Once that is done you should be able to use the command in a script, a link or a launcher.
I opened my /home/me/Desktop folder and Right Clicked in the folder and created a 'Link ro Application'
then I just pasted this into the Command box on the Application tab:
playonlinux /home/ross/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/_/drive_c/users/ross/Local\ Settings/Application\ Data/Viber/Viber.exe

Next I changed the icon for the Viber icon and put VIBER in the Name field.  I left the Work path empty.

I hope this helps a few people who want to use Viber in 32 bit Linux.

RossD.

Linux Mint 17 Thrashing Hard Drives

I noticed a few times that I would be working on my computer, leave for a while and when I come back every thign is slow and jerky.  Firefox stops scrolling,  Videos are suddenly jerky.  Programs took forever to open and trying to edit a video was pointless.

The give away was that the hard drive light was continually on.  As a test I left it running to see how long it took to stop.  It was still thrashing the hard drive 11 hours later !!!!

It took ages to find the problem, but eventually I noticed that whenever this was happening a program called gvfs-metadata was running.

Eventually I took a chance and went into synaptic and deleted everythign with gvfs in its name.

My system is great now, but...   Every now and again I notice the problem again.  It seems some Gnome applications install it.  The last one was Nautilus.  Now if I notice this happening I simply go back into Synaptic and delete anything with gvfs in the name.

Such a simple solution to such an annoying problem.

Linux Mint 17 Breaking stuff

As much as I love Linux Mint, I've noticed in the recent releases there are some annoying problems.  In short, mint is becoming more and more like Windows used to be.

First off was my favourite Mint flavour - KDE.  It was running perfectly but when I decided to update to version 17 it killed my computer.  Screwed things up so badly nothing would boot.  I'm cautious, and tend to keep the old version in a partition until the new version is tested and running nicely.  But after a few weeks, suddenly one morning the system refused to boot.  So I chose the previous version in GRUB and it refused also.

The Live DVD worked, so I did a fresh install and it still would not boot, nor would the older version still installed.

So I installed XFCE and have used it ever since.  But Mint 17 XFCE has its own little glitches.

For one thing I opened Mint 17 Updater and saw the option to update from Mint 17 Quiana to Mint 17.1 Rebecca.  So I clicked on it, then on the next popup I clicked 'Continue' and it took me to a link that suggested it would display release notes.  So I clicked the link and Firefox opened.  At my home page.  I tried again - and had two instances of Firefox open at my home page.  So I gave up and pressed continue again.  The text on the button greyed out - and that's all that happened.

Another thing that is kind of cute but bloody annoying - is that if I right click on the desktop, I cannot change the desktop wallpaper.  Well, that is, unless I set it to change through different wallpapers and then uncheck that when I reach one I like.  It used to work, then one day it just decided not to.  It will not let me change the folder the wallpapers are in.

Those are just a couple of Mint 17 glitches.  Mint 16 worked fine.  Mint 17 just keeps getting worse.  But once these stupid problems are fixed - and one thing about Mint is, if you wait a few releases they are always found and fixed - It will still be the best all purpose distro out there!