LarsonsWorld -- just another persons /dev/null

With the previous story, I wanted a screen capture of my Gmail inbox. My 'Print Screen' key on the Acer Aspire One wasn't working.

To fix this, first I opened up the Synaptic Package Manager and made sure 'xfce4-screenshooter' was installed.
I then opened up the 'Keyboard' dialog box under 'Settings' on the menu. Once there, I selected 'Application Shortcuts' and then clicked the '+ Add' button. I typed 'xfce4-screenshooter' In the open 'Command:' box. After clicking 'OK' I touched my 'Print Screen' button, which assigned the command to that button.

I love hunting down, figuring out and then fixing these kind of things. It keeps my mind supple.

Having a strange sound problem with my new Linux Mint 13 install on my Dell 6000. Login and Logout sounds are heard but I get no audio from video or audio programs.

Have no problems with my Acer Aspire One.

Strange

I'll have to go spend some time on the Linux Mint forums and see what I can find out.

Update -- 01 August 2012
For whatever reason, sound is working fine now. I did stop using SMPlayer.

On my Acer Aspire One, I have switched from LMDE with XFCE 4.8 to Linux Mint 13 with XFCE 4.10. I was having issues with wireless at work and found the 13 worked better than LMDE.

I don't really know where I am going anymore. At this point my Dell Inspiron 6000 is Cinnamon, Acer Aspire One is Xfce and my DIY media box is Mate.

Based on appearances, it doesn't look like I know what direction I am going to go in.

After about 5 months I have switched Linux Mint Debian back to Gnome 2 from XFCE. I have no real problem with XFCE, but as a Gnome user since 2006, there just seemed to be a few to many compromises I had to accept with XFCE.

Some of these included:

• Thunar always seemed to take an extra second or two to react to loading thumbnails & deleting files, file transfers seemed slower, no ability to have multiple tabs, ect
• I like how Dropbox intergrates into Nautilus.
• The weather applet in the XFCE panel stopped working.
• I always had problems getting file sharing across a network to work.

I realize I am on a dead end road using Gnome 2, but as a keyboard based user, Gnome 3 has no interest for me. I guess I am old school. Gnome 3 seems designed for tablets, not the keyboard based computer.

With the recent news that Linux Mint is helping out with Mate, I guess that does give me an avenue I can go down once it comes to LMDE.

So, it's been a few weeks since my change over from LMDE Gnome to LMDE Xfce. I have to say overall I am still very happy with Xfce. Of the things I have mentioned before, here is an update for a couple of them.

I was having problems with Google Chrome opening up properly. There seemed to be others with this problem as it was showing up on the Linux Mint forums. Even though Chrome has not been updated, one of the other recent updates seems to have cleaned up this problem. Chrome is now opening up every time without a problem.
During the time I was having problems with Chrome, I was playing around with Firefox. For me, I wasn't really happy with previous versions of Firefox. The 5.0 version was actually pretty nice. Since I mainly use my Acer Aspire One (now that my Dell 6000 is having issues with its wireless card) I have nothing showing other than tabs and the address bar. Chrome has had the ability to remove the title bar for a while and I was finally able to find a plugin for Firefox that removed it also. I think the one thing I like Firefox over Chrome is the ability fo Firefox to clear out the cache when closing it.

I ended my experiment with upgrading Thunderbird. It was freezing up after running for a while and then would just shut itself down. If I happened to be running Firefox at the same time, Firefox would also freeze up and then shut down. Oh well, I tried.

Thunderbird 5.0 has been out for a while but has yet to hit the Linux Mint Debian XFCE repository.On a whim I downloaded Thunderbird, extracted it and then, with root permissions in Thunar, I copied the 'thunderbird' folder into the /opt folder overwriting all the old files. Now when I start up Thunderbird I am running 5.0.

One thing I have noticed is Synaptic still shows Thunderbird as 3.17. I'm wonder what will happen when the 5.0 hits the repositories.

Not sure if this is right or wrong, but hey, it works. I mean, what could go wrong? Oh yea, if I toast my install, there are those 1000 updates to install!

By the way, the reason for my wanting to upgrade to 5.0 is that Lightning calendar project only works on 5.0

This is a third installment of my notes detailing my move to Linux Mint Debian XFCE.
Part 1 - Part 2

So here are a few more random thoughts for my mish-mash list:
(+ is a positive, - is a negative, * is a tip and ~ is a whatever)

- In Thunar, if a file or folder name is one line long or less, it is centered under the object. If the name is longer than one line, the name aligns to the left under the object. Huh? Talk about bizarre.

- I use TrueCrypt. In Gnome, when you mounted a volume, it automatically shows up on the desktop. With XFCE you have to go hunt for it in the /media folder.

~ Google Chrome doesn't start up properly everytime. It seems on a fresh startup it has problems starting the first time. It has to be shut down and restarted and then it works fine. Very strange.
** Update: This is addressed in the Linux Mint Forums -- Read more here

+ It has upgraded to the 3.0 kernal. Woohoo! (Although I really shouldn't care)

~ It seems like transfers to USB disks are a bit slower. I can't back this up with any data, it just seems that way.

This is a second installment of my notes detailing my move to Linux Mint Debian XFCE.
Part 1 - Part 3

So, let's continue my mish-mash list of thoughts:
(+ is a positive, - is a negative, ~ is a whatever and * is a tip)

~ Linux Mint released this distro on April 6th, four months ago yesterday. As of today there are 903 updates which requires 1093 files to be downloaded. Holy Shit Batman! Grab a good book or go out an play in the sprinkler while wait for the files to download. FYI: I didn't update the debian-system-adjustments. When this update appeared I installed it on my Dell laptop and had not stop problems with my internet connection. I never did install it on the Aspire and never had problems. That ain't the problem. I have installed it on my netbook and it works fine. Something else is wrong with the laptop. Damn

- Touch pad didn't work for tapping to click. Searched the Linux Mint Forums and found this fix for it. You might want to wait to change this. I both my computers I had to go back and fix this after the initial update. When I did change the file after the update, there was some warning about not altering the file but I did anyway and there hasn't been any problem.

- The Gnome terminal has a funny habit of shrinking. It's really bizarre. A work around is to install the XFCE terminal (xfce4-terminal)

~ There are no games installed. It's an easy fix by installing gnome-games but I find it strange.

+ The Directory Menu for the panel is cool. I don't know if this was available in the Gnome panel, but I like it.

* To get a weather applet in the panel, install xfce4-weather-plugin.

- The panel notifications are giant, especially on my netbook. It would be nice if they where a bit smaller.

* When I did the installation on my netbook, I reformated my entire hard drive. With Rhythmbox I figured out a way to get my playlists and music library back from my old installation. I'll be writing this work around up very soon and will add a link to it. Here it is.

* I always make sure I back up all my hidden configuration files. Because of this, when I install one of the programs I've used before, I copy those config files into /home. Now, when I open that particular program, it's just like I closed it the last time I used it on my old setup.

So I am making the move from Linux Mints Debian Gnome to their Debian XFCE disto on my Dell 6000 laptop and Acer Aspire One netbook. It's a mix of Gnome and XFCE that they describe as such: "Mint Xfce isn’t “trying” to be lightweight anymore. It’s snappier and uses less resources, while becoming more mainstream and offering more popular applications." It installed pretty quickly and starts up nice and fast.

My thoughts so far in a completely mish-mash order:
(+ is a positive, - is a negative, * is a tip and ~ is a whatever)

+ I have installed Orage for a calendar and I like how it intergrates into the panel with an adjustable display.

+ I prefer XFCEs version of ALT Run Program. I like how gives you a drop box of programs after you start typing.

+ I run pretty basic panel -- Menu, Trash, Weather, Date & Time, Notifications and Sound -- and was able to duplicate the one I ran under Gnome with the XFCE panel. The ability to right click anywhere and get the menu rules.

~ I installed from the same thumb drive on both computers but they set up differently. The initial themes and panel where different. I remember this happening when I first installed the Debian release. Very strange.

* Even though mintupdate installs, it is recommended that you not use it. I used Synaptic but you can also go with apt-get upgrade.

~ I've been thinking about BTRFS for a while now and was thinking of implimenting it in this install. Nope. When setting the root partition it automatically uses EXT4. I did format /home to BTRFS but I could not log in once the install was done. I had to go back and format /home to EXT4 to be able to log in. Guess I'll have to wait to try out BTRFS.

Part 2 - Part 3