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Of Mice and Men

My bluetooth mouse has stopped working with my Ubuntu laptop and I can say with great confidence, dealing with Bluetooth and Ubuntu is a special level of hell on this laptop. I have had to troubleshoot if the issue was with the mouse driver on the machine, the Bluetooth driver on the machine, the mouse itself, or what.

As of now, it appears to be the mouse. As other Bluetooth devices work on this machine. And my trackpad works.

[Several reboots later]

Okay, it appears to be working again. I don't honestly know what is to blame. I ended up repairing the laptop through the Logitech unifying receiver rather than just Bluetooth. I also discovered the 'solaar' app for Linux which does some of the customizations for Logitech that you can do in Windows.

So that's nice. I guess.

I find a certain amount of irony that I apparently had to use Windows to redeem my MLS Pass on Apple TV+. I tried to do in Linux and I kept getting an authentication error.

Also, when are they going to release an AppleTV+ app for Android? I'm going to be very frustrated not being able to watch matches on my phone.

Oh Linux

I had the gall to dare to run apt-get update & upgrade, thinking it would be simple. But, I believe, it updated my video drivers and caused the computer to lock up in boot UNLESS -- and the stupidity of this boggles my mind -- I unplugged the third monitor from the computer and suddenly it booted correctly.

To say I am annoyed is an understatement. For now, I am just living the 2 monitor life, and rather than chase down the problem, I am inclined to continue to do so.

"2022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop"

As someone who moved to Linux as the primary operating system, glad to be part of the 40%.

Proton is rad

I have discovered Proton and Steam for playing games in Linux. Proton is a new piece of software that enables me to play Windows games on Linux.

I just played some Marvel Snap and am installing Stardew Valley now, an old time favorite.

I don't plan to go too crazy. But given that I just began my winter holiday, a few more distractions on my laptop seems fun.

"Linux On The Laptop Works So Damn Well That It’s Boring"

It does indeed! My home daily driver is a laptop that runs Ubuntu currently and I never have an issue. Clive Thompson, the author of the linked post, is one of the few Medium blogs I follow regularly.

Though, interestingly, he uses Microsoft Teams as an example to his point as how well Linux works these days. I recently tried to set up Teams on it and discovered the Linux version only works if you are using Teams with a company-managed account system. So, my outlook.com email meant that it didn't work for me. The software is there and works but I suspect this is Microsoft lessening the threat of bad actors spamming or utilizing Teams for malicious intent.

Late Sunday coding, mostly for quality of life as I move back to Linux.

First, I had to update my "To Listen" Podcast tool to reflect the new file structure. Simple enough.

Second, I wrote a script to replace some software I had in Windows. I utilize ObsidianMD for a second-brain, personal library of store. And to that end, I store it on my own server so I can sync it to my phone. On Windows, I used some freeware to make the sync happening, but the same tools don't exist in Linux. However, lftp does. This post on askubuntu.com dives into it, though I ran into an issue and had to fix SSL required access for the server. But, we got there, and now I can easily sync again.

Now, time to retreat from the heat and head to bed to start a new work week.

Now on Ubuntu

I've written before here about my woes getting linux to run on my personal laptop. There was an issue with the network driver for the laptop that wasn't allowing it to be used. And obviously, not having wifi and bluetooth on the machine, proved a problem for me to make regular use of it.

I had found that there was a patch for the kernel which should have allowed the hardware to work, but that it had not been adopted by the core of the OS yet. I am not hardcore enough to try and delve into applying my own patch ahead, so I just left it be and stuck with Windows 11.

Well, yesterday, I decided to give Ubuntu a try and to my utter shock - it worked! We'll see if I stick with it or not. I had been hoping to try OpenSUSE, just as something new, but it just wouldn't work with the hardware. But, here I am. Happily on Linux once again.

I miss Linux

I miss running full Linux. Before my current laptop, Turk was running Lubuntu and I quite enjoyed it. This new laptop has a weird wireless card which Linux has not yet been compatible with. Every few months I try a new install to see if the card will start working, but no luck so far. And, sadly, my tech savvy is somewhat short of what is needed to figure it out. I've posted on forums a few times and have been led to believe the necessary driver is in the works and will be folded into Kernel eventually.

The weird thing is, I don't know why I miss it. There isn't something in Linux that I can't do in Windows. It's just different. I think part of it is that this computer has Windows 11 and I live in constant fear of it updating and bringing new ads into my life. I already have a pi-hole and various browser plugins designed to try and remove these internet nuisances from my life.

Or maybe, it's more the fear of being forced to subscribe to Windows one day. I know that won't happen without warning, but it seems an inevitable event and I don't want to participate in it.

SSH Config Files

This morning's Linux learning is the power of the ssh config file. Super exciting and useful.

Heading off to bed. This evening has been spent in the air conditioned room to combat the hellfire heat outside. I've spent tonight listening to Cory Doctorow's Attack Surface audiobook as I update and manage my RSS feed reader, adding a number of tech blogs.

I also discovered a lovely new terminal app for my Linux, called Tilda. Its biggest feature is that it stays open and I can use a keyboard shortcut to make it visible for using over the top of other windows, and once I'm done I can click off it and it disappears again.

Yesterday's Linux experiment did not last long. I ended up reverting the laptop to Lubuntu, I found that while Bunsenlabs looked nice, its support was lacking and I was not in the mood to dive deep into learning its intricacies.

That said, this morning I found myself diving deep on two arcane nerd tools: vim & lisp.

Vim is a code editor that is notorious for its power but also for its steep learning curve. It is a byproduct of the early days of unix and linux and it is a truly amazing piece of software, except that it is like learning a foreign language for all the jargon and key codes you have to learn. So, naturally, I am fascinated by it and eager to try and unlock it.

Secondly, Lisp, is a programming language. It is most widely used today for doing things like AI, but it is an old language. I had a course in college which used a version of Lisp. I have no real plans for a Lisp project, but I just find it interesting to explore things like this from time to time.

This morning I decided, on a lark, to switch my Linux laptop to another distro. I've been using Lubuntu, which has worked fine. My biggest complaint with it was that it would bog down and sometimes crash if I dared have too many tabs open on Firefox and a big project for coding. Also, it just wasn't very pleasing to interact with. It was functional and fine.

So this morning, after perusing some other lower spec Linux distros, I decided to give Bunsenlabs a try. It's a Debian-based distro, the same underlying distro as Ubuntu/Lubuntu, though they have different layers in between. And so far, it's very nice. The graphics and feel are smoother and no crashing, yet. But I haven't really put it under load so we will see how it progresses.