Category Archives: Tips and tricks

The drive that kept unmounting – and how to fix it (Windows/Linux/Os X)

Currently, I am using Acer Revo Mini M1-601, which is a great machine by itself. The really small size is bonus and I do all my daily tasks with it. Lately, I had to install Windows 10 and I encountered a strange bug, which I later also found when using a bleeding edge Linux distributions like Debian Sid, and here is what happened.

I have a clone dock/drive bay combo, which allows me to mount an external hard drive to my computer via usb2/3 connection. Now, my new computer comes mainly with usb3 and that is great. The problems begin when I am mounting my hard drive via clone dock/drive bay combo. What actually happens is that everything works smoothly about 5 to 6 minutes and then systems(like Windows 8 / 10 and Debian Sid or even OS X) unmount the external hard drive by themselves and kick it out. In the previous case, the only choice is to manually remount the device – but after a while this gets quite annoying to do every 5 to 6 minutes. Continue reading

How to change Slim display manager theme

Slim display manager is a great peace of software. Below, is a tutorial how to apply themes to it. Proceed with caution. If you do not know what you are doing look help before continuing. Otherwise you might break something you do not  want to.

Note. Users of PostX Gnu/Linux will only need to take steps 6 and 7 if they want to change to another slim-ntheme (slim nthemes are already installed) which should take about 3 minutes. Also, in PostX it is good enough if you just exit the desktop to apply changes. Continue reading

Quick Tip: Change themes on Linux systems

While I am still doing final upgrades and additions for the PostX Gnu/Linux 0.3 repository – and final checkups as well – here is a quick tip on changing themes on pretty much all current Linux systems.

If you use Openboox, Fluxbox, Jwm or anything else lightweight install lxappearance: sudo apt-get install lxappearance

If you install modern Gtk3 themes then do not be amazed if the new theme might not show up as expected. Gtk3 themes are sometimes moving targets and as such require new theme engines.  Occasionally, the previous  leads to the scenario where theme x does not find the requirements it needs to function correctly. Gtk2 themes however usually work as expected since the theme engines required are older – and thus usually found within pretty much every current Linux distribution. There is no clear way to say if a theme x will work on system y. The best practice is to try it out and see. If the theme fails because it needs a newer theme engine then one way to patch the issue is to compile the engine from source. See this post if you want to compile a Debian package from source: http://www.techtimejourney.net/how-to-build-a-debian-package-case-example-with-midori-0-50/

GTK3 Tip.

You can also use a tool called gnome-tweak-tool if you wish. The tool itself is Gtk3 related and does not serve user well under Gtk2. As far as I can tell Lxappearance is the best tool for simple theme changing – unless you do not want to do it manually by yourself.

 

 

 

The differences between Freebsd and Debian Gnu/Linux

Since I have used both Debian and  Freebsd I thought I should make a list about the things I consider to be the key differences between the two.

The following differences may, and do, apply to some extent to other BSDs and Linux distributions. My purpose is to highlight differences to give a better view of things and by no means I am suggesting that you SHOULD or SHOULD NOT use the distribution of your choice. Continue reading