Linux

So I've had a graphics issue with my Kubuntu box which relies on an Intel motherboard. While I was hoping to put off the fix until the next version of Kubuntu (out in April), the display bug was getting to be really annoying. I therefore decided to upgrade to the latest kernel immediately.

So I upgraded my Kubuntu box's kernel to 3.19 and while that fixed my graphics issues, I ran into a new and peculiar issue where hovering over links in Google Chrome failed to display the linked addresses in the bottom of the screen (the status bar). This is apparently a known (Chromium) bug which has still not been resolved. The current recommended workaround is to disable and re-enable hardware acceleration as follows:

While using Google Chrome on Kubuntu 14.10, the display hung for about 5 seconds before unfreezing with the following notification:

Desktop effects were restarted due to a graphics reset

Once this began occurring with an increasing frequency, I began to do a little digging. Looking through /var/log/kern.log brought the following up:

After installing the shiny new version of Eclipse entitled 'Luna' on a Kubuntu 14.10 box, I found that it crashed/hung when trying to import/clone a Git repository. Starting the application from the command-line triggered the following notice before the crash:

java: /build/buildd/gtk2-engines-oxygen-1.4.5/src/animations/oxygencomboboxdata.cpp:87: void Oxygen::ComboBoxData::setButton(GtkWidget*): Assertion `!_button._widget' failed.

The title sounds like the name of a fantasy novel ... but I'm of course talking (or, as you, stranger of the Internet, will find out, ranting) about the KDE audio player. Amarok is the default audio player for KDE which makes it the default audio player of Kubuntu, my Linux distro of choice. Now, some history before I begin spitting all over you. I usually use Windows as my primary desktop.

So I wanted to upgrade my Sony Xperia Ray from its now old (and official) Gingerbread version of Android to the relatively more modern Jellybean. The most reliable alternative out there is Cyanogenmod.

While the Cyanogenmod wiki was generally useful, here's what I think is a cleaner guide. I performed the upgrade via a Kubuntu Trusty (14.04) laptop.

In Kubuntu/Ubuntu (and presumably Debian and other derivatives), the CTRL + ALT + F4 (or any other function key) keyboard shortcut switches from the desktop to a virtual terminal while CTRL + ALT + F7 brings you back to the desktop. However, I want to disable this as it's messing up my HTPC thanks to its dodgy remote control. While I could find a solution for Gnome/Ubuntu readily enough, KDE/Kubuntu was not immediately apparent.

I ran into the following error while running a script that was performing backups of files via rsync over ssh.

error: ssh: connect to host foo.example.com port 22: Connection refused rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes received so far) [sender] rsync error: unexplained error (code 255) at io.c(601) [sender=3.0.7]

I ran into the following spiel when I attempted to SSH to a host just now:

Setting the timezone of an Ubuntu (14.04, Trusty) or Debian (7, Wheezy) server from the command-line is simple. Just run dpkg-reconfigure tzdata and follow the on-screen prompts. However, if you are running an unattended installation, you might want to avoid interactive prompts and just gets the job done. To do this, simply run

$ sudo ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Anchorage /etc/localtime

Browse through /usr/share/zoneinfo/ to locate your timezone.