After installing progressive web apps on KDE, the icons don’t appear correctly in the task bar, like this:
That second app is Google Messages. This gets confusing, especially if you have applications grouped (which is the default option in Manjaro KDE). The fix is pretty simple and the solution is completely from here. I’m documenting it here, just in case.
First, you need xdotool. This can be installed in Manjaro like this
sudo pacman -S xdotool
Next you need to browse to ~/.local/share/applications/
It’s pretty easy to tell which desktop file is which, thanks to them having the appropriate icon.
Last step is to edit the Exec= line of the desktop file by appending this text:
I got my framework laptop today. I had intended to put Manjaro/KDE on it, but ended up with stock Ubuntu 21.04 (a story for another time). The trackpad is big and pretty nice, so setting up 3 finger swipe was an initial priority.
I didn’t have to do anything special to get the trackpad working. There were reports on reddit of it not working out of the box on certain distros. It’s a bit odd about how far you have to click to the right and to the left to get the respective clicks, but nothing too terrible.
For 3 finger swipes i went with Comfortable Swipe. The instructions are each to followo, but after giving permissions I had to do a full reboot. They claimed a log out would be sufficient, but was not for me. In any case, it works great.
— UPDATE —
For Manjaro/KDE I went with fusuma. The steps to install were roughly:
I ran this from the home directory to set it up to run on login (requires logout):
printf "$(which fusuma) & disown \n" >> .profile #.zprofile if using zsh
Right now my config has some things that don’t exist, but it got me the thing I wanted (moving workspaces with 3 fingers and moving windows with 4 fingers). I had to set a few of the shortcuts in System Settings > Shortcuts > KWIN
~/.config/fusuma/config.yml
swipe:
3:
left:
command: "xdotool key ctrl+alt+Right" # History forward
right:
command: "xdotool key ctrl+alt+Left" # History back
up:
command: "xdotool key ctrl+alt+Up" # Activity
down:
command: "xdotool key ctrl+alt+Down" # Activity
4:
left:
command: "xdotool key ctrl+alt+Down" # Switch to next workspace
right:
command: "xdotool key ctrl+alt+Up" # Switch to previous workspace
up:
command: "xdotool key ctrl+alt+shift+Up" # Switch to next workspace
down:
command: "xdotool key ctrl+alt+shift+Down" # Switch to previous workspace
pinch:
in:
command: "xdotool keydown ctrl click 4 keyup ctrl" # Zoom in
out:
command: "xdotool keydown ctrl click 5 keyup ctrl" # Zoom out
I ran into a problem where Teams was stuck loading. On the few times I could get it to load, it would display an error page telling me to “Try Again” and to try “signing out”, neither of the links would do anything.
I was able to fix it by running:
pkill teams && rm -rf ~/.config/Microsoft/Microsoft\ Teams/Application\ Cache/Cache/*
Teams is kind of a disappointment on Linux. I have to use it, so hopefully that helps someone ( or me again in the future).
After I updated my desktop to Linux kernel version 5 when I logging in my network would disconnect/reconnect every 15 seconds or so. I wasn’t able to get on the internet. My ethernet cable was plugged directly into my motherboard and I don’t have wifi capabilities.
I had a bit of trouble getting Rider set up initially to handle my dotnet core projects on Manjaro. Rider wouldn’t open the projects complaining about not being able to find SDKs like razor and web. My first stop was Settings->Build, Execution, Deployment->Toolset and Build. I messed around with those settings to no avail.
Pointing to the MSBuild.dll within my dotnet installation seemed to be the kicker, over the one that came with mono. But I also changed my dotnet core executable path to /opt/dotnet/dotnet from /usr/bin/dotnet at the same time. Once I got it working, I didn’t want to mess with it anymore, so here it sits.
A reddit post clued me in to Conky, a system monitor that grafts on to your background wallpaper. I played around with a configuration, and I have something that I’m pretty happy with.
To install:
sudo apt-get install conky-all
Here’s my config. You can place this in the file ~/.conkyrc (you’ll have to create it).
use_xft yes
xftfont 123:size=8
xftalpha 0.1
update_interval 1
total_run_times 0
own_window yes
own_window_type conky
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
own_window_colour 000000
own_window_argb_visual yes
own_window_argb_value 0
own_window_class override
double_buffer yes
#minimum_size 250 5
#maximum_width 500
draw_shades no
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders no
default_color ffffff
default_shade_color red
default_outline_color green
alignment top_right
gap_x 0
gap_y 0
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 2
net_avg_samples 1
override_utf8_locale no
use_spacer no
minimum_size 0 0
TEXT
${voffset 1}${offset 12}${font Ubuntu:size=10}${color FF00AA}HD ${offset 9}$color${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /}${offset 30}${color FF00AA}RAM ${offset 9}$color$mem / $memmax${offset 30}${color FF00AA}CPU ${offset 9}$color${cpu cpu0}%
or for lighter backgrounds:
use_xft yes
xftfont 123:size=8
xftalpha 0.1
update_interval 1
total_run_times 0
own_window yes
own_window_type conky
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
own_window_colour 000000
own_window_argb_visual yes
own_window_argb_value 0
own_window_class override
double_buffer yes
#minimum_size 250 5
#maximum_width 500
draw_shades no
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders no
default_color 666666
default_shade_color red
default_outline_color green
alignment top_right
gap_x 0
gap_y 0
no_buffers yes
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 2
net_avg_samples 1
override_utf8_locale no
use_spacer no
minimum_size 0 0
TEXT
${voffset 1}${offset 12}${font Ubuntu:size=10}${color FF00AA}HD ${offset 9}$color${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /}${offset 30}${color FF00AA}RAM ${offset 9}$color$mem / $memmax${offset 30}${color FF00AA}CPU ${offset 9}$color${cpu cpu0}%
Synergy 2 Beta is cool, and a good direction for Synergy to go, but it is a Beta. These are some things I’ve learned along the way to help make things work properly.
On linux, you have to start the synergy service manually. Before I start Synergy, I usually run:
On windows, restart the service (sometimes several times). I just right click on the taskbar, go to Task Manager, go to Services, find Synergy and restart it.
When all computers see each other, are green, but nothing works – hit F12 on the “server” computer. this forces it to be the server and seems to kick things working.
I don’t like typing “nautilus” to open the folder explorer from the terminal. Mac’s “open” command is shorter and makes sense to me. To get the same command in Ubuntu, we just have to add it to bash aliases.
Open up ~/.bash_aliases to be edited. I usually use nano.
nano ~/.bash_aliases
Add this line
alias open="nautilus"
When using the terminal, to open nautilus in the current folder, you can run this command
open . &
The “&” detaches the process from the terminal and is optional.
I had an issue that came about suddenly while working. Every now and then my cursor would jump to the upper right corner and lock to the taskbar. I couldn’t find any pattern to explain it. I tried:
activating/deactivating the trackpad
swapping my mouse out
cleaning my touchscreen
rebooting
deactivating extensions
The issue persisted. I noticed that my touchscreen wasn’t responding, so as a last step, I tried temporarily deactivating my touchscreen. The problem then went away. After a reboot, my touchscreen worked properly and the cursor no longer jumped. I have no explanation as to why, but here is how:
xinput --list
That will give you a list of inputs with IDs. The touchscreen entry should be pretty obvious. Mine is ‘Synaptics Large Touch Screen’. Note the ID. It should be a single or two digit number.
