avila's questions

For those who have tried to use stata under linux, probably already encountered some issues related to the icons and libpng12 library... while I could get those fixed and stata starts normally and display the icons, somehow, stata takes really long to plot a scatter plot with some 150.000 observations.

• I first thought it was a issue with stata, but it works fine under manjaro (arch-based, with gnome 3.34.1).

• I also tried multiple releases of stata (mp, se) and also multiple versions (14.2, 15, 15.1)... and the results are the same across all versions: works as expected in Manjaro and veeeery slow in Ubuntu.

• other than plotting, stata seems to run just as fast as in other systems.
• i first thought the issue was related to the libpng12 library. I installed this library in several ways, including using the binary from arch repository, from this ppa as in this tutorial and also manually from xenial's repo.
• also tried in elementaryOS (5.1) and ubuntu 16.04, so it is not a problem only with the 19.10 version.

anyone has any idea what else I could try?

edits (answering to questions)

• cpu: i5 5300U
• gpu: Intel HD Graphics 5500 (i think... definitely no dedicated chip)
• ram: 16gb

• comment: with the same computer, it works fine on windows... (on other computer, older one with i5 from 2nd gen, works fine on manjaro)

• if I set graph off, the creation of the plot is normal, but if try to export it to png, it takes really long time (export to eps is rather quick).

• while plotting, the Xorg process goes to 90~100% CPU usage (of 1 core). The same happens in wayland (but with XWayland process). Even if graph is not be displayed (window is hidden or when graph is set off and only being exported...)
  • it affects several versions of stata (14, 15.1, 16)

as the title says, Mendeley Desktop says "Unable to open PDF - It may be damaged" but I am able to open with external viewer by Right click > Open File Externally.

Edit: The same file opens in Mendeley's web version.

Issue

Unable to install a few R packages (statistical programming language) since updating from 16.04 to Ubuntu 18.04. The problem is related to the use of the shared library libcurl. More precisely:

/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcurl.so.4: version `CURL_OPENSSL_3' not    
found (required by /home/avila/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.4/curl
/libs/curl.so)

sofar, I tried...

• ... to install a previous version of libcurl with sudo apt-get install libcurl3, but other libraries were uninstalled on the procedure and R was not usable.

error output

When trying to install package called "forecast", for example:

install.packages("forecast")
 installing to /home/avila/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.4/forecast/libs
** R
** data
*** moving datasets to lazyload DB
** inst
** byte-compile and prepare package for lazy loading
Error in dyn.load(file, DLLpath = DLLpath, ...) :  unable to load shared
object '/home/avila/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.4/curl/libs/curl.so':
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcurl.so.4: version `CURL_OPENSSL_3' not    
found (required by /home/avila/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.4/curl
/libs/curl.so)

ERROR: lazy loading failed for package ‘forecast’
* removing ‘/home/avila/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.4/forecast’
Warning in install.packages :
installation of package ‘forecast’ had non-zero exit status

other info:

• R version 3.4.4 (2018-03-15)
• Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)

Question

I would like to know what are the possible ways of using an unity-like HUD (Heads Up Display) on Ubuntu 18.04, preferably with the gnome shell as default.

by HUD I mean the access and search of menu items (not applications or files!) when pressing (and releasing) alt.

Are there usable gnome extension or third-party apps that works in 18.04?

Discussion

There are already some discussion here. But this is less specific, as I am searching for an Ubuntu 18.04 (with Gnome shell) solution.

some of the solutions indicated are:

• plotinus seems promising, but only works with GTK+ apps.

• Gnome Global Application Menu(HUD for Gnome), comments say it doesn't work in 18.04, although the last comment (from 06.05.18) says the latest version if installed manually from github should work in 18.04. (I would appreciate a detailed instruction of how to install an extension manually)

I just upgraded to Ubuntu 18.04 and the trackpoint shows an erratic behaviour. When moving the cursor in one direction, it first moves in some direction and then moves the right way.

It is a strange behaviour, as though there is some kind of momentum (inertia) "stuck" in the trackpoint that is released when I start moving again, after some time at rest.

The issue only happens with the trackpoint, and also only when both moves are dont with the trackpoint. (that is, if I move with the mouse (or touchpad), and then with the trackpoint, no problem.)

It was working fine with UBUNTU 17.10.

Here is the ouput of a relevant command.

avila@t420s ~> xinput list-props "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint"

Device 'TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint':
Device Enabled (142):   1
Coordinate Transformation Matrix (144): 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000
libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled (281):   0
libinput Natural Scrolling Enabled Default (282):   0
libinput Scroll Methods Available (285):    0, 0, 1
libinput Scroll Method Enabled (286):   0, 0, 1
libinput Scroll Method Enabled Default (287):   0, 0, 1
libinput Button Scrolling Button (288): 2
libinput Button Scrolling Button Default (289): 2
libinput Middle Emulation Enabled (290):    0
libinput Middle Emulation Enabled Default (291):    0
libinput Accel Speed (292): -0.683453
libinput Accel Speed Default (293): 0.000000
libinput Accel Profiles Available (294):    1, 1
libinput Accel Profile Enabled (295):   1, 0
libinput Accel Profile Enabled Default (296):   1, 0
libinput Left Handed Enabled (297): 0
libinput Left Handed Enabled Default (298): 0
libinput Send Events Modes Available (266): 1, 0
libinput Send Events Mode Enabled (267):    0, 0
libinput Send Events Mode Enabled Default (268):    0, 0
Device Node (269):  "/dev/input/event8"
Device Product ID (270):    2, 10
libinput Drag Lock Buttons (283):   <no items>
libinput Horizontal Scroll Enabled (284):   1

I set up my keyboard layout in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/ to use the keys H, J, K, L as arrows Left, Down, Up and Right as the third and fourth shift level. mostly I followed this post. The R. Alt is my Alternative Characters Key.

While this customization will "basically" work, I can not select text by typing it in conjunction with Shift. For example, I can not select the text by pressing Alt Gr+Shift+H, as it would do with Shift+Left. But I can jump a whole word with Ctrl.

The H, J, K, L are working exactly like the arrows in Firefox (with Shift and Ctrl) but not on Gedit, Rhythmbox or Chrome, and possibly more...

Any ideas? I'm using Ubuntu 14.04.

Edit:I am using a german keyboard with AltGr. and the files are the fowllowing:

link to keyboard layout

(hope the link works now)