Remco Haszing's questions

I have managed to install Adobe Acrobat Reader (the only "free" PDF editor I could find) in wine. This is working, but a lot of texts are not being rendered.

I have run the following to install it (based on this guide):

winetricks mspatcha
wine path/to/installer.exe

I did fail and retry several times, so I may or may not have selected a 32-bit version.

Anyway, it works, but some fonts are missing. It is usable, but sometimes I really do miss the texts, eg in pop-up messages.

Does anyone know how to fix these fonts?

I am using the same background image for both my GDM background and my gnome wallpaper. However, when I log in, I see a purple splash. I have no clue where this splash comes from.

Video

Where does this splash come from and how to I get rid of it?

I have changed my GDM3 background by changing ubuntu.css.

#lockDialogGroup {                                                              
/*  background: #2c001e url(resource:///org/gnome/shell/theme/noise-texture.png);
  background-repeat: repeat; }*/                                                
  background: #000000 url(file:///usr/share/plymouth/themes/trinity/chrono-trinity1920x1080.png);
  background-repeat: no-repeat; }

This kind of works, but now the image is displayed in the center of my multi monitor setup.

How do I change this so the image is displayed as a background on every monitor separately instead (like a regular wallpaper)?

I have remapped my caps lock to backspace.

/etc/default/keyboard

XKBLAYOUT="us"
XKBVARIANT="altgr-intl"
BACKSPACE="guess"
XKBOPTIONS="caps:backspace"

This works pretty great, except that it doesn’t work for some specific tools. I used xev to find out what’s going on.

Backspace pressed

KeyPress event, serial 38, synthetic NO, window 0x2400001,
    root 0x159, subw 0x0, time 1028211, (335,635), root:(452,749),
    state 0x10, keycode 22 (keysym 0xff08, BackSpace), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (08) "
    XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (08) "
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 38, synthetic NO, window 0x2400001,
    root 0x159, subw 0x0, time 1028272, (335,635), root:(452,749),
    state 0x10, keycode 22 (keysym 0xff08, BackSpace), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (08) "
    XFilterEvent returns: False

Caps lock pressed

KeyPress event, serial 38, synthetic NO, window 0x2400001,
    root 0x159, subw 0x0, time 859789, (391,558), root:(508,672),
    state 0x10, keycode 66 (keysym 0xff08, BackSpace), same_screen YES,
    XKeysymToKeycode returns keycode: 22
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (08) "
    XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (08) "
    XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 38, synthetic NO, window 0x2400001,
    root 0x159, subw 0x0, time 859875, (391,558), root:(508,672),
    state 0x10, keycode 66 (keysym 0xff08, BackSpace), same_screen YES,
    XKeysymToKeycode returns keycode: 22
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (08) "
    XFilterEvent returns: False

I also tried it in the browser using

addEventListener('keyup', event => {
  console.log(event.keyCode, event.key, event.code)
})

This logs the following when I press backspace and caps lock

8 "Backspace" "Backspace"
8 "Backspace" "CapsLock"

So basically my caps lock is remapped to backspace, but it only works if tools and websites use proper checks. I don’s want to file a bug report for every tool or website I ever use that implements this incorrectly.

Is it possible to map caps lock in such a way that it fully emulates a backspace instead of acting like a remapped caps lock?

I have setup my Ubuntu machine to use the English (US) language. I have setup regional formats to use a Dutch format.

The problem is that weekdays and months names are defined by the regional format, not the language setting.

Can I configure the locale in such a way that everything is in English, but use Dutch the locale for anything else?

For example:

English: Thu 08 June 2019 10:15:59 PM CET
Dutch: do 08 juni 2018 22:25:59 CET
Wanted: Do 08 June 2018 22:25:59 CET

I'm using Xubuntu. I'm not sure if this applies to other flavors of Ubuntu as well.

I used to set a custom keyboard mapping in .XCompose.

# Include systemwide config
include "%L"

<Multi_key> <colon> <3>                 : "?"       # : 3   Panda
<Multi_key> <8> <period>                : "☃"       # 8 .   Snowman
<Multi_key> <equal> <parenright>        : "?"       # = ) grinning cat face with smiling eyes
<Multi_key> <equal> <minus>             : "?"       # = - cat face with tears of joy
<Multi_key> <equal> <D>                 : "?"       # = D smiling cat face with open mouth
<Multi_key> <equal> <3>                 : "?"       # = 3 smiling cat face with heart-shaped eyes
<Multi_key> <equal> <slash>             : "?"       # = / cat face with wry smile
<Multi_key> <bar> <3>                   : "?"       # | 3 kissing cat face with closed eyes
<Multi_key> <greater> <equal>           : "?"       # > 3 pouting cat face
<Multi_key> <equal> <parenleft>         : "?"       # = ( crying cat face
<Multi_key> <D> <equal>                 : "?"       # D = weary cat face
<Multi_key> <p> <p>                     : "?"       # p p pumpkin

This can be loaded by setting xim as input method using im-config. This still works, but not always. It doesn't work in Atom and as of <insert the breaking Ubuntu version here> it makes synapse crash entirely.

I've also read at some point that .XModmap is deprecated, but I don't recall the exact sources.

All sources on what to configure exactly are a big vague. The only thing I got to work is using .XModmap.

What is the way to go nowadays (Xubuntu 16.04 / 16.10) to set custom key mappings? Preferably system-wide.

I would like to create a launcher launching:

chromium-browser chrome://inspect

However, this simply opens the chromium as if not url has been specified at all.

Is it even to start Chromium opening a chrome:// url?

I would like to add emblems to a file in Thunar using a script, but I can't find any documentation on this.

Is it possible to do this? And if so, how?

The same question was asked here, but they mention a ~/.cache/Thunar/metafile.tdb file which does not exist on my system. I think that question and the answer are outdated.

When I start software-center from the terminal, I get the following output:

2013-10-13 12:43:41,231 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - setting up proxy 'None'
2013-10-13 12:43:41,414 - softwarecenter.region - WARNING - failed to use geoclue: 'org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.Geoclue.Master was not provided by any .service files'
2013-10-13 12:43:41,618 - softwarecenter.backend.reviews - WARNING - Could not get usefulness from server, no username in config file
2013-10-13 12:43:41,621 - softwarecenter.plugin - INFO - activating plugin '<module 'webapps_activation' from '/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/plugins/webapps_activation.pyc'>'
2013-10-13 12:43:41,627 - softwarecenter.fixme - WARNING - logs to the root logger: '('/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gi/importer.py', 51, 'find_module')'
2013-10-13 12:43:41,627 - root - ERROR - Could not find any typelib for LaunchpadIntegration
2013-10-13 12:43:41,696 - softwarecenter.db.pkginfo_impl.aptcache - INFO - aptcache.open()
2013-10-13 12:43:43,495 - softwarecenter.fixme - WARNING - logs to the root logger: '('/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/utils.py', 271, 'get_title_from_html')'
2013-10-13 12:43:43,495 - root - WARNING - failed to parse: '<div style="background-color: #161513; width:1680px; height:200px;"><div style="background: url('/site_media/exhibits/2013/09/AAMFP_Leaderboard_700x200_1.jpg') top left no-repeat; width:700px; height:200px;"></div></div>' ('ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xa0' in position 70: ordinal not in range(128))
2013-10-13 12:43:46,266 - softwarecenter.region - WARNING - failed to use geoclue: 'org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.Geoclue.Master was not provided by any .service files'
2013-10-13 12:43:47,452 - softwarecenter.db.utils - INFO - software-center-agent finished with status 0

When I press the 'Turn on recommendations' button, I get the following:

2013-10-13 12:48:26,466 - softwarecenter.backend.login_impl.login_sso - ERROR - _on_credentials_error for Ubuntu One: dbus.Dictionary({dbus.String(u'errtype'): dbus.String(u'GUINotAvailableError'), dbus.String(u'message'): dbus.String(u'Can not find a GUI to present to the user (tried with "(\'ubuntu-sso-login-qt\', \'ubuntu-sso-login-qt\')"). Aborting.')}, signature=dbus.Signature('ss')) ()
2013-10-13 12:48:26,467 - softwarecenter.backend.login_impl.login_sso - ERROR - _on_credentials_error for Ubuntu One: dbus.Dictionary({dbus.String(u'errtype'): dbus.String(u'GUINotAvailableError'), dbus.String(u'message'): dbus.String(u'Can not find a GUI to present to the user (tried with "(\'ubuntu-sso-login-qt\', \'ubuntu-sso-login-qt\')"). Aborting.')}, signature=dbus.Signature('ss')) ()

I'm running Xubuntu 13.10. I think I accidentally removed a wrong package.

I'm using a dark GTK theme. For some reason Libre Office Writer has a white background (like I want), but Impress does not. I do remember I had a white background in Impress as well some installations ago, so I think it should be possible to get this. I'm not sure if it matters, but I'm using Xubuntu with Xfce 4.10.
I just upgraded Libre Office to version 4, but the problem remains the same.