Project Zebra: I dream of configurability and text editors ►
THIS IS THE LATEST ENTRY
This entry is part of my Project Zebra series covering migration to Linux for personal computing use.
Title reference: Starfleet Academy, which isn't bad so far, sort of Star Trek plus Police Academy. The full bit being: "Humpback whales... Sometimes it's just good to see a living thing that’s big, that doesn't really care about you. Remember that whatever you worry about, you just do not matter to this whale. It’s freeing."
Quite a lot of notes collected in a month.
I realised that the version of XnViewMP I've been running is 0.92 from 2018, which is one of the risks of installing stuff separately from distro repositories or running portable executables. Surprisingly it hasn't had any dependency problems in the intervening eight years including a change of distro. Installing the deb that's now available seems to pick up existing config. The script I created to provide a 'close this open file' button on the view toolbar doesn't work, but there's a Close button provided to add now anyway. And it uses the system icon theme, and works with that kwin tray minimise script. Time to update /home/admech/.local/share/nemo/actions/xnview.nemo_action
The shareit.com 'Donate' button on the site and link in the app don't seem to work, it bizarrely redirects to Amazon, but at least someone's reported that and this works.
Annoyingly there's a bug with Wayland and drag-and-drop in XnViewMP. Starting the app as 'XDG_SESSION_TYPE=X11 xnview' works but then doesn't work with kwin scripts such as the one I mentioned. The effect is that the window is hidden from the Taskbar, Switcher and Pager but no icon appears. I can't reproduce this with other Qt or Gtk apps so hopefully XnViewMP will get the drag and drop fixed, as it's a fairly fundamental feature of an image organiser unless you're okay with just keyboard shortcuts and don't accidentally drag things.
qdbus org.kde.KWin /KWin showDebugConsole + a manual window rule to set skipTaskbar to false can retrieve the XnView XWayland windows, but it's awkward. This is also currently necessary if you disable the kwin tray script and enable it again, as the tray icons don't get restored. I assume the script keeps an array of trayed Windows in memory rather than a config file which could be used to get them back.
I've only just noticed Plasma can't reorder tray icons, which even Windows does - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=384782
Tried installing Solaar on this distro to configure my Logitech K400r backup keyboard to see F keys as defaults, but it wasn't recognising the unifying receiver, even installing from the latest .deb in sid (1.1.18-1) so looking at https://pwr-solaar.github.io/Solaar/installation/ it needed the 42-logitech-unify-permissions.rules from https://github.com/pwr-Solaar/Solaar/tree/master/rules.d-uinput copying into /etc/udev/rules.d and a restart.
Splitting the audio of a YT video (audio in this case) with chapters into separate files:
yt-dlp -t mp3 --split-chapters -o "chapter:%(section_number)s %(section_title)s.%(ext)s" url_here
For some reason the pipe character on the UK keyboard layout I'm using isn't working and I don't know when it stopped (but would guess when upgrading to Debian 13 and switching to Wayland). The rest of the keyboard (which is one of the wireless TKL ones I got) seems to have the correct layout and AltGr plus the key does produce a pipe, so it could always have been like that. Another wireless keyboard (the K400r) I used before I've just plugged in behaves normally. I wondered if I'd be possible to simply make a shortcut key out of it, so looked at Wayland alternatives to xdotool
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/786856/how-to-send-keyboard-strokes-programmatically-like-sendkeys-in-windows-to-a
Debian doesn't have ydotool currently although you can find packages - https://www.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/1nnidhp/where_are_tools_like_ydotool_and_wtype/
wtype is an alternative in this case - https://man.archlinux.org/man/extra/wtype/wtype.1.en
but I still can't assign Shift+\ to an action, it's as if the key combined with Shift doesn't send a keypress at all. I wonder whether it can be mapped?
Making a note to investigate kjournald:
https://cordlandwehr.wordpress.com/2026/01/10/kjournald-update-january-2026/
Wine continues to mature nicely:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/01/wine-11-0-released
This seems like something that will connect with Don't Burn Anyone At The Stake Today (in my reading pile):
https://blog.cornelius-schumacher.de/2026/01/what-does-it-mean-to-write-in-2026.html?m=1
Fascinating but ultimately a tech demo unless you have a specific purpose for it:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/01/crowview-note-15-6-portable-monitor-with-keyboard
Kate uses system config for spell checking unlike Geany and I don't have the components installed or not correctly, apparently
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KDE#Spell_checking
https://battlepenguin.com/tech/aspell-and-hunspell-a-tale-of-two-spell-checkers/
I've actually got both hunspell and aspell but System Settings doesn't see them, the same with Kate.
Following https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=86967 I've
added the sonnet6-plugins package, set a default dictionary and set automatic checking to on in Kate if preferred. In my case it also seemed due to a Plasma 5 to 6 upgrade.
The spell checking feels somewhat sluggish, though. And with just British English selected it's not picking up common words such as 'recognised'. So I've also selected the [-ise suffixes] dictionary and US English, in case it needs fallbacks, and restarted Kate. That seems to recognise 'recognised' but it doesn't recognise words such as 'feels', 'seems' and 'also'. WTF? Well, https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=386611 suggests it's because of language auto-detection. So let's disable that plus the US English dictionary and restart Kate again. Okay, that seems to work and things are also less sluggish. I'm not sure if Sonnet is using hunspell or aspell, or if it matters because both should work and it's unlikely it's trying to use more than one at once.
/home/admech/.config/KDE/Sonnet.conf doesn't mention a backend and there's nothing in /home/admech/.local/share/Sonnet but reading https://grokipedia.com/page/sonnet_software suggests it uses Hunspell by default and the others for additional languages or context specifics.
Ruminating about the size and complexity of OS installs, collected files, websites, etc, it doesn't feel as overwhelming having a lot of data. Like going back to a table with millions of records and shrugging when that would have been a bigger deal when you started working with databases. Maybe it's a sign of long-term memory working better?
Time to see what a Wayland desktop session can enable... let's try Android apps on Waydroid. This currently runs an Android 13 version of Lineage OS. To be honest there are very few Android only apps, and even fewer that are worth having, and this isn't a very stable or reliable way of running them. But it potentially has uses.
https://docs.waydro.id/usage/install-on-desktops
The basic install is about 2gb, and a couple of hundred more for Google apps. In order to use Play Store apps it's necessary to manually add the device ID of the container to a Google account.
https://docs.waydro.id/faq/google-play-certification
Having done that I found I had to clear data for Play Store and Play Services a few times.
https://github.com/casualsnek/waydroid_script
Install libhoudini for Intel, or apparently libndk for AMD, to run ARM apps. Then as an example I got the latest Tapo package via apkmirror. The reason for the Tapo app is it lets you enable and disable cameras, or toggle smart plugs, rather than just be limited to viewing flaky RTSP streams with MPV. Not that the app is much less flaky running on native Android, the Tapo devices are cheap consumer grade things. You might be able to get this setup to create extracts from recordings, which the app does by playing them back in real time, but I'm not optimistic about it not crashing.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Waydroid shows how to set a smaller viewport...
waydroid prop set persist.waydroid.width 1280
waydroid prop set persist.waydroid.height 720
systemctl restart waydroid-container.service
I can't see a way to force a titlebar with kwin rules, but alt clicking allows movement. It creates app menu shortcuts for specific apps when they're installed, and the container approach makes it light on memory.
It's sluggish and unstable though.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/134kvce/how_to_uninstall_waydroid/
Stop the Waydroid session: sudo waydroid session stop
Stop the Waydroid container: sudo waydroid container stop
Remove the Waydroid package: sudo apt remove waydroid
Delete the Waydroid directories: sudo rm -rf /var/lib/waydroid /home/.waydroid ~/waydroid ~/.share/waydroid ~/.local/share/applications/*aydroid* ~/.local/share/waydroid
https://wiki.debian.org/AndroidStudio includes the details for installing the official emulator, which doesn't have any hoops to jump through to install apps. However, the Tapo app doesn't seem any more stable or to manage to stream video (it does work to turn a camera on and off, at least). You can run a specific virtual device directly rather than having to go into the main Studio app. Something to come back to, I think. The default virtual devices can't be configured as much as user created ones, so perhaps there's a way of disabling graphics acceleration or something for usable stability.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/47941999/how-to-open-avd-manager-gui-without-opening-android-studio
Find your virtual device: ./emulator -list-avds
Make an app menu shortcut with: /path/to/emulator -avd "Medium_Tablet"
Being cheap consumer hardware, people have also naturally played around with it, and the manufacturer does give instructions for using the actual streams (though like I say, they're flaky). Like the first link below, I've found that even using native native Android devices on the same network the Tapo app has a tendency to not detect this and time out after five minutes. It might be streaming over the internet rather than using the LAN when it does this, which would be a waste of resources.
https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/777012
https://medium.com/@two06/hacking-a-tapo-tc60-camera-e6ce7ca6cad1
https://github.com/themactep/thingino-firmware
Pinta is still being developed, apparently...
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1jy4049/pinta_30_is_out_paintnet_alternative_has_a/
https://github.com/pkgforge-dev/Pinta-AppImage
The headerbar layout can be turned off under View > Show/Hide > Menu Bar although everything in the interface is still massively over-sized. Not sure how much of this is GTK4 plus libadwaita and how much development choices, but I imagine long-term users are simultaneously pleased development isn't dead and disappointed in the UI. I suppose it's more functional if you're using a tablet, and it isn't as if other graphics packages such as Krita, Gimp, etc, have entirely standard interfaces. But this doesn't feel designed for desktop and I think it's a bit pointless following the app further.
I need to create a page for collecting useful snippets, such as this to change metadata orientation with a simpler command than FFMPEG: exiftool -rotation=180 video.mp4
This is a bit weird and I wouldn't have guessed it's an accessibility feature rather than a bug, but has become kind of a fidget toy:
https://discuss.kde.org/t/shaking-my-mouse-renders-it-massive/17473
Duplicate and similar image finder tool for clearing down projects
https://github.com/qarmin/czkawka
And very little need for, but in considering running websites that allow uploaded files and images there's a need to categorise content that may be offensive... I wonder if this has the usual deficiencies with non-white coloration? - https://sr.ht/~jamesponddotco/bonk/
AI to restore murals? Cool.
https://www.repairproject.eu/project/
Discussion of why not OSS:
https://vivaldi.com/blog/technology/why-isnt-vivaldi-browser-open-source/
VirtualBox was giving the error "VT-x is being used by another hypervisor (VERR_VMX_IN_VMX_ROOT_MODE). VirtualBox can't operate in VMX root mode. Please disable the KVM kernel extension, recompile your kernel and reboot (VERR_VMX_IN_VMX_ROOT_MODE)." and the fix is actually to unload the extension with the command below, per https://allthingsopen.org/articles/virtualbox-on-linux-getting-started - sudo modprobe -r kvm_intel
It sounds like OneDrive is getting terrifyingly bad, actively stealing data by default and creating scenarios in which files get wiped - Microsoft deserves legal and literal blood-eagling if half the stories in the comments are true: https://m.slashdot.org/story/451047
This makes Windows illegal to use in circumstances in which there are specific restrictions on processing, such as regulated industries or in territories where GDPR type provisions apply and the data processor doesn't have a legal basis to be uploading information to a third party. This isn't just about Microsoft tech support troglodytes stealing nudes, although it's a strong likelihood that's happening somewhere in the process as well and the same goes for every social media site and allegedly secure messaging app. Somewhere in the small print will be the end user confirming they have legal authority to upload the data which Microsoft is hoovering up, turns on the hoovering up for by default, pesters the user to enable if disabled, and there are plenty of reports of the OS silently turning back on if the user does disable it.
(There's a separate but related rant about use of whole disk encryption by default, because operating systems which do this severely limit recovery options if there are hardware faults. And it doesn't justify Microsoft's OneDrive approach either.)
The most charitable interpretation is that Microsoft is after subscription revenue, with cloud services its biggest earner by now, but it's all also open to direct theft and snooping by hostile government overreach, i.e. the US as well as homegrown fascists. Plus other nation state bad actors and criminals. Anything that's held in the "cloud" and not independently sufficiently encrypted and secured by the end user will be compromised sooner or later. Unfortunately this isn't hyperbole or speculation, it happens regularly and if Microsoft can't secure its highest risk customers definitely it isn't capable of (and doesn't care about) doing better for you or for businesses you interact with that use Microsoft products and infrastructure.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/03/microsoft-errors-security-chinese-hack
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gdnz1nlgyo
💬 Comments are off, but you can use the mail form to contact or see the about page for social media links.
