linux

Chirp on Linux?

Posted by Orvan Taurus on January 23, 2026
Posted in: linux, question, radio, technology. 6 Comments

I have a couple Baofeng handheld radios. I have computers that run Linux (Mint). And I have cables that should allow me to program the radios with my computer(s)… that requires a program called “chirp”. I’ve tried to get it going, but have run into troubles. It seems the most recent version(s) of Linux Mint and chirp are… not exactly happy with each other.

Thus… I ask, what am I missing? I know it CAN be done. I just don’t know how yet. Enlighten me. I am willing to install flatpak or similar if need be.

And before you tell me to just use the Synaptic entry… I’ve tried that. I started it before noon. It’s [now] 7:30 PM and I’ve let it run. It’s hung up at “Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1ubuntu3)” — and has been since before noon.

Ideas?

Merry Christmas To Me (from me)

Posted by Orvan Taurus on November 29, 2025
Posted in: computing, linux. Leave a comment

Thanksgiving means, commercially, Bleak Friday[1]. And $HOUSEMATE pointed out a deal on a new laptop (half price!), which I sprang for. Sure, it’s 8-core (instead of 4) and 16 GB RAM (instead of 8) but what makes it worth my while to update from an older laptop is that modern higher frequency (and speed!) wireless is built-in, as is bluetooth. Thus when travelling, less stuff to haul to make things “modern.” Also, the audio section won’t overheat after a couple minutes (this was my Big Issue, really). Yeah, I’ll still need to pack the right, proper, large trackball… but that’s an expected issue with ANY laptop. All built-in laptop pointers suck. Some suck even more than others. Marble sized “trackballs” suck. Trackpads suck. Eraser-head pointers REALLY FRELLING suck. Guess how I know? Yeah, been there, done that, had the wrist pains to prove it.

Now the problem, such as it is, will be what to do with the old laptop. Windows has been blown away LONG ago. I run Linux Mint. And the new machine… will get the same treatment. I don’t do Windows.

[1] Yes, BLEAK. Don’t believe me? Go work retail… even just seasonally.

Merry Christmas To Me

Posted by Orvan Taurus on January 8, 2025
Posted in: computing, linux, technology, Uncategorized.

A few years back $HOUSEMATE gave me a Kensington “Expert Mouse” which is really a very nice, big trackball with an around-the-ball scroll ring. The default button mapping isn’t to my taste, but defaults are merely that, defaults. They are, and were, readily changed to an arrangement I find more sensible. The trackball is connected to the ‘desktop’ computer in the office, which is what I use the most. I got used to the new trackball quickly. Enough so that I started catching myself going for the scroll ring when using the laptop. The laptop had (as had the desktop) a rather nice Logitech “Marble Mouse” which, again, is really a trackball. That needed a bit of tweaking, too. The “middle button” of a mouse is very useful as most Linux window managers use it as PASTE (highlighting is COPY). Browsers (at least Vivaldi, don’t use other enough to be sure of recall) use it as ‘close tab’ and ‘open link in new tab’. The “middle” button isn’t really there right off, so a tweak. Way back when they were only two-button, I used a trick (it might be there, but I’ve not needed it) where a nigh-simultaneous right and left click was taken to be middle click. Alright, enough tangent.

And I found myself going for the scroll ring when visiting over Christmas. Well, I had an Amazon gift card (unrelated to Christmas), there was a bit of a sale, and I had had enough, so I bought an “Expert Mouse” for the laptop. It is now in place and working fine – after the tweak to make the buttons behave the way I want them to. So, Merry Christmas to me.

Anyone not more interested in trackballs on linux (and also getting swapped out memory back into RAM) can stop here and go read something interesting. The following is mainly so I can find these again without having to dig through things on a computer on another level of the house, or deal with ever less useful web searches.

First, a simple bit for deal with either Logitech of Kensington depending upon which line is (un)commented. No, I didn’t get fancy try and try to autodetect which one was there. Besides, during a transition it is possible for both to be connected.

The path: /usr/local/bin# more trackball.sh

#!bin/bash
#
# For Logitech "Marble Mouse"
#
# Leave main (LEFT, RIGHT) buttons alone, but make small right
# button into MIDDLE button for pasting, etc.
# Since the small buttons are 8 and 9 and gpointing-device-settings
# only goes to 8, 9 is used for middle, leaving 8 available for
# such things as scroll mode.
#
# xmodmap -e 'pointer = 1 9 3 4 5 6 7 8 2 10'
#
# ----
#
# For Kensington "Expert Mouse"
#
# Change default
#
# 2 8
# 1 3
#
# to more sane
#
# 1 2
# 8 3
#
xmodmap -e 'pointer = 8 1 2 4 5 6 7 3 9 10'

And it seems I need this and have issues finding it again every time I install a new distribution or version thereof.

The path: /usr/local/bin# more swap2ram.sh

mem=$(LC_ALL=C free | awk '/Mem:/ {print $4}')
swap=$(LC_ALL=C free | awk '/Swap:/ {print $3}')

if [ $mem -lt $swap ]; then
echo "ERROR: not enough RAM to write swap back, nothing done" >&2
exit 1
fi

swapoff -a &&
swapon -a

Less Discordant?

Posted by Orvan Taurus on December 6, 2024
Posted in: computing, linux.

In August I went on about the screwy way Discord handles updates. It’s likely too early to be sure, but it appears things might be improving. A few days ago I ran the updates on the “desktop” and the laptop for Discord and it was nice wink-out-and-return that didn’t do the ‘Must be you lucky day’ nonsense. I figured the next update would be of that sort.

And… not quite. It’s not the wink-out-and-return trivial update, but the last one on each machine was that clicking on the update icon caused DIscord to quit… which usually signals the ‘Lucky Day’ silliness when one tried to re-launch the program. Only this time (these times) it went right to its own download and spinning-controller ‘progress’ non-indicator – and a download of 1, count it ONE, item to install.

I do not know if this is The New Way, or just an addition between the simple and the annoying. Either way, the less the full-on annoying updates are, the better. It’s still not as good as having right proper repository updating, but it does seem to be an improvement.

Package Breakage

Posted by Orvan Taurus on October 9, 2024
Posted in: computing, electronics, incomptetence, linux, software, technology.

Software package, not something… rather personal. I’d run the suggested upgrades on the main/office computer. And a few weeks back one didn’t work in full. I kept getting told, during other updates, that a package was broken and the system suggested a few different way to handle it to fix the problem. Alas, none of the suggested solutions actually worked. The GUI package manager tried and failed. A command-line tool tried and failed. Another command-line tool tried and failed. I wound up even booting and selecting a kernel one version back to run at all.

And then Discord wanted an update – again. And the updater refused to run because of the breakage. Hrm, I dealt with that before… oh, by going a kernel back. Already doing that, so now what? Research. And almost all the advice is to do… exactly the things I’d already done – repeatedly – that didn’t work. One suggested blowing away a bunch of far earlier (and thus unused) kernels to make room on the boot/root partition. Alright, probably a good idea for housekeeping reasons. Did that, freed some space, and… that wasn’t it. In fact, the partitions all have plenty of space. Well, now what?

Hunt for the specific thing it keeps throwing errors about. Hang on, is the thing supposed to fix it doing something st00p1d? Yep. It found the install file… and went, “Cool, I don’t have to download it.” Except the downloaded one was corrupted (I suspect the download was truncated) and thus it could not work, but by gum that’s what the “repair” tool would try. Alright, time to go do root-level stuff, find the offending file, and blow it away.

Oh, now, the nice GUI tool (Synaptic) can’t find the corrupted file and has to download a clean copy. And so it does… and the install works. Gee, shouldn’t there be some sort of counter or at least, “It is possible to local copy is corrupted, try downloading again? [Y/N]” ? This is irritating as the system hasn’t truly needed “manual intervention” in some considerable time. And, it really should not have this time either. The suggestions were there already… but there was an inherent assumption the first download was perfect. Silly assumption.

Discordant

Posted by Orvan Taurus on August 27, 2024
Posted in: computing, linux, rant.

Recently I began the process of upgrading the laptop (aka the kitchenputer…) to Mint 22. In the installation setup it listed a few programs that I use and thus I had hopes of finding them in the repository. This would simplify installation and maintenance. Alas, the things I was interested were simply listed as things that can run on Linux rather than things actually in the repository.

For some, that isn’t so bad. Installing them seems to add them to usual updating scheme, making life that little bit simpler. I get a notification that updates are available, I can see what they are, and can then just run the updater and be done. Vivaldi, at least the snapshot version, has seemed to need to be stopped before it gets updated, or things get a bit weird for a time, while most everything else can be updated “hot.” This can be a bit of a nuisance, but then again, it is a snapshot rather than stable version. I have no idea if the stable version has the same issue(s) as I tend only run it as backup. Generally the snapshot is plenty stable itself.

And then there’s Discord. Discord is, alas, not in the repository. Nor is it handled by the standard updating scheme, even post install. It has its own goofy way of doing thing. Worse, it has two indistinguishable ways of doing things. Discord will show a notification that some update is available, but it could be a “click here and it runs an update” which is almost transparent, though it might require the program to “wink out” and restart for the full update. This is no problem.

But it could also be that the program quits and either shows a download dialogue (that opens a browser tab for the download) or shows such when a restart is attempted. It has this “It must be your lucky day” message about the update… no, if it was my lucky day it’d be more transparent sort I was hoping for. I suppose there is good reason to do a full shutdown and download update.. but it sure would be nice to know that that was what was going to happen. As I said, the notice gives NO clue as to what sort of update it is. And to make it more maddening (or sillier) the download-and-install update isn’t over, no. When attempting to start Discord again, a message pops up that the newly downloaded and installed version… is now downloading and installing a series of (usually 5 or 6) updates. Wait, why weren’t all those in the install file I just downloaded and installed?! DaPhoton?! Makes no dang sense.

Self Preservation: Window Manager & Trackball Settings

Posted by Orvan Taurus on January 31, 2023
Posted in: computing, linux, software, technology, Xfce.

Windows & Mac types: Skip this post.

Is it possible to prevent focus from changing when scrolling with a mouse?
byu/fuyunoyoru inxfce

Window Manager Tweaks. Accessibility tab. Uncheck “Raise windows when any mouse button is pressed.” That drives me crazy too and it always takes me forever to remember where the setting is. Just had to do it recently, so it was fresh.

I have (thanks to $HOUSEMATE being VERY GENEROUS one birthday anniversary) a Very Nice trackball, with a scroll ring even… EXCEPT its driver defaults to the EVIL HORRID NO-DAMNED-GOOD WILL-GLEEFULLY-RAPE-YOUR-INNOCENT-DAUGHTERS-AND-THEN-BRAG-ABOUT-IT RATFINK vileness of “bump mouse to lose focus.” This post is ALL about fixing that BUG-FROM-HELL!