Subsoil

Setup MacBook-Air M1

Wed, 08 Sep 2021 02:00:00 +0200

To use and setup a MacBook-Air M1 for x86_64 development when coming from a Linux-Gnome system, following items are useful:

Maximizing and reshaping windows from the keyboard can be done with Rectangle
Selecting/opening apps using the index in the pannel can be done with Snap
Switching the Command key for the Ctrl key in firefox can be done with about:config and then setting ui.key.accelKey to 17 iso 224
Installation of common tools and utilities can be done with Homebrew
Support for x86_64 CLI builds via the Terminal can be done by right-click on Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal and selecting Get info -> Open using Rosetta
- This works very well, only brew install complains, you should use arch -arm64 brew install instead
Set key repeat and delay to a usable value in Settings -> Keyboard
Fix key repeat issue in Sublime Text: defaults write com.sublimetext.4 ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false
Do not used files that have the same lowercase name

Installation of Manjaro InfinityBook Pro

Mon, 14 Sep 2020 02:00:00 +0200

Keyboard backlight

To get the keyboard backlight up and running, install aur/tuxedo-keyboard.

Sony WH-1000XM4 Headphones

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 02:00:00 +0200

Using my brand-new Sony WH-1000XM4 Headphones was not trivial. Pressing the power-button for 7 seconds brings the device in pairing mode.

Connecting to Nokia 8 Sirocco

When paired with the phone, I keep hearing “bluetooth connected” when playing music, and no music. Apparently, this is caused by Nokia’s bluetooth manager that crashes when using HD audio. Disabling the HD audio did the trick.

Connecting to Manjaro

For some reason, the HP cannot pair with the bluetooth on my MSI MPG X570 GAMING PRO CARBON WIFI mobo. Inserting a bluetooth dongle with chipset Broadcom Corp. BCM20702A0 Bluetooth 4.0 resolved that. To properly configure bluetooth devices, best is to install blueman-manager from the blueman package.

With the HP in pairing mode, perform a search on the BT dongle and pair WH-1000XM4 (the LE_WH-1000XM4 is a low-energy connection that cannot transport audio). After pairing, run the setup and indicate the device as trusted. Then, right-click on WH-1000XM4 and press Connect. You should now hear bluetooth connected on the HP and see the WH-1000XM4 in the sound settings.

When selecting the WH-1000XM4 as output device, you can select between HSP/HFP and A2DP Sink. For me, only the A2DP Sink works and gives stereo audio. When selecting the HSP/HFP, the Test button presents a mono source without actual audio. Unfortunately, the mic currently does not work. I managed to get the mic working by replacing the manjaro-firmware package with bcm20702a1-firmware yesterday on my laptop, but today, installation of the same package fails on my desktop due to a 404 on http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/USB-BT400/DR_USB_BT400_1201710_Windows.zip. Maybe that link comes back one day, maybe the HSP/HFP will be fixed in the manjaro-firmware or kernel.

Other links on the web advice to install pulseaudio-modules-bt to have LDAC support. This did not work for me, and I rolled-back to pulseaudio-bluetooth.

Belgium eID

Sun, 16 Sep 2018 02:00:00 +0200

Getting the Belgian eID cardreader up and running under linux can be painful. These steps worked for me:

Install manjaro
Install and run sudo pcscd
Install eID card reader driver via yaourt acsccid
Install eid-mw via yaourt
- yaourt eid-mw
- Install any unknown public key via gpg --recv-keys <missing-key>
Test eID card reader via eid-viewer
- Insert eID card in reader
- Insert card reader in USB port
- Running eid-viewer should display the photo stored on the eID
Start firefox
Install addon
Restart firefox
Goto https://eid.belgium.be/nl and test via “Aanmelden met CSAM”
- Accept the certificate stuff
- Enter pin code

Ergodox shifted keys and XKB

Fri, 22 Dec 2017 01:00:00 +0100

After a recent manjaro update, something in X/XKB must have changed, influencing the keypress event order perceived by X11. Console terminal is not affected.

My ergodox keyboard is configured to use the _SHIFTED_Underscore and _SHIFTED_Colon for easy software development with vim. These keys basically first send a left shift, followed by the semicolon-colon key: you get the colon without the need to press shift.

Using xev from the xorg-xev package, it became clear that a software upgrade reversed the order xev processed the shift and colon keypress: before, shift came before colon, after, colon came before shift, losing its shifted behaviour. I have no clue why this happened, or what is causing this, but I do want my easy-to-reach colon and underscore back!

After reading this nice introduction on xkb, I found the following work-around:

Using the ergodox configurator, replace the shifted keys as:
- _SHIFTED_Underscore => KEY_Pause
- _SHIFTED_Colon => KEY_NonUS_Backslash_Pipe
Edit the /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/us file as root, adding following line to the xkb_symbols "basic" section:

key <LSGT> {	[ colon,         semicolon	]	};
key <PAUS> {	[ underscore,         minus	]	};

Reload the us layout via the command setxkbmap -layout us

Now, xkb is responsible for translating the two keys I don’t actually use into the desired symbols, and the original behaviour of the semicolon-colon and dash-underscore is unaffected; I have them on other locations in the non-shifted version: I could not simply change the translation of <AC10> (semicolon-colon) and <AE11> (dash-underscore).

HP Color LaserJet MFP m176n

Sat, 01 Oct 2016 02:00:00 +0200

Linux support for this printer/scanner is terrible. For Manjaro, the following steps eventually resulted into a functional printer, with scanner support:

Install hplip via sudo pacman -S hplip
Install printer via sudo hp-setup as a network printer, manually specifying the IP address
- Make sure the following ppd file is used: drv:///hp/hpcups.drv/hp-color_laserjet_pro_mfp_m176n.ppd
Install the required plugins via sudo hp-plugin
- Indicate to download the plugin from HP
~~Removed installed printer (hpijs) and install the same one, but now hpcups~~
Restart printer seems to needed from time to time

Note: you might need to repeat the above steps when upgrading your distro.

Ubuntu-MATE on TARGA DT44100

Sun, 29 May 2016 17:43:00 +0200

Installation of ubuntu-MATE went fine, but the graphics resolution was to small. This can be fixed by:

Create the file /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/use-vesa.conf with content: Section “Device” Identifier “Configured Video Device” Driver “vesa” EndSection
Reboot

Sublime text 3

Mon, 15 Feb 2016 19:00:00 +0100

To get sublime text up-and-running and usable for a vim addict, following steps can help:

Install and buy sublime text 3. Yes, just buy it, poor developers have to eat as well.
Install package control:
- Open the console via Ctrl+`
- Paste the installation script:
import urllib.request,os,hashlib; h = ‘2915d1851351e5ee549c20394736b442’ + ‘8bc59f460fa1548d1514676163dafc88’; pf = ‘Package Control.sublime-package’; ipp = sublime.installed_packages_path(); urllib.request.install_opener( urllib.request.build_opener( urllib.request.ProxyHandler()) ); by = urllib.request.urlopen( ‘http://packagecontrol.io/’ + pf.replace(‘ ‘, ‘%20’)).read(); dh = hashlib.sha256(by).hexdigest(); print(‘Error validating download (got %s instead of %s), please try manual install’ % (dh, h)) if dh != h else open(os.path.join( ipp, pf), ‘wb’ ).write(by)
- Restart sublime text 3.
Install Vintageous via package control:
- Open the palette via Ctrl+Shift+p.
- Select Package Control: Install Package.
- Select Vintageous.
- Restart sublime text 3, you should have vi keybindings now.
Add save on focus lost:
- Copy the save_on_focus_lost settings line from Preferences->Settings Default.
- Paste it in Preferences->Settings User, set it to true and save it, making sure there is no JSON mistake with respect to the comma.
- Restart sublime text 3: changing to another app should save your work, except for new files; you still have to save these the first time.
Change color scheme: the SpaceCadet is nice, but I find it hard to see the cursor (caret). To change its color for sublime text 3, do the following:
- Install PackageResourceViewer via the Package Control.
- Select PackageResourceViewer: Open Resource via the palette.
- Select Color Scheme - Default->SpaceCadet.tmTheme.
- Adjust the color for selection from #40002F to e.g., #2eaa40.

Linux on my Dell XPS 13 2015

Thu, 14 May 2015 19:24:20 +0200

I recently bought a Dell XPS 13 2015 developer edition laptop (BIOS A03). Since it came with linux preinstalled, I expected flawless linux support, but that was not really the case: the initial wifi configuration did not work, its ubuntu 14.04 OS kept mentioning internal errors, waking up from hibernation froze the keyboard and touchscreen. The font size was very small due to its HiDPI touchscreen with a resolution of 3200 x 1800 not being compensated.

I was hoping that upgrading to ubuntu 2015.04 would fix all this, but the upgrade procedure failed. Installing ubuntu 2015.04 from scratch was even worse: the live USB worked very well, even wifi worked out of the box, installation was fine, but my laptop would not boot and kept displaying something along the lines: No bootable devices found. I though it had to do with UEFI and secure boot, a technology I’m not familiar with, but after some experimentation, I think it is a problem with unubntu.

Ubuntu had its chance, time for something else: manjaro, an arch-based distro I’ve been using successfully for years. The live USB stick did boot, but the touchpad was very jumpy, wifi did not work out of the box, and XFCE is not very suitable for HiDPI. The wifi issue was easily solved following the suggestions from the arch community, and an upgrade fixed the touchpad issues.

Hibernation and suspension still gave problems. Replacing the SNA graphics driver for the older UXA changed its behaviour a bit, but problems remained. Upgrading to linux kernel version 4 did fix these issues, and can easily be done from inside the Manjaro Settings Manager.

After an unsuccessfull test with i3, I exchanged XFCE for Gnome3 which works very well in combination with the HiDPI touchscreen, only the screen keyboard keeps popping up from time to time, but I don’t mind that, it should be easy to fix. Hibernation was back though but in a different shape: Gnome3 Power settings gives no options to handle closing the lid. After installing the gnome-power-manager, I could manually indicate in /etc/systemd/logind.conf that my machine should hibernate when closing its lid, and shutdown when pressing the power button.

If you cannot configure the touchpad (a DLL0665) to tap-to-click, it is probably detected as a mouse in stead of a touchpad. Install xf86-input-libinput, issue sudo libinput-list-devices and find the DLL0665 section. Add a xorg config file that identifies this device and enabled tapping by adding a config file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-libinput.conf, making sure the MatchProduct matches the Device: string as listed by libinput:

Section "InputClass"
	Identifier "touchpad"
	MatchProduct "DLL0665:01 06CB:76AD UNKNOWN"
	Driver "libinput"
	Option	"Tapping"	"on"
	Option	"AccelSpeed"	"1"
EndSection

Finally, the printer setup failed although I could configure my HP Photosmart 2610 before. It turns out to be a problem with the foomatic-* and manjaro-printer package. After uninstallation, I could successfully intall my printer.

I have a fully functional laptop now with readable fonts and great HiDPI support! Scrolling via the touchscreen works in most applications, as is two finger zoom in the default web browser (some browser called web, based on webkit). The only problem I still have has to do with the microphone, it shows up, but I cannot get sound out of it. I use a Logitech C920 webcam instead which works fine out of the box.

I hope these directions can help other people configure their Dell XPS 13 for linux. It took me some time and experimentation, but now I’m very happy with it. Quite a shame for Dell though to put such a badly configured machine on the market…

This article is not very high in details, mostly because I don’t want to go through the process again just to take detailed notes. If you want more details or are stuck, don’t hesitate to contact me.

update: To disable the caribou onscreen keyboard, comment-out the Exec lines in /usr/share/dbus-1/services/org.gnome.Caribou.*.

Start of subsoil

Wed, 13 May 2015 23:43:43 +0200

This is my first blog post ever. My purpose with subsoil is to:

Serve as a personal wiki/info for me. And hey, maybe someone might be interested
Document and publish progress on various projects

Technically, I chose for a static site using jekyll. Currently, there is no support for comments, but that should come soon.

Update: I experimented a bit with disqus and livefyre to have commenting support. For now, I will go with livefyre.

Let’s hope this is not my last post…