|
|
Unresolved Problems—A Request For Help
© Copyright Darrell Anderson.
There are several computer issues that I have been yet unable to solve. A lot of searching online, but I remain without solutions. I would be grateful to anybody who can help me with these problems.
KDE
- In KDE 3.4.x and 3.5.x, using the Show Desktop button to minimize all apps, and then launching the Konqueror file manager results in all apps popping up. Strangely, minimize each app individually and then open Konqueror and this does not happen.
- When my mouse pointer happens to be hovering over the KDE panel, and I move the mouse scroll wheel, the KDE cycles through all the currently opened programs. This is never my intent as I always am scrolling within an application but simply have not noticed that I have the mouse pointer hovering over the panel. How do I stop this wheeling effect when moving the scroll wheel over the panel?
- A KDE 3.4.x bug (note: seems to be fixed in 3.5.4.). Start KDE in runlevel 4. Start a 2nd session to show the KDM login manager, do nothing (do not log in), toggle back to session 1, wait for the KDM login manager to time out, and the session 1 screen goes snaky.
- How to run KMail from three separate config files and three separate storage directories (all without logging in under different user accounts). I have been doing this with Eudora for many years. I suspect writing a shell script using kwriteconfig and kreadconfig might suffice.
- The KFileDialog speed bar is no longer embedded but flat. Very bland.
- KFileDialog takes a long time to respond when viewing files in Detailed View mode. I find this frustrating because I think the KFileDialog is otherwise well designed and user friendly—leaps and bounds beyond the joke known as the GTK file browser. When I browse files in Konqueror in Detailed View, which I always use when I use Konqueror, the files display automatically. There are no delays. Not so with KFileDialog. KFileDialog seems to need to rebuild the file list every time I open the dialog box. I experience no such problems when viewing files using the Short View.
- Konqueror freezes if an underlying network connection is lost or terminated. This is not a lock-up, just a long freeze while the underlying code tries to find the previous network connections. I had to write a special script to quickly unmount connections so I could get Konqueror to respond. Otherwise I have to wait for about a minute for Konqueror to respond. Konqueror definitely is designed to cache all of this information, which improves response times, but not when the connections are lost. I don’t know how to fix this.
- Konqueror is horribly designed with respect to preloading. I like preloading, but unfortunately, that option includes caching mount points. Konqueror should preload only the interface, not the underlying network connections. If Konqueror is open but not selected to a mount point directory, and from the Konsole command line I unmount any mount point, Konqueror refuses to release the mount point through its cache. I have to close Konqueror before I have a chance of actually unmounting the mount point. Even then, occasionally I have to exit KDE to unmount the mount point. And even then, occasionally I have to reboot to kill the mount point connection—the kill command will not work. All very frustrating.
- Being a long-time user of Word 97, I have developed several habits that are difficult to break. One of the keyboard shortcuts associated with Word 97 is that Shift-F12 performs a Save operation. I think this shortcut goes way back to previous editions of Word. This shortcut always has been particularly useful for me with my Northgate Omnikey Ultra-T keyboard, which provides a second row of function keys that I have programmed to be Shift function keys. I have developed the habit of using Ctrl-S to perform my file saving, but often my subconscious wins and I reach for Shift-F12. In Word 97 I also perform a find-and-replace using the Ctrl-H shortcut as opposed to the KDE standard of Ctrl-R. I am trying to develop the habit of using only Ctrl-R, and I have programmed Word 97 to use that shortcut too, but again, often my subconscious wins and I press Ctrl-H. Old habits like this are terribly strong. Because I try to use both Windows and KDE, I found ways to live in both worlds, such as configuring command line aliases that work in either environment. I did likewise with the Shift-F12 and Ctrl-H shortcuts, adding those shortcuts to my global KDE environment. In KDE 3.4.3, Shift-F12 works fine, but not in 3.5.4. I have searched the keyboard shortcuts to see if something else has priority on that shortcut but I find nothing. I want to restore my old Shift-F12.
- In Windows I have used WinZip for many years. I find that the KDE developers have done a fine job adapting the Ark front-end to recognize many file compression formats. I find Ark a useful tool, but Ark does not recognize 7zip files. I downloaded and installed a 7zip package, edited the ark.desktop file to associate Ark with the 7z file extension, but Ark still does not open 7zip files.
- In the KDE Konsole, how do I map Ctrl-Left and Ctrl-Right to perform a word-left and word-right cursor movement? Works fine in xterm. Also does not work in a non-X console.
- I’d like the ability to customize the display format of the Kicker clock applet to something different than from the default system date/time formats. Currently there is no way to insert a short version of the week day without modifying the user’s global formats. The format I want in the Kicker clock is 6:34 Wed Nov 6 2006.
- How do I disable the silly gray-shading when exiting KDE?
- KSnapshot is an adequate screen capture utility. However, the utility seems to only understand 24-bit desktops, and I use a 16-bit color depth. How do properly capture screens using in 16-bit desktop color, rather than 24-bit?
Kate
- Somewhere between KDE versions 3.3.2 and 3.4.2, somebody hard-coded Kate to only 10 items in the recently used list. I would like to restore that option.
- As I explained in a journal entry, I cannot get Kate to receive the window focus. (Note: Fixed with my own work-around remedy.)
- Kate refuses to remember syntax highlighting if a file is edited outside of Kate.
- Kate often fails to open new files with any syntax highlighting, despite many of those files being obvious, such as shell scripts.
KwikDisk
- I run KwikDisk in my system tray. While I continue to use the 2.4 kernel, that utility provides me a convenient way to mount and unmount devices and various mount points in my system. I run the utility as a sym link from the KDE Autostart directory. However, since updating to KDE 3.5.4, I have noticed that KwikDisk takes a long time to load. I don’t know why. (Note: I now use the 2.6 kernel and KwikDisk remains slow.)
K3B
- I like K3B for my CD tasks. I don’t fiddle with ripping music CDs and use K3B only for data CDs. Still, the latest version (0.12.17) overflows my $HOME/.xsession-errors log horribly with useless messages. Why?
X
- For whatever reason, the Xorg.0.log displays a warning message of (WW) Open ACPI failed (/proc/acpi/event) (No such file or directory). I do not have ACPI installed on my old hardware, nor do I launch any related kernel modules. How to eliminate this message?
- Why, oh why, are there always so many X Error: Bad Window messages in my .xsession-errors log? How do I eliminate them?
- On one of my boxes, with an AGP video card, when using runlevel 4, the mouse pointer turns into a block of funky dots when exiting an X session and returning to the KDM Login Manager. Is this fixable?
Keyboard
- I have been a Num Lock user for more than two decades. My BIOS is configured to enable the Num Lock key upon booting. Linus seems to think my preferences are irrelevant and the kernel always disables Num Lock. Thus, in my rc.local script I have some setleds commands to re-enable Num Lock. When X starts, either through the startx script or through the KDE login manager, Num Lock is again disabled against my wishes. Of course, I have configured KDE to re-enable Num Lock after KDE completes the login. In short this is nuts. How do I override the kernel, X, and the KDM to once and for all leave my Num Lock key alone? (Note: Partially resolved. I modified the kernel keyboard.c source code and recompiled to stop disabling Num Lock when booting.)
- When I toggle between KDE user sessions, or toggle between a KDE session and a non-X console, the Num Lock LED extinguishes when I return to X/KDE. As far as I can tell, Num Lock remains enabled, but the LED is not. Confusing and frustrating. How do I remedy this?
- The Scroll Lock LED never functions in X/KDE. The LED works fine in console mode and when using Windows. This seems to be an X/KDE issue. The key works, but not the LED. How do I remedy this?
- I tend to suffer from “fat fingers.” In Windows I have enabled the Accessibility utility that beeps whenever I toggle the Caps Lock, Num Lock, or Scroll Lock keys. More importantly, in Windows I use a third party utility that beeps whenever I toggle the Insert key. As I tend to suffer from fat finger syndrome, and that the Insert key is a next door neighbor to both the much-used Backspace and Home keys, I find that utility invaluable. Especially because many programs are designed to recognize toggling that key as shifting from Insert to Overwrite mode, such as the text editor Kate. I want all of my beeps in GNU/Linux, whether in an X session or in console. How? I get the impression that restoring these beeps is possible using something called xkbcomp? But I want the beeps restored in console mode too. KDE 3.5.4 provides audio support for only for the Caps Lock and Num Lock keys, but not the Insert and Scroll Lock keys.
- Is there a way to programmatically swap the function of the Scroll Lock and Pause keys? I use the Scroll Lock key to toggle between computers with my KVM. The Pause button makes more sense to me anyway for pausing file listings, etc.
- For more than 14 years I have used a faithful and dependable Northgate Omnikey Ultra-T keyboard. A keyboard that is a true keyboard and not a mere sponge. I have no desire to use any other keyboard and I even possess a spare Omnikey. This keyboard provides an extra row of function keys at the top of the keyboard, as well as the standard 12 function keys at the left side. The top row of function keys are programmable and I like to toggle them all into Shift-Fn mode. Once upon a time, the since-disappeared Northgate people provided an MS-DOS utility to programmatically configure the upper function keys when booting. Just insert the command in the old autoexec.bat and all was done. I sure miss that simple utility. Other than running that old utility under DOSEMU or some other DOS emulator (seems a rather clunky approach), does there exist an old ‘nix hack from days of old that provides the same function? Northgate Omnikey keyboards once were quite popular and I suspect they were popular among ‘nix people too. I am inclined to think that a hack exists somewhere. Anybody know of a native hack?
Generic GNU/Linux
- CUPS reads the /etc/hosts file when called upon to print—even if browsing is disabled in the CUPS configuration. For people who use the hosts file as a quasi-DNS server and ad-blocker, this file can be large and the delay when CUPS runs is irritable.
- The ppp daemon will not override an existing default route in the routing table. My Windows NT4 box seems to have no problem with deciding what to use for my gateway. One possible work-around is to add the ppp0 device to the table with a metric weight of zero. However, one cannot add the ppp0 device unless that device is active. How, then, to add ppp0 to the routing list without dialing. Is there a way to initiate the ppp daemon into some kind of standby mode?
- I am looking for a way to programmatically (with a script) determine the current tty number. The tty command provides funky results when run from with a X-based shell.
- I am looking for a way to programmatically (with a script) determine the current X vt number.
Samba
- When I browse the /opt/kde/share/icons directory of another box, the local box seems unable to distinguish between the Locolor and locolor directories. Yes, the directories are spelled the same, but the casing is different. When trying to browse locolor (lower case) I always see the contents of Locolor (upper case). When viewing those same directories locally there is no confusion. The problem is not X/KDE related, because I experience the same problem from the command line, from within Midnight Commander, from Windows, etc. Samba unix extensions are enabled (by default). I do not experience the problem with NFS. On a whim I temporarily disabled unix extensions and the problem remained. I performed the same test from a Windows client. Windows is infamous for not distinguishing between upper and lower case, but in Windows my Explorer saw two different directories. However, like from within Slackware, Explorer could not correctly display the file contents of both directories. I enabled vsftpd on one box. Through FTP I had no problem distinguishing between uppercase Locolor and lowercase locolor. I accessed the FTP server through both Slackware and Windows. Similarly the problem disappears using NFS. Therefore the problem seems to be Samba. I do not know what other parameters to test or what else to troubleshoot. I have configured Samba with the following:
default case = lower
case sensitive = Yes
preserve case = Yes
short preserve case = Yes
mangled names = No
- When I view directories on a Windows box, the directory sizes are displayed as 4096 bytes in size. I realize this is not the actual directory size but is the block or inode size, or something like that. However, when I browse a ‘nix directory tree of another box, the directory sizes are all shown as zero. The directories all display as 4096 bytes when viewed locally.
- Samba fails to ignore chmod operations when copying files to shared Windows partitions, either through the command line cp -p, touch, or Konqueror copy and paste. I suppose receiving this message is useful, but I already know that Windows does not support user rights and permissions. I’d like to disable the messages.
Telinit
- When I exit runlevel 1 by typing telinit 3, the cursor hangs when finished. That is, the screen does not restore to a command prompt. I don’t know why. I press the Enter key and the prompt appears, but not otherwise. This creates an illusion that the telinit command has hung or locked up.
Please contact me with a solution.
Finis.
Table of Contents
|
|
