Linux Mint 17 install notes

Some notes and tests from the Linux Mint Qiana Saturday installation on the Thinkpad T430.

• Base install the OS.

• Remove unwanted programs.

• Install updates & kernel (test screensaver & blank screen -to power off the LCD- while dloading and waiting).

• Change installation passwords.

• Change login window theme to the Linux Mint one (and set to NOT remember the previous user).

• Reboot.

• Install "extra" programs.

• Test Skype (no problems, even tho I haven't installed the IA-32 Libx package yet, go figure...).

• Suspend the lappie.

• Test return from Suspend.

• Test all USB ports after the Suspend.

• Install Virtualbox (sudo apt-get install virtualbox-nonfree).

• Restore previos VB image to ~/VirtualBox/ & test it.

• Install IA-32 Libs (and test Skype once again).

• Install Fortigate Client.

• Test Fortigate connecting to VPN.

• Restore backups (the most annoying and time consuming of all..).

Mint 17 Qiana on my Thinkpad T430

And it was so...
Yesterday upgraded to Linux Mint 17 my main rig, the T430.
Everything went silky smooth with the install, and afterwards with all the programs.
Amazing Linux distro.

Mint 17 Qiana on my Thinkpad T43

Installed Thursday night.
On top of what was my Lubuntu 14.04 installation, Linux Mint looks, at least IMHO, soo much nicer, Lubuntu looks nice, but there is not a homogeneous feeling accross apss, at all.
Everything seems to be working just fine, although the old, noisy, hot and lovely laptop it is really, really starting to show its age.

XFCE, Mint Style

Installed Mint 17 XFCE on the trusty, noisy and ancient Vaio PCG FRV37.
Impressed at how elegant the whole thing looks.
Will have to keep digging onto it, but the work and effort the Mint team has pour onto customizing it is amazing.
At first sight you can't tell the difference with a plain vanilla Linux Mint MATE session.

Past the 7 times mark

Another music landmark moment!
I've past the "7 times played mark" on Rhythmboxes master playlist, it took me about 3 months or so.

Kernel Crud Delete Mode for Tango

And it looks like I haven't done so in ages...
Sayonara to nearly 800 MB of old kernels.

41K and counting!

Even tho this time there were a couple of rough days, 19 days later and a thousand more plays went by...

Re-digitizing oldies

Been transcoding some "old" movie files of mine, so I can play those on the TV's built in player.
Tried using Handbrake to do the job, but it crapped out on every single video file I threw at it, so I eventually moved to ffmpeg.
Used my trusty T60p to do transcoding, it takes the lappie about 40 minutes to get an hour and half movie onto an mp4 file with an standard resolution of 600x320 or so.
This are the current options on ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i "Vanishing point.avi" -ab 48k -b 2000k -r 25\
 -s 592x320 -vcodec mpeg4 Vanishing.Point.mp4

Linux Mint 17: Stubborn locales

Even tho I've always set English as the only language on pretty much all of my boxes, I've noted that since the latest Ubuntu release (and it seems on its derivatives as well) the date on the Taskbar keeps appearing on Spanish.

To get an even language -English on this case- across the whole desktop, launch the Languages program, and click on "Apply System Wide".

A week with Mint (17) - Damn Caja

Nearly a week running Linux Mint MATE 17 on my Thinkpad T60p.
So far so good, no major problems, except for the already mentioned Mint-Z less setup, and most and completely annoying so far, the lack of (or constant re-generation) of Caja's thumbnails...
No matter what file type (be picture, video, pdf, etc, etc...) they get generated on a per session basis, they don't even survive a logout.
For the little I Googled about this, the bug that causes this should be already fixed, but, here I am, without thumbnails from the file previews.

MATE: Set global Emacs key bindings

This is by far (well maybe the cursor shape customization goes head to head with this...) that I have to setup no matter what on any box I get my hands on...
But, it seems like the new MATE version doesn't honour the way I've set this up on the previous Linux Mint LTS.
On Linux Mint 17, running MATE (duh!) I've used this:

gsettings set org.mate.interface gtk-key-theme "Emacs"

No Scrobbling For You!

Since Saturday morning it is working like a piece of crap.
Perhaps it is time to ditch it?

Mint-z Less Installation

A bit more on the Linux Mint upgrade on my Thinkpad T60p.
Don't know what the hell happened but I ended up with a Linux Mint (MATE 32 bits) installation without any theme except the default installed.
Missing was my favorite GTK one, Mint-Z...

I thought something went wrong during the installation, and maybe the theme got left behind (strange since everything else works A Ok...)
Anyways, booted onto the USB key I used to make the install, and lo and behold, same problem...
In the end, simply copied the Mint-Z from an Linux Mint 13, doesn't seem to be any problem.

Stilgar got its Mint

Been truly busy lately, but, not that busy to been unable to update to the newest Mint LTS release.
Just finished installing the MATE one, a 32 bits, on my trusty Thinkpad T60p, named Stilgar.
Will see how things go... With some luck this will be the OS on the lappie until 2019.

40K and counting!

And so it goes...
40 thousand plays...