Compton: Funky Double Shadow on Evolution menus

 
Started playing a bit with Compton, and I've noticed an annoying double shadow with the menus on Evolution (picture on the right).
To get rid of those, add this to the ~/.config/compton.conf file:

 "class_g ?= 'Evolution'",

On the shadow exclude options section of the configuration.
Close Evolution, restart Compton and start Evolution once again and the menus will have a proper drop shadow (picture on the left).
Be aware that after issuing this snip on the config file, you'll loose the drop shadow effect on all Evolution windows, but, IMHO, that's a small price to pay to get rid of that awful double shadow on menus.

Debian Stretch on the Thinkpad T410

A little screenshot of the fresh Debian setup on the T410, or the XFCE desktop, actually.
Nothing new, the standard comfy & usable ole XFCE.

The install went really smooth, only thing I had to setup// install after the actual installation was the non-free drivers for the WiFi card (iwlwifi).

As usual, an encrypted LVM, with a whole partition for / (to save disk space).

As for packages, also went for the usual.
Of course XFCE, SSH Server & the mandatory "Standard System Utility".
IIRC, it somethig less than 2 GB of HDD space when finished.

The screenshot on the left shows stuff as it is with all the necessary packages installed to call this setup home, that is, on top of the base XFCE install:

• Zile
• Chrome
• Dropbox (at least for now)
• OpenVPN
• Evolution
• Links2

I obviously have to fix that icon volume on the Panel ultra ASAP... It reminds me of the whole Wicd icon thing a couple of weeks ago.

Stupid crap that drives nut...

...  every time I re-install and configure a box to my likings...

• Firefox favicons

Makes me go bananas... There used to be a Firefox extension that simply combed your Bookmarks, and dloaded every single favicon, as well as testing your Bookmarks for broken links...
But the developer got pissed off with Firefox and removed that extension.

• Date column on Evolution

This one seems stupid enough, but nevertheless, it really fucks my workflow up, specially on tiny screens like on the X140e...
The Date column on Evolution is HUGE! It steals a huge amount of screen real estate just because, and AFAIK, there is no way of setting this on a global way, you have to change the width on every single directory you have.

Evolution on Xenial: TLS belches continuously

The reported error was "Error running STATUS: TLS connection closed unexpectedly".

I'm getting this error all the time on Evolution (on Xenial)...
Its driving me nuts.
Happens on all my Xenial boxes so far, and on any network I happen to be connected, so its not a problem related to a specific box or place...
Another one of those hints... I'm sure no one uses Evolution anymore...

The Unity Desktop

I've mentioned this theme before:

Numix Touch Flat

I love it a lot, but, there are two things that don't make this an amazing theme (for me, of course)...
It doesn't have top rounded corner windows, and it has the damn "black spaces" plaguing, most of all, Gedit.

Theming Evolution

Well... It looks like nobody does it..
I'm actually pretty sure nobody uses Evolution any more, since just about every single theme I've tested fails miserably with the email client.
Problems with Evolution and some themes aren't new around here (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4, Link 5 & Link 6).
Is getting hard to get a Unity theme that works Ok, on every single place, on Evolution.

Evolution: Black Sections Galore!

And yet another problem on Evolution.
One of those pesky black sections shows up once again...
This is while running the plain vanilla Ambiance theme...
I've seen this problem before (Link 1, Link 2 & Link 3)

The Unity Desktop

It's been a while since the last Unity desktop post around here...
Right now playing a bit with the Yosembiance theme, specifically, with the "Yosembiance-Ubuntu-Orange" variant.
This is hardly news worthy, but, once again, there are problems with Evolution.& Gedit's upper tab.

Loli-Papelk Icons: HUGE Calendar

 Well, I would say that the issues with theming Evolution seems to goes on ;) ...
This is the preference on Evolution, with (obviously) the Loli-Papelk icon set.

Themed Evolution: Coarse Results...

I found another one of those pesky Evolution problems with the theme that I mentioned before.
This time not while using some strange theme, but using Ubuntu's own "Ambiance" theme...

A Coarse, Ugly Theme Killer

Even tho this isn't the Flatabulous theme -it is actually the Ambiance Touch for Willy theme- this is exactly the same problem on Evolution that I mentioned on my previous post.
Maybe it isn’t a theme problem but an NVIDIA/ Nouveau one...

Flatabulous: Near Perfect Flatness

Lately I've been hunting down flat themes for Unity (after all, I have to keep myself trendy, right?)
One of the best I've found is Flatabulous.
I like it a lot, specially because it's border-less (the Terminal's screenshot on the developer's site looks ultra hip & cool IMHO), it's flat (duh!), looks elegant and nice.
But, I've also found a couple of nasty bugs that ruin the whole thing, the whole experience.
There is one large "black hole" or space on Gedit when there is only one tab open (see screenshot).
Another small horror happens on Evolution's main window, on the section with icons for Contacts, Calendar, Taks, etc (no screenshot for that at the moment), it looks rough, with thick black borders that look from another planet on the whole theme vibe.
A minor gripe, and this is just me, I guess, is that the windows are really square.... I like the top corners of my windows to be rounded, but, hey, I like I said, that's just me...

Backup Evolution Email By Hand

I have been an Evolution user for as long as I can remember...
One thing I've noticed is that the built-in backup tool gets worse and worse as time goes by... On the latest Evolution, the one on Linux Mint 17/ Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, the backup simply backups configuration files, the whole tgz file only has something like 2 MB in size, while I really have some serious shit load of emails and data...

So, it was time to do a and old fashion backup by hand on the thing...
This is the script I'm using...

#!/bin/sh
## --------------------------
## Copies all Evolution files to the Dillinger external USBD HDD
## --------------------------

## -----------------------------------------------------
## Kill all Evolution procs BEFORE executing this script
## -----------------------------------------------------

## https://help.gnome.org/users/evolution/stable/data-storage.html.en

## The user's data files
## ~/.local/share/evolution
## 27 MB

## Various configuration and state files
## ~/.config/evolution
## 4 MB

## Account settings
## ~/.config/evolution/sources
## 100KB

## Disposable data caches
## ~/.cache/evolution
## 4.6 GB

## Configuration settings in GSettings
## ~/.config/dconf
## 1.2 MB

## ~/.gconf/apps/evolution

RSYNC="/usr/bin/rsync"
RSYNC_FLAG_00="-avzr"
RSYNC_FLAG_01="--progress --delete"
LOG="/tmp/_sync.local.evo.log"

## -----------------------------------------------

echo "BEGIN user's data files... "

EVO_USER_DATA_FILES_SRC="/home/USER/.local/share/evolution/"
EVO_USER_DATA_FILES_DEST="/media/USER/Dillinger/Backups/home/USER/.local/share/evolution/"

cd ${EVO_USER_DATA_FILES_SRC}
${RSYNC} ${RSYNC_FLAG_00} ${RSYNC_FLAG_01} * ${EVO_USER_DATA_FILES_DEST} > ${LOG}

## -----------------------------------------------

echo "BEGIN Various configuration and state files... "

EVO_CONFIGURATION_STATE_FILES_SRC="/home/USER/.config/evolution/"
EVO_CONFIGURATION_STATE_FILES_DEST="/media/USER/Dillinger/Backups/home/USER/.config/evolution/"

cd ${EVO_CONFIGURATION_STATE_FILES_SRC}
${RSYNC} ${RSYNC_FLAG_00} ${RSYNC_FLAG_01} * ${EVO_CONFIGURATION_STATE_FILES_DEST} >> ${LOG}

## -----------------------------------------------

echo "BEGIN Account settings... "

EVO_ACCOUNT_SETTINGS_SRC="/home/USER/.config/evolution/sources/"
EVO_ACCOUNT_SETTINGS_DEST="/media/USER/Dillinger/Backups/home/USER/.config/evolution/sources/"

cd ${EVO_ACCOUNT_SETTINGS_SRC}
${RSYNC} ${RSYNC_FLAG_00} ${RSYNC_FLAG_01} * ${EVO_ACCOUNT_SETTINGS_DEST} >> ${LOG}

## -----------------------------------------------

echo "BEGIN Disposable data caches This one is BIG... "

EVO_DISPOSABLE_DATA_CACHE_SRC="/home/USER/.cache/evolution/"
EVO_DISPOSABLE_DATA_CACHE_DEST="/media/USER/Dillinger/Backups/home/USER/.cache/evolution/"

cd ${EVO_DISPOSABLE_DATA_CACHE_SRC}
${RSYNC} ${RSYNC_FLAG_00} ${RSYNC_FLAG_01} * ${EVO_DISPOSABLE_DATA_CACHE_DEST} >> ${LOG}

## -----------------------------------------------

echo "BEGIN Configuration settings in GSettings... "

EVO_CONFIGURATION_SETTINGS_GSETTINGS_SRC="/home/USER/.config/dconf/"
EVO_CONFIGURATION_SETTINGS_GSETTINGS_DEST="/media/USER/Dillinger/Backups/home/USER/.config/dconf/"

cd ${EVO_CONFIGURATION_SETTINGS_GSETTINGS_SRC}
${RSYNC} ${RSYNC_FLAG_00} ${RSYNC_FLAG_01} * ${EVO_CONFIGURATION_SETTINGS_GSETTINGS_DEST} >> ${LOG}

## -----------------------------------------------

# EoF #

Forgetting The Password Is The Solution!

From the section, Incredible Simple Solutions For Stupid People comes this...
My problems sync'ng the Google Calendar to my Evolution are gone, after trying evey conceibable shit I could thought.
After the freaking dreaded Heartbleed I've changed my Google password, only to find out that Evolution's Calendar, paired with my Gmail Calendar, refused to accept, no matter what, the new password.
The solution, after dangling and searching hidden config files, was as simple as clicking on:

File > Forget Passwords

Ditto, after that it prompted me for the password, typed the new one, end of history.

Evolution hates Heartbleed

Forced to change my Gmail/ Google password, thanks to this whole thing...
And now the Evolution Calendar fails miresably to sync with my Gmail Calendar...
Impossible to delete the calendar on Evolution, so I Guess I'll be forced to edit the file:

~/.gconf/apps/evolution/calendar/%gconf.xml

And then proceed to re-create the Google Calendar once again.

Evolution from scratch

Another chapter on the on-going Krull maxification.
Along with the new HDD that I installed yesterday, this time didn't restore my Evolution setup from a backup...
Went the long road, setting it up from zero and then downloading all my emails once again (that was a major PITA) mostly because the current setup was being dragged from box to box since 2007 or so.
Guess I was using it since Ubuntu 7.04 IIRC, transferring it via backup and restore from Ubuntu version to Ubuntu version, and also in between boxes.
It wasn't slow, but it was time to clean things up.

Evolution: Gmail Calendar goes read-only

I hate this error, and, if the internet connection its a bit flaky it happens a lot, and I mean a lot.
So far, the only solution I found is closing Evolution, killing all remaining process (ironically usually dealing with its Calendar and the Alarm service) and then re-open it.
9 out of 10 times this fixes the problem right away.

Some Windows testing

Testing Windows 7 (Ultimate) on my beloved T43.
Installed it on Tuesday, mostly to see how Windows 7 behaves and see if I can get used to it, and then, maybe, maybe... Switch to it... As my main OS for day to day to work and fun.

I've set it up, bit by bit, with the usual programs I've been using on Linux, but the Windows equivalents.

There wasn't that many problems, so far at least, except for one that it is really killing me, the email client.
I don't like Outlook, so I gave Thunderbird a go, but I guess I'm way too used to Evolution by now...

Evolution changes

Another one from the recent Linux Mint 12 test drive...
The new version of Evolution seems to bring a few changes, in the end didn't went along with this migration, this is something that I'll have to do when I move forward from Lucid Lynx.

Error While Generating message list

Evolution simply fsck me yesterday morning.
Had to re-generate the DBs in order to continue using... Have to say that this was a first for me, even tho Tango had quite a few lockups, specially when it was running EXT 4, never had any issue with Evolution after a crash. But, yesterday out of the blue, and after a night open receiving emails, something I do all the time with Tango, it crapped on me.

After a minute or so Googling, found the answer:

Evolution unable to generate folder list

This is what I did:

sudo aptitude install sqlite3

Execute this:

cd ~/.evolution/mail ; for i in `find . -name folders.db`; do echo "Rebuilding Table $i"; sqlite3 $i "pragma integrity_check;"; done

Spitted this:

tango:~$ cd ~/.evolution/mail ; for i in `find . -name folders.db`; do echo "Rebuilding Table $i"; sqlite3 $i "pragma integrity_check;"; done
Rebuilding Table ./imap/whatever@xxxx.xxxxx.xxx/folders.db
*** in database main ***
Page 26986 is never used
Page 26988 is never used
Page 27311 is never used
Page 27336 is never used
Page 27375 is never used
Page 27382 is never used
Page 27400 is never used
Page 27480 is never used
SQL error: database disk image is malformed
Rebuilding Table ./local/folders.db
ok
Rebuilding Table ./vfolder/folders.db
ok
tango:~/.evolution/mail$ 

After that:

tango:~/.evolution/mail$ killall evolution-alarm-notify evolution-data-server-2.26

And then deleted:

rm ./imap/whatever@xxxx.xxxxx.xxx/folders.db

Problem gone... Downloaded my emails form the IMAP server, and everything was kosher once again with me and my Evolution.