Mint 17.2 Rafaela RC1: some small things I saw

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Mimoelgato

Mint 17.2 Rafaela RC1: some small things I saw

Post by Mimoelgato »

Good day to everybody.

I am trying the very last distro Rafaela with Cinnamon, and saw some small problems in the keyboard layout switching, which do not appear with Rebecca:

Bug 1
Trying Mint 17.2 Rafaela Cinnamon (64 bits) version:

I am using alternatively 2 different keyboards layouts (Latin-American Spanish (latam) on my laptop and a Spanish/Spain (es) as an add. external keyboard at my office) The laptop is configured to startup by defect with the latin-american kbd layout, then when required I switch with the mouse or the touchpad on the taskbar to change the layout.

On the 17.2 Rafaela Cinnamon, the startup is normal and appears a dark space as it is the L.A layout selected by defect. When I switch to Spanish-Spain layout, the spanish flag appears on the taskbar, which is normal up to now. BUT If I switch back to Latino American layout, the SPANISH FLAG REMAINS ON THE TASKBAR, (the under-the-hood functional layout comes back to latam. THE NO-CHANGE IN APPEARANCE IS SOMEWHAT CONFUSING.

On the 17.1 cinnamon, this problem does not exist. Starting by defect with the laptop Latin American layout, I have no symbol in the taskbar (but a dark space). When I switch (with the mouse) to the spanish layout, appears the spanish flag in the taskbar, which is the normal behaviour, and switching forth and back modifies the taskbar as normally requireded.

Would it be possible to place an (argentinian (horizontal cyan-white-cyan colours) or Peruvian (vertical red-white-red) flag to differenciate Spanish layouts from Latino-American layout when solving this ?.

Bug 2
On Cinnamon 17.1, I use this script I found on the web to block the touchpad while inserting a USB mouse and release it when removing the mouse. This is triggered by a rule in /etc/udev.rules. I place this script in the starting programs with a tempo of 3 seconds (for X to start), like this I have no access to the touchpad after restarting if the mouse is connected, and normal behaviour if the mouse is removed when restarting. It works like a charm in 17.1 (This was to replace touchpad-indicator as it is not working because detecting my touchpad as a mouse and as a touchpad in the same time, problem of touchpad detection in the software)

Here is the script:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

USER=$(users | gawk '{print $1}')
export DISPLAY=":0"
export XAUTHORITY="/home/${USER}/.Xauthority"

# Liste des equipements de pointage externes disponibles ici
# J'ai opté pour cette liste est faite parce que certains fabricants ne
# laissent apparaitre que leur groupe Vendor:ID sur une commande LSUSB
# Il y a peu d'autres moyens de les détecter sauf a utiliser leur ID
# Ceci est également valable pour les commandes xinput (dans mon cas)
#-------------------------SOURIS------------------------------------
#'046d:c05a' = Logitech, Inc. M90/M100 Optical Mouse
#'093a:2510' = Pixart Imaging, Inc. Optical Mouse
#'4168:1010' = (Targus Optical Laser Mouse)
#'0000:0538'  (This mouse as well as many other cheap ones are not identified by "mouse")
#'03f0:8207' = Hewlett-Packard FHA-3510 2.4GHz Wireless Optical Mobile Mouse
#'0458:00e3' = KYE Systems Corp. # also no "mouse"
#'1d57:32da' = Xenta 2.4GHz Receiver (Keyboard and Mouse)

#This way to select because some of my available mouses are not differentiated with the word "mouse"

if $(lsusb | grep -Eqi "mouse|0000:0538|046d:c05a|093a:2510|4168:1010|03f0:8207|0458:00e3|1d57:32da"); then

	synclient TouchpadOff=1
else
	synclient TouchpadOff=0
fi

exit 0
and here is the rule text

Code: Select all

# starts mimopad.sh while connecting or disconnecting a USB mouse
SUBSYSTEM=="input", ACTION=="*", RUN+="/usr/bin/mimopad.sh"
The whole works very well as described above in 17.1, I have put it in the the starting program list with the same tempo of 3s, BUT WITH 17.2, THIS HAS NO EFFECT. I don't know if this is a bug or a change in X. Removing the mouse and reconnecting it, the script works. This may not be considered as a bug, but the behaviour of the same configuration is different between the 2 versions 17.1 and 17.2.

Bug 3
after updating Mint 17.2, Cinnamon was hanged. It restarted after I killed X with Ctl alt backspace. It appeared each time I updated the system (so 2 times with the standard graphic updater procedure)

If anyone can bring a solution, I would be vey happy with 17.2....

Best regards
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
mbott

Re: MINT 17.2 RAFAELA RC1: SOME SMALL THINGS I SAW

Post by mbott »

So far, the only issue I've run into is that 17.2 turns down the system brightness to about 10% during boot. This is on my Dell Inspiron 15 model 3542. More of an annoyance at this time.

--
Mike
Mimoelgato

Re: MINT 17.2 RAFAELA RC1: SOME SMALL THINGS I SAW

Post by Mimoelgato »

Good afternoon Mike
The 1st problem I mention is annoying for me as I am a translator and must type quickly in French, this is the reason why I use an auxilliary spanish keyboard (good for the main french characters), but I can cope also with my laptop keyboard as I just modified the latam layout files. Also if I select to remove the flags when acting, the text indication shows up correctly (ES1 and ES2), it is only with the flag (cosmetic bug)
The 2 other pbms are not that important to me but I would be very happy to solve (or conribute to solve) them. I have not met the problem you are confronted to, but for sure it is an annoyance. In the whole, maybe 1% of the users may see this as a problem, as they are very specific to a limited situation.
On the other way, I will try the 4.04 kernel on 17.2 as it appeared to me that he boot time was better with 17.1 than the 3.13 original kernel and I did not observe any drawback with my hardware (even the video and the webcam was reacting better), the 1st one had no switchoff nor dimming, and the webcam was keeping a slow framerate, this disappeared with the 4.04 kernel, as well as the current 3.16

My current hardware is avery classic laptop HP 240 G3 (core i3), which I enjoy, with only one cheating point: the touchpad which is an ALPS Glidepoint and as explained on my 1st post, is detected by touchpad-indicator as a mouse and a TP in the same time, I have delved somewhat in the source of Touchpad-indicator and extracted the information which is currently reported to the author, but it seems this software is not that much updated now, so I use the script described in my former post, but as said, in 17.2 some things have changed and I am searching what it is (although the script and udev work well, it is just a question appearing at system cold / warm restart.

On the rest, I found that this distro is extremely well polished and it keeps the top of the ranking with all what I tried up to now.

Best regards
JF Duhamel
Cosmo.
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Posts: 22968
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Re: MINT 17.2 RAFAELA RC1: SOME SMALL THINGS I SAW

Post by Cosmo. »

For your second problem you might try this solution; disable your script beforehand completely.

Create (with root-privileges) inside the folder /etc/udev/rules.d the file 01-touchpad.rules
Enter the following code into this file:

Code: Select all

ACTION=="remove", SUBSYSTEM=="hid", RUN+="/sbin/modprobe psmouse"
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="hid", RUN+="/sbin/rmmod psmouse"
You must disconnect and reconnect the mouse (or the receiver if wireless) to make it work. Works here beautifully with LM 17.1, but not tested with LM 17.2 RC.

Regarding #3:
Did you try ctrl-alt-esc?
Mimoelgato

Re: MINT 17.2 RAFAELA RC1: SOME SMALL THINGS I SAW

Post by Mimoelgato »

Good evening Cosmo
Thank you for your help. I think I misexplained myself:
Sorry, The rule you indicate to me with modprobe and rmod has no effect at all on the 17.2 system (after naming it 01-touchpad.rules and cp it to /etc/uden/rules.d, I also launched a sudo udevadm control --reload-rules to restart udev.)

The script and the rule I list in my first post work very well in 17.1 as well as 17.2: Remove the mouse, the touchpad is enabled / Connect it again, the touchpad is disabled. That is what was expected

BUT on the 17.1, I have added my script mimopad in the list of programs to run at startup, and when I restarted the machine, either a cold restart or user logout, the touchpad was disabled if a mouse was conneced, and enabled in case the mouse was disconnected, this was functioning in 17.1 but not in 17.2 Only this feature does not work

Regarding the third problem, it did not reproduce at the very last update, so.... but this does not disturb me too much.

Best regards
Mimo
Mimoelgato

Re: MINT 17.2 RAFAELA RC1: SOME SMALL THINGS I SAW

Post by Mimoelgato »

Good evening Cosmo
The second problem is solved.
I have given the user execution permissions to my script: When called only by my rule, it was working anyway, but when called by the startup program list, it was expecting an execution permission for a user level and refused to start with the root execution permissions only. In fact, I think it is because I use to store my stuff on a USB flash formatted in fat32, and the execution permission attributes may be lost while stored. (I had not this proble on the 17.1 config because I redacted the all on it before applying and then stored this on my USB.)

My most flat excuses, this was not a bug from the system but from me. It works now and anyone who has problems with the touchpad disabling can use this, its advantage is that the USB signalling is left to the udev system and not to the script itself.

Regarding the first point, it might be a system problem: If in the keyboard applet configuration I request not to use the flags to display the keyboard configuration, the difference is made between ES1 and ES2 display in letter on the taskbar. If I request the flags display, the spanish flag is displayed wether I use latam or spanish layout.

Best regards
Mimo
mbott

Re: MINT 17.2 RAFAELA RC1: SOME SMALL THINGS I SAW

Post by mbott »

Mimoelgato wrote:Good afternoon Mike

<snip>

On the rest, I found that this distro is extremely well polished and it keeps the top of the ranking with all what I tried up to now.

Best regards
JF Duhamel
I agree, it is very well executed and I'll hit the logs to see if I can determine why it is doing it. Other than that, I'll keep this install for a while and put it through it's paces. Good luck, JF.

--
Mike
Mimoelgato

Re: MINT 17.2 RAFAELA RC1: SOME SMALL THINGS I SAW

Post by Mimoelgato »

@ Cosmo
Sorry to come back to You and disturb you again, but I tried again with the rule you sent me, by curiosity. Here is what I have seen
I have completely removed my rule, disabled also my script in the startup programs list, and placed your rule instead (modprobe/rmmod) and restarted udev. I met the following problems with it:
with the "hid" parameters: no effect at all.
I replaced to try the "hid" parameter by "input" in both lines.
Here the things changed a bit: either with mouse as well as no mouse connected, the touchpad remained disabled.
I restarted the machine, mouse connected: The touchpad remained disabled but the mouse was active when connected.
I reinstalled my script and rule as they were, the touchpad remained disabled and the mouse active.
I called manually my script in a terminal to see what was happening and obtained the following answer:
"Couldn't find synaptics properties. No synaptics driver loaded?". That is because the psmouse module was removed from the kernel by the last rmmod command executed, but the following modprobe commands were apparently never executed when I reconnected the mouse. I do not figure out why.
I placed again a modprobe psmouse in a terminal and all came back in order. Why this happens like this ?

Best regards
Mimoelgato

Re: MINT 17.2 RAFAELA RC1: SOME SMALL THINGS I SAW

Post by Mimoelgato »

@ Mike
why dont you try to check the keyboards shortcuts: there are some shortcuts to dim and even shut down the screen backlight (in the "system" part). Maybe you have a conflict with your actual shortcut keys. I have got something like this with the audio volume at the beginning with 17.1. I changed the shortcut and all came back in order.

Best regards
JF
JosephM
Level 6
Level 6
Posts: 1458
Joined: Sun May 26, 2013 6:25 pm

Re: Mint 17.2 Rafaela RC1: some small things I saw

Post by JosephM »

If you guys discover bugs in the Mint RC's please post a comment describing them either
here for Mate: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2856

or here for Cinnamon: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2855

This is the main source that is used for feedback on bugs in the RC releases.
When I give opinions, they are my own. Not necessarily those of any other Linux Mint developer or the Linux Mint project as a whole.
Cosmo.
Level 24
Level 24
Posts: 22968
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 7:34 am

Re: MINT 17.2 RAFAELA RC1: SOME SMALL THINGS I SAW

Post by Cosmo. »

Mimoelgato wrote:@ Cosmo
Sorry to come back to You and disturb you again
You don't :wink:
Regarding the rest: I do testings inside a virtual machine, where such hardware-related tests cannot be done. So I cannot tell, how and why or why not it behaves here.
mbott

Re: Mint 17.2 Rafaela RC1: some small things I saw

Post by mbott »

JosephM wrote:If you guys discover bugs in the Mint RC's please post a comment describing them either
here for Mate: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2856

or here for Cinnamon: http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2855

This is the main source that is used for feedback on bugs in the RC releases.
Done.

--
Mike
mbott

Re: MINT 17.2 RAFAELA RC1: SOME SMALL THINGS I SAW

Post by mbott »

Mimoelgato wrote:@ Mike
why dont you try to check the keyboards shortcuts: there are some shortcuts to dim and even shut down the screen backlight (in the "system" part). Maybe you have a conflict with your actual shortcut keys. I have got something like this with the audio volume at the beginning with 17.1. I changed the shortcut and all came back in order.

Best regards
JF
Not quite sure that is the cause, as this originally occurred when booting the live dvd prior to the install.

--
Mike
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