Software Bashing » gnome

Well, you asked for 'Compact'…

fboender — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 21:04:37 +0000

The Gnome file manager, nautilus, has a view called 'Compact' which makes an interesting use of available space. Or wait, no, actually it doesn't:

I won't waste any more words on this.

X11 woes

fboender — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:33:39 +0000

I saw a post on problems with xrandr and that reminded me that I still had some ranting to do on X11 under Ubuntu. For some reason, I have no idea why, my system keeps insisting on resetting my Virtual Desktop size to 2432 by 1024 pixels. My external monitor is 1680×1050, so that won't fit. Consequently, I've had to change the Virtual Desktop size manually in /etc/X11/xorg.conf and had to chattr +i it so it couldn't be modified by god himself. I shouldn't have to do that, as I've got more than enough video memory for a way larger Virtual Desktop size, and I don't like it when my custom settings get overridden.

Also, I can't use my external monitor without running this script:

xrandr --newmode "1680x1050_60.00"  147.14  1680 1784 1968 2256  1050 1051 1054 1087  -HSync +Vsync
xrandr --addmode VGA 1680x1050_60.00
xrandr --output VGA --mode 1680x1050_60.00

Pretty annoying. The Display configuration in Ubuntu (System -> Preferences -> Display) also doesn't list my external monitor's native resolution, even when I boot up my laptop with the external screen attached and set as the main display (by pressing the 'Switch to external monitor' button-thingamajiggy on my laptop). Probably a BIOS issue, but it would be nice if it would simply let me add a new mode by entering a resolution.

Hopefully 2010 will be the year of Linux on the desktop. 2009 sure ain't.

Shuffle, shuffle.

fboender — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 04:52:32 +0000

Every time I resize my screen (which is often, given that I've got a laptop and differently sized screens at home and at work), Gnome shuffles the layout of the items on my panel. Here's what it normally looks like:

And here's what it might look like after having resized my screen:

The shuffling order appears to be random, which is quite frustrating if you've been listening to music on your headphones, and then hook your laptop up to the sound system and it starts playing music at a volume of fifteen million decibels and your muscle memory is all confused because where there used to be a volume control on the panel there is now a network manager thingy.

I've tried all possible combinations of widget placement and 'Lock to panel' toggles, all to no avail. It keeps randomly shuffling shit. The worst thing is that this has been a problem since I first started using Gnome on a laptop – umpteenthousand years ago.

Evolution: No mail for you!

fboender — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:25:30 +0000

Ever since I've installed the latest Ubuntu (9.04) my Wireless connection sometimes drops. It's annoying, but it's a story for a later time. Suffice to say it comes back up automatically after a couple of seconds, and usually my connections just keep going for the most part.

Anyway, this one day I was doing some work, and I was expecting an important email. So I switch over to Evolution in order to retrieve it. I hit F9… nothing. "What the…? Whatever, I'll just click the Send/Receive button."

Evolution Send/Recieve disabled

To my surprise, the Send/Receive button was disabled. Initially I thought it was because I had some modal dialog box open or something. No such luck. "Maybe", I thought "the send/receive operation failed somehow and now hangs". So I closed Evolution and restarted it. Same thing: Send/Receive button still disabled. This was getting annoying; I really needed that email. I tried closing Evolution again and this time checked the process list to see if Evolution was leaving behind some child process for the Send/Receive function. Nothing.

"Fuck it, I'll reboot my machine, I don't have time for this". Man, I gotta tell ya, it felt like the good old windows days all over again! Rebooting to fix a problem — pathetic. The machine comes back up, I start Evolution, and STILL the button is disabled!

Finally I give up trying to figure it out on my own, and decide to Google for the answer: Google: evolution+send+receive+greyed+out. It even turned up as a "Google Suggests" suggestion in the drop-down.

Results 1 - 10 of about 115,000 for evolution send receive greyed out.

Hundred and fifteen-thousand results. Guess I'm not the only one having this problem.
Can you guess what the problem was? Here's a little hint:

What a useful feature!

Really Evolution? Really?? I'm working in Offline mode?!

Here's a tip. If you're gonna add a useless feature to your software that does absolutely NOTHING (and it really does nothing) other than annoy users, at least:

make sure you show the user a message that (s)he's now working in offline mode.
tell the user what the consequences of working offline are.
test it before shipping it (My wireless connection had already come back online hours before).
kill yourself.

Offline mode has to be, without a doubt, the most useless annoying feature I've ever seen in a program. There is no need for it at all. It does nothing, except for annoying me.

Update: Cris spotted something in the File menu in the picture above: the 'Download Messages for Offline Usage' isn't greyed out. How am I gonna download a message for offline usage if I'm not even online? Plus, all these messages are already offline, since I've only got Local storage mail accounts (I retrieve my email with fetchmail, after which I have to hit the Send/Receive to fetch the mail from /var/spool/mail/fboender). Consistancy motherfucker, do you speak it?

Gnome-terminal treating me like a dumbass

averstegen — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:03:59 +0000

Pretty soon after upgrading Ubuntu to 9.04 I was faced with this:

Pretty annoying, right?
The first time it was actually kind of cute, but after about once I started to look for a way to turn it off.

Guess what? There is none!

I don't know if this happened upstream or downstream, but come on guys… do you really think terminal users want this?

My gradually growing, active dislike for Ubuntu is turning into hate.

Update
Smart-ass solution for a dumb-ass problem:

I already hated gconf, but at least it can fix this shit.

Pidgin Messenger steals my power button.

fboender — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:27:28 +0000

I installed Ubuntu 9.4 on my new laptop, and noticed something incredibly STUPID that Pidgin (the default messenger client) does. Here'sthe top-right of my screen without Pidgin running:

Top-right of screen, no Pidgin running.

Notice the power button. A nice, clear, understandable button, right? Click it, do stuff like shutting down your computer or put it too sleep. Then I start Pidgin, and it changes to this:

BOOM! Power button gone, replaced with inane undescriptive icon.

What the hell is that, where did my Power icon go? And what's that undescriptive green icon doing there instead? No-one knows what mystery icon does! It turns out Pidgin feels the need to replace the Power icon with some shitty useless menu that doesn't do anything the other Pidgin icon (the one with the green… thingy and the chat-balloon) doesn't already do:

Useless menu does the same as other Pidgin icon.

Nice work Pidgin! I really needed two menu's for changing my Messenger's status! Stupid.

I hate software.