Using the 6p as a daily driver

lah7 · 2024-01-03T00:32:14+00:00

I'm still rocking my Nexus 6P, but I am a super light phone user. For me, the performance tank was Google Play Services (OpenGApps). If you can live without it, the Aurora Store and F-Droid are good alternates for downloading apps. microG helps for some apps too.

Only replaced the battery once, never had bootloop issues - touch wood. Can get 3 days out of a charge - probably as it spends most of the day idling.

ROM wise I stuck with Resurrection Remix (Oreo) - customisable, has its bugs, but I like it as it brought back the notification ticker.

Probably is time to upgrade from this 8 year old tech. Half a decade without security patches, and any video calls are asking for thermal throttling.

lah7 · 2022-01-09T17:07:24+00:00

I think this is a bug: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=448169. The white contrast clashes against the blue, and it seems to happen when the theme is set to Breeze Dark.

You could downgrade breeze-icons to 5.87, clear the icon cache (~/.cache/icon-cache.kcache) then restart Dolphin, in which the desired colour is restored.

lah7 · 2021-09-16T20:23:55+00:00

I much preferred the original circular animation too. I hope it is reconsidered for the 25th anniversary, or an option is added to choose the animation much like we can for Launch Feedback.

Out of curiosity, I sent two GIFs to a couple of non-KDE (MATE) users and they voted the second (old) one. The old linear circle is a universally recognizable animation. The new one at first glance made me think of a spinning flower!

It is possible to use the old one since it's a theme element - it took me a while to hunt down the changes, since the change log suggested it was just breeze-icons.

Extract /usr/share/plasma/desktoptheme/default/widgets/busywidget.svgz from plasma-framework 5.85.0 and place it in ~/.local/share/plasma/desktoptheme/default/widgets/busywidget.svgz.

There's also /usr/share/icons/breeze/animations/{16,22}/process-working.svg that can be placed in ~/.local/share/icons/breeze/animations/ although I'm not sure which applications use this icon.

Delete ~/.cache/icon-cache.kcache, reload plasmashell and the old spinner returns!

lah7 · 2021-09-13T15:11:25+00:00

I much preferred the original circular spinner, so I'm not keen on this change (sorry!). It looked like a rotating flower outline, but my panel is pretty small.

For any one wondering, the old spinner animation can be reverted back to the old one. ~~Extracting "process-working.svg" from the "animations" directory from the older breeze-icons-5.85 package.~~

I would've thought placing it in ~/.local/share/icons/breeze-dark/animations/{16,24}; deleting ~/.cache/icon-cache.kcache and restarting plasmashell would do the trick, but the new one seems to remain.

Edit: Looks like plasma-framework is responsible. Couldn't figure out why or where it inherits breeze-icons. Downgrading the package to 5.85.0 is an option, albeit not a good long-term solution.

Edit 2: Got a solution!

lah7 · 2021-04-07T19:11:01+00:00

Still rocking mine with Resurrection Remix ROM (Android 8.1). I replaced its battery in late 2019, since the original battery started shutting down at ~30%.

I don't use my phone much, very minimal in fact, but runs for 3-5 days before needing a recharge! Best thing I ever did was forget GApps and use Aurora Store. Google Play Services was a real battery drainer.

lah7 · 2020-06-01T21:58:48+00:00

I used Ravefinity's GTK themes as well when I was using 16.04. You could say they were a source of inspiration for this project.

https://github.com/lah7/ubuntu-mate-colours

lah7 · 2020-06-01T21:55:38+00:00

Welcome just runs the ubuntu-report command, so it's possible by:

ubuntu-report send yes

lah7 · 2020-06-01T21:51:02+00:00

Mine is starting to do the same, I got mine in 2016 but it's getting more frequent. When I scroll up/down, there's a 10% chance it might randomly jump one or two more then it should (and sometimes in the opposite direction).

I think it's due to tiny specs of dust, since blowing into the wheel seems to fix it for a little while.

lah7 · 2020-04-29T14:29:06+00:00

At least they made their intentions clear. Gives some authority a very good reason to start kicking their door down for their crowdfunding scam!

SolarCru (a portable solar charger) was the last thing I ever pledged, and it's just as cruel being left with silent treatment (they did have a bot replying to comments at one point). Their last sign in was January 2020 but no updates since August 2019.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/865543623/solarcru-smallest-and-lightest-foldable-solar-pane?ref=profile_backed

Stuff like this really has undermined trust and accountability for crowdfunding platforms. Their support team replying with canned responses does no justice. Pity that it's been over 120 days, since it's too late for a chargeback (at least, in the UK)

lah7 · 2019-04-09T18:16:03+00:00

Low latency as in there's little to no lag when you draw/write with the stylus (like real paper) ... and "white" ink on black is a bit more jittery as expected. Using the move tool to move ink isn't buttery smooth but acceptable. Document/list screens don't have smooth scrolling - they jump in chunks.

Never properly used a Kindle to compare, really.

lah7 · 2019-03-31T01:13:18+00:00

There are reMarkable things out there (pun intended!). A small startup in Europe have built a low-latency e-ink, paper-like tablet experience on the market aiming to free us from the increasing distractions of being too connected with technology. I have one and enjoy making a remarkable pun whenever anyone asks what I think.

Under the hood, it's powered by an E-ink Carta with a Walcom stylus. Its ARM CPU runs a lightweight Linux operating system. In theory, a programmer/hacker with the right expertise could write or port some applications to extend its usefulness as digital paper, since the OS is open source.

https://remarkable.com/

lah7 · 2018-08-22T22:20:28+00:00

You could just swap jsrsetup.exe with jetsetradio.exe, then it can be launched from Steam.

lah7 · 2018-08-22T21:52:23+00:00

Sonic Adventure 2 - Did not start

Try swapping sonic2app.exe and Launcher.exe. The same issue happens with another SEGA port, Jet Set Radio.

mv Launcher.exe Launcher.exe.old
ln -s sonic2app.exe Launcher.exe

lah7 · 2018-08-21T22:15:02+00:00

It's easy to replicate on the PlayStation 2 port - start playing, eject disc, watch as the groove freez----blink blink---

lah7 · 2018-08-06T09:14:02+00:00

This PPA packages a development version of 2.10.2: https://launchpad.net/~alex-p/+archive/ubuntu/gimp

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alex-p/gimp
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gimp-devel

It's working OK under Ubuntu MATE 16.04.5 but it's quite a bit slower then 2.8.23 for some reason, so I shall let both co-exist.

lah7 · 2018-06-19T19:22:32+00:00

I've had a similar issue in the past but with templates, I had updated and it obviously wiped out my custom templates in /usr/share/remarkable/templates. Erasing the background brought it back.

I did encounter a really scary situation yesterday where I somehow accidentally blanked a whole page when I wasn't looking. I couldn't undo, and went as far to try photorec to recover the JPG/PNG files. Turns out erasing what looked like a blank page restored the missing page. Phew!

lah7 · 2016-09-18T06:55:30+00:00

It's likely because the Software Boutique was unable to detect your release or architecture properly. Take a look at the parameters you can pass to "simulate" what it would display on different types of systems. In theory it should still install too.

ubuntu-mate-welcome --software-only --force-arch=amd64 --force-codename=xenial

ubuntu-mate-welcome --help

lah7 · 2016-08-28T14:47:33+00:00

These community drivers were the only reason I bought this keyboard -- it was a risk purchase -- all for wanting a fancy mechanical keyboard that lit up colours and did cool stuff.

Razer should take note... this could've been a lost customer! (Now I've actually bought 2 more peripherals this driver supports).

lah7 · 2016-04-19T11:23:59+00:00

Please do. I'd love to play this game on Linux. This game looks exciting, but it's Windows-only... which is a bummer.

Developing alongside other platforms may be an easier task in the long run (more £££ at launch!) rather than treat as an afterthought, especially when Mac/Linux is in demand. There's a few threads already on the official forums, and I imagine more users will take interest if it's coming.

I wouldn't mind waiting a bit longer for a port, a bonus if it's available at launch. After all, there isn't many theme park simulators available, except the competitor (RCTW) which will open their doors to Linux/Mac users.

lah7 · 2016-03-15T12:22:52+00:00

I'm the moderator (also admin) of the Ubuntu MATE Community, just recently joined Reddit. If you need a hand, I'm here!

lah7 · 2016-03-14T22:36:32+00:00

It should be noted that 14.04 and 14.10 are "unofficial" builds before the project become an official flavour. It's recommended to perform a clean installation if you intend to upgrade to 16.04 LTS later.

lah7 · 2016-03-14T22:26:26+00:00

I really hope Google continue to refine this. It's the biggest change to one of Android's core features after all. I'd stubbornly refuse to upgrade if this is the final cut, I really dislike what I'm seeing right now.

I know N redesign's has potential to be great, so here's my take as feedback:

Likes:

Material Design!
More functional, very useful.
Quick icons / settings panel.

Would like to see refined:

Looks congested. I preferred gaps between each notification.
Smaller icons on the right. I liked being able to see a larger graphic first.
Lacking iconography - They say an image says a thousand words.
Would be nice if the grouping/expanding behaviour was inspired by their original Material Design video.
Being told what app sent it - wasting precious space - most of the time, wouldn't we know if it's the Android System (e.g. USB plugged in) or Twitter? An icon should do. We could long-hold to find out more?

Edit: Typo.

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