Gmail & PHP

Change Gmail from IMAP to POP3 to save email with Thunderbird. Since I enabled 2-factor yesterday I needed an app password from Google to use on Android phone. Install LAMP and Ubuntu server under VM. In order to test changing my PHP programs that work in version 5.3 but not 5.5. Qualityhost had to bump me back from 5.5 to 5.3 to keep my PHP scrips working. First problem found [and maybe sole problem] is since PHP 5.4.0 the function import_request_variables[1] is no longer supported. Perhaps extract($_REQUEST); is the solution. Install and setup “offlineimap” to backup IMAP emails, because they appear to be downloaded in Thunderbird but actually they are stored/viewed on the server. Needed to use “Mutt” to view the mail Dir format. Hard to use, but has many option. Used new printer and output was terriable. Tried align print heads…didn’t help. Finaly clean print heads, level 3 [last one]…worked!

Manjaro KDE

Don’t want to say this too loud because something will probably screw up…but I’m really liking Manjaro KDE. It’s a great backup distro because it’s not Linux Mint and doesn’t use Cinnamon which is a Linux Mint project. Again it’s not from Linux Mint which depends on Ubuntu which depends on Debian. Right now my biggest fear is a update that trashes it. Because is’s not Ubunto/Debian based software installation is different. So far I have used 3 methods to install software:

1) Octopi to install most software, is much like Linux Mints Software Manager. Search for software click & install.

However discovered that “Blender” was not offered in Octopi.

2) pacman to install “packages”

Search the web and found a Arch “package” for Blender…downloaded it.

It is installed like…

sudo pacman -U blender-16_2.74-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz

Worked perfectly!

Also install XSane which is a much better scanning program than the Octopi offered SimpleScan

You can search for other packages here: https://www.archlinux.org/packages/

3) a combo of using “makepkg” and “pacman” against files in the AUR.

Wanted to install radiotray. Not in Octopi and no packages.

However it was offered in the AUR (Arch User Repository) as a “.tar.gz”

Now you download that then extract it.

Next you go to its directory and type “makepkg -s” which does a lot of stuff and creates a package.

Finally you execute “sudo pacman -U package” which completes the process.

In general a little more work than installing in Linux Mint…however I never had to personally resolve dependencies which is a huge plus!!! I can live with this.

Manjaro KDE

Really hope this Manjaro KDE distro works for me, I had used it before and liked it until an update rendered it useless. It fulfills my requirements for a backup distro. Non-Ubuntu/Debian based [Arch based] KDE [with tweeks acts like cinnamon].

manjaro-kde-0.8.13-x86_64

Had installed manjaro-kde-0.8.13-x86_64 a few days ago but overwrote it because of some problems that I don’t remember. Reinstalled today and applied all updates with Octopi. So far seems to be OK. Download size is 1.9GB The lastest KDE 5 Plasma and Krita included. Antergos was using KDE 4.

Antergo

Installed Antergos w/Gnome default. Desktop hung twice. So decided to try Antergos w/KDE which failed during install and screwed up my GRUB. Had to fix with Boot Repair. Another big problem I had with this distro was it was already 1.6GB and it still didn’t include LibreOffice or Firefox (although you could select and install during install). VLC and Gimp also NOT installed and no option during install. You select your desktop during install so even though you already downloaded 1.6GB the install takes a long time because of all the other stuff downloaded during install. Seems needless especially if you wanted to install it on other PCs also.

Linux Mint KDE 17.1 LTS

Decided to take another crack at KDE so I installed Linux Mint KDE 17.1 LTS. Not really a backup distro because it’s still Linux Mint. Already decided I wasn’t going to use that stupid KDE wallett but it didn’t ask me if I wanted to use it anyway. Dug a little deeper into settings and found I could configure it to behave just like cinnamons virtual desktops. Also could have the spinning cube. Also found the setting to only show the tasks in the current virtual desktop instead of the default of showing all tasks in each desktop.