Mouse pointer configurator; Cinnamenu and Start Menu: compare & contrast

Bwhahahahahaaha, different and yet the same. Linux is exactly as stupid as Windows in some regards.

To change the appearance of the mouse pointer, a normal person might think to open the settings called “Mouse and Touchpad” under hardware, but a normal person would be wrong; you need to go to zarking “Themes”....

(May need to click button: Advanced settings… to access these options.)

Mouse Pointer: XCursor-Pro-Light seems to be the best of a bad bunch.

While you're there, also change:

Applications: Mint-X-Grey

Icons: Mint-Y-Sand (so directories look like directories used to look in Windows)

Desktop: Mint-X-Grey (so the highlighted application on the Panel (Taskbar…) doesn't look like it's screaming for attention)

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Let’s have a little go at making the Start menu (for that is what I will always call it).

Right click it -> Configure…

On Panel tab: Add Text (“Start”, obviously)

Reduce Icon size (px) to keep size of button reasonable (I went with 16)

On Menu tab I reduced the size of Favourites icons in order to keep more of them visible without the UTTERLY pointless scrolling. I wish I could increase the size available for Favourites. The Win10 Start menu is vastly more customisable…

Let’s see if there is a way: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=383378

1.  Install Cinnamenu - Right-click the panel*, click "Applets", go to the "Download" tab and search for it.

2. Remove old menu - In the "Applets" window, locate "Menu", with the email "menu@cinnamon.org" and comment "Main cinnamon menu". Click it, and press the minus sign on the bottom of the "Applets" window to remove it from your panel (No point in having two menus in your panel).

3. Bind Cinnamenu to <Super> - In the "Applets" window, now find "Cinnamenu". [IMPORTANT and not in forum post: press the plus at the bottom of the screen to add it to taskbar panel.] Press the gears to configure the applet. Open the "Behaviour" tab, and locate "Keyboard shortcut to open and close the menu". Press one of the two boxes (personally I only bind the left box, keeping the right one "Unassigned", as I only need one shortcut). When "Pick an accelerator" is displayed, press the <Super> key [i.e. Windows key] that usually opens the menu. This results in "Super L", which I suppose refers to the left super-button.

4. Remove "Menu" text - Now go to the "Appearance" tab in the Cinnamenu settings, locate "Panel text", and erase the text to save some space in your panel.

5. Change the icon - I think the Cinnamenu icon looks bad, so went to the "Appearance" tab, checked "Use custum icon", clicked the current icon, searched "Menu" in the window that pops up, and selected an icon more to my liking.

6. Relocate Cinnamenu in your panel - Right click your panel, check "Panel edit mode", and drag the "Cinnamenu" applet to the left of the screen, where the original menu was.

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Cinnamenu is indeed an improvement, but not yet an earth-shattering one…

I somehow added Favorite apps to the main left-hand menu, and moved it to the top, but that isn't enough to make it the default go-to when pressing the Windows key. So, instead, or also:

Right click Start and select Configure…

Select Behaviour tab and select Favorite apps from the drop-down next to Open menu on category.

Whilst you're there: disable auto scrolling because it stupidly autoscrolls if you hover the mouse over the lower Favorites bar.

…which does raise the question: why am I so obsessed with having the Start menu open to Favorites when they're all laid out along the bottom anyway?

Well, at the moment, I'm adding faves and they're being added to that bottom bar (and, interestingly, increasing the width of the Start menu) but eventually that may\will run out of space. Basically, I want the Start menu to be as close to Win10 as possible, with apps I want displayed on the first ‘page’ of the Start menu. Not being able to arrange them like Win10 tiles is unfortunate.

Also, shutting down using keyboard is quicker than before, and than Windows:

Windows key -> left -> enter -> enter

Done.

(Vs Windows: Win+x -> up, up -> left -> down, down -> enter)

Input Remapper: X-Mouse for Linux, or, using mouse buttons to control volume

Kitchen T410 running Linux Mint gets another step closer! Input Remapper took some (a very small amount of) learning but seems to do what I want it to do: use a mouse’s extra buttons to control the system (almost wrote “Windows”!) volume.

Rough guide:

1. Select device - I first tried it with a Logitech mouse.

2. Select Editor tab

3. On the Input side, click Add.

4. Click Record BUT… make sure you ONLY input the input you want, i.e. don’t move the mouse AT ALL whilst pressing the extra button (in this case, I was using the sideways clicks available on the scroll wheel, resulting in the output: Wheel Left. Initially it added something about hires, but that didn’t happen when testing for this guide)

5. On the Output side we find the biggest deviation from X-mouse: there isn’t a handy dropdown of commands to choose from, so some educated guesswork is in order. I tried typing in simply, volume, and it presented a list of possible commands, allowing me to choose KEY_VOLUMEUP.

6. Repeat this for anything else on the device you want to map.

7. Click Apply button at top.

8. CRUCIALLY: Toggle the Autoload switch to the right/ticked. This will mean this remapping applies when the system (nearly typed “Windows” again! Microsoft has conditioned me well…)

9. IMPORTANT: to make any changes to the Input or Output, you have to click the Stop button first. I was mildly frustrated before realising this.

10. Use the Rename field to give the remap a name that makes sense to you (I went with Wheel_sides_do_volume) and remember to click the save button to the right of the textbox.

I also made an entry under the device: “ThinkPad Extra Buttons”, just for the heck of it. The “famous” blue ThinkVantage button doesn’t actually seem to do anything under Linux (and I don’t remember it responding in Win10 or 11 either) so I figured why not make it do something? Input recording revealed that pressing the ThinkVantage button outputs XF86Launch1 and I eventually settled on using it to put the computer to sleep (seemingly known as Suspend in Linux Mint). There is a sleep shortcut (Fn + F4) already and I used that in another Input recording to find out what the command was called for the Output side. Even doing this whilst recording actually put the computer to sleep, which seems like not the desired behaviour, but when I woke it up again, it showed me the command I wanted was XF86Sleep. I could have also found this out by simply trying typing in “sleep” and the program would have (as with “volume”) presented me with the possible commands, including XF86Sleep. I’ve named this remapping ThinkVantage_to_Sleep.

An unusually successful day!

Also: managed to accidentally align the taskbar panel items to the left. What to do: right-click panel and toggle Panel edit mode, then drag icons from one coloured (red, green, blue - very subtle colours…) zone to another. 

I’m just going to straight-up copy this next section from https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=403145 

[quote]

I wanted Cinnamon's Panel (or taskbar in Windows parlance) to behave more like Windows or Mate. Basically, I wanted that if I open two (or more) windows of Firefox, for example, that the programs would not show as one single icon on the Panel, but as two icons. And I also wanted the labels to be added to icons. What is referred [to] as the "traditional layout".

I fixed it by following these instructions:

1. Run any program.

2. Right-click on the program’s icon on the panel

3. Click on “Applet preferences”

4. Click on Configure…

5. At the General tab: turn off “Group windows by application”

6. At the “Panel” tab: “Button label” select “Window title”

[/quote]

I couldn’t put it better myself.

List of programs for a MCM and/or Kitchen PC

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I thought I'd have a go at installing Linux on a T410. I was going to buy another SSD but then though ‘zark it' and decided to just install it in place of Windows; the worst-case scenario is I just have to install Win10 again.

Well, my decision was made easier when I attempted to boot the laptop and it claimed no bootable devices found, so whatever happens, I'm installing an OS at this point. I don't know if the error has arisen somehow, somewhy since I last played around with that laptop, or if I left it without an OS…??

Anyway, onto installing Linux Mint! It went as smoothly as on the Lenovo AIO, and all the device drivers seemed to work. Firefox went on ok, along with the extensions.

For future reference, Firefox extensions (add-ons? Whatever the zark they're called)

• Sponsorblock 

• Ublock Origin

• Unhook

• Privacy badger (not sure yet)

One concern I had was about opening & closing the lid: to be a Kitchen MCM, the laptop needs to sleep when the lid is closed, and wake straight to the password screen when the lid is opened… and that works!

Still to test:

• USB speaker

• Bluetooth dongle

• …and then Bluetooth headphones

• Crucially: there's no X-mouse button remapper for Linux, so we need an alternative; there's something called Input Remapper to try.

Things a Multimedia Consumption Machine MCM needs to do & run:

• Firefox + UB + SB

• MP3 player… Audacious (and something called “Winamp Refugee”?)

• VLC 

• Surfshark

• Qbittorrent 

• Puddletag (to try; alternative to MP3tag)

• Audacity

• Okular (to try; alternative to SumatraPDF)

• X-mouse (to try: Input Remapper)

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Hmm, it seems the last time I wrote about a T410 and Win11, it was to say that it was seemingly working alright, but that was not the case. It kinda worked, but the laptop would frequently throw up a BSoD and need restarting. This was particularly inconvenient because the T410s have a quirk that, upon starting when connected to the dock, they claim there's a keyboard error (which needs Escape to be pressed to get past; it's a weird error that makes no sense).

So I reverted it to Win10 IoT.

You know, or not, being as how the laptop claimed no boot devices today, it’s lucky that I’m installing an OS. To discover the total lack of a bootable system on there would have been very annoying if the current Kitchen T410 had died and I needed to slot in the spare in a hurry…

Defining the M.C.M. and why it'll all be ok with Linux

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When I'm not killing\wasting time replaying ancient computer games, my main computer use-case is as a Media Consumption Machine (MCM; a completely made-up term). This means I use it mainly for online video-watching, offline video-watching with VLC, and offline music-listening with Winamp.

As far as I can tell, this is a perfect use-case for Linux: there's nothing taxing there for me to have to figure out, just basic functionality. Sure, I'll have to find something other than Winamp (I'll miss its amazingly-green interface after the 25 years we've had together…) but I've already tried Youtube + ublock + sponsor block and that works fine.

The majority thing I need to try is power-management: will those ol’ T410s behave the same way under Linux, i.e. will they wake-up when the lid is opened, and sleep when the lid is closed? That's the next thing to test…

Settling on a distro; EVERY O.S. needs tweaking to make it bearable

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Ok, calm down: the choice isn’t between scrabbling around trying to get Windows to ‘illegally’ work for the rest of my life, and a Linux alternative I haven’t got the patience to learn.

It turns out that it’s Ubuntu that isn’t for me, and Linux Mint (LM) is the way to go (again, for me). For future reference, I also had a go at Zorin OS, but it was too similar to Ubuntu. I think it’s that those OSes are a little over-stylised for me; I want something a bit more ‘mechanical’. It’s like the days when I tried to make Win7 look like Win9x instead of its supposedly more modern stylised look & feel.

Anyway, I’m typing this on Linux Mint (well, not really: I’m still just using Google docs in a browser!) and a lot of things seem to be going ok. I’m going to have to learn to live without a few things & programs, but that’s life. I was annoyed by the amount of initial configuring I had to do (though less annoyed than by the configuring I couldn’t do in Ubuntu & Zorin) but then I look at the list of shit I had to piss about with when installing Windows (e.g. making Win7 look like Win9x, the stacks of stuff I need to do every time when installing Win10, and now the loooong list of Win11 stuff that needs fiddling) and maybe Linux begins to look not-so-bad after all!

Fighting Linux: the war without end

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Actually out for a walk in the sunshine, which is exactly what I needed after the frustrations of yesterday.

Trying Linux again went exactly as expected. Why is Linux such a ball ache…?

At least one of the error messages was refreshingly honest:

“Something went wrong

“We're sorry, but we're not sure what the error is.”

Windows would just give you a bullshit error & incomprehensible code, but Linux tells it like it is (and doesn’t give you a code you can go away and search online…)

So what went wrong this time? I think my first error was choice of distro (ah, how I've missed distro-hopping!) I figured I'd just go with Ubuntu as it sounded user-friendly. Zarking oopslol.

Initially it was a bit too much like my first try of Win11 where the taskbar (or dock or whatever) was full of meaningless icons with no text. Unlike Win11, it didn't require updating the OS to add text labels, just a bit of terminal work to add an add-on.

But even that shouldn't have been necessary! Why not just allow a user to right-click the taskbar and alter its appearance…?

I tried to install (what I thought was) a fairly basic list of programs, but even that was a chore. It led to my all-time favourite absolute classic but of Linux zarkwonkery: outdated instructions.

A great deal of the time when you go to install a program from the terminal, following someone's instructions on a forum, it'll throw up some kind of (what I understand as) a dependency issue: “you can't do that because first you need this”. 

Fine, back to Google to figure that out; try to install what is suggested; repeat at least once; eventually try to install something which no longer exists in a repository or wherever.

Well… some of the time. A lot of the time I just give up.

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Linux Mint, labels on panel(“panel” = taskbar) - right click panel, Applets, Group window list, click cogs for settings, select panel pane at top, Button label, window title from dropdown.

The End of Windows, and a new beginning.

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It's been a while, and -oops- I never finished writing about that Lenovo AIO. Longstoryshort: installed Win11 IoT on it and it's still waiting for a use-case; I'm sure it'll come in handy one of these years.

I haven't done anything particularly technical with computers for a few months (thankfully, I guess!) but a week ago, it finally happened: the end of Windows 10 (or more accurately: ‘normal’ Win10 (i.e. not LTSC\IoT) won't get any more security updates).

Two PCs are still on Win10 Pro (which seemed so modern & alien when I first used it back in 2017!) so they need something doing to them. I'll probably IoT the other household laptop, maybe with Win11, but I have other plans for my main computer…

I made the leap from Win7 to Win10 back then. Initially I tried to make Win10 look like Win7 but eventually resolved to just get used to Win10 because one day I would have to get used to it.

…and get used to it I did! I even became comfortable & familiar with it (it’s not a huge jump from Win7 really). I got so used to it that I was annoyed many, many times when then starting to use Win11 (which I also resolved to get used to; again, it wasn't a huge jump from 10 to 11 really).

Well, this week brings an even bigger leap, possibly the biggest leap ever, and something I first thought about (and dismissed…) doing 20 years ago: it's time to properly try Linux.

I've dabbled with it a few times (indeed, this log started with wasting a lot of time on Linux) but have never used it on a ‘main’ computer. As I'm sure I've said on here, two things put me off Linux: the terminal (which shouldn't really put me off; I began computing life by inputting commands into a command prompt on Amstrad\C64\MS-DOS) but I'm sure I can get to know it, and a lot of the time it's just a case of copying commands from a website.

…which kinda brings me onto the main reason I've always given up on Linux (and even sold all of my Raspberry Pis): the “community”. Zark, they can be tiresome. It's fine if you search for a solution to a problem, and someone has already documented it, but if you have to approach a community and ask for help… well, you'd have more fun just slamming your fingers in a drawer. Even if you go in saying you're a beginner, they will always assume knowledge, meaning you'll have to go down other rabbit holes trying to find out what they mean. The best is when they insist on you copypastaing some configuration settings; just this evening I found two dead threads where an evident beginner was asked to do this, they did it, and there are no replies afterwards…

But I mustn’t let this put me off. Even though I've got Windows 10 IoT on a few machines up until 2032, and Win11 IoT on a few more for (hopefully) a few more years after that, eventually the gravy train of Windows will run out (even if I wanted to buy more copies of Win11, it won't run on most of my computers because of arbitrary requirements…) and I'll have to make the switch to Linux. It's best if I do that while I'm still (relatively…) young.

The best time to learn Linux is 20 years ago; the second best time is now.

Today I bought a second 5TB external HDD as a backup store and am currently copying stuff onto it before I begin messing around with the HP desktop.

Maybe I'll have a fun evening of installing Ubuntu on that second Lenovo AIO! Nothing to lose there…