Skype mouse theme on Kubuntu 14.04 64 bit

After installing Skype on a 64 bit Kubuntu 14.04 system you notice Skype uses a different mouse theme, not the default one defined in KDE's system settings.

There was another post about what causes that, some things have changed, so here is an actual and short how to make Skype use the default mouse theme on Kubuntu 64 bit:

sudo apt-get install libxcursor1:i386

That's it.

How to change MDM cursor theme on Linux Mint KDE

After you install Linux Mint KDE which uses the MDM login screen by default, you may notice at the login screen the DMZ-White cursor theme is used. Here is how to make MDM use the cursor theme you want (in my case, I'd like it to use the Oxygen White cursor theme which is default in KDE and I like it most). Since the GUI way is easier for, here is what I did the GUI way:

kdesu dolphin

Go to

/etc/alternatives/

Find file / link

x-cursor-theme

Right click on it, edit the path in the link's Properties to point to your theme:

/usr/share/icons/oxy-white/cursor.theme

Go to

/usr/share/icons/oxy-white/

Create a file named cursor.theme

Open it and put the following:

[Icon Theme]
Inherits=oxy-white

Save. Logout. Voila.

How to change cursor theme for QT apps on Gnome Shell Opensuse 131

After you install Opensuse 13.1 Gnome Shell, you may notice the default cursor theme is Adwaita or DMZ-AA / DMZ Black, while QT apps use another theme - DMZ (white).

So, to make Skype, VLC (and all other QT apps) use the default Awaita theme (or the theme you want) on Opensuse Gnome, edit the following file and type the theme you want (in my case, I make all the apps use the black DMZ / Adwaita cursor theme):

# nano /etc/sysconfig/windowmanager

Find line

X_MOUSE_CURSOR="DMZ"

Change DMZ to DMZ-AA (or for the name of your theme of choice). Save changes.

Logout. Login. Now you see the cursor you want in Skype and other QT apps.

Skype doesn't work on Linux Mint 16 x86_64

Alright, it's time for Linux Mint to become less polished.

UPDATE: The solution applies for Ubuntu 14.10, too (respectively, the problem arises in Ubuntu 14.10 as well).

If you install Skype on Linux Mint 16 x86_64 (KDE) you, you may find out the app won't start. And if you run Skype from the terminal to see what the error is and what the matter is, you may see the following:

skype: error while loading shared libraries: libGL.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

If you this error, here's how to fix it:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mesa/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib/libGL.so.1

This creates a link to the not found file / library.

Then on running Skype from the terminal, you may see another error: 

skype: error while loading shared libraries: libGL.so.1: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64

Go on:

sudo nano /etc/ld.so.conf.d/skype.conf

and add the following line in it

/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/mesa/

save & exit
and lastly run

sudo ldconfig -v

Now Skype should start up and run normally.

Best distro for Gnome Shell - Sabayon

I decided to switch from KDE to Gnome Shell for a change and started considering the options I had.

The conclusion that was made was a bit of surprise for me - the best Gnome Shell distro is currently Sabayon.

I wanted a recent Gnome Shell release (not 2 versions behind the latest release), an easy to use distro and preferably polished enough. So I opened distrowatch, took a look at the top distros listed and here is how my logic worked as I went through most popular options:

- openSuSe 13.1 - latest Gnome Shell (3.10), reputable and robust distro; great, that must do. So I installed it... and was bitterly disappointed: no nVidia proprietary graphics drivers in the repos for the latest release!! Unbelievable! 32 bit KDE apps (well, at least skype) would use a different cursor theme (and too much to bother to find out a solution; libcursor 32 was installed); the login screen uses it's own cursor theme while the Shell when in session uses another theme set from Gnome settings; gnome terminal loses it's window borders and shows white text on white background from time to time. Damn, too bad for a distro which is considered polished. Won't do. (But still, the distro feels quick, really quick, I like it).

- Ubuntu Gnome - Gnome Shell 3.8, nah. Don't want to bother with PPAs and not sure what's with Nemo under Ubuntu.

- Debian - too old.

- Mageia - constantly delayed betas, not sure whether it has large repos and I don't feel excited about using repos like rpmbone and such. Last time I tried it, it also used different cursor themes for the login screen and in session, which is a minor thing but reflects the attitude and makes the distro fall into my eyes (well, this is very subjective, but it does determine my decision to ditch such a distro).

- Fedora - hmm, still in beta. I might have tried it if Fedora 20 stable was out. I remember it's as quick as Suse, but somehow gives a feeling of being buggy (I also remember some issues with gif images which wouldn't display animated, and somewhat too frequent alerts to file a bug report, but that was a couple of years ago, so things might have changed by now). Alas, no stable version, yet, and I never installed betas.

- PCLOS - they're periodically late to update stuff in the repos, even Chromium gets obsolete in their repos; but generally PCLOS is easy and pleasant to use. But they stick to Mate and there's no Gnome Shell version. Sad. I'd give PCLOS a go, nice distro overall as I remember from my previous experience.

- Arch - oh no, too much hassle to install. I just want the system to work and that's it.

- Mint - no Gnome Shell version + Ubuntu repos with Gnome Shell 3.8 probably.

So what's left? Basically, noting else. Except Sabayon.

- Sabayon - with Sabayon you get: latest Gnome; multimedia and proprietary drivers out of the box; relative stability; really easy installation. What's better than it for Gnome Shell right now? Well, in my opinion, nothing.

How to disable skype group chat notifications linux client

If you're part of a Skype group chat you're often annoyed by too many messages that are exchanged in the chat. Every message triggers a notification which may be really annoying. There are 2 ways of getting rid of them - to hide behind a "Do not disturb" status which will suppress the notifications (along with preventing some other people from whom you'd rather want to receive a message from writing to you) or to simply disable the group chat notifications for a particular chat. In the Windows and Mac Skype clients there is an option in GUI to disable chat notifications, and there is none for the Linux client.

However, the good news is that there is another way to disable chat notifications for any particular chat in Skype (it will actually work for any client regardless of the system):

in any chat window, be it a group chat or a personal chat, issue the following command: 

/alertsoff

That's it =) (Resembles IRC commands, doesn't it?)

Actually there are more commands - you can find them all in this article, for instance. The most useful one for me, though, is above =)

Screensaver rotates slowly after graphic drivers update, Sabayon KDE

After a new version of the graphics driver is installed in Sabayon (in my case, nVidia proprietory drivers), it may happen that openGL screensavers will start rotating more slowly.

Run the following command to fix it:

eselect opengl set nvidia 

(or ati or x11 instead of nvidia - depending on your card and choice)