Nintendo Switch and the Joy-Con Drift

By now there are so many occurrences of this problem and Nintendo is still not able to squash these problems.  I hope that this blog post can serve people who continue to suffer from this stupid hardware issue.

When dealing with Nintendo's bad joy cons, you should avoid it at all costs and use alternate controllers.  The natural option to deal with it is by looking at the alternate joy cons around (Youtube has plenty).  I've listed here the Dobe TNS-0163 as this is one of those alternative joy cons one can use.

You can also look at using specialized controller grips that will solve portable play but you'll need a separate controller when you dock the Switch.

• Hori Split Pad Pro (Daemon x Machina or Black or other recoloured versions) - This controller is amazingly good!
• Dobe TNS-19252
• Dobe TNS-18133
• Dobe TNS-19210
• Ipega-SW029 - it's a stretchable controller and since its max length is 280mm, the Nintendo Switch Lite can also use this controller.
• Ipega-9163A Tomahawk
• What I used for my Nintendo Switch Lite is the Ipega 9083 (Offline) (Take note that this is the non-upgraded version as the upgraded version Ipega 9083S removes Switch support!)

If you go this route, you will need the Pro Controller or the 8BitDos to serve as your controller on dock.  you don't have to suffer joy-cons.  Ditch the official Nintendo ones!

Google Chat Rooms sucks.

 Who ever thought Google Chat Rooms would be a productive way of communicating really should re-evaluate things.  It's confusing to have separate threads of discussion which, according to them, is the whole point of using the Rooms.  Very ugly.

Ubuntu 18.04 Update

Some things I've found regarding some of the issues.  On the network, it seems that r8168 is broken in Ubuntu 18.04.  Check the issues here and here.  I'll investigate solutions for this.

This was a router issue with my MAC Address filters.  Silly me banned my own laptop from using the router.

On the SMB issue, I managed to connect using cifs.  Here's my command-line mount:

sudo mount -t cifs -o username=guest,guest,vers=1.0 //router_ip/share /home/user/mountpoint

At least I am now able to connect and transfer stuff to the router's external drive.  I had similar issues with Linux Mint Rebecca (17.1) and the solution was to roll back to version I had back in 2016 (4.3.9).

Random Thoughts: PhD, Ubuntu, and Netbooks!

I've been way too busy to post anything on the blog but at the very least, one post for 2018 means this is still alive.

PhDCS is hard work.  Hard work remembering what Computer Science was like a long time ago, but I appreciate the course I've taken for the most part.

My current laptop is an Acer Aspire VX15.  It's wonderful and beefy in terms of performance but the latest Ubuntu is truly a shit sandwich.  I have done upgrades using Ubuntu with little issues.  My Acer had a fresh install of 16.04 LTS back when my laptop was new (Bye Windows 10!) and the upgrade to 18.04.1 was nothing short of a complete disaster.  I knew Canonical had put in big changes on the latest LTS with the trashing of Unity (sad) for Gnome 3 but I didn't expect it to break so many things.

• I can't run the update because it renders my laptop unable to boot which means I've got to do some voodoo with UEFI, boot and somehow luck myself into fixing the boot sequence / grub.
• I can't boot from DVD or USB to reinstall Ubuntu.
• LAN port seems unable to get an IP address anymore.
• Wi-Fi sucks now as there are hotspots that it won't connect to for some reason.
• Gnome 3, in general, is an unsatisfying desktop.  I really liked Unity and how everything was straightforward intuitive for me.  I'll live though and so, this is the least of my problems.

I'm hoping a full reinstall of Ubuntu 18.04 will fix my woes but seeing as I'm unable to get the install media to even boot.  I don't know how I'm going to fix all of this.  In due time, I hope to sit down and really dive into this thing.  In terms of data, since /home is in a different partition, I don't have to worry that much about that.  It's just the booting that is suuuuuuuuuch a pain.

Last thing on my mind is that I'm looking into getting a 7" or 8" Windows (gasp!) laptop for variety.  My Acer is going to be my primary workhorse but the truly portable machine is appealing to me.  I've seen GPD Pocket (and 2), One Mix (and 2S) Yoga, and Topjoy Falcon and all of them seem really nice buys.  Weakest one seems to be the One Mix Yoga but the 2S incarnation seems really slick.

Well, cheers till the next update (whenever that is).

Last King of Africa DS Walkthrough

Just a short little post here.  I've been looking for a walkthrough of the Last King of Africa on the DS and apparently, it's based on Paradise the PC game by Benoit Sokal.  In any case, YouTube seemed to be a very good resource in the form of the only Let's Play series.  However, the commentary got tiresome so, I found a nice video without commentary.  Click here to see someone play the PC version.  A decent PC guide can be found here.  You'll discover that the DS version has some variance in solutions as well as some puzzles entirely omitted.  In addition, the DS version has some touch screen puzzles inserted here and there.  Some of them do involve more pixel hunting unfortunately.  An actual DS guides in foreign languages can be seen here and here.  Also, pressing select shows the integrated help guide system for the hotspots in this pixel hunting mania.  After the jump is a brief run down on the differences from PC to DS. (Spoilers beware!)

Acer A500 Custom ROM vs Google Play Services

Those who have flashed to the custom ROM will probably now be running afoul with Google's latest versions of its Google Play Services.  Check out TO forums for more info on this.

Acer A500 Flashing

I had issues with the stock ICS rom until the point where Google Drive apps became virtually useless.  I couldn't edit spreadsheets and Hangouts was crashing crazy.  This post here is to list down resources from my attempted Linux only experience to getting from stock OTA ICS to TegraOwners Lollipop ROM.  A lot of the credit is from the hard-working folks at TO.  There's a huge amount of resources already in that forum so all you need is to search.  (They'll tell you the same thing!)  Since I don't dive in blind with these things, there was a tremendous amount of readings to be done just to get started.

Update: DragonRise USB Controller OSX

Update: Seems like I'm still suffering from support and that it doesn't always work.  Not sure what the cause is.

As a quick update, apparently, I don't need to do much of anything except to keep the controller plugged and then boot the MacBook.  The driver pick it up right away.  Cool.
 

Random Thoughts: OSX Kext Patching USB Generic Gamepad

I've been digging up Mac OSX support for my old Vinyson gamepad which is recognized in Linux as the DragonRise Generic USB Gamepad.  From my readings and testing on Linux, I know that the gamepad is recognized as with the Vendor ID 0x0079 and Product ID 0x0006.  Further readings point out that the drivers for Linux is hid-dr.ko (loaded via sudo modprobe hid_dr).

The controller doesn't load on Android because this driver is missing.  On OSX, the driver doesn't exist and according to this post, the com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver should about cover it.  Obviously, the posted resource doesn't work right off the bat, but it did let me start reading about OSX drivers.

Apparently, kernel objects in Linux are referred to as kernel extensions in OSX.  They reside on /System/Library/Extensions and inside are kext folders with hardware information on what the drivers load for which vendor, product combination among other things.  Use the kextload binary to force load specific drivers but I think all I need to do is to find the HID driver for OSX and add the vendor, product IDs of mygamepad.  This article on patching Info.plist is pretty handy.

Random Thoughts

It's been a while since I've posted so this is an amalgamation of things that have been happening.  First of all, I now have a MacBook Air and the adjustment has been minimal.  All my Linux desktops have sort of been modified to have a quasi-OSX like setup with the arrangement of the close, minimize, maximize buttons.  At worst case, the terminal gives me back that Linux touch and gives me a lot of power back when OSX's UI fails me.

I love the touchpad gestures.  It's probably the most unique aspect of OSX.  Taking the cool computing ideas from Linux and giving it that Apple take on things gives me a good perspective on what can be done to make desktop computing more efficient.  That being said, I just really don't like the regressions that happened.

Getting my PS/2 keyboard with the USB converter to get recognized in OSX is mindbogglingly difficult.  I scoured multiple websites screaming at me the words: "No, it doesn't work." But I refused to believe.  It turns out that the solution is to turn off my MacBook and plug the keyboard in while the device is turned off.  Why?  I don't know.  If the keyboard is supported, why on earth would you want to make it harder to support such devices?

The USB ports are way too few and the Mini DisplayPort (Thunderbolt) really blows here.  Suddenly, I can't use the extra monitor sitting here and I have to buy some fangled adapter to get it going (It's on the way...).  Lastly, the SSD drive is way too small, but that's to be expected.

Despite all of this, I am at peace with the Mac.  It's a nice device and gives me more experience as far as using other computing environments.  All that being said though, my next laptop will definitely go back to Linux.

Next stop, I reformatted my HP laptop that was running Linux Mint.  To be honest, I had been very disappointed with Linux Mint's performance here.  By the time I reformatted it, it had slowed down to a crawl on boot and on GDM login.  It has never ever happened before in any Linux desktop I've used and I have gone through quite a bit.  I tried to analyze the boot sequence and the GDM login process but to no avail.  It was just pitiful to see Linux perform this bad.

I installed Linux Mint 17.3 and that was a mindboggling choice.  The boot was as bad as when I had the bloated Linux Mint 17.1 install.  I was willing to forego that to see what the desktop had in favour.  Secretly, I hoped it would just simply disappear.  When I setup fglrx, I noticed that running amdconfig wouldn't detect any proper supported GPU (Mine is Radeon HD 7670M) which prompted me to look for the xorg version.

Linux Mint 17.3 runs on xorg 1.17.1 which seems to be .1 version above the latest fglrx version from AMD's site.  So I figured I should just ditch this.  I went back and reinstalled Linux Mint 17.1 on the HP Laptop.  I also installed fglrx and not fglrx-updates (which didn't work the last time I tried it).  After running amdconfig, I am treated with the same error which boggled my mind.  I checked xorg and the version was 1.15.  So, NOW, I'm really confused!

I rebooted anyway and fglrx seemed to load right.  I installed cairo-dock and the rest of my usual setup and everything seems set.  For some reason, Linux Mint 17.1 boots up faster than Linux Mint 17.3.  As long as it doesn't bog down, I can live with this.

Speaking of fglrx, I was also reading up if amdgpu and amdgpu-pro will have support on my Radeon GPU.  I think 7670M is still Southern Islands and that support 'should' be coming in the future.  Cross fingers!

Missing Caption and Dialog Box Messages on Cairo-Dock

I've been using Linux Mint 17.1 for quite a bit and its configured to using the fglrx driver.  When I first installed Cairo-Dock as a way to emulate Ubuntu's Unity, there had been missing text and captions on several items in my menu.  It's bothered me but I've tolerated it for a long while till I had had enough and did some research on it.

This thread gave me a hint that this is a known issue and that setting the font may fix it.  The suggested font to use was Ubuntu Mono 12 but that didn't work in my case.

By right clicking the cairo-dock, you can configure the Dialogue Boxes and Captions.   You can set the custom fonts to use for both.  For my Linux Mint, the font that worked was Andale Mono 12.  Now all the text appears.

My Eken Android Bootloop Fix

I want to keep this a little brief.  My Eken W70 was suffering from a bootloop issue after factory resetting the tablet.  This tablet had gone through a previous update to Jellybean although I suspected that the update was an unofficial one.  So, noting that if I don't fix this, I might as well toss this to the bin, I was emboldened into tinkering it in an attempt to fix it.

Linux Messaging Commands

It's embarrassing but I keep forgetting commands to communicate with other users logged inside the Linux server. So, I'm writing it all here for me.

• wall - broadcast to all logged in users.  This is the only one I always remember.
• write - sends a message to the specific user.
• tty - displays the ttyname of the users among other things.
• When writing a message, input, Ctrl+C, or Ctrl+D sends the message.

Sketchbook Random Thoughts

I don't do this as frequently as I should be, but ever since I picked up the ASUS Zenfone 2, I've been slipping in some time to practice a bit.  Nothing serious and they are pretty terrible works, but I like that I'm not using up paper on this.  So, on to some of my random thoughts while doing this latest piece...

Logitech Quick Cam Pro 5000 on Windows 7

Well, I had a little bit of a bout with the Logitech Quick Cam Pro 5000 on Windows 7 where Windows 7 didn't seem to have any drivers to load.  What I did was download this from the Logitech FTP site.  I used Wine on Linux to run to exe and find its working directory and copy the Drivers folder.  Then on Windows 7 (64-bit), I plugged the webcam and let it search for drivers.  Open the Device Manager and right click on the unknown device to update the driver software.  I navigated to the x64 folder and used Pro464 folder and let it install that driver.  Voila, Logitech Quick Cam Pro 5000 running just fine on Windows 7.

New story, Dark Age Chronicles: The Awakening

I so forgot to post this so I'm going to quickly post links to the next chapter in the series.  The Awakening itself is split into two stories.

• Shadows of the Dead
• Lifting the Shadows

Enjoy!

Asus ZenFone 2's Battery Life

I bought the Asus ZenFone 2 (ZE500CL) purely because I was drawn by its Intel Atom processor and it seemed like a decent device.  The one thing that really got to me was the woeful battery life.  I had the choice of getting the ZE550ML one which had a bigger battery (2500mAh vs 3000mAh). However, it has a bigger screen and houses a quad core processor.  I don't need a quad core phone and the 5" screen can barely fit in my palm so a 5.5" screen is way worse!

I've shut down a lot of services but I could barely get half a day out of my phone without needing a charge.  It got to the point where I was bringing my charger where ever I go.  Sometimes, a USB power bank as well.  Then, I discovered that I had GPS and location turned on.

I had not realized how much this thing sucks the life out of my phone battery.  Turning it off makes the phone last quite a bit!  What an amazing discovery and also a massive face palm on my part.

Flashplayer and Linux Mint

So a vulnerability was found on Flash that made Firefox disable the Flashplayer until people updated their plugin.  Adobe released an updated version of the last non-Chrome version of Flashplugin for the update but I seemed to be running into some issues with the browser not picking up the latest version.  So, what I did was re-download the latest version of Adobe flashplayer.  Then, I copied libflashplayer.so into /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so and /var/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so.  Then, restarted Firefox and checked the add-ons.  Finally the latest version was recognized.  Back to regular programming.

Android and GPS

So, I've been traveling way more frequently than I used to and I figured having the GPS on my Android devices could be handy.  However, I realized that my Acer Iconia Tab A500's GPS never actually worked.  Also, the MoveTab had GPS that worked really well and then suddenly stopped working.  If I remember, GPS never worked for my Samsung Galaxy Pocket either.  All of these nonfunctional stuff got me reading and investigating just how to use this equipment.  Read that after the jump!  Note that a lot of the focus of this article is on my poor Acer A500 and its horrible GPS.

Random Thoughts: Samba, Cinnamon and Android Insufficient Storage Space Error

So I've been using Linux Mint a lot and there's been some adjustment.  I find Cinnamon to be a total regression to Unity's dock.  I've complained a bit about this but fortunately, someone pointed me to Cairo which is a decent replacement.  It's not as slick as Unity's Dock, but it's functional and familiar enough.  I just cannot go back to that old Start Menu, Taskbar thing.  Feels cluttered and useless.

While we're in the subject of Cinnamon, when the laptop wakes up from suspend or sleep, sometimes, Cinnamon starts acting very weird.  None of my mouse clicks the menus, Cairo's task switching doesn't really work.  The only way I got to recover from it was to kill Cinnamon.  

killall -HUP cinnamon

Then, there's samba.  In the university I work at, we have some specific configuration and Cinnamon's connect Windows Share interface is a bit wonky.  Turns out when I specify the server name, I have to leave out the slashes (e.g. //).  Then specify the share to use.

Lastly, there's a common problem on Android where the storage space is always running out.  This usually manifests itself when attempting to install apps.  Google Play Store will complain "Insufficient Storage Available" which is a real pain especially when you own those Chinese OEM tablets.  I've learned since that Android will build up junk cache over time and can easily chew up GB of space after prolonged use.  You can use any cache cleaner app and run your device through it.  I use the Clean Master but I'm certain there are better lightweight apps available.  I ran my cleaner app and it showed me the junk I should clean up.  Tapped clean and I was able to install the apps I wanted just fine.

That's a wrap!  Ciao!