Gradient background on Ubuntu

 I always used to have a restful vertical gradient on my background - like a watercolour wash. 

Now this option is gone from the GUI.  I am offered various hippos, or the suggestion that I might like to create a gradient using an image editing tool and save it as a jpg or some bollocks like that.

Luckily the Gsesttings tool allows me to do what I want;

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background primary-color  "#8057D8"

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background secondary-color "#E5A28E"

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background color-shading-type "vertical"

Stitch that, hippo.

exfat SSD with OMV (pi4 B) + NFS = problems

I wanted to mount an existing filesystem (exfat on SAMSUNG 2Tb SSD) via OMV.

I could see the disk ok, but when I created a shared folder I was told that there was a permissions problem which stopped it from happening.  I tried again, and the shared folder appeared in the drop down list.

Then I tried to share via NFS.  No go.  #The command failed to execute' (with lots of detail that didn't help solve the problem.

Work Around

No problems sharing an ext4 HDD, so I reformatted the SSD (I used ext4).  Everything worked beautifully after that.  

 Transfer Photos from Huawei P10 to Linux

Problem : plug usb cable from PC to phone, phone charges.  Select MTP in developer options, plug in again.. charges again.  lsusb on PC doesn't show phone as device

Solution.

• USE A PROPER CABLE!!!  Some cables are charging only. 
• Switch to MTP
• USE GMTP on PC.

 Plan for TV Freedom

The goal is to get rid of the set top box supplied by Virgin, and go subscription free

What I need to achieve:

• wife and child friendly bug free operation.  It should just work
• freeview channels
• remote control 
• simultaneous recording and viewing with local storage of at least 1 TB
• integrated netflix, iplayer, amazon prime, etc
• the ability to add on movie archives, etc

I've decided to investigate Kodi on a Pi 4 for this purpose.

My incremental plan then;

1. Kodi on Pi 4 with HDMI output 
2. Try Kodi Freeview Addon, or something similar. If this doesn't work consider a tuner.  IPTV Recorder looks like a useful resource.  Would much rather not use the external aerial and stick with IP.
3. Add external HDD (doesn't seem much point in an SSD as USB 3 interface is the rate limiting step)

thoughts following WEF AI & Eductation roundtable

Randomly triggered

• Can we innoculate kids to develop immunity against cyber badness?
• An artificial kid.  Could we make an AI which would assess online resources / tools not just for factual accuracy, but for the contribution to learning - for being a positive value in development of a kid?  Sacrificial lamb.
• Are kids excluded by digital poverty from using ML educational tools doubly disadvantaged, as the tool not only learns the indivudal, but learns from the aggregate dataset too - and the disadvantaged are not represented in this dataset (so get left further behind)
• If we allowed kids complete control over what they learned and when they leanred it, we would have to agree that a universal programme of education is a meaningless concept.  Should we enable kids at a young age to disenfrancise themselves, to blight their future - or indeed, should we just let them feed on a surfeit of what they want, because... why is education desirable?
• To what extent is education the shaping of tools for the machine, to be used?
• If technology supplied for our needs, would we need to be educated?
• And in what?

installing and configuring openmediavault and logitech media server on olimex lime2

I want a single board home media server.  It has to run openmediavault and squeezeserver.  It has to be low power but have high transfer rate from storage with direct bus connection of HDD (unlike Pi which overloads its USB for all peripherals).  Solution at the time I bought it : olimex lime2

Here's how to configure it.

1. Get image (debian : no desktop)  
2. convert .7z to zip with arepack -e --format=zip *.7z
3. burn image to sdcard with etcher
4. edit /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts files
5. physically install in lime2, connect to ethernet, and power up
6. connect via ssh (default root password is 1234)
7. apt get update & upgrade
8. install openmediavault 
9. within OMV; mount drives, setup shares, NFS, SMB etc
10. install logitechmediaserver (see this guide)
11. do post-install lms config via port 9000

Bingo!