Monthly Archives: August 2020

Resetting a WASD Code keyboard

Posted on by

I have a CODE V3 104-Key Mechanical Keyboard with Cherry MX Green switches which I love. But unfortunately it has been my experience that they can be a bit finicky. I had to return one to WASD once because keys started producing “gibberish” if pressed the keys too hard. I know! Crazy!

Anyway I had a similar problem today. My Pause key, when pressed, would simultaneous ‘mute’ my audio *and* turn it either ‘up’ or ‘down’ (with a preference for ‘up’). Friggin weird. Anyway I was able to fix the issue by doing a keyboard reset.

To do a keyboard reset: unplug the keyboard, set SW4 to the “on” position, plug it back in. Wait until the solid green lights emit and then unplug, set SW4 back to the “off” position and then plug the keyboard back in and test. Easy peasy. :)

NetBeans red line

Posted on by

There is a feature of NetBeans where it puts a red line as the right margin in the code editor. By default this margin is at 80 characters but I prefer it at 99 characters. To change the setting in NetBeans see Tools -> Options -> Editor -> Formatting -> All Languages -> Tabs And Indents -> Right Margin. For example:

NetBeans formatting options

Installing Kubuntu

Posted on by

So basically I want to run KDE Plasma under Ubuntu and this can be called Kubuntu.

This article is a little bit cargo-clutish. I.e. “I did this and it seemed to work.” and “I don’t do this because it didn’t seem to work.”

I have a pretty heavy reliance on Salt Stack for system configuration. My salt config is all built around Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

When I need to install a Kubuntu desktop, this is how I do it:

  1. install Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS from live installer
  2. apt update && apt dist-upgrade && apt autoremove && reboot
  3. apt install kubuntu-desktop && reboot
  4. apt install virtualbox-guest-dkms virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11 && reboot
  5. apt install salt-minion
  6. vim /etc/salt/minion_id
  7. vim /etc/salt/minion.d/minion.conf
    • master: salt.staticmagic.net
  8. service salt-minion restart
  9. salt-call state.highstate

Note that if your Kubuntu install is a VirtualBox guest you need to start it with a normal start if you want the shared clipboard to work. If you start headless or detachable the shared clipboard will not work (in my experience).

If your Kubuntu install is not a VirtualBox guest you can skip the virtualbox-guest-* package installation above.