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#51 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] LibreOffice Calc 7.4.7.2 - Slow / laggy scrolling » 2026-07-31 14:22:00
Hello:
... catch up to latest advancements. maybe not even needed ...
Indeed ...
The 'latest' advancements.
The scourge of IT by another name.
Unjustified "advancements", things no one asked for or needed.
Soon they will add video editing capabilities to it and it will be even more "advanced".
Enshitiffication and bloat just for the sake of it.
Or maybe for the sake of being as much as [MS-Office] as possible?
If I had to choose, the Linux equivalent of the stand alone [MS-Word 6.0] (over 26 years after it was EOL'd.) would still be more than enough for me. I should have a copy somewhere.
Best,
A.
#52 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] LibreOffice Calc 7.4.7.2 - Slow / laggy scrolling » 2026-07-31 14:07:32
Hello:
Thanks so much for the prompt reply.
... pinning isn't required.
... disable search for updates ...
Good.
That is how I work with unregistered [Master PDF Editor 5].
Have not had to resort to my XPSP3 VM / Adobe Pro 7.0 for the longest while.
7.6.7.2 is the latest version ...
... had it on Daedalus ...
... happy with what I have ...
Good to know.
... use Writer and Calc ...
... rest is installed but not used.
Same here.
When I need to send someone a document it is in in [*.pdf], [*.doc] or [*.txt].
If a spreadsheet (not often) it is in [*.xls] usually because of whoever receives it does not use [OpenOffice].
When [*.xls] and [*.doc] it is in [MS-Office 97] format.
It would be great if Open Office could be purged of unused stuff.
ie: only install what is needed.
... download three packages ...
... extract the contents to /tmp.
... in this case from 7.4 to 7.6, you need to remove the old stuff ...
Settings remain in place.
Seems easy enough.
Q: is language pack needed if I have my box running in english? ie: en_GB
Right.
Will try that and see how it goes.
Hopefully the problem I am having now (and did not have before) will not be present.
Will report back once the deed is done.
Thank you very much for your help.
Best,
A.
#53 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] LibreOffice Calc 7.4.7.2 - Slow / laggy scrolling » 2026-07-31 12:20:31
Hello:
When LO 7.4 came out ...
I cannot remember what the previous version was.
ie: 7.4.7.1?
... there were some voices that said it was not the best.
I have not been happy with OpenOffice for a good while now.
I managed because I could, but this problem is really very annoying.
Have lost a lot of time (in shrt supply at the moment) trying to find a fix.
... downloaded the latest 7.6 version and that works fine.
I could try but I could also roll back to the known.
Even the inteface has changed.
eg:
In the previous version I could see a progress bar when it autosaved or I saved a file I was working on.
For whatever reason, that is now gone.
Seems that visual indication of a file being saved is no longer important.
> ... not using the LO version from the repo.
I see.
I'd say my options would be:
1. find a way to safely roll back to the previous repository version (or the one before it) and pin it.
2. install a newer version from the LO repository and pin it, say 7.6.7.2?
Opinion?
Seems that enshittifacion is in full force all over the IT world, if it continues at this pace, we are doomed.
Thanks for your input.
Best,
A.
#54 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] LibreOffice Calc 7.4.7.2 - Slow / laggy scrolling » 2026-07-31 11:33:21
Hello:
... have preferred the "openoffice" ...
I have never liked the idea of an 'office suite'.
Would have preferred Linux have stand alone applications like eons ago when you could install MS Word and Excel separately and not have to deal with a behemoth.
That said, I have used LibreOffice since I moved to Linux and it has worked well most of the time, having OpenOffice and LibreOffice side by side seems a complication.
The main problem I see (in all) these 'suite' things is bloat, bloat and more bloat.
The issue I have probably has roots there.
Best,
A.
#55 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] LibreOffice Calc 7.4.7.2 - Slow / laggy scrolling » 2026-07-31 00:54:51
Hello:
Hmm ....
OK.
For the very first time in over nine years:
- bump>
I have not been able to find anything but complaints about this on the web.
Any ideas?
<bump -
If not, how to properly roll back to the previous version of LibreOffice.
Best,
A.
#56 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Huawei Freebuds » 2026-07-30 16:54:38
Hello:
... must not be connected properly.
Don't use this type of hardware but it should (?) behave as any other BT harware.
eg: BT mouse with a USB receiver plugged in.
There may be more information in /var/log/[fill-in]
ie: [dmesg] and then [kern.log], [syslog], [messages] and [lsusb].
1. Boot the box without the [thinguies/USB whatever] plugged in.
2. Plug them in and check what [dmesg] tells you.
3. That should give you some data wrt the hardware.
Check to see what [lsusb] says.
Maybe it is a driver/configuration/pairing issue.
Edit:
A fast check on-line found that the earbuds have to be paired manually.
The lack of [systemd] in Devuan is (most probably) the key.
Maybe that the Huawei management apps are not Linux-able?
Google for [HUAWEI FreeBuds SE 4 ANC linux] and [HUAWEI FreeBuds SE 4 ANC linux Devuan].
Best,
A.
#57 Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] LibreOffice Calc 7.4.7.2 - Slow / laggy scrolling » 2026-07-29 20:19:05
- Altoid
- Replies: 15
Hello:
Since the last LO upgrade (to 7.4.7.2?) I find that my scrolling (via the up/down/left/right keys) has become a nuisance.
If I press the [up] or [down] key to move to another cell it does so but slow so that when I let off the key, the scrolling continues and ends up further than I needed, like if it filled a buffer.
Quite annoying, to put it mildly.
Does not seem to happen in LibreOffice Writer.
I have not been able to find anything but complaints about this on the web.
Any ideas?
Best,
A.
#58 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » [SOLVED] L3afpad » 2026-07-27 22:53:22
Hello:
... has the option to set the BOM marker ...
... more likely that a text file will be displayed correctly somewhere else.
I'll have to look that BOM thing up.
That said, my *.txt/*.conf/etc. files are (in all probability) not going anywhere.
Save maybe one of my other Linux systems. 8^)
I agree, [Featherpad] seems fine for what I usually do.
Worst case scenario, I'll always have [MCedit].
It also renders all the accented characters correctly.
Thanks for your input.
Best,
A.
#59 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » [SOLVED] L3afpad » 2026-07-27 21:22:47
Hello:
If it helps ...
*Everything* helps.
That is what the forum is about. 8^)
Mousepad has good support for different encodings ...
I installed [featherpad] from the Devuan repository and it seems to be working as needed.
I (think) I have everything correctly set to UTF-8 which will do.
I see it has more than what I need but it is lightweight and did not pull in anything strange.
Seems there are quite a few Qt libraries in my system.
... lacks many encodings ...
My needs are circumscribed to the accented vowels I posted previously+the ES [ñ/Ñ].
The rest of the characters provided by the KB are a bonus.
· ½ ¬ { [ ] } \
¬ ¡ ⅛ £ $ ⅜ ⅝ ⅞ ™ ± ° æ ß ð đ ŋ ħ ĸ ł ~
Æ ẞ Ð ª Ŋ Ħ Ł { } \ « » ¢ „ “ ” µ • · | © ‚ ‘ ’ º × ÷Just have to remember where they are.
So I don't have to cut/paste from the web when I need ©, ™, ± or fractions. 8^°
Thanks for your input.
Best,
A.
#60 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » [SOLVED] L3afpad » 2026-07-27 19:38:48
Hello:
There's mousepad ...
... featherpad if you don't mind pulling in ...
I'll have a look, thanks.
... use geany most of the time.
Too much for me.
It is a programmer's editor but I need *just* a text editor so as not to have to pull up LibreOffice Writer for such a simple task.
Interesting that there being *so* many Linux text editors, one would think that the hallowed 'choice' would have generated just *one* for simple everyday text edition for the common folk such as I.
Best,
A.
#61 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » [SOLVED] L3afpad » 2026-07-27 17:03:52
Hello:
Thanks for the prompt reply.
... this way, but I don't know if it has what you need.
No, it does not have the characters I need.
My kb has these characteristics:
$ cat /etc/default/keyboard
# KEYBOARD CONFIGURATION FILE
# Consult the keyboard(5) manual page.
# Set for IBM 82G3294 Model 'M'
#
XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="latam"
XKBVARIANT="deadtilde"
XKBOPTIONS="lv3:ralt_switch,terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp"
BACKSPACE="guess"With those settings I can type all the characters I need with locale=[en_GB.UTF+8] on my keyboard which has a Latin American Spanish QWERTY layout, using the [AltGr] key:
á é í ó ú - Á É Í Ó Ú
à è ì ò ù - À È Ì Ò Ù
â ê î ô û - Â Ê Î Ô Û
ä ë ï ö ü - Ä Ë Ï Ö Ü
There are a lot more which I do not use but are surely useful:
¬ ¡ ⅛ £ $ ⅜ ⅝ ⅞ ™ ± ˛
| @ · ~ ½ { [ ] } \ ¸ and others ...
The thing is that I can type the accented characters in and they will render properly but when I try to save the file, I get the popup with the complaint.
I am resorting to [l3afpad] because [X File Writer], part of [XFE], a really nice and compact desktop agnostic file manager, has some issue I cannot solve and typing the characters usong [AltGR] is not working.
It would seem that there is some sort of conflict (sez AI):
In Linux, FOX Toolkit applications may fail to process the AltGr key due to X11 modifier mapping issues, missing Mod5 configuration, or environment translation conflicts.
and
In Devuan running XFCE, the AltGr failure occurs because XFCE uses its own internal daemon (xfce4-keyboard-settings) to manage layouts. This frequently overrides standard X11 system properties and fails to pass the third-level modifier (Mod5) down to lightweight or legacy UI toolkits like FOX Toolkit.
As a result, every application works with [AltGR] with the exception of [XFW].
[L3afpad] does not seem to have had any updates in over 10 years.
Any ideas?
Best,
A.
#62 Desktop and Multimedia » [SOLVED] L3afpad » 2026-07-27 13:55:48
- Altoid
- Replies: 8
Hello:
Anyone here use [l3afpad]?
https://pkginfo.devuan.org/cgi-bin/pack … .18.1.11-4
Accented characters get me this pop-up:
Can't convert codeset to 'ANSI_X3.4-1968'
There seems to be no options to fix this (?).
Best,
A.
#63 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » LibreOffice Writer and GTK3 - heads up » 2026-07-24 16:50:04
Hello:
... need to install libreoffice-gnome ...
Seeing that I do not use [gnome-desktop], I don't think I can come up with a reason to need [libreoffice-gnome].
... and do not exclude Recommends to get libreoffice-gtk3 ...
Right.
Thanks for searching (and finding) the cause of this.
It would seem that someone at the [Libre Office] dependencies department is not paying attention to what they are doing.
Have a good week-end. 8^)
Best,
A.
#64 Hardware & System Configuration » LibreOffice Writer and GTK3 - heads up » 2026-07-24 13:21:47
- Altoid
- Replies: 2
Hello:
I type on LO Writer in languages requiring the use of special characters:
ie:
Ccute/grave accents, circumflex or diaeresis/umlauts on vowels - [á é í ó ú] [à è ì ò ù] [â ê î ô û] [ä ë ï ö ü] and so on.
For some reason, after one of the last LO upgrades, this [using the AltGr key] stopped working.
Much to my chagrin, the answer came through the Google 'AI' thing and not as a post by anyone using LO.
TL;DR:
Make sure that you have the [libreoffice-gtk3] package installed, if it is not, the [AltGr key] stops working.
rant
How come this did not come included with the bloody #$%& LO upgrade?
/rant
Best,
A.
#65 Re: Other Issues » [SOLVED] nvidia-persistenced daemon issue (sysvinit) » 2026-07-23 19:42:47
Hello:
See: https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?pid=24694#p24694 and the rest of the thread.
I seem to recall that nvidia-persistenced is a *suggested* package, not sure.
Best,
A.
#66 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » VirtualBox autostart » 2026-07-21 21:50:53
Hello:
Please excuse the belated reply.
... no number is specified the system defaults to giving it a priority of 20 ...
I see ...
Never used an init script for conky ...
Same here.
I use the [Session and Startup] section in XFCE.
I don't mess with init scripts.
Neither do I, unless something comes up.
... making desktop buttons to start specific virtual machines ...
If for whatever reason I have to stop / restart the headless VM running [Pi-hole], I do it from the command line.
If not, I use the VBox GUI.
Thank you both for your input.
Best,
A.
#67 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » VirtualBox autostart » 2026-07-20 17:42:39
Hello:
chmod +x /etc/init.d/vbox-autostart looks OK.
... man update-rc.d to see ...
Yes, I knew what those numbers were for but I did not want to go too far with the delay in starting.
eg: it could be that [99] is too much, maybe [44] would be enough.
99 indicates you want it to start after everything else ...
... kill early in the shutdown process.
Right.
... taken care of with the [Required-start] line in the script?
... start/stop run-levels are now contained in the LSB info ...
I see.
So [99] and [10] not needed?
Good to know.
And what about Conky ...
A [sysvinit] script to make sure it starts (with no delays) only if the network is up or stay as it is with a delay that does not always work?
Any one have a [sysvinit] script for Conky?
Thanks you both for your input.
Best,
A.
#68 Hardware & System Configuration » VirtualBox autostart » 2026-07-20 10:20:20
- Altoid
- Replies: 6
Hello:
I use a headless VirtualBox VM to run a stripped down Devuan Chimaera with Pi-hole + unbound.
Has worked without issues but these days I am having some issues with it coming on-line.
eg: stalling
To spin up the VM, I use its own start-up service to which I can add a delay but for some reason (another topic) sometimes it does not work. so I thought about being consistent with Devuan and having this VM (only one needed at boot) start-up via [sysvinit].
A search on the web got me this:
#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: vbox-autostart
# Required-Start: $local_fs $syslog $network vboxdrv
# Required-Stop: $local_fs $syslog $network vboxdrv
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: Autostart VirtualBox VMs on Devuan SysVinit
### END INIT INFO
case "$1" in
start)
echo "Starting VirtualBox VMs for user $VM_USER..."
for VM in $VMS; do
echo "Booting $VM..."
su - $VM_USER -c "/usr/bin/VBoxManage startvm \"$VM\" --type headless"
done
;;
stop)
echo "Stopping VirtualBox VMs gracefully..."
for VM in $VMS; do
echo "Sending ACPI shutdown to $VM..."
su - $VM_USER -c "/usr/bin/VBoxManage controlvm \"$VM\" acpipowerbutton"
done
# Give the VMs a few seconds to flush disk cache and turn off
echo "Waiting for VMs to close..."
sleep 10
;;
restart)
$0 stop
$0 start
;;
status)
echo "Currently running VMs:"
su - $VM_USER -c "/usr/bin/VBoxManage list runningvms"
;;
*)
echo
exit 1
;;
esac
exit 0The rest is the making the script executable and registering it, which I recall having done at some time with some script.
As root: chmod +x /etc/init.d/vbox-autostart and update-rc.d vbox-autostart defaults 99 10
I have no trust in this AI thing and don't want to screw up anything so I'd appreciate some input.
eg: the [99 10] at the end of the [update-rc.d] line.
I only need to make sure the network is up for the VM to start so that Conky can fetch my IPv4 address.
Does that not get taken care of with the [Required-start] line in the script?
Shouldn't Conky have its own script (?) to make sure it does not start before the VM is upand not depend on a delay?
Best,
A.
#69 Re: Other Issues » Kernel 6.1.0-50 for daedalus got a bug it seems... » 2026-07-12 21:12:10
Hello:
... yet it's showing 2.27 gb in conky (fs_used) and 2.3 from the df command.
Me thinks [df -h] is rounding out.
Maybe there is a switch to make it give you decimal numbers?
I haven't found anything save using a script to parse.
This is on [Daedalus] after the last large update / upgrade:
$
uname -a
Linux devuan 6.1.0-50-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.176-1 (2026-07-02) x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ $ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 40G 9.9G 30G 26% / # conky reports 9.86GiB / 39.1GiB
/dev/sda5 705M 26M 626M 4% /var/log # conky reports 25.8MiB / 704MiB
/dev/sda6 68G 31G 37G 46% /home # conky reports 30.5GiB / 67.3GiB
/dev/sdb2 67G 38G 25G 61% /media/1TB/TS # conky reports 37.8GiB / 66.2GiB
/dev/sdb1 849G 701G 107G 87% /media/1TB/IMG # conky reports 700GiB / 849GiB
$Just found this:
https://computingforgeeks.com/check-dis … -with-duf/
# duf
╭───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ 8 local devices │
├────────────────┬────────┬────────┬────────┬───────────────────────────────┬──────┬────────────┤
│ MOUNTED ON │ SIZE │ USED │ AVAIL │ USE% │ TYPE │ FILESYSTEM │
├────────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────────────────────────┼──────┼────────────┤
│ / │ 39.1G │ 9.9G │ 29.1G │ [#####...............] 25.2% │ ext4 │ /dev/sda1 │
│ /home │ 67.3G │ 30.5G │ 36.8G │ [#########...........] 45.3% │ ext4 │ /dev/sda6 │
│ /media/1TB/IMG │ 848.5G │ 700.3G │ 106.4G │ [################....] 82.5% │ ext4 │ /dev/sdb1 │
│ /media/1TB/TS │ 66.2G │ 38.2G │ 24.6G │ [###########.........] 57.7% │ ext4 │ /dev/sdb2 │
│ /media/300GBIT │ 273.9G │ 143.4G │ 116.5G │ [##########..........] 52.4% │ ext4 │ /dev/sdf1 │
│ /media/storage │ 273.9G │ 146.3G │ 113.7G │ [##########..........] 53.4% │ ext4 │ /dev/sdd1 │
│ /media/stuff │ 66.7G │ 20.6G │ 42.7G │ [######..............] 30.9% │ ext4 │ /dev/sde1 │
│ /var/log │ 704.3M │ 25.8M │ 626.0M │ [....................] 3.7% │ ext4 │ /dev/sda5 │
╰────────────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴───────────────────────────────┴──────┴────────────╯
╭───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ 6 special devices │
├────────────────┬────────┬────────┬────────┬───────────────────────────────┬──────────┬────────────┤
│ MOUNTED ON │ SIZE │ USED │ AVAIL │ USE% │ TYPE │ FILESYSTEM │
├────────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────────────────────────┼──────────┼────────────┤
│ /dev │ 3.8G │ 0B │ 3.8G │ │ devtmpfs │ udev │
│ /dev/shm │ 2.1G │ 0B │ 2.1G │ │ tmpfs │ tmpfs │
│ /run │ 787.5M │ 808.0K │ 786.7M │ [....................] 0.1% │ tmpfs │ tmpfs │
│ /run/lock │ 5.0M │ 8.0K │ 5.0M │ [....................] 0.2% │ tmpfs │ tmpfs │
│ /run/user/1000 │ 787.5M │ 8.0K │ 787.5M │ [....................] 0.0% │ tmpfs │ tmpfs │
│ /sys/fs/cgroup │ 3.8G │ 0B │ 3.8G │ │ tmpfs │ cgroup │
╰────────────────┴────────┴────────┴────────┴───────────────────────────────┴──────────┴────────────╯
#Screen output is in decimals, colour and apparently configurable.
Niiiice ...
Best,
A.
Edit:
Fixed [/dev/sdb1] and [/dev/sdb2] that had printout swapped.
#70 Re: Off-topic » [SOLVED] Why hasn't sysvinit been abandoned yet? » 2026-07-05 18:24:41
Hello:
sysvinit just does its job.
I have yet to find a logical explanation for the actual benefits of using anything but the default sysvinit in a Devuan desktop box.
A.
#71 Re: Off-topic » [SOLVED] Why hasn't sysvinit been abandoned yet? » 2026-07-05 18:16:55
Hello:
That kind of language is not called for ...
+1
A.
#72 Re: Installation » overlay-root » 2026-07-02 11:34:07
Hello:
... bilibop use a lot of RAM?
No idea.
Had never heard of it before Devarch mentioned it.
Apparently (?) it is an alternative to [overlayroot].
"Instead of yet another new, living fast and dying young, Debian based distribution, bilibop has been designed as a set of few debian packages. bilibop-lockfs may also be installed on a laptop or on a public computer as an alternative to fsprotect or overlayroot, and bilibop-udev (or bilibop-rules) should also be installed on a LiveUSB."
[bilibop] Ubuntu manpage.
It can also be found in the Devuan repositories.
Best,
A.
#73 Re: Installation » overlay-root » 2026-07-01 15:19:54
Hello:
... using bilibop ...
Now, that one I had to look up. 8^°
... whole / is on overlayfs on top of tmpfs.
... fine with chimaera, daedalus, excalibur sysvinit ...
... software that I use works.
Good to know, especially when I have all but decided to remain on Daedalus past [oldoldstable] and the list of software I have in my box has not changed significantly since Devuan [jesse].
ie: archived, maybe two or more years from now.
... issue with reboot/shutdown - 30 seconds delay if luks ...
Not my case.
Thank you very much for your input.
Best,
A.
#74 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] How remove Trash via terminal (324Kb needed / 0 Kb available) » 2026-06-30 12:43:21
Hello:
... sounds a good advice ...
Does it?
... such situation could be amended also otherwise?
For whatever reason, you seem to have have generated a size issue in the drive, apparently [root] which the OS reports being full.
Maybe your "small SSD" SDD is indeed too small for what you are attempting to do.
Maybe your partitioning is not the right one for a drive that small.
That said, bear in mind that you are on a [testing] release.
As such, it is usually/always problematic.
Boot with [gparted] live, open a terminal and run df to see "what is where" so to speak.
See what space [/home] and [/var/log] are using/have available and delete whatever you do not need to try to improve the situation.
Nuke a file named [.xsession-errors] usually found in [/home].
You may be able to boot after cleaning up all that.
A.
#75 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] How remove Trash via terminal (324Kb needed / 0 Kb available) » 2026-06-30 10:28:40
Hello:
... if it is even still possible at this point ...
You may want to consider making a back-up image of the drive (just in case) and then booting via a [gparted] *.iso to first do a full check on the drive and then resize whatever partition is complicating things, probably /.
Best,
A.
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