Screen flashing after upgrade

I finally got around to upgrading this (now old) machine from 16.04 -> 17.10 over the last couple days.  After fighting with DKMS it's finally booting and working... except the screen keeps flashing.

Why am I facing this reportedly fixed bug?

I managed to fix it by going into the NVidia X Server Settings and turning off this flag:

As soon as I unchecked that, everything was fine.

Ubuntu upgrade - left mouse click failure

I let Ubuntu upgrade to 16.04 today.  Afterwards, the mouse would move, right-click worked, and left-click worked in some apps. Most notably it did not work on the system menu/notification bar.  Doesn't even work on the login UI.

I knew this happened last time too, but couldn't remember why.  I finally figured it out.

In Firefox, go into Settings, turn off chat. Reboot (I know, shouldn't have to do that, but I had to).  Now,  mouse works.  Go back in and turn it back on, and it's still fine.

Unable to connect ADB to CM10

As an Android developer, I have a ton of spare devices running various versions of Android.  One of them is the original Samsung Galaxy Note running CM10 so that I can test backward compat with 4.x.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to connect to it via adb/mtp/mass_storage for quite some time.  adb via wifi works, but is dog slow when running connectedCheck.

Luckily, I figured out how to fix it yesterday (and thus the reason I am leaving this post so I can find it in a years time when I forget yet again).

It's completely incompatible with USB hubs.  While all my other devices are plugged in through a single hub so that I can test on multiple devices, this CM10 device requires that I plug it in directly.  Once I did that, it started working normally.

Why didn't I think of that earlier?  Did I mention that none of the other devices have this problem?  Just the CM10 device.

USB3 hub disconnecting - dropping adb connection

I'm probably jumping the gun, but I am hopeful.

I was having a problem where my new OctoFire hub was disconnecting quite often -- especially if using something like Android ScreenMonitor.

I think it is fixed.  I found the suggestion to disable the autosuspend here.

Edit the /etc/default/grub file and append to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line:

usbcore.autosuspend=-1

Then run:

sudo update-grub
sudo reboot

Changing the Wallpaper to Scaled in Ubuntu 13.04

After upgrading to Ubuntu 13.04, I lost the ability to scale the desktop background.  At first, I tried just saving the image at a different size, but it kept cropping it in ways I didn't like.

Solution was pretty simple (though it should have still been available in the UI):

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-options "scaled"

Unable to open MTP device '[usb:003,021]'

Recently I upgraded my Samsung Galaxy Note to JellyBean. Around the same time, I also upgraded both the desktop and laptop to Raring Ringtail.  When connecting the device to the dev boxes, the laptop continued to work. The desktop however would give me a never ending loop of popups like this one:

Unable to open MTP device '[usb:003,021]'

While trying to resolve it, I found this fix about the ASUS Transformer...

I followed the same instructions with a few slight tweaks...

/etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules:

# MTP Settings added by Malachi
# From dmesg:
# [  166.765498] usb 3-4: reset high-speed USB device number 20 using ehci-pci
# [  166.845468] usb 3-4: USB disconnect, device number 20
# [  167.084889] usb 3-4: new high-speed USB device number 21 using ehci-pci
# [  167.219607] usb 3-4: New USB device found, idVendor=04e8, idProduct=6860
# [  167.219609] usb 3-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=4
# [  167.219611] usb 3-4: Product: SAMSUNG-SGH-I717
# [  167.219613] usb 3-4: Manufacturer: samsung
# [  167.219614] usb 3-4: SerialNumber: 2a4c2c04
ENV{ID_MODEL}=="SAMSUNG-SGH-I717", ENV{ID_MODEL_ID}=="6860", ACTION=="add", RUN+="/usr/bin/sudo -b -u malachi /usr/bin/go-mtpfs -allow-other=true /media/SGH-I717"
ENV{ID_MODEL}=="SAMSUNG-SGH-I717", ENV{ID_MODEL_ID}=="6860", ACTION=="remove", RUN+="/bin/umount /media/SGH-I717"

in /etc/fstab:

DeviceFs(SAMSUNG-SGH-I717)    /media/SGH-I717   fuse.DeviceFs(SAMSUNG-SGH-I717)    allow_other,rw,user,noauto    0    0

Now, when I connect, I get about 50 popups but then ADB works again.

ia32-libs

Android is full of 32-bit tools and dependencies.
Running on x64 can be problematic unless you install ia32-libs.
Unfortunately, Ubuntu has been having issues installing it lately.

After 2 days, I finally found the solution here:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

After that, everything installs fine.

Reverse USB Tethering

I decided to give reverse usb tethering a shot. I don't know which devices easily support this, but I assume you have to be root. In my particular case, I was using an ICS device.  These steps could easily screw up your existing cell routing - so make sure your willing to risk it.

Step 0: Make sure the device is booted and connected via USB

Step 1: Enable tethering on the device side

• Go to Settings
• Under the Wireless & Networks, click on More
• Click on Tethering & portable hotspot
• Enable USB Tethering

Step 2: Get the IP Address of the device

malachi@onyx:~$ adb shell
root@android:/ # netcfg
lo       UP                                   127.0.0.1/8   0x00000049 00:00:00:00:00:00
dummy0   DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000082 62:bc:02:e1:d5:ea
rmnet0   DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet1   DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet2   DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet3   DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet4   DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet5   DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet6   DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
rmnet7   DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000000 00:00:00:00:00:00
sit0     DOWN                                   0.0.0.0/0   0x00000080 00:00:00:00:00:00
rndis0   UP                              192.168.42.129/24  0x00001043 da:02:11:22:14:af

Step 3: Get the matching IP Address of the workstation

malachi@onyx:~$ ifconfig -a usb0
usb0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr e2:31:b5:d7:f3:7b 
          inet addr:192.168.42.74  Bcast:192.168.42.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::e031:b5ff:fed7:f37b/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1990 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1188 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:181334 (181.3 KB)  TX bytes:657452 (657.4 KB)

Step 4: Ping the device from the workstation

malachi@onyx:~$ ping 192.168.42.129
PING 192.168.42.129 (192.168.42.129) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.42.129: icmp_req=1 ttl=64 time=1.01 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.42.129: icmp_req=2 ttl=64 time=0.605 ms

Step 5: Ping the workstation from the device

root@android:/ # ping 192.168.42.74
PING 192.168.42.74 (192.168.42.74) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.42.74: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.427 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.42.74: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.397 ms

Step 6: Add workstation as the default gateway for the device

root@android:/ # route add default gw 192.168.42.74 dev rndis0

Step 7: Get a list of DNS servers from the workstation

malachi@onyx:~$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 172.29.224.11
nameserver 8.8.8.8

Step 8: Add them to the device

root@android:/ # setprop net.dns1 172.29.224.11
root@android:/ # setprop net.dns2 8.8.8.8

Step 9: Setup forwarding from usb0 to eth1 on the workstation
[ most people probably use eth0. Just use ifconfig to check which one is active]

malachi@onyx:~$ sudo su - root
[sudo] password for malachi:
root@onyx:~# echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
root@onyx:~# exit

malachi@onyx:~$ sudo iptables --flush -t nat
malachi@onyx:~$ sudo iptables --table nat --append POSTROUTING --out-interface eth1 -j MASQUERADE
malachi@onyx:~$ sudo iptables --append FORWARD --in-interface usb0 -j ACCEPT

Step 10: ping google ;)

malachi@onyx:~$ adb shell
root@android:/ # ping google.com
PING google.com (74.125.127.99) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from pz-in-f99.1e100.net (74.125.127.99): icmp_seq=1 ttl=51 time=11.8 ms
64 bytes from pz-in-f99.1e100.net (74.125.127.99): icmp_seq=2 ttl=51 time=11.9 ms

And finally, check things like the Browser...