Steam on Linux Mint Cinnamon

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There was an update to the Steam client program that broke Steam on my particular Linux installations. The UI would load but any context menus would effectively become transparent to the mouse. Basically, if you opened a drop down menu or a right-click menu, anything you clicked on in the menu would pass right through into the window below. I suppose I could give in and switch to the more mainstream Ubuntu Linux, or switch to Mac or Windows, but I am quite pleased with my Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop interface.

The solution is to go to Steam settings, navigate to Interface, and then flip the switch that says "Enable context menu focus compatibility mode". This seems to work on my Linux Mint 21.1 Cinnamon systems which allows me to not have to switch to Gnome3 or Unity.

That's it. See below for background and rambling if you choose.

Steam support said that Steam is only supported on Gnome3 and Unity interfaces. But both those interface programs have issues that prevent me from using them. The support staff were kind and polite, but had no real solution other than to switch to a supported Linux platform (Ubuntu Linux with Unity or Gnome3 interface)... but at least Steam supports some Linux installations.

While the Unity desktop looks beautiful and astonishes anyone I show it too, it's not the most stable nor is it as configurable as I would prefer... though the available settings are still plenty enough for most users.

Gnome3 is a usable interface, and it has some interesting design decisions like moving away from the traditional desktop metaphor. My issue is that it's very mouse driven, and it's not designed for users like me who grew up with traditional desktop metaphor interfaces. Although, users who grew up with tablets and phones instead of computers may not see this as a problem since they did not depend on the desktop metaphor. I just cannot get used to Gnome3 and it seems to have issues with color management which manifests as tinting my desktop a warm yellow color, pleasant to look at, easy on the eyes, but not so great for color accuracy.

For those who don't know, Linux based systems have so many desktop interfaces available because the desktop interface can be installed, removed, and swapped like any other program on Linux. Basically, if you don't like a desktop interface program, you can install a different one with only a few keystrokes... something that seems foreign to many Mac and Windows users since their desktop interface program is nearly impossible to change.

Since I could not find the solution to this issue anywhere online, I posted in here in the hope that someone else with this issue will find it. I'm not sure what causes this to happen, it seemed to start when Steam made their UI look like the image below.
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The problems started when they made the UI look like this, to fix it, check the switch on the bottom of this page.

Upgrading Linux and DisplayCAL

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I recently re-installed one of my Linux machines. I did this because some software I need would only run on newer versions of Linux, some problems happened with my old Linux install (probably from badly timed power failures), and I wanted to upgrade to a release with a longer support period.

The issue is that some software I used would not work on newer versions of Ubuntu based Linux, and this is what initially delayed my upgrade. Eventually I found new programs that are still in active development, using old software just to avoid changing to a program that was abandoned is not a wise decision. I know people that have machines dating from the 1990's that they keep running so they can run one specific program that they refuse to replace with a modern equivalent. Ideally, our software would move to new hardware with us, but in times when it does not, there are two possible decisions that I support. First is to replace with a new program, and the second is to use emulation or virtual machines to run that one program on a modern system. Running another PC that cannot be upgraded just to remain compatible with one program is not a wise idea, and it also opens the door to security issues down the line.

DisplayCAL is a program used to calibrate monitors. Most people don't realize just how out to lunch most monitors are with regards to color. Most monitors are unable to display colors as they were intended to be, this is why people who want their screens to be accurate will use a special device that checks their monitors for color accuracy. Photographers and web designers can benefit from accurate color on their monitors. Even an expensive monitor wont be accurate, even two monitors of the same model will look different when placed next to each other. The way to fix this issue is to use a color calibration program and a colorimeter device to tell the computer how to compensate for the differences in each screen. DisplayCAL is one of the better programs for this task that is also easy to use.

The problem with DisplayCAL is that it's written to use an older version of Python that has since been deprecated. Thankfully, DisplayCAL is open source, and someone else rewrote it to use a newer version of Python that is still supported.

To anyone having the same issue as I did with DisplayCAL, head to this repository https://github.com/eoyilmaz/displaycal-py3 which holds a more up to date version of DisplayCAL. Following the directions to build and install this program worked on my system.

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Helping a project

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While programming micro-controller chips that will eventually control a semi-custom radio for a friend of mine, I was browsing for a library for the radio chip we are using. We eventually found a library and decided that it might not work for us due to memory usage and the limited memory available on the micro controllers we are using.

Still, the library is well made, and easy for a beginner to use. The choice to use object oriented programming makes it far easier for someone coming from other areas to utilize since object orientated programming is quite popular these days.

Our main issue was that the library's documentation could use a little cleaning up from a native English speaker. Rather than complain about it, I forked the repository on Github and I started working on said documentation. Sometimes the best solution is to just offer to lend a hand rather than expect someone else to volunteer their time to make your life easier.

The beauty of open source software is that if you see a problem and you either know how to fix it or you know someone who knows how to fix it, you can fix the issue even if it otherwise would not get fixed. With closed source software, you would be at the mercy of whatever company is writing the software, most people cannot program and therefore don't care, but they should still care since they could ask someone else they know to fix their issue without waiting for the company. The same applies to security software, open source code may not help the non-programmers in ways they can see directly, but they still benefit from people who can program being able to verify the integrity of the code on their behalf.

To the writer of the Arduino library for SI47XX radio chips, your library is great and has given me the resources I need to write my own library that matches the particular edge-case that I have to contend with. Though, if I needed to use all the features of the SI4731 based module I have been tasked with programming, I would definitely be using your library.

Check out his repository: https://github.com/pu2clr/SI4735

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