QSystemTrayIcon Not Showing Under Ubuntu

I wanted a simple system tray application that would work on both Windows and Linux. As C# doesn’t really have a proper GUI for Linux (albeit you can come a long way using Windows Forms), I decided to go with QT.

Showing system tray was really easy:

_tray = new QSystemTrayIcon(this);
connect(_tray, SIGNAL(activated(QSystemTrayIcon::ActivationReason)),
         this, SLOT(onTrayActivate(QSystemTrayIcon::ActivationReason)));

_tray->setIcon(trayIcon);
_tray->setToolTip(QCoreApplication::applicationName());
_tray->show();

Under Windows it worked beautifully. Under Ubuntu - not so. QT example for tray icon was pretty much equivalent and it worked flawlessly. But my simple example just wouldn’t. It took me a while but I traced the issue.

Upon click I wanted to display a context menu. It seemed innocent enough to dynamically create it:

void MainWindow::onTrayActivate(QSystemTrayIcon::ActivationReason reason) {
  switch (reason) {
    case QSystemTrayIcon::Context: {
      QMenu menu(this);
      menu.addAction("&Show", this, SLOT(onTrayShow()));
      menu.addSeparator();
      menu.addAction("E&xit", this, SLOT(onTrayExit()));

      menu.exec(QCursor::pos());
    } break;

    case QSystemTrayIcon::DoubleClick: {
      onTrayShow();
    } break;

    default: break;
  }
}

And this works under Windows. But Ubuntu and it’s Unity GUI don’t really know what to do with tray icon without preassigned context menu. And thus tray icon is never actually displayed.

Once I figured that out, solution was simple. Just assign menu statically:

_tray = new QSystemTrayIcon(this);
connect(_tray, SIGNAL(activated(QSystemTrayIcon::ActivationReason)),
         this, SLOT(onTrayActivate(QSystemTrayIcon::ActivationReason)));

QMenu* trayMenu = new QMenu(this);;
trayMenu->addAction("&Show", this, SLOT(onTrayShow()));
trayMenu->addSeparator();
trayMenu->addAction("E&xit", this, SLOT(onTrayExit()));
_tray->setContextMenu(trayMenu);

_tray->setIcon(trayIcon);
_tray->setToolTip(QCoreApplication::applicationName());
_tray->show();

Installing DropBox on ZFS

While I already wrote about expanding DropBox’s Ext4 volume on ZFS, I never actually wrote how to create one in the first place. I guess it’s time to fix that injustice.

First you need to create a volume of sufficient size. While you can just make it as big as your Dropbox allowance is, I would advise going with at least double of that. Not only this helps if you are doing ZFS snapshots (remember it’s copy-on-write) but it also helps if you are moving files around as Dropbox fully releases space only once the new files are created.

Whatever you decide, you need to create a volume and format it:

sudo zfs create -V 12G ^^pool^^/dropbox
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/zvol/^^pool^^/dropbox

Once volume is created, mounting the newly created volume within our user directory is in order:

mkdir /home/^^user^^/Dropbox
sudo mount /dev/zvol/^^pool^^/dropbox /home/^^user^^/Dropbox
sudo chown -R ^^user^^:^^user^^ Dropbox

Of course, to retain it between reboots one should add it to fstab:

echo "/dev/zvol/^^pool^^/dropbox /home/^^user^^/Dropbox ext4 defaults,_netdev 0 0" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

Do note the _netdev part as it ensures dropbox volume is mounted way after ZFS has already done so. Without it you might have a race condition and volume mounting might prevent subpools to be mounted under the same path.

Finally you can install Dropbox as you usually would. While it will complain about directory already being present, you can simply cancel directory selection and it will start syncing regardless.

Congratulations, your Dropbox is now on ZFS.

DaVinci Resolve and MP4 under Linux

If you try to import mp4 file to DaVinci Resolve under Linux, you will be greeted with audio-only experience if you’re lucky or nothing at all if you’re not. Unless you’re paying customer of DaVinci Resolve Studion, MP4 and AAC are not supported at all.

Conversion to an intermediate format is needed and good old ffmpeg can help here:

ffmpeg -i ^^input.mp4^^ \
    -c:v dnxhd -profile:v dnxhr_hq -pix_fmt yuv422p \
    -c:a pcm_s16le \
    -f mov ^^output.mov^^

Here I use DNxHR with HQ settings. Even this will generate file that’s much bigger than source. How much bigger depends on the source, but don’t be surprised to see it grow 16-fold or even higher.

Smaller alternative can be MPEG4 format but with a drop in quality even at its best settings:

ffmpeg -i ^^input.mp4^^ \
    -c:v mpeg4 -qscale:v 1 \
    -c:a pcm_s16le \
    -f mov ^^output.mov^^

These files can now be used as input to Resolve and editing can commence.

Once done with rendering a conversion to MP4 might be in order again. For this I use settings discussed on Video StackExchange. While the original discussion was for YouTube, I find their recommendations quite good as a starting point:

$ ffmpeg -i ^^render.mov^^ \
    -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -crf 16 \
    -force_key_frames 'expr:gte(t,n_forced/2)' -bf 2 \
    -vf yadif -use_editlist 0 \
    -movflags +faststart \
    -c:a aac -q:a 1 \
    -ac 2 -ar 48000 \
    -f mp4 ^^out.mp4^^

Mind you, all my cameras use YUV 4:2:0 and I don’t do any major editing so increasing YUV to 4:2:2 or even 4:4:4 makes no sense nor does increase to 10-bit resolution. Depending on which equipment you have, your mileage may vary.

Installing DaVinci Resolve on Ubuntu Dell XPS

When I first installed DaVinci Resolve on my Dell XPS under Ubuntu 19.04 I was greeted with stuck splash screen. What was I missing?

Well, the first issue was missing OpenCL. Fortunately that was easy to solve:

sudo apt install ocl-icd-opencl-dev

Other issue was missing nVidia driver. For some reason Resolve really dislikes nouveau driver. Therefore we have to upgrade driver a bit. I found that auto-install works perfectly for me:

sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall

Those who like to be more precise can always check which drivers are available and install only those:

ubuntu-drivers devices
 == /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0 ==
 modalias : pci:v000010DEd00001C8Dsv00001028sd000007BEbc03sc02i00
 vendor   : NVIDIA Corporation
 model    : GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile]
 driver   : nvidia-driver-390 - distro non-free
 driver   : nvidia-driver-418 - distro non-free recommended
 driver   : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-418

With these two changes my DaVince Resolve can finally start properly.


PS: Interestingly, installing non-free nVidia driver solved Ubuntu getting stuck booting after incorrect password got entered.

Switching to Linux Desktop?

I’ve been playing with Linux/Unix servers for a long time now - both at work and home. I even switched almost completely to Linux at work - Outlook and Excel being the only reason why I still have Windows VM. However, at home I still used Windows 10 as my main OS. With Linux Desktop getting better and better while Windows 10 is getting more and more annoying, I figured I need to revisit installing Linux at home too.

And no, I didn’t go full-in. However, for the first time in the last 10 years I am dual booting again.

Ubuntu with ZFS was Linux of my choice primarily because of the ZFS support. Running ZFS on my NAS has been a pure joy (as much as any file system can be) and that’s what moved needle from Linux Mint toward Ubuntu. Other benefits include a huge install base and prepackaged software support.

While Linux is rather enjoyable, I don’t see Windows going away from my computer for a while. And the major reason is Visual Studio - there is simply nothing equivalent for C# development. Visual Studio Code does try but that’s like saying butcher is an equivalent of a surgeon. It’s simply a difference between IDE and really good text editor.

While running under Wine is an option, DipTrace still works better under Windows. And this goes for the whole “electronics tools” category. Whether it’s MPLAB (which actually has a Linux version), PicoScope (Linux version in beta), or just some stupid utility, making it work under Windows is simply easier with less issues present.

Another stumbling point was Vegas Movie Studio in particular and media editing in general. These applications are few and far between. I did find DaVinci Resolve to be actually extremely powerful and free alternative. It definitely has a steeper learning curve and does require a bit of getting used to. However, at this moment it actually doesn’t support H.264 and MP4 file format under Linux. :(

I am still looking for a good alternative to Paint.NET as Gimp doesn’t really work for me. It’s excellent software if you need to do a major work, but it’s really annoying when it comes to simple operations. As Windows 10 image viewer is pure shit, I didn’t need to search long to find a substitute.

WinRAR was another stupidly simple utility that doesn’t really work properly under Linux. Yes, you can get other archivers but there is nothing that really offers the same features; archive locking and preview without extracting to temporary directory being my favorites.

And lastly, there is nothing as good on Linux as Explorer. Yes, Nautilus does come close when it comes to pure file browsing but just trying to do something in Open and Save dialog brings tears to my eyes. No, there is no rename, full right-click menu, or even pasting file there. Nope, you can just open and save files. As I often remember things I want to adjust only when saving other file, this seems overly restricting.

End result is that for Visual Studio, electronics, and gaming I still use Windows. For all other purposes I simply switch to Linux as my preferred environment. It’s something I wouldn’t believe just a few years ago - oh, how times change.


PS: If you’re curious as to what I find annoying in Windows 10, here are the first couple of things coming to mind without any specific order: Windows update reboots my computer overnight time and time again, every major update randomly resets my settings, local account requires THREE damn password reminders, it keeps forgetting my damn network credentials (despite checking the “remember” checkbox), Start menu cannot find applications that are freshly installed, damn settings are distributed between multiple apps and programs with each holding some settings, it uses every opportunity to shove Edge and Skype app down my throat, and the list goes on.