13th December 2021 - Irritating Issues
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have been having an issue on one particular computer for some 4
months or so. It is a mint box 2 running Manjaro XFCE on latest stable
kernel. The issue is the mouse becoming rather stuttery. I have been
trying alsorts of things to try and resolve it. The stutttering starts
at random and appears to have no fixed reason. Recently for some
reason, the keyboard started doing this too. I have been reading lots
of forum posts covering a whole variety of different causes. I
eventually found what seems to actually works. My mouse and keyboard
started being screwy while playing Jazz Jackrabbit 2. The keyboard was
sticking lots and so I decided to go fix again. I eventually found a
post in the arch forums suggesting that USBs could be being suspended.
The solution is simple, run powertop and check the tunables. Since
turning any tunable involving the suspension of any USB or vaguely USB
related device from good to bad, I have a working mouse and keyboard.
Why did I not consider it being a power thing? Well mostly as I tend
to expect power issues to be constant even if I debug partial power
ups in electronic designs fairly often. I just don't expect it in
consumer electronics or computers I guess. Anyhow, hopefully the issue
has resolved. I am sort of curious of the root cause. It seems to have
started with a kernal change but resorting back to previous kernals
did not help. Perhaps something triggered a change to Powertop
tuneables? Buggered if I know. It just feels nice having a solution!
Well... a maybe solution. Shall have to see if this persists.
On another note, I managed to get my covid booster today. The process
was pretty smooth other than when the 'escort' disappeared for what
felt like hours but was only 15 minutes. As this vaccination centre
was in a college, members of the public had to be escorted in groups
up and down stairs. To keep things smooth, the escorting chap had to
shift up and down every 5 to 10 minutes really. This would enable the
15 minute watch time seats to empty at a suitable rate. Ah well. What
amazed me was making an appointment and actually being jabbed at the
time of the appointment. Not something I have been used to while
getting jabbed at Millenium Point.
I am also on holiday. Until 4th January! The joys of having had some
forced unpaid leave in August and having to use all remaining holiday
and time in lieu before end of the calendar year. I often try to make
sure I have a week and a half over Christmas. A forced site shut down
between Christmas and New Year helps make it easy. I also hate driving
on Christmas Eve. Far better to have a few days to choose from. This
week is mostly trying to finish off my Christmas shopping and helping
Grandparents. My Grandparents are having to leave the house (rather
rare for them) to get their booster jabs so I am acting as taxi and
reassuring pressence.
