opera 12 issues

just installed opera 12, and rolled it back right away. this is not a stable version.
issues: toolbars (specifically main-menu), multimedia (flash videos), indic fonts (malayalam?)


opera 12.00 starts up with a useless empty bar on top with just one button, wasting screen estate. see image below.


don't bother trawling through the opera forums, as opera developers seem to be windows kiddies. after eating some more of my leftover hair, i find a workaround. go to

Opera -> Settings -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Tabs -> Additional Tab Options -> Show close button on each tab (enable)


this is not ideal, as now every tab has an unnecessary " x" at the end. but is better than an empty line of wasted screen estate.



the next issue is flash. i just can't play any videos. instead i see an empty static black box, where the video is supposed to be. no buttons, no clicks, ...nothing. like this


opera 12 has "Experimental hardware acceleration WebGL support" which need to be activated by enabling two settings in opera:config, ie set them to 1 (autodetect), or 2 (on). they are initially set to 0 (disabled).
opera:config#UserPrefs|EnableHardwareAcceleration and opera:config#UserPrefs|EnableWebGL

i play with different combinations of these settings wondering if these were the cause of my youtube problems. but every permutation i try gives me the same static black box in youtube.

back to opera forums "Opera for *nix - Linux/FreeBSD", and the first sticky is this post: Flash problems on Linux?
it seems a bit dated for 14/12/2009, but as opera lists this at the top, i expect this to be current. so i trawl through this, and do what it asks:

$ find / -name 'libflashplayer.so' 2> /dev/null
/usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so

$ ldd /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/libflashplayer.so
linux-vdso.so.1 => (0x00007fff560a7000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6 (0x00007fda2350f000)
libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXext.so.6 (0x00007fda232fc000)
libXt.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXt.so.6 (0x00007fda23094000)
libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfreetype.so.6 (0x00007fda22df5000)
libfontconfig.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfontconfig.so.1 (0x00007fda22bbe000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fda229a1000)
librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007fda22799000)
libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda22158000)
libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda21ea3000)
libatk-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libatk-1.0.so.0 (0x00007fda21c80000)
libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpangoft2-1.0.so.0 (0x00007fda21a55000)
libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda21834000)
libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 (0x00007fda21627000)
libcairo.so.2 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcairo.so.2 (0x00007fda2132c000)
libpango-1.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpango-1.0.so.0 (0x00007fda210de000)
libgobject-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgobject-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda20e8e000)
libgmodule-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgmodule-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda20c8a000)
libglib-2.0.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda20992000)
libssl3.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl3.so (0x00007fda20751000)
libsmime3.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsmime3.so (0x00007fda20524000)
libnss3.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnss3.so (0x00007fda201e7000)
libnssutil3.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnssutil3.so (0x00007fda1ffc1000)
libplds4.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libplds4.so (0x00007fda1fdbd000)
libplc4.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libplc4.so (0x00007fda1fbb7000)
libnspr4.so => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnspr4.so (0x00007fda1f978000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fda1f774000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007fda1f4f1000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fda1f16a000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fda24d48000)
libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1 (0x00007fda1ef4a000)
libSM.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libSM.so.6 (0x00007fda1ed42000)
libICE.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libICE.so.6 (0x00007fda1eb27000)
libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007fda1e910000)
libexpat.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexpat.so.1 (0x00007fda1e6e5000)
libXcomposite.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXcomposite.so.1 (0x00007fda1e4e3000)
libXdamage.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXdamage.so.1 (0x00007fda1e2e1000)
libXfixes.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXfixes.so.3 (0x00007fda1e0da000)
libgio-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgio-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda1dd88000)
libgthread-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgthread-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fda1db86000)
libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXrender.so.1 (0x00007fda1d97c000)
libXinerama.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXinerama.so.1 (0x00007fda1d77a000)
libXi.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXi.so.6 (0x00007fda1d56a000)
libXrandr.so.2 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXrandr.so.2 (0x00007fda1d362000)
libXcursor.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXcursor.so.1 (0x00007fda1d158000)
libpng12.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng12.so.0 (0x00007fda1cf30000)
libpixman-1.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpixman-1.so.0 (0x00007fda1cca9000)
libxcb-shm.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb-shm.so.0 (0x00007fda1caa5000)
libxcb-render.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb-render.so.0 (0x00007fda1c89b000)
libffi.so.5 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libffi.so.5 (0x00007fda1c68d000)
libpcre.so.3 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpcre.so.3 (0x00007fda1c450000)
libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXau.so.6 (0x00007fda1c24c000)
libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00007fda1c047000)
libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007fda1be42000)
libselinux.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libselinux.so.1 (0x00007fda1bc21000)
libresolv.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2 (0x00007fda1ba0b000)


at this point, i give up on that post and go back to troubleshooting on my own.

http://youtube.com/html5 tells me this:

What does my browser support?
Video tag [y], h.264[!], WebM [!]

Note the answer to the above question, when a few lines above it says that Opera 10.6+ supports WebM. What does [!] mean?

opera:plugins lists all plug-ins and their status.

then i wonder, if youtube has any other issues. so i uninstall opera 12.00, reinstall opera 11.64, and try youtube. voila... it works! so it has to be opera 12 and not anything else on my system!


update: for now, i have installed opera 12.00 & 11.64 side-by-side on the same system. i don't seem to have the above issues on 11.64. so i guess, i'll continue using 11.64 for now.

i'm still sticking with opera, as i find it to be lean, small & fast, when all the others are going bloatware. i only use iceweasel (firefox, for the uninitiated ;-) when opera doesn't suffice. for eg, when i need to work with indic fonts, which opera won't render properly.

reclaiming android foss

i am gradually removing google apps, as they continue to bloat.

if you are looking to buy a new phone, i will only recommend those phones which have a sizable open-source developer community behind it. if you don't want to end up with a paperweight, do not buy any phones, which can't be openly hacked!

android roadmap?

i'm not sure which way google are going, but they seem to want to turn the android into a desktop os, rather than a handheld os. google are doing to android, what microsoft did to windows.. make it bloatware & proprietary locking everyone out, till people give up and move to alternatives.

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