Reduce a Computer’s Audio Output Line Hum

📅 August 30, 2016
“Why do I hear a faint hum from my computer’s audio output?”

Computers are electrically noisy environments, and all of those wires and fans and whatnot operating at various frequencies can have unpleasant side-effects on a computer’s audio output.

If you enjoy listening to music played from your computer and if you use the computer’s analog stereo outputs (the 3.5mm line out jack) to connect to an external amplifier or receiver, then you have no doubt encountered the low-frequency hum effect.

Not a mere hiss due to a noisy sound card, but a low hummmmmmmmm that is heard consistently whether or not audio is playing and regardless of the volume level.

This can happen with any home audio equipment, not just computers. Often, it is caused by a ground loop, and the best way to reduce or nearly eliminate this hum is to electrically isolate the audio output (from the computer) from the audio input of the receiver/amplifier.

Fixing Archive Manager’s Parsing Filters is Unsupported Message

📅 August 23, 2016
Have you seen this error message before?

“Parsing filters is unsupported.” Appears while using Archive Manager to extract RAR files.

When installing a fresh Linux distribution on a new system, it is sometimes easy to assume that some software has been installed by default after becoming accustomed to using Linux on a reliable system that has had the software present for a long time.

One such example is Archive Manager. It will not extract all file formats by default until you install extra packages that give it that ability. RAR is one case. By default, Archive Manager will extract a few basic formats, such as ZIP, but not RAR.

We need to install additional software so other file formats can be extracted.

Customize Theme Colors with Oomox

📅 August 22, 2016
Interested in customizing your Linux desktop theme colors to a fine degree? Try Oomox!

Oomox is a program that lets you adjust and create your GTK theme colors for your Linux desktop and save the result as a brand new theme set.

Light themes. Dark themes. Classic themes. Wild themes. Your imagination is the limit!