Category: Fedora

firefox theme now follows gtk4/libadwaita styling on fedora 36

whbeebe

The title says it all. I found this via the site omg! ubuntu! ( https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/07/firefox-gnome-theme-libadwaita-update ). What is it with sites using exclamation symbols?

Anyway, if you follow the directions on the site and install the theme, then those damned buttons-for-tabs are removed and replaced with tabs that are attached to the pages they belong to. This makes Firefox a lot more tolerable to use in my not-so-humble opinion. I don’t know who the developer(s) was/were who  made the executive decision to convert tabs to buttons, but I hope they’ve since all been purged. Apple tried this with Safari and got such a huge backlash from the user community they reversed course and put the tabs back as the default. Yes, you can enable buttons on Safari if you configure Safari. At least we Apple users have choice, which is missing in Firefox. With this method change is more convoluted than with Safari, but at least we have choice again, and it fits in with the Gnome desktop on Fedora 36.

This doesn’t mean I’ll switch back to Firefox from Vivaldi. I’ve been using Vivaldi on Fedora for too long to want to give it up. But it will help me in the future when I install and set up Fedora for others. I can feel comfortable leaving Firefox as the default browser on those installations.

My only complaint about this theme is that the tabs associated with the page being viewed is still too dark. I suppose I could spend some time tweaking that part of the theme a bit. Or perhaps someone will beat me to it.

enabling hp officejet pro 9020 printer support in fedora 36

whbeebe

In the last post on Fedora 36 I complained about the lack of HP OfficeJet Pro 9020 printer support, although I didn’t call out the printer by name. I was wrong. There is a way to add that printer support, and the clue is found in an obscure corner of Fedora docs: ( https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/cups-known-issues/#_hplip ). It involves the HP Linux Imaging and Printing System package, or hplip-gui. You can install it from the command line with sudo dnf install hplib-gui or using the Gnome Software installation application:

I won’t go through all the steps to set up the HP printer with the HP tool. I will however offer this warning. If you’ve been trying to enable the HP printer with the regular printer setup (Settings | Printers) then you need to just delete the original printer entry. For example, here’s what it looks like after running the HP tool:

Delete the printer entry outlined in red

The red rectangle outlines the original busted entry. Delete it then set the HP supplied pretty printer entry as the default printer, then close Settings. By the way, when you open it up again at a later time and check, you’ll probably see the old entry again. That’s not a problem as long as it’s not selected as the default printer. While this is about working with a specific HP printer, I’m certain it also applies to all HP printers you want to use with Fedora 36.