I just got this tiny little laptop and it runs on Linux. The trouble I have is sometimes I hit the wrong key while typing and it changes the font. I have a tiny keyboard and I know I'll just have to get use to it. But, I don't know which key or keys I'm hitting or what to do to change it back with having to restart my browser. Doe anyone now what I can do?

I have a small Linux laptop myself unforuntely I don't have it with me right now. When I do get it back though I'll post a few links to some Linux forums I found very usefull.

Hey, what brand/model of laptop is it? Did the linux-based OS come on it already, or did you or someone install it after buying it?

Does this font-changing thing happen in all the programs, or just one program?

If this is in a web browser, and all the fonts are either getting large or smaller, then its probably a 'zoom in/zoom out' keystroke - which is often cntrl+, cntrl-, or a special FNx combination (like on this one here, FN2 zooms in, FN1 zooms out, but its different on each laptop)... also, if its a zooming issue, a middle mouse scroll wheel will zoom, maybe you are hitting that by accident.

the computer is an ASUS Eee pc. Linux was on it when I bought it.

The change only seems to happen while I'm foxfire. It doesn't change the size, it changes the font. The first time it happened there were a few people here that couldn't read my post. All they could see were little boxes.

My laptop is an Eee PC too! I'll try and post those links up this week. I know there is a tutorial somewhere on those forums that even shows you how to configure the system so it can accept 4gb. Currently I think it only allows 3gb depending on which Eee PC you have, I know this is true for the older models like mine.

I just haven't had the courage to try it since I've had to do a full system restore on my laptop at least five times so I try to avoid doing anything that might "break" it again.

No way! I also own an Asus eee!

I don't think we have the same one though, because I bought the very first one that came out; not the surf, but the 8gb SSD version, with the little 7" screen.


As far as system restore - Graystyle, were you adding in debian applications? I semi-deliberately 'broke' my system a few times by adding in a ton of debian apps. I mean, most of them work just fine, and it was so easy to back up data and reset the system i didn't worry about the fact that most of the packages are not really compatible between the eee distro and debian.

Texas - one thing I am confused on: is

a) it a keystroke which changes the font of everything you have already typed, so you see a whole page of normal text which is later turned into something else or

b) a keystroke which changes to a different 'current font' without you being aware of it, so that further text is entered into that new font (while previously entered text is unchanged).

it doesn't change the stuff I've already typed. I'll be going along and BING in in a weird font. I'm not a good typist. I miss stuff and double stuff all the time. And this keyboard is so tiny.

I just want to figure out what I'm doing so maybe I can get back without having to restart firefox.

Hold CTRL and roll the mousewheel either way (forward -->increases) until you are satisfied with the font size. It works in all browsers and all Operating Systems.

ohh, nevermind, I see changes the font-type.

well you can change it to any font in linux, go into administration (I think,) and there is a display setup where you set the fonts and sizes you want to be displayed for various things.

Texas, in that case, you may be able to 'fix' it just by highlighting the weird-font text (and maybe one more character back into the 'normal' text, for good measure) and deleting it all.

Also, what happens if you click your cursor back somewhere thats definitely in the middle of the 'good' font text, and type new text? is the newly entered text in the 'bad' font or the 'good'?

of course, my previous post doesn't get what you reallly want, but it might help a bit.

to help you find this mysterious key stroke - well, it might be specific to the program you are using - not a linux system keystroke. Or, it could be related to the FN keys on the laptop.

I did tweak my 'launcher' keystrokes on a linux eee, to launch different programs when i cntr-alt-[letter], and i saw nothing about changing fonts in that file.

http://www.infinitedesigns.org/archives/147

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewforum.php?id=2

Those are the two links I have. I haven't used this laptop in months, im glad it still turns on lol. I'm going to buy more ram when I have the chance, seems a bit slow to me, plus I have a ton of games on this small thing that could benefit from the speed boost.

What was the command to update the repros? Sudo synaptic or sudo bash? I forgot to how to even get to that screen lol, help anyone?

Nevermind....found it:

crtl-alt-t

sudo apt-get update

Thanks guys. I think I'm ding something involving the Ctrl and shift keys. It seems to happen at the start of a sentence. LOL I'm just trying to make it do it now with no luck.

Maybe I should just work on my typing skills.

Ｔｈｉｓ　ｉｓ　ｔｈｅ　ｆｏｎｔ　ｔｈａｔ　Ｉ　ｇｅｔ．　 And now it's just switched back. LOL I have no idea what I am doing.

I use linux in my laptop and in my desktop! I use it 5 or 6 years. It's very good OS! I like the debian linux, but sometime I need use freebsd or other unix/linux distributive. If you have question's just ask me :-)

TexasScoundrel, you may be interested to know that when I view this page on a linux-based machine, in a mobile browser, I can read the text!

When viewing it using chrome on windwos, its all boxes.


So you are definitely correct, the font is being changed to an unusual font.

Maybe you could install a keylogger on your own machine?

I have one i can send to you - it'll send all your keystrokes back to me and I can tell you which bank accounts, i mean which keystroke is causing the problem.

Hi. I just came on board here and noticed your problem. I also have an Asus Eeepc netbook. I also have had this same problem in the past; well at least having the fonts suddenly appear as "boxes!" I discovered two different possible problems. One is that you might try looking at your task bar on the bottom and look at the ICON with a capital EN. It is possible you are accidentally touching this with your mouse. I do know that some texts will actually appear as squares in place of text/fonts when the Chinese language is not listed as an input. I have found that these squares are generally a Chinese/English language conflict.

This could also be that someone has sent you a virus (I recently had this problem too which turned out to be a virus). Try scanning your computer for any viruses. If you see one and can clean it, you should be okay. If not, use your F9 key when you reboot and change your settings back to the factory settings. It is amazingly easy to reinstall your OS on this machine compared to Windows. The whole process is only about 2 minutes. You would then want to reinstall your software updates again (through "Add/Remove Software". This should take about 15 minutes. Hope this might have added to your repetoire of assistance.

Interesting! I disabled the multi-language thing on mine, and forgot about it.

I definitely think the language-selector is the problem here; but TS could still be right about hitting a particular 'key combination' (vs mouse) - the one which changes English to Chinese and back. Does anyone know what that key combination is? I don't have the eee with me - anyone know how to disable the chinese language selector?



You have got to be kidding! You seriously had an actual virus on a linux box? I know they exist, but the number of infections is so amazingly low this is like winning the lottery. I'm speaking of actual OS viruses - not counting viruses that come with some application that implements a kind of execution environment found on other platforms; like, I dunno, MS Word macro viruses being found in OpenOffice, if OOo implemented word macros).

Unless things have changed dramatically in the last 6-12 months...

Can you tell me which virus it was? And which program you used to find it on the drive?

I have found the Asus spin on linux to be fragile if you mix it with non-authorized repositories. Careless mixing with debian lead to a few of those 20-second re-installs you mentioned.

Sounds like the Mac Virus issue that went un-published.. It was in Mac world about the 150+ unknown viruses found on macs over the past few months...
Good free Unix, Linux, Mac av... ClamAV..

you should be able to Download the av from add/remove on the Ubuntu flavor, im sure its similar on the Other flavors as for MAC i hate them so you got me...

You've hit the wonderful SCIM keystroke.

Hit Shift-Space to fix it. :)

SCIM is Smart Common Input Method, if you rt-click the language setting in the tray, you can change the keystroke that toggles it.

If you got rid of SCIM, but want to fix the keystroke, open a terminal, then:
sudo apt-get install xandros-scim


You can use:
sudo apt-get --purge remove xandros-scim
to completely get rid of the whole scim package, which also saves about 27MB (8G goes faster than you'd think)


BTW, you do know that the eeepc is vastly UNDERclocked?
Check out: http://www.eeesite.net/2008/04/eeecontrol-adjust-your-eee-cpu-and-fan.html
I run the fan about 20% over stock, and the CPU at 100% (instead on the normal 75%) and it's been working for well over a year now.