Category Archives: Documentation

pulseaudio wasting CPU time because of speech-dispatcher

Disable speech-dispatcher on Debian 12

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I’m running Debian 12 “Bookworm” on a HP ProBook x360 G1 EE. This “beast” is serving as a Jenkins node running an automated test suite on attached Android devices for GSM Signal Monitor. It also runs xRDP and XFCE as the desktop environment. I’m remoting into the machine from time to time for device management and configuration using scrcpy.

One thing I noticed when running htop and using Firefox to visit sites such as stackoverflow.com was the abnormal CPU utilization by PulseAudio.

After a bit of research, the issue was pinpointed to speech dispatcher auto spawning on demand when called by certain applications.

I don’t use speech synthesis or software synthesizers on this machine (or anywhere, to be fair) and would rather waste CPU cycles on something more useful—such as running complete regression test suites against GSM Signal Monitor when a build is merged into the dev branch, or pre-release testing on 24 devices attached to the little beast.

To prevent speech-dispatcher from auto-spawning on demand, open a terminal and run:

sudo nano /etc/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf

Locate the “DisableAutoSpawn” option near the bottom of the file and uncomment it. Save the file and restart speech-dispatcher.

sudo systemctl restart speech-dispatcher

Optionally restart Firefox if it’s running.

Now speech-dispatcher should no longer spawn on demand by applications. You can verify that by navigating to a topic on Stack Overflow, for example.

speech-dispatcher disabled, firefox complaining

Firefox should complain that it can’t use speech synthesis.

Managing SSL for Jenkins with Sectigo Certificates

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At VMSoft, I manage a Jenkins instance that uses SSL. To configure SSL using a certificate issued by Sectigo (in my case), the supplied .crt and .key files must be imported into a keystore, which is then passed as a Jenkins startup parameter.

The process of creating a keystore from the .crt and .key files involves using the openssl command-line utility to create a PKCS#12 file:

openssl pkcs12 -export -in <file_name>.crt -inkey <file_name>.key -out jenkins.p12

Next, convert the resulting .p12 file to a .jks file using the keytool utility, which comes bundled with the JDK:

keytool -importkeystore -srckeystore jenkins.p12 -srcstoretype PKCS12 -destkeystore jenkins.jks -deststoretype JKS

Finally, make Jenkins aware that you want to use HTTPS by editing the jenkins.xml configuration file. Modify the jenkins.war command-line arguments by appending the following:

--httpPort=-1 --httpsPort=8443 --httpsKeyStore=<path_to_key_store_file> --httpsKeyStorePassword=<key_store_password>

Note: If your Jenkins instance fails to start, check the error log. If you see an error like:

java.security.UnrecoverableKeyException: Cannot recover key

ensure that the password you provided during the creation of both the PKCS#12 file and the .jks file is the same. Inconsistent passwords can cause this error.

Git: How to remove submodule

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Quick tip on how to remove Git submodule.

  1. Remove the relevant line from the .gitmodules file
  2. Delete the relevant section from .git/config (if any)
  3. Run 
    git rm --cached path_to_submodule

    (without trailing slash)

  4. Commit and delete the now untracked submodule files.

Git checkouts fail on Windows with “Filename too long error: unable to create file”

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Cause

According to the msysgit wiki on GitHub and the related fix this error, Filename too long, comes from a Windows API limitation of file paths having 260 characters or fewer.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, run the following command from GitBash or the Git CMD prompt (as administrator):

git config --system core.longpaths true

This will allow file paths of 4096 characters.

Every opacity value hex code

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I often work with HEX colors and want to apply some alpha to them.

Calculating the exact alpha HEX value is tedious job so here it is: the complete list of every possible opacity value in HEX

100% — FF
99% — FC
98% — FA
97% — F7
96% — F5
95% — F2
94% — F0
93% — ED
92% — EB
91% — E8
90% — E6
89% — E3
88% — E0
87% — DE
86% — DB
85% — D9
84% — D6
83% — D4
82% — D1
81% — CF
80% — CC
79% — C9
78% — C7
77% — C4
76% — C2
75% — BF
74% — BD
73% — BA
72% — B8
71% — B5
70% — B3
69% — B0
68% — AD
67% — AB
66% — A8
65% — A6
64% — A3
63% — A1
62% — 9E
61% — 9C
60% — 99
59% — 96
58% — 94
57% — 91
56% — 8F
55% — 8C
54% — 8A
53% — 87
52% — 85
51% — 82
50% — 80
49% — 7D
48% — 7A
47% — 78
46% — 75
45% — 73
44% — 70
43% — 6E
42% — 6B
41% — 69
40% — 66
39% — 63
38% — 61
37% — 5E
36% — 5C
35% — 59
34% — 57
33% — 54
32% — 52
31% — 4F
30% — 4D
29% — 4A
28% — 47
27% — 45
26% — 42
25% — 40
24% — 3D
23% — 3B
22% — 38
21% — 36
20% — 33
19% — 30
18% — 2E
17% — 2B
16% — 29
15% — 26
14% — 24
13% — 21
12% — 1F
11% — 1C
10% — 1A
9% — 17
8% — 14
7% — 12
6% — 0F
5% — 0D
4% — 0A
3% — 08
2% — 05
1% — 03
0% — 00

How to use it:
#000000 – Black with ought opacity
#17000000 – Black with 9% opacity