Minor Annoyances

I have to say the latest releases of GNOME and its affiliated programs have me about the most pleased I’ve ever been with my current setup. However, there are a few niggling issues that are annoying me, so this should be a productive post. I know, I know, I’m shocked too.

First off, there’s this issue I’m having with the compositing system under X. Well, one of the issues. The most commonly noticed thing is the corruption of the characters on the lower-side of the screen. If it’s a terminal, IRC, or something similar, I get this text corruption every now and then. I can repaint the screen to get rid of it (or switch workspaces, etc etc) but it comes back within a few lines. As always, click for the XBOX HEUG LOL version.

I also have problems with recently-closed windows still showing up on the taskbar and in the workspace switcher. Phantom window syndrome, I suppose. Also odd is that scrolling upwards in the bookmark list in Firefox gives me entire screens full of the same link. Not scrolling down, just scrolling up. Interesting.

My other main complaint about the latest releases is this: problems with my volume control. My speakers are hooked up to my Linux box, and the sound output from my Windows machine goes into the Line In jack. This works well, assuming that I have my Line In capture turned up, like follows.

Unfortunately, I can leave the room for a couple of hours and come back, and no sound out of my Windows machine. Checking my Volume Control, I see this:

It seems to automatically turn itself off. The question is, why? Anyone else running into anything like this, or am I alone on this one?