The unofficial LMDE XFCE - startup

[GeneC]

Morning Schoelje..

I'll bet your beat after all the work...Thanks...

Just installed the Alpha with no problems. Applied your 'bash fix' from above post.

DDM identified my hardware correctly.


Going to make a clone before using DDM for the 1st time.

Be back soon....

[GeneC]

DDM sucessfully installed Nvidia in UN/LMDE/XFCE ALPHA

DDM log is HUGE!
http://pastebin.com/8Trf3JPR

-----------------------------

Question?
DDM says a PAE kernel is available. Would it benefit my single core computer (P4)?
SPECS

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gene@lmde-xfce:~$ inxi -F
System:    Host lmde-xfce Kernel 3.2.0-4-486 i686 (32 bit) Distro LinuxMint 1 debian
CPU:       Single core Intel Pentium 4 (-UP-) cache 1024 KB flags (nx sse sse2 sse3) bmips 5984.63 clocked at 2992.319 MHz 
Graphics:  Card NVIDIA G72 [GeForce 7300 SE/7200 GS] X.Org 1.12.4 Res: 1680x1050@60.0hz 
           GLX Renderer GeForce 7300 SE/7200 GS/PCIe/SSE2 GLX Version 2.1.2 NVIDIA 304.48 Direct Rendering Yes
Audio:     Card Intel 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller driver snd_intel8x0 at ports ec00 e8c0 BusID: 00:1e.2
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.24
Network:   Card Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5751 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express driver tg3 v: 3.121 BusID: 02:00.0
Disks:     HDD Total Size: 42.0GB (-) 1: /dev/sda ST340014AS 40.0GB 
           2: USB /dev/sdb STORAGE_DEVICE 2.0GB 
Partition: ID:/ size: 11G used: 4.3G (43%) fs: rootfs ID:/ size: 11G used: 4.3G (43%) fs: ext4 
Info:      Processes 145 Uptime 24 min Memory 403.2/2278.9MB Runlevel 2 Client Shell inxi 1.4.23

[Schoelje]

Question?
DDM says a PAE kernel is available. Would it benefit my single core computer (P4)?

Although your CPU is PAE ready, I doubt you'll notice the difference...but you could try nevertheless (and leave the old kernel, just to be sure).

[GeneC]

Will do, but still adding..stuff I use daily (no need to get into that right now)..

But, first bug.
I noticed things were slow. Found out that my swap file (pre-existing--this is a dual boot Mint14XFCe and UN-XFCE-LMDE) was not recognized. I opened /etc/fstab and was surprised to see this....
NOTHING...

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# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>

Same computer -- My Nadia XFCE /etc/fstab

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# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    nodev,noexec,nosuid 0       0
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=264d686e-4e35-4bf3-be87-9e1e746c85ad /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=4ceefd7f-9037-4963-9336-c61ba886c551 none            swap    sw              0       0

[Schoelje]

But, first bug.
I noticed things were slow. Found out that my swap file (pre-existing--this is a dual boot Mint14XFCe and UN-XFCE-LMDE) was not recognized. I opened /etc/fstab and was surprised to see this....
NOTHING...

This should have been handled by the live-installer.
I'm going to look into it.

[Schoelje]

I had to add some code to live-installer to handle lightdm...but made a typo:

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gksu mousepad /usr/lib/live-installer/installer.py

line #313:

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if os.path.exist(lightdmPath):

should be:

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if os.path.exists(lightdmPath):

Spot the difference!
I'm working on a new iso because this critical bug needs to be solved if anyone wants to seriously test LMDE Xfce.

[cwwgateway]

I've downloaded and am now using it in a livedvd while it's installing (I applied the fix). It looks very KDE-like (which I think was intentional), which I think is interesting, although it takes some getting used to. However, it appears to have not GTK 3 support, so abiword, which is written in GTK 3, looks very bad. The easiest way to fix this would be to use a theme that supports GTK 3. Otherwise, I believe you can define the theme in the .gtkrc-2.0 file and then define a different theme in an application such as lxappearance or the xfce4 appearance app. The one defined in the app will handle only gtk 3 apps, and the one defined in the file will define the rest of the system.

[Schoelje]

I've downloaded and am now using it in a livedvd while it's installing (I applied the fix). It looks very KDE-like (which I think was intentional), which I think is interesting, although it takes some getting used to. However, it appears to have not GTK 3 support, so abiword, which is written in GTK 3, looks very bad. The easiest way to fix this would be to use a theme that supports GTK 3. Otherwise, I believe you can define the theme in the .gtkrc-2.0 file and then define a different theme in an application such as lxappearance or the xfce4 appearance app. The one defined in the app will handle only gtk 3 apps, and the one defined in the file will define the rest of the system.

What if I install gtk3-engines-oxygen?

[GeneC]

I had to add some code to live-installer to handle lightdm...but made a typo:

Code: Select all

gksu mousepad /usr/lib/live-installer/installer.py

line #313:

Code: Select all

if os.path.exist(lightdmPath):

should be:

Code: Select all

if os.path.exists(lightdmPath):

Spot the difference!
I'm working on a new iso because this critical bug needs to be solved if anyone wants to seriously test LMDE Xfce.

Nice catch.
I edited my own /etc/fstab to the correct settings and now have a working swap.

CWW says,
It looks very KDE-like (which I think was intentional), which I think is interesting, although it takes some getting used to. However, it appears to have not GTK 3 support, so abiword, which is written in GTK 3, looks very bad. The easiest way to fix this would be to use a theme that supports GTK 3.

, Yes you can tell Schoelje is a KDE guy...
Oxygen theme, and (38mb's.. ) of oxygencursors (I removed those and added the dmz-cursor-theme, 3.6mb) that we are more familiar with.

About themes.
I installed a half dozen gtk2/3 themes that all worked well in my LMDE/XFCE/SID (201204 iso). They are work well there, but NOT in the UN/XFCE? Oxygen-gtk is the ONLY theme that works properly.
I thought to install gtk3-engines-xfce (3.0.1-1) from Siduction XFCE next to no avail..
Enough for today....

[Schoelje]

I just noticed that in Virtualbox (I didn't check something else) I can only logout when running live.
Restart and shutdown are greyed out.

Do you have that too?

[GeneC]

No, but I have a full install in a separate partition, not virtual-box.

I installed gtk3-engines-oxygen to no improvement...
Let me try a couple more things...

[cwwgateway]

gtk3-engines-oxygen worked for me in VBox, and now abiword is nicer. I honestly am not a fan of the kde cursors, but it appears the plymouth theme and the system adjustments depend on the package, and it appears that I can't change the mouse cursor theme to the dmz one in the mouse settings. With the gtk3-engines-oxygen, lightdm looks a lot better. I'll edit this post once I install some xfce themes to see if they work.

[cwwgateway]

Found another thing: the old LMDE Xfce had a number of custom actions in thunar by default, one of which being open as root. To add go to Edit -> Configure custom actions -> Click the plus sign -> Enter whatever name/description you like into the fields; the command is

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gksu thunar %F

Then you have to select all of the filetypes in the other tab so that thunar can open anything as root.

[Schoelje]

gtk3-engines-oxygen worked for me in VBox, and now abiword is nicer. I honestly am not a fan of the kde cursors, but it appears the plymouth theme and the system adjustments depend on the package, and it appears that I can't change the mouse cursor theme to the dmz one in the mouse settings. With the gtk3-engines-oxygen, lightdm looks a lot better. I'll edit this post once I install some xfce themes to see if they work.

I found that out as well...changing that.

[GeneC]

Correction -- I did not yet remove the oxygen cursors (thanks for the tip on that CWW). I meant to but got sidetracked...

To change your cursors.

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 sudo update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme

Now, I AM calling it a day.. SURE!....
-----------------------------------

Custom Actions (another)

Edit Text as Root

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gksu gedit %f

Others
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ThunarCustomActions

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=285354

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Th ... om_actions

[cwwgateway]

Thanks for the tips Gene. I just installed bluebird and the panel is themed correctly, but the menu and apps are not. There isn't anything in the gtkrc-2.0 or the gtkrc-xfce file that would cause it AFAIK, so it might have something to do with files in the usr directory or other non-home directories.

[cwwgateway]

After installing gtk2-engines-murrine (and its dependencies which included a the unico gtk3 engine IIRC), bluebird looks much better. I believe there are many themes that use the murrine engine, and some of the other gtk2-engines would be good to install (they aren't installed by debian by default AFAIK).

[cwwgateway]

I just checked out the live session in virtual box and I am having the same problem as Schoelje - the shutdown and restart buttons are "greyed out." It's honestly kind of strange. After installing, the "Would you like to restart now" prompt does restart.

[Schoelje]

After installing, the "Would you like to restart now" prompt does restart.

Yes, but that's just live-installer issuing a reboot command. It has nothing to do with the greyed out buttons.
I still haven't found a solution for that.

[cwwgateway]

I noticed the menus in gtk2 apps weren't rendered correctly with bluebird, so I installed all of the gtk2-engines to fix it (I don't know which one actually did it). The update-alternatives tip worked and now I have the correct cursors.

Edit: Guest Additions also didn't work for me, but when I manually install them the installer complains that they have already been installed in a different way and to uninstall those first.