[Solved] LMDX having ISSUES on an Acer 9410 Laptop

[M_Mynaardt]

Hi!

I've installed LMDX on an ACER 9410 17" laptop. It's a bit beaten up from the looks of it and the sound doesn't work and there's no speaker jack connector (best guess is this laptop got dropped or otherwise abused in days gone by). But the built in webcam is working well enough once I installed Cheese to test that piece of gear.

But there are a couple of annoying things I've noticed:
1. The panel launchers will not allow empty icons to be placed. What I like doing is have a group of icons
with a blank icon on the top with something like "Internet Apps", so show the proper launcher icons under
that. But for some reason, I can't save any such icon. If there's nothing in the command field, I can't
save it.
2. A bit of a minor thing; I don't see the silly picture and quote thing when I open the terminal. Just some
error message where the silly line should be. But the terminal seems to be working okay otherwise.

Everything (except for the damaged speakers) seemed to work well enough, even after there was a huge update that needed to be done after the initial install. Until after I installed heaps of my favourite apps using Synaptic. Could excessive use of Synaptic mess a few things up like that? And can this little nuisances be fixed, or should I just reinstall LMDX (and be a little more careful installing lots of apps)?

[vrkalak]

The 'blank' panel-launchers is an Xfce issue and can be addressed here > http://wiki.xfce.org/ or at the Xfce Forums > http://forum.xfce.org

I noticed the terminal 'error message' myself . . . I just went into the Terminal's Properties files and removed it.
The xtem works well otherwise. I think it was an xterm 'bug' ... it has since been addressed by Xfce.

Just because the sound didn't work with Windows, doesn't mean it won't work with Linux ... you might get lucky.

[lmintnewb]

The sound never worked, or isn't working with xfce ?

If it's the latter, summin you can try ... with no guarantee's. Open a terminal and type in alsamixer. Look and see if anything is muted in there and if so unmute and push up the bars where needed. Tis weird but sometimes seems things are muted in alsa by default.

Just a thought, rest of it I dunno. Errrr, didn't even really read over. Just wanted to mention the junk above.

[M_Mynaardt]

The 'blank' panel-launchers is an Xfce issue and can be addressed here > http://wiki.xfce.org/ or at the Xfce Forums > http://forum.xfce.org

I noticed the terminal 'error message' myself . . . I just went into the Terminal's Properties files and removed it.
The xtem works well otherwise. I think it was an xterm 'bug' ... it has since been addressed by Xfce.

Just because the sound didn't work with Windows, doesn't mean it won't work with Linux ... you might get lucky.

I'll check the Xfce forums later on that... But I think I might have made a hash of things with excessive use of Synaptic to install lots of apps. The panel launchers were acting properly before that. At least I think they were...

I found out about the sound. Definitely needs [physical repair]. The original owner, my colleague's boyfriend, was going through US Customs and presumably they assumed that because he's from Nepal he must be a danger to American security and took his computer apart and did not put it back together quite right.

I bought it anyway; it was cheap - just like me!

Even if it does need some repairs, it's still a reasonable substitute for an interim desktop, as I plan to be moving in a few months...

[M_Mynaardt]

The sound never worked, or isn't working with xfce ?

If it's the latter, summin you can try ... with no guarantee's. Open a terminal and type in alsamixer. Look and see if anything is muted in there and if so unmute and push up the bars where needed. Tis weird but sometimes seems things are muted in alsa by default.

Just a thought, rest of it I dunno. Errrr, didn't even really read over. Just wanted to mention the junk above.

As I mentioned above, the sound is definitely in need of a bit of repair. Thanks to some overzealous American custom agents who are convinced the original Nepalese student owner of that computer had to be some sort of danger to the USA...

[M_Mynaardt]

RIGHT!

I reinstalled LMDX a second time. Almost as soon as I did the first recommended update, the Xfce features were acting weird.

What I should have had in the Xfce menu was was:

Run Program...
----------------------------------------
Terminal
File Manager
Firefox Web Browser
Software Manager
----------------------------------------
Settings
----------------------------------------
Accessories >
Graphics >
Multimedia >
Network >
Office >
System >
----------------------------------------
Help >
About Xfce >
Log Out >



But what I got instead was:

[blank line]
----------------------------------------
[blank line]
----------------------------------------
Settings
----------------------------------------
Accessories >
Graphics >
Multimedia >
Network >
Office >
System >
----------------------------------------
Help >
About Xfce >
Log Out >


And about one third of the icons in the menus were missing.

In addition to that, the Xfce panels were also not working properly just after that fist update. First of all, when I selected a panel applet to add, nothing happened. When I next started LMDX, I had a prompt about needing to change the panel settings. The first time, I picked the old settings options. The second time, I picked the default. In both cases, the panel settings did not work properly. I could no longer insert blank launcher icons.

I did run my USB-HDD install of LMDX on that computer and nothing was amiss with the OS itself, The sound didn't work, but that's just because of mishaps which will need a bit of repair (one reason I got the computer for cheap, of course).

I never had any problems like this with my portable install of LMDX. Anyone have any idea what might be causing these things to go awry? Or could it be hardware issues with the old Acer 9410 Laptop I just bought (cheap)?

[merlwiz79]

They released Xfce 4.8.
I never had problems with the panel and I selected the one that converts the old config.
Here is a page that'll help you fix some of the problems including the menu.
viewtopic.php?f=110&t=70248

[M_Mynaardt]

They released Xfce 4.8.
I never had problems with the panel and I selected the one that converts the old config.
Here is a page that'll help you fix some of the problems including the menu.
viewtopic.php?f=110&t=70248

Okay, thanks...

I'm trying to reinstall it a third time (so I'm not the brightest spark, eh?). I'm making notes about what I did and when/if things go wrong. I'll try your recommended changes after that if it's still acting strange.

I was kind of surprised by this, as I've never had any kinds of problems with my USB-HDD install of LMDX. Then again, that has been going through a massive update like this new install is...

[M_Mynaardt]

Well, what can I say except: ARRRRRGH!!!


The thing is I was not paying attention to the fact that Xfce itself had been updated and therefore changed (a lot) with that massive amount of updating with the new LMDX install I did on that Acer 9410. Therefore, like a bit of a knob, I just assumed that because it didn't look like what I was used to there must be something wrong!

What can I say, I work nights and sometimes don't get nearly enough beauty sleep!

I just need a bit of time to figure out the nuances of the new version of Xfce, that's all...