LMDE RC (Xfce) problems/oddities

[toothandnail]

I installed the new iso to my Lenovo T61 a couple of days ago, partly to check problems that a mate was having with the earlier LMDE and partly out of interest.

One problem (see here: viewtopic.php?f=141&t=79217&start=40#p465587 ) I've solved - for some reason I had to completely redo the fstab entry for the xfs partition - giving the original (install generated) entry a mount point didn't work. However, creating my own entry works, and I've now got the partition (which I use as /home for several distros) mounted and manually moved my LMDE user to it. I've hit a few other problems though....

Network Manager. I'm not that familiar with it (usually use wicd rather than it), but in other implementations, there is an 'edit connection' option which allows me to specify autoconnection to a wireless network once the WPA key is entered and the connection is up. With LMDE I seem to have to tell it to connect each time I start the laptop, even though it is retaining the WPA pass phrase. Am I missing something, or is there a problem with this version of Network Manager?

Samba shares. I have two devices on my home network that have Samba shares - one is an Icy Box NAS (shares are guest, no security), the other is my home server (Amahi, shares are user/password access). I edited /etc/samba/smb.conf to get the correct workgroup name, and LMDE is seeing the resources correctly. I can use Thunar to open an individual machine, but if I attempt to open one of the shared directories, I get a prompt as to what to use to open it. Specifiying 'file manager' gets me an error message, as does attempting to use MC to open the share. So far, I've not been able to mount any of the network shares at all. I've also got a printer hung off the Amahi box - LMDE picked it up automatically (impressive), but I've not yet had time to see if it will print. After the problem with file shares, I'm a little pesimistic on that one.... Are other people seeing similar problems, or is it something in my install that is causing the problems? I've used the network support in Xfce 4.8/Thunar in other distros with sucess, but so far, can't get it to work at all in LMDE.

I'm also interested in building packages, if only for my own use. I've done packaging for Zenwalk, Vector and Salix, so I'm quite familiar with Slackware packaging, but know nothing at all about Debian/Mint packaging. I found a tutorial on the Wiki, but that seems mainly aimed at packages where there are already Debian source packages. Can anyone recommend other information sources for package building details?

Paul.

[wayne128]

Samba shares. I have two devices on my home network that have Samba shares - one is an Icy Box NAS (shares are guest, no security), the other is my home server (Amahi, shares are user/password access). I edited /etc/samba/smb.conf to get the correct workgroup name, and LMDE is seeing the resources correctly. I can use Thunar to open an individual machine, but if I attempt to open one of the shared directories, I get a prompt as to what to use to open it. Specifiying 'file manager' gets me an error message, as does attempting to use MC to open the share. So far, I've not been able to mount any of the network shares at all. I've also got a printer hung off the Amahi box - LMDE picked it up automatically (impressive), but I've not yet had time to see if it will print. After the problem with file shares, I'm a little pesimistic on that one.... Are other people seeing similar problems, or is it something in my install that is causing the problems? I've used the network support in Xfce 4.8/Thunar in other distros with sucess, but so far, can't get it to work at all in LMDE.

Regarding this issue, Thunar is unable to open a network file/folder.
I have gone thru a few Debian distros with xfce and all have similar problem.

I think Thunar is unable to browse network (!!)

What I did as workaround is:

1. Install gigolo, which is the old method in xfce for browsing network
2. set up gigolo so that it can browse network file / folder.
3. use gigolo to click on network icon, then browse window share or whatever in your network.
4. once gigolo has mounted the network share, now go back to use Thunar , just click the network folder, click the file, it should open and run that selected file


good luck

[toothandnail]

Samba shares. I have two devices on my home network that have Samba shares - one is an Icy Box NAS (shares are guest, no security), the other is my home server (Amahi, shares are user/password access). I edited /etc/samba/smb.conf to get the correct workgroup name, and LMDE is seeing the resources correctly. I can use Thunar to open an individual machine, but if I attempt to open one of the shared directories, I get a prompt as to what to use to open it. Specifiying 'file manager' gets me an error message, as does attempting to use MC to open the share. So far, I've not been able to mount any of the network shares at all. I've also got a printer hung off the Amahi box - LMDE picked it up automatically (impressive), but I've not yet had time to see if it will print. After the problem with file shares, I'm a little pesimistic on that one.... Are other people seeing similar problems, or is it something in my install that is causing the problems? I've used the network support in Xfce 4.8/Thunar in other distros with sucess, but so far, can't get it to work at all in LMDE.

Regarding this issue, Thunar is unable to open a network file/folder.
I have gone thru a few Debian distros with xfce and all have similar problem.

I think Thunar is unable to browse network (!!)

That was certainly the case with Xfce 4.6, but in other distros that I've tried with 4.8, Thunar is able to browse network shares directly (used in Zenwalk 7.0 and Vector linux 7 beta). So I had expected it to work with Mint. Maybe there is something in the build that needs to be changed.

What I did as workaround is:

1. Install gigolo, which is the old method in xfce for browsing network
2. set up gigolo so that it can browse network file / folder.
3. use gigolo to click on network icon, then browse window share or whatever in your network.
4. once gigolo has mounted the network share, now go back to use Thunar , just click the network folder, click the file, it should open and run that selected file

Oddly enough, I was intending to check for gigolo tonight when I get home. Apart form anything else, I use it quite a lot for SSH connection. Thanks, I'll do that for the moment at least. If I remember correctly the logic used by Thunar for browsing network shares is a bit strange anyway - you don't really create a persistent connection, at least not unless you open the share in a seperate window. From that point of view, gigolo may be a better option anway.

good luck

Thanks. I've remembered a couple of other oddities that I need to check as well - first, LibreOffice doesn't seem to have any spell checking and the references I've found to fix that don't seem to cover the most recent version. So I need to find out how to install en_GB dictionary support for it. I've also had the Software Manager lock up on me a couple of times, which I need to check further.

Other than those items, I very much like the look of LMDE-Xfce. I will also have to see if the RC fixes a problem my mate was having - install of the earlier version doesn't seem to complete (at least it doesn't show the cleanup steps that the RC install showed at the end of the basic install), and he has been unable to get synaptic, the software manager or the update manager to do anything....

Paul.

[altair4]

If I remember correctly the logic used by Thunar for browsing network shares is a bit strange anyway - you don't really create a persistent connection, at least not unless you open the share in a seperate window.

I'm using Xubuntu BTW so keep that in mind:

Not sure I understand what you mean by persistent. Both Thunar and Gigolo are going to use the exact same mechanism to connect to and mount the remote share:

Code: Select all

gvfs-mount smb://server/share

It will mount them in the exact same location:

/home/username/.gvfs/share on server

Debian is a little odd in that it doesn't have the supporting packages installed:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install gvfs-fuse

And it doesn't automatically add the user to the fuse group which also requires the user to logoff and on again:

Code: Select all

sudo gpasswd -a user-name fuse

Maybe that's what's missing from yours.

[toothandnail]

If I remember correctly the logic used by Thunar for browsing network shares is a bit strange anyway - you don't really create a persistent connection, at least not unless you open the share in a seperate window.

I'm using Xubuntu BTW so keep that in mind:

Not sure I understand what you mean by persistent. Both Thunar and Gigolo are going to use the exact same mechanism to connect to and mount the remote share:

Code: Select all

gvfs-mount smb://server/share

It will mount them in the exact same location:

/home/username/.gvfs/share on server

Sorry, badly expressed. Yes, it does use the same mechanism, but you have to navigate back to ~/.gvfs to find the links, whereas reopening gigolo allows you to select directly from multiple connections, opening a new instance of Thunar for each of them.

Debian is a little odd in that it doesn't have the supporting packages installed:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install gvfs-fuse

And it doesn't automatically add the user to the fuse group which also requires the user to logoff and on again:

Code: Select all

sudo gpasswd -a user-name fuse

Maybe that's what's missing from yours.

Thanks for the suggestion. Followed it (and also installed gigalo). Same problem with Thunar - it can see the machines on the network, and will display shares on them. However, if I attempt to open any of the shares, I get a 'no default application' error and can't select any application to open the share. I'm also not prompted for a user name or password for the share. If I right click on the folder, the context menu will stay open only so long as I hold down the mouse key. If I do that and select 'open in new window', I get an empty Thunar instance with the correct name, but still no password prompt and no visible contents.

I did have Xubuntu installed for a bit, but I wiped it to install Mint, so I'm not sure how Thunar worked in it, but I would expect it would prompt for a user name and a password, then open the share, as seems to be the case with other Xfce 4.8 versions I've tried.

Gigolo under Mint seems to take a long time to scan my network, but once that is done, works fine.

Maybe I'd better find the Mint bugzilla and report the problem there....

Paul.

[altair4]

Followed it (and also installed gigalo). Same problem with Thunar - it can see the machines on the network, and will display shares on them. However, if I attempt to open any of the shares, I get a 'no default application' error and can't select any application to open the share.

I downloaded it, ran the iso in a VBox VM, and can confirm that it's doing just as you posted.

What's interesting is the following:

If I run this command to connect to another machine:

Code: Select all

thunar smb://192.168.0.100

I can see the shares but can't access them just as you said. But If I do this:

Code: Select all

thunar smb://192.168.0.100/shared

Then I have full access to the share.

Something be broke here.

[toothandnail]

Followed it (and also installed gigalo). Same problem with Thunar - it can see the machines on the network, and will display shares on them. However, if I attempt to open any of the shares, I get a 'no default application' error and can't select any application to open the share.

I downloaded it, ran the iso in a VBox VM, and can confirm that it's doing just as you posted.

Thanks for the confirmation. I've raised a bug for it

What's interesting is the following:

If I run this command to connect to another machine:

Code: Select all

thunar smb://192.168.0.100

I can see the shares but can't access them just as you said. But If I do this:

Code: Select all

thunar smb://192.168.0.100/shared

Then I have full access to the share.

Something be broke here.

Interesting. Something certainly is broke. That is very strange behaviour.

[wayne128]

check this out, it has been there for a long time.. hopefully someone is working on it
http://groups.google.com/group/linux.de ... 11a863abee

[toothandnail]

check this out, it has been there for a long time.. hopefully someone is working on it
http://groups.google.com/group/linux.de ... 11a863abee

Looking at the bug list, the latest is someone else confirming the problem on the 14th of August. So whether its being worked on or not is a question....

Looks likei it is an upstream bug, though its a bit difficult to tell whether its a Debian bug or an Xfce bug. I've had Thunar working with SMB shares in Vector Linux 7 RC2 (Thunar version 1.2.1) and Zenwalk 7 (Thunar 1.3.0). The Xfce devs could have broken something in 1.2.2 and subsequently fixed it, or the Debian maintainer could have broken something in the 1.2.2 build.

Oh well, I guess it has to be gigolo for a while. I'm having other problems as well, so LMDE may have to take a rest if I can't sort some of them out.

Paul.

[altair4]

Well, all we need to do is fix this and thunar-shares-plugin so we can create samba share from thunar itself and we'll have samba client and samba server all fixed.

[wayne128]

check this out, it has been there for a long time.. hopefully someone is working on it
http://groups.google.com/group/linux.de ... 11a863abee

Looking at the bug list, the latest is someone else confirming the problem on the 14th of August. So whether its being worked on or not is a question....

Looks likei it is an upstream bug, though its a bit difficult to tell whether its a Debian bug or an Xfce bug. I've had Thunar working with SMB shares in Vector Linux 7 RC2 (Thunar version 1.2.1) and Zenwalk 7 (Thunar 1.3.0). The Xfce devs could have broken something in 1.2.2 and subsequently fixed it, or the Debian maintainer could have broken something in the 1.2.2 build.

Oh well, I guess it has to be gigolo for a while. I'm having other problems as well, so LMDE may have to take a rest if I can't sort some of them out.

Paul.

Paul,
I also tested and have zenwalk7, vector beta7 and pardus 2011 xfce beta ( yes they have xfce!!)
all of them work out of the box on Thunar network browsing.
on Pardus xfce beta, Thunar is version 1.2.0

May be just Thunar 1.2.2 issue? or some config issues?
Anyway with gigolo as work around it is good enough for me to access network files for time being for all my Debian-xfce distros installation.

[altair4]

Something I stumbled upon while looking for something else: muCommander.

It's yet another dual pane file manager but this one has smb access capabilities. It requires java and since it bypasses Thunar, gvfs, and XFCE itself it seems to have no problem accessing remote smb shares in LMDE. If there's an actual temporary mount point like what gvfs creates I can't find it but for file transfers and such it's something you might be interested in.

http://www.mucommander.com/

[Pepas]

Just to say that installing gvfs-fuse and adding the user to the fuse group solved the problem of .gvfs being empty and files needing to be copied before access.

I think this should be added to LMDE as a standard, gvfs-fuse is a tiny package (86.5kB).

[altair4]

@toothandnail, I have added my name to your bug report as this problem is still present in the latest release of LM XFCE - 201109 Xfce 32-bit

If others would like to add their voice the bug report is here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/836473