Software Manager will not open..

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rfharabin

Software Manager will not open..

Post by rfharabin »

I used it to install Opera and then installed Startup Manager. Opera installed and works OK, but Startup Manager must have goofed things up as when I try to open it up, it tells me that I have entered the wrong password and now when I try to use the Software Manager I get the wrong password message also. I have run an update and used gparted to look at my drives so my password is OK. I uninstalled Startup manager with an apt-get with help here.

What can I do to get the Software Manager working again.
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mdavies5
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Joined: Sat Aug 11, 2012 1:02 am

Re: Software Manager will not open..

Post by mdavies5 »

My Software Manager also packed up without reason. The correct name for this package is mintinstall so you can re-install from a terminal with: sudo apt-get install mintinstall.
If it fails to start then try to start it from a terminal with "mintinstall". If there any problems you will receive messages. In my case I received "No module named webkit". I opened synaptics and searched on "webkit". I highlighted all the packages already installed and marked them for re-installation. I then tried to start mintinstall in a terminal and got the message "No module named cairo". Agan I went to Synaptic and searched for all cairo packages and marked them for re-installation. Now Software Manager (alias mintinstall) works fine but I still prefer Synaptic for most installations.
Cheers, Mike
rfharabin

Re: Software Manager will not open..

Post by rfharabin »

Thanks for the reply, It gave me some new ideas to try. Sorry for the long delay but we had a few events here only two that were desirable, our 50th anniversary and the soccer world cup.

The terminal gave me the following;

ron@ronz1 ~ $ sudo apt-get install mintinstall
[sudo] password for ron:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
mintinstall is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
ron@ronz1 ~ $

The Software Manager still says that I have the wrong password. I tried opening the Software Manager in the terminal and get the same message.
Again I opened GParted and the password works OK with it.

I next went to the Synaptic Package Manager and reinstalled mintinstall but this did not fix my problem either.

Is it possible that there are two passwords somehow?
Any other ideas?
py-thon

Re: Software Manager will not open..

Post by py-thon »

1. Try

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get --reinstall install mintinstall
to reinstall mintinstall. This will reinstall the package from repos.

2. Yes, there can be two passwords in LMDE. Normally only the user password is used and (provided this user is member of group sudo) allows acting as root. But you can have a separate root password if you choose to do so. I did once, but sadly this doesn't work as expected because in this case some programs want you to enter the user password while others expect the root password. The popup won't give you a clue. You end up having to use the same password for both.
rfharabin

Re: Software Manager will not open..

Post by rfharabin »

Tried your suggestion py-thon and it did not work.

ron@ronz1 ~ $ sudo apt-get --reinstall install mintinstall
[sudo] password for ron:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/1,637 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... 145532 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace mintinstall 7.5.2 (using .../mintinstall_7.5.2_all.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement mintinstall ...
Processing triggers for shared-mime-info ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for mime-support ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...
Setting up mintinstall (7.5.2) ...
ron@ronz1 ~ $

I do not know how I could have a second password nor how to check for one. It certainly seems that I would have noticed the procedure of creating another password. This was just a question from a bit of frustration.
The good part of this is that I am learning a little more each try.
py-thon

Re: Software Manager will not open..

Post by py-thon »

At least you now have reinstalled mintinstall and it can be supposed that mintinstall is not the problem.
Having read a bit about Startup Manager I suppose the program did (with or without your help) bork something regarding password usage.
rfharabin

Re: Software Manager will not open..

Post by rfharabin »

Thanks for the help.
I spent a lot of time yesterday searching the site for info and ideas but failed to find anything helpful.

Does anyone have an idea what to look at next?
PatH57

Re: Software Manager will not open..

Post by PatH57 »

The easiest way to get this kind of information is getent - see manpage for the getent command Manpage icon. While that command gives the same output as cat /etc/passwd it is useful to remember because it will give you lists of several elements in the OS.

To get a list of all users you type (as users are listed in /etc/passwd)

Code: Select all

getent passwd
rfharabin

Re: Software Manager will not open..

Post by rfharabin »

PatH57 wrote:The easiest way to get this kind of information is getent - see manpage for the getent command Manpage icon. While that command gives the same output as cat /etc/passwd it is useful to remember because it will give you lists of several elements in the OS.

To get a list of all users you type (as users are listed in /etc/passwd)

Code: Select all

getent passwd
This is what I get back. Hopefully it will mean more to me in the days ahead.
rfharabin

Re: Software Manager will not open..

Post by rfharabin »

I notice today that the password does not work on the update manager either.
Nor does it work on the startup-manager.
PatH57

Re: Software Manager will not open..

Post by PatH57 »

how long is the password? does it have special characters in it? and are you using english or another language?
rfharabin

Re: Software Manager will not open..

Post by rfharabin »

It is a simple one as only I have access to the computer or know how to get to it. And there is no way anyone could do any bad damage. It works on Gparted but apparently nowhere else. I am going to try just a bit more then will likely nuke and pave with the regular Mint 17.

A lot of my concern is when I installed Mint LMDE on an external HD I did not expect it to put some grub on my Win7 "C" HD that defaults to mint when booting up, like on patch Tuesday. I have a program that should run 24/7 on Win7. And I will have to learn how to remove the grub from the boot sequence when or if I remove Mint LMDE from my external HD it is on.

I tried to get grub-customizer installed today and it said it was but I cannot find it.
rfharabin

Re: Software Manager will not open..

Post by rfharabin »

Thanks for the help guys. I am going to give up on this. I did learn a few things though. Using Win7 program Macrium Reflect will backup an external HD with Linux on it. The problem is that I did not run a backup when I first installed Mint LMDE and the backup was after I borked Mint.

I am first going to try and learn how to remove the Grub off of my Win7 disk0 "C" HD. For some reason when I installed Mint LMDE into my external 120GB HD the install put some grub on the "C" internal HD and the computer will not boot up without the external 120GB HD on, as the grub on the "C" drive sends the boot process to the external HD for the menu where Mint is the default and Window7 is a choice that one must use the arrow keys to get to. I had Mint 13 on the external HD before without this problem.

Then I will decide whether to put Mint 17 or Reinstall LMDE and try to use Grub Customizer to change the boot menu so that Win7 will be default.
I may set the External to have all the grub it needs to install from the F9 of my BIOS that gives me a choice of the internal HD or any USB device to boot up from.

I will start a new thread when I can.
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