[SOLVED] Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

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yerc

[SOLVED] Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by yerc »

Getting the latest Mint XFCE release by doing Clem's upgrade instruction has always worked mostly flawlessly for me.

This upgrade from 18.3 to 19 is by far not the best experience for me on my ageing but reliable Dell Inspiron 5323.

I ran Linux Mint 19 XFCE usb live disk which confirmed that everything worked in the new edition as before. Next came the actual upgrade which completed without error.

Rebooting into the new Mint 19 revealed the issues:
  • 1. XFCE panel is messed up.
    With this I mean, I had the panel sitting at the bottom with launchers at the left side and notification items, clock, etc at the right. The items were everywhere on the panel after the upgrade. Re-positioning them is easy, but still, this never happened before.

    2. Network, volume control, and update manager icons are missing from the XFCE panel.
    Installing the XFCE Pulse Audio Plugin let me add back the missing volume control. I am still looking to solve the missing network and update manager icons.

    3. no Wi-Fi
    To be honest I am not sure whether I never had this issue before because it is related to the proprietary driver for Broadcom wireless. To fix, I connected the laptop to an ethernet cable, fired up Driver Manager, applied the proprietary driver, disconnected from ethernet, then restarted networking which gave back the ability to connect to Wi-Fi.
Thanks to Clem and the Team for their excellent work.

Can anyone please point me to the right direction to address the outstanding issue #2 above?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.
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MrEen
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Re: Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by MrEen »

In the menu, find Update Manager and right-click > Add to Panel should put it back. But, it's also possible it's just a setting within Update Manager itself. If you open it via the menu, click on Edit > Preferences and make sure "Hide the update manager..." and "Only show a tray icon..." are NOT selected.

Not sure about the network icon yet.
yerc

Re: Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by yerc »

MrEen wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 9:12 pm In the menu, find Update Manager and right-click > Add to Panel should put it back. But, it's also possible it's just a setting within Update Manager itself. If you open it via the menu, click on Edit > Preferences and make sure "Hide the update manager..." and "Only show a tray icon..." are NOT selected.

Not sure about the network icon yet.
Thanks for the suggestion.

I actually tried the option of adding the Update Manager to the panel, which simply added an icon to launch Update Manger (i.e. launcher icon), as opposed to an update status icon.

The Preferences item "Only show a tray icon when updates are available or in case of error" will do just as it says (i.e. when there's no update, there's no icon). With or without update, the Update Manager status icon has always been sitting on the right side of the XFCE panel.

Unless I'm missing something, both do not not address the issue.
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MrEen
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Re: Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by MrEen »

My apologies. Thought I saw that once. I wonder if resetting the panel might do it. This should reset it to the default (hopefully not what you encountered the first time.)
xfce4-panel --reset

EDIT: Well crud. Looks like I'm wrong there as well from the panels help. A reinstall of the panel would be my suggestion, but wait for someone else to confirm as my brain isn't working right ATM. The command would be apt install --reinstall xfce4-panel
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karlchen
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Re: Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by karlchen »

Hello, yerc.
yerc wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 9:01 pmGetting the latest Mint XFCE release by doing Clem's upgrade instruction has always worked mostly flawlessly for me.
Could it be that you have been hit by this problem perhaps, which has been introduced into the upgrade process recently only?
Warning: In-place upgrade from Mint 18.3 to Mint 19 partially broken by a Mesa Update

In case you are unsure whether you have been hit by this problem, after having read the linked post and Clem's 2 posts carefully, here is a quick way to find out:
Execute the terminal commandline

Code: Select all

dpkg --list libegl1-mesa libgbm1 libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglapi-mesa libgles2-mesa libosmesa6 libwayland-egl1-mesa
It will display a list of mesa related library packages.
In case you spot the version string "18.0.5" on your Mint 19 system, then you have been hit by the problem, which Clem has explained in detail in his 2 posts.

Best regards,
Karl
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yerc

Re: Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by yerc »

karlchen wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 4:05 am It will display a list of mesa related library packages.
In case you spot the version string "18.0.5" on your Mint 19 system, then you have been hit by the problem, which Clem has explained in detail in his 2 posts.
Here is the output:

Code: Select all

ii  libegl1-mesa:a 18.0.0~rc5-1 amd64        transitional dummy package
ii  libgbm1:amd64  18.0.0~rc5-1 amd64        generic buffer management API -- 
ii  libgbm1:i386   18.0.0~rc5-1 i386         generic buffer management API -- 
ii  libgl1-mesa-dr 18.0.0~rc5-1 amd64        free implementation of the OpenGL
ii  libgl1-mesa-dr 18.0.0~rc5-1 i386         free implementation of the OpenGL
ii  libgl1-mesa-gl 18.0.0~rc5-1 amd64        transitional dummy package
ii  libgl1-mesa-gl 18.0.0~rc5-1 i386         transitional dummy package
ii  libglapi-mesa: 18.0.0~rc5-1 amd64        free implementation of the GL API
ii  libglapi-mesa: 18.0.0~rc5-1 i386         free implementation of the GL API
ii  libgles2-mesa: 18.0.0~rc5-1 amd64        transitional dummy package
un  libosmesa6     <none>       <none>       (no description available)
ii  libwayland-egl 18.0.0~rc5-1 amd64        implementation of the Wayland EGL
ii  libwayland-egl 18.0.0~rc5-1 i386         implementation of the Wayland EGL
No "18.0.5". Does this mean I'm not affected ? ?
bjmh46
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Re: Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by bjmh46 »

I ran into the missing icons during the beta phase and reported on it. Turns out my combination of theme and icons, made these particular icons invisible. You might try changing your icons.
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Re: Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by karlchen »

Hi, yerc.
As you will have spotted yourself: no mesa packages version 18.0.5, but all 18.0.0~rc5. You have not been affected by the recent mesa related problem, which I had linked to. - Hey, this is good.
Cheers,
Karl
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yerc

Re: Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by yerc »

bjmh46 wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 6:04 am I ran into the missing icons during the beta phase and reported on it. Turns out my combination of theme and icons, made these particular icons invisible. You might try changing your icons.
I have checked every single item in the panel (through Panel Preferences) and the icons are actually missing, they were not just made invisible.

But I thought no harm in trying out different theme and icons. Didn't work. Still, thanks for your suggestion.

The search continues . . .
12 Monkeys

Re: Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by 12 Monkeys »

H!

This worked for me:
Panel>Add new items>Notification Area>Add
And if you get a white border:
Right click that area>Properties>Untick "Show frame"

Cheers
Mikael
yerc

Re: Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by yerc »

Hey 12 Monkeys,

It worked!

It was the Indicator Plugin I have been trying and totally missed Notification Area.

Thanks heaps.
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Re: [SOLVED] Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by mr_raider »

All this stuff is in the package called

xfce4-goodies
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mint4all
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Re: [SOLVED] Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by mint4all »

mr_raider wrote: Sun Jul 15, 2018 8:08 pm All this stuff is in the package called

xfce4-goodies
Greetings! Fwiw, I pointed out in my blog post re. LM19-XFCE-beta that this package should be installed by default. Considering that Mint's Cinn* & Mate editions are packaged with ALL their goodies (the most-common ones, anyway), why then release the XFCE-edition with only the bare minimum of add-ins/add-ons (n.b. akin to xubuntu) ? This makes little sense to me, ...Anyhow, I am happy for yerc that s/he worked it out :)
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Re: [SOLVED] Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by MtnDewManiac »

mint4all wrote: Sun Jul 15, 2018 10:25 pmthis package should be installed by default. Considering that Mint's Cinn* & Mate editions are packaged with ALL their goodies (the most-common ones, anyway), why then release the XFCE-edition with only the bare minimum of add-ins/add-ons (n.b. akin to xubuntu) ? This makes little sense to me
Maybe the logic(?) is that people choosing the Xfce flavor of Mint might only be doing so because their systems are very, very limited?

It is my opinion that, while that may certainly be true for some, it's not the case for the majority of Xfce users. Additionally, for those whose systems are limited, I'd guess that the primary limitations would be CPU and, perhaps, limited RAM. Considering the amount of hard drive space that a Mint Xfce (or any of them, for that matter) actually takes up, I'd think that a person would be hard pressed to even find a hard drive that'd end up being the limiting factor - and the Xfce goodies package doesn't take up much room at all, really; it certainly does not appear to increase the overall system (CPU & RAM) load to any significant degree.

Short version: I agree with you - this package should come pre-installed! While it is no big deal for us to install it, this presupposes knowledge of the package in the first place - and new users are not likely to come to the linux world knowing these things.

Regards,
MDM
Mint 18 Xfce 4.12.

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NatureBitz

Re: [SOLVED] Update to Linux Mint 19 XFCE - small issues

Post by NatureBitz »

+1 for installing the "xfce4-goodies" package by default - after upgrading to Mint Tara XFCE edition it took a while to figure out how to get my notification area back!

Thanks for this forum!
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