The "Linux questions (and other stuff)" thread

[nickdalzell]

how do i add entries? i open the app menu shortcut (produces a start menu-like list) and drag whatever icon i want to the dock. it creates a shortcut on its own. when i do 'edit' for an icon all it does is let me change the icon itself, locate it to some other location, but not edit the main properties of the icon.

i also tried re-enabling the K Panel and tried right clicking there. no such option. seriously, i need this to work. i am sick of being asked for a stupid password. in Windows, it's a simple control panel-->user accounts-->Turn user account control on/off--done!

this is all it gives me to work with:



With 'extra parameters' expanded:

 

[mikedt]

any way to make the password prompts go away? so far they don't show for terminal but i still get them in Software Center.

also, any way to make the apps i choose to install go through the process even if they encounter problems? i want my straight-forward 'double-click file and install' back. Since Linux is meant to do what the user wants, that's what i want. i need help though making that happen.

I've sometimes wished Windows would just do that, instead of doing that SmartScreen nonsense, which never works anyway, or the frequent "This application might not have installed correctly." thing. Even though the application has apparently installed and does work properly, or having to mess around with the risky IMO "Run as Administrator." options.

 

[nickdalzell]

i am serious, never had those issues MikeDT. if i want to install anything, including Google Chrome, i download and double-click, accept and go. that easy. with Mac, i just download the *.dmg file, double click, go. in Linux, it's search software center, not there? ok, launch terminal, sudo apt-get install Chrome. no such package?! ok, sudo apt-get install google chrome. no such package? ok, search Google via Rekonq and find the name is case sensitive. ok, launch terminal AGAIN, sudo apt-get install Google Chrome. no such package? ok, launch Rekonq again, find out i need to do a sudo add-apt repository command, sudo apt-get update, sudo apt-get install Google Chrome. done!

the Linux method takes TEN TIMES LONGER!

 

[MrGlowy]

I wrote this in my AP world flashcard. The teacher uses a Mac :3
Sorry to interrupt.

 

[MoodyBlues]

i am serious, never had those issues MikeDT. if i want to install anything, including Google Chrome, i download and double-click, accept and go. that easy. with Mac, i just download the *.dmg file, double click, go. in Linux, it's search software center, not there? ok, launch terminal, sudo apt-get install Chrome. no such package?! ok, sudo apt-get install google chrome. no such package? ok, search Google via Rekonq and find the name is case sensitive. ok, launch terminal AGAIN, sudo apt-get install Google Chrome. no such package? ok, launch Rekonq again, find out i need to do a sudo add-apt repository command, sudo apt-get update, sudo apt-get install Google Chrome. done!

the Linux method takes TEN TIMES LONGER!

Not for me. When I wanted to install Chrome, I went to Google's site for it, downloaded it, and installed it with a couple of clicks. Done.

 

[nickdalzell]

all that done for me was download a Windows *.EXE which of course, didn't work. it was not listed in Software Center either. and just when you think you can double-click a file (download some .deb for Ubuntu aka skype) it almost always produces some reason to refuse installing 99.999% of the time. then comes the half-hour Google search.

Did you ever find out how i'm supposed to edit the Software Center icon to make it run as admin automatically? like you posted above? i cannot find the spot to do that. tried another half-hour Google search and all this garbage about policy kits and such, and a lot more involvement than i am capable of. i like your version better but cannot find out where to place that code.

 

[mikedt]

i am serious, never had those issues MikeDT. if i want to install anything, including Google Chrome, i download and double-click, accept and go. that easy. with Mac, i just download the *.dmg file, double click, go. in Linux, it's search software center, not there? ok, launch terminal, sudo apt-get install Chrome. no such package?! ok, sudo apt-get install google chrome. no such package? ok, search Google via Rekonq and find the name is case sensitive. ok, launch terminal AGAIN, sudo apt-get install Google Chrome. no such package? ok, launch Rekonq again, find out i need to do a sudo add-apt repository command, sudo apt-get update, sudo apt-get install Google Chrome. done!

the Linux method takes TEN TIMES LONGER!

Nick I assume you've never had to deal with Windows China style.

Windows in the PRC, ten times more agro and frustration.

...like spending six hours in a Beijing computer store recently, trying to force Win 8 to work in English rather than Chinese on a new laptop.

 

[nickdalzell]

i am guessing China still uses WinME then?

 

[MoodyBlues]

all that done for me was download a Windows *.EXE

I'm seriously baffled now. Really. Here's what I get right now when I follow the link I posted:

It couldn't be any more straightforward. In 22 years of using Linux, I have yet to EVER choose to download a Linux version of something and end up with a window$ exe file.

After downloading the above, it's a simple matter of right-clicking on the deb file that downloaded, and letting whichever package manager I want (which is usually gDebi) install it. Boom. Installed. Done. One click.

which of course, didn't work. it was not listed in Software Center either. and just when you think you can double-click a file (download some .deb for Ubuntu aka skype) it almost always produces some reason to refuse installing 99.999% of the time. then comes the half-hour Google search.

Not for me. Ever. So I'm at a complete loss. :hmmmm2:

Did you ever find out how i'm supposed to edit the Software Center icon to make it run as admin automatically? like you posted above? i cannot find the spot to do that. tried another half-hour Google search and all this garbage about policy kits and such, and a lot more involvement than i am capable of. i like your version better but cannot find out where to place that code.

There has to be a right-click [or other] method of editing existing entries in Cairo dock. It wouldn't make sense NOT to have that ability. I'm not up for installing it to figure it out, so I'd recommend trying right-clicking on it and/or seeing what your favorite search engine yields regarding 'edit cairo dock' or similar.

Or, if you're not hopelessly tied to Cairo, dump it and start using the standard KMenu. Then it's a piece of cake to edit!

Or, keep using Cairo but create a shortcut somewhere (on your desktop? I don't do desktop clutter, but whatever) with the correct verbiage, and click on that instead of the dock entry.

 

[nickdalzell]

i like the dock. if i made a desktop shortcut, much like launching it manually through a terminal, it sorta defeats the purpose doesn't it?

i screencapped examples of the rather limited edit option. none of which allows me to edit the actual parameters of the shortcut. only change its icon or tell the program what to do AFTER it runs. i am just sick. of. entering. my. damn. password!!!

i hate UAC.

oh god the word wrap glitch AGAIN, perhaps i was better off with ChromeOS. no matter what i try, Linux always makes my head hurt!

But if you like a challenge, try installing Skype through the same method you used to get Chrome on there. download the *.deb from their site, the only one listed for Ubuntu. then try intalling it. t will fail. damn package manager and its stupid protection crap!

EDIT: well i managed to get Software Center to work without a password, but i cannot get the icon to add to cairo dock like i like. i'm now stuck with a desktop icon (could only edit by enabling kmenu and copying it to desktop).

EDIT2: tried 'make it a launcher' to move it to the dock, seems to be ok but will have to install something else to find out.

 

[mikedt]

i am guessing China still uses WinME then?

Quite close actually. It's either pirated XP Professional, or a special crippled version of 7 or 8 that has government back doors and only works in Chinese. Thank you Microsoft!

 

[MoodyBlues]

i like the dock. if i made a desktop shortcut, much like launching it manually through a terminal, it sorta defeats the purpose doesn't it?

No. I don't see the difference between clicking an icon on the desktop and clicking an icon in a dock.

i screencapped examples of the rather limited edit option. none of which allows me to edit the actual parameters of the shortcut.

There must be a way.

But if you like a challenge, try installing Skype through the same method you used to get Chrome on there. download the *.deb from their site, the only one listed for Ubuntu. then try intalling it. t will fail. damn package manager and its stupid protection crap!

You know I LOVE a challenge! So I just took your challenge and stepped through installing Skype on my new Chromebook. Want to see my screenshots?

I chose Ubuntu 12.04 (multiarch). Period. Did NOTHING on the CB to match that. I just grabbed it because I recalled you mentioning that you had used that file.

Absolutely *NO* forcing, tweaking, failing, crashing, Googling for 30 minutes, etc. IT JUST WORKS. I didn't bother taking further screenshots, but I logged in and everything works as expected--sound, video, everything.

EDIT: well i managed to get Software Center to work without a password, but i cannot get the icon to add to cairo dock like i like. i'm now stuck with a desktop icon (could only edit by enabling kmenu and copying it to desktop).

EDIT2: tried 'make it a launcher' to move it to the dock, seems to be ok but will have to install something else to find out.

So you're making progress. At least you're rid of the password prompts, right?

 

[Dngrsone]

Nick, I have a link around here, somewhere, to the standards sheet for .desktop

If Cairo ifs anything like Docky and Unity toolbar, then I can hook you up with a couple examples of how to set your icons and such.

As soon as I am on my computer and not the phone.

Actually, thou couldst probably Google mine name and .desktop and find what you need, now that I think about it.

 

[nickdalzell]

when i got to the installer instead of saying 'all dependencies satisfied' it said 'architecture not supported'

i downloaded the 12.04 mutiarch as i said the only one available for 12.04. as a result, i had the half-hour or so task of hacking to make it install via terminal, by add-apt repository and sudo apt-get update, sudo apt-get install skype as per usual.

as for password disables, while i can invoke the kmenu and copy the icon, edit its properties there, and install to my hearts content without needing my password, i don't want a desktop icon. but soon as i drag it to the dock and make it a launcher, and try restarting the app, it starts asking for my password again. the only possible reason is that cairo dock is running without sudo permissions, and i have no idea how to add them so it loads on boot with them vs. as it is now.

damn this is so infuriating. Windows is NOT like this. i never have to jump through hoops to make things work.

What about making it where i can login as root? i don't see that option on the login screen. is there any way to make the default login as root? would solve everything.

 

[MoodyBlues]

when i got to the installer instead of saying 'all dependencies satisfied' it said 'architecture not supported'

i downloaded the 12.04 mutiarch as i said the only one available for 12.04. as a result, i had the half-hour or so task of hacking to make it install via terminal, by add-apt repository and sudo apt-get update, sudo apt-get install skype as per usual.

You could've tried a lower version. I noticed a 10.04 when I did my experiment tonight; you could try that. You need to get out of your mindset that once something doesn't work [the way you expected], you must go off on a convoluted, difficult quest to find a way to force it. Instead, try ANOTHER easily available option and see if that works. Installing the 10.04 version may have worked flawlessly for you. Maybe there's some problem/conflict with the 12.04 multiarch version.

as for password disables, while i can invoke the kmenu and copy the icon, edit its properties there, and install to my hearts content without needing my password, i don't want a desktop icon. but soon as i drag it to the dock and make it a launcher, and try restarting the app, it starts asking for my password again. the only possible reason is that cairo dock is running without sudo permissions, and i have no idea how to add them so it loads on boot with them vs. as it is now.

I have no desire right now to install, configure, and experiment with Cairo, so...

damn this is so infuriating. Windows is NOT like this. i never have to jump through hoops to make things work.

I, and others, have mentioned a number of things that are important, namely that window$ does not provide the security *nix does. So while you, or any user, can wildly and without abandon do whatever you want on a window$ box, that doesn't make it better in any way, shape, or form than Linux. There's a reason window$ has a long, annoying, uber-frustrating legacy of crashing, being hacked, getting viruses, having malware and spyware running rampant, and so on. It's because its inherent security SUCKS. You may save time on one task (not likely, in my opinion, as I've never seen ANYTHING that was faster on window$ than *nix), only to screw things up so badly that you later have to spend hours reinstalling the OS (not something I'm used to, what with being a Linux user and all ). Penny wise, pound foolish?

What about making it where i can login as root? i don't see that option on the login screen. is there any way to make the default login as root? would solve everything.

Of course there is. It's one of the first things I do on a fresh install. I'm glad this isn't Ubuntu Forums or I'd get severely reprimanded for DARING to tell other adults how to do something they WANT to do. Just don't say I didn't warn you if you f things up, okay?

Edit your /etc/kde4/kdm/kdmrc file [as root] as follows. Find this line:

AllowRootLogin=false

and change it to:

AllowRootLogin=true

That's it.

Just remember that an errant rm -rf * IN THE WRONG DIRECTORY can wipe out your entire system. No prompts, no warnings, just, poof!, gone. If you really want to log in as root, so be it, but do things consciously and cautiously. Check what you've typed BEFORE you hit the [enter] key, because AFTER you've hit it, it's too late.

 

[Joelgp83]

Nick, regarding .deb files and getting them to just work:

If double-clicking fails, try

sudo dpkg -i /path/to/.deb

Then run a sudo apt-get install -f to cover any dependencies.

 

[mikedt]

No. I don't see the difference between clicking an icon on the desktop and clicking an icon in a dock.


There must be a way.


You know I LOVE a challenge! So I just took your challenge and stepped through installing Skype on my new Chromebook. Want to see my screenshots?

You're lucky, you get a different Skype "with free vedio calls" to me. ...BTW is that an Apple MacBook Air Microsoft is showing on their site? Mind you it won't be the first time they've shown Apple Mac computers in their ads, seem to remember them doing it before during the height of Apple's Mac vs PC campaign

Thanks to Microsoft we have our special PRC edition, for Windows only.

.
...doesn't exactly inspire my confidence in Micro$oft. However the Linux version of Skype doesn't have the Beijing back doors and CPC govt. access AFAIK.

 

[nickdalzell]

Joel, that's my problem though. i don't like being forced into a terminal for something as mundane as installing some stupid app.

 

[Dngrsone]

Well, the closest I have come to actually undeleting the folders I managed to get rid of the other day is through extundelete.

Unfortunately, I get this error:

extundelete: failed to read-only open device "/dev/sda5": Error code 2133571347

Apparently, this error code means 'bad ext2 magic' or something along those lines... I'm wondering if there's something weird about EFI or GPT involved here.

At any rate, I am running out of ideas here.

I suppose I could just give up and start reinstalling all the data from other sources, but that's weeks of extra work.

BTW:

Available Custom Launchers, Quicklists for Unity

Desktop Entry Specification

Here is an example of a .desktop file I made:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Terminal=false
Exec=firefox -no-remote --class Roaming -private -P Roaming %F
Icon[en_US]=/home/dngrsone/.icons/Roaming.png
Type=Application
Name[en_US]=Roaming
Name=Firefox for away-from-home
Icon=/home/dngrsone/.icons/Roaming.png
GenericName[en_US]=Firefox for away-from-home
Comment[en_US.UTF-8]=Incognito Mode

Note, the property Name[en_US]= will set the visible name of the .desktop file when you make it executable.

 

[nickdalzell]

BTW, now i got root login, which is great. what is not great is that now i'm stuck in FIREFOX because Chrome won't run. it keeps popping up 'google chrome cannot run as root'

HORSE HOCKEY. damn, fix one problem, three more pop up. is there some way to turn all this protection junk OFF?!

EDIT: nevermind i fixed it. btw is there any way to get rid of the widescreen effect in Chrome (happens in Firefox as well)? everytime an image is posted in a thread here everything goes all widescreen and the posts need to be side-scrolled back and forth just to read.

 

[MoodyBlues]

Sorry, Dngrsone, I didn't notice this post. Although I'm not sure how much help I can be now that I have! I have no memory of ever using testdisk, but I just read its man page.

Testdisk is not my friend....

Trying to recover some files I deleted, and tesrdisk managed to fill my /home folder and crashed my system.

I tried it again (once I rescued my OS) by directing it to an empty partition twice the size of the one I am trying to recover, and testdisk filed that one up, still didn't get any of the recently deleted file entries.

Filled up with WHAT? Log files?

Now I have a huge chunk of my /home partition allocated to nothing... and no idea how to recover that space.

Can you tell us what your command(s) looked like? And what the results were when you ran them?

From your later post I see that you tried extundelete, which I'm also not familiar with. Again, please let us know the exact command(s) you used and what their results were.

Also, I may have missed it, but HOW did you lose the files you're trying to recover? I mean, did you delete them at a prompt with rm, or from within a file manager, such as Dolphin, by moving them to trash (or hard deleting them, which is what I have my Dolphin set to do), or what?

 

[Dngrsone]

I hard deleted them from Dolphin.

I have no idea what kind of data test drive put in that partition; all I had was a ~1GB dd image file and the other 198+ GB is magically allocated.

The only way I was able to recover my system was by disabling Secure boot, loading up the Mint 15 CD and deleting my backup file (6GB). I deleted the dd image file left in the /home folder (somewhere in which I had selected to use as a temp repository the first time I tried) and after a dozen reboots and a file system check, the rest of the space automatically freed itself.

Somehow, and I am uncertain how, test drive managed to do the same thing to my root partition, causing another fun crash.

Needless to say, that program no longer resides in my OS.


I am using my tablet at work at the moment, so I can't give you the exact commands used.

 

[mikedt]

btw is there any way to get rid of the widescreen effect in Chrome (happens in Firefox as well)? everytime an image is posted in a thread here everything goes all widescreen and the posts need to be side-scrolled back and forth just to read.

Is that happening just when the site is still loading or happening all the time? Is the whirly thing at the top still going round and round indicating that it's not fully loaded and displayed yet?

As for Chrome not running as root, that's probably something Google has done for security purposes. In Windows it's definitely not recommended run a browser as admin, especially IE.. :O Would you trust any website you come across to have complete access and to do what it likes to your system?

 

[nickdalzell]

Chrome runs as root i just had to hack the file again. and no, it shows properly until the 'whirly thing' goes away then flashes and after that it's all off the screen


Happens on the MacBook as well. apparently a Chrome and Firefox (and Safari) bug

 

[Dngrsone]

It sounds like you have a magnifier on or something...

dngrsone@Dads ~ $ sudo umount /dev/sda5
[sudo] password for dngrsone: 
dngrsone@Dads ~ $ sudo extundelete --restore-all --after 1381960800 /dev/sda5
Only show and process deleted entries if they are deleted on or after 1381960800 and before 9223372036854775807.

extundelete: failed to read-only open device "/dev/sda5": Error code 2133571347

This is what I get. I am thinking I have to do something with the inodes, but that is way outside my knowledge...