All,

I have seen this thread growing the past few days. It relates to lightdm. I too had problems about a month ago with lightdm http://vsido.org/index.php?topic=823.0 but eventually solved them with your help.

But is this rash of recent borkage, apps like gpodder (ok now), calibre (ok for today), spacefm, lyx, mplayer (off and on), mirage, all breaking related to lightdm issues? or libgt issues?

I gave Sector11's post a read through (http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=34355&p=1) and that seems all somehow related to my own former issues, though more complex.

I guess what I want to know is
1) are these problems indicative of underlying troubles in the Debian or apt organizations?
2) I have suspected there is a bug in dpkg or apt for about 2 months. I am seeing lots of apps get uninstalled and others installed. Is this part of the problem?
3) what's the best advice to update frequently, but avoid the breakage?
4) and remind me how to put an html link under text so I can click on it.

np VO!

Actually I would like to figure out how to make them all appear in a submenu, like the "Send To" menu in MSW, my favorite component of MSW. As it is, I try to prune them so they all fit in a right click menu. I do not use all these at this moment.

Oh yeh, totally forgot, has anyone tried dwm? I always like seeing scrots of systems running dwm. Very minimal looking.

Folks, if y'all are adopting Thunar, or just considering it, here (http://vsido.org/index.php?topic=838.0) are a bunch of custom actions. I take no credit for any of them, as I have shamelessly pilfered with zero of my own creativity.

Thunar custom actions for anyone interested.

Here's how:
1. open thunar
2. go to Edit > Configure custom actions > add new custom action
3. insert into the "command" field the obvious command below and name the action whatever you want.
NOTE: I have employed a number of bash scripts to do custom actions. Yup, leverage the power of the shell into your right click menu.



These are either my currents or some I have used recently. I have a whole ton which I used in a previous distro, but will have to hunt for them. For now, these are fairly useful though. Bon appetit!



md5 checksum
zenity --info --title="Check md5 for %n" --text="$(md5sum %f)"

show space of file/folder
du -h -c %N | grep total | zenity --text-info

copy path
echo -n %f | xclip -selection "clipboard"

copy with progress bar
(for I in $(seq 2); do echo $I; sleep 1; done; cp %F "/destination/folder") | zenity --progress --pulsate --auto-close

create backup file in same folder
cp --backup=t %f %f.backup

move to parent
find . -mindepth 2 -type f -exec mv "{}" . \;

media metadata vamp
#hehe, this one sucks out metadata and injects it into a zenity screen, if you have zenity
ffmpeg -i %f  2>&1 | grep -e Stream -e Duration -e Input | zenity --width=800 --height=240 --text-info --title %n


create symlink
ln -s

disk space
du -chs --apparent-size %N | zenity --text-info

compare files/folders
meld %F

set as wallpaper
nitrogen --set-auto %f

open terminal here
gksudo 'xfce4-terminal --working-directory %f'

delete but bypass trash
rm -r

join files
cat %F > joined.txt

doc(x) -> odt
unoconv -f odt %F

docs -> pdf
#works on doc(x), xls(x), odt, some others
unoconv -f pdf %F

preview media
mplayer %f -really-quiet -endpos 10

play media
mplayer %F

jpg lossless rotate
for file in %F; do tempfile=$(mktemp); (jpegtran -copy all -rotate 90 $file > $tempfile); mv -f $tempfile $file; rm -f $tempfile; don

pgp sign
xfce4-terminal -e "gpg -a -u [user] -b %f"

mount iso
gksudo mount -o loop -t iso9660 %f /mnt'

convert to avi
xfce4-terminal -x ffmpeg -i %f -b 798k -ab 128k %f.avi



make movie thumbnail
makethumb %F (apperance conditions = video files)
## ##
that command requires a short bash script, here:
###############################################
#!/bin/bash

# put me in ~/bin (or somewhere on the path)
# I need mtn (http://moviethumbnail.sourceforge.net/)
# put that into  ~/bin as well
# and image magick installed
# should work on files and paths with spaces in them

while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
   
file="$1"
filename="${file%.*}"
extension="${file##*.}"

# mtn 1st try

mtn -i -c 1 -r 1 -t -P -o .${extension%.*}.jpg "$1"
if [ ! -s "$1.jpg" ]
then
   mtn -i -c 1 -r 1 -t -P -Z -o .${extension%.*}.jpg "$1"
fi

#convert (image magick)
convert "$1.jpg" -gravity Center -scale 180^ -extent 120x180 "$1_thumb.jpg"

#remove mtn snap and rename the thumb
mv "$1_thumb.jpg" "$filename.jpg"
rm "$file.jpg"

shift
done
###############################################

I don't know what the mutex thing is. Or how it broke spacefm. I do like spacefm though and think it is sad to see IG toss in the hat. His blog and voice in the linux community is awesome though, so I hope he doesn't give that up.

As to the mutex thing and the recent flurry of updates, not sure what is going on in Debianland but every few days I am getting yet another app that quits working, for 3-7 days, then back up. This is my first taste of SID, and I guess this is how it is every now and again, but I don't mind too much. It is getting me even deeper into the linux world, forces me to shop. Get rid of spacefm, bolt on thunar, or switch it out with 4pane, or rox-filer, or dolphin, or marlin. Applications are easy to switch out if you just figure out how. Tired of flux? Use openbox, jwm, ice, awesome, etc.

I am familiar with Thunar, and have a lot of custom actions which make my life easier, but I would not be averse to being pleasantly surprised by something like vimfm, rox-filer, 4pane, dragonflywm, or even gentoo fm, if it fits base VSIDO packages and provides functionality on top of minimal cpu strain.

pcmanfm is very similar to spacefm, and i like both, but think i like thunar better. each has +'s and -'s, none is perfect, but all are lightweight.

even lighter alternatives could be gentoo fm and rox-filer, but, neither has those awesome custom actions of thunar. between thunar and space/pcmanfm, i prefer thunar's ability to remember my file arrangement choices (not sure if i know how to describe this aspect, but spacefm dialog boxes for saving are sometimes very disorganized) but pcmanfm feels slightly quicker.

@packrat you're right! totally forgot my earlier time with lubuntu. it used pcmanfm. i loved that distro most of the buntus because of its light simplicity and pcman was part of that.

alternatively .... ranger ...?

nice one -vo- DWC hehe

Cazzette's Sleepless

Second problem solved. Sudo apt-get install gpodder reinstalled gpodder and now it works fine. Mischief managed.

I don't know much about kde and there are no apps depending on it on my system. The software I was referring to was gpodder, which was spontaneously uninstalled from my system. It mostly depends on python, libqtwebkit, gnome-bluetooth, and dbus11. Guess the conflict is in one of those components.

I rebooted, into the shell, ran 'sudo apt-get purge lightdm', then 'sudo apt-get clean', then 'sudo apt-get install lightdm'. Now I am back in my normal VSIDO with a normal boot experience.

By the way, my apps have been updating like crazy over the past week or so, and several of these apps either do not work or are no longer on my machine. I am guessing SID is about to, or just did, a serious update.

Thanks everyone for helping me fix, and learn about, my machine!

Ok after attempting reboot several times, no xjoy. No /tmp error though. While I can get to bash with ctrl+alt+fn+f1, from there, stop lightdm and then startx, and then get to my standard VSIDO experience, I cannot get a successful boot.

When I opened ligthdm.conf the first time, it was nearly completely commented out.

I will follow your suggestion and apt-get purge lightdm and then reinstall.

Thanks all for the advice. Here's my update:

1) @packrat, your advice worked. First, yes, I can access bash via ctrl+alt+fn+f1. Using "locate default.sh" I found it; it was in
  /usr/share/doc/acpid/examples/default.sh
and that is what my actual lightdm.conf reflects.

I followed your advice to shutdown lightdm, created a new ~/.xinitrc file, which - I don't even know why - somehow disappeared, and ran startx. That did the trick.

2) @statmonkey, my lightdm.conf file reads almost as yours does. I just left all the commented stuff in it though, but the uncommented stuff is almost the same as what you list.

3) @jedi, I cleaned /tmp with rm /tmp/*. I know, that is probably not the most elegant solution, but, it seemed to do the trick. Course, I shoulda been using 'apt-get clean' more often. With all the massive SID updates of late, and my recent game dl's, I should have known better.

As to why my ~/.xinitrc file disappeared, that is a mystery, but for now, I am typing this via Iceweasel from my normal looking Fluxbox VSIDO. I have yet to shutdown and log back in, but I am guessing it should work.

Thanks to all for the help!

Much thanks to both @statmonkey and @packrat. And, this is fun!

So logging into bash via the alt+control+fn+f1 looks just like the terminal, just on the whole screen. All bash apps are there. Sudo apt-get install xinit does what it does. Then going into my completely commented out lightdm.conf (commented except for the headings, which are bracketed), I changed

  #user-session=default
  #session-wrapper=lightdm-session
  #display-setup-script=
  #session-setup-script=

to

  user-session=fluxbox
  session-wrapper=/etc/X11/Xsession
  display-setup-script=/path/onmysystemto/default.sh #my path is in example
  session-setup-script=/path/onmysystemto/default.sh

then did a swift "rm /tmp/*" to get rid of the junk that was in there, and did a "sudo apt-get clean",

and then did "ls -l /" and looks like my /tmp folder has slightly unusual permissions, though they may be correct for Debian. A quick look at some of the Debian groups suggests my permissions are proper (drwxrwxrwt). But websearches are not my friend on this matter since I am getting differing advice on the matter. What should the permissions on /tmp be? And if I need to change them, what is the proper way (I have already had sad runins with chmod and would like advice before I burn down the house).

After I did those things, I did 'sudo shutdown -r now' several times but still no X, and worse, now there is no login screen. I can still get to bash via ctrl+alt+fn+f1 though.

Thanks for the help, and now, back to you.