gslapt "thunar share plugin" brings a bunch of other changes? VL6 gold

[wannaspeedcom]

I've been toying with vector linux for a few days now. I've formatted my drive at least a dozen times in the process of "playing" with the new to me OS. One thing I haven't been able to get working is the thunar share plugin. It never adds the additional tab.

The last 2 times I reinstalled vector linux 6 gold, I tried to add the share plugin via gslapt (testing servers enabled) and it brought a bunch of other packages with it. Maybe it's because I added the testing server before doing any updates first? Anyways it changes the whole layout of the OS. The "start menu" disappears, the shutdown button adds hibernate and some other things new icons. The taskbar icons for file manager and vasm are missing. And the whole system seems to run slower and has errors such as with samba file share. (wont mount any found drives)

 I was able to restore the start menu and add icons that are missing, even restored the correct file path for vector linux control center. But my question is what is this odd update and how can I get the thunar share to work without all these other changes? Is there an updated iso that contains the thunar share, updated firefox, and working samba. In order to get samba working I had to enable the test servers in gslapt and download the updated vslmbmnt (or however it was spelled).

It seems once I get everything close to how I want it, I try to make a simple addition to make it just a bit nicer and the whole thing falls apart and makes all these major changes. Like a tower of cards, I want that last card on top and they all fall down.

[toothandnail]

I would suggest a clean install, make sure that testing is not enabled, then do an update. That will bring in updates that have already been tested. While there is no 100% guarantee that everything will work, it is pretty low risk. That will get most security and bug fix packages installed.

When you enable testing, update the database, then only use it for individual addtiions, do not do a general update, because that will bring in all sorts of things, some of which may well not be stable. It is worth while disabling the testing repo, and doing an update once in a while to make sure other tested updates are included.

It is also worthwhile checking exactly what will be executed by adding a package - if you click on the arrow tothe left of the 'packages to be installed' Gslapt will list not only the package you have selected, but any dependencies that need to be installed with it. That gives you some warning as to what is about to happen to your system.

Generally, adding sinlge or small numbers of packages from testing should not cause major problems. And if you do only install single packages, you should be able to remove them and any deps that have been installed with them farily easily (for that purpose, use 'removepkg' from the command line, not Gslapt).

In the case of the Thunar share plugin, it may well be that it lists the new version of Xfce as a dep, in which case you will be adding a lot of extra packages. By the sound of the problems you have been having, it sounds as though the updated version of Xfce doesn't work well for you. I've had the same problem, which is why the new version of Xfce is still in testing, rather than being in patches. If that is the case, you will have to either forget using the share plugin for the moment, or try buidling it yourself against the version of Xfce that you are running. Without checking, I'm not sure whether this is possible or not.

Paul.

[rbistolfi]

The thunar-shares-plugin in the repository is for xfce-4.4, the default xfce desktop in VL STD:

aaa_base >= 12.1.0-noarch-2 | glibc-solibs >= 2.7-i486-10,atk >= 1.22.0-i486-1,cairo >= 1.6.4-i586-1vl60,dbus >= 1.1.20-i486-1,dbus-glib >= 0.74-i486-2,expat >= 2.0.1-i486-1,fontconfig >= 2.4.2-i486-2,freetype >= 2.3.8-i586-1vl60,gamin >= 0.1.9-i486-1,glib2 >= 2.16.3-i586-1gsb,gtk+2 >= 2.12.9-i486-1,hal >= 0.5.10-i486-2,libICE >= 1.0.4-i486-1,libSM >= 1.0.3-i486-1,libX11 >= 1.1.4-i486-1,libXau >= 1.0.3-i486-1,libXcomposite >= 0.4.0-i486-1,libXcursor >= 1.1.9-i486-1,libXdamage >= 1.1.1-i486-1,libXdmcp >= 1.0.2-i486-1,libXext >= 1.0.4-i486-1,libXfixes >= 4.0.3-i486-1,libXi >= 1.1.3-i486-1,libXinerama >= 1.0.3-i486-1,libXrandr >= 1.2.2-i486-1,libXrender >= 0.9.4-i486-1,libjpeg >= 6b-i486-5,libpng >= 1.2.29-i586-1vl60,libusb >= 0.1.12-i486-2,libxcb >= 1.0-i486-2,pango >= 1.20.0-i486-1,pixman >= 0.10.0-i486-4,startup-notification >= 0.9-i486-1,xfce4 >= 4.4.3-i586-6vl60,zlib >= 1.2.3-i486-2

Maybe you are running VL Light? That would require a lot of new packages.

[wannaspeedcom]

Thanks for the responces. I started out with the light version but the one I was having the major changes was with the standard gold version. I reinstalled vector and did the update without testing. Then enabled testing and updated the samba file sharing stuff. I then took testing off and told it no more updates.

I think you're right toothandnail the shares plugin probably requires the new xfce. I have't looked to see if there are addiional share plugins available. I have samba working and it does just fine in sharing folders. Maybe not as simple as a right click but  really how often does one really need to enable or disable certain folders.

The system is running well now. I've moved on to trying to get printing working. So far not going well. Also trying to install media tomb from source. Not going well in that area either. But file shareing is working quite nice.

[toothandnail]

I think you're right toothandnail the shares plugin probably requires the new xfce. I have't looked to see if there are addiional share plugins available. I have samba working and it does just fine in sharing folders. Maybe not as simple as a right click but  really how often does one really need to enable or disable certain folders.

If you want a simple way of setting up all available shares, have a look at fusesmb. There's a package in the 6.0 repos, and I wrote a how-to a while ago. There is another, more recent how-to as well, I think. Check that section of the forum, anyway.

The system is running well now. I've moved on to trying to get printing working. So far not going well. Also trying to install media tomb from source. Not going well in that area either. But file shareing is working quite nice.

I'll have a look at building media tomb if I get some time in the next few days. Let you know....

As to printing, what problem have you hit with it? Cups can sometimes be difficult to get going. I know I had a few problems getting it set recognize a network printer. Finally got that sorted out with help from the forum, and it now works well - for the first time in a long time, I can print from any machine on my local network.

Paul.

[wannaspeedcom]

I actually got mediatomb installed pretty easily. The problem I had was my xbox didn't recognize it so it was of no use to me. I have since switched to PS3mediaserver and it works very well, I like the java layout better too. Though it probably uses more system resources. It also works with the samsung LED tv which most other programs had issues with.

The printer problems are posted here http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=11673.0;topicseen
Basically I found the drivers, but not sure how to install them from source. I fumbled around and I think I installed them, and I tried several different driver downloads and pointed at the PPD files, but the test pages would never print. I would always see an error like this "Filter "pstocanonij" for printer "Canon_iP2600_series_USB_1" not available: No such file or directory"

I'm new to linux and I have been able to magically do most things, but when something doesn't work I never know if it's the wrong driver/file or just me installing it improperly.

I just installed FUSEMB, how/where do I use it? Is it used in addition to Samba?

[toothandnail]

<snip>

I'm new to linux and I have been able to magically do most things, but when something doesn't work I never know if it's the wrong driver/file or just me installing it improperly.

That is certainly easy enough to do. I run a number of Linux servers for small businesses in my area. There work well, but I still hit problems which may be the software, or may simply be what and how I've tired to implement things. I'm not new to Linux, but I'm still learning (I hope....)

I just installed FUSEMB, how/where do I use it? Is it used in addition to Samba?

Sorry for the slow reply. I'm in the middle of preparing to move house. A bit short of time.

Anyhow, to use fusesmb, you need Samba installed, but you should already have that. As to using it, have a look here:

http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=6193.0

I have recently discovered that it has occasional reliablity problems. Not sure if it is simply that it is getting old and SMB support is being depreciated in favour of CIFS support, but I've had it occasionally lose the shares after copying fairly large (600 - 700 mb) files. When that has happened, I've had to unmount the shares and remount, which is a pain.

Paul.