VTE-0.16 breaks XFCE Terminal

[Tigerwolf]

After doing some upgrades,  Terminal, the XFE X terminal, began doing very strange things, especially with cursor positioning and writing inverse video fields.  Inverse fields with data would appear blank, sometimes a string of ==== signs would appear when scrolling lines above an inverse field,  underscore lines would sometimes be partly bolded, etc.   Oddly enough, a control-l to rewrite the screen would result in a correct display until there was another write by the running application.

The problem was traced to vte-0.12 having been replaced by vte-0.16.   Downgrading restored normal operation.

I don't know what other bad things it may do, or whether it's a vte issue, or XFCE Terminal needs upgrading to work with the newer vte.   Either way, vte-0.16 should *not* be used with Terminal 0.2.6 as installed by the VL 5.8 XFCE 4.4.0.

I notice there's a maintenance release of XFCE:  4.4.1.  This may solve the issue.   Is there a chance of getting 4.4.1 update for VL 5.8?

[uelsk8s]

new xfce is here: http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-5.8/testing/xfce/xfce-4.4.1-i586-6vl58.tlz
let us know how it works for you.

Thanks,
Uelsk8s

[Tigerwolf]

let us know how it works for you.

Thanks for the quick reply!

Unfortunately, the package won't install:  depends on tcsh.   There is no tcsh package, and it would be good not to have to install an extra shell unless absolutely necessary.

[uelsk8s]

well here is another rebuild:
http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-5.8/testing/xfce/xfce-4.4.1-i586-7vl58.tlz
let us know,
THanks

[Tigerwolf]

let us know,

That one installed ok, but two things were immediately apparent:

1. Terminal didn't work at all:   Message of no such file.  Looking at the package,  XFCE Terminal wasn't included in the testing one, but it was in the 4.4.0 version.   Other traditional xterms worked.

2.  Kiosk mode isn't working at all.  This may be due to the install clobbering some config files.  I'll have to do more digging to find out what's going on with this.  Kiosk mode is critical for my application, and the XFCE folks supposedly fixed a bug I reported to them in this version, so it should still be a feature.

I'd suggest doing a compare of the package file listing between the VL 5.8 XFCE 4.4.0 and the new 4.4.1 to see what else besides Terminal might be missing or of there's any obvious differences that might have bad effects on an in-place upgrade.

I'll look into the kiosk issue and do more in-depth looking into the various menus, etc. and report on what I find soon, but it will be tomorrow at the earliest.

Thanks again for a quick reply!

UPDATE:   Two other quick observations:

1.  Volume control has vanished from the panel and xfce-setting-show   No sound control executables seem to be in the package list (although icons/graphics are there).

2.  File manager in xfce-setting-show complains:  "Either not compiled for Dbus support, or Dbus support not configured properly"

UPDATE-2:

There's a major disconnect regarding where certain config and other files are kept.  VL 4.4.0 put stuff  as follows:

Code:

etc/X11/
etc/X11/xdg/
etc/X11/xdg/xfce4/
etc/X11/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc
etc/X11/xdg/xfce4/desktop/
etc/X11/xdg/xfce4/desktop/xfce-registered-categories.xml.ca
...and so on...

The testing version puts stuff as follows:

Code:

etc/X11
etc/X11/xinit/
etc/xfce/
etc/xfce/xdg/
etc/xfce/xdg/xfce4/
etc/xfce/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc
etc/xfce/xdg/xfce4/desktop/
etc/xfce/xdg/xfce4/desktop/xfce-registered-categories.xml.ca
...

While it likely doesn't matter where stuff goes on a totally fresh new install, moving locations between versions is breaking things trying to do an in-place upgrade.   

I don't know what the VL file location conventions are/should be, but unless there's good reason, things should be whereever XFCE documentation says so that it won't become a confusing nightmare when looking for various files.

Before going further, I'll wait for a resolution of the above issues.

[uelsk8s]

I think i have it fixed.
Here is the new package: http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-5.8/testing/xfce/xfce-4.4.1-i586-8vl58.tlz
Terminal required a newer vte to build, and Thunar required perl-uri.
you can get them here: http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-5.8/testing/x-apps/vte-0.16.5-i586-1vl59.tlz
and here: http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-5.8/testing/libs/perl-uri-1.35-i586-1vl58.tlz
all should be installable through slapt-get/gslapt

let me know if they work.
Thanks,
Uelsk8s

[Tigerwolf]

let me know if they work.

Unfortunately, there's still problems.  I noted the following:

1. gslapt complains of unmet dependency:  xfce requires tcsh 
     (like earlier, but it did allow the package to upgrade anyway, so I gave it a try)

2. The newer VTE is still broken as described above.  Additional info applicable both to the above
     issues and this version is that cut-paste also malfunctions if the line being selected wraps.  The
     copied line  truncates prematurely, and a return is issued at that point).

2a.  Unlike previous XFCE, downgrading to VTE-0.12 version prevents Terminal from starting at all, so
       that's not an option for a fix.   A broken Terminal is a showstopper for us. :/   

       Additional note:  This appears to definately be a VTE rather than XFCE issue.  Running  a 'raw' VTE 
       terminal exhibits the same symptoms.  Also, I noticed the latest VTE is 16.9.  I tried a quick and
      dirty default compile, and it is still broken.

      I notice Terminal is still at version 0.2.6 for both the old and new XFCE, so I'd think it should build ok         
      with the original VL 5.8 VTE 12.0.  Is there maybe a way to force this, at least for a test?

3.  XFCE mixer/volume control is still gone from panel, and does not show up in xfce-setting-show.
      There's no executable(s) for it in the package.     This would also be a showstopper.

4.  Relocating the files to the previous XFCE directories allowed kiosk mode to function.  (The kiosk
      enabling file not being found in the relocated package above was why kiosk  didn't work before.)

5.  Thunar started without complaint, but I didn't test it in depth.

[uelsk8s]

well ill keep trying as long as you keep testing 
heres another: http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-5.8/testing/xfce/xfce-4.4.1-i586-9vl58.tlz
built against http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-5.8/testing/x-apps/vte-0.12.2-i586-1vl59.tlz

let me know how these ones do.
Thanks,
Uelsk8s

[Tigerwolf]

well ill keep trying as long as you keep testing.

Hey!  Testing is what I do best!  If there's something lurking, I tend to find it.

let me know how these ones do.

Looks good so far.    I did have to resort to downloading the .tlz files and using upgradepkg, though, since glapt didn't see them (due to no meta files?).

Terminal seems to exhibit expected behavior.

There's a volume control in xfce-setting-show.    I had to re-add it to the panel, but it's actaully got the proper mixer controls (which the original one never had), so that's even more progress.

It's nearly 5am, and I'm fried.    I'll beat on stuff more intently tomorrow.   I'll post results.

If all looks good, I'll update our master box and clone it the 30 user machines.  There's a convention coming up mid-november, so they'll get a good workout from random public users. 

Thanks for your help!

UPDATE:   I've pretty well exercised most functions for the last day or so.  It took a while to undo a couple of kludges I'd done to the old version to work around some issues for our application, but now things seem pretty solid and everything seems to work as expected.

I'd say once the package wrapping and any documentation/man pages not in the test build are included, it would be pretty safe for an update release.

It would be good, in addition to the (limited) packaging  metadata, to include a document file which outlines the build parameters used for each package, especially if any configure option arguments or details of any changes/tweeks that were made to the 'stock' sources in making the VL package.   I understand the slackware packaging scheme used by VL may not allow for much detail regarding that sort of thing, but it should be possible to include a VL-Package text file that ends up with the normal package docs.   Knowing exactly how a package is built is important to try to apply patches, build plug-ins, etc.

I'll be happy to help compose/comment on the documentation file.