VectorLinux5.9-rc3 bugs/annoyances

[M-ake]

*Sound & 1280x800 res & intel 950gma works out of the box. Nice!


Some issues still remain tho:

-Lilo failed to detect ubuntu install, this was easy to fix with liloconfig. Winxp was detected properly.

-The new menu button rocks, tho I agree on changing the login screen

-Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG card still not detected, this has been a problem in earlier releases. Its easy to fix with adding ipw3945d to rc.local, but some newbies might give up.

-I built compiz fusion && emerald using this howto http://vectorlinux.com/wiki/doku.php?id=howtos:compiz-fusion without errors , yet emerald wont work

Code:

m-ake:$ emerald
emerald: Could not acquire decoration manager selection on screen 0 display ":0.0"

-How can I install kde ? Kdemeta package doesnt show in glsapt with default repos enabled.

-How about how can I test tuxonice ? I dont see suspend or hibernate in menu --> quit.

[BlueMage]

More video oddness.  Ran VASMcc (in vesa), and setup xorg configuration.  Logged out, went to console login, logged in, started xfce.  No ghost text.  In fact, no text at all :/  No icons either, on desktop, taskbar or menus.  Will fiddle more as time allows.

[rbistolfi]

I don't mess with /media simply because I rarely mount anything on /media and it's off my radar. However, in /mnt I always remove directories I know I'll never have any use for, like /fd0 or /floppy (whatever it's called) and /win or /hd. I create my own directories for my Windows drives, such as /mnt/win-c, /mnt/win-d, etc., so I don't need /win.

I thought that would be pretty much the way things worked. I am a bit puzzled though - from reading, I thought that all removable media would now use /media as a mount point, and /mnt would only be for things like hard drive partitions. I notice however that optical media is still mounting on /mnt. Should any links to cdrom/dvd drives be removed from /etc/fstab (as is the case with Zenwalk), or should fstab be modified to use /media instead of /mnt for opticals?

HAL is a bit tidier than Vl-hot, but it does involve a bit more memory footprint, so I guess no fix is going to be universal.

paul.

AFAIK, /mnt always was for temp mount points, which includes hd's in the unix philosophy (and anything else than /home, /, and all the necessary fs's, for that matter). /media was introduced by Debian and its derivated. Initially temporarily filesystems used to be mounted directly in /mnt, but later started the use of subdirs in /mnt. That lives /media for removable media. Personally, I think /media is useless. I like to keep mount points toghether in /mnt, and I remove /media because I like to keep / tree as small as possible. I am not sure if removing /media is safe for hal users, though.

[nubcnubdo]

Agree. Login screen could use some editing. Maybe eliminate central VL logo to unclutter dialog box.

[M0E-lnx]

*Sound & 1280x800 res & intel 950gma works out of the box. Nice!


Some issues still remain tho:

-I built compiz fusion && emerald using this howto http://vectorlinux.com/wiki/doku.php?id=howtos:compiz-fusion without errors , yet emerald wont work

Code:

m-ake:$ emerald
emerald: Could not acquire decoration manager selection on screen 0 display ":0.0"

Can you paste the results of

Code:

whereis pidof

IIRC, to get around that, pidof has to be accessible to your user account. You can add a simlink to it if one does not exists

Code:

ln -s /user/sbin/pidof /sbin/pidof

HTH

[Joe1962]

HAL is a bit tidier than Vl-hot, but it does involve a bit more memory footprint, so I guess no fix is going to be universal.

Actually, from my point of view, vl-hot is very "tidy". It works inside it's own subtree called /mnt/vl-hot. I've been proposing cleaning up /mnt for a long time now. I remove most of those directories after every install.

The only time vl-hot mounts become a bit tedious is when not using a gui desktop with support for the drive icons, so you have to navigate to the innermost mountpoint. I find that a fair trade-off for an organized layout. I did ask for suggestions on this back when I started on vl-hot development, but didn't get much (apart from moving to /media, which is definitely not the right place for external mass storage mounts).

[GrannyGeek]

Today I tried to run jpilot on my Athlon desktop. I followed an old message from Joe1962 about doing
/sbin/modprobe usbserial
/sbin/modprobe visor   

and then creating the USB ports:
/bin/mknod /dev/ttyUSB0 c 188 0
/bin/mknod /dev/ttyUSB1 c 188 1   

and then:
/bin/chmod a+rw /dev/ttyUSB?

/dev/ttyUSB0 and /dev/ttyUSB1 then show up in /dev. I ran jpilot as user and tried to sync but nothing happened and my Clie reported that it was unable to connect. So I ran
pilot-install-user -p /dev/ttyUSB1 -u me -i 12345
and I got this:
unable to bind to port: /dev/ttyUSB1

After this unsuccessful attempt, /dev/ttyUSB0 and /dev/ttyUSB1 disappear from /dev.

I get the same results if I do the same things as root.

Soooo,
I can't sync with my Clie. I know I connected successfully in earlier release candidates. I haven't tried syncing on my other computers yet. Will do that later and see what happens.

By the way, when you first try to run jpilot it complains that it needs libpisock.so.8 ("no such file"), so I created a symlink to /usr/lib/libpisock.so.9.0.1 and after that, jpilot started. I had to create the same symlink in RC1.7 and RC2 and was able to sync. (Maybe my memory is faulty as to whether I tried this in both those RCs, but I'm pretty sure I did, as I remember having a working jpilot in at least one prior release candidate. It depends on whether I got around to installing and running jpilot in all of them.)

I'll report on whether the problem shows up on my other computers.
--GrannyGeek

[GrannyGeek]

My Turion laptop doesn't shut down properly. This has been a problem with all Release Candidates, I think.

It actually completes the whole shutdown process but instead of turning off, the screen flashes random text until I turn off the computer with the power button. This computer powers down fine in Windows Vista. My other computers with RC3 turn off without problems.

I consider this a very minor problem, but I thought I should mention it.
--GrannyGeek

[nightflier]

Granny, have you tried adding "apm=power-off" to LILO?
http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=4795.0

I know it's aimed at older machines, but worth a try.

[newt]

My Turion laptop doesn't shut down properly. This has been a problem with all Release Candidates, I think.

It actually completes the whole shutdown process but instead of turning off, the screen flashes random text until I turn off the computer with the power button. This computer powers down fine in Windows Vista. My other computers with RC3 turn off without problems.

I consider this a very minor problem, but I thought I should mention it.
--GrannyGeek

Also this thread ( http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=3817.0 ) mentions using 'acpi=force' as a possibility.

[GrannyGeek]

I can't add anything to LILO, as far as I know, because I boot from the installation CD and I don't think you can add any parameters to
linux root=/dev/hda6 ro
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

This computer has Vista and Vista no longer uses a boot.ini file, so the way we used to be able to add Linux to the XP boot loader is no longer an option. I would not dare put anything in the MBR because if anything goes wrong, I don't know how to restore the old MBR. There is no recovery console, so no way to run
fixmbr

I do have a program called EasyBCD, I think, that is supposed to be a graphical interface to the new boot table in Vista. Once VL goes Final, I'll look into setting up a dual boot. But first I have to make sure I can recover if anything goes wrong. I would NOT want to run the Recovery DVD that came with the computer and have to set up everything all over. I don't have any image-file software that is Vista compatible. I know I could do a dd command from a LiveCD and duplicate the whole drive, but the geekiness level surpasses where I'm at and I'd have to spend time knowing what I'm doing before I'd entrust the farm to something I'm not sure of.
--GrannyGeek

[rbistolfi]

This computer has Vista and Vista no longer uses a boot.ini file, so the way we used to be able to add Linux to the XP boot loader is no longer an option. I would not dare put anything in the MBR because if anything goes wrong, I don't know how to restore the old MBR. There is no recovery console, so no way to run
fixmbr

I used mbrfix instead many times. The author didn't lose much time looking for a name, but the tool never failed to me. http://www.sysint.no/nedlasting/mbrfix.htm

[uelsk8s]

I can't add anything to LILO, as far as I know, because I boot from the installation CD and I don't think you can add any parameters to
linux root=/dev/hda6 ro
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

--GrannyGeek

you can add any/all kernel parameters to the cd boot prompt like below or whatever you need.
linux root=/dev/hda6 ro apm=power-off acpi=force

[GrannyGeek]

I used mbrfix instead many times. The author didn't lose much time looking for a name, but the tool never failed to me. http://www.sysint.no/nedlasting/mbrfix.htm

Thanks! That looks like what I need. My caution still applies, though, so I'll check into it very carefully once VL goes Gold. Your experience certainly gives me hope.
--GrannyGeek

[GrannyGeek]

you can add any/all kernel parameters to the cd boot prompt like below or whatever you need.
linux root=/dev/hda6 ro apm=power-off acpi=force

Thanks for the information. I'll give it a try in a few minutes when I turn the laptop on. Of course, I won't know if it has any effect until late tonight, when I turn it off.<g> Will let you know.
--GrannyGeek