No VASM from Console

[Pita]

In VL-5.8 I can't use vasm from the console, neither as root nor as user. Giving the command just nothing happens, no pid is assigned no error message. Only when in X can I use vasm which is somewhat a problem if for example I want to change the graphic card.

Any solution?

Regards

[Triarius Fidelis]

On the tty console or in terminal emulator?

[Pita]

On the console. No problem in X in terminal emulator.

I just got my Internet connection back. Was cut for 36 hours.

[nightflier]

What happens if you run vxconf in the console?

[Pita]

In the console:

sudo /sbin/vxconf

Parse error: unknown variable at line 12 of configuration file:
        aspect

init_dialog: dlg_parse_rc

In X with xterm, sudo /sbin/vxconf opens a window asking me if I want to probe for my video hardware and mouse.

[nightflier]

Sounds to me like there may be something wrong with the shell environment, but that's above my head. Look for someone more qualified to chime in here. 

[Triarius Fidelis]

Can you paste the contents of /etc/dialogrc please?

[lagagnon]

Pita: also get into a terminal and show us the output of these commands:

whereis vasm
set | grep PATH

[Pita]

cat  /etc/dialogrc
# Set aspect-ration.
aspect = 0

# Set separator (for multiple widgets output).
separate_widget = ""

# Set tab-length (for textbox tab-conversion).
tab_len = 0

# Make tab-traversal for checklist, etc., include the list.
visit_items = OFF

# Shadow dialog boxes? This also turns on color.
use_shadow = ON

# Turn color support ON or OFF
use_colors = ON

# Screen color
screen_color = (WHITE,BLUE,OFF)

---snip---
what follows is all about colors which I think is not relevant for this case.


whereis vasm
vasm: /bin/vasm /sbin/vasm

 set | grep PATH

CPLUS_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/lib/qt/include
MANPATH=/usr/local/man:/usr/man:/usr/X11R6/man:/usr/lib/java/man:/usr/lib/qt/doc/man:/opt/seamonkey/man
MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH=/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/opt/kde/bin:/usr/local/games:/usr/games:/usr/lib/java/bin:/usr/lib/java/jre/bin:/usr/lib/qt/bin:/opt/seamonkey/bin:/home/peter/bin
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/X11R6/lib/pkgconfig::/opt/seamonkey/lib/pkgconfi

[lagagnon]

Pita: vasm is where it should be and your PATHNAMES are fine, so I simply cannont understand why you cannot run vasm from a terminal. There must be something seriously weird about your system - it simply does not make any sense.

[uelsk8s]

pita,
what resolution is your terminal running at?

[Pita]

Thanks all!

I uninstalled and reinstalled vasm and it is working now meaning I can open it from the console both as root and as user.

So why did I not do this in the first place
Why this mental block running to mama first?

Regards

[Triarius Fidelis]

I was going to recommend deleting or commenting out the line that says aspect = 0 in /etc/dialogrc but f—ing Seamonkey hung on me and I forgot what I was doing. (Seamonkey does not restore the session.) I'm slightly happier but still miserable with Firefox again. Flashblock has helped a lot in cutting the massive, massive bloat.

Out of sheer curiosity, does that file mention anything about 'aspect' this time?

[Pita]

Sorry, I rejoiced too early. Rebooting after reinstall vasm things were weird. Only root was mounted among others. Restore etc/ from back-up and back to square one.

Now in console if I do "xtrace /sbin/vasm" I get:

xterm XT error: Can't open display
xterm: DISPLAY is not set

In console "sudo xtrace /sbin/vasm" I get:

Function              File                                                  Line
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Warning: This program is an suid-root program or is being run by the root user.
The full text of the error or warning message cannot be safely formatted
in this environment. You may get a more descriptive message by running the
program as a non-root user or by removing the suid bit on the executable.
xterm Xt error: Can't open display: %s
xterm:  DISPLAY is not set

So it seems my vasm only wants to open in X either from xterm or from menu-System-vasm.
 
I have uncommended now this aspect line, however, not yet rebooted and can now not check what happened.

Looking into the vasm-functions file I can see that there switches to run as TUI or GUI which seems to fail in my case.

[Pita]

I now copied the dialogrc file over from VL-5.9 in which one finds only references to colors rebooted and vasm starts now from the console.
Epic Fail Guy (or was it hazzlemuzzle?) guess you were right about that aspect which is now all gone.

Regards