Release Candidate: Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox CE RC1

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merlwiz79
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Re: Linux Mint 5 Elyssa Fluxbox Community Edition RC1

Post by merlwiz79 »

rsammis wrote: I think that's exactly the case. The problem occurs when any USB storage device is connected at boot (I have several external HDs that have the same effect). The question is why no one amongst you is experiencing this problem?

As to practical solutions, if this is in fact a recognized Hardy bug and is fixed, when might I see it come down via MintUpdate? Would I see such a fix via MU? If not, am I not then dependent on Synaptic (which Mint users are advised to avoid for system updates) for the fix?

I understand the bind Mint is in under such circumstances, but there must be a way of effectively handling with such things.
This is a BIOS setting nothing to do with OS.
I was booting into XFCE CE which is connected as the 1st usb hard drive.
Then I have a usb hard drive for backup and my thumbdrive is the last usb drive connected.
You have to go in BIOS and make sure that you don't have the order incorrect.
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Re: Release Candidate: Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox CE RC1

Post by merlwiz79 »

Not that order the Hard drive boot order.
Sorry wasn't specific the 1st time.
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Re: Release Candidate: Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox CE RC1

Post by shane »

kei wrote:i didn't knew where to post the bugs, but well herte it goes, i'm using this edition, testing it and stuff, and some weird thing is that when y press shutdown in the shutdown menu, it doesn't turn off the PC, its like the OS is shut but the pc don't, i will keep looking for bugs, so the next release will be even better than this =D
this sounds more like a problem you would face in an old computer... remember the ones that used to say "it is now safe to turn off your computer"... the shutdown button runs this command "sudo shutdown -h now". Try running that from command line or "sudo halt" . Please also tell about your hardware... how old it is... make and model of your motherboard.
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Re: Release Candidate: Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox CE RC1

Post by shane »

kei wrote:it's not that old, its a packard bell legend, with M/B K8N800 VIA chipset, semprom 3000+ processor, 1 GB of ram, the weird things is that, sometimes it turns the pc off and sometimes it doesn't.

other thing that happens is, sometimes it doesn't load the wallpaper
this may be a known ubuntu issue. have a look at this thread on launchpad. https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/32490 there is a fix described there. try that out and post back your results. also, what happens when you shutdown with "sudo shutdown -h now" or "sudo halt" ?

about the wallpaper... when it doesnt load, what happens when you run "fbsetbg -l" ? this should load the last set wallpaper... also, what are the contents of ~/.fluxbox/lastwallpaper ?
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Re: Release Candidate: Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox CE RC1

Post by beranger »

Q1: Why not using PCManFM instead of Thunar? It's lighter and it has a few more features (e.g. tabs), while looking very much similarly.

Q2: I still don't get what's the point of using Mint instead of Ubuntu (except maybe for the horrendous Ubuntu theme). Are you aware of how many people experience serious issues with the kernel provided by Ubuntu 8.04(.1) with regards to hibernation? Ubuntu 8.04 is a serious regression over 7.10, but it's 8.04 who is LTS! The right thing to do would be to offer a Mint repo for a separate kernel, the same way Parsix is providing its own kernel, regardless of the fact that otherwise it takes the packages from Debian testing and a few extra packages are adapted from Ubuntu.
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Re: Release Candidate: Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox CE RC1

Post by shane »

beranger wrote:Q1: Why not using PCManFM instead of Thunar? It's lighter and it has a few more features (e.g. tabs), while looking very much similarly.

Q2: I still don't get what's the point of using Mint instead of Ubuntu (except maybe for the horrendous Ubuntu theme). Are you aware of how many people experience serious issues with the kernel provided by Ubuntu 8.04(.1) with regards to hibernation? Ubuntu 8.04 is a serious regression over 7.10, but it's 8.04 who is LTS! The right thing to do would be to offer a Mint repo for a separate kernel, the same way Parsix is providing its own kernel, regardless of the fact that otherwise it takes the packages from Debian testing and a few extra packages are adapted from Ubuntu.
1) I did consider PCManFM. But contrary to what you suggested, Thunar does have more features than PCManFM. The most important being volume management, IMO. Otherwise, PCManFM has come a long way and I am keeping an eye on it. Mint FB and Mint XFCE do share a lot in common, Thunar being one of them. This concentrates our resources and hence, hopefully, we can release a better product.

2) Your point about the kernel does not only affect Mint FB, but every other version of Mint. I do agree that in some areas Ubuntu messes up the kernel. But in others they do not. For example, suspend works on my laptop in Hardy whereas it didn't in Gutsy or Feisty. But it did work in Edgy... :roll:

In any case, maintaining any package is a lot of work... even with the Mint specific packages which are relatively small in the whole scheme of things. ATM I do not think that we here at Mint have the resources to maintain a package that is as essential to the system as the kernel. Surely, the Ubuntu devs are not perfect, but they sure do put a lot of work into their kernel. Maintaining all our packages independently would definitely be bliss, but we have to live within our means.

What would be cool is if Clem would be able to work full time on Mint... Maybe then we would be able to have Mint exactly the way we want.
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Re: Release Candidate: Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox CE RC1

Post by beranger »

Umm... right.

A crazy idea: both Ubuntu 8.04 (err... Mint 5) and Parsix 1.5r1 have the kernel 2.6.24. It would be a nice try to recompile the Parsix kernel under Mint and to offer it as an OPTIONAL alternative, should the upstream kernel be unsatisfactory. This would require an extra Mint repo, to make sure it's easy to disable it.
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Re: Release Candidate: Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox CE RC1

Post by shane »

beranger wrote:Umm... right.

A crazy idea: both Ubuntu 8.04 (err... Mint 5) and Parsix 1.5r1 have the kernel 2.6.24. It would be a nice try to recompile the Parsix kernel under Mint and to offer it as an OPTIONAL alternative, should the upstream kernel be unsatisfactory. This would require an extra Mint repo, to make sure it's easy to disable it.
The decision to do this would have to come from Clem. Maybe you could suggest it here http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=29 However, what I am interested in is, why Parsix? What does it provide over the Ubuntu kernel?
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Re: Release Candidate: Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox CE RC1

Post by beranger »

shane wrote:However, what I am interested in is, why Parsix? What does it provide over the Ubuntu kernel?
The short answer: reliable hibernation!
(while using the same kernel version.)
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Re: Release Candidate: Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox CE RC1

Post by shane »

beranger wrote:
shane wrote:However, what I am interested in is, why Parsix? What does it provide over the Ubuntu kernel?
The short answer: reliable hibernation!
(while using the same kernel version.)
i feel your pain... I went through 2 versions of Ubuntu lamenting on launchpad till suspend got fixed for my laptop... hibernation still doesn't work... Unfortunately I have also met the "recompile the kernel" solution... and i don't think we should have to. I would suggest searching for or opening a bug report on launchpad. Maintaining our own kernel is just not on the options list right now.

However, if you do find a solution that I can implement without breaking stuff for other hardware configurations (thats the hard part), I will surely add it for the final release.

Post your hardware configuration here... especially your motherboard and chipset... I will have a look as well.
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Re: Release Candidate: Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox CE RC1

Post by beranger »

shane wrote:I would suggest searching for or opening a bug report on launchpad.
I did it on April 23, it's Bug #221213: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/221213
  • Hardy: Triaged, High
  • Intrepid: Fix Committed, High
Indeed, the current Intrepid (Alpha whatever) works.

The bug itself was marked as duplicate of Bug #226279, which is allegedly "Fixed" in Hardy, but this is not true for my hardware! (Acer TravelMate 5310, details in the original bug report)

Note that another similar bug, #336279, has 14 duplicates, and nobody checked whether everybody got his problem fixed or not.

How about the hibernate failing for the reporters of:
  • Bug #197064 and #207615 (duplicates of bug #201086, allegedly fixed, but the last comments say it's not for them)
  • Bug #205221 (undecided)
  • Bug #206067 (duplicate of #186056, which is "undecided", and still reported as unfixed on 2008-08-05 for T20, with 8.10-alpha 3)
The nightmare of Ubuntu is the plethora of unfixed kernel issues, especially regressions with regards to hibernation. It's a shame that I can't use a LTS release because of this!
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Re: Linux Mint 5 Elyssa Fluxbox Community Edition RC1

Post by mmesantos1 »

shane wrote:Thanks and congratulations are also in order for Merlwiz79 and Exploder without whom this release would not have been possible!

I hope everyone enjoys this release!
Hello Shane,
I would like to say great job on Mint Fluxbox!
Now to the issues I have encountered. I did see this in previous posts but wanted to still mention it, I was wondering why no volume control on task bar, not that it is a big deal since you can access this through the menu but it is a nice convenience. Keep in mind I am new to the Fluxbox GUI. Also I am not able to access my other hard drive on my PC. It is internal hard drive that I run Mint Main 5 on. Both drives are both SATA. I have run into this same issue with XFCE. The only work around I was given was to install another file manager. I was not happy with that suggestion. I do not feel I should have to do that since there is already Thunar. The last issue is I do not see much improvement in performance in Fluxbox over Mint XFCE CE. I will have to chock it up to the fact that you have some XFCE components installed along side Fluxbox, I was wondering if there is a Fluxbox alternative for these XFCE components?

Well thank you again for a great CE! :)
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Re: Linux Mint 5 Elyssa Fluxbox Community Edition RC1

Post by shane »

mmesantos1 wrote: Hello Shane,
I would like to say great job on Mint Fluxbox!
Now to the issues I have encountered. I did see this in previous posts but wanted to still mention it, I was wondering why no volume control on task bar, not that it is a big deal since you can access this through the menu but it is a nice convenience. Keep in mind I am new to the Fluxbox GUI. Also I am not able to access my other hard drive on my PC. It is internal hard drive that I run Mint Main 5 on. Both drives are both SATA. I have run into this same issue with XFCE. The only work around I was given was to install another file manager. I was not happy with that suggestion. I do not feel I should have to do that since there is already Thunar. The last issue is I do not see much improvement in performance in Fluxbox over Mint XFCE CE. I will have to chock it up to the fact that you have some XFCE components installed along side Fluxbox, I was wondering if there is a Fluxbox alternative for these XFCE components?

Well thank you again for a great CE! :)
1. I have decided to add a volume control to the desktop (Wmix)

2. When you say Thunar cannot access your other hard drives, is this after you have mounted them? Or do you mean that it does not show up on the shortcuts as a hard drive? my machine only has one hard drive so I haven't met this. However, Thunar does recognize USB drives and the like when they are plugged in, and they appear in the shortcuts with mount/unmount options. Maybe you could try specifying during the installation or in /etc/fstab where your other hard drive should be mounted to... normally /media/sda1 or something similar. What you mention could be a limitation of Thunar... I am not sure.

3. Yes there are quite a few XFCE components included with Mint FB. This was done to give this edition as much 'full desktop functionality' as possible. You can turn off some services that you do not need like Wicd, blue tooth and the like using the System Tools>Services tool. also you can comment out unwanted applications in ~/.fluxbox/startup which will prevent other applications starting at boot. This will give you a decent bump in performance... As for other tools that could replace these XFCE components... I do not know of any set of GUI tools that will handle as many aspects of the system... There are the a whole host of command line tools though... which is what most minimalists would use along with config file editing...

I've got a few days that are more or less free so I will be pushing for a final release... Thanks for your suggestions... If you have got any more... please do let us know!
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Re: Release Candidate: Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox CE RC1

Post by merlwiz79 »

Any other hard drive, other than the main, isn't automatically mounted and has to be put into fstab.
Not sure why Ubuntu did this but that's the new default.
Then you just have to use the folder in /media as a shortcut, in the sidepanel.

It's not that hard to do but shouldn't have to be done.
I have Ubuntu intrepid and it still doesn't automount anything but the main hard drive.
All USB drives are mounted when plugged in.
USB drives won't automount when plugged in while booting but you just have to right click to mount them.

These are both defaults from Ubuntu and doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon. :?
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Re: Linux Mint 5 Elyssa Fluxbox Community Edition RC1

Post by mmesantos1 »

shane wrote:
mmesantos1 wrote: Hello Shane,
I would like to say great job on Mint Fluxbox!
Now to the issues I have encountered. I did see this in previous posts but wanted to still mention it, I was wondering why no volume control on task bar, not that it is a big deal since you can access this through the menu but it is a nice convenience. Keep in mind I am new to the Fluxbox GUI. Also I am not able to access my other hard drive on my PC. It is internal hard drive that I run Mint Main 5 on. Both drives are both SATA. I have run into this same issue with XFCE. The only work around I was given was to install another file manager. I was not happy with that suggestion. I do not feel I should have to do that since there is already Thunar. The last issue is I do not see much improvement in performance in Fluxbox over Mint XFCE CE. I will have to chock it up to the fact that you have some XFCE components installed along side Fluxbox, I was wondering if there is a Fluxbox alternative for these XFCE components?

Well thank you again for a great CE! :)
1. I have decided to add a volume control to the desktop (Wmix)

2. When you say Thunar cannot access your other hard drives, is this after you have mounted them? Or do you mean that it does not show up on the shortcuts as a hard drive? my machine only has one hard drive so I haven't met this. However, Thunar does recognize USB drives and the like when they are plugged in, and they appear in the shortcuts with mount/unmount options. Maybe you could try specifying during the installation or in /etc/fstab where your other hard drive should be mounted to... normally /media/sda1 or something similar. What you mention could be a limitation of Thunar... I am not sure.

3. Yes there are quite a few XFCE components included with Mint FB. This was done to give this edition as much 'full desktop functionality' as possible. You can turn off some services that you do not need like Wicd, blue tooth and the like using the System Tools>Services tool. also you can comment out unwanted applications in ~/.fluxbox/startup which will prevent other applications starting at boot. This will give you a decent bump in performance... As for other tools that could replace these XFCE components... I do not know of any set of GUI tools that will handle as many aspects of the system... There are the a whole host of command line tools though... which is what most minimalists would use along with config file editing...

I've got a few days that are more or less free so I will be pushing for a final release... Thanks for your suggestions... If you have got any more... please do let us know!

Thank you for the info. I do not know much about Fstab so I do not think I will be making any changes there until I learn more about it. My other hard drive is a HDD 160GB internal Segate drive. But again thank you for the informative info.
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Re: Release Candidate: Linux Mint 5 Fluxbox CE RC1

Post by linuxviolin »

shane wrote:1) I did consider PCManFM. But contrary to what you suggested, Thunar does have more features than PCManFM.
Hmm..... :roll:
shane wrote: The most important being volume management, IMO.
Are you sure about that? I seem to remember having had no problem with that in PCManFM... :roll:

But also I suggest you look at XFE which is very good and lighter. "This file manager puts all others to shame." (quote from the web) http://roland65.free.fr/xfe
In addition, it has an text editor, a text viewer and an image viewer integrated, it knows use the .deb and .rpm packages and it is available in 18 languages...
# Integrated text editor (X File Write, xfw)
# Integrated text viewer (X File View, xfv)
# Integrated image viewer (X File Image, xfi)
# Integrated RPM or DEB packages viewer / installer / uninstaller (X File Package, xfp)
For its features see at http://roland65.free.fr/xfe/index.php?page=features

Excellent! :D

I know that in the main (GNOME) edition, XFE is used when you "Open as root" but why not use it completely/really? At least in the XFCE and Fluxbox editions... :roll:
K.I.S.S. ===> "Keep It Simple, Stupid"
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." (Leonardo da Vinci)
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." (Albert Einstein)
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