Gnome FC5 Error

[karlp at ourldsfamily.com]

On Tue, May 2, 2006 11:26 am, Rick Stevens said:
> On Mon, 2006-05-01 at 21:44 -0600, karlp at ourldsfamily.com wrote:
> <major snippage...this is getting really long>
>> >> > That's really not normal.  The last time I saw that sort of error was
>> >> > when the user's ~/.gnome* directories got whacked.
>> >>
>> >> I started having problems with the KDE panels, plus the background image
>> >> wouldn't change. I removed kdesktoprc and that solved both issues.
>> >
>> > Both the gnome-terminal and the KDE panels?
>>
>> No, apparently the panel problem persists. I'm able to run gnome-terminal
>> without a hitch in KDE, but the KDE panels are locked up. No text-tips, no
>> highlighting when mouse-over happens, nothing... It's pretty unstable right
>> now... Other issues have popped up I'll have to document later and see how
>> things go for solutions.
>
> Hmmmm.  This is fully updated, right?

I've manually run yum update just about every day. I have some extra
repositories now that I didn't used to. I've added greysector from the start
so I can install mplayer using yum. I wonder if it's broken things... I
haven't seen any of the updates use greysector, however, but haven't watched
as closely as I might have been had I suspected it. I added livna and
freshrpms, too, a day or so ago. Mplayer still doesn't work completely as well
as it did on FC4...

>
>> >> >> I'm wondering if this is why gnome-panel dies, too, after
>> gnome-terminal
>> >> >> fails to come up. I've CTRL-ALT F1 and logged in as root and killed
>> >> >> gnome-panel with no success. It starts back up, as it should, but
>> >> >> doesn't get displayed in X.
>> >> >
>> >> > Probably.
>> >>
>> >> I'll give gnome a re-try after removing .gnome2 (?) Could gconf.d have
>> any
>> >> issues?
>> >
>> > Well, it could if you saved a weird session.  Try deleting the
>> > ~/.gconfd/saved-state file for the user in question, log in as that user
>> > and save the session.
>>
>> I'm the only user on this system. You know, I shouldn't have to remove that
>> file, except that gnome auto-saves and I can't find an option to check to
>> undo
>> that 'feature'... I'm bugged with gnome in that it's no where near as
>> customizable as it used to be.
>
> You should squawk it to the Gnome people.  They've already changed a
> number of things due to complaints.  Gnome's just as customizable as it
> ever was, there just isn't the super-simple GUI stuff to do it anymore.
> However, to turn automatic session save off, go to
>
> System->Preferences->More Preferences->Sessions
>
> Uncheck "Automatically save changes to sessions" and check "Ask on
> logout".

That would be good, except the panel doesn't stay up long enough to get into
it... It's down within about 5 minutes in a session.

>
>> > BTW, you had mentioned earlier that you didn't know how to save a
>> > session when you wanted to.  The command is "gnome-session-save".  It's
>> > not on the menus as it once was.  You can "gnome-session-save --gui" and
>> > it'll pop up a dialog box regarding the state of the save.
>>
>> That would be nice sometimes, but not if I save bogus sessions WITHOUT
>> knowing
>> I'm doing it, just by exiting.
>>
>> >
>> >> >> This is a show-stopper for me. I can't use FC5 without gnome-terminal
>> >> >> and other gnome apps. I have specific programming needs at work which
>> >> >> gnome-terminal meets flawlessly, when working. konsole is a poor
>> >> >> substitute, but can be used. xterm is preferrable but I've not learned
>> >> >> how to control CTRL-H vs DEL, etc.
>> >> >
>> >> > CTRL-H -> DEL is simple, "stty erase <press del key>"
>> >>
>> >> Yes, that doesn't work... It's not that part of controlling Xterm that's
>> a
>> >> problem. I run a program on login. I'd just like NOT to have to do
>> that...
>> >> It's a minor issue, but having to run it everytime is annoying.
>> >
>> > I can grok that.  Of course, you could add something to the bash login
>> > (or whatever shell you're using) to determine if you're in a gnome-term
>> > or regular xterm and tweak things accordingly.
>>
>> The issue is knowing which term I'm using when I ssh or telnet to an AIX
>> server at work. That's the rub... Our business app, a very fast, clean
>> green-screen app, uses smoke and mirrors to look a bit 'windowy' with line
>> characters, etc. Since it's not ncurses, the emulation has to be exact.
>> We've
>> been WY50 for centuries (okay, not that long) and I made the switch to
>> 'vt100/ansi' like emulators, and I had to twiddle around with the termtype
>> settings to get xterms to work in a DBMS-specific terminal type.
>
> Ah.  Well, if you're in gnome-terminal, there is an environment
> variable, $COLORTERM that's set.  In other words, in just an xterm,
> $TERM will be set to "xterm" and $COLORTERM won't be defined.  In gnome-
> terminal, $TERM will be "xterm" and $COLORTERM will be "gnome-terminal".
>

Those variables aren't passed to the AIX server....

>> >> >> I hope this solveable Fedora folks listening? I'm on too many lists
>> and
>> >> >> don't need another one, so don't plan to cross-post this to a fedora
>> >> list.
>> >> >
>> >> > I don't recall, but was this an upgrade or a fresh install?  I now have
>> >> > two machines up on FC5, an Athlon-64 laptop with ATI graphics and an
>> >> > Athlon with nVidia (the nvidia thing was a right bitch to get working)
>> >> > but neither exhibit that problem.  Note that they were both fresh
>> >> > installs--not upgrades.  The laptop/ATI seems quite stable, the
>> >> > Athlon/nVidia hasn't been up long enough nor flogged hard enough for me
>> >> > to determine its stability yet.  It's running washing machine tests
>> >> > right now and I should know more tomorrow.
>> >>
>> >> Tomorrow never comes, but let us know. This was a fresh install. I prefer
>> >> fresh installs, however usually save off the subdirectories in my home
>> >> directory, such as docs, media, pics, palm, etc.
>> >
>> > Yup.  Actually, due to some weirdness I inflicted on it, my machine ate
>> > the LVM config and I had to start over.
>> >
>> > I will warn people wanting to use the nVidia drivers...before you even
>> > start, make sure you have the following RPMs installed:
>> >
>> > 	kernel-devel OR the kernel source itself
>> > 	xorg-x11-server-sdk
>> > 	pkgconfig
>> >
>> > Also be aware that there are some, uhm, "issues" with SELinux and the
>> > nVidia driver.  They don't set the contexts correctly--even if you
>> > run the installer with "--force-selinux=yes".  I haven't built up the
>> > correct changes yet, but until you set them correctly you have to run in
>> > permissive mode.
>>
>> Also, it's nice to use ATI cards as they come closer to working with dual
>> head.
>
> Once the stability checks are done on the Athlon, I'll get to work on
> the dual-head nature of the beast (the nVidia chipset supports it).  My
> laptop's ATI chipset says it supports dual head, but I'm not sure I
> believe it...there's the external monitor port on the back, but I think
> it simply mirrors what's on the main screen when it's enabled.  Worth a
> try, I guess.
>

It should work fine on the laptop. I'm beginning to think the reason it
doesn't work on my desktop is because the second monitor I have is an Envision
and FC doesn't know anything about it, even though ddcprobe does give me the
Hsync and Vsync values.

Karl