[NBLUG/talk] Configuration problems with user interface and wireless connectivity

[Tom Most]

On May 18, 2013 9:48 AM, <cecrops at herring.sandwich.net> wrote:
>
> Requesting help with some problems I've been having in Mint.
>
>
> Problem 1: My window manager is all bolloxed up
>
> Sorry for the lack of description here, but multiple things are going
wrong in multiple window managers. Let me provide some background. Gnome
has been losing features on subsequent updates to the point that it's only
good for launching a terminal window anymore. Since I don't want to wait an
extra minute of boot time to run terminal commands, I go back to XFCE which
does not place title bars on windows, so I can not move windows around. I
have had the best luck configuring XFCE to begin with an open xterm and
running enlightenment_start from inside there. (EDIT: I got the title bars
back by adding "exec xfwm4" to my .xsession file.)
>
> I have assumed that these problems are due to ancient configuration files
that new versions of the software don't recognize, with a failure to
upgrade the configuration files in /home as apt installs new versions of
the packages. However, the Unity desktop is supposed to be completely new
and should not be affected by this type of problem, but when I run it, I
get:
>
> * No background image
> * No names beneath the desktop icons, so good luck telling text files
apart
> * No toolbars are visible on the screen
> * No toolbars appear when moving the mouse near the screen edges
> * Left-clicking anywhere does nothing
> * Middle-clicking anywhere does nothing
> * Right-clicking anywhere does nothing
> * Ctrl-Alt-Backspace did not work. I had to shut down my computer at the
power switch.

Just FYI, ctrl-alt-backspace hasn't worked for ages.  If you want it back,
look into the xorg.conf directive DontZap.

> In short, it's completely unusable.
>
> Force-reinstalling the gnome and xfce packages does not fix any of my
problems.
>
> Questions for the audience:
>
> * If I blow away everything under ~/.config and ~/.gnome2*, will the
window managers restore the default desktops automatically or will I have
prevented myself from using them again? (I recall doing this and the answer
was no on both counts.)
> * Is there anything in ~/.config that I should back up before deleting it?

I'd back it all up before blowing it away; it's tiny, after all.  It should
be reasonably easy to just look through the subdirectories there and keep
anything related to programs you've cared about, though.

While you're blowing away things, ~/.cache would be quite safe to delete.

> Note: If I destroy my X configuration, I will not be able to recover or
restore anything from the Internet (see Problem 2 below), so I will not be
able to reinstall packages.
>
> Wiping and reinstalling is not an answer. KDE is not an answer. I want to
learn how things work these days instead of running away from the problem.
>
>
> Problem 1.1: Ubuntu desktop overwrote Mint desktop
>
> I'm running Mint. As per all of the guidelines that I have seen, I point
my sources.list to both the Mint and Ubuntu repos. My Gnome desktop appears
to use Ubuntu's configuration files since it's brown and not green.
Attempting to force-reinstall the mintdesktop package gives me the error
"Reinstallation of mintdesktop is not possible, it cannot be downloaded."
This may be related to the other desktop problems that I am seeing.
>
> * How do I see the pretty green desktop again? Please don't tell me to
try SuSE. I'll make that joke for you.
> * How do I prioritize my sources.list so the downstream vendor's packages
take priority over those of the upstream vendor? The file currently lists
downstream sources before upstream sources.

As far as I know, the package source doesn't matter at all when apt
resolves dependencies to decide what to install.  I'm not familiar with
Mint specifically, but if their repos are designed to be used as an overlay
on the Ubuntu ones then they are obligated to make sure that the version
numbers of packages with the same names are higher so that they take
precedence.  Presumably they know this---were I them, I'd simply use
different package names.

Given what you describe, my guess is that you have mixed the wrong repos.
Can you confirm that you don't have Ubuntu repos from a version of Ubuntu
more recent than the one Mint is based on?  Also that you aren't using the
repos for the Debian version of Mint.

> Problem 2: Wireless configuration requires X and DHCP
>
> I want my wireless network to be available and configured with a static
IP when the system boots. I used to connect to the network with a custom
iwconfig script in init.d because that was the only way to connect to
wireless at the time. Now my wireless will only connect if I am in X, and I
cannot find any combination of iwconfig settings that will connect me to my
wireless network outside of X. This leaves me unable to connect to the
internet when X stops working after apt-get upgrade, which happens more
often than it should but that's a different problem.
>
> More annoyingly, my wireless will only connect if the DHCP client
dhclient is running; it will die if dhclient is killed; and it will only
connect through DHCP. I had been working off a static IP in my previous
installations of Linux. dhclient cannot be permanently killed because
network-manager restarts it, and network-manager cannot be permanently
killed because upstart restarts it. It's like being infected with the old
Friar Tuck and Robin Hood viruses except one of them got into init.
>
> I have tried running wpa_supplicant at the cli with various parameters,
but it does not seem to be enough or I am giving it the wrong parameters.
>
> network-manager seems to run at the CLI but it does not help me connect
to the wireless network. iwlist scan runs correctly and sees the network.
>
> All of the documents that I have found on configuring wireless networks
in Ubuntu assume that all configurations are done through the Gnome user
interface, as if configuration files do not exist, as if the UI tools do
not save their configurations anywhere. I have found a few config files on
the disk but one is encrypted and none of the others have any settings that
I am not already feeding into iwconfig.
>
> * What do I need to do to get a wireless network up from the recovery
console?
> * Where can I find which component is doing the network configuration in
X and what it does? Could it be Gnome, network-manager, or a new
OpenDesktop component that I've never heard of?

It is NetworkManager, which is controlled via dbus.  The X configuration
GUI is integrated into GNOME shell and Unity, I believe.  In other wms/DEs
you can run nm-applet to get a systray icon (the same one from GNOME 2).
This is what I do in wmii.

> * I intend to have no dynamic IPs on this box. How do I turn off dhclient
in such a way that I can turn it back on in the future if I ever want it?
Deleting the binary is just a hack, and apt would reinstall it anyway.

Add the appropriate interface to /etc/network/interfaces.  See `man
interfaces`.  I've never done wireless config from there, but I believe it
is possible.  At the very least this will convince NetworkManager to leave
it alone.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nblug.org/pipermail/talk/attachments/20130518/ddf552cb/attachment-0001.html>