XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Here is a place for your projects which are not officially supported by the Porteus Team. For example: your own kernel patched with extra features; desktops not included in the standard ISO like Gnome; base modules that are different than the standard ISO, etc...
User avatar
Ahau
King of Docs
King of Docs
Posts: 1331
Joined: 28 Dec 2010, 15:18
Distribution: LXDE & Xfce 32/64-bit
Location: USA

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#16 by Ahau » 13 Nov 2011, 20:43

Thanks, francois!

It seems I have tracked down the automounting of removable drives issue -- the version of gvfs included in standard porteus is compiled without support for gnome-disk-utility. So, when I replace gvfs in my build, then automounting of removeable drives works. However, the network:/// issue then starts up, and I'm not able to see internal drives in either case. I'll go through the threads you posted in more detail tomorrow, and I'll take a look at the devmon script as well.

@justwantin, thanks for testing!
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

User avatar
justwantin
Black ninja
Black ninja
Posts: 51
Joined: 09 Oct 2011, 19:10
Location: Melbourne, Oz

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#17 by justwantin » 14 Nov 2011, 02:46

Probablt not the solution you wanted but I have auto mounting to work in 4.8.

I uninstalled porteus gvfs, then installed gvfs from salix iso. USB stick was then recognised when inserted but I could not mount it with right click on icon.

I then installed gnome-mount from the iso and it works just fine.

One thing bugging me though is no line formatting in mc when in xfce, just symbols, but mc displays correctly in text mode. This is the same both 4.6 and 4.8

Posted after 5 hours 8 minutes 2 seconds:
The plot thickens. In 4.8 I now am able to recognise and mount two different usb sticks. However, when I insert 2 different usb hdd's they are recognised but cannot be mounted. Filesystem folders for usb sticks are ceated in /media but not for the two usb hdd's. It would have been too easy

User avatar
francois
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 6434
Joined: 28 Dec 2010, 14:25
Distribution: xfce plank porteus nemesis
Location: Le printemps, le printemps, le printemps... ... l'hiver s'essoufle.

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#18 by francois » 14 Nov 2011, 03:14

devmon is a small script that will automount any disk that you will plug. Its really easy to install and to use.
Prendre son temps, profiter de celui qui passe.

User avatar
Ahau
King of Docs
King of Docs
Posts: 1331
Joined: 28 Dec 2010, 15:18
Distribution: LXDE & Xfce 32/64-bit
Location: USA

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#19 by Ahau » 14 Nov 2011, 17:06

@francois, I've not had a chance to install devmon yet, but will try to do so later today. When you mount drives with it while you are in XFCE, does it add those drives to the left pane in Thunar? That is really the issue I am trying to resolve, because I know it should be working and is not.

@justwantin, when you use gnome-mount, does it add existing local drives to the left pane in Thunar? I've resolved automounting of USB drives by adding Robby Workman's gvfs package to my build, but have not tested it with external hard drives (I don't have any). I'll upload a module tonight that will include gvfs. I'd appreciate you testing that setup with your USB and external hard drives when you have a chance (after I have a chance to merge the module and upload it, I'll update my links in the original post).

I've also changed the XFCE startup process a little bit, thanks to a closer examination of crashman's 'Porteus-XF' project : http://porteus.org./forum/viewtopic.php ... a78441d291
Many thanks to crashman -- I admit that I forgot he released it, and I never tested it! I must have been otherwise occupied last summer (blame it on my yet to be published foray into testing filesystems). By routing the startup procedure ultimately through /usr/bin/startxfce4 instead of directly to /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.xfce4 (DUH!), I've resolved both the mc bug (which also affected me in mcedit, and I never posted it as a 'known issue') and the 'root reauthentication' bug, which required typing 'su' into the console before gaining access to commands in /usr/sbin. This fix will also show up in tonight's release. If I remember, I'll even disable the use of the F10 key in the terminal, so that F10 will properly close out mc and mcedit.

In my continuing search to fix thunar's volume manager, I read that it requires dbus-launch to be started after ck-launch-session. Porteus has dbus first by default (per rc.M), so I thought I was on to something. However, reversing their order didn't resolve my issues with the volume manager, and it led to new issues (missing hostname in the terminal and the power manager icon dissappeared, I'm sure it screwed up even more than that). I've gone back to dbus first for now :D

If anyone's familiar with dbus, consolekit, etc., and has some advice to offer, I'd appreciate it :) Here are some logs:
(these were taken with the default rc.M, and Robby Workman's build of gvfs and gnome-disk-utility. I have an encrypted hard drive (sda) and a flash drive (sdb) at boot-up. the flash drive partitions (1 and 2) should show up in thunar-volman, but don't; after a few seconds of logging, I inserted another usb drive (sdc), which was properly automounted. I right clicked and ejected it, then pulled it from the machine).

dbus-monitor output: http://pastebin.com/Vw4kaEwa
/var/log/slim.log: http://pastebin.com/1c0C5eC0
/var/log/messages (just the bit at the end, after nouveau started up) : http://pastebin.com/Z2v6WU5p
/var/log/syslog: http://pastebin.com/b1WcB17W

Thanks!
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

User avatar
justwantin
Black ninja
Black ninja
Posts: 51
Joined: 09 Oct 2011, 19:10
Location: Melbourne, Oz

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#20 by justwantin » 14 Nov 2011, 19:09

when you use gnome-mount, does it add existing local drives to the left pane in Thunar?
Yes both usb stick and external drives show up in the side pane. Icon also shows on desktop for each device.

I could click side pane or icon and open usb stick but not the usb drives. I had a play and it seemed to be that the external drives were not being recognised properly. I fiddled around a bit with no gain. This morning I fired up the machine and could access both with no problem. Sorry I do not know what I did to correct the problem.

Note that I installed salix's gvfs and gnome-mount. I did not install nor do I have gnome-disk-utility on board.

I'll look for your new module.

User avatar
Ahau
King of Docs
King of Docs
Posts: 1331
Joined: 28 Dec 2010, 15:18
Distribution: LXDE & Xfce 32/64-bit
Location: USA

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#21 by Ahau » 14 Nov 2011, 20:13

thanks, justwantin :)

gnome-disk-utility is included in the 4.8 module that you have installed. My question about icons showing up in the left pane was specific to drives that are not automounted -- i.e., those that are in place during boot up. This would include internal hard drives and the usb drive from which you are booting Porteus. I can get external drives automounted with my setup, but I'm still not getting my hard drive or porteus usb drive to show up there.
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

User avatar
justwantin
Black ninja
Black ninja
Posts: 51
Joined: 09 Oct 2011, 19:10
Location: Melbourne, Oz

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#22 by justwantin » 14 Nov 2011, 22:24

OK here's a snap, not so good but in any case bottom two icons on desktop are My_Desktop (external drive) and SALIXINST (usb stick).

Side pane also shows two usb mounts and below is the file system.
http://www.turtlespond.net/rick/ahau/ahau.html

User avatar
francois
Contributor
Contributor
Posts: 6434
Joined: 28 Dec 2010, 14:25
Distribution: xfce plank porteus nemesis
Location: Le printemps, le printemps, le printemps... ... l'hiver s'essoufle.

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#23 by francois » 15 Nov 2011, 01:15

@ahau:
No they will not show in the left panel. But will appear with it specific hdd number in the right side.
Prendre son temps, profiter de celui qui passe.

User avatar
Ahau
King of Docs
King of Docs
Posts: 1331
Joined: 28 Dec 2010, 15:18
Distribution: LXDE & Xfce 32/64-bit
Location: USA

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#24 by Ahau » 15 Nov 2011, 01:23

thanks, justwantin!

I've uploaded a new 4.8 module, see the first post in this thread.

I used gvfs from salix, but not gnome-mount. I believe gnome-mount has been replaced by gnome-disk-utility, as automounting seems to work for me when I use one or the other, but not when neither are installed. Please check to see how this handles automounting USB flash and eternal hard drives; try it with gnome-mount instead of gnome-disk-utility if it doesn't work properly, and let me know what works better (they work the same for me, so I went with the newer package).

I'm still not happy with how drives are displayed. The flashdrive that holds Porteus is not shown as a shortcut, I have not navigate to /mnt/sdb2/ each time (or create a shortcut). Since everything else seems to be working, I don't know if this is default behavior, a bug with my build, or an incompatibility with how Porteus mounts drives. However, I feel the need to move on, and revisit this problem only if users complain (perhaps I could create a script that would create bookmarks for all entries in /etc/fstab?). It will probably sort itself out once 4.8 gets accepted into slackware-current or salix.

Moving forward, I'll be looking to add service menus to thunar (xzm conversion tools, etc. -- I'll be drawing on crashman's Porteus-xf project again), trying to fix some icons that appear to be missing still, and looking for what folks would like to have added as far as panel plugins and other apps. So, everyone, feel free to make suggestions!
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

User avatar
justwantin
Black ninja
Black ninja
Posts: 51
Joined: 09 Oct 2011, 19:10
Location: Melbourne, Oz

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#25 by justwantin » 15 Nov 2011, 11:11

Booted my existing porteus and used removepkg to remove salix gvfs and gnome-mount.

Shutdown and replaced xfce module with the new xfce-4.8 (a4) module and rebooted.

No automounting, no gvfs installed so installed salix gvfs and rebooted. Usb stick and external drive icons on desktop and in thunar side pane but can not mount/open. Error message reads: 'Failed to execute child process "gome-mount" (no such file or directory)'. I also note that There are no folders in /media for the two usb devices. Normally (in salix) they should be there whether or not they are mounted.

There is now a problem with thunar opening very slowly and hanging when trying to change view > side pane setting.

Installed gnome-mount from salix-iso and then plugged in external drive. It was immediately recognised and automatically mounted with a popup window to tell me so and thunar opening in the drive.

The same thing happened when I plugged in a usb stick. This behaviour can be changed in xfce settings for removable drives and media so they are not automounted and thunar does not pop up.

Thunar is now acting normal and both devices have been listed in media.

Removed both devices and they are removed from thunar, desktop and /media.

Uninstalled gnome-disk-utility and everything is still working the same.

On this machine everything works as with my salix xfce install using gnome-mount only but not with gnome-disk-utility only.

One thing that might be different between you and me is that I started out with v-1.1-rc-1, are you using v-1.0?

Other things: in general, thanks for the effort! this module seems to be working the best yet

Glad to see root now has /sbin path and that mc is working correctly. I'm not thrilled about having my panel stuck on the bottom and there does not seem to be a config option to put it anywhere else

Are you sure your flashdrive should be showing up and/or automounted? It seems to me that whenever I booted porteus-v1.0 or v-1.1-rc-1 with a usb stick it was listed in mnt as /mnt/sdb1 (or whatever) and I had to run mount cli. I don't remember it ever being put on the desktop as an icon.

User avatar
Ahau
King of Docs
King of Docs
Posts: 1331
Joined: 28 Dec 2010, 15:18
Distribution: LXDE & Xfce 32/64-bit
Location: USA

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#26 by Ahau » 15 Nov 2011, 15:33

great, thanks, justwantin!

Are you perhaps running with saved changes? If you removed gvfs with saved changes, then switched modules, I believe your saved changes would still mark those files as deleted. Please try just the module I uploaded last (4.8 from 11/14) in 'always fresh' mode (to do this, press tab at the bootloader menu and erase the 'changes=/*' cheatcode). If you're already booting always fresh, then something must be off on my end. This should get automounting to work with the salix gvfs and gnome-disk-utility as included in the module, and it should also fix thunar's opening slow bug.

I started with V1.1 RC1 as well, but I think I am running a slightly earlier version than you (it had a silent update a few days after it was released). I think saved changes (if you're using them) might be the explanation for the difference in behaviours.

Sorry about the panel location -- I couldn't stand having it at the top. To change this, right click on the panel, select panel settings, and uncheck 'lock panel'. You can then click and drag the panel to the top of the screen, using one of the handles that shows up along the sides. By default, XFCE 4.8 came with a second panel at the bottom, with just application launchers. I removed that in lieu of the simpler single panel, but if you'd like, I can help you bring that back and customize it as well. There might even be a 'restore defaults' option somewhere (or, you could boot into text mode, remove /home/guest/.config, run xwmconfig, select xfce, then run startx, to see what the defaults look like --but I wouldn't recommend doing this if you're using saved changes ;))

You're right, I'm not sure what the expected behavior is for my porteus flash drive. I would like to have a shortcut for it in thunar. One is created for it in 4.6, but not 4.8, however, it is very easy to create shortcuts in thunar by dragging and dropping.

Thanks again for your help in testing!
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

User avatar
justwantin
Black ninja
Black ninja
Posts: 51
Joined: 09 Oct 2011, 19:10
Location: Melbourne, Oz

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#27 by justwantin » 15 Nov 2011, 15:42

Are you perhaps running with saved changes?
Probably am since I have it all sitting in a partition formatted with xfs and booting using a modified lilio stanza taken out of the porteus lilo.conf and I have been installing/uninstalling in this system using installpkg and removepkg, not with modules.

I booted off a usb stick into always fresh. No gnome-mount present, just gvfs and gnome-disk-utility. The behaviour is the same as in my post above, external drive and usb stick show as icons on the desktop and in sidepane of thunar, thunar hangs when I try to open it, I get the same error message as above when I try to mount something.

One new thing last night I forgot to mention was the shared network option was showing in the thunar side bar but this morning in this always fresh boot it is not showing.

The porteus boot usb stick had an entry in /mnt but not the second (salix install) usb stick I had inserted as a test. I made a directory for it in /mnt, mounted it manually and installed gnome-mount. As soon as I ran umount to unmount the stick an icon appeared on the desktop and it was mounted. When I opened thunar (without a hang) it was in the side bar and network icon was also present. When I disconnected my mouse and plugged in an external drive everything worked the same as last night including thunar opening up in the drive and a message window popping up to say the drive has been mounted.

Booted into my desktop always fresh using porteus boot usb. Upon opening Porteus (my boot usb) list listed in the side bar and it is mountable. I'll have to check this again on the netbook, maybe I missed it. However there is no network thingo in the sidebar. Installed gnome-mount but no difference.

Salix install usb is recognised but not mounted when inserted. Thunar is working ok. I can mount the stick ok. Unmounted and removed stick. Inserted usb drive, desktop icon and it shows in thunar. However, there is no network thingo showing in thunar this time, no automatic mount and no popup to say that the device is mounted.

Time to go back to the netbook for one more go.

Booted netbook always fresh again and my session was that same as my first one described above, automatic mount, popup advising mount, thunar opened automatically to mount and a network thing in sidebar. There was not Porteus (boot usb) listed in side bar.

So I've tested on both a desktop and netbook and have two slightly different results. Gnome-mount is needed for everything to work on the netbook and I can not mount external devices without it. Gnome-mount is not needed to mount external devices on the desktop but all xfce features available when mounting on netbook are not available on desktop even after gnome-mount is installed.

Could the be a difference in hardware or bios? dunno. we really need some tests on other machines.
######################################

At lunchtime I tried to duplicate performance I detailed above and regrettably I could not on either my desktop or netbook usb stick would mount but not expansions drives and thunar was playing up again. I can't spemnd any more time on it right now

User avatar
Ahau
King of Docs
King of Docs
Posts: 1331
Joined: 28 Dec 2010, 15:18
Distribution: LXDE & Xfce 32/64-bit
Location: USA

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#28 by Ahau » 16 Nov 2011, 15:29

thank you so much, justwantin! Don't worry about spending more time on it at this point. We should not be expecting it to work perfectly when we're using a dependency chain built by four different developers on two or three different distros (some existing deps in porteus, like dbus, are standard slackware packages; udisks/libatasmart/sg3utils were compiled by ponce; gvfs/gnome-mount by salix; gnome-keyring, thunar, etc by robby workman), with mixed versions (some are from 13.37, some from GIT). I really ought to be removing everything from porteus except for 000-kernel, 001-core, and 002-xorg and building everything from source. Some day when i have 8 or 10 hours to dedicate to it, I will attempt to do just that. Until then, I'll package this with gvfs+gnome-mount from salix (that seemed to be the most dependable thus far, correct?) and we can work on some other things. I should have thunar right click menu customizations released tonight :D
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

User avatar
justwantin
Black ninja
Black ninja
Posts: 51
Joined: 09 Oct 2011, 19:10
Location: Melbourne, Oz

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#29 by justwantin » 16 Nov 2011, 19:18

OK I'll tlook for that.

I played around with this again last night and got mounting working again but only after installing gnome-mount on newly created usb stick using always fresh.

I have figured out that the external drive mount failures are a config problem. The only way I had it working was after changing settings using either a gnome-mount command or a gvfs-mount command I found on the net. Unfortunately I lost my /root/.bash_history and can't duplicate it. There is definitly an error though.

Code: Select all

gvfs-mount -d /dev/sdc1

(gvfs-mount:3326): GVFS-RemoteVolumeMonitor-WARNING **: invoking IsSupported() failed for remote volume monitor with dbus name org.gtk.Private.GPhoto2VolumeMonitor: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Process /usr/libexec/gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor exited with status 127
Error mounting /dev/sdc1: You are not supposed to show G_IO_ERROR_FAILED_HANDLED in the UI
The change I had to make involved setting up so the drive was recognised correctly.

System > Disk Utility recognises the external drive and mounts it in /media so this must be a problem with gvfs-fuse or some other thing that xfce relies on for correct recognition of external drives.

Long delays with thunar starting up are because thunar is looking for network (connections?). On page 12 on linuxquestions xfce-4.8 thread someone says that having samba installed would solve this problem I've also seen running thunar --daemon as a solution.

I'm at a loss not being familiar enough with porteus so I have little more to offer here and I suppose I should spend some time learning how the os works.

User avatar
Ahau
King of Docs
King of Docs
Posts: 1331
Joined: 28 Dec 2010, 15:18
Distribution: LXDE & Xfce 32/64-bit
Location: USA

Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#30 by Ahau » 18 Nov 2011, 07:00

Thanks justwantin -- I've compiled the dependency chain from source and will get that out in a module in the next day or two, using my binaries for gvfs and gnome-disk-utility.

I've resolved the dbus error on the network button (FINALLY) -- this is due to gnome-keyring-daemon failing to communicate properly with the rest of the system because of a missing GConf schema. Issuing the command:

glib-compile-schemas /usr/share/glib-2.0/schemas

fixes the problem. So, my next update hopefully will help with automounting (it works here for flash drives, hopefully it will work for all your drives/machines!).

Posted after 3 hours 48 minutes 50 seconds:
New module out for testing!

Download it from the link at the top of this thread: http://porteus.org/forum/viewtopic.php? ... 6590#p6590

Thanks!
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

Locked