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...
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Ahau
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Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#121 by Ahau » 02 Feb 2012, 06:32

I just realized that the first patch I submitted caused a problem in 32-bit, which would break flashplayer and wvdial (back end for GPPP). Revised patch uploaded: http://porteus-xfce.googlecode.com/file ... atch-2.xzm

This can replace the first patch (meaning you can toss the old one) or it will overwrite it (named zzz for good measure!).

Thanks!
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Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#122 by justwantin » 08 Feb 2012, 19:58

G'day, been very busy and haven't had time to catch up until last night. I did a new install using up to date xfce modules and stable Porteus 1.1 on my netbook after test driving on usb stick and removing old setup from hdd.

My thanks once again to Ahau for all the good effort. Several things I have noted:

1) Slim is set up with numlock 0, this will be problematic on laptops/netbooks without a numlock switch if there are such creatures and it would not be possible to type in names and passwords.

2) I have not been able to set up printing yet. Perhaps it is different in 4.8 but in 4.6.2 (Salix) there are three printing applications: xfprint-settings (listed in Xfce Settings manager and used to nominatet None, Cups, or BSD-LPR systems), xfprint4 (select a file to print) and xfprint4-manager (which doesn't seem to do anything on my Salix install but which may be there for aps that don't a have there own). On Salix I had to set my print system to CUPS before being able to print, this is not possible without xfprint-settings or perhaps a manual edit somewhere (I haven't found where yet). Note that This netbook would be printing to a Cups server on another box. I should only have to create an /etc/cups/client.conf and select CUPS as the print system. My two prints are visible but with, for example, medit, when I try to print my two printers are visible but can not accessed. I'd try attaching a printer directly to this netbook, however, without access to CUPS on this machine via port 631 in a browser) I can not set up a local printer (see below).

3) For some reason I can not access http://localhost:631 (404 error) so it is not possible to do any configuration of CUPs server. Is there a work around?

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Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#123 by Rava » 08 Feb 2012, 21:25

Ahau, can other join that group as well? And be able to upload their modules there?


And is the "zzz-xfce-b4-patch-2.xzm" for both xfce-4.8+deps-x86_64-b4.xzm AND xfce-4.8+deps-i486-b4.xzm ??
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Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#124 by Ahau » 09 Feb 2012, 02:36

@justwantin -- thanks for testing!

1) I've set numlock to "on" in slim.conf. My laptop doesn't have a 9-key numberpad, so I've missed this. I'll look into it, thank you!

2) I'm afraid I have very little experience printing from linux. Are you able to print from KDE or LXDE? Also, xfprint4 is depricated. The developers feel that gtk will handle printing out of the box, so they've stopped working on it. Try my solution to #3 and let me know if that helps.

3) Go to: http://localhost:631/admin instead, or click menu ->system->manage printing (will take you to the same address).

@Rava, I think users can be added, and I'll look into it and PM you with any details. Also, yes, that patch is for both architectures (only one arch-specific library is in there, and I've included 32 and 64-bit both, to keep it simple).
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Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#125 by justwantin » 10 Feb 2012, 11:18

1) With Porteus-Xfce, at first logout, when I tried to log in as root or guest with slim the entered user name was a combo of letters and numbers. I new what the problem was as I had this problem the first time I installed Salix on this netbook. I had without thinking tic'd enable numlocks during post install and had the same problem trying to log in. At least on this Acer Aspire One 751h, numlock enabling screws things up. How many other machines/models, I don't know

2) OK network printing can be set up to work either in always fresh or on my hdd install,
a) a network connection has to be established (I'm wireless so its a wicd set up),
b) an /etc/cups/client.conf must be created with a line nominating the server, e.g. ServerName 192.168.1.2
c) an entry must be made for the server in /etc/hosts, e.g. 192.168.1.2 james.smith.home james, that is if james is the hostname and the lan is smith.home

Once the above is done and /etc/rc.d/rc.cups restart is run, printers on server are recognised and can be accessed in Xfce, LXDE or KDE. Perhaps this is not relevant to this thread but maybe I should document this in greater detail; maybe even provide cupsd.conf settings (server). If cupsd.conf is not right clients may see printers but can't do anything with them.

3) Access to http://localhost:631/admin is not really needed to set up for accessing shared printers on a server but would be needed if printers were to be configured on a stand alone machine. Rain coming this weekend so maybe I'll have time to see if there are any hitches in setting up a printer on a stand alone machine.

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Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#126 by Hamza » 10 Feb 2012, 14:38

c) an entry must be made for the server in /etc/hosts, e.g. 192.168.1.2 james.smith.home james, that is if james is the hostname and the lan is smith.home
This should take effect after restarted the system or restarted the nscd script. Or you can wait some minutes (depends on TTL of DNS Record).
You can avoid the group's name in the hostname. Because the DNS Client will resolve it as TLD and not work group's name. But in some systems, adding an unknown TLD may speed up the effect of the "dns hack". Because nscd will resolve the domain name by searching in hosts file first after he will ask your provider's DNS (if they're set as default DNS Servers).
b) an /etc/cups/client.conf must be created with a line nominating the server, e.g. ServerName 192.168.1.2
This is not very necessary to do this. A system ay have some troubles by using domain name instead IP Address. The only "domain name" who is out of problem is localhost, yeah :)
3) Access to http://localhost:631/admin is not really needed to set up for accessing shared printers on a server but would be needed if printers were to be configured on a stand alone machine.
I see no point to gain an access to printer server daemon by using this way. It's not a network printer so, it should be done via terminal or GUI.

@Justwantin, According your message you are trying to set up a network printer instead of local printer -- Why ?
NjVFQzY2Rg==

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Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#127 by Ahau » 10 Feb 2012, 15:28

Thanks, justwantin!

I've changed the setting for numlock to "off" in slim.conf -- I don't think I understood your problem before, hopefully this will resolve it without causing problems for others. This will come in the next update to XFCE.

I'm glad you got your printers working, and I very much appreciate the explanations given. If you do have a chance to set up a local printer, or to provide additional details I'd love your feedback on those as well. I've buried my head in XFCE for too long and need to migrate all of our printing howto's from the forum to the main website and fill in any additional information I can find, so anything and everything will be appreciated.

The only printer I have access to is a wifi printer (which is not run off a print server, just a standalone unit with wifi) that shows up under the "network" button in Thunar, but I can't find it through CUPS. I'll need to do some more research to sort this out and test it (haven't had a need to print yet, but want to do this to gain a better understanding for our documentation).

@Hamza, if I understand correctly, he set up a network printer instead of a local printer because that is what he already had up and running.
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Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#128 by Hamza » 10 Feb 2012, 16:07

So, I am lost again :)
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Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#129 by justwantin » 10 Feb 2012, 19:28

@Justwantin, According your message you are trying to set up a network printer instead of local printer -- Why ?
..... because the netbook I use Porteus on would access printers on a cups server on a linux desktop in the study just like three other computers in our home plus my daughter's boyfriend's when he's here, that includes one ibook and one imac, Desktop is Salix and it just has to be turned on, not logged into. I've scripted it so that if I'm not logged into it and no one else is on the lan it will shut itself down. Used to have a stand alone box but it takes up too much room. Maybe if I could get an extra raspberrypi I'd use that but it will be only one per customer.

Posted after 29 minutes 43 seconds:
I've changed the setting for numlock to "off" in slim.conf -- I don't think I understood your problem before, hopefully this will resolve it without causing problems for others. This will come in the next update to XFCE.
I don't know how many other machines would have this problem but this one does. For example, with numlock on, when I type root it shows up as " r66t ". There is a numlock on the keyboard, F11 is labeled as numlock. It can be turned on and off using Ctrl - F11 combo but on this model at least there is no use for it unless perhaps would work with a usb number keypad if such creatures exist.

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Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#130 by Ahau » 10 Feb 2012, 20:44

very interesting -- i wonder if they've mapped letter keys to number keys on your keyboard on purpose (since there's no 10-key present) so that someone who really needs a 10-key input can activate numlock and type numbers more quickly.

In any case -- some users may now have the inconvenience of having to turn on numlock before using their 10-key, but I prefer that over any users having difficulty logging in.
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Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#131 by francois » 11 Feb 2012, 13:54

@ all:
I type root it shows up as " r66t
On my laptop, a MSI340X, there is no independant numpad. Simply letter o corresponds to 6, i to 5, u to 4 etc. So I simply toggle between the numpad and letter funtions with Fn NumLk.

To get a network printer going on under porteus, see first post under INSTALLING A NETWORK PRINTER socket:
http://porteus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=822
Prendre son temps, profiter de celui qui passe.

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Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#132 by justwantin » 11 Feb 2012, 22:50

I simply toggle between the numpad and letter funtions with Fn NumLk
My netbook is similar but I imagine numlock on in slim might still cause initial confusion to some people who never use the numlock function on a portable machine. I for one never use it. There are perfectly good number keys in the first row below the function keys.
To get a network printer going on under porteus, see first post under INSTALLING A NETWORK PRINTER socket:
Yes thee are other ways although I thought a jetdirect connection would be via a proprietary HP jetdirect device directly to the printer, not a cups server on another machine. That being said, after selecting jetdirect one is prompted to supply a path to the printer, e.g. http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:631/printers/[printer name] with http:// being the socket and [printer name] being the print queue for the named printer. This uses ipp (internet printing protocol) and is how I used to set up xp to print to a cups server (rather than using samba). The driver has to be nominated and supplied on the client side as well as printer settings. I prefer the way I described above. If cups is running locally, once the client is told where to look for print shares in /etc/cups/client.conf and the server is listed in /etc/hosts, nothing else is required on the client side. I suppose its a matter of personal choice.

Posted after 3 hours 27 minutes 21 second:
Linuxquestions anual poll puts Xfce in second place behind KDE as desktop environment of the year with 27.59% 0f the votes, Albeit there were only 627 people who participated in the DE poll.

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Re: XFCE - collaboration thread to produce a Porteus module

Post#133 by Ahau » 21 Feb 2012, 03:03

I'm closing down this thread, as XFCE has been added as an official desktop for Porteus :Yahoo!: :Yahoo!:

You can now post any XFCE issues you're having in the relevant XFCE v1.2 RC1 thread in the development forum.

Many thanks to all who have contributed to help pull this together!
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

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