I have a client for whom I had be running the non-factory backport of KDE3 as we upgraded them past … what was it, 11.0 was the last release that included it natively?
I’ve recently upgraded them to 12.1, and gone back to the OpenSUSE supplied KDE3, but while nearly everything works, I had two problems, which could be related.
We’re using Xvnc, and the current Xvnc server program, supplied by xorg-x11-Xvnc-7.6_1.10.4-36.2.1, wouldn’t work properly; IIRC (it’s been a couple months), it started, but we couldn’t reliably connect to it. So I fell back to the old old old one I’d originally set up with, and it’s working fine with that… with one small exception.
When working in the KDE desktop, it’s apparently impossible to drag and drop items, in the expected standard manner. Draggable things can be grabbed, and they will appear to drag, but nothing is a valid drop target: when he drags an item over what ought to be a drop zone, the zone does not highlight, and the cursor does not change from it’s Generic Document cursor.
Additionally, when he clicks on a URL in an email in Thunderbird, nothing at all happens.
I have an intuition perhaps this is a version incompatibility in the inter application communication stuff, driven by the out of date Xvnc? I’m going to work on trying to get the new version to run reliably, today, but if anyone has any suggestions on what else might be causing this, or even how to diagnose it well, or where else to ask, that’d be great.
It’s a bit harder than usual, since the set up is “multiple persistant Xvnc desktop services”; I have to build a whole chain for a new user, you don’t just newuser and then log in.
I guess that is my next step, though, isn’t it?
If that proves to work correctly, the diagnosis becomes “something in my user sessions is screwing something up”, then?
On 04/24/2013 05:16 PM, Baylink wrote:
>
> I’ve recently upgraded them to 12.1, and gone back to the OpenSUSE
> supplied KDE3
i don’t what you mean by “gone back to” i guess you installed KDE3
somehow…there are a very few KDE3 users in these fora (hence, not
a lot of helpers around)…suggest you consult the wiki http://en.opensuse.org/KDE3 where you find some “1 Click
Install” buttons, which is what i would have used to install…but,
doing it that way might also not work for you…
there is other stuff to read along with info on the mail list which
is probably the best help you are gonna find…
HOWEVER, be advised openSUSE 12.1 goes unsupported in 29 days (May
15, 2013) cite: http://en.opensuse.org/Lifetime. So, you
should right away move to 12.2 or 12.3 to continue the stream of
security patches…
I mean that instead of installing onto SUSE 11.2 or 3 a non-SUSE-built KDE3, I have returned to installing a KDE3 built by the OpenSUSE project, which reappeared in 12.1, confirming my opinion that KDE4 is not ready for prime time; clearly, they would not have readded it to the factory build if there were insufficient demand for it.
i guess you installed KDE3 somehow…there are a very few KDE3 users in these fora hence, not a lot of helpers around)…suggest you consult the wiki KDE3 - openSUSE Wiki where you find some “1 Click Install” buttons, which is what i would have used to install…but, doing it that way might also not work for you…
I appreciate your chiming in, but my original post was relatively clear that I’ve done this part already long since, and this is not what I’m having trouble with.
there is other stuff to read along with info on the mail list which is probably the best help you are gonna find…
Is that a KDE3 specific list?
HOWEVER, be advised openSUSE 12.1 goes unsupported in 29 days (May 15, 2013) cite: Lifetime - openSUSE. So, you should right away move to 12.2 or 12.3 to continue the stream of security patches…
personally, i’m still at 11.4 Evergreen because … well, just because i’m too lazy to fight learning all the new stuff (grub2 and systemd, for example)
[Politics]
Precisely why I’m on KDE3; my users don’t have to try to psychoanalyse the people who created Plasma; they have work to do. And in fact, you can replace systemd with sysvinit, at least for now – the day when you can’t will be the day I put them through all the hell of moving to a distribution that does support it, as I can’t really do it myself, and I, too, have real work to do. SysVInit is well beyond good enough for a business server environment, and any distribution release manager who fails to realize that is working against me.
[/politics]
How old is 12.1? 12.2 was only about 6 weeks old when I started this upgrade, or so I though; has SUSE gone onto a Firefox release schedule or something? Can I expect to be running SUSE 53 in a couple years?
On 04/25/2013 05:36 AM, Baylink wrote:
> SysVInit iswell beyond good enough for
> a business server environment, and any distribution release manager who
> fails to realize that is working against me.
WAIT! if we are talking “business server environment” you are in the
wrong forum… SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 is well
supported into the forseeable future…contact those folks on http://forums.suse.com/
learn which system you have, for sure with this in a terminal:
> 12.2 was only about 6 weeks old when I started this
> upgrade, or so I though;
WOW, you have been upgrading for 17 months?!?!
more likely you thought/guessed) wrongly??
> has SUSE gone onto a Firefox release schedule
> or something?
no, a new version of openSUSE is released each 8 months, and ages out
two versions and two months later…(12.1 dies two months after 12.3
is born…which was March 13, 2013 – that is, each version is good
for 18 months)
been like that for a couple of years! (where you been?)
but, maybe you write “SUSE” and wrongly think it is the same as
openSUSE…two products, like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora,
but here it is SUSE Linux Enterprise and openSUSE
that changed way back in 2005! cite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUSE_Linux_distributions
> Can I expect to be running SUSE 53 in a couple years?
that would probably be a foolish expectation…and, i don’t
appreciate the tone.
On 04/25/2013 09:37 AM, dd wrote:
> i don’t appreciate the tone.
let me elaborate a moment: this is a technical help forum, and i am
happy to help…along with MANY other volunteer users here
on the other hand if your goal is to ridicule this community and its
decisions on version release timing, or KDEs march into the future,
and etc then you are welcome to do that in the non-technical-help
forum where you may stand on your soapbox and shout at will http://tinyurl.com/6jkzt7u
please do not mix your opinions on decisions made by the community
into your request(s) for technical assistance.
thank you.
and, there are legitimate avenues to become involved and help the
community make decisions which are more in tune with your
taste/needs; begin that journey here: http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Project (and not here in this tech
assistance forum)
I’m going to do my best to keep myself in check here. I promise.
Yeah, I know which OS I installed. For calibration purposes, I’ve been running Linux for 20 years, UNIX for 30, and SuSE since at least 9.0, and maybe 8.x.
So I’m very familiar (ok: on re-read, maybe only relatively familiar with their plans, goals, and market segmentation, and I’ve made my own professional judgement calls about those, in conjunction with my clients, in choosing what OS to install for them.
> 12.2 was only about 6 weeks old when I started this
> upgrade, or so I though;
WOW, you have been upgrading for 17 months?!?!
No, clearly, 12.1 was quite a bit older than I thought it was. I’ll have to revisit my notes to see what was the tipping decision in going with that rather than 12.2.
more likely you thought/guessed) wrongly??
[drily]Apparently.[/drily] Happens to the best of us. I’m sure I had a good reason for 12.1 over 12.2, but I don’t know off hand what it was to cite it here. And incidentally, this is a good candidate for “I don’t like your tone”. I’ll write that off to “non-native speaker of English”, though, if that’s applicable.
> has SUSE gone onto a Firefox release schedule
> or something?
no, a new version of openSUSE is released each 8 months, and ages out
two versions and two months later…(12.1 dies two months after 12.3
is born…which was March 13, 2013 – that is, each version is good
for 18 months)
been like that for a couple of years! (where you been?)
Quite frankly, not having to update very frequently, because none of my systems are externally visible, in consequence of which the universe of security fixes that are important enough to me to justify the necessary regression testing (since you can’t back them out easily) is pretty small.
but, maybe you write “SUSE” and wrongly think it is the same as
openSUSE…two products, like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora,
but here it is SUSE Linux Enterprise and openSUSE
that changed way back in 2005! cite: SUSE Linux distributions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
As noted above, I absolutely do not think that. But thanks for the vote of confidence.
> Can I expect to be running SUSE 53 in a couple years?
that would probably be a foolish expectation…and, i don’t
appreciate the tone.
Well, I wasn’t fond of yours either. I refuse, though, to sound like a fourth-grader here, so I will not suggest re-reading the entire thread to deduce it’s genesis.
Anyroad, I have a target to shoot bullets at, at the other gent’s suggestion, and I won’t bring up release management practices anymore if you won’t. I do appreciate your followup, incidentally.
I would, though, question why you see fit to be (what sounds to me like) offended by my opinion on RCM practice Are you a release configuration manager for OpenSUSE? Cause if not, well, it’s just as much my distro as it is yours, no?
On 04/25/2013 05:26 PM, Baylink wrote:
> Are you a release
> configuration manager for OpenSUSE? Cause if not, well, it’s just as
> much my distro as it is yours, no?
no, i’m just a user, trying to help other users…like about 99.9%
of the people in these forums…
Ok, so I have now created an entirely fresh Unix user and VNC stack, launch a fresh copy of the KDE3 desktop with nothing left behind.
I launched Firefox, and tried dragging a link from inside the browser window to the desktop, which action I would expect to create a desktop shortcut to the URL.
The generic outline follows the cursor while I drag, and when I release over the desktop, the generic outline snaps back to where I dragged it from, and goes away.
The Xvnc server that I’m running says:
Xvnc version XF4VNC-4.3.0.2
The newer one, provided by the package xorg-x11-Xvnc-7.6_1.10.4-36.2.1.i586, says:
Xvnc version X.org/xf4vnc custom version
… which is a bit odd.
patriot:/home/jra # l /usr/bin/Xvn*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4181094 Jan 6 19:28 /usr/bin/Xvnc*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1979480 Jan 6 19:28 /usr/bin/Xvnc.ship*
The newer one is stripped, where the older one isn’t. (Yes, I checked that with file, I’m not merely guessing.)
Is my next step to check in with whomever packages Xvnc for SUSE, and how do I find that person/community?
On 04/25/2013 07:06 PM, Baylink wrote:
> turn out to be related to my ancient (but working) Xvnc…
could be, and i’d guess the current users, developers and maintainers
of KDE3 (not often found around here) would be those most likely to
know if that might be a problem…or not.
If I can locate them. The listed IRC channel denizens don’t even know whom they are, and the mailing list email address hasn’t responded to my subscribe in… oh, about an hour now.
Can I pry the maintainers addresses out of the RPMs?
On 04/25/2013 08:06 PM, Baylink wrote:
> the mailing list email address hasn’t responded to my
> subscribe in… oh, about an hour now.
then i guess you have a mail problem also…i sent a subscribe request
ask to subscribe:
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:33:21 +0200
From: DenverD <DenverD@xxxxxxx>
To: xxxxxxxsubscribe@opensuse.org
request by ML to confirm i asked to subscribe:
To: denverd@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:33:47 +0000
Subject: Confirm subscription to opensuse-kde3@opensuse.org
Weird. Mine went from 1:15 to 2pm, when it did finally respond; the confirm was almost instant, though.
And I’ve harnessed it so my test user uses the shipped Xvnc… which reminds me that the problem in question was that it ran fine and I could connect to it and see a desktop fine, but no input at all is acknowledged. Keypresses do nothing, and while the mouse cursor tracks, no clicks are recognized either.
Oops.
Edited: No, I’m wrong, keystrokes do make it there, but while the mouse tracks, no clicks on either button are heard.
On 04/29/2013 08:16 PM, Baylink wrote:
>
> Well, the TightVNC people got back to me on their mostly moribund
> mailing list; they apparently do not build Xvnc at all anymore.
>
> I don’t seem to be able to find out from the Xvnc RPM who builds that
> for SUSE; is there some way to find that that I’m not clear about?
that info is usually included in the documentation (which is
normally/automatically installed in /usr/share/doc on the same
machine when one installs the RPM using YaST or zypper…did you look
in there?
I have – and you will probably be unsurprised to hear it – heard nothing back on the KDE3 mailing list, nor any other traffic.
As for TightVNC, the doco in /usr/share/doc/packages/tightvnc all has Constantin Kaplinsky’s name all over it, but he’s the author, and I don’t have reason to believe he was doing the SUSE packaging himself; he indeed seems removed from the project lately, and I’m trying to get a better handle on the project provenance.
Perhaps someone else is still building Xvnc.
I’m about at the “grab the sources and build” stage…
I do appreciate your checking back in on this from time to time, though, Denver.
On 04/29/2013 10:06 PM, Baylink wrote:
>
> I have – and you will probably be unsurprised to hear it – heard
> nothing back on the KDE3 mailing list, nor any other traffic.
hmmmmm…i guess that tiny minority may have gotten even
smaller…don’t know…
>
> As for TightVNC, the doco in /usr/share/doc/packages/tightvnc all has
> Constantin Kaplinsky’s name all over it, but he’s the author, and I
> don’t have reason to believe he was doing the SUSE packaging himself; he
> indeed seems removed from the project lately, and I’m trying to get a
> better handle on the project provenance.
i go to YaST > Software Management and search on xvnc and see it is
installed on my system, then (in YaST) i click on the “Change Log”
tab where i see several email addresses listed as making changes over
the years…you might try the most recent.
however, i note that all of the addresses there are @suse.com or novell.com, so those are SUSE Linux Enterprise folks serving the
needs of their commercial clients…i would not be surprised if they
also don’t jump to the offer to ‘fix’ a system using an openSUSE
version which dies in two weeks, a desktop environment and remote
versions which have (apparently) been abandoned by their makers…
> Perhaps someone else is still building Xvnc.
i have no idea–but, the SUSE folks are on the hook to support their
product for some years yet…as your 12.1 ages out you might consider
moving to a supported SLES/D or . . .
> I’m about at the “grab the sources and build” stage…
not sure that will solve this problem, but building from source is
pretty easy anyway…
> i go to YaST > Software Management and search on xvnc and see it is
installed on my system, then (in YaST) i click on the “Change Log”
tab where i see several email addresses listed as making changes over
the years…you might try the most recent.
Oddly, I don’t have that tab in the console version of Yast; is it called something else?
I have Tech data, Package Description, Package Versions, File List and Dependencies.
What you’re talking about is what I was looking for, but I’ve never known yast to have it. Of course, that may be because I don’t run the X version of Yast much…
