When I right click the trash icon, the empty trash bin menu item is
grayed out. This problem arose only recently. I am able to delete
items in the trash, just not in the normal way. No items in the bin
were or are owned by root–just myself. Same for Trash folder itself.
11.1 and KDE 3.5
Bob Carlson
Hi there. I know exactly what you mean - I’ve had this small issue some months ago (seems to happen due to “messed up” file permissions)
Please try to delete all files in there with the following command:
su -
rm -r [place your trash here]
exit
> --------------------
>
> su -
> rm -r [place your trash here]
> exit
>
> --------------------
C A U T I O N
depending on where you are when you issue that command, and exactly
what you put in in place of that “[place your trash here]” you will
either:
but, in NO case will you have solved the PROBLEM…instead, you will
have only tried to treat the symptom of the problem (and, if you
successfully empty the trash ONLY, the problem will remain and you
will forever have the empty menu item grayed out…)
sorry, off hand i do not know how to solve the PROBLEM…but, i do
know i would NOT recommend you “try” that magic at the command line
(unless you have a current, usable, complete backup of ALL partitions
in all drives in all machines on any network that you have the root
password to…
oh…check and make sure you have both read and write permission to
the trash…and, the forum’s advanced search function will probably
find a safer means to this end…
–
brassy
Thanks for the cautionary note Brassy. I did not see how rm -r would do
anything that a graphical mode delete of the files had done, so I wasn’t
about to try it. In Chris Brown’s book on SUSE Linux there is a
little note about a system administrator of Sun workstations at
Sheffield University who blew away a whole file system by accidentally
leaving a space after a slash in his rm -rf command.
Bob Carlson
brassy wrote:
>> --------------------
>>
>> su -
>> rm -r [place your trash here]
>> exit
>>
>> --------------------
>
> C A U T I O N
>
> depending on where you are when you issue that command, and exactly
> what you put in in place of that “[place your trash here]” you will
> either:
>
> 1. empty the contents of your trash
> 2. empty the trash and throw away the trash can also
> 3. delete your entire home directory
> 4. delete everything inside the particular partition you happen to be
> in when you entered the magic
>
> but, in NO case will you have solved the PROBLEM…instead, you will
> have only tried to treat the symptom of the problem (and, if you
> successfully empty the trash ONLY, the problem will remain and you
> will forever have the empty menu item grayed out…)
>
> sorry, off hand i do not know how to solve the PROBLEM…but, i do
> know i would NOT recommend you “try” that magic at the command line
> (unless you have a current, usable, complete backup of ALL partitions
> in all drives in all machines on any network that you have the root
> password to…
>
> oh…check and make sure you have both read and write permission to
> the trash…and, the forum’s advanced search function will probably
> find a safer means to this end…
>
Robert Carlson wrote:
> so I wasn’t about to try it
good! one of the great things about this community is the willingness
of users to help each other…but, one of the bad things is that
sometimes user’s help offered, while it may be perfect if given to a
seasoned *nix expert, might not be fully understood by questioners
from all experience levels…
next, to your problem…have you made any progress…if not i’d
highly recommend using the forums advanced search function
<http://forums.opensuse.org/search.php> to find the solution…i am
SURE i’ve seen it here in the last year…
an alternative, and some think better search can be had from google
using the site specifier, like:
site:opensuse.org “can’t empty trash”
or
site:forums.opensuse.org can’t empty trash
just be careful, some ‘help’ is not.
–
brassy
brassy wrote:
> Robert Carlson wrote:
>> so I wasn’t about to try it
>
> good! one of the great things about this community is the willingness
> of users to help each other…but, one of the bad things is that
> sometimes user’s help offered, while it may be perfect if given to a
> seasoned *nix expert, might not be fully understood by questioners
> from all experience levels…
>
> next, to your problem…have you made any progress…if not i’d
> highly recommend using the forums advanced search function
> <http://forums.opensuse.org/search.php> to find the solution…i am
> SURE i’ve seen it here in the last year…
>
> an alternative, and some think better search can be had from google
> using the site specifier, like:
>
> site:opensuse.org “can’t empty trash”
> or
> site:forums.opensuse.org can’t empty trash
>
> just be careful, some ‘help’ is not.
My hunch is that it is a KDE 3.5 issue that will never be fixed. I will
get rid of it when I move to 11.2.
Bob Carlson
> My hunch is that it is a KDE 3.5 issue that will never be fixed. I will
> get rid of it when I move to 11.2.
Bob, i disagree…because i’m using KDE3.5 (and many others are) and
have no such problem…so, my hunch it is something to do with YOUR
setup…which CAN be fixed…
try this: add a user via YaST > Security and Users > User Management > Add
maybe a Guest (or whoever…maybe Tester)…then log out as yourself
and back in as Guest (or Tester)…
throw something into the Guest’s trash (download something small…or
open Kate or KWrite or whatever and make a one line file)…then see
if you can’t empty the trash…i’m gonna bet you a donut that there
will be no problem…
why? because in your first post you said: “This problem arose only
recently.” which almost always means one of two things:
and, since no one else has (yet) come here with your complaint, it is
probably NOT 1 above…
anyway, if it IS a problem with 3.5 it will NOT be fixed in 11.2
because there will be NO KDE3 with 11.2, only KDE4…
HINT to any reading: i routinely (when installing a new system) add a
Guest and do my very best to NEVER make any changes to the Guest’s
desktop, etc etc etc…i try to not even go there until and unless i
have a problem in my desktop…that way i can always know (or assume)
that if (say after an update) my desktop is broken and Guest’s is not
that most likely i messed up my desktop, somehow…
i then get busy trying to remember what i did immediately before “This
problem arose only recently.”
–
brassy
brassy wrote:
>> My hunch is that it is a KDE 3.5 issue that will never be fixed. I will
>> get rid of it when I move to 11.2.
>
> Bob, i disagree…because i’m using KDE3.5 (and many others are) and
> have no such problem…so, my hunch it is something to do with YOUR
> setup…which CAN be fixed…
>
> try this: add a user via YaST > Security and Users > User Management > Add
>
> maybe a Guest (or whoever…maybe Tester)…then log out as yourself
> and back in as Guest (or Tester)…
Didn’t need to do that. What appears to have caused the issue is that
all the files in the trash were ones deleted in Picasa. I am taking
pics of insects in my yard, and only a few of them are worth keeping, so
most get deleted. The pictures get loaded onto my disk via DigiKam, but
I do the cropping and deleting in Picasa. Nothing else had been in my
trash for weeks. So I just deleted an Open Office doc to see what would
happen, and bingo, the Empty Trash menu item was no longer grayed out.
Given that Picasa runs under WINE, it may be a WINE issue.
Bob
wow…interesting…
have you tried GIMP? if not you probably should…
and, ever need to (say) change an entire directory of pics to be (say)
half their current height/width?
try this:
mogrify -scale 50% /[path]/*.jpg
sweet!!
–
brassy
brassy wrote:
> wow…interesting…
> have you tried GIMP? if not you probably should…
Sure. If you right click an image in Picasa and choose Open File, it
opens in GIMP. I use GIMP to make changes other than simple cropping or
sharpening. For example, I had a pair of pictures of a gasteruptiid
wasp with the thorax in focus in one and the gaster in focus in the
other. In the one picture, I replaced the out of focus gaster with the
in-focus one. It required some touching up to conceal evidence of the
copying, and if I enlarge the picture, I can see some signs of that, but
otherwise not. The GIMP is a good program.
> and, ever need to (say) change an entire directory of pics to be (say)
> half their current height/width?
>
> try this:
>
> mogrify -scale 50% /[path]/*.jpg
>
> sweet!!
Well, I guess it would be if one needs to do that.
> Sure.
ok…it just that what you wrote confused me a little…i thought
maybe you thought you HAD to use WINE and one of those other system
programs…and, was missing the Goodness that is GIMP!
–
brassy