I have a single gnome panel at the top of my screen that holds all the applets I need. It started taking ages to appear (tens of seconds) after logging in. I tried deleting various applets in the hope that one of them was responsible for the issue but nothing worked.
Some Googling lead me to Bug #593226 in Launchpad. I opened the Passwords & Encryption tool (in Applications > Accessories) and found that my passwords included two for Desktop Couch. I deleted both - problem solved.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
How to Delete an Invisible Panel Applet
Something went wrong with my Weather Report applet. It had disappeared from its panel but was still present as it kept displaying a warning message about its inability to connect with the weather server.
I added a second Weather Report applet, configured it and it worked properly. So, how to delete the faulty one? I couldn't right-click and remove it as it wasn't visible.
The panel's applets are represented in the file system in
and are (usefully) named applet_0, applet_1, ...
I could have opened each one's XML configuration file and examined it to locate the Weather Report applet but a quicker alternative was to run gconf-editor and examine each applet's configuration directly.
This also gave me the opportunity to compare the configurations of the working and broken Weather Report applets but other than their locations in the panel their configurations were identical.
It turned out that applet_13 was the the malfunctioning one, so I deleted it from ~/.gconf/app/panel/applets.
I added a second Weather Report applet, configured it and it worked properly. So, how to delete the faulty one? I couldn't right-click and remove it as it wasn't visible.
The panel's applets are represented in the file system in
~/.gconf/apps/panel/applets
and are (usefully) named applet_0, applet_1, ...
I could have opened each one's XML configuration file and examined it to locate the Weather Report applet but a quicker alternative was to run gconf-editor and examine each applet's configuration directly.
This also gave me the opportunity to compare the configurations of the working and broken Weather Report applets but other than their locations in the panel their configurations were identical.
It turned out that applet_13 was the the malfunctioning one, so I deleted it from ~/.gconf/app/panel/applets.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
InstallShield Wizard Fails With OpenJDK
I tried installing software packaged using InstallShield but each time I ran the installer it would fail with the message:
could not load wizard specified in /wizard.inf (104)
The problem turned out to be that after recently installing Lucid Lynx the JRE is OpenJDK, even though I had installed the Sun Java packages (sun-java6-*) I hadn't updated my Java alternatives. All that was needed was to switch to the Sun JRE, thus:
sudo update-java-alternatives -v -s java-6-sun
In fact, I subsequently removed all OpenJDK-related packages.
could not load wizard specified in /wizard.inf (104)
The problem turned out to be that after recently installing Lucid Lynx the JRE is OpenJDK, even though I had installed the Sun Java packages (sun-java6-*) I hadn't updated my Java alternatives. All that was needed was to switch to the Sun JRE, thus:
sudo update-java-alternatives -v -s java-6-sun
In fact, I subsequently removed all OpenJDK-related packages.
Thursday, August 05, 2010
External Monitor as Primary/Default Display
I recently installed Lucid Lynx on my Dell Inspiron 9400. One niggling annoyance was that the Dell's LCD screen was the primary display, whereas I wanted my external monitor (BenQ T2200D via DVI) to be the primary display.
Ultimately, the solution was simple:
Ultimately, the solution was simple:
- run the NVidia X Server Settings tool (gksudo nvidia-settings)
- in the X Server Display Configuration I made sure the Dell's display (Seiko) was disabled
- when saving to the X Configuration file, i.e. /etc/X11/xorg.conf, I chose not to merge with existing file
- restart X
Installing Lucid Lynx 10.04 on Dell Inspiron 9400
After successfully installing Lucid on a Compaq Evo 510s and a Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook T4020 I decided to get serious and upgrade my workhorse Dell Inspiron 9400 from Hardy to Lucid.
I decided to do a clean install rather than an upgrade as I've generally had better success doing so in the past, and the result is usually cleaner as I only reinstall packages that I need rather than upgrading packages that I might no longer use. The downside is that it can take considerably longer.
The installation went smoothly and I have only a couple of unresolved problems:
I decided to do a clean install rather than an upgrade as I've generally had better success doing so in the past, and the result is usually cleaner as I only reinstall packages that I need rather than upgrading packages that I might no longer use. The downside is that it can take considerably longer.
The installation went smoothly and I have only a couple of unresolved problems:
- I have an external monitor (BenQ T2200HD) connected to the Dell via DVI. Whenever X-windows (re-)starts (e.g. boot, logout) the display switches back to the Dell's LCD display, so I have to manually switch to the BenQ (Fn+F8 twice) before logging in. Switching displays after logging in results in the LCD's display resolution being applied to the Benq, which is annoying.
- If I switch users and then logout of the second user account the display goes irretrievably blank/black rather than displaying the first user's screen-saver (locked). This appears to be a known bug.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Lucid Lynx cifs support needs smbfs package
After a recent upgrade to Lucid Lynx I attempted to mount a network drive using mount -t cifs ... It failed each time with the following in dmesg:
CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -22
Ultimately, the solution was to install the smbfs package.
CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -22
Ultimately, the solution was to install the smbfs package.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
No XDMCP in Lucid Greeter
I recently upgraded a Compaq Evo 510s from Hardy to Lucid. The Evo is essentially a thin-client via XDMCP. However, after upgrading I found that the gdm greeter in Lucid no longer offers an option to remotely connect to another X-server.
This appears to be a bone of contention for many users, me included. Several options exist to work-around this problem. Ultimately, I chose to install kdm, whose greeter does include an option to use XDMCP to connect to a remote X-server.
This appears to be a bone of contention for many users, me included. Several options exist to work-around this problem. Ultimately, I chose to install kdm, whose greeter does include an option to use XDMCP to connect to a remote X-server.
X unstable running Lucid on a Compaq Evo 510s
I recently upgraded a Compaq Evo 510s from Hardy to Lucid. The first problem I encountered was instability running X-windows. The display would go black with a few white stripes.
It seems I wasn't alone - other Lucid users with Intel's integrated graphics chip were reporting similar problems. Several solutions have been proposed. I went with the simplest - switching to the VESA video driver. This solves the problem at the expense of losing hardware accelerated graphics. However, as the Evo is essentially a thin-client this wasn't a problem.
It seems I wasn't alone - other Lucid users with Intel's integrated graphics chip were reporting similar problems. Several solutions have been proposed. I went with the simplest - switching to the VESA video driver. This solves the problem at the expense of losing hardware accelerated graphics. However, as the Evo is essentially a thin-client this wasn't a problem.
Installing Lucid Lynx 10.04 on a Compaq Evo 510s
I have a policy of only installing Ubuntu's LTS releases, so with the release of Lucid Lynx it was time to migrate from Hardy. I started with an aging Compaq Evo 510s. I used the upgrade path via the update-manager.
Things went smoothly aside from a couple of warnings regarding the flashplugin-nonfree package. I dismissed these, however, at the completion of the upgrade the warning became an error and the upgrade process exited before clean-up and completion.
Upon rebooting the Evo appeared to have Lucid installed but it was very unstable (a separate issue). Fortunately, the Evo is little more than a (XDMCP) thin-client. So, I burned a Lucid ISO and performed a fresh installation. This time the installation completed successfully.
Things went smoothly aside from a couple of warnings regarding the flashplugin-nonfree package. I dismissed these, however, at the completion of the upgrade the warning became an error and the upgrade process exited before clean-up and completion.
Upon rebooting the Evo appeared to have Lucid installed but it was very unstable (a separate issue). Fortunately, the Evo is little more than a (XDMCP) thin-client. So, I burned a Lucid ISO and performed a fresh installation. This time the installation completed successfully.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Java Plug-In Next Generation with Firefox 3.0
I wanted to use Sun's Java Plug-In "Next Generation" (NG) with Firefox 3.0. However, at the time of writing the latest packages available in Ubuntu's repositories are sun-java6-*, which correspond to Java 6.0 update 7. This contains the "classic" plug-in; the NG plug-in was introduced in Java 6.0 update 10.
So, I downloaded the latest Sun JDK - v6.0 update 12 - and installed it in /opt/java. Then I performed the following steps:
The perl-script used in step 3. above. Copy-and-paste into /tmp/java6u12sun.pl then:
-----
So, I downloaded the latest Sun JDK - v6.0 update 12 - and installed it in /opt/java. Then I performed the following steps:
- Create a symbolic link from /usr/lib/jvm to the installed JDK
cd /usr/lib/jvm sudo ln -s /opt/java/jdk1.6.0_12 java-6u12-sun
- Created /usr/lib/jvm/.java-6u12-sun.jinfo. I simply copied .java-6-sun and editted (see below).
Note, that in order to use the NG rather than "classic" plug-in, I specified /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so for the *-javaplugin.so alternatives. I also needed to add an entry for firefox-3.0-javaplugin.so, which is missing from .java-6-sun.jinfo.
- Installed alternatives for /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun. For each line of .java-6u12-sun.jinfo I ran update-alternatives --install, e.g.
sudo update-alternatives --install \ /usr/bin/firefox-3.0-javaplugin.so \ firefox-3.0-javaplugin.so \ /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so \ 64
Doing this manually is a bit tedious, so I created a Perl script to do - see below.
- Selected the java-6u12-sun jav alternative, i.e.
sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-6u12-sun
name=java-6-sun-1.6.0.12 alias=java-6u12-sun priority=64 section=non-free jre ControlPanel /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/ControlPanel jre java /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/java jre java_vm /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/java_vm jre javaws /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/javaws jre jcontrol /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/jcontrol jre keytool /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/keytool jre pack200 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/pack200 jre policytool /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/policytool jre rmid /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/rmid jre rmiregistry /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/rmiregistry jre unpack200 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/unpack200 jre orbd /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/orbd jre servertool /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/servertool jre tnameserv /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/bin/tnameserv jre jexec /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/lib/jexec jdk HtmlConverter /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/HtmlConverter jdk appletviewer /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/appletviewer jdk apt /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/apt jdk extcheck /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/extcheck jdk idlj /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/idlj jdk jar /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jar jdk jarsigner /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jarsigner jdk java-rmi.cgi /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/java-rmi.cgi jdk javac /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/javac jdk javadoc /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/javadoc jdk javah /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/javah jdk javap /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/javap jdk jconsole /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jconsole jdk jdb /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jdb jdk jhat /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jhat jdk jinfo /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jinfo jdk jmap /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jmap jdk jps /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jps jdk jrunscript /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jrunscript jdk jsadebugd /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jsadebugd jdk jstack /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jstack jdk jstat /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jstat jdk jstatd /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jstatd jdk jvisualvm /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/jvisualvm jdk native2ascii /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/native2ascii jdk rmic /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/rmic jdk schemagen /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/schemagen jdk serialver /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/serialver jdk wsgen /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/wsgen jdk wsimport /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/wsimport jdk xjc /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/bin/xjc plugin xulrunner-1.9-javaplugin.so /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so plugin firefox-javaplugin.so /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so plugin firefox-3.0-javaplugin.so /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so plugin iceape-javaplugin.so /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so plugin iceweasel-javaplugin.so /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so plugin mozilla-javaplugin.so /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so plugin midbrowser-javaplugin.so /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so plugin xulrunner-javaplugin.so /usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so
The perl-script used in step 3. above. Copy-and-paste into /tmp/java6u12sun.pl then:
cd /tmp chmod +x java6u12sun.pl sudo ./java6u12sun.pl
-----
#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; # Read .jinfo file. my @lines = (); open(JINFO, '/usr/lib/jvm/.java-6u12-sun.jinfo') or die "Can't open .jinfo file."; @lines =; close(JINFO); # Install alternatives. for (@lines) { if ($_=~ m+/usr/lib/jvm/java-6u12-sun+) { my @split = split ' ', $_; system "update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/@split[1] @split[1] @split[2] 64"; } } 1;
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