A few annoyances - lightdm, zsh/roxterm, xfce4, ... [x-post reddit]

k0tb4tzen · 2014-07-06 12:42:30

Hey guys,

I am generally happy with Arch but after I moved my home folder a few times between Arch installs (and LMDE/Debian/whatever installs) a few minor hiccups occur. I'll update the list if I notice anything else or if I solve anything.

~~I installed light-locker a year ago and still didn't find out how to configure it. There's a config tool in AUR but it'd be nice to use a config file.~~ solved: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 8#p1433228
Sometimes when I start programs in the shell, my Pos1/End/Enter keys don't work anymore. Sometimes they just display ^A/^E/^M in the terminal, sometimes nothing. I use zsh/roxterm, here's my zshrc.
XFCE4 shows a wrong desktop wallpaper sometimes. I set that a few weeks ago but changed it to another one and the first one still sometimes appears. When it happens, the desktop icons are in the wrong places, too. I ditched Thunar for PCManFM. fixed this by removing duplicate startup entry
Xfburn doesn't work, but wodim does. Didn't find any senseful error messages.

I think that's it for now. It would be nice if you'd have some suggestions how to make my desktop experience more smooth.

I considered switching to Cinnamon or MATE as I hoped that they have a more "rounded" DE experience, but is this assumption true?

Someone already pointed me to https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=428669, I tried that but didn't do extensive console work yet to confirm it fixed my "bug".

Last edited by k0tb4tzen (2014-07-23 16:39:51)

ANOKNUSA · 2014-07-06 13:15:42

I am generally happy with Arch but after I moved my home folder a few times between Arch installs (and LMDE/Debian/whatever installs) a few minor hiccups occur.

Sharing home folders between distributions using vastly spread-out software versions isn't a good idea. By Arch's standards, Debian and many other distributions are outdated.

1) Here's the light-locker homepage. There doesn't seem to be much that can be done with it right now.
2) Start a separate thread for your shell issues.
3) I don't recall how, but you can delete all saved session information for XFCE, and that usually takes care of weird quirks like that.

I considered switching to Cinnamon or MATE as I hoped that they have a more "rounded" DE experience, but is this assumption true?

What does "rounded" mean? Seems to me like the sort of subjective concept no one can really tell you about, and you'll just have to try it for yourself.

k0tb4tzen · 2014-07-06 13:34:24

okay, but I didn't share but only copy the home folder. Also I'm using Arch right now, so shouldn't new packages be of no concern?

1) can you recommend another lightweight locker which can send me back to the lightdm and is desktop-agnostic?
2) okay, I will if I have more data
3) I did so within the DE's settings (sessions → delete all) but that didn't work.

EDIT: I just found the light-locker-settings source code on launchpad and put Exec=light-locker --no-late-locking --lock-on-suspend --lock-after-screensaver=0 in my /etc/xdg/autostart/light-locker.desktop.
I also updated my 1st post.

Last edited by k0tb4tzen (2014-07-06 15:14:20)

ANOKNUSA · 2014-07-06 17:03:27

Good to see you got the light-locker issue taken care of. For the record, a couple lightweight alternatives would be slock (which just shows a black screen) and i3lock (which can display a background image). Neither shows a text box, but i3lock can at least show the same background lightdm does when you lock the screen.

As for the XFCE desktop background, I'm afraid I don't know enough about XFCE to troubleshoot that. If I'm not mistaken, though, I think PCManFM is able to set a desktop background in the same way Nautilus does in GNOME. You might be able to try and switch that option off to see if that's causing the issue.

k0tb4tzen · 2014-07-14 21:49:57

There were two autostart desktop files for PCManFM which had the desktop function turned on. I deleted both and created a new one – works.

Another issue: Often I can't copy & paste in PCManFM.

EDIT: okay, I'll add info when I'm not running on reserve.

Last edited by k0tb4tzen (2014-07-14 22:12:24)

jasonwryan · 2014-07-14 21:52:40

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#1 2014-07-06 12:42:30

A few annoyances - lightdm, zsh/roxterm, xfce4, ... [x-post reddit]

#2 2014-07-06 13:15:42

Re: A few annoyances - lightdm, zsh/roxterm, xfce4, ... [x-post reddit]

#3 2014-07-06 13:34:24

Re: A few annoyances - lightdm, zsh/roxterm, xfce4, ... [x-post reddit]

#4 2014-07-06 17:03:27

Re: A few annoyances - lightdm, zsh/roxterm, xfce4, ... [x-post reddit]

#5 2014-07-14 21:49:57

Re: A few annoyances - lightdm, zsh/roxterm, xfce4, ... [x-post reddit]

#6 2014-07-14 21:52:40

Re: A few annoyances - lightdm, zsh/roxterm, xfce4, ... [x-post reddit]

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