Hootiegibbon's .iso: removing task-LXDE. (SOLVED)

[BJF]

Sorry, Jase, but a question requiring your expertise.

When installing your .iso as the operating system on that pesky Dell I allowed myself to sway into installing task-LXDE to get that familiar desktop. Now that I'm older if not wiser I have decided that LXDE places too much of an additional burden on the machinery's skimpy resources and I use IceWM. But there is still a lot of legacy stuff present in the menu's and left to it's own devices on reboots it will default to LXDE and grumbles that the owner of $Home isn't the user, and will often grind to a halt chasing commands and require a three-finger intervention.
Can I remove LXDE by uninstalling task-LXDE without bringing it all tumbling down, or is a clean reinstall the only option?

Thanks,
John.

[rubentje1991]

Sorry, Jase, but a question requiring your expertise.

When installing your .iso as the operating system on that pesky Dell I allowed myself to sway into installing task-LXDE to get that familiar desktop. Now that I'm older if not wiser I have decided that LXDE places too much of an additional burden on the machinery's skimpy resources and I use IceWM. But there is still a lot of legacy stuff present in the menu's and left to it's own devices on reboots it will default to LXDE and grumbles that the owner of $Home isn't the user, and will often grind to a halt chasing commands and require a three-finger intervention.
Can I remove LXDE by uninstalling task-LXDE without bringing it all tumbling down, or is a clean reinstall the only option?

Thanks,
John.

I think that deleting "task-LXDE" will only delete the meta-package... the packages themselves will stay installed
=> with a meta-package, the needed package to install something "big" are automatically added as dependencies... but by removing such a meta-package, you don't remove the dependencies (as far as I know) 

[BJF]

rubentje1991:

I'm OK with a bit of dross left over, and waddling through that uninstalling what I can identify as unneccesary. What I don't want to do is cripple the install without notice. I'm starting to think a clean install would be best but it was... character-building.. the first time. Under-resourced Dells are grumpy beasts. Still, what could possibly go wrong...??

[Hootiegibbon]

John,

If you open synaptic go to file and select history, locate the date you installed task-lxde it will list all the other packages added at that time - search for each and remove ... job done

Jase

[djohnston]

But there is still a lot of legacy stuff present in the menu's and left to it's own devices on reboots it will default to LXDE and grumbles that the owner of $Home isn't the user, and will often grind to a halt chasing commands and require a three-finger intervention.
Can I remove LXDE by uninstalling task-LXDE without bringing it all tumbling down, or is a clean reinstall the only option?

Before removing LXDE components, see if you can change the default desktop to IceWM. Do you have a login window where you enter your username and password? If so, are there any options in that login window to change your default desktop session?

[Hootiegibbon]

John ,

I missed the stuff above - as have been working on an interesting project ( a non-minimal one, but more on that another day ....) - you need to change the default session at GDM - change your session to icewm and then when it prompts for it change it to your default.

The $HOME ownership issue is not something that just adding or removing packages would do, have you removed any config files from your /home?

Jase

[Crow]

rubentje1991:

I'm OK with a bit of dross left over, and waddling through that uninstalling what I can identify as unneccesary. What I don't want to do is cripple the install without notice. I'm starting to think a clean install would be best but it was... character-building.. the first time. Under-resourced Dells are grumpy beasts. Still, what could possibly go wrong...??

After several problems with low memory/CPU/HD machines, my son finally decided to take the HD out, install PCLOS using another machine, put the HD back in place and let PCLOS reconfigure itself.  It has worked so far 

An isa to usb cable is of great help, just connect the data cable, let the computer provide the energy, put the usb end to a laptop and install; it takes a lot less time 

[BJF]

Thanks Chaps.
The $Home message is only present if it goes into LXDE. I remember the first time I saw it I opened my user folder and restated ownership recursively, giving everyone read/write at the same time. No different. IceWM is already the default, and it doesn't have the problem. I am at work, but tonight will hunt that history as Hootie suggested and do the big remove. Just needed to check that I wouldn't break it by fiddling. I'm good at that. 

[BJF]

Got rid of a heap of LXDE apps and updated. Rebooted. The nag about ownership appears, saying that $HOME/.dmrc is to be ignored and defaults set in it will not carry over. It warns that 633(??) files must belong to the user and have correct permissions. Can someone point me in the right direction to sort this please?
On the plus side, the box seems to be more responsive now.

Thanks.

[djohnston]

Got rid of a heap of LXDE apps and updated. Rebooted. The nag about ownership appears, saying that $HOME/.dmrc is to be ignored and defaults set in it will not carry over. It warns that 633(??) files must belong to the user and have correct permissions. Can someone point me in the right direction to sort this please?
On the plus side, the box seems to be more responsive now.

Thanks.

In this example, the home directory (yours) will be /home/BJF. Adjust the instructions according to what your username and home directory really are.

su
chown -R BJF:BJF /home/BJF
exit

[BJF]

chown: cannot access "/home/mdm/.gvfs": Permission denied

where mdm is my user id.

..and I notice (opening in PCManFM as root) that root owns /home. That doesn't sound right.

[djohnston]

chown: cannot access "/home/mdm/.gvfs": Permission denied

where mdm is my user id.

..and I notice (opening in PCManFM as root) that root owns /home. That doesn't sound right.

/home/mdm/.gvfs should be okay. It's a read-only directory. Check it to make sure you own it.

ls -la ~/ | grep .gvfs

Should return:  (date will be different)
dr-x------  2 mdm mdm      0 Mar  3 22:16 .gvfs/

Then check all your home directories for ownership:

ls -l ~/ | less

( ~/ is your home directory.) Yes, root owns /home but should not own /home/mdm.

[BJF]

dj: Would you believe neither of the keyboards I own are young enough to have a pipe key?

Checked /mdm/.gvfs and it is owned by mdm read only, and has no other access.

Checked /mdm and it is owned by mdm read and write, all others are read only.
/lost+found is owned by root, read and write, no other access.
/mysql is owned by root, read and write, all other access read only.

Any sense there?
Cheers.

[BJF]

Uh-oh! Twilight zone alert!

Did Shut-down>Actions and left the Last(session) highlighted instead of checking IceWM manually, and it re-opened to the complete LXDE desktop. The LXDE Control Center works, I can change wallpaper. Something hogs the processor when Synaptic is called and a search there-in shows Task-LXDE is not installed. WT*?

[djohnston]

dj: Would you believe neither of the keyboards I own are young enough to have a pipe key?

Checked /mdm/.gvfs and it is owned by mdm read only, and has no other access.

Checked /mdm and it is owned by mdm read and write, all others are read only.
/lost+found is owned by root, read and write, no other access.
/mysql is owned by root, read and write, all other access read only.

Any sense there?
Cheers.

Holy Model M Keyboard, Batman! Don't know what I'd do without the pipe key or the less utility.

User root will always own everything from the root directory. Any files in /, as well as the /bin, /boot, /dev, /etc, /home, /initrd, /lib, /lost+found directories, etcetera, are owned by root. It's the nature of the *nix filesystem. However, root doesn't own every subdirectory, which is why /home/mdm and all subdirectories belong to you. You're only concerned with everything in /home/mdm and all files and subdirectories.

Uh-oh! Twilight zone alert!

Did Shut-down>Actions and left the Last(session) highlighted instead of checking IceWM manually, and it re-opened to the complete LXDE desktop. The LXDE Control Center works, I can change wallpaper. Something hogs the processor when Synaptic is called and a search there-in shows Task-LXDE is not installed. WT*?

task-lxde is a meta package that pulls in all required packages to get LXDE properly installed. However, when task-lxde is deleted or uninstalled, it doesn't uninstall the other packages.

In the GDM login screen, you need to choose IceWM manually, then answer Make Default Session.