This is one of those "enigma hiding in a conundrum" type problems.
I just don't understand it at all, and it has piqued my curiosity.
Are there any other odd and inexplicable behaviours?
Next in the plan, I'd do a full fsck on the file system using a rescue CD.
Would you be able to bring said recalcitrant machine into the evening
meeting on the 12th?
That's Tuesday next week.
The other possibility is tomorrow afternoon because I will installing
a couple of distributions into the CLUG archive of Linux distributions
then. Please drop me an off list e-mail or 'phone call to make
definite appointment time.
On 2/4/08, Roger Searle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> um.. I didn't ignore it, I failed to communicate well and report that I
> have seen that the changed wallpaper setting via the gui is sticking in
> the config file. the altered setting is still failing to show.
>
> Roger
>
>
> Nick Rout wrote:
> > Well I already made a suggestion that you ignored.
> >
> > compare the contents of ~/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc before and after
> > you try to change the background.
> >
> > The easiest way to do this is probably to make a backup:
> >
> > mv ~/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc ~/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc~
> >
> > use the gui to make the change and then:
> >
> > diff ~/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc~ ~/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc
> >
> > If the difference is carried into the file, then its not a permissions
> > file, its something else.
> >
> > Also you could try to change the background programmatically like this:
> >
> > dcop kdesktop KBackgroundIface setWallpaper filename 1
> >
> > where filename is the name of the file you want to use as wallpaper. See
> > if it gives any error.
> >
> > If it doesn't work or give any useful errors then try runnig it with
> > strace. (see the recent thread started by John Carter).
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, February 4, 2008 9:30 am, Roger Searle wrote:
> >
> >> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ls -l ~/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc
> >> -rw-r--r-- 1 roger users 3885 2008-02-04 09:18
> >> /home/roger/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc
> >> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ ls -ld ~/.kde/share/config/
> >> drwx------ 6 roger users 6336 2008-02-04 09:18
> >> /home/roger/.kde/share/config
> >>
> >> So I have write access there. I did find an invalid reference to one of
> >> the desktop wallpaper files which I have changed manually. Logging out
> >> and back in to try again hasn't resolved it. I have now discovered that
> >> I am unable to move an application from one desktop to another, so the
> >> issue is a little more widespread than I realised.
> >>
> >> I'm only continuing to pursue this issue because it is unsolved and
> >> ought to be well within my capabilities to resolve, rather than it being
> >> important in itself. No doubt this all goes back to the experiment with
> >> installing this distro and using the previous (different) distro's home
> >> folder, everything went really well aside from some minor tweaks (and
> >> this) however I'm unlikely to try such an experiment again.
> >>
> >> At this point I'll be going back to Chris's original refinement of
> >> Steve's suggestion to apply chgrp to /home/roger and see what happens.
> >> And look at any other suggestions anyone may care to make?
> >>
> >> Cheers,
> >> Roger
> >>
> >> Christopher Sawtell wrote:
> >>
> >>> It'd be interesting to know what the permissions on that file and its
> >>> parent directory are.
> >>>
> >>> ls -l ~/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc
> >>> and
> >>> ls -ld ~/.kde/share/config/
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 2/1/08, Nick Rout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> I believe the file that holds the setting is
> >>>>
> >>>> ~/.kde/share/config/kdesktoprc
> >>>>
> >>>> Try and see if your setting are sticking in there.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Fri, February 1, 2008 10:48 am, Roger Searle wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> Hi, I am following the suggestion made by Christopher, have got as far
> >>>>> as looking at the output of "ps aux" to check for any remaining
> >>>>> troublesome daemons but don't have any idea if what I am seeing may
> >>>>> indicate such a daemon. Can anyone spot anything I ought to kill from
> >>>>> this output?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME
> >>>>> COMMAND
> >>>>> root 1 0.0 0.0 3964 892 ? Ss 08:58 0:04
> >>>>> /sbin/init
> >>>>> root 2 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [kthreadd]
> >>>>> root 3 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [migration/0]
> >>>>> root 4 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? SN 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [ksoftirqd/0]
> >>>>> root 5 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [watchdog/0]
> >>>>> root 6 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [events/0]
> >>>>> root 7 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [khelper]
> >>>>> root 25 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [kblockd/0]
> >>>>> root 26 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [kacpid]
> >>>>> root 27 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [kacpi_notify]
> >>>>> root 173 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [kseriod]
> >>>>> root 202 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [pdflush]
> >>>>> root 203 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [kswapd0]
> >>>>> root 256 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [aio/0]
> >>>>> root 2186 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [ksuspend_usbd]
> >>>>> root 2187 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [khubd]
> >>>>> root 2201 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [ata/0]
> >>>>> root 2202 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [ata_aux]
> >>>>> root 2372 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [scsi_eh_0]
> >>>>> root 2373 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [scsi_eh_1]
> >>>>> root 2428 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [scsi_eh_2]
> >>>>> root 2429 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [scsi_eh_3]
> >>>>> root 2651 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [kjournald]
> >>>>> root 4095 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [cifsoplockd]
> >>>>> root 4096 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [cifsdnotifyd]
> >>>>> root 4208 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:58 0:00
> >>>>> [kcryptd/0]
> >>>>> root 4317 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:59 0:00
> >>>>> [reiserfs/0]
> >>>>> root 4808 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:59 0:00
> >>>>> [kondemand/0]
> >>>>> root 5562 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:59 0:00
> >>>>> [krfcommd]
> >>>>> root 5718 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< 08:59 0:00
> >>>>> [cifsd]
> >>>>> root 7085 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 09:13 0:00
> >>>>> [pdflush]
> >>>>> root 12147 0.0 0.0 3908 548 tty8 Ss 10:35 0:00
> >>>>> /bin/sh
> >>>>> -e -c ?runlevel --set S >/dev/null || true??/sbin/sulogin???if [ -r
> >>>>> /etc/inittab ]; then?? RL="$(sed -n -e
> >>>>> "/^id:[0-9]*:initdefault:/{s/^id://;s/:.*//;p}" /etc/inittab ||
> >>>>> true)"?? if [ -n "$RL" ]; then???telinit $RL?? else???telinit
> >>>>> 2?? fi??else?? telinit 2??fi? /bin/sh S
> >>>>> root 12149 0.0 0.0 17644 1844 tty8 S 10:35 0:00 bash
> >>>>> root 12167 0.0 0.0 14744 964 tty8 R+ 10:37 0:00 ps
> >>>>> aux
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Christopher Sawtell wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> I suspect that there is some daemon ( kde has lots ) or other running
> >>>>>> which has locked some file or other in your ~/.kde directory tree.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I'd suggest logging out of your account.
> >>>>>> logging in again as root
> >>>>>> Assuming that you're on a machine over which you have full say-so as
> >>>>>> the root user.
> >>>>>> go to single user mode - telinit 1
> >>>>>> This should kill all the daemons, but check with ps aux to see that
> >>>>>> it has, because some Linux distros are far from punctillious about
> >>>>>> it.
> >>>>>> Kill off any lingerers by hand.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> now to do the commands Steve suggested.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> sudo vigr
> >>>>>> sudo chgrp -R <groupname> /home/roger
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> restart multiuser mode - telinit 5
> >>>>>> ( the number is probably 5, but distros are not consistent. iirc
> >>>>>> Debian is 3. TAKE CARE )
> >>>>>> grep initdefault /etc/inittab | cut -d ':' -f 2
> >>>>>> should give you the required number
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Log out of root and back in again as yourself.
> >>>>>> Alternatively ( and safely ) simply reboot.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> If that does not work use a SystemRescueCD so that you can be
> >>>>>> absolutely certain that your files simply cannot be being locked by a
> >>>>>> process.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Is an amplification of this sort of thing a possible subject for an
> >>>>>> evening's talk?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On 1/23/08, Roger Searle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Nick Rout wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> On Wed, January 23, 2008 4:16 pm, Roger Searle wrote:
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> aaahh - cool that you can do that! done. and still can't change
> >>>>>>>>> the
> >>>>>>>>> background. i think i'll just leave it, luckily it's stuck on a
> >>>>>>>>> nice
> >>>>>>>>> enough colour :-)
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> it's really not worth having spent the time i have already on it
> >>>>>>>>> but
> >>>>>>>>> never mind, it has been an interesting exercise anyway.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> Cheers,
> >>>>>>>>> Roger
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> One thing that may be occurring is that another program has hold of
> >>>>>>>> your
> >>>>>>>> root window (thats essentially the background). I have seen that
> >>>>>>>> before
> >>>>>>>> although not with quite the same symptoms.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> ie the desktop background may in fact be "under" some other
> >>>>>>>> application.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> You haven't played with any of those programs that show a live view
> >>>>>>>> of
> >>>>>>>> space/the sky/the moon/your navel have you?
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> no, nothing like that. i can't think of anything out of the
> >>>>>>> ordinary
> >>>>>>> that i'm using that would offer an explanation . . .
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Nick Rout
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
>
--
Sincerely etc.
Christopher Sawtell
