Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/27/23 14:05, David Wright wrote:

On Thu 22 Jun 2023 at 04:30:47 (-0400), gene heskett wrote:

On 6/21/23 18:45, David Wright wrote:

On Wed 21 Jun 2023 at 16:14:07 (-0400), gene heskett wrote some words.
In reply:

Eh? Can I remind you that the Escape key is not a shift key;
you just have to press the Escape key and /then/ the Zero key.


Here, the esc key must be held while entering the 0, else it just
show's a 0 in the command line box and doesn't exit.

[ … ]

So it is still a two handed
operation since they are about 16 inches apart on my keyboard. In my
case the terminal is konsole.  But it is handier than grabbing a
mouse, finding the button and clicking on it.  Thank you.


That is bizarre, to say the least. Does that mean that Escape doesn't
do all the other things that it's used for in mc? For example, double
Escape exits many commands, the viewers, etc, and Escape Digit should
have the same action as the corresponding Function key (with zero
standing for F10, hence Roy's suggestion).

bizzare isn't the word that comes to mind, but thats how it works with 
gnome.  I've now switched to kde and will check it again. Now the esc 
key has been neutered. But f10 works, the ideal IMO. But how the heck do 
I get rid of the kcalc advertisement on the screen background that shows 
the nice round clock? just above it?


And I found just now & had to reboot several times to fix it, that the 
drive carrying / was not the drive I installed bookworm to, so I 
installed gparted and nuked the boot flag from the wrong drive which 
changed the fstab, and I am now running on the correct drive with my 
raid10 mounted over the /home on /dev/sda. TBD if I stay on plasma though.



This may be tied to whichever terminal is used for the default
that mc opens in and the numpad 0 is the only one that works here.


I can't help thinking that there might be some connection between
this situation and the fact that the TUI version of aptitude gives
you such trouble. As I don't use the terminals/DEs etc that you do,
I can't be of much help in making your TERM selection.

Anyway, assuming F9 still works for drop-down menus, you can exit
mc with a sequence of three unshifted keystrokes: F9 f x, ie drop
down the File menu and select exit (whose x is highlighted).




Cheers,
David.

.


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[David Wright]

On Wed 21 Jun 2023 at 21:25:15 (+), Andy Smith wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 04:53:06PM +0100, David Wright wrote:
> > On Wed 21 Jun 2023 at 12:31:20 (+), Andy Smith wrote:
> > > feature rich editors like vim and emacs can easily write to files
> > > through sudo or sftp, thus enabling seamless editing of files as
> > > different users and even on different hosts.
> 
> > I don't recall ever editing a file as root and needing anything
> > beyond the capabilities of nano. What kind of "advanced" editing
> > would one do?
> 
> I'm saying that the more advanced editors have features to only do
> the I/O as root, so one can enjoy all the other features of the
> editor without running the whole editor as root, so that bypasses
> the issue of "it's a bad idea to run a complex app (editor) as
> root". You can just run it as you and still write to such files when
> you need to.

Perhaps we're talking about mitigating different problems. It's not
the size and complexity of advanced editors etc that worries me (cf
browsers), but the fact that the odd keystroke, used in error, can
do a lot of damage. For example mc, although by default having
confirm_delete=true, has safe_delete=false, meaning that the
confirmation dialog box has Yes (confirm) preselected.

> I personally feel that it was a force multiplier for me when I went
> from nano¹ to a more complex editor, but I'm not going to try to
> convince anyone else.

Yes, it's the multiplication that I fear.

> ¹ Well, pico for me, which was what nano was a clone of.

Or, long ago, ae.

Cheers,
David.

Re: package managers problem

[David Wright]

On Thu 22 Jun 2023 at 04:30:47 (-0400), gene heskett wrote:
> On 6/21/23 18:45, David Wright wrote:
> > On Wed 21 Jun 2023 at 16:14:07 (-0400), gene heskett wrote some words.
> > In reply:
> > 
> > Eh? Can I remind you that the Escape key is not a shift key;
> > you just have to press the Escape key and /then/ the Zero key.
> > 
> Here, the esc key must be held while entering the 0, else it just
> show's a 0 in the command line box and doesn't exit.
[ … ]
> So it is still a two handed
> operation since they are about 16 inches apart on my keyboard. In my
> case the terminal is konsole.  But it is handier than grabbing a
> mouse, finding the button and clicking on it.  Thank you.

That is bizarre, to say the least. Does that mean that Escape doesn't
do all the other things that it's used for in mc? For example, double
Escape exits many commands, the viewers, etc, and Escape Digit should
have the same action as the corresponding Function key (with zero
standing for F10, hence Roy's suggestion).

> This may be tied to whichever terminal is used for the default
> that mc opens in and the numpad 0 is the only one that works here.

I can't help thinking that there might be some connection between
this situation and the fact that the TUI version of aptitude gives
you such trouble. As I don't use the terminals/DEs etc that you do,
I can't be of much help in making your TERM selection.

Anyway, assuming F9 still works for drop-down menus, you can exit
mc with a sequence of three unshifted keystrokes: F9 f x, ie drop
down the File menu and select exit (whose x is highlighted).

Cheers,
David.

Re: package managers problem

[Joe]

On Sat, 17 Jun 2023 11:57:57 +0100
Joe  wrote:

> On Fri, 16 Jun 2023 18:41:08 -0400
> Greg Wooledge  wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, Jun 16, 2023 at 06:35:48PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:  
> > > 0 upgraded, 164 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> > > Need to get 44.5 MB of archives.
> > > After this operation, 206 MB of additional disk space will be
> > > used. 
> > 
> > I really don't understand why people want a GUI package manager at
> > all. The last time I used anything even remotely *close* to a GUI
> > package manager was dselect, back in the previous century.  And that
> > was a curses (terminal) interface, not an X11 one.
> > 
> > In the last two decades, I haven't used or wanted anything fancier
> > than apt(-get).
> > 
> > Now, granted, this is just my personal stance.  I may be atypical.
> > That said, what exactly does a GUI package manager offer you, that
> > you can't get from "apt install thing-i-want"?
> >   
> 
> I run sid on my main workstation, and sometimes it gets in a muddle,
> with fifty packages not upgradable. OK, if it's a big group of related
> packages and a key one hasn't been upgraded yet, there's nothing to be
> done about them. But often another thirty packages can be upgraded,
> but only in a specific order. I find synaptic much quicker at
> clearing this kind of logjam than either apt-get or aptitude. It's
> easy to select half a dozen packages and see easily what will be
> removed if you try to upgrade, and I once cleared a logjam of about
> fifty packages that neither apt-get nor aptitude could deal with. It
> was a matter of upgrading a few at a time, and in a particular order,
> and I'd have spent all day trying to do that with the other apt tools.
> 
> And no, I don't like to postpone upgrading sid for too long,
> particularly at this stage in the lifecycle.
> 

I don't usually follow myself up, but this is relevant: tonight there
were seven packages in unstable to upgrade, and all were held back. I
knew about three, they are waiting for a dependency, but the others
were calibre and three dependencies. I switched to Synaptic to get a
better picture of what was holding them up (yes, I know that can be
done from the command line and I even know how to do it, but I prefer
Synaptic for that job), and lo and behold, they just upgraded without
complaint. I don't know why apt wouldn't do it, there's probably a bug
there, but this is unstable and everything is transient...

-- 
Joe

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/21/23 18:45, David Wright wrote:

On Wed 21 Jun 2023 at 16:14:07 (-0400), gene heskett wrote some words.
In reply:

Eh? Can I remind you that the Escape key is not a shift key;
you just have to press the Escape key and /then/ the Zero key.

Cheers,
David.

.
Here, the esc key must be held while entering the 0, else it just show's 
a 0 in the command line box and doesn't exit.  This may be tied to 
whichever terminal is used for the default that mc opens in and the 
numpad 0 is the only one that works here. So it is still a two handed 
operation since they are about 16 inches apart on my keyboard. In my 
case the terminal is konsole.  But it is handier than grabbing a mouse, 
finding the button and clicking on it.  Thank you.


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/21/23 18:45, David Wright wrote:

On Wed 21 Jun 2023 at 16:14:07 (-0400), gene heskett wrote some words.
In reply:

Eh? Can I remind you that the Escape key is not a shift key;
you just have to press the Escape key and /then/ the Zero key.

Cheers,
David.


That could have been the sequence, thanks.

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[Felix Miata]

Andy Smith composed on 2023-06-21 21:07 (UTC):

> You were using XFCE4 on Wayland under bullseye right?

2 for 3. https://www.linux.org/threads/xfce-wayland.43792/ says it could not 
have
been on Wayland.

The "wayland" that kept getting stuffed in his face was an entirely misleading
error message from X refusing to start on account of a credentials and/or
permissions failure.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
based on faith, not based on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/21/23 17:08, Andy Smith wrote:

Hello,

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 03:50:31PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:

On 6/20/23 18:23, Andy Smith wrote:

I think it's already been demonstrated in this thread that the
desktop launcher for Synaptic calls policykit to start it, so if as
you claim you do a standard Debian install and then try to launch
Synaptic from the desktop (specifically NOT from a terminal window,
and not using sudo or otherwise) and find "nothing happens", then
that is a bug you should report to Debian.


Maybe, but it was a bullseye bug.


Can we please not do this? First you said it was a Wayland bug, now
you're saying it was a bullseye bug. We don't know what the root
cause of it was and you did not really help with any of the
constructive suggestions people made to try to get there. These
non-specific sweeping statements don't help either. This is how we
go down the route of you making weird claims about IPv6, resolvconf,
etc etc for years to come.

Just try to stick to known facts in case anyone stumbles across this
again.

You were using XFCE4 on Wayland under bullseye right?


Yes.

Cheers,
Andy



Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[David Wright]

On Wed 21 Jun 2023 at 16:14:07 (-0400), gene heskett wrote some words.
In reply:

Eh? Can I remind you that the Escape key is not a shift key;
you just have to press the Escape key and /then/ the Zero key.

Cheers,
David.

Desktop environments stealing app key shortcuts (Was Re: package managers problem)

[Andy Smith]

Hello,

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 04:14:07PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:
> On 6/21/23 13:51, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > On Wednesday 21 June 2023 08:54:46 am Maurice Heskett wrote:
> > > it pisses me off that F10 has been stolen by the window
> > > managers to bring up a useless menu, making me find the mouse
> > > to quit it when I'm done.
> > 
> > That *is* annoying...
> > 
> > But I find that 0 works for this.
> 
> So it does Roy, thank you, but that's still a two handed operation with

Surely it is pretty easy to alter the desktop environment key
shortcuts? There a few GNOME ones I have to disable myself, due to
using various F-keys for other apps.

Cheers,
Andy

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Re: package managers problem

[Andy Smith]

Hi David,

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 04:53:06PM +0100, David Wright wrote:
> On Wed 21 Jun 2023 at 12:31:20 (+), Andy Smith wrote:
> > feature rich editors like vim and emacs can easily write to files
> > through sudo or sftp, thus enabling seamless editing of files as
> > different users and even on different hosts.

> I don't recall ever editing a file as root and needing anything
> beyond the capabilities of nano. What kind of "advanced" editing
> would one do?

I'm saying that the more advanced editors have features to only do
the I/O as root, so one can enjoy all the other features of the
editor without running the whole editor as root, so that bypasses
the issue of "it's a bad idea to run a complex app (editor) as
root". You can just run it as you and still write to such files when
you need to.

I personally feel that it was a force multiplier for me when I went
from nano¹ to a more complex editor, but I'm not going to try to
convince anyone else.

One day I might even get around to using one of these new-fangled
shells instead of bash. 

Cheers,
Andy

¹ Well, pico for me, which was what nano was a clone of.

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Re: package managers problem

[Andy Smith]

Hello,

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 03:50:31PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:
> On 6/20/23 18:23, Andy Smith wrote:
> > I think it's already been demonstrated in this thread that the
> > desktop launcher for Synaptic calls policykit to start it, so if as
> > you claim you do a standard Debian install and then try to launch
> > Synaptic from the desktop (specifically NOT from a terminal window,
> > and not using sudo or otherwise) and find "nothing happens", then
> > that is a bug you should report to Debian.
> 
> Maybe, but it was a bullseye bug.

Can we please not do this? First you said it was a Wayland bug, now
you're saying it was a bullseye bug. We don't know what the root
cause of it was and you did not really help with any of the
constructive suggestions people made to try to get there. These
non-specific sweeping statements don't help either. This is how we
go down the route of you making weird claims about IPv6, resolvconf,
etc etc for years to come.

Just try to stick to known facts in case anyone stumbles across this
again.

You were using XFCE4 on Wayland under bullseye right?

Cheers,
Andy

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Re: package managers problem

[Andy Smith]

Hello,

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 01:53:28PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:
> Oh, and synaptic asks for a pw, I give it mine, and it runs just fine.

Great, so hopefully you are now prepared to accept that all the
things about Synaptic not working under Wayland were a huge blind
alley.

We still don't know what was going wrong before, and it sounds like
it will not be easy to reproduce it which is a shame as there might
have been a real bug that needed reporting.

In case anyone stumbles over this again, what was your problematic
environment? XFCE4 desktop environment on Wayland? And the problem
being that launching Synaptic asked for your password but then
the dialog went away without appearing to actually launch Synaptic?

Cheers,
Andy

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/21/23 13:51, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:

On Wednesday 21 June 2023 08:54:46 am Maurice Heskett wrote:

mc for a file manager since my original
install from floppies of redhat 5.0 in the late '90's. I am well aware
of what it CAN do. There is no gui file manager that can touch it for
utility, and it pisses me off that F10 has been stolen by the window
managers to bring up a useless menu, making me find the mouse to quit it
when I'm done.


That *is* annoying...

But I find that 0 works for this.


So it does Roy, thank you, but that's still a two handed operation with

my extra large hands equipt with sawed off fingers that cannot reach an

octave on the piano keyboard with a 38 in my ear.


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 21:25, pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:56:36 -0400
gene heskett  wrote:


Like firefox, its big and complex, but unlike
gedit has never trashed a file for me, gedit has ruined so many I
finally banned it from my machines, all of them.


Vim for the win! (kidding)

Everybody has their fav poison, I used vi and vim in the late 90's, but 
never got comfortable with its save and exit syntax.. Geany's ctl-s and 
ctl-q beats vim like a white mouthed mule.  gedit OTOH, has caused me 
several days work attempting to recover from its file scrambling 
penchant. geany has never made a mistake my fingers didn't make.

Thanks Paul.

Paul



Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 18:23, Andy Smith wrote:

Hello Gene,

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 06:01:00PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:

Alright then the question is, is policykit the solution, or do we
install it, then spend two weeks and wreck 7 installs configuring
it to work? In other words, get to the specifics or find a new horse.


I think it's already been demonstrated in this thread that the
desktop launcher for Synaptic calls policykit to start it, so if as
you claim you do a standard Debian install and then try to launch
Synaptic from the desktop (specifically NOT from a terminal window,
and not using sudo or otherwise) and find "nothing happens", then
that is a bug you should report to Debian.


Maybe, but it was a bullseye bug. Probably the best thing is to just 
give up and put bookworm on it. So far everything works but kmail. And 
I'm looking forward to a much smoother bookworm experience.


As there have been others in this thread reporting that Synaptic
works fine for them though, I fully expect this to be down to some
way you've found to break your system, probably while fighting one of
your other bogeymen like IPv6 or resolvconf or something, where you
tend to get happy with "rm -f" and "chattr +i".

Then again, there do seem to be others having a similar problem so
maybe there really is an actual bug here. Do let us know the bug
number so we can follow along and find out.

All of that would have been a sensible way to go, without this
nonsense of trying to start GUI apps with sudo or directly as root,
and then blaming the Wayland that lives under your bed.

Thanks,
Andy



Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 18:13, Andy Smith wrote:

Hi Gene,

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 05:44:10PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:

Please do not encourage Gene's fetish of running GUI apps as root.


[…]


Andy, if you aren't behind dd-wrt for your home network, don't pretend to
tell me what I can't do


I think your contributions to this list do a great job of telling
people what you can't do.


Don't impress on me, your paranoid ideas about how I should run MY
computers


By all means, go with God and become an example to others if nothing
else!

Thanks,
Andy

Welp, I spent the morning from just after 6 my time, to around 2:30 pm. 
downloading and installing bookworm, and so far only kmail has refused 
to work. This is tbird, and synaptic I am happy to say Just Works now.
I stripped the usb ports and disconnected the drives I did not want 
formatted, installed, then reconnected everything, assembled the raid 
and mounted it on top of /home, put the swap that is part of the raid 
into fstab, and while I haven't done all of my daily driving yet, I'm 
actually grinning a bit, so far everything but kmail has Just worked. 
That is far better than any install of bullseye ever was.


I should have done the upgrade a week ago. Yeah, I'm a stubborn old 
coot, so thank you all for trying to help with a bullseye install that 
was broken from the git-go.


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/21/23 11:56, David Wright wrote:

On Wed 21 Jun 2023 at 08:29:55 (-0400), Maurice Heskett wrote:


I have a gent on the Sheldon list at groups.io who would like to see
how I solved a broke into pieces compound on my bigger lathe, linuxcnc
can do all that and then some w/o a compound, so mine is now a block
of a cast iron, machined to be the same height as the broken compound
with a quick change tool holder on top of it. Because the
net-installer does not identify the drives its going to format, and
formating the raid cannot be permitted, all that stuff has to be
removed and a reinstall done to only the sata_1 drive, it takes me a
couple hours on my hands and knees to dismantle all that to protect it
from the installs appetite to format everything in sight.  Then about
2 hours to put it all back together when the install has been
finished.


I don't understand why you say that the net-installer can't identify
the drives (and partitions) that it's going to format. You seem to
have been using GPT disks for at least a year now, and they have
partition labels (PARTLABEL) which are listed by the installer,
as seen here:

   │  SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 500.1 GB ATA ST3500413AS  ▒  │
   │  > 1.0 MBFREE SPACE  ▒  │
   │  > #1  3.1 MB K  biosgrubBIOS boot pa▒  │
   │  > #2520.1 MB  B EFI System  ▒  │
   │  > #3524.3 MBext2Linux swap  ▒  │
   │  > #4 31.5 GBext4Viva-A  ▒  │
   │  > #5 31.5 GBext4Viva-B  ▒  │
   │  > #6436.1 GBViva-Home   ▒  │
   │  > 7.7 kBFREE SPACE  ▒  │
   │  ↓  │

You can set the partition names in fdisk by selecting the expert
menu with x and using the n command.


But since I'm stuck in root, and my history with that net-installer is
spotty at best, please give me a link to the bookworm net-install
image, which I'll then dl and put on a fresh dvd, maybe it will work
better than the 11.2 version I've been using. One of the things it
still does is install orca and brltty w/o asking even if that option
is skipped in the menu.


That would mean coping with changes and new features in bookworm
at the same time as trying to restore your system to something
perhaps resembling a normal Debian system. (I have no idea why
only you have ever reported undesired installation of the screen
reader system.)


It still installs it, but doesn't activate it. That to me is a bug. I 
purposely skipped that step in the installer.


But, so far, and I've been at this since around 06:20 and its 14:42 here 
now, so I think an overdue nap is next, bookworm, except for kmail, is 
working as expected and looking better eyewise than I last recalled 
looking at gnome a decade back up the log when it was being kind to call 
it butt ugly.  So ATM I'm happy.


Cheers,
David.


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[didier gaumet]

Le 21/06/2023 à 19:53, gene heskett a écrit :
welp, I just did a net install of at least half of bookworm, 

[...]

Oh, and synaptic asks for a pw, I give it mine, and it runs just fine.
Cheers, Gene Heskett.


Glad to hear it, Gene :-)

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 18:53, Stefan Monnier wrote:

Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without
root permission


Thank you. That's the error I saw


Correction: the above is not an error message.  It's a guess of the
likely cause of the error message emitted earlier.


Synaptic run as a regular user is useless, except to search
for things.


Not if you start it properly, so it can request admin credentials
when needed.


 Stefan

.
welp, I just did a net install of at least half of bookworm, after 
stripping the system of all but the drive I wanted to boot from 
including unplugging the raid controller, rebooted to kde and kmail 
refused to log into my isp's imap server. So I had apt install a few 
things I use, then rebooted to gnome, and I must say the eye candy has 
improved, a lot.  Then I assembled my raid10 for home and mounted it so 
tbird is looking good and working as me.  Then I repeated it for a swap 
I have on the raid, and enabled it, so now there 50 gigs on sda, and 
57gigs on the raid, and htop says 107 gigs. I've not tried 95% of my 
daily drivers yet, but its running pretty smooth and fast enough for the 
girls I go with if I ever invite another to share my real estate.


Oh, and synaptic asks for a pw, I give it mine, and it runs just fine.
Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Wednesday 21 June 2023 08:54:46 am Maurice Heskett wrote:
> mc for a file manager since my original 
> install from floppies of redhat 5.0 in the late '90's. I am well aware 
> of what it CAN do. There is no gui file manager that can touch it for 
> utility, and it pisses me off that F10 has been stolen by the window 
> managers to bring up a useless menu, making me find the mouse to quit it 
> when I'm done.

That *is* annoying...

But I find that 0 works for this.

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

Re: package managers problem

[Felix Miata]

Gene Heskett composed on 2023-06-21 08:54 (UTC-0400):

> I KNOW what mc can do, do you?

Hopefully you are aware of how simple it can be to find and fix broken 
permissions
in a corrupted homedir using https://paste.opensuse.org/bf6c16e7e2e6 (full 
window
width pane).
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
based on faith, not based on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata

Re: package managers problem

[David Wright]

On Wed 21 Jun 2023 at 21:49:54 (+0700), Max Nikulin wrote:

> The ~/.Xauthority file contains *secrets*, see Xsecurity(7), so I
> would not encourage people to post its content.

It's a cookie. You can just remove the file and let startx recreate
it (or whatever DEs require as the equivalent). They tend to
accumulate cruft anyway. (I've just noticed that my own 1038-char
file has 21 cookies.)

Cheers,
David.

Re: package managers problem

[David Wright]

On Wed 21 Jun 2023 at 08:29:55 (-0400), Maurice Heskett wrote:

> I have a gent on the Sheldon list at groups.io who would like to see
> how I solved a broke into pieces compound on my bigger lathe, linuxcnc
> can do all that and then some w/o a compound, so mine is now a block
> of a cast iron, machined to be the same height as the broken compound
> with a quick change tool holder on top of it. Because the
> net-installer does not identify the drives its going to format, and
> formating the raid cannot be permitted, all that stuff has to be
> removed and a reinstall done to only the sata_1 drive, it takes me a
> couple hours on my hands and knees to dismantle all that to protect it
> from the installs appetite to format everything in sight.  Then about
> 2 hours to put it all back together when the install has been
> finished.

I don't understand why you say that the net-installer can't identify
the drives (and partitions) that it's going to format. You seem to
have been using GPT disks for at least a year now, and they have
partition labels (PARTLABEL) which are listed by the installer,
as seen here:

  │  SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 500.1 GB ATA ST3500413AS  ▒  │   
  │  > 1.0 MBFREE SPACE  ▒  │   
  │  > #1  3.1 MB K  biosgrubBIOS boot pa▒  │   
  │  > #2520.1 MB  B EFI System  ▒  │   
  │  > #3524.3 MBext2Linux swap  ▒  │   
  │  > #4 31.5 GBext4Viva-A  ▒  │   
  │  > #5 31.5 GBext4Viva-B  ▒  │   
  │  > #6436.1 GBViva-Home   ▒  │   
  │  > 7.7 kBFREE SPACE  ▒  │   
  │  ↓  │   

You can set the partition names in fdisk by selecting the expert
menu with x and using the n command.

> But since I'm stuck in root, and my history with that net-installer is
> spotty at best, please give me a link to the bookworm net-install
> image, which I'll then dl and put on a fresh dvd, maybe it will work
> better than the 11.2 version I've been using. One of the things it
> still does is install orca and brltty w/o asking even if that option
> is skipped in the menu.

That would mean coping with changes and new features in bookworm
at the same time as trying to restore your system to something
perhaps resembling a normal Debian system. (I have no idea why
only you have ever reported undesired installation of the screen
reader system.)

Cheers,
David.

Re: package managers problem

[David Wright]

On Wed 21 Jun 2023 at 12:31:20 (+), Andy Smith wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 12:57:41PM +0100, Joe wrote:
> > On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:34:45 -0400
> > gene heskett  wrote:
> > >  My fav editor, geany is also
> > > dead for roots use for exactly he same reason, but runs just fine as
> > > me. So there is a common problem.
> > 
> > Well, you could do it the right way: edit as you with geany in a work
> > directory, copy to/from the real location with a root-powered file
> > manager, such as mc under sudo in a terminal. Alter owner/perms as
> > required with mc.
> 
> The idea that this is the "right" way kind of horrifies me. 
> 
> Not that I would attempt to suggest that Gene goes this way, but
> feature rich editors like vim and emacs can easily write to files
> through sudo or sftp, thus enabling seamless editing of files as
> different users and even on different hosts.

[ … ]

> To me, that is closer to the "right" way to do this sort of thing.
> It's really worth spending the time to learn how to do this sort of
> thing in one of the advanced editors.

I don't recall ever editing a file as root and needing anything
beyond the capabilities of nano. What kind of "advanced" editing
would one do?

(I don't run mc and emacs as root either; their capabilities are
too dangerous, in my estimation.)

Cheers,
David.

Re: package managers problem

[tomas]

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 09:49:54PM +0700, Max Nikulin wrote:
> On 21/06/2023 01:41, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > X clients these days need that to talk to the X server. On my box,
> > for example:
> > 
> >  tomas@trotzki:~$ hexdump -C .Xauthority
> >    01 00 00 07 74 72 6f 74  7a 6b 69 00 01 30 00 12  
> > |trotzki..0..|
> >  0010  4d 49 54 2d 4d 41 47 49  43 2d 43 4f 4f 4b 49 
> > 45|MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE|
> 
> The ~/.Xauthority file contains *secrets*, see Xsecurity(7), so I would not
> encourage people to post its content. It should be enough to check that

That session was long gone at the moment you got to see it ;-)

Cheers
-- 
t


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: package managers problem

[Max Nikulin]

On 21/06/2023 01:15, gene heskett wrote:

gene@coyote:/usr/local/bin$ pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect: 
Connection refused

Failed to initialize GTK.

Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
root permission


My guess is that

env | grep DISPLAY

does not contain WAYLAND_DISPLAY in your case, so the issue is 
completely unrelated to wayland. As I wrote in another message, the 
~/.Xauthority file is likely either not owned by your user or it is 
corrupted.

Re: package managers problem

[Max Nikulin]

On 21/06/2023 01:41, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

X clients these days need that to talk to the X server. On my box,
for example:

 tomas@trotzki:~$ hexdump -C .Xauthority
   01 00 00 07 74 72 6f 74  7a 6b 69 00 01 30 00 12  
|trotzki..0..|
 0010  4d 49 54 2d 4d 41 47 49  43 2d 43 4f 4f 4b 49 
45|MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE|


The ~/.Xauthority file contains *secrets*, see Xsecurity(7), so I would 
not encourage people to post its content. It should be enough to check that


file ~/.Xauthority

reports "X11 Xauthority data" or to try "xauth info". Almost certainly

xhost

output contains "SI:localuser:gene", so most of applications are working 
without any issues. I would not be surprised if Gene has an immutable 
file owned by root or something similar left from attempt to fix some 
problem several years ago.


Gene, try

stat ~/.Xauthority
getfacl ~/.Xauthority
lsattr ~/.Xauthority

From the posted geany screenshot I suspect an issue with this file. 
Perhaps the easiest way is to remove it, logout and login again. An 
alternative is recreating and filling it using xauth(1).

Re: package managers problem

[Maurice Heskett]

On 6/21/23 09:33, Andy Smith wrote:

Hello,

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 09:23:41AM -0400, Maurice Heskett wrote:

On 6/21/23 08:33, Andy Smith wrote:

I'm sure there are other advanced editors that can do the same.
Maybe geany can; I'm not familiar with it.

You are missing out on one of linux's better coding efforts Andy. I have yet
to have it make a mistake my fingers didn't make first.

There would have to be a very compelling feature or features in
geany over vim, to tempt me to switch.


The basic principle being to edit a file as
sftp://user@host:/path so as to do the read/write as that user,
not yourself. (host could be localhost).

That is a lot of typing, subject to typu's from ancient fat fingers, so I
usually cd to where the file lives and edit it directly. But everybody has
their own style, and that is mine.

There doesn't seem like a lot of difference in number of keystrokes
between:

$ cd /path/to/dir
$ sudo geany file.txt

and what I would do in vim which is:

:e /path/to/dir/file

(it will work out it needs to do sudo by itself)

You would only use the sftp:// thing for remote files or for editing
as a different non-root user. And it all tab-completes, by the way,
even remote paths, assuming you have read+search permissions.


Another point where we differ in method. My home network, all behind dd-wrt,

is sshfs based since I'm normally user 1000 on all machines, so the base is

/sshnet/machine_name and all live machines are home/me mounted there.

And it just works, unlike samba/cifs or nfs any flavor, both of which 
seem to be


like touchy women, only working one or maybe 2 days a week. I like 
dependability.



Gene Heskett



Cheers,
Andy

Re: package managers problem

[Reco]

Hi.

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 12:57:41PM +0100, Joe wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:34:45 -0400
> gene heskett  wrote:
> 
> 
> >  My fav editor, geany is also
> > dead for roots use for exactly he same reason, but runs just fine as
> > me. So there is a common problem.
> 
> Well, you could do it the right way: edit as you with geany in a work
> directory, copy to/from the real location with a root-powered file
> manager, such as mc under sudo in a terminal. Alter owner/perms as
> required with mc.

Or just use visudo which does it all without user's intervention.

visudo, and this is a hint, *does* allow user to invoke both X- and
Wayland-based text editors, given the appropriate amount of configuration.

And this is the rightest (sp?) way there is, because allowing user to run
root-powered file manager is a deviation from the said way.

Reco

Re: package managers problem

[Andy Smith]

Hello,

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 09:23:41AM -0400, Maurice Heskett wrote:
> On 6/21/23 08:33, Andy Smith wrote:
> > I'm sure there are other advanced editors that can do the same.
> > Maybe geany can; I'm not familiar with it.
> You are missing out on one of linux's better coding efforts Andy. I have yet
> to have it make a mistake my fingers didn't make first.

There would have to be a very compelling feature or features in
geany over vim, to tempt me to switch.

> > The basic principle being to edit a file as
> > sftp://user@host:/path so as to do the read/write as that user,
> > not yourself. (host could be localhost).
> 
> That is a lot of typing, subject to typu's from ancient fat fingers, so I
> usually cd to where the file lives and edit it directly. But everybody has
> their own style, and that is mine.

There doesn't seem like a lot of difference in number of keystrokes
between:

$ cd /path/to/dir
$ sudo geany file.txt

and what I would do in vim which is:

:e /path/to/dir/file

(it will work out it needs to do sudo by itself)

You would only use the sftp:// thing for remote files or for editing
as a different non-root user. And it all tab-completes, by the way,
even remote paths, assuming you have read+search permissions.

Cheers,
Andy

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Re: package managers problem

[Maurice Heskett]

On 6/21/23 08:33, Andy Smith wrote:

Hello,

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 12:57:41PM +0100, Joe wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:34:45 -0400
gene heskett  wrote:

  My fav editor, geany is also
dead for roots use for exactly he same reason, but runs just fine as
me. So there is a common problem.

Well, you could do it the right way: edit as you with geany in a work
directory, copy to/from the real location with a root-powered file
manager, such as mc under sudo in a terminal. Alter owner/perms as
required with mc.

The idea that this is the "right" way kind of horrifies me. 

Not that I would attempt to suggest that Gene goes this way, but
feature rich editors like vim and emacs can easily write to files
through sudo or sftp, thus enabling seamless editing of files as
different users and even on different hosts.

I'm sure there are other advanced editors that can do the same.
Maybe geany can; I'm not familiar with it.
You are missing out on one of linux's better coding efforts Andy. I have 
yet to have it make a mistake my fingers didn't make first. It looks a 
lot like gedit, but I've spent literally days recovering from gedts 
penchant for scrambling a files contents, to the extent that one of the 
things I do after an install is remove gedit, increasing my productivity 
because I don't have to spend days re-inventing the gcode I'm working 
on. I make enough typu's as t is, and I sure don't need to run my code 
thru a mix-master.

The basic principle being
to edit a file as sftp://user@host:/path so as to do the read/write
as that user, not yourself. (host could be localhost).


That is a lot of typing, subject to typu's from ancient fat fingers, so 
I usually cd to where the file lives and edit it directly. But everybody 
has their own style, and that is mine.


Gene Heskett



To me, that is closer to the "right" way to do this sort of thing.
It's really worth spending the time to learn how to do this sort of
thing in one of the advanced editors.

For a quick workaround though, and for Gene's case, sure.

Cheers,
Andy

Re: package managers problem

[Maurice Heskett]

On 6/21/23 07:58, Joe wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:34:45 -0400
gene heskett  wrote:



  My fav editor, geany is also
dead for roots use for exactly he same reason, but runs just fine as
me. So there is a common problem.

Well, you could do it the right way: edit as you with geany in a work
directory, copy to/from the real location with a root-powered file
manager, such as mc under sudo in a terminal. Alter owner/perms as
required with mc.

That way still allows mistakes to be made, but you made a renamed copy
of the edited file before you started, didn't you? Using a non-gui
graphical application such as mc can also help with discipline: doing
something in mc? Then be damn careful, because you're probably root. I
hardly ever use mc unprivileged, I have GUI file managers for non-root
work.


yeah, but I've been using mc for a file manager since my original 
install from floppies of redhat 5.0 in the late '90's. I am well aware 
of what it CAN do. There is no gui file manager that can touch it for 
utility, and it pisses me off that F10 has been stolen by the window 
managers to bring up a useless menu, making me find the mouse to quit it 
when I'm done. If I'm done with that copy, my normal bootup config of 
this machine has at least 2 copies of it running, dedicated to moving 
cura's output to the 3d printer, and OpenSCAD's output to cura. 3d 
printers are storage hogs and I have a good sized hunk of 2 terabytes of 
gcodes that originated as OpenSCAD .stl's or 3mf's. I KNOW what mc can 
do, do you?


BTW the only reason that example shown as loading an OpenSCAD file was 
because I wanted hard copy on dead tree and the regular OpenSCAD editor 
can't print. Geany makes a handy interface to feed cups.


Gene Heskett

Re: package managers problem

[Andy Smith]

Hello,

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 12:57:41PM +0100, Joe wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:34:45 -0400
> gene heskett  wrote:
> >  My fav editor, geany is also
> > dead for roots use for exactly he same reason, but runs just fine as
> > me. So there is a common problem.
> 
> Well, you could do it the right way: edit as you with geany in a work
> directory, copy to/from the real location with a root-powered file
> manager, such as mc under sudo in a terminal. Alter owner/perms as
> required with mc.

The idea that this is the "right" way kind of horrifies me. 

Not that I would attempt to suggest that Gene goes this way, but
feature rich editors like vim and emacs can easily write to files
through sudo or sftp, thus enabling seamless editing of files as
different users and even on different hosts.

I'm sure there are other advanced editors that can do the same.
Maybe geany can; I'm not familiar with it. The basic principle being
to edit a file as sftp://user@host:/path so as to do the read/write
as that user, not yourself. (host could be localhost).

To me, that is closer to the "right" way to do this sort of thing.
It's really worth spending the time to learn how to do this sort of
thing in one of the advanced editors.

For a quick workaround though, and for Gene's case, sure.

Cheers,
Andy

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Re: package managers problem

[Maurice Heskett]

On 6/21/23 03:01, Jeffrey Walton wrote:

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 2:24 AM Maurice Heskett  wrote:

On 6/20/23 22:17, pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:03:24 -0400
Greg Wooledge  wrote:
[...]

In a sensible design, the GUI part would run as you, and it would send
requests to a daemon that runs as root, or simply issue shell commands
with "sudo" or something, to do the parts that need extra privs.


I infer that Synaptic, by requiring root privileges to be truly useful,
is mis-designed, since there isn't a daemon executing root level
commands in the background.

I'll not argue with that.

But for the lists benefit, my last msg indicated I was going to logout
and back in. Which I tried to do, but with a root pw set, or something
else, IDK and don't at this point care because the only damned way I can
login is as root!

So since I was root, and the screen looked normal for a different
account, I tested synaptic and it ran as root just fine, so I took
advantage of it, found the tasks section and installed all of gnome and
all of kde, to the extent that the task pulled in several hundred
packages each time for each interface.

And it didn't make a fat rats ass of difference  EXCEPT if I su me, then
cd /home/gene, nothing with a gui can be run as me, display 0:0 is
locked away from me, in essence reversing the can't open display errors
I was getting as me for sudo-ing to do gui and root requiring tasks.

Explain that.

I can change my (gene's) pw to anything and back successfully, but its
no damned good at the login requester. I'm sorry if I sound exasperated
but that is exactly where I am.  Luckily I remembered the pw at my isp
or I would not be sending this. I gave up and went to bed about 22:00
but was so frustrated I couldn't sleep. So I'm back up wih 4x4's under
my eyelids but I'm alive.

Who are you? I thought a person named Gene was having trouble. Why are
you logging in as gene? Are you gene?


Yes, and I can su to me from this root login, successfully update my pw, 
but when I try to login in as gene, I do not get a bad pw error, the 
requester goes away for about a second, then comes back as a blank 
requestor again. The only change in my raid10 during this time was a 
relink of the digiKam AppImage to regression test it, it ran fine, and 
can see the thumbnails from the mounted camera, but attempts to download 
fresh images I can see, silently fails. I haven't tried as root because 
the local picture archive is on that raid10, owned by me so I've been 
careful not to cause a write to the raid except for editing the symlink 
to ~/AppImages/digiKam.


I have a gent on the Sheldon list at groups.io who would like to see how 
I solved a broke into pieces compound on my bigger lathe, linuxcnc can 
do all that and then some w/o a compound, so mine is now a block of a 
cast iron, machined to be the same height as the broken compound with a 
quick change tool holder on top of it. Because the net-installer does 
not identify the drives its going to format, and formating the raid 
cannot be permitted, all that stuff has to be removed and a reinstall 
done to only the sata_1 drive, it takes me a couple hours on my hands 
and knees to dismantle all that to protect it from the installs appetite 
to format everything in sight.  Then about 2 hours to put it all back 
together when the install has been finished.  At 88 yo, with about a 4 
inch offset in my back from scoliosis  plus a couple crushed discs with 
the accompanying siatic pain, that is not a pleasant task.


But since I'm stuck in root, and my history with that net-installer is 
spotty at best, please give me a link to the bookworm net-install image, 
which I'll then dl and put on a fresh dvd, maybe it will work better 
than the 11.2 version I've been using. One of the things it still does 
is install orca and brltty w/o asking even if that option is skipped in 
the menu.


So, a direct link to the bookworm net-install please.  And thank you.

Gene Heskett


Jeff
.

Re: package managers problem

[Joe]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:34:45 -0400
gene heskett  wrote:


>  My fav editor, geany is also
> dead for roots use for exactly he same reason, but runs just fine as
> me. So there is a common problem.

Well, you could do it the right way: edit as you with geany in a work
directory, copy to/from the real location with a root-powered file
manager, such as mc under sudo in a terminal. Alter owner/perms as
required with mc.

That way still allows mistakes to be made, but you made a renamed copy
of the edited file before you started, didn't you? Using a non-gui
graphical application such as mc can also help with discipline: doing
something in mc? Then be damn careful, because you're probably root. I
hardly ever use mc unprivileged, I have GUI file managers for non-root
work.

-- 
Joe

Re: package managers problem

[Felix Miata]

Jeffrey Walton composed on 2023-06-21 03:00 (UTC-0400):

> Maurice Heskett wrote:
...
>> the only damned way I can
>> login is as root!
...
> Who are you? I thought a person named Gene was having trouble. Why are
> you logging in as gene?

Because Gene can't access his normal TB profile, because he can't login as gene?

> Are you gene?

Maurice is probably his given name, used to subscribe to his ISP. The email
address matches, and his quoting and writing styles.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
based on faith, not based on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata

Re: package managers problem

[Nicolas George]

to...@tuxteam.de (12023-06-21):
>   In my view, the user should have the last say. For
> me, that is non-negociable :-)

Plonk is not restricting anybody's freedom to have the last say. And
plonk is clearly the only sane way of dealing with threads like this and
the people who feed them.

The freedom of speech is not the right to be listened to.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George

Re: package managers problem

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 2:24 AM Maurice Heskett  wrote:
> On 6/20/23 22:17, pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:
> > On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:03:24 -0400
> > Greg Wooledge  wrote:
> > [...]
> >> In a sensible design, the GUI part would run as you, and it would send
> >> requests to a daemon that runs as root, or simply issue shell commands
> >> with "sudo" or something, to do the parts that need extra privs.
> >>
> > I infer that Synaptic, by requiring root privileges to be truly useful,
> > is mis-designed, since there isn't a daemon executing root level
> > commands in the background.
>
> I'll not argue with that.
>
> But for the lists benefit, my last msg indicated I was going to logout
> and back in. Which I tried to do, but with a root pw set, or something
> else, IDK and don't at this point care because the only damned way I can
> login is as root!
>
> So since I was root, and the screen looked normal for a different
> account, I tested synaptic and it ran as root just fine, so I took
> advantage of it, found the tasks section and installed all of gnome and
> all of kde, to the extent that the task pulled in several hundred
> packages each time for each interface.
>
> And it didn't make a fat rats ass of difference  EXCEPT if I su me, then
> cd /home/gene, nothing with a gui can be run as me, display 0:0 is
> locked away from me, in essence reversing the can't open display errors
> I was getting as me for sudo-ing to do gui and root requiring tasks.
>
> Explain that.
>
> I can change my (gene's) pw to anything and back successfully, but its
> no damned good at the login requester. I'm sorry if I sound exasperated
> but that is exactly where I am.  Luckily I remembered the pw at my isp
> or I would not be sending this. I gave up and went to bed about 22:00
> but was so frustrated I couldn't sleep. So I'm back up wih 4x4's under
> my eyelids but I'm alive.

Who are you? I thought a person named Gene was having trouble. Why are
you logging in as gene? Are you gene?

Jeff

Re: package managers problem

[Andy Smith]

On Wed, Jun 21, 2023 at 02:23:31AM -0400, Maurice Heskett wrote:
> my last msg indicated I was going to logout and back in. Which I
> tried to do, but with a root pw set, or something else, IDK and
> don't at this point care because the only damned way I can login
> is as root!

My guess will be that while you were messing about with copying
around .Xauthority files earlier you bust your user's home directory
in some way that prevents a desktop environment from running, and
you did not notice until you came to log out and back in again.

I doubt we will ever get to the bottom of it.

I continue to wonder how far away we are from seeing this bug report
for synaptic.

> And it didn't make a fat rats ass of difference  EXCEPT if I su me, then cd
> /home/gene, nothing with a gui can be run as me, display 0:0 is locked away
> from me, in essence reversing the can't open display errors I was getting as
> me for sudo-ing to do gui and root requiring tasks.
> 
> Explain that.

It's already been explained to you that different users have
challenges connecting to the display server of the user that is
logged in. That applies just as much whether that is a root process
(e.g. sudo someapp) trying to connect to the display of gene, or a
gene process trying to connect to the display of root.

Logging in to a desktop session as root didn't really get you
anywhere except as a matter of curiosity. It's not a mode you should
be running in, even if you did start reconfiguring all the apps to
work how you want under that user.

> So the next thing I'd like to try is getting rid of wayland and installing
> X11, but the packege managers want to strip the machine totally just to
> install the first X11 component. Stripped so badly I suspect I would even
> have a font left for the test login.  So where  do I do from here?

The bug report was my best idea since every bit of fiddling that
people are getting you to do seems to risk you doing something
unexpected and breaking your machine worse.

I guess you could try creating a new unprivileged user and seeing if
they can log in to a desktop session, just to prove the theory that
something is now messed up with user "gene"'s dotfiles or similar.
Or perhaps there is something in the system log about why gene can
authenticate at a console login and su, but not the display manager
login.

It just seems so futile though, since every step taken seems to make
your situation worse.

I highly doubt that Wayland has anything to do with any of the
problems you describe in this thread.

Thanks,
Andy

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Re: package managers problem

[Maurice Heskett]

On 6/21/23 01:12, Jeffrey Walton wrote:

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 10:17 PM  wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:03:24 -0400
Greg Wooledge  wrote:
[...]

In a sensible design, the GUI part would run as you, and it would send
requests to a daemon that runs as root, or simply issue shell commands
with "sudo" or something, to do the parts that need extra privs.

I infer that Synaptic, by requiring root privileges to be truly useful,
is mis-designed, since there isn't a daemon executing root level
commands in the background.

I think the design could be improved since it is not following the
Principle of Least Privilege. An out-of-process privileged component
would probably be a better design choice.

I think it could also be done with a shared object injection
[attack?]. It is a mitigation that operates a little lower in the
stack. API calls that required privileges could be intercepted, and
marshalled to a process to perform the privileged operations. It has
the benefit that it does not require modifying the application.

Microsoft does a lot of interception under the name Hotpatching.
Microsoft even provides the Detours library to let userland programs
do it themselves. Ubuntu does it under the name Livepatch. In the
Microsoft case, API entry points have a dummy jump that can be
overwritten. If a new DLL or shared object is released, then the
library is loaded into the app's address space, and the jump happens
to the new code.

And as Anssi points out, the program could be modified to use Policy
Kit or whatever the du jour is for this iteration of the distro
release.

Jeff


I'm running as root because that is the only login that works now.

policykit, I just checked after installing around 4gigs of stuff with

synaptic as root, under wayland, runs just fine. There is about 10

pieces of policykit stuff installed now.  where is the config stuff?

I don't like t-bird running as root anymore than you do, but ATM its

all I have. If I su gene, I can't do anything, can't open display 0:0

as me. So I'll shut down and get some zz's.



.

Re: package managers problem

[Maurice Heskett]

On 6/20/23 22:17, pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:03:24 -0400
Greg Wooledge  wrote:


On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 04:56:39PM -0400, pa...@quillandmouse.com
wrote:

Apparently the broader dictum is "never run GUI apps as root". Why?
What's special about GUI apps versus those you run in a terminal?

The extreme example is a web browser.  Your typical web browser
probably has thousands of bugs in it.

GUI apps are big and complicated.  Running them with elevated
privileges is just asking for problems.


So this isn't anything specific, but a general concern for what GUI
apps may be doing behind your back, because they are so complex.


In a sensible design, the GUI part would run as you, and it would send
requests to a daemon that runs as root, or simply issue shell commands
with "sudo" or something, to do the parts that need extra privs.


I infer that Synaptic, by requiring root privileges to be truly useful,
is mis-designed, since there isn't a daemon executing root level
commands in the background.

Paul


I'll not argue with that.

But for the lists benefit, my last msg indicated I was going to logout 
and back in. Which I tried to do, but with a root pw set, or something 
else, IDK and don't at this point care because the only damned way I can 
login is as root!


So since I was root, and the screen looked normal for a different 
account, I tested synaptic and it ran as root just fine, so I took 
advantage of it, found the tasks section and installed all of gnome and 
all of kde, to the extent that the task pulled in several hundred 
packages each time for each interface.


And it didn't make a fat rats ass of difference  EXCEPT if I su me, then 
cd /home/gene, nothing with a gui can be run as me, display 0:0 is 
locked away from me, in essence reversing the can't open display errors 
I was getting as me for sudo-ing to do gui and root requiring tasks.


Explain that.

I can change my (gene's) pw to anything and back successfully, but its 
no damned good at the login requester. I'm sorry if I sound exasperated 
but that is exactly where I am.  Luckily I remembered the pw at my isp 
or I would not be sending this. I gave up and went to bed about 22:00 
but was so frustrated I couldn't sleep. So I'm back up wih 4x4's under 
my eyelids but I'm alive.


So the next thing I'd like to try is getting rid of wayland and 
installing X11, but the packege managers want to strip the machine 
totally just to install the first X11 component. Stripped so badly I 
suspect I would even have a font left for the test login.  So where  do 
I do from here?


No cheers now, Gene

Re: package managers problem

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 10:17 PM  wrote:
>
> On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:03:24 -0400
> Greg Wooledge  wrote:
> [...]
> > In a sensible design, the GUI part would run as you, and it would send
> > requests to a daemon that runs as root, or simply issue shell commands
> > with "sudo" or something, to do the parts that need extra privs.
>
> I infer that Synaptic, by requiring root privileges to be truly useful,
> is mis-designed, since there isn't a daemon executing root level
> commands in the background.

I think the design could be improved since it is not following the
Principle of Least Privilege. An out-of-process privileged component
would probably be a better design choice.

I think it could also be done with a shared object injection
[attack?]. It is a mitigation that operates a little lower in the
stack. API calls that required privileges could be intercepted, and
marshalled to a process to perform the privileged operations. It has
the benefit that it does not require modifying the application.

Microsoft does a lot of interception under the name Hotpatching.
Microsoft even provides the Detours library to let userland programs
do it themselves. Ubuntu does it under the name Livepatch. In the
Microsoft case, API entry points have a dummy jump that can be
overwritten. If a new DLL or shared object is released, then the
library is loaded into the app's address space, and the jump happens
to the new code.

And as Anssi points out, the program could be modified to use Policy
Kit or whatever the du jour is for this iteration of the distro
release.

Jeff

Re: package managers problem

[tomas]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 05:19:48PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:

[...]

> geany it seems might have a problem.
> But it wasn't installed so I just used packagekit to install all of it as I
> use it heavily writing g-codes, so lets try it live and in person:
> 
> root@coyote:~# geany .Xauthority
> Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect:
> Connection refused
> Geany: cannot open display
> 
> But it runs just fine as me, but cannot open my own .Xauthority,unknown file
> format error: No mention of permissions. error window won't copy/paste. Very
> small snapshot attached. It did go into its history and opened an OpenSCAD
> file it had last worked on before the reinstall which I closed, also shown
> in the snapshot if it clears the server.

I am confused.

In the first paragraph above, geany can't start because, as it says, it
can't connect to the server ("Unable to init server" is one of those
really silly error messages, but I disgress).

In the second, geany seems to be running, but refuses to open .Xauthority,
because it doesn't know what format it is. Well, that's right. It is a
binary blob and supposed to be that. Only grown-up editors can cope with
that (vim and Emacs will), but even then, you gotta know what you're doing.

Cheers
-- 
t


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: package managers problem

[tomas]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 09:40:22PM -0400, pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 18:12:56 -0400
> Greg Wooledge  wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > 1) Have a root password.  SET A FUCKING ROOT PASSWORD.  Seriously.
> 
> Do that, and there are those who will harangue you for it. Sadly,
> people who argue either way know more than I do about these security
> matters. And because expert opinions vary, I don't take either one
> seriously.

They aren't that different. There was a time I thought to need a root
PW for the cases where the system gets stuck in the initramfs (e.g.
it can't mount the root file system due to corruption).

Since then, I've learnt that

- having an install medium around is way more comfortable than the
  initramfs environment anyway
- the thing happens every 2.5 years, take or give; for when it
  happens again, I've forgotten the darned root password (no,
  it's not written on the laptop's bottom ;-)

Since then, I stopped setting a root PW. Not worth the effort, for
my usage patterns. I don't think I'm significantly more secure for
that.

Cheers
-- 
t


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: package managers problem

[tomas]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 07:49:07PM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 07:35:00PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:
> > with a slight difference.  So now I have an unk pw set for root, and will
> > likely have to re-install, again if I reboot.
> 
> Nonsense.  You can set a new root password with "sudo passwd root" any
> time you wish, even without knowing the existing root password.

Or, should that fail, get your install media, boot in rescue mode, let
that mount your disks (it conveniently offers to do so), edit /etc/passwd
(your root file system is probably mounted under /target, so it will
be /target/etc/passwd). Not trivial, but not exceedingly hard either.

Cheers
-- 
t


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: package managers problem

[tomas]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 08:39:35PM +, Andy Smith wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 10:57:30AM -0400, Sarunas Burdulis wrote:
> > On 6/20/23 10:51, gene heskett wrote:
> > > Easy:
> > > gene@coyote:~/Pictures$ sudo synaptic
> > > [sudo] password for gene:
> > > Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect:
> > > Connection refused
> > > Failed to initialize GTK.
> > > [...]
> > 
> > So perhaps copy that cookie into /root/?:
> 
> Please do not encourage Gene's fetish of running GUI apps as root.

I clearly recommend against that. That said, we do free software
for a reason. In my view, the user should have the last say. For
me, that is non-negociable :-)

Cheers
-- 
t


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: package managers problem

[Anssi Saari]

 writes:

> I infer that Synaptic, by requiring root privileges to be truly useful,
> is mis-designed, since there isn't a daemon executing root level
> commands in the background.

Well, no. There is a common framework for this and it's called
PolicyKit.

Re: package managers problem

[paulf]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:03:24 -0400
Greg Wooledge  wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 04:56:39PM -0400, pa...@quillandmouse.com
> wrote:
> > Apparently the broader dictum is "never run GUI apps as root". Why?
> > What's special about GUI apps versus those you run in a terminal?
> 
> The extreme example is a web browser.  Your typical web browser
> probably has thousands of bugs in it.
> 
> GUI apps are big and complicated.  Running them with elevated
> privileges is just asking for problems.
> 

So this isn't anything specific, but a general concern for what GUI
apps may be doing behind your back, because they are so complex.

> In a sensible design, the GUI part would run as you, and it would send
> requests to a daemon that runs as root, or simply issue shell commands
> with "sudo" or something, to do the parts that need extra privs.
> 

I infer that Synaptic, by requiring root privileges to be truly useful,
is mis-designed, since there isn't a daemon executing root level
commands in the background.

Paul

-- 
Paul M. Foster
Personal Blog: http://noferblatz.com
Company Site: http://quillandmouse.com
Software Projects: https://gitlab.com/paulmfoster

Re: package managers problem

[paulf]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 18:12:56 -0400
Greg Wooledge  wrote:

[snip]

> 1) Have a root password.  SET A FUCKING ROOT PASSWORD.  Seriously.

Do that, and there are those who will harangue you for it. Sadly,
people who argue either way know more than I do about these security
matters. And because expert opinions vary, I don't take either one
seriously.

For the record, though, I always set a root password. Just in case it's
ever needed.

Paul

-- 
Paul M. Foster
Personal Blog: http://noferblatz.com
Company Site: http://quillandmouse.com
Software Projects: https://gitlab.com/paulmfoster

Re: package managers problem

[paulf]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:56:36 -0400
gene heskett  wrote:

> Like firefox, its big and complex, but unlike
> gedit has never trashed a file for me, gedit has ruined so many I
> finally banned it from my machines, all of them.

Vim for the win! (kidding)

Paul

-- 
Paul M. Foster
Personal Blog: http://noferblatz.com
Company Site: http://quillandmouse.com
Software Projects: https://gitlab.com/paulmfoster

Re: package managers problem

[Greg Wooledge]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 07:35:00PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:
> with a slight difference.  So now I have an unk pw set for root, and will
> likely have to re-install, again if I reboot.

Nonsense.  You can set a new root password with "sudo passwd root" any
time you wish, even without knowing the existing root password.

If you want to GET RID OF the root password entirely, just edit the
/etc/shadow file and mangle the password hash for root.  Traditionally,
one puts *LOCK* or some similar string containing asterisks in front of
the hash.  This turns it into an invalid hash, without destroying it,
so that you can "unlock" it by removing the added text, should you decide
to do that.

P.S. you can test your root password by using "su".  Totally 100% known
and predictable program, no surprises or learning curve as there is
with this pkexec thing.

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 18:13, Greg Wooledge wrote:

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 06:01:00PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:

Alright then the question is, is policykit the solution, or do we
install it, then spend two weeks and wreck 7 installs configuring
it to work? In other words, get to the specifics or find a new horse.


I don't use synaptic, or xfce, or policykit.  But just from reading
this thread, it looks like:

1) Have a root password.  SET A FUCKING ROOT PASSWORD.  Seriously.
It won't stop you from using sudo.  It WILL allow you to use pkexec
and single user mode (for example).  You can always nuke the root
password later if having a working system offends you.

Ok, I did that but t took quite a few passes to make it take, kept 
claiming missmatched error.



2) Log in as you.  Start your X session, if that's not already done.

3) Undo whatever crazy shit you've done in the past trying to work
around stuff.  This includes removing the MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE that
you copied into root's $HOME directory the other day.

4) Open a terminal.


Existing login, new terminal

5) Run "pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic".


Passwd requestor does NOT specify which passwd, so I try the new root 
pw, 3 times, 100% fail with: authentification error under the text line 
aftere the requestor jiggle rapidly then redraws with the auth error 
under the text box. No errors logged to the new terminal so I repeat, 
using my sudo passwd, which logs to the terminal the same old bitch:

gene@coyote:~$ pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic
Error executing command as another user: Not authorized
with a slight difference.  So now I have an unk pw set for root, and 
will likely have to re-install, again if I reboot.


Do I have to log out and back in? I'm sorry but that is about a 15 
minute undertaking as I have to rebuild the whole damned local network 
since its running as me. That is about 14 times just typing my pw in 
addition to several session of sourceing my .profile o correct my $PATH 
so it all works in a dozen workspaces.  However my sudo still works so 
I'll do it. But first some din-din. Road stew probably since I'm alone 
now for over 2 years.



6) If there's a popup, READ what it says.  Do what it says.  If it's
asking for the root password, provide the ROOT password, not your
own.  If it's asking for your own, provide your own, and not the
root password.

7) If there's text in the terminal window, READ what it says.  Do what
it says.

8) If you're still stuck, report back here with all the relevant details.
This includes, but is not necessarily limited to, the text that
appeared in the popup, and the text that appeared in the terminal
window.  Anything else that strikes you as unusual or important,
report that too.

The goal is to figure out what's different about YOUR setup compared to
the setups of the people for whom it "worked out of the box".  This may
be something you're doing now, or something you changed in the past and
have forgotten you've done.  That's what makes this difficult.

I do not know anything about pkexec or synaptic myself, so this is just a
synthesis of the stuff others have said.  Take all of this with approriate
caveats.

.


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[Stefan Monnier]

> I understand not running, say, VLC as root. But Synaptic? It allows you
> to search, install and remove packages. Two of those things can't be
> done without root permissions. I absolutely run it as root.
>
The problem is not what the App is expected to do, but the GUI code may
"accidentally" do beside what you expect.

Most GUI apps use GUI toolkits.  Those toolkits are designed to be
cute/fancy/sophisticated/extensible/customizable/..., all of which is
diametrically opposed to safe


Stefan

Re: package managers problem

[Stefan Monnier]

>> Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
>> Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
>> root permission
>
> Thank you. That's the error I saw

Correction: the above is not an error message.  It's a guess of the
likely cause of the error message emitted earlier.

> Synaptic run as a regular user is useless, except to search
> for things.

Not if you start it properly, so it can request admin credentials
when needed.


Stefan

Re: package managers problem

[Andy Smith]

Hello Gene,

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 06:01:00PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:
> Alright then the question is, is policykit the solution, or do we
> install it, then spend two weeks and wreck 7 installs configuring
> it to work? In other words, get to the specifics or find a new horse.

I think it's already been demonstrated in this thread that the
desktop launcher for Synaptic calls policykit to start it, so if as
you claim you do a standard Debian install and then try to launch
Synaptic from the desktop (specifically NOT from a terminal window,
and not using sudo or otherwise) and find "nothing happens", then
that is a bug you should report to Debian.

As there have been others in this thread reporting that Synaptic
works fine for them though, I fully expect this to be down to some
way you've found to break your system, probably while fighting one of
your other bogeymen like IPv6 or resolvconf or something, where you
tend to get happy with "rm -f" and "chattr +i".

Then again, there do seem to be others having a similar problem so
maybe there really is an actual bug here. Do let us know the bug
number so we can follow along and find out.

All of that would have been a sensible way to go, without this
nonsense of trying to start GUI apps with sudo or directly as root,
and then blaming the Wayland that lives under your bed.

Thanks,
Andy

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Re: package managers problem

[Andy Smith]

Hi Gene,

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 05:44:10PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:
> > Please do not encourage Gene's fetish of running GUI apps as root.

[…]

> Andy, if you aren't behind dd-wrt for your home network, don't pretend to
> tell me what I can't do

I think your contributions to this list do a great job of telling
people what you can't do.

> Don't impress on me, your paranoid ideas about how I should run MY
> computers

By all means, go with God and become an example to others if nothing
else!

Thanks,
Andy

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Re: package managers problem

[Greg Wooledge]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 06:01:00PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:
> Alright then the question is, is policykit the solution, or do we
> install it, then spend two weeks and wreck 7 installs configuring
> it to work? In other words, get to the specifics or find a new horse.

I don't use synaptic, or xfce, or policykit.  But just from reading
this thread, it looks like:

1) Have a root password.  SET A FUCKING ROOT PASSWORD.  Seriously.
   It won't stop you from using sudo.  It WILL allow you to use pkexec
   and single user mode (for example).  You can always nuke the root
   password later if having a working system offends you.

2) Log in as you.  Start your X session, if that's not already done.

3) Undo whatever crazy shit you've done in the past trying to work
   around stuff.  This includes removing the MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE that
   you copied into root's $HOME directory the other day.

4) Open a terminal.

5) Run "pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic".

6) If there's a popup, READ what it says.  Do what it says.  If it's
   asking for the root password, provide the ROOT password, not your
   own.  If it's asking for your own, provide your own, and not the
   root password.

7) If there's text in the terminal window, READ what it says.  Do what
   it says.

8) If you're still stuck, report back here with all the relevant details.
   This includes, but is not necessarily limited to, the text that
   appeared in the popup, and the text that appeared in the terminal
   window.  Anything else that strikes you as unusual or important,
   report that too.

The goal is to figure out what's different about YOUR setup compared to
the setups of the people for whom it "worked out of the box".  This may
be something you're doing now, or something you changed in the past and
have forgotten you've done.  That's what makes this difficult.

I do not know anything about pkexec or synaptic myself, so this is just a
synthesis of the stuff others have said.  Take all of this with approriate
caveats.

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 17:18, Andy Smith wrote:

Hello,

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 04:56:39PM -0400, pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 20:39:35 +
Andy Smith  wrote:

Please do not encourage Gene's fetish of running GUI apps as root.
Plenty of people have been wasting their time trying to tell him not
to do that for years now, and the last thing they need is bystanders
handing him a different bore of firearm to aim at his foot.


I understand not running, say, VLC as root. But Synaptic? It allows you


Even if you want to disregard the security implications of running
a GUI app as root, just because the alternative might be running a
similar TUI app fully as root — and I wouldn't necessarily agree
with that stance as GUI apps are inherently bigger and more
complicated — but sure, let's go along with that:

Even then, the fact remains that GUI apps needing a bit of admin
access is a decades old problem that has a really old solution, that
being policykit, a framework specifically designed for this that
Synaptic uses on all major desktop environments and is thus the
supported way to run Synaptic in GUI mode. root is a different user.
There are all manner of intricacies involved in getting a different
user to have permission and ability to meddle with the display
session of the person sat in front of the computer. This is the way
it's meant to be done.

So anyone persisting with this with sudo and trying to copy X
cookies around is just looking for pain.

Thanks,
Andy


Alright then the question is, is policykit the solution, or do we
install it, then spend two weeks and wreck 7 installs configuring
it to work? In other words, get to the specifics or find a new horse.

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 17:03, Greg Wooledge wrote:

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 04:56:39PM -0400, pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:

Apparently the broader dictum is "never run GUI apps as root". Why?
What's special about GUI apps versus those you run in a terminal?


The extreme example is a web browser.  Your typical web browser probably
has thousands of bugs in it.

GUI apps are big and complicated.  Running them with elevated privileges
is just asking for problems.

In a sensible design, the GUI part would run as you, and it would send
requests to a daemon that runs as root, or simply issue shell commands
with "sudo" or something, to do the parts that need extra privs.

.
+10,000 Greg. Foisting this change on the users, without fixing the apps 
it effects, is only driving us users mad and crippling what our macines 
can do.  Synaptic is not the only app it blocks, geany is blocked too, 
not that I have ever, except for this test, attempted to run geany as 
root. Like firefox, its big and complex, but unlike gedit has never 
trashed a file for me, gedit has ruined so many I finally banned it from 
my machines, all of them.


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 16:40, Andy Smith wrote:

Hello,

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 10:57:30AM -0400, Sarunas Burdulis wrote:

On 6/20/23 10:51, gene heskett wrote:

Easy:
gene@coyote:~/Pictures$ sudo synaptic
[sudo] password for gene:
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect:
Connection refused
Failed to initialize GTK.
[...]


So perhaps copy that cookie into /root/?:


Please do not encourage Gene's fetish of running GUI apps as root.
Plenty of people have been wasting their time trying to tell him not
to do that for years now, and the last thing they need is bystanders
handing him a different bore of firearm to aim at his foot.

Cheers,
Andy

Andy, if you aren't behind dd-wrt for your home network, don't pretend 
to tell me what I can't do, because I am behind dd-wrt and totally 
responsible for what I do on this side of it. Don't impress on me, your 
paranoid ideas about how I should run MY computers


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 16:01, Charles Curley wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 13:37:01 -0400
gene heskett  wrote:



Gene, this is a long shot. Do you have any KDE or qt components
installed?
   

in packagekit:
kde search = desktop-base, girl.2-webkit2, libblockdev2,
libblockdev-crypto2, libblockdev-fs2, libblockdev-loop2,
libblockdev-part2, libblockdec-oart-err2, libblockdev-swap2,
libblockdev-utils2, libwebkit2gtk-4, networkmanager-gnome-1.2,
ruby-debian-0.3, shared-mime-info-2, sound-theme-freedesktop,
xfwm4-4, xiccd-0.3

qt search = dbus, libcwidget4, libdbus, printer-driver-cups-pdf


Hmmm. I run XFCE4 here, with a large chunk of KDE installed in order to
use some KDE/qt applications. I am not familiar with packagekit, so I'm
not familiar with its output. I conjecture from this output that you
don't have anywhere near as much of KDE/qt installed as I do.

My long-shot hypothesis is that synaptic, in spite of being a GTK+
application, uses KDE/qt (or something those pulled in) to access the
display.

Maybe someone who knows a lot more about X, Wayland, and how all this
plays together than I do can comment?

That's exactly what I'm hoping will happen here, someone in the know who 
can name what I need to install. My fav editor, geany is also dead for 
roots use for exactly he same reason, but runs just fine as me. So there 
is a common problem.


Thanks Charles.

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[Felix Miata]

gene heskett composed on 2023-06-20 16:08 (UTC-0400):

> Felix Miata wrote:

>> gene heskett composed on 2023-06-20 10:51 (UTC-0400):

 Independently of whether you are able to do that without corrupting 
 something,
 please provide here GUI terminal input/output from 'inxi -GSaz',

The immediate goal here is to run inxi -GSaz, not Synaptic.

>> ...
>>> This is still bullseye, a netinstall from a week ago and I have
>>> no inxi according to locate according to updatedb.
>> Super! Install, as root, the excellent /current/ inxi script instead:

>>  cd /usr/local/bin && wget -O inxi smxi.org/inxi && chmod +x inxi
> had to break this up and use sudo: should have become root first

The instruction was "as root", not using sudo. However you can figure out to 
make
/usr/local/bin/inxi executable so that you can run it either as user or as root.

> gene@coyote:/usr/local/bin$ sudo wget -O inxi smxi.org/inxi && chmod +x inxi
> --2023-06-20 13:44:17--  http://smxi.org/inxi
> Resolving smxi.org (smxi.org)... 216.92.30.83
> Connecting to smxi.org (smxi.org)|216.92.30.83|:80... connected.
> HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
> Location: https://smxi.org/inxi [following]
> --2023-06-20 13:44:17--  https://smxi.org/inxi
> Connecting to smxi.org (smxi.org)|216.92.30.83|:443... connected.
> HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
> Location: https://github.com/smxi/inxi/raw/master/inxi [following]
> --2023-06-20 13:44:17--  https://github.com/smxi/inxi/raw/master/inxi
> Resolving github.com (github.com)... 140.82.112.3
> Connecting to github.com (github.com)|140.82.112.3|:443... connected.
> HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
> Location: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smxi/inxi/master/inxi 
> [following]
> --2023-06-20 13:44:18-- 
> https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smxi/inxi/master/inxi
> Resolving raw.githubusercontent.com (raw.githubusercontent.com)... 
> 185.199.111.133, 185.199.108.133, 185.199.110.133, ...
> Connecting to raw.githubusercontent.com 
> (raw.githubusercontent.com)|185.199.111.133|:443... connected.
> HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
> Length: 1200264 (1.1M) [text/plain]
> Saving to: ‘inxi’
> 
> inxi 
> 100%[=>]
>  
>1.14M  3.62MB/sin 0.3s
> 
> 2023-06-20 13:44:18 (3.62 MB/s) - ‘inxi’ saved [1200264/1200264]
> 
> chmod: changing permissions of 'inxi': Operation not permitted
> so:
> sudo chmod +x inxi:
> 
> Then I can run it as me, but not with sudo:
> gene@coyote:/usr/local/bin$ synaptic

Run it what?

How did synaptic get in front of the inxi input/output I asked for?

Inxi is a troubleshooting tool having nothing directly to do with Xorg, Wayland 
or
Synaptic.

https://paste.opensuse.org/pastes/c13485fcb27c shows you three basic things:

1-what inxi output should look like (on a PC using 4 displays)

2-Synaptic running in XFCE on Mint 21.1 (based on *buntu, based on Debian)
(started from the XFCE menu system, not from any terminal) (as root, which as 
most
of us know doesn't exist by default on Mint or *buntu)

3-inxi didn't find any "wayland" to report

These are installed on the Mint that made the screenshot, made on Mint because
that's the only place I ever have XFCE installed. My Debians *all* run TDE:
# dpkg-query -W | egrep 'xorg|synaptic|wayland|apt'
add-apt-key 1.0-0.5
apt 2.4.8
apt-clone   0.4.3+nmu1
apt-utils   2.4.8
aptdaemon   1.1.1+bzr982-0ubuntu39mint1
aptdaemon-data  1.1.1+bzr982-0ubuntu39mint1
aptitude0.8.13-3ubuntu1
aptitude-common 0.8.13-3ubuntu1
apturl  0.5.2+linuxmint13
apturl-common   0.5.2+linuxmint13
laptop-detect   0.16
libapt-pkg-perl 0.1.40build2
libapt-pkg6.0:amd64 2.4.8
libatk-adaptor:amd642.38.0-3
libraptor2-0:amd64  2.0.15-0ubuntu4
libva-wayland2:amd642.14.0-1
libwayland-client0:amd641.20.0-1ubuntu0.1
libwayland-cursor0:amd641.20.0-1ubuntu0.1
libwayland-egl1:amd64   1.20.0-1ubuntu0.1
libwayland-egl1-mesa:amd64  22.0.5-0ubuntu0.3
libwayland-server0:amd641.20.0-1ubuntu0.1
python-apt-common   2.3.0ubuntu2.1
python3-apt 2.3.0ubuntu2.1
python3-aptdaemon   1.1.1+bzr982-0ubuntu39mint1
python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets   1.1.1+bzr982-0ubuntu39mint1
synaptic0.90.2+mint3+vanessa
xorg1:7.7+23ubuntu2
xorg-docs-core  1:1.7.1-1.2
xserver-xorg1:7.7+23ubuntu2
xserver-xorg-core   2:21.1.3-2ubuntu2.5
xserver-xorg-input-all  1:7.7+23ubuntu2
xserver-xorg-input-libinput 1.2.1-1
xserver-xorg-legacy 2:21.1.3-2ubuntu2.5
xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu   22.0.0-1ubuntu0.1
xserver-xorg-video-ati  1:19.1.0-2ubuntu1
xserver-xorg-video-fbdev1:0.5.0-2build1
xserver-xorg-video-radeon   1:19.1.0-2ubuntu1
xserver-xorg-video-vesa 1:2.5.0-1build4
#

You've shown the thread "Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root
permission." more than enough times already. That message is obviously some kind
of 

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 14:35, pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 14:15:19 -0400
gene heskett  wrote:

[snip]


gene@coyote:/usr/local/bin$ pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not
connect: Connection refused
Failed to initialize GTK.

Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without
root permission

which might work if it wasn't for the invalid magic cookie, so how do
I get an accceptable version of that?



No one's really broken down that initial error message. I think it's
some sort of red herring. I don't think it's actually a "magic cookie"
thing. I suspect something else is going on. For example, it also says
it can't initialize GTK. Why? Does Synaptic rely on GTK libraries which
aren't present? I don't know the answer; I'm just asking questions. And
what server is it unable to "init"? Can you run other GUI apps with
sudo?


geany it seems might have a problem.
But it wasn't installed so I just used packagekit to install all of it 
as I use it heavily writing g-codes, so lets try it live and in person:


root@coyote:~# geany .Xauthority
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect: 
Connection refused

Geany: cannot open display

But it runs just fine as me, but cannot open my own .Xauthority,unknown 
file format error: No mention of permissions. error window won't 
copy/paste. Very small snapshot attached. It did go into its history and 
opened an OpenSCAD file it had last worked on before the reinstall which 
I closed, also shown in the snapshot if it clears the server.





Unfortunately, I on Xorg, so I can test what you're talking about.

Paul



Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[Andy Smith]

Hello,

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 04:56:39PM -0400, pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 20:39:35 +
> Andy Smith  wrote:
> > Please do not encourage Gene's fetish of running GUI apps as root.
> > Plenty of people have been wasting their time trying to tell him not
> > to do that for years now, and the last thing they need is bystanders
> > handing him a different bore of firearm to aim at his foot.
> 
> I understand not running, say, VLC as root. But Synaptic? It allows you

Even if you want to disregard the security implications of running
a GUI app as root, just because the alternative might be running a
similar TUI app fully as root — and I wouldn't necessarily agree
with that stance as GUI apps are inherently bigger and more
complicated — but sure, let's go along with that:

Even then, the fact remains that GUI apps needing a bit of admin
access is a decades old problem that has a really old solution, that
being policykit, a framework specifically designed for this that
Synaptic uses on all major desktop environments and is thus the
supported way to run Synaptic in GUI mode. root is a different user.
There are all manner of intricacies involved in getting a different
user to have permission and ability to meddle with the display
session of the person sat in front of the computer. This is the way
it's meant to be done.

So anyone persisting with this with sudo and trying to copy X
cookies around is just looking for pain.

Thanks,
Andy

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Re: package managers problem

[Greg Wooledge]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 04:56:39PM -0400, pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:
> Apparently the broader dictum is "never run GUI apps as root". Why?
> What's special about GUI apps versus those you run in a terminal?

The extreme example is a web browser.  Your typical web browser probably
has thousands of bugs in it.

GUI apps are big and complicated.  Running them with elevated privileges
is just asking for problems.

In a sensible design, the GUI part would run as you, and it would send
requests to a daemon that runs as root, or simply issue shell commands
with "sudo" or something, to do the parts that need extra privs.

Re: package managers problem

[paulf]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 20:39:35 +
Andy Smith  wrote:

[snip]

> 
> Please do not encourage Gene's fetish of running GUI apps as root.
> Plenty of people have been wasting their time trying to tell him not
> to do that for years now, and the last thing they need is bystanders
> handing him a different bore of firearm to aim at his foot.
> 

I understand not running, say, VLC as root. But Synaptic? It allows you
to search, install and remove packages. Two of those things can't be
done without root permissions. I absolutely run it as root.

Apparently the broader dictum is "never run GUI apps as root". Why?
What's special about GUI apps versus those you run in a terminal?

Paul


-- 
Paul M. Foster
Personal Blog: http://noferblatz.com
Company Site: http://quillandmouse.com
Software Projects: https://gitlab.com/paulmfoster

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 14:32, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 02:15:19PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:

On 6/20/23 14:03, zithro wrote:

On 20 Jun 2023 18:21, Charles Curley wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:52:47 +0200
Anders Andersson  wrote:


I'm running Gnome. Maybe synaptic is not compatible with xfce?


Nope. I have synaptic running here with xfce4 on Bullseye.

synaptic    0.90.2    amd64
xfce4    4.16    all



Correct me if I'm wrong, but last I tried synaptic manually (on XFCE), I
had to use pkexec and NOT sudo.
It doesn't start from a root xterm either.
This remark is for Gene, who only uses variations of "sudo".

    $ which synaptic-pkexec
    /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec
    $ /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec

"synaptic-pkexec" is what's needed if not using the distro-provided
shortcut.
Here, the shortcut in XFCE under "System -> Synaptic package manager"
effectively launches "synaptic-pkexec".
synaptic-pkexec is a shell script containing:
    pkexec "/usr/sbin/synaptic" "$@"

Another note, if you use pkexec directly, this won't work :
    $ pkexec synaptic
Cannot run program synaptic: No such file or directory

But this is OK
    $ pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic


paste:
gene@coyote:/usr/local/bin$ pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect:
Connection refused
Failed to initialize GTK.


The MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE refers to an authorization file which will be
in the home directory of the user on whose behalf X was started,
typically under the name .Xauthority. The idea is that whoever has
access to this file is allowed to talk to the X server (an early
example of a "capability" [1], if you wish).

If you are running a pure Wayland session, with no Xwayland, I won't
be able to help you -- I'll try to quit computing before I have to
touch that. But that would possibly mean that synaptic /wants/ to run
under X (or some emulation thereof).

If it does run as a "normal" user, see whether you find this .Xauthority
file in your /home and copy it over to /root: may be that helps, may be
not (chmod/chown to taste: root has to be able to read it).

Cheersmc took care of that, so root owns the copy, but it made no difference.


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[Andy Smith]

Hello,

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 10:57:30AM -0400, Sarunas Burdulis wrote:
> On 6/20/23 10:51, gene heskett wrote:
> > Easy:
> > gene@coyote:~/Pictures$ sudo synaptic
> > [sudo] password for gene:
> > Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect:
> > Connection refused
> > Failed to initialize GTK.
> > [...]
> 
> So perhaps copy that cookie into /root/?:

Please do not encourage Gene's fetish of running GUI apps as root.
Plenty of people have been wasting their time trying to tell him not
to do that for years now, and the last thing they need is bystanders
handing him a different bore of firearm to aim at his foot.

Cheers,
Andy

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 12:50, Felix Miata wrote:

gene heskett composed on 2023-06-20 10:51 (UTC-0400):


Independently of whether you are able to do that without corrupting something,
please provide here GUI terminal input/output from 'inxi -GSaz',

...

This is still bullseye, a netinstall from a week ago and I have
no inxi according to locate according to updatedb.


Super! Install, as root, the excellent /current/ inxi script instead:

cd /usr/local/bin && wget -O inxi smxi.org/inxi && chmod +x inxi

had to break this up and use sudo: should have become root first
gene@coyote:/usr/local/bin$ sudo wget -O inxi smxi.org/inxi && chmod +x inxi
--2023-06-20 13:44:17--  http://smxi.org/inxi
Resolving smxi.org (smxi.org)... 216.92.30.83
Connecting to smxi.org (smxi.org)|216.92.30.83|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: https://smxi.org/inxi [following]
--2023-06-20 13:44:17--  https://smxi.org/inxi
Connecting to smxi.org (smxi.org)|216.92.30.83|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: https://github.com/smxi/inxi/raw/master/inxi [following]
--2023-06-20 13:44:17--  https://github.com/smxi/inxi/raw/master/inxi
Resolving github.com (github.com)... 140.82.112.3
Connecting to github.com (github.com)|140.82.112.3|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smxi/inxi/master/inxi 
[following]
--2023-06-20 13:44:18-- 
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smxi/inxi/master/inxi
Resolving raw.githubusercontent.com (raw.githubusercontent.com)... 
185.199.111.133, 185.199.108.133, 185.199.110.133, ...
Connecting to raw.githubusercontent.com 
(raw.githubusercontent.com)|185.199.111.133|:443... connected.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 1200264 (1.1M) [text/plain]
Saving to: ‘inxi’

inxi 
100%[=>] 
  1.14M  3.62MB/sin 0.3s


2023-06-20 13:44:18 (3.62 MB/s) - ‘inxi’ saved [1200264/1200264]

chmod: changing permissions of 'inxi': Operation not permitted
so:
sudo chmod +x inxi:

Then I can run it as me, but not with sudo:
gene@coyote:/usr/local/bin$ synaptic
Gtk-Message: 13:49:18.398: Failed to load module 
"window-decorations-gtk-module"

Gtk-Message: 13:49:18.399: Failed to load module "colorreload-gtk-module"
gene@coyote:/usr/local/bin$ sudo synaptic
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect: 
Connection refused

Failed to initialize GTK.

Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
root permission

gene@coyote:/usr/local/bin$ sudo -E synaptic
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect: 
Connection refused

Failed to initialize GTK.

Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
root permission


End of copy/pastage.


https://smxi.org/docs/inxi-installation.htm#inxi-manual-install

It doesn't create /etc/inxi.conf, which is needed only if you wish to override
built in inxi defaults.

The current devel version is 3.3.28-24, release, 3.3.27. Changelog:



Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[Charles Curley]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 13:37:01 -0400
gene heskett  wrote:

> > 
> > Gene, this is a long shot. Do you have any KDE or qt components
> > installed?
> >   
> in packagekit:
> kde search = desktop-base, girl.2-webkit2, libblockdev2, 
> libblockdev-crypto2, libblockdev-fs2, libblockdev-loop2, 
> libblockdev-part2, libblockdec-oart-err2, libblockdev-swap2, 
> libblockdev-utils2, libwebkit2gtk-4, networkmanager-gnome-1.2, 
> ruby-debian-0.3, shared-mime-info-2, sound-theme-freedesktop,
> xfwm4-4, xiccd-0.3
> 
> qt search = dbus, libcwidget4, libdbus, printer-driver-cups-pdf

Hmmm. I run XFCE4 here, with a large chunk of KDE installed in order to
use some KDE/qt applications. I am not familiar with packagekit, so I'm
not familiar with its output. I conjecture from this output that you
don't have anywhere near as much of KDE/qt installed as I do.

My long-shot hypothesis is that synaptic, in spite of being a GTK+
application, uses KDE/qt (or something those pulled in) to access the
display.

Maybe someone who knows a lot more about X, Wayland, and how all this
plays together than I do can comment?

-- 
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

Re: package managers problem

[tomas]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 02:35:08PM -0400, pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 14:15:19 -0400
> gene heskett  wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > gene@coyote:/usr/local/bin$ pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic
> > Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not
> > connect: Connection refused
> > Failed to initialize GTK.
> > 
> > Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
> > Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
> > root permission
> > 
> > which might work if it wasn't for the invalid magic cookie, so how do
> > I get an accceptable version of that?
> > 
> 
> No one's really broken down that initial error message. I think it's
> some sort of red herring. I don't think it's actually a "magic cookie"
> thing.

I just explained it in my other post. It /is/ a magic cookie, and
X clients these days need that to talk to the X server. On my box,
for example:

tomas@trotzki:~$ hexdump -C .Xauthority 
  01 00 00 07 74 72 6f 74  7a 6b 69 00 01 30 00 12  
|trotzki..0..|
0010  4d 49 54 2d 4d 41 47 49  43 2d 43 4f 4f 4b 49 45  
|MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE|
0020  2d 31 00 10 86 0b f6 67  60 93 c8 55 83 6e 40 59  
|-1.g`..U.n@Y|
0030  d1 18 c8 08 00 00 00 04  a9 fe 03 8b 00 01 30 00  
|..0.|
0040  12 4d 49 54 2d 4d 41 47  49 43 2d 43 4f 4f 4b 49  
|.MIT-MAGIC-COOKI|
0050  45 2d 31 00 10 27 ec ac  11 9a 1b 50 36 aa a2 da  
|E-1..'.P6...|
0060  47 1b bd cb 6a 01 00 00  08 72 61 73 70 75 74 69  
|G...jrasputi|
0070  6e 00 01 30 00 12 4d 49  54 2d 4d 41 47 49 43 2d  
|n..0..MIT-MAGIC-|
0080  43 4f 4f 4b 49 45 2d 31  00 10 7e f2 f2 1a ee a3  
|COOKIE-1..~.|
0090  40 e5 6d 04 a0 a1 56 b0  eb d3 01 00 00 07 74 72  
|@.m...V...tr|
00a0  6f 74 7a 6b 69 00 02 31  30 00 12 4d 49 54 2d 4d  
|otzki..10..MIT-M|
00b0  41 47 49 43 2d 43 4f 4f  4b 49 45 2d 31 00 10 64  
|AGIC-COOKIE-1..d|
00c0  e0 43 cc f1 ad f6 de ba  e1 e9 93 5e 21 63 63 
|.C.^!cc|

> I suspect something else is going on. For example, it also says
> it can't initialize GTK. Why?

No X server to talk to -> no GTK.

>  Does Synaptic rely on GTK libraries which
> aren't present? I don't know the answer;

That would be another error message.

> I'm just asking questions. And
> what server is it unable to "init"? Can you run other GUI apps with
> sudo? 
> 
> Unfortunately, I on Xorg, so I can test what you're talking about.

Whatever is happening, the synaptic thinks it is trying to do
Xorg. Perhaps it tries first wayland, fails and falls back to
X, thence the magic cookie thing.

But magic cookies are a thing, at least under X [1]

Cheers

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_cookie

-- 
t


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: package managers problem

[paulf]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 14:15:19 -0400
gene heskett  wrote:

[snip]

> gene@coyote:/usr/local/bin$ pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic
> Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not
> connect: Connection refused
> Failed to initialize GTK.
> 
> Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
> Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
> root permission
> 
> which might work if it wasn't for the invalid magic cookie, so how do
> I get an accceptable version of that?
> 

No one's really broken down that initial error message. I think it's
some sort of red herring. I don't think it's actually a "magic cookie"
thing. I suspect something else is going on. For example, it also says
it can't initialize GTK. Why? Does Synaptic rely on GTK libraries which
aren't present? I don't know the answer; I'm just asking questions. And
what server is it unable to "init"? Can you run other GUI apps with
sudo? 

Unfortunately, I on Xorg, so I can test what you're talking about.

Paul

-- 
Paul M. Foster
Personal Blog: http://noferblatz.com
Company Site: http://quillandmouse.com
Software Projects: https://gitlab.com/paulmfoster

Re: package managers problem

[tomas]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 02:15:19PM -0400, gene heskett wrote:
> On 6/20/23 14:03, zithro wrote:
> > On 20 Jun 2023 18:21, Charles Curley wrote:
> > > On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:52:47 +0200
> > > Anders Andersson  wrote:
> > > 
> > > > I'm running Gnome. Maybe synaptic is not compatible with xfce?
> > > 
> > > Nope. I have synaptic running here with xfce4 on Bullseye.
> > > 
> > > synaptic    0.90.2    amd64
> > > xfce4    4.16    all
> > > 
> > 
> > Correct me if I'm wrong, but last I tried synaptic manually (on XFCE), I
> > had to use pkexec and NOT sudo.
> > It doesn't start from a root xterm either.
> > This remark is for Gene, who only uses variations of "sudo".
> > 
> >    $ which synaptic-pkexec
> >    /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec
> >    $ /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec
> > 
> > "synaptic-pkexec" is what's needed if not using the distro-provided
> > shortcut.
> > Here, the shortcut in XFCE under "System -> Synaptic package manager"
> > effectively launches "synaptic-pkexec".
> > synaptic-pkexec is a shell script containing:
> >    pkexec "/usr/sbin/synaptic" "$@"
> > 
> > Another note, if you use pkexec directly, this won't work :
> >    $ pkexec synaptic
> > Cannot run program synaptic: No such file or directory
> > 
> > But this is OK
> >    $ pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic
> > 
> paste:
> gene@coyote:/usr/local/bin$ pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic
> Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect:
> Connection refused
> Failed to initialize GTK.

The MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE refers to an authorization file which will be
in the home directory of the user on whose behalf X was started,
typically under the name .Xauthority. The idea is that whoever has
access to this file is allowed to talk to the X server (an early
example of a "capability" [1], if you wish).

If you are running a pure Wayland session, with no Xwayland, I won't
be able to help you -- I'll try to quit computing before I have to
touch that. But that would possibly mean that synaptic /wants/ to run
under X (or some emulation thereof).

If it does run as a "normal" user, see whether you find this .Xauthority
file in your /home and copy it over to /root: may be that helps, may be
not (chmod/chown to taste: root has to be able to read it).

Cheers
-- 
t


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Description: PGP signature

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 14:03, zithro wrote:

On 20 Jun 2023 18:21, Charles Curley wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:52:47 +0200
Anders Andersson  wrote:


I'm running Gnome. Maybe synaptic is not compatible with xfce?


Nope. I have synaptic running here with xfce4 on Bullseye.

synaptic    0.90.2    amd64
xfce4    4.16    all



Correct me if I'm wrong, but last I tried synaptic manually (on XFCE), I 
had to use pkexec and NOT sudo.

It doesn't start from a root xterm either.
This remark is for Gene, who only uses variations of "sudo".

   $ which synaptic-pkexec
   /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec
   $ /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec

"synaptic-pkexec" is what's needed if not using the distro-provided 
shortcut.
Here, the shortcut in XFCE under "System -> Synaptic package manager" 
effectively launches "synaptic-pkexec".

synaptic-pkexec is a shell script containing:
   pkexec "/usr/sbin/synaptic" "$@"

Another note, if you use pkexec directly, this won't work :
   $ pkexec synaptic
Cannot run program synaptic: No such file or directory

But this is OK
   $ pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic


paste:
gene@coyote:/usr/local/bin$ pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect: 
Connection refused

Failed to initialize GTK.

Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
root permission


which might work if it wasn't for the invalid magic cookie, so how do I 
get an accceptable version of that?


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[zithro]

On 20 Jun 2023 18:21, Charles Curley wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:52:47 +0200
Anders Andersson  wrote:


I'm running Gnome. Maybe synaptic is not compatible with xfce?


Nope. I have synaptic running here with xfce4 on Bullseye.

synaptic0.90.2  amd64
xfce4   4.16all



Correct me if I'm wrong, but last I tried synaptic manually (on XFCE), I 
had to use pkexec and NOT sudo.

It doesn't start from a root xterm either.
This remark is for Gene, who only uses variations of "sudo".

  $ which synaptic-pkexec
  /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec
  $ /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec

"synaptic-pkexec" is what's needed if not using the distro-provided 
shortcut.
Here, the shortcut in XFCE under "System -> Synaptic package manager" 
effectively launches "synaptic-pkexec".

synaptic-pkexec is a shell script containing:
  pkexec "/usr/sbin/synaptic" "$@"

Another note, if you use pkexec directly, this won't work :
  $ pkexec synaptic
Cannot run program synaptic: No such file or directory

But this is OK
  $ pkexec /usr/sbin/synaptic

Re: package managers problem

[tomas]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 10:51:13AM -0400, gene heskett wrote:

[...]

> Easy:
> gene@coyote:~/Pictures$ sudo synaptic
> [sudo] password for gene:
> Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect:
> Connection refused
> Failed to initialize GTK.

Gene,

this is just not going to work. Never. Not under Wayland, not
under X, not at all.

> Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
> Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without root
> permission
> gene@coyote:~/Pictures$ sudo -E synaptic
> Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect:
> Connection refused
> Failed to initialize GTK.

This /might/ work under some "old" X setups (mine is one). It won't
work under yours.

The way graphical applications do sudo things for the young'uns like
you (that means: using one graphical desktop environment, be it XFCE,
Gnome, Mate, etc) is that synaptic asks you for your credentials once
it's up to do something where it needs some.

If it doesn't, it is misconfigured.

Cheers
-- 
t


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Description: PGP signature

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 12:15, Charles Curley wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 10:10:26 -0400
gene heskett  wrote:


I am not a gnome fan. Packagekit says all 157 synaptic dependencies
are present and accounted for, but it will not run here, bitching
about wayland and root.

So IMNSHO, there must be a dependency that isn't satisfied on an
xfce4 system. What am I missing?


Gene, this is a long shot. Do you have any KDE or qt components
installed?


in packagekit:
kde search = desktop-base, girl.2-webkit2, libblockdev2, 
libblockdev-crypto2, libblockdev-fs2, libblockdev-loop2, 
libblockdev-part2, libblockdec-oart-err2, libblockdev-swap2, 
libblockdev-utils2, libwebkit2gtk-4, networkmanager-gnome-1.2, 
ruby-debian-0.3, shared-mime-info-2, sound-theme-freedesktop, xfwm4-4, 
xiccd-0.3


qt search = dbus, libcwidget4, libdbus, printer-driver-cups-pdf

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[Xiyue Deng]

 writes:

> [[PGP Signed Part:Undecided]]
> On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 04:06:23AM -0400, Charles Kroeger wrote:
>> > As far as I know, apt is pretty much apt-get
>> 
>> If you're using Debian 12 then the -get is gone.
>
> No, it's still there, whenever you need it :)
>
> Cheers

IIUC "apt" is a replacement for end-user that combines most of the
functions in "apt-get" and "apt-cache".  On the other hand, the output
of "apt-get" and "apt-cache" are considered stable and can be used for
scripting that parse their output, meanwhile apt may introduce
backward-incompatible output changes.  You'll get a warning if you use
"apt" in a script.  See also "man apt":

,
| SCRIPT USAGE AND DIFFERENCES FROM OTHER APT TOOLS
|The apt(8) commandline is designed as an end-user tool and it may
|change behavior between versions. While it tries not to break
|backward compatibility this is not guaranteed either if a change
|seems beneficial for interactive use.
| 
|All features of apt(8) are available in dedicated APT tools like
|apt-get(8) and apt-cache(8) as well.  apt(8) just changes the
|default value of some options (see apt.conf(5) and specifically
|the Binary scope). So you should prefer using these commands
|(potentially with some additional options enabled) in your
|scripts as they keep backward compatibility as much as possible.
`

-- 
Manphiz

Re: package managers problem

[Felix Miata]

gene heskett composed on 2023-06-20 10:51 (UTC-0400):

>> Independently of whether you are able to do that without corrupting 
>> something,
>> please provide here GUI terminal input/output from 'inxi -GSaz',
...
> This is still bullseye, a netinstall from a week ago and I have
> no inxi according to locate according to updatedb.

Super! Install, as root, the excellent /current/ inxi script instead:

cd /usr/local/bin && wget -O inxi smxi.org/inxi && chmod +x inxi

https://smxi.org/docs/inxi-installation.htm#inxi-manual-install

It doesn't create /etc/inxi.conf, which is needed only if you wish to override
built in inxi defaults.

The current devel version is 3.3.28-24, release, 3.3.27. Changelog:

-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
based on faith, not based on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata

Re: package managers problem

[David Wright]

On Tue 20 Jun 2023 at 11:12:37 (-0400), pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 10:51:13 -0400
> gene heskett  wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> 
> > Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
> > Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
> > root permission
> 
> Thank you. That's the error I saw when I tried this some time back
> under Wayland. So I gave up on Synaptic on Wayland. I'm not going to
> stop my GUI session to run Synaptic (without Wayland), and Synaptic run
> as a regular user is useless, except to search for things.

… which is exactly what Gene wants it for:

 "Like looking at the menu in a fancy restaurant, if you don't have a
  menu to read, how that heck are you supposed to know what you want?"
  (Fri, 16 Jun 2023 19:40:54 -0400)

Cheers,
David.

Re: package managers problem

[Charles Curley]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:52:47 +0200
Anders Andersson  wrote:

> I'm running Gnome. Maybe synaptic is not compatible with xfce?

Nope. I have synaptic running here with xfce4 on Bullseye.

synaptic0.90.2  amd64
xfce4   4.16all

-- 
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

Re: package managers problem

[Charles Curley]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 10:10:26 -0400
gene heskett  wrote:

> I am not a gnome fan. Packagekit says all 157 synaptic dependencies
> are present and accounted for, but it will not run here, bitching
> about wayland and root.
> 
> So IMNSHO, there must be a dependency that isn't satisfied on an
> xfce4 system. What am I missing?

Gene, this is a long shot. Do you have any KDE or qt components
installed?

-- 
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

Re: package managers problem

[Joe]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 10:51:13 -0400
gene heskett  wrote:


> gene@coyote:~/Pictures$ sudo synaptic
> [sudo] password for gene:
> Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not
> connect: Connection refused
> Failed to initialize GTK.
> 
> Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
> Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
> root permission

Sorry, I've come in late here, but can you not run Synaptic from the
standard menu entry? It issues the command synaptic-pkexec, as others
have said. I believe policykit does not allow the use of Synaptic with
sudo, only with the root password.

I'm on Xfce4 on sid. Loads of Wayland lib stuff, definitely no Wayland
graphics.

-- 
Joe

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 11:29, pa...@quillandmouse.com wrote:

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:52:47 +0200
Anders Andersson  wrote:


I don't have synaptic in the path, but the icon is setup to start a
program that *is* in my path: synaptic-pkexec

Maybe you can try that, I think that's responsible for asking about
your password.


/usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec is a shell script which runs
/usr/sbin/synaptic as root, using the pkexec program. I don't know
anything about pkexec, but it looks like it's a substitute for sudo in
cases like this.

Paul

Seems to be valid Paul, I get exactly the same error message already 
posted a couple times, the requester goes away and it does not run.


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 10:57, Sarunas Burdulis wrote:

On 6/20/23 10:51, gene heskett wrote:

Easy:
gene@coyote:~/Pictures$ sudo synaptic
[sudo] password for gene:
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not 
connect: Connection refused

Failed to initialize GTK.
[...]


So perhaps copy that cookie into /root/?:

sudo cp /home/gene/.Xauthority /root/


Did not change a thing. Next?

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 10:54, Anders Andersson wrote:

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 9:36 AM gene heskett  wrote:

On 6/20/23 00:32, Anders Andersson wrote:

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 5:38 AM gene heskett  wrote:


I'm with you Paul, if Anders know how to do it, please PUBLISH the how.
For a while on bullseye, a "sudo -E synaptic" worked, then even that
died mid-bullseye, somebody plugged a perceived hole and didn't bother
to mention it to the many thousands of users.


There's really nothing to publish. I started synaptic from my desktop
environment using the default icon installed by the debian package. No
weird "sudo" incantations. It asks my password and then starts up.


from an xfce4 terminal shell, it bitches about wayland and exits, from
the pulldown menu's it asks for a passwd with a much bigger passwd
requester and when I enter my sudo pw it silently goes away. It does not
run here,


I don't have synaptic in the path, but the icon is setup to start a
program that *is* in my path: synaptic-pkexec


ene@coyote:~/Pictures$ /usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect: 
Connection refused

Failed to initialize GTK.

Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
root permission


And yes, that is the big pw requester that pops up.


Maybe you can try that, I think that's responsible for asking about
your password.



And when I ask why, everyone takes me to task for trying to run the only
package manager that works and has decent search function. What desktop
are you running? I'm xfce4 here.


I'm running Gnome. Maybe synaptic is not compatible with xfce?

.


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[paulf]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 10:51:13 -0400
gene heskett  wrote:

[snip]


> Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
> Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
> root permission

Thank you. That's the error I saw when I tried this some time back
under Wayland. So I gave up on Synaptic on Wayland. I'm not going to
stop my GUI session to run Synaptic (without Wayland), and Synaptic run
as a regular user is useless, except to search for things.

Paul

-- 
Paul M. Foster
Personal Blog: http://noferblatz.com
Company Site: http://quillandmouse.com
Software Projects: https://gitlab.com/paulmfoster

Re: package managers problem

[paulf]

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:52:47 +0200
Anders Andersson  wrote:

> I don't have synaptic in the path, but the icon is setup to start a
> program that *is* in my path: synaptic-pkexec
> 
> Maybe you can try that, I think that's responsible for asking about
> your password.

/usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec is a shell script which runs
/usr/sbin/synaptic as root, using the pkexec program. I don't know
anything about pkexec, but it looks like it's a substitute for sudo in
cases like this.

Paul

-- 
Paul M. Foster
Personal Blog: http://noferblatz.com
Company Site: http://quillandmouse.com
Software Projects: https://gitlab.com/paulmfoster

Re: package managers problem

[Sarunas Burdulis]

On 6/20/23 10:51, gene heskett wrote:

Easy:
gene@coyote:~/Pictures$ sudo synaptic
[sudo] password for gene:
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect: 
Connection refused

Failed to initialize GTK.
[...]


So perhaps copy that cookie into /root/?:

sudo cp /home/gene/.Xauthority /root/

--
Sarunas Burdulis
Dartmouth Mathematics
math.dartmouth.edu/~sarunas

· https://useplaintext.email ·



OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 08:06, Greg Wooledge wrote:

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 03:36:20AM -0400, gene heskett wrote:

from an xfce4 terminal shell, it bitches about wayland and exits,


Please show the command you typed, and the full output of that command.

It's pretty irritating that we have to ASK for that.  You should know
to provide such basic information already.

.

I just did in my reply to Felix, but:
gene@coyote:~/Pictures$ sudo synaptic
[sudo] password for gene:
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect: 
Connection refused

Failed to initialize GTK.

Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
root permission

gene@coyote:~/Pictures$ sudo -E synaptic
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect: 
Connection refused

Failed to initialize GTK.

Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
root permission


Thanks Greg.

Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[Anders Andersson]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 9:36 AM gene heskett  wrote:
> On 6/20/23 00:32, Anders Andersson wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 5:38 AM gene heskett  wrote:
> >>
> >> I'm with you Paul, if Anders know how to do it, please PUBLISH the how.
> >> For a while on bullseye, a "sudo -E synaptic" worked, then even that
> >> died mid-bullseye, somebody plugged a perceived hole and didn't bother
> >> to mention it to the many thousands of users.
> >
> > There's really nothing to publish. I started synaptic from my desktop
> > environment using the default icon installed by the debian package. No
> > weird "sudo" incantations. It asks my password and then starts up.
> >
> from an xfce4 terminal shell, it bitches about wayland and exits, from
> the pulldown menu's it asks for a passwd with a much bigger passwd
> requester and when I enter my sudo pw it silently goes away. It does not
> run here,

I don't have synaptic in the path, but the icon is setup to start a
program that *is* in my path: synaptic-pkexec

Maybe you can try that, I think that's responsible for asking about
your password.


> And when I ask why, everyone takes me to task for trying to run the only
> package manager that works and has decent search function. What desktop
> are you running? I'm xfce4 here.

I'm running Gnome. Maybe synaptic is not compatible with xfce?

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 07:17, Felix Miata wrote:

gene heskett composed on 2023-06-20 03:13 (UTC-0400):


Why is it Gene thinks any trouble he has has anything to do with Wayland? XFCE
doesn't run in Wayland. The only Wayland XFCE users must have is the foundation
Wayland requires from Xorg, which no one can be rid of (nor need to), except by
running an ancient distro from before Wayland support was stuffed into Xorg, or 
by
running MacOS, BSD, OS/2, Unix or Windows.


# grep RETT /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)"
# dpkg-query -W | grep wayland
libwayland-client0:amd641.18.0-2~exp1.1
libwayland-cursor0:amd641.18.0-2~exp1.1
libwayland-egl1:amd64   1.18.0-2~exp1.1
libwayland-server0:amd641.18.0-2~exp1.1
# aptitude search wayland | grep -v libwayland | wc -l
54
#

Very little "Wayland" is forced into a Bullseye installation, just 4 libs.


That needs a better explanation, Felix. As I see it, wayland can't run
as root, so no app that needs root works with wayland. Since package
managers with a gui need wayland, all the package managers that do have
a gui, are now dead except gnome packages, a poor but usable substitute
whose search function seems broken to me. The only way I've found to run
aptitude is as text with the safe-upgrade option turned on, and this is
well tested here on arm64's, but I still don't trust it on x86, its gone
wild with no way to stop it on x86, tearing down the system to the point
of having to re-install. I've run it on wintel stuff maybe 12 times, but
touching the g key has equaled a reinstall every time. It does NOT
preview what its going to do, it just does it. 4 times now. That's why I
asked if it had been tamed.


You're apparently completely oblivious to my point, which is that XFCE (at least
in Bullseye) /cannot/ be running on Wayland[1]. Wayland isn't even mentioned in
the Bookworm release notes[2]. For Bullseye, the only mention has to do with
fcitx5[3].

gene heskett composed on 2023-06-20 03:36 (UTC-0400):


from an xfce4 terminal shell, it bitches about wayland and exits, from
the pulldown menu's it asks for a passwd with a much bigger passwd
requester and when I enter my sudo pw it silently goes away. It does not
run here,

...

And when I ask why, everyone takes me to task for trying to run the only
package manager that works and has decent search function. What desktop
are you running? I'm xfce4 here.


Please, if you are able without destroying the PC, provide the exact bitch
message, and the exact procedure to reproduce it.

Easy:
gene@coyote:~/Pictures$ sudo synaptic
[sudo] password for gene:
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect: 
Connection refused

Failed to initialize GTK.

Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
root permission

gene@coyote:~/Pictures$ sudo -E synaptic
Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyUnable to init server: Could not connect: 
Connection refused

Failed to initialize GTK.

Probably you're running Synaptic on Wayland with root permission.
Please restart your session without Wayland, or run Synaptic without 
root permission

gene@coyote:~/Pictures$



Independently of whether you are able to do that without corrupting something,
please provide here GUI terminal input/output from 'inxi -GSaz', 



but only after
renaming /etc/inxi.conf 

I do not have that file. And locate cannot find it.
and then executing 'sudo inxi -U' (which inxi.conf in

Debian blocks) to update the antique broken inxi provided by Bullseye.


 Installing

Bookworm's inxi (instead) might not help, as it was already three releases old
when Bookworm was released. We need to see evidence Wayland has anything to do
with Aptitude 


aptitude with its ncurses gui runs, but I'll not ask it to do anything. 
Burned to the basement too many times.


and/or Synaptic not working on your XFCE4 machine (Coyote?).

Current/recent, but not Bullseye's, inxi -G* sanely reports the X window 
system(s)
and the DE in use.


This reads like it could screw things up on a bullseye system?

This is still bullseye, a netinstall from a week ago and I have
no inxi according to locate according to updatedb.


[1] 

this first says it doesn't work with xfce, yet...

[2] 
this is TL. I normally upgrade after a .2 release, lots less bugs to 
deal with by then.

[3]

5.2.3 explains why I could not rescue the old bullseye install and had 
to reinstall instead. Then I had to powerdown bail out of that several 
times, eventually stripping the machine down to one drive to protect the 
other 5 drives in the machine. /home is a 1.9Tb raid10, swap is md1 and 
the remaining few bytes are md2. Unused.


Thanks Felix.

Cheers, Gene 

Re: package managers problem

[David Wright]

On Tue 20 Jun 2023 at 10:10:26 (-0400), gene heskett wrote:
> On 6/20/23 05:22, didier gaumet wrote:

> > - Synaptic does not need Wayland, it can run on Wayland.
> > 
> > - On a standard Debian 12 (Gnome) installation, Synaptic works OOTB
> > 
> I am not a gnome fan. Packagekit says all 157 synaptic dependencies
> are present and accounted for, but it will not run here, bitching
> about wayland and root.
> 
> So IMNSHO, there must be a dependency that isn't satisfied on an xfce4
> system. What am I missing?

The error message. Felix told you that just three hours ago, and Greg two.

Cheers,
David.

Re: package managers problem

[gene heskett]

On 6/20/23 05:22, didier gaumet wrote:

Le 20/06/2023 à 09:13, gene heskett a écrit :

That needs a better explanation, Felix. As I see it, wayland can't run 
as root, so no app that needs root works with wayland. Since package 
managers with a gui need wayland, all the package managers that do 
have a gui, are now dead except gnome packages, a poor but usable 
substitute whose search function seems broken to me.

[...]

Hello Gene,

Sorry but I do think you are confusing things:

- a problem being precisely that nowadays apps do not "need root".
For years, due to security reasons, it has been avoided to run whole GUI 
apps (or a whole graphical environment like Xorg) as root.
  What is done nowadays is according privileged access to *parts* of 
these apps that demand it, via a Polkit mechanism:

https://www.freedesktop.org/software/polkit/docs/latest/polkit.8.html

- Synaptic does not need Wayland, it can run on Wayland.

- On a standard Debian 12 (Gnome) installation, Synaptic works OOTB

I am not a gnome fan. Packagekit says all 157 synaptic dependencies are 
present and accounted for, but it will not run here, bitching about 
wayland and root.


So IMNSHO, there must be a dependency that isn't satisfied on an xfce4 
system. What am I missing?


Thanks Didier.


.


Cheers, Gene Heskett.
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page 

Re: package managers problem

[Greg Wooledge]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 03:36:20AM -0400, gene heskett wrote:
> from an xfce4 terminal shell, it bitches about wayland and exits,

Please show the command you typed, and the full output of that command.

It's pretty irritating that we have to ASK for that.  You should know
to provide such basic information already.

Re: package managers problem

[Felix Miata]

gene heskett composed on 2023-06-20 03:13 (UTC-0400):

>> Why is it Gene thinks any trouble he has has anything to do with Wayland? 
>> XFCE
>> doesn't run in Wayland. The only Wayland XFCE users must have is the 
>> foundation
>> Wayland requires from Xorg, which no one can be rid of (nor need to), except 
>> by
>> running an ancient distro from before Wayland support was stuffed into Xorg, 
>> or by
>> running MacOS, BSD, OS/2, Unix or Windows.

# grep RETT /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)"
# dpkg-query -W | grep wayland
libwayland-client0:amd641.18.0-2~exp1.1
libwayland-cursor0:amd641.18.0-2~exp1.1
libwayland-egl1:amd64   1.18.0-2~exp1.1
libwayland-server0:amd641.18.0-2~exp1.1
# aptitude search wayland | grep -v libwayland | wc -l
54
#

Very little "Wayland" is forced into a Bullseye installation, just 4 libs.

> That needs a better explanation, Felix. As I see it, wayland can't run 
> as root, so no app that needs root works with wayland. Since package 
> managers with a gui need wayland, all the package managers that do have 
> a gui, are now dead except gnome packages, a poor but usable substitute 
> whose search function seems broken to me. The only way I've found to run 
> aptitude is as text with the safe-upgrade option turned on, and this is 
> well tested here on arm64's, but I still don't trust it on x86, its gone 
> wild with no way to stop it on x86, tearing down the system to the point 
> of having to re-install. I've run it on wintel stuff maybe 12 times, but 
> touching the g key has equaled a reinstall every time. It does NOT 
> preview what its going to do, it just does it. 4 times now. That's why I 
> asked if it had been tamed.

You're apparently completely oblivious to my point, which is that XFCE (at least
in Bullseye) /cannot/ be running on Wayland[1]. Wayland isn't even mentioned in
the Bookworm release notes[2]. For Bullseye, the only mention has to do with
fcitx5[3].

gene heskett composed on 2023-06-20 03:36 (UTC-0400):

> from an xfce4 terminal shell, it bitches about wayland and exits, from
> the pulldown menu's it asks for a passwd with a much bigger passwd
> requester and when I enter my sudo pw it silently goes away. It does not
> run here,
...
> And when I ask why, everyone takes me to task for trying to run the only
> package manager that works and has decent search function. What desktop
> are you running? I'm xfce4 here.

Please, if you are able without destroying the PC, provide the exact bitch
message, and the exact procedure to reproduce it.

Independently of whether you are able to do that without corrupting something,
please provide here GUI terminal input/output from 'inxi -GSaz', but only after
renaming /etc/inxi.conf and then executing 'sudo inxi -U' (which inxi.conf in
Debian blocks) to update the antique broken inxi provided by Bullseye. 
Installing
Bookworm's inxi (instead) might not help, as it was already three releases old
when Bookworm was released. We need to see evidence Wayland has anything to do
with Aptitude and/or Synaptic not working on your XFCE4 machine (Coyote?).
Current/recent, but not Bullseye's, inxi -G* sanely reports the X window 
system(s)
and the DE in use.

[1] 
[2] 
[3]

-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
based on faith, not based on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata

Re: package managers problem

[didier gaumet]

Le 20/06/2023 à 09:13, gene heskett a écrit :

That needs a better explanation, Felix. As I see it, wayland can't run 
as root, so no app that needs root works with wayland. Since package 
managers with a gui need wayland, all the package managers that do have 
a gui, are now dead except gnome packages, a poor but usable substitute 
whose search function seems broken to me.

[...]

Hello Gene,

Sorry but I do think you are confusing things:

- a problem being precisely that nowadays apps do not "need root".
For years, due to security reasons, it has been avoided to run whole GUI 
apps (or a whole graphical environment like Xorg) as root.
 What is done nowadays is according privileged access to *parts* of 
these apps that demand it, via a Polkit mechanism:

https://www.freedesktop.org/software/polkit/docs/latest/polkit.8.html

- Synaptic does not need Wayland, it can run on Wayland.

- On a standard Debian 12 (Gnome) installation, Synaptic works OOTB

Re: package managers problem

[didier gaumet]

Le 20/06/2023 à 04:41, pa...@quillandmouse.com a écrit :

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 03:58:18 +0200
Anders Andersson  wrote:

[snip]


I've been watching this thread from afar for a while and it still
puzzles me why people keep bringing up wayland. I've been running
wayland for years, and synaptic works with no issues as far as I can
tell. Is this just FUD from a user that never tried it or is something
broken on that user's system?



A couple of years ago, I switched to Wayland temporarily and was unable
to run Synaptic (with an error message). The phenomenon is real. I
don't know how you manage it. But I don't recall anyone on this thread
besides you claiming it could be done.

Paul


I did claim it.

On my system (amd64 laptop, Debian Bookworm, Gnome Classic (Wayland)), 
pretty much a standard Debian setup, Synaptic works OOTB.

Re: package managers problem

[tomas]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 04:06:23AM -0400, Charles Kroeger wrote:
> > As far as I know, apt is pretty much apt-get
> 
> If you're using Debian 12 then the -get is gone.

No, it's still there, whenever you need it :)

Cheers
-- 
t


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