MX-19.2 KDE Beta 2 Feedback Thread

[tony37]

A tidbit about hibernation: on https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/hibernate/ I can find: "Hibernation was removed from default locations in MX Linux such as the logout box because it proved highly unreliable in users’ tests."
But in KDE this is one of my logout options and it is the default setting for when the battery reaches the critical level (set to 5%). For me hibernation has never worked on this laptop, when I try the option in the beta my screen turns black for a few seconds and then returns to normal. When I use the method suggested on viewtopic.php?f=77&t=53742&p=583515 (so reconfiguring uswsusp) then hibernation does what it normally does on this pc: screen turns black and for minutes on end I can hear it is busy doing something and in the end I have to terminate this nonsense with the power button.
I know how to disable hibernate completely with systemd, but how to do this with sysvinit?

[tony37]

Strange I didn't notice this before (because I didn't have many pdf's on my virtual install I guess), but thumbnails for pdf files aren't working. I had to install kdegraphics-thumbnailers (which manages not to mention pdf in its description) and then allow thumbnails for Postscript, DVI- and PDF-files in Dolphin.
I can imagine many don't care about thumbnails, maybe just a weird obsession of mine.

question: Is it intentional not to install plasma-brower-integration? I know it doesn't add that much, but having browser downloads in my system area makes life just a tad easier. And it also works for Firefox, contrary to what its description could suggest (but you also have to add the Plasma Integration extension in Firefox).
I remember some Plasma versions (5.15 at least) had some kind of invitation to install the browser-integration package.

[chrispop99]

Anyone deciding to multi-boot with MX-19.2 Xfce will only be able to determine which version to choose from GRUB if they remember the partition each version is installed to. Is there any way the name that appears in GRUB can have something added to it to indicate it is the KDE version?

Chris

[tony37]

Anyone deciding to multi-boot with MX-19.2 Xfce will only be able to determine which version to choose from GRUB if they remember the partition each version is installed to. Is there any way the name that appears in GRUB can have something added to it to indicate it is the KDE version?

Chris

In /etc/lsb-release I changed the first line into

Code: Select all

PRETTY_NAME="MX 19.2 patito feo KDE"

Works after sudo update-grub

[chrispop99]

Anyone deciding to multi-boot with MX-19.2 Xfce will only be able to determine which version to choose from GRUB if they remember the partition each version is installed to. Is there any way the name that appears in GRUB can have something added to it to indicate it is the KDE version?

Chris

In /etc/lsb-release I changed the first line into

Code: Select all

PRETTY_NAME="MX 19.2 patito feo KDE"

Works after sudo update-grub

Thanks; I'm thinking more about how the devs might consider renaming it.

Chris

[dolphin_oracle]

no plans on the name. those names are used for things by various utilities in the operating system and in the package building. I prefer not to touch them.

[tony37]

no plans on the name. those names are used for things by various utilities in the operating system and in the package building. I prefer not to touch them.

Also the PRETTY_NAME? I understand you better leave DISTRIB_ID, DISTRIB_RELEASE etc. untouched, but in neither of my Manjaro, Kubuntu or Mint installs is there any PRETTY_NAME by default (that's to say: not in /etc/lsb-release, there is one in /etc/os-release). I thought the point of a 'pretty name' is you can do with it what you like.
But maybe different in MX.

But it's also possible to change /etc/default/grub:

Code: Select all

GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="$(unset PRETTY_NAME; (. /etc/lsb-release; echo ${PRETTY_NAME:?}) 2>/dev/null || echo Debian) KDE"

But of course if the functioning Grub is not on the MX KDE partition, things get more difficult, then the os-prober looks at DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION in lsb-release. Don't know how safe it is to change that, would very much surprise me if it could cause problems though.
But somehow Linux Mint adds Xfce to its Grub entry without any 'Xfce' occurring in lsb-release, os-release nor /etc/default/grub. I'll try to find how they do it. Update: they have a file called /etc/linuxmint/info with "GRUB_TITLE=Linux Mint 20 Xfce" in it, and then a Python script called /usr/share/ubuntu-system-adjustments/systemd/adjust-grub-title. But there's apparently something weird going on there, where under the hood the GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR has to be "Ubuntu" (see file /etc/default/grub.d/50_linuxmint.cfg), but in the Grub menu something else is shown. So maybe you shouldn't mess too much with these things after all. Sorry for digressing.

[Stevo]

A tidbit about hibernation: on https://mxlinux.org/wiki/system/hibernate/ I can find: "Hibernation was removed from default locations in MX Linux such as the logout box because it proved highly unreliable in users’ tests."
But in KDE this is one of my logout options and it is the default setting for when the battery reaches the critical level (set to 5%). For me hibernation has never worked on this laptop, when I try the option in the beta my screen turns black for a few seconds and then returns to normal. When I use the method suggested on viewtopic.php?f=77&t=53742&p=583515 (so reconfiguring uswsusp) then hibernation does what it normally does on this pc: screen turns black and for minutes on end I can hear it is busy doing something and in the end I have to terminate this nonsense with the power button.
I know how to disable hibernate completely with systemd, but how to do this with sysvinit?

I get the same behavior no matter what the DE with a 5.6 kernel booted with sysvinit. The only way I can hibernate is to boot with systemd. You can revert to the standard Debian 4.19 kernel if it supports your hardware, which usually means it should be at least a year old by now.

[tony37]

I get the same behavior no matter what the DE with a 5.6 kernel booted with sysvinit. The only way I can hibernate is to boot with systemd. You can revert to the standard Debian 4.19 kernel if it supports your hardware, which usually means it should be at least a year old by now.

Hibernate has simply never worked for me, so I don't think I'll try installing the 4.19 kernel just to test this once again. And the more recent kernels have better OpenCL support, so my mouse isn't hanging when I do some occasional chess analysis with Lc0.

Something I noticed with this Grub thing: the original grub-install created a folder called MX19 in /boot/efi/EFI, but when I do a grub-install now (also after reverting the changes I made) it installs to 'mx'. Both entries seem to work though. (The problem in Linux Mint and Kubuntu is that the bootloader needs to be in a folder called 'ubuntu'. No such problem in MX though, when I try "sudo grub-install --bootloader-id=Test sda" and remove other mx folders, booting from 'Test' still works.)

[tony37]

Some options on the Welcome Screen aren't working: Wiki, Forums, Videos and (strangely) Contribute. So the ones opening a browser.