gaahhhhhh!!!

By basd on Dec 7, 2011 | In kde4, linux, opensuse

That is the sound of me running and smashing my head against the wall.

...

I have a script that incorporates gpg that has worked for years.

It wouldn't work on new computer (a). But, I could run gpg from command line. It would cache the password for awhile and then my script would work. Because, the problem is that gpg would not pop-up a password dialog and wouldn't do it on the command line in the xterm I run the script in either.

So, I decided to do it on the computer where it already works. But it wouldn't. Then I made one of those frustration-errors. The reason it wouldn't on the already working computer was a different reason due to a script flaw I actually know about (dies if a directory is not present).

Hours of research, got it running on the new computer. But, I did not know what I did that worked. It was a combination of add pinentry-qt4, add gpgme, add a .bashrc that set a tty variable for gpg. Or none of the above.

Back to the [formerly] working computer. Still nothing. Plus the added problem - Kwrite not working, missing an editor component???? Loaded leafpad and then gedit so I could edit my script and my .bashrc. Still nothing. Spent hours troubleshooting Kwrite problem. Removed KDE3 repository. Zypper update.

argghhhh!!!!!

More research. REinstall libktexteditor. Kwrite works.

Frustration-error recovery -- run script several more times and then remember the issue -- my script shares files with several computers. I have a nice routine for creating new directories -- on the computer where it is done in the first instance. But, I never got around to creating a routine to re-create that directory on other computers. I have to remember to add them manually.

Or not remember, as the case may be. I am thinking I should spend some time repairing this flaw.

PS -- and contrary to all the help blogs I read -- I think the reason my gpg was not asking for a passphrase from my script was the absence of pinentry-qt. Because, when I would run gpg from the command line, it would create some sort of clever console based input screen. Which, apparently, can't happen from a script. Whereas, on the computer that was [probably] running the script correctly all along, a pinentry-qt box would launch whether I was at a command line or in the script.

One more puzzlement: My script establishes an sshfs connection to my web server. On the new computer, but not the old one, I am getting a connection to kwallet and kpass...something. Don't know why, I did not change the script any. I'm not certain how this helps -- I still have to type a password, but I guess I have to remember one less or something.

I better add pinentry-qt to Goliath1 while I am thinking about this.

Bonus info:

http://www.linuxidx.com/

This appears to be a search engine for linux only. I only test-tried it, since I found it after writing the above post. The reason is that I was banning all of the bogus referrer links -- I don't precisely know why or how this is useful, but apparently one's google rating is improved by spamming blog software referral link log? In any event, I am always curious to see whether an actual non-spammer has linked to one of my posts. Eg., I get a few hits from lxde.org every now and then. So, there was a referral from linuxidx, and I checked it out -- indeed, someone had run a search for linux info related to Aspire 722.

If I remember, I will try this out the next arghhh! around and see if it makes my troubleshooting any easier.

(Also, I searched for linux "penguin" images in the image search and found some interesting ones!)

Bonus, bonus info: I have previously mentioned the duckduckgo.com search engine, but I am also using the lxquick search engine as well. Both offer https connection and at least claim not to log IPs, etc. But more important, they are pretty good at improving the signal-to-noise ratio and the only time I resort to google now is when I am looking for something that is actually pretty "commercial" and would be filtered out. These are truly life-saver search engines because there is so much SEO crap out there now that finding what you are looking for is getting highly impossible. Like the auto-generated multiple identical pages of dreck that purports to be on-topic and really is just garbage and useless. Fortunately, these two search engines are pretty good at disappearing that stuff.