lxde flameout ... or why you always need two functional desktops

By basd on Aug 4, 2011 | In linux, -arghhh!!, lxde

Suppose you were about to go somewhere and needed to use your netbook.? lxde updated.? lxde quit functioning.? need I say more?

...

I knew something drastic was going to happen when the lxde update replaced my background with the default lxde desktop background.? there was also the problem that the menu icon would only pop up the menu some of the time.? And the problem that if I changed from desktop1 to desktop2, there were no panels.? Which, if you would like to get back to desktop1 without the panel pager, is a problem.? Or if you would like, say, to use the menu to launch any programs -- but then again the launcher menu was only function part-time anyway.

Then there was the new issue with wicd, so no network.? It appears that wicd needs root privileges (news to me).? In KDE, wicd was asking for root password.? In lxde it was telling me wicd could not contact the dbus, see the log ... but it was not actually logging anything.? (I think maybe wicd was originally marked suid, and an update to wicd un-suided it or something.)

So, can you have a more complete meltdown?? And this being on top of the fact that my KDE desktop has a way-too-sensitive touchpad and keyboard that puts double and triple keystrokes.? So, as far as being a functional business machine at the moment ... hahahahahaha!

Life in the open source world.? Only slightly less annoying than life in the proprietary source world, albeit considerably less expensive.? Unless, of course, one counts ones time spent in one's "night job" as permanet IT tech to ... one's self.

Well, I deleted the lxdepanel config files (another problem, as I use dropbox to synchronize the panels on my various computers), so now I have a functional panel -- one with things like an actual tray and the like.? I started wicd sudo from a terminal, which did not solve anything, but I logged out and logged back in and wicd was running okay.

So, often there are solutions, but equally as often, the solutions are not fun.