My Slackware still broken
 

Well it's been broken since April, and ironically even though I'm a computer technician who makes his living by fixing computers, I have not been able to find the cause.
It's broken because
1. create new user with adduser
2. startx - and Xfce starts but with no bars (no taskbar)
3. when I launch Firefox I get an error message that "Could not initialize the application's security component. ...." (see screenshot attached).
All that above is on a freshly created user account by root

4. In my old account - Firefox will not install any extensions, same with SeaMonkey (that was my initial big problem that I've already started a thread for back in April but was never able to resolve.
And on top of everything I have no longer access to one of my email accountsk and everything in Local Folders, in SeaMonkey . Strangely my main email account works fine in SeaMonkey. But since most of my email history is in Local Folders then that does me little good.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-a-4175459403/

Slackware 14 32bit installed on a SSD drive with home on raid1 (2 hard drives with one partition each only dedicated to the home directory)
I've had this system for last seven years with the SSD drive being the only upgrade since Slackware 13.37
No problems with Firefox and SeaMonkey upgrades since SW 14 install until the update batch in April and ever since it's been broken.
And yes, I've done new Firefox profile, safe mode without addons etc, same with SeaMonkey.
Interestingly Thunderbird is working just fine (have several email accounts in it and a bunch of addons installed) and was not affected by anything.

I can do a clean install of Slackware and probably will tonight but I've refused to do it until now because reinstalls should not be a method of fixing Linux, and especially not Slackware (it's not Windows) but since I have not found a solution then I guess we are now reduced to the Microsoft way of dealing with computer problems, reinstall, reinstall, reinstall and so on.
I don't have much installed on top of stock Slackware, and all nonstock packages are from http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/
The rest I built from http://slackbuilds.org/
I don't think I have a single program installed from any other source than the above.
My most recent attempt, yesterday, at fixing this, was to remove all non-stock packages, then do upgradepk --install-new --reinstall *.txz from /l /n /d directories from my Slackware 14 dvd.
Then I installed all Slackware 14 patches downloaded from a Slack mirror.
Fail!
Xfce, Firefox, SeaMonkey still broken.
Tonight I'll wipe the whole Slack install and do a clean install.

Where exactly is the screenshot ?

Did you create a new account for someone else or are you trying to change the name of your user account?

If the later, as root, run, chown -R newname /home/newname

I would check my memory and hard drives just in case. It's always good to know if we are dealing with a software problem and not a hardware failure. Other than that you could start your firefox from terminal, so you might get more specific complaint. Or you could start xfce from runlevel 3 via startx so might see some errors in console. Then, it would be nice to remember what you were doing around time things gone haywire. Was it installation of some packages? Or did you tried to configure something awesome (might be some configuration issues in /etc). Well, good luck fixing your Slack!

no need to do a new install, "rm -r ~/.cache/sessions" will probably solve your problem. The problem you have is with the xfce session, reboot afterwards and it will rewrite them!

No, fresh new user account.
And yes, I've made sure that my user account is owned by me, recursively etc chown -R <my username>:users
I also tried various chmod -R 755 or 644 or 777 etc on my account with no effect on Mozilla apps.

Yes, all valid concerns. Yes, I checked everything, memtest, drives are ok.
And thanks for reminding me I do get an error when starting Firefox from terminal (and same for SeaMonkey, but not with Thunderbird which works ok)
I'll keep at it :)

Unfortunately that was not it.
And I did try to change my WM to Windowmaker and same problem with Firefox and Seamonkey.

It seems gsettings cannot find any suitable backend to use. Can you verify, that you have all glib, gsettings-desktop-schemas and most importantly dconf installed? Could you share your output of:

This is just a shot in the dark, but you could reinstall xfce series and mozilla-firefox. Should be done in two minutes. I come to this idea from your explanation that the bars are missing for the fresh user in xfce. Maybe Some stock xfce files in /usr are somehow damaged?

Yes, I get these
I get nothing

I can't find dconf in Slackware 14 so why would I need it? Where would this dependency come from suddenly?

Thanks for the info though, it's narrowing down potential problems.

Sorry, I've been using mate for so long, that I forgot dconf is not part of Slackware 14.0 so you should not need it. So it seems everything is allright where glib is concerned :/

Well, I've finally found enough time and energy to do a quick (better part of 24 hours wasted) reinstall.
I'm not finished yet, but I'm glad to report that both Firefox and Seamonkey now work as before.
I will soon finish by reinstalling my Mozilla add-ons and compile custom kernel.

The whole experience has left me rather disillusioned with Linux and Slackware.
I think more care should be taken in Slackware to remove dependencies on Gnome and KDE so Slackware can remain independent of the two desktop monstrosities.
It's harder and harder to keep track what configs are where and what they affect.
We're loosing control of our systems and I find that unacceptable.
I don't want garbage like Gconf (with its trillion xml files) on my system or KDE's SQL back-end with completely unmanageable desktop and non-desktop.
My next step is to move away from XFCE (as I'm extremely unhappy with its dependencies on Gnome) and will be researching alternatives.
If I have to give up a desktop and live with just a WM (like Icewm or Flux) then I will.

I can hardly understand that. Maybe you complicate things uselessly? Making a standard full install of Slackware 14.0 on a not too old computer should take less than one hour, configuration post installation included.

I don't share that feeling at all but hey, everyone is entitled to his own ;)
Here you are plain wrong:

1. Slackware does not add any dependency besides those imposed or suggested by upstream developers
2. Slackware does not include the Gnome desktop, only some GTK libraries. But GTK isn't Gnome, or is it? In the same vein, QT is not KDE (and is not in the same packages series)
3. Slackware will work perfectly if you remove KDE (see your other thread)
4. The fact that you don't like Gnome or KDE shouldn't deprive others of using it. I do not say that for myself as I am a fluxbox user.

Please elaborate a bit, otherwise one could consider these statements as trolling.
Again, just don't use these. As already said I don't either but don't suffer of letting them quietly sleep on my hard disk (maybe they should pay me a rent for that :-)
That's what I did :cool:

Way back during the KDE 3-to-4 transition/debacle I came face to face with my own dependency on KDE - not a package dependency but it had much the same effect. At the time I was using Slackware myself but installing and maintaining Mandriva for family and some other projects, but all KDE centric.

I researched the problem and concluded that I had to break the whole desktop dependency thing.

My own solution was to shift everything and everyone to Slackware and Fluxbox.

More than a few deeply ingrained habits had to change, along with a few favorite tools (I thought I couldn't live without konsole, for example). But once I adapted myself and learned how to support others through the transition - it was actually quite easy.

Looking back, not only was it not painful, it was all a huge and beneficial step forward in more ways than I had expected!

It is interesting how pespectives change...

Before making the transition I saw everything in terms of having to find replacements for my valued KDE based tools, expecting to settle for a lower level of experience.

Looking back I now view those old tools as a cage that I was unwittingly trapped in, and see that the new methods broke the cell door off its hinges!

For one example, I now view my earlier konsole usage as a set of leg shackles, and the transition to urxvt-tmux-on-flux was my liberation! I now run free of the desktop cage and all its shackles, much more than metaphorically!

Don't be reluctant to make the change - good luck!

The last time I built xfce was 4.8 but there was an option to disable gnome support (OR enable it, which is what I think was added to the Slackware xfce).

in Slackware 14.0 in the /XFCE series, only one slackbuild mentions gnome, it is (output of 'grep -r gnome <root directory>/source/xfce')
As for Slackware being dependent on gnome:
Is that much?

There's a lot more than just packages that have the name "gnome" in them. gnome-icon-theme isn't even gnome-dependent because it's just an icon theme.

The NetworkManager in Slackware 14.0(+?) uses network-manager-applet which has dependencies for some of the packages with "gnome" in their name but also for other packages like GConf (which is the GNOME Configuration Library but notice the name doesn't have "gnome" in it):
So Slackovado could just remove and/or blacklist the above packages (I can't think of any program that relies on those other than NetworkManager at the moment, but one could always check with ldd).

That's about where I am right now. I'm sick of fighting against and putting up with the enormous painful resource drain of KDE, but I acknowledge that I've grown dependent on it and all of its many fine tools and utilities. I'm in the stage of questioning what I can live without, and assessing my tolerance for starting fresh with a simpler desktop environment like XFCE, or an even leaner window manager like Fluxbox.

follow up questions and comments to help me with my problem
 

Astrogeek, i'm going to make bold and respond to your inspiring post with some comments about my (very limited) experience, followed by a couple of questions seeking help to fix my broken slack 14 install.

Comments:
1. I had slackware 14 64-bit running beautifully under xfce until my system crashed one day (i was actually using an archbang install on same computer, different partition) with what appeared to be some malicious attack: beeping noise, menus items suddenly melting into incomprehensible code etc.
2. I raced out and got a new computer that very day (one I had sized up weeks earlier): 4 core, hybrid HDD, 8GB mem with a new bios that I'd never experienced: seems it supports both bios and uefi, came home, installed mint, slack 14 with kde selected during install as default DE (i wanted to try out the big new screen and greater grunt) and salix (latest version)

3. I have not had a moment's pleasure from slackware ever since: the main problem:
- gui is patchy, sketchy, unreadable menu items: as if one were reading an ancient papyrus fragment

4. even when i configure wmconfig to start in *any other DE* the symptoms are the same!

5. another -possibly- diagnostic observation: terminal emulator exhibits same patchy/sketchy quality as described above;
while konsole DOES NOT! it is perfect: entirely readable and configurable and responsive.

6. Some output from my machine:
when i cfdisk the slackware partition from my mint install, with:
cfdisk /dev/sda1 -u
Question:
1. Having done several re-installs, I am loathe to do another one with little or no prospect of improvement.
However, do you think it might be worth my while trying something I have not tried before (and this brings me to the substance of your post): ie: go for flux as default in a fresh install?

Sorry for this overly-long post and thanks in advance if you can suggest something to help.

@Tex:

1. please start a new thread for your issue as it's not this one's topic
2. please give us more precise information, as screenshots and the full layout or your hard disk (output of 'fdisk -l')
3. your cfdisk command is not correct. It should be 'cfdisk /dev/sda', not 'cfdisk /dev/sda1'). If you have GPT partitions type 'cgdisk' or 'gdisk' instead of 'cfdisk' or 'fdisk'.

Thanks for the kind coments, but I am afraid I do not know how to respond to your issues.

I have no UEFI systems so cannot comment on that, although I suspect that your problems are neither UEFI nor Slackware related.

Other than enabling unicode support and adding a few font packages, my Slackware/Fluxbox had no issues that presented any particular difficulty.

I would suggest that you follow Didier's suggestion and post to a new thread with a few more details about your problems - I bet they can be sorted out!

I'll keep an eye out for it.

Bearing in mind that I know nothing about UEFI, is it possible that you are actually booting the archbang kernel instead of the Slackware kernel?

I have messed up a lilo install in the past and booted a different kernel with strange results. That is the only thing that comes to mind from your description of the problem.

Thanks Astro.
No, I have since removed Archbang.
And besides: Slack boots okay: i can see all the menus and i can run konsole effectively; just can't open anything from gui without system crashing.

Cheers,