Three problems (login manager, filenames and mouse)
 

Hey, I got some problems that I can't find any way to fix:

1. I have set a picture for my user account and my root account, and I have set the login manager to show user images (the fourth option). The problem is that only the root account's image shows up. My user account is an... apple... even though I set it to not use the "Admin chosen default images" (and it should diplay the image I've chosen for the account anyway)

2. I have mounted a partition that contains file/foldernames with Swedish letters "å", "ä" and "ö". These appears as square boxes. When I create new folders and files with the letters (or rename existing) they seem to be right (haven't tried remount though). What should I do to get my letter back?

3. Since I activated the login manager my mouse cursor have started to disappear when I press buttons and such. If I move the cursor a little bit it appears again. Sometimes is it just a little part that disappear, and just about three pixels around the "hot spot" is visible. Also, I don't need to double click on icons anymore, it really annoys me because I end up opening two instances of everything :D (I'm so used to Windows)

Phew, this would really make me happy if I can solve all these things. I'd be happy with help. Thanks. ;)

Sounds as though you are using the KDE login manager (KDM--K Display Manager). Try this:

1. Change the selection option to something other than User or Admin.
2. Select the Apply button.
3. In the User: drop down list, select the user name for whom you want to provide a login pic.
4. Click on the picture of the penguin.
5. Select a different pic.

The pics are stored in /opt/kde/share/apps/kdm/faces with a file name of $USER.face.icon.

In Control Center, select Peripherals->Mouse. In the Icons subsection select Single-click. Not sure about the disappearing act. Possibly a goofy mouse theme?

this LQ slack wiki might be of help. not sure if a specific swedish charset is available, which might require similar steps, but u could use utf-8 instead.

anirudh

Thanks for the replies.

There sure is something odd with the login manager because it does not notice any .face.icon in my home directorys (except root). I have even tried to set the same permission for all .face.icons as the one in root. I think the control panel for the login manager is a bit buggy. Where are the files that it change so I can edit them by myself?

I tried to set it to #export LANG=sv_SE.UTF-8 but all åäö were just replaced by a number of spaces, for instance a test directory named "åäö" was just six spaces or something (using only sv_SE did not change anything, and I also tried with export LANG=sv_SE.ISO8859-10 which didn't change anything either). I have also noticed that files named with åäö in Linux are shown as weird symbols in Windows, and files named with åäö in Windows are shown as square boxes or spaces in Linux. What other things can I try? Is there a way to check how Windows store the letters and make Linux do the same?

The mouse seems to be work right now. (yay, one problem solved)

man..if you'll solve the problem with char encodings someday, please let me know.

I did some quick testing and I too noticed that the KDE login manager no longer recognizes ~/.face.icon files. I'm using KDE 3.4.2. I tried additional various approaches to no avail. I could not figure out how to automagically create the .face.icon file from the Control Center. Seems all selections now must be performed by somebody with root privileges and all pics must be stored in /opt/kde/share/apps/kdm/faces. Odd. Functionally, the result is the same as far as what the user sees in the login manager display. The primary drawback I now see is that users no longer may override the settings and somebody with root privileges needs to update which pic to use. I booted into KDE 3.3.2 with my multi-boot box and could not automagically create a .face.icon file there either.

The kdmrc config file still supports the PreferUser option, which means KDM should look in the user's $HOME directory for the pic.

I like KDE a lot but these kinds of quirks and bugs irritate me with the KDE developers and their moving target philosophy. Bugs remain in 3.4.x and version 3.5 now gets all the attention. This is a never-ending game of continually hoping each release fixes a particular bug, but the game is that new bugs are introduced. I don't know why bug fixes cannot be merged into previous versions of KDE so that people do not have to continually play this updating game. Just as frustrating is that the many of the Help Center files are about three years out of date---so unless one can read source code, most users do not know what code changes might cause such quirks.

STARHARVEST, add this "iocharset=iso8859-1" on the end of the option coloumn for the thing in /etc/fstab, e.g.:

/dev/hdb1 /mnt/hdb1 vfat defaults,iocharset=iso8859-1 0 0

I'm not sure it'll support Russian symbols though. But you could give it a try (or see if you can modify it to make it work for you).


Woodsman, yes it seems KDE has it's share of bugs. Although I've only used Linux (and thus KDE) for a week, I've already noticed several. None really serious, but still some annoying things here and there. (I also use 3.4.2)

I still got one problem though:
My mouse is still odd. I got the double click to work. But the mouse still disappear now and then. I use the standard mousetheme (System theme, the normal black one). I've tried the other mouse theme as well (whiteglass), but somehow it is half transparent which is really annoying (the odd thing is that it is not semitransparent in the preview). Either way, it does also sometimes disappear.

Thanks everyone.

True, most of the bugs are of the irritating nature rather than destructive, although I have seen my share of sigsegv errors. I like KDE a lot and I'm not bitter or pissin' and moanin' (much :) ), I merely get tired of the bugs and the relentless moving target syndrome. Developers can read an .xsession-errors log just as easily as users so there is really no excuse. I don't need or want all of the bells and whistles these young whippersnapper developers think are so cool. I'm content with older versions of software---I just want the bugs quashed. I'm still productively using NT4 Workstation and Word 97, for example.

Regarding the disappearing mouse pointer, try temporarily disabling the GPM service (chmod -x /etc/rc.d/rc.gpm).

Also, read the man page for the chip set used in your video card. You might discover an xorg.conf option that resolves your problem. See if the X drivers for your video card use an HWCursor option.

Another thing to consider is temporarily using the VESA drivers instead of the drivers for your video card.

Regarding the black mouse pointer, you can use a white mouse pointer in KDE without installing any themes. Find a copy online of a standard X white mouse pointer. The file name will be cursor.pcf.gz. Copy that file to either /opt/kde/share/fonts/override or ~/.kde/share/fonts/override. The difference between the two directories is whether you want the white pointer local to your user account or global to everybody. Then, as root in that same directory, from the Konsole run mkfontdir and mkfontscale. Then run fc-cache-fv. Restart X and KDE.

Thanks Woodsman, I'll try that if it happens again because somehow it hasn't happened for a long time now (could be I use another user?).

FWIW, I "rediscovered" how individual users can override the pictures used in the KDM login manager. Look in the KDE Control Center, under Security & Privacy, Password & User Account. This tool will create a .face.icon file in the user's $HOME directory.

Unfortunately, the login manager still seems broken in 3.4.x. Regardless of which option I select, the login manager always shows the pictures created by the admin and will not show any pics created by the user. Perhaps this is a conceptual error on my part. I'd be grateful if anybody has a clue.

so..what about the 2nd problem? the problem about "square boxes" and unreadable filenames.. there was an option in mandrake... while installing - "use unicode by default". hmmm... maybe THIS utf8 encoding or what else...utf16..nobody knows perfectly nowdays... exactly rule this damn names and right things with typing and reading...

While searching for something else, I coincidentally ran across this link:

Change Filename Code

Installing a Konqueror service menu is easy and the installation is effective immediately without any rebooting or restarting. Might help you.