How to maximize a GUI for a running app

maxxie · 02-24-2016, 05:56 AM

Hello - the Mint forum is down so I've strayed further afield (:

Whilst using Luckybackup via its GUI, I started the back and hit 'minimize to system tray' button. No icon appeared in the system tray.

I can see in 'System Monitor' that luckybackup is running.

I found Looking Glass and there is an error that says:
'unable to lookup icon for luckybackup_2691_b4433b76c372fa7ac1d6abea12a3baf2-panel'

I don't want to kill the backup process because it is halfway (hopefully) through a large backup of a dodgy hard drive that was dying.

I've been looking for a way to maximize the GUI via the terminal or some other magic so that I can see if the backup is actually happening or if it stalled due to harddrive errors etc.

I've looked online but no luck so far.
ALT + tab doesn't show it.

Thanks for reading - hoping someone may have some suggestions

malekmustaq · 02-25-2016, 04:00 AM

By the way what window manager are you running?
In XFCE I easily recapture a lost task-icon by doing this:
Alt+F2, then type command at the box:

Quote:

xfce4-panel --restart

the panel will restart and synce all applicable icons of running tasks.

I presume there is similar manipulation in Gnome and KDE.

maxxie · 02-25-2016, 08:20 AM

Oh what in idiot - it was late and I forgot to include any info:

Mint 17.3 (not the compromised version)
Cinnamon

So I think Cinnamon is the window manager? If so, then restarting Cinnamon didn't help.
I ended up killing the process. It seemed to have stalled at about 1% of the way through the 1 GB backup.

Even so, I'd still like to know if its possible to maximize a disappeared GUI if anyone has any ideas.

Thanks for replying

malekmustaq · 02-26-2016, 03:28 AM

Quote:

Even so, I'd still like to know if its possible to maximize a disappeared GUI if anyone has any ideas.

The remedy of Alt+Tab (which didn't work in your case) is the usual key to recovering unseen icons of a running task. In my case it always did work.

One way is to restart the panel, this often recollects the icons into the bar. This I have said above already.

Another way is to avoid running the task in a daemon option (usually it is --daemon or -d option that recedes the task to a background.) You can check if the task runs in daemon mode by querying

Code:

ps axu

then at rightmost column check if the sought out task is running in daemon mode. In that case you will restart the application without it, or in the foreground.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

m.m.

maxxie · 02-26-2016, 03:43 AM

Thank you m.m.!
I'll check out what you've told me and see what I can learn
Cheers, Lu

malekmustaq · 02-26-2016, 07:09 AM

Quote:

I don't want to kill the backup process because it is halfway (hopefully) through a large backup of a dodgy hard drive that was dying....... //... It seemed to have stalled at about 1% of the way through the 1 GB backup.

Backing up is a serious work in computing.

If your back-up software has problem there is an emergency way of backing up the entire hard drive. So long as the "aged-hard-drive" keeps running, attach it into your Gnu/Linux machine, make a backup of your old hard drive into a single file. Get a terminal:

Code:

dd if=/dev/sdb of=/home/maxxie/olddrive.iso

<Assuming that the attached old HDD is /dev/sdb, but see which node is applicable in your case.> This will make a back up of the entire old HDD into a single file in raw .iso format. It takes time to finish depending on your machine speed, wait until it is finished with a report "+records in xxxxxx, -records out xxxxxx". Caution: Be extra careful to identify between drives (/dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, /dev/sdd) because "dd" is a dangerous command if you mistake; make counter checks before issuing the command.

Now, if you want to browse your back-up you will only need to mount it like a DVD. Get a terminal, be root, issue:

Code:

mkdir /mnt/backupfile
mount -o loop,rw /home/maxxie/olddrive.iso /mnt/backupfile

Launch a file manager and browse into the /mnt/backupfile folder.

Hope that is still useful to you. Good luck and enjoy.

m.m.

maxxie · 02-27-2016, 03:00 AM

Yes, thank you, your post is still useful - especially since I'm going to have another go at it!
And this time I'm making notes in a hard copy book for next time.

One last question if I may?
What would I change to back up sdb to sdd2, assuming sdd2 is already mounted?

Code:

dd if=/dev/sdb of=/home/maxxie/olddrive.iso

malekmustaq · 02-27-2016, 04:38 AM

Quote:

What would I change to back up sdb to sdd2, assuming sdd2 is already mounted?

The safe way is to create a "file.iso" INSIDE the sdd2 storage, the iso image is the back up image of your entire sdb drive inside the sdd2. By the way, if you can manage executing the procedure within the current mount point of your sdd2 you may do so, otherwise you may want to unmount it first from its current point

Code:

umount /dev/sdd2

and proceed as follows:

First, we remount the receiving drive in order to write an iso file image of sdb within it; be a root:

Code:

--maxxie@host$ sudo -i <Enter> <Password>
--root@host-# mkdir /mnt/mysdd2
--root@host-# mount -o rw /dev/sdd2 /mnt/mysdd2
--root@host-# cd /mnt/mysdd2
--root@host-# ls -amp <To check if you are truly in the right place.>

/* Now that you are inside the sdd2 drive you may create an iso image of the entire sdb drive. Time to dd copy it in raw */

Code:

dd if=/dev/sdb of=ImageOfOldDrive.iso bs=1024

You have set the block size into 1MB (1024) to make a faster copying. It will take time, such that, meanwhile you may go do your self a cup of coffee, when it is done the terminal will report how many bytes it read out and read in.

When done, you may want to check if the image backup is good by browsing into it. First thing to do is to mount it to a point.

Code:

sudo mkdir /mnt/isomountpoint
sudo mount -o loop,rw /mnt/mysdd2/ImageOfOldDrive.iso /mnt/isomountpoint
thunar /mnt/isomountpoint

<or if you are using another file manager nautilus, or konqueror, change the "thunar" accordingly. or you may launch file manager from Menu and browse into the mount point.>

Hope that helps. Good luck and enjoy.

m.m.

maxxie · 02-27-2016, 05:54 AM

Many thanks again m.m.

I really appreciate you taking the time to explain the commands