GNOME Help SuSE 9.1
 

A couple months ago I was playing with SuSE 9.0 a little bit in VMWare(via FTP install), and found that I was liking GNOME a bit more than KDE. I decided to take the full plunge and make my system into a dual boot XP/SuSE 9.1, using the Personal ISO that was just released a few days ago. Much to my dismay I found out it didn't come with GNOME installed and it took me until just a few hours ago to figure out how to get it off of YAST(via switching installation sources).

So I grabbed everything I thought I needed for GNOME 2.4 based on what was available in the 9.1 directory of the mirror I'm using via YAST. I edited Sysconfig's Display Manager and Window Manager settings to default to GDM and GNOME(as per the note on GNOME's site), repsectively, and rebooted. GDM comes up fine, so I log in to GNOME. Immediately I'm presented with an alert box with no text in it, only an arrow and a error-indicating X. I OK the box and it goes away, leaving me a desktop full of generic textless icons, unknown file types it would seem. there is one icon not like this, showing Tux sitting next to a monitor. Clicking that brings up a folder view with more of these erroneous icons and a preview thumbnail for a KDE vs GNOME pdf(which does launch fine). The GNOME wharf(or whatever it is called) is also present, but it is totally devoid of icons and text, and is quite small. Same goes for the right click menu, no icons or text.

This is where I'm at(albeit back in KDE at the moment), is there something I should be doing after grabbing the GNOME system before I try and boot back into it?

I am new to Linux (over and over again) as well. I am having the saaaaame problem as you are pi8y0u. It's driving me pretty much insane. I'm sure Linux has it's good points, really. But it has taken me a week of fiddling with it, using Suse 9.1 prof, and all I've managed to do is get it on my laptop (which was a horrendous chore as the dvd rom kept going to "sleep" is the best way to describe it, during installation), installed java 1.4.2 (a chore), and eclipse (easy).

I'm feeling a bit drained. At this point I just want gnome to work, but am having the exact same prob you are having, and it's waring me down. SOmeone, anyone, please fix us.

Thanks is advance...

red

Same--
 

Well, that means three of us are stuck!
I can't login to a gnome session or , when I run gnome-control-center under KDE
at first it works, then after I click an item or two, the fonts and icons becom unreadable.

I have searched suse.com and found nothing.

same here with SUSE 9.1 Small unreadable icons. And I dont know how to logout and just use KDE. Can someone tell me at least how to logout so I can use the KDE desktop.

logout
 

ctl-alt-del -or-
or alt-f4 muttiple times
ought to do it.
At the worst reset or power off, shouldn't hurt

Then at the login window, there is a button for session, KDE should be a choice under there.

same problem
 

Hi,
Please help me how to get back my gnome working, I can see only wallpaper and non-working icons and un-usable thin panels , i can't even logout ..
Alt+CTRL+Del is also not working...
I sent a support question to SuSE Tech support .. no reply ..???
I saw lot of postiongs in many News groups about this problem... but no solution provided ...
Did any one know how to fix this problem ....

Regards/Naren

I'm not sure how you guys installed Gnome. But my suggestion would be this :
In the control centre, Yast Modules > Software > Install and Remove Software.
Then in the Filter drop down box, choose "Selections". In the left hand pane, check the Gnome system Box & it probably wouldnt hurt to check the Gnome Development box too. That SHOULD install everything you need ... but no promises ... if that doesnt work im afraid you're only hope is SuSE tech support :(
A quick tip though, if you're ever in an X session and you cant escape Try Ctrl+Alt+Backspace that should reset the X server and put you back at you GDM/KDM screen
Good luck

Hi Fartwiz,
Thanks for quick reply..
I installed Gnome and i was working on Gnome after i installed SuSe9.1Pro..
But after update my system and patched to latest thro' YaST Gnome is not usable ...
What i can do is .. i will Re-install the Gnome and try to night...
I send a support request to SuSE tech sypport .. but there is no reply from them..

regards/Naren

It might just be an old bug with Suse 9.1? Have any of you updated since you bought/downloaded the package? I am still a noob, but I suggest you go post at Suse Tech Support. Maybe the latest updates are bugs in disguise? Then again, I'm probably over my head and being redundant, but its cool.

It seems like you guys that are running SuSE 9.1 Personal are having problems getting GNOME working trying to use the SuSE RPM's. Even though these RPM's are on SuSE's site you will still need to make sure you have all the right libraries (sometimes you need to install these in a certain order). What I would reccomend is that you go to the Novell/Ximian download side and install Ximian which is built on GNOME. You will need "wget" installed and preferably a broadband internet connection since it installs right over the internet. This is a quick (subjective to internet connection) easy way to install GNOME on a SuSE 9.1 Personal install. The last time I tried GNOME this is how I installed it and it worked beautifully I would reccomend using the KDE login manager since SuSE is KDE based this gave me less trouble.

i think HenchmenResourc's solution is most likely the best option. I'm using 9.1 pro myself, and i have downloaded all the online updates and had no trouble. I dont use gnome myself but i have tried it and it seems to work fine. I would agree that KDM is a lot more stable than GDM albeit not as pretty :)
Just out of interest, anyone here managed to get Fluxbox working in Suse 9.1 pro for AMD64??? just a thought .... keeps resetting the Xserver everytime i start it

I tryed Blackbox .. it is working fine....
I think Fluxbos is based on Blackbox ..
i am using SuSE9.1 Pro on i686 ..

has anyone found a solution to this problem? im having the same exact problem, however i dont know if you guys tried this, but if i log into gnome as root, everything works perfectly fine. when i try it again as a normal user im left with microscopic text and no panel or anything. the gnome splash screen doesnt even come up, however it does when im logged in as root.

some ideas
 

Hi,

I have a feeling that unless you select gnome as your windowmanager from the outset (i.e. at installation) you will have these problems. I started off using KDE (but think it looks like a complete dog's dinner), so wanted to switch to gnome. I selected gnome and gnome-devel and installed (on SuSE 9.1 Pro). The icons are missing from desktop and menus, and curiously I can't get key repeats to work at all. If I go to the gnome configuration menu, select keyboard, and turn key repeat on - I get 2 letters for each keystroke! Pure genius!

So I am now struggling to get a more recent version working. I tried the Gnome2.6 RPMs that SuSE provide, and they just seemed to make a bad situation worse (this has been other people's experience too). I am now trying garnome, look for links from www.gnome.org. This is a complete pain in the arse - but if I have any joy I will post instructions.

Cheers, Skunk

have you tried logging in gnome as root? for me everything this works fine, but under a normal user everything is messed up as stated above...anyone find a solution for this?

I don't use Gnome so I can't recommend any solutions to the original issue however routinely running as root is a highly risky move, because all it takes to damage your system beyond repair is to make one typo. In fact the only time you should ever run as root is in a small number of specific circumstances (such as when you are installing new packages).

Instead, you should ordinarily always run as a regular user. Regular accounts cannot modify system-level files or directories, and therefore the worst mistake you can make as a regular user is to lose your own personal data. In contrast, the worst mistake you can make as root could cause complete and total system corruption, with your only option being to totally reinstall Linux from scratch. That can ruin your day really fast, believe me.

In short, I would strongly recommend against running as root unless you have a specific task that requires root privileges. -- J.W.

yea i understand your point j.w....and that was just my point, everything looks fine when i log in as root, however thats not a good thing, because its still pretty much broken, as i would never run a normal session as root...

ok i still havent found a solution for this but i believe it has something to do with the gconf configurations. i noticed if i open the gconf editor under a normal user, there is 3 folders to the left but none of them contain any keys. however if i am logged in as root and run gconf editor, there is quite a few folders to the left, one of them being "font_rendering" which has a key for the d.p.i. set to 96, and all other folders have keys defined....now that i think i have narrowed it down to this, i have no idea now to correct it :(

ordering makes the difference
 

Hi,

I gave up with garnome, I just wasn't happy with the way things worked together. Since I had been installing loads
of different window managers on the system I decided it was time for a clean out. So reinstalled the whole system - hmmm what fun.
From the installation menu I selected gnome (2.4) rather than KDE-system, and everything works a treat - whether logged in as
root/or normal user.

Now what is it about SuSE's customisation of KDE/Gnome that makes them incompatible? No matter how many times I
deleted all gnome related directories from the normal users $HOME, SuSE never generated a gconf/gconfd/gnome/gnome2
structure that gave icons/menus/working keyboard that I have now. Weird.

It might be worth someone trying an uninstall of KDE, followed by an install of gnome to see if that's the conflict here. Otherwise,
I'd definitely recommend waiting for SuSE 9.2 - should be here in a month.

Cheerio, Skunk.

missing icon text in gnome
 

I've had the same problems. Lots of times. The missing icons text is not missing. It is just so small that you cannot see it easily ;) . How to fix it? I found that I had to change the DPI for the fonts to "96". So how do you do this when you can't see anything? Login using KDE as your window manager, go to "Gnome Control Center" and then to "fonts", then click on what should be the "details" button at the bottom of the page, and then on the next window (at the top, there will be a very small but barely visible form space) type in the number (I use a 17" Flat Panel and have 96 DPI, which is a common DPI for regular monitors too I believe). Then close the window and it ought to be OK. It is kinda hard to do when the fonts are minuscule, but I have done it. Why this happens, I haven't figured out entirely (I have several hypothesis).

Good luck.

any luck? i just tried xiamian 2, but noticed its does not support SuSE 9.1.

lame-

Nah - I gave up and stuck with Gnome 2.4 installed from the start. I have seen lots of post on suse-linux mailbase about people having some success with gnome 2.8 as distributed on
http://www.usr-local-bin.org/linux.php

But then I read that SuSE 9.2 will only have gnome 2.6 :( - this seems a bit silly, since I heard that a whole lot of things got fixed/improved in 2.8 - oh well

Skunk

I really like SuSE 9.1, and really am starting to like Gnome. I just want a way to marry the two?

Please advise...

After reading the SuSE section on this page:

http://gnome.org/start/getstable.html

It sounds like Gnome is installed by default with SuSE 9.1 Personal? Is this true?

If so, the solution to using Gnome on SuSE 9.1 Personal isn't that bad....

Ditto
 

Hi,

Totally agree with you there - why not join the suse-linux mailbase, and search on gnome. There are a few pertinent emails there which discuss how to get hold of the latest version of Gnome - basically until there's a consensus on the best way to install and configure Gnome such that you don't lose out on all the niceties that SuSE put in Linux I will stick with SuSE's gnome 2.4 :(

I mean it can't be that difficult to arrange for Yast to be on the System menu, and for the icons to appear correctly. What we need is either a comprehensive install guide, or a script that downloads and configures everything for you.

Yours,

Skunk.

nope
 

No, SuSE is KDE all the way! You have to select gnome at the install.

Skunk

Where can I "select" this at? Because I totally would....

I've look in all of the fields under KDE, Software etc but to no avail...


In the setup is there a way to install a display manager too?

hi
 

Is there no section where you can select window manager?

Failing that, I guess gnome isn't distributed with the personal ed.
If you have high speed internet access, you can easily install the
Pro version using the SuSE ftp servers. There are loads of threads
telling you how to do this, and I know for a fact that you can select
gnome as part of the Pro install.

Cheers,

skunk

I guess I will go pro then...

went, pro and it works like a chram...

get rid of small icons, textless desktop and so on in gnome
 

hi all

maybe you already sorted it out, but meybe repeating it is worthy

To get rid (well, to have back) to text under icons you simply have to go under Gnome Control Center, click on the fonts section, and, since you'll get to the point where you'll see nothing, "trust you mouse" and click on the menu that comes as a first line, and change the font size to a decent one

that's all

fancy