Slimski problem on AntiX

hazel · 07-08-2023, 04:54 AM

My laptop ("littleboy") runs AntiX and I update it once a week at the weekend. Today, the display manager slimski failed at boot. It also fails when I try to run slimski's rc script as root. I can't remember if slimski was included in last week's update; no doubt there's a dpkg command that would show me when it was last updated but I'm very rusty on dpkg/apt.

I can't use startx as an unprivileged user on this system because the kernel is built to not allow video memory remapping; I can use startx as root, so the problem isn't within Xorg itself. Slimski has a log which suggests a pam problem. Maybe pam was in last week's update but I can't remember that either.

I'm happy to provide further info on demand, but bear in mind that this is a different machine from my desktop "bigboy" which I'm on now, so getting files across isn't an instant thing.

hazel · 07-08-2023, 08:37 AM

Herewith some files: /etc/slimski.conf, this morning's slimski log and slimski's pam config file.

I tried a few more times just now and slimski has stopped logging anything! It just fails silently. So I don't know if the pam thing is even relevant but I'm including it anyway.

pan64 · 07-08-2023, 09:27 AM

it looks like slimski cannot find X at all. It can be a network related issue, probably you need to check if X really opened a port and it is really reachable. But it is only a wild guess.

fatmac · 07-08-2023, 12:10 PM

My old way when something went wrong was to re install it, or run

Code:

apt-get --fix-broken install

(No guarantees. )

ChuangTzu · 07-08-2023, 04:31 PM

hazel,

Does this still work on Debian:

Code:

tail -3 /var/log/apt/history.log

then look for the line "upgrade", then the timestamp "end-date".

If the update is further back then try:

Code:

grep "apt upg" -n1 /var/log/apt/history.log | head -n1 | xargs | cut -f2-3 -d" "

or

Code:

/var/log/apt/var/log/history.log

hazel · 07-09-2023, 06:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChuangTzu

If the update is further back then try:

Code:

grep "apt upg" -n1 /var/log/apt/history.log | head -n1 | xargs | cut -f2-3 -d" "

It's "apt dist-upgrade" on my system because I use a built-in AntiX script which turns out to call apt that way. Using that, I've located the previous update, which took place on the 1st July. It was a small one, only two packages: bind9-host and bind9-libs. Now I wonder what they do...

@fatmac: I've tried removing slimski and reinstalling it. It still fails to start on order, so I guess the problem lies in an interaction with something else.

hazel · 07-10-2023, 11:53 AM

I've been playing around with stepping through the slimski start script at the console (as root naturally). I hoped I might get a more informative error message at some point than "slimski failed!" but no such luck.

When I launch slimski directly from the console, it fails silently. The return value is 1 and the slimski log shows "Invalid theme specified in config". That at least is new; I didn't see it on Saturday when the problem first blew up. The config file in question is the one from the reinstallation and gives 'Default' as the theme.

fatmac · 07-10-2023, 12:25 PM

Not sure if any of this will help - https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/slimski/

(Personally, I'd never heard of it before - I'm mainly using Devuan, Crowz, & OpenBSD lately.)

hazel · 07-11-2023, 05:23 AM

I think I've seen that one. The main AntiX thread on slimski is over a year old and runs to 9 pages, but I didn't find anything relevant to my problem in it.

This is a small, very old laptop. I think it has only 1 GB of memory and the graphics are completely obsolete (Via Chrome). I very seldom use it, though I update the software every week. I bought it because I felt that I really ought to learn how to use one and it cost only £80, but I never felt at home with it.

The only thing of importance on it is my family genealogy, which runs under gramps, but I have a copy of that now on Slackware-15, which I manage in parallel just in case.

ChuangTzu · 07-11-2023, 04:02 PM

Still no solution? Did you run it by anti?

hazel · 07-12-2023, 04:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChuangTzu

Still no solution? Did you run it by anti?

That's why I put it in this forum. I know Anticapitalista visits here regularly and he's helped me out before.

Really for the amount I use that machine, it hardly matters whether it works or not, but I find it seriously irritating when there's a problem with Linux and I can't work out where it is or what to do about it.

This is what happens with very tightly integrated systems and it increases my appreciation of Slackware's looser coupling. In Slack, I don't even bother with a display manager; I just use startx and it works perfectly well.

rokytnji · 07-12-2023, 06:48 AM

I was going to stay out this thread because I am not sure hazel would do what I used to do.

Before slimski. When slim gave me the same problems you have.

I went with xdg login manager instead. Not as pretty and full functioned. But It booted me a Desktop.

I guess editing the theme from default to whatever is in usr/share aint working?

Usually in your boat. I would use the

Code:

locate slimski

command to see if I can find any other themes. The reason I mention this. In antiX control center. You can change the slimski theme/background.

hazel · 07-12-2023, 07:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rokytnji

I went with xdg login manager instead. Not as pretty and full functioned. But It booted me a Desktop.

Who needs pretty? Is xdg available in the repos?

Quote:

I guess editing the theme from default to whatever is in usr/share aint working?

I haven't tried editing the slimski.conf file because I don't understand the syntax. There are # lines and ::: lines and I don't know which are the comments and which are active.

Quote:

Usually in your boat. I would use the locate slimski command to see if I can find any other themes.

I found the themes. They're in a tree in /usr/share/slimski. But if Default doesn't work, I'm not sure what else I could safely use.

Quote:

The reason I mention this. In antiX control center. You can change the slimski theme/background.

That could be useful. I can't get into a gui as myself but I can use startx as root.

rokytnji · 07-12-2023, 08:30 AM

@

Hope that helps. I think logging as root should be OK. Since a password is needed to open login manager app.

Edit> wondering why yours says default and mine says AntiX.

@ChangTzu Your command works in antiX.

Code:

harry@biker:~
$ tail -3 /var/log/apt/history.log
Requested-By: harry (1000)
Upgrade: libgs9-common:amd64 (9.53.3~dfsg-7+deb11u4, 9.53.3~dfsg-7+deb11u5), ghostscript:amd64 (9.53.3~dfsg-7+deb11u4, 9.53.3~dfsg-7+deb11u5), libgs9:amd64 (9.53.3~dfsg-7+deb11u4, 9.53.3~dfsg-7+deb11u5), firefox-esr:amd64 (102.12.0esr-1~deb11u1, 102.13.0esr-1~deb11u1), formatusb:amd64 (23.04.12, 23.07.08)
End-Date: 2023-07-11  12:52:01

hazel · 07-12-2023, 08:36 AM

Harry, you're a true friend! I'm eternally grateful to you.

I started X as root, and managed to bring up the control centre; I had to ask for it by name as antixcc.sh, since root's desktop menu doesn't include it. The theme shown was antiX and that's the one slimski.log kept saying was invalid. So I changed it graphically to default and behold! When I logged out of X and launched slimski from the command line, it ran successfully and gave me a graphical login prompt. I logged in as me and got a fluxbox desktop (which isn't what I generally use on this machine but it was acceptable).

So then I rebooted and slimski came up with a prompt straight away.

Now I don't know what was originally wrong with slimski, but I think it was probably cured by my reinstalling it. However the new version introduced a new error because it was set to give a theme that no longer exists. That's why I kept getting that theme error in slimski.log, which was different from what happened before the reinstallation. Correcting it in /etc/slimski.conf didn't work; it had to be done graphically for some reason.

Anyway it works now.