[sf-lug] SF-LUG meeting notes for Monday 18 March 2019

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):

> Rick you always assume the worst when I make mention of any problems I
> have experienced.

Bobbie, you seem to forget (1) people can judge what happened _only_ by
what words were made available to describe events, and perhaps also 
(2) the purpose of user groups.

When all you say is that [distro A] couldn't get online, so I tried
[distro B], then pretty much anyone is going to wonder whether you 
did any diagnosis at all between the two halves of that sentence.  But
that brings us back to the purpose of user groups, which IMO is to 
spread and perpetuate understanding of the technology in question.

And that doesn't work if the message is 'Hey, I tried this distro and 
something didn't work, so I abandoned it and moved on to this other
distro.'  Consider the message that sends.  It suggests that it's normal
for Distro X to just not boot at all, and for Distro Y to have
non-functional wireless, and, worse, that getting to the bottom of
problems doesn't matter.

Anyway, on the bright side, consider this an opportunity to make
(figurative) lemonade:  1.  You can post information about your i386
machine and about what specifically 'doesn't boot' means on the two 
distros you cited.  And we can help solve that.  2.  You can post
information about the distros that 'could not get online' about what
specifically that means.  And we can help solve that.  3. Given that 
you apparently want cutting-edge KDE application versions, you can amend
the error of going for an inappropriate Debian branch that obviously you
would not like, and try one you would.

And you could also take a couple of modest and easy steps after the end
of installer operation to do things like install KDE theme packages and
your preferred Web browser before (erroneously) proclaiming a distro
deficient having not bothered to do those things.


The fact that you tried something on a brand-new distribution and 'it
didn't work' _doesn't_ mean it's irrelevant to this forum as you seem to
assume.  To the contrary:  That is logically of great interest.  If you
encountered a problem, odds are others may, too, and, if you spend a
couple of minutes detailing what happened, then you and everyone else
here can benefit from the problem and from its solution.  If you don't,
then nobody learns anything.


>     But here is something I did today I updated my LibreOffice
> to 6.2.1 and was presented with a problem.
> A file  libreoffice-openclipart  must be removed before it can
> be replaced by the newer version and between removing
> the file and replacing it with the new version if you want
> clipart LibreOffice can be updated by LibreOffice Manager.
> The file and the new version are listed here:
> 
> libreoffice-openclipart (6.1-1pclos2018 => 6.2-1pclos2019)

Show, don't tell.

Try to do the update using primary console tools such as apt-get.  
(You didn't bother to identify your distribution, but my recollection is
that you use PCLinuxOS.  PCLinuxOS uses a port of the apt toolkit to rpm
packages.)  

Yes, I know that you probably would rather use Synaptic, the gtk
graphical front-end to apt.  The problem in present context is that you
cannot copy and paste into a mailing list posting the sequence of events
that happen when you try to use a tool like Synaptic.  So, something
like this

1.  Open a console.  Become the root user.  (If PCLinuxOS is afflicted
with sudo mediation of root access, then do 'sudo su -' to become root.)
Following commands are shown with '#' as the command prompt to indicate
that this is happening at a root-user shell prompt.

2.  # apt-get update

This ensures that the system's records about available rpms is up to
date.

3.  # apt-get install [whatever]

Here's the important bit:  Copy and paste into a posting to
sf-lug at linuxmafia.com that command and what results, to give us
meaningful verbatim diagnostic data.  Otherwise, it's very, very
difficult for anyone to help you, because we cannot see what you are
seeing.

It's really, really important to include relevant, verbatim detail if
problems are to get solved and mailing list subscribers are to learn
from the experience (not to mention you getting solutions).  Otherwise,
the process ends at you saying '[something] didn't work', because
'didn't work' is essentially never a symptom amenable to diagnosis.


But, that aside, what actual problem are you trying to solve?

If I understand you correctly, some unspecified piece of software is
telling you that you must remove 'file' (which you later describe not as
a file but rather a package) libreoffice-openclipart, before LibreOffice
6.2.1 can be installed -- and that if you want clipart, then LibreOffice
Manager (also known as lomanager; see
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=59009.0 ) can replace the
clipart after you install 6.2.1.  OK, then?  

Sounds like you should do that.  Sounds plausible to me, at least.  So,
given that, what's the problem exactly?

See http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=59009.0 if unclear
about how PCLinuxOS's lomanager thingie is claimed to work.  Hope that
helps!