3 Mar
2022
3 Mar
'22
5:01 p.m.
Update on those previous threads, for what it's worth.
After pondering my options (upgrade or downgrade, try another DE, start from
scratch, etc.), I decided that I would give this thing one last try.
And here, I did not do anything different, so far as I can tell. During my
futzing and fiddling phase, I changed the repos to PSB and PTB, but this
didn't seem to help, as Kmail would always crash, and it didn't solve the
problem with browsers not starting, nor did it get Open Office working.
So I decided to give it one last try, and went through adding packages only a
few at a time, downloading them all from standard repositories for Devuan
Chimaera and TDE (no PSB or PTB).
My usual practice is the download in batches, according to categories, if you
will. I keep lists of those packages and dependencies that have worked in the
past. Where there are problems or conflicts, I make a note, edit out those
rejects, etc. Most of you probably have some similar habits, I suppose, but
this is mine, and I've been doing it like this since 2006, across PC Linux,
Kubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04x, Debian 8 or 9, and finally Devuan starting with
Jessie. I've copied and saved my home folder across 3 desktops (plus a few
test machines built out of junk), and at least 5 laptops. There may be a few
other machines that I now forget. But anyway, so this isn't my first rodeo.
What I do works for me; or at least, it always has done.
After adding these packages only a few at a time, suddenly everything works
again. The only thing I can see that is different is that these are slightly
newer versions of the stable builds. I have not yet added qt5ct (which will
allow me to use my TDE colors and themes on non-TDE programs). There are
several threads on this already; so I will leave it at that.
My browsers work again like usual, everything is back. So that's all good,
right? Except, what bothers me is that I can't track down the cause of those
problems. I can only think maybe it was due to some corrupt packages, or
something like that, which makes me wonder how and why they would have got
damaged. It could be that qt5ct and/or its dependencies are causing some
conflict.
On my previous installations, when I ran the echo command to enable qt5ct
changes, I got error messages that said it was misconfigured as gtk2. Yet
that is what this web page advises:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/706528/qt-apps-stopped-inheriting-gtk-theme…
https://web.archive.org/web/20201111174652/https://askubuntu.com/questions/…
Then you run this command:
sudo sh -c "echo 'export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk2' >>
/etc/environment"
and reboot, and it always worked (at least, when I was running Devuan Beowulf
on my desktop). The error message in qt5ct said that it ought to be something
else, I think it was qt5 or maybe gtk5 (is that a thing?). So I tried
modifying the command to:
sudo sh -c "echo 'export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt5ct' >>
/etc/environment"
but this did nothing. I hesitate to mess with this any more, since my system
is stable again.
Anyway ... so once more, I stand at the door, almost there, but can't get in.
Now I am back to the same problem that irked me before; namely, either to get
Open Office running, or to get Libre Office running and to change the color
scheme of the GUI interface to something that doesn't cause me severe pain
and discomfort (from looking at large patches white screen). I am wondering
if I ought to try css, as I believe I still have E. Liddell's scripts
somewhere (and his old emails with the attachments). Maybe I can use that to
get my Libre Office GUI interface to use colors that are not so hard on my
eyes. (I am not joking here. I get watery eyes, and eventually a migraine,
after staring at a white screen for more than about 5 minutes.)
Apologies for length, but I was trying to recount the various factors that may
or not be relevant. I expect it will get trimmed in the responses.
Any observations or suggestions or advice are appreciated.
Bill