Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things
On Thu, Dec 16, 2021 at 02:35:43PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> I'd posted about my update a while back, and while some folks were
> encouraging me to go all the way to 11 since it's the current version,
> my thinking has been to see how things are working, what's changed,
> what broke, etc. and deal with all of that before I continue on in the
> update process.
>
> Some of the things I'm dealing with are:
>
> 1. An annoying blue dot showed up in my taskbar.
> Right-clicking on this gave me an option to "quit", which I would do,
> and then within a few seconds it would come right back again! I finally
> tracked this down to being "KDEaccessible", which I've done nothing to
> invoke and don't know why the upgrade put that in there. I solved the
> problem by using synaptic to uninstall the package, since I have no use
> for it.
>
This one is solved for the moment, then.
> 2. My virtual (older) Slackware virtualbox install is seeing a few issues.
> One of them is that there is apparently a screensaver kicking in after
> some extended period of time. I can't find any place where this is
> enabled, to turn it off. I wasn't using one before and don't want one
> now. Suggestions?
>
XFCE desktop: if this is blanking the screen, try checking for power settings.
If it's an _actual_ screensaver with patterns - check to see what screen
saving/locking programs come by default.
> 3. Also under the Slackware virtualbox sound has quit working.
> When I boot it, I get a message that says "Host audio backend (PulseAudio)
> initialization has failed. Selecting the NULL audio backend with the
> consequence that no sound is audible." I'm not sure what changed here
> either. On the host (Debian) side, audio works fine for, ferinstance,
> playing a youtube video. But for some things I want to be able to play
> audio under Slackware as well. I found an item in the Xfce applications
> menu under Multimedia that says "Pulseaudio Volume Control" and when I
> hit that I get a smallish popup window with no apparent content other
> than "Establishing connection to PulseAudio, please wait..." and then
> nothing happens for a good long while now. Suggestions?
>
How old id the virtualbox version - is there an option for audio passthrough
or similar?
> 4. There is *something* kicking off around midnight local time that
> produces a whole lot of disk activity for a few minutes, slowing down
> whatever else I might be doing at the time. I've looked at various things
> like cron, at, etc. to see if I can find something in there but no luck
> so far. Suggestions?
>
Run top / ps -elf | less to see what processes are running and check
what seems to be eating memory or disk?
> There's probably more, but I would like to get these things ironed out
> before I go chasing any more stuff, and before I continue on the upgrade
> path...
>
Hi Roy,
I would seriously suggest upgrading from 9 to at least 10. You might sort
out some of the issues but, more importantly, will be moving up to a
better supported system
With every good wish, as ever,
Andy Cater
>
> --
> Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
> ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
> be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
> -
> Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
> M Dakin
>
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