how to start apps?Forum: Apps Topic: how to start apps? started by: tjwoosta Posted by tjwoosta on April 18 2008,00:11
Im running a dsl 4.2.5 harddrive install on an a very old computer (so old that i cant find another distro that will even boot up on it) the first thing i did was install firefox 2.0 from UCI in the mydsl extension browser also i got abunch of other extensions from the browser like jre_1_5_0 and openoffice.org and limewire and zsnes but anyway i have noticed that when i startup i get error messages saying
(or something like that) i have found this fix for the error messages after reading some of the posts here on the forums
my problem is that the only way i know of to start thees programs is from the mydsl menu and lately ive had to go to /tmp/mydsl when i start up and run the .uci files agian in order to make them show up on the menu im pretty sure theese programs exist elsewhere on my computer besides in the /tmp folder but i cant figure out how to start them ive gone to /opt and found a firefox2.0 directory as well as a firefox directory but in both cases if i go into the directory i see only a regular firefox executalble in other words if i run firefox in the /opt/firefox-2.0-gtk1/ directory it still starts up firefox 1 that came with dsl 4.2.5 so basically im afraid to do the fix that was suggested earlier because i have no idea how to actually start the programs without goin to the mydsl menu and nothing usually shows up in the menu unless i go to /tmp/mydsl and run the .uci again im sry about the newb questions but can someone please help me out here also i dont know if it makes a difference but im using fluxbox window manager instead of jwm Posted by lucky13 on April 18 2008,01:22
UCI extensions are mountable compressed applications. They work much better for frugal and other installs than traditional hard drive installs. You can make them persistent in /opt. I wrote how I do it here (scroll to the part about UCIs). In a nutshell: load them, copy their entire directories once mounted to a temporary directory, unmount, then rename (mv) them back to the mount point directory name.< http://lucky13linux.wordpress.com/2007....a-point > Posted by tjwoosta on April 18 2008,06:12
I thank you for the response but man im so far lost right now.you say run this this command first ?
exactly as is? as you can tell i have no idea what the hell im doing right now is there anyway you can dumb the process down a couple notches so i can understand? (like for instance what exactly would i do step by step for a fresh download of the app firefox-2.0-gtk1.uci) i mean i get the cp and mv commands and i know how to cd to /opt but i have no idea what the $ infront of $mydsl means and the *.dsl (i should change this to *.uci right?) do i remove the # sign ? (thats to comment something out isnt it?) like i said i have no idea what the hell im doing, ive been a windows user up untill about 4 months ago when i decided to switch to ubuntu after hearing about it from a friend (i liked ubuntu so much i started learning about other distros which is how i found DSL for this old computer that was sitting in the basement for about 8 years) so far i love this distro, it brought my junk computer back to life! i just have to learn some of the basics obviously Posted by lucky13 on April 18 2008,11:38
Okay, that loop will load every file with a .dsl extension. Yes, you can use it if you have multiple UCI extensions by substituting uci for dsl -- for mydsl in *.uci; do mydsl-load $mydsl; done The # isn't part of the command but signifies the command prompt itself (and usually as root but you want to be user dsl to load extensions). You'll also see others including >, %, and more commonly in Linux $. Yes, the # comments out in scripts and some languages. The rest of the process is as described. You want to use "cp -Rp" to make a temporary copy of the entire application's directory tree. Then run mydsl-load on each UCI again (or use the loop above again) to umount. Then mv the temporary directories back to where they belong. That will do the trick. The only "junk computer" is one that can't boot due to hardware failure. If it boots or can be made to boot, it can be put to good use. Posted by tjwoosta on April 18 2008,18:41
thanks man, i actually understand what that did now!by the way how do you make custom menu entries? ive figurd out how to make desktop icons but i would like to have my own menus like you did Posted by tjwoosta on April 18 2008,18:53
thanks man, i actually understand what that did now!by the way how do you make custom menu entries? ive figurd out how to make desktop icons but i would like to have my own menus like you did Posted by lucky13 on April 18 2008,18:57
Open .jwmrc in an editor. It's just XML so you can use other entries as your guide.
1. Remember to close tags. There are a few exceptions in jwmrc that you can close with a slash, but use close tags (</Menu> and </Program>) for menu entries. This is important when nesting menus -- I set up my close tags when I open them and then go back and fill (usually cut/paste as many as I'll need when I start). 2. Remember that case matters: "Program" is different from "program" and jwm knows this. 3. You can set up labels and icons inside the opening tag for Menu and Program entries. Labels are essential to knowing what each entry does. Icons are optional. Be sure to use quotation marks for both of those. 4. The "executable string" can be whatever you need -- if it's in $PATH you only need the application name (i.e., "beaver" will open the same thing "/usr/bin/beaver" will); if something isn't in $PATH or if you have multiple versions you can use specific paths for what's not in $PATH (e.g., if you want to use /opt/firefox-2.whatever/firefox instead of the default version, etc.); and you can set up specific options if you want (e.g., if you want to set up a command to change your screen to specific color combinations you can set up entries like "xsri --color=black --color2=grey" or if you want to open particular documents without using icons or file managers you can add entries like "beaver .jwmrc"). Let me know if you need more specific info for that or if you run into any problems. ---------- EDIT --------------- Oops. I'm sorry, I forgot you'd written that you're using fluxbox instead of jwm. The fluxbox menu is in /home/dsl/.fluxbox/menu. You can edit it similarly using the existing menu. Its format is like this:
So you could make a submenu of "my apps" with an entry for foo to open in aterm: [submenu] (my apps) [exec] (foo) {aterm -T "foo" -e foo} [end] Again, sorry I forgot you're using fluxbox. Posted by tjwoosta on April 19 2008,01:32
thanks again for all your help, worked like a charm!also when i went into the .fluxbox directory i found where the styles and backgrounds are kept, so now im gonna edit some of these themes and add my own background untill i have a completely customized desktop! |