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Topic: Non DSL User

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spotslayer Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 96
Joined: April 2005

Posted: June 20 2005,11:51

Now that I read Helens post I realize that is exactly what happened to me. I had tried to use my DSL while logged in as root and have had this problem ever since then. I will do what roberts suggest since he knows this system as well or better than anyone. I'll report my results.

David

Caspar_s

Group: Members
Posts: 105
Joined: Jan. 2005

Posted: June 20 2005,14:05

In defense of people who answer questions with "knee-jerk" responses:
if the question is phrased properly quoting everything you have tried - then we will obviously not include those...
We get a lot of people asking how to make everything stay how it was and not have to change their background evrytime they reboot - response - read the first page that comes up when you boot DSL.

deciding how to answer someone is kinda difficult when you have no idea what their expertise is and what they have already tried.
Hope you get everything sorted out, Cya

spotslayer Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 96
Joined: April 2005

Posted: June 23 2005,01:08

roberts tip worked for me.

D

Helen
Unregistered

Posted: July 05 2005,18:23

Roberts,

Thanks for your answer -- I'll try it. I really appreciate the effort you put into answering the question, and whether it works or not I thank you for the help.

I did not say that I was using a hard drive install because the original poster framed his question that way. I should have made it clear.

That said, I stopped using DSL because of this bug. I cannot abide cryptic error messages with no log trail, so I gave up in absolute disgust. I have used DSL since the beginning, and version 1.2.1 was the first time I have encountered this problem I prefer code to be properly commented -- though I can live without it -- but an error message that says "Non-DSL User Error" when DSL is the name of the OS as well as the default user is totally ridiculous.

Sadly, the main problem I have with Linux in general is the "land hazards" who chime in with ignorant answers to reasonable questions. It is a complete obstruction of the troubleshooting and support process. If someone has gotten to the point of asking for help on a message board such as this, it is reasonable to assume that they have tried to solve the problem on their own, whether or not they say so.

It would be very simple to reproduce my and David's problem: do a hard drive install with 1.2.1 and play around with it for a few minutes, installing MyDSL extensions under various circumstances. I did this at least a dozen times before my post, and every time the behaviour was the same. I suspect that this is an easily reproducible system-wide bug specific to v1.2.1 and it deserves more than a "you have to be logged in as dsl". Believe me, I've read the documentation and this forum and I know this.

My bottom line is: please don't assume anything when you respond to a request for help. Smug one-liners infuriate the users and obstruct the solution. If you are going to bother to respond at all, please take a little care with your response: recap known issues, spell out dependencies, libraries, sources, locations and normal practices. Even if you have heard these a hundred times over, others have not. If you cannot answer comprehensively, please keep silent so that when I Google for an answer I can find the real information, not the hundred one liners that tell me what I already know but assume everything that I don't

Helen

mikshaw

Group: Members
Posts: 4856
Joined: July 2004

Posted: July 05 2005,18:55

As far as I can see, the original replies were not "smug one-liners". They were in fact very direct, and correct, answers, although not thorough. Perhaps they could have added one more piece of useful info:
Once you use the myDSL system as root, it's broken. Going back to user dsl doesn't help after it's broken. Any files which were affected by the previous root action will need to be fixed manually before the myDSL system will work properly again. As far as I know, this means returning ownership of some files in /home/dsl to dsl, as well as some files and directories in /var/tmp.
This is the reason some of us bugged Robert to implement the non-dsl warning message, although i agree the message itself is quite vague.

--------------
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/index.html

15 replies since June 20 2005,00:39

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