BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

hhh · 2017-03-17 19:47:40

nitrogen stretch/sid version 1.6.0-1 won't restore the wallpaper if you don't use a recognized D.E.

https://github.com/l3ib/nitrogen/issues/86

It's fixed in the upstream version 1.6.1, but Debian nitrogen currently has no maintainer.

https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/nitrogen

I doubt that 1.6.1 will make it into stretch. Even if someone here was to adopt the maintenance, would they be accepted as a Debian packager in time for stretch?

Options...

We maintain the upstream version and make another exception to our "Debian stable only OOTB" policy, yad and obmenu are already exceptions (any others I'm forgetting?)
We go back to feh, which is working fine.
We include lxsession in BL, giving nitrogen something to recognize (I'm using lxsession on my main partition and it works).

Other options?

If we/someone adopts nitrogen, it's another step towards BL being an option in Debian tasksel, no?

Head_on_a_Stick · 2017-03-17 19:52:00

hhh wrote:

nitrogen stretch/sid version 1.6.0-1 won't restore the wallpaper if you don't use a recognized D.E.

BunsenLabs declares itself as XFCE:

Helium: ~ $ echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP                                                    
XFCE

hhh · 2017-03-17 20:06:50

Lol, you think I just found the issue and reported it? I'm posting from a brand new BL install, I just upgraded it to stretch and this is what I get...

hhh@BL-stretch64:~$ nitrogen
UNKNOWN ROOT WINDOW TYPE DETECTED, will attempt to set via normal X procedure

The wallpaper gets set, but no wallpaper restoration after logging out. BL can declare all it wants, something ain't right.

It's not the conky issue referenced in the GitHub issue either, I disabled conky and still no joy. feh works, or using nothing works (lightdm sets the wallpaper), but neither is particularly user friendly.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2017-03-17 20:16:50

hhh wrote:

Lol, you think I just found the issue and reported it?

Erm, no, sorry, I got excited and posted without thinking (again) :8

However, I cannot reproduce this issue in my Helium system — the wallpaper is set correctly on first boot and if I change it then log out & back in again the new wallpaper shows up.

I get no error messages if I run it from a terminal.

Helium: ~ $ apt-cache policy nitrogen
nitrogen:
  Installed: 1.6.0-1
  Candidate: 1.6.0-1
  Version table:
 *** 1.6.0-1 500
        500 http://cdn-fastly.deb.debian.org/debian stretch/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

EDIT: this system started out as stretch, no `dist-upgrade` was used.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2017-03-17 20:17:56)

hhh · 2017-03-17 20:36:02

My apologies too. It's not the desktop detection, because I just ran nitrogen in a terminal on my main stretch setup (also dist-upgraded from jessie, I'll call this OS "Debian" as opposed to "BL") and I get the same warning. But the wallpaper gets restored, and it's not due to lxsession, that's ridiculous now that I think about it. I'm not running lxdesktop.

The difference is that I'm starting nitrogen --restore in Debian via a *.desktop file in ~/.config/autostart, and via ~/.config/openbox/autostart in BL. I tried the *.desktop way in BL and it works.

Color me clueless.

hhh · 2017-03-18 18:27:54

*cough* I hadn't run update-grub from my main OS, so this partition was still booting to the 3.16 kernel. nitrogen --restore is working from ~/.config/openbox/autostart now that the 4.9.* kernel is being used. :8 Consider this RESOLVED for now.
I'll leave the :8 in, because I hadn't disabled the wallaper.desktop autostart file I created. Still an issue.

Last edited by hhh (2017-03-19 16:49:05)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2017-03-18 19:03:39

hhh wrote:

I hadn't run update-grub from my main OS, so this partition was still booting to the 3.16 kernel.

To prevent this, disable os-prober in your main OS and use /etc/grub.d/40_custom for the BunsenLabs menu entry.

For the custom entry, use the symlinks in the root directory that always point to the current kernel image & initramfs.

Something like this should do it:

menuentry 'BunsenLabs' {
	set root=(hdX,Y)
	linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sdZY ro quiet
	initrd /initrd.img
}

Replace X with the GRUB allocation for your main drive, this will be 0 (zero) for /dev/sda, 1 (one) for /dev/sdb, etc.

Replace Y with the number assigned to the root partition and replace Z with the drive letter (ie, a for sda, b for sdb, and so on).

This method will survive kernel updates and does not require that the GRUB menu be constantly re-configured 8)

hhh · 2017-03-19 16:49:35

^ Thanks for this!

brontosaurusrex · 2017-03-20 10:42:58

Slightly offtopic: A good nitrogen replacement would be something that can use svg properly, including vectorial upsizeing.

hhh · 2017-03-20 12:23:26

^I agree.

johnraff · 2017-03-21 08:46:32

hhh wrote:

Still an issue.

Sorry, I'm confused. What exactly doesn't work in a standard BL install? What wouldn't work if users tweaked their systems to use .desktop files instead of openbox/autostart?

Wallpaper selection works fine for me in a Stretch-netinstall>helium-dev install, and persists OK after logouts.

hhh · 2017-03-21 11:39:32

Sorry, I'm confused myself!

The OB autostart isn't WFM re: nitrogen on 2 systems that I've upgraded from jessie, one BL and one vanilla. Using a *.desktop file works fine, so ignore my other proposals.

We can revisit this when we're closer to Helium and have a somewhat-Official upgrade procedure. Thanks!

johnraff · 2017-03-22 06:10:21

We should certainly keep an eye on this. It's good to squash bugs as they appear rather than let a huge pile build up. OTOH if we just sit tight someone upstream might do it for us...

(Anyway, the OB autostart will quite likely need something of a rewrite for Helium.)

damo · 2017-09-01 12:59:05

I just noticed the bug error message while testing BLOB. It happens if nitrogen is restored after a conky with "own_window" has been started.

$ nitrogen --restore
UNKNOWN ROOT WINDOW TYPE DETECTED, will attempt to set via normal X procedure

This may cause an issue when restoring saved themes with BLOB, but at least it seems to be non-fatal.

The workaround (until nitrogen v1.6.1 is available) is to set the wallpaper before running conkys. I'll have to change the order of restoring the items in BLOB saved settings.cfg

johnraff · 2017-09-01 14:34:48

damo wrote:

The workaround (until nitrogen v1.6.1 is available) is to set the wallpaper before running conkys.

This already happens in our Helium openbox/autostart, luckily. nitrogen on line 56 and conky on 75.

damo · 2017-09-01 14:38:53

^ Yes; I was flagging it up for other readers. Also we need to ensure that it happens with BLOB

I'm testing this with helium-dev-blob ATM.

KrunchTime · 2017-09-02 07:14:31

damo wrote:

^ Yes; I was flagging it up for other readers.

Thank you. Now I know the reason for #3 in my post regarding my experience installing and using BL-Helium-Dev.

johnraff wrote:

This already happens in our Helium openbox/autostart, luckily. nitrogen on line 56 and conky on 75.

Whoops...I guess not. Still happens sporadically here.

Last edited by KrunchTime (2017-09-02 07:20:00)

Steve · 2017-09-02 07:26:11

I noticed in my debian stretch install (not bunsenlabs helium dev) that the lightdm greeter background pic replaced the desktop wallpaper set by nitrogen. It happened intermittently a few times and went away.

KrunchTime · 2017-09-16 04:53:24

hhh wrote:

nitrogen stretch/sid version 1.6.0-1 won't restore the wallpaper if you don't use a recognized D.E.
https://github.com/l3ib/nitrogen/issues/86
It's fixed in the upstream version 1.6.1,...

Sorry to break the news, but v1.6.1 doesn't fix the issue. Exhibiting the same issue on my BL-Unstable installs with version 1.6.1. I'm now going to try feh.

Last edited by KrunchTime (2017-09-16 04:53:52)

johnraff · 2017-09-16 07:59:54

^Are you sure it's not the wrong syntax in ~/.config/nitrogen/bg-saved.cfg?
in Stretch it now begins with

[xin_-1]

not the former

[:0.0]

I've had no issues with restoring wallpaper in helium-dev since making that change.

#1 2017-03-17 19:47:40

BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#2 2017-03-17 19:52:00

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#3 2017-03-17 20:06:50

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#4 2017-03-17 20:16:50

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#5 2017-03-17 20:36:02

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#6 2017-03-18 18:27:54

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#7 2017-03-18 19:03:39

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#8 2017-03-19 16:49:35

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#9 2017-03-20 10:42:58

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#10 2017-03-20 12:23:26

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#11 2017-03-21 08:46:32

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#12 2017-03-21 11:39:32

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#13 2017-03-22 06:10:21

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#14 2017-09-01 12:59:05

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#15 2017-09-01 14:34:48

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#16 2017-09-01 14:38:53

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#17 2017-09-02 07:14:31

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#18 2017-09-02 07:26:11

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#19 2017-09-16 04:53:24

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

#20 2017-09-16 07:59:54

Re: BL stretch BUG: nitrogen --restore fails

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