sparky 4 kde bugs problems whatever, system setting not working, etc

[ElQuia]

OK, did as you suggested. Looks like everything is working, will be back if anything comes up. THANKS  :) ;)

Question, due too all this I installed xfce from login dropdown console, xfce is totally standard, is ther a way to add to Sparky KDE an XFC session WITH ALL THE SPARKY TOOLS AND GOODIES?? 

[pavroo]

Sure, you can, simply install what you need.
I have 1 partition with 5 or 6 desktops/window managers, such as: KDE, Xfce, LXDE, e19, Budgie, Openbox, Fluxbox, Gnome and JWM, and everything works fine.

[ElQuia]

have xfce installed and will keep it just in case plasma borks again.

How do I install all sparky goodies and preferences on xfce desktop?

[ElQuia]

Pavroo, new problem, System Upgrade tool is behaving weird. It runs, asks for password, runs a terminal window that flickers 2 or 3 times during update process, finishes this and shows a window with the message "Need to get...." .... Upgrade the system now? On clicking on "OK" it enters in a loop again going through the same process, I tried 8 times and closed the window. (with "Exit").   :o

Konsole with sudo apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade runs fine.

Same question about sparky tools for xfce, how to install them

Thanjss

[pavroo]

It happens if a package/or a few packages have broken dependencies and can be upgraded, but apt detects that they are stil to upgrading.
Next time, when the tool tell you the second time that you can upgrade, check  the change log and post it here.

What sparky xfce tools you mean?
If you open Synaptic, search 'sparky', you can install any sparky tool you'd like.

[ElQuia]

changelog as asked:

Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libkvazaar1 libopenh264-0
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be upgraded:
  python-gi python-gobject python3-gi sparky-xterm
The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
  xnview
4 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 downgraded, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1,287 kB/29.1 MB of archives.
After this operation, 2,048 B of additional disk space will be used.

xview I installed manually with deb from autors site, it is in last version 0.76.1

EDIT: ok, I put xnview on hold (apt-mark hold xnview) and system upgrade tool did it's job and finished OK.

THANKS

Will try synaptic-sparky tools on xfce DE and be back.  ;)

[ElQuia]

BTW: why would apt-get try to downgrade xnview???

[pavroo]

Because you have newer version installed than is in the sparky repos.
I uploaded the latest one to repo now so try again.

[ElQuia]

OK did an "unhold" on xnview and the System Upgrade tool worked ok.

Let's see: the BIG question is: how do I avoid a similar situation in the future? ....

I am migrating my self and a lot of clients and some friends from windoze to linux... basically on moderns pc's to sparky KDE or Linux Mint KDE, I like sparky most, but not everyone is disposed to go along with an unstable distro ... for older PC's, till now I used LXLE, but I like more Sparky, have to decide if xfce or lxqt ....

Back to point: a LOT of friends, clients, etc, need some apps that ARE NOT IN SPARKY REPOS. If I install latest version from a deb, on dist-upgrade saprky will DOWNGRADE the app ... I would like to AVOID that WITHOUT having to MANUALLY upgrade each non "sparky" application...

IDEAS???  ??? ??? ???

[paxmark1]

Clients, people who are paying you to make things easier who know less than you about computers.  KDE5 in testing and unstable would be the last distro I would recommend.  If they want KDE - give  them KDE4 from debian stable at this point.  LXQT, I am very biased towards, but if you are updating via the siduction repos as it is at present, it is possible that BIG bugs might hit, as the source is tracking unstable, and that is at least 5 days ahead of testing.  (I have not seen any problems with that, but it is a possibility)  Think of LXQT as a very well behaved 5 year old human. It is very young.   LXQT just very recently entered official debian packaging and will be an offering for the next debian stable. 

If your clients understand the risk, and like Sparky, LXDE is possibly the safest way, not a huge amount of new development in LXDE itself.  However there will be new developments in systemd and as always transitions in libraries as seen in g++ recently, KF5 and qt5.5.  XFCE is also an option in my view.  This will be less risky when testing goes into the freeze, but that is not soon. 

For transitioning people from Windows I would strongly recommend debian stable.  For your grandmother, the systemd free LMDE Betsy ( based on debian stable) would be my recommendation, possibly cinnamon besides XFCE and LXDE.  One plus to LinuxMintDebianE is that the whol linux mint forum is geared towards less technical individuals and especially for people who are cutting the cord on Windows.   

And for wine usage, for utilizing their old windows programs - it might be a whole lot easier going 32 bit and not dealing with multi-arch. 

peace out

[pavroo]

@ ElQuia
To avoid downgrading packages which been installed manually, edit as root the file:

Code Select Expand

/etc/apt/preferences.d/sparky
and change the Sparky section from:

Code Select Expand

Package: *
Pin: origin sparkylinux.org
Pin-Priority: 1001
to:

Code Select Expand

Package: *
Pin: origin sparkylinux.org
Pin-Priority: 500
Then run:

Code Select Expand

sudo apt-get update
to refresh package list again

[ElQuia]

OK Pavroo, thanks will try that.

[ElQuia]

paxmark1: I like your definition of clients:

Clients, people who are paying you to make things easier who know less than you about computers

But it´s NOT that easy. Lot's of them are migrating from windowze, mainly in these latitudes because off economics, gotta get those old computers a life lease because there ain't no money to buy new ones.

That means Linux. (or older windowzes with antivirus resourse HOGS) ... and for the windows old timers, KDE, better PLASMA is sort of a home experience. THEY JUST FEEL AT HOME.  REALLY OLD machines: lxqt or xfce (get them to think Windows XP classic menu), something a tad more modern .... KDE Plasma....

It IS just about selling kiddo  ;)