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Anita Lewis | 2 Jan 2005 00:57

startx failed - Solved

I had just rebooted my computer and logged in and did startx.  It failed 
with:

xauth: timeout in locking authority file

I remembered something about removing the .Xauthority file in the user 
directory when that happens, but permission was not given to do so as 
user.  I thought that was odd, but went ahead and removed it as root.  
Still startx would not work.

I modified .xinitrc so that icewm would be the chosen window manager.  I 
still got the error, but eventually that started.  I don't know why it 
would start when gnome would not.

The solution turned out to be that /home/≤user-name> had somehow gotten 
ownership changed to root.root. After changing it back to 
<user-name>.users, it worked again. I have no clue how the ownership got 
changed.  I know that I haven't done anything at that level as root in 
the past couple days.  At least I don't think so.  I should have had a 
clue that it was ownership when I was not able to remove .Xauthority. 

Anita
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Sam Morgan | 2 Jan 2005 04:29

irc channel #LBo reminder

irc channel #LBo reminder

You are invited to join us for an irc chat on Freenode 
(Formerly known as Open Projects Network)

Official meeting time is:

Sunday at 2000 UTC 
3 PM Eastern Standard, noon Pacific Standard
(4 PM Eastern Saving, 1 PM Pacific Saving)

You're welcome and encouraged to use the channel at other times as well.
The channel is open 24/7 and occupants come and go. IRC is a remarkably
effective and efficient way to troubleshoot many of the common problems
users have. Perhaps a post to the list stating the problem(s) and when you
will be on the channel for starters. Check out your specific distro's
#channel, usually a great source of support. Or just drop by and simply
chew the herring <g>

Use your IRC client to connect to 
irc.debian.org port #6667
then /join #LBo

For help with time conversion: http://www.worldtimeserver.com/
Stateside/UTC help can be found here: http://www.time.gov/
For info on Freenode: http://freenode.info
Detailed info on Freenode: http://searchirc.com/network/freenode
For general irc information: http://www.irchelp.org/
Further reading on irc:
http://searchirc.com/links.php
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steve | 2 Jan 2005 19:34

New Trick - xkill

    One of the problems I've found with Linux is the alphabet soup of 
commands that are available. Add shell scripting and alias and I don't 
think it's possible for anyone to know them all, so this may be old hat 
to many of you, but it may be new and useful to others. I like to tinker 
with my system and as a result I often end up with a none responsive 
window that I can't even close.
     In the past I've opened a shell window, run ps aux to find the 
process number, then opened a second shell and used the kill command. 
Recognising the correct process number can be a problem, and sometimes I 
needed to add the -9 switch to kill for it to work. Recently I ran 
across the xkill comand which simplifys the process. Type xkill in a 
shell window and it gives you a cursor that moves with the mouse. Place 
the cursor over the window you want to get rid of and left click. 
Presto! It's gone!  
    The man entry says this command is very dangerous, but so far it's 
worked like a charm for me. Perhaps some feedback from more seasoned 
users is in order before recommending this to newbies.

Steve Kist
(a.k.a. LittleBlue)
(a.k.a. RockHopper)
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Stefan Waidele jun. | 2 Jan 2005 19:59

Re: New Trick - xkill

steve schrieb:
> [...]
> Recently I ran 
> across the xkill comand which simplifys the process. Type xkill in a 
> shell window and it gives you a cursor that moves with the mouse. Place 
> the cursor over the window you want to get rid of and left click. 
> Presto! It's gone!   

And if you changed your mind, press the right mouse-button to quit xkill 
without killing anything. Just in case :)

> The man entry says this command is very 
> dangerous, but so far it's worked like a charm for me.

I can think of several 'dangerous' scenarios:

* clicking/killing a shell window that has started other applications 
with valuable data.
* clicking the KDE/Gnome icon-bar
* maybe even licking the background. Some window-managers use borderless 
windows as background.

But it is a nice tool,

Stefan
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Anita Lewis | 2 Jan 2005 20:07

Re: New Trick - xkill

steve wrote:

>    One of the problems I've found with Linux is the alphabet soup of 
> commands that are available. Add shell scripting and alias and I don't 
> think it's possible for anyone to know them all, so this may be old 
> hat to many of you, but it may be new and useful to others.

I thought you were going to give me a way to keep track of all the 
commands! ;-)

>  Type xkill in a shell window and it gives you a cursor that moves 
> with the mouse. Place the cursor over the window you want to get rid 
> of and left click. Presto! It's gone!     The man entry says this 
> command is very dangerous, but so far it's worked like a charm for me. 
> Perhaps some feedback from more seasoned users is in order before 
> recommending this to newbies.

I'm so happy you mentioned this, because in Icewm I had this cute little 
bomb icon that I could click on and then blast an application closed 
when it wouldn't otherwise.  I did not find this item in my Gnome 
applications and wanted it.  Now I know what it is called and I have 
made a little bomb on my toolbar which will do just as you say. 

I never had anything but good experiences with it in Icewm, but I did 
not abuse it.  I just used it when I could not close something normally.

Thanks.

Anita
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James Allen | 3 Jan 2005 06:22
Picon

A way to kill, kill, kill | was Re: New Trick - xkill

A way to kill a program with multiple instances.

There are times when some program has a lot of processes and you want to 
get rid of all of them. This little script will do the trick.

ps aux | grep string | awk -F ' ' '{print $2}'| xargs kill

Replace "string" with what is common in the output of "ps aux" such as 
"httpd" or "hotplug".

James Allen
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Stefan Waidele jun. | 3 Jan 2005 11:07

Re: A way to kill, kill, kill | was Re: New Trick - xkill

James Allen schrieb:
> A way to kill a program with multiple instances.
> 
> There are times when some program has a lot of processes and you want to 
> get rid of all of them. This little script will do the trick.
> 
> ps aux | grep string | awk -F ' ' '{print $2}'| xargs kill
> 
> Replace "string" with what is common in the output of "ps aux" such as 
> "httpd" or "hotplug".

Or just 'killall string'?

Killall can even kill processes that access certain files, without 
having their name specified.

'man killall' has the details.

Stefan

PS: Did anybody say 'Wiki'?
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James Allen | 3 Jan 2005 11:23
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Re: A way to kill, kill, kill | was Re: New Trick - xkill

Stefan Waidele jun. wrote:
  >
> Or just 'killall string'?
> 
> Killall can even kill processes that access certain files, without 
> having their name specified.
> 
> 'man killall' has the details.
> 
> Stefan
> 
> PS: Did anybody say 'Wiki'?

Does killall always work for you? It doesn't for me.

James
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Stefan Waidele jun. | 3 Jan 2005 12:04

Re: Re: A way to kill, kill, kill | was Re: New Trick - xkill

James Allen schrieb:
> [...]
> Does killall always work for you? It doesn't for me.

I don't use it often.
Maybe killall -9 would do it?

Maybe.

Stefan
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James Allen | 3 Jan 2005 12:57
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Re: A way to kill, kill, kill | was Re: New Trick - xkill

Stefan Waidele jun. wrote:
> James Allen schrieb:
> 
>> [...]
>> Does killall always work for you? It doesn't for me.
> 
> 
> I don't use it often.
> Maybe killall -9 would do it?
> 
> Maybe.
> 
> Stefan

Nope, it doesn't work by string. It says whatever not found. I guess it 
may work on some processes but certainly not many. That's why I wrote my 
own script.

It can even be put in a file called acutallykill (you can make the name 
shorter).

!#bin/bash
ps aux | grep $1 | awk -F ' ' '{print $2}'| xargs kill

Make it executable and in your path. And then at the command line

actuallykill keyword

and it will kill all processes that contain keyword.
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Gmane